diff --git "a/original_test.csv" "b/original_test.csv" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/original_test.csv" @@ -0,0 +1,85314 @@ +text,title,author,length,culprit_ids +"[Illustration] +The Man in Lower Ten +by Mary Roberts Rinehart +Contents +CHAPTER I. I GO TO PITTSBURG +CHAPTER II. A TORN TELEGRAM +CHAPTER III. ACROSS THE AISLE +CHAPTER IV. NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE +CHAPTER V. THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR +CHAPTER VI. THE GIRL IN BLUE +CHAPTER VII. A FINE GOLD CHAIN +CHAPTER VIII. THE SECOND SECTION +CHAPTER IX. THE HALCYON BREAKFAST +CHAPTER X. MISS WEST’S REQUEST +CHAPTER XI. THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN +CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD BAG +CHAPTER XIII. FADED ROSES +CHAPTER XIV. THE TRAP-DOOR +CHAPTER XV. THE CINEMATOGRAPH +CHAPTER XVI. THE SHADOW OF A GIRL +CHAPTER XVII. AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN +CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW WORLD +CHAPTER XIX. AT THE TABLE NEXT +CHAPTER XX. THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN +CHAPTER XXI. McKNIGHT’S THEORY +CHAPTER XXII. AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE +CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS +CHAPTER XXIV. HIS WIFE’S FATHER +CHAPTER XXV. AT THE STATION +CHAPTER XXVI. ON TO RICHMOND +CHAPTER XXVII. THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS +CHAPTER XXVIII.ALISON’S STORY +CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE DINING-ROOM +CHAPTER XXX. FINER DETAILS +CHAPTER XXXI. AND ONLY ONE ARM +[Illustration] +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN +CHAPTER I. +I GO TO PITTSBURG +McKnight is gradually taking over the criminal end of the business. I +never liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I +have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build +up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely +different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in +circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see a shivering, +white-faced wretch in the prisoners’ dock that I do not hark back with +shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, +between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night of September ninth, +last. +McKnight could tell the story a great deal better than I, although he +can not spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he has +imagination and humor, he is lazy. +“It didn’t happen to me, anyhow,” he protested, when I put it up to +him. “And nobody cares for second-hand thrills. Besides, you want the +unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I’m no hand for that. I’m a +lawyer.” +So am I, although there have been times when my assumption in that +particular has been disputed. I am unmarried, and just old enough to +dance with the grown-up little sisters of the girls I used to know. I +am fond of outdoors, prefer horses to the aforesaid grown-up little +sisters, am without sentiment (_am_ crossed out and _was_ +substituted.—Ed.) and completely ruled and frequently routed by my +housekeeper, an elderly widow. +In fact, of all the men of my acquaintance, I was probably the most +prosaic, the least adventurous, the one man in a hundred who would be +likely to go without a deviation from the normal through the orderly +procession of the seasons, summer suits to winter flannels, golf to +bridge. +So it was a queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my +unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me +with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always +respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than three weeks +later in the firm’s private office. It had been the most remarkable +period of my life. I would neither give it up nor live it again under +any inducement, and yet all that I lost was some twenty yards off my +drive! +It was really McKnight’s turn to make the next journey. I had a +tournament at Chevy Chase for Saturday, and a short yacht cruise +planned for Sunday, and when a man has been grinding at statute law for +a week, he needs relaxation. But McKnight begged off. It was not the +first time he had shirked that summer in order to run down to Richmond, +and I was surly about it. But this time he had a new excuse. “I +wouldn’t be able to look after the business if I did go,” he said. He +has a sort of wide-eyed frankness that makes one ashamed to doubt him. +“I’m always car sick crossing the mountains. It’s a fact, Lollie. +See-sawing over the peaks does it. Why, crossing the Alleghany +Mountains has the Gulf Stream to Bermuda beaten to a frazzle.” +So I gave him up finally and went home to pack. He came later in the +evening with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the station, +and he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case. +“Guard them with your life,” he warned me. “They are more precious than +honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep +valuables. I never keep any. I’ll not be happy until I see Gentleman +Andy doing the lockstep.” +He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a match +on the mahogany bed post with one movement. +“Where’s the Pirate?” he demanded. The Pirate is my housekeeper, Mrs. +Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled—and libeled—because of a +ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a bucaneering nose. I +quietly closed the door into the hall. +“Keep your voice down, Richey,” I said. “She is looking for the evening +paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat and an +umbrella waiting in the hall.” +The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the +window. He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that +represented the wall of the house next door. +“It’s raining now,” he said over his shoulder, and closed the window +and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was +watching me, his hands idly in his pockets. +“Who lives next door?” he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a +pause. I was packing my razor. +“House is empty,” I returned absently. “If the landlord would put it in +some sort of shape—” +“Did you put those notes in your pocket?” he broke in. +“Yes.” I was impatient. “Along with my certificates of registration, +baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my coat +to get them.” +“Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house was +confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right at that +window opposite.” +I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting +them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched me +uneasily. +“I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble,” he said, as I +locked the alligator bag. “Darned if I like starting anything important +on Friday.” +“You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day,” I +retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. “And if you knew the owner +of that house as I do you would know that if there was any one at that +window he is paying rent for the privilege.” +Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall. +“Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?” she inquired. +“Sorry, but I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” McKnight called. “The Cubs won, +three to nothing.” He listened, grinning, as she moved away with little +irritated rustles of her black silk gown. +I finished my packing, changed my collar and was ready to go. Then very +cautiously we put out the light and opened the shutters. The window +across was merely a deeper black in the darkness. It was closed and +dirty. And yet, probably owing to Richey’s suggestion, I had an uneasy +sensation of eyes staring across at me. The next moment we were at the +door, poised for flight. +“We’ll have to run for it,” I said in a whisper. “She’s down there with +a package of some sort, sandwiches probably. And she’s threatened me +with overshoes for a month. Ready now!” +I had a kaleidoscopic view of Mrs. Klopton in the lower hall, holding +out an armful of such traveling impedimenta as she deemed essential, +while beside her, Euphemia, the colored housemaid, grinned over a +white-wrapped box. +“Awfully sorry—no time—back Sunday,” I panted over my shoulder. Then +the door closed and the car was moving away. +McKnight bent forward and stared at the façade of the empty house next +door as we passed. It was black, staring, mysterious, as empty +buildings are apt to be. +“I’d like to hold a post-mortem on that corpse of a house,” he said +thoughtfully. “By George, I’ve a notion to get out and take a look.” +“Somebody after the brass pipes,” I scoffed. “House has been empty for +a year.” +With one hand on the steering wheel McKnight held out the other for my +cigarette case. “Perhaps,” he said; “but I don’t see what she would +want with brass pipe.” +“A woman!” I laughed outright. “You have been looking too hard at the +picture in the back of your watch, that’s all. There’s an experiment +like that: if you stare long enough—” +But McKnight was growing sulky: he sat looking rigidly ahead, and he +did not speak again until he brought the Cannonball to a stop at the +station. Even then it was only a perfunctory remark. He went through +the gate with me, and with five minutes to spare, we lounged and smoked +in the train shed. My mind had slid away from my surroundings and had +wandered to a polo pony that I couldn’t afford and intended to buy +anyhow. Then McKnight shook off his taciturnity. +“For heaven’s sake, don’t look so martyred,” he burst out; “I know +you’ve done all the traveling this summer. I know you’re missing a game +to-morrow. But don’t be a patient mother; confound it, I have to go to +Richmond on Sunday. I—I want to see a girl.” +“Oh, don’t mind me,” I observed politely. “Personally, I wouldn’t +change places with you. What’s her name—North? South?” +“West,” he snapped. “Don’t try to be funny. And all I have to say, +Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an egregious +ass of yourself.” +In view of what followed, this came rather close to prophecy. +The trip west was without incident. I played bridge with a furniture +dealer from Grand Rapids, a sales agent for a Pittsburg iron firm and a +young professor from an eastern college. I won three rubbers out of +four, finished what cigarettes McKnight had left me, and went to bed at +one o’clock. It was growing cooler, and the rain had ceased. Once, +toward morning, I wakened with a start, for no apparent reason, and sat +bolt upright. I had an uneasy feeling that some one had been looking at +me, the same sensation I had experienced earlier in the evening at the +window. But I could feel the bag with the notes, between me and the +window, and with my arm thrown over it for security, I lapsed again +into slumber. Later, when I tried to piece together the fragments of +that journey, I remembered that my coat, which had been folded and +placed beyond my restless tossing, had been rescued in the morning from +a heterogeneous jumble of blankets, evening papers and cravat, had been +shaken out with profanity and donned with wrath. At the time, nothing +occurred to me but the necessity of writing to the Pullman Company and +asking them if they ever traveled in their own cars. I even formulated +some of the letter. +“If they are built to scale, why not take a man of ordinary stature as +your unit?” I wrote mentally. “I can not fold together like the +traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water.” +I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union +Station. It was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in the +restaurant and hid behind the morning papers. As I had expected, they +had got hold of my visit and its object. On the first page was a +staring announcement that the forged papers in the Bronson case had +been brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from Washington +stated that Lawrence Blakeley, of Blakeley and McKnight, had left for +Pittsburg the night before, and that, owing to the approaching trial of +the Bronson case and the illness of John Gilmore, the Pittsburg +millionaire, who was the chief witness for the prosecution, it was +supposed that the visit was intimately concerned with the trial. +I looked around apprehensively. There were no reporters yet in sight, +and thankful to have escaped notice I paid for my breakfast and left. +At the cab-stand I chose the least dilapidated hansom I could find, and +giving the driver the address of the Gilmore residence, in the East +end, I got in. +I was just in time. As the cab turned and rolled off, a slim young man +in a straw hat separated himself from a little group of men and hurried +toward us. +“Hey! Wait a minute there!” he called, breaking into a trot. +But the cabby did not hear, or perhaps did not care to. We jogged +comfortably along, to my relief, leaving the young man far behind. I +avoid reporters on principle, having learned long ago that I am an easy +mark for a clever interviewer. +It was perhaps nine o’clock when I left the station. Our way was along +the boulevard which hugged the side of one of the city’s great hills. +Far below, to the left, lay the railroad tracks and the seventy times +seven looming stacks of the mills. The white mist of the river, the +grays and blacks of the smoke blended into a half-revealing haze, +dotted here and there with fire. It was unlovely, tremendous. Whistler +might have painted it with its pathos, its majesty, but he would have +missed what made it infinitely suggestive—the rattle and roar of iron +on iron, the rumble of wheels, the throbbing beat, against the ears, of +fire and heat and brawn welding prosperity. +Something of this I voiced to the grim old millionaire who was +responsible for at least part of it. He was propped up in bed in his +East end home, listening to the market reports read by a nurse, and he +smiled a little at my enthusiasm. +“I can’t see much beauty in it myself,” he said. “But it’s our badge of +prosperity. The full dinner pail here means a nose that looks like a +flue. Pittsburg without smoke wouldn’t be Pittsburg, any more than New +York without prohibition would be New York. Sit down for a few minutes, +Mr. Blakeley. Now, Miss Gardner, Westinghouse Electric.” +The nurse resumed her reading in a monotonous voice. She read literally +and without understanding, using initials and abbreviations as they +came. But the shrewd old man followed her easily. Once, however, he +stopped her. +“D-o is ditto,” he said gently, “not _do_.” +As the nurse droned along, I found myself looking curiously at a +photograph in a silver frame on the bed-side table. It was the picture +of a girl in white, with her hands clasped loosely before her. Against +the dark background her figure stood out slim and young. Perhaps it was +the rather grim environment, possibly it was my mood, but although as a +general thing photographs of young girls make no appeal to me, this one +did. I found my eyes straying back to it. By a little finesse I even +made out the name written across the corner, “Alison.” +Mr. Gilmore lay back among his pillows and listened to the nurse’s +listless voice. But he was watching me from under his heavy eyebrows, +for when the reading was over, and we were alone, he indicated the +picture with a gesture. +“I keep it there to remind myself that I am an old man,” he said. ��That +is my granddaughter, Alison West.” +I expressed the customary polite surprise, at which, finding me +responsive, he told me his age with a chuckle of pride. More surprise, +this time genuine. From that we went to what he ate for breakfast and +did not eat for luncheon, and then to his reserve power, which at +sixty-five becomes a matter for thought. And so, in a wide circle, back +to where we started, the picture. +“Father was a rascal,” John Gilmore said, picking up the frame. “The +happiest day of my life was when I knew he was safely dead in bed and +not hanged. If the child had looked like him, I—well, she doesn’t. +She’s a Gilmore, every inch. Supposed to look like me.” +“Very noticeably,” I agreed soberly. +I had produced the notes by that time, and replacing the picture Mr. +Gilmore gathered his spectacles from beside it. He went over the four +notes methodically, examining each carefully and putting it down before +he picked up the next. Then he leaned back and took off his glasses. +“They’re not so bad,” he said thoughtfully. “Not so bad. But I never +saw them before. That’s my unofficial signature. I am inclined to +think—” he was speaking partly to himself—“to think that he has got +hold of a letter of mine, probably to Alison. Bronson was a friend of +her rapscallion of a father.” +I took Mr. Gilmore’s deposition and put it into my traveling-bag with +the forged notes. When I saw them again, almost three weeks later, they +were unrecognizable, a mass of charred paper on a copper ashtray. In +the interval other and bigger things had happened: the Bronson forgery +case had shrunk beside the greater and more imminent mystery of the man +in lower ten. And Alison West had come into the story and into my life. +CHAPTER II. +A TORN TELEGRAM +I lunched alone at the Gilmore house, and went back to the city at +once. The sun had lifted the mists, and a fresh summer wind had cleared +away the smoke pall. The boulevard was full of cars flying countryward +for the Saturday half-holiday, toward golf and tennis, green fields and +babbling girls. I gritted my teeth and thought of McKnight at Richmond, +visiting the lady with the geographical name. And then, for the first +time, I associated John Gilmore’s granddaughter with the “West” that +McKnight had irritably flung at me. +I still carried my traveling-bag, for McKnight’s vision at the window +of the empty house had not been without effect. I did not transfer the +notes to my pocket, and, if I had, it would not have altered the +situation later. Only the other day McKnight put this very thing up to +me. +“I warned you,” he reminded me. “I told you there were queer things +coming, and to be on your guard. You ought to have taken your +revolver.” +“It would have been of exactly as much use as a bucket of snow in +Africa,” I retorted. “If I had never closed my eyes, or if I had kept +my finger on the trigger of a six-shooter (which is novelesque for +revolver), the result would have been the same. And the next time you +want a little excitement with every variety of thrill thrown in, I can +put you by way of it. You begin by getting the wrong berth in a Pullman +car, and end—” +“Oh, I know how it ends,” he finished shortly. “Don’t you suppose the +whole thing’s written on my spinal marrow?” +But I am wandering again. That is the difficulty with the +unprofessional story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can’t keep in +the wind; he drops his characters overboard when he hasn’t any further +use for them and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the +frying-pan and all the other small essentials, and, if he carries a +love affair, he mutters a fervent “Allah be praised” when he lands +them, drenched with adventures, at the matrimonial dock at the end of +the final chapter. +I put in a thoroughly unsatisfactory afternoon. Time dragged eternally. +I dropped in at a summer vaudeville, and bought some ties at a +haberdasher’s. I was bored but unexpectant; I had no premonition of +what was to come. Nothing unusual had ever happened to me; friends of +mine had sometimes sailed the high seas of adventure or skirted the +coasts of chance, but all of the shipwrecks had occurred after a woman +passenger had been taken on. “_Ergo_,” I had always said “no women!” I +repeated it to myself that evening almost savagely, when I found my +thoughts straying back to the picture of John Gilmore’s granddaughter. +I even argued as I ate my solitary dinner at a downtown restaurant. +“Haven’t you troubles enough,” I reflected, “without looking for more? +Hasn’t Bad News gone lame, with a matinée race booked for next week? +Otherwise aren’t you comfortable? Isn’t your house in order? Do you +want to sell a pony in order to have the library done over in mission +or the drawing-room in gold? Do you want somebody to count the empty +cigarette boxes lying around every morning?” +Lay it to the long idle afternoon, to the new environment, to anything +you like, but I began to think that perhaps I did. I was confoundedly +lonely. For the first time in my life its even course began to waver: +the needle registered warning marks on the matrimonial seismograph, +lines vague enough, but lines. +My alligator bag lay at my feet, still locked. While I waited for my +coffee I leaned back and surveyed the people incuriously. There were +the usual couples intent on each other: my new state of mind made me +regard them with tolerance. But at the next table, where a man and +woman dined together, a different atmosphere prevailed. My attention +was first caught by the woman’s face. She had been speaking earnestly +across the table, her profile turned to me. I had noticed casually her +earnest manner, her somber clothes, and the great mass of odd, +bronze-colored hair on her neck. But suddenly she glanced toward me and +the utter hopelessness—almost tragedy—of her expression struck me with +a shock. She half closed her eyes and drew a long breath, then she +turned again to the man across the table. +Neither one was eating. He sat low in his chair, his chin on his chest, +ugly folds of thick flesh protruding over his collar. He was probably +fifty, bald, grotesque, sullen, and yet not without a suggestion of +power. But he had been drinking; as I looked, he raised an unsteady +hand and summoned a waiter with a wine list. +The young woman bent across the table and spoke again quickly. She had +unconsciously raised her voice. Not beautiful, in her earnestness and +stress she rather interested me. I had an idle inclination to advise +the waiter to remove the bottled temptation from the table. I wonder +what would have happened if I had? Suppose Harrington had not been +intoxicated when he entered the Pullman car Ontario that night! +For they were about to make a journey, I gathered, and the young woman +wished to go alone. I drank three cups of coffee, which accounted for +my wakefulness later, and shamelessly watched the tableau before me. +The woman’s protest evidently went for nothing: across the table the +man grunted monosyllabic replies and grew more and more lowering and +sullen. Once, during a brief unexpected _pianissimo_ in the music, her +voice came to me sharply: +“If I could only see him in time!” she was saying. “Oh, it’s terrible!” +In spite of my interest I would have forgotten the whole incident at +once, erased it from my mind as one does the inessentials and +clutterings of memory, had I not met them again, later that evening, in +the Pennsylvania station. The situation between them had not visibly +altered: the same dogged determination showed in the man’s face, but +the young woman—daughter or wife? I wondered—had drawn down her veil +and I could only suspect what white misery lay beneath. +I bought my berth after waiting in a line of some eight or ten people. +When, step by step, I had almost reached the window, a tall woman whom +I had not noticed before spoke to me from my elbow. She had a ticket +and money in her hand. +“Will you try to get me a lower when you buy yours?” she asked. “I have +traveled for three nights in uppers.” +I consented, of course; beyond that I hardly noticed the woman. I had a +vague impression of height and a certain amount of stateliness, but the +crowd was pushing behind me, and some one was standing on my foot. I +got two lowers easily, and, turning with the change and berths, held +out the tickets. +“Which will you have?” I asked. “Lower eleven or lower ten?” +“It makes no difference,” she said. “Thank you very much indeed.” +At random I gave her lower eleven, and called a porter to help her with +her luggage. I followed them leisurely to the train shed, and ten +minutes more saw us under way. +I looked into my car, but it presented the peculiarly unattractive +appearance common to sleepers. The berths were made up; the center +aisle was a path between walls of dingy, breeze-repelling curtains, +while the two seats at each end of the car were piled high with +suitcases and umbrellas. The perspiring porter was trying to be six +places at once: somebody has said that Pullman porters are black so +they won’t show the dirt, but they certainly show the heat. +Nine-fifteen was an outrageous hour to go to bed, especially since I +sleep little or not at all on the train, so I made my way to the smoker +and passed the time until nearly eleven with cigarettes and a magazine. +The car was very close. It was a warm night, and before turning in I +stood a short time in the vestibule. The train had been stopping at +frequent intervals, and, finding the brakeman there, I asked the +trouble. +It seemed that there was a hot-box on the next car, and that not only +were we late, but we were delaying the second section, just behind. I +was beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, and the air was growing cooler +as we got into the mountains. I said good night to the brakeman and +went back to my berth. To my surprise, lower ten was already occupied—a +suit-case projected from beneath, a pair of shoes stood on the floor, +and from behind the curtains came the heavy, unmistakable breathing of +deep sleep. I hunted out the porter and together we investigated. +“Are you asleep, sir?” asked the porter, leaning over deferentially. No +answer forthcoming, he opened the curtains and looked in. Yes, the +intruder was asleep—very much asleep—and an overwhelming odor of whisky +proclaimed that he would probably remain asleep until morning. I was +irritated. The car was full, and I was not disposed to take an upper in +order to allow this drunken interloper to sleep comfortably in my +berth. +“You’ll have to get out of this,” I said, shaking him angrily. But he +merely grunted and turned over. As he did so, I saw his features for +the first time. It was the quarrelsome man of the restaurant. +I was less disposed than ever to relinquish my claim, but the porter, +after a little quiet investigation, offered a solution of the +difficulty. “There’s no one in lower nine,” he suggested, pulling open +the curtains just across. “It’s likely nine’s his berth, and he’s made +a mistake, owing to his condition. You’d better take nine, sir.” +I did, with a firm resolution that if nine’s rightful owner turned up +later I should be just as unwakable as the man opposite. I undressed +leisurely, making sure of the safety of the forged notes, and placing +my grip as before between myself and the window. +Being a man of systematic habits, I arranged my clothes carefully, +putting my shoes out for the porter to polish, and stowing my collar +and scarf in the little hammock swung for the purpose. +At last, with my pillows so arranged that I could see out comfortably, +and with the unhygienic-looking blanket turned back—I have always a +distrust of those much-used affairs—I prepared to wait gradually for +sleep. +But sleep did not visit me. The train came to frequent, grating stops, +and I surmised the hot box again. I am not a nervous man, but there was +something chilling in the thought of the second section pounding along +behind us. Once, as I was dozing, our locomotive whistled a shrill +warning—“You keep back where you belong,” it screamed to my drowsy +ears, and from somewhere behind came a chastened “All-right-I-will.” +I grew more and more wide-awake. At Cresson I got up on my elbow and +blinked out at the station lights. Some passengers boarded the train +there and I heard a woman’s low tones, a southern voice, rich and full. +Then quiet again. Every nerve was tense: time passed, perhaps ten +minutes, possibly half an hour. Then, without the slightest warning, as +the train rounded a curve, a heavy body was thrown into my berth. The +incident, trivial as it seemed, was startling in its suddenness, for +although my ears were painfully strained and awake, I had heard no step +outside. The next instant the curtain hung limp again; still without a +sound, my disturber had slipped away into the gloom and darkness. In a +frenzy of wakefulness, I sat up, drew on a pair of slippers and fumbled +for my bath-robe. +From a berth across, probably lower ten, came that particular +aggravating snore which begins lightly, delicately, faintly soprano, +goes down the scale a note with every breath, and, after keeping the +listener tense with expectation, ends with an explosion that tears the +very air. I was more and more irritable: I sat on the edge of the berth +and hoped the snorer would choke to death. He had considerable +vitality, however; he withstood one shock after another and survived to +start again with new vigor. In desperation I found some cigarettes and +one match, piled my blankets over my grip, and drawing the curtains +together as though the berth were still occupied, I made my way to the +vestibule of the car. +I was not clad for dress parade. Is it because the male is so +restricted to gloom in his every-day attire that he blossoms into gaudy +colors in his pajamas and dressing-gowns? It would take a Turk to feel +at home before an audience in my red and yellow bathrobe, a Christmas +remembrance from Mrs. Klopton, with slippers to match. +So, naturally, when I saw a feminine figure on the platform, my first +instinct was to dodge. The woman, however, was quicker than I; she gave +me a startled glance, wheeled and disappeared, with a flash of two +bronze-colored braids, into the next car. +Cigarette box in one hand, match in the other, I leaned against the +uncertain frame of the door and gazed after her vanished figure. The +mountain air flapped my bath-robe around my bare ankles, my one match +burned to the end and went out, and still I stared. For I had seen on +her expressive face a haunting look that was horror, nothing less. +Heaven knows, I am not psychological. Emotions have to be written large +before I can read them. But a woman in trouble always appeals to me, +and this woman was more than that. She was in deadly fear. +If I had not been afraid of being ridiculous, I would have followed +her. But I fancied that the apparition of a man in a red and yellow +bath-robe, with an unkempt thatch of hair, walking up to her and +assuring her that he would protect her would probably put her into +hysterics. I had done that once before, when burglars had tried to +break into the house, and had startled the parlor maid into bed for a +week. So I tried to assure myself that I had imagined the lady’s +distress—or caused it, perhaps—and to dismiss her from my mind. Perhaps +she was merely anxious about the unpleasant gentleman of the +restaurant. I thought smugly that I could have told her all about him: +that he was sleeping the sleep of the just and the intoxicated in a +berth that ought, by all that was fair and right, to have been mine, +and that if I were tied to a man who snored like that I should have him +anæsthetized and his soft palate put where it would never again flap +like a loose sail in the wind. +We passed Harrisburg as I stood there. It was starlight, and the great +crests of the Alleghanies had given way to low hills. At intervals we +passed smudges of gray white, no doubt in daytime comfortable farms, +which McKnight says is a good way of putting it, the farms being a lot +more comfortable than the people on them. +I was growing drowsy: the woman with the bronze hair and the horrified +face was fading in retrospect. It was colder, too, and I turned with a +shiver to go in. As I did so a bit of paper fluttered into the air and +settled on my sleeve, like a butterfly on a gorgeous red and yellow +blossom. I picked it up curiously and glanced at it. It was part of a +telegram that had been torn into bits. +There were only parts of four words on the scrap, but it left me +puzzled and thoughtful. It read, “—ower ten, car seve—.” +“Lower ten, car seven,” was my berth—the one I had bought and found +preempted. +CHAPTER III. +ACROSS THE AISLE +No solution offering itself, I went back to my berth. The snorer across +had apparently strangled, or turned over, and so after a time I dropped +asleep, to be awakened by the morning sunlight across my face. +I felt for my watch, yawning prodigiously. I reached under the pillow +and failed to find it, but something scratched the back of my hand. I +sat up irritably and nursed the wound, which was bleeding a little. +Still drowsy, I felt more cautiously for what I supposed had been my +scarf pin, but there was nothing there. Wide awake now, I reached for +my traveling-bag, on the chance that I had put my watch in there. I had +drawn the satchel to me and had my hand on the lock before I realized +that it was not my own! +Mine was of alligator hide. I had killed the beast in Florida, after +the expenditure of enough money to have bought a house and enough +energy to have built one. The bag I held in my hand was a black one, +sealskin, I think. The staggering thought of what the loss of my bag +meant to me put my finger on the bell and kept it there until the +porter came. +“Did you ring, sir?” he asked, poking his head through the curtains +obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a +curtain and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do. +“No,” I snapped. “It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean by +exchanging my valise for this one? You’ll have to find it if you waken +the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that grip.” +“Porter,” called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. “Porter, +am I to dangle here all day?” +“Let her dangle,” I said savagely. “You find that bag of mine.” +The porter frowned. Then he looked at me with injured dignity. “I +brought in your overcoat, sir. You carried your own valise.” +The fellow was right! In an excess of caution I had refused to +relinquish my alligator bag, and had turned over my other traps to the +porter. It was clear enough then. I was simply a victim of the usual +sleeping-car robbery. I was in a lather of perspiration by that time: +the lady down the car was still dangling and talking about it: still +nearer a feminine voice was giving quick orders in French, presumably +to a maid. The porter was on his knees, looking under the berth. +“Not there, sir,” he said, dusting his knees. He was visibly more +cheerful, having been absolved of responsibility. “Reckon it was taken +while you was wanderin’ around the car last night.” +“I’ll give you fifty dollars if you find it,” I said. “A hundred. Reach +up my shoes and I’ll—” +I stopped abruptly. My eyes were fixed in stupefied amazement on a coat +that hung from a hook at the foot of my berth. From the coat they +traveled, dazed, to the soft-bosomed shirt beside it, and from there to +the collar and cravat in the net hammock across the windows. +“A hundred!” the porter repeated, showing his teeth. But I caught him +by the arm and pointed to the foot of the berth. +“What—what color’s that coat?” I asked unsteadily. +“Gray, sir.” His tone was one of gentle reproof. +“And—the trousers?” +He reached over and held up one creased leg. “Gray, too,” he grinned. +“Gray!” I could not believe even his corroboration of my own eyes. “But +my clothes were blue!” The porter was amused: he dived under the +curtains and brought up a pair of shoes. “Your shoes, sir,” he said +with a flourish. “Reckon you’ve been dreaming, sir.” +Now, there are two things I always avoid in my dress—possibly an +idiosyncrasy of my bachelor existence. These tabooed articles are red +neckties and tan shoes. And not only were the shoes the porter lifted +from the floor of a gorgeous shade of yellow, but the scarf which was +run through the turned over collar was a gaudy red. It took a full +minute for the real import of things to penetrate my dazed +intelligence. Then I gave a vindictive kick at the offending ensemble. +“They’re not mine, any of them,” I snarled. “They are some other +fellow’s. I’ll sit here until I take root before I put them on.” +“They’re nice lookin’ clothes,” the porter put in, eying the red tie +with appreciation. “Ain’t everybody would have left you anything.” +“Call the conductor,” I said shortly. Then a possible explanation +occurred to me. “Oh, porter—what’s the number of this berth?” +“Seven, sir. If you cain’t wear those shoes—” +“Seven!” In my relief I almost shouted it. “Why, then, it’s simple +enough. I’m in the wrong berth, that’s all. My berth is nine. +Only—where the deuce is the man who belongs here?” +“Likely in nine, sir.” The darky was enjoying himself. “You and the +other gentleman just got mixed in the night. That’s all, sir.” It was +clear that he thought I had been drinking. +I drew a long breath. Of course, that was the explanation. This was +number seven’s berth, that was his soft hat, this his umbrella, his +coat, his bag. My rage turned to irritation at myself. +The porter went to the next berth and I could hear his softly +insinuating voice. “Time to get up, sir. Are you awake? Time to get +up.” +There was no response from number nine. I guessed that he had opened +the curtains and was looking in. Then he came back. +“Number nine’s empty,” he said. +“Empty! Do you mean my clothes aren’t there?” I demanded. “My valise? +Why don’t you answer me?” +“You doan’ give me time,” he retorted. “There ain’t nothin’ there. But +it’s been slept in.” +The disappointment was the greater for my few moments of hope. I sat up +in a white fury and put on the clothes that had been left me. Then, +still raging, I sat on the edge of the berth and put on the obnoxious +tan shoes. The porter, called to his duties, made little excursions +back to me, to offer assistance and to chuckle at my discomfiture. He +stood by, outwardly decorous, but with little irritating grins of +amusement around his mouth, when I finally emerged with the red tie in +my hand. +“Bet the owner of those clothes didn’t become them any more than you +do,” he said, as he plied the ubiquitous whisk broom. +“When I get the owner of these clothes,” I retorted grimly, “he will +need a shroud. Where’s the conductor?” +The conductor was coming, he assured me; also that there was no bag +answering the description of mine on the car. I slammed my way to the +dressing-room, washed, choked my fifteen and a half neck into a fifteen +collar, and was back again in less than five minutes. The car, as well +as its occupants, was gradually taking on a daylight appearance. I +hobbled in, for one of the shoes was abominably tight, and found myself +facing a young woman in blue with an unforgettable face. (“Three women +already.” McKnight says: “That’s going some, even if you don’t count +the Gilmore nurse.”) She stood, half-turned toward me, one hand idly +drooping, the other steadying her as she gazed out at the flying +landscape. I had an instant impression that I had met her somewhere, +under different circumstances, more cheerful ones, I thought, for the +girl’s dejection now was evident. Beside her, sitting down, a small +dark woman, considerably older, was talking in a rapid undertone. The +girl nodded indifferently now and then. I fancied, although I was not +sure, that my appearance brought a startled look into the young woman’s +face. I sat down and, hands thrust deep into the other man’s pockets, +stared ruefully at the other man’s shoes. +The stage was set. In a moment the curtain was going up on the first +act of the play. And for a while we would all say our little speeches +and sing our little songs, and I, the villain, would hold center stage +while the gallery hissed. +The porter was standing beside lower ten. He had reached in and was +knocking valiantly. But his efforts met with no response. He winked at +me over his shoulder; then he unfastened the curtains and bent forward. +Behind him, I saw him stiffen, heard his muttered exclamation, saw the +bluish pallor that spread over his face and neck. As he retreated a +step the interior of lower ten lay open to the day. +The man in it was on his back, the early morning sun striking full on +his upturned face. But the light did not disturb him. A small stain of +red dyed the front of his night clothes and trailed across the sheet; +his half-open eyes were fixed, without seeing, on the shining wood +above. +I grasped the porter’s shaking shoulders and stared down to where the +train imparted to the body a grisly suggestion of motion. “Good Lord,” +I gasped. “The man’s been murdered!” +CHAPTER IV. +NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE +Afterwards, when I tried to recall our discovery of the body in lower +ten, I found that my most vivid impression was not that made by the +revelation of the opened curtain. I had an instantaneous picture of a +slender blue-gowned girl who seemed to sense my words rather than hear +them, of two small hands that clutched desperately at the seat beside +them. The girl in the aisle stood, bent toward us, perplexity and alarm +fighting in her face. +With twitching hands the porter attempted to draw the curtains +together. Then in a paralysis of shock, he collapsed on the edge of my +berth and sat there swaying. In my excitement I shook him. +“For Heaven’s sake, keep your nerve, man,” I said bruskly. “You’ll have +every woman in the car in hysterics. And if you do, you’ll wish you +could change places with the man in there.” He rolled his eyes. +A man near, who had been reading last night’s paper, dropped it quickly +and tiptoed toward us. He peered between the partly open curtains, +closed them quietly and went back, ostentatiously solemn, to his seat. +The very crackle with which he opened his paper added to the bursting +curiosity of the car. For the passengers knew that something was amiss: +I was conscious of a sudden tension. +With the curtains closed the porter was more himself; he wiped his lips +with a handkerchief and stood erect. +“It’s my last trip in _this_ car,” he remarked heavily. “There’s +something wrong with that berth. Last trip the woman in it took an +overdose of some sleeping stuff, and we found her, jes’ like that, +dead! And it ain’t more’n three months now since there was twins born +in that very spot. No, sir, it ain’t natural.” +At that moment a thin man with prominent eyes and a spare grayish +goatee creaked up the aisle and paused beside me. +“Porter sick?” he inquired, taking in with a professional eye the +porter’s horror-struck face, my own excitement and the slightly gaping +curtains of lower ten. He reached for the darky’s pulse and pulled out +an old-fashioned gold watch. +“Hm! Only fifty! What’s the matter? Had a shock?” he asked shrewdly. +“Yes,” I answered for the porter. “We’ve both had one. If you are a +doctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across, lower +ten. I’m afraid it’s too late, but I’m not experienced in such +matters.” +Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave a +comprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed jaw, +the ugly stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a moment. +Death was written in the clear white of the nostrils, the colorless +lips, the smoothing away of the sinister lines of the night before. +With its new dignity the face was not unhandsome: the gray hair was +still plentiful, the features strong and well cut. +The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. “Dead for some time,” +he said, running a professional finger over the stains. “These are dry +and darkened, you see, and _rigor mortis_ is well established. A friend +of yours?” +“I don’t know him at all,” I replied. “Never saw him but once before.” +“Then you don’t know if he is traveling alone?” +“No, he was not—that is, I don’t know anything about him,” I corrected +myself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up at me quickly +and then turned his attention again to the body. Like a flash there had +come to me the vision of the woman with the bronze hair and the tragic +face, whom I had surprised in the vestibule between the cars, somewhere +in the small hours of the morning. I had acted on my first impulse—the +masculine one of shielding a woman. +The doctor had unfastened the coat of the striped pajamas and exposed +the dead man’s chest. On the left side was a small punctured wound of +insignificant size. +“Very neatly done,” the doctor said with appreciation. “Couldn’t have +done it better myself. Right through the intercostal space: no time +even to grunt.” +“Isn’t the heart around there somewhere?” I asked. The medical man +turned toward me and smiled austerely. +“That’s where it belongs, just under that puncture, when it isn’t +gadding around in a man’s throat or his boots.” +I had a new respect for the doctor, for any one indeed who could crack +even a feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could run an +impersonal finger over that wound and those stains. Odd how a healthy, +normal man holds the medical profession in half contemptuous regard +until he gets sick, or an emergency like this arises, and then turns +meekly to the man who knows the ins and outs of his mortal tenement, +takes his pills or his patronage, ties to him like a rudderless ship in +a gale. +“Suicide, is it, doctor?” I asked. +He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and, +taking off his glasses, he wiped them slowly. +“No, it is not suicide,” he announced decisively. “It is murder.” +Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver. I +was just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned toward +us, and I could hear the porter behind me breathing audibly. A stout +woman in negligee came down the aisle and querulously confronted the +porter. She wore a pink dressing-jacket and carried portions of her +clothing. +“Porter,” she began, in the voice of the lady who had “dangled,” “is +there a rule of this company that will allow a woman to occupy the +dressing-room for one hour and curl her hair with an alcohol lamp while +respectable people haven’t a place where they can hook their—” +She stopped suddenly and stared into lower ten. Her shining pink cheeks +grew pasty, her jaw fell. I remember trying to think of something to +say, and of saying nothing at all. Then—she had buried her eyes in the +nondescript garments that hung from her arm and tottered back the way +she had come. Slowly a little knot of men gathered around us, silent +for the most part. The doctor was making a search of the berth when the +conductor elbowed his way through, followed by the inquisitive man, who +had evidently summoned him. I had lost sight, for a time, of the girl +in blue. +“Do it himself?” the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance at +the body. +“No, he didn’t,” the doctor asserted. “There’s no weapon here, and the +window is closed. He couldn’t have thrown it out, and he didn’t swallow +it. What on earth are you looking for, man?” +Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under +the berth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had +summoned the conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged +up with him the dead man’s suit-case. The sight of it brought back to +me at once my own predicament. +“I don’t know whether there’s any connection or not, conductor,” I +said, “but I am a victim, too, in less degree; I’ve been robbed of +everything I possess, except a red and yellow bath-robe. I happened to +be wearing the bath-robe, which was probably the reason the thief +overlooked it.” +There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. The +conductor was irritated. +“I can’t bother with that now,” he snarled. “The railroad company is +responsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry and morals. If +people want to be stabbed and robbed in the company’s cars, it’s their +affair. Why didn’t you sleep in your clothes? I do.” +I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and I +unclenched my fist. I could understand the conductor’s position, and +beside, in the law, I had been guilty myself of contributory +negligence. +“I’m not trying to make you responsible,” I protested as amiably as I +could, “and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good as my own. +They are certainly newer. But my valise contained valuable papers and +it is to your interest as well as mine to find the man who stole it.” +“Why, of course,” the conductor said shrewdly. “Find the man who +skipped out with this gentleman’s clothes, and you’ve probably got the +murderer.” +“I went to bed in lower nine,” I said, my mind full again of my lost +papers, “and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night prowling +around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back to the +wrong berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning I knew +nothing of my mistake. In the interval the thief—murderer, too, +perhaps—must have come back, discovered my error, and taken advantage +of it to further his escape.” +The inquisitive man looked at me from between narrowed eyelids, +ferret-like. +“Did any one on the train suspect you of having valuable papers?” he +inquired. The crowd was listening intently. +“No one,” I answered promptly and positively. The doctor was +investigating the murdered man’s effects. The pockets of his trousers +contained the usual miscellany of keys and small change, while in his +hip pocket was found a small pearl-handled revolver of the type women +usually keep around. A gold watch with a Masonic charm had slid down +between the mattress and the window, while a showy diamond stud was +still fastened in the bosom of his shirt. Taken as a whole, the +personal belongings were those of a man of some means, but without any +particular degree of breeding. The doctor heaped them together. +“Either robbery was not the motive,” he reflected, “or the thief +overlooked these things in his hurry.” +The latter hypothesis seemed the more tenable, when, after a thorough +search, we found no pocketbook and less than a dollar in small change. +The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered +flask and a pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some collars +with the laundry mark, S. H. In the leather tag on the handle was a +card with the name Simon Harrington, Pittsburg. The conductor sat down +on my unmade berth, across, and made an entry of the name and address. +Then, on an old envelope, he wrote a few words and gave it to the +porter, who disappeared. +“I guess that’s all I can do,” he said. “I’ve had enough trouble this +trip to last for a year. They don’t need a conductor on these trains +any more; what they ought to have is a sheriff and a _posse_.” +The porter from the next car came in and whispered to him. The +conductor rose unhappily. +“Next car’s caught the disease,” he grumbled. “Doctor, a woman back +there has got mumps or bubonic plague, or something. Will you come +back?” +The strange porter stood aside. +“Lady about the middle of the car,” he said, “in black, sir, with +queer-looking hair—sort of copper color, I think, sir.” +CHAPTER V. +THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR +With the departure of the conductor and the doctor, the group around +lower ten broke up, to re-form in smaller knots through the car. The +porter remained on guard. With something of relief I sank into a seat. +I wanted to think, to try to remember the details of the previous +night. But my inquisitive acquaintance had other intentions. He came up +and sat down beside me. Like the conductor, he had taken notes of the +dead man’s belongings, his name, address, clothing and the general +circumstances of the crime. Now with his little note-book open before +him, he prepared to enjoy the minor sensation of the robbery. +“And now for the second victim,” he began cheerfully. “What is your +name and address, please?” I eyed him with suspicion. +“I have lost everything but my name and address,” I parried. “What do +you want them for? Publication?” +“Oh, no; dear, no!” he said, shocked at my misapprehension. “Merely for +my own enlightenment. I like to gather data of this kind and draw my +own conclusions. Most interesting and engrossing. Once or twice I have +forestalled the results of police investigation—but entirely for my own +amusement.” +I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies; I knew a man once who +carried his handkerchief up his sleeve and had a mania for old colored +prints cut out of Godey’s _Lady’s Book_. +“I use that inductive method originated by Poe and followed since with +such success by Conan Doyle. Have you ever read _Gaboriau?_ Ah, you +have missed a treat, indeed. And now, to get down to business, what is +the name of our escaped thief and probable murderer?” +“How on earth do I know?” I demanded impatiently. “He didn’t write it +in blood anywhere, did he?” +The little man looked hurt and disappointed. +“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that the pockets of those clothes are +entirely empty?” The pockets! In the excitement I had forgotten +entirely the sealskin grip which the porter now sat at my feet, and I +had not investigated the pockets at all. With the inquisitive man’s +pencil taking note of everything that I found, I emptied them on the +opposite seat. +Upper left-hand waist-coat, two lead pencils and a fountain pen; lower +right waist-coat, match-box and a small stamp book; right-hand pocket +coat, pair of gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; left-hand +pocket, gun-metal cigarette case studded with pearls, half-full of +Egyptian cigarettes. The trousers pockets contained a gold penknife, a +small amount of money in bills and change, and a handkerchief with the +initial “S” on it. +Further search through the coat discovered a card-case with cards +bearing the name Henry Pinckney Sullivan, and a leather flask with gold +mountings, filled with what seemed to be very fair whisky, and +monogrammed H. P. S. +“His name evidently is Henry Pinckney Sullivan,” said the cheerful +follower of Poe, as he wrote it down. “Address as yet unknown. Blond, +probably. Have you noticed that it is almost always the blond men who +affect a very light gray, with a touch of red in the scarf? Fact, I +assure you. I kept a record once of the summer attire of men, and +ninety per cent, followed my rule. Dark men like you affect navy blue, +or brown.” +In spite of myself I was amused at the man’s shrewdness. +“Yes; the suit he took was dark—a blue,” I said. He rubbed his hands +and smiled at me delightedly. “Then you wore black shoes, not tan,” he +said, with a glance at the aggressive yellow ones I wore. +“Right again,” I acknowledged. “Black low shoes and black embroidered +hose. If you keep on you’ll have a motive for the crime, and the +murderer’s present place of hiding. And if you come back to the smoker +with me, I’ll give you an opportunity to judge if he knew good whisky +from bad.” +I put the articles from the pockets back again and got up. “I wonder if +there is a diner on?” I said. “I need something sustaining after all +this.” +I was conscious then of some one at my elbow. I turned to see the young +woman whose face was so vaguely familiar. In the very act of speaking +she drew back suddenly and colored. +“Oh,—I beg your pardon,” she said hurriedly, “I—thought you were—some +one else.” She was looking in a puzzled fashion at my coat. I felt all +the cringing guilt of a man who has accidentally picked up the wrong +umbrella: my borrowed collar sat tight on my neck. +“I’m sorry,” I said idiotically. “I’m sorry, but—I’m not.” I have +learned since that she has bright brown hair, with a loose wave in it +that drops over her ears, and dark blue eyes with black lashes and—but +what does it matter? One enjoys a picture as a whole: not as the sum of +its parts. +She saw the flask then, and her errand came back to her. “One of the +ladies at the end of car has fainted,” she explained. “I thought +perhaps a stimulant—” +I picked up the flask at once and followed my guide down the aisle. Two +or three women were working over the woman who had fainted. They had +opened her collar and taken out her hairpins, whatever good that might +do. The stout woman was vigorously rubbing her wrists, with the idea, +no doubt, of working up her pulse! The unconscious woman was the one +for whom I had secured lower eleven at the station. +I poured a little liquor in a bungling masculine fashion between her +lips as she leaned back, with closed eyes. She choked, coughed, and +rallied somewhat. +“Poor thing,” said the stout lady. “As she lies back that way I could +almost think it was my mother; she used to faint so much.” +“It would make anybody faint,” chimed in another. “Murder and robbery +in one night and on one car. I’m thankful I always wear my rings in a +bag around my neck—even if they do get under me and keep me awake.” +The girl in blue was looking at us with wide, startled eyes. I saw her +pale a little, saw the quick, apprehensive glance which she threw at +her traveling companion, the small woman I had noticed before. There +was an exchange—almost a clash—of glances. The small woman frowned. +That was all. I turned my attention again to my patient. +She had revived somewhat, and now she asked to have the window opened. +The train had stopped again and the car was oppressively hot. People +around were looking at their watches and grumbling over the delay. The +doctor bustled in with a remark about its being his busy day. The +amateur detective and the porter together mounted guard over lower ten. +Outside the heat rose in shimmering waves from the tracks: the very +wood of the car was hot to touch. A Camberwell Beauty darted through +the open door and made its way, in erratic plunges, great wings waving, +down the sunny aisle. All around lay the peace of harvested fields, the +quiet of the country. +CHAPTER VI. +THE GIRL IN BLUE +I was growing more and more irritable. The thought of what the loss of +the notes meant was fast crowding the murder to the back of my mind. +The forced inaction was intolerable. +The porter had reported no bag answering the description of mine on the +train, but I was disposed to make my own investigation. I made a tour +of the cars, scrutinizing every variety of hand luggage, ranging from +luxurious English bags with gold mountings to the wicker nondescripts +of the day coach at the rear. I was not alone in my quest, for the girl +in blue was just ahead of me. Car by car she preceded me through the +train, unconscious that I was behind her, looking at each passenger as +she passed. I fancied the proceeding was distasteful, but that she had +determined on a course and was carrying it through. We reached the end +of the train almost together—empty-handed, both of us. +The girl went out to the platform. When she saw me she moved aside, and +I stepped out beside her. Behind us the track curved sharply; the early +sunshine threw the train, in long black shadow, over the hot earth. +Forward somewhere they were hammering. The girl said nothing, but her +profile was strained and anxious. +“I—if you have lost anything,” I began, “I wish you would let me try to +help. Not that my own success is anything to boast of.” +She hardly glanced at me. It was not flattering. “I have not been +robbed, if that is what you mean,” she replied quietly. “I +am—perplexed. That is all.” +There was nothing to say to that. I lifted my hat—the other fellow’s +hat—and turned to go back to my car. Two or three members of the train +crew, including the conductor, were standing in the shadow talking. And +at that moment, from a farm-house near came the swift clang of the +breakfast bell, calling in the hands from barn and pasture. I turned +back to the girl. +“We may be here for an hour,” I said, “and there is no buffet car on. +If I remember my youth, that bell means ham and eggs and country butter +and coffee. If you care to run the risk—” +“I am not hungry,” she said, “but perhaps a cup of coffee—dear me, I +believe I _am_ hungry,” she finished. “Only—” She glanced back of her. +“I can bring your companion,” I suggested, without enthusiasm. But the +young woman shook her head. +“She is not hungry,” she objected, “and she is very—well, I know she +wouldn’t come. Do you suppose we could make it if we run?” +“I haven’t any idea,” I said cheerfully. “Any old train would be better +than this one, if it does leave us behind.” +“Yes. Any train would be better than this one,” she repeated gravely. I +found myself watching her changing expression. I had spoken two dozen +words to her and already I felt that I knew the lights and shades in +her voice,—I, who had always known how a woman rode to hounds, and who +never could have told the color of her hair. +I stepped down on the ties and turned to assist her, and together we +walked back to where the conductor and the porter from our car were in +close conversation. Instinctively my hand went to my cigarette pocket +and came out empty. She saw the gesture. +“If you want to smoke, you may,” she said. “I have a big cousin who +smokes all the time. He says I am ‘kippered.’” +I drew out the gun-metal cigarette case and opened it. But this most +commonplace action had an extraordinary result: the girl beside me +stopped dead still and stood staring at it with fascinated eyes. +“Is—where did you get that?” she demanded, with a catch in her voice; +her gaze still fixed on the cigarette case. +“Then you haven’t heard the rest of the tragedy?” I asked, holding out +the case. “It’s frightfully bad luck for me, but it makes a good story. +You see—” +At that moment the conductor and porter ceased their colloquy. The +conductor came directly toward me, tugging as he came at his bristling +gray mustache. +“I would like to talk to you in the car,” he said to me, with a curious +glance at the young lady. +“Can’t it wait?” I objected. “We are on our way to a cup of coffee and +a slice of bacon. Be merciful, as you are powerful.” +“I’m afraid the breakfast will have to wait,” he replied. “I won’t keep +you long.” There was a note of authority in his voice which I resented; +but, after all, the circumstances were unusual. +“We’ll have to defer that cup of coffee for a while,” I said to the +girl; “but don’t despair; there’s breakfast somewhere.” +As we entered the car, she stood aside, but I felt rather than saw that +she followed us. I was surprised to see a half dozen men gathered +around the berth in which I had wakened, number seven. It had not yet +been made up. +As we passed along the aisle, I was conscious of a new expression on +the faces of the passengers. The tall woman who had fainted was +searching my face with narrowed eyes, while the stout woman of the +kindly heart avoided my gaze, and pretended to look out the window. +As we pushed our way through the group, I fancied that it closed around +me ominously. The conductor said nothing, but led the way without +ceremony to the side of the berth. +“What’s the matter?” I inquired. I was puzzled, but not apprehensive. +“Have you some of my things? I’d be thankful even for my shoes; these +are confoundedly tight.” +Nobody spoke, and I fell silent, too. For one of the pillows had been +turned over, and the under side of the white case was streaked with +brownish stains. I think it was a perceptible time before I realized +that the stains were blood, and that the faces around were filled with +suspicion and distrust. +“Why, it—that looks like blood,” I said vacuously. There was an +incessant pounding in my ears, and the conductor’s voice came from far +off. +“It is blood,” he asserted grimly. +I looked around with a dizzy attempt at nonchalance. “Even if it is,” I +remonstrated, “surely you don’t suppose for a moment that I know +anything about it!” +The amateur detective elbowed his way in. He had a scrap of transparent +paper in his hand, and a pencil. +“I would like permission to trace the stains,” he began eagerly. +“Also”—to me—“if you will kindly jab your finger with a +pin—needle—anything—” +“If you don’t keep out of this,” the conductor said savagely, “I will +do some jabbing myself. As for you, sir—” he turned to me. I was +absolutely innocent, but I knew that I presented a typical picture of +guilt; I was covered with cold sweat, and the pounding in my ears kept +up dizzily. “As for you, sir—” +The irrepressible amateur detective made a quick pounce at the pillow +and pushed back the cover. Before our incredulous eyes he drew out a +narrow steel dirk which had been buried to the small cross that served +as a head. +There was a chorus of voices around, a quick surging forward of the +crowd. So that was what had scratched my hand! I buried the wound in my +coat pocket. +“Well,” I said, trying to speak naturally, “doesn’t that prove what I +have been telling you? The man who committed the murder belonged to +this berth, and made an exchange in some way after the crime. How do +you know he didn’t change the tags so I would come back to this berth?” +This was an inspiration; I was pleased with it. “That’s what he did, he +changed the tags,” I reiterated. +There was a murmur of assent around. The doctor, who was standing +beside me, put his hand on my arm. “If this gentleman committed this +crime, and I for one feel sure he did not, then who is the fellow who +got away? And why did he go?” +“We have only one man’s word for that,” the conductor snarled. “I’ve +traveled some in these cars myself, and no one ever changed berths with +_me_.” +Somebody on the edge of the group asserted that hereafter he would +travel by daylight. I glanced up and caught the eye of the girl in +blue. +“They are all mad,” she said. Her tone was low, but I heard her +distinctly. “Don’t take them seriously enough to defend yourself.” +“I am glad you think I didn’t do it,” I observed meekly, over the +crowd. “Nothing else is of any importance.” +The conductor had pulled out his note-book again. “Your name, please,” +he said gruffly. +“Lawrence Blakeley, Washington.” +“Your occupation?” +“Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley and McKnight.” +“Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the wrong berth and have been +robbed. Do you know anything of the man who did it?” +“Only from what he left behind,” I answered. “These clothes—” +“They fit you,” he said with quick suspicion. “Isn’t that rather a +coincidence? You are a large man.” +“Good Heavens,” I retorted, stung into fury, “do I look like a man who +would wear this kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry purple and +green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any man in his senses wear a +pair of shoes a full size too small?” +The conductor was inclined to hedge. “You will have to grant that I am +in a peculiar position,” he said. “I have only your word as to the +exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely doing my duty. Are +there any clues in the pockets?” +For the second time I emptied them of their contents, which he noted. +“Is that all?” he finished. “There was nothing else?” +“Nothing.” +“That’s not all, sir,” broke in the porter, stepping forward. “There +was a small black satchel.” +“That’s so,” I exclaimed. “I forgot the bag. I don’t even know where it +is.” +The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again. I’ve grown so +accustomed to reading the faces of a jury, seeing them swing from doubt +to belief, and back again to doubt, that I instinctively watch +expressions. I saw that my forgetfulness had done me harm—that +suspicion was roused again. +The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody’s +raincoat—another dubious circumstance. Was I hiding it? It was brought +to the berth and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once. +It contained the usual traveling impedimenta—change of linen, collars, +handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the +attention of the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet, +around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which bore in gilt +letters the name “Simon Harrington.” +CHAPTER VII. +A FINE GOLD CHAIN +The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing. +“Is this another coincidence?” he asked. “Did the man who left you his +clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave you +the spoil of the murder?” +The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the absolute +futility of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, who, in these +hygienic days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught in a sheet +of fly paper, finds himself more and more mired, and is finally quiet +with the sticky stillness of despair? +Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence to +have any belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh much +against the other incriminating details. It meant imprisonment and +trial, probably, with all the notoriety and loss of practice they would +entail. A man thinks quickly at a time like that. All the probable +consequences of the finding of that pocket-book flashed through my mind +as I extended my hand to take it. Then I drew my arm back. +“I don’t want it,” I said. “Look inside. Maybe the other man took the +money and left the wallet.” +The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging forward +of the crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was still there. +I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out—five +one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that +brought the total to six hundred and fifty dollars. +The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers of the +notes, to the conductor’s annoyance. It was immaterial to me: small +things had lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself in the +prisoner’s box, going through all the nerve-racking routine of a trial +for murder—the challenging of the jury, the endless cross-examinations, +the alternate hope and fear. I believe I said before that I had no +nerves, but for a few minutes that morning I was as near as a man ever +comes to hysteria. +I folded my arms and gave myself a mental shake. I seemed to be the +center of a hundred eyes, expressing every shade of doubt and distrust, +but I tried not to flinch. Then some one created a diversion. +The amateur detective was busy again with the seal-skin bag, +investigating the make of the safety razor and the manufacturer’s name +on the bronze-green tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, as though +some pet theory had been upset. +Then from a corner of the bag he drew out and held up for our +inspection some three inches of fine gold chain, one end of which was +blackened and stained with blood! +The conductor held out his hand for it, but the little man was not +ready to give it up. He turned to me. +“You say no watch was left you? Was there a piece of chain like that?” +“No chain at all,” I said sulkily. “No jewelry of any kind, except +plain gold buttons in the shirt I am wearing.” +“Where are your glasses?” he threw at me suddenly: instinctively my +hand went to my eyes. My glasses had been gone all morning, and I had +not even noticed their absence. The little man smiled cynically and +held out the chain. +“I must ask you to examine this,” he insisted. “Isn’t it a part of the +fine gold chain you wear over your ear?” +I didn’t want to touch the thing: the stain at the end made me shudder. +But with a baker’s dozen of suspicious eyes—well, we’ll say fourteen: +there were no one-eyed men—I took the fragment in the tips of my +fingers and looked at it helplessly. +“Very fine chains are much alike,” I managed to say. “For all I know, +this may be mine, but I don’t know how it got into that sealskin bag. I +never saw the bag until this morning after daylight.” +“He admits that he had the bag,” somebody said behind me. “How did you +guess that he wore glasses, anyhow?” to the amateur sleuth. +That gentleman cleared his throat. “There were two reasons,” he said, +“for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his face +drooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye,—suspect astigmatism. +Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across the bridge of his +nose and a mark on his ear from the chain.” +After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with +the practical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the +chain, sat with closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all the +car that the solution of the mystery was a question of moments. Once he +bent forward eagerly and putting the chain on the window-sill, +proceeded to go over it with a pocket magnifying glass, only to shake +his head in disappointment. All the people around shook their heads +too, although they had not the slightest idea what it was about. +The pounding in my ears began again. The group around me seemed to be +suddenly motionless in the very act of moving, as if a hypnotist had +called “Rigid!” The girl in blue was looking at me, and above the din I +thought she said she must speak to me—something vital. The pounding +grew louder and merged into a scream. With a grinding and splintering +the car rose under my feet. Then it fell away into darkness. +CHAPTER VIII. +THE SECOND SECTION +Have you ever been picked up out of your three-meals-a-day life, +whirled around in a tornado of events, and landed in a situation so +grotesque and yet so horrible that you laugh even while you are +groaning, and straining at its hopelessness? McKnight says that is +hysteria, and that no man worthy of the name ever admits to it. +Also, as McKnight says, it sounds like a tank drama. Just as the +revolving saw is about to cut the hero into stove lengths, the second +villain blows up the sawmill. The hero goes up through the roof and +alights on the bank of a stream at the feet of his lady love, who is +making daisy chains. +Nevertheless, when I was safely home again, with Mrs. Klopton brewing +strange drinks that came in paper packets from the pharmacy, and that +smelled to heaven, I remember staggering to the door and closing it, +and then going back to bed and howling out the absurdity and the +madness of the whole thing. And while I laughed my very soul was sick, +for the girl was gone by that time, and I knew by all the loyalty that +answers between men for honor that I would have to put her out of my +mind. +And yet, all the night that followed, filled as it was with the +shrieking demons of pain, I saw her as I had seen her last, in the +queer hat with green ribbons. I told the doctor this, guardedly, the +next morning, and he said it was the morphia, and that I was lucky not +to have seen a row of devils with green tails. +I don’t know anything about the wreck of September ninth last. You who +swallowed the details with your coffee and digested the horrors with +your chop, probably know a great deal more than I do. I remember very +distinctly that the jumping and throbbing in my arm brought me back to +a world that at first was nothing but sky, a heap of clouds that I +thought hazily were the meringue on a blue charlotte russe. As the +sense of hearing was slowly added to vision, I heard a woman near me +sobbing that she had lost her hat pin, and she couldn’t keep her hat +on. +I think I dropped back into unconsciousness again, for the next thing I +remember was of my blue patch of sky clouded with smoke, of a strange +roaring and crackling, of a rain of fiery sparks on my face and of +somebody beating at me with feeble hands. I opened my eyes and closed +them again: the girl in blue was bending over me. With that +imperviousness to big things and keenness to small that is the first +effect of shock, I tried to be facetious, when a spark stung my cheek. +“You will have to rouse yourself!” the girl was repeating desperately. +“You’ve been on fire twice already.” A piece of striped ticking floated +slowly over my head. As the wind caught it its charring edges leaped +into flame. +“Looks like a kite, doesn’t it?” I remarked cheerfully. And then, as my +arm gave an excruciating throb—“Jove, how my arm hurts!” +The girl bent over and spoke slowly, distinctly, as one might speak to +a deaf person or a child. +“Listen, Mr. Blakeley,” she said earnestly. “You _must_ rouse yourself. +There has been a terrible accident. The second section ran into us. The +wreck is burning now, and if we don’t move, we will catch fire. Do you +hear?” +Her voice and my arm were bringing me to my senses. “I hear,” I said. +“I—I’ll sit up in a second. Are you hurt?” +“No, only bruised. Do you think you can walk?” +I drew up one foot after another, gingerly. +“They seem to move all right,” I remarked dubiously. “Would you mind +telling me where the back of my head has gone? I can’t help thinking it +isn’t there.” +She made a quick examination. “It’s pretty badly bumped,” she said. +“You must have fallen on it.” +I had got up on my uninjured elbow by that time, but the pain threw me +back. “Don’t look at the wreck,” I entreated her. “It’s no sight for a +woman. If—if there is any way to tie up this arm, I might be able to do +something. There may be people under those cars!” +“Then it is too late to help,” she replied solemnly. A little shower of +feathers, each carrying its fiery lamp, blew over us from some burning +pillow. A part of the wreck collapsed with a crash. In a resolute +endeavor to play a man’s part in the tragedy going on around, I got to +my knees. Then I realized what I had not noticed before: the hand and +wrist of the broken left arm were jammed through the handle of the +sealskin grip. I gasped and sat down suddenly. +[Illustration] +“You must not do that,” the girl insisted. I noticed now that she kept +her back to the wreck, her eyes averted. “The weight of the +traveling-bag must be agony. Let me support the valise until we get +back a few yards. Then you must lie down until we can get it cut off.” +“Will it have to be cut off?” I asked as calmly as possible. There were +red-hot stabs of agony clear to my neck, but we were moving slowly away +from the track. +“Yes,” she replied, with dumfounding coolness. “If I had a knife I +could do it myself. You might sit here and lean against this fence.” +By that time my returning faculties had realized that she was going to +cut off the satchel, not the arm. The dizziness was leaving and I was +gradually becoming myself. +“If you pull, it might come,” I suggested. “And with that weight gone, +I think I will cease to be five feet eleven inches of baby.” +She tried gently to loosen the handle, but it would not move, and at +last, with great drops of cold perspiration over me, I had to give up. +“I’m afraid I can’t stand it,” I said. “But there’s a knife somewhere +around these clothes, and if I can find it, perhaps you can cut the +leather.” +As I gave her the knife she turned it over, examining it with a +peculiar expression, bewilderment rather than surprise. But she said +nothing. She set to work deftly, and in a few minutes the bag dropped +free. +“That’s better,” I declared, sitting up. “Now, if you can pin my sleeve +to my coat, it will support the arm so we can get away from here.” +“The pin might give,” she objected, “and the jerk would be terrible.” +She looked around, puzzled; then she got up, coming back in a minute +with a draggled, partly scorched sheet. This she tore into a large +square, and after she had folded it, she slipped it under the broken +arm and tied it securely at the back of my neck. +The relief was immediate, and, picking up the sealskin bag, I walked +slowly beside her, away from the track. +The first act was over: the curtain fallen. The scene was “struck.” +CHAPTER IX. +THE HALCYON BREAKFAST +We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled +children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could from the +horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid through the +grit. Now and then we met little groups of country folk hurrying to the +track: they stared at us curiously, and some wished to question us. But +we hurried past them; we had put the wreck behind us. That way lay +madness. +Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was hidden, +but the smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first time I +remembered that my companion had not been alone on the train. +“It is quiet here,” I suggested. “If you will sit down on the bank I +will go back and make some inquiries. I’ve been criminally thoughtless. +Your traveling companion—” +She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone. +“Please don’t go back,” she said. “I am afraid it would be of no use. +And I don’t want to be left alone.” +Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than content to +walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. Gradually, as +she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining my normal +condition of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had lacked the +morning grace of a shave, that I looked like some lost hope of +yesterday, and that my left shoe pinched outrageously. A man does not +rise triumphant above such handicaps. The girl, for all her disordered +hair and the crumpled linen of her waist, in spite of her missing hat +and the small gold bag that hung forlornly from a broken chain, looked +exceedingly lovely. +“Then I won’t leave you alone,” I said manfully, and we stumbled on +together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up the +lane we came across the tall dark woman who had occupied lower eleven. +She was half crouching beside the road, her black hair about her +shoulders, and an ugly bruise over her eye. She did not seem to know +us, and refused to accompany us. We left her there at last, babbling +incoherently and rolling in her hands a dozen pebbles she had gathered +in the road. +The girl shuddered as we went on. Once she turned and glanced at my +bandage. “Does it hurt very much?” she asked. +“It’s growing rather numb. But it might be worse,” I answered +mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I had never +experienced it. +And so we trudged on bareheaded under the summer sun, growing parched +and dusty and weary, doggedly leaving behind us the pillar of smoke. I +thought I knew of a trolley line somewhere in the direction we were +going, or perhaps we could find a horse and trap to take us into +Baltimore. The girl smiled when I suggested it. +“We will create a sensation, won’t we?” she asked. “Isn’t it queer—or +perhaps it’s my state of mind—but I keep wishing for a pair of gloves, +when I haven’t even a hat!” +When we reached the main road we sat down for a moment, and her hair, +which had been coming loose for some time, fell over her shoulders in +little waves that were most alluring. It seemed a pity to twist it up +again, but when I suggested this, cautiously, she said it was +troublesome and got in her eyes when it was loose. So she gathered it +up, while I held a row of little shell combs and pins, and when it was +done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny about hair: a man never knows +he has it until he begins to lose it, but it’s different with a girl. +Something of the unconventional situation began to dawn on her as she +put in the last hair-pin and patted some stray locks to place. +“I have not told you my name,” she said abruptly. “I forgot that +because I know who you are, you know nothing about me. I am Alison +West, and my home is in Richmond.” +So that was it! This was the girl of the photograph on John Gilmore’s +bedside table. The girl McKnight expected to see in Richmond the next +day, Sunday! She was on her way back to meet him! Well, what difference +did it make, anyhow? We had been thrown together by the merest chance. +In an hour or two at the most we would be back in civilization and she +would recall me, if she remembered me at all, as an unshaven creature +in a red cravat and tan shoes, with a soiled Pullman sheet tied around +my neck. I drew a deep breath. +“Just a twinge,” I said, when she glanced up quickly. “It’s very good +of you to let me know, Miss West. I have been hearing delightful things +about you for three months.” +“From Richey McKnight?” She was frankly curious. +“Yes. From Richey McKnight,” I assented. Was it any wonder McKnight was +crazy about her? I dug my heels into the dust. +“I have been visiting near Cresson, in the mountains,” Miss West was +saying. “The person you mentioned, Mrs. Curtis, was my hostess. We—we +were on our way to Washington together.” She spoke slowly, as if she +wished to give the minimum of explanation. Across her face had come +again the baffling expression of perplexity and trouble I had seen +before. +“You were on your way home, I suppose? Richey spoke about seeing you,” +I floundered, finding it necessary to say something. She looked at me +with level, direct eyes. +“No,” she returned quietly. “I did not intend to go home. I—well, it +doesn’t matter; I am going home now.” +A woman in a calico dress, with two children, each an exact duplicate +of the other, had come quickly down the road. She took in the situation +at a glance, and was explosively hospitable. +“You poor things,” she said. “If you’ll take the first road to the left +over there, and turn in at the second pigsty, you will find breakfast +on the table and a coffee-pot on the stove. And there’s plenty of soap +and water, too. Don’t say one word. There isn’t a soul there to see +you.” +We accepted the invitation and she hurried on toward the excitement and +the railroad. I got up carefully and helped Miss West to her feet. +“At the second pigsty to the left,” I repeated, “we will find the +breakfast I promised you seven eternities ago. Forward to the pigsty!” +We said very little for the remainder of that walk. I had almost +reached the limit of endurance: with every step the broken ends of the +bone grated together. We found the farm-house without difficulty, and I +remember wondering if I could hold out to the end of the old stone walk +that led between hedges to the door. +“Allah be praised,” I said with all the voice I could muster. “Behold +the coffee-pot!” And then I put down the grip and folded up like a +jack-knife on the porch floor. +When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a +despairing voice was saying, “Oh, I don’t seem to be able to pour it +into your mouth. Please open your eyes.” +“But I don’t want it in my eyes,” I replied dreamily. “I haven’t any +idea what came over me. It was the shoes, I think: the left one is a +red-hot torture.” I was sitting by that time and looking across into +her face. +Never before or since have I fainted, but I would do it joyfully, a +dozen times a day, if I could waken again to the blissful touch of soft +fingers on my face, the hot ecstasy of coffee spilled by those fingers +down my neck. There was a thrill in every tone of her voice that +morning. Before long my loyalty to McKnight would step between me and +the girl he loved: life would develop new complexities. In those early +hours after the wreck, full of pain as they were, there was nothing of +the suspicion and distrust that came later. Shorn of our gauds and +baubles, we were primitive man and woman, together: our world for the +hour was the deserted farm-house, the slope of wheat-field that led to +the road, the woodland lot, the pasture. +We breakfasted together across the homely table. Our cheerfulness, at +first sheer reaction, became less forced as we ate great slices of +bread from the granny oven back of the house, and drank hot fluid that +smelled like coffee and tasted like nothing that I have ever swallowed. +We found cream in stone jars, sunk deep in the chill water of the +spring house. And there were eggs, great yellow-brown ones,—a basket of +them. +So, like two children awakened from a nightmare, we chattered over our +food: we hunted mutual friends, we laughed together at my feeble +witticisms, but we put the horror behind us resolutely. After all, it +was the hat with the green ribbons that brought back the strangeness of +the situation. +All along I had had the impression that Alison West was deliberately +putting out of her mind something that obtruded now and then. It +brought with it a return of the puzzled expression that I had surprised +early in the day, before the wreck. I caught it once, when, breakfast +over, she was tightening the sling that held the broken arm. I had +prolonged the morning meal as much as I could, but when the wooden +clock with the pink roses on the dial pointed to half after ten, and +the mother with the duplicate youngsters had not come back, Miss West +made the move I had dreaded. +“If we are to get into Baltimore at all we must start,” she said, +rising. “You ought to see a doctor as soon as possible.” +“Hush,” I said warningly. “Don’t mention the arm, please; it is asleep +now. You may rouse it.” +“If I only had a hat,” she reflected. “It wouldn’t need to be much of +one, but—” She gave a little cry and darted to the corner. “Look,” she +said triumphantly, “the very thing. With the green streamers tied up in +a bow, like this—do you suppose the child would mind? I can put five +dollars or so here—that would buy a dozen of them.” +It was a queer affair of straw, that hat, with a round crown and a rim +that flopped dismally. With a single movement she had turned it up at +one side and fitted it to her head. Grotesque by itself, when she wore +it it was a thing of joy. +Evidently the lack of head covering had troubled her, for she was +elated at her find. She left me, scrawling a note of thanks and pinning +it with a bill to the table-cloth, and ran up-stairs to the mirror and +the promised soap and water. +I did not see her when she came down. I had discovered a bench with a +tin basin outside the kitchen door, and was washing, in a helpless, +one-sided way. I felt rather than saw that she was standing in the +door-way, and I made a final plunge into the basin. +“How is it possible for a man with only a right hand to wash his left +ear?” I asked from the roller towel. I was distinctly uncomfortable: +men are more rigidly creatures of convention than women, whether they +admit it or not. “There is so much soap on me still that if I laugh I +will blow bubbles. Washing with rain-water and home-made soap is like +motoring on a slippery road. I only struck the high places.” +Then, having achieved a brilliant polish with the towel, I looked at +the girl. +She was leaning against the frame of the door, her face perfectly +colorless, her breath coming in slow, difficult respirations. The +erratic hat was pinned to place, but it had slid rakishly to one side. +When I realized that she was staring, not at me, but past me to the +road along which we had come, I turned and followed her gaze. There was +no one in sight: the lane stretched dust white in the sun,—no moving +figure on it, no sign of life. +CHAPTER X. +MISS WEST’S REQUEST +The surprising change in her held me speechless. All the animation of +the breakfast table was gone: there was no hint of the response with +which, before, she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood there, +white-lipped, unsmiling, staring down the dusty road. One hand was +clenched tight over some small object. Her eyes dropped to it from the +distant road, and then closed, with a quick, indrawn breath. Her color +came back slowly. Whatever had caused the change, she said nothing. She +was anxious to leave at once, almost impatient over my deliberate +masculine way of getting my things together. Afterward I recalled that +I had wanted to explore the barn for a horse and some sort of a vehicle +to take us to the trolley, and that she had refused to allow me to +look. I remembered many things later that might have helped me, and did +not. At the time, I was only completely bewildered. Save the wreck, the +responsibility for which lay between Providence and the engineer of the +second section, all the events of that strange morning were logically +connected; they came from one cause, and tended unerringly to one end. +But the cause was buried, the end not yet in view. +Not until we had left the house well behind did the girl’s face relax +its tense lines. I was watching her more closely than I had realized, +for when we had gone a little way along the road she turned to me +almost petulantly. “Please don’t stare so at me,” she said, to my +sudden confusion. “I know the hat is dreadful. Green always makes me +look ghastly.” +“Perhaps it was the green.” I was unaccountably relieved. “Do you know, +a few minutes ago, you looked almost pallid to me!” +She glanced at me quickly, but I was gazing ahead. We were out of sight +of the house, now, and with every step away from it the girl was +obviously relieved. Whatever she held in her hand, she never glanced at +it. But she was conscious of it every second. She seemed to come to a +decision about it while we were still in sight of the gate, for she +murmured something and turned back alone, going swiftly, her feet +stirring up small puffs of dust at every step. She fastened something +to the gate-post,—I could see the nervous haste with which she worked. +When she joined me again it was without explanation. But the clenched +fingers were free now, and while she looked tired and worn, the strain +had visibly relaxed. +We walked along slowly in the general direction of the suburban trolley +line. Once a man with an empty wagon offered us a lift, but after a +glance at the springless vehicle I declined. +“The ends of the bone think they are castanets as it is,” I explained. +“But the lady—” +The young lady, however, declined and we went on together. Once, when +the trolley line was in sight, she got a pebble in her low shoe, and we +sat down under a tree until she found the cause of the trouble. +“I—I don’t know what I should have done without you,” I blundered. +“Moral support and—and all that. Do you know, my first conscious +thought after the wreck was of relief that you had not been hurt?” +She was sitting beside me, where a big chestnut tree shaded the road, +and I surprised a look of misery on her face that certainly my words +had not been meant to produce. +“And my first thought,” she said slowly, “was regret that I—that I +hadn’t been obliterated, blown out like a candle. Please don’t look +like that! I am only talking.” +But her lips were trembling, and because the little shams of society +are forgotten at times like this, I leaned over and patted her hand +lightly, where it rested on the grass beside me. +“You must not say those things,” I expostulated. “Perhaps, after all, +your friends—” +“I had no friends on the train.” Her voice was hard again, her tone +final. She drew her hand from under mine, not quickly, but decisively. +A car was in sight, coming toward us. The steel finger of civilization, +of propriety, of visiting cards and formal introductions was beckoning +us in. Miss West put on her shoe. +We said little on the car. The few passengers stared at us frankly, and +discussed the wreck, emphasizing its horrors. The girl did not seem to +hear. Once she turned to me with the quick, unexpected movement that +was one of her charms. +“I do not wish my mother to know I was in the accident,” she said. +“Will you please not tell Richey about having met me?” +I gave my promise, of course. Again, when we were almost into +Baltimore, she asked to examine the gun-metal cigarette case, and sat +silent with it in her hands, while I told of the early morning’s events +on the Ontario. +“So you see,” I finished, “this grip, everything I have on, belongs to +a fellow named Sullivan. He probably left the train before the +wreck,—perhaps just after the murder.” +“And so—you think he committed the—the crime?” Her eyes were on the +cigarette case. +“Naturally,” I said. “A man doesn’t jump off a Pullman car in the +middle of the night in another man’s clothes, unless he is trying to +get away from something. Besides the dirk, there were the stains that +you saw. Why, I have the murdered man’s pocket-book in this valise at +my feet. What does that look like?” +I colored when I saw the ghost of a smile hovering around the corners +of her mouth. “That is,” I finished, “if you care to believe that I am +innocent.” +The sustaining chain of her small gold bag gave way just then. She did +not notice it. I picked it up and slid the trinket into my pocket for +safekeeping, where I promptly forgot it. Afterwards I wished I had let +it lie unnoticed on the floor of that dirty little suburban car, and +even now, when I see a woman carelessly dangling a similar feminine +trinket, I shudder involuntarily: there comes back to me the memory of +a girl’s puzzled eyes under the brim of a flopping hat, the haunting +suspicion of the sleepless nights that followed. +Just then I was determined that my companion should not stray back to +the wreck, and to that end I was determinedly facetious. +“Do you know that it is Sunday?” she asked suddenly, “and that we are +actually ragged?” +“Never mind that,” I retorted. “All Baltimore is divided on Sunday into +three parts, those who rise up and go to church, those who rise up and +read the newspapers, and those who don’t rise up. The first are +somewhere between the creed and the sermon, and we need not worry about +the others.” +“You treat me like a child,” she said almost pettishly. “Don’t try so +hard to be cheerful. It—it is almost ghastly.” +After that I subsided like a pricked balloon, and the remainder of the +ride was made in silence. The information that she would go to friends +in the city was a shock: it meant an earlier separation than I had +planned for. But my arm was beginning again. In putting her into a cab +I struck it and gritted my teeth with the pain. It was probably for +that reason that I forgot the gold bag. +She leaned forward and held out her hand. “I may not have another +chance to thank you,” she said, “and I think I would better not try, +anyhow. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” I muttered something +about the gratitude being mine: owing to the knock I was seeing two +cabs, and two girls were holding out two hands. +“Remember,” they were both saying, “you have never met me, Mr. +Blakeley. And—if you ever hear anything about me—that is not—pleasant, +I want you to think the best you can of me. Will you?” +The two girls were one now, with little flashes of white light playing +all around. “I—I’m afraid that I shall think too well for my own good,” +I said unsteadily. And the cab drove on. +CHAPTER XI. +THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN +I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next train +home. I was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab almost into +the scandalized arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen minutes I was in bed, +with that good woman piling on blankets and blistering me in +unprotected places with hot-water bottles. And in an hour I had a whiff +of chloroform and Doctor Williams had set the broken bone. +I dropped asleep then, waking in the late twilight to a realization +that I was at home again, without the papers that meant conviction for +Andy Bronson, with a charge of murder hanging over my head, and with +something more than an impression of the girl my best friend was in +love with, a girl moreover who was almost as great an enigma as the +crime itself. +“And I’m no hand at guessing riddles,” I groaned half aloud. Mrs. +Klopton came over promptly and put a cold cloth on my forehead. +“Euphemia,” she said to some one outside the door, “telephone the +doctor that he is still rambling, but that he has switched from green +ribbons to riddles.” +“There’s nothing the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton,” I rebelled. “I was +only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it’s trickling all over +me!” I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy thud on the +floor. +“Thinking out loud is delirium,” Mrs. Klopton said imperturbably. “A +fresh cloth, Euphemia.” +This time she held it on with a firm pressure that I was too weak to +resist. I expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she also laid +to my mental exaltation, and then I finally dropped into a damp sleep. +It was probably midnight when I roused again. I had been dreaming of +the wreck, and it was inexpressibly comforting to feel the stability of +my bed, and to realize the equal stability of Mrs. Klopton, who sat, +fully attired, by the night light, reading _Science and Health_. +“Does that book say anything about opening the windows on a hot night?” +I suggested, when I had got my bearings. +She put it down immediately and came over to me. If there is one time +when Mrs. Klopton is chastened—and it is the only time—it is when she +reads _Science and Health_. “I don’t like to open the shutters, Mr. +Lawrence,” she explained. “Not since the night you went away.” +But, pressed further, she refused to explain. “The doctor said you were +not to be excited,” she persisted. “Here’s your beef tea.” +“Not a drop until you tell me,” I said firmly. “Besides, you know very +well there’s nothing the matter with me. This arm of mine is only a +false belief.” I sat up gingerly. “Now—why don’t you open that window?” +Mrs. Klopton succumbed. “Because there are queer goings-on in that +house next door,” she said. “If you will take the beef tea, Mr. +Lawrence, I will tell you.” +The queer goings-on, however, proved to be slightly disappointing. It +seemed that after I left on Friday night, a light was seen flitting +fitfully through the empty house next door. Euphemia had seen it first +and called Mrs. Klopton. Together they had watched it breathlessly +until it disappeared on the lower floor. +“You should have been a writer of ghost stories,” I said, giving my +pillows a thump. “And so it was fitting flitfully!” +“That’s what it was doing,” she reiterated. “Fitting flitfully—I mean +flitting fitfully—how you do throw me out, Mr. Lawrence! And what’s +more, it came again!” +“Oh, come now, Mrs. Klopton,” I objected, “ghosts are like lightning; +they never strike twice in the same night. That is only worth half a +cup of beef tea.” +“You may ask Euphemia,” she retorted with dignity. “Not more than an +hour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through the chinks +of the shutters. Only—_this time it began at the lower floor and +climbed!_” +“You oughtn’t to tell ghost stories at night,” came McKnight’s voice +from the doorway. “Really, Mrs. Klopton, I’m amazed at you. You old +duffer! I’ve got you to thank for the worst day of my life.” +Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the “old duffer” was meant for +me, she took her empty cup and went out muttering. +“The Pirate’s crazy about me, isn’t she?” McKnight said to the closing +door. Then he swung around and held out his hand. +“By Jove,” he said, “I’ve been laying you out all day, lilies on the +door-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense of a +mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me.” +“I never even thought of it.” I was filled with remorse. “Upon my word, +Rich, I hadn’t an idea beyond getting away from that place. If you had +seen what I saw—” +McKnight stopped me. “Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I’ve been digging for +you all day in the ruins! I’ve lunched and dined on horrors. Give me +something to rinse them down, Lollie.” +He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my +shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw—a +foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in +sight to give it snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and +grimy. I hated to tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but +there was no use wading in by inches. I ducked and got it over. +“The notes are gone, Rich,” I said, as quietly as I could. In spite of +himself his face fell. +“I—of course I expected it,” he said. “But—Mrs. Klopton said over the +telephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped—well, Lord knows +we ought not to complain. You’re here, damaged, but here.” He lifted +his glass. “Happy days, old man!” +“If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I’ll drink that +in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,—the notes were gone before +the wreck!” +He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. “Lost, strayed or +stolen?” he queried with forced lightness. +“Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something +else.” +Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an egg-nog in her hand. She +glanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, +she intimated that it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home +in bed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at her back, spoke to +me in a stage whisper. +“Is she talking still? or again?” he asked, just before the door +closed. There was a second’s indecision with the knob, then, judging +discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away. +“Now, then,” McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the bed, +“spit it out. Not the wreck—I know all I want about that. But the +theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman.” +I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring the +egg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the glass in the +air. +“A woman!” I repeated, startled. “What makes you think that?” +“You don’t know the first principles of a good detective yarn,” he said +scornfully. “Of course, it was the woman in the empty house next door. +You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. Well—on with the dance: +let joy be unconfined.” +So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I did it +automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze hair, and my +suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. McKnight listened to the +end without interruption. When I had finished he drew a long breath. +“Well!” he said. “That’s something of a mess, isn’t it? If you can only +prove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn’t hold you for +the murder—which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime, anyhow. But the +notes—that’s different. They are not burned, anyhow. Your man wasn’t on +the train—therefore, he wasn’t in the wreck. If he didn’t know what he +was taking, as you seem to think, he probably reads the papers, and +unless he is a fathead, he’s awake by this time to what he’s got. He’ll +try to sell them to Bronson, probably.” +“Or to us,” I put in. +We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette and +stared at a photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the best +pony for a heavy mount in seven states. +“I didn’t go to Richmond,” he observed finally. The remark followed my +own thoughts so closely that I started. “Miss West is not home yet from +Seal Harbor.” +Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs. +Klopton came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation for +the night by putting a large gaudy comfortable into an arm-chair in the +dressing-room, with a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her feet. She was +wonderfully attired in a dressing-gown that was reminiscent, in parts, +of all the ones she had given me for a half dozen Christmases, and she +had a purple veil wrapped around her head, to hide Heaven knows what +deficiency. She examined the empty egg-nog glass, inquired what the +evening paper had said about the weather, and then stalked into the +dressing-room, and prepared, with much ostentatious creaking, to sit up +all night. +We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the +berths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was +something like this: +[Illustration] +“You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you went +back to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it was really +seven, eh?” +“Probably—yes.” +“Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that he +changed the numbers again and left the train.” +“I can’t think of anything else,” I replied wearily. +“Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was like +finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have +doubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He +certainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would stand +out against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man’s +pocket-book in your possession.” +“Then you think Sullivan did it?” I asked. +“Of course,” said McKnight confidently. “Unless you did it in your +sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. +And didn’t he have the man Harrington’s pocket-book?” +“But why did he go off without the money?” I persisted. “And where does +the bronze-haired girl come in?” +“Search me,” McKnight retorted flippantly. “Inflammation of the +imagination on your part.” +“Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. +It’s extremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, +Richey.” +“I’m getting a headache,” he said, putting out his cigarette against +the sole of his shoe. “All I’m certain of just now is that if there +hadn’t been a wreck, by this time you’d be sitting in an eight by ten +cell, and feeling like the rhyme for it.” +“But listen to this,” I contended, as he picked up his hat, “this +fellow Sullivan is a fugitive, and he’s a lot more likely to make +advances to Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, +release Bronson on bail and set a watch on him.” +“Not my watch,” McKnight protested. “It’s a family heirloom.” +“You’d better go home,” I said firmly. “Go home and go to bed. You’re +sleepy. You can have Sullivan’s red necktie to dream over if you think +it will help any.” +Mrs. Klopton’s voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a +yawn. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she called, with the suspicious lisp +which characterizes her at night, “somebody called up about noon, Mr. +Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. The +name was”—she yawned—“Sullivan.” +CHAPTER XII. +THE GOLD BAG +I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which, +like fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two people +in a bubbling and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is possible, with +but a single meeting, an attraction so great, a community of mind and +interest so strong, that between that first meeting and the next the +bond may grow into something stronger. This is especially true, I +fancy, of people with temperament, the modern substitute for +imagination. It is a nice question whether lovers begin to love when +they are together, or when they are apart. +Not that I followed any such line of reasoning at the time. I would not +even admit my folly to myself. But during the restless hours of that +first night after the accident, when my back ached with lying on it, +and any other position was torture, I found my thoughts constantly +going back to Alison West. I dropped into a doze, to dream of touching +her fingers again to comfort her, and awoke to find I had patted a +teaspoonful of medicine out of Mrs. Klopton’s indignant hand. What was +it McKnight had said about making an egregious ass of myself? +And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is no +use expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone +together through college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed +together over politics and debated creeds for years: men don’t need to +be told, and women can not understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. If it +had been any one but Rich! +Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon +breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag +with the broken chain—the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at that moment. +I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, bulging +with an opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back to bed again, +somewhat dizzy, between effort and the touch of the trinket, so lately +hers. I held it up by its broken chain and gloated over it. By careful +attention to orders, I ought to be out in a day or so. Then—I could +return it to her. I really ought to do that: it was valuable, and I +wouldn’t care to trust it to the mail. I could run down to Richmond, +and see her once—there was no disloyalty to Rich in that. +I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my +pillow—which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips +changed, to Mrs. Klopton’s dismay. And sometimes during the morning, +while I lay under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange +flowers, my cigarettes hidden beyond discovery, and _Science and +Health_ on a table by my elbow, as if by the merest accident, I slid my +hand under my pillow and touched it reverently. +McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed +almost immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual clamor +on the stairs. He had a bottle under his arm, rightly surmising that I +had been forbidden stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his +pocket, suspecting my deprivation. +“Well,” he said cheerfully. “How did you sleep after keeping me up half +the night?” +I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. “Have it now, or +wait till I get the cork out?” he rattled on. +“I don’t want anything,” I protested. “I wish you wouldn’t be so darned +cheerful, Richey.” He stopped whistling to stare at me. +“‘I am saddest when I sing!’” he quoted unctuously. “It’s pure +reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my best +friend. To-day—he lies before me, his peevish self. Yesterday I thought +the notes were burned: to-day—I look forward to a good cross-country +chase, and with luck we will draw.” His voice changed suddenly. +“Yesterday—she was in Seal Harbor. To-day—she is here.” +“Here in Washington?” I asked, as naturally as I could. +“Yes. Going to stay a week or two.” +“Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg +And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg—” +“Will you stop that racket, Rich! It’s the real thing this time, I +suppose?” +“She’s the best little chicken that we have on the farm +And another little drink won’t do us any harm—” +he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down +on the bed. +“Well,” he said judicially, “since you drag it from me, I think perhaps +it is. You—you’re such a confirmed woman-hater that I hardly knew how +you would take it.” +“Nothing of the sort,” I denied testily. “Because a man reaches the age +of thirty without making maudlin love to every—” +“I’ve taken to long country rides,” he went on reflectively, without +listening to me, “and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into +the ditch. But there’s a Providence that watches over fools and lovers, +and just now I know darned well that I’m one, and I have a sneaking +idea I’m both.” +“You are both,” I said with disgust. “If you can be rational for one +moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me over +the telephone yesterday morning.” +“Probably hadn’t yet discovered the Bronson notes—providing you hold to +your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. May have +wanted his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. Search me: I +can’t think of anything else.” The doctor came in just then. +As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor—when I am ill. He is a +young man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good humor. He +looked directly past the bottle, which is a very valuable +accomplishment, and shook hands with McKnight until I could put the +cigarettes under the bedclothes. He had interdicted tobacco. Then he +sat down beside the bed and felt around the bandages with hands as +gentle as a baby’s. +“Pretty good shape,” he said. “How did you sleep?” +“Oh, occasionally,” I replied. “I would like to sit up, doctor.” +“Nonsense. Take a rest while you have an excuse for it. I wish to +thunder I could stay in bed for a day or so. I was up all night.” +“Have a drink,” McKnight said, pushing over the bottle. +“Twins!” The doctor grinned. +“Have two drinks.” +But the medical man refused. +“I wouldn’t even wear a champagne-colored necktie during business +hours,” he explained. “By the way, I had another case from your +accident, Mr. Blakeley, late yesterday afternoon. Under the tongue, +please.” He stuck a thermometer in my mouth. +I had a sudden terrible vision of the amateur detective coming to +light, note-book, cheerful impertinence and incriminating data. “A +small man?” I demanded, “gray hair—” +“Keep your mouth closed,” the doctor said peremptorily. “No. A woman, +with a fractured skull. Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to his eyes and +sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular pupils—all +the trimmings. Worked for two hours.” +“Did she recover?” McKnight put in. He was examining the doctor with a +new awe. +“She lifted her right arm before I left,” the doctor finished cheerily, +“so the operation was a success, even if she should die.” +“Good Heavens,” McKnight broke in, “and I thought you were just an +ordinary mortal, like the rest of us! Let me touch you for luck. Was +she pretty?” +“Yes, and young. Had a wealth of bronze-colored hair. Upon my soul, I +hated to cut it.” +McKnight and I exchanged glances. +“Do you know her name, doctor?” I asked. +“No. The nurses said her clothes came from a Pittsburg tailor.” +“She is not conscious, I suppose?” +“No; she may be, to-morrow—or in a week.” +He looked at the thermometer, murmured something about liquid diet, +avoiding my eye—Mrs. Klopton was broiling a chop at the time—and took +his departure, humming cheerfully as he went down-stairs. McKnight +looked after him wistfully. +“Jove, I wish I had his constitution,” he exclaimed. “Neither nerves +nor heart! What a chauffeur he would make!” +But I was serious. +“I have an idea,” I said grimly, “that this small matter of the murder +is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in the deuce of +a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, somebody ought to be +around to take her deposition. She knows a lot, if she didn’t do it +herself. I wish you would go down to the telephone and get the +hospital. Find out her name, and if she is conscious.” +McKnight went under protest. “I haven’t much time,” he said, looking at +his watch. “I’m to meet Mrs. West and Alison at one. I want you to know +them, Lollie. You would like the mother.” +“Why not the daughter?” I inquired. I touched the little gold bag under +the pillow. +“Well,” he said judicially, “you’ve always declared against the +immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women—” +“I never said anything of the sort,” I retorted furiously. +“‘There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!’” he +quoted me. “‘More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for the eternal +matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a fox, some decent +hounds and a hunter, and I’ll show you the real joys of the chase!’” +“For Heaven’s sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head ache,” I +said savagely. +I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look at +it. It was an imbecile thing to do—call it impulse, sentimentality, +what you wish. I brought it out, one eye on the door, for Mrs. Klopton +has a ready eye and a noiseless shoe. But the house was quiet. +Down-stairs McKnight was flirting with the telephone central and there +was an odor of boneset tea in the air. I think Mrs. Klopton was +fascinated out of her theories by the “boneset” in connection with the +fractured arm. +Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been +unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the +snowfield of the counterpane—some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a +tiny booklet with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance—and a +necklace. I drew myself up slowly and stared at the necklace. +It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, a +heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin neck +chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three places the +links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose and partly detached. +But it was the supporting chain that held my eye and fascinated with +its sinister suggestion. Three inches of it had been snapped off, and +as well as I knew anything on earth, I knew that the bit of chain that +the amateur detective had found, blood-stain and all, belonged just +there. +And there was no one I could talk to about it, no one to tell me how +hideously absurd it was, no one to give me a slap and tell me there are +tons of fine gold chains made every year, or to point out the long arm +of coincidence! +With my one useful hand I fumbled the things back into the bag and +thrust it deep out of sight among the pillows. Then I lay back in a +cold perspiration. What connection had Alison West with this crime? Why +had she stared so at the gun-metal cigarette case that morning on the +train? What had alarmed her so at the farm-house? What had she taken +back to the gate? Why did she wish she had not escaped from the wreck? +And last, in Heaven’s name, how did a part of her necklace become torn +off and covered with blood? +Down-stairs McKnight was still at the telephone, and amusing himself +with Mrs. Klopton in the interval of waiting. +“Why did he come home in a gray suit, when he went away in a blue?” he +repeated. “Well, wrecks are queer things, Mrs. Klopton. The suit may +have turned gray with fright. Or perhaps wrecks do as queer stunts as +lightning. Friend of mine once was struck by lightning; he and the +caddy had taken refuge under a tree. After the flash, when they +recovered consciousness, there was my friend in the caddy’s clothes, +and the caddy in his. And as my friend was a large man and the caddy a +very small boy—” +McKnight’s story was interrupted by the indignant slam of the +dining-room door. He was obliged to wait some time, and even his +eternal cheerfulness was ebbing when he finally got the hospital. +“Is Doctor Van Kirk there?” he asked. “Not there? Well, can you tell me +how the patient is whom Doctor Williams, from Washington, operated on +last night? Well, I’m glad of that. Is she conscious? Do you happen to +know her name? Yes, I’ll hold the line.” There was a long pause, then +McKnight’s voice: +“Hello—yes. Thank you very much. Good-by.” +He came up-stairs, two steps at a time. +“Look here,” he said, bursting into the room, “there may be something +in your theory, after all. The woman’s name—it may be a coincidence, +but it’s curious—her name is Sullivan.” +“What did I tell you?” I said, sitting up suddenly in bed. “She’s +probably a sister of that scoundrel in lower seven, and she was afraid +of what he might do.” +“Well, I’ll go there some day soon. She’s not conscious yet. In the +meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a +detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We’ll have the +case continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will sooner +or later turn up.” +“Confound this arm,” I said, paying for my energy with some +excruciating throbs. “There’s so much to be looked after, and here I +am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It’s a beastly shame.” +“Don’t forget that I am here,” said McKnight pompously. “And another +thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two less +desirable places where you might be. One is jail, and the other is—” He +strummed on an imaginary harp, with devotional eyes. +But McKnight’s light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay and +frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the little gold +bag, it seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding me unresponsive, +left to keep his luncheon engagement with Alison West. As he clattered +down the stairs, I turned my back to the morning sunshine and abandoned +myself to misery. By what strain on her frayed nerves was Alison West +keeping up, I wondered? Under the circumstances, would I dare to return +the bag? Knowing that I had it, would she hate me for my knowledge? Or +had I exaggerated the importance of the necklace, and in that case had +she forgotten me already? +But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his +voice preceding him, and I groaned with irritation. +“Wake up!” he called. “Somebody’s sent you a lot of flowers. Please +hold the box, Mrs. Klopton; I’m going out to be run down by an +automobile.” +I roused to feeble interest. My brother’s wife is punctilious about +such things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, and +all the sick people flowers. +McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me. +“Wonder who they’re from?” he said, fumbling in the box for a card. +“There’s no name—yes, here’s one.” +He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness. +“‘Best wishes for an early recovery. +A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE.’ +“Well, what do you know about that!” he exclaimed. “That’s something +you didn’t tell me, Lollie.” +“It was hardly worth mentioning,” I said mendaciously, with my heart +beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all. +McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his button-hole. I’m afraid I +was not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and anyhow, +they were meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an irritating final +grin at the box. +“Good-by, sir woman-hater,” he jeered at me from the door. +So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, and +I lay back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was his game, +anyhow, and that I wasn’t even drawing cards. To remember that, and to +forget the broken necklace under my head! +CHAPTER XIII. +FADED ROSES +I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composing +and destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at the +doctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual. +Now and then I caught him eying me as if he had something to say, but +whatever it was he kept it to himself. Once during the week he went to +Baltimore and saw the woman in the hospital there. From the description +I had little difficulty in recognizing the young woman who had been +with the murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An +elderly aunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like +a buzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed +figure, into a damp handkerchief. +On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a case +that was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of double +solitaire with me. +“Who won the ball game?” I asked. +“We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, Bronson’s +out to-day.” +“I’m glad I’m not on his bond,” I said pessimistically. “He’ll clear +out.” +“Not he.” McKnight pounced on my ace. “He’s no fool. Don’t you suppose +he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers were full of it. +And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from the +wreck. What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf +man on a dark night would know those notes are missing.” +“Don’t play so fast,” I remonstrated. “I have only one arm to your two. +Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?” +“I asked for him, but he had some work on hand.” +“The murder’s evidently a dead issue,” I reflected. “No, I’m not +joking. The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I’m firmly convinced +those notes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson very soon. +Johnson’s a blackguard, but he’s a good detective. He could make his +fortune as a game dog. What’s he doing?” +McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he held +the curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced. +“To tell you the truth, Lollie,” he said, “for the last two days he has +been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence Blakeley. +He’s across the street now.” +It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant. +“Why, it’s ridiculous,” I asserted. “What would they trail me for? Go +over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I’ll pot at him with my +revolver.” +“You can tell him that yourself.” McKnight paused and bent forward. +“Hello, here’s a visitor; little man with string halt.” +“I won’t see him,” I said firmly. “I’ve been bothered enough with +reporters.” +We listened together to Mrs. Klopton’s expostulating tones in the lower +hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. She +had a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and +on it was the name, “Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business.” +“Oh, well, show him up,” I said resignedly. “You’d better put those +cards away, Richey. I fancy it’s the rector of the church around the +corner.” +But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man, +adjusting his glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown my +dismay. +It was the amateur detective of the Ontario! +I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the +wrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope that +he had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, he held in +his hand the very note-book which contained them. +His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. I +introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and who +placed him at once, mentally. +“I only learned yesterday that you had been—er—saved,” he said rapidly. +“Terrible accident—unspeakable. Dream about it all night and think +about it all day. Broken arm?” +“No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people,” +McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be +gained by antagonizing the little man. +“Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn’t as funny as it sounds.” +“Humerus—humorous! Pretty good,” he cackled. “I must say you keep up +your spirits pretty well, considering everything.” +“You seem to have escaped injury,” I parried. He was fumbling for +something in his pockets. +“Yes, I escaped,” he replied abstractedly. “Remarkable thing, too. I +haven’t a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on—you’ll +never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was +under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don’t you? +Where did I put that package?” +He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some +theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of +striped ticking. +“You recognize it?” he said. “The stains, you see, and the hole made by +the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they thought I +was stealing it, and made me give it up.” +Richey touched the pieces gingerly. “By George,” he said, “and you +carry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it for +your handkerchief?” +But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward, +leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes. +“Have you seen the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?” he inquired. +I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head. +“Then I have a disagreeable task,” he said with evident relish. “Of +course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington’s death +closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I +meant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least none +that I knew of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a number of +points in your favor.” +“Thank you,” I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him. +“I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered from +the shock. Also—I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariably +wore dark clothing.” +McKnight came forward threateningly. “Who are you, anyhow?” he +demanded. “And how is this any business of yours?” Mr. Hotchkiss was +entirely unruffled. +“I have a minor position here,” he said, reaching for a visiting card. +“I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir.” +McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against the +said patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was opening +the paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy. +“Here it is. Listen.” He read rapidly aloud: +“The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are +looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has +transpired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that +city, was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the +night preceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, John +Flanders, the conductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the chief +of police: +“‘Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, +Ontario, at six-thirty this morning. +JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor.’ +“It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be +found, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime. +“Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington +was purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matter +to the bottom.” +“So you see,” Hotchkiss concluded, “there’s trouble brewing. You and I +are the only survivors of that unfortunate car.” +I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison +West, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babbling +incoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face. +“Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven,” I suggested. +“I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, of +course, unless we could establish some connection between him and the +murdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned this +much,” Hotchkiss concluded: “Lower seven was reserved from Cresson.” +Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train! +McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. “Mr. Hotchkiss,” +he said, “I—I’m sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when you came +in, that, like the Irishman and the government, you were ‘forninst’ us. +If you will put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere, I should +be glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator.” (His name for his +bachelor apartment.) “Compared with Johnson, you are the great original +protoplasm.” +The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was +clear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them get +into McKnight’s car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball +skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, looked after them +with his crooked smile. As he turned up his collar he saw me, and +lifted his hat. +I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant of +lower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West +and her companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield. +I went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton. +“You may throw out those roses,” I said without looking at her. “They +are quite dead.” +“They have been quite dead for three days,” she retorted spitefully. +“Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them.” +CHAPTER XIV. +THE TRAP-DOOR +By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction had goaded me to +frenzy. The very sight of Johnson across the street or lurking, always +within sight of the house, kept me constantly exasperated. It was on +that day that things began to come to a focus, a burning-glass of +events that seemed to center on me. +I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of mind. There had been +a polo game the day before and I had lent a pony, which is always a bad +thing to do. And she had wrenched her shoulder, besides helping to lose +the game. There was no one in town: the temperature was ninety and +climbing, and my left hand persistently cramped under its bandage. +Mrs. Klopton herself saw me served, my bread buttered and cut in +tidbits, my meat ready for my fork. She hovered around me maternally, +obviously trying to cheer me. +“The paper says still warmer,” she ventured. “The thermometer is +ninety-two now.” +“And this coffee is two hundred and fifty,” I said, putting down my +cup. “Where is Euphemia? I haven’t seen her around, or heard a dish +smash all day.” +“Euphemia is in bed,” Mrs. Klopton said gravely. “Is your meat cut +small enough, Mr. Lawrence?” Mrs. Klopton can throw more mystery into +an ordinary sentence than any one I know. She can say, “Are your sheets +damp, sir?” And I can tell from her tone that the house across the +street has been robbed, or that my left hand neighbor has appendicitis. +So now I looked up and asked the question she was waiting for. +“What’s the matter with Euphemia?” I inquired idly. +“Frightened into her bed,” Mrs. Klopton said in a stage whisper. “She’s +had three hot water bottles and she hasn’t done a thing all day but +moan.” +“She oughtn’t to take hot water bottles,” I said in my severest tone. +“One would make me moan. You need not wait, I’ll ring if I need +anything.” +Mrs. Klopton sailed to the door, where she stopped and wheeled +indignantly. “I only hope you won’t laugh on the wrong side of your +face some morning, Mr. Lawrence,” she declared, with Christian +fortitude. “But I warn you, I am going to have the police watch that +house next door.” +I was half inclined to tell her that both it and we were under police +surveillance at that moment. But I like Mrs. Klopton, in spite of the +fact that I make her life a torment for her, so I refrained. +“Last night, when the paper said it was going to storm, I sent Euphemia +to the roof to bring the rugs in. Eliza had slipped out, although it +was her evening in. Euphemia went up to the roof—it was eleven +o’clock—and soon I heard her running down-stairs crying. When she got +to my room she just folded up on the floor. She said there was a black +figure sitting on the parapet of the house next door—the empty +house—and that when she appeared it rose and waved long black arms at +her and spit like a cat.” +I had finished my dinner and was lighting a cigarette. “If there was +any one up there, which I doubt, they probably sneezed,” I suggested. +“But if you feel uneasy, I’ll take a look around the roof to-night +before I turn in. As far as Euphemia goes, I wouldn’t be uneasy about +her—doesn’t she always have an attack of some sort when Eliza rings in +an extra evening on her?” +So I made a superficial examination of the window locks that night, +visiting parts of the house that I had not seen since I bought it. Then +I went to the roof. Evidently it had not been intended for any purpose +save to cover the house, for unlike the houses around, there was no +staircase. A ladder and a trap-door led to it, and it required some +nice balancing on my part to get up with my useless arm. I made it, +however, and found this unexplored part of my domain rather attractive. +It was cooler than down-stairs, and I sat on the brick parapet and +smoked my final cigarette. The roof of the empty house adjoined mine +along the back wing, but investigation showed that the trap-door across +the low dividing wall was bolted underneath. +There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere, and so I assured Mrs. +Klopton. Needless to say, I did not tell her that I had left the +trap-door open, to see if it would improve the temperature of the +house. I went to bed at midnight, merely because there was nothing else +to do. I turned on the night lamp at the head of my bed, and picked up +a volume of Shaw at random (it was _Arms and the Man_, and I remember +thinking grimly that I was a good bit of a chocolate cream soldier +myself), and prepared to go to sleep. Shaw always puts me to sleep. I +have no apologies to make for what occurred that night, and not even an +explanation that I am sure of. I did a foolish thing under impulse, and +I have not been sorry. +It was something after two when the door-bell rang. It rang quickly, +twice. I got up drowsily, for the maids and Mrs. Klopton always lock +themselves beyond reach of the bell at night, and put on a +dressing-gown. The bell rang again on my way down-stairs. I lit the +hall light and opened the door. I was wide-awake now, and I saw that it +was Johnson. His bald head shone in the light—his crooked mouth was +twisted in a smile. +“Good Heavens, man,” I said irritably. “Don’t you ever go home and go +to bed?” +He closed the vestibule door behind him and cavalierly turned out the +light. Our dialogue was sharp, staccato. +“Have you a key to the empty house next door?” he demanded. “Somebody’s +in there, and the latch is caught.” +“The houses are alike. The key to this door may fit. Did you see them +go in?” +“No. There’s a light moving up from room to room. I saw something like +it last night, and I have been watching. The patrolman reported queer +doings there a week or so ago.” +“A light!” I exclaimed. “Do you mean that you—” +“Very likely,” he said grimly. “Have you a revolver?” +“All kinds in the gun rack,” I replied, and going into the den, I came +back with a Smith and Wesson. “I’m not much use,” I explained, “with +this arm, but I’ll do what I can. There may be somebody there. The +servants here have been uneasy.” +Johnson planned the campaign. He suggested on account of my familiarity +with the roof, that I go there and cut off escape in that direction. “I +have Robison out there now—the patrolman on the beat,” he said. “He’ll +watch below and you above, while I search the house. Be as quiet as +possible.” +I was rather amused. I put on some clothes and felt my way carefully up +the stairs, the revolver swinging free in my pocket, my hand on the +rail. At the foot of the ladder I stopped and looked up. Above me there +was a gray rectangle of sky dotted with stars. It occurred to me that +with my one serviceable hand holding the ladder, I was hardly in a +position to defend myself, that I was about to hoist a body that I am +rather careful of into a danger I couldn’t see and wasn’t particularly +keen about anyhow. I don’t mind saying that the seconds it took me to +scramble up the ladder were among the most unpleasant that I recall. +I got to the top, however, without incident. I could see fairly well +after the darkness of the house beneath, but there was nothing +suspicious in sight. The roofs, separated by two feet of brick wall, +stretched around me, unbroken save by an occasional chimney. I went +very softly over to the other trap, the one belonging to the suspected +house. It was closed, but I imagined I could hear Johnson’s footsteps +ascending heavily. Then even that was gone. A near-by clock struck +three as I stood waiting. I examined my revolver then, for the first +time, and found it was empty! +I had been rather skeptical until now. I had had the usual tolerant +attitude of the man who is summoned from his bed to search for +burglars, combined with the artificial courage of firearms. With the +discovery of my empty gun, I felt like a man on the top of a volcano in +lively eruption. Suddenly I found myself staring incredulously at the +trap-door at my feet. I had examined it early in the evening and found +it bolted. Did I imagine it, or had it raised about an inch? Wasn’t it +moving slowly as I looked? No, I am not a hero: I was startled almost +into a panic. I had one arm, and whoever was raising that trap-door had +two. My knees had a queer inclination to bend the wrong way. +Johnson’s footsteps were distinct enough, but he was evidently far +below. The trap, raised perhaps two inches now, remained stationary. +There was no sound from beneath it: once I thought I heard two or three +gasping respirations: I am not sure they were not my own. I wanted +desperately to stand on one leg at a time and hold the other up out of +focus of a possible revolver. +I did not see the hand appear. There was nothing there, and then it was +there, clutching the frame of the trap. I did the only thing I could +think of; I put my foot on it! +There was not a sound from beneath. The next moment I was kneeling and +had clutched the wrist just above the hand. After a second’s struggle, +the arm was still. With something real to face, I was myself again. +“Don’t move, or I’ll stand on the trap and break your arm,” I panted. +What else could I threaten? I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t even fight. +“Johnson!” I called. +And then I realized the thing that stayed with me for a month, the +thing I can not think of even now without a shudder. The hand lay ice +cold, strangely quiescent. Under my fingers, an artery was beating +feebly. The wrist was as slender as—I held the hand to the light. Then +I let it drop. +“Good Lord,” I muttered, and remained on my knees, staring at the spot +where the hand had been. It was gone now: there was a faint rustle in +the darkness below, and then silence. +I held up my own hand in the starlight and stared at a long scratch in +the palm. “A woman!” I said to myself stupidly. “By all that’s +ridiculous, a woman!” +Johnson was striking matches below and swearing softly to himself. “How +the devil do you get to the roof?” he called. “I think I’ve broken my +nose.” +He found the ladder after a short search and stood at the bottom, +looking up at me. “Well, I suppose you haven’t seen him?” he inquired. +“There are enough darned cubbyholes in this house to hide a patrol +wagon load of thieves.” He lighted a fresh match. “Hello, here’s +another door!” +By the sound of his diminishing footsteps I supposed it was a rear +staircase. He came up again in ten minutes or so, this time with the +policeman. +“He’s gone, all right,” he said ruefully. “If you’d been attending to +your business, Robison, you’d have watched the back door.” +“I’m not twins.” Robison was surly. +“Well,” I broke in, as cheerfully as I could, “if you are through with +this jolly little affair, and can get down my ladder without having my +housekeeper ring the burglar alarm, I have some good Monongahela +whisky—eh?” +They came without a second invitation across the roof, and with them +safely away from the house I breathed more freely. Down in the den I +fulfilled my promise, which Johnson drank to the toast, “Coming through +the rye.” He examined my gun rack with the eye of a connoisseur, and +even when he was about to go he cast a loving eye back at the weapons. +“Ever been in the army?” he inquired. +“No,” I said with a bitterness that he noticed but failed to +comprehend. “I’m a chocolate cream soldier—you don’t read Shaw, I +suppose, Johnson?” +“Never heard of him,” the detective said indifferently. “Well, good +night, Mr. Blakeley. Much obliged.” At the door he hesitated and +coughed. +“I suppose you understand, Mr. Blakeley,” he said awkwardly, “that +this—er—surveillance is all in the day’s work. I don’t like it, but +it’s duty. Every man to his duty, sir.” +“Sometime when you are in an open mood, Johnson,” I returned, “you can +explain why I am being watched at all.” +CHAPTER XV. +THE CINEMATOGRAPH +On Monday I went out for the first time. I did not go to the office. I +wanted to walk. I thought fresh air and exercise would drive away the +blue devils that had me by the throat. McKnight insisted on a long day +in his car, but I refused. +“I don’t know why not,” he said sulkily. “I can’t walk. I haven’t +walked two consecutive blocks in three years. Automobiles have made +legs mere ornaments—and some not even that. We could have Johnson out +there chasing us over the country at five dollars an hour!” +“He can chase us just as well at five miles an hour,” I said. “But what +gets me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all. How do the +police know _I_ was accused of that thing?” +“The young lady who sent the flowers—she isn’t likely to talk, is she?” +“No. That is, I didn’t say it was a lady.” I groaned as I tried to get +my splinted arm into a coat. “Anyhow, she didn’t tell,” I finished with +conviction, and McKnight laughed. +It had rained in the early morning, and Mrs. Klopton predicted more +showers. In fact, so firm was her belief and so determined her eye that +I took the umbrella she proffered me. +“Never mind,” I said. “We can leave it next door; I have a story to +tell you, Richey, and it requires proper setting.” +McKnight was puzzled, but he followed me obediently round to the +kitchen entrance of the empty house. It was unlocked, as I had +expected. While we climbed to the upper floor I retailed the events of +the previous night. +“It’s the finest thing I ever heard of,” McKnight said, staring up at +the ladder and the trap. “What a vaudeville skit it would make! Only +you ought not to have put your foot on her hand. They don’t do it in +the best circles.” +I wheeled on him impatiently. +“You don’t understand the situation at all, Richey!” I exclaimed. “What +would you say if I tell you it was the hand of a lady? It was covered +with rings.” +“A lady!” he repeated. “Why, I’d say it was a darned compromising +situation, and that the less you say of it the better. Look here, +Lawrence, I think you dreamed it. You’ve been in the house too much. I +take it all back: you do need exercise.” +“She escaped through this door, I suppose,” I said as patiently as I +could. “Evidently down the back staircase. We might as well go down +that way.” +“According to the best precedents in these affairs, we should find a +glove about here,” he said as we started down. But he was more +impressed than he cared to own. He examined the dusty steps carefully, +and once, when a bit of loose plaster fell just behind him, he started +like a nervous woman. +“What I don’t understand is why you let her go,” he said, stopping +once, puzzled. “You’re not usually quixotic.” +“When we get out into the country, Richey,” I replied gravely, “I am +going to tell you another story, and if you don’t tell me I’m a fool +and a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of mine.” +We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness of +the shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed +buildings: even on that warm September morning it was damp and chilly. +As we stepped into the sunshine McKnight gave a shiver. +“Now that we are out,” he said, “I don’t mind telling you that I have +been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and, the face at +the window?” +“When you speak of it—yes.” +“Well, I was curious about that thing,” he went on, as we started up +the street, “and I went back. The street door was unlocked, and I +examined every room. I was Mrs. Klopton’s ghost that carried a light, +and clumb.” +“Did you find anything?” +“Only a clean place rubbed on the window opposite your dressing-room. +Splendid view of an untidy interior. If that house is ever occupied, +you’d better put stained glass in that window of yours.” +As we turned the corner I glanced back. Half a block behind us Johnson +was moving our way slowly. When he saw me he stopped and proceeded with +great deliberation to light a cigar. By hurrying, however, he caught +the car that we took, and stood unobtrusively on the rear platform. He +looked fagged, and absent-mindedly paid our fares, to McKnight’s +delight. +“We will give him a run for his money,” he declared, as the car moved +countryward. “Conductor, let us off at the muddiest lane you can find.” +At one o’clock, after a six-mile ramble, we entered a small country +hotel. We had seen nothing of Johnson for a half hour. At that time he +was a quarter of a mile behind us, and losing rapidly. Before we had +finished our luncheon he staggered into the inn. One of his boots was +under his arm, and his whole appearance was deplorable. He was coated +with mud, streaked with perspiration, and he limped as he walked. He +chose a table not far from us and ordered Scotch. Beyond touching his +hat he paid no attention to us. +“I’m just getting my second wind,” McKnight declared. “How do you feel, +Mr. Johnson? Six or eight miles more and we’ll all enjoy our dinners.” +Johnson put down the glass he had raised to his lips without replying. +The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my +week’s inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was a +well spring of vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange concoction, +made of nearly everything in the bar, and sent it over to the +detective, but Johnson refused it. +“I hate that kind of person,” McKnight said pettishly. “Kind of a +fellow that thinks you’re going to poison his dog if you offer him a +bone.” +When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and drooping +tail to the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told McKnight the +story of the three hours just after the wreck; I had not named the +girl, of course; she had my promise of secrecy. But I told him +everything else. It was a relief to have a fresh mind on it: I had +puzzled so much over the incident at the farm-house, and the necklace +in the gold bag, that I had lost perspective. +He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to the +broken chain. Then he had whistled softly. +“But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year,” he said. “Why +in the world do you think that the—er—smeary piece came from that +necklace?” +I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off his +feet with a piece of stick. +“I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag,” I reminded +him. “When I couldn’t sleep this morning I thought I would settle it, +one way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had been doing. +And—there’s no doubt about it, Rich. It’s the same chain.” +We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town. +“Well,” he said finally, “you know the girl, of course, and I don’t. +But if you like her—and I think myself you’re rather hard hit, old +man—I wouldn’t give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. It’s +just one of the little coincidences that hang people now and then. And +as for last night—if she’s the kind of a girl you say she is, and you +think she had anything to do with that, you—you’re addled, that’s all. +You can depend on it, the lady of the empty house last week is the lady +of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in Altoona at that +time.” +Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It was +never far back in my mind. +“About the—young lady of the train, Rich,” I said, with what I suppose +was elaborate carelessness, “I don’t want you to get a wrong +impression. I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do, +I—I believe she is already ‘bespoke,’ or next thing to it.” +He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latch-key he stood +looking up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile. +“Love is like the measles,” he orated. “The older you get it, the worse +the attack.” +Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat took +his place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the office, the +raincoat still on hand. I had a short conference with Miller, the +district attorney, at eleven. Bronson was under surveillance, he said, +and any attempt to sell the notes to him would probably result in their +recovery. In the meantime, as I knew, the Commonwealth had continued +the case, in hope of such contingency. +At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, the +injured pony. By one o’clock my first day’s duties were performed, and +a long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. McKnight, always glad +to escape from the grind, suggested a vaudeville, and in sheer _ennui_ +I consented. I could neither ride, drive nor golf, and my own company +bored me to distraction. +“Coolest place in town these days,” he declared. “Electric fans, breezy +songs, airy costumes. And there’s Johnson just behind—the coldest +proposition in Washington.” +He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with one. +Then we went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the theater in the +afternoon is to me about on a par with ice-cream for breakfast. Up on +the stage a very stout woman in short pink skirts, with a smile that +McKnight declared looked like a slash in a roll of butter, was singing +nasally, with a laborious kick at the end of each verse. Johnson, two +rows ahead, went to sleep. McKnight prodded me with his elbow. +“Look at the first box to the right,” he said, in a stage whisper. “I +want you to come over at the end of this act.” +It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at +Baltimore. Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to stare +at me, but every atom of me cried out at the sight of her. She was +leaning, bent forward, lips slightly parted, gazing raptly at the +Japanese conjurer who had replaced what McKnight disrespectfully called +the Columns of Hercules. Compared with the draggled lady of the +farm-house, she was radiant. +For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her. +McKnight’s touch on my arm brought me back to reality. +“Come over and meet them,” he said. “That’s the cousin Miss West is +visiting, Mrs. Dallas.” +But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully +conscious that I was being pointed out and stared at from the box. The +abominable Japanese gave way to yet more atrocious performing dogs. +“How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?” The +dog stopped sagely at ‘none,’ and then pulled out a card that said +eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience. “The fools,” I muttered. +After a little I glanced over. Mrs. Dallas was talking to McKnight, but +She was looking straight at me. She was flushed, but more calm than I, +and she did not bow. I fumbled for my hat, but the next moment I saw +that they were going, and I sat still. When McKnight came back he was +triumphant. +“I’ve made an engagement for you,” he said. “Mrs. Dallas asked me to +bring you to dinner to-night, and I said I knew you would fall all over +yourself to go. You are requested to bring along the broken arm, and +any other souvenirs of the wreck that you may possess.” +“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I declared, struggling against my +inclination. “I can’t even tie my necktie, and I have to have my food +cut for me.” +“Oh, that’s all right,” he said easily. “I’ll send Stogie over to fix +you up, and Mrs. Dal knows all about the arm. I told her.” +(Stogie is his Japanese factotum, so called because he is lean, a +yellowish brown in color, and because he claims to have been shipped +into this country in a box.) +The Cinematograph was finishing the program. The house was dark and the +music had stopped, as it does in the circus just before somebody risks +his neck at so much a neck in the Dip of Death, or the hundred-foot +dive. Then, with a sort of shock, I saw on the white curtain the +announcement: +THE NEXT PICTURE +IS THE DOOMED WASHINGTON FLIER, TAKEN A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE SCENE +OF THE WRECK ON THE FATAL MORNING OF SEPTEMBER TENTH. TWO MILES FARTHER +ON IT MET WITH ALMOST COMPLETE ANNIHILATION. +I confess to a return of some of the sickening sensations of the wreck; +people around me were leaning forward with tense faces. Then the +letters were gone, and I saw a long level stretch of track, even the +broken stone between the ties standing out distinctly. Far off under a +cloud of smoke a small object was rushing toward us and growing larger +as it came. +Now it was on us, a mammoth in size, with huge drivers and a colossal +tender. The engine leaped aside, as if just in time to save us from +destruction, with a glimpse of a stooping fireman and a grimy engineer. +The long train of sleepers followed. From a forward vestibule a porter +in a white coat waved his hand. The rest of the cars seemed still +wrapped in slumber. With mixed sensations I saw my own car, Ontario, +fly past, and then I rose to my feet and gripped McKnight’s shoulder. +On the lowest step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man. +His black derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing away, +and his coat was flying open in the wind. He was swung well out from +the car, his free hand gripping a small valise, every muscle tense for +a jump. +“Good God, that’s my man!” I said hoarsely, as the audience broke into +applause. McKnight half rose: in his seat ahead Johnson stifled a yawn +and turned to eye me. +I dropped into my chair limply, and tried to control my excitement. +“The man on the last platform of the train,” I said. “He was just about +to leap; I’ll swear that was my bag.” +“Could you see his face?” McKnight asked in an undertone. “Would you +know him again?” +“No. His hat was pulled down and his head was bent. I’m going back to +find out where that picture was taken. They say two miles, but it may +have been forty.” +The audience, busy with its wraps, had not noticed. Mrs. Dallas and +Alison West had gone. In front of us Johnson had dropped his hat and +was stooping for it. +“This way,” I motioned to McKnight, and we wheeled into the narrow +passage beside us, back of the boxes. At the end there was a door +leading into the wings, and as we went boldly through I turned the key. +The final set was being struck, and no one paid any attention to us. +Luckily they were similarly indifferent to a banging at the door I had +locked, a banging which, I judged, signified Johnson. +“I guess we’ve broken up his interference,” McKnight chuckled. +Stage hands were hurrying in every direction; pieces of the side wall +of the last drawing-room menaced us; a switchboard behind us was +singing like a tea-kettle. Everywhere we stepped we were in somebody’s +way. At last we were across, confronting a man in his shirt sleeves, +who by dots and dashes of profanity seemed to be directing the chaos. +“Well?” he said, wheeling on us. “What can I do for you?” +“I would like to ask,” I replied, “if you have any idea just where the +last cinematograph picture was taken.” +“Broken board—picnickers—lake?” +“No. The Washington Flier.” +He glanced at my bandaged arm. +“The announcement says two miles,” McKnight put in, “but we should like +to know whether it is railroad miles, automobile miles, or policeman +miles.” +“I am sorry I can’t tell you,” he replied, more civilly. “We get those +pictures by contract. We don’t take them ourselves.” +“Where are the company’s offices?” +“New York.” He stepped forward and grasped a super by the shoulder. +“What in blazes are you doing with that gold chair in a kitchen set? +Take that piece of pink plush there and throw it over a soap box, if +you haven’t got a kitchen chair.” +I had not realized the extent of the shock, but now I dropped into a +chair and wiped my forehead. The unexpected glimpse of Alison West, +followed almost immediately by the revelation of the picture, had left +me limp and unnerved. McKnight was looking at his watch. +“He says the moving picture people have an office down-town. We can +make it if we go now.” +So he called a cab, and we started at a gallop. There was no sign of +the detective. “Upon my word,” Richey said, “I feel lonely without +him.” +The people at the down-town office of the cinematograph company were +very obliging. The picture had been taken, they said, at M——, just two +miles beyond the scene of the wreck. It was not much, but it was +something to work on. I decided not to go home, but to send McKnight’s +Jap for my clothes, and to dress at the Incubator. I was determined, if +possible, to make my next day’s investigations without Johnson. In the +meantime, even if it was for the last time, I would see Her that night. +I gave Stogie a note for Mrs. Klopton, and with my dinner clothes there +came back the gold bag, wrapped in tissue paper. +CHAPTER XVI. +THE SHADOW OF A GIRL +Certain things about the dinner at the Dallas house will always be +obscure to me. Dallas was something in the Fish Commission, and I +remember his reeling off fish eggs in billions while we ate our caviar. +He had some particular stunt he had been urging the government to for +years—something about forbidding the establishment of mills and +factories on river-banks—it seems they kill the fish, either the smoke, +or the noise, or something they pour into the water. +Mrs. Dallas was there, I think. Of course, I suppose she must have +been; and there was a woman in yellow: I took her in to dinner, and I +remember she loosened my clams for me so I could get them. But the only +real person at the table was a girl across in white, a sublimated young +woman who was as brilliant as I was stupid, who never by any chance +looked directly at me, and who appeared and disappeared across the +candles and orchids in a sort of halo of radiance. +When the dinner had progressed from salmon to roast, and the +conversation had done the same thing—from fish to scandal—the yellow +gown turned to me. “We have been awfully good, haven’t we, Mr. +Blakeley?” she asked. “Although I am crazy to hear, I have not said +‘wreck’ once. I’m sure you must feel like the survivor of Waterloo, or +something of the sort.” +“If you want me to tell you about the wreck,” I said, glancing across +the table, “I’m sorry to be disappointing, but I don’t remember +anything.” +“You are fortunate to be able to forget it.” It was the first word Miss +West had spoken directly to me, and it went to my head. +“There are some things I have not forgotten,” I said, over the candles. +“I recall coming to myself some time after, and that a girl, a +beautiful girl—” +“Ah!” said the lady in yellow, leaning forward breathlessly. Miss West +was staring at me coldly, but, once started, I had to stumble on. +“That a girl was trying to rouse me, and that she told me I had been on +fire twice already.” A shudder went around the table. +“But surely that isn’t the end of the story,” Mrs. Dallas put in +aggrievedly. “Why, that’s the most tantalizing thing I ever heard.” +“I’m afraid that’s all,” I said. “She went her way and I went mine. If +she recalls me at all, she probably thinks of me as a weak-kneed +individual who faints like a woman when everything is over.” +“What did I tell you?” Mrs. Dallas asserted triumphantly. “He fainted, +did you hear? when everything was over! He hasn’t begun to tell it.” +I would have given a lot by that time if I had not mentioned the girl. +But McKnight took it up there and carried it on. +“Blakeley is a regular geyser,” he said. “He never spouts until he +reaches the boiling point. And by that same token, although he hasn’t +said much about the Lady of the Wreck, I think he is crazy about her. +In fact, I am sure of it. He thinks he has locked his secret in the +caves of his soul, but I call you to witness that he has it nailed to +his face. Look at him!” +I squirmed miserably and tried to avoid the startled eyes of the girl +across the table. I wanted to choke McKnight and murder the rest of the +party. +“It isn’t fair,” I said as coolly as I could. “I have my fingers +crossed; you are five against one.” +“And to think that there was a murder on that very train,” broke in the +lady in yellow. “It was a perfect crescendo of horrors, wasn’t it? And +what became of the murdered man, Mr. Blakeley?” +McKnight had the sense to jump into the conversation and save my reply. +“They say good Pittsburgers go to Atlantic City when they die,” he +said. “So—we are reasonably certain the gentleman did _not_ go to the +seashore.” +The meal was over at last, and once in the drawing-room it was clear we +hung heavy on the hostess’ hands. “It is so hard to get people for +bridge in September,” she wailed, “there is absolutely nobody in town. +Six is a dreadful number.” +“It’s a good poker number,” her husband suggested. +The matter settled itself, however. I was hopeless, save as a dummy; +Miss West said it was too hot for cards, and went out on a balcony that +overlooked the Mall. With obvious relief Mrs. Dallas had the card-table +brought, and I was face to face with the minute I had dreaded and hoped +for for a week. +Now it had come, it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I do not +know if there was a moon, but there was the urban substitute for it—the +arc light. It threw the shadow of the balcony railing in long black +bars against her white gown, and as it swung sometimes her face was in +the light. I drew a chair close so that I could watch her. +“Do you know,” I said, when she made no effort at speech, “that you are +a much more formidable person to-night, in that gown, than you were the +last time I saw you?” +The light swung on her face; she was smiling faintly. “The hat with the +green ribbons!” she said. “I must take it back; I had almost +forgotten.” +“I have not forgotten—anything.” I pulled myself up short. This was +hardly loyalty to Richey. His voice came through the window just then, +and perhaps I was wrong, but I thought she raised her head to listen. +“Look at this hand,” he was saying. “Regular pianola: you could play it +with your feet.” +“He’s a dear, isn’t he?” Alison said unexpectedly. “No matter how +depressed and downhearted I am, I always cheer up when I see Richey.” +“He’s more than that,” I returned warmly. “He is the most honorable +fellow I know. If he wasn’t so much that way, he would have a career +before him. He wanted to put on the doors of our offices, Blakeley and +McKnight, P. B. H., which is Poor But Honest.” +From my comparative poverty to the wealth of the girl beside me was a +single mental leap. From that wealth to the grandfather who was +responsible for it was another. +“I wonder if you know that I had been to Pittsburg to see your +grandfather when I met you?” I said. +“You?” She was surprised. +“Yes. And you remember the alligator bag that I told you was exchanged +for the one you cut off my arm?” She nodded expectantly. “Well, in that +valise were the forged Andy Bronson notes, and Mr. Gilmore’s deposition +that they were forged.” +She was on her feet in an instant. “In that bag!” she cried. “Oh, why +didn’t you tell me that before? Oh, it’s so ridiculous, so—so hopeless. +Why, I could—” +She stopped suddenly and sat down again. “I do not know that I am +sorry, after all,” she said after a pause. “Mr. Bronson was a friend of +my father’s. I—I suppose it was a bad thing for you, losing the +papers?” +“Well, it was not a good thing,” I conceded. “While we are on the +subject of losing things, do you remember—do you know that I still have +your gold purse?” +She did not reply at once. The shadow of a column was over her face, +but I guessed that she was staring at me. +“_You_ have it!” She almost whispered. +“I picked it up in the street car,” I said, with a cheerfulness I did +not feel. “It looks like a very opulent little purse.” +Why didn’t she speak about the necklace? For just a careless word to +make me sane again! +“You!” she repeated, horror-stricken. And then I produced the purse and +held it out on my palm. “I should have sent it to you before, I +suppose, but, as you know, I have been laid up since the wreck.” +We both saw McKnight at the same moment. He had pulled the curtains +aside and was standing looking out at us. The tableau of give and take +was unmistakable; the gold purse, her outstretched hand, my own +attitude. It was over in a second; then he came out and lounged on the +balcony railing. +“They’re mad at me in there,” he said airily, “so I came out. I suppose +the reason they call it bridge is because so many people get cross over +it.” +The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they all came out for +the night breeze. I had no more words alone with Alison. +I went back to the Incubator for the night. We said almost nothing on +the way home; there was a constraint between us for the first time that +I could remember. It was too early for bed, and so we smoked in the +living-room and tried to talk of trivial things. After a time even +those failed, and we sat silent. It was McKnight who finally broached +the subject. +“And so she wasn’t at Seal Harbor at all.” +“No.” +“Do you know where she was, Lollie?” +“Somewhere near Cresson.” +“And that was the purse—her purse—with the broken necklace in it?” +“Yes, it was. You understand, don’t you, Rich, that, having given her +my word, I couldn’t tell you?” +“I understand a lot of things,” he said, without bitterness. +We sat for some time and smoked. Then Richey got up and stretched +himself. “I’m off to bed, old man,” he said. “Need any help with that +game arm of yours?” +“No, thanks,” I returned. +I heard him go into his room and lock the door. It was a bad hour for +me. The first shadow between us, and the shadow of a girl at that. +CHAPTER XVII. +AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN +McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm. It was late when +he appeared. Perhaps, like myself, he had not slept well. But he was +apparently cheerful enough, and he made a better breakfast than I did. +It was one o’clock before we got to Baltimore. After a half hour’s wait +we took a local for M——, the station near which the cinematograph +picture had been taken. +We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity, I with a +sickening sense of horror. Back in the fields was the little farm-house +where Alison West and I had intended getting coffee, and winding away +from the track, maple trees shading it on each side, was the lane where +we had stopped to rest, and where I had—it seemed presumption beyond +belief now—where I had tried to comfort her by patting her hand. +We got out at M——, a small place with two or three houses and a general +store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at +the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair constituted +the entire furnishing. +The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face. He stopped +hammering a piece of wood over a hole in the floor to ask where we +wanted to go. +“We’re not going,” said McKnight, “we’re coming. Have a cigar?” +The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first at it and then at us. +“We want to ask you a few questions,” began McKnight, perching himself +on the railing and kicking the chair forward for me. “Or, rather, this +gentleman does.” +“Wait a minute,” said the agent, glancing through the window. “There��s +a hen in that crate choking herself to death.” +He was back in a minute, and took up his position near a sawdust-filled +box that did duty as a cuspidor. +“Now fire away,” he said. +“In the first place,” I began, “do you remember the day the Washington +Flier was wrecked below here?” +“Do I!” he said. “Did Jonah remember the whale?” +“Were you on the platform here when the first section passed?” +“I was.” +“Do you recall seeing a man hanging to the platform of the last car?” +“There was no one hanging there when she passed here,” he said with +conviction. “I watched her out of sight.” +“Did you see anything that morning of a man about my size, carrying a +small grip, and wearing dark clothes and a derby hat?” I asked eagerly. +McKnight was trying to look unconcerned, but I was frankly anxious. It +was clear that the man had jumped somewhere in the mile of track just +beyond. +“Well, yes, I did.” The agent cleared his throat. “When the smash came +the operator at MX sent word along the wire, both ways. I got it here, +and I was pretty near crazy, though I knew it wasn’t any fault of mine. +“I was standing on the track looking down, for I couldn’t leave the +office, when a young fellow with light hair limped up to me and asked +me what that smoke was over there. +“‘That’s what’s left of the Washington Flier,’ I said, ‘and I guess +there’s souls going up in that smoke.’ +“‘Do you mean the first section?’ he said, getting kind of +greenish-yellow. +“‘That’s what I mean,’ I said; ‘split to kindling wood because +Rafferty, on the second section, didn’t want to be late.’ +“He put his hand out in front of him, and the satchel fell with a bang. +“‘My God!’ he said, and dropped right on the track in a heap. +“I got him into the station and he came around, but he kept on groaning +something awful. He’d sprained his ankle, and when he got a little +better I drove him over in Carter’s milk wagon to the Carter place, and +I reckon he stayed there a spell.” +“That’s all, is it?” I asked. +“That’s all—or, no, there’s something else. About noon that day one of +the Carter twins came down with a note from him asking me to send a +long-distance message to some one in Washington.” +“To whom?” I asked eagerly. +“I reckon I’ve forgot the name, but the message was that this +fellow—Sullivan was his name—was at M——, and if the man had escaped +from the wreck would he come to see him.” +“He wouldn’t have sent that message to me,” I said to McKnight, rather +crestfallen. “He’d have every object in keeping out of my way.” +“There might be reasons,” McKnight observed judicially. “He might not +have found the papers then.” +“Was the name Blakeley?” I asked. +“It might have been—I can’t say. But the man wasn’t there, and there +was a lot of noise. I couldn’t hear well. Then in half an hour down +came the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on awful and didn’t +want the message sent.” +“He’s gone, of course?” +“Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train for +the city.” +It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat in +his jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able to +travel. But, to be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place. +I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with a +couple of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a bend +in the road, and he was looking curiously after us. +It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road to +the Carter place that I realized where we were going. Although we +approached it from another direction, I knew the farm-house at once. It +was the one where Alison West and I had breakfasted nine days before. +With the new restraint between us, I did not tell McKnight. I wondered +afterward if he had suspected it. I saw him looking hard at the +gate-post which had figured in one of our mysteries, but he asked no +questions. Afterward he grew almost taciturn, for him, and let me do +most of the talking. +We opened the front gate of the Carter place and went slowly up the +walk. Two ragged youngsters, alike even to freckles and squints, were +playing in the yard. +“Is your mother around?” I asked. +“In the front room. Walk in,” they answered in identical tones. +As we got to the porch we heard voices, and stopped. I knocked, but the +people within, engaged in animated, rather one-sided conversation, did +not answer. +“‘In the front room. Walk in,’” quoted McKnight, and did so. +In the stuffy farm parlor two people were sitting. One, a +pleasant-faced woman with a checked apron, rose, somewhat embarrassed, +to meet us. She did not know me, and I was thankful. But our attention +was riveted on a little man who was sitting before a table, writing +busily. It was Hotchkiss! +He got up when he saw us, and had the grace to look uncomfortable. +“Such an interesting case,” he said nervously, “I took the liberty—” +“Look here,” said McKnight suddenly, “did you make any inquiries at the +station?” +“A few,” he confessed. “I went to the theater last night—I felt the +need of a little relaxation—and the sight of a picture there, a +cinematograph affair, started a new line of thought. Probably the same +clue brought you gentlemen. I learned a good bit from the station +agent.” +“The son-of-a-gun,” said McKnight. “And you paid him, I suppose?” +“I gave him five dollars,” was the apologetic answer. Mrs. Carter, +hearing sounds of strife in the yard, went out, and Hotchkiss folded up +his papers. +“I think the identity of the man is established,” he said. “What number +of hat do you wear, Mr. Blakeley?” +“Seven and a quarter,” I replied. +“Well, it’s only piling up evidence,” he said cheerfully. “On the night +of the murder you wore light gray silk underclothing, with the second +button of the shirt missing. Your hat had ‘L. B.’ in gilt letters +inside, and there was a very minute hole in the toe of one black sock.” +“Hush,” McKnight protested. “If word gets to Mrs. Klopton that Mr. +Blakeley was wrecked, or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button +missing and a hole in one sock, she’ll retire to the Old Ladies’ Home. +I’ve heard her threaten it.” +Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor. He regarded McKnight +gravely and went on: +“I’ve been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to get +away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a possible +clue in the dust heap. +“Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she took +out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure +it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when he effected +the exchange.” +I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit of +pajamas I was wearing and my bath-robe. +“Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but +some are missing. I am not discouraged, however.” +He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them +curiously. It was something like this: +Man with p— Get— +Br— +We spelled it out slowly. +“Now,” Hotchkiss announced, “I make it something like this: The ‘p.—’ +is one of two things, pistol—you remember the little pearl-handled +affair belonging to the murdered man—or it is pocket-book. I am +inclined to the latter view, as the pocket-book had been disturbed and +the pistol had not.” +I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on it. +“Now,” I said, rearranging them, “it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I +found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought it +had been dropped by some one else, you see, but that’s immaterial. +Arranged this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that ‘p.—’ with the +rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it makes ‘papers,’ and add this +scrap and you have: +“‘Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get (them).’” +McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. “You’re a trump,” he said. “Br— +is Bronson, of course. It’s almost too easy. You see, Mr. Blakeley here +engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man who was later +murdered there. The man who did the thing was a friend of Bronson’s, +evidently, and in trying to get the papers we have the motive for the +crime.” +“There are still some things to be explained.” Mr. Hotchkiss wiped his +glasses and put them on. “For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled by +that bit of chain.” +I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I was +gathering up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to me that +this astute little man was going to drag in the girl in spite of me. +CHAPTER XVIII. +A NEW WORLD +Hotchkiss jotted down the bits of telegram and rose. +“Well,” he said, “we’ve done something. We’ve found where the murderer +left the train, we know what day he went to Baltimore, and, most +important of all, we have a motive for the crime.” +“It seems the irony of fate,” said McKnight, getting up, “that a man +should kill another man for certain papers he is supposed to be +carrying, find he hasn’t got them after all, decide to throw suspicion +on another man by changing berths and getting out, bag and baggage, and +then, by the merest fluke of chance, take with him, in the valise he +changed for his own, the very notes he was after. It was a bit of luck +for him.” +“Then why,” put in Hotchkiss doubtfully, “why did he collapse when he +heard of the wreck? And what about the telephone message the station +agent sent? You remember they tried to countermand it, and with some +excitement.” +“We will ask him those questions when we get him,” McKnight said. We +were on the unrailed front porch by that time, and Hotchkiss had put +away his notebook. The mother of the twins followed us to the steps. +“Dear me,” she exclaimed volubly, “and to think I was forgetting to +tell you! I put the young man to bed with a spice poultice on his +ankle: my mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices. It’s +wonderful what they will do in croup! And then I took the children and +went down to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the mister had gone to +church; hasn’t missed a day since he took the pledge nine years ago. +And on the way I met two people, a man and a woman. They looked half +dead, so I sent them right here for breakfast and some soap and water. +I always say soap is better than liquor after a shock.” +Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his +breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods +showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad. +“It must have been twelve o’clock when we got back; I wanted the +children to see everything, because it isn’t likely they’ll ever see +another wreck like that. Rows of—” +“About twelve o’clock,” I broke in, “and what then?” +“The young man up-stairs was awake,” she went on, “and hammering at his +door like all possessed. And it was locked on the outside!” She paused +to enjoy her sensation. +“I would like to see that lock,” Hotchkiss said promptly, but for some +reason the woman demurred. +“I will bring the key down,” she said and disappeared. When she +returned she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety. +“We had to break the lock,” she volunteered, “and the key didn’t turn +up for two days. Then one of the twins found the turkey gobbler trying +to swallow it. It has been washed since,” she hastened to assure +Hotchkiss, who showed an inclination to drop it. +“You don’t think he locked the door himself and threw the key out of +the window?” the little man asked. +“The windows are covered with mosquito netting, nailed on. The mister +blamed it on the children, and it might have been Obadiah. He’s the +quiet kind, and you never know what he’s about.” +“He’s about to strangle, isn’t he,” McKnight remarked lazily, “or is +that Obadiah?” +Mrs. Carter picked the boy up and inverted him, talking amiably all the +time. “He’s always doing it,” she said, giving him a shake. “Whenever +we miss anything we look to see if Obadiah’s black in the face.” She +gave him another shake, and the quarter I had given him shot out as if +blown from a gun. Then we prepared to go back to the station. +From where I stood I could look into the cheery farm kitchen, where +Alison West and I had eaten our _al fresco_ breakfast. I looked at the +table with mixed emotions, and then, gradually, the meaning of +something on it penetrated my mind. Still in its papers, evidently just +opened, was a hat box, and protruding over the edge of the box was a +streamer of vivid green ribbon. +On the plea that I wished to ask Mrs. Carter a few more questions, I +let the others go on. I watched them down the flagstone walk; saw +McKnight stop and examine the gate-posts and saw, too, the quick glance +he threw back at the house. Then I turned to Mrs. Carter. +“I would like to speak to the young lady up-stairs,” I said. +She threw up her hands with a quick gesture of surrender. “I’ve done +all I could,” she exclaimed. “She won’t like it very well, but—she’s in +the room over the parlor.” +I went eagerly up the ladder-like stairs, to the rag-carpeted hall. Two +doors were open, showing interiors of four poster beds and high +bureaus. The door of the room over the parlor was almost closed. I +hesitated in the hallway: after all, what right had I to intrude on +her? But she settled my difficulty by throwing open the door and facing +me. +“I—I beg your pardon, Miss West,” I stammered. “It has just occurred to +me that I am unpardonably rude. I saw the hat down-stairs and I—I +guessed—” +“The hat!” she said. “I might have known. Does Richey know I am here?” +“I don’t think so.” I turned to go down the stairs again. Then I +halted. “The fact is,” I said, in an attempt at justification, “I’m in +rather a mess these days, and I’m apt to do irresponsible things. It is +not impossible that I shall be arrested, in a day or so, for the murder +of Simon Harrington.” +She drew her breath in sharply. “Murder!” she echoed. “Then they have +found you after all!” +“I don’t regard it as anything more than—er—inconvenient,” I lied. +“They can’t convict me, you know. Almost all the witnesses are dead.” +She was not deceived for a moment. She came over to me and stood, both +hands on the rail of the stair. “I know just how grave it is,” she said +quietly. “My grandfather will not leave one stone unturned, and he can +be terrible—terrible. But”—she looked directly into my eyes as I stood +below her on the stairs—“the time may come—soon—when I can help you. +I’m afraid I shall not want to; I’m a dreadful coward, Mr. Blakeley. +But—I will.” She tried to smile. +“I wish you would let _me_ help _you_,” I said unsteadily. “Let us make +it a bargain: each help the other!” +The girl shook her head with a sad little smile. “I am only as unhappy +as I deserve to be,” she said. And when I protested and took a step +toward her she retreated, with her hands out before her. +“Why don’t you ask me all the questions you are thinking?” she +demanded, with a catch in her voice. “Oh, I know them. Or are you +afraid to ask?” +I looked at her, at the lines around her eyes, at the drawn look about +her mouth. Then I held out my hand. “Afraid!” I said, as she gave me +hers. “There is nothing in God’s green earth I am afraid of, save of +trouble for you. To ask questions would be to imply a lack of faith. I +ask you nothing. Some day, perhaps, you will come to me yourself and +let me help you.” +The next moment I was out in the golden sunshine: the birds were +singing carols of joy: I walked dizzily through rainbow-colored clouds, +past the twins, cherubs now, swinging on the gate. It was a new world +into which I stepped from the Carter farm-house that morning, for—I had +kissed her! +CHAPTER XIX. +AT THE TABLE NEXT +McKnight and Hotchkiss were sauntering slowly down the road as I caught +up with them. As usual, the little man was busy with some abstruse +mental problem. +“The idea is this,” he was saying, his brows knitted in thought, “if a +left-handed man, standing in the position of the man in the picture, +should jump from a car, would he be likely to sprain his right ankle? +When a right-handed man prepares for a leap of that kind, my theory is +that he would hold on with his right hand, and alight at the proper +time, on his right foot. Of course—” +“I imagine, although I don’t know,” interrupted McKnight, “that a man +either ambidextrous or one-armed, jumping from the Washington Flier, +would be more likely to land on his head.” +“Anyhow,” I interposed, “what difference does it make whether Sullivan +used one hand or the other? One pair of handcuffs will put both hands +out of commission.” +As usual when one of his pet theories was attacked, Hotchkiss looked +aggrieved. +“My dear sir,” he expostulated, “don’t you understand what bearing this +has on the case? How was the murdered man lying when he was found?” +“On his back,” I said promptly, “head toward the engine.” +“Very well,” he retorted, “and what then? Your heart lies under your +fifth intercostal space, and to reach it a right-handed blow would have +struck either down or directly in. +“But, gentleman, the point of entrance for the stiletto was below the +heart, striking up! As Harrington lay with his head toward the engine, +a person in the aisle must have used the left hand.” +McKnight’s eyes sought mine and he winked at me solemnly as I +unostentatiously transferred the hat I was carrying to my right hand. +Long training has largely counterbalanced heredity in my case, but I +still pitch ball, play tennis and carve with my left hand. But +Hotchkiss was too busy with his theories to notice me. +We were only just in time for our train back to Baltimore, but McKnight +took advantage of a second’s delay to shake the station agent warmly by +the hand. +“I want to express my admiration for you,” he said beamingly. “Ability +of your order is thrown away here. You should have been a city +policeman, my friend.” +The agent looked a trifle uncertain. +“The young lady was the one who told me to keep still,” he said. +McKnight glanced at me, gave the agent’s hand a final shake, and +climbed on board. But I knew perfectly that he had guessed the reason +for my delay. +He was very silent on the way home. Hotchkiss, too, had little to say. +He was reading over his notes intently, stopping now and then to make a +penciled addition. Just before we left the train Richey turned to me. +“I suppose it was the key to the door that she tied to the gate?” +“Probably. I did not ask her.” +“Curious, her locking that fellow in,” he reflected. +“You may depend on it, there was a good reason for it all. And I wish +you wouldn’t be so suspicious of motives, Rich,” I said warmly. +“Only yesterday you were the suspicious one,” he retorted, and we +lapsed into strained silence. +It was late when we got to Washington. One of Mrs. Klopton’s small +tyrannies was exacting punctuality at meals, and, like several other +things, I respected it. There are always some concessions that should +be made in return for faithful service. +So, as my dinner hour of seven was long past, McKnight and I went to a +little restaurant down town where they have a very decent way of fixing +chicken _a la_ King. Hotchkiss had departed, economically bent, for a +small hotel where he lived on the American plan. +“I want to think some things over,” he said in response to my +invitation to dinner, “and, anyhow, there’s no use dining out when I +pay the same, dinner or no dinner, where I am stopping.” +The day had been hot, and the first floor dining-room was sultry in +spite of the palms and fans which attempted to simulate the verdure and +breezes of the country. +It was crowded, too, with a typical summer night crowd, and, after +sitting for a few minutes in a sweltering corner, we got up and went to +the smaller dining-room up-stairs. Here it was not so warm, and we +settled ourselves comfortably by a window. +Over in a corner half a dozen boys on their way back to school were +ragging a perspiring waiter, a proceeding so exactly to McKnight’s +taste that he insisted on going over to join them. But their table was +full, and somehow that kind of fun had lost its point for me. +Not far from us a very stout, middle-aged man, apoplectic with the +heat, was elephantinely jolly for the benefit of a bored-looking girl +across the table from him, and at the next table a newspaper woman ate +alone, the last edition propped against the water-bottle before her, +her hat, for coolness, on the corner of the table. It was a motley +Bohemian crowd. +I looked over the room casually, while McKnight ordered the meal. Then +my attention was attracted to the table next to ours. Two people were +sitting there, so deep in conversation that they did not notice us. The +woman’s face was hidden under her hat, as she traced the pattern of the +cloth mechanically with her fork. But the man’s features stood out +clear in the light of the candles on the table. It was Bronson! +“He shows the strain, doesn’t he?” McKnight said, holding up the wine +list as if he read from it. “Who’s the woman?” +“Search me,” I replied, in the same way. +When the chicken came, I still found myself gazing now and then at the +abstracted couple near me. Evidently the subject of conversation was +unpleasant. Bronson was eating little, the woman not at all. Finally he +got up, pushed his chair back noisily, thrust a bill at the waiter and +stalked out. +The woman sat still for a moment; then, with an apparent resolution to +make the best of it, she began slowly to eat the meal before her. +But the quarrel had taken away her appetite, for the mixture in our +chafing-dish was hardly ready to serve before she pushed her chair back +a little and looked around the room. +I caught my first glimpse of her face then, and I confess it startled +me. It was the tall, stately woman of the Ontario, the woman I had last +seen cowering beside the road, rolling pebbles in her hand, blood +streaming from a cut over her eye. I could see the scar now, a little +affair, about an inch long, gleaming red through its layers of powder. +And then, quite unexpectedly, she turned and looked directly at me. +After a minute’s uncertainty, she bowed, letting her eyes rest on mine +with a calmly insolent stare. She glanced at McKnight for a moment, +then back to me. When she looked away again I breathed easier. +“Who is it?” asked McKnight under his breath. +“Ontario.” I formed it with my lips rather than said it. McKnight’s +eyebrows went up and he looked with increased interest at the +black-gowned figure. +I ate little after that. The situation was rather bad for me, I began +to see. Here was a woman who could, if she wished, and had any motive +for so doing, put me in jail under a capital charge. A word from her to +the police, and polite surveillance would become active interference. +Then, too, she could say that she had seen me, just after the wreck, +with a young woman from the murdered man’s car, and thus probably bring +Alison West into the case. +It is not surprising, then, that I ate little. The woman across seemed +in no hurry to go. She loitered over a demi-tasse, and that finished, +sat with her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, looking darkly +at the changing groups in the room. +The fun at the table where the college boys sat began to grow a little +noisy; the fat man, now a purplish shade, ambled away behind his slim +companion; the newspaper woman pinned on her business-like hat and +stalked out. Still the woman at the next table waited. +It was a relief when the meal was over. We got our hats and were about +to leave the room, when a waiter touched me on the arm. +“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but the lady at the table near the +window, the lady in black, sir, would like to speak to you.” +I looked down between the rows of tables to where the woman sat alone, +her chin still resting on her hand, her black eyes still insolently +staring, this time at me. +“I’ll have to go,” I said to McKnight hurriedly. “She knows all about +that affair and she’d be a bad enemy.” +“I don’t like her lamps,” McKnight observed, after a glance at her. +“Better jolly her a little. Good-by.” +CHAPTER XX. +THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN +I went back slowly to where the woman sat alone. +She smiled rather oddly as I drew near, and pointed to the chair +Bronson had vacated. +“Sit down, Mr. Blakeley,” she said, “I am going to take a few minutes +of your valuable time.” +“Certainly.” I sat down opposite her and glanced at a cuckoo clock on +the wall. “I am sorry, but I have only a few minutes. If you—” She +laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and opening a small black fan +covered with spangles, waved it slowly. +“The fact is,” she said, “I think we are about to make a bargain.” +“A bargain?” I asked incredulously. “You have a second advantage of me. +You know my name”—I paused suggestively and she took the cue. +“I am Mrs. Conway,” she said, and flicked a crumb off the table with an +over-manicured finger. +The name was scarcely a surprise. I had already surmised that this +might be the woman whom rumor credited as being Bronson’s common-law +wife. Rumor, I remembered, had said other things even less pleasant, +things which had been brought out at Bronson’s arrest for forgery. +“We met last under less fortunate circumstances,” she was saying. “I +have been fit for nothing since that terrible day. And you—you had a +broken arm, I think.” +“I still have it,” I said, with a lame attempt at jocularity; “but to +have escaped at all was a miracle. We have much, indeed, to be thankful +for.” +“I suppose we have,” she said carelessly, “although sometimes I doubt +it.” She was looking somberly toward the door through which her late +companion had made his exit. +“You sent for me—” I said. +“Yes, I sent for you.” She roused herself and sat erect. “Now, Mr. +Blakeley, have you found those papers?” +“The papers? What papers?” I parried. I needed time to think. +“Mr. Blakeley,” she said quietly, “I think we can lay aside all +subterfuge. In the first place let me refresh your mind about a few +things. The Pittsburg police are looking for the survivors of the car +Ontario; there are three that I know of—yourself, the young woman with +whom you left the scene of the wreck, and myself. The wreck, you will +admit, was a fortunate one for you.” +I nodded without speaking. +“At the time of the collision you were in rather a hole,” she went on, +looking at me with a disagreeable smile. “You were, if I remember, +accused of a rather atrocious crime. There was a lot of corroborative +evidence, was there not? I seem to remember a dirk and the murdered +man’s pocket-book in your possession, and a few other things that +were—well, rather unpleasant.” +I was thrown a bit off my guard. +“You remember also,” I said quickly, “that a man disappeared from the +car, taking my clothes, papers and everything.” +“I remember that you _said_ so.” Her tone was quietly insulting, and I +bit my lip at having been caught. It was no time to make a defense. +“You have missed one calculation,” I said coldly, “and that is, the +discovery of the man who left the train.” +“You have found him?” She bent forward, and again I regretted my hasty +speech. “I knew it; I said so.” +“We are going to find him,” I asserted, with a confidence I did not +feel. “We can produce at any time proof that a man left the Flier a few +miles beyond the wreck. And we can find him, I am positive.” +“But you have not found him yet?” She was clearly disappointed. “Well, +so be it. Now for our bargain. You will admit that I am no fool.” +I made no such admission, and she smiled mockingly. +“How flattering you are!” she said. “Very well. Now for the premises. +You take to Pittsburg four notes held by the Mechanics’ National Bank, +to have Mr. Gilmore, who is ill, declare his indorsement of them +forged. +“On the journey back to Pittsburg two things happen to you: you lose +your clothing, your valise and your papers, including the notes, and +you are accused of murder. In fact, Mr. Blakeley, the circumstances +were most singular, and the evidence—well, almost conclusive.” +I was completely at her mercy, but I gnawed my lip with irritation. +“Now for the bargain.” She leaned over and lowered her voice. “A fair +exchange, you know. The minute you put those four notes in my hand—that +minute the blow to my head has caused complete forgetfulness as to the +events of that awful morning. I am the only witness, and I will be +silent. Do you understand? They will call off their dogs.” +My head was buzzing with the strangeness of the idea. +“But,” I said, striving to gain time, “I haven’t the notes. I can’t +give you what I haven’t got.” +“You have had the case continued,” she said sharply. “You expect to +find them. Another thing,” she added slowly, watching my face, “if you +don’t get them soon, Bronson will have them. They have been offered to +him already, but at a prohibitive price.” +“But,” I said, bewildered, “what is your object in coming to me? If +Bronson will get them anyhow—” +She shut her fan with a click and her face was not particularly +pleasant to look at. +“You are dense,” she said insolently. “I want those papers—for myself, +not for Andy Bronson.” +“Then the idea is,” I said, ignoring her tone, “that you think you have +me in a hole, and that if I find those papers and give them to you you +will let me out. As I understand it, our friend Bronson, under those +circumstances, will also be in a hole.” +She nodded. +“The notes would be of no use to you for a limited length of time,” I +went on, watching her narrowly. “If they are not turned over to the +state’s attorney within a reasonable time there will have to be a +_nolle pros_—that is, the case will simply be dropped for lack of +evidence.” +“A week would answer, I think,” she said slowly. “You will do it, +then?” +I laughed, although I was not especially cheerful. +“No, I’ll not do it. I expect to come across the notes any time now, +and I expect just as certainly to turn them over to the state’s +attorney when I get them.” +She got up suddenly, pushing her chair back with a noisy grating sound +that turned many eyes toward us. +“You’re more of a fool than I thought you,” she sneered, and left me at +the table. +CHAPTER XXI. +McKNIGHT’S THEORY +I confess I was staggered. The people at the surrounding tables, after +glancing curiously in my direction, looked away again. +I got my hat and went out in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. That +she would inform the police at once of what she knew I never doubted, +unless possibly she would give a day or two’s grace in the hope that I +would change my mind. +I reviewed the situation as I waited for a car. Two passed me going in +the opposite direction, and on the first one I saw Bronson, his hat +over his eyes, his arms folded, looking moodily ahead. Was it +imagination? or was the small man huddled in the corner of the rear +seat Hotchkiss? +As the car rolled on I found myself smiling. The alert little man was +for all the world like a terrier, ever on the scent, and scouring about +in every direction. +I found McKnight at the Incubator, with his coat off, working with +enthusiasm and a manicure file over the horn of his auto. +“It’s the worst horn I ever ran across,” he groaned, without looking +up, as I came in. “The blankety-blank thing won’t blow.” +He punched it savagely, finally eliciting a faint throaty croak. +“Sounds like croup,” I suggested. “My sister-in-law uses camphor and +goose greese for it; or how about a spice poultice?” +But McKnight never sees any jokes but his own. He flung the horn +clattering into a corner, and collapsed sulkily into a chair. +“Now,” I said, “if you’re through manicuring that horn, I’ll tell you +about my talk with the lady in black.” +“What’s wrong?” asked McKnight languidly. “Police watching her, too?” +“Not exactly. The fact is, Rich, there’s the mischief to pay.” +Stogie came in, bringing a few additions to our comfort. When he went +out I told my story. +“You must remember,” I said, “that I had seen this woman before the +morning of the wreck. She was buying her Pullman ticket when I did. +Then the next morning, when the murder was discovered, she grew +hysterical, and I gave her some whisky. The third and last time I saw +her, until to-night, was when she crouched beside the road, after the +wreck.” +McKnight slid down in his chair until his weight rested on the small of +his back, and put his feet on the big reading table. +“It is rather a facer,” he said. “It’s really too good a situation for +a commonplace lawyer. It ought to be dramatized. You can’t agree, of +course; and by refusing you run the chance of jail, at least, and of +having Alison brought into publicity, which is out of the question. You +say she was at the Pullman window when you were?” +“Yes; I bought her ticket for her. Gave her lower eleven.” +“And you took ten?” +“Lower ten.” +McKnight straightened up and looked at me. +“Then she thought you were in lower ten.” +“I suppose she did, if she thought at all.” +“But listen, man.” McKnight was growing excited. “What do you figure +out of this? The Conway woman knows you have taken the notes to +Pittsburg. The probabilities are that she follows you there, on the +chance of an opportunity to get them, either for Bronson or herself. +“Nothing doing during the trip over or during the day in Pittsburg; but +she learns the number of your berth as you buy it at the Pullman ticket +office in Pittsburg, and she thinks she sees her chance. No one could +have foreseen that that drunken fellow would have crawled into your +berth. +“Now, I figure it out this way: She wanted those notes desperately—does +still—not for Bronson, but to hold over his head for some purpose. In +the night, when everything is quiet, she slips behind the curtains of +lower ten, where the man’s breathing shows he is asleep. Didn’t you say +he snored?” +“He did!” I affirmed. “But I tell you—” +“Now keep still and listen. She gropes cautiously around in the +darkness, finally discovering the wallet under the pillow. Can’t you +see it yourself?” +He was leaning forward, excitedly, and I could almost see the gruesome +tragedy he was depicting. +“She draws out the wallet. Then, perhaps she remembers the alligator +bag, and on the possibility that the notes are there, instead of in the +pocket-book, she gropes around for it. Suddenly, the man awakes and +clutches at the nearest object, perhaps her neck chain, which breaks. +She drops the pocket-book and tries to escape, but he has caught her +right hand. +“It is all in silence; the man is still stupidly drunk. But he holds +her in a tight grip. Then the tragedy. She must get away; in a minute +the car will be aroused. Such a woman, on such an errand, does not go +without some sort of a weapon, in this case a dagger, which, unlike a +revolver, is noiseless. +“With a quick thrust—she’s a big woman and a bold one—she strikes. +Possibly Hotchkiss is right about the left-hand blow. Harrington may +have held her right hand, or perhaps she held the dirk in her left hand +as she groped with her right. Then, as the man falls back, and his +grasp relaxes, she straightens and attempts to get away. The swaying of +the car throws her almost into your berth, and, trembling with terror, +she crouches behind the curtains of lower ten until everything is +still. Then she goes noiselessly back to her berth.” +I nodded. +“It seems to fit partly, at least,” I said. “In the morning when she +found that the crime had been not only fruitless, but that she had +searched the wrong berth and killed the wrong man; when she saw me +emerge, unhurt, just as she was bracing herself for the discovery of my +dead body, then she went into hysterics. You remember, I gave her some +whisky. +“It really seems a tenable theory. But, like the Sullivan theory, there +are one or two things that don’t agree with the rest. For one thing, +how did the remainder of that chain get into Alison West’s possession?” +“She may have picked it up on the floor.” +“We’ll admit that,” I said; “and I’m sure I hope so. Then how did the +murdered man’s pocket-book get into the sealskin bag? And the dirk, how +account for that, and the blood-stains?” +“Now what’s the use,” asked McKnight aggrievedly, “of my building up +beautiful theories for you to pull down? We’ll take it to Hotchkiss. +Maybe he can tell from the blood-stains if the murderer’s finger nails +were square or pointed.” +“Hotchkiss is no fool,” I said warmly. “Under all his theories there’s +a good hard layer of common sense. And we must remember, Rich, that +neither of our theories includes the woman at Doctor Van Kirk’s +hospital, that the charming picture you have just drawn does not +account for Alison West’s connection with the case, or for the bits of +telegram in the Sullivan fellow’s pajamas pocket. You are like the man +who put the clock together; you’ve got half of the works left over.” +“Oh, go home,” said McKnight disgustedly. “I’m no Edgar Allan Poe. +What’s the use of coming here and asking me things if you’re so +particular?” +With one of his quick changes of mood, he picked up his guitar. +“Listen to this,” he said. “It is a Hawaiian song about a fat lady, oh, +ignorant one! and how she fell off her mule.” +But for all the lightness of the words, the voice that followed me down +the stairs was anything but cheery. +“There was a Kanaka in Balu did dwell, +Who had for his daughter a monstrous fat girl— +he sang in his clear tenor. I paused on the lower floor and listened. +He had stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun. +CHAPTER XXII. +AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE +I had not been home for thirty-six hours, since the morning of the +preceding day. Johnson was not in sight, and I let myself in quietly +with my latchkey. It was almost midnight, and I had hardly settled +myself in the library when the bell rang and I was surprised to find +Hotchkiss, much out of breath, in the vestibule. +“Why, come in, Mr. Hotchkiss,” I said. “I thought you were going home +to go to bed.” +“So I was, so I was.” He dropped into a chair beside my reading lamp +and mopped his face. “And here it is almost midnight, and I’m wider +awake than ever. I’ve seen Sullivan, Mr. Blakeley.” +“You have!” +“I have,” he said impressively. +“You were following Bronson at eight o’clock. Was that when it +happened?” +“Something of the sort. When I left you at the door of the restaurant, +I turned and almost ran into a plain clothes man from the central +office. I know him pretty well; once or twice he has taken me with him +on interesting bits of work. He knows my hobby.” +“You know him, too, probably. It was the man Arnold, the detective whom +the state’s attorney has had watching Bronson.” +Johnson being otherwise occupied, I had asked for Arnold myself. +I nodded. +“Well, he stopped me at once; said he’d been on the fellow’s tracks +since early morning and had had no time for luncheon. Bronson, it +seems, isn’t eating much these days. I at once jotted down the fact, +because it argued that he was being bothered by the man with the +notes.” +“It might point to other things,” I suggested. “Indigestion, you know.” +Hotchkiss ignored me. “Well, Arnold had some reason for thinking that +Bronson would try to give him the slip that night, so he asked me to +stay around the private entrance there while he ran across the street +and got something to eat. It seemed a fair presumption that, as he had +gone there with a lady, they would dine leisurely, and Arnold would +have plenty of time to get back.” +“What about your own dinner?” I asked curiously. +“Sir,” he said pompously, “I have given you a wrong estimate of Wilson +Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would even +obtrude itself on his mind at such a time as this.” +He was a frail little man, and to-night he looked pale with heat and +over-exertion. +“Did you have any luncheon?” I asked. +He was somewhat embarrassed at that. +“I—really, Mr. Blakeley, the events of the day were so engrossing—” +“Well,” I said, “I’m not going to see you drop on the floor from +exhaustion. Just wait a minute.” +I went back to the pantry, only to be confronted with rows of locked +doors and empty dishes. Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, however, I +found two unattractive looking cold chops, some dry bread and a piece +of cake, wrapped in a napkin, and from its surreptitious and generally +hang-dog appearance, destined for the coachman in the stable at the +rear. Trays there were none—everything but the chairs and tables seemed +under lock and key, and there was neither napkin, knife nor fork to be +found. +The luncheon was not attractive in appearance, but Hotchkiss ate his +cold chops and gnawed at the crusts as though he had been famished, +while he told his story. +“I had been there only a few minutes,” he said, with a chop in one hand +and the cake in the other, “when Bronson rushed out and cut across the +street. He’s a tall man, Mr. Blakeley, and I had had work keeping +close. It was a relief when he jumped on a passing car, although being +well behind, it was a hard run for me to catch him. He had left the +lady. +“Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the other +and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he looked at his +watch now and then, and when I did once get a look at his face it made +me—er—uncomfortable. He could have crushed me like a fly, sir.” +I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking better. +He stopped to finish it, declining with a wave of his hand to have it +refilled, and continued: +“About nine o’clock or a little later he got off somewhere near +Washington Circle. He went along one of the residence streets there, +turned to his left a square or two, and rang a bell. He had been +admitted when I got there, but I guessed from the appearance of the +place that it was a boarding-house. +“I waited a few minutes and rang the bell. When a maid answered it, I +asked for Mr. Sullivan. Of course there was no Mr. Sullivan there. +“I said I was sorry; that the man I was looking for was a new boarder. +She was sure there was no such boarder in the house; the only new +arrival was a man on the third floor—she thought his name was Stuart. +“‘My friend has a cousin by that name,’ I said. ‘I’ll just go up and +see.’ +“She wanted to show me up, but I said it was unnecessary. So after +telling me it was the bedroom and sitting-room on the third floor +front, I went up. +“I met a couple of men on the stairs, but neither of them paid any +attention to me. A boarding-house is the easiest place in the world to +enter.” +“They’re not always so easy to leave,” I put in, to his evident +irritation. +“When I got to the third story, I took out a bunch of keys and posted +myself by a door near the ones the girl had indicated. I could hear +voices in one of the front rooms, but could not understand what they +said. +“There was no violent dispute, but a steady hum. Then Bronson jerked +the door open. If he had stepped into the hall he would have seen me +fitting a key into the door before me. But he spoke before he came out. +“‘You’re acting like a maniac,’ he said. ‘You know I can get those +things some way; I’m not going to threaten you. It isn’t necessary. You +know me.’ +“‘It would be no use,’ the other man said. ‘I tell you, I haven’t seen +the notes for ten days.’ +“‘But you will,’ Bronson said savagely. ‘You’re standing in your own +way, that’s all. If you’re holding out expecting me to raise my figure, +you’re making a mistake. It’s my last offer.’ +“‘I couldn’t take it if it was for a million,’ said the man inside the +room. ‘I’d do it, I expect, if I could. The best of us have our price.’ +“Bronson slammed the door then, and flung past me down the hall. +“After a couple of minutes I knocked at the door, and a tall man about +your size, Mr. Blakeley, opened it. He was very blond, with a smooth +face and blue eyes—what I think you would call a handsome man. +“‘I beg your pardon for disturbing you,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me which +is Mr. Johnson’s room? Mr. Francis Johnson?’ +“‘I can not say,’ he replied civilly. ‘I’ve only been here a few days.’ +“I thanked him and left, but I had had a good look at him, and I think +I’d know him readily any place.” +I sat for a few minutes thinking it over. “But what did he mean by +saying he hadn’t seen the notes for ten days? And why is Bronson making +the overtures?” +“I think he was lying,” Hotchkiss reflected. “Bronson hasn’t reached +his figure.” +“It’s a big advance, Mr. Hotchkiss, and I appreciate what you have done +more than I can tell you,” I said. “And now, if you can locate any of +my property in this fellow’s room, we’ll send him up for larceny, and +at least have him where we can get at him. I’m going to Cresson +to-morrow, to try to trace him a little from there. But I’ll be back in +a couple of days, and we’ll begin to gather in these scattered +threads.” +Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together delightedly. +“That’s it,” he said. “That’s what we want to do, Mr. Blakeley. We’ll +gather up the threads ourselves; if we let the police in too soon, +they’ll tangle it up again. I’m not vindictive by nature; but when a +fellow like Sullivan not only commits a murder, but goes to all sorts +of trouble to put the burden of guilt on an innocent man—I say _hunt +him down_, sir!” +“You are convinced, of course, that Sullivan did it?” +“Who else?” He looked over his glasses at me with the air of a man +whose mental attitude is unassailable. “Well, listen to this,” I said. +Then I told him at length of my encounter with Bronson in the +restaurant, of the bargain proposed by Mrs. Conway, and finally of +McKnight’s new theory. But, although he was impressed, he was far from +convinced. +“It’s a very vivid piece of imagination,” he said drily; “but while it +fits the evidence as far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough. How +about the stains in lower seven, the dirk, and the wallet? Haven’t we +even got motive in that telegram from Bronson?” +“Yes,” I admitted, “but that bit of chain—” +“Pooh,” he said shortly. “Perhaps, like yourself, Sullivan wore glasses +with a chain. Our not finding them does not prove they did not exist.” +And there I made an error; half confidences are always mistakes. I +could not tell of the broken chain in Alison West’s gold purse. +It was one o’clock when Hotchkiss finally left. We had by that time +arranged a definite course of action—Hotchkiss to search Sullivan’s +rooms and if possible find evidence to have him held for larceny, while +I went to Cresson. +Strangely enough, however, when I entered the train the following +morning, Hotchkiss was already there. He had bought a new note-book, +and was sharpening a fresh pencil. +“I changed my plans, you see,” he said, bustling his newspaper aside +for me. “It is no discredit to your intelligence, Mr. Blakeley, but you +lack the professional eye, the analytical mind. You legal gentlemen +call a spade a spade, although it may be a shovel.” +“‘A primrose by the river’s brim +A yellow primrose was to him, +And nothing more!’” +I quoted as the train pulled out. +CHAPTER XXIII. +A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS +I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the little +detective. Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a kindly-faced old +priest on his way home to his convent school, armed with a roll of +dance music and surreptitious bundles that looked like boxes of candy. +From scraps of conversation I gleaned that there had been mysterious +occurrences at the convent,—ending in the theft of what the reverend +father called vaguely, “a quantity of undermuslins.” I dropped asleep +at that point, and when I roused a few moments later, the conversation +had progressed. Hotchkiss had a diagram on an envelope. +“With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you +say, the—er—garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold the key +to the other door,—I think you said the convent dog did not raise any +disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever walk in your +sleep?” +The priest looked bewildered. +“I’ll tell you what to do,” Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaning forward, +“look around a little yourself before you call in the police. +Somnambulism is a queer thing. It’s a question whether we are most +ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? Live a saintly life +all day, prayers and matins and all that, and the subconscious mind +hikes you out of bed at night to steal undermuslins! Subliminal theft, +so to speak. Better examine the roof.” +I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, from +a corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary. +It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that had +forced the agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beat +back from the rails in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up the +main street, Hotchkiss was cheerfully oblivious of the weather, of the +threatening dusk, of our generally draggled condition. _My_ draggled +condition, I should say, for he improved every moment,—his eyes +brighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer and glossier. +Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man’s neck, I shall test +that collar with a match. +I was growing steadily more depressed: I loathed my errand and its +necessity. I had always held that a man who played the spy on a woman +was beneath contempt. Then, I admit I was afraid of what I might learn. +For a time, however, this promised to be a negligible quantity. The +streets of the straggling little mountain town had been clean-washed of +humanity by the downpour. Windows and doors were inhospitably shut, and +from around an occasional drawn shade came narrow strips of light that +merely emphasized our gloom. When Hotchkiss’ umbrella turned inside +out, I stopped. +“I don’t know where you are going,” I snarled, “I don’t care. But I’m +going to get under cover inside of ten seconds. I’m not amphibious.” +I ducked into the next shelter, which happened to be the yawning +entrance to a livery stable, and shook myself, dog fashion. Hotchkiss +wiped his collar with his handkerchief. It emerged gleaming and +unwilted. +“This will do as well as any place,” he said, raising his voice above +the rattle of the rain. “Got to make a beginning.” +I sat down on the usual chair without a back, just inside the door, and +stared out at the darkening street. The whole affair had an air of +unreality. Now that I was there, I doubted the necessity, or the value, +of the journey. I was wet and uncomfortable. Around me, with Cresson as +a center, stretched an irregular circumference of mountain, with +possibly a ten-mile radius, and in it I was to find the residence of a +woman whose first name I did not know, and a man who, so far, had been +a purely chimerical person. +Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now his +voice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses’ hoofs, came to me. +“Something light will do,” he was saying. “A runabout, perhaps.” He +came forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in overalls. +“Mr. Peck says,” he began,—“this is Mr. Peck of Peck and Peck,—says +that the place we are looking for is about seven miles from the town. +It’s clearing, isn’t it?” +“It is not,” I returned savagely. “And we don’t want a runabout, Mr. +Peck. What we require is an hermetically sealed diving suit. I suppose +there isn’t a machine to be had?” Mr. Peck gazed at me, in silence: +machine to him meant other things than motors. “Automobile,” I +supplemented. His face cleared. +“None but private affairs. I can give you a good buggy with a rubber +apron. Mike, is the doctor’s horse in?” +I am still uncertain as to whether the raw-boned roan we took out that +night over the mountains was the doctor’s horse or not. If it was, the +doctor may be a good doctor, but he doesn’t know anything about a +horse. And furthermore, I hope he didn’t need the beast that miserable +evening. +While they harnessed the horse, Hotchkiss told me what he had learned. +“Six Curtises in the town and vicinity,” he said. “Sort of family name +around here. One of them is telegraph operator at the station. Person +we are looking for is—was—a wealthy widow with a brother named +Sullivan! Both supposed to have been killed on the Flier.” +“Her brother,” I repeated stupidly. +“You see,” Hotchkiss went on, “three people, in one party, took the +train here that night, Miss West, Mrs. Curtis and Sullivan. The two +women had the drawing-room, Sullivan had lower seven. What we want to +find out is just who these people were, where they came from, if +Bronson knew them, and how Miss West became entangled with them. She +may have married Sullivan, for one thing.” +I fell into gloom after that. The roan was led unwillingly into the +weather, Hotchkiss and I in eclipse behind the blanket. The liveryman +stood in the doorway and called directions to us. “You can’t miss it,” +he finished. “Got the name over the gate anyhow, ‘The Laurels.’ The +servants are still there: leastways, we didn’t bring them down.” He +even took a step into the rain as Hotchkiss picked up the lines. “If +you’re going to settle the estate,” he bawled, “don’t forget us, Peck +and Peck. A half-bushel of name and a bushel of service.” +Hotchkiss could not drive. Born a clerk, he guided the roan much as he +would drive a bad pen. And the roan spattered through puddles and +splashed ink—mud, that is—until I was in a frenzy of irritation. +“What are we going to say when we get there?” I asked after I had +finally taken the reins in my one useful hand. “Get out there at +midnight and tell the servants we have come to ask a few questions +about the family? It’s an idiotic trip anyhow; I wish I had stayed at +home.” +The roan fell just then, and we had to crawl out and help him up. By +the time we had partly unharnessed him our matches were gone, and the +small bicycle lamp on the buggy was wavering only too certainly. We +were covered with mud, panting with exertion, and even Hotchkiss showed +a disposition to be surly. The rain, which had lessened for a time, +came on again, the lightning flashes doing more than anything else to +reveal our isolated position. +Another mile saw us, if possible, more despondent. The water in our +clothes had had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his shoulder, +and drew us along in a series of convulsive jerks. And then through the +rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a light. It was a small +light, rather yellow, and it lasted perhaps thirty seconds. Hotchkiss +missed it, and was inclined to doubt me. But in a couple of minutes the +roan hobbled to the side of the road and stopped, and I made out a +break in the pines and an arched gate. +It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse into +as much shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out. Hotchkiss +tied the beast and we left him there, head down against the driving +rain, drooping and dejected. Then we went toward the house. +It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then we lost +it. We were climbing as we went. Oddly there were no lights ahead, +although it was only ten o’clock,—not later. Hotchkiss kept a little +ahead of me, knocking into trees now and then, but finding the path in +half the time I should have taken. Once, as I felt my way around a tree +in the blackness, I put my hand unexpectedly on his shoulder, and felt +a shudder go down my back. +“What do you expect me to do?” he protested, when I remonstrated. “Hang +out a red lantern? What was that? Listen.” +We both stood peering into the gloom. The sharp patter of the rain on +leaves had ceased, and from just ahead there came back to us the +stealthy padding of feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss’ +shoulder, and we listened together, warily. The steps were close by, +unmistakable. The next flash of lightning showed nothing moving: the +house was in full view now, dark and uninviting, looming huge above a +terrace, with an Italian garden at the side. Then the blackness again. +Somebody’s teeth were chattering: I accused Hotchkiss but he denied it. +“Although I’m not very comfortable, I’ll admit,” he confessed; “there +was something breathing right at my elbow here a moment ago.” +“Nonsense!” I took his elbow and steered him in what I made out to be +the direction of the steps of the Italian garden. “I saw a deer just +ahead by the last flash; that’s what you heard. By Jove, I hear +wheels.” +We paused to listen and Hotchkiss put his hand on something close to +us. “Here’s your deer,” he said. “Bronze.” +As we neared the house the sense of surveillance we had had in the park +gradually left us. Stumbling over flower beds, running afoul of a +sun-dial, groping our way savagely along hedges and thorny banks, we +reached the steps finally and climbed the terrace. +It was then that Hotchkiss fell over one of the two stone urns which, +with tall boxwood trees in them, mounted guard at each side of the +door. He didn’t make any attempt to get up. He sat in a puddle on the +brick floor of the terrace and clutched his leg and swore softly in +Government English. +The occasional relief of the lightning was gone. I could not see an +outline of the house before me. We had no matches, and an instant’s +investigation showed that the windows were boarded and the house +closed. Hotchkiss, still recumbent, was ascertaining the damage, +tenderly peeling down his stocking. +“Upon my soul,” he said finally, “I don’t know whether this moisture is +blood or rain. I think I’ve broken a bone.” +“Blood is thicker than water,” I suggested. “Is it sticky? See if you +can move your toes.” +There was a pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found a +knocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no response +save the wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once +Hotchkiss declared he heard a window-sash lifted, but renewed violence +with the knocker produced no effect. +“There’s only one thing to do,” I said finally. “I’ll go back and try +to bring the buggy up for you. You can’t walk, can you?” +Hotchkiss sat back in his puddle and said he didn’t think he could +stir, but for me to go back to town and leave him, that he didn’t have +any family dependent on him, and that if he was going to have pneumonia +he had probably got it already. I left him there, and started back to +get the horse. +If possible, it was worse than before. There was no lightning, and only +by a miracle did I find the little gate again. I drew a long breath of +relief, followed by another, equally long, of dismay. For I had found +the hitching strap and there was nothing at the end of it! In a lull of +the wind I seemed to hear, far off, the eager thud of stable-bound +feet. So for the second time I climbed the slope to the Laurels, and on +the way I thought of many things to say. +I struck the house at a new angle, for I found a veranda, destitute of +chairs and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better +than the terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my +way to Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. I had passed +perhaps six, all closed, and to have my hand grope for the next one, +and to find instead the soft drapery of an inner curtain, was +startling, to say the least. +I found Hotchkiss at last around an angle of the stone wall, and told +him that the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not abased; +maintaining that it was a new kind of knot that couldn’t slip and that +the horse must have chewed the halter through! He was less enthusiastic +than I had expected about the window. +“It looks uncommonly like a trap,” he said. “I tell you there was some +one in the park below when we were coming up. Man has a sixth sense +that scientists ignore—a sense of the nearness of things. And all the +time you have been gone, some one has been watching me.” +“Couldn’t see you,” I maintained; “I can’t see you now. And your sense +of contiguity didn’t tell you about that flower crock.” +In the end, of course, he consented to go with me. He was very lame, +and I helped him around to the open window. He was full of moral +courage, the little man: it was only the physical in him that quailed. +And as we groped along, he insisted on going through the window first. +“If it is a trap,” he whispered, “I have two arms to your one, and, +besides, as I said before, life holds much for you. As for me, the +government would merely lose an indifferent employee.” +When he found I was going first he was rather hurt, but I did not wait +for his protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. I made a +clutch at the window-frame with my good hand when I found no floor +under my feet, but I was too late. I dropped probably ten feet and +landed with a crash that seemed to split my ear-drums. I was thoroughly +shaken, but in some miraculous way the bandaged arm had escaped injury. +“For Heaven’s sake,” Hotchkiss was calling from above, “have you broken +your back?” +“No,” I returned, as steadily as I could, “merely driven it up through +my skull. This is a staircase. I’m coming up to open another window.” +It was eerie work, but I accomplished it finally, discovering, not +without mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever dreamed +of, tables that seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I had got a +window open, Hotchkiss crawled through, and we were at last under +shelter. +Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious investigation +that had landed us where we were, revealed that the house was lighted +by electricity, and that the plant was not in operation. By accident I +stumbled across a tabouret with smoking materials, and found a half +dozen matches. The first one showed us the magnitude of the room we +stood in, and revealed also a brass candle-stick by the open fireplace, +a candle-stick almost four feet high, supporting a candle of similar +colossal proportions. It was Hotchkiss who discovered that it had been +recently lighted. He held the match to it and peered at it over his +glasses. +“Within ten minutes,” he announced impressively, “this candle has been +burning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft.” +“Perhaps it’s the damp weather,” I ventured, moving a little nearer to +the circle of light. A gust of wind came in just then, and the flame +turned over on its side and threatened demise. There was something +almost ridiculous in the haste with which we put down the window and +nursed the flicker to life. +The peculiarly ghost-like appearance of the room added to the +uncanniness of the situation. The furniture was swathed in white covers +for the winter; even the pictures wore shrouds. And in a niche between +two windows a bust on a pedestal, similarly wrapped, one arm extended +under its winding sheet, made a most life-like ghost, if any ghost can +be life-like. +In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects +for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to +make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost +in the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but distinctly more +comfortable appearance. +“When these people built,” Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge +dimensions of the room, “they must have bought a mountain and built all +over it. What a room!” +It seemed to be a living-room, although Hotchkiss remarked that it was +much more like a dead one. It was probably fifty feet long and +twenty-five feet wide. It was very high, too, with a domed ceiling, and +a gallery ran around the entire room, about fifteen feet above the +floor. The candle light did not penetrate beyond the dim outlines of +the gallery rail, but I fancied the wall there hung with smaller +pictures. +Hotchkiss had discovered a fire laid in the enormous fireplace, and in +a few minutes we were steaming before a cheerful blaze. Within the +radius of its light and heat, we were comfortable again. But the +brightness merely emphasized the gloom of the ghostly corners. We +talked in subdued tones, and I smoked, a box of Russian cigarettes +which I found in a table drawer. We had decided to stay all night, +there being nothing else to do. I suggested a game of double-dummy +bridge, but did not urge it when my companion asked me if it resembled +euchre. Gradually, as the ecclesiastical candle paled in the firelight, +we grew drowsy. I drew a divan into the cheerful area, and stretched +myself out for sleep. Hotchkiss, who said the pain in his leg made him +wakeful, sat wide-eyed by the fire, smoking a pipe. +I have no idea how much time had passed when something threw itself +violently on my chest. I roused with a start and leaped to my feet, and +a large Angora cat fell with a thump to the floor. The fire was still +bright, and there was an odor of scorched leather through the room, +from Hotchkiss’ shoes. The little detective was sound asleep, his dead +pipe in his fingers. The cat sat back on its haunches and wailed. +The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into the +room and fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its mouth for +another howl. I thrust at it with my foot, but it refused to move. +Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, and his pipe clattered to the floor. +The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it was +following with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved behind me. +The tip of its tail waved threateningly, but when I wheeled I saw +nothing. +I took the candle and made a circuit of the room. Behind the curtain +that had moved the door was securely closed. The windows were shut and +locked, and everywhere the silence was absolute. The cat followed me +majestically. I stooped and stroked its head, but it persisted in its +uncanny watching of the corners of the room. +When I went back to my divan, after putting a fresh log on the fire, I +was reassured. I took the precaution, and smiled at myself for doing +it, to put the fire tongs within reach of my hand. But the cat would +not let me sleep. After a time I decided that it wanted water, and I +started out in search of some, carrying the candle without the stand. I +wandered through several rooms, all closed and dismantled, before I +found a small lavatory opening off a billiard room. The cat lapped +steadily, and I filled a glass to take back with me. The candle +flickered in a sickly fashion that threatened to leave me there lost in +the wanderings of the many hallways, and from somewhere there came an +occasional violent puff of wind. The cat stuck by my feet, with the +hair on its back raised menacingly. I don’t like cats; there is +something psychic about them. +Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved his +boots back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with sleep gone +from me, I lay back on my divan and reflected on many things: on my +idiocy in coming; on Alison West, and the fact that only a week before +she had been a guest in this very house; on Richey and the constraint +that had come between us. From that I drifted back to Alison, and to +the barrier my comparative poverty would be. +The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard footsteps +coming, rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged, and seemed +to mount endless staircases without coming any closer. I realized +finally that I had not quite turned off the tap, and that the lavatory, +which I had circled to reach, must be quite close. +The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws, content in the +warmth and companionship. I watched it idly. Now and then the green +wood hissed in the fire, but the cat never batted an eye. Through an +unshuttered window the lightning flashed. Suddenly the cat looked up. +It lifted its head and stared directly at the gallery above. Then it +blinked, and stared again. I was amused. Not until it had got up on its +feet, eyes still riveted on the balcony, tail waving at the tip, the +hair on its back a bristling brush, did I glance casually over my head. +From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a face that seemed a +fitting tenant of the ghostly room below. I saw it as plainly as I +might see my own face in a mirror. While I stared at it with horrified +eyes, the apparition faded. The rail was there, the Bokhara rug still +swung from it, but the gallery was empty. +The cat threw back its head and wailed. +CHAPTER XXIV. +HIS WIFE’S FATHER +I jumped up and seized the fire tongs. The cat’s wail had roused +Hotchkiss, who was wide-awake at once. He took in my offensive +attitude, the tongs, the direction of my gaze, and needed nothing more. +As he picked up the candle and darted out into the hall, I followed +him. He made directly for the staircase, and part way up he turned off +to the right through a small door. We were on the gallery itself; below +us the fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat was not in sight. There was no +sign of my ghostly visitant, but as we stood there the Bokhara rug, +without warning, slid over the railing and fell to the floor below. +“Man or woman?” Hotchkiss inquired in his most professional tone. +“Neither—that is, I don’t know. I didn���t notice anything but the eyes,” +I muttered. “They were looking a hole in me. If you’d seen that cat you +would realize my state of mind. That was a traditional graveyard yowl.” +“I don’t think you saw anything at all,” he lied cheerfully. “You dozed +off, and the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet car.” +Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when we went down, and +when I finally went to sleep he was reading the only book in +sight—_Elwell on Bridge_. The first rays of daylight were coming +mistily into the room when he roused me. He had his finger on his lips, +and he whispered sibilantly while I tried to draw on my distorted +boots. +“I think we have him,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve been looking around +some, and I can tell you this much. Just before we came in through the +window last night, another man came. Only—he did not drop, as you did. +He swung over to the stair railing, and then down. The rail is +scratched. He was long enough ahead of us to go into the dining-room +and get a decanter out of the sideboard. He poured out the liquor into +a glass, left the decanter there, and took the whisky into the library +across the hall. Then—he broke into a desk, using a paper knife for a +jimmy.” +“Good Lord, Hotchkiss,” I exclaimed; “why, it may have been Sullivan +himself! Confound your theories—he’s getting farther away every +minute.” +“It was Sullivan,” Hotchkiss returned imperturbably. “And he has not +gone. His boots are by the library fire.” +“He probably had a dozen pairs where he could get them,” I scoffed. +“And while you and I sat and slept, the very man we want to get our +hands on leered at us over that railing.” +“Softly, softly, my friend,” Hotchkiss said, as I stamped into my other +shoe. “I did not say he was gone. Don’t jump at conclusions. It is +fatal to reasoning. As a matter of fact, he didn’t relish a night on +the mountains any more than we did. After he had unintentionally +frightened you almost into paralysis, what would my gentleman naturally +do? Go out in the storm again? Not if I know the Alice-sit-by-the-fire +type. He went up-stairs, well up near the roof, locked himself in and +went to bed.” +“And he is there now?” +“He is there now.” +We had no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is always +armed, and that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a +revolver that missed fire. As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. +Hotchkiss carried the fire tongs, but my sense of humor was too strong +for me; I declined the poker. +“All we want is a little peaceable conversation with him,” I demurred. +“We can’t brain him first and converse with him afterward. And anyhow, +while I can’t put my finger on the place, I think your theory is weak. +If he wouldn’t run a hundred miles through fire and water to get away +from us, then he is not the man we want.” +Hotchkiss, however, was certain. He had found the room and listened +outside the door to the sleeper’s heavy breathing, and so we climbed +past luxurious suites, revealed in the deepening daylight, past long +vistas of hall and boudoir. And we were both badly winded when we got +there. It was a tower room, reached by narrow stairs, and well above +the roof level. Hotchkiss was glowing. +“It is partly good luck, but not all,” he panted in a whisper. “If we +had persisted in the search last night, he would have taken alarm and +fled. Now—we have him. Are you ready?” +He gave a mighty rap at the door with the fire tongs, and stood +expectant. Certainly he was right; some one moved within. +“Hello! Hello there!” Hotchkiss bawled. “You might as well come out. We +won’t hurt you, if you’ll come peaceably.” +“Tell him we represent the law,” I prompted. “That’s the customary +thing, you know.” +But at that moment a bullet came squarely through the door and +flattened itself with a sharp _pst_ against the wall of the tower +staircase. We ducked unanimously, dropped back out of range, and +Hotchkiss retaliated with a spirited bang at the door with the tongs. +This brought another bullet. It was a ridiculous situation. Under the +circumstances, no doubt, we should have retired, at least until we had +armed ourselves, but Hotchkiss had no end of fighting spirit, and as +for me, my blood was up. +“Break the lock,” I suggested, and Hotchkiss, standing at the side, out +of range, retaliated for every bullet by a smashing blow with the +tongs. The shots ceased after a half dozen, and the door was giving, +slowly. One of us on each side of the door, we were ready for almost +any kind of desperate resistance. As it swung open Hotchkiss poised the +tongs; I stood, bent forward, my arm drawn back for a blow. +Nothing happened. +There was not a sound. Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which I +justly value, I peered around and into the room. There was no desperado +there: only a fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, sitting on the +edge of her bed, with a quilt around her shoulders and the empty +revolver at her feet. +We were victorious, but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as +ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. +There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one +spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering +relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss’ disgruntled countenance. He +was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed with +irritation. Finally he stopped in front of me and compelled my +attention. +“When you have finished cackling,” he said with dignity, “I wish to +justify my position. Do you think the—er—young woman up-stairs put a +pair of number eight boots to dry in the library last night? Do you +think she poured the whisky out of that decanter?” +“They have been known to do it,” I put in, but his eye silenced me. +“Moreover, if she had been the person who peered at you over the +gallery railing last night, don’t you suppose, with her—er—belligerent +disposition, she could have filled you as full of lead as a window +weight?” +“I do,” I assented. “It wasn’t Alice-sit-by-the-fire. I grant you that. +Then who was it?” +Hotchkiss felt certain that it had been Sullivan, but I was not so +sure. Why would he have crawled like a thief into his own house? If he +had crossed the park, as seemed probable, when we did, he had not made +any attempt to use the knocker. I gave it up finally, and made an +effort to conciliate the young woman in the tower. +We had heard no sound since our spectacular entrance into her room. I +was distinctly uncomfortable as, alone this time, I climbed to the +tower staircase. Reasoning from before, she would probably throw a +chair at me. I stopped at the foot of the staircase and called. +“Hello up there,” I said, in as debonair a manner as I could summon. +“Good morning. _Wie geht es bei ihnen?_” +No reply. +“_Bon jour, mademoiselle_,” I tried again. This time there was a +movement of some sort from above, but nothing fell on me. +“I—we want to apologize for rousing you so—er—unexpectedly this +morning,” I went on. “The fact is, we wanted to talk to you, and +you—you were hard to waken. We are travelers, lost in your mountains, +and we crave a breakfast and an audience.” +She came to the door then. I could feel that she was investigating the +top of my head from above. “Is Mr. Sullivan with you?” she asked. It +was the first word from her, and she was not sure of her voice. +“No. We are alone. If you will come down and look at us you will find +us two perfectly harmless people, whose horse—curses on him—departed +without leave last night and left us at your gate.” +She relaxed somewhat then and came down a step or two. “I was afraid I +had killed somebody,” she said. “The housekeeper left yesterday, and +the other maids went with her.” +When she saw that I was comparatively young and lacked the earmarks of +the highwayman, she was greatly relieved. She was inclined to fight shy +of Hotchkiss, however, for some reason. She gave us a breakfast of a +sort, for there was little in the house, and afterward we telephoned to +the town for a vehicle. While Hotchkiss examined scratches and replaced +the Bokhara rug, I engaged Jennie in conversation. +“Can you tell me,” I asked, “who is managing the estate since Mrs. +Curtis was killed?” +“No one,” she returned shortly. +“Has—any member of the family been here since the accident?” +“No, sir. There was only the two, and some think Mr. Sullivan was +killed as well as his sister.” +“You don’t?” +“No,” with conviction. +“Why?” +She wheeled on me with quick suspicion. +“Are you a detective?” she demanded. +“No.” +“You told him to say you represented the law.” +“I am a lawyer. Some of them misrepresent the law, but I—” +She broke in impatiently. +“A sheriff’s officer?” +“No. Look here, Jennie; I am all that I should be. You’ll have to +believe that. And I’m in a bad position through no fault of my own. I +want you to answer some questions. If you will help me, I will do what +I can for you. Do you live near here?” +Her chin quivered. It was the first sign of weakness she had shown. +“My home is in Pittsburg,” she said, “and I haven’t enough money to get +there. They hadn’t paid any wages for two months. They didn’t pay +anybody.” +“Very well,” I returned. “I’ll send you back to Pittsburg, Pullman +included, if you will tell me some things I want to know.” +She agreed eagerly. Outside the window Hotchkiss was bending over, +examining footprints in the drive. +“Now,” I began, “there has been a Miss West staying here?” +“Yes.” +“Mr. Sullivan was attentive to her?” +“Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg. My aunt +has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted her brother +to marry Miss West.” +“Do you think he did marry her?” I could not keep the excitement out of +my voice. +“No. There were reasons”—she stopped abruptly. +“Do you know anything of the family? Are they—were they New Yorkers?” +“They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis say +her mother was a Cuban. I don’t know much about them, but Mr. Sullivan +had a wicked temper, though he didn’t look it. Folks say big, +light-haired people are easy going, but I don’t believe it, sir.” +“How long was Miss West here?” +“Two weeks.” +I hesitated about further questioning. Critical as my position was, I +could not pry deeper into Alison West’s affairs. If she had got into +the hands of adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared to have +been, she was safely away from them again. But something of the +situation in the car Ontario was forming itself in my mind: the +incident at the farmhouse lacked only motive to be complete. Was +Sullivan, after all, a rascal or a criminal? Was the murderer Sullivan +or Mrs. Conway? The lady or the tiger again. +Jennie was speaking. +“I hope Miss West was not hurt?” she asked. “We liked her, all of us. +She was not like Mrs. Curtis.” +I wanted to say that she was not like anybody in the world. +Instead—“She escaped with some bruises,” I said. +She glanced at my arm. “You were on the train?” +“Yes.” +She waited for more questions, but none coming, she went to the door. +Then she closed it softly and came back. +“Mrs. Curtis is dead? You are sure of it?” she asked. +“She was killed instantly, I believe. The body was not recovered. But I +have reasons for believing that Mr. Sullivan is living.” +“I knew it,” she said. “I—I think he was here the night before last. +That is why I went to the tower room. I believe he would kill me if he +could.” As nearly as her round and comely face could express it, +Jennie’s expression was tragic at that moment. I made a quick +resolution, and acted on it at once. +“You are not entirely frank with me, Jennie,” I protested. “And I am +going to tell you more than I have. We are talking at cross purposes.” +“I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss +West and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed in +that car and Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a chain +of circumstantial evidence that involved me completely, so that I may, +at any time, be arrested.” +Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the meaning +of my words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped: +“You mean—Mr. Sullivan committed the crime himself?” +“I think he did.” +“What was it?” +“It was murder,” I said deliberately. +Her hands clenched involuntarily, and she shrank back. “A woman?” She +could scarcely form her words. +“No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg.” +Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke down +and cried, her head on the back of a tall chair. +“It was my fault,” she said wretchedly, “my fault, I should not have +sent them the word.” +After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over +something, and finally determined to say it. +“You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in the +Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan’s wife’s father!” +CHAPTER XXV. +AT THE STATION +So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that theory +all through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if necessary she +could prove the connection between Sullivan and the murdered man, and +show a motive for the crime. I was triumphant when Hotchkiss came in. +When the girl had produced a photograph of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had +recognized the bronze-haired girl of the train, we were both well +satisfied—which goes to prove the ephemeral nature of most human +contentments. +Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too much. +She was evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that Mrs. +Sullivan was recovering in a Baltimore hospital, but she already knew +it, from some source, and merely nodded. She made a few preparations +for leaving, while Hotchkiss and I compared notes, and then, with the +cat in her arms, she climbed into the trap from the town. I sat with +her, and on the way down she told me a little, not much. +“If you see Mrs. Sullivan,” she advised, “and she is conscious, she +probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed in the +wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir.” +“You mean that she—still cares about her husband?” +The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its head against my hand +invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the mountain +crests, a colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. “Yes, she cares,” +she said softly. “Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but +Peter there in your lap wouldn’t come back and lick your hand if you +kicked him. If—if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you +can, sir. She has been good to me—that’s why I have played the spy here +all summer. It’s a thankless thing, spying on people.” +“It is that,” I agreed soberly. +Hotchkiss and I arrived in Washington late that evening, and, rather +than arouse the household, I went to the club. I was at the office +early the next morning and admitted myself. McKnight rarely appeared +before half after ten, and our modest office force some time after +nine. I looked over my previous day’s mail and waited, with such +patience as I possessed, for McKnight. In the interval I called up Mrs. +Klopton and announced that I would dine at home that night. What my +household subsists on during my numerous absences I have never +discovered. Tea, probably, and crackers. Diligent search when I have +made a midnight arrival, never reveals anything more substantial. +Possibly I imagine it, but the announcement that I am about to make a +journey always seems to create a general atmosphere of depression +throughout the house, as though Euphemia and Eliza, and Thomas, the +stableman, were already subsisting, in imagination, on Mrs. Klopton’s +meager fare. +So I called her up and announced my arrival. There was something +unusual in her tone, as though her throat was tense with indignation. +Always shrill, her elderly voice rasped my ear painfully through the +receiver. +“I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced portentously. +“The last roast was a pound short, and his mutton-chops—any +self-respecting sheep would refuse to acknowledge them.” +As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs. +Klopton conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of real +significance has occurred. Also, through long habit, I have learned how +quickest to bring her to the point. +“You are pessimistic this morning,” I returned. “What’s the matter, +Mrs. Klopton? You haven’t used that tone since Euphemia baked a pie for +the iceman. What is it now? Somebody poison the dog?” +She cleared her throat. +“The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence,” she said. “I have lived +in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what I saw +yesterday—every bureau drawer opened, and my—my most sacred +belongings—” she choked. +“Did you notify the police?” I asked sharply. +“Police!” she sniffed. “Police! It was the police that did it—two +detectives with a search warrant. I—I wouldn’t dare tell you over the +telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock candy +for my cough.” +“Did they take anything?” I demanded, every nerve on edge. +“They took the cough medicine,” she returned indignantly, “and they +said—” +“Confound the cough medicine!” I was frantic. “Did they take anything +else? Were they in my dressing-room?” +“Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when +you came back. But they wouldn’t listen. They took away that black +sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!” +I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found +Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have produced +the bag, _minus_ the bit of chain, had been my intention. But the +police had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of Sullivan’s +history, I was practically no nearer his discovery than before. +Hotchkiss hoped he had his man in the house off Washington Circle, but +on the very night he had seen him Jennie claimed that Sullivan had +tried to enter the Laurels. Then—suppose we found Sullivan and proved +the satchel and its contents his? Since the police had the bit of chain +it might mean involving Alison in the story. I sat down and buried my +face in my hands. There was no escape. I figured it out despondingly. +Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had +been accused of the murder at the time. There had been blood-stains on +my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, in my possession had +been found a traveling-bag containing the dead man’s pocket-book. +In my favor was McKnight’s theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a motive +for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower ten, and +she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the morning. +Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person +named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors—save one, +Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive for +his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again—I would have +to drag in the girl. +And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken +necklace. +Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably ignorant +of my presence, and over the transom floated scraps of dialogue and the +stenographer’s gurgling laugh. McKnight had a relative, who was reading +law with him, in the intervals between calling up the young women of +his acquaintance. He came in singing, and the office boy joined in with +the uncertainty of voice of fifteen. I smiled grimly. I was too busy +with my own troubles to find any joy in opening the door and startling +them into silence. I even heard, without resentment, Blobs of the +uncertain voice inquire when “Blake” would be back. +I hoped McKnight would arrive before the arrest occurred. There were +many things to arrange. But when at last, impatient of his delay, I +telephoned, I found he had been gone for more than an hour. Clearly he +was not coming directly to the office, and with such resignation as I +could muster I paced the floor and waited. +I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life. “Born an orphan,” +as Richey said, I had made my own way, carved out myself such success +as had been mine. I had built up my house of life on the props of law +and order, and now some unknown hand had withdrawn the supports, and I +stood among ruins. +I suppose it is the maternal in a woman that makes a man turn to her +when everything else fails. The eternal boy in him goes to have his +wounded pride bandaged, his tattered self-respect repaired. If he loves +the woman, he wants her to kiss the hurt. +The longing to see Alison, always with me, was stronger than I was that +morning. It might be that I would not see her again. I had nothing to +say to her save one thing, and that, under the cloud that hung over me, +I did not dare to say. But I wanted to see her, to touch her hand—as +only a lonely man can crave it, I wanted the comfort of her, the peace +that lay in her presence. And so, with every step outside the door a +threat, I telephoned to her. +She was gone! The disappointment was great, for my need was great. In a +fury of revolt against the scheme of things, I heard that she had +started home to Richmond—but that she might still be caught at the +station. +To see her had by that time become an obsession. I picked up my hat, +threw open the door, and, oblivious of the shock to the office force of +my presence, followed so immediately by my exit, I dashed out to the +elevator. As I went down in one cage I caught a glimpse of Johnson and +two other men going up in the next. I hardly gave them a thought. There +was no hansom in sight, and I jumped on a passing car. Let come what +might, arrest, prison, disgrace, I was going to see Alison. +I saw her. I flung into the station, saw that it was empty—empty, for +she was not there. Then I hurried back to the gates. She was there, a +familiar figure in blue, the very gown in which I always thought of +her, the one she had worn when, Heaven help me—I had kissed her, at the +Carter farm. And she was not alone. Bending over her, talking +earnestly, with all his boyish heart in his face, was Richey. +They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been +McKnight’s game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly out +of the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked toward +them, standing apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other. They were +the only two people on earth that I cared about, and I left them there +together. Then I went back miserably to the office and awaited arrest. +CHAPTER XXVI. +ON TO RICHMOND +Strangely enough, I was not disturbed that day. McKnight did not appear +at all. I sat at my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon, +working with feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a critical +illness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paid +bills until I had writer’s cramp from signing checks, read over my +will, and paid up my life insurance, made to the benefit of an elderly +sister of my mother’s. I no longer dreaded arrest. After that morning +in the station, I felt that anything would be a relief from the +tension. I went home with perfect openness, courting the warrant that I +knew was waiting, but I was not molested. The delay puzzled me. The +early part of the evening was uneventful. I read until late, with +occasional lapses, when my book lay at my elbow, and I smoked and +thought. Mrs. Klopton closed the house with ostentatious caution, about +eleven, and hung around waiting to enlarge on the outrageousness of the +police search. I did not encourage her. +“One would think,” she concluded pompously, one foot in the hall, “that +you were something you oughtn’t to be, Mr. Lawrence. They acted as +though you had committed a crime.” +“I’m not sure that I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” I said wearily. “Somebody +did, the general verdict seems to point my way.” +She stared at me in speechless indignation. Then she flounced out. She +came back once to say that the paper predicted cooler weather, and that +she had put a blanket on my bed, but, to her disappointment, I refused +to reopen the subject. +At half past eleven McKnight and Hotchkiss came in. Richey has a habit +of stopping his car in front of the house and honking until some one +comes out. He has a code of signals with the horn, which I never +remember. Two long and a short blast mean, I believe, “Send out a box +of cigarettes,” and six short blasts, which sound like a police call, +mean “Can you lend me some money?” To-night I knew something was up, +for he got out and rang the door-bell like a Christian. +They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until it +gleamed. McKnight was aggressively cheerful. +“Not pinched yet!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that for luck! +You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence.” +“Yes,” I assented, with some bitterness, “I hardly know how to contain +myself for joy sometimes. I suppose you know”—to Hotchkiss—“that the +police were here while we were at Cresson, and that they found the bag +that I brought from the wreck?” +“Things are coming to a head,” he said thoughtfully “unless a little +plan that I have in mind—” he hesitated. +“I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate,” I said doggedly. “I’ve got a +mental toothache, and the sooner it’s pulled the better.” +“Tut, tut,” said McKnight, “think of the disgrace to the firm if its +senior member goes up for life, or—” he twisted his handkerchief into a +noose, and went through an elaborate pantomime. +“Although jail isn’t so bad, anyhow,” he finished, “there are fellows +that get the habit and keep going back and going back.” He looked at +his watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was strained. Hotchkiss was +nervously fumbling my book. +“Did you ever read _The Purloined Letter_, Mr. Blakeley?” he inquired. +“Probably, years ago,” I said. “Poe, isn’t it?” +He was choked at my indifference. “It is a masterpiece,” he said, with +enthusiasm. “I re-read it to-day.” +“And what happened?” +“Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. I—I +made some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man there is +left-handed.” He looked around for our approval. “There was a small +cushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had been stuck in with +the left hand.” +“Somebody may have twisted the cushion,” I objected, but he looked +hurt, and I desisted. +“There is only one discrepancy,” he admitted, “but it troubles me. +According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy pajamas, +while I found here only the most severely plain night-shirts.” +“Any buttons off?” McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch. +“The buttons were there,” the amateur detective answered gravely, “but +the buttonhole next the top one was torn through.” +McKnight winked at me furtively. +“I am convinced of one thing,” Hotchkiss went on, clearing his throat, +“the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them with him, or +he has sold them.” +A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever it +was it passed on, however. I was growing curious and the restraint was +telling on McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. In the interval we +discussed the strange occurrence at Cresson, which lost nothing by +Hotchkiss’ dry narration. +“And so,” he concluded, “the woman in the Baltimore hospital is the +wife of Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No +wonder he collapsed when he heard of the wreck.” +“Joy, probably,” McKnight put in. “Is that clock right, Lawrence? Never +mind, it doesn’t matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped in the office +yesterday, while you were away.” +“What!” I sprang from my chair. +“Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us to +handle her case against the railroad.” +“I would like to know what she is driving at,” I reflected. “Is she +trying to reach me through you?” +Richey’s flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped it +now. “Yes,” he said, “she’s after the notes, of course. And I’ll tell +you I felt like a poltroon—whatever that may be—when I turned her down. +She stood by the door with her face white, and told me contemptuously +that I could save you from a murder charge and wouldn’t do it. She made +me feel like a cur. I was just as guilty as if I could have obliged +her. She hinted that there were reasons and she laid my attitude to +beastly motives.” +“Nonsense,” I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to the +window. “She was excited. There are no ‘reasons,’ whatever she means.” +Richey put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been together too long to +let any ‘reasons’ or ‘unreasons’ come between us, old man,” he said, +not very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came forward in +his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his coat-tails and +coughed. +“Mr. Blakeley,” he began, “by Mr. McKnight’s advice we have arranged a +little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, Mr. Henry +Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very few +minutes—he will be here.” +“I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up,” Richey explained. +“He’s clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I’m not so +cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of +Government. No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives +for the same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an +unpleasant father-in-law.” +We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window, +and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. “It’s a great day for modern +detective methods,” he chirruped. “While the police have been guarding +houses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall in +and choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric—” +The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in the +hall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes, +flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence. +“Behold—your man!” he declaimed. +Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray, +wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer. +“I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight,” said the +constable. +But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions +of mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his +important attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond +man ceased to look angry, and became sheepish. +It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! +McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes. +“Stuart,” he said sternly, “there are two very serious things we have +learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushion +with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, you +wear—er—night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, we +find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck.” +Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at the +crestfallen Hotchkiss. +“I haven’t any idea what it’s all about,” he said. “I was arrested as I +reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and brought +directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake.” +Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. “You can not deny,” +he contended, “that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your rooms last +Monday evening.” +Stuart looked at us and flushed. +“No, I don’t deny it,” he said, “but there was nothing criminal about +it, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to induce me to +secure the forged notes for him. But I did not even know where they +were.” +“And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?” persisted +Hotchkiss. But McKnight interfered. +“There is no use trying to put the other man’s identity on Stuart, Mr. +Hotchkiss,” he protested. “He has been our confidential clerk for six +years, and has not been away from the office a day for a year. I am +afraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of all these scraps +is going to be a crazy quilt.” His tone was facetious, but I could +detect the undercurrent of real disappointment. +I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, still +indignant, left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook hands with +McKnight and myself magnanimously, but he hurled a look of utter hatred +at Hotchkiss, sunk crestfallen in his chair. +“As far as I can see,” said McKnight dryly, “we’re exactly as far along +as we were the day we met at the Carter place. We’re not a step nearer +to finding our man.” +“We have one thing that may be of value,” I suggested. “He is the +husband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk’s hospital, and it is just +possible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going to lose +your valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?” I asked. +He roused at that to feeble interest, “I—oh, of course not, if you +still care to have me, I—I was wondering about—the man who just went +out, Stuart, you say? I—told his landlady to-night that he wouldn’t +need the room again. I hope she hasn’t rented it to somebody else.” +We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to +Baltimore the next day and try to find the real Sullivan through his +wife. He left sometime after midnight, and Richey and I were alone. +He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time +we were silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and watched him. It +was not surprising, I thought, that she cared for him: women had always +loved him, perhaps because he always loved them. There was no +disloyalty in the thought: it was the lad’s nature to give and crave +affection. Only—I was different. I had never really cared about a girl +before, and my life had been singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely +battle always. Once before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and +our callow devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was +Dorothy—I had forgotten the rest—but I remembered the sequel. In a +spirit of quixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey +and had gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice to a +somber, white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight’s first +words showed our parallel lines of thought. +“I say, Lollie,” he asked, “do you remember Dorothy Browne?” _Browne_, +that was it! +“Dorothy Browne?” I repeated. “Oh—why yes, I recall her now. Why?” +“Nothing,” he said. “I was thinking about her. That’s all. You remember +you were crazy about her, and dropped back because she preferred me.” +“I got out,” I said with dignity, “because you declared you would shoot +yourself if she didn’t go with you to something or other!” +“Oh, why yes, I recall now!” he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette in +the general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a little +conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a Japanese vase +on the mantel. +“I was thinking,” he began, turning the vase around, “that, if you feel +pretty well again, and—and ready to take hold, that I should like to go +away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned up at the +office.” +“Do you mean—you are going to Richmond?” I asked, after a scarcely +perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in his +pockets. +“No. That’s off, Lollie. The Seiberts are going for a week’s cruise +along the coast. I—the hot weather has played hob with me and the +cruise means seven days’ breeze and bridge.” +I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He was +looking haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything to +say, and neither could he, evidently. The matter between us lay too +deep for speech. +“How’s Candida?” he asked. +“Martin says a month, and she will be all right,” I returned, in the +same tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. He +blurted it out, finally, half way to the door. +“The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days,” he said, “and if you +want a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself—” +“Perhaps I _shall_,” I returned, as indifferently as I could. “Not +going yet, are you?” +“Yes. It is late.” He drew in his breath as if he had something more to +say, but the impulse passed. “Well, good night,” he said from the +doorway. +“Good night, old man.” +The next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of the +Cannonball throbbing in the street. Then the quiet settled down around +me again, and there in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was going to +see her. +Suddenly the idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so great +and wonderful a world became intolerable. The possibility of arrest +before I could get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end. +I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the house, +and then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. There, after +a conference with Blobs, whose features fairly jerked with excitement, +I double-locked the door of my private office and finished off some +imperative work. By ten o’clock I was free, and for the twentieth time +I consulted my train schedule. At five minutes after ten, with McKnight +not yet in sight, Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we had +agreed upon, and on being admitted slipped in and quietly closed the +door behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and a purple +dab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly villainous and stealthy +expression. +“They’re here,” he said, “two of ’em, and that crazy Stuart wasn’t on, +and said you were somewhere in the building.” +A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outer +office. +“This way,” said Blobs, in a husky undertone, and, darting into a +lavatory, threw open a door that I had always supposed locked. Thence +into a back hall piled high with boxes and past the presses of a +bookbindery to the freight elevator. +Greatly to Blobs’ disappointment, there was no pursuit. I was +exhilarated but out of breath when we emerged into an alleyway, and the +sharp daylight shone on Blobs’ excited face. +“Great sport, isn’t it?” I panted, dropping a dollar into his palm, +inked to correspond with his face. “Regular walk-away in the +hundred-yard dash.” +“Gimme two dollars more and I’ll drop ’em down the elevator shaft,” he +suggested ferociously. I left him there with his blood-thirsty schemes, +and started for the station. I had a tendency to look behind me now and +then, but I reached the station unnoticed. The afternoon was hot, the +train rolled slowly along, stopping to pant at sweltering stations, +from whose roofs the heat rose in waves. But I noticed these things +objectively, not subjectively, for at the end of the journey was a girl +with blue eyes and dark brown hair, hair that could—had I not seen +it?—hang loose in bewitching tangles or be twisted into little coils of +delight. +CHAPTER XXVII. +THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS +I telephoned as soon as I reached my hotel, and I had not known how +much I had hoped from seeing her until I learned that she was out of +town. I hung up the receiver, almost dizzy with disappointment, and it +was fully five minutes before I thought of calling up again and asking +if she was within telephone reach. It seemed she was down on the bay +staying with the Samuel Forbeses. +Sammy Forbes! It was a name to conjure with just then. In the old days +at college I had rather flouted him, but now I was ready to take him to +my heart. I remembered that he had always meant well, anyhow, and that +he was explosively generous. I called him up. +“By the fumes of gasoline!” he said, when I told him who I was. +“Blakeley, the Fount of Wisdom against Woman! Blakeley, the Great +Unkissed! Welcome to our city!” +Whereupon he proceeded to urge me to come down to the Shack, and to say +that I was an agreeable surprise, because four times in two hours +youths had called up to ask if Alison West was stopping with him, and +to suggest that they had a vacant day or two. “Oh—Miss West!” I shouted +politely. There was a buzzing on the line. “Is she there?” Sam had no +suspicions. Was not I in his mind always the Great Unkissed?—which +sounds like the Great Unwashed and is even more of a reproach. He asked +me down promptly, as I had hoped, and thrust aside my objections. +“Nonsense,” he said. “Bring yourself. The lady that keeps my +boarding-house is calling to me to insist. You remember Dorothy, don’t +you, Dorothy Browne? She says unless you have lost your figure you can +wear my clothes all right. All you need here is a bathing suit for +daytime and a dinner coat for evening.” +“It sounds cool,” I temporized. “If you are sure I won’t put you +out—very well, Sam, since you and your wife are good enough. I have a +couple of days free. Give my love to Dorothy until I can do it myself.” +Sam met me himself and drove me out to the Shack, which proved to be a +substantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided to me +that lots of married men thought they were contented when they were +merely resigned, but that it was the only life, and that Sam, Junior, +could swim like a duck. Incidentally, he said that Alison was his +wife’s cousin, their respective grandmothers having, at proper +intervals, married the same man, and that Alison would lose her good +looks if she was not careful. +“I say she’s worried, and I stick to it,” he said, as he threw the +lines to a groom and prepared to get out. “You know her, and she’s the +kind of girl you think you can read like a book. But you can’t; don’t +fool yourself. Take a good look at her at dinner, Blake; you won’t lose +your head like the other fellows—and then tell me what’s wrong with +her. We’re mighty fond of Allie.” +He went ponderously up the steps, for Sam had put on weight since I +knew him. At the door he turned around. “Do you happen to know the +MacLures at Seal Harbor?” he asked irrelevantly, but Mrs. Sam came into +the hall just then, both hands out to greet me, and, whatever Forbes +had meant to say, he did not pick up the subject again. +“We are having tea in here,” Dorothy said gaily, indicating the door +behind her. “Tea by courtesy, because I think tea is the only beverage +that isn’t represented. And then we must dress, for this is hop night +at the club.” +“Which is as great a misnomer as the tea,” Sam put in, ponderously +struggling out of his linen driving coat. “It’s bridge night, and the +only hops are in the beer.” +He was still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed me my +room himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening raiment +that kept me home that night from the club. For I couldn’t wear Sam’s +clothes. That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a half hour. +“I won’t do it, Sam,” I said, when I had draped his dress-coat on me +toga fashion. “Who am I to have clothing to spare, like this, when many +a poor chap hasn’t even a cellar door to cover him. I won’t do it; I’m +selfish, but not that selfish.” +“Lord,” he said, wiping his face, “how you’ve kept your figure! I can’t +wear a belt any more; got to have suspenders.” +He reflected over his grievance for some time, sitting on the side of +the bed. “You _could_ go as you are,” he said finally. “We do it all +the time, only to-night happens to be the annual something or other, +and—” he trailed off into silence, trying to buckle my belt around him. +“A good six inches,” he sighed. “I never get into a hansom cab any more +that I don’t expect to see the horse fly up into the air. Well, Allie +isn’t going either. She turned down Granger this afternoon, the +Annapolis fellow you met on the stairs, pigeon-breasted chap—and she +always gets a headache on those occasions.” +He got up heavily and went to the door. “Granger is leaving,” he said, +“I may be able to get his dinner coat for you. How well do you know +her?” he asked, with his hand on the knob. +“If you mean Dolly—?” +“Alison.” +“Fairly well,” I said cautiously. “Not as well as I would like to. I +dined with her last week in Washington. And—I knew her before that.” +Forbes touched the bell instead of going out, and told the servant who +answered to see if Mr. Granger’s suitcase had gone. If not, to bring it +across the hall. Then he came back to his former position on the bed. +“You see, we feel responsible for Allie—near relation and all that,” he +began pompously. “And we can’t talk to the people here at the house—all +the men are in love with her, and all the women are jealous. +Then—there’s a lot of money, too, or will be.” +“Confound the money!” I muttered. “That is—nothing. Razor slipped.” +“I can tell you,” he went on, “because you don’t lose your head over +every pretty face—although Allie is more than that, of course. But +about a month ago she went away—to Seal Harbor, to visit Janet MacLure. +Know her?” +“She came home to Richmond yesterday, and then came down here—Allie, I +mean. And yesterday afternoon Dolly had a letter from Janet—something +about a second man—and saying she was disappointed not to have had +Alison there, that she had promised them a two weeks’ visit! What do +you make of that? And that isn’t the worst. Allie herself wasn’t in the +room, but there were eight other women, and because Dolly had put +belladonna in her eyes the night before to see how she would look, and +as a result couldn’t see anything nearer than across the room, some one +read the letter aloud to her, and the whole story is out. One of the +cats told Granger and the boy proposed to Allie to-day, to show her he +didn’t care a tinker’s dam where she had been.” +“Good boy!” I said, with enthusiasm. I liked the Granger fellow—since +he was out of the running. But Sam was looking at me with suspicion. +“Blake,” he said, “if I didn’t know you for what you are, I’d say you +were interested there yourself.” +Being so near her, under the same roof, with even the tie of a dubious +secret between us, was making me heady. I pushed Forbes toward the +door. +“I interested!” I retorted, holding him by the shoulders. “There isn’t +a word in your vocabulary to fit my condition. I am an island in a +sunlit sea of emotion, Sam, a—an empty place surrounded by longing—a—” +“An empty place surrounded by longing!” he retorted. “You want your +dinner, that’s what’s the matter with you—” +I shut the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I +thought! Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, +Granger’s suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man’s +trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come down +to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club-house +dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain +from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. Sam regaled the +table with accounts of my distrust of women, my one love affair—with +Dorothy; to which I responded, as was expected, that only my failure +there had kept me single all these years, and that if Sam should be +mysteriously missing during the bathing hour to-morrow, and so on. +And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been +tied over pounds of hair—or is it, too, bought by the yard?—and some +eight _ensembles_ with their abject complements had been packed into +three automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I +had just then only one object in life—to find Alison, to assure her of +my absolute faith and confidence in her, and to offer my help and my +poor self, if she would let me, in her service. +She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas and +the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English girl who +turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. She was +concerned because her mistress had had no dinner, and because the tray +of food she carried would soon be cold. I took the tray from her, on +the glimpse of something white on the shore, and that was how I met the +Girl again. +She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, staring +out to sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the +draperies of her white gown melted hazily into the sands. She looked +like a wraith, a despondent phantom of the sea, although the adjective +is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a cheerful phantom. Strangely +enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to +herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like +a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my +dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the +sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty—even the sad little +whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it +fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, +accompanied by a tray of little silver dishes that jingled and an +unmistakable odor of broiled chicken! +“Oh!” she said quickly; and then, “Oh! I thought you were Jenkins.” +“_Timeo Danaos_—what’s the rest of it?” I asked, tendering my offering. +“You didn’t have any dinner, you know.” I sat down beside her. “See, +I’ll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? ‘Little goat bleat: +little table appear!’ I’m perfectly willing to be the goat, too.” +She was laughing rather tremulously. +“We never _do_ meet like other people, do we?” she asked. “We really +ought to shake hands and say how are you.” +“I don’t want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you always +think of me as wearing the other fellow’s clothes,” I returned meekly. +“I’m doing it again: I don’t seem to be able to help it. These are +Granger’s that I have on now.” +She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time. +“Oh, it’s so ridiculous,” she said, “and you have never seen me when I +was not eating! It’s too prosaic!” +“Which reminds me that the chicken is getting cold, and the ice warm,” +I suggested. “At the time, I thought there could be no place better +than the farmhouse kitchen—but this is. I ordered all this for +something I want to say to you—the sea, the sand, the stars.” +“How alliterative you are!” she said, trying to be flippant. “You are +not to say anything until I have had my supper. Look how the things are +spilled around!” +But she ate nothing, after all, and pretty soon I put the tray down in +the sand. I said little; there was no hurry. We were together, and time +meant nothing against that age-long wash of the sea. The air blew her +hair in small damp curls against her face, and little by little the +tide retreated, leaving our boat an oasis in a waste of gray sand. +“If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year +Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?” +she threw at me once when she must have known I was going to speak. I +held her hand, and as long as I merely held it she let it lie warm in +mine. But when I raised it to my lips, and kissed the soft, open palm, +she drew it away without displeasure. +“Not that, please,” she protested, and fell to whistling softly again, +her chin in her hands. “I can’t sing,” she said, to break an awkward +pause, “and so, when I’m fidgety, or have something on my mind, I +whistle. I hope you don’t dislike it?” +“I love it,” I asserted warmly. I did; when she pursed her lips like +that I was mad to kiss them. +“I saw you—at the station,” she said, suddenly. “You—you were in a +hurry to go.” I did not say anything, and after a pause she drew a long +breath. “Men are queer, aren’t they?” she said, and fell to whistling +again. +After a while she sat up as if she had made a resolution. “I am going +to confess something,” she announced suddenly. “You said, you know, +that you had ordered all this for something you—you wanted to say to +me. But the fact is, I fixed it all—came here, I mean, because—I knew +you would come, and I had something to tell you. It was such a +miserable thing I—needed the accessories to help me out.” +“I don’t want to hear anything that distresses you to tell,” I assured +her. “I didn’t come here to force your confidence, Alison. I came +because I couldn’t help it.” She did not object to my use of her name. +“Have you found—your papers?” she asked, looking directly at me for +almost the first time. +“Not yet. We hope to.” +“The—police have not interfered with you?” +“They haven’t had any opportunity,” I equivocated. “You needn’t +distress yourself about that, anyhow.” +“But I do. I wonder why you still believe in me? Nobody else does.” +“I wonder,” I repeated, “why I do!” +“If you produce Harry Sullivan,” she was saying, partly to herself, +“and if you could connect him with Mr. Bronson, and get a full account +of why he was on the train, and all that, it—it would help, wouldn’t +it?” +I acknowledged that it would. Now that the whole truth was almost in my +possession, I was stricken with the old cowardice. I did not want to +know what she might tell me. The yellow line on the horizon, where the +moon was coming up, was a broken bit of golden chain: my heel in the +sand was again pressed on a woman’s yielding fingers: I pulled myself +together with a jerk. +“In order that what you might tell me may help me, if it will,” I said +constrainedly, “it would be necessary, perhaps, that you tell it to the +police. Since they have found the end of the necklace—” +“The end of the necklace!” she repeated slowly. “What about the end of +the necklace?” +I stared at her. “Don’t you remember”—I leaned forward—“the end of the +cameo necklace, the part that was broken off, and was found in the +black sealskin bag, stained with—with blood?” +“Blood,” she said dully. “You mean that _you_ found the broken end? And +then—you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the necklace in it, and +you—must have thought—” +“I didn’t think anything,” I hastened to assure her. “I tell you, +Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and that +I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn’t want me to +help you.” +She held out her hand to me and I took it between both of mine. No word +of love had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and understood. +It was one of the moments that come seldom in a lifetime, and then only +in great crises, a moment of perfect understanding and trust. +Then she drew her hand away and sat, erect and determined, her fingers +laced in her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly and threw its +bright pathway across the water. Back of us, in the trees beyond the +sea wall, a sleepy bird chirruped drowsily, and a wave, larger and +bolder than its brothers, sped up the sand, bringing the moon’s silver +to our very feet. I bent toward the girl. +“I am going to ask just one question.” +“Anything you like.” Her voice was almost dreary. “Was it because of +anything you are going to tell me that you refused Richey?” +She drew her breath in sharply. +“No,” she said, without looking at me. “No. That was not the reason.” +CHAPTER XXVIII. +ALISON’S STORY +She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now and +then, when I, too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced at me +furtively. And once, in the middle of it, she stopped altogether. +“You don’t realize it, probably,” she protested, “but you look like a—a +war god. Your face is horrible.” +“I will turn my back, if it will help any,” I said stormily, “but if +you expect me to look anything but murderous, why, you don’t know what +I am going through with. That’s all.” +The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. They +had met in Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken a villa +for a year. Mrs. Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of society +there, pleading the poverty of the south since the war as a reason for +not going out more. There was talk of a brother, but Alison had not +seen him, and after a scandal which implicated Mrs. Curtis and a young +attaché of the Austrian embassy, Alison had been forbidden to see the +woman. +“The women had never liked her, anyhow,” she said. “She did +unconventional things, and they are very conventional there. And they +said she did not always pay her—her gambling debts. I didn’t like them. +I thought they didn’t like her because she was poor—and popular. +Then—we came home, and I almost forgot her, but last spring, when +mother was not well—she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and it +always uses her up—we went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met them +there, the brother, too, this time. His name was Sullivan, Harry +Pinckney Sullivan.” +“I know. Go on.” +“Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were very +kind to me. I—I saw a lot of them. The brother rather attracted me, +partly—partly because he did not make love to me. He even seemed to +avoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, I suppose. Most of the +other men I knew had—had—” +“I know that, too,” I said bitterly, and moved away from her a trifle. +I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I think she knew +what I was suffering, for she showed no resentment. +“It was early and there were few people around—none that I cared about. +And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I felt as +though the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when Mrs. Curtis +arranged drives and picnics, I—I slipped away and went. I suppose you +won’t believe me, but I had never done that kind of thing before, and +I—well, I have paid up, I think.” +“What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?” I demanded. I had got up and +was pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking savagely at +a bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way. +“Very handsome—as large as you are, but fair, and even more erect.” +I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was fairly +sagging with jealous rage. +“When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had been +going about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadful +time. I was dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do that to +you?” +“Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan,” I said, with a cheerless +attempt at levity. “Go on.” +“If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charming +letters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me to +visit her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could not go +where I wished, and so—I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt’s in the +country, pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to Cresson. +You see I warned you it would be an unpleasant story.” +I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy of +the last few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If Sullivan had +come across the sands just then, I think I would have strangled him +with my hands, out of pure hate. +“Did you marry him?” I demanded. My voice sounded hoarse and strange in +my ears. “That’s all I want to know. Did you marry him?” +“No.” +I drew a long breath. +“You—cared about him?” +She hesitated. +“No,” she said finally. “I did not care about him.” +I sat down on the edge of the boat and mopped my hot face. I was +heartily ashamed of myself, and mingled with my abasement was a great +relief. If she had not married him, and had not cared for him, nothing +else was of any importance. +“I was sorry, of course, the moment the train had started, but I had +wired I was coming, and I could not go back, and then when I got there, +the place was charming. There were no neighbors, but we fished and rode +and motored, and—it was moonlight, like this.” +I put my hand over both of hers, clasped in her lap. “I know,” I +acknowledged repentantly, “and—people do queer things when it is +moonlight. The moon has got me to-night, Alison. If I am a boor, +remember that, won’t you?” +Her fingers lay quiet under mine. “And so,” she went on with a little +sigh, “I began to think perhaps I cared. But all the time I felt that +there was something not quite right. Now and then Mrs. Curtis would say +or do something that gave me a queer start, as if she had dropped a +mask for a moment. And there was trouble with the servants; they were +almost insolent. I couldn’t understand. I don’t know when it dawned on +me that the old Baron Cavalcanti had been right when he said they were +not my kind of people. But I wanted to get away, wanted it +desperately.” +“Of course, they were not your kind,” I cried. “The man was married! +The girl Jennie, a housemaid, was a spy in Mrs. Sullivan’s employ. If +he had pretended to marry you I would have killed him! Not only that, +but the man he murdered, Harrington, was his wife’s father. And I’ll +see him hang by the neck yet if it takes every energy and every penny I +possess.” +I could have told her so much more gently, have broken the shock for +her; I have never been proud of that evening on the sand. I was +alternately a boor and a ruffian—like a hurt youngster who passes the +blow that has hurt him on to his playmate, that both may bawl together. +And now Alison sat, white and cold, without speech. +“Married!” she said finally, in a small voice. “Why, I don’t think it +is possible, is it? I—I was on my way to Baltimore to marry him myself, +when the wreck came.” +“But you said you didn’t care for him!” I protested, my heavy masculine +mind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, without the +slightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She shook off my +hand and fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to find it, she +accepted the one I thrust into her wet fingers. +Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordid +story of a motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a lost +road and a broken car, and a rainy night when they—she and Sullivan, +tramped eternally and did not get home. And of Mrs. Curtis, when they +got home at dawn, suddenly grown conventional and deeply shocked. Of +her own proud, half-disdainful consent to make possible the hackneyed +compromising situation by marrying the rascal, and then—of his +disappearance from the train. It was so terrible to her, such a +Heaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against Sullivan, that I +laughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the handkerchief. +“I know it’s funny,” she said, with a catch in her breath. “When I +think that I nearly married a murderer—and didn’t—I cry for sheer joy.” +Then she buried her face and cried again. +“Please don’t,” I protested unsteadily. “I won’t be responsible if you +keep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a capital charge +hanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any moment.” +That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. “I meant to be so +helpful,” she said, “and I’ve thought of nothing but myself! There were +some things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was—what you say, then I +understand why she came to me just before I left. She had been packing +my things and she must have seen what condition I was in, for she came +over to me when I was getting my wraps on, to leave, and said, ‘Don’t +do it, Miss West, I beg you won’t do it; you’ll be sorry ever after.’ +And just then Mrs. Curtis came in and Jennie slipped out.” +“That was all?” +“No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave Har—Mr. +Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it excited him +terribly. He took his sister aside and they talked together. He was +white with either fear or anger—I don’t know which. Then, when we +boarded the train, a woman in black, with beautiful hair, who was +standing on the car platform, touched him on the arm and then drew +back. He looked at her and glanced away again, but she reeled as if he +had struck her.” +“Then what?” The situation was growing clearer. +“Mrs. Curtis and I had the drawing-room. I had a dreadful night, just +sleeping a little now and then. I dreaded to see dawn come. It was to +be my wedding-day. When we found Harry had disappeared in the night, +Mrs. Curtis was in a frenzy. Then—I saw his cigarette case in your +hand. I had given it to him. You wore his clothes. The murder was +discovered and you were accused of it! What could I do? And then, +afterward, when I saw him asleep at the farmhouse, I—I was +panic-stricken. I locked him in and ran. I didn’t know why he did it, +but—he had killed a man.” +Some one was calling Alison through a megaphone, from the veranda. It +sounded like Sam. “_All-ee_,” he called. “_All-ee!_ I’m going to have +some anchovies on toast! _All-ee!_” Neither of us heard. +“I wonder,” I reflected, “if you would be willing to repeat a part of +that story—just from the telegram on—to a couple of detectives, say on +Monday. If you would tell that, and—how the end of your necklace got +into the sealskin bag—” +“My necklace!” she repeated. “But it isn’t mine. I picked it up in the +car.” +“_All-ee!_” Sam again. “I see you down there. I’m making a julep!” +Alison turned and called through her hands. “Coming in a moment, Sam,” +she said, and rose. “It must be very late: Sam is home. We would better +go back to the house.” +“Don’t,” I begged her. “Anchovies and juleps and Sam will go on for +ever, and I have you such a little time. I suppose I am only one of a +dozen or so, but—you are the only girl in the world. You know I love +you, don’t you, dear?” +Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She pursed +her red lips and answered him in kind. It was more than I could endure. +“Sam or no Sam,” I said firmly, “I am going to kiss you!” +But Sam’s voice came strident through the megaphone. “Be good, you +two,” he bellowed, “I’ve got the binoculars!” And so, under fire, we +walked sedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing—the little +swish of her dress beside me on the grass was pain and ecstasy. I had +but to put out my hand to touch her, and I dared not. +Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail and +watched us with gleeful malignity. +“Home early, aren’t you?” Alison called, when we reached the steps. +“Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted. +Damn the heart convention!” he said cheerfully. “The others are not +here yet.” +Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone again. +The noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into the garden, +still bright in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, and staring +interestedly into the billiard room, was Johnson. +CHAPTER XXIX. +IN THE DINING-ROOM +That was Saturday night, two weeks after the wreck. The previous five +days had been full of swift-following events—the woman in the house +next door, the picture in the theater of a man about to leap from the +doomed train, the dinner at the Dallases’, and Richey’s discovery that +Alison was the girl in the case. In quick succession had come our visit +to the Carter place, the finding of the rest of the telegram, my seeing +Alison there, and the strange interview with Mrs. Conway. The Cresson +trip stood out in my memory for its serio-comic horrors and its one +real thrill. Then—the discovery by the police of the seal-skin bag and +the bit of chain; Hotchkiss producing triumphantly Stuart for Sullivan +and his subsequent discomfiture; McKnight at the station with Alison, +and later the confession that he was out of the running. +And yet, when I thought it all over, the entire week and its events +were two sides of a triangle that was narrowing rapidly to an apex, a +point. And the said apex was at that moment in the drive below my +window, resting his long legs by sitting on a carriage block, and +smoking a pipe that made the night hideous. The sense of the ridiculous +is very close to the sense of tragedy. I opened my screen and whistled, +and Johnson looked up and grinned. We said nothing. I held up a handful +of cigars, he extended his hat, and when I finally went to sleep, it +was to a soothing breeze that wafted in salt air and a faint aroma of +good tobacco. I was thoroughly tired, but I slept restlessly, dreaming +of two detectives with Pittsburg warrants being held up by Hotchkiss at +the point of a splint, while Alison fastened their hands with a chain +that was broken and much too short. I was roused about dawn by a light +rap at the door, and, opening it, I found Forbes, in a pair of trousers +and a pajama coat. He was as pleasant as most fleshy people are when +they have to get up at night, and he said the telephone had been +ringing for an hour, and he didn’t know why somebody else in the +blankety-blank house couldn’t have heard it. _He_ wouldn’t get to sleep +until noon. +As he was palpably asleep on his feet, I left him grumbling and went to +the telephone. It proved to be Richey, who had found me by the simple +expedient of tracing Alison, and he was jubilant. +“You’ll have to come back,” he said. “Got a railroad schedule there?” +“I don’t sleep with one in my pocket,” I retorted, “but if you’ll hold +the line I’ll call out the window to Johnson. He’s probably got one.” +“Johnson!” I could hear the laugh with which McKnight comprehended the +situation. He was still chuckling when I came back. +“Train to Richmond at six-thirty A.M.,” I said. “What time is it now?” +“Four. Listen, Lollie. We’ve got him. Do you hear? Through the woman at +Baltimore. Then the other woman, the lady of the restaurant”—he was +obviously avoiding names—“she is playing our cards for us. No—I don’t +know why, and I don’t care. But you be at the Incubator to-night at +eight o’clock. If you can’t shake Johnson, bring him, bless him.” +To this day I believe the Sam Forbeses have not recovered from the +surprise of my unexpected arrival, my one appearance at dinner in +Granger’s clothes, and the note on my dresser which informed them the +next morning that I had folded my tents like the Arabs and silently +stole away. For at half after five Johnson and I, the former as +uninquisitive as ever, were on our way through the dust to the station, +three miles away, and by four that afternoon we were in Washington. The +journey had been uneventful. Johnson relaxed under the influence of my +tobacco, and spoke at some length on the latest improvements in +gallows, dilating on the absurdity of cutting out the former free +passes to see the affair in operation. I remember, too, that he +mentioned the curious anomaly that permits a man about to be hanged to +eat a hearty meal. I did not enjoy my dinner that night. +Before we got into Washington I had made an arrangement with Johnson to +surrender myself at two the following afternoon. Also, I had wired to +Alison, asking her if she would carry out the contract she had made. +The detective saw me home, and left me there. Mrs. Klopton received me +with dignified reserve. The very tone in which she asked me when I +would dine told me that something was wrong. +“Now—what is it, Mrs. Klopton?” I demanded finally, when she had +informed me, in a patient and long-suffering tone, that she felt worn +out and thought she needed a rest. +“When I lived with Mr. Justice Springer,” she began acidly, her +mending-basket in her hands, “it was an orderly, well-conducted +household. You can ask any of the neighbors. Meals were cooked and, +what’s more, they were _eaten;_ there was none of this ‘here one day +and gone the next’ business.” +“Nonsense,” I observed. “You’re tired, that’s all, Mrs. Klopton. And I +wish you would go out; I want to bathe.” +“That’s _not_ all,” she said with dignity, from the doorway. “Women +coming and going here, women whose shoes I am not fit—I mean, women who +are not fit to touch my shoes—coming here as insolent as you please, +and asking for you.” +“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “What did you tell them—her, whichever it +was?” +“Told her you were sick in a hospital and wouldn’t be out for a year!” +she said triumphantly. “And when she said she thought she’d come in and +wait for you, I slammed the door on her.” +“What time was she here?” +“Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. If +she thought I didn’t see him, she don’t know me.” Then she closed the +door and left me to my bath and my reflections. +At five minutes before eight I was at the Incubator, where I found +Hotchkiss and McKnight. They were bending over a table, on which lay +McKnight’s total armament—a pair of pistols, an elephant gun and an old +cavalry saber. +“Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie,” he said, pointing to the +arsenal. “This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, who +says he is a small man and fond of life.” +Hotchkiss, who had been trying to get the wrong end of a cartridge into +the barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and mopped his +face. +“We have desperate people to handle,” he said pompously, “and we may +need desperate means.” +“Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have people +grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name,” McKnight jibed. But +they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had +told me what they planned, I was serious, too. +“You’re compounding a felony,” I remonstrated, when they had explained. +“I’m not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to offer her the stolen +notes in exchange for Sullivan!” +“We haven’t got either of them, you know,” McKnight remonstrated, “and +we won’t have, if we don’t start. Come along, Fido,” to Hotchkiss. +The plan was simplicity itself. According to Hotchkiss, Sullivan was to +meet Bronson at Mrs. Conway’s apartment, at eight-thirty that night, +with the notes. He was to be paid there and the papers destroyed. “But +just before that interesting finale,” McKnight ended, “we will walk in, +take the notes, grab Sullivan, and give the police a jolt that will put +them out of the count.” +I suppose not one of us, slewing around corners in the machine that +night, had the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or that +Fate, scurvy enough before, was playing into our hands at last. Little +Hotchkiss was in a state of fever; he alternately twitched and examined +the revolver, and a fear that the two movements might be synchronous +kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on the scrap of pillow slip +from the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, with its point in cotton +batting for safekeeping. And in the intervals he implored Richey not to +make such fine calculations at the corners. +We were all grave enough and very quiet, however, when we reached the +large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the +power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hotchkiss +gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all +seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss was +a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back beside me. He dropped his +affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked tired. “Same old Sam, I +suppose?” he asked. +“Same, only more of him.” +“I suppose Alison was there? How is she?” he inquired irrelevantly. +“Very well. I did not see her this morning.” +Hotchkiss was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand on my +arm. “Now, look here, old man,” he said, “I’ve got two arms and a +revolver, and you’ve got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is right, +and there is a row, you crawl under a table.” +“The deuce I will!” I declared scornfully. +We crowded out of the elevator at the fourth floor, and found ourselves +in a rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. It was very +quiet; we stood uncertainly after the car had gone, and looked at the +two or three doors in sight. They were heavy, covered with metal, and +sound proof. From somewhere above came the metallic accuracy of a +player-piano, and through the open window we could hear—or feel—the +throb of the Cannonball’s engine. +“Well, Sherlock,” McKnight said, “what’s the next move in the game? Is +it our jump, or theirs? You brought us here.” +None of us knew just what to do next. No sound of conversation +penetrated the heavy doors. We waited uneasily for some minutes, and +Hotchkiss looked at his watch. Then he put it to his ear. +“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, his head cocked on one side, “I believe +it has stopped. I’m afraid we are late.” +We _were_ late. My watch and Hotchkiss’ agreed at nine o clock, and, +with the discovery that our man might have come and gone, our zest in +the adventure began to flag. McKnight motioned us away from the door +and rang the bell. There was no response, no sound within. He rang it +twice, the last time long and vigorously, without result. Then he +turned and looked at us. +“I don’t half like this,” he said. “That woman is in; you heard me ask +the elevator boy. For two cents I’d—” +I had seen it when he did. The door was ajar about an inch, and a +narrow wedge of rose-colored light showed beyond. I pushed the door a +little and listened. Then, with both men at my heels, I stepped into +the private corridor of the apartment and looked around. It was a +square reception hall, with rugs on the floor, a tall mahogany rack for +hats, and a couple of chairs. A lantern of rose-colored glass and a +desk light over a writing-table across made the room bright and +cheerful. It was empty. +None of us was comfortable. The place was full of feminine trifles that +made us feel the weakness of our position. Some such instinct made +McKnight suggest division. +“We look like an invading army,” he said. “If she’s here alone, we will +startle her into a spasm. One of us could take a look around and—” +“What was that? Didn’t you hear something?” +The sound, whatever it had been, was not repeated. We went awkwardly +out into the hall, very uncomfortable, all of us, and flipped a coin. +The choice fell to me, which was right enough, for the affair was mine, +primarily. +“Wait just inside the door,” I directed, “and if Sullivan comes, or +anybody that answers his description, grab him without ceremony and ask +him questions afterwards.” +The apartment, save in the hallway, was unlighted. By one of those +freaks of arrangement possible only in the modern flat, I found the +kitchen first, and was struck a smart and unexpected blow by a swinging +door. I carried a handful of matches, and by the time I had passed +through a butler’s pantry and a refrigerator room I was completely lost +in the darkness. Until then the situation had been merely +uncomfortable; suddenly it became grisly. From somewhere near came a +long-sustained groan, followed almost instantly by the crash of +something—glass or china—on the floor. +I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway. +Behind me was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire to +get back to the place I had started from, I opened the door and +attempted to cross the room. I thought I had kept my sense of +direction, but I crashed without warning into what, from the resulting +jangle, was the dining-table, probably laid for dinner. I cursed my +stupidity in getting into such a situation, and I cursed my nerves for +making my hand shake when I tried to strike a match. The groan had not +been repeated. +I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply against +the sole of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out. And then, +without the slightest warning, another dish went off the table. It fell +with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed broken into crashing +waves of sound. I stood still, braced against the table, holding the +red end of the dying match, and listened. I had not long to wait; the +groan came again, and I recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits. I +breathed again. +“Come, old fellow,” I said. “Come on, old man. Let’s have a look at +you.” +I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. He +only whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence of a +dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work my way +around the table toward him. +“Good boy,” I said, as he whimpered. “We’ll find the light, which ought +to be somewhere or other around here, and then—” +I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly. +“Did I step on you, old man?” I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I +remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward +me around the table. I recall even that I had put the matches down and +could not find them. Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its +contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I turned and made for the +door by which I had entered. +I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles +of wall. The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel +now, to my excited mind, with the Thing under the table. And when, +after æons of search, I found a knob and stumbled into the reception +hall, I was as nearly in a panic as any man could be. +I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I led +the way back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still sat at the +table, his elbows propped on it, his cigarette still lighted, burning a +hole in the cloth. Partly under the table lay Mrs. Conway face down. +The dog stood over her and wagged his tail. +McKnight pointed silently to a large copper ashtray, filled with ashes +and charred bits of paper. +“The notes, probably,” he said ruefully. “He got them after all, and +burned them before her. It was more than she could stand. Stabbed him +first and then herself.” +Hotchkiss got up and took off his hat. “They are dead,” he announced +solemnly, and took his note-book out of his hatband. +McKnight and I did the only thing we could think of—drove Hotchkiss and +the dog out of the room, and closed and locked the door. “It’s a matter +for the police,” McKnight asserted. “I suppose you’ve got an officer +tied to you somewhere, Lawrence? You usually have.” +We left Hotchkiss in charge and went down-stairs. It was McKnight who +first saw Johnson, leaning against a park railing across the street, +and called him over. We told him in a few words what we had found, and +he grinned at me cheerfully. +“After while, in a few weeks or months, Mr. Blakeley,” he said, “when +you get tired of monkeying around with the blood-stain and finger-print +specialist up-stairs, you come to me. I’ve had that fellow you want +under surveillance for ten days!” +CHAPTER XXX. +FINER DETAILS +At ten minutes before two the following day, Monday, I arrived at my +office. I had spent the morning putting my affairs in shape, and in a +trip to the stable. The afternoon would see me either a free man or a +prisoner for an indefinite length of time, and, in spite of Johnson’s +promise to produce Sullivan, I was more prepared for the latter than +the former. +Blobs was watching for me outside the door, and it was clear that he +was in a state of excitement bordering on delirium. He did nothing, +however, save to tip me a wink that meant “As man to man, I’m for you.” +I was too much engrossed either to reprove him or return the courtesy, +but I heard him follow me down the hall to the small room where we keep +outgrown lawbooks, typewriter supplies and, incidentally, our wraps. I +was wondering vaguely if I would ever hang my hat on its nail again, +when the door closed behind me. It shut firmly, without any particular +amount of sound, and I was left in the dark. I groped my way to it, +irritably, to find it locked on the outside. I shook it frantically, +and was rewarded by a sibilant whisper through the keyhole. +“Keep quiet,” Blobs was saying huskily. “You’re in deadly peril. The +police are waiting in your office, three of ’em. I’m goin’ to lock the +whole bunch in and throw the key out of the window.” +“Come back here, you imp of Satan!” I called furiously, but I could +hear him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer office +door by which he always announced his presence. And so I stood there in +that ridiculous cupboard, hot with the heat of a steaming September +day, musty with the smell of old leather bindings, littered with broken +overshoes and handleless umbrellas. I was apoplectic with rage one +minute, and choked with laughter the next. It seemed an hour before +Blobs came back. +He came without haste, strutting with new dignity, and paused outside +my prison door. +“Well, I guess that will hold them for a while,” he remarked +comfortably, and proceeded to turn the key. “I’ve got ’em fastened up +like sardines in a can!” he explained, working with the lock. “Gee +whiz! you’d ought to hear ’em!” When he got his breath after the +shaking I gave him, he began to splutter. “How’d I know?” he demanded +sulkily. “You nearly broke your neck gettin’ away the other time. And I +haven’t got the old key. It’s lost.” +“Where’s it lost?” I demanded, with another gesture toward his coat +collar. +“Down the elevator shaft.” There was a gleam of indignant satisfaction +through his tears of rage and humiliation. +And so, while he hunted the key in the debris at the bottom of the +shaft, I quieted his prisoners with the assurance that the lock had +slipped, and that they would be free as lords as soon as we could find +the janitor with a pass-key. Stuart went down finally and discovered +Blobs, with the key in his pocket, telling the engineer how he had +tried to save me from arrest and failed. When Stuart came up he was +almost cheerful, but Blobs did not appear again that day. +Simultaneous with the finding of the key came Hotchkiss, and we went in +together. I shook hands with two men who, with Hotchkiss, made a not +very animated group. The taller one, an oldish man, lean and hard, +announced his errand at once. +“A Pittsburg warrant?” I inquired, unlocking my cigar drawer. +“Yes. Allegheny County has assumed jurisdiction, the exact locality +where the crime was committed being in doubt.” He seemed to be the +spokesman. The other, shorter and rotund, kept an amiable silence. “We +hope you will see the wisdom of waiving extradition,” he went on. “It +will save time.” +“I’ll come, of course,” I agreed. “The sooner the better. But I want +you to give me an hour here, gentlemen. I think we can interest you. +Have a cigar?” +The lean man took a cigar; the rotund man took three, putting two in +his pocket. +“How about the catch of that door?” he inquired jovially. “Any danger +of it going off again?” Really, considering the circumstances, they +were remarkably cheerful. Hotchkiss, however, was not. He paced the +floor uneasily, his hands under his coat-tails. The arrival of McKnight +created a diversion; he carried a long package and a corkscrew, and +shook hands with the police and opened the bottle with a single +gesture. +“I always want something to cheer on these occasions,” he said. +“Where’s the water, Blakeley? Everybody ready?” Then in French he +toasted the two detectives. +“To your eternal discomfiture,” he said, bowing ceremoniously. “May you +go home and never come back! If you take Monsieur Blakeley with you, I +hope you choke.” +The lean man nodded gravely. “Prosit,” he said. But the fat one leaned +back and laughed consumedly. +Hotchkiss finished a mental synopsis of his position, and put down his +glass. “Gentlemen,” he said pompously, “within five minutes the man you +want will be here, a murderer caught in a net of evidence so fine that +a mosquito could not get through.” +The detectives glanced at each other solemnly. Had they not in their +possession a sealskin bag containing a wallet and a bit of gold chain, +which, by putting the crime on me, would leave a gap big enough for +Sullivan himself to crawl through? +“Why don’t you say your little speech before Johnson brings the other +man, Lawrence?” McKnight inquired. “They won’t believe you, but it will +help them to understand what is coming.” +“You understand, of course,” the lean man put in gravely, “that what +you say may be used against you.” +“I’ll take the risk,” I answered impatiently. +It took some time to tell the story of my worse than useless trip to +Pittsburg, and its sequel. They listened gravely, without interruption. +“Mr. Hotchkiss here,” I finished, “believes that the man Sullivan, whom +we are momentarily expecting, committed the crime. Mr. McKnight is +inclined to implicate Mrs. Conway, who stabbed Bronson and then herself +last night. As for myself, I am open to conviction.” +“I hope not,” said the stout detective quizzically. And then Alison was +announced. My impulse to go out and meet her was forestalled by the +detectives, who rose when I did. McKnight, therefore, brought her in, +and I met her at the door. +“I have put you to a great deal of trouble,” I said contritely, when I +saw her glance around the room. “I wish I had not—” +“It is only right that I should come,” she replied, looking up at me. +“I am the unconscious cause of most of it, I am afraid. Mrs. Dallas is +going to wait in the outer office.” +I presented Hotchkiss and the two detectives, who eyed her with +interest. In her poise, her beauty, even in her gown, I fancy she +represented a new type to them. They remained standing until she sat +down. +“I have brought the necklace,” she began, holding out a white-wrapped +box, “as you asked me to.” +I passed it, unopened, to the detectives. “The necklace from which was +broken the fragment you found in the sealskin bag,” I explained. “Miss +West found it on the floor of the car, near lower ten.” +“When did you find it?” asked the lean detective, bending forward. +“In the morning, not long before the wreck.” +“Did you ever see it before?” +“I am not certain,” she replied. “I have seen one very much like it.” +Her tone was troubled. She glanced at me as if for help, but I was +powerless. +“Where?” The detective was watching her closely. At that moment there +came an interruption. The door opened without ceremony, and Johnson +ushered in a tall, blond man, a stranger to all of us: I glanced at +Alison; she was pale, but composed and scornful. She met the +new-comer’s eyes full, and, caught unawares, he took a hasty backward +step. +“Sit down, Mr. Sullivan,” McKnight beamed cordially. “Have a cigar? I +beg your pardon, Alison, do you mind this smoke?” +“Not at all,” she said composedly. Sullivan had had a second to sound +his bearings. +“No—no, thanks,” he mumbled. “If you will be good enough to explain—” +“But that’s what you’re to do,” McKnight said cheerfully, pulling up a +chair. “You’ve got the most attentive audience you could ask. These two +gentlemen are detectives from Pittsburg, and we are all curious to know +the finer details of what happened on the car Ontario two weeks ago, +the night your father-in-law was murdered.” Sullivan gripped the arms +of his chair. “We are not prejudiced, either. The gentlemen from +Pittsburg are betting on Mr. Blakeley, over there. Mr. Hotchkiss, the +gentleman by the radiator, is ready to place ten to one odds on you. +And some of us have still other theories.” +“Gentlemen,” Sullivan said slowly, “I give you my word of honor that I +did not kill Simon Harrington, and that I do not know who did.” +“Fiddlededee!” cried Hotchkiss, bustling forward. “Why, I can tell +you—” But McKnight pushed him firmly into a chair and held him there. +“I am ready to plead guilty to the larceny,” Sullivan went on. “I took +Mr. Blakeley’s clothes, I admit. If I can reimburse him in any way for +the inconvenience—” +The stout detective was listening with his mouth open. “Do you mean to +say,” he demanded, “that you got into Mr. Blakeley’s berth, as he +contends, took his clothes and forged notes, and left the train before +the wreck?” +“Yes.” +“The notes, then?” +“I gave them to Bronson yesterday. Much good they did him!” bitterly. +We were all silent for a moment. The two detectives were adjusting +themselves with difficulty to a new point of view; Sullivan was looking +dejectedly at the floor, his hands hanging loose between his knees. I +was watching Alison; from where I stood, behind her, I could almost +touch the soft hair behind her ear. +“I have no intention of pressing any charge against you,” I said with +forced civility, for my hands were itching to get at him, “if you will +give us a clear account of what happened on the Ontario that night.” +Sullivan raised his handsome, haggard head and looked around at me. +“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” he asked. “Weren’t you an uninvited +guest at the Laurels a few days—or nights—ago? The cat, you remember, +and the rug that slipped?” +“I remember,” I said shortly. He glanced from me to Alison and quickly +away. +“The truth can’t hurt me,” he said, “but it’s devilish unpleasant. +Alison, you know all this. You would better go out.” +His use of her name crazed me. I stepped in front of her and stood over +him. “You will not bring Miss West into the conversation,” I +threatened, “and she will stay if she wishes.” +“Oh, very well,” he said with assumed indifference. Hotchkiss just then +escaped from Richey’s grasp and crossed the room. +“Did you ever wear glasses?” he asked eagerly. +“Never.” Sullivan glanced with some contempt at mine. +“I’d better begin by going back a little,” he went on sullenly. “I +suppose you know I was married to Ida Harrington about five years ago. +She was a good girl, and I thought a lot of her. But her father opposed +the marriage—he’d never liked me, and he refused to make any sort of +settlement. +“I had thought, of course, that there would be money, and it was a bad +day when I found out I’d made a mistake. My sister was wild with +disappointment. We were pretty hard up, my sister and I.” +I was watching Alison. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and +she was staring out of the window at the cheerless roof below. She had +set her lips a little, but that was all. +“You understand, of course, that I’m not defending myself,” went on the +sullen voice. “The day came when old Harrington put us both out of the +house at the point of a revolver, and I threatened—I suppose you know +that, too—I threatened to kill him. +“My sister and I had hard times after that. We lived on the continent +for a while. I was at Monte Carlo and she was in Italy. She met a young +lady there, the granddaughter of a steel manufacturer and an heiress, +and she sent for me. When I got to Rome the girl was gone. Last winter +I was all in—social secretary to an Englishman, a wholesale grocer with +a new title, but we had a row, and I came home. I went out to the +Heaton boys’ ranch in Wyoming, and met Bronson there. He lent me money, +and I’ve been doing his dirty work ever since.” +Sullivan got up then and walked slowly forward and back as he talked, +his eyes on the faded pattern of the office rug. +“If you want to live in hell,” he said savagely, “put yourself in +another man’s power. Bronson got into trouble, forging John Gilmore’s +name to those notes, and in some way he learned that a man was bringing +the papers back to Washington on the Flier. He even learned the number +of his berth, and the night before the wreck, just as I was boarding +the train, I got a telegram.” +Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly. “Which read, I think: +‘Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.’” +Sullivan looked at the little man with sulky blue eyes. +“It was something like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, and +it made matters worse that he didn’t care that a telegram which must +pass through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating to me. +“Then, to add to the unpleasantness of my position, just after we +boarded the train—I was accompanying my sister and this young lady, +Miss West—a woman touched me on the sleeve, and I turned to face—my +wife! +“That took away my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you can +understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. Ida had +heard that I was going—” +He stopped and glanced uneasily at Alison. +“Go on,” she said coldly. “It is too late to shield me. The time to +have done that was when I was your guest.” +“Well,” he went on, his eyes turned carefully away from my face, which +must have presented certainly anything but a pleasant sight. “Miss West +was going to do me the honor to marry me, and—” +“You scoundrel!” I burst forth, thrusting past Alison West’s chair. +“You—you infernal cur!” +One of the detectives got up and stood between us. “You must remember, +Mr. Blakeley, that you are forcing this story from this man. These +details are unpleasant, but important. You were going to marry this +young lady,” he said, turning to Sullivan, “although you already had a +wife living?” +“It was my sister’s plan, and I was in a bad way for money. If I could +marry, secretly, a wealthy girl and go to Europe, it was unlikely that +Ida—that is, Mrs. Sullivan—would hear of it. +“So it was more than a shock to see my wife on the train, and to +realize from her face that she knew what was going on. I don’t know +yet, unless some of the servants—well, never mind that. +“It meant that the whole thing had gone up. Old Harrington had carried +a gun for me for years, and the same train wouldn’t hold both of us. Of +course, I thought that he was in the coach just behind ours.” +Hotchkiss was leaning forward now, his eyes narrowed, his thin lips +drawn to a line. +“Are you left-handed, Mr. Sullivan?” he asked. +Sullivan stopped in surprise. +“No,” he said gruffly. “Can’t do anything with my left hand.” Hotchkiss +subsided, crestfallen but alert. “I tore up that cursed telegram, but I +was afraid to throw the scraps away. Then I looked around for lower +ten. It was almost exactly across—my berth was lower seven, and it was, +of course, a bit of exceptional luck for me that the car was number +seven.” +“Did you tell your sister of the telegram from Bronson?” I asked. +“No. It would do no good, and she was in a bad way without that to make +her worse.” +“Your sister was killed, think.” The shorter detective took a small +package from his pocket and held it in his hand, snapping the rubber +band which held it. +“Yes, she was killed,” Sullivan said soberly. “What I say now can do +her no harm.” +He stopped to push back the heavy hair which dropped over his forehead, +and went on more connectedly. +“It was late, after midnight, and we went at once to our berths. I +undressed, and then I lay there for an hour, wondering how I was going +to get the notes. Some one in lower nine was restless and wide awake, +but finally became quiet. +“The man in ten was sleeping heavily. I could hear his breathing, and +it seemed to be only a question of getting across and behind the +curtains of his berth without being seen. After that, it was a mere +matter of quiet searching. +“The car became very still. I was about to try for the other berth, +when some one brushed softly past, and I lay back again. +“Finally, however, when things had been quiet for a time, I got up, and +after looking along the aisle, I slipped behind the curtains of lower +ten. You understand, Mr. Blakeley, that I thought you were in lower +ten, with the notes.” +I nodded curtly. +“I’m not trying to defend myself,” he went on. “I was ready to steal +the notes—I had to. But murder!” +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. +“Well, I slipped across and behind the curtains. It was very still. The +man in ten didn’t move, although my heart was thumping until I thought +he would hear it. +“I felt around cautiously. It was perfectly dark, and I came across a +bit of chain, about as long as my finger. It seemed a queer thing to +find there, and it was sticky, too.” +He shuddered, and I could see Alison’s hands clenching and unclenching +with the strain. +“All at once it struck me that the man was strangely silent, and I +think I lost my nerve. Anyhow, I drew the curtains open a little, and +let the light fall on my hands. They were red, blood-red.” +He leaned one hand on the back of the chair, and was silent for a +moment, as though he lived over again the awful events of that more +than awful night. +The stout detective had let his cigar go out; he was still drawing at +it nervously. Richey had picked up a paper-weight and was tossing it +from hand to hand; when it slipped and fell to the floor, a startled +shudder passed through the room. +“There was something glittering in there,” Sullivan resumed, “and on +impulse I picked it up. Then I dropped the curtains and stumbled back +to my own berth.” +“Where you wiped your hands on the bed-clothing and stuck the dirk into +the pillow.” Hotchkiss was seeing his carefully built structure +crumbling to pieces, and he looked chagrined. +“I suppose I did—I’m not very clear about what happened then. But when +I rallied a little I saw a Russia leather wallet lying in the aisle +almost at my feet, and, like a fool, I stuck it, with the bit of chain, +into my bag. +“I sat there, shivering, for what seemed hours. It was still perfectly +quiet, except for some one snoring. I thought that would drive me +crazy. +“The more I thought of it the worse things looked. The telegram was the +first thing against me—it would put the police on my track at once, +when it was discovered that the man in lower ten had been killed. +“Then I remembered the notes, and I took out the wallet and opened it.” +He stopped for a minute, as if the recalling of the next occurrence was +almost beyond him. +“I took out the wallet,” he said simply, “and opening it, held it to +the light. In gilt letters was the name, Simon Harrington.” +The detectives were leaning forward now, their eyes on his face. +“Things seemed to whirl around for a while. I sat there almost +paralyzed, wondering what this new development meant for me. +“My wife, I knew, would swear I had killed her father; nobody would be +likely to believe the truth. +“Do you believe me now?” He rooked around at us defiantly. “I am +telling the absolute truth, and not one of you believes me! +“After a bit the man in lower nine got up and walked along the aisle +toward the smoking compartment. I heard him go, and, leaning from my +berth, watched him out of sight. +“It was then I got the idea of changing berths with him, getting into +his clothes, and leaving the train. I give you my word I had no idea of +throwing suspicion on him.” +Alison looked scornfully incredulous, but I felt that the man was +telling the truth. +“I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got into +the other man’s berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was easy. I +dressed in his clothes—luckily, they fitted—and jumped the train not +far from Baltimore, just before the wreck.” +“There is something else you must clear up,” I said. “Why did you try +to telephone me from M——, and why did you change your mind about the +message?” +He looked astounded. +“You knew I was at M——?” he stammered. +“Yes, we traced you. What about the message?” +“Well, it was this way: of course, I did not know your name, Mr. +Blakeley. The telegram said, ‘Man with papers in lower ten, car seven,” +and after I had made what I considered my escape, I began to think I +had left the man in my berth in a bad way. +“He would probably be accused of the crime. So, although when the wreck +occurred I supposed every one connected with the affair had been +killed, there was a chance that you had survived. I’ve not been of much +account, but I didn’t want a man to swing because I’d left him in my +place. Besides, I began to have a theory of my own. +“As we entered the car a tall, dark woman passed us, with a glass of +water in her hand, and I vaguely remembered her. She was amazingly like +Blanche Conway. +“If she, too, thought the man with the notes was in lower ten, it +explained a lot, including that piece of a woman’s necklace. She was a +fury, Blanche Conway, capable of anything.” +“Then why did you countermand that message?” I asked curiously. +“When I got to the Carter house, and got to bed—I had sprained my ankle +in the jump—I went through the alligator bag I had taken from lower +nine. When I found your name, I sent the first message. Then, soon +after, I came across the notes. It seemed too good to be true, and I +was crazy for fear the message had gone. +“At first I was going to send them to Bronson; then I began to see what +the possession of the notes meant to me. It meant power over Bronson, +money, influence, everything. He was a devil, that man.” +“Well, he’s at home now,” said McKnight, and we were glad to laugh and +relieve the tension. +Alison put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the +man she had so nearly married, and I furtively touched one of the soft +little curls that nestled at the back of her neck. +“When I was able to walk,” went on the sullen voice, “I came at once to +Washington. I tried to sell the notes to Bronson, but he was almost at +the end of his rope. Not even my threat to send them back to you, Mr. +Blakeley, could make him meet my figure. He didn’t have the money.” +McKnight was triumphant. +“I think you gentlemen will see reason in my theory now,” he said. +“Mrs. Conway wanted the notes to force a legal marriage, I suppose?” +“Yes.” +The detective with the small package carefully rolled off the rubber +band, and unwrapped it. I held my breath as he took out, first, the +Russia leather wallet. +“These things, Mr. Blakeley, we found in the seal-skin bag Mr. Sullivan +says he left you. This wallet, Mr. Sullivan—is this the one you found +on the floor of the car?” +Sullivan opened it, and, glancing at the name inside, “Simon +Harrington,” nodded affirmatively. +“And this,” went on the detective—“this is a piece of gold chain?” +“It seems to be,” said Sullivan, recoiling at the blood-stained end. +“This, I believe, is the dagger.” He held it up, and Alison gave a +faint cry of astonishment and dismay. Sullivan’s face grew ghastly, and +he sat down weakly on the nearest chair. +The detective looked at him shrewdly, then at Alison’s agitated face. +“Where have you seen this dagger before, young lady?” he asked, kindly +enough. +“Oh, don’t ask me!” she gasped breathlessly, her eyes turned on +Sullivan. “It’s—it’s too terrible!” +“Tell him,” I advised, leaning over to her. “It will be found out +later, anyhow.” +“Ask him,” she said, nodding toward Sullivan. The detective unwrapped +the small box Alison had brought, disclosing the trampled necklace and +broken chain. With clumsy fingers he spread it on the table and fitted +into place the bit of chain. There could be no doubt that it belonged +there. +“Where did you find that chain?” Sullivan asked hoarsely, looking for +the first time at Alison. +“On the floor, near the murdered man’s berth.” +“Now, Mr. Sullivan,” said the detective civilly, “I believe you can +tell us, in the light of these two exhibits, who really did murder +Simon Harrington.” +Sullivan looked again at the dagger, a sharp little bit of steel with a +Florentine handle. Then he picked up the locket and pressed a hidden +spring under one of the cameos. Inside, very neatly engraved, was the +name and a date. +“Gentlemen,” he said, his face ghastly, “it is of no use for me to +attempt a denial. The dagger and necklace belonged to my sister, Alice +Curtis!” +CHAPTER XXXI. +AND ONLY ONE ARM +Hotchkiss was the first to break the tension. +“Mr. Sullivan,” he asked suddenly, “was your sister left-handed?” +“Yes.” +Hotchkiss put away his note-book and looked around with an air of +triumphant vindication. It gave us a chance to smile and look relieved. +After all, Mrs. Curtis was dead. It was the happiest solution of the +unhappy affair. McKnight brought Sullivan some whisky, and he braced up +a little. +“I learned through the papers that my wife was in a Baltimore hospital, +and yesterday I ventured there to see her. I felt if she would help me +to keep straight, that now, with her father and my sister both dead, we +might be happy together. +“I understand now what puzzled me then. It seemed that my sister went +into the next car and tried to make my wife promise not to interfere. +But Ida—Mrs. Sullivan—was firm, of course. She said her father had +papers, certificates and so on, that would stop the marriage at once. +“She said, also, that her father was in our car, and that there would +be the mischief to pay in the morning. It was probably when my sister +tried to get the papers that he awakened, and she had to do—what she +did.” +It was over. Save for a technicality or two, I was a free man. Alison +rose quietly and prepared to go; the men stood to let her pass, save +Sullivan who sat crouched in his chair, his face buried in his hands. +Hotchkiss, who had been tapping the desk with his pencil, looked up +abruptly and pointed the pencil at me. +“If all this is true, and I believe it is,—then who was in the house +next door, Blakeley, the night you and Mr. Johnson searched? You +remember, you said it was a woman’s hand at the trap door.” +I glanced hastily at Johnson, whose face was impassive. He had his hand +on the knob of the door and he opened it before he spoke. +“There were a number of scratches on Mrs. Conway’s right hand,” he +observed to the room in general. “Her wrist was bandaged and badly +bruised.” +He went out then, but he turned as he closed the door and threw at me a +glance of half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance. +McKnight saw Alison, with Mrs. Dallas, to their carriage, and came back +again. The gathering in the office was breaking up. Sullivan, looking +worn and old, was standing by the window, staring at the broken +necklace in his hand. When he saw me watching him, he put it on the +desk and picked up his hat. +“If I can not do anything more—” he hesitated. +“I think you have done about enough,” I replied grimly, and he went +out. +I believe that Richey and Hotchkiss led me somewhere to dinner, and +that, for fear I would be lonely without him, they sent for Johnson. +And I recall a spirited discussion in which Hotchkiss told the +detective that he could manage certain cases, but that he lacked +induction. Richey and I were mainly silent. My thoughts would slip +ahead to that hour, later in the evening, when I should see Alison +again. +I dressed in savage haste finally, and was so particular about my tie +that Mrs. Klopton gave up in despair. +“I wish, until your arm is better, that you would buy the kind that +hooks on,” she protested, almost tearfully. “I’m sure they look very +nice, Mr. Lawrence. My late husband always—” +“That’s a lover’s knot you’ve tied this time,” I snarled, and, jerking +open the bow knot she had so painfully executed, looked out the window +for Johnson—until I recalled that he no longer belonged in my +perspective. I ended by driving frantically to the club and getting +George to do it. +I was late, of course. The drawing-room and library at the Dallas home +were empty. I could hear billiard balls rolling somewhere, and I turned +the other way. I found Alison at last on the balcony, sitting much as +she had that night on the beach,—her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed +unseeingly on the trees and lights of the square across. She was even +whistling a little, softly. But this time the plaintiveness was gone. +It was a tender little tune. She did not move, as I stood beside her, +looking down. And now, when the moment had come, all the thousand and +one things I had been waiting to say forsook me, precipitately beat a +retreat, and left me unsupported. The arc-moon sent little fugitive +lights over her hair, her eyes, her gown. +[Illustration] +“Don’t—do that,” I said unsteadily. “You—you know what I want to do +when you whistle!” +She glanced up at me, and she did not stop. She _did not stop!_ She +went on whistling softly, a bit tremulously. And straightway I forgot +the street, the chance of passers-by, the voices in the house behind +us. “The world doesn’t hold any one but you,” I said reverently. “It is +our world, sweetheart. I love you.” +And I kissed her. +A boy was whistling on the pavement below. I let her go reluctantly and +sat back where I could see her. +“I haven’t done this the way I intended to at all,” I confessed. “In +books they get things all settled, and then kiss the lady.” +“Settled?” she inquired. +“Oh, about getting married and that sort of thing,” I explained with +elaborate carelessness. “We—we could go down to Bermuda—or—or Jamaica, +say in December.” +She drew her hand away and faced me squarely. +“I believe you are afraid!” she declared. “I refuse to marry you unless +you propose properly. Everybody does it. And it is a woman’s privilege: +she wants to have that to look back to.” +“Very well,” I consented with an exaggerated sigh. “If you will promise +not to think I look like an idiot, I shall do it, knee and all.” +[Illustration] +I had to pass her to close the door behind us, but when I kissed her +again she protested that we were not really engaged. +I turned to look down at her. “It is a terrible thing,” I said +exultantly, “to love a girl the way I love you, and to have only one +arm!” Then I closed the door. +From across the street there came a sharp crescendo whistle, and a +vaguely familiar figure separated itself from the park railing. +“Say,” he called, in a hoarse whisper, “shall I throw the key down the +elevator shaft?”",The Man in Lower Ten,Mary Roberts Rinehart,195,['Henry Pinckney Sullivan'] +"CRIME AND PUNISHMENT +By Fyodor Dostoevsky +Translated By Constance Garnett +TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE +A few words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader to +understand his work. +Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hard-working +and deeply religious people, but so poor that they lived with their five +children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their evenings +in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a serious +character. +Though always sickly and delicate Dostoevsky came out third in the +final examination of the Petersburg school of Engineering. There he had +already begun his first work, “Poor Folk.” +This story was published by the poet Nekrassov in his review and +was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself +instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career +seemed to open before him, but those hopes were soon dashed. In 1849 he +was arrested. +Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolutionist, Dostoevsky +was one of a little group of young men who met together to read Fourier +and Proudhon. He was accused of “taking part in conversations against +the censorship, of reading a letter from Byelinsky to Gogol, and of +knowing of the intention to set up a printing press.” Under Nicholas +I. (that “stern and just man,” as Maurice Baring calls him) this was +enough, and he was condemned to death. After eight months’ imprisonment +he was with twenty-one others taken out to the Semyonovsky Square to +be shot. Writing to his brother Mihail, Dostoevsky says: “They snapped +words over our heads, and they made us put on the white shirts worn by +persons condemned to death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes, +to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I concluded I had only +a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and +I contrived to kiss Plestcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to +bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo, we were unbound, +brought back upon the scaffold, and informed that his Majesty had spared +us our lives.” The sentence was commuted to hard labour. +One of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was untied, and +never regained his sanity. +The intense suffering of this experience left a lasting stamp on +Dostoevsky’s mind. Though his religious temper led him in the end to +accept every suffering with resignation and to regard it as a blessing +in his own case, he constantly recurs to the subject in his writings. +He describes the awful agony of the condemned man and insists on the +cruelty of inflicting such torture. Then followed four years of penal +servitude, spent in the company of common criminals in Siberia, where +he began the “Dead House,” and some years of service in a disciplinary +battalion. +He had shown signs of some obscure nervous disease before his arrest +and this now developed into violent attacks of epilepsy, from which he +suffered for the rest of his life. The fits occurred three or four times +a year and were more frequent in periods of great strain. In 1859 he was +allowed to return to Russia. He started a journal--“Vremya,” which was +forbidden by the Censorship through a misunderstanding. In 1864 he lost +his first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet +he took upon himself the payment of his brother’s debts. He started +another journal--“The Epoch,” which within a few months was also +prohibited. He was weighed down by debt, his brother’s family was +dependent on him, he was forced to write at heart-breaking speed, and is +said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were +much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife. +In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the +monument to Pushkin in Moscow and he was received with extraordinary +demonstrations of love and honour. +A few months later Dostoevsky died. He was followed to the grave by a +vast multitude of mourners, who “gave the hapless man the funeral of a +king.” He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. +In the words of a Russian critic, who seeks to explain the feeling +inspired by Dostoevsky: “He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and +our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than +we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heart +which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his other +gifts came to him from nature, this he won for himself and through it he +became great.” +CRIME AND PUNISHMENT +PART I +CHAPTER I +On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of +the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though +in hesitation, towards K. bridge. +He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His +garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more +like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, +dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time +he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which +invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a +sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was +hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her. +This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but +for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, +verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in +himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not +only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the +anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had +given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all +desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror +for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her +trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats +and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to +lie--no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and +slip out unseen. +This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely +aware of his fears. +“I want to attempt a thing _like that_ and am frightened by these +trifles,” he thought, with an odd smile. “Hm... yes, all is in a man’s +hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would +be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new +step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking +too much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is +that I chatter because I do nothing. I’ve learned to chatter this +last month, lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack the +Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of _that_? Is +_that_ serious? It is not serious at all. It’s simply a fantasy to amuse +myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.” +The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle +and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that +special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out +of town in summer--all worked painfully upon the young man’s already +overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which +are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men +whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed +the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest +disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man’s refined face. He was, +by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, +well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank +into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness +of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring +to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the +habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these +moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a +tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely tasted +food. +He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would +have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter +of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have +created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number +of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading +and working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the +heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets +that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But there was +such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young man’s heart, that, +in spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least +of all in the street. It was a different matter when he met with +acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he disliked +meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown +reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon dragged by a heavy +dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove past: “Hey there, German +hatter” bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at him--the young +man stopped suddenly and clutched tremulously at his hat. It was a tall +round hat from Zimmerman’s, but completely worn out, rusty with age, all +torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly +fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror +had overtaken him. +“I knew it,” he muttered in confusion, “I thought so! That’s the worst +of all! Why, a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail might +spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable.... It looks absurd +and that makes it noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a cap, any +sort of old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such +a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered.... What +matters is that people would remember it, and that would give them +a clue. For this business one should be as little conspicuous as +possible.... Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it’s just such +trifles that always ruin everything....” +He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate +of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted +them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no +faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by their hideous +but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to look upon +them differently, and, in spite of the monologues in which he jeered at +his own impotence and indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard +this “hideous” dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he +still did not realise this himself. He was positively going now for a +“rehearsal” of his project, and at every step his excitement grew more +and more violent. +With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge house +which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the +street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited by +working people of all kinds--tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of +sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks, etc. +There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the +two courtyards of the house. Three or four door-keepers were employed on +the building. The young man was very glad to meet none of them, and +at once slipped unnoticed through the door on the right, and up the +staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar +with it already, and knew his way, and he liked all these surroundings: +in such darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded. +“If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass that +I were really going to do it?” he could not help asking himself as he +reached the fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some porters +who were engaged in moving furniture out of a flat. He knew that the +flat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil service, and his +family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth floor on this +staircase would be untenanted except by the old woman. “That’s a good +thing anyway,” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell of the old +woman’s flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of +tin and not of copper. The little flats in such houses always have bells +that ring like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell, and now +its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of something and to bring it +clearly before him.... He started, his nerves were terribly overstrained +by now. In a little while, the door was opened a tiny crack: the old +woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through the crack, and +nothing could be seen but her little eyes, glittering in the darkness. +But, seeing a number of people on the landing, she grew bolder, and +opened the door wide. The young man stepped into the dark entry, which +was partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing +him in silence and looking inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, +withered up old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp +little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared +with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, +which looked like a hen’s leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, +and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy +fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every +instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar +expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again. +“Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago,” the young man made +haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be more +polite. +“I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,” the +old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face. +“And here... I am again on the same errand,” Raskolnikov continued, a +little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps +she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other +time,” he thought with an uneasy feeling. +The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one side, +and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass +in front of her: +“Step in, my good sir.” +The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper on +the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was brightly +lighted up at that moment by the setting sun. +“So the sun will shine like this _then_ too!” flashed as it were by +chance through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned +everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and +remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The +furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with +a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a +dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it between the windows, +chairs along the walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow +frames, representing German damsels with birds in their hands--that was +all. In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything +was very clean; the floor and the furniture were brightly polished; +everything shone. +“Lizaveta’s work,” thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust +to be seen in the whole flat. +“It’s in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such +cleanliness,” Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance +at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in +which stood the old woman’s bed and chest of drawers and into which he +had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole flat. +“What do you want?” the old woman said severely, coming into the room +and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight in +the face. +“I’ve brought something to pawn here,” and he drew out of his pocket +an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a +globe; the chain was of steel. +“But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day +before yesterday.” +“I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little.” +“But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell +your pledge at once.” +“How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?” +“You come with such trifles, my good sir, it’s scarcely worth anything. +I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it +quite new at a jeweler’s for a rouble and a half.” +“Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father’s. I +shall be getting some money soon.” +“A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!” +“A rouble and a half!” cried the young man. +“Please yourself”--and the old woman handed him back the watch. The +young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going +away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere +else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming. +“Hand it over,” he said roughly. +The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared behind +the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing alone in +the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He could hear +her unlocking the chest of drawers. +“It must be the top drawer,” he reflected. “So she carries the keys in +a pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring.... And there’s +one key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches; +that can’t be the key of the chest of drawers... then there must be some +other chest or strong-box... that’s worth knowing. Strong-boxes always +have keys like that... but how degrading it all is.” +The old woman came back. +“Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take +fifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in advance. But +for the two roubles I lent you before, you owe me now twenty copecks +on the same reckoning in advance. That makes thirty-five copecks +altogether. So I must give you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the +watch. Here it is.” +“What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now!” +“Just so.” +The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at the +old woman, and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was still +something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself quite know +what. +“I may be bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona +Ivanovna--a valuable thing--silver--a cigarette-box, as soon as I get it +back from a friend...” he broke off in confusion. +“Well, we will talk about it then, sir.” +“Good-bye--are you always at home alone, your sister is not here with +you?” He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into the +passage. +“What business is she of yours, my good sir?” +“Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick.... Good-day, +Alyona Ivanovna.” +Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more +and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two +or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was +in the street he cried out, “Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and +can I, can I possibly.... No, it’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” he added +resolutely. “And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? +What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, +disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!--and for a whole month I’ve been....” +But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling +of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart +while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a +pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to +do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the +pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling +against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next +street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern +which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. +At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and +supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to +think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had +never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a +burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his +sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little +table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank +off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became +clear. +“All that’s nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there is nothing in it +all to worry about! It’s simply physical derangement. Just a glass of +beer, a piece of dry bread--and in one moment the brain is stronger, +the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty it all +is!” +But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking cheerful +as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden: and he gazed +round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But even at that +moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of mind was also +not normal. +There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two drunken +men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about five men and +a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their departure +left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in the tavern +were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, +sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, stout man with +a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat. He was very drunk: and had +dropped asleep on the bench; every now and then, he began as though in +his sleep, cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the upper +part of his body bounding about on the bench, while he hummed some +meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines as these: +“His wife a year he fondly loved +His wife a--a year he--fondly loved.” +Or suddenly waking up again: +“Walking along the crowded row +He met the one he used to know.” +But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with +positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was +another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired government +clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his pot and +looking round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some agitation. +CHAPTER II +Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided +society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he +felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be taking +place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for company. He +was so weary after a whole month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy +excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a moment, in some other +world, whatever it might be; and, in spite of the filthiness of the +surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern. +The master of the establishment was in another room, but he frequently +came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with +red turn-over tops coming into view each time before the rest of his +person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin waistcoat, +with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil like an +iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was +another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was wanted. On the +counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black bread, and +some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was insufferably +close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such +an atmosphere might well make a man drunk. +There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the +first moment, before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made on +Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who looked +like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this impression +afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeatedly +at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring +persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into conversation. At +the other persons in the room, including the tavern-keeper, the clerk +looked as though he were used to their company, and weary of it, showing +a shade of condescending contempt for them as persons of station and +culture inferior to his own, with whom it would be useless for him to +converse. He was a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, of medium height, +and stoutly built. His face, bloated from continual drinking, was of +a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen +reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was something very +strange in him; there was a light in his eyes as though of intense +feeling--perhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the +same time there was a gleam of something like madness. He was wearing an +old and hopelessly ragged black dress coat, with all its buttons missing +except one, and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this +last trace of respectability. A crumpled shirt front, covered with spots +and stains, protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore +no beard, nor moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin +looked like a stiff greyish brush. And there was something respectable +and like an official about his manner too. But he was restless; he +ruffled up his hair and from time to time let his head drop into his +hands dejectedly resting his ragged elbows on the stained and sticky +table. At last he looked straight at Raskolnikov, and said loudly and +resolutely: +“May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite conversation? +Forasmuch as, though your exterior would not command respect, my +experience admonishes me that you are a man of education and not +accustomed to drinking. I have always respected education when in +conjunction with genuine sentiments, and I am besides a titular +counsellor in rank. Marmeladov--such is my name; titular counsellor. I +make bold to inquire--have you been in the service?” +“No, I am studying,” answered the young man, somewhat surprised at +the grandiloquent style of the speaker and also at being so directly +addressed. In spite of the momentary desire he had just been feeling for +company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately his +habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached +or attempted to approach him. +“A student then, or formerly a student,” cried the clerk. “Just what +I thought! I’m a man of experience, immense experience, sir,” and he +tapped his forehead with his fingers in self-approval. “You’ve been a +student or have attended some learned institution!... But allow me....” +He got up, staggered, took up his jug and glass, and sat down beside +the young man, facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke +fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his +sentences and drawling his words. He pounced upon Raskolnikov as +greedily as though he too had not spoken to a soul for a month. +“Honoured sir,” he began almost with solemnity, “poverty is not a vice, +that’s a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue, +and that that’s even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a +vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but +in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human +society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as +humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary +I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself. Hence the pot-house! +Honoured sir, a month ago Mr. Lebeziatnikov gave my wife a beating, and +my wife is a very different matter from me! Do you understand? Allow me +to ask you another question out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent +a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?” +“No, I have not happened to,” answered Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?” +“Well, I’ve just come from one and it’s the fifth night I’ve slept +so....” He filled his glass, emptied it and paused. Bits of hay were in +fact clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite +probable that he had not undressed or washed for the last five days. +His hands, particularly, were filthy. They were fat and red, with black +nails. +His conversation seemed to excite a general though languid interest. The +boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down from the +upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the “funny fellow” +and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity. +Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar figure here, and he had most +likely acquired his weakness for high-flown speeches from the habit of +frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in +the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and +especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order +at home. Hence in the company of other drinkers they try to justify +themselves and even if possible obtain consideration. +“Funny fellow!” pronounced the innkeeper. “And why don’t you work, why +aren’t you at your duty, if you are in the service?” +“Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir,” Marmeladov went on, addressing +himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put +that question to him. “Why am I not at my duty? Does not my heart ache +to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago when Mr. Lebeziatnikov +beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn’t I suffer? +Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you... hm... well, to +petition hopelessly for a loan?” +“Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly?” +“Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know beforehand that you +will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand with positive +certainty that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will +on no consideration give you money; and indeed I ask you why should he? +For he knows of course that I shan’t pay it back. From compassion? But +Mr. Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas explained the other day +that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that’s +what is done now in England, where there is political economy. Why, I +ask you, should he give it to me? And yet though I know beforehand that +he won’t, I set off to him and...” +“Why do you go?” put in Raskolnikov. +“Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must +have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must +go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, +then I had to go... (for my daughter has a yellow passport),” he added +in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man. +“No matter, sir, no matter!” he went on hurriedly and with apparent +composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed and even the +innkeeper smiled--“No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of +their heads; for everyone knows everything about it already, and all +that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with contempt, but +with humility. So be it! So be it! ‘Behold the man!’ Excuse me, young +man, can you.... No, to put it more strongly and more distinctly; not +_can_ you but _dare_ you, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig?” +The young man did not answer a word. +“Well,” the orator began again stolidly and with even increased dignity, +after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. “Well, so be +it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but +Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an officer’s +daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a +noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet... oh, +if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man +ought to have at least one place where people feel for him! But Katerina +Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust.... And yet, although +I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pity--for +I repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man,” he +declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again--“but, my +God, if she would but once.... But no, no! It’s all in vain and it’s no +use talking! No use talking! For more than once, my wish did come true +and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a +beast by nature!” +“Rather!” assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist +resolutely on the table. +“Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very +stockings for drink? Not her shoes--that would be more or less in the +order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink! +Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own +property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this +winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three +little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till +night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s +been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has +a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it? +And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try +to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer +twice as much!” And as though in despair he laid his head down on the +table. +“Young man,” he went on, raising his head again, “in your face I seem to +read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why +I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I +do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners, +who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man +of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a +high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she +danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for +which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. +The medal... well, the medal of course was sold--long ago, hm... but the +certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed +it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms +with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past +honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her for +it, I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of +the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady +of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has +nothing but black bread to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated +with disrespect. That’s why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov’s +rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to +her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was +a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the +other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and +ran away with him from her father’s house. She was exceedingly fond of +her husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he +died. He used to beat her at the end: and although she paid him back, of +which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of +him with tears and she throws him up to me; and I am glad, I am glad +that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having +once been happy.... And she was left at his death with three children in +a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time; and she +was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups +and downs of all sort, I don’t feel equal to describing it even. Her +relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively +proud.... And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a +widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered +her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can +judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education +and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my +wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she +married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you +understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? No, +that you don’t understand yet.... And for a whole year, I performed +my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this” (he +tapped the jug with his finger), “for I have feelings. But even so, I +could not please her; and then I lost my place too, and that through no +fault of mine but through changes in the office; and then I did touch +it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at +last after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magnificent +capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a +situation.... I obtained it and I lost it again. Do you understand? This +time it was through my own fault I lost it: for my weakness had come +out.... We have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel’s; +and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I could not say. +There are a lot of people living there besides ourselves. Dirt and +disorder, a perfect Bedlam... hm... yes... And meanwhile my daughter by +my first wife has grown up; and what my daughter has had to put up with +from her step-mother whilst she was growing up, I won’t speak of. For, +though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited +lady, irritable and short-tempered.... Yes. But it’s no use going over +that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I did make an +effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal +history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we +had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we have not +even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We stopped at +Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she has read +other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read with great +interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes’ Physiology--do +you know it?--and even recounted extracts from it to us: and that’s the +whole of her education. And now may I venture to address you, honoured +sir, on my own account with a private question. Do you suppose that +a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen +farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special +talent and that without putting her work down for an instant! And what’s +more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellor--have you heard of +him?--has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she +made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the +pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were +put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry.... And Katerina +Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed +red, as they always are in that disease: ‘Here you live with us,’ says +she, ‘you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help.’ +And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the +little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well, what of +it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle +creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin +little face). She said: ‘Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing +like that?’ And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very +well known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her +through the landlady. ‘And why not?’ said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer, +‘you are something mighty precious to be so careful of!’ But don’t blame +her, don’t blame her, honoured sir, don’t blame her! She was not herself +when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying +of the hungry children; and it was said more to wound her than anything +else.... For that’s Katerina Ivanovna’s character, and when children +cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six o’clock +I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the +room and about nine o’clock she came back. She walked straight up to +Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her +in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she +simply picked up our big green _drap de dames_ shawl (we have a shawl, +made of _drap de dames_), put it over her head and face and lay down +on the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her +body kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before.... +And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence +go up to Sonia’s little bed; she was on her knees all the evening +kissing Sonia’s feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell +asleep in each other’s arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay +drunk.” +Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then he +hurriedly filled his glass, drank, and cleared his throat. +“Since then, sir,” he went on after a brief pause--“Since then, owing +to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by +evil-intentioned persons--in all which Darya Frantsovna took a +leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with want of +respect--since then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take +a yellow ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with +us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though +she had backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too... +hm.... All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia’s +account. At first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of +a sudden he stood on his dignity: ‘how,’ said he, ‘can a highly educated +man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?’ And Katerina +Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that’s +how it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark; she +comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room +at the Kapernaumovs’ the tailors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov is +a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft +palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one +room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor +people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning, +and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his +excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you +know him? No? Well, then, it’s a man of God you don’t know. He is wax... +wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!... His eyes were +dim when he heard my story. ‘Marmeladov, once already you have +deceived my expectations... I’ll take you once more on my own +responsibility’--that’s what he said, ‘remember,’ he said, ‘and now you +can go.’ I kissed the dust at his feet--in thought only, for in reality +he would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of +modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I +announced that I’d been taken back into the service and should receive a +salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!...” +Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a whole +party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the sounds +of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven +singing “The Hamlet” were heard in the entry. The room was filled with +noise. The tavern-keeper and the boys were busy with the new-comers. +Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story. +He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as he became more and more +drunk, he became more and more talkative. The recollection of his +recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him, and was +positively reflected in a sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov +listened attentively. +“That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna +and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the +kingdom of Heaven. It used to be: you can lie like a beast, nothing but +abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe, hushing the children. ‘Semyon +Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!’ +They made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They +began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they managed +to get together the money for a decent outfit--eleven roubles, fifty +copecks, I can’t guess. Boots, cotton shirt-fronts--most magnificent, +a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven roubles and +a half. The first morning I came back from the office I found Katerina +Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner--soup and salt meat with +horse radish--which we had never dreamed of till then. She had not any +dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she were going +on a visit; and not that she’d anything to do it with, she smartened +herself up with nothing at all, she’d done her hair nicely, put on a +clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different +person, she was younger and better looking. Sonia, my little darling, +had only helped with money ‘for the time,’ she said, ‘it won’t do for me +to come and see you too often. After dark maybe when no one can see.’ Do +you hear, do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do you +think: though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree with +our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a week before, she could not +resist then asking her in to coffee. For two hours they were sitting, +whispering together. ‘Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again, +now, and receiving a salary,’ says she, ‘and he went himself to his +excellency and his excellency himself came out to him, made all the +others wait and led Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody into +his study.’ Do you hear, do you hear? ‘To be sure,’ says he, ‘Semyon +Zaharovitch, remembering your past services,’ says he, ‘and in spite +of your propensity to that foolish weakness, since you promise now and +since moreover we’ve got on badly without you,’ (do you hear, do you +hear;) ‘and so,’ says he, ‘I rely now on your word as a gentleman.’ And +all that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for herself, and not +simply out of wantonness, for the sake of bragging; no, she believes it +all herself, she amuses herself with her own fancies, upon my word she +does! And I don’t blame her for it, no, I don’t blame her!... Six days +ago when I brought her my first earnings in full--twenty-three roubles +forty copecks altogether--she called me her poppet: ‘poppet,’ said she, +‘my little poppet.’ And when we were by ourselves, you understand? +You would not think me a beauty, you would not think much of me as a +husband, would you?... Well, she pinched my cheek, ‘my little poppet,’ +said she.” +Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but suddenly his chin began +to twitch. He controlled himself however. The tavern, the degraded +appearance of the man, the five nights in the hay barge, and the pot of +spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered +his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation. +He felt vexed that he had come here. +“Honoured sir, honoured sir,” cried Marmeladov recovering himself--“Oh, +sir, perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you, as it does to +others, and perhaps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all the +trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laughing matter to me. +For I can feel it all.... And the whole of that heavenly day of my life +and the whole of that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I would +arrange it all, and how I would dress all the children, and how I should +give her rest, and how I should rescue my own daughter from dishonour +and restore her to the bosom of her family.... And a great deal more.... +Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir” (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort +of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) “well, on +the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five +days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night, +I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was +left of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look +at me, all of you! It’s the fifth day since I left home, and they are +looking for me there and it’s the end of my employment, and my uniform +is lying in a tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the +garments I have on... and it’s the end of everything!” +Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed +his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute +later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and +affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said: +“This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask her for a pick-me-up! +He-he-he!” +“You don’t say she gave it to you?” cried one of the new-comers; he +shouted the words and went off into a guffaw. +“This very quart was bought with her money,” Marmeladov declared, +addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. “Thirty copecks she gave +me with her own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw.... She said +nothing, she only looked at me without a word.... Not on earth, but up +yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don’t blame them, +they don’t blame them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don’t +blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she needs them now, eh? What do +you think, my dear sir? For now she’s got to keep up her appearance. It +costs money, that smartness, that special smartness, you know? Do you +understand? And there’s pomatum, too, you see, she must have things; +petticoats, starched ones, shoes, too, real jaunty ones to show off her +foot when she has to step over a puddle. Do you understand, sir, do you +understand what all that smartness means? And here I, her own father, +here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking +it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have pity on a man like +me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or not? Tell me, sir, are you sorry +or not? He-he-he!” +He would have filled his glass, but there was no drink left. The pot was +empty. +“What are you to be pitied for?” shouted the tavern-keeper who was again +near them. +Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the oaths +came from those who were listening and also from those who had heard +nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged +government clerk. +“To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied?” Marmeladov suddenly declaimed, +standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had been only +waiting for that question. +“Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there’s nothing to pity me for! I +ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, +oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be +crucified, for it’s not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation!... +Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been +sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and +tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity +us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all +things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day +and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, +consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is +the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, +undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have +already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins +which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....’ And he +will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my +heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive +all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek.... And when He has +done with all of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’ +He will say, ‘Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come +forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame +and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made +in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the +wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why dost Thou +receive these men?’ And He will say, ‘This is why I receive them, oh ye +wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one +of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His +hands to us and we shall fall down before him... and we shall weep... +and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!... and +all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even... she will understand.... +Lord, Thy kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and +helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings +and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression; +there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard +again. +“That’s his notion!” +“Talked himself silly!” +“A fine clerk he is!” +And so on, and so on. +“Let us go, sir,” said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and +addressing Raskolnikov--“come along with me... Kozel’s house, looking +into the yard. I’m going to Katerina Ivanovna--time I did.” +Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to +help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech +and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three hundred +paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and +confusion as they drew nearer the house. +“It’s not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now,” he muttered in +agitation--“and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair +matter! Bother my hair! That’s what I say! Indeed it will be better if +she does begin pulling it, that’s not what I am afraid of... it’s her +eyes I am afraid of... yes, her eyes... the red on her cheeks, too, +frightens me... and her breathing too.... Have you noticed how people +in that disease breathe... when they are excited? I am frightened of +the children’s crying, too.... For if Sonia has not taken them food... +I don’t know what’s happened! I don’t know! But blows I am not afraid +of.... Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but even an +enjoyment. In fact I can’t get on without it.... It’s better so. Let +her strike me, it relieves her heart... it’s better so... There is the +house. The house of Kozel, the cabinet-maker... a German, well-to-do. +Lead the way!” +They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase +got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven o’clock +and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was +quite dark at the top of the stairs. +A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very +poor-looking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candle-end; +the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder, +littered up with rags of all sorts, especially children’s garments. +Across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it +probably was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs +and a sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which +stood an old deal kitchen-table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge +of the table stood a smoldering tallow-candle in an iron candlestick. It +appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room, +but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other +rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsel’s flat was +divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter +within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there. Words +of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time. +Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather tall, +slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown +hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down +in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest; her lips +were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes +glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And +that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the +candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to +Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for +Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not notice them coming in. +She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing nothing. The room +was close, but she had not opened the window; a stench rose from the +staircase, but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the inner +rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept coughing, but did not +close the door. The youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting +curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a year older +stood crying and shaking in the corner, probably he had just had a +beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years old, tall and thin, +wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung +over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and barely reaching her knees. +Her arm, as thin as a stick, was round her brother’s neck. She was +trying to comfort him, whispering something to him, and doing all she +could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her large +dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened +face, were watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did not enter the +door, but dropped on his knees in the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov +in front of him. The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently +facing him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what +he had come for. But evidently she decided that he was going into +the next room, as he had to pass through hers to get there. Taking no +further notice of him, she walked towards the outer door to close it +and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the +doorway. +“Ah!” she cried out in a frenzy, “he has come back! The criminal! the +monster!... And where is the money? What’s in your pocket, show me! And +your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the +money! Speak!” +And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently +held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there. +“Where is the money?” she cried--“Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all? +There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest!” and in a fury +she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov +seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees. +“And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a +positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir,” he called out, shaken to and +fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead. +The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the +corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed +to his sister in violent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was +shaking like a leaf. +“He’s drunk it! he’s drunk it all,” the poor woman screamed in +despair--“and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!”--and +wringing her hands she pointed to the children. “Oh, accursed life! +And you, are you not ashamed?”--she pounced all at once upon +Raskolnikov--“from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have +been drinking with him, too! Go away!” +The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door +was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse +laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust +themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in +dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of +them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when +Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation +to him. They even began to come into the room; at last a sinister shrill +outcry was heard: this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her +way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and +for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her +with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out, +Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the +coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to +lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed +his mind and would have gone back. +“What a stupid thing I’ve done,” he thought to himself, “they have Sonia +and I want it myself.” But reflecting that it would be impossible to +take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he +dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging. +“Sonia wants pomatum too,” he said as he walked along the street, and he +laughed malignantly--“such smartness costs money.... Hm! And maybe Sonia +herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk, hunting +big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a crust +to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine they’ve dug +there! And they’re making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most +of it! They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to +everything, the scoundrel!” +He sank into thought. +“And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after a moment’s thought. +“What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the +whole race of mankind--then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial +terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.” +CHAPTER III +He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not +refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked +with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six +paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty +yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man +of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment +that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in +keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a +painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; +the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long +untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and +half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but +was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep +on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old +student’s overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he +heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A +little table stood in front of the sofa. +It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to +Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable. +He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell, +and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked +sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was +in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated +upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending +him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her, +though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant, +was rather pleased at the lodger’s mood and had entirely given up +sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into +his room with a broom. She waked him up that day. +“Get up, why are you asleep?” she called to him. “It’s past nine, I have +brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you’re fairly +starving?” +Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya. +“From the landlady, eh?” he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting +up on the sofa. +“From the landlady, indeed!” +She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and +laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it. +“Here, Nastasya, take it please,” he said, fumbling in his pocket (for +he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers--“run +and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the +pork-butcher’s.” +“The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn’t you rather have +some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I +saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s fine soup.” +When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya +sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country +peasant-woman and a very talkative one. +“Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you,” she +said. +He scowled. +“To the police? What does she want?” +“You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out of the room. That’s what +she wants, to be sure.” +“The devil, that’s the last straw,” he muttered, grinding his teeth, +“no, that would not suit me... just now. She is a fool,” he added aloud. +“I’ll go and talk to her to-day.” +“Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so +clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One +time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you +do nothing now?” +“I am doing...” Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly. +“What are you doing?” +“Work...” +“What sort of work?” +“I am thinking,” he answered seriously after a pause. +Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter +and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and +shaking all over till she felt ill. +“And have you made much money by your thinking?” she managed to +articulate at last. +“One can’t go out to give lessons without boots. And I’m sick of it.” +“Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.” +“They pay so little for lessons. What’s the use of a few coppers?” he +answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought. +“And you want to get a fortune all at once?” +He looked at her strangely. +“Yes, I want a fortune,” he answered firmly, after a brief pause. +“Don’t be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the +loaf or not?” +“As you please.” +“Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out.” +“A letter? for me! from whom?” +“I can’t say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will +you pay me back?” +“Then bring it to me, for God’s sake, bring it,” cried Raskolnikov +greatly excited--“good God!” +A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it: from his mother, +from the province of R----. He turned pale when he took it. It was a +long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also +suddenly stabbed his heart. +“Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness’ sake; here are your three +copecks, but for goodness’ sake, make haste and go!” +The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not want to open it in her +presence; he wanted to be left _alone_ with this letter. When Nastasya +had gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he +gazed intently at the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear +and familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write. +He delayed; he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it; +it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets +of note paper were covered with very small handwriting. +“My dear Rodya,” wrote his mother--“it’s two months since I last had a +talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me +awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my +inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are all we have to look +to, Dounia and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a +grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university +some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had +lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my +hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I sent +you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my pension, +from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a +kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father’s too. But having given +him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was +paid off and that is only just done, so that I’ve been unable to send +you anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I shall +be able to send you something more and in fact we may congratulate +ourselves on our good fortune now, of which I hasten to inform you. In +the first place, would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your sister +has been living with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be +separated in the future. Thank God, her sufferings are over, but I will +tell you everything in order, so that you may know just how everything +has happened and all that we have hitherto concealed from you. When you +wrote to me two months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a great +deal to put up with in the Svidrigaïlovs’ house, when you wrote that +and asked me to tell you all about it--what could I write in answer to +you? If I had written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would have +thrown up everything and have come to us, even if you had to walk all +the way, for I know your character and your feelings, and you would not +let your sister be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what could I +do? And, besides, I did not know the whole truth myself then. What +made it all so difficult was that Dounia received a hundred roubles +in advance when she took the place as governess in their family, on +condition of part of her salary being deducted every month, and so it +was impossible to throw up the situation without repaying the debt. +This sum (now I can explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took +chiefly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you needed so terribly +then and which you received from us last year. We deceived you then, +writing that this money came from Dounia’s savings, but that was not +so, and now I tell you all about it, because, thank God, things have +suddenly changed for the better, and that you may know how Dounia loves +you and what a heart she has. At first indeed Mr. Svidrigaïlov treated +her very rudely and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at +table.... But I don’t want to go into all those painful details, so as +not to worry you for nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite +of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s +wife, and all the rest of the household, Dounia had a very hard time, +especially when Mr. Svidrigaïlov, relapsing into his old regimental +habits, was under the influence of Bacchus. And how do you think it +was all explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had +conceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning, but had concealed +it under a show of rudeness and contempt. Possibly he was ashamed and +horrified himself at his own flighty hopes, considering his years and +his being the father of a family; and that made him angry with Dounia. +And possibly, too, he hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide +the truth from others. But at last he lost all control and had the face +to make Dounia an open and shameful proposal, promising her all sorts of +inducements and offering, besides, to throw up everything and take her +to another estate of his, or even abroad. You can imagine all she went +through! To leave her situation at once was impossible not only on +account of the money debt, but also to spare the feelings of Marfa +Petrovna, whose suspicions would have been aroused: and then Dounia +would have been the cause of a rupture in the family. And it would +have meant a terrible scandal for Dounia too; that would have been +inevitable. There were various other reasons owing to which Dounia could +not hope to escape from that awful house for another six weeks. You know +Dounia, of course; you know how clever she is and what a strong will she +has. Dounia can endure a great deal and even in the most difficult cases +she has the fortitude to maintain her firmness. She did not even write +to me about everything for fear of upsetting me, although we were +constantly in communication. It all ended very unexpectedly. Marfa +Petrovna accidentally overheard her husband imploring Dounia in the +garden, and, putting quite a wrong interpretation on the position, threw +the blame upon her, believing her to be the cause of it all. An awful +scene took place between them on the spot in the garden; Marfa Petrovna +went so far as to strike Dounia, refused to hear anything and was +shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dounia should +be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant’s cart, into which they +flung all her things, her linen and her clothes, all pell-mell, without +folding it up and packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too, +and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive with a peasant in an +open cart all the seventeen versts into town. Only think now what answer +could I have sent to the letter I received from you two months ago and +what could I have written? I was in despair; I dared not write to +you the truth because you would have been very unhappy, mortified +and indignant, and yet what could you do? You could only perhaps ruin +yourself, and, besides, Dounia would not allow it; and fill up my letter +with trifles when my heart was so full of sorrow, I could not. For a +whole month the town was full of gossip about this scandal, and it came +to such a pass that Dounia and I dared not even go to church on account +of the contemptuous looks, whispers, and even remarks made aloud about +us. All our acquaintances avoided us, nobody even bowed to us in the +street, and I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were intending to +insult us in a shameful way, smearing the gates of our house with pitch, +so that the landlord began to tell us we must leave. All this was set +going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia and throw dirt at +her in every family. She knows everyone in the neighbourhood, and that +month she was continually coming into the town, and as she is +rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and +particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband--which is not +at all right--so in a short time she had spread her story not only in +the town, but over the whole surrounding district. It made me ill, but +Dounia bore it better than I did, and if only you could have seen how +she endured it all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up! She is +an angel! But by God’s mercy, our sufferings were cut short: Mr. +Svidrigaïlov returned to his senses and repented and, probably +feeling sorry for Dounia, he laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and +unmistakable proof of Dounia’s innocence, in the form of a letter Dounia +had been forced to write and give to him, before Marfa Petrovna +came upon them in the garden. This letter, which remained in Mr. +Svidrigaïlov’s hands after her departure, she had written to refuse +personal explanations and secret interviews, for which he was entreating +her. In that letter she reproached him with great heat and indignation +for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa Petrovna, reminding +him that he was the father and head of a family and telling him how +infamous it was of him to torment and make unhappy a defenceless girl, +unhappy enough already. Indeed, dear Rodya, the letter was so nobly and +touchingly written that I sobbed when I read it and to this day I cannot +read it without tears. Moreover, the evidence of the servants, too, +cleared Dounia’s reputation; they had seen and known a great deal more +than Mr. Svidrigaïlov had himself supposed--as indeed is always the case +with servants. Marfa Petrovna was completely taken aback, and ‘again +crushed’ as she said herself to us, but she was completely convinced of +Dounia’s innocence. The very next day, being Sunday, she went straight +to the Cathedral, knelt down and prayed with tears to Our Lady to give +her strength to bear this new trial and to do her duty. Then she +came straight from the Cathedral to us, told us the whole story, wept +bitterly and, fully penitent, she embraced Dounia and besought her to +forgive her. The same morning without any delay, she went round to all +the houses in the town and everywhere, shedding tears, she asserted in +the most flattering terms Dounia’s innocence and the nobility of +her feelings and her behavior. What was more, she showed and read to +everyone the letter in Dounia’s own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigaïlov and +even allowed them to take copies of it--which I must say I think was +superfluous. In this way she was busy for several days in driving about +the whole town, because some people had taken offence through precedence +having been given to others. And therefore they had to take turns, so +that in every house she was expected before she arrived, and everyone +knew that on such and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be reading the +letter in such and such a place and people assembled for every reading +of it, even many who had heard it several times already both in their +own houses and in other people’s. In my opinion a great deal, a very +great deal of all this was unnecessary; but that’s Marfa Petrovna’s +character. Anyway she succeeded in completely re-establishing Dounia’s +reputation and the whole ignominy of this affair rested as an indelible +disgrace upon her husband, as the only person to blame, so that I really +began to feel sorry for him; it was really treating the crazy fellow too +harshly. Dounia was at once asked to give lessons in several families, +but she refused. All of a sudden everyone began to treat her with marked +respect and all this did much to bring about the event by which, one may +say, our whole fortunes are now transformed. You must know, dear Rodya, +that Dounia has a suitor and that she has already consented to marry +him. I hasten to tell you all about the matter, and though it has been +arranged without asking your consent, I think you will not be aggrieved +with me or with your sister on that account, for you will see that we +could not wait and put off our decision till we heard from you. And you +could not have judged all the facts without being on the spot. This +was how it happened. He is already of the rank of a counsellor, Pyotr +Petrovitch Luzhin, and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna, who +has been very active in bringing the match about. It began with his +expressing through her his desire to make our acquaintance. He was +properly received, drank coffee with us and the very next day he sent +us a letter in which he very courteously made an offer and begged for a +speedy and decided answer. He is a very busy man and is in a great hurry +to get to Petersburg, so that every moment is precious to him. At first, +of course, we were greatly surprised, as it had all happened so quickly +and unexpectedly. We thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a +well-to-do man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in the government +and has already made his fortune. It is true that he is forty-five years +old, but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be +thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a very respectable and +presentable man, only he seems a little morose and somewhat conceited. +But possibly that may only be the impression he makes at first sight. +And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to Petersburg, as he shortly will +do, beware of judging him too hastily and severely, as your way is, if +there is anything you do not like in him at first sight. I give you this +warning, although I feel sure that he will make a favourable impression +upon you. Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be +deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, +which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards. And Pyotr +Petrovitch, judging by many indications, is a thoroughly estimable man. +At his first visit, indeed, he told us that he was a practical man, but +still he shares, as he expressed it, many of the convictions ‘of our +most rising generation’ and he is an opponent of all prejudices. He +said a good deal more, for he seems a little conceited and likes to be +listened to, but this is scarcely a vice. I, of course, understood very +little of it, but Dounia explained to me that, though he is not a man +of great education, he is clever and seems to be good-natured. You know +your sister’s character, Rodya. She is a resolute, sensible, patient and +generous girl, but she has a passionate heart, as I know very well. +Of course, there is no great love either on his side, or on hers, but +Dounia is a clever girl and has the heart of an angel, and will make +it her duty to make her husband happy who on his side will make her +happiness his care. Of that we have no good reason to doubt, though it +must be admitted the matter has been arranged in great haste. Besides he +is a man of great prudence and he will see, to be sure, of himself, that +his own happiness will be the more secure, the happier Dounia is with +him. And as for some defects of character, for some habits and even +certain differences of opinion--which indeed are inevitable even in +the happiest marriages--Dounia has said that, as regards all that, she +relies on herself, that there is nothing to be uneasy about, and +that she is ready to put up with a great deal, if only their future +relationship can be an honourable and straightforward one. He struck me, +for instance, at first, as rather abrupt, but that may well come +from his being an outspoken man, and that is no doubt how it is. For +instance, at his second visit, after he had received Dounia’s consent, +in the course of conversation, he declared that before making +Dounia’s acquaintance, he had made up his mind to marry a girl of +good reputation, without dowry and, above all, one who had experienced +poverty, because, as he explained, a man ought not to be indebted to his +wife, but that it is better for a wife to look upon her husband as her +benefactor. I must add that he expressed it more nicely and politely +than I have done, for I have forgotten his actual phrases and only +remember the meaning. And, besides, it was obviously not said of design, +but slipped out in the heat of conversation, so that he tried afterwards +to correct himself and smooth it over, but all the same it did strike +me as somewhat rude, and I said so afterwards to Dounia. But Dounia was +vexed, and answered that ‘words are not deeds,’ and that, of course, is +perfectly true. Dounia did not sleep all night before she made up +her mind, and, thinking that I was asleep, she got out of bed and was +walking up and down the room all night; at last she knelt down before +the ikon and prayed long and fervently and in the morning she told me +that she had decided. +“I have mentioned already that Pyotr Petrovitch is just setting off for +Petersburg, where he has a great deal of business, and he wants to open +a legal bureau. He has been occupied for many years in conducting civil +and commercial litigation, and only the other day he won an important +case. He has to be in Petersburg because he has an important case before +the Senate. So, Rodya dear, he may be of the greatest use to you, in +every way indeed, and Dounia and I have agreed that from this very day +you could definitely enter upon your career and might consider that +your future is marked out and assured for you. Oh, if only this comes to +pass! This would be such a benefit that we could only look upon it as a +providential blessing. Dounia is dreaming of nothing else. We have even +ventured already to drop a few words on the subject to Pyotr Petrovitch. +He was cautious in his answer, and said that, of course, as he could not +get on without a secretary, it would be better to be paying a salary to +a relation than to a stranger, if only the former were fitted for the +duties (as though there could be doubt of your being fitted!) but then +he expressed doubts whether your studies at the university would leave +you time for work at his office. The matter dropped for the time, but +Dounia is thinking of nothing else now. She has been in a sort of fever +for the last few days, and has already made a regular plan for +your becoming in the end an associate and even a partner in Pyotr +Petrovitch’s business, which might well be, seeing that you are a +student of law. I am in complete agreement with her, Rodya, and share +all her plans and hopes, and think there is every probability of +realising them. And in spite of Pyotr Petrovitch’s evasiveness, very +natural at present (since he does not know you), Dounia is firmly +persuaded that she will gain everything by her good influence over her +future husband; this she is reckoning upon. Of course we are careful +not to talk of any of these more remote plans to Pyotr Petrovitch, +especially of your becoming his partner. He is a practical man and might +take this very coldly, it might all seem to him simply a day-dream. Nor +has either Dounia or I breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have +of his helping us to pay for your university studies; we have not spoken +of it in the first place, because it will come to pass of itself, +later on, and he will no doubt without wasting words offer to do it of +himself, (as though he could refuse Dounia that) the more readily since +you may by your own efforts become his right hand in the office, and +receive this assistance not as a charity, but as a salary earned by your +own work. Dounia wants to arrange it all like this and I quite agree +with her. And we have not spoken of our plans for another reason, that +is, because I particularly wanted you to feel on an equal footing when +you first meet him. When Dounia spoke to him with enthusiasm about +you, he answered that one could never judge of a man without seeing +him close, for oneself, and that he looked forward to forming his own +opinion when he makes your acquaintance. Do you know, my precious +Rodya, I think that perhaps for some reasons (nothing to do with Pyotr +Petrovitch though, simply for my own personal, perhaps old-womanish, +fancies) I should do better to go on living by myself, apart, than with +them, after the wedding. I am convinced that he will be generous and +delicate enough to invite me and to urge me to remain with my daughter +for the future, and if he has said nothing about it hitherto, it is +simply because it has been taken for granted; but I shall refuse. I have +noticed more than once in my life that husbands don’t quite get on with +their mothers-in-law, and I don’t want to be the least bit in anyone’s +way, and for my own sake, too, would rather be quite independent, so +long as I have a crust of bread of my own, and such children as you and +Dounia. If possible, I would settle somewhere near you, for the most +joyful piece of news, dear Rodya, I have kept for the end of my letter: +know then, my dear boy, that we may, perhaps, be all together in a +very short time and may embrace one another again after a separation of +almost three years! It is settled _for certain_ that Dounia and I are to +set off for Petersburg, exactly when I don’t know, but very, very soon, +possibly in a week. It all depends on Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us +know when he has had time to look round him in Petersburg. To suit his +own arrangements he is anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible, +even before the fast of Our Lady, if it could be managed, or if that is +too soon to be ready, immediately after. Oh, with what happiness I shall +press you to my heart! Dounia is all excitement at the joyful thought +of seeing you, she said one day in joke that she would be ready to marry +Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone. She is an angel! She is not writing +anything to you now, and has only told me to write that she has so much, +so much to tell you that she is not going to take up her pen now, for +a few lines would tell you nothing, and it would only mean upsetting +herself; she bids me send you her love and innumerable kisses. But +although we shall be meeting so soon, perhaps I shall send you as much +money as I can in a day or two. Now that everyone has heard that Dounia +is to marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my credit has suddenly improved and I know +that Afanasy Ivanovitch will trust me now even to seventy-five roubles +on the security of my pension, so that perhaps I shall be able to send +you twenty-five or even thirty roubles. I would send you more, but I am +uneasy about our travelling expenses; for though Pyotr Petrovitch has +been so kind as to undertake part of the expenses of the journey, that +is to say, he has taken upon himself the conveyance of our bags and big +trunk (which will be conveyed through some acquaintances of his), we +must reckon upon some expense on our arrival in Petersburg, where we +can’t be left without a halfpenny, at least for the first few days. But +we have calculated it all, Dounia and I, to the last penny, and we see +that the journey will not cost very much. It is only ninety versts from +us to the railway and we have come to an agreement with a driver we +know, so as to be in readiness; and from there Dounia and I can travel +quite comfortably third class. So that I may very likely be able to send +to you not twenty-five, but thirty roubles. But enough; I have covered +two sheets already and there is no space left for more; our whole +history, but so many events have happened! And now, my precious Rodya, +I embrace you and send you a mother’s blessing till we meet. Love Dounia +your sister, Rodya; love her as she loves you and understand that she +loves you beyond everything, more than herself. She is an angel and you, +Rodya, you are everything to us--our one hope, our one consolation. If +only you are happy, we shall be happy. Do you still say your prayers, +Rodya, and believe in the mercy of our Creator and our Redeemer? I am +afraid in my heart that you may have been visited by the new spirit of +infidelity that is abroad to-day; If it is so, I pray for you. Remember, +dear boy, how in your childhood, when your father was living, you used +to lisp your prayers at my knee, and how happy we all were in those +days. Good-bye, till we meet then--I embrace you warmly, warmly, with +many kisses. +“Yours till death, +“PULCHERIA RASKOLNIKOV.” +Almost from the first, while he read the letter, Raskolnikov’s face was +wet with tears; but when he finished it, his face was pale and distorted +and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid his +head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and pondered, pondered a long +time. His heart was beating violently, and his brain was in a turmoil. +At last he felt cramped and stifled in the little yellow room that was +like a cupboard or a box. His eyes and his mind craved for space. He +took up his hat and went out, this time without dread of meeting +anyone; he had forgotten his dread. He turned in the direction of the +Vassilyevsky Ostrov, walking along Vassilyevsky Prospect, as though +hastening on some business, but he walked, as his habit was, without +noticing his way, muttering and even speaking aloud to himself, to the +astonishment of the passers-by. Many of them took him to be drunk. +CHAPTER IV +His mother’s letter had been a torture to him, but as regards the chief +fact in it, he had felt not one moment’s hesitation, even whilst he was +reading the letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevocably +settled, in his mind: “Never such a marriage while I am alive and +Mr. Luzhin be damned!” “The thing is perfectly clear,” he muttered +to himself, with a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his +decision. “No, mother, no, Dounia, you won’t deceive me! and then they +apologise for not asking my advice and for taking the decision without +me! I dare say! They imagine it is arranged now and can’t be broken +off; but we will see whether it can or not! A magnificent excuse: +‘Pyotr Petrovitch is such a busy man that even his wedding has to be in +post-haste, almost by express.’ No, Dounia, I see it all and I know what +you want to say to me; and I know too what you were thinking about, when +you walked up and down all night, and what your prayers were like before +the Holy Mother of Kazan who stands in mother’s bedroom. Bitter is +the ascent to Golgotha.... Hm... so it is finally settled; you have +determined to marry a sensible business man, Avdotya Romanovna, one +who has a fortune (has _already_ made his fortune, that is so much +more solid and impressive), a man who holds two government posts and who +shares the ideas of our most rising generation, as mother writes, and +who _seems_ to be kind, as Dounia herself observes. That _seems_ beats +everything! And that very Dounia for that very ‘_seems_’ is marrying +him! Splendid! splendid! +“... But I should like to know why mother has written to me about ‘our +most rising generation’? Simply as a descriptive touch, or with the idea +of prepossessing me in favour of Mr. Luzhin? Oh, the cunning of them! +I should like to know one thing more: how far they were open with one +another that day and night and all this time since? Was it all put into +_words_, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart +and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and +better not to speak of it. Most likely it was partly like that, from +mother’s letter it’s evident: he struck her as rude _a little_, and +mother in her simplicity took her observations to Dounia. And she was +sure to be vexed and ‘answered her angrily.’ I should think so! Who +would not be angered when it was quite clear without any naïve questions +and when it was understood that it was useless to discuss it. And why +does she write to me, ‘love Dounia, Rodya, and she loves you more than +herself’? Has she a secret conscience-prick at sacrificing her daughter +to her son? ‘You are our one comfort, you are everything to us.’ Oh, +mother!” +His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if he had happened to +meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment, he might have murdered him. +“Hm... yes, that’s true,” he continued, pursuing the whirling ideas that +chased each other in his brain, “it is true that ‘it needs time and care +to get to know a man,’ but there is no mistake about Mr. Luzhin. The +chief thing is he is ‘a man of business and _seems_ kind,’ that was +something, wasn’t it, to send the bags and big box for them! A kind man, +no doubt after that! But his _bride_ and her mother are to drive in a +peasant’s cart covered with sacking (I know, I have been driven in +it). No matter! It is only ninety versts and then they can ‘travel very +comfortably, third class,’ for a thousand versts! Quite right, too. One +must cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth, but what about you, Mr. +Luzhin? She is your bride.... And you must be aware that her mother has +to raise money on her pension for the journey. To be sure it’s a matter +of business, a partnership for mutual benefit, with equal shares and +expenses;--food and drink provided, but pay for your tobacco. The +business man has got the better of them, too. The luggage will cost less +than their fares and very likely go for nothing. How is it that they +don’t both see all that, or is it that they don’t want to see? And +they are pleased, pleased! And to think that this is only the first +blossoming, and that the real fruits are to come! But what really +matters is not the stinginess, is not the meanness, but the _tone_ +of the whole thing. For that will be the tone after marriage, it’s a +foretaste of it. And mother too, why should she be so lavish? What will +she have by the time she gets to Petersburg? Three silver roubles or +two ‘paper ones’ as _she_ says.... that old woman... hm. What does +she expect to live upon in Petersburg afterwards? She has her reasons +already for guessing that she _could not_ live with Dounia after the +marriage, even for the first few months. The good man has no doubt let +slip something on that subject also, though mother would deny it: ‘I +shall refuse,’ says she. On whom is she reckoning then? Is she counting +on what is left of her hundred and twenty roubles of pension when +Afanasy Ivanovitch’s debt is paid? She knits woollen shawls and +embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. And all her shawls don’t add +more than twenty roubles a year to her hundred and twenty, I know +that. So she is building all her hopes all the time on Mr. Luzhin’s +generosity; ‘he will offer it of himself, he will press it on me.’ +You may wait a long time for that! That’s how it always is with these +Schilleresque noble hearts; till the last moment every goose is a swan +with them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and will see +nothing wrong, and although they have an inkling of the other side of +the picture, yet they won’t face the truth till they are forced to; the +very thought of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth away with +both hands, until the man they deck out in false colours puts a fool’s +cap on them with his own hands. I should like to know whether Mr. Luzhin +has any orders of merit; I bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and +that he puts it on when he goes to dine with contractors or merchants. +He will be sure to have it for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound +him! +“Well,... mother I don’t wonder at, it’s like her, God bless her, but +how could Dounia? Dounia darling, as though I did not know you! You were +nearly twenty when I saw you last: I understood you then. Mother writes +that ‘Dounia can put up with a great deal.’ I know that very well. I +knew that two years and a half ago, and for the last two and a half +years I have been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that ‘Dounia +can put up with a great deal.’ If she could put up with Mr. Svidrigaïlov +and all the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a great deal. And +now mother and she have taken it into their heads that she can put up +with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory of the superiority of +wives raised from destitution and owing everything to their husband’s +bounty--who propounds it, too, almost at the first interview. Granted +that he ‘let it slip,’ though he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it +was not a slip at all, but he meant to make himself clear as soon as +possible) but Dounia, Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but +she will have to live with the man. Why! she’d live on black bread +and water, she would not sell her soul, she would not barter her moral +freedom for comfort; she would not barter it for all Schleswig-Holstein, +much less Mr. Luzhin’s money. No, Dounia was not that sort when I knew +her and... she is still the same, of course! Yes, there’s no denying, +the Svidrigaïlovs are a bitter pill! It’s a bitter thing to spend one’s +life a governess in the provinces for two hundred roubles, but I know +she would rather be a nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German +master than degrade her soul, and her moral dignity, by binding herself +for ever to a man whom she does not respect and with whom she has +nothing in common--for her own advantage. And if Mr. Luzhin had been of +unalloyed gold, or one huge diamond, she would never have consented to +become his legal concubine. Why is she consenting then? What’s the +point of it? What’s the answer? It’s clear enough: for herself, for her +comfort, to save her life she would not sell herself, but for someone +else she is doing it! For one she loves, for one she adores, she will +sell herself! That’s what it all amounts to; for her brother, for her +mother, she will sell herself! She will sell everything! In such cases, +‘we overcome our moral feeling if necessary,’ freedom, peace, conscience +even, all, all are brought into the market. Let my life go, if only my +dear ones may be happy! More than that, we become casuists, we learn +to be Jesuitical and for a time maybe we can soothe ourselves, we can +persuade ourselves that it is one’s duty for a good object. That’s just +like us, it’s as clear as daylight. It’s clear that Rodion Romanovitch +Raskolnikov is the central figure in the business, and no one else. Oh, +yes, she can ensure his happiness, keep him in the university, make him +a partner in the office, make his whole future secure; perhaps he may +even be a rich man later on, prosperous, respected, and may even end his +life a famous man! But my mother? It’s all Rodya, precious Rodya, her +first born! For such a son who would not sacrifice such a daughter! Oh, +loving, over-partial hearts! Why, for his sake we would not shrink even +from Sonia’s fate. Sonia, Sonia Marmeladov, the eternal victim so long +as the world lasts. Have you taken the measure of your sacrifice, both +of you? Is it right? Can you bear it? Is it any use? Is there sense in +it? And let me tell you, Dounia, Sonia’s life is no worse than life with +Mr. Luzhin. ‘There can be no question of love,’ mother writes. And what +if there can be no respect either, if on the contrary there is aversion, +contempt, repulsion, what then? So you will have to ‘keep up your +appearance,’ too. Is not that so? Do you understand what that smartness +means? Do you understand that the Luzhin smartness is just the same +thing as Sonia’s and may be worse, viler, baser, because in your case, +Dounia, it’s a bargain for luxuries, after all, but with Sonia it’s +simply a question of starvation. It has to be paid for, it has to be +paid for, Dounia, this smartness. And what if it’s more than you can +bear afterwards, if you regret it? The bitterness, the misery, the +curses, the tears hidden from all the world, for you are not a Marfa +Petrovna. And how will your mother feel then? Even now she is uneasy, +she is worried, but then, when she sees it all clearly? And I? Yes, +indeed, what have you taken me for? I won’t have your sacrifice, Dounia, +I won’t have it, mother! It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it +shall not, it shall not! I won’t accept it!” +He suddenly paused in his reflection and stood still. +“It shall not be? But what are you going to do to prevent it? You’ll +forbid it? And what right have you? What can you promise them on your +side to give you such a right? Your whole life, your whole future, you +will devote to them _when you have finished your studies and obtained a +post_? Yes, we have heard all that before, and that’s all _words_, but +now? Now something must be done, now, do you understand that? And +what are you doing now? You are living upon them. They borrow on their +hundred roubles pension. They borrow from the Svidrigaïlovs. How are +you going to save them from Svidrigaïlovs, from Afanasy Ivanovitch +Vahrushin, oh, future millionaire Zeus who would arrange their lives for +them? In another ten years? In another ten years, mother will be blind +with knitting shawls, maybe with weeping too. She will be worn to a +shadow with fasting; and my sister? Imagine for a moment what may have +become of your sister in ten years? What may happen to her during those +ten years? Can you fancy?” +So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such questions, and +finding a kind of enjoyment in it. And yet all these questions were not +new ones suddenly confronting him, they were old familiar aches. It was +long since they had first begun to grip and rend his heart. Long, long +ago his present anguish had its first beginnings; it had waxed and +gathered strength, it had matured and concentrated, until it had taken +the form of a fearful, frenzied and fantastic question, which tortured +his heart and mind, clamouring insistently for an answer. Now his +mother’s letter had burst on him like a thunderclap. It was clear +that he must not now suffer passively, worrying himself over unsolved +questions, but that he must do something, do it at once, and do it +quickly. Anyway he must decide on something, or else... +“Or throw up life altogether!” he cried suddenly, in a frenzy--“accept +one’s lot humbly as it is, once for all and stifle everything in +oneself, giving up all claim to activity, life and love!” +“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have +absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into +his mind, “for every man must have somewhere to turn....” +He gave a sudden start; another thought, that he had had yesterday, +slipped back into his mind. But he did not start at the thought +recurring to him, for he knew, he had _felt beforehand_, that it must +come back, he was expecting it; besides it was not only yesterday’s +thought. The difference was that a month ago, yesterday even, the +thought was a mere dream: but now... now it appeared not a dream at all, +it had taken a new menacing and quite unfamiliar shape, and he suddenly +became aware of this himself.... He felt a hammering in his head, and +there was a darkness before his eyes. +He looked round hurriedly, he was searching for something. He wanted +to sit down and was looking for a seat; he was walking along the K---- +Boulevard. There was a seat about a hundred paces in front of him. He +walked towards it as fast he could; but on the way he met with a little +adventure which absorbed all his attention. Looking for the seat, he had +noticed a woman walking some twenty paces in front of him, but at first +he took no more notice of her than of other objects that crossed his +path. It had happened to him many times going home not to notice the +road by which he was going, and he was accustomed to walk like that. But +there was at first sight something so strange about the woman in front +of him, that gradually his attention was riveted upon her, at first +reluctantly and, as it were, resentfully, and then more and more +intently. He felt a sudden desire to find out what it was that was so +strange about the woman. In the first place, she appeared to be a girl +quite young, and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded and with +no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in an absurd way. She had +on a dress of some light silky material, but put on strangely awry, not +properly hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt, close to the +waist: a great piece was rent and hanging loose. A little kerchief was +flung about her bare throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was +walking unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from side to side. She +drew Raskolnikov’s whole attention at last. He overtook the girl at the +seat, but, on reaching it, she dropped down on it, in the corner; +she let her head sink on the back of the seat and closed her eyes, +apparently in extreme exhaustion. Looking at her closely, he saw at once +that she was completely drunk. It was a strange and shocking sight. He +could hardly believe that he was not mistaken. He saw before him the +face of a quite young, fair-haired girl--sixteen, perhaps not more than +fifteen, years old, pretty little face, but flushed and heavy looking +and, as it were, swollen. The girl seemed hardly to know what she was +doing; she crossed one leg over the other, lifting it indecorously, and +showed every sign of being unconscious that she was in the street. +Raskolnikov did not sit down, but he felt unwilling to leave her, +and stood facing her in perplexity. This boulevard was never much +frequented; and now, at two o’clock, in the stifling heat, it was quite +deserted. And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about fifteen +paces away, a gentleman was standing on the edge of the pavement. He, +too, would apparently have liked to approach the girl with some object +of his own. He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and had +followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way. He looked angrily at +him, though he tried to escape his notice, and stood impatiently biding +his time, till the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away. His +intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was a plump, thickly-set +man, about thirty, fashionably dressed, with a high colour, red lips and +moustaches. Raskolnikov felt furious; he had a sudden longing to insult +this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and walked +towards the gentleman. +“Hey! You Svidrigaïlov! What do you want here?” he shouted, clenching +his fists and laughing, spluttering with rage. +“What do you mean?” the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in haughty +astonishment. +“Get away, that’s what I mean.” +“How dare you, you low fellow!” +He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without +reflecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like +himself. But at that instant someone seized him from behind, and a +police constable stood between them. +“That’s enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in a public place. What +do you want? Who are you?” he asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his +rags. +Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straight-forward, sensible, +soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers. +“You are just the man I want,” Raskolnikov cried, catching at his arm. +“I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too,” he +added, addressing the gentleman, “come along, I have something to show +you.” +And taking the policeman by the hand he drew him towards the seat. +“Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just come down the boulevard. +There is no telling who and what she is, she does not look like a +professional. It’s more likely she has been given drink and deceived +somewhere... for the first time... you understand? and they’ve put her +out into the street like that. Look at the way her dress is torn, and +the way it has been put on: she has been dressed by somebody, she has +not dressed herself, and dressed by unpractised hands, by a man’s hands; +that’s evident. And now look there: I don’t know that dandy with whom I +was going to fight, I see him for the first time, but he, too, has seen +her on the road, just now, drunk, not knowing what she is doing, and now +he is very eager to get hold of her, to get her away somewhere while she +is in this state... that’s certain, believe me, I am not wrong. I saw +him myself watching her and following her, but I prevented him, and he +is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has walked away a little, and +is standing still, pretending to make a cigarette.... Think how can we +keep her out of his hands, and how are we to get her home?” +The policeman saw it all in a flash. The stout gentleman was easy to +understand, he turned to consider the girl. The policeman bent over to +examine her more closely, and his face worked with genuine compassion. +“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head--“why, she is quite a +child! She has been deceived, you can see that at once. Listen, lady,” +he began addressing her, “where do you live?” The girl opened her weary +and sleepy-looking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker and waved her +hand. +“Here,” said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and finding twenty +copecks, “here, call a cab and tell him to drive her to her address. The +only thing is to find out her address!” +“Missy, missy!” the policeman began again, taking the money. “I’ll fetch +you a cab and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where do +you live?” +“Go away! They won’t let me alone,” the girl muttered, and once more +waved her hand. +“Ach, ach, how shocking! It’s shameful, missy, it’s a shame!” He shook +his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant. +“It’s a difficult job,” the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he +did so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have +seemed a strange figure to him: dressed in rags and handing him money! +“Did you meet her far from here?” he asked him. +“I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in +the boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it.” +“Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God have +mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She has been +deceived, that’s a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn too.... +Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs to +gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that nowadays. +She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady,” and he bent over her +once more. +Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, “looking like ladies and +refined” with pretensions to gentility and smartness.... +“The chief thing is,” Raskolnikov persisted, “to keep her out of this +scoundrel’s hands! Why should he outrage her! It’s as clear as day what +he is after; ah, the brute, he is not moving off!” +Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard him, +and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and +confined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly another +ten paces away and again halted. +“Keep her out of his hands we can,” said the constable thoughtfully, +“if only she’d tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey, +missy!” he bent over her once more. +She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as +though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in the +direction from which she had come. “Oh shameful wretches, they won’t let +me alone!” she said, waving her hand again. She walked quickly, though +staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along another avenue, +keeping his eye on her. +“Don’t be anxious, I won’t let him have her,” the policeman said +resolutely, and he set off after them. +“Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!” he repeated aloud, sighing. +At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant a +complete revulsion of feeling came over him. +“Hey, here!” he shouted after the policeman. +The latter turned round. +“Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse +himself.” He pointed at the dandy, “What is it to do with you?” +The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him open-eyed. Raskolnikov +laughed. +“Well!” ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he +walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a +madman or something even worse. +“He has carried off my twenty copecks,” Raskolnikov murmured angrily +when he was left alone. “Well, let him take as much from the other +fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did I +want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let +them devour each other alive--what is it to me? How did I dare to give him +twenty copecks? Were they mine?” +In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on +the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard +to fix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself +altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life +anew.... +“Poor girl!” he said, looking at the empty corner where she had +sat--“She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find +out.... She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and +then maybe, turn her out of doors.... And even if she does not, the +Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be +slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital +directly (that’s always the luck of those girls with respectable +mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then... again the hospital... +drink... the taverns... and more hospital, in two or three years--a +wreck, and her life over at eighteen or nineteen.... Have not I seen +cases like that? And how have they been brought to it? Why, they’ve all +come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it matter? That’s as it should +be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year +go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain +chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words +they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you’ve said +‘percentage’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If we had any other +word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one +of the percentage! Of another one if not that one? +“But where am I going?” he thought suddenly. “Strange, I came out for +something. As soon as I had read the letter I came out.... I was going +to Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That’s what it was... now I +remember. What for, though? And what put the idea of going to Razumihin +into my head just now? That’s curious.” +He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his old comrades at the +university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had hardly any friends at +the university; he kept aloof from everyone, went to see no one, and did +not welcome anyone who came to see him, and indeed everyone soon gave +him up. He took no part in the students’ gatherings, amusements or +conversations. He worked with great intensity without sparing himself, +and he was respected for this, but no one liked him. He was very poor, +and there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though +he were keeping something to himself. He seemed to some of his comrades +to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in +development, knowledge and convictions, as though their beliefs and +interests were beneath him. +With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was more unreserved and +communicative with him. Indeed it was impossible to be on any other +terms with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally good-humoured and candid +youth, good-natured to the point of simplicity, though both depth and +dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his comrades +understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely intelligent, +though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking +appearance--tall, thin, blackhaired and always badly shaved. He was +sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical strength. +One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one blow laid +a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no limit to his drinking +powers, but he could abstain from drink altogether; he sometimes went +too far in his pranks; but he could do without pranks altogether. +Another thing striking about Razumihin, no failure distressed him, and +it seemed as though no unfavourable circumstances could crush him. He +could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of cold and hunger. He was +very poor, and kept himself entirely on what he could earn by work of +one sort or another. He knew of no end of resources by which to earn +money. He spent one whole winter without lighting his stove, and used to +declare that he liked it better, because one slept more soundly in +the cold. For the present he, too, had been obliged to give up the +university, but it was only for a time, and he was working with all his +might to save enough to return to his studies again. Raskolnikov had +not been to see him for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even +know his address. About two months before, they had met in the street, +but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side that +he might not be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he passed +him by, as he did not want to annoy him. +CHAPTER V +“Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to Razumihin’s to ask for +work, to ask him to get me lessons or something...” Raskolnikov thought, +“but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose +he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that +I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons... +hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I +earn? That’s not what I want now. It’s really absurd for me to go to +Razumihin....” +The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more +than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister +significance in this apparently ordinary action. +“Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by +means of Razumihin alone?” he asked himself in perplexity. +He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long +musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic +thought came into his head. +“Hm... to Razumihin’s,” he said all at once, calmly, as though he had +reached a final determination. “I shall go to Razumihin’s of course, +but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It +will be over and everything will begin afresh....” +And suddenly he realised what he was thinking. +“After It,” he shouted, jumping up from the seat, “but is It really +going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?” He left the +seat, and went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards, +but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing; +in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all _this_ had for a +month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at random. +His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel +shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he +began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all +the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his +attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into +brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round, +he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he +was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came +out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the +islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary +eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in +and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, +no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid +irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted summer +villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through the fence, he saw +in the distance smartly dressed women on the verandahs and balconies, +and children running in the gardens. The flowers especially caught his +attention; he gazed at them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by +luxurious carriages and by men and women on horseback; he watched them +with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had vanished from +his sight. Once he stood still and counted his money; he found he had +thirty copecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the +letter, so I must have given forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs +yesterday,” he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he +soon forgot with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket. +He recalled it on passing an eating-house or tavern, and felt that he +was hungry.... Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a +pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long +while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, +though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and +a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching +Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road +into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep. +In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular +actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times +monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are +so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but +so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like +Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking +state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a +powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system. +Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his childhood +in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven years old, +walking into the country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It +was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he remembered it; +indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than he had done in +memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not +even a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark +blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market +garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused in him a +feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his father. +There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse, +hideous hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horrible-looking +figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to cling close to his +father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the tavern the road +became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black. It was a +winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the +right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a stone +church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass two or three +times a year with his father and mother, when a service was held in +memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and whom he had never +seen. On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a +table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it in +the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the old-fashioned, unadorned +ikons and the old priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother’s +grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of his younger +brother who had died at six months old. He did not remember him at all, +but he had been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited +the graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself and +to bow down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he was +walking with his father past the tavern on the way to the graveyard; he +was holding his father’s hand and looking with dread at the tavern. A +peculiar circumstance attracted his attention: there seemed to be +some kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed +townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts, +all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern +stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those big carts usually +drawn by heavy cart-horses and laden with casks of wine or other heavy +goods. He always liked looking at those great cart-horses, with their +long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along a perfect +mountain with no appearance of effort, as though it were easier going +with a load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the shafts of +such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants’ +nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load +of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in +a rut. And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even +about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that +he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the +window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of shouting, singing +and the balalaïka, and from the tavern a number of big and very drunken +peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over +their shoulders. +“Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young thick-necked peasant with +a fleshy face red as a carrot. “I’ll take you all, get in!” +But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in the +crowd. +“Take us all with a beast like that!” +“Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart?” +“And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!” +“Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again, leaping first into +the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. “The bay +has gone with Matvey,” he shouted from the cart--“and this brute, mates, +is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She’s just +eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll +gallop!” and he picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to +flog the little mare. +“Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed. “D’you hear, she’ll gallop!” +“Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years!” +“She’ll jog along!” +“Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready!” +“All right! Give it to her!” +They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and making jokes. Six +men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat, +rosy-cheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded +headdress and thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing. +The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help +laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at a +gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips ready to +help Mikolka. With the cry of “now,” the mare tugged with all her might, +but far from galloping, could scarcely move forward; she struggled with +her legs, gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three whips which +were showered upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the +crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed +the mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop. +“Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man in the crowd whose +appetite was aroused. +“Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw you all. I’ll beat +her to death!” And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself +with fury. +“Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they doing? Father, they +are beating the poor horse!” +“Come along, come along!” said his father. “They are drunken and +foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!” and he tried to draw +him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself +with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was +gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling. +“Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to that. I’ll do for +her!” +“What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?” shouted an old man +in the crowd. +“Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a +cartload,” said another. +“You’ll kill her,” shouted the third. +“Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose. Get in, more of +you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!...” +All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the mare, +roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man +could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that +trying to kick! +Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her +about the ribs. One ran each side. +“Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried Mikolka. +“Give us a song, mates,” shouted someone in the cart and everyone in the +cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The +woman went on cracking nuts and laughing. +... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped +across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his +tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across +the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he +rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was +shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and +would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to +the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more. +“I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down +the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a long, +thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an effort +brandished it over the mare. +“He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him. “He’ll kill her!” +“It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with a +swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud. +“Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?” shouted voices in the +crowd. +And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time +on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but +lurched forward and tugged forward with all her force, tugged first on +one side and then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six +whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft was raised +again and fell upon her a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured +blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow. +“She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd. +“She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end of her,” said +an admiring spectator in the crowd. +“Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a third. +“I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed frantically; he threw down +the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked up an iron crowbar. “Look +out,” he shouted, and with all his might he dealt a stunning blow at the +poor mare. The blow fell; the mare staggered, sank back, tried to pull, +but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on +the ground like a log. +“Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside himself, out of +the cart. Several young men, also flushed with drink, seized anything +they could come across--whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying +mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began dealing random blows with the +crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died. +“You butchered her,” someone shouted in the crowd. +“Why wouldn’t she gallop then?” +“My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes, brandishing the bar +in his hands. He stood as though regretting that he had nothing more to +beat. +“No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,” many voices were +shouting in the crowd. +But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming, through the +crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head and +kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.... Then he jumped up and +flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka. At that instant +his father, who had been running after him, snatched him up and carried +him out of the crowd. +“Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said to him. +“Father! Why did they... kill... the poor horse!” he sobbed, but his +voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest. +“They are drunk.... They are brutal... it’s not our business!” said his +father. He put his arms round his father but he felt choked, choked. He +tried to draw a breath, to cry out--and woke up. +He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with perspiration, and +stood up in terror. +“Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sitting down under a tree +and drawing deep breaths. “But what is it? Is it some fever coming on? +Such a hideous dream!” +He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in his soul. He +rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands. +“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an +axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I +shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; +hide, all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it +be?” +He was shaking like a leaf as he said this. +“But why am I going on like this?” he continued, sitting up again, as it +were in profound amazement. “I knew that I could never bring myself +to it, so what have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday, +yesterday, when I went to make that... _experiment_, yesterday I +realised completely that I could never bear to do it.... Why am I going +over it again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came down the stairs +yesterday, I said myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile... the +very thought of it made me feel sick and filled me with horror. +“No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted that there is +no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last +month is clear as day, true as arithmetic.... My God! Anyway I couldn’t +bring myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Why, why then am +I still...?” +He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though surprised at +finding himself in this place, and went towards the bridge. He was pale, +his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he seemed suddenly +to breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful burden that +had so long been weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense +of relief and peace in his soul. “Lord,” he prayed, “show me my path--I +renounce that accursed... dream of mine.” +Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the Neva, at the +glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he +was not conscious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had been +forming for a month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom, +freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession! +Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him during +those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was superstitiously +impressed by one circumstance, which, though in itself not very +exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the predestined +turning-point of his fate. He could never understand and explain to +himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would have been +more convenient for him to go home by the shortest and most direct way, +he had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was +obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much so. It +is true that it happened to him dozens of times to return home without +noticing what streets he passed through. But why, he was always asking +himself, why had such an important, such a decisive and at the same time +such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay Market (where he +had moreover no reason to go) at the very hour, the very minute of his +life when he was just in the very mood and in the very circumstances +in which that meeting was able to exert the gravest and most decisive +influence on his whole destiny? As though it had been lying in wait for +him on purpose! +It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay Market. At the tables +and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, all the market people were +closing their establishments or clearing away and packing up their +wares and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers and +costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the taverns in the dirty +and stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov particularly +liked this place and the neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aimlessly +in the streets. Here his rags did not attract contemptuous attention, +and one could walk about in any attire without scandalising people. At +the corner of an alley a huckster and his wife had two tables set out +with tapes, thread, cotton handkerchiefs, etc. They, too, had got up to +go home, but were lingering in conversation with a friend, who had just +come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as everyone +called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona +Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his +watch and make his _experiment_.... He already knew all about Lizaveta +and she knew him a little too. She was a single woman of about +thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid, submissive and almost idiotic. She was +a complete slave and went in fear and trembling of her sister, who +made her work day and night, and even beat her. She was standing with +a bundle before the huckster and his wife, listening earnestly and +doubtfully. They were talking of something with special warmth. The +moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome by a strange +sensation as it were of intense astonishment, though there was nothing +astonishing about this meeting. +“You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the +huckster was saying aloud. “Come round to-morrow about seven. They will +be here too.” +“To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as though unable to +make up her mind. +“Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona Ivanovna,” gabbled +the huckster’s wife, a lively little woman. “I look at you, you are like +some little babe. And she is not your own sister either--nothing but a +step-sister and what a hand she keeps over you!” +“But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,” her husband +interrupted; “that’s my advice, but come round to us without asking. +It will be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may have a +notion.” +“Am I to come?” +“About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be here. You will be able +to decide for yourself.” +“And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife. +“All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering, and she began +slowly moving away. +Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He passed softly, +unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His first amazement was followed +by a thrill of horror, like a shiver running down his spine. He had +learnt, he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at +seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only companion, would +be away from home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old +woman _would be left alone_. +He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in like a man +condemned to death. He thought of nothing and was incapable of thinking; +but he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom +of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably +decided. +Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable opportunity, he +could not reckon on a more certain step towards the success of the plan +than that which had just presented itself. In any case, it would have +been difficult to find out beforehand and with certainty, with +greater exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries and +investigations, that next day at a certain time an old woman, on whose +life an attempt was contemplated, would be at home and entirely alone. +CHAPTER VI +Later on Raskolnikov happened to find out why the huckster and his +wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a very ordinary matter and there was +nothing exceptional about it. A family who had come to the town and been +reduced to poverty were selling their household goods and clothes, all +women’s things. As the things would have fetched little in the market, +they were looking for a dealer. This was Lizaveta’s business. She +undertook such jobs and was frequently employed, as she was very honest +and always fixed a fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule +little and, as we have said already, she was very submissive and timid. +But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late. The traces of +superstition remained in him long after, and were almost ineradicable. +And in all this he was always afterwards disposed to see something +strange and mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar +influences and coincidences. In the previous winter a student he knew +called Pokorev, who had left for Harkov, had chanced in conversation to +give him the address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case he +might want to pawn anything. For a long while he did not go to her, for +he had lessons and managed to get along somehow. Six weeks ago he had +remembered the address; he had two articles that could be pawned: his +father’s old silver watch and a little gold ring with three red stones, +a present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the ring. When +he found the old woman he had felt an insurmountable repulsion for her +at the first glance, though he knew nothing special about her. He got +two roubles from her and went into a miserable little tavern on his way +home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into deep thought. A strange +idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very, very +much absorbed him. +Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a student, whom he +did not know and had never seen, and with him a young officer. They had +played a game of billiards and began drinking tea. All at once he heard +the student mention to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and +give him her address. This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov; he +had just come from her and here at once he heard her name. Of course +it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very extraordinary +impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking expressly for him; +the student began telling his friend various details about Alyona +Ivanovna. +“She is first-rate,” he said. “You can always get money from her. She is +as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and +she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have +had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy....” +And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if you +were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost; how she +gave a quarter of the value of an article and took five and even seven +percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying +that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was +continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child, +though Lizaveta was at least six feet high. +“There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the student and he laughed. +They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke about her with a +peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the officer listened +with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending +for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about +her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her half-sister, +being the child of a different mother. She was thirty-five. She worked +day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the +washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister +all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job of any kind +without her sister’s permission. The old woman had already made her +will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a +farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was +left to a monastery in the province of N----, that prayers might be +said for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister, +unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with long +feet that looked as if they were bent outwards. She always wore battered +goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student expressed +most surprise and amusement about was the fact that Lizaveta was +continually with child. +“But you say she is hideous?” observed the officer. +“Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but +you know she is not at all hideous. She has such a good-natured face +and eyes. Strikingly so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are +attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up +with anything, always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is +really very sweet.” +“You seem to find her attractive yourself,” laughed the officer. +“From her queerness. No, I’ll tell you what. I could kill that damned +old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the +faintest conscience-prick,” the student added with warmth. The officer +laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was! +“Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student said hotly. +“I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, +senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply +useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is +living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You +understand? You understand?” +“Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the officer, watching his excited +companion attentively. +“Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for +want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good +deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money which will be +buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the +right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from +vice, from the Lock hospitals--and all with her money. Kill her, take +her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of +humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny +crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands +would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives +in exchange--it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of +that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence! +No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact +because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of +others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s finger out of spite; it almost +had to be amputated.” +“Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked the officer, “but +there it is, it’s nature.” +“Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but +for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, +there would never have been a single great man. They talk of +duty, conscience--I don’t want to say anything against duty and +conscience;--but the point is, what do we mean by them? Stay, I have +another question to ask you. Listen!” +“No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!” +“Well?” +“You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the +old woman _yourself_?” +“Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it.... It’s nothing to +do with me....” +“But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no justice about +it.... Let us have another game.” +Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary +youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in +different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear +such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain +was just conceiving... _the very same ideas_? And why, just at the +moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old +woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This +coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern +had an immense influence on him in his later action; as though there had +really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint.... +***** +On returning from the Hay Market he flung himself on the sofa and sat +for a whole hour without stirring. Meanwhile it got dark; he had no +candle and, indeed, it did not occur to him to light up. He could never +recollect whether he had been thinking about anything at that time. At +last he was conscious of his former fever and shivering, and he realised +with relief that he could lie down on the sofa. Soon heavy, leaden sleep +came over him, as it were crushing him. +He slept an extraordinarily long time and without dreaming. Nastasya, +coming into his room at ten o’clock the next morning, had difficulty +in rousing him. She brought him in tea and bread. The tea was again the +second brew and again in her own tea-pot. +“My goodness, how he sleeps!” she cried indignantly. “And he is always +asleep.” +He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood up, took a turn in +his garret and sank back on the sofa again. +“Going to sleep again,” cried Nastasya. “Are you ill, eh?” +He made no reply. +“Do you want some tea?” +“Afterwards,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and turning +to the wall. +Nastasya stood over him. +“Perhaps he really is ill,” she said, turned and went out. She came in +again at two o’clock with soup. He was lying as before. The tea stood +untouched. Nastasya felt positively offended and began wrathfully +rousing him. +“Why are you lying like a log?” she shouted, looking at him with +repulsion. +He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and stared at the floor. +“Are you ill or not?” asked Nastasya and again received no answer. +“You’d better go out and get a breath of air,” she said after a pause. +“Will you eat it or not?” +“Afterwards,” he said weakly. “You can go.” +And he motioned her out. +She remained a little longer, looked at him with compassion and went +out. +A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked for a long while +at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took up a spoon and +began to eat. +He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as it were +mechanically. His head ached less. After his meal he stretched himself +on the sofa again, but now he could not sleep; he lay without stirring, +with his face in the pillow. He was haunted by day-dreams and such +strange day-dreams; in one, that kept recurring, he fancied that he was +in Africa, in Egypt, in some sort of oasis. The caravan was resting, +the camels were peacefully lying down; the palms stood all around in a +complete circle; all the party were at dinner. But he was drinking water +from a spring which flowed gurgling close by. And it was so cool, it was +wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water running among the parti-coloured +stones and over the clean sand which glistened here and there like +gold.... Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started, roused himself, +raised his head, looked out of the window, and seeing how late it was, +suddenly jumped up wide awake as though someone had pulled him off the +sofa. He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began +listening on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was quiet +on the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to him strange and +monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetfulness from the +previous day and had done nothing, had prepared nothing yet.... And +meanwhile perhaps it had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction +were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted +haste. But the preparations to be made were few. He concentrated all his +energies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; and his heart +kept beating and thumping so that he could hardly breathe. First he had +to make a noose and sew it into his overcoat--a work of a moment. He +rummaged under his pillow and picked out amongst the linen stuffed away +under it, a worn out, old unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long +strip, a couple of inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded +this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer overcoat of some +stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and began sewing the two +ends of the rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook +as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed outside +when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread he had got ready +long before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As for the +noose, it was a very ingenious device of his own; the noose was intended +for the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through the +street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he would still have +had to support it with his hand, which would have been noticeable. Now +he had only to put the head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang +quietly under his arm on the inside. Putting his hand in his coat +pocket, he could hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did +not swing; and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it +could not be seen from outside that he was holding something with the +hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a +fortnight before. +When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a little opening +between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the left corner and drew out +the _pledge_, which he had got ready long before and hidden there. This +pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and +thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood +in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of +a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth piece +of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street. +Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood, +he fastened them very firmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round +them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and +tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This +was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while +she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip +was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first +minute that the “thing” was made of wood. All this had been stored by +him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out when +he heard someone suddenly about in the yard. +“It struck six long ago.” +“Long ago! My God!” +He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend +his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the +most important thing to do--to steal the axe from the kitchen. That the +deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a +pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less +on his own strength, and so resolved finally on the axe. We may note in +passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by +him in the matter; they had one strange characteristic: the more final +they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at once became in +his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he never for +a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out of his +plans. +And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point +could have been considered and finally settled, and no uncertainty of +any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all +as something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of +unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting the axe, +that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier. +Nastasya was continually out of the house, especially in the evenings; +she would run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the +door ajar. It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her +about. And so, when the time came, he would only have to go quietly into +the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later (when everything +was over) go in and put it back again. But these were doubtful points. +Supposing he returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had +come back and was on the spot. He would of course have to go by and wait +till she went out again. But supposing she were in the meantime to miss +the axe, look for it, make an outcry--that would mean suspicion or at +least grounds for suspicion. +But those were all trifles which he had not even begun to consider, and +indeed he had no time. He was thinking of the chief point, and put off +trifling details, until _he could believe in it all_. But that seemed +utterly unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least. He could not +imagine, for instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get +up and simply go there.... Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with +the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an attempt at +an experiment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say +“come, let us go and try it--why dream about it!”--and at once he +had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself. +Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question, that his +analysis was complete; his casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he +could not find rational objections in himself. But in the last resort +he simply ceased to believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought +arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though someone were +forcing and drawing him to it. +At first--long before indeed--he had been much occupied with one +question; why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily +detected, and why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He +had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in his +opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material impossibility +of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost every +criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a +childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence +and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this eclipse +of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease, +developed gradually and reached its highest point just before the +perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment +of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the +individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The +question whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the +crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of +the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide. +When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case there +could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will would +remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the +simple reason that his design was “not a crime....” We will omit all the +process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have +run too far ahead already.... We may add only that the practical, purely +material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary position in his +mind. “One has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal +with them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has +familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business....” But +this preparation had never been begun. His final decisions were what he +came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite +differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly. +One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even +left the staircase. When he reached the landlady’s kitchen, the door +of which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in +Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether +the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out when +he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he suddenly +saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied +there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line. Seeing +him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at him +all the time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked past as +though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything; he had not +the axe! He was overwhelmed. +“What made me think,” he reflected, as he went under the gateway, “what +made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that moment! +Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?” +He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at himself in +his anger.... A dull animal rage boiled within him. +He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk +for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to his room, even more +revolting. “And what a chance I have lost for ever!” he muttered, +standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite the porter’s little +dark room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter’s +room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to the +right caught his eye.... He looked about him--nobody. He approached the +room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called +the porter. “Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though, in the yard, for +the door is wide open.” He dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled +it out from under the bench, where it lay between two chunks of wood; +at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both +hands into his pockets and went out of the room; no one had noticed him! +“When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a strange grin. +This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily. +He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid awakening +suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking +at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. +Suddenly he thought of his hat. “Good heavens! I had the money the day +before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!” A curse rose +from the bottom of his soul. +Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on +the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at +the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from the +other side.... +When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had sometimes +thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not very much +afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His mind was even occupied +by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov +garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the building of great +fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all +the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the summer +garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhaps joined to the +garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a +great benefit to the town. Then he was interested by the question why +in all great towns men are not simply driven by necessity, but in some +peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the town where there +are no gardens nor fountains; where there is most dirt and smell and all +sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through the Hay Market came back +to his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality. “What nonsense!” +he thought, “better think of nothing at all!” +“So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at every object that +meets them on the way,” flashed through his mind, but simply flashed, +like lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought.... And by now +he was near; here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a clock +somewhere struck once. “What! can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it +must be fast!” +Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very +moment, as though expressly for his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had +just driven in at the gate, completely screening him as he passed under +the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through into +the yard, before he had slipped in a flash to the right. On the other +side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling; but no one +noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge +quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his +head--he had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old +woman’s room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was +already on the stairs.... +Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throbbing heart, and +once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight, he began softly +and cautiously ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the +stairs, too, were quite deserted; all the doors were shut; he met no +one. One flat indeed on the first floor was wide open and painters were +at work in it, but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought +a minute and went on. “Of course it would be better if they had not been +here, but... it’s two storeys above them.” +And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here was the +flat opposite, the empty one. The flat underneath the old woman’s was +apparently empty also; the visiting card nailed on the door had been +torn off--they had gone away!... He was out of breath. For one instant +the thought floated through his mind “Shall I go back?” But he made no +answer and began listening at the old woman’s door, a dead silence. Then +he listened again on the staircase, listened long and intently... +then looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together, drew +himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. “Am I very pale?” +he wondered. “Am I not evidently agitated? She is mistrustful.... Had I +better wait a little longer... till my heart leaves off thumping?” +But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as though to spite +him, it throbbed more and more violently. He could stand it no longer, +he slowly put out his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he +rang again, more loudly. +No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of place. The old woman +was, of course, at home, but she was suspicious and alone. He had some +knowledge of her habits... and once more he put his ear to the door. +Either his senses were peculiarly keen (which it is difficult to +suppose), or the sound was really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly +heard something like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the +rustle of a skirt at the very door. Someone was standing stealthily +close to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly +listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door.... He moved +a little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have +the appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly, +and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out +in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he +had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and +he was almost unconscious of his body.... An instant later he heard the +latch unfastened. +CHAPTER VII +The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and +suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost +his head and nearly made a great mistake. +Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their being alone, and not +hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took +hold of the door and drew it towards him to prevent the old woman from +attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back, +but she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her out with +it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway not +allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped back +in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and stared +with open eyes at him. +“Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, trying to speak easily, but +his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. “I have come... I have +brought something... but we’d better come in... to the light....” +And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited. The old +woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed. +“Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want?” +“Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me... Raskolnikov... here, I brought you +the pledge I promised the other day...” And he held out the pledge. +The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once stared in +the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and +mistrustfully. A minute passed; he even fancied something like a sneer +in her eyes, as though she had already guessed everything. He felt that +he was losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened +that if she were to look like that and not say a word for another half +minute, he thought he would have run away from her. +“Why do you look at me as though you did not know me?” he said suddenly, +also with malice. “Take it if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I am +in a hurry.” +He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of +itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone +evidently restored her confidence. +“But why, my good sir, all of a minute.... What is it?” she asked, +looking at the pledge. +“The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.” +She held out her hand. +“But how pale you are, to be sure... and your hands are trembling too? +Have you been bathing, or what?” +“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help getting pale... if you’ve +nothing to eat,” he added, with difficulty articulating the words. +His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the +truth; the old woman took the pledge. +“What is it?” she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov intently, and +weighing the pledge in her hand. +“A thing... cigarette case.... Silver.... Look at it.” +“It does not seem somehow like silver.... How he has wrapped it up!” +Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all +her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling heat), she left +him altogether for some seconds and stood with her back to him. He +unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet +take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the +coat. His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing +more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and +fall.... A sudden giddiness came over him. +“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old woman cried with +vexation and moved towards him. +He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung +it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without +effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He +seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once +brought the axe down, his strength returned to him. +The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked +with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and +fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck. +As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She +cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the +floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held “the +pledge.” Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side +and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the +body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her +face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, +the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively. +He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her +pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)--the same right-hand pocket +from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full +possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his +hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been +particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get +smeared with blood.... He pulled out the keys at once, they were all, +as before, in one bunch on a steel ring. He ran at once into the bedroom +with them. It was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy images. +Against the other wall stood a big bed, very clean and covered with +a silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of +drawers. Strange to say, so soon as he began to fit the keys into the +chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed +over him. He suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go +away. But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back. +He positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another terrifying idea +occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be +still alive and might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest, +he ran back to the body, snatched up the axe and lifted it once more +over the old woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that +she was dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw +clearly that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side. He +was about to feel it with his finger, but drew back his hand and indeed +it was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a perfect pool of +blood. All at once he noticed a string on her neck; he tugged at it, but +the string was strong and did not snap and besides, it was soaked +with blood. He tried to pull it out from the front of the dress, but +something held it and prevented its coming. In his impatience he raised +the axe again to cut the string from above on the body, but did not +dare, and with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in the blood, +after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut the string and took it off +without touching the body with the axe; he was not mistaken--it was a +purse. On the string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of +copper, and an image in silver filigree, and with them a small greasy +chamois leather purse with a steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed +very full; Raskolnikov thrust it in his pocket without looking at it, +flung the crosses on the old woman’s body and rushed back into the +bedroom, this time taking the axe with him. +He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and began trying them +again. But he was unsuccessful. They would not fit in the locks. It +was not so much that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making +mistakes; though he saw for instance that a key was not the right one +and would not fit, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered +and realised that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging +there with the small keys could not possibly belong to the chest of +drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to some strong box, +and that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He left the chest +of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old +women usually keep boxes under their beds. And so it was; there was a +good-sized box under the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched +lid covered with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched +key fitted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was +a coat of red brocade lined with hareskin; under it was a silk dress, +then a shawl and it seemed as though there was nothing below but +clothes. The first thing he did was to wipe his blood-stained hands on +the red brocade. “It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,” +the thought passed through his mind; then he suddenly came to himself. +“Good God, am I going out of my senses?” he thought with terror. +But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped from +under the fur coat. He made haste to turn them all over. There turned +out to be various articles made of gold among the clothes--probably +all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be redeemed--bracelets, chains, +ear-rings, pins and such things. Some were in cases, others simply +wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, and tied round with +tape. Without any delay, he began filling up the pockets of his trousers +and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels and cases; but he +had not time to take many.... +He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman lay. He stopped +short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have been +his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as though +someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for +a minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited +holding his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of +the bedroom. +In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her arms. +She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet +and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing him run out +of the bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a +shudder ran down her face; she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but +still did not scream. She began slowly backing away from him into the +corner, staring intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no +sound, as though she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her +with the axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’ mouths, +when they begin to be frightened, stare intently at what frightens them +and are on the point of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so +simple and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that she did not +even raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary +and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face. +She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly holding +it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the +sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the +head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his head, +snatching up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry. +Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this +second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place +as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing +and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the +difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the +absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and, +perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of +that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would +have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and +not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had +done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew +stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even +into the room for anything in the world. +But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take +possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what +was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the +kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he bethought +him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood. +He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap +that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands +in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the +blade and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where +there were spots of blood rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all +with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen and +then he was a long while attentively examining the axe at the window. +There was no trace left on it, only the wood was still damp. He +carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then as far as was +possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he looked over his overcoat, +his trousers and his boots. At the first glance there seemed to be +nothing but stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the boots. +But he knew he was not looking thoroughly, that there might be something +quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the middle of the +room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas rose in his mind--the idea +that he was mad and that at that moment he was incapable of reasoning, +of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something +utterly different from what he was now doing. “Good God!” he muttered “I +must fly, fly,” and he rushed into the entry. But here a shock of terror +awaited him such as he had never known before. +He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer +door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung, +was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt, +all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him +perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta +afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that +she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall! +He dashed to the door and fastened the latch. +“But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away....” +He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the +staircase. +He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the gateway, +two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. +“What are they about?” He waited patiently. At last all was still, as +though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, +but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone +began going downstairs humming a tune. “How is it they all make such +a noise?” flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and +waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a +step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps. +The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but +he remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the first sound he +began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming _there_, +to the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow +peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now +_he_ had passed the first floor, now he was mounting higher, it was +growing more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And +now the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to +him all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream +in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is +rooted to the spot and cannot even move one’s arms. +At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth floor, he suddenly +started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back into the +flat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and softly, +noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had +done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The unknown +visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing opposite one +another, as he had just before been standing with the old woman, when +the door divided them and he was listening. +The visitor panted several times. “He must be a big, fat man,” thought +Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream +indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly. +As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of +something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite +seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged violently +and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed in horror +at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror expected every +minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did seem +possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the +fastening, but _he_ might be aware of it. A giddiness came over him +again. “I shall fall down!” flashed through his mind, but the unknown +began to speak and he recovered himself at once. +“What’s up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-damn them!” he bawled in a +thick voice, “Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey, +my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or what?” +And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at +the bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate +acquaintance. +At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the +stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them at +first. +“You don’t say there’s no one at home,” the new-comer cried in a +cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the first visitor, who still went on +pulling the bell. “Good evening, Koch.” +“From his voice he must be quite young,” thought Raskolnikov. +“Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,” answered Koch. +“But how do you come to know me?” +“Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at +billiards at Gambrinus’.” +“Oh!” +“So they are not at home? That’s queer. It’s awfully stupid though. +Where could the old woman have gone? I’ve come on business.” +“Yes; and I have business with her, too.” +“Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aie--aie! And I was hoping to +get some money!” cried the young man. +“We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The +old witch fixed the time for me to come herself. It’s out of my way. +And where the devil she can have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here +from year’s end to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet +here all of a sudden she is out for a walk!” +“Hadn’t we better ask the porter?” +“What?” +“Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.” +“Hm.... Damn it all!... We might ask.... But you know she never does go +anywhere.” +And he once more tugged at the door-handle. +“Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we must go!” +“Stay!” cried the young man suddenly. “Do you see how the door shakes if +you pull it?” +“Well?” +“That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear how +the hook clanks?” +“Well?” +“Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they +were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the +key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the hook +is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at home, +don’t you see. So there they are sitting inside and don’t open the +door!” +“Well! And so they must be!” cried Koch, astonished. “What are they +about in there?” And he began furiously shaking the door. +“Stay!” cried the young man again. “Don’t pull at it! There must be +something wrong.... Here, you’ve been ringing and pulling at the door +and still they don’t open! So either they’ve both fainted or...” +“What?” +“I tell you what. Let’s go fetch the porter, let him wake them up.” +“All right.” +Both were going down. +“Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter.” +“What for?” +“Well, you’d better.” +“All right.” +“I’m studying the law you see! It’s evident, e-vi-dent there’s something +wrong here!” the young man cried hotly, and he ran downstairs. +Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one +tinkle, then gently, as though reflecting and looking about him, began +touching the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once +more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting he +bent down and began looking at the keyhole: but the key was in the lock +on the inside and so nothing could be seen. +Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of +delirium. He was even making ready to fight when they should come in. +While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times +occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the +door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them, +while they could not open the door! “Only make haste!” was the thought +that flashed through his mind. +“But what the devil is he about?...” Time was passing, one minute, and +another--no one came. Koch began to be restless. +“What the devil?” he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his +sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping with his heavy +boots on the stairs. The steps died away. +“Good heavens! What am I to do?” +Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door--there was no sound. +Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the door as +thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs. +He had gone down three flights when he suddenly heard a loud voice +below--where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just going +back to the flat. +“Hey there! Catch the brute!” +Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and rather fell than ran +down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice. +“Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him!” +The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came from the yard; all was +still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast began +noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He +distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. “Hey!” +Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling “come what +must!” If they stopped him--all was lost; if they let him pass--all was +lost too; they would remember him. They were approaching; they were only +a flight from him--and suddenly deliverance! A few steps from him on the +right, there was an empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the +second floor where the painters had been at work, and which, as though +for his benefit, they had just left. It was they, no doubt, who had just +run down, shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the middle +of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and brushes. In one +instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the wall +and only in the nick of time; they had already reached the landing. +Then they turned and went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He +waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs. +No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly through +the gateway and turned to the left in the street. +He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the +flat, that they were greatly astonished at finding it unlocked, as +the door had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the +bodies, that before another minute had passed they would guess and +completely realise that the murderer had just been there, and had +succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They would +guess most likely that he had been in the empty flat, while they were +going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace much, though +the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away. “Should he +slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an unknown street? No, +hopeless! Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab? Hopeless, +hopeless!” +At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than alive. +Here he was half way to safety, and he understood it; it was less risky +because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a +grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could +scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet. +“My word, he has been going it!” someone shouted at him when he came out +on the canal bank. +He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went the +worse it was. He remembered however, that on coming out on to the canal +bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and so being more +conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though he was almost +falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from +quite a different direction. +He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of his +house! He was already on the staircase before he recollected the axe. +And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to +escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course +incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better not to +restore the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard. But +it all happened fortunately, the door of the porter’s room was closed +but not locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at +home. But he had so completely lost all power of reflection that he +walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him, +“What do you want?” he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But +again the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe +back under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood as +before. He met no one, not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room; +the landlady’s door was shut. When he was in his room, he flung himself +on the sofa just as he was--he did not sleep, but sank into blank +forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have +jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were +simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could +not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts.... +PART II +CHAPTER I +So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at +such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not +occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get +light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion. +Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he +heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o’clock. They woke +him up now. +“Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns,” he thought, “it’s +past two o’clock,” and at once he leaped up, as though someone had +pulled him from the sofa. +“What! Past two o’clock!” +He sat down on the sofa--and instantly recollected everything! All at +once, in one flash, he recollected everything. +For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came +over him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in +his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his +teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door and +began listening--everything in the house was asleep. With amazement he +gazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how he +could have come in the night before without fastening the door, and have +flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking his +hat off. It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow. +“If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I’m drunk +but...” +He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedly +looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes; were there +no traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he +began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everything +over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went through +his search three times. +But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where +some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge +of his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed +threads. There seemed to be nothing more. +Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out of +the old woman’s box were still in his pockets! He had not thought till +then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of them +while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushed +to take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled out +everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there was +nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had +come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began +stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper: “They’re in! All +out of sight, and the purse too!” he thought gleefully, getting up and +gazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly +he shuddered all over with horror; “My God!” he whispered in despair: +“what’s the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide +things?” +He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought of +money, and so had not prepared a hiding-place. +“But now, now, what am I glad of?” he thought, “Is that hiding things? +My reason’s deserting me--simply!” +He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another +unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside +him his old student’s winter coat, which was still warm though almost in +rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and +delirium. He lost consciousness. +Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumped up a second time, +and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again. +“How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes; I have not +taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that! +Such a piece of evidence!” +He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits +among his linen under the pillow. +“Pieces of torn linen couldn’t rouse suspicion, whatever happened; I +think not, I think not, any way!” he repeated, standing in the middle +of the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about +him again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not +forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory, +and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be an +insufferable torture. +“Surely it isn’t beginning already! Surely it isn’t my punishment coming +upon me? It is!” +The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the +floor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see them! +“What is the matter with me!” he cried again, like one distraught. +Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes +were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many +stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because +his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was +clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the +purse too. “Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put +the wet purse in my pocket!” +In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!--there were +traces, stains on the lining of the pocket! +“So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and +memory, since I guessed it of myself,” he thought triumphantly, with +a deep sigh of relief; “it’s simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s +delirium,” and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his +trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the +sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He +flung off his boots; “traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with +blood;” he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... “But what am I +to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?” +He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the +room. +“In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? +But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better +go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away,” he +repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, “and at once, this minute, +without lingering...” +But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy +shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him. +And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to +“go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that +it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!” Several times +he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not. +He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door. +“Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!” shouted +Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. “For whole days together +he’s snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It’s +past ten.” +“Maybe he’s not at home,” said a man’s voice. +“Ha! that’s the porter’s voice.... What does he want?” +He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a +positive pain. +“Then who can have latched the door?” retorted Nastasya. “He’s taken to +bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake +up!” +“What do they want? Why the porter? All’s discovered. Resist or open? +Come what may!...” +He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door. +His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the +bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there. +Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and +desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded +paper sealed with bottle-wax. +“A notice from the office,” he announced, as he gave him the paper. +“From what office?” +“A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office.” +“To the police?... What for?...” +“How can I tell? You’re sent for, so you go.” +The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to +go away. +“He’s downright ill!” observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him. +The porter turned his head for a moment. “He’s been in a fever since +yesterday,” she added. +Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without +opening it. “Don’t you get up then,” Nastasya went on compassionately, +seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. “You’re ill, and +so don’t go; there’s no such hurry. What have you got there?” +He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his +trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep +with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that +half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his hand +and so fallen asleep again. +“Look at the rags he’s collected and sleeps with them, as though he has +got hold of a treasure...” +And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle. +Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed his +eyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational +reflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that +with a person who was going to be arrested. “But... the police?” +“You’d better have some tea! Yes? I’ll bring it, there’s some left.” +“No... I’m going; I’ll go at once,” he muttered, getting on to his feet. +“Why, you’ll never get downstairs!” +“Yes, I’ll go.” +“As you please.” +She followed the porter out. +At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags. +“There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt, +and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could +distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed, +thank God!” Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and began +reading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was an +ordinary summons from the district police-station to appear that day at +half-past nine at the office of the district superintendent. +“But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with +the police! And why just to-day?” he thought in agonising bewilderment. +“Good God, only get it over soon!” +He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into +laughter--not at the idea of prayer, but at himself. +He began, hurriedly dressing. “If I’m lost, I am lost, I don’t care! +Shall I put the sock on?” he suddenly wondered, “it will get dustier +still and the traces will be gone.” +But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing +and horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks, +he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed. +“That’s all conventional, that’s all relative, merely a way of looking +at it,” he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his +mind, while he was shuddering all over, “there, I’ve got it on! I have +finished by getting it on!” +But his laughter was quickly followed by despair. +“No, it’s too much for me...” he thought. His legs shook. “From fear,” +he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. “It’s a trick! They +want to decoy me there and confound me over everything,” he mused, as +he went out on to the stairs--“the worst of it is I’m almost +light-headed... I may blurt out something stupid...” +On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as +they were in the hole in the wall, “and very likely, it’s on purpose +to search when I’m out,” he thought, and stopped short. But he was +possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call +it, that with a wave of his hand he went on. “Only to get it over!” +In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a drop of rain had +fallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stench +from the shops and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnish +pedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes, +so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head going +round--as a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the +street on a bright sunny day. +When he reached the turning into _the_ street, in an agony of +trepidation he looked down it... at _the_ house... and at once averted +his eyes. +“If they question me, perhaps I’ll simply tell,” he thought, as he drew +near the police-station. +The police-station was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately been +moved to new rooms on the fourth floor of a new house. He had been once +for a moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at the gateway, +he saw on the right a flight of stairs which a peasant was mounting with +a book in his hand. “A house-porter, no doubt; so then, the office is +here,” and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He did not want +to ask questions of anyone. +“I’ll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything...�� he thought, as +he reached the fourth floor. +The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. The +kitchens of the flats opened on to the stairs and stood open almost +the whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase +was crowded with porters going up and down with their books under their +arms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door of +the office, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There, +too, the heat was stifling and there was a sickening smell of fresh +paint and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms. +After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room. +All the rooms were small and low-pitched. A fearful impatience drew him +on and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room some +clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather a +queer-looking set. He went up to one of them. +“What is it?” +He showed the notice he had received. +“You are a student?” the man asked, glancing at the notice. +“Yes, formerly a student.” +The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was a +particularly unkempt person with the look of a fixed idea in his eye. +“There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has no +interest in anything,” thought Raskolnikov. +“Go in there to the head clerk,” said the clerk, pointing towards the +furthest room. +He went into that room--the fourth in order; it was a small room and +packed full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms. +Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at the +table opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation. +The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face, +excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as a +saucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something. +Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glanced +at it, said: “Wait a minute,” and went on attending to the lady in +mourning. +He breathed more freely. “It can’t be that!” +By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept urging himself to have +courage and be calm. +“Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself! +Hm... it’s a pity there’s no air here,” he added, “it’s stifling.... It +makes one’s head dizzier than ever... and one’s mind too...” +He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing +his self-control; he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it, +something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet +the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through him +and guess something from his face. +He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobile +face that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed and +foppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded, +and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chain +on his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner who +was in the room, and said them fairly correctly. +“Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down,” he said casually to the +gaily-dressed, purple-faced lady, who was still standing as though not +venturing to sit down, though there was a chair beside her. +“Ich danke,” said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sank +into the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace floated +about the table like an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. She +smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling half +the room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile was +impudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness. +The lady in mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, with +some noise, an officer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of +his shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table and +sat down in an easy-chair. The small lady positively skipped from her +seat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but the +officer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to +sit down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. He +had a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of his +face, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much except +a certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly at +Raskolnikov; he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of his +humiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his +clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long and direct look on +him, so that he felt positively affronted. +“What do you want?” he shouted, apparently astonished that such a ragged +fellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance. +“I was summoned... by a notice...” Raskolnikov faltered. +“For the recovery of money due, from _the student_,” the head clerk +interfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. “Here!” and he +flung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. “Read that!” +“Money? What money?” thought Raskolnikov, “but... then... it’s certainly +not _that_.” +And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief. A +load was lifted from his back. +“And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir?” shouted the +assistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and more +aggrieved. “You are told to come at nine, and now it’s twelve!” +“The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago,” Raskolnikov +answered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grew +suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. “And it’s enough that +I have come here ill with fever.” +“Kindly refrain from shouting!” +“I’m not shouting, I’m speaking very quietly, it’s you who are shouting +at me. I’m a student, and allow no one to shout at me.” +The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the first minute he +could only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat. +“Be silent! You are in a government office. Don’t be impudent, sir!” +“You’re in a government office, too,” cried Raskolnikov, “and you’re +smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect +to all of us.” +He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this. +The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant +superintendent was obviously disconcerted. +“That’s not your business!” he shouted at last with unnatural loudness. +“Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. Alexandr +Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don’t pay your +debts! You’re a fine bird!” +But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had eagerly clutched at the +paper, in haste to find an explanation. He read it once, and a second +time, and still did not understand. +“What is this?” he asked the head clerk. +“It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You must +either pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a written +declaration when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not +to leave the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal your +property. The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceed +against you according to the law.” +“But I... am not in debt to anyone!” +“That’s not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and fifteen +roubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought us +for recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, nine +months ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov. +We therefore summon you, hereupon.” +“But she is my landlady!” +“And what if she is your landlady?” +The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of compassion, +and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice under fire +for the first time--as though he would say: “Well, how do you feel now?” +But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery! Was that +worth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He stood, he +read, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions himself, but +all mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from +overwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that moment +without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions +or surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instant +of full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at that very moment +something like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The assistant +superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov’s disrespect, still fuming +and obviously anxious to keep up his wounded dignity, pounced on the +unfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he came in +with an exceedingly silly smile. +“You shameful hussy!” he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. (The +lady in mourning had left the office.) “What was going on at your house +last night? Eh! A disgrace again, you’re a scandal to the whole street. +Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of correction? Why, +I have warned you ten times over that I would not let you off the +eleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...!” +The paper fell out of Raskolnikov’s hands, and he looked wildly at the +smart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what it +meant, and at once began to find positive amusement in the scandal. He +listened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh... all his +nerves were on edge. +“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stopped +short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could not +be stopped except by force. +As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before the +storm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of +abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive the +smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily, and +curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in her +word: and at last she found it. +“There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr. Captain,” she +pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently, +though with a strong German accent, “and no sort of scandal, and his +honour came drunk, and it’s the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain, +and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, +and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any +scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles +again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte +with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and +he _ganz_ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said +so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then +I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the +eye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the +cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain, +and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood in +the window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea of +squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him! +And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true, +Mr. Captain, he tore _sein rock_. And then he shouted that _man muss_ +pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, five +roubles for _sein rock_. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused +all the scandal. ‘I will show you up,’ he said, ‘for I can write to all +the papers about you.’” +“Then he was an author?” +“Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourable +house....” +“Now then! Enough! I have told you already...” +“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk repeated significantly. +The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook his +head. +“... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it +you for the last time,” the assistant went on. “If there is a scandal +in your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the +lock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary +man, an author took five roubles for his coat-tail in an ‘honourable +house’? A nice set, these authors!” +And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. “There was a scandal +the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and +would not pay; ‘I’ll write a satire on you,’ says he. And there was +another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful +language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and +daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner’s shop +the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students, +town-criers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one +day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?” +With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all +directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, she +stumbled backwards against a good-looking officer with a fresh, open +face and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent of +the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made haste +to curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, she +fluttered out of the office. +“Again thunder and lightning--a hurricane!” said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya +Petrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. “You are aroused again, you are +fuming again! I heard it on the stairs!” +“Well, what then!” Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly nonchalance; +and he walked with some papers to another table, with a jaunty swing of +his shoulders at each step. “Here, if you will kindly look: an author, +or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts, has given +an I O U, won’t clear out of his room, and complaints are constantly +being lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to make a protest +against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, and +just look at him, please. Here’s the gentleman, and very attractive he +is!” +“Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder, +you can’t bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something and +went too far yourself,” continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to +Raskolnikov. “But you were wrong there; he is a capital fellow, I assure +you, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, fires up, boils over, and no +stopping him! And then it’s all over! And at the bottom he’s a heart of +gold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant....” +“And what a regiment it was, too,” cried Ilya Petrovitch, much gratified +at this agreeable banter, though still sulky. +Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasant +to them all. “Excuse me, Captain,” he began easily, suddenly addressing +Nikodim Fomitch, “will you enter into my position?... I am ready to +ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student, sick +and shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am not +studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money.... I +have a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it to +me, and I will pay. My landlady is a good-hearted woman, but she is so +exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the +last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner... and I +don’t understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on this +I O U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves!...” +“But that is not our business, you know,” the head clerk was observing. +“Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain...” +Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying +his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently +appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be contemptuously +oblivious of him. “Allow me to explain that I have been living with her +for nearly three years and at first... at first... for why should I not +confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, it +was a verbal promise, freely given... she was a girl... indeed, I liked +her, though I was not in love with her... a youthful affair in fact... +that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in those +days, and I led a life of... I was very heedless...” +“Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we’ve no time to +waste,” Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph; +but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it +exceedingly difficult to speak. +“But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain... how it all +happened... In my turn... though I agree with you... it is unnecessary. +But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as +before, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said +to me... and in a friendly way... that she had complete trust in me, +but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and fifteen +roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that, +she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never, +never--those were her own words--make use of that I O U till I could pay +of myself... and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to +eat, she takes action against me. What am I to say to that?” +“All these affecting details are no business of ours.” Ilya Petrovitch +interrupted rudely. “You must give a written undertaking but as for your +love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with +that.” +“Come now... you are harsh,” muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down at +the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed. +“Write!” said the head clerk to Raskolnikov. +“Write what?” the latter asked, gruffly. +“I will dictate to you.” +Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually and +contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt +completely indifferent to anyone’s opinion, and this revulsion took +place in a flash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little, +he would have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them like +that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where had +those feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled, not +with police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he +would not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A +gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took +conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimental +effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter’s +triumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart. +Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these petty +vanities, officers, German women, debts, police-offices? If he had been +sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred, would +hardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was happening to +him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he understood, but +he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he could +never more appeal to these people in the police-office with sentimental +effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and that +if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not police-officers, +it would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in any +circumstance of life. He had never experienced such a strange and awful +sensation. And what was most agonising--it was more a sensation than a +conception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all the +sensations he had known in his life. +The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration, +that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, that +he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on. +“But you can’t write, you can hardly hold the pen,” observed the head +clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. “Are you ill?” +“Yes, I am giddy. Go on!” +“That’s all. Sign it.” +The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others. +Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and going away, +he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands. He +felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea +suddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim +Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then +to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole +in the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat +to carry it out. “Hadn’t I better think a minute?” flashed through his +mind. “No, better cast off the burden without thinking.” But all at once +he stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly +with Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him: +“It’s impossible, they’ll both be released. To begin with, the whole +story contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if it +had been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No, +that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen at +the gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walking +with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the +porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he +have asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for +Koch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith’s below, before he went +up to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now +just consider...” +“But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state +themselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three minutes +later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door was +unfastened.” +“That’s just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted himself +in; and they’d have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been +an ass and gone to look for the porter too. _He_ must have seized the +interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing +himself and saying: ‘If I had been there, he would have jumped out and +killed me with his axe.’ He is going to have a thanksgiving service--ha, +ha!” +“And no one saw the murderer?” +“They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah’s Ark,” said +the head clerk, who was listening. +“It’s clear, quite clear,” Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly. +“No, it is anything but clear,” Ilya Petrovitch maintained. +Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he did +not reach it.... +When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair, +supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was standing +on the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water, and +Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He got up +from the chair. +“What’s this? Are you ill?” Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply. +“He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing,” said the head clerk, +settling back in his place, and taking up his work again. +“Have you been ill long?” cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where +he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look at +the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered. +“Since yesterday,” muttered Raskolnikov in reply. +“Did you go out yesterday?” +“Yes.” +“Though you were ill?” +“Yes.” +“At what time?” +“About seven.” +“And where did you go, may I ask?” +“Along the street.” +“Short and clear.” +Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily, +without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch’s stare. +“He can scarcely stand upright. And you...” Nikodim Fomitch was +beginning. +“No matter,” Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly. +Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but glancing at +the head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not speak. There +was a sudden silence. It was strange. +“Very well, then,” concluded Ilya Petrovitch, “we will not detain you.” +Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on his +departure, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim +Fomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely. +“A search--there will be a search at once,” he repeated to himself, +hurrying home. “The brutes! they suspect.” +His former terror mastered him completely again. +CHAPTER II +“And what if there has been a search already? What if I find them in my +room?” +But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it. No one had peeped in. +Even Nastasya had not touched it. But heavens! how could he have left +all those things in the hole? +He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the +things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in +all: two little boxes with ear-rings or something of the sort, he hardly +looked to see; then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too, +merely wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper, that looked +like a decoration.... He put them all in the different pockets of his +overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal +them as much as possible. He took the purse, too. Then he went out of +his room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and +though he felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid of +pursuit, he was afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of an +hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for his pursuit, and so at +all costs, he must hide all traces before then. He must clear everything +up while he still had some strength, some reasoning power left him.... +Where was he to go? +That had long been settled: “Fling them into the canal, and all traces +hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end.” So he had decided in +the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to +get up and go away, to make haste, and get rid of it all. But to get +rid of it, turned out to be a very difficult task. He wandered along +the bank of the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked +several times at the steps running down to the water, but he could not +think of carrying out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge, +and women were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and +people were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed +from the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious for a man to go +down on purpose, stop, and throw something into the water. And what if +the boxes were to float instead of sinking? And of course they would. +Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if +they had nothing to do but to watch him. “Why is it, or can it be my +fancy?” he thought. +At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the +Neva. There were not so many people there, he would be less observed, +and it would be more convenient in every way, above all it was further +off. He wondered how he could have been wandering for a good half-hour, +worried and anxious in this dangerous past without thinking of it +before. And that half-hour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply +because he had thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely absent +and forgetful and he was aware of it. He certainly must make haste. +He walked towards the Neva along V---- Prospect, but on the way +another idea struck him. “Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go +somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and there hide the things +in some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot +perhaps?” And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea +seemed to him a sound one. But he was not destined to go there. For +coming out of V---- Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a +passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right +hand, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched far +into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for +twenty paces into the court, and then turned sharply to the left. Here +was a deserted fenced-off place where rubbish of different sorts was +lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low, smutty, stone shed, +apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It +was probably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the whole place +from the entrance was black with coal dust. Here would be the place to +throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in, and +at once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in yards where +there are many workmen or cab-drivers; and on the hoarding above had +been scribbled in chalk the time-honoured witticism, “Standing here +strictly forbidden.” This was all the better, for there would be nothing +suspicious about his going in. “Here I could throw it all in a heap and +get away!” +Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed +against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn +stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the wall was a +street. He could hear passers-by, always numerous in that part, but he +could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the +street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need of haste. +He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands, +and using all his strength turned it over. Under the stone was a small +hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it. +The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not filled up. Then he +seized the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was +in the same position again, though it stood a very little higher. But +he scraped the earth about it and pressed it at the edges with his foot. +Nothing could be noticed. +Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense, +almost unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in +the police-office. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of +looking under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since +the house was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were +found, who would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he laughed. +Yes, he remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless +laugh, and went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square. But +when he reached the K---- Boulevard where two days before he had come +upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas crept into his +mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat +on which after the girl was gone, he had sat and pondered, and that it +would be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered policeman to whom he had +given the twenty copecks: “Damn him!” +He walked, looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas now +seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that there +really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that +point--and for the first time, indeed, during the last two months. +“Damn it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of ungovernable fury. +“If it has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how +stupid it is!... And what lies I told to-day! How despicably I fawned +upon that wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But that is all folly! What do I +care for them all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It +is not that at all!” +Suddenly he stopped; a new utterly unexpected and exceedingly simple +question perplexed and bitterly confounded him. +“If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if +I really had a certain and definite object, how is it I did not even +glance into the purse and don’t know what I had there, for which I have +undergone these agonies, and have deliberately undertaken this base, +filthy degrading business? And here I wanted at once to throw into the +water the purse together with all the things which I had not seen +either... how’s that?” +Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it all before, and +it was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night +without hesitation and consideration, as though so it must be, as though +it could not possibly be otherwise.... Yes, he had known it all, and +understood it all; it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the +moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases out +of it.... Yes, so it was. +“It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I have been +worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t know what I am doing.... +Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been +worrying myself.... I shall get well and I shall not worry.... But what +if I don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!” +He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some +distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new +overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him +every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for +everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. +All who met him were loathsome to him--he loathed their faces, their +movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he +might have spat at him or bitten him.... +He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva, near +the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that house,” +he thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own accord! Here +it’s the same thing over again.... Very interesting to know, though; +have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance? Never +mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the +day _after_; well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go further +now.” +He went up to Razumihin’s room on the fifth floor. +The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment, and +he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each +other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on +his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise. +“Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a +brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve +cut me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit down, +you are tired, I’ll be bound.” +And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was +in even worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that his +visitor was ill. +“Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his +pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand. +“Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this: I have no lessons.... I +wanted,... but I don’t really want lessons....” +“But I say! You are delirious, you know!” Razumihin observed, watching +him carefully. +“No, I am not.” +Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to +Razumihin’s, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend +face to face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least of all +disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the +wide world. His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at +himself as soon as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold. +“Good-bye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door. +“Stop, stop! You queer fish.” +“I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand. +“Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this +is... almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.” +“Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could +help... to begin... because you are kinder than anyone--cleverer, I +mean, and can judge... and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear? +Nothing at all... no one’s services... no one’s sympathy. I am by +myself... alone. Come, that’s enough. Leave me alone.” +“Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all +I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but +there’s a bookseller, Heruvimov--and he takes the place of a lesson. +I would not exchange him for five lessons. He’s doing publishing of a +kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they +have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I +was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am! +Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of +anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of +the German text--in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses +the question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ And, of course, triumphantly +proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a +contribution to the woman question; I am translating it; he will expand +these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous +title half a page long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He +pays me six roubles the signature, it works out to about fifteen roubles +for the job, and I’ve had six already in advance. When we have finished +this, we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of +the dullest scandals out of the second part of _Les Confessions_ we have +marked for translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau was +a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I don’t contradict him, hang him! +Well, would you like to do the second signature of ‘_Is woman a human +being?_’ If you would, take the German and pens and paper--all those +are provided, and take three roubles; for as I have had six roubles in +advance on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your share. +And when you have finished the signature there will be another three +roubles for you. And please don’t think I am doing you a service; quite +the contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could help me; to +begin with, I am weak in spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes utterly +adrift in German, so that I make it up as I go along for the most part. +The only comfort is, that it’s bound to be a change for the better. +Though who can tell, maybe it’s sometimes for the worse. Will you take +it?” +Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three roubles +and without a word went out. Razumihin gazed after him in astonishment. +But when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back, mounted the +stairs to Razumihin’s again and laying on the table the German article +and the three roubles, went out again, still without uttering a word. +“Are you raving, or what?” Razumihin shouted, roused to fury at last. +“What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy too... what did you come to +see me for, damn you?” +“I don’t want... translation,” muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs. +“Then what the devil do you want?” shouted Razumihin from above. +Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence. +“Hey, there! Where are you living?” +No answer. +“Well, confound you then!” +But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street. On the Nikolaevsky +Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an unpleasant +incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave him +a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having almost fallen under +his horses’ hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the +railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the very middle +of the bridge in the traffic). He angrily clenched and ground his teeth. +He heard laughter, of course. +“Serves him right!” +“A pickpocket I dare say.” +“Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting under the wheels on +purpose; and you have to answer for him.” +“It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.” +But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered +after the retreating carriage, and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt +someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly woman +in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter, +wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol. +“Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.” +He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From +his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar +asking alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he +doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him. +He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces, and +turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without +a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the +Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the +bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, +and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. +The pain from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one +uneasy and not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood +still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was +especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had +hundreds of times--generally on his way home--stood still on this spot, +gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at +a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely +cold; this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered +every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting +himself, put off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled +those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was +no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and +grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, +as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be +interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him... +so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his +heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him +now--all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, +his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all.... He +felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing +from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he +suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his +hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into +the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut +himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment. +Evening was coming on when he reached home, so that he must have been +walking about six hours. How and where he came back he did not remember. +Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay down on the +sofa, drew his greatcoat over him, and at once sank into oblivion.... +It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful scream. Good God, what a +scream! Such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears, +blows and curses he had never heard. +He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he +sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing +and cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement +he caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and +wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make +out what she was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be +beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of +her assailant was so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost +a croak; but he, too, was saying something, and just as quickly +and indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov +trembled; he recognised the voice--it was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. +Ilya Petrovitch here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, +banging her head against the steps--that’s clear, that can be told +from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world +topsy-turvy? He could hear people running in crowds from all the storeys +and all the staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors +banging. “But why, why, and how could it be?” he repeated, thinking +seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! And +they would come to him then next, “for no doubt... it’s all about +that... about yesterday.... Good God!” He would have fastened his door +with the latch, but he could not lift his hand... besides, it would +be useless. Terror gripped his heart like ice, tortured him and numbed +him.... But at last all this uproar, after continuing about ten minutes, +began gradually to subside. The landlady was moaning and groaning; Ilya +Petrovitch was still uttering threats and curses.... But at last he, +too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be heard. “Can he have +gone away? Good Lord!” Yes, and now the landlady is going too, still +weeping and moaning... and then her door slammed.... Now the crowd was +going from the stairs to their rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling +to one another, raising their voices to a shout, dropping them to a +whisper. There must have been numbers of them--almost all the inmates +of the block. “But, good God, how could it be! And why, why had he come +here!” +Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He +lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of +infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright +light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate +of soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not +asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she +had brought--bread, salt, a plate, a spoon. +“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You’ve been trudging +about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.” +“Nastasya... what were they beating the landlady for?” +She looked intently at him. +“Who beat the landlady?” +“Just now... half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant +superintendent, on the stairs.... Why was he ill-treating her like that, +and... why was he here?” +Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a +long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes. +“Nastasya, why don’t you speak?” he said timidly at last in a weak +voice. +“It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to +herself. +“Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning towards the +wall. +Nastasya still looked at him without speaking. +“Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a firm, +resolute voice. +He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe. +“I heard it myself.... I was not asleep... I was sitting up,” he +said still more timidly. “I listened a long while. The assistant +superintendent came.... Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the +flats.” +“No one has been here. That’s the blood crying in your ears. When +there’s no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you begin fancying +things.... Will you eat something?” +He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him, watching him. +“Give me something to drink... Nastasya.” +She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water. +He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling +some on his neck. Then followed forgetfulness. +CHAPTER III +He was not completely unconscious, however, all the time he was ill; he +was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half conscious. +He remembered a great deal afterwards. Sometimes it seemed as though +there were a number of people round him; they wanted to take him away +somewhere, there was a great deal of squabbling and discussing about +him. Then he would be alone in the room; they had all gone away afraid +of him, and only now and then opened the door a crack to look at him; +they threatened him, plotted something together, laughed, and mocked +at him. He remembered Nastasya often at his bedside; he distinguished +another person, too, whom he seemed to know very well, though he could +not remember who he was, and this fretted him, even made him cry. +Sometimes he fancied he had been lying there a month; at other times +it all seemed part of the same day. But of _that_--of _that_ he had +no recollection, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten +something he ought to remember. He worried and tormented himself trying +to remember, moaned, flew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable +terror. Then he struggled to get up, would have run away, but someone +always prevented him by force, and he sank back into impotence and +forgetfulness. At last he returned to complete consciousness. +It happened at ten o’clock in the morning. On fine days the sun shone +into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right +wall and the corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside him +with another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him +very inquisitively. He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full, +short-waisted coat, and looked like a messenger. The landlady was +peeping in at the half-opened door. Raskolnikov sat up. +“Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the young man. +“I say, he’s himself again!” she said. +“He is himself,” echoed the man. +Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed the +door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded conversations or +discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat +and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and +laziness, and absurdly bashful. +“Who... are you?” he went on, addressing the man. But at that moment +the door was flung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so tall, +Razumihin came in. +“What a cabin it is!” he cried. “I am always knocking my head. You call +this a lodging! So you are conscious, brother? I’ve just heard the news +from Pashenka.” +“He has just come to,” said Nastasya. +“Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a smile. +“And who are you?” Razumihin asked, suddenly addressing him. “My name is +Vrazumihin, at your service; not Razumihin, as I am always called, but +Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman; and he is my friend. And who are +you?” +“I am the messenger from our office, from the merchant Shelopaev, and +I’ve come on business.” +“Please sit down.” Razumihin seated himself on the other side of the +table. “It’s a good thing you’ve come to, brother,” he went on to +Raskolnikov. “For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk +anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I brought Zossimov to see +you twice. You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at +once it was nothing serious--something seemed to have gone to your head. +Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says you have not +had enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will pass and you +will be all right. Zossimov is a first-rate fellow! He is making quite a +name. Come, I won’t keep you,” he said, addressing the man again. “Will +you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya, this is the second time +they have sent from the office; but it was another man last time, and I +talked to him. Who was it came before?” +“That was the day before yesterday, I venture to say, if you please, +sir. That was Alexey Semyonovitch; he is in our office, too.” +“He was more intelligent than you, don’t you think so?” +“Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am.” +“Quite so; go on.” +“At your mamma’s request, through Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom +I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you +from our office,” the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. “If you are in +an intelligible condition, I’ve thirty-five roubles to remit to you, as +Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your mamma’s +request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions. Do you +know him, sir?” +“Yes, I remember... Vahrushin,” Raskolnikov said dreamily. +“You hear, he knows Vahrushin,” cried Razumihin. “He is in ‘an +intelligible condition’! And I see you are an intelligent man too. Well, +it’s always pleasant to hear words of wisdom.” +“That’s the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy Ivanovitch. And at the request +of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in the +same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent +instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you +thirty-five roubles in the hope of better to come.” +“That ‘hoping for better to come’ is the best thing you’ve said, though +‘your mamma’ is not bad either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully +conscious, eh?” +“That’s all right. If only he can sign this little paper.” +“He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book?” +“Yes, here’s the book.” +“Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I’ll hold you. Take the pen and +scribble ‘Raskolnikov’ for him. For just now, brother, money is sweeter +to us than treacle.” +“I don’t want it,” said Raskolnikov, pushing away the pen. +“Not want it?” +“I won’t sign it.” +“How the devil can you do without signing it?” +“I don’t want... the money.” +“Don’t want the money! Come, brother, that’s nonsense, I bear witness. +Don’t trouble, please, it’s only that he is on his travels again. But +that’s pretty common with him at all times though.... You are a man of +judgment and we will take him in hand, that is, more simply, take his +hand and he will sign it. Here.” +“But I can come another time.” +“No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a man of judgment.... Now, +Rodya, don’t keep your visitor, you see he is waiting,” and he made +ready to hold Raskolnikov’s hand in earnest. +“Stop, I’ll do it alone,” said the latter, taking the pen and signing +his name. +The messenger took out the money and went away. +“Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry?” +“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov. +“Is there any soup?” +“Some of yesterday’s,” answered Nastasya, who was still standing there. +“With potatoes and rice in it?” +“Yes.” +“I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea.” +“Very well.” +Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound astonishment and a dull, +unreasoning terror. He made up his mind to keep quiet and see what +would happen. “I believe I am not wandering. I believe it’s reality,” he +thought. +In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the soup, and announced +that the tea would be ready directly. With the soup she brought two +spoons, two plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so on. The +table was set as it had not been for a long time. The cloth was clean. +“It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya Pavlovna were to send us +up a couple of bottles of beer. We could empty them.” +“Well, you are a cool hand,” muttered Nastasya, and she departed to +carry out his orders. +Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained attention. Meanwhile +Razumihin sat down on the sofa beside him, as clumsily as a bear put his +left arm round Raskolnikov’s head, although he was able to sit up, and +with his right hand gave him a spoonful of soup, blowing on it that +it might not burn him. But the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov +swallowed one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third. But after +giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup, Razumihin suddenly stopped, and +said that he must ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more. +Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer. +“And will you have tea?” +“Yes.” +“Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea we may venture on +without the faculty. But here is the beer!” He moved back to his chair, +pulled the soup and meat in front of him, and began eating as though he +had not touched food for three days. +“I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every day now,” he +mumbled with his mouth full of beef, “and it’s all Pashenka, your dear +little landlady, who sees to that; she loves to do anything for me. I +don’t ask for it, but, of course, I don’t object. And here’s Nastasya +with the tea. She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my dear, won’t you have +some beer?” +“Get along with your nonsense!” +“A cup of tea, then?” +“A cup of tea, maybe.” +“Pour it out. Stay, I’ll pour it out myself. Sit down.” +He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on the sofa again. As +before, he put his left arm round the sick man’s head, raised him up +and gave him tea in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily and +earnestly, as though this process was the principal and most effective +means towards his friend’s recovery. Raskolnikov said nothing and made +no resistance, though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the sofa +without support and could not merely have held a cup or a spoon, but +even perhaps could have walked about. But from some queer, almost +animal, cunning he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and lying +low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in full possession +of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to find out what was going on. +Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance. After sipping a dozen +spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head, pushed the spoon away +capriciously, and sank back on the pillow. There were actually real +pillows under his head now, down pillows in clean cases, he observed +that, too, and took note of it. +“Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam to-day to make him some +raspberry tea,” said Razumihin, going back to his chair and attacking +his soup and beer again. +“And where is she to get raspberries for you?” asked Nastasya, balancing +a saucer on her five outspread fingers and sipping tea through a lump of +sugar. +“She’ll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya, all sorts of things +have been happening while you have been laid up. When you decamped in +that rascally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry that I +resolved to find you out and punish you. I set to work that very day. +How I ran about making inquiries for you! This lodging of yours I had +forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not know +it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at the +Five Corners, Harlamov’s house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov’s +house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not Harlamov’s, but +Buch’s. How one muddles up sound sometimes! So I lost my temper, and I +went on the chance to the address bureau next day, and only fancy, in +two minutes they looked you up! Your name is down there.” +“My name!” +“I should think so; and yet a General Kobelev they could not find while +I was there. Well, it’s a long story. But as soon as I did land on this +place, I soon got to know all your affairs--all, all, brother, I know +everything; Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquaintance of +Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and the house-porter and Mr. +Zametov, Alexandr Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police office, +and, last, but not least, of Pashenka; Nastasya here knows....” +“He’s got round her,” Nastasya murmured, smiling slyly. +“Why don’t you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna?” +“You are a one!” Nastasya cried suddenly, going off into a giggle. “I am +not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna,” she added suddenly, recovering from her +mirth. +“I’ll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a long story short, +I was going in for a regular explosion here to uproot all malignant +influences in the locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not +expected, brother, to find her so... prepossessing. Eh, what do you +think?” +Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his eyes fixed upon him, +full of alarm. +“And all that could be wished, indeed, in every respect,” Razumihin went +on, not at all embarrassed by his silence. +“Ah, the sly dog!” Nastasya shrieked again. This conversation afforded +her unspeakable delight. +“It’s a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in the right way +at first. You ought to have approached her differently. She is, so +to speak, a most unaccountable character. But we will talk about her +character later.... How could you let things come to such a pass that +she gave up sending you your dinner? And that I O U? You must have been +mad to sign an I O U. And that promise of marriage when her daughter, +Natalya Yegorovna, was alive?... I know all about it! But I see that’s +a delicate matter and I am an ass; forgive me. But, talking of +foolishness, do you know Praskovya Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as +you would think at first sight?” +“No,” mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but feeling that it was better +to keep up the conversation. +“She isn’t, is she?” cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer out +of him. “But she is not very clever either, eh? She is essentially, +essentially an unaccountable character! I am sometimes quite at a loss, +I assure you.... She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and +of course she has every right to say so. But I swear I judge her +intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point of view; there is a +sort of symbolism sprung up between us, a sort of algebra or what not! +I don’t understand it! Well, that’s all nonsense. Only, seeing that you +are not a student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and +that through the young lady’s death she has no need to treat you as +a relation, she suddenly took fright; and as you hid in your den and +dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of you. +And she’s been cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose +the I O U, for you assured her yourself that your mother would pay.” +“It was base of me to say that.... My mother herself is almost +a beggar... and I told a lie to keep my lodging... and be fed,” +Raskolnikov said loudly and distinctly. +“Yes, you did very sensibly. But the worst of it is that at that point +Mr. Tchebarov turns up, a business man. Pashenka would never have +thought of doing anything on her own account, she is too retiring; but +the business man is by no means retiring, and first thing he puts the +question, ‘Is there any hope of realising the I O U?’ Answer: there is, +because he has a mother who would save her Rodya with her hundred and +twenty-five roubles pension, if she has to starve herself; and a sister, +too, who would go into bondage for his sake. That’s what he was building +upon.... Why do you start? I know all the ins and outs of your affairs +now, my dear boy--it’s not for nothing that you were so open with +Pashenka when you were her prospective son-in-law, and I say all this as +a friend.... But I tell you what it is; an honest and sensitive man is +open; and a business man ‘listens and goes on eating’ you up. Well, +then she gave the I O U by way of payment to this Tchebarov, and without +hesitation he made a formal demand for payment. When I heard of all this +I wanted to blow him up, too, to clear my conscience, but by that time +harmony reigned between me and Pashenka, and I insisted on stopping +the whole affair, engaging that you would pay. I went security for you, +brother. Do you understand? We called Tchebarov, flung him ten +roubles and got the I O U back from him, and here I have the honour of +presenting it to you. She trusts your word now. Here, take it, you see I +have torn it.” +Razumihin put the note on the table. Raskolnikov looked at him and +turned to the wall without uttering a word. Even Razumihin felt a +twinge. +“I see, brother,” he said a moment later, “that I have been playing the +fool again. I thought I should amuse you with my chatter, and I believe +I have only made you cross.” +“Was it you I did not recognise when I was delirious?” Raskolnikov +asked, after a moment’s pause without turning his head. +“Yes, and you flew into a rage about it, especially when I brought +Zametov one day.” +“Zametov? The head clerk? What for?” Raskolnikov turned round quickly +and fixed his eyes on Razumihin. +“What’s the matter with you?... What are you upset about? He wanted to +make your acquaintance because I talked to him a lot about you.... How +could I have found out so much except from him? He is a capital +fellow, brother, first-rate... in his own way, of course. Now we are +friends--see each other almost every day. I have moved into this part, +you know. I have only just moved. I’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna +once or twice.... Do you remember Luise, Luise Ivanovna? +“Did I say anything in delirium?” +“I should think so! You were beside yourself.” +“What did I rave about?” +“What next? What did you rave about? What people do rave about.... Well, +brother, now I must not lose time. To work.” He got up from the table +and took up his cap. +“What did I rave about?” +“How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out some secret? Don’t +worry yourself; you said nothing about a countess. But you said a lot +about a bulldog, and about ear-rings and chains, and about Krestovsky +Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, the +assistant superintendent. And another thing that was of special interest +to you was your own sock. You whined, ‘Give me my sock.’ Zametov +hunted all about your room for your socks, and with his own scented, +ring-bedecked fingers he gave you the rag. And only then were you +comforted, and for the next twenty-four hours you held the wretched +thing in your hand; we could not get it from you. It is most likely +somewhere under your quilt at this moment. And then you asked so +piteously for fringe for your trousers. We tried to find out what sort +of fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to business! Here are +thirty-five roubles; I take ten of them, and shall give you an account +of them in an hour or two. I will let Zossimov know at the same time, +though he ought to have been here long ago, for it is nearly twelve. And +you, Nastasya, look in pretty often while I am away, to see whether he +wants a drink or anything else. And I will tell Pashenka what is wanted +myself. Good-bye!” +“He calls her Pashenka! Ah, he’s a deep one!” said Nastasya as he went +out; then she opened the door and stood listening, but could not resist +running downstairs after him. She was very eager to hear what he would +say to the landlady. She was evidently quite fascinated by Razumihin. +No sooner had she left the room than the sick man flung off the +bedclothes and leapt out of bed like a madman. With burning, twitching +impatience he had waited for them to be gone so that he might set to +work. But to what work? Now, as though to spite him, it eluded him. +“Good God, only tell me one thing: do they know of it yet or not? What +if they know it and are only pretending, mocking me while I am laid up, +and then they will come in and tell me that it’s been discovered long +ago and that they have only... What am I to do now? That’s what I’ve +forgotten, as though on purpose; forgotten it all at once, I remembered +a minute ago.” +He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in miserable bewilderment +about him; he walked to the door, opened it, listened; but that was not +what he wanted. Suddenly, as though recalling something, he rushed to +the corner where there was a hole under the paper, began examining it, +put his hand into the hole, fumbled--but that was not it. He went to the +stove, opened it and began rummaging in the ashes; the frayed edges of +his trousers and the rags cut off his pocket were lying there just as +he had thrown them. No one had looked, then! Then he remembered the sock +about which Razumihin had just been telling him. Yes, there it lay on +the sofa under the quilt, but it was so covered with dust and grime that +Zametov could not have seen anything on it. +“Bah, Zametov! The police office! And why am I sent for to the police +office? Where’s the notice? Bah! I am mixing it up; that was then. I +looked at my sock then, too, but now... now I have been ill. But +what did Zametov come for? Why did Razumihin bring him?” he muttered, +helplessly sitting on the sofa again. “What does it mean? Am I still in +delirium, or is it real? I believe it is real.... Ah, I remember; I must +escape! Make haste to escape. Yes, I must, I must escape! Yes... but +where? And where are my clothes? I’ve no boots. They’ve taken them away! +They’ve hidden them! I understand! Ah, here is my coat--they passed that +over! And here is money on the table, thank God! And here’s the I O U... +I’ll take the money and go and take another lodging. They won’t find +me!... Yes, but the address bureau? They’ll find me, Razumihin will find +me. Better escape altogether... far away... to America, and let them +do their worst! And take the I O U... it would be of use there.... What +else shall I take? They think I am ill! They don’t know that I can walk, +ha-ha-ha! I could see by their eyes that they know all about it! If +only I could get downstairs! And what if they have set a watch +there--policemen! What’s this tea? Ah, and here is beer left, half a +bottle, cold!” +He snatched up the bottle, which still contained a glassful of beer, and +gulped it down with relish, as though quenching a flame in his breast. +But in another minute the beer had gone to his head, and a faint and +even pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He lay down and pulled the +quilt over him. His sick and incoherent thoughts grew more and more +disconnected, and soon a light, pleasant drowsiness came upon him. With +a sense of comfort he nestled his head into the pillow, wrapped more +closely about him the soft, wadded quilt which had replaced the old, +ragged greatcoat, sighed softly and sank into a deep, sound, refreshing +sleep. +He woke up, hearing someone come in. He opened his eyes and saw +Razumihin standing in the doorway, uncertain whether to come in or +not. Raskolnikov sat up quickly on the sofa and gazed at him, as though +trying to recall something. +“Ah, you are not asleep! Here I am! Nastasya, bring in the parcel!” +Razumihin shouted down the stairs. “You shall have the account +directly.” +“What time is it?” asked Raskolnikov, looking round uneasily. +“Yes, you had a fine sleep, brother, it’s almost evening, it will be six +o’clock directly. You have slept more than six hours.” +“Good heavens! Have I?” +“And why not? It will do you good. What’s the hurry? A tryst, is it? +We’ve all time before us. I’ve been waiting for the last three hours for +you; I’ve been up twice and found you asleep. I’ve called on Zossimov +twice; not at home, only fancy! But no matter, he will turn up. And +I’ve been out on my own business, too. You know I’ve been moving to-day, +moving with my uncle. I have an uncle living with me now. But that’s +no matter, to business. Give me the parcel, Nastasya. We will open it +directly. And how do you feel now, brother?” +“I am quite well, I am not ill. Razumihin, have you been here long?” +“I tell you I’ve been waiting for the last three hours.” +“No, before.” +“How do you mean?” +“How long have you been coming here?” +“Why I told you all about it this morning. Don’t you remember?” +Raskolnikov pondered. The morning seemed like a dream to him. He could +not remember alone, and looked inquiringly at Razumihin. +“Hm!” said the latter, “he has forgotten. I fancied then that you were +not quite yourself. Now you are better for your sleep.... You really +look much better. First-rate! Well, to business. Look here, my dear +boy.” +He began untying the bundle, which evidently interested him. +“Believe me, brother, this is something specially near my heart. For we +must make a man of you. Let’s begin from the top. Do you see this +cap?” he said, taking out of the bundle a fairly good though cheap and +ordinary cap. “Let me try it on.” +“Presently, afterwards,” said Raskolnikov, waving it off pettishly. +“Come, Rodya, my boy, don’t oppose it, afterwards will be too late; and +I shan’t sleep all night, for I bought it by guess, without measure. +Just right!” he cried triumphantly, fitting it on, “just your size! A +proper head-covering is the first thing in dress and a recommendation in +its own way. Tolstyakov, a friend of mine, is always obliged to take off +his pudding basin when he goes into any public place where other +people wear their hats or caps. People think he does it from slavish +politeness, but it’s simply because he is ashamed of his bird’s nest; +he is such a boastful fellow! Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of +headgear: this Palmerston”--he took from the corner Raskolnikov’s old, +battered hat, which for some unknown reason, he called a Palmerston--“or +this jewel! Guess the price, Rodya, what do you suppose I paid for it, +Nastasya!” he said, turning to her, seeing that Raskolnikov did not +speak. +“Twenty copecks, no more, I dare say,” answered Nastasya. +“Twenty copecks, silly!” he cried, offended. “Why, nowadays you would +cost more than that--eighty copecks! And that only because it has been +worn. And it’s bought on condition that when’s it’s worn out, they will +give you another next year. Yes, on my word! Well, now let us pass to +the United States of America, as they called them at school. I assure +you I am proud of these breeches,” and he exhibited to Raskolnikov a +pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen material. “No holes, no +spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn; and a waistcoat +to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an +improvement, it’s softer, smoother.... You see, Rodya, to my thinking, +the great thing for getting on in the world is always to keep to the +seasons; if you don’t insist on having asparagus in January, you keep +your money in your purse; and it’s the same with this purchase. It’s +summer now, so I’ve been buying summer things--warmer materials will be +wanted for autumn, so you will have to throw these away in any case... +especially as they will be done for by then from their own lack of +coherence if not your higher standard of luxury. Come, price them! What +do you say? Two roubles twenty-five copecks! And remember the condition: +if you wear these out, you will have another suit for nothing! They only +do business on that system at Fedyaev’s; if you’ve bought a thing once, +you are satisfied for life, for you will never go there again of your +own free will. Now for the boots. What do you say? You see that they are +a bit worn, but they’ll last a couple of months, for it’s foreign work +and foreign leather; the secretary of the English Embassy sold them last +week--he had only worn them six days, but he was very short of cash. +Price--a rouble and a half. A bargain?” +“But perhaps they won���t fit,” observed Nastasya. +“Not fit? Just look!” and he pulled out of his pocket Raskolnikov’s +old, broken boot, stiffly coated with dry mud. “I did not go +empty-handed--they took the size from this monster. We all did our best. +And as to your linen, your landlady has seen to that. Here, to begin +with are three shirts, hempen but with a fashionable front.... Well +now then, eighty copecks the cap, two roubles twenty-five copecks the +suit--together three roubles five copecks--a rouble and a half for the +boots--for, you see, they are very good--and that makes four roubles +fifty-five copecks; five roubles for the underclothes--they were +bought in the lot--which makes exactly nine roubles fifty-five copecks. +Forty-five copecks change in coppers. Will you take it? And so, Rodya, +you are set up with a complete new rig-out, for your overcoat will +serve, and even has a style of its own. That comes from getting one’s +clothes from Sharmer’s! As for your socks and other things, I leave them +to you; we’ve twenty-five roubles left. And as for Pashenka and paying +for your lodging, don’t you worry. I tell you she’ll trust you for +anything. And now, brother, let me change your linen, for I daresay you +will throw off your illness with your shirt.” +“Let me be! I don’t want to!” Raskolnikov waved him off. He had listened +with disgust to Razumihin’s efforts to be playful about his purchases. +“Come, brother, don’t tell me I’ve been trudging around for nothing,” +Razumihin insisted. “Nastasya, don’t be bashful, but help me--that’s +it,” and in spite of Raskolnikov’s resistance he changed his linen. The +latter sank back on the pillows and for a minute or two said nothing. +“It will be long before I get rid of them,” he thought. “What money was +all that bought with?” he asked at last, gazing at the wall. +“Money? Why, your own, what the messenger brought from Vahrushin, your +mother sent it. Have you forgotten that, too?” +“I remember now,” said Raskolnikov after a long, sullen silence. +Razumihin looked at him, frowning and uneasy. +The door opened and a tall, stout man whose appearance seemed familiar +to Raskolnikov came in. +CHAPTER IV +Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven face +and straight flaxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on +his fat finger. He was twenty-seven. He had on a light grey fashionable +loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose, +fashionable and spick and span; his linen was irreproachable, his +watch-chain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were, +nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free and easy; he made +efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was apparent at every +instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever +at his work. +“I’ve been to you twice to-day, brother. You see, he’s come to himself,” +cried Razumihin. +“I see, I see; and how do we feel now, eh?” said Zossimov to +Raskolnikov, watching him carefully and, sitting down at the foot of the +sofa, he settled himself as comfortably as he could. +“He is still depressed,” Razumihin went on. “We’ve just changed his +linen and he almost cried.” +“That’s very natural; you might have put it off if he did not wish +it.... His pulse is first-rate. Is your head still aching, eh?” +“I am well, I am perfectly well!” Raskolnikov declared positively +and irritably. He raised himself on the sofa and looked at them with +glittering eyes, but sank back on to the pillow at once and turned to +the wall. Zossimov watched him intently. +“Very good.... Going on all right,” he said lazily. “Has he eaten +anything?” +They told him, and asked what he might have. +“He may have anything... soup, tea... mushrooms and cucumbers, of +course, you must not give him; he’d better not have meat either, and... +but no need to tell you that!” Razumihin and he looked at each +other. “No more medicine or anything. I’ll look at him again to-morrow. +Perhaps, to-day even... but never mind...” +“To-morrow evening I shall take him for a walk,” said Razumihin. “We are +going to the Yusupov garden and then to the Palais de Cristal.” +“I would not disturb him to-morrow at all, but I don’t know... a little, +maybe... but we’ll see.” +“Ach, what a nuisance! I’ve got a house-warming party to-night; it’s +only a step from here. Couldn’t he come? He could lie on the sofa. You +are coming?” Razumihin said to Zossimov. “Don’t forget, you promised.” +“All right, only rather later. What are you going to do?” +“Oh, nothing--tea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie... just our +friends.” +“And who?” +“All neighbours here, almost all new friends, except my old uncle, and +he is new too--he only arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some +business of his. We meet once in five years.” +“What is he?” +“He’s been stagnating all his life as a district postmaster; gets a +little pension. He is sixty-five--not worth talking about.... But I +am fond of him. Porfiry Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation +Department here... But you know him.” +“Is he a relation of yours, too?” +“A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you quarrelled +once, won’t you come then?” +“I don’t care a damn for him.” +“So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a +government clerk, a musician, an officer and Zametov.” +“Do tell me, please, what you or he”--Zossimov nodded at +Raskolnikov--“can have in common with this Zametov?” +“Oh, you particular gentleman! Principles! You are worked by principles, +as it were by springs; you won’t venture to turn round on your own +account. If a man is a nice fellow, that’s the only principle I go upon. +Zametov is a delightful person.” +“Though he does take bribes.” +“Well, he does! and what of it? I don’t care if he does take bribes,” +Razumihin cried with unnatural irritability. “I don’t praise him for +taking bribes. I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one +looks at men in all ways--are there many good ones left? Why, I am sure +I shouldn’t be worth a baked onion myself... perhaps with you thrown +in.” +“That’s too little; I’d give two for you.” +“And I wouldn’t give more than one for you. No more of your jokes! +Zametov is no more than a boy. I can pull his hair and one must draw him +not repel him. You’ll never improve a man by repelling him, especially +a boy. One has to be twice as careful with a boy. Oh, you progressive +dullards! You don’t understand. You harm yourselves running another man +down.... But if you want to know, we really have something in common.” +“I should like to know what.” +“Why, it’s all about a house-painter.... We are getting him out of +a mess! Though indeed there’s nothing to fear now. The matter is +absolutely self-evident. We only put on steam.” +“A painter?” +“Why, haven’t I told you about it? I only told you the beginning then +about the murder of the old pawnbroker-woman. Well, the painter is mixed +up in it...” +“Oh, I heard about that murder before and was rather interested in it... +partly... for one reason.... I read about it in the papers, too....” +“Lizaveta was murdered, too,” Nastasya blurted out, suddenly addressing +Raskolnikov. She remained in the room all the time, standing by the door +listening. +“Lizaveta,” murmured Raskolnikov hardly audibly. +“Lizaveta, who sold old clothes. Didn’t you know her? She used to come +here. She mended a shirt for you, too.” +Raskolnikov turned to the wall where in the dirty, yellow paper he +picked out one clumsy, white flower with brown lines on it and began +examining how many petals there were in it, how many scallops in the +petals and how many lines on them. He felt his arms and legs as lifeless +as though they had been cut off. He did not attempt to move, but stared +obstinately at the flower. +“But what about the painter?” Zossimov interrupted Nastasya’s chatter +with marked displeasure. She sighed and was silent. +“Why, he was accused of the murder,” Razumihin went on hotly. +“Was there evidence against him then?” +“Evidence, indeed! Evidence that was no evidence, and that’s what we +have to prove. It was just as they pitched on those fellows, Koch and +Pestryakov, at first. Foo! how stupidly it’s all done, it makes one +sick, though it’s not one’s business! Pestryakov may be coming +to-night.... By the way, Rodya, you’ve heard about the business already; +it happened before you were ill, the day before you fainted at the +police office while they were talking about it.” +Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov. He did not stir. +“But I say, Razumihin, I wonder at you. What a busybody you are!” +Zossimov observed. +“Maybe I am, but we will get him off anyway,” shouted Razumihin, +bringing his fist down on the table. “What’s the most offensive is not +their lying--one can always forgive lying--lying is a delightful thing, +for it leads to truth--what is offensive is that they lie and worship +their own lying.... I respect Porfiry, but... What threw them out at +first? The door was locked, and when they came back with the porter +it was open. So it followed that Koch and Pestryakov were the +murderers--that was their logic!” +“But don’t excite yourself; they simply detained them, they could not +help that.... And, by the way, I’ve met that man Koch. He used to buy +unredeemed pledges from the old woman? Eh?” +“Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too. He makes a profession +of it. But enough of him! Do you know what makes me angry? It’s their +sickening rotten, petrified routine.... And this case might be the means +of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data +alone how to get on the track of the real man. ‘We have facts,’ they +say. But facts are not everything--at least half the business lies in +how you interpret them!” +“Can you interpret them, then?” +“Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible +feeling, that one might be a help if only.... Eh! Do you know the +details of the case?” +“I am waiting to hear about the painter.” +“Oh, yes! Well, here’s the story. Early on the third day after the +murder, when they were still dandling Koch and Pestryakov--though they +accounted for every step they took and it was as plain as a pikestaff--an +unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who keeps a +dram-shop facing the house, brought to the police office a jeweller’s +case containing some gold ear-rings, and told a long rigamarole. ‘The +day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock’--mark the day and the +hour!--‘a journeyman house-painter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me +already that day, brought me this box of gold ear-rings and stones, and +asked me to give him two roubles for them. When I asked him where he got +them, he said that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask him +anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s story. ‘I gave him a note’--a +rouble that is--‘for I thought if he did not pawn it with me he would +with another. It would all come to the same thing--he’d spend it on +drink, so the thing had better be with me. The further you hide it +the quicker you will find it, and if anything turns up, if I hear any +rumours, I’ll take it to the police.’ Of course, that’s all taradiddle; +he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker and +a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat Nikolay out of a +thirty-rouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He was simply +afraid. But no matter, to return to Dushkin’s story. ‘I’ve known +this peasant, Nikolay Dementyev, from a child; he comes from the same +province and district of Zaraïsk, we are both Ryazan men. And though +Nikolay is not a drunkard, he drinks, and I knew he had a job in that +house, painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same village, too. +As soon as he got the rouble he changed it, had a couple of glasses, +took his change and went out. But I did not see Dmitri with him then. +And the next day I heard that someone had murdered Alyona Ivanovna and +her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an axe. I knew them, and I felt +suspicious about the ear-rings at once, for I knew the murdered woman +lent money on pledges. I went to the house, and began to make careful +inquiries without saying a word to anyone. First of all I asked, “Is +Nikolay here?” Dmitri told me that Nikolay had gone off on the spree; he +had come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the house about ten minutes, +and went out again. Dmitri didn’t see him again and is finishing the +job alone. And their job is on the same staircase as the murder, on +the second floor. When I heard all that I did not say a word to +anyone’--that’s Dushkin’s tale--‘but I found out what I could about +the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight +o’clock this morning’--that was the third day, you understand--‘I saw +Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very drunk--he could +understand what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and did not +speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a man I knew asleep +on a bench and our two boys. “Have you seen Dmitri?” said I. “No, I +haven’t,” said he. “And you’ve not been here either?” “Not since the day +before yesterday,” said he. “And where did you sleep last night?” +“In Peski, with the Kolomensky men.” “And where did you get those +ear-rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and the way he said +it was a bit queer; he did not look at me. “Did you hear what happened +that very evening, at that very hour, on that same staircase?” said I. +“No,” said he, “I had not heard,” and all the while he was listening, +his eyes were staring out of his head and he turned as white as chalk. I +told him all about it and he took his hat and began getting up. I wanted +to keep him. “Wait a bit, Nikolay,” said I, “won’t you have a drink?” +And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and I came out from behind the +bar; but he darted out and down the street to the turning at a run. +I have not seen him since. Then my doubts were at an end--it was his +doing, as clear as could be....’” +“I should think so,” said Zossimov. +“Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high and low for Nikolay; +they detained Dushkin and searched his house; Dmitri, too, was arrested; +the Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And the day before +yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a tavern at the end of the town. He +had gone there, taken the silver cross off his neck and asked for a dram +for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes afterwards the woman went +to the cowshed, and through a crack in the wall she saw in the stable +adjoining he had made a noose of his sash from the beam, stood on a +block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in the noose. The woman +screeched her hardest; people ran in. ‘So that’s what you are up to!’ +‘Take me,’ he says, ‘to such-and-such a police officer; I’ll confess +everything.’ Well, they took him to that police station--that is +here--with a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old +he is, ‘twenty-two,’ and so on. At the question, ‘When you were working +with Dmitri, didn’t you see anyone on the staircase at such-and-such a +time?’--answer: ‘To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did +not notice them.’ ‘And didn’t you hear anything, any noise, and so on?’ +‘We heard nothing special.’ ‘And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same +day Widow So-and-so and her sister were murdered and robbed?’ ‘I +never knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from Afanasy +Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.’ ‘And where did you find the +ear-rings?’ ‘I found them on the pavement.’ ‘Why didn’t you go to work +with Dmitri the other day?’ ‘Because I was drinking.’ ‘And where were +you drinking?’ ‘Oh, in such-and-such a place.’ ‘Why did you run away +from Dushkin’s?’ ‘Because I was awfully frightened.’ ‘What were +you frightened of?’ ‘That I should be accused.’ ‘How could you be +frightened, if you felt free from guilt?’ Now, Zossimov, you may not +believe me, that question was put literally in those words. I know it +for a fact, it was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?” +“Well, anyway, there’s the evidence.” +“I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that question, +of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and squeezed +him and he confessed: ‘I did not find it in the street, but in the flat +where I was painting with Dmitri.’ ‘And how was that?’ ‘Why, Dmitri and +I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go, and +Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after him. +I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I +ran right against the porter and some gentlemen--and how many gentlemen +were there I don’t remember. And the porter swore at me, and the other +porter swore, too, and the porter’s wife came out, and swore at us, too; +and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he swore at us, +too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold of Dmitri’s +hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too, caught +me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it all not for temper +but in a friendly way, for sport. And then Dmitri escaped and ran into +the street, and I ran after him; but I did not catch him, and went back +to the flat alone; I had to clear up my things. I began putting them +together, expecting Dmitri to come, and there in the passage, in the +corner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying there wrapped +up in paper. I took off the paper, saw some little hooks, undid them, +and in the box were the ear-rings....’” +“Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?” Raskolnikov +cried suddenly, staring with a blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he +slowly sat up on the sofa, leaning on his hand. +“Yes... why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Razumihin, too, got up +from his seat. +“Nothing,” Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All were +silent for a while. +“He must have waked from a dream,” Razumihin said at last, looking +inquiringly at Zossimov. The latter slightly shook his head. +“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What next?” +“What next? As soon as he saw the ear-rings, forgetting Dmitri and +everything, he took up his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got +a rouble from him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street, and +went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old story about the murder: +‘I know nothing of it, never heard of it till the day before yesterday.’ +‘And why didn’t you come to the police till now?’ ‘I was frightened.’ +‘And why did you try to hang yourself?’ ‘From anxiety.’ ‘What anxiety?’ +‘That I should be accused of it.’ Well, that’s the whole story. And now +what do you suppose they deduced from that?” +“Why, there’s no supposing. There’s a clue, such as it is, a fact. You +wouldn’t have your painter set free?” +“Now they’ve simply taken him for the murderer. They haven’t a shadow of +doubt.” +“That’s nonsense. You are excited. But what about the ear-rings? You +must admit that, if on the very same day and hour ear-rings from the old +woman’s box have come into Nikolay’s hands, they must have come there +somehow. That’s a good deal in such a case.” +“How did they get there? How did they get there?” cried Razumihin. +“How can you, a doctor, whose duty it is to study man and who has more +opportunity than anyone else for studying human nature--how can you fail +to see the character of the man in the whole story? Don’t you see at +once that the answers he has given in the examination are the holy +truth? They came into his hand precisely as he has told us--he stepped +on the box and picked it up.” +“The holy truth! But didn’t he own himself that he told a lie at first?” +“Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov +and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who +was sitting in the porter’s lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got +out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady on his +arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on +the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his +hair, beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the +thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they ‘like children’ +(the very words of the witnesses) were falling over one another, +squealing, fighting and laughing with the funniest faces, and, chasing +one another like children, they ran into the street. Now take careful +note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you understand, warm when they +found them! If they, or Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken open +the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you one +question: do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and childish +scuffling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish cunning, +robbery? They’d just killed them, not five or ten minutes before, for +the bodies were still warm, and at once, leaving the flat open, knowing +that people would go there at once, flinging away their booty, they +rolled about like children, laughing and attracting general attention. +And there are a dozen witnesses to swear to that!” +“Of course it is strange! It’s impossible, indeed, but...” +“No, brother, no _buts_. And if the ear-rings being found in Nikolay’s +hands at the very day and hour of the murder constitutes an important +piece of circumstantial evidence against him--although the explanation +given by him accounts for it, and therefore it does not tell seriously +against him--one must take into consideration the facts which prove him +innocent, especially as they are facts that _cannot be denied_. And +do you suppose, from the character of our legal system, that they will +accept, or that they are in a position to accept, this fact--resting +simply on a psychological impossibility--as irrefutable and conclusively +breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution? No, they +won’t accept it, they certainly won’t, because they found the jewel-case +and the man tried to hang himself, ‘which he could not have done if he +hadn’t felt guilty.’ That’s the point, that’s what excites me, you must +understand!” +“Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to ask you; what proof +is there that the box came from the old woman?” +“That’s been proved,” said Razumihin with apparent reluctance, frowning. +“Koch recognised the jewel-case and gave the name of the owner, who +proved conclusively that it was his.” +“That’s bad. Now another point. Did anyone see Nikolay at the time +that Koch and Pestryakov were going upstairs at first, and is there no +evidence about that?” +“Nobody did see him,” Razumihin answered with vexation. “That’s the +worst of it. Even Koch and Pestryakov did not notice them on their way +upstairs, though, indeed, their evidence could not have been worth much. +They said they saw the flat was open, and that there must be work going +on in it, but they took no special notice and could not remember whether +there actually were men at work in it.” +“Hm!... So the only evidence for the defence is that they were beating +one another and laughing. That constitutes a strong presumption, but... +How do you explain the facts yourself?” +“How do I explain them? What is there to explain? It’s clear. At any +rate, the direction in which explanation is to be sought is clear, and +the jewel-case points to it. The real murderer dropped those ear-rings. +The murderer was upstairs, locked in, when Koch and Pestryakov knocked +at the door. Koch, like an ass, did not stay at the door; so the +murderer popped out and ran down, too; for he had no other way of +escape. He hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the flat when +Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of it. He stopped there while the +porter and others were going upstairs, waited till they were out of +hearing, and then went calmly downstairs at the very minute when Dmitri +and Nikolay ran out into the street and there was no one in the entry; +possibly he was seen, but not noticed. There are lots of people going +in and out. He must have dropped the ear-rings out of his pocket when +he stood behind the door, and did not notice he dropped them, because he +had other things to think of. The jewel-case is a conclusive proof that +he did stand there.... That’s how I explain it.” +“Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That beats everything.” +“But, why, why?” +“Why, because everything fits too well... it’s too melodramatic.” +“A-ach!” Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment the door opened +and a personage came in who was a stranger to all present. +CHAPTER V +This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly appearance, +and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by stopping short in the +doorway, staring about him with offensive and undisguised astonishment, +as though asking himself what sort of place he had come to. +Mistrustfully and with an affectation of being alarmed and almost +affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow “cabin.” With the +same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled, +unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with +the same deliberation he scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and +unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the +face without rising from his seat. A constrained silence lasted for a +couple of minutes, and then, as might be expected, some scene-shifting +took place. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs, +that he would get nothing in this “cabin” by attempting to overawe them, +the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity, +emphasising every syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov: +“Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student?” +Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had not +Razumihin anticipated him. +“Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?” +This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut the ground from the +feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but checked +himself in time and turned to Zossimov again. +“This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he +gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he +lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold +watch in a round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly +and lazily proceeded to put it back. +Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing +persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that +his face was turned away from the strange flower on the paper, it +was extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just +undergone an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But +the new-comer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder, +then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said “This is Raskolnikov” +he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but +weak and breaking, voice articulated: +“Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?” +The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively: +“Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name +is not wholly unknown to you?” +But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed +blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the +name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the first time. +“Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no +information?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted. +In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands +behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into +Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively +than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment. +“I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered, “that a letter posted more +than ten days, if not a fortnight ago...” +“I say, why are you standing in the doorway?” Razumihin interrupted +suddenly. “If you’ve something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so +crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here’s a chair, thread your way in!” +He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the +table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the +visitor to “thread his way in.” The minute was so chosen that it was +impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying +and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at +Razumihin. +“No need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out. “Rodya has been ill for +the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and +has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him. +I am a comrade of Rodya’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am +nursing him; so don’t you take any notice of us, but go on with your +business.” +“Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and +conversation?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov. +“N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse him.” He yawned again. +“He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,” went on +Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-nature +that Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps, +because this shabby and impudent person had introduced himself as a +student. +“Your mamma,” began Luzhin. +“Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him +inquiringly. +“That’s all right, go on.” +Luzhin shrugged his shoulders. +“Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in +her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to +elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully +assured that you were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my +astonishment...” +“I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation. +“So you are the _fiancé_? I know, and that’s enough!” +There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being offended this time, +but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all +meant. There was a moment’s silence. +Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he +answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as +though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something +new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at +him. There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole +appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of “fiancé” so +unceremoniously applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far +too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few +days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation +of his betrothed--a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding, +indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the +agreeable improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such +circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the rôle of +fiancé. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor’s and were all +right, except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even +the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch +treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The +exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale, +if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying them in +his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in Pyotr +Petrovitch’s attire. He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn shade, +light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and fine linen, a +cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best +of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh and even +handsome face looked younger than his forty-five years at all times. +His dark, mutton-chop whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides, +growing thickly upon his shining, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair, +touched here and there with grey, though it had been combed and curled +at a hairdresser’s, did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair +usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his wedding-day. +If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in his rather +good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other +causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov smiled +malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as +before. +But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no +notice of their oddities. +“I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation,” he began, +again breaking the silence with an effort. “If I had been aware of your +illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I +have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention +other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your +mamma and sister any minute.” +Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face showed +some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing +followed, he went on: +“... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival.” +“Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly. +“Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.” +“That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumihin. “There are two storeys of +rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve been there.” +“Yes, rooms...” +“A disgusting place--filthy, stinking and, what’s more, of doubtful +character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer +people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It’s +cheap, though...” +“I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am a stranger +in Petersburg myself,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied huffily. “However, the +two rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time... +I have already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat,” he said, +addressing Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am +myself cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch +Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel; it was he who told me +of Bakaleyev’s house, too...” +“Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something. +“Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you +know him?” +“Yes... no,” Raskolnikov answered. +“Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian.... +A very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people: one +learns new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all. +“How do you mean?” asked Razumihin. +“In the most serious and essential matters,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, +as though delighted at the question. “You see, it’s ten years since I +visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in +the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg. +And it’s my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the +younger generation. And I confess I am delighted...” +“At what?” +“Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I find +clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality...” +“That’s true,” Zossimov let drop. +“Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumihin flew at him. +“Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from +heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from +all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to +Pyotr Petrovitch, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish +form, and honesty you may find, although there are crowds of brigands. +Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.” +“I don’t agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident +enjoyment. “Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes, +but one must have indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of +enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If little +has been done, the time has been but short; of means I will not speak. +It’s my personal view, if you care to know, that something has been +accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are +circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors. +Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been +rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves +off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great +thing...” +“He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly. +“What?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words; but he received +no reply. +“That’s all true,” Zossimov hastened to interpose. +“Isn’t it so?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov. +“You must admit,” he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of +triumph and superciliousness--he almost added “young man”--“that there +is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and +economic truth...” +“A commonplace.” +“No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love +thy neighbour,’ what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with +excessive haste. “It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my +neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has +it, ‘Catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells +us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on +self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly +and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private +affairs are organised in society--the more whole coats, so to say--the +firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare +organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for +myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to +pass my neighbour’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not +from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general +advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time +reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it +would seem to want very little wit to perceive it...” +“Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,” Razumihin cut in sharply, +“and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I’ve +grown so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse +oneself, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that, +by Jove, I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a +hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you, +that’s quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you +are, for so many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive +cause of late and have so distorted in their own interests everything +they touched, that the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That’s +enough!” +“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive +dignity. “Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too...” +“Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that’s enough,” Razumihin +concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous +conversation. +Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He made up +his mind to take leave in another minute or two. +“I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “may, upon +your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are aware, +become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health...” +Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began getting +up from his chair. +“One of her customers must have killed her,” Zossimov declared +positively. +“Not a doubt of it,” replied Razumihin. “Porfiry doesn’t give his +opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges with her there.” +“Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud. +“Yes. What then?” +“Nothing.” +“How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov. +“Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the +wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves.” +“It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The boldness of it! +The coolness!” +“That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumihin. “That’s what throws +you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not +practised, and probably this was his first crime! The supposition that +it was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn’t work. Suppose +him to have been inexperienced, and it’s clear that it was only a chance +that saved him--and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee +obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth +ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets with them, ransacked the +old woman’s trunks, her rags--and they found fifteen hundred roubles, +besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know +how to rob; he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure you, +his first crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good +counsel!” +“You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?” Pyotr +Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves +in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more +intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favourable +impression and his vanity overcame his prudence. +“Yes. You’ve heard of it?” +“Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.” +“Do you know the details?” +“I can’t say that; but another circumstance interests me in the +case--the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime +has been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last +five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere, +what strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes, +too, crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a +student’s robbing the mail on the high road; in another place people of +good social position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole +gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of +the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary +abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old +woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class +in society--for peasants don’t pawn gold trinkets--how are we to explain +this demoralisation of the civilised part of our society?” +“There are many economic changes,” put in Zossimov. +“How are we to explain it?” Razumihin caught him up. “It might be +explained by our inveterate impracticality.” +“How do you mean?” +“What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he +was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I +want to make haste to get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words, +but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or +working! We’ve grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking +on crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour +struck,[*] and every man showed himself in his true colours.” +[*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant. +--TRANSLATOR’S NOTE. +“But morality? And so to speak, principles...” +“But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. “It’s +in accordance with your theory!” +“In accordance with my theory?” +“Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, and +it follows that people may be killed...” +“Upon my word!” cried Luzhin. +“No, that’s not so,” put in Zossimov. +Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing +painfully. +“There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin went on superciliously. +“Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to +suppose...” +“And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a +voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, “is it true that +you told your _fiancée_... within an hour of her acceptance, that what +pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better +to raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over +her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?” +“Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with +confusion, “to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to +assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say, +has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect +who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed +to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat +high-flown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles +from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in +so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed...” +“I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and +fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.” +“What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face. +Silence lasted for some seconds. +“Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my +mother... I shall send you flying downstairs!” +“What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin. +“So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell +you, sir,” he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself +but breathing hard, “at the first moment I saw you you were ill-disposed +to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive +a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after +this...” +“I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov. +“So much the worse...” +“Go to hell!” +But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing +between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him +pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who +had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone, +he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid +crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of +his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received. +“How could you--how could you!” Razumihin said, shaking his head in +perplexity. +“Let me alone--let me alone all of you!” Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy. +“Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am +not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone, +alone, alone!” +“Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin. +“But we can’t leave him like this!” +“Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin +thought a minute and ran to overtake him. +“It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He +mustn’t be irritated.” +“What’s the matter with him?” +“If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what would do it! At +first he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind! Some +fixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so; he must have!” +“Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation +I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a +letter about it just before his illness....” +“Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have +you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to +anything except one point on which he seems excited--that’s the murder?” +“Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested, +frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police +office; he fainted.” +“Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something +afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I’ll go and see +him again.... There’ll be no inflammation though.” +“Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him +through Nastasya....” +Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya, +but she still lingered. +“Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked. +“Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.” +He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out. +CHAPTER VI +But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the +parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up again +and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to have become +perfectly calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic +fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange +sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite; a firm purpose was +evident in them. “To-day, to-day,” he muttered to himself. He understood +that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him +strength and self-confidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not +fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he +looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment’s thought +put it in his pocket. It was twenty-five roubles. He took also all the +copper change from the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes. +Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and +glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing with her back +to him, blowing up the landlady’s samovar. She heard nothing. Who would +have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A minute later he was in the +street. +It was nearly eight o’clock, the sun was setting. It was as stifling as +before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head +felt rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his +feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and +did not think where he was going, he had one thought only: “that all +_this_ must be ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would +not return home without it, because he _would not go on living like +that_.” How, with what to make an end? He had not an idea about it, +he did not even want to think of it. He drove away thought; thought +tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be +changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable +self-confidence and determination. +From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay +Market. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in +the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very +sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fifteen, who stood +on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a +mantle and a straw hat with a flame-coloured feather in it, all very +old and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and +coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from +the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five +copeck piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off abruptly on a +sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder “Come on,” +and both moved on to the next shop. +“Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged +man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering. +“I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his +manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject--“I like it +on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings--they must be damp--when all the +passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet +snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind--you know what I +mean?--and the street lamps shine through it...” +“I don’t know.... Excuse me...” muttered the stranger, frightened by the +question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the +other side of the street. +Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay +Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but +they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked round +and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a +corn chandler’s shop. +“Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?” +“All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered the young man, glancing +superciliously at Raskolnikov. +“What’s his name?” +“What he was christened.” +“Aren’t you a Zaraïsky man, too? Which province?” +The young man looked at Raskolnikov again. +“It’s not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously +forgive me, your excellency!” +“Is that a tavern at the top there?” +“Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-room and you’ll find +princesses there too.... La-la!” +Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd +of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking +at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into +conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they +were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and +took a turning to the right in the direction of V. +He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading +from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn +to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might +feel more so. +Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a great +block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eating-houses; +women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and in their +indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement, +especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in +the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the +tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. +A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the +steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken +soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road, +swearing; he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had +forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man dead +drunk was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of +women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore +cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some +not more than seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes. +He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and +uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing +frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar +and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, +gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping +inquisitively in from the pavement. +“Oh, my handsome soldier +Don’t beat me for nothing,” +trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to +make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that. +“Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get +drunk?” +“Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was +still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not +repulsive--the only one of the group. +“Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her. +She smiled, much pleased at the compliment. +“You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said. +“Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass. “Have you +just come out of a hospital?” +“They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub +noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing +a loose coat. “See how jolly they are.” +“Go along with you!” +“I’ll go, sweetie!” +And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on. +“I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him. +“What is it?” +She hesitated. +“I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but +now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young +man!” +Raskolnikov gave her what came first--fifteen copecks. +“Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!” +“What’s your name?” +“Ask for Duclida.” +“Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head +at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should +drop with shame....” +Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench +of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made +her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought Raskolnikov. +“Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, +an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, +on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, +everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around +him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his +life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die +at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... +How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile +is he who calls him vile for that,” he added a moment later. +He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin +was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it +I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he’d read it in the +papers. Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and +positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were, +however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a +room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov +fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that +distance. “What if it is?” he thought. +“Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter. +“Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last +five days, and I’ll give you something.” +“Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?” +The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and +began to look through them. +“Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a +staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire +in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the +Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter.... +Ah, here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to +read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began +eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands +shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone +sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk +Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the +watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the +smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good +humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. His dark +face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk. +“What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d known +him all his life. “Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were +unconscious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to see you?” +Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and +turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of +irritable impatience was apparent in that smile. +“I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You looked for my +sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says +you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s--you know, the woman you tried +to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he +would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to +understand--it was quite clear, wasn’t it?” +“What a hot head he is!” +“The explosive one?” +“No, your friend Razumihin.” +“You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most +agreeable places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?” +“We’ve just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring +it into me!” +“By way of a fee! You profit by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s +all right, my dear boy,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I +am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that +workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of +the old woman....” +“How do you know about it?” +“Perhaps I know more about it than you do.” +“How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You +oughtn’t to have come out.” +“Oh, do I seem strange to you?” +“Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?” +“Yes.” +“There’s a lot about the fires.” +“No, I am not reading about the fires.” Here he looked mysteriously at +Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not +reading about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess +now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anxious to know what I am reading +about?” +“I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep +on...?” +“Listen, you are a man of culture and education?” +“I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some +dignity. +“Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings--you +are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!” Here Raskolnikov +broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The latter drew +back, more amazed than offended. +“Foo! how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t +help thinking you are still delirious.” +“I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You +find me curious, do you?” +“Yes, curious.” +“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See +what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?” +“Well, what is it?” +“You prick up your ears?” +“How do you mean--‘prick up my ears’?” +“I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no, +better ‘I confess’... No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition +and you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and +searching....” he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I was searching--and +came here on purpose to do it--for news of the murder of the old +pawnbroker woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing +his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him +steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov +afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for +exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while. +“What if you have been reading about it?” he cried at last, perplexed +and impatient. “That’s no business of mine! What of it?” +“The same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, not +heeding Zametov’s explanation, “about whom you were talking in the +police-office, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you understand +now?” +“What do you mean? Understand... what?” Zametov brought out, almost +alarmed. +Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he +suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though +utterly unable to restrain himself. And in one flash he recalled with +extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that +moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch +trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden +desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at +them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh! +“You are either mad, or...” began Zametov, and he broke off, as though +stunned by the idea that had suddenly flashed into his mind. +“Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!” +“Nothing,” said Zametov, getting angry, “it’s all nonsense!” +Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter Raskolnikov became +suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and +leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten +Zametov. The silence lasted for some time. +“Why don’t you drink your tea? It’s getting cold,” said Zametov. +“What! Tea? Oh, yes....” Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of +bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember +everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment his face +resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea. +“There have been a great many of these crimes lately,” said Zametov. +“Only the other day I read in the _Moscow News_ that a whole gang of +false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society. They +used to forge tickets!” +“Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago,” +Raskolnikov answered calmly. “So you consider them criminals?” he added, +smiling. +“Of course they are criminals.” +“They? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Why, half a hundred +people meeting for such an object--what an idea! Three would be too +many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in +themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all collapses. +Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the notes--what +a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these +simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the +rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his +life! Better hang oneself at once! And they did not know how to change +the notes either; the man who changed the notes took five thousand +roubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the first four thousand, +but did not count the fifth thousand--he was in such a hurry to get the +money into his pocket and run away. Of course he roused suspicion. And +the whole thing came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible?” +“That his hands trembled?” observed Zametov, “yes, that’s quite +possible. That, I feel quite sure, is possible. Sometimes one can’t +stand things.” +“Can’t stand that?” +“Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn’t. For the sake of a hundred +roubles to face such a terrible experience? To go with false notes +into a bank where it’s their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I +should not have the face to do it. Would you?” +Raskolnikov had an intense desire again “to put his tongue out.” Shivers +kept running down his spine. +“I should do it quite differently,” Raskolnikov began. “This is how I +would change the notes: I’d count the first thousand three or four times +backwards and forwards, looking at every note and then I’d set to the +second thousand; I’d count that half-way through and then hold some +fifty-rouble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light +again--to see whether it was a good one. ‘I am afraid,’ I would say, ‘a +relation of mine lost twenty-five roubles the other day through a +false note,’ and then I’d tell them the whole story. And after I began +counting the third, ‘No, excuse me,’ I would say, ‘I fancy I made a +mistake in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.’ +And so I would give up the third thousand and go back to the second and +so on to the end. And when I had finished, I’d pick out one from the +fifth and one from the second thousand and take them again to the light +and ask again, ‘Change them, please,’ and put the clerk into such a stew +that he would not know how to get rid of me. When I’d finished and had +gone out, I’d come back, ‘No, excuse me,’ and ask for some explanation. +That’s how I’d do it.” +“Foo! what terrible things you say!” said Zametov, laughing. “But all +that is only talk. I dare say when it came to deeds you’d make a slip. +I believe that even a practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on +himself, much less you and I. To take an example near home--that old +woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a +desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by +a miracle--but his hands shook, too. He did not succeed in robbing the +place, he couldn’t stand it. That was clear from the...” +Raskolnikov seemed offended. +“Clear? Why don’t you catch him then?” he cried, maliciously gibing at +Zametov. +“Well, they will catch him.” +“Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? You’ve a tough job! A +great point for you is whether a man is spending money or not. If he had +no money and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man. So that any +child can mislead you.” +“The fact is they always do that, though,” answered Zametov. “A man will +commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once he goes +drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all +as cunning as you are. You wouldn’t go to a tavern, of course?” +Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov. +“You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I should +behave in that case, too?” he asked with displeasure. +“I should like to,” Zametov answered firmly and seriously. Somewhat too +much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks. +“Very much?” +“Very much!” +“All right then. This is how I should behave,” Raskolnikov began, again +bringing his face close to Zametov’s, again staring at him and speaking +in a whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. “This is what +I should have done. I should have taken the money and jewels, I should +have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place +with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen garden +or place of that sort. I should have looked out beforehand some stone +weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the corner from +the time the house was built. I would lift that stone--there would sure +to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and money in that +hole. Then I’d roll the stone back so that it would look as before, +would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year or two, +three maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could search! There’d +be no trace.” +“You are a madman,” said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a +whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He +had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering. +He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move +without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he +was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on +his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break +out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out. +“And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” he said +suddenly and--realised what he had done. +Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His +face wore a contorted smile. +“But is it possible?” he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked +wrathfully at him. +“Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?” +“Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now,” Zametov cried +hastily. +“I’ve caught my cock-sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you +believe less than ever?” +“Not at all,” cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. “Have you been +frightening me so as to lead up to this?” +“You don’t believe it then? What were you talking about behind my +back when I went out of the police-office? And why did the explosive +lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there,” he shouted to the +waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?” +“Thirty copecks,” the latter replied, running up. +“And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!” he +held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and +blue, twenty-five roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new +clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You’ve cross-examined my +landlady, I’ll be bound.... Well, that’s enough! _Assez causé!_ Till we +meet again!” +He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical +sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he +was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as after a fit. +His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation +stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as +quickly when the stimulus was removed. +Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in +thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on +a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively. +“Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead,” he decided. +Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he +stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other +till they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood +looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded, then +anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes. +“So here you are!” he shouted at the top of his voice--“you ran away +from your bed! And here I’ve been looking for you under the sofa! We +went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account. And here +he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole +truth! Confess! Do you hear?” +“It means that I’m sick to death of you all and I want to be alone,” +Raskolnikov answered calmly. +“Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a +sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot!... What have you been doing +in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once!” +“Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much +for Razumihin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder. +“Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I’ll do +with you directly? I’ll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you +home under my arm and lock you up!” +“Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm--“can’t +you see that I don’t want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to +shower benefits on a man who... curses them, who feels them a burden in +fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I +was very glad to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that +you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to +torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my +recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov +went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for +goodness’ sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don’t +you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can +I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be +ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! +Let me be, let me be!” +He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was +about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had +been with Luzhin. +Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop. +“Well, go to hell then,” he said gently and thoughtfully. “Stay,” he +roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. “Listen to me. Let me tell +you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve any +little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are +plagiarists even in that! There isn’t a sign of independent life in +you! You are made of spermaceti ointment and you’ve lymph in your veins +instead of blood. I don’t believe in anyone of you! In any circumstances +the first thing for all of you is to be unlike a human being! Stop!” he +cried with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making +a movement--“hear me out! You know I’m having a house-warming this +evening, I dare say they’ve arrived by now, but I left my uncle there--I +just ran in--to receive the guests. And if you weren’t a fool, a common +fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation... +you see, Rodya, I recognise you’re a clever fellow, but you’re a +fool!--and if you weren’t a fool you’d come round to me this evening +instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since you have gone +out, there’s no help for it! I’d give you a snug easy chair, my landlady +has one... a cup of tea, company.... Or you could lie on the sofa--any +way you would be with us.... Zossimov will be there too. Will you come?” +“No.” +“R-rubbish!” Razumihin shouted, out of patience. “How do you know? +You can’t answer for yourself! You don’t know anything about it.... +Thousands of times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run back +to them afterwards.... One feels ashamed and goes back to a man! So +remember, Potchinkov’s house on the third storey....” +“Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you’d let anybody beat you from sheer +benevolence.” +“Beat? Whom? Me? I’d twist his nose off at the mere idea! Potchinkov’s +house, 47, Babushkin’s flat....” +“I shall not come, Razumihin.” Raskolnikov turned and walked away. +“I bet you will,” Razumihin shouted after him. “I refuse to know you if +you don’t! Stay, hey, is Zametov in there?” +“Yes.” +“Did you see him?” +“Yes.” +“Talked to him?” +“Yes.” +“What about? Confound you, don’t tell me then. Potchinkov’s house, 47, +Babushkin’s flat, remember!” +Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street. +Razumihin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand he +went into the house but stopped short of the stairs. +“Confound it,” he went on almost aloud. “He talked sensibly but yet... +I am a fool! As if madmen didn’t talk sensibly! And this was just what +Zossimov seemed afraid of.” He struck his finger on his forehead. “What +if... how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself.... Ach, +what a blunder! I can’t.” And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but +there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned with rapid steps to +the Palais de Cristal to question Zametov. +Raskolnikov walked straight to X---- Bridge, stood in the middle, and +leaning both elbows on the rail stared into the distance. On parting +with Razumihin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach this +place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Bending +over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink flush of the +sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at +one distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as though on fire in +the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal, +and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles flashed +before his eyes, the houses seemed moving, the passers-by, the canal +banks, the carriages, all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started, +saved again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and hideous sight. He +became aware of someone standing on the right side of him; he looked +and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow, +wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but +obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her +right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then +her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and +swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning +woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head +and legs in the water, her skirt inflated like a balloon over her back. +“A woman drowning! A woman drowning!” shouted dozens of voices; people +ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people +crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him. +“Mercy on it! it’s our Afrosinya!” a woman cried tearfully close by. +“Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out!” +“A boat, a boat” was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a +boat; a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his great +coat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her: +she floated within a couple of yards from the steps, he caught hold of +her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a +comrade held out to him; the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They +laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon recovered +consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing and coughing, +stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing. +“She’s drunk herself out of her senses,” the same woman’s voice wailed +at her side. “Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang +herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little +girl to look after her--and here she’s in trouble again! A neighbour, +gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the end, +see yonder....” +The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman, someone +mentioned the police station.... Raskolnikov looked on with a strange +sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. “No, that’s +loathsome... water... it’s not good enough,” he muttered to himself. +“Nothing will come of it,” he added, “no use to wait. What about the +police office...? And why isn’t Zametov at the police office? The police +office is open till ten o’clock....” He turned his back to the railing +and looked about him. +“Very well then!” he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and +walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and +empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there +was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out “to make an +end of it all.” Complete apathy had succeeded to it. +“Well, it’s a way out of it,” he thought, walking slowly and listlessly +along the canal bank. “Anyway I’ll make an end, for I want to.... But +is it a way out? What does it matter! There’ll be the square yard of +space--ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or +not? Ah... damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie +down soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don’t +care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one’s head.” +To reach the police office he had to go straight forward and take the +second turning to the left. It was only a few paces away. But at the +first turning he stopped and, after a minute’s thought, turned into a +side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any +object, or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking +at the ground; suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear; he lifted +his head and saw that he was standing at the very gate of _the_ house. +He had not passed it, he had not been near it since _that_ evening. +An overwhelming, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went into the +house, passed through the gateway, then into the first entrance on the +right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth storey. +The narrow, steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each landing +and looked round him with curiosity; on the first landing the framework +of the window had been taken out. “That wasn’t so then,” he thought. +Here was the flat on the second storey where Nikolay and Dmitri had been +working. “It’s shut up and the door newly painted. So it’s to let.” Then +the third storey and the fourth. “Here!” He was perplexed to find the +door of the flat wide open. There were men there, he could hear voices; +he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he mounted the last +stairs and went into the flat. It, too, was being done up; there were +workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he somehow fancied that he +would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the +same places on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed +strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the window-sill. There +were two workmen, both young fellows, but one much younger than the +other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with +lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow one. Raskolnikov for +some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper +with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it all so changed. +The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time and now they were +hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to go home. They took +no notice of Raskolnikov’s coming in; they were talking. Raskolnikov +folded his arms and listened. +“She comes to me in the morning,” said the elder to the younger, “very +early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you preening and prinking?’ says I. ‘I +am ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!’ That’s a way of +going on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!” +“And what is a fashion book?” the younger one asked. He obviously +regarded the other as an authority. +“A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the +tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how +to dress, the male sex as well as the female. They’re pictures. The +gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies’ fluffles, +they’re beyond anything you can fancy.” +“There’s nothing you can’t find in Petersburg,” the younger cried +enthusiastically, “except father and mother, there’s everything!” +“Except them, there’s everything to be found, my boy,” the elder +declared sententiously. +Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong box, +the bed, and the chest of drawers had been; the room seemed to him very +tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the paper in the +corner showed where the case of ikons had stood. He looked at it and +went to the window. The elder workman looked at him askance. +“What do you want?” he asked suddenly. +Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled the +bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and +a third time; he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonisingly +fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more +vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more +satisfaction. +“Well, what do you want? Who are you?” the workman shouted, going out to +him. Raskolnikov went inside again. +“I want to take a flat,” he said. “I am looking round.” +“It’s not the time to look at rooms at night! and you ought to come up +with the porter.” +“The floors have been washed, will they be painted?” Raskolnikov went +on. “Is there no blood?” +“What blood?” +“Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a +perfect pool there.” +“But who are you?” the workman cried, uneasy. +“Who am I?” +“Yes.” +“You want to know? Come to the police station, I’ll tell you.” +The workmen looked at him in amazement. +“It’s time for us to go, we are late. Come along, Alyoshka. We must lock +up,” said the elder workman. +“Very well, come along,” said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going +out first, he went slowly downstairs. “Hey, porter,” he cried in the +gateway. +At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passers-by; +the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few others. +Raskolnikov went straight up to them. +“What do you want?” asked one of the porters. +“Have you been to the police office?” +“I’ve just been there. What do you want?” +“Is it open?” +“Of course.” +“Is the assistant there?” +“He was there for a time. What do you want?” +Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought. +“He’s been to look at the flat,” said the elder workman, coming forward. +“Which flat?” +“Where we are at work. ‘Why have you washed away the blood?’ says he. +‘There has been a murder here,’ says he, ‘and I’ve come to take it.’ +And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. ‘Come to the police +station,’ says he. ‘I’ll tell you everything there.’ He wouldn’t leave +us.” +The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed. +“Who are you?” he shouted as impressively as he could. +“I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in +Shil’s house, not far from here, flat Number 14, ask the porter, he +knows me.” Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not +turning round, but looking intently into the darkening street. +“Why have you been to the flat?” +“To look at it.” +“What is there to look at?” +“Take him straight to the police station,” the man in the long coat +jerked in abruptly. +Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the +same slow, lazy tones: +“Come along.” +“Yes, take him,” the man went on more confidently. “Why was he going +into _that_, what’s in his mind, eh?” +“He’s not drunk, but God knows what’s the matter with him,” muttered the +workman. +“But what do you want?” the porter shouted again, beginning to get angry +in earnest--“Why are you hanging about?” +“You funk the police station then?” said Raskolnikov jeeringly. +“How funk it? Why are you hanging about?” +“He’s a rogue!” shouted the peasant woman. +“Why waste time talking to him?” cried the other porter, a huge peasant +in a full open coat and with keys on his belt. “Get along! He is a rogue +and no mistake. Get along!” +And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung him into the street. He +lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators in +silence and walked away. +“Strange man!” observed the workman. +“There are strange folks about nowadays,” said the woman. +“You should have taken him to the police station all the same,” said the +man in the long coat. +“Better have nothing to do with him,” decided the big porter. “A regular +rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take him up, you +won’t get rid of him.... We know the sort!” +“Shall I go there or not?” thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle +of the thoroughfare at the cross-roads, and he looked about him, as +though expecting from someone a decisive word. But no sound came, all +was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to +him alone.... All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards +away, in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts. +In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the +middle of the street. “What is it?” Raskolnikov turned to the right +and went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled +coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to +the police station and knew that it would all soon be over. +CHAPTER VII +An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road with a pair of +spirited grey horses; there was no one in it, and the coachman had got +off his box and stood by; the horses were being held by the bridle.... +A mass of people had gathered round, the police standing in front. One +of them held a lighted lantern which he was turning on something lying +close to the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, exclaiming; the +coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating: +“What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfortune!” +Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could, and succeeded at last +in seeing the object of the commotion and interest. On the ground a +man who had been run over lay apparently unconscious, and covered with +blood; he was very badly dressed, but not like a workman. Blood was +flowing from his head and face; his face was crushed, mutilated and +disfigured. He was evidently badly injured. +“Merciful heaven!” wailed the coachman, “what more could I do? If I’d +been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly, +not in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody +else. A drunken man can’t walk straight, we all know.... I saw him +crossing the street, staggering and almost falling. I shouted again +and a second and a third time, then I held the horses in, but he fell +straight under their feet! Either he did it on purpose or he was very +tipsy.... The horses are young and ready to take fright... they started, +he screamed... that made them worse. That’s how it happened!” +“That’s just how it was,” a voice in the crowd confirmed. +“He shouted, that’s true, he shouted three times,” another voice +declared. +“Three times it was, we all heard it,” shouted a third. +But the coachman was not very much distressed and frightened. It was +evident that the carriage belonged to a rich and important person who +was awaiting it somewhere; the police, of course, were in no little +anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements. All they had to do was to +take the injured man to the police station and the hospital. No one knew +his name. +Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and stooped closer over him. The +lantern suddenly lighted up the unfortunate man’s face. He recognised +him. +“I know him! I know him!” he shouted, pushing to the front. “It’s a +government clerk retired from the service, Marmeladov. He lives close +by in Kozel’s house.... Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see?” He +pulled money out of his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was in +violent agitation. +The police were glad that they had found out who the man was. +Raskolnikov gave his own name and address, and, as earnestly as if it +had been his father, he besought the police to carry the unconscious +Marmeladov to his lodging at once. +“Just here, three houses away,” he said eagerly, “the house belongs to +Kozel, a rich German. He was going home, no doubt drunk. I know him, +he is a drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he has one +daughter.... It will take time to take him to the hospital, and there is +sure to be a doctor in the house. I’ll pay, I’ll pay! At least he will +be looked after at home... they will help him at once. But he’ll die +before you get him to the hospital.” He managed to slip something +unseen into the policeman’s hand. But the thing was straightforward +and legitimate, and in any case help was closer here. They raised the +injured man; people volunteered to help. +Kozel’s house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov walked behind, +carefully holding Marmeladov’s head and showing the way. +“This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head foremost. Turn +round! I’ll pay, I’ll make it worth your while,” he muttered. +Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at every free +moment, walking to and fro in her little room from window to stove and +back again, with her arms folded across her chest, talking to herself +and coughing. Of late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest +girl, Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much she did not +understand, understood very well that her mother needed her, and so +always watched her with her big clever eyes and strove her utmost +to appear to understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little +brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to bed. The boy was +waiting for her to take off his shirt, which had to be washed at night. +He was sitting straight and motionless on a chair, with a silent, +serious face, with his legs stretched out straight before him--heels +together and toes turned out. +He was listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting +perfectly still with pouting lips and wide-open eyes, just as all good +little boys have to sit when they are undressed to go to bed. A little +girl, still younger, dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen, +waiting for her turn. The door on to the stairs was open to relieve +them a little from the clouds of tobacco smoke which floated in from the +other rooms and brought on long terrible fits of coughing in the poor, +consumptive woman. Katerina Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner +during that week and the hectic flush on her face was brighter than +ever. +“You wouldn’t believe, you can’t imagine, Polenka,” she said, walking +about the room, “what a happy luxurious life we had in my papa’s house +and how this drunkard has brought me, and will bring you all, to ruin! +Papa was a civil colonel and only a step from being a governor; so that +everyone who came to see him said, ‘We look upon you, Ivan Mihailovitch, +as our governor!’ When I... when...” she coughed violently, “oh, cursed +life,” she cried, clearing her throat and pressing her hands to her +breast, “when I... when at the last ball... at the marshal’s... +Princess Bezzemelny saw me--who gave me the blessing when your father +and I were married, Polenka--she asked at once ‘Isn’t that the pretty +girl who danced the shawl dance at the breaking-up?’ (You must mend +that tear, you must take your needle and darn it as I showed you, or +to-morrow--cough, cough, cough--he will make the hole bigger,” she +articulated with effort.) “Prince Schegolskoy, a kammerjunker, had just +come from Petersburg then... he danced the mazurka with me and wanted to +make me an offer next day; but I thanked him in flattering expressions +and told him that my heart had long been another’s. That other was your +father, Polya; papa was fearfully angry.... Is the water ready? Give me +the shirt, and the stockings! Lida,” said she to the youngest one, “you +must manage without your chemise to-night... and lay your stockings out +with it... I’ll wash them together.... How is it that drunken vagabond +doesn’t come in? He has worn his shirt till it looks like a dish-clout, +he has torn it to rags! I’d do it all together, so as not to have to +work two nights running! Oh, dear! (Cough, cough, cough, cough!) Again! +What’s this?” she cried, noticing a crowd in the passage and the men, +who were pushing into her room, carrying a burden. “What is it? What are +they bringing? Mercy on us!” +“Where are we to put him?” asked the policeman, looking round when +Marmeladov, unconscious and covered with blood, had been carried in. +“On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his head this way,” +Raskolnikov showed him. +“Run over in the road! Drunk!” someone shouted in the passage. +Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasping for breath. The +children were terrified. Little Lida screamed, rushed to Polenka and +clutched at her, trembling all over. +Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov flew to Katerina Ivanovna. +“For God’s sake be calm, don’t be frightened!” he said, speaking +quickly, “he was crossing the road and was run over by a carriage, don’t +be frightened, he will come to, I told them bring him here... I’ve been +here already, you remember? He will come to; I’ll pay!” +“He’s done it this time!” Katerina Ivanovna cried despairingly and she +rushed to her husband. +Raskolnikov noticed at once that she was not one of those women who +swoon easily. She instantly placed under the luckless man’s head a +pillow, which no one had thought of and began undressing and examining +him. She kept her head, forgetting herself, biting her trembling lips +and stifling the screams which were ready to break from her. +Raskolnikov meanwhile induced someone to run for a doctor. There was a +doctor, it appeared, next door but one. +“I’ve sent for a doctor,” he kept assuring Katerina Ivanovna, “don’t be +uneasy, I’ll pay. Haven’t you water?... and give me a napkin or a towel, +anything, as quick as you can.... He is injured, but not killed, believe +me.... We shall see what the doctor says!” +Katerina Ivanovna ran to the window; there, on a broken chair in the +corner, a large earthenware basin full of water had been stood, in +readiness for washing her children’s and husband’s linen that night. +This washing was done by Katerina Ivanovna at night at least twice a +week, if not oftener. For the family had come to such a pass that they +were practically without change of linen, and Katerina Ivanovna could +not endure uncleanliness and, rather than see dirt in the house, she +preferred to wear herself out at night, working beyond her strength when +the rest were asleep, so as to get the wet linen hung on a line and dry +by the morning. She took up the basin of water at Raskolnikov’s request, +but almost fell down with her burden. But the latter had already +succeeded in finding a towel, wetted it and began washing the blood off +Marmeladov’s face. +Katerina Ivanovna stood by, breathing painfully and pressing her hands +to her breast. She was in need of attention herself. Raskolnikov began +to realise that he might have made a mistake in having the injured man +brought here. The policeman, too, stood in hesitation. +“Polenka,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, “run to Sonia, make haste. If you +don’t find her at home, leave word that her father has been run over +and that she is to come here at once... when she comes in. Run, Polenka! +there, put on the shawl.” +“Run your fastest!” cried the little boy on the chair suddenly, after +which he relapsed into the same dumb rigidity, with round eyes, his +heels thrust forward and his toes spread out. +Meanwhile the room had become so full of people that you couldn’t have +dropped a pin. The policemen left, all except one, who remained for a +time, trying to drive out the people who came in from the stairs. Almost +all Madame Lippevechsel’s lodgers had streamed in from the inner rooms +of the flat; at first they were squeezed together in the doorway, but +afterwards they overflowed into the room. Katerina Ivanovna flew into a +fury. +“You might let him die in peace, at least,” she shouted at the crowd, +“is it a spectacle for you to gape at? With cigarettes! (Cough, cough, +cough!) You might as well keep your hats on.... And there is one in his +hat!... Get away! You should respect the dead, at least!” +Her cough choked her--but her reproaches were not without result. They +evidently stood in some awe of Katerina Ivanovna. The lodgers, one after +another, squeezed back into the doorway with that strange inner feeling +of satisfaction which may be observed in the presence of a sudden +accident, even in those nearest and dearest to the victim, from which +no living man is exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sympathy and +compassion. +Voices outside were heard, however, speaking of the hospital and saying +that they’d no business to make a disturbance here. +“No business to die!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she was rushing to +the door to vent her wrath upon them, but in the doorway came face to +face with Madame Lippevechsel who had only just heard of the accident +and ran in to restore order. She was a particularly quarrelsome and +irresponsible German. +“Ah, my God!” she cried, clasping her hands, “your husband drunken +horses have trampled! To the hospital with him! I am the landlady!” +“Amalia Ludwigovna, I beg you to recollect what you are saying,” +Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (she always took a haughty tone with +the landlady that she might “remember her place” and even now could not +deny herself this satisfaction). “Amalia Ludwigovna...” +“I have you once before told that you to call me Amalia Ludwigovna may +not dare; I am Amalia Ivanovna.” +“You are not Amalia Ivanovna, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and as I am not +one of your despicable flatterers like Mr. Lebeziatnikov, who’s laughing +behind the door at this moment (a laugh and a cry of ‘they are at it +again’ was in fact audible at the door) so I shall always call you +Amalia Ludwigovna, though I fail to understand why you dislike that +name. You can see for yourself what has happened to Semyon Zaharovitch; +he is dying. I beg you to close that door at once and to admit no one. +Let him at least die in peace! Or I warn you the Governor-General, +himself, shall be informed of your conduct to-morrow. The prince knew +me as a girl; he remembers Semyon Zaharovitch well and has often been +a benefactor to him. Everyone knows that Semyon Zaharovitch had many +friends and protectors, whom he abandoned himself from an honourable +pride, knowing his unhappy weakness, but now (she pointed to +Raskolnikov) a generous young man has come to our assistance, who has +wealth and connections and whom Semyon Zaharovitch has known from a +child. You may rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna...” +All this was uttered with extreme rapidity, getting quicker and quicker, +but a cough suddenly cut short Katerina Ivanovna’s eloquence. At that +instant the dying man recovered consciousness and uttered a groan; she +ran to him. The injured man opened his eyes and without recognition or +understanding gazed at Raskolnikov who was bending over him. He drew +deep, slow, painful breaths; blood oozed at the corners of his mouth +and drops of perspiration came out on his forehead. Not recognising +Raskolnikov, he began looking round uneasily. Katerina Ivanovna looked +at him with a sad but stern face, and tears trickled from her eyes. +“My God! His whole chest is crushed! How he is bleeding,” she said +in despair. “We must take off his clothes. Turn a little, Semyon +Zaharovitch, if you can,” she cried to him. +Marmeladov recognised her. +“A priest,” he articulated huskily. +Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head against the window +frame and exclaimed in despair: +“Oh, cursed life!” +“A priest,” the dying man said again after a moment’s silence. +“They’ve gone for him,” Katerina Ivanovna shouted to him, he obeyed her +shout and was silent. With sad and timid eyes he looked for her; she +returned and stood by his pillow. He seemed a little easier but not for +long. +Soon his eyes rested on little Lida, his favourite, who was shaking in +the corner, as though she were in a fit, and staring at him with her +wondering childish eyes. +“A-ah,” he signed towards her uneasily. He wanted to say something. +“What now?” cried Katerina Ivanovna. +“Barefoot, barefoot!” he muttered, indicating with frenzied eyes the +child’s bare feet. +“Be silent,” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, “you know why she is +barefooted.” +“Thank God, the doctor,” exclaimed Raskolnikov, relieved. +The doctor came in, a precise little old man, a German, looking about +him mistrustfully; he went up to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully +felt his head and with the help of Katerina Ivanovna he unbuttoned the +blood-stained shirt, and bared the injured man’s chest. It was gashed, +crushed and fractured, several ribs on the right side were broken. +On the left side, just over the heart, was a large, sinister-looking +yellowish-black bruise--a cruel kick from the horse’s hoof. The doctor +frowned. The policeman told him that he was caught in the wheel and +turned round with it for thirty yards on the road. +“It’s wonderful that he has recovered consciousness,” the doctor +whispered softly to Raskolnikov. +“What do you think of him?” he asked. +“He will die immediately.” +“Is there really no hope?” +“Not the faintest! He is at the last gasp.... His head is badly injured, +too... Hm... I could bleed him if you like, but... it would be useless. +He is bound to die within the next five or ten minutes.” +“Better bleed him then.” +“If you like.... But I warn you it will be perfectly useless.” +At that moment other steps were heard; the crowd in the passage parted, +and the priest, a little, grey old man, appeared in the doorway bearing +the sacrament. A policeman had gone for him at the time of the accident. +The doctor changed places with him, exchanging glances with him. +Raskolnikov begged the doctor to remain a little while. He shrugged his +shoulders and remained. +All stepped back. The confession was soon over. The dying man probably +understood little; he could only utter indistinct broken sounds. +Katerina Ivanovna took little Lida, lifted the boy from the chair, knelt +down in the corner by the stove and made the children kneel in front of +her. The little girl was still trembling; but the boy, kneeling on his +little bare knees, lifted his hand rhythmically, crossing himself with +precision and bowed down, touching the floor with his forehead, which +seemed to afford him especial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit her +lips and held back her tears; she prayed, too, now and then pulling +straight the boy’s shirt, and managed to cover the girl’s bare shoulders +with a kerchief, which she took from the chest without rising from her +knees or ceasing to pray. Meanwhile the door from the inner rooms was +opened inquisitively again. In the passage the crowd of spectators from +all the flats on the staircase grew denser and denser, but they did not +venture beyond the threshold. A single candle-end lighted up the scene. +At that moment Polenka forced her way through the crowd at the door. She +came in panting from running so fast, took off her kerchief, looked for +her mother, went up to her and said, “She’s coming, I met her in the +street.” Her mother made her kneel beside her. +Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the crowd, +and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of want, rags, +death and despair. She, too, was in rags, her attire was all of +the cheapest, but decked out in gutter finery of a special stamp, +unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose. Sonia stopped short in the +doorway and looked about her bewildered, unconscious of everything. +She forgot her fourth-hand, gaudy silk dress, so unseemly here with +its ridiculous long train, and her immense crinoline that filled up the +whole doorway, and her light-coloured shoes, and the parasol she brought +with her, though it was no use at night, and the absurd round straw hat +with its flaring flame-coloured feather. Under this rakishly-tilted hat +was a pale, frightened little face with lips parted and eyes staring in +terror. Sonia was a small thin girl of eighteen with fair hair, rather +pretty, with wonderful blue eyes. She looked intently at the bed and the +priest; she too was out of breath with running. At last whispers, some +words in the crowd probably, reached her. She looked down and took a +step forward into the room, still keeping close to the door. +The service was over. Katerina Ivanovna went up to her husband again. +The priest stepped back and turned to say a few words of admonition and +consolation to Katerina Ivanovna on leaving. +“What am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably, +pointing to the little ones. +“God is merciful; look to the Most High for succour,” the priest began. +“Ach! He is merciful, but not to us.” +“That’s a sin, a sin, madam,” observed the priest, shaking his head. +“And isn’t that a sin?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying +man. +“Perhaps those who have involuntarily caused the accident will agree to +compensate you, at least for the loss of his earnings.” +“You don’t understand!” cried Katerina Ivanovna angrily waving her hand. +“And why should they compensate me? Why, he was drunk and threw himself +under the horses! What earnings? He brought us in nothing but misery. +He drank everything away, the drunkard! He robbed us to get drink, he +wasted their lives and mine for drink! And thank God he’s dying! One +less to keep!” +“You must forgive in the hour of death, that’s a sin, madam, such +feelings are a great sin.” +Katerina Ivanovna was busy with the dying man; she was giving him water, +wiping the blood and sweat from his head, setting his pillow straight, +and had only turned now and then for a moment to address the priest. Now +she flew at him almost in a frenzy. +“Ah, father! That’s words and only words! Forgive! If he’d not been run +over, he’d have come home to-day drunk and his only shirt dirty and +in rags and he’d have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been +sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children’s +and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I +should have been darning them. That’s how I spend my nights!... What’s +the use of talking of forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!” +A terrible hollow cough interrupted her words. She put her handkerchief +to her lips and showed it to the priest, pressing her other hand to her +aching chest. The handkerchief was covered with blood. The priest bowed +his head and said nothing. +Marmeladov was in the last agony; he did not take his eyes off the face +of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending over him again. He kept trying +to say something to her; he began moving his tongue with difficulty and +articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he +wanted to ask her forgiveness, called peremptorily to him: +“Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!” And the sick man +was silent, but at the same instant his wandering eyes strayed to the +doorway and he saw Sonia. +Till then he had not noticed her: she was standing in the shadow in a +corner. +“Who’s that? Who’s that?” he said suddenly in a thick gasping voice, +in agitation, turning his eyes in horror towards the door where his +daughter was standing, and trying to sit up. +“Lie down! Lie do-own!” cried Katerina Ivanovna. +With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping himself on his +elbow. He looked wildly and fixedly for some time on his daughter, as +though not recognising her. He had never seen her before in such attire. +Suddenly he recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation and +gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say good-bye to her dying +father. His face showed intense suffering. +“Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!” he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand +to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on +the floor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on the sofa; but he +was dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained so +without moving. He died in her arms. +“He’s got what he wanted,” Katerina Ivanovna cried, seeing her husband’s +dead body. “Well, what’s to be done now? How am I to bury him! What can +I give them to-morrow to eat?” +Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna. +“Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your husband told me all his +life and circumstances.... Believe me, he spoke of you with passionate +reverence. From that evening, when I learnt how devoted he was to you +all and how he loved and respected you especially, Katerina Ivanovna, +in spite of his unfortunate weakness, from that evening we became +friends.... Allow me now... to do something... to repay my debt to my +dead friend. Here are twenty roubles, I think--and if that can be of any +assistance to you, then... I... in short, I will come again, I will +be sure to come again... I shall, perhaps, come again to-morrow.... +Good-bye!” +And he went quickly out of the room, squeezing his way through the crowd +to the stairs. But in the crowd he suddenly jostled against Nikodim +Fomitch, who had heard of the accident and had come to give instructions +in person. They had not met since the scene at the police station, but +Nikodim Fomitch knew him instantly. +“Ah, is that you?” he asked him. +“He’s dead,” answered Raskolnikov. “The doctor and the priest have been, +all as it should have been. Don’t worry the poor woman too much, she is +in consumption as it is. Try and cheer her up, if possible... you are a +kind-hearted man, I know...” he added with a smile, looking straight in +his face. +“But you are spattered with blood,” observed Nikodim Fomitch, noticing +in the lamplight some fresh stains on Raskolnikov’s waistcoat. +“Yes... I’m covered with blood,” Raskolnikov said with a peculiar air; +then he smiled, nodded and went downstairs. +He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious +of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation of life and +strength that surged up suddenly within him. This sensation might be +compared to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly been +pardoned. Halfway down the staircase he was overtaken by the priest on +his way home; Raskolnikov let him pass, exchanging a silent greeting +with him. He was just descending the last steps when he heard rapid +footsteps behind him. Someone overtook him; it was Polenka. She was +running after him, calling “Wait! wait!” +He turned round. She was at the bottom of the staircase and stopped +short a step above him. A dim light came in from the yard. Raskolnikov +could distinguish the child’s thin but pretty little face, looking at +him with a bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message +which she was evidently glad to give. +“Tell me, what is your name?... and where do you live?” she said +hurriedly in a breathless voice. +He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a sort of +rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at her, he could not have said +why. +“Who sent you?” +“Sister Sonia sent me,” answered the girl, smiling still more brightly. +“I knew it was sister Sonia sent you.” +“Mamma sent me, too... when sister Sonia was sending me, mamma came up, +too, and said ‘Run fast, Polenka.’” +“Do you love sister Sonia?” +“I love her more than anyone,” Polenka answered with a peculiar +earnestness, and her smile became graver. +“And will you love me?” +By way of answer he saw the little girl’s face approaching him, her full +lips naïvely held out to kiss him. Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks +held him tightly, her head rested on his shoulder and the little girl +wept softly, pressing her face against him. +“I am sorry for father,” she said a moment later, raising her +tear-stained face and brushing away the tears with her hands. “It’s +nothing but misfortunes now,” she added suddenly with that peculiarly +sedate air which children try hard to assume when they want to speak +like grown-up people. +“Did your father love you?” +“He loved Lida most,” she went on very seriously without a smile, +exactly like grown-up people, “he loved her because she is little and +because she is ill, too. And he always used to bring her presents. But +he taught us to read and me grammar and scripture, too,” she added with +dignity. “And mother never used to say anything, but we knew that she +liked it and father knew it, too. And mother wants to teach me French, +for it’s time my education began.” +“And do you know your prayers?” +“Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my prayers to myself +as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and Lida say them aloud with mother. +First they repeat the ‘Ave Maria’ and then another prayer: ‘Lord, +forgive and bless sister Sonia,’ and then another, ‘Lord, forgive and +bless our second father.’ For our elder father is dead and this is +another one, but we do pray for the other as well.” +“Polenka, my name is Rodion. Pray sometimes for me, too. ‘And Thy +servant Rodion,’ nothing more.” +“I’ll pray for you all the rest of my life,” the little girl declared +hotly, and suddenly smiling again she rushed at him and hugged him +warmly once more. +Raskolnikov told her his name and address and promised to be sure to +come next day. The child went away quite enchanted with him. It was past +ten when he came out into the street. In five minutes he was standing on +the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped in. +“Enough,” he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. “I’ve done with +fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! haven’t I lived +just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of +Heaven to her--and now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now for the +reign of reason and light... and of will, and of strength... and now +we will see! We will try our strength!” he added defiantly, as though +challenging some power of darkness. “And I was ready to consent to live +in a square of space! +“I am very weak at this moment, but... I believe my illness is all over. +I knew it would be over when I went out. By the way, Potchinkov’s house +is only a few steps away. I certainly must go to Razumihin even if +it were not close by... let him win his bet! Let us give him some +satisfaction, too--no matter! Strength, strength is what one wants, you +can get nothing without it, and strength must be won by strength--that’s +what they don’t know,” he added proudly and self-confidently and +he walked with flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and +self-confidence grew continually stronger in him; he was becoming +a different man every moment. What was it had happened to work this +revolution in him? He did not know himself; like a man catching at a +straw, he suddenly felt that he, too, ‘could live, that there was still +life for him, that his life had not died with the old woman.’ Perhaps he +was in too great a hurry with his conclusions, but he did not think of +that. +“But I did ask her to remember ‘Thy servant Rodion’ in her prayers,” the +idea struck him. “Well, that was... in case of emergency,” he added and +laughed himself at his boyish sally. He was in the best of spirits. +He easily found Razumihin; the new lodger was already known at +Potchinkov’s and the porter at once showed him the way. Half-way +upstairs he could hear the noise and animated conversation of a big +gathering of people. The door was wide open on the stairs; he could +hear exclamations and discussion. Razumihin’s room was fairly large; the +company consisted of fifteen people. Raskolnikov stopped in the entry, +where two of the landlady’s servants were busy behind a screen with two +samovars, bottles, plates and dishes of pie and savouries, brought up +from the landlady’s kitchen. Raskolnikov sent in for Razumihin. He ran +out delighted. At the first glance it was apparent that he had had a +great deal to drink and, though no amount of liquor made Razumihin quite +drunk, this time he was perceptibly affected by it. +“Listen,” Raskolnikov hastened to say, “I’ve only just come to tell you +you’ve won your bet and that no one really knows what may not happen to +him. I can’t come in; I am so weak that I shall fall down directly. And +so good evening and good-bye! Come and see me to-morrow.” +“Do you know what? I’ll see you home. If you say you’re weak yourself, +you must...” +“And your visitors? Who is the curly-headed one who has just peeped +out?” +“He? Goodness only knows! Some friend of uncle’s, I expect, or perhaps +he has come without being invited... I’ll leave uncle with them, he +is an invaluable person, pity I can’t introduce you to him now. But +confound them all now! They won’t notice me, and I need a little fresh +air, for you’ve come just in the nick of time--another two minutes and I +should have come to blows! They are talking such a lot of wild stuff... +you simply can’t imagine what men will say! Though why shouldn’t you +imagine? Don’t we talk nonsense ourselves? And let them... that’s the +way to learn not to!... Wait a minute, I’ll fetch Zossimov.” +Zossimov pounced upon Raskolnikov almost greedily; he showed a special +interest in him; soon his face brightened. +“You must go to bed at once,” he pronounced, examining the patient as +far as he could, “and take something for the night. Will you take it? I +got it ready some time ago... a powder.” +“Two, if you like,” answered Raskolnikov. The powder was taken at once. +“It’s a good thing you are taking him home,” observed Zossimov to +Razumihin--“we shall see how he is to-morrow, to-day he’s not at all +amiss--a considerable change since the afternoon. Live and learn...” +“Do you know what Zossimov whispered to me when we were coming out?” +Razumihin blurted out, as soon as they were in the street. “I won’t tell +you everything, brother, because they are such fools. Zossimov told me +to talk freely to you on the way and get you to talk freely to me, and +afterwards I am to tell him about it, for he’s got a notion in his head +that you are... mad or close on it. Only fancy! In the first place, +you’ve three times the brains he has; in the second, if you are not mad, +you needn’t care a hang that he has got such a wild idea; and thirdly, +that piece of beef whose specialty is surgery has gone mad on mental +diseases, and what’s brought him to this conclusion about you was your +conversation to-day with Zametov.” +“Zametov told you all about it?��� +“Yes, and he did well. Now I understand what it all means and so does +Zametov.... Well, the fact is, Rodya... the point is... I am a little +drunk now.... But that’s... no matter... the point is that this +idea... you understand? was just being hatched in their brains... you +understand? That is, no one ventured to say it aloud, because the idea +is too absurd and especially since the arrest of that painter, that +bubble’s burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave +Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the time--that’s between ourselves, +brother; please don’t let out a hint that you know of it; I’ve noticed +he is a ticklish subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna’s. But to-day, to-day +it’s all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He +took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed +of it himself now; I know that...” +Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumihin was drunk enough to talk too +freely. +“I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of paint,” said +Raskolnikov. +“No need to explain that! And it wasn’t the paint only: the fever had +been coming on for a month; Zossimov testifies to that! But how crushed +that boy is now, you wouldn’t believe! ‘I am not worth his little +finger,’ he says. Yours, he means. He has good feelings at times, +brother. But the lesson, the lesson you gave him to-day in the Palais +de Cristal, that was too good for anything! You frightened him at first, +you know, he nearly went into convulsions! You almost convinced +him again of the truth of all that hideous nonsense, and then you +suddenly--put out your tongue at him: ‘There now, what do you make of +it?’ It was perfect! He is crushed, annihilated now! It was masterly, by +Jove, it’s what they deserve! Ah, that I wasn’t there! He was hoping to +see you awfully. Porfiry, too, wants to make your acquaintance...” +“Ah!... he too... but why did they put me down as mad?” +“Oh, not mad. I must have said too much, brother.... What struck him, +you see, was that only that subject seemed to interest you; now it’s +clear why it did interest you; knowing all the circumstances... and +how that irritated you and worked in with your illness... I am a little +drunk, brother, only, confound him, he has some idea of his own... I +tell you, he’s mad on mental diseases. But don’t you mind him...” +For half a minute both were silent. +“Listen, Razumihin,” began Raskolnikov, “I want to tell you plainly: +I’ve just been at a death-bed, a clerk who died... I gave them all my +money... and besides I’ve just been kissed by someone who, if I had +killed anyone, would just the same... in fact I saw someone else +there... with a flame-coloured feather... but I am talking nonsense; I +am very weak, support me... we shall be at the stairs directly...” +“What’s the matter? What’s the matter with you?” Razumihin asked +anxiously. +“I am a little giddy, but that’s not the point, I am so sad, so sad... +like a woman. Look, what’s that? Look, look!” +“What is it?” +“Don’t you see? A light in my room, you see? Through the crack...” +They were already at the foot of the last flight of stairs, at the level +of the landlady’s door, and they could, as a fact, see from below that +there was a light in Raskolnikov’s garret. +“Queer! Nastasya, perhaps,” observed Razumihin. +“She is never in my room at this time and she must be in bed long ago, +but... I don’t care! Good-bye!” +“What do you mean? I am coming with you, we’ll come in together!” +“I know we are going in together, but I want to shake hands here and say +good-bye to you here. So give me your hand, good-bye!” +“What’s the matter with you, Rodya?” +“Nothing... come along... you shall be witness.” +They began mounting the stairs, and the idea struck Razumihin that +perhaps Zossimov might be right after all. “Ah, I’ve upset him with my +chatter!” he muttered to himself. +When they reached the door they heard voices in the room. +“What is it?” cried Razumihin. Raskolnikov was the first to open the +door; he flung it wide and stood still in the doorway, dumbfoundered. +His mother and sister were sitting on his sofa and had been waiting an +hour and a half for him. Why had he never expected, never thought of +them, though the news that they had started, were on their way and would +arrive immediately, had been repeated to him only that day? They had +spent that hour and a half plying Nastasya with questions. She was +standing before them and had told them everything by now. They were +beside themselves with alarm when they heard of his “running away” +to-day, ill and, as they understood from her story, delirious! “Good +Heavens, what had become of him?” Both had been weeping, both had been +in anguish for that hour and a half. +A cry of joy, of ecstasy, greeted Raskolnikov’s entrance. Both rushed to +him. But he stood like one dead; a sudden intolerable sensation struck +him like a thunderbolt. He did not lift his arms to embrace them, he +could not. His mother and sister clasped him in their arms, kissed him, +laughed and cried. He took a step, tottered and fell to the ground, +fainting. +Anxiety, cries of horror, moans... Razumihin who was standing in the +doorway flew into the room, seized the sick man in his strong arms and +in a moment had him on the sofa. +“It’s nothing, nothing!” he cried to the mother and sister--“it’s only a +faint, a mere trifle! Only just now the doctor said he was much better, +that he is perfectly well! Water! See, he is coming to himself, he is +all right again!” +And seizing Dounia by the arm so that he almost dislocated it, he made +her bend down to see that “he is all right again.” The mother and sister +looked on him with emotion and gratitude, as their Providence. They +had heard already from Nastasya all that had been done for their Rodya +during his illness, by this “very competent young man,” as Pulcheria +Alexandrovna Raskolnikov called him that evening in conversation with +Dounia. +PART III +CHAPTER I +Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He waved his hand weakly +to Razumihin to cut short the flow of warm and incoherent consolations +he was addressing to his mother and sister, took them both by the hand +and for a minute or two gazed from one to the other without speaking. +His mother was alarmed by his expression. It revealed an emotion +agonisingly poignant, and at the same time something immovable, almost +insane. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry. +Avdotya Romanovna was pale; her hand trembled in her brother’s. +“Go home... with him,” he said in a broken voice, pointing to Razumihin, +“good-bye till to-morrow; to-morrow everything... Is it long since you +arrived?” +“This evening, Rodya,” answered Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “the train was +awfully late. But, Rodya, nothing would induce me to leave you now! I +will spend the night here, near you...” +“Don’t torture me!” he said with a gesture of irritation. +“I will stay with him,” cried Razumihin, “I won’t leave him for a +moment. Bother all my visitors! Let them rage to their hearts’ content! +My uncle is presiding there.” +“How, how can I thank you!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning, once +more pressing Razumihin’s hands, but Raskolnikov interrupted her again. +“I can’t have it! I can’t have it!” he repeated irritably, “don’t worry +me! Enough, go away... I can’t stand it!” +“Come, mamma, come out of the room at least for a minute,” Dounia +whispered in dismay; “we are distressing him, that’s evident.” +“Mayn’t I look at him after three years?” wept Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“Stay,” he stopped them again, “you keep interrupting me, and my ideas +get muddled.... Have you seen Luzhin?” +“No, Rodya, but he knows already of our arrival. We have heard, Rodya, +that Pyotr Petrovitch was so kind as to visit you today,” Pulcheria +Alexandrovna added somewhat timidly. +“Yes... he was so kind... Dounia, I promised Luzhin I’d throw him +downstairs and told him to go to hell....” +“Rodya, what are you saying! Surely, you don’t mean to tell us...” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna began in alarm, but she stopped, looking at +Dounia. +Avdotya Romanovna was looking attentively at her brother, waiting +for what would come next. Both of them had heard of the quarrel from +Nastasya, so far as she had succeeded in understanding and reporting it, +and were in painful perplexity and suspense. +“Dounia,” Raskolnikov continued with an effort, “I don’t want that +marriage, so at the first opportunity to-morrow you must refuse Luzhin, +so that we may never hear his name again.” +“Good Heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“Brother, think what you are saying!” Avdotya Romanovna began +impetuously, but immediately checked herself. “You are not fit to talk +now, perhaps; you are tired,” she added gently. +“You think I am delirious? No... You are marrying Luzhin for _my_ +sake. But I won’t accept the sacrifice. And so write a letter before +to-morrow, to refuse him... Let me read it in the morning and that will +be the end of it!” +“That I can’t do!” the girl cried, offended, “what right have you...” +“Dounia, you are hasty, too, be quiet, to-morrow... Don’t you see...” +the mother interposed in dismay. “Better come away!” +“He is raving,” Razumihin cried tipsily, “or how would he dare! +To-morrow all this nonsense will be over... to-day he certainly did +drive him away. That was so. And Luzhin got angry, too.... He made +speeches here, wanted to show off his learning and he went out +crest-fallen....” +“Then it’s true?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“Good-bye till to-morrow, brother,” said Dounia compassionately--“let us +go, mother... Good-bye, Rodya.” +“Do you hear, sister,” he repeated after them, making a last effort, +“I am not delirious; this marriage is--an infamy. Let me act like +a scoundrel, but you mustn’t... one is enough... and though I am a +scoundrel, I wouldn’t own such a sister. It’s me or Luzhin! Go now....” +“But you’re out of your mind! Despot!” roared Razumihin; but Raskolnikov +did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and +turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with +interest at Razumihin; her black eyes flashed; Razumihin positively +started at her glance. +Pulcheria Alexandrovna stood overwhelmed. +“Nothing would induce me to go,” she whispered in despair to Razumihin. +“I will stay somewhere here... escort Dounia home.” +“You’ll spoil everything,” Razumihin answered in the same whisper, +losing patience--“come out on to the stairs, anyway. Nastasya, show a +light! I assure you,” he went on in a half whisper on the stairs--“that +he was almost beating the doctor and me this afternoon! Do you +understand? The doctor himself! Even he gave way and left him, so as not +to irritate him. I remained downstairs on guard, but he dressed at once +and slipped off. And he will slip off again if you irritate him, at this +time of night, and will do himself some mischief....” +“What are you saying?” +“And Avdotya Romanovna can’t possibly be left in those lodgings without +you. Just think where you are staying! That blackguard Pyotr Petrovitch +couldn’t find you better lodgings... But you know I’ve had a little to +drink, and that’s what makes me... swear; don’t mind it....” +“But I’ll go to the landlady here,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna insisted, +“I’ll beseech her to find some corner for Dounia and me for the night. I +can’t leave him like that, I cannot!” +This conversation took place on the landing just before the landlady’s +door. Nastasya lighted them from a step below. Razumihin was in +extraordinary excitement. Half an hour earlier, while he was bringing +Raskolnikov home, he had indeed talked too freely, but he was aware of +it himself, and his head was clear in spite of the vast quantities he +had imbibed. Now he was in a state bordering on ecstasy, and all that he +had drunk seemed to fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with +the two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving +them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost every +word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their +hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the +least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out of +his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was the matter, he drew +them all the closer to him. If they’d told him to jump head foremost +from the staircase, he would have done it without thought or hesitation +in their service. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna felt that the young man +was really too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety +over her Rodya she looked on his presence as providential, and was +unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna +shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not +see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It +was only the unbounded confidence inspired by Nastasya’s account of her +brother’s queer friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from +him, and to persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too, +that even running away was perhaps impossible now. Ten minutes later, +however, she was considerably reassured; it was characteristic of +Razumihin that he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he might +be in, so that people quickly saw the sort of man they had to deal with. +“You can’t go to the landlady, that’s perfect nonsense!” he cried. “If +you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and +then goodness knows what will happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ll +do: Nastasya will stay with him now, and I’ll conduct you both home, you +can’t be in the streets alone; Petersburg is an awful place in that +way.... But no matter! Then I’ll run straight back here and a quarter of +an hour later, on my word of honour, I’ll bring you news how he is, +whether he is asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I’ll run home in +a twinkling--I’ve a lot of friends there, all drunk--I’ll fetch +Zossimov--that’s the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too, +but he is not drunk; he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I’ll drag him +to Rodya, and then to you, so that you’ll get two reports in the +hour--from the doctor, you understand, from the doctor himself, that’s a +very different thing from my account of him! If there’s anything wrong, +I swear I’ll bring you here myself, but, if it’s all right, you go to +bed. And I’ll spend the night here, in the passage, he won’t hear me, +and I’ll tell Zossimov to sleep at the landlady’s, to be at hand. Which +is better for him: you or the doctor? So come home then! But the +landlady is out of the question; it’s all right for me, but it’s out of +the question for you: she wouldn’t take you, for she��s... for she’s a +fool... She’d be jealous on my account of Avdotya Romanovna and of you, +too, if you want to know... of Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is an +absolutely, absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!... +No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do you trust me or not?” +“Let us go, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna, “he will certainly do what +he has promised. He has saved Rodya already, and if the doctor really +will consent to spend the night here, what could be better?” +“You see, you... you... understand me, because you are an angel!” +Razumihin cried in ecstasy, “let us go! Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit +with him with a light; I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.” +Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly convinced, she made no +further resistance. Razumihin gave an arm to each and drew them down +the stairs. He still made her uneasy, as though he was competent and +good-natured, was he capable of carrying out his promise? He seemed in +such a condition.... +“Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition!” Razumihin broke in upon +her thoughts, guessing them, as he strolled along the pavement with huge +steps, so that the two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a fact he +did not observe, however. “Nonsense! That is... I am drunk like a fool, +but that’s not it; I am not drunk from wine. It’s seeing you has turned +my head... But don’t mind me! Don’t take any notice: I am talking +nonsense, I am not worthy of you.... I am utterly unworthy of you! The +minute I’ve taken you home, I’ll pour a couple of pailfuls of water over +my head in the gutter here, and then I shall be all right.... If only +you knew how I love you both! Don’t laugh, and don’t be angry! You may +be angry with anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I +am your friend, too, I want to be... I had a presentiment... Last year +there was a moment... though it wasn’t a presentiment really, for +you seem to have fallen from heaven. And I expect I shan’t sleep all +night... Zossimov was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad... +that’s why he mustn’t be irritated.” +“What do you say?” cried the mother. +“Did the doctor really say that?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, alarmed. +“Yes, but it’s not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some medicine, a +powder, I saw it, and then your coming here.... Ah! It would have been +better if you had come to-morrow. It’s a good thing we went away. And in +an hour Zossimov himself will report to you about everything. He is not +drunk! And I shan’t be drunk.... And what made me get so tight? Because +they got me into an argument, damn them! I’ve sworn never to argue! They +talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I’ve left my uncle to preside. +Would you believe, they insist on complete absence of individualism +and that’s just what they relish! Not to be themselves, to be as unlike +themselves as they can. That’s what they regard as the highest point of +progress. If only their nonsense were their own, but as it is...” +“Listen!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but it only added +fuel to the flames. +“What do you think?” shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, “you think I +am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk +nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error +you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any +truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and +fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make +mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, +and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than +to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the +second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life +can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? +In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, +judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are +still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other +people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?” cried +Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands. +“Oh, mercy, I do not know,” cried poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“Yes, yes... though I don’t agree with you in everything,” added Avdotya +Romanovna earnestly and at once uttered a cry, for he squeezed her hand +so painfully. +“Yes, you say yes... well after that you... you...” he cried in +a transport, “you are a fount of goodness, purity, sense... and +perfection. Give me your hand... you give me yours, too! I want to kiss +your hands here at once, on my knees...” and he fell on his knees on the +pavement, fortunately at that time deserted. +“Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna +cried, greatly distressed. +“Get up, get up!” said Dounia laughing, though she, too, was upset. +“Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands! That’s it! Enough! I +get up and we’ll go on! I am a luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and +drunk... and I am ashamed.... I am not worthy to love you, but to do +homage to you is the duty of every man who is not a perfect beast! And +I’ve done homage.... Here are your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya +was right in driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away.... How dare he! how +dare he put you in such lodgings! It’s a scandal! Do you know the +sort of people they take in here? And you his betrothed! You are +his betrothed? Yes? Well, then, I’ll tell you, your _fiancé_ is a +scoundrel.” +“Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting...” Pulcheria Alexandrovna +was beginning. +“Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am ashamed of it,” +Razumihin made haste to apologise. “But... but you can’t be angry with +me for speaking so! For I speak sincerely and not because... hm, hm! +That would be disgraceful; in fact not because I’m in... hm! Well, +anyway, I won’t say why, I daren’t.... But we all saw to-day when he +came in that that man is not of our sort. Not because he had his hair +curled at the barber’s, not because he was in such a hurry to show his +wit, but because he is a spy, a speculator, because he is a skin-flint +and a buffoon. That’s evident. Do you think him clever? No, he is a +fool, a fool. And is he a match for you? Good heavens! Do you see, +ladies?” he stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms, “though +all my friends there are drunk, yet they are all honest, and though we +do talk a lot of trash, and I do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the +truth at last, for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch... +is not on the right path. Though I’ve been calling them all sorts of +names just now, I do respect them all... though I don’t respect Zametov, +I like him, for he is a puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he +is an honest man and knows his work. But enough, it’s all said and +forgiven. Is it forgiven? Well, then, let’s go on. I know this corridor, +I’ve been here, there was a scandal here at Number 3.... Where are you +here? Which number? eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the night, then. +Don’t let anybody in. In a quarter of an hour I’ll come back with news, +and half an hour later I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Good-bye, I’ll +run.” +“Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to happen?” said Pulcheria +Alexandrovna, addressing her daughter with anxiety and dismay. +“Don’t worry yourself, mother,” said Dounia, taking off her hat and +cape. “God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from a +drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all that he has +done for Rodya....” +“Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will come! How could I bring +myself to leave Rodya?... And how different, how different I had fancied +our meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to see us....” +Tears came into her eyes. +“No, it’s not that, mother. You didn’t see, you were crying all the +time. He is quite unhinged by serious illness--that’s the reason.” +“Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will happen? And how he talked +to you, Dounia!” said the mother, looking timidly at her daughter, +trying to read her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia’s +standing up for her brother, which meant that she had already forgiven +him. “I am sure he will think better of it to-morrow,” she added, +probing her further. +“And I am sure that he will say the same to-morrow... about that,” +Avdotya Romanovna said finally. And, of course, there was no going +beyond that, for this was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was +afraid to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother. The latter +warmly embraced her without speaking. Then she sat down to wait +anxiously for Razumihin’s return, timidly watching her daughter who +walked up and down the room with her arms folded, lost in thought. +This walking up and down when she was thinking was a habit of Avdotya +Romanovna’s and the mother was always afraid to break in on her +daughter’s mood at such moments. +Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken infatuation +for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric condition, many +people would have thought it justified if they had seen Avdotya +Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking to and +fro with folded arms, pensive and melancholy. Avdotya Romanovna was +remarkably good-looking; she was tall, strikingly well-proportioned, +strong and self-reliant--the latter quality was apparent in every +gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace and +softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but she +might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a +little lighter than her brother’s; there was a proud light in her almost +black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was +pale, but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with freshness +and vigour. Her mouth was rather small; the full red lower lip projected +a little as did her chin; it was the only irregularity in her beautiful +face, but it gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty +expression. Her face was always more serious and thoughtful than gay; +but how well smiles, how well youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible, +laughter suited her face! It was natural enough that a warm, open, +simple-hearted, honest giant like Razumihin, who had never seen anyone +like her and was not quite sober at the time, should lose his head +immediately. Besides, as chance would have it, he saw Dounia for the +first time transfigured by her love for her brother and her joy at +meeting him. Afterwards he saw her lower lip quiver with indignation +at her brother’s insolent, cruel and ungrateful words--and his fate was +sealed. +He had spoken the truth, moreover, when he blurted out in his drunken +talk on the stairs that Praskovya Pavlovna, Raskolnikov’s eccentric +landlady, would be jealous of Pulcheria Alexandrovna as well as of +Avdotya Romanovna on his account. Although Pulcheria Alexandrovna was +forty-three, her face still retained traces of her former beauty; she +looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the +case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure +sincere warmth of heart to old age. We may add in parenthesis that to +preserve all this is the only means of retaining beauty to old age. Her +hair had begun to grow grey and thin, there had long been little crow’s +foot wrinkles round her eyes, her cheeks were hollow and sunken from +anxiety and grief, and yet it was a handsome face. She was Dounia +over again, twenty years older, but without the projecting underlip. +Pulcheria Alexandrovna was emotional, but not sentimental, timid and +yielding, but only to a certain point. She could give way and accept a +great deal even of what was contrary to her convictions, but there was a +certain barrier fixed by honesty, principle and the deepest convictions +which nothing would induce her to cross. +Exactly twenty minutes after Razumihin’s departure, there came two +subdued but hurried knocks at the door: he had come back. +“I won’t come in, I haven’t time,” he hastened to say when the door was +opened. “He sleeps like a top, soundly, quietly, and God grant he may +sleep ten hours. Nastasya’s with him; I told her not to leave till I +came. Now I am fetching Zossimov, he will report to you and then you’d +better turn in; I can see you are too tired to do anything....” +And he ran off down the corridor. +“What a very competent and... devoted young man!” cried Pulcheria +Alexandrovna exceedingly delighted. +“He seems a splendid person!” Avdotya Romanovna replied with some +warmth, resuming her walk up and down the room. +It was nearly an hour later when they heard footsteps in the corridor +and another knock at the door. Both women waited this time completely +relying on Razumihin’s promise; he actually had succeeded in bringing +Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to desert the drinking party to +go to Raskolnikov’s, but he came reluctantly and with the greatest +suspicion to see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his exhilarated +condition. But his vanity was at once reassured and flattered; he saw +that they were really expecting him as an oracle. He stayed just ten +minutes and succeeded in completely convincing and comforting Pulcheria +Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sympathy, but with the reserve and +extreme seriousness of a young doctor at an important consultation. +He did not utter a word on any other subject and did not display the +slightest desire to enter into more personal relations with the two +ladies. Remarking at his first entrance the dazzling beauty of Avdotya +Romanovna, he endeavoured not to notice her at all during his visit and +addressed himself solely to Pulcheria Alexandrovna. All this gave him +extraordinary inward satisfaction. He declared that he thought the +invalid at this moment going on very satisfactorily. According to his +observations the patient’s illness was due partly to his unfortunate +material surroundings during the last few months, but it had partly also +a moral origin, “was, so to speak, the product of several material and +moral influences, anxieties, apprehensions, troubles, certain ideas... +and so on.” Noticing stealthily that Avdotya Romanovna was following his +words with close attention, Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this +theme. On Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s anxiously and timidly inquiring as +to “some suspicion of insanity,” he replied with a composed and candid +smile that his words had been exaggerated; that certainly the patient +had some fixed idea, something approaching a monomania--he, Zossimov, +was now particularly studying this interesting branch of medicine--but +that it must be recollected that until to-day the patient had been in +delirium and... and that no doubt the presence of his family would have +a favourable effect on his recovery and distract his mind, “if only all +fresh shocks can be avoided,” he added significantly. Then he got up, +took leave with an impressive and affable bow, while blessings, warm +gratitude, and entreaties were showered upon him, and Avdotya Romanovna +spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out exceedingly pleased +with his visit and still more so with himself. +“We’ll talk to-morrow; go to bed at once!” Razumihin said in conclusion, +following Zossimov out. “I’ll be with you to-morrow morning as early as +possible with my report.” +“That’s a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna,” remarked Zossimov, +almost licking his lips as they both came out into the street. +“Fetching? You said fetching?” roared Razumihin and he flew at Zossimov +and seized him by the throat. “If you ever dare.... Do you understand? +Do you understand?” he shouted, shaking him by the collar and squeezing +him against the wall. “Do you hear?” +“Let me go, you drunken devil,” said Zossimov, struggling and when he +had let him go, he stared at him and went off into a sudden guffaw. +Razumihin stood facing him in gloomy and earnest reflection. +“Of course, I am an ass,” he observed, sombre as a storm cloud, “but +still... you are another.” +“No, brother, not at all such another. I am not dreaming of any folly.” +They walked along in silence and only when they were close to +Raskolnikov’s lodgings, Razumihin broke the silence in considerable +anxiety. +“Listen,” he said, “you’re a first-rate fellow, but among your other +failings, you’re a loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You +are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat +and lazy and can’t deny yourself anything--and I call that dirty because +it leads one straight into the dirt. You’ve let yourself get so slack +that I don’t know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. +You--a doctor--sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your +patients! In another three or four years you won’t get up for your +patients... But hang it all, that’s not the point!... You are going +to spend to-night in the landlady’s flat here. (Hard work I’ve had to +persuade her!) And I’ll be in the kitchen. So here’s a chance for you to +get to know her better.... It’s not as you think! There’s not a trace of +anything of the sort, brother...!” +“But I don’t think!” +“Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage +virtue... and yet she’s sighing and melting like wax, simply melting! +Save me from her, by all that’s unholy! She’s most prepossessing... I’ll +repay you, I’ll do anything....” +Zossimov laughed more violently than ever. +“Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do with her?” +“It won’t be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any rot you like to her, +as long as you sit by her and talk. You’re a doctor, too; try curing +her of something. I swear you won’t regret it. She has a piano, and you +know, I strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine Russian one: ‘I +shed hot tears.’ She likes the genuine article--and well, it all +began with that song; Now you’re a regular performer, a _maître_, a +Rubinstein.... I assure you, you won’t regret it!” +“But have you made her some promise? Something signed? A promise of +marriage, perhaps?” +“Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! Besides she is not +that sort at all.... Tchebarov tried that....” +“Well then, drop her!” +“But I can’t drop her like that!” +“Why can’t you?” +“Well, I can’t, that’s all about it! There’s an element of attraction +here, brother.” +“Then why have you fascinated her?” +“I haven’t fascinated her; perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly. +But she won’t care a straw whether it’s you or I, so long as somebody +sits beside her, sighing.... I can’t explain the position, brother... +look here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin +teaching her the integral calculus; upon my soul, I’m not joking, I’m +in earnest, it’ll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh +for a whole year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time +about the Prussian House of Lords (for one must talk of something)--she +just sighed and perspired! And you mustn’t talk of love--she’s bashful +to hysterics--but just let her see you can’t tear yourself away--that’s +enough. It’s fearfully comfortable; you’re quite at home, you can +read, sit, lie about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you’re +careful.” +“But what do I want with her?” +“Ach, I can’t make you understand! You see, you are made for each other! +I have often been reminded of you!... You’ll come to it in the end! So +does it matter whether it’s sooner or later? There’s the feather-bed +element here, brother--ach! and not only that! There’s an attraction +here--here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven, +the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the +world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-pies, of the evening +samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on--as +snug as though you were dead, and yet you’re alive--the advantages +of both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I’m talking, it’s +bedtime! Listen. I sometimes wake up at night; so I’ll go in and look at +him. But there’s no need, it’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself, +yet if you like, you might just look in once, too. But if you notice +anything--delirium or fever--wake me at once. But there can’t be....” +CHAPTER II +Razumihin waked up next morning at eight o’clock, troubled and serious. +He found himself confronted with many new and unlooked-for perplexities. +He had never expected that he would ever wake up feeling like that. He +remembered every detail of the previous day and he knew that a perfectly +novel experience had befallen him, that he had received an impression +unlike anything he had known before. At the same time he recognised +clearly that the dream which had fired his imagination was hopelessly +unattainable--so unattainable that he felt positively ashamed of it, and +he hastened to pass to the other more practical cares and difficulties +bequeathed him by that “thrice accursed yesterday.” +The most awful recollection of the previous day was the way he had shown +himself “base and mean,” not only because he had been drunk, but +because he had taken advantage of the young girl’s position to abuse +her _fiancé_ in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual +relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And +what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? +Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as +Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there +must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know +the character of the lodgings? He was furnishing a flat... Foo! how +despicable it all was! And what justification was it that he was drunk? +Such a stupid excuse was even more degrading! In wine is truth, and the +truth had all come out, “that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse +and envious heart”! And would such a dream ever be permissible to +him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girl--he, the drunken noisy +braggart of last night? Was it possible to imagine so absurd and cynical +a juxtaposition? Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea and +suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly upon him of how he had +said last night on the stairs that the landlady would be jealous of +Avdotya Romanovna... that was simply intolerable. He brought his fist +down heavily on the kitchen stove, hurt his hand and sent one of the +bricks flying. +“Of course,” he muttered to himself a minute later with a feeling of +self-abasement, “of course, all these infamies can never be wiped out or +smoothed over... and so it’s useless even to think of it, and I must +go to them in silence and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask +forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is lost now!” +And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more carefully than usual. +He hadn’t another suit--if he had had, perhaps he wouldn’t have put it +on. “I would have made a point of not putting it on.” But in any case he +could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven; he had no right to offend +the feelings of others, especially when they were in need of his +assistance and asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes carefully. +His linen was always decent; in that respect he was especially clean. +He washed that morning scrupulously--he got some soap from Nastasya--he +washed his hair, his neck and especially his hands. When it came to the +question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not (Praskovya Pavlovna +had capital razors that had been left by her late husband), the question +was angrily answered in the negative. “Let it stay as it is! What if +they think that I shaved on purpose to...? They certainly would think +so! Not on any account!” +“And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the +manners of a pothouse; and... and even admitting that he knew he had +some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be +proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that... and all +the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not exactly +dishonest, and yet.... And what thoughts he sometimes had; hm... and to +set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it! Well, he’d +make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and he +wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!” +He was engaged in such monologues when Zossimov, who had spent the night +in Praskovya Pavlovna’s parlour, came in. +He was going home and was in a hurry to look at the invalid first. +Razumihin informed him that Raskolnikov was sleeping like a dormouse. +Zossimov gave orders that they shouldn’t wake him and promised to see +him again about eleven. +“If he is still at home,” he added. “Damn it all! If one can’t control +one’s patients, how is one to cure them? Do you know whether _he_ will +go to them, or whether _they_ are coming here?” +“They are coming, I think,” said Razumihin, understanding the object +of the question, “and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt. +I’ll be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I.” +“But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and go away; I’ve plenty +to do besides looking after them.” +“One thing worries me,” interposed Razumihin, frowning. “On the way home +I talked a lot of drunken nonsense to him... all sorts of things... and +amongst them that you were afraid that he... might become insane.” +“You told the ladies so, too.” +“I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like! Did you think so +seriously?” +“That’s nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously? You, +yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me to +him... and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with +your story about the painter; it was a nice conversation, when he was, +perhaps, mad on that very point! If only I’d known what happened then +at the police station and that some wretch... had insulted him with this +suspicion! Hm... I would not have allowed that conversation yesterday. +These monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a mole-hill... and +see their fancies as solid realities.... As far as I remember, it was +Zametov’s story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind. Why, I +know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat +of a little boy of eight, because he couldn’t endure the jokes he made +every day at table! And in this case his rags, the insolent police +officer, the fever and this suspicion! All that working upon a man half +frantic with hypochondria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That +may well have been the starting-point of illness. Well, bother it +all!... And, by the way, that Zametov certainly is a nice fellow, but +hm... he shouldn’t have told all that last night. He is an awful +chatterbox!” +“But whom did he tell it to? You and me?” +“And Porfiry.” +“What does that matter?” +“And, by the way, have you any influence on them, his mother and sister? +Tell them to be more careful with him to-day....” +“They’ll get on all right!” Razumihin answered reluctantly. +“Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with money and she doesn’t +seem to dislike him... and they haven’t a farthing, I suppose? eh?” +“But what business is it of yours?” Razumihin cried with annoyance. “How +can I tell whether they’ve a farthing? Ask them yourself and perhaps +you’ll find out....” +“Foo! what an ass you are sometimes! Last night’s wine has not gone off +yet.... Good-bye; thank your Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my night’s +lodging. She locked herself in, made no reply to my _bonjour_ through +the door; she was up at seven o’clock, the samovar was taken into her +from the kitchen. I was not vouchsafed a personal interview....” +At nine o’clock precisely Razumihin reached the lodgings at Bakaleyev’s +house. Both ladies were waiting for him with nervous impatience. They +had risen at seven o’clock or earlier. He entered looking as black as +night, bowed awkwardly and was at once furious with himself for it. He +had reckoned without his host: Pulcheria Alexandrovna fairly rushed at +him, seized him by both hands and was almost kissing them. He glanced +timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but her proud countenance wore at that +moment an expression of such gratitude and friendliness, such +complete and unlooked-for respect (in place of the sneering looks and +ill-disguised contempt he had expected), that it threw him into greater +confusion than if he had been met with abuse. Fortunately there was a +subject for conversation, and he made haste to snatch at it. +Hearing that everything was going well and that Rodya had not yet waked, +Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared that she was glad to hear it, because +“she had something which it was very, very necessary to talk over +beforehand.” Then followed an inquiry about breakfast and an invitation +to have it with them; they had waited to have it with him. Avdotya +Romanovna rang the bell: it was answered by a ragged dirty waiter, and +they asked him to bring tea which was served at last, but in such +a dirty and disorderly way that the ladies were ashamed. Razumihin +vigorously attacked the lodgings, but, remembering Luzhin, stopped +in embarrassment and was greatly relieved by Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s +questions, which showered in a continual stream upon him. +He talked for three quarters of an hour, being constantly interrupted +by their questions, and succeeded in describing to them all the +most important facts he knew of the last year of Raskolnikov’s life, +concluding with a circumstantial account of his illness. He omitted, +however, many things, which were better omitted, including the scene at +the police station with all its consequences. They listened eagerly +to his story, and, when he thought he had finished and satisfied his +listeners, he found that they considered he had hardly begun. +“Tell me, tell me! What do you think...? Excuse me, I still don’t know +your name!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna put in hastily. +“Dmitri Prokofitch.” +“I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri Prokofitch... how he +looks... on things in general now, that is, how can I explain, what are +his likes and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can, +what are his hopes and, so to say, his dreams? Under what influences is +he now? In a word, I should like...” +“Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once?” observed Dounia. +“Good heavens, I had not expected to find him in the least like this, +Dmitri Prokofitch!” +“Naturally,” answered Razumihin. “I have no mother, but my uncle comes +every year and almost every time he can scarcely recognise me, even in +appearance, though he is a clever man; and your three years’ separation +means a great deal. What am I to tell you? I have known Rodion for +a year and a half; he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of +late--and perhaps for a long time before--he has been suspicious and +fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does not like +showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his +heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but simply +cold and inhumanly callous; it’s as though he were alternating between +two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is +so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing +nothing. He doesn’t jeer at things, not because he hasn’t the wit, but +as though he hadn’t time to waste on such trifles. He never listens +to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other +people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps +he is right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most +beneficial influence upon him.” +“God grant it may,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by +Razumihin’s account of her Rodya. +And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna at last. +He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and +looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening +attentively, then got up again and began walking to and fro with her +arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question, +without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not listening to +what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a +white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon detected signs of +extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed +like a queen, he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps +just because she was poorly dressed and that he noticed all the misery +of her surroundings, his heart was filled with dread and he began to be +afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which was very +trying for a man who already felt diffident. +“You’ve told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother’s +character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you +were too uncritically devoted to him,” observed Avdotya Romanovna with +a smile. “I think you are right that he needs a woman’s care,” she added +thoughtfully. +“I didn’t say so; but I daresay you are right, only...” +“What?” +“He loves no one and perhaps he never will,” Razumihin declared +decisively. +“You mean he is not capable of love?” +“Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your brother, in +everything, indeed!” he blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but +remembering at once what he had just before said of her brother, +he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya +Romanovna couldn’t help laughing when she looked at him. +“You may both be mistaken about Rodya,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked, +slightly piqued. “I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia. +What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what you and I have +supposed may be mistaken, but you can’t imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how +moody and, so to say, capricious he is. I never could depend on what +he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure that he might +do something now that nobody else would think of doing... Well, for +instance, do you know how a year and a half ago he astounded me and gave +me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had the idea of marrying that +girl--what was her name--his landlady’s daughter?” +“Did you hear about that affair?” asked Avdotya Romanovna. +“Do you suppose----” Pulcheria Alexandrovna continued warmly. “Do you +suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from +grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he would calmly have +disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn’t that he doesn’t love us!” +“He has never spoken a word of that affair to me,” Razumihin answered +cautiously. “But I did hear something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself, +though she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard certainly was +rather strange.” +“And what did you hear?” both the ladies asked at once. +“Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which +only failed to take place through the girl’s death, was not at all to +Praskovya Pavlovna’s liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all +pretty, in fact I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and +queer. But she seems to have had some good qualities. She must have +had some good qualities or it’s quite inexplicable.... She had no money +either and he wouldn’t have considered her money.... But it’s always +difficult to judge in such matters.” +“I am sure she was a good girl,” Avdotya Romanovna observed briefly. +“God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death. Though I don’t know +which of them would have caused most misery to the other--he to her +or she to him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began +tentatively questioning him about the scene on the previous day with +Luzhin, hesitating and continually glancing at Dounia, obviously to +the latter’s annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evidently +caused her uneasiness, even consternation. Razumihin described it in +detail again, but this time he added his own conclusions: he openly +blamed Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr Petrovitch, not +seeking to excuse him on the score of his illness. +“He had planned it before his illness,” he added. +“I think so, too,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna agreed with a dejected air. +But she was very much surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself +so carefully and even with a certain respect about Pyotr Petrovitch. +Avdotya Romanovna, too, was struck by it. +“So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna +could not resist asking. +“I can have no other opinion of your daughter’s future husband,” +Razumihin answered firmly and with warmth, “and I don’t say it simply +from vulgar politeness, but because... simply because Avdotya Romanovna +has of her own free will deigned to accept this man. If I spoke so +rudely of him last night, it was because I was disgustingly drunk and... +mad besides; yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely... and this +morning I am ashamed of it.” +He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not +break the silence. She had not uttered a word from the moment they began +to speak of Luzhin. +Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna obviously did not know what +to do. At last, faltering and continually glancing at her daughter, she +confessed that she was exceedingly worried by one circumstance. +“You see, Dmitri Prokofitch,” she began. “I’ll be perfectly open with +Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia?” +“Of course, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically. +“This is what it is,” she began in haste, as though the permission to +speak of her trouble lifted a weight off her mind. “Very early this +morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter +announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you +know; instead of that he sent a servant to bring us the address of these +lodgings and to show us the way; and he sent a message that he would +be here himself this morning. But this morning this note came from him. +You’d better read it yourself; there is one point in it which worries me +very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid +opinion, Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya’s character better than +anyone and no one can advise us better than you can. Dounia, I must tell +you, made her decision at once, but I still don’t feel sure how to act +and I... I’ve been waiting for your opinion.” +Razumihin opened the note which was dated the previous evening and read +as follows: +“Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the honour to inform you +that owing to unforeseen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet you at +the railway station; I sent a very competent person with the same object +in view. I likewise shall be deprived of the honour of an interview with +you to-morrow morning by business in the Senate that does not admit of +delay, and also that I may not intrude on your family circle while you +are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her brother. I shall have +the honour of visiting you and paying you my respects at your lodgings +not later than to-morrow evening at eight o’clock precisely, and +herewith I venture to present my earnest and, I may add, imperative +request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our interview--as +he offered me a gross and unprecedented affront on the occasion of my +visit to him in his illness yesterday, and, moreover, since I desire +from you personally an indispensable and circumstantial explanation +upon a certain point, in regard to which I wish to learn your own +interpretation. I have the honour to inform you, in anticipation, +that if, in spite of my request, I meet Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be +compelled to withdraw immediately and then you have only yourself to +blame. I write on the assumption that Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so +ill at my visit, suddenly recovered two hours later and so, being able +to leave the house, may visit you also. I was confirmed in that belief +by the testimony of my own eyes in the lodging of a drunken man who +was run over and has since died, to whose daughter, a young woman of +notorious behaviour, he gave twenty-five roubles on the pretext of the +funeral, which gravely surprised me knowing what pains you were at to +raise that sum. Herewith expressing my special respect to your estimable +daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to accept the respectful homage +of +“Your humble servant, +“P. LUZHIN.” +“What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch?” began Pulcheria Alexandrovna, +almost weeping. “How can I ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted +so earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and now we are ordered not +to receive Rodya! He will come on purpose if he knows, and... what will +happen then?” +“Act on Avdotya Romanovna’s decision,” Razumihin answered calmly at +once. +“Oh, dear me! She says... goodness knows what she says, she doesn’t +explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that +it would be best, but that it’s absolutely necessary that Rodya should +make a point of being here at eight o’clock and that they must meet.... +I didn’t want even to show him the letter, but to prevent him +from coming by some stratagem with your help... because he is so +irritable.... Besides I don’t understand about that drunkard who died +and that daughter, and how he could have given the daughter all the +money... which...” +“Which cost you such sacrifice, mother,” put in Avdotya Romanovna. +“He was not himself yesterday,” Razumihin said thoughtfully, “if you +only knew what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there +was sense in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home +yesterday evening, about a dead man and a girl, but I didn’t understand +a word.... But last night, I myself...” +“The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and +there I assure you we shall see at once what’s to be done. Besides, +it’s getting late--good heavens, it’s past ten,” she cried looking at +a splendid gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck on a thin +Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of keeping with the rest of her +dress. “A present from her _fiancé_,” thought Razumihin. +“We must start, Dounia, we must start,” her mother cried in a flutter. +“He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming +so late. Merciful heavens!” +While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her hat and mantle; +Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were +not merely shabby but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty +gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always found in +people who know how to wear poor clothes. Razumihin looked reverently +at Dounia and felt proud of escorting her. “The queen who mended her +stockings in prison,” he thought, “must have looked then every inch a +queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets and levées.” +“My God!” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “little did I think that I +should ever fear seeing my son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid, +Dmitri Prokofitch,” she added, glancing at him timidly. +“Don’t be afraid, mother,” said Dounia, kissing her, “better have faith +in him.” +“Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven’t slept all night,” +exclaimed the poor woman. +They came out into the street. +“Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this morning I dreamed of +Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took +my hand, and shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she were +blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don’t know, Dmitri +Prokofitch, that Marfa Petrovna’s dead!” +“No, I didn’t know; who is Marfa Petrovna?” +“She died suddenly; and only fancy...” +“Afterwards, mamma,” put in Dounia. “He doesn’t know who Marfa Petrovna +is.” +“Ah, you don’t know? And I was thinking that you knew all about us. +Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I don’t know what I am thinking about +these last few days. I look upon you really as a providence for us, and +so I took it for granted that you knew all about us. I look on you as a +relation.... Don’t be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what’s the +matter with your right hand? Have you knocked it?” +“Yes, I bruised it,” muttered Razumihin overjoyed. +“I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia finds fault +with me.... But, dear me, what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder whether +he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a room? Listen, +you say he does not like to show his feelings, so perhaps I shall annoy +him with my... weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how am I to +treat him? I feel quite distracted, you know.” +“Don’t question him too much about anything if you see him frown; don’t +ask him too much about his health; he doesn’t like that.” +“Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the +stairs.... What an awful staircase!” +“Mother, you are quite pale, don’t distress yourself, darling,” said +Dounia caressing her, then with flashing eyes she added: “He ought to be +happy at seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so.” +“Wait, I’ll peep in and see whether he has waked up.” +The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went on before, and when they +reached the landlady’s door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her +door was a tiny crack open and that two keen black eyes were watching +them from the darkness within. When their eyes met, the door was +suddenly shut with such a slam that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried +out. +CHAPTER III +“He is well, quite well!” Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered. +He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place +as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner, +fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for +some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya managed +to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen. +Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition the +day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like +a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical suffering. +His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke +little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there was a +restlessness in his movements. +He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete +the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The +pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother and sister +entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering, in +place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look +of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient +with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed +in him no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of +bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable +torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following +conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But +at the same time he marvelled at the power of controlling himself +and hiding his feelings in a patient who the previous day had, like a +monomaniac, fallen into a frenzy at the slightest word. +“Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov, +giving his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria +Alexandrovna radiant at once. “And I don’t say this _as I did +yesterday_,” he said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of +his hand. +“Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day,” began Zossimov, much +delighted at the ladies’ entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping +up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In another three or +four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is, +as he was a month ago, or two... or perhaps even three. This has been +coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been +perhaps your own fault?” he added, with a tentative smile, as though +still afraid of irritating him. +“It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly. +“I should say, too,” continued Zossimov with zest, “that your complete +recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you, +I should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the +elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your +morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go +from bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don’t know, but they must +be known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed +yourself, of course. I fancy the first stage of your derangement +coincides with your leaving the university. You must not be left without +occupation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you might, I +fancy, be very beneficial.” +“Yes, yes; you are perfectly right.... I will make haste and return to +the university: and then everything will go smoothly....” +Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect before +the ladies, was certainly somewhat mystified, when, glancing at his +patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted +an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking +Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night. +“What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled. +“Then you have not slept either after your journey.” +“Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia and I never go to +bed before two at home.” +“I don’t know how to thank him either,” Raskolnikov went on, +suddenly frowning and looking down. “Setting aside the question of +payment--forgive me for referring to it (he turned to Zossimov)--I +really don’t know what I have done to deserve such special attention +from you! I simply don’t understand it... and... and... it weighs upon +me, indeed, because I don’t understand it. I tell you so candidly.” +“Don’t be irritated.” Zossimov forced himself to laugh. “Assume that you +are my first patient--well--we fellows just beginning to practise love +our first patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall in +love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients.” +“I say nothing about him,” added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin, +“though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble.” +“What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a sentimental mood to-day, +are you?” shouted Razumihin. +If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no +trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite. +But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily watching +her brother. +“As for you, mother, I don’t dare to speak,” he went on, as though +repeating a lesson learned by heart. “It is only to-day that I have +been able to realise a little how distressed you must have been here +yesterday, waiting for me to come back.” +When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister, +smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a flash of real +unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his +hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the first time he had addressed her +since their dispute the previous day. The mother’s face lighted up +with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken +reconciliation. “Yes, that is what I love him for,” Razumihin, +exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his +chair. “He has these movements.” +“And how well he does it all,” the mother was thinking to herself. “What +generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end +to all the misunderstanding with his sister--simply by holding out his +hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what +fine eyes he has, and how fine his whole face is!... He is even better +looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit--how terribly +he’s dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch’s shop, is +better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over him--but +I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking kindly, but I’m +afraid! Why, what am I afraid of?...” +“Oh, Rodya, you wouldn’t believe,” she began suddenly, in haste to +answer his words to her, “how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now +that it’s all over and done with and we are quite happy again--I can +tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace +you and that woman--ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told +us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away +from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the +streets. You can’t imagine how we felt! I couldn’t help thinking of the +tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father’s--you +can’t remember him, Rodya--who ran out in the same way in a high fever +and fell into the well in the court-yard and they couldn’t pull him out +till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the point of +rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were +alone, utterly alone,” she said plaintively and stopped short, +suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr +Petrovitch, although “we are quite happy again.” +“Yes, yes.... Of course it’s very annoying....” Raskolnikov muttered in +reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed +at him in perplexity. +“What else was it I wanted to say?” He went on trying to recollect. “Oh, +yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, please don’t think that I didn’t mean +to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come first.” +“What are you saying, Rodya?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too, +was surprised. +“Is he answering us as a duty?” Dounia wondered. “Is he being reconciled +and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite or repeating +a lesson?” +“I’ve only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed owing +to my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out +the blood... I’ve only just dressed.” +“Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm. +“Oh, nothing--don’t be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about +yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run +over... a clerk...” +“Delirious? But you remember everything!” Razumihin interrupted. +“That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. “I +remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet--why I did +that and went there and said that, I can’t clearly explain now.” +“A familiar phenomenon,” interposed Zossimov, “actions are sometimes +performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the +actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it’s +like a dream.” +“Perhaps it’s a good thing really that he should think me almost a +madman,” thought Raskolnikov. +“Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too,” observed +Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov. +“There is some truth in your observation,” the latter replied. “In that +sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the +slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we +must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among +dozens--perhaps hundreds of thousands--hardly one is to be met with.” +At the word “madman,” carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter on +his favourite subject, everyone frowned. +Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention, plunged in thought with a +strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on something. +“Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you!” +Razumihin cried hastily. +“What?” Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. “Oh... I got spattered with +blood helping to carry him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an +unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave +away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She’s +a widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children, +starving... nothing in the house... there’s a daughter, too... perhaps +you’d have given it yourself if you’d seen them. But I had no right to +do it I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself. +To help others one must have the right to do it, or else _Crevez, +chiens, si vous n’êtes pas contents_.” He laughed, “That’s right, isn’t +it, Dounia?” +“No, it’s not,” answered Dounia firmly. +“Bah! you, too, have ideals,” he muttered, looking at her almost with +hatred, and smiling sarcastically. “I ought to have considered that.... +Well, that’s praiseworthy, and it’s better for you... and if you reach a +line you won’t overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it, +maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that’s nonsense,” he added +irritably, vexed at being carried away. “I only meant to say that I beg +your forgiveness, mother,” he concluded, shortly and abruptly. +“That’s enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good,” +said his mother, delighted. +“Don’t be too sure,” he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile. +A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this +conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the +forgiveness, and all were feeling it. +“It is as though they were afraid of me,” Raskolnikov was thinking +to himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria +Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent. +“Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much,” flashed through +his mind. +“Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna +suddenly blurted out. +“What Marfa Petrovna?” +“Oh, mercy on us--Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaïlov. I wrote you so much about +her.” +“A-a-h! Yes, I remember.... So she’s dead! Oh, really?” he roused +himself suddenly, as if waking up. “What did she die of?” +“Only imagine, quite suddenly,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered +hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. “On the very day I was sending +you that letter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to have been +the cause of her death. They say he beat her dreadfully.” +“Why, were they on such bad terms?” he asked, addressing his sister. +“Not at all. Quite the contrary indeed. With her, he was always very +patient, considerate even. In fact, all those seven years of their +married life he gave way to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All +of a sudden he seems to have lost patience.” +“Then he could not have been so awful if he controlled himself for seven +years? You seem to be defending him, Dounia?” +“No, no, he’s an awful man! I can imagine nothing more awful!” Dounia +answered, almost with a shudder, knitting her brows, and sinking into +thought. +“That had happened in the morning,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on +hurriedly. “And directly afterwards she ordered the horses to be +harnessed to drive to the town immediately after dinner. She always used +to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good dinner, I am +told....” +“After the beating?” +“That was always her... habit; and immediately after dinner, so as not +to be late in starting, she went to the bath-house.... You see, she was +undergoing some treatment with baths. They have a cold spring there, and +she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner had she got +into the water when she suddenly had a stroke!” +“I should think so,” said Zossimov. +“And did he beat her badly?” +“What does that matter!” put in Dounia. +“H’m! But I don’t know why you want to tell us such gossip, mother,” +said Raskolnikov irritably, as it were in spite of himself. +“Ah, my dear, I don’t know what to talk about,” broke from Pulcheria +Alexandrovna. +“Why, are you all afraid of me?” he asked, with a constrained smile. +“That’s certainly true,” said Dounia, looking directly and sternly at +her brother. “Mother was crossing herself with terror as she came up the +stairs.” +His face worked, as though in convulsion. +“Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don’t be angry, please, Rodya.... +Why did you say that, Dounia?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, +overwhelmed--“You see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in the +train, how we should meet, how we should talk over everything +together.... And I was so happy, I did not notice the journey! But what +am I saying? I am happy now.... You should not, Dounia.... I am happy +now--simply in seeing you, Rodya....” +“Hush, mother,” he muttered in confusion, not looking at her, but +pressing her hand. “We shall have time to speak freely of everything!” +As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and turned +pale. Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed with deadly +chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to +him that he had just told a fearful lie--that he would never now be +able to speak freely of everything--that he would never again be able to +_speak_ of anything to anyone. The anguish of this thought was such that +for a moment he almost forgot himself. He got up from his seat, and not +looking at anyone walked towards the door. +“What are you about?” cried Razumihin, clutching him by the arm. +He sat down again, and began looking about him, in silence. They were +all looking at him in perplexity. +“But what are you all so dull for?” he shouted, suddenly and quite +unexpectedly. “Do say something! What’s the use of sitting like this? +Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and sit in silence.... +Come, anything!” +“Thank God; I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning +again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. +“What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully. +“Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he answered, and suddenly +laughed. +“Well, if you remembered something; that’s all right!... I was beginning +to think...” muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is time +for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can...” He made +his bows, and went out. +“What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov +began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he +had not shown till then. “I can’t remember where I met him before my +illness.... I believe I have met him somewhere----... And this is a good +man, too,” he nodded at Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked +her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed. +“Very much,” answered Dounia. +“Foo!--what a pig you are!” Razumihin protested, blushing in terrible +confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled +faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud. +“Where are you off to?” +“I must go.” +“You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don’t go. +What’s the time? Is it twelve o’clock? What a pretty watch you have got, +Dounia. But why are you all silent again? I do all the talking.” +“It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered Dounia. +“And a very expensive one!” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.” +“I like that sort,” said Dounia. +“So it is not a present from her _fiancé_,” thought Razumihin, and was +unreasonably delighted. +“I thought it was Luzhin’s present,” observed Raskolnikov. +“No, he has not made Dounia any presents yet.” +“A-ah! And do you remember, mother, I was in love and wanted to get +married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was disconcerted +by the sudden change of subject and the way he spoke of it. +“Oh, yes, my dear.” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dounia and Razumihin. +“H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t remember much indeed. She was +such a sickly girl,” he went on, growing dreamy and looking down again. +“Quite an invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and was +always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst into tears when she +began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very +well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me +to her then--I think it was because she was always ill. If she had been +lame or hunchback, I believe I should have liked her better still,” he +smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a sort of spring delirium.” +“No, it was not only spring delirium,” said Dounia, with warm feeling. +He fixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did not hear or did +not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up, +went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down. +“You love her even now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched. +“Her? Now? Oh, yes.... You ask about her? No... that’s all now, as +it were, in another world... and so long ago. And indeed everything +happening here seems somehow far away.” He looked attentively at them. +“You, now... I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles away... +but, goodness knows why we are talking of that! And what’s the use of +asking about it?” he added with annoyance, and biting his nails, fell +into dreamy silence again. +“What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It’s like a tomb,” said +Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. “I +am sure it’s quite half through your lodging you have become so +melancholy.” +“My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the lodging had a great +deal to do with it.... I thought that, too.... If only you knew, though, +what a strange thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing +strangely. +A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister, +with him after three years’ absence, this intimate tone of conversation, +in face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything, +would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one urgent +matter which must be settled one way or the other that day--so he had +decided when he woke. Now he was glad to remember it, as a means of +escape. +“Listen, Dounia,” he began, gravely and drily, “of course I beg your +pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you again that +I do not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a +scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I cease +at once to look on you as a sister.” +“Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria +Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call yourself a +scoundrel? I can’t bear it. You said the same yesterday.” +“Brother,” Dounia answered firmly and with the same dryness. “In all +this there is a mistake on your part. I thought it over at night, +and found out the mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am +sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at +all. I am simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for +me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to +my family. But that is not the chief motive for my decision....” +“She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively. +“Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too +haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate.... Oh, +how I... hate them all!” +“In fact,” continued Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch because of +two evils I choose the less. I intend to do honestly all he expects of +me, so I am not deceiving him.... Why did you smile just now?” She, too, +flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes. +“All?” he asked, with a malignant grin. +“Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Pyotr Petrovitch’s +courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too +well of himself, but I hope he esteems me, too.... Why are you laughing +again?” +“And why are you blushing again? You are lying, sister. You are +intentionally lying, simply from feminine obstinacy, simply to hold your +own against me.... You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and talked +with him. So you are selling yourself for money, and so in any case you +are acting basely, and I am glad at least that you can blush for it.” +“It is not true. I am not lying,” cried Dounia, losing her composure. +“I would not marry him if I were not convinced that he esteems me +and thinks highly of me. I would not marry him if I were not firmly +convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing +proof of it this very day... and such a marriage is not a vileness, as +you say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a +vile action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that? +Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It +is despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I +am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you +so pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?” +“Good heavens! You have made him faint,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little giddiness--not fainting. You +have fainting on the brain. H’m, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In +what way will you get convincing proof to-day that you can respect him, +and that he... esteems you, as you said. I think you said to-day?” +“Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch’s letter,” said Dounia. +With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter. He +took it with great interest, but, before opening it, he suddenly looked +with a sort of wonder at Dounia. +“It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though struck by a new idea. “What +am I making such a fuss for? What is it all about? Marry whom you like!” +He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for +some time at his sister, as though puzzled. He opened the letter at +last, still with the same look of strange wonder on his face. Then, +slowly and attentively, he began reading, and read it through twice. +Pulcheria Alexandrovna showed marked anxiety, and all indeed expected +something particular. +“What surprises me,” he began, after a short pause, handing the letter +to his mother, but not addressing anyone in particular, “is that he is a +business man, a lawyer, and his conversation is pretentious indeed, and +yet he writes such an uneducated letter.” +They all started. They had expected something quite different. +“But they all write like that, you know,” Razumihin observed, abruptly. +“Have you read it?” +“Yes.” +“We showed him, Rodya. We... consulted him just now,” Pulcheria +Alexandrovna began, embarrassed. +“That’s just the jargon of the courts,” Razumihin put in. “Legal +documents are written like that to this day.” +“Legal? Yes, it’s just legal--business language--not so very uneducated, +and not quite educated--business language!” +“Pyotr Petrovitch makes no secret of the fact that he had a cheap +education, he is proud indeed of having made his own way,” Avdotya +Romanovna observed, somewhat offended by her brother’s tone. +“Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason, I don’t deny it. You seem to +be offended, sister, at my making only such a frivolous criticism on the +letter, and to think that I speak of such trifling matters on purpose to +annoy you. It is quite the contrary, an observation apropos of the style +occurred to me that is by no means irrelevant as things stand. There +is one expression, ‘blame yourselves’ put in very significantly and +plainly, and there is besides a threat that he will go away at once if I +am present. That threat to go away is equivalent to a threat to abandon +you both if you are disobedient, and to abandon you now after summoning +you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one resent such an +expression from Luzhin, as we should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had +written it, or Zossimov, or one of us?” +“N-no,” answered Dounia, with more animation. “I saw clearly that it +was too naïvely expressed, and that perhaps he simply has no skill +in writing... that is a true criticism, brother. I did not expect, +indeed...” +“It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser than perhaps he +intended. But I must disillusion you a little. There is one expression +in the letter, one slander about me, and rather a contemptible one. I +gave the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed +with trouble, and not ‘on the pretext of the funeral,’ but simply to pay +for the funeral, and not to the daughter--a young woman, as he writes, +of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night for the first time in my +life)--but to the widow. In all this I see a too hasty desire to slander +me and to raise dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal +jargon, that is to say, with a too obvious display of the aim, and +with a very naïve eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act +sensibly, intelligence is not enough. It all shows the man and... I +don’t think he has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to +warn you, because I sincerely wish for your good...” +Dounia did not reply. Her resolution had been taken. She was only +awaiting the evening. +“Then what is your decision, Rodya?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who +was more uneasy than ever at the sudden, new businesslike tone of his +talk. +“What decision?” +“You see Pyotr Petrovitch writes that you are not to be with us this +evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you... come?” +“That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you first, if you are +not offended by such a request; and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is +not offended. I will do what you think best,” he added, drily. +“Dounia has already decided, and I fully agree with her,” Pulcheria +Alexandrovna hastened to declare. +“I decided to ask you, Rodya, to urge you not to fail to be with us at +this interview,” said Dounia. “Will you come?” +“Yes.” +“I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o’clock,” she said, +addressing Razumihin. “Mother, I am inviting him, too.” +“Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have decided,” added Pulcheria +Alexandrovna, “so be it. I shall feel easier myself. I do not like +concealment and deception. Better let us have the whole truth.... Pyotr +Petrovitch may be angry or not, now!” +CHAPTER IV +At that moment the door was softly opened, and a young girl walked into +the room, looking timidly about her. Everyone turned towards her with +surprise and curiosity. At first sight, Raskolnikov did not recognise +her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov. He had seen her yesterday for +the first time, but at such a moment, in such surroundings and in such +a dress, that his memory retained a very different image of her. Now she +was a modestly and poorly-dressed young girl, very young, indeed, +almost like a child, with a modest and refined manner, with a candid but +somewhat frightened-looking face. She was wearing a very plain indoor +dress, and had on a shabby old-fashioned hat, but she still carried a +parasol. Unexpectedly finding the room full of people, she was not so +much embarrassed as completely overwhelmed with shyness, like a +little child. She was even about to retreat. “Oh... it’s you!” said +Raskolnikov, extremely astonished, and he, too, was confused. He at once +recollected that his mother and sister knew through Luzhin’s letter +of “some young woman of notorious behaviour.” He had only just been +protesting against Luzhin’s calumny and declaring that he had seen the +girl last night for the first time, and suddenly she had walked in. He +remembered, too, that he had not protested against the expression “of +notorious behaviour.” All this passed vaguely and fleetingly through +his brain, but looking at her more intently, he saw that the humiliated +creature was so humiliated that he felt suddenly sorry for her. When she +made a movement to retreat in terror, it sent a pang to his heart. +“I did not expect you,” he said, hurriedly, with a look that made her +stop. “Please sit down. You come, no doubt, from Katerina Ivanovna. +Allow me--not there. Sit here....” +At Sonia’s entrance, Razumihin, who had been sitting on one of +Raskolnikov’s three chairs, close to the door, got up to allow her to +enter. Raskolnikov had at first shown her the place on the sofa where +Zossimov had been sitting, but feeling that the sofa which served him +as a bed, was too _familiar_ a place, he hurriedly motioned her to +Razumihin’s chair. +“You sit here,” he said to Razumihin, putting him on the sofa. +Sonia sat down, almost shaking with terror, and looked timidly at the +two ladies. It was evidently almost inconceivable to herself that she +could sit down beside them. At the thought of it, she was so frightened +that she hurriedly got up again, and in utter confusion addressed +Raskolnikov. +“I... I... have come for one minute. Forgive me for disturbing you,” she +began falteringly. “I come from Katerina Ivanovna, and she had no one to +send. Katerina Ivanovna told me to beg you... to be at the service... in +the morning... at Mitrofanievsky... and then... to us... to her... +to do her the honour... she told me to beg you...” Sonia stammered and +ceased speaking. +“I will try, certainly, most certainly,” answered Raskolnikov. He, +too, stood up, and he, too, faltered and could not finish his sentence. +“Please sit down,” he said, suddenly. “I want to talk to you. You are +perhaps in a hurry, but please, be so kind, spare me two minutes,” and +he drew up a chair for her. +Sonia sat down again, and again timidly she took a hurried, frightened +look at the two ladies, and dropped her eyes. Raskolnikov’s pale face +flushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed. +“Mother,” he said, firmly and insistently, “this is Sofya Semyonovna +Marmeladov, the daughter of that unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov, who was run +over yesterday before my eyes, and of whom I was just telling you.” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and slightly screwed up +her eyes. In spite of her embarrassment before Rodya’s urgent and +challenging look, she could not deny herself that satisfaction. Dounia +gazed gravely and intently into the poor girl’s face, and scrutinised +her with perplexity. Sonia, hearing herself introduced, tried to raise +her eyes again, but was more embarrassed than ever. +“I wanted to ask you,” said Raskolnikov, hastily, “how things were +arranged yesterday. You were not worried by the police, for instance?” +“No, that was all right... it was too evident, the cause of death... +they did not worry us... only the lodgers are angry.” +“Why?” +“At the body’s remaining so long. You see it is hot now. So that, +to-day, they will carry it to the cemetery, into the chapel, until +to-morrow. At first Katerina Ivanovna was unwilling, but now she sees +herself that it’s necessary...” +“To-day, then?” +“She begs you to do us the honour to be in the church to-morrow for the +service, and then to be present at the funeral lunch.” +“She is giving a funeral lunch?” +“Yes... just a little.... She told me to thank you very much for helping +us yesterday. But for you, we should have had nothing for the funeral.” +All at once her lips and chin began trembling, but, with an effort, she +controlled herself, looking down again. +During the conversation, Raskolnikov watched her carefully. She had a +thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a +sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but +her blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such +a kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help +being attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed, had another +peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked +almost a little girl--almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this +childishness seemed almost absurd. +“But has Katerina Ivanovna been able to manage with such small means? +Does she even mean to have a funeral lunch?” Raskolnikov asked, +persistently keeping up the conversation. +“The coffin will be plain, of course... and everything will be plain, so +it won’t cost much. Katerina Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so +that there will be enough left... and Katerina Ivanovna was very anxious +it should be so. You know one can’t... it’s a comfort to her... she is +like that, you know....” +“I understand, I understand... of course... why do you look at my room +like that? My mother has just said it is like a tomb.” +“You gave us everything yesterday,” Sonia said suddenly, in reply, in a +loud rapid whisper; and again she looked down in confusion. Her lips +and chin were trembling once more. She had been struck at once +by Raskolnikov’s poor surroundings, and now these words broke out +spontaneously. A silence followed. There was a light in Dounia’s eyes, +and even Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked kindly at Sonia. +“Rodya,” she said, getting up, “we shall have dinner together, of +course. Come, Dounia.... And you, Rodya, had better go for a little +walk, and then rest and lie down before you come to see us.... I am +afraid we have exhausted you....” +“Yes, yes, I’ll come,” he answered, getting up fussily. “But I have +something to see to.” +“But surely you will have dinner together?” cried Razumihin, looking in +surprise at Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?” +“Yes, yes, I am coming... of course, of course! And you stay a minute. +You do not want him just now, do you, mother? Or perhaps I am taking him +from you?” +“Oh, no, no. And will you, Dmitri Prokofitch, do us the favour of dining +with us?” +“Please do,” added Dounia. +Razumihin bowed, positively radiant. For one moment, they were all +strangely embarrassed. +“Good-bye, Rodya, that is till we meet. I do not like saying good-bye. +Good-bye, Nastasya. Ah, I have said good-bye again.” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna meant to greet Sonia, too; but it somehow failed +to come off, and she went in a flutter out of the room. +But Avdotya Romanovna seemed to await her turn, and following her mother +out, gave Sonia an attentive, courteous bow. Sonia, in confusion, gave +a hurried, frightened curtsy. There was a look of poignant discomfort +in her face, as though Avdotya Romanovna’s courtesy and attention were +oppressive and painful to her. +“Dounia, good-bye,” called Raskolnikov, in the passage. “Give me your +hand.” +“Why, I did give it to you. Have you forgotten?” said Dounia, turning +warmly and awkwardly to him. +“Never mind, give it to me again.” And he squeezed her fingers warmly. +Dounia smiled, flushed, pulled her hand away, and went off quite happy. +“Come, that’s capital,” he said to Sonia, going back and looking +brightly at her. “God give peace to the dead, the living have still to +live. That is right, isn’t it?” +Sonia looked surprised at the sudden brightness of his face. He looked +at her for some moments in silence. The whole history of the dead father +floated before his memory in those moments.... +***** +“Heavens, Dounia,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, as soon as they were in +the street, “I really feel relieved myself at coming away--more at ease. +How little did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever be glad +of that.” +“I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don’t you see it? +Perhaps worrying about us upset him. We must be patient, and much, much +can be forgiven.” +“Well, you were not very patient!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna caught her up, +hotly and jealously. “Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two. You +are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You +are both melancholy, both morose and hot-tempered, both haughty and both +generous.... Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think of +what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks!” +“Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.” +“Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr Petrovitch +breaks it off?” poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously. +“He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered Dounia, sharply and +contemptuously. +“We did well to come away,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in. +“He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and has +a breath of air... it is fearfully close in his room.... But where is +one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shut-up +rooms. Good heavens! what a town!... stay... this side... they will +crush you--carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I +declare... how they push!... I am very much afraid of that young woman, +too.” +“What young woman, mother? +“Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now.” +“Why?” +“I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but +as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief +cause of the trouble....” +“Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation. “What nonsense, with +your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening +before, and he did not know her when she came in.” +“Well, you will see.... She worries me; but you will see, you will +see! I was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I could +scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do you +remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like that +about her, and he introduces her to us--to you! So he must think a great +deal of her.” +“People will write anything. We were talked about and written about, +too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that it +is all nonsense.” +“God grant it may be!” +“And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer,” Dounia snapped out, +suddenly. +Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conversation was not resumed. +***** +“I will tell you what I want with you,” said Raskolnikov, drawing +Razumihin to the window. +“Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are coming,” Sonia said +hurriedly, preparing to depart. +“One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no secrets. You are not in our +way. I want to have another word or two with you. Listen!” he turned +suddenly to Razumihin again. “You know that... what’s his name... +Porfiry Petrovitch?” +“I should think so! He is a relation. Why?” added the latter, with +interest. +“Is not he managing that case... you know, about that murder?... You +were speaking about it yesterday.” +“Yes... well?” Razumihin’s eyes opened wide. +“He was inquiring for people who had pawned things, and I have some +pledges there, too--trifles--a ring my sister gave me as a keepsake when +I left home, and my father’s silver watch--they are only worth five or +six roubles altogether... but I value them. So what am I to do now? I +do not want to lose the things, especially the watch. I was quaking just +now, for fear mother would ask to look at it, when we spoke of Dounia’s +watch. It is the only thing of father’s left us. She would be ill if +it were lost. You know what women are. So tell me what to do. I know I +ought to have given notice at the police station, but would it not be +better to go straight to Porfiry? Eh? What do you think? The matter +might be settled more quickly. You see, mother may ask for it before +dinner.” +“Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Porfiry,” Razumihin +shouted in extraordinary excitement. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at +once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him.” +“Very well, let us go.” +“And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have +often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you +yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all +turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna...” +“Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov. “Sofya Semyonovna, this is my +friend Razumihin, and he is a good man.” +“If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning, not looking at Razumihin +at all, and still more embarrassed. +“Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to you to-day, Sofya +Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live.” +He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her +eyes. Sonia gave her address, and flushed as she did so. They all went +out together. +“Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs. +“Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been meaning to buy a lock for +these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks,” he said, +laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway. +“Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you find me, by the +way?” he added, as though he wanted to say something quite different. He +wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy. +“Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.” +“Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister? +Did I give her the address?” +“Why, had you forgotten?” +“No, I remember.” +“I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name, +and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name, +I asked to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not know you +had only a room too.... Good-bye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna.” +She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went away looking down, +hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the twenty +steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then +moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to +remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had she +felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world was +opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov meant to +come to her that day, perhaps at once! +“Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept muttering with a sinking +heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child. “Mercy! to +me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear!” +She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown gentleman who +was watching her and following at her heels. He had accompanied her from +the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin, Raskolnikov, and she stood +still at parting on the pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing, +started on hearing Sonia’s words: “and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov +lived?” He turned a rapid but attentive look upon all three, especially +upon Raskolnikov, to whom Sonia was speaking; then looked back and noted +the house. All this was done in an instant as he passed, and trying not +to betray his interest, he walked on more slowly as though waiting for +something. He was waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were parting, and +that Sonia was going home. +“Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,” he thought. “I must find +out.” +At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming the +same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her on +the other side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again, overtook +her and kept two or three yards behind her. +He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high +shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore +good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position. +He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each +step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face +with high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg. +His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with +grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair. +His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were +crimson. He was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger +than his years. +When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two persons on +the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On reaching +the house where she lodged, Sonia turned in at the gate; he followed +her, seeming rather surprised. In the courtyard she turned to the right +corner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown gentleman, and mounted the stairs +behind her. Only then Sonia noticed him. She reached the third storey, +turned down the passage, and rang at No. 9. On the door was inscribed +in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!” the stranger repeated again, +wondering at the strange coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. 8. +The doors were two or three yards apart. +“You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at Sonia and laughing. +“He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at +Madame Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively. +“We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only came to town the day +before yesterday. Good-bye for the present.” +Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for +some reason ashamed and uneasy. +***** +On the way to Porfiry’s, Razumihin was obviously excited. +“That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several times, “and I am glad! I +am glad!” +“What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought to himself. +“I didn’t know that you pledged things at the old woman’s, too. And... +was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there?” +“What a simple-hearted fool he is!” +“When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. “Two or three +days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem +the things now,” he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous +solicitude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver rouble +left... after last night’s accursed delirium!” +He laid special emphasis on the delirium. +“Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree--with what was not clear. “Then +that’s why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium you +were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that’s +clear, it’s all clear now.” +“Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will +go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it _cleared +up_ why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have +on all of them!” +“Shall we find him?” he asked suddenly. +“Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a nice fellow, you will +see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished +manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent +fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He +is incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or +rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method.... +But he understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a +case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very +anxious to make your acquaintance!” +“On what grounds is he so anxious?” +“Oh, it’s not exactly... you see, since you’ve been ill I happen to have +mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about +your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said, +‘What a pity!’ And so I concluded... from everything together, not only +that; yesterday Zametov... you know, Rodya, I talked some nonsense on +the way home to you yesterday, when I was drunk... I am afraid, brother, +of your exaggerating it, you see.” +“What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe they are right,” he said +with a constrained smile. +“Yes, yes.... That is, pooh, no!... But all that I said (and there was +something else too) it was all nonsense, drunken nonsense.” +“But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it all!” Raskolnikov cried +with exaggerated irritability. It was partly assumed, however. +“I know, I know, I understand. Believe me, I understand. One’s ashamed +to speak of it.” +“If you are ashamed, then don’t speak of it.” +Both were silent. Razumihin was more than ecstatic and Raskolnikov +perceived it with repulsion. He was alarmed, too, by what Razumihin had +just said about Porfiry. +“I shall have to pull a long face with him too,” he thought, with a +beating heart, and he turned white, “and do it naturally, too. But the +most natural thing would be to do nothing at all. Carefully do nothing +at all! No, _carefully_ would not be natural again.... Oh, well, we +shall see how it turns out.... We shall see... directly. Is it a good +thing to go or not? The butterfly flies to the light. My heart is +beating, that’s what’s bad!” +“In this grey house,” said Razumihin. +“The most important thing, does Porfiry know that I was at the old +hag’s flat yesterday... and asked about the blood? I must find that out +instantly, as soon as I go in, find out from his face; otherwise... I’ll +find out, if it’s my ruin.” +“I say, brother,” he said suddenly, addressing Razumihin, with a sly +smile, “I have been noticing all day that you seem to be curiously +excited. Isn’t it so?” +“Excited? Not a bit of it,” said Razumihin, stung to the quick. +“Yes, brother, I assure you it’s noticeable. Why, you sat on your chair +in a way you never do sit, on the edge somehow, and you seemed to be +writhing all the time. You kept jumping up for nothing. One moment you +were angry, and the next your face looked like a sweetmeat. You even +blushed; especially when you were invited to dinner, you blushed +awfully.” +“Nothing of the sort, nonsense! What do you mean?” +“But why are you wriggling out of it, like a schoolboy? By Jove, there +he’s blushing again.” +“What a pig you are!” +“But why are you so shamefaced about it? Romeo! Stay, I’ll tell of you +to-day. Ha-ha-ha! I’ll make mother laugh, and someone else, too...” +“Listen, listen, listen, this is serious.... What next, you fiend!” +Razumihin was utterly overwhelmed, turning cold with horror. “What will +you tell them? Come, brother... foo! what a pig you are!” +“You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew how it suits you; a +Romeo over six foot high! And how you’ve washed to-day--you cleaned your +nails, I declare. Eh? That’s something unheard of! Why, I do believe +you’ve got pomatum on your hair! Bend down.” +“Pig!” +Raskolnikov laughed as though he could not restrain himself. So +laughing, they entered Porfiry Petrovitch’s flat. This is what +Raskolnikov wanted: from within they could be heard laughing as they +came in, still guffawing in the passage. +“Not a word here or I’ll... brain you!” Razumihin whispered furiously, +seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder. +CHAPTER V +Raskolnikov was already entering the room. He came in looking as though +he had the utmost difficulty not to burst out laughing again. Behind him +Razumihin strode in gawky and awkward, shamefaced and red as a peony, +with an utterly crestfallen and ferocious expression. His face and +whole figure really were ridiculous at that moment and amply justified +Raskolnikov’s laughter. Raskolnikov, not waiting for an introduction, +bowed to Porfiry Petrovitch, who stood in the middle of the room +looking inquiringly at them. He held out his hand and shook hands, still +apparently making desperate efforts to subdue his mirth and utter a few +words to introduce himself. But he had no sooner succeeded in assuming +a serious air and muttering something when he suddenly glanced again as +though accidentally at Razumihin, and could no longer control himself: +his stifled laughter broke out the more irresistibly the more he tried +to restrain it. The extraordinary ferocity with which Razumihin received +this “spontaneous” mirth gave the whole scene the appearance of most +genuine fun and naturalness. Razumihin strengthened this impression as +though on purpose. +“Fool! You fiend,” he roared, waving his arm which at once struck a +little round table with an empty tea-glass on it. Everything was sent +flying and crashing. +“But why break chairs, gentlemen? You know it’s a loss to the Crown,” +Porfiry Petrovitch quoted gaily. +Raskolnikov was still laughing, with his hand in Porfiry Petrovitch’s, +but anxious not to overdo it, awaited the right moment to put a natural +end to it. Razumihin, completely put to confusion by upsetting the table +and smashing the glass, gazed gloomily at the fragments, cursed and +turned sharply to the window where he stood looking out with his back +to the company with a fiercely scowling countenance, seeing nothing. +Porfiry Petrovitch laughed and was ready to go on laughing, but +obviously looked for explanations. Zametov had been sitting in the +corner, but he rose at the visitors’ entrance and was standing in +expectation with a smile on his lips, though he looked with surprise and +even it seemed incredulity at the whole scene and at Raskolnikov with a +certain embarrassment. Zametov’s unexpected presence struck Raskolnikov +unpleasantly. +“I’ve got to think of that,” he thought. “Excuse me, please,” he began, +affecting extreme embarrassment. “Raskolnikov.” +“Not at all, very pleasant to see you... and how pleasantly you’ve come +in.... Why, won’t he even say good-morning?” Porfiry Petrovitch nodded +at Razumihin. +“Upon my honour I don’t know why he is in such a rage with me. I only +told him as we came along that he was like Romeo... and proved it. And +that was all, I think!” +“Pig!” ejaculated Razumihin, without turning round. +“There must have been very grave grounds for it, if he is so furious at +the word,” Porfiry laughed. +“Oh, you sharp lawyer!... Damn you all!” snapped Razumihin, and suddenly +bursting out laughing himself, he went up to Porfiry with a more +cheerful face as though nothing had happened. “That’ll do! We are +all fools. To come to business. This is my friend Rodion Romanovitch +Raskolnikov; in the first place he has heard of you and wants to make +your acquaintance, and secondly, he has a little matter of business with +you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you met before? Have you +known each other long?” +“What does this mean?” thought Raskolnikov uneasily. +Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very much so. +“Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday,” he said easily. +“Then I have been spared the trouble. All last week he was begging me +to introduce him to you. Porfiry and you have sniffed each other out +without me. Where is your tobacco?” +Porfiry Petrovitch was wearing a dressing-gown, very clean linen, and +trodden-down slippers. He was a man of about five and thirty, short, +stout even to corpulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut short +and had a large round head, particularly prominent at the back. His +soft, round, rather snub-nosed face was of a sickly yellowish colour, +but had a vigorous and rather ironical expression. It would have been +good-natured except for a look in the eyes, which shone with a watery, +mawkish light under almost white, blinking eyelashes. The expression +of those eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat womanish +figure, and gave it something far more serious than could be guessed at +first sight. +As soon as Porfiry Petrovitch heard that his visitor had a little matter +of business with him, he begged him to sit down on the sofa and sat down +himself on the other end, waiting for him to explain his business, with +that careful and over-serious attention which is at once oppressive and +embarrassing, especially to a stranger, and especially if what you are +discussing is in your opinion of far too little importance for such +exceptional solemnity. But in brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov +explained his business clearly and exactly, and was so well satisfied +with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good look at Porfiry. +Porfiry Petrovitch did not once take his eyes off him. Razumihin, +sitting opposite at the same table, listened warmly and impatiently, +looking from one to the other every moment with rather excessive +interest. +“Fool,” Raskolnikov swore to himself. +“You have to give information to the police,” Porfiry replied, with a +most businesslike air, “that having learnt of this incident, that is of +the murder, you beg to inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such +and such things belong to you, and that you desire to redeem them... +or... but they will write to you.” +“That’s just the point, that at the present moment,” Raskolnikov tried +his utmost to feign embarrassment, “I am not quite in funds... and +even this trifling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for +the present to declare that the things are mine, and that when I have +money....” +“That’s no matter,” answered Porfiry Petrovitch, receiving his +explanation of his pecuniary position coldly, “but you can, if you +prefer, write straight to me, to say, that having been informed of the +matter, and claiming such and such as your property, you beg...” +“On an ordinary sheet of paper?” Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly, again +interested in the financial side of the question. +“Oh, the most ordinary,” and suddenly Porfiry Petrovitch looked with +obvious irony at him, screwing up his eyes and, as it were, winking at +him. But perhaps it was Raskolnikov’s fancy, for it all lasted but a +moment. There was certainly something of the sort, Raskolnikov could +have sworn he winked at him, goodness knows why. +“He knows,” flashed through his mind like lightning. +“Forgive my troubling you about such trifles,” he went on, a little +disconcerted, “the things are only worth five roubles, but I prize them +particularly for the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I must +confess that I was alarmed when I heard...” +“That’s why you were so much struck when I mentioned to Zossimov that +Porfiry was inquiring for everyone who had pledges!” Razumihin put in +with obvious intention. +This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not help glancing at him +with a flash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately +recollected himself. +“You seem to be jeering at me, brother?” he said to him, with a +well-feigned irritability. “I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious +about such trash; but you mustn’t think me selfish or grasping for that, +and these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you +just now that the silver watch, though it’s not worth a cent, is the +only thing left us of my father’s. You may laugh at me, but my mother is +here,” he turned suddenly to Porfiry, “and if she knew,” he turned again +hurriedly to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, “that the +watch was lost, she would be in despair! You know what women are!” +“Not a bit of it! I didn’t mean that at all! Quite the contrary!” +shouted Razumihin distressed. +“Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?” Raskolnikov asked +himself in a tremor. “Why did I say that about women?” +“Oh, your mother is with you?” Porfiry Petrovitch inquired. +“Yes.” +“When did she come?” +“Last night.” +Porfiry paused as though reflecting. +“Your things would not in any case be lost,” he went on calmly and +coldly. “I have been expecting you here for some time.” +And as though that was a matter of no importance, he carefully offered +the ash-tray to Razumihin, who was ruthlessly scattering cigarette ash +over the carpet. Raskolnikov shuddered, but Porfiry did not seem to be +looking at him, and was still concerned with Razumihin’s cigarette. +“What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he had pledges _there_?” +cried Razumihin. +Porfiry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov. +“Your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped up together, and on +the paper your name was legibly written in pencil, together with the +date on which you left them with her...” +“How observant you are!” Raskolnikov smiled awkwardly, doing his very +utmost to look him straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly +added: +“I say that because I suppose there were a great many pledges... that it +must be difficult to remember them all.... But you remember them all so +clearly, and... and...” +“Stupid! Feeble!” he thought. “Why did I add that?” +“But we know all who had pledges, and you are the only one who hasn’t +come forward,” Porfiry answered with hardly perceptible irony. +“I haven’t been quite well.” +“I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in great distress +about something. You look pale still.” +“I am not pale at all.... No, I am quite well,” Raskolnikov snapped +out rudely and angrily, completely changing his tone. His anger was +mounting, he could not repress it. “And in my anger I shall betray +myself,” flashed through his mind again. “Why are they torturing me?” +“Not quite well!” Razumihin caught him up. “What next! He was +unconscious and delirious all yesterday. Would you believe, Porfiry, as +soon as our backs were turned, he dressed, though he could hardly stand, +and gave us the slip and went off on a spree somewhere till midnight, +delirious all the time! Would you believe it! Extraordinary!” +“Really delirious? You don’t say so!” Porfiry shook his head in a +womanish way. +“Nonsense! Don’t you believe it! But you don’t believe it anyway,” +Raskolnikov let slip in his anger. But Porfiry Petrovitch did not seem +to catch those strange words. +“But how could you have gone out if you hadn’t been delirious?” +Razumihin got hot suddenly. “What did you go out for? What was the +object of it? And why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you did +it? Now that all danger is over I can speak plainly.” +“I was awfully sick of them yesterday.” Raskolnikov addressed Porfiry +suddenly with a smile of insolent defiance, “I ran away from them to +take lodgings where they wouldn’t find me, and took a lot of money with +me. Mr. Zametov there saw it. I say, Mr. Zametov, was I sensible or +delirious yesterday; settle our dispute.” +He could have strangled Zametov at that moment, so hateful were his +expression and his silence to him. +“In my opinion you talked sensibly and even artfully, but you were +extremely irritable,” Zametov pronounced dryly. +“And Nikodim Fomitch was telling me to-day,” put in Porfiry Petrovitch, +“that he met you very late last night in the lodging of a man who had +been run over.” +“And there,” said Razumihin, “weren’t you mad then? You gave your last +penny to the widow for the funeral. If you wanted to help, give fifteen +or twenty even, but keep three roubles for yourself at least, but he +flung away all the twenty-five at once!” +“Maybe I found a treasure somewhere and you know nothing of it? So +that’s why I was liberal yesterday.... Mr. Zametov knows I’ve found a +treasure! Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour +with such trivialities,” he said, turning to Porfiry Petrovitch, with +trembling lips. “We are boring you, aren’t we?” +“Oh no, quite the contrary, quite the contrary! If only you knew how you +interest me! It’s interesting to look on and listen... and I am really +glad you have come forward at last.” +“But you might give us some tea! My throat’s dry,” cried Razumihin. +“Capital idea! Perhaps we will all keep you company. Wouldn’t you +like... something more essential before tea?” +“Get along with you!” +Porfiry Petrovitch went out to order tea. +Raskolnikov’s thoughts were in a whirl. He was in terrible exasperation. +“The worst of it is they don’t disguise it; they don’t care to stand on +ceremony! And how if you didn’t know me at all, did you come to talk +to Nikodim Fomitch about me? So they don’t care to hide that they are +tracking me like a pack of dogs. They simply spit in my face.” He was +shaking with rage. “Come, strike me openly, don’t play with me like a +cat with a mouse. It’s hardly civil, Porfiry Petrovitch, but perhaps I +won’t allow it! I shall get up and throw the whole truth in your ugly +faces, and you’ll see how I despise you.” He could hardly breathe. +“And what if it’s only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and through +inexperience I get angry and don’t keep up my nasty part? Perhaps it’s +all unintentional. All their phrases are the usual ones, but there is +something about them.... It all might be said, but there is something. +Why did he say bluntly, ‘With her’? Why did Zametov add that I spoke +artfully? Why do they speak in that tone? Yes, the tone.... Razumihin +is sitting here, why does he see nothing? That innocent blockhead never +does see anything! Feverish again! Did Porfiry wink at me just now? Of +course it’s nonsense! What could he wink for? Are they trying to upset +my nerves or are they teasing me? Either it’s ill fancy or they know! +Even Zametov is rude.... Is Zametov rude? Zametov has changed his mind. +I foresaw he would change his mind! He is at home here, while it’s my +first visit. Porfiry does not consider him a visitor; sits with his back +to him. They’re as thick as thieves, no doubt, over me! Not a doubt they +were talking about me before we came. Do they know about the flat? If +only they’d make haste! When I said that I ran away to take a flat he +let it pass.... I put that in cleverly about a flat, it may be of use +afterwards.... Delirious, indeed... ha-ha-ha! He knows all about last +night! He didn’t know of my mother’s arrival! The hag had written the +date on in pencil! You are wrong, you won’t catch me! There are no +facts... it’s all supposition! You produce facts! The flat even isn’t a +fact but delirium. I know what to say to them.... Do they know about the +flat? I won’t go without finding out. What did I come for? But my being +angry now, maybe is a fact! Fool, how irritable I am! Perhaps that’s +right; to play the invalid.... He is feeling me. He will try to catch +me. Why did I come?” +All this flashed like lightning through his mind. +Porfiry Petrovitch returned quickly. He became suddenly more jovial. +“Your party yesterday, brother, has left my head rather.... And I am out +of sorts altogether,” he began in quite a different tone, laughing to +Razumihin. +“Was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point. +Who got the best of it?” +“Oh, no one, of course. They got on to everlasting questions, floated +off into space.” +“Only fancy, Rodya, what we got on to yesterday. Whether there is such a +thing as crime. I told you that we talked our heads off.” +“What is there strange? It’s an everyday social question,” Raskolnikov +answered casually. +“The question wasn’t put quite like that,” observed Porfiry. +“Not quite, that’s true,” Razumihin agreed at once, getting warm and +hurried as usual. “Listen, Rodion, and tell us your opinion, I want to +hear it. I was fighting tooth and nail with them and wanted you to +help me. I told them you were coming.... It began with the socialist +doctrine. You know their doctrine; crime is a protest against the +abnormality of the social organisation and nothing more, and nothing +more; no other causes admitted!...” +“You are wrong there,” cried Porfiry Petrovitch; he was noticeably +animated and kept laughing as he looked at Razumihin, which made him +more excited than ever. +“Nothing is admitted,” Razumihin interrupted with heat. +“I am not wrong. I’ll show you their pamphlets. Everything with them +is ‘the influence of environment,’ and nothing else. Their favourite +phrase! From which it follows that, if society is normally organised, +all crime will cease at once, since there will be nothing to protest +against and all men will become righteous in one instant. Human nature +is not taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist! +They don’t recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living +process, will become at last a normal society, but they believe that a +social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going +to organise all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an +instant, quicker than any living process! That’s why they instinctively +dislike history, ‘nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,’ and they +explain it all as stupidity! That’s why they so dislike the _living_ +process of life; they don’t want a _living soul_! The living soul +demands life, the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an +object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what they want though +it smells of death and can be made of India-rubber, at least is not +alive, has no will, is servile and won’t revolt! And it comes in the end +to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning +of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, +indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalanstery--it +wants life, it hasn’t completed its vital process, it’s too soon for the +graveyard! You can’t skip over nature by logic. Logic presupposes three +possibilities, but there are millions! Cut away a million, and reduce +it all to the question of comfort! That’s the easiest solution of the +problem! It’s seductively clear and you musn’t think about it. That’s +the great thing, you mustn’t think! The whole secret of life in two +pages of print!” +“Now he is off, beating the drum! Catch hold of him, do!” laughed +Porfiry. “Can you imagine,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “six people +holding forth like that last night, in one room, with punch as a +preliminary! No, brother, you are wrong, environment accounts for a +great deal in crime; I can assure you of that.” +“Oh, I know it does, but just tell me: a man of forty violates a child +of ten; was it environment drove him to it?” +“Well, strictly speaking, it did,” Porfiry observed with noteworthy +gravity; “a crime of that nature may be very well ascribed to the +influence of environment.” +Razumihin was almost in a frenzy. “Oh, if you like,” he roared. “I’ll +prove to you that your white eyelashes may very well be ascribed to the +Church of Ivan the Great’s being two hundred and fifty feet high, and I +will prove it clearly, exactly, progressively, and even with a Liberal +tendency! I undertake to! Will you bet on it?” +“Done! Let’s hear, please, how he will prove it!” +“He is always humbugging, confound him,” cried Razumihin, jumping up and +gesticulating. “What’s the use of talking to you? He does all that +on purpose; you don’t know him, Rodion! He took their side yesterday, +simply to make fools of them. And the things he said yesterday! And they +were delighted! He can keep it up for a fortnight together. Last year he +persuaded us that he was going into a monastery: he stuck to it for two +months. Not long ago he took it into his head to declare he was going +to get married, that he had everything ready for the wedding. He ordered +new clothes indeed. We all began to congratulate him. There was no +bride, nothing, all pure fantasy!” +“Ah, you are wrong! I got the clothes before. It was the new clothes in +fact that made me think of taking you in.” +“Are you such a good dissembler?” Raskolnikov asked carelessly. +“You wouldn’t have supposed it, eh? Wait a bit, I shall take you in, +too. Ha-ha-ha! No, I’ll tell you the truth. All these questions about +crime, environment, children, recall to my mind an article of yours +which interested me at the time. ‘On Crime’... or something of the +sort, I forget the title, I read it with pleasure two months ago in the +_Periodical Review_.” +“My article? In the _Periodical Review_?” Raskolnikov asked in +astonishment. “I certainly did write an article upon a book six months +ago when I left the university, but I sent it to the _Weekly Review_.” +“But it came out in the _Periodical_.” +“And the _Weekly Review_ ceased to exist, so that’s why it wasn’t +printed at the time.” +“That’s true; but when it ceased to exist, the _Weekly Review_ was +amalgamated with the _Periodical_, and so your article appeared two +months ago in the latter. Didn’t you know?” +Raskolnikov had not known. +“Why, you might get some money out of them for the article! What a +strange person you are! You lead such a solitary life that you know +nothing of matters that concern you directly. It’s a fact, I assure +you.” +“Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either!” cried Razumihin. “I’ll +run to-day to the reading-room and ask for the number. Two months ago? +What was the date? It doesn’t matter though, I will find it. Think of +not telling us!” +“How did you find out that the article was mine? It’s only signed with +an initial.” +“I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through the editor; I know +him.... I was very much interested.” +“I analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a criminal before and +after the crime.” +“Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration of a crime is always +accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but... it was not that part +of your article that interested me so much, but an idea at the end of +the article which I regret to say you merely suggested without working +it out clearly. There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are +certain persons who can... that is, not precisely are able to, but have +a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the +law is not for them.” +Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional distortion of his +idea. +“What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not because of the +influence of environment?” Razumihin inquired with some alarm even. +“No, not exactly because of it,” answered Porfiry. “In his article all +men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have +to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, +don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to +commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they +are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken?” +“What do you mean? That can’t be right?” Razumihin muttered in +bewilderment. +Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where they +wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge. +“That wasn’t quite my contention,” he began simply and modestly. “Yet +I admit that you have stated it almost correctly; perhaps, if you like, +perfectly so.” (It almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) “The only +difference is that I don’t contend that extraordinary people are always +bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt +whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an +‘extraordinary’ man has the right... that is not an official right, but +an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep... certain +obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment +of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity). +You say that my article isn’t definite; I am ready to make it as clear +as I can. Perhaps I am right in thinking you want me to; very well. I +maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have +been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a +hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have +been in duty-bound... to _eliminate_ the dozen or the hundred men for +the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But +it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people +right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I +maintain in my article that all... well, legislators and leaders of men, +such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without +exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they +transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held +sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, +if that bloodshed--often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence +of ancient law--were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in fact, +that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity +were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men +or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving +some new word, must from their very nature be criminals--more or less, +of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut; +and to remain in the common rut is what they can���t submit to, from their +very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to +it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The +same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before. As for my +division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that +it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only +believe in my leading idea that men are _in general_ divided by a law +of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, +material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have +the gift or the talent to utter _a new word_. There are, of course, +innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both +categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally +speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live +under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty +to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing +humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the +law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their +capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; +for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the +present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the +sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I +maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading +through blood--that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. +It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article +(you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for +such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, +they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil +quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these +criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or +less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second +the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the +second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal +right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me--and _vive la +guerre éternelle_--till the New Jerusalem, of course!” +“Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?” +“I do,” Raskolnikov answered firmly; as he said these words and during +the whole preceding tirade he kept his eyes on one spot on the carpet. +“And... and do you believe in God? Excuse my curiosity.” +“I do,” repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Porfiry. +“And... do you believe in Lazarus’ rising from the dead?” +“I... I do. Why do you ask all this?” +“You believe it literally?” +“Literally.” +“You don’t say so.... I asked from curiosity. Excuse me. But let us +go back to the question; they are not always executed. Some, on the +contrary...” +“Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain their ends in this +life, and then...” +“They begin executing other people?” +“If it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your remark is +very witty.” +“Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish those extraordinary +people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their birth? I feel +there ought to be more exactitude, more external definition. Excuse the +natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding citizen, but couldn’t they +adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn’t they wear something, be +branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a member of +one category imagines that he belongs to the other, begins to ‘eliminate +obstacles’ as you so happily expressed it, then...” +“Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wittier than the other.” +“Thank you.” +“No reason to; but take note that the mistake can only arise in +the first category, that is among the ordinary people (as I perhaps +unfortunately called them). In spite of their predisposition to +obedience very many of them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes +vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people, +‘destroyers,’ and to push themselves into the ‘new movement,’ and +this quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really _new_ people are very often +unobserved by them, or even despised as reactionaries of grovelling +tendencies. But I don’t think there is any considerable danger here, +and you really need not be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course, +they might have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away +with them and to teach them their place, but no more; in fact, even +this isn’t necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are very +conscientious: some perform this service for one another and others +chastise themselves with their own hands.... They will impose various +public acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying +effect; in fact you’ve nothing to be uneasy about.... It’s a law of +nature.” +“Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score; but +there’s another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many people +who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I am +ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it’s alarming +if there are a great many of them, eh?” +“Oh, you needn’t worry about that either,” Raskolnikov went on in the +same tone. “People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for +saying something _new_, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily +so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these +grades and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity +some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am +convinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass of +mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, +by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and +stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a +thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps--I +speak roughly, approximately--is born with some independence, and with +still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius +is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity, +appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I have +not peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But there +certainly is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of +chance.” +“Why, are you both joking?” Razumihin cried at last. “There you sit, +making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya?” +Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no reply. +And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and _discourteous_ sarcasm of +Porfiry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face. +“Well, brother, if you are really serious... You are right, of course, +in saying that it’s not new, that it’s like what we’ve read and heard a +thousand times already; but what is really original in all this, and is +exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed +_in the name of conscience_, and, excuse my saying so, with such +fanaticism.... That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that +sanction of bloodshed _by conscience_ is to my mind... more terrible +than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed....” +“You are quite right, it is more terrible,” Porfiry agreed. +“Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I shall read it. +You can’t think that! I shall read it.” +“All that is not in the article, there’s only a hint of it,” said +Raskolnikov. +“Yes, yes.” Porfiry couldn’t sit still. “Your attitude to crime is +pretty clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am +really ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you’ve removed +my anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various +practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth +imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet--a future one of course--and +suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great +enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it... +do you see?” +Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even +raise his eyes to him. +“I must admit,” he went on calmly, “that such cases certainly must +arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that +snare; young people especially.” +“Yes, you see. Well then?” +“What then?” Raskolnikov smiled in reply; “that’s not my fault. So it is +and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin) +that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons, +banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There’s no need to +be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief.” +“And what if we do catch him?” +“Then he gets what he deserves.” +“You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?” +“Why do you care about that?” +“Simply from humanity.” +“If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his +punishment--as well as the prison.” +“But the real geniuses,” asked Razumihin frowning, “those who have +the right to murder? Oughtn’t they to suffer at all even for the blood +they’ve shed?” +“Why the word _ought_? It’s not a matter of permission or prohibition. +He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are +always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The +really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,” he added +dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation. +He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his +cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance, and +he felt this. Everyone got up. +“Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,” Porfiry +Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t resist. Allow me one little +question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I +want to express, simply that I may not forget it.” +“Very good, tell me your little notion,” Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale +and grave before him. +“Well, you see... I really don’t know how to express it properly.... +It’s a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your +article, surely you couldn’t have helped, he-he! fancying yourself... +just a little, an ‘extraordinary’ man, uttering a _new word_ in your +sense.... That’s so, isn’t it?” +“Quite possibly,” Raskolnikov answered contemptuously. +Razumihin made a movement. +“And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties +and hardship or for some service to humanity--to overstep obstacles?... +For instance, to rob and murder?” +And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as +before. +“If I did I certainly should not tell you,” Raskolnikov answered with +defiant and haughty contempt. +“No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary +point of view...” +“Foo! how obvious and insolent that is!” Raskolnikov thought with +repulsion. +“Allow me to observe,” he answered dryly, “that I don’t consider myself +a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and not being +one of them I cannot tell you how I should act.” +“Oh, come, don’t we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia?” +Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity. +Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice. +“Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona +Ivanovna last week?” Zametov blurted out from the corner. +Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intently at Porfiry. +Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing +something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy +silence. Raskolnikov turned to go. +“Are you going already?” Porfiry said amiably, holding out his hand with +excessive politeness. “Very, very glad of your acquaintance. As for your +request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still, +come to me there yourself in a day or two... to-morrow, indeed. I shall +be there at eleven o’clock for certain. We’ll arrange it all; we’ll have +a talk. As one of the last to be _there_, you might perhaps be able to +tell us something,” he added with a most good-natured expression. +“You want to cross-examine me officially in due form?” Raskolnikov asked +sharply. +“Oh, why? That’s not necessary for the present. You misunderstand me. +I lose no opportunity, you see, and... I’ve talked with all who had +pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the +last.... Yes, by the way,” he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, “I +just remember, what was I thinking of?” he turned to Razumihin, “you +were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know +very well,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is innocent, but +what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point, +this is all: when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?” +“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very +moment he spoke that he need not have said it. +“Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn’t you see in +a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen +or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t you notice +them? It’s very, very important for them.” +“Painters? No, I didn’t see them,” Raskolnikov answered slowly, as +though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking +every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as +possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. “No, I didn’t +see them, and I don’t think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on +the fourth storey” (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant) +“I remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona +Ivanovna’s.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters +were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall. But +painters... no, I don’t remember that there were any painters, and I +don’t think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn’t.” +“What do you mean?” Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had +reflected and realised. “Why, it was on the day of the murder the +painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are you +asking?” +“Foo! I have muddled it!” Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead. +“Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!” he addressed +Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. “It would be such a great thing for +us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at +the flat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us something.... I +quite muddled it.” +“Then you should be more careful,” Razumihin observed grimly. +The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petrovitch saw them +to the door with excessive politeness. +They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps they +did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath. +CHAPTER VI +“I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” repeated Razumihin, trying in +perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s arguments. +They were by now approaching Bakaleyev’s lodgings, where Pulcheria +Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while. Razumihin +kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited +by the very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly about +_it_. +“Don’t believe it, then!” answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless +smile. “You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every +word.” +“You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... h’m... +certainly, I agree, Porfiry’s tone was rather strange, and still +more that wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about +him--but why? Why?” +“He has changed his mind since last night.” +“Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do +their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you +afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless.” +“If they had had facts--I mean, real facts--or at least grounds for +suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game, +in the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago +besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirage--all +ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by +impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted +it out in his vexation--or perhaps he has some plan... he seems an +intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to +know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome +explaining it all. Stop!” +“And it’s insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have +spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at last--I +am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago, +this idea. Of course the merest hint only--an insinuation--but why an +insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only you +knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor student, +unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe delirious +illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to +speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to +face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence; and +the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented +by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a stifling +atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person +where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomach--he +might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it +all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place, +Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces, +and spit a dozen times in all directions. I’d hit out in all +directions, neatly too, and so I’d put an end to it. Damn them! Don’t be +downhearted. It’s a shame!” +“He really has put it well, though,” Raskolnikov thought. +“Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?” he said with +bitterness. “Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel +vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the +restaurant....” +“Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him, as +one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And +as for Zametov...” +“At last he sees through him!” thought Raskolnikov. +“Stay!” cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. “Stay! you +were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap? +You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had +done _that_, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat... +and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if +you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?” +“If I had done _that thing_, I should certainly have said that I had +seen the workmen and the flat,” Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance +and obvious disgust. +“But why speak against yourself?” +“Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny +everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed +and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts +that can’t be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will +introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another +significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon +that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an +air of truth, and then make some explanation.” +“But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been +there two days before, and that therefore you must have been there on +the day of the murder at eight o’clock. And so he would have caught you +over a detail.” +“Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to +reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and +so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days +before.” +“But how could you forget it?” +“Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most +easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he +will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler +the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you +think....” +“He is a knave then, if that is so!” +Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was +struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness +with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the +preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive, +from necessity. +“I am getting a relish for certain aspects!” he thought to himself. +But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an +unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept on +increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev’s. +“Go in alone!” said Raskolnikov suddenly. “I will be back directly.” +“Where are you going? Why, we are just here.” +“I can’t help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them.” +“Say what you like, I will come with you.” +“You, too, want to torture me!” he screamed, with such bitter +irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin’s hands dropped. +He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov +striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting +his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry +like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria +Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence. +When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he was +breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his +unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror +he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put +the things; put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the +hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he got up +and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of Bakaleyev’s, he +suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper +in which they had been wrapped with the old woman’s handwriting on it, +might somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and then +might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence against him. +He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half +senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went +quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily +through the gateway. +“Here he is himself,” shouted a loud voice. +He raised his head. +The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was pointing +him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing a long coat +and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a woman. He +stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From his wrinkled +flabby face he looked over fifty; his little eyes were lost in fat and +they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly. +“What is it?” Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter. +The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at him +attentively, deliberately; then he turned slowly and went out of the +gate into the street without saying a word. +“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov. +“Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned your +name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed you out and +he went away. It’s funny.” +The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after +wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room. +Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of +him walking along the other side of the street with the same even, +deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though in +meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind him. +At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man +noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes again; +and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a word. +“You were inquiring for me... of the porter?” Raskolnikov said at last, +but in a curiously quiet voice. +The man made no answer; he didn’t even look at him. Again they were both +silent. +“Why do you... come and ask for me... and say nothing.... What’s the +meaning of it?” +Raskolnikov’s voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the words +clearly. +The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at +Raskolnikov. +“Murderer!” he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice. +Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a +cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for +a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So +they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence. +The man did not look at him. +“What do you mean... what is.... Who is a murderer?” muttered +Raskolnikov hardly audibly. +“_You_ are a murderer,” the man answered still more articulately and +emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked +straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes. +They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned to the left +without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing after +him. He saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at him still +standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied that +he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and triumph. +With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his way +back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap +and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving. +Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he +stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour. +He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some +images without order or coherence floated before his mind--faces of +people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he would +never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table +in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars +in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a back staircase quite +dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with egg-shells, and the +Sunday bells floating in from somewhere.... The images followed one +another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried +to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression +within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was even +pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too +was an almost pleasant sensation. +He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and +pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some +time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into +the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya’s +whisper: +“Don’t disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later.” +“Quite so,” answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the +door. Another half-hour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on +his back again, clasping his hands behind his head. +“Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where was he, +what did he see? He has seen it all, that’s clear. Where was he then? +And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of the earth? +And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm...” continued Raskolnikov, +turning cold and shivering, “and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the +door--was that possible? A clue? You miss an infinitesimal line and you +can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A fly flew by and saw it! Is it +possible?” He felt with sudden loathing how weak, how physically weak he +had become. “I ought to have known it,” he thought with a bitter smile. +“And how dared I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take up an +axe and shed blood! I ought to have known beforehand.... Ah, but I did +know!” he whispered in despair. At times he came to a standstill at some +thought. +“No, those men are not made so. The real _Master_ to whom all is +permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, _forgets_ an army in +Egypt, _wastes_ half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off +with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and +so _all_ is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of flesh but +of bronze!” +One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the +pyramids, Waterloo, and a wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with +a red trunk under her bed--it’s a nice hash for Porfiry Petrovitch to +digest! How can they digest it! It’s too inartistic. “A Napoleon creep +under an old woman’s bed! Ugh, how loathsome!” +At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish +excitement. “The old woman is of no consequence,” he thought, hotly and +incoherently. “The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is not +what matters! The old woman was only an illness.... I was in a hurry to +overstep.... I didn’t kill a human being, but a principle! I killed the +principle, but I didn’t overstep, I stopped on this side.... I was +only capable of killing. And it seems I wasn’t even capable of that... +Principle? Why was that fool Razumihin abusing the socialists? They are +industrious, commercial people; ‘the happiness of all’ is their case. +No, life is only given to me once and I shall never have it again; I +don’t want to wait for ‘the happiness of all.’ I want to live myself, +or else better not live at all. I simply couldn’t pass by my mother +starving, keeping my rouble in my pocket while I waited for the +‘happiness of all.’ I am putting my little brick into the happiness of +all and so my heart is at peace. Ha-ha! Why have you let me slip? I only +live once, I too want.... Ech, I am an æsthetic louse and nothing +more,” he added suddenly, laughing like a madman. “Yes, I am certainly a +louse,” he went on, clutching at the idea, gloating over it and playing +with it with vindictive pleasure. “In the first place, because I can +reason that I am one, and secondly, because for a month past I have been +troubling benevolent Providence, calling it to witness that not for +my own fleshly lusts did I undertake it, but with a grand and noble +object--ha-ha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying it out as justly as +possible, weighing, measuring and calculating. Of all the lice I picked +out the most useless one and proposed to take from her only as much as I +needed for the first step, no more nor less (so the rest would have gone +to a monastery, according to her will, ha-ha!). And what shows that I +am utterly a louse,” he added, grinding his teeth, “is that I am +perhaps viler and more loathsome than the louse I killed, and _I felt +beforehand_ that I should tell myself so _after_ killing her. Can +anything be compared with the horror of that? The vulgarity! The +abjectness! I understand the ‘prophet’ with his sabre, on his steed: +Allah commands and ‘trembling’ creation must obey! The ‘prophet’ is +right, he is right when he sets a battery across the street and blows up +the innocent and the guilty without deigning to explain! It’s for you to +obey, trembling creation, and not _to have desires_, for that’s not for +you!... I shall never, never forgive the old woman!” +His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips were parched, his +eyes were fixed on the ceiling. +“Mother, sister--how I loved them! Why do I hate them now? Yes, I hate +them, I feel a physical hatred for them, I can’t bear them near me.... +I went up to my mother and kissed her, I remember.... To embrace her +and think if she only knew... shall I tell her then? That’s just what +I might do.... _She_ must be the same as I am,” he added, straining +himself to think, as it were struggling with delirium. “Ah, how I hate +the old woman now! I feel I should kill her again if she came to life! +Poor Lizaveta! Why did she come in?... It’s strange though, why is it +I scarcely ever think of her, as though I hadn’t killed her? Lizaveta! +Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes.... Dear women! Why don’t +they weep? Why don’t they moan? They give up everything... their eyes +are soft and gentle.... Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!” +He lost consciousness; it seemed strange to him that he didn’t remember +how he got into the street. It was late evening. The twilight had fallen +and the full moon was shining more and more brightly; but there was a +peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were crowds of people in the +street; workmen and business people were making their way home; other +people had come out for a walk; there was a smell of mortar, dust and +stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along, mournful and anxious; he was +distinctly aware of having come out with a purpose, of having to do +something in a hurry, but what it was he had forgotten. Suddenly he +stood still and saw a man standing on the other side of the street, +beckoning to him. He crossed over to him, but at once the man turned and +walked away with his head hanging, as though he had made no sign to +him. “Stay, did he really beckon?” Raskolnikov wondered, but he tried +to overtake him. When he was within ten paces he recognised him and +was frightened; it was the same man with stooping shoulders in the long +coat. Raskolnikov followed him at a distance; his heart was beating; +they went down a turning; the man still did not look round. “Does he +know I am following him?” thought Raskolnikov. The man went into the +gateway of a big house. Raskolnikov hastened to the gate and looked in +to see whether he would look round and sign to him. In the court-yard +the man did turn round and again seemed to beckon him. Raskolnikov at +once followed him into the yard, but the man was gone. He must have +gone up the first staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard +slow measured steps two flights above. The staircase seemed strangely +familiar. He reached the window on the first floor; the moon shone +through the panes with a melancholy and mysterious light; then he +reached the second floor. Bah! this is the flat where the painters were +at work... but how was it he did not recognise it at once? The steps +of the man above had died away. “So he must have stopped or hidden +somewhere.” He reached the third storey, should he go on? There was a +stillness that was dreadful.... But he went on. The sound of his own +footsteps scared and frightened him. How dark it was! The man must be +hiding in some corner here. Ah! the flat was standing wide open, he +hesitated and went in. It was very dark and empty in the passage, as +though everything had been removed; he crept on tiptoe into the parlour +which was flooded with moonlight. Everything there was as before, the +chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the +frames. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked in at the windows. +“It’s the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery,” thought +Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more +silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was +painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp +crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly +flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At +that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little +cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. “Why is that cloak +here?” he thought, “it wasn’t there before....” He went up to it quietly +and felt that there was someone hiding behind it. He cautiously moved +the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner, the old woman bent +double so that he couldn’t see her face; but it was she. He stood over +her. “She is afraid,” he thought. He stealthily took the axe from the +noose and struck her one blow, then another on the skull. But strange +to say she did not stir, as though she were made of wood. He was +frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at her; but she, too, +bent her head lower. He bent right down to the ground and peeped up +into her face from below, he peeped and turned cold with horror: the old +woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless laughter, doing +her utmost that he should not hear it. Suddenly he fancied that the door +from the bedroom was opened a little and that there was laughter and +whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and he began hitting the +old woman on the head with all his force, but at every blow of the axe +the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and the old +woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was rushing away, but the +passage was full of people, the doors of the flats stood open and on the +landing, on the stairs and everywhere below there were people, rows of +heads, all looking, but huddled together in silence and expectation. +Something gripped his heart, his legs were rooted to the spot, they +would not move.... He tried to scream and woke up. +He drew a deep breath--but his dream seemed strangely to persist: +his door was flung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in the +doorway watching him intently. +Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them +again. He lay on his back without stirring. +“Is it still a dream?” he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly +perceptibly; the stranger was standing in the same place, still watching +him. +He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after +him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on +Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa; he +put his hat on the floor beside him and leaned his hands on his cane +and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to wait +indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his stolen +glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost +whitish beard. +Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk. There +was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the stairs. +Only a big fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane. It was +unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the sofa. +“Come, tell me what you want.” +“I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending,” the stranger answered +oddly, laughing calmly. “Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, allow me to +introduce myself....” +PART IV +CHAPTER I +“Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov thought once more. +He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unexpected visitor. +“Svidrigaïlov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said at last aloud in +bewilderment. +His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this exclamation. +“I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the first place, I wanted to make +your personal acquaintance, as I have already heard a great deal about +you that is interesting and flattering; secondly, I cherish the hope +that you may not refuse to assist me in a matter directly concerning the +welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support she +might not let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced against me, +but with your assistance I reckon on...” +“You reckon wrongly,” interrupted Raskolnikov. +“They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you?” +Raskolnikov made no reply. +“It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the day before. Well, +let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don’t consider it necessary +to justify myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly +criminal on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice, +with common sense?” +Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence. +“That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless girl and ‘insulted her +with my infamous proposals’--is that it? (I am anticipating you.) But +you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man _et nihil humanum_... in a +word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which +does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the +most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself +a victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my +passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished +the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was promoting +our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you know; why, +probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone!” +“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “It’s +simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t +want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out!” +Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh. +“But you’re... but there’s no getting round you,” he said, laughing in +the frankest way. “I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right +line at once!” +“But you are trying to get round me still!” +“What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaïlov, laughing openly. “But this +is what the French call _bonne guerre_, and the most innocent form of +deception!... But still you have interrupted me; one way or another, I +repeat again: there would never have been any unpleasantness except for +what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna...” +“You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov +interrupted rudely. +“Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though.... But +as for your question, I really don’t know what to say, though my own +conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in +any apprehension about it. All was regular and in order; the medical +inquiry diagnosed apoplexy due to bathing immediately after a heavy +dinner and a bottle of wine, and indeed it could have proved nothing +else. But I’ll tell you what I have been thinking to myself of late, on +my way here in the train, especially: didn’t I contribute to all that... +calamity, morally, in a way, by irritation or something of the +sort. But I came to the conclusion that that, too, was quite out of the +question.” +Raskolnikov laughed. +“I wonder you trouble yourself about it!” +“But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I struck her just twice +with a switch--there were no marks even... don’t regard me as a cynic, +please; I am perfectly aware how atrocious it was of me and all that; +but I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna was very likely pleased +at my, so to say, warmth. The story of your sister had been wrung out to +the last drop; for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been forced to +sit at home; she had nothing to show herself with in the town. Besides, +she had bored them so with that letter (you heard about her reading the +letter). And all of a sudden those two switches fell from heaven! Her +first act was to order the carriage to be got out.... Not to speak +of the fact that there are cases when women are very, very glad to be +insulted in spite of all their show of indignation. There are instances +of it with everyone; human beings in general, indeed, greatly love to +be insulted, have you noticed that? But it’s particularly so with women. +One might even say it’s their only amusement.” +At one time Raskolnikov thought of getting up and walking out and so +finishing the interview. But some curiosity and even a sort of prudence +made him linger for a moment. +“You are fond of fighting?” he asked carelessly. +“No, not very,” Svidrigaïlov answered, calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna and +I scarcely ever fought. We lived very harmoniously, and she was always +pleased with me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven years (not +counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous character). The first +time, two months after our marriage, immediately after we arrived in the +country, and the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did you +suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary, such a slave driver? +Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion Romanovitch, how a few years +ago, in those days of beneficent publicity, a nobleman, I’ve forgotten +his name, was put to shame everywhere, in all the papers, for having +thrashed a German woman in the railway train. You remember? It was in +those days, that very year I believe, the ‘disgraceful action of the +_Age_’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian Nights,’ that public reading, +you remember? The dark eyes, you know! Ah, the golden days of our youth, +where are they?). Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed the German, +I feel no sympathy with him, because after all what need is there +for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking +‘Germans’ that I don’t believe there is a progressive who could quite +answer for himself. No one looked at the subject from that point of view +then, but that’s the truly humane point of view, I assure you.” +After saying this, Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh again. +Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a man with a firm purpose in his +mind and able to keep it to himself. +“I expect you’ve not talked to anyone for some days?” he asked. +“Scarcely anyone. I suppose you are wondering at my being such an +adaptable man?” +“No, I am only wondering at your being too adaptable a man.” +“Because I am not offended at the rudeness of your questions? Is that +it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered,” he replied, +with a surprising expression of simplicity. “You know, there’s +hardly anything I take interest in,” he went on, as it were dreamily, +“especially now, I’ve nothing to do.... You are quite at liberty to +imagine though that I am making up to you with a motive, particularly as +I told you I want to see your sister about something. But I’ll confess +frankly, I am very much bored. The last three days especially, so I am +delighted to see you.... Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you +seem to be somehow awfully strange yourself. Say what you like, there’s +something wrong with you, and now, too... not this very minute, I mean, +but now, generally.... Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am +not such a bear, you know, as you think.” +Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him. +“You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I fancy indeed that +you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to +behave like one.” +“I am not particularly interested in anyone’s opinion,” Svidrigaïlov +answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why +not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak for our +climate... and especially if one has a natural propensity that way,” he +added, laughing again. +“But I’ve heard you have many friends here. You are, as they say, ‘not +without connections.’ What can you want with me, then, unless you’ve +some special object?” +“That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigaïlov admitted, not +replying to the chief point. “I’ve met some already. I’ve been lounging +about for the last three days, and I’ve seen them, or they’ve seen me. +That’s a matter of course. I am well dressed and reckoned not a poor +man; the emancipation of the serfs hasn’t affected me; my property +consists chiefly of forests and water meadows. The revenue has not +fallen off; but... I am not going to see them, I was sick of them long +ago. I’ve been here three days and have called on no one.... What a town +it is! How has it come into existence among us, tell me that? A town of +officials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I didn’t +notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels.... My only +hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!” +“Anatomy?” +“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, +maybe--well, all that can go on without me,” he went on, again without +noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?” +“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?” +“How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best +society, eight years ago; we had a fine time. And all men of breeding, +you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian +society the best manners are found among those who’ve been thrashed, +have you noticed that? I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I did get +into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Nezhin. Then +Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bargained with him and bought me off for +thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were united +in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the country like a treasure. +You know she was five years older than I. She was very fond of me. For +seven years I never left the country. And, take note, that all my life +she held a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so +if I were to elect to be restive about anything I should be trapped at +once! And she would have done it! Women find nothing incompatible in +that.” +“If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given her the slip?” +“I don’t know what to say. It was scarcely the document restrained me. I +didn’t want to go anywhere else. Marfa Petrovna herself invited me to go +abroad, seeing I was bored, but I’ve been abroad before, and always +felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples, the +sea--you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most revolting is +that one is really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one +blames others for everything and excuses oneself. I should have gone +perhaps on an expedition to the North Pole, because _j’ai le vin +mauvais_ and hate drinking, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have +tried it. But, I say, I’ve been told Berg is going up in a great balloon +next Sunday from the Yusupov Garden and will take up passengers at a +fee. Is it true?” +“Why, would you go up?” +“I... No, oh, no,” muttered Svidrigaïlov really seeming to be deep in +thought. +“What does he mean? Is he in earnest?” Raskolnikov wondered. +“No, the document didn’t restrain me,” Svidrigaïlov went on, +meditatively. “It was my own doing, not leaving the country, and nearly +a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my name-day +and made me a present of a considerable sum of money, too. She had a +fortune, you know. ‘You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’--that +was actually her expression. You don’t believe she used it? But do +you know I managed the estate quite decently, they know me in the +neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Marfa Petrovna at first approved, +but afterwards she was afraid of my over-studying.” +“You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much?” +“Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And, by the way, do you +believe in ghosts?” +“What ghosts?” +“Why, ordinary ghosts.” +“Do you believe in them?” +“Perhaps not, _pour vous plaire_.... I wouldn’t say no exactly.” +“Do you see them, then?” +Svidrigaïlov looked at him rather oddly. +“Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said, twisting his mouth +into a strange smile. +“How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?” +“She has been three times. I saw her first on the very day of the +funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to +come here. The second time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak, on +the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two +hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.” +“Were you awake?” +“Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me for +a minute and goes out at the door--always at the door. I can almost hear +her.” +“What made me think that something of the sort must be happening to +you?” Raskolnikov said suddenly. +At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much +excited. +“What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaïlov asked in astonishment. “Did you +really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common between us, eh?” +“You never said so!” Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat. +“Didn’t I?” +“No!” +“I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes shut, +pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’” +“What do you mean by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?” cried +Raskolnikov. +“What do I mean? I really don’t know....” Svidrigaïlov muttered +ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled. +For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other’s faces. +“That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. “What does she +say when she comes to you?” +“She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles and--man +is a strange creature--it makes me angry. The first time she came in (I +was tired you know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the lunch +afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar and +began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-day, +Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the dining-room clock,’ +she said. All those seven years I’ve wound that clock every week, and if +I forgot it she would always remind me. The next day I set off on my way +here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d been asleep, tired out, +with my eyes half open, I was drinking some coffee. I looked up and +there was suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a pack of +cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your fortune for the journey, Arkady +Ivanovitch?’ She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never +forgive myself for not asking her to. I ran away in a fright, and, +besides, the bell rang. I was sitting to-day, feeling very heavy after a +miserable dinner from a cookshop; I was sitting smoking, all of a sudden +Marfa Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new green silk dress +with a long train. ‘Good day, Arkady Ivanovitch! How do you like my +dress? Aniska can’t make like this.’ (Aniska was a dressmaker in the +country, one of our former serf girls who had been trained in Moscow, a +pretty wench.) She stood turning round before me. I looked at the dress, +and then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. ‘I wonder +you trouble to come to me about such trifles, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘Good +gracious, you won’t let one disturb you about anything!’ To tease her +I said, ‘I want to get married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just like you, +Arkady Ivanovitch; it does you very little credit to come looking for a +bride when you’ve hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a good +choice, at least, but I know it won’t be for your happiness or hers, you +will only be a laughing-stock to all good people.’ Then she went out and +her train seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?” +“But perhaps you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in. +“I rarely lie,” answered Svidrigaïlov thoughtfully, apparently not +noticing the rudeness of the question. +“And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before?” +“Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had +a serf, Filka; just after his burial I called out forgetting ‘Filka, my +pipe!’ He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat +still and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a +violent quarrel just before his death. ‘How dare you come in with a hole +in your elbow?’ I said. ‘Go away, you scamp!’ He turned and went out, +and never came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted +to have a service sung for him, but I was ashamed.” +“You should go to a doctor.” +“I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don’t know +what’s wrong; I believe I am five times as strong as you are. I didn’t +ask you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you +believe that they exist.” +“No, I won’t believe it!” Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger. +“What do people generally say?” muttered Svidrigaïlov, as though +speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. “They say, ‘You +are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.’ But that’s not +strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that +only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that +they don’t exist.” +“Nothing of the sort,” Raskolnikov insisted irritably. +“No? You don’t think so?” Svidrigaïlov went on, looking at him +deliberately. “But what do you say to this argument (help me with +it): ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the +beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see +them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the +sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon +as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is +broken, one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the +more seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one’s contact with that +other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that +world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you +could believe in that, too.” +“I don’t believe in a future life,” said Raskolnikov. +Svidrigaïlov sat lost in thought. +“And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort,” +he said suddenly. +“He is a madman,” thought Raskolnikov. +“We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, +something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what +if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black +and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I +sometimes fancy it like that.” +“Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than +that?” Raskolnikov cried, with a feeling of anguish. +“Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know +it’s what I would certainly have made it,” answered Svidrigaïlov, with a +vague smile. +This horrible answer sent a cold chill through Raskolnikov. Svidrigaïlov +raised his head, looked at him, and suddenly began laughing. +“Only think,” he cried, “half an hour ago we had never seen each other, +we regarded each other as enemies; there is a matter unsettled between +us; we’ve thrown it aside, and away we’ve gone into the abstract! Wasn’t +I right in saying that we were birds of a feather?” +“Kindly allow me,” Raskolnikov went on irritably, “to ask you to explain +why you have honoured me with your visit... and... and I am in a hurry, +I have no time to waste. I want to go out.” +“By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya Romanovna, is going to +be married to Mr. Luzhin, Pyotr Petrovitch?” +“Can you refrain from any question about my sister and from mentioning +her name? I can’t understand how you dare utter her name in my presence, +if you really are Svidrigaïlov.” +“Why, but I’ve come here to speak about her; how can I avoid mentioning +her?” +“Very good, speak, but make haste.” +“I am sure that you must have formed your own opinion of this Mr. +Luzhin, who is a connection of mine through my wife, if you have only +seen him for half an hour, or heard any facts about him. He is no +match for Avdotya Romanovna. I believe Avdotya Romanovna is sacrificing +herself generously and imprudently for the sake of... for the sake of +her family. I fancied from all I had heard of you that you would be very +glad if the match could be broken off without the sacrifice of worldly +advantages. Now I know you personally, I am convinced of it.” +“All this is very naïve... excuse me, I should have said impudent on +your part,” said Raskolnikov. +“You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends. Don’t be uneasy, Rodion +Romanovitch, if I were working for my own advantage, I would not have +spoken out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I will confess something +psychologically curious about that: just now, defending my love for +Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself the victim. Well, let me tell you +that I’ve no feeling of love now, not the slightest, so that I wonder +myself indeed, for I really did feel something...” +“Through idleness and depravity,” Raskolnikov put in. +“I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister has such qualities +that even I could not help being impressed by them. But that’s all +nonsense, as I see myself now.” +“Have you seen that long?” +“I began to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of it the +day before yesterday, almost at the moment I arrived in Petersburg. I +still fancied in Moscow, though, that I was coming to try to get Avdotya +Romanovna’s hand and to cut out Mr. Luzhin.” +“Excuse me for interrupting you; kindly be brief, and come to the object +of your visit. I am in a hurry, I want to go out...” +“With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and determining on a +certain... journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary +arrangements. I left my children with an aunt; they are well provided +for; and they have no need of me personally. And a nice father I should +make, too! I have taken nothing but what Marfa Petrovna gave me a year +ago. That’s enough for me. Excuse me, I am just coming to the point. +Before the journey which may come off, I want to settle Mr. Luzhin, too. +It’s not that I detest him so much, but it was through him I quarrelled +with Marfa Petrovna when I learned that she had dished up this marriage. +I want now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your mediation, and if you +like in your presence, to explain to her that in the first place she +will never gain anything but harm from Mr. Luzhin. Then, begging +her pardon for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten +thousand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a rupture to +which I believe she is herself not disinclined, if she could see the way +to it.” +“You are certainly mad,” cried Raskolnikov not so much angered as +astonished. “How dare you talk like that!” +“I knew you would scream at me; but in the first place, though I am not +rich, this ten thousand roubles is perfectly free; I have absolutely no +need for it. If Avdotya Romanovna does not accept it, I shall waste +it in some more foolish way. That’s the first thing. Secondly, my +conscience is perfectly easy; I make the offer with no ulterior motive. +You may not believe it, but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will +know. The point is, that I did actually cause your sister, whom I +greatly respect, some trouble and unpleasantness, and so, sincerely +regretting it, I want--not to compensate, not to repay her for the +unpleasantness, but simply to do something to her advantage, to show +that I am not, after all, privileged to do nothing but harm. If there +were a millionth fraction of self-interest in my offer, I should not +have made it so openly; and I should not have offered her ten thousand +only, when five weeks ago I offered her more, Besides, I may, perhaps, +very soon marry a young lady, and that alone ought to prevent suspicion +of any design on Avdotya Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that +in marrying Mr. Luzhin, she is taking money just the same, only from +another man. Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, think it over coolly +and quietly.” +Svidrigaïlov himself was exceedingly cool and quiet as he was saying +this. +“I beg you to say no more,” said Raskolnikov. “In any case this is +unpardonable impertinence.” +“Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but harm to his neighbour +in this world, and is prevented from doing the tiniest bit of good +by trivial conventional formalities. That’s absurd. If I died, for +instance, and left that sum to your sister in my will, surely she +wouldn’t refuse it?” +“Very likely she would.” +“Oh, no, indeed. However, if you refuse it, so be it, though ten +thousand roubles is a capital thing to have on occasion. In any case I +beg you to repeat what I have said to Avdotya Romanovna.” +“No, I won’t.” +“In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be obliged to try and see her +myself and worry her by doing so.” +“And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her?” +“I don’t know really what to say. I should like very much to see her +once more.” +“Don’t hope for it.” +“I’m sorry. But you don’t know me. Perhaps we may become better +friends.” +“You think we may become friends?” +“And why not?” Svidrigaïlov said, smiling. He stood up and took his hat. +“I didn’t quite intend to disturb you and I came here without reckoning +on it... though I was very much struck by your face this morning.” +“Where did you see me this morning?” Raskolnikov asked uneasily. +“I saw you by chance.... I kept fancying there is something about you +like me.... But don’t be uneasy. I am not intrusive; I used to get on +all right with card-sharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great +personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I could write about +Raphael’s _Madonna_ in Madam Prilukov’s album, and I never left Marfa +Petrovna’s side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at +Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in +a balloon with Berg, perhaps.” +“Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask?” +“What travels?” +“Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.” +“A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that’s a wide +subject.... if only you knew what you are asking,” he added, and gave +a sudden, loud, short laugh. “Perhaps I’ll get married instead of the +journey. They’re making a match for me.” +“Here?” +“Yes.” +“How have you had time for that?” +“But I am very anxious to see Avdotya Romanovna once. I earnestly beg +it. Well, good-bye for the present. Oh, yes. I have forgotten something. +Tell your sister, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna remembered +her in her will and left her three thousand roubles. That’s absolutely +certain. Marfa Petrovna arranged it a week before her death, and it was +done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be able to receive the money +in two or three weeks.” +“Are you telling the truth?” +“Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am staying very near you.” +As he went out, Svidrigaïlov ran up against Razumihin in the doorway. +CHAPTER II +It was nearly eight o’clock. The two young men hurried to Bakaleyev’s, +to arrive before Luzhin. +“Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the +street. +“It was Svidrigaïlov, that landowner in whose house my sister was +insulted when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her with +his attentions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna. This +Marfa Petrovna begged Dounia’s forgiveness afterwards, and she’s just +died suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don’t +know why I’m afraid of that man. He came here at once after his wife’s +funeral. He is very strange, and is determined on doing something.... We +must guard Dounia from him... that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you +hear?” +“Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya, +for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will guard her. Where does +he live?” +“I don’t know.” +“Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll find out, though.” +“Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a pause. +“Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well.” +“You did really see him? You saw him clearly?” Raskolnikov insisted. +“Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I have +a good memory for faces.” +They were silent again. +“Hm!... that’s all right,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Do you know, I +fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination.” +“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.” +“Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a +smile, “that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad, +and have only seen a phantom.” +“What do you mean?” +“Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything that +happened all these days may be only imagination.” +“Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!... But what did he say, what did +he come for?” +Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute. +“Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came to you, you were +asleep. Then we had dinner and then I went to Porfiry’s, Zametov was +still with him. I tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in +the right way. They don’t seem to understand and can’t understand, but +are not a bit ashamed. I drew Porfiry to the window, and began talking +to him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At +last I shook my fist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I’d +brain him. He merely looked at me, I cursed and came away. That was +all. It was very stupid. To Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I +thought I’d made a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea +struck me: why should we trouble? Of course if you were in any danger +or anything, but why need you care? You needn’t care a hang for them. We +shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I’d +mystify them more than ever. How ashamed they’ll be afterwards! Hang +them! We can thrash them afterwards, but let’s laugh at them now!” +“To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will you say to-morrow?” +he thought to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had never +occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew. As he +thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin’s account of his visit +to Porfiry had very little interest for him, so much had come and gone +since then. +In the corridor they came upon Luzhin; he had arrived punctually +at eight, and was looking for the number, so that all three went in +together without greeting or looking at one another. The young men +walked in first, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, lingered a +little in the passage, taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came +forward at once to greet him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming her +brother. Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and quite amiably, though with +redoubled dignity, bowed to the ladies. He looked, however, as though +he were a little put out and could not yet recover himself. Pulcheria +Alexandrovna, who seemed also a little embarrassed, hastened to make +them all sit down at the round table where a samovar was boiling. Dounia +and Luzhin were facing one another on opposite sides of the table. +Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumihin +was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his sister. +A moment’s silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch deliberately drew out a +cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and blew his nose with an air of +a benevolent man who felt himself slighted, and was firmly resolved to +insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had occurred to him to +keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp +and emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of the position. +But he could not bring himself to do this. Besides, he could not endure +uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation: if his request had been so +openly disobeyed, there was something behind it, and in that case it was +better to find it out beforehand; it rested with him to punish them and +there would always be time for that. +“I trust you had a favourable journey,” he inquired officially of +Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.” +“I am gratified to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not over-fatigued +either?” +“I am young and strong, I don’t get tired, but it was a great strain for +mother,” answered Dounia. +“That’s unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length. +‘Mother Russia,’ as they say, is a vast country.... In spite of all my +desire to do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all +passed off without inconvenience?” +“Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly disheartening,” Pulcheria +Alexandrovna hastened to declare with peculiar intonation, “and if +Dmitri Prokofitch had not been sent us, I really believe by God Himself, +we should have been utterly lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Prokofitch +Razumihin,” she added, introducing him to Luzhin. +“I had the pleasure... yesterday,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch with a +hostile glance sidelong at Razumihin; then he scowled and was silent. +Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very +polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who, +directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and +become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society. +Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya +Romanovna was unwilling to open the conversation too soon. Razumihin had +nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was anxious again. +“Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she began having recourse to +her leading item of conversation. +“To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately informed, and I have come to +make you acquainted with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov +set off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his wife’s funeral. So +at least I have excellent authority for believing.” +“To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in alarm and looked at her mother. +“Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some design, having in view the +rapidity of his departure, and all the circumstances preceding it.” +“Good heavens! won’t he leave Dounia in peace even here?” cried +Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +“I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya Romanovna have any grounds for +uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves desirous of getting +into communication with him. For my part I am on my guard, and am now +discovering where he is lodging.” +“Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what a fright you have +given me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on: “I’ve only seen him twice, +but I thought him terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the +cause of Marfa Petrovna’s death.” +“It’s impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I +do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of +events by the moral influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the +general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am +in agreement with you. I do not know whether he is well off now, and +precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him; this will be known to me within +a very short period; but no doubt here in Petersburg, if he has any +pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once into his old ways. He is +the most depraved, and abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men. +I have considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna, who was so +unfortunate as to fall in love with him and to pay his debts eight years +ago, was of service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions +and sacrifices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic +and homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to +Siberia, was hushed up. That’s the sort of man he is, if you care to +know.” +“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened +attentively. +“Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good evidence of +this?” Dounia asked sternly and emphatically. +“I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa Petrovna. I must +observe that from the legal point of view the case was far from clear. +There was, and I believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich, +a foreigner, who lent small sums of money at interest, and did other +commissions, and with this woman Svidrigaïlov had for a long while close +and mysterious relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe, living +with her, a deaf and dumb girl of fifteen, or perhaps not more than +fourteen. Resslich hated this girl, and grudged her every crust; she +used to beat her mercilessly. One day the girl was found hanging in +the garret. At the inquest the verdict was suicide. After the usual +proceedings the matter ended, but, later on, information was given that +the child had been... cruelly outraged by Svidrigaïlov. It is true, this +was not clearly established, the information was given by another German +woman of loose character whose word could not be trusted; no statement +was actually made to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s money and +exertions; it did not get beyond gossip. And yet the story is a very +significant one. You heard, no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were +with them the story of the servant Philip who died of ill treatment he +received six years ago, before the abolition of serfdom.” +“I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip hanged himself.” +“Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps disposed him, +to suicide was the systematic persecution and severity of Mr. +Svidrigaïlov.” +“I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, dryly. “I only heard a queer story +that Philip was a sort of hypochondriac, a sort of domestic philosopher, +the servants used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that he hanged +himself partly on account of Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s mockery of him and not +his blows. When I was there he behaved well to the servants, and they +were actually fond of him, though they certainly did blame him for +Philip’s death.” +“I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem disposed to undertake his +defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into +an ambiguous smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man, and +insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has +died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has been to be +of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed +efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For my part it’s +my firm conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison again. +Marfa Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling anything +substantial on him, having regard for his children’s interests, and, +if she left him anything, it would only be the merest sufficiency, +something insignificant and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a +man of his habits.” +“Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr. +Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.” +“He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for +the first time. +There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even Pyotr +Petrovitch was roused. +“An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and +introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful +and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is +particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at +which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and +he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa +Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that +you can receive the money very shortly.” +“Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray for +her soul, Dounia!” +“It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin. +“Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov. +“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his +children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere +not far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....” +“But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria +Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?” +“Yes.” +“What was it?” +“I’ll tell you afterwards.” +Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea. +Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch. +“I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in +your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up. +“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend +the evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an +explanation with mother.” +“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered +impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I +certainly desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon +a very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly +in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not +desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others... +of certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty +and urgent request has been disregarded....” +Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence. +“Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was +disregarded solely at my insistance,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you +had been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be explained at +once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you, +then he _should_ and _will_ apologise.” +Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line. +“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us +forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep; +and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.” +“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia +interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole +future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as +soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at +it in any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this +business must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that +if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.” +“I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin, +getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, +I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member +of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I +cannot accept duties incompatible with...” +“Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia +interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have +always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a +great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe +me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of +judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted +on his coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told +him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not +reconciled, I must choose between you--it must be either you or he. That +is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to be +mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off +with my brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I can +find out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to +know it; and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me, +whether you are the husband for me.” +“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily, “your words are of too +much consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view +of the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say +nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an +impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to +me. You say ‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I +am in your eyes... I cannot let this pass considering the relationship +and... the obligations existing between us.” +“What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your interest beside all that has +hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the _whole_ of +my life, and here you are offended at my making too _little_ account of +you.” +Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr +Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he +became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it. +“Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to +outweigh your love for your brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and +in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so +emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence, +nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a necessary +explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting my dignity. +Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday in the +presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? excuse me I have +forgotten your surname,” he bowed politely to Razumihin) “insulted me by +misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a private conversation, +drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a poor girl who has had +experience of trouble is more advantageous from the conjugal point of +view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is more profitable +for the moral character. Your son intentionally exaggerated the +significance of my words and made them ridiculous, accusing me of +malicious intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied upon your +correspondence with him. I shall consider myself happy, Pulcheria +Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of an opposite +conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let me know +in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to Rodion +Romanovitch.” +“I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I repeated them as +I understood them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to you, perhaps +he exaggerated.” +“He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation.” +“Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, “the +proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is +the fact that we are here.” +“Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly. +“Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved. +“Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself have +just written what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, +gaining courage. +“I don’t remember writing anything false.” +“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, “that I +gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was +the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday). +You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that +object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you +don’t know. All that is mean slander.” +“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury. “I enlarged upon +your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your +sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression +you made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good +as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t +throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in that +family, however unfortunate.” +“To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little +finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.” +“Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and +sister?” +“I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-day +with mother and Dounia.” +“Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin +knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm. +“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it is +possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end, +once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures +of family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets.” He got up from his +chair and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I venture to request +that for the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to +say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria +Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my letter was addressed to +you and to no one else.” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended. +“You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr +Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded, +she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were +laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as +a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show +particular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown +up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any +case in a sense in your hands.” +“That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the +present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which +seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me,” he +added sarcastically. +“Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were +reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia observed irritably. +“But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire +not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady +Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother and +which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest +for you.” +“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +Razumihin could not sit still on his chair. +“Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?” asked Raskolnikov. +“I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,” she +turned to him, white with anger. +Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion. +He had too much confidence in himself, in his power and in the +helplessness of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned +pale, and his lips quivered. +“Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a +dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider +what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken.” +“What insolence!” cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. “I don’t +want you to come back again.” +“What! So that’s how it stands!” cried Luzhin, utterly unable to the +last moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of +his reckoning now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya +Romanovna, that I might protest?” +“What right have you to speak to her like that?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna +intervened hotly. “And what can you protest about? What rights have you? +Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us altogether! +We are to blame for having agreed to a wrong action, and I above +all....” +“But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin stormed in a +frenzy, “by your promise, and now you deny it and... besides... I have +been led on account of that into expenses....” +This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petrovitch, that +Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it, +could not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was +furious. +“Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the +conductor brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound +you! What are you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound us, +hand and foot, not we!” +“Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya Romanovna implored. “Pyotr +Petrovitch, do be kind and go!” +“I am going, but one last word,” he said, quite unable to control +himself. “Your mamma seems to have entirely forgotten that I made up my +mind to take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had spread +all over the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding public +opinion for your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly +might very well reckon on a fitting return, and might indeed look for +gratitude on your part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see +myself that I may have acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the +universal verdict....” +“Does the fellow want his head smashed?” cried Razumihin, jumping up. +“You are a mean and spiteful man!” cried Dounia. +“Not a word! Not a movement!” cried Raskolnikov, holding Razumihin back; +then going close up to Luzhin, “Kindly leave the room!” he said quietly +and distinctly, “and not a word more or...” +Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a pale face that +worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man +carried away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt against +Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is +noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case +was perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were +concerned, all might “very well indeed” be set right again. +CHAPTER III +The fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected such an +ending; he had been overbearing to the last degree, never dreaming that +two destitute and defenceless women could escape from his control. This +conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit, a conceit to +the point of fatuity. Pyotr Petrovitch, who had made his way up from +insignificance, was morbidly given to self-admiration, had the highest +opinion of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even gloated +in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and valued +above all was the money he had amassed by his labour, and by all sorts +of devices: that money made him the equal of all who had been his +superiors. +When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had decided to take her in +spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity +and had, indeed, felt genuinely indignant at such “black ingratitude.” +And yet, when he made Dounia his offer, he was fully aware of the +groundlessness of all the gossip. The story had been everywhere +contradicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then disbelieved by all the +townspeople, who were warm in Dounia’a defence. And he would not have +denied that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought highly +of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his level and regarded it as +something heroic. In speaking of it to Dounia, he had let out the secret +feeling he cherished and admired, and he could not understand that +others should fail to admire it too. He had called on Raskolnikov with +the feelings of a benefactor who is about to reap the fruits of his good +deeds and to hear agreeable flattery. And as he went downstairs now, he +considered himself most undeservedly injured and unrecognised. +Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without her was unthinkable. +For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of marriage, but he had +gone on waiting and amassing money. He brooded with relish, in profound +secret, over the image of a girl--virtuous, poor (she must be poor), +very young, very pretty, of good birth and education, very timid, one +who had suffered much, and was completely humbled before him, one who +would all her life look on him as her saviour, worship him, admire him +and only him. How many scenes, how many amorous episodes he had imagined +on this seductive and playful theme, when his work was over! And, +behold, the dream of so many years was all but realised; the beauty and +education of Avdotya Romanovna had impressed him; her helpless position +had been a great allurement; in her he had found even more than he +dreamed of. Here was a girl of pride, character, virtue, of education +and breeding superior to his own (he felt that), and this creature would +be slavishly grateful all her life for his heroic condescension, and +would humble herself in the dust before him, and he would have absolute, +unbounded power over her!... Not long before, he had, too, after long +reflection and hesitation, made an important change in his career and +was now entering on a wider circle of business. With this change his +cherished dreams of rising into a higher class of society seemed likely +to be realised.... He was, in fact, determined to try his fortune +in Petersburg. He knew that women could do a very great deal. The +fascination of a charming, virtuous, highly educated woman might make +his way easier, might do wonders in attracting people to him, throwing +an aureole round him, and now everything was in ruins! This sudden +horrible rupture affected him like a clap of thunder; it was like a +hideous joke, an absurdity. He had only been a tiny bit masterful, +had not even time to speak out, had simply made a joke, been carried +away--and it had ended so seriously. And, of course, too, he did love +Dounia in his own way; he already possessed her in his dreams--and all +at once! No! The next day, the very next day, it must all be set right, +smoothed over, settled. Above all he must crush that conceited milksop +who was the cause of it all. With a sick feeling he could not help +recalling Razumihin too, but, he soon reassured himself on that score; +as though a fellow like that could be put on a level with him! The man +he really dreaded in earnest was Svidrigaïlov.... He had, in short, a +great deal to attend to.... +***** +“No, I, I am more to blame than anyone!” said Dounia, kissing and +embracing her mother. “I was tempted by his money, but on my honour, +brother, I had no idea he was such a base man. If I had seen through him +before, nothing would have tempted me! Don’t blame me, brother!” +“God has delivered us! God has delivered us!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna +muttered, but half consciously, as though scarcely able to realise what +had happened. +They were all relieved, and in five minutes they were laughing. Only now +and then Dounia turned white and frowned, remembering what had passed. +Pulcheria Alexandrovna was surprised to find that she, too, was glad: +she had only that morning thought rupture with Luzhin a terrible +misfortune. Razumihin was delighted. He did not yet dare to express his +joy fully, but he was in a fever of excitement as though a ton-weight +had fallen off his heart. Now he had the right to devote his life to +them, to serve them.... Anything might happen now! But he felt afraid to +think of further possibilities and dared not let his imagination +range. But Raskolnikov sat still in the same place, almost sullen and +indifferent. Though he had been the most insistent on getting rid of +Luzhin, he seemed now the least concerned at what had happened. Dounia +could not help thinking that he was still angry with her, and Pulcheria +Alexandrovna watched him timidly. +“What did Svidrigaïlov say to you?” said Dounia, approaching him. +“Yes, yes!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. +Raskolnikov raised his head. +“He wants to make you a present of ten thousand roubles and he desires +to see you once in my presence.” +“See her! On no account!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “And how dare he +offer her money!” +Then Raskolnikov repeated (rather dryly) his conversation with +Svidrigaïlov, omitting his account of the ghostly visitations of Marfa +Petrovna, wishing to avoid all unnecessary talk. +“What answer did you give him?” asked Dounia. +“At first I said I would not take any message to you. Then he said that +he would do his utmost to obtain an interview with you without my help. +He assured me that his passion for you was a passing infatuation, now he +has no feeling for you. He doesn’t want you to marry Luzhin.... His talk +was altogether rather muddled.” +“How do you explain him to yourself, Rodya? How did he strike you?” +“I must confess I don’t quite understand him. He offers you ten +thousand, and yet says he is not well off. He says he is going away, and +in ten minutes he forgets he has said it. Then he says he is going to be +married and has already fixed on the girl.... No doubt he has a motive, +and probably a bad one. But it’s odd that he should be so clumsy about +it if he had any designs against you.... Of course, I refused this +money on your account, once for all. Altogether, I thought him very +strange.... One might almost think he was mad. But I may be mistaken; +that may only be the part he assumes. The death of Marfa Petrovna seems +to have made a great impression on him.” +“God rest her soul,” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I shall always, +always pray for her! Where should we be now, Dounia, without this three +thousand! It’s as though it had fallen from heaven! Why, Rodya, this +morning we had only three roubles in our pocket and Dounia and I were +just planning to pawn her watch, so as to avoid borrowing from that man +until he offered help.” +Dounia seemed strangely impressed by Svidrigaïlov’s offer. She still +stood meditating. +“He has got some terrible plan,” she said in a half whisper to herself, +almost shuddering. +Raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror. +“I fancy I shall have to see him more than once again,” he said to +Dounia. +“We will watch him! I will track him out!” cried Razumihin, vigorously. +“I won’t lose sight of him. Rodya has given me leave. He said to me +himself just now. ‘Take care of my sister.’ Will you give me leave, too, +Avdotya Romanovna?” +Dounia smiled and held out her hand, but the look of anxiety did not +leave her face. Pulcheria Alexandrovna gazed at her timidly, but the +three thousand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her. +A quarter of an hour later, they were all engaged in a lively +conversation. Even Raskolnikov listened attentively for some time, +though he did not talk. Razumihin was the speaker. +“And why, why should you go away?” he flowed on ecstatically. “And what +are you to do in a little town? The great thing is, you are all here +together and you need one another--you do need one another, believe me. +For a time, anyway.... Take me into partnership, and I assure you we’ll +plan a capital enterprise. Listen! I’ll explain it all in detail to +you, the whole project! It all flashed into my head this morning, +before anything had happened... I tell you what; I have an uncle, I must +introduce him to you (a most accommodating and respectable old man). +This uncle has got a capital of a thousand roubles, and he lives on his +pension and has no need of that money. For the last two years he has +been bothering me to borrow it from him and pay him six per cent. +interest. I know what that means; he simply wants to help me. Last year +I had no need of it, but this year I resolved to borrow it as soon as +he arrived. Then you lend me another thousand of your three and we have +enough for a start, so we’ll go into partnership, and what are we going +to do?” +Then Razumihin began to unfold his project, and he explained at length +that almost all our publishers and booksellers know nothing at all +of what they are selling, and for that reason they are usually bad +publishers, and that any decent publications pay as a rule and give +a profit, sometimes a considerable one. Razumihin had, indeed, been +dreaming of setting up as a publisher. For the last two years he had +been working in publishers’ offices, and knew three European languages +well, though he had told Raskolnikov six days before that he was +“schwach” in German with an object of persuading him to take half his +translation and half the payment for it. He had told a lie then, and +Raskolnikov knew he was lying. +“Why, why should we let our chance slip when we have one of the chief +means of success--money of our own!” cried Razumihin warmly. “Of course +there will be a lot of work, but we will work, you, Avdotya Romanovna, +I, Rodion.... You get a splendid profit on some books nowadays! And +the great point of the business is that we shall know just what wants +translating, and we shall be translating, publishing, learning all at +once. I can be of use because I have experience. For nearly two years +I’ve been scuttling about among the publishers, and now I know every +detail of their business. You need not be a saint to make pots, believe +me! And why, why should we let our chance slip! Why, I know--and I kept +the secret--two or three books which one might get a hundred roubles +simply for thinking of translating and publishing. Indeed, and I would +not take five hundred for the very idea of one of them. And what do you +think? If I were to tell a publisher, I dare say he’d hesitate--they are +such blockheads! And as for the business side, printing, paper, selling, +you trust to me, I know my way about. We’ll begin in a small way and go +on to a large. In any case it will get us our living and we shall get +back our capital.” +Dounia’s eyes shone. +“I like what you are saying, Dmitri Prokofitch!” she said. +“I know nothing about it, of course,” put in Pulcheria Alexandrovna, +“it may be a good idea, but again God knows. It’s new and untried. Of +course, we must remain here at least for a time.” She looked at Rodya. +“What do you think, brother?” said Dounia. +“I think he’s got a very good idea,” he answered. “Of course, it’s too +soon to dream of a publishing firm, but we certainly might bring out +five or six books and be sure of success. I know of one book myself +which would be sure to go well. And as for his being able to manage it, +there’s no doubt about that either. He knows the business.... But we can +talk it over later....” +“Hurrah!” cried Razumihin. “Now, stay, there’s a flat here in this +house, belonging to the same owner. It’s a special flat apart, not +communicating with these lodgings. It’s furnished, rent moderate, +three rooms. Suppose you take them to begin with. I’ll pawn your watch +to-morrow and bring you the money, and everything can be arranged then. +You can all three live together, and Rodya will be with you. But where +are you off to, Rodya?” +“What, Rodya, you are going already?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in +dismay. +“At such a minute?” cried Razumihin. +Dounia looked at her brother with incredulous wonder. He held his cap in +his hand, he was preparing to leave them. +“One would think you were burying me or saying good-bye for ever,” he +said somewhat oddly. He attempted to smile, but it did not turn out a +smile. “But who knows, perhaps it is the last time we shall see each +other...” he let slip accidentally. It was what he was thinking, and it +somehow was uttered aloud. +“What is the matter with you?” cried his mother. +“Where are you going, Rodya?” asked Dounia rather strangely. +“Oh, I’m quite obliged to...” he answered vaguely, as though hesitating +what he would say. But there was a look of sharp determination in his +white face. +“I meant to say... as I was coming here... I meant to tell you, mother, +and you, Dounia, that it would be better for us to part for a time. I +feel ill, I am not at peace.... I will come afterwards, I will come of +myself... when it’s possible. I remember you and love you.... Leave me, +leave me alone. I decided this even before... I’m absolutely resolved on +it. Whatever may come to me, whether I come to ruin or not, I want to be +alone. Forget me altogether, it’s better. Don’t inquire about me. When +I can, I’ll come of myself or... I’ll send for you. Perhaps it will all +come back, but now if you love me, give me up... else I shall begin to +hate you, I feel it.... Good-bye!” +“Good God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both his mother and his sister +were terribly alarmed. Razumihin was also. +“Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as before!” cried his +poor mother. +He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room. Dounia +overtook him. +“Brother, what are you doing to mother?” she whispered, her eyes +flashing with indignation. +He looked dully at her. +“No matter, I shall come.... I’m coming,” he muttered in an undertone, +as though not fully conscious of what he was saying, and he went out of +the room. +“Wicked, heartless egoist!” cried Dounia. +“He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don’t you see it? You’re +heartless after that!” Razumihin whispered in her ear, squeezing +her hand tightly. “I shall be back directly,” he shouted to the +horror-stricken mother, and he ran out of the room. +Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage. +“I knew you would run after me,” he said. “Go back to them--be with +them... be with them to-morrow and always.... I... perhaps I shall +come... if I can. Good-bye.” +And without holding out his hand he walked away. +“But where are you going? What are you doing? What’s the matter with +you? How can you go on like this?” Razumihin muttered, at his wits’ end. +Raskolnikov stopped once more. +“Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell you. +Don’t come to see me. Maybe I’ll come here.... Leave me, but _don’t +leave_ them. Do you understand me?” +It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a +minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered +that minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and intent eyes +grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his +consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it +were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were, slipped, +something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides.... +Razumihin turned pale. +“Do you understand now?” said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. +“Go back, go to them,” he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went +out of the house. +I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies, +how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his +illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come every +day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be irritated, +that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the +best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening Razumihin took +his place with them as a son and a brother. +CHAPTER IV +Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia +lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the +porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of +Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard +the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second +floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey +over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness, uncertain where +to turn for Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three paces from him; he +mechanically took hold of it. +“Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily. +“It’s I... come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov and he walked into the +tiny entry. +On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick. +“It’s you! Good heavens!” cried Sonia weakly, and she stood rooted to +the spot. +“Which is your room? This way?” and Raskolnikov, trying not to look at +her, hastened in. +A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the +candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him inexpressibly +agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected visit. The colour +rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into her eyes... She +felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov turned away quickly +and sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the room in a rapid glance. +It was a large but exceedingly low-pitched room, the only one let by the +Kapernaumovs, to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on the left. +In the opposite side on the right hand wall was another door, always +kept locked. That led to the next flat, which formed a separate lodging. +Sonia’s room looked like a barn; it was a very irregular quadrangle and +this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with three windows looking +out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner formed a very acute +angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light. +The other corner was disproportionately obtuse. There was scarcely any +furniture in the big room: in the corner on the right was a bedstead, +beside it, nearest the door, a chair. A plain, deal table covered by a +blue cloth stood against the same wall, close to the door into the other +flat. Two rush-bottom chairs stood by the table. On the opposite +wall near the acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers +looking, as it were, lost in a desert. That was all there was in the +room. The yellow, scratched and shabby wall-paper was black in the +corners. It must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There +was every sign of poverty; even the bedstead had no curtain. +Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so attentively and +unceremoniously scrutinising her room, and even began at last to tremble +with terror, as though she was standing before her judge and the arbiter +of her destinies. +“I am late.... It’s eleven, isn’t it?” he asked, still not lifting his +eyes. +“Yes,” muttered Sonia, “oh yes, it is,” she added, hastily, as though in +that lay her means of escape. “My landlady’s clock has just struck... I +heard it myself....” +“I’ve come to you for the last time,” Raskolnikov went on gloomily, +although this was the first time. “I may perhaps not see you again...” +“Are you... going away?” +“I don’t know... to-morrow....” +“Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?” Sonia’s voice +shook. +“I don’t know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind that: I’ve +come to say one word....” +He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he was +sitting down while she was all the while standing before him. +“Why are you standing? Sit down,” he said in a changed voice, gentle and +friendly. +She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her. +“How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead hand.” +He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly. +“I have always been like that,” she said. +“Even when you lived at home?” +“Yes.” +“Of course, you were,” he added abruptly and the expression of his face +and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly. +He looked round him once more. +“You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?” +“Yes....” +“They live there, through that door?” +“Yes.... They have another room like this.” +“All in one room?” +“Yes.” +“I should be afraid in your room at night,” he observed gloomily. +“They are very good people, very kind,” answered Sonia, who still seemed +bewildered, “and all the furniture, everything... everything is theirs. +And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to see me.” +“They all stammer, don’t they?” +“Yes.... He stammers and he’s lame. And his wife, too.... It���s not +exactly that she stammers, but she can’t speak plainly. She is a very +kind woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven +children... and it’s only the eldest one that stammers and the others +are simply ill... but they don’t stammer.... But where did you hear +about them?” she added with some surprise. +“Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you +went out at six o’clock and came back at nine and how Katerina Ivanovna +knelt down by your bed.” +Sonia was confused. +“I fancied I saw him to-day,” she whispered hesitatingly. +“Whom?” +“Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about ten +o’clock and he seemed to be walking in front. It looked just like him. I +wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna....” +“You were walking in the streets?” +“Yes,” Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome with confusion and +looking down. +“Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I dare say?” +“Oh no, what are you saying? No!” Sonia looked at him almost with +dismay. +“You love her, then?” +“Love her? Of course!” said Sonia with plaintive emphasis, and she +clasped her hands in distress. “Ah, you don’t.... If you only knew! +You see, she is quite like a child.... Her mind is quite unhinged, you +see... from sorrow. And how clever she used to be... how generous... how +kind! Ah, you don’t understand, you don’t understand!” +Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in excitement +and distress. Her pale cheeks flushed, there was a look of anguish in +her eyes. It was clear that she was stirred to the very depths, that +she was longing to speak, to champion, to express something. A sort +of _insatiable_ compassion, if one may so express it, was reflected in +every feature of her face. +“Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me! And if she did beat me, +what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it.... She is so +unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is seeking righteousness, +she is pure. She has such faith that there must be righteousness +everywhere and she expects it.... And if you were to torture her, she +wouldn’t do wrong. She doesn’t see that it’s impossible for people to +be righteous and she is angry at it. Like a child, like a child. She is +good!” +“And what will happen to you?” +Sonia looked at him inquiringly. +“They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands +before, though.... And your father came to you to beg for drink. Well, +how will it be now?” +“I don’t know,” Sonia articulated mournfully. +“Will they stay there?” +“I don’t know.... They are in debt for the lodging, but the landlady, +I hear, said to-day that she wanted to get rid of them, and Katerina +Ivanovna says that she won’t stay another minute.” +“How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you?” +“Oh, no, don’t talk like that.... We are one, we live like one.” Sonia +was agitated again and even angry, as though a canary or some other +little bird were to be angry. “And what could she do? What, what could +she do?” she persisted, getting hot and excited. “And how she cried +to-day! Her mind is unhinged, haven’t you noticed it? At one minute she +is worrying like a child that everything should be right to-morrow, the +lunch and all that.... Then she is wringing her hands, spitting blood, +weeping, and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the +wall, in despair. Then she will be comforted again. She builds all her +hopes on you; she says that you will help her now and that she will +borrow a little money somewhere and go to her native town with me and +set up a boarding school for the daughters of gentlemen and take me to +superintend it, and we will begin a new splendid life. And she kisses +and hugs me, comforts me, and you know she has such faith, such faith in +her fancies! One can’t contradict her. And all the day long she has been +washing, cleaning, mending. She dragged the wash tub into the room with +her feeble hands and sank on the bed, gasping for breath. We went this +morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and Lida for theirs are +quite worn out. Only the money we’d reckoned wasn’t enough, not nearly +enough. And she picked out such dear little boots, for she has taste, +you don’t know. And there in the shop she burst out crying before the +shopmen because she hadn’t enough.... Ah, it was sad to see her....” +“Well, after that I can understand your living like this,” Raskolnikov +said with a bitter smile. +“And aren’t you sorry for them? Aren’t you sorry?” Sonia flew at him +again. “Why, I know, you gave your last penny yourself, though you’d +seen nothing of it, and if you’d seen everything, oh dear! And how +often, how often I’ve brought her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I! Only +a week before his death. I was cruel! And how often I’ve done it! Ah, +I’ve been wretched at the thought of it all day!” +Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it. +“You were cruel?” +“Yes, I--I. I went to see them,” she went on, weeping, “and father said, +‘read me something, Sonia, my head aches, read to me, here’s a book.’ He +had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, he lives +there, he always used to get hold of such funny books. And I said, ‘I +can’t stay,’ as I didn’t want to read, and I’d gone in chiefly to show +Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some +collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new, embroidered ones. Katerina +Ivanovna liked them very much; she put them on and looked at herself +in the glass and was delighted with them. ‘Make me a present of them, +Sonia,’ she said, ‘please do.’ ‘_Please do_,’ she said, she wanted them +so much. And when could she wear them? They just reminded her of her old +happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, admired herself, and she +has no clothes at all, no things of her own, hasn’t had all these years! +And she never asks anyone for anything; she is proud, she’d sooner give +away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I +was sorry to give them. ‘What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?’ I +said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She gave +me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my refusing her. +And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the collars, +but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all back, +change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it’s nothing to you!” +“Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?” +“Yes.... Did you know her?” Sonia asked with some surprise. +“Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption; she will soon +die,” said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her question. +“Oh, no, no, no!” +And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though imploring +that she should not. +“But it will be better if she does die.” +“No, not better, not at all better!” Sonia unconsciously repeated in +dismay. +“And the children? What can you do except take them to live with you?” +“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her +hands to her head. +It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her before and +he had only roused it again. +“And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get ill +and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then?” he persisted +pitilessly. +“How can you? That cannot be!” +And Sonia’s face worked with awful terror. +“Cannot be?” Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. “You are not +insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They will +be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her head +against some wall, as she did to-day, and the children will cry.... +Then she will fall down, be taken to the police station and to the +hospital, she will die, and the children...” +“Oh, no.... God will not let it be!” broke at last from Sonia’s +overburdened bosom. +She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping her hands in dumb +entreaty, as though it all depended upon him. +Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the room. A minute passed. +Sonia was standing with her hands and her head hanging in terrible +dejection. +“And can’t you save? Put by for a rainy day?” he asked, stopping +suddenly before her. +“No,” whispered Sonia. +“Of course not. Have you tried?” he added almost ironically. +“Yes.” +“And it didn’t come off! Of course not! No need to ask.” +And again he paced the room. Another minute passed. +“You don’t get money every day?” +Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face again. +“No,” she whispered with a painful effort. +“It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt,” he said suddenly. +“No, no! It can’t be, no!” Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though +she had been stabbed. “God would not allow anything so awful!” +“He lets others come to it.” +“No, no! God will protect her, God!” she repeated beside herself. +“But, perhaps, there is no God at all,” Raskolnikov answered with a sort +of malignance, laughed and looked at her. +Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked at +him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not +speak and broke into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her hands. +“You say Katerina Ivanovna’s mind is unhinged; your own mind is +unhinged,” he said after a brief silence. +Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down the room in silence, not +looking at her. At last he went up to her; his eyes glittered. He put +his two hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her tearful +face. His eyes were hard, feverish and piercing, his lips were +twitching. All at once he bent down quickly and dropping to the +ground, kissed her foot. Sonia drew back from him as from a madman. And +certainly he looked like a madman. +“What are you doing to me?” she muttered, turning pale, and a sudden +anguish clutched at her heart. +He stood up at once. +“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of +humanity,” he said wildly and walked away to the window. “Listen,” he +added, turning to her a minute later. “I said just now to an insolent +man that he was not worth your little finger... and that I did my sister +honour making her sit beside you.” +“Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?” cried Sonia, +frightened. “Sit down with me! An honour! Why, I’m... dishonourable.... +Ah, why did you say that?” +“It was not because of your dishonour and your sin I said that of you, +but because of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that’s +true,” he added almost solemnly, “and your worst sin is that you have +destroyed and betrayed yourself _for nothing_. Isn’t that fearful? Isn’t +it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loathe so, and at +the same time you know yourself (you’ve only to open your eyes) that you +are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything? Tell me,” +he went on almost in a frenzy, “how this shame and degradation can exist +in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be +better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water and end +it all!” +“But what would become of them?” Sonia asked faintly, gazing at him with +eyes of anguish, but not seeming surprised at his suggestion. +Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all in her face; so she +must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and earnestly +she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so earnestly, that +now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion. She had not even noticed +the cruelty of his words. (The significance of his reproaches and his +peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of course, not noticed either, +and that, too, was clear to him.) But he saw how monstrously the thought +of her disgraceful, shameful position was torturing her and had long +tortured her. “What, what,” he thought, “could hitherto have hindered +her from putting an end to it?” Only then he realised what those poor +little orphan children and that pitiful half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna, +knocking her head against the wall in her consumption, meant for Sonia. +But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her character and +the amount of education she had after all received, she could not in any +case remain so. He was still confronted by the question, how could she +have remained so long in that position without going out of her mind, +since she could not bring herself to jump into the water? Of course he +knew that Sonia’s position was an exceptional case, though unhappily not +unique and not infrequent, indeed; but that very exceptionalness, her +tinge of education, her previous life might, one would have thought, +have killed her at the first step on that revolting path. What held her +up--surely not depravity? All that infamy had obviously only touched +her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her +heart; he saw that. He saw through her as she stood before him.... +“There are three ways before her,” he thought, “the canal, the madhouse, +or... at last to sink into depravity which obscures the mind and turns +the heart to stone.” +The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was +young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not help believing +that the last end was the most likely. +“But can that be true?” he cried to himself. “Can that creature who has +still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciously drawn at last +into that sink of filth and iniquity? Can the process already have +begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bear it till now, +because vice has begun to be less loathsome to her? No, no, that cannot +be!” he cried, as Sonia had just before. “No, what has kept her from the +canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the children.... And if she +has not gone out of her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her +mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does? +How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she +is slipping and refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she +expect a miracle? No doubt she does. Doesn’t that all mean madness?” +He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanation indeed +better than any other. He began looking more intently at her. +“So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?” he asked her. +Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer. +“What should I be without God?” she whispered rapidly, forcibly, +glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand. +“Ah, so that is it!” he thought. +“And what does God do for you?” he asked, probing her further. +Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her weak +chest kept heaving with emotion. +“Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve!” she cried suddenly, looking +sternly and wrathfully at him. +“That’s it, that’s it,” he repeated to himself. +“He does everything,” she whispered quickly, looking down again. +“That’s the way out! That’s the explanation,” he decided, scrutinising +her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almost morbid feeling. +He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular little face, those soft +blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, such stern energy, that +little body still shaking with indignation and anger--and it all seemed +to him more and more strange, almost impossible. “She is a religious +maniac!” he repeated to himself. +There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it every +time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and looked at it. +It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was bound in +leather, old and worn. +“Where did you get that?” he called to her across the room. +She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the table. +“It was brought me,” she answered, as it were unwillingly, not looking +at him. +“Who brought it?” +“Lizaveta, I asked her for it.” +“Lizaveta! strange!” he thought. +Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger and more wonderful every +moment. He carried the book to the candle and began to turn over the +pages. +“Where is the story of Lazarus?” he asked suddenly. +Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and would not answer. She was +standing sideways to the table. +“Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia.” +She stole a glance at him. +“You are not looking in the right place.... It’s in the fourth gospel,” +she whispered sternly, without looking at him. +“Find it and read it to me,” he said. He sat down with his elbow on the +table, leaned his head on his hand and looked away sullenly, prepared to +listen. +“In three weeks’ time they’ll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be +there if I am not in a worse place,” he muttered to himself. +Sonia heard Raskolnikov’s request distrustfully and moved hesitatingly +to the table. She took the book however. +“Haven’t you read it?” she asked, looking up at him across the table. +Her voice became sterner and sterner. +“Long ago.... When I was at school. Read!” +“And haven’t you heard it in church?” +“I... haven’t been. Do you often go?” +“N-no,” whispered Sonia. +Raskolnikov smiled. +“I understand.... And you won’t go to your father’s funeral to-morrow?” +“Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem +service.” +“For whom?” +“For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe.” +His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go round. +“Were you friends with Lizaveta?” +“Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she +couldn’t.... We used to read together and... talk. She will see God.” +The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was something new +again: the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of them--religious +maniacs. +“I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It’s infectious!” +“Read!” he cried irritably and insistently. +Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared to read +to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the “unhappy lunatic.” +“What for? You don’t believe?...” she whispered softly and as it were +breathlessly. +“Read! I want you to,” he persisted. “You used to read to Lizaveta.” +Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking, her +voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out the +first syllable. +“Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany...” she forced +herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice broke like an +overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath. +Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him +and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on +her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her +to betray and unveil all that was her _own_. He understood that these +feelings really were her _secret treasure_, which she had kept perhaps +for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy +father and a distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of +starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same +time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with +dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read +to _him_ that he might hear it, and to read _now_ whatever might come of +it!... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. +She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on +reading the eleventh chapter of St. John. She went on to the nineteenth +verse: +“And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning +their brother. +“Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and met +Him: but Mary sat still in the house. +“Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother +had not died. +“But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give +it Thee....” +Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling that her voice would +quiver and break again. +“Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again. +“Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the +resurrection, at the last day. +“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that +believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live. +“And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest +thou this? +“She saith unto Him,” +(And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read distinctly and forcibly as +though she were making a public confession of faith.) +“Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which +should come into the world.” +She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but controlling herself went +on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his elbows on the table and +his eyes turned away. She read to the thirty-second verse. +“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell down at +His feet, saying unto Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother had +not died. +“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which +came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, +“And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and +see. +“Jesus wept. +“Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him! +“And some of them said, could not this Man which opened the eyes of the +blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?” +Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had known it! +She was trembling in a real physical fever. He had expected it. She was +getting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feeling of immense +triumph came over her. Her voice rang out like a bell; triumph and joy +gave it power. The lines danced before her eyes, but she knew what she +was reading by heart. At the last verse “Could not this Man which opened +the eyes of the blind...” dropping her voice she passionately reproduced +the doubt, the reproach and censure of the blind disbelieving Jews, who +in another moment would fall at His feet as though struck by +thunder, sobbing and believing.... “And _he, he_--too, is blinded and +unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At +once, now,” was what she was dreaming, and she was quivering with happy +anticipation. +“Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a +cave, and a stone lay upon it. +“Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was +dead, saith unto Him, Lord by this time he stinketh: for he hath been +dead four days.” +She laid emphasis on the word _four_. +“Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest +believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? +“Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. +And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou +hast heard Me. +“And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which +stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me. +“And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come +forth. +“And he that was dead came forth.” +(She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy, as though she were +seeing it before her eyes.) +“Bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about +with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go. +“Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which +Jesus did believed on Him.” +She could read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair +quickly. +“That is all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whispered severely and +abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise +her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was +flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the +poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely +been reading together the eternal book. Five minutes or more passed. +“I came to speak of something,” Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He got +up and went to Sonia. She lifted her eyes to him in silence. His face +was particularly stern and there was a sort of savage determination in +it. +“I have abandoned my family to-day,” he said, “my mother and sister. I +am not going to see them. I’ve broken with them completely.” +“What for?” asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meeting with his mother and +sister had left a great impression which she could not analyse. She +heard his news almost with horror. +“I have only you now,” he added. “Let us go together.... I’ve come to +you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together!” +His eyes glittered “as though he were mad,” Sonia thought, in her turn. +“Go where?” she asked in alarm and she involuntarily stepped back. +“How do I know? I only know it’s the same road, I know that and nothing +more. It’s the same goal!” +She looked at him and understood nothing. She knew only that he was +terribly, infinitely unhappy. +“No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have +understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you.” +“I don’t understand,” whispered Sonia. +“You’ll understand later. Haven’t you done the same? You, too, have +transgressed... have had the strength to transgress. You have laid +hands on yourself, you have destroyed a life... _your own_ (it’s all the +same!). You might have lived in spirit and understanding, but you’ll +end in the Hay Market.... But you won’t be able to stand it, and if +you remain alone you’ll go out of your mind like me. You are like a mad +creature already. So we must go together on the same road! Let us go!” +“What for? What’s all this for?” said Sonia, strangely and violently +agitated by his words. +“What for? Because you can’t remain like this, that’s why! You must look +things straight in the face at last, and not weep like a child and cry +that God won’t allow it. What will happen, if you should really be taken +to the hospital to-morrow? She is mad and in consumption, she’ll soon +die and the children? Do you mean to tell me Polenka won’t come to +grief? Haven’t you seen children here at the street corners sent out +by their mothers to beg? I’ve found out where those mothers live and in +what surroundings. Children can’t remain children there! At seven the +child is vicious and a thief. Yet children, you know, are the image of +Christ: ‘theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.’ He bade us honour and love +them, they are the humanity of the future....” +“What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” repeated Sonia, weeping +hysterically and wringing her hands. +“What’s to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s all, +and take the suffering on oneself. What, you don’t understand? You’ll +understand later.... Freedom and power, and above all, power! Over all +trembling creation and all the ant-heap!... That’s the goal, remember +that! That’s my farewell message. Perhaps it’s the last time I shall +speak to you. If I don’t come to-morrow, you’ll hear of it all, and then +remember these words. And some day later on, in years to come, you’ll +understand perhaps what they meant. If I come to-morrow, I’ll tell you +who killed Lizaveta.... Good-bye.” +Sonia started with terror. +“Why, do you know who killed her?” she asked, chilled with horror, +looking wildly at him. +“I know and will tell... you, only you. I have chosen you out. I’m not +coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I chose you +out long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you and when +Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don’t shake hands. +To-morrow!” +He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself was like +one insane and felt it. Her head was going round. +“Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those +words mean? It’s awful!” But at the same time _the idea_ did not enter +her head, not for a moment! “Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!... He has +abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has happened? And +what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He had kissed her foot +and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he could not live +without her.... Oh, merciful heavens!” +Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up from +time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into feverish +sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of reading +the gospel and him... him with pale face, with burning eyes... kissing +her feet, weeping. +On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia’s room +from Madame Resslich’s flat, was a room which had long stood empty. A +card was fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows over the +canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to the +room’s being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigaïlov had been +standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When Raskolnikov went +out he stood still, thought a moment, went on tiptoe to his own room +which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and noiselessly carried it +to the door that led to Sonia’s room. The conversation had struck him +as interesting and remarkable, and he had greatly enjoyed it--so much so +that he brought a chair that he might not in the future, to-morrow, for +instance, have to endure the inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but +might listen in comfort. +CHAPTER V +When next morning at eleven o’clock punctually Raskolnikov went into the +department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his name in +to Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept waiting so long: +it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned. He had expected +that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the waiting-room, and +people, who apparently had nothing to do with him, were continually +passing to and fro before him. In the next room which looked like an +office, several clerks were sitting writing and obviously they had +no notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He looked uneasily and +suspiciously about him to see whether there was not some guard, some +mysterious watch being kept on him to prevent his escape. But there was +nothing of the sort: he saw only the faces of clerks absorbed in petty +details, then other people, no one seemed to have any concern with him. +He might go where he liked for them. The conviction grew stronger in him +that if that enigmatic man of yesterday, that phantom sprung out of the +earth, had seen everything, they would not have let him stand and wait +like that. And would they have waited till he elected to appear at +eleven? Either the man had not yet given information, or... or simply +he knew nothing, had seen nothing (and how could he have seen anything?) +and so all that had happened to him the day before was again a phantom +exaggerated by his sick and overstrained imagination. This conjecture +had begun to grow strong the day before, in the midst of all his +alarm and despair. Thinking it all over now and preparing for a fresh +conflict, he was suddenly aware that he was trembling--and he felt a +rush of indignation at the thought that he was trembling with fear at +facing that hateful Porfiry Petrovitch. What he dreaded above all was +meeting that man again; he hated him with an intense, unmitigated hatred +and was afraid his hatred might betray him. His indignation was such +that he ceased trembling at once; he made ready to go in with a cold and +arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to keep as silent as possible, +to watch and listen and for once at least to control his overstrained +nerves. At that moment he was summoned to Porfiry Petrovitch. +He found Porfiry Petrovitch alone in his study. His study was a room +neither large nor small, furnished with a large writing-table, that +stood before a sofa, upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a +bookcase in the corner and several chairs--all government furniture, +of polished yellow wood. In the further wall there was a closed door, +beyond it there were no doubt other rooms. On Raskolnikov’s entrance +Porfiry Petrovitch had at once closed the door by which he had come in +and they remained alone. He met his visitor with an apparently genial +and good-tempered air, and it was only after a few minutes that +Raskolnikov saw signs of a certain awkwardness in him, as though he had +been thrown out of his reckoning or caught in something very secret. +“Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are... in our domain”... began Porfiry, +holding out both hands to him. “Come, sit down, old man... or perhaps +you don’t like to be called ‘my dear fellow’ and ‘old man!’--_tout +court_? Please don’t think it too familiar.... Here, on the sofa.” +Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes fixed on him. “In our domain,” +the apologies for familiarity, the French phrase _tout court_, were all +characteristic signs. +“He held out both hands to me, but he did not give me one--he drew it +back in time,” struck him suspiciously. Both were watching each other, +but when their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away. +“I brought you this paper... about the watch. Here it is. Is it all +right or shall I copy it again?” +“What? A paper? Yes, yes, don’t be uneasy, it’s all right,” Porfiry +Petrovitch said as though in haste, and after he had said it he took the +paper and looked at it. “Yes, it’s all right. Nothing more is needed,” +he declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper on the table. +A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from the +table and put it on his bureau. +“I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me... +formally... about my acquaintance with the murdered woman?” Raskolnikov +was beginning again. “Why did I put in ‘I believe’” passed through +his mind in a flash. “Why am I so uneasy at having put in that ‘_I +believe_’?” came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his +uneasiness at the mere contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at the +first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that +this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivering, his emotion was +increasing. “It’s bad, it’s bad! I shall say too much again.” +“Yes, yes, yes! There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry,” muttered Porfiry +Petrovitch, moving to and fro about the table without any apparent aim, +as it were making dashes towards the window, the bureau and the table, +at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov’s suspicious glance, then again +standing still and looking him straight in the face. +His fat round little figure looked very strange, like a ball rolling +from one side to the other and rebounding back. +“We’ve plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here, a +cigarette!” he went on, offering his visitor a cigarette. “You know I am +receiving you here, but my own quarters are through there, you know, my +government quarters. But I am living outside for the time, I had to +have some repairs done here. It’s almost finished now.... Government +quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think?” +“Yes, a capital thing,” answered Raskolnikov, looking at him almost +ironically. +“A capital thing, a capital thing,” repeated Porfiry Petrovitch, as +though he had just thought of something quite different. “Yes, a capital +thing,” he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at Raskolnikov and +stopping short two steps from him. +This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with the +serious, brooding and enigmatic glance he turned upon his visitor. +But this stirred Raskolnikov’s spleen more than ever and he could not +resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge. +“Tell me, please,” he asked suddenly, looking almost insolently at him +and taking a kind of pleasure in his own insolence. “I believe it’s a +sort of legal rule, a sort of legal tradition--for all investigating +lawyers--to begin their attack from afar, with a trivial, or at least +an irrelevant subject, so as to encourage, or rather, to divert the man +they are cross-examining, to disarm his caution and then all at once to +give him an unexpected knock-down blow with some fatal question. Isn’t +that so? It’s a sacred tradition, mentioned, I fancy, in all the manuals +of the art?” +“Yes, yes.... Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about government +quarters... eh?” +And as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch screwed up his eyes and winked; +a good-humoured, crafty look passed over his face. The wrinkles on his +forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his features broadened +and he suddenly went off into a nervous prolonged laugh, shaking all +over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the face. The latter forced +himself to laugh, too, but when Porfiry, seeing that he was laughing, +broke into such a guffaw that he turned almost crimson, Raskolnikov’s +repulsion overcame all precaution; he left off laughing, scowled and +stared with hatred at Porfiry, keeping his eyes fixed on him while his +intentionally prolonged laughter lasted. There was lack of precaution on +both sides, however, for Porfiry Petrovitch seemed to be laughing in +his visitor’s face and to be very little disturbed at the annoyance with +which the visitor received it. The latter fact was very significant +in Raskolnikov’s eyes: he saw that Porfiry Petrovitch had not been +embarrassed just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had perhaps +fallen into a trap; that there must be something, some motive here +unknown to him; that, perhaps, everything was in readiness and in +another moment would break upon him... +He went straight to the point at once, rose from his seat and took his +cap. +“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began resolutely, though with considerable +irritation, “yesterday you expressed a desire that I should come to you +for some inquiries” (he laid special stress on the word “inquiries”). “I +have come and if you have anything to ask me, ask it, and if not, allow +me to withdraw. I have no time to spare.... I have to be at the funeral +of that man who was run over, of whom you... know also,” he added, +feeling angry at once at having made this addition and more irritated at +his anger. “I am sick of it all, do you hear? and have long been. It’s +partly what made me ill. In short,” he shouted, feeling that the phrase +about his illness was still more out of place, “in short, kindly examine +me or let me go, at once. And if you must examine me, do so in the +proper form! I will not allow you to do so otherwise, and so meanwhile, +good-bye, as we have evidently nothing to keep us now.” +“Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I question you about?” +cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with a change of tone, instantly leaving off +laughing. “Please don’t disturb yourself,” he began fidgeting from place +to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. “There’s no hurry, +there’s no hurry, it’s all nonsense. Oh, no, I’m very glad you’ve come +to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a visitor. And as for +my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion +Romanovitch? That is your name?... It’s my nerves, you tickled me +so with your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes I shake with +laughter like an india-rubber ball for half an hour at a time.... I’m +often afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I +shall think you are angry...” +Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching him, still frowning +angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap. +“I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion Romanovitch,” +Porfiry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room and again avoiding +his visitor’s eyes. “You see, I’m a bachelor, a man of no consequence +and not used to society; besides, I have nothing before me, I’m set, I’m +running to seed and... and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in +our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but +respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before +they can find a subject for conversation--they are dumb, they sit +opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has subjects of +conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society always have +their subjects of conversation, _c’est de rigueur_, but people of the +middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied +and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public +interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don’t want to deceive one +another, I don’t know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it +looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable... I am so +delighted...” +Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with +a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry +Petrovitch. “Does he really want to distract my attention with his silly +babble?” +“I can’t offer you coffee here; but why not spend five minutes with a +friend?” Porfiry pattered on, “and you know all these official +duties... please don’t mind my running up and down, excuse it, my dear +fellow, I am very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is +absolutely indispensable for me. I’m always sitting and so glad to be +moving about for five minutes... I suffer from my sedentary life... I +always intend to join a gymnasium; they say that officials of all ranks, +even Privy Councillors, may be seen skipping gaily there; there you have +it, modern science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties here, inquiries +and all such formalities... you mentioned inquiries yourself just now... +I assure you these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing for +the interrogator than for the interrogated.... You made the observation +yourself just now very aptly and wittily.” (Raskolnikov had made no +observation of the kind.) “One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle! One +keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is to be a reform and +we shall be called by a different name, at least, he-he-he! And as for +our legal tradition, as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly agree +with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows that +they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so happily +put it) and then deal him a knock-down blow, he-he-he!--your felicitous +comparison, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by ‘government +quarters’... he-he! You are an ironical person. Come. I won’t go on! Ah, +by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just +now, apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what’s the use of formality? +In many cases it’s nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly chat and gets +a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on formality, allow +me to assure you. And after all, what does it amount to? An examining +lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every step. The work of +investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own way, he-he-he!” +Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on +uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again +reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room, moving +his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with his +right hand behind his back, while with his left making gesticulations +that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov +suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop +for a moment near the door, as though he were listening. +“Is he expecting anything?” +“You are certainly quite right about it,” Porfiry began gaily, looking +with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled him and +instantly put him on his guard); “certainly quite right in laughing so +wittily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate psychological +methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres +too closely to the forms. Yes... I am talking of forms again. Well, if +I recognise, or more strictly speaking, if I suspect someone or other to +be a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you’re reading for the law, +of course, Rodion Romanovitch?” +“Yes, I was...” +“Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future--though don’t +suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish +about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I +took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I worry him +prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In one case I may +be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be in +quite a different position, you know, so why shouldn’t I let him walk +about the town a bit? he-he-he! But I see you don’t quite understand, so +I’ll give you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I +may very likely give him, so to speak, moral support, he-he! You’re +laughing?” +Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with compressed +lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch’s. +“Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so +different. You say ‘evidence’. Well, there may be evidence. But +evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining +lawyer and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so +to say, mathematically clear. I should like to make a chain of evidence +such as twice two are four, it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof! +And if I shut him up too soon--even though I might be convinced _he_ +was the man, I should very likely be depriving myself of the means of +getting further evidence against him. And how? By giving him, so to +speak, a definite position, I shall put him out of suspense and set his +mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his shell. They say that at +Sevastopol, soon after Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright +that the enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when +they saw that the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted, +I am told and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at +least. You’re laughing, you don’t believe me again? Of course, you’re +right, too. You’re right, you’re right. These are special cases, I +admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the +general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are intended, +for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at +all, for the reason that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon +as it actually occurs, at once becomes a thoroughly special case and +sometimes a case unlike any that’s gone before. Very comic cases of that +sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite alone, if I don’t touch +him and don’t worry him, but let him know or at least suspect every +moment that I know all about it and am watching him day and night, and +if he is in continual suspicion and terror, he’ll be bound to lose his +head. He’ll come of himself, or maybe do something which will make it as +plain as twice two are four--it’s delightful. It may be so with a simple +peasant, but with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a +certain side, it’s a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it’s a very +important matter to know on what side a man is cultivated. And then +there are nerves, there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they +are all sick, nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer +from spleen! That I assure you is a regular gold-mine for us. And it’s +no anxiety to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk +about for a bit! I know well enough that I’ve caught him and that he +won’t escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A +Pole will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching +and have taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country +perhaps? But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants. +A modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such +strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that’s all nonsense, and on +the surface. It’s not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is +_psychologically_ unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression! +Through a law of nature he can’t escape me if he had anywhere to go. +Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That’s how he will keep +circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He’ll +begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll worry himself +to death! What’s more he will provide me with a mathematical proof--if I +only give him long enough interval.... And he’ll keep circling round +me, getting nearer and nearer and then--flop! He’ll fly straight into my +mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You +don’t believe me?” +Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still gazing with +the same intensity into Porfiry’s face. +“It’s a lesson,” he thought, turning cold. “This is beyond the cat +playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can’t be showing off his power +with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that... he must +have another object. What is it? It’s all nonsense, my friend, you are +pretending, to scare me! You’ve no proofs and the man I saw had no +real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up +beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won’t do it! But +why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my +friend, you are wrong, you won’t do it even though you have some trap +for me... let us see what you have in store for me.” +And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At times +he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was what he +dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were flecked +with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined not to +speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best +policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be +irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too +freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for. +“No, I see you don’t believe me, you think I am playing a harmless joke +on you,” Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively, chuckling +at every instant and again pacing round the room. “And to be sure you’re +right: God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in +other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you, and I repeat it, excuse +an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still young, so to +say, in your first youth and so you put intellect above everything, like +all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you and +that’s for all the world like the old Austrian _Hof-kriegsrath_, as +far as I can judge of military matters, that is: on paper they’d beaten +Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it +all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered +with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are +laughing at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history! +But I can’t help it, it’s my weakness. I am fond of military science. +And I’m ever so fond of reading all military histories. I’ve certainly +missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my +word I ought. I shouldn’t have been a Napoleon, but I might have been a +major, he-he! Well, I’ll tell you the whole truth, my dear fellow, about +this _special case_, I mean: actual fact and a man’s temperament, my +dear sir, are weighty matters and it’s astonishing how they sometimes +deceive the sharpest calculation! I--listen to an old man--am speaking +seriously, Rodion Romanovitch” (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who +was scarcely five-and-thirty, actually seemed to have grown old; even +his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) “Moreover, I’m +a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I +really am: I tell you these things for nothing and don’t even expect a +reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid +thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of +life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for a +poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when he’s liable +to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a man after +all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal’s temperament, worse +luck for him! But young people carried away by their own wit don’t think +of that ‘when they overstep all obstacles,’ as you wittily and cleverly +expressed it yesterday. He will lie--that is, the man who is a _special +case_, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion; +you might think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at +the most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course +there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway he’s +given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn’t reckon on his +temperament. That’s what betrays him! Another time he will be carried +away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who suspects him, he +will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead, but his paleness will +be _too natural_, too much like the real thing, again he has given us +an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at first, he will think +differently next day if he is not a fool, and, of course, it is like +that at every step! He puts himself forward where he is not wanted, +speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in all sorts of +allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and asks why didn’t you take me long +ago? he-he-he! And that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man, +the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament reflects everything +like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see! But why are you so +pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window?” +“Oh, don’t trouble, please,” cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke +into a laugh. “Please don’t trouble.” +Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too laughed. +Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical +laughter. +“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though +his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. “I see clearly at last +that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister +Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you +find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then +prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my +face and worried...” +His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain +his voice. +“I won’t allow it!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table. “Do +you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won’t allow it.” +“Good heavens! What does it mean?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently +quite frightened. “Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the +matter with you?” +“I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov shouted again. +“Hush, my dear man! They’ll hear and come in. Just think, what could we +say to them?” Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face +close to Raskolnikov’s. +“I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov repeated mechanically, +but he too spoke in a sudden whisper. +Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window. +“Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow. You’re +ill!” and he was running to the door to call for some when he found a +decanter of water in the corner. “Come, drink a little,” he whispered, +rushing up to him with the decanter. “It will be sure to do you good.” +Porfiry Petrovitch’s alarm and sympathy were so natural that Raskolnikov +was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He did not take +the water, however. +“Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you’ll drive yourself out of your +mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little.” +He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to +his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust. +“Yes, you’ve had a little attack! You’ll bring back your illness again, +my dear fellow,” Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy, +though he still looked rather disconcerted. “Good heavens, you must +take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me +yesterday--I know, I know, I’ve a nasty, ironical temper, but what they +made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you’d been. We +dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands +in despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy’s sake, sit +down!” +“No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,” +Raskolnikov answered sharply. +“You knew?” +“I knew. What of it?” +“Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you; +I know about everything. I know how you went _to take a flat_ at night +when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so +that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of it. Yes, I +understand your state of mind at that time... but you’ll drive yourself +mad like that, upon my word! You’ll lose your head! You’re full of +generous indignation at the wrongs you’ve received, first from destiny, +and then from the police officers, and so you rush from one thing to +another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all, because +you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That’s so, isn’t +it? I have guessed how you feel, haven’t I? Only in that way you’ll +lose your head and Razumihin’s, too; he’s too _good_ a man for such +a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your +illness is infectious for him... I’ll tell you about it when you are +more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness’ sake. Please rest, you +look shocking, do sit down.” +Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In +amazement he listened with strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch who +still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly solicitude. +But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a strange +inclination to believe. Porfiry’s unexpected words about the flat had +utterly overwhelmed him. “How can it be, he knows about the flat then,” +he thought suddenly, “and he tells it me himself!” +“Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a +case of morbid psychology,” Porfiry went on quickly. “A man confessed to +murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination; he brought +forward facts, he imposed upon everyone and why? He had been partly, but +only partly, unintentionally the cause of a murder and when he knew that +he had given the murderers the opportunity, he sank into dejection, it +got on his mind and turned his brain, he began imagining things and he +persuaded himself that he was the murderer. But at last the High Court +of Appeal went into it and the poor fellow was acquitted and put under +proper care. Thanks to the Court of Appeal! Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear +fellow, you may drive yourself into delirium if you have the impulse +to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells at night and asking about +blood! I’ve studied all this morbid psychology in my practice. A man +is sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or from a belfry. Just the +same with bell-ringing.... It’s all illness, Rodion Romanovitch! You +have begun to neglect your illness. You should consult an experienced +doctor, what’s the good of that fat fellow? You are lightheaded! You +were delirious when you did all this!” +For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round. +“Is it possible, is it possible,” flashed through his mind, “that he is +still lying? He can’t be, he can’t be.” He rejected that idea, feeling +to what a degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that fury +might drive him mad. +“I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing,” he cried, straining +every faculty to penetrate Porfiry’s game, “I was quite myself, do you +hear?” +“Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not delirious, +you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all you can tell +me! A-ach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you were +actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this damnable business, +would you insist that you were not delirious but in full possession +of your faculties? And so emphatically and persistently? Would it be +possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you had anything on +your conscience, you certainly ought to insist that you were delirious. +That’s so, isn’t it?” +There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back on +the sofa as Porfiry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity at +him. +“Another thing about Razumihin--you certainly ought to have said that he +came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But you don’t +conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation.” +Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back. +“You keep telling lies,” he said slowly and weakly, twisting his lips +into a sickly smile, “you are trying again to show that you know all +my game, that you know all I shall say beforehand,” he said, conscious +himself that he was not weighing his words as he ought. “You want to +frighten me... or you are simply laughing at me...” +He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light of +intense hatred in his eyes. +“You keep lying,” he said. “You know perfectly well that the best +policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as possible... to +conceal as little as possible. I don’t believe you!” +“What a wily person you are!” Porfiry tittered, “there’s no catching +you; you’ve a perfect monomania. So you don’t believe me? But still you +do believe me, you believe a quarter; I’ll soon make you believe the +whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely wish you +good.” +Raskolnikov’s lips trembled. +“Yes, I do,” went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov’s arm genially, “you +must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister are here +now; you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them and you do +nothing but frighten them...” +“What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is it of +yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it?” +“Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don’t +notice that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From +Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No, +you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit, your +suspiciousness makes you lose the common-sense view of things. To return +to bell-ringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have betrayed a +precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact worth having), +and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the slightest suspicion of you, +should I have acted like that? No, I should first have disarmed your +suspicions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should have diverted +your attention and suddenly have dealt you a knock-down blow (your +expression) saying: ‘And what were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or +nearly eleven at the murdered woman’s flat and why did you ring the bell +and why did you ask about blood? And why did you invite the porters +to go with you to the police station, to the lieutenant?’ That’s how +I ought to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to +have taken your evidence in due form, searched your lodging and perhaps +have arrested you, too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I have +not done that! But you can’t look at it normally and you see nothing, I +say again.” +Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch could not fail to +perceive it. +“You are lying all the while,” he cried, “I don’t know your object, +but you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and I cannot be +mistaken!” +“I am lying?” Porfiry repeated, apparently incensed, but preserving +a good-humoured and ironical face, as though he were not in the least +concerned at Raskolnikov’s opinion of him. “I am lying... but how did +I treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting you and giving +you every means for your defence; illness, I said, delirium, injury, +melancholy and the police officers and all the rest of it? Ah! He-he-he! +Though, indeed, all those psychological means of defence are not very +reliable and cut both ways: illness, delirium, I don’t remember--that’s +all right, but why, my good sir, in your illness and in your delirium +were you haunted by just those delusions and not by any others? There +may have been others, eh? He-he-he!” +Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptuously at him. +“Briefly,” he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so +doing pushing Porfiry back a little, “briefly, I want to know, do you +acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me, Porfiry +Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!” +“What a business I’m having with you!” cried Porfiry with a perfectly +good-humoured, sly and composed face. “And why do you want to know, why +do you want to know so much, since they haven’t begun to worry you? Why, +you are like a child asking for matches! And why are you so uneasy? Why +do you force yourself upon us, eh? He-he-he!” +“I repeat,” Raskolnikov cried furiously, “that I can’t put up with it!” +“With what? Uncertainty?” interrupted Porfiry. +“Don’t jeer at me! I won’t have it! I tell you I won’t have it. I can’t +and I won’t, do you hear, do you hear?” he shouted, bringing his fist +down on the table again. +“Hush! Hush! They’ll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of +yourself. I am not joking,” Porfiry whispered, but this time there was +not the look of old womanish good nature and alarm in his face. Now +he was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside all +mystification. +But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov, bewildered, suddenly fell +into actual frenzy, but, strange to say, he again obeyed the command to +speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm of fury. +“I will not allow myself to be tortured,” he whispered, instantly +recognising with hatred that he could not help obeying the command and +driven to even greater fury by the thought. “Arrest me, search me, but +kindly act in due form and don’t play with me! Don’t dare!” +“Don’t worry about the form,” Porfiry interrupted with the same sly +smile, as it were, gloating with enjoyment over Raskolnikov. “I invited +you to see me quite in a friendly way.” +“I don’t want your friendship and I spit on it! Do you hear? And, here, +I take my cap and go. What will you say now if you mean to arrest me?” +He took up his cap and went to the door. +“And won’t you see my little surprise?” chuckled Porfiry, again taking +him by the arm and stopping him at the door. +He seemed to become more playful and good-humoured which maddened +Raskolnikov. +“What surprise?” he asked, standing still and looking at Porfiry in +alarm. +“My little surprise, it’s sitting there behind the door, he-he-he!” +(He pointed to the locked door.) “I locked him in that he should not +escape.” +“What is it? Where? What?...” +Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have opened it, but it was +locked. +“It’s locked, here is the key!” +And he brought a key out of his pocket. +“You are lying,” roared Raskolnikov without restraint, “you lie, you +damned punchinello!” and he rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the other +door, not at all alarmed. +“I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so that I may betray +myself to you...” +“Why, you could not betray yourself any further, my dear Rodion +Romanovitch. You are in a passion. Don’t shout, I shall call the +clerks.” +“You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill and tried to work +me into a frenzy to make me betray myself, that was your object! Produce +your facts! I understand it all. You’ve no evidence, you have only +wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov’s! You knew my character, you +wanted to drive me to fury and then to knock me down with priests and +deputies.... Are you waiting for them? eh! What are you waiting for? +Where are they? Produce them?” +“Why deputies, my good man? What things people will imagine! And to do +so would not be acting in form as you say, you don’t know the business, +my dear fellow.... And there’s no escaping form, as you see,” Porfiry +muttered, listening at the door through which a noise could be heard. +“Ah, they’re coming,” cried Raskolnikov. “You’ve sent for them! You +expected them! Well, produce them all: your deputies, your witnesses, +what you like!... I am ready!” +But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something so unexpected +that neither Raskolnikov nor Porfiry Petrovitch could have looked for +such a conclusion to their interview. +CHAPTER VI +When he remembered the scene afterwards, this is how Raskolnikov saw it. +The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was opened a +little. +“What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, annoyed. “Why, I gave orders...” +For an instant there was no answer, but it was evident that there were +several persons at the door, and that they were apparently pushing +somebody back. +“What is it?” Porfiry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily. +“The prisoner Nikolay has been brought,” someone answered. +“He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What’s he doing here? +How irregular!” cried Porfiry, rushing to the door. +“But he...” began the same voice, and suddenly ceased. +Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual struggle, then someone gave +a violent shove, and then a man, very pale, strode into the room. +This man’s appearance was at first sight very strange. He stared +straight before him, as though seeing nothing. There was a determined +gleam in his eyes; at the same time there was a deathly pallor in his +face, as though he were being led to the scaffold. His white lips were +faintly twitching. +He was dressed like a workman and was of medium height, very young, +slim, his hair cut in round crop, with thin spare features. The man whom +he had thrust back followed him into the room and succeeded in seizing +him by the shoulder; he was a warder; but Nikolay pulled his arm away. +Several persons crowded inquisitively into the doorway. Some of them +tried to get in. All this took place almost instantaneously. +“Go away, it’s too soon! Wait till you are sent for!... Why have you +brought him so soon?” Porfiry Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed, +and as it were thrown out of his reckoning. +But Nikolay suddenly knelt down. +“What’s the matter?” cried Porfiry, surprised. +“I am guilty! Mine is the sin! I am the murderer,” Nikolay articulated +suddenly, rather breathless, but speaking fairly loudly. +For ten seconds there was silence as though all had been struck dumb; +even the warder stepped back, mechanically retreated to the door, and +stood immovable. +“What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering from his momentary +stupefaction. +“I... am the murderer,” repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause. +“What... you... what... whom did you kill?” Porfiry Petrovitch was +obviously bewildered. +Nikolay again was silent for a moment. +“Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, I... killed... with +an axe. Darkness came over me,” he added suddenly, and was again silent. +He still remained on his knees. Porfiry Petrovitch stood for some +moments as though meditating, but suddenly roused himself and waved back +the uninvited spectators. They instantly vanished and closed the door. +Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who was standing in the corner, +staring wildly at Nikolay and moved towards him, but stopped short, +looked from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at Nikolay, and +seeming unable to restrain himself darted at the latter. +“You’re in too great a hurry,” he shouted at him, almost angrily. “I +didn’t ask you what came over you.... Speak, did you kill them?” +“I am the murderer.... I want to give evidence,” Nikolay pronounced. +“Ach! What did you kill them with?” +“An axe. I had it ready.” +“Ach, he is in a hurry! Alone?” +Nikolay did not understand the question. +“Did you do it alone?” +“Yes, alone. And Mitka is not guilty and had no share in it.” +“Don’t be in a hurry about Mitka! A-ach! How was it you ran downstairs +like that at the time? The porters met you both!” +“It was to put them off the scent... I ran after Mitka,” Nikolay replied +hurriedly, as though he had prepared the answer. +“I knew it!” cried Porfiry, with vexation. “It’s not his own tale he is +telling,” he muttered as though to himself, and suddenly his eyes rested +on Raskolnikov again. +He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that for a moment he had +forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a little taken aback. +“My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me!” he flew up to him, “this won’t +do; I’m afraid you must go... it’s no good your staying... I will... +you see, what a surprise!... Good-bye!” +And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the door. +“I suppose you didn’t expect it?” said Raskolnikov who, though he had +not yet fully grasped the situation, had regained his courage. +“You did not expect it either, my friend. See how your hand is +trembling! He-he!” +“You’re trembling, too, Porfiry Petrovitch!” +“Yes, I am; I didn’t expect it.” +They were already at the door; Porfiry was impatient for Raskolnikov to +be gone. +“And your little surprise, aren’t you going to show it to me?” +Raskolnikov said, sarcastically. +“Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, he-he! You are an ironical +person! Come, till we meet!” +“I believe we can say _good-bye_!” +“That’s in God’s hands,” muttered Porfiry, with an unnatural smile. +As he walked through the office, Raskolnikov noticed that many people +were looking at him. Among them he saw the two porters from _the_ house, +whom he had invited that night to the police station. They stood there +waiting. But he was no sooner on the stairs than he heard the voice of +Porfiry Petrovitch behind him. Turning round, he saw the latter running +after him, out of breath. +“One word, Rodion Romanovitch; as to all the rest, it’s in God’s hands, +but as a matter of form there are some questions I shall have to ask +you... so we shall meet again, shan’t we?” +And Porfiry stood still, facing him with a smile. +“Shan’t we?” he added again. +He seemed to want to say something more, but could not speak out. +“You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what has just passed... I +lost my temper,” began Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his courage +that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his coolness. +“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,” Porfiry replied, almost gleefully. +“I myself, too... I have a wicked temper, I admit it! But we shall meet +again. If it’s God’s will, we may see a great deal of one another.” +“And will get to know each other through and through?” added +Raskolnikov. +“Yes; know each other through and through,” assented Porfiry Petrovitch, +and he screwed up his eyes, looking earnestly at Raskolnikov. “Now +you’re going to a birthday party?” +“To a funeral.” +“Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and get well.” +“I don’t know what to wish you,” said Raskolnikov, who had begun to +descend the stairs, but looked back again. “I should like to wish you +success, but your office is such a comical one.” +“Why comical?” Porfiry Petrovitch had turned to go, but he seemed to +prick up his ears at this. +“Why, how you must have been torturing and harassing that poor Nikolay +psychologically, after your fashion, till he confessed! You must have +been at him day and night, proving to him that he was the murderer, and +now that he has confessed, you’ll begin vivisecting him again. ‘You are +lying,’ you’ll say. ‘You are not the murderer! You can’t be! It’s not +your own tale you are telling!’ You must admit it’s a comical business!” +“He-he-he! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay just now that it was +not his own tale he was telling?” +“How could I help noticing it!” +“He-he! You are quick-witted. You notice everything! You’ve really a +playful mind! And you always fasten on the comic side... he-he! They say +that was the marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers.” +“Yes, of Gogol.” +“Yes, of Gogol.... I shall look forward to meeting you.” +“So shall I.” +Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so muddled and bewildered that +on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the sofa, trying to +collect his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about Nikolay; he +was stupefied; he felt that his confession was something inexplicable, +amazing--something beyond his understanding. But Nikolay’s confession +was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact were clear to him at +once, its falsehood could not fail to be discovered, and then they +would be after him again. Till then, at least, he was free and must do +something for himself, for the danger was imminent. +But how imminent? His position gradually became clear to him. +Remembering, sketchily, the main outlines of his recent scene with +Porfiry, he could not help shuddering again with horror. Of course, +he did not yet know all Porfiry’s aims, he could not see into all his +calculations. But he had already partly shown his hand, and no one knew +better than Raskolnikov how terrible Porfiry’s “lead” had been for +him. A little more and he _might_ have given himself away completely, +circumstantially. Knowing his nervous temperament and from the first +glance seeing through him, Porfiry, though playing a bold game, was +bound to win. There’s no denying that Raskolnikov had compromised +himself seriously, but no _facts_ had come to light as yet; there was +nothing positive. But was he taking a true view of the position? Wasn’t +he mistaken? What had Porfiry been trying to get at? Had he really some +surprise prepared for him? And what was it? Had he really been expecting +something or not? How would they have parted if it had not been for the +unexpected appearance of Nikolay? +Porfiry had shown almost all his cards--of course, he had risked +something in showing them--and if he had really had anything up his +sleeve (Raskolnikov reflected), he would have shown that, too. What was +that “surprise”? Was it a joke? Had it meant anything? Could it have +concealed anything like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His +yesterday’s visitor? What had become of him? Where was he to-day? If +Porfiry really had any evidence, it must be connected with him.... +He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in +his hands. He was still shivering nervously. At last he got up, took his +cap, thought a minute, and went to the door. +He had a sort of presentiment that for to-day, at least, he might +consider himself out of danger. He had a sudden sense almost of joy; he +wanted to make haste to Katerina Ivanovna’s. He would be too late for +the funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the memorial dinner, +and there at once he would see Sonia. +He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering smile came for a +moment on to his lips. +“To-day! To-day,” he repeated to himself. “Yes, to-day! So it must +be....” +But as he was about to open the door, it began opening of itself. He +started and moved back. The door opened gently and slowly, and there +suddenly appeared a figure--yesterday’s visitor _from underground_. +The man stood in the doorway, looked at Raskolnikov without speaking, +and took a step forward into the room. He was exactly the same as +yesterday; the same figure, the same dress, but there was a great change +in his face; he looked dejected and sighed deeply. If he had only put +his hand up to his cheek and leaned his head on one side he would have +looked exactly like a peasant woman. +“What do you want?” asked Raskolnikov, numb with terror. The man was +still silent, but suddenly he bowed down almost to the ground, touching +it with his finger. +“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov. +“I have sinned,” the man articulated softly. +“How?” +“By evil thoughts.” +They looked at one another. +“I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink, and bade the porters go +to the police station and asked about the blood, I was vexed that they +let you go and took you for drunken. I was so vexed that I lost my +sleep. And remembering the address we came here yesterday and asked for +you....” +“Who came?” Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to recollect. +“I did, I’ve wronged you.” +“Then you come from that house?” +“I was standing at the gate with them... don’t you remember? We have +carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare +hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed....” +And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway came +clearly before Raskolnikov’s mind; he recollected that there had +been several people there besides the porters, women among them. +He remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the +police-station. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and even +now he did not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned round +and made him some answer.... +So this was the solution of yesterday’s horror. The most awful thought +was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for himself +on account of such a _trivial_ circumstance. So this man could tell +nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood stains. So +Porfiry, too, had nothing but that _delirium_, no facts but this +_psychology_ which _cuts both ways_, nothing positive. So if no more +facts come to light (and they must not, they must not!) then... then +what can they do to him? How can they convict him, even if they arrest +him? And Porfiry then had only just heard about the flat and had not +known about it before. +“Was it you who told Porfiry... that I’d been there?” he cried, struck +by a sudden idea. +“What Porfiry?” +“The head of the detective department?” +“Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went.” +“To-day?” +“I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all, how he +worried you.” +“Where? What? When?” +“Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time.” +“What? Why, then you were the surprise? But how could it happen? Upon my +word!” +“I saw that the porters did not want to do what I said,” began the man; +“for it’s too late, said they, and maybe he’ll be angry that we did not +come at the time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began making +inquiries. And finding out yesterday where to go, I went to-day. The +first time I went he wasn’t there, when I came an hour later he couldn’t +see me. I went the third time, and they showed me in. I informed him of +everything, just as it happened, and he began skipping about the room +and punching himself on the chest. ‘What do you scoundrels mean by it? +If I’d known about it I should have arrested him!’ Then he ran out, +called somebody and began talking to him in the corner, then he turned +to me, scolding and questioning me. He scolded me a great deal; and I +told him everything, and I told him that you didn’t dare to say a word +in answer to me yesterday and that you didn’t recognise me. And he +fell to running about again and kept hitting himself on the chest, and +getting angry and running about, and when you were announced he told +me to go into the next room. ‘Sit there a bit,’ he said. ‘Don’t move, +whatever you may hear.’ And he set a chair there for me and locked +me in. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I may call you.’ And when Nikolay’d been +brought he let me out as soon as you were gone. ‘I shall send for you +again and question you,’ he said.” +“And did he question Nikolay while you were there?” +“He got rid of me as he did of you, before he spoke to Nikolay.” +The man stood still, and again suddenly bowed down, touching the ground +with his finger. +“Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander.” +“May God forgive you,” answered Raskolnikov. +And as he said this, the man bowed down again, but not to the ground, +turned slowly and went out of the room. +“It all cuts both ways, now it all cuts both ways,” repeated +Raskolnikov, and he went out more confident than ever. +“Now we’ll make a fight for it,” he said, with a malicious smile, as he +went down the stairs. His malice was aimed at himself; with shame and +contempt he recollected his “cowardice.” +PART V +CHAPTER I +The morning that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and +her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. +Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept +as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before +fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been +gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch +immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that he had +jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at +his noble, clear-skinned countenance which had grown fattish of +late, Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively comforted in the +conviction that he would find another bride and, perhaps, even a better +one. But coming back to the sense of his present position, he turned +aside and spat vigorously, which excited a sarcastic smile in Andrey +Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, the young friend with whom he was staying. +That smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it down against his +young friend’s account. He had set down a good many points against him +of late. His anger was redoubled when he reflected that he ought not to +have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result of yesterday’s interview. +That was the second mistake he had made in temper, through impulsiveness +and irritability.... Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness +followed another. He even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case +in the senate. He was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat +which had been taken in view of his approaching marriage and was being +redecorated at his own expense; the owner, a rich German tradesman, +would not entertain the idea of breaking the contract which had just +been signed and insisted on the full forfeit money, though Pyotr +Petrovitch would be giving him back the flat practically redecorated. In +the same way the upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the +instalment paid for the furniture purchased but not yet removed to the +flat. +“Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture?” Pyotr +Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a +gleam of desperate hope. “Can all that be really so irrevocably over? +Is it no use to make another effort?” The thought of Dounia sent a +voluptuous pang through his heart. He endured anguish at that moment, +and if it had been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by wishing it, +Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered the wish. +“It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money,” he thought, as +he returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov’s room, “and why on earth was I +such a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them without a penny +so that they should turn to me as their providence, and look at them! +foo! If I’d spent some fifteen hundred roubles on them for the trousseau +and presents, on knick-knacks, dressing-cases, jewellery, materials, and +all that sort of trash from Knopp’s and the English shop, my position +would have been better and... stronger! They could not have refused me +so easily! They are the sort of people that would feel bound to return +money and presents if they broke it off; and they would find it hard to +do it! And their conscience would prick them: how can we dismiss a man +who has hitherto been so generous and delicate?.... H’m! I’ve made a +blunder.” +And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a +fool--but not aloud, of course. +He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The +preparations for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna’s excited +his curiosity as he passed. He had heard about it the day before; he +fancied, indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his own cares +he had paid no attention. Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who was busy +laying the table while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he +heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair, that all the +lodgers had been invited, among them some who had not known the dead +man, that even Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in spite of +his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna, that he, Pyotr Petrovitch, +was not only invited, but was eagerly expected as he was the most +important of the lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had been invited with +great ceremony in spite of the recent unpleasantness, and so she was +very busy with preparations and was taking a positive pleasure in them; +she was moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new black silk, and she +was proud of it. All this suggested an idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he +went into his room, or rather Lebeziatnikov’s, somewhat thoughtful. He +had learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of the guests. +Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude of +Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps natural. +Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he came to stay +with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat afraid of him. He +had not come to stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from +parsimony, though that had been perhaps his chief object. He had heard +of Andrey Semyonovitch, who had once been his ward, as a leading young +progressive who was taking an important part in certain interesting +circles, the doings of which were a legend in the provinces. It had +impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful omniscient circles who +despised everyone and showed everyone up had long inspired in him a +peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had not, of course, been able to form +even an approximate notion of what they meant. He, like everyone, had +heard that there were, especially in Petersburg, progressives of some +sort, nihilists and so on, and, like many people, he exaggerated and +distorted the significance of those words to an absurd degree. What for +many years past he had feared more than anything was _being shown +up_ and this was the chief ground for his continual uneasiness at the +thought of transferring his business to Petersburg. He was afraid of +this as little children are sometimes panic-stricken. Some years before, +when he was just entering on his own career, he had come upon two cases +in which rather important personages in the province, patrons of his, +had been cruelly shown up. One instance had ended in great scandal +for the person attacked and the other had very nearly ended in serious +trouble. For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the +subject as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary, to +anticipate contingencies by seeking the favour of “our younger +generation.” He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before +his visit to Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current +phrases. He soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace +simpleton, but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he +had been certain that all the progressives were fools like him, it +would not have allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the +systems, with which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no interest for +him. He had his own object--he simply wanted to find out at once what +was happening _here_. Had these people any power or not? Had he anything +to fear from them? Would they expose any enterprise of his? And what +precisely was now the object of their attacks? Could he somehow make up +to them and get round them if they really were powerful? Was this the +thing to do or not? Couldn’t he gain something through them? In fact +hundreds of questions presented themselves. +Andrey Semyonovitch was an anæmic, scrofulous little man, with strangely +flaxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. He was a clerk +and had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He was rather +soft-hearted, but self-confident and sometimes extremely conceited in +speech, which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his little figure. +He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia Ivanovna, for he did +not get drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch +really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of progress +and “our younger generation” from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous +and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, +half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in +fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, +however sincerely. +Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning to +dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously. +However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that Pyotr +Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that “he was +not the right sort of man.” He had tried expounding to him the system of +Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to +listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he had begun +instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace +simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no connections of +any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply picked things up +third-hand; and that very likely he did not even know much about his own +work of propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he +would be to show anyone up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr +Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest +praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance, +when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to +the establishment of the new “commune,” or to abstain from christening +his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a +month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing +his own praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they were +attributed to him. +Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some +five-per-cent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over +bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money +walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those bank +notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have convinced +Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look on the money +unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr +Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea about him and +was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his young friend by +reminding him of his inferiority and the great difference between them. +He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey +Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation +of a new special “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped from Pyotr +Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning frame +betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the “humane” Andrey +Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour to his recent breach +with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that +theme. He had something progressive to say on the subject which +might console his worthy friend and “could not fail” to promote his +development. +“There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the +widow’s, isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting +Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage. +“Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think +about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were +talking to her yesterday...” +“I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on +this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I +was surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the +wines! Several people are invited. It’s beyond everything!” continued +Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the +conversation. “What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don’t +remember. But I shan’t go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in +passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a year’s salary as +a destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on +that account, hasn’t she? He-he-he!” +“I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov. +“I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well +hesitate, he-he!” +“Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing. +“Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so +yesterday... so that’s what your convictions amount to... and the woman +question, too, wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch, as +though comforted, went back to clicking his beads. +“It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always +afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was not like that at all, it +was quite different. You’ve heard it wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply +defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled +out all my whiskers.... It’s permissable for anyone, I should hope, +to defend himself and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on +principle, for it’s an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply +pushed her back.” +“He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously. +“You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But +that’s nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the +woman question! You don’t understand; I used to think, indeed, that +if women are equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is +maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I +reflected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise, +for there ought not to be fighting and in the future society fighting is +unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality +in fighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there is +fighting... there won’t be later, but at present there is... confound +it! How muddled one gets with you! It’s not on that account that I +am not going. I am not going on principle, not to take part in the +revolting convention of memorial dinners, that’s why! Though, of course, +one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there won’t be any priests at +it. I should certainly go if there were.” +“Then you would sit down at another man’s table and insult it and those +who invited you. Eh?” +“Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I +might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It’s +a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the +more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And +something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting them? +They might be offended at first, but afterwards they’d see I’d done them +a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed +because when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to +her father and mother that she wouldn���t go on living conventionally and +was entering on a free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh, +that she might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think +that’s all nonsense and there’s no need of softness; on the contrary, +what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she +abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a +letter: ‘I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can never +forgive you that you have deceived me by concealing from me that there +is another organisation of society by means of the communities. I have +only lately learned it from a great-hearted man to whom I have given +myself and with whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly +because I consider it dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best. +Do not hope to get me back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.’ +That’s how letters like that ought to be written!” +“Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?” +“No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what +if it were the fifteenth, that’s all nonsense! And if ever I regretted +the death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think +if my parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I +would have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would +have astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one!” +“To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,” Pyotr Petrovitch +interrupted, “but tell me this; do you know the dead man’s daughter, the +delicate-looking little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t +it?” +“What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that +this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, _distinguons_. +In our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is +compulsory, but in the future society it will be perfectly normal, +because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she +was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak, her capital which +she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in the future +society there will be no need of assets, but her part will have another +significance, rational and in harmony with her environment. As to Sofya +Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against +the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice +indeed when I look at her!” +“I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.” +Lebeziatnikov was enraged. +“That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all +Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never +made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely +disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her +protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!” +“Have you asked her to join your community?” +“You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell +you. You don’t understand! There is no such rôle in a community. The +community is established that there should be no such rôles. In a +community, such a rôle is essentially transformed and what is stupid +here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural +becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the +environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing. And +I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof +that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to +attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing. +What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of +our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our +convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya +Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!” +“And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!” +“No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.” +“Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!” +“Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself +how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!” +“And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to her +that all that modesty is nonsense?” +“Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly--excuse me saying +so--you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how... crude +you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have +only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question +of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed +prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her +to decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, +I should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but +as it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more +respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that’s all!” +“You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never +thought of that.” +“You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in +such a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question! +You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider +deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow +creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I am only sorry that +of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used +to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and +resolution in protesting--which she has already shown once--she has +little self-reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to +break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she +thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about kissing of +hands, that is, that it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her +hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a debate about it and +I described it to her. She listened attentively to an account of the +workmen’s associations in France, too. Now I am explaining the question +of coming into the room in the future society.” +“And what’s that, pray?” +“We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the community +the right to enter another member’s room, whether man or woman, at any +time... and we decided that he has!” +“It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!” +Lebeziatnikov was really angry. +“You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with +aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I +referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s always +a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before +they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often +maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till +he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you +find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready +to clean out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of +self-sacrifice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful work which is +as good as any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a +Pushkin, because it is more useful.” +“And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!” +“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such +expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’--all +those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is +_of use_ to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: _useful_! +You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!” +Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money +and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The +“cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute between them. +What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it +amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his +young friend. +“It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and +annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his “independence” +and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still +behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years. +“You’d better tell me this,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with haughty +displeasure, “can you... or rather are you really friendly enough with +that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I think +they’ve all come back from the cemetery... I heard the sound of +steps... I want to see her, that young person.” +“What for?” Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise. +“Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-morrow and therefore I +wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be present during the +interview. It’s better you should be, indeed. For there’s no knowing +what you might imagine.” +“I shan’t imagine anything. I only asked and, if you’ve anything to say +to her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I’ll go directly and you +may be sure I won’t be in your way.” +Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in very +much surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was always shy in +such circumstances and was always afraid of new people, she had been as +a child and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch met her “politely +and affably,” but with a certain shade of bantering familiarity which in +his opinion was suitable for a man of his respectability and weight +in dealing with a creature so young and so _interesting_ as she. He +hastened to “reassure” her and made her sit down facing him at the +table. Sonia sat down, looked about her--at Lebeziatnikov, at the notes +lying on the table and then again at Pyotr Petrovitch and her eyes +remained riveted on him. Lebeziatnikov was moving to the door. Pyotr +Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain seated and stopped Lebeziatnikov. +“Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?” he asked him in a whisper. +“Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in.... +Why?” +“Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to leave +me alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words with her, +but God knows what they may make of it. I shouldn’t like Raskolnikov to +repeat anything.... You understand what I mean?” +“I understand!” Lebeziatnikov saw the point. “Yes, you are right.... Of +course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be uneasy, +but... still, you are right. Certainly I’ll stay. I’ll stand here at the +window and not be in your way... I think you are right...” +Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia, looked +attentively at her and assumed an extremely dignified, even severe +expression, as much as to say, “don’t you make any mistake, madam.” +Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment. +“In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to your +respected mamma.... That’s right, isn’t it? Katerina Ivanovna stands +in the place of a mother to you?” Pyotr Petrovitch began with great +dignity, though affably. +It was evident that his intentions were friendly. +“Quite so, yes; the place of a mother,” Sonia answered, timidly and +hurriedly. +“Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable +circumstances I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the dinner in +spite of your mamma’s kind invitation.” +“Yes... I’ll tell her... at once.” +And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat. +“Wait, that’s not all,” Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at her +simplicity and ignorance of good manners, “and you know me little, my +dear Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to trouble +a person like you for a matter of so little consequence affecting myself +only. I have another object.” +Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on the +grey-and-rainbow-coloured notes that remained on the table, but she +quickly looked away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it +horribly indecorous, especially for _her_, to look at another person’s +money. She stared at the gold eye-glass which Pyotr Petrovitch held +in his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring with a +yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she looked away and, not +knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again straight +in the face. After a pause of still greater dignity he continued. +“I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with +Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was sufficient to enable me to +ascertain that she is in a position--preternatural, if one may so +express it.” +“Yes... preternatural...” Sonia hurriedly assented. +“Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill.” +“Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill.” +“Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak +compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way, +foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this +poverty-stricken family depends now entirely on you?” +“Allow me to ask,” Sonia rose to her feet, “did you say something to her +yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you had +undertaken to get her one. Was that true?” +“Not in the slightest, and indeed it’s an absurdity! I merely hinted at +her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an official who had +died in the service--if only she has patronage... but apparently your +late parent had not served his full term and had not indeed been in the +service at all of late. In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be +very ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in +that case, far from it.... And she is dreaming of a pension already, +he-he-he!... A go-ahead lady!” +“Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-hearted, and she believes +everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and she is like +that... yes... You must excuse her,” said Sonia, and again she got up to +go. +“But you haven’t heard what I have to say.” +“No, I haven’t heard,” muttered Sonia. +“Then sit down.” She was terribly confused; she sat down again a third +time. +“Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be glad, +as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of service, +that is, so far as is in my power, not more. One might for instance get +up a subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort, such as +is always arranged in such cases by friends or even outsiders desirous +of assisting people. It was of that I intended to speak to you; it might +be done.” +“Yes, yes... God will repay you for it,” faltered Sonia, gazing intently +at Pyotr Petrovitch. +“It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it to-day, we +will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to speak. Come +to me at seven o’clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But +there is one circumstance of which I ought to warn you beforehand and +for which I venture to trouble you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In +my opinion money cannot be, indeed it’s unsafe to put it into Katerina +Ivanovna’s own hands. The dinner to-day is a proof of that. Though she +has not, so to speak, a crust of bread for to-morrow and... well, boots +or shoes, or anything; she has bought to-day Jamaica rum, and even, +I believe, Madeira and... and coffee. I saw it as I passed through. +To-morrow it will all fall upon you again, they won’t have a crust of +bread. It’s absurd, really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought +to be raised so that the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but +only you, for instance. Am I right?” +“I don’t know... this is only to-day, once in her life.... She was +so anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very +sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they will +all be... and God will reward... and the orphans...” +Sonia burst into tears. +“Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you accept for the +benefit of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from me +personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be mentioned in +connection with it. Here... having so to speak anxieties of my own, I +cannot do more...” +And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rouble note carefully +unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, muttered something +and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her ceremoniously +to the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated and distressed, +and returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with confusion. +All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked about the +room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation; when Sonia had gone he +walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out his hand. +“I heard and _saw_ everything,” he said, laying stress on the last verb. +“That is honourable, I mean to say, it’s humane! You wanted to avoid +gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle +sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate the +evil but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action with +pleasure--yes, yes, I like it.” +“That’s all nonsense,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted, +looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov. +“No, it’s not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and annoyance as +you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the misery of others, +such a man... even though he is making a social mistake--is still +deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of you, Pyotr +Petrovitch, especially as according to your ideas... oh, what a drawback +your ideas are to you! How distressed you are for instance by your +ill-luck yesterday,” cried the simple-hearted Lebeziatnikov, who felt +a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch. “And, what do you want with +marriage, with _legal_ marriage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do +you cling to this _legality_ of marriage? Well, you may beat me if you +like, but I am glad, positively glad it hasn’t come off, that you are +free, that you are not quite lost for humanity.... you see, I’ve spoken +my mind!” +“Because I don’t want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and +to bring up another man’s children, that’s why I want legal marriage,” +Luzhin replied in order to make some answer. +He seemed preoccupied by something. +“Children? You referred to children,” Lebeziatnikov started off like +a warhorse at the trumpet call. “Children are a social question and a +question of first importance, I agree; but the question of children has +another solution. Some refuse to have children altogether, because they +suggest the institution of the family. We’ll speak of children later, +but now as to the question of honour, I confess that’s my weak point. +That horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the +dictionary of the future. What does it mean indeed? It’s nonsense, +there will be no deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural +consequence of a legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a protest. +So that indeed it’s not humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an +absurdity, were to be legally married, I should be positively glad of +it. I should say to my wife: ‘My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now +I respect you, for you’ve shown you can protest!’ You laugh! That’s +because you are incapable of getting away from prejudices. Confound +it all! I understand now where the unpleasantness is of being deceived +in a legal marriage, but it’s simply a despicable consequence of a +despicable position in which both are humiliated. When the deception is +open, as in a free marriage, then it does not exist, it’s unthinkable. +Your wife will only prove how she respects you by considering you +incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging yourself on her for +her new husband. Damn it all! I sometimes dream if I were to be married, +pfoo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or not, it’s just the same, +I should present my wife with a lover if she had not found one for +herself. ‘My dear,’ I should say, ‘I love you, but even more than that I +desire you to respect me. See!’ Am I not right?” +Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much merriment. +He hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with something else and +even Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr Petrovitch seemed excited +and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov remembered all this and reflected +upon it afterwards. +CHAPTER II +It would be difficult to explain exactly what could have originated the +idea of that senseless dinner in Katerina Ivanovna’s disordered brain. +Nearly ten of the twenty roubles, given by Raskolnikov for Marmeladov’s +funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly Katerina Ivanovna felt obliged to +honour the memory of the deceased “suitably,” that all the lodgers, +and still more Amalia Ivanovna, might know “that he was in no way their +inferior, and perhaps very much their superior,” and that no one had the +right “to turn up his nose at him.” Perhaps the chief element was that +peculiar “poor man’s pride,” which compels many poor people to spend +their last savings on some traditional social ceremony, simply in order +to do “like other people,” and not to “be looked down upon.” It is very +probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna longed on this occasion, at +the moment when she seemed to be abandoned by everyone, to show those +“wretched contemptible lodgers” that she knew “how to do things, how +to entertain” and that she had been brought up “in a genteel, she might +almost say aristocratic colonel’s family” and had not been meant for +sweeping floors and washing the children’s rags at night. Even the +poorest and most broken-spirited people are sometimes liable to these +paroxysms of pride and vanity which take the form of an irresistible +nervous craving. And Katerina Ivanovna was not broken-spirited; she +might have been killed by circumstance, but her spirit could not have +been broken, that is, she could not have been intimidated, her will +could not be crushed. Moreover Sonia had said with good reason that her +mind was unhinged. She could not be said to be insane, but for a year +past she had been so harassed that her mind might well be overstrained. +The later stages of consumption are apt, doctors tell us, to affect the +intellect. +There was no great variety of wines, nor was there Madeira; but wine +there was. There was vodka, rum and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest +quality but in sufficient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and +honey, there were three or four dishes, one of which consisted of +pancakes, all prepared in Amalia Ivanovna’s kitchen. Two samovars were +boiling, that tea and punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina +Ivanovna had herself seen to purchasing the provisions, with the help +of one of the lodgers, an unfortunate little Pole who had somehow been +stranded at Madame Lippevechsel’s. He promptly put himself at Katerina +Ivanovna’s disposal and had been all that morning and all the day before +running about as fast as his legs could carry him, and very anxious +that everyone should be aware of it. For every trifle he ran to Katerina +Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the bazaar, at every instant called +her “_Pani_.” She was heartily sick of him before the end, though +she had declared at first that she could not have got on without this +“serviceable and magnanimous man.” It was one of Katerina Ivanovna’s +characteristics to paint everyone she met in the most glowing colours. +Her praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be embarrassing; she +would invent various circumstances to the credit of her new acquaintance +and quite genuinely believe in their reality. Then all of a sudden she +would be disillusioned and would rudely and contemptuously repulse the +person she had only a few hours before been literally adoring. She +was naturally of a gay, lively and peace-loving disposition, but from +continual failures and misfortunes she had come to desire so _keenly_ +that all should live in peace and joy and should not _dare_ to break the +peace, that the slightest jar, the smallest disaster reduced her almost +to frenzy, and she would pass in an instant from the brightest hopes and +fancies to cursing her fate and raving, and knocking her head against +the wall. +Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraordinary importance in +Katerina Ivanovna’s eyes and was treated by her with extraordinary +respect, probably only because Amalia Ivanovna had thrown herself heart +and soul into the preparations. She had undertaken to lay the table, +to provide the linen, crockery, etc., and to cook the dishes in her +kitchen, and Katerina Ivanovna had left it all in her hands and gone +herself to the cemetery. Everything had been well done. Even the +table-cloth was nearly clean; the crockery, knives, forks and glasses +were, of course, of all shapes and patterns, lent by different lodgers, +but the table was properly laid at the time fixed, and Amalia Ivanovna, +feeling she had done her work well, had put on a black silk dress and +a cap with new mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some +pride. This pride, though justifiable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for +some reason: “as though the table could not have been laid except by +Amalia Ivanovna!” She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. “Could she +be stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the house, +and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a favour! +Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna’s father who had been a colonel and almost +a governor had sometimes had the table set for forty persons, and then +anyone like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna, would not have been +allowed into the kitchen.” +Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing her feelings for the +time and contented herself with treating her coldly, though she decided +inwardly that she would certainly have to put Amalia Ivanovna down +and set her in her proper place, for goodness only knew what she was +fancying herself. Katerina Ivanovna was irritated too by the fact that +hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the funeral, except +the Pole who had just managed to run into the cemetery, while to the +memorial dinner the poorest and most insignificant of them had turned +up, the wretched creatures, many of them not quite sober. The older +and more respectable of them all, as if by common consent, stayed away. +Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for instance, who might be said to be the most +respectable of all the lodgers, did not appear, though Katerina Ivanovna +had the evening before told all the world, that is Amalia Ivanovna, +Polenka, Sonia and the Pole, that he was the most generous, +noble-hearted man with a large property and vast connections, who had +been a friend of her first husband’s, and a guest in her father’s +house, and that he had promised to use all his influence to secure her +a considerable pension. It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna +exalted anyone’s connections and fortune, it was without any ulterior +motive, quite disinterestedly, for the mere pleasure of adding to +the consequence of the person praised. Probably “taking his cue” from +Luzhin, “that contemptible wretch Lebeziatnikov had not turned up +either. What did he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness +and because he was sharing the same room with Pyotr Petrovitch and was a +friend of his, so that it would have been awkward not to invite him.” +Among those who failed to appear were “the genteel lady and her +old-maidish daughter,” who had only been lodgers in the house for the +last fortnight, but had several times complained of the noise and uproar +in Katerina Ivanovna’s room, especially when Marmeladov had come +back drunk. Katerina Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna who, +quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to turn the whole +family out of doors, had shouted at her that they “were not worth the +foot” of the honourable lodgers whom they were disturbing. Katerina +Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her daughter, “whose +foot she was not worth,” and who had turned away haughtily when she +casually met them, so that they might know that “she was more noble in +her thoughts and feelings and did not harbour malice,” and might see +that she was not accustomed to her way of living. She had proposed to +make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to her late father’s +governorship, and also at the same time to hint that it was exceedingly +stupid of them to turn away on meeting her. The fat colonel-major (he +was really a discharged officer of low rank) was also absent, but it +appeared that he had been “not himself” for the last two days. The party +consisted of the Pole, a wretched looking clerk with a spotty face and +a greasy coat, who had not a word to say for himself, and smelt +abominably, a deaf and almost blind old man who had once been in the +post office and who had been from immemorial ages maintained by someone +at Amalia Ivanovna’s. +A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was +drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy--was without +a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the table without +even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person having no suit +appeared in his dressing-gown, but this was too much, and the efforts of +Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in removing him. The Pole brought +with him, however, two other Poles who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna’s +and whom no one had seen here before. All this irritated Katerina +Ivanovna intensely. “For whom had they made all these preparations +then?” To make room for the visitors the children had not even been laid +for at the table; but the two little ones were sitting on a bench in the +furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box, while Polenka as a big +girl had to look after them, feed them, and keep their noses wiped like +well-bred children’s. +Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meeting her guests with +increased dignity, and even haughtiness. She stared at some of them with +special severity, and loftily invited them to take their seats. Rushing +to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must be responsible for those who +were absent, she began treating her with extreme nonchalance, which the +latter promptly observed and resented. Such a beginning was no good omen +for the end. All were seated at last. +Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of their return from the +cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly delighted to see him, in the +first place, because he was the one “educated visitor, and, as everyone +knew, was in two years to take a professorship in the university,” and +secondly because he immediately and respectfully apologised for having +been unable to be at the funeral. She positively pounced upon him, and +made him sit on her left hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her right). In +spite of her continual anxiety that the dishes should be passed round +correctly and that everyone should taste them, in spite of the agonising +cough which interrupted her every minute and seemed to have grown worse +during the last few days, she hastened to pour out in a half whisper to +Raskolnikov all her suppressed feelings and her just indignation at +the failure of the dinner, interspersing her remarks with lively and +uncontrollable laughter at the expense of her visitors and especially of +her landlady. +“It’s all that cuckoo’s fault! You know whom I mean? Her, her!” Katerina +Ivanovna nodded towards the landlady. “Look at her, she’s making round +eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can’t understand. +Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) And what does she put on that +cap for? (Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that she wants everyone +to consider that she is patronising me and doing me an honour by being +here? I asked her like a sensible woman to invite people, especially +those who knew my late husband, and look at the set of fools she has +brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with the spotty face. And those +wretched Poles, ha-ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) Not one of them has ever +poked his nose in here, I’ve never set eyes on them. What have they come +here for, I ask you? There they sit in a row. Hey, _pan_!” she cried +suddenly to one of them, “have you tasted the pancakes? Take some more! +Have some beer! Won’t you have some vodka? Look, he’s jumped up and is +making his bows, they must be quite starved, poor things. Never mind, +let them eat! They don’t make a noise, anyway, though I’m really afraid +for our landlady’s silver spoons... Amalia Ivanovna!” she addressed her +suddenly, almost aloud, “if your spoons should happen to be stolen, +I won’t be responsible, I warn you! Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed turning to +Raskolnikov, and again nodding towards the landlady, in high glee at her +sally. “She didn’t understand, she didn’t understand again! Look how +she sits with her mouth open! An owl, a real owl! An owl in new ribbons, +ha-ha-ha!” +Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable fit of coughing that +lasted five minutes. Drops of perspiration stood out on her forehead +and her handkerchief was stained with blood. She showed Raskolnikov +the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her breath began +whispering to him again with extreme animation and a hectic flush on her +cheeks. +“Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to speak, +for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom I am +speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she +has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that +provincial nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and +has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the +government offices, because at fifty she paints her face (everybody +knows it)... a creature like that did not think fit to come, and has +not even answered the invitation, which the most ordinary good manners +required! I can’t understand why Pyotr Petrovitch has not come? But +where’s Sonia? Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it, +Sonia, where have you been? It’s odd that even at your father’s funeral +you should be so unpunctual. Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her +beside you. That’s your place, Sonia... take what you like. Have some of +the cold entrée with jelly, that’s the best. They’ll bring the pancakes +directly. Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got +everything? (Cough-cough-cough.) That’s all right. Be a good girl, Lida, +and, Kolya, don’t fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman. +What are you saying, Sonia?” +Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch’s apologies, trying to +speak loud enough for everyone to hear and carefully choosing the most +respectful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch. She added +that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly told her to say that, as soon as +he possibly could, he would come immediately to discuss _business_ alone +with her and to consider what could be done for her, etc., etc. +Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina Ivanovna, would flatter her +and gratify her pride. She sat down beside Raskolnikov; she made him a +hurried bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the rest of the time +she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking to him. She seemed +absent-minded, though she kept looking at Katerina Ivanovna, trying +to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna had been able to get +mourning; Sonia was wearing dark brown, and Katerina Ivanovna had on her +only dress, a dark striped cotton one. +The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very successful. Listening to +Sonia with dignity, Katerina Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity how +Pyotr Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud to +Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of +Pyotr Petrovitch’s position and standing to find himself in such +“extraordinary company,” in spite of his devotion to her family and his +old friendship with her father. +“That’s why I am so grateful to you, Rodion Romanovitch, that you have +not disdained my hospitality, even in such surroundings,” she added +almost aloud. “But I am sure that it was only your special affection for +my poor husband that has made you keep your promise.” +Then once more with pride and dignity she scanned her visitors, and +suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man: “Wouldn’t he +have some more meat, and had he been given some wine?” The old man made +no answer and for a long while could not understand what he was asked, +though his neighbours amused themselves by poking and shaking him. He +simply gazed about him with his mouth open, which only increased the +general mirth. +“What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr +Petrovitch, I always had confidence in him,” Katerina Ivanovna +continued, “and, of course, he is not like...” with an extremely stern +face she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply and loudly that the latter +was quite disconcerted, “not like your dressed up draggletails whom +my father would not have taken as cooks into his kitchen, and my late +husband would have done them honour if he had invited them in the +goodness of his heart.” +“Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did drink!” cried the +commissariat clerk, gulping down his twelfth glass of vodka. +“My late husband certainly had that weakness, and everyone knows +it,” Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, “but he was a kind and +honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it was +his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people, and he +drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe. Would you +believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread cock in his +pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the children!” +“A cock? Did you say a cock?” shouted the commissariat clerk. +Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in +thought. +“No doubt you think, like everyone, that I was too severe with him,” she +went on, addressing Raskolnikov. “But that’s not so! He respected me, he +respected me very much! He was a kind-hearted man! And how sorry I was +for him sometimes! He would sit in a corner and look at me, I used to +feel so sorry for him, I used to want to be kind to him and then would +think to myself: ‘Be kind to him and he will drink again,’ it was only +by severity that you could keep him within bounds.” +“Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often,” roared the +commissariat clerk again, swallowing another glass of vodka. +“Some fools would be the better for a good drubbing, as well as having +their hair pulled. I am not talking of my late husband now!” Katerina +Ivanovna snapped at him. +The flush on her cheeks grew more and more marked, her chest heaved. In +another minute she would have been ready to make a scene. Many of the +visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They began poking the +commissariat clerk and whispering something to him. They were evidently +trying to egg him on. +“Allow me to ask what are you alluding to,” began the clerk, “that is +to say, whose... about whom... did you say just now... But I don’t care! +That’s nonsense! Widow! I forgive you.... Pass!” +And he took another drink of vodka. +Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust. He only ate from +politeness, just tasting the food that Katerina Ivanovna was continually +putting on his plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He watched Sonia +intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious and distressed; she, +too, foresaw that the dinner would not end peaceably, and saw with +terror Katerina Ivanovna’s growing irritation. She knew that she, Sonia, +was the chief reason for the ‘genteel’ ladies’ contemptuous treatment of +Katerina Ivanovna’s invitation. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna that +the mother was positively offended at the invitation and had asked the +question: “How could she let her daughter sit down beside _that young +person_?” Sonia had a feeling that Katerina Ivanovna had already heard +this and an insult to Sonia meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than an +insult to herself, her children, or her father, Sonia knew that +Katerina Ivanovna would not be satisfied now, “till she had shown those +draggletails that they were both...” To make matters worse someone +passed Sonia, from the other end of the table, a plate with two hearts +pierced with an arrow, cut out of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed +crimson and at once said aloud across the table that the man who sent it +was “a drunken ass!” +Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same time +deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna’s haughtiness, and to restore the +good-humour of the company and raise herself in their esteem she began, +apropos of nothing, telling a story about an acquaintance of hers “Karl +from the chemist’s,” who was driving one night in a cab, and that “the +cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very much begged him not to kill, +and wept and clasped hands, and frightened and from fear pierced his +heart.” Though Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she observed at once that +Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian; the latter was +still more offended, and she retorted that her “_Vater aus Berlin_ was a +very important man, and always went with his hands in pockets.” Katerina +Ivanovna could not restrain herself and laughed so much that Amalia +Ivanovna lost patience and could scarcely control herself. +“Listen to the owl!” Katerina Ivanovna whispered at once, her +good-humour almost restored, “she meant to say he kept his hands in +his pockets, but she said he put his hands in people’s pockets. +(Cough-cough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that all these +Petersburg foreigners, the Germans especially, are all stupider than +we! Can you fancy anyone of us telling how ‘Karl from the chemist’s’ +‘pierced his heart from fear’ and that the idiot, instead of punishing +the cabman, ‘clasped his hands and wept, and much begged.’ Ah, the fool! +And you know she fancies it’s very touching and does not suspect how +stupid she is! To my thinking that drunken commissariat clerk is a great +deal cleverer, anyway one can see that he has addled his brains with +drink, but you know, these foreigners are always so well behaved +and serious.... Look how she sits glaring! She is angry, ha-ha! +(Cough-cough-cough.)” +Regaining her good-humour, Katerina Ivanovna began at once telling +Raskolnikov that when she had obtained her pension, she intended to open +a school for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town T----. +This was the first time she had spoken to him of the project, and she +launched out into the most alluring details. It suddenly appeared that +Katerina Ivanovna had in her hands the very certificate of honour of +which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in the tavern, when he told +him that Katerina Ivanovna, his wife, had danced the shawl dance +before the governor and other great personages on leaving school. This +certificate of honour was obviously intended now to prove Katerina +Ivanovna’s right to open a boarding-school; but she had armed herself +with it chiefly with the object of overwhelming “those two stuck-up +draggletails” if they came to the dinner, and proving incontestably +that Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble, “she might even say +aristocratic family, a colonel’s daughter and was far superior to +certain adventuresses who have been so much to the fore of late.” The +certificate of honour immediately passed into the hands of the drunken +guests, and Katerina Ivanovna did not try to retain it, for it actually +contained the statement _en toutes lettres_, that her father was of the +rank of a major, and also a companion of an order, so that she really +was almost the daughter of a colonel. +Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to enlarge on the peaceful and +happy life they would lead in T----, on the gymnasium teachers whom +she would engage to give lessons in her boarding-school, one a most +respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot, who had taught Katerina Ivanovna +herself in old days and was still living in T----, and would no doubt +teach in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of Sonia who would +go with her to T---- and help her in all her plans. At this someone at +the further end of the table gave a sudden guffaw. +Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be disdainfully unaware of +it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with conviction of +Sonia’s undoubted ability to assist her, of “her gentleness, patience, +devotion, generosity and good education,” tapping Sonia on the cheek and +kissing her warmly twice. Sonia flushed crimson, and Katerina Ivanovna +suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing that she was “nervous +and silly, that she was too much upset, that it was time to finish, and +as the dinner was over, it was time to hand round the tea.” +At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply aggrieved at taking no part in +the conversation, and not being listened to, made one last effort, +and with secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep and weighty +observation, that “in the future boarding-school she would have to pay +particular attention to _die Wäsche_, and that there certainly must be a +good _dame_ to look after the linen, and secondly that the young ladies +must not novels at night read.” +Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and very tired, as well as +heartily sick of the dinner, at once cut short Amalia Ivanovna, saying +“she knew nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it was the +business of the laundry maid, and not of the directress of a high-class +boarding-school to look after _die Wäsche_, and as for novel-reading, +that was simply rudeness, and she begged her to be silent.” Amalia +Ivanovna fired up and getting angry observed that she only “meant her +good,” and that “she had meant her very good,” and that “it was long +since she had paid her _gold_ for the lodgings.” +Katerina Ivanovna at once “set her down,” saying that it was a lie to +say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead husband +was lying on the table, she had worried her about the lodgings. To this +Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she had invited those +ladies, but “those ladies had not come, because those ladies _are_ +ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a lady.” Katerina Ivanovna +at once pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could not judge +what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at once declared that her +“_Vater aus Berlin_ was a very, very important man, and both hands in +pockets went, and always used to say: ‘Poof! poof!’” and she leapt +up from the table to represent her father, sticking her hands in her +pockets, puffing her cheeks, and uttering vague sounds resembling “poof! +poof!” amid loud laughter from all the lodgers, who purposely encouraged +Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a fight. +But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once declared, +so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably never had a +father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had certainly once +been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia Ivanovna turned as red +as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina Ivanovna never had a +father, “but she had a _Vater aus Berlin_ and that he wore a long coat +and always said poof-poof-poof!” +Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her family +was and that on that very certificate of honour it was stated in print +that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna’s father--if she +really had one--was probably some Finnish milkman, but that probably she +never had a father at all, since it was still uncertain whether her name +was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna. +At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck the table with her fist, +and shrieked that she was Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna, “that +her _Vater_ was named Johann and that he was a burgomeister, and that +Katerina Ivanovna’s _Vater_ was quite never a burgomeister.” Katerina +Ivanovna rose from her chair, and with a stern and apparently calm voice +(though she was pale and her chest was heaving) observed that “if she +dared for one moment to set her contemptible wretch of a father on a +level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna, would tear her cap off her +head and trample it under foot.” Amalia Ivanovna ran about the room, +shouting at the top of her voice, that she was mistress of the house and +that Katerina Ivanovna should leave the lodgings that minute; then she +rushed for some reason to collect the silver spoons from the table. +There was a great outcry and uproar, the children began crying. Sonia +ran to restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna shouted +something about “the yellow ticket,” Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia +away, and rushed at the landlady to carry out her threat. +At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin appeared +on the threshold. He stood scanning the party with severe and vigilant +eyes. Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him. +CHAPTER III +“Pyotr Petrovitch,” she cried, “protect me... you at least! Make this +foolish woman understand that she can’t behave like this to a lady in +misfortune... that there is a law for such things.... I’ll go to the +governor-general himself.... She shall answer for it.... Remembering my +father’s hospitality protect these orphans.” +“Allow me, madam.... Allow me.” Pyotr Petrovitch waved her off. “Your +papa as you are well aware I had not the honour of knowing” (someone +laughed aloud) “and I do not intend to take part in your everlasting +squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna.... I have come here to speak of my own +affairs... and I want to have a word with your stepdaughter, Sofya... +Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass.” +Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where Sonia +was. +Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though +thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could deny +having enjoyed her father’s hospitality. Though she had invented it +herself, she believed in it firmly by this time. She was struck too +by the businesslike, dry and even contemptuous menacing tone of Pyotr +Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his entrance. Not +only was this “serious business man” strikingly incongruous with the +rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some +matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought him +and that therefore something was going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing +beside Sonia, moved aside to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did not +seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in the +doorway; he did not come in, but stood still, listening with marked +interest, almost wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed. +“Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it’s a matter of +some importance,” Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company +generally. “I am glad indeed to find other persons present. Amalia +Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful +attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna,” +he went on, addressing Sonia, who was very much surprised and already +alarmed, “immediately after your visit I found that a hundred-rouble +note was missing from my table, in the room of my friend Mr. +Lebeziatnikov. If in any way whatever you know and will tell us where +it is now, I assure you on my word of honour and call all present to +witness that the matter shall end there. In the opposite case I shall be +compelled to have recourse to very serious measures and then... you must +blame yourself.” +Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the crying children were +still. Sonia stood deadly pale, staring at Luzhin and unable to say a +word. She seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed. +“Well, how is it to be then?” asked Luzhin, looking intently at her. +“I don’t know.... I know nothing about it,” Sonia articulated faintly at +last. +“No, you know nothing?” Luzhin repeated and again he paused for some +seconds. “Think a moment, mademoiselle,” he began severely, but still, +as it were, admonishing her. “Reflect, I am prepared to give you time +for consideration. Kindly observe this: if I were not so entirely +convinced I should not, you may be sure, with my experience venture to +accuse you so directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation before +witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a certain sense +be made responsible, I am aware of that. This morning I changed for +my own purposes several five-per-cent securities for the sum of +approximately three thousand roubles. The account is noted down in my +pocket-book. On my return home I proceeded to count the money--as Mr. +Lebeziatnikov will bear witness--and after counting two thousand three +hundred roubles I put the rest in my pocket-book in my coat pocket. +About five hundred roubles remained on the table and among them three +notes of a hundred roubles each. At that moment you entered (at my +invitation)--and all the time you were present you were exceedingly +embarrassed; so that three times you jumped up in the middle of the +conversation and tried to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov can bear witness +to this. You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will not refuse to confirm +my statement that I invited you through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, solely in +order to discuss with you the hopeless and destitute position of your +relative, Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I was unable to attend), +and the advisability of getting up something of the nature of a +subscription, lottery or the like, for her benefit. You thanked me and +even shed tears. I describe all this as it took place, primarily to +recall it to your mind and secondly to show you that not the slightest +detail has escaped my recollection. Then I took a ten-rouble note from +the table and handed it to you by way of first instalment on my part +for the benefit of your relative. Mr. Lebeziatnikov saw all this. Then +I accompanied you to the door--you being still in the same state of +embarrassment--after which, being left alone with Mr. Lebeziatnikov I +talked to him for ten minutes--then Mr. Lebeziatnikov went out and I +returned to the table with the money lying on it, intending to count +it and to put it aside, as I proposed doing before. To my surprise one +hundred-rouble note had disappeared. Kindly consider the position. +Mr. Lebeziatnikov I cannot suspect. I am ashamed to allude to such +a supposition. I cannot have made a mistake in my reckoning, for the +minute before your entrance I had finished my accounts and found the +total correct. You will admit that recollecting your embarrassment, your +eagerness to get away and the fact that you kept your hands for some +time on the table, and taking into consideration your social position +and the habits associated with it, I was, so to say, with horror and +positively against my will, _compelled_ to entertain a suspicion--a +cruel, but justifiable suspicion! I will add further and repeat that in +spite of my positive conviction, I realise that I run a certain risk in +making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it pass. I have +taken action and I will tell you why: solely, madam, solely, owing +to your black ingratitude! Why! I invite you for the benefit of your +destitute relative, I present you with my donation of ten roubles and +you, on the spot, repay me for all that with such an action. It is too +bad! You need a lesson. Reflect! Moreover, like a true friend I beg +you--and you could have no better friend at this moment--think what you +are doing, otherwise I shall be immovable! Well, what do you say?” +“I have taken nothing,” Sonia whispered in terror, “you gave me ten +roubles, here it is, take it.” +Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, untied a corner of it, +took out the ten-rouble note and gave it to Luzhin. +“And the hundred roubles you do not confess to taking?” he insisted +reproachfully, not taking the note. +Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her with such awful, stern, +ironical, hostile eyes. She looked at Raskolnikov... he stood against +the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes. +“Good God!” broke from Sonia. +“Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and therefore +I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter,” Luzhin said +softly and even kindly. +“_Gott der Barmherzige_! I knew she was the thief,” cried Amalia +Ivanovna, throwing up her hands. +“You knew it?” Luzhin caught her up, “then I suppose you had some reason +before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to +remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses.” +There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in +movement. +“What!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position, and +she rushed at Luzhin. “What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the +wretches, the wretches!” +And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms round her and held her as +in a vise. +“Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl! Give it +to me! Give me the ten roubles at once--here!” +And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it up and +flung it straight into Luzhin’s face. It hit him in the eye and fell +on the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr Petrovitch +lost his temper. +“Hold that mad woman!” he shouted. +At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov, appeared in +the doorway, among them the two ladies. +“What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!” shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. “You are an +idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his +money! Sonia a thief! Why, she’d give away her last penny!” and Katerina +Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. “Did you ever see such an +idiot?” she turned from side to side. “And you too?” she suddenly saw +the landlady, “and you too, sausage eater, you declare that she is a +thief, you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline! She hasn’t been +out of this room: she came straight from you, you wretch, and sat down +beside me, everyone saw her. She sat here, by Rodion Romanovitch. Search +her! Since she’s not left the room, the money would have to be on her! +Search her, search her! But if you don’t find it, then excuse me, my +dear fellow, you’ll answer for it! I’ll go to our Sovereign, to our +Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar himself, and throw myself at his feet, +to-day, this minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me in! Do +you think they wouldn’t? You’re wrong, I will get in! I will get in! +You reckoned on her meekness! You relied upon that! But I am not so +submissive, let me tell you! You’ve gone too far yourself. Search her, +search her!” +And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him towards +Sonia. +“I am ready, I’ll be responsible... but calm yourself, madam, calm +yourself. I see that you are not so submissive!... Well, well, but as to +that...” Luzhin muttered, “that ought to be before the police... though +indeed there are witnesses enough as it is.... I am ready.... But in +any case it’s difficult for a man... on account of her sex.... But with +the help of Amalia Ivanovna... though, of course, it’s not the way to do +things.... How is it to be done?” +“As you will! Let anyone who likes search her!” cried Katerina Ivanovna. +“Sonia, turn out your pockets! See! Look, monster, the pocket is empty, +here was her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look! D’you see, +d’you see?” +And Katerina Ivanovna turned--or rather snatched--both pockets inside +out. But from the right pocket a piece of paper flew out and describing +a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin’s feet. Everyone saw it, several +cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped down, picked up the paper in two +fingers, lifted it where all could see it and opened it. It was a +hundred-rouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch held up the note +showing it to everyone. +“Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police!” yelled Amalia Ivanovna. +“They must to Siberia be sent! Away!” +Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was silent, keeping his +eyes fixed on Sonia, except for an occasional rapid glance at Luzhin. +Sonia stood still, as though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel +surprise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks; she uttered a cry +and hid her face in her hands. +“No, it wasn’t I! I didn’t take it! I know nothing about it,” she cried +with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped +her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her from all the +world. +“Sonia! Sonia! I don’t believe it! You see, I don’t believe it!” she +cried in the face of the obvious fact, swaying her to and fro in her +arms like a baby, kissing her face continually, then snatching at her +hands and kissing them, too, “you took it! How stupid these people are! +Oh dear! You are fools, fools,” she cried, addressing the whole room, +“you don’t know, you don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she +is! She take it, she? She’d sell her last rag, she’d go barefoot to help +you if you needed it, that’s what she is! She has the yellow passport +because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, +husband! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you! +Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion +Romanovitch, why don’t you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too? You +are not worth her little finger, all of you together! Good God! Defend +her now, at least!” +The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to produce a +great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted, consumptive face, +the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained +as a child’s, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help +were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch +at any rate was at once moved to _compassion_. +“Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect upon you!” he cried +impressively, “no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being an +instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved +her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous +idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty, +so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to +confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The first step? +You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it.... But how +could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen,” he +addressed the whole company, “gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to say, +commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in spite +of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be a +lesson to you for the future,” he said, addressing Sonia, “and I will +carry the matter no further. Enough!” +Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the +fire in Raskolnikov’s seemed ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile +Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing and hugging +Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were embracing Sonia on +all sides, and Polenka--though she did not fully understand what was +wrong--was drowned in tears and shaking with sobs, as she hid her pretty +little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia’s shoulder. +“How vile!” a loud voice cried suddenly in the doorway. +Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly. +“What vileness!” Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring him straight in the +face. +Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive start--all noticed it and recalled it +afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode into the room. +“And you dared to call me as witness?” he said, going up to Pyotr +Petrovitch. +“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” muttered Luzhin. +“I mean that you... are a slanderer, that’s what my words mean!” +Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking sternly at him with his short-sighted +eyes. +He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently at him, as though +seizing and weighing each word. Again there was a silence. Pyotr +Petrovitch indeed seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment. +“If you mean that for me,...” he began, stammering. “But what’s the +matter with you? Are you out of your mind?” +“I’m in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how vile! I have heard +everything. I kept waiting on purpose to understand it, for I must own +even now it is not quite logical.... What you have done it all for I +can’t understand.” +“Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in your nonsensical +riddles! Or maybe you are drunk!” +“You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I am not! I never touch +vodka, for it’s against my convictions. Would you believe it, he, he +himself, with his own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-rouble +note--I saw it, I was a witness, I’ll take my oath! He did it, he!” +repeated Lebeziatnikov, addressing all. +“Are you crazy, milksop?” squealed Luzhin. “She is herself before +you--she herself here declared just now before everyone that I gave her +only ten roubles. How could I have given it to her?” +“I saw it, I saw it,” Lebeziatnikov repeated, “and though it is against +my principles, I am ready this very minute to take any oath you like +before the court, for I saw how you slipped it in her pocket. Only +like a fool I thought you did it out of kindness! When you were saying +good-bye to her at the door, while you held her hand in one hand, with +the other, the left, you slipped the note into her pocket. I saw it, I +saw it!” +Luzhin turned pale. +“What lies!” he cried impudently, “why, how could you, standing by the +window, see the note? You fancied it with your short-sighted eyes. You +are raving!” +“No, I didn’t fancy it. And though I was standing some way off, I saw +it all. And though it certainly would be hard to distinguish a note from +the window--that’s true--I knew for certain that it was a hundred-rouble +note, because, when you were going to give Sofya Semyonovna ten roubles, +you took up from the table a hundred-rouble note (I saw it because I +was standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so that I did not +forget you had it in your hand). You folded it and kept it in your hand +all the time. I didn’t think of it again until, when you were getting +up, you changed it from your right hand to your left and nearly dropped +it! I noticed it because the same idea struck me again, that you meant +to do her a kindness without my seeing. You can fancy how I watched you +and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her pocket. I saw it, I +saw it, I’ll take my oath.” +Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all hands +chiefly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone. They all +crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to Lebeziatnikov. +“I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her +part! She is an orphan. God has sent you!” +Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her knees +before him. +“A pack of nonsense!” yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, “it’s all nonsense +you’ve been talking! ‘An idea struck you, you didn’t think, you +noticed’--what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on +purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this...?” +“What for? That’s what I can’t understand, but that what I am telling +you is the fact, that’s certain! So far from my being mistaken, you +infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question +occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing +your hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it +secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that +my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of private +benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that you +really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps, +too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she finds a whole +hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent people +are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that way.) Then +the idea struck me, too, that you wanted to test her, to see whether, +when she found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too, that you +wanted to avoid thanks and that, as the saying is, your right hand +should not know... something of that sort, in fact. I thought of so +many possibilities that I put off considering it, but still thought it +indelicate to show you that I knew your secret. But another idea struck +me again that Sofya Semyonovna might easily lose the money before she +noticed it, that was why I decided to come in here to call her out of +the room and to tell her that you put a hundred roubles in her pocket. +But on my way I went first to Madame Kobilatnikov’s to take them the +‘General Treatise on the Positive Method’ and especially to recommend +Piderit’s article (and also Wagner’s); then I come on here and what a +state of things I find! Now could I, could I, have all these ideas and +reflections if I had not seen you put the hundred-rouble note in her +pocket?” +When Lebeziatnikov finished his long-winded harangue with the logical +deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed +from his face. He could not, alas, even express himself correctly +in Russian, though he knew no other language, so that he was quite +exhausted, almost emaciated after this heroic exploit. But his speech +produced a powerful effect. He had spoken with such vehemence, with such +conviction that everyone obviously believed him. Pyotr Petrovitch felt +that things were going badly with him. +“What is it to do with me if silly ideas did occur to you?” he shouted, +“that’s no evidence. You may have dreamt it, that’s all! And I tell you, +you are lying, sir. You are lying and slandering from some spite against +me, simply from pique, because I did not agree with your free-thinking, +godless, social propositions!” +But this retort did not benefit Pyotr Petrovitch. Murmurs of disapproval +were heard on all sides. +“Ah, that’s your line now, is it!” cried Lebeziatnikov, “that’s +nonsense! Call the police and I’ll take my oath! There’s only one thing +I can’t understand: what made him risk such a contemptible action. Oh, +pitiful, despicable man!” +“I can explain why he risked such an action, and if necessary, I, too, +will swear to it,” Raskolnikov said at last in a firm voice, and he +stepped forward. +He appeared to be firm and composed. Everyone felt clearly, from the +very look of him that he really knew about it and that the mystery would +be solved. +“Now I can explain it all to myself,” said Raskolnikov, addressing +Lebeziatnikov. “From the very beginning of the business, I suspected +that there was some scoundrelly intrigue at the bottom of it. I began +to suspect it from some special circumstances known to me only, which +I will explain at once to everyone: they account for everything. Your +valuable evidence has finally made everything clear to me. I beg all, +all to listen. This gentleman (he pointed to Luzhin) was recently +engaged to be married to a young lady--my sister, Avdotya Romanovna +Raskolnikov. But coming to Petersburg he quarrelled with me, the day +before yesterday, at our first meeting and I drove him out of my room--I +have two witnesses to prove it. He is a very spiteful man.... The day +before yesterday I did not know that he was staying here, in your room, +and that consequently on the very day we quarrelled--the day before +yesterday--he saw me give Katerina Ivanovna some money for the funeral, +as a friend of the late Mr. Marmeladov. He at once wrote a note to +my mother and informed her that I had given away all my money, not +to Katerina Ivanovna but to Sofya Semyonovna, and referred in a most +contemptible way to the... character of Sofya Semyonovna, that is, +hinted at the character of my attitude to Sofya Semyonovna. All this you +understand was with the object of dividing me from my mother and sister, +by insinuating that I was squandering on unworthy objects the money +which they had sent me and which was all they had. Yesterday evening, +before my mother and sister and in his presence, I declared that I had +given the money to Katerina Ivanovna for the funeral and not to Sofya +Semyonovna and that I had no acquaintance with Sofya Semyonovna and had +never seen her before, indeed. At the same time I added that he, +Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, with all his virtues, was not worth Sofya +Semyonovna’s little finger, though he spoke so ill of her. To his +question--would I let Sofya Semyonovna sit down beside my sister, I +answered that I had already done so that day. Irritated that my mother +and sister were unwilling to quarrel with me at his insinuations, he +gradually began being unpardonably rude to them. A final rupture took +place and he was turned out of the house. All this happened yesterday +evening. Now I beg your special attention: consider: if he had now +succeeded in proving that Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would +have shown to my mother and sister that he was almost right in his +suspicions, that he had reason to be angry at my putting my sister on +a level with Sofya Semyonovna, that, in attacking me, he was protecting +and preserving the honour of my sister, his betrothed. In fact he might +even, through all this, have been able to estrange me from my family, +and no doubt he hoped to be restored to favour with them; to say nothing +of revenging himself on me personally, for he has grounds for supposing +that the honour and happiness of Sofya Semyonovna are very precious to +me. That was what he was working for! That’s how I understand it. That’s +the whole reason for it and there can be no other!” +It was like this, or somewhat like this, that Raskolnikov wound up his +speech which was followed very attentively, though often interrupted by +exclamations from his audience. But in spite of interruptions he spoke +clearly, calmly, exactly, firmly. His decisive voice, his tone of +conviction and his stern face made a great impression on everyone. +“Yes, yes, that’s it,” Lebeziatnikov assented gleefully, “that must be +it, for he asked me, as soon as Sofya Semyonovna came into our room, +whether you were here, whether I had seen you among Katerina Ivanovna’s +guests. He called me aside to the window and asked me in secret. It was +essential for him that you should be here! That’s it, that’s it!” +Luzhin smiled contemptuously and did not speak. But he was very pale. He +seemed to be deliberating on some means of escape. Perhaps he would have +been glad to give up everything and get away, but at the moment this +was scarcely possible. It would have implied admitting the truth of +the accusations brought against him. Moreover, the company, which had +already been excited by drink, was now too much stirred to allow it. The +commissariat clerk, though indeed he had not grasped the whole position, +was shouting louder than anyone and was making some suggestions very +unpleasant to Luzhin. But not all those present were drunk; lodgers came +in from all the rooms. The three Poles were tremendously excited +and were continually shouting at him: “The _pan_ is a _lajdak_!” and +muttering threats in Polish. Sonia had been listening with strained +attention, though she too seemed unable to grasp it all; she seemed as +though she had just returned to consciousness. She did not take her +eyes off Raskolnikov, feeling that all her safety lay in him. Katerina +Ivanovna breathed hard and painfully and seemed fearfully exhausted. +Amalia Ivanovna stood looking more stupid than anyone, with her mouth +wide open, unable to make out what had happened. She only saw that Pyotr +Petrovitch had somehow come to grief. +Raskolnikov was attempting to speak again, but they did not let him. +Everyone was crowding round Luzhin with threats and shouts of abuse. +But Pyotr Petrovitch was not intimidated. Seeing that his accusation of +Sonia had completely failed, he had recourse to insolence: +“Allow me, gentlemen, allow me! Don’t squeeze, let me pass!” he said, +making his way through the crowd. “And no threats, if you please! I +assure you it will be useless, you will gain nothing by it. On the +contrary, you’ll have to answer, gentlemen, for violently obstructing +the course of justice. The thief has been more than unmasked, and I +shall prosecute. Our judges are not so blind and... not so drunk, and +will not believe the testimony of two notorious infidels, agitators, and +atheists, who accuse me from motives of personal revenge which they are +foolish enough to admit.... Yes, allow me to pass!” +“Don’t let me find a trace of you in my room! Kindly leave at once, and +everything is at an end between us! When I think of the trouble I’ve +been taking, the way I’ve been expounding... all this fortnight!” +“I told you myself to-day that I was going, when you tried to keep me; +now I will simply add that you are a fool. I advise you to see a doctor +for your brains and your short sight. Let me pass, gentlemen!” +He forced his way through. But the commissariat clerk was unwilling to +let him off so easily: he picked up a glass from the table, brandished +it in the air and flung it at Pyotr Petrovitch; but the glass flew +straight at Amalia Ivanovna. She screamed, and the clerk, overbalancing, +fell heavily under the table. Pyotr Petrovitch made his way to his room +and half an hour later had left the house. Sonia, timid by nature, had +felt before that day that she could be ill-treated more easily than +anyone, and that she could be wronged with impunity. Yet till that +moment she had fancied that she might escape misfortune by care, +gentleness and submissiveness before everyone. Her disappointment was +too great. She could, of course, bear with patience and almost without +murmur anything, even this. But for the first minute she felt it too +bitter. In spite of her triumph and her justification--when her first +terror and stupefaction had passed and she could understand it all +clearly--the feeling of her helplessness and of the wrong done to her +made her heart throb with anguish and she was overcome with hysterical +weeping. At last, unable to bear any more, she rushed out of the room +and ran home, almost immediately after Luzhin’s departure. When amidst +loud laughter the glass flew at Amalia Ivanovna, it was more than the +landlady could endure. With a shriek she rushed like a fury at Katerina +Ivanovna, considering her to blame for everything. +“Out of my lodgings! At once! Quick march!” +And with these words she began snatching up everything she could lay +her hands on that belonged to Katerina Ivanovna, and throwing it on the +floor. Katerina Ivanovna, pale, almost fainting, and gasping for breath, +jumped up from the bed where she had sunk in exhaustion and darted at +Amalia Ivanovna. But the battle was too unequal: the landlady waved her +away like a feather. +“What! As though that godless calumny was not enough--this vile creature +attacks me! What! On the day of my husband’s funeral I am turned out of +my lodging! After eating my bread and salt she turns me into the street, +with my orphans! Where am I to go?” wailed the poor woman, sobbing and +gasping. “Good God!” she cried with flashing eyes, “is there no justice +upon earth? Whom should you protect if not us orphans? We shall see! +There is law and justice on earth, there is, I will find it! Wait a bit, +godless creature! Polenka, stay with the children, I’ll come back. Wait +for me, if you have to wait in the street. We will see whether there is +justice on earth!” +And throwing over her head that green shawl which Marmeladov had +mentioned to Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna squeezed her way through the +disorderly and drunken crowd of lodgers who still filled the room, and, +wailing and tearful, she ran into the street--with a vague intention +of going at once somewhere to find justice. Polenka with the two little +ones in her arms crouched, terrified, on the trunk in the corner of the +room, where she waited trembling for her mother to come back. Amalia +Ivanovna raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting and throwing +everything she came across on the floor. The lodgers talked +incoherently, some commented to the best of their ability on what had +happened, others quarrelled and swore at one another, while others +struck up a song.... +“Now it’s time for me to go,” thought Raskolnikov. “Well, Sofya +Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!” +And he set off in the direction of Sonia’s lodgings. +CHAPTER IV +Raskolnikov had been a vigorous and active champion of Sonia against +Luzhin, although he had such a load of horror and anguish in his own +heart. But having gone through so much in the morning, he found a sort +of relief in a change of sensations, apart from the strong personal +feeling which impelled him to defend Sonia. He was agitated too, +especially at some moments, by the thought of his approaching interview +with Sonia: he _had_ to tell her who had killed Lizaveta. He knew the +terrible suffering it would be to him and, as it were, brushed away the +thought of it. So when he cried as he left Katerina Ivanovna’s, “Well, +Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!” he was still +superficially excited, still vigorous and defiant from his triumph over +Luzhin. But, strange to say, by the time he reached Sonia’s lodging, he +felt a sudden impotence and fear. He stood still in hesitation at the +door, asking himself the strange question: “Must he tell her who killed +Lizaveta?” It was a strange question because he felt at the very time +not only that he could not help telling her, but also that he could +not put off the telling. He did not yet know why it must be so, he +only _felt_ it, and the agonising sense of his impotence before +the inevitable almost crushed him. To cut short his hesitation and +suffering, he quickly opened the door and looked at Sonia from the +doorway. She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in +her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov she got up at once and came to meet +him as though she were expecting him. +“What would have become of me but for you?” she said quickly, meeting +him in the middle of the room. +Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was what she had been +waiting for. +Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the chair from which she +had only just risen. She stood facing him, two steps away, just as she +had done the day before. +“Well, Sonia?” he said, and felt that his voice was trembling, “it was +all due to ‘your social position and the habits associated with it.’ Did +you understand that just now?” +Her face showed her distress. +“Only don’t talk to me as you did yesterday,” she interrupted him. +“Please don’t begin it. There is misery enough without that.” +She made haste to smile, afraid that he might not like the reproach. +“I was silly to come away from there. What is happening there now? I +wanted to go back directly, but I kept thinking that... you would come.” +He told her that Amalia Ivanovna was turning them out of their lodging +and that Katerina Ivanovna had run off somewhere “to seek justice.” +“My God!” cried Sonia, “let’s go at once....” +And she snatched up her cape. +“It’s everlastingly the same thing!” said Raskolnikov, irritably. +“You’ve no thought except for them! Stay a little with me.” +“But... Katerina Ivanovna?” +“You won’t lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be sure, she’ll come to you +herself since she has run out,” he added peevishly. “If she doesn’t find +you here, you’ll be blamed for it....” +Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov was silent, gazing at +the floor and deliberating. +“This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you,” he began, not looking +at Sonia, “but if he had wanted to, if it had suited his plans, he would +have sent you to prison if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and me. +Ah?” +“Yes,” she assented in a faint voice. “Yes,” she repeated, preoccupied +and distressed. +“But I might easily not have been there. And it was quite an accident +Lebeziatnikov’s turning up.” +Sonia was silent. +“And if you’d gone to prison, what then? Do you remember what I said +yesterday?” +Again she did not answer. He waited. +“I thought you would cry out again ‘don’t speak of it, leave off.’” +Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a forced one. “What, silence +again?” he asked a minute later. “We must talk about something, you +know. It would be interesting for me to know how you would decide a +certain ‘problem’ as Lebeziatnikov would say.” (He was beginning to lose +the thread.) “No, really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had +known all Luzhin’s intentions beforehand. Known, that is, for a fact, +that they would be the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children and +yourself thrown in--since you don’t count yourself for anything--Polenka +too... for she’ll go the same way. Well, if suddenly it all depended on +your decision whether he or they should go on living, that is whether +Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked things, or Katerina Ivanovna +should die? How would you decide which of them was to die? I ask you?” +Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was something peculiar in this +hesitating question, which seemed approaching something in a roundabout +way. +“I felt that you were going to ask some question like that,” she said, +looking inquisitively at him. +“I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered?” +“Why do you ask about what could not happen?” said Sonia reluctantly. +“Then it would be better for Luzhin to go on living and doing wicked +things? You haven’t dared to decide even that!” +“But I can’t know the Divine Providence.... And why do you ask what +can’t be answered? What’s the use of such foolish questions? How could +it happen that it should depend on my decision--who has made me a judge +to decide who is to live and who is not to live?” +“Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in it, there is no doing +anything,” Raskolnikov grumbled morosely. +“You’d better say straight out what you want!” Sonia cried in distress. +“You are leading up to something again.... Can you have come simply to +torture me?” +She could not control herself and began crying bitterly. He looked at +her in gloomy misery. Five minutes passed. +“Of course you’re right, Sonia,” he said softly at last. He was suddenly +changed. His tone of assumed arrogance and helpless defiance was gone. +Even his voice was suddenly weak. “I told you yesterday that I was not +coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first thing I’ve said is to ask +forgiveness.... I said that about Luzhin and Providence for my own sake. +I was asking forgiveness, Sonia....” +He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete in +his pale smile. He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands. +And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred +for Sonia passed through his heart. As it were wondering and frightened +of this sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at her; but he +met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes fixed on him; there was +love in them; his hatred vanished like a phantom. It was not the real +feeling; he had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant that +_that_ minute had come. +He hid his face in his hands again and bowed his head. Suddenly he +turned pale, got up from his chair, looked at Sonia, and without +uttering a word sat down mechanically on her bed. +His sensations that moment were terribly like the moment when he had +stood over the old woman with the axe in his hand and felt that “he must +not lose another minute.” +“What’s the matter?” asked Sonia, dreadfully frightened. +He could not utter a word. This was not at all, not at all the way he +had intended to “tell” and he did not understand what was happening to +him now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the bed beside him and +waited, not taking her eyes off him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It +was unendurable; he turned his deadly pale face to her. His lips worked, +helplessly struggling to utter something. A pang of terror passed +through Sonia’s heart. +“What’s the matter?” she repeated, drawing a little away from him. +“Nothing, Sonia, don’t be frightened.... It’s nonsense. It really is +nonsense, if you think of it,” he muttered, like a man in delirium. “Why +have I come to torture you?” he added suddenly, looking at her. “Why, +really? I keep asking myself that question, Sonia....” +He had perhaps been asking himself that question a quarter of an hour +before, but now he spoke helplessly, hardly knowing what he said and +feeling a continual tremor all over. +“Oh, how you are suffering!” she muttered in distress, looking intently +at him. +“It’s all nonsense.... Listen, Sonia.” He suddenly smiled, a pale +helpless smile for two seconds. “You remember what I meant to tell you +yesterday?” +Sonia waited uneasily. +“I said as I went away that perhaps I was saying good-bye for ever, but +that if I came to-day I would tell you who... who killed Lizaveta.” +She began trembling all over. +“Well, here I’ve come to tell you.” +“Then you really meant it yesterday?” she whispered with difficulty. +“How do you know?” she asked quickly, as though suddenly regaining her +reason. +Sonia’s face grew paler and paler, and she breathed painfully. +“I know.” +She paused a minute. +“Have they found him?” she asked timidly. +“No.” +“Then how do you know about _it_?” she asked again, hardly audibly and +again after a minute’s pause. +He turned to her and looked very intently at her. +“Guess,” he said, with the same distorted helpless smile. +A shudder passed over her. +“But you... why do you frighten me like this?” she said, smiling like a +child. +“I must be a great friend of _his_... since I know,” Raskolnikov went +on, still gazing into her face, as though he could not turn his eyes +away. “He... did not mean to kill that Lizaveta... he... killed her +accidentally.... He meant to kill the old woman when she was alone and +he went there... and then Lizaveta came in... he killed her too.” +Another awful moment passed. Both still gazed at one another. +“You can’t guess, then?” he asked suddenly, feeling as though he were +flinging himself down from a steeple. +“N-no...” whispered Sonia. +“Take a good look.” +As soon as he had said this again, the same familiar sensation froze his +heart. He looked at her and all at once seemed to see in her face the +face of Lizaveta. He remembered clearly the expression in Lizaveta’s +face, when he approached her with the axe and she stepped back to the +wall, putting out her hand, with childish terror in her face, looking +as little children do when they begin to be frightened of something, +looking intently and uneasily at what frightens them, shrinking back and +holding out their little hands on the point of crying. Almost the same +thing happened now to Sonia. With the same helplessness and the same +terror, she looked at him for a while and, suddenly putting out her left +hand, pressed her fingers faintly against his breast and slowly began to +get up from the bed, moving further from him and keeping her eyes fixed +even more immovably on him. Her terror infected him. The same fear +showed itself on his face. In the same way he stared at her and almost +with the same _childish_ smile. +“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last. +“Good God!” broke in an awful wail from her bosom. +She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the pillows, but a +moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands +and, gripping them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his +face again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she +tried to look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope; +there was no doubt remaining; it was all true! Later on, indeed, when +she recalled that moment, she thought it strange and wondered why she +had seen at once that there was no doubt. She could not have said, for +instance, that she had foreseen something of the sort--and yet now, as +soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had really foreseen +this very thing. +“Stop, Sonia, enough! don’t torture me,” he begged her miserably. +It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought of telling her, +but this is how it happened. +She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was doing, and, wringing her +hands, walked into the middle of the room; but quickly went back and sat +down again beside him, her shoulder almost touching his. All of a sudden +she started as though she had been stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on +her knees before him, she did not know why. +“What have you done--what have you done to yourself?” she said in +despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms +round him, and held him tightly. +Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a mournful smile. +“You are a strange girl, Sonia--you kiss me and hug me when I tell you +about that.... You don’t think what you are doing.” +“There is no one--no one in the whole world now so unhappy as you!” she +cried in a frenzy, not hearing what he said, and she suddenly broke into +violent hysterical weeping. +A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at +once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes +and hung on his eyelashes. +“Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, looking at her almost with +hope. +“No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will follow you, I will follow +you everywhere. Oh, my God! Oh, how miserable I am!... Why, why didn’t I +know you before! Why didn’t you come before? Oh, dear!” +“Here I have come.” +“Yes, now! What’s to be done now?... Together, together!” she repeated +as it were unconsciously, and she hugged him again. “I’ll follow you to +Siberia!” +He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost haughty smile came to +his lips. +“Perhaps I don’t want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia,” he said. +Sonia looked at him quickly. +Again after her first passionate, agonising sympathy for the unhappy man +the terrible idea of the murder overwhelmed her. In his changed tone she +seemed to hear the murderer speaking. She looked at him bewildered. She +knew nothing as yet, why, how, with what object it had been. Now all +these questions rushed at once into her mind. And again she could not +believe it: “He, he is a murderer! Could it be true?” +“What’s the meaning of it? Where am I?” she said in complete +bewilderment, as though still unable to recover herself. “How could you, +you, a man like you.... How could you bring yourself to it?... What does +it mean?” +“Oh, well--to plunder. Leave off, Sonia,” he answered wearily, almost +with vexation. +Sonia stood as though struck dumb, but suddenly she cried: +“You were hungry! It was... to help your mother? Yes?” +“No, Sonia, no,” he muttered, turning away and hanging his head. “I was +not so hungry.... I certainly did want to help my mother, but... that’s +not the real thing either.... Don’t torture me, Sonia.” +Sonia clasped her hands. +“Could it, could it all be true? Good God, what a truth! Who could +believe it? And how could you give away your last farthing and yet +rob and murder! Ah,” she cried suddenly, “that money you gave Katerina +Ivanovna... that money.... Can that money...” +“No, Sonia,” he broke in hurriedly, “that money was not it. Don’t worry +yourself! That money my mother sent me and it came when I was ill, the +day I gave it to you.... Razumihin saw it... he received it for me.... +That money was mine--my own.” +Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her utmost to comprehend. +“And _that_ money.... I don’t even know really whether there was any +money,” he added softly, as though reflecting. “I took a purse off her +neck, made of chamois leather... a purse stuffed full of something... +but I didn’t look in it; I suppose I hadn’t time.... And the +things--chains and trinkets--I buried under a stone with the purse next +morning in a yard off the V---- Prospect. They are all there now....” +Sonia strained every nerve to listen. +“Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing?” she +asked quickly, catching at a straw. +“I don’t know.... I haven’t yet decided whether to take that money or +not,” he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he +gave a brief ironical smile. “Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh?” +The thought flashed through Sonia’s mind, wasn’t he mad? But she +dismissed it at once. “No, it was something else.” She could make +nothing of it, nothing. +“Do you know, Sonia,” he said suddenly with conviction, “let me tell +you: if I’d simply killed because I was hungry,” laying stress on +every word and looking enigmatically but sincerely at her, “I should +be _happy_ now. You must believe that! What would it matter to you,” he +cried a moment later with a sort of despair, “what would it matter to +you if I were to confess that I did wrong? What do you gain by such +a stupid triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I’ve come to you +to-day?” +Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak. +“I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all I have left.” +“Go where?” asked Sonia timidly. +“Not to steal and not to murder, don’t be anxious,” he smiled bitterly. +“We are so different.... And you know, Sonia, it’s only now, only this +moment that I understand _where_ I asked you to go with me yesterday! +Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I asked you for one +thing, I came to you for one thing--not to leave me. You won’t leave me, +Sonia?” +She squeezed his hand. +“And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?” he cried a minute +later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her. “Here you expect +an explanation from me, Sonia; you are sitting and waiting for it, I see +that. But what can I tell you? You won’t understand and will only suffer +misery... on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me again. +Why do you do it? Because I couldn’t bear my burden and have come to +throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can +you love such a mean wretch?” +“But aren’t you suffering, too?” cried Sonia. +Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his heart, and again for an +instant softened it. +“Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may explain a great +deal. I have come because I am bad. There are men who wouldn’t have +come. But I am a coward and... a mean wretch. But... never mind! That’s +not the point. I must speak now, but I don’t know how to begin.” +He paused and sank into thought. +“Ach, we are so different,” he cried again, “we are not alike. And why, +why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that.” +“No, no, it was a good thing you came,” cried Sonia. “It’s better I +should know, far better!” +He looked at her with anguish. +“What if it were really that?” he said, as though reaching a conclusion. +“Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I +killed her.... Do you understand now?” +“N-no,” Sonia whispered naïvely and timidly. “Only speak, speak, I shall +understand, I shall understand _in myself_!” she kept begging him. +“You’ll understand? Very well, we shall see!” He paused and was for some +time lost in meditation. +“It was like this: I asked myself one day this question--what if +Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had +not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his +career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, +there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had +to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you +understand). Well, would he have brought himself to that if there had +been no other means? Wouldn’t he have felt a pang at its being so far +from monumental and... and sinful, too? Well, I must tell you that I +worried myself fearfully over that ‘question’ so that I was awfully +ashamed when I guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it would +not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have struck +him that it was not monumental... that he would not have seen that there +was anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had no other way, +he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it! +Well, I too... left off thinking about it... murdered her, following +his example. And that’s exactly how it was! Do you think it funny? Yes, +Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps that’s just how it +was.” +Sonia did not think it at all funny. +“You had better tell me straight out... without examples,” she begged, +still more timidly and scarcely audibly. +He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her hands. +“You are right again, Sonia. Of course that’s all nonsense, it’s almost +all talk! You see, you know of course that my mother has scarcely +anything, my sister happened to have a good education and was condemned +to drudge as a governess. All their hopes were centered on me. I was a +student, but I couldn’t keep myself at the university and was forced +for a time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in ten +or twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be some sort of teacher or +clerk with a salary of a thousand roubles” (he repeated it as though it +were a lesson) “and by that time my mother would be worn out with grief +and anxiety and I could not succeed in keeping her in comfort while my +sister... well, my sister might well have fared worse! And it’s a hard +thing to pass everything by all one’s life, to turn one’s back upon +everything, to forget one’s mother and decorously accept the insults +inflicted on one’s sister. Why should one? When one has buried them to +burden oneself with others--wife and children--and to leave them again +without a farthing? So I resolved to gain possession of the old woman’s +money and to use it for my first years without worrying my mother, +to keep myself at the university and for a little while after leaving +it--and to do this all on a broad, thorough scale, so as to build up +a completely new career and enter upon a new life of independence.... +Well... that’s all.... Well, of course in killing the old woman I did +wrong.... Well, that’s enough.” +He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaustion and let his head +sink. +“Oh, that’s not it, that’s not it,” Sonia cried in distress. “How could +one... no, that’s not right, not right.” +“You see yourself that it’s not right. But I’ve spoken truly, it’s the +truth.” +“As though that could be the truth! Good God!” +“I’ve only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful +creature.” +“A human being--a louse!” +“I too know it wasn’t a louse,” he answered, looking strangely at +her. “But I am talking nonsense, Sonia,” he added. “I’ve been talking +nonsense a long time.... That’s not it, you are right there. There were +quite, quite other causes for it! I haven’t talked to anyone for so +long, Sonia.... My head aches dreadfully now.” +His eyes shone with feverish brilliance. He was almost delirious; an +uneasy smile strayed on his lips. His terrible exhaustion could be seen +through his excitement. Sonia saw how he was suffering. She too +was growing dizzy. And he talked so strangely; it seemed somehow +comprehensible, but yet... “But how, how! Good God!” And she wrung her +hands in despair. +“No, Sonia, that’s not it,” he began again suddenly, raising his head, +as though a new and sudden train of thought had struck and as it were +roused him--“that’s not it! Better... imagine--yes, it’s certainly +better--imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive +and... well, perhaps with a tendency to insanity. (Let’s have it all out +at once! They’ve talked of madness already, I noticed.) I told you just +now I could not keep myself at the university. But do you know that +perhaps I might have done? My mother would have sent me what I needed +for the fees and I could have earned enough for clothes, boots and food, +no doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rouble. Razumihin works! But I +turned sulky and wouldn’t. (Yes, sulkiness, that’s the right word for +it!) I sat in my room like a spider. You’ve been in my den, you’ve seen +it.... And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp +the soul and the mind? Ah, how I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn’t +go out of it! I wouldn’t on purpose! I didn’t go out for days together, +and I wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t even eat, I just lay there doing +nothing. If Nastasya brought me anything, I ate it, if she didn’t, I +went all day without; I wouldn’t ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At +night I had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn money for +candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold my books; and the dust lies +an inch thick on the notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and +thinking. And I kept thinking.... And I had dreams all the time, strange +dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only then I began to fancy +that... No, that’s not it! Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept +asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid--and I +know they are--yet I won’t be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one +waits for everyone to get wiser it will take too long.... Afterwards I +understood that that would never come to pass, that men won’t change and +that nobody can alter it and that it’s not worth wasting effort over it. +Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of their nature, Sonia,... that’s so!... +And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will +have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their +eyes. He who despises most things will be a lawgiver among them and he +who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now +and so it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it!” +Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he no longer cared +whether she understood or not. The fever had complete hold of him; he +was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too long without +talking to anyone). Sonia felt that his gloomy creed had become his +faith and code. +“I divined then, Sonia,” he went on eagerly, “that power is only +vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only +one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! Then for the first +time in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no one had ever +thought of before me, no one! I saw clear as daylight how strange it is +that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to +go straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I... I wanted +_to have the daring_... and I killed her. I only wanted to have the +daring, Sonia! That was the whole cause of it!” +“Oh hush, hush,” cried Sonia, clasping her hands. “You turned away from +God and God has smitten you, has given you over to the devil!” +“Then Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark and all this became +clear to me, was it a temptation of the devil, eh?” +“Hush, don’t laugh, blasphemer! You don’t understand, you don’t +understand! Oh God! He won’t understand!” +“Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil +leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!” he repeated with gloomy insistence. “I +know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all +over to myself, lying there in the dark.... I’ve argued it all over with +myself, every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how +sick I was then of going over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it +and make a new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And you don’t +suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a +wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn’t suppose that +I didn’t know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether +I had the right to gain power--I certainly hadn’t the right--or that if +I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn’t +so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his +goal without asking questions.... If I worried myself all those days, +wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly +of course that I wasn’t Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that +battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder +without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn’t +want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn’t to help my mother I did +the murder--that’s nonsense--I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and +power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; +I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a +benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in +my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t have cared at that +moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It +was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all +now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder +again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led +me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse +like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or +not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling +creature or whether I have the _right_...” +“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands. +“Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort, +but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to +prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me +since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such +a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you +now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to +you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to +_try_.... You may be sure of that!” +“And you murdered her!” +“But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to +commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! +Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself +once for all, for ever.... But it was the devil that killed that old +woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!” he cried in a +sudden spasm of agony, “let me be!” +He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed his head in his hands as +in a vise. +“What suffering!” A wail of anguish broke from Sonia. +“Well, what am I to do now?” he asked, suddenly raising his head and +looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair. +“What are you to do?” she cried, jumping up, and her eyes that had been +full of tears suddenly began to shine. “Stand up!” (She seized him by +the shoulder, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.) “Go at once, +this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the +earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say +to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again. +Will you go, will you go?” she asked him, trembling all over, snatching +his two hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at him with eyes +full of fire. +He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy. +“You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up?” he asked gloomily. +“Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you must do.” +“No! I am not going to them, Sonia!” +“But how will you go on living? What will you live for?” cried Sonia, +“how is it possible now? Why, how can you talk to your mother? (Oh, what +will become of them now?) But what am I saying? You have abandoned your +mother and your sister already. He has abandoned them already! Oh, +God!” she cried, “why, he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by +himself! What will become of you now?” +“Don’t be a child, Sonia,” he said softly. “What wrong have I done +them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That’s only a +phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a +virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them. +And what should I say to them--that I murdered her, but did not dare to +take the money and hid it under a stone?” he added with a bitter smile. +“Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not getting +it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn’t understand and they don’t deserve +to understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t be a child, +Sonia....” +“It will be too much for you to bear, too much!” she repeated, holding +out her hands in despairing supplication. +“Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,” he observed gloomily, pondering, +“perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I’ve been in too great +a hurry to condemn myself. I’ll make another fight for it.” +A haughty smile appeared on his lips. +“What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life!” +“I shall get used to it,” he said grimly and thoughtfully. “Listen,” he +began a minute later, “stop crying, it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve +come to tell you that the police are after me, on my track....” +“Ach!” Sonia cried in terror. +“Well, why do you cry out? You want me to go to Siberia and now you are +frightened? But let me tell you: I shall not give myself up. I shall +make a struggle for it and they won’t do anything to me. They’ve no real +evidence. Yesterday I was in great danger and believed I was lost; but +to-day things are going better. All the facts they know can be explained +two ways, that’s to say I can turn their accusations to my credit, do +you understand? And I shall, for I’ve learnt my lesson. But they will +certainly arrest me. If it had not been for something that happened, +they would have done so to-day for certain; perhaps even now they will +arrest me to-day.... But that’s no matter, Sonia; they’ll let me out +again... for there isn’t any real proof against me, and there won’t be, +I give you my word for it. And they can’t convict a man on what they +have against me. Enough.... I only tell you that you may know.... I will +try to manage somehow to put it to my mother and sister so that they +won’t be frightened.... My sister’s future is secure, however, now, I +believe... and my mother’s must be too.... Well, that’s all. Be careful, +though. Will you come and see me in prison when I am there?” +“Oh, I will, I will.” +They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected, as though they had +been cast up by the tempest alone on some deserted shore. He looked at +Sonia and felt how great was her love for him, and strange to say he +felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so loved. Yes, it was a +strange and awful sensation! On his way to see Sonia he had felt that +all his hopes rested on her; he expected to be rid of at least part +of his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned towards him, he +suddenly felt that he was immeasurably unhappier than before. +“Sonia,” he said, “you’d better not come and see me when I am in +prison.” +Sonia did not answer, she was crying. Several minutes passed. +“Have you a cross on you?” she asked, as though suddenly thinking of it. +He did not at first understand the question. +“No, of course not. Here, take this one, of cypress wood. I have +another, a copper one that belonged to Lizaveta. I changed with +Lizaveta: she gave me her cross and I gave her my little ikon. I will +wear Lizaveta’s now and give you this. Take it... it’s mine! It’s mine, +you know,” she begged him. “We will go to suffer together, and together +we will bear our cross!” +“Give it me,” said Raskolnikov. +He did not want to hurt her feelings. But immediately he drew back the +hand he held out for the cross. +“Not now, Sonia. Better later,” he added to comfort her. +“Yes, yes, better,” she repeated with conviction, “when you go to meet +your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I’ll put it on you, +we will pray and go together.” +At that moment someone knocked three times at the door. +“Sofya Semyonovna, may I come in?” they heard in a very familiar and +polite voice. +Sonia rushed to the door in a fright. The flaxen head of Mr. +Lebeziatnikov appeared at the door. +CHAPTER V +Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed. +“I’ve come to you, Sofya Semyonovna,” he began. “Excuse me... I thought +I should find you,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov suddenly, “that is, +I didn’t mean anything... of that sort... But I just thought... Katerina +Ivanovna has gone out of her mind,” he blurted out suddenly, turning +from Raskolnikov to Sonia. +Sonia screamed. +“At least it seems so. But... we don’t know what to do, you see! She +came back--she seems to have been turned out somewhere, perhaps +beaten.... So it seems at least,... She had run to your father’s former +chief, she didn’t find him at home: he was dining at some other +general’s.... Only fancy, she rushed off there, to the other general’s, +and, imagine, she was so persistent that she managed to get the chief to +see her, had him fetched out from dinner, it seems. You can imagine what +happened. She was turned out, of course; but, according to her own +story, she abused him and threw something at him. One may well believe +it.... How it is she wasn’t taken up, I can’t understand! Now she is +telling everyone, including Amalia Ivanovna; but it’s difficult to +understand her, she is screaming and flinging herself about.... Oh yes, +she shouts that since everyone has abandoned her, she will take the +children and go into the street with a barrel-organ, and the children +will sing and dance, and she too, and collect money, and will go every +day under the general’s window... ‘to let everyone see well-born +children, whose father was an official, begging in the street.’ She +keeps beating the children and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida +to sing ‘My Village,’ the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She is tearing +up all the clothes, and making them little caps like actors; she means +to carry a tin basin and make it tinkle, instead of music.... She won’t +listen to anything.... Imagine the state of things! It’s beyond +anything!” +Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia, who had heard him almost +breathless, snatched up her cloak and hat, and ran out of the room, +putting on her things as she went. Raskolnikov followed her and +Lebeziatnikov came after him. +“She has certainly gone mad!” he said to Raskolnikov, as they went out +into the street. “I didn’t want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna, so I said +‘it seemed like it,’ but there isn’t a doubt of it. They say that in +consumption the tubercles sometimes occur in the brain; it’s a pity I +know nothing of medicine. I did try to persuade her, but she wouldn’t +listen.” +“Did you talk to her about the tubercles?” +“Not precisely of the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn’t have understood! +But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically that he +has nothing to cry about, he’ll stop crying. That’s clear. Is it your +conviction that he won’t?” +“Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered Raskolnikov. +“Excuse me, excuse me; of course it would be rather difficult for +Katerina Ivanovna to understand, but do you know that in Paris they have +been conducting serious experiments as to the possibility of curing the +insane, simply by logical argument? One professor there, a scientific +man of standing, lately dead, believed in the possibility of such +treatment. His idea was that there’s nothing really wrong with the +physical organism of the insane, and that insanity is, so to say, a +logical mistake, an error of judgment, an incorrect view of things. He +gradually showed the madman his error and, would you believe it, they +say he was successful? But as he made use of douches too, how far +success was due to that treatment remains uncertain.... So it seems at +least.” +Raskolnikov had long ceased to listen. Reaching the house where he +lived, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov and went in at the gate. Lebeziatnikov +woke up with a start, looked about him and hurried on. +Raskolnikov went into his little room and stood still in the middle +of it. Why had he come back here? He looked at the yellow and tattered +paper, at the dust, at his sofa.... From the yard came a loud continuous +knocking; someone seemed to be hammering... He went to the window, rose +on tiptoe and looked out into the yard for a long time with an air of +absorbed attention. But the yard was empty and he could not see who was +hammering. In the house on the left he saw some open windows; on the +window-sills were pots of sickly-looking geraniums. Linen was hung out +of the windows... He knew it all by heart. He turned away and sat down +on the sofa. +Never, never had he felt himself so fearfully alone! +Yes, he felt once more that he would perhaps come to hate Sonia, now +that he had made her more miserable. +“Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears? What need had he to poison +her life? Oh, the meanness of it!” +“I will remain alone,” he said resolutely, “and she shall not come to +the prison!” +Five minutes later he raised his head with a strange smile. That was a +strange thought. +“Perhaps it really would be better in Siberia,” he thought suddenly. +He could not have said how long he sat there with vague thoughts surging +through his mind. All at once the door opened and Dounia came in. At +first she stood still and looked at him from the doorway, just as he +had done at Sonia; then she came in and sat down in the same place +as yesterday, on the chair facing him. He looked silently and almost +vacantly at her. +“Don’t be angry, brother; I’ve only come for one minute,” said Dounia. +Her face looked thoughtful but not stern. Her eyes were bright and soft. +He saw that she too had come to him with love. +“Brother, now I know all, _all_. Dmitri Prokofitch has explained and +told me everything. They are worrying and persecuting you through a +stupid and contemptible suspicion.... Dmitri Prokofitch told me that +there is no danger, and that you are wrong in looking upon it with such +horror. I don’t think so, and I fully understand how indignant you must +be, and that that indignation may have a permanent effect on you. That’s +what I am afraid of. As for your cutting yourself off from us, I don’t +judge you, I don’t venture to judge you, and forgive me for having +blamed you for it. I feel that I too, if I had so great a trouble, +should keep away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing _of this_, +but I shall talk about you continually and shall tell her from you that +you will come very soon. Don’t worry about her; _I_ will set her mind at +rest; but don’t you try her too much--come once at least; remember that +she is your mother. And now I have come simply to say” (Dounia began +to get up) “that if you should need me or should need... all my life or +anything... call me, and I’ll come. Good-bye!” +She turned abruptly and went towards the door. +“Dounia!” Raskolnikov stopped her and went towards her. “That Razumihin, +Dmitri Prokofitch, is a very good fellow.” +Dounia flushed slightly. +“Well?” she asked, waiting a moment. +“He is competent, hardworking, honest and capable of real love.... +Good-bye, Dounia.” +Dounia flushed crimson, then suddenly she took alarm. +“But what does it mean, brother? Are we really parting for ever that +you... give me such a parting message?” +“Never mind.... Good-bye.” +He turned away, and walked to the window. She stood a moment, looked at +him uneasily, and went out troubled. +No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant (the very last one) +when he had longed to take her in his arms and _say good-bye_ to her, +and even _to tell_ her, but he had not dared even to touch her hand. +“Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I embraced her, and +will feel that I stole her kiss.” +“And would _she_ stand that test?” he went on a few minutes later to +himself. “No, she wouldn’t; girls like that can’t stand things! They +never do.” +And he thought of Sonia. +There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The daylight was +fading. He took up his cap and went out. +He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill he was. But all +this continual anxiety and agony of mind could not but affect him. And +if he were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just because this +continual inner strain helped to keep him on his legs and in possession +of his faculties. But this artificial excitement could not last long. +He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery had +begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute +about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; +it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a +foretaste of an eternity “on a square yard of space.” Towards evening +this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily. +“With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, depending on the sunset or +something, one can’t help doing something stupid! You’ll go to Dounia, +as well as to Sonia,” he muttered bitterly. +He heard his name called. He looked round. Lebeziatnikov rushed up to +him. +“Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for you. Only fancy, she’s +carried out her plan, and taken away the children. Sofya Semyonovna and +I have had a job to find them. She is rapping on a frying-pan and making +the children dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping at the +cross-roads and in front of shops; there’s a crowd of fools running +after them. Come along!” +“And Sonia?” Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after Lebeziatnikov. +“Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s frantic, but +Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova’s frantic too. But Katerina +Ivanovna is absolutely frantic. I tell you she is quite mad. They’ll be +taken to the police. You can fancy what an effect that will have.... +They are on the canal bank, near the bridge now, not far from Sofya +Semyonovna’s, quite close.” +On the canal bank near the bridge and not two houses away from the one +where Sonia lodged, there was a crowd of people, consisting principally +of gutter children. The hoarse broken voice of Katerina Ivanovna could +be heard from the bridge, and it certainly was a strange spectacle +likely to attract a street crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress +with the green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a hideous way +on one side, was really frantic. She was exhausted and breathless. Her +wasted consumptive face looked more suffering than ever, and indeed out +of doors in the sunshine a consumptive always looks worse than at home. +But her excitement did not flag, and every moment her irritation grew +more intense. She rushed at the children, shouted at them, coaxed +them, told them before the crowd how to dance and what to sing, began +explaining to them why it was necessary, and driven to desperation by +their not understanding, beat them.... Then she would make a rush at the +crowd; if she noticed any decently dressed person stopping to look, she +immediately appealed to him to see what these children “from a genteel, +one may say aristocratic, house” had been brought to. If she heard +laughter or jeering in the crowd, she would rush at once at the scoffers +and begin squabbling with them. Some people laughed, others shook their +heads, but everyone felt curious at the sight of the madwoman with the +frightened children. The frying-pan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken +was not there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But instead of +rapping on the pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clapping her wasted hands, +when she made Lida and Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in +the singing, but broke down at the second note with a fearful cough, +which made her curse in despair and even shed tears. What made her most +furious was the weeping and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort had +been made to dress the children up as street singers are dressed. The +boy had on a turban made of something red and white to look like a Turk. +There had been no costume for Lida; she simply had a red knitted cap, +or rather a night cap that had belonged to Marmeladov, decorated with +a broken piece of white ostrich feather, which had been Katerina +Ivanovna’s grandmother’s and had been preserved as a family possession. +Polenka was in her everyday dress; she looked in timid perplexity at her +mother, and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She dimly realised her +mother’s condition, and looked uneasily about her. She was terribly +frightened of the street and the crowd. Sonia followed Katerina +Ivanovna, weeping and beseeching her to return home, but Katerina +Ivanovna was not to be persuaded. +“Leave off, Sonia, leave off,” she shouted, speaking fast, panting and +coughing. “You don’t know what you ask; you are like a child! I’ve +told you before that I am not coming back to that drunken German. Let +everyone, let all Petersburg see the children begging in the streets, +though their father was an honourable man who served all his life in +truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service.” (Katerina +Ivanovna had by now invented this fantastic story and thoroughly +believed it.) “Let that wretch of a general see it! And you are silly, +Sonia: what have we to eat? Tell me that. We have worried you enough, I +won’t go on so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you?” she cried, seeing +Raskolnikov and rushing up to him. “Explain to this silly girl, please, +that nothing better could be done! Even organ-grinders earn their +living, and everyone will see at once that we are different, that we are +an honourable and bereaved family reduced to beggary. And that general +will lose his post, you’ll see! We shall perform under his windows every +day, and if the Tsar drives by, I’ll fall on my knees, put the children +before me, show them to him, and say ‘Defend us father.’ He is the +father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he’ll protect us, you’ll +see, and that wretch of a general.... Lida, _tenez vous droite_! Kolya, +you’ll dance again. Why are you whimpering? Whimpering again! What +are you afraid of, stupid? Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion +Romanovitch? If you only knew how stupid they are! What’s one to do with +such children?” +And she, almost crying herself--which did not stop her uninterrupted, +rapid flow of talk--pointed to the crying children. Raskolnikov tried +to persuade her to go home, and even said, hoping to work on her vanity, +that it was unseemly for her to be wandering about the streets like +an organ-grinder, as she was intending to become the principal of a +boarding-school. +“A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A castle in the air,” cried Katerina +Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a cough. “No, Rodion Romanovitch, that +dream is over! All have forsaken us!... And that general.... You know, +Rodion Romanovitch, I threw an inkpot at him--it happened to be standing +in the waiting-room by the paper where you sign your name. I wrote my +name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh, the scoundrels, the scoundrels! +But enough of them, now I’ll provide for the children myself, I won’t +bow down to anybody! She has had to bear enough for us!” she pointed +to Sonia. “Polenka, how much have you got? Show me! What, only two +farthings! Oh, the mean wretches! They give us nothing, only run after +us, putting their tongues out. There, what is that blockhead laughing +at?” (She pointed to a man in the crowd.) “It’s all because Kolya here +is so stupid; I have such a bother with him. What do you want, Polenka? +Tell me in French, _parlez-moi français_. Why, I’ve taught you, you know +some phrases. Else how are you to show that you are of good family, well +brought-up children, and not at all like other organ-grinders? We aren’t +going to have a Punch and Judy show in the street, but to sing a genteel +song.... Ah, yes,... What are we to sing? You keep putting me out, +but we... you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch, to find +something to sing and get money, something Kolya can dance to.... For, +as you can fancy, our performance is all impromptu.... We must talk it +over and rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky, +where there are far more people of good society, and we shall be noticed +at once. Lida knows ‘My Village’ only, nothing but ‘My Village,’ and +everyone sings that. We must sing something far more genteel.... Well, +have you thought of anything, Polenka? If only you’d help your mother! +My memory’s quite gone, or I should have thought of something. We really +can’t sing ‘An Hussar.’ Ah, let us sing in French, ‘Cinq sous,’ I have +taught it you, I have taught it you. And as it is in French, people will +see at once that you are children of good family, and that will be much +more touching.... You might sing ‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre,’ +for that’s quite a child’s song and is sung as a lullaby in all the +aristocratic houses. +“_Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre Ne sait quand reviendra_...” +she began singing. “But no, better sing ‘Cinq sous.’ Now, Kolya, your +hands on your hips, make haste, and you, Lida, keep turning the other +way, and Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands! +“_Cinq sous, cinq sous Pour monter notre menage_.” +(Cough-cough-cough!) “Set your dress straight, Polenka, it’s slipped +down on your shoulders,” she observed, panting from coughing. “Now it’s +particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may +see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice +should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia, +with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite +deformed by it.... Why, you’re all crying again! What’s the matter, +stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, make haste! Oh, what an +unbearable child! +“Cinq sous, cinq sous. +“A policeman again! What do you want?” +A policeman was indeed forcing his way through the crowd. But at that +moment a gentleman in civilian uniform and an overcoat--a solid-looking +official of about fifty with a decoration on his neck (which delighted +Katerina Ivanovna and had its effect on the policeman)--approached and +without a word handed her a green three-rouble note. His face wore +a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it and gave him a +polite, even ceremonious, bow. +“I thank you, honoured sir,” she began loftily. “The causes that have +induced us (take the money, Polenka: you see there are generous and +honourable people who are ready to help a poor gentlewoman in distress). +You see, honoured sir, these orphans of good family--I might even say of +aristocratic connections--and that wretch of a general sat eating +grouse... and stamped at my disturbing him. ‘Your excellency,’ I said, +‘protect the orphans, for you knew my late husband, Semyon Zaharovitch, +and on the very day of his death the basest of scoundrels slandered his +only daughter.’... That policeman again! Protect me,” she cried to the +official. “Why is that policeman edging up to me? We have only just run +away from one of them. What do you want, fool?” +“It’s forbidden in the streets. You mustn’t make a disturbance.” +“It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the same as if I were +grinding an organ. What business is it of yours?” +“You have to get a licence for an organ, and you haven’t got one, and in +that way you collect a crowd. Where do you lodge?” +“What, a license?” wailed Katerina Ivanovna. “I buried my husband +to-day. What need of a license?” +“Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself,” began the official. “Come along; +I will escort you.... This is no place for you in the crowd. You are +ill.” +“Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don’t know,” screamed Katerina +Ivanovna. “We are going to the Nevsky.... Sonia, Sonia! Where is she? +She is crying too! What’s the matter with you all? Kolya, Lida, where +are you going?” she cried suddenly in alarm. “Oh, silly children! Kolya, +Lida, where are they off to?...” +Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the crowd, and their +mother’s mad pranks, suddenly seized each other by the hand, and ran off +at the sight of the policeman who wanted to take them away somewhere. +Weeping and wailing, poor Katerina Ivanovna ran after them. She was +a piteous and unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping and panting for +breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them. +“Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stupid, ungrateful +children!... Polenka! catch them.... It’s for your sakes I...” +She stumbled as she ran and fell down. +“She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!” cried Sonia, bending over +her. +All ran up and crowded around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov were the +first at her side, the official too hastened up, and behind him the +policeman who muttered, “Bother!” with a gesture of impatience, feeling +that the job was going to be a troublesome one. +“Pass on! Pass on!” he said to the crowd that pressed forward. +“She’s dying,” someone shouted. +“She’s gone out of her mind,” said another. +“Lord have mercy upon us,” said a woman, crossing herself. “Have they +caught the little girl and the boy? They’re being brought back, the +elder one’s got them.... Ah, the naughty imps!” +When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they saw that she had +not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia thought, but that the blood +that stained the pavement red was from her chest. +“I’ve seen that before,” muttered the official to Raskolnikov and +Lebeziatnikov; “that’s consumption; the blood flows and chokes the +patient. I saw the same thing with a relative of my own not long ago... +nearly a pint of blood, all in a minute.... What’s to be done though? +She is dying.” +“This way, this way, to my room!” Sonia implored. “I live here!... See, +that house, the second from here.... Come to me, make haste,” she turned +from one to the other. “Send for the doctor! Oh, dear!” +Thanks to the official’s efforts, this plan was adopted, the policeman +even helping to carry Katerina Ivanovna. She was carried to Sonia’s +room, almost unconscious, and laid on the bed. The blood was still +flowing, but she seemed to be coming to herself. Raskolnikov, +Lebeziatnikov, and the official accompanied Sonia into the room and were +followed by the policeman, who first drove back the crowd which followed +to the very door. Polenka came in holding Kolya and Lida, who +were trembling and weeping. Several persons came in too from the +Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord, a lame one-eyed man of strange +appearance with whiskers and hair that stood up like a brush, his +wife, a woman with an everlastingly scared expression, and several +open-mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among these, +Svidrigaïlov suddenly made his appearance. Raskolnikov looked at him +with surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not having +noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and priest wore spoken of. The +official whispered to Raskolnikov that he thought it was too late now +for the doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran +himself. +Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her breath. The bleeding ceased +for a time. She looked with sick but intent and penetrating eyes at +Sonia, who stood pale and trembling, wiping the sweat from her brow with +a handkerchief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the +bed, supporting her on both sides. +“Where are the children?” she said in a faint voice. “You’ve brought +them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you run away.... Och!” +Once more her parched lips were covered with blood. She moved her eyes, +looking about her. +“So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in your room.” +She looked at her with a face of suffering. +“We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya, come here! Well, +here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand them over to you, I’ve had +enough! The ball is over.” (Cough!) “Lay me down, let me die in peace.” +They laid her back on the pillow. +“What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a rouble to spare. +I have no sins. God must forgive me without that. He knows how I have +suffered.... And if He won’t forgive me, I don’t care!” +She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times she shuddered, +turned her eyes from side to side, recognised everyone for a minute, +but at once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse and +difficult, there was a sort of rattle in her throat. +“I said to him, your excellency,” she ejaculated, gasping after each +word. “That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips, +make haste! _Glissez, glissez! pas de basque!_ Tap with your heels, be a +graceful child! +“_Du hast Diamanten und Perlen_ +“What next? That’s the thing to sing. +“_Du hast die schönsten Augen Mädchen, was willst du mehr?_ +“What an idea! _Was willst du mehr?_ What things the fool invents! Ah, +yes! +“In the heat of midday in the vale of Dagestan. +“Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distraction, Polenka! Your +father, you know, used to sing it when we were engaged.... Oh those +days! Oh that’s the thing for us to sing! How does it go? I’ve +forgotten. Remind me! How was it?” +She was violently excited and tried to sit up. At last, in a horribly +hoarse, broken voice, she began, shrieking and gasping at every word, +with a look of growing terror. +“In the heat of midday!... in the vale!... of Dagestan!... With lead in +my breast!...” +“Your excellency!” she wailed suddenly with a heart-rending scream and +a flood of tears, “protect the orphans! You have been their father’s +guest... one may say aristocratic....” She started, regaining +consciousness, and gazed at all with a sort of terror, but at once +recognised Sonia. +“Sonia, Sonia!” she articulated softly and caressingly, as though +surprised to find her there. “Sonia darling, are you here, too?” +They lifted her up again. +“Enough! It’s over! Farewell, poor thing! I am done for! I am broken!” +she cried with vindictive despair, and her head fell heavily back on the +pillow. +She sank into unconsciousness again, but this time it did not last long. +Her pale, yellow, wasted face dropped back, her mouth fell open, her leg +moved convulsively, she gave a deep, deep sigh and died. +Sonia fell upon her, flung her arms about her, and remained motionless +with her head pressed to the dead woman’s wasted bosom. Polenka threw +herself at her mother’s feet, kissing them and weeping violently. Though +Kolya and Lida did not understand what had happened, they had a feeling +that it was something terrible; they put their hands on each other’s +little shoulders, stared straight at one another and both at once opened +their mouths and began screaming. They were both still in their fancy +dress; one in a turban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather. +And how did “the certificate of merit” come to be on the bed beside +Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it. +He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov skipped up to him. +“She is dead,” he said. +“Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with you,” said Svidrigaïlov, +coming up to them. +Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and delicately withdrew. +Svidrigaïlov drew Raskolnikov further away. +“I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral and that. You know +it’s a question of money and, as I told you, I have plenty to spare. I +will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good orphan asylum, +and I will settle fifteen hundred roubles to be paid to each on coming +of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no anxiety about them. And I +will pull her out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn’t she? So +tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spending her ten thousand.” +“What is your motive for such benevolence?” asked Raskolnikov. +“Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I told you I had no +need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s simply done from humanity? +She wasn’t ‘a louse,’ you know” (he pointed to the corner where the +dead woman lay), “was she, like some old pawnbroker woman? Come, you’ll +agree, is Luzhin to go on living, and doing wicked things or is she to +die? And if I didn’t help them, Polenka would go the same way.” +He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keeping his +eyes fixed on Raskolnikov, who turned white and cold, hearing his own +phrases, spoken to Sonia. He quickly stepped back and looked wildly at +Svidrigaïlov. +“How do you know?” he whispered, hardly able to breathe. +“Why, I lodge here at Madame Resslich’s, the other side of the wall. +Here is Kapernaumov, and there lives Madame Resslich, an old and devoted +friend of mine. I am a neighbour.” +“You?” +“Yes,” continued Svidrigaïlov, shaking with laughter. “I assure you +on my honour, dear Rodion Romanovitch, that you have interested me +enormously. I told you we should become friends, I foretold it. Well, +here we have. And you will see what an accommodating person I am. You’ll +see that you can get on with me!” +PART VI +CHAPTER I +A strange period began for Raskolnikov: it was as though a fog had +fallen upon him and wrapped him in a dreary solitude from which there +was no escape. Recalling that period long after, he believed that his +mind had been clouded at times, and that it had continued so, with +intervals, till the final catastrophe. He was convinced that he had been +mistaken about many things at that time, for instance as to the date +of certain events. Anyway, when he tried later on to piece his +recollections together, he learnt a great deal about himself from what +other people told him. He had mixed up incidents and had explained +events as due to circumstances which existed only in his imagination. At +times he was a prey to agonies of morbid uneasiness, amounting sometimes +to panic. But he remembered, too, moments, hours, perhaps whole days, +of complete apathy, which came upon him as a reaction from his previous +terror and might be compared with the abnormal insensibility, sometimes +seen in the dying. He seemed to be trying in that latter stage to escape +from a full and clear understanding of his position. Certain essential +facts which required immediate consideration were particularly irksome +to him. How glad he would have been to be free from some cares, the +neglect of which would have threatened him with complete, inevitable +ruin. +He was particularly worried about Svidrigaïlov, he might be said to be +permanently thinking of Svidrigaïlov. From the time of Svidrigaïlov’s +too menacing and unmistakable words in Sonia’s room at the moment of +Katerina Ivanovna’s death, the normal working of his mind seemed to +break down. But although this new fact caused him extreme uneasiness, +Raskolnikov was in no hurry for an explanation of it. At times, finding +himself in a solitary and remote part of the town, in some wretched +eating-house, sitting alone lost in thought, hardly knowing how he had +come there, he suddenly thought of Svidrigaïlov. He recognised +suddenly, clearly, and with dismay that he ought at once to come to an +understanding with that man and to make what terms he could. Walking +outside the city gates one day, he positively fancied that they had +fixed a meeting there, that he was waiting for Svidrigaïlov. Another +time he woke up before daybreak lying on the ground under some bushes +and could not at first understand how he had come there. +But during the two or three days after Katerina Ivanovna’s death, he +had two or three times met Svidrigaïlov at Sonia’s lodging, where he +had gone aimlessly for a moment. They exchanged a few words and made no +reference to the vital subject, as though they were tacitly agreed not +to speak of it for a time. +Katerina Ivanovna’s body was still lying in the coffin, Svidrigaïlov was +busy making arrangements for the funeral. Sonia too was very busy. At +their last meeting Svidrigaïlov informed Raskolnikov that he had made +an arrangement, and a very satisfactory one, for Katerina Ivanovna’s +children; that he had, through certain connections, succeeded in getting +hold of certain personages by whose help the three orphans could be at +once placed in very suitable institutions; that the money he had settled +on them had been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place +orphans with some property than destitute ones. He said something +too about Sonia and promised to come himself in a day or two to see +Raskolnikov, mentioning that “he would like to consult with him, that +there were things they must talk over....” +This conversation took place in the passage on the stairs. Svidrigaïlov +looked intently at Raskolnikov and suddenly, after a brief pause, +dropping his voice, asked: “But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch; you +don’t seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don’t seem to +understand. Cheer up! We’ll talk things over; I am only sorry, I’ve +so much to do of my own business and other people’s. Ah, Rodion +Romanovitch,” he added suddenly, “what all men need is fresh air, fresh +air... more than anything!” +He moved to one side to make way for the priest and server, who +were coming up the stairs. They had come for the requiem service. By +Svidrigaïlov’s orders it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigaïlov +went his way. Raskolnikov stood still a moment, thought, and followed +the priest into Sonia’s room. He stood at the door. They began quietly, +slowly and mournfully singing the service. From his childhood the +thought of death and the presence of death had something oppressive +and mysteriously awful; and it was long since he had heard the requiem +service. And there was something else here as well, too awful and +disturbing. He looked at the children: they were all kneeling by the +coffin; Polenka was weeping. Behind them Sonia prayed, softly and, as it +were, timidly weeping. +“These last two days she hasn’t said a word to me, she hasn’t glanced at +me,” Raskolnikov thought suddenly. The sunlight was bright in the room; +the incense rose in clouds; the priest read, “Give rest, oh Lord....” +Raskolnikov stayed all through the service. As he blessed them and +took his leave, the priest looked round strangely. After the service, +Raskolnikov went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her +head sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly gesture bewildered +Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that there was no trace of +repugnance, no trace of disgust, no tremor in her hand. It was the +furthest limit of self-abnegation, at least so he interpreted it. +Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out. He felt +very miserable. If it had been possible to escape to some solitude, he +would have thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his whole life +there. But although he had almost always been by himself of late, he had +never been able to feel alone. Sometimes he walked out of the town on to +the high road, once he had even reached a little wood, but the lonelier +the place was, the more he seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near +him. It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so that he +made haste to return to the town, to mingle with the crowd, to enter +restaurants and taverns, to walk in busy thoroughfares. There he felt +easier and even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour +listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively +enjoyed it. But at last he had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again, +as though his conscience smote him. “Here I sit listening to singing, +is that what I ought to be doing?” he thought. Yet he felt at once +that that was not the only cause of his uneasiness; there was something +requiring immediate decision, but it was something he could not clearly +understand or put into words. It was a hopeless tangle. “No, better the +struggle again! Better Porfiry again... or Svidrigaïlov.... Better some +challenge again... some attack. Yes, yes!” he thought. He went out of +the tavern and rushed away almost at a run. The thought of Dounia and +his mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he woke +up before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling +all over with fever; he walked home, and it was early morning when he +arrived. After some hours’ sleep the fever left him, but he woke up +late, two o’clock in the afternoon. +He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna’s funeral had been fixed for that +day, and was glad that he was not present at it. Nastasya brought him +some food; he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness. His +head was fresher and he was calmer than he had been for the last three +days. He even felt a passing wonder at his previous attacks of panic. +The door opened and Razumihin came in. +“Ah, he’s eating, then he’s not ill,” said Razumihin. He took a chair +and sat down at the table opposite Raskolnikov. +He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it. He spoke with evident +annoyance, but without hurry or raising his voice. He looked as though +he had some special fixed determination. +“Listen,” he began resolutely. “As far as I am concerned, you may all go +to hell, but from what I see, it’s clear to me that I can’t make head or +tail of it; please don’t think I’ve come to ask you questions. I don’t +want to know, hang it! If you begin telling me your secrets, I dare say +I shouldn’t stay to listen, I should go away cursing. I have only come +to find out once for all whether it’s a fact that you are mad? There is +a conviction in the air that you are mad or very nearly so. I admit +I’ve been disposed to that opinion myself, judging from your stupid, +repulsive and quite inexplicable actions, and from your recent behavior +to your mother and sister. Only a monster or a madman could treat them +as you have; so you must be mad.” +“When did you see them last?” +“Just now. Haven’t you seen them since then? What have you been doing +with yourself? Tell me, please. I’ve been to you three times already. +Your mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had made up +her mind to come to you; Avdotya Romanovna tried to prevent her; she +wouldn’t hear a word. ‘If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who can +look after him like his mother?’ she said. We all came here together, we +couldn’t let her come alone all the way. We kept begging her to be calm. +We came in, you weren’t here; she sat down, and stayed ten minutes, +while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said: ‘If he’s +gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgotten his mother, it’s +humiliating and unseemly for his mother to stand at his door begging for +kindness.’ She returned home and took to her bed; now she is in a fever. +‘I see,’ she said, ‘that he has time for _his girl_.’ She means by _your +girl_ Sofya Semyonovna, your betrothed or your mistress, I don’t know. I +went at once to Sofya Semyonovna’s, for I wanted to know what was going +on. I looked round, I saw the coffin, the children crying, and +Sofya Semyonovna trying them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I +apologised, came away, and reported to Avdotya Romanovna. So that’s all +nonsense and you haven’t got a girl; the most likely thing is that you +are mad. But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you’d not had +a bite for three days. Though as far as that goes, madmen eat too, but +though you have not said a word to me yet... you are not mad! That I’d +swear! Above all, you are not mad! So you may go to hell, all of you, +for there’s some mystery, some secret about it, and I don’t intend to +worry my brains over your secrets. So I’ve simply come to swear at you,” +he finished, getting up, “to relieve my mind. And I know what to do +now.” +“What do you mean to do now?” +“What business is it of yours what I mean to do?” +“You are going in for a drinking bout.” +“How... how did you know?” +“Why, it’s pretty plain.” +Razumihin paused for a minute. +“You always have been a very rational person and you’ve never been mad, +never,” he observed suddenly with warmth. “You’re right: I shall drink. +Good-bye!” +And he moved to go out. +“I was talking with my sister--the day before yesterday, I think it +was--about you, Razumihin.” +“About me! But... where can you have seen her the day before yesterday?” +Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale. +One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently. +“She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me.” +“She did!” +“Yes.” +“What did you say to her... I mean, about me?” +“I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I didn’t +tell her you love her, because she knows that herself.” +“She knows that herself?” +“Well, it’s pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to me, +you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into your +keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how you love +her, and am convinced of the purity of your heart. I know that she too +may love you and perhaps does love you already. Now decide for yourself, +as you know best, whether you need go in for a drinking bout or not.” +“Rodya! You see... well.... Ach, damn it! But where do you mean to go? +Of course, if it’s all a secret, never mind.... But I... I shall find +out the secret... and I am sure that it must be some ridiculous nonsense +and that you’ve made it all up. Anyway you are a capital fellow, a +capital fellow!...” +“That was just what I wanted to add, only you interrupted, that that was +a very good decision of yours not to find out these secrets. Leave it to +time, don’t worry about it. You’ll know it all in time when it must be. +Yesterday a man said to me that what a man needs is fresh air, fresh +air, fresh air. I mean to go to him directly to find out what he meant +by that.” +Razumihin stood lost in thought and excitement, making a silent +conclusion. +“He’s a political conspirator! He must be. And he’s on the eve of some +desperate step, that’s certain. It can only be that! And... and Dounia +knows,” he thought suddenly. +“So Avdotya Romanovna comes to see you,” he said, weighing each +syllable, “and you’re going to see a man who says we need more air, and +so of course that letter... that too must have something to do with it,” +he concluded to himself. +“What letter?” +“She got a letter to-day. It upset her very much--very much indeed. Too +much so. I began speaking of you, she begged me not to. Then... then +she said that perhaps we should very soon have to part... then she began +warmly thanking me for something; then she went to her room and locked +herself in.” +“She got a letter?” Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully. +“Yes, and you didn’t know? hm...” +They were both silent. +“Good-bye, Rodion. There was a time, brother, when I.... Never mind, +good-bye. You see, there was a time.... Well, good-bye! I must be off +too. I am not going to drink. There’s no need now.... That’s all stuff!” +He hurried out; but when he had almost closed the door behind him, he +suddenly opened it again, and said, looking away: +“Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder, you know Porfiry’s, that +old woman? Do you know the murderer has been found, he has confessed +and given the proofs. It’s one of those very workmen, the painter, only +fancy! Do you remember I defended them here? Would you believe it, all +that scene of fighting and laughing with his companions on the stairs +while the porter and the two witnesses were going up, he got up on +purpose to disarm suspicion. The cunning, the presence of mind of the +young dog! One can hardly credit it; but it’s his own explanation, he +has confessed it all. And what a fool I was about it! Well, he’s simply +a genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of +the lawyers--so there’s nothing much to wonder at, I suppose! Of course +people like that are always possible. And the fact that he couldn’t keep +up the character, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But +what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!” +“Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it interest +you so?” Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation. +“What next? You ask me why it interests me!... Well, I heard it from +Porfiry, among others... It was from him I heard almost all about it.” +“From Porfiry?” +“From Porfiry.” +“What... what did he say?” Raskolnikov asked in dismay. +“He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his +fashion.” +“He explained it? Explained it himself?” +“Yes, yes; good-bye. I’ll tell you all about it another time, but now +I’m busy. There was a time when I fancied... But no matter, another +time!... What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk +without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I’m going. I’ll come again +very soon.” +He went out. +“He’s a political conspirator, there’s not a doubt about it,” Razumihin +decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. “And he’s drawn his sister +in; that’s quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna’s character. +There are interviews between them!... She hinted at it too... So many of +her words.... and hints... bear that meaning! And how else can all this +tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking... Good heavens, +what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was +his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude, +nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing.... And +how clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions... +before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy.... +But what’s the meaning now of that letter? There’s something in that, +too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must find out!” +He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart throbbed, +and he suddenly broke into a run. +As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the window, +walked into one corner and then into another, as though forgetting the +smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He felt, so to +speak, renewed; again the struggle, so a means of escape had come. +“Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too stifling, too +cramping, the burden had been too agonising. A lethargy had come upon +him at times. From the moment of the scene with Nikolay at Porfiry’s he +had been suffocating, penned in without hope of escape. After Nikolay’s +confession, on that very day had come the scene with Sonia; his +behaviour and his last words had been utterly unlike anything he +could have imagined beforehand; he had grown feebler, instantly and +fundamentally! And he had agreed at the time with Sonia, he had agreed +in his heart he could not go on living alone with such a thing on his +mind! +“And Svidrigaïlov was a riddle... He worried him, that was true, but +somehow not on the same point. He might still have a struggle to come +with Svidrigaïlov. Svidrigaïlov, too, might be a means of escape; but +Porfiry was a different matter. +“And so Porfiry himself had explained it to Razumihin, had explained it +_psychologically_. He had begun bringing in his damned psychology again! +Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one moment believe that +Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before Nikolay’s +appearance, after that tête-à-tête interview, which could have only +_one_ explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often recalled +passages in that scene with Porfiry; he could not bear to let his mind +rest on it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between them, they +had exchanged such glances, things had been said in such a tone and had +reached such a pass, that Nikolay, whom Porfiry had seen through at the +first word, at the first gesture, could not have shaken his conviction. +“And to think that even Razumihin had begun to suspect! The scene in the +corridor under the lamp had produced its effect then. He had rushed to +Porfiry.... But what had induced the latter to receive him like that? +What had been his object in putting Razumihin off with Nikolay? He must +have some plan; there was some design, but what was it? It was true that +a long time had passed since that morning--too long a time--and no sight +nor sound of Porfiry. Well, that was a bad sign....” +Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the room, still pondering. It +was the first time for a long while that he had felt clear in his mind, +at least. “I must settle Svidrigaïlov,” he thought, “and as soon as +possible; he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come to him of my own +accord.” And at that moment there was such a rush of hate in his +weary heart that he might have killed either of those two--Porfiry or +Svidrigaïlov. At least he felt that he would be capable of doing it +later, if not now. +“We shall see, we shall see,” he repeated to himself. +But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon Porfiry +himself in the passage. He was coming in to see him. Raskolnikov was +dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute. Strange to say, he +was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry and scarcely afraid of +him. He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly, on his guard. +“Perhaps this will mean the end? But how could Porfiry have approached +so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing? Could he have been +listening at the door?” +“You didn’t expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch,” Porfiry explained, +laughing. “I’ve been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by +and thought why not go in for five minutes. Are you going out? I won’t +keep you long. Just let me have one cigarette.” +“Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down.” Raskolnikov gave his visitor +a seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have +marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it. +The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained! So a man +will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, +yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear. +Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry, and looked at him +without flinching. Porfiry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a +cigarette. +“Speak, speak,” seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov’s +heart. “Come, why don’t you speak?” +CHAPTER II +“Ah these cigarettes!” Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having +lighted one. “They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I +can’t give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and +a difficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to +Dr. B----n; he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He +positively laughed looking at me; he sounded me: ‘Tobacco’s bad for +you,’ he said, ‘your lungs are affected.’ But how am I to give it up? +What is there to take its place? I don’t drink, that’s the mischief, +he-he-he, that I don’t. Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch, +everything is relative!” +“Why, he’s playing his professional tricks again,” Raskolnikov thought +with disgust. All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly +came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon +him then. +“I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening; you didn’t +know?” Porfiry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room. “I came into +this very room. I was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought +I’d return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked +round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your servant. +Don’t you lock your door?” +Raskolnikov’s face grew more and more gloomy. Porfiry seemed to guess +his state of mind. +“I’ve come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow! +I owe you an explanation and must give it to you,” he continued with a +slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov’s knee. +But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came into his +face; to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it. He had +never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face. +“A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion Romanovitch. +Our first interview, too, was a strange one; but then... and one thing +after another! This is the point: I have perhaps acted unfairly to you; +I feel it. Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were unhinged and +your knees were shaking and so were mine. And, you know, our behaviour +was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And yet we are gentlemen, above all, +in any case, gentlemen; that must be understood. Do you remember what we +came to?... and it was quite indecorous.” +“What is he up to, what does he take me for?” Raskolnikov asked himself +in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry. +“I’ve decided openness is better between us,” Porfiry Petrovitch went +on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to +disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. +“Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay +put a stop to it, or I don’t know what we might not have come to. That +damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room--can you realise +that? You know that, of course; and I am aware that he came to you +afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true: I had not sent for +anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements. You ask why I hadn’t? What +shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly. I had scarcely +sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I dare say). +An idea flashed upon me; I was firmly convinced at the time, you see, +Rodion Romanovitch. Come, I thought--even if I let one thing slip for +a time, I shall get hold of something else--I shan’t lose what I want, +anyway. You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament; +it’s out of proportion with other qualities of your heart and character, +which I flatter myself I have to some extent divined. Of course I did +reflect even then that it does not always happen that a man gets up and +blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes, if you make a +man lose all patience, though even then it’s rare. I was capable of +realising that. If I only had a fact, I thought, the least little fact +to go upon, something I could lay hold of, something tangible, not +merely psychological. For if a man is guilty, you must be able to get +something substantial out of him; one may reckon upon most surprising +results indeed. I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion Romanovitch, +on your temperament above all things! I had great hopes of you at that +time.” +“But what are you driving at now?” Raskolnikov muttered at last, asking +the question without thinking. +“What is he talking about?” he wondered distractedly, “does he really +take me to be innocent?” +“What am I driving at? I’ve come to explain myself, I consider it my +duty, so to speak. I want to make clear to you how the whole business, +the whole misunderstanding arose. I’ve caused you a great deal of +suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what +it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud, +imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! +I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without +elements of magnanimity, though I don’t agree with all your convictions. +I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above +all I don’t want to deceive you. When I made your acquaintance, I felt +attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so. You have a +right to. I know you disliked me from the first and indeed you’ve no +reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I desire now to do +all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart +and conscience. I speak sincerely.” +Porfiry Petrovitch made a dignified pause. Raskolnikov felt a rush of +renewed alarm. The thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent +began to make him uneasy. +“It’s scarcely necessary to go over everything in detail,” Porfiry +Petrovitch went on. “Indeed, I could scarcely attempt it. To begin with +there were rumours. Through whom, how, and when those rumours came to +me... and how they affected you, I need not go into. My suspicions +were aroused by a complete accident, which might just as easily not have +happened. What was it? Hm! I believe there is no need to go into that +either. Those rumours and that accident led to one idea in my mind. I +admit it openly--for one may as well make a clean breast of it--I was +the first to pitch on you. The old woman’s notes on the pledges and +the rest of it--that all came to nothing. Yours was one of a hundred. +I happened, too, to hear of the scene at the office, from a man who +described it capitally, unconsciously reproducing the scene with great +vividness. It was just one thing after another, Rodion Romanovitch, my +dear fellow! How could I avoid being brought to certain ideas? From a +hundred rabbits you can’t make a horse, a hundred suspicions don’t make +a proof, as the English proverb says, but that’s only from the rational +point of view--you can’t help being partial, for after all a lawyer +is only human. I thought, too, of your article in that journal, do you +remember, on your first visit we talked of it? I jeered at you at the +time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat, Rodion Romanovitch, +you are ill and impatient. That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest +and... had felt a great deal I recognised long before. I, too, have felt +the same, so that your article seemed familiar to me. It was conceived +on sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed +enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is +dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary +amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, full of the heat of +youth. There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the mist. Your +article is absurd and fantastic, but there’s a transparent sincerity, +a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in it. It’s a +gloomy article, but that’s what’s fine in it. I read your article and +put it aside, thinking as I did so ‘that man won’t go the common way.’ +Well, I ask you, after that as a preliminary, how could I help being +carried away by what followed? Oh, dear, I am not saying anything, I +am not making any statement now. I simply noted it at the time. What is +there in it? I reflected. There’s nothing in it, that is really nothing +and perhaps absolutely nothing. And it’s not at all the thing for +the prosecutor to let himself be carried away by notions: here I have +Nikolay on my hands with actual evidence against him--you may think what +you like of it, but it’s evidence. He brings in his psychology, too; one +has to consider him, too, for it’s a matter of life and death. Why am +I explaining this to you? That you may understand, and not blame my +malicious behaviour on that occasion. It was not malicious, I assure +you, he-he! Do you suppose I didn’t come to search your room at the +time? I did, I did, he-he! I was here when you were lying ill in bed, +not officially, not in my own person, but I was here. Your room was +searched to the last thread at the first suspicion; but _umsonst_! I +thought to myself, now that man will come, will come of himself and +quickly, too; if he’s guilty, he’s sure to come. Another man wouldn’t, +but he will. And you remember how Mr. Razumihin began discussing the +subject with you? We arranged that to excite you, so we purposely spread +rumours, that he might discuss the case with you, and Razumihin is not a +man to restrain his indignation. Mr. Zametov was tremendously struck by +your anger and your open daring. Think of blurting out in a restaurant +‘I killed her.’ It was too daring, too reckless. I thought so myself, if +he is guilty he will be a formidable opponent. That was what I thought +at the time. I was expecting you. But you simply bowled Zametov over +and... well, you see, it all lies in this--that this damnable psychology +can be taken two ways! Well, I kept expecting you, and so it was, you +came! My heart was fairly throbbing. Ach! +“Now, why need you have come? Your laughter, too, as you came in, do you +remember? I saw it all plain as daylight, but if I hadn’t expected you +so specially, I should not have noticed anything in your laughter. You +see what influence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin then--ah, that stone, that +stone under which the things were hidden! I seem to see it somewhere +in a kitchen garden. It was in a kitchen garden, you told Zametov and +afterwards you repeated that in my office? And when we began picking +your article to pieces, how you explained it! One could take every word +of yours in two senses, as though there were another meaning hidden. +“So in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached the furthest limit, and +knocking my head against a post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what +I was about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another sense if +you like, and it’s more natural so, indeed. I couldn’t help admitting +it was more natural. I was bothered! ‘No, I’d better get hold of some +little fact’ I said. So when I heard of the bell-ringing, I held my +breath and was all in a tremor. ‘Here is my little fact,’ thought I, and +I didn’t think it over, I simply wouldn’t. I would have given a thousand +roubles at that minute to have seen you with my own eyes, when you +walked a hundred paces beside that workman, after he had called you +murderer to your face, and you did not dare to ask him a question +all the way. And then what about your trembling, what about your +bell-ringing in your illness, in semi-delirium? +“And so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder that I played such pranks on +you? And what made you come at that very minute? Someone seemed to +have sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not parted us... and do you +remember Nikolay at the time? Do you remember him clearly? It was a +thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didn’t believe +in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it for yourself; +and how could I? Even afterwards, when you had gone and he began making +very, very plausible answers on certain points, so that I was surprised +at him myself, even then I didn’t believe his story! You see what it is +to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I, _Morgenfrüh_. What has Nikolay +got to do with it!” +“Razumihin told me just now that you think Nikolay guilty and had +yourself assured him of it....” +His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in +indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through +him, went back upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did not +believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for +something more definite and conclusive. +“Mr. Razumihin!” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question +from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. “He-he-he! But I had to +put Mr. Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is +not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me +with a pale face.... But never mind him, why bring him in? To return +to Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I +understand him, that is? To begin with, he is still a child and not +exactly a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, don’t laugh +at my describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influence. He +has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells +stories, they say, so that people come from other villages to hear him. +He attends school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a finger +to him; he will drink himself senseless--not as a regular vice, but at +times, when people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then, +without knowing it himself, for ‘How can it be stealing, if one picks it +up?’ And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There +have been Wanderers[*] in his family, and he was for two years in his +village under the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all +this from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers. And what’s more, he +wanted to run into the wilderness! He was full of fervour, prayed at +night, read the old books, ‘the true’ ones, and read himself crazy. +[*] A religious sect.--TRANSLATOR’S NOTE. +“Petersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and the +wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that. I +learnt that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go and see +him, and now this business came upon him. +“Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How can +one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings? The +very word ‘trial’ frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall +see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good! Well, in +prison, it seems, he remembered the venerable elder; the Bible, too, +made its appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of +the word ‘suffering’ among some of these people! It’s not a question of +suffering for someone’s benefit, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they +suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time +there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in prison +always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read himself +crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of nothing, he +seized a brick and flung it at the governor; though he had done him +no harm. And the way he threw it too: aimed it a yard on one side +on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens to +a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon. So ‘he took his +suffering.’ +“So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or something +of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he doesn’t +know that I know. What, you don’t admit that there are such fantastic +people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has begun +influencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But he’ll +come and tell me all himself. You think he’ll hold out? Wait a bit, +he’ll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to +come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am +studying him in detail. And what do you think? He-he! He answered me +very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some evidence +and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at sea, +knows nothing and doesn’t even suspect that he doesn’t know! +“No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn’t come in! This is a fantastic, +gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of to-day when the heart +of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood ‘renews,’ when +comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a +heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, +but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over +a precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the +crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for +a theory. He committed the murder and couldn’t take the money, and what +he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn’t enough for +him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at the door and +rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half delirious, to +recall the bell-ringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver over again.... +Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is +a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, +poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my +dear Rodion Romanovitch!” +All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that +these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he +had been stabbed. +“Then... who then... is the murderer?” he asked in a breathless voice, +unable to restrain himself. +Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at +the question. +“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his +ears. “Why, _you_, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added, +almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction. +Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down +again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively. +“Your lip is twitching just as it did before,” Porfiry Petrovitch +observed almost sympathetically. “You’ve been misunderstanding me, I +think, Rodion Romanovitch,” he added after a brief pause, “that’s why +you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal +openly with you.” +“It was not I murdered her,” Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened +child caught in the act. +“No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else,” Porfiry +whispered sternly, with conviction. +They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten +minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his fingers +through his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly +Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry. +“You are at your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovitch! Your old method +again. I wonder you don’t get sick of it!” +“Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different +matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone. You +see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a hare. +Whether you confess it or not is nothing to me now; for myself, I am +convinced without it.” +“If so, what did you come for?” Raskolnikov asked irritably. “I ask you +the same question again: if you consider me guilty, why don’t you take +me to prison?” +“Oh, that’s your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the +first place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest.” +“How so? If you are convinced you ought....” +“Ach, what if I am convinced? That’s only my dream for the time. Why +should I put you in safety? You know that’s it, since you ask me to do +it. If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him +‘were you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be +drunk, and you were drunk, too.’ Well, what could I answer, especially +as your story is a more likely one than his? for there’s nothing but +psychology to support his evidence--that’s almost unseemly with his ugly +mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate +drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly several +times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways and that the +second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that apart from +that I have as yet nothing against you. And though I shall put you in +prison and indeed have come--quite contrary to etiquette--to inform you +of it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also contrary to etiquette, +that it won’t be to my advantage. Well, secondly, I’ve come to you +because...” +“Yes, yes, secondly?” Raskolnikov was listening breathless. +“Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe you an explanation. I +don’t want you to look upon me as a monster, as I have a genuine liking +for you, you may believe me or not. And in the third place I’ve come to +you with a direct and open proposition--that you should surrender +and confess. It will be infinitely more to your advantage and to my +advantage too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my part +or not?” +Raskolnikov thought a minute. +“Listen, Porfiry Petrovitch. You said just now you have nothing but +psychology to go on, yet now you’ve gone on mathematics. Well, what if +you are mistaken yourself, now?” +“No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I have a little fact even +then, Providence sent it me.” +“What little fact?” +“I won’t tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And in any case, I haven’t +the right to put it off any longer, I must arrest you. So think it over: +it makes no difference to me _now_ and so I speak only for your sake. +Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch.” +Raskolnikov smiled malignantly. +“That’s not simply ridiculous, it’s positively shameless. Why, even if I +were guilty, which I don’t admit, what reason should I have to confess, +when you tell me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison?” +“Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don’t put too much faith in words, perhaps +prison will not be altogether a restful place. That’s only theory and +my theory, and what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now I am +hiding something from you? I can’t lay bare everything, he-he! And how +can you ask what advantage? Don’t you know how it would lessen your +sentence? You would be confessing at a moment when another man has taken +the crime on himself and so has muddled the whole case. Consider that! I +swear before God that I will so arrange that your confession shall +come as a complete surprise. We will make a clean sweep of all these +psychological points, of a suspicion against you, so that your crime +will appear to have been something like an aberration, for in truth it +was an aberration. I am an honest man, Rodion Romanovitch, and will keep +my word.” +Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and let his head sink +dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his +smile was sad and gentle. +“No!” he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to keep up appearances +with Porfiry, “it’s not worth it, I don’t care about lessening the +sentence!” +“That’s just what I was afraid of!” Porfiry cried warmly and, as it +seemed, involuntarily. “That’s just what I feared, that you wouldn’t +care about the mitigation of sentence.” +Raskolnikov looked sadly and expressively at him. +“Ah, don’t disdain life!” Porfiry went on. “You have a great deal of +it still before you. How can you say you don’t want a mitigation of +sentence? You are an impatient fellow!” +“A great deal of what lies before me?” +“Of life. What sort of prophet are you, do you know much about it? Seek +and ye shall find. This may be God’s means for bringing you to Him. And +it’s not for ever, the bondage....” +“The time will be shortened,” laughed Raskolnikov. +“Why, is it the bourgeois disgrace you are afraid of? It may be that you +are afraid of it without knowing it, because you are young! But anyway +_you_ shouldn’t be afraid of giving yourself up and confessing.” +“Ach, hang it!” Raskolnikov whispered with loathing and contempt, as +though he did not want to speak aloud. +He got up again as though he meant to go away, but sat down again in +evident despair. +“Hang it, if you like! You’ve lost faith and you think that I am +grossly flattering you; but how long has your life been? How much do +you understand? You made up a theory and then were ashamed that it broke +down and turned out to be not at all original! It turned out something +base, that’s true, but you are not hopelessly base. By no means so base! +At least you didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went straight to the +furthest point at one bound. How do I regard you? I regard you as one +of those men who would stand and smile at their torturer while he cuts +their entrails out, if only they have found faith or God. Find it and +you will live. You have long needed a change of air. Suffering, too, +is a good thing. Suffer! Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting to suffer. +I know you don’t believe in it--but don’t be over-wise; fling yourself +straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid--the flood +will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again. What +bank? How can I tell? I only believe that you have long life before +you. I know that you take all my words now for a set speech prepared +beforehand, but maybe you will remember them after. They may be of use +some time. That’s why I speak. It’s as well that you only killed the +old woman. If you’d invented another theory you might perhaps have +done something a thousand times more hideous. You ought to thank God, +perhaps. How do you know? Perhaps God is saving you for something. +But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you afraid of the great +expiation before you? No, it would be shameful to be afraid of it. Since +you have taken such a step, you must harden your heart. There is justice +in it. You must fulfil the demands of justice. I know that you don’t +believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it +down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!” +Raskolnikov positively started. +“But who are you? what prophet are you? From the height of what majestic +calm do you proclaim these words of wisdom?” +“Who am I? I am a man with nothing to hope for, that’s all. A man +perhaps of feeling and sympathy, maybe of some knowledge too, but my day +is over. But you are a different matter, there is life waiting for you. +Though, who knows? maybe your life, too, will pass off in smoke and come +to nothing. Come, what does it matter, that you will pass into another +class of men? It’s not comfort you regret, with your heart! What of +it that perhaps no one will see you for so long? It’s not time, but +yourself that will decide that. Be the sun and all will see you. The +sun has before all to be the sun. Why are you smiling again? At my being +such a Schiller? I bet you’re imagining that I am trying to get round +you by flattery. Well, perhaps I am, he-he-he! Perhaps you’d better not +believe my word, perhaps you’d better never believe it altogether--I’m +made that way, I confess it. But let me add, you can judge for yourself, +I think, how far I am a base sort of man and how far I am honest.” +“When do you mean to arrest me?” +“Well, I can let you walk about another day or two. Think it over, my +dear fellow, and pray to God. It’s more in your interest, believe me.” +“And what if I run away?” asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile. +“No, you won’t run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable +dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man’s thought, for +you’ve only to show him the end of your little finger and he’ll be ready +to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you’ve ceased to +believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what +would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and +what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an +atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If +you ran away, you’d come back to yourself. _You can’t get on without +us._ And if I put you in prison--say you’ve been there a month, or two, +or three--remember my word, you’ll confess of yourself and perhaps to +your own surprise. You won’t know an hour beforehand that you are coming +with a confession. I am convinced that you will decide, ‘to take your +suffering.’ You don’t believe my words now, but you’ll come to it of +yourself. For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never +mind my having grown fat, I know all the same. Don’t laugh at it, +there’s an idea in suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won’t run away, +Rodion Romanovitch.” +Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Porfiry Petrovitch also rose. +“Are you going for a walk? The evening will be fine, if only we don’t +have a storm. Though it would be a good thing to freshen the air.” +He, too, took his cap. +“Porfiry Petrovitch, please don’t take up the notion that I have +confessed to you to-day,” Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen insistence. +“You’re a strange man and I have listened to you from simple curiosity. +But I have admitted nothing, remember that!” +“Oh, I know that, I’ll remember. Look at him, he’s trembling! Don’t +be uneasy, my dear fellow, have it your own way. Walk about a bit, you +won’t be able to walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request +to make of you,” he added, dropping his voice. “It’s an awkward one, but +important. If anything were to happen (though indeed I don’t believe +in it and think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were taken +during these forty or fifty hours with the notion of putting an end to +the business in some other way, in some fantastic fashion--laying hands +on yourself--(it’s an absurd proposition, but you must forgive me for +it) do leave a brief but precise note, only two lines, and mention the +stone. It will be more generous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and +sound decisions to you!” +Porfiry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at Raskolnikov. The +latter went to the window and waited with irritable impatience till he +calculated that Porfiry had reached the street and moved away. Then he +too went hurriedly out of the room. +CHAPTER III +He hurried to Svidrigaïlov’s. What he had to hope from that man he +did not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having once +recognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come. +On the way, one question particularly worried him: had Svidrigaïlov been +to Porfiry’s? +As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. He +pondered again and again, went over Porfiry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been, +of course he hadn’t. +But if he had not been yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present he +fancied he couldn’t. Why? He could not have explained, but if he could, +he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all +worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to +say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague +anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety +tormented him--it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way. +Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was +working better that morning than it had done of late. +And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend with +these new trivial difficulties? Was it worth while, for instance, to +manoeuvre that Svidrigaïlov should not go to Porfiry’s? Was it worth +while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyone +like Svidrigaïlov? +Oh, how sick he was of it all! +And yet he was hastening to Svidrigaïlov; could he be expecting +something _new_ from him, information, or means of escape? Men will +catch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together? +Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigaïlov +but some other whom he needed, and Svidrigaïlov had simply presented +himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To beg +her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him as +an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that moment +especially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not be +better to try Svidrigaïlov? And he could not help inwardly owning that +he had long felt that he must see him for some reason. +But what could they have in common? Their very evil-doing could not +be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently +depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such +stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina +Ivanovna’s children, but who could tell with what motive and what it +meant? The man always had some design, some project. +There was another thought which had been continually hovering of late +about Raskolnikov’s mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was so +painful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes +thought that Svidrigaïlov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigaïlov had +found out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had them +still? Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if, having +learnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use it +as a weapon against Dounia? +This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never +presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigaïlov. +The very thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would +transform everything, even his own position; he would have at once to +confess his secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhaps +to prevent Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning +Dounia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in +Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It’s true Razumihin was there to protect +her, but Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his duty +to tell Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance. +In any case he must see Svidrigaïlov as soon as possible, he decided +finally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of little +consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; but +if Svidrigaïlov were capable... if he were intriguing against +Dounia--then... +Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that month +that he could only decide such questions in one way; “then I shall kill +him,” he thought in cold despair. +A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle of +the street and began looking about to see where he was and which way he +was going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces from +the Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey of +the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wide +open; judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms were +full to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet and +violin, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women shrieking. +He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to the X. Prospect, +when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw Svidrigaïlov, sitting +at a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth. +Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigaïlov +was silently watching and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikov +at once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away unobserved. +Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking +absent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye. +His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident that Svidrigaïlov +did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was on +the point of concealing himself, but as he got up and moved back his +chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seen +him, and was watching him. What had passed between them was much the +same as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room. A +sly smile came into Svidrigaïlov’s face and grew broader and +broader. Each knew that he was seen and watched by the other. At last +Svidrigaïlov broke into a loud laugh. +“Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he shouted from the +window. +Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigaïlov in a tiny +back room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and numbers +of people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the +desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard balls +could be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigaïlov stood +an open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he found +also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girl +of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with +ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some +servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of +the organ. +“Come, that’s enough,” Svidrigaïlov stopped her at Raskolnikov’s +entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully. +She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful +expression in her face. +“Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigaïlov. +“I won’t drink anything,” said Raskolnikov. +“As you like, I didn��t mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don’t want +anything more to-day, you can go.” He poured her out a full glass, and +laid down a yellow note. +Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it down, +in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigaïlov’s hand, which he +allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailed +after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street. +Svidrigaïlov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about him +was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing; the waiter, Philip, +was by now an old friend and very obsequious. +The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigaïlov was at +home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was +dirty and wretched, not even second-rate. +“I was going to see you and looking for you,” Raskolnikov began, “but +I don’t know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospect +just now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the Hay +Market. And this isn’t the way to you. I simply turned and here you are. +It is strange!” +“Why don’t you say at once ‘it’s a miracle’?” +“Because it may be only chance.” +“Oh, that’s the way with all you folk,” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “You won’t +admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say +that it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about +having an opinion of their own, you can’t fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I +don’t mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to +have it. That’s how it was you attracted my curiosity.” +“Nothing else?” +“Well, that’s enough, you know,” Svidrigaïlov was obviously exhilarated, +but only slightly so, he had not had more than half a glass of wine. +“I fancy you came to see me before you knew that I was capable of having +what you call an opinion of my own,” observed Raskolnikov. +“Oh, well, it was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. And +apropos of the miracle let me tell you that I think you have been asleep +for the last two or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, there +is no miracle in your coming straight here. I explained the way myself, +told you where it was, and the hours you could find me here. Do you +remember?” +“I don’t remember,” answered Raskolnikov with surprise. +“I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stamped +mechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and yet +precisely according to the direction, though you are not aware of +it. When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You give +yourself away too much, Rodion Romanovitch. And another thing, I’m +convinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselves +as they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scientific +men, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make most valuable +investigations in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few places +where there are so many gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soul +of man as in Petersburg. The mere influences of climate mean so much. +And it’s the administrative centre of all Russia and its character must +be reflected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor there +now. The point is that I have several times watched you. You walk out +of your house--holding your head high--twenty paces from home you let it +sink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and evidently see +nothing before nor beside you. At last you begin moving your lips and +talking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and declaim, and at +last stand still in the middle of the road. That’s not at all the thing. +Someone may be watching you besides me, and it won’t do you any good. +It’s nothing really to do with me and I can’t cure you, but, of course, +you understand me.” +“Do you know that I am being followed?” asked Raskolnikov, looking +inquisitively at him. +“No, I know nothing about it,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming surprised. +“Well, then, let us leave me alone,” Raskolnikov muttered, frowning. +“Very good, let us leave you alone.” +“You had better tell me, if you come here to drink, and directed me +twice to come here to you, why did you hide, and try to get away just +now when I looked at the window from the street? I saw it.” +“He-he! And why was it you lay on your sofa with closed eyes and +pretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in your +doorway? I saw it.” +“I may have had... reasons. You know that yourself.” +“And I may have had my reasons, though you don’t know them.” +Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the table, leaned his chin in the +fingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigaïlov. For a +full minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. It +was a strange face, like a mask; white and red, with bright red lips, +with a flaxen beard, and still thick flaxen hair. His eyes were somehow +too blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There was +something awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so +wonderfully young for his age. Svidrigaïlov was smartly dressed in light +summer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a huge +ring with a precious stone in it. +“Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now?” said Raskolnikov +suddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. “Even +though perhaps you are the most dangerous man if you care to injure me, +I don’t want to put myself out any more. I will show you at once that I +don’t prize myself as you probably think I do. I’ve come to tell you at +once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister +and if you think to derive any benefit in that direction from what has +been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up. +You can reckon on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the +second place if you want to tell me anything--for I keep fancying all +this time that you have something to tell me--make haste and tell it, +for time is precious and very likely it will soon be too late.” +“Why in such haste?” asked Svidrigaïlov, looking at him curiously. +“Everyone has his plans,” Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently. +“You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the first question +you refuse to answer,” Svidrigaïlov observed with a smile. “You +keep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with +suspicion. Of course it’s perfectly natural in your position. But +though I should like to be friends with you, I shan’t trouble myself +to convince you of the contrary. The game isn’t worth the candle and I +wasn’t intending to talk to you about anything special.” +“What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging about me.” +“Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the +fantastic nature of your position--that’s what it was! Besides you are +the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that person +I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I +gathered that you had a great influence over her; isn’t that enough? +Ha-ha-ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex, and +is difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me +not only for a definite object, but for the sake of hearing something +new. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?” persisted Svidrigaïlov with a sly +smile. “Well, can’t you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in the +train was reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on my +making some profit out of you! You see what rich men we are!” +“What profit could you make?” +“How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in what a tavern I spend all +my time and it’s my enjoyment, that’s to say it’s no great enjoyment, +but one must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now--you saw her?... If only +I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this.” +He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a +terrible-looking beef-steak and potatoes lay on a tin dish. +“Have you dined, by the way? I’ve had something and want nothing more. +I don’t drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never touch +anything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and even +that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind +myself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in a +peculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a +schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe,” he +pulled out his watch, “I can spend an hour with you. It’s half-past +four now. If only I’d been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry +officer, a photographer, a journalist... I am nothing, no specialty, +and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me +something new.” +“But what are you, and why have you come here?” +“What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the +cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa +Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography!” +“You are a gambler, I believe?” +“No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-sharper--not a gambler.” +“You have been a card-sharper then?” +“Yes, I’ve been a card-sharper too.” +“Didn’t you get thrashed sometimes?” +“It did happen. Why?” +“Why, you might have challenged them... altogether it must have been +lively.” +“I won’t contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. I +confess that I hastened here for the sake of the women.” +“As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?” +“Quite so,” Svidrigaïlov smiled with engaging candour. “What of it? You +seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women?” +“You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice?” +“Vice! Oh, that’s what you are after! But I’ll answer you in order, +first about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, +what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I +have a passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.” +“So you hope for nothing here but vice?” +“Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway +I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something +permanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy, +something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, for ever +setting one on fire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, even +with years. You’ll agree it’s an occupation of a sort.” +“That’s nothing to rejoice at, it’s a disease and a dangerous one.” +“Oh, that’s what you think, is it! I agree, that it is a disease like +everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one must +exceed moderation. But in the first place, everybody does so in one way +or another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderate +and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn’t +this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent +man ought to put up with being bored, but yet...” +“And could you shoot yourself?” +“Oh, come!” Svidrigaïlov parried with disgust. “Please don’t speak of +it,” he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shown +in all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. “I admit it’s +an unpardonable weakness, but I can’t help it. I am afraid of death and +I dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extent +a mystic?” +“Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting +you?” +“Oh, don’t talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg, confound +them!” he cried with an air of irritation. “Let’s rather talk of that... +though... H’m! I have not much time, and can’t stay long with you, +it’s a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you.” +“What’s your engagement, a woman?” +“Yes, a woman, a casual incident.... No, that’s not what I want to talk +of.” +“And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn’t +that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?” +“And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me just +now, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be so. +You preach to me about vice and æsthetics! You--a Schiller, you--an +idealist! Of course that’s all as it should be and it would be +surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange in reality.... Ah, +what a pity I have no time, for you’re a most interesting type! And, +by-the-way, are you fond of Schiller? I am awfully fond of him.” +“But what a braggart you are,” Raskolnikov said with some disgust. +“Upon my word, I am not,” answered Svidrigaïlov laughing. “However, I +won’t dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no +one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when +I come across an intelligent person like you--intelligent and highly +interesting--I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I’ve drunk that +half-glass of champagne and it’s gone to my head a little. And besides, +there’s a certain fact that has wound me up tremendously, but about that +I... will keep quiet. Where are you off to?” he asked in alarm. +Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt oppressed and stifled and, +as it were, ill at ease at having come here. He felt convinced that +Svidrigaïlov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth. +“A-ach! Sit down, stay a little!” Svidrigaïlov begged. “Let them bring +you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won’t talk nonsense, about +myself, I mean. I’ll tell you something. If you like I’ll tell you how a +woman tried ‘to save’ me, as you would call it? It will be an answer to +your first question indeed, for the woman was your sister. May I tell +you? It will help to spend the time.” +“Tell me, but I trust that you...” +“Oh, don’t be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless low fellow like me, +Avdotya Romanovna can only excite the deepest respect.” +CHAPTER IV +“You know perhaps--yes, I told you myself,” began Svidrigaïlov, “that +I was in the debtors’ prison here, for an immense sum, and had not +any expectation of being able to pay it. There’s no need to go into +particulars how Marfa Petrovna bought me out; do you know to what a +point of insanity a woman can sometimes love? She was an honest woman, +and very sensible, although completely uneducated. Would you believe +that this honest and jealous woman, after many scenes of hysterics and +reproaches, condescended to enter into a kind of contract with me which +she kept throughout our married life? She was considerably older than +I, and besides, she always kept a clove or something in her mouth. There +was so much swinishness in my soul and honesty too, of a sort, as to +tell her straight out that I couldn’t be absolutely faithful to her. +This confession drove her to frenzy, but yet she seems in a way to have +liked my brutal frankness. She thought it showed I was unwilling to +deceive her if I warned her like this beforehand and for a jealous +woman, you know, that’s the first consideration. After many tears an +unwritten contract was drawn up between us: first, that I would never +leave Marfa Petrovna and would always be her husband; secondly, that I +would never absent myself without her permission; thirdly, that I would +never set up a permanent mistress; fourthly, in return for this, Marfa +Petrovna gave me a free hand with the maidservants, but only with her +secret knowledge; fifthly, God forbid my falling in love with a woman of +our class; sixthly, in case I--which God forbid--should be visited by +a great serious passion I was bound to reveal it to Marfa Petrovna. On +this last score, however, Marfa Petrovna was fairly at ease. She was a +sensible woman and so she could not help looking upon me as a dissolute +profligate incapable of real love. But a sensible woman and a jealous +woman are two very different things, and that’s where the trouble +came in. But to judge some people impartially we must renounce certain +preconceived opinions and our habitual attitude to the ordinary people +about us. I have reason to have faith in your judgment rather than +in anyone’s. Perhaps you have already heard a great deal that was +ridiculous and absurd about Marfa Petrovna. She certainly had some very +ridiculous ways, but I tell you frankly that I feel really sorry for the +innumerable woes of which I was the cause. Well, and that’s enough, I +think, by way of a decorous _oraison funèbre_ for the most tender wife +of a most tender husband. When we quarrelled, I usually held my tongue +and did not irritate her and that gentlemanly conduct rarely failed to +attain its object, it influenced her, it pleased her, indeed. These were +times when she was positively proud of me. But your sister she couldn’t +put up with, anyway. And however she came to risk taking such a +beautiful creature into her house as a governess. My explanation is that +Marfa Petrovna was an ardent and impressionable woman and simply fell +in love herself--literally fell in love--with your sister. Well, little +wonder--look at Avdotya Romanovna! I saw the danger at the first glance +and what do you think, I resolved not to look at her even. But Avdotya +Romanovna herself made the first step, would you believe it? Would you +believe it too that Marfa Petrovna was positively angry with me at first +for my persistent silence about your sister, for my careless reception +of her continual adoring praises of Avdotya Romanovna. I don’t know +what it was she wanted! Well, of course, Marfa Petrovna told Avdotya +Romanovna every detail about me. She had the unfortunate habit of +telling literally everyone all our family secrets and continually +complaining of me; how could she fail to confide in such a delightful +new friend? I expect they talked of nothing else but me and no doubt +Avdotya Romanovna heard all those dark mysterious rumours that were +current about me.... I don’t mind betting that you too have heard +something of the sort already?” +“I have. Luzhin charged you with having caused the death of a child. Is +that true?” +“Don’t refer to those vulgar tales, I beg,” said Svidrigaïlov with +disgust and annoyance. “If you insist on wanting to know about all that +idiocy, I will tell you one day, but now...” +“I was told too about some footman of yours in the country whom you +treated badly.” +“I beg you to drop the subject,” Svidrigaïlov interrupted again with +obvious impatience. +“Was that the footman who came to you after death to fill your pipe?... +you told me about it yourself.” Raskolnikov felt more and more +irritated. +Svidrigaïlov looked at him attentively and Raskolnikov fancied he caught +a flash of spiteful mockery in that look. But Svidrigaïlov restrained +himself and answered very civilly: +“Yes, it was. I see that you, too, are extremely interested and shall +feel it my duty to satisfy your curiosity at the first opportunity. Upon +my soul! I see that I really might pass for a romantic figure with +some people. Judge how grateful I must be to Marfa Petrovna for having +repeated to Avdotya Romanovna such mysterious and interesting gossip +about me. I dare not guess what impression it made on her, but in any +case it worked in my interests. With all Avdotya Romanovna’s natural +aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect--she +did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a +girl’s heart is moved to _pity_, it’s more dangerous than anything. She +is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift +him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and +usefulness--well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once +that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. +I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need. As you +know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) +Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn’t +your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as +the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia +Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure +martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot +pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or +fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and +would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and +visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and +if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself out of a window. I’ve +heard something of a Mr. Razumihin--he’s said to be a sensible fellow; +his surname suggests it, indeed. He’s probably a divinity student. Well, +he’d better look after your sister! I believe I understand her, and I am +proud of it. But at the beginning of an acquaintance, as you know, one +is apt to be more heedless and stupid. One doesn’t see clearly. Hang it +all, why is she so handsome? It’s not my fault. In fact, it began on +my side with a most irresistible physical desire. Avdotya Romanovna is +awfully chaste, incredibly and phenomenally so. Take note, I tell you +this about your sister as a fact. She is almost morbidly chaste, in +spite of her broad intelligence, and it will stand in her way. There +happened to be a girl in the house then, Parasha, a black-eyed +wench, whom I had never seen before--she had just come from another +village--very pretty, but incredibly stupid: she burst into tears, +wailed so that she could be heard all over the place and caused scandal. +One day after dinner Avdotya Romanovna followed me into an avenue in +the garden and with flashing eyes _insisted_ on my leaving poor Parasha +alone. It was almost our first conversation by ourselves. I, of course, +was only too pleased to obey her wishes, tried to appear disconcerted, +embarrassed, in fact played my part not badly. Then came interviews, +mysterious conversations, exhortations, entreaties, supplications, even +tears--would you believe it, even tears? Think what the passion for +propaganda will bring some girls to! I, of course, threw it all on +my destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for light, and finally +resorted to the most powerful weapon in the subjection of the +female heart, a weapon which never fails one. It’s the well-known +resource--flattery. Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the +truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s the hundredth part +of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that +leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it +is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be +a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the +flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all +stages of development and classes of society. A vestal virgin might be +seduced by flattery. I can never remember without laughter how I once +seduced a lady who was devoted to her husband, her children, and her +principles. What fun it was and how little trouble! And the lady really +had principles--of her own, anyway. All my tactics lay in simply being +utterly annihilated and prostrate before her purity. I flattered her +shamelessly, and as soon as I succeeded in getting a pressure of +the hand, even a glance from her, I would reproach myself for having +snatched it by force, and would declare that she had resisted, so that +I could never have gained anything but for my being so unprincipled. +I maintained that she was so innocent that she could not foresee my +treachery, and yielded to me unconsciously, unawares, and so on. In +fact, I triumphed, while my lady remained firmly convinced that she was +innocent, chaste, and faithful to all her duties and obligations and +had succumbed quite by accident. And how angry she was with me when I +explained to her at last that it was my sincere conviction that she was +just as eager as I. Poor Marfa Petrovna was awfully weak on the side of +flattery, and if I had only cared to, I might have had all her property +settled on me during her lifetime. (I am drinking an awful lot of wine +now and talking too much.) I hope you won’t be angry if I mention now +that I was beginning to produce the same effect on Avdotya Romanovna. +But I was stupid and impatient and spoiled it all. Avdotya Romanovna had +several times--and one time in particular--been greatly displeased by +the expression of my eyes, would you believe it? There was sometimes a +light in them which frightened her and grew stronger and stronger and +more unguarded till it was hateful to her. No need to go into detail, +but we parted. There I acted stupidly again. I fell to jeering in the +coarsest way at all such propaganda and efforts to convert me; Parasha +came on to the scene again, and not she alone; in fact there was a +tremendous to-do. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, if you could only see how your +sister’s eyes can flash sometimes! Never mind my being drunk at this +moment and having had a whole glass of wine. I am speaking the truth. +I assure you that this glance has haunted my dreams; the very rustle of +her dress was more than I could stand at last. I really began to think +that I might become epileptic. I could never have believed that I could +be moved to such a frenzy. It was essential, indeed, to be reconciled, +but by then it was impossible. And imagine what I did then! To what +a pitch of stupidity a man can be brought by frenzy! Never undertake +anything in a frenzy, Rodion Romanovitch. I reflected that Avdotya +Romanovna was after all a beggar (ach, excuse me, that’s not the word... +but does it matter if it expresses the meaning?), that she lived by +her work, that she had her mother and you to keep (ach, hang it, you +are frowning again), and I resolved to offer her all my money--thirty +thousand roubles I could have realised then--if she would run away with +me here, to Petersburg. Of course I should have vowed eternal love, +rapture, and so on. Do you know, I was so wild about her at that time +that if she had told me to poison Marfa Petrovna or to cut her throat +and to marry herself, it would have been done at once! But it ended in +the catastrophe of which you know already. You can fancy how frantic I +was when I heard that Marfa Petrovna had got hold of that scoundrelly +attorney, Luzhin, and had almost made a match between them--which would +really have been just the same thing as I was proposing. Wouldn’t it? +Wouldn’t it? I notice that you’ve begun to be very attentive... you +interesting young man....” +Svidrigaïlov struck the table with his fist impatiently. He was flushed. +Raskolnikov saw clearly that the glass or glass and a half of champagne +that he had sipped almost unconsciously was affecting him--and he +resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. He felt very suspicious +of Svidrigaïlov. +“Well, after what you have said, I am fully convinced that you have +come to Petersburg with designs on my sister,” he said directly to +Svidrigaïlov, in order to irritate him further. +“Oh, nonsense,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming to rouse himself. “Why, I +told you... besides your sister can’t endure me.” +“Yes, I am certain that she can’t, but that’s not the point.” +“Are you so sure that she can’t?” Svidrigaïlov screwed up his eyes and +smiled mockingly. “You are right, she doesn’t love me, but you can +never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and +mistress. There’s always a little corner which remains a secret to +the world and is only known to those two. Will you answer for it that +Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion?” +“From some words you’ve dropped, I notice that you still have +designs--and of course evil ones--on Dounia and mean to carry them out +promptly.” +“What, have I dropped words like that?” Svidrigaïlov asked in naïve +dismay, taking not the slightest notice of the epithet bestowed on his +designs. +“Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are you so frightened? What +are you so afraid of now?” +“Me--afraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be afraid of me, _cher +ami_. But what nonsense.... I’ve drunk too much though, I see that. I +was almost saying too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there, water!” +He snatched up the champagne bottle and flung it without ceremony out of +the window. Philip brought the water. +“That’s all nonsense!” said Svidrigaïlov, wetting a towel and putting it +to his head. “But I can answer you in one word and annihilate all your +suspicions. Do you know that I am going to get married?” +“You told me so before.” +“Did I? I’ve forgotten. But I couldn’t have told you so for certain for +I had not even seen my betrothed; I only meant to. But now I really +have a betrothed and it’s a settled thing, and if it weren’t that I have +business that can’t be put off, I would have taken you to see them +at once, for I should like to ask your advice. Ach, hang it, only ten +minutes left! See, look at the watch. But I must tell you, for it’s an +interesting story, my marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to? +Going again?” +“No, I’m not going away now.” +“Not at all? We shall see. I’ll take you there, I’ll show you my +betrothed, only not now. For you’ll soon have to be off. You have to go +to the right and I to the left. Do you know that Madame Resslich, the +woman I am lodging with now, eh? I know what you’re thinking, that she’s +the woman whose girl they say drowned herself in the winter. Come, are +you listening? She arranged it all for me. You’re bored, she said, +you want something to fill up your time. For, you know, I am a gloomy, +depressed person. Do you think I’m light-hearted? No, I’m gloomy. I do +no harm, but sit in a corner without speaking a word for three days at a +time. And that Resslich is a sly hussy, I tell you. I know what she has +got in her mind; she thinks I shall get sick of it, abandon my wife and +depart, and she’ll get hold of her and make a profit out of her--in our +class, of course, or higher. She told me the father was a broken-down +retired official, who has been sitting in a chair for the last three +years with his legs paralysed. The mamma, she said, was a sensible +woman. There is a son serving in the provinces, but he doesn’t help; +there is a daughter, who is married, but she doesn’t visit them. And +they’ve two little nephews on their hands, as though their own children +were not enough, and they’ve taken from school their youngest daughter, +a girl who’ll be sixteen in another month, so that then she can be +married. She was for me. We went there. How funny it was! I present +myself--a landowner, a widower, of a well-known name, with connections, +with a fortune. What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen? Who thinks +of that? But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It is fascinating, ha-ha! You +should have seen how I talked to the papa and mamma. It was worth paying +to have seen me at that moment. She comes in, curtseys, you can fancy, +still in a short frock--an unopened bud! Flushing like a sunset--she had +been told, no doubt. I don’t know how you feel about female faces, but +to my mind these sixteen years, these childish eyes, shyness and tears +of bashfulness are better than beauty; and she is a perfect little +picture, too. Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb’s, full little rosy +lips, tiny feet, a charmer!... Well, we made friends. I told them I was +in a hurry owing to domestic circumstances, and the next day, that is +the day before yesterday, we were betrothed. When I go now I take her on +my knee at once and keep her there.... Well, she flushes like a sunset +and I kiss her every minute. Her mamma of course impresses on her that +this is her husband and that this must be so. It’s simply delicious! The +present betrothed condition is perhaps better than marriage. Here you +have what is called _la nature et la vérité_, ha-ha! I’ve talked to her +twice, she is far from a fool. Sometimes she steals a look at me that +positively scorches me. Her face is like Raphael’s Madonna. You know, +the Sistine Madonna’s face has something fantastic in it, the face +of mournful religious ecstasy. Haven’t you noticed it? Well, she’s +something in that line. The day after we’d been betrothed, I bought her +presents to the value of fifteen hundred roubles--a set of diamonds and +another of pearls and a silver dressing-case as large as this, with all +sorts of things in it, so that even my Madonna’s face glowed. I sat her +on my knee, yesterday, and I suppose rather too unceremoniously--she +flushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn’t want to show it. +We were left alone, she suddenly flung herself on my neck (for the first +time of her own accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and +vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good wife, would make +me happy, would devote all her life, every minute of her life, would +sacrifice everything, everything, and that all she asks in return is +my _respect_, and that she wants ‘nothing, nothing more from me, no +presents.’ You’ll admit that to hear such a confession, alone, from an +angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with little curls, with a flush +of maiden shyness in her cheeks and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is +rather fascinating! Isn’t it fascinating? It’s worth paying for, isn’t +it? Well... listen, we’ll go to see my betrothed, only not just now!” +“The fact is this monstrous difference in age and development excites +your sensuality! Will you really make such a marriage?” +“Why, of course. Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily who +knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha! But why are you so keen about +virtue? Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful man. Ha-ha-ha!” +“But you have provided for the children of Katerina Ivanovna. Though... +though you had your own reasons.... I understand it all now.” +“I am always fond of children, very fond of them,” laughed Svidrigaïlov. +“I can tell you one curious instance of it. The first day I came here I +visited various haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at them. You +probably notice that I am not in a hurry to renew acquaintance with my +old friends. I shall do without them as long as I can. Do you know, when +I was with Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was haunted by the thought +of these places where anyone who knows his way about can find a great +deal. Yes, upon my soul! The peasants have vodka, the educated young +people, shut out from activity, waste themselves in impossible dreams +and visions and are crippled by theories; Jews have sprung up and are +amassing money, and all the rest give themselves up to debauchery. From +the first hour the town reeked of its familiar odours. I chanced to be +in a frightful den--I like my dens dirty--it was a dance, so called, and +there was a _cancan_ such as I never saw in my day. Yes, there you +have progress. All of a sudden I saw a little girl of thirteen, nicely +dressed, dancing with a specialist in that line, with another one +_vis-à-vis_. Her mother was sitting on a chair by the wall. You can’t +fancy what a _cancan_ that was! The girl was ashamed, blushed, at +last felt insulted, and began to cry. Her partner seized her and began +whirling her round and performing before her; everyone laughed and--I +like your public, even the _cancan_ public--they laughed and shouted, +‘Serves her right--serves her right! Shouldn’t bring children!’ Well, +it’s not my business whether that consoling reflection was logical or +not. I at once fixed on my plan, sat down by the mother, and began by +saying that I too was a stranger and that people here were ill-bred and +that they couldn’t distinguish decent folks and treat them with respect, +gave her to understand that I had plenty of money, offered to take them +home in my carriage. I took them home and got to know them. They were +lodging in a miserable little hole and had only just arrived from the +country. She told me that she and her daughter could only regard my +acquaintance as an honour. I found out that they had nothing of their +own and had come to town upon some legal business. I proffered my +services and money. I learnt that they had gone to the dancing saloon +by mistake, believing that it was a genuine dancing class. I offered to +assist in the young girl’s education in French and dancing. My offer was +accepted with enthusiasm as an honour--and we are still friendly.... If +you like, we’ll go and see them, only not just now.” +“Stop! Enough of your vile, nasty anecdotes, depraved vile, sensual +man!” +“Schiller, you are a regular Schiller! _O la vertu va-t-elle se nicher?_ +But you know I shall tell you these things on purpose, for the pleasure +of hearing your outcries!” +“I dare say. I can see I am ridiculous myself,” muttered Raskolnikov +angrily. +Svidrigaïlov laughed heartily; finally he called Philip, paid his bill, +and began getting up. +“I say, but I am drunk, _assez causé_,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure.” +“I should rather think it must be a pleasure!” cried Raskolnikov, +getting up. “No doubt it is a pleasure for a worn-out profligate to +describe such adventures with a monstrous project of the same sort in +his mind--especially under such circumstances and to such a man as +me.... It’s stimulating!” +“Well, if you come to that,” Svidrigaïlov answered, scrutinising +Raskolnikov with some surprise, “if you come to that, you are a thorough +cynic yourself. You’ve plenty to make you so, anyway. You can understand +a great deal... and you can do a great deal too. But enough. I sincerely +regret not having had more talk with you, but I shan’t lose sight of +you.... Only wait a bit.” +Svidrigaïlov walked out of the restaurant. Raskolnikov walked out after +him. Svidrigaïlov was not however very drunk, the wine had affected him +for a moment, but it was passing off every minute. He was preoccupied +with something of importance and was frowning. He was apparently excited +and uneasy in anticipation of something. His manner to Raskolnikov had +changed during the last few minutes, and he was ruder and more sneering +every moment. Raskolnikov noticed all this, and he too was uneasy. He +became very suspicious of Svidrigaïlov and resolved to follow him. +They came out on to the pavement. +“You go to the right, and I to the left, or if you like, the other way. +Only _adieu, mon plaisir_, may we meet again.” +And he walked to the right towards the Hay Market. +CHAPTER V +Raskolnikov walked after him. +“What’s this?” cried Svidrigaïlov turning round, “I thought I said...” +“It means that I am not going to lose sight of you now.” +“What?” +Both stood still and gazed at one another, as though measuring their +strength. +“From all your half tipsy stories,” Raskolnikov observed harshly, “I am +_positive_ that you have not given up your designs on my sister, but +are pursuing them more actively than ever. I have learnt that my sister +received a letter this morning. You have hardly been able to sit still +all this time.... You may have unearthed a wife on the way, but that +means nothing. I should like to make certain myself.” +Raskolnikov could hardly have said himself what he wanted and of what he +wished to make certain. +“Upon my word! I’ll call the police!” +“Call away!” +Again they stood for a minute facing each other. At last Svidrigaïlov’s +face changed. Having satisfied himself that Raskolnikov was not +frightened at his threat, he assumed a mirthful and friendly air. +“What a fellow! I purposely refrained from referring to your affair, +though I am devoured by curiosity. It’s a fantastic affair. I’ve put it +off till another time, but you’re enough to rouse the dead.... Well, let +us go, only I warn you beforehand I am only going home for a moment, +to get some money; then I shall lock up the flat, take a cab and go to +spend the evening at the Islands. Now, now are you going to follow me?” +“I’m coming to your lodgings, not to see you but Sofya Semyonovna, to +say I’m sorry not to have been at the funeral.” +“That’s as you like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. She has taken +the three children to an old lady of high rank, the patroness of some +orphan asylums, whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the old lady by +depositing a sum of money with her to provide for the three children of +Katerina Ivanovna and subscribing to the institution as well. I told her +too the story of Sofya Semyonovna in full detail, suppressing nothing. +It produced an indescribable effect on her. That’s why Sofya Semyonovna +has been invited to call to-day at the X. Hotel where the lady is +staying for the time.” +“No matter, I’ll come all the same.” +“As you like, it’s nothing to me, but I won’t come with you; here we are +at home. By the way, I am convinced that you regard me with suspicion +just because I have shown such delicacy and have not so far troubled +you with questions... you understand? It struck you as extraordinary; I +don’t mind betting it’s that. Well, it teaches one to show delicacy!” +“And to listen at doors!” +“Ah, that’s it, is it?” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “Yes, I should have been +surprised if you had let that pass after all that has happened. Ha-ha! +Though I did understand something of the pranks you had been up to and +were telling Sofya Semyonovna about, what was the meaning of it? Perhaps +I am quite behind the times and can’t understand. For goodness’ sake, +explain it, my dear boy. Expound the latest theories!” +“You couldn’t have heard anything. You’re making it all up!” +“But I’m not talking about that (though I did hear something). No, I’m +talking of the way you keep sighing and groaning now. The Schiller in +you is in revolt every moment, and now you tell me not to listen at +doors. If that’s how you feel, go and inform the police that you had +this mischance: you made a little mistake in your theory. But if you are +convinced that one mustn’t listen at doors, but one may murder old women +at one’s pleasure, you’d better be off to America and make haste. Run, +young man! There may still be time. I’m speaking sincerely. Haven’t you +the money? I’ll give you the fare.” +“I’m not thinking of that at all,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. +“I understand (but don’t put yourself out, don’t discuss it if you don’t +want to). I understand the questions you are worrying over--moral ones, +aren’t they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside. They are +nothing to you now, ha-ha! You’ll say you are still a man and a citizen. +If so you ought not to have got into this coil. It’s no use taking up a +job you are not fit for. Well, you’d better shoot yourself, or don’t you +want to?” +“You seem trying to enrage me, to make me leave you.” +“What a queer fellow! But here we are. Welcome to the staircase. You +see, that’s the way to Sofya Semyonovna. Look, there is no one at home. +Don’t you believe me? Ask Kapernaumov. She leaves the key with him. Here +is Madame de Kapernaumov herself. Hey, what? She is rather deaf. Has she +gone out? Where? Did you hear? She is not in and won’t be till late in +the evening probably. Well, come to my room; you wanted to come and see +me, didn’t you? Here we are. Madame Resslich’s not at home. She is a +woman who is always busy, an excellent woman I assure you.... She might +have been of use to you if you had been a little more sensible. Now, +see! I take this five-per-cent bond out of the bureau--see what a lot +I’ve got of them still--this one will be turned into cash to-day. I +mustn’t waste any more time. The bureau is locked, the flat is locked, +and here we are again on the stairs. Shall we take a cab? I’m going to +the Islands. Would you like a lift? I’ll take this carriage. Ah, you +refuse? You are tired of it! Come for a drive! I believe it will come on +to rain. Never mind, we’ll put down the hood....” +Svidrigaïlov was already in the carriage. Raskolnikov decided that his +suspicions were at least for that moment unjust. Without answering a +word he turned and walked back towards the Hay Market. If he had only +turned round on his way he might have seen Svidrigaïlov get out not a +hundred paces off, dismiss the cab and walk along the pavement. But he +had turned the corner and could see nothing. Intense disgust drew him +away from Svidrigaïlov. +“To think that I could for one instant have looked for help from that +coarse brute, that depraved sensualist and blackguard!” he cried. +Raskolnikov’s judgment was uttered too lightly and hastily: there was +something about Svidrigaïlov which gave him a certain original, even a +mysterious character. As concerned his sister, Raskolnikov was convinced +that Svidrigaïlov would not leave her in peace. But it was too tiresome +and unbearable to go on thinking and thinking about this. +When he was alone, he had not gone twenty paces before he sank, as +usual, into deep thought. On the bridge he stood by the railing and +began gazing at the water. And his sister was standing close by him. +He met her at the entrance to the bridge, but passed by without seeing +her. Dounia had never met him like this in the street before and was +struck with dismay. She stood still and did not know whether to call +to him or not. Suddenly she saw Svidrigaïlov coming quickly from the +direction of the Hay Market. +He seemed to be approaching cautiously. He did not go on to the +bridge, but stood aside on the pavement, doing all he could to avoid +Raskolnikov’s seeing him. He had observed Dounia for some time and had +been making signs to her. She fancied he was signalling to beg her not +to speak to her brother, but to come to him. +That was what Dounia did. She stole by her brother and went up to +Svidrigaïlov. +“Let us make haste away,” Svidrigaïlov whispered to her, “I don’t want +Rodion Romanovitch to know of our meeting. I must tell you I’ve been +sitting with him in the restaurant close by, where he looked me up and +I had great difficulty in getting rid of him. He has somehow heard of +my letter to you and suspects something. It wasn’t you who told him, of +course, but if not you, who then?” +“Well, we’ve turned the corner now,” Dounia interrupted, “and my brother +won’t see us. I have to tell you that I am going no further with you. +Speak to me here. You can tell it all in the street.” +“In the first place, I can’t say it in the street; secondly, you must +hear Sofya Semyonovna too; and, thirdly, I will show you some papers.... +Oh well, if you won’t agree to come with me, I shall refuse to give +any explanation and go away at once. But I beg you not to forget that +a very curious secret of your beloved brother’s is entirely in my +keeping.” +Dounia stood still, hesitating, and looked at Svidrigaïlov with +searching eyes. +“What are you afraid of?” he observed quietly. “The town is not the +country. And even in the country you did me more harm than I did you.” +“Have you prepared Sofya Semyonovna?” +“No, I have not said a word to her and am not quite certain whether she +is at home now. But most likely she is. She has buried her stepmother +to-day: she is not likely to go visiting on such a day. For the time I +don’t want to speak to anyone about it and I half regret having spoken +to you. The slightest indiscretion is as bad as betrayal in a thing like +this. I live there in that house, we are coming to it. That’s the porter +of our house--he knows me very well; you see, he’s bowing; he sees I’m +coming with a lady and no doubt he has noticed your face already and you +will be glad of that if you are afraid of me and suspicious. Excuse +my putting things so coarsely. I haven’t a flat to myself; Sofya +Semyonovna’s room is next to mine--she lodges in the next flat. The +whole floor is let out in lodgings. Why are you frightened like a child? +Am I really so terrible?” +Svidrigaïlov’s lips were twisted in a condescending smile; but he was in +no smiling mood. His heart was throbbing and he could scarcely breathe. +He spoke rather loud to cover his growing excitement. But Dounia did not +notice this peculiar excitement, she was so irritated by his remark that +she was frightened of him like a child and that he was so terrible to +her. +“Though I know that you are not a man... of honour, I am not in the +least afraid of you. Lead the way,” she said with apparent composure, +but her face was very pale. +Svidrigaïlov stopped at Sonia’s room. +“Allow me to inquire whether she is at home.... She is not. How +unfortunate! But I know she may come quite soon. If she’s gone out, it +can only be to see a lady about the orphans. Their mother is dead.... +I’ve been meddling and making arrangements for them. If Sofya Semyonovna +does not come back in ten minutes, I will send her to you, to-day if +you like. This is my flat. These are my two rooms. Madame Resslich, +my landlady, has the next room. Now, look this way. I will show you +my chief piece of evidence: this door from my bedroom leads into two +perfectly empty rooms, which are to let. Here they are... You must look +into them with some attention.” +Svidrigaïlov occupied two fairly large furnished rooms. Dounia was +looking about her mistrustfully, but saw nothing special in the +furniture or position of the rooms. Yet there was something to observe, +for instance, that Svidrigaïlov’s flat was exactly between two sets of +almost uninhabited apartments. His rooms were not entered directly +from the passage, but through the landlady’s two almost empty rooms. +Unlocking a door leading out of his bedroom, Svidrigaïlov showed Dounia +the two empty rooms that were to let. Dounia stopped in the doorway, not +knowing what she was called to look upon, but Svidrigaïlov hastened to +explain. +“Look here, at this second large room. Notice that door, it’s locked. +By the door stands a chair, the only one in the two rooms. I brought it +from my rooms so as to listen more conveniently. Just the other side of +the door is Sofya Semyonovna’s table; she sat there talking to Rodion +Romanovitch. And I sat here listening on two successive evenings, for +two hours each time--and of course I was able to learn something, what +do you think?” +“You listened?” +“Yes, I did. Now come back to my room; we can’t sit down here.” +He brought Avdotya Romanovna back into his sitting-room and offered her +a chair. He sat down at the opposite side of the table, at least seven +feet from her, but probably there was the same glow in his eyes which +had once frightened Dounia so much. She shuddered and once more looked +about her distrustfully. It was an involuntary gesture; she evidently +did not wish to betray her uneasiness. But the secluded position of +Svidrigaïlov’s lodging had suddenly struck her. She wanted to ask +whether his landlady at least were at home, but pride kept her from +asking. Moreover, she had another trouble in her heart incomparably +greater than fear for herself. She was in great distress. +“Here is your letter,” she said, laying it on the table. “Can it be true +what you write? You hint at a crime committed, you say, by my brother. +You hint at it too clearly; you daren’t deny it now. I must tell you +that I’d heard of this stupid story before you wrote and don’t believe a +word of it. It’s a disgusting and ridiculous suspicion. I know the story +and why and how it was invented. You can have no proofs. You promised to +prove it. Speak! But let me warn you that I don’t believe you! I don’t +believe you!” +Dounia said this, speaking hurriedly, and for an instant the colour +rushed to her face. +“If you didn’t believe it, how could you risk coming alone to my rooms? +Why have you come? Simply from curiosity?” +“Don’t torment me. Speak, speak!” +“There’s no denying that you are a brave girl. Upon my word, I thought +you would have asked Mr. Razumihin to escort you here. But he was not +with you nor anywhere near. I was on the look-out. It’s spirited of +you, it proves you wanted to spare Rodion Romanovitch. But everything +is divine in you.... About your brother, what am I to say to you? You’ve +just seen him yourself. What did you think of him?” +“Surely that’s not the only thing you are building on?” +“No, not on that, but on his own words. He came here on two successive +evenings to see Sofya Semyonovna. I’ve shown you where they sat. He made +a full confession to her. He is a murderer. He killed an old woman, a +pawnbroker, with whom he had pawned things himself. He killed her sister +too, a pedlar woman called Lizaveta, who happened to come in while he +was murdering her sister. He killed them with an axe he brought with +him. He murdered them to rob them and he did rob them. He took money and +various things.... He told all this, word for word, to Sofya Semyonovna, +the only person who knows his secret. But she has had no share by word +or deed in the murder; she was as horrified at it as you are now. Don’t +be anxious, she won’t betray him.” +“It cannot be,” muttered Dounia, with white lips. She gasped for breath. +“It cannot be. There was not the slightest cause, no sort of ground.... +It’s a lie, a lie!” +“He robbed her, that was the cause, he took money and things. It’s true +that by his own admission he made no use of the money or things, but hid +them under a stone, where they are now. But that was because he dared +not make use of them.” +“But how could he steal, rob? How could he dream of it?” cried Dounia, +and she jumped up from the chair. “Why, you know him, and you’ve seen +him, can he be a thief?” +She seemed to be imploring Svidrigaïlov; she had entirely forgotten her +fear. +“There are thousands and millions of combinations and possibilities, +Avdotya Romanovna. A thief steals and knows he is a scoundrel, but I’ve +heard of a gentleman who broke open the mail. Who knows, very likely he +thought he was doing a gentlemanly thing! Of course I should not have +believed it myself if I’d been told of it as you have, but I believe my +own ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sofya Semyonovna too, but +she did not believe her ears at first, yet she believed her own eyes at +last.” +“What... were the causes?” +“It’s a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here’s... how shall I tell +you?--A theory of a sort, the same one by which I for instance consider +that a single misdeed is permissible if the principal aim is right, a +solitary wrongdoing and hundreds of good deeds! It’s galling too, of +course, for a young man of gifts and overweening pride to know that if +he had, for instance, a paltry three thousand, his whole career, his +whole future would be differently shaped and yet not to have that three +thousand. Add to that, nervous irritability from hunger, from lodging +in a hole, from rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social +position and his sister’s and mother��s position too. Above all, vanity, +pride and vanity, though goodness knows he may have good qualities +too.... I am not blaming him, please don’t think it; besides, it’s not +my business. A special little theory came in too--a theory of a +sort--dividing mankind, you see, into material and superior persons, +that is persons to whom the law does not apply owing to their +superiority, who make laws for the rest of mankind, the material, that +is. It’s all right as a theory, _une théorie comme une autre_. Napoleon +attracted him tremendously, that is, what affected him was that a +great many men of genius have not hesitated at wrongdoing, but have +overstepped the law without thinking about it. He seems to have fancied +that he was a genius too--that is, he was convinced of it for a time. He +has suffered a great deal and is still suffering from the idea that he +could make a theory, but was incapable of boldly overstepping the law, +and so he is not a man of genius. And that’s humiliating for a young man +of any pride, in our day especially....” +“But remorse? You deny him any moral feeling then? Is he like that?” +“Ah, Avdotya Romanovna, everything is in a muddle now; not that it was +ever in very good order. Russians in general are broad in their ideas, +Avdotya Romanovna, broad like their land and exceedingly disposed to +the fantastic, the chaotic. But it’s a misfortune to be broad without +a special genius. Do you remember what a lot of talk we had together on +this subject, sitting in the evenings on the terrace after supper? Why, +you used to reproach me with breadth! Who knows, perhaps we were talking +at the very time when he was lying here thinking over his plan. There +are no sacred traditions amongst us, especially in the educated class, +Avdotya Romanovna. At the best someone will make them up somehow for +himself out of books or from some old chronicle. But those are for the +most part the learned and all old fogeys, so that it would be almost +ill-bred in a man of society. You know my opinions in general, though. I +never blame anyone. I do nothing at all, I persevere in that. But +we’ve talked of this more than once before. I was so happy indeed as to +interest you in my opinions.... You are very pale, Avdotya Romanovna.” +“I know his theory. I read that article of his about men to whom all is +permitted. Razumihin brought it to me.” +“Mr. Razumihin? Your brother’s article? In a magazine? Is there such an +article? I didn’t know. It must be interesting. But where are you going, +Avdotya Romanovna?” +“I want to see Sofya Semyonovna,” Dounia articulated faintly. “How do I +go to her? She has come in, perhaps. I must see her at once. Perhaps +she...” +Avdotya Romanovna could not finish. Her breath literally failed her. +“Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at least I believe not. +She was to have been back at once, but if not, then she will not be in +till quite late.” +“Ah, then you are lying! I see... you were lying... lying all the +time.... I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!” cried Dounia, +completely losing her head. +Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which Svidrigaïlov made haste to +give her. +“Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself! Here is some water. +Drink a little....” +He sprinkled some water over her. Dounia shuddered and came to herself. +“It has acted violently,” Svidrigaïlov muttered to himself, frowning. +“Avdotya Romanovna, calm yourself! Believe me, he has friends. We will +save him. Would you like me to take him abroad? I have money, I can get +a ticket in three days. And as for the murder, he will do all sorts of +good deeds yet, to atone for it. Calm yourself. He may become a great +man yet. Well, how are you? How do you feel?” +“Cruel man! To be able to jeer at it! Let me go...” +“Where are you going?” +“To him. Where is he? Do you know? Why is this door locked? We came in +at that door and now it is locked. When did you manage to lock it?” +“We couldn’t be shouting all over the flat on such a subject. I am far +from jeering; it’s simply that I’m sick of talking like this. But how +can you go in such a state? Do you want to betray him? You will drive +him to fury, and he will give himself up. Let me tell you, he is already +being watched; they are already on his track. You will simply be giving +him away. Wait a little: I saw him and was talking to him just now. He +can still be saved. Wait a bit, sit down; let us think it over together. +I asked you to come in order to discuss it alone with you and to +consider it thoroughly. But do sit down!” +“How can you save him? Can he really be saved?” +Dounia sat down. Svidrigaïlov sat down beside her. +“It all depends on you, on you, on you alone,” he began with glowing +eyes, almost in a whisper and hardly able to utter the words for +emotion. +Dounia drew back from him in alarm. He too was trembling all over. +“You... one word from you, and he is saved. I... I’ll save him. I have +money and friends. I’ll send him away at once. I’ll get a passport, +two passports, one for him and one for me. I have friends... capable +people.... If you like, I’ll take a passport for you... for your +mother.... What do you want with Razumihin? I love you too.... I love +you beyond everything.... Let me kiss the hem of your dress, let me, let +me.... The very rustle of it is too much for me. Tell me, ‘do that,’ +and I’ll do it. I’ll do everything. I will do the impossible. What you +believe, I will believe. I’ll do anything--anything! Don’t, don’t look +at me like that. Do you know that you are killing me?...” +He was almost beginning to rave.... Something seemed suddenly to go to +his head. Dounia jumped up and rushed to the door. +“Open it! Open it!” she called, shaking the door. “Open it! Is there no +one there?” +Svidrigaïlov got up and came to himself. His still trembling lips slowly +broke into an angry mocking smile. +“There is no one at home,” he said quietly and emphatically. “The +landlady has gone out, and it’s waste of time to shout like that. You +are only exciting yourself uselessly.” +“Where is the key? Open the door at once, at once, base man!” +“I have lost the key and cannot find it.” +“This is an outrage,” cried Dounia, turning pale as death. She rushed +to the furthest corner, where she made haste to barricade herself with a +little table. +She did not scream, but she fixed her eyes on her tormentor and watched +every movement he made. +Svidrigaïlov remained standing at the other end of the room facing her. +He was positively composed, at least in appearance, but his face was +pale as before. The mocking smile did not leave his face. +“You spoke of outrage just now, Avdotya Romanovna. In that case you +may be sure I’ve taken measures. Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. The +Kapernaumovs are far away--there are five locked rooms between. I am at +least twice as strong as you are and I have nothing to fear, besides. +For you could not complain afterwards. You surely would not be willing +actually to betray your brother? Besides, no one would believe you. How +should a girl have come alone to visit a solitary man in his lodgings? +So that even if you do sacrifice your brother, you could prove nothing. +It is very difficult to prove an assault, Avdotya Romanovna.” +“Scoundrel!” whispered Dounia indignantly. +“As you like, but observe I was only speaking by way of a general +proposition. It’s my personal conviction that you are perfectly +right--violence is hateful. I only spoke to show you that you need have +no remorse even if... you were willing to save your brother of your +own accord, as I suggest to you. You would be simply submitting to +circumstances, to violence, in fact, if we must use that word. Think +about it. Your brother’s and your mother’s fate are in your hands. I +will be your slave... all my life... I will wait here.” +Svidrigaïlov sat down on the sofa about eight steps from Dounia. She had +not the slightest doubt now of his unbending determination. Besides, she +knew him. Suddenly she pulled out of her pocket a revolver, cocked it +and laid it in her hand on the table. Svidrigaïlov jumped up. +“Aha! So that’s it, is it?” he cried, surprised but smiling maliciously. +“Well, that completely alters the aspect of affairs. You’ve made things +wonderfully easier for me, Avdotya Romanovna. But where did you get the +revolver? Was it Mr. Razumihin? Why, it’s my revolver, an old friend! +And how I’ve hunted for it! The shooting lessons I’ve given you in the +country have not been thrown away.” +“It’s not your revolver, it belonged to Marfa Petrovna, whom you killed, +wretch! There was nothing of yours in her house. I took it when I began +to suspect what you were capable of. If you dare to advance one step, I +swear I’ll kill you.” She was frantic. +“But your brother? I ask from curiosity,” said Svidrigaïlov, still +standing where he was. +“Inform, if you want to! Don’t stir! Don’t come nearer! I’ll shoot! You +poisoned your wife, I know; you are a murderer yourself!” She held the +revolver ready. +“Are you so positive I poisoned Marfa Petrovna?” +“You did! You hinted it yourself; you talked to me of poison.... I know +you went to get it... you had it in readiness.... It was your doing.... +It must have been your doing.... Scoundrel!” +“Even if that were true, it would have been for your sake... you would +have been the cause.” +“You are lying! I hated you always, always....” +“Oho, Avdotya Romanovna! You seem to have forgotten how you softened +to me in the heat of propaganda. I saw it in your eyes. Do you remember +that moonlight night, when the nightingale was singing?” +“That’s a lie,” there was a flash of fury in Dounia’s eyes, “that’s a +lie and a libel!” +“A lie? Well, if you like, it’s a lie. I made it up. Women ought not +to be reminded of such things,” he smiled. “I know you will shoot, you +pretty wild creature. Well, shoot away!” +Dounia raised the revolver, and deadly pale, gazed at him, measuring the +distance and awaiting the first movement on his part. Her lower lip was +white and quivering and her big black eyes flashed like fire. He had +never seen her so handsome. The fire glowing in her eyes at the moment +she raised the revolver seemed to kindle him and there was a pang of +anguish in his heart. He took a step forward and a shot rang out. The +bullet grazed his hair and flew into the wall behind. He stood still and +laughed softly. +“The wasp has stung me. She aimed straight at my head. What’s this? +Blood?” he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the blood, which flowed +in a thin stream down his right temple. The bullet seemed to have just +grazed the skin. +Dounia lowered the revolver and looked at Svidrigaïlov not so much in +terror as in a sort of wild amazement. She seemed not to understand what +she was doing and what was going on. +“Well, you missed! Fire again, I’ll wait,” said Svidrigaïlov softly, +still smiling, but gloomily. “If you go on like that, I shall have time +to seize you before you cock again.” +Dounia started, quickly cocked the pistol and again raised it. +“Let me be,” she cried in despair. “I swear I’ll shoot again. I... I’ll +kill you.” +“Well... at three paces you can hardly help it. But if you don’t... +then.” His eyes flashed and he took two steps forward. Dounia shot +again: it missed fire. +“You haven’t loaded it properly. Never mind, you have another charge +there. Get it ready, I’ll wait.” +He stood facing her, two paces away, waiting and gazing at her with wild +determination, with feverishly passionate, stubborn, set eyes. Dounia +saw that he would sooner die than let her go. “And... now, of course she +would kill him, at two paces!” Suddenly she flung away the revolver. +“She’s dropped it!” said Svidrigaïlov with surprise, and he drew a deep +breath. A weight seemed to have rolled from his heart--perhaps not only +the fear of death; indeed he may scarcely have felt it at that moment. +It was the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter, +which he could not himself have defined. +He went to Dounia and gently put his arm round her waist. She did not +resist, but, trembling like a leaf, looked at him with suppliant eyes. +He tried to say something, but his lips moved without being able to +utter a sound. +“Let me go,” Dounia implored. Svidrigaïlov shuddered. Her voice now was +quite different. +“Then you don’t love me?” he asked softly. Dounia shook her head. +“And... and you can’t? Never?” he whispered in despair. +“Never!” +There followed a moment of terrible, dumb struggle in the heart of +Svidrigaïlov. He looked at her with an indescribable gaze. Suddenly +he withdrew his arm, turned quickly to the window and stood facing it. +Another moment passed. +“Here’s the key.” +He took it out of the left pocket of his coat and laid it on the table +behind him, without turning or looking at Dounia. +“Take it! Make haste!” +He looked stubbornly out of the window. Dounia went up to the table to +take the key. +“Make haste! Make haste!” repeated Svidrigaïlov, still without turning +or moving. But there seemed a terrible significance in the tone of that +“make haste.” +Dounia understood it, snatched up the key, flew to the door, unlocked it +quickly and rushed out of the room. A minute later, beside herself, she +ran out on to the canal bank in the direction of X. Bridge. +Svidrigaïlov remained three minutes standing at the window. At last he +slowly turned, looked about him and passed his hand over his forehead. A +strange smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a smile of +despair. The blood, which was already getting dry, smeared his hand. +He looked angrily at it, then wetted a towel and washed his temple. +The revolver which Dounia had flung away lay near the door and suddenly +caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it. It was a little pocket +three-barrel revolver of old-fashioned construction. There were still +two charges and one capsule left in it. It could be fired again. He +thought a little, put the revolver in his pocket, took his hat and went +out. +CHAPTER VI +He spent that evening till ten o’clock going from one low haunt to +another. Katia too turned up and sang another gutter song, how a certain +“villain and tyrant,” +“began kissing Katia.” +Svidrigaïlov treated Katia and the organ-grinder and some singers and +the waiters and two little clerks. He was particularly drawn to these +clerks by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to the +left and the other to the right. They took him finally to a pleasure +garden, where he paid for their entrance. There was one lanky +three-year-old pine-tree and three bushes in the garden, besides a +“Vauxhall,” which was in reality a drinking-bar where tea too was +served, and there were a few green tables and chairs standing round it. +A chorus of wretched singers and a drunken but exceedingly depressed +German clown from Munich with a red nose entertained the public. The +clerks quarrelled with some other clerks and a fight seemed imminent. +Svidrigaïlov was chosen to decide the dispute. He listened to them for +a quarter of an hour, but they shouted so loud that there was no +possibility of understanding them. The only fact that seemed certain was +that one of them had stolen something and had even succeeded in +selling it on the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with his +companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen object was a teaspoon +belonging to the Vauxhall. It was missed and the affair began to seem +troublesome. Svidrigaïlov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of +the garden. It was about six o’clock. He had not drunk a drop of wine +all this time and had ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than +anything. +It was a dark and stifling evening. Threatening storm-clouds came over +the sky about ten o’clock. There was a clap of thunder, and the rain +came down like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat on the +earth in streams. There were flashes of lightning every minute and each +flash lasted while one could count five. +Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked himself in, opened the +bureau, took out all his money and tore up two or three papers. Then, +putting the money in his pocket, he was about to change his clothes, +but, looking out of the window and listening to the thunder and the +rain, he gave up the idea, took up his hat and went out of the room +without locking the door. He went straight to Sonia. She was at home. +She was not alone: the four Kapernaumov children were with her. She +was giving them tea. She received Svidrigaïlov in respectful silence, +looking wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all ran away at +once in indescribable terror. +Svidrigaïlov sat down at the table and asked Sonia to sit beside him. +She timidly prepared to listen. +“I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna,” said Svidrigaïlov, “and +as I am probably seeing you for the last time, I have come to make some +arrangements. Well, did you see the lady to-day? I know what she said to +you, you need not tell me.” (Sonia made a movement and blushed.) “Those +people have their own way of doing things. As to your sisters and your +brother, they are really provided for and the money assigned to them +I’ve put into safe keeping and have received acknowledgments. You had +better take charge of the receipts, in case anything happens. Here, take +them! Well now, that’s settled. Here are three 5-per-cent bonds to the +value of three thousand roubles. Take those for yourself, entirely for +yourself, and let that be strictly between ourselves, so that no one +knows of it, whatever you hear. You will need the money, for to go on +living in the old way, Sofya Semyonovna, is bad, and besides there is no +need for it now.” +“I am so much indebted to you, and so are the children and my +stepmother,” said Sonia hurriedly, “and if I’ve said so little... please +don’t consider...” +“That’s enough! that’s enough!” +“But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you, +but I don’t need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don’t think me +ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money....” +“It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste words +over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch +has two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked +wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from +himself and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice +when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much +better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and +you will follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money. +You’ll need it for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same +as my giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay +what’s owing. I heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so +heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not +yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman. +You can’t get through the world like that. If you are ever questioned +about me--to-morrow or the day after you will be asked--don’t say +anything about my coming to see you now and don’t show the money to +anyone or say a word about it. Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My +greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put the money +for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of +course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or... +when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.” +Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigaïlov. +She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she +did not dare and did not know how to begin. +“How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain?” +“Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye, +Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to +others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him. +Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov sends his greetings. Be sure +to.” +He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague +apprehension. +It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven, +he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still +persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where +the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky +Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit +at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigaïlov could be +very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very +intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigaïlov had +probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing +vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see +Svidrigaïlov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the +conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct +question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she +were obliged to ascertain something--for instance, when Svidrigaïlov +would like to have the wedding--she would begin by interested and +almost eager questions about Paris and the court life there, and only +by degrees brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other +occasions this had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady +Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his +betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she +had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared. +Svidrigaïlov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important +affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her +fifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from +him, as he had long been intending to make her this trifling present +before their wedding. The logical connection of the present with his +immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that +purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went +off very well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret, +the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the +other hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced +by tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigaïlov got up, +laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon +come back, and noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a +sort of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though +he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought that his present would be +immediately locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He +went away, leaving them all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but +the tender mamma, speaking quietly in a half whisper, settled some of +the most important of their doubts, concluding that Svidrigaïlov was +a great man, a man of great affairs and connections and of great +wealth--there was no knowing what he had in his mind. He would start +off on a journey and give away money just as the fancy took him, so that +there was nothing surprising about it. Of course it was strange that he +was wet through, but Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccentric, +and all these people of high society didn’t think of what was said of +them and didn’t stand on ceremony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that +on purpose to show that he was not afraid of anyone. Above all, not a +word should be said about it, for God knows what might come of it, and +the money must be locked up, and it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the +cook, had not left the kitchen. And above all not a word must be said +to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and so on and so on. They sat up +whispering till two o’clock, but the girl went to bed much earlier, +amazed and rather sorrowful. +Svidrigaïlov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on the +way back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a roaring +wind. He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the black +waters of the Little Neva with a look of special interest, even inquiry. +But he soon felt it very cold, standing by the water; he turned and +went towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a long +time, almost half an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on the +wooden pavement, but continually looking for something on the right side +of the street. He had noticed passing through this street lately that +there was a hotel somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but fairly +large, and its name he remembered was something like Adrianople. He was +not mistaken: the hotel was so conspicuous in that God-forsaken place +that he could not fail to see it even in the dark. It was a long, +blackened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour there were +lights in the windows and signs of life within. He went in and asked +a ragged fellow who met him in the corridor for a room. The latter, +scanning Svidrigaïlov, pulled himself together and led him at once to a +close and tiny room in the distance, at the end of the corridor, under +the stairs. There was no other, all were occupied. The ragged fellow +looked inquiringly. +“Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaïlov. +“Yes, sir.” +“What else is there?” +“Veal, vodka, savouries.” +“Bring me tea and veal.” +“And you want nothing else?” he asked with apparent surprise. +“Nothing, nothing.” +The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned. +“It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaïlov. “How was it I didn’t +know it? I expect I look as if I came from a café chantant and have +had some adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed +here?” +He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a +room so low-pitched that Svidrigaïlov could only just stand up in it; +it had one window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain-stained +chair and table almost filled it up. The walls looked as though they +were made of planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty +that the pattern was indistinguishable, though the general +colour--yellow--could still be made out. One of the walls was cut short +by the sloping ceiling, though the room was not an attic but just under +the stairs. +Svidrigaïlov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into +thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a shout +in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not ceased from +the moment he entered the room. He listened: someone was upbraiding and +almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one voice. +Svidrigaïlov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw +light through a crack in the wall; he went up and peeped through. The +room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of +them, a very curly-headed man with a red inflamed face, was standing +in the pose of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to +preserve his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached +the other with being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He +declared that he had taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn +him out when he liked, and that only the finger of Providence sees it +all. The object of his reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the +air of a man who wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes +turned sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not +the slightest idea what he was talking about and scarcely heard it. A +candle was burning down on the table; there were wine-glasses, a nearly +empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber, and glasses with the dregs +of stale tea. After gazing attentively at this, Svidrigaïlov turned away +indifferently and sat down on the bed. +The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking +him again whether he didn’t want anything more, and again receiving a +negative reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigaïlov made haste to drink a +glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began +to feel feverish. He took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the +blanket, lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been better +to be well for the occasion,” he thought with a smile. The room was +close, the candle burnt dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard +a mouse scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice and of +leather. He lay in a sort of reverie: one thought followed another. He +felt a longing to fix his imagination on something. “It must be a garden +under the window,” he thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How I dislike +the sound of trees on a stormy night, in the dark! They give one a +horrid feeling.” He remembered how he had disliked it when he passed +Petrovsky Park just now. This reminded him of the bridge over the Little +Neva and he felt cold again as he had when standing there. “I never have +liked water,” he thought, “even in a landscape,” and he suddenly smiled +again at a strange idea: “Surely now all these questions of taste and +comfort ought not to matter, but I’ve become more particular, like an +animal that picks out a special place... for such an occasion. I ought +to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I suppose it seemed dark, cold, +ha-ha! As though I were seeking pleasant sensations!... By the way, why +haven’t I put out the candle?” he blew it out. “They’ve gone to bed next +door,” he thought, not seeing the light at the crack. “Well, now, Marfa +Petrovna, now is the time for you to turn up; it’s dark, and the very +time and place for you. But now you won’t come!” +He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on +Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s +keeping. “I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to +tease myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He’s gone through a +good deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he’s got over +his nonsense. But now he’s _too_ eager for life. These young men +are contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please +himself, it’s nothing to do with me.” +He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s image rose before him, +and a shudder ran over him. “No, I must give up all that now,” he +thought, rousing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s queer +and funny. I never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly +desired to avenge myself even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad +sign. I never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temper--that’s +a bad sign too. And the promises I made her just now, too--Damnation! +But--who knows?--perhaps she would have made a new man of me +somehow....” +He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia’s image +rose before him, just as she was when, after shooting the first time, +she had lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so that +he might have seized her twice over and she would not have lifted a hand +to defend herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled how at that +instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang at his +heart... +“Aïe! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away!” +He was dozing off; the feverish shiver had ceased, when suddenly +something seemed to run over his arm and leg under the bedclothes. He +started. “Ugh! hang it! I believe it’s a mouse,” he thought, “that’s the +veal I left on the table.” He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the +blanket, get up, get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over +his leg again. He pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle. Shaking +with feverish chill he bent down to examine the bed: there was nothing. +He shook the blanket and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet. +He tried to catch it, but the mouse ran to and fro in zigzags without +leaving the bed, slipped between his fingers, ran over his hand and +suddenly darted under the pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one +instant felt something leap on his chest and dart over his body and down +his back under his shirt. He trembled nervously and woke up. +The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and wrapped up in the blanket +as before. The wind was howling under the window. “How disgusting,” he +thought with annoyance. +He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the +window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold +damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the +blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of +anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, +incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his +mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or +the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees +roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling +on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, +warm, almost hot day, a holiday--Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country +cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with +flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was +surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with +rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed +particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant +narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was +reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came +into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere--at the windows, +the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself--were flowers. +The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows +were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were +chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table +covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was +covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of +flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a +white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as +though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was +a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of +her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her +pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. +Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle +beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. +She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed +herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish +soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn +from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on +a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled.... +Svidrigaïlov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the +window. He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind lashed furiously +into the little room and stung his face and his chest, only covered with +his shirt, as though with frost. Under the window there must have been +something like a garden, and apparently a pleasure garden. There, too, +probably there were tea-tables and singing in the daytime. Now drops of +rain flew in at the window from the trees and bushes; it was dark as +in a cellar, so that he could only just make out some dark blurs of +objects. Svidrigaïlov, bending down with elbows on the window-sill, +gazed for five minutes into the darkness; the boom of a cannon, followed +by a second one, resounded in the darkness of the night. “Ah, the +signal! The river is overflowing,” he thought. “By morning it will be +swirling down the street in the lower parts, flooding the basements and +cellars. The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the rain +and wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is +it now?” And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on +the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck three. +“Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I’ll go out at once +straight to the park. I’ll choose a great bush there drenched with rain, +so that as soon as one’s shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on +one’s head.” +He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his +waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle, +into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep +somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay +him for the room and leave the hotel. “It’s the best minute; I couldn’t +choose a better.” +He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor without finding +anyone and was just going to call out, when suddenly in a dark corner +between an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a strange object +which seemed to be alive. He bent down with the candle and saw a little +girl, not more than five years old, shivering and crying, with her +clothes as wet as a soaking house-flannel. She did not seem afraid of +Svidrigaïlov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of her big +black eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children do when they have been +crying a long time, but are beginning to be comforted. The child’s face +was pale and tired, she was numb with cold. “How can she have come here? +She must have hidden here and not slept all night.” He began questioning +her. The child suddenly becoming animated, chattered away in her baby +language, something about “mammy” and that “mammy would beat her,” and +about some cup that she had “bwoken.” The child chattered on without +stopping. He could only guess from what she said that she was a +neglected child, whose mother, probably a drunken cook, in the service +of the hotel, whipped and frightened her; that the child had broken +a cup of her mother’s and was so frightened that she had run away the +evening before, had hidden for a long while somewhere outside in the +rain, at last had made her way in here, hidden behind the cupboard and +spent the night there, crying and trembling from the damp, the darkness +and the fear that she would be badly beaten for it. He took her in his +arms, went back to his room, sat her on the bed, and began undressing +her. The torn shoes which she had on her stockingless feet were as +wet as if they had been standing in a puddle all night. When he had +undressed her, he put her on the bed, covered her up and wrapped her in +the blanket from her head downwards. She fell asleep at once. Then he +sank into dreary musing again. +“What folly to trouble myself,” he decided suddenly with an oppressive +feeling of annoyance. “What idiocy!” In vexation he took up the candle +to go and look for the ragged attendant again and make haste to go away. +“Damn the child!” he thought as he opened the door, but he turned again +to see whether the child was asleep. He raised the blanket carefully. +The child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm under the blanket, +and her pale cheeks were flushed. But strange to say that flush seemed +brighter and coarser than the rosy cheeks of childhood. “It’s a flush +of fever,” thought Svidrigaïlov. It was like the flush from drinking, as +though she had been given a full glass to drink. Her crimson lips were +hot and glowing; but what was this? He suddenly fancied that her long +black eyelashes were quivering, as though the lids were opening and a +sly crafty eye peeped out with an unchildlike wink, as though the little +girl were not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so. Her lips parted in +a smile. The corners of her mouth quivered, as though she were trying to +control them. But now she quite gave up all effort, now it was a grin, +a broad grin; there was something shameless, provocative in that quite +unchildish face; it was depravity, it was the face of a harlot, the +shameless face of a French harlot. Now both eyes opened wide; they +turned a glowing, shameless glance upon him; they laughed, invited +him.... There was something infinitely hideous and shocking in that +laugh, in those eyes, in such nastiness in the face of a child. “What, +at five years old?” Svidrigaïlov muttered in genuine horror. “What does +it mean?” And now she turned to him, her little face all aglow, holding +out her arms.... “Accursed child!” Svidrigaïlov cried, raising his hand +to strike her, but at that moment he woke up. +He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blanket. The candle had not +been lighted, and daylight was streaming in at the windows. +“I’ve had nightmare all night!” He got up angrily, feeling utterly +shattered; his bones ached. There was a thick mist outside and he could +see nothing. It was nearly five. He had overslept himself! He got up, +put on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the revolver in his +pocket, he took it out and then he sat down, took a notebook out of his +pocket and in the most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few +lines in large letters. Reading them over, he sank into thought with his +elbows on the table. The revolver and the notebook lay beside him. Some +flies woke up and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on +the table. He stared at them and at last with his free right hand began +trying to catch one. He tried till he was tired, but could not catch it. +At last, realising that he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he +started, got up and walked resolutely out of the room. A minute later he +was in the street. +A thick milky mist hung over the town. Svidrigaïlov walked along the +slippery dirty wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. He was picturing +the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night, Petrovsky Island, +the wet paths, the wet grass, the wet trees and bushes and at last the +bush.... He began ill-humouredly staring at the houses, trying to think +of something else. There was not a cabman or a passer-by in the street. +The bright yellow, wooden, little houses looked dirty and dejected with +their closed shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his whole body and +he began to shiver. From time to time he came across shop signs and read +each carefully. At last he reached the end of the wooden pavement and +came to a big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog crossed his path with +its tail between its legs. A man in a greatcoat lay face downwards; dead +drunk, across the pavement. He looked at him and went on. A high tower +stood up on the left. “Bah!” he shouted, “here is a place. Why should +it be Petrovsky? It will be in the presence of an official witness +anyway....” +He almost smiled at this new thought and turned into the street where +there was the big house with the tower. At the great closed gates of +the house, a little man stood with his shoulder leaning against them, +wrapped in a grey soldier’s coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his +head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigaïlov. His +face wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly +printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both, +Svidrigaïlov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes +without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as irregular for a man +not drunk to be standing three steps from him, staring and not saying a +word. +“What do you want here?” he said, without moving or changing his +position. +“Nothing, brother, good morning,” answered Svidrigaïlov. +“This isn’t the place.” +“I am going to foreign parts, brother.” +“To foreign parts?” +“To America.” +“America.” +Svidrigaïlov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his +eyebrows. +“I say, this is not the place for such jokes!” +“Why shouldn’t it be the place?” +“Because it isn’t.” +“Well, brother, I don’t mind that. It’s a good place. When you are +asked, you just say he was going, he said, to America.” +He put the revolver to his right temple. +“You can’t do it here, it’s not the place,” cried Achilles, rousing +himself, his eyes growing bigger and bigger. +Svidrigaïlov pulled the trigger. +CHAPTER VII +The same day, about seven o’clock in the evening, Raskolnikov was on +his way to his mother’s and sister’s lodging--the lodging in Bakaleyev’s +house which Razumihin had found for them. The stairs went up from +the street. Raskolnikov walked with lagging steps, as though still +hesitating whether to go or not. But nothing would have turned him back: +his decision was taken. +“Besides, it doesn’t matter, they still know nothing,” he thought, “and +they are used to thinking of me as eccentric.” +He was appallingly dressed: his clothes torn and dirty, soaked with a +night’s rain. His face was almost distorted from fatigue, exposure, the +inward conflict that had lasted for twenty-four hours. He had spent all +the previous night alone, God knows where. But anyway he had reached a +decision. +He knocked at the door which was opened by his mother. Dounia was not +at home. Even the servant happened to be out. At first Pulcheria +Alexandrovna was speechless with joy and surprise; then she took him by +the hand and drew him into the room. +“Here you are!” she began, faltering with joy. “Don’t be angry with +me, Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears: I am laughing not +crying. Did you think I was crying? No, I am delighted, but I’ve got +into such a stupid habit of shedding tears. I’ve been like that ever +since your father’s death. I cry for anything. Sit down, dear boy, you +must be tired; I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are.” +“I was in the rain yesterday, mother....” Raskolnikov began. +“No, no,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly interrupted, “you thought I +was going to cross-question you in the womanish way I used to; don’t be +anxious, I understand, I understand it all: now I’ve learned the ways +here and truly I see for myself that they are better. I’ve made up my +mind once for all: how could I understand your plans and expect you to +give an account of them? God knows what concerns and plans you may have, +or what ideas you are hatching; so it’s not for me to keep nudging your +elbow, asking you what you are thinking about? But, my goodness! why +am I running to and fro as though I were crazy...? I am reading your +article in the magazine for the third time, Rodya. Dmitri Prokofitch +brought it to me. Directly I saw it I cried out to myself: ‘There, +foolish one,’ I thought, ‘that’s what he is busy about; that’s the +solution of the mystery! Learned people are always like that. He may +have some new ideas in his head just now; he is thinking them over and I +worry him and upset him.’ I read it, my dear, and of course there was a +great deal I did not understand; but that’s only natural--how should I?” +“Show me, mother.” +Raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his article. Incongruous +as it was with his mood and his circumstances, he felt that strange and +bitter sweet sensation that every author experiences the first time he +sees himself in print; besides, he was only twenty-three. It lasted only +a moment. After reading a few lines he frowned and his heart throbbed +with anguish. He recalled all the inward conflict of the preceding +months. He flung the article on the table with disgust and anger. +“But, however foolish I may be, Rodya, I can see for myself that you +will very soon be one of the leading--if not the leading man--in the +world of Russian thought. And they dared to think you were mad! You +don’t know, but they really thought that. Ah, the despicable creatures, +how could they understand genius! And Dounia, Dounia was all but +believing it--what do you say to that? Your father sent twice to +magazines--the first time poems (I’ve got the manuscript and will show +you) and the second time a whole novel (I begged him to let me copy it +out) and how we prayed that they should be taken--they weren’t! I was +breaking my heart, Rodya, six or seven days ago over your food and your +clothes and the way you are living. But now I see again how foolish +I was, for you can attain any position you like by your intellect and +talent. No doubt you don’t care about that for the present and you are +occupied with much more important matters....” +“Dounia’s not at home, mother?” +“No, Rodya. I often don’t see her; she leaves me alone. Dmitri +Prokofitch comes to see me, it’s so good of him, and he always talks +about you. He loves you and respects you, my dear. I don’t say that +Dounia is very wanting in consideration. I am not complaining. She has +her ways and I have mine; she seems to have got some secrets of late and +I never have any secrets from you two. Of course, I am sure that Dounia +has far too much sense, and besides she loves you and me... but I don’t +know what it will all lead to. You’ve made me so happy by coming now, +Rodya, but she has missed you by going out; when she comes in I’ll tell +her: ‘Your brother came in while you were out. Where have you been all +this time?’ You mustn’t spoil me, Rodya, you know; come when you can, +but if you can’t, it doesn’t matter, I can wait. I shall know, anyway, +that you are fond of me, that will be enough for me. I shall read what +you write, I shall hear about you from everyone, and sometimes you’ll +come yourself to see me. What could be better? Here you’ve come now to +comfort your mother, I see that.” +Here Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry. +“Here I am again! Don’t mind my foolishness. My goodness, why am I +sitting here?” she cried, jumping up. “There is coffee and I don’t offer +you any. Ah, that’s the selfishness of old age. I’ll get it at once!” +“Mother, don’t trouble, I am going at once. I haven’t come for that. +Please listen to me.” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna went up to him timidly. +“Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever you are +told about me, will you always love me as you do now?” he asked suddenly +from the fullness of his heart, as though not thinking of his words and +not weighing them. +“Rodya, Rodya, what is the matter? How can you ask me such a question? +Why, who will tell me anything about you? Besides, I shouldn’t believe +anyone, I should refuse to listen.” +“I’ve come to assure you that I’ve always loved you and I am glad +that we are alone, even glad Dounia is out,” he went on with the same +impulse. “I have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you +must believe that your son loves you now more than himself, and that all +you thought about me, that I was cruel and didn’t care about you, was +all a mistake. I shall never cease to love you.... Well, that’s enough: +I thought I must do this and begin with this....” +Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence, pressing him to her +bosom and weeping gently. +“I don’t know what is wrong with you, Rodya,” she said at last. “I’ve +been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now I see +that there is a great sorrow in store for you, and that’s why you are +miserable. I’ve foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive me for speaking +about it. I keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights. Your sister +lay talking in her sleep all last night, talking of nothing but you. I +caught something, but I couldn’t make it out. I felt all the morning +as though I were going to be hanged, waiting for something, expecting +something, and now it has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You +are going away somewhere?” +“Yes.” +“That’s what I thought! I can come with you, you know, if you need +me. And Dounia, too; she loves you, she loves you dearly--and Sofya +Semyonovna may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to look upon +her as a daughter even... Dmitri Prokofitch will help us to go together. +But... where... are you going?” +“Good-bye, mother.” +“What, to-day?” she cried, as though losing him for ever. +“I can’t stay, I must go now....” +“And can’t I come with you?” +“No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your prayer perhaps will +reach Him.” +“Let me bless you and sign you with the cross. That’s right, that’s +right. Oh, God, what are we doing?” +Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no one there, that +he was alone with his mother. For the first time after all those awful +months his heart was softened. He fell down before her, he kissed her +feet and both wept, embracing. And she was not surprised and did not +question him this time. For some days she had realised that something +awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had +come for him. +“Rodya, my darling, my first born,” she said sobbing, “now you are just +as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and +kiss me. When your father was living and we were poor, you comforted us +simply by being with us and when I buried your father, how often we +wept together at his grave and embraced, as now. And if I’ve been crying +lately, it’s that my mother’s heart had a foreboding of trouble. The +first time I saw you, that evening, you remember, as soon as we arrived +here, I guessed simply from your eyes. My heart sank at once, and to-day +when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought the fatal hour had +come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not going away to-day?” +“No!” +“You’ll come again?” +“Yes... I’ll come.” +“Rodya, don’t be angry, I don’t dare to question you. I know I mustn’t. +Only say two words to me--is it far where you are going?” +“Very far.” +“What is awaiting you there? Some post or career for you?” +“What God sends... only pray for me.” Raskolnikov went to the door, but +she clutched him and gazed despairingly into his eyes. Her face worked +with terror. +“Enough, mother,” said Raskolnikov, deeply regretting that he had come. +“Not for ever, it’s not yet for ever? You’ll come, you’ll come +to-morrow?” +“I will, I will, good-bye.” He tore himself away at last. +It was a warm, fresh, bright evening; it had cleared up in the morning. +Raskolnikov went to his lodgings; he made haste. He wanted to finish all +before sunset. He did not want to meet anyone till then. Going up the +stairs he noticed that Nastasya rushed from the samovar to watch him +intently. “Can anyone have come to see me?” he wondered. He had a +disgusted vision of Porfiry. But opening his door he saw Dounia. She +was sitting alone, plunged in deep thought, and looked as though she had +been waiting a long time. He stopped short in the doorway. She rose from +the sofa in dismay and stood up facing him. Her eyes, fixed upon him, +betrayed horror and infinite grief. And from those eyes alone he saw at +once that she knew. +“Am I to come in or go away?” he asked uncertainly. +“I’ve been all day with Sofya Semyonovna. We were both waiting for you. +We thought that you would be sure to come there.” +Raskolnikov went into the room and sank exhausted on a chair. +“I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired; and I should have liked at this +moment to be able to control myself.” +He glanced at her mistrustfully. +“Where were you all night?” +“I don’t remember clearly. You see, sister, I wanted to make up my mind +once for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember that +I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn’t make up my mind,” he +whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again. +“Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonovna and +I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank God!” +Raskolnikov smiled bitterly. +“I haven’t faith, but I have just been weeping in mother’s arms; I +haven’t faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don’t know +how it is, Dounia, I don’t understand it.” +“Have you been at mother’s? Have you told her?” cried Dounia, +horror-stricken. “Surely you haven’t done that?” +“No, I didn’t tell her... in words; but she understood a great deal. +She heard you talking in your sleep. I am sure she half understands it +already. Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don’t know why I did +go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia.” +“A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering! You are, aren’t +you?” +“Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the disgrace I thought of +drowning myself, Dounia, but as I looked into the water, I thought that +if I had considered myself strong till now I’d better not be afraid of +disgrace,” he said, hurrying on. “It’s pride, Dounia.” +“Pride, Rodya.” +There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes; he seemed to be glad +to think that he was still proud. +“You don’t think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water?” he +asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile. +“Oh, Rodya, hush!” cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for two +minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on the floor; Dounia stood at the +other end of the table and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got +up. +“It’s late, it’s time to go! I am going at once to give myself up. But I +don’t know why I am going to give myself up.” +Big tears fell down her cheeks. +“You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to me?” +“You doubted it?” +She threw her arms round him. +“Aren’t you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering?” she +cried, holding him close and kissing him. +“Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury. “That I killed a vile +noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing +her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor +people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking +of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? ‘A +crime! a crime!’ Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, +now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It’s simply +because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, +perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!” +“Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood?” cried +Dounia in despair. +“Which all men shed,” he put in almost frantically, “which flows and has +always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which +men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of +mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I too wanted to +do good to men and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds +to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply +clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now +that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.) By that +stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an independent position, to +take the first step, to obtain means, and then everything would have +been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison.... But I... +I couldn’t carry out even the first step, because I am contemptible, +that’s what’s the matter! And yet I won’t look at it as you do. If I had +succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I’m trapped.” +“But that’s not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying?” +“Ah, it’s not picturesque, not æsthetically attractive! I fail to +understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable. +The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. I’ve never, +never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am further than ever +from seeing that what I did was a crime. I’ve never, never been stronger +and more convinced than now.” +The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered +his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia’s eyes and he saw such +anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that he +had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was, anyway, +the cause... +“Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven +if I am guilty). Good-bye! We won’t dispute. It’s time, high time to go. +Don’t follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you +go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It’s my last request +of you. Don’t leave her at all; I left her in a state of anxiety, that +she is not fit to bear; she will die or go out of her mind. Be with +her! Razumihin will be with you. I’ve been talking to him.... Don’t cry +about me: I’ll try to be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a +murderer. Perhaps I shall some day make a name. I won’t disgrace you, +you will see; I’ll still show.... Now good-bye for the present,” he +concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange expression in Dounia’s +eyes at his last words and promises. “Why are you crying? Don’t cry, +don’t cry: we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I’d +forgotten!” +He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took +from between the pages a little water-colour portrait on ivory. It was +the portrait of his landlady’s daughter, who had died of fever, that +strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the +delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave +it to Dounia. +“I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her,” he said +thoughtfully. “To her heart I confided much of what has since been so +hideously realised. Don’t be uneasy,” he returned to Dounia, “she was +as much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is gone. The great +point is that everything now is going to be different, is going to +be broken in two,” he cried, suddenly returning to his dejection. +“Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do I want it myself? +They say it is necessary for me to suffer! What’s the object of these +senseless sufferings? shall I know any better what they are for, when I +am crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old man after twenty +years’ penal servitude? And what shall I have to live for then? Why am I +consenting to that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible when I stood +looking at the Neva at daybreak to-day!” +At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia, but she loved him. +She walked away, but after going fifty paces she turned round to look +at him again. He was still in sight. At the corner he too turned and for +the last time their eyes met; but noticing that she was looking at him, +he motioned her away with impatience and even vexation, and turned the +corner abruptly. +“I am wicked, I see that,” he thought to himself, feeling ashamed a +moment later of his angry gesture to Dounia. “But why are they so fond +of me if I don’t deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved +me and I too had never loved anyone! _Nothing of all this would have +happened._ But I wonder shall I in those fifteen or twenty years grow so +meek that I shall humble myself before people and whimper at every word +that I am a criminal? Yes, that’s it, that’s it, that’s what they are +sending me there for, that’s what they want. Look at them running to and +fro about the streets, every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at +heart and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and they’d be +wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I hate them all!” +He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he could +be humbled before all of them, indiscriminately--humbled by conviction. +And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of continual +bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And why, why should +he live after that? Why should he go now when he knew that it would be +so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked himself that +question since the previous evening, but still he went. +CHAPTER VIII +When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already getting dark. All day +Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been +waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering +Svidrigaïlov’s words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the +conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became. +Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her +brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with his +confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it; +she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not ask, +but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence and +at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point +of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at +Dounia. Dounia’s gracious image when she had bowed to her so attentively +and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room had +remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life. +Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her +brother’s room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would come +there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the dread +of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had spent +the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and both +were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they parted, each +thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how Svidrigaïlov had said to +her the day before that Raskolnikov had two alternatives--Siberia or... +Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his lack of faith. +“Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to +make him live?” she thought at last in despair. +Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking +intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the +unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to +feel sure of his death--he walked into the room. +She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned +pale. +“Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for your cross, Sonia. It +was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened +now it’s come to that?” +Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold +shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the +words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid +meeting her eyes. +“You see, Sonia, I’ve decided that it will be better so. There is one +fact.... But it’s a long story and there’s no need to discuss it. But +do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish +faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid +questions, which I shall have to answer--they’ll point their fingers at +me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I’d +rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall surprise +him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler; I’ve become +too irritable of late. You know I was nearly shaking my fist at my +sister just now, because she turned to take a last look at me. It’s +a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the +crosses?” +He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still or +concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to gallop after +one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly. +Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of cypress +wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and +over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck. +“It’s the symbol of my taking up the cross,” he laughed. “As though I +had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant +one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta’s--you will wear yourself, show +me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like +these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old +woman’s neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I +ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what +matters; I’m somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you, +Sonia, so that you might know... that’s all--that’s all I came for. But +I thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I +am going to prison and you’ll have your wish. Well, what are you crying +for? You too? Don’t. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!” +But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. “Why +is she grieving too?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why does +she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She’ll +be my nurse.” +“Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia begged in a timid +broken voice. +“Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely....” +But he wanted to say something quite different. +He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put +it over her head. It was the green _drap de dames_ shawl of which +Marmeladov had spoken, “the family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought of that +looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he +was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was +frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia +meant to go with him. +“What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I’ll go +alone,” he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved +towards the door. “What’s the use of going in procession?” he muttered +going out. +Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said +good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt +surged in his heart. +“Was it right, was it right, all this?” he thought again as he went down +the stairs. “Couldn’t he stop and retract it all... and not go?” +But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn’t ask +himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he +had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of +the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted +at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another +thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike +him then. +“Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her--on +business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was +_going_; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away +just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I’ve sunk! No, +I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart +ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some +friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what +I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible!” +He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But +on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it +went to the Hay Market. +He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and +could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped away. “In +another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this +bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember +this!” slipped into his mind. “Look at this sign! How shall I read those +letters then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to remember, +that letter _a_, and to look at it again in a month--how shall I look +at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial +it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be +interesting... in its way... (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am +becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how +people shove! that fat man--a German he must be--who pushed against +me, does he know whom he pushed? There’s a peasant woman with a baby, +begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might +give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a five copeck +piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my +good woman!” +“God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice. +He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be +in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would have +given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that he +would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and +disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down. There +was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd, +stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short +jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him, +though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he +was; but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly +came over him, overwhelming him body and mind. +He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, “Go to the cross-roads, bow down to +the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say +aloud to the whole world, ‘I am a murderer.’” He trembled, remembering +that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time, especially +of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively +clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete sensation. It came +over him like a fit; it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and +spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the +tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot.... +He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth, and +kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed +down a second time. +“He’s boozed,” a youth near him observed. +There was a roar of laughter. +“He’s going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his children +and his country. He’s bowing down to all the world and kissing the great +city of St. Petersburg and its pavement,” added a workman who was a +little drunk. +“Quite a young man, too!” observed a third. +“And a gentleman,” someone observed soberly. +“There’s no knowing who’s a gentleman and who isn’t nowadays.” +These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words, “I am +a murderer,” which were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips, +died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and, without looking +round, he turned down a street leading to the police office. He had a +glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise him; he had felt +that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in the Hay Market he +saw, standing fifty paces from him on the left, Sonia. She was hiding +from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the market-place. She had +followed him then on his painful way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt +and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow +him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his +heart... but he was just reaching the fatal place. +He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third +storey. “I shall be some time going up,” he thought. He felt as though +the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time +left for consideration. +Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral +stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and +the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been +here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but +still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to +collect himself, so as to enter _like a man_. “But why? what for?” he +wondered, reflecting. “If I must drink the cup what difference does it +make? The more revolting the better.” He imagined for an instant the +figure of the “explosive lieutenant,” Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually +going to him? Couldn’t he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch? +Couldn’t he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch’s lodgings? +At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the “explosive +lieutenant”! If he must drink it, drink it off at once. +Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office. +There were very few people in it this time--only a house porter and a +peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen. +Raskolnikov walked into the next room. “Perhaps I still need not speak,” +passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was +settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was +seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch. +“No one in?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau. +“Whom do you want?” +“A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the +Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I’ve forgotten! ‘At +your service!’” a familiar voice cried suddenly. +Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He +had just come in from the third room. “It is the hand of fate,” thought +Raskolnikov. “Why is he here?” +“You’ve come to see us? What about?” cried Ilya Petrovitch. He +was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle +exhilarated. “If it’s on business you are rather early.[*] It’s only a +chance that I am here... however I’ll do what I can. I must admit, I... +what is it, what is it? Excuse me....” +[*] Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after +sunset, and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the +police office at two in the afternoon he was reproached for +coming too late.--TRANSLATOR. +“Raskolnikov.” +“Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn’t imagine I’d forgotten? Don’t think I +am like that... Rodion Ro--Ro--Rodionovitch, that’s it, isn’t it?” +“Rodion Romanovitch.” +“Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I +made many inquiries about you. I assure you I’ve been genuinely grieved +since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me +afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and +so to say the first steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scientific +man does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have +the greatest respect for literature, in my wife it’s a genuine passion! +Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be +gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hat--well, +what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun; but +what’s under the hat, what the hat covers, I can’t buy that! I was even +meaning to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you’d... But I +am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your +family have come?” +“Yes, my mother and sister.” +“I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister--a highly +cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with +you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting +fit--that affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism! +I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging on +account of your family’s arriving?” +“No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should find +Zametov here.” +“Oh, yes! Of course, you’ve made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is +not here. Yes, we’ve lost Zametov. He’s not been here since yesterday... +he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a +feather-headed youngster, that’s all; one might have expected something +from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant young men. +He wanted to go in for some examination, but it’s only to talk and +boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it’s a very +different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your +career is an intellectual one and you won’t be deterred by failure. For +you, one may say, all the attractions of life _nihil est_--you are an +ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned +research--that’s where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself.... +Have you read Livingstone’s Travels?” +“No.” +“Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you know, +and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are they? I +ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course? Answer me +openly, openly!” +“N-no...” +“Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself! +Official duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say +_friendship_ is quite another? No, you’re wrong! It’s not friendship, +but the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of +love for the Almighty. I may be an official, but I am always bound +to feel myself a man and a citizen.... You were asking about Zametov. +Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a house of bad +reputation, over a glass of champagne... that’s all your Zametov is good +for! While I’m perhaps, so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty +feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a post! I am married and +have children, I fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen, but who is +he, may I ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by education... Then +these midwives, too, have become extraordinarily numerous.” +Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya +Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a +stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He +looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end. +“I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talkative Ilya Petrovitch +continued. “Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very satisfactory +one, ha-ha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill, am +I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do you say? Ha-ha!” Ilya +Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own wit. “It’s an immoderate +zeal for education, but once you’re educated, that’s enough. Why abuse +it? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why +did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how common +they are, you can’t fancy! People spend their last halfpenny and kill +themselves, boys and girls and old people. Only this morning we heard +about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil Pavlitch, I say, what +was the name of that gentleman who shot himself?” +“Svidrigaïlov,” someone answered from the other room with drowsy +listlessness. +Raskolnikov started. +“Svidrigaïlov! Svidrigaïlov has shot himself!” he cried. +“What, do you know Svidrigaïlov?” +“Yes... I knew him.... He hadn’t been here long.” +“Yes, that’s so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless habits and +all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking way.... He left +in his notebook a few words: that he dies in full possession of his +faculties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they +say. How did you come to know him?” +“I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family.” +“Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him. You had +no suspicion?” +“I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine; I knew nothing.” +Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was stifling +him. +“You’ve turned pale again. It’s so stuffy here...” +“Yes, I must go,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Excuse my troubling you....” +“Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It’s a pleasure to see you and I +am glad to say so.” +Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand. +“I only wanted... I came to see Zametov.” +“I understand, I understand, and it’s a pleasure to see you.” +“I... am very glad... good-bye,” Raskolnikov smiled. +He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not know +what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting himself +with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter pushed +past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog in +the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung a +rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard. +There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror-stricken. +She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of +poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips +worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned +and went back to the police office. +Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some papers. Before +him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the stairs. +“Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What’s the matter?” +Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer. +He walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say +something, but could not; only incoherent sounds were audible. +“You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water!” +Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes fixed on the +face of Ilya Petrovitch, which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both +looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought. +“It was I...” began Raskolnikov. +“Drink some water.” +Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and brokenly, +but distinctly said: +“_It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with +an axe and robbed them._” +Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides. +Raskolnikov repeated his statement. +EPILOGUE +I +Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of +the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, +in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class +convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a +year and a half has passed since his crime. +There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal adhered +exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not confuse nor +misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit +the smallest detail. He explained every incident of the murder, the +secret of _the pledge_ (the piece of wood with a strip of metal) which +was found in the murdered woman’s hand. He described minutely how he +had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the chest and its +contents; he explained the mystery of Lizaveta’s murder; described how +Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had said +to one another; how he afterwards had run downstairs and heard Nikolay +and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in the empty flat and afterwards +gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the yard off the +Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse and the trinkets were found. +The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the +judges were very much struck, among other things, by the fact that he +had hidden the trinkets and the purse under a stone, without making +use of them, and that, what was more, he did not now remember what the +trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The fact that he had +never opened the purse and did not even know how much was in it seemed +incredible. There turned out to be in the purse three hundred and +seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being so long under the stone, +some of the most valuable notes lying uppermost had suffered from the +damp. They were a long while trying to discover why the accused man +should tell a lie about this, when about everything else he had made +a truthful and straightforward confession. Finally some of the lawyers +more versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he had really +not looked into the purse, and so didn’t know what was in it when he +hid it under the stone. But they immediately drew the deduction that +the crime could only have been committed through temporary mental +derangement, through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of +gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary +insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover +Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by +Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant. +All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not +quite like an ordinary murderer and robber, but that there was another +element in the case. +To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the +criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive question +as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery, he +answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause was +his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his desire to +provide for his first steps in life by the help of the three thousand +roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the murder +through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by +privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess, he +answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was almost +coarse.... +The sentence however was more merciful than could have been expected, +perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify himself, +but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the strange +and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into consideration. +There could be no doubt of the abnormal and poverty-stricken condition +of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had made no use of what he +had stolen was put down partly to the effect of remorse, partly to his +abnormal mental condition at the time of the crime. Incidentally the +murder of Lizaveta served indeed to confirm the last hypothesis: a man +commits two murders and forgets that the door is open! Finally, the +confession, at the very moment when the case was hopelessly muddled by +the false evidence given by Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism, +and when, moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no +suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch fully kept his word)--all this did +much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s +favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow discovered and +proved that while Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a poor +consumptive fellow student and had spent his last penny on supporting +him for six months, and when this student died, leaving a decrepit +old father whom he had maintained almost from his thirteenth year, +Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital and paid for his funeral +when he died. Raskolnikov’s landlady bore witness, too, that when they +had lived in another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two +little children from a house on fire and was burnt in doing so. This was +investigated and fairly well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts +made an impression in his favour. +And in the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating +circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a +term of eight years only. +At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s mother fell ill. Dounia +and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the +trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from Petersburg, so +as to be able to follow every step of the trial and at the same time +to see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s +illness was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a partial +derangement of her intellect. +When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she +had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening +Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her mother’s +questions about Raskolnikov and made up a complete story for her +mother’s benefit of his having to go away to a distant part of Russia +on a business commission, which would bring him in the end money and +reputation. +But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never +asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On the +contrary, she had her own version of her son’s sudden departure; she +told them with tears how he had come to say good-bye to her, hinting +that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that Rodya +had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary for him to be +in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt that it would be +brilliant when certain sinister influences could be removed. She assured +Razumihin that her son would be one day a great statesman, that his +article and brilliant literary talent proved it. This article she was +continually reading, she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed +with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the subject was +obviously avoided by the others, which might have been enough to awaken +her suspicions. +They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s strange +silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance, complain of +getting no letters from him, though in previous years she had only lived +on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This was the cause of +great uneasiness to Dounia; the idea occurred to her that her mother +suspected that there was something terrible in her son’s fate and was +afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more awful. In any +case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of +her faculties. +It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave +such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her +without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving unsatisfactory and +suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and silent, and this mood +lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it was hard to deceive +her and came to the conclusion that it was better to be absolutely +silent on certain points; but it became more and more evident that +the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia remembered her +brother’s telling her that her mother had overheard her talking in her +sleep on the night after her interview with Svidrigaïlov and before the +fatal day of the confession: had not she made out something from that? +Sometimes days and even weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be +succeeded by a period of hysterical animation, and the invalid would +begin to talk almost incessantly of her son, of her hopes of his +future.... Her fancies were sometimes very strange. They humoured her, +pretended to agree with her (she saw perhaps that they were pretending), +but she still went on talking. +Five months after Raskolnikov’s confession, he was sentenced. Razumihin +and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible. At last +the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that the +separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same. Razumihin, in +his youthful ardour, had firmly resolved to lay the foundations at least +of a secure livelihood during the next three or four years, and saving +up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a country rich in every +natural resource and in need of workers, active men and capital. There +they would settle in the town where Rodya was and all together would +begin a new life. They all wept at parting. +Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a great +deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He worried +so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard about his +mother’s illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was particularly +reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to her by +Svidrigaïlov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the +party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia. Not a word +passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it +would be so. At the final leave-taking he smiled strangely at his +sister’s and Razumihin’s fervent anticipations of their happy future +together when he should come out of prison. He predicted that their +mother’s illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at last +set off. +Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet and +sorrowful wedding; Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited however. +During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute determination. +Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans and indeed she +could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare strength of will. +Among other things he began attending university lectures again in order +to take his degree. They were continually making plans for the future; +both counted on settling in Siberia within five years at least. Till +then they rested their hopes on Sonia. +Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dounia’s +marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became even more +melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin told her how +Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his decrepit father +and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in rescuing two +little children from a fire. These two pieces of news excited Pulcheria +Alexandrovna’s disordered imagination almost to ecstasy. She was +continually talking about them, even entering into conversation with +strangers in the street, though Dounia always accompanied her. In public +conveyances and shops, wherever she could capture a listener, she would +begin the discourse about her son, his article, how he had helped the +student, how he had been burnt at the fire, and so on! Dounia did +not know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of her morbid +excitement, there was the risk of someone’s recalling Raskolnikov’s name +and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria Alexandrovna found out the +address of the mother of the two children her son had saved and insisted +on going to see her. +At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would sometimes +begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly delirious. One +morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought soon to be home, +that she remembered when he said good-bye to her he said that they must +expect him back in nine months. She began to prepare for his coming, +began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, to wash and +put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was anxious, but said nothing and +helped her to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in continual +fancies, in joyful day-dreams and tears, Pulcheria Alexandrovna was +taken ill in the night and by morning she was feverish and delirious. +It was brain fever. She died within a fortnight. In her delirium she +dropped words which showed that she knew a great deal more about her +son’s terrible fate than they had supposed. +For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother’s death, though +a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time he reached +Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote every month +to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing regularity. At +first they found Sonia’s letters dry and unsatisfactory, but later on +they came to the conclusion that the letters could not be better, for +from these letters they received a complete picture of their unfortunate +brother’s life. Sonia’s letters were full of the most matter-of-fact +detail, the simplest and clearest description of all Raskolnikov’s +surroundings as a convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no +conjecture as to the future, no description of her feelings. Instead of +any attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the +simple facts--that is, his own words, an exact account of his health, +what he asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her +and so on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The +picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness +and precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but +facts. +But Dounia and her husband could get little comfort out of the news, +especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not +ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave +him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and +that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at last +of her death, she was surprised to find that he did not seem greatly +affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them that, although +he seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were, shut himself off +from everyone--he took a very direct and simple view of his new life; +that he understood his position, expected nothing better for the time, +had no ill-founded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely +seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so unlike anything he +had known before. She wrote that his health was satisfactory; he did his +work without shirking or seeking to do more; he was almost indifferent +about food, but except on Sundays and holidays the food was so bad that +at last he had been glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have +his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else, +declaring that all this fuss about him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote +further that in prison he shared the same room with the rest, that she +had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that they were +crowded, miserable and unhealthy; that he slept on a plank bed with a +rug under him and was unwilling to make any other arrangement. But that +he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan or design, but simply +from inattention and indifference. +Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her visits, +had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to talk and +rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a habit and +almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively distressed when +she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She used to see him +on holidays at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he was +brought for a few minutes to see her. On working days she would go to +see him at work either at the workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the +sheds on the banks of the Irtish. +About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some +acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there +was scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an +indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that the +authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov; that his task +was lightened and so on. +At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and +uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone, +that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days +at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote +that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of +the hospital. +II +He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not +the hard labour, the bad food, the shaven head, or the patched clothes +that crushed him. What did he care for all those trials and hardships! +he was even glad of the hard work. Physically exhausted, he could at +least reckon on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what was the food to +him--the thin cabbage soup with beetles floating in it? In the past as a +student he had often not had even that. His clothes were warm and suited +to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed +of his shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom? Before Sonia? +Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before her? And yet he +was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it with +his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his shaven head and his +fetters he was ashamed of: his pride had been stung to the quick. It was +wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he +could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even +shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated +conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his past, except +a simple _blunder_ which might happen to anyone. He was ashamed just +because he, Raskolnikov, had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief +through some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to +“the idiocy” of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace. +Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a +continual sacrifice leading to nothing--that was all that lay before +him. And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he +would only be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had he to +live for? What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live +in order to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to +give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy. +Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted +more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he +had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others. +And if only fate would have sent him repentance--burning repentance that +would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the +awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would +have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would at least have been life. +But he did not repent of his crime. +At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he +had raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison. +But now in prison, _in freedom_, he thought over and criticised all his +actions again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque +as they had seemed at the fatal time. +“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory stupider than others +that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One has +only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced +by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so... strange. +Oh, sceptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt half-way! +“Why does my action strike them as so horrible?” he said to himself. “Is +it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is at +rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law +was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the +law... and that’s enough. Of course, in that case many of the +benefactors of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of +inheriting it ought to have been punished at their first steps. But +those men succeeded and so _they were right_, and I didn’t, and so I +had no right to have taken that step.” +It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact +that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it. +He suffered too from the question: why had he not killed himself? Why +had he stood looking at the river and preferred to confess? Was the +desire to live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it? Had not +Svidrigaïlov overcome it, although he was afraid of death? +In misery he asked himself this question, and could not understand that, +at the very time he had been standing looking into the river, he had +perhaps been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in himself and +his convictions. He didn’t understand that that consciousness might be +the promise of a future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future +resurrection. +He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct which he +could not step over, again through weakness and meanness. He looked at +his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life and +prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in +prison than in freedom. What terrible agonies and privations some of +them, the tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so much for +a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden away +in some unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years before, and +longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart, dreaming of the +green grass round it and the bird singing in the bush? As he went on he +saw still more inexplicable examples. +In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and did not +want to see; he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It was loathsome +and unbearable for him to look. But in the end there was much that +surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily, to notice much +that he had not suspected before. What surprised him most of all was +the terrible impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest. They +seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at +him with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons of his +isolation, but he would never have admitted till then that those reasons +were so deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political +prisoners, among them. They simply looked down upon all the rest as +ignorant churls; but Raskolnikov could not look upon them like that. +He saw that these ignorant men were in many respects far wiser than the +Poles. There were some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a former +officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly. +He was disliked and avoided by everyone; they even began to hate him at +last--why, he could not tell. Men who had been far more guilty despised +and laughed at his crime. +“You’re a gentleman,” they used to say. “You shouldn’t hack about with +an axe; that’s not a gentleman’s work.” +The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with his +gang. He went to church and prayed with the others. A quarrel broke out +one day, he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury. +“You’re an infidel! You don’t believe in God,” they shouted. “You ought +to be killed.” +He had never talked to them about God nor his belief, but they wanted to +kill him as an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at +him in a perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and silently; +his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not flinch. The guard +succeeded in intervening between him and his assailant, or there would +have been bloodshed. +There was another question he could not decide: why were they all so +fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour; she rarely met +them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And yet +everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow _him_, +knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did them no +particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents +of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up between +them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to their +relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their +instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives +and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited +Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they +all took off their hats to her. “Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you +are our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded criminals said to that +frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was +delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and turned round +to watch her walking; they admired her too for being so little, and, in +fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They even came to her +for help in their illnesses. +He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When +he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish +and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a +terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of +Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts +of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were +endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once +mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual +and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never +had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their +moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples +went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand +one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched +looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung +his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to +consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom +to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They +gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march +the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken +and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting +and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in +the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was +summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, +because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they +could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed +on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something +quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, +fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All +men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and +moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole +world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and +a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these +men, no one had heard their words and their voices. +Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his memory so +miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted so long. +The second week after Easter had come. There were warm bright spring +days; in the prison ward the grating windows under which the sentinel +paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit him twice during +his illness; each time she had to obtain permission, and it was +difficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard, especially +in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look up at the +windows of the ward. +One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep. On +waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in the +distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone. +Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He shuddered and +moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the day +after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At last he was +discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that +Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out. +He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that +her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her, +Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better, +that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and +see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it. +Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o’clock, he +went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound alabaster +and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only +three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the +fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood ready and +laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river +bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the +wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened before +him, the sound of singing floated faintly audible from the other bank. +In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black +specks, the nomads’ tents. There there was freedom, there other men were +living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand +still, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed. +Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into day-dreams, into +contemplation; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited +and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come up +noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the +morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the +green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and +paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand +with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand +to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would +repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always +seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout +her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply +grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance +at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were +alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time. +How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to +seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round +her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she +turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same +moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her +eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and +that at last the moment had come.... +They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They +were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the +dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were +renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the +heart of the other. +They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to +wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before +them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his +being, while she--she only lived in his life. +On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked, +Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even fancied +that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him +differently; he had even entered into talk with them and they answered +him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought it was bound +to be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed? +He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had tormented her +and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and thin little face. +But these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he knew with what +infinite love he would now repay all her sufferings. And what were all, +_all_ the agonies of the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence +and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of feeling an +external, strange fact with which he had no concern. But he could not +think for long together of anything that evening, and he could not have +analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling. Life had stepped +into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself +out in his mind. +Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically. +The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the +raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry +him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with +books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject +and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it +himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without +a word. Till now he had not opened it. +He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind: “Can +her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at +least....” +She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken +ill again. But she was so happy--and so unexpectedly happy--that she was +almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, _only_ seven years! At +the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready +to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not +know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would +have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great +suffering. +But that is the beginning of a new story--the story of the gradual +renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing +from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. +That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is +ended.",Crime and Punishment,Fyodor Dostoevsky,430,['Rodion Raskolnikov'] +"[Illustration: Had she taken sides with either of them, with a single +movement, the victory would have been decided in that one’s favor. +_Frontispiece_] +THE CRYSTAL STOPPER +by Maurice LeBlanc +CONTENTS +CHAPTER +I. THE ARRESTS +II. EIGHT FROM NINE LEAVES ONE +III. THE HOME LIFE OF ALEXIS DAUBRECO +IV. THE CHIEF OF THE ENEMIES +V. THE TWENTY-SEVEN +VI. THE DEATH-SENTENCE +VII. THE PROFILE OF NAPOLEON +VIII. THE LOVERS’ TOWER +IX. IN THE DARK +X. EXTRA-DRY? +XI. THE CROSS OF LORRAINE +XII. THE SCAFFOLD +XIII. THE LAST BATTLE +ILLUSTRATIONS +Had she taken sides with either of them, with a single movement, +the victory would have been decided in that one’s favor. +_Frontispiece_ +Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him: “It said +‘de’ Beaumont? Are you sure?” 40 +“Here, I’ve brought you the indomitable chief of our enemies. +Have you a feeding bottle?” 78 +“Be quiet!... Be quiet!” she cried, clutching him fiercely. “You +mustn’t say that.” 84 +Lupin sprang to his feet. He was prepared for every upshot except +this. 118 +“What we have to do is to stop the mischief and to-night, you +understand, to-night the thing will be done.” 138 +The sight which she beheld struck her with stupefaction. 214 +Daubrecq ran up to Prasville out of breath and caught hold of him +with his two enormous hands. 278 +CHAPTER I. +THE ARRESTS +The two boats fastened to the little pier that jutted out from the +garden lay rocking in its shadow. Here and there lighted windows +showed through the thick mist on the margins of the lake. The +Enghien Casino opposite blazed with light, though it was late in +the season, the end of September. A few stars appeared through the +clouds. A light breeze ruffled the surface of the water. +Arsène Lupin left the summer-house where he was smoking a cigar +and, bending forward at the end of the pier: +“Growler?” he asked. “Masher?... Are you there?” +A man rose from each of the boats, and one of them answered: +“Yes, governor.” +“Get ready. I hear the car coming with Gilbert and Vaucheray.” +He crossed the garden, walked round a house in process of +construction, the scaffolding of which loomed overhead, and +cautiously opened the door on the Avenue de Ceinture. He was not +mistaken: a bright light flashed round the bend and a large, open +motor-car drew up, whence sprang two men in great-coats, with the +collars turned up, and caps. +It was Gilbert and Vaucheray: Gilbert, a young fellow of twenty or +twenty-two, with an attractive cast of features and a supple and +sinewy frame; Vaucheray, older, shorter, with grizzled hair and a +pale, sickly face. +“Well,” asked Lupin, “did you see him, the deputy?” +“Yes, governor,” said Gilbert, “we saw him take the 7.40 tram for +Paris, as we knew he would.” +“Then we are free to act?” +“Absolutely. The Villa Marie-Thérèse is ours to do as we please +with.” +The chauffeur had kept his seat. Lupin gave him his orders: +“Don’t wait here. It might attract attention. Be back at half-past +nine exactly, in time to load the car unless the whole business +falls through.” +“Why should it fall through?” observed Gilbert. +The motor drove away; and Lupin, taking the road to the lake with +his two companions, replied: +“Why? Because I didn’t prepare the plan; and, when I don’t do a +thing myself, I am only half-confident.” +“Nonsense, governor! I’ve been working with you for three years +now.... I’m beginning to know the ropes!” +“Yes, my lad, you’re beginning,” said Lupin, “and that’s just +why I’m afraid of blunders.... Here, get in with me.... And you, +Vaucheray, take the other boat.... That’s it.... And now push off, +boys . . . and make as little noise as you can.” +Growler and Masher, the two oarsmen, made straight for the opposite +bank, a little to the left of the casino. +They met a boat containing a couple locked in each other’s arms, +floating at random, and another in which a number of people were +singing at the top of their voices. And that was all. +Lupin shifted closer to his companion and said, under his breath: +“Tell me, Gilbert, did you think of this job, or was it Vaucheray’s +idea?” +“Upon my word, I couldn’t tell you: we’ve both of us been discussing +it for weeks.” +“The thing is, I don’t trust Vaucheray: he’s a low ruffian when +one gets to know him.... I can’t make out why I don’t get rid of +him....” +“Oh, governor!” +“Yes, yes, I mean what I say: he’s a dangerous fellow, to say +nothing of the fact that he has some rather serious peccadilloes on +his conscience.” +He sat silent for a moment and continued: +“So you’re quite sure that you saw Daubrecq the deputy?” +“Saw him with my own eyes, governor.” +“And you know that he has an appointment in Paris?” +“He’s going to the theatre.” +“Very well; but his servants have remained behind at the Enghien +villa....” +“The cook has been sent away. As for the valet, Léonard, who is +Daubrecq’s confidential man, he’ll wait for his master in Paris. +They can’t get back from town before one o’clock in the morning. +But....” +“But what?” +“We must reckon with a possible freak of fancy on Daubrecq’s part, +a change of mind, an unexpected return, and so arrange to have +everything finished and done with in an hour.” +“And when did you get these details?” +“This morning. Vaucheray and I at once thought that it was a +favourable moment. I selected the garden of the unfinished house +which we have just left as the best place to start from; for the +house is not watched at night. I sent for two mates to row the +boats; and I telephoned to you. That’s the whole story.” +“Have you the keys?” +“The keys of the front-door.” +“Is that the villa which I see from here, standing in its own +grounds?” +“Yes, the Villa Marie-Thérèse; and as the two others, with the +gardens touching it on either side, have been unoccupied since this +day week, we shall be able to remove what we please at our leisure; +and I swear to you, governor, it’s well worth while.” +“The job’s much too simple,” mumbled Lupin. “No charm about it!” +They landed in a little creek whence rose a few stone steps, under +cover of a mouldering roof. Lupin reflected that shipping the +furniture would be easy work. But, suddenly, he said: +“There are people at the villa. Look . . . a light.” +“It’s a gas-jet, governor. The light’s not moving.” +The Growler stayed by the boats, with instructions to keep watch, +while the Masher, the other rower, went to the gate on the Avenue +de Ceinture, and Lupin and his two companions crept in the shadow +to the foot of the steps. +Gilbert went up first. Groping in the dark, he inserted first the +big door-key and then the latch-key. Both turned easily in their +locks, the door opened and the three men walked in. +A gas-jet was flaring in the hall. +“You see, governor....” said Gilbert. +“Yes, yes,” said Lupin, in a low voice, “but it seems to me that the +light which I saw shining did not come from here....” +“Where did it come from then?” +“I can’t say.... Is this the drawing-room?” +“No,” replied Gilbert, who was not afraid to speak pretty loudly, +“no. By way of precaution, he keeps everything on the first floor, +in his bedroom and in the two rooms on either side of it.” +“And where is the staircase?” +“On the right, behind the curtain.” +Lupin moved to the curtain and was drawing the hanging aside when, +suddenly, at four steps on the left, a door opened and a head +appeared, a pallid man’s head, with terrified eyes. +“Help! Murder!” shouted the man. +And he rushed back into the room. +“It’s Léonard, the valet!” cried Gilbert. +“If he makes a fuss, I’ll out him,” growled Vaucheray. +“You’ll jolly well do nothing of the sort, do you hear, Vaucheray?” +said Lupin, peremptorily. And he darted off in pursuit of the +servant. He first went through a dining-room, where he saw a lamp +still lit, with plates and a bottle around it, and he found Léonard +at the further end of a pantry, making vain efforts to open the +window: +“Don’t move, sportie! No kid! Ah, the brute!” +He had thrown himself flat on the floor, on seeing Léonard raise +his arm at him. Three shots were fired in the dusk of the pantry; +and then the valet came tumbling to the ground, seized by the legs +by Lupin, who snatched his weapon from him and gripped him by the +throat: +“Get out, you dirty brute!” he growled. “He very nearly did for +me.... Here, Vaucheray, secure this gentleman!” +He threw the light of his pocket-lantern on the servant’s face and +chuckled: +“He’s not a pretty gentleman either.... You can’t have a very clear +conscience, Léonard; besides, to play flunkey to Daubrecq the +deputy...! Have you finished, Vaucheray? I don’t want to hang about +here for ever!” +“There’s no danger, governor,” said Gilbert. +“Oh, really?... So you think that shots can’t be heard?...” +“Quite impossible.” +“No matter, we must look sharp. Vaucheray, take the lamp and let’s +go upstairs.” +He took Gilbert by the arm and, as he dragged him to the first +floor: +“You ass,” he said, “is that the way you make inquiries? Wasn’t I +right to have my doubts?” +“Look here, governor, I couldn’t know that he would change his mind +and come back to dinner.” +“One’s got to know everything when one has the honour of breaking +into people’s houses. You numskull! I’ll remember you and +Vaucheray . . . a nice pair of gossoons!...” +The sight of the furniture on the first floor pacified Lupin and he +started on his inventory with the satisfied air of a collector who +has looked in to treat himself to a few works of art: +“By Jingo! There’s not much of it, but what there is is pucka! +There’s nothing the matter with this representative of the people +in the question of taste. Four Aubusson chairs.... A bureau signed +‘Percier-Fontaine,’ for a wager.... Two inlays by Gouttières.... A +genuine Fragonard and a sham Nattier which any American millionaire +will swallow for the asking: in short, a fortune.... And there are +curmudgeons who pretend that there’s nothing but faked stuff left. +Dash it all, why don’t they do as I do? They should look about!” +Gilbert and Vaucheray, following Lupin’s orders and instructions, +at once proceeded methodically to remove the bulkier pieces. The +first boat was filled in half an hour; and it was decided that the +Growler and the Masher should go on ahead and begin to load the +motor-car. +Lupin went to see them start. On returning to the house, it struck +him, as he passed through the hall, that he heard a voice in the +pantry. He went there and found Léonard lying flat on his stomach, +quite alone, with his hands tied behind his back: +“So it’s you growling, my confidential flunkey? Don’t get excited: +it’s almost finished. Only, if you make too much noise, you’ll +oblige us to take severer measures.... Do you like pears? We might +give you one, you know: a choke-pear!...” +As he went upstairs, he again heard the same sound and, stopping to +listen, he caught these words, uttered in a hoarse, groaning voice, +which came, beyond a doubt, from the pantry: +“Help!... Murder!... Help!... I shall be killed!... Inform the +commissary!” +“The fellow’s clean off his chump!” muttered Lupin. “By Jove!... To +disturb the police at nine o’clock in the evening: there’s a notion +for you!” +He set to work again. It took longer than he expected, for they +discovered in the cupboards all sorts of valuable knick-knacks +which it would have been very wrong to disdain and, on the other +hand, Vaucheray and Gilbert were going about their investigations +with signs of laboured concentration that nonplussed him. +At long last, he lost his patience: +“That will do!” he said. “We’re not going to spoil the whole job +and keep the motor waiting for the sake of the few odd bits that +remain. I’m taking the boat.” +They were now by the waterside and Lupin went down the steps. +Gilbert held him back: +“I say, governor, we want one more look round five minutes, no +longer.” +“But what for, dash it all?” +“Well, it’s like this: we were told of an old reliquary, something +stunning....” +“Well?” +“We can’t lay our hands on it. And I was thinking.... There’s a +cupboard with a big lock to it in the pantry.... You see, we can’t +very well....” +He was already on his way to the villa. Vaucheray ran back too. +“I’ll give you ten minutes, not a second longer!” cried Lupin. “In +ten minutes, I’m off.” +But the ten minutes passed and he was still waiting. +He looked at his watch: +“A quarter-past nine,” he said to himself. “This is madness.” +And he also remembered that Gilbert and Vaucheray had behaved +rather queerly throughout the removal of the things, keeping +close together and apparently watching each other. What could be +happening? +Lupin mechanically returned to the house, urged by a feeling of +anxiety which he was unable to explain; and, at the same time, +he listened to a dull sound which rose in the distance, from the +direction of Enghien, and which seemed to be coming nearer.... +People strolling about, no doubt.... +He gave a sharp whistle and then went to the main gate, to take +a glance down the avenue. But, suddenly, as he was opening the +gate, a shot rang out, followed by a yell of pain. He returned at +a run, went round the house, leapt up the steps and rushed to the +dining-room: +“Blast it all, what are you doing there, you two?” +Gilbert and Vaucheray, locked in a furious embrace, were rolling on +the floor, uttering cries of rage. Their clothes were dripping with +blood. Lupin flew at them to separate them. But already Gilbert had +got his adversary down and was wrenching out of his hand something +which Lupin had no time to see. And Vaucheray, who was losing blood +through a wound in the shoulder, fainted. +“Who hurt him? You, Gilbert?” asked Lupin, furiously. +“No, Léonard.” +“Léonard? Why, he was tied up!” +“He undid his fastenings and got hold of his revolver.” +“The scoundrel! Where is he?” +Lupin took the lamp and went into the pantry. +The man-servant was lying on his back, with his arms outstretched, a +dagger stuck in his throat and a livid face. A red stream trickled +from his mouth. +“Ah,” gasped Lupin, after examining him, “he’s dead!” +“Do you think so?... Do you think so?” stammered Gilbert, in a +trembling voice. +“He’s dead, I tell you.” +“It was Vaucheray . . . it was Vaucheray who did it....” +Pale with anger, Lupin caught hold of him: +“It was Vaucheray, was it?... And you too, you blackguard, since +you were there and didn’t stop him! Blood! Blood! You know I won’t +have it.... Well, it’s a bad lookout for you, my fine fellows.... +You’ll have to pay the damage! And you won’t get off cheaply +either.... Mind the guillotine!” And, shaking him violently, “What +was it? Why did he kill him?” +“He wanted to go through his pockets and take the key of the +cupboard from him. When he stooped over him, he saw that the man +unloosed his arms. He got frightened . . . and he stabbed him....” +“But the revolver-shot?” +“It was Léonard . . . he had his revolver in his hand . . . he just +had strength to take aim before he died....” +“And the key of the cupboard?” +“Vaucheray took it....” +“Did he open it?” +“And did he find what he was after?” +“Yes.” +“And you wanted to take the thing from him. What sort of thing was +it? The reliquary? No, it was too small for that.... Then what was +it? Answer me, will you?...” +Lupin gathered from Gilbert’s silence and the determined expression +on his face that he would not obtain a reply. With a threatening +gesture, “I’ll make you talk, my man. Sure as my name’s Lupin, you +shall come out with it. But, for the moment, we must see about +decamping. Here, help me. We must get Vaucheray into the boat....” +They had returned to the dining-room and Gilbert was bending over +the wounded man, when Lupin stopped him: +“Listen.” +They exchanged one look of alarm.... Some one was speaking in +the pantry . . . a very low, strange, very distant voice.... +Nevertheless, as they at once made certain, there was no one in the +room, no one except the dead man, whose dark outline lay stretched +upon the floor. +And the voice spake anew, by turns shrill, stifled, bleating, +stammering, yelling, fearsome. It uttered indistinct words, broken +syllables. +Lupin felt the top of his head covering with perspiration. What was +this incoherent voice, mysterious as a voice from beyond the grave? +He had knelt down by the man-servant’s side. The voice was silent +and then began again: +“Give us a better light,” he said to Gilbert. +He was trembling a little, shaken with a nervous dread which he was +unable to master, for there was no doubt possible: when Gilbert +had removed the shade from the lamp, Lupin realized that the voice +issued from the corpse itself, without a movement of the lifeless +mass, without a quiver of the bleeding mouth. +“Governor, I’ve got the shivers,” stammered Gilbert. +Again the same voice, the same snuffling whisper. +Suddenly, Lupin burst out laughing, seized the corpse and pulled it +aside: +“Exactly!” he said, catching sight of an object made of polished +metal. “Exactly! That’s it!... Well, upon my word, it took me long +enough!” +On the spot on the floor which he had uncovered lay the receiver of +a telephone, the cord of which ran up to the apparatus fixed on the +wall, at the usual height. +Lupin put the receiver to his ear. The noise began again at once, +but it was a mixed noise, made up of different calls, exclamations, +confused cries, the noise produced by a number of persons +questioning one another at the same time. +“Are you there?... He won’t answer. It’s awful.... They must have +killed him. What is it?... Keep up your courage. There’s help on +the way . . . police . . . soldiers....” +“Dash it!” said Lupin, dropping the receiver. +The truth appeared to him in a terrifying vision. Quite at the +beginning, while the things upstairs were being moved, Léonard, +whose bonds were not securely fastened, had contrived to +scramble to his feet, to unhook the receiver, probably with his +teeth, to drop it and to appeal for assistance to the Enghien +telephone-exchange. +And those were the words which Lupin had overheard, after the first +boat started: +“Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!” +And this was the reply of the exchange. The police were hurrying to +the spot. And Lupin remembered the sounds which he had heard from +the garden, four or five minutes earlier, at most: +“The police! Take to your heels!” he shouted, darting across the +dining room. +“What about Vaucheray?” asked Gilbert. +“Sorry, can’t be helped!” +But Vaucheray, waking from his torpor, entreated him as he passed: +“Governor, you wouldn’t leave me like this!” +Lupin stopped, in spite of the danger, and was lifting the wounded +man, with Gilbert’s assistance, when a loud din arose outside: +“Too late!” he said. +At that moment, blows shook the hall-door at the back of the house. +He ran to the front steps: a number of men had already turned the +corner of the house at a rush. He might have managed to keep ahead +of them, with Gilbert, and reach the waterside. But what chance was +there of embarking and escaping under the enemy’s fire? +He locked and bolted the door. +“We are surrounded . . . and done for,” spluttered Gilbert. +“Hold your tongue,” said Lupin. +“But they’ve seen us, governor. There, they’re knocking.” +“Hold your tongue,” Lupin repeated. “Not a word. Not a movement.” +He himself remained unperturbed, with an utterly calm face and +the pensive attitude of one who has all the time that he needs +to examine a delicate situation from every point of view. He had +reached one of those minutes which he called the “superior moments +of existence,” those which alone give a value and a price to life. +On such occasions, however threatening the danger, he always began +by counting to himself, slowly--“One.... Two.... Three.... Four.... +Five.... Six”--until the beating of his heart became normal and +regular. Then and not till then, he reflected, but with what +intensity, with what perspicacity, with what a profound intuition +of possibilities! All the factors of the problem were present in +his mind. He foresaw everything. He admitted everything. And he +took his resolution in all logic and in all certainty. +After thirty or forty seconds, while the men outside were banging +at the doors and picking the locks, he said to his companion: +“Follow me.” +Returning to the dining-room, he softly opened the sash and drew +the Venetian blinds of a window in the side-wall. People were +coming and going, rendering flight out of the question. +Thereupon he began to shout with all his might, in a breathless +voice: +“This way!... Help!... I’ve got them!... This way!” +He pointed his revolver and fired two shots into the tree-tops. +Then he went back to Vaucheray, bent over him and smeared his +face and hands with the wounded man’s blood. Lastly, turning upon +Gilbert, he took him violently by the shoulders and threw him to +the floor. +“What do you want, governor? There’s a nice thing to do!” +“Let me do as I please,” said Lupin, laying an imperative stress on +every syllable. “I’ll answer for everything.... I’ll answer for the +two of you.... Let me do as I like with you.... I’ll get you both +out of prison.... But I can only do that if I’m free.” +Excited cries rose through the open window. +“This way!” he shouted. “I’ve got them! Help!” +And, quietly, in a whisper: +“Just think for a moment.... Have you anything to say to me?... +Something that can be of use to us?” +Gilbert was too much taken aback to understand Lupin’s plan and he +struggled furiously. Vaucheray showed more intelligence; moreover, +he had given up all hope of escape, because of his wound; and he +snarled: +“Let the governor have his way, you ass!... As long as he gets off, +isn’t that the great thing?” +Suddenly, Lupin remembered the article which Gilbert had put in his +pocket, after capturing it from Vaucheray. He now tried to take it +in his turn. +“No, not that! Not if I know it!” growled Gilbert, managing to +release himself. +Lupin floored him once more. But two men suddenly appeared at the +window; and Gilbert yielded and, handing the thing to Lupin, who +pocketed it without looking at it, whispered: +“Here you are, governor.... I’ll explain. You can be sure that....” +He did not have time to finish.... Two policemen and others after +them and soldiers who entered through every door and window came to +Lupin’s assistance. +Gilbert was at once seized and firmly bound. Lupin withdrew: +“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “The beggar’s given me a lot of +trouble. I wounded the other; but this one....” +The commissary of police asked him, hurriedly: +“Have you seen the man-servant? Have they killed him?” +“I don’t know,” he answered. +“You don’t know?...” +“Why, I came with you from Enghien, on hearing of the murder! Only, +while you were going round the left of the house, I went round the +right. There was a window open. I climbed up just as these two +ruffians were about to jump down. I fired at this one,” pointing to +Vaucheray, “and seized hold of his pal.” +How could he have been suspected? He was covered with blood. He +had handed over the valet’s murderers. Half a score of people had +witnessed the end of the heroic combat which he had delivered. +Besides, the uproar was too great for any one to take the trouble +to argue or to waste time in entertaining doubts. In the height +of the first confusion, the people of the neighbourhood invaded +the villa. One and all lost their heads. They ran to every side, +upstairs, downstairs, to the very cellar. They asked one another +questions, yelled and shouted; and no one dreamt of checking +Lupin’s statements, which sounded so plausible. +However, the discovery of the body in the pantry restored the +commissary to a sense of his responsibility. He issued orders, +had the house cleared and placed policemen at the gate to prevent +any one from passing in or out. Then, without further delay, +he examined the spot and began his inquiry. Vaucheray gave his +name; Gilbert refused to give his, on the plea that he would only +speak in the presence of a lawyer. But, when he was accused of +the murder, he informed against Vaucheray, who defended himself +by denouncing the other; and the two of them vociferated at the +same time, with the evident wish to monopolize the commissary’s +attention. When the commissary turned to Lupin, to request his +evidence, he perceived that the stranger was no longer there. +Without the least suspicion, he said to one of the policemen: +“Go and tell that gentleman that I should like to ask him a few +questions.” +They looked about for the gentleman. Some one had seen him standing +on the steps, lighting a cigarette. The next news was that he had +given cigarettes to a group of soldiers and strolled toward the +lake, saying that they were to call him if he was wanted. +They called him. No one replied. +But a soldier came running up. The gentleman had just got into +a boat and was rowing away for all he was worth. The commissary +looked at Gilbert and realized that he had been tricked: +“Stop him!” he shouted. “Fire on him! He’s an accomplice!...” +He himself rushed out, followed by two policemen, while the others +remained with the prisoners. On reaching the bank, he saw the +gentleman, a hundred yards away, taking off his hat to him in the +dusk. +One of the policemen discharged his revolver, without thinking. +The wind carried the sound of words across the water. The gentleman +was singing as he rowed: +“Go, little bark, +Float in the dark....” +But the commissary saw a skiff fastened to the landing-stage of +the adjoining property. He scrambled over the hedge separating the +two gardens and, after ordering the soldiers to watch the banks of +the lake and to seize the fugitive if he tried to put ashore, the +commissary and two of his men pulled off in pursuit of Lupin. +It was not a difficult matter, for they were able to follow his +movements by the intermittent light of the moon and to see that he +was trying to cross the lakes while bearing toward the right--that +is to say, toward the village of Saint-Gratien. Moreover, the +commissary soon perceived that, with the aid of his men and thanks +perhaps to the comparative lightness of his craft, he was rapidly +gaining on the other. In ten minutes he had decreased the interval +between them by one half. +“That’s it!” he cried. “We shan’t even need the soldiers to +keep him from landing. I very much want to make the fellow’s +acquaintance. He’s a cool hand and no mistake!” +The funny thing was that the distance was now diminishing at an +abnormal rate, as though the fugitive had lost heart at realizing +the futility of the struggle. The policemen redoubled their +efforts. The boat shot across the water with the swiftness of a +swallow. Another hundred yards at most and they would reach the man. +“Halt!” cried the commissary. +The enemy, whose huddled shape they could make out in the boat, +no longer moved. The sculls drifted with the stream. And this +absence of all motion had something alarming about it. A ruffian of +that stamp might easily lie in wait for his aggressors, sell his +life dearly and even shoot them dead before they had a chance of +attacking him. +“Surrender!” shouted the commissary. +The sky, at that moment, was dark. The three men lay flat at +the bottom of their skiff, for they thought they perceived a +threatening gesture. +The boat, carried by its own impetus, was approaching the other. +The commissary growled: +“We won’t let ourselves be sniped. Let’s fire at him. Are you +ready?” And he roared, once more, “Surrender . . . if not...!” +No reply. +The enemy did not budge. +“Surrender!... Hands up!... You refuse?... So much the worse for +you.... I’m counting.... One.... Two....” +The policemen did not wait for the word of command. They fired and, +at once, bending over their oars, gave the boat so powerful an +impulse that it reached the goal in a few strokes. +The commissary watched, revolver in hand, ready for the least +movement. He raised his arm: +“If you stir, I’ll blow out your brains!” +But the enemy did not stir for a moment; and, when the boat was +bumped and the two men, letting go their oars, prepared for the +formidable assault, the commissary understood the reason of this +passive attitude: there was no one in the boat. The enemy had +escaped by swimming, leaving in the hands of the victor a certain +number of the stolen articles, which, heaped up and surmounted +by a jacket and a bowler hat, might be taken, at a pinch, in the +semi-darkness, vaguely to represent the figure of a man. +They struck matches and examined the enemy’s cast clothes. There +were no initials in the hat. The jacket contained neither papers +nor pocketbook. Nevertheless, they made a discovery which was +destined to give the case no little celebrity and which had a +terrible influence on the fate of Gilbert and Vaucheray: in one +of the pockets was a visiting-card which the fugitive had left +behind . . . the card of Arsène Lupin. +At almost the same moment, while the police, towing the captured +skiff behind them, continued their empty search and while the +soldiers stood drawn up on the bank, straining their eyes to try +and follow the fortunes of the naval combat, the aforesaid Arsène +Lupin was quietly landing at the very spot which he had left two +hours earlier. +He was there met by his two other accomplices, the Growler and the +Masher, flung them a few sentences by way of explanation, jumped +into the motor-car, among Daubrecq the deputy’s armchairs and other +valuables, wrapped himself in his furs and drove, by deserted +roads, to his repository at Neuilly, where he left the chauffeur. A +taxicab brought him back to Paris and put him down by the church of +Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, not far from which, in the Rue Matignon, +he had a flat, on the entresol-floor, of which none of his gang, +excepting Gilbert, knew, a flat with a private entrance. He was +glad to take off his clothes and rub himself down; for, in spite of +his strong constitution, he felt chilled to the bone. On retiring +to bed, he emptied the contents of his pockets, as usual, on the +mantel-piece. It was not till then that he noticed, near his +pocketbook and his keys, the object which Gilbert had put into his +hand at the last moment. +And he was very much surprised. It was a decanter-stopper, a +little crystal stopper, like those used for the bottles in a +liqueur-stand. And this crystal stopper had nothing particular +about it. The most that Lupin observed was that the knob, with its +many facets, was gilded right down to the indent. But, to tell +the truth, this detail did not seem to him of a nature to attract +special notice. +“And it was this bit of glass to which Gilbert and Vaucheray +attached such stubborn importance!” he said to himself. “It was for +this that they killed the valet, fought each other, wasted their +time, risked prison . . . trial . . . the scaffold!...” +Too tired to linger further upon this matter, exciting though it +appeared to him, he replaced the stopper on the chimney-piece and +got into bed. +He had bad dreams. Gilbert and Vaucheray were kneeling on the +flags of their cells, wildly stretching out their hands to him and +yelling with fright: +“Help!... Help!” they cried. +But, notwithstanding all his efforts, he was unable to move. He +himself was fastened by invisible bonds. And, trembling, obsessed +by a monstrous vision, he watched the dismal preparations, the +cutting of the condemned men’s hair and shirt-collars, the squalid +tragedy. +“By Jove!” he said, when he woke after a series of nightmares. +“There’s a lot of bad omens! Fortunately, we don’t err on the side +of superstition. Otherwise...!” And he added, “For that matter, +we have a talisman which, to judge by Gilbert and Vaucheray’s +behaviour, should be enough, with Lupin’s help, to frustrate bad +luck and secure the triumph of the good cause. Let’s have a look at +that crystal stopper!” +He sprang out of bed to take the thing and examine it more closely. +An exclamation escaped him. The crystal stopper had disappeared.... +CHAPTER II. +EIGHT FROM NINE LEAVES ONE +Notwithstanding my friendly relations with Lupin and the many +flattering proofs of his confidence which he has given me, there is +one thing which I have never been quite able to fathom, and that is +the organization of his gang. +The existence of the gang is an undoubted fact. Certain adventures +can be explained only by countless acts of devotion, invincible +efforts of energy and powerful cases of complicity, representing so +many forces which all obey one mighty will. But how is this will +exerted? Through what intermediaries, through what subordinates? +That is what I do not know. Lupin keeps his secret; and the secrets +which Lupin chooses to keep are, so to speak, impenetrable. +The only supposition which I can allow myself to make is that +this gang, which, in my opinion, is very limited in numbers and +therefore all the more formidable, is completed and extended +indefinitely by the addition of independent units, provisional +associates, picked up in every class of society and in every +country of the world, who are the executive agents of an authority +with which, in many cases, they are not even acquainted. The +companions, the initiates, the faithful adherents--men who play the +leading parts under the direct command of Lupin--move to and fro +between these secondary agents and the master. +Gilbert and Vaucheray evidently belonged to the main gang. And that +is why the law showed itself so implacable in their regard. For the +first time, it held accomplices of Lupin in its clutches--declared, +undisputed accomplices--and those accomplices had committed a +murder. If the murder was premeditated, if the accusation of +deliberate homicide could be supported by substantial proofs, +it meant the scaffold. Now there was, at the very least, one +self-evident proof, the cry for assistance which Léonard had sent +over the telephone a few minutes before his death: +“Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!...” +The desperate appeal had been heard by two men, the operator on +duty and one of his fellow-clerks, who swore to it positively. And +it was in consequence of this appeal that the commissary of police, +who was at once informed, had proceeded to the Villa Marie-Thérèse, +escorted by his men and a number of soldiers off duty. +Lupin had a very clear notion of the danger from the first. The +fierce struggle in which he had engaged against society was +entering upon a new and terrible phase. His luck was turning. +It was no longer a matter of attacking others, but of defending +himself and saving the heads of his two companions. +A little memorandum, which I have copied from one of the note-books +in which he often jots down a summary of the situations that +perplex him, will show us the workings of his brain: +“One definite fact, to begin with, is that Gilbert and Vaucheray +humbugged me. The Enghien expedition, undertaken ostensibly with +the object of robbing the Villa Marie-Thérèse, had a secret +purpose. This purpose obsessed their minds throughout the +operations; and what they were looking for, under the furniture +and in the cupboards, was one thing and one thing alone: the +crystal stopper. Therefore, if I want to see clear ahead, I must +first of all know what this means. It is certain that, for some +hidden reason, that mysterious piece of glass possesses an +incalculable value in their eyes. And not only in theirs, for, +last night, some one was bold enough and clever enough to enter +my flat and steal the object in question from me.” +This theft of which he was the victim puzzled Lupin curiously. +Two problems, both equally difficult of solution, presented +themselves to his mind. First, who was the mysterious visitor? +Gilbert, who enjoyed his entire confidence and acted as his private +secretary, was the only one who knew of the retreat in the Rue +Matignon. Now Gilbert was in prison. Was Lupin to suppose that +Gilbert had betrayed him and put the police on his tracks? In +that case, why were they content with taking the crystal stopper, +instead of arresting him, Lupin? +But there was something much stranger still. Admitting that they +had been able to force the doors of his flat--and this he was +compelled to admit, though there was no mark to show it--how had +they succeeded in entering the bedroom? He turned the key and +pushed the bolt as he did every evening, in accordance with a habit +from which he never departed. And, nevertheless--the fact was +undeniable--the crystal stopper had disappeared without the lock or +the bolt having been touched. And, although Lupin flattered himself +that he had sharp ears, even when asleep, not a sound had waked him! +He took no great pains to probe the mystery. He knew those problems +too well to hope that this one could be solved other than in the +course of events. But, feeling very much put out and exceedingly +uneasy, he then and there locked up his entresol flat in the Rue +Matignon and swore that he would never set foot in it again. +And he applied himself forthwith to the question of corresponding +with Vaucheray or Gilbert. +Here a fresh disappointment awaited him. It was so clearly +understood, both at the Santé Prison and at the Law Courts, +that all communication between Lupin and the prisoners must be +absolutely prevented, that a multitude of minute precautions were +ordered by the prefect of police and minutely observed by the +lowest subordinates. Tried policemen, always the same men, watched +Gilbert and Vaucheray, day and night, and never let them out of +their sight. +Lupin, at this time, had not yet promoted himself to the +crowning honour of his career, the post of chief of the +detective-service,[A] and, consequently, was not able to take steps +at the Law Courts to insure the execution of his plans. After a +fortnight of fruitless endeavours, he was obliged to bow. +He did so with a raging heart and a growing sense of anxiety. +“The difficult part of a business,” he often says, “is not the +finish, but the start.” +Where was he to start in the present circumstances? What road was +he to follow? +His thoughts recurred to Daubrecq the deputy, the original owner +of the crystal stopper, who probably knew its importance. On the +other hand, how was Gilbert aware of the doings and mode of life of +Daubrecq the deputy? What means had he employed to keep him under +observation? Who had told him of the place where Daubrecq spent the +evening of that day? These were all interesting questions to solve. +Daubrecq had moved to his winter quarters in Paris immediately +after the burglary at the Villa Marie-Thérèse and was now living in +his own house, on the left-hand side of the little Square Lamartine +that opens out at the end of the Avenue Victor-Hugo. +First disguising himself as an old gentleman of private means, +strolling about, cane in hand, Lupin spent his time in the +neighbourhood, on the benches of the square and the avenue. He +made a discovery on the first day. Two men, dressed as workmen, +but behaving in a manner that left no doubt as to their aims, were +watching the deputy’s house. When Daubrecq went out, they set off +in pursuit of him; and they were immediately behind him when he +came home again. At night, as soon as the lights were out, they +went away. +Lupin shadowed them in his turn. They were detective-officers. +“Hullo, hullo!” he said to himself. “This is hardly what I +expected. So the Daubrecq bird is under suspicion?” +But, on the fourth day, at nightfall, the two men were joined by +six others, who conversed with them in the darkest part of the +Square Lamartine. And, among these new arrivals, Lupin was vastly +astonished to recognize, by his figure and bearing, the famous +Prasville, the erstwhile barrister, sportsman and explorer, now +favourite at the Élysée, who, for some mysterious reason, had been +pitchforked into the headquarters of police as secretary-general, +with the reversion of the prefecture. +And, suddenly, Lupin remembered: two years ago, Prasville and +Daubrecq the deputy had had a personal encounter on the Place du +Palais-Bourbon. The incident made a great stir at the time. No one +knew the cause of it. Prasville had sent his seconds to Daubrecq on +the same day; but Daubrecq refused to fight. +A little while later, Prasville was appointed secretary-general. +“Very odd, very odd,” said Lupin, who remained plunged in thought, +while continuing to observe Prasville’s movements. +At seven o’clock Prasville’s group of men moved away a few yards, +in the direction of the Avenue Henri-Martin. The door of a small +garden on the right of the house opened and Daubrecq appeared. The +two detectives followed close behind him and, when he took the +Rue-Taitbout train, jumped on after him. +Prasville at once walked across the square and rang the bell. The +garden-gate was between the house and the porter’s lodge. The +portress came and opened it. There was a brief conversation, after +which Prasville and his companions were admitted. +“A domiciliary visit,” said Lupin. “Secret and illegal. By the +strict rules of politeness, I ought to be invited. My presence is +indispensable.” +Without the least hesitation he went up to the house, the door of +which had not been closed, and, passing in front of the portress, +who was casting her eyes outside, he asked, in the hurried tones of +a person who is late for an appointment: +“Have the gentlemen come?” +“Yes, you will find them in the study.” +His plan was quite simple: if any one met him, he would pretend to +be a tradesman. But there was no need for this subterfuge. He was +able, after crossing an empty hall, to enter a dining-room which +also had no one in it, but which, through the panes of a glass +partition that separated the dining-room from the study, afforded +him a view of Prasville and his five companions. +Prasville opened all the drawers with the aid of false keys. Next, +he examined all the papers, while his companions took down the +books from the shelves, shook the pages of each separately and felt +inside the bindings. +“Of course, it’s a paper they’re looking for,” said Lupin. +“Bank-notes, perhaps....” +Prasville exclaimed: +“What rot! We shan’t find a thing!” +Yet he obviously did not abandon all hope of discovering what he +wanted, for he suddenly seized the four bottles in a liqueur-stand, +took out the four stoppers and inspected them. +“Hullo!” thought Lupin. “Now he’s going for decanter-stoppers! Then +it’s not a question of a paper? Well, I give it up.” +Prasville next lifted and examined different objects; and he asked: +“How often have you been here?” +“Six times last winter,” was the reply. +“And you have searched the house thoroughly?” +“Every one of the rooms, for days at a time, while he was visiting +his constituency.” +“Still . . . still....” And he added, “Has he no servant at present?” +“No, he is looking for one. He has his meals out and the portress +keeps the house as best she can. The woman is devoted to us....” +Prasville persisted in his investigations for nearly an hour and a +half, shifting and fingering all the knick-knacks, but taking care +to put everything back exactly where he found it. At nine o’clock, +however, the two detectives who had followed Daubrecq burst into +the study: +“He’s coming back!” +“On foot?” +“Yes.” +“Have we time?” +“Oh, dear, yes!” +Prasville and the men from the police-office withdrew, without +undue haste, after taking a last glance round the room to make sure +that there was nothing to betray their visit. +The position was becoming critical for Lupin. He ran the risk of +knocking up against Daubrecq, if he went away, or of not being +able to get out, if he remained. But, on ascertaining that the +dining-room windows afforded a direct means of exit to the square, +he resolved to stay. Besides, the opportunity of obtaining a close +view of Daubrecq was too good to refuse; and, as Daubrecq had +been out to dinner, there was not much chance of his entering the +dining-room. +Lupin, therefore, waited, holding himself ready to hide behind a +velvet curtain that could be drawn across the glazed partition in +case of need. +He heard the sound of doors opening and shutting. Some one walked +into the study and switched on the light. He recognized Daubrecq. +The deputy was a stout, thickset, bull-necked man, very nearly +bald, with a fringe of gray whiskers round his chin and wearing a +pair of black eye-glasses under his spectacles, for his eyes were +weak and strained. Lupin noticed the powerful features, the square +chin, the prominent cheek-bones. The hands were brawny and covered +with hair, the legs bowed; and he walked with a stoop, bearing +first on one hip and then on the other, which gave him something +of the gait of a gorilla. But the face was topped by an enormous, +lined forehead, indented with hollows and dotted with bumps. +There was something bestial, something savage, something repulsive +about the man’s whole personality. Lupin remembered that, in the +Chamber of Deputies, Daubrecq was nicknamed “The Wild Man of the +Woods” and that he was so labelled not only because he stood aloof +and hardly ever mixed with his fellow-members, but also because of +his appearance, his behaviour, his peculiar gait and his remarkable +muscular development. +He sat down to his desk, took a meerschaum pipe from his pocket, +selected a packet of caporal among several packets of tobacco which +lay drying in a bowl, tore open the wrapper, filled his pipe and +lit it. Then he began to write letters. +Presently he ceased his work and sat thinking, with his attention +fixed on a spot on his desk. +He lifted a little stamp-box and examined it. Next, he verified +the position of different articles which Prasville had touched and +replaced; and he searched them with his eyes, felt them with his +hands, bending over them as though certain signs, known to himself +alone, were able to tell him what he wished to know. +Lastly, he grasped the knob on an electric bell-push and rang. The +portress appeared a minute later. +He asked: +“They’ve been, haven’t they?” +And, when the woman hesitated about replying, he insisted: +“Come, come, Clémence, did you open this stamp-box?” +“No, sir.” +“Well, I fastened the lid down with a little strip of gummed paper. +The strip has been broken.” +“But I assure you, . . .” the woman began. +“Why tell lies,” he said, “considering that I myself instructed you +to lend yourself to those visits?” +“The fact is....” +“The fact is that you want to keep on good terms with both +sides.... Very well!” He handed her a fifty-franc note and +repeated, “Have they been?” +“Yes.” +“The same men as in the spring?” +“Yes, all five of them . . . with another one, who ordered them +about.” +“A tall, dark man?” +“Yes.” +Lupin saw Daubrecq’s mouth hardening; and Daubrecq continued: +“Is that all?” +“There was one more, who came after they did and joined them . . . +and then, just now, two more, the pair who usually keep watch +outside the house.” +“Did they remain in the study?” +“Yes, sir.” +“And they went away when I came back? A few minutes before, +perhaps?” +“Yes, sir.” +“That will do.” +The woman left the room. Daubrecq returned to his letter-writing. +Then, stretching out his arm, he made some marks on a white +writing-tablet, at the end of his desk, and rested it against the +desk, as though he wished to keep it in sight. The marks were +figures; and Lupin was able to read the following subtraction-sum: +“9 − 8 = 1” +And Daubrecq, speaking between his teeth, thoughtfully uttered the +syllables: +“Eight from nine leaves one.... There’s not a doubt about that,” +he added, aloud. He wrote one more letter, a very short one, and +addressed the envelope with an inscription which Lupin was able to +decipher when the letter was placed beside the writing-tablet: +“To Monsieur Prasville, +Secretary-general of the Prefecture of Police.” +Then he rang the bell again: +“Clémence,” he said, to the portress, “did you go to school as a +child?” +“Yes, sir, of course I did.” +“And were you taught arithmetic?” +“Why, sir....” +“Well, you’re not very good at subtraction.” +“What makes you say that?” +“Because you don’t know that nine minus eight equals one. And +that, you see, is a fact of the highest importance. Life becomes +impossible if you are ignorant of that fundamental truth.” +He rose, as he spoke, and walked round the room, with his hands +behind his back, swaying upon his hips. He did so once more. Then, +stopping at the dining-room, he opened the door: +“For that matter, there’s another way of putting the problem. Take +eight from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains is here, +eh? Correct! And monsieur supplies us with a striking proof, does +he not?” +He patted the velvet curtain in which Lupin had hurriedly wrapped +himself: +“Upon my word, sir, you must be stifling under this! Not to say +that I might have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the +curtain. Remember Hamlet’s madness and Polonius’ death: ‘How now! A +rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!’ Come along, Mr. Polonius, come out +of your hole.” +It was one of those positions to which Lupin was not accustomed and +which he loathed. To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was +all very well; but it was a very different thing to have people +teasing him and roaring with laughter at his expense. Yet what +could he answer back? +“You look a little pale, Mr. Polonius.... Hullo! Why, it’s the +respectable old gentleman who has been hanging about the square for +some days! So you belong to the police too, Mr. Polonius? There, +there, pull yourself together, I sha’n’t hurt you!... But you see, +Clémence, how right my calculation was. You told me that nine spies +had been to the house. I counted a troop of eight, as I came along, +eight of them in the distance, down the avenue. Take eight from +nine and one remains: the one who evidently remained behind to see +what he could see. _Ecce homo!_” +“Well? And then?” said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at the +fellow and reduce him to silence. +“And then? Nothing at all, my good man.... What more do you want? +The farce is over. I will only ask you to take this little note to +Master Prasville, your employer. Clémence, please show Mr. Polonius +out. And, if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to +him. Pray look upon this as your home, Mr. Polonius. Your servant, +sir!...” +Lupin hesitated. He would have liked to talk big and to come out +with a farewell phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making +a showy exit from the stage, and at least to disappear with the +honours of war. But his defeat was so pitiable that he could think +of nothing better than to bang his hat on his head and stamp his +feet as he followed the portress down the hall. It was a poor +revenge. +“You rascally beggar!” he shouted, once he was outside the door, +shaking his fist at Daubrecq’s windows. “Wretch, scum of the earth, +deputy, you shall pay for this!... Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he +has the cheek to...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that, +one of these days....” +He was foaming with rage, all the more as, in his innermost heart, +he recognized the strength of his new enemy and could not deny the +masterly fashion in which he had managed this business. Daubrecq’s +coolness, the assurance with which he hoaxed the police-officials, +the contempt with which he lent himself to their visits at his +house and, above all, his wonderful self-possession, his easy +bearing and the impertinence of his conduct in the presence of +the ninth person who was spying on him: all this denoted a man of +character, a strong man, with a well-balanced mind, lucid, bold, +sure of himself and of the cards in his hand. +But what were those cards? What game was he playing? Who held the +stakes? And how did the players stand on either side? Lupin could +not tell. Knowing nothing, he flung himself headlong into the thick +of the fray, between adversaries desperately involved, though he +himself was in total ignorance of their positions, their weapons, +their resources and their secret plans. For, when all was said, he +could not admit that the object of all those efforts was to obtain +possession of a crystal stopper! +One thing alone pleased him: Daubrecq had not penetrated his +disguise. Daubrecq believed him to be in the employ of the police. +Neither Daubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected the intrusion +of a third thief in the business. This was his one and only trump, +a trump that gave him a liberty of action to which he attached the +greatest importance. +Without further delay, he opened the letter which Daubrecq had +handed him for the secretary-general of police. It contained these +few lines: +“Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville, within reach of +your hand! You touched it! A little more and the trick was +done.... But you’re too big a fool. And to think that they +couldn’t hit upon any one better than you to make me bite the +dust. Poor old France! Good-bye, Prasville. But, if I catch you +in the act, it will be a bad lookout for you: my maxim is to +shoot at sight. +“DAUBRECQ” +“‘Within reach of your hand,’” repeated Lupin, after reading the +note. “And to think that the rogue may be writing the truth! The +most elementary hiding-places are the safest. We must look into +this, all the same. And, also, we must find out why Daubrecq is +the object of such strict supervision and obtain a few particulars +about the fellow generally.” +* * * * * +The information supplied to Lupin by a private inquiry-office +consisted of the following details: +“ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhône for the past +two years; sits among the independent members. Political +opinions not very clearly defined, but electoral position +exceedingly strong, because of the enormous sums which he +spends in nursing his constituency. No private income. +Nevertheless, has a house in Paris, a villa at Enghien and +another at Nice and loses heavily at play, though no one +knows where the money comes from. Has great influence and +obtains all he wants without making up to ministers or, +apparently, having either friends or connections in political +circles.” +“That’s a trade docket,” said Lupin to himself. “What I want is +a domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell me about the +gentleman’s private life and enable me to work more easily in this +darkness and to know if I’m not getting myself into a tangle by +bothering about the Daubrecq bird. And time’s getting short, hang +it!” +One of the residences which Lupin occupied at that period and +which he used oftener than any of the others was in the Rue +Chateaubriand, near the Arc de l’Étoile. He was known there by the +name of Michel Beaumont. He had a snug flat here and was looked +after by a man-servant, Achille, who was utterly devoted to his +interests and whose chief duty was to receive and repeat the +telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by his followers. +Lupin, on returning home, learnt, with great astonishment, that a +woman had been waiting to see him for over an hour: +“What! Why, no one ever comes to see me here! Is she young?” +“No.... I don’t think so.” +“You don’t think so!” +“She’s wearing a lace shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and +you can’t see her face.... She’s more like a clerk . . . or a woman +employed in a shop. She’s not well-dressed....” +“Whom did she ask for?” +“M. Michel Beaumont,” replied the servant. +“Queer. And why has she called?” +“All she said was that it was about the Enghien business.... So I +thought that....” +“What! The Enghien business! Then she knows that I am mixed up in +that business.... She knows that, by applying here....” +“I could not get anything out of her, but I thought, all the same, +that I had better let her in.” +“Quite right. Where is she?” +“In the drawing-room. I’ve put on the lights.” +Lupin walked briskly across the hall and opened the door of the +drawing-room: +“What are you talking about?” he said, to his man. “There’s no one +here.” +“No one here?” said Achille, running up. +And the room, in fact, was empty. +“Well, on my word, this takes the cake!” cried the servant. “It +wasn’t twenty minutes ago that I came and had a look, to make sure. +She was sitting over there. And there’s nothing wrong with my +eyesight, you know.” +“Look here, look here,” said Lupin, irritably. “Where were you +while the woman was waiting?” +“In the hall, governor! I never left the hall for a second! I +should have seen her go out, blow it!” +“Still, she’s not here now....” +“So I see,” moaned the man, quite flabbergasted. +“She must have got tired of waiting and gone away. But, dash it +all, I should like to know how she got out!” +“How she got out?” said Lupin. “It doesn’t take a wizard to tell +that.” +“What do you mean?” +“She got out through the window. Look, it’s still ajar. We are on +the ground-floor.... The street is almost always deserted, in the +evenings. There’s no doubt about it.” +He had looked around him and satisfied himself that nothing had +been taken away or moved. The room, for that matter, contained +no knick-knack of any value, no important paper that might have +explained the woman’s visit, followed by her sudden disappearance. +And yet why that inexplicable flight? +“Has any one telephoned?” he asked. +“No.” +“Any letters?” +“Yes, one letter by the last post.” +“Where is it?” +“I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as usual.” +Lupin’s bedroom was next to the drawing-room, but Lupin had +permanently bolted the door between the two. He, therefore, had to +go through the hall again. +Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next moment, said: +“I don’t see it....” +“Yes.... I put it next to the flower-bowl.” +“There’s nothing here at all.” +“You must be looking in the wrong place, governor.” +But Achille moved the bowl, lifted the clock, bent down to the +grate, in vain: the letter was not there. +“Oh blast it, blast it!” he muttered. “She’s done it . . . she’s +taken it.... And then, when she had the letter, she cleared out.... +Oh, the slut!...” +Lupin said: +“You’re mad! There’s no way through between the two rooms.” +“Then who did take it, governor?” +They were both of them silent. Lupin strove to control his anger +and collect his ideas. He asked: +“Did you look at the envelope?” +“Yes.” +“Anything particular about it?” +“Yes, it looked as if it had been written in a hurry, or scribbled, +rather.” +“How was the address worded?... Do you remember?” asked Lupin, in a +voice strained with anxiety. +“Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me as funny....” +“But speak, will you? Speak!” +“It said, ‘_Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel_.’” +[Illustration: Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook +him: “It said ‘de’ Beaumont? Are you sure?”] +Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him: +“It said ‘de’ Beaumont? Are you sure? And ‘Michel’ after ‘Beaumont’?” +“Quite certain.” +“Ah!” muttered Lupin, with a choking throat. “It was a letter from +Gilbert!” +He stood motionless, a little pale, with drawn features. There was +no doubt about it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the form of +address which, by Lupin’s orders, Gilbert had used for years in +corresponding with him. Gilbert had at last--after long waiting and +by dint of endless artifices--found a means of getting a letter +posted from his prison and had hastily written to him. And now the +letter was intercepted! What did it say? What instructions had +the unhappy prisoner given? What help was he praying for? What +stratagem did he suggest? +Lupin looked round the room, which, contrary to the drawing-room, +contained important papers. But none of the locks had been forced; +and he was compelled to admit that the woman had no other object +than to get hold of Gilbert’s letter. +Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked: +“Did the letter come while the woman was here?” +“At the same time. The porter rang at the same moment.” +“Could she see the envelope?” +“Yes.” +The conclusion was evident. It remained to discover how the visitor +had been able to effect her theft. By slipping from one window to +the other, outside the flat? Impossible: Lupin found the window of +his room shut. By opening the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin +found it locked and barred with its two inner bolts. +Nevertheless, a person cannot pass through a wall by a mere +operation of will. To go in or out of a room requires a passage; +and, as the act was accomplished in the space of a few minutes, it +was necessary, in the circumstances, that the passage should be +previously in existence, that it should already have been contrived +in the wall and, of course, known to the woman. This hypothesis +simplified the search by concentrating it upon the door; for the +wall was quite bare, without a cupboard, chimney-piece or hangings +of any kind, and unable to conceal the least outlet. +Lupin went back to the drawing-room and prepared to make a study +of the door. But he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the +first glance, that the left lower panel of the six small panels +contained within the cross-bars of the door no longer occupied its +normal position and that the light did not fall straight upon it. +On leaning forward, he saw two little tin tacks sticking out on +either side and holding the panel in place, similar to a wooden +board behind a picture-frame. He had only to shift these. The panel +at once came out. +Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected: +“Well? And what then? We are no better off than before. Here is an +empty oblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches high. +You’re not going to pretend that a woman can slip through an +opening which would not admit the thinnest child of ten years old!” +“No, but she can have put her arm through and drawn the bolts.” +“The bottom bolt, yes,” said Lupin. “But the top bolt, no: the +distance is far too great. Try for yourself and see.” +Achille tried and had to give up the attempt. +Lupin did not reply. He stood thinking for a long time. Then, +suddenly, he said: +“Give me my hat . . . my coat....” +He hurried off, urged by an imperative idea. And, the moment he +reached the street, he sprang into a taxi: +“Rue Matignon, quick!...” +As soon as they came to the house where he had been robbed of the +crystal stopper, he jumped out of the cab, opened his private +entrance, went upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the +light and crouched at the foot of the door leading to his bedroom. +He had guessed right. One of the little panels was loosened in the +same manner. +And, just as in his other flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, the +opening was large enough to admit a man’s arm and shoulder, but not +to allow him to draw the upper bolt. +“Hang!” he shouted, unable any longer to master the rage that had +been seething within him for the last two hours. “Blast! Shall I +never have finished with this confounded business?” +In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps, +compelling him to grope about at random, without permitting him +to use the elements of success which his own persistency or the +very force of things placed within his grasp. Gilbert gave him +the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent him a letter. And both had +disappeared at that very moment. +And it was not, as he had until then believed, a series of +fortuitous and independent circumstances. No, it was manifestly +the effect of an adverse will pursuing a definite object with +prodigious ability and incredible boldness, attacking him, Lupin, +in the recesses of his safest retreats and baffling him with blows +so severe and so unexpected that he did not even know against whom +he had to defend himself. Never, in the course of his adventures, +had he encountered such obstacles as now. +And, little by little, deep down within himself, there grew a +haunting dread of the future. A date loomed before his eyes, the +terrible date which he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform +its work of vengeance, the date upon which, in the light of a wan +April morning, two men would mount the scaffold, two men who had +stood by him, two comrades whom he had been unable to save from +paying the awful penalty.... +[A] See 813, by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander Teixeira +de Mattos. +CHAPTER III. +THE HOME LIFE OF ALEXIS DAUBRECQ +When Daubrecq the deputy came in from lunch on the day after the +police had searched his house he was stopped by Clémence, his +portress, who told him that she had found a cook who could be +thoroughly relied on. +The cook arrived a few minutes later and produced first-rate +characters, signed by people with whom it was easy to take up her +references. She was a very active woman, although of a certain age, +and agreed to do the work of the house by herself, without the +help of a man-servant, this being a condition upon which Daubrecq +insisted. +Her last place was with a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Comte +Saulevat, to whom Daubrecq at once telephoned. The count’s steward +gave her a perfect character, and she was engaged. +As soon as she had fetched her trunk, she set to work and cleaned +and scrubbed until it was time to cook the dinner. +Daubrecq dined and went out. +At eleven o’clock, after the portress had gone to bed, the cook +cautiously opened the garden-gate. A man came up. +“Is that you?” she asked. +“Yes, it’s I, Lupin.” +She took him to her bedroom on the third floor, overlooking the +garden, and at once burst into lamentations: +“More of your tricks and nothing but tricks! Why can’t you leave me +alone, instead of sending me to do your dirty work?” +“How can I help it, you dear old Victoire?[B] When I want a person +of respectable appearance and incorruptible morals, I think of you. +You ought to be flattered.” +“That’s all you care about me!” she cried. “You run me into danger +once more; and you think it’s funny!” +“What are you risking?” +“How do you mean, what am I risking? All my characters are false.” +“Characters are always false.” +“And suppose M. Daubrecq finds out? Suppose he makes inquiries?” +“He has made inquiries.” +“Eh? What’s that?” +“He has telephoned to the steward of Comte Saulevat, in whose +service you say that you have had the honour of being.” +“There, you see, I’m done for!” +“The count’s steward could not say enough in your praise.” +“He does not know me.” +“But I know him. I got him his situation with Comte Saulevat. So +you understand....” +Victoire seemed to calm down a little: +“Well,” she said, “God’s will be done . . . or rather yours. And +what do you expect me to do in all this?” +“First, to put me up. You were my wet-nurse once. You can very well +give me half your room now. I’ll sleep in the armchair.” +“And next?” +“Next? To supply me with such food as I want.” +“And next?” +“Next? To undertake, with me and under my direction, a regular +series of searches with a view....” +“To what?” +“To discovering the precious object of which I spoke to you.” +“What’s that?” +“A crystal stopper.” +“A crystal stopper.... Saints above! A nice business! And, if we +don’t find your confounded stopper, what then?” +Lupin took her gently by the arm and, in a serious voice: +“If we don’t find it, Gilbert, young Gilbert whom you know and +love, will stand every chance of losing his head; and so will +Vaucheray.” +“Vaucheray I don’t mind . . . a dirty rascal like him! But +Gilbert....” +“Have you seen the papers this evening? Things are looking worse +than ever. Vaucheray, as might be expected, accuses Gilbert +of stabbing the valet; and it so happens that the knife which +Vaucheray used belonged to Gilbert. That came out this morning. +Whereupon Gilbert, who is intelligent in his way, but easily +frightened, blithered and launched forth into stories and lies +which will end in his undoing. That’s how the matter stands. Will +you help me?” +* * * * * +The deputy came home at midnight. +Thenceforth, for several days, Lupin moulded his existence upon +Daubrecq’s, beginning his investigations the moment the deputy +left the house. He pursued them methodically, dividing each room +into sections which he did not abandon until he had been through +the tiniest nooks and corners and, so to speak, exhausted every +possible device. +Victoire searched also. And nothing was forgotten. Table-legs, +chair-rungs, floor-boards, mouldings, mirror- and picture-frames, +clocks, plinths, curtain-borders, telephone-holders and electric +fittings: everything that an ingenious imagination could have +selected as a hiding-place was overhauled. +And they also watched the deputy’s least actions, his most +unconscious movements, the expression of his face, the books which +he read and the letters which he wrote. +It was easy enough. He seemed to live his life in the light of day. +No door was ever shut. He received no visits. And his existence +worked with mechanical regularity. He went to the Chamber in the +afternoon, to the club in the evening. +“Still,” said Lupin, “there must be something that’s not orthodox +behind all this.” +“There’s nothing of the sort,” moaned Victoire. “You’re wasting +your time and we shall be bowled out.” +The presence of the detectives and their habit of walking up and +down outside the windows drove her mad. She refused to admit that +they were there for any other purpose than to trap her, Victoire. +And, each time that she went shopping, she was quite surprised that +one of those men did not lay his hand upon her shoulder. +One day she returned all upset. Her basket of provisions was +shaking on her arm. +“What’s the matter, my dear Victoire?” said Lupin. “You’re looking +green.” +“Green? I dare say I do. So would you look green....” +She had to sit down and it was only after making repeated efforts +that she succeeded in stuttering: +“A man . . . a man spoke to me . . . at the fruiterer’s.” +“By jingo! Did he want you to run away with him?” +“No, he gave me a letter....” +“Then what are you complaining about? It was a love-letter, of +course!” +“No. ‘It’s for your governor,’ said he. ‘My governor?’ I said. +‘Yes,’ he said, ‘for the gentleman who’s staying in your room.’” +“What’s that?” +This time, Lupin had started: +“Give it here,” he said, snatching the letter from her. The +envelope bore no address. But there was another, inside it, on +which he read: +“_Monsieur Arsène Lupin_, +“_℅ Victoire._” +“The devil!” he said. “This is a bit thick!” He tore open the +second envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with the following +words, written in large capitals: +“Everything you are doing is useless and dangerous.... Give +it up.” +Victoire uttered one moan and fainted. As for Lupin, he felt +himself blush up to his eyes, as though he had been grossly +insulted. He experienced all the humiliation which a duellist would +undergo if he heard the most secret advice which he had received +from his seconds repeated aloud by a mocking adversary. +However, he held his tongue. Victoire went back to her work. As for +him, he remained in his room all day, thinking. +That night he did not sleep. +And he kept saying to himself: +“What is the good of thinking? I am up against one of those +problems which are not solved by any amount of thought. It is +certain that I am not alone in the matter and that, between +Daubrecq and the police, there is, in addition to the third thief +that I am, a fourth thief who is working on his own account, who +knows me and who reads my game clearly. But who is this fourth +thief? And am I mistaken, by any chance? And . . . oh, rot!... +Let’s get to sleep!...” +But he could not sleep; and a good part of the night went in this +way. +At four o’clock in the morning he seemed to hear a noise in the +house. He jumped up quickly and, from the top of the staircase, saw +Daubrecq go down the first flight and turn toward the garden. +A minute later, after opening the gate, the deputy returned with a +man whose head was buried in an enormous fur collar and showed him +into his study. +Lupin had taken his precautions in view of any such contingency. As +the windows of the study and those of his bedroom, both of which +were at the back of the house, overlooked the garden, he fastened a +rope-ladder to his balcony, unrolled it softly and let himself down +by it until it was level with the top of the study windows. +These windows were closed by shutters; but, as they were bowed, +there remained a semi-circular space at the top; and Lupin, though +he could not hear, was able to see all that went on inside. +He then realized that the person whom he had taken for a man was +a woman: a woman who was still young, though her dark hair was +mingled with gray; a tall woman, elegantly but quite unobtrusively +dressed, whose handsome features bore the expression of weariness +and melancholy which long suffering gives. +“Where the deuce have I seen her before?” Lupin asked himself. “For +I certainly know that face, that look, that expression.” +She stood leaning against the table, listening impassively to +Daubrecq, who was also standing and who was talking very excitedly. +He had his back turned to Lupin; but Lupin, leaning forward, caught +sight of a glass in which the deputy’s image was reflected. And he +was startled to see the strange look in his eyes, the air of fierce +and brutal desire with which Daubrecq was staring at his visitor. +It seemed to embarrass her too, for she sat down with lowered lids. +Then Daubrecq leant over her and it appeared as though he were +ready to fling his long arms, with their huge hands, around her. +And, suddenly, Lupin perceived great tears rolling down the woman’s +sad face. +Whether or not it was the sight of those tears that made Daubrecq +lose his head, with a brusque movement he clutched the woman and +drew her to him. She repelled him, with a violence full of hatred. +And, after a brief struggle, during which Lupin caught a glimpse +of the man’s bestial and contorted features, the two of them stood +face to face, railing at each other like mortal enemies. +Then they stopped. Daubrecq sat down. There was mischief in his +face, and sarcasm as well. And he began to talk again, with sharp +taps on the table, as though he were dictating terms. +She no longer stirred. She sat haughtily in her chair and towered +over him, absent-minded, with roaming eyes. Lupin, captivated +by that powerful and sorrowful countenance, continued to watch +her; and he was vainly seeking to remember of what or of whom she +reminded him, when he noticed that she had turned her head slightly +and that she was imperceptibly moving her arm. +And her arm strayed farther and farther and her hand crept along +the table and Lupin saw that, at the end of the table, there stood +a water-bottle with a gold-topped stopper. The hand reached the +water-bottle, felt it, rose gently and seized the stopper. A quick +movement of the head, a glance, and the stopper was put back in its +place. Obviously, it was not what the woman hoped to find. +“Dash it!” said Lupin. “She’s after the crystal stopper too! The +matter is becoming more complicated daily; there’s no doubt about +it.” +But, on renewing his observation of the visitor, he was astounded +to note the sudden and unexpected expression of her countenance, +a terrible, implacable, ferocious expression. And he saw that her +hand was continuing its stealthy progress round the table and that, +with an uninterrupted and crafty sliding movement, it was pushing +back books and, slowly and surely, approaching a dagger whose blade +gleamed among the scattered papers. +It gripped the handle. +Daubrecq went on talking. Behind his back, the hand rose steadily, +little by little; and Lupin saw the woman’s desperate and furious +eyes fixed upon the spot in the neck where she intended to plant +the knife: +“You’re doing a very silly thing, fair lady,” thought Lupin. +And he already began to turn over in his mind the best means of +escaping and of taking Victoire with him. +She hesitated, however, with uplifted arm. But it was only a +momentary weakness. She clenched her teeth. Her whole face, +contracted with hatred, became yet further convulsed. And she made +the dread movement. +At the same instant Daubrecq crouched and, springing from his seat, +turned and seized the woman’s frail wrist in mid-air. +Oddly enough, he addressed no reproach to her, as though the deed +which she had attempted surprised him no more than any ordinary, +very natural and simple act. He shrugged his shoulders, like a +man accustomed to that sort of danger, and strode up and down in +silence. +She had dropped the weapon and was now crying, holding her head +between her hands, with sobs that shook her whole frame. +He next came up to her and said a few words, once more tapping the +table as he spoke. +She made a sign in the negative and, when he insisted, she, in her +turn, stamped her foot on the floor and exclaimed, loud enough for +Lupin to hear: +“Never!... Never!...” +Thereupon, without another word, Daubrecq fetched the fur cloak +which she had brought with her and hung it over the woman’s +shoulders, while she shrouded her face in a lace wrap. +And he showed her out. +Two minutes later, the garden-gate was locked again. “Pity I can’t +run after that strange person,” thought Lupin, “and have a chat +with her about the Daubrecq bird. Seems to me that we two could do +a good stroke of business together.” +In any case, there was one point to be cleared up: Daubrecq the +deputy, whose life was so orderly, so apparently respectable, was +in the habit of receiving visits at night, when his house was no +longer watched by the police. +He sent Victoire to arrange with two members of his gang to keep +watch for several days. And he himself remained awake next night. +As on the previous morning, he heard a noise at four o’clock. As on +the previous morning, the deputy let some one in. +Lupin ran down his ladder and, when he came to the free space above +the shutters, saw a man crawling at Daubrecq’s feet, flinging +his arms round Daubrecq’s knees in frenzied despair and weeping, +weeping convulsively. +Daubrecq, laughing, pushed him away repeatedly, but the man clung +to him. He behaved almost like one out of his mind and, at last, in +a genuine fit of madness, half rose to his feet, took the deputy +by the throat and flung him back in a chair. Daubrecq struggled, +powerless at first, while his veins swelled in his temples. But +soon, with a strength far beyond the ordinary, he regained the +mastery and deprived his adversary of all power of movement. Then, +holding him with one hand, with the other he gave him two great +smacks in the face. +The man got up, slowly. He was livid and could hardly stand +on his legs. He waited for a moment, as though to recover his +self-possession. Then, with a terrifying calmness, he drew a +revolver from his pocket and levelled it at Daubrecq. +Daubrecq did not flinch. He even smiled, with a defiant air and +without displaying more excitement than if he had been aimed at +with a toy pistol. +The man stood for perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, facing his +enemy, with outstretched arm. Then, with the same deliberate +slowness, revealing a self-control which was all the more +impressive because it followed upon a fit of extreme excitement, +he put up his revolver and, from another pocket, produced his +note-case. +Daubrecq took a step forward. +The man opened the pocketbook. A sheaf of bank-notes appeared in +sight. +Daubrecq seized and counted them. They were thousand-franc notes, +and there were thirty of them. +The man looked on, without a movement of revolt, without a +protest. He obviously understood the futility of words. Daubrecq +was one of those who do not relent. Why should his visitor waste +time in beseeching him or even in revenging himself upon him by +uttering vain threats and insults? He had no hope of striking that +unassailable enemy. Even Daubrecq’s death would not deliver him +from Daubrecq. +He took his hat and went away. +At eleven o’clock in the morning Victoire, on returning from her +shopping, handed Lupin a note from his accomplices. +He opened it and read: +“The man who came to see Daubrecq last night is Langeroux the +deputy, leader of the independent left. A poor man, with a +large family.” +“Come,” said Lupin, “Daubrecq is nothing more nor less than a +blackmailer; but, by Jupiter, he has jolly effective ways of going +to work!” +Events tended to confirm Lupin’s supposition. Three days later he +saw another visitor hand Daubrecq an important sum of money. And, +two days after that, one came and left a pearl necklace behind him. +The first was called Dachaumont, a senator and ex-cabinet-minister. +The second was the Marquis d’Albufex, a Bonapartist deputy, +formerly chief political agent in France of Prince Napoleon. +The scene, in each of these cases, was very similar to Langeroux +the deputy’s interview, a violent tragic scene, ending in +Daubrecq’s victory. +“And so on and so forth,” thought Lupin, when he received these +particulars. “I have been present at four visits. I shall know no +more if there are ten, or twenty, or thirty.... It is enough for +me to learn the names of the visitors from my friends on sentry-go +outside. Shall I go and call on them?... What for? They have no +reason to confide in me.... On the other hand, am I to stay on +here, delayed by investigations which lead to nothing and which +Victoire can continue just as well without me?” +He was very much perplexed. The news of the inquiry into the +case of Gilbert and Vaucheray was becoming worse and worse, the +days were slipping by, and not an hour passed without his asking +himself, in anguish, whether all his efforts--granting that he +succeeded--would not end in farcical results, absolutely foreign to +the aim which he was pursuing. +For, after all, supposing that he did fathom Daubrecq’s underhand +dealings, would that give him the means of rescuing Gilbert and +Vaucheray? +That day an incident occurred which put an end to his indecision. +After lunch Victoire heard snatches of a conversation which +Daubrecq held with some one on the telephone. Lupin gathered, from +what Victoire reported, that the deputy had an appointment with a +lady for half-past eight and that he was going to take her to a +theatre: +“I shall get a pit-tier box, like the one we had six weeks ago,” +Daubrecq had said. And he added, with a laugh, “I hope that I shall +not have the burglars in during that time.” +There was not a doubt in Lupin’s mind. Daubrecq was about to spend +his evening in the same manner in which he had spent the evening +six weeks ago, while they were breaking into his villa at Enghien. +To know the person whom he was to meet and perhaps thus to discover +how Gilbert and Vaucheray had learnt that Daubrecq would be away +from eight o’clock in the evening until one o’clock in the morning: +these were matters of the utmost importance. +Lupin left the house in the afternoon, with Victoire’s assistance. +He knew through her that Daubrecq was coming home for dinner +earlier than usual. +He went to his flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, telephoned for three +of his friends, dressed and made himself up in his favourite +character of a Russian prince, with fair hair and moustache and +short-cut whiskers. +The accomplices arrived in a motor-car. +At that moment, Achille, his man, brought him a telegram, addressed +to M. Michel Beaumont, Rue Chateaubriand, which ran: +“Do not come to theatre this evening. Danger of your intervention +spoiling everything.” +There was a flower-vase on the chimney-piece beside him. Lupin took +it and smashed it to pieces. +“That’s it, that’s it,” he snarled. “They are playing with me as I +usually play with others. Same behaviour. Same tricks. Only there’s +this difference....” +What difference? He hardly knew. The truth was that he too was +baffled and disconcerted to the inmost recesses of his being and +that he was continuing to act only from obstinacy, from a sense of +duty, so to speak, and without putting his ordinary good humour and +high spirits into the work. +“Come along,” he said to his accomplices. +By his instructions, the chauffeur set them down near the Square +Lamartine, but kept the motor going. Lupin foresaw that Daubrecq, +in order to escape the detectives watching the house, would jump +into the first taxi; and he did not intend to be outdistanced. +He had not allowed for Daubrecq’s cleverness. +At half-past seven both leaves of the garden-gate were flung open, +a bright light flashed and a motor-cycle darted across the road, +skirted the square, turned in front of the motor-car and shot away +toward the Bois at a speed so great that they would have been mad +to go in pursuit of it. +“Good-bye, Daisy!” said Lupin, trying to jest, but really overcome +with rage. +He eyed his accomplices in the hope that one of them would venture +to give a mocking smile. How pleased he would have been to vent his +nerves on them! +“Let’s go home,” he said to his companions. +He gave them some dinner; then he smoked a cigar and they set off +again in the car and went the round of the theatres, beginning +with those which were giving light operas and musical comedies, +for which he presumed that Daubrecq and his lady would have a +preference. He took a stall, inspected the lower-tier boxes and +went away again. +He next drove to the more serious theatres: the Renaissance, the +Gymnase. +At last, at ten o’clock in the evening, he saw a pit-tier box at +the Vaudeville almost entirely protected from inspection by its two +screens; and, on tipping the boxkeeper, was told that it contained +a short, stout, elderly gentleman and a lady who was wearing a +thick lace veil. +The next box was free. He took it, went back to his friends to give +them their instructions and sat down near the couple. +During the entr’acte, when the lights went up, he perceived +Daubrecq’s profile. The lady remained at the back of the box, +invisible. The two were speaking in a low voice; and, when the +curtain rose again, they went on speaking, but in such a way that +Lupin could not distinguish a word. +Ten minutes passed. Some one tapped at their door. It was one of +the men from the box-office. +“Are you M. le Député Daubrecq, sir?” he asked. +“Yes,” said Daubrecq, in a voice of surprise. “But how do you know +my name?” +“There’s a gentleman asking for you on the telephone. He told me to +go to Box 22.” +“But who is it?” +“M. le Marquis d’Albufex.” +“Eh?” +“What am I to say, sir?” +“I’m coming.... I’m coming....” +Daubrecq rose hurriedly from his seat and followed the clerk to the +box-office. +He was not yet out of sight when Lupin sprang from his box, worked +the lock of the next door and sat down beside the lady. +She gave a stifled cry. +“Hush!” he said. “I have to speak to you. It is most important.” +“Ah!” she said, between her teeth. “Arsène Lupin!” He was +dumbfounded. For a moment he sat quiet, open-mouthed. The woman +knew him! And not only did she know him, but she had recognized +him through his disguise! Accustomed though he was to the most +extraordinary and unusual events, this disconcerted him. +He did not even dream of protesting and stammered: +“So you know?... So you know?...” +He snatched at the lady’s veil and pulled it aside before she had +time to defend herself: +“What!” he muttered, with increased amazement. “Is it possible?” +It was the woman whom he had seen at Daubrecq’s a few days earlier, +the woman who had raised her dagger against Daubrecq and who had +intended to stab him with all the strength of her hatred. +It was her turn to be taken aback: +“What! Have you seen me before?...” +“Yes, the other night, at his house.... I saw what you tried to +do....” +She made a movement to escape. He held her back and, speaking with +great eagerness: +“I must know who you are,” he said. “That was why I had Daubrecq +telephoned for.” +She looked aghast: +“Do you mean to say it was not the Marquis d’Albufex?” +“No, it was one of my assistants.” +“Then Daubrecq will come back?...” +“Yes, but we have time.... Listen to me.... We must meet again.... +He is your enemy.... I will save you from him....” +“Why should you? What is your object?” +“Do not distrust me . . . it is quite certain that our interests +are identical.... Where can I see you? To-morrow, surely? At what +time? And where?” +“Well....” +She looked at him with obvious hesitation, not knowing what to do, +on the point of speaking and yet full of uneasiness and doubt. +He pressed her: +“Oh, I entreat you . . . answer me just one word . . . and at +once.... It would be a pity for him to find me here.... I entreat +you....” +She answered sharply: +“My name doesn’t matter.... We will see each other first and you +shall explain to me.... Yes, we will meet.... Listen, to-morrow, at +three o’clock, at the corner of the Boulevard....” +At that exact moment, the door of the box opened, so to speak, with +a bang, and Daubrecq appeared. +“Rats!” Lupin mumbled, under his breath, furious at being caught +before obtaining what he wanted. +Daubrecq gave a chuckle: +“So that’s it.... I thought something was up.... Ah, the +telephone-trick: a little out of date, sir! I had not gone half-way +when I turned back.” +He pushed Lupin to the front of the box and, sitting down beside +the lady, said: +“And, now my lord, who are we? A servant at the police-office, +probably? There’s a professional look about that mug of yours.” +He stared hard at Lupin, who did not move a muscle, and tried to +put a name to the face, but failed to recognize the man whom he had +called Polonius. +Lupin, without taking his eyes from Daubrecq either, reflected. +He would not for anything in the world have thrown up the game at +that point or neglected this favourable opportunity of coming to an +understanding with his mortal enemy. +The woman sat in her corner, motionless, and watched them both. +Lupin said: +“Let us go outside, sir. That will make our interview easier.” +“No, my lord, here,” grinned the deputy. “It will take place here, +presently, during the entr’acte. Then we shall not be disturbing +anybody.” +“But....” +“Save your breath, my man; you sha’n’t budge.” +And he took Lupin by the coat-collar, with the obvious intention of +not letting go of him before the interval. +A rash move! Was it likely that Lupin would consent to remain in +such an attitude, especially before a woman, a woman to whom he had +offered his alliance, a woman--and he now thought of it for the +first time--who was distinctly good-looking and whose grave beauty +attracted him. His whole pride as a man rose at the thought. +However, he said nothing. He accepted the heavy weight of the +hand on his shoulder and even sat bent in two, as though beaten, +powerless, almost frightened. +“Eh, clever!” said the deputy, scoffingly. “We don’t seem to be +swaggering quite so much.” +The stage was full of actors who were arguing and making a noise. +Daubrecq had loosened his grasp slightly and Lupin felt that the +moment had come. With the edge of his hand, he gave him a violent +blow in the hollow of the arm, as he might have done with a hatchet. +The pain took Daubrecq off his guard. Lupin now released himself +entirely and sprang at the other to clutch him by the throat. But +Daubrecq had at once put himself on the defensive and stepped back +and their four hands seized one another. +They gripped with superhuman energy, the whole force of the two +adversaries concentrating in those hands. Daubrecq’s were of +monstrous size; and Lupin, caught in that iron vise, felt as though +he were fighting not with a man, but with some terrible beast, a +huge gorilla. +They held each other against the door, bending low, like a pair of +wrestlers groping and trying to lay hold of each other. Their bones +creaked. Whichever gave way first was bound to be caught by the +throat and strangled. And all this happened amid a sudden silence, +for the actors on the stage were now listening to one of their +number, who was speaking in a low voice. +The woman stood back flat against the partition, looking at them +in terror. Had she taken sides with either of them, with a single +movement, the victory would at once have been decided in that one’s +favour. But which of them should she assist? What could Lupin +represent in her eyes? A friend? An enemy? +She briskly made for the front of the box, forced back the screen +and, leaning forward, seemed to give a signal. Then she returned +and tried to slip to the door. +Lupin, as though wishing to help her, said: +“Why don’t you move the chair?” +He was speaking of a heavy chair which had fallen down between him +and Daubrecq and across which they were struggling. +The woman stooped and pulled away the chair. That was what Lupin +was waiting for. Once rid of the obstacle, he caught Daubrecq a +smart kick on the shin with the tip of his patent-leather boot. +The result was the same as with the blow which he had given him on +the arm. The pain caused a second’s apprehension and distraction, +of which he at once took advantage to beat down Daubrecq’s +outstretched hands and to dig his ten fingers into his adversary’s +throat and neck. +Daubrecq struggled. Daubrecq tried to pull away the hands that were +throttling him; but he was beginning to choke and felt his strength +decreasing. +“Aha, you old monkey!” growled Lupin, forcing him to the floor. +“Why don’t you shout for help? How frightened you must be of a +scandal!” +At the sound of the fall there came a knocking at the partition, on +the other side. +“Knock away, knock away,” said Lupin, under his breath. “The play +is on the stage. This is my business and, until I’ve mastered this +gorilla....” +It did not take him long. The deputy was choking. Lupin stunned him +with a blow on the jaw; and all that remained for him to do was to +take the woman away and make his escape with her before the alarm +was given. +But, when he turned round, he saw that the woman was gone. +She could not be far. Darting from the box, he set off at a run, +regardless of the programme-sellers and check-takers. +On reaching the entrance-lobby, he saw her through an open door, +crossing the pavement of the Chaussée d’Antin. +She was stepping into a motor-car when he came up with her. +The door closed behind her. +He seized the handle and tried to pull at it. +But a man jumped up inside and sent his fist flying into Lupin’s +face, with less skill but no less force than Lupin had sent his +into Daubrecq’s face. +Stunned though he was by the blow, he nevertheless had ample time +to recognize the man, in a sudden, startled vision, and also to +recognize, under his chauffeur’s disguise, the man who was driving +the car. It was the Growler and the Masher, the two men in charge +of the boats on the Enghien night, two friends of Gilbert and +Vaucheray: in short, two of Lupin’s own accomplices. +* * * * * +When he reached his rooms in the Rue Chateaubriand, Lupin, after +washing the blood from his face, sat for over an hour in a chair, +as though overwhelmed. For the first time in his life he was +experiencing the pain of treachery. For the first time his comrades +in the fight were turning against their chief. +Mechanically, to divert his thoughts, he turned to his correspondence +and tore the wrapper from an evening paper. Among the late news he +found the following paragraphs: +“THE VILLA MARIE-THERESE CASE” +“The real identity of Vaucheray, one of the alleged murderers +of Léonard the valet, has at last been ascertained. He is a +miscreant of the worst type, a hardened criminal who has +already twice been sentenced for murder, in default, under +another name. +“No doubt, the police will end by also discovering the +real name of his accomplice, Gilbert. In any event, the +examining-magistrate is determined to commit the prisoners +for trial as soon as possible. +“The public will have no reason to complain of the delays +of the law.” +In between other newspapers and prospectuses lay a letter. +Lupin jumped when he saw it. It was addressed: +“_Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel._” +“Oh,” he gasped, “a letter from Gilbert!” +It contained these few words: +“Help, governor!... I am frightened. I am frightened....” +Once again, Lupin spent a night alternating between sleeplessness +and nightmares. Once again, he was tormented by atrocious and +terrifying visions. +[B] See _The Hollow Needle_ by Maurice Leblanc, translated by +Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, and later volumes of the Lupin series. +CHAPTER IV. +THE CHIEF OF THE ENEMIES +“Poor boy!” murmured Lupin, when his eyes fell on Gilbert’s letter +next morning. “How he must feel it!” +On the very first day when he saw him, he had taken a liking to +that well-set-up youngster, so careless, gay and fond of life. +Gilbert was devoted to him, would have accepted death at a sign +from his master. And Lupin also loved his frankness, his good +humour, his simplicity, his bright, open face. +“Gilbert,” he often used to say, “you are an honest man. Do you +know, if I were you, I should chuck the business and become an +honest man for good.” +“After you, governor,” Gilbert would reply, with a laugh. +“Won’t you, though?” +“No, governor. An honest man is a chap who works and grinds. It’s a +taste which I may have had as a nipper; but they’ve made me lose it +since.” +“Who’s they?” +Gilbert was silent. He was always silent when questioned about his +early life; and all that Lupin knew was that he had been an orphan +since childhood and that he had lived all over the place, changing +his name and taking up the queerest jobs. The whole thing was a +mystery which no one had been able to fathom; and it did not look +as though the police would make much of it either. +Nor, on the other hand, did it look as though the police would +consider that mystery a reason for delaying proceedings. They would +send Vaucheray’s accomplice for trial--under his name of Gilbert or +any other name--and visit him with the same inevitable punishment. +“Poor boy!” repeated Lupin. “They’re persecuting him like this +only because of me. They are afraid of his escaping and they +are in a hurry to finish the business: the verdict first and +then . . . the execution.... Oh, the butchers!... A lad of twenty, +who has committed no murder, who is not even an accomplice in the +murder....” +Alas, Lupin well knew that this was a thing impossible to prove and +that he must concentrate his efforts upon another point. But upon +which? Was he to abandon the trail of the crystal stopper? +He could not make up his mind to that. His one and only diversion +from the search was to go to Enghien, where the Growler and the +Masher lived, and make sure that nothing had been seen of them +since the murder at the Villa Marie-Thérèse. Apart from this, he +applied himself to the question of Daubrecq and nothing else. +He refused even to trouble his head about the problems set before +him: the treachery of the Growler and the Masher; their connection +with the gray-haired lady; the spying of which he himself was the +object. +“Steady, Lupin,” he said. “One only argues falsely in a fever. +So hold your tongue. No inferences, above all things! Nothing is +more foolish than to infer one fact from another before finding +a certain starting-point. That’s where you get up a tree. Listen +to your instinct. Act according to your instinct. And as you are +persuaded, outside all argument, outside all logic, one might say, +that this business turns upon that confounded stopper, go for it +boldly. Have at Daubrecq and his bit of crystal!” +Lupin did not wait to arrive at these conclusions before settling +his actions accordingly. At the moment when he was stating them +in his mind, three days after the scene at the Vaudeville, he was +sitting, dressed like a retired tradesman, in an old overcoat, with +a muffler round his neck, on a bench in the Avenue Victor-Hugo, +at some distance from the Square Lamartine. Victoire had his +instructions to pass by that bench at the same hour every morning. +“Yes,” he repeated to himself, “the crystal stopper: everything +turns on that.... Once I get hold of it....” +Victoire arrived, with her shopping-basket on her arm. He at once +noticed her extraordinary agitation and pallor: +“What’s the matter?” asked Lupin, walking beside his old nurse. +She went into a big grocer’s, which was crowded with people, and, +turning to him: +“Here,” she said, in a voice torn with excitement. “Here’s what +you’ve been hunting for.” +And, taking something from her basket, she gave it to him. +Lupin stood astounded: in his hand lay the crystal stopper. +“Can it be true? Can it be true?” he muttered, as though the ease +of the solution had thrown him off his balance. +But the fact remained, visible and palpable. He recognized by its +shape, by its size, by the worn gilding of its facets, recognized +beyond any possible doubt the crystal stopper which he had seen +before. He even remarked a tiny, hardly noticeable little scratch +on the stem which he remembered perfectly. +However, while the thing presented all the same characteristics, +it possessed no other that seemed out of the way. It was a crystal +stopper, that was all. There was no really special mark to +distinguish it from other stoppers. There was no sign upon it, no +stamp; and, being cut from a single piece, it contained no foreign +object. +“What then?” +And Lupin received a quick insight into the depth of his mistake. +What good could the possession of that crystal stopper do him so +long as he was ignorant of its value? That bit of glass had no +existence in itself; it counted only through the meaning that +attached to it. Before taking it, the thing was to be certain. And +how could he tell that, in taking it, in robbing Daubrecq of it, he +was not committing an act of folly? +It was a question which was impossible of solution, but which +forced itself upon him with singular directness. +“No blunders!” he said to himself, as he pocketed the stopper. “In +this confounded business, blunders are fatal.” +He had not taken his eyes off Victoire. Accompanied by a shopman, +she went from counter to counter, among the throng of customers. +She next stood for some little while at the pay-desk and passed in +front of Lupin. +He whispered her instructions: +“Meet me behind the Lycée Janson.” +She joined him in an unfrequented street: +“And suppose I’m followed?” she said. +“No,” he declared. “I looked carefully. Listen to me. Where did you +find the stopper?” +“In the drawer of the table by his bed.” +“But we had felt there already.” +“Yes; and I did so again this morning. I expect he put it there +last night.” +“And I expect he’ll want to take it from there again,” said Lupin. +“Very likely.” +“And suppose he finds it gone?” +Victoire looked frightened. +“Answer me,” said Lupin. “If he finds it gone, he’ll accuse you of +taking it, won’t he?” +“Certainly.” +“Then go and put it back, as fast as you can.” +“Oh dear, oh dear!” she moaned. “I hope he won’t have had time to +find out. Give it to me, quick.” +“Here you are,” said Lupin. +He felt in the pocket of his overcoat. +“Well?” said Victoire, holding out her hand. +“Well,” he said, after a moment, “it’s gone.” +“What!” +“Yes, upon my word, it’s gone . . . somebody’s taken it from me.” +He burst into a peal of laughter, a laughter which, this time, was +free from all bitterness. +Victoire flew out at him: +“Laugh away!... Putting me in such a predicament!...” +“How can I help laughing? You must confess that it’s funny. It’s +no longer a tragedy that we’re acting, but a fairy-tale, as much a +fairy-tale as _Puss in Boots_ or _Jack and the Beanstalk_. I must +write it when I get a few weeks to myself: _The Magic Stopper; or, +The Mishaps of Poor Arsène._” +“Well . . . who has taken it from you?” +“What are you talking about?... It has flown away . . . vanished +from my pocket: hey presto, begone!” +He gave the old servant a gentle push and, in a more serious tone: +“Go home, Victoire, and don’t upset yourself. Of course, some one +saw you give me the stopper and took advantage of the crowd in the +shop to pick my pocket of it. That only shows that we are watched +more closely than I thought and by adversaries of the first rank. +But, once more, be easy. Honest men always come by their own.... +Have you anything else to tell me?” +“Yes. Some one came yesterday evening, while M. Daubrecq was out. I +saw lights reflected upon the trees in the garden.” +“The portress’ bedroom?” +“The portress was up.” +“Then it was some of those detective-fellows; they are still +hunting. I’ll see you later, Victoire. You must let me in again.” +“What! You want to....” +“What do I risk? Your room is on the third floor. Daubrecq suspects +nothing.” +“But the others!” +“The others? If it was to their interest to play me a trick, they’d +have tried before now. I’m in their way, that’s all. They’re not +afraid of me. So till later, Victoire, at five o’clock exactly.” +One further surprise awaited Lupin. In the evening his old nurse +told him that, having opened the drawer of the bedside table from +curiosity, she had found the crystal stopper there again. +Lupin was no longer to be excited by these miraculous incidents. He +simply said to himself: +“So it’s been brought back. And the person who brought it back and +who enters this house by some unexplained means considered, as I +did, that the stopper ought not to disappear. And yet Daubrecq, +who knows that he is being spied upon to his very bedroom, has +once more left the stopper in a drawer, as though he attached no +importance to it at all! Now what is one to make of that?” +Though Lupin did not make anything of it, nevertheless he could +not escape certain arguments, certain associations of ideas that +gave him the same vague foretaste of light which one receives on +approaching the outlet of a tunnel. +“It is inevitable, as the case stands,” he thought, “that there +must soon be an encounter between myself and the others. From that +moment I shall be master of the situation.” +Five days passed, during which Lupin did not glean the slightest +particular. On the sixth day Daubrecq received a visit, in the +small hours, from a gentleman, Laybach the deputy, who, like his +colleagues, dragged himself at his feet in despair and, when all +was done, handed him twenty thousand francs. +Two more days; and then, one night, posted on the landing of the +second floor, Lupin heard the creaking of a door, the front-door, +as he perceived, which led from the hall into the garden. In the +darkness he distinguished, or rather divined, the presence of two +persons, who climbed the stairs and stopped on the first floor, +outside Daubrecq’s bedroom. +What were they doing there? It was not possible to enter the room, +because Daubrecq bolted his door every night. Then what were they +hoping? +Manifestly, a handiwork of some kind was being performed, as Lupin +discovered from the dull sounds of rubbing against the door. Then +words, uttered almost beneath a whisper, reached him: +“Is it all right?” +“Yes, quite, but, all the same, we’d better put it off till +to-morrow, because....” +Lupin did not hear the end of the sentence. The men were already +groping their way downstairs. The hall-door was closed, very +gently, and then the gate. +“It’s curious, say what one likes,” thought Lupin. “Here is a house +in which Daubrecq carefully conceals his rascalities and is on +his guard, not without good reason, against spies; and everybody +walks in and out as in a booth at a fair. Victoire lets me in, +the portress admits the emissaries of the police: that’s well and +good; but who is playing false in these people’s favour? Are we to +suppose that they are acting alone? But what fearlessness! And how +well they know their way about!” +In the afternoon, during Daubrecq’s absence, he examined the +door of the first-floor bedroom. And, at the first glance, he +understood: one of the lower panels had been skilfully cut out and +was only held in place by invisible tacks. The people, therefore, +who had done this work were the same who had acted at his two +places, in the Rue Matignon and the Rue Chateaubriand. +He also found that the work dated back to an earlier period and +that, as in his case, the opening had been prepared beforehand, in +anticipation of favourable circumstances or of some immediate need. +The day did not seem long to Lupin. Knowledge was at hand. Not only +would he discover the manner in which his adversaries employed +those little openings, which were apparently unemployable, since +they did not allow a person to reach the upper bolts, but he would +learn who the ingenious and energetic adversaries were with whom he +repeatedly and inevitably found himself confronted. +One incident annoyed him. In the evening Daubrecq, who had +complained of feeling tired at dinner, came home at ten o’clock +and, contrary to his usual custom, pushed the bolts of the +hall-door. In that case, how would the others be able to carry +out their plan and go to Daubrecq’s room? Lupin waited for an +hour after Daubrecq put out his light. Then he went down to the +deputy’s study, opened one of the windows ajar and returned to the +third floor and fixed his rope-ladder so that, in case of need, he +could reach the study without passing though the house. Lastly, he +resumed his post on the second-floor landing. +He did not have to wait long. An hour earlier than on the previous +night some one tried to open the hall-door. When the attempt +failed, a few minutes of absolute silence followed. And Lupin +was beginning to think that the men had abandoned the idea, when +he gave a sudden start. Some one had passed, without the least +sound to interrupt the silence. He would not have known it, so +utterly were the thing’s steps deadened by the stair-carpet, if the +baluster-rail, which he himself held in his hand, had not shaken +slightly. Some one was coming upstairs. +And, as the ascent continued, Lupin became aware of the uncanny +feeling that he heard nothing more than before. He knew, because of +the rail, that a thing was coming and he could count the number of +steps climbed by noting each vibration of the rail; but no other +indication gave him that dim sensation of presence which we feel in +distinguishing movements which we do not see, in perceiving sounds +which we do not hear. And yet a blacker darkness ought to have +taken shape within the darkness and something ought, at least, to +modify the quality of the silence. No, he might well have believed +that there was no one there. +And Lupin, in spite of himself and against the evidence of his +reason, ended by believing it, for the rail no longer moved and he +thought that he might have been the sport of an illusion. +And this lasted a long time. He hesitated, not knowing what to do, +not knowing what to suppose. But an odd circumstance impressed him. +A clock struck two. He recognized the chime of Daubrecq’s clock. +And the chime was that of a clock from which one is not separated +by the obstacle of a door. +Lupin slipped down the stairs and went to the door. It was closed, +but there was a space on the left, at the bottom, a space left by +the removal of the little panel. +He listened. Daubrecq, at that moment, turned in his bed; and his +breathing was resumed, evenly and a little stertorously. And Lupin +plainly heard the sound of rumpling garments. Beyond a doubt, the +thing was there, fumbling and feeling through the clothes which +Daubrecq had laid beside his bed. +“Now,” thought Lupin, “we shall learn something. But how the deuce +did the beggar get in? Has he managed to draw the bolts and open +the door? But, if so, why did he make the mistake of shutting it +again?” +Not for a second--a curious anomaly in a man like Lupin, an anomaly +to be explained only by the uncanny feeling which the whole +adventure produced in him--not for a second did he suspect the very +simple truth which was about to be revealed to him. Continuing his +way down, he crouched on one of the bottom steps of the staircase, +thus placing himself between the door of the bedroom and the +hall-door, on the road which Daubrecq’s enemy must inevitably take +in order to join his accomplices. +He questioned the darkness with an unspeakable anguish. He was on +the point of unmasking that enemy of Daubrecq’s, who was also his +own adversary. He would thwart his plans. And the booty captured +from Daubrecq he would capture in his turn, while Daubrecq slept +and while the accomplices lurking behind the hall-door or outside +the garden-gate vainly awaited their leader’s return. +And that return took place. Lupin knew it by the renewed vibration +of the balusters. And, once more, with every sense strained and +every nerve on edge, he strove to discern the mysterious thing +that was coming toward him. He suddenly realized it when only a +few yards away. He himself, hidden in a still darker recess, could +not be seen. And what he saw--in the very vaguest manner--was +approaching stair by stair, with infinite precautions, holding on +to each separate baluster. +“Whom the devil have I to do with?” said Lupin to himself, while +his heart thumped inside his chest. +The catastrophe was hastened. A careless movement on Lupin’s part +was observed by the stranger, who stopped short. Lupin was afraid +lest the other should turn back and take to flight. He sprang at +the adversary and was stupefied at encountering nothing but space +and knocking against the stair-rail without seizing the form which +he saw. But he at once rushed forward, crossed the best part of the +hall and caught up his antagonist just as he was reaching the door +opening on the garden. +There was a cry of fright, answered by other cries on the further +side of the door. +“Oh, hang it, what’s this?” muttered Lupin, whose arms had closed, +in the dark, round a little, tiny, trembling, whimpering thing. +Suddenly understanding, he stood for a moment motionless and +dismayed, at a loss what to do with his conquered prey. But the +others were shouting and stamping outside the door. Thereupon, +dreading lest Daubrecq should wake up, he slipped the little thing +under his jacket, against his chest, stopped the crying with his +handkerchief rolled into a ball and hurried up the three flights of +stairs. +[Illustration: “Here, I’ve brought you the indomitable chief of our +enemies. Have you a feeding bottle?”] +“Here,” he said to Victoire, who woke with a start. “I’ve brought +you the indomitable chief of our enemies, the Hercules of the gang. +Have you a feeding-bottle about you?” +He put down in the easy-chair a child of six or seven years of age, +the tiniest little fellow in a gray jersey and a knitted woollen +cap, whose pale and exquisitely pretty features were streaked with +the tears that streamed from the terrified eyes. +“Where did you pick that up?” asked Victoire, aghast. +“At the foot of the stairs, as it was coming out of Daubrecq’s +bedroom,” replied Lupin, feeling the jersey in the hope that the +child had brought a booty of some kind from that room. +Victoire was stirred to pity: +“Poor little dear! Look, he’s trying not to cry!... Oh, saints +above, his hands are like ice! Don’t be afraid, sonnie, we sha’n’t +hurt you: the gentleman’s all right.” +“Yes,” said Lupin, “the gentleman’s quite all right, but there’s +another very wicked gentleman who’ll wake up if they go on making +such a rumpus outside the hall-door. Do you hear them, Victoire?” +“Who is it?” +“The satellites of our young Hercules, the indomitable leader’s +gang.” +“Well...?” stammered Victoire, utterly unnerved. +“Well, as I don’t want to be caught in the trap, I shall start by +clearing out. Are you coming, Hercules?” +He rolled the child in a blanket, so that only its head remained +outside, gagged its mouth as gently as possible and made Victoire +fasten it to his shoulders: +“See, Hercules? We’re having a game. You never thought you’d find +gentlemen to play pick-a-back with you at three o’clock in the +morning! Come, whoosh, let’s fly away! You don’t get giddy, I hope?” +He stepped across the window-ledge and set foot on one of the rungs +of the ladder. He was in the garden in a minute. +He had never ceased hearing and now heard more plainly still the +blows that were being struck upon the front-door. He was astounded +that Daubrecq was not awakened by so violent a din: +“If I don’t put a stop to this, they’ll spoil everything,” he said +to himself. +He stood in an angle of the house, invisible in the darkness, and +measured the distance between himself and the gate. The gate was +open. To his right, he saw the steps, on the top of which the +people were flinging themselves about; to his left, the building +occupied by the portress. +The woman had come out of her lodge and was standing near the +people, entreating them: +“Oh, do be quiet, do be quiet! He’ll come!” +“Capital!” said Lupin. “The good woman is an accomplice of these as +well. By Jingo, what a pluralist!” +He rushed across to her and, taking her by the scruff of the neck, +hissed: +“Go and tell them I’ve got the child.... They can come and fetch it +at my place, Rue Chateaubriand.” +A little way off, in the avenue, stood a taxi which Lupin presumed +to be engaged by the gang. Speaking authoritatively, as though he +were one of the accomplices, he stepped into the cab and told the +man to drive him home. +“Well,” he said to the child, “that wasn’t much of a shake-up, was +it?... What do you say to going to bye-bye on the gentleman’s bed?” +As his servant, Achille, was asleep, Lupin made the little chap +comfortable and stroked his hair for him. The child seemed numbed. +His poor face was as though petrified into a stiff expression made +up, at one and the same time, of fear and the wish not to show +fear, of the longing to scream and a pitiful effort not to scream. +“Cry, my pet, cry,” said Lupin. “It’ll do you good to cry.” +The child did not cry, but the voice was so gentle and so kind that +he relaxed his tense muscles; and, now that his eyes were calmer +and his mouth less contorted, Lupin, who was examining him closely, +found something that he recognized, an undoubted resemblance. +This again confirmed certain facts which he suspected and which he +had for some time been linking in his mind. Indeed, unless he was +mistaken, the position was becoming very different and he would +soon assume the direction of events. After that.... +A ring at the bell followed, at once, by two others, sharp ones. +“Hullo!” said Lupin to the child. “Here’s mummy come to fetch you. +Don’t move.” +He ran and opened the door. +A woman entered, wildly: +“My son!” she screamed. “My son! Where is he?” +“In my room,” said Lupin. +Without asking more, thus proving that she knew the way, she rushed +to the bedroom. +“As I thought,” muttered Lupin. “The youngish woman with the gray +hair: Daubrecq’s friend and enemy.” +He walked to the window and looked through the curtains. Two men +were striding up and down the opposite pavement: the Growler and +the Masher. +“And they’re not even hiding themselves,” he said to himself. +“That’s a good sign. They consider that they can’t do without me +any longer and that they’ve got to obey the governor. There remains +the pretty lady with the gray hair. That will be more difficult. +It’s you and I now, mummy.” +He found the mother and the boy clasped in each other’s arms; and +the mother, in a great state of alarm, her eyes moist with tears, +was saying: +“You’re not hurt? You’re sure? Oh, how frightened you must have +been, my poor little Jacques!” +“A fine little fellow,” said Lupin. +She did not reply. She was feeling the child’s jersey, as Lupin had +done, no doubt to see if he had succeeded in his nocturnal mission; +and she questioned him in a whisper. +“No, mummy,” said the child. “No, really.” +She kissed him fondly and petted him, until, in a little while, +the child, worn out with fatigue and excitement, fell asleep. She +remained leaning over him for a long time. She herself seemed very +much worn out and in need of rest. +Lupin did not disturb her contemplation. He looked at her +anxiously, with an attention which she did not perceive, and he +noticed the wider rings round her eyes and the deeper marks of +wrinkles. Yet he considered her handsomer than he had thought, with +that touching beauty which habitual suffering gives to certain +faces that are more human, more sensitive than others. +She wore so sad an expression that, in a burst of instinctive +sympathy, he went up to her and said: “I do not know what your +plans are, but, whatever they may be, you stand in need of help. +You cannot succeed alone.” +“I am not alone.” +“The two men outside? I know them. They’re no good. I beseech you, +make use of me. You remember the other evening, at the theatre, in +the private box? You were on the point of speaking. Do not hesitate +to-day.” +She turned her eyes on him, looked at him long and fixedly and, as +though unable to escape that opposing will, she said: +“What do you know exactly? What do you know about me?” +“There are many things that I do not know. I do not know your name. +But I know....” +She interrupted him with a gesture; and, resolutely, in her turn, +dominating the man who was compelling her to speak: +“It doesn’t matter,” she exclaimed. “What you know, after all, +is not much and is of no importance. But what are your plans? +You offer me your help: with what view? For what work? You have +flung yourself headlong into this business; I have been unable to +undertake anything without meeting you on my path: you must be +contemplating some aim.... What aim?” +“What aim? Upon my word, it seems to me that my conduct....” +“No, no,” she said, emphatically, “no phrases! What you and I want +is certainties; and, to achieve them, absolute frankness. I will +set you the example. M. Daubrecq possesses a thing of unparalleled +value, not in itself, but for what it represents. That thing you +know. You have twice held it in your hands. I have twice taken +it from you. Well, I am entitled to believe that, when you tried +to obtain possession of it, you meant to use the power which you +attribute to it and to use it to your own advantage....” +“What makes you say that?” +“Yes, you meant to use it to forward your schemes, in the interest +of your own affairs, in accordance with your habits as a....” +“As a burglar and a swindler,” said Lupin, completing the sentence +for her. +She did not protest. He tried to read her secret thoughts in the +depths of her eyes. What did she want with him? What was she afraid +of? If she mistrusted him, had he not also reasons to mistrust +that woman who had twice taken the crystal stopper from him to +restore it to Daubrecq? Mortal enemy of Daubrecq’s though she were, +up to what point did she remain subject to that man’s will? By +surrendering himself to her, did he not risk surrendering himself +to Daubrecq? And yet he had never looked upon graver eyes nor a +more honest face. +Without further hesitation, he stated: +“My object is simple enough. It is the release of my friends +Gilbert and Vaucheray.” +“Is that true? Is that true?” she exclaimed, quivering all over and +questioning him with an anxious glance. +“If you knew me....” +“I do know you.... I know who you are. For months, I have taken +part in your life, without your suspecting it . . . and yet, for +certain reasons, I still doubt....” +He said, in a more decisive tone: +“You do not know me. If you knew me, you would know that there can +be no peace for me before my two companions have escaped the awful +fate that awaits them.” +She rushed at him, took him by the shoulders and positively +distraught, said: +“What? What did you say? The awful fate?... Then you believe . . . +you believe....” +“I really believe,” said Lupin, who felt how greatly this threat +upset her, “I really believe that, if I am not in time, Gilbert and +Vaucheray are done for.” +[Illustration: “Be quiet!... Be quiet!” she cried, clutching him +fiercely. “You mustn’t say that.”] +“Be quiet!... Be quiet!” she cried, clutching him fiercely. “Be +quiet!... You mustn’t say that.... There is no reason.... It’s just +you who suppose....” +“It’s not only I, it’s Gilbert as well....” +“What? Gilbert? How do you know?” +“From himself?” +“From him?” +“Yes, from Gilbert, who has no hope left but in me; from Gilbert, +who knows that only one man in the world can save him and who, a +few days ago, sent me a despairing appeal from prison. Here is his +letter.” +She snatched the paper greedily and read in stammering accents: +“Help, governor!... I am frightened!... I am frightened!...” +She dropped the letter. Her hands fluttered in space. It was as +though her staring eyes beheld the sinister vision which had +already so often terrified Lupin. She gave a scream of horror, +tried to rise and fainted. +CHAPTER V. +THE TWENTY-SEVEN +The child was sleeping peacefully on the bed. The mother did not +move from the sofa on which Lupin had laid her; but her easier +breathing and the blood which was now returning to her face +announced her impending recovery from her swoon. +He observed that she wore a wedding-ring. Seeing a locket hanging +from her bodice, he stooped and, turning it, found a miniature +photograph representing a man of about forty and a lad--a stripling +rather--in a schoolboy’s uniform. He studied the fresh, young face +set in curly hair: +“It’s as I thought,” he said. “Ah, poor woman!” +The hand which he took between his grew warmer by degrees. The eyes +opened, then closed again. She murmured: +“Jacques....” +“Do not distress yourself . . . it’s all right he’s asleep.” +She recovered consciousness entirely. But, as she did not speak, +Lupin put questions to her, to make her feel a gradual need of +unbosoming herself. And he said, pointing to the locket: +“The schoolboy is Gilbert, isn’t he?” +“Yes,” she said. +“And Gilbert is your son?” +She gave a shiver and whispered: +“Yes, Gilbert is my son, my eldest son.” +So she was the mother of Gilbert, of Gilbert the prisoner at the +Santé, relentlessly pursued by the authorities and now awaiting his +trial for murder! +Lupin continued: +“And the other portrait?” +“My husband.” +“Your husband?” +“Yes, he died three years ago.” +She was now sitting up. Life quivered in her veins once more, +together with the horror of living and the horror of all the +ghastly things that threatened her. Lupin went on to ask: +“What was your husband’s name?” +She hesitated a moment and answered: +“Mergy.” +He exclaimed: +“Victorien Mergy the deputy?” +“Yes.” +There was a long pause. Lupin remembered the incident and the stir +which it had caused. Three years ago, Mergy the deputy had blown +out his brains in the lobby of the Chamber, without leaving a word +of explanation behind him; and no one had ever discovered the +slightest reason for that suicide. +“Do you know the reason?” asked Lupin, completing his thought aloud. +“Yes, I know it.” +“Gilbert, perhaps?” +“No, Gilbert had disappeared for some years, turned out of doors +and cursed by my husband. It was a very great sorrow, but there was +another motive.” +“What was that?” asked Lupin. +But it was not necessary for Lupin to put further questions. Madame +Mergy could keep silent no longer and, slowly at first, with all +the anguish of that past which had to be called up, she told her +story: +“Twenty-five years ago, when my name was Clarisse Darcel and my +parents living, I knew three young men at Nice. Their names will +at once give you an insight into the present tragedy: they were +Alexis Daubrecq, Victorien Mergy and Louis Prasville. The three +were old acquaintances, had gone to college in the same year and +served in the same regiment. Prasville, at that time, was in love +with a singer at the opera-house at Nice. The two others, Mergy and +Daubrecq, were in love with me. I shall be brief as regards all +this and, for the rest, as regards the whole story, for the facts +tell their own tale. I fell in love with Victorien Mergy from the +first. Perhaps I was wrong not to declare myself at once. But true +love is always timid, hesitating and shy; and I did not announce my +choice until I felt quite certain and quite free. Unfortunately, +that period of waiting, so delightful for those who cherish a +secret passion, had permitted Daubrecq to hope. His anger was +something horrible.” +Clarisse Mergy stopped for a few seconds and resumed, in a stifled +voice: +“I shall never forget it.... The three of us were in the +drawing-room. Oh, I can hear even now the terrible words of threat +and hatred which he uttered! Victorien was absolutely astounded. +He had never seen his friend like this, with that repugnant face, +that bestial expression: yes, the expression of a wild beast.... +Daubrecq ground his teeth. He stamped his feet. His bloodshot +eyes--he did not wear spectacles in those days--rolled in their +sockets; and he kept on saying, ‘I shall be revenged.... I shall be +revenged.... Oh, you don’t know what I am capable of!... I shall +wait ten years, twenty years, if necessary.... But it will come +like a thunderbolt.... Ah, you don’t know!... To be revenged.... +To do harm . . . for harm’s sake... what joy! I was born to do +harm.... And you will both beseech my mercy on your knees, on your +knees, yes, on your knees....’ At that moment, my father entered +the room; and, with his assistance and the footman’s, Victorien +Mergy flung the loathsome creature out of doors. Six weeks later, I +married Victorien.” +“And Daubrecq?” asked Lupin, interrupting her. “Did he not try....” +“No, but on our wedding-day, Louis Prasville, who acted as my +husband’s best man in defiance of Daubrecq’s opposition, went home +to find the girl he loved, the opera-singer, dead, strangled....” +“What!” said Lupin, with a start. “Had Daubrecq....” +“It was known that Daubrecq had been persecuting her with his +attentions for some days; but nothing more was known. It was +impossible to discover who had gone in or out during Prasville’s +absence. There was not a trace found of any kind: nothing, +absolutely nothing.” +“But Prasville....” +“There was no doubt of the truth in Prasville’s mind or ours. +Daubrecq had tried to run away with the girl, perhaps tried to +force her, to hustle her and, in the course of the struggle, +maddened, losing his head, caught her by the throat and killed +her, perhaps without knowing what he was doing. But there was no +evidence of all this; and Daubrecq was not even molested.” +“And what became of him next?” +“For some years we heard nothing of him. We knew only that he had +lost all his money gambling and that he was travelling in America. +And, in spite of myself, I forgot his anger and his threats and +was only too ready to believe that he had ceased to love me and no +longer harboured his schemes of revenge. Besides, I was so happy +that I did not care to think of anything but my happiness, my love, +my husband’s political career, the health of my son Antoine.” +“Antoine?” +“Yes, Antoine is Gilbert’s real name. The unhappy boy has at least +succeeded in concealing his identity.” +Lupin asked, with some hesitation: +“At what period did . . . Gilbert . . . begin?” +“I cannot tell you exactly. Gilbert--I prefer to call him that and +not to pronounce his real name--Gilbert, as a child, was what he is +to-day: lovable, liked by everybody, charming, but lazy and unruly. +When he was fifteen, we put him to a boarding-school in one of the +suburbs, with the deliberate object of not having him too much at +home. After two years’ time he was expelled from school and sent +back to us.” +“Why?” +“Because of his conduct. The masters had discovered that he used to +slip out at night and also that he would disappear for weeks at a +time, while pretending to be at home with us.” +“What used he to do?” +“Amuse himself backing horses, spending his time in cafés and +public dancing-rooms.” +“Then he had money?” +“Yes.” +“Who gave it him?” +“His evil genius, the man who, secretly, unknown to his parents, +enticed him away from school, the man who led him astray, who +corrupted him, who took him from us, who taught him to lie, to +waste his substance and to steal.” +“Daubrecq?” +“Daubrecq.” +Clarisse Mergy put her hands together to hide the blushes on her +forehead. She continued, in her tired voice: +“Daubrecq had taken his revenge. On the day after my husband turned +our unhappy child out of the house, Daubrecq sent us a most cynical +letter in which he revealed the odious part which he had played +and the machinations by which he had succeeded in depraving our +son. And he went on to say, ‘The reformatory, one of these days.... +Later on, the assize-court.... And then, let us hope and trust, the +scaffold!’” +Lupin exclaimed: +“What! Did Daubrecq plot the present business?” +“No, no, that is only an accident. The hateful prophecy was +just a wish which he expressed. But oh, how it terrified me! I +was ailing at the time; my other son, my little Jacques, had +just been born. And every day we heard of some fresh misdeed of +Gilbert’s--forgeries, swindles--so much so that we spread the +news, in our immediate surroundings, of his departure for abroad, +followed by his death. Life was a misery; and it became still more +so when the political storm burst in which my husband was to meet +his death.” +“What do you mean?” +“A word will be enough: my husband’s name was on the list of the +Twenty-seven.” +“Ah!” +The veil was suddenly lifted from Lupin’s eyes and he saw, as in a +flash of lightning, a whole legion of things which, until then, had +been hidden in the darkness. +Clarisse Mergy continued, in a firmer voice: +“Yes, his name was on it, but by mistake, by a piece of incredible +ill-luck of which he was the victim. It is true that Victorien +Mergy was a member of the committee appointed to consider the +question of the Two-Seas Canal. It is true that he voted with the +members who were in favour of the company’s scheme. He was even +paid--yes, I tell you so plainly and I will mention the sum--he +was paid fifteen thousand francs. But he was paid on behalf of +another, of one of his political friends, a man in whom he had +absolute confidence and of whom he was the blind, unconscious tool. +He thought he was showing his friend a kindness; and it proved his +own undoing. It was not until the day after the suicide of the +chairman of the company and the disappearance of the secretary, +the day on which the affair of the canal was published in the +papers, with its whole series of swindles and abominations, that my +husband knew that a number of his fellow-members had been bribed +and learnt that the mysterious list, of which people suddenly began +to speak, mentioned his name with theirs and with the names of +other deputies, leaders of parties and influential politicians. Oh, +what awful days those were! Would the list be published? Would his +name come out? The torture of it! You remember the mad excitement +in the Chamber, the atmosphere of terror and denunciation that +prevailed. Who owned the list? Nobody could say. It was known to +be in existence and that was all. Two names were sacrificed to +public odium. Two men were swept away by the storm. And it remained +unknown where the denunciation came from and in whose hands the +incriminating documents were.” +“Daubrecq,” suggested Lupin. +“No, no!” cried Madame Mergy. “Daubrecq was nothing at that time: +he had not yet appeared upon the scene. No, don’t you remember, +the truth came out suddenly through the very man who was keeping +it back: Germineaux, the ex-minister of justice, a cousin of the +chairman of the Canal Company. As he lay dying of consumption, +he wrote from his sick-bed to the prefect of police, bequeathing +him that list of names, which, he said, would be found, after his +death, in an iron chest in the corner of his room. The house was +surrounded by police and the prefect took up his quarters by the +sick man’s bedside. Germineaux died. The chest was opened and found +to be empty.” +“Daubrecq, this time,” Lupin declared. +“Yes, Daubrecq,” said Madame Mergy, whose excitement was +momentarily increasing. “Alexis Daubrecq, who, for six months, +disguised beyond recognition, had acted as Germineaux’s secretary. +It does not matter how he discovered that Germineaux was the +possessor of the paper in question. The fact remains that he broke +open the chest on the night before the death. So much was proved at +the inquiry; and Daubrecq’s identity was established.” +“But he was not arrested?” +“What would have been the use? They knew well enough that he must +have deposited the list in a place of safety. His arrest would have +involved a scandal, the reopening of the whole case....” +“So....” +“So they made terms.” +Lupin laughed: +“That’s funny, making terms with Daubrecq!” +“Yes, very funny,” said Madame Mergy, bitterly. “During this time +he acted and without delay, shamelessly, making straight for the +goal. A week after the theft, he went to the Chamber of Deputies, +asked for my husband and bluntly demanded thirty thousand francs of +him, to be paid within twenty-four hours. If not, he threatened him +with exposure and disgrace. My husband knew the man he was dealing +with, knew him to be implacable and filled with relentless hatred. +He lost his head and shot himself.” +“How absurd!” Lupin could not help saying. “How absurd! Daubrecq +possesses a list of twenty-seven names. To give up any one of those +names he is obliged, if he would have his accusation believed, to +publish the list itself--that is to say, to part with the document, +or at least a photograph of it. Well, in so doing, he creates a +scandal, it is true, but he deprives himself, at the same time, of +all further means of levying blackmail.” +“Yes and no,” she said. +“How do you know?” +“Through Daubrecq himself. The villain came to see me and cynically +told me of his interview with my husband and the words that had +passed between them. Well, there is more than that list, more +than that famous bit of paper on which the secretary put down the +names and the amounts paid and to which, you will remember, the +chairman of the company, before dying, affixed his signature in +letters of blood. There is more than that. There are certain less +positive proofs, which the people interested do not know of: the +correspondence between the chairman and the secretary, between the +chairman and his counsel, and so on. Of course, the list scribbled +on the bit of paper is the only evidence that counts; it is the +one incontestable proof which it would be no good copying or even +photographing, for its genuineness can be tested most absolutely. +But, all the same, the other proofs are dangerous. They have +already been enough to do away with two deputies. And Daubrecq is +marvelously clever at turning this fact to account. He selects his +victim, frightens him out of his senses, points out to him the +inevitable scandal; and the victim pays the required sum. Or else +he kills himself, as my husband did. Do you understand now?” +“Yes,” said Lupin. +And, in the silence that followed, he drew a mental picture of +Daubrecq’s life. He saw him the owner of that list, using his +power, gradually emerging from the shadow, lavishly squandering the +money which he extorted from his victims, securing his election as +a district-councillor and deputy, holding sway by dint of threats +and terror, unpunished, invulnerable, unattackable, feared by the +government, which would rather submit to his orders than declare +war upon him, respected by the judicial authorities: so powerful, +in a word, that Prasville had been appointed secretary-general of +police, over the heads of all who had prior claims, for the sole +reason that he hated Daubrecq with a personal hatred. +“And you saw him again?” he asked. +“I saw him again. I had to. My husband was dead, but his honour +remained untouched. Nobody suspected the truth. In order at least +to defend the name which he left me, I accepted my first interview +with Daubrecq.” +“Your first, yes, for there have been others.” +“Many others,” she said, in a strained voice, “yes, many +others . . . at the theatre . . . or in the evening, at +Enghien . . . or else in Paris, at night . . . for I was ashamed to +meet that man and I did not want people to know it.... But it was +necessary.... A duty more imperative than any other commanded it: +the duty of avenging my husband....” +She bent over Lupin and, eagerly: +“Yes, revenge has been the motive of my conduct and the sole +preoccupation of my life. To avenge my husband, to avenge my ruined +son, to avenge myself for all the harm that he has done me: I had +no other dream, no other object in life. That is what I wanted: to +see that man crushed, reduced to poverty, to tears--as though he +still knew how to cry!--sobbing in the throes of despair....” +“You wanted his death,” said Lupin, remembering the scene between +them in Daubrecq’s study. +“No, not his death. I have often thought of it, I have even raised +my arm to strike him, but what would have been the good? He must +have taken his precautions. The paper would remain. And then there +is no revenge in killing a man.... My hatred went further than +that.... It demanded his ruin, his downfall; and, to achieve that, +there was but one way: to cut his claws. Daubrecq, deprived of +the document that gives him his immense power, ceases to exist. +It means immediate bankruptcy and disaster . . . under the most +wretched conditions. That is what I have sought.” +“But Daubrecq must have been aware of your intentions?” +“Certainly. And, I assure you, those were strange meetings of ours: +I watching him closely, trying to guess his secret behind his +actions and his words, and he . . . he....” +“And he,” said Lupin, finishing Clarisse’s thought, “lying in wait +for the prey which he desires . . . for the woman whom he has never +ceased to love . . . whom he loves . . . and whom he covets with +all his might and with all his furious passion....” +She lowered her head and said, simply: +“Yes.” +A strange duel indeed was that which brought face to face those +two beings separated by so many implacable things! How unbridled +must Daubrecq’s passion be for him to risk that perpetual threat of +death and to introduce to the privacy of his house this woman whose +life he had shattered! But also how absolutely safe he must feel +himself! +“And your search ended . . . how?” asked Lupin. +“My search,” she replied, “long remained without fruit. You know +the methods of investigation which you have followed and which the +police have followed on their side. Well, I myself employed them, +years before either of you did, and in vain. I was beginning to +despair. Then, one day, when I had gone to see Daubrecq in his +villa at Enghien, I picked up under his writing-table a letter +which he had begun to write, crumpled up and thrown into the +waste-paper-basket. It consisted of a few lines in bad English; +and I was able to read this: ‘Empty the crystal within, so as to +leave a void which it is impossible to suspect.’ Perhaps I should +not have attached to this sentence all the importance which it +deserved, if Daubrecq, who was out in the garden, had not come +running in and begun to turn out the waste-paper-basket, with an +eagerness which was very significant. He gave me a suspicious look: +‘There was a letter there,’ he said. I pretended not to understand. +He did not insist, but his agitation did not escape me; and I +continued my quest in this direction. A month later, I discovered, +among the ashes in the drawing-room fireplace, the torn half of an +English invoice. I gathered that a Stourbridge glass-blower, of the +name of John Howard, had supplied Daubrecq with a crystal bottle +made after a model. The word ‘crystal’ struck me at once. I went to +Stourbridge, got round the foreman of the glass-works and learnt +that the stopper of this bottle had been hollowed out inside, in +accordance with the instruction in the order, so as to leave a +cavity, the existence of which would escape observation.” +Lupin nodded his head: +“The thing tallies beyond a doubt. Nevertheless, it did not seem to +me, that, even under the gilt layer.... And then the hiding-place +would be very tiny!” +“Tiny, but large enough,” she said. “On my return from England, +I went to the police-office to see Prasville, whose friendship +for me had remained unchanged. I did not hesitate to tell him, +first, the reasons which had driven my husband to suicide and, +secondly, the object of revenge which I was pursuing. When I +informed him of my discoveries, he jumped for joy; and I felt +that his hatred for Daubrecq was as strong as ever. I learnt +from him that the list was written on a slip of exceedingly thin +foreign-post-paper, which, when rolled up into a sort of pellet, +would easily fit into an exceedingly limited space. Neither he nor +I had the least hesitation. We knew the hiding-place. We agreed to +act independently of each other, while continuing to correspond +in secret. I put him in touch with Clémence, the portress in the +Square Lamartine, who was entirely devoted to me....” +“But less so to Prasville,” said Lupin, “for I can prove that she +betrays him.” +“Now perhaps, but not at the start; and the police searches were +numerous. It was at that time, ten months ago, that Gilbert came +into my life again. A mother never loses her love for her son, +whatever he may do, whatever he may have done. And then Gilbert has +such a way with him . . . well, you know him. He cried, kissed my +little Jacques, his brother and I forgave him.” +She stopped and, weary-voiced, with her eyes fixed on the floor, +continued: +“Would to Heaven that I had not forgiven him! Ah, if that hour +could but return, how readily I should find the horrible courage +to turn him away! My poor child . . . it was I who ruined him!...” +And, pensively, “I should have had that or any sort of courage, if +he had been as I pictured him to myself and as he himself told me +that he had long been: bearing the marks of vice and dissipation, +coarse, deteriorated.... But, though he was utterly changed in +appearance, so much so that I could hardly recognize him, there +was, from the point of view of--how shall I put it?--from the moral +point of view, an undoubted improvement. You had helped him, lifted +him; and, though his mode of life was hateful to me, nevertheless +he retained a certain self-respect . . . a sort of underlying +decency that showed itself on the surface once more.... He was gay, +careless, happy.... And he used to talk of you with such affection!” +She picked her words, betraying her embarrassment, not daring, in +Lupin’s presence, to condemn the line of life which Gilbert had +selected and yet unable to speak in favour of it. +“What happened next?” asked Lupin. +“I saw him very often. He would come to me by stealth, or else I +went to him and we would go for walks in the country. In this way, +I was gradually induced to tell him our story, of his father’s +suicide and the object which I was pursuing. He at once took fire. +He too wanted to avenge his father and, by stealing the crystal +stopper, to avenge himself on Daubrecq for the harm which he had +done him. His first idea--from which, I am bound to tell you, he +never swerved--was to arrange with you.” +“Well, then,” cried Lupin, “he ought to have....!” +“Yes, I know . . . and I was of the same opinion. Unfortunately, my +poor Gilbert--you know how weak he is!--was under the influence of +one of his comrades.” +“Vaucheray?” +“Yes, Vaucheray, a saturnine spirit, full of bitterness and envy, +an ambitious, unscrupulous, gloomy, crafty man, who had acquired a +great empire over my son. Gilbert made the mistake of confiding in +him and asking his advice. That was the origin of all the mischief. +Vaucheray convinced him and convinced me as well that it would be +better if we acted by ourselves. He studied the business, took +the lead and finally organized the Enghien expedition and, under +your direction, the burglary at the Villa Marie-Thérèse, which +Prasville and his detectives had been unable to search thoroughly, +because of the active watch maintained by Léonard the valet. It was +a mad scheme. We ought either to have trusted in your experience +entirely, or else to have left you out altogether, taking the risk +of fatal mistakes and dangerous hesitations. But we could not help +ourselves. Vaucheray ruled us. I agreed to meet Daubrecq at the +theatre. During this time the thing took place. When I came home, +at twelve o’clock at night, I heard the terrible result: Léonard +murdered, my son arrested. I at once received an intuition of the +future. Daubrecq’s appalling prophecy was being realized: it meant +trial and sentence. And this through my fault, through the fault of +me, the mother, who had driven my son toward the abyss from which +nothing could extricate him now.” +Clarisse wrung her hands and shivered from head to foot. What +suffering can compare with that of a mother trembling for the head +of her son? Stirred with pity, Lupin said: +“We shall save him. Of that there is not the shadow of a doubt. +But, it is necessary that I should know all the details. Finish +your story, please. How did you know, on the same night, what had +happened at Enghien?” +She mastered herself and, with a face wrung with fevered anguish, +replied: +“Through two of your accomplices, or rather two accomplices of +Vaucheray, to whom they were wholly devoted and who had chosen them +to row the boats.” +“The two men outside: the Growler and the Masher?” +“Yes. On your return from the villa, when you landed after being +pursued on the lake by the commissary of police, you said a few +words to them, by way of explanation, as you went to your car. Mad +with fright, they rushed to my place, where they had been before, +and told me the hideous news. Gilbert was in prison! Oh, what +an awful night! What was I to do? Look for you? Certainly; and +implore your assistance. But where was I to find you?... It was +then that the two whom you call the Growler and the Masher, driven +into a corner by circumstances, decided to tell me of the part +played by Vaucheray, his ambitions, his plan, which had long been +ripening....” +“To get rid of me, I suppose?” said Lupin, with a grin. +“Yes. As Gilbert possessed your complete confidence, Vaucheray +watched him and, in this way, got to know all the places which you +live at. A few days more and, owning the crystal stopper, holding +the list of the Twenty-seven, inheriting all Daubrecq’s power, he +would have delivered you to the police, without compromising a +single member of your gang, which he looked upon as thenceforth his.” +“The ass!” muttered Lupin. “A muddler like that!” And he added, “So +the panels of the doors....” +“Were cut out by his instructions, in anticipation of the contest +on which he was embarking against you and against Daubrecq, at +whose house he did the same thing. He had under his orders a +sort of acrobat, an extraordinarily thin dwarf, who was able to +wriggle through those apertures and who thus detected all your +correspondence and all your secrets. That is what his two friends +revealed to me. I at once conceived the idea of saving my elder son +by making use of his brother, my little Jacques, who is himself +so slight and so intelligent, so plucky, as you have seen. We set +out that night. Acting on the information of my companions, I went +to Gilbert’s rooms and found the keys of your flat in the Rue +Matignon, where it appeared that you were to sleep. Unfortunately, +I changed my mind on the way and thought much less of asking for +your help than of recovering the crystal stopper, which, if it had +been discovered at Enghien, must obviously be at your flat. I was +right in my calculations. In a few minutes, my little Jacques, +who had slipped into your bedroom, brought it to me. I went away +quivering with hope. Mistress in my turn of the talisman, keeping +it to myself, without telling Prasville, I had absolute power over +Daubrecq. I could make him do all that I wanted; he would become +the slave of my will and, instructed by me, would take every step +in Gilbert’s favour and obtain that he should be given the means of +escape or else that he should not be sentenced. It meant my boy’s +safety.” +“Well?” +Clarisse rose from her seat, with a passionate movement of her +whole being, leant over Lupin and said, in a hollow voice: +“There was nothing in that piece of crystal, nothing, do you +understand? No paper, no hiding-place! The whole expedition to +Enghien was futile! The murder of Léonard was useless! The arrest +of my son was useless! All my efforts were useless!” +“But why? Why?” +“Why? Because what you stole from Daubrecq was not the stopper made +by his instructions, but the stopper which was sent to John Howard, +the Stourbridge glassworker, to serve as a model.” +If Lupin had not been in the presence of so deep a grief, he could +not have refrained from one of those satirical outbursts with which +the mischievous tricks of fate are wont to inspire him. As it was, +he muttered between his teeth: +“How stupid! And still more stupid as Daubrecq had been given the +warning.” +“No,” she said. “I went to Enghien on the same day. In all that +business Daubrecq saw and sees nothing but an ordinary burglary, an +annexation of his treasures. The fact that you took part in it put +him off the scent.” +“Still, the disappearance of the stopper....” +“To begin with, the thing can have had but a secondary importance +for him, as it is only the model.” +“How do you know?” +“There is a scratch at the bottom of the stem; and I have made +inquiries in England since.” +“Very well; but why did the key of the cupboard from which it was +stolen never leave the man-servant’s possession? And why, in the +second place, was it found afterward in the drawer of a table in +Daubrecq’s house in Paris?” +“Of course, Daubrecq takes care of it and clings to it in the way +in which one clings to the model of any valuable thing. And that is +why I replaced the stopper in the cupboard before its absence was +noticed. And that also is why, on the second occasion, I made my +little Jacques take the stopper from your overcoat-pocket and told +the portress to put it back in the drawer.” +“Then he suspects nothing?” +“Nothing. He knows that the list is being looked for, but he does +not know that Prasville and I are aware of the thing in which he +hides it.” +Lupin had risen from his seat and was walking up and down the room, +thinking. Then he stood still beside Clarisse and asked: +“When all is said, since the Enghien incident, you have not +advanced a single step?” +“Not one. I have acted from day to day, led by those two men or +leading them, without any definite plan.” +“Or, at least,” he said, “without any other plan than that of +getting the list of the Twenty-seven from Daubrecq.” +“Yes, but how? Besides, your tactics made things more difficult for +me. It did not take us long to recognize your old servant Victoire +in Daubrecq’s new cook and to discover, from what the portress told +us, that Victoire was putting you up in her room; and I was afraid +of your schemes.” +“It was you, was it not, who wrote to me to retire from the +contest?” +“Yes.” +“You also asked me not to go to the theatre on the Vaudeville +night?” +“Yes, the portress caught Victoire listening to Daubrecq’s +conversation with me on the telephone; and the Masher, who was +watching the house, saw you go out. I suspected, therefore, that +you would follow Daubrecq that evening.” +“And the woman who came here, late one afternoon....” +“Was myself. I felt disheartened and wanted to see you.” +“And you intercepted Gilbert’s letter?” +“Yes, I recognized his writing on the envelope.” +“But your little Jacques was not with you?” +“No, he was outside, in a motor-car, with the Masher, who lifted +him up to me through the drawing-room window; and he slipped into +your bedroom through the opening in the panel.” +“What was in the letter?” +“As ill-luck would have it, reproaches. Gilbert accused you of +forsaking him, of taking over the business on your own account. In +short, it confirmed me in my distrust; and I ran away.” +Lupin shrugged his shoulders with irritation: +“What a shocking waste of time! And what a fatality that we were +not able to come to an understanding earlier! You and I have been +playing at hide-and-seek, laying absurd traps for each other, while +the days were passing, precious days beyond repair.” +“You see, you see,” she said, shivering, “you too are afraid of the +future!” +“No, I am not afraid,” cried Lupin. “But I am thinking of all the +useful work that we could have done by this time, if we had united +our efforts. I am thinking of all the mistakes and all the acts of +imprudence which we should have been saved, if we had been working +together. I am thinking that your attempt to-night to search the +clothes which Daubrecq was wearing was as vain as the others and +that, at this moment, thanks to our foolish duel, thanks to the din +which we raised in his house, Daubrecq is warned and will be more +on his guard than ever.” +Clarisse Mergy shook her head: +“No, no, I don’t think that; the noise will not have roused him, +for we postponed the attempt for twenty-four hours so that the +portress might put a narcotic in his wine.” And she added, slowly, +“And then, you see, nothing can make Daubrecq be more on his guard +than he is already. His life is nothing but one mass of precautions +against danger. He leaves nothing to chance.... Besides, has he not +all the trumps in his hand?” +Lupin went up to her and asked: +“What do you mean to convey? According to you, is there nothing to +hope for on that side? Is there not a single means of attaining our +end?” +“Yes,” she murmured, “there is one, one only....” +He noticed her pallor before she had time to hide her face between +her hands again. And again a feverish shiver shook her frame. +He seemed to understand the reason of her dismay; and, bending +toward her, touched by her grief: +“Please,” he said, “please answer me openly and frankly. It’s for +Gilbert’s sake, is it not? Though the police, fortunately, have not +been able to solve the riddle of his past, though the real name of +Vaucheray’s accomplice has not leaked out, there is one man, at +least, who knows it: isn’t that so? Daubrecq has recognized your +son Antoine, through the alias of Gilbert, has he not?” +“Yes, yes....” +“And he promises to save him, doesn’t he? He offers you his +freedom, his release, his escape, his life: that was what he +offered you, was it not, on the night in his study, when you tried +to stab him?” +“Yes . . . yes . . . that was it....” +“And he makes one condition, does he not? An abominable condition, +such as would suggest itself to a wretch like that? I am right, am +I not?” +Clarisse did not reply. She seemed exhausted by her protracted +struggle with a man who was gaining ground daily and against whom +it was impossible for her to fight. Lupin saw in her the prey +conquered in advance, delivered to the victor’s whim. Clarisse +Mergy, the loving wife of that Mergy whom Daubrecq had really +murdered, the terrified mother of that Gilbert whom Daubrecq had +led astray, Clarisse Mergy, to save her son from the scaffold, +must, come what may and however ignominious the position, yield +to Daubrecq’s wishes. She would be the mistress, the wife, the +obedient slave of Daubrecq, of that monster with the appearance and +the ways of a wild beast, that unspeakable person of whom Lupin +could not think without revulsion and disgust. +Sitting down beside her, gently, with gestures of pity, he made her +lift her head and, with his eyes on hers, said: +“Listen to me. I swear that I will save your son: I swear it.... +Your son shall not die, do you understand?... There is not a power +on earth that can allow your son’s head to be touched as long as I +am alive.” +“I believe you.... I trust your word.” +“Do. It is the word of a man who does not know defeat. I shall +succeed. Only, I entreat you to make me an irrevocable promise.” +“What is that?” +“You must not see Daubrecq again.” +“I swear it.” +“You must put from your mind any idea, any fear, however obscure, +of an understanding between yourself and him . . . of any sort of +bargain....” +“I swear it.” +She looked at him with an expression of absolute security and +reliance; and he, under her gaze, felt the joy of devotion and an +ardent longing to restore that woman’s happiness, or, at least, to +give her the peace and oblivion that heal the worst wounds: +“Come,” he said, in a cheerful tone, rising from his chair, “all +will yet be well. We have two months, three months before us. +It is more than I need . . . on condition, of course, that I +am unhampered in my movements. And, for that, you will have to +withdraw from the contest, you know.” +“How do you mean?” +“Yes, you must disappear for a time; go and live in the country. +Have you no pity for your little Jacques? This sort of thing would +end by shattering the poor little man’s nerves.... And he has +certainly earned his rest, haven’t you, Hercules?” +* * * * * +The next day Clarisse Mergy, who was nearly breaking down under the +strain of events and who herself needed repose, lest she should +fall seriously ill, went, with her son, to board with a friend who +had a house on the skirt of the Forest of Saint-Germain. She felt +very weak, her brain was haunted by visions and her nerves were +upset by troubles which the least excitement aggravated. She lived +there for some days in a state of physical and mental inertia, +thinking of nothing and forbidden to see the papers. +One afternoon, while Lupin, changing his tactics, was working out +a scheme for kidnapping and confining Daubrecq; while the Growler +and the Masher, whom he had promised to forgive if he succeeded, +were watching the enemy’s movements; while the newspapers were +announcing the forthcoming trial for murder of Arsène Lupin’s two +accomplices, one afternoon, at four o’clock, the telephone-bell +rang suddenly in the flat in the Rue Chateaubriand. +Lupin took down the receiver: +“Hullo!” +A woman’s voice, a breathless voice, said: +“M. Michel Beaumont?” +“You are speaking to him, madame. To whom have I the honour....” +“Quick, monsieur, come at once; Madame Mergy has taken poison.” +Lupin did not wait to hear details. He rushed out, sprang into his +motor-car and drove to Saint-Germain. +Clarisse’s friend was waiting for him at the door of the bedroom. +“Dead?” he asked. +“No,” she replied, “she did not take sufficient. The doctor has +just gone. He says she will get over it.” +“And why did she make the attempt?” +“Her son Jacques has disappeared.” +“Carried off?” +“Yes, he was playing just inside the forest. A motor-car was seen +pulling up. Then there were screams. Clarisse tried to run, but her +strength failed and she fell to the ground, moaning, ‘It’s he . . . +it’s that man . . . all is lost!’ She looked like a madwoman.” +“Suddenly, she put a little bottle to her lips and swallowed the +contents.” +“What happened next?” +“My husband and I carried her to her room. She was in great pain.” +“How did you know my address, my name?” +“From herself, while the doctor was attending to her. Then I +telephoned to you.” +“Has any one else been told?” +“No, nobody. I know that Clarisse has had terrible things to +bear . . . and that she prefers not to be talked about.” +“Can I see her?” +“She is asleep just now. And the doctor has forbidden all +excitement.” +“Is the doctor anxious about her?” +“He is afraid of a fit of fever, any nervous strain, an attack of +some kind which might cause her to make a fresh attempt on her +life. And that would be....” +“What is needed to avoid it?” +“A week or a fortnight of absolute quiet, which is impossible as +long as her little Jacques....” +Lupin interrupted her: +“You think that, if she got her son back....” +“Oh, certainly, there would be nothing more to fear!” +“You’re sure? You’re sure?... Yes, of course you are!... Well, when +Madame Mergy wakes, tell her from me that I will bring her back her +son this evening, before midnight. This evening, before midnight: +it’s a solemn promise.” +With these words, Lupin hurried out of the house and, stepping into +his car, shouted to the driver: +“Go to Paris, Square Lamartine, Daubrecq the deputy’s!” +CHAPTER VI. +THE DEATH-SENTENCE +Lupin’s motor-car was not only an office, a writing-room furnished +with books, stationery, pens and ink, but also a regular actor’s +dressing-room, containing a complete make-up box, a trunk filled +with every variety of wearing-apparel, another crammed with +“properties”--umbrellas, walking-sticks, scarves, eye-glasses and +so on--in short, a complete set of paraphernalia which enabled him +to alter his appearance from top to toe in the course of a drive. +The man who rang at Daubrecq the deputy’s gate, at six o-clock that +evening, was a stout, elderly gentleman, in a black frock-coat, a +bowler hat, spectacles and whiskers. +The portress took him to the front-door of the house and rang the +bell. Victoire appeared. +Lupin asked: +“Can M. Daubrecq see Dr. Vernes?” +“M. Daubrecq is in his bedroom; and it is rather late....” +“Give him my card, please.” +He wrote the words, “From Mme. Mergy,” in the margin and added: +“There, he is sure to see me.” +“But . . .” Victoire began. +“Oh, drop your buts, old dear, do as I say, and don’t make such a +fuss about it!” +She was utterly taken aback and stammered: +“You! . . . is it you?” +“No, it’s Louis XIV.!” And, pushing her into a corner of the hall, +“Listen.... The moment I’m done with him, go up to your room, put +your things together anyhow and clear out.” +“What!” +“Do as I tell you. You’ll find my car waiting down the avenue. +Come, stir your stumps! Announce me. I’ll wait in the study.” +“But it’s dark in there.” +“Turn on the light.” +She switched on the electric light and left Lupin alone. +“It’s here,” he reflected, as he took a seat, “it’s here that +the crystal stopper lives.... Unless Daubrecq always keeps it by +him.... But no, when people have a good hiding-place, they make use +of it. And this is a capital one; for none of us . . . so far....” +Concentrating all his attention, he examined the objects in the +room; and he remembered the note which Daubrecq wrote to Prasville: +“Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville!... You touched +it! A little more and the trick was done....” +Nothing seemed to have moved since that day. The same things were +lying about on the desk: books, account-books, a bottle of ink, a +stamp-box, pipes, tobacco, things that had been searched and probed +over and over again. +“The bounder!” thought Lupin. “He’s organized his business jolly +cleverly. It’s all dove-tailed like a well-made play.” +In his heart of hearts, though he knew exactly what he had come +to do and how he meant to act, Lupin was thoroughly aware of the +danger and uncertainty attending his visit to so powerful an +adversary. It was quite within the bounds of possibility that +Daubrecq, armed as he was, would remain master of the field and +that the conversation would take an absolutely different turn from +that which Lupin anticipated. +And this prospect angered him somewhat. +He drew himself up, as he heard a sound of footsteps approaching. +Daubrecq entered. +He entered without a word, made a sign to Lupin, who had risen +from his chair, to resume his seat and himself sat down at the +writing-desk. Glancing at the card which he held in his hand: +“Dr. Vernes?” +“Yes, monsieur le député, Dr. Vernes, of Saint-Germain.” +“And I see that you come from Mme. Mergy. A patient of yours?” +“A recent patient. I did not know her until I was called in to see +her, the other day, in particularly tragic circumstances.” +“Is she ill?” +“Mme. Mergy has taken poison.” +“What!” +Daubrecq gave a start and he continued, without concealing his +distress: +“What’s that you say? Poison! Is she dead?” +“No, the dose was not large enough. If no complications ensue, I +consider that Mme. Mergy’s life is saved.” +Daubrecq said nothing and sat silent, with his head turned to Lupin. +“Is he looking at me? Are his eyes open or shut?” Lupin asked +himself. +It worried Lupin terribly not to see his adversary’s eyes, those +eyes hidden by the double obstacle of spectacles and black glasses: +weak, bloodshot eyes, Mme. Mergy had told him. How could he follow +the secret train of the man’s thought without seeing the expression +of his face? It was almost like fighting an enemy who wielded an +invisible sword. +Presently, Daubrecq spoke: +“So Mme. Mergy’s life is saved.... And she has sent you to me.... I +don’t quite understand.... I hardly know the lady.” +“Now for the ticklish moment,” thought Lupin. “Have at him!” +And, in a genial, good-natured and rather shy tone, he said: +“No, monsieur le député, there are cases in which a doctor’s duty +becomes very complex . . . very puzzling.... And you may think +that, in taking this step.... However, to cut a long story short, +while I was attending Mme. Mergy, she made a second attempt to +poison herself.... Yes; the bottle, unfortunately, had been left +within her reach. I snatched it from her. We had a struggle. And, +railing in her fever, she said to me, in broken words, ‘He’s the +man.... He’s the man.... Daubrecq the deputy.... Make him give +me back my son. Tell him to . . . or else I would rather die.... +Yes, now, to-night.... I would rather die.’ That’s what she said, +monsieur le député.... So I thought that I ought to let you know. +It is quite certain that, in the lady’s highly nervous state of +mind.... Of course, I don’t know the exact meaning of her words.... +I asked no questions of anybody . . . obeyed a spontaneous impulse +and came straight to you.” +Daubrecq reflected for a little while and said: +“It amounts to this, doctor, that you have come to ask me if I know +the whereabouts of this child whom I presume to have disappeared. +Is that it?” +“Yes.” +“And, if I did happen to know, you would take him back to his +mother?” +There was a longer pause. Lupin asked himself: +“Can he by chance have swallowed the story? Is the threat of +that death enough? Oh, nonsense it’s out of the question!... And +yet . . . and yet . . . he seems to be hesitating.” +“Will you excuse me?” asked Daubrecq, drawing the telephone, on his +writing-desk, toward him. “I have an urgent message.” +“Certainly, monsieur le député.” +Daubrecq called out: +“Hullo!... 822.19, please, 822.19.” +Having repeated the number, he sat without moving. +Lupin smiled: +“The headquarters of police, isn’t it? The secretary-general’s +office....” +“Yes, doctor.... How do you know?” +“Oh, as a divisional surgeon, I sometimes have to ring them up.” +And, within himself, Lupin asked: +“What the devil does all this mean? The secretary-general is +Prasville.... Then, what?...” +Daubrecq put both receivers to his ears and said: +“Are you 822.19? I want to speak to M. Prasville, the +secretary-general.... Do you say he’s not there?... Yes, yes, +he is: he’s always in his office at this time.... Tell him it’s +M. Daubrecq.... M. Daubrecq the deputy . . . a most important +communication.” +“Perhaps I’m in the way?” Lupin suggested. +“Not at all, doctor, not at all,” said Daubrecq. “Besides, what I +have to say has a certain bearing on your errand.” And, into the +telephone, “Hullo! M. Prasville?... Ah, it’s you, Prasville, old +cock!... Why, you seem quite staggered! Yes, you’re right, it’s +an age since you and I met. But, after all, we’ve never been far +away in thought.... And I’ve had plenty of visits from you and +your henchmen.... In my absence, it’s true. Hullo!.... What?... +Oh, you’re in a hurry? I beg your pardon!... So am I, for that +matter.... Well, to come to the point, there’s a little service I +want to do you.... Wait, can’t you, you brute?... You won’t regret +it.... It concerns your renown.... Hullo!... Are you listening?... +Well, take half-a-dozen men with you . . . plain-clothes +detectives, by preference: you’ll find them at the night-office.... +Jump into a taxi, two taxis, and come along here as fast as you +can.... I’ve got a rare quarry for you, old chap. One of the upper +ten . . . a lord, a marquis Napoleon himself . . . in a word, +Arsène Lupin!” +[Illustration: Lupin sprang to his feet. He was prepared for every +upshot except this.] +Lupin sprang to his feet. He was prepared for everything but this. +Yet something within him stronger than astonishment, an impulse of +his whole nature, made him say, with a laugh: +“Oh, well done, well done!” +Daubrecq bowed his head, by way of thanks, and muttered: +“I haven’t quite finished.... A little patience, if you don’t +mind.” And he continued, “Hullo! Prasville!... No, no, old chap, +I’m not humbugging.... You’ll find Lupin here, with me, in my +study.... Lupin, who’s worrying me like the rest of you.... Oh, +one more or less makes no difference to me! But, all the same, +this one’s a bit too pushing. And I am appealing to your sense +of kindness. Rid me of the fellow, do.... Half-a-dozen of your +satellites and the two who are pacing up and down outside my house +will be enough.... Oh, while you’re about it, go up to the third +floor and rope in my cook as well.... She’s the famous Victoire: +you know, Master Lupin’s old nurse.... And, look here, one more +tip, to show you how I love you: send a squad of men to the Rue +Chateaubriand, at the corner of the Rue Balzac.... That’s where our +national hero lives, under the name of Michel Beaumont.... Do you +twig, old cockalorum? And now to business. Hustle!” +When Daubrecq turned his head, Lupin was standing up, with clenched +fists. His burst of admiration had not survived the rest of the +speech and the revelations which Daubrecq had made about Victoire +and the flat in the Rue Chateaubriand. The humiliation was too +great; and Lupin no longer bothered to play the part of the small +general practitioner. He had but one idea in his head: not to give +way to the tremendous fit of rage that was urging him to rush at +Daubrecq like a bull. +Daubrecq gave the sort of little cluck which, with him, did +duty for a laugh. He came waddling up, with his hands in his +trouser-pockets, and said, incisively: +“Don’t you think that this is all for the best? I’ve cleared the +ground, relieved the situation.... At least, we now know where we +stand. Lupin versus Daubrecq; and that’s all about it. Besides, +think of the time saved! Dr. Vernes, the divisional surgeon, would +have taken two hours to spin his yarn! Whereas, like this, Master +Lupin will be compelled to get his little story told in thirty +minutes . . . unless he wants to get himself collared and his +accomplices nabbed. What a shock! What a bolt from the blue! Thirty +minutes and not a minute more. In thirty minutes from now, you’ll +have to clear out, scud away like a hare and beat a disordered +retreat. Ha, ha, ha, what fun! I say, Polonius, you really are +unlucky, each time you come up against Bibi Daubrecq! For it was +you who were hiding behind that curtain, wasn’t it, my ill-starred +Polonius?” +Lupin did not stir a muscle. The one and only solution that would +have calmed his feelings, that is to say, for him to throttle +his adversary then and there, was so absurd that he preferred to +accept Daubrecq’s gibes without attempting to retort, though each +of them cut him like the lash of a whip. It was the second time, +in the same room and in similar circumstances, that he had to bow +before that Daubrecq of misfortune and maintain the most ridiculous +attitude in silence. And he felt convinced in his innermost being +that, if he opened his mouth, it would be to spit words of anger +and insult in his victor’s face. What was the good? Was it not +essential that he should keep cool and do the things which the new +situation called for? +“Well, M. Lupin, well?” resumed the deputy. “You look as if your +nose were out of joint. Come, console yourself and admit that +one sometimes comes across a joker who’s not quite such a mug as +his fellows. So you thought that, because I wear spectacles and +eye-glasses, I was blind? Bless my soul, I don’t say that I at once +suspected Lupin behind Polonius and Polonius behind the gentleman +who came and bored me in the box at the Vaudeville. No, no! But, +all the same, it worried me. I could see that, between the police +and Mme. Mergy, there was a third bounder trying to get a finger +in the pie. And, gradually, what with the words let fall by the +portress, what with watching the movements of my cook and making +inquiries about her in the proper quarter, I began to understand. +Then, the other night, came the lightning-flash. I heard the row in +the house, in spite of my being asleep. I managed to reconstruct +the incident, to follow up Mme. Mergy’s traces, first, to the Rue +Chateaubriand and, afterward, to Saint-Germain.... And then . . . +what then? I put different facts together: the Enghien burglary.... +Gilbert’s arrest . . . the inevitable treaty of alliance between +the weeping mother and the leader of the gang... the old nurse +installed as cook . . . all these people entering my house through +the doors or through the windows.... And I knew what I had to +do. Master Lupin was sniffing at the secret. The scent of the +Twenty-seven attracted him. I had only to wait for his visit. The +hour has arrived. Good-evening, Master Lupin.” +Daubrecq paused. He had delivered his speech with the evident +satisfaction of a man entitled to claim the appreciation of the +most captious critics. +As Lupin did not speak, he took out his watch: “I say! Only +twenty-three minutes! How time flies! At this rate, we sha’n’t have +time to come to an explanation.” And, stepping still closer to +Lupin, “I’m bound to say, I’m disappointed. I thought that Lupin +was a different sort of gentleman. So, the moment he meets a more +or less serious adversary, the colossus falls to pieces? Poor young +man! Have a glass of water, to bring you round!” Lupin did not +utter a word, did not betray a gesture of irritation. With absolute +composure, with a precision of movement that showed his perfect +self-control and the clear plan of conduct which he had adopted, he +gently pushed Daubrecq aside, went to the table and, in his turn, +took down the receiver of the telephone: +“I want 565.34, please,” he said. +He waited until he was through; and then, speaking in a slow voice +and picking out every syllable, he said: +“Hullo!.... Rue Chateaubriand?... Is that you, Achille?... Yes, +it’s the governor. Listen to me carefully, Achille.... You must +leave the flat! Hullo!... Yes, at once. The police are coming in +a few minutes. No, no, don’t lose your head.... You’ve got time. +Only, do what I tell you. Is your bag still packed?... Good. And +is one of the sides empty, as I told you?... Good. Well, go to my +bedroom and stand with your face to the chimney-piece. Press with +your left hand on the little carved rosette in front of the marble +slab, in the middle, and with your right hand on the top of the +mantel-shelf. You’ll see a sort of drawer, with two little boxes +in it. Be careful. One of them contains all our papers; the other, +bank-notes and jewellery. Put them both in the empty compartment +of the bag. Take the bag in your hand and go as fast as you can, +on foot, to the corner of the Avenue Victor-Hugo and the Avenue de +Montespan. You’ll find the car waiting, with Victoire. I’ll join +you there.... What?... My clothes? My knick-knacks?... Never mind +about all that.... You be off. See you presently.” +Lupin quietly pushed away the telephone. Then, taking Daubrecq by +the arm, he made him sit in a chair by his side and said: +“And now listen to me, Daubrecq.” +“Oho!” grinned the deputy. “Calling each other by our surnames, are +we?” +“Yes,” said Lupin, “I allowed you to.” And, when Daubrecq released +his arm with a certain misgiving, he said, “No, don’t be afraid. We +sha’n’t come to blows. Neither of us has anything to gain by doing +away with the other. A stab with a knife? What’s the good? No, sir! +Words, nothing but words. Words that strike home, though. Here are +mine: they are plain and to the point. Answer me in the same way, +without reflecting: that’s far better. The boy?” +“I have him.” +“Give him back.” +“No.” +“Mme. Mergy will kill herself.” +“No, she won’t.” +“I tell you she will.” +“And I tell you she will not.” +“But she’s tried to, once.” +“That’s just the reason why she won’t try again.” +“Well, then....” +“No.” +Lupin, after a moment, went on: +“I expected that. Also, I thought, on my way here, that you would +hardly tumble to the story of Dr. Vernes and that I should have to +use other methods.” +“Lupin’s methods.” +“As you say. I had made up my mind to throw off the mask. You +pulled it off for me. Well done you! But that doesn’t change my +plans.” +“Speak.” +Lupin took from a pocketbook a double sheet of foolscap paper, +unfolded it and handed it to Daubrecq, saying: +“Here is an exact, detailed inventory, with consecutive numbers, +of the things removed by my friends and myself from your Villa +Marie-Thérèse on the Lac d’Enghien. As you see, there are one +hundred and thirteen items. Of those one hundred and thirteen +items, sixty-eight, which have a red cross against them, have been +sold and sent to America. The remainder, numbering forty-five, are +in my possession . . . until further orders. They happen to be the +pick of the bunch. I offer you them in return for the immediate +surrender of the child.” +Daubrecq could not suppress a movement of surprise: +“Oho!” he said. “You seem very much bent upon it.” +“Infinitely,” said Lupin, “for I am persuaded that a longer +separation from her son will mean death to Mme. Mergy.” +“And that upsets you, does it . . . Lothario?” +“What!” +Lupin planted himself in front of the other and repeated: +“What! What do you mean?” +“Nothing.... Nothing.... Something that crossed my mind.... +Clarisse Mergy is a young woman still and a pretty woman at that.” +Lupin shrugged his shoulders: +“You brute!” he mumbled. “You imagine that everybody is like +yourself, heartless and pitiless. It takes your breath away, what, +to think that a shark like me can waste his time playing the Don +Quixote? And you wonder what dirty motive I can have? Don’t try +to find out: it’s beyond your powers of perception. Answer me, +instead: do you accept?” +“So you’re serious?” asked Daubrecq, who seemed but little +disturbed by Lupin’s contemptuous tone. +“Absolutely. The forty-five pieces are in a shed, of which I will +give you the address, and they will be handed over to you, if you +call there, at nine o’clock this evening, with the child.” +There was no doubt about Daubrecq’s reply. To him, the kidnapping +of little Jacques had represented only a means of working upon +Clarisse Mergy’s feelings and perhaps also a warning for her to +cease the contest upon which she had engaged. But the threat of a +suicide must needs show Daubrecq that he was on the wrong track. +That being so, why refuse the favourable bargain which Arsène Lupin +was now offering him? +“I accept,” he said. +“Here’s the address of my shed: 99, Rue Charles-Lafitte, Neuilly. +You have only to ring the bell.” +“And suppose I send Prasville, the secretary-general, instead?” +“If you send Prasville,” Lupin declared, “the place is so arranged +that I shall see him coming and that I shall have time to escape, +after setting fire to the trusses of hay and straw which surround +and conceal your credence-tables, clocks and Gothic virgins.” +“But your shed will be burnt down....” +“I don’t mind that: the police have their eye on it already. I am +leaving it in any case.” +“And how am I to know that this is not a trap?” +“Begin by receiving the goods and don’t give up the child till +afterward. I trust you, you see.” +“Good,” said Daubrecq; “you’ve foreseen everything. Very well, you +shall have the nipper; the fair Clarisse shall live; and we will +all be happy. And now, if I may give you a word of advice, it is to +pack off as fast as you can.” +“Not yet.” +“Eh?” +“I said, not yet.” +“But you’re mad! Prasville’s on his way!” +“He can wait. I’ve not done.” +“Why, what more do you want? Clarisse shall have her brat. Isn’t +that enough for you?” +“No.” +“Why not?” +“There is another son.” +“Gilbert.” +“Yes.” +“Well?” +“I want you to save Gilbert.” +“What are you saying? I save Gilbert!” +“You can, if you like; it only means taking a little trouble.” +Until that moment Daubrecq had remained quite calm. He now suddenly +blazed out and, striking the table with his fist: +“No,” he cried, “not that! Never! Don’t reckon on me!... No, that +would be too idiotic!” +He walked up and down, in a state of intense excitement, with that +queer step of his, which swayed him from right to left on each of +his legs, like a wild beast, a heavy, clumsy bear. And, with a +hoarse voice and distorted features, he shouted: +“Let her come here! Let her come and beg for her son’s pardon! +But let her come unarmed, not with criminal intentions, like +last time! Let her come as a supplicant, as a tamed woman, as a +submissive woman, who understands and accepts the situation . . . +Gilbert? Gilbert’s sentence? The scaffold? Why, that is where my +strength lies! What! For more than twenty years have I awaited my +hour; and, when that hour strikes, when fortune brings me this +unhoped-for chance, when I am at last about to know the joy of a +full revenge--and such a revenge!--you think that I will give it +up, give up the thing which I have been pursuing for twenty years? +I save Gilbert? I? For nothing? For love? I, Daubrecq?... No, no, +you can’t have studied my features!” +He laughed, with a fierce and hateful laugh. Visibly, he saw before +him, within reach of his hand, the prey which he had been hunting +down so long. And Lupin also summoned up the vision of Clarisse, +as he had seen her several days before, fainting, already beaten, +fatally conquered, because all the hostile powers were in league +against her. +He contained himself and said: +“Listen to me.” +And, when Daubrecq moved away impatiently, he took him by the two +shoulders, with that superhuman strength which Daubrecq knew, from +having felt it in the box at the Vaudeville, and, holding him +motionless in his grip, he said: +“One last word.” +“You’re wasting your breath,” growled the deputy. +“One last word. Listen, Daubrecq: forget Mme. Mergy, give up all +the nonsensical and imprudent acts which your pride and your +passions are making you commit; put all that on one side and think +only of your interest....” +“My interest,” said Daubrecq, jestingly, “always coincides with my +pride and with what you call my passions.” +“Up to the present, perhaps. But not now, not now that I have taken +a hand in the business. That constitutes a new factor, which you +choose to ignore. You are wrong. Gilbert is my pal. Gilbert is my +chum. Gilbert has to be saved from the scaffold. Use your influence +to that end, and I swear to you, do you hear, I swear that we will +leave you in peace. Gilbert’s safety, that’s all I ask. You will +have no more battles to wage with Mme. Mergy, with me; there will +be no more traps laid for you. You will be the master, free to act +as you please. Gilbert’s safety, Daubrecq! If you refuse....” +“What then?” +“If you refuse, it will be war, relentless war; in other words, a +certain defeat for you.” +“Meaning thereby....” +“Meaning thereby that I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven +from you.” +“Rot! You think so, do you?” +“I swear it.” +“What Prasville and all his men, what Clarisse Mergy, what nobody +has been able to do, you think that you will do!” +“I shall!” +“And why? By favour of what saint will you succeed where everybody +else has failed? There must be a reason?” +“There is.” +“What is it?” +“My name is Arsène Lupin.” +He had let go of Daubrecq, but held him for a time under the +dominion of his authoritative glance and will. At last, Daubrecq +drew himself up, gave him a couple of sharp taps on the shoulder +and, with the same calm, the same intense obstinacy, said: +“And my name’s Daubrecq. My whole life has been one desperate +battle, one long series of catastrophes and routs in which I spent +all my energies until victory came: complete, decisive, crushing, +irrevocable victory. I have against me the police, the government, +France, the world. What difference do you expect it to make to +me if I have M. Arsène Lupin against me into the bargain? I will +go further: the more numerous and skilful my enemies, the more +cautiously I am obliged to play. And that is why, my dear sir, +instead of having you arrested, as I might have done--yes, as I +might have done and very easily--I let you remain at large and beg +charitably to remind you that you must quit in less than three +minutes.” +“Then the answer is no?” +“The answer is no.” +“You won’t do anything for Gilbert?” +“Yes, I shall continue to do what I have been doing since his +arrest--that is to say, to exercise indirect influence with the +minister of justice, so that the trial may be hurried on and end in +the way in which I want to see it end.” +“What!” cried Lupin, beside himself with indignation. “It’s because +of you, it’s for you....” +“Yes, it’s for me, Daubrecq; yes, by Jove! I have a trump card, +the son’s head, and I am playing it. When I have procured a +nice little death-sentence for Gilbert, when the days go by +and Gilbert’s petition for a reprieve is rejected by my good +offices, you shall see, M. Lupin, that his mummy will drop all her +objections to calling herself Mme. Alexis Daubrecq and giving me an +unexceptionable pledge of her good-will. That fortunate issue is +inevitable, whether you like it or not. It is foredoomed. All I can +do for you is to invite you to the wedding and the breakfast. Does +that suit you? No? You persist in your sinister designs? Well, good +luck, lay your traps, spread your nets, rub up your weapons and +grind away at the Complete Foreign-post-paper Burglar’s Handbook. +You’ll need it. And now, good-night. The rules of open-handed and +disinterested hospitality demand that I should turn you out of +doors. Hop it!” +Lupin remained silent for some time. With his eyes fixed on +Daubrecq, he seemed to be taking his adversary’s size, gauging his +weight, estimating his physical strength, discussing, in fine, in +which exact part to attack him. Daubrecq clenched his fists and +worked out his plan of defence to meet the attack when it came. +Half a minute passed. Lupin put his hand to his hip-pocket. +Daubrecq did the same and grasped the handle of his revolver. +A few seconds more. Coolly, Lupin produced a little gold box of the +kind that ladies use for holding sweets, opened it and handed it to +Daubrecq: +“A lozenge?” +“What’s that?” asked the other, in surprise. +“Cough-drops.” +“What for?” +“For the draught you’re going to feel!” +And, taking advantage of the momentary fluster into which Daubrecq +was thrown by his sally, he quickly took his hat and slipped away. +“Of course,” he said, as he crossed the hall, “I am knocked into +fits. But all the same, that bit of commercial-traveller’s waggery +was rather novel, in the circumstances. To expect a pill and +receive a cough-drop is by way of being a sort of disappointment. +It left the old chimpanzee quite flummoxed.” +As he closed the gate, a motor-car drove up and a man sprang out +briskly, followed by several others. +Lupin recognized Prasville: +“Monsieur le secrétaire;-général,” he muttered, “your humble +servant. I have an idea that, some day, fate will bring us face +to face: and I am sorry, for your sake; for you do not inspire me +with any particular esteem and you have a bad time before you, on +that day. Meanwhile, if I were not in such a hurry, I should wait +till you leave and I should follow Daubrecq to find out in whose +charge he has placed the child whom he is going to hand back to me. +But I am in a hurry. Besides, I can’t tell that Daubrecq won’t act +by telephone. So let us not waste ourselves in vain efforts, but +rather join Victoire, Achille and our precious bag.” +Two hours later, Lupin, after taking all his measures, was on the +lookout in his shed at Neuilly and saw Daubrecq turn out of an +adjoining street and walk along with a distrustful air. +Lupin himself opened the double doors: +“Your things are in here, monsieur le député,” he said. “You can go +round and look. There is a job-master’s yard next door: you have +only to ask for a van and a few men. Where is the child?” +Daubrecq first inspected the articles and then took Lupin to the +Avenue de Neuilly, where two closely veiled old ladies stood +waiting with little Jacques. +Lupin carried the child to his car, where Victoire was waiting for +him. +All this was done swiftly, without useless words and as though the +parts had been got by heart and the various movements settled in +advance, like so many stage entrances and exits. +At ten o’clock in the evening Lupin kept his promise and handed +little Jacques to his mother. But the doctor had to be hurriedly +called in, for the child, upset by all those happenings, showed +great signs of excitement and terror. It was more than a fortnight +before he was sufficiently recovered to bear the strain of the +removal which Lupin considered necessary. Mme. Mergy herself was +only just fit to travel when the time came. The journey took place +at night, with every possible precaution and under Lupin’s escort. +He took the mother and son to a little seaside place in Brittany +and entrusted them to Victoire’s care and vigilance. +“At last,” he reflected, when he had seen them settled, “there +is no one between the Daubrecq bird and me. He can do nothing +more to Mme. Mergy and the kid; and she no longer runs the risk +of diverting the struggle through her intervention. By Jingo, we +have made blunders enough! First, I have had to disclose myself to +Daubrecq. Secondly, I have had to surrender my share of the Enghien +movables. True, I shall get those back, sooner or later; of that +there is not the least doubt. But, all the same, we are not getting +on; and, in a week from now, Gilbert and Vaucheray will be up for +trial.” +What Lupin felt most in the whole business was Daubrecq’s +revelation of the whereabouts of the flat. The police had entered +his place in the Rue Chateaubriand. The identity of Lupin and +Michel Beaumont had been recognized and certain papers discovered; +and Lupin, while pursuing his aim, while, at the same time, +managing various enterprises on which he had embarked, while +avoiding the searches of the police, which were becoming more +zealous and persistent than ever, had to set to work and reorganize +his affairs throughout on a fresh basis. +His rage with Daubrecq, therefore, increased in proportion to the +worry which the deputy caused him. He had but one longing, to +pocket him, as he put it, to have him at his bidding by fair means +or foul, to extract his secret from him. He dreamt of tortures +fit to unloose the tongue of the most silent of men. The boot, +the rack, red-hot pincers, nailed planks: no form of suffering, +he thought, was more than the enemy deserved; and the end to be +attained justified every means. +“Oh,” he said to himself, “oh, for a decent bench of inquisitors +and a couple of bold executioners!... What a time we should have!” +Every afternoon the Growler and the Masher watched the road which +Daubrecq took between the Square Lamartine, the Chamber of Deputies +and his club. Their instructions were to choose the most deserted +street and the most favourable moment and, one evening, to hustle +him into a motor-car. +Lupin, on his side, got ready an old building, standing in the +middle of a large garden, not far from Paris, which presented all +the necessary conditions of safety and isolation and which he +called the Monkey’s Cage. +Unfortunately, Daubrecq must have suspected something, for every +time, so to speak, he changed his route, or took the underground or +a tram; and the cage remained unoccupied. +Lupin devised another plan. He sent to Marseilles for one of his +associates, an elderly retired grocer called Brindebois, who +happened to live in Daubrecq’s electoral district and interested +himself in politics. Old Brindebois wrote to Daubrecq from +Marseilles, announcing his visit. Daubrecq gave this important +constituent a hearty welcome, and a dinner was arranged for the +following week. +The elector suggested a little restaurant on the left bank of the +Seine, where the food, he said, was something wonderful. Daubrecq +accepted. +This was what Lupin wanted. The proprietor of the restaurant was +one of his friends. The attempt, which was to take place on the +following Thursday, was this time bound to succeed. +Meanwhile, on the Monday of the same week, the trial of Gilbert and +Vaucheray opened. +* * * * * +The reader will remember--and the case took place too recently for me +to recapitulate its details--the really incomprehensible partiality +which the presiding judge showed in his cross-examination of Gilbert. +The thing was noticed and severely criticised at the time. Lupin +recognized Daubrecq’s hateful influence. +The attitude observed by the two prisoners differed greatly. +Vaucheray was gloomy, silent, hard-faced. He cynically, in curt, +sneering, almost defiant phrases, admitted the crimes of which he +had formerly been guilty. But, with an inconsistency which puzzled +everybody except Lupin, he denied any participation in the murder +of Léonard the valet and violently accused Gilbert. His object, in +thus linking his fate with Gilbert’s, was to force Lupin to take +identical measures for the rescue of both his accomplices. +Gilbert, on the other hand, whose frank countenance and dreamy, +melancholy eyes won every sympathy, was unable to protect himself +against the traps laid for him by the judge or to counteract +Vaucheray’s lies. He burst into tears, talked too much, or else did +not talk when he should have talked. Moreover, his counsel, one +of the Leaders of the bar, was taken ill at the last moment--and +here again Lupin saw the hand of Daubrecq--and he was replaced by +a junior who spoke badly, muddied the whole case, set the jury +against him and failed to wipe out the impression produced by the +speeches of the advocate-general and of Vaucheray’s counsel. +Lupin, who had the inconceivable audacity to be present on the last +day of the trial, the Thursday, had no doubt as to the result. A +verdict of guilty was certain in both cases. +It was certain because all the efforts of the prosecution, thus +supporting Vaucheray’s tactics, had tended to link the two +prisoners closely together. It was certain, also and above all, +because it concerned two of Lupin’s accomplices. From the opening +of the inquiry before the magistrate until the delivery of the +verdict, all the proceedings had been directed against Lupin; +and this in spite of the fact that the prosecution, for want of +sufficient evidence and also in order not to scatter its efforts +over too wide an area, had decided not to include Lupin in the +indictment. He was the adversary aimed at, the leader who must +be punished in the person of his friends, the famous and popular +scoundrel whose fascination in the eyes of the crowd must be +destroyed for good and all. With Gilbert and Vaucheray executed, +Lupin’s halo would fade away and the legend would be exploded. +Lupin.... Lupin.... Arsène Lupin: it was the one name heard +throughout the four days. The advocate-general, the presiding +judge, the jury, the counsel, the witnesses had no other words +on their lips. Every moment, Lupin was mentioned and cursed at, +scoffed at, insulted and held responsible for all the crimes +committed. It was as though Gilbert and Vaucheray figured only as +supernumeraries, while the real criminal undergoing trial was he, +Lupin, Master Lupin, Lupin the burglar, the leader of a gang of +thieves, the forger, the incendiary, the hardened offender, the +ex-convict, Lupin the murderer, Lupin stained with the blood of his +victim, Lupin lurking in the shade, like a coward, after sending +his friends to the foot of the scaffold. +“Oh, the rascals know what they’re about!” he muttered. “It’s my +debt which they are making my poor old Gilbert pay.” +And the terrible tragedy went on. +At seven o’clock in the evening, after a long deliberation, the +jury returned to court and the foreman read out the answers to +the questions put from the bench. The answer was “Yes” to every +count of the indictment, a verdict of guilty without extenuating +circumstances. +The prisoners were brought in. Standing up, but staggering and +white-faced, they received their sentence of death. +And, amid the great, solemn silence, in which the anxiety of the +onlookers was mingled with pity, the assize-president asked: +“Have you anything more to say, Vaucheray?” +“Nothing, monsieur le president. Now that my mate is sentenced as +well as myself, I am easy.... We are both on the same footing.... +The governor must find a way to save the two of us.” +“The governor?” +“Yes, Arsène Lupin.” +There was a laugh among the crowd. +The president asked: +“And you, Gilbert?” +Tears streamed down the poor lad’s cheeks and he stammered a few +inarticulate sentences. But, when the judge repeated his question, +he succeeded in mastering himself and replied, in a trembling voice: +“I wish to say, monsieur le president, that I am guilty of many +things, that’s true.... I have done a lot of harm.... But, all the +same, not this. No, I have not committed murder.... I have never +committed murder.... And I don’t want to die.... it would be too +horrible....” +He swayed from side to side, supported by the warders, and he was +heard to cry, like a child calling for help: +“Governor.... save me!... Save me!... I don’t want to die!” +Then, in the crowd, amid the general excitement, a voice rose above +the surrounding clamour: +“Don’t be afraid, little ‘un!... The governor’s here!” +A tumult and hustling followed. The municipal guards and the +policemen rushed into court and laid hold of a big, red-faced man, +who was stated by his neighbours to be the author of that outburst +and who struggled hand and foot. +Questioned without delay, he gave his name, Philippe Bonel, an +undertaker’s man, and declared that some one sitting beside him had +offered him a hundred-franc note if he would consent, at the proper +moment, to shout a few words which his neighbour scribbled on a bit +of paper. How could he refuse? +In proof of his statements, he produced the hundred-franc note and +the scrap of paper. +Philippe Bonel was let go. +Meanwhile, Lupin, who of course had assisted energetically in the +individual’s arrest and handed him over to the guards, left the +law-courts, his heart heavy with anguish. His car was waiting for +him on the quay. He flung himself into it, in despair, seized +with so great a sorrow that he had to make an effort to restrain +his tears. Gilbert’s cry, his voice wrung with affliction, his +distorted features, his tottering frame: all this haunted his +brain; and he felt as if he would never, for a single second, +forget those impressions. +He drove home to the new place which he had selected among his +different residences and which occupied a corner of the Place de +Clichy. He expected to find the Growler and the Masher, with whom +he was to kidnap Daubrecq that evening. But he had hardly opened +the door of his flat, when a cry escaped him: Clarisse stood before +him; Clarisse, who had returned from Brittany at the moment of the +verdict. +[Illustration: “What we have to do is to stop the mischief and +to-night, you understand, to-night the thing will be done.”] +He at once gathered from her attitude and her pallor that she knew. +And, at once, recovering his courage in her presence, without +giving her time to speak, he exclaimed: +“Yes, yes, yes . . . but it doesn’t matter. We foresaw that. We +couldn’t prevent it. What we have to do is to stop the mischief. +And to-night, you understand, to-night, the thing will be done.” +Motionless and tragic in her sorrow, she stammered: +“To-night?” +“Yes. I have prepared everything. In two hours, Daubrecq will be +in my hands. To-night, whatever means I have to employ, he shall +speak.” +“Do you mean that?” she asked, faintly, while a ray of hope began +to light up her face. +“He shall speak. I shall have his secret. I shall tear the list of +the Twenty-seven from him. And that list will set your son free.” +“Too late,” Clarisse murmured. +“Too late? Why? Do you think that, in exchange for such a document, +I shall not obtain Gilbert’s pretended escape?... Why, Gilbert will +be at liberty in three days! In three days....” +He was interrupted by a ring at the bell: +“Listen, here are our friends. Trust me. Remember that I keep my +promises. I gave you back your little Jacques. I shall give you +back Gilbert.” +He went to let the Growler and the Masher in and said: +“Is everything ready? Is old Brindebois at the restaurant? Quick, +let us be off!” +“It’s no use, governor,” replied the Masher. +“No use? What do you mean?” +“There’s news.” +“What news? Speak, man!” +“Daubrecq has disappeared.” +“Eh? What’s that? Daubrecq disappeared?” +“Yes, carried off from his house, in broad daylight.” +“The devil! By whom?” +“Nobody knows . . . four men . . . there were pistols fired.... The +police are on the spot. Prasville is directing the investigations.” +Lupin did not move a limb. He looked at Clarisse Mergy, who lay +huddled in a chair. +He himself had to bow his head. Daubrecq carried off meant one more +chance of success lost.... +CHAPTER VII. +THE PROFILE OF NAPOLEON +Soon as the prefect of police, the chief of the +criminal-investigation department and the examining-magistrates had +left Daubrecq’s house, after a preliminary and entirely fruitless +inquiry, Prasville resumed his personal search. +He was examining the study and the traces of the struggle which had +taken place there, when the portress brought him a visiting-card, +with a few words in pencil scribbled upon it. +“Show the lady in,” he said. +“The lady has some one with her,” said the portress. +“Oh? Well, show the other person in as well.” +Clarisse Mergy entered at once and introduced the gentleman with +her, a gentleman in a black frock-coat, which was too tight for him +and which looked as though it had not been brushed for ages. He was +shy in his manner and seemed greatly embarrassed how to dispose +of his old, rusty top-hat, his gingham umbrella, his one and only +glove and his body generally. +“M. Nicole,” said Clarisse, “a private teacher, who is acting as +tutor to my little Jacques. M. Nicole has been of the greatest +help to me with his advice during the past year. He worked out the +whole story of the crystal stopper. I should like him, as well as +myself--if you see no objection to telling me--to know the details +of this kidnapping business, which alarms me and upsets my plans; +yours too, I expect?” +Prasville had every confidence in Clarisse Mergy. He knew her +relentless hatred of Daubrecq and appreciated the assistance which +she had rendered in the case. He therefore made no difficulties +about telling her what he knew, thanks to certain clues and +especially to the evidence of the portress. +For that matter, the thing was exceedingly simple. Daubrecq, who +had attended the trial of Gilbert and Vaucheray as a witness and +who was seen in court during the speeches, returned home at six +o’clock. The portress affirmed that he came in alone and that there +was nobody in the house at the time. Nevertheless, a few minutes +later, she heard shouts, followed by the sound of a struggle and +two pistol-shots; and from her lodge she saw four masked men +scuttle down the front steps, carrying Daubrecq the deputy, and +hurry toward the gate. They opened the gate. At the same moment, +a motor-car arrived outside the house. The four men bundled +themselves into it; and the motor-car, which had hardly had time to +stop, set off at full speed. +“Were there not always two policemen on duty?” asked Clarisse. +“They were there,” said Prasville, “but at a hundred and fifty +yards’ distance; and Daubrecq was carried off so quickly that they +were unable to interfere, although they hastened up as fast as they +could.” +“And did they discover nothing, find nothing?” +“Nothing, or hardly anything.... Merely this.” +“What is that?” +“A little piece of ivory, which they picked up on the ground. There +was a fifth party in the car; and the portress saw him get down +while the others were hoisting Daubrecq in. As he was stepping +back into the car, he dropped something and picked it up again at +once. But the thing, whatever it was, must have been broken on the +pavement; for this is the bit of ivory which my men found.” +“But how did the four men manage to enter the house?” asked +Clarisse. +“By means of false keys, evidently, while the portress was doing +her shopping, in the course of the afternoon; and they had no +difficulty in secreting themselves, as Daubrecq keeps no other +servants. I have every reason to believe that they hid in the +room next door, which is the dining-room, and afterward attacked +Daubrecq here, in the study. The disturbance of the furniture and +other articles proves how violent the struggle was. We found a +large-bore revolver, belonging to Daubrecq, on the carpet. One of +the bullets had smashed the glass over the mantel-piece, as you +see.” +Clarisse turned to her companion for him to express an opinion. But +M. Nicole, with his eyes obstinately lowered, had not budged from +his chair and sat fumbling at the rim of his hat, as though he had +not yet found a proper place for it. +Prasville gave a smile. It was evident that he did not look upon +Clarisse’s adviser as a man of first-rate intelligence: +“The case is somewhat puzzling, monsieur,” he said, “is it not?” +“Yes . . . yes,” M. Nicole confessed, “most puzzling.” +“Then you have no little theory of your own upon the matter?” +“Well, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, I’m thinking that Daubrecq +has many enemies.” +“Ah, capital!” +“And that several of those enemies, who are interested in his +disappearance, must have banded themselves against him.” +“Capital, capital!” said Prasville, with satirical approval. +“Capital! Everything is becoming clear as daylight. It only remains +for you to furnish us with a little suggestion that will enable us +to turn our search in the right direction.” +“Don’t you think, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, that this broken +bit of ivory which was picked up on the ground....” +“No, M. Nicole, no. That bit of ivory belongs to something which we +do not know and which its owner will at once make it his business +to conceal. In order to trace the owner, we should at least be able +to define the nature of the thing itself.” +M. Nicole reflected and then began: +“Monsieur le secrétaire;-général, when Napoleon I fell from +power....” +“Oh, M. Nicole, oh, a lesson in French history!” +“Only a sentence, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, just one +sentence which I will ask your leave to complete. When Napoleon +I fell from power, the Restoration placed a certain number of +officers on half-pay. These officers were suspected by the +authorities and kept under observation by the police. They remained +faithful to the emperor’s memory; and they contrived to reproduce +the features of their idol on all sorts of objects of everyday use; +snuff-boxes, rings, breast-pins, pen-knives and so on.” +“Well?” +“Well, this bit comes from a walking-stick, or rather a sort of +loaded cane, or life-preserver, the knob of which is formed of +a piece of carved ivory. When you look at the knob in a certain +way, you end by seeing that the outline represents the profile +of the Little Corporal. What you have in your hand, monsieur le +secrétaire;-général, is a bit of the ivory knob at the top of a +half-pay officer’s life-preserver.” +“Yes,” said Prasville, examining the exhibit, “yes, I can make out +a profile . . . but I don’t see the inference....” +“The inference is very simple. Among Daubrecq’s victims, among +those whose names are inscribed on the famous list, is the +descendant of a Corsican family in Napoleon’s service, which +derived its wealth and title from the emperor and was afterward +ruined under the Restoration. It is ten to one that this +descendant, who was the leader of the Bonapartist party a few years +ago, was the fifth person hiding in the motor-car. Need I state his +name?” +“The Marquis d’Albufex?” said Prasville. +“The Marquis d’Albufex,” said M. Nicole. +M. Nicole, who no longer seemed in the least worried with his hat, +his glove and his umbrella, rose and said to Prasville: +“Monsieur le secrétaire;-général, I might have kept my discovery +to myself, and not told you of it until after the final victory, +that is, after bringing you the list of the Twenty-seven. But +matters are urgent. Daubrecq’s disappearance, contrary to what +his kidnappers expect, may hasten on the catastrophe which you +wish to avert. We must therefore act with all speed. Monsieur +le secrétaire;-général, I ask for your immediate and practical +assistance.” +“In what way can I help you?” asked Prasville, who was beginning to +be impressed by his quaint visitor. +“By giving me, to-morrow, those particulars about the Marquis +d’Albufex which it would take me personally several days to +collect.” +Prasville seemed to hesitate and turned his head toward Mme. Mergy. +Clarisse said: +“I beg of you to accept M. Nicole’s services. He is an invaluable +and devoted ally. I will answer for him as I would for myself.” +“What particulars do you require, monsieur?” asked Prasville. +“Everything that concerns the Marquis d’Albufex: the position +of his family, the way in which he spends his time, his family +connections, the properties which he owns in Paris and in the +country.” +Prasville objected: +“After all, whether it’s the marquis or another, Daubrecq’s +kidnapper is working on our behalf, seeing that, by capturing the +list, he disarms Daubrecq.” +“And who says, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, that he is not +working on his own behalf?” +“That is not possible, as his name is on the list.” +“And suppose he erases it? Suppose you then find yourself dealing +with a second blackmailer, even more grasping and more powerful +than the first and one who, as a political adversary, is in a +better position than Daubrecq to maintain the contest?” +The secretary-general was struck by the argument. After a moment’s +thought, he said: +“Come and see me in my office at four o’clock to-morrow. I will +give you the particulars. What is your address, in case I should +want you?” +“M. Nicole, 25, Place de Clichy. I am staying at a friend’s flat, +which he has lent me during his absence.” +The interview was at an end. M. Nicole thanked the +secretary-general, with a very low bow, and walked out, accompanied +by Mme. Mergy: +“That’s an excellent piece of work,” he said, outside, rubbing his +hands. “I can march into the police-office whenever I like, and set +the whole lot to work.” +Mme. Mergy, who was less hopefully inclined, said: +“Alas, will you be in time? What terrifies me is the thought that +the list may be destroyed.” +“Goodness gracious me, by whom? By Daubrecq?” +“No, but by the marquis, when he gets hold of it.” +“He hasn’t got it yet! Daubrecq will resist long enough, at any +rate, for us to reach him. Just think! Prasville is at my orders!” +“Suppose he discovers who you are? The least inquiry will prove +that there is no such person as M. Nicole.” +“But it will not prove that M. Nicole is the same person as Arsène +Lupin. Besides, make yourself easy. Prasville is not only beneath +contempt as a detective: he has but one aim in life, which is to +destroy his old enemy, Daubrecq. To achieve that aim, all means are +equally good; and he will not waste time in verifying the identity +of a M. Nicole who promises him Daubrecq. Not to mention that I +was brought by you and that, when all is said, my little gifts did +dazzle him to some extent. So let us go ahead boldly.” +Clarisse always recovered confidence in Lupin’s presence. The +future seemed less appalling to her; and she admitted, she forced +herself to admit, that the chances of saving Gilbert were not +lessened by that hideous death-sentence. But he could not prevail +upon her to return to Brittany. She wanted to fight by his side. +She wanted to be there and share all his hopes and all his +disappointments. +The next day the inquiries of the police confirmed what Prasville +and Lupin already knew. The Marquis d’Albufex had been very deeply +involved in the business of the canal, so deeply that Prince +Napoleon was obliged to remove him from the management of his +political campaign in France; and he kept up his very extravagant +style of living only by dint of constant loans and makeshifts. On +the other hand, in so far as concerned the kidnapping of Daubrecq, +it was ascertained that, contrary to his usual custom, the marquis +had not appeared in his club between six and seven that evening and +had not dined at home. He did not come back until midnight; and +then he came on foot. +M. Nicole’s accusation, therefore, was receiving an early proof. +Unfortunately--and Lupin was no more successful in his own +attempts--it was impossible to obtain the least clue as to the +motor-car, the chauffeur and the four people who had entered +Daubrecq’s house. Were they associates of the marquis, compromised +in the canal affair like himself? Were they men in his pay? Nobody +knew. +The whole search, consequently, had to be concentrated upon the +marquis and the country-seats and houses which he might possess at +a certain distance from Paris, a distance which, allowing for the +average speed of a motor-car and the inevitable stoppages, could be +put at sixty to ninety miles. +Now d’Albufex, having sold everything that he ever had, possessed +neither country-houses nor landed estates. +They turned their attention to the marquis’ relations and intimate +friends. Was he able on this side to dispose of some safe retreat +in which to imprison Daubrecq? +The result was equally fruitless. +And the days passed. And what days for Clarisse Mergy! Each of them +brought Gilbert nearer to the terrible day of reckoning. Each of +them meant twenty-four hours less from the date which Clarisse had +instinctively fixed in her mind. And she said to Lupin, who was +racked with the same anxiety: +“Fifty-five days more.... Fifty days more.... What can one do in so +few days?... Oh, I beg of you.... I beg of you....” +What could they do indeed? Lupin, who would not leave the task of +watching the marquis to any one but himself, practically lived +without sleeping. But the marquis had resumed his regular life; +and, doubtless suspecting something, did not risk going away. +Once alone, he went down to the Duc de Montmaur’s, in the daytime. +The duke kept a pack of boar-hounds, with which he hunted the +Forest of Durlaine. D’Albufex maintained no relations with him +outside the hunt. +“It is hardly likely,” said Prasville, “that the Duc de Montmaur, +an exceedingly wealthy man, who is interested only in his estates +and his hunting and takes no part in politics, should lend himself +to the illegal detention of Daubrecq the deputy in his chateau.” +Lupin agreed; but, as he did not wish to leave anything to chance, +the next week, seeing d’Albufex go out one morning in riding-dress, +he followed him to the Gare du Nord and took the same train. +He got out at Aumale, where d’Albufex found a carriage at the +station which took him to the Chateau de Montmaur. +Lupin lunched quietly, hired a bicycle and came in view of the +house at the moment when the guests were going into the park, +in motor-cars or mounted. The Marquis d’Albufex was one of the +horsemen. +Thrice, in the course of the day, Lupin saw him cantering along. +And he found him, in the evening, at the station, where d’Albufex +rode up, followed by a huntsman. +The proof, therefore, was conclusive; and there was nothing +suspicious on that side. Why did Lupin, nevertheless, resolve not +to be satisfied with appearances? And why, next day, did he send +the Masher to find out things in the neighbourhood of Montmaur? It +was an additional precaution, based upon no logical reason, but +agreeing with his methodical and careful manner of acting. +Two days later he received from the Masher, among other information +of less importance, a list of the house-party at Montmaur and of +all the servants and keepers. +One name struck him, among those of the huntsmen. He at once wired: +“Inquire about huntsman Sébastiani.” +The Masher’s answer was received the next day: +“Sébastiani, a Corsican, was recommended to the Duc de +Montmaur by the Marquis d’Albufex. He lives at two or three +miles from the house, in a hunting-lodge built among the +ruins of the feudal stronghold which was the cradle of the +Montmaur family.” +“That’s it,” said Lupin to Clarisse Mergy, showing her the Masher’s +letter. “That name, Sébastiani, at once reminded me that d’Albufex +is of Corsican descent. There was a connection....” +“Then what do you intend to do?” +“If Daubrecq is imprisoned in those ruins, I intend to enter into +communication with him.” +“He will distrust you.” +“No. Lately, acting on the information of the police, I ended by +discovering the two old ladies who carried off your little Jacques +at Saint-Germain and who brought him, the same evening, to Neuilly. +They are two old maids, cousins of Daubrecq, who makes them a +small monthly allowance. I have been to call on those Demoiselles +Rousselot; remember the name and the address: 134 bis, Rue du Bac. +I inspired them with confidence, promised them to find their cousin +and benefactor; and the elder sister, Euphrasie Rousselot, gave me +a letter in which she begs Daubrecq to trust M. Nicole entirely. So +you see, I have taken every precaution. I shall leave to-night.” +“We, you mean,” said Clarisse. +“You!” +“Can I go on living like this, in feverish inaction?” And she +whispered, “I am no longer counting the days, the thirty-eight or +forty days that remain to us: I am counting the hours.” +Lupin felt that her resolution was too strong for him to try to +combat it. They both started at five o’clock in the morning, by +motor-car. The Growler went with them. +So as not to arouse suspicion, Lupin chose a large town as his +headquarters. At Amiens, where he installed Clarisse, he was only +eighteen miles from Montmaur. +At eight o’clock he met the Masher not far from the old fortress, +which was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Mortepierre, +and he examined the locality under his guidance. +On the confines of the forest, the little river Ligier, which +has dug itself a deep valley at this spot, forms a loop which is +overhung by the enormous cliff of Mortepierre. +“Nothing to be done on this side,” said Lupin. “The cliff is steep, +over two hundred feet high, and the river hugs it all round.” +Not far away they found a bridge that led to the foot of a path +which wound, through the oaks and pines, up to a little esplanade, +where stood a massive, iron-bound gate, studded with nails and +flanked on either side by a large tower. +“Is this where Sébastiani the huntsman lives?” asked Lupin. +“Yes,” said the Masher, “with his wife, in a lodge standing in the +midst of the ruins. I also learnt that he has three tall sons and +that all the four were supposed to be away for a holiday on the day +when Daubrecq was carried off.” +“Oho!” said Lupin. “The coincidence is worth remembering. It seems +likely enough that the business was done by those chaps and their +father.” +Toward the end of the afternoon Lupin availed himself of a breach +to the right of the towers to scale the curtain. From there he was +able to see the huntsman’s lodge and the few remains of the old +fortress: here, a bit of wall, suggesting the mantel of a chimney; +further away, a water-tank; on this side, the arches of a chapel; +on the other, a heap of fallen stones. +A patrol-path edged the cliff in front; and, at one of the ends +of this patrol-path, there were the remains of a formidable +donjon-keep razed almost level with the ground. +Lupin returned to Clarisse Mergy in the evening. And from that +time he went backward and forward between Amiens and Mortepierre, +leaving the Growler and the Masher permanently on the watch. +And six days passed. Sébastiani’s habits seemed to be subject +solely to the duties of his post. He used to go up to the Chateau +de Montmaur, walk about in the forest, note the tracks of the game +and go his rounds at night. +But, on the seventh day, learning that there was to be a meet and +that a carriage had been sent to Aumale Station in the morning, +Lupin took up his post in a cluster of box and laurels which +surrounded the little esplanade in front of the gate. +At two o’clock he heard the pack give tongue. They approached, +accompanied by hunting-cries, and then drew farther away. He +heard them again, about the middle of the afternoon, not quite so +distinctly; and that was all. But suddenly, amid the silence, the +sound of galloping horses reached his ears; and, a few minutes +later, he saw two riders climbing the river-path. +He recognized the Marquis d’Albufex and Sébastiani. On reaching the +esplanade, they both alighted; and a woman--the huntsman’s wife, no +doubt--opened the gate. Sébastiani fastened the horses’ bridles to +rings fixed on a post at a few yards from Lupin and ran to join the +marquis. The gate closed behind them. +Lupin did not hesitate; and, though it was still broad daylight, +relying upon the solitude of the place, he hoisted himself to the +hollow of the breach. Passing his head through cautiously, he saw +the two men and Sébastiani’s wife hurrying toward the ruins of the +keep. +The huntsman drew aside a hanging screen of ivy and revealed the +entrance to a stairway, which he went down, as did d’Albufex, +leaving his wife on guard on the terrace. +There was no question of going in after them; and Lupin returned to +his hiding-place. He did not wait long before the gate opened again. +The Marquis d’Albufex seemed in a great rage. He was striking the +leg of his boot with his whip and mumbling angry words which Lupin +was able to distinguish when the distance became less great: +“Ah, the hound!... I’ll make him speak.... I’ll come back to-night +. . . to-night, at ten o’clock, do you hear, Sébastiani?... And we +shall do what’s necessary.... Oh, the brute!” +Sébastiani unfastened the horses. D’Albufex turned to the woman: +“See that your sons keep a good watch.... If any one attempts to +deliver him, so much the worse for him. The trapdoor is there. Can +I rely upon them?” +“As thoroughly as on myself, monsieur le marquis,” declared the +huntsman. “They know what monsieur le marquis has done for me and +what he means to do for them. They will shrink at nothing.” +“Let us mount and get back to the hounds,” said d’Albufex. +So things were going as Lupin had supposed. During these runs, +d’Albufex, taking a line of his own, would push off to Mortepierre, +without anybody’s suspecting his trick. Sébastiani, who was devoted +to him body and soul, for reasons connected with the past into +which it was not worth while to inquire, accompanied him; and +together they went to see the captive, who was closely watched by +the huntsman’s wife and his three sons. +“That’s where we stand,” said Lupin to Clarisse Mergy, when he +joined her at a neighbouring inn. “This evening the marquis +will put Daubrecq to the question--a little brutally, but +indispensably--as I intended to do myself.” +“And Daubrecq will give up his secret,” said Clarisse, already +quite upset. +“I’m afraid so.” +“Then....” +“I am hesitating between two plans,” said Lupin, who seemed very +calm. “Either to prevent the interview....” +“How?” +“By forestalling d’Albufex. At nine o’clock, the Growler, the +Masher and I climb the ramparts, burst into the fortress, attack +the keep, disarm the garrison . . . and the thing’s done: Daubrecq +is ours.” +“Unless Sébastiani’s sons fling him through the trapdoor to which +the marquis alluded....” +“For that reason,” said Lupin, “I intend to risk that violent +measure only as a last resort and in case my other plan should not +be practicable.” +“What is the other plan?” +“To witness the interview. If Daubrecq does not speak, it will +give us the time to prepare to carry him off under more favourable +conditions. If he speaks, if they compel him to reveal the place +where the list of the Twenty-seven is hidden, I shall know the +truth at the same time as d’Albufex, and I swear to God that I +shall turn it to account before he does.” +“Yes, yes,” said Clarisse. “But how do you propose to be present?” +“I don’t know yet,” Lupin confessed. “It depends on certain +particulars which the Masher is to bring me and on some which I +shall find out for myself.” +He left the inn and did not return until an hour later as night was +falling. The Masher joined him. +“Have you the little book?” asked Lupin. +“Yes, governor. It was what I saw at the Aumale newspaper-shop. I +got it for ten sous.” +“Give it me.” +The Masher handed him an old, soiled, torn pamphlet, entitled, +on the cover, _A Visit to Mortepierre, 1824, with plans and +illustrations_. +Lupin at once looked for the plan of the donjon-keep. +“That’s it,” he said. “Above the ground were three stories, which +have been razed, and below the ground, dug out of the rock, two +stories, one of which was blocked up by the rubbish, while the +other.... There, that’s where our friend Daubrecq lies. The name is +significant: the torture-chamber.... Poor, dear friend!... Between +the staircase and the torture-chamber, two doors. Between those two +doors, a recess in which the three brothers obviously sit, gun in +hand.” +“So it is impossible for you to get in that way without being seen.” +“Impossible . . . unless I come from above, by the story that has +fallen in, and look for a means of entrance through the ceiling.... +But that is very risky....” +He continued to turn the pages of the book. Clarisse asked: +“Is there no window to the room?” +“Yes,” he said. “From below, from the river--I have just been +there--you can see a little opening, which is also marked on the +plan. But it is fifty yards up, sheer; and even then the rock +overhangs the water. So that again is out of the question.” +He glanced through a few pages of the book. The title of one +chapter struck him: _The Lovers’ Towers_. He read the opening lines: +“In the old days, the donjon was known to the people of the +neighbourhood as the Lovers’ Tower, in memory of a fatal +tragedy that marked it in the Middle Ages. The Comte de +Mortepierre, having received proofs of his wife’s faithlessness, +imprisoned her in the torture-chamber, where she spent twenty +years. One night, her lover, the Sire de Tancarville, with +reckless courage, set up a ladder in the river and then +clambered up the face of the cliff till he came to the window +of the room. After filing the bars, he succeeded in releasing +the woman he loved and bringing her down with him by means of a +rope. They both reached the top of the ladder, which was watched +by his friends, when a shot was fired from the patrol-path and +hit the man in the shoulder. The two lovers were hurled into +space....” +There was a pause, after he had read this, a long pause during +which each of them drew a mental picture of the tragic escape. +So, three or four centuries earlier, a man, risking his life, had +attempted that surprising feat and would have succeeded but for the +vigilance of some sentry who heard the noise. A man had ventured! A +man had dared! A man done it! +Lupin raised his eyes to Clarisse. She was looking at him . . . +with such a desperate, such a beseeching look! The look of a mother +who demanded the impossible and who would have sacrificed anything +to save her son. +“Masher,” he said, “get a strong rope, but very slender, so that I +can roll it round my waist, and very long: fifty or sixty yards. +You, Growler, go and look for three or four ladders and fasten them +end to end.” +“Why, what are you thinking of, governor?” cried the two +accomplices. “What, you mean to.... But it’s madness!” +“Madness? Why? What another has done I can do.” +“But it’s a hundred chances to one that you break your neck.” +“Well, you see, Masher, there’s one chance that I don’t.” +“But, governor....” +“That’s enough, my friends. Meet me in an hour on the river-bank.” +* * * * * +The preparations took long in the making. It was difficult to find +the material for a fifty-foot ladder that would reach the first +ledge of the cliff; and it required an endless effort and care to +join the different sections. +At last, a little after nine o’clock, it was set up in the middle +of the river and held in position by a boat, the bows of which were +wedged between two of the rungs, while the stern was rammed into +the bank. +The road through the river-valley was little used, and nobody came +to interrupt the work. The night was dark, the sky heavy with +moveless clouds. +Lupin gave the Masher and the Growler their final instructions and +said, with a laugh: +“I can’t tell you how amused I am at the thought of seeing +Daubrecq’s face when they proceed to take his scalp or slice his +skin into ribbons. Upon my word, it’s worth the journey.” +Clarisse also had taken a seat in the boat. He said to her: +“Until we meet again. And, above all, don’t stir. Whatever happens, +not a movement, not a cry.” +“Can anything happen?” she asked. +“Why, remember the Sire de Tancarville! It was at the very moment +when he was achieving his object, with his true love in his arms, +that an accident betrayed him. But be easy: I shall be all right.” +She made no reply. She seized his hand and grasped it warmly +between her own. +He put his foot on the ladder and made sure that it did not sway +too much. Then he went up. +He soon reached the top rung. +This was where the dangerous ascent began, a difficult ascent at +the start, because of the excessive steepness, and developing, +mid-way, into an absolute escalade. +Fortunately, here and there were little hollows, in which his feet +found a resting-place, and projecting stones, to which his hands +clung. But twice those stones gave way and he slipped; and twice +he firmly believed that all was lost. Finding a deeper hollow, he +took a rest. He was worn out, felt quite ready to throw up the +enterprise, asked himself if it was really worth while for him to +expose himself to such danger: +“I say!” he thought. “Seems to me you’re showing the white feather, +Lupin, old boy. Throw up the enterprise? Then Daubrecq will babble +his secret, the marquis will possess himself of the list, Lupin +will return empty-handed, and Gilbert....” +The long rope which he had fastened round his waist caused him +needless inconvenience and fatigue. He fixed one of the ends to the +strap of his trousers and let the rope uncoil all the way down the +ascent, so that he could use it, on returning, as a hand-rail. +Then he once more clutched at the rough surface of the cliff and +continued the climb, with bruised nails and bleeding fingers. At +every moment he expected the inevitable fall. And what discouraged +him most was to hear the murmur of voices rising from the boat, +murmur so distinct that it seemed as though he were not increasing +the distance between his companions and himself. +And he remembered the Sire de Tancarville, alone, he too, amid the +darkness, who must have shivered at the noise of the stones which +he loosened and sent bounding down the cliff. How the least sound +reverberated through the silence! If one of Daubrecq’s guards +was peering into the gloom from the Lovers’ Tower, it meant a +shot . . . and death. +And he climbed . . . he climbed.... He had climbed so long that he +ended by imagining that the goal was passed. Beyond a doubt, he +had slanted unawares to the right or left and he would finish at +the patrol-path. What a stupid upshot! And what other upshot could +there be to an attempt which the swift force of events had not +allowed him to study and prepare? +Madly, he redoubled his efforts, raised himself by a number of +yards, slipped, recovered the lost ground, clutched a bunch of +roots that came loose in his hand, slipped once more and was +abandoning the game in despair when, suddenly, stiffening himself +and contracting his whole frame, his muscles and his will, he +stopped still: a sound of voices seemed to issue from the very rock +which he was grasping. +He listened. It came from the right. Turning his head, he thought +that he saw a ray of light penetrating the darkness of space. By +what effort of energy, by what imperceptible movements he succeeded +in dragging himself to the spot he was never able exactly to +realize. But suddenly he found himself on the ledge of a fairly +wide opening, at least three yards deep, which dug into the wall of +the cliff like a passage, while its other end, much narrower, was +closed by three bars. +Lupin crawled along. His head reached the bars. And he saw.... +CHAPTER VIII. +THE LOVERS’ TOWER +The torture-chamber showed beneath him. It was a large, irregular +room, divided into unequal portions by the four wide, massive +pillars that supported its arched roof. A smell of damp and mildew +came from its walls and from its flags moistened by the water that +trickled from without. Its appearance at any time must have been +gruesome. But, at that moment, with the tall figures of Sébastiani +and his sons, with the slanting gleams of light that fell between +the pillars, with the vision of the captive chained down upon the +truckle-bed, it assumed a sinister and barbarous aspect. +Daubrecq was in the front part of the room, four or five yards down +from the window at which Lupin lurked. In addition to the ancient +chains that had been used to fasten him to his bed and to fasten +the bed to an iron hook in the wall, his wrists and ankles were +girt with leather thongs; and an ingenious arrangement caused his +least movement to set in motion a bell hung to the nearest pillar. +A lamp placed on a stool lit him full in the face. +The Marquis d’Albufex was standing beside him. Lupin could see +his pale features, his grizzled moustache, his long, lean form as +he looked at his prisoner with an expression of content and of +gratified hatred. +A few minutes passed in profound silence. Then the marquis gave an +order: +“Light those three candles, Sébastiani, so that I can see him +better.” +And, when the three candles were lit and he had taken a long look +at Daubrecq, he stooped over him and said, almost gently: +“I can’t say what will be the end of you and me. But at any rate +I shall have had some deuced happy moments in this room. You have +done me so much harm, Daubrecq! The tears you have made me shed! +Yes, real tears, real sobs of despair.... The money you have robbed +me of! A fortune!... And my terror at the thought that you might +give me away! You had but to utter my name to complete my ruin and +bring about my disgrace!... Oh, you villain!...” +Daubrecq did not budge. He had been deprived of his black glasses, +but still kept his spectacles, which reflected the light from the +candles. He had lost a good deal of flesh; and the bones stood out +above his sunken cheeks. +“Come along,” said d’Albufex. “The time has come to act. It seems +that there are rogues prowling about the neighbourhood. Heaven +forbid that they are here on your account and try to release you; +for that would mean your immediate death, as you know.... Is the +trapdoor still in working order, Sébastiani?” +Sébastiani came nearer, knelt on one knee and lifted and turned a +ring, at the foot of the bed, which Lupin had not noticed. One of +the flagstones moved on a pivot, disclosing a black hole. +“You see,” the marquis continued, “everything is provided for; and +I have all that I want at hand, including dungeons: bottomless +dungeons, says the legend of the castle. So there is nothing to +hope for, no help of any kind. Will you speak?” +Daubrecq did not reply; and he went on: +“This is the fourth time that I am questioning you, Daubrecq. It is +the fourth time that I have troubled to ask you for the document +which you possess, in order that I may escape your blackmailing +proceedings. It is the fourth time and the last. Will you speak?” +The same silence as before. D’Albufex made a sign to Sébastiani. +The huntsman stepped forward, followed by two of his sons. One of +them held a stick in his hand. +“Go ahead,” said d’Albufex, after waiting a few seconds. +Sébastiani slackened the thongs that bound Daubrecq’s wrists and +inserted and fixed the stick between the thongs. +“Shall I turn, monsieur le marquis?” +A further silence. The marquis waited. Seeing that Daubrecq did not +flinch, he whispered: +“Can’t you speak? Why expose yourself to physical suffering?” +No reply. +“Turn away, Sébastiani.” +Sébastiani made the stick turn a complete circle. The thongs +stretched and tightened. Daubrecq gave a groan. +“You won’t speak? Still, you know that I won’t give way, that I +can’t give way, that I hold you and that, if necessary, I shall +torture you till you die of it. You won’t speak? You won’t?... +Sébastiani, once more.” +The huntsman obeyed. Daubrecq gave a violent start of pain and fell +back on his bed with a rattle in his throat. +“You fool!” cried the marquis, shaking with rage. “Why don’t you +speak? What, haven’t you had enough of that list? Surely it’s +somebody else’s turn! Come, speak.... Where is it? One word. One +word only . . . and we will leave you in peace.... And, to-morrow, +when I have the list, you shall be free. Free, do you understand? +But, in Heaven’s name, speak!... Oh, the brute! Sébastiani, one +more turn.” +Sébastiani made a fresh effort. The bones cracked. +“Help! Help!” cried Daubrecq, in a hoarse voice, vainly struggling +to release himself. And, in a spluttering whisper, “Mercy . . . +mercy.” +It was a dreadful sight.... The faces of the three sons were +horror-struck. Lupin shuddered, sick at heart, and realized that +he himself could never have accomplished that abominable thing. He +listened for the words that were bound to come. He must learn the +truth. Daubrecq’s secret was about to be expressed in syllables, +in words wrung from him by pain. And Lupin began to think of his +retreat, of the car which was waiting for him, of the wild rush to +Paris, of the victory at hand. +“Speak,” whispered d’Albufex. “Speak and it will be over.” +“Yes . . . yes . . .” gasped Daubrecq. +“Well...?” +“Later . . . to-morrow....” +“Oh, you’re mad!... What are you talking about: to-morrow?... +Sébastiani, another turn!” +“No, no!” yelled Daubrecq. “Stop!” +“Speak!” +“Well, then . . . the paper.... I have hidden the paper....” +But his pain was too great. He raised his head with a last effort, +uttered incoherent words, succeeded in twice saying, “Marie.... +Marie....” and fell back, exhausted and lifeless. +“Let go at once!” said d’Albufex to Sébastiani. “Hang it all, can +we have overdone it?” +But a rapid examination showed him that Daubrecq had only fainted. +Thereupon, he himself, worn out with the excitement, dropped on +the foot of the bed and, wiping the beads of perspiration from his +forehead, stammered: +“Oh, what a dirty business!” +“Perhaps that’s enough for to-day,” said the huntsman, whose rough +face betrayed a certain emotion. “We might try again to-morrow or +the next day....” +The marquis was silent. One of the sons handed him a flask of +brandy. He poured out half a glass and drank it down at a draught: +“To-morrow?” he said. “No. Here and now. One little effort more. At +the stage which he has reached, it won’t be difficult.” And, taking +the huntsman aside, “Did you hear what he said? What did he mean by +that word, ‘Marie’? He repeated it twice.” +“Yes, twice,” said the huntsman. “Perhaps he entrusted the document +to a person called Marie.” +“Not he!” protested d’Albufex. “He never entrusts anything to +anybody. It means something different.” +“But what, monsieur le marquis?” +“We’ll soon find out, I’ll answer for it.” +At that moment, Daubrecq drew a long breath and stirred on his +couch. +D’Albufex, who had now recovered all his composure and who did not +take his eyes off the enemy, went up to him and said: +“You see, Daubrecq, it’s madness to resist.... Once you’re beaten, +there’s nothing for it but to submit to your conqueror, instead +of allowing yourself to be tortured like an idiot.... Come, be +sensible.” +He turned to Sébastiani: +“Tighten the rope . . . let him feel it a little that will wake him +up.... He’s shamming death....” Sébastiani took hold of the stick +again and turned until the cord touched the swollen flesh. Daubrecq +gave a start. +“That’ll do, Sébastiani,” said the marquis. “Our friend seems +favourably disposed and understands the need for coming to terms. +That’s so, Daubrecq, is it not? You prefer to have done with it? +And you’re quite right!” +The two men were leaning over the sufferer, Sébastiani with his +hand on the stick, d’Albufex holding the lamp so as to throw the +light on Daubrecq’s face: “His lips are moving . . . he’s going +to speak. Loosen the rope a little, Sébastiani: I don’t want our +friend to be hurt.... No, tighten it: I believe our friend is +hesitating.... One turn more . . . stop!... That’s done it! Oh, my +dear Daubrecq, if you can’t speak plainer than that, it’s no use! +What? What did you say?” +Arsène Lupin muttered an oath. Daubrecq was speaking and he, Lupin, +could not hear a word of what he said! In vain, he pricked up his +ears, suppressed the beating of his heart and the throbbing of his +temples: not a sound reached him. +“Confound it!” he thought. “I never expected this. What am I to do?” +He was within an ace of covering Daubrecq with his revolver and +putting a bullet into him which would cut short any explanation. +But he reflected that he himself would then be none the wiser and +that it was better to trust to events in the hope of making the +most of them. +Meanwhile the confession continued beneath him, indistinctly, +interrupted by silences and mingled with moans. D’Albufex clung to +his prey: +“Go on!... Finish, can’t you?...” +And he punctuated the sentences with exclamations of approval: +“Good!... Capital!... Oh, how funny!... And no one suspected?... +Not even Prasville?... What an ass!... Loosen a bit, Sébastiani: +don’t you see that our friend is out of breath?... Keep calm, +Daubrecq . . . don’t tire yourself.... And so, my dear fellow, you +were saying....” +That was the last. There was a long whispering to which d’Albufex +listened without further interruption and of which Arsène Lupin +could not catch the least syllable. Then the marquis drew himself +up and exclaimed, joyfully: +“That’s it!.... Thank you, Daubrecq. And, believe me, I shall +never forget what you have just done. If ever you’re in need, you +have only to knock at my door and there will always be a crust of +bread for you in the kitchen and a glass of water from the filter. +Sébastiani, look after monsieur le député as if he were one of +your sons. And, first of all, release him from his bonds. It’s a +heartless thing to truss one’s fellow-man like that, like a chicken +on the spit!” +“Shall we give him something to drink?” suggested the huntsman. +“Yes, that’s it, give him a drink.” +Sébastiani and his sons undid the leather straps, rubbed the +bruised wrists, dressed them with an ointment and bandaged them. +Then Daubrecq swallowed a few drops of brandy. +“Feeling better?” said the marquis. “Pooh, it’s nothing much! In +a few hours, it won’t show; and you’ll be able to boast of having +been tortured, as in the good old days of the Inquisition. You +lucky dog!” +He took out his watch. “Enough said! Sébastiani, let your sons +watch him in turns. You, take me to the station for the last train.” +“Then are we to leave him like that, monsieur le marquis, free to +move as he pleases?” +“Why not? You don’t imagine that we are going to keep him here to +the day of his death? No, Daubrecq, sleep quietly. I shall go to +your place to-morrow afternoon; and, if the document is where you +told me, a telegram shall be sent off at once and you shall be set +free. You haven’t told me a lie, I suppose?” +He went back to Daubrecq and, stooping over him again: +“No humbug, eh? That would be very silly of you. I should lose a +day, that’s all. Whereas you would lose all the days that remain to +you to live. But no, the hiding-place is too good. A fellow doesn’t +invent a thing like that for fun. Come on, Sébastiani. You shall +have the telegram to-morrow.” +“And suppose they don’t let you into the house, monsieur le +marquis?” +“Why shouldn’t they?” +“The house in the Square Lamartine is occupied by Prasville’s men.” +“Don’t worry, Sébastiani. I shall get in. If they don’t open the +door, there’s always the window. And, if the window won’t open, +I shall arrange with one of Prasville’s men. It’s a question of +money, that’s all. And, thank goodness, I shan’t be short of that, +henceforth! Good-night, Daubrecq.” +He went out, accompanied by Sébastiani, and the heavy door closed +after them. +Lupin at once effected his retreat, in accordance with a plan which +he had worked out during this scene. +The plan was simple enough: to scramble, by means of his rope, +to the bottom of the cliff, take his friends with him, jump into +the motor-car and attack d’Albufex and Sébastiani on the deserted +road that leads to Aumale Station. There could be no doubt about +the issue of the contest. With d’Albufex and Sébastiani prisoners; +it would be an easy matter to make one of them speak. D’Albufex +had shown him how to set about it; and Clarisse Mergy would be +inflexible where it was a question of saving her son. +He took the rope with which he had provided himself and groped +about to find a jagged piece of rock round which to pass it, so +as to leave two equal lengths hanging, by which he could let +himself down. But, when he found what he wanted, instead of +acting swiftly--for the business was urgent--he stood motionless, +thinking. His scheme failed to satisfy him at the last moment. +“It’s absurd, what I’m proposing,” he said to himself. “Absurd and +illogical. How can I tell that d’Albufex and Sébastiani will not +escape me? How can I even tell that, once they are in my power, +they will speak? No, I shall stay. There are better things to +try . . . much better things. It’s not those two I must be at, but +Daubrecq. He’s done for; he has not a kick left in him. If he has +told the marquis his secret, there is no reason why he shouldn’t +tell it to Clarisse and me, when we employ the same methods. +That’s settled! We’ll kidnap the Daubrecq bird.” And he continued, +“Besides, what do I risk? If the scheme miscarries, Clarisse and +I will rush off to Paris and, together with Prasville, organize a +careful watch in the Square Lamartine to prevent d’Albufex from +benefiting by Daubrecq’s revelations. The great thing is for +Prasville to be warned of the danger. He shall be.” +The church-clock in a neighbouring village struck twelve. That gave +Lupin six or seven hours to put his new plan into execution. He set +to work forthwith. +When moving away from the embrasure which had the window at the +bottom of it, he had come upon a clump of small shrubs in one of +the hollows of the cliff. He cut away a dozen of these, with his +knife, and whittled them all down to the same size. Then he cut off +two equal lengths from his rope. These were the uprights of the +ladder. He fastened the twelve little sticks between the uprights +and thus contrived a rope-ladder about six yards long. +When he returned to this post, there was only one of the three sons +beside Daubrecq’s bed in the torture-chamber. He was smoking his +pipe by the lamp. Daubrecq was asleep. +“Hang it!” thought Lupin. “Is the fellow going to sit there all +night? In that case, there’s nothing for me to do but to slip +off....” +The idea that d’Albufex was in possession of the secret vexed him +mightily. The interview at which he had assisted had left the clear +impression in his mind that the marquis was working “on his own” +and that, in securing the list, he intended not only to escape +Daubrecq’s activity, but also to gain Daubrecq’s power and build up +his fortune anew by the identical means which Daubrecq had employed. +That would have meant, for Lupin, a fresh battle to wage against +a fresh enemy. The rapid march of events did not allow of the +contemplation of such a possibility. He must at all costs spike the +Marquis d’Albufex’ guns by warning Prasville. +However, Lupin remained held back by the stubborn hope of some +incident that would give him the opportunity of acting. +The clock struck half-past twelve. +It struck one. +The waiting became terrible, all the more so as an icy mist rose +from the valley and Lupin felt the cold penetrate to his very +marrow. +He heard the trot of a horse in the distance: +“Sébastiani returning from the station,” he thought. +But the son who was watching in the torture-chamber, having +finished his packet of tobacco, opened the door and asked his +brothers if they had a pipeful for him. They made some reply; and +he went out to go to the lodge. +And Lupin was astounded. No sooner was the door closed than +Daubrecq, who had been so sound asleep, sat up on his couch, +listened, put one foot to the ground, followed by the other, and, +standing up, tottering a little, but firmer on his legs than one +would have expected, tried his strength. +“Well” said Lupin, “the beggar doesn’t take long recovering. He +can very well help in his own escape. There’s just one point that +ruffles me: will he allow himself to be convinced? Will he consent +to go with me? Will he not think that this miraculous assistance +which comes to him straight from heaven is a trap laid by the +marquis?” +But suddenly Lupin remembered the letter which he had made +Daubrecq’s old cousins write, the letter of recommendation, so to +speak, which the elder of the two sisters Rousselot had signed with +her Christian name, Euphrasie. +It was in his pocket. He took it and listened. Not a sound, except +the faint noise of Daubrecq’s footsteps on the flagstones. Lupin +considered that the moment had come. He thrust his arm through the +bars and threw the letter in. +Daubrecq seemed thunderstruck. +The letter had fluttered through the room and lay on the floor, at +three steps from him. Where did it come from? He raised his head +toward the window and tried to pierce the darkness that hid all +the upper part of the room from his eyes. Then he looked at the +envelope, without yet daring to touch it, as though he dreaded +a snare. Then, suddenly, after a glance at the door, he stooped +briskly, seized the envelope and opened it. +“Ah,” he said, with a sigh of delight, when he saw the signature. +He read the letter half-aloud: +“Rely implicitly on the bearer of this note. He has succeeded +in discovering the marquis’ secret, with the money which we +gave him, and has contrived a plan of escape. Everything is +prepared for your flight. +“EUPHRASIE ROUSSELOT.” +He read the letter again, repeated, “Euphrasie.... Euphrasie....” +and raised his head once more. +Lupin whispered: +“It will take me two or three hours to file through one of the +bars. Are Sébastiani and his sons coming back?” +“Yes, they are sure to,” replied Daubrecq, in the same low voice, +“but I expect they will leave me to myself.” +“But they sleep next door?” +“Yes.” +“Won’t they hear?” +“No, the door is too thick.” +“Very well. In that case, it will soon be done. I have a +rope-ladder. Will you be able to climb up alone, without my +assistance?” +“I think so.... I’ll try.... It’s my wrists that they’ve broken.... +Oh, the brutes! I can hardly move my hands . . . and I have very +little strength left. But I’ll try all the same . . . needs +must....” +He stopped, listened and, with his finger to his mouth, whispered: +“Hush!” +When Sébastiani and his sons entered the room, Daubrecq, who had +hidden the letter and lain down on his bed, pretended to wake with +a start. +The huntsman brought him a bottle of wine, a glass and some food: +“How goes it, monsieur le député?” he cried. “Well, perhaps we did +squeeze a little hard.... It’s very painful, that thumbscrewing. +Seems they often did it at the time of the Great Revolution and +Bonaparte . . . in the days of the _chauffeurs_.[C] A pretty +invention! Nice and clean . . . no bloodshed.... And it didn’t +last long either! In twenty minutes, you came out with the missing +word!” Sébastiani burst out laughing. “By the way, monsieur le +député, my congratulations! A capital hiding-place. Who would ever +suspect it?... You see, what put us off, monsieur le marquis and +me, was that name of Marie which you let out at first. You weren’t +telling a lie; but there you are, you know: the word was only +half-finished. We had to know the rest. Say what you like, it’s +amusing! Just think, on your study-table! Upon my word, what a +joke!” +The huntsman rose and walked up and down the room, rubbing his +hands: +“Monsieur le marquis is jolly well pleased, so pleased, in fact, +that he himself is coming to-morrow evening to let you out. Yes, he +has thought it over; there will be a few formalities: you may have +to sign a cheque or two, stump up, what, and make good monsieur le +marquis’ expense and trouble. But what’s that to you? A trifle! +Not to mention that, from now on, there will be no more chains, no +more straps round your wrists; in short, you will be treated like +a king! And I’ve even been told--look here!--to allow you a good +bottle of old wine and a flask of brandy.” +Sébastiani let fly a few more jests, then took the lamp, made a +last examination of the room and said to his sons: +“Let’s leave him to sleep. You also, take a rest, all three of you. +But sleep with one eye open. One never can tell....” They withdrew. +Lupin waited a little longer and asked, in a low voice: +“Can I begin?” +“Yes, but be careful. It’s not impossible that they may go on a +round in an hour or two.” +Lupin set to work. He had a very powerful file; and the iron of +the bars, rusted and gnawed away by time, was, in places, almost +reduced to dust. Twice Lupin stopped to listen, with ears pricked +up. But it was only the patter of a rat over the rubbish in the +upper story, or the flight of some night-bird; and he continued his +task, encouraged by Daubrecq, who stood by the door, ready to warn +him at the least alarm. +“Oof!” he said, giving a last stroke of the file. “I’m glad that’s +over, for, on my word, I’ve been a bit cramped in this cursed +tunnel . . . to say nothing of the cold....” +He bore with all his strength upon the bar, which he had sawn from +below, and succeeded in forcing it down sufficiently for a man’s +body to slip between the two remaining bars. Next, he had to go +back to the end of the embrasure, the wider part, where he had left +the rope-ladder. After fixing it to the bars, he called Daubrecq: +“Psst!... It’s all right.... Are you ready?” +“Yes . . . coming.... One more second, while I listen.... All +right.... They’re asleep.... give me the ladder.” +Lupin lowered it and asked: +“Must I come down?” +“No.... I feel a little weak . . . but I shall manage.” +Indeed, he reached the window of the embrasure pretty quickly and +crept along the passage in the wake of his rescuer. The open air, +however, seemed to make him giddy. Also, to give himself strength, +he had drunk half the bottle of wine; and he had a fainting-fit +that kept him lying on the stones of the embrasure for half an +hour. Lupin, losing patience, was fastening him to one end of the +rope, of which the other end was knotted round the bars and was +preparing to let him down like a bale of goods, when Daubrecq woke +up, in better condition: +“That’s over,” he said. “I feel fit now. Will it take long?” +“Pretty long. We are a hundred and fifty yards up.” +“How was it that d’Albufex did not foresee that it was possible to +escape this way?” +“The cliff is perpendicular.” +“And you were able to....” +“Well, your cousins insisted.... And then one has to live, you +know, and they were free with their money.” +“The dear, good souls!” said Daubrecq. “Where are they?” +“Down below, in a boat.” +“Is there a river, then?” +“Yes, but we won’t talk, if you don’t mind. It’s dangerous.” +“One word more. Had you been there long when you threw me the +letter?” +“No, no. A quarter of an hour or so. I’ll tell you all about it.... +Meanwhile, we must hurry.” +Lupin went first, after recommending Daubrecq to hold tight to the +rope and to come down backward. He would give him a hand at the +difficult places. +It took them over forty minutes to reach the platform of the ledge +formed by the cliff; and Lupin had several times to help his +companion, whose wrists, still bruised from the torture, had lost +all their strength and suppleness. +Over and over again, he groaned: +“Oh, the swine, they’ve done for me!... The swine!... Ah, +d’Albufex, I’ll make you pay dear for this!...” +“Ssh!” said Lupin. +“What’s the matter?” +“A noise . . . up above....” +Standing motionless on the platform, they listened. Lupin thought +of the Sire de Tancarville and the sentry who had killed him with +a shot from his harquebus. He shivered, feeling all the anguish of +the silence and the darkness. +“No,” he said, “I was mistaken.... Besides, it’s absurd.... They +can’t hit us here.” +“Who would hit us?” +“No one . . . no one... it was a silly notion....�� +He groped about till he found the uprights of the ladder; then he +said: +“There, here’s the ladder. It is fixed in the bed of the river. A +friend of mine is looking after it, as well as your cousins.” +He whistled: +“Here I am,” he said, in a low voice. “Hold the ladder fast.” And, +to Daubrecq, “I’ll go first.” +Daubrecq objected: +“Perhaps it would be better for me to go down first.” +“Why?” +“I am very tired. You can tie your rope round my waist and hold +me.... Otherwise, there is a danger that I might....” +“Yes, you are right,” said Lupin. “Come nearer.” +Daubrecq came nearer and knelt down on the rock. Lupin fastened the +rope to him and then, stooping over, grasped one of the uprights in +both hands to keep the ladder from shaking: +“Off you go,” he said. +At the same moment, he felt a violent pain in the shoulder: +“Blast it!” he said, sinking to the ground. +Daubrecq had stabbed him with a knife below the nape of the neck, a +little to the right. +“You blackguard! You blackguard!” +He half-saw Daubrecq, in the dark, ridding himself of his rope, and +heard him whisper: +“You’re a bit of a fool, you know!... You bring me a letter +from my Rousselot cousins, in which I recognize the writing of +the elder, Adelaide, but which that sly puss of an Adelaide, +suspecting something and meaning to put me on my guard, if +necessary, took care to sign with the name of the younger sister, +Euphrasie Rousselot. You see, I tumbled to it! So, with a little +reflection . . . you are Master Arsène Lupin, are you not? +Clarisse’s protector, Gilbert’s saviour.... Poor Lupin, I fear +you’re in a bad way.... I don’t use the knife often; but, when I +do, I use it with a vengeance.” +He bent over the wounded man and felt in his pockets: +“Give me your revolver, can’t you? You see, your friends will know +at once that it is not their governor; and they will try to secure +me.... And, as I have not much strength left, a bullet or two.... +Good-bye, Lupin. We shall meet in the next world, eh? Book me a +nice flat, with all the latest conveniences. +“Good-bye, Lupin. And my best thanks. For really I don’t know what +I should have done without you. By Jove, d’Albufex was hitting me +hard! It’ll be a joke to meet the beggar again!” +Daubrecq had completed his preparations. He whistled once more. A +reply came from the boat. +“Here I am,” he said. +With a last effort, Lupin put out his arm to stop him. But his +hand touched nothing but space. He tried to call out, to warn his +accomplices: his voice choked in his throat. +He felt a terrible numbness creep over his whole being. His temples +buzzed. +Suddenly, shouts below. Then a shot. Then another, followed by a +triumphant chuckle. And a woman’s wail and moans. And, soon after, +two more shots. +Lupin thought of Clarisse, wounded, dead perhaps; of Daubrecq, +fleeing victoriously; of d’Albufex; of the crystal stopper, which +one or other of the two adversaries would recover unresisted. Then +a sudden vision showed him the Sire de Tancarville falling with the +woman he loved. Then he murmured, time after time: +“Clarisse.... Clarisse.... Gilbert....” A great silence overcame +him; an infinite peace entered into him; and, without the least +revolt, he received the impression that his exhausted body, with +nothing now to hold it back, was rolling to the very edge of the +rock, toward the abyss. +[C] The name given to the brigands in the Vendée, who tortured +their victims with fire to make them confess where their money was +hidden.--_Translator’s Note._ +CHAPTER IX. +IN THE DARK +An hotel bedroom at Amiens. +Lupin was recovering a little consciousness for the first time. +Clarisse and the Masher were seated by his bedside. +Both were talking; and Lupin listened to them, without opening his +eyes. He learned that they had feared for his life, but that all +danger was now removed. Next, in the course of the conversation, he +caught certain words that revealed to him what had happened in the +tragic night at Mortepierre: Daubrecq’s descent; the dismay of the +accomplices, when they saw that it was not the governor; then the +short struggle: Clarisse flinging herself on Daubrecq and receiving +a wound in the shoulder; Daubrecq leaping to the bank; the Growler +firing two revolver-shots and darting off in pursuit of him; the +Masher clambering up the ladder and finding the governor in a swoon: +“True as I live,” said the Masher, “I can’t make out even now how +he did not roll over. There was a sort of hollow at that place, but +it was a sloping hollow; and, half dead as he was, he must have +hung on with his ten fingers. Crikey, it was time I came!” +Lupin listened, listened in despair. He collected his strength to +grasp and understand the words. But suddenly a terrible sentence +was uttered: Clarisse, weeping, spoke of the eighteen days that had +elapsed, eighteen more days lost to Gilbert’s safety. +Eighteen days! The figure terrified Lupin. He felt that all was +over, that he would never be able to recover his strength and +resume the struggle and that Gilbert and Vaucheray were doomed.... +His brain slipped away from him. The fever returned and the +delirium. +* * * * * +And more days came and went. It was perhaps the time of his life +of which Lupin speaks with the greatest horror. He retained just +enough consciousness and had sufficiently lucid moments to realize +the position exactly. But he was not able to coordinate his ideas, +to follow a line of argument nor to instruct or forbid his friends +to adopt this or that line of conduct. +Often, when he emerged from his torpor, he found his hand in +Clarisse’s and, in that half-slumbering condition in which a fever +keeps you, he would address strange words to her, words of love and +passion, imploring her and thanking her and blessing her for all +the light and joy which she had brought into his darkness. +Then, growing calmer and not fully understanding what he had said, +he tried to jest: +“I have been delirious, have I not? What a heap of nonsense I must +have talked!” +But Lupin felt by Clarisse’s silence that he could safely talk +as much nonsense as ever his fever suggested to him. She did not +hear. The care and attention which she lavished on the patient, her +devotion, her vigilance, her alarm at the least relapse: all this +was meant not for him, but for the possible saviour of Gilbert. She +anxiously watched the progress of his convalescence. How soon would +he be fit to resume the campaign? Was it not madness to linger by +his side, when every day carried away a little hope? +Lupin never ceased repeating to himself, with the inward belief +that, by so doing, he could influence the course of his illness: +“I will get well.... I will get well....” +And he lay for days on end without moving, so as not to disturb the +dressing of his wound nor increase the excitement of his nerves in +the smallest degree. +He also strove not to think of Daubrecq. But the image of his dire +adversary haunted him; and he reconstituted the various phases +of the escape, the descent of the cliff.... One day, struck by a +terrible memory, he exclaimed: +“The list! The list of the Twenty-seven! Daubrecq must have it by +now . . . or else d’Albufex. It was on the table!” +Clarisse reassured him: +“No one can have taken it,” she declared. “The Growler was in Paris +that same day, with a note from me for Prasville, entreating him to +redouble his watch in the Square Lamartine, so that no one should +enter, especially d’Albufex....” +“But Daubrecq?” +“He is wounded. He cannot have gone home.” +“Ah, well,” he said, “that’s all right!... But you too were +wounded....” +“A mere scratch on the shoulder.” +Lupin was easier in his mind after these revelations. Nevertheless, +he was pursued by stubborn notions which he was unable either to +drive from his brain or to put into words. Above all, he thought +incessantly of that name of “Marie” which Daubrecq’s sufferings +had drawn from him. What did the name refer to? Was it the title +of one of the books on the shelves, or a part of the title? Would +the book in question supply the key to the mystery? Or was it the +combination word of a safe? Was it a series of letters written +somewhere: on a wall, on a paper, on a wooden panel, on the mount +of a drawing, on an invoice? +These questions, to which he was unable to find a reply, obsessed +and exhausted him. +One morning Arsène Lupin woke feeling a great deal better. The +wound was closed, the temperature almost normal. The doctor, a +personal friend, who came every day from Paris, promised that he +might get up two days later. And, on that day, in the absence of +his accomplices and of Mme. Mergy, all three of whom had left two +days before, in quest of information, he had himself moved to the +open window. +He felt life return to him with the sunlight, with the balmy +air that announced the approach of spring. He recovered the +concatenation of his ideas; and facts once more took their place in +his brain in their logical sequence and in accordance with their +relations one to the other. +In the evening he received a telegram from Clarisse to say that +things were going badly and that she, the Growler and the Masher +were all staying in Paris. He was much disturbed by this wire and +had a less quiet night. What could the news be that had given rise +to Clarisse’s telegram? +But, the next day, she arrived in his room looking very pale, her +eyes red with weeping, and, utterly worn out, dropped into a chair: +“The appeal has been rejected,” she stammered. +He mastered his emotion and asked, in a voice of surprise: +“Were you relying on that?” +“No, no,” she said, “but, all the same . . . one hopes in spite of +one’s self.” +“Was it rejected yesterday?” +“A week ago. The Masher kept it from me; and I have not dared to +read the papers lately.” +“There is always the commutation of sentence,” he suggested. +“The commutation? Do you imagine that they will commute the +sentence of Arsène Lupin’s accomplices?” +She ejaculated the words with a violence and a bitterness which he +pretended not to notice; and he said: +“Vaucheray perhaps not.... But they will take pity on Gilbert, on +his youth....” +“They will do nothing of the sort.” +“How do you know?” +“I have seen his counsel.” +“You have seen his counsel! And you told him....” +“I told him that I was Gilbert’s mother and I asked him whether, +by proclaiming my son’s identity, we could not influence the +result . . . or at least delay it.” +“You would do that?” he whispered. “You would admit....” +“Gilbert’s life comes before everything. What do I care about my +name! What do I care about my husband’s name!” +“And your little Jacques?” he objected. “Have you the right to ruin +Jacques, to make him the brother of a man condemned to death?” +She hung her head. And he resumed: +“What did the counsel say?” +“He said that an act of that sort would not help Gilbert in the +remotest degree. And, in spite of all his protests, I could see +that, as far as he was concerned, he had no illusions left and +that the pardoning commission are bound to find in favour of the +execution.” +“The commission, I grant you; but what of the president of the +Republic?” +“The president always goes by the advice of the commission.” +“He will not do so this time.” +“And why not?” +“Because we shall bring influence to bear upon him.” +“How?” +“By the conditional surrender of the list of the Twenty-seven!” +“Have you it?” +“No, but I shall have it.” +His certainty had not wavered. He made the statement with equal +calmness and faith in the infinite power of his will. +She had lost some part of her confidence in him and she shrugged +her shoulders lightly: +“If d’Albufex has not purloined the list, one man alone can +exercise any influence; one man alone: Daubrecq.” +She spoke these words in a low and absent voice that made him +shudder. Was she still thinking, as he had often seemed to feel, of +going back to Daubrecq and paying him for Gilbert’s life? +“You have sworn an oath to me,” he said. “I’m reminding you of it. +It was agreed that the struggle with Daubrecq should be directed by +me and that there would never be a possibility of any arrangement +between you and him.” +She retorted: +“I don’t even know where he is. If I knew, wouldn’t you know?” +It was an evasive answer. But he did not insist, resolving to watch +her at the opportune time; and he asked her, for he had not yet +been told all the details: +“Then it’s not known what became of Daubrecq?” +“No. Of course, one of the Growler’s bullets struck him. For, next +day, we picked up, in a coppice, a handkerchief covered with blood. +Also, it seems that a man was seen at Aumale Station, looking very +tired and walking with great difficulty. He took a ticket for +Paris, stepped into the first train and that is all....” +“He must be seriously wounded,” said Lupin, “and he is nursing +himself in some safe retreat. Perhaps, also, he considers it wise +to lie low for a few weeks and avoid any traps on the part of the +police, d’Albufex, you, myself and all his other enemies.” +He stopped to think and continued: +“What has happened at Mortepierre since Daubrecq’s escape? Has +there been no talk in the neighbourhood?” +“No, the rope was removed before daybreak, which proves that +Sébastiani or his sons discovered Daubrecq’s flight on the same +night. Sébastiani was away the whole of the next day.” +“Yes, he will have informed the marquis. And where is the marquis +himself?” +“At home. And, from what the Growler has heard, there is nothing +suspicious there either.” +“Are they certain that he has not been inside Daubrecq’s house?” +“As certain as they can be.” +“Nor Daubrecq?” +“Nor Daubrecq.” +“Have you seen Prasville?” +“Prasville is away on leave. But Chief-inspector Blanchon, who has +charge of the case, and the detectives who are guarding the house +declare that, in accordance with Prasville’s instructions, their +watch is not relaxed for a moment, even at night; that one of them, +turn and turn about, is always on duty in the study; and that no +one, therefore, can have gone in.” +“So, on principle,” Arsène Lupin concluded, “the crystal stopper +must still be in Daubrecq’s study?” +“If it was there before Daubrecq’s disappearance, it should be +there now.” +“And on the study-table.” +“On the study-table? Why do you say that?” +“Because I know,” said Lupin, who had not forgotten Sébastiani’s +words. +“But you don’t know the article in which the stopper is hidden?” +“No. But a study-table, a writing-desk, is a limited space. One can +explore it in twenty minutes. One can demolish it, if necessary, in +ten.” +The conversation had tired Arsène Lupin a little. As he did not +wish to commit the least imprudence, he said to Clarisse: +“Listen. I will ask you to give me two or three days more. This is +Monday, the 4th of March. On Wednesday or Thursday, at latest, I +shall be up and about. And you can be sure that we shall succeed.” +“And, in the meantime....” +“In the meantime, go back to Paris. Take rooms, with the Growler +and the Masher, in the Hôtel Franklin, near the Trocadero, and keep +a watch on Daubrecq’s house. You are free to go in and out as you +please. Stimulate the zeal of the detectives on duty.” +“Suppose Daubrecq returns?” +“If he returns, that will be so much the better: we shall have him.” +“And, if he only passes?” +“In that case, the Growler and the Masher must follow him.” +“And if they lose sight of him?” +Lupin did not reply. No one felt more than he how fatal it was to +remain inactive in a hotel bedroom and how useful his presence +would have been on the battlefield! Perhaps even this vague idea +had already prolonged his illness beyond the ordinary limits. +He murmured: +“Go now, please.” +There was a constraint between them which increased as the awful +day drew nigh. In her injustice, forgetting or wishing to forget +that it was she who had forced her son into the Enghien enterprise, +Mme. Mergy did not forget that the law was pursuing Gilbert with +such rigour not so much because he was a criminal as because he +was an accomplice of Arsène Lupin’s. And then, notwithstanding all +his efforts, notwithstanding his prodigious expenditure of energy, +what result had Lupin achieved, when all was said? How far had his +intervention benefited Gilbert? +After a pause, she rose and left him alone. +The next day he was feeling rather low. But on the day after, the +Wednesday, when his doctor wanted him to keep quiet until the end +of the week, he said: +“If not, what have I to fear?” +“A return of the fever.” +“Nothing worse?” +“No. The wound is pretty well healed.” +“Then I don’t care. I’ll go back with you in your car. We shall be +in Paris by mid-day.” +What decided Lupin to start at once was, first, a letter in which +Clarisse told him that she had found Daubrecq’s traces, and, also, +a telegram, published in the Amiens papers, which stated that the +Marquis d’Albufex had been arrested for his complicity in the +affair of the canal. +Daubrecq was taking his revenge. +Now the fact that Daubrecq was taking his revenge proved that the +marquis had not been able to prevent that revenge by seizing the +document which was on the writing-desk in the study. It proved +that Chief-inspector Blanchon and the detectives had kept a good +watch. It proved that the crystal stopper was still in the Square +Lamartine. +It was still there; and this showed either that Daubrecq had not +ventured to go home, or else that his state of health hindered him +from doing so, or else again that he had sufficient confidence in +the hiding-place not to trouble to put himself out. +In any case, there was no doubt as to the course to be pursued: +Lupin must act and he must act smartly. He must forestall Daubrecq +and get hold of the crystal stopper. +When they had crossed the Bois de Boulogne and were nearing the +Square Lamartine, Lupin took leave of the doctor and stopped the +car. The Growler and the Masher, to whom he had wired, met him. +“Where’s Mme. Mergy?” he asked. +“She has not been back since yesterday; she sent us an express +message to say that she saw Daubrecq leaving his cousins’ place and +getting into a cab. She knows the number of the cab and will keep +us informed.” +“Nothing further?” +“Nothing further.” +“No other news?” +“Yes, the _Paris-Midi_ says that d’Albufex opened his veins last +night, with a piece of broken glass, in his cell at the Santé. He +seems to have left a long letter behind him, confessing his fault, +but accusing Daubrecq of his death and exposing the part played by +Daubrecq in the canal affair.” +“Is that all?” +“No. The same paper stated that it has reason to believe that the +pardoning commission, after examining the record, has rejected +Vaucheray and Gilbert’s petition and that their counsel will +probably be received in audience by the president on Friday.” +Lupin gave a shudder. +“They’re losing no time,” he said. “I can see that Daubrecq, on +the very first day, put the screw on the old judicial machine. One +short week more . . . and the knife falls. My poor Gilbert! If, on +Friday next, the papers which your counsel submits to the president +of the Republic do not contain the conditional offer of the list of +the Twenty-seven, then, my poor Gilbert, you are done for!” +“Come, come, governor, are you losing courage?” +“I? Rot! I shall have the crystal stopper in an hour. In two hours, +I shall see Gilbert’s counsel. And the nightmare will be over.” +“Well done, governor! That’s like your old self. Shall we wait for +you here?” +“No, go back to your hotel. I’ll join you later.” +They parted. Lupin walked straight to the house and rang the bell. +A detective opened the door and recognized him: +“M. Nicole, I believe?�� +“Yes,” he said. “Is Chief-inspector Blanchon here?” +“He is.” +“Can I speak to him?” +The man took him to the study, where Chief-inspector Blanchon +welcomed him with obvious pleasure. +“Well, chief-inspector, one would say there was something new?” +“M. Nicole, my orders are to place myself entirely at your +disposal; and I may say that I am very glad to see you to-day.” +“Why so?” +“Because there is something new.” +“Something serious?” +“Something very serious.” +“Quick, speak.” +“Daubrecq has returned.” +“Eh, what!” exclaimed Lupin, with a start. “Daubrecq returned? Is +he here?” +“No, he has gone.” +“And did he come in here, in the study?” +“Yes.” +“This morning.” +“And you did not prevent him?” +“What right had I?” +“And you left him alone?” +“By his positive orders, yes, we left him alone.” +Lupin felt himself turn pale. Daubrecq had come back to fetch the +crystal stopper! +He was silent for some time and repeated to himself: +“He came back to fetch it.... He was afraid that it would be +found and he has taken it.... Of course, it was inevitable . . . +with d’Albufex arrested, with d’Albufex accused and accusing him, +Daubrecq was bound to defend himself. It’s a difficult game for +him. After months and months of mystery, the public is at last +learning that the infernal being who contrived the whole tragedy +of the Twenty-Seven and who ruins and kills his adversaries is he, +Daubrecq. What would become of him if, by a miracle, his talisman +did not protect him? He has taken it back.” +And, trying to make his voice sound firm, he asked: +“Did he stay long?” +“Twenty seconds, perhaps.” +“What! Twenty seconds? No longer?” +“No longer.” +“What time was it?” +“Ten o’clock.” +“Could he have known of the Marquis d’Albufex’ suicide by then?” +“Yes. I saw the special edition of the _Paris-Midi_ in his pocket.” +“That’s it, that’s it,” said Lupin. And he asked, “Did M. Prasville +give you no special instructions in case Daubrecq should return?” +“No. So, in M. Prasville’s absence, I telephoned to the +police-office and I am waiting. The disappearance of Daubrecq the +deputy caused a great stir, as you know, and our presence here has +a reason, in the eyes of the public, as long as that disappearance +continues. But, now that Daubrecq has returned, now that we have +proofs that he is neither under restraint nor dead, how can we stay +in the house?” +“It doesn’t matter,” said Lupin, absently. “It doesn’t matter +whether the house is guarded or not. Daubrecq has been; therefore +the crystal stopper is no longer here.” +He had not finished the sentence, when a question quite naturally +forced itself upon his mind. If the crystal stopper was no longer +there, would this not be obvious from some material sign? Had the +removal of that object, doubtless contained within another object, +left no trace, no void? +It was easy to ascertain. Lupin had simply to examine the +writing-desk, for he knew, from Sébastiani’s chaff, that this was +the spot of the hiding-place. And the hiding-place could not be a +complicated one, seeing that Daubrecq had not remained in the study +for more than twenty seconds, just long enough, so to speak, to +walk in and walk out again. +Lupin looked. And the result was immediate. His memory had +so faithfully recorded the picture of the desk, with all the +articles lying on it, that the absence of one of them struck +him instantaneously, as though that article and that alone were +the characteristic sign which distinguished this particular +writing-table from every other table in the world. +“Oh,” he thought, quivering with delight, “everything fits in! +Everything!... Down to that half-word which the torture drew from +Daubrecq in the tower at Mortepierre! The riddle is solved. There +need be no more hesitation, no more groping in the dark. The end is +in sight.” +And, without answering the inspector’s questions, he thought of the +simplicity of the hiding-place and remembered Edgar Allan Poe’s +wonderful story in which the stolen letter, so eagerly sought for, +is, in a manner of speaking, displayed to all eyes. People do not +suspect what does not appear to be hidden. +“Well, well,” said Lupin, as he went out, greatly excited by his +discovery, “I seem doomed, in this confounded adventure, to knock +up against disappointments to the finish. Everything that I build +crumbles to pieces at once. Every victory ends in disaster.” +Nevertheless, he did not allow himself to be cast down. On the +one hand, he now knew where Daubrecq the deputy hid the crystal +stopper. On the other hand, he would soon learn from Clarisse Mergy +where Daubrecq himself was lurking. The rest, to him, would be +child’s play. +The Growler and the Masher were waiting for him in the drawing-room +of the Hôtel Franklin, a small family-hotel near the Trocadero. +Mme. Mergy had not yet written to him. +“Oh,” he said, “I can trust her! She will hang on to Daubrecq until +she is certain.” +However, toward the end of the afternoon, he began to grow +impatient and anxious. He was fighting one of those battles--the +last, he hoped--in which the least delay might jeopardize +everything. If Daubrecq threw Mme. Mergy off the scent, how was he +to be caught again? They no longer had weeks or days, but only a +few hours, a terribly limited number of hours, in which to repair +any mistakes that they might commit. +He saw the proprietor of the hotel and asked him: +“Are you sure that there is no express letter for my two friends?” +“Quite sure, sir.” +“Nor for me, M. Nicole?” +“No, sir.” +“That’s curious,” said Lupin. “We were certain that we should hear +from Mme. Audran.” +Audran was the name under which Clarisse was staying at the hotel. +“But the lady has been,” said the proprietor. +“What’s that?” +“She came some time ago and, as the gentlemen were not there, left +a letter in her room. Didn’t the porter tell you?” +Lupin and his friends hurried upstairs. There was a letter on the +table. +“Hullo!” said Lupin. “It’s been opened! How is that? And why has it +been cut about with scissors?” +The letter contained the following lines: +“Daubrecq has spent the week at the Hôtel Central. This morning +he had his luggage taken to the Gare de ---- and telephoned to +reserve a berth in the sleeping-car ---- for ---- +“I do not know when the train starts. But I shall be at the +station all the afternoon. Come as soon as you can, all three +of you. We will arrange to kidnap him.” +“What next?” said the Masher. “At which station? And where’s the +sleeping-car for? She has cut out just the words we wanted!” +“Yes,” said the Growler. “Two snips with the scissors in each +place; and the words which we most want are gone. Who ever saw such +a thing? Has Mme. Mergy lost her head?” +Lupin did not move. A rush of blood was beating at his temples with +such violence that he glued his fists to them and pressed with all +his might. His fever returned, burning and riotous, and his will, +incensed to the verge of physical suffering, concentrated itself +upon that stealthy enemy, which must be controlled then and there, +if he himself did not wish to be irretrievably beaten. +He muttered, very calmly: +“Daubrecq has been here.” +“Daubrecq!” +“We can’t suppose that Mme. Mergy has been amusing herself by +cutting out those two words. Daubrecq has been here. Mme. Mergy +thought that she was watching him. He was watching her instead.” +“How?” +“Doubtless through that hall-porter who did not tell us that Mme. +Mergy had been to the hotel, but who must have told Daubrecq. +He came. He read the letter. And, by way of getting at us, he +contented himself with cutting out the essential words.” +“We can find out . . . we can ask....” +“What’s the good? What’s the use of finding out how he came, when +we know that he did come?” +He examined the letter for some time, turned it over and over, then +stood up and said: +“Come along.” +“Where to?” +“Gare de Lyon.” +“Are you sure?” +“I am sure of nothing with Daubrecq. But, as we have to choose, +according to the contents of the letter, between the Gare _de_ +l’Est and the Gare _de_ Lyon, [D] I am presuming that his business, +his pleasure and his health are more likely to take Daubrecq in the +direction of Marseilles and the Riviera than to the Gare de l’Est.” +It was past seven when Lupin and his companions left the Hôtel +Franklin. A motor-car took them across Paris at full speed, but +they soon saw that Clarisse Mergy was not outside the station, nor +in the waiting-rooms, nor on any of the platforms. +“Still,” muttered Lupin, whose agitation grew as the obstacles +increased, “still, if Daubrecq booked a berth in a sleeping-car, it +can only have been in an evening train. And it is barely half-past +seven!” +A train was starting, the night express. They had time to rush +along the corridor. Nobody . . . neither Mme. Mergy nor Daubrecq.... +But, as they were all three going, a porter accosted them near the +refreshment-room: +“Is one of you gentlemen looking for a lady?” +“Yes, yes, . . . I am,” said Lupin. “Quick, what is it?” +“Oh, it’s you, sir! The lady told me there might be three of you or +two of you.... And I didn’t know....” +“But, in heaven’s name, speak, man! What lady?” +“The lady who spent the whole day on the pavement, with the +luggage, waiting.” +“Well, out with it! Has she taken a train?” +“Yes, the _train-de-luxe_, at six-thirty: she made up her mind at +the last moment, she told me to say. And I was also to say that the +gentleman was in the same train and that they were going to Monte +Carlo.” +“Damn it!” muttered Lupin. “We ought to have taken the express just +now! There’s nothing left but the evening trains, and they crawl! +We’ve lost over three hours.” +The wait seemed interminable. They booked their seats. They +telephoned to the proprietor of the Hôtel Franklin to send on their +letters to Monte Carlo. They dined. They read the papers. At last, +at half-past nine, the train started. +And so, by a really tragic series of circumstances, at the most +critical moment of the contest, Lupin was turning his back on the +battlefield and going away, at haphazard, to seek, he knew not +where, and beat, he knew not how, the most formidable and elusive +enemy that he had ever fought. +And this was happening four days, five days at most, before the +inevitable execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray. +It was a bad and painful night for Lupin. The more he studied the +situation the more terrible it appeared to him. On every side he +was faced with uncertainty, darkness, confusion, helplessness. +True, he knew the secret of the crystal stopper. But how was he to +know that Daubrecq would not change or had not already changed his +tactics? How was he to know that the list of the Twenty-seven was +still inside that crystal stopper or that the crystal stopper was +still inside the object where Daubrecq had first hidden it? +And there was a further serious reason for alarm in the fact that +Clarisse Mergy thought that she was shadowing and watching Daubrecq +at a time when, on the contrary, Daubrecq was watching her, having +her shadowed and dragging her, with diabolical cleverness, toward +the places selected by himself, far from all help or hope of help. +Oh, Daubrecq’s game was clear as daylight! Did not Lupin know the +unhappy woman’s hesitations? Did he not know--and the Growler and +the Masher confirmed it most positively--that Clarisse looked +upon the infamous bargain planned by Daubrecq in the light of a +possible, an acceptable thing? In that case, how could he, Lupin, +succeed? The logic of events, so powerfully moulded by Daubrecq, +led to a fatal result: the mother must sacrifice herself and, to +save her son, throw her scruples, her repugnance, her very honour, +to the winds! +“Oh, you scoundrel!” snarled Lupin, in a fit of rage. “If I get +hold of you, I’ll make you dance to a pretty tune! I wouldn’t be in +your shoes for a great deal, when that happens.” +They reached Monte Carlo at three o’clock in the afternoon. Lupin +was at once disappointed not to see Clarisse on the platform at the +station. +He waited. No messenger came up to him. +He asked the porters and ticket-collectors if they had noticed, +among the crowd, two travellers answering to the description of +Daubrecq and Clarisse. They had not. +He had, therefore, to set to work and hunt through all the hotels +and lodging-houses in the principality. Oh, the time wasted! +By the following evening, Lupin knew, beyond a doubt, that Daubrecq +and Clarisse were not at Monte Carlo, nor at Monaco, nor at the Cap +d’Ail, nor at La Turbie, nor at Cap Martin. +“Where can they be then?” he wondered, trembling with rage. +At last, on the Saturday, he received, at the _poste restante_, a +telegram which had been readdressed from the Hôtel Franklin and +which said: +“He got out at Cannes and is going on to San Remo, Hôtel Palace +des Ambassadeurs. +“CLARISSE.” +The telegram was dated the day before. +“Hang it!” exclaimed Lupin. “They passed through Monte Carlo. One +of us ought to have remained at the station. I did think of it; +but, in the midst of all that bustle....” +Lupin and his friends took the first train for Italy. +They crossed the frontier at twelve o’clock. The train entered the +station at San Remo at twelve-forty. +They at once saw an hotel-porter, with “Ambassadeurs-Palace” on +his braided cap, who seemed to be looking for some one among the +arrivals. +Lupin went up to him: +“Are you looking for M. Nicole?” +“Yes, M. Nicole and two gentlemen.” +“From a lady?” +“Yes, Mme. Mergy.” +“Is she staying at your hotel?” +“No. She did not get out. She beckoned to me, described you three +gentlemen and told me to say that she was going on to Genoa, to the +Hôtel Continental.” +“Was she by herself?” +“Yes.” +Lupin tipped the man, dismissed him and turned to his friends: +“This is Saturday. If the execution takes place on Monday, there’s +nothing to be done. But Monday is not a likely day.... What I have +to do is to lay hands on Daubrecq to-night and to be in Paris on +Monday, with the document. It’s our last chance. Let’s take it.” +The Growler went to the booking-office and returned with three +tickets for Genoa. +The engine whistled. +Lupin had a last hesitation: +“No, really, it’s too childish! What are we doing? We ought to be +in Paris, not here!... Just think!...” +He was on the point of opening the door and jumping out on the +permanent way. But his companions held him back. The train started. +He sat down again. +And they continued their mad pursuit, travelling at random, toward +the unknown.... +And this happened two days before the inevitable execution of +Gilbert and Vaucheray. +[D] These are the only two main-line stations in Paris with +the word _de_ in their name. The others have _du_, as the Gare +du Nord or the Gare du Luxembourg, d’ as the Gare d’Orleans, +or no participle at all, as the Gare Saint-Lazare or the Gare +Montparnasse.--_Translator’s Note._ +CHAPTER X. +EXTRA-DRY? +On one of the hills that girdle Nice with the finest scenery in +the world, between the Vallon de Saint-Silvestre and the Vallon +de La Mantéga, stands a huge hotel which overlooks the town and +the wonderful Baie des Anges. A crowd flocks to it from all parts, +forming a medley of every class and nation. +On the evening of the same Saturday when Lupin, the Growler and +the Masher were plunging into Italy, Clarisse Mergy entered this +hotel, asked for a bedroom facing south and selected No. 130, on +the second floor, a room which had been vacant since that morning. +The room was separated from No. 129 by two partition-doors. As soon +as she was alone, Clarisse pulled back the curtain that concealed +the first door, noiselessly drew the bolt and put her ear to the +second door: +“He is here,” she thought. “He is dressing to go to the club . . . +as he did yesterday.” +When her neighbour had gone, she went into the passage and, +availing herself of a moment when there was no one in sight, walked +up to the door of No. 129. The door was locked. +She waited all the evening for her neighbour’s return and did not +go to bed until two o’clock. On Sunday morning, she resumed her +watch. +The neighbour went out at eleven. This time he left the key in the +door. +Hurriedly turning the key, Clarisse entered boldly, went to the +partition-door, raised the curtain, drew the bolt and found herself +in her own room. +In a few minutes, she heard two chambermaids doing the room in No. +129. +She waited until they were gone. Then, feeling sure that she would +not be disturbed, she once more slipped into the other room. +Her excitement made her lean against a chair. After days and nights +of stubborn pursuit, after alternate hopes and disappointments, +she had at last succeeded in entering a room occupied by Daubrecq. +She could look about at her ease; and, if she did not discover the +crystal stopper, she could at least hide in the space between the +partition-doors, behind the hanging, see Daubrecq, spy upon his +movements and surprise his secret. +She looked around her. A travelling-bag at once caught her +attention. She managed to open it; but her search was useless. +She ransacked the trays of a trunk and the compartments of a +portmanteau. She searched the wardrobe, the writing-table, the +chest of drawers, the bathroom, all the tables, all the furniture. +She found nothing. +She gave a start when she saw a scrap of paper on the balcony, +lying as though flung there by accident: +“Can it be a trick of Daubrecq’s?” she thought, out loud. “Can that +scrap of paper contain....” +“No,” said a voice behind her, as she put her hand on the latch. +She turned and saw Daubrecq. +She felt neither astonishment nor alarm, nor even any embarrassment +at finding herself face to face with him. She had suffered too +deeply for months to trouble about what Daubrecq could think of her +or say, at catching her in the act of spying. +She sat down wearily. +He grinned: +“No, you’re out of it, dear friend. As the children say, you’re not +‘burning’ at all. Oh, not a bit of it! And it’s so easy! Shall I +help you? It’s next to you, dear friend, on that little table.... +And yet, by Jove, there’s not much on that little table! Something +to read, something to write with, something to smoke, something +to eat . . . and that’s all.... Will you have one of these +candied fruits?... Or perhaps you would rather wait for the more +substantial meal which I have ordered?” +Clarisse made no reply. She did not even seem to listen to what he +was saying, as though she expected other words, more serious words, +which he could not fail to utter. +He cleared the table of all the things that lay upon it and put +them on the mantel-piece. Then he rang the bell. +A head-waiter appeared. Daubrecq asked: +“Is the lunch which I ordered ready?” +“Yes, sir.” +“It’s for two, isn’t it?” +“Yes, sir.” +“And the champagne?” +“Yes, sir.” +“Extra-dry?” +“Yes, sir.” +Another waiter brought a tray and laid two covers on the table: a +cold lunch, some fruit and a bottle of champagne in an ice-pail. +Then the two waiters withdrew. +“Sit down, dear lady. As you see, I was thinking of you and your +cover is laid.” +And, without seeming to observe that Clarisse was not at all +prepared to do honour to his invitation, he sat down, began to eat +and continued: +“Yes, upon my word, I hoped that you would end by consenting to +this little private meeting. During the past week, while you +were keeping so assiduous a watch upon me, I did nothing but say +to myself, ‘I wonder which she prefers: sweet champagne, dry +champagne, or extra-dry?’ I was really puzzled. Especially after +our departure from Paris. I had lost your tracks, that is to say, +I feared that you had lost mine and abandoned the pursuit which +was so gratifying to me. When I went for a walk, I missed your +beautiful dark eyes, gleaming with hatred under your hair just +touched with gray. But, this morning, I understood: the room next +to mine was empty at last; and my friend Clarisse was able to take +up her quarters, so to speak, by my bedside. From that moment I was +reassured. I felt certain that, on coming back--instead of lunching +in the restaurant as usual--I should find you arranging my things +to your convenience and suiting your own taste. That was why I +ordered two covers: one for your humble servant, the other for his +fair friend.” +She was listening to him now and in the greatest terror. So +Daubrecq knew that he was spied upon! For a whole week he had seen +through her and all her schemes! +In a low voice, anxious-eyed, she asked: +“You did it on purpose, did you not? You only went away to drag me +with you?” +“Yes,” he said. +“But why? Why?” +“Do you mean to say that you don’t know?” retorted Daubrecq, +laughing with a little cluck of delight. +She half-rose from her chair and, bending toward him, thought, as +she thought each time, of the murder which she could commit, of the +murder which she would commit. One revolver-shot and the odious +brute was done for. +Slowly her hand glided to the weapon concealed in her bodice. +Daubrecq said: +“One second, dear friend.... You can shoot presently; but I beg you +first to read this wire which I have just received.” +She hesitated, not knowing what trap he was laying for her; but he +went on, as he produced a telegram: +“It’s about your son.” +“Gilbert?” she asked, greatly concerned. +“Yes, Gilbert.... Here, read it.” +She gave a yell of dismay. She had read: +“Execution on Tuesday morning.” +And she at once flung herself on Daubrecq, crying: +“It’s not true!... It’s a lie . . . to madden me.... Oh, I know +you: you are capable of anything! Confess! It won’t be on Tuesday, +will it? In two days! No, no.... I tell you, we have four days yet, +five days, in which to save him.... Confess it, confess it!” +She had no strength left, exhausted by this fit of rebellion; and +her voice uttered none but inarticulate sounds. +He looked at her for a moment, then poured himself out a glass of +champagne and drank it down at a gulp. He took a few steps up and +down the room, came back to her and said: +“Listen to me, _darling_....” +The insult made her quiver with an unexpected energy. She drew +herself up and, panting with indignation, said: +“I forbid you.... I forbid you to speak to me like that. I will not +accept such an outrage. You wretch!...” +He shrugged his shoulders and resumed: +“Pah, I see you’re not quite alive to the position. That comes, +of course, because you still hope for assistance in some quarter. +Prasville, perhaps? The excellent Prasville, whose right hand you +are.... My dear friend, a forlorn hope.... You must know that +Prasville is mixed up in the Canal affair! Not directly: that is +to say, his name is not on the list of the Twenty-seven; but it is +there under the name of one of his friends, an ex-deputy called +Vorenglade, Stanislas Vorenglade, his man of straw, apparently: a +penniless individual whom I left alone and rightly. I knew nothing +of all that until this morning, when, lo and behold, I received a +letter informing me of the existence of a bundle of documents which +prove the complicity of our one and only Prasville! And who is my +informant? Vorenglade himself! Vorenglade, who, tired of living in +poverty, wants to extort money from Prasville, at the risk of being +arrested, and who will be delighted to come to terms with me. And +Prasville will get the sack. Oh, what a lark! I swear to you that +he will get the sack, the villain! By Jove, but he’s annoyed me +long enough! Prasville, old boy, you’ve deserved it....” +He rubbed his hands together, revelling in his coming revenge. And +he continued: +“You see, my dear Clarisse . . . there’s nothing to be done in +that direction. What then? What straw will you cling to? Why, I +was forgetting: M. Arsène Lupin! Mr. Growler! Mr. Masher!... Pah, +you’ll admit that those gentlemen have not shone and that all their +feats of prowess have not prevented me from going my own little +way. It was bound to be. Those fellows imagine that there’s no one +to equal them. When they meet an adversary like myself, one who +is not to be bounced, it upsets them and they make blunder after +blunder, while still believing that they are hoodwinking him like +mad. Schoolboys, that’s what they are! However, as you seem to have +some illusions left about the aforesaid Lupin, as you are counting +on that poor devil to crush me and to work a miracle in favour of +your innocent Gilbert, come, let’s dispel that illusion. Oh! Lupin! +Lord above, she believes in Lupin! She places her last hopes in +Lupin! Lupin! Just wait till I prick you, my illustrious windbag!” +He took up the receiver of the telephone which communicated with +the hall of the hotel and said: +“I’m No. 129, mademoiselle. Would you kindly ask the person +sitting opposite your office to come up to me?... Huh!... Yes, +mademoiselle, the gentleman in a gray felt hat. He knows. Thank +you, mademoiselle.” +Hanging up the receiver, he turned to Clarisse: +“Don’t be afraid. The man is discretion itself. Besides, it’s +the motto of his trade: ‘Discretion and dispatch.’ As a retired +detective, he has done me a number of services, including that of +following you while you were following me. Since our arrival in the +south, he has been less busy with you; but that was because he was +more busy elsewhere. Come in, Jacob.” +He himself opened the door, and a short, thin man, with a red +moustache, entered the room. +“Please tell this lady, Jacob, in a few brief words, what you have +done since Wednesday evening, when, after letting her get into the +_train-de-luxe_ which was taking me from the Gare de Lyon to the +south, you yourself remained on the platform at the station. Of +course, I am not asking how you spent your time, except in so far +as concerns the lady and the business with which I entrusted you.” +Jacob dived into the inside-pocket of his jacket and produced a +little note-book of which he turned over the pages and read them +aloud in the voice of a man reading a report: +“_Wednesday evening_, 8.15. Gare de Lyon. Wait for two gents, +Growler and Masher. They come with another whom I don’t know +yet, but who can only be M. Nicole. Give a porter ten francs +for the loan of his cap and blouse. Accost the gents and tell +them, from a lady, ‘that they were gone to Monte Carlo.’ Next, +telephone to the porter at the Hôtel Franklin. All telegrams +sent to his boss and dispatched by said boss will be read by +said hotel-porter and, if necessary, intercepted. +“_Thursday._ Monte Carlo. The three gents search the hotels. +“_Friday._ Flying visits to La Turbie, the Cap d’Ail, Cap +Martin. M. Daubrecq rings me up. Thinks it wiser to send the +gents to Italy. Make the porter of the Hôtel Franklin send +them a telegram appointing a meeting at San Remo. +“_Saturday._ San Remo. Station platform. Give the porter of +the Ambassadeurs-Palace ten francs for the loan of his cap. +The three gents arrive. They speak to me. Explain to them that +a lady traveller, Mme. Mergy, is going on to Genoa, to the +Hôtel Continental. The gents hesitate. M. Nicole wants to get +out. The others hold him back. The train starts. Good luck, +gents! An hour later, I take the train for France and get out +at Nice, to await fresh orders.” +Jacob closed his note-book and concluded: +“That’s all. To-day’s doings will be entered this evening.” +“You can enter them now, M. Jacob. ‘12 noon. M. Daubrecq sends me +to the Wagon-Lits Co. I book two berths in the Paris sleeping-car, +by the 2.48 train, and send them to M. Daubrecq by express +messenger. Then I take the 12.58 train for Vintimille, the +frontier-station, where I spend the day on the platform watching +all the travellers who come to France. Should Messrs. Nicole, +Growler and Masher take it into their heads to leave Italy and +return to Paris by way of Nice, my instructions are to telegraph to +the headquarters of police that Master Arsène Lupin and two of his +accomplices are in train number so-and-so.” +While speaking, Daubrecq led Jacob to the door. He closed it after +him, turned the key, pushed the bolt and, going up to Clarisse, +said: +“And now, _darling_, listen to me.” +This time, she uttered no protest. What could she do against such +an enemy, so powerful, so resourceful, who provided for everything, +down to the minutest details, and who toyed with his adversaries in +such an airy fashion? Even if she had hoped till then for Lupin’s +interference, how could she do so now, when he was wandering +through Italy in pursuit of a shadow? +She understood at last why three telegrams which she had sent to +the Hôtel Franklin had remained unanswered. Daubrecq was there, +lurking in the dark, watching, establishing a void around her, +separating her from her comrades in the fight, bringing her +gradually, a beaten prisoner, within the four walls of that room. +She felt her weakness. She was at the monster’s mercy. She must be +silent and resigned. +He repeated, with an evil delight: +“Listen to me, darling. Listen to the irrevocable words which I +am about to speak. Listen to them well. It is now 12 o’clock. The +last train starts at 2.48: you understand, the last train that can +bring me to Paris to-morrow, Monday, in time to save your son. The +evening-trains would arrive too late. The _trains-de-luxe_ are full +up. Therefore I shall have to start at 2.48. Am I to start?” +“Yes.” +“Our berths are booked. Will you come with me?” +“Yes.” +“You know my conditions for interfering?” +“Yes.” +“Do you accept them?” +“Yes.” +“You will marry me?” +“Yes.” +Oh, those horrible answers! The unhappy woman gave them in a +sort of awful torpor, refusing even to understand what she was +promising. Let him start first, let him snatch Gilbert from the +engine of death whose vision haunted her day and night.... And +then . . . and then . . . let what must come come.... +He burst out laughing: +“Oh, you rogue, it’s easily said!... You’re ready to pledge +yourself to anything, eh? The great thing is to save Gilbert, +isn’t it? Afterward, when that noodle of a Daubrecq comes with his +engagement-ring, not a bit of it! Nothing doing! We’ll laugh in his +face!... No, no, enough of empty words. I don’t want promises that +won’t be kept: I want facts, immediate facts.” +He came and sat close beside her and stated, plainly: +“This is what I propose . . . what must be . . . what shall be.... +I will ask, or rather I will demand, not Gilbert’s pardon, to +begin with, but a reprieve, a postponement of the execution, a +postponement of three or four weeks. They will invent a pretext of +some sort: that’s not my affair. And, when Mme. Mergy has become +Mme. Daubrecq, then and not till then will I ask for his pardon, +that is to say, the commutation of his sentence. And make yourself +quite easy: they’ll grant it.” +“I accept.... I accept,” she stammered. +He laughed once more: +“Yes, you accept, because that will happen in a month’s time . . . +and meanwhile you reckon on finding some trick, an assistance of +some kind or another . . . M. Arsène Lupin....” +“I swear it on the head of my son.” +“The head of your son!... Why, my poor pet, you would sell yourself +to the devil to save it from falling!...” +“Oh, yes,” she whispered, shuddering. “I would gladly sell my soul!” +He sidled up against her and, in a low voice: +“Clarisse, it’s not your soul I ask for.... It’s something else.... +For more than twenty years my life has spun around that longing. +You are the only woman I have ever loved.... Loathe me, hate me--I +don’t care--but do not spurn me.... Am I to wait? To wait another +month?... No, Clarisse, I have waited too many years already....” +He ventured to touch her hand. Clarisse shrank back with such +disgust that he was seized with fury and cried: +“Oh, I swear to heaven, my beauty, the executioner won’t stand on +such ceremony when he catches hold of your son!... And you give +yourself airs! Why, think, it’ll happen in forty hours! Forty +hours, no more, and you hesitate . . . and you have scruples, when +your son’s life is at stake! Come, come, no whimpering, no silly +sentimentality.... Look things in the face. By your own oath, +you are my wife, you are my bride from this moment.... Clarisse, +Clarisse, give me your lips....” +Half-fainting, she had hardly the strength to put out her arm and +push him away; and, with a cynicism in which all his abominable +nature stood revealed, Daubrecq, mingling words of cruelty and +words of passion, continued: +“Save your son!... Think of the last morning: the preparations for +the scaffold, when they snip away his shirt and cut his hair.... +Clarisse, Clarisse, I will save him.... Be sure of it.... All my +life shall be yours.... Clarisse....” +She no longer resisted. It was over. The loathsome brute’s lips +were about to touch hers; and it had to be, and nothing could +prevent it. It was her duty to obey the decree of fate. She had +long known it. She understood it; and, closing her eyes, so as not +to see the foul face that was slowly raised to hers, she repeated +to herself: +“My son . . . my poor son.” +A few seconds passed: ten, twenty perhaps. Daubrecq did not move. +Daubrecq did not speak. And she was astounded at that great silence +and that sudden quiet. Did the monster, at the last moment, feel a +scruple of remorse? +She raised her eyelids. +[Illustration: The sight which she beheld struck her with +stupefaction.] +The sight which she beheld struck her with stupefaction. Instead +of the grinning features which she expected to see, she saw a +motionless, unrecognizable face, contorted by an expression of +unspeakable terror: and the eyes, invisible under the double +impediment of the spectacles, seemed to be staring above her head, +above the chair in which she lay prostrate. +Clarisse turned her face. Two revolver-barrels, pointed at +Daubrecq, showed on the right, a little above the chair. She saw +only that: those two huge, formidable revolvers, gripped in two +clenched hands. She saw only that and also Daubrecq’s face, which +fear was discolouring little by little, until it turned livid. And, +almost at the same time, some one slipped behind Daubrecq, sprang +up fiercely, flung one of his arms round Daubrecq’s neck, threw +him to the ground with incredible violence and applied a pad of +cotton-wool to his face. A sudden smell of chloroform filled the +room. +Clarisse had recognized M. Nicole. +“Come along, Growler!” he cried. “Come along, Masher! Drop your +shooters: I’ve got him! He’s a limp rag.... Tie him up.” +Daubrecq, in fact, was bending in two and falling on his knees like +a disjointed doll. Under the action of the chloroform, the fearsome +brute sank into impotence, became harmless and grotesque. +The Growler and the Masher rolled him in one of the blankets of the +bed and tied him up securely. +“That’s it! That’s it!” shouted Lupin, leaping to his feet. +And, in a sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild +jig in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can +and the contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing +dervish and the acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching +steps of a drunken man. And he announced, as though they were the +numbers in a music-hall performance: +“The prisoner’s dance!... The captive’s hornpipe!... A _fantasia_ +on the corpse of a representative of the people!... The chloroform +polka!... The two-step of the conquered goggles! _Ollé! Ollé!_ The +blackmailer’s fandango! Hoot! Hoot! The McDaubrecq’s fling!... The +turkey trot!... _And_ the bunny hug!... _And_ the grizzly bear!... +The Tyrolean dance: tra-la-liety!... _Allons, enfants de la +partie!_.... Zing, boum, boum! Zing, boum, boum!...” +All his street-arab nature, all his instincts of gaiety, so long +suppressed by his constant anxiety and disappointment, came out and +betrayed themselves in roars of laughter, bursts of animal spirits +and a picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot. +He gave a last high kick, turned a series of cartwheels round the +room and ended by standing with his hands on his hips and one foot +on Daubrecq’s lifeless body. +“An allegorical _tableau_!” he announced. “The angel of virtue +destroying the hydra of vice!” +And the humour of the scene was twice as great because Lupin was +appearing under the aspect of M. Nicole, in the clothes and figure +of that wizened, awkward, nervous private tutor. +A sad smile flickered across Mme. Mergy’s face, her first smile for +many a long month. But, at once returning to the reality of things, +she besought him: +“Please, please . . . think of Gilbert!” +He ran up to her, caught her in his arms and, obeying a spontaneous +impulse, so frank that she could but laugh at it, gave her a +resounding kiss on either cheek: +“There, lady, that’s the kiss of a decent man! Instead of Daubrecq, +it’s I kissing you.... Another word and I’ll do it again . . . and +I’ll call you darling next.... Be angry with me, if you dare. Oh, +how happy I am!” +He knelt before her on one knee. And, respectfully: +“I beg your pardon, madame. The fit is over.” +And, getting up again, resuming his whimsical manner, he continued, +while Clarisse wondered what he was driving at: +“What’s the next article, madame? Your son’s pardon, perhaps? +Certainly! Madame, I have the honour to grant you the pardon of +your son, the commutation of his sentence to penal servitude for +life and, to wind up with, his early escape. It’s settled, eh, +Growler? Settled, Masher, what? You’ll both go with the boy to New +Caledonia and arrange for everything. Oh, my dear Daubrecq, we owe +you a great debt! But I’m not forgetting you, believe me! What +would you like? A last pipe? Coming, coming!” +He took one of the pipes from the mantel-piece, stooped over the +prisoner, shifted his pad and thrust the amber mouth-piece between +his teeth: +“Draw, old chap, draw. Lord, how funny you look, with your plug +over your nose and your cutty in your mouth. Come, puff away. +By Jove, I forgot to fill your pipe! Where’s your tobacco, your +favourite Maryland?... Oh, here we are!...” +He took from the chimney an unopened yellow packet and tore off the +government band: +“His lordship’s tobacco! Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on +me! This is a great moment. I am about to fill his lordship’s pipe: +by Jupiter, what an honour! Observe my movements! You see, I have +nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves!...” +He turned back his cuffs and stuck out his elbows. Then he opened +the packet and inserted his thumb and fore-finger, slowly, +gingerly, like a conjurer performing a sleight-of-hand trick before +a puzzled audience, and, beaming all over his face, extracted +from the tobacco a glittering object which he held out before the +spectators. +Clarisse uttered a cry. +It was the crystal stopper. +She rushed at Lupin and snatched it from him: +“That’s it; that’s the one!” she exclaimed, feverishly. “There’s no +scratch on the stem! And look at this line running down the middle, +where the gilt finishes.... That’s it; it unscrews!... Oh, dear, +my strength’s going!...” She trembled so violently that Lupin took +back the stopper and unscrewed it himself. +The inside of the knob was hollow; and in the hollow space was a +piece of paper rolled into a tiny pellet. +“The foreign-post-paper,” he whispered, himself greatly excited, +with quivering hands. +There was a long silence. All four felt as if their hearts were +ready to burst from their bodies; and they were afraid of what was +coming. +“Please, please . . .” stammered Clarisse. +Lupin unfolded the paper. +There was a set of names written one below the other, twenty-seven +of them, the twenty-seven names of the famous list: Langeroux, +Dechaumont, Vorenglade, d’Albufex, Victorien Mergy and the rest. +And, at the foot, the signature of the chairman of the Two-Seas +Canal Company, the signature written in letters of blood. +Lupin looked at his watch: +“A quarter to one,” he said. “We have twenty minutes to spare. +Let’s have some lunch.” +“But,” said Clarisse, who was already beginning to lose her head, +“don’t forget....” +He simply said: +“All I know is that I’m dying of hunger.” +He sat down at the table, cut himself a large slice of cold pie and +said to his accomplices: +“Growler? A bite? You, Masher?” +“I could do with a mouthful, governor.” +“Then hurry up, lads. And a glass of champagne to wash it down +with: it’s the chloroform-patient’s treat. Your health, Daubrecq! +Sweet champagne? Dry champagne? Extra-dry?” +CHAPTER XI. +THE CROSS OF LORRAINE +The moment Lupin had finished lunch, he at once and, so to speak, +without transition, recovered all his mastery and authority. The +time for joking was past; and he must no longer yield to his love +of astonishing people with claptrap and conjuring tricks. Now that +he had discovered the crystal stopper in the hiding-place which he +had guessed with absolute certainty, now that he possessed the list +of the Twenty-seven, it became a question of playing off the last +game of the rubber without delay. +It was child’s play, no doubt, and what remained to be done +presented no difficulty. Nevertheless, it was essential that he +should perform these final actions with promptness, decision and +infallible perspicacity. The smallest blunder was irretrievable. +Lupin knew this; but his strangely lucid brain had allowed for +every contingency. And the movements and words which he was now +about to make and utter were all fully prepared and matured: +“Growler, the commissionaire is waiting on the Boulevard Gambetta +with his barrow and the trunk which we bought. Bring him here and +have the trunk carried up. If the people of the hotel ask any +questions, say it’s for the lady in No. 130.” +Then, addressing his other companion: +“Masher, go back to the station and take over the limousine. The +price is arranged: ten thousand francs. Buy a chauffeur’s cap and +overcoat and bring the car to the hotel.” +“The money, governor.” +Lupin opened a pocketbook which had been removed from Daubrecq’s +jacket and produced a huge bundle of bank-notes. He separated ten +of them: +“Here you are. Our friend appears to have been doing well at the +club. Off with you, Masher!” +The two men went out through Clarisse’s room. Lupin availed himself +of a moment when Clarisse Mergy was not looking to stow away the +pocketbook with the greatest satisfaction: +“I shall have done a fair stroke of business,” he said to himself. +“When all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to the good; +and it’s not over yet.” +Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked: +“Have you a bag?” +“Yes, I bought one when I reached Nice, with some linen and a few +necessaries; for I left Paris unprepared.” +“Get all that ready. Then go down to the office. Say that you are +expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the +station cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it +again in your room; and tell them that you are leaving.” +When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq carefully, felt in all his +pockets and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort +of interest. +The Growler was the first to return. The trunk, a large wicker +hamper covered with black moleskin, was taken into Clarisse’s room. +Assisted by Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved Daubrecq and put +him in the trunk, in a sitting posture, but with his head bent so +as to allow of the lid being fastened: +“I don’t say that it’s as comfortable as your berth in a +sleeping-car, my dear deputy,” Lupin observed. “But, all the same, +it’s better than a coffin. At least, you can breathe. Three little +holes in each side. You have nothing to complain of!” +Then, unstopping a flask: +“A drop more chloroform? You seem to love it!...” +He soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, Clarisse and the +Growler propped up the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which +they had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk. +“Capital!” said Lupin. “That trunk is fit to go round the world. +Lock it and strap it.” +The Masher arrived, in a chauffeur’s livery: +“The car’s below, governor.” +“Good,” he said. “Take the trunk down between you. It would be +dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants.” +“But if any one meets us?” +“Well, what then, Masher? Aren’t you a chauffeur? You’re carrying +the trunk of your employer here present, the lady in No. 130, who +will also go down, step into her motor . . . and wait for me two +hundred yards farther on. Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. +Oh, first lock the partition-door!” +Lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt, +walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift. +In the office, he said: +“M. Daubrecq has suddenly been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked +me to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and that you were +to keep his room for him. His things are all there. Here is the +key.” +He walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found +Clarisse lamenting: +“We shall never be in Paris to-morrow! It’s madness! The least +breakdown....” +“That’s why you and I are going to take the train. It’s safer....” +He put her into a cab and gave his parting instructions to the two +men: +“Thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? You’re +to drive and rest, turn and turn about. At that rate, you ought +to be in Paris between six and seven to-morrow evening. But don’t +force the pace. I’m keeping Daubrecq, not because I want him for +my plans, but as a hostage . . . and then by way of precaution.... +I like to feel that I can lay my hands on him during the next few +days. So look after the dear fellow.... Give him a few drops of +chloroform every three or four hours: it’s his one weakness.... Off +with you, Masher.... And you, Daubrecq, don’t get excited up there. +The roof’ll bear you all right.... If you feel at all sick, don’t +mind... Off you go, Masher!” +He watched the car move into the distance and then told the cabman +to drive to a post-office, where he dispatched a telegram in these +words: +“_M. Prasville, Prefecture de Police, Paris_: +“Person found. Will bring you document eleven o’clock to-morrow +morning. Urgent communication. +“CLARISSE.” +Clarisse and Lupin reached the station by half-past two. +“If only there’s room!” said Clarisse, who was alarmed at the least +thing. +“Room? Why, our berths are booked!” +“By whom?” +“By Jacob . . . by Daubrecq.” +“How?” +“Why, at the office of the hotel they gave me a letter which had +come for Daubrecq by express. It was the two berths which Jacob +had sent him. Also, I have his deputy’s pass. So we shall travel +under the name of M. and Mme. Daubrecq and we shall receive all the +attention due to our rank and station. You see, my dear madam, that +everything’s arranged.” +The journey, this time, seemed short to Lupin. Clarisse told him +what she had done during the past few days. He himself explained +the miracle of his sudden appearance in Daubrecq’s bedroom at the +moment when his adversary believed him in Italy: +“A miracle, no,” he said. “But still a remarkable phenomenon took +place in me when I left San Remo, a sort of mysterious intuition +which prompted me first to try and jump out of the train--and the +Masher prevented me--and next to rush to the window, let down the +glass and follow the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace, who had +given me your message, with my eyes. Well, at that very minute, +the porter aforesaid was rubbing his hands with an air of such +satisfaction that, for no other reason, suddenly, I understood +everything: I had been diddled, taken in by Daubrecq, as you +yourself were. Heaps of little details flashed across my mind. My +adversary’s scheme became clear to me from start to finish. Another +minute . . . and the disaster would have been beyond remedy. I had, +I confess, a few moments of real despair, at the thought that I +should not be able to repair all the mistakes that had been made. +It depended simply on the time-table of the trains, which would +either allow me or would not allow me to find Daubrecq’s emissary +on the railway-platform at San Remo. This time, at last, chance +favoured me. We had hardly alighted at the first station when a +train passed, for France. When we arrived at San Remo, the man was +there. I had guessed right. He no longer wore his hotel-porter’s +cap and frock-coat, but a jacket and bowler. He stepped into a +second-class compartment. From that moment, victory was assured.” +“But . . . how...?” asked Clarisse, who, in spite of the thoughts +that obsessed her, was interested in Lupin’s story. +“How did I find you? Lord, simply by not losing sight of Master +Jacob, while leaving him free to move about as he pleased, knowing +that he was bound to account for his actions to Daubrecq. In point +of fact, this morning, after spending the night in a small hotel +at Nice, he met Daubrecq on the Promenade des Anglais. They talked +for some time. I followed them. Daubrecq went back to the hotel, +planted Jacob in one of the passages on the ground-floor, opposite +the telephone-office, and went up in the lift. Ten minutes later I +knew the number of his room and knew that a lady had been occupying +the next room, No. 130, since the day before. ‘I believe we’ve done +it,’ I said to the Growler and the Masher. I tapped lightly at your +door. No answer. And the door was locked.” +“Well?” asked Clarisse. +“Well, we opened it. Do you think there’s only one key in the world +that will work a lock? So I walked in. Nobody in your room. But the +partition-door was ajar. I slipped through it. Thenceforth, a mere +hanging separated me from you, from Daubrecq and from the packet of +tobacco which I saw on the chimney-slab.” +“Then you knew the hiding-place?” +“A look round Daubrecq’s study in Paris showed me that that packet +of tobacco had disappeared. Besides....” +“What?” +“I knew, from certain confessions wrung from Daubrecq in the +Lovers’ Tower, that the word Marie held the key to the riddle. +Since then I had certainly thought of this word, but with the +preconceived notion that it was spelt M A R I E. Well, it was +really the first two syllables of another word, which I guessed, so +to speak, only at the moment when I was struck by the absence of +the packet of tobacco.” +“What word do you mean?” +“Maryland, Maryland tobacco, the only tobacco that Daubrecq smokes.” +And Lupin began to laugh: +“Wasn’t it silly? And, at the same time, wasn’t it clever of +Daubrecq? We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything. Didn’t I +unscrew the brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they +contained a crystal stopper? But how could I have thought, how +could any one, however great his perspicacity, have thought of +tearing off the paper band of a packet of Maryland, a band put on, +gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the State, under the control +of the Inland Revenue Office? Only think! The State the accomplice +of such an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue Awfice lending +itself to such a trick! No, a thousand times no! The Régie[E] is +not perfect. It makes matches that won’t light and cigarettes +filled with hay. But there’s all the difference in the world +between recognizing that fact and believing the Inland Revenue to +be in league with Daubrecq with the object of hiding the list of +the Twenty-seven from the legitimate curiosity of the government +and the enterprising efforts of Arsène Lupin! Observe that all +Daubrecq had to do, in order to introduce the crystal stopper, was +to bear upon the band a little, loosen it, draw it back, unfold the +yellow paper, remove the tobacco and fasten it up again. Observe +also that all we had to do, in Paris, was to take the packet in +our hands and examine it, in order to discover the hiding-place. +No matter! The packet itself, the plug of Maryland made up and +passed by the State and by the Inland Revenue Office, was a sacred, +intangible thing, a thing above suspicion! And nobody opened it. +That was how that demon of a Daubrecq allowed that untouched packet +of tobacco to lie about for months on his table, among his pipes +and among other unopened packets of tobacco. And no power on earth +could have given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into +that harmless little cube. I would have you observe, besides....” +Lupin went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of +Maryland and the crystal stopper. His adversary’s ingenuity and +shrewdness interested him all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended +by getting the better of him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered +much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be +performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped in her own thoughts +and hardly listened to him. +“Are you sure,” she kept on repeating, “that you will succeed?” +“Absolutely sure.” +“But Prasville is not in Paris.” +“If he’s not there, he’s at the Havre. I saw it in the paper +yesterday. In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once.” +“And do you think that he has enough influence?” +“To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. +If he had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is +intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing +him and to act without a moment’s delay.” +“But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?” +“Was Daubrecq deceived? Was Daubrecq not in a better position than +any of us to know the full power of that paper? Did he not have +twenty proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? Think of +all that he was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew +him to possess the list. They knew it; and that was all. He did +not use the list, but he had it. And, having it, he killed your +husband. He built up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of +the Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of the gamest of the lot, +d’Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take it from me, as +the price of handing over that list, we could ask for anything we +pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing . . . less than +nothing . . . the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they +will take us for idiots. What! We have in our hands....” +He stopped. Clarisse, exhausted by so much excitement, sat fast +asleep in front of him. +They reached Paris at eight o’clock in the morning. +Lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat in the Place de +Clichy. +One was from the Masher, dispatched from Avignon on the previous +day and stating that all was going well and that they hoped to +keep their appointment punctually that evening. The other was from +Prasville, dated from the Havre and addressed to Clarisse: +“Impossible return to-morrow Monday morning. Come to my office +five o’clock. Reckon on you absolutely.” +“Five o’clock!” said Clarisse. “How late!” +“It’s a first-rate hour,” declared Lupin. +“Still, if....” +“If the execution is to take place to-morrow morning: is that what +you mean to say?... Don’t be afraid to speak out, for the execution +will not take place.” +“The newspapers....” +“You haven’t read the newspapers and you are not to read them. +Nothing that they can say matters in the least. One thing alone +matters: our interview with Prasville. Besides....” +He took a little bottle from a cupboard and, putting his hand on +Clarisse’s shoulder, said: +“Lie down here, on the sofa, and take a few drops of this mixture.” +“What’s it for?” +“It will make you sleep for a few hours . . . and forget. That’s +always so much gained.” +“No, no,” protested Clarisse, “I don’t want to. Gilbert is not +asleep. He is not forgetting.” +“Drink it,” said Lupin, with gentle insistence. She yielded all of +a sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and did as she +was told and lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. In a few minutes +she was asleep. +Lupin rang for his servant: +“The newspapers . . . quick!... Have you bought them?” +“Here they are, governor.” +Lupin opened one of them and at once read the following lines: +“ARSENE LUPIN’S ACCOMPLICES” +“We know from a positive source that Arsène Lupin’s accomplices, +Gilbert and Vaucheray, will be executed to-morrow, Tuesday, +morning. M. Deibler has inspected the scaffold. Everything is +ready.” +He raised his head with a defiant look. +“Arsène Lupin’s accomplices! The execution of Arsène Lupin’s +accomplices! What a fine spectacle! And what a crowd there will be +to witness it! Sorry, gentlemen, but the curtain will not rise. +Theatre closed by order of the authorities. And the authorities are +myself!” +He struck his chest violently, with an arrogant gesture: +“The authorities are myself!” +At twelve o’clock Lupin received a telegram which the Masher had +sent from Lyons: +“All well. Goods will arrive without damage.” +At three o’clock Clarisse woke. Her first words were: +“Is it to be to-morrow?” +He did not answer. But she saw him look so calm and smiling that +she felt herself permeated with an immense sense of peace and +received the impression that everything was finished, disentangled, +settled according to her companion’s will. +They left the house at ten minutes past four. Prasville’s +secretary, who had received his chief’s instructions by telephone, +showed them into the office and asked them to wait. It was a +quarter to five. +Prasville came running in at five o’clock exactly and, at once, +cried: +“Have you the list?” +“Yes.” +“Give it me.” +He put out his hand. Clarisse, who had risen from her chair, did +not stir. +Prasville looked at her for a moment, hesitated and sat down. He +understood. In pursuing Daubrecq, Clarisse Mergy had not acted only +from hatred and the desire for revenge. Another motive prompted +her. The paper would not be handed over except upon conditions. +“Sit down, please,” he said, thus showing that he accepted the +discussion. +Clarisse resumed her seat and, when she remained silent, Prasville +said: +“Speak, my friend, and speak quite frankly. I do not scruple to say +that we wish to have that paper.” +“If it is only a wish,” remarked Clarisse, whom Lupin had coached +in her part down to the least detail, “if it is only a wish, I fear +that we shall not be able to come to an arrangement.” +Prasville smiled: +“The wish, obviously, would lead us to make certain sacrifices.” +“Every sacrifice,” said Mme. Mergy, correcting him. +“Every sacrifice, provided, of course, that we keep within the +bounds of acceptable requirements.” +“And even if we go beyond those bounds,” said Clarisse, inflexibly. +Prasville began to lose patience: +“Come, what is it all about? Explain yourself.” +“Forgive me, my friend, but I wanted above all to mark the +great importance which you attach to that paper and, in view of +the immediate transaction which we are about to conclude, to +specify--what shall I say?--the value of my share in it. That +value, which has no limits, must, I repeat, be exchanged for an +unlimited value.” +“Agreed,” said Prasville, querulously. +“I presume, therefore, that it is unnecessary for me to trace the +whole story of the business or to enumerate, on the one hand, the +disasters which the possession of that paper would have allowed you +to avert and, on the other hand, the incalculable advantages which +you will be able to derive from its possession?” +Prasville had to make an effort to contain himself and to answer in +a tone that was civil, or nearly so: +“I admit everything. Is that enough?” +“I beg your pardon, but we cannot explain ourselves too plainly. +And there is one point that remains to be cleared up. Are you in a +position to treat, personally?” +“How do you mean?” +“I want to know not, of course, if you are empowered to settle this +business here and now, but if, in dealing with me, you represent +the views of those who know the business and who are qualified to +settle it.” +“Yes,” declared Prasville, forcibly. +“So that I can have your answer within an hour after I have told +you my conditions?” +“Yes.” +“Will the answer be that of the government?” +“Yes.” +Clarisse bent forward and, sinking her voice: +“Will the answer be that of the Élysée?” +Prasville appeared surprised. He reflected for a moment and then +said: +“Yes.” +“It only remains for me to ask you to give me your word of honour +that, however incomprehensible my conditions may appear to you, you +will not insist on my revealing the reason. They are what they are. +Your answer must be yes or no.” +“I give you my word of honour,” said Prasville, formally. +Clarisse underwent a momentary agitation that made her turn paler +still. Then, mastering herself, with her eyes fixed on Prasville’s +eyes, she said: +“You shall have the list of the Twenty-seven in exchange for the +pardon of Gilbert and Vaucheray.” +“Eh? What?” +Prasville leapt from his chair, looking absolutely dumbfounded: +“The pardon of Gilbert and Vaucheray? Of Arsène Lupin’s +accomplices?” +“Yes,” she said. +“The murderers of the Villa Marie-Thérèse? The two who are due to +die to-morrow?” +“Yes, those two,” she said, in a loud voice. “I ask? I demand their +pardon.” +“But this is madness! Why? Why should you?” +“I must remind you, Prasville, that you gave me your word....” +“Yes . . . yes.... I know.... But the thing is so unexpected....” +“Why?” +“Why? For all sorts of reasons!” +“What reasons?” +“Well . . . well, but . . . think! Gilbert and Vaucheray have been +sentenced to death!” +“Send them to penal servitude: that’s all you have to do.” +“Impossible! The case has created an enormous sensation. They +are Arsène Lupin’s accomplices. The whole world knows about the +verdict.” +“Well?” +“Well, we cannot, no, we cannot go against the decrees of justice.” +“You are not asked to do that. You are asked for a commutation of +punishment as an act of mercy. Mercy is a legal thing.” +“The pardoning-commission has given its finding....” +“True, but there remains the president of the Republic.” +“He has refused.” +“He can reconsider his refusal.” +“Impossible!” +“Why?” +“There’s no excuse for it.” +“He needs no excuse. The right of mercy is absolute. It is +exercised without control, without reason, without excuse or +explanation. It is a _royal_ prerogative; the president of the +Republic can wield it according to his good pleasure, or rather +according to his conscience, in the best interests of the State.” +“But it is too late! Everything is ready. The execution is to take +place in a few hours.” +“One hour is long enough to obtain your answer; you have just told +us so.” +“But this is confounded madness! There are insuperable obstacles +to your conditions. I tell you again, it’s impossible, physically +impossible.” +“Then the answer is no?” +“No! No! A thousand times no!” +“In that case, there is nothing left for us to do but to go.” +She moved toward the door. M. Nicole followed her. Prasville +bounded across the room and barred their way: +“Where are you going?” +“Well, my friend, it seems to me that our conversation is at an +end. As you appear to think, as, in fact, you are certain that the +president of the Republic will not consider the famous list of the +Twenty-seven to be worth....” +“Stay where you are,” said Prasville. +He turned the key in the door and began to pace the room, with his +hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the floor. +And Lupin, who had not breathed a word during the whole of this +scene and who had prudently contented himself with playing a +colourless part, said to himself: +“What a fuss! What a lot of affectation to arrive at the inevitable +result! As though Prasville, who is not a genius, but not an +absolute blockhead either, would be likely to lose the chance of +revenging himself on his mortal enemy! There, what did I say? The +idea of hurling Daubrecq into the bottomless pit appeals to him. +Come, we’ve won the rubber.” +Prasville was opening a small inner door which led to the office of +his private secretary. +He gave an order aloud: +“M. Lartigue, telephone to the Élysée and say that I request the +favour of an audience for a communication of the utmost importance.” +He closed the door, came back to Clarisse and said: +“In any case, my intervention is limited to submitting your +proposal.” +“Once you submit it, it will be accepted.” +A long silence followed. Clarisse’s features expressed so profound +a delight that Prasville was struck by it and looked at her with +attentive curiosity. For what mysterious reason did Clarisse wish +to save Gilbert and Vaucheray? What was the incomprehensible link +that bound her to those two men? What tragedy connected those three +lives and, no doubt, Daubrecq’s in addition? +“Go ahead, old boy,” thought Lupin, “cudgel your brains: you’ll +never spot it! Ah, if we had asked for Gilbert’s pardon only, as +Clarisse wished, you might have twigged the secret! But Vaucheray, +that brute of a Vaucheray, there really could not be the least +bond between Mme. Mergy and him..... Aha, by Jingo, it’s my turn +now!... He’s watching me.... The inward soliloquy is turning +upon myself.... ‘I wonder who that M. Nicole can be? Why has +that little provincial usher devoted himself body and soul to +Clarisse Mergy? Who is that old bore, if the truth were known? I +made a mistake in not inquiring.... I must look into this.... I +must rip off the beggar’s mask. For, after all, it’s not natural +that a man should take so much trouble about a matter in which +he is not directly interested. Why should he also wish to save +Gilbert and Vaucheray? Why? Why should he?...” Lupin turned his +head away. “Look out!... Look out!... There’s a notion passing +through that red-tape-merchant’s skull: a confused notion which +he can’t put into words. Hang it all, he mustn’t suspect M. Lupin +under M. Nicole! The thing’s complicated enough as it is, in all +conscience!...” +But there was a welcome interruption. Prasville’s secretary came to +say that the audience would take place in an hour’s time. +“Very well. Thank you,” said Prasville. “That will do.” +And, resuming the interview, with no further circumlocution, +speaking like a man who means to put a thing through, he declared: +“I think that we shall be able to manage it. But, first of all, so +that I may do what I have undertaken to do, I want more precise +information, fuller details. Where was the paper?” +“In the crystal stopper, as we thought,” said Mme. Mergy. +“And where was the crystal stopper?” +“In an object which Daubrecq came and fetched, a few days ago, from +the writing-desk in his study in the Square Lamartine, an object +which I took from him yesterday.” +“What sort of object?” +“Simply a packet of tobacco, Maryland tobacco, which used to lie +about on the desk.” +Prasville was petrified. He muttered, guilelessly: +“Oh, if I had only known! I’ve had my hand on that packet of +Maryland a dozen times! How stupid of me!” +“What does it matter?” said Clarisse. “The great thing is that the +discovery is made.” +Prasville pulled a face which implied that the discovery would have +been much pleasanter if he himself had made it. Then he asked: +“So you have the list?” +“Yes.” +“Show it to me.” +And, when Clarisse hesitated, he added: +“Oh, please, don’t be afraid! The list belongs to you, and I will +give it back to you. But you must understand that I cannot take the +step in question without making certain.” +Clarisse consulted M. Nicole with a glance which did not escape +Prasville. Then she said: +“Here it is.” +He seized the scrap of paper with a certain excitement, examined it +and almost immediately said: +“Yes, yes . . . the secretary’s writing: I recognize it.... And the +signature of the chairman of the company: the signature in red.... +Besides, I have other proofs.... For instance, the torn piece which +completes the left-hand top corner of this sheet....” +He opened his safe and, from a special cash-box, produced a tiny +piece of paper which he put against the top left corner: +“That’s right. The torn edges fit exactly. The proof is undeniable. +All that remains is to verify the make of this foreign-post-paper.” +Clarisse was radiant with delight. No one would have believed that +the most terrible torture had racked her for weeks and weeks and +that she was still bleeding and quivering from its effects. +While Prasville was holding the paper against a window-pane, she +said to Lupin: +“I insist upon having Gilbert informed this evening. He must be so +awfully unhappy!” +“Yes,” said Lupin. “Besides, you can go to his lawyer and tell him.” +She continued: +“And then I must see Gilbert to-morrow. Prasville can think what he +likes.” +“Of course. But he must first gain his cause at the Élysée.” +“There can’t be any difficulty, can there?” +“No. You saw that he gave way at once.” +Prasville continued his examination with the aid of a +magnifying-glass and compared the sheet with the scrap of torn +paper. Next, he took from the cash-box some other sheets of +letter-paper and examined one of these by holding it up to the +light: +“That’s done,” he said. “My mind is made up. Forgive me, dear +friend: it was a very difficult piece of work.... I passed through +various stages. When all is said, I had my suspicions . . . and not +without cause....” +“What do you mean?” asked Clarisse. +“One second.... I must give an order first.” +He called his secretary: +“Please telephone at once to the Élysée, make my apologies and say +that I shall not require the audience, for reasons which I will +explain later.” +He closed the door and returned to his desk. Clarisse and Lupin +stood choking, looking at him in stupefaction, failing to +understand this sudden change. Was he mad? Was it a trick on his +part? A breach of faith? And was he refusing to keep his promise, +now that he possessed the list? +He held it out to Clarisse: +“You can have it back.” +“Have it back?” +“And return it to Daubrecq.” +“To Daubrecq?” +“Unless you prefer to burn it.” +“What do you say?” +“I say that, if I were in your place, I would burn it.” +“Why do you say that? It’s ridiculous!” +“On the contrary, it is very sensible.” +“But why? Why?” +“Why? I will tell you. The list of the Twenty-seven, as we know +for absolutely certain, was written on a sheet of letter-paper +belonging to the chairman of the Canal Company, of which there are +a few samples in this cash-box. Now all these samples have as a +water-mark a little cross of Lorraine which is almost invisible, +but which can just be seen in the thickness of the paper when you +hold it up to the light. The sheet which you have brought me does +not contain that little cross of Lorraine.”[F] +Lupin felt a nervous trembling shake him from head to foot and he +dared not turn his eyes on Clarisse, realizing what a terrible blow +this was to her. He heard her stammer: +“Then are we to suppose . . . that Daubrecq was taken in?” +“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed Prasville. “It is you who have been +taken in, my poor friend. Daubrecq has the real list, the list +which he stole from the dying man’s safe.” +“But this one....” +“This one is a forgery.” +“A forgery?” +“An undoubted forgery. It was an admirable piece of cunning on +Daubrecq’s part. Dazzled by the crystal stopper which he flashed +before your eyes, you did nothing but look for that stopper in +which he had stowed away no matter what, the first bit of paper +that came to hand, while he quietly kept....” +Prasville interrupted himself. Clarisse was walking up to him with +short, stiff steps, like an automaton. She said: +“Then....” +“Then what, dear friend?” +“You refuse?” +“Certainly, I am obliged to; I have no choice.” +“You refuse to take that step?” +“Look here, how can I do what you ask? It’s not possible, on the +strength of a valueless document....” +“You won’t do it?... You won’t do it?... And, to-morrow +morning . . . in a few hours . . . Gilbert....” +She was frightfully pale, her face sunk, like the face of one +dying. Her eyes opened wider and wider and her teeth chattered.... +Lupin, fearing the useless and dangerous words which she was about +to utter, seized her by the shoulders and tried to drag her away. +But she thrust him back with indomitable strength, took two or +three more steps, staggered, as though on the point of falling, +and, suddenly, in a burst of energy and despair, laid hold of +Prasville and screamed: +“You shall go to the Élysée!... You shall go at once!... You +must!... You must save Gilbert!” +“Please, please, my dear friend, calm yourself....” +She gave a strident laugh: +“Calm myself!... When, to-morrow morning, Gilbert.... Ah, no, no, +I am terrified . . . it’s appalling.... Oh, run, you wretch, run! +Obtain his pardon!... Don’t you understand? Gilbert.... Gilbert is +my son! My son! My son!” +Prasville gave a cry. The blade of a knife flashed in Clarisse’s +hand and she raised her arm to strike herself. But the movement was +not completed. M. Nicole caught her arm in its descent and, taking +the knife from Clarisse, reducing her to helplessness, he said, in +a voice that rang through the room like steel: +“What you are doing is madness!... When I gave you my oath that I +would save him! You must . . . live for him.... Gilbert shall not +die.... How can he die, when . . . I gave you my oath?...” +“Gilbert . . . my son . . .” moaned Clarisse. +He clasped her fiercely, drew her against himself and put his hand +over her mouth: +“Enough! Be quiet!... I entreat you to be quiet.... Gilbert shall +not die....” +With irresistible authority, he dragged her away like a subdued +child that suddenly becomes obedient; but, at the moment of opening +the door, he turned to Prasville: +“Wait for me here, monsieur,” he commanded, in an imperative tone. +“If you care about that list of the Twenty-seven, the real list, +wait for me. I shall be back in an hour, in two hours, at most; and +then we will talk business.” +And abruptly, to Clarisse: +“And you, madame, a little courage yet. I command you to show +courage, in Gilbert’s name.” +He went away, through the passages, down the stairs, with a jerky +step, holding Clarisse under the arm, as he might have held a +lay-figure, supporting her, carrying her almost. A court-yard, +another court-yard, then the street. +Meanwhile, Prasville, surprised at first, bewildered by the course +of events, was gradually recovering his composure and thinking. +He thought of that M. Nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who +played beside Clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom +we cling in the serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, +shaking off his torpor, appeared in the full light of day, +resolute, masterful, mettlesome, brimming over with daring, ready +to overthrow all the obstacles that fate placed on his path. +Who was there that was capable of acting thus? +Prasville started. The question had no sooner occurred to his mind +than the answer flashed on him, with absolute certainty. All the +proofs rose up, each more exact, each more convincing than the last. +Hurriedly he rang. Hurriedly he sent for the chief +detective-inspector on duty. And, feverishly: +“Were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?” +“Yes, monsieur le secrétaire;-général.” +“Did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?” +“Yes.” +“Would you know the man again?” +“Yes.” +“Then don’t lose a moment, chief-inspector. Take six inspectors +with you. Go to the Place de Clichy. Make inquiries about a man +called Nicole and watch the house. The Nicole man is on his way +back there.” +“And if he comes out, monsieur le secrétaire;-général?” +“Arrest him. Here’s a warrant.” +He sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form: +“Here you are, chief-inspector. I will let the chief-detective +know.” +The chief-inspector seemed staggered: +“But you spoke to me of a man called Nicole, monsieur le +secrétaire;-général.” +“Well?” +“The warrant is in the name of Arsène Lupin.” +“Arsène Lupin and the Nicole man are one and the same individual.” +[E] The department of the French excise which holds the monopoly +for the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes and +matches.--_Translator’s Note._ +[F] The cross of Lorraine is a cross with two horizontal +lines or bars across the upper half of the perpendicular +beam.--_Translator’s Note._ +CHAPTER XII. +THE SCAFFOLD +“I will save him, I will save him,” Lupin repeated, without +ceasing, in the taxicab in which he and Clarisse drove away. “I +swear that I will save him.” +Clarisse did not listen, sat as though numbed, as though possessed +by some great nightmare of death, which left her ignorant of all +that was happening outside her. And Lupin set forth his plans, +perhaps more to reassure himself than to convince Clarisse: +“No, no, the game is not lost yet. There is one trump left, a +huge trump, in the shape of the letters and documents which +Vorenglade, the ex-deputy, is offering to sell to Daubrecq and of +which Daubrecq spoke to you yesterday at Nice. I shall buy those +letters and documents of Stanislas Vorenglade at whatever price he +chooses to name. Then we shall go back to the police-office and I +shall say to Prasville, ‘Go to the Élysée at once.... Use the list +as though it were genuine, save Gilbert from death and be content +to acknowledge to-morrow, when Gilbert is saved, that the list is +forged.... Be off, quickly!... If you refuse, well, if you refuse, +the Vorenglade letters and documents shall be reproduced to-morrow, +Tuesday, morning in one of the leading newspapers.’ Vorenglade will +be arrested. And M. Prasville will find himself in prison before +night.’” +Lupin rubbed his hands: +“He’ll do as he’s told!... He’ll do as he’s told!... I felt that +at once, when I was with him. The thing appeared to me as a +dead certainty. And I found Vorenglade’s address in Daubrecq’s +pocket-books, so . . . driver, Boulevard Raspail!” +They went to the address given. Lupin sprang from the cab, ran up +three flights of stairs. +The servant said that M. Vorenglade was away and would not be back +until dinner-time next evening. +“And don’t you know where he is?” +“M. Vorenglade is in London, sir.” +Lupin did not utter a word on returning to the cab. Clarisse, on +her side, did not even ask him any questions, so indifferent had +she become to everything, so absolutely did she look upon her son’s +death as an accomplished fact. +They drove to the Place de Clichy. As Lupin entered the house he +passed two men who were just leaving the porter’s box. He was too +much engrossed to notice them. They were Prasville’s inspectors. +“No telegram?” he asked his servant. +“No, governor,” replied Achille. +“No news of the Masher and the Growler?” +“No, governor, none.” +“That’s all right,” he said to Clarisse, in a casual tone. “It’s +only seven o’clock and we mustn’t reckon on seeing them before +eight or nine. Prasville will have to wait, that’s all. I will +telephone to him to wait.” +He did so and was hanging up the receiver, when he heard a moan +behind him. Clarisse was standing by the table, reading an +evening-paper. She put her hand to her heart, staggered and fell. +“Achille, Achille!” cried Lupin, calling his man. “Help me +put her on my bed.... And then go to the cupboard and get me +the medicine-bottle marked number four, the bottle with the +sleeping-draught.” +He forced open her teeth with the point of a knife and compelled +her to swallow half the bottle: +“Good,” he said. “Now the poor thing won’t wake till +to-morrow . . . _after_.” +He glanced through the paper, which was still clutched in Clarisse’ +hand, and read the following lines: +“The strictest measures have been taken to keep order at the +execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray, lest Arsène Lupin should +make an attempt to rescue his accomplices from the last +penalty. At twelve o’clock to-night a cordon of troops will +be drawn across all the approaches to the Santé Prison. As +already stated, the execution will take place outside the +prison-walls, in the square formed by the Boulevard Arago +and the Rue de la Santé. +“We have succeeded in obtaining some details of the attitude +of the two condemned men. Vaucheray observes a stolid sullenness +and is awaiting the fatal event with no little courage: +“‘Crikey,’ he says, ‘I can’t say I’m delighted; but I’ve got to +go through it and I shall keep my end up.’ And he adds, ‘Death +I don’t care a hang about! What worries me is the thought that +they’re going to cut my head off. Ah, if the governor could +only hit on some trick to send me straight off to the next +world before I had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, +governor, if you please!’ +“Gilbert’s calmness is even more impressive, especially when +we remember how he broke down at the trial. He retains an +unshaken confidence in the omnipotence of Arsène Lupin: +“‘The governor shouted to me before everybody not to be +afraid, that he was there, that he answered for everything. +Well, I’m not afraid. I shall rely on him until the last +day, until the last minute, at the very foot of the +scaffold. I know the governor! There’s no danger with him. +He has promised and he will keep his word. If my head were +off, he’d come and clap it on my shoulders and firmly! +Arsène Lupin allow his chum Gilbert to die? Not he! Excuse +my humour!’ +“There is a certain touching frankness in all this enthusiasm +which is not without a dignity of its own. We shall see if +Arsène Lupin deserves the confidence so blindly placed in him.” +Lupin was hardly able to finish reading the article for the tears +that dimmed his eyes: tears of affection, tears of pity, tears of +distress. +No, he did not deserve the confidence of his chum Gilbert. +Certainly, he had performed impossibilities; but there are +circumstances in which we must perform more than impossibilities, +in which we must show ourselves stronger than fate; and, this +time, fate had been stronger than he. Ever since the first day and +throughout this lamentable adventure, events had gone contrary +to his anticipations, contrary to logic itself. Clarisse and he, +though pursuing an identical aim, had wasted weeks in fighting +each other. Then, at the moment when they were uniting their +efforts, a series of ghastly disasters had come one after the +other: the kidnapping of little Jacques, Daubrecq’s disappearance, +his imprisonment in the Lovers’ Tower, Lupin’s wound, his enforced +inactivity, followed by the cunning manoeuvres that dragged +Clarisse--and Lupin after her--to the south, to Italy. And then, +as a crowning catastrophe, when, after prodigies of will-power, +after miracles of perseverance, they were entitled to think that +the Golden Fleece was won, it all came to nothing. The list of the +Twenty-seven had no more value than the most insignificant scrap of +paper. +“The game’s up!” said Lupin. “It’s an absolute defeat. What if I +do revenge myself on Daubrecq, ruin him and destroy him? He is the +real victor, once Gilbert is going to die.” +He wept anew, not with spite or rage, but with despair. Gilbert was +going to die! The lad whom he called his chum, the best of his pals +would be gone for ever, in a few hours. He could not save him. He +was at the end of his tether. He did not even look round for a last +expedient. What was the use? +And his persuasion of his own helplessness was so deep, so definite +that he felt no shock of any kind on receiving a telegram from the +Masher that said: +“Motor accident. Essential part broken. Long repair. Arrive +to-morrow morning.” +It was a last proof to show that fate had uttered its decree. He no +longer thought of rebelling against the decision. +He looked at Clarisse. She was peacefully sleeping; and this total +oblivion, this absence of all consciousness, seemed to him so +enviable that, suddenly yielding to a fit of cowardice, he seized +the bottle, still half-filled with the sleeping-draught, and drank +it down. +Then he stretched himself on a couch and rang for his man: +“Go to bed, Achille, and don’t wake me on any pretence whatever.” +“Then there’s nothing to be done for Gilbert and Vaucheray, +governor?” said Achille. +“Nothing.” +“Are they going through it?” +“They are going through it.” +Twenty minutes later Lupin fell into a heavy sleep. It was ten +o’clock in the evening. +* * * * * +The night was full of incident and noise around the prison. At one +o’clock in the morning the Rue de la Santé, the Boulevard Arago and +all the streets abutting on the gaol were guarded by police, who +allowed no one to pass without a regular cross-examination. +For that matter, it was raining in torrents; and it seemed as +though the lovers of this sort of show would not be very numerous. +The public-houses were all closed by special order. At four o’clock +three companies of infantry came and took up their positions along +the pavements, while a battalion occupied the Boulevard Arago in +case of a surprise. Municipal guards cantered up and down between +the lines; a whole staff of police-magistrates, officers and +functionaries, brought together for the occasion, moved about among +the troops. +The guillotine was set up in silence, in the middle of the square +formed by the boulevard and the street; and the sinister sound of +hammering was heard. +But, at five o’clock, the crowd gathered, notwithstanding the rain, +and people began to sing. They shouted for the footlights, called +for the curtain to rise, were exasperated to see that, at the +distance at which the barriers had been fixed, they could hardly +distinguish the uprights of the guillotine. +Several carriages drove up, bringing official persons dressed in +black. There were cheers and hoots, whereupon a troop of mounted +municipal guards scattered the groups and cleared the space to +a distance of three hundred yards from the square. Two fresh +companies of soldiers lined up. +And suddenly there was a great silence. A vague white light fell +from the dark sky. The rain ceased abruptly. +Inside the prison, at the end of the passage containing the +condemned cells, the men in black were conversing in low voices. +Prasville was talking to the public prosecutor, who expressed his +fears: +“No, no,” declared Prasville, “I assure you, it will pass without +an incident of any kind.” +“Do your reports mention nothing at all suspicious, monsieur le +secrétaire;-général?” +“Nothing. And they can’t mention anything, for the simple reason +that we have Lupin.” +“Do you mean that?” +“Yes, we know his hiding-place. The house where he lives, on the +Place de Clichy, and where he went at seven o’clock last night, is +surrounded. Moreover, I know the scheme which he had contrived to +save his two accomplices. The scheme miscarried at the last moment. +We have nothing to fear, therefore. The law will take its course.” +Meanwhile, the hour had struck. +They took Vaucheray first; and the governor of the prison ordered +the door of his cell to be opened. Vaucheray leapt out of bed and +cast eyes dilated with terror upon the men who entered. +“Vaucheray, we have come to tell you....” +“Stow that, stow that,” he muttered. “No words. I know all about +it. Get on with the business.” +One would have thought that he was in a hurry for it to be over +as fast as possible, so readily did he submit to the usual +preparations. But he would not allow any of them to speak to him: +“No words,” he repeated. “What? Confess to the priest? Not worth +while. I have shed blood. The law sheds my blood. It’s the good old +rule. We’re quits.” +Nevertheless, he stopped short for a moment: +“I say, is my mate going through it too?” +And, when he heard that Gilbert would go to the scaffold at the +same time as himself, he had two or three seconds of hesitation, +glanced at the bystanders, seemed about to speak, was silent and, +at last, muttered: +“It’s better so.... They’ll pull us through together . . . we’ll +clink glasses together.” +Gilbert was not asleep either, when the men entered his cell. +Sitting on his bed, he listened to the terrible words, tried to +stand up, began to tremble frightfully, from head to foot, like a +skeleton when shaken, and then fell back, sobbing: +“Oh, my poor mummy, poor mummy!” he stammered. +They tried to question him about that mother, of whom he had never +spoken; but his tears were interrupted by a sudden fit of rebellion +and he cried: +“I have done no murder.... I won’t die. I have done no murder....” +“Gilbert,” they said, “show yourself a man.” +“Yes, yes . . . but I have done no murder.... Why should I die?” +His teeth chattered so loudly that words which he uttered became +unintelligible. He let the men do their work, made his confession, +heard mass and then, growing calmer and almost docile, with the +voice of a little child resigning itself, murmured: +“Tell my mother that I beg her forgiveness.” +“Your mother?” +“Yes.... Put what I say in the papers.... She will understand.... +And then....” +“What, Gilbert?” +“Well, I want the governor to know that I have not lost confidence.” +He gazed at the bystanders, one after the other, as though he +entertained the mad hope that “the governor” was one of them, +disguised beyond recognition and ready to carry him off in his arms: +“Yes,” he said, gently and with a sort of religious piety, “yes, I +still have confidence, even at this moment.... Be sure and let him +know, won’t you?... I am positive that he will not let me die. I am +certain of it....” +They guessed, from the fixed look in his eyes, that he saw Lupin, +that he felt Lupin’s shadow prowling around and seeking an inlet +through which to get to him. And never was anything more touching +than the sight of that stripling--clad in the strait-jacket, +with his arms and legs bound, guarded by thousands of men--whom +the executioner already held in his inexorable hand and who, +nevertheless, hoped on. +Anguish wrung the hearts of all the beholders. Their eyes were +dimmed with tears: +“Poor little chap!” stammered some one. +Prasville, touched like the rest and thinking of Clarisse, +repeated, in a whisper: +“Poor little chap!” +But the hour struck, the preparations were finished. They set out. +The two processions met in the passage. Vaucheray, on seeing +Gilbert, snapped out: +“I say, kiddie, the governor’s chucked us!” +And he added a sentence which nobody, save Prasville, was able to +understand: +“Expect he prefers to pocket the proceeds of the crystal stopper.” +They went down the staircases. They crossed the prison-yards. An +endless, horrible distance. +And, suddenly, in the frame of the great doorway, the wan light of +day, the rain, the street, the outlines of houses, while far-off +sounds came through the awful silence. +They walked along the wall, to the corner of the boulevard. +A few steps farther Vaucheray started back: he had seen! +Gilbert crept along, with lowered head, supported by an +executioner’s assistant and by the chaplain, who made him kiss the +crucifix as he went. +There stood the guillotine. +“No, no,” shouted Gilbert, “I won’t.... I won’t.... Help! Help!” +A last appeal, lost in space. +The executioner gave a signal. Vaucheray was laid hold of, lifted, +dragged along, almost at a run. +And then came this staggering thing: a shot, a shot fired from the +other side, from one of the houses opposite. +The assistants stopped short. +The burden which they were dragging had collapsed in their arms. +“What is it? What’s happened?” asked everybody. +“He’s wounded....” +Blood spurted from Vaucheray’s forehead and covered his face. +He spluttered: +“That’s done it . . . one in a thousand! Thank you, governor, thank +you.” +“Finish him off! Carry him there!” said a voice, amid the general +confusion. +“But he’s dead!” +“Get on with it . . . finish him off!” +Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, +officials and policemen. Every one was giving orders: +“Execute him!... The law must take its course!... We have no right +to delay! It would be cowardice!... Execute him!” +“But the man’s dead!” +“That makes no difference!... The law must be obeyed!... Execute +him!” +The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their +eyes on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the +corpse again and were carrying it to the guillotine. +“Hurry up!” cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. “Hurry +up!... And the other one to follow.... Waste no time....” +He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He +spun round on his heels and fell, groaning: +“It’s nothing . . . a wound in the shoulder.... Go on.... The next +one’s turn!” +But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The +space around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of +police, rallying his men, drove everybody back to the prison, +helter-skelter, like a disordered rabble: the magistrates, the +officials, the condemned man, the chaplain, all who had passed +through the archway two or three minutes before. +In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers +were rushing upon the house, a little old-fashioned, three-storied +house, with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to +be empty. Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, +at one of the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in +his hand and surrounded with a cloud of smoke. +Revolver-shots were fired at him, but missed him. He, standing +calmly on a table, took aim a second time, fired from the shoulder; +and the crack of the second report was heard. Then he withdrew into +the room. +Down below, as nobody answered the peal at the bell, the assailants +demolished the door, which gave way almost immediately. They +made for the staircase, but their onrush was at once stopped, on +the first floor, by an accumulation of beds, chairs and other +furniture, forming a regular barricade and so close-entangled that +it took the aggressors four or five minutes to clear themselves a +passage. +Those four or five minutes lost were enough to render all pursuit +hopeless. When they reached the second floor they heard a voice +shouting from above: +“This way, friends! Eighteen stairs more. A thousand apologies for +giving you so much trouble!” +They ran up those eighteen stairs and nimbly at that! But, at the +top, above the third story, was the garret, which was reached by a +ladder and a trapdoor. And the fugitive had taken away the ladder +and bolted the trapdoor. +The reader will not have forgotten the sensation created by +this amazing action, the editions of the papers issued in quick +succession, the newsboys tearing and shouting through the streets, +the whole metropolis on edge with indignation and, we may say, with +anxious curiosity. +But it was at the headquarters of police that the excitement +developed into a paroxysm. Men flung themselves about on every +side. Messages, telegrams, telephone calls followed one upon the +other. +At last, at eleven o’clock in the morning, there was a meeting in +the office of the prefect of police, and Prasville was there. The +chief-detective read a report of his inquiry, the results of which +amounted to this: shortly before midnight yesterday some one had +rung at the house on the Boulevard Arago. The portress, who slept +in a small room on the ground-floor, behind one of the shops pulled +the rope. A man came and tapped at her door. He said that he had +come from the police on an urgent matter concerning to-morrow’s +execution. The portress opened the door and was at once attacked, +gagged and bound. +Ten minutes later a lady and gentleman who lived on the first floor +and who had just come home were also reduced to helplessness by the +same individual and locked up, each in one of the two empty shops. +The third-floor tenant underwent a similar fate, but in his own +flat and his own bedroom, which the man was able to enter without +being heard. The second floor was unoccupied, and the man took up +his quarters there. He was now master of the house. +“And there we are!” said the prefect of police, beginning to +laugh, with a certain bitterness. “There we are! It’s as simple as +shelling peas. Only, what surprises me is that he was able to get +away so easily.” +“I will ask you to observe, monsieur le préfet, that, being +absolute master of the house from one o’clock in the morning, he +had until five o’clock to prepare his flight.” +“And that flight took place...?” +“Over the roofs. At that spot the houses in the next street, the +Rue de la Glacière, are quite near and there is only one break +in the roofs, about three yards wide, with a drop of one yard in +height.” +“Well?” +“Well, our man had taken away the ladder leading to the garret +and used it as a foot-bridge. After crossing to the next block of +buildings, all he had to do was to look through the windows until +he found an empty attic, enter one of the houses in the Rue de la +Glacière and walk out quietly with his hands in his pockets. In +this way his flight, duly prepared beforehand, was effected very +simply and without the least obstacle.” +“But you had taken the necessary measures.” +“Those which you ordered, monsieur le préfet. My men spent three +hours last evening visiting all the houses, so as to make sure that +there was no stranger hiding there. At the moment when they were +leaving the last house I had the street barred. Our man must have +slipped through during that few minutes’ interval.” +“Capital! Capital! And there is no doubt in your minds, of course: +it’s Arsène Lupin?” +“Not a doubt. In the first place, it was all a question of his +accomplices. And then . . . and then . . . no one but Arsène Lupin +was capable of contriving such a master-stroke and carrying it out +with that inconceivable boldness.” +“But, in that case,” muttered the prefect of police--and, turning +to Prasville, he continued--“but, in that case, my dear Prasville, +the fellow of whom you spoke to me, the fellow whom you and the +chief-detective have had watched since yesterday evening, in his +flat in the Place de Clichy, that fellow is not Arsène Lupin?” +“Yes, he is, monsieur le préfet. There is no doubt about that +either.” +“Then why wasn’t he arrested when he went out last night?” +“He did not go out.” +“I say, this is getting complicated!” +“It’s quite simple, monsieur le préfet. Like all the houses in +which traces of Arsène Lupin are to be found, the house in the +Place de Clichy has two outlets.” +“And you didn’t know it?” +“I didn’t know it. I only discovered it this morning, on inspecting +the flat.” +“Was there no one in the flat?” +“No. The servant, a man called Achille, went away this morning, +taking with him a lady who was staying with Lupin.” +“What was the lady’s name?” +“I don’t know,” replied Prasville, after an imperceptible +hesitation. +“But you know the name under which Arsène Lupin passed?” +“Yes. M. Nicole, a private tutor, master of arts and so on. Here is +his card.” +As Prasville finished speaking, an office-messenger came to tell +the prefect of police that he was wanted immediately at the Élysée. +The prime minister was there already. +“I’m coming,” he said. And he added, between his teeth, “It’s to +decide upon Gilbert’s fate.” +Prasville ventured: +“Do you think they will pardon him, monsieur le préfet?” +“Never! After last night’s affair, it would make a most deplorable +impression. Gilbert must pay his debt to-morrow morning.” +The messenger had, at the same time, handed Prasville a +visiting-card. Prasville now looked at it, gave a start and +muttered: +“Well, I’m hanged! What a nerve!” +“What’s the matter?” asked the prefect of police. +“Nothing, nothing, monsieur le préfet,” declared Prasville, who did +not wish to share with another the honour of seeing this business +through. “Nothing . . . an unexpected visit.... I hope soon to have +the pleasure of telling you the result.” +And he walked away, mumbling, with an air of amazement: +“Well, upon my word! What a nerve the beggar has! What a nerve!” +The visiting-card which he held in his hand bore these words: ++---------------------------------------------+ +| | +| _M. Nicole,_ | +| | +| _Master of Arts, Private Tutor._ | +| | ++---------------------------------------------+ +CHAPTER XIII. +THE LAST BATTLE +When Prasville returned to his office he saw M. Nicole sitting on a +bench in the waiting-room, with his bent back, his ailing air, his +gingham umbrella, his rusty hat and his single glove: +“It’s he all right,” said Prasville, who had feared for a moment +that Lupin might have sent another M. Nicole to see him. “And the +fact that he has come in person proves that he does not suspect +that I have seen through him.” And, for the third time, he said, +“All the same, what a nerve!” +He shut the door of his office and called his secretary: +“M. Lartigue, I am having a rather dangerous person shown in here. +The chances are that he will have to leave my office with the +bracelets on. As soon as he is in my room, make all the necessary +arrangements: send for a dozen inspectors and have them posted in +the waiting-room and in your office. And take this as a definite +instruction: the moment I ring, you are all to come in, revolvers +in hand, and surround the fellow. Do you quite understand?” +“Yes, monsieur le secrétaire;-général.” +“Above all, no hesitation. A sudden entrance, in a body, revolvers +in hand. Send M. Nicole in, please.” +As soon as he was alone, Prasville covered the push of an electric +bell on his desk with some papers and placed two revolvers of +respectable dimensions behind a rampart of books. +“And now,” he said to himself, “to sit tight. If he has the list, +let’s collar it. If he hasn’t, let’s collar him. And, if possible, +let’s collar both. Lupin and the list of the Twenty-seven, on the +same day, especially after the scandal of this morning, would be a +scoop in a thousand.” +There was a knock at the door. +“Come in!” said Prasville. +And, rising from his seat: +“Come in, M. Nicole, come in.” +M. Nicole crept timidly into the room, sat down on the extreme edge +of the chair to which Prasville pointed and said: +“I have come . . . to resume . . . our conversation of yesterday.... +Please excuse the delay, monsieur.” +“One second,” said Prasville. “Will you allow me?” +He stepped briskly to the outer room and, seeing his secretary: +“I was forgetting, M. Lartigue. Have the staircases and passages +searched . . . in case of accomplices.” +He returned, settled himself comfortably, as though for a long and +interesting conversation, and began: +“You were saying, M. Nicole?” +“I was saying, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, that I must +apologize for keeping you waiting yesterday evening. I was detained +by different matters. First of all, Mme. Mergy....” +“Yes, you had to see Mme. Mergy home.” +“Just so, and to look after her. You can understand the poor +thing’s despair.... Her son Gilbert so near death.... And such a +death!... At that time we could only hope for a miracle . . . an +impossible miracle. I myself was resigned to the inevitable.... You +know as well as I do, when fate shows itself implacable, one ends +by despairing.” +“But I thought,” observed Prasville, “that your intention, on +leaving me, was to drag Daubrecq’s secret from him at all costs.” +“Certainly. But Daubrecq was not in Paris.” +“Oh?” +“No. He was on his way to Paris in a motor-car.” +“Have you a motor-car, M. Nicole?” +“Yes, when I need it: an out-of-date concern, an old tin kettle of +sorts. Well, he was on his way to Paris in a motor-car, or rather +on the roof of a motor-car, inside a trunk in which I packed him. +But, unfortunately, the motor was unable to reach Paris until after +the execution. Thereupon....” +Prasville stared at M. Nicole with an air of stupefaction. If he +had retained the least doubt of the individual’s real identity, +this manner of dealing with Daubrecq would have removed it. By +Jingo! To pack a man in a trunk and pitch him on the top of a +motor-car!... No one but Lupin would indulge in such a freak, no +one but Lupin would confess it with that ingenuous coolness! +“Thereupon,” echoed Prasville, “you decided what?” +“I cast about for another method.” +“What method?” +“Why, surely, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, you know as well as +I do!” +“How do you mean?” +“Why, weren’t you at the execution?” +“I was.” +“In that case, you saw both Vaucheray and the executioner hit, one +mortally, the other with a slight wound. And you can’t fail to +see....” +“Oh,” exclaimed Prasville, dumbfounded, “you confess it? It was you +who fired the shots, this morning?” +“Come, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, think! What choice had I? +The list of the Twenty-seven which you examined was a forgery. +Daubrecq, who possessed the genuine one, would not arrive until a +few hours after the execution. There was therefore but one way for +me to save Gilbert and obtain his pardon; and that was to delay the +execution by a few hours.” +“Obviously.” +“Well, of course. By killing that infamous brute, that hardened +criminal, Vaucheray, and wounding the executioner, I spread +disorder and panic; I made Gilbert’s execution physically and +morally impossible; and I thus gained the few hours which were +indispensable for my purpose.” +“Obviously,” repeated Prasville. +“Well, of course,” repeated Lupin, “it gives us all--the +government, the president and myself--time to reflect and to see +the question in a clearer light. What do you think of it, monsieur +le secrétaire;-général?” +Prasville thought a number of things, especially that this Nicole +was giving proof, to use a vulgar phrase, of the most infernal +cheek, of a cheek so great that Prasville felt inclined to ask +himself if he was really right in identifying Nicole with Lupin and +Lupin with Nicole. +“I think, M. Nicole, that a man has to be a jolly good shot to kill +a person whom he wants to kill, at a distance of a hundred yards, +and to wound another person whom he only wants to wound.” +“I have had some little practice,” said M. Nicole, with modest air. +“And I also think that your plan can only be the fruit of a long +preparation.” +“Not at all! That’s where you’re wrong! It was absolutely +spontaneous! If my servant, or rather the servant of the friend who +lent me his flat in the Place de Clichy, had not shaken me out of +my sleep, to tell me that he had once served as a shopman in that +little house on the Boulevard Arago, that it did not hold many +tenants and that there might be something to be done there, our +poor Gilbert would have had his head cut off by now . . . and Mme. +Mergy would most likely be dead.” +“Oh, you think so?” +“I am sure of it. And that was why I jumped at that faithful +retainer’s suggestion. Only, you interfered with my plans, monsieur +le secrétaire;-général.” +“I did?” +“Yes. You must needs go and take the three-cornered precaution of +posting twelve men at the door of my house. I had to climb five +flights of back stairs and go out through the servants’ corridor +and the next house. Such useless fatigue!” +“I am very sorry, M. Nicole. Another time....” +“It was the same thing at eight o’clock this morning, when I was +waiting for the motor which was bringing Daubrecq to me in his +trunk: I had to march up and down the Place de Clichy, so as to +prevent the car from stopping outside the door of my place and your +men from interfering in my private affairs. Otherwise, once again, +Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy would have been lost.” +“But,” said Prasville, “those painful events, it seems to me, are +only delayed for a day, two days, three days at most. To avert them +for good and all we should want....” +“The real list, I suppose?” +“Exactly. And I daresay you haven’t got it.” +“Yes, I have.” +“The genuine list?” +“The genuine, the undoubtedly genuine list.” +“With the cross of Lorraine?” +“With the cross of Lorraine.” +Prasville was silent. He was labouring under violent emotion, +now that the duel was commencing with that adversary of whose +terrifying superiority he was well aware; and he shuddered at the +idea that Arsène Lupin, the formidable Arsène Lupin, was there, +in front of him, calm and placid, pursuing his aims with as much +coolness as though he had all the weapons in his hands and were +face to face with a disarmed enemy. +Not yet daring to deliver a frontal attack, feeling almost +intimidated, Prasville said: +“So Daubrecq gave it up to you?” +“Daubrecq gives nothing up. I took it.” +“By main force, therefore?” +“Oh, dear, no!” said M. Nicole, laughing. “Of course, I was ready +to go to all lengths; and, when that worthy Daubrecq was dug +out of the basket in which he had been travelling express, with +an occasional dose of chloroform to keep his strength up, I had +prepared things so that the fun might begin at once. Oh, no useless +tortures . . . no vain sufferings! No.... Death, simply.... You +press the point of a long needle on the chest, where the heart +is, and insert it gradually, softly and gently. That’s all but +the point would have been driven by Mme. Mergy. You understand: a +mother is pitiless, a mother whose son is about to die!... ‘Speak, +Daubrecq, or I’ll go deeper.... You won’t speak?... Then I’ll +push another quarter of an inch . . . and another still.’ And the +patient’s heart stops beating, the heart that feels the needle +coming.... And another quarter of an inch . . . and one more.... I +swear before Heaven that the villain would have spoken!... We leant +over him and waited for him to wake, trembling with impatience, so +urgent was our hurry.... Can’t you picture the scene, monsieur le +secrétaire;-général? The scoundrel lying on a sofa, well bound, +bare-chested, making efforts to throw off the fumes of chloroform +that dazed him. He breathes quicker.... He gasps.... He recovers +consciousness . . . his lips move.... Already, Clarisse Mergy +whispers, ‘It’s I . . . it’s I, Clarisse.... Will you answer, you +wretch?’ She has put her finger on Daubrecq’s chest, at the spot +where the heart stirs like a little animal hidden under the skin. +But she says to me, ‘His eyes . . . his eyes.... I can’t see them +under the spectacles.... I want to see them.... ‘And I also want +to see those eyes which I do not know, I want to see their anguish +and I want to read in them, before I hear a word, the secret which +is about to burst from the inmost recesses of the terrified body. +I want to see. I long to see. The action which I am about to +accomplish excites me beyond measure. It seems to me that, when I +have seen the eyes, the veil will be rent asunder. I shall know +things. It is a presentiment. It is the profound intuition of the +truth that keeps me on tenterhooks. The eye-glasses are gone. But +the thick opaque spectacles are there still. And I snatch them +off, suddenly. And, suddenly, startled by a disconcerting vision, +dazzled by the quick light that breaks in upon me and laughing, +oh, but laughing fit to break my jaws, with my thumb--do you +understand? with my thumb--hop, I force out the left eye!” +M. Nicole was really laughing, as he said, fit to break his jaws. +And he was no longer the timid little unctuous and obsequious +provincial usher, but a well-set-up fellow, who, after reciting and +mimicking the whole scene with impressive ardour, was now laughing +with a shrill laughter the sound of which made Prasville’s flesh +creep: +“Hop! Jump, Marquis! Out of your kennel, Towzer! What’s the use of +two eyes? It’s one more than you want. Hop! I say, Clarisse, look +at it rolling over the carpet! Mind Daubrecq’s eye! Be careful with +the grate!” +M. Nicole, who had risen and pretended to be hunting after +something across the room, now sat down again, took from his pocket +a thing shaped like a marble, rolled it in the hollow of his hand, +chucked it in the air, like a ball, put it back in his fob and +said, coolly: +“Daubrecq’s left eye.” +Prasville was utterly bewildered. What was his strange visitor +driving at? What did all this story mean? Pale with excitement, he +said: +“Explain yourself.” +“But it’s all explained, it seems to me. And it fits in so well +with things as they were, fits in with all the conjectures which +I had been making in spite of myself and which would inevitably +have led to my solving the mystery, if that damned Daubrecq had +not so cleverly sent me astray! Yes, think, follow the trend of +my suppositions: ‘As the list is not to be discovered away from +Daubrecq,’ I said to myself, ‘it cannot exist away from Daubrecq. +And, as it is not to be discovered in the clothes he wears, it must +be hidden deeper still, in himself, to speak plainly, in his flesh, +under his skin....” +“In his eye, perhaps?” suggested Prasville, by way of a joke.... +“In his eye? Monsieur le secrétaire;-général, you have said the +word.” +“What?” +“I repeat, in his eye. And it is a truth that ought to have +occurred to my mind logically, instead of being revealed to me by +accident. And I will tell you why. Daubrecq knew that Clarisse +had seen a letter from him instructing an English manufacturer +to ‘empty the crystal within, so as to leave a void which it was +unpossible to suspect.’ Daubrecq was bound, in prudence, to divert +any attempt at search. And it was for this reason that he had a +crystal stopper made, ‘emptied within,’ after a model supplied by +himself. And it is this crystal stopper which you and I have been +after for months; and it is this crystal stopper which I dug out of +a packet of tobacco. Whereas all I had to do....” +“Was what?” asked Prasville, greatly puzzled. +M. Nicole burst into a fresh fit of laughter: +“Was simply to go for Daubrecq’s eye, that eye ‘emptied within so +as to leave a void which it is impossible to suspect,’ the eye +which you see before you.” +And M. Nicole once more took the thing from his pocket and rapped +the table with it, producing the sound of a hard body with each rap. +Prasville whispered, in astonishment: +“A glass eye!” +“Why, of course!” cried M. Nicole, laughing gaily. “A glass eye! +A common or garden decanter-stopper, which the rascal stuck +into his eyesocket in the place of an eye which he had lost--a +decanter-stopper, or, if you prefer, a crystal stopper, but the +real one, this time, which he faked, which he hid behind the double +bulwark of his spectacles and eye-glasses, which contained and +still contains the talisman that enabled Daubrecq to work as he +pleased in safety.” +Prasville lowered his head and put his hand to his forehead to +hide his flushed face: he was almost possessing the list of the +Twenty-seven. It lay before him, on the table. +Mastering his emotion, he said, in a casual tone: +“So it is there still?” +“At least, I suppose so,” declared M. Nicole. +“What! You suppose so?” +“I have not opened the hiding-place. I thought, monsieur le +secrétaire;-général, I would reserve that honour for you.” +Prasville put out his hand, took the thing up and inspected it. It +was a block of crystal, imitating nature to perfection, with all +the details of the eyeball, the iris, the pupil, the cornea. +He at once saw a movable part at the back, which slid in a groove. +He pushed it. The eye was hollow. +There was a tiny ball of paper inside. He unfolded it, smoothed +it out and, quickly, without delaying to make a preliminary +examination of the names, the hand-writing or the signatures, he +raised his arms and turned the paper to the light from the windows. +“Is the cross of Lorraine there?” asked M. Nicole. +“Yes, it is there,” replied Prasville. “This is the genuine list.” +He hesitated a few seconds and remained with his arms raised, while +reflecting what he would do. Then he folded up the paper again, +replaced it in its little crystal sheath and put the whole thing in +his pocket. M. Nicole, who was looking at him, asked: +“Are you convinced?” +“Absolutely.” +“Then we are agreed?” +“We are agreed.” +There was a pause, during which the two men watched each other +without appearing to. M. Nicole seemed to be waiting for the +conversation to be resumed. Prasville, sheltered behind the piles +of books on the table, sat with one hand grasping his revolver and +the other touching the push of the electric bell. He felt the whole +strength of his position with a keen zest. He held the list. He +held Lupin: +“If he moves,” he thought, “I cover him with my revolver and I +ring. If he attacks me, I shoot.” +And the situation appeared to him so pleasant that he prolonged it, +with the exquisite relish of an epicure. +In the end, M. Nicole took up the threads: +“As we are agreed, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, I think there +is nothing left for you to do but to hurry. Is the execution to +take place to-morrow?” +“Yes, to-morrow.” +“In that case, I shall wait here.” +“Wait for what?” +“The answer from the Élysée.” +“Oh, is some one to bring you an answer?” +“Yes.” +“You, monsieur le secrétaire;-général.” +Prasville shook his head: +“You must not count on me, M. Nicole.” +“Really?” said M. Nicole, with an air of surprise. “May I ask the +reason?” +“I have changed my mind.” +“Is that all?” +“That’s all. I have come to the conclusion that, as things stand, +after this last scandal, it is impossible to try to do anything +in Gilbert’s favour. Besides, an attempt in this direction at the +Élysée, under present conditions, would constitute a regular case +of blackmail, to which I absolutely decline to lend myself.” +“You are free to do as you please, monsieur. Your scruples do you +honour, though they come rather late, for they did not trouble you +yesterday. But, in that case, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, as +the compact between us is destroyed, give me back the list of the +Twenty-seven.” +“What for?” +“So that I may apply to another spokesman.” +“What’s the good? Gilbert is lost.” +“Not at all, not at all. On the contrary, I consider that, now +that his accomplice is dead, it will be much easier to grant him a +pardon which everybody will look upon as fair and humane. Give me +back the list.” +“Upon my word, monsieur, you have a short memory and none too nice +a conscience. Have you forgotten your promise of yesterday?” +“Yesterday, I made a promise to a M. Nicole.” +“Well?” +“You are not M. Nicole.” +“Indeed! Then, pray, who am I?” +“Need I tell you?” +M. Nicole made no reply, but began to laugh softly, as though +pleased at the curious turn which the conversation was taking; +and Prasville felt a vague misgiving at observing that fit of +merriment. He grasped the butt-end of his revolver and wondered +whether he ought not to ring for help. +M. Nicole drew his chair close to the desk, put his two elbows on +the table, looked Prasville straight in the face and jeered: +“So, M. Prasville, you know who I am and you have the assurance to +play this game with me?” +“I have that assurance,” said Prasville, accepting the sneer +without flinching. +“Which proves that you consider me, Arsène Lupin--we may as well +use the name: yes, Arsène Lupin--which proves that you consider me +fool enough, dolt enough to deliver myself like this, bound hand +and foot into your hands.” +“Upon my word,” said Prasville, airily, patting the +waistcoat-pocket in which he had secreted the crystal ball, “I +don’t quite see what you can do, M. Nicole, now that Daubrecq’s eye +is here, with the list of the Twenty-seven inside it.” +“What I can do?” echoed M. Nicole, ironically. +“Yes! The talisman no longer protects you; and you are now no +better off than any other man who might venture into the very heart +of the police-office, among some dozens of stalwart fellows posted +behind each of those doors and some hundreds of others who will +hasten up at the first signal.” +M. Nicole shrugged his shoulders and gave Prasville a look of great +commiseration: +“Shall I tell you what is happening, monsieur le +secrétaire;-général? Well, you too are having your head turned +by all this business. Now that you possess the list, your state +of mind has suddenly sunk to that of a Daubrecq or a d’Albufex. +There is no longer even a question, in your thoughts, of taking it +to your superiors, so that this ferment of disgrace and discord +may be ended. No, no; a sodden temptation has seized upon you and +intoxicated you; and, losing your head, you say to yourself, ‘It +is here, in my pocket. With its aid, I am omnipotent. It means +wealth, absolute, unbounded power. Why not benefit by it? Why not +let Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy die? Why not lock up that idiot of +a Lupin? Why not seize this unparalleled piece of fortune by the +forelock?’” +He bent toward Prasville and, very softly, in a friendly and +confidential tone, said: +“Don’t do that, my dear sir, don’t do it.” +“And why not?” +“It is not to your interest, believe me.” +“Really!” +“No. Or, if you absolutely insist on doing it, have the kindness +first to consult the twenty-seven names on the list of which you +have just robbed me and reflect, for a moment, on the name of the +third person on it.” +“Oh? And what is the name of that third person?” +“It is the name of a friend of yours.” +“What friend?” +“Stanislas Vorenglade, the ex-deputy.” +“And then?” said Prasville, who seemed to be losing some of his +self-confidence. +“Then? Ask yourself if an inquiry, however summary, would not end +by discovering, behind that Stanislas Vorenglade, the name of one +who shared certain little profits with him.” +“And whose name is?” +“Louis Prasville.” +M. Nicole banged the table with his fist. +“Enough of this humbug, monsieur! For twenty minutes, you and I +have been beating about the bush. That will do. Let us understand +each other. And, to begin with, drop your pistols. You can’t +imagine that I am frightened of those playthings! Stand up, sir, +stand up, as I am doing, and finish the business: I am in a hurry.” +He put his hand on Prasville’s shoulder and, speaking with great +deliberation, said: +“If, within an hour from now, you are not back from the Élysée, +bringing with you a line to say that the decree of pardon has been +signed; if, within one hour and ten minutes, I, Arsène Lupin, do +not walk out of this building safe and sound and absolutely free, +this evening four Paris newspapers will receive four letters +selected from the correspondence exchanged between Stanislas +Vorenglade and yourself, the correspondence which Stanislas +Vorenglade sold me this morning. Here’s your hat, here’s your +overcoat, here’s your stick. Be off. I will wait for you.” +Then happened this extraordinary and yet easily understood thing, +that Prasville did not raise the slightest protest nor make the +least show of fight. He received the sudden, far-reaching, utter +conviction of what the personality known as Arsène Lupin meant, +in all its breadth and fulness. He did not so much as think of +carping, of pretending--as he had until then believed--that the +letters had been destroyed by Vorenglade the deputy or, at any +rate, that Vorenglade would not dare to hand them over, because, +in so doing, Vorenglade was also working his own destruction. No, +Prasville did not speak a word. He felt himself caught in a vise +of which no human strength could force the jaws asunder. There was +nothing to do but yield. He yielded. +“Here, in an hour,” repeated M. Nicole. +“In an hour,” said Prasville, tamely. Nevertheless, in order to +know exactly where he stood, he added, “The letters, of course, +will be restored to me against Gilbert’s pardon?” +“No.” +“How do you mean, no? In that case, there is no object in....” +“They will be restored to you, intact, two months after the day +when my friends and I have brought about Gilbert’s escape . . . +thanks to the very slack watch which will be kept upon him, in +accordance with your orders.” +“Is that all?” +“No, there are two further conditions: first, the immediate payment +of a cheque for forty thousand francs.” +“Forty thousand francs?” +“The sum for which Stanislas Vorenglade sold me the letters. It is +only fair....” +“And next?” +“Secondly, your resignation, within six months, of your present +position.” +“My resignation? But why?” +M. Nicole made a very dignified gesture: +“Because it is against public morals that one of the highest +positions in the police-service should be occupied by a man whose +hands are not absolutely clean. Make them send you to parliament or +appoint you a minister, a councillor of State, an ambassador, in +short, any post which your success in the Daubrecq case entitles +you to demand. But not secretary-general of police; anything but +that! The very thought of it disgusts me.” +Prasville reflected for a moment. He would have rejoiced in the +sudden destruction of his adversary and he racked his brain for the +means to effect it. But he was helpless. +He went to the door and called: +“M. Lartigue.” And, sinking his voice, but not very low, for he +wished M. Nicole to hear, “M. Lartigue, dismiss your men. It’s a +mistake. And let no one come into my office while I am gone. This +gentleman will wait for me here.” +He came back, took the hat, stick and overcoat which M. Nicole +handed him and went out. +“Well done, sir,” said Lupin, between his teeth, when the door was +closed. “You have behaved like a sportsman and a gentleman.... So +did I, for that matter . . . perhaps with too obvious a touch of +contempt . . . and a little too bluntly. But, tush, this sort of +business has to be carried through with a high hand! The enemy’s +got to be staggered! Besides, when one’s own conscience is clear, +one can’t take up too bullying a tone with that sort of individual. +Lift your head, Lupin. You have been the champion of outraged +morality. Be proud of your work. And now take a chair, stretch out +your legs and have a rest. You’ve deserved it.” +When Prasville returned, he found Lupin sound asleep and had to tap +him on the shoulder to wake him. +“Is it done?” asked Lupin. +“It’s done. The pardon will be signed presently. Here is the +written promise.” +“The forty thousand francs?” +“Here’s your cheque.” +“Good. It but remains for me to thank you, monsieur.” +“So the correspondence....” +“The Stanislas Vorenglade correspondence will be handed to you on +the conditions stated. However, I am glad to be able to give you, +here and now, as a sign of my gratitude, the four letters which I +meant to send to the papers this evening.” +“Oh, so you had them on you?” said Prasville. +“I felt so certain, monsieur le secrétaire;-général, that we should +end by coming to an understanding.” +He took from his hat a fat envelope, sealed with five red seals, +which was pinned inside the lining, and handed it to Prasville, who +thrust it into his pocket. Then he said: +“Monsieur le secrétaire;-général, I don’t know when I shall +have the pleasure of seeing you again. If you have the least +communication to make to me, one line in the agony column of the +_Journal_ will be sufficient. Just head it, ‘M. Nicole.’ Good-day +to you.” +And he withdrew. +Prasville, when he was alone, felt as if he were waking from a +nightmare during which he had performed incoherent actions over +which his conscious mind had no control. He was almost thinking +of ringing and causing a stir in the passages; but, just then, +there was a tap at the door and one of the office-messengers came +hurrying in. +“What’s the matter?” asked Prasville. +“Monsieur le secrétaire;-général, it’s Monsieur le Député Daubrecq +asking to see you . . . on a matter of the highest importance.” +“Daubrecq!” exclaimed Prasville, in bewilderment. “Daubrecq here! +Show him in.” +[Illustration: Daubrecq ran up to Prasville out of breath and caught +hold of him with his two enormous hands.] +Daubrecq had not waited for the order. He ran up to Prasville, out +of breath, with his clothes in disorder, a bandage over his left +eye, no tie, no collar, looking like an escaped lunatic; and the +door was not closed before he caught hold of Prasville with his two +enormous hands: +“Have you the list?” +“Yes.” +“Have you bought it?” +“Yes.” +“At the price of Gilbert’s pardon?” +“Yes.” +“Is it signed?” +“Yes.” +Daubrecq made a furious gesture: +“You fool! You fool! You’ve been trapped! For hatred of me, I +expect? And now you’re going to take your revenge?” +“With a certain satisfaction, Daubrecq. Remember my little friend, +the opera-dancer, at Nice.... It’s your turn now to dance.” +“So it means prison?” +“I should think so,” said Prasville. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. +You’re done for, anyhow. Deprived of the list, without defence of +any kind, you’re bound to fall to pieces of your own weight. And I +shall be present at the break-up. That’s my revenge.” +“And you believe that!” yelled Daubrecq, furiously. “You believe +that they will wring my neck like a chicken’s and that I shall not +know how to defend myself and that I have no claws left and no +teeth to bite with! Well, my boy, if I do come to grief, there’s +always one who will fall with me and that is Master Prasville, the +partner of Stanislas Vorenglade, who is going to hand me every +proof in existence against him, so that I may get him sent to +gaol without delay. Aha, I’ve got you fixed, old chap! With those +letters, you’ll go as I please, hang it all, and there will be fine +days yet for Daubrecq the deputy! What! You’re laughing, are you? +Perhaps those letters don’t exist?” +Prasville shrugged his shoulders: +“Yes, they exist. But Vorenglade no longer has them in his +possession.” +“Since when?” +“Since this morning. Vorenglade sold them, two hours ago, for the +sum of forty thousand francs; and I have bought them back at the +same price.” +Daubrecq burst into a great roar of laughter: +“Lord, how funny! Forty thousand francs! You’ve paid forty thousand +francs! To M. Nicole, I suppose, who sold you the list of the +Twenty-seven? Well, would you like me to tell you the real name of +M. Nicole? It’s Arsène Lupin!” +“I know that.” +“Very likely. But what you don’t know, you silly ass, is that I +have come straight from Stanislas Vorenglade’s and that Stanislas +Vorenglade left Paris four days ago! Oh, what a joke! They’ve sold +you waste paper! And your forty thousand francs! What an ass! What +an ass!” +He walked out of the room, screaming with laughter and leaving +Prasville absolutely dumbfounded. +So Arsène Lupin possessed no proof at all; and, when he was +threatening and commanding and treating Prasville with that airy +insolence, it was all a farce, all bluff! +“No, no, it’s impossible,” thought the secretary-general. “I have +the sealed envelope.... It’s here.... I have only to open it.” +He dared not open it. He handled it, weighed it, examined it.... +And doubt made its way so swiftly into his mind that he was not in +the least surprised, when he did open it, to find that it contained +four blank sheets of note-paper. +“Well, well,” he said, “I am no match for those rascals. But all is +not over yet.” +And, in point of fact, all was not over. If Lupin had acted so +daringly, it showed that the letters existed and that he relied +upon buying them from Stanislas Vorenglade. But, as, on the other +hand, Vorenglade was not in Paris, Prasville’s business was simply +to forestall Lupin’s steps with regard to Vorenglade and obtain +the restitution of those dangerous letters from Vorenglade at all +costs. The first to arrive would be the victor. +Prasville once more took his hat, coat and stick, went downstairs, +stepped into a taxi and drove to Vorenglade’s flat. +Here he was told that the ex-deputy was expected home from London +at six o’clock that evening. +It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Prasville therefore had plenty +of time to prepare his plan. +He arrived at the Gare du Nord at five o’clock and posted all +around, in the waiting-rooms and in the railway-offices, the three +or four dozen detectives whom he had brought with him. +This made him feel easy. If M. Nicole tried to speak to Vorenglade, +they would arrest Lupin. And, to make assurance doubly sure, they +would arrest whosoever could be suspected of being either Lupin or +one of Lupin’s emissaries. +Moreover, Prasville made a close inspection of the whole station. +He discovered nothing suspicious. But, at ten minutes to six, +Chief-inspector Blanchon, who was with him, said: +“Look, there’s Daubrecq.” +Daubrecq it was; and the sight of his enemy exasperated the +secretary-general to such a pitch that he was on the verge of +having him arrested. But he reflected that he had no excuse, no +right, no warrant for the arrest. +Besides, Daubrecq’s presence proved, with still greater force, +that everything now depended on Stanislas Vorenglade. Vorenglade +possessed the letters: who would end by having them? Daubrecq? +Lupin? Or he, Prasville? +Lupin was not there and could not be there. Daubrecq was not in a +position to fight. There could be no doubt, therefore, about the +result: Prasville would reenter into possession of his letters and, +through this very fact, would escape Daubrecq’s threats and Lupin’s +threats and recover all his freedom of action against them. +The train arrived. +In accordance with orders, the stationmaster had issued +instructions that no one was to be admitted to the platform. +Prasville, therefore, walked on alone, in front of a number of his +men, with Chief-inspector Blanchon at their head. +The train drew up. +Prasville almost at once saw Stanislas Vorenglade at the window of +a first-class compartment, in the middle of the train. +The ex-deputy alighted and then held out his hand to assist an old +gentleman who was travelling with him. +Prasville ran up to him and said, eagerly: +“Vorenglade . . . I want to speak to you....” +At the same moment, Daubrecq, who had managed to pass the barrier, +appeared and exclaimed: +“M. Vorenglade, I have had your letter. I am at your disposal.” +Vorenglade looked at the two men, recognized Prasville, recognized +Daubrecq, and smiled: +“Oho, it seems that my return was awaited with some impatience! +What’s it all about? Certain letters, I expect?” +“Yes . . . yes . . .” replied the two men, fussing around him. +“You’re too late,” he declared. +“Eh? What? What do you mean?” +“I mean that the letters are sold.” +“Sold! To whom?” +“To this gentleman,” said Vorenglade, pointing to his +travelling-companion, “to this gentleman, who thought that the +business was worth going out of his way for and who came to Amiens +to meet me.” +The old gentleman, a very old man wrapped in furs and leaning on +his stick, took off his hat and bowed. +“It’s Lupin,” thought Prasville, “it’s Lupin, beyond a doubt.” +And he glanced toward the detectives, was nearly calling them, but +the old gentleman explained: +“Yes, I thought the letters were good enough to warrant a few +hours’ railway journey and the cost of two return tickets.” +“Two tickets?” +“One for me and the other for one of my friends.” +“One of your friends?” +“Yes, he left us a few minutes ago and reached the front part of +the train through the corridor. He was in a great hurry.” +Prasville understood: Lupin had taken the precaution to bring an +accomplice, and the accomplice was carrying off the letters. The +game was lost, to a certainty. Lupin had a firm grip on his victim. +There was nothing to do but submit and accept the conqueror’s +conditions. +“Very well, sir,” said Prasville. “We shall see each other when the +time comes. Good-bye for the present, Daubrecq: you shall hear from +me.” And, drawing Vorenglade aside, “As for you, Vorenglade, you +are playing a dangerous game.” +“Dear me!” said the ex-deputy. “And why?” +The two men moved away. +Daubrecq had not uttered a word and stood motionless, as though +rooted to the ground. +The old gentleman went up to him and whispered: +“I say, Daubrecq, wake up, old chap.... It’s the chloroform, I +expect....” +Daubrecq clenched his fists and gave a muttered growl. +“Ah, I see you know me!” said the old gentleman. “Then you will +remember our interview, some months ago, when I came to see you +in the Square Lamartine and asked you to intercede in Gilbert’s +favour. I said to you that day, ‘Lay down your arms, save Gilbert +and I will leave you in peace. If not, I shall take the list of the +Twenty-seven from you; and then you’re done for.’ Well, I have a +strong suspicion that done for is what you are. That comes of not +making terms with kind M. Lupin. Sooner or later, you’re bound to +lose your boots by it. However, let it be a lesson to you.... By +the way, here’s your pocketbook which I forgot to give you. Excuse +me if you find it lightened of its contents. There were not only a +decent number of bank-notes in it, but also the receipt from the +warehouse where you stored the Enghien things which you took back +from me. I thought I might as well save you the trouble of taking +them out yourself. It ought to be done by now. No, don’t thank me: +it’s not worth mentioning. Good-bye, Daubrecq. And, if you should +want a louis or two, to buy yourself a new decanter-stopper, drop +me a line. Good-bye, Daubrecq.” +He walked away. +He had not gone fifty steps when he heard the sound of a shot. +He turned round. +Daubrecq had blown his brains out. +“_De profundis!_” murmured Lupin, taking off his hat. +* * * * * +Two months later, Gilbert, whose sentence had been commuted to one +of penal servitude for life, made his escape from the Île de Ré, on +the day before that on which he was to have been transported to New +Caledonia. +It was a strange escape. Its least details remained difficult to +understand; and, like the two shots on the Boulevard Arago, it +greatly enhanced Arsène Lupin’s prestige. +“Taken all round,” said Lupin to me, one day, after telling me the +different episodes of the story, “taken all around, no enterprise +has ever given me more trouble or cost me greater exertions than +that confounded adventure which, if you don’t mind, we will call, +_The Crystal Stopper; or, Never Say Die_. In twelve hours, between +six o’clock in the morning and six o’clock in the evening, I made +up for six months of bad luck, blunders, gropings in the dark and +reverses. I certainly count those twelve hours among the finest and +the most glorious of my life.” +“And Gilbert?” I asked. “What became of him?” +“He is farming his own land, way down in Algeria, under his +real name, his only name of Antoine Mergy. He is married to an +Englishwoman, and they have a son whom he insisted on calling +Arsène. I often receive a bright, chatty, warm-hearted letter from +him.” +“And Mme. Mergy?” +“She and her little Jacques are living with them.” +“Did you see her again?” +“I did not.” +“Really!” +Lupin hesitated for a few moments and then said with a smile: +“My dear fellow, I will let you into a secret that will make me +seem ridiculous in your eyes. But you know that I have always +been as sentimental as a schoolboy and as silly as a goose. Well, +on the evening when I went back to Clarisse Mergy and told her +the news of the day--part of which, for that matter, she already +knew--I felt two things very thoroughly. One was that I entertained +for her a much deeper feeling than I thought; the other that +she, on the contrary, entertained for me a feeling which was not +without contempt, not without a rankling grudge nor even a certain +aversion.” +“Nonsense! Why?” +“Why? Because Clarisse Mergy is an exceedingly honest woman and +because I am . . . just Arsène Lupin.” +“Oh!” +“Dear me, yes, an attractive bandit, a romantic and chivalrous +cracksman, anything you please. For all that, in the eyes of a +really honest woman, with an upright nature and a well-balanced +mind, I am only the merest riff-raff.” +I saw that the wound was sharper than he was willing to admit, and +I said: +“So you really loved her?” +“I even believe,” he said, in a jesting tone, “that I asked her to +marry me. After all, I had saved her son, had I not?... So . . . I +thought. What a rebuff!... It produced a coolness between us.... +Since then....” +“You have forgotten her?” +“Oh, certainly! But it required the consolations of one Italian, +two Americans, three Russians, a German grand-duchess and a +Chinawoman to do it!” +“And, after that....?” +“After that, so as to place an insuperable barrier between myself +and her, I got married.” +“Nonsense! You got married, you, Arsène Lupin?” +“Married, wedded, spliced, in the most lawful fashion. One of the +greatest names in France. An only daughter. A colossal fortune.... +What! You don’t know the story? Well, it’s worth hearing.” +And, straightway, Lupin, who was in a confidential vein, began to +tell me the story of his marriage to Angélique de Sarzeau-Vendôme, +Princesse de Bourbon-Condé, to-day Sister Marie-Auguste, a humble +nun in the Visitation Convent....[G] +But, after the first few words, he stopped, as though his narrative +had suddenly ceased to interest him, and he remained pensive. +“What’s the matter, Lupin?” +“The matter? Nothing.” +“Yes, yes.... There . . . now you’re smiling.... Is it Daubrecq’s +secret receptacle, his glass eye, that’s making you laugh?” +“Not at all.” +“What then?” +“Nothing, I tell you . . . only a memory.” +“A pleasant memory?” +“Yes!... Yes, a delightful memory even. It was at night, off the +Île de Ré, on the fishing-smack in which Clarisse and I were taking +Gilbert away.... We were alone, the two of us, in the stern of the +boat.... And I remember.... I talked.... I spoke words and more +words.... I said all that I had on my heart.... And then . . . then +came silence, a perturbing and disarming silence.” +“Well?” +“Well, I swear to you that the woman whom I took in my arms that +night and kissed on the lips--oh, not for long: a few seconds only, +but no matter!--I swear before heaven that she was something more +than a grateful mother, something more than a friend yielding to +a moment of susceptibility, that she was a woman also, a woman +quivering with emotion....” And he continued, with a bitter laugh, +“Who ran away next day, never to see me again.” +He was silent once more. Then he whispered: +“Clarisse.... Clarisse.... On the day when I am tired and +disappointed and weary of life, I will come to you down there, in +your little Arab house . . . in that little white house, Clarisse, +where you are waiting for me....” +[G] See _The Confessions of Arsène Lupin_. By Maurice Leblanc. +Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. +THE END",The Crystal Stopper,Maurice Leblanc,216,['Daubrecq'] +"Produced by David Brannan +The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge +by +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle +CONTENTS +I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day +towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a +telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He +made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood +in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his +pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he +turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. +""I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,"" said +he. ""How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"" +""Strange--remarkable,"" I suggested. +He shook his head at my definition. +""There is surely something more than that,"" said he; ""some underlying +suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back +to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a +long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has +deepened into the criminal. Think of that little affair of the +red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it +ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was that +most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which led straight to a +murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert."" +""Have you it there?"" I asked. +He read the telegram aloud. +""Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I consult +you? +""Scott Eccles, +""Post Office, Charing Cross."" +""Man or woman?"" I asked. +""Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. +She would have come."" +""Will you see him?"" +""My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up +Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to +pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was +built. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and +romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you +ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however +trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client."" +A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout, +tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into +the room. His life history was written in his heavy features and +pompous manner. From his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was a +Conservative, a churchman, a good citizen, orthodox and conventional to +the last degree. But some amazing experience had disturbed his native +composure and left its traces in his bristling hair, his flushed, angry +cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged instantly into his +business. +""I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,"" +said he. ""Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It +is most improper--most outrageous. I must insist upon some +explanation."" He swelled and puffed in his anger. +""Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles,"" said Holmes in a soothing voice. +""May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?"" +""Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the +police, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I +could not leave it where it was. Private detectives are a class with +whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heard +your name--"" +""Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?"" +Holmes glanced at his watch. +""It is a quarter-past two,"" he said. ""Your telegram was dispatched +about one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without +seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."" +Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin. +""You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was +only too glad to get out of such a house. But I have been running +round making inquiries before I came to you. I went to the house +agents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all +right and that everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge."" +""Come, come, sir,"" said Holmes, laughing. ""You are like my friend, Dr. +Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost. +Please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence, +exactly what those events are which have sent you out unbrushed and +unkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of +advice and assistance."" +Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional +appearance. +""I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in +my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But I will tell you +the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am +sure, that there has been enough to excuse me."" +But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside, +and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and +official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as +Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, within +his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes and +introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey Constabulary. +""We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this +direction."" He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. ""Are you Mr. +John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?"" +""I am."" +""We have been following you about all the morning."" +""You traced him through the telegram, no doubt,"" said Holmes. +""Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross +Post-Office and came on here."" +""But why do you follow me? What do you want?"" +""We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which led up +to the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, near +Esher."" +Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour +struck from his astonished face. +""Dead? Did you say he was dead?"" +""Yes, sir, he is dead."" +""But how? An accident?"" +""Murder, if ever there was one upon earth."" +""Good God! This is awful! You don't mean--you don't mean that I am +suspected?"" +""A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by +it that you had planned to pass last night at his house."" +""So I did."" +""Oh, you did, did you?"" +Out came the official notebook. +""Wait a bit, Gregson,"" said Sherlock Holmes. ""All you desire is a +plain statement, is it not?"" +""And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against +him."" +""Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room. I +think, Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I +suggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience, and +that you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have done had +you never been interrupted."" +Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to +his face. With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he +plunged at once into his extraordinary statement. +""I am a bachelor,"" said he, ""and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a +large number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired +brewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. It +was at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia. +He was, I understood, of Spanish descent and connected in some way with +the embassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in his manners, +and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life. +""In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I. +He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of +our meeting he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and it +ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria +Lodge, between Esher and Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to +fulfil this engagement. +""He had described his household to me before I went there. He lived +with a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after all +his needs. This fellow could speak English and did his housekeeping +for him. Then there was a wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whom +he had picked up in his travels, who could serve an excellent dinner. +I remember that he remarked what a queer household it was to find in +the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him, though it has proved a +good deal queerer than I thought. +""I drove to the place--about two miles on the south side of Esher. The +house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a curving +drive which was banked with high evergreen shrubs. It was an old, +tumbledown building in a crazy state of disrepair. When the trap +pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and +weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man +whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and +greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the +manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag +in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our +dinner was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be +entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he talked +so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He +continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and +gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner itself was neither +well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn +servant did not help to enliven us. I can assure you that many times +in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse +which would take me back to Lee. +""One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the +business that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought nothing +of it at the time. Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the +servant. I noticed that after my host had read it he seemed even more +distrait and strange than before. He gave up all pretence at +conversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own +thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. About eleven I was +glad to go to bed. Some time later Garcia looked in at my door--the +room was dark at the time--and asked me if I had rung. I said that I +had not. He apologized for having disturbed me so late, saying that it +was nearly one o'clock. I dropped off after this and slept soundly all +night. +""And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it was +broad daylight. I glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine. +I had particularly asked to be called at eight, so I was very much +astonished at this forgetfulness. I sprang up and rang for the +servant. There was no response. I rang again and again, with the same +result. Then I came to the conclusion that the bell was out of order. +I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad +temper to order some hot water. You can imagine my surprise when I +found that there was no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was +no answer. Then I ran from room to room. All were deserted. My host +had shown me which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at +the door. No reply. I turned the handle and walked in. The room was +empty, and the bed had never been slept in. He had gone with the rest. +The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all had +vanished in the night! That was the end of my visit to Wisteria Lodge."" +Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this +bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes. +""Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique,"" said he. +""May I ask, sir, what you did then?"" +""I was furious. My first idea was that I had been the victim of some +absurd practical joke. I packed my things, banged the hall door behind +me, and set off for Esher, with my bag in my hand. I called at Allan +Brothers', the chief land agents in the village, and found that it was +from this firm that the villa had been rented. It struck me that the +whole proceeding could hardly be for the purpose of making a fool of +me, and that the main object must be to get out of the rent. It is +late in March, so quarter-day is at hand. But this theory would not +work. The agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me that the +rent had been paid in advance. Then I made my way to town and called +at the Spanish embassy. The man was unknown there. After this I went +to see Melville, at whose house I had first met Garcia, but I found +that he really knew rather less about him than I did. Finally when I +got your reply to my wire I came out to you, since I gather that you +are a person who gives advice in difficult cases. But now, Mr. +Inspector, I understand, from what you said when you entered the room, +that you can carry the story on, and that some tragedy had occurred. I +can assure you that every word I have said is the truth, and that, +outside of what I have told you, I know absolutely nothing about the +fate of this man. My only desire is to help the law in every possible +way."" +""I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles--I am sure of it,"" said Inspector +Gregson in a very amiable tone. ""I am bound to say that everything +which you have said agrees very closely with the facts as they have +come to our notice. For example, there was that note which arrived +during dinner. Did you chance to observe what became of it?"" +""Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire."" +""What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?"" +The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only +redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost +hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow. With a slow smile +he drew a folded and discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket. +""It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked this +out unburned from the back of it."" +Holmes smiled his appreciation. +""You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single +pellet of paper."" +""I did, Mr. Holmes. It's my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?"" +The Londoner nodded. +""The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark. +It is a quarter-sheet. The paper is cut off in two snips with a +short-bladed scissors. It has been folded over three times and sealed +with purple wax, put on hurriedly and pressed down with some flat oval +object. It is addressed to Mr. Garcia, Wisteria Lodge. It says: +""Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main +stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed. D. +""It is a woman's writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the +address is either done with another pen or by someone else. It is +thicker and bolder, as you see."" +""A very remarkable note,"" said Holmes, glancing it over. ""I must +compliment you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your +examination of it. A few trifling points might perhaps be added. The +oval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve-link--what else is of such a +shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors. Short as the two snips +are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in each."" +The country detective chuckled. +""I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was +a little over,"" he said. ""I'm bound to say that I make nothing of the +note except that there was something on hand, and that a woman, as +usual was at the bottom of it."" +Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation. +""I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story,"" said +he. ""But I beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has +happened to Mr. Garcia, nor what has become of his household."" +""As to Garcia,"" said Gregson, ""that is easily answered. He was found +dead this morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his home. +His head had been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some +such instrument, which had crushed rather than wounded. It is a lonely +corner, and there is no house within a quarter of a mile of the spot. +He had apparently been struck down first from behind, but his assailant +had gone on beating him long after he was dead. It was a most furious +assault. There are no footsteps nor any clue to the criminals."" +""Robbed?"" +""No, there was no attempt at robbery."" +""This is very painful--very painful and terrible,"" said Mr. Scott +Eccles in a querulous voice, ""but it is really uncommonly hard on me. +I had nothing to do with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion +and meeting so sad an end. How do I come to be mixed up with the case?"" +""Very simply, sir,"" Inspector Baynes answered. ""The only document +found in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that +you would be with him on the night of his death. It was the envelope of +this letter which gave us the dead man's name and address. It was +after nine this morning when we reached his house and found neither you +nor anyone else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson to run you down in +London while I examined Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into town, joined +Mr. Gregson, and here we are."" +""I think now,"" said Gregson, rising, ""we had best put this matter into +an official shape. You will come round with us to the station, Mr. +Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement in writing."" +""Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain your services, Mr. +Holmes. I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the +truth."" +My friend turned to the country inspector. +""I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr. +Baynes?"" +""Highly honoured, sir, I am sure."" +""You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you +have done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that +the man met his death?"" +""He had been there since one o'clock. There was rain about that time, +and his death had certainly been before the rain."" +""But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,"" cried our client. ""His +voice is unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he who +addressed me in my bedroom at that very hour."" +""Remarkable, but by no means impossible,"" said Holmes, smiling. +""You have a clue?"" asked Gregson. +""On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it +certainly presents some novel and interesting features. A further +knowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to give a final +and definite opinion. By the way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anything +remarkable besides this note in your examination of the house?"" +The detective looked at my friend in a singular way. +""There were,"" said he, ""one or two _very_ remarkable things. Perhaps +when I have finished at the police-station you would care to come out +and give me your opinion of them."" +""I am entirely at your service,"" said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the +bell. ""You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send +the boy with this telegram. He is to pay a five-shilling reply."" +We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes +smoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his +head thrust forward in the eager way characteristic of the man. +""Well, Watson,"" he asked, turning suddenly upon me, ""what do you make +of it?"" +""I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles."" +""But the crime?"" +""Well, taken with the disappearance of the man's companions, I should +say that they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled +from justice."" +""That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it you +must admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servants +should have been in a conspiracy against him and should have attacked +him on the one night when he had a guest. They had him alone at their +mercy every other night in the week."" +""Then why did they fly?"" +""Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big fact +is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear +Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an +explanation which would cover both of these big facts? If it were one +which would also admit of the mysterious note with its very curious +phraseology, why, then it would be worth accepting as a temporary +hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit +themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a +solution."" +""But what is our hypothesis?"" +Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes. +""You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is impossible. +There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the coaxing of +Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had some connection with them."" +""But what possible connection?"" +""Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it, something +unnatural about this strange and sudden friendship between the young +Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was the former who forced the pace. He +called upon Eccles at the other end of London on the very day after he +first met him, and he kept in close touch with him until he got him +down to Esher. Now, what did he want with Eccles? What could Eccles +supply? I see no charm in the man. He is not particularly +intelligent--not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin. +Why, then, was he picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met +as particularly suited to his purpose? Has he any one outstanding +quality? I say that he has. He is the very type of conventional +British respectability, and the very man as a witness to impress +another Briton. You saw yourself how neither of the inspectors dreamed +of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it was."" +""But what was he to witness?"" +""Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another +way. That is how I read the matter."" +""I see, he might have proved an alibi."" +""Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. We will +suppose, for argument's sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge are +confederates in some design. The attempt, whatever it may be, is to +come off, we will say, before one o'clock. By some juggling of the +clocks it is quite possible that they may have got Scott Eccles to bed +earlier than he thought, but in any case it is likely that when Garcia +went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was really not more +than twelve. If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be back by +the hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation. +Here was this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of +law that the accused was in the house all the time. It was an +insurance against the worst."" +""Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the others?"" +""I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any +insuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of +your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit +your theories."" +""And the message?"" +""How did it run? 'Our own colours, green and white.' Sounds like +racing. 'Green open, white shut.' That is clearly a signal. 'Main +stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.' This is an +assignation. We may find a jealous husband at the bottom of it all. +It was clearly a dangerous quest. She would not have said 'Godspeed' +had it not been so. 'D'--that should be a guide."" +""The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that 'D' stands for Dolores, a +common female name in Spain."" +""Good, Watson, very good--but quite inadmissable. A Spaniard would +write to a Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note is certainly +English. Well, we can only possess our soul in patience until this +excellent inspector come back for us. Meanwhile we can thank our lucky +fate which has rescued us for a few short hours from the insufferable +fatigues of idleness."" +* * * +An answer had arrived to Holmes's telegram before our Surrey officer +had returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it in his notebook +when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He tossed it across with +a laugh. +""We are moving in exalted circles,"" said he. +The telegram was a list of names and addresses: +Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr. +Hynes Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams, Forton Old +Hall; Mr. Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether Walsling. +""This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations,"" said +Holmes. ""No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already +adopted some similar plan."" +""I don't quite understand."" +""Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that +the message received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an +assignation. Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in +order to keep the tryst one has to ascend a main stair and seek the +seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that the house is a +very large one. It is equally certain that this house cannot be more +than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was walking in that +direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back +in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would +only be valid up to one o'clock. As the number of large houses close +to Oxshott must be limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending to +the agents mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them. +Here they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled skein +must lie among them."" +* * * +It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty +Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion. +Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found comfortable +quarters at the Bull. Finally we set out in the company of the +detective on our visit to Wisteria Lodge. It was a cold, dark March +evening, with a sharp wind and a fine rain beating upon our faces, a +fit setting for the wild common over which our road passed and the +tragic goal to which it led us. +A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high +wooden gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The curved +and shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black against a +slate-coloured sky. From the front window upon the left of the door +there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light. +""There's a constable in possession,"" said Baynes. ""I'll knock at the +window."" He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on +the pane. Through the fogged glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a +chair beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry from within the room. An +instant later a white-faced, hard-breathing policeman had opened the +door, the candle wavering in his trembling hand. +""What's the matter, Walters?"" asked Baynes sharply. +The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave a long sigh +of relief. +""I am glad you have come, sir. It has been a long evening, and I don't +think my nerve is as good as it was."" +""Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve in +your body."" +""Well, sir, it's this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the +kitchen. Then when you tapped at the window I thought it had come +again."" +""That what had come again?"" +""The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at the window."" +""What was at the window, and when?"" +""It was just about two hours ago. The light was just fading. I was +sitting reading in the chair. I don't know what made me look up, but +there was a face looking in at me through the lower pane. Lord, sir, +what a face it was! I'll see it in my dreams."" +""Tut, tut, Walters. This is not talk for a police-constable."" +""I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there's no use to deny +it. It wasn't black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know +but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in it. Then +there was the size of it--it was twice yours, sir. And the look of +it--the great staring goggle eyes, and the line of white teeth like a +hungry beast. I tell you, sir, I couldn't move a finger, nor get my +breath, till it whisked away and was gone. Out I ran and through the +shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there."" +""If I didn't know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black +mark against you for this. If it were the devil himself a constable on +duty should never thank God that he could not lay his hands upon him. +I suppose the whole thing is not a vision and a touch of nerves?"" +""That, at least, is very easily settled,"" said Holmes, lighting his +little pocket lantern. ""Yes,"" he reported, after a short examination +of the grass bed, ""a number twelve shoe, I should say. If he was all +on the same scale as his foot he must certainly have been a giant."" +""What became of him?"" +""He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road."" +""Well,"" said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, ""whoever +he may have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone for the +present, and we have more immediate things to attend to. Now, Mr. +Holmes, with your permission, I will show you round the house."" +The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a careful +search. Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing with +them, and all the furniture down to the smallest details had been taken +over with the house. A good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx +and Co., High Holborn, had been left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had +been already made which showed that Marx knew nothing of his customer +save that he was a good payer. Odds and ends, some pipes, a few +novels, two of them in Spanish, an old-fashioned pinfire revolver, and +a guitar were among the personal property. +""Nothing in all this,"" said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from room +to room. ""But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the kitchen."" +It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a +straw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the +cook. The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates, the +debris of last night's dinner. +""Look at this,"" said Baynes. ""What do you make of it?"" +He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at the +back of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that +it was difficult to say what it might have been. One could but say that +it was black and leathery and that it bore some resemblance to a +dwarfish, human figure. At first, as I examined it, I thought that it +was a mummified negro baby, and then it seemed a very twisted and +ancient monkey. Finally I was left in doubt as to whether it was +animal or human. A double band of white shells were strung round the +centre of it. +""Very interesting--very interesting, indeed!"" said Holmes, peering at +this sinister relic. ""Anything more?"" +In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his candle. +The limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces +with the feathers still on, were littered all over it. Holmes pointed +to the wattles on the severed head. +""A white cock,"" said he. ""Most interesting! It is really a very +curious case."" +But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From +under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood. +Then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of +charred bone. +""Something has been killed and something has been burned. We raked all +these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. He says that +they are not human."" +Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands. +""I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and +instructive a case. Your powers, if I may say so without offence, seem +superior to your opportunities."" +Inspector Baynes's small eyes twinkled with pleasure. +""You're right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case of +this sort gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it. What +do you make of these bones?"" +""A lamb, I should say, or a kid."" +""And the white cock?"" +""Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique."" +""Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very +strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did his companions +follow him and kill him? If they did we should have them, for every +port is watched. But my own views are different. Yes, sir, my own +views are very different."" +""You have a theory then?"" +""And I'll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It's only due to my own credit +to do so. Your name is made, but I have still to make mine. I should +be glad to be able to say afterwards that I had solved it without your +help."" +Holmes laughed good-humoredly. +""Well, well, Inspector,"" said he. ""Do you follow your path and I will +follow mine. My results are always very much at your service if you +care to apply to me for them. I think that I have seen all that I wish +in this house, and that my time may be more profitably employed +elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck!"" +I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon +anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as +ever to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued +eagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and brisker +manner which assured me that the game was afoot. After his habit he +said nothing, and after mine I asked no questions. Sufficient for me +to share the sport and lend my humble help to the capture without +distracting that intent brain with needless interruption. All would +come round to me in due time. +I waited, therefore--but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited +in vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward. One +morning he spent in town, and I learned from a casual reference that he +had visited the British Museum. Save for this one excursion, he spent +his days in long and often solitary walks, or in chatting with a number +of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated. +""I'm sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,"" he +remarked. ""It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the +hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again. With a spud, a tin +box, and an elementary book on botany, there are instructive days to be +spent."" He prowled about with this equipment himself, but it was a +poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening. +Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes. His fat, +red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he +greeted my companion. He said little about the case, but from that +little we gathered that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of +events. I must admit, however, that I was somewhat surprised when, +some five days after the crime, I opened my morning paper to find in +large letters: +THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY +A SOLUTION +ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN +Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the +headlines. +""By Jove!"" he cried. ""You don't mean that Baynes has got him?"" +""Apparently,"" said I as I read the following report: +""Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district +when it was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in +connection with the Oxshott murder. It will be remembered that Mr. +Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was found dead on Oxshott Common, his body +showing signs of extreme violence, and that on the same night his +servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show their participation +in the crime. It was suggested, but never proved, that the deceased +gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their +abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every effort was made by +Inspector Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding +place of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had +not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been already +prepared. It was certain from the first, however, that they would +eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence of one or two +tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the window, was a +man of most remarkable appearance--being a huge and hideous mulatto, +with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type. This man has +been seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable +Walters on the same evening, when he had the audacity to revisit +Wisteria Lodge. Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit must +have some purpose in view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated, +abandoned the house but left an ambuscade in the shrubbery. The man +walked into the trap and was captured last night after a struggle in +which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the savage. We understand +that when the prisoner is brought before the magistrates a remand will be +applied for by the police, and that great developments are hoped from +his capture."" +""Really we must see Baynes at once,"" cried Holmes, picking up his hat. +""We will just catch him before he starts."" We hurried down the village +street and found, as we had expected, that the inspector was just +leaving his lodgings. +""You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?"" he asked, holding one out to us. +""Yes, Baynes, I've seen it. Pray don't think it a liberty if I give +you a word of friendly warning."" +""Of warning, Mr. Holmes?"" +""I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced +that you are on the right lines. I don't want you to commit yourself +too far unless you are sure."" +""You're very kind, Mr. Holmes."" +""I assure you I speak for your good."" +It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over +one of Mr. Baynes's tiny eyes. +""We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That's what I am +doing."" +""Oh, very good,"" said Holmes. ""Don't blame me."" +""No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own +systems, Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine."" +""Let us say no more about it."" +""You're welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as +strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed Downing's +thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word +of English, and we can get nothing out of him but grunts."" +""And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?"" +""I didn't say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn't say so. We all have our little +ways. You try yours and I will try mine. That's the agreement."" +Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. ""I can't +make the man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says, +we must each try our own way and see what comes of it. But there's +something in Inspector Baynes which I can't quite understand."" +""Just sit down in that chair, Watson,"" said Sherlock Holmes when we had +returned to our apartment at the Bull. ""I want to put you in touch +with the situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me show you +the evolution of this case so far as I have been able to follow it. +Simple as it has been in its leading features, it has none the less +presented surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest. There are +gaps in that direction which we have still to fill. +""We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the +evening of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes's that +Garcia's servants were concerned in the matter. The proof of this lies +in the fact that it was _he_ who had arranged for the presence of Scott +Eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an alibi. +It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a criminal +enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met his death. +I say 'criminal' because only a man with a criminal enterprise desires +to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely to have taken his +life? Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was +directed. So far it seems to me that we are on safe ground. +""We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia's household. +They were _all_ confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off +when Garcia returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the +Englishman's evidence, and all would be well. But the attempt was a +dangerous one, and if Garcia did _not_ return by a certain hour it was +probable that his own life had been sacrificed. It had been arranged, +therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to make for +some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation and be in a +position afterwards to renew their attempt. That would fully explain +the facts, would it not?"" +The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I +wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before. +""But why should one servant return?"" +""We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious, +something which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind. +That would explain his persistence, would it not?"" +""Well, what is the next step?"" +""The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It +indicates a confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other +end? I have already shown you that it could only lie in some large +house, and that the number of large houses is limited. My first days in +this village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the +intervals of my botanical researches I made a reconnaissance of all the +large houses and an examination of the family history of the occupants. +One house, and only one, riveted my attention. It is the famous old +Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Oxshott, +and less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other +mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof +from romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a +curious man to whom curious adventures might befall. I concentrated my +attention, therefore, upon him and his household. +""A singular set of people, Watson--the man himself the most singular of +them all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to +read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of +my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray +hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of +an emperor--a fierce, masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his +parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the +tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord. His +friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate +brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of speech. +You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of foreigners--one +at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable--so our gaps are beginning to +close. +""These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the +household; but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose +may be even more important. Henderson has two children--girls of +eleven and thirteen. Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman +of forty or thereabouts. There is also one confidential manservant. +This little group forms the real family, for they travel about +together, and Henderson is a great traveller, always on the move. It +is only within the last weeks that he has returned, after a year's +absence, to High Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich, and +whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them. For the +rest, his house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and the +usual overfed, underworked staff of a large English country house. +""So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own +observation. There are no better instruments than discharged servants +with a grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I call it luck, +but it would not have come my way had I not been looking out for it. +As Baynes remarks, we all have our systems. It was my system which +enabled me to find John Warner, late gardener of High Gable, sacked in +a moment of temper by his imperious employer. He in turn had friends +among the indoor servants who unite in their fear and dislike of their +master. So I had my key to the secrets of the establishment. +""Curious people, Watson! I don't pretend to understand it all yet, but +very curious people anyway. It's a double-winged house, and the +servants live on one side, the family on the other. There's no link +between the two save for Henderson's own servant, who serves the +family's meals. Everything is carried to a certain door, which forms +the one connection. Governess and children hardly go out at all, +except into the garden. Henderson never by any chance walks alone. +His dark secretary is like his shadow. The gossip among the servants +is that their master is terribly afraid of something. 'Sold his soul +to the devil in exchange for money,' says Warner, 'and expects his +creditor to come up and claim his own.' Where they came from, or who +they are, nobody has an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson +has lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and heavy +compensation have kept him out of the courts. +""Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information. +We may take it that the letter came out of this strange household and +was an invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already +been planned. Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel, +and it was a woman. Who then but Miss Burnet, the governess? All our +reasoning seems to point that way. At any rate, we may take it as a +hypothesis and see what consequences it would entail. I may add that +Miss Burnet's age and character make it certain that my first idea that +there might be a love interest in our story is out of the question. +""If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate of +Garcia. What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of his +death? If he met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might be +sealed. Still, in her heart, she must retain bitterness and hatred +against those who had killed him and would presumably help so far as +she could to have revenge upon them. Could we see her, then and try to +use her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a sinister +fact. Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night +of the murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she +alive? Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend +whom she had summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the point +which we still have to decide. +""You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There is +nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme might +seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. The woman's disappearance +counts for nothing, since in that extraordinary household any member of +it might be invisible for a week. And yet she may at the present +moment be in danger of her life. All I can do is to watch the house +and leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates. We can't let such a +situation continue. If the law can do nothing we must take the risk +ourselves."" +""What do you suggest?"" +""I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of an +outhouse. My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we +can strike at the very heart of the mystery."" +It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house +with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants, +the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting +ourselves legally in a false position all combined to damp my ardour. +But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made +it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend. +One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution be found. I +clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast. +But it was not destined that our investigation should have so +adventurous an ending. It was about five o'clock, and the shadows of +the March evening were beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushed +into our room. +""They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady +broke away, and I've got her in a cab downstairs."" +""Excellent, Warner!"" cried Holmes, springing to his feet. ""Watson, the +gaps are closing rapidly."" +In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She +bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent +tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised +it and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her pupils were dark +dots in the centre of the broad gray iris. She was drugged with opium. +""I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes,"" said our +emissary, the discharged gardener. ""When the carriage came out I +followed it to the station. She was like one walking in her sleep, but +when they tried to get her into the train she came to life and +struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She fought her way out +again. I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. I shan't +forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a +short life if he had his way--the black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil."" +We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups of +the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug. +Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained +to him. +""Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want,"" said the inspector +warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. ""I was on the same scent as you +from the first."" +""What! You were after Henderson?"" +""Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable +I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. It +was just who would get his evidence first."" +""Then why did you arrest the mulatto?"" +Baynes chuckled. +""I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected, +and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was +in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our +eyes were off him. I knew he would be likely to clear off then and +give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet."" +Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder. +""You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and +intuition,"" said he. +Baynes flushed with pleasure. +""I've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week. +Wherever the High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight. But he +must have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet broke away. However, +your man picked her up, and it all ends well. We can't arrest without +her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the +better."" +""Every minute she gets stronger,"" said Holmes, glancing at the +governess. ""But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?"" +""Henderson,"" the inspector answered, ""is Don Murillo, once called the +Tiger of San Pedro."" +The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to me +in a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty +tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to +civilization. Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient +virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people +for ten or twelve years. His name was a terror through all Central +America. At the end of that time there was a universal rising against +him. But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisper +of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship +which was manned by devoted adherents. It was an empty palace which +was stormed by the insurgents next day. The dictator, his two +children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them. From that +moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been a +frequent subject for comment in the European press. +""Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,"" said Baynes. ""If you +look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and +white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself, +but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where +his ship came in in '86. They've been looking for him all the time for +their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find him out."" +""They discovered him a year ago,"" said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and +was now intently following the conversation. ""Once already his life +has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, it +is the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes +safe. But another will come, and yet another, until some day justice +will be done; that is as certain as the rise of to-morrow's sun."" Her +thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched with the passion of her +hatred. +""But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?"" asked Holmes. ""How +can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?"" +""I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which +justice can be gained. What does the law of England care for the +rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of +treasure which this man has stolen? To you they are like crimes +committed in some other planet. But _we_ know. We have learned the +truth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in hell like +Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry for +vengeance."" +""No doubt,"" said Holmes, ""he was as you say. I have heard that he was +atrocious. But how are you affected?"" +""I will tell you it all. This villain's policy was to murder, on one +pretext or another, every man who showed such promise that he might in +time come to be a dangerous rival. My husband--yes, my real name is +Signora Victor Durando--was the San Pedro minister in London. He met +me and married me there. A nobler man never lived upon earth. +Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some +pretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate he had +refused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I was +left with a pittance and a broken heart. +""Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have just +described. But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and +dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the +matter rest. They banded themselves into a society which should never +be dissolved until the work was done. It was my part after we had +discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to attach +myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his +movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of governess +in his family. He little knew that the woman who faced him at every +meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's notice +into eternity. I smiled on him, did my duty to his children, and bided +my time. An attempt was made in Paris and failed. We zig-zagged +swiftly here and there over Europe to throw off the pursuers and +finally returned to this house, which he had taken upon his first +arrival in England. +""But here also the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he +would return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest +dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of +humble station, all three fired with the same reasons for revenge. He +could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution and +never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was known +in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he slept alone, and +the avenger might find him. On a certain evening, which had been +prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man was +forever on the alert and continually changed his room. I was to see +that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white light in a +window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe or if +the attempt had better be postponed. +""But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the +suspicion of Lopez, the secretary. He crept up behind me and sprang +upon me just as I had finished the note. He and his master dragged me +to my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitress. Then +and there they would have plunged their knives into me could they have +seen how to escape the consequences of the deed. Finally, after much +debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous. But they +determined to get rid forever of Garcia. They had gagged me, and +Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear +that he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean +to Garcia. Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it +with his sleeve-link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose. +How they murdered him I do not know, save that it was Murillo's hand +who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to guard me. I believe he +must have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds +and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to let +him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they +argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity +would at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further +attacks. With the death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease, since such +a death might frighten others from the task. +""All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge +of what they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my +life hung in the balance. I was confined to my room, terrorized by the +most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my spirit--see this +stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end of my arms--and a +gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion when I tried to call +from the window. For five days this cruel imprisonment continued, with +hardly enough food to hold body and soul together. This afternoon a +good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I +had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-led, +half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the +train. Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly +realize that my liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried +to drag me back, and had it not been for the help of this good man, who +led me to the cab, I should never had broken away. Now, thank God, I +am beyond their power forever."" +We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was +Holmes who broke the silence. +""Our difficulties are not over,"" he remarked, shaking his head. ""Our +police work ends, but our legal work begins."" +""Exactly,"" said I. ""A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of +self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it +is only on this one that they can be tried."" +""Come, come,"" said Baynes cheerily, ""I think better of the law than +that. Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with +the object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear +from him. No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of +High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes."" +* * * +It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to +elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. +Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track +by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the +back-gate into Curzon Square. From that day they were seen no more in +England. Some six months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and +Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the +Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, and the +murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us at Baker +Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary, +and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted +brows of his master. We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had +come at last. +""A chaotic case, my dear Watson,"" said Holmes over an evening pipe. ""It +will not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is +dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of +mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly +respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows +me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed +instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that +amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy +collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials +and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any +point which is not quite clear to you?"" +""The object of the mulatto cook's return?"" +""I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it. +The man was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and +this was his fetish. When his companion and he had fled to some +prearranged retreat--already occupied, no doubt by a confederate--the +companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of +furniture. But the mulatto's heart was with it, and he was driven back +to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window, he found +policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer, and then +his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more. Inspector +Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the incident +before me, had really recognized its importance and had left a trap +into which the creature walked. Any other point, Watson?"" +""The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery +of that weird kitchen?"" +Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book. +""I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other +points. Here is a quotation from Eckermann's Voodooism and the Negroid +Religions: +""'The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without +certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. +In extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed +by cannibalism. The more usual victims are a white cock, which is +plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is cut and body +burned.' +""So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is +grotesque, Watson,"" Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook, +""but, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the +grotesque to the horrible.""",The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge,Arthur Conan Doyle,27,['Don Juan Murillo'] +"The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu +by +Sax Rohmer +CHAPTER I +""A GENTLEMAN to see you, Doctor."" +From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour. +""Ten-thirty!"" I said. ""A late visitor. Show him up, if you please."" +I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps +sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a +tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the +hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands, with a cry: +""Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me, I'll swear!"" +It was Nayland Smith--whom I had thought to be in Burma! +""Smith,"" I said, and gripped his hands hard, ""this is a delightful +surprise! Whatever--however--"" +""Excuse me, Petrie!"" he broke in. ""Don't put it down to the sun!"" And +he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. +I was too surprised to speak. +""No doubt you will think me mad,"" he continued, and, dimly, I could see +him at the window, peering out into the road, ""but before you are many +hours older you will know that I have good reason to be cautious. Ah, +nothing suspicious! Perhaps I am first this time."" And, stepping back +to the writing-table he relighted the lamp. +""Mysterious enough for you?"" he laughed, and glanced at my unfinished +MS. ""A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is beastly +healthy--what, Petrie? Well, I can put some material in your way that, +if sheer uncanny mystery is a marketable commodity, ought to make you +independent of influenza and broken legs and shattered nerves and all +the rest."" +I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance to +justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes were +too bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. I +got out the whisky and siphon, saying: +""You have taken your leave early?"" +""I am not on leave,"" he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. ""I am on +duty."" +""On duty!"" I exclaimed. ""What, are you moved to London or something?"" +""I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn't rest with me +where I am to-day nor where I shall be to-morrow."" +There was something ominous in the words, and, putting down my glass, +its contents untasted, I faced round and looked him squarely in the +eyes. ""Out with it!"" I said. ""What is it all about?"" +Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. Rolling back his +left shirt-sleeve he revealed a wicked-looking wound in the fleshy part +of the forearm. It was quite healed, but curiously striated for an +inch or so around. +""Ever seen one like it?"" he asked. +""Not exactly,"" I confessed. ""It appears to have been deeply +cauterized."" +""Right! Very deeply!"" he rapped. ""A barb steeped in the venom of a +hamadryad went in there!"" +A shudder I could not repress ran coldly through me at mention of that +most deadly of all the reptiles of the East. +""There's only one treatment,"" he continued, rolling his sleeve down +again, ""and that's with a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. +I lay on my back, raving, for three days afterwards, in a forest that +stank with malaria, but I should have been lying there now if I had +hesitated. Here's the point. It was not an accident!"" +""What do you mean?"" +""I mean that it was a deliberate attempt on my life, and I am hard upon +the tracks of the man who extracted that venom--patiently, drop by +drop--from the poison-glands of the snake, who prepared that arrow, and +who caused it to be shot at me."" +""What fiend is this?"" +""A fiend who, unless my calculations are at fault is now in London, and +who regularly wars with pleasant weapons of that kind. Petrie, I have +traveled from Burma not in the interests of the British Government +merely, but in the interests of the entire white race, and I honestly +believe--though I pray I may be wrong--that its survival depends +largely upon the success of my mission."" +To say that I was perplexed conveys no idea of the mental chaos created +by these extraordinary statements, for into my humdrum suburban life +Nayland Smith had brought fantasy of the wildest. I did not know what +to think, what to believe. +""I am wasting precious time!"" he rapped decisively, and, draining his +glass, he stood up. ""I came straight to you, because you are the only +man I dare to trust. Except the big chief at headquarters, you are the +only person in England, I hope, who knows that Nayland Smith has +quitted Burma. I must have someone with me, Petrie, all the time--it's +imperative! Can you put me up here, and spare a few days to the +strangest business, I promise you, that ever was recorded in fact or +fiction?"" +I agreed readily enough, for, unfortunately, my professional duties +were not onerous. +""Good man!"" he cried, wringing my hand in his impetuous way. ""We start +now."" +""What, to-night?"" +""To-night! I had thought of turning in, I must admit. I have not +dared to sleep for forty-eight hours, except in fifteen-minute +stretches. But there is one move that must be made to-night and +immediately. I must warn Sir Crichton Davey."" +""Sir Crichton Davey--of the India--"" +""Petrie, he is a doomed man! Unless he follows my instructions without +question, without hesitation--before Heaven, nothing can save him! I +do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, nor from whence, +but I know that my first duty is to warn him. Let us walk down to the +corner of the common and get a taxi."" +How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum; for, when +it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and +unlooked for. To-day, we may seek for romance and fail to find it: +unsought, it lies in wait for us at most prosaic corners of life's +highway. +The drive that night, though it divided the drably commonplace from the +wildly bizarre--though it was the bridge between the ordinary and the +outre--has left no impression upon my mind. Into the heart of a weird +mystery the cab bore me; and in reviewing my memories of those days I +wonder that the busy thoroughfares through which we passed did not +display before my eyes signs and portents--warnings. +It was not so. I recall nothing of the route and little of import that +passed between us (we both were strangely silent, I think) until we +were come to our journey's end. Then: +""What's this?"" muttered my friend hoarsely. +Constables were moving on a little crowd of curious idlers who pressed +about the steps of Sir Crichton Davey's house and sought to peer in at +the open door. Without waiting for the cab to draw up to the curb, +Nayland Smith recklessly leaped out and I followed close at his heels. +""What has happened?"" he demanded breathlessly of a constable. +The latter glanced at him doubtfully, but something in his voice and +bearing commanded respect. +""Sir Crichton Davey has been killed, sir."" +Smith lurched back as though he had received a physical blow, and +clutched my shoulder convulsively. Beneath the heavy tan his face had +blanched, and his eyes were set in a stare of horror. +""My God!"" he whispered. ""I am too late!"" +With clenched fists he turned and, pressing through the group of +loungers, bounded up the steps. In the hall a man who unmistakably was +a Scotland Yard official stood talking to a footman. Other members of +the household were moving about, more or less aimlessly, and the chilly +hand of King Fear had touched one and all, for, as they came and went, +they glanced ever over their shoulders, as if each shadow cloaked a +menace, and listened, as it seemed, for some sound which they dreaded +to hear. Smith strode up to the detective and showed him a card, upon +glancing at which the Scotland Yard man said something in a low voice, +and, nodding, touched his hat to Smith in a respectful manner. +A few brief questions and answers, and, in gloomy silence, we followed +the detective up the heavily carpeted stair, along a corridor lined +with pictures and busts, and into a large library. A group of people +were in this room, and one, in whom I recognized Chalmers Cleeve, of +Harley Street, was bending over a motionless form stretched upon a +couch. Another door communicated with a small study, and through the +opening I could see a man on all fours examining the carpet. The +uncomfortable sense of hush, the group about the physician, the bizarre +figure crawling, beetle-like, across the inner room, and the grim hub, +around which all this ominous activity turned, made up a scene that +etched itself indelibly on my mind. +As we entered Dr. Cleeve straightened himself, frowning thoughtfully. +""Frankly, I do not care to venture any opinion at present regarding the +immediate cause of death,"" he said. ""Sir Crichton was addicted to +cocaine, but there are indications which are not in accordance with +cocaine-poisoning. I fear that only a post-mortem can establish the +facts--if,"" he added, ""we ever arrive at them. A most mysterious case!"" +Smith stepping forward and engaging the famous pathologist in +conversation, I seized the opportunity to examine Sir Crichton's body. +The dead man was in evening dress, but wore an old smoking-jacket. He +had been of spare but hardy build, with thin, aquiline features, which +now were oddly puffy, as were his clenched hands. I pushed back his +sleeve, and saw the marks of the hypodermic syringe upon his left arm. +Quite mechanically I turned my attention to the right arm. It was +unscarred, but on the back of the hand was a faint red mark, not unlike +the imprint of painted lips. I examined it closely, and even tried to +rub it off, but it evidently was caused by some morbid process of local +inflammation, if it were not a birthmark. +Turning to a pale young man whom I had understood to be Sir Crichton's +private secretary, I drew his attention to this mark, and inquired if +it were constitutional. ""It is not, sir,"" answered Dr. Cleeve, +overhearing my question. ""I have already made that inquiry. Does it +suggest anything to your mind? I must confess that it affords me no +assistance."" +""Nothing,"" I replied. ""It is most curious."" +""Excuse me, Mr. Burboyne,"" said Smith, now turning to the secretary, +""but Inspector Weymouth will tell you that I act with authority. I +understand that Sir Crichton was--seized with illness in his study?"" +""Yes--at half-past ten. I was working here in the library, and he +inside, as was our custom."" +""The communicating door was kept closed?"" +""Yes, always. It was open for a minute or less about ten-twenty-five, +when a message came for Sir Crichton. I took it in to him, and he then +seemed in his usual health."" +""What was the message?"" +""I could not say. It was brought by a district messenger, and he +placed it beside him on the table. It is there now, no doubt."" +""And at half-past ten?"" +""Sir Crichton suddenly burst open the door and threw himself, with a +scream, into the library. I ran to him but he waved me back. His eyes +were glaring horribly. I had just reached his side when he fell, +writhing, upon the floor. He seemed past speech, but as I raised him +and laid him upon the couch, he gasped something that sounded like 'The +red hand!' Before I could get to bell or telephone he was dead!"" +Mr. Burboyne's voice shook as he spoke the words, and Smith seemed to +find this evidence confusing. +""You do not think he referred to the mark on his own hand?"" +""I think not. From the direction of his last glance, I feel sure he +referred to something in the study."" +""What did you do?"" +""Having summoned the servants, I ran into the study. But there was +absolutely nothing unusual to be seen. The windows were closed and +fastened. He worked with closed windows in the hottest weather. There +is no other door, for the study occupies the end of a narrow wing, so +that no one could possibly have gained access to it, whilst I was in +the library, unseen by me. Had someone concealed himself in the study +earlier in the evening--and I am convinced that it offers no +hiding-place--he could only have come out again by passing through +here."" +Nayland Smith tugged at the lobe of his left ear, as was his habit when +meditating. +""You had been at work here in this way for some time?"" +""Yes. Sir Crichton was preparing an important book."" +""Had anything unusual occurred prior to this evening?"" +""Yes,"" said Mr. Burboyne, with evident perplexity; ""though I attached +no importance to it at the time. Three nights ago Sir Crichton came +out to me, and appeared very nervous; but at times his nerves--you +know? Well, on this occasion he asked me to search the study. He had +an idea that something was concealed there."" +""Some THING or someone?"" +""'Something' was the word he used. I searched, but fruitlessly, and he +seemed quite satisfied, and returned to his work."" +""Thank you, Mr. Burboyne. My friend and I would like a few minutes' +private investigation in the study."" +CHAPTER II +SIR CRICHTON DAVEY'S study was a small one, and a glance sufficed to +show that, as the secretary had said, it offered no hiding-place. It +was heavily carpeted, and over-full of Burmese and Chinese ornaments +and curios, and upon the mantelpiece stood several framed photographs +which showed this to be the sanctum of a wealthy bachelor who was no +misogynist. A map of the Indian Empire occupied the larger part of one +wall. The grate was empty, for the weather was extremely warm, and a +green-shaded lamp on the littered writing-table afforded the only +light. The air was stale, for both windows were closed and fastened. +Smith immediately pounced upon a large, square envelope that lay beside +the blotting-pad. Sir Crichton had not even troubled to open it, but my +friend did so. It contained a blank sheet of paper! +""Smell!"" he directed, handing the letter to me. I raised it to my +nostrils. It was scented with some pungent perfume. +""What is it?"" I asked. +""It is a rather rare essential oil,"" was the reply, ""which I have met +with before, though never in Europe. I begin to understand, Petrie."" +He tilted the lamp-shade and made a close examination of the scraps of +paper, matches, and other debris that lay in the grate and on the +hearth. I took up a copper vase from the mantelpiece, and was +examining it curiously, when he turned, a strange expression upon his +face. +""Put that back, old man,"" he said quietly. +Much surprised, I did as he directed. +""Don't touch anything in the room. It may be dangerous."" +Something in the tone of his voice chilled me, and I hastily replaced +the vase, and stood by the door of the study, watching him search, +methodically, every inch of the room--behind the books, in all the +ornaments, in table drawers, in cupboards, on shelves. +""That will do,"" he said at last. ""There is nothing here and I have no +time to search farther."" +We returned to the library. +""Inspector Weymouth,"" said my friend, ""I have a particular reason for +asking that Sir Crichton's body be removed from this room at once and +the library locked. Let no one be admitted on any pretense whatever +until you hear from me."" It spoke volumes for the mysterious +credentials borne by my friend that the man from Scotland Yard accepted +his orders without demur, and, after a brief chat with Mr. Burboyne, +Smith passed briskly downstairs. In the hall a man who looked like a +groom out of livery was waiting. +""Are you Wills?"" asked Smith. +""Yes, sir."" +""It was you who heard a cry of some kind at the rear of the house about +the time of Sir Crichton's death?"" +""Yes, sir. I was locking the garage door, and, happening to look up at +the window of Sir Crichton's study, I saw him jump out of his chair. +Where he used to sit at his writing, sir, you could see his shadow on +the blind. Next minute I heard a call out in the lane."" +""What kind of call?"" +The man, whom the uncanny happening clearly had frightened, seemed +puzzled for a suitable description. +""A sort of wail, sir,"" he said at last. ""I never heard anything like +it before, and don't want to again."" +""Like this?"" inquired Smith, and he uttered a low, wailing cry, +impossible to describe. Wills perceptibly shuddered; and, indeed, it +was an eerie sound. +""The same, sir, I think,"" he said, ""but much louder."" +""That will do,"" said Smith, and I thought I detected a note of triumph +in his voice. ""But stay! Take us through to the back of the house."" +The man bowed and led the way, so that shortly we found ourselves in a +small, paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer's night, and the deep +blue vault above was jeweled with myriads of starry points. How +impossible it seemed to reconcile that vast, eternal calm with the +hideous passions and fiendish agencies which that night had loosed a +soul upon the infinite. +""Up yonder are the study windows, sir. Over that wall on your left is +the back lane from which the cry came, and beyond is Regent's Park."" +""Are the study windows visible from there?"" +""Oh, yes, sir."" +""Who occupies the adjoining house?"" +""Major-General Platt-Houston, sir; but the family is out of town."" +""Those iron stairs are a means of communication between the domestic +offices and the servants' quarters, I take it?"" +""Yes, sir."" +""Then send someone to make my business known to the Major-General's +housekeeper; I want to examine those stairs."" +Singular though my friend's proceedings appeared to me, I had ceased to +wonder at anything. Since Nayland Smith's arrival at my rooms I seemed +to have been moving through the fitful phases of a nightmare. My +friend's account of how he came by the wound in his arm; the scene on +our arrival at the house of Sir Crichton Davey; the secretary's story +of the dying man's cry, ""The red hand!""; the hidden perils of the +study; the wail in the lane--all were fitter incidents of delirium than +of sane reality. So, when a white-faced butler made us known to a +nervous old lady who proved to be the housekeeper of the next-door +residence, I was not surprised at Smith's saying: +""Lounge up and down outside, Petrie. Everyone has cleared off now. It +is getting late. Keep your eyes open and be on your guard. I thought +I had the start, but he is here before me, and, what is worse, he +probably knows by now that I am here, too."" +With which he entered the house and left me out in the square, with +leisure to think, to try to understand. +The crowd which usually haunts the scene of a sensational crime had +been cleared away, and it had been circulated that Sir Crichton had +died from natural causes. The intense heat having driven most of the +residents out of town, practically I had the square to myself, and I +gave myself up to a brief consideration of the mystery in which I so +suddenly had found myself involved. +By what agency had Sir Crichton met his death? Did Nayland Smith know? +I rather suspected that he did. What was the hidden significance of +the perfumed envelope? Who was that mysterious personage whom Smith so +evidently dreaded, who had attempted his life, who, presumably, had +murdered Sir Crichton? Sir Crichton Davey, during the time that he had +held office in India, and during his long term of service at home, had +earned the good will of all, British and native alike. Who was his +secret enemy? +Something touched me lightly on the shoulder. +I turned, with my heart fluttering like a child's. This night's work +had imposed a severe strain even upon my callous nerves. +A girl wrapped in a hooded opera-cloak stood at my elbow, and, as she +glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen a face so seductively +lovely nor of so unusual a type. With the skin of a perfect blonde, +she had eyes and lashes as black as a Creole's, which, together with +her full red lips, told me that this beautiful stranger, whose touch +had so startled me, was not a child of our northern shores. +""Forgive me,"" she said, speaking with an odd, pretty accent, and laying +a slim hand, with jeweled fingers, confidingly upon my arm, ""if I +startled you. But--is it true that Sir Crichton Davey has +been--murdered?"" +I looked into her big, questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion laboring in +my mind, but could read nothing in their mysterious depths--only I +wondered anew at my questioner's beauty. The grotesque idea +momentarily possessed me that, were the bloom of her red lips due to +art and not to nature, their kiss would leave--though not +indelibly--just such a mark as I had seen upon the dead man's hand. +But I dismissed the fantastic notion as bred of the night's horrors, +and worthy only of a mediaeval legend. No doubt she was some friend or +acquaintance of Sir Crichton who lived close by. +""I cannot say that he has been murdered,"" I replied, acting upon the +latter supposition, and seeking to tell her what she asked as gently as +possible. +""But he is--Dead?"" +I nodded. +She closed her eyes and uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily. +Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder to +support her, but she smiled sadly, and pushed me gently away. +""I am quite well, thank you,"" she said. +""You are certain? Let me walk with you until you feel quite sure of +yourself."" +She shook her head, flashed a rapid glance at me with her beautiful +eyes, and looked away in a sort of sorrowful embarrassment, for which I +was entirely at a loss to account. Suddenly she resumed: +""I cannot let my name be mentioned in this dreadful matter, but--I +think I have some information--for the police. Will you give this +to--whomever you think proper?"" +She handed me a sealed envelope, again met my eyes with one of her +dazzling glances, and hurried away. She had gone no more than ten or +twelve yards, and I still was standing bewildered, watching her +graceful, retreating figure, when she turned abruptly and came back. +Without looking directly at me, but alternately glancing towards a +distant corner of the square and towards the house of Major-General +Platt-Houston, she made the following extraordinary request: +""If you would do me a very great service, for which I always would be +grateful,""--she glanced at me with passionate intentness--""when you +have given my message to the proper person, leave him and do not go +near him any more to-night!"" +Before I could find words to reply she gathered up her cloak and ran. +Before I could determine whether or not to follow her (for her words +had aroused anew all my worst suspicions) she had disappeared! I heard +the whir of a restarted motor at no great distance, and, in the instant +that Nayland Smith came running down the steps, I knew that I had +nodded at my post. +""Smith!"" I cried as he joined me, ""tell me what we must do!"" And +rapidly I acquainted him with the incident. +My friend looked very grave; then a grim smile crept round his lips. +""She was a big card to play,"" he said; ""but he did not know that I held +one to beat it."" +""What! You know this girl! Who is she?"" +""She is one of the finest weapons in the enemy's armory, Petrie. But a +woman is a two-edged sword, and treacherous. To our great good +fortune, she has formed a sudden predilection, characteristically +Oriental, for yourself. Oh, you may scoff, but it is evident. She was +employed to get this letter placed in my hands. Give it to me."" +I did so. +""She has succeeded. Smell."" +He held the envelope under my nose, and, with a sudden sense of nausea, +I recognized the strange perfume. +""You know what this presaged in Sir Crichton's case? Can you doubt any +longer? She did not want you to share my fate, Petrie."" +""Smith,"" I said unsteadily, ""I have followed your lead blindly in this +horrible business and have not pressed for an explanation, but I must +insist before I go one step farther upon knowing what it all means."" +""Just a few steps farther,"" he rejoined; ""as far as a cab. We are +hardly safe here. Oh, you need not fear shots or knives. The man +whose servants are watching us now scorns to employ such clumsy, +tell-tale weapons."" +Only three cabs were on the rank, and, as we entered the first, +something hissed past my ear, missed both Smith and me by a miracle, +and, passing over the roof of the taxi, presumably fell in the enclosed +garden occupying the center of the square. +""What was that?"" I cried. +""Get in--quickly!"" Smith rapped back. ""It was attempt number one! +More than that I cannot say. Don't let the man hear. He has noticed +nothing. Pull up the window on your side, Petrie, and look out behind. +Good! We've started."" +The cab moved off with a metallic jerk, and I turned and looked back +through the little window in the rear. +""Someone has got into another cab. It is following ours, I think."" +Nayland Smith lay back and laughed unmirthfully. +""Petrie,"" he said, ""if I escape alive from this business I shall know +that I bear a charmed life."" +I made no reply, as he pulled out the dilapidated pouch and filled his +pipe. +""You have asked me to explain matters,"" he continued, ""and I will do so +to the best of my ability. You no doubt wonder why a servant of the +British Government, lately stationed in Burma, suddenly appears in +London, in the character of a detective. I am here, Petrie--and I bear +credentials from the very highest sources--because, quite by accident, +I came upon a clew. Following it up, in the ordinary course of +routine, I obtained evidence of the existence and malignant activity of +a certain man. At the present stage of the case I should not be +justified in terming him the emissary of an Eastern Power, but I may +say that representations are shortly to be made to that Power's +ambassador in London."" +He paused and glanced back towards the pursuing cab. +""There is little to fear until we arrive home,"" he said calmly. +""Afterwards there is much. To continue: This man, whether a fanatic +or a duly appointed agent, is, unquestionably, the most malign and +formidable personality existing in the known world today. He is a +linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any of the civilized +languages, and in most of the barbaric. He is an adept in all the arts +and sciences which a great university could teach him. He also is an +adept in certain obscure arts and sciences which no university of +to-day can teach. He has the brains of any three men of genius. +Petrie, he is a mental giant."" +""You amaze me!"" I said. +""As to his mission among men. Why did M. Jules Furneaux fall dead in a +Paris opera house? Because of heart failure? No! Because his last +speech had shown that he held the key to the secret of Tongking. What +became of the Grand Duke Stanislaus? Elopement? Suicide? Nothing of +the kind. He alone was fully alive to Russia's growing peril. He +alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crichton Davey +murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon ever seen the +light it would have shown him to be the only living Englishman who +understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers. I say to you +solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few. Is there a man who would +arouse the West to a sense of the awakening of the East, who would +teach the deaf to hear, the blind to see, that the millions only await +their leader? He will die. And this is only one phase of the devilish +campaign. The others I can merely surmise."" +""But, Smith, this is almost incredible! What perverted genius controls +this awful secret movement?"" +""Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow +like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, +magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel +cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, +with all the resources of science past and present, with all the +resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--which, however, +already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful +being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril +incarnate in one man."" +CHAPTER III +I SANK into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong peg of +brandy. +""We have been followed here,"" I said. ""Why did you make no attempt to +throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?"" +Smith laughed. +""Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, HE would find us. And +of what use to arrest his creatures? We could prove nothing against +them. Further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made upon my +life to-night--and by the same means that proved so successful in the +case of poor Sir Crichton."" +His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his +feet, shaking his clenched fists towards the window. +""The villain!"" he cried. ""The fiendishly clever villain! I suspected +that Sir Crichton was next, and I was right. But I came too late, +Petrie! That hits me hard, old man. To think that I knew and yet +failed to save him!"" +He resumed his seat, smoking hard. +""Fu-Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius,"" +he said. ""He has underrated his adversary. He has not given me credit +for perceiving the meaning of the scented messages. He has thrown away +one powerful weapon--to get such a message into my hands--and he thinks +that once safe within doors, I shall sleep, unsuspecting, and die as +Sir Crichton died. But without the indiscretion of your charming +friend, I should have known what to expect when I receive her +'information'--which by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper."" +""Smith,"" I broke in, ""who is she?"" +""She is either Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. I am +inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but his will, +except""--with a quizzical glance--""in a certain instance."" +""How can you jest with some awful thing--Heaven knows what--hanging +over your head? What is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes? How +did Sir Crichton die?"" +""He died of the Zayat Kiss. Ask me what that is and I reply 'I do not +know.' The zayats are the Burmese caravanserais, or rest-houses. Along +a certain route--upon which I set eyes, for the first and only time, +upon Dr. Fu-Manchu--travelers who use them sometimes die as Sir +Crichton died, with nothing to show the cause of death but a little +mark upon the neck, face, or limb, which has earned, in those parts, +the title of the 'Zayat Kiss.' The rest-houses along that route are +shunned now. I have my theory and I hope to prove it to-night, if I +live. It will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armory, and it +is thus, and thus only, that I can hope to crush him. This was my +principal reason for not enlightening Dr. Cleeve. Even walls have ears +where Fu-Manchu is concerned, so I feigned ignorance of the meaning of +the mark, knowing that he would be almost certain to employ the same +methods upon some other victim. I wanted an opportunity to study the +Zayat Kiss in operation, and I shall have one."" +""But the scented envelopes?"" +""In the swampy forests of the district I have referred to a rare +species of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent, is +sometimes met with. I recognized the heavy perfume at once. I take it +that the thing which kills the traveler is attracted by this orchid. +You will notice that the perfume clings to whatever it touches. I +doubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way. After at least one +unsuccessful attempt to kill Sir Crichton--you recall that he thought +there was something concealed in his study on a previous +occasion?--Fu-Manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes. He may have a +supply of these green orchids in his possession--possibly to feed the +creature."" +""What creature? How could any kind of creature have got into Sir +Crichton's room tonight?"" +""You no doubt observed that I examined the grate of the study. I found +a fair quantity of fallen soot. I at once assumed, since it appeared +to be the only means of entrance, that something has been dropped down; +and I took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was, must still +be concealed either in the study or in the library. But when I had +obtained the evidence of the groom, Wills, I perceived that the cry +from the lane or from the park was a signal. I noted that the +movements of anyone seated at the study table were visible, in shadow, +on the blind, and that the study occupied the corner of a two-storied +wing and, therefore, had a short chimney. What did the signal mean? +That Sir Crichton had leaped up from his chair, and either had received +the Zayat Kiss or had seen the thing which someone on the roof had +lowered down the straight chimney. It was the signal to withdraw that +deadly thing. By means of the iron stairway at the rear of +Major-General Platt-Houston's, I quite easily, gained access to the +roof above Sir Crichton's study--and I found this."" +Out from his pocket Nayland Smith drew a tangled piece of silk, mixed +up with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually large-sized +split-shot, nipped on in the manner usual on a fishing-line. +""My theory proven,"" he resumed. ""Not anticipating a search on the +roof, they had been careless. This was to weight the line and to +prevent the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. Directly it +had dropped in the grate, however, by means of this ring I assume that +the weighted line was withdrawn, and the thing was only held by one +slender thread, which sufficed, though, to draw it back again when it +had done its work. It might have got tangled, of course, but they +reckoned on its making straight up the carved leg of the writing-table +for the prepared envelope. From there to the hand of Sir +Crichton--which, from having touched the envelope, would also be +scented with the perfume--was a certain move."" +""My God! How horrible!"" I exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively into +the dusky shadows of the room. ""What is your theory respecting this +creature--what shape, what color--?"" +""It is something that moves rapidly and silently. I will venture no +more at present, but I think it works in the dark. The study was dark, +remember, save for the bright patch beneath the reading-lamp. I have +observed that the rear of this house is ivy-covered right up to and +above your bedroom. Let us make ostentatious preparations to retire, +and I think we may rely upon Fu-Manchu's servants to attempt my +removal, at any rate--if not yours."" +""But, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the very +least."" +""You remember the cry in the back lane? It suggested something to me, +and I tested my idea--successfully. It was the cry of a dacoit. Oh, +dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. Fu-Manchu has +dacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the Zayat +Kiss, since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study this +evening. To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase."" +The horrible events that followed are punctuated, in my mind, by the +striking of a distant clock. It is singular how trivialities thus +assert themselves in moments of high tension. I will proceed, then, by +these punctuations, to the coming of the horror that it was written we +should encounter. +The clock across the common struck two. +Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands +with a solution of ammonia, Smith and I had followed the programme laid +down. It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simply +climbing a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out in +the front, our unseen watcher would proceed to the back. +The room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end, +stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of a +sleeper, which device we also had adopted in the case of the larger +bed. The perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee table in the +center of the floor, and Smith, with an electric pocket lamp, a +revolver, and a brassey beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow of +the wardrobe. I occupied a post between the windows. +No unusual sound, so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night. +Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the front +of the house, our vigil had been a silent one. The full moon had +painted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreading +the design gradually from the door, across the room, past the little +table where the envelope lay, and finally to the foot of the bed. +The distant clock struck a quarter-past two. +A slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself to the +extreme edge of the moon's design. +Something rose, inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window. I +could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith told +me that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow. +Every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely. I was icy cold, +expectant, and prepared for whatever horror was upon us. +The shadow became stationary. The dacoit was studying the interior of +the room. +Then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left, I saw a +lithe, black-clad form, surmounted by a Yellow face, sketchy in the +moonlight, pressed against the window-panes! +One thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash, which +it grasped--and then another. The man made absolutely no sound +whatever. The second hand disappeared--and reappeared. It held a +small, square box. There was a very faint CLICK. +The dacoit swung himself below the window with the agility of an ape, +as, with a dull, muffled thud, SOMETHING dropped upon the carpet! +""Stand still, for your life!"" came Smith's voice, high-pitched. +A beam of white leaped out across the room and played full upon the +coffee-table in the center. +Prepared as I was for something horrible, I know that I paled at sight +of the thing that was running round the edge of the envelope. +It was an insect, full six inches long, and of a vivid, venomous, red +color! It had something of the appearance of a great ant, with its +long, quivering antennae and its febrile, horrible vitality; but it was +proportionately longer of body and smaller of head, and had numberless +rapidly moving legs. In short, it was a giant centipede, apparently of +the scolopendra group, but of a form quite new to me. +These things I realized in one breathless instant; in the next--Smith +had dashed the thing's poisonous life out with one straight, true blow +of the golf club! +I leaped to the window and threw it widely open, feeling a silk thread +brush my hand as I did so. A black shape was dropping, with incredible +agility from branch to branch of the ivy, and, without once offering a +mark for a revolver-shot, it merged into the shadows beneath the trees +of the garden. As I turned and switched on the light Nayland Smith +dropped limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands. Even +that grim courage had been tried sorely. +""Never mind the dacoit, Petrie,"" he said. ""Nemesis will know where to +find him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss. +Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and the +enemy is poorer--unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. I +understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of +it--Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost +past speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not 'The red +hand!' but 'The red ANT!' Petrie, to think that I failed, by less than +an hour, to save him from such an end!"" +CHAPTER IV +""THE body of a lascar, dressed in the manner usual on the P. & O. +boats, was recovered from the Thames off Tilbury by the river police at +six A.M. this morning. It is supposed that the man met with an +accident in leaving his ship."" +Nayland Smith passed me the evening paper and pointed to the above +paragraph. +""For 'lascar' read 'dacoit,'"" he said. ""Our visitor, who came by way +of the ivy, fortunately for us, failed to follow his instructions. +Also, he lost the centipede and left a clew behind him. Dr. Fu-Manchu +does not overlook such lapses."" +It was a sidelight upon the character of the awful being with whom we +had to deal. My very soul recoiled from bare consideration of the fate +that would be ours if ever we fell into his hands. +The telephone bell rang. I went out and found that Inspector Weymouth +of New Scotland Yard had called us up. +""Will Mr. Nayland Smith please come to the Wapping River Police Station +at once,"" was the message. +Peaceful interludes were few enough throughout that wild pursuit. +""It is certainly something important,"" said my friend; ""and, if +Fu-Manchu is at the bottom of it--as we must presume him to +be--probably something ghastly."" +A brief survey of the time-tables showed us that there were no trains +to serve our haste. We accordingly chartered a cab and proceeded east. +Smith, throughout the journey, talked entertainingly about his work in +Burma. Of intent, I think, he avoided any reference to the +circumstances which first had brought him in contact with the sinister +genius of the Yellow Movement. His talk was rather of the sunshine of +the East than of its shadows. +But the drive concluded--and all too soon. In a silence which neither +of us seemed disposed to break, we entered the police depot, and +followed an officer who received us into the room where Weymouth waited. +The inspector greeted us briefly, nodding toward the table. +""Poor Cadby, the most promising lad at the Yard,"" he said; and his +usually gruff voice had softened strangely. +Smith struck his right fist into the palm of his left hand and swore +under his breath, striding up and down the neat little room. No one +spoke for a moment, and in the silence I could hear the whispering of +the Thames outside--of the Thames which had so many strange secrets to +tell, and now was burdened with another. +The body lay prone upon the deal table--this latest of the river's +dead--dressed in rough sailor garb, and, to all outward seeming, a +seaman of nondescript nationality--such as is no stranger in Wapping +and Shadwell. His dark, curly hair clung clammily about the brown +forehead; his skin was stained, they told me. He wore a gold ring in +one ear, and three fingers of the left hand were missing. +""It was almost the same with Mason."" The river police inspector was +speaking. ""A week ago, on a Wednesday, he went off in his own time on +some funny business down St. George's way--and Thursday night the +ten-o'clock boat got the grapnel on him off Hanover Hole. His first +two fingers on the right hand were clean gone, and his left hand was +mutilated frightfully."" +He paused and glanced at Smith. +""That lascar, too,"" he continued, ""that you came down to see, sir; you +remember his hands?"" +Smith nodded. +""He was not a lascar,"" he said shortly. ""He was a dacoit."" +Silence fell again. +I turned to the array of objects lying on the table--those which had +been found in Cadby's clothing. None of them were noteworthy, except +that which had been found thrust into the loose neck of his shirt. +This last it was which had led the police to send for Nayland Smith, +for it constituted the first clew which had come to light pointing to +the authors of these mysterious tragedies. +It was a Chinese pigtail. That alone was sufficiently remarkable; but +it was rendered more so by the fact that the plaited queue was a false +one being attached to a most ingenious bald wig. +""You're sure it wasn't part of a Chinese make-up?"" questioned Weymouth, +his eye on the strange relic. ""Cadby was clever at disguise."" +Smith snatched the wig from my hands with a certain irritation, and +tried to fit it on the dead detective. +""Too small by inches!"" he jerked. ""And look how it's padded in the +crown. This thing was made for a most abnormal head."" +He threw it down, and fell to pacing the room again. +""Where did you find him--exactly?"" he asked. +""Limehouse Reach--under Commercial Dock Pier--exactly an hour ago."" +""And you last saw him at eight o'clock last night?""--to Weymouth. +""Eight to a quarter past."" +""You think he has been dead nearly twenty-four hours, Petrie?"" +""Roughly, twenty-four hours,"" I replied. +""Then, we know that he was on the track of the Fu-Manchu group, that he +followed up some clew which led him to the neighborhood of old Ratcliff +Highway, and that he died the same night. You are sure that is where +he was going?"" +""Yes,"" said Weymouth; ""He was jealous of giving anything away, poor +chap; it meant a big lift for him if he pulled the case off. But he +gave me to understand that he expected to spend last night in that +district. He left the Yard about eight, as I've said, to go to his +rooms, and dress for the job."" +""Did he keep any record of his cases?"" +""Of course! He was most particular. Cadby was a man with ambitions, +sir! You'll want to see his book. Wait while I get his address; it's +somewhere in Brixton."" +He went to the telephone, and Inspector Ryman covered up the dead man's +face. +Nayland Smith was palpably excited. +""He almost succeeded where we have failed, Petrie,"" he said. ""There is +no doubt in my mind that he was hot on the track of Fu-Manchu! Poor +Mason had probably blundered on the scent, too, and he met with a +similar fate. Without other evidence, the fact that they both died in +the same way as the dacoit would be conclusive, for we know that +Fu-Manchu killed the dacoit!"" +""What is the meaning of the mutilated hands, Smith?"" +""God knows! Cadby's death was from drowning, you say?"" +""There are no other marks of violence."" +""But he was a very strong swimmer, Doctor,"" interrupted Inspector +Ryman. ""Why, he pulled off the quarter-mile championship at the +Crystal Palace last year! Cadby wasn't a man easy to drown. And as +for Mason, he was an R.N.R., and like a fish in the water!"" +Smith shrugged his shoulders helplessly. +""Let us hope that one day we shall know how they died,"" he said simply. +Weymouth returned from the telephone. +""The address is No.--Cold Harbor Lane,"" he reported. ""I shall not be +able to come along, but you can't miss it; it's close by the Brixton +Police Station. There's no family, fortunately; he was quite alone in +the world. His case-book isn't in the American desk, which you'll find +in his sitting-room; it's in the cupboard in the corner--top shelf. +Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is the cupboard key."" +Smith nodded. +""Come on, Petrie,"" he said. ""We haven't a second to waste."" +Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along +Wapping High Street. We had gone no more than a few hundred yards, I +think, when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his knee. +""That pigtail!"" he cried. ""I have left it behind! We must have it, +Petrie! Stop! Stop!"" +The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted. +""Don't wait for me,"" he directed hurriedly. ""Here, take Weymouth's +card. Remember where he said the book was? It's all we want. Come +straight on to Scotland Yard and meet me there."" +""But Smith,"" I protested, ""a few minutes can make no difference!"" +""Can't it!"" he snapped. ""Do you suppose Fu-Manchu is going to leave +evidence like that lying about? It's a thousand to one he has it +already, but there is just a bare chance."" +It was a new aspect of the situation and one that afforded no room for +comment; and so lost in thought did I become that the cab was outside +the house for which I was bound ere I realized that we had quitted the +purlieus of Wapping. Yet I had had leisure to review the whole troop +of events which had crowded my life since the return of Nayland Smith +from Burma. Mentally, I had looked again upon the dead Sir Crichton +Davey, and with Smith had waited in the dark for the dreadful thing +that had killed him. Now, with those remorseless memories jostling in +my mind, I was entering the house of Fu-Manchu's last victim, and the +shadow of that giant evil seemed to be upon it like a palpable cloud. +Cadby's old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear and +embarrassment in her manner. +""I am Dr. Petrie,"" I said, ""and I regret that I bring bad news +respecting Mr. Cadby."" +""Oh, sir!"" she cried. ""Don't tell me that anything has happened to +him!"" And divining something of the mission on which I was come, for +such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man: ""Oh, the poor, +brave lad!"" +Indeed, I respected the dead man's memory more than ever from that +hour, since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic, and +spoke eloquently for the unhappy cause of it. +""There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last night, +Doctor, and I heard it again to-night, a second before you knocked. +Poor lad! It was the same when his mother died."" +At the moment I paid little attention to her words, for such beliefs +are common, unfortunately; but when she was sufficiently composed I +went on to explain what I thought necessary. And now the old lady's +embarrassment took precedence of her sorrow, and presently the truth +came out: +""There's a--young lady--in his rooms, sir."" +I started. This might mean little or might mean much. +""She came and waited for him last night, Doctor--from ten until +half-past--and this morning again. She came the third time about an +hour ago, and has been upstairs since."" +""Do you know her, Mrs. Dolan?"" +Mrs. Dolan grew embarrassed again. +""Well, Doctor,"" she said, wiping her eyes the while, ""I DO. And God +knows he was a good lad, and I like a mother to him; but she is not the +girl I should have liked a son of mine to take up with."" +At any other time, this would have been amusing; now, it might be +serious. Mrs. Dolan's account of the wailing became suddenly +significant, for perhaps it meant that one of Fu-Manchu's dacoit +followers was watching the house, to give warning of any stranger's +approach! Warning to whom? It was unlikely that I should forget the +dark eyes of another of Fu-Manchu's servants. Was that lure of men +even now in the house, completing her evil work? +""I should never have allowed her in his rooms--"" began Mrs. Dolan +again. Then there was an interruption. +A soft rustling reached my ears--intimately feminine. The girl was +stealing down! +I leaped out into the hall, and she turned and fled blindly before +me--back up the stairs! Taking three steps at a time, I followed her, +bounded into the room above almost at her heels, and stood with my back +to the door. +She cowered against the desk by the window, a slim figure in a clinging +silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan's distrust. The gaslight +was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face, but could not hide +its startling beauty, could not mar the brilliancy of the skin, nor dim +the wonderful eyes of this modern Delilah. For it was she! +""So I came in time,"" I said grimly, and turned the key in the lock. +""Oh!"" she panted at that, and stood facing me, leaning back with her +jewel-laden hands clutching the desk edge. +""Give me whatever you have removed from here,"" I said sternly, ""and +then prepare to accompany me."" +She took a step forward, her eyes wide with fear, her lips parted. +""I have taken nothing,"" she said. Her breast was heaving tumultuously. +""Oh, let me go! Please, let me go!"" And impulsively she threw herself +forward, pressing clasped hands against my shoulder and looking up into +my face with passionate, pleading eyes. +It is with some shame that I confess how her charm enveloped me like a +magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex Oriental temperament, I had +laughed at Nayland Smith when he had spoken of this girl's infatuation. +""Love in the East,"" he had said, ""is like the conjurer's mango-tree; it +is born, grows and flowers at the touch of a hand."" Now, in those +pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words. Her clothes or her +hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all Fu-Manchu's servants, she was +perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties. Her beauty was wholly +intoxicating. +But I thrust her away. +""You have no claim to mercy,"" I said. ""Do not count upon any. What +have you taken from here?"" +She grasped the lapels of my coat. +""I will tell you all I can--all I dare,"" she panted eagerly, fearfully. +""I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost! +If you could only understand you would not be so cruel."" Her slight +accent added charm to the musical voice. ""I am not free, as your +English women are. What I do I must do, for it is the will of my +master, and I am only a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give +me to the police. You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to +save you once."" +I had feared that plea, for, in her own Oriental fashion, she certainly +had tried to save me from a deadly peril once--at the expense of my +friend. But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it. +How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder? And +now I fell silent, and she saw why I was silent. +""I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think; but what +have YOU to do with the police? It is not your work to hound a woman +to death. Could you ever look another woman in the eyes--one that you +loved, and know that she trusted you--if you had done such a thing? +Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here. Do not +be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am; be my friend, and +save me--from HIM."" The tremulous lips were close to mine, her breath +fanned my cheek. ""Have mercy on me."" +At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly +possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must come +to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing accomplice of +Dr. Fu-Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental, and her code must +necessarily be different from mine. Irreconcilable as the thing may be +with Western ideas, Nayland Smith had really told me that he believed +the girl to be a slave. Then there remained that other reason why I +loathed the idea of becoming her captor. It was almost tantamount to +betrayal! Must I soil my hands with such work? +Thus--I suppose--her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right. +The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body +quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes, +in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I remembered the fate of +the man in whose room we stood. +""You lured Cadby to his death,"" I said, and shook her off. +""No, no!"" she cried wildly, clutching at me. ""No, I swear by the holy +name I did not! I did not! I watched him, spied upon him--yes! But, +listen: it was because he would not be warned that he met his death. I +could not save him! Ah, I am not so bad as that. I will tell you. I +have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and burnt them. +Look! in the grate. The book was too big to steal away. I came twice +and could not find it. There, will you let me go?"" +""If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr. Fu-Manchu--yes."" +Her hands dropped and she took a backward step. A new terror was to be +read in her face. +""I dare not! I dare not!"" +""Then you would--if you dared?"" +She was watching me intently. +""Not if YOU would go to find him,"" she said. +And, with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant of justice +that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to my cheek at +all which the words implied. She grasped my arm. +""Could you hide me from him if I came to you, and told you all I know?"" +""The authorities--"" +""Ah!"" Her expression changed. ""They can put me on the rack if they +choose, but never one word would I speak--never one little word."" +She threw up her head scornfully. Then the proud glance softened again. +""But I will speak for you."" +Closer she came, and closer, until she could whisper in my ear. +""Hide me from your police, from HIM, from everybody, and I will no +longer be his slave."" +My heart was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on this +warring with a woman; moreover, it was harder than I could have dreamt +of. For some time I had been aware that by the charm of her +personality and the art of her pleading she had brought me down from my +judgment seat--had made it all but impossible for me to give her up to +justice. Now, I was disarmed--but in a quandary. What should I do? +What COULD I do? I turned away from her and walked to the hearth, in +which some paper ash lay and yet emitted a faint smell. +Not more than ten seconds elapsed, I am confident, from the time that I +stepped across the room until I glanced back. But she had gone! +As I leapt to the door the key turned gently from the outside. +""Ma 'alesh!"" came her soft whisper; ""but I am afraid to trust you--yet. +Be comforted, for there is one near who would have killed you had I +wished it. Remember, I will come to you whenever you will take me and +hide me."" +Light footsteps pattered down the stairs. I heard a stifled cry from +Mrs. Dolan as the mysterious visitor ran past her. The front door +opened and closed. +CHAPTER V +""Shen-Yan's is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old Ratcliff +Highway,"" said Inspector Weymouth. +""'Singapore Charlie's,' they call it. It's a center for some of the +Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium-smokers use it. +There have never been any complaints that I know of. I don't +understand this."" +We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet of +foolscap upon which were arranged some burned fragments from poor +Cadby's grate, for so hurriedly had the girl done her work that +combustion had not been complete. +""What do we make of this?"" said Smith. ""'. . . Hunchback . . . lascar +went up . . . unlike others . . . not return . . . till Shen-Yan' +(there is no doubt about the name, I think) 'turned me out . . . booming +sound . . . lascar in . . . mortuary I could ident . . . not for days, +or suspici . . . Tuesday night in a different make . . . snatch +. . . pigtail . . .'"" +""The pigtail again!"" rapped Weymouth. +""She evidently burned the torn-out pages all together,"" continued +Smith. ""They lay flat, and this was in the middle. I see the hand of +retributive justice in that, Inspector. Now we have a reference to a +hunchback, and what follows amounts to this: A lascar (amongst several +other persons) went up somewhere--presumably upstairs--at Shen-Yan's, +and did not come down again. Cadby, who was there disguised, noted a +booming sound. Later, he identified the lascar in some mortuary. We +have no means of fixing the date of this visit to Shen-Yan's, but I +feel inclined to put down the 'lascar' as the dacoit who was murdered +by Fu-Manchu! It is sheer supposition, however. But that Cadby meant +to pay another visit to the place in a different 'make-up' or disguise, +is evident, and that the Tuesday night proposed was last night is a +reasonable deduction. The reference to a pigtail is principally +interesting because of what was found on Cadby's body."" +Inspector Weymouth nodded affirmatively, and Smith glanced at his watch. +""Exactly ten-twenty-three,"" he said. ""I will trouble you, Inspector, +for the freedom of your fancy wardrobe. There is time to spend an hour +in the company of Shen-Yan's opium friends."" +Weymouth raised his eyebrows. +""It might be risky. What about an official visit?"" +Nayland Smith laughed. +""Worse than useless! By your own showing, the place is open to +inspection. No; guile against guile! We are dealing with a Chinaman, +with the incarnate essence of Eastern subtlety, with the most +stupendous genius that the modern Orient has produced."" +""I don't believe in disguises,"" said Weymouth, with a certain +truculence. ""It's mostly played out, that game, and generally leads to +failure. Still, if you're determined, sir, there's an end of it. +Foster will make your face up. What disguise do you propose to adopt?"" +""A sort of Dago seaman, I think; something like poor Cadby. I can rely +on my knowledge of the brutes, if I am sure of my disguise."" +""You are forgetting me, Smith,"" I said. +He turned to me quickly. +""Petrie,"" he replied, ""it is MY business, unfortunately, but it is no +sort of hobby."" +""You mean that you can no longer rely upon me?"" I said angrily. +Smith grasped my hand, and met my rather frigid stare with a look of +real concern on his gaunt, bronzed face. +""My dear old chap,"" he answered, ""that was really unkind. You know +that I meant something totally different."" +""It's all right, Smith;"" I said, immediately ashamed of my choler, and +wrung his hand heartily. ""I can pretend to smoke opium as well as +another. I shall be going, too, Inspector."" +As a result of this little passage of words, some twenty minutes later +two dangerous-looking seafaring ruffians entered a waiting cab, +accompanied by Inspector Weymouth, and were driven off into the +wilderness of London's night. In this theatrical business there was, +to my mind, something ridiculous--almost childish--and I could have +laughed heartily had it not been that grim tragedy lurked so near to +farce. +The mere recollection that somewhere at our journey's end Fu-Manchu +awaited us was sufficient to sober my reflections--Fu-Manchu, who, with +all the powers represented by Nayland Smith pitted against him, pursued +his dark schemes triumphantly, and lurked in hiding within this very +area which was so sedulously patrolled--Fu-Manchu, whom I had never +seen, but whose name stood for horrors indefinable! Perhaps I was +destined to meet the terrible Chinese doctor to-night. +I ceased to pursue a train of thought which promised to lead to morbid +depths, and directed my attention to what Smith was saying. +""We will drop down from Wapping and reconnoiter, as you say the place +is close to the riverside. Then you can put us ashore somewhere below. +Ryman can keep the launch close to the back of the premises, and your +fellows will be hanging about near the front, near enough to hear the +whistle."" +""Yes,"" assented Weymouth; ""I've arranged for that. If you are +suspected, you shall give the alarm?"" +""I don't know,"" said Smith thoughtfully. ""Even in that event I might +wait awhile."" +""Don't wait too long,"" advised the Inspector. ""We shouldn't be much +wiser if your next appearance was on the end of a grapnel, somewhere +down Greenwich Reach, with half your fingers missing."" +The cab pulled up outside the river police depot, and Smith and I +entered without delay, four shabby-looking fellows who had been seated +in the office springing up to salute the Inspector, who followed us in. +""Guthrie and Lisle,"" he said briskly, ""get along and find a dark corner +which commands the door of Singapore Charlie's off the old Highway. +You look the dirtiest of the troupe, Guthrie; you might drop asleep on +the pavement, and Lisle can argue with you about getting home. Don't +move till you hear the whistle inside or have my orders, and note +everybody that goes in and comes out. You other two belong to this +division?"" +The C.I.D. men having departed, the remaining pair saluted again. +""Well, you're on special duty to-night. You've been prompt, but don't +stick your chests out so much. Do you know of a back way to +Shen-Yan's?"" +The men looked at one another, and both shook their heads. +""There's an empty shop nearly opposite, sir,"" replied one of them. ""I +know a broken window at the back where we could climb in. Then we +could get through to the front and watch from there."" +""Good!"" cried the Inspector. ""See you are not spotted, though; and if +you hear the whistle, don't mind doing a bit of damage, but be inside +Shen-Yan's like lightning. Otherwise, wait for orders."" +Inspector Ryman came in, glancing at the clock. +""Launch is waiting,"" he said. +""Right,"" replied Smith thoughtfully. ""I am half afraid, though, that +the recent alarms may have scared our quarry--your man, Mason, and then +Cadby. Against which we have that, so far as he is likely to know, +there has been no clew pointing to this opium den. Remember, he thinks +Cadby's notes are destroyed."" +""The whole business is an utter mystery to me,"" confessed Ryman. ""I'm +told that there's some dangerous Chinese devil hiding somewhere in +London, and that you expect to find him at Shen-Yan's. Supposing he +uses that place, which is possible, how do you know he's there +to-night?"" +""I don't,"" said Smith; ""but it is the first clew we have had pointing +to one of his haunts, and time means precious lives where Dr. Fu-Manchu +is concerned."" +""Who is he, sir, exactly, this Dr. Fu-Manchu?"" +""I have only the vaguest idea, Inspector; but he is no ordinary +criminal. He is the greatest genius which the powers of evil have put +on earth for centuries. He has the backing of a political group whose +wealth is enormous, and his mission in Europe is to PAVE THE WAY! Do +you follow me? He is the advance-agent of a movement so epoch-making +that not one Britisher, and not one American, in fifty thousand has +ever dreamed of it."" +Ryman stared, but made no reply, and we went out, passing down to the +breakwater and boarding the waiting launch. With her crew of three, +the party numbered seven that swung out into the Pool, and, clearing +the pier, drew in again and hugged the murky shore. +The night had been clear enough hitherto, but now came scudding +rainbanks to curtain the crescent moon, and anon to unveil her again +and show the muddy swirls about us. The view was not extensive from +the launch. Sometimes a deepening of the near shadows would tell of a +moored barge, or lights high above our heads mark the deck of a large +vessel. In the floods of moonlight gaunt shapes towered above; in the +ensuing darkness only the oily glitter of the tide occupied the +foreground of the night-piece. +The Surrey shore was a broken wall of blackness, patched with lights +about which moved hazy suggestions of human activity. The bank we were +following offered a prospect even more gloomy--a dense, dark mass, amid +which, sometimes, mysterious half-tones told of a dock gate, or sudden +high lights leapt flaring to the eye. +Then, out of the mystery ahead, a green light grew and crept down upon +us. A giant shape loomed up, and frowned crushingly upon the little +craft. A blaze of light, the jangle of a bell, and it was past. We +were dancing in the wash of one of the Scotch steamers, and the murk +had fallen again. +Discords of remote activity rose above the more intimate throbbing of +our screw, and we seemed a pigmy company floating past the workshops of +Brobdingnagian toilers. The chill of the near water communicated +itself to me, and I felt the protection of my shabby garments +inadequate against it. +Far over on the Surrey shore a blue light--vaporous, +mysterious--flicked translucent tongues against the night's curtain. +It was a weird, elusive flame, leaping, wavering, magically changing +from blue to a yellowed violet, rising, falling. +""Only a gasworks,"" came Smith's voice, and I knew that he, too, had +been watching those elfin fires. ""But it always reminds me of a +Mexican teocalli, and the altar of sacrifice."" +The simile was apt, but gruesome. I thought of Dr. Fu-Manchu and the +severed fingers, and could not repress a shudder. +""On your left, past the wooden pier! Not where the lamp is--beyond +that; next to the dark, square building--Shen-Yan's."" +It was Inspector Ryman speaking. +""Drop us somewhere handy, then,"" replied Smith, ""and lie close in, with +your ears wide open. We may have to run for it, so don't go far away."" +From the tone of his voice I knew that the night mystery of the Thames +had claimed at least one other victim. +""Dead slow,"" came Ryman's order. ""We'll put in to the Stone Stairs."" +CHAPTER VI +A SEEMINGLY drunken voice was droning from a neighboring alleyway as +Smith lurched in hulking fashion to the door of a little shop above +which, crudely painted, were the words: +""SHEN-YAN, Barber."" +I shuffled along behind him, and had time to note the box of studs, +German shaving tackle and rolls of twist which lay untidily in the +window ere Smith kicked the door open, clattered down three wooden +steps, and pulled himself up with a jerk, seizing my arm for support. +We stood in a bare and very dirty room, which could only claim kinship +with a civilized shaving-saloon by virtue of the grimy towel thrown +across the back of the solitary chair. A Yiddish theatrical bill of +some kind, illustrated, adorned one of the walls, and another bill, in +what may have been Chinese, completed the decorations. From behind a +curtain heavily brocaded with filth a little Chinaman appeared, dressed +in a loose smock, black trousers and thick-soled slippers, and, +advancing, shook his head vigorously. +""No shavee--no shavee,"" he chattered, simian fashion, squinting from +one to the other of us with his twinkling eyes. ""Too late! Shuttee +shop!"" +""Don't you come none of it wi' me!"" roared Smith, in a voice of amazing +gruffness, and shook an artificially dirtied fist under the Chinaman's +nose. ""Get inside and gimme an' my mate a couple o' pipes. Smokee +pipe, you yellow scum--savvy?"" +My friend bent forward and glared into the other's eyes with a +vindictiveness that amazed me, unfamiliar as I was with this form of +gentle persuasion. +""Kop 'old o' that,"" he said, and thrust a coin into the Chinaman's +yellow paw. ""Keep me waitin' an' I'll pull the dam' shop down, +Charlie. You can lay to it."" +""No hab got pipee--"" began the other. +Smith raised his fist, and Yan capitulated. +""Allee lightee,"" he said. ""Full up--no loom. You come see."" +He dived behind the dirty curtain, Smith and I following, and ran up a +dark stair. The next moment I found myself in an atmosphere which was +literally poisonous. It was all but unbreathable, being loaded with +opium fumes. Never before had I experienced anything like it. Every +breath was an effort. A tin oil-lamp on a box in the middle of the +floor dimly illuminated the horrible place, about the walls of which +ten or twelve bunks were ranged and all of them occupied. Most of the +occupants were lying motionless, but one or two were squatting in their +bunks noisily sucking at the little metal pipes. These had not yet +attained to the opium-smoker's Nirvana. +""No loom--samee tella you,"" said Shen-Yan, complacently testing Smith's +shilling with his yellow, decayed teeth. +Smith walked to a corner and dropped cross-legged, on the floor, +pulling me down with him. +""Two pipe quick,"" he said. ""Plenty room. Two piecee pipe--or plenty +heap trouble."" +A dreary voice from one of the bunks came: +""Give 'im a pipe, Charlie, curse yer! an' stop 'is palaver."" +Yan performed a curious little shrug, rather of the back than of the +shoulders, and shuffled to the box which bore the smoky lamp. Holding +a needle in the flame, he dipped it, when red-hot, into an old cocoa +tin, and withdrew it with a bead of opium adhering to the end. Slowly +roasting this over the lamp, he dropped it into the bowl of the metal +pipe which he held ready, where it burned with a spirituous blue flame. +""Pass it over,"" said Smith huskily, and rose on his knees with the +assumed eagerness of a slave to the drug. +Yan handed him the pipe, which he promptly put to his lips, and +prepared another for me. +""Whatever you do, don't inhale any,"" came Smith's whispered injunction. +It was with a sense of nausea greater even than that occasioned by the +disgusting atmosphere of the den that I took the pipe and pretended to +smoke. Taking my cue from my friend, I allowed my head gradually to +sink lower and lower, until, within a few minutes, I sprawled sideways +on the floor, Smith lying close beside me. +""The ship's sinkin',"" droned a voice from one of the bunks. ""Look at +the rats."" +Yan had noiselessly withdrawn, and I experienced a curious sense of +isolation from my fellows--from the whole of the Western world. My +throat was parched with the fumes, my head ached. The vicious +atmosphere seemed contaminating. I was as one dropped-- +Somewhere East of Suez, where the best is like the worst, And there +ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a thirst. +Smith began to whisper softly. +""We have carried it through successfully so far,"" he said. ""I don't +know if you have observed it, but there is a stair just behind you, +half concealed by a ragged curtain. We are near that, and well in the +dark. I have seen nothing suspicious so far--or nothing much. But if +there was anything going forward it would no doubt be delayed until we +new arrivals were well doped. S-SH!"" +He pressed my arm to emphasize the warning. Through my half-closed +eyes I perceived a shadowy form near the curtain to which he had +referred. I lay like a log, but my muscles were tensed nervously. +The shadow materialized as the figure moved forward into the room with +a curiously lithe movement. +The smoky lamp in the middle of the place afforded scant illumination, +serving only to indicate sprawling shapes--here an extended hand, brown +or yellow, there a sketchy, corpse-like face; whilst from all about +rose obscene sighings and murmurings in far-away voices--an uncanny, +animal chorus. It was like a glimpse of the Inferno seen by some +Chinese Dante. But so close to us stood the newcomer that I was able +to make out a ghastly parchment face, with small, oblique eyes, and a +misshapen head crowned with a coiled pigtail, surmounting a slight, +hunched body. There was something unnatural, inhuman, about that +masklike face, and something repulsive in the bent shape and the long, +yellow hands clasped one upon the other. +Fu-Manchu, from Smith's account, in no way resembled this crouching +apparition with the death's-head countenance and lithe movements; but +an instinct of some kind told me that we were on the right scent--that +this was one of the doctor's servants. How I came to that conclusion, +I cannot explain; but with no doubt in my mind that this was a member +of the formidable murder group, I saw the yellow man creep nearer, +nearer, silently, bent and peering. +He was watching us. +Of another circumstance I became aware, and a disquieting circumstance. +There were fewer murmurings and sighings from the surrounding bunks. +The presence of the crouching figure had created a sudden semi-silence +in the den, which could only mean that some of the supposed +opium-smokers had merely feigned coma and the approach of coma. +Nayland Smith lay like a dead man, and trusting to the darkness, I, +too, lay prone and still, but watched the evil face bending lower and +lower, until it came within a few inches of my own. I completely +closed my eyes. +Delicate fingers touched my right eyelid. Divining what was coming, I +rolled my eyes up, as the lid was adroitly lifted and lowered again. +The man moved away. +I had saved the situation! And noting anew the hush about me--a hush +in which I fancied many pairs of ears listened--I was glad. For just a +moment I realized fully how, with the place watched back and front, we +yet were cut off, were in the hands of Far Easterns, to some extent in +the power of members of that most inscrutably mysterious race, the +Chinese. +""Good,"" whispered Smith at my side. ""I don't think I could have done +it. He took me on trust after that. My God! what an awful face. +Petrie, it's the hunchback of Cadby's notes. Ah, I thought so. Do you +see that?"" +I turned my eyes round as far as was possible. A man had scrambled +down from one of the bunks and was following the bent figure across the +room. +They passed around us quietly, the little yellow man leading, with his +curious, lithe gait, and the other, an impassive Chinaman, following. +The curtain was raised, and I heard footsteps receding on the stairs. +""Don't stir,"" whispered Smith. +An intense excitement was clearly upon him, and he communicated it to +me. Who was the occupant of the room above? +Footsteps on the stair, and the Chinaman reappeared, recrossed the +floor, and went out. The little, bent man went over to another bunk, +this time leading up the stair one who looked like a lascar. +""Did you see his right hand?"" whispered Smith. ""A dacoit! They come +here to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu-Manchu is up there."" +""What shall we do?""--softly. +""Wait. Then we must try to rush the stairs. It would be futile to +bring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit. I will +give the word while the little yellow devil is down here. You are +nearer and will have to go first, but if the hunchback follows, I can +then deal with him."" +Our whispered colloquy was interrupted by the return of the dacoit, who +recrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately took his +departure. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay, ascended the +mysterious stairs, descended, and went out; and a fourth, whose +nationality it was impossible to determine, followed. Then, as the +softly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right of the outer door-- +""Up you go, Petrie,"" cried Smith, for further delay was dangerous and +further dissimulation useless. +I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket of the +rough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went blundering up in +complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries clamored from behind, +with a muffled scream rising above them all. But Nayland Smith was +close behind as I raced along a covered gangway, in a purer air, and at +my heels when I crashed open a door at the end and almost fell into the +room beyond. +What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends upon it +of which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung by a brass +chain above, and a man sitting behind the table. But from the moment +that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, I think if the place +had been an Aladdin's palace I should have had no eyes for any of its +wonders. +He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that of his +smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, and +he held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin upon their +thinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with sparse, +neutral-colored hair. +Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, I despair of +writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel of evil, and it was +wholly dominated by the most uncanny eyes that ever reflected a human +soul, for they were narrow and long, very slightly oblique, and of a +brilliant green. But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess +(it made me think of the membrana nictitans in a bird) which, obscuring +them as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift as I actually passed the +threshold, revealing the eyes in all their brilliant iridescence. +I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the malignant +force of the man was something surpassing my experience. He was +surprised by this sudden intrusion--yes, but no trace of fear showed +upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt. And, as I +paused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his gaze from mine. +""IT'S FU-MANCHU!"" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice that was +almost a scream. ""IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him! Shoot him dead if--"" +The conclusion of that sentence I never heard. +Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped from +under me. +One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I was +unable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icy +water, which closed over my head. +Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry following my +own, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a police whistle. +But when I rose to the surface impenetrable darkness enveloped me; I +was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down the +black terror that had me by the throat--terror of the darkness about +me, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I was cast +amid stifling stenches and the lapping of tidal water. +""Smith!"" I cried. . . . ""Help! Help!"" +My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about to cry out again, +when, mustering all my presence of mind and all my failing courage, I +recognized that I had better employment of my energies, and began to +swim straight ahead, desperately determined to face all the horrors of +this place--to die hard if die I must. +A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed into the +water beside me! +I felt that, despite my resolution, I was going mad. +Another fiery drop--and another! +I touched a rotting wooden post and slimy timbers. I had reached one +bound of my watery prison. More fire fell from above, and the scream +of hysteria quivered, unuttered, in my throat. +Keeping myself afloat with increasing difficulty in my heavy garments, +I threw my head back and raised my eyes. +No more drops fell, and no more drops would fall; but it was merely a +question of time for the floor to collapse. For it was beginning to +emit a dull, red glow. +The room above me was in flames! +It was drops of burning oil from the lamp, finding passage through the +cracks in the crazy flooring, which had fallen about me--for the death +trap had reclosed, I suppose, mechanically. +My saturated garments were dragging me down, and now I could hear the +flames hungrily eating into the ancient rottenness overhead. Shortly +that cauldron would be loosed upon my head. The glow of the flames +grew brighter . . . and showed me the half-rotten piles upholding the +building, showed me the tidal mark upon the slime-coated walls--showed +me that there was no escape! +By some subterranean duct the foul place was fed from the Thames. By +that duct, with the outgoing tide, my body would pass, in the wake of +Mason, Cadby, and many another victim! +Rusty iron rungs were affixed to one of the walls communicating with a +trap--but the bottom three were missing! +Brighter and brighter grew the awesome light--the light of what should +be my funeral pyre--reddening the oily water and adding a new dread to +the whispering, clammy horror of the pit. But something it showed +me . . . a projecting beam a few feet above the water . . . and directly +below the iron ladder! +""Merciful Heaven!"" I breathed. ""Have I the strength?"" +A desire for laughter claimed me with sudden, all but irresistible +force. I knew what it portended and fought it down--grimly, sternly. +My garments weighed upon me like a suit of mail; with my chest aching +dully, my veins throbbing to bursting, I forced tired muscles to work, +and, every stroke an agony, approached the beam. Nearer I swam +. . . nearer. Its shadow fell black upon the water, which now had all +the seeming of a pool of blood. Confused sounds--a remote uproar--came +to my ears. I was nearly spent . . . I was in the shadow of the beam! If +I could throw up one arm. . . +A shrill scream sounded far above me! +""Petrie! Petrie!"" (That voice must be Smith's!) ""Don't touch the +beam! For God's sake DON'T TOUCH THE BEAM! Keep afloat another few +seconds and I can get to you!"" +Another few seconds! Was that possible? +I managed to turn, to raise my throbbing head; and I saw the strangest +sight which that night yet had offered. +Nayland Smith stood upon the lowest iron rung . . . supported by the +hideous, crook-backed Chinaman, who stood upon the rung above! +""I can't reach him!"" +It was as Smith hissed the words despairingly that I looked up--and saw +the Chinaman snatch at his coiled pigtail and pull it off! With it +came the wig to which it was attached; and the ghastly yellow mask, +deprived of its fastenings, fell from position! ""Here! Here! Be +quick! Oh! be quick! You can lower this to him! Be quick! Be +quick!"" +A cloud of hair came falling about the slim shoulders as the speaker +bent to pass this strange lifeline to Smith; and I think it was my +wonder at knowing her for the girl whom that day I had surprised in +Cadby's rooms which saved my life. +For I not only kept afloat, but kept my gaze upturned to that +beautiful, flushed face, and my eyes fixed upon hers--which were wild +with fear . . . for me! +Smith, by some contortion, got the false queue into my grasp, and I, +with the strength of desperation, by that means seized hold upon the +lowest rung. With my friend's arm round me I realized that exhaustion +was even nearer than I had supposed. My last distinct memory is of the +bursting of the floor above and the big burning joist hissing into the +pool beneath us. Its fiery passage, striated with light, disclosed two +sword blades, riveted, edges up along the top of the beam which I had +striven to reach. +""The severed fingers--"" I said; and swooned. +How Smith got me through the trap I do not know--nor how we made our +way through the smoke and flames of the narrow passage it opened upon. +My next recollection is of sitting up, with my friend's arm supporting +me and Inspector Ryman holding a glass to my lips. +A bright glare dazzled my eyes. A crowd surged about us, and a clangor +and shouting drew momentarily nearer. +""It's the engines coming,"" explained Smith, seeing my bewilderment. +""Shen-Yan's is in flames. It was your shot, as you fell through the +trap, broke the oil-lamp."" +""Is everybody out?"" +""So far as we know."" +""Fu-Manchu?"" +Smith shrugged his shoulders. +""No one has seen him. There was some door at the back--"" +""Do you think he may--"" +""No,"" he said tensely. ""Not until I see him lying dead before me shall +I believe it."" +Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet. +""Smith, where is she?"" I cried. ""Where is she?"" +""I don't know,"" he answered. +""She's given us the slip, Doctor,"" said Inspector Weymouth, as a +fire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. ""So has +Mr. Singapore Charlie--and, I'm afraid, somebody else. We've got six +or eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep, but I suppose we shall +have to let 'em go again. Mr. Smith tells me that the girl was +disguised as a Chinaman. I expect that's why she managed to slip away."" +I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue, how +the strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby had brought +life to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that Smith had dropped it as +he threw his arm about me on the ladder. Her mask the girl might have +retained, but her wig, I felt certain, had been dropped into the water. +It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing upon the +blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop, and Smith and I +were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God knows how many +crimes, that I had an idea. +""Smith,"" I said, ""did you bring the pigtail with you that was found on +Cadby?"" +""Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner."" +""Have you got it now?"" +""No. I met the owner."" +I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket lent to +me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner. +""We shall never really excel at this business,"" continued Nayland +Smith. ""We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us, +Petrie, what it meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I owed her +your life--I had to square the account."" +CHAPTER VII +NIGHT fell on Redmoat. I glanced from the window at the nocturne in +silver and green which lay beneath me. To the west of the shrubbery, +with its broken canopy of elms and beyond the copper beech which marked +the center of its mazes, a gap offered a glimpse of the Waverney where +it swept into a broad. Faint bird-calls floated over the water. +These, with the whisper of leaves, alone claimed the ear. +Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening; but to +my eyes, every shadow holding fantastic terrors; to my ears, every +sound a signal of dread. For the deathful hand of Fu-Manchu was +stretched over Redmoat, at any hour to loose strange, Oriental horrors +upon its inmates. +""Well,"" said Nayland Smith, joining me at the window, ""we had dared to +hope him dead, but we know now that he lives!"" +The Rev. J. D. Eltham coughed nervously, and I turned, leaning my elbow +upon the table, and studied the play of expression upon the refined, +sensitive face of the clergyman. +""You think I acted rightly in sending for you, Mr. Smith?"" +Nayland Smith smoked furiously. +""Mr. Eltham,"" he replied, ""you see in me a man groping in the dark. I +am to-day no nearer to the conclusion of my mission than upon the day +when I left Mandalay. You offer me a clew; I am here. Your affair, I +believe, stands thus: A series of attempted burglaries, or something of +the kind, has alarmed your household. Yesterday, returning from London +with your daughter, you were both drugged in some way and, occupying a +compartment to yourselves, you both slept. Your daughter awoke, and +saw someone else in the carriage--a yellow-faced man who held a case of +instruments in his hands."" +""Yes; I was, of course, unable to enter into particulars over the +telephone. The man was standing by one of the windows. Directly he +observed that my daughter was awake, he stepped towards her."" +""What did he do with the case in his hands?"" +""She did not notice--or did not mention having noticed. In fact, as +was natural, she was so frightened that she recalls nothing more, +beyond the fact that she strove to arouse me, without succeeding, felt +hands grasp her shoulders--and swooned."" +""But someone used the emergency cord, and stopped the train."" +""Greba has no recollection of having done so."" +""Hm! Of course, no yellow-faced man was on the train. When did you +awake?"" +""I was aroused by the guard, but only when he had repeatedly shaken me."" +""Upon reaching Great Yarmouth you immediately called up Scotland Yard? +You acted very wisely, sir. How long were you in China?"" +Mr. Eltham's start of surprise was almost comical. +""It is perhaps not strange that you should be aware of my residence in +China, Mr. Smith,"" he said; ""but my not having mentioned it may seem +so. The fact is""--his sensitive face flushed in palpable +embarrassment--""I left China under what I may term an episcopal cloud. +I have lived in retirement ever since. Unwittingly--I solemnly declare +to you, Mr. Smith, unwittingly--I stirred up certain deep-seated +prejudices in my endeavors to do my duty--my duty. I think you asked +me how long I was in China? I was there from 1896 until 1900--four +years."" +""I recall the circumstances, Mr. Eltham,"" said Smith, with an odd note +in his voice. ""I have been endeavoring to think where I had come +across the name, and a moment ago I remembered. I am happy to have met +you, sir."" +The clergyman blushed again like a girl, and slightly inclined his +head, with its scanty fair hair. +""Has Redmoat, as its name implies, a moat round it? I was unable to +see in the dusk."" +""It remains. Redmoat--a corruption of Round Moat--was formerly a +priory, disestablished by the eighth Henry in 1536."" His pedantic +manner was quaint at times. ""But the moat is no longer flooded. In +fact, we grow cabbages in part of it. If you refer to the strategic +strength of the place""--he smiled, but his manner was embarrassed +again--""it is considerable. I have barbed wire fencing, and--other +arrangements. You see, it is a lonely spot,"" he added apologetically. +""And now, if you will excuse me, we will resume these gruesome +inquiries after the more pleasant affairs of dinner."" +He left us. +""Who is our host?"" I asked, as the door closed. +Smith smiled. +""You are wondering what caused the 'episcopal cloud?'"" he suggested. +""Well, the deep-seated prejudices which our reverend friend stirred up +culminated in the Boxer Risings."" +""Good heavens, Smith!"" I said; for I could not reconcile the diffident +personality of the clergyman with the memories which those words +awakened. +""He evidently should be on our danger list,"" my friend continued +quickly; ""but he has so completely effaced himself of recent years that +I think it probable that someone else has only just recalled his +existence to mind. The Rev. J. D. Eltham, my dear Petrie, though he +may be a poor hand at saving souls, at any rate, has saved a score of +Christian women from death--and worse."" +""J. D. Eltham--"" I began. +""Is 'Parson Dan'!"" rapped Smith, ""the 'Fighting Missionary,' the man +who with a garrison of a dozen cripples and a German doctor held the +hospital at Nan-Yang against two hundred Boxers. That's who the Rev. +J. D. Eltham is! But what is he up to, now, I have yet to find out. +He is keeping something back--something which has made him an object of +interest to Young China!"" +During dinner the matters responsible for our presence there did not +hold priority in the conversation. In fact, this, for the most part, +consisted in light talk of books and theaters. +Greba Eltham, the clergyman's daughter, was a charming young hostess, +and she, with Vernon Denby, Mr. Eltham's nephew, completed the party. +No doubt the girl's presence, in part, at any rate, led us to refrain +from the subject uppermost in our minds. +These little pools of calm dotted along the torrential course of the +circumstances which were bearing my friend and me onward to unknown +issues form pleasant, sunny spots in my dark recollections. +So I shall always remember, with pleasure, that dinner-party at +Redmoat, in the old-world dining-room; it was so very peaceful, so +almost grotesquely calm. For I, within my very bones, felt it to be +the calm before the storm. When, later, we men passed to the library, +we seemed to leave that atmosphere behind us. +""Redmoat,"" said the Rev. J. D. Eltham, ""has latterly become the theater +of strange doings."" +He stood on the hearth-rug. A shaded lamp upon the big table and +candles in ancient sconces upon the mantelpiece afforded dim +illumination. Mr. Eltham's nephew, Vernon Denby, lolled smoking on the +window-seat, and I sat near to him. Nayland Smith paced restlessly up +and down the room. +""Some months ago, almost a year,"" continued the clergyman, ""a +burglarious attempt was made upon the house. There was an arrest, and +the man confessed that he had been tempted by my collection."" He waved +his hand vaguely towards the several cabinets about the shadowed room. +""It was shortly afterwards that I allowed my hobby for--playing at +forts to run away with me."" He smiled an apology. ""I virtually +fortified Redmoat--against trespassers of any kind, I mean. You have +seen that the house stands upon a kind of large mound. This is +artificial, being the buried ruins of a Roman outwork; a portion of the +ancient castrum."" Again he waved indicatively, this time toward the +window. +""When it was a priory it was completely isolated and defended by its +environing moat. Today it is completely surrounded by barbed-wire +fencing. Below this fence, on the east, is a narrow stream, a +tributary of the Waverney; on the north and west, the high road, but +nearly twenty feet below, the banks being perpendicular. On the south +is the remaining part of the moat--now my kitchen garden; but from +there up to the level of the house is nearly twenty feet again, and the +barbed wire must also be counted with. +""The entrance, as you know, is by the way of a kind of cutting. There +is a gate at the foot of the steps (they are some of the original steps +of the priory, Dr. Petrie), and another gate at the head."" +He paused, and smiled around upon us boyishly. +""My secret defenses remain to be mentioned,"" he resumed; and, opening a +cupboard, he pointed to a row of batteries, with a number of electric +bells upon the wall behind. ""The more vulnerable spots are connected +at night with these bells,"" he said triumphantly. ""Any attempt to +scale the barbed wire or to force either gate would set two or more of +these ringing. A stray cow raised one false alarm,"" he added, ""and a +careless rook threw us into a perfect panic on another occasion."" +He was so boyish--so nervously brisk and acutely sensitive--that it was +difficult to see in him the hero of the Nan-Yang hospital. I could +only suppose that he had treated the Boxers' raid in the same spirit +wherein he met would-be trespassers within the precincts of Redmoat. +It had been an escapade, of which he was afterwards ashamed, as, +faintly, he was ashamed of his ""fortifications."" ""But,"" rapped Smith, +""it was not the visit of the burglar which prompted these elaborate +precautions."" +Mr. Eltham coughed nervously. +""I am aware,"" he said, ""that having invoked official aid, I must be +perfectly frank with you, Mr. Smith. It was the burglar who was +responsible for my continuing the wire fence all round the grounds, but +the electrical contrivance followed, later, as a result of several +disturbed nights. My servants grew uneasy about someone who came, they +said, after dusk. No one could describe this nocturnal visitor, but +certainly we found traces. I must admit that. +""Then--I received what I may term a warning. My position is a peculiar +one--a peculiar one. My daughter, too, saw this prowling person, over +by the Roman castrum, and described him as a yellow man. It was the +incident in the train following closely upon this other, which led me +to speak to the police, little as I desired to--er--court publicity."" +Nayland Smith walked to a window, and looked out across the sloping +lawn to where the shadows of the shrubbery lay. A dog was howling +dismally somewhere. +""Your defenses are not impregnable, after all, then?"" he jerked. ""On +our way up this evening Mr. Denby was telling us about the death of his +collie a few nights ago."" +The clergyman's face clouded. +""That, certainly, was alarming,"" he confessed. +""I had been in London for a few days, and during my absence Vernon came +down, bringing the dog with him. On the night of his arrival it ran, +barking, into the shrubbery yonder, and did not come out. He went to +look for it with a lantern, and found it lying among the bushes, quite +dead. The poor creature had been dreadfully beaten about the head."" +""The gates were locked,"" Denby interrupted, ""and no one could have got +out of the grounds without a ladder and someone to assist him. But +there was no sign of a living thing about. Edwards and I searched +every corner."" +""How long has that other dog taken to howling?"" inquired Smith. +""Only since Rex's death,"" said Denby quickly. +""It is my mastiff,"" explained the clergyman, ""and he is confined in the +yard. He is never allowed on this side of the house."" +Nayland Smith wandered aimlessly about the library. +""I am sorry to have to press you, Mr. Eltham,"" he said, ""but what was +the nature of the warning to which you referred, and from whom did it +come?"" +Mr. Eltham hesitated for a long time. +""I have been so unfortunate,"" he said at last, ""in my previous efforts, +that I feel assured of your hostile criticism when I tell you that I am +contemplating an immediate return to Ho-Nan!"" +Smith jumped round upon him as though moved by a spring. +""Then you are going back to Nan-Yang?"" he cried. ""Now I understand! +Why have you not told me before? That is the key for which I have +vainly been seeking. Your troubles date from the time of your decision +to return?"" +""Yes, I must admit it,"" confessed the clergyman diffidently. +""And your warning came from China?"" +""It did."" +""From a Chinaman?"" +""From the Mandarin, Yen-Sun-Yat."" +""Yen-Sun-Yat! My good sir! He warned you to abandon your visit? And +you reject his advice? Listen to me."" Smith was intensely excited +now, his eyes bright, his lean figure curiously strung up, alert. ""The +Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat is one of the seven!"" +""I do not follow you, Mr. Smith."" +""No, sir. China to-day is not the China of '98. It is a huge secret +machine, and Ho-Nan one of its most important wheels! But if, as I +understand, this official is a friend of yours, believe me, he has +saved your life! You would be a dead man now if it were not for your +friend in China! My dear sir, you must accept his counsel."" +Then, for the first time since I had made his acquaintance, ""Parson +Dan"" showed through the surface of the Rev. J. D. Eltham. +""No, sir!"" replied the clergyman--and the change in his voice was +startling. ""I am called to Nan-Yang. Only One may deter my going."" +The admixture of deep spiritual reverence with intense truculence in +his voice was dissimilar from anything I ever had heard. +""Then only One can protect you,"" cried Smith, ""for, by Heaven, no MAN +will be able to do so! Your presence in Ho-Nan can do no possible good +at present. It must do harm. Your experience in 1900 should be fresh +in your memory."" +""Hard words, Mr. Smith."" +""The class of missionary work which you favor, sir, is injurious to +international peace. At the present moment, Ho-Nan is a barrel of +gunpowder; you would be the lighted match. I do not willingly stand +between any man and what he chooses to consider his duty, but I insist +that you abandon your visit to the interior of China!"" +""You insist, Mr. Smith?"" +""As your guest, I regret the necessity for reminding you that I hold +authority to enforce it."" +Denby fidgeted uneasily. The tone of the conversation was growing +harsh and the atmosphere of the library portentous with brewing storms. +There was a short, silent interval. +""This is what I had feared and expected,"" said the clergyman. ""This +was my reason for not seeking official protection."" +""The phantom Yellow Peril,"" said Nayland Smith, ""to-day materializes +under the very eyes of the Western world."" +""The 'Yellow Peril'!"" +""You scoff, sir, and so do others. We take the proffered right hand of +friendship nor inquire if the hidden left holds a knife! The peace of +the world is at stake, Mr. Eltham. Unknowingly, you tamper with +tremendous issues."" +Mr. Eltham drew a deep breath, thrusting both hands in his pockets. +""You are painfully frank, Mr. Smith,"" he said; ""but I like you for it. +I will reconsider my position and talk this matter over again with you +to-morrow."" +Thus, then, the storm blew over. Yet I had never experienced such an +overwhelming sense of imminent peril--of a sinister presence--as +oppressed me at that moment. The very atmosphere of Redmoat was +impregnated with Eastern devilry; it loaded the air like some evil +perfume. And then, through the silence, cut a throbbing scream--the +scream of a woman in direst fear. +""My God, it's Greba!"" whispered Mr. Eltham. +CHAPTER VIII +IN what order we dashed down to the drawing-room I cannot recall. But +none was before me when I leaped over the threshold and saw Miss Eltham +prone by the French windows. +These were closed and bolted, and she lay with hands outstretched in +the alcove which they formed. I bent over her. Nayland Smith was at +my elbow. +""Get my bag"" I said. ""She has swooned. It is nothing serious."" +Her father, pale and wide-eyed, hovered about me, muttering +incoherently; but I managed to reassure him; and his gratitude when, I +having administered a simple restorative, the girl sighed shudderingly +and opened her eyes, was quite pathetic. +I would permit no questioning at that time, and on her father's arm she +retired to her own rooms. +It was some fifteen minutes later that her message was brought to me. +I followed the maid to a quaint little octagonal apartment, and Greba +Eltham stood before me, the candlelight caressing the soft curves of +her face and gleaming in the meshes of her rich brown hair. +When she had answered my first question she hesitated in pretty +confusion. +""We are anxious to know what alarmed you, Miss Eltham."" +She bit her lip and glanced with apprehension towards the window. +""I am almost afraid to tell father,"" she began rapidly. ""He will think +me imaginative, but you have been so kind. It was two green eyes! Oh! +Dr. Petrie, they looked up at me from the steps leading to the lawn. +And they shone like the eyes of a cat."" +The words thrilled me strangely. +""Are you sure it was not a cat, Miss Eltham?"" +""The eyes were too large, Dr. Petrie. There was something dreadful, +most dreadful, in their appearance. I feel foolish and silly for +having fainted, twice in two days! But the suspense is telling upon +me, I suppose. Father thinks""--she was becoming charmingly +confidential, as a woman often will with a tactful physician--""that +shut up here we are safe from--whatever threatens us."" I noted, with +concern, a repetition of the nervous shudder. ""But since our return +someone else has been in Redmoat!"" +""Whatever do you mean, Miss Eltham?"" +""Oh! I don't quite know what I do mean, Dr. Petrie. What does it ALL +mean? Vernon has been explaining to me that some awful Chinaman is +seeking the life of Mr. Nayland Smith. But if the same man wants to +kill my father, why has he not done so?"" +""I am afraid you puzzle me."" +""Of course, I must do so. But--the man in the train. He could have +killed us both quite easily! And--last night someone was in father's +room."" +""In his room!"" +""I could not sleep, and I heard something moving. My room is the next +one. I knocked on the wall and woke father. There was nothing; so I +said it was the howling of the dog that had frightened me."" +""How could anyone get into his room?"" +""I cannot imagine. But I am not sure it was a man."" +""Miss Eltham, you alarm me. What do you suspect?"" +""You must think me hysterical and silly, but whilst father and I have +been away from Redmoat perhaps the usual precautions have been +neglected. Is there any creature, any large creature, which could +climb up the wall to the window? Do you know of anything with a long, +thin body?"" +For a moment I offered no reply, studying the girl's pretty face, her +eager, blue-gray eyes widely opened and fixed upon mine. She was not +of the neurotic type, with her clear complexion and sun-kissed neck; +her arms, healthily toned by exposure to the country airs, were rounded +and firm, and she had the agile shape of a young Diana with none of the +anaemic languor which breeds morbid dreams. She was frightened; yes, +who would not have been? But the mere idea of this thing which she +believed to be in Redmoat, without the apparition of the green eyes, +must have prostrated a victim of ""nerves."" +""Have you seen such a creature, Miss Eltham?"" +She hesitated again, glancing down and pressing her finger-tips +together. +""As father awoke and called out to know why I knocked, I glanced from +my window. The moonlight threw half the lawn into shadow, and just +disappearing in this shadow was something--something of a brown color, +marked with sections!"" +""What size and shape?"" +""It moved so quickly I could form no idea of its shape; but I saw quite +six feet of it flash across the grass!"" +""Did you hear anything?"" +""A swishing sound in the shrubbery, then nothing more."" +She met my eyes expectantly. Her confidence in my powers of +understanding and sympathy was gratifying, though I knew that I but +occupied the position of a father-confessor. +""Have you any idea,"" I said, ""how it came about that you awoke in the +train yesterday whilst your father did not?"" +""We had coffee at a refreshment-room; it must have been drugged in some +way. I scarcely tasted mine, the flavor was so awful; but father is an +old traveler and drank the whole of his cupful!"" +Mr. Eltham's voice called from below. +""Dr. Petrie,"" said the girl quickly, ""what do you think they want to do +to him?"" +""Ah!"" I replied, ""I wish I knew that."" +""Will you think over what I have told you? For I do assure you there +is something here in Redmoat--something that comes and goes in spite of +father's 'fortifications'? Caesar knows there is. Listen to him. He +drags at his chain so that I wonder he does not break it."" +As we passed downstairs the howling of the mastiff sounded eerily +through the house, as did the clank-clank of the tightening chain as he +threw the weight of his big body upon it. +I sat in Smith's room that night for some time, he pacing the floor +smoking and talking. +""Eltham has influential Chinese friends,"" he said; ""but they dare not +have him in Nan-Yang at present. He knows the country as he knows +Norfolk; he would see things! +""His precautions here have baffled the enemy, I think. The attempt in +the train points to an anxiety to waste no opportunity. But whilst +Eltham was absent (he was getting his outfit in London, by the way) +they have been fixing some second string to their fiddle here. In case +no opportunity offered before he returned, they provided for getting at +him here!"" +""But how, Smith?"" +""That's the mystery. But the dead dog in the shrubbery is significant."" +""Do you think some emissary of Fu-Manchu is actually inside the moat?"" +""It's impossible, Petrie. You are thinking of secret passages, and so +forth. There are none. Eltham has measured up every foot of the +place. There isn't a rathole left unaccounted for; and as for a tunnel +under the moat, the house stands on a solid mass of Roman masonry, a +former camp of Hadrian's time. I have seen a very old plan of the +Round Moat Priory as it was called. There is no entrance and no exit +save by the steps. So how was the dog killed?"" +I knocked out my pipe on a bar of the grate. +""We are in the thick of it here,"" I said. +""We are always in the thick of it,"" replied Smith. ""Our danger is no +greater in Norfolk than in London. But what do they want to do? That +man in the train with the case of instruments--WHAT instruments? Then +the apparition of the green eyes to-night. Can they have been the eyes +of Fu-Manchu? Is some peculiarly unique outrage contemplated--something +calling for the presence of the master?"" +""He may have to prevent Eltham's leaving England without killing him."" +""Quite so. He probably has instructions to be merciful. But God help +the victim of Chinese mercy!"" +I went to my own room then. But I did not even undress, refilling my +pipe and seating myself at the open window. Having looked upon the +awful Chinese doctor, the memory of his face, with its filmed green +eyes, could never leave me. The idea that he might be near at that +moment was a poor narcotic. +The howling and baying of the mastiff was almost continuous. +When all else in Redmoat was still the dog's mournful note yet rose on +the night with something menacing in it. I sat looking out across the +sloping turf to where the shrubbery showed as a black island in a green +sea. The moon swam in a cloudless sky, and the air was warm and +fragrant with country scents. +It was in the shrubbery that Denby's collie had met his mysterious +death--that the thing seen by Miss Eltham had disappeared. What +uncanny secret did it hold? +Caesar became silent. +As the stopping of a clock will sometimes awaken a sleeper, the abrupt +cessation of that distant howling, to which I had grown accustomed, now +recalled me from a world of gloomy imaginings. +I glanced at my watch in the moonlight. It was twelve minutes past +midnight. +As I replaced it the dog suddenly burst out afresh, but now in a tone +of sheer anger. He was alternately howling and snarling in a way that +sounded new to me. The crashes, as he leapt to the end of his chain, +shook the building in which he was confined. It was as I stood up to +lean from the window and commanded a view of the corner of the house +that he broke loose. +With a hoarse bay he took that decisive leap, and I heard his heavy +body fall against the wooden wall. There followed a strange, guttural +cry . . . and the growling of the dog died away at the rear of the house. +He was out! But that guttural note had not come from the throat of a +dog. Of what was he in pursuit? +At which point his mysterious quarry entered the shrubbery I do not +know. I only know that I saw absolutely nothing, until Caesar's lithe +shape was streaked across the lawn, and the great creature went +crashing into the undergrowth. +Then a faint sound above and to my right told me that I was not the +only spectator of the scene. I leaned farther from the window. +""Is that you, Miss Eltham?"" I asked. +""Oh, Dr. Petrie!"" she said. ""I am so glad you are awake. Can we do +nothing to help? Caesar will be killed."" +""Did you see what he went after?"" +""No,"" she called back, and drew her breath sharply. +For a strange figure went racing across the grass. It was that of a +man in a blue dressing-gown, who held a lantern high before him, and a +revolver in his right hand. Coincident with my recognition of Mr. +Eltham he leaped, plunging into the shrubbery in the wake of the dog. +But the night held yet another surprise; for Nayland Smith's voice came: +""Come back! Come back, Eltham!"" +I ran out into the passage and downstairs. The front door was open. A +terrible conflict waged in the shrubbery, between the mastiff and +something else. Passing round to the lawn, I met Smith fully dressed. +He just had dropped from a first-floor window. +""The man is mad!"" he snapped. ""Heaven knows what lurks there! He +should not have gone alone!"" +Together we ran towards the dancing light of Eltham's lantern. The +sounds of conflict ceased suddenly. Stumbling over stumps and lashed +by low-sweeping branches, we struggled forward to where the clergyman +knelt amongst the bushes. He glanced up with tears in his eyes, as was +revealed by the dim light. +""Look!"" he cried. +The body of the dog lay at his feet. +It was pitiable to think that the fearless brute should have met his +death in such a fashion, and when I bent and examined him I was glad to +find traces of life. +""Drag him out. He is not dead,"" I said. +""And hurry,"" rapped Smith, peering about him right and left. +So we three hurried from that haunted place, dragging the dog with us. +We were not molested. No sound disturbed the now perfect stillness. +By the lawn edge we came upon Denby, half dressed; and almost +immediately Edwards the gardener also appeared. The white faces of the +house servants showed at one window, and Miss Eltham called to me from +her room: +""Is he dead?"" +""No,"" I replied; ""only stunned."" +We carried the dog round to the yard, and I examined his head. It had +been struck by some heavy blunt instrument, but the skull was not +broken. It is hard to kill a mastiff. +""Will you attend to him, Doctor?"" asked Eltham. ""We must see that the +villain does not escape."" +His face was grim and set. This was a different man from the diffident +clergyman we knew: this was ""Parson Dan"" again. +I accepted the care of the canine patient, and Eltham with the others +went off for more lights to search the shrubbery. As I was washing a +bad wound between the mastiff's ears, Miss Eltham joined me. It was +the sound of her voice, I think, rather than my more scientific +ministration, which recalled Caesar to life. For, as she entered, his +tail wagged feebly, and a moment later he struggled to his feet--one of +which was injured. +Having provided for his immediate needs, I left him in charge of his +young mistress and joined the search party. They had entered the +shrubbery from four points and drawn blank. +""There is absolutely nothing there, and no one can possibly have left +the grounds,"" said Eltham amazedly. +We stood on the lawn looking at one another, Nayland Smith, angry but +thoughtful, tugging at the lobe of his left ear, as was his habit in +moments of perplexity. +CHAPTER IX +WITH the first coming of light, Eltham, Smith and I tested the +electrical contrivances from every point. They were in perfect order. +It became more and more incomprehensible how anyone could have entered +and quitted Redmoat during the night. The barbed-wire fencing was +intact, and bore no signs of having been tampered with. +Smith and I undertook an exhaustive examination of the shrubbery. +At the spot where we had found the dog, some five paces to the west of +the copper beech, the grass and weeds were trampled and the surrounding +laurels and rhododendrons bore evidence of a struggle, but no human +footprint could be found. +""The ground is dry,"" said Smith. ""We cannot expect much."" +""In my opinion,"" I said, ""someone tried to get at Caesar; his presence +is dangerous. And in his rage he broke loose."" +""I think so, too,"" agreed Smith. ""But why did this person make for +here? And how, having mastered the dog, get out of Redmoat? I am open +to admit the possibility of someone's getting in during the day whilst +the gates are open, and hiding until dusk. But how in the name of all +that's wonderful does he GET OUT? He must possess the attributes of a +bird."" +I thought of Greba Eltham's statements, reminding my friend of her +description of the thing which she had seen passing into this strangely +haunted shrubbery. +""That line of speculation soon takes us out of our depth, Petrie,"" he +said. ""Let us stick to what we can understand, and that may help us to +a clearer idea of what, at present, is incomprehensible. My view of +the case to date stands thus: +""(1) Eltham, having rashly decided to return to the interior of China, +is warned by an official whose friendship he has won in some way to +stay in England. +""(2) I know this official for one of the Yellow group represented in +England by Dr. Fu-Manchu. +""(3) Several attempts, of which we know but little, to get at Eltham +are frustrated, presumably by his curious 'defenses.' An attempt in a +train fails owing to Miss Eltham's distaste for refreshment-room +coffee. An attempt here fails owing to her insomnia. +""(4) During Eltham's absence from Redmoat certain preparations are made +for his return. These lead to: +""(a) The death of Denby's collie; +""(b) The things heard and seen by Miss Eltham; +""(c) The things heard and seen by us all last night. +""So that the clearing up of my fourth point--id est, the discovery of +the nature of these preparations--becomes our immediate concern. The +prime object of these preparations, Petrie, was to enable someone to +gain access to Eltham's room. The other events are incidental. The +dogs HAD to be got rid of, for instance; and there is no doubt that +Miss Eltham's wakefulness saved her father a second time."" +""But from what? For Heaven's sake, from what?"" +Smith glanced about into the light-patched shadows. +""From a visit by someone--perhaps by Fu-Manchu himself,"" he said in a +hushed voice. ""The object of that visit I hope we may never learn; for +that would mean that it had been achieved."" +""Smith,"" I said, ""I do not altogether understand you; but do you think +he has some incredible creature hidden here somewhere? It would be +like him."" +""I begin to suspect the most formidable creature in the known world to +be hidden here. I believe Fu-Manchu is somewhere inside Redmoat!"" +Our conversation was interrupted at this point by Denby, who came to +report that he had examined the moat, the roadside, and the bank of the +stream, but found no footprints or clew of any kind. +""No one left the grounds of Redmoat last night, I think,"" he said. And +his voice had awe in it. +That day dragged slowly on. A party of us scoured the neighborhood for +traces of strangers, examining every foot of the Roman ruin hard by; +but vainly. +""May not your presence here induce Fu-Manchu to abandon his plans?"" I +asked Smith. +""I think not,"" he replied. ""You see, unless we can prevail upon him, +Eltham sails in a fortnight. So the Doctor has no time to waste. +Furthermore, I have an idea that his arrangements are of such a +character that they MUST go forward. He might turn aside, of course, +to assassinate me, if opportunity arose! But we know, from experience, +that he permits nothing to interfere with his schemes."" +There are few states, I suppose, which exact so severe a toll from +one's nervous system as the ANTICIPATION of calamity. +All anticipation is keener, be it of joy or pain, than the reality +whereof it is a mental forecast; but that inactive waiting at Redmoat, +for the blow which we knew full well to be pending exceeded in its +nerve taxation, anything I hitherto had experienced. +I felt as one bound upon an Aztec altar, with the priest's obsidian +knife raised above my breast! +Secret and malign forces throbbed about us; forces against which we had +no armor. Dreadful as it was, I count it a mercy that the climax was +reached so quickly. And it came suddenly enough; for there in that +quiet Norfolk home we found ourselves at hand grips with one of the +mysterious horrors which characterized the operations of Dr. Fu-Manchu. +It was upon us before we realized it. There is no incidental music to +the dramas of real life. +As we sat on the little terrace in the creeping twilight, I remember +thinking how the peace of the scene gave the lie to my fears that we +bordered upon tragic things. Then Caesar, who had been a docile +patient all day, began howling again; and I saw Greba Eltham shudder. +I caught Smith's eye, and was about to propose our retirement indoors, +when the party was broken up in more turbulent fashion. I suppose it +was the presence of the girl which prompted Denby to the rash act, a +desire personally to distinguish himself. But, as I recalled +afterwards, his gaze had rarely left the shrubbery since dusk, save to +seek her face, and now he leaped wildly to his feet, overturning his +chair, and dashed across the grass to the trees. +""Did you see it?"" he yelled. ""Did you see it?"" +He evidently carried a revolver. For from the edge of the shrubbery a +shot sounded, and in the flash we saw Denby with the weapon raised. +""Greba, go in and fasten the windows,"" cried Eltham. ""Mr. Smith, will +you enter the bushes from the west. Dr. Petrie, east. Edwards, +Edwards--"" And he was off across the lawn with the nervous activity of +a cat. +As I made off in an opposite direction I heard the gardener's voice +from the lower gate, and I saw Eltham's plan. It was to surround the +shrubbery. +Two more shots and two flashes from the dense heart of greenwood. Then +a loud cry--I thought, from Denby--and a second, muffled one. +Following--silence, only broken by the howling of the mastiff. +I sprinted through the rose garden, leaped heedlessly over a bed of +geranium and heliotrope, and plunged in among the bushes and under the +elms. Away on the left I heard Edwards shouting, and Eltham's +answering voice. +""Denby!"" I cried, and yet louder: ""Denby!"" +But the silence fell again. +Dusk was upon Redmoat now, but from sitting in the twilight my eyes had +grown accustomed to gloom, and I could see fairly well what lay before +me. Not daring to think what might lurk above, below, around me, I +pressed on into the midst of the thicket. +""Vernon!"" came Eltham's voice from one side. +""Bear more to the right, Edwards,"" I heard Nayland Smith cry directly +ahead of me. +With an eerie and indescribable sensation of impending disaster upon +me, I thrust my way through to a gray patch which marked a break in the +elmen roof. At the foot of the copper beech I almost fell over Eltham. +Then Smith plunged into view. Lastly, Edwards the gardener rounded a +big rhododendron and completed the party. +We stood quite still for a moment. +A faint breeze whispered through the beech leaves. +""Where is he?"" +I cannot remember who put it into words; I was too dazed with amazement +to notice. Then Eltham began shouting: +""Vernon! Vernon! VERNON!"" +His voice pitched higher upon each repetition. There was something +horrible about that vain calling, under the whispering beech, with +shrubs banked about us cloaking God alone could know what. +From the back of the house came Caesar's faint reply. +""Quick! Lights!"" rapped Smith. ""Every lamp you have!"" +Off we went, dodging laurels and privets, and poured out on to the +lawn, a disordered company. Eltham's face was deathly pale, and his +jaw set hard. He met my eye. +""God forgive me!"" he said. ""I could do murder to-night!"" +He was a man composed of strange perplexities. +It seemed an age before the lights were found. But at last we returned +to the bushes, really after a very brief delay; and ten minutes +sufficed us to explore the entire shrubbery, for it was not extensive. +We found his revolver, but there was no one there--nothing. +When we all stood again on the lawn, I thought that I had never seen +Smith so haggard. +""What in Heaven's name can we do?"" he muttered. ""What does it mean?"" +He expected no answer; for there was none to offer one. +""Search! Everywhere,"" said Eltham hoarsely. +He ran off into the rose garden, and began beating about among the +flowers like a madman, muttering: ""Vernon! Vernon!"" For close upon +an hour we all searched. We searched every square yard, I think, +within the wire fencing, and found no trace. Miss Eltham slipped out +in the confusion, and joined with the rest of us in that frantic hunt. +Some of the servants assisted too. +It was a group terrified and awestricken which came together again on +the terrace. One and then another would give up, until only Eltham and +Smith were missing. Then they came back together from examining the +steps to the lower gate. +Eltham dropped on to a rustic seat, and sank his head in his hands. +Nayland Smith paced up and down like a newly caged animal, snapping his +teeth together and tugging at his ear. +Possessed by some sudden idea, or pressed to action by his tumultuous +thoughts, he snatched up a lantern and strode silently off across the +grass and to the shrubbery once more. I followed him. I think his +idea was that he might surprise anyone who lurked there. He surprised +himself, and all of us. +For right at the margin he tripped and fell flat. I ran to him. +He had fallen over the body of Denby, which lay there! +Denby had not been there a few moments before, and how he came to be +there now we dared not conjecture. Mr. Eltham joined us, uttered one +short, dry sob, and dropped upon his knees. Then we were carrying +Denby back to the house, with the mastiff howling a marche funebre. +We laid him on the grass where it sloped down from the terrace. +Nayland Smith's haggard face was terrible. But the stark horror of the +thing inspired him to that, which conceived earlier, had saved Denby. +Twisting suddenly to Eltham, he roared in a voice audible beyond the +river: +""Heavens! we are fools! LOOSE THE DOG!"" +""But the dog--"" I began. +Smith clapped his hand over my mouth. +""I know he's crippled,"" he whispered. ""But if anything human lurks +there, the dog will lead us to it. If a MAN is there, he will fly! +Why did we not think of it before. Fools, fools!"" He raised his voice +again. ""Keep him on leash, Edwards. He will lead us."" +The scheme succeeded. +Edwards barely had started on his errand when bells began ringing +inside the house. +""Wait!"" snapped Eltham, and rushed indoors. +A moment later he was out again, his eyes gleaming madly. ""Above the +moat,"" he panted. And we were off en masse round the edge of the trees. +It was dark above the moat; but not so dark as to prevent our seeing a +narrow ladder of thin bamboo joints and silken cord hanging by two +hooks from the top of the twelve-foot wire fence. There was no sound. +""He's out!"" screamed Eltham. ""Down the steps!"" +We all ran our best and swiftest. But Eltham outran us. Like a fury +he tore at bolts and bars, and like a fury sprang out into the road. +Straight and white it showed to the acclivity by the Roman ruin. But +no living thing moved upon it. The distant baying of the dog was borne +to our ears. +""Curse it! he's crippled,"" hissed Smith. ""Without him, as well pursue +a shadow!"" +A few hours later the shrubbery yielded up its secret, a simple one +enough: A big cask sunk in a pit, with a laurel shrub cunningly affixed +to its movable lid, which was further disguised with tufts of grass. A +slender bamboo-jointed rod lay near the fence. It had a hook on the +top, and was evidently used for attaching the ladder. +""It was the end of this ladder which Miss Eltham saw,"" said Smith, ""as +he trailed it behind him into the shrubbery when she interrupted him in +her father's room. He and whomever he had with him doubtless slipped in +during the daytime--whilst Eltham was absent in London--bringing the +prepared cask and all necessary implements with them. They concealed +themselves somewhere--probably in the shrubbery--and during the night +made the cache. The excavated earth would be disposed of on the +flower-beds; the dummy bush they probably had ready. You see, the +problem of getting IN was never a big one. But owing to the 'defenses' +it was impossible (whilst Eltham was in residence at any rate) to get +OUT after dark. For Fu-Manchu's purposes, then, a working-base INSIDE +Redmoat was essential. His servant--for he needed assistance--must +have been in hiding somewhere outside; Heaven knows where! During the +day they could come or go by the gates, as we have already noted."" +""You think it was the Doctor himself?"" +""It seems possible. Who else has eyes like the eyes Miss Eltham saw +from the window last night?"" +Then remains to tell the nature of the outrage whereby Fu-Manchu had +planned to prevent Eltham's leaving England for China. This we learned +from Denby. For Denby was not dead. +It was easy to divine that he had stumbled upon the fiendish visitor at +the very entrance to his burrow; had been stunned (judging from the +evidence, with a sand-bag), and dragged down into the cache--to which +he must have lain in such dangerous proximity as to render detection of +the dummy bush possible in removing him. The quickest expedient, then, +had been to draw him beneath. When the search of the shrubbery was +concluded, his body had been borne to the edge of the bushes and laid +where we found it. +Why his life had been spared, I cannot conjecture, but provision had +been made against his recovering consciousness and revealing the secret +of the shrubbery. The ruse of releasing the mastiff alone had +terminated the visit of the unbidden guest within Redmoat. +Denby made a very slow recovery; and, even when convalescent, +consciously added not one fact to those we already had collated; his +memory had completely deserted him! +This, in my opinion, as in those of the several specialists consulted, +was due, not to the blow on the head, but to the presence, slightly +below and to the right of the first cervical curve of the spine, of a +minute puncture--undoubtedly caused by a hypodermic syringe. Then, +unconsciously, poor Denby furnished the last link in the chain; for +undoubtedly, by means of this operation, Fu-Manchu had designed to +efface from Eltham's mind his plans of return to Ho-Nan. +The nature of the fluid which could produce such mental symptoms was a +mystery--a mystery which defied Western science: one of the many +strange secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu. +CHAPTER X +SINCE Nayland Smith's return from Burma I had rarely taken up a paper +without coming upon evidences of that seething which had cast up Dr. +Fu-Manchu. Whether, hitherto, such items had escaped my attention or +had seemed to demand no particular notice, or whether they now became +increasingly numerous, I was unable to determine. +One evening, some little time after our sojourn in Norfolk, in glancing +through a number of papers which I had brought in with me, I chanced +upon no fewer than four items of news bearing more or less directly +upon the grim business which engaged my friend and I. +No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty +of the Chinese. Throughout the time that Dr. Fu-Manchu remained in +England, the press preserved a uniform silence upon the subject of his +existence. This was due to Nayland Smith. But, as a result, I feel +assured that my account of the Chinaman's deeds will, in many quarters, +meet with an incredulous reception. +I had been at work, earlier in the evening, upon the opening chapters +of this chronicle, and I had realized how difficult it would be for my +reader, amid secure and cozy surroundings, to credit any human being +with a callous villainy great enough to conceive and to put into +execution such a death pest as that directed against Sir Crichton Davey. +One would expect God's worst man to shrink from employing--against +however vile an enemy--such an instrument as the Zayat Kiss. So +thinking, my eye was caught by the following:-- +EXPRESS CORRESPONDENT +NEW YORK. +""Secret service men of the United States Government are searching the +South Sea Islands for a certain Hawaiian from the island of Maui, who, +it is believed, has been selling poisonous scorpions to Chinese in +Honolulu anxious to get rid of their children. +""Infanticide, by scorpion and otherwise, among the Chinese, has +increased so terribly that the authorities have started a searching +inquiry, which has led to the hunt for the scorpion dealer of Maui. +""Practically all the babies that die mysteriously are unwanted girls, +and in nearly every case the parents promptly ascribe the death to the +bite of a scorpion, and are ready to produce some more or less +poisonous insect in support of the statement. +""The authorities have no doubt that infanticide by scorpion bite is a +growing practice, and orders have been given to hunt down the scorpion +dealer at any cost."" +Is it any matter for wonder that such a people had produced a +Fu-Manchu? I pasted the cutting into a scrap-book, determined that, if +I lived to publish my account of those days, I would quote it therein +as casting a sidelight upon Chinese character. +A Reuter message to The Globe and a paragraph in The Star also +furnished work for my scissors. Here were evidences of the deep-seated +unrest, the secret turmoil, which manifested itself so far from its +center as peaceful England in the person of the sinister Doctor. +""HONG KONG, Friday. +""Li Hon Hung, the Chinaman who fired at the Governor yesterday, was +charged before the magistrate with shooting at him with intent to kill, +which is equivalent to attempted murder. The prisoner, who was not +defended, pleaded guilty. The Assistant Crown Solicitor, who +prosecuted, asked for a remand until Monday, which was granted. +""Snapshots taken by the spectators of the outrage yesterday disclosed +the presence of an accomplice, also armed with a revolver. It is +reported that this man, who was arrested last night, was in possession +of incriminating documentary evidence."" +Later. +""Examination of the documents found on Li Hon Hung's accomplice has +disclosed the fact that both men were well financed by the Canton Triad +Society, the directors of which had enjoined the assassination of Sir +F. M. or Mr. C. S., the Colonial Secretary. In a report prepared by +the accomplice for dispatch to Canton, also found on his person, he +expressed regret that the attempt had failed.""--Reuter. +""It is officially reported in St. Petersburg that a force of Chinese +soldiers and villagers surrounded the house of a Russian subject named +Said Effendi, near Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan. +""They fired at the house and set it in flames. There were in the house +about 100 Russians, many of whom were killed. +""The Russian Government has instructed its Minister at Peking to make +the most vigorous representations on the subject.""--Reuter. +Finally, in a Personal Column, I found the following:-- +""HO-NAN. Have abandoned visit.--ELTHAM."" +I had just pasted it into my book when Nayland Smith came in and threw +himself into an arm-chair, facing me across the table. I showed him +the cutting. +""I am glad, for Eltham's sake--and for the girl's,"" was his comment. +""But it marks another victory for Fu-Manchu! Just Heaven! Why is +retribution delayed!"" +Smith's darkly tanned face had grown leaner than ever since he had +begun his fight with the most uncanny opponent, I suppose, against whom +a man ever had pitted himself. He stood up and began restlessly to pace +the room, furiously stuffing tobacco into his briar. +""I have seen Sir Lionel Barton,"" he said abruptly; ""and, to put the +whole thing in a nutshell, he has laughed at me! During the months +that I have been wondering where he had gone to he has been somewhere +in Egypt. He certainly bears a charmed life, for on the evidence of +his letter to The Times he has seen things in Tibet which Fu-Manchu +would have the West blind to; in fact, I think he has found a new +keyhole to the gate of the Indian Empire!"" +Long ago we had placed the name of Sir Lionel Barton upon the list of +those whose lives stood between Fu-Manchu and the attainment of his +end. Orientalist and explorer, the fearless traveler who first had +penetrated to Lhassa, who thrice, as a pilgrim, had entered forbidden +Mecca, he now had turned his attention again to Tibet--thereby signing +his own death-warrant. +""That he has reached England alive is a hopeful sign?"" I suggested. +Smith shook his head, and lighted the blackened briar. +""England at present is the web,"" he replied. ""The spider will be +waiting. Petrie, I sometimes despair. Sir Lionel is an impossible man +to shepherd. You ought to see his house at Finchley. A low, squat +place completely hemmed in by trees. Damp as a swamp; smells like a +jungle. Everything topsy-turvy. He only arrived to-day, and he is +working and eating (and sleeping I expect), in a study that looks like +an earthquake at Sotheby's auction-rooms. The rest of the house is half +a menagerie and half a circus. He has a Bedouin groom, a Chinese +body-servant, and Heaven only knows what other strange people!"" +""Chinese!"" +""Yes, I saw him; a squinting Cantonese he calls Kwee. I don't like +him. Also, there is a secretary known as Strozza, who has an +unpleasant face. He is a fine linguist, I understand, and is engaged +upon the Spanish notes for Barton's forthcoming book on the Mayapan +temples. By the way, all Sir Lionel's baggage disappeared from the +landing-stage--including his Tibetan notes."" +""Significant!"" +""Of course. But he argues that he has crossed Tibet from the Kuen-Lun +to the Himalayas without being assassinated, and therefore that it is +unlikely he will meet with that fate in London. I left him dictating +the book from memory, at the rate of about two hundred words a minute."" +""He is wasting no time."" +""Wasting time! In addition to the Yucatan book and the work on Tibet, +he has to read a paper at the Institute next week about some tomb he +has unearthed in Egypt. As I came away, a van drove up from the docks +and a couple of fellows delivered a sarcophagus as big as a boat. It +is unique, according to Sir Lionel, and will go to the British Museum +after he has examined it. The man crams six months' work into six +weeks; then he is off again."" +""What do you propose to do?"" +""What CAN I do? I know that Fu-Manchu will make an attempt upon him. +I cannot doubt it. Ugh! that house gave me the shudders. No +sunlight, I'll swear, Petrie, can ever penetrate to the rooms, and when +I arrived this afternoon clouds of gnats floated like motes wherever a +stray beam filtered through the trees of the avenue. There's a steamy +smell about the place that is almost malarious, and the whole of the +west front is covered with a sort of monkey-creeper, which he has +imported at some time or other. It has a close, exotic perfume that is +quite in the picture. I tell you, the place was made for murder."" +""Have you taken any precautions?"" +""I called at Scotland Yard and sent a man down to watch the house, +but--"" +He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. +""What is Sir Lionel like?"" +""A madman, Petrie. A tall, massive man, wearing a dirty dressing-gown +of neutral color; a man with untidy gray hair and a bristling mustache, +keen blue eyes, and a brown skin; who wears a short beard or rarely +shaves--I don't know which. I left him striding about among the +thousand and one curiosities of that incredible room, picking his way +through his antique furniture, works of reference, manuscripts, +mummies, spears, pottery and what not--sometimes kicking a book from +his course, or stumbling over a stuffed crocodile or a Mexican +mask--alternately dictating and conversing. Phew!"" +For some time we were silent. +""Smith"" I said, ""we are making no headway in this business. With all +the forces arrayed against him, Fu-Manchu still eludes us, still +pursues his devilish, inscrutable way."" +Nayland Smith nodded. +""And we don't know all,"" he said. ""We mark such and such a man as one +alive to the Yellow Peril, and we warn him--if we have time. Perhaps +he escapes; perhaps he does not. But what do we know, Petrie, of those +others who may die every week by his murderous agency? We cannot know +EVERYONE who has read the riddle of China. I never see a report of +someone found drowned, of an apparent suicide, of a sudden, though +seemingly natural death, without wondering. I tell you, Fu-Manchu is +omnipresent; his tentacles embrace everything. I said that Sir Lionel +must bear a charmed life. The fact that WE are alive is a miracle."" +He glanced at his watch. +""Nearly eleven,"" he said. ""But sleep seems a waste of time--apart from +its dangers."" +We heard a bell ring. A few moments later followed a knock at the room +door. +""Come in!"" I cried. +A girl entered with a telegram addressed to Smith. His jaw looked very +square in the lamplight, and his eyes shone like steel as he took it +from her and opened the envelope. He glanced at the form, stood up and +passed it to me, reaching for his hat, which lay upon my writing-table. +""God help us, Petrie!"" he said. +This was the message: +""Sir Lionel Barton murdered. Meet me at his house at once.--WEYMOUTH, +INSPECTOR."" +CHAPTER XI +ALTHOUGH we avoided all unnecessary delay, it was close upon midnight +when our cab swung round into a darkly shadowed avenue, at the farther +end of which, as seen through a tunnel, the moonlight glittered upon +the windows of Rowan House, Sir Lionel Barton's home. +Stepping out before the porch of the long, squat building, I saw that +it was banked in, as Smith had said, by trees and shrubs. The facade +showed mantled in the strange exotic creeper which he had mentioned, +and the air was pungent with an odor of decaying vegetation, with which +mingled the heavy perfume of the little nocturnal red flowers which +bloomed luxuriantly upon the creeper. +The place looked a veritable wilderness, and when we were admitted to +the hall by Inspector Weymouth I saw that the interior was in keeping +with the exterior, for the hall was constructed from the model of some +apartment in an Assyrian temple, and the squat columns, the low seats, +the hangings, all were eloquent of neglect, being thickly dust-coated. +The musty smell, too, was almost as pronounced here as outside, beneath +the trees. +To a library, whose contents overflowed in many literary torrents upon +the floor, the detective conducted us. +""Good heavens!"" I cried, ""what's that?"" +Something leaped from the top of the bookcase, ambled silently across +the littered carpet, and passed from the library like a golden streak. +I stood looking after it with startled eyes. Inspector Weymouth +laughed dryly. +""It's a young puma, or a civet-cat, or something, Doctor,"" he said. +""This house is full of surprises--and mysteries."" +His voice was not quite steady, I thought, and he carefully closed the +door ere proceeding further. +""Where is he?"" asked Nayland Smith harshly. ""How was it done?"" +Weymouth sat down and lighted a cigar which I offered him. +""I thought you would like to hear what led up to it--so far as we +know--before seeing him?"" +Smith nodded. +""Well,"" continued the Inspector, ""the man you arranged to send down +from the Yard got here all right and took up a post in the road +outside, where he could command a good view of the gates. He saw and +heard nothing, until going on for half-past ten, when a young lady +turned up and went in."" +""A young lady?"" +""Miss Edmonds, Sir Lionel's shorthand typist. She had found, after +getting home, that her bag, with her purse in, was missing, and she +came back to see if she had left it here. She gave the alarm. My man +heard the row from the road and came in. Then he ran out and rang us +up. I immediately wired for you."" +""He heard the row, you say. What row?"" +""Miss Edmonds went into violent hysterics!"" +Smith was pacing the room now in tense excitement. +""Describe what he saw when he came in."" +""He saw a negro footman--there isn't an Englishman in the house--trying +to pacify the girl out in the hall yonder, and a Malay and another +colored man beating their foreheads and howling. There was no sense to +be got out of any of them, so he started to investigate for himself. +He had taken the bearings of the place earlier in the evening, and from +the light in a window on the ground floor had located the study; so he +set out to look for the door. When he found it, it was locked from the +inside."" +""Well?"" +""He went out and round to the window. There's no blind, and from the +shrubbery you can see into the lumber-room known as the study. He +looked in, as apparently Miss Edmonds had done before him. What he saw +accounted for her hysterics."" +Both Smith and I were hanging upon his words. +""All amongst the rubbish on the floor a big Egyptian mummy case was +lying on its side, and face downwards, with his arms thrown across it, +lay Sir Lionel Barton."" +""My God! Yes. Go on."" +""There was only a shaded reading-lamp alight, and it stood on a chair, +shining right down on him; it made a patch of light on the floor, you +understand."" The Inspector indicated its extent with his hands. +""Well, as the man smashed the glass and got the window open, and was +just climbing in, he saw something else, so he says."" +He paused. +""What did he see?"" demanded Smith shortly. +""A sort of GREEN MIST, sir. He says it seemed to be alive. It moved +over the floor, about a foot from the ground, going away from him and +towards a curtain at the other end of the study."" +Nayland Smith fixed his eyes upon the speaker. +""Where did he first see this green mist?"" +""He says, Mr. Smith, that he thinks it came from the mummy case."" +""Yes; go on."" +""It is to his credit that he climbed into the room after seeing a thing +like that. He did. He turned the body over, and Sir Lionel looked +horrible. He was quite dead. Then Croxted--that's the man's +name--went over to this curtain. There was a glass door--shut. He +opened it, and it gave on a conservatory--a place stacked from the +tiled floor to the glass roof with more rubbish. It was dark inside, +but enough light came from the study--it's really a drawing-room, by +the way--as he'd turned all the lamps on, to give him another glimpse +of this green, crawling mist. There are three steps to go down. On +the steps lay a dead Chinaman."" +""A dead Chinaman!"" +""A dead CHINAMAN."" +""Doctor seen them?"" rapped Smith. +""Yes; a local man. He was out of his depth, I could see. Contradicted +himself three times. But there's no need for another opinion--until we +get the coroner's."" +""And Croxted?"" +""Croxted was taken ill, Mr. Smith, and had to be sent home in a cab."" +""What ails him?"" +Detective-Inspector Weymouth raised his eyebrows and carefully knocked +the ash from his cigar. +""He held out until I came, gave me the story, and then fainted right +away. He said that something in the conservatory seemed to get him by +the throat."" +""Did he mean that literally?"" +""I couldn't say. We had to send the girl home, too, of course."" +Nayland Smith was pulling thoughtfully at the lobe of his left ear. +""Got any theory?"" he jerked. +Weymouth shrugged his shoulders. +""Not one that includes the green mist,"" he said. ""Shall we go in now?"" +We crossed the Assyrian hall, where the members of that strange +household were gathered in a panic-stricken group. They numbered four. +Two of them were negroes, and two Easterns of some kind. I missed the +Chinaman, Kwee, of whom Smith had spoken, and the Italian secretary; +and from the way in which my friend peered about the shadows of the +hall I divined that he, too, wondered at their absence. We entered Sir +Lionel's study--an apartment which I despair of describing. +Nayland Smith's words, ""an earthquake at Sotheby's auction-rooms,"" +leaped to my mind at once; for the place was simply stacked with +curious litter--loot of Africa, Mexico and Persia. In a clearing by +the hearth a gas stove stood upon a packing-case, and about it lay a +number of utensils for camp cookery. The odor of rotting vegetation, +mingled with the insistent perfume of the strange night-blooming +flowers, was borne in through the open window. +In the center of the floor, beside an overturned sarcophagus, lay a +figure in a neutral-colored dressing-gown, face downwards, and arms +thrust forward and over the side of the ancient Egyptian mummy case. +My friend advanced and knelt beside the dead man. +""Good God!"" +Smith sprang upright and turned with an extraordinary expression to +Inspector Weymouth. +""You do not know Sir Lionel Barton by sight?"" he rapped. +""No,"" began Weymouth, ""but--"" +""This is not Sir Lionel. This is Strozza, the secretary."" +""What!"" shouted Weymouth. +""Where is the other--the Chinaman--quick!"" cried Smith. +""I have had him left where he was found--on the conservatory steps,"" +said the Inspector. +Smith ran across the room to where, beyond the open door, a glimpse +might be obtained of stacked-up curiosities. Holding back the curtain +to allow more light to penetrate, he bent forward over a crumpled-up +figure which lay upon the steps below. +""It is!"" he cried aloud. ""It is Sir Lionel's servant, Kwee."" +Weymouth and I looked at one another across the body of the Italian; +then our eyes turned together to where my friend, grim-faced, stood +over the dead Chinaman. A breeze whispered through the leaves; a great +wave of exotic perfume swept from the open window towards the curtained +doorway. +It was a breath of the East--that stretched out a yellow hand to the +West. It was symbolic of the subtle, intangible power manifested in +Dr. Fu-Manchu, as Nayland Smith--lean, agile, bronzed with the suns of +Burma, was symbolic of the clean British efficiency which sought to +combat the insidious enemy. +""One thing is evident,"" said Smith: ""no one in the house, Strozza +excepted, knew that Sir Lionel was absent."" +""How do you arrive at that?"" asked Weymouth. +""The servants, in the hall, are bewailing him as dead. If they had +seen him go out they would know that it must be someone else who lies +here."" +""What about the Chinaman?"" +""Since there is no other means of entrance to the conservatory save +through the study, Kwee must have hidden himself there at some time +when his master was absent from the room."" +""Croxted found the communicating door closed. What killed the +Chinaman?"" +""Both Miss Edmonds and Croxted found the study door locked from the +inside. What killed Strozza?"" retorted Smith. +""You will have noted,"" continued the Inspector, ""that the secretary is +wearing Sir Lionel's dressing-gown. It was seeing him in that, as she +looked in at the window, which led Miss Edmonds to mistake him for her +employer--and consequently to put us on the wrong scent."" +""He wore it in order that anybody looking in at the window would be +sure to make that mistake,"" rapped Smith. +""Why?"" I asked. +""Because he came here for a felonious purpose. See."" Smith stooped +and took up several tools from the litter on the floor. ""There lies +the lid. He came to open the sarcophagus. It contained the mummy of +some notable person who flourished under Meneptah II; and Sir Lionel +told me that a number of valuable ornaments and jewels probably were +secreted amongst the wrappings. He proposed to open the thing and to +submit the entire contents to examination to-night. He evidently +changed his mind--fortunately for himself."" +I ran my fingers through my hair in perplexity. +""Then what has become of the mummy?"" +Nayland Smith laughed dryly. +""It has vanished in the form of a green vapor apparently,"" he said. +""Look at Strozza's face."" +He turned the body over, and, used as I was to such spectacles, the +contorted features of the Italian filled me with horror, so--suggestive +were they of a death more than ordinarily violent. I pulled aside the +dressing-gown and searched the body for marks, but failed to find any. +Nayland Smith crossed the room, and, assisted by the detective, carried +Kwee, the Chinaman, into the study and laid him fully in the light. +His puckered yellow face presented a sight even more awful than the +other, and his blue lips were drawn back, exposing both upper and lower +teeth. There were no marks of violence, but his limbs, like Strozza's, +had been tortured during his mortal struggles into unnatural postures. +The breeze was growing higher, and pungent odor-waves from the damp +shrubbery, bearing, too, the oppressive sweetness of the creeping +plant, swept constantly through the open window. Inspector Weymouth +carefully relighted his cigar. +""I'm with you this far, Mr. Smith,"" he said. ""Strozza, knowing Sir +Lionel to be absent, locked himself in here to rifle the mummy case, +for Croxted, entering by way of the window, found the key on the +inside. Strozza didn't know that the Chinaman was hidden in the +conservatory--"" +""And Kwee did not dare to show himself, because he too was there for +some mysterious reason of his own,"" interrupted Smith. +""Having got the lid off, something,--somebody--"" +""Suppose we say the mummy?"" +Weymouth laughed uneasily. +""Well, sir, something that vanished from a locked room without opening +the door or the window killed Strozza."" +""And something which, having killed Strozza, next killed the Chinaman, +apparently without troubling to open the door behind which he lay +concealed,"" Smith continued. ""For once in a way, Inspector, Dr. +Fu-Manchu has employed an ally which even his giant will was incapable +entirely to subjugate. What blind force--what terrific agent of +death--had he confined in that sarcophagus!"" +""You think this is the work of Fu-Manchu?"" I said. ""If you are +correct, his power indeed is more than human."" +Something in my voice, I suppose, brought Smith right about. He +surveyed me curiously. +""Can you doubt it? The presence of a concealed Chinaman surely is +sufficient. Kwee, I feel assured, was one of the murder group, though +probably he had only recently entered that mysterious service. He is +unarmed, or I should feel disposed to think that his part was to +assassinate Sir Lionel whilst, unsuspecting the presence of a hidden +enemy, he was at work here. Strozza's opening the sarcophagus clearly +spoiled the scheme."" +""And led to the death--"" +""Of a servant of Fu-Manchu. Yes. I am at a loss to account for that."" +""Do you think that the sarcophagus entered into the scheme, Smith?"" +My friend looked at me in evident perplexity. +""You mean that its arrival at the time when a creature of the +Doctor--Kwee--was concealed here, may have been a coincidence?"" +I nodded; and Smith bent over the sarcophagus, curiously examining the +garish paintings with which it was decorated inside and out. It lay +sideways upon the floor, and seizing it by its edge, he turned it over. +""Heavy,"" he muttered; ""but Strozza must have capsized it as he fell. +He would not have laid it on its side to remove the lid. Hallo!"" +He bent farther forward, catching at a piece of twine, and out of the +mummy case pulled a rubber stopper or ""cork."" +""This was stuck in a hole level with the floor of the thing,"" he said. +""Ugh! it has a disgusting smell."" +I took it from his hands, and was about to examine it, when a loud +voice sounded outside in the hall. The door was thrown open, and a big +man, who, despite the warmth of the weather, wore a fur-lined overcoat, +rushed impetuously into the room. +""Sir Lionel!"" cried Smith eagerly. ""I warned you! And see, you have +had a very narrow escape."" +Sir Lionel Barton glanced at what lay upon the floor, then from Smith +to myself, and from me to Inspector Weymouth. He dropped into one of +the few chairs unstacked with books. +""Mr. Smith,"" he said, with emotion, ""what does this mean? Tell +me--quickly."" +In brief terms Smith detailed the happenings of the night--or so much +as he knew of them. Sir Lionel Barton listened, sitting quite still +the while--an unusual repose in a man of such evidently tremendous +nervous activity. +""He came for the jewels,"" he said slowly, when Smith was finished; and +his eyes turned to the body of the dead Italian. ""I was wrong to +submit him to the temptation. God knows what Kwee was doing in hiding. +Perhaps he had come to murder me, as you surmise, Mr. Smith, though I +find it hard to believe. But--I don't think this is the handiwork of +your Chinese doctor."" He fixed his gaze upon the sarcophagus. +Smith stared at him in surprise. ""What do you mean, Sir Lionel?"" +The famous traveler continued to look towards the sarcophagus with +something in his blue eyes that might have been dread. +""I received a wire from Professor Rembold to-night,"" he continued. +""You were correct in supposing that no one but Strozza knew of my +absence. I dressed hurriedly and met the professor at the Traveler's. +He knew that I was to read a paper next week upon""--again he looked +toward the mummy case--""the tomb of Mekara; and he knew that the +sarcophagus had been brought, untouched, to England. He begged me not +to open it."" +Nayland Smith was studying the speaker's face. +""What reason did he give for so extraordinary a request?"" he asked. +Sir Lionel Barton hesitated. +""One,"" he replied at last, ""which amused me--at the time. I must +inform you that Mekara--whose tomb my agent had discovered during my +absence in Tibet, and to enter which I broke my return journey to +Alexandria--was a high priest and first prophet of Amen--under the +Pharaoh of the Exodus; in short, one of the magicians who contested in +magic arts with Moses. I thought the discovery unique, until Professor +Rembold furnished me with some curious particulars respecting the death +of M. Page le Roi, the French Egyptologist--particulars new to me."" +We listened in growing surprise, scarcely knowing to what this tended. +""M. le Roi,"" continued Barton, ""discovered, but kept secret, the tomb +of Amenti--another of this particular brotherhood. It appears that he +opened the mummy case on the spot--these priests were of royal line, +and are buried in the valley of Biban-le-Moluk. His Fellah and Arab +servants deserted him for some reason--on seeing the mummy case--and he +was found dead, apparently strangled, beside it. The matter was hushed +up by the Egyptian Government. Rembold could not explain why. But he +begged of me not to open the sarcophagus of Mekara."" +A silence fell. +The strange facts regarding the sudden death of Page le Roi, which I +now heard for the first time, had impressed me unpleasantly, coming +from a man of Sir Lionel Barton's experience and reputation. +""How long had it lain in the docks?"" jerked Smith. +""For two days, I believe. I am not a superstitious man, Mr. Smith, but +neither is Professor Rembold, and now that I know the facts respecting +Page le Roi, I can find it in my heart to thank God that I did not +see . . . whatever came out of that sarcophagus."" +Nayland Smith stared him hard in the face. ""I am glad you did not, Sir +Lionel,"" he said; ""for whatever the priest Mekara has to do with the +matter, by means of his sarcophagus, Dr. Fu-Manchu has made his first +attempt upon your life. He has failed, but I hope you will accompany +me from here to a hotel. He will not fail twice."" +CHAPTER XII +IT was the night following that of the double tragedy at Rowan House. +Nayland Smith, with Inspector Weymouth, was engaged in some mysterious +inquiry at the docks, and I had remained at home to resume my strange +chronicle. And--why should I not confess it?--my memories had +frightened me. +I was arranging my notes respecting the case of Sir Lionel Barton. +They were hopelessly incomplete. For instance, I had jotted down the +following queries:--(1) Did any true parallel exist between the death +of M. Page le Roi and the death of Kwee, the Chinaman, and of Strozza? +(2) What had become of the mummy of Mekara? (3) How had the murderer +escaped from a locked room? (4) What was the purpose of the rubber +stopper? (5) Why was Kwee hiding in the conservatory? (6) Was the +green mist a mere subjective hallucination--a figment of Croxted's +imagination--or had he actually seen it? +Until these questions were satisfactorily answered, further progress +was impossible. Nayland Smith frankly admitted that he was out of his +depth. ""It looks, on the face of it, more like a case for the +Psychical Research people than for a plain Civil Servant, lately of +Mandalay,"" he had said only that morning. +""Sir Lionel Barton really believes that supernatural agencies were +brought into operation by the opening of the high priest's coffin. For +my part, even if I believed the same, I should still maintain that Dr. +Fu-Manchu controlled those manifestations. But reason it out for +yourself and see if we arrive at any common center. Don't work so much +upon the datum of the green mist, but keep to the FACTS which are +established."" +I commenced to knock out my pipe in the ash-tray; then paused, pipe in +hand. The house was quite still, for my landlady and all the small +household were out. +Above the noise of the passing tramcar I thought I had heard the hall +door open. In the ensuing silence I sat and listened. +Not a sound. Stay! I slipped my hand into the table drawer, took out +my revolver, and stood up. +There WAS a sound. Someone or something was creeping upstairs in the +dark! +Familiar with the ghastly media employed by the Chinaman, I was seized +with an impulse to leap to the door, shut and lock it. But the +rustling sound proceeded, now, from immediately outside my partially +opened door. I had not the time to close it; knowing somewhat of the +horrors at the command of Fu-Manchu, I had not the courage to open it. +My heart leaping wildly, and my eyes upon that bar of darkness with its +gruesome potentialities, I waited--waited for whatever was to come. +Perhaps twelve seconds passed in silence. +""Who's there?"" I cried. ""Answer, or I fire!"" +""Ah! no,"" came a soft voice, thrillingly musical. ""Put it down--that +pistol. Quick! I must speak to you."" +The door was pushed open, and there entered a slim figure wrapped in a +hooded cloak. My hand fell, and I stood, stricken to silence, looking +into the beautiful dark eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu's messenger--if her own +statement could be credited, slave. On two occasions this girl, whose +association with the Doctor was one of the most profound mysteries of +the case, had risked--I cannot say what; unnameable punishment, +perhaps--to save me from death; in both cases from a terrible death. +For what was she come now? +Her lips slightly parted, she stood, holding her cloak about her, and +watching me with great passionate eyes. +""How--"" I began. +But she shook her head impatiently. +""HE has a duplicate key of the house door,"" was her amazing statement. +""I have never betrayed a secret of my master before, but you must +arrange to replace the lock."" +She came forward and rested her slim hands confidingly upon my +shoulders. ""I have come again to ask you to take me away from him,"" +she said simply. +And she lifted her face to me. +Her words struck a chord in my heart which sang with strange music, +with music so barbaric that, frankly, I blushed to find it harmony. +Have I said that she was beautiful? It can convey no faint conception +of her. With her pure, fair skin, eyes like the velvet darkness of the +East, and red lips so tremulously near to mine, she was the most +seductively lovely creature I ever had looked upon. In that electric +moment my heart went out in sympathy to every man who had bartered +honor, country, all for a woman's kiss. +""I will see that you are placed under proper protection,"" I said +firmly, but my voice was not quite my own. ""It is quite absurd to talk +of slavery here in England. You are a free agent, or you could not be +here now. Dr. Fu-Manchu cannot control your actions."" +""Ah!"" she cried, casting back her head scornfully, and releasing a +cloud of hair, through whose softness gleamed a jeweled head-dress. +""No? He cannot? Do you know what it means to have been a slave? +Here, in your free England, do you know what it means--the razzia, the +desert journey, the whips of the drivers, the house of the dealer, the +shame. Bah!"" +How beautiful she was in her indignation! +""Slavery is put down, you imagine, perhaps? You do not believe that +to-day--TO-DAY--twenty-five English sovereigns will buy a Galla girl, +who is brown, and""--whisper--""two hundred and fifty a Circassian, who +is white. No, there is no slavery! So! Then what am I?"" +She threw open her cloak, and it is a literal fact that I rubbed my +eyes, half believing that I dreamed. For beneath, she was arrayed in +gossamer silk which more than indicated the perfect lines of her slim +shape; wore a jeweled girdle and barbaric ornaments; was a figure fit +for the walled gardens of Stamboul--a figure amazing, incomprehensible, +in the prosaic setting of my rooms. +""To-night I had no time to make myself an English miss,"" she said, +wrapping her cloak quickly about her. ""You see me as I am."" Her +garments exhaled a faint perfume, and it reminded me of another meeting +I had had with her. I looked into the challenging eyes. +""Your request is but a pretense,"" I said. ""Why do you keep the secrets +of that man, when they mean death to so many?"" +""Death! I have seen my own sister die of fever in the desert--seen her +thrown like carrion into a hole in the sand. I have seen men flogged +until they prayed for death as a boon. I have known the lash myself. +Death! What does it matter?"" +She shocked me inexpressibly. Enveloped in her cloak again, and with +only her slight accent to betray her, it was dreadful to hear such +words from a girl who, save for her singular type of beauty, might have +been a cultured European. +""Prove, then, that you really wish to leave this man's service. Tell +me what killed Strozza and the Chinaman,"" I said. +She shrugged her shoulders. +""I do not know that. But if you will carry me off""--she clutched me +nervously--""so that I am helpless, lock me up so that I cannot escape, +beat me, if you like, I will tell you all I do know. While he is my +master I will never betray him. Tear me from him--by force, do you +understand, BY FORCE, and my lips will be sealed no longer. Ah! but +you do not understand, with your 'proper authorities'--your police. +Police! Ah, I have said enough."" +A clock across the common began to strike. The girl started and laid +her hands upon my shoulders again. There were tears glittering among +the curved black lashes. +""You do not understand,"" she whispered. ""Oh, will you never understand +and release me from him! I must go. Already I have remained too long. +Listen. Go out without delay. Remain out--at a hotel, where you will, +but do not stay here."" +""And Nayland Smith?"" +""What is he to me, this Nayland Smith? Ah, why will you not unseal my +lips? You are in danger--you hear me, in danger! Go away from here +to-night."" +She dropped her hands and ran from the room. In the open doorway she +turned, stamping her foot passionately. +""You have hands and arms,"" she cried, ""and yet you let me go. Be +warned, then; fly from here--"" She broke off with something that +sounded like a sob. +I made no move to stay her--this beautiful accomplice of the +arch-murderer, Fu-Manchu. I heard her light footsteps pattering down +the stairs, I heard her open and close the door--the door of which Dr. +Fu-Manchu held the key. Still I stood where she had parted from me, +and was so standing when a key grated in the lock and Nayland Smith +came running up. +""Did you see her?"" I began. +But his face showed that he had not done so, and rapidly I told him of +my strange visitor, of her words, of her warning. +""How can she have passed through London in that costume?"" I cried in +bewilderment. ""Where can she have come from?"" +Smith shrugged his shoulders and began to stuff broad-cut mixture into +the familiar cracked briar. +""She might have traveled in a car or in a cab,"" he said; ""and +undoubtedly she came direct from the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu. You +should have detained her, Petrie. It is the third time we have had +that woman in our power, the third time we have let her go free."" +""Smith,"" I replied, ""I couldn't. She came of her own free will to give +me a warning. She disarms me."" +""Because you can see she is in love with you?"" he suggested, and burst +into one of his rare laughs when the angry flush rose to my cheek. +""She is, Petrie why pretend to be blind to it? You don't know the +Oriental mind as I do; but I quite understand the girl's position. She +fears the English authorities, but would submit to capture by you! If +you would only seize her by the hair, drag her to some cellar, hurl her +down and stand over her with a whip, she would tell you everything she +knows, and salve her strange Eastern conscience with the reflection +that speech was forced from her. I am not joking; it is so, I assure +you. And she would adore you for your savagery, deeming you forceful +and strong!"" +""Smith,"" I said, ""be serious. You know what her warning meant before."" +""I can guess what it means now,"" he rapped. ""Hallo!"" +Someone was furiously ringing the bell. +""No one at home?"" said my friend. ""I will go. I think I know what it +is."" +A few minutes later he returned, carrying a large square package. +""From Weymouth,"" he explained, ""by district messenger. I left him +behind at the docks, and he arranged to forward any evidence which +subsequently he found. This will be fragments of the mummy."" +""What! You think the mummy was abstracted?"" +""Yes, at the docks. I am sure of it; and somebody else was in the +sarcophagus when it reached Rowan House. A sarcophagus, I find, is +practically airtight, so that the use of the rubber stopper becomes +evident--ventilation. How this person killed Strozza I have yet to +learn."" +""Also, how he escaped from a locked room. And what about the green +mist?"" +Nayland Smith spread his hands in a characteristic gesture. +""The green mist, Petrie, can be explained in several ways. Remember, +we have only one man's word that it existed. It is at best a confusing +datum to which we must not attach a factitious importance."" +He threw the wrappings on the floor and tugged at a twine loop in the +lid of the square box, which now stood upon the table. Suddenly the +lid came away, bringing with it a lead lining, such as is usual in +tea-chests. This lining was partially attached to one side of the box, +so that the action of removing the lid at once raised and tilted it. +Then happened a singular thing. +Out over the table billowed a sort of yellowish-green cloud--an oily +vapor--and an inspiration, it was nothing less, born of a memory and of +some words of my beautiful visitor, came to me. +""RUN, SMITH!"" I screamed. ""The door! the door, for your life! +Fu-Manchu sent that box!"" I threw my arms round him. As he bent +forward the moving vapor rose almost to his nostrils. I dragged him +back and all but pitched him out on to the landing. We entered my +bedroom, and there, as I turned on the light, I saw that Smith's tanned +face was unusually drawn, and touched with pallor. +""It is a poisonous gas!"" I said hoarsely; ""in many respects identical +with chlorine, but having unique properties which prove it to be +something else--God and Fu-Manchu, alone know what! It is the fumes of +chlorine that kill the men in the bleaching powder works. We have been +blind--I particularly. Don't you see? There was no one in the +sarcophagus, Smith, but there was enough of that fearful stuff to have +suffocated a regiment!"" +Smith clenched his fists convulsively. +""My God!"" he said, ""how can I hope to deal with the author of such a +scheme? I see the whole plan. He did not reckon on the mummy case +being overturned, and Kwee's part was to remove the plug with the aid +of the string--after Sir Lionel had been suffocated. The gas, I take +it, is heavier than air."" +""Chlorine gas has a specific gravity of 2.470,"" I said; ""two and a half +times heavier than air. You can pour it from jar to jar like a +liquid--if you are wearing a chemist's mask. In these respects this +stuff appears to be similar; the points of difference would not +interest you. The sarcophagus would have emptied through the vent, and +the gas have dispersed, with no clew remaining--except the smell."" +""I did smell it, Petrie, on the stopper, but, of course, was unfamiliar +with it. You may remember that you were prevented from doing so by the +arrival of Sir Lionel? The scent of those infernal flowers must +partially have drowned it, too. Poor, misguided Strozza inhaled the +stuff, capsized the case in his fall, and all the gas--"" +""Went pouring under the conservatory door, and down the steps, where +Kwee was crouching. Croxted's breaking the window created sufficient +draught to disperse what little remained. It will have settled on the +floor now. I will go and open both windows."" +Nayland raised his haggard face. +""He evidently made more than was necessary to dispatch Sir Lionel +Barton,"" he said; ""and contemptuously--you note the attitude, +Petrie?--contemptuously devoted the surplus to me. His contempt is +justified. I am a child striving to cope with a mental giant. It is +by no wit of mine that Dr. Fu-Manchu scores a double failure."" +CHAPTER XIII +I WILL tell you, now of a strange dream which I dreamed, and of the +stranger things to which I awakened. Since, out of a blank--a +void--this vision burst in upon my mind, I cannot do better than relate +it, without preamble. It was thus: +I dreamed that I lay writhing on the floor in agony indescribable. My +veins were filled with liquid fire, and but that stygian darkness was +about me, I told myself that I must have seen the smoke arising from my +burning body. +This, I thought, was death. +Then, a cooling shower descended upon me, soaked through skin and +tissue to the tortured arteries and quenched the fire within. Panting, +but free from pain, I lay--exhausted. +Strength gradually returning to me, I tried to rise; but the carpet +felt so singularly soft that it offered me no foothold. I waded and +plunged like a swimmer treading water; and all about me rose +impenetrable walls of darkness, darkness all but palpable. I wondered +why I could not see the windows. The horrible idea flashed to my mind +that I was become blind! +Somehow I got upon my feet, and stood swaying dizzily. I became aware +of a heavy perfume, and knew it for some kind of incense. +Then--a dim light was born, at an immeasurable distance away. It grew +steadily in brilliance. It spread like a bluish-red stain--like a +liquid. It lapped up the darkness and spread throughout the room. +But this was not my room! Nor was it any room known to me. +It was an apartment of such size that its dimensions filled me with a +kind of awe such as I never had known: the awe of walled vastness. +Its immense extent produced a sensation of sound. Its hugeness had a +distinct NOTE. +Tapestries covered the four walls. There was no door visible. These +tapestries were magnificently figured with golden dragons; and as the +serpentine bodies gleamed and shimmered in the increasing radiance, +each dragon, I thought, intertwined its glittering coils more closely +with those of another. The carpet was of such richness that I stood +knee-deep in its pile. And this, too, was fashioned all over with +golden dragons; and they seemed to glide about amid the shadows of the +design--stealthily. +At the farther end of the hall--for hall it was--a huge table with +dragons' legs stood solitary amid the luxuriance of the carpet. It +bore scintillating globes, and tubes that held living organisms, and +books of a size and in such bindings as I never had imagined, with +instruments of a type unknown to Western science--a heterogeneous +litter quite indescribable, which overflowed on to the floor, forming +an amazing oasis in a dragon-haunted desert of carpet. A lamp hung +above this table, suspended by golden chains from the ceiling--which +was so lofty that, following the chains upward, my gaze lost itself in +the purple shadows above. +In a chair piled high with dragon-covered cushions a man sat behind +this table. The light from the swinging lamp fell fully upon one side +of his face, as he leaned forward amid the jumble of weird objects, and +left the other side in purplish shadow. From a plain brass bowl upon +the corner of the huge table smoke writhed aloft and at times partially +obscured that dreadful face. +From the instant that my eyes were drawn to the table and to the man +who sat there, neither the incredible extent of the room, nor the +nightmare fashion of its mural decorations, could reclaim my attention. +I had eyes only for him. +For it was Dr. Fu-Manchu! +Something of the delirium which had seemed to fill my veins with fire, +to people the walls with dragons, and to plunge me knee-deep in the +carpet, left me. Those dreadful, filmed green eyes acted somewhat like +a cold douche. I knew, without removing my gaze from the still face, +that the walls no longer lived, but were merely draped in exquisite +Chinese dragon tapestry. The rich carpet beneath my feet ceased to be +as a jungle and became a normal carpet--extraordinarily rich, but +merely a carpet. But the sense of vastness nevertheless remained, with +the uncomfortable knowledge that the things upon the table and +overflowing about it were all, or nearly all, of a fashion strange to +me. +Then, and almost instantaneously, the comparative sanity which I had +temporarily experienced began to slip from me again; for the smoke +faintly penciled through the air--from the burning perfume on the +table--grew in volume, thickened, and wafted towards me in a cloud of +gray horror. It enveloped me, clammily. Dimly, through its oily +wreaths, I saw the immobile yellow face of Fu-Manchu. And my stupefied +brain acclaimed him a sorcerer, against whom unwittingly we had pitted +our poor human wits. The green eyes showed filmy through the fog. An +intense pain shot through my lower limbs, and, catching my breath, I +looked down. As I did so, the points of the red slippers which I +dreamed that I wore increased in length, curled sinuously upward, +twined about my throat and choked the breath from my body! +Came an interval, and then a dawning like consciousness; but it was a +false consciousness, since it brought with it the idea that my head lay +softly pillowed and that a woman's hand caressed my throbbing forehead. +Confusedly, as though in the remote past, I recalled a kiss--and the +recollection thrilled me strangely. Dreamily content I lay, and a +voice stole to my ears: +""They are killing him! they are killing him! Oh! do you not +understand?"" In my dazed condition, I thought that it was I who had +died, and that this musical girl-voice was communicating to me the fact +of my own dissolution. +But I was conscious of no interest in the matter. +For hours and hours, I thought, that soothing hand caressed me. I +never once raised my heavy lids, until there came a resounding crash +that seemed to set my very bones vibrating--a metallic, jangling crash, +as the fall of heavy chains. I thought that, then, I half opened my +eyes, and that in the dimness I had a fleeting glimpse of a figure clad +in gossamer silk, with arms covered with barbaric bangles and slim +ankles surrounded by gold bands. The girl was gone, even as I told +myself that she was an houri, and that I, though a Christian, had been +consigned by some error to the paradise of Mohammed. +Then--a complete blank. +My head throbbed madly; my brain seemed to be clogged--inert; and +though my first, feeble movement was followed by the rattle of a chain, +some moments more elapsed ere I realized that the chain was fastened to +a steel collar--that the steel collar was clasped about my neck. +I moaned weakly. +""Smith!"" I muttered, ""Where are you? Smith!"" +On to my knees I struggled, and the pain on the top of my skull grew +all but insupportable. It was coming back to me now; how Nayland Smith +and I had started for the hotel to warn Graham Guthrie; how, as we +passed up the steps from the Embankment and into Essex Street, we saw +the big motor standing before the door of one of the offices. I could +recall coming up level with the car--a modern limousine; but my mind +retained no impression of our having passed it--only a vague memory of +a rush of footsteps--a blow. Then, my vision of the hall of dragons, +and now this real awakening to a worse reality. +Groping in the darkness, my hands touched a body that lay close beside +me. My fingers sought and found the throat, sought and found the steel +collar about it. +""Smith,"" I groaned; and I shook the still form. ""Smith, old man--speak +to me! Smith!"" +Could he be dead? Was this the end of his gallant fight with Dr. +Fu-Manchu and the murder group? If so, what did the future hold for +me--what had I to face? +He stirred beneath my trembling hands. +""Thank God!"" I muttered, and I cannot deny that my joy was tainted +with selfishness. For, waking in that impenetrable darkness, and yet +obsessed with the dream I had dreamed, I had known what fear meant, at +the realization that alone, chained, I must face the dreadful Chinese +doctor in the flesh. Smith began incoherent mutterings. +""Sand-bagged! . . . Look out, Petrie! . . . He has us at last! . . . +Oh, Heavens!"" . . . He struggled on to his knees, clutching at my hand. +""All right, old man,"" I said. ""We are both alive! So let's be +thankful."" +A moment's silence, a groan, then: +""Petrie, I have dragged you into this. God forgive me--"" +""Dry up, Smith,"" I said slowly. ""I'm not a child. There is no +question of being dragged into the matter. I'm here; and if I can be +of any use, I'm glad I am here!"" +He grasped my hand. +""There were two Chinese, in European clothes--lord, how my head +throbs!--in that office door. They sand-bagged us, Petrie--think of +it!--in broad daylight, within hail of the Strand! We were rushed into +the car--and it was all over, before--"" His voice grew faint. ""God! +they gave me an awful knock!"" +""Why have we been spared, Smith? Do you think he is saving us for--"" +""Don't, Petrie! If you had been in China, if you had seen what I have +seen--"" +Footsteps sounded on the flagged passage. A blade of light crept +across the floor towards us. My brain was growing clearer. The place +had a damp, earthen smell. It was slimy--some noisome cellar. A door +was thrown open and a man entered, carrying a lantern. Its light +showed my surmise to be accurate, showed the slime-coated walls of a +dungeon some fifteen feet square--shone upon the long yellow robe of +the man who stood watching us, upon the malignant, intellectual +countenance. +It was Dr. Fu-Manchu. +At last they were face to face--the head of the great Yellow Movement, +and the man who fought on behalf of the entire white race. How can I +paint the individual who now stood before us--perhaps the greatest +genius of modern times? +Of him it had been fitly said that he had a brow like Shakespeare and a +face like Satan. Something serpentine, hypnotic, was in his very +presence. Smith drew one sharp breath, and was silent. Together, +chained to the wall, two mediaeval captives, living mockeries of our +boasted modern security, we crouched before Dr. Fu-Manchu. +He came forward with an indescribable gait, cat-like yet awkward, +carrying his high shoulders almost hunched. He placed the lantern in a +niche in the wall, never turning away the reptilian gaze of those eyes +which must haunt my dreams forever. They possessed a viridescence +which hitherto I had supposed possible only in the eye of the cat--and +the film intermittently clouded their brightness--but I can speak of +them no more. +I had never supposed, prior to meeting Dr. Fu-Manchu, that so intense a +force of malignancy could radiate--from any human being. He spoke. +His English was perfect, though at times his words were oddly chosen; +his delivery alternately was guttural and sibilant. +""Mr. Smith and Dr. Petrie, your interference with my plans has gone too +far. I have seriously turned my attention to you."" +He displayed his teeth, small and evenly separated, but discolored in a +way that was familiar to me. I studied his eyes with a new +professional interest, which even the extremity of our danger could not +wholly banish. Their greenness seemed to be of the iris; the pupil was +oddly contracted--a pin-point. +Smith leaned his back against the wall with assumed indifference. +""You have presumed,"" continued Fu-Manchu, ""to meddle with a +world-change. Poor spiders--caught in the wheels of the inevitable! +You have linked my name with the futility of the Young China +Movement--the name of Fu-Manchu! Mr. Smith, you are an incompetent +meddler--I despise you! Dr. Petrie, you are a fool--I am sorry for +you!"" +He rested one bony hand on his hip, narrowing the long eyes as he +looked down on us. The purposeful cruelty of the man was inherent; it +was entirely untheatrical. Still Smith remained silent. +""So I am determined to remove you from the scene of your blunders!"" +added Fu-Manchu. +""Opium will very shortly do the same for you!"" I rapped at him savagely. +Without emotion he turned the narrowed eyes upon me. +""That is a matter of opinion, Doctor,"" he said. ""You may have lacked +the opportunities which have been mine for studying that subject--and +in any event I shall not be privileged to enjoy your advice in the +future."" +""You will not long outlive me,"" I replied. ""And our deaths will not +profit you, incidentally; because--"" Smith's foot touched mine. +""Because?"" inquired Fu-Manchu softly. ""Ah! Mr. Smith is so prudent! He +is thinking that I have FILES!"" He pronounced the word in a way that +made me shudder. ""Mr. Smith has seen a WIRE JACKET! Have you ever seen +a wire jacket? As a surgeon its functions would interest you!"" +I stifled a cry that rose to my lips; for, with a shrill whistling +sound, a small shape came bounding into the dimly lit vault, then shot +upward. A marmoset landed on the shoulder of Dr. Fu-Manchu and peered +grotesquely into the dreadful yellow face. The Doctor raised his bony +hand and fondled the little creature, crooning to it. +""One of my pets, Mr. Smith,"" he said, suddenly opening his eyes fully +so that they blazed like green lamps. ""I have others, equally useful. +My scorpions--have you met my scorpions? No? My pythons and +hamadryads? Then there are my fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli. +I have a collection in my laboratory quite unique. Have you ever +visited Molokai, the leper island, Doctor? No? But Mr. Nayland Smith +will be familiar with the asylum at Rangoon! And we must not forget my +black spiders, with their diamond eyes--my spiders, that sit in the +dark and watch--then leap!"" +He raised his lean hands, so that the sleeve of the robe fell back to +the elbow, and the ape dropped, chattering, to the floor and ran from +the cellar. +""O God of Cathay!"" he cried, ""by what death shall these die--these +miserable ones who would bind thine Empire, which is boundless!"" +Like some priest of Tezcat he stood, his eyes upraised to the roof, his +lean body quivering--a sight to shock the most unimpressionable mind. +""He is mad!"" I whispered to Smith. ""God help us, the man is a +dangerous homicidal maniac!"" +Nayland Smith's tanned face was very drawn, but he shook his head +grimly. +""Dangerous, yes, I agree,"" he muttered; ""his existence is a danger to +the entire white race which, now, we are powerless to avert."" +Dr. Fu-Manchu recovered himself, took up the lantern and, turning +abruptly, walked to the door, with his awkward, yet feline gait. At +the threshold be looked back. +""You would have warned Mr. Graham Guthrie?"" he said, in a soft voice. +""To-night, at half-past twelve, Mr. Graham Guthrie dies!"" +Smith sat silent and motionless, his eyes fixed upon the speaker. +""You were in Rangoon in 1908?"" continued Dr. Fu-Manchu--""you remember +the Call?"" +From somewhere above us--I could not determine the exact +direction--came a low, wailing cry, an uncanny thing of falling +cadences, which, in that dismal vault, with the sinister yellow-robed +figure at the door, seemed to pour ice into my veins. Its effect upon +Smith was truly extraordinary. His face showed grayly in the faint +light, and I heard him draw a hissing breath through clenched teeth. +""It calls for you!"" said Fu-Manchu. ""At half-past twelve it calls for +Graham Guthrie!"" +The door closed and darkness mantled us again. +""Smith,"" I said, ""what was that?"" The horrors about us were playing +havoc with my nerves. +""It was the Call of Siva!"" replied Smith hoarsely. +""What is it? Who uttered it? What does it mean?"" +""I don't know what it is, Petrie, nor who utters it. But it means +death!"" +CHAPTER XIV +THERE may be some who could have lain, chained to that noisome cell, +and felt no fear--no dread of what the blackness might hold. I confess +that I am not one of these. I knew that Nayland Smith and I stood in +the path of the most stupendous genius who in the world's history had +devoted his intellect to crime. I knew that the enormous wealth of the +political group backing Dr. Fu-Manchu rendered him a menace to Europe +and to America greater than that of the plague. He was a scientist +trained at a great university--an explorer of nature's secrets, who had +gone farther into the unknown, I suppose, than any living man. His +mission was to remove all obstacles--human obstacles--from the path of +that secret movement which was progressing in the Far East. Smith and +I were two such obstacles; and of all the horrible devices at his +command, I wondered, and my tortured brain refused to leave the +subject, by which of them were we doomed to be dispatched? +Even at that very moment some venomous centipede might be wriggling +towards me over the slime of the stones, some poisonous spider be +preparing to drop from the roof! Fu-Manchu might have released a +serpent in the cellar, or the air be alive with microbes of a loathsome +disease! +""Smith,"" I said, scarcely recognizing my own voice, ""I can't bear this +suspense. He intends to kill us, that is certain, but--"" +""Don't worry,"" came the reply; ""he intends to learn our plans first."" +""You mean--?"" +""You heard him speak of his files and of his wire jacket?"" +""Oh, my God!"" I groaned; ""can this be England?"" +Smith laughed dryly, and I heard him fumbling with the steel collar +about his neck. +""I have one great hope,"" he said, ""since you share my captivity, but we +must neglect no minor chance. Try with your pocket-knife if you can +force the lock. I am trying to break this one."" +Truth to tell, the idea had not entered my half-dazed mind, but I +immediately acted upon my friend's suggestion, setting to work with the +small blade of my knife. I was so engaged, and, having snapped one +blade, was about to open another, when a sound arrested me. It came +from beneath my feet. +""Smith,"" I whispered, ""listen!"" +The scraping and clicking which told of Smith's efforts ceased. +Motionless, we sat in that humid darkness and listened. +Something was moving beneath the stones of the cellar. I held my +breath; every nerve in my body was strung up. +A line of light showed a few feet from where we lay. It +widened--became an oblong. A trap was lifted, and within a yard of me, +there rose a dimly seen head. Horror I had expected--and death, or +worse. Instead, I saw a lovely face, crowned with a disordered mass of +curling hair; I saw a white arm upholding the stone slab, a shapely arm +clasped about the elbow by a broad gold bangle. +The girl climbed into the cellar and placed the lantern on the stone +floor. In the dim light she was unreal--a figure from an opium vision, +with her clinging silk draperies and garish jewelry, with her feet +encased in little red slippers. In short, this was the houri of my +vision, materialized. It was difficult to believe that we were in +modern, up-to-date England; easy to dream that we were the captives of +a caliph, in a dungeon in old Bagdad. +""My prayers are answered,"" said Smith softly. ""She has come to save +YOU."" +""S-sh!"" warned the girl, and her wonderful eyes opened widely, +fearfully. ""A sound and he will kill us all."" +She bent over me; a key jarred in the lock which had broken my +penknife--and the collar was off. As I rose to my feet the girl turned +and released Smith. She raised the lantern above the trap, and signed +to us to descend the wooden steps which its light revealed. +""Your knife,"" she whispered to me. ""Leave it on the floor. He will +think you forced the locks. Down! Quickly!"" +Nayland Smith, stepping gingerly, disappeared into the darkness. I +rapidly followed. Last of all came our mysterious friend, a gold band +about one of her ankles gleaming in the rays of the lantern which she +carried. We stood in a low-arched passage. +""Tie your handkerchiefs over your eyes and do exactly as I tell you,"" +she ordered. +Neither of us hesitated to obey her. Blind-folded, I allowed her to +lead me, and Smith rested his hand upon my shoulder. In that order we +proceeded, and came to stone steps, which we ascended. +""Keep to the wall on the left,"" came a whisper. ""There is danger on +the right."" +With my free hand I felt for and found the wall, and we pressed +forward. The atmosphere of the place through which we were passing was +steamy, and loaded with an odor like that of exotic plant life. But a +faint animal scent crept to my nostrils, too, and there was a subdued +stir about me, infinitely suggestive--mysterious. +Now my feet sank in a soft carpet, and a curtain brushed my shoulder. +A gong sounded. We stopped. +The din of distant drumming came to my ears. +""Where in Heaven's name are we?"" hissed Smith in my ear; ""that is a +tom-tom!"" +""S-sh! S-sh!"" +The little hand grasping mine quivered nervously. We were near a door +or a window, for a breath of perfume was wafted through the air; and it +reminded me of my other meetings with the beautiful woman who was now +leading us from the house of Fu-Manchu; who, with her own lips, had +told me that she was his slave. Through the horrible phantasmagoria +she flitted--a seductive vision, her piquant loveliness standing out +richly in its black setting of murder and devilry. Not once, but a +thousand times, I had tried to reason out the nature of the tie which +bound her to the sinister Doctor. +Silence fell. +""Quick! This way!"" +Down a thickly carpeted stair we went. Our guide opened a door, and +led us along a passage. Another door was opened; and we were in the +open air. But the girl never tarried, pulling me along a graveled +path, with a fresh breeze blowing in my face, and along until, +unmistakably, I stood upon the river bank. Now, planking creaked to +our tread; and looking downward beneath the handkerchief, I saw the +gleam of water beneath my feet. +""Be careful!"" I was warned, and found myself stepping into a narrow +boat--a punt. +Nayland Smith followed, and the girl pushed the punt off and poled out +into the stream. +""Don't speak!"" she directed. +My brain was fevered; I scarce knew if I dreamed and was waking, or if +the reality ended with my imprisonment in the clammy cellar and this +silent escape, blindfolded, upon the river with a girl for our guide +who might have stepped out of the pages of ""The Arabian Nights"" were +fantasy--the mockery of sleep. +Indeed, I began seriously to doubt if this stream whereon we floated, +whose waters plashed and tinkled about us, were the Thames, the Tigris, +or the Styx. +The punt touched a bank. +""You will hear a clock strike in a few minutes,"" said the girl, with +her soft, charming accent, ""but I rely upon your honor not to remove +the handkerchiefs until then. You owe me this."" +""We do!"" said Smith fervently. +I heard him scrambling to the bank, and a moment later a soft hand was +placed in mine, and I, too, was guided on to terra firma. Arrived on +the bank, I still held the girl's hand, drawing her towards me. +""You must not go back,"" I whispered. ""We will take care of you. You +must not return to that place."" +""Let me go!"" she said. ""When, once, I asked you to take me from him, +you spoke of police protection; that was your answer, police +protection! You would let them lock me up--imprison me--and make me +betray him! For what? For what?"" She wrenched herself free. ""How +little you understand me. Never mind. Perhaps one day you will know! +Until the clock strikes!"" +She was gone. I heard the creak of the punt, the drip of the water +from the pole. Fainter it grew, and fainter. +""What is her secret?"" muttered Smith, beside me. ""Why does she cling +to that monster?"" +The distant sound died away entirely. A clock began to strike; it +struck the half-hour. In an instant my handkerchief was off, and so was +Smith's. We stood upon a towing-path. Away to the left the moon shone +upon the towers and battlements of an ancient fortress. +It was Windsor Castle. +""Half-past ten,"" cried Smith. ""Two hours to save Graham Guthrie!"" +We had exactly fourteen minutes in which to catch the last train to +Waterloo; and we caught it. But I sank into a corner of the +compartment in a state bordering upon collapse. Neither of us, I +think, could have managed another twenty yards. With a lesser stake +than a human life at issue, I doubt if we should have attempted that +dash to Windsor station. +""Due at Waterloo at eleven-fifty-one,"" panted Smith. ""That gives us +thirty-nine minutes to get to the other side of the river and reach his +hotel."" +""Where in Heaven's name is that house situated? Did we come up or down +stream?"" +""I couldn't determine. But at any rate, it stands close to the +riverside. It should be merely a question of time to identify it. I +shall set Scotland Yard to work immediately; but I am hoping for +nothing. Our escape will warn him."" +I said no more for a time, sitting wiping the perspiration from my +forehead and watching my friend load his cracked briar with the +broadcut Latakia mixture. +""Smith,"" I said at last, ""what was that horrible wailing we heard, and +what did Fu-Manchu mean when he referred to Rangoon? I noticed how it +affected you."" +My friend nodded and lighted his pipe. +""There was a ghastly business there in 1908 or early in 1909,"" he +replied: ""an utterly mysterious epidemic. And this beastly wailing +was associated with it."" +""In what way? And what do you mean by an epidemic?"" +""It began, I believe, at the Palace Mansions Hotel, in the cantonments. +A young American, whose name I cannot recall, was staying there on +business connected with some new iron buildings. One night he went to +his room, locked the door, and jumped out of the window into the +courtyard. Broke his neck, of course."" +""Suicide?"" +""Apparently. But there were singular features in the case. For +instance, his revolver lay beside him, fully loaded!"" +""In the courtyard?"" +""In the courtyard!"" +""Was it murder by any chance?"" +Smith shrugged his shoulders. +""His door was found locked from the inside; had to be broken in."" +""But the wailing business?"" +""That began later, or was only noticed later. A French doctor, named +Lafitte, died in exactly the same way."" +""At the same place?"" +""At the same hotel; but he occupied a different room. Here is the +extraordinary part of the affair: a friend shared the room with him, +and actually saw him go!"" +""Saw him leap from the window?"" +""Yes. The friend--an Englishman--was aroused by the uncanny wailing. +I was in Rangoon at the time, so that I know more of the case of +Lafitte than of that of the American. I spoke to the man about it +personally. He was an electrical engineer, Edward Martin, and he told +me that the cry seemed to come from above him."" +""It seemed to come from above when we heard it at Fu-Manchu's house."" +""Martin sat up in bed, it was a clear moonlight night--the sort of +moonlight you get in Burma. Lafitte, for some reason, had just gone to +the window. His friend saw him look out. The next moment with a +dreadful scream, he threw himself forward--and crashed down into the +courtyard!"" +""What then?"" +""Martin ran to the window and looked down. Lafitte's scream had +aroused the place, of course. But there was absolutely nothing to +account for the occurrence. There was no balcony, no ledge, by means +of which anyone could reach the window."" +""But how did you come to recognize the cry?"" +""I stopped at the Palace Mansions for some time; and one night this +uncanny howling aroused me. I heard it quite distinctly, and am never +likely to forget it. It was followed by a hoarse yell. The man in the +next room, an orchid hunter, had gone the same way as the others!"" +""Did you change your quarters?"" +""No. Fortunately for the reputation of the hotel--a first-class +establishment--several similar cases occurred elsewhere, both in +Rangoon, in Prome and in Moulmein. A story got about the native +quarter, and was fostered by some mad fakir, that the god Siva was +reborn and that the cry was his call for victims; a ghastly story, +which led to an outbreak of dacoity and gave the District +Superintendent no end of trouble."" +""Was there anything unusual about the bodies?"" +""They all developed marks after death, as though they had been +strangled! The marks were said all to possess a peculiar form, though +it was not appreciable to my eye; and this, again, was declared to be +the five heads of Siva."" +""Were the deaths confined to Europeans?"" +""Oh, no. Several Burmans and others died in the same way. At first +there was a theory that the victims had contracted leprosy and +committed suicide as a result; but the medical evidence disproved that. +The Call of Siva became a perfect nightmare throughout Burma."" +""Did you ever hear it again, before this evening?"" +""Yes. I heard it on the Upper Irrawaddy one clear, moonlight night, +and a Colassie--a deck-hand--leaped from the top deck of the steamer +aboard which I was traveling! My God! to think that the fiend +Fu-Manchu has brought That to England!"" +""But brought what, Smith?"" I cried, in perplexity. ""What has he +brought? An evil spirit? A mental disease? What is it? What CAN it +be?"" +""A new agent of death, Petrie! Something born in a plague-spot of +Burma--the home of much that is unclean and much that is inexplicable. +Heaven grant that we be in time, and are able to save Guthrie."" +CHAPTER XV +THE train was late, and as our cab turned out of Waterloo Station and +began to ascend to the bridge, from a hundred steeples rang out the +gongs of midnight, the bell of St. Paul's raised above them all to vie +with the deep voice of Big Ben. +I looked out from the cab window across the river to where, towering +above the Embankment, that place of a thousand tragedies, the light of +some of London's greatest caravanserais formed a sort of minor +constellation. From the subdued blaze that showed the public +supper-rooms I looked up to the hundreds of starry points marking the +private apartments of those giant inns. +I thought how each twinkling window denoted the presence of some bird +of passage, some wanderer temporarily abiding in our midst. There, +floor piled upon floor above the chattering throngs, were these less +gregarious units, each something of a mystery to his fellow-guests, +each in his separate cell; and each as remote from real human +companionship as if that cell were fashioned, not in the bricks of +London, but in the rocks of Hindustan! +In one of those rooms Graham Guthrie might at that moment be sleeping, +all unaware that he would awake to the Call of Siva, to the summons of +death. As we neared the Strand, Smith stopped the cab, discharging the +man outside Sotheby's auction-rooms. +""One of the doctor's watch-dogs may be in the foyer,"" he said +thoughtfully, ""and it might spoil everything if we were seen to go to +Guthrie's rooms. There must be a back entrance to the kitchens, and so +on?"" +""There is,"" I replied quickly. ""I have seen the vans delivering there. +But have we time?"" +""Yes. Lead on."" +We walked up the Strand and hurried westward. Into that narrow court, +with its iron posts and descending steps, upon which opens a well-known +wine-cellar, we turned. Then, going parallel with the Strand, but on +the Embankment level, we ran round the back of the great hotel, and +came to double doors which were open. An arc lamp illuminated the +interior and a number of men were at work among the casks, crates and +packages stacked about the place. We entered. +""Hallo!"" cried a man in a white overall, ""where d'you think you're +going?"" +Smith grasped him by the arm. +""I want to get to the public part of the hotel without being seen from +the entrance hall,"" he said. ""Will you please lead the way?"" +""Here--"" began the other, staring. +""Don't waste time!"" snapped my friend, in that tone of authority which +he knew so well how to assume. ""It's a matter of life and death. Lead +the way, I say!"" +""Police, sir?"" asked the man civilly. +""Yes,"" said Smith; ""hurry!"" +Off went our guide without further demur. Skirting sculleries, +kitchens, laundries and engine-rooms, he led us through those +mysterious labyrinths which have no existence for the guest above, but +which contain the machinery that renders these modern khans the +Aladdin's palaces they are. On a second-floor landing we met a man in +a tweed suit, to whom our cicerone presented us. +""Glad I met you, sir. Two gentlemen from the police."" +The man regarded us haughtily with a suspicious smile. +""Who are you?"" he asked. ""You're not from Scotland Yard, at any rate!"" +Smith pulled out a card and thrust it into the speaker's hand. +""If you are the hotel detective,"" he said, ""take us without delay to +Mr. Graham Guthrie."" +A marked change took place in the other's demeanor on glancing at the +card in his hand. +""Excuse me, sir,"" he said deferentially, ""but, of course, I didn't know +who I was speaking to. We all have instructions to give you every +assistance."" +""Is Mr. Guthrie in his room?"" +""He's been in his room for some time, sir. You will want to get there +without being seen? This way. We can join the lift on the third +floor."" +Off we went again, with our new guide. In the lift: +""Have you noticed anything suspicious about the place to-night?"" asked +Smith. +""I have!"" was the startling reply. ""That accounts for your finding me +where you did. My usual post is in the lobby. But about eleven +o'clock, when the theater people began to come in, I had a hazy sort of +impression that someone or something slipped past in the +crowd--something that had no business in the hotel."" +We got out of the lift. +""I don't quite follow you,"" said Smith. ""If you thought you saw +something entering, you must have formed a more or less definite +impression regarding it."" +""That's the funny part of the business,"" answered the man doggedly. ""I +didn't! But as I stood at the top of the stairs I could have sworn +that there was something crawling up behind a party--two ladies and two +gentlemen."" +""A dog, for instance?"" +""It didn't strike me as being a dog, sir. Anyway, when the party +passed me, there was nothing there. Mind you, whatever it was, it +hadn't come in by the front. I have made inquiries everywhere, but +without result."" He stopped abruptly. ""No. 189--Mr. Guthrie's door, +sir."" +Smith knocked. +""Hallo!"" came a muffled voice; ""what do you want?"" +""Open the door! Don't delay; it is important."" +He turned to the hotel detective. +""Stay right there where you can watch the stairs and the lift,"" he +instructed; ""and note everyone and everything that passes this door. +But whatever you see or hear, do nothing without my orders."" +The man moved off, and the door was opened. Smith whispered in my ear: +""Some creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu is in the hotel!"" +Mr. Graham Guthrie, British resident in North Bhutan, was a big, +thick-set man--gray-haired and florid, with widely opened eyes of the +true fighting blue, a bristling mustache and prominent shaggy brows. +Nayland Smith introduced himself tersely, proffering his card and an +open letter. +""Those are my credentials, Mr. Guthrie,"" he said; ""so no doubt you will +realize that the business which brings me and my friend, Dr. Petrie, +here at such an hour is of the first importance."" +He switched off the light. +""There is no time for ceremony,"" he explained. ""It is now twenty-five +minutes past twelve. At half-past an attempt will be made upon your +life!"" +""Mr. Smith,"" said the other, who, arrayed in his pajamas, was seated on +the edge of the bed, ""you alarm me very greatly. I may mention that I +was advised of your presence in England this morning."" +""Do you know anything respecting the person called Fu-Manchu--Dr. +Fu-Manchu?"" +""Only what I was told to-day--that he is the agent of an advanced +political group."" +""It is opposed to his interests that you should return to Bhutan. A +more gullible agent would be preferable. Therefore, unless you +implicitly obey my instructions, you will never leave England!"" +Graham Guthrie breathed quickly. I was growing more used to the gloom, +and I could dimly discern him, his face turned towards Nayland Smith, +whilst with his hand he clutched the bed-rail. Such a visit as ours, I +think, must have shaken the nerve of any man. +""But, Mr. Smith,"" he said, ""surely I am safe enough here! The place is +full of American visitors at present, and I have had to be content with +a room right at the top; so that the only danger I apprehend is that of +fire."" +""There is another danger,"" replied Smith. ""The fact that you are at +the top of the building enhances that danger. Do you recall anything +of the mysterious epidemic which broke out in Rangoon in 1908--the +deaths due to the Call of Siva?"" +""I read of it in the Indian papers,"" said Guthrie uneasily. ""Suicides, +were they not?"" +""No!"" snapped Smith. ""Murders!"" +There was a brief silence. +""From what I recall of the cases,"" said Guthrie, ""that seems +impossible. In several instances the victims threw themselves from the +windows of locked rooms--and the windows were quite inaccessible."" +""Exactly,"" replied Smith; and in the dim light his revolver gleamed +dully, as he placed it on the small table beside the bed. ""Except that +your door is unlocked, the conditions to-night are identical. Silence, +please, I hear a clock striking."" +It was Big Ben. It struck the half-hour, leaving the stillness +complete. In that room, high above the activity which yet prevailed +below, high above the supping crowds in the hotel, high above the +starving crowds on the Embankment, a curious chill of isolation swept +about me. Again I realized how, in the very heart of the great +metropolis, a man may be as far from aid as in the heart of a desert. +I was glad that I was not alone in that room--marked with the +death-mark of Fu-Manchu; and I am certain that Graham Guthrie welcomed +his unexpected company. +I may have mentioned the fact before, but on this occasion it became so +peculiarly evident to me that I am constrained to record it here--I +refer to the sense of impending danger which invariably preceded a +visit from Fu-Manchu. Even had I not known that an attempt was to be +made that night, I should have realized it, as, strung to high tension, +I waited in the darkness. Some invisible herald went ahead of the +dreadful Chinaman, proclaiming his coming to every nerve in one's body. +It was like a breath of astral incense, announcing the presence of the +priests of death. +A wail, low but singularly penetrating, falling in minor cadences to a +new silence, came from somewhere close at hand. +""My God!"" hissed Guthrie, ""what was that?"" +""The Call of Siva,"" whispered Smith. +""Don't stir, for your life!"" +Guthrie was breathing hard. +I knew that we were three; that the hotel detective was within hail; +that there was a telephone in the room; that the traffic of the +Embankment moved almost beneath us; but I knew, and am not ashamed to +confess, that King Fear had icy fingers about my heart. It was +awful--that tense waiting--for--what? +Three taps sounded--very distinctly upon the window. +Graham Guthrie started so as to shake the bed. +""It's supernatural!"" he muttered--all that was Celtic in his blood +recoiling from the omen. ""Nothing human can reach that window!"" +""S-sh!"" from Smith. ""Don't stir."" +The tapping was repeated. +Smith softly crossed the room. My heart was beating painfully. He +threw open the window. Further inaction was impossible. I joined him; +and we looked out into the empty air. +""Don't come too near, Petrie!"" he warned over his shoulder. +One on either side of the open window, we stood and looked down at the +moving Embankment lights, at the glitter of the Thames, at the +silhouetted buildings on the farther bank, with the Shot Tower starting +above them all. +Three taps sounded on the panes above us. +In all my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu I had had to face nothing so +uncanny as this. What Burmese ghoul had he loosed? Was it outside, in +the air? Was it actually in the room? +""Don't let me go, Petrie!"" whispered Smith suddenly. ""Get a tight hold +on me!"" +That was the last straw; for I thought that some dreadful fascination +was impelling my friend to hurl himself out! Wildly I threw my arms +about him, and Guthrie leaped forward to help. +Smith leaned from the window and looked up. +One choking cry he gave--smothered, inarticulate--and I found him +slipping from my grip--being drawn out of the window--drawn to his +death! +""Hold him, Guthrie!"" I gasped hoarsely. ""My God, he's going! Hold +him!"" +My friend writhed in our grasp, and I saw him stretch his arm upward. +The crack of his revolver came, and he collapsed on to the floor, +carrying me with him. +But as I fell I heard a scream above. Smith's revolver went hurtling +through the air, and, hard upon it, went a black shape--flashing past +the open window into the gulf of the night. +""The light! The light!"" I cried. +Guthrie ran and turned on the light. Nayland Smith, his eyes starting +from his head, his face swollen, lay plucking at a silken cord which +showed tight about his throat. +""It was a Thug!"" screamed Guthrie. ""Get the rope off! He's choking!"" +My hands a-twitch, I seized the strangling-cord. +""A knife! Quick!"" I cried. ""I have lost mine!"" +Guthrie ran to the dressing-table and passed me an open penknife. I +somehow forced the blade between the rope and Smith's swollen neck, and +severed the deadly silken thing. +Smith made a choking noise, and fell back, swooning in my arms. +When, later, we stood looking down upon the mutilated thing which had +been brought in from where it fell, Smith showed me a mark on the +brow--close beside the wound where his bullet had entered. +""The mark of Kali,"" he said. ""The man was a phansigar--a religious +strangler. Since Fu-Manchu has dacoits in his service I might have +expected that he would have Thugs. A group of these fiends would seem +to have fled into Burma; so that the mysterious epidemic in Rangoon was +really an outbreak of thuggee--on slightly improved lines! I had +suspected something of the kind but, naturally, I had not looked for +Thugs near Rangoon. My unexpected resistance led the strangler to +bungle the rope. You have seen how it was fastened about my throat? +That was unscientific. The true method, as practiced by the group +operating in Burma, was to throw the line about the victim's neck and +jerk him from the window. A man leaning from an open window is very +nicely poised: it requires only a slight jerk to pitch him forward. No +loop was used, but a running line, which, as the victim fell, remained +in the hand of the murderer. No clew! Therefore we see at once what +commended the system to Fu-Manchu."" +Graham Guthrie, very pale, stood looking down at the dead strangler. +""I owe you my life, Mr. Smith,"" he said. ""If you had come five minutes +later--"" +He grasped Smith's hand. +""You see,"" Guthrie continued, ""no one thought of looking for a Thug in +Burma! And no one thought of the ROOF! These fellows are as active as +monkeys, and where an ordinary man would infallibly break his neck, +they are entirely at home. I might have chosen my room especially for +the business!"" +""He slipped in late this evening,"" said Smith. ""The hotel detective +saw him, but these stranglers are as elusive as shadows, otherwise, +despite their having changed the scene of their operations, not one +could have survived."" +""Didn't you mention a case of this kind on the Irrawaddy?"" I asked. +""Yes,"" was the reply; ""and I know of what you are thinking. The +steamers of the Irrawaddy flotilla have a corrugated-iron roof over the +top deck. The Thug must have been lying up there as the Colassie +passed on the deck below."" +""But, Smith, what is the motive of the Call?"" I continued. +""Partly religious,"" he explained, ""and partly to wake the victims! You +are perhaps going to ask me how Dr. Fu-Manchu has obtained power over +such people as phansigars? I can only reply that Dr. Fu-Manchu has +secret knowledge of which, so far, we know absolutely nothing; but, +despite all, at last I begin to score."" +""You do,"" I agreed; ""but your victory took you near to death."" +""I owe my life to you, Petrie,"" he said. ""Once to your strength of +arm, and once to--"" +""Don't speak of her, Smith,"" I interrupted. ""Dr. Fu-Manchu may have +discovered the part she played! In which event--"" +""God help her!"" +CHAPTER XVI +UPON the following day we were afoot again, and shortly at handgrips +with the enemy. In retrospect, that restless time offers a chaotic +prospect, with no peaceful spot amid its turmoils. +All that was reposeful in nature seemed to have become an irony and a +mockery to us--who knew how an evil demigod had his sacrificial altars +amid our sweetest groves. This idea ruled strongly in my mind upon +that soft autumnal day. +""The net is closing in,"" said Nayland Smith. +""Let us hope upon a big catch,"" I replied, with a laugh. +Beyond where the Thames tided slumberously seaward showed the roofs of +Royal Windsor, the castle towers showing through the autumn haze. The +peace of beautiful Thames-side was about us. +This was one of the few tangible clews upon which thus far we had +chanced; but at last it seemed indeed that we were narrowing the +resources of that enemy of the white race who was writing his name over +England in characters of blood. To capture Dr. Fu-Manchu we did not +hope; but at least there was every promise of destroying one of the +enemy's strongholds. +We had circled upon the map a tract of country cut by the Thames, with +Windsor for its center. Within that circle was the house from which +miraculously we had escaped--a house used by the most highly organized +group in the history of criminology. So much we knew. Even if we +found the house, and this was likely enough, to find it vacated by +Fu-Manchu and his mysterious servants we were prepared. But it would +be a base destroyed. +We were working upon a methodical plan, and although our cooperators +were invisible, these numbered no fewer than twelve--all of them +experienced men. Thus far we had drawn blank, but the place for which +Smith and I were making now came clearly into view: an old mansion +situated in extensive walled grounds. Leaving the river behind us, we +turned sharply to the right along a lane flanked by a high wall. On an +open patch of ground, as we passed, I noted a gypsy caravan. An old +woman was seated on the steps, her wrinkled face bent, her chin resting +in the palm of her hand. +I scarcely glanced at her, but pressed on, nor did I notice that my +friend no longer was beside me. I was all anxiety to come to some +point from whence I might obtain a view of the house; all anxiety to +know if this was the abode of our mysterious enemy--the place where he +worked amid his weird company, where he bred his deadly scorpions and +his bacilli, reared his poisonous fungi, from whence he dispatched his +murder ministers. Above all, perhaps, I wondered if this would prove +to be the hiding-place of the beautiful slave girl who was such a +potent factor in the Doctor's plans, but a two-edged sword which yet we +hoped to turn upon Fu-Manchu. Even in the hands of a master, a woman's +beauty is a dangerous weapon. +A cry rang out behind me. I turned quickly. And a singular sight met +my gaze. +Nayland Smith was engaged in a furious struggle with the old gypsy +woman! His long arms clasped about her, he was roughly dragging her +out into the roadway, she fighting like a wild thing--silently, +fiercely. +Smith often surprised me, but at that sight, frankly, I thought that he +was become bereft of reason. I ran back; and I had almost reached the +scene of this incredible contest, and Smith now was evidently hard put +to it to hold his own when a man, swarthy, with big rings in his ears, +leaped from the caravan. +One quick glance he threw in our direction, and made off towards the +river. +Smith twisted round upon me, never releasing his hold of the woman. +""After him, Petrie!"" he cried. ""After him. Don't let him escape. +It's a dacoit!"" +My brain in a confused whirl; my mind yet disposed to a belief that my +friend had lost his senses, the word ""dacoit"" was sufficient. +I started down the road after the fleetly running man. Never once did +he glance behind him, so that he evidently had occasion to fear +pursuit. The dusty road rang beneath my flying footsteps. That sense +of fantasy, which claimed me often enough in those days of our struggle +with the titanic genius whose victory meant the victory of the yellow +races over the white, now had me fast in its grip again. I was an +actor in one of those dream-scenes of the grim Fu-Manchu drama. +Out over the grass and down to the river's brink ran the gypsy who was +no gypsy, but one of that far more sinister brotherhood, the dacoits. +I was close upon his heels. But I was not prepared for him to leap in +among the rushes at the margin of the stream; and seeing him do this I +pulled up quickly. Straight into the water he plunged; and I saw that +he held some object in his hand. He waded out; he dived; and as I +gained the bank and looked to right and left he had vanished +completely. Only ever-widening rings showed where he had been. I had +him. +For directly he rose to the surface he would be visible from either +bank, and with the police whistle which I carried I could, if +necessary, summon one of the men in hiding across the stream. I +waited. A wild-fowl floated serenely past, untroubled by this strange +invasion of his precincts. A full minute I waited. From the lane +behind me came Smith's voice: +""Don't let him escape, Petrie!"" +Never lifting my eyes from the water, I waved my hand reassuringly. +But still the dacoit did not rise. I searched the surface in all +directions as far as my eyes could reach; but no swimmer showed above +it. Then it was that I concluded he had dived too deeply, become +entangled in the weeds and was drowned. With a final glance to right +and left and some feeling of awe at this sudden tragedy--this grim +going out of a life at glorious noonday--I turned away. Smith had the +woman securely; but I had not taken five steps towards him when a faint +splash behind warned me. Instinctively I ducked. From whence that +saving instinct arose I cannot surmise, but to it I owed my life. For +as I rapidly lowered my head, something hummed past me, something that +flew out over the grass bank, and fell with a jangle upon the dusty +roadside. A knife! +I turned and bounded back to the river's brink. I heard a faint cry +behind me, which could only have come from the gypsy woman. Nothing +disturbed the calm surface of the water. The reach was lonely of +rowers. Out by the farther bank a girl was poling a punt along, and +her white-clad figure was the only living thing that moved upon the +river within the range of the most expert knife-thrower. +To say that I was nonplused is to say less than the truth; I was +amazed. That it was the dacoit who had shown me this murderous +attention I could not doubt. But where in Heaven's name WAS he? He +could not humanly have remained below water for so long; yet he +certainly was not above, was not upon the surface, concealed amongst +the reeds, nor hidden upon the bank. +There, in the bright sunshine, a consciousness of the eerie possessed +me. It was with an uncomfortable feeling that my phantom foe might be +aiming a second knife at my back that I turned away and hastened +towards Smith. My fearful expectations were not realized, and I picked +up the little weapon which had so narrowly missed me, and with it in my +hand rejoined my friend. +He was standing with one arm closely clasped about the apparently +exhausted woman, and her dark eyes were fixed upon him with an +extraordinary expression. +""What does it mean, Smith?"" I began. +But he interrupted me. +""Where is the dacoit?"" he demanded rapidly. +""Since he seemingly possesses the attributes of a fish,"" I replied, ""I +cannot pretend to say."" +The gypsy woman lifted her eyes to mine and laughed. Her laughter was +musical, not that of such an old hag as Smith held captive; it was +familiar, too. +I started and looked closely into the wizened face. +""He's tricked you,"" said Smith, an angry note in his voice. ""What is +that you have in your hand?"" +I showed him the knife, and told him how it had come into my possession. +""I know,"" he rapped. ""I saw it. He was in the water not three yards +from where you stood. You must have seen him. Was there nothing +visible?"" +""Nothing."" +The woman laughed again, and again I wondered. +""A wild-fowl,"" I added; ""nothing else."" +""A wild-fowl,"" snapped Smith. ""If you will consult your recollections +of the habits of wild-fowl you will see that this particular specimen +was a RARA AVIS. It's an old trick, Petrie, but a good one, for it is +used in decoying. A dacoit's head was concealed in that wild-fowl! +It's useless. He has certainly made good his escape by now."" +""Smith,"" I said, somewhat crestfallen, ""why are you detaining this +gypsy woman?"" +""Gypsy woman!"" he laughed, hugging her tightly as she made an impatient +movement. ""Use your eyes, old man."" +He jerked the frowsy wig from her head, and beneath was a cloud of +disordered hair that shimmered in the sunlight. +""A wet sponge will do the rest,"" he said. +Into my eyes, widely opened in wonder, looked the dark eyes of the +captive; and beneath the disguise I picked out the charming features of +the slave girl. There were tears on the whitened lashes, and she was +submissive now. +""This time,"" said my friend hardly, ""we have fairly captured her--and +we will hold her."" +From somewhere up-stream came a faint call. +""The dacoit!"" +Nayland Smith's lean body straightened; he stood alert, strung up. +Another call answered, and a third responded. Then followed the flatly +shrill note of a police whistle, and I noted a column of black vapor +rising beyond the wall, mounting straight to heaven as the smoke of a +welcome offering. +The surrounded mansion was in flames! +""Curse it!"" rapped Smith. ""So this time we were right. But, of +course, he has had ample opportunity to remove his effects. I knew +that. The man's daring is incredible. He has given himself till the +very last moment--and we blundered upon two of the outposts."" +""I lost one."" +""No matter. We have the other. I expect no further arrests, and the +house will have been so well fired by the Doctor's servants that +nothing can save it. I fear its ashes will afford us no clew, Petrie; +but we have secured a lever which should serve to disturb Fu-Manchu's +world."" +He glanced at the queer figure which hung submissively in his arms. +She looked up proudly. +""You need not hold me so tight,"" she said, in her soft voice. ""I will +come with you."" +That I moved amid singular happenings, you, who have borne with me thus +far, have learned, and that I witnessed many curious scenes; but of the +many such scenes in that race-drama wherein Nayland Smith and Dr. +Fu-Manchu played the leading parts, I remember none more bizarre than +the one at my rooms that afternoon. +Without delay, and without taking the Scotland Yard men into our +confidence, we had hurried our prisoner back to London, for my friend's +authority was supreme. A strange trio we were, and one which excited +no little comment; but the journey came to an end at last. Now we were +in my unpretentious sitting-room--the room wherein Smith first had +unfolded to me the story of Dr. Fu-Manchu and of the great secret +society which sought to upset the balance of the world--to place Europe +and America beneath the scepter of Cathay. +I sat with my elbows upon the writing-table, my chin in my hands; Smith +restlessly paced the floor, relighting his blackened briar a dozen +times in as many minutes. In the big arm-chair the pseudogypsy was +curled up. A brief toilet had converted the wizened old woman's face +into that of a fascinatingly pretty girl. Wildly picturesque she +looked in her ragged Romany garb. She held a cigarette in her fingers +and watched us through lowered lashes. +Seemingly, with true Oriental fatalism, she was quite reconciled to her +fate, and ever and anon she would bestow upon me a glance from her +beautiful eyes which few men, I say with confidence, could have +sustained unmoved. Though I could not be blind to the emotions of that +passionate Eastern soul, yet I strove not to think of them. Accomplice +of an arch-murderer she might be; but she was dangerously lovely. +""That man who was with you,"" said Smith, suddenly turning upon her, +""was in Burma up till quite recently. He murdered a fisherman thirty +miles above Prome only a month before I left. The D.S.P. had placed a +thousand rupees on his head. Am I right?"" +The girl shrugged her shoulders. +""Suppose--What then?"" she asked. +""Suppose I handed you over to the police?"" suggested Smith. But he +spoke without conviction, for in the recent past we both had owed our +lives to this girl. +""As you please,"" she replied. ""The police would learn nothing."" +""You do not belong to the Far East,"" my friend said abruptly. ""You may +have Eastern blood in your veins, but you are no kin of Fu-Manchu."" +""That is true,"" she admitted, and knocked the ash from her cigarette. +""Will you tell me where to find Fu-Manchu?"" +She shrugged her shoulders again, glancing eloquently in my direction. +Smith walked to the door. +""I must make out my report, Petrie,"" he said. ""Look after the +prisoner."" +And as the door closed softly behind him I knew what was expected of +me; but, honestly, I shirked my responsibility. What attitude should I +adopt? How should I go about my delicate task? In a quandary, I stood +watching the girl whom singular circumstances saw captive in my rooms. +""You do not think we would harm you?"" I began awkwardly. ""No harm +shall come to you. Why will you not trust us?"" +She raised her brilliant eyes. +""Of what avail has your protection been to some of those others,"" she +said; ""those others whom HE has sought for?"" +Alas! it had been of none, and I knew it well. I thought I grasped +the drift of her words. +""You mean that if you speak, Fu-Manchu will find a way of killing you?"" +""Of killing ME!"" she flashed scornfully. ""Do I seem one to fear for +myself?"" +""Then what do you fear?"" I asked, in surprise. +She looked at me oddly. +""When I was seized and sold for a slave,"" she answered slowly, ""my +sister was taken, too, and my brother--a child."" She spoke the word +with a tender intonation, and her slight accent rendered it the more +soft. ""My sister died in the desert. My brother lived. Better, far +better, that he had died, too."" +Her words impressed me intensely. +""Of what are you speaking?"" I questioned. ""You speak of slave-raids, +of the desert. Where did these things take place? Of what country are +you?"" +""Does it matter?"" she questioned in turn. ""Of what country am I? A +slave has no country, no name."" +""No name!"" I cried. +""You may call me Karamaneh,"" she said. ""As Karamaneh I was sold to Dr. +Fu-Manchu, and my brother also he purchased. We were cheap at the +price he paid."" She laughed shortly, wildly. +""But he has spent a lot of money to educate me. My brother is all that +is left to me in the world to love, and he is in the power of Dr. +Fu-Manchu. You understand? It is upon him the blow will fall. You ask +me to fight against Fu-Manchu. You talk of protection. Did your +protection save Sir Crichton Davey?"" +I shook my head sadly. +""You understand now why I cannot disobey my master's orders--why, if I +would, I dare not betray him."" +I walked to the window and looked out. How could I answer her +arguments? What could I say? I heard the rustle of her ragged skirts, +and she who called herself Karamaneh stood beside me. She laid her +hand upon my arm. +""Let me go,"" she pleaded. ""He will kill him! He will kill him!"" +Her voice shook with emotion. +""He cannot revenge himself upon your brother when you are in no way to +blame,"" I said angrily. ""We arrested you; you are not here of your own +free will."" +She drew her breath sharply, clutching at my arm, and in her eyes I +could read that she was forcing her mind to some arduous decision. +""Listen."" She was speaking rapidly, nervously. ""If I help you to take +Dr. Fu-Manchu--tell you where he is to be found ALONE--will you promise +me, solemnly promise me, that you will immediately go to the place +where I shall guide you and release my brother; that you will let us +both go free?"" +""I will,"" I said, without hesitation. ""You may rest assured of it."" +""But there is a condition,"" she added. +""What is it?"" +""When I have told you where to capture him you must release me."" +I hesitated. Smith often had accused me of weakness where this girl +was concerned. What now was my plain duty? That she would utterly +decline to speak under any circumstances unless it suited her to do so +I felt assured. If she spoke the truth, in her proposed bargain there +was no personal element; her conduct I now viewed in a new light. +Humanity, I thought, dictated that I accept her proposal; policy also. +""I agree,"" I said, and looked into her eyes, which were aflame now with +emotion, an excitement perhaps of anticipation, perhaps of fear. +She laid her hands upon my shoulders. +""You will be careful?"" she said pleadingly. +""For your sake,"" I replied, ""I shall."" +""Not for my sake."" +""Then for your brother's."" +""No."" Her voice had sunk to a whisper. ""For your own."" +CHAPTER XVII +A COOL breeze met us, blowing from the lower reaches of the Thames. +Far behind us twinkled the dim lights of Low's Cottages, the last +regular habitations abutting upon the marshes. Between us and the +cottages stretched half-a-mile of lush land through which at this +season there were, however, numerous dry paths. Before us the flats +again, a dull, monotonous expanse beneath the moon, with the promise of +the cool breeze that the river flowed round the bend ahead. It was +very quiet. Only the sound of our footsteps, as Nayland Smith and I +tramped steadily towards our goal, broke the stillness of that lonely +place. +Not once but many times, within the last twenty minutes, I had thought +that we were ill-advised to adventure alone upon the capture of the +formidable Chinese doctor; but we were following out our compact with +Karamaneh; and one of her stipulations had been that the police must +not be acquainted with her share in the matter. +A light came into view far ahead of us. +""That's the light, Petrie,"" said Smith. ""If we keep that straight +before us, according to our information we shall strike the hulk."" +I grasped the revolver in my pocket, and the presence of the little +weapon was curiously reassuring. I have endeavored, perhaps in +extenuation of my own fears, to explain how about Dr. Fu-Manchu there +rested an atmosphere of horror, peculiar, unique. He was not as other +men. The dread that he inspired in all with whom he came in contact, +the terrors which he controlled and hurled at whomsoever cumbered his +path, rendered him an object supremely sinister. I despair of +conveying to those who may read this account any but the coldest +conception of the man's evil power. +Smith stopped suddenly and grasped my arm. We stood listening. +""What?"" I asked. +""You heard nothing?"" +I shook my head. +Smith was peering back over the marshes in his oddly alert way. He +turned to me, and his tanned face wore a peculiar expression. +""You don't think it's a trap?"" he jerked. ""We are trusting her +blindly."" +Strange it may seem, but something within me rose in arms against the +innuendo. +""I don't,"" I said shortly. +He nodded. We pressed on. +Ten minutes' steady tramping brought us within sight of the Thames. +Smith and I both had noticed how Fu-Manchu's activities centered always +about the London river. Undoubtedly it was his highway, his line of +communication, along which he moved his mysterious forces. The opium +den off Shadwell Highway, the mansion upstream, at that hour a +smoldering shell; now the hulk lying off the marshes. Always he made +his headquarters upon the river. It was significant; and even if +to-night's expedition should fail, this was a clew for our future +guidance. +""Bear to the right,"" directed Smith. ""We must reconnoiter before +making our attack."" +We took a path that led directly to the river bank. Before us lay the +gray expanse of water, and out upon it moved the busy shipping of the +great mercantile city. But this life of the river seemed widely +removed from us. The lonely spot where we stood had no kinship with +human activity. Its dreariness illuminated by the brilliant moon, it +looked indeed a fit setting for an act in such a drama as that wherein +we played our parts. When I had lain in the East End opium den, when +upon such another night as this I had looked out upon a peaceful +Norfolk countryside, the same knowledge of aloofness, of utter +detachment from the world of living men, had come to me. +Silently Smith stared out at the distant moving lights. +""Karamaneh merely means a slave,"" he said irrelevantly. +I made no comment. +""There's the hulk,"" he added. +The bank upon which we stood dipped in mud slopes to the level of the +running tide. Seaward it rose higher, and by a narrow inlet--for we +perceived that we were upon a kind of promontory--a rough pier showed. +Beneath it was a shadowy shape in the patch of gloom which the moon +threw far out upon the softly eddying water. Only one dim light was +visible amid this darkness. +""That will be the cabin,"" said Smith. +Acting upon our prearranged plan, we turned and walked up on to the +staging above the hulk. A wooden ladder led out and down to the deck +below, and was loosely lashed to a ring on the pier. With every motion +of the tidal waters the ladder rose and fell, its rings creaking +harshly, against the crazy railing. +""How are we going to get down without being detected?"" whispered Smith. +""We've got to risk it,"" I said grimly. +Without further words my friend climbed around on to the ladder and +commenced to descend. I waited until his head disappeared below the +level, and, clumsily enough, prepared to follow him. +The hulk at that moment giving an unusually heavy heave, I stumbled, +and for one breathless moment looked down upon the glittering surface +streaking the darkness beneath me. My foot had slipped, and but that I +had a firm grip upon the top rung, that instant, most probably, had +marked the end of my share in the fight with Fu-Manchu. As it was I had +a narrow escape. I felt something slip from my hip pocket, but the +weird creaking of the ladder, the groans of the laboring hulk, and the +lapping of the waves about the staging drowned the sound of the splash +as my revolver dropped into the river. +Rather white-faced, I think, I joined Smith on the deck. He had +witnessed my accident, but-- +""We must risk it,"" he whispered in my ear. ""We dare not turn back now."" +He plunged into the semi-darkness, making for the cabin, I perforce +following. +At the bottom of the ladder we came fully into the light streaming out +from the singular apartments at the entrance to which we found +ourselves. It was fitted up as a laboratory. A glimpse I had of +shelves loaded with jars and bottles, of a table strewn with scientific +paraphernalia, with retorts, with tubes of extraordinary shapes, +holding living organisms, and with instruments--some of them of a form +unknown to my experience. I saw too that books, papers and rolls of +parchment littered the bare wooden floor. Then Smith's voice rose +above the confused sounds about me, incisive, commanding: +""I have you covered, Dr. Fu-Manchu!"" +For Fu-Manchu sat at the table. +The picture that he presented at that moment is one which persistently +clings in my memory. In his long, yellow robe, his masklike, +intellectual face bent forward amongst the riot of singular objects +upon the table, his great, high brow gleaming in the light of the +shaded lamp above him, and with the abnormal eyes, filmed and green, +raised to us, he seemed a figure from the realms of delirium. But, +most amazing circumstance of all, he and his surroundings tallied, +almost identically, with the dream-picture which had come to me as I +lay chained in the cell! +Some of the large jars about the place held anatomy specimens. A faint +smell of opium hung in the air, and playing with the tassel of one of +the cushions upon which, as upon a divan, Fu-Manchu was seated, leaped +and chattered a little marmoset. +That was an electric moment. I was prepared for anything--for anything +except for what really happened. +The doctor's wonderful, evil face betrayed no hint of emotion. The +lids flickered over the filmed eyes, and their greenness grew +momentarily brighter, and filmed over again. +""Put up your hands!"" rapped Smith, ""and attempt no tricks."" His voice +quivered with excitement. ""The game's up, Fu-Manchu. Find something to +tie him up with, Petrie."" +I moved forward to Smith's side, and was about to pass him in the +narrow doorway. The hulk moved beneath our feet like a living thing +groaning, creaking--and the water lapped about the rotten woodwork with +a sound infinitely dreary. +""Put up your hands!"" ordered Smith imperatively. +Fu-Manchu slowly raised his hands, and a smile dawned upon the +impassive features--a smile that had no mirth in it, only menace, +revealing as it did his even, discolored teeth, but leaving the filmed +eyes inanimate, dull, inhuman. +He spoke softly, sibilantly. +""I would advise Dr. Petrie to glance behind him before he moves."" +Smith's keen gray eyes never for a moment quitted the speaker. The +gleaming barrel moved not a hair's-breadth. But I glanced quickly over +my shoulder--and stifled a cry of pure horror. +A wicked, pock-marked face, with wolfish fangs bared, and jaundiced +eyes squinting obliquely into mine, was within two inches of me. A +lean, brown hand and arm, the great thews standing up like cords, held +a crescent-shaped knife a fraction of an inch above my jugular vein. A +slight movement must have dispatched me; a sweep of the fearful weapon, +I doubt not, would have severed my head from my body. +""Smith!"" I whispered hoarsely, ""don't look around. For God's sake keep +him covered. But a dacoit has his knife at my throat!"" +Then, for the first time, Smith's hand trembled. But his glance never +wavered from the malignant, emotionless countenance of Dr. Fu-Manchu. +He clenched his teeth hard, so that the muscles stood out prominently +upon his jaw. +I suppose that silence which followed my awful discovery prevailed but +a few seconds. To me those seconds were each a lingering death. +There, below, in that groaning hulk, I knew more of icy terror than any +of our meetings with the murder-group had brought to me before; and +through my brain throbbed a thought: the girl had betrayed us! +""You supposed that I was alone?"" suggested Fu-Manchu. ""So I was."" +Yet no trace of fear had broken through the impassive yellow mask when +we had entered. +""But my faithful servant followed you,"" he added. ""I thank him. The +honors, Mr. Smith, are mine, I think?"" +Smith made no reply. I divined that he was thinking furiously. +Fu-Manchu moved his hand to caress the marmoset, which had leaped +playfully upon his shoulder, and crouched there gibing at us in a +whistling voice. +""Don't stir!"" said Smith savagely. ""I warn you!"" +Fu-Manchu kept his hand raised. +""May I ask you how you discovered my retreat?"" he asked. +""This hulk has been watched since dawn,"" lied Smith brazenly. +""So?"" The Doctor's filmed eyes cleared for a moment. ""And to-day you +compelled me to burn a house, and you have captured one of my people, +too. I congratulate you. She would not betray me though lashed with +scorpions."" +The great gleaming knife was so near to my neck that a sheet of +notepaper could scarcely have been slipped between blade and vein, I +think; but my heart throbbed even more wildly when I heard those words. +""An impasse,"" said Fu-Manchu. ""I have a proposal to make. I assume +that you would not accept my word for anything?"" +""I would not,"" replied Smith promptly. +""Therefore,"" pursued the Chinaman, and the occasional guttural alone +marred his perfect English, ""I must accept yours. Of your resources +outside this cabin I know nothing. You, I take it, know as little of +mine. My Burmese friend and Doctor Petrie will lead the way, then; you +and I will follow. We will strike out across the marsh for, say, three +hundred yards. You will then place your pistol on the ground, pledging +me your word to leave it there. I shall further require your assurance +that you will make no attempt upon me until I have retraced my steps. +I and my good servant will withdraw, leaving you, at the expiration of +the specified period, to act as you see fit. Is it agreed?"" +Smith hesitated. Then: +""The dacoit must leave his knife also,"" he stipulated. Fu-Manchu +smiled his evil smile again. +""Agreed. Shall I lead the way?"" +""No!"" rapped Smith. ""Petrie and the dacoit first; then you; I last."" +A guttural word of command from Fu-Manchu, and we left the cabin, with +its evil odors, its mortuary specimens, and its strange instruments, +and in the order arranged mounted to the deck. +""It will be awkward on the ladder,"" said Fu-Manchu. ""Dr. Petrie, I will +accept your word to adhere to the terms."" +""I promise,"" I said, the words almost choking me. +We mounted the rising and dipping ladder, all reached the pier, and +strode out across the flats, the Chinaman always under close cover of +Smith's revolver. Round about our feet, now leaping ahead, now +gamboling back, came and went the marmoset. The dacoit, dressed solely +in a dark loin-cloth, walked beside me, carrying his huge knife, and +sometimes glancing at me with his blood-lustful eyes. Never before, I +venture to say, had an autumn moon lighted such a scene in that place. +""Here we part,"" said Fu-Manchu, and spoke another word to his follower. +The man threw his knife upon the ground. +""Search him, Petrie,"" directed Smith. ""He may have a second concealed."" +The Doctor consented; and I passed my hands over the man's scanty +garments. +""Now search Fu-Manchu."" +This also I did. And never have I experienced a similar sense of +revulsion from any human being. I shuddered, as though I had touched a +venomous reptile. +Smith threw down his revolver. +""I curse myself for an honorable fool,"" he said. ""No one could dispute +my right to shoot you dead where you stand."" +Knowing him as I did, I could tell from the suppressed passion in +Smith's voice that only by his unhesitating acceptance of my friend's +word, and implicit faith in his keeping it, had Dr. Fu-Manchu escaped +just retribution at that moment. Fiend though he was, I admired his +courage; for all this he, too, must have known. +The Doctor turned, and with the dacoit walked back. Nayland Smith's +next move filled me with surprise. For just as, silently, I was +thanking God for my escape, my friend began shedding his coat, collar, +and waistcoat. +""Pocket your valuables, and do the same,"" he muttered hoarsely. ""We +have a poor chance but we are both fairly fit. To-night, Petrie, we +literally have to run for our lives."" +We live in a peaceful age, wherein it falls to the lot of few men to +owe their survival to their fleetness of foot. At Smith's words I +realized in a flash that such was to be our fate to-night. +I have said that the hulk lay off a sort of promontory. East and west, +then, we had nothing to hope for. To the south was Fu-Manchu; and even +as, stripped of our heavier garments, we started to run northward, the +weird signal of a dacoit rose on the night and was answered--was +answered again. +""Three, at least,"" hissed Smith; ""three armed dacoits. Hopeless."" +""Take the revolver,"" I cried. ""Smith, it's--"" +""No,"" he rapped, through clenched teeth. ""A servant of the Crown in +the East makes his motto: 'Keep your word, though it break your neck!' +I don't think we need fear it being used against us. Fu-Manchu avoids +noisy methods."" +So back we ran, over the course by which, earlier, we had come. It +was, roughly, a mile to the first building--a deserted cottage--and +another quarter of a mile to any that was occupied. +Our chance of meeting a living soul, other than Fu-Manchu's dacoits, +was practically nil. +At first we ran easily, for it was the second half-mile that would +decide our fate. The professional murderers who pursued us ran like +panthers, I knew; and I dare not allow my mind to dwell upon those +yellow figures with the curved, gleaming knives. For a long time +neither of us looked back. +On we ran, and on--silently, doggedly. +Then a hissing breath from Smith warned me what to expect. +Should I, too, look back? Yes. It was impossible to resist the horrid +fascination. +I threw a quick glance over my shoulder. +And never while I live shall I forget what I saw. Two of the pursuing +dacoits had outdistanced their fellow (or fellows), and were actually +within three hundred yards of us. +More like dreadful animals they looked than human beings, running bent +forward, with their faces curiously uptilted. The brilliant moonlight +gleamed upon bared teeth, as I could see, even at that distance, even +in that quick, agonized glance, and it gleamed upon the crescent-shaped +knives. +""As hard as you can go now,"" panted Smith. ""We must make an attempt to +break into the empty cottage. Only chance."" +I had never in my younger days been a notable runner; for Smith I +cannot speak. But I am confident that the next half-mile was done in +time that would not have disgraced a crack man. Not once again did +either of us look back. Yard upon yard we raced forward together. My +heart seemed to be bursting. My leg muscles throbbed with pain. At +last, with the empty cottage in sight, it came to that pass with me +when another three yards looks as unattainable as three miles. Once I +stumbled. +""My God!"" came from Smith weakly. +But I recovered myself. Bare feet pattered close upon our heels, and +panting breaths told how even Fu-Manchu's bloodhounds were hard put to +it by the killing pace we had made. +""Smith,"" I whispered, ""look in front. Someone!"" +As through a red mist I had seen a dark shape detach itself from the +shadows of the cottage, and merge into them again. It could only be +another dacoit; but Smith, not heeding, or not hearing, my faintly +whispered words, crashed open the gate and hurled himself blindly at +the door. +It burst open before him with a resounding boom, and he pitched forward +into the interior darkness. Flat upon the floor he lay, for as, with a +last effort, I gained the threshold and dragged myself within, I almost +fell over his recumbent body. +Madly I snatched at the door. His foot held it open. I kicked the +foot away, and banged the door to. As I turned, the leading dacoit, +his eyes starting from their sockets, his face the face of a demon +leaped wildly through the gateway. +That Smith had burst the latch I felt assured, but by some divine +accident my weak hands found the bolt. With the last ounce of strength +spared to me I thrust it home in the rusty socket--as a full six inches +of shining steel split the middle panel and protruded above my head. +I dropped, sprawling, beside my friend. +A terrific blow shattered every pane of glass in the solitary window, +and one of the grinning animal faces looked in. +""Sorry, old man,"" whispered Smith, and his voice was barely audible. +Weakly he grasped my hand. ""My fault. I shouldn't have let you come."" +From the corner of the room where the black shadows lay flicked a long +tongue of flame. Muffled, staccato, came the report. And the yellow +face at the window was blotted out. +One wild cry, ending in a rattling gasp, told of a dacoit gone to his +account. +A gray figure glided past me and was silhouetted against the broken +window. +Again the pistol sent its message into the night, and again came the +reply to tell how well and truly that message had been delivered. In +the stillness, intense by sharp contrast, the sound of bare soles +pattering upon the path outside stole to me. Two runners, I thought +there were, so that four dacoits must have been upon our trail. The +room was full of pungent smoke. I staggered to my feet as the gray +figure with the revolver turned towards me. Something familiar there +was in that long, gray garment, and now I perceived why I had thought +so. +It was my gray rain-coat. +""Karamaneh,"" I whispered. +And Smith, with difficulty, supporting himself upright, and holding +fast to the ledge beside the door, muttered something hoarsely, which +sounded like ""God bless her!"" +The girl, trembling now, placed her hands upon my shoulders with that +quaint, pathetic gesture peculiarly her own. +""I followed you,"" she said. ""Did you not know I should follow you? +But I had to hide because of another who was following also. I had but +just reached this place when I saw you running towards me."" +She broke off and turned to Smith. +""This is your pistol,"" she said naively. ""I found it in your bag. +Will you please take it!"" +He took it without a word. Perhaps he could not trust himself to speak. +""Now go. Hurry!"" she said. ""You are not safe yet."" +""But you?"" I asked. +""You have failed,"" she replied. ""I must go back to him. There is no +other way."" +Strangely sick at heart for a man who has just had a miraculous escape +from death, I opened the door. Coatless, disheveled figures, my friend +and I stepped out into the moonlight. +Hideous under the pale rays lay the two dead men, their glazed eyes +upcast to the peace of the blue heavens. Karamaneh had shot to kill, +for both had bullets in their brains. If God ever planned a more +complex nature than hers--a nature more tumultuous with conflicting +passions, I cannot conceive of it. Yet her beauty was of the sweetest; +and in some respects she had the heart of a child--this girl who could +shoot so straight. +""We must send the police to-night,"" said Smith. ""Or the papers--"" +""Hurry,"" came the girl's voice commandingly from the darkness of the +cottage. +It was a singular situation. My very soul rebelled against it. But +what could we do? +""Tell us where we can communicate,"" began Smith. +""Hurry. I shall be suspected. Do you want him to kill me!"" +We moved away. All was very still now, and the lights glimmered +faintly ahead. Not a wisp of cloud brushed the moon's disk. +""Good-night, Karamaneh,"" I whispered softly. +CHAPTER XVIII +TO pursue further the adventure on the marshes would be a task at once +useless and thankless. In its actual and in its dramatic significance +it concluded with our parting from Karamaneh. And in that parting I +learned what Shakespeare meant by ""Sweet Sorrow."" +There was a world, I learned, upon the confines of which I stood, a +world whose very existence hitherto had been unsuspected. Not the +least of the mysteries which peeped from the darkness was the mystery +of the heart of Karamaneh. I sought to forget her. I sought to +remember her. Indeed, in the latter task I found one more congenial, +yet, in the direction and extent of the ideas which it engendered, one +that led me to a precipice. +East and West may not intermingle. As a student of world-policies, as +a physician, I admitted, could not deny, that truth. Again, if +Karamaneh were to be credited, she had come to Fu-Manchu a slave; had +fallen into the hands of the raiders; had crossed the desert with the +slave-drivers; had known the house of the slave-dealer. Could it be? +With the fading of the crescent of Islam I had thought such things to +have passed. +But if it were so? +At the mere thought of a girl so deliciously beautiful in the brutal +power of slavers, I found myself grinding my teeth--closing my eyes in +a futile attempt to blot out the pictures called up. +Then, at such times, I would find myself discrediting her story. +Again, I would find myself wondering, vaguely, why such problems +persistently haunted my mind. But, always, my heart had an answer. +And I was a medical man, who sought to build up a family +practice!--who, in short, a very little time ago, had thought himself +past the hot follies of youth and entered upon that staid phase of life +wherein the daily problems of the medical profession hold absolute sway +and such seductive follies as dark eyes and red lips find--no +place--are excluded! +But it is foreign from the purpose of this plain record to enlist +sympathy for the recorder. The topic upon which, here, I have ventured +to touch was one fascinating enough to me; I cannot hope that it holds +equal charm for any other. Let us return to that which it is my duty +to narrate and let us forget my brief digression. +It is a fact, singular, but true, that few Londoners know London. +Under the guidance of my friend, Nayland Smith, I had learned, since +his return from Burma, how there are haunts in the very heart of the +metropolis whose existence is unsuspected by all but the few; places +unknown even to the ubiquitous copy-hunting pressman. +Into a quiet thoroughfare not two minutes' walk from the pulsing life +of Leicester Square, Smith led the way. Before a door sandwiched in +between two dingy shop-fronts he paused and turned to me. +""Whatever you see or hear,"" he cautioned, ""express no surprise."" +A cab had dropped us at the corner. We both wore dark suits and fez +caps with black silk tassels. My complexion had been artificially +reduced to a shade resembling the deep tan of my friend's. He rang the +bell beside the door. +Almost immediately it was opened by a negro woman--gross, hideously +ugly. +Smith uttered something in voluble Arabic. As a linguist his +attainments were a constant source of surprise. The jargons of the +East, Far and Near, he spoke as his mother tongue. The woman +immediately displayed the utmost servility, ushering us into an +ill-lighted passage, with every evidence of profound respect. +Following this passage, and passing an inner door, from beyond whence +proceeded bursts of discordant music, we entered a little room bare of +furniture, with coarse matting for mural decorations, and a patternless +red carpet on the floor. In a niche burned a common metal lamp. +The negress left us, and close upon her departure entered a very aged +man with a long patriarchal beard, who greeted my friend with dignified +courtesy. Following a brief conversation, the aged Arab--for such he +appeared to be--drew aside a strip of matting, revealing a dark recess. +Placing his finger upon his lips, he silently invited us to enter. +We did so, and the mat was dropped behind us. The sounds of crude +music were now much plainer, and as Smith slipped a little shutter +aside I gave a start of surprise. +Beyond lay a fairly large apartment, having divans or low seats around +three of its walls. These divans were occupied by a motley company of +Turks, Egyptians, Greeks, and others; and I noted two Chinese. Most of +them smoked cigarettes, and some were drinking. A girl was performing +a sinuous dance upon the square carpet occupying the center of the +floor, accompanied by a young negro woman upon a guitar and by several +members of the assembly who clapped their hands to the music or hummed +a low, monotonous melody. +Shortly after our entrance into the passage the dance terminated, and +the dancer fled through a curtained door at the farther end of the +room. A buzz of conversation arose. +""It is a sort of combined Wekaleh and place of entertainment for a +certain class of Oriental residents in, or visiting, London,"" Smith +whispered. ""The old gentleman who has just left us is the proprietor +or host. I have been here before on several occasions, but have always +drawn blank."" +He was peering out eagerly into the strange clubroom. +""Whom do you expect to find here?"" I asked. +""It is a recognized meeting-place,"" said Smith in my ear. ""It is +almost a certainty that some of the Fu-Manchu group use it at times."" +Curiously I surveyed all these faces which were visible from the +spy-hole. My eyes rested particularly upon the two Chinamen. +""Do you recognize anyone?"" I whispered. +""S-sh!"" +Smith was craning his neck so as to command a sight of the doorway. He +obstructed my view, and only by his tense attitude and some subtle wave +of excitement which he communicated to me did I know that a new arrival +was entering. The hum of conversation died away, and in the ensuing +silence I heard the rustle of draperies. The newcomer was a woman, +then. Fearful of making any noise I yet managed to get my eyes to the +level of the shutter. +A woman in an elegant, flame-colored opera cloak was crossing the floor +and coming in the direction of the spot where we were concealed. She +wore a soft silk scarf about her head, a fold partly draped across her +face. A momentary view I had of her--and wildly incongruous she looked +in that place--and she had disappeared from sight, having approached +someone invisible who sat upon the divan immediately beneath our point +of vantage. +From the way in which the company gazed towards her, I divined that she +was no habitue of the place, but that her presence there was as greatly +surprising to those in the room as it was to me. +Whom could she be, this elegant lady who visited such a haunt--who, it +would seem, was so anxious to disguise her identity, but who was +dressed for a society function rather than for a midnight expedition of +so unusual a character? +I began a whispered question, but Smith tugged at my arm to silence me. +His excitement was intense. Had his keener powers enabled him to +recognize the unknown? +A faint but most peculiar perfume stole to my nostrils, a perfume which +seemed to contain the very soul of Eastern mystery. Only one woman +known to me used that perfume--Karamaneh. +Then it was she! +At last my friend's vigilance had been rewarded. Eagerly I bent +forward. Smith literally quivered in anticipation of a discovery. +Again the strange perfume was wafted to our hiding-place; and, glancing +neither to right nor left, I saw Karamaneh--for that it was she I no +longer doubted--recross the room and disappear. +""The man she spoke to,"" hissed Smith. ""We must see him! We must have +him!"" +He pulled the mat aside and stepped out into the anteroom. It was +empty. Down the passage he led, and we were almost come to the door of +the big room when it was thrown open and a man came rapidly out, opened +the street door before Smith could reach him, and was gone, slamming it +fast. +I can swear that we were not four seconds behind him, but when we +gained the street it was empty. Our quarry had disappeared as if by +magic. A big car was just turning the corner towards Leicester Square. +""That is the girl,"" rapped Smith; ""but where in Heaven's name is the +man to whom she brought the message? I would give a hundred pounds to +know what business is afoot. To think that we have had such an +opportunity and have thrown it away!"" +Angry and nonplused he stood at the corner, looking in the direction of +the crowded thoroughfare into which the car had been driven, tugging at +the lobe of his ear, as was his habit in such moments of perplexity, +and sharply clicking his teeth together. I, too, was very thoughtful. +Clews were few enough in those days of our war with that giant +antagonist. The mere thought that our trifling error of judgment +tonight in tarrying a moment too long might mean the victory of +Fu-Manchu, might mean the turning of the balance which a wise +providence had adjusted between the white and yellow races, was +appalling. +To Smith and me, who knew something of the secret influences at work to +overthrow the Indian Empire, to place, it might be, the whole of Europe +and America beneath an Eastern rule, it seemed that a great yellow hand +was stretched out over London. Doctor Fu-Manchu was a menace to the +civilized world. Yet his very existence remained unsuspected by the +millions whose fate he sought to command. +""Into what dark scheme have we had a glimpse?"" said Smith. ""What State +secret is to be filched? What faithful servant of the British Raj to +be spirited away? Upon whom now has Fu-Manchu set his death seal?"" +""Karamaneh on this occasion may not have been acting as an emissary of +the Doctor's."" +""I feel assured that she was, Petrie. Of the many whom this yellow +cloud may at any moment envelop, to which one did her message refer? +The man's instructions were urgent. Witness his hasty departure. +Curse it!"" He dashed his right clenched fist into the palm of his left +hand. ""I never had a glimpse of his face, first to last. To think of +the hours I have spent in that place, in anticipation of just such a +meeting--only to bungle the opportunity when it arose!"" Scarce heeding +what course we followed, we had come now to Piccadilly Circus, and had +walked out into the heart of the night's traffic. I just dragged Smith +aside in time to save him from the off-front wheel of a big Mercedes. +Then the traffic was blocked, and we found ourselves dangerously penned +in amidst the press of vehicles. +Somehow we extricated ourselves, jeered at by taxi-drivers, who +naturally took us for two simple Oriental visitors, and just before +that impassable barrier the arm of a London policeman was lowered and +the stream moved on, a faint breath of perfume became perceptible to me. +The cabs and cars about us were actually beginning to move again, and +there was nothing for it but a hasty retreat to the curb. I could not +pause to glance behind, but instinctively I knew that someone--someone +who used that rare, fragrant essence--was leaning from the window of +the car. +""ANDAMAN--SECOND!"" floated a soft whisper. +We gained the pavement as the pent-up traffic roared upon its way. +Smith had not noticed the perfume worn by the unseen occupant of the +car, had not detected the whispered words. But I had no reason to +doubt my senses, and I knew beyond question that Fu-Manchu's lovely +slave, Karamaneh, had been within a yard of us, had recognized us, and +had uttered those words for our guidance. +On regaining my rooms, we devoted a whole hour to considering what +""ANDAMAN--SECOND"" could possibly mean. +""Hang it all!"" cried Smith, ""it might mean anything--the result of a +race, for instance."" +He burst into one of his rare laughs, and began to stuff broadcut +mixture into his briar. I could see that he had no intention of +turning in. +""I can think of no one--no one of note--in London at present upon whom +it is likely that Fu-Manchu would make an attempt,"" he said, ""except +ourselves."" +We began methodically to go through the long list of names which we had +compiled and to review our elaborate notes. When, at last, I turned +in, the night had given place to a new day. But sleep evaded me, and +""ANDAMAN--SECOND"" danced like a mocking phantom through my brain. +Then I heard the telephone bell. I heard Smith speaking. +A minute afterwards he was in my room, his face very grim. +""I knew as well as if I'd seen it with my own eyes that some black +business was afoot last night,"" he said. ""And it was. Within +pistol-shot of us! Someone has got at Frank Norris West. Inspector +Weymouth has just been on the 'phone."" +""Norris West!"" I cried, ""the American aviator--and inventor--"" +""Of the West aero-torpedo--yes. He's been offering it to the English +War Office, and they have delayed too long."" +I got out of bed. +""What do you mean?"" +""I mean that the potentialities have attracted the attention of Dr. +Fu-Manchu!"" +Those words operated electrically. I do not know how long I was in +dressing, how long a time elapsed ere the cab for which Smith had +'phoned arrived, how many precious minutes were lost upon the journey; +but, in a nervous whirl, these things slipped into the past, like the +telegraph poles seen from the window of an express, and, still in that +tense state, we came upon the scene of this newest outrage. +Mr. Norris West, whose lean, stoic face had latterly figured so often +in the daily press, lay upon the floor in the little entrance hall of +his chambers, flat upon his back, with the telephone receiver in his +hand. +The outer door had been forced by the police. They had had to remove a +piece of the paneling to get at the bolt. A medical man was leaning +over the recumbent figure in the striped pajama suit, and +Detective-Inspector Weymouth stood watching him as Smith and I entered. +""He has been heavily drugged,"" said the Doctor, sniffing at West's +lips, ""but I cannot say what drug has been used. It isn't chloroform +or anything of that nature. He can safely be left to sleep it off, I +think."" +I agreed, after a brief examination. +""It's most extraordinary,"" said Weymouth. ""He rang up the Yard about +an hour ago and said his chambers had been invaded by Chinamen. Then +the man at the 'phone plainly heard him fall. When we got here his +front door was bolted, as you've seen, and the windows are three floors +up. Nothing is disturbed."" +""The plans of the aero-torpedo?"" rapped Smith. +""I take it they are in the safe in his bedroom,"" replied the detective, +""and that is locked all right. I think he must have taken an overdose +of something and had illusions. But in case there was anything in what +he mumbled (you could hardly understand him) I thought it as well to +send for you."" +""Quite right,"" said Smith rapidly. His eyes shone like steel. ""Lay +him on the bed, Inspector."" +It was done, and my friend walked into the bedroom. +Save that the bed was disordered, showing that West had been sleeping +in it, there were no evidences of the extraordinary invasion mentioned +by the drugged man. It was a small room--the chambers were of that +kind which are let furnished--and very neat. A safe with a combination +lock stood in a corner. The window was open about a foot at the top. +Smith tried the safe and found it fast. He stood for a moment clicking +his teeth together, by which I knew him to be perplexed. He walked +over to the window and threw it up. We both looked out. +""You see,"" came Weymouth's voice, ""it is altogether too far from the +court below for our cunning Chinese friends to have fixed a ladder with +one of their bamboo rod arrangements. And, even if they could get up +there, it's too far down from the roof--two more stories--for them to +have fixed it from there."" +Smith nodded thoughtfully, at the same time trying the strength of an +iron bar which ran from side to side of the window-sill. Suddenly he +stooped, with a sharp exclamation. Bending over his shoulder I saw +what it was that had attracted his attention. +Clearly imprinted upon the dust-coated gray stone of the sill was a +confused series of marks--tracks call them what you will. +Smith straightened himself and turned a wondering look upon me. +""What is it, Petrie?"" he said amazedly. ""Some kind of bird has been +here, and recently."" Inspector Weymouth in turn examined the marks. +""I never saw bird tracks like these, Mr. Smith,"" he muttered. +Smith was tugging at the lobe of his ear. +""No,"" he returned reflectively; ""come to think of it, neither did I."" +He twisted around, looking at the man on the bed. +""Do you think it was all an illusion?"" asked the detective. +""What about those marks on the window-sill?"" jerked Smith. +He began restlessly pacing about the room, sometimes stopping before +the locked safe and frequently glancing at Norris West. +Suddenly he walked out and briefly examined the other apartments, only +to return again to the bedroom. +""Petrie,"" he said, ""we are losing valuable time. West must be aroused."" +Inspector Weymouth stared. +Smith turned to me impatiently. The doctor summoned by the police had +gone. ""Is there no means of arousing him, Petrie?"" he said. +""Doubtless,"" I replied, ""he could be revived if one but knew what drug +he had taken."" +My friend began his restless pacing again, and suddenly pounced upon a +little phial of tabloids which had been hidden behind some books on a +shelf near the bed. He uttered a triumphant exclamation. +""See what we have here, Petrie!"" he directed, handing the phial to me. +""It bears no label."" +I crushed one of the tabloids in my palm and applied my tongue to the +powder. +""Some preparation of chloral hydrate,"" I pronounced. +""A sleeping draught?"" suggested Smith eagerly. +""We might try,"" I said, and scribbled a formula upon a leaf of my +notebook. I asked Weymouth to send the man who accompanied him to call +up the nearest chemist and procure the antidote. +During the man's absence Smith stood contemplating the unconscious +inventor, a peculiar expression upon his bronzed face. +""ANDAMAN--SECOND,"" he muttered. ""Shall we find the key to the riddle +here, I wonder?"" +Inspector Weymouth, who had concluded, I think, that the mysterious +telephone call was due to mental aberration on the part of Norris West, +was gnawing at his mustache impatiently when his assistant returned. I +administered the powerful restorative, and although, as later +transpired, chloral was not responsible for West's condition, the +antidote operated successfully. +Norris West struggled into a sitting position, and looked about him +with haggard eyes. +""The Chinamen! The Chinamen!"" he muttered. +He sprang to his feet, glaring wildly at Smith and me, reeled, and +almost fell. +""It is all right,"" I said, supporting him. ""I'm a doctor. You have +been unwell."" +""Have the police come?"" he burst out. ""The safe--try the safe!"" +""It's all right,"" said Inspector Weymouth. ""The safe is locked--unless +someone else knows the combination, there's nothing to worry about."" +""No one else knows it,"" said West, and staggered unsteadily to the +safe. Clearly his mind was in a dazed condition, but, setting his jaw +with a curious expression of grim determination, he collected his +thoughts and opened the safe. +He bent down, looking in. +In some way the knowledge came to me that the curtain was about to rise +on a new and surprising act in the Fu-Manchu drama. +""God!"" he whispered--we could scarcely hear him--""the plans are gone!"" +CHAPTER XIX +I HAVE never seen a man quite so surprised as Inspector Weymouth. +""This is absolutely incredible!"" he said. ""There's only one door to +your chambers. We found it bolted from the inside."" +""Yes,"" groaned West, pressing his hand to his forehead. ""I bolted it +myself at eleven o'clock, when I came in."" +""No human being could climb up or down to your windows. The plans of +the aero-torpedo were inside a safe."" +""I put them there myself,"" said West, ""on returning from the War +Office, and I had occasion to consult them after I had come in and +bolted the door. I returned them to the safe and locked it. That it +was still locked you saw for yourselves, and no one else in the world +knows the combination."" +""But the plans have gone,"" said Weymouth. ""It's magic! How was it +done? What happened last night, sir? What did you mean when you rang +us up?"" +Smith during this colloquy was pacing rapidly up and down the room. He +turned abruptly to the aviator. +""Every fact you can remember, Mr. West, please,"" he said tersely; ""and +be as brief as you possibly can."" +""I came in, as I said,"" explained West, ""about eleven o'clock and +having made some notes relating to an interview arranged for this +morning, I locked the plans in the safe and turned in."" +""There was no one hidden anywhere in your chambers?"" snapped Smith. +""There was not,"" replied West. ""I looked. I invariably do. Almost +immediately, I went to sleep."" +""How many chloral tabloids did you take?"" I interrupted. +Norris West turned to me with a slow smile. +""You're cute, Doctor,"" he said. ""I took two. It's a bad habit, but I +can't sleep without. They are specially made up for me by a firm in +Philadelphia."" +""How long sleep lasted, when it became filled with uncanny dreams, and +when those dreams merged into reality, I do not know--shall never know, +I suppose. But out of the dreamless void a face came to +me--closer--closer--and peered into mine. +""I was in that curious condition wherein one knows that one is dreaming +and seeks to awaken--to escape. But a nightmare-like oppression held +me. So I must lie and gaze into the seared yellow face that hung over +me, for it would drop so close that I could trace the cicatrized scar +running from the left ear to the corner of the mouth, and drawing up +the lip like the lip of a snarling cur. I could look into the +malignant, jaundiced eyes; I could hear the dim whispering of the +distorted mouth--whispering that seemed to counsel something--something +evil. That whispering intimacy was indescribably repulsive. Then the +wicked yellow face would be withdrawn, and would recede until it became +as a pin's head in the darkness far above me--almost like a glutinous, +liquid thing. +""Somehow I got upon my feet, or dreamed I did--God knows where dreaming +ended and reality began. Gentlemen maybe you'll conclude I went mad +last night, but as I stood holding on to the bedrail I heard the blood +throbbing through my arteries with a noise like a screw-propeller. I +started laughing. The laughter issued from my lips with a shrill +whistling sound that pierced me with physical pain and seemed to wake +the echoes of the whole block. I thought myself I was going mad, and I +tried to command my will--to break the power of the chloral--for I +concluded that I had accidentally taken an overdose. +""Then the walls of my bedroom started to recede, till at last I stood +holding on to a bed which had shrunk to the size of a doll's cot, in +the middle of a room like Trafalgar Square! That window yonder was +such a long way off I could scarcely see it, but I could just detect a +Chinaman--the owner of the evil yellow face--creeping through it. He +was followed by another, who was enormously tall--so tall that, as they +came towards me (and it seemed to take them something like half-an-hour +to cross this incredible apartment in my dream), the second Chinaman +seemed to tower over me like a cypress-tree. +""I looked up to his face--his wicked, hairless face. Mr. Smith, +whatever age I live to, I'll never forget that face I saw last +night--or did I see it? God knows! The pointed chin, the great dome +of a forehead, and the eyes--heavens above, the huge green eyes!"" +He shook like a sick man, and I glanced at Smith significantly. +Inspector Weymouth was stroking his mustache, and his mingled +expression of incredulity and curiosity was singular to behold. +""The pumping of my blood,"" continued West, ""seemed to be bursting my +body; the room kept expanding and contracting. One time the ceiling +would be pressing down on my head, and the Chinamen--sometimes I +thought there were two of them, sometimes twenty--became dwarfs; the +next instant it shot up like the roof of a cathedral. +""'Can I be awake,' I whispered, 'or am I dreaming?' +""My whisper went sweeping in windy echoes about the walls, and was lost +in the shadowy distances up under the invisible roof. +""'You are dreaming--yes.' It was the Chinaman with the green eyes who +was addressing me, and the words that he uttered appeared to occupy an +immeasurable time in the utterance. 'But at will I can render the +subjective objective.' I don't think I can have dreamed those singular +words, gentlemen. +""And then he fixed the green eyes upon me--the blazing green eyes. I +made no attempt to move. They seemed to be draining me of something +vital--bleeding me of every drop of mental power. The whole nightmare +room grew green, and I felt that I was being absorbed into its +greenness. +""I can see what you think. And even in my delirium--if it was +delirium--I thought the same. Now comes the climax of my +experience--my vision--I don't know what to call it. I SAW some WORDS +issuing from my own mouth!"" +Inspector Weymouth coughed discreetly. Smith whisked round upon him. +""This will be outside your experience, Inspector, I know,"" he said, +""but Mr. Norris West's statement does not surprise me in the least. I +know to what the experience was due."" +Weymouth stared incredulously, but a dawning perception of the truth +was come to me, too. +""How I SAW a SOUND I just won't attempt to explain; I simply tell you I +saw it. Somehow I knew I had betrayed myself--given something away."" +""You gave away the secret of the lock combination!"" rapped Smith. +""Eh!"" grunted Weymouth. +But West went on hoarsely: +""Just before the blank came a name flashed before my eyes. It was +'Bayard Taylor.'"" +At that I interrupted West. +""I understand!"" I cried. ""I understand! Another name has just +occurred to me, Mr. West--that of the Frenchman, Moreau."" +""You have solved the mystery,"" said Smith. ""It was natural Mr. West +should have thought of the American traveler, Bayard Taylor, though. +Moreau's book is purely scientific. He has probably never read it."" +""I fought with the stupor that was overcoming me,"" continued West, +""striving to associate that vaguely familiar name with the fantastic +things through which I moved. It seemed to me that the room was empty +again. I made for the hall, for the telephone. I could scarcely drag +my feet along. It seemed to take me half-an-hour to get there. I +remember calling up Scotland Yard, and I remember no more."" +There was a short, tense interval. +In some respects I was nonplused; but, frankly, I think Inspector +Weymouth considered West insane. Smith, his hands locked behind his +back, stared out of the window. +""ANDAMAN--SECOND"" he said suddenly. ""Weymouth, when is the first train +to Tilbury?"" +""Five twenty-two from Fenchurch Street,"" replied the Scotland Yard man +promptly. +""Too late!"" rapped my friend. ""Jump in a taxi and pick up two good men +to leave for China at once! Then go and charter a special to Tilbury +to leave in twenty-five minutes. Order another cab to wait outside for +me."" +Weymouth was palpably amazed, but Smith's tone was imperative. The +Inspector departed hastily. +I stared at Smith, not comprehending what prompted this singular course. +""Now that you can think clearly, Mr. West,"" he said, ""of what does your +experience remind you? The errors of perception regarding time; the +idea of SEEING A SOUND; the illusion that the room alternately +increased and diminished in size; your fit of laughter, and the +recollection of the name Bayard Taylor. Since evidently you are +familiar with that author's work--'The Land of the Saracen,' is it +not?--these symptoms of the attack should be familiar, I think."" +Norris West pressed his hands to his evidently aching head. +""Bayard Taylor's book,"" he said dully. ""Yes! . . . I know of what my +brain sought to remind me--Taylor's account of his experience under +hashish. Mr. Smith, someone doped me with hashish!"" +Smith nodded grimly. +""Cannabis indica,"" I said--""Indian hemp. That is what you were drugged +with. I have no doubt that now you experience a feeling of nausea and +intense thirst, with aching in the muscles, particularly the deltoid. +I think you must have taken at least fifteen grains."" +Smith stopped his perambulations immediately in front of West, looking +into his dulled eyes. +""Someone visited your chambers last night,"" he said slowly, ""and for +your chloral tabloids substituted some containing hashish, or perhaps +not pure hashish. Fu-Manchu is a profound chemist."" +Norris West started. +""Someone substituted--"" he began. +""Exactly,"" said Smith, looking at him keenly; ""someone who was here +yesterday. Have you any idea whom it could have been?"" +West hesitated. ""I had a visitor in the afternoon,"" he said, seemingly +speaking the words unwillingly, ""but--"" +""A lady?"" jerked Smith. ""I suggest that it was a lady."" +West nodded. +""You're quite right,"" he admitted. ""I don't know how you arrived at +the conclusion, but a lady whose acquaintance I made recently--a +foreign lady."" +""Karamaneh!"" snapped Smith. +""I don't know what you mean in the least, but she came here--knowing +this to be my present address--to ask me to protect her from a +mysterious man who had followed her right from Charing Cross. She said +he was down in the lobby, and naturally, I asked her to wait here +whilst I went and sent him about his business."" +He laughed shortly. +""I am over-old,"" he said, ""to be guyed by a woman. You spoke just now +of someone called Fu-Manchu. Is that the crook I'm indebted to for the +loss of my plans? I've had attempts made by agents of two European +governments, but a Chinaman is a novelty."" +""This Chinaman,"" Smith assured him, ""is the greatest novelty of his +age. You recognize your symptoms now from Bayard Taylor's account?"" +""Mr. West's statement,"" I said, ""ran closely parallel with portions of +Moreau's book on 'Hashish Hallucinations.' Only Fu-Manchu, I think, +would have thought of employing Indian hemp. I doubt, though, if it +was pure Cannabis indica. At any rate, it acted as an opiate--"" +""And drugged Mr. West,"" interrupted Smith, ""sufficiently to enable +Fu-Manchu to enter unobserved."" +""Whilst it produced symptoms which rendered him an easy subject for the +Doctor's influence. It is difficult in this case to separate +hallucination from reality, but I think, Mr. West, that Fu-Manchu must +have exercised an hypnotic influence upon your drugged brain. We have +evidence that he dragged from you the secret of the combination."" +""God knows we have!"" said West. ""But who is this Fu-Manchu, and +how--how in the name of wonder did he get into my chambers?"" +Smith pulled out his watch. ""That,"" he said rapidly, ""I cannot delay +to explain if I'm to intercept the man who has the plans. Come along, +Petrie; we must be at Tilbury within the hour. There is just a bare +chance."" +CHAPTER XX +IT was with my mind in a condition of unique perplexity that I hurried +with Nayland Smith into the cab which waited and dashed off through the +streets in which the busy life of London just stirred into being. I +suppose I need not say that I could penetrate no farther into this, +Fu-Manchu's latest plot, than the drugging of Norris West with hashish? +Of his having been so drugged with Indian hemp--that is, converted +temporarily into a maniac--would have been evident to any medical man +who had heard his statement and noted the distressing after-effects +which conclusively pointed to Indian hemp poisoning. Knowing something +of the Chinese doctor's powers, I could understand that he might have +extracted from West the secret of the combination by sheer force of +will whilst the American was under the influence of the drug. But I +could not understand how Fu-Manchu had gained access to locked chambers +on the third story of a building. +""Smith,"" I said, ""those bird tracks on the window-sill--they furnish +the key to a mystery which is puzzling me."" +""They do,"" said Smith, glancing impatiently at his watch. ""Consult +your memories of Dr. Fu-Manchu's habits--especially your memories of +his pets."" +I reviewed in my mind the creatures gruesome and terrible which +surrounded the Chinaman--the scorpions, the bacteria, the noxious +things which were the weapons wherewith he visited death upon +whomsoever opposed the establishment of a potential Yellow Empire. But +no one of them could account for the imprints upon the dust of West's +window-sill. +""You puzzle me, Smith,"" I confessed. ""There is much in this +extraordinary case that puzzles me. I can think of nothing to account +for the marks."" +""Have you thought of Fu-Manchu's marmoset?"" asked Smith. +""The monkey!"" I cried. +""They were the footprints of a small ape,"" my friend continued. ""For a +moment I was deceived as you were, and believed them to be the tracks +of a large bird; but I have seen the footprints of apes before now, and +a marmoset, though an American variety, I believe, is not unlike some +of the apes of Burma."" +""I am still in the dark,"" I said. +""It is pure hypothesis,"" continued Smith, ""but here is the theory--in +lieu of a better one it covers the facts. The marmoset--and it is +contrary from the character of Fu-Manchu to keep any creature for mere +amusement--is trained to perform certain duties. +""You observed the waterspout running up beside the window; you observed +the iron bar intended to prevent a window-cleaner from falling out? +For an ape the climb from the court below to the sill above was a +simple one. He carried a cord, probably attached to his body. He +climbed on to the sill, over the bar, and climbed down again. By means +of this cord a rope was pulled up over the bar, by means of the rope +one of those ladders of silk and bamboo. One of the Doctor's servants +ascended--probably to ascertain if the hashish had acted successfully. +That was the yellow dream-face which West saw bending over him. Then +followed the Doctor, and to his giant will the drugged brain of West +was a pliant instrument which he bent to his own ends. The court would +be deserted at that hour of the night, and, in any event, directly +after the ascent the ladder probably was pulled up, only to be lowered +again when West had revealed the secret of his own safe and Fu-Manchu +had secured the plans. The reclosing of the safe and the removing of +the hashish tabloids, leaving no clew beyond the delirious ravings of a +drug slave--for so anyone unacquainted with the East must have +construed West's story--is particularly characteristic. His own +tabloids were returned, of course. The sparing of his life alone is a +refinement of art which points to a past master."" +""Karamaneh was the decoy again?"" I said shortly. +""Certainly. Hers was the task to ascertain West's habits and to +substitute the tabloids. She it was who waited in the luxurious +car--infinitely less likely to attract attention at that hour in that +place than a modest taxi--and received the stolen plans. She did her +work well. +""Poor Karamaneh; she had no alternative! I said I would have given a +hundred pounds for a sight of the messenger's face--the man to whom she +handed them. I would give a thousand now!"" +""ANDAMAN--SECOND,"" I said. ""What did she mean?"" +""Then it has not dawned upon you?"" cried Smith excitedly, as the cab +turned into the station. ""The ANDAMAN, of the Oriental Navigation +Company's line, leaves Tilbury with the next tide for China ports. Our +man is a second-class passenger. I am wiring to delay her departure, +and the special should get us to the docks inside of forty minutes."" +Very vividly I can reconstruct in my mind that dash to the docks +through the early autumn morning. My friend being invested with +extraordinary powers from the highest authorities, by Inspector +Weymouth's instructions the line had been cleared all the way. +Something of the tremendous importance of Nayland Smith's mission came +home to me as we hurried on to the platform, escorted by the +station-master, and the five of us--for Weymouth had two other C.I.D. +men with him--took our seats in the special. +Off we went on top speed, roaring through stations, where a glimpse +might be had of wondering officials upon the platforms, for a special +train was a novelty on the line. All ordinary traffic arrangements +were held up until we had passed through, and we reached Tilbury in +time which I doubt not constituted a record. +There at the docks was the great liner, delayed in her passage to the +Far East by the will of my royally empowered companion. It was novel, +and infinitely exciting. +""Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith?"" said the captain interrogatively, +when we were shown into his room, and looked from one to another and +back to the telegraph form which he held in his hand. +""The same, Captain,"" said my friend briskly. ""I shall not detain you a +moment. I am instructing the authorities at all ports east of Suez to +apprehend one of your second-class passengers, should he leave the +ship. He is in possession of plans which practically belong to the +British Government!"" +""Why not arrest him now?"" asked the seaman bluntly. +""Because I don't know him. All second-class passengers' baggage will +be searched as they land. I am hoping something from that, if all else +fails. But I want you privately to instruct your stewards to watch any +passenger of Oriental nationality, and to cooperate with the two +Scotland Yard men who are joining you for the voyage. I look to you to +recover these plans, Captain."" +""I will do my best,"" the captain assured him. +Then, from amid the heterogeneous group on the dockside, we were +watching the liner depart, and Nayland Smith's expression was a very +singular one. Inspector Weymouth stood with us, a badly puzzled man. +Then occurred the extraordinary incident which to this day remains +inexplicable, for, clearly heard by all three of us, a guttural voice +said: +""Another victory for China, Mr. Nayland Smith!"" +I turned as though I had been stung. Smith turned also. My eyes +passed from face to face of the group about us. None was familiar. No +one apparently had moved away. +But the voice was the voice of DOCTOR FU-MANCHU. +As I write of it, now, I can appreciate the difference between that +happening, as it appealed to us, and as it must appeal to you who +merely read of it. It is beyond my powers to convey the sense of the +uncanny which the episode created. Yet, even as I think of it, I feel +again, though in lesser degree, the chill which seemed to creep through +my veins that day. +From my brief history of the wonderful and evil man who once walked, by +the way unsuspected, in the midst of the people of England--near whom +you, personally, may at some time unwittingly, have been--I am aware +that much must be omitted. I have no space for lengthy examinations of +the many points but ill illuminated with which it is dotted. This +incident at the docks is but one such point. +Another is the singular vision which appeared to me whilst I lay in the +cellar of the house near Windsor. It has since struck me that it +possessed peculiarities akin to those of a hashish hallucination. Can +it be that we were drugged on that occasion with Indian hemp? Cannabis +indica is a treacherous narcotic, as every medical man knows full well; +but Fu-Manchu's knowledge of the drug was far in advance of our slow +science. West's experience proved so much. +I may have neglected opportunities--later, you shall judge if I did +so--opportunities to glean for the West some of the strange knowledge +of the secret East. Perhaps, at a future time, I may rectify my +errors. Perhaps that wisdom--the wisdom stored up by Fu-Manchu--is +lost forever. There is, however, at least a bare possibility of its +survival, in part; and I do not wholly despair of one day publishing a +scientific sequel to this record of our dealings with the Chinese +doctor. +CHAPTER XXI +TIME wore on and seemingly brought us no nearer, or very little nearer, +to our goal. So carefully had my friend Nayland Smith excluded the +matter from the press that, whilst public interest was much engaged +with some of the events in the skein of mystery which he had come from +Burma to unravel, outside the Secret Service and the special department +of Scotland Yard few people recognized that the several murders, +robberies and disappearances formed each a link in a chain; fewer still +were aware that a baneful presence was in our midst, that a past master +of the evil arts lay concealed somewhere in the metropolis; searched +for by the keenest wits which the authorities could direct to the task, +but eluding all--triumphant, contemptuous. +One link in that chain Smith himself for long failed to recognize. Yet +it was a big and important link. +""Petrie,"" he said to me one morning, ""listen to this: +""'. . . In sight of Shanghai--a clear, dark night. On board the deck of +a junk passing close to seaward of the Andaman a blue flare started up. +A minute later there was a cry of ""Man overboard!"" +""'Mr. Lewin, the chief officer, who was in charge, stopped the engines. +A boat was put out. But no one was recovered. There are sharks in +these waters. A fairly heavy sea was running. +""'Inquiry showed the missing man to be a James Edwards, second class, +booked to Shanghai. I think the name was assumed. The man was some +sort of Oriental, and we had had him under close observation. . . .'"" +""That's the end of their report,"" exclaimed Smith. +He referred to the two C.I.D. men who had joined the Andaman at the +moment of her departure from Tilbury. +He carefully lighted his pipe. +""IS it a victory for China, Petrie?"" he said softly. +""Until the great war reveals her secret resources--and I pray that the +day be not in my time--we shall never know,"" I replied. +Smith began striding up and down the room. +""Whose name,"" he jerked abruptly, ""stands now at the head of our danger +list?"" +He referred to a list which we had compiled of the notable men +intervening between the evil genius who secretly had invaded London and +the triumph of his cause--the triumph of the yellow races. +I glanced at our notes. ""Lord Southery,"" I replied. +Smith tossed the morning paper across to me. +""Look,"" he said shortly. ""He's dead."" +I read the account of the peer's death, and glanced at the long +obituary notice; but no more than glanced at it. He had but recently +returned from the East, and now, after a short illness, had died from +some affection of the heart. There had been no intimation that his +illness was of a serious nature, and even Smith, who watched over his +flock--the flock threatened by the wolf, Fu-Manchu--with jealous zeal, +had not suspected that the end was so near. +""Do you think he died a natural death, Smith?"" I asked. +My friend reached across the table and rested the tip of a long finger +upon one of the sub-headings to the account: +""SIR FRANK NARCOMBE SUMMONED TOO LATE."" +""You see,"" said Smith, ""Southery died during the night, but Sir Frank +Narcombe, arriving a few minutes later, unhesitatingly pronounced death +to be due to syncope, and seems to have noticed nothing suspicious."" +I looked at him thoughtfully. +""Sir Frank is a great physician,"" I said slowly; ""but we must remember +he would be looking for nothing suspicious."" +""We must remember,"" rapped Smith, ""that, if Dr. Fu-Manchu is +responsible for Southery's death, except to the eye of an expert there +would be nothing suspicious to see. Fu-Manchu leaves no clews."" +""Are you going around?"" I asked. +Smith shrugged his shoulders. +""I think not,"" he replied. ""Either a greater One than Fu-Manchu has +taken Lord Southery, or the yellow doctor has done his work so well +that no trace remains of his presence in the matter."" +Leaving his breakfast untasted, he wandered aimlessly about the room, +littering the hearth with matches as he constantly relighted his pipe, +which went out every few minutes. +""It's no good, Petrie,"" he burst out suddenly; ""it cannot be a +coincidence. We must go around and see him."" +An hour later we stood in the silent room, with its drawn blinds and +its deathful atmosphere, looking down at the pale, intellectual face of +Henry Stradwick, Lord Southery, the greatest engineer of his day. The +mind that lay behind that splendid brow had planned the construction of +the railway for which Russia had paid so great a price, had conceived +the scheme for the canal which, in the near future, was to bring two +great continents, a full week's journey nearer one to the other. But +now it would plan no more. +""He had latterly developed symptoms of angina pectoris,"" explained the +family physician; ""but I had not anticipated a fatal termination so +soon. I was called about two o'clock this morning, and found Lord +Southery in a dangerously exhausted condition. I did all that was +possible, and Sir Frank Narcombe was sent for. But shortly before his +arrival the patient expired."" +""I understand, Doctor, that you had been treating Lord Southery for +angina pectoris?"" I said. +""Yes,"" was the reply, ""for some months."" +""You regard the circumstances of his end as entirely consistent with a +death from that cause?"" +""Certainly. Do you observe anything unusual yourself? Sir Frank +Narcombe quite agrees with me. There is surely no room for doubt?"" +""No,"" said Smith, tugging reflectively at the lobe of his left ear. +""We do not question the accuracy of your diagnosis in any way, sir."" +The physician seemed puzzled. +""But am I not right in supposing that you are connected with the +police?"" asked the physician. +""Neither Dr. Petrie nor myself are in any way connected with the +police,"" answered Smith. ""But, nevertheless, I look to you to regard +our recent questions as confidential."" +As we were leaving the house, hushed awesomely in deference to the +unseen visitor who had touched Lord Southery with gray, cold fingers, +Smith paused, detaining a black-coated man who passed us on the stairs. +""You were Lord Southery's valet?"" +The man bowed. +""Were you in the room at the moment of his fatal seizure?"" +""I was, sir."" +""Did you see or hear anything unusual--anything unaccountable?"" +""Nothing, sir."" +""No strange sounds outside the house, for instance?"" +The man shook his head, and Smith, taking my arm, passed out into the +street. +""Perhaps this business is making me imaginative,"" he said; ""but there +seems to be something tainting the air in yonder--something peculiar to +houses whose doors bear the invisible death-mark of Fu-Manchu."" +""You are right, Smith!"" I cried. ""I hesitated to mention the matter, +but I, too, have developed some other sense which warns me of the +Doctor's presence. Although there is not a scrap of confirmatory +evidence, I am as sure that he has brought about Lord Southery's death +as if I had seen him strike the blow."" +It was in that torturing frame of mind--chained, helpless, in our +ignorance, or by reason of the Chinaman's supernormal genius--that we +lived throughout the ensuing days. My friend began to look like a man +consumed by a burning fever. Yet, we could not act. +In the growing dark of an evening shortly following I stood idly +turning over some of the works exposed for sale outside a second-hand +bookseller's in New Oxford Street. One dealing with the secret +societies of China struck me as being likely to prove instructive, and +I was about to call the shopman when I was startled to feel a hand +clutch my arm. +I turned around rapidly--and was looking into the darkly beautiful eyes +of Karamaneh! She--whom I had seen in so many guises--was dressed in a +perfectly fitting walking habit, and had much of her wonderful hair +concealed beneath a fashionable hat. +She glanced about her apprehensively. +""Quick! Come round the corner. I must speak to you,"" she said, her +musical voice thrilling with excitement. +I never was quite master of myself in her presence. He must have been +a man of ice who could have been, I think, for her beauty had all the +bouquet of rarity; she was a mystery--and mystery adds charm to a +woman. Probably she should have been under arrest, but I know I would +have risked much to save her from it. +As we turned into a quiet thoroughfare she stopped and said: +""I am in distress. You have often asked me to enable you to capture +Dr. Fu-Manchu. I am prepared to do so."" +I could scarcely believe that I heard right. +""Your brother--"" I began. +She seized my arm entreatingly, looking into my eyes. +""You are a doctor,"" she said. ""I want you to come and see him now."" +""What! Is he in London?"" +""He is at the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu."" +""And you would have me--"" +""Accompany me there, yes."" +Nayland Smith, I doubted not, would have counseled me against trusting +my life in the hands of this girl with the pleading eyes. Yet I did +so, and with little hesitation; shortly we were traveling eastward in a +closed cab. Karamaneh was very silent, but always when I turned to her +I found her big eyes fixed upon me with an expression in which there +was pleading, in which there was sorrow, in which there was something +else--something indefinable, yet strangely disturbing. The cabman she +had directed to drive to the lower end of the Commercial Road, the +neighborhood of the new docks, and the scene of one of our early +adventures with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The mantle of dusk had closed about the +squalid activity of the East End streets as we neared our destination. +Aliens of every shade of color were about us now, emerging from +burrow-like alleys into the glare of the lamps upon the main road. In +the short space of the drive we had passed from the bright world of the +West into the dubious underworld of the East. +I do not know that Karamaneh moved; but in sympathy, as we neared the +abode of the sinister Chinaman, she crept nearer to me, and when the +cab was discharged, and together we walked down a narrow turning +leading riverward, she clung to me fearfully, hesitated, and even +seemed upon the point of turning back. But, overcoming her fear or +repugnance, she led on, through a maze of alleyways and courts, wherein +I hopelessly lost my bearings, so that it came home to me how wholly I +was in the hands of this girl whose history was so full of shadows, +whose real character was so inscrutable, whose beauty, whose charm +truly might mask the cunning of a serpent. +I spoke to her. +""S-SH!"" She laid her hand upon my arm, enjoining me to silence. +The high, drab brick wall of what looked like some part of a dock +building loomed above us in the darkness, and the indescribable +stenches of the lower Thames were borne to my nostrils through a +gloomy, tunnel-like opening, beyond which whispered the river. The +muffled clangor of waterside activity was about us. I heard a key +grate in a lock, and Karamaneh drew me into the shadow of an open door, +entered, and closed it behind her. +For the first time I perceived, in contrast to the odors of the court +without, the fragrance of the peculiar perfume which now I had come to +associate with her. Absolute darkness was about us, and by this +perfume alone I knew that she was near to me, until her hand touched +mine, and I was led along an uncarpeted passage and up an uncarpeted +stair. A second door was unlocked, and I found myself in an +exquisitely furnished room, illuminated by the soft light of a shaded +lamp which stood upon a low, inlaid table amidst a perfect ocean of +silken cushions, strewn upon a Persian carpet, whose yellow richness +was lost in the shadows beyond the circle of light. +Karamaneh raised a curtain draped before a doorway, and stood listening +intently for a moment. +The silence was unbroken. +Then something stirred amid the wilderness of cushions, and two tiny +bright eyes looked up at me. Peering closely, I succeeded in +distinguishing, crouched in that soft luxuriance, a little ape. It was +Dr. Fu-Manchu's marmoset. ""This way,"" whispered Karamaneh. +Never, I thought, was a staid medical man committed to a more unwise +enterprise, but so far I had gone, and no consideration of prudence +could now be of avail. +The corridor beyond was thickly carpeted. Following the direction of a +faint light which gleamed ahead, it proved to extend as a balcony +across one end of a spacious apartment. Together we stood high up +there in the shadows, and looked down upon such a scene as I never +could have imagined to exist within many a mile of that district. +The place below was even more richly appointed than the room into which +first we had come. Here, as there, piles of cushions formed splashes +of gaudy color about the floor. Three lamps hung by chains from the +ceiling, their light softened by rich silk shades. One wall was almost +entirely occupied by glass cases containing chemical apparatus, tubes, +retorts and other less orthodox indications of Dr. Fu-Manchu's +pursuits, whilst close against another lay the most extraordinary +object of a sufficiently extraordinary room--a low couch, upon which +was extended the motionless form of a boy. In the light of a lamp +which hung directly above him, his olive face showed an almost +startling resemblance to that of Karamaneh--save that the girl's +coloring was more delicate. He had black, curly hair, which stood out +prominently against the white covering upon which he lay, his hands +crossed upon his breast. +Transfixed with astonishment, I stood looking down upon him. The +wonders of the ""Arabian Nights"" were wonders no longer, for here, in +East-End London, was a true magician's palace, lacking not its +beautiful slave, lacking not its enchanted prince! +""It is Aziz, my brother,"" said Karamaneh. +We passed down a stairway on to the floor of the apartment. Karamaneh +knelt and bent over the boy, stroking his hair and whispering to him +lovingly. I, too, bent over him; and I shall never forget the anxiety +in the girl's eyes as she watched me eagerly whilst I made a brief +examination. +Brief, indeed, for even ere I had touched him I knew that the comely +shell held no spark of life. But Karamaneh fondled the cold hands, and +spoke softly in that Arabic tongue which long before I had divined must +be her native language. +Then, as I remained silent, she turned and looked at me, read the truth +in my eyes, and rose from her knees, stood rigidly upright, and +clutched me tremblingly. +""He is not dead--he is NOT dead!"" she whispered, and shook me as a +child might, seeking to arouse me to a proper understanding. ""Oh, tell +me he is not--"" +""I cannot,"" I replied gently, ""for indeed he is."" +""No!"" she said, wild-eyed, and raising her hands to her face as though +half distraught. ""You do not understand--yet you are a doctor. You do +not understand--"" +She stopped, moaning to herself and looking from the handsome face of +the boy to me. It was pitiful; it was uncanny. But sorrow for the +girl predominated in my mind. +Then from somewhere I heard a sound which I had heard before in houses +occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu--that of a muffled gong. +""Quick!"" Karamaneh had me by the arm. ""Up! He has returned!"" +She fled up the stairs to the balcony, I close at her heels. The +shadows veiled us, the thick carpet deadened the sound of our tread, or +certainly we must have been detected by the man who entered the room we +had just quitted. +It was Dr. Fu-Manchu! +Yellow-robed, immobile, the inhuman green eyes glittering catlike even, +it seemed, before the light struck them, he threaded his way through +the archipelago of cushions and bent over the couch of Aziz. +Karamaneh dragged me down on to my knees. +""Watch!"" she whispered. ""Watch!"" +Dr. Fu-Manchu felt for the pulse of the boy whom a moment since I had +pronounced dead, and, stepping to the tall glass case, took out a +long-necked flask of chased gold, and from it, into a graduated glass, +he poured some drops of an amber liquid wholly unfamiliar to me. I +watched him with all my eyes, and noted how high the liquid rose in the +measure. He charged a needle-syringe, and, bending again over Aziz, +made an injection. +Then all the wonders I had heard of this man became possible, and with +an awe which any other physician who had examined Aziz must have felt, +I admitted him a miracle-worker. For as I watched, all but breathless, +the dead came to life! The glow of health crept upon the olive +cheek--the boy moved--he raised his hands above his head--he sat up, +supported by the Chinese doctor! +Fu-Manchu touched some hidden bell. A hideous yellow man with a +scarred face entered, carrying a tray upon which were a bowl containing +some steaming fluid, apparently soup, what looked like oaten cakes, and +a flask of red wine. +As the boy, exhibiting no more unusual symptoms than if he had just +awakened from a normal sleep, commenced his repast, Karamaneh drew me +gently along the passage into the room which we had first entered. My +heart leaped wildly as the marmoset bounded past us to drop hand over +hand to the lower apartment in search of its master. +""You see,"" said Karamaneh, her voice quivering, ""he is not dead! But +without Fu-Manchu he is dead to me. How can I leave him when he holds +the life of Aziz in his hand?"" +""You must get me that flask, or some of its contents,"" I directed. +""But tell me, how does he produce the appearance of death?"" +""I cannot tell you,"" she replied. ""I do not know. It is something in +the wine. In another hour Aziz will be again as you saw him. But +see."" And, opening a little ebony box, she produced a phial half +filled with the amber liquid. +""Good!"" I said, and slipped it into my pocket. ""When will be the best +time to seize Fu-Manchu and to restore your brother?"" +""I will let you know,"" she whispered, and, opening the door, pushed me +hurriedly from the room. ""He is going away to-night to the north; but +you must not come to-night. Quick! Quick! Along the passage. He may +call me at any moment."" +So, with the phial in my pocket containing a potent preparation unknown +to Western science, and with a last long look into the eyes of +Karamaneh, I passed out into the narrow alley, out from the fragrant +perfumes of that mystery house into the place of Thames-side stenches. +CHAPTER XXII +""WE must arrange for the house to be raided without delay,"" said Smith. +""This time we are sure of our ally--"" +""But we must keep our promise to her,"" I interrupted. +""You can look after that, Petrie,"" my friend said. ""I will devote the +whole of my attention to Dr. Fu-Manchu!"" he added grimly. +Up and down the room he paced, gripping the blackened briar between his +teeth, so that the muscles stood out squarely upon his lean jaws. The +bronze which spoke of the Burmese sun enhanced the brightness of his +gray eyes. +""What have I all along maintained?"" he jerked, looking back at me +across his shoulder--""that, although Karamaneh was one of the strongest +weapons in the Doctor's armory, she was one which some day would be +turned against him. That day has dawned."" +""We must await word from her."" +""Quite so."" +He knocked out his pipe on the grate. Then: +""Have you any idea of the nature of the fluid in the phial?"" +""Not the slightest. And I have none to spare for analytical purposes."" +Nayland Smith began stuffing mixture into the hot pipe-bowl, and +dropping an almost equal quantity on the floor. +""I cannot rest, Petrie,"" he said. ""I am itching to get to work. Yet, +a false move, and--"" He lighted his pipe, and stood staring from the +window. +""I shall, of course, take a needle-syringe with me,"" I explained. +Smith made no reply. +""If I but knew the composition of the drug which produced the semblance +of death,"" I continued, ""my fame would long survive my ashes."" +My friend did not turn. But: +""She said it was something he put in the wine?"" he jerked. +""In the wine, yes."" +Silence fell. My thoughts reverted to Karamaneh, whom Dr. Fu-Manchu +held in bonds stronger than any slave-chains. For, with Aziz, her +brother, suspended between life and death, what could she do save obey +the mandates of the cunning Chinaman? What perverted genius was his! +If that treasury of obscure wisdom which he, perhaps alone of living +men, had rifled, could but be thrown open to the sick and suffering, +the name of Dr. Fu-Manchu would rank with the golden ones in the +history of healing. +Nayland Smith suddenly turned, and the expression upon his face amazed +me. +""Look up the next train to L--!"" he rapped. +""To L--? What--?"" +""There's the Bradshaw. We haven't a minute to waste."" +In his voice was the imperative note I knew so well; in his eyes was +the light which told of an urgent need for action--a portentous truth +suddenly grasped. +""One in half-an-hour--the last."" +""We must catch it."" +No further word of explanation he vouchsafed, but darted off to dress; +for he had spent the afternoon pacing the room in his dressing-gown and +smoking without intermission. +Out and to the corner we hurried, and leaped into the first taxi upon +the rank. Smith enjoined the man to hasten, and we were off--all in +that whirl of feverish activity which characterized my friend's +movements in times of important action. +He sat glancing impatiently from the window and twitching at the lobe +of his ear. +""I know you will forgive me, old man,"" he said, ""but there is a little +problem which I am trying to work out in my mind. Did you bring the +things I mentioned?"" +""Yes."" +Conversation lapsed, until, just as the cab turned into the station, +Smith said: ""Should you consider Lord Southery to have been the first +constructive engineer of his time, Petrie?"" +""Undoubtedly,"" I replied. +""Greater than Von Homber, of Berlin?"" +""Possibly not. But Von Homber has been dead for three years."" +""Three years, is it?"" +""Roughly."" +""Ah!"" +We reached the station in time to secure a non-corridor compartment to +ourselves, and to allow Smith leisure carefully to inspect the +occupants of all the others, from the engine to the guard's van. He +was muffled up to the eyes, and he warned me to keep out of sight in +the corner of the compartment. In fact, his behavior had me bursting +with curiosity. The train having started: +""Don't imagine, Petrie,"" said Smith ""that I am trying to lead you +blindfolded in order later to dazzle you with my perspicacity. I am +simply afraid that this may be a wild-goose chase. The idea upon which +I am acting does not seem to have struck you. I wish it had. The fact +would argue in favor of its being sound."" +""At present I am hopelessly mystified."" +""Well, then, I will not bias you towards my view. But just study the +situation, and see if you can arrive at the reason for this sudden +journey. I shall be distinctly encouraged if you succeed."" +But I did not succeed, and since Smith obviously was unwilling to +enlighten me, I pressed him no more. The train stopped at Rugby, where +he was engaged with the stationmaster in making some mysterious +arrangements. At L--, however, their object became plain, for a +high-power car was awaiting us, and into this we hurried and ere the +greater number of passengers had reached the platform were being driven +off at headlong speed along the moon-bathed roads. +Twenty minutes' rapid traveling, and a white mansion leaped into the +line of sight, standing out vividly against its woody backing. +""Stradwick Hall,"" said Smith. ""The home of Lord Southery. We are +first--but Dr. Fu-Manchu was on the train."" +Then the truth dawned upon the gloom of my perplexity. +CHAPTER XXIII +""YOUR extraordinary proposal fills me with horror, Mr. Smith!"" +The sleek little man in the dress suit, who looked like a head waiter +(but was the trusted legal adviser of the house of Southery) puffed at +his cigar indignantly. Nayland Smith, whose restless pacing had led +him to the far end of the library, turned, a remote but virile figure, +and looked back to where I stood by the open hearth with the solicitor. +""I am in your hands, Mr. Henderson,"" he said, and advanced upon the +latter, his gray eyes ablaze. ""Save for the heir, who is abroad on +foreign service, you say there is no kin of Lord Southery to consider. +The word rests with you. If I am wrong, and you agree to my proposal, +there is none whose susceptibilities will suffer--"" +""My own, sir!"" +""If I am right, and you prevent me from acting, you become a murderer, +Mr. Henderson."" +The lawyer started, staring nervously up at Smith, who now towered over +him menacingly. +""Lord Southery was a lonely man,"" continued my friend. ""If I could +have placed my proposition before one of his blood, I do not doubt what +my answer had been. Why do you hesitate? Why do you experience this +feeling of horror?"" +Mr. Henderson stared down into the fire. His constitutionally ruddy +face was pale. +""It is entirely irregular, Mr. Smith. We have not the necessary +powers--"" +Smith snapped his teeth together impatiently, snatching his watch from +his pocket and glancing at it. +""I am vested with the necessary powers. I will give you a written +order, sir."" +""The proceeding savors of paganism. Such a course might be admissible +in China, in Burma--"" +""Do you weigh a life against such quibbles? Do you suppose that, +granting MY irresponsibility, Dr. Petrie would countenance such a thing +if he doubted the necessity?"" +Mr. Henderson looked at me with pathetic hesitance. +""There are guests in the house--mourners who attended the ceremony +to-day. They--"" +""Will never know, if we are in error,"" interrupted Smith. ""Good God! +why do you delay?"" +""You wish it to be kept secret?"" +""You and I, Mr. Henderson, and Dr. Petrie will go now. We require no +other witnesses. We are answerable only to our consciences."" +The lawyer passed his hand across his damp brow. +""I have never in my life been called upon to come to so momentous a +decision in so short a time,"" he confessed. But, aided by Smith's +indomitable will, he made his decision. As its result, we three, +looking and feeling like conspirators, hurried across the park beneath +a moon whose placidity was a rebuke to the turbulent passions which +reared their strangle-growth in the garden of England. Not a breath of +wind stirred amid the leaves. The calm of perfect night soothed +everything to slumber. Yet, if Smith were right (and I did not doubt +him), the green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu had looked upon the scene; and I +found myself marveling that its beauty had not wilted up. Even now the +dread Chinaman must be near to us. +As Mr. Henderson unlocked the ancient iron gates he turned to Nayland +Smith. His face twitched oddly. +""Witness that I do this unwillingly,"" he said--""most unwillingly."" +""Mine be the responsibility,"" was the reply. +Smith's voice quivered, responsive to the nervous vitality pent up +within that lean frame. He stood motionless, listening--and I knew for +whom he listened. He peered about him to right and left--and I knew +whom he expected but dreaded to see. +Above us now the trees looked down with a solemnity different from the +aspect of the monarchs of the park, and the nearer we came to our +journey's end the more somber and lowering bent the verdant arch--or so +it seemed. +By that path, patched now with pools of moonlight, Lord Southery had +passed upon his bier, with the sun to light his going; by that path +several generations of Stradwicks had gone to their last resting-place. +To the doors of the vault the moon rays found free access. No branch, +no leaf, intervened. Mr. Henderson's face looked ghastly. The keys +which he carried rattled in his hand. +""Light the lantern,"" he said unsteadily. +Nayland Smith, who again had been peering suspiciously about into the +shadows, struck a match and lighted the lantern which he carried. He +turned to the solicitor. +""Be calm, Mr. Henderson,"" he said sternly. ""It is your plain duty to +your client."" +""God be my witness that I doubt it,"" replied Henderson, and opened the +door. +We descended the steps. The air beneath was damp and chill. It +touched us as with clammy fingers; and the sensation was not wholly +physical. +Before the narrow mansion which now sufficed Lord Southery, the great +engineer whom kings had honored, Henderson reeled and clutched at me +for support. Smith and I had looked to him for no aid in our uncanny +task, and rightly. +With averted eyes he stood over by the steps of the tomb, whilst my +friend and myself set to work. In the pursuit of my profession I had +undertaken labors as unpleasant, but never amid an environment such as +this. It seemed that generations of Stradwicks listened to each turn +of every screw. +At last it was done, and the pallid face of Lord Southery questioned +the intruding light. Nayland Smith's hand was as steady as a rigid bar +when he raised the lantern. Later, I knew, there would be a sudden +releasing of the tension of will--a reaction physical and mental--but +not until his work was finished. +That my own hand was steady I ascribed to one thing +solely--professional zeal. For, under conditions which, in the event +of failure and exposure, must have led to an unpleasant inquiry by the +British Medical Association, I was about to attempt an experiment never +before essayed by a physician of the white races. +Though I failed, though I succeeded, that it ever came before the +B.M.A., or any other council, was improbable; in the former event, all +but impossible. But the knowledge that I was about to practice +charlatanry, or what any one of my fellow-practitioners must have +designated as such, was with me. Yet so profound had my belief become +in the extraordinary being whose existence was a danger to the world +that I reveled in my immunity from official censure. I was glad that +it had fallen to my lot to take at least one step--though blindly--into +the FUTURE of medical science. +So far as my skill bore me, Lord Southery was dead. Unhesitatingly, I +would have given a death certificate, save for two considerations. The +first, although his latest scheme ran contrary from the interests of +Dr. Fu-Manchu, his genius, diverted into other channels, would serve +the yellow group better than his death. The second, I had seen the boy +Aziz raised from a state as like death as this. +From the phial of amber-hued liquid which I had with me, I charged the +needle syringe. I made the injection, and waited. +""If he is really dead!"" whispered Smith. ""It seems incredible that he +can have survived for three days without food. Yet I have known a +fakir to go for a week."" +Mr. Henderson groaned. +Watch in hand, I stood observing the gray face. +A second passed; another; a third. In the fourth the miracle began. +Over the seemingly cold clay crept the hue of pulsing life. It came in +waves--in waves which corresponded with the throbbing of the awakened +heart; which swept fuller and stronger; which filled and quickened the +chilled body. +As we rapidly freed the living man from the trappings of the dead one, +Southery, uttering a stifled scream, sat up, looked about him with +half-glazed eyes, and fell back. ""My God!"" cried Smith. +""It is all right,"" I said, and had time to note how my voice had +assumed a professional tone. ""A little brandy from my flask is all +that is necessary now."" +""You have two patients, Doctor,"" rapped my friend. +Mr. Henderson had fallen in a swoon to the floor of the vault. +""Quiet,"" whispered Smith; ""HE is here."" +He extinguished the light. +I supported Lord Southery. ""What has happened?"" he kept moaning. +""Where am I? Oh, God! what has happened?"" +I strove to reassure him in a whisper, and placed my traveling coat +about him. The door at the top of the mausoleum steps we had reclosed +but not relocked. Now, as I upheld the man whom literally we had +rescued from the grave, I heard the door reopen. To aid Henderson I +could make no move. Smith was breathing hard beside me. I dared not +think what was about to happen, nor what its effects might be upon Lord +Southery in his exhausted condition. +Through the Memphian dark of the tomb cut a spear of light, touching +the last stone of the stairway. +A guttural voice spoke some words rapidly, and I knew that Dr. +Fu-Manchu stood at the head of the stairs. Although I could not see my +friend, I became aware that Nayland Smith had his revolver in his hand, +and I reached into my pocket for mine. +At last the cunning Chinaman was about to fall into a trap. It would +require all his genius, I thought, to save him to-night. Unless his +suspicions were aroused by the unlocked door, his capture was imminent. +Someone was descending the steps. +In my right hand I held my revolver, and with my left arm about Lord +Southery, I waited through ten such seconds of suspense as I have +rarely known. +The spear of light plunged into the well of darkness again. +Lord Southery, Smith and myself were hidden by the angle of the wall; +but full upon the purplish face of Mr. Henderson the beam shone. In +some way it penetrated to the murk in his mind; and he awakened from +his swoon with a hoarse cry, struggled to his feet, and stood looking +up the stair in a sort of frozen horror. +Smith was past him at a bound. Something flashed towards him as the +light was extinguished. I saw him duck, and heard the knife ring upon +the floor. +I managed to move sufficiently to see at the top, as I fired up the +stairs, the yellow face of Dr. Fu-Manchu, to see the gleaming, +chatoyant eyes, greenly terrible, as they sought to pierce the gloom. +A flying figure was racing up, three steps at a time (that of a brown +man scantily clad). He stumbled and fell, by which I knew that he was +hit; but went on again, Smith hard on his heels. +""Mr. Henderson!"" I cried, ""relight the lantern and take charge of Lord +Southery. Here is my flask on the floor. I rely upon you."" +Smith's revolver spoke again as I went bounding up the stair. Black +against the square of moonlight I saw him stagger, I saw him fall. As +he fell, for the third time, I heard the crack of his revolver. +Instantly I was at his side. Somewhere along the black aisle beneath +the trees receding footsteps pattered. +""Are you hurt, Smith?"" I cried anxiously. +He got upon his feet. +""He has a dacoit with him,"" he replied, and showed me the long curved +knife which he held in his hand, a full inch of the blade bloodstained. +""A near thing for me, Petrie."" +I heard the whir of a restarted motor. +""We have lost him,"" said Smith. +""But we have saved Lord Southery,"" I said. ""Fu-Manchu will credit us +with a skill as great as his own."" +""We must get to the car,"" Smith muttered, ""and try to overtake them. +Ugh! my left arm is useless."" +""It would be mere waste of time to attempt to overtake them,"" I argued, +""for we have no idea in which direction they will proceed."" +""I have a very good idea,"" snapped Smith. ""Stradwick Hall is less than +ten miles from the coast. There is only one practicable means of +conveying an unconscious man secretly from here to London."" +""You think he meant to take him from here to London?"" +""Prior to shipping him to China; I think so. His clearing-house is +probably on the Thames."" +""A boat?"" +""A yacht, presumably, is lying off the coast in readiness. Fu-Manchu +may even have designed to ship him direct to China."" +Lord Southery, a bizarre figure, my traveling coat wrapped about him, +and supported by his solicitor, who was almost as pale as himself, +emerged from the vault into the moonlight. +""This is a triumph for you, Smith,"" I said. +The throb of Fu-Manchu's car died into faintness and was lost in the +night's silence. +""Only half a triumph,"" he replied. ""But we still have another +chance--the raid on his house. When will the word come from Karamaneh?"" +Southery spoke in a weak voice. +""Gentlemen,"" he said, ""it seems I am raised from the dead."" +It was the weirdest moment of the night wherein we heard that newly +buried man speak from the mold of his tomb. +""Yes,"" replied Smith slowly, ""and spared from the fate of Heaven alone +knows how many men of genius. The yellow society lacks a Southery, but +that Dr. Fu-Manchu was in Germany three years ago I have reason to +believe; so that, even without visiting the grave of your great +Teutonic rival, who suddenly died at about that time, I venture to +predict that they have a Von Homber. And the futurist group in China +knows how to MAKE men work!"" +CHAPTER XXIV +FROM the rescue of Lord Southery my story bears me mercilessly on to +other things. I may not tarry, as more leisurely penmen, to round my +incidents; they were not of my choosing. I may not pause to make you +better acquainted with the figure of my drama; its scheme is none of +mine. Often enough, in those days, I found a fitness in the lines of +Omar: +We are no other than a moving show +Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go +Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held +In Midnight by the Master of the Show. +But ""the Master of the Show,"" in this case, was Dr. Fu-Manchu! +I have been asked many times since the days with which these records +deal: Who WAS Dr. Fu-Manchu? Let me confess here that my final answer +must be postponed. I can only indicate, at this place, the trend of my +reasoning, and leave my reader to form whatever conclusion he pleases. +What group can we isolate and label as responsible for the overthrow of +the Manchus? The casual student of modern Chinese history will reply: +""Young China."" This is unsatisfactory. What do we mean by Young +China? In my own hearing Fu-Manchu had disclaimed, with scorn, +association with the whole of that movement; and assuming that the name +were not an assumed one, he clearly can have been no anti-Manchu, no +Republican. +The Chinese Republican is of the mandarin class, but of a new +generation which veneers its Confucianism with Western polish. These +youthful and unbalanced reformers, in conjunction with older but no +less ill-balanced provincial politicians, may be said to represent +Young China. Amid such turmoils as this we invariably look for, and +invariably find, a Third Party. In my opinion, Dr. Fu-Manchu was one +of the leaders of such a party. +Another question often put to me was: Where did the Doctor hide during +the time that he pursued his operations in London? This is more +susceptible of explanation. For a time Nayland Smith supposed, as I +did myself, that the opium den adjacent to the old Ratcliff Highway was +the Chinaman's base of operations; later we came to believe that the +mansion near Windsor was his hiding-place, and later still, the hulk +lying off the downstream flats. But I think I can state with +confidence that the spot which he had chosen for his home was neither +of these, but the East End riverside building which I was the first to +enter. Of this I am all but sure; for the reason that it not only was +the home of Fu-Manchu, of Karamaneh, and of her brother, Aziz, but the +home of something else--of something which I shall speak of later. +The dreadful tragedy (or series of tragedies) which attended the raid +upon the place will always mark in my memory the supreme horror of a +horrible case. Let me endeavor to explain what occurred. +By the aid of Karamaneh, you have seen how we had located the whilom +warehouse, which, from the exterior, was so drab and dreary, but which +within was a place of wondrous luxury. At the moment selected by our +beautiful accomplice, Inspector Weymouth and a body of detectives +entirely surrounded it; a river police launch lay off the wharf which +opened from it on the river-side; and this upon a singularly black +night, than which a better could not have been chosen. +""You will fulfill your promise to me?"" said Karamaneh, and looked up +into my face. +She was enveloped in a big, loose cloak, and from the shadow of the +hood her wonderful eyes gleamed out like stars. +""What do you wish us to do?"" asked Nayland Smith. +""You--and Dr. Petrie,"" she replied swiftly, ""must enter first, and +bring out Aziz. Until he is safe--until he is out of that place--you +are to make no attempt upon--"" +""Upon Dr. Fu-Manchu?"" interrupted Weymouth; for Karamaneh hesitated to +pronounce the dreaded name, as she always did. ""But how can we be sure +that there is no trap laid for us?"" +The Scotland Yard man did not entirely share my confidence in the +integrity of this Eastern girl whom he knew to have been a creature of +the Chinaman's. +""Aziz lies in the private room,"" she explained eagerly, her old accent +more noticeable than usual. ""There is only one of the Burmese men in +the house, and he--he dare not enter without orders!"" +""But Fu-Manchu?"" +""We have nothing to fear from him. He will be your prisoner within ten +minutes from now! I have no time for words--you must believe!"" She +stamped her foot impatiently. ""And the dacoit?"" snapped Smith. +""He also."" +""I think perhaps I'd better come in, too,"" said Weymouth slowly. +Karamaneh shrugged her shoulders with quick impatience, and unlocked +the door in the high brick wall which divided the gloomy, evil-smelling +court from the luxurious apartments of Dr. Fu-Manchu. +""Make no noise,"" she warned. And Smith and myself followed her along +the uncarpeted passage beyond. +Inspector Weymouth, with a final word of instruction to his second in +command, brought up the rear. The door was reclosed; a few paces +farther on a second was unlocked. Passing through a small room, +unfurnished, a farther passage led us to a balcony. The transition was +startling. +Darkness was about us now, and silence: a perfumed, slumberous +darkness--a silence full of mystery. For, beyond the walls of the +apartment whereon we looked down waged the unceasing battle of sounds +that is the hymn of the great industrial river. About the scented +confines which bounded us now floated the smoke-laden vapors of the +Lower Thames. +From the metallic but infinitely human clangor of dock-side life, from +the unpleasant but homely odors which prevail where ships swallow in +and belch out the concrete evidences of commercial prosperity, we had +come into this incensed stillness, where one shaded lamp painted dim +enlargements of its Chinese silk upon the nearer walls, and left the +greater part of the room the darker for its contrast. +Nothing of the Thames-side activity--of the riveting and scraping--the +bumping of bales--the bawling of orders--the hiss of steam--penetrated +to this perfumed place. In the pool of tinted light lay the deathlike +figure of a dark-haired boy, Karamaneh's muffled form bending over him. +""At last I stand in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu!"" whispered Smith. +Despite the girl's assurance, we knew that proximity to the sinister +Chinaman must be fraught with danger. We stood, not in the lion's den, +but in the serpent's lair. +From the time when Nayland Smith had come from Burma in pursuit of this +advance-guard of a cogent Yellow Peril, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu +rarely had been absent from my dreams day or night. The millions might +sleep in peace--the millions in whose cause we labored!--but we who +knew the reality of the danger knew that a veritable octopus had +fastened upon England--a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr. +Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death, +secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and left +no clew behind. +""Karamaneh!"" I called softly. +The muffled form beneath the lamp turned so that the soft light fell +upon the lovely face of the slave girl. She who had been a pliant +instrument in the hands of Fu-Manchu now was to be the means whereby +society should be rid of him. +She raised her finger warningly; then beckoned me to approach. +My feet sinking in the rich pile of the carpet, I came through the +gloom of the great apartment in to the patch of light, and, Karamaneh +beside me, stood looking down upon the boy. It was Aziz, her brother; +dead so far as Western lore had power to judge, but kept alive in that +deathlike trance by the uncanny power of the Chinese doctor. +""Be quick,"" she said; ""be quick! Awaken him! I am afraid."" +From the case which I carried I took out a needle-syringe and a phial +containing a small quantity of amber-hued liquid. It was a drug not to +be found in the British Pharmacopoeia. Of its constitution I knew +nothing. Although I had had the phial in my possession for some days I +had not dared to devote any of its precious contents to analytical +purposes. The amber drops spelled life for the boy Aziz, spelled +success for the mission of Nayland Smith, spelled ruin for the fiendish +Chinaman. +I raised the white coverlet. The boy, fully dressed, lay with his arms +crossed upon his breast. I discerned the mark of previous injections +as, charging the syringe from the phial, I made what I hoped would be +the last of such experiments upon him. I would have given half of my +small worldly possessions to have known the real nature of the drug +which was now coursing through the veins of Aziz--which was tinting the +grayed face with the olive tone of life; which, so far as my medical +training bore me, was restoring the dead to life. +But such was not the purpose of my visit. I was come to remove from +the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu the living chain which bound Karamaneh to +him. The boy alive and free, the Doctor's hold upon the slave girl +would be broken. +My lovely companion, her hands convulsively clasped, knelt and devoured +with her eyes the face of the boy who was passing through the most +amazing physiological change in the history of therapeutics. The +peculiar perfume which she wore--which seemed to be a part of +her--which always I associated with her--was faintly perceptible. +Karamaneh was breathing rapidly. +""You have nothing to fear,"" I whispered; ""see, he is reviving. In a +few moments all will be well with him."" +The hanging lamp with its garishly colored shade swung gently above us, +wafted, it seemed, by some draught which passed through the apartment. +The boy's heavy lids began to quiver, and Karamaneh nervously clutched +my arm, and held me so whilst we watched for the long-lashed eyes to +open. The stillness of the place was positively unnatural; it seemed +inconceivable that all about us was the discordant activity of the +commercial East End. Indeed, this eerie silence was becoming +oppressive; it began positively to appall me. +Inspector Weymouth's wondering face peeped over my shoulder. +""Where is Dr. Fu-Manchu?"" I whispered, as Nayland Smith in turn +appeared beside me. ""I cannot understand the silence of the house--"" +""Look about,"" replied Karamaneh, never taking her eyes from the face of +Aziz. +I peered around the shadowy walls. Tall glass cases there were, +shelves and niches: where once, from the gallery above, I had seen the +tubes and retorts, the jars of unfamiliar organisms, the books of +unfamiliar lore, the impedimenta of the occult student and man of +science--the visible evidences of Fu-Manchu's presence. +Shelves--cases--niches--were bare. Of the complicated appliances +unknown to civilized laboratories, wherewith he pursued his strange +experiments, of the tubes wherein he isolated the bacilli of +unclassified diseases, of the yellow-bound volumes for a glimpse at +which (had they known of their contents) the great men of Harley Street +would have given a fortune--no trace remained. The silken cushions; +the inlaid tables; all were gone. +The room was stripped, dismantled. Had Fu-Manchu fled? The silence +assumed a new significance. His dacoits and kindred ministers of death +all must have fled, too. +""You have let him escape us!"" I said rapidly. ""You promised to aid us +to capture him--to send us a message--and you have delayed until--"" +""No,"" she said; ""no!"" and clutched at my arm again. ""Oh! is he not +reviving slowly? Are you sure you have made no mistake?"" +Her thoughts were all for the boy; and her solicitude touched me. I +again examined Aziz, the most remarkable patient of my busy +professional career. +As I counted the strengthening pulse, he opened his dark eyes--which +were so like the eyes of Karamaneh--and, with the girl's eager arms +tightly about him, sat up, looking wonderingly around. +Karamaneh pressed her cheek to his, whispering loving words in that +softly spoken Arabic which had first betrayed her nationality to +Nayland Smith. I handed her my flask, which I had filled with wine. +""My promise is fulfilled!"" I said. ""You are free! Now for Fu-Manchu! +But first let us admit the police to this house; there is something +uncanny in its stillness."" +""No,"" she replied. ""First let my brother be taken out and placed in +safety. Will you carry him?"" +She raised her face to that of Inspector Weymouth, upon which was +written awe and wonder. +The burly detective lifted the boy as tenderly as a woman, passed +through the shadows to the stairway, ascended, and was swallowed up in +the gloom. Nayland Smith's eyes gleamed feverishly. He turned to +Karamaneh. +""You are not playing with us?"" he said harshly. ""We have done our +part; it remains for you to do yours."" +""Do not speak so loudly,"" the girl begged. ""HE is near us--and, oh, +God, I fear him so!"" +""Where is he?"" persisted my friend. +Karamaneh's eyes were glassy with fear now. +""You must not touch him until the police are here,"" she said--but from +the direction of her quick, agitated glances I knew that, her brother +safe now, she feared for me, and for me alone. Those glances sent my +blood dancing; for Karamaneh was an Eastern jewel which any man of +flesh and blood must have coveted had he known it to lie within his +reach. Her eyes were twin lakes of mystery which, more than once, I +had known the desire to explore. +""Look--beyond that curtain""--her voice was barely audible--""but do not +enter. Even as he is, I fear him."" +Her voice, her palpable agitation, prepared us for something +extraordinary. Tragedy and Fu-Manchu were never far apart. Though we +were two, and help was so near, we were in the abode of the most +cunning murderer who ever came out of the East. +It was with strangely mingled emotions that I crossed the thick carpet, +Nayland Smith beside me, and drew aside the draperies concealing a +door, to which Karamaneh had pointed. Then, upon looking into the dim +place beyond, all else save what it held was forgotten. +We looked upon a small, square room, the walls draped with fantastic +Chinese tapestry, the floor strewn with cushions; and reclining in a +corner, where the faint, blue light from a lamp, placed upon a low +table, painted grotesque shadows about the cavernous face--was Dr. +Fu-Manchu! +At sight of him my heart leaped--and seemed to suspend its functions, +so intense was the horror which this man's presence inspired in me. My +hand clutching the curtain, I stood watching him. The lids veiled the +malignant green eyes, but the thin lips seemed to smile. Then Smith +silently pointed to the hand which held a little pipe. A sickly +perfume assailed my nostrils, and the explanation of the hushed +silence, and the ease with which we had thus far executed our plan, +came to me. The cunning mind was torpid--lost in a brutish world of +dreams. +Fu-Manchu was in an opium sleep! +The dim light traced out a network of tiny lines, which covered the +yellow face from the pointed chin to the top of the great domed brow, +and formed deep shadow pools in the hollows beneath his eyes. At last +we had triumphed. +I could not determine the depth of his obscene trance; and mastering +some of my repugnance, and forgetful of Karamaneh's warning, I was +about to step forward into the room, loaded with its nauseating opium +fumes, when a soft breath fanned my cheek. +""Do not go in!"" came Karamaneh's warning voice--hushed--trembling. +Her little hand grasped my arm. She drew Smith and myself back from +the door. +""There is danger there!"" she whispered. +""Do not enter that room! The police must reach him in some way--and +drag him out! Do not enter that room!"" +The girl's voice quivered hysterically; her eyes blazed into savage +flame. The fierce resentment born of dreadful wrongs was consuming her +now; but fear of Fu-Manchu held her yet. Inspector Weymouth came down +the stairs and joined us. +""I have sent the boy to Ryman's room at the station,"" he said. ""The +divisional surgeon will look after him until you arrive, Dr. Petrie. +All is ready now. The launch is just off the wharf and every side of +the place under observation. Where's our man?"" +He drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and raised his eyebrows +interrogatively. The absence of sound--of any demonstration from the +uncanny Chinaman whom he was there to arrest--puzzled him. +Nayland Smith jerked his thumb toward the curtain. +At that, and before we could utter a word, Weymouth stepped to the +draped door. He was a man who drove straight at his goal and saved +reflections for subsequent leisure. I think, moreover, that the +atmosphere of the place (stripped as it was it retained its heavy, +voluptuous perfume) had begun to get a hold upon him. He was anxious +to shake it off; to be up and doing. +He pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the room. Smith and I +perforce followed him. Just within the door the three of us stood +looking across at the limp thing which had spread terror throughout the +Eastern and Western world. Helpless as Fu-Manchu was, he inspired +terror now, though the giant intellect was inert--stupefied. +In the dimly lit apartment we had quitted I heard Karamaneh utter a +stifled scream. But it came too late. +As though cast up by a volcano, the silken cushions, the inlaid table +with its blue-shaded lamp, the garish walls, the sprawling figure with +the ghastly light playing upon its features--quivered, and shot upward! +So it seemed to me; though, in the ensuing instant I remembered, too +late, a previous experience of the floors of Fu-Manchu's private +apartments; I knew what had indeed befallen us. A trap had been +released beneath our feet. +I recall falling--but have no recollection of the end of my fall--of +the shock marking the drop. I only remember fighting for my life +against a stifling something which had me by the throat. I knew that I +was being suffocated, but my hands met only the deathly emptiness. +Into a poisonous well of darkness I sank. I could not cry out. I was +helpless. Of the fate of my companions I knew nothing--could surmise +nothing. Then . . . all consciousness ended. +CHAPTER XXV +I WAS being carried along a dimly lighted, tunnel-like place, slung, +sackwise, across the shoulder of a Burman. He was not a big man, but +he supported my considerable weight with apparent ease. A deadly +nausea held me, but the rough handling had served to restore me to +consciousness. My hands and feet were closely lashed. I hung limply +as a wet towel: I felt that this spark of tortured life which had +flickered up in me must ere long finally become extinguished. +A fancy possessed me, in these the first moments of my restoration to +the world of realities, that I had been smuggled into China; and as I +swung head downward I told myself that the huge, puffy things which +strewed the path were a species of giant toadstool, unfamiliar to me +and possibly peculiar to whatever district of China I now was in. +The air was hot, steamy, and loaded with a smell as of rotting +vegetation. I wondered why my bearer so scrupulously avoided touching +any of the unwholesome-looking growths in passing through what seemed a +succession of cellars, but steered a tortuous course among the bloated, +unnatural shapes, lifting his bare brown feet with a catlike delicacy. +He passed under a low arch, dropped me roughly to the ground and ran +back. Half stunned, I lay watching the agile brown body melt into the +distances of the cellars. Their walls and roof seemed to emit a faint, +phosphorescent light. +""Petrie!"" came a weak voice from somewhere ahead. . . . ""Is that you, +Petrie?"" +It was Nayland Smith! +""Smith!"" I said, and strove to sit up. But the intense nausea overcame +me, so that I all but swooned. +I heard his voice again, but could attach no meaning to the words which +he uttered. A sound of terrific blows reached my ears, too. The +Burman reappeared, bending under the heavy load which he bore. For, as +he picked his way through the bloated things which grew upon the floors +of the cellars, I realized that he was carrying the inert body of +Inspector Weymouth. And I found time to compare the strength of the +little brown man with that of a Nile beetle, which can raise many times +its own weight. Then, behind him, appeared a second figure, which +immediately claimed the whole of my errant attention. +""Fu-Manchu!"" hissed my friend, from the darkness which concealed him. +It was indeed none other than Fu-Manchu--the Fu-Manchu whom we had +thought to be helpless. The deeps of the Chinaman's cunning--the fine +quality of his courage, were forced upon me as amazing facts. +He had assumed the appearance of a drugged opium-smoker so well as to +dupe me--a medical man; so well as to dupe Karamaneh--whose experience +of the noxious habit probably was greater than my own. And, with the +gallows dangling before him, he had waited--played the part of a +lure--whilst a body of police actually surrounded the place! +I have since thought that the room probably was one which he actually +used for opium debauches, and the device of the trap was intended to +protect him during the comatose period. +Now, holding a lantern above his head, the deviser of the trap +whereinto we, mouselike, had blindly entered, came through the cellars, +following the brown man who carried Weymouth. The faint rays of the +lantern (it apparently contained a candle) revealed a veritable forest +of the gigantic fungi--poisonously colored--hideously swollen--climbing +from the floor up the slimy walls--climbing like horrid parasites to +such part of the arched roof as was visible to me. +Fu-Manchu picked his way through the fungi ranks as daintily as though +the distorted, tumid things had been viper-headed. +The resounding blows which I had noted before, and which had never +ceased, culminated in a splintering crash. Dr. Fu-Manchu and his +servant, who carried the apparently insensible detective, passed in +under the arch, Fu-Manchu glancing back once along the passages. The +lantern he extinguished, or concealed; and whilst I waited, my mind +dully surveying memories of all the threats which this uncanny being +had uttered, a distant clamor came to my ears. +Then, abruptly, it ceased. Dr. Fu-Manchu had closed a heavy door; and +to my surprise I perceived that the greater part of it was of glass. +The will-o'-the-wisp glow which played around the fungi rendered the +vista of the cellars faintly luminous, and visible to me from where I +lay. Fu-Manchu spoke softly. His voice, its guttural note alternating +with a sibilance on certain words, betrayed no traces of agitation. +The man's unbroken calm had in it something inhuman. For he had just +perpetrated an act of daring unparalleled in my experience, and, in the +clamor now shut out by the glass door I tardily recognized the entrance +of the police into some barricaded part of the house--the coming of +those who would save us--who would hold the Chinese doctor for the +hangman! +""I have decided,"" he said deliberately, ""that you are more worthy of my +attention than I had formerly supposed. A man who can solve the secret +of the Golden Elixir (I had not solved it; I had merely stolen some) +should be a valuable acquisition to my Council. The extent of the +plans of Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith and of the English Scotland +Yard it is incumbent upon me to learn. Therefore, gentlemen, you +live--for the present!"" +""And you'll swing,"" came Weymouth's hoarse voice, ""in the near future! +You and all your yellow gang!"" +""I trust not,"" was the placid reply. ""Most of my people are safe: some +are shipped as lascars upon the liners; others have departed by +different means. Ah!"" +That last word was the only one indicative of excitement which had yet +escaped him. A disk of light danced among the brilliant poison hues of +the passages--but no sound reached us; by which I knew that the glass +door must fit almost hermetically. It was much cooler here than in the +place through which we had passed, and the nausea began to leave me, my +brain to grow more clear. Had I known what was to follow I should have +cursed the lucidity of mind which now came to me; I should have prayed +for oblivion--to be spared the sight of that which ensued. +""It's Logan!"" cried Inspector Weymouth; and I could tell that he was +struggling to free himself of his bonds. From his voice it was evident +that he, too, was recovering from the effects of the narcotic which had +been administered to us all. +""Logan!"" he cried. ""Logan! This way--HELP!"" +But the cry beat back upon us in that enclosed space and seemed to +carry no farther than the invisible walls of our prison. +""The door fits well,"" came Fu-Manchu's mocking voice. ""It is fortunate +for us all that it is so. This is my observation window, Dr. Petrie, +and you are about to enjoy an unique opportunity of studying fungology. +I have already drawn your attention to the anaesthetic properties of +the lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes? +The chamber into which you rashly precipitated yourselves was charged +with them. By a process of my own I have greatly enhanced the value of +the puff-ball in this respect. Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the +most obstinate subject; but he succumbed in fifteen seconds."" +""Logan! Help! HELP! This way, man!"" +Something very like fear sounded in Weymouth's voice now. Indeed, the +situation was so uncanny that it almost seemed unreal. A group of men +had entered the farthermost cellars, led by one who bore an electric +pocket-lamp. The hard, white ray danced from bloated gray fungi to +others of nightmare shape, of dazzling, venomous brilliance. The +mocking, lecture-room voice continued: +""Note the snowy growth upon the roof, Doctor. Do not be deceived by +its size. It is a giant variety of my own culture and is of the order +empusa. You, in England, are familiar with the death of the common +house-fly--which is found attached to the window-pane by a coating of +white mold. I have developed the spores of this mold and have produced +a giant species. Observe the interesting effect of the strong light +upon my orange and blue amanita fungus!"" +Hard beside me I heard Nayland Smith groan, Weymouth had become +suddenly silent. For my own part, I could have shrieked in pure +horror. FOR I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. I realized in one agonized instant +the significance of the dim lantern, of the careful progress through +the subterranean fungi grove, of the care with which Fu-Manchu and his +servant had avoided touching any of the growths. I knew, now, that Dr. +Fu-Manchu was the greatest fungologist the world had ever known; was a +poisoner to whom the Borgias were as children--and I knew that the +detectives blindly were walking into a valley of death. +Then it began--the unnatural scene--the saturnalia of murder. +Like so many bombs the brilliantly colored caps of the huge +toadstool-like things alluded to by the Chinaman exploded, as the white +ray sought them out in the darkness which alone preserved their +existence. A brownish cloud--I could not determine whether liquid or +powdery--arose in the cellar. +I tried to close my eyes--or to turn them away from the reeling forms +of the men who were trapped in that poison-hole. It was useless: +I must look. +The bearer of the lamp had dropped it, but the dim, eerily illuminated +gloom endured scarce a second. A bright light sprang up--doubtless at +the touch of the fiendish being who now resumed speech: +""Observe the symptoms of delirium, Doctor!"" Out there, beyond the +glass door, the unhappy victims were laughing--tearing their garments +from their bodies--leaping--waving their arms--were become MANIACS! +""We will now release the ripe spores of giant entpusa,"" continued the +wicked voice. ""The air of the second cellar being super-charged with +oxygen, they immediately germinate. Ah! it is a triumph! That +process is the scientific triumph of my life!"" +Like powdered snow the white spores fell from the roof, frosting the +writhing shapes of the already poisoned men. Before my horrified gaze, +THE FUNGUS GREW; it spread from the head to the feet of those it +touched; it enveloped them as in glittering shrouds. . . . +""They die like flies!"" screamed Fu-Manchu, with a sudden febrile +excitement; and I felt assured of something I had long suspected: that +that magnificent, perverted brain was the brain of a homicidal +maniac--though Smith would never accept the theory. +""It is my fly-trap!"" shrieked the Chinaman. ""And I am the god of +destruction!"" +CHAPTER XXVI +THE clammy touch of the mist revived me. The culmination of the scene +in the poison cellars, together with the effects of the fumes which I +had inhaled again, had deprived me of consciousness. Now I knew that I +was afloat on the river. I still was bound: furthermore, a cloth was +wrapped tightly about my mouth, and I was secured to a ring in the deck. +By moving my aching head to the left I could look down into the oily +water; by moving it to the right I could catch a glimpse of the +empurpled face of Inspector Weymouth, who, similarly bound and gagged, +lay beside me, but only of the feet and legs of Nayland Smith. For I +could not turn my head sufficiently far to see more. +We were aboard an electric launch. I heard the hated guttural voice of +Fu-Manchu, subdued now to its habitual calm, and my heart leaped to +hear the voice that answered him. It was that of Karamaneh. His +triumph was complete. Clearly his plans for departure were complete; +his slaughter of the police in the underground passages had been a +final reckless demonstration of which the Chinaman's subtle cunning +would have been incapable had he not known his escape from the country +to be assured. +What fate was in store for us? How would he avenge himself upon the +girl who had betrayed him to his enemies? What portion awaited those +enemies? He seemed to have formed the singular determination to +smuggle me into China--but what did he purpose in the case of Weymouth, +and in the case of Nayland Smith? +All but silently we were feeling our way through the mist. Astern died +the clangor of dock and wharf into a remote discord. Ahead hung the +foggy curtain veiling the traffic of the great waterway; but through it +broke the calling of sirens, the tinkling of bells. +The gentle movement of the screw ceased altogether. The launch lay +heaving slightly upon the swells. +A distant throbbing grew louder--and something advanced upon us through +the haze. +A bell rang and muffled by the fog a voice proclaimed itself--a voice +which I knew. I felt Weymouth writhing impotently beside me; heard him +mumbling incoherently; and I knew that he, too, had recognized the +voice. +It was that of Inspector Ryman of the river police and their launch was +within biscuit-throw of that upon which we lay! +""'Hoy! 'Hoy!"" +I trembled. A feverish excitement claimed me. They were hailing us. +We carried no lights; but now--and ignoring the pain which shot from my +spine to my skull I craned my neck to the left--the port light of the +police launch glowed angrily through the mist. +I was unable to utter any save mumbling sounds, and my companions were +equally helpless. It was a desperate position. Had the police seen us +or had they hailed at random? The light drew nearer. +""Launch, 'hoy!"" +They had seen us! Fu-Manchu's guttural voice spoke shortly--and our +screw began to revolve again; we leaped ahead into the bank of +darkness. Faint grew the light of the police launch--and was gone. +But I heard Ryman's voice shouting. +""Full speed!"" came faintly through the darkness. ""Port! Port!"" +Then the murk closed down, and with our friends far astern of us we +were racing deeper into the fog banks--speeding seaward; though of this +I was unable to judge at the time. +On we raced, and on, sweeping over growing swells. Once, a black, +towering shape dropped down upon us. Far above, lights blazed, bells +rang, vague cries pierced the fog. The launch pitched and rolled +perilously, but weathered the wash of the liner which so nearly had +concluded this episode. It was such a journey as I had taken once +before, early in our pursuit of the genius of the Yellow Peril; but +this was infinitely more terrible; for now we were utterly in +Fu-Manchu's power. +A voice mumbled in my ear. I turned my bound-up face; and Inspector +Weymouth raised his hands in the dimness and partly slipped the bandage +from his mouth. +""I've been working at the cords since we left those filthy cellars,"" he +whispered. ""My wrists are all cut, but when I've got out a knife and +freed my ankles--"" +Smith had kicked him with his bound feet. The detective slipped the +bandage back to position and placed his hands behind him again. Dr. +Fu-Manchu, wearing a heavy overcoat but no hat, came aft. He was +dragging Karamaneh by the wrists. He seated himself on the cushions +near to us, pulling the girl down beside him. Now, I could see her +face--and the expression in her beautiful eyes made me writhe. +Fu-Manchu was watching us, his discolored teeth faintly visible in the +dim light, to which my eyes were becoming accustomed. +""Dr. Petrie,"" he said, ""you shall be my honored guest at my home in +China. You shall assist me to revolutionize chemistry. Mr. Smith, I +fear you know more of my plans than I had deemed it possible for you to +have learned, and I am anxious to know if you have a confidant. Where +your memory fails you, and my files and wire jackets prove ineffectual, +Inspector Weymouth's recollections may prove more accurate."" +He turned to the cowering girl--who shrank away from him in pitiful, +abject terror. +""In my hands, Doctor,"" he continued, ""I hold a needle charged with a +rare culture. It is the link between the bacilli and the fungi. You +have seemed to display an undue interest in the peach and pearl which +render my Karamaneh so delightful, in the supple grace of her movements +and the sparkle of her eyes. You can never devote your whole mind to +those studies which I have planned for you whilst such distractions +exist. A touch of this keen point, and the laughing Karamaneh becomes +the shrieking hag--the maniacal, mowing--"" +Then, with an ox-like rush, Weymouth was upon him! +Karamaneh, wrought upon past endurance, with a sobbing cry, sank to the +deck--and lay still. I managed to writhe into a half-sitting posture, +and Smith rolled aside as the detective and the Chinaman crashed down +together. +Weymouth had one big hand at the Doctor's yellow throat; with his left +he grasped the Chinaman's right. It held the needle. +Now, I could look along the length of the little craft, and, so far as +it was possible to make out in the fog, only one other was aboard--the +half-clad brown man who navigated her--and who had carried us through +the cellars. The murk had grown denser and now shut us in like a box. +The throb of the motor--the hissing breath of the two who fought--with +so much at issue--these sounds and the wash of the water alone broke +the eerie stillness. +By slow degrees, and with a reptilian agility horrible to watch, +Fu-Manchu was neutralizing the advantage gained by Weymouth. His +clawish fingers were fast in the big man's throat; the right hand with +its deadly needle was forcing down the left of his opponent. He had +been underneath, but now he was gaining the upper place. His powers of +physical endurance must have been truly marvelous. His breath was +whistling through his nostrils significantly, but Weymouth was palpably +tiring. +The latter suddenly changed his tactics. By a supreme effort, to which +he was spurred, I think, by the growing proximity of the needle, he +raised Fu-Manchu--by the throat and arm--and pitched him sideways. +The Chinaman's grip did not relax, and the two wrestlers dropped, a +writhing mass, upon the port cushions. The launch heeled over, and my +cry of horror was crushed back into my throat by the bandage. For, as +Fu-Manchu sought to extricate himself, he overbalanced--fell back--and, +bearing Weymouth with him--slid into the river! +The mist swallowed them up. +There are moments of which no man can recall his mental impressions, +moments so acutely horrible that, mercifully, our memory retains +nothing of the emotions they occasioned. This was one of them. A +chaos ruled in my mind. I had a vague belief that the Burman, forward, +glanced back. Then the course of the launch was changed. How long +intervened between the tragic end of that Gargantuan struggle and the +time when a black wall leaped suddenly up before us I cannot pretend to +state. +With a sickening jerk we ran aground. A loud explosion ensued, and I +clearly remember seeing the brown man leap out into the fog--which was +the last I saw of him. +Water began to wash aboard. +Fully alive to our imminent peril, I fought with the cords that bound +me; but I lacked poor Weymouth's strength of wrist, and I began to +accept as a horrible and imminent possibility, a death from drowning, +within six feet of the bank. +Beside me, Nayland Smith was straining and twisting. I think his +object was to touch Karamaneh, in the hope of arousing her. Where he +failed in his project, the inflowing water succeeded. A silent prayer +of thankfulness came from my very soul when I saw her stir--when I saw +her raise her hands to her head--and saw the big, horror-bright eyes +gleam through the mist veil. +CHAPTER XXVII +WE quitted the wrecked launch but a few seconds before her stern +settled down into the river. Where the mud-bank upon which we found +ourselves was situated we had no idea. But at least it was terra firma +and we were free from Dr. Fu-Manchu. +Smith stood looking out towards the river. +""My God!"" he groaned. ""My God!"" +He was thinking, as I was, of Weymouth. +And when, an hour later, the police boat located us (on the mud-flats +below Greenwich) and we heard that the toll of the poison cellars was +eight men, we also heard news of our brave companion. +""Back there in the fog, sir,"" reported Inspector Ryman, who was in +charge, and his voice was under poor command, ""there was an uncanny +howling, and peals of laughter that I'm going to dream about for +weeks--"" +Karamaneh, who nestled beside me like a frightened child, shivered; and +I knew that the needle had done its work, despite Weymouth's giant +strength. +Smith swallowed noisily. +""Pray God the river has that yellow Satan,"" he said. ""I would +sacrifice a year of my life to see his rat's body on the end of a +grappling-iron!"" +We were a sad party that steamed through the fog homeward that night. +It seemed almost like deserting a staunch comrade to leave the spot--so +nearly as we could locate it--where Weymouth had put up that last +gallant fight. Our helplessness was pathetic, and although, had the +night been clear as crystal, I doubt if we could have acted otherwise, +it came to me that this stinking murk was a new enemy which drove us +back in coward retreat. +But so many were the calls upon our activity, and so numerous the +stimulants to our initiative in those times, that soon we had matter to +relieve our minds from this stress of sorrow. +There was Karamaneh to be considered--Karamaneh and her brother. A +brief counsel was held, whereat it was decided that for the present +they should be lodged at a hotel. +""I shall arrange,"" Smith whispered to me, for the girl was watching us, +""to have the place patrolled night and day."" +""You cannot suppose--"" +""Petrie! I cannot and dare not suppose Fu-Manchu dead until with my +own eyes I have seen him so!"" +Accordingly we conveyed the beautiful Oriental girl and her brother +away from that luxurious abode in its sordid setting. I will not dwell +upon the final scene in the poison cellars lest I be accused of +accumulating horror for horror's sake. Members of the fire brigade, +helmed against contagion, brought out the bodies of the victims wrapped +in their living shrouds. . . . +From Karamaneh we learned much of Fu-Manchu, little of herself. +""What am I? Does my poor history matter--to anyone?"" was her answer to +questions respecting herself. +And she would droop her lashes over her dark eyes. +The dacoits whom the Chinaman had brought to England originally +numbered seven, we learned. As you, having followed me thus far, will +be aware, we had thinned the ranks of the Burmans. Probably only one +now remained in England. They had lived in a camp in the grounds of +the house near Windsor (which, as we had learned at the time of its +destruction, the Doctor had bought outright). The Thames had been his +highway. +Other members of the group had occupied quarters in various parts of +the East End, where sailormen of all nationalities congregate. +Shen-Yan's had been the East End headquarters. He had employed the +hulk from the time of his arrival, as a laboratory for a certain class +of experiments undesirable in proximity to a place of residence. +Nayland Smith asked the girl on one occasion if the Chinaman had had a +private sea-going vessel, and she replied in the affirmative. She had +never been on board, however, had never even set eyes upon it, and +could give us no information respecting its character. It had sailed +for China. +""You are sure,"" asked Smith keenly, ""that it has actually left?"" +""I understood so, and that we were to follow by another route."" +""It would have been difficult for Fu-Manchu to travel by a passenger +boat?"" +""I cannot say what were his plans."" +In a state of singular uncertainty, then, readily to be understood, we +passed the days following the tragedy which had deprived us of our +fellow-worker. +Vividly I recall the scene at poor Weymouth's home, on the day that we +visited it. I then made the acquaintance of the Inspector's brother. +Nayland Smith gave him a detailed account of the last scene. +""Out there in the mist,"" he concluded wearily, ""it all seemed very +unreal."" +""I wish to God it had been!"" +""Amen to that, Mr. Weymouth. But your brother made a gallant finish. +If ridding the world of Fu-Manchu were the only good deed to his +credit, his life had been well spent."" +James Weymouth smoked awhile in thoughtful silence. Though but four +and a half miles S.S.E. of St. Paul's the quaint little cottage, with +its rustic garden, shadowed by the tall trees which had so lined the +village street before motor 'buses were, was a spot as peaceful and +secluded as any in broad England. But another shadow lay upon it +to-day--chilling, fearful. An incarnate evil had come out of the dim +East and in its dying malevolence had touched this home. +""There are two things I don't understand about it, sir,"" continued +Weymouth. ""What was the meaning of the horrible laughter which the +river police heard in the fog? And where are the bodies?"" +Karamaneh, seated beside me, shuddered at the words. Smith, whose +restless spirit granted him little repose, paused in his aimless +wanderings about the room and looked at her. +In these latter days of his Augean labors to purge England of the +unclean thing which had fastened upon her, my friend was more lean and +nervous-looking than I had ever known him. His long residence in Burma +had rendered him spare and had burned his naturally dark skin to a +coppery hue; but now his gray eyes had grown feverishly bright and his +face so lean as at times to appear positively emaciated. But I knew +that he was as fit as ever. +""This lady may be able to answer your first question,"" he said. ""She +and her brother were for some time in the household of Dr. Fu-Manchu. +In fact, Mr. Weymouth, Karamaneh, as her name implies, was a slave."" +Weymouth glanced at the beautiful, troubled face with scarcely veiled +distrust. ""You don't look as though you had come from China, miss,"" he +said, with a sort of unwilling admiration. +""I do not come from China,"" replied Karamaneh. ""My father was a pure +Bedawee. But my history does not matter."" (At times there was +something imperious in her manner; and to this her musical accent added +force.) ""When your brave brother, Inspector Weymouth, and Dr. +Fu-Manchu, were swallowed up by the river, Fu-Manchu held a poisoned +needle in his hand. The laughter meant that the needle had done its +work. Your brother had become mad!"" +Weymouth turned aside to hide his emotion. ""What was on the needle?"" +he asked huskily. +""It was something which he prepared from the venom of a kind of swamp +adder,"" she answered. ""It produces madness, but not always death."" +""He would have had a poor chance,"" said Smith, ""even had he been in +complete possession of his senses. At the time of the encounter we +must have been some considerable distance from shore, and the fog was +impenetrable."" +""But how do you account for the fact that neither of the bodies have +been recovered?"" +""Ryman of the river police tells me that persons lost at that point are +not always recovered--or not until a considerable time later."" +There was a faint sound from the room above. The news of that tragic +happening out in the mist upon the Thames had prostrated poor Mrs. +Weymouth. +""She hasn't been told half the truth,"" said her brother-in-law. ""She +doesn't know about--the poisoned needle. What kind of fiend was this +Dr. Fu-Manchu?"" He burst out into a sudden blaze of furious resentment. +""John never told me much, and you have let mighty little leak into the +papers. What was he? Who was he?"" +Half he addressed the words to Smith, half to Karamaneh. +""Dr. Fu-Manchu,"" replied the former, ""was the ultimate expression of +Chinese cunning; a phenomenon such as occurs but once in many +generations. He was a superman of incredible genius, who, had he +willed, could have revolutionized science. There is a superstition in +some parts of China according to which, under certain peculiar +conditions (one of which is proximity to a deserted burial-ground) an +evil spirit of incredible age may enter unto the body of a new-born +infant. All my efforts thus far have not availed me to trace the +genealogy of the man called Dr. Fu-Manchu. Even Karamaneh cannot help +me in this. But I have sometimes thought that he was a member of a +certain very old Kiangsu family--and that the peculiar conditions I +have mentioned prevailed at his birth!"" +Smith, observing our looks of amazement, laughed shortly, and quite +mirthlessly. +""Poor old Weymouth!"" he jerked. ""I suppose my labors are finished; but +I am far from triumphant. Is there any improvement in Mrs. Weymouth's +condition?"" +""Very little,"" was the reply; ""she has lain in a semi-conscious state +since the news came. No one had any idea she would take it so. At one +time we were afraid her brain was going. She seemed to have delusions."" +Smith spun round upon Weymouth. +""Of what nature?"" he asked rapidly. +The other pulled nervously at his mustache. +""My wife has been staying with her,"" he explained, ""since--it happened; +and for the last three nights poor John's widow has cried out at the +same time--half-past two--that someone was knocking on the door."" +""What door?"" +""That door yonder--the street door."" +All our eyes turned in the direction indicated. +""John often came home at half-past two from the Yard,"" continued +Weymouth; ""so we naturally thought poor Mary was wandering in her mind. +But last night--and it's not to be wondered at--my wife couldn't sleep, +and she was wide awake at half-past two."" +""Well?"" +Nayland Smith was standing before him, alert, bright-eyed. +""She heard it, too!"" +The sun was streaming into the cozy little sitting-room; but I will +confess that Weymouth's words chilled me uncannily. Karamaneh laid her +hand upon mine, in a quaint, childish fashion peculiarly her own. Her +hand was cold, but its touch thrilled me. For Karamaneh was not a +child, but a rarely beautiful girl--a pearl of the East such as many a +monarch has fought for. +""What then?"" asked Smith. +""She was afraid to move--afraid to look from the window!"" +My friend turned and stared hard at me. +""A subjective hallucination, Petrie?"" +""In all probability,"" I replied. ""You should arrange that your wife be +relieved in her trying duties, Mr. Weymouth. It is too great a strain +for an inexperienced nurse."" +CHAPTER XXVIII +OF all that we had hoped for in our pursuit of Fu-Manchu how little had +we accomplished. Excepting Karamaneh and her brother (who were victims +and not creatures of the Chinese doctor's) not one of the formidable +group had fallen alive into our hands. Dreadful crimes had marked +Fu-Manchu's passage through the land. Not one-half of the truth (and +nothing of the later developments) had been made public. Nayland +Smith's authority was sufficient to control the press. +In the absence of such a veto a veritable panic must have seized upon +the entire country; for a monster--a thing more than humanly +evil--existed in our midst. +Always Fu-Manchu's secret activities had centered about the great +waterway. There was much of poetic justice in his end; for the Thames +had claimed him, who so long had used the stream as a highway for the +passage to and fro for his secret forces. Gone now were the yellow men +who had been the instruments of his evil will; gone was the giant +intellect which had controlled the complex murder machine. Karamaneh, +whose beauty he had used as a lure, at last was free, and no more with +her smile would tempt men to death--that her brother might live. +Many there are, I doubt not, who will regard the Eastern girl with +horror. I ask their forgiveness in that I regarded her quite +differently. No man having seen her could have condemned her unheard. +Many, having looked into her lovely eyes, had they found there what I +found, must have forgiven her almost any crime. +That she valued human life but little was no matter for wonder. Her +nationality--her history--furnished adequate excuse for an attitude not +condonable in a European equally cultured. +But indeed let me confess that hers was a nature incomprehensible to me +in some respects. The soul of Karamaneh was a closed book to my +short-sighted Western eyes. But the body of Karamaneh was exquisite; +her beauty of a kind that was a key to the most extravagant rhapsodies +of Eastern poets. Her eyes held a challenge wholly Oriental in its +appeal; her lips, even in repose, were a taunt. And, herein, East is +West and West is East. +Finally, despite her lurid history, despite the scornful +self-possession of which I knew her capable, she was an unprotected +girl--in years, I believe, a mere child--whom Fate had cast in my way. +At her request, we had booked passages for her brother and herself to +Egypt. The boat sailed in three days. But Karamaneh's beautiful eyes +were sad; often I detected tears on the black lashes. Shall I endeavor +to describe my own tumultuous, conflicting emotions? It would be +useless, since I know it to be impossible. For in those dark eyes +burned a fire I might not see; those silken lashes veiled a message I +dared not read. +Nayland Smith was not blind to the facts of the complicated situation. +I can truthfully assert that he was the only man of my acquaintance +who, having come in contact with Karamaneh, had kept his head. +We endeavored to divert her mind from the recent tragedies by a round +of amusements, though with poor Weymouth's body still at the mercy of +unknown waters Smith and I made but a poor show of gayety; and I took a +gloomy pride in the admiration which our lovely companion everywhere +excited. I learned, in those days, how rare a thing in nature is a +really beautiful woman. +One afternoon we found ourselves at an exhibition of water colors in +Bond Street. Karamaneh was intensely interested in the subjects of the +drawings--which were entirely Egyptian. As usual, she furnished matter +for comment amongst the other visitors, as did the boy, Aziz, her +brother, anew upon the world from his living grave in the house of Dr. +Fu-Manchu. +Suddenly Aziz clutched at his sister's arm, whispering rapidly in +Arabic. I saw her peachlike color fade; saw her become pale and +wild-eyed--the haunted Karamaneh of the old days. +She turned to me. +""Dr. Petrie--he says that Fu-Manchu is here!"" +""Where?"" +Nayland Smith rapped out the question violently, turning in a flash +from the picture which he was examining. +""In this room!"" she whispered glancing furtively, affrightedly about +her. ""Something tells Aziz when HE is near--and I, too, feel strangely +afraid. Oh, can it be that he is not dead!"" +She held my arm tightly. Her brother was searching the room with big, +velvet black eyes. I studied the faces of the several visitors; and +Smith was staring about him with the old alert look, and tugging +nervously at the lobe of his ear. The name of the giant foe of the +white race instantaneously had strung him up to a pitch of supreme +intensity. +Our united scrutinies discovered no figure which could have been that +of the Chinese doctor. Who could mistake that long, gaunt shape, with +the high, mummy-like shoulders, and the indescribable gait, which I can +only liken to that of an awkward cat? +Then, over the heads of a group of people who stood by the doorway, I +saw Smith peering at someone--at someone who passed across the outer +room. Stepping aside, I, too, obtained a glimpse of this person. +As I saw him, he was a tall, old man, wearing a black Inverness coat +and a rather shabby silk hat. He had long white hair and a patriarchal +beard, wore smoked glasses and walked slowly, leaning upon a stick. +Smith's gaunt face paled. With a rapid glance at Karamaneh, he made +off across the room. +Could it be Dr. Fu-Manchu? +Many days had passed since, already half-choked by Inspector Weymouth's +iron grip, Fu-Manchu, before our own eyes, had been swallowed up by the +Thames. Even now men were seeking his body, and that of his last +victim. Nor had we left any stone unturned. Acting upon information +furnished by Karamaneh, the police had searched every known haunt of +the murder group. But everything pointed to the fact that the group +was disbanded and dispersed; that the lord of strange deaths who had +ruled it was no more. +Yet Smith was not satisfied. Neither, let me confess, was I. Every +port was watched; and in suspected districts a kind of house-to-house +patrol had been instituted. Unknown to the great public, in those days +a secret war waged--a war in which all the available forces of the +authorities took the field against one man! But that one man was the +evil of the East incarnate. +When we rejoined him, Nayland Smith was talking to the commissionaire +at the door. He turned to me. +""That is Professor Jenner Monde,"" he said. ""The sergeant, here, knows +him well."" +The name of the celebrated Orientalist of course was familiar to me, +although I had never before set eyes upon him. +""The Professor was out East the last time I was there, sir,"" stated the +commissionaire. ""I often used to see him. But he's an eccentric old +gentleman. Seems to live in a world of his own. He's recently back +from China, I think."" +Nayland Smith stood clicking his teeth together in irritable +hesitation. I heard Karamaneh sigh, and, looking at her, I saw that +her cheeks were regaining their natural color. +She smiled in pathetic apology. +""If he was here he is gone,"" she said. ""I am not afraid now."" +Smith thanked the commissionaire for his information and we quitted the +gallery. +""Professor Jenner Monde,"" muttered my friend, ""has lived so long in +China as almost to be a Chinaman. I have never met him--never seen +him, before; but I wonder--"" +""You wonder what, Smith?"" +""I wonder if he could possibly be an ally, of the Doctor's!"" +I stared at him in amazement. +""If we are to attach any importance to the incident at all,"" I said, +""we must remember that the boy's impression--and Karamaneh's--was that +Fu-Manchu was present in person."" +""I DO attach importance to the incident, Petrie; they are naturally +sensitive to such impressions. But I doubt if even the abnormal +organization of Aziz could distinguish between the hidden presence of a +creature of the Doctor's and that of the Doctor himself. I shall make +a point of calling upon Professor Jenner Monde."" +But Fate had ordained that much should happen ere Smith made his +proposed call upon the Professor. +Karamaneh and her brother safely lodged in their hotel (which was +watched night and day by four men under Smith's orders), we returned to +my quiet suburban rooms. +""First,"" said Smith, ""let us see what we can find out respecting +Professor Monde."" +He went to the telephone and called up New Scotland Yard. There +followed some little delay before the requisite information was +obtained. Finally, however, we learned that the Professor was +something of a recluse, having few acquaintances, and fewer friends. +He lived alone in chambers in New Inn Court, Carey Street. A charwoman +did such cleaning as was considered necessary by the Professor, who +employed no regular domestic. When he was in London he might be seen +fairly frequently at the British Museum, where his shabby figure was +familiar to the officials. When he was not in London--that is, during +the greater part of each year--no one knew where he went. He never +left any address to which letters might be forwarded. +""How long has he been in London now?"" asked Smith. +So far as could be ascertained from New Inn Court (replied Scotland +Yard) roughly a week. +My friend left the telephone and began restlessly to pace the room. +The charred briar was produced and stuffed with that broad cut Latakia +mixture of which Nayland Smith consumed close upon a pound a week. He +was one of those untidy smokers who leave tangled tufts hanging from +the pipe-bowl and when they light up strew the floor with smoldering +fragments. +A ringing came, and shortly afterwards a girl entered. +""Mr. James Weymouth to see you, sir."" +""Hullo!"" rapped Smith. ""What's this?"" +Weymouth entered, big and florid, and in some respects singularly like +his brother, in others as singularly unlike. Now, in his black suit, +he was a somber figure; and in the blue eyes I read a fear suppressed. +""Mr. Smith,"" he began, ""there's something uncanny going on at Maple +Cottage."" +Smith wheeled the big arm-chair forward. +""Sit down, Mr. Weymouth,"" he said. ""I am not entirely surprised. But +you have my attention. What has occurred?"" +Weymouth took a cigarette from the box which I proffered and poured out +a peg of whisky. His hand was not quite steady. +""That knocking,"" he explained. ""It came again the night after you were +there, and Mrs. Weymouth--my wife, I mean--felt that she couldn't spend +another night there, alone."" +""Did she look out of the window?"" I asked. +""No, Doctor; she was afraid. But I spent last night downstairs in the +sitting-room--and _I_ looked out!"" +He took a gulp from his glass. Nayland Smith, seated on the edge of +the table, his extinguished pipe in his hand, was watching him keenly. +""I'll admit I didn't look out at once,"" Weymouth resumed. ""There was +something so uncanny, gentlemen, in that knocking--knocking--in the +dead of the night. I thought""--his voice shook--""of poor Jack, lying +somewhere amongst the slime of the river--and, oh, my God! it came to +me that it was Jack who was knocking--and I dare not think what +he--what it--would look like!"" +He leaned forward, his chin in his hand. For a few moments we were all +silent. +""I know I funked,"" he continued huskily. ""But when the wife came to +the head of the stairs and whispered to me: 'There it is again. What +in heaven's name can it be'--I started to unbolt the door. The +knocking had stopped. Everything was very still. I heard Mary--HIS +widow--sobbing, upstairs; that was all. I opened the door, a little +bit at a time."" +Pausing again, he cleared his throat, and went on: +""It was a bright night, and there was no one there--not a soul. But +somewhere down the lane, as I looked out into the porch, I heard most +awful groans! They got fainter and fainter. Then--I could have sworn +I heard SOMEONE LAUGHING! My nerves cracked up at that; and I shut the +door again."" +The narration of his weird experience revived something of the natural +fear which it had occasioned. He raised his glass, with unsteady hand, +and drained it. +Smith struck a match and relighted his pipe. He began to pace the room +again. His eyes were literally on fire. +""Would it be possible to get Mrs. Weymouth out of the house before +to-night? Remove her to your place, for instance?"" he asked abruptly. +Weymouth looked up in surprise. +""She seems to be in a very low state,"" he replied. He glanced at me. +""Perhaps Dr. Petrie would give us an opinion?"" +""I will come and see her,"" I said. ""But what is your idea, Smith?"" +""I want to hear that knocking!"" he rapped. ""But in what I may see fit +to do I must not be handicapped by the presence of a sick woman."" +""Her condition at any rate will admit of our administering an opiate,"" +I suggested. ""That would meet the situation?"" +""Good!"" cried Smith. He was intensely excited now. ""I rely upon you +to arrange something, Petrie. Mr. Weymouth""--he turned to our +visitor--""I shall be with you this evening not later than twelve +o'clock."" +Weymouth appeared to be greatly relieved. I asked him to wait whilst I +prepared a draught for the patient. When he was gone: +""What do you think this knocking means, Smith?"" I asked. +He tapped out his pipe on the side of the grate and began with nervous +energy to refill it again from the dilapidated pouch. +""I dare not tell you what I hope, Petrie,"" he replied--""nor what I +fear."" +CHAPTER XXIX +DUSK was falling when we made our way in the direction of Maple +Cottage. Nayland Smith appeared to be keenly interested in the +character of the district. A high and ancient wall bordered the road +along which we walked for a considerable distance. Later it gave place +to a rickety fence. +My friend peered through a gap in the latter. +""There is quite an extensive estate here,"" he said, ""not yet cut up by +the builder. It is well wooded on one side, and there appears to be a +pool lower down."" +The road was a quiet one, and we plainly heard the tread--quite +unmistakable--of an approaching policeman. Smith continued to peer +through the hole in the fence, until the officer drew up level with us. +Then: +""Does this piece of ground extend down to the village, constable?"" he +inquired. +Quite willing for a chat, the man stopped, and stood with his thumbs +thrust in his belt. +""Yes, sir. They tell me three new roads will be made through it +between here and the hill."" +""It must be a happy hunting ground for tramps?"" +""I've seen some suspicious-looking coves about at times. But after +dusk an army might be inside there and nobody would ever be the wiser."" +""Burglaries frequent in the houses backing on to it?"" +""Oh, no. A favorite game in these parts is snatching loaves and +bottles of milk from the doors, first thing, as they're delivered. +There's been an extra lot of it lately. My mate who relieves me has +got special instructions to keep his eye open in the mornings!"" The +man grinned. ""It wouldn't be a very big case even if he caught +anybody!"" ""No,"" said Smith absently; ""perhaps not. Your business must +be a dry one this warm weather. Good-night."" +""Good-night, sir,"" replied the constable, richer by half-a-crown--""and +thank you."" +Smith stared after him for a moment, tugging reflectively at the lobe +of his ear. +""I don't know that it wouldn't be a big case, after all,"" he murmured. +""Come on, Petrie."" +Not another word did he speak, until we stood at the gate of Maple +Cottage. There a plain-clothes man was standing, evidently awaiting +Smith. He touched his hat. +""Have you found a suitable hiding-place?"" asked my companion rapidly. +""Yes, sir,"" was the reply. ""Kent--my mate--is there now. You'll +notice that he can't be seen from here."" +""No,"" agreed Smith, peering all about him. ""He can't. Where is he?"" +""Behind the broken wall,"" explained the man, pointing. ""Through that +ivy there's a clear view of the cottage door."" +""Good. Keep your eyes open. If a messenger comes for me, he is to be +intercepted, you understand. No one must be allowed to disturb us. +You will recognize the messenger. He will be one of your fellows. +Should he come--hoot three times, as much like an owl as you can."" +We walked up to the porch of the cottage. In response to Smith's +ringing came James Weymouth, who seemed greatly relieved by our arrival. +""First,"" said my friend briskly, ""you had better run up and see the +patient."" +Accordingly, I followed Weymouth upstairs and was admitted by his wife +to a neat little bedroom where the grief-stricken woman lay, a wanly +pathetic sight. +""Did you administer the draught, as directed?"" I asked. +Mrs. James Weymouth nodded. She was a kindly looking woman, with the +same dread haunting her hazel eyes as that which lurked in her +husband's blue ones. +The patient was sleeping soundly. Some whispered instructions I gave +to the faithful nurse and descended to the sitting-room. It was a warm +night, and Weymouth sat by the open window, smoking. The dim light +from the lamp on the table lent him an almost startling likeness to his +brother; and for a moment I stood at the foot of the stairs scarce able +to trust my reason. Then he turned his face fully towards me, and the +illusion was lost. +""Do you think she is likely to wake, Doctor?"" he asked. +""I think not,"" I replied. +Nayland Smith stood upon the rug before the hearth, swinging from one +foot to the other, in his nervously restless way. The room was foggy +with the fumes of tobacco, for he, too, was smoking. +At intervals of some five to ten minutes, his blackened briar (which I +never knew him to clean or scrape) would go out. I think Smith used +more matches than any other smoker I have ever met, and he invariably +carried three boxes in various pockets of his garments. +The tobacco habit is infectious, and, seating myself in an arm-chair, I +lighted a cigarette. For this dreary vigil I had come prepared with a +bunch of rough notes, a writing-block, and a fountain pen. I settled +down to work upon my record of the Fu-Manchu case. +Silence fell upon Maple Cottage. Save for the shuddering sigh which +whispered through the over-hanging cedars and Smith's eternal +match-striking, nothing was there to disturb me in my task. Yet I +could make little progress. Between my mind and the chapter upon which +I was at work a certain sentence persistently intruded itself. It was +as though an unseen hand held the written page closely before my eyes. +This was the sentence: +""Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow +like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, +magnetic eyes of the true cat-green: invest him with all the cruel +cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant +intellect. . ."" +Dr. Fu-Manchu! Fu-Manchu as Smith had described him to me on that +night which now seemed so remotely distant--the night upon which I had +learned of the existence of the wonderful and evil being born of that +secret quickening which stirred in the womb of the yellow races. +As Smith, for the ninth or tenth time, knocked out his pipe on a bar of +the grate, the cuckoo clock in the kitchen proclaimed the hour. +""Two,"" said James Weymouth. +I abandoned my task, replacing notes and writing-block in the bag that +I had with me. Weymouth adjusted the lamp which had begun to smoke. +I tiptoed to the stairs and, stepping softly, ascended to the sick +room. All was quiet, and Mrs. Weymouth whispered to me that the +patient still slept soundly. I returned to find Nayland Smith pacing +about the room in that state of suppressed excitement habitual with him +in the approach of any crisis. At a quarter past two the breeze +dropped entirely, and such a stillness reigned all about us as I could +not have supposed possible so near to the ever-throbbing heart of the +great metropolis. Plainly I could hear Weymouth's heavy breathing. He +sat at the window and looked out into the black shadows under the +cedars. Smith ceased his pacing and stood again on the rug very still. +He was listening! I doubt not we were all listening. +Some faint sound broke the impressive stillness, coming from the +direction of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite +disturbance, brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever. +Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp. In the darkness +I heard his teeth snap sharply together. +The call of an owl sounded very clearly three times. +I knew that to mean that a messenger had come; but from whence or +bearing what tidings I knew not. My friend's plans were +incomprehensible to me, nor had I pressed him for any explanation of +their nature, knowing him to be in that high-strung and somewhat +irritable mood which claimed him at times of uncertainty--when he +doubted the wisdom of his actions, the accuracy of his surmises. He +gave no sign. +Very faintly I heard a clock strike the half-hour. A soft breeze stole +again through the branches above. The wind I thought must be in a new +quarter since I had not heard the clock before. In so lonely a spot it +was difficult to believe that the bell was that of St. Paul's. Yet such +was the fact. +And hard upon the ringing followed another sound--a sound we all had +expected, had waited for; but at whose coming no one of us, I think, +retained complete mastery of himself. +Breaking up the silence in a manner that set my heart wildly leaping it +came--an imperative knocking on the door! +""My God!"" groaned Weymouth--but he did not move from his position at +the window. +""Stand by, Petrie!"" said Smith. +He strode to the door--and threw it widely open. +I know I was very pale. I think I cried out as I fell back--retreated +with clenched hands from before THAT which stood on the threshold. +It was a wild, unkempt figure, with straggling beard, hideously staring +eyes. With its hands it clutched at its hair--at its chin; plucked at +its mouth. No moonlight touched the features of this unearthly +visitant, but scanty as was the illumination we could see the gleaming +teeth--and the wildly glaring eyes. +It began to laugh--peal after peal--hideous and shrill. +Nothing so terrifying had ever smote upon my ears. I was palsied by +the horror of the sound. +Then Nayland Smith pressed the button of an electric torch which he +carried. He directed the disk of white light fully upon the face in +the doorway. +""Oh, God!"" cried Weymouth. ""It's John!""--and again and again: ""Oh, +God! Oh, God!"" +Perhaps for the first time in my life I really believed (nay, I could +not doubt) that a thing of another world stood before me. I am ashamed +to confess the extent of the horror that came upon me. James Weymouth +raised his hands, as if to thrust away from him that awful thing in the +door. He was babbling--prayers, I think, but wholly incoherent. +""Hold him, Petrie!"" +Smith's voice was low. (When we were past thought or intelligent +action, he, dominant and cool, with that forced calm for which, a +crisis over, he always paid so dearly, was thinking of the woman who +slept above.) +He leaped forward; and in the instant that he grappled with the one who +had knocked I knew the visitant for a man of flesh and blood--a man who +shrieked and fought like a savage animal, foamed at the mouth and +gnashed his teeth in horrid frenzy; knew him for a madman--knew him for +the victim of Fu-Manchu--not dead, but living--for Inspector +Weymouth--a maniac! +In a flash I realized all this and sprang to Smith's assistance. There +was a sound of racing footsteps and the men who had been watching +outside came running into the porch. A third was with them; and the +five of us (for Weymouth's brother had not yet grasped the fact that a +man and not a spirit shrieked and howled in our midst) clung to the +infuriated madman, yet barely held our own with him. +""The syringe, Petrie!"" gasped Smith. ""Quick! You must manage to make +an injection!"" +I extricated myself and raced into the cottage for my bag. A +hypodermic syringe ready charged I had brought with me at Smith's +request. Even in that thrilling moment I could find time to admire the +wonderful foresight of my friend, who had divined what would +befall--isolated the strange, pitiful truth from the chaotic +circumstances which saw us at Maple Cottage that night. +Let me not enlarge upon the end of the awful struggle. At one time I +despaired (we all despaired) of quieting the poor, demented creature. +But at last it was done; and the gaunt, blood-stained savage whom we +had known as Detective-Inspector Weymouth lay passive upon the couch in +his own sitting-room. A great wonder possessed my mind for the genius +of the uncanny being who with the scratch of a needle had made a brave +and kindly man into this unclean, brutish thing. +Nayland Smith, gaunt and wild-eyed, and trembling yet with his +tremendous exertions, turned to the man whom I knew to be the messenger +from Scotland Yard. +""Well?"" he rapped. +""He is arrested, sir,"" the detective reported. ""They have kept him at +his chambers as you ordered."" +""Has she slept through it?"" said Smith to me. (I had just returned +from a visit to the room above.) I nodded. +""Is HE safe for an hour or two?""--indicating the figure on the couch. +""For eight or ten,"" I replied grimly. +""Come, then. Our night's labors are not nearly complete."" +CHAPTER XXX +LATER was forthcoming evidence to show that poor Weymouth had lived a +wild life, in hiding among the thick bushes of the tract of land which +lay between the village and the suburb on the neighboring hill. +Literally, he had returned to primitive savagery and some of his food +had been that of the lower animals, though he had not scrupled to +steal, as we learned when his lair was discovered. +He had hidden himself cunningly; but witnesses appeared who had seen +him, in the dusk, and fled from him. They never learned that the +object of their fear was Inspector John Weymouth. How, having escaped +death in the Thames, he had crossed London unobserved, we never knew; +but his trick of knocking upon his own door at half-past two each +morning (a sort of dawning of sanity mysteriously linked with old +custom) will be a familiar class of symptom to all students of +alienation. +I revert to the night when Smith solved the mystery of the knocking. +In a car which he had in waiting at the end of the village we sped +through the deserted streets to New Inn Court. I, who had followed +Nayland Smith through the failures and successes of his mission, knew +that to-night he had surpassed himself; had justified the confidence +placed in him by the highest authorities. +We were admitted to an untidy room--that of a student, a traveler and a +crank--by a plain-clothes officer. Amid picturesque and disordered +fragments of a hundred ages, in a great carven chair placed before a +towering statue of the Buddha, sat a hand-cuffed man. His white hair +and beard were patriarchal; his pose had great dignity. But his +expression was entirely masked by the smoked glasses which he wore. +Two other detectives were guarding the prisoner. +""We arrested Professor Jenner Monde as he came in, sir,"" reported the +man who had opened the door. ""He has made no statement. I hope there +isn't a mistake."" +""I hope not,"" rapped Smith. +He strode across the room. He was consumed by a fever of excitement. +Almost savagely, he tore away the beard, tore off the snowy wig--dashed +the smoked glasses upon the floor. +A great, high brow was revealed, and green, malignant eyes, which fixed +themselves upon him with an expression I never can forget. +IT WAS DR. FU-MANCHU! +One intense moment of silence ensued--of silence which seemed to throb. +Then: +""What have you done with Professor Monde?"" demanded Smith. +Dr. Fu-Manchu showed his even, yellow teeth in the singularly evil +smile which I knew so well. A manacled prisoner he sat as unruffled as +a judge upon the bench. In truth and in justice I am compelled to say +that Fu-Manchu was absolutely fearless. +""He has been detained in China,"" he replied, in smooth, sibilant +tones--""by affairs of great urgency. His well-known personality and +ungregarious habits have served me well, here!"" +Smith, I could see, was undetermined how to act; he stood tugging at +his ear and glancing from the impassive Chinaman to the wondering +detectives. +""What are we to do, sir?"" one of them asked. +""Leave Dr. Petrie and myself alone with the prisoner, until I call you."" +The three withdrew. I divined now what was coming. +""Can you restore Weymouth's sanity?"" rapped Smith abruptly. ""I cannot +save you from the hangman, nor""--his fists clenched convulsively--""would +I if I could; but--"" +Fu-Manchu fixed his brilliant eyes upon him. +""Say no more, Mr. Smith,"" he interrupted; ""you misunderstand me. I do +not quarrel with that, but what I have done from conviction and what I +have done of necessity are separated--are seas apart. The brave +Inspector Weymouth I wounded with a poisoned needle, in self-defense; +but I regret his condition as greatly as you do. I respect such a man. +There is an antidote to the poison of the needle."" +""Name it,"" said Smith. +Fu-Manchu smiled again. +""Useless,"" he replied. ""I alone can prepare it. My secrets shall die +with me. I will make a sane man of Inspector Weymouth, but no one else +shall be in the house but he and I."" +""It will be surrounded by police,"" interrupted Smith grimly. +""As you please,"" said Fu-Manchu. ""Make your arrangements. In that +ebony case upon the table are the instruments for the cure. Arrange +for me to visit him where and when you will--"" +""I distrust you utterly. It is some trick,"" jerked Smith. +Dr. Fu-Manchu rose slowly and drew himself up to his great height. His +manacled hands could not rob him of the uncanny dignity which was his. +He raised them above his head with a tragic gesture and fixed his +piercing gaze upon Nayland Smith. +""The God of Cathay hear me,"" he said, with a deep, guttural note in his +voice--""I swear--"" +The most awful visitor who ever threatened the peace of England, the +end of the visit of Fu-Manchu was characteristic--terrible--inexplicable. +Strange to relate, I did not doubt that this weird being had conceived +some kind of admiration or respect for the man to whom he had wrought +so terrible an injury. He was capable of such sentiments, for he +entertained some similar one in regard to myself. +A cottage farther down the village street than Weymouth's was vacant, +and in the early dawn of that morning became the scene of outre +happenings. Poor Weymouth, still in a comatose condition, we removed +there (Smith having secured the key from the astonished agent). I +suppose so strange a specialist never visited a patient +before--certainly not under such conditions. +For into the cottage, which had been entirely surrounded by a ring of +police, Dr. Fu-Manchu was admitted from the closed car in which, his +work of healing complete, he was to be borne to prison--to death! +Law and justice were suspended by my royally empowered friend that the +enemy of the white race might heal one of those who had hunted him down! +No curious audience was present, for sunrise was not yet come; no +concourse of excited students followed the hand of the Master; but +within that surrounded cottage was performed one of those miracles of +science which in other circumstances had made the fame of Dr. Fu-Manchu +to live forever. +Inspector Weymouth, dazed, disheveled, clutching his head as a man who +has passed through the Valley of the Shadow--but sane--sane!--walked +out into the porch! +He looked towards us--his eyes wild, but not with the fearsome wildness +of insanity. +""Mr. Smith!"" he cried--and staggered down the path--""Dr. Petrie! +What--"" +There came a deafening explosion. From EVERY visible window of the +deserted cottage flames burst forth! +""QUICK!"" Smith's voice rose almost to a scream--""into the house!"" +He raced up the path, past Inspector Weymouth, who stood swaying there +like a drunken man. I was close upon his heels. Behind me came the +police. +The door was impassable! Already, it vomited a deathly heat, borne +upon stifling fumes like those of the mouth of the Pit. We burst a +window. The room within was a furnace! +""My God!"" cried someone. ""This is supernatural!"" +""Listen!"" cried another. ""Listen!"" +The crowd which a fire can conjure up at any hour of day or night, out +of the void of nowhere, was gathering already. But upon all descended +a pall of silence. +From the heat of the holocaust a voice proclaimed itself--a voice +raised, not in anguish but in TRIUMPH! It chanted barbarically--and +was still. +The abnormal flames rose higher--leaping forth from every window. +""The alarm!"" said Smith hoarsely. ""Call up the brigade!"" +I come to the close of my chronicle, and feel that I betray a +trust--the trust of my reader. For having limned in the colors at my +command the fiendish Chinese doctor, I am unable to conclude my task as +I should desire, unable, with any consciousness of finality, to write +Finis to the end of my narrative. +It seems to me sometimes that my pen is but temporarily idle--that I +have but dealt with a single phase of a movement having a hundred +phases. One sequel I hope for, and against all the promptings of logic +and Western bias. If my hope shall be realized I cannot, at this time, +pretend to state. +The future, 'mid its many secrets, holds this precious one from me. +I ask you then, to absolve me from the charge of ill completing my +work; for any curiosity with which this narrative may leave the reader +burdened is shared by the writer. +With intent, I have rushed you from the chambers of Professor Jenner +Monde to that closing episode at the deserted cottage; I have made the +pace hot in order to impart to these last pages of my account something +of the breathless scurry which characterized those happenings. +My canvas may seem sketchy: it is my impression of the reality. No +hard details remain in my mind of the dealings of that night. +Fu-Manchu arrested--Fu-Manchu, manacled, entering the cottage on his +mission of healing; Weymouth, miraculously rendered sane, coming forth; +the place in flames. +And then? +To a shell the cottage burned, with an incredible rapidity which +pointed to some hidden agency; to a shell about ashes which held NO +TRACE OF HUMAN BONES! +It has been asked of me: Was there no possibility of Fu-Manchu's +having eluded us in the ensuing confusion? Was there no loophole of +escape? +I reply, that so far as I was able to judge, a rat could scarce have +quitted the building undetected. Yet that Fu-Manchu had, in some +incomprehensible manner and by some mysterious agency, produced those +abnormal flames, I cannot doubt. Did he voluntarily ignite his own +funeral pyre? +As I write, there lies before me a soiled and creased sheet of vellum. +It bears some lines traced in a cramped, peculiar, and all but +illegible hand. This fragment was found by Inspector Weymouth (to this +day a man mentally sound) in a pocket of his ragged garments. +When it was written I leave you to judge. How it came to be where +Weymouth found it calls for no explanation: +""To Mr. Commissioner NAYLAND SMITH and Dr. PETRIE-- +""Greeting! I am recalled home by One who may not be denied. In much +that I came to do I have failed. Much that I have done I would undo; +some little I have undone. Out of fire I came--the smoldering fire of +a thing one day to be a consuming flame; in fire I go. Seek not my +ashes. I am the lord of the fires! Farewell. +""FU-MANCHU."" +Who has been with me in my several meetings with the man who penned +that message I leave to adjudge if it be the letter of a madman bent +upon self-destruction by strange means, or the gibe of a +preternaturally clever scientist and the most elusive being ever born +of the land of mystery--China. +For the present, I can aid you no more in the forming of your verdict. +A day may come--though I pray it do not--when I shall be able to throw +new light upon much that is dark in this matter. That day, so far as I +can judge, could only dawn in the event of the Chinaman's survival; +therefore I pray that the veil be never lifted. +But, as I have said, there is another sequel to this story which I can +contemplate with a different countenance. How, then, shall I conclude +this very unsatisfactory account? +Shall I tell you, finally, of my parting with lovely, dark-eyed +Karamaneh, on board the liner which was to bear her to Egypt? +No, let me, instead, conclude with the words of Nayland Smith: +""_I_ sail for Burma in a fortnight, Petrie. I have leave to break my +journey at the Ditch. How would a run up the Nile fit your programme? +Bit early for the season, but you might find something to amuse you!""",The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu,Sax Rohmer,200,['Fu Manchu'] +"[Illustration] +Trent’s Last Case +THE WOMAN IN BLACK +By E.C. Bentley +To +GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON. +My dear Gilbert, +I dedicate this story to you. First: because the only really noble +motive I had in writing it was the hope that you would enjoy it. +Second: because I owe you a book in return for “The Man Who Was +Thursday.” Third: because I said I would when I unfolded the plan of it +to you, surrounded by Frenchmen, two years ago. Fourth: because I +remember the past. +I have been thinking again to-day of those astonishing times when +neither of us ever looked at a newspaper; when we were purely happy in +the boundless consumption of paper, pencils, tea, and our elders’ +patience; when we embraced the most severe literature, and ourselves +produced such light reading as was necessary; when (in the words of +Canada’s poet) we studied the works of nature, also those little frogs; +when, in short, we were extremely young. For the sake of that age I +offer you this book. +Yours always, +E. C. BENTLEY +Contents +I. Bad News +II. Knocking the Town Endways +III. Breakfast +IV. Handcuffs in the Air +V. Poking About +VI. Mr. Bunner on the Case +VII. The Lady in Black +VIII. The Inquest +IX. A Hot Scent +X. The Wife of Dives +XI. Hitherto Unpublished +XII. Evil Days +XIII. Eruption +XIV. Writing a Letter +XV. Double Cunning +XVI. The Last Straw +[Illustration] +Chapter I. +Bad News +Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we +know judge wisely? +When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered +by a shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single +tear; it gained something memorable in a harsh reminder of the vanity +of such wealth as this dead man had piled up—without making one loyal +friend to mourn him, without doing an act that could help his memory to +the least honour. But when the news of his end came, it seemed to those +living in the great vortices of business as if the earth too shuddered +under a blow. +In all the lurid commercial history of his country there had been no +figure that had so imposed itself upon the mind of the trading world. +He had a niche apart in its temples. Financial giants, strong to direct +and augment the forces of capital, and taking an approved toll in +millions for their labour, had existed before; but in the case of +Manderson there had been this singularity, that a pale halo of +piratical romance, a thing especially dear to the hearts of his +countrymen, had remained incongruously about his head through the years +when he stood in every eye as the unquestioned guardian of stability, +the stamper-out of manipulated crises, the foe of the raiding +chieftains that infest the borders of Wall Street. +The fortune left by his grandfather, who had been one of those +chieftains on the smaller scale of his day, had descended to him with +accretion through his father, who during a long life had quietly +continued to lend money and never had margined a stock. Manderson, who +had at no time known what it was to be without large sums to his hand, +should have been altogether of that newer American plutocracy which is +steadied by the tradition and habit of great wealth. But it was not so. +While his nurture and education had taught him European ideas of a rich +man’s proper external circumstance; while they had rooted in him an +instinct for quiet magnificence, the larger costliness which does not +shriek of itself with a thousand tongues; there had been handed on to +him nevertheless much of the Forty-Niner and financial buccaneer, his +forbear. During that first period of his business career which had been +called his early bad manner, he had been little more than a gambler of +genius, his hand against every man’s—an infant prodigy—who brought to +the enthralling pursuit of speculation a brain better endowed than any +opposed to it. At St Helena it was laid down that war is _une belle +occupation;_ and so the young Manderson had found the multitudinous and +complicated dog-fight of the Stock Exchange of New York. +Then came his change. At his father’s death, when Manderson was thirty +years old, some new revelation of the power and the glory of the god he +served seemed to have come upon him. With the sudden, elastic +adaptability of his nation he turned to steady labour in his father’s +banking business, closing his ears to the sound of the battles of the +Street. In a few years he came to control all the activity of the great +firm whose unimpeached conservatism, safety, and financial weight +lifted it like a cliff above the angry sea of the markets. All mistrust +founded on the performances of his youth had vanished. He was quite +plainly a different man. How the change came about none could with +authority say, but there was a story of certain last words spoken by +his father, whom alone he had respected and perhaps loved. +He began to tower above the financial situation. Soon his name was +current in the bourses of the world. One who spoke the name of +Manderson called up a vision of all that was broad-based and firm in +the vast wealth of the United States. He planned great combinations of +capital, drew together and centralized industries of continental scope, +financed with unerring judgement the large designs of state or of +private enterprise. Many a time when he “took hold” to smash a strike, +or to federate the ownership of some great field of labour, he sent +ruin upon a multitude of tiny homes; and if miners or steelworkers or +cattlemen defied him and invoked disorder, he could be more lawless and +ruthless than they. But this was done in the pursuit of legitimate +business ends. Tens of thousands of the poor might curse his name, but +the financier and the speculator execrated him no more. He stretched a +hand to protect or to manipulate the power of wealth in every corner of +the country. Forcible, cold, and unerring, in all he did he ministered +to the national lust for magnitude; and a grateful country surnamed him +the Colossus. +But there was an aspect of Manderson in this later period that lay long +unknown and unsuspected save by a few, his secretaries and lieutenants +and certain of the associates of his bygone hurling time. This little +circle knew that Manderson, the pillar of sound business and stability +in the markets, had his hours of nostalgia for the lively times when +the Street had trembled at his name. It was, said one of them, as if +Blackbeard had settled down as a decent merchant in Bristol on the +spoils of the Main. Now and then the pirate would glare suddenly out, +the knife in his teeth and the sulphur matches sputtering in his +hatband. During such spasms of reversion to type a score of tempestuous +raids upon the market had been planned on paper in the inner room of +the offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never +carried out. Blackbeard would quell the mutiny of his old self within +him and go soberly down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of +“Spanish Ladies”, perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow +himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had +gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the markets a coup worth a +million to the depredator might have been made. “Seems to me,” he would +say almost wistfully, “the Street is getting to be a mighty dull place +since I quit.” By slow degrees this amiable weakness of the Colossus +became known to the business world, which exulted greatly in the +knowledge. +At the news of his death panic went through the markets like a +hurricane; for it came at a luckless time. Prices tottered and crashed +like towers in an earthquake. For two days Wall Street was a clamorous +inferno of pale despair. All over the United States, wherever +speculation had its devotees, went a waft of ruin, a plague of suicide. +In Europe also not a few took with their own hands lives that had +become pitiably linked to the destiny of a financier whom most of them +had never seen. In Paris a well-known banker walked quietly out of the +Bourse and fell dead upon the broad steps among the raving crowd of +Jews, a phial crushed in his hand. In Frankfort one leapt from the +Cathedral top, leaving a redder stain where he struck the red tower. +Men stabbed and shot and strangled themselves, drank death or breathed +it as the air, because in a lonely corner of England the life had +departed from one cold heart vowed to the service of greed. +The blow could not have fallen at a more disastrous moment. It came +when Wall Street was in a condition of suppressed “scare”—suppressed, +because for a week past the great interests known to act with or to be +actually controlled by the Colossus had been desperately combating the +effects of the sudden arrest of Lucas Hahn, and the exposure of his +plundering of the Hahn banks. This bombshell, in its turn, had fallen +at a time when the market had been “boosted” beyond its real strength. +In the language of the place, a slump was due. Reports from the +corn-lands had not been good, and there had been two or three railway +statements which had been expected to be much better than they were. +But at whatever point in the vast area of speculation the shudder of +the threatened break had been felt, “the Manderson crowd” had stepped +in and held the market up. All through the week the speculator’s mind, +as shallow as it is quick-witted, as sentimental as greedy, had seen in +this the hand of the giant stretched out in protection from afar. +Manderson, said the newspapers in chorus, was in hourly communication +with his lieutenants in the Street. One journal was able to give in +round figures the sum spent on cabling between New York and Marlstone +in the past twenty-four hours; it told how a small staff of expert +operators had been sent down by the Post Office authorities to +Marlstone to deal with the flood of messages. Another revealed that +Manderson, on the first news of the Hahn crash, had arranged to abandon +his holiday and return home by the _Lusitania;_ but that he soon had +the situation so well in hand that he had determined to remain where he +was. +All this was falsehood, more or less consciously elaborated by the +“finance editors”, consciously initiated and encouraged by the shrewd +business men of the Manderson group, who knew that nothing could better +help their plans than this illusion of hero-worship—knew also that no +word had come from Manderson in answer to their messages, and that +Howard B. Jeffrey, of Steel and Iron fame, was the true organizer of +victory. So they fought down apprehension through four feverish days, +and minds grew calmer. On Saturday, though the ground beneath the feet +of Mr. Jeffrey yet rumbled now and then with Etna-mutterings of +disquiet, he deemed his task almost done. The market was firm, and +slowly advancing. Wall Street turned to its sleep of Sunday, worn out +but thankfully at peace. +In the first trading hour of Monday a hideous rumour flew round the +sixty acres of the financial district. It came into being as the +lightning comes—a blink that seems to begin nowhere; though it is to be +suspected that it was first whispered over the telephone—together with +an urgent selling order by some employee in the cable service. A sharp +spasm convulsed the convalescent share-list. In five minutes the dull +noise of the kerbstone market in Broad Street had leapt to a high note +of frantic interrogation. From within the hive of the Exchange itself +could be heard a droning hubbub of fear, and men rushed hatless in and +out. Was it true? asked every man; and every man replied, with +trembling lips, that it was a lie put out by some unscrupulous “short” +interest seeking to cover itself. In another quarter of an hour news +came of a sudden and ruinous collapse of “Yankees” in London at the +close of the Stock Exchange day. It was enough. New York had still four +hours’ trading in front of her. The strategy of pointing to Manderson +as the saviour and warden of the markets had recoiled upon its authors +with annihilating force, and Jeffrey, his ear at his private telephone, +listened to the tale of disaster with a set jaw. The new Napoleon had +lost his Marengo. He saw the whole financial landscape sliding and +falling into chaos before him. In half an hour the news of the finding +of Manderson’s body, with the inevitable rumour that it was suicide, +was printing in a dozen newspaper offices; but before a copy reached +Wall Street the tornado of the panic was in full fury, and Howard B. +Jeffrey and his collaborators were whirled away like leaves before its +breath. +All this sprang out of nothing. +Nothing in the texture of the general life had changed. The corn had +not ceased to ripen in the sun. The rivers bore their barges and gave +power to a myriad engines. The flocks fattened on the pastures, the +herds were unnumbered. Men laboured everywhere in the various +servitudes to which they were born, and chafed not more than usual in +their bonds. Bellona tossed and murmured as ever, yet still slept her +uneasy sleep. To all mankind save a million or two of half-crazed +gamblers, blind to all reality, the death of Manderson meant nothing; +the life and work of the world went on. Weeks before he died strong +hands had been in control of every wire in the huge network of commerce +and industry that he had supervised. Before his corpse was buried his +countrymen had made a strange discovery—that the existence of the +potent engine of monopoly that went by the name of Sigsbee Manderson +had not been a condition of even material prosperity. The panic blew +itself out in two days, the pieces were picked up, the bankrupts +withdrew out of sight; the market “recovered a normal tone”. +While the brief delirium was yet subsiding there broke out a domestic +scandal in England that suddenly fixed the attention of two continents. +Next morning the Chicago Limited was wrecked, and the same day a +notable politician was shot down in cold blood by his wife’s brother in +the streets of New Orleans. Within a week of its rising, “the Manderson +story”, to the trained sense of editors throughout the Union, was +“cold”. The tide of American visitors pouring through Europe made +eddies round the memorial or statue of many a man who had died in +poverty; and never thought of their most famous plutocrat. Like the +poet who died in Rome, so young and poor, a hundred years ago, he was +buried far away from his own land; but for all the men and women of +Manderson’s people who flock round the tomb of Keats in the cemetery +under the Monte Testaccio, there is not one, nor ever will be, to stand +in reverence by the rich man’s grave beside the little church of +Marlstone. +Chapter II. +Knocking the Town Endways +In the only comfortably furnished room in the offices of the _Record,_ +the telephone on Sir James Molloy’s table buzzed. Sir James made a +motion with his pen, and Mr. Silver, his secretary, left his work and +came over to the instrument. +“Who is that?” he said. “Who?... I can’t hear you.... Oh, it’s Mr. +Bunner, is it?... Yes, but... I know, but he’s fearfully busy this +afternoon. Can’t you... Oh, really? Well, in that case—just hold on, +will you?” +He placed the receiver before Sir James. “It’s Calvin Bunner, Sigsbee +Manderson’s right-hand man,” he said concisely. “He insists on speaking +to you personally. Says it is the gravest piece of news. He is talking +from the house down by Bishopsbridge, so it will be necessary to speak +clearly.” +Sir James looked at the telephone, not affectionately, and took up the +receiver. “Well?” he said in his strong voice, and listened. “Yes,” he +said. The next moment Mr. Silver, eagerly watching him, saw a look of +amazement and horror. “Good God!” murmured Sir James. Clutching the +instrument, he slowly rose to his feet, still bending ear intently. At +intervals he repeated “Yes.” Presently, as he listened, he glanced at +the clock, and spoke quickly to Mr. Silver over the top of the +transmitter. “Go and hunt up Figgis and young Williams. Hurry.” Mr. +Silver darted from the room. +The great journalist was a tall, strong, clever Irishman of fifty, +swart and black-moustached, a man of untiring business energy, well +known in the world, which he understood very thoroughly, and played +upon with the half-cynical competence of his race. Yet was he without a +touch of the charlatan: he made no mysteries, and no pretences of +knowledge, and he saw instantly through these in others. In his +handsome, well-bred, well-dressed appearance there was something a +little sinister when anger or intense occupation put its imprint about +his eyes and brow; but when his generous nature was under no restraint +he was the most cordial of men. He was managing director of the company +which owned that most powerful morning paper, the _Record,_ and also +that most indispensable evening paper, the _Sun,_ which had its offices +on the other side of the street. He was, moreover, editor-in-chief of +the _Record,_ to which he had in the course of years attached the most +variously capable personnel in the country. It was a maxim of his that +where you could not get gifts, you must do the best you could with +solid merit; and he employed a great deal of both. He was respected by +his staff as few are respected in a profession not favourable to the +growth of the sentiment of reverence. +“You’re sure that’s all?” asked Sir James, after a few minutes of +earnest listening and questioning. “And how long has this been +known?... Yes, of course, the police are; but the servants? Surely it’s +all over the place down there by now.... Well, we’ll have a try.... +Look here, Bunner, I’m infinitely obliged to you about this. I owe you +a good turn. You know I mean what I say. Come and see me the first day +you get to town.... All right, that’s understood. Now I must act on +your news. Goodbye.” +Sir James hung up the receiver, and seized a railway timetable from the +rack before him. After a rapid consultation of this oracle, he flung it +down with a forcible word as Mr. Silver hurried into the room, followed +by a hard-featured man with spectacles, and a youth with an alert eye. +“I want you to jot down some facts, Figgis,” said Sir James, banishing +all signs of agitation and speaking with a rapid calmness. “When you +have them, put them into shape just as quick as you can for a special +edition of the _Sun_.” The hard-featured man nodded and glanced at the +clock, which pointed to a few minutes past three; he pulled out a +notebook and drew a chair up to the big writing-table. “Silver,” Sir +James went on, “go and tell Jones to wire our local correspondent very +urgently, to drop everything and get down to Marlstone at once. He is +not to say why in the telegram. There must not be an unnecessary word +about this news until the _Sun_ is on the streets with it—you all +understand. Williams, cut across the way and tell Mr. Anthony to hold +himself ready for a two-column opening that will knock the town +endways. Just tell him that he must take all measures and precautions +for a scoop. Say that Figgis will be over in five minutes with the +facts, and that he had better let him write up the story in his private +room. As you go, ask Miss Morgan to see me here at once, and tell the +telephone people to see if they can get Mr. Trent on the wire for me. +After seeing Mr. Anthony, return here and stand by.” The alert-eyed +young man vanished like a spirit. +Sir James turned instantly to Mr. Figgis, whose pencil was poised over +the paper. “Sigsbee Manderson has been murdered,” he began quickly and +clearly, pacing the floor with his hands behind him. Mr. Figgis +scratched down a line of shorthand with as much emotion as if he had +been told that the day was fine—the pose of his craft. “He and his wife +and two secretaries have been for the past fortnight at the house +called White Gables, at Marlstone, near Bishopsbridge. He bought it +four years ago. He and Mrs. Manderson have since spent a part of each +summer there. Last night he went to bed about half-past eleven, just as +usual. No one knows when he got up and left the house. He was not +missed until this morning. About ten o’clock his body was found by a +gardener. It was lying by a shed in the grounds. He was shot in the +head, through the left eye. Death must have been instantaneous. The +body was not robbed, but there were marks on the wrists which pointed +to a struggle having taken place. Dr Stock, of Marlstone, was at once +sent for, and will conduct the post-mortem examination. The police from +Bishopsbridge, who were soon on the spot, are reticent, but it is +believed that they are quite without a clue to the identity of the +murderer. There you are, Figgis. Mr. Anthony is expecting you. Now I +must telephone him and arrange things.” +Mr. Figgis looked up. “One of the ablest detectives at Scotland Yard,” +he suggested, “has been put in charge of the case. It’s a safe +statement.” +“If you like,” said Sir James. +“And Mrs. Manderson? Was she there?” +“Yes. What about her?” +“Prostrated by the shock,” hinted the reporter, “and sees nobody. Human +interest.” +“I wouldn’t put that in, Mr. Figgis,” said a quiet voice. It belonged +to Miss Morgan, a pale, graceful woman, who had silently made her +appearance while the dictation was going on. “I have seen Mrs. +Manderson,” she proceeded, turning to Sir James. “She looks quite +healthy and intelligent. Has her husband been murdered? I don’t think +the shock would prostrate her. She is more likely to be doing all she +can to help the police.” +“Something in your own style, then, Miss Morgan,” he said with a +momentary smile. Her imperturbable efficiency was an office proverb. +“Cut it out, Figgis. Off you go! Now, madam, I expect you know what I +want.” +“Our Manderson biography happens to be well up to date,” replied Miss +Morgan, drooping her dark eyelashes as she considered the position. “I +was looking over it only a few months ago. It is practically ready for +tomorrow’s paper. I should think the _Sun_ had better use the sketch of +his life they had about two years ago, when he went to Berlin and +settled the potash difficulty. I remember it was a very good sketch, +and they won’t be able to carry much more than that. As for our paper, +of course we have a great quantity of cuttings, mostly rubbish. The +sub-editors shall have them as soon as they come in. Then we have two +very good portraits that are our own property; the best is a drawing +Mr. Trent made when they were both on the same ship somewhere. It is +better than any of the photographs; but you say the public prefers a +bad photograph to a good drawing. I will send them down to you at once, +and you can choose. As far as I can see, the Record is well ahead of +the situation, except that you will not be able to get a special man +down there in time to be of any use for tomorrow’s paper.” +Sir James sighed deeply. “What are we good for, anyhow?” he enquired +dejectedly of Mr. Silver, who had returned to his desk. “She even knows +Bradshaw by heart.” +Miss Morgan adjusted her cuffs with an air of patience. “Is there +anything else?” she asked, as the telephone bell rang. +“Yes, one thing,” replied Sir James, as he took up the receiver. “I +want you to make a bad mistake some time, Miss Morgan—an everlasting +bloomer—just to put us in countenance.” She permitted herself the +fraction of what would have been a charming smile as she went out. +“Anthony?” asked Sir James, and was at once deep in consultation with +the editor on the other side of the road. He seldom entered the _Sun_ +building in person; the atmosphere of an evening paper, he would say, +was all very well if you liked that kind of thing. Mr. Anthony, the +Murat of Fleet Street, who delighted in riding the whirlwind and +fighting a tumultuous battle against time, would say the same of a +morning paper. +It was some five minutes later that a uniformed boy came in to say that +Mr. Trent was on the wire. Sir James abruptly closed his talk with Mr. +Anthony. +“They can put him through at once,” he said to the boy. +“Hullo!” he cried into the telephone after a few moments. +A voice in the instrument replied, “Hullo be blowed! What do you want?” +“This is Molloy,” said Sir James. +“I know it is,” the voice said. “This is Trent. He is in the middle of +painting a picture, and he has been interrupted at a critical moment. +Well, I hope it’s something important, that’s all!” +“Trent,” said Sir James impressively, “it is important. I want you to +do some work for us.” +“Some play, you mean,” replied the voice. “Believe me, I don’t want a +holiday. The working fit is very strong. I am doing some really decent +things. Why can’t you leave a man alone?” +“Something very serious has happened.” +“What?” +“Sigsbee Manderson has been murdered—shot through the brain—and they +don’t know who has done it. They found the body this morning. It +happened at his place near Bishopsbridge.” Sir James proceeded to tell +his hearer, briefly and clearly, the facts that he had communicated to +Mr. Figgis. “What do you think of it?” he ended. A considering grunt +was the only answer. “Come now,” urged Sir James. +“Tempter!” +“You will go down?” +There was a brief pause. +“Are you there?” said Sir James. +“Look here, Molloy,” the voice broke out querulously, “the thing may be +a case for me, or it may not. We can’t possibly tell. It may be a +mystery; it may be as simple as bread and cheese. The body not being +robbed looks interesting, but he may have been outed by some wretched +tramp whom he found sleeping in the grounds and tried to kick out. It’s +the sort of thing he would do. Such a murderer might easily have sense +enough to know that to leave the money and valuables was the safest +thing. I tell you frankly, I wouldn’t have a hand in hanging a poor +devil who had let daylight into a man like Sig Manderson as a measure +of social protest.” +Sir James smiled at the telephone—a smile of success. “Come, my boy, +you’re getting feeble. Admit you want to go and have a look at the +case. You know you do. If it’s anything you don’t want to handle, +you’re free to drop it. By the by, where are you?” +“I am blown along a wandering wind,” replied the voice irresolutely, +“and hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.” +“Can you get here within an hour?” persisted Sir James. +“I suppose I can,” the voice grumbled. “How much time have I?” +“Good man! Well, there’s time enough—that’s just the worst of it. I’ve +got to depend on our local correspondent for tonight. The only good +train of the day went half an hour ago. The next is a slow one, leaving +Paddington at midnight. You could have the Buster, if you like”—Sir +James referred to a very fast motor car of his—“but you wouldn’t get +down in time to do anything tonight.” +“And I’d miss my sleep. No, thanks. The train for me. I am quite fond +of railway travelling, you know; I have a gift for it. I am the stoker +and the stoked. I am the song the porter sings.” +“What’s that you say?” +“It doesn’t matter,” said the voice sadly. “I say,” it continued, “will +your people look out a hotel near the scene of action, and telegraph +for a room?” +“At once,” said Sir James. “Come here as soon as you can.” +He replaced the receiver. As he turned to his papers again a shrill +outcry burst forth in the street below. He walked to the open window. A +band of excited boys was rushing down the steps of the _Sun_ building +and up the narrow thoroughfare toward Fleet Street. Each carried a +bundle of newspapers and a large broadsheet with the simple legend: +MURDER OF SIGSBEE MANDERSON +Sir James smiled and rattled the money in his pockets cheerfully. “It +makes a good bill,” he observed to Mr. Silver, who stood at his elbow. +Such was Manderson’s epitaph. +Chapter III. +Breakfast +At about eight o’clock in the morning of the following day Mr. +Nathaniel Burton Cupples stood on the veranda of the hotel at +Marlstone. He was thinking about breakfast. In his case the +colloquialism must be taken literally: he really was thinking about +breakfast, as he thought about every conscious act of his life when +time allowed deliberation. He reflected that on the preceding day the +excitement and activity following upon the discovery of the dead man +had disorganized his appetite, and led to his taking considerably less +nourishment than usual. This morning he was very hungry, having already +been up and about for an hour; and he decided to allow himself a third +piece of toast and an additional egg; the rest as usual. The remaining +deficit must be made up at luncheon, but that could be gone into later. +So much being determined, Mr. Cupples applied himself to the enjoyment +of the view for a few minutes before ordering his meal. With a +connoisseur’s eye he explored the beauty of the rugged coast, where a +great pierced rock rose from a glassy sea, and the ordered loveliness +of the vast tilted levels of pasture and tillage and woodland that +sloped gently up from the cliffs toward the distant moor. Mr. Cupples +delighted in landscape. +He was a man of middle height and spare figure, nearly sixty years old, +by constitution rather delicate in health, but wiry and active for his +age. A sparse and straggling beard and moustache did not conceal a thin +but kindly mouth; his eyes were keen and pleasant; his sharp nose and +narrow jaw gave him very much of a clerical air, and this impression +was helped by his commonplace dark clothes and soft black hat. The +whole effect of him, indeed, was priestly. He was a man of unusually +conscientious, industrious, and orderly mind, with little imagination. +His father’s household had been used to recruit its domestic +establishment by means of advertisements in which it was truthfully +described as a serious family. From that fortress of gloom he had +escaped with two saintly gifts somehow unspoiled: an inexhaustible +kindness of heart, and a capacity for innocent gaiety which owed +nothing to humour. In an earlier day and with a clerical training he +might have risen to the scarlet hat. He was, in fact, a highly regarded +member of the London Positivist Society, a retired banker, a widower +without children. His austere but not unhappy life was spent largely +among books and in museums; his profound and patiently accumulated +knowledge of a number of curiously disconnected subjects which had +stirred his interest at different times had given him a place in the +quiet, half-lit world of professors and curators and devotees of +research; at their amiable, unconvivial dinner parties he was most +himself. His favourite author was Montaigne. +Just as Mr. Cupples was finishing his meal at a little table on the +veranda, a big motor car turned into the drive before the hotel. “Who +is this?” he enquired of the waiter. “Id is der manager,” said the +young man listlessly. “He have been to meed a gendleman by der train.” +The car drew up and the porter hurried from the entrance. Mr. Cupples +uttered an exclamation of pleasure as a long, loosely built man, much +younger than himself, stepped from the car and mounted the veranda, +flinging his hat on a chair. His high-boned, quixotic face wore a +pleasant smile; his rough tweed clothes, his hair and short moustache +were tolerably untidy. +“Cupples, by all that’s miraculous!” cried the man, pouncing upon Mr. +Cupples before he could rise, and seizing his outstretched hand in a +hard grip. “My luck is serving me today,” the newcomer went on +spasmodically. “This is the second slice within an hour. How are you, +my best of friends? And why are you here? Why sit’st thou by that +ruined breakfast? Dost thou its former pride recall, or ponder how it +passed away? I _am_ glad to see you!” +“I was half expecting you, Trent,” Mr. Cupples replied, his face +wreathed in smiles. “You are looking splendid, my dear fellow. I will +tell you all about it. But you cannot have had your own breakfast yet. +Will you have it at my table here?” +“Rather!” said the man. “An enormous great breakfast, too—with refined +conversation and tears of recognition never dry. Will you get young +Siegfried to lay a place for me while I go and wash? I shan’t be three +minutes.” He disappeared into the hotel, and Mr. Cupples, after a +moment’s thought, went to the telephone in the porter’s office. +He returned to find his friend already seated, pouring out tea, and +showing an unaffected interest in the choice of food. “I expect this to +be a hard day for me,” he said, with the curious jerky utterance which +seemed to be his habit. “I shan’t eat again till the evening, very +likely. You guess why I’m here, don’t you?” +“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Cupples. “You have come down to write about the +murder.” +“That is rather a colourless way of stating it,” the man called Trent +replied, as he dissected a sole. “I should prefer to put it that I have +come down in the character of avenger of blood, to hunt down the +guilty, and vindicate the honour of society. That is my line of +business. Families waited on at their private residences. I say, +Cupples, I have made a good beginning already. Wait a bit, and I’ll +tell you.” There was a silence, during which the newcomer ate swiftly +and abstractedly, while Mr. Cupples looked on happily. +“Your manager here,” said the tall man at last, “is a fellow of +remarkable judgement. He is an admirer of mine. He knows more about my +best cases than I do myself. The _Record_ wired last night to say I was +coming, and when I got out of the train at seven o’clock this morning, +there he was waiting for me with a motor car the size of a haystack. He +is beside himself with joy at having me here. It is fame.” He drank a +cup of tea and continued: “Almost his first words were to ask me if I +would like to see the body of the murdered man—if so, he thought he +could manage it for me. He is as keen as a razor. The body lies in Dr +Stock’s surgery, you know, down in the village, exactly as it was when +found. It’s to be post-mortem’d this morning, by the way, so I was only +just in time. Well, he ran me down here to the doctor’s, giving me full +particulars about the case all the way. I was pretty well _au fait_ by +the time we arrived. I suppose the manager of a place like this has +some sort of a pull with the doctor. Anyhow, he made no difficulties, +nor did the constable on duty, though he was careful to insist on my +not giving him away in the paper.” +“I saw the body before it was removed,” remarked Mr. Cupples. “I should +not have said there was anything remarkable about it, except that the +shot in the eye had scarcely disfigured the face at all, and caused +scarcely any effusion of blood, apparently. The wrists were scratched +and bruised. I expect that, with your trained faculties, you were able +to remark other details of a suggestive nature.” +“Other details, certainly; but I don’t know that they suggest anything. +They are merely odd. Take the wrists, for instance. How was it you +could see bruises and scratches on them? I dare say you saw something +of Manderson down here before the murder.” +“Certainly,” Mr. Cupples said. +“Well, did you ever see his wrists?” +Mr. Cupples reflected. “No. Now you raise the point, I am reminded that +when I interviewed Manderson here he was wearing stiff cuffs, coming +well down over his hands.” +“He always did,” said Trent. “My friend the manager says so. I pointed +out to him the fact you didn’t observe, that there were no cuffs +visible, and that they had, indeed, been dragged up inside the +coat-sleeves, as yours would be if you hurried into a coat without +pulling your cuffs down. That was why you saw his wrists.” +“Well, I call that suggestive,” observed Mr. Cupples mildly. “You might +infer, perhaps, that when he got up he hurried over his dressing.” +“Yes, but did he? The manager said just what you say. ‘He was always a +bit of a swell in his dress,’ he told me, and he drew the inference +that when Manderson got up in that mysterious way, before the house was +stirring, and went out into the grounds, he was in a great hurry. ‘Look +at his shoes,’ he said to me: ‘Mr. Manderson was always specially neat +about his footwear. But those shoe-laces were tied in a hurry.’ I +agreed. ‘And he left his false teeth in his room,’ said the manager. +‘Doesn’t _that_ prove he was flustered and hurried?’ I allowed that it +looked like it. But I said, ‘Look here: if he was so very much pressed, +why did he part his hair so carefully? That parting is a work of art. +Why did he put on so much? for he had on a complete outfit of +underclothing, studs in his shirt, sock-suspenders, a watch and chain, +money and keys and things in his pockets. That’s what I said to the +manager. He couldn’t find an explanation. Can you?’ +Mr. Cupples considered. “Those facts might suggest that he was hurried +only at the end of his dressing. Coat and shoes would come last.” +“But not false teeth. You ask anybody who wears them. And besides, I’m +told he hadn’t washed at all on getting up, which in a neat man looks +like his being in a violent hurry from the beginning. And here’s +another thing. One of his waistcoat pockets was lined with wash-leather +for the reception of his gold watch. But he had put his watch into the +pocket on the other side. Anybody who has settled habits can see how +odd that is. The fact is, there are signs of great agitation and haste, +and there are signs of exactly the opposite. For the present I am not +guessing. I must reconnoitre the ground first, if I can manage to get +the right side of the people of the house.” Trent applied himself again +to his breakfast. +Mr. Cupples smiled at him benevolently. “That is precisely the point,” +he said, “on which I can be of some assistance to you.” Trent glanced +up in surprise. “I told you I half expected you. I will explain the +situation. Mrs. Manderson, who is my niece—” +“What!” Trent laid down his knife and fork with a clash. “Cupples, you +are jesting with me.” +“I am perfectly serious, Trent, really,” returned Mr. Cupples +earnestly. “Her father, John Peter Domecq, was my wife’s brother. I +never mentioned my niece or her marriage to you before, I suppose. To +tell the truth, it has always been a painful subject to me, and I have +avoided discussing it with anybody. To return to what I was about to +say: last night, when I was over at the house—by the way, you can see +it from here. You passed it in the car.” He indicated a red roof among +poplars some three hundred yards away, the only building in sight that +stood separate from the tiny village in the gap below them. +“Certainly I did,” said Trent. “The manager told me all about it, among +other things, as he drove me in from Bishopsbridge.” +“Other people here have heard of you and your performances,” Mr. +Cupples went on. “As I was saying, when I was over there last night, +Mr. Bunner, who is one of Manderson’s two secretaries, expressed a hope +that the _Record_ would send you down to deal with the case, as the +police seemed quite at a loss. He mentioned one or two of your past +successes, and Mabel—my niece—was interested when I told her +afterwards. She is bearing up wonderfully well, Trent; she has +remarkable fortitude of character. She said she remembered reading your +articles about the Abinger case. She has a great horror of the +newspaper side of this sad business, and she had entreated me to do +anything I could to keep journalists away from the place—I’m sure you +can understand her feeling, Trent; it isn’t really any reflection on +that profession. But she said you appeared to have great powers as a +detective, and she would not stand in the way of anything that might +clear up the crime. Then I told her you were a personal friend of mine, +and gave you a good character for tact and consideration of others’ +feelings; and it ended in her saying that, if you should come, she +would like you to be helped in every way.” +Trent leaned across the table and shook Mr. Cupples by the hand in +silence. Mr. Cupples, much delighted with the way things were turning +out, resumed: +“I spoke to my niece on the telephone only just now, and she is glad +you are here. She asks me to say that you may make any enquiries you +like, and she puts the house and grounds at your disposal. She had +rather not see you herself; she is keeping to her own sitting-room. She +has already been interviewed by a detective officer who is there, and +she feels unequal to any more. She adds that she does not believe she +could say anything that would be of the smallest use. The two +secretaries and Martin, the butler (who is a most intelligent man), +could tell you all you want to know, she thinks.” +Trent finished his breakfast with a thoughtful brow. He filled a pipe +slowly, and seated himself on the rail of the veranda. “Cupples,” he +said quietly, “is there anything about this business that you know and +would rather not tell me?” +Mr. Cupples gave a slight start, and turned an astonished gaze on the +questioner. “What do you mean?” he said. +“I mean about the Mandersons. Look here! Shall I tell you a thing that +strikes me about this affair at the very beginning? Here’s a man +suddenly and violently killed, and nobody’s heart seems to be broken +about it, to say the least. The manager of this hotel spoke to me about +him as coolly as if he’d never set eyes on him, though I understand +they’ve been neighbours every summer for some years. Then you talk +about the thing in the coldest of blood. And Mrs. Manderson—well, you +won’t mind my saying that I have heard of women being more cut up about +their husbands being murdered than she seems to be. Is there something +in this, Cupples, or is it my fancy? Was there something queer about +Manderson? I travelled on the same boat with him once, but never spoke +to him. I only know his public character, which was repulsive enough. +You see, this may have a bearing on the case; that’s the only reason +why I ask.” +Mr. Cupples took time for thought. He fingered his sparse beard and +looked out over the sea. At last he turned to Trent. “I see no reason,” +he said, “why I shouldn’t tell you as between ourselves, my dear +fellow. I need not say that this must not be referred to, however +distantly. The truth is that nobody really liked Manderson; and I think +those who were nearest to him liked him least.” +“Why?” the other interjected. +“Most people found a difficulty in explaining why. In trying to account +to myself for my own sensations, I could only put it that one felt in +the man a complete absence of the sympathetic faculty. There was +nothing outwardly repellent about him. He was not ill-mannered, or +vicious, or dull—indeed, he could be remarkably interesting. But I +received the impression that there could be no human creature whom he +would not sacrifice in the pursuit of his schemes, in his task of +imposing himself and his will upon the world. Perhaps that was +fanciful, but I think not altogether so. However, the point is that +Mabel, I am sorry to say, was very unhappy. I am nearly twice your age, +my dear boy, though you always so kindly try to make me feel as if we +were contemporaries—I am getting to be an old man, and a great many +people have been good enough to confide their matrimonial troubles to +me; but I never knew another case like my niece’s and her husband’s. I +have known her since she was a baby, Trent, and I know—you understand, +I think, that I do not employ that word lightly—I _know_ that she is as +amiable and honourable a woman, to say nothing of her other good gifts, +as any man could wish. But Manderson, for some time past, had made her +miserable.” +“What did he do?” asked Trent, as Mr. Cupples paused. +“When I put that question to Mabel, her words were that he seemed to +nurse a perpetual grievance. He maintained a distance between them, and +he would say nothing. I don’t know how it began or what was behind it; +and all she would tell me on that point was that he had no cause in the +world for his attitude. I think she knew what was in his mind, whatever +it was; but she is full of pride. This seems to have gone on for +months. At last, a week ago, she wrote to me. I am the only near +relative she has. Her mother died when she was a child; and after John +Peter died I was something like a father to her until she married—that +was five years ago. She asked me to come and help her, and I came at +once. That is why I am here now.” +Mr. Cupples paused and drank some tea. Trent smoked and stared out at +the hot June landscape. +“I would not go to White Gables,” Mr. Cupples resumed. “You know my +views, I think, upon the economic constitution of society, and the +proper relationship of the capitalist to the employee, and you know, no +doubt, what use that person made of his vast industrial power upon +several very notorious occasions. I refer especially to the trouble in +the Pennsylvania coal-fields, three years ago. I regarded him, apart +from an all personal dislike, in the light of a criminal and a disgrace +to society. I came to this hotel, and I saw my niece here. She told me +what I have more briefly told you. She said that the worry and the +humiliation of it, and the strain of trying to keep up appearances +before the world, were telling upon her, and she asked for my advice. I +said I thought she should face him and demand an explanation of his way +of treating her. But she would not do that. She had always taken the +line of affecting not to notice the change in his demeanour, and +nothing, I knew, would persuade her to admit to him that she was +injured, once pride had led her into that course. Life is quite full, +my dear Trent,” said Mr. Cupples with a sigh, “of these obstinate +silences and cultivated misunderstandings.” +“Did she love him?” Trent enquired abruptly. Mr. Cupples did not reply +at once. “Had she any love left for him?” Trent amended. +Mr. Cupples played with his teaspoon. “I am bound to say,” he answered +slowly, “that I think not. But you must not misunderstand the woman, +Trent. No power on earth would have persuaded her to admit that to any +one—even to herself, perhaps—so long as she considered herself bound to +him. And I gather that, apart from this mysterious sulking of late, he +had always been considerate and generous.” +“You were saying that she refused to have it out with him.” +“She did,” replied Mr. Cupples. “And I knew by experience that it was +quite useless to attempt to move a Domecq where the sense of dignity +was involved. So I thought it over carefully, and next day I watched my +opportunity and met Manderson as he passed by this hotel. I asked him +to favour me with a few minutes’ conversation, and he stepped inside +the gate down there. We had held no communication of any kind since my +niece’s marriage, but he remembered me, of course. I put the matter to +him at once and quite definitely. I told him what Mabel had confided to +me. I said that I would neither approve nor condemn her action in +bringing me into the business, but that she was suffering, and I +considered it my right to ask how he could justify himself in placing +her in such a position.” +“And how did he take that?” said Trent, smiling secretly at the +landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable +Manderson to account pleased him. +“Not very well,” Mr. Cupples replied sadly. “In fact, far from well. I +can tell you almost exactly what he said—it wasn’t much. He said, ‘See +here, Cupples, you don’t want to butt in. My wife can look after +herself. I’ve found that out, along with other things.’ He was +perfectly quiet—you know he was said never to lose control of +himself—though there was a light in his eyes that would have frightened +a man who was in the wrong, I dare say. But I had been thoroughly +roused by his last remark, and the tone of it, which I cannot +reproduce. You see,” said Mr. Cupples simply, “I love my niece. She is +the only child that there has been in our—in my house. Moreover, my +wife brought her up as a girl, and any reflection on Mabel I could not +help feeling, in the heat of the moment, as an indirect reflection upon +one who is gone.” +“You turned upon him,” suggested Trent in a low tone. “You asked him to +explain his words.” +“That is precisely what I did,” said Mr. Cupples. “For a moment he only +stared at me, and I could see a vein on his forehead swelling—an +unpleasant sight. Then he said quite quietly, ‘This thing has gone far +enough, I guess,’ and turned to go.” +“Did he mean your interview?” Trent asked thoughtfully. +“From the words alone you would think so,” Mr. Cupples answered. “But +the way in which he uttered them gave me a strange and very +apprehensive feeling. I received the impression that the man had formed +some sinister resolve. But I regret to say I had lost the power of +dispassionate thought. I fell into a great rage”—Mr. Cupples’s tone was +mildly apologetic—“and said a number of foolish things. I reminded him +that the law allowed a measure of freedom to wives who received +intolerable treatment. I made some utterly irrelevant references to his +public record, and expressed the view that such men as he were unfit to +live. I said these things, and others as ill-considered, under the +eyes, and very possibly within earshot, of half a dozen persons sitting +on this veranda. I noticed them, in spite of my agitation, looking at +me as I walked up to the hotel again after relieving my mind for it +undoubtedly did relieve it,” sighed Mr. Cupples, lying back in his +chair. +“And Manderson? Did he say no more?” +“Not a word. He listened to me with his eyes on my face, as quiet as +before. When I stopped he smiled very slightly, and at once turned away +and strolled through the gate, making for White Gables.” +“And this happened—?” +“On the Sunday morning.” +“Then I suppose you never saw him alive again?” +“No,” said Mr. Cupples. “Or rather yes—once. It was later in the day, +on the golf-course. But I did not speak to him. And next morning he was +found dead.” +The two regarded each other in silence for a few moments. A party of +guests who had been bathing came up the steps and seated themselves, +with much chattering, at a table near them. The waiter approached. Mr. +Cupples rose, and, taking Trent’s arm, led him to a long tennis-lawn at +the side of the hotel. +“I have a reason for telling you all this,” began Mr. Cupples as they +paced slowly up and down. +“Trust you for that,” rejoined Trent, carefully filling his pipe again. +He lit it, smoked a little, and then said, “I’ll try and guess what +your reason is, if you like.” +Mr. Cupples’s face of solemnity relaxed into a slight smile. He said +nothing. +“You thought it possible,” said Trent meditatively—“may I say you +thought it practically certain?—that I should find out for myself that +there had been something deeper than a mere conjugal tiff between the +Mandersons. You thought that my unwholesome imagination would begin at +once to play with the idea of Mrs. Manderson having something to do +with the crime. Rather than that I should lose myself in barren +speculations about this, you decided to tell me exactly how matters +stood, and incidentally to impress upon me, who know how excellent your +judgement is, your opinion of your niece. Is that about right?” +“It is perfectly right. Listen to me, my dear fellow,” said Mr. Cupples +earnestly, laying his hand on the other’s arm. “I am going to be very +frank. I am extremely glad that Manderson is dead. I believe him to +have done nothing but harm in the world as an economic factor. I know +that he was making a desert of the life of one who was like my own +child to me. But I am under an intolerable dread of Mabel being +involved in suspicion with regard to the murder. It is horrible to me +to think of her delicacy and goodness being in contact, if only for a +time, with the brutalities of the law. She is not fitted for it. It +would mark her deeply. Many young women of twenty-six in these days +could face such an ordeal, I suppose. I have observed a sort of +imitative hardness about the products of the higher education of women +today which would carry them through anything, perhaps. +“I am not prepared to say it is a bad thing in the conditions of +feminine life prevailing at present. Mabel, however, is not like that. +She is as unlike that as she is unlike the simpering misses that used +to surround me as a child. She has plenty of brains; she is full of +character; her mind and her tastes are cultivated; but it is all mixed +up”—Mr. Cupples waved his hands in a vague gesture—“with ideals of +refinement and reservation and womanly mystery. I fear she is not a +child of the age. You never knew my wife, Trent. Mabel is my wife’s +child.” +The younger man bowed his head. They paced the length of the lawn +before he asked gently, “Why did she marry him?” +“I don’t know,” said Mr. Cupples briefly. +“Admired him, I suppose,” suggested Trent. +Mr. Cupples shrugged his shoulders. “I have been told that a woman will +usually be more or less attracted by the most successful man in her +circle. Of course we cannot realize how a wilful, dominating +personality like his would influence a girl whose affections were not +bestowed elsewhere; especially if he laid himself out to win her. It is +probably an overwhelming thing to be courted by a man whose name is +known all over the world. She had heard of him, of course, as a +financial great power, and she had no idea—she had lived mostly among +people of artistic or literary propensities—how much soulless +inhumanity that might involve. For all I know, she has no adequate idea +of it to this day. When I first heard of the affair the mischief was +done, and I knew better than to interpose my unsought opinions. She was +of age, and there was absolutely nothing against him from the +conventional point of view. Then I dare say his immense wealth would +cast a spell over almost any woman. Mabel had some hundreds a year of +her own; just enough, perhaps, to let her realize what millions really +meant. But all this is conjecture. She certainly had not wanted to +marry some scores of young fellows who to my knowledge had asked her; +and though I don’t believe, and never did believe, that she really +loved this man of forty-five, she certainly did want to marry him. But +if you ask me why, I can only say I don’t know.” +Trent nodded, and after a few more paces looked at his watch. “You’ve +interested me so much,” he said, “that I had quite forgotten my main +business. I mustn’t waste my morning. I am going down the road to White +Gables at once, and I dare say I shall be poking about there until +midday. If you can meet me then, Cupples, I should like to talk over +anything I find out with you, unless something detains me.” +“I am going for a walk this morning,” Mr. Cupples replied. “I meant to +have luncheon at a little inn near the golf-course, The Three Tuns. You +had better join me there. It’s further along the road, about a quarter +of a mile beyond White Gables. You can just see the roof between those +two trees. The food they give one there is very plain, but good.” +“So long as they have a cask of beer,” said Trent, “they are all right. +We will have bread and cheese, and oh, may Heaven our simple lives +prevent from luxury’s contagion, weak and vile! Till then, goodbye.” He +strode off to recover his hat from the veranda, waved it to Mr. +Cupples, and was gone. +The old gentleman, seating himself in a deck-chair on the lawn, clasped +his hands behind his head and gazed up into the speckless blue sky. “He +is a dear fellow,” he murmured. “The best of fellows. And a terribly +acute fellow. Dear me! How curious it all is!” +Chapter IV. +Handcuffs in the Air +A painter and the son of a painter, Philip Trent had while yet in his +twenties achieved some reputation within the world of English art. +Moreover, his pictures sold. An original, forcible talent and a habit +of leisurely but continuous working, broken by fits of strong creative +enthusiasm, were at the bottom of it. His father’s name had helped; a +patrimony large enough to relieve him of the perilous imputation of +being a struggling man had certainly not hindered. But his best aid to +success had been an unconscious power of getting himself liked. Good +spirits and a lively, humorous fancy will always be popular. Trent +joined to these a genuine interest in others that gained him something +deeper than popularity. His judgement of persons was penetrating, but +its process was internal; no one felt on good behaviour with a man who +seemed always to be enjoying himself. Whether he was in a mood for +floods of nonsense or applying himself vigorously to a task, his face +seldom lost its expression of contained vivacity. Apart from a sound +knowledge of his art and its history, his culture was large and loose, +dominated by a love of poetry. At thirty-two he had not yet passed the +age of laughter and adventure. +His rise to a celebrity a hundred times greater than his proper work +had won for him came of a momentary impulse. One day he had taken up a +newspaper to find it chiefly concerned with a crime of a sort curiously +rare in our country—a murder done in a railway train. The circumstances +were puzzling; two persons were under arrest upon suspicion. Trent, to +whom an interest in such affairs was a new sensation, heard the thing +discussed among his friends, and set himself in a purposeless mood to +read up the accounts given in several journals. He became intrigued; +his imagination began to work, in a manner strange to him, upon facts; +an excitement took hold of him such as he had only known before in his +bursts of art-inspiration or of personal adventure. At the end of the +day he wrote and dispatched a long letter to the editor of the +_Record_, which he chose only because it had contained the fullest and +most intelligent version of the facts. +In this letter he did very much what Poe had done in the case of the +murder of Mary Rogers. With nothing but the newspapers to guide him, he +drew attention to the significance of certain apparently negligible +facts, and ranged the evidence in such a manner as to throw grave +suspicion upon a man who had presented himself as a witness. Sir James +Molloy had printed this letter in leaded type. The same evening he was +able to announce in the Sun the arrest and full confession of the +incriminated man. +Sir James, who knew all the worlds of London, had lost no time in +making Trent’s acquaintance. The two men got on well, for Trent +possessed some secret of native tact which had the effect of almost +abolishing differences of age between himself and others. The great +rotary presses in the basement of the _Record_ building had filled him +with a new enthusiasm. He had painted there, and Sir James had bought +at sight, what he called a machinery-scape in the manner of Heinrich +Kley. +Then a few months later came the affair known as the Ilkley mystery. +Sir James had invited Trent to an emollient dinner, and thereafter +offered him what seemed to the young man a fantastically large sum for +his temporary services as special representative of the _Record_ at +Ilkley. +“You could do it,” the editor had urged. “You can write good stuff, and +you know how to talk to people, and I can teach you all the +technicalities of a reporter’s job in half an hour. And you have a head +for a mystery; you have imagination and cool judgement along with it. +Think how it would feel if you pulled it off!” +Trent had admitted that it would be rather a lark. He had smoked, +frowned, and at last convinced himself that the only thing that held +him back was fear of an unfamiliar task. To react against fear had +become a fixed moral habit with him, and he had accepted Sir James’s +offer. +He had pulled it off. For the second time he had given the authorities +a start and a beating, and his name was on all tongues. He withdrew and +painted pictures. He felt no leaning towards journalism, and Sir James, +who knew a good deal about art, honourably refrained—as other editors +did not—from tempting him with a good salary. But in the course of a +few years he had applied to him perhaps thirty times for his services +in the unravelling of similar problems at home and abroad. Sometimes +Trent, busy with work that held him, had refused; sometimes he had been +forestalled in the discovery of the truth. But the result of his +irregular connection with the _Record_ had been to make his name one of +the best known in England. It was characteristic of him that his name +was almost the only detail of his personality known to the public. He +had imposed absolute silence about himself upon the Molloy papers; and +the others were not going to advertise one of Sir James’s men. +The Manderson case, he told himself as he walked rapidly up the sloping +road to White Gables, might turn out to be terribly simple. Cupples was +a wise old boy, but it was probably impossible for him to have an +impartial opinion about his niece. But it was true that the manager of +the hotel, who had spoken of her beauty in terms that aroused his +attention, had spoken even more emphatically of her goodness. Not an +artist in words, the manager had yet conveyed a very definite idea to +Trent’s mind. “There isn’t a child about here that don’t brighten up at +the sound of her voice,” he had said, “nor yet a grown-up, for the +matter of that. Everybody used to look forward to her coming over in +the summer. I don’t mean that she’s one of those women that are all +kind heart and nothing else. There’s backbone with it, if you know what +I mean—pluck— any amount of go. There’s nobody in Marlstone that isn’t +sorry for the lady in her trouble—not but what some of us may think +she’s lucky at the last of it.” Trent wanted very much to meet Mrs. +Manderson. +He could see now, beyond a spacious lawn and shrubbery, the front of +the two-storied house of dull-red brick, with the pair of great gables +from which it had its name. He had had but a glimpse of it from the car +that morning. A modern house, he saw; perhaps ten years old. The place +was beautifully kept, with that air of opulent peace that clothes even +the smallest houses of the well-to-do in an English countryside. Before +it, beyond the road, the rich meadow-land ran down to the edge of the +cliffs; behind it a woody landscape stretched away across a broad vale +to the moors. That such a place could be the scene of a crime of +violence seemed fantastic; it lay so quiet and well ordered, so +eloquent of disciplined service and gentle living. Yet there beyond the +house, and near the hedge that rose between the garden and the hot, +white road, stood the gardener’s toolshed, by which the body had been +found, lying tumbled against the wooden wall, Trent walked past the +gate of the drive and along the road until he was opposite this shed. +Some forty yards further along the road turned sharply away from the +house, to run between thick plantations; and just before the turn the +grounds of the house ended, with a small white gate at the angle of the +boundary hedge. He approached the gate, which was plainly for the use +of gardeners and the service of the establishment. It swung easily on +its hinges, and he passed slowly up a path that led towards the back of +the house, between the outer hedge and a tall wall of rhododendrons. +Through a gap in this wall a track led him to the little neatly built +erection of wood, which stood among trees that faced a corner of the +front. The body had lain on the side away from the house; a servant, he +thought, looking out of the nearer windows in the earlier hours of the +day before, might have glanced unseeing at the hut, as she wondered +what it could be like to be as rich as the master. +He examined the place carefully and ransacked the hut within, but he +could note no more than the trodden appearance of the uncut grass where +the body had lain. Crouching low, with keen eyes and feeling fingers, +he searched the ground minutely over a wide area; but the search was +fruitless. +It was interrupted by the sound—the first he had heard from the +house—of the closing of the front door. Trent unbent his long legs and +stepped to the edge of the drive. A man was walking quickly away from +the house in the direction of the great gate. +At the noise of a footstep on the gravel, the man wheeled with nervous +swiftness and looked earnestly at Trent. The sudden sight of his face +was almost terrible, so white and worn it was. Yet it was a young man’s +face. There was not a wrinkle about the haggard blue eyes, for all +their tale of strain and desperate fatigue. As the two approached each +other, Trent noted with admiration the man’s breadth of shoulder and +lithe, strong figure. In his carriage, inelastic as weariness had made +it; in his handsome, regular features; in his short, smooth, yellow +hair; and in his voice as he addressed Trent, the influence of a +special sort of training was confessed. “Oxford was your playground, I +think, my young friend,” said Trent to himself. +“If you are Mr. Trent,” said the young man pleasantly, “you are +expected. Mr. Cupples telephoned from the hotel. My name is Marlowe.” +“You were secretary to Mr. Manderson, I believe,” said Trent. He was +much inclined to like young Mr. Marlowe. Though he seemed so near a +physical breakdown, he gave out none the less that air of clean living +and inward health that is the peculiar glory of his social type at his +years. But there was something in the tired eyes that was a challenge +to Trent’s penetration; an habitual expression, as he took it to be, of +meditating and weighing things not present to their sight. It was a +look too intelligent, too steady and purposeful, to be called dreamy. +Trent thought he had seen such a look before somewhere. He went on to +say: “It is a terrible business for all of you. I fear it has upset you +completely, Mr. Marlowe.” +“A little limp, that’s all,” replied the young man wearily. “I was +driving the car all Sunday night and most of yesterday, and I didn’t +sleep last night after hearing the news—who would? But I have an +appointment now, Mr. Trent, down at the doctor’s—arranging about the +inquest. I expect it’ll be tomorrow. If you will go up to the house and +ask for Mr. Bunner, you’ll find him expecting you; he will tell you all +about things and show you round. He’s the other secretary; an American, +and the best of fellows; he’ll look after you. There’s a detective +here, by the way—Inspector Murch, from Scotland Yard. He came +yesterday.” +“Murch!” Trent exclaimed. “But he and I are old friends. How under the +sun did he get here so soon?” +“I have no idea,” Mr. Marlowe answered. “But he was here last evening, +before I got back from Southampton, interviewing everybody, and he’s +been about here since eight this morning. He’s in the library +now—that’s where the open French window is that you see at the end of +the house there. Perhaps you would like to step down there and talk +about things.” +“I think I will,” said Trent. Marlowe nodded and went on his way. The +thick turf of the lawn round which the drive took its circular sweep +made Trent’s footsteps as noiseless as a cat’s. In a few moments he was +looking in through the open leaves of the window at the southward end +of the house, considering with a smile a very broad back and a bent +head covered with short grizzled hair. The man within was stooping over +a number of papers laid out on the table. +“’Twas ever thus,” said Trent in a melancholy tone, at the first sound +of which the man within turned round with startling swiftness. “From +childhood’s hour I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay. I did think I was +ahead of Scotland Yard this time, and now here is the hugest officer in +the entire Metropolitan force already occupying the position.” +The detective smiled grimly and came to the window. “I was expecting +you, Mr. Trent,” he said. “This is the sort of case that you like.” +“Since my tastes were being considered,” Trent replied, stepping into +the room, “I wish they had followed up the idea by keeping my hated +rival out of the business. You have got a long start, too—I know all +about it.” His eyes began to wander round the room. “How did you manage +it? You are a quick mover, I know; the dun deer’s hide on fleeter foot +was never tied; but I don’t see how you got here in time to be at work +yesterday evening. Has Scotland Yard secretly started an aviation +corps? Or is it in league with the infernal powers? In either case the +Home Secretary should be called upon to make a statement.” +“It’s simpler than that,” said Mr. Murch with professional stolidity. +“I happened to be on leave with the missus at Havley, which is only +twelve miles or so along the coast. As soon as our people there heard +of the murder they told me. I wired to the Chief, and was put in charge +of the case at once. I bicycled over yesterday evening, and have been +at it since then.” +“Arising out of that reply,” said Trent inattentively, “how is Mrs. +Inspector Murch?” +“Never better, thank you,” answered the inspector, “and frequently +speaks of you and the games you used to have with our kids. But you’ll +excuse me saying, Mr. Trent, that you needn’t trouble to talk your +nonsense to me while you’re using your eyes. I know your ways by now. I +understand you’ve fallen on your feet as usual, and have the lady’s +permission to go over the place and make enquiries.” +“Such is the fact,” said Trent. “I am going to cut you out again, +inspector. I owe you one for beating me over the Abinger case, you old +fox. But if you really mean that you’re not inclined for the social +amenities just now, let us leave compliments and talk business.” He +stepped to the table, glanced through the papers arranged there in +order, and then turned to the open roll-top desk. He looked into the +drawers swiftly. “I see this has been cleared out. Well now, inspector, +I suppose we play the game as before.” +Trent had found himself on a number of occasions in the past thrown +into the company of Inspector Murch, who stood high in the councils of +the Criminal Investigation Department. He was a quiet, tactful, and +very shrewd officer, a man of great courage, with a vivid history in +connection with the more dangerous class of criminals. His humanity was +as broad as his frame, which was large even for a policeman. Trent and +he, through some obscure working of sympathy, had appreciated one +another from the beginning, and had formed one of those curious +friendships with which it was the younger man’s delight to adorn his +experience. The inspector would talk more freely to him than to any +one, under the rose, and they would discuss details and possibilities +of every case, to their mutual enlightenment. There were necessarily +rules and limits. It was understood between them that Trent made no +journalistic use of any point that could only have come to him from an +official source. Each of them, moreover, for the honour and prestige of +the institution he represented, openly reserved the right to withhold +from the other any discovery or inspiration that might come to him +which he considered vital to the solution of the difficulty. Trent had +insisted on carefully formulating these principles of what he called +detective sportsmanship. Mr. Murch, who loved a contest, and who only +stood to gain by his association with the keen intelligence of the +other, entered very heartily into “the game”. In these strivings for +the credit of the press and of the police, victory sometimes attended +the experience and method of the officer, sometimes the quicker brain +and livelier imagination of Trent, his gift of instinctively +recognizing the significant through all disguises. +The inspector then replied to Trent’s last words with cordial +agreement. Leaning on either side of the French window, with the deep +peace and hazy splendor of the summer landscape before them, they +reviewed the case. +Trent had taken out a thin notebook, and as they talked he began to +make, with light, secure touches, a rough sketch plan of the room. It +was a thing he did habitually on such occasions, and often quite idly, +but now and then the habit had served him to good purpose. +This was a large, light apartment at the corner of the house, with +generous window-space in two walls. A broad table stood in the middle. +As one entered by the window the roll-top desk stood just to the left +of it against the wall. The inner door was in the wall to the left, at +the farther end of the room; and was faced by a broad window divided +into openings of the casement type. A beautifully carved old +corner-cupboard rose high against the wall beyond the door, and another +cupboard filled a recess beside the fireplace. Some coloured prints of +Harunobu, with which Trent promised himself a better acquaintance, hung +on what little wall-space was unoccupied by books. These had a very +uninspiring appearance of having been bought by the yard and never +taken from their shelves. Bound with a sober luxury, the great English +novelists, essayists, historians, and poets stood ranged like an army +struck dead in its ranks. There were a few chairs made, like the +cupboard and table, of old carved oak; a modern armchair and a swivel +office-chair before the desk. The room looked costly but very bare. +Almost the only portable objects were a great porcelain bowl of a +wonderful blue on the table, a clock and some cigar boxes on the +mantelshelf, and a movable telephone standard on the top of the desk. +“Seen the body?” enquired the inspector. +Trent nodded. “And the place where it lay,” he said. +“First impressions of this case rather puzzle me,” said the inspector. +“From what I heard at Halvey I guessed it might be common robbery and +murder by some tramp, though such a thing is very far from common in +these parts. But as soon as I began my enquiries I came on some curious +points, which by this time I dare say you’ve noted for yourself. The +man is shot in his own grounds, quite near the house, to begin with. +Yet there’s not the slightest trace of any attempt at burglary. And the +body wasn’t robbed. In fact, it would be as plain a case of suicide as +you could wish to see, if it wasn’t for certain facts. Here’s another +thing: for a month or so past, they tell me, Manderson had been in a +queer state of mind. I expect you know already that he and his wife had +some trouble between them. The servants had noticed a change in his +manner to her for a long time, and for the past week he had scarcely +spoken to her. They say he was a changed man, moody and silent—whether +on account of that or something else. The lady’s maid says he looked as +if something was going to arrive. It’s always easy to remember that +people looked like that, after something has happened to them. Still, +that’s what they say. There you are again, then: suicide! Now, why +wasn’t it suicide, Mr. Trent?” +“The facts so far as I know them are really all against it,” Trent +replied, sitting on the threshold of the window and clasping his knees. +“First, of course, no weapon is to be found. I’ve searched, and you’ve +searched, and there’s no trace of any firearm anywhere within a stone’s +throw of where the body lay. Second, the marks on the wrists, fresh +scratches and bruises, which we can only assume to have been done in a +struggle with somebody. Third, who ever heard of anybody shooting +himself in the eye? Then I heard from the manager of the hotel here +another fact, which strikes me as the most curious detail in this +affair. Manderson had dressed himself fully before going out there, but +he forgot his false teeth. Now how could a suicide who dressed himself +to make a decent appearance as a corpse forget his teeth?” +“That last argument hadn’t struck me,” admitted Mr. Murch. “There’s +something in it. But on the strength of the other points, which had +occurred to me, I am not considering suicide. I have been looking about +for ideas in this house, this morning. I expect you were thinking of +doing the same.” +“That is so. It is a case for ideas, it seems to me. Come, Murch, let +us make an effort; let us bend our spirits to a temper of general +suspicion. Let us suspect everybody in the house, to begin with. +Listen: I will tell you whom I suspect. I suspect Mrs. Manderson, of +course. I also suspect both the secretaries—I hear there are two, and I +hardly know which of them I regard as more thoroughly open to +suspicion. I suspect the butler and the lady’s maid. I suspect the +other domestics, and especially do I suspect the boot-boy. By the way, +what domestics are there? I have more than enough suspicion to go +round, whatever the size of the establishment; but as a matter of +curiosity I should like to know.” +“All very well to laugh,” replied the inspector, “but at the first +stage of affairs it’s the only safe principle, and you know that as +well as I do, Mr. Trent. However, I’ve seen enough of the people here, +last night and today, to put a few of them out of my mind for the +present at least. You will form your own conclusions. As for the +establishment, there’s the butler and lady’s maid, cook, and three +other maids, one a young girl. One chauffeur, who’s away with a broken +wrist. No boy.” +“What about the gardener? You say nothing about that shadowy and +sinister figure, the gardener. You are keeping him in the background, +Murch. Play the game. Out with him—or I report you to the Rules +Committee.” +“The garden is attended to by a man in the village, who comes twice a +week. I’ve talked to him. He was here last on Friday.” +“Then I suspect him all the more,” said Trent. “And now as to the house +itself. What I propose to do, to begin with, is to sniff about a little +in this room, where I am told Manderson spent a great deal of his time, +and in his bedroom; especially the bedroom. But since we’re in this +room, let’s start here. You seem to be at the same stage of the +inquiry. Perhaps you’ve done the bedrooms already?” +The inspector nodded. “I’ve been over Manderson’s and his wife’s. +Nothing to be got there, I think. His room is very simple and bare, no +signs of any sort—that _I_ could see. Seems to have insisted on the +simple life, does Manderson. Never employed a valet. The room’s almost +like a cell, except for the clothes and shoes. You’ll find it all +exactly as I found it; and they tell me that’s exactly as Manderson +left it, at we don’t know what o’clock yesterday morning. Opens into +Mrs. Manderson’s bedroom—not much of the cell about that, I can tell +you. I should say the lady was as fond of pretty things as most. But +she cleared out of it on the morning of the discovery—told the maid she +could never sleep in a room opening into her murdered husband’s room. +Very natural feeling in a woman, Mr. Trent. She’s camping out, so to +say, in one of the spare bedrooms now.” +“Come, my friend,” Trent was saying to himself, as he made a few notes +in his little book. “Have you got your eye on Mrs. Manderson? Or +haven’t you? I know that colourless tone of the inspectorial voice. I +wish I had seen her. Either you’ve got something against her and you +don’t want me to get hold of it; or else you’ve made up your mind she’s +innocent, but have no objection to my wasting my time over her. Well, +it’s all in the game; which begins to look extremely interesting as we +go on.” To Mr. Murch he said aloud: “Well, I’ll draw the bedroom later +on. What about this?” +“They call it the library,” said the inspector. “Manderson used to do +his writing and that in here; passed most of the time he spent indoors +here. Since he and his wife ceased to hit it off together, he had taken +to spending his evenings alone, and when at this house he always spent +’em in here. He was last seen alive, as far as the servants are +concerned, in this room.” +Trent rose and glanced again through the papers set out on the table. +“Business letters and documents, mostly,” said Mr. Murch. “Reports, +prospectuses, and that. A few letters on private matters, nothing in +them that I can see. The American secretary—Bunner his name is, and a +queerer card I never saw turned—he’s been through this desk with me +this morning. He had got it into his head that Manderson had been +receiving threatening letters, and that the murder was the outcome of +that. But there’s no trace of any such thing; and we looked at every +blessed paper. The only unusual things we found were some packets of +banknotes to a considerable amount, and a couple of little bags of +unset diamonds. I asked Mr. Bunner to put them in a safer place. It +appears that Manderson had begun buying diamonds lately as a +speculation—it was a new game to him, the secretary said, and it seemed +to amuse him.” +“What about these secretaries?” Trent enquired. “I met one called +Marlowe just now outside; a nice-looking chap with singular eyes, +unquestionably English. The other, it seems, is an American. What did +Manderson want with an English secretary?” +“Mr. Marlowe explained to me how that was. The American was his +right-hand business man, one of his office staff, who never left him. +Mr. Marlowe had nothing to do with Manderson’s business as a financier, +knew nothing of it. His job was to look after Manderson’s horses and +motors and yacht and sporting arrangements and that—make himself +generally useful, as you might say. He had the spending of a lot of +money, I should think. The other was confined entirely to the office +affairs, and I dare say he had his hands full. As for his being +English, it was just a fad of Manderson’s to have an English secretary. +He’d had several before Mr. Marlowe.” +“He showed his taste,” observed Trent. “It might be more than +interesting, don’t you think, to be minister to the pleasures of a +modern plutocrat with a large P. Only they say that Manderson’s were +exclusively of an innocent kind. Certainly Marlowe gives me the +impression that he would be weak in the part of Petronius. But to +return to the matter in hand.” He looked at his notes. “You said just +now that he was last seen alive here, ‘so far as the servants were +concerned’. That meant—?” +“He had a conversation with his wife on going to bed. But for that, the +manservant, Martin by name, last saw him in this room. I had his story +last night, and very glad he was to tell it. An affair like this is +meat and drink to the servants of the house.” +Trent considered for some moments, gazing through the open window over +the sun-flooded slopes. “Would it bore you to hear what he has to say +again?” he asked at length. For reply, Mr. Murch rang the bell. A +spare, clean-shaven, middle-aged man, having the servant’s manner in +its most distinguished form, answered it. +“This is Mr. Trent, who is authorized by Mrs. Manderson to go over the +house and make enquiries,” explained the detective. “He would like to +hear your story.” Martin bowed distantly. He recognized Trent for a +gentleman. Time would show whether he was what Martin called a +gentleman in every sense of the word. +“I observed you approaching the house, sir,” said Martin with impassive +courtesy. He spoke with a slow and measured utterance. “My instructions +are to assist you in every possible way. Should you wish me to recall +the circumstances of Sunday night?” +“Please,” said Trent with ponderous gravity. Martin’s style was making +clamorous appeal to his sense of comedy. He banished with an effort all +vivacity of expression from his face. +“I last saw Mr. Manderson—” +“No, not that yet,” Trent checked him quietly. “Tell me all you saw of +him that evening—after dinner, say. Try to recollect every little +detail.” +“After dinner, sir?—yes. I remember that after dinner Mr. Manderson and +Mr. Marlowe walked up and down the path through the orchard, talking. +If you ask me for details, it struck me they were talking about +something important, because I heard Mr. Manderson say something when +they came in through the back entrance. He said, as near as I can +remember, ‘If Harris is there, every minute is of importance. You want +to start right away. And not a word to a soul.’ Mr. Marlowe answered, +‘Very well. I will just change out of these clothes and then I am +ready’—or words to that effect. I heard this plainly as they passed the +window of my pantry. Then Mr. Marlowe went up to his bedroom, and Mr. +Manderson entered the library and rang for me. He handed me some +letters for the postman in the morning and directed me to sit up, as +Mr. Marlowe had persuaded him to go for a drive in the car by +moonlight.” +“That was curious,” remarked Trent. +“I thought so, sir. But I recollected what I had heard about ‘not a +word to a soul’, and I concluded that this about a moonlight drive was +intended to mislead.” +“What time was this?” +“It would be about ten, sir, I should say. After speaking to me, Mr. +Manderson waited until Mr. Marlowe had come down and brought round the +car. He then went into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Manderson was.” +“Did that strike you as curious?” +Martin looked down his nose. “If you ask me the question, sir,” he said +with reserve, “I had not known him enter that room since we came here +this year. He preferred to sit in the library in the evenings. That +evening he only remained with Mrs. Manderson for a few minutes. Then he +and Mr. Marlowe started immediately.” +“You saw them start?” +“Yes, sir. They took the direction of Bishopsbridge.” +“And you saw Mr. Manderson again later?” +“After an hour or thereabouts, sir, in the library. That would have +been about a quarter past eleven, I should say; I had noticed eleven +striking from the church. I may say I am peculiarly quick of hearing, +sir.” +“Mr. Manderson had rung the bell for you, I suppose. Yes? And what +passed when you answered it?” +“Mr. Manderson had put out the decanter of whisky and a syphon and +glass, sir, from the cupboard where he kept them—” +Trent held up his hand. “While we are on that point, Martin, I want to +ask you plainly, did Mr. Manderson drink very much? You understand this +is not impertinent curiosity on my part. I want you to tell me, because +it may possibly help in the clearing up of this case.” +“Perfectly, sir,” replied Martin gravely. “I have no hesitation in +telling you what I have already told the inspector. Mr. Manderson was, +considering his position in life, a remarkably abstemious man. In my +four years of service with him I never knew anything of an alcoholic +nature pass his lips, except a glass or two of wine at dinner, very +rarely a little at luncheon, and from time to time a whisky and soda +before going to bed. He never seemed to form a habit of it. Often I +used to find his glass in the morning with only a little soda water in +it; sometimes he would have been having whisky with it, but never much. +He never was particular about his drinks; ordinary soda was what he +preferred, though I had ventured to suggest some of the natural +minerals, having personally acquired a taste for them in my previous +service. He used to keep them in the cupboard here, because he had a +great dislike of being waited on more than was necessary. It was an +understood thing that I never came near him after dinner unless sent +for. And when he sent for anything, he liked it brought quick, and to +be left alone again at once. He hated to be asked if he required +anything more. Amazingly simple in his tastes, sir, Mr. Manderson was.” +“Very well; and he rang for you that night about a quarter past eleven. +Now can you remember exactly what he said?” +“I think I can tell you with some approach to accuracy, sir. It was not +much. First he asked me if Mr. Bunner had gone to bed, and I replied +that he had been gone up some time. He then said that he wanted some +one to sit up until 12.30, in case an important message should come by +telephone, and that Mr. Marlowe having gone to Southampton for him in +the motor, he wished me to do this, and that I was to take down the +message if it came, and not disturb him. He also ordered a fresh syphon +of soda water. I believe that was all, sir.” +“You noticed nothing unusual about him, I suppose?” +“No, sir, nothing unusual. When I answered the ring, he was seated at +the desk listening at the telephone, waiting for a number, as I +supposed. He gave his orders and went on listening at the same time. +“When I returned with the syphon he was engaged in conversation over +the wire.” +“Do you remember anything of what he was saying?” +“Very little, sir; it was something about somebody being at some +hotel—of no interest to me. I was only in the room just time enough to +place the syphon on the table and withdraw. As I closed the door he was +saying, ‘You’re sure he isn’t in the hotel?’ or words to that effect.” +“And that was the last you saw and heard of him alive?” +“No, sir. A little later, at half-past eleven, when I had settled down +in my pantry with the door ajar, and a book to pass the time, I heard +Mr. Manderson go upstairs to bed. I immediately went to close the +library window, and slipped the lock of the front door. I did not hear +anything more.” +Trent considered. “I suppose you didn’t doze at all,” he said +tentatively, “while you were sitting up waiting for the telephone +message?” +“Oh no, sir. I am always very wakeful about that time. I’m a bad +sleeper, especially in the neighbourhood of the sea, and I generally +read in bed until somewhere about midnight.” +“And did any message come?” +“No, sir.” +“No. And I suppose you sleep with your window open, these warm nights?” +“It is never closed at night, sir.” +Trent added a last note; then he looked thoughtfully through those he +had taken. He rose and paced up and down the room for some moments with +a downcast eye. At length he paused opposite Martin. +“It all seems perfectly ordinary and simple,” he said. “I just want to +get a few details clear. You went to shut the windows in the library +before going to bed. Which windows?” +“The French window, sir. It had been open all day. The windows opposite +the door were seldom opened.” +“And what about the curtains? I am wondering whether any one outside +the house could have seen into the room.” +“Easily, sir, I should say, if he had got into the grounds on that +side. The curtains were never drawn in the hot weather. Mr. Manderson +would often sit right in the doorway at nights, smoking and looking out +into the darkness. But nobody could have seen him who had any business +to be there.” +“I see. And now tell me this. Your hearing is very acute, you say, and +you heard Mr. Manderson enter the house when he came in after dinner +from the garden. Did you hear him re-enter it after returning from the +motor drive?” +Martin paused. “Now you mention it, sir, I remember that I did not. His +ringing the bell in this room was the first I knew of his being back. I +should have heard him come in, if he had come in by the front. I should +have heard the door go. But he must have come in by the window.” The +man reflected for a moment, then added, “As a general rule, Mr. +Manderson would come in by the front, hang up his hat and coat in the +hall, and pass down the hall into the study. It seems likely to me that +he was in a great hurry to use the telephone, and so went straight +across the lawn to the window. He was like that, sir, when there was +anything important to be done. He had his hat on, now I remember, and +had thrown his greatcoat over the end of the table. He gave his order +very sharp, too, as he always did when busy. A very precipitate man +indeed was Mr. Manderson; a hustler, as they say.” +“Ah! he appeared to be busy. But didn’t you say just now that you +noticed nothing unusual about him?” +A melancholy smile flitted momentarily over Martin’s face. “That +observation shows that you did not know Mr. Manderson, sir, if you will +pardon my saying so. His being like that was nothing unusual; quite the +contrary. It took me long enough to get used to it. Either he would be +sitting quite still and smoking a cigar, thinking or reading, or else +he would be writing, dictating, and sending off wires all at the same +time, till it almost made one dizzy to see it, sometimes for an hour or +more at a stretch. As for being in a hurry over a telephone message, I +may say it wasn’t in him to be anything else.” +Trent turned to the inspector, who met his eye with a look of answering +intelligence. Not sorry to show his understanding of the line of +inquiry opened by Trent, Mr. Murch for the first time put a question. +“Then you left him telephoning by the open window, with the lights on, +and the drinks on the table; is that it?” “That is so, Mr. Murch.” The +delicacy of the change in Martin’s manner when called upon to answer +the detective momentarily distracted Trent’s appreciative mind. But the +big man’s next question brought it back to the problem at once. +“About those drinks. You say Mr. Manderson often took no whisky before +going to bed. Did he have any that night?” +“I could not say. The room was put to rights in the morning by one of +the maids, and the glass washed, I presume, as usual. I know that the +decanter was nearly full that evening. I had refilled it a few days +before, and I glanced at it when I brought the fresh syphon, just out +of habit, to make sure there was a decent-looking amount.” +The inspector went to the tall corner-cupboard and opened it. He took +out a decanter of cut glass and set it on the table before Martin. “Was +it fuller than that?” he asked quietly. “That’s how I found it this +morning.” The decanter was more than half empty. +For the first time Martin’s self-possession wavered. He took up the +decanter quickly, tilted it before his eyes, and then stared amazedly +at the others. He said slowly: “There’s not much short of half a bottle +gone out of this since I last set eyes on it—and that was that Sunday +night.” +“Nobody in the house, I suppose?” suggested Trent discreetly. +“Out of the question!” replied Martin briefly; then he added, “I beg +pardon, sir, but this is a most extraordinary thing to me. Such a thing +never happened in all my experience of Mr. Manderson. As for the +women-servants, they never touch anything, I can answer for it; and as +for me, when I want a drink I can help myself without going to the +decanters.” He took up the decanter again and aimlessly renewed his +observation of the contents, while the inspector eyed him with a look +of serene satisfaction, as a master contemplates his handiwork. +Trent turned to a fresh page of his notebook, and tapped it +thoughtfully with his pencil. Then he looked up and said, “I suppose +Mr. Manderson had dressed for dinner that night?” +“Certainly, sir. He had on a suit with a dress-jacket, what he used to +refer to as a Tuxedo, which he usually wore when dining at home.” +“And he was dressed like that when you saw him last?” +“All but the jacket, sir. When he spent the evening in the library, as +usually happened, he would change it for an old shooting-jacket after +dinner, a light-coloured tweed, a little too loud in pattern for +English tastes, perhaps. He had it on when I saw him last. It used to +hang in this cupboard here”—Martin opened the door of it as he +spoke—“along with Mr. Manderson’s fishing-rods and such things, so that +he could slip it on after dinner without going upstairs.” +“Leaving the dinner-jacket in the cupboard?” +“Yes, sir. The housemaid used to take it upstairs in the morning.” +“In the morning,” Trent repeated slowly. “And now that we are speaking +of the morning, will you tell me exactly what you know about that? I +understand that Mr. Manderson was not missed until the body was found +about ten o’clock.” +“That is so, sir. Mr. Manderson would never be called, or have anything +brought to him in the morning. He occupied a separate bedroom. Usually +he would get up about eight and go round to the bathroom, and he would +come down some time before nine. But often he would sleep till nine or +ten o’clock. Mrs. Manderson was always called at seven. The maid would +take in tea to her. Yesterday morning Mrs. Manderson took breakfast +about eight in her sitting-room as usual, and every one supposed that +Mr. Manderson was still in bed and asleep, when Evans came rushing up +to the house with the shocking intelligence.” +“I see,” said Trent. “And now another thing. You say you slipped the +lock of the front door before going to bed. Was that all the locking-up +you did?” +“To the front door, sir, yes; I slipped the lock. No more is considered +necessary in these parts. But I had locked both the doors at the back, +and seen to the fastenings of all the windows on the ground floor. In +the morning everything was as I had left it.” +“As you had left it. Now here is another point—the last, I think. Were +the clothes in which the body was found the clothes that Mr. Manderson +would naturally have worn that day?” +Martin rubbed his chin. “You remind me how surprised I was when I first +set eyes on the body, sir. At first I couldn’t make out what was +unusual about the clothes, and then I saw what it was. The collar was a +shape of collar Mr. Manderson never wore except with evening dress. +Then I found that he had put on all the same things that he had worn +the night before—large fronted shirt and all—except just the coat and +waistcoat and trousers, and the brown shoes, and blue tie. As for the +suit, it was one of half a dozen he might have worn. But for him to +have simply put on all the rest just because they were there, instead +of getting out the kind of shirt and things he always wore by day; +well, sir, it was unprecedented. It shows, like some other things, what +a hurry he must have been in when getting up.” +“Of course,” said Trent. “Well, I think that’s all I wanted to know. +You have put everything with admirable clearness, Martin. If we want to +ask any more questions later on, I suppose you will be somewhere +about.” +“I shall be at your disposal, sir.” Martin bowed, and went out quietly. +Trent flung himself into the armchair and exhaled a long breath. +“Martin is a great creature,” he said. “He is far, far better than a +play. There is none like him, none, nor will be when our summers have +deceased. Straight, too; not an atom of harm in dear old Martin. Do you +know, Murch, you are wrong in suspecting that man.” +“I never said a word about suspecting him.” The inspector was taken +aback. “You know, Mr. Trent, he would never have told his story like +that if he thought I suspected him.” +“I dare say he doesn’t think so. He is a wonderful creature, a great +artist; but, in spite of that, he is not at all a sensitive type. It +has never occurred to his mind that you, Murch, could suspect him, +Martin, the complete, the accomplished. But I know it. You must +understand, inspector, that I have made a special study of the +psychology of officers of the law. It is a grossly neglected branch of +knowledge. They are far more interesting than criminals, and not nearly +so easy. All the time I was questioning him I saw handcuffs in your +eye. Your lips were mutely framing the syllables of those tremendous +words: ‘It is my duty to tell you that anything you now say will be +taken down and used in evidence against you.’ Your manner would have +deceived most men, but it could not deceive me.” +Mr. Murch laughed heartily. Trent’s nonsense never made any sort of +impression on his mind, but he took it as a mark of esteem, which +indeed it was; so it never failed to please him. “Well, Mr. Trent,” he +said, “you’re perfectly right. There’s no point in denying it, I have +got my eye on him. Not that there’s anything definite; but you know as +well as I do how often servants are mixed up in affairs of this kind, +and this man is such a very quiet customer. You remember the case of +Lord William Russell’s valet, who went in as usual, in the morning, to +draw up the blinds in his master’s bedroom, as quiet and starchy as you +please, a few hours after he had murdered him in his bed. I’ve talked +to all the women of the house, and I don’t believe there’s a morsel of +harm in one of them. But Martin’s not so easy set aside. I don’t like +his manner; I believe he’s hiding something. If so, I shall find it +out.” +“Cease!” said Trent. “Drain not to its dregs the urn of bitter +prophecy. Let us get back to facts. Have you, as a matter of evidence, +anything at all to bring against Martin’s story as he has told it to +us?” +“Nothing whatever at present. As for his suggestion that Manderson came +in by way of the window after leaving Marlowe and the car, that’s right +enough, I should say. I questioned the servant who swept the room next +morning, and she tells me there were gravelly marks near the window, on +this plain drugget that goes round the carpet. And there’s a footprint +in this soft new gravel just outside.” The inspector took a folding +rule from his pocket and with it pointed out the traces. “One of the +patent shoes Manderson was wearing that night exactly fits that print; +you’ll find them,” he added, “on the top shelf in the bedroom, near the +window end, the only patents in the row. The girl who polished them in +the morning picked them out for me.” +Trent bent down and studied the faint marks keenly. “Good!” he said. +“You have covered a lot of ground, Murch, I must say. That was +excellent about the whisky; you made your point finely. I felt inclined +to shout ‘Encore!’ It’s a thing that I shall have to think over.” +“I thought you might have fitted it in already,” said Mr. Murch. “Come, +Mr. Trent, we’re only at the beginning of our enquiries, but what do +you say to this for a preliminary theory? There’s a plan of burglary, +say a couple of men in it and Martin squared. They know where the plate +is, and all about the handy little bits of stuff in the drawing-room +and elsewhere. They watch the house; see Manderson off to bed; Martin +comes to shut the window, and leaves it ajar, accidentally on purpose. +They wait till Martin goes to bed at twelve-thirty; then they just walk +into the library, and begin to sample the whisky first thing. Now +suppose Manderson isn’t asleep, and suppose they make a noise opening +the window, or however it might be. He hears it; thinks of burglars; +gets up very quietly to see if anything’s wrong; creeps down on them, +perhaps, just as they’re getting ready for work. They cut and run; he +chases them down to the shed, and collars one; there’s a fight; one of +them loses his temper and his head, and makes a swinging job of it. +Now, Mr. Trent, pick that to pieces.” +“Very well,” said Trent; “just to oblige you, Murch, especially as I +know you don’t believe a word of it. First: no traces of any kind left +by your burglar or burglars, and the window found fastened in the +morning, according to Martin. Not much force in that, I allow. Next: +nobody in the house hears anything of this stampede through the +library, nor hears any shout from Manderson either inside the house or +outside. Next: Manderson goes down without a word to anybody, though +Bunner and Martin are both at hand. Next: did you ever hear, in your +long experience, of a householder getting up in the night to pounce on +burglars, who dressed himself fully, with underclothing, shirt; collar +and tie, trousers, waistcoat and coat, socks and hard leather shoes; +and who gave the finishing touches to a somewhat dandified toilet by +doing his hair, and putting on his watch and chain? Personally, I call +that over-dressing the part. The only decorative detail he seems to +have forgotten is his teeth.” +The inspector leaned forward thinking, his large hands clasped before +him. “No,” he said at last. “Of course there’s no help in that theory. +I rather expect we have some way to go before we find out why a man +gets up before the servants are awake, dresses himself awry, and is +murdered within sight of his house early enough to be “cold and stiff +by ten in the morning.” +Trent shook his head. “We can’t build anything on that last +consideration. I’ve gone into the subject with people who know. I +shouldn’t wonder,” he added, “if the traditional notions about loss of +temperature and rigour after death had occasionally brought an innocent +man to the gallows, or near it. Dr. Stock has them all, I feel sure; +most general practitioners of the older generation have. That Dr. Stock +will make an ass of himself at the inquest, is almost as certain as +that tomorrow’s sun will rise. I’ve seen him. He will say the body must +have been dead about so long, because of the degree of coldness and +_rigor mortis_. I can see him nosing it all out in some textbook that +was out of date when he was a student. Listen, Murch, and I will tell +you some facts which will be a great hindrance to you in your +professional career. There are many things that may hasten or retard +the cooling of the body. This one was lying in the long dewy grass on +the shady side of the shed. As for rigidity, if Manderson died in a +struggle, or labouring under sudden emotion, his corpse might stiffen +practically instantaneously; there are dozens of cases noted, +particularly in cases of injury to the skull, like this one. On the +other hand, the stiffening might not have begun until eight or ten +hours after death. You can’t hang anybody on _rigor mortis_ nowadays, +inspector, much as you may resent the limitation. No, what we _can_ say +is this. If he had been shot after the hour at which the world begins +to get up and go about its business, it would have been heard, and very +likely seen too. In fact, we must reason, to begin with, at any rate, +on the assumption that he wasn’t shot at a time when people might be +awake; it isn’t done in these parts. Put that time at 6.30 a.m. +Manderson went up to bed at 11 p.m., and Martin sat up till 12.30. +Assuming that he went to sleep at once on turning in, that leaves us +something like six hours for the crime to be committed in; and that is +a long time. But whenever it took place, I wish you would suggest a +reason why Manderson, who was a fairly late riser, was up and dressed +at or before 6.30; and why neither Martin, who sleeps lightly, nor +Bunner, nor his wife heard him moving about, or letting himself out of +the house. He must have been careful. He must have crept about like a +cat. Do you feel as I do, Murch, about all this; that it is very, very +strange and baffling?” +“That’s how it looks,” agreed the inspector. +“And now,” said Trent, rising to his feet, “I’ll leave you to your +meditations, and take a look at the bedrooms. Perhaps the explanation +of all this will suddenly burst upon you while I am poking about up +there. But,” concluded Trent in a voice of sudden exasperation, turning +round in the doorway, “if you can tell me at any time, how under the +sun a man who put on all those clothes could forget to put in his +teeth, you may kick me from here to the nearest lunatic asylum, and +hand me over as an incipient dement.” +Chapter V. +Poking About +There are moments in life, as one might think, when that which is +within us, busy about its secret affair, lets escape into consciousness +some hint of a fortunate thing ordained. Who does not know what it is +to feel at times a wave of unaccountable persuasion that it is about to +go well with him?—not the feverish confidence of men in danger of a +blow from fate, not the persistent illusion of the optimist, but an +unsought conviction, springing up like a bird from the heather, that +success is at hand in some great or fine thing. The general suddenly +knows at dawn that the day will bring him victory; the man on the green +suddenly knows that he will put down the long putt. As Trent mounted +the stairway outside the library door he seemed to rise into certainty +of achievement. A host of guesses and inferences swarmed apparently +unsorted through his mind; a few secret observations that he had made, +and which he felt must have significance, still stood unrelated to any +plausible theory of the crime; yet as he went up he seemed to know +indubitably that light was going to appear. +The bedrooms lay on either side of a broad carpeted passage, lighted by +a tall end window. It went the length of the house until it ran at +right angles into a narrower passage, out of which the servants’ rooms +opened. Martin’s room was the exception: it opened out of a small +landing half-way to the upper floor. As Trent passed it he glanced +within. A little square room, clean and commonplace. In going up the +rest of the stairway he stepped with elaborate precaution against +noise, hugging the wall closely and placing each foot with care; but a +series of very audible creaks marked his passage. +He knew that Manderson’s room was the first on the right hand when the +bedroom floor was reached, and he went to it at once. He tried the +latch and the lock, which worked normally, and examined the wards of +the key. Then he turned to the room. +It was a small apartment, strangely bare. The plutocrat’s toilet +appointments were of the simplest. All remained just as it had been on +the morning of the ghastly discovery in the grounds. The sheets and +blankets of the unmade bed lay tumbled over a narrow wooden bedstead, +and the sun shone brightly through the window upon them. It gleamed, +too, upon the gold parts of the delicate work of dentistry that lay in +water in a shallow bowl of glass placed on a small, plain table by the +bedside. On this also stood a wrought-iron candlestick. Some clothing +lay untidily over one of the two rush-bottomed chairs. Various objects +on the top of a chest of drawers, which had been used as a +dressing-table, lay in such disorder as a hurried man might make. Trent +looked them over with a questing eye. He noted also that the occupant +of the room had neither washed nor shaved. With his finger he turned +over the dental plate in the bowl, and frowned again at its +incomprehensible presence. +The emptiness and disarray of the little room, flooded by the sunbeams, +were producing in Trent a sense of gruesomeness. His fancy called up a +picture of a haggard man dressing himself in careful silence by the +first light of dawn, glancing constantly at the inner door behind which +his wife slept, his eyes full of some terror. +Trent shivered, and to fix his mind again on actualities, opened two +tall cupboards in the wall on either side of the bed. They contained +clothing, a large choice of which had evidently been one of the very +few conditions of comfort for the man who had slept there. +In the matter of shoes, also, Manderson had allowed himself the +advantage of wealth. An extraordinary number of these, treed and +carefully kept, was ranged on two long low shelves against the wall. No +boots were among them. Trent, himself an amateur of good shoe-leather, +now turned to these, and glanced over the collection with an +appreciative eye. It was to be seen that Manderson had been inclined to +pride himself on a rather small and well-formed foot. The shoes were of +a distinctive shape, narrow and round-toed, beautifully made; all were +evidently from the same last. +Suddenly his eyes narrowed themselves over a pair of patent-leather +shoes on the upper shelf. +These were the shoes of which the inspector had already described the +position to him; the shoes worn by Manderson the night before his +death. They were a well-worn pair, he saw at once; he saw, too, that +they had been very recently polished. Something about the uppers of +these shoes had seized his attention. He bent lower and frowned over +them, comparing what he saw with the appearance of the neighbouring +shoes. Then he took them up and examined the line of junction of the +uppers with the soles. +As he did this, Trent began unconsciously to whistle faintly, and with +great precision, an air which Inspector Murch, if he had been present, +would have recognized. +Most men who have the habit of self-control have also some involuntary +trick which tells those who know them that they are suppressing +excitement. The inspector had noted that when Trent had picked up a +strong scent he whistled faintly a certain melodious passage; though +the inspector could not have told you that it was in fact the opening +movement of Mendelssohn’s _Lied ohne Worter_ in A Major. +He turned the shoes over, made some measurements with a marked tape, +and looked minutely at the bottoms. On each, in the angle between the +heel and the instep, he detected a faint trace of red gravel. +Trent placed the shoes on the floor, and walked with his hands behind +him to the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with +eyes that saw nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the +Englishman’s expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to +the shelves again, and swiftly but carefully examined every one of the +shoes there. +This done, he took up the garments from the chair, looked them over +closely and replaced them. He turned to the wardrobe cupboards again, +and hunted through them carefully. The litter on the dressing-table now +engaged his attention for the second time. Then he sat down on the +empty chair, took his head in his hands, and remained in that attitude, +staring at the carpet, for some minutes. He rose at last and opened the +inner door leading to Mrs. Manderson’s room. +It was evident at a glance that the big room had been hurriedly put +down from its place as the lady’s bower. All the array of objects that +belong to a woman’s dressing-table had been removed; on bed and chairs +and smaller tables there were no garments or hats, bags or boxes; no +trace remained of the obstinate conspiracy of gloves and veils, +handkerchiefs and ribbons, to break the captivity of the drawer. The +room was like an unoccupied guest-chamber. Yet in every detail of +furniture and decoration it spoke of an unconventional but exacting +taste. Trent, as his expert eye noted the various perfection of colour +and form amid which the ill-mated lady dreamed her dreams and thought +her loneliest thoughts, knew that she had at least the resources of an +artistic nature. His interest in this unknown personality grew +stronger; and his brows came down heavily as he thought of the burdens +laid upon it, and of the deed of which the history was now shaping +itself with more and more of substance before his busy mind. +He went first to the tall French window in the middle of the wall that +faced the door, and opening it, stepped out upon a small balcony with +an iron railing. He looked down on a broad stretch of lawn that began +immediately beneath him, separated from the house-wall only by a narrow +flower-bed, and stretched away, with an abrupt dip at the farther end, +toward the orchard. The other window opened with a sash above the +garden-entrance of the library. In the farther inside corner of the +room was a second door giving upon the passage; the door by which the +maid was wont to come in, and her mistress to go out, in the morning. +Trent, seated on the bed, quickly sketched in his notebook a plan of +the room and its neighbour. The bed stood in the angle between the +communicating-door and the sash-window, its head against the wall +dividing the room from Manderson’s. Trent stared at the pillows; then +he lay down with deliberation on the bed and looked through the open +door into the adjoining room. +This observation taken, he rose again and proceeded to note on his plan +that on either side of the bed was a small table with a cover. Upon +that furthest from the door was a graceful electric-lamp standard of +copper connected by a free wire with the wall. Trent looked at it +thoughtfully, then at the switches connected with the other lights in +the room. They were, as usual, on the wall just within the door, and +some way out of his reach as he sat on the bed. He rose, and satisfied +himself that the lights were all in order. Then he turned on his heel, +walked quickly into Manderson’s room, and rang the bell. +“I want your help again, Martin,” he said, as the butler presented +himself, upright and impassive, in the doorway. “I want you to prevail +upon Mrs. Manderson’s maid to grant me an interview.” +“Certainly, sir,” said Martin. +“What sort of a woman is she? Has she her wits about her?” +“She’s French, sir,” replied Martin succinctly; adding after a pause: +“She has not been with us long, sir, but I have formed the impression +that the young woman knows as much of the world as is good for +her—since you ask me.” +“You think butter might possibly melt in her mouth, do you?” said +Trent. “Well, I am not afraid. I want to put some questions to her.” +“I will send her up immediately, sir.” The butler withdrew, and Trent +wandered round the little room with his hands at his back. Sooner than +he had expected, a small neat figure in black appeared quietly before +him. +The lady’s maid, with her large brown eyes, had taken favourable notice +of Trent from a window when he had crossed the lawn, and had been +hoping desperately that the resolver of mysteries (whose reputation was +as great below-stairs as elsewhere) would send for her. For one thing, +she felt the need to make a scene; her nerves were overwrought. But her +scenes were at a discount with the other domestics, and as for Mr. +Murch, he had chilled her into self-control with his official manner. +Trent, her glimpse of him had told her, had not the air of a policeman, +and at a distance he had appeared _sympathique_. +As she entered the room, however, instinct decided for her that any +approach to coquetry would be a mistake, if she sought to make a good +impression at the beginning. It was with an air of amiable candour, +then, that she said, “Monsieur desire to speak with me.” She added +helpfully, “I am called Célestine.” +“Naturally,” said Trent with businesslike calm. “Now what I want you to +tell me, Célestine, is this. When you took tea to your mistress +yesterday morning at seven o’clock, was the door between the two +bedrooms—this door here—open?” +Célestine became intensely animated in an instant. “Oh yes!” she said, +using her favourite English idiom. “The door was open as always, +monsieur, and I shut it as always. But it is necessary to explain. +Listen! When I enter the room of madame from the other door in +there—ah! but if monsieur will give himself the pain to enter the other +room, all explains itself.” She tripped across to the door, and urged +Trent before her into the larger bedroom with a hand on his arm. “See! +I enter the room with the tea like this. I approach the bed. Before I +come quite near the bed, here is the door to my right hand—open +always—so! But monsieur can perceive that I see nothing in the room of +Monsieur Manderson. The door opens to the bed, not to me who approach +from down there. I shut it without seeing in. It is the order. +Yesterday it was as ordinary. I see nothing of the next room. Madame +sleep like an angel—she see nothing. I shut the door. I place the +_plateau_—I open the curtains—I prepare the toilette—I retire—voilà!” +Célestine paused for breath and spread her hands abroad. +Trent, who had followed her movements and gesticulations with deepening +gravity, nodded his head. “I see exactly how it was now,” he said. +“Thank you, Célestine. So Mr. Manderson was supposed to be still in his +room while your mistress was getting up, and dressing, and having +breakfast in her boudoir?” +“Oui, monsieur.” +“Nobody missed him, in fact,” remarked Trent. “Well, Célestine, I am +very much obliged to you.” He reopened the door to the outer bedroom. +“It is nothing, monsieur,” said Célestine, as she crossed the small +room. “I hope that monsieur will catch the assassin of Monsieur +Manderson. But I not regret him too much,” she added with sudden and +amazing violence, turning round with her hand on the knob of the outer +door. She set her teeth with an audible sound, and the colour rose in +her small dark face. English departed from her. “Je ne le regrette pas +du tout, du tout!” she cried with a flood of words. “Madame—ah! je me +jetterais au feu pour madame—une femme si charmante, si adorable! Mais +un homme comme monsieur—maussade, boudeur, impassible! Ah, non!—de ma +vie! J’en avais par-dessus la tête, de monsieur! Ah! vrai! Est-ce +insupportable, tout de même, qu’il existe des types comme ça? Je vous +jure que—” +“Finissez ce chahut, Célestine!” Trent broke in sharply. Célestine’s +tirade had brought back the memory of his student days with a rush. “En +voilà une scène! C’est rasant, vous savez. Faut rentret ça, +mademoiselle. Du reste, c’est bien imprudent, croyez-moi. Hang it! Have +some common sense! If the inspector downstairs heard you saying that +kind of thing, you would get into trouble. And don’t wave your fists +about so much; you might hit something. You seem,” he went on more +pleasantly, as Célestine grew calmer under his authoritative eye, “to +be even more glad than other people that Mr. Manderson is out of the +way. I could almost suspect, Célestine, that Mr. Manderson did not take +as much notice of you as you thought necessary and right.” +“A peine s’il m’avait regardé!” Célestine answered simply. +“Ça, c’est un comble!” observed Trent. “You are a nice young woman for +a small tea-party, I don’t think. A star upon your birthday burned, +whose fierce, serene, red, pulseless planet never yearned in heaven, +Célestine. Mademoiselle, I am busy. Bon jour. You certainly are a +beauty!” +Célestine took this as a scarcely expected compliment. The surprise +restored her balance. With a sudden flash of her eyes and teeth at +Trent over her shoulder, the lady’s maid opened the door and swiftly +disappeared. +Trent, left alone in the little bedroom, relieved his mind with two +forcible descriptive terms in Célestine’s language, and turned to his +problem. He took the pair of shoes which he had already examined, and +placed them on one of the two chairs in the room, then seated himself +on the other opposite to this. With his hands in his pockets he sat +with eyes fixed upon those two dumb witnesses. Now and then he +whistled, almost inaudibly, a few bars. It was very still in the room. +A subdued twittering came from the trees through the open window. From +time to time a breeze rustled in the leaves of the thick creeper about +the sill. But the man in the room, his face grown hard and sombre now +with his thoughts, never moved. +So he sat for the space of half an hour. Then he rose quickly to his +feet. He replaced the shoes on their shelf with care, and stepped out +upon the landing. +Two bedroom doors faced him on the other side of the passage. He opened +that which was immediately opposite, and entered a bedroom by no means +austerely tidy. Some sticks and fishing-rods stood confusedly in one +corner, a pile of books in another. The housemaid’s hand had failed to +give a look of order to the jumble of heterogeneous objects left on the +dressing-table and on the mantelshelf—pipes, penknives, pencils, keys, +golf-balls, old letters, photographs, small boxes, tins, and bottles. +Two fine etchings and some water-colour sketches hung on the walls; +leaning against the end of the wardrobe, unhung, were a few framed +engravings. A row of shoes and boots was ranged beneath the window. +Trent crossed the room and studied them intently; then he measured some +of them with his tape, whistling very softly. This done, he sat on the +side of the bed, and his eyes roamed gloomily about the room. +The photographs on the mantelshelf attracted him presently. He rose and +examined one representing Marlowe and Manderson on horseback. Two +others were views of famous peaks in the Alps. There was a faded print +of three youths—one of them unmistakably his acquaintance of the +haggard blue eyes—clothed in tatterdemalion soldier’s gear of the +sixteenth century. Another was a portrait of a majestic old lady, +slightly resembling Marlowe. Trent, mechanically taking a cigarette +from an open box on the mantel-shelf, lit it and stared at the +photographs. Next he turned his attention to a flat leathern case that +lay by the cigarette-box. +It opened easily. A small and light revolver, of beautiful workmanship, +was disclosed, with a score or so of loose cartridges. On the stock +were engraved the initials “J. M.” +A step was heard on the stairs, and as Trent opened the breech and +peered into the barrel of the weapon, Inspector Murch appeared at the +open door of the room. “I was wondering—” he began; then stopped as he +saw what the other was about. His intelligent eyes opened slightly. +“Whose is the revolver, Mr. Trent?” he asked in a conversational tone. +“Evidently it belongs to the occupant of the room, Mr. Marlowe,” +replied Trent with similar lightness, pointing to the initials. “I +found this lying about on the mantelpiece. It seems a handy little +pistol to me, and it has been very carefully cleaned, I should say, +since the last time it was used. But I know little about firearms.” +“Well, I know a good deal,” rejoined the inspector quietly, taking the +revolver from Trent’s outstretched hand. “It’s a bit of a speciality +with me, is firearms, as I think you know, Mr. Trent. But it don’t +require an expert to tell one thing.” He replaced the revolver in its +case on the mantel-shelf, took out one of the cartridges, and laid it +on the spacious palm of one hand; then, taking a small object from his +waistcoat pocket, he laid it beside the cartridge. It was a little +leaden bullet, slightly battered about the nose, and having upon it +some bright new scratches. +“Is that _the_ one?” Trent murmured as he bent over the inspector’s +hand. +“That’s him,” replied Mr. Murch. “Lodged in the bone at the back of the +skull. Dr Stock got it out within the last hour, and handed it to the +local officer, who has just sent it on to me. These bright scratches +you see were made by the doctor’s instruments. These other marks were +made by the rifling of the barrel—a barrel like this one.” He tapped +the revolver. “Same make, same calibre. There is no other that marks +the bullet just like this.” +With the pistol in its case between them, Trent and the inspector +looked into each other’s eyes for some moments. Trent was the first to +speak. “This mystery is all wrong,” he observed. “It is insanity. The +symptoms of mania are very marked. Let us see how we stand. We were not +in any doubt, I believe, about Manderson having dispatched Marlowe in +the car to Southampton, or about Marlowe having gone, returning late +last night, many hours after the murder was committed.” +“There _is_ no doubt whatever about all that,” said Mr. Murch, with a +slight emphasis on the verb. +“And now,” pursued Trent, “we are invited by this polished and +insinuating firearm to believe the following line of propositions: that +Marlowe never went to Southampton; that he returned to the house in the +night; that he somehow, without waking Mrs. Manderson or anybody else, +got Manderson to get up, dress himself, and go out into the grounds; +that he then and there shot the said Manderson with his incriminating +pistol; that he carefully cleaned the said pistol, returned to the +house and, again without disturbing any one, replaced it in its case in +a favourable position to be found by the officers of the law; that he +then withdrew and spent the rest of the day in hiding—_with_ a large +motor car; and that he turned up, feigning ignorance of the whole +affair, at—what time was it?” +“A little after 9 p.m.” The inspector still stared moodily at Trent. +“As you say, Mr. Trent, that is the first theory suggested by this +find, and it seems wild enough—at least it would do if it didn’t fall +to pieces at the very start. When the murder was done Marlowe must have +been fifty to a hundred miles away. He _did_ go to Southampton.” +“How do you know?” +“I questioned him last night, and took down his story. He arrived in +Southampton about 6.30 on the Monday morning.” +“Come off” exclaimed Trent bitterly. “What do I care about his story? +What do you care about his story? I want to know how you _know_ he went +to Southampton.” +Mr. Murch chuckled. “I thought I should take a rise out of you, Mr. +Trent,” he said. “Well, there’s no harm in telling you. After I arrived +yesterday evening, as soon as I had got the outlines of the story from +Mrs. Manderson and the servants, the first thing I did was to go to the +telegraph office and wire to our people in Southampton. Manderson had +told his wife when he went to bed that he had changed his mind, and +sent Marlowe to Southampton to get some important information from some +one who was crossing by the next day’s boat. It seemed right enough, +but, you see, Marlowe was the only one of the household who wasn’t +under my hand, so to speak. He didn’t return in the car until later in +the evening; so before thinking the matter out any further, I wired to +Southampton making certain enquiries. Early this morning I got this +reply.” He handed a series of telegraph slips to Trent, who read: +Person answering description in motor answering description arrived +Bedford Hotel here 6.30 this morning gave name Marlowe left car hotel +garage told attendant car belonged Manderson had bath and breakfast +went out heard of later at docks inquiring for passenger name Harris on +Havre boat inquired repeatedly until boat left at noon next heard of at +hotel where he lunched about 1.15 left soon afterwards in car company’s +agents inform berth was booked name Harris last week but Harris did not +travel by boat Burke Inspector. +“Simple and satisfactory,” observed Mr. Murch as Trent, after twice +reading the message, returned it to him. “His own story corroborated in +every particular. He told me he hung about the dock for half an hour or +so on the chance of Harris turning up late, then strolled back, +lunched, and decided to return at once. He sent a wire to +Manderson—‘Harris not turned up missed boat returning Marlowe,’ which +was duly delivered here in the afternoon, and placed among the dead +man’s letters. He motored back at a good rate, and arrived dog-tired. +When he heard of Manderson’s death from Martin, he nearly fainted. What +with that and the being without sleep for so long, he was rather a +wreck when I came to interview him last night; but he was perfectly +coherent.” +Trent picked up the revolver and twirled the cylinder idly for a few +moments. “It was unlucky for Manderson that Marlowe left his pistol and +cartridges about so carelessly,” he remarked at length, as he put it +back in the case. “It was throwing temptation in somebody’s way, don’t +you think?” +Mr. Murch shook his head. “There isn’t really much to lay hold of about +the revolver, when you come to think. That particular make of revolver +is common enough in England. It was introduced from the States. Half +the people who buy a revolver today for self-defence or mischief +provide themselves with that make, of that calibre. It is very +reliable, and easily carried in the hip-pocket. There must be thousands +of them in the possession of crooks and honest men. For instance,” +continued the inspector with an air of unconcern, “Manderson himself +had one, the double of this. I found it in one of the top drawers of +the desk downstairs, and it’s in my overcoat pocket now.” +“Aha! so you were going to keep that little detail to yourself.” +“I was,” said the inspector; “but as you’ve found one revolver, you may +as well know about the other. As I say, neither of them may do us any +good. The people in the house—” +Both men started, and the inspector checked his speech abruptly, as the +half-closed door of the bedroom was slowly pushed open, and a man stood +in the doorway. His eyes turned from the pistol in its open case to the +faces of Trent and the inspector. They, who had not heard a sound to +herald this entrance, simultaneously looked at his long, narrow feet. +He wore rubber-soled tennis shoes. +“You must be Mr. Bunner,” said Trent. +Chapter VI. +Mr. Bunner on the Case +“Calvin C. Bunner, at your service,” amended the newcomer, with a touch +of punctilio, as he removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth. He was +used to finding Englishmen slow and ceremonious with strangers, and +Trent’s quick remark plainly disconcerted him a little. “You are Mr. +Trent, I expect,” he went on. “Mrs. Manderson was telling me a while +ago. Captain, good-morning.” Mr. Murch acknowledged the outlandish +greeting with a nod. “I was coming up to my room, and I heard a strange +voice in here, so I thought I would take a look in.” Mr. Bunner laughed +easily. “You thought I might have been eavesdropping, perhaps,” he +said. “No, sir; I heard a word or two about a pistol—this one, I +guess—and that’s all.” +Mr. Bunner was a thin, rather short young man with a shaven, pale, +bony, almost girlish face, and large, dark, intelligent eyes. His +waving dark hair was parted in the middle. His lips, usually occupied +with a cigar, in its absence were always half open with a curious +expression as of permanent eagerness. By smoking or chewing a cigar +this expression was banished, and Mr. Bunner then looked the +consummately cool and sagacious Yankee that he was. +Born in Connecticut, he had gone into a broker’s office on leaving +college, and had attracted the notice of Manderson, whose business with +his firm he had often handled. The Colossus had watched him for some +time, and at length offered him the post of private secretary. Mr. +Bunner was a pattern business man, trustworthy, long-headed, +methodical, and accurate. Manderson could have found many men with +those virtues; but he engaged Mr Bunner because he was also swift and +secret, and had besides a singular natural instinct in regard to the +movements of the stock market. +Trent and the American measured one another coolly with their eyes. +Both appeared satisfied with what they saw. “I was having it explained +to me,” said Trent pleasantly, “that my discovery of a pistol that +might have shot Manderson does not amount to very much. I am told it is +a favourite weapon among your people, and has become quite popular over +here.” +Mr. Bunner stretched out a bony hand and took the pistol from its case. +“Yes, sir,” he said, handling it with an air of familiarity; “the +captain is right. This is what we call out home a Little Arthur, and I +dare say there are duplicates of it in a hundred thousand hip-pockets +this minute. I consider it too light in the hand myself,” Mr. Bunner +went on, mechanically feeling under the tail of his jacket, and +producing an ugly looking weapon. “Feel of that, now, Mr. Trent—it’s +loaded, by the way. Now this Little Arthur—Marlowe bought it just +before we came over this year to please the old man. Manderson said it +was ridiculous for a man to be without a pistol in the twentieth +century. So he went out and bought what they offered him, I guess—never +consulted me. Not but what it’s a good gun,” Mr. Bunner conceded, +squinting along the sights. “Marlowe was poor with it at first, but +I’ve coached him some in the last month or so, and he’s practised until +he is pretty good. But he never could get the habit of carrying it +around. Why, it’s as natural to me as wearing my pants. I have carried +one for some years now, because there was always likely to be somebody +laying for Manderson. And now,” Mr. Bunner concluded sadly, “they got +him when I wasn’t around. Well, gentlemen, you must excuse me. I am +going into Bishopsbridge. There is a lot to do these days, and I have +to send off a bunch of cables big enough to choke a cow.” +“I must be off too,” said Trent. “I have an appointment at the ‘Three +Tuns’ inn.” +“Let me give you a lift in the automobile,” said Mr. Bunner cordially. +“I go right by that joint. Say, cap., are you coming my way too? No? +Then come along, Mr. Trent, and help me get out the car. The chauffeur +is out of action, and we have to do ’most everything ourselves except +clean the dirt off her.” +Still tirelessly talking in his measured drawl, Mr. Bunner led Trent +downstairs and through the house to the garage at the back. It stood at +a little distance from the house, and made a cool retreat from the +blaze of the midday sun. +Mr. Bunner seemed to be in no hurry to get out the car. He offered +Trent a cigar, which was accepted, and for the first time lit his own. +Then he seated himself on the footboard of the car, his thin hands +clasped between his knees, and looked keenly at the other. +“See here, Mr. Trent,” he said, after a few moments. “There are some +things I can tell you that may be useful to you. I know your record. +You are a smart man, and I like dealing with smart men. I don’t know if +I have that detective sized up right, but he strikes me as a mutt. I +would answer any questions he had the gumption to ask me—I have done +so, in fact—but I don’t feel encouraged to give him any notions of mine +without his asking. See?” +Trent nodded. “That is a feeling many people have in the presence of +our police,” he said. “It’s the official manner, I suppose. But let me +tell you, Murch is anything but what you think. He is one of the +shrewdest officers in Europe. He is not very quick with his mind, but +he is very sure. And his experience is immense. My forte is +imagination, but I assure you in police work experience outweighs it by +a great deal.” +“Outweigh nothing!” replied Mr. Bunner crisply. “This is no ordinary +case, Mr. Trent. I will tell you one reason why. I believe the old man +knew there was something coming to him. Another thing: I believe it was +something he thought he couldn’t dodge.” +Trent pulled a crate opposite to Mr. Bunner’s place on the footboard +and seated himself. “This sounds like business,” he said. “Tell me your +ideas.” +“I say what I do because of the change in the old man’s manner this +last few weeks. I dare say you have heard, Mr. Trent, that he was a man +who always kept himself well in hand. That was so. I have always +considered him the coolest and hardest head in business. That man’s +calm was just deadly—I never saw anything to beat it. And I knew +Manderson as nobody else did. I was with him in the work he really +lived for. I guess I knew him a heap better than his wife did, poor +woman. I knew him better than Marlowe could—he never saw Manderson in +his office when there was a big thing on. I knew him better than any of +his friends.” +“Had he any friends?” interjected Trent. +Mr. Bunner glanced at him sharply. “Somebody has been putting you next, +I see that,” he remarked. “No: properly speaking, I should say not. He +had many acquaintances among the big men, people he saw, most every +day; they would even go yachting or hunting together. But I don’t +believe there ever was a man that Manderson opened a corner of his +heart to. But what I was going to say was this. Some months ago the old +man began to get like I never knew him before—gloomy and sullen, just +as if he was everlastingly brooding over something bad, something that +he couldn’t fix. This went on without any break; it was the same down +town as it was up home, he acted just as if there was something lying +heavy on his mind. But it wasn’t until a few weeks back that his +self-restraint began to go; and let me tell you this, Mr. Trent”—the +American laid his bony claw on the other’s knee—“I’m the only man that +knows it. With every one else he would be just morose and dull; but +when he was alone with me in his office, or anywhere where we would be +working together, if the least little thing went wrong, by George! he +would fly off the handle to beat the Dutch. In this library here I have +seen him open a letter with something that didn’t just suit him in it, +and he would rip around and carry on like an Indian, saying he wished +he had the man that wrote it here, he wouldn’t do a thing to him, and +so on, till it was just pitiful. I never saw such a change. And here’s +another thing. For a week before he died Manderson neglected his work, +for the first time in my experience. He wouldn’t answer a letter or a +cable, though things looked like going all to pieces over there. I +supposed that this anxiety of his, whatever it was, had got on to his +nerves till they were worn out. Once I advised him to see a doctor, and +he told me to go to hell. But nobody saw this side of him but me. If he +was having one of these rages in the library here, for example, and +Mrs. Manderson would come into the room, he would be all calm and cold +again in an instant.” +“And you put this down to some secret anxiety, a fear that somebody had +designs on his life?” asked Trent. +The American nodded. +“I suppose,” Trent resumed, “you had considered the idea of there being +something wrong with his mind—a break-down from overstrain, say. That +is the first thought that your account suggests to me. Besides, it is +what is always happening to your big business men in America, isn’t it? +That is the impression one gets from the newspapers.” +“Don’t let them slip you any of that bunk,” said Mr. Bunner earnestly. +“It’s only the ones who have got rich too quick, and can’t make good, +who go crazy. Think of all our really big men—the men anywhere near +Manderson’s size: did you ever hear of any one of them losing his +senses? They don’t do it—believe _me_. I know they say every man has +his loco point,” Mr. Bunner added reflectively, “but that doesn’t mean +genuine, sure-enough craziness; it just means some personal +eccentricity in a man ... like hating cats ... or my own weakness of +not being able to touch any kind of fish-food.” +“Well, what was Manderson’s?” +“He was full of them—the old man. There was his objection to all the +unnecessary fuss and luxury that wealthy people don’t kick at much, as +a general rule. He didn’t have any use for expensive trifles and +ornaments. He wouldn’t have anybody do little things for him; he hated +to have servants tag around after him unless he wanted them. And +although Manderson was as careful about his clothes as any man I ever +knew, and his shoes—well, sir, the amount of money he spent on shoes +was sinful—in spite of that, I tell you, he never had a valet. He never +liked to have anybody touch him. All his life nobody ever shaved him.” +“I’ve heard something of that,” Trent remarked. “Why was it, do you +think?” +“Well,” Mr. Bunner answered slowly, “it was the Manderson habit of +mind, I guess; a sort of temper of general suspicion and jealousy. +“They say his father and grandfather were just the same.... Like a dog +with a bone, you know, acting as if all the rest of creation was laying +for a chance to steal it. He didn’t really _think_ the barber would +start in to saw his head off; he just felt there was a possibility that +he _might_, and he was taking no risks. Then again in business he was +always convinced that somebody else was after his bone—which was true +enough a good deal of the time; but not all the time. The consequence +of that was that the old man was the most cautious and secret worker in +the world of finance; and that had a lot to do with his success, +too.... But that doesn’t amount to being a lunatic, Mr. Trent; not by a +long way. You ask me if Manderson was losing his mind before he died. I +say I believe he was just worn out with worrying over something, and +was losing his nerve.” +Trent smoked thoughtfully. He wondered how much Mr. Bunner knew of the +domestic difficulty in his chief’s household, and decided to put out a +feeler. “I understood that he had trouble with his wife.” +“Sure,” replied Mr. Bunner. “But do you suppose a thing like that was +going to upset Sig Manderson that way? No, sir! He was a sight too big +a man to be all broken up by any worry of that kind.” +Trent looked half-incredulously into the eyes of the young man. But +behind all their shrewdness and intensity he saw a massive innocence. +Mr. Bunner really believed a serious breach between husband and wife to +be a minor source of trouble for a big man. +“What _was_ the trouble between them, anyhow?” Trent inquired. +“You can search me,” Mr. Bunner replied briefly. He puffed at his +cigar. “Marlowe and I have often talked about it, and we could never +make out a solution. I had a notion at first,” said Mr. Bunner in a +lower voice, leaning forward, “that the old man was disappointed and +vexed because he had expected a child; but Marlowe told me that the +disappointment on that score was the other way around, likely as not. +His idea was all right, I guess; he gathered it from something said by +Mrs. Manderson’s French maid.” +Trent looked up at him quickly. “Célestine!” he said; and his thought +was, “So that was what she was getting at!” +Mr. Bunner misunderstood his glance. “Don’t you think I’m giving a man +away, Mr. Trent,” he said. “Marlowe isn’t that kind. Célestine just +took a fancy to him because he talks French like a native, and she +would always be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite +unlike English that way. And servant or no servant,” added Mr. Bunner +with emphasis, “I don’t see how a woman could mention such a subject to +a man. But the French beat me.” He shook his head slowly. +“But to come back to what you were telling me just now,” Trent said. +“You believe that Manderson was going in terror of his life for some +time. Who should threaten it? I am quite in the dark.” +“Terror—I don’t know,” replied Mr. Bunner meditatively. “Anxiety, if +you like. Or suspense—that’s rather my idea of it. The old man was hard +to terrify, anyway; and more than that, he wasn’t taking any +precautions—he was actually avoiding them. It looked more like he was +asking for a quick finish—supposing there’s any truth in my idea. Why, +he would sit in that library window, nights, looking out into the dark, +with his white shirt just a target for anybody’s gun. As for who should +threaten his life well, sir,” said Mr. Bunner with a faint smile, “it’s +certain you have not lived in the States. To take the Pennsylvania coal +hold-up alone, there were thirty thousand men, with women and children +to keep, who would have jumped at the chance of drilling a hole through +the man who fixed it so that they must starve or give in to his terms. +Thirty thousand of the toughest aliens in the country, Mr. Trent. +There’s a type of desperado you find in that kind of push who has been +known to lay for a man for years, and kill him when he had forgotten +what he did. They have been known to dynamite a man in Idaho who had +done them dirt in New Jersey ten years before. Do you suppose the +Atlantic is going to stop them?... It takes some sand, I tell you, to +be a big business man in our country. No, sir: the old man knew—had +always known—that there was a whole crowd of dangerous men scattered up +and down the States who had it in for him. My belief is that he had +somehow got to know that some of them were definitely after him at +last. What licks me altogether is why he should have just laid himself +open to them the way he did—why he never tried to dodge, but walked +right down into the garden yesterday morning to be shot at.” +Mr. Bunner ceased to speak, and for a little while both men sat with +wrinkled brows, faint blue vapours rising from their cigars. Then Trent +rose. “Your theory is quite fresh to me,” he said. “It’s perfectly +rational, and it’s only a question of whether it fits all the facts. I +mustn’t give away what I’m doing for my newspaper, Mr. Bunner, but I +will say this: I have already satisfied myself that this was a +premeditated crime, and an extraordinarily cunning one at that. I’m +deeply obliged to you. We must talk it over again.” He looked at his +watch. “I have been expected for some time by my friend. Shall we make +a move?” +“Two o’clock,” said Mr. Bunner, consulting his own, as he got up from +the foot-board. “Ten a.m. in little old New York. You don’t know Wall +Street, Mr. Trent. Let’s you and I hope we never see anything nearer +hell than what’s loose in the Street this minute.” +Chapter VII. +The Lady in Black +The sea broke raging upon the foot of the cliff under a good breeze; +the sun flooded the land with life from a dappled blue sky. In this +perfection of English weather Trent, who had slept ill, went down +before eight o’clock to a pool among the rocks, the direction of which +had been given him, and dived deep into clear water. Between vast grey +boulders he swam out to the tossing open, forced himself some little +way against a coast-wise current, and then returned to his refuge +battered and refreshed. Ten minutes later he was scaling the cliff +again, and his mind, cleared for the moment of a heavy disgust for the +affair he had in hand, was turning over his plans for the morning. +It was the day of the inquest, the day after his arrival in the place. +He had carried matters not much further after parting with the American +on the road to Bishopsbridge. In the afternoon he had walked from the +inn into the town, accompanied by Mr. Cupples, and had there made +certain purchases at a chemist’s shop, conferred privately for some +time with a photographer, sent off a reply-paid telegram, and made an +enquiry at the telephone exchange. He had said but little about the +case to Mr. Cupples, who seemed incurious on his side, and nothing at +all about the results of his investigation or the steps he was about to +take. After their return from Bishopsbridge, Trent had written a long +dispatch for the _Record_ and sent it to be telegraphed by the proud +hands of the paper’s local representative. He had afterwards dined with +Mr. Cupples, and had spent the rest of the evening in meditative +solitude on the veranda. +This morning as he scaled the cliff he told himself that he had never +taken up a case he liked so little, or which absorbed him so much. The +more he contemplated it in the golden sunshine of this new day, the +more evil and the more challenging it appeared. All that he suspected +and all that he almost knew had occupied his questing brain for hours +to the exclusion of sleep; and in this glorious light and air, though +washed in body and spirit by the fierce purity of the sea, he only saw +the more clearly the darkness of the guilt in which he believed, and +was more bitterly repelled by the motive at which he guessed. But now +at least his zeal was awake again, and the sense of the hunt quickened. +He would neither slacken nor spare; here need be no compunction. In the +course of the day, he hoped, his net would be complete. He had work to +do in the morning; and with very vivid expectancy, though not much +serious hope, he awaited the answer to the telegram which he had shot +into the sky, as it were, the day before. +The path back to the hotel wound for some way along the top of the +cliff, and on nearing a spot he had marked from the sea level, where +the face had fallen away long ago, he approached the edge and looked +down, hoping to follow with his eyes the most delicately beautiful of +all the movements of water—the wash of a light sea over broken rock. +But no rock was there. A few feet below him a broad ledge stood out, a +rough platform as large as a great room, thickly grown with wiry grass +and walled in steeply on three sides. There, close to the verge where +the cliff at last dropped sheer, a woman was sitting, her arms about +her drawn-up knees, her eyes fixed on the trailing smoke of a distant +liner, her face full of some dream. +This woman seemed to Trent, whose training had taught him to live in +his eyes, to make the most beautiful picture he had ever seen. Her face +of southern pallor, touched by the kiss of the wind with colour on the +cheek, presented to him a profile of delicate regularity in which there +was nothing hard; nevertheless the black brows bending down toward the +point where they almost met gave her in repose a look of something like +severity, strangely redeemed by the open curves of the mouth. Trent +said to himself that the absurdity or otherwise of a lover writing +sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow depended after all on the quality of +the eyebrow. Her nose was of the straight and fine sort, exquisitely +escaping the perdition of too much length, which makes a conscientious +mind ashamed that it cannot help, on occasion, admiring the tip-tilted. +Her hat lay pinned to the grass beside her, and the lively breeze +played with her thick dark hair, blowing backward the two broad +bandeaux that should have covered much of her forehead, and agitating a +hundred tiny curls from the mass gathered at her nape. Everything about +this lady was black, from her shoes of suede to the hat that she had +discarded; lustreless black covered her to her bare throat. All she +wore was fine and well put on. Dreamy and delicate of spirit as her +looks declared her, it was very plain that she was long-practised as +only a woman grown can be in dressing well, the oldest of the arts, and +had her touch of primal joy in the excellence of the body that was so +admirably curved now in the attitude of embraced knees. With the +suggestion of French taste in her clothes, she made a very modern +figure seated there, until one looked at her face and saw the glow and +triumph of all vigorous beings that ever faced sun and wind and sea +together in the prime of the year. One saw, too, a womanhood so unmixed +and vigorous, so unconsciously sure of itself, as scarcely to be +English, still less American. +Trent, who had halted only for a moment in the surprise of seeing the +woman in black, had passed by on the cliff above her, perceiving and +feeling as he went the things set down. At all times his keen vision +and active brain took in and tasted details with an easy swiftness that +was marvellous to men of slower chemistry; the need to stare, he held, +was evidence of blindness. Now the feeling of beauty was awakened and +exultant, and doubled the power of his sense. In these instants a +picture was printed on his memory that would never pass away. +As he went by unheard on the turf the woman, still alone with her +thoughts, suddenly moved. She unclasped her long hands from about her +knees, stretched her limbs and body with feline grace, then slowly +raised her head and extended her arms with open, curving fingers, as if +to gather to her all the glory and overwhelming sanity of the morning. +This was a gesture not to be mistaken: it was a gesture of freedom, the +movement of a soul’s resolution to be, to possess, to go forward, +perhaps to enjoy. +So he saw her for an instant as he passed, and he did not turn. He knew +suddenly who the woman must be, and it was as if a curtain of gloom +were drawn between him and the splendour of the day. +During breakfast at the hotel Mr. Cupples found Trent little inclined +to talk. He excused himself on the plea of a restless night. Mr. +Cupples, on the other hand, was in a state of bird-like alertness. The +prospect of the inquest seemed to enliven him. He entertained Trent +with a disquisition upon the history of that most ancient and once busy +tribunal, the coroner’s court, and remarked upon the enviable freedom +of its procedure from the shackles of rule and precedent. From this he +passed to the case that was to come before it that morning. +“Young Bunner mentioned to me last night,” he said, “when I went up +there after dinner, the hypothesis which he puts forward in regard to +the crime. A very remarkable young man, Trent. His meaning is +occasionally obscure, but in my opinion he is gifted with a clearheaded +knowledge of the world quite unusual in one of his apparent age. +Indeed, his promotion by Manderson to the position of his principal +lieutenant speaks for itself. He seems to have assumed with perfect +confidence the control at this end of the wire, as he expresses it, of +the complicated business situation caused by the death of his +principal, and he has advised very wisely as to the steps I should take +on Mabel’s behalf, and the best course for her to pursue until effect +has been given to the provisions of the will. I was accordingly less +disposed than I might otherwise have been to regard his suggestion of +an industrial vendetta as far-fetched. When I questioned him he was +able to describe a number of cases in which attacks of one sort or +another—too often successful—had been made upon the lives of persons +who had incurred the hostility of powerful labour organizations. This +is a terrible time in which we live, my dear boy. There is none +recorded in history, I think, in which the disproportion between the +material and the moral constituents of society has been so great or so +menacing to the permanence of the fabric. But nowhere, in my judgement, +is the prospect so dark as it is in the United States.” +“I thought,” said Trent listlessly, “that Puritanism was about as +strong there as the money-getting craze.” +“Your remark,” answered Mr. Cupples, with as near an approach to humour +as was possible to him, “is not in the nature of a testimonial to what +you call Puritanism—a convenient rather than an accurate term; for I +need not remind you that it was invented to describe an Anglican party +which aimed at the purging of the services and ritual of their Church +from certain elements repugnant to them. The sense of your observation, +however, is none the less sound, and its truth is extremely well +illustrated by the case of Manderson himself, who had, I believe, the +virtues of purity, abstinence, and self-restraint in their strongest +form. No, Trent, there are other and more worthy things among the moral +constituents of which I spoke; and in our finite nature, the more we +preoccupy ourselves with the bewildering complexity of external +apparatus which science places in our hands, the less vigour have we +left for the development of the holier purposes of humanity within us. +Agricultural machinery has abolished the festival of the Harvest Home. +Mechanical travel has abolished the inn, or all that was best in it. I +need not multiply instances. The view I am expressing to you,” pursued +Mr. Cupples, placidly buttering a piece of toast, “is regarded as +fundamentally erroneous by many of those who think generally as I do +about the deeper concerns of life, but I am nevertheless firmly +persuaded of its truth.” +“It needs epigrammatic expression,” said Trent, rising from the table. +“If only it could be crystallized into some handy formula, like ‘No +Popery’, or ‘Tax the Foreigner’, you would find multitudes to go to the +stake for it. But you were planning to go to White Gables before the +inquest, I think. You ought to be off if you are to get back to the +court in time. I have something to attend to there myself, so we might +walk up together. I will just go and get my camera.” +“By all means,” Mr. Cupples answered; and they set off at once in the +ever-growing warmth of the morning. The roof of White Gables, a surly +patch of dull red against the dark trees, seemed to harmonize with +Trent’s mood; he felt heavy, sinister, and troubled. If a blow must +fall that might strike down that creature radiant of beauty and life +whom he had seen that morning, he did not wish it to come from his +hand. An exaggerated chivalry had lived in Trent since the first +teachings of his mother; but at this moment the horror of bruising +anything so lovely was almost as much the artist’s revulsion as the +gentleman’s. On the other hand, was the hunt to end in nothing? The +quality of the affair was such that the thought of forbearance was an +agony. There never was such a case; and he alone, he was confident, +held the truth of it under his hand. At least, he determined, that day +should show whether what he believed was a delusion. He would trample +his compunction underfoot until he was quite sure that there was any +call for it. That same morning he would know. +As they entered at the gate of the drive they saw Marlowe and the +American standing in talk before the front door. In the shadow of the +porch was the lady in black. +She saw them, and came gravely forward over the lawn, moving as Trent +had known that she would move, erect and balanced, stepping lightly. +When she welcomed him on Mr. Cupples’s presentation her eyes of +golden-flecked brown observed him kindly. In her pale composure, worn +as the mask of distress, there was no trace of the emotion that had +seemed a halo about her head on the ledge of the cliff. She spoke the +appropriate commonplace in a low and even voice. After a few words to +Mr. Cupples she turned her eyes on Trent again. +“I hope you will succeed,” she said earnestly. “Do you think you will +succeed?” +He made his mind up as the words left her lips. He said, “I believe I +shall do so, Mrs. Manderson. When I have the case sufficiently complete +I shall ask you to let me see you and tell you about it. It may be +necessary to consult you before the facts are published.” +She looked puzzled, and distress showed for an instant in her eyes. “If +it is necessary, of course you shall do so,” she said. +On the brink of his next speech Trent hesitated. He remembered that the +lady had not wished to repeat to him the story already given to the +inspector—or to be questioned at all. He was not unconscious that he +desired to hear her voice and watch her face a little longer, if it +might be; but the matter he had to mention really troubled his mind, it +was a queer thing that fitted nowhere into the pattern within whose +corners he had by this time brought the other queer things in the case. +It was very possible that she could explain it away in a breath; it was +unlikely that any one else could. He summoned his resolution. +“You have been so kind,” he said, “in allowing me access to the house +and every opportunity of studying the case, that I am going to ask +leave to put a question or two to yourself—nothing that you would +rather not answer, I think. May I?” +She glanced at him wearily. “It would be stupid of me to refuse. Ask +your questions, Mr. Trent.” +“It’s only this,” said Trent hurriedly. “We know that your husband +lately drew an unusually large sum of ready money from his London +bankers, and was keeping it here. It is here now, in fact. Have you any +idea why he should have done that?” +She opened her eyes in astonishment. “I cannot imagine,” she said. “I +did not know he had done so. I am very much surprised to hear it.” +“Why is it surprising?” +“I thought my husband had very little money in the house. On Sunday +night, just before he went out in the motor, he came into the +drawing-room where I was sitting. He seemed to be irritated about +something, and asked me at once if I had any notes or gold I could let +him have until next day. I was surprised at that, because he was never +without money; he made it a rule to carry a hundred pounds or so about +him always in a note-case. I unlocked my escritoire, and gave him all I +had by me. It was nearly thirty pounds.” +“And he did not tell you why he wanted it?” +“No. He put it in his pocket, and then said that Mr. Marlowe had +persuaded him to go for a run in the motor by moonlight, and he thought +it might help him to sleep. He had been sleeping badly, as perhaps you +know. Then he went off with Mr. Marlowe. I thought it odd he should +need money on Sunday night, but I soon forgot about it. I never +remembered it again until now.” +“It was curious, certainly,” said Trent, staring into the distance. Mr +Cupples began to speak to his niece of the arrangements for the +inquest, and Trent moved away to where Marlowe was pacing slowly upon +the lawn. The young man seemed relieved to talk about the coming +business of the day. Though he still seemed tired out and nervous, he +showed himself not without a quiet humour in describing the pomposities +of the local police and the portentous airs of Dr Stock. Trent turned +the conversation gradually toward the problem of the crime, and all +Marlowe’s gravity returned. +“Bunner has told me what he thinks,” he said when Trent referred to the +American’s theory. “I don’t find myself convinced by it, because it +doesn’t really explain some of the oddest facts. But I have lived long +enough in the United States to know that such a stroke of revenge, done +in a secret, melodramatic way, is not an unlikely thing. It is quite a +characteristic feature of certain sections of the labour movement +there. Americans have a taste and a talent for that sort of business. +Do you know _Huckleberry Finn?_” +“Do I know my own name?” exclaimed Trent. +“Well, I think the most American thing in that great American epic is +Tom Sawyer’s elaboration of an extremely difficult and romantic scheme, +taking days to carry out, for securing the escape of the nigger Jim, +which could have been managed quite easily in twenty minutes. You know +how fond they are of lodges and brotherhoods. Every college club has +its secret signs and handgrips. You’ve heard of the Know-Nothing +movement in politics, I dare say, and the Ku Klux Klan. Then look at +Brigham Young’s penny-dreadful tyranny in Utah, with real blood. The +founders of the Mormon State were of the purest Yankee stock in +America; and you know what they did. It’s all part of the same mental +tendency. Americans make fun of it among themselves. For my part, I +take it very seriously.” +“It can have a very hideous side to it, certainly,” said Trent, “when +you get it in connection with crime—or with vice—or even mere luxury. +But I have a sort of sneaking respect for the determination to make +life interesting and lively in spite of civilization. To return to the +matter in hand, however; has it struck you as a possibility that +Manderson’s mind was affected to some extent by this menace that Bunner +believes in? For instance, it was rather an extraordinary thing to send +you posting off like that in the middle of the night.” +“About ten o’clock, to be exact,” replied Marlowe. “Though, mind you, +if he’d actually roused me out of my bed at midnight I shouldn’t have +been very much surprised. It all chimes in with what we’ve just been +saying. Manderson had a strong streak of the national taste for +dramatic proceedings. He was rather fond of his well-earned reputation +for unexpected strokes and for going for his object with ruthless +directness through every opposing consideration. He had decided +suddenly that he wanted to have word from this man Harris—” +“Who is Harris?” interjected Trent. +“Nobody knows. Even Bunner never heard of him, and can’t imagine what +the business in hand was. All I know is that when I went up to London +last week to attend to various things I booked a deck-cabin, at +Manderson’s request, for a Mr. George Harris on the boat that sailed on +Monday. It seems that Manderson suddenly found he wanted news from +Harris which presumably was of a character too secret for the +telegraph; and there was no train that served; so I was sent off as you +know.” +Trent looked round to make sure that they were not overheard, then +faced the other gravely, “There is one thing I may tell you,” he said +quietly, “that I don’t think you know. Martin the butler caught a few +words at the end of your conversation with Manderson in the orchard +before you started with him in the car. He heard him say, ‘If Harris is +there, every moment is of importance.’ Now, Mr. Marlowe, you know my +business here. I am sent to make enquiries, and you mustn’t take +offence. I want to ask you if, in the face of that sentence, you will +repeat that you know nothing of what the business was.” +Marlowe shook his head. “I know nothing, indeed. I’m not easily +offended, and your question is quite fair. What passed during that +conversation I have already told the detective. Manderson plainly said +to me that he could not tell me what it was all about. He simply wanted +me to find Harris, tell him that he desired to know how matters stood, +and bring back a letter or message from him. Harris, I was further +told, might not turn up. If he did, ‘every moment was of importance’. +And now you know as much as I do.” +“That talk took place _before_ he told his wife that you were taking +him for a moonlight run. Why did he conceal your errand in that way, I +wonder.” +The young man made a gesture of helplessness. “Why? I can guess no +better than you.” +“Why,” muttered Trent as if to himself, gazing on the ground, “did he +conceal it—from Mrs. Manderson?” He looked up at Marlowe. +“And from Martin,” the other amended coolly. “He was told the same +thing.” +With a sudden movement of his head Trent seemed to dismiss the subject. +He drew from his breast-pocket a letter-case, and thence extracted two +small leaves of clean, fresh paper. +“Just look at these two slips, Mr. Marlowe,” he said. “Did you ever see +them before? Have you any idea where they come from?” he added as +Marlowe took one in each hand and examined them curiously. +“They seem to have been cut with a knife or scissors from a small diary +for this year from the October pages,” Marlowe observed, looking them +over on both sides. “I see no writing of any kind on them. Nobody here +has any such diary so far as I know. What about them?” +“There may be nothing in it,” Trent said dubiously. “Any one in the +house, of course, might have such a diary without your having seen it. +But I didn’t much expect you would be able to identify the leaves—in +fact, I should have been surprised if you had.” +He stopped speaking as Mrs. Manderson came towards them. “My uncle +thinks we should be going now,” she said. +“I think I will walk on with Mr. Bunner,” Mr. Cupples said as he joined +them. “There are certain business matters that must be disposed of as +soon as possible. Will you come on with these two gentlemen, Mabel? We +will wait for you before we reach the place.” +Trent turned to her. “Mrs. Manderson will excuse me, I hope,” he said. +“I really came up this morning in order to look about me here for some +indications I thought I might possibly find. I had not thought of +attending the—the court just yet.” +She looked at him with eyes of perfect candour. “Of course, Mr. Trent. +Please do exactly as you wish. We are all relying upon you. If you will +wait a few moments, Mr. Marlowe, I shall be ready.” +She entered the house. Her uncle and the American had already strolled +towards the gate. +Trent looked into the eyes of his companion. “That is a wonderful +woman,” he said in a lowered voice. +“You say so without knowing her,” replied Marlowe in a similar tone. +“She is more than that.” +Trent said nothing to this. He stared out over the fields towards the +sea. In the silence a noise of hobnailed haste rose on the still air. A +little distance down the road a boy appeared trotting towards them from +the direction of the hotel. In his hand was the orange envelope, +unmistakable afar off, of a telegram. Trent watched him with an +indifferent eye as he met and passed the two others. Then he turned to +Marlowe. “A propos of nothing in particular,” he said, “were you at +Oxford?” +“Yes,” said the young man. “Why do you ask?” +“I just wondered if I was right in my guess. It’s one of the things you +can very often tell about a man, isn’t it?” +“I suppose so,” Marlowe said. “Well, each of us is marked in one way or +another, perhaps. I should have said you were an artist, if I hadn’t +known it.” +“Why? Does my hair want cutting?” +“Oh, no! It’s only that you look at things and people as I’ve seen +artists do, with an eye that moves steadily from detail to +detail—rather looking them over than looking at them.” +The boy came up panting. “Telegram for you, sir,” he said to Trent. +“Just come, sir.” +Trent tore open the envelope with an apology, and his eyes lighted up +so visibly as he read the slip that Marlowe’s tired face softened in a +smile. +“It must be good news,” he murmured half to himself. +Trent turned on him a glance in which nothing could be read. “Not +exactly news,” he said. “It only tells me that another little guess of +mine was a good one.” +Chapter VIII. +The Inquest +The coroner, who fully realized that for that one day of his life as a +provincial solicitor he was living in the gaze of the world, had +resolved to be worthy of the fleeting eminence. He was a large man of +jovial temper, with a strong interest in the dramatic aspects of his +work, and the news of Manderson’s mysterious death within his +jurisdiction had made him the happiest coroner in England. A +respectable capacity for marshalling facts was fortified in him by a +copiousness of impressive language that made juries as clay in his +hands, and sometimes disguised a doubtful interpretation of the rules +of evidence. +The court was held in a long, unfurnished room lately built on to the +hotel, and intended to serve as a ballroom or concert-hall. A regiment +of reporters was entrenched in the front seats, and those who were to +be called on to give evidence occupied chairs to one side of the table +behind which the coroner sat, while the jury, in double row, with +plastered hair and a spurious ease of manner, flanked him on the other +side. An undistinguished public filled the rest of the space, and +listened, in an awed silence, to the opening solemnities. The newspaper +men, well used to these, muttered among themselves. Those of them who +knew Trent by sight assured the rest that he was not in the court. +The identity of the dead man was proved by his wife, the first witness +called, from whom the coroner, after some enquiry into the health and +circumstances of the deceased, proceeded to draw an account of the last +occasion on which she had seen her husband alive. Mrs. Manderson was +taken through her evidence by the coroner with the sympathy which every +man felt for that dark figure of grief. She lifted her thick veil +before beginning to speak, and the extreme paleness and unbroken +composure of the lady produced a singular impression. This was not an +impression of hardness. Interesting femininity was the first thing to +be felt in her presence. She was not even enigmatic. It was only clear +that the force of a powerful character was at work to master the +emotions of her situation. Once or twice as she spoke she touched her +eyes with her handkerchief, but her voice was low and clear to the end. +Her husband, she said, had come up to his bedroom about his usual hour +for retiring on Sunday night. His room was really a dressing-room +attached to her own bedroom, communicating with it by a door which was +usually kept open during the night. Both dressing-room and bedroom were +entered by other doors giving on the passage. Her husband had always +had a preference for the greatest simplicity in his bedroom +arrangements, and liked to sleep in a small room. She had not been +awake when he came up, but had been half-aroused, as usually happened, +when the light was switched on in her husband’s room. She had spoken to +him. She had no clear recollection of what she had said, as she had +been very drowsy at the time; but she had remembered that he had been +out for a moonlight run in the car, and she believed she had asked +whether he had had a good run, and what time it was. She had asked what +the time was because she felt as if she had only been a very short time +asleep, and she had expected her husband to be out very late. In answer +to her question he had told her it was half-past eleven, and had gone +on to say that he had changed his mind about going for a run. +“Did he say why?” the coroner asked. +“Yes,” replied the lady, “he did explain why. I remember very well what +he said, because—” she stopped with a little appearance of confusion. +“Because—” the coroner insisted gently. +“Because my husband was not as a rule communicative about his business +affairs,” answered the witness, raising her chin with a faint touch of +defiance. “He did not—did not think they would interest me, and as a +rule referred to them as little as possible. That was why I was rather +surprised when he told me that he had sent Mr. Marlowe to Southampton +to bring back some important information from a man who was leaving for +Paris by the next day’s boat. He said that Mr. Marlowe could do it +quite easily if he had no accident. He said that he had started in the +car, and then walked back home a mile or so, and felt all the better +for it.” +“Did he say any more?” +“Nothing, as well as I remember,” the witness said. “I was very sleepy, +and I dropped off again in a few moments. I just remember my husband +turning his light out, and that is all. I never saw him again alive.” +“And you heard nothing in the night?” +“No: I never woke until my maid brought my tea in the morning at seven +o’clock. She closed the door leading to my husband’s room, as she +always did, and I supposed him to be still there. He always needed a +great deal of sleep. He sometimes slept until quite late in the +morning. I had breakfast in my sitting-room. It was about ten when I +heard that my husband’s body had been found.” The witness dropped her +head and silently waited for her dismissal. +But it was not to be yet. +“Mrs. Manderson.” The coroner’s voice was sympathetic, but it had a +hint of firmness in it now. “The question I am going to put to you +must, in these sad circumstances, be a painful one; but it is my duty +to ask it. Is it the fact that your relations with your late husband +had not been, for some time past, relations of mutual affection and +confidence? Is it the fact that there was an estrangement between you?” +The lady drew herself up again and faced her questioner, the colour +rising in her cheeks. “If that question is necessary,” she said with +cold distinctness, “I will answer it so that there shall be no +misunderstanding. During the last few months of my husband’s life his +attitude towards me had given me great anxiety and sorrow. He had +changed towards me; he had become very reserved, and seemed +mistrustful. I saw much less of him than before; he seemed to prefer to +be alone. I can give no explanation at all of the change. I tried to +work against it; I did all I could with justice to my own dignity, as I +thought. Something was between us, I did not know what, and he never +told me. My own obstinate pride prevented me from asking what it was in +so many words; I only made a point of being to him exactly as I had +always been, so far as he would allow me. I suppose I shall never know +now what it was.” The witness, whose voice had trembled in spite of her +self-control over the last few sentences, drew down her veil when she +had said this, and stood erect and quiet. +One of the jury asked a question, not without obvious hesitation. “Then +was there never anything of the nature of what they call Words between +you and your husband, ma’am?” +“Never.” The word was colourlessly spoken; but every one felt that a +crass misunderstanding of the possibilities of conduct in the case of a +person like Mrs. Manderson had been visited with some severity. +Did she know, the coroner asked, of any other matter which might have +been preying upon her husband’s mind recently? +Mrs. Manderson knew of none whatever. The coroner intimated that her +ordeal was at an end, and the veiled lady made her way to the door. The +general attention, which followed her for a few moments, was now +eagerly directed upon Martin, whom the coroner had proceeded to call. +It was at this moment that Trent appeared at the doorway and edged his +way into the great room. But he did not look at Martin. He was +observing the well-balanced figure that came quickly toward him along +an opening path in the crowd, and his eye was gloomy. He started, as he +stood aside from the door with a slight bow, to hear Mrs. Manderson +address him by name in a low voice. He followed her a pace or two into +the hall. +“I wanted to ask you,” she said in a voice now weak and oddly broken, +“if you would give me your arm a part of the way to the house. I could +not see my uncle near the door, and I suddenly felt rather faint.... I +shall be better in the air.... No, no; I cannot stay here—please, Mr. +Trent!” she said, as he began to make an obvious suggestion. “I must go +to the house.” Her hand tightened momentarily on his arm as if, for all +her weakness, she could drag him from the place; then again she leaned +heavily upon it, and with that support, and with bent head, she walked +slowly from the hotel and along the oak-shaded path toward White +Gables. +Trent went in silence, his thoughts whirling, dancing insanely to a +chorus of “Fool! fool!” All that he alone knew, all that he guessed and +suspected of this affair, rushed through his brain in a rout; but the +touch of her unnerved hand upon his arm never for an instant left his +consciousness, filling him with an exaltation that enraged and +bewildered him. He was still cursing himself furiously behind the mask +of conventional solicitude that he turned to the lady when he had +attended her to the house and seen her sink upon a couch in the +morning-room. Raising her veil, she thanked him gravely and frankly, +with a look of sincere gratitude in her eyes. She was much better now, +she said, and a cup of tea would work a miracle upon her. She hoped she +had not taken him away from anything important. She was ashamed of +herself; she thought she could go through with it, but she had not +expected those last questions. “I am glad you did not hear me,” she +said when he explained. “But of course you will read it all in the +reports. It shook me so to have to speak of that,” she added simply; +“and to keep from making an exhibition of myself took it out of me. And +all those staring men by the door! Thank you again for helping me when +I asked you.... I thought I might,” she ended queerly, with a little +tired smile; and Trent took himself away, his hand still quivering from +the cool touch of her fingers. +The testimony of the servants and of the finder of the body brought +nothing new to the reporters’ net. That of the police was as colourless +and cryptic as is usual at the inquest stage of affairs of the kind. +Greatly to the satisfaction of Mr. Bunner, his evidence afforded the +sensation of the day, and threw far into the background the interesting +revelation of domestic difficulty made by the dead man’s wife. He told +the court in substance what he had already told Trent. The flying +pencils did not miss a word of the young American’s story, and it +appeared with scarcely the omission of a sentence in every journal of +importance in Great Britain and the United States. +Public opinion next day took no note of the faint suggestion of the +possibility of suicide which the coroner, in his final address to the +jury, had thought it right to make in connection with the lady’s +evidence. The weight of evidence, as the official had indeed pointed +out, was against such a theory. He had referred with emphasis to the +fact that no weapon had been found near the body. +“This question, of course, is all-important, gentlemen,” he had said to +the jury. “It is, in fact, the main issue before you. You have seen the +body for yourselves. You have just heard the medical evidence; but I +think it would be well for me to read you my notes of it in so far as +they bear on this point, in order to refresh your memories. Dr Stock +told you—I am going to omit all technical medical language and repeat +to you merely the plain English of his testimony—that in his opinion +death had taken place six or eight hours previous to the finding of the +body. He said that the cause of death was a bullet wound, the bullet +having entered the left eye, which was destroyed, and made its way to +the base of the brain, which was quite shattered. The external +appearance of the wound, he said, did not support the hypothesis of its +being self-inflicted, inasmuch as there were no signs of the firearm +having been pressed against the eye, or even put very close to it; at +the same time it was not physically impossible that the weapon should +have been discharged by the deceased with his own hand, at some small +distance from the eye. Dr Stock also told us that it was impossible to +say with certainty, from the state of the body, whether any struggle +had taken place at the time of death; that when seen by him, at which +time he understood that it had not been moved since it was found, the +body was lying in a collapsed position such as might very well result +from the shot alone; but that the scratches and bruises upon the wrists +and the lower part of the arms had been very recently inflicted, and +were, in his opinion, marks of violence. +“In connection with this same point, the remarkable evidence given by +Mr Bunner cannot be regarded, I think, as without significance. It may +have come as a surprise to some of you to hear that risks of the +character described by this witness are, in his own country, commonly +run by persons in the position of the deceased. On the other hand, it +may have been within the knowledge of some of you that in the +industrial world of America the discontent of labour often proceeds to +lengths of which we in England happily know nothing. I have +interrogated the witness somewhat fully upon this. At the same time, +gentlemen, I am by no means suggesting that Mr. Bunner’s personal +conjecture as to the cause of death can fitly be adopted by you. That +is emphatically not the case. What his evidence does is to raise two +questions for your consideration. First, can it be said that the +deceased was to any extent in the position of a threatened man—of a man +more exposed to the danger of murderous attack than an ordinary person? +Second, does the recent alteration in his demeanour, as described by +this witness, justify the belief that his last days were overshadowed +by a great anxiety? These points may legitimately be considered by you +in arriving at a conclusion upon the rest of the evidence.” +Thereupon the coroner, having indicated thus clearly his opinion that +Mr Bunner had hit the right nail on the head, desired the jury to +consider their verdict. +Chapter IX. +A Hot Scent +“Come in!” called Trent. +Mr. Cupples entered his sitting-room at the hotel. It was the early +evening of the day on which the coroner’s jury, without leaving the +box, had pronounced the expected denunciation of a person or persons +unknown. Trent, with a hasty glance upward, continued his intent study +of what lay in a photographic dish of enamelled metal, which he moved +slowly about in the light of the window. He looked very pale, and his +movements were nervous. +“Sit on the sofa,” he advised. “The chairs are a job lot bought at the +sale after the suppression of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. This is a +pretty good negative,” he went on, holding it up to the light with his +head at the angle of discriminating judgement. “Washed enough now, I +think. Let us leave it to dry, and get rid of all this mess.” +Mr. Cupples, as the other busily cleared the table of a confusion of +basins, dishes, racks, boxes, and bottles, picked up first one and then +another of the objects and studied them with innocent curiosity. +“That is called hypo-eliminator,” said Trent, as Mr. Cupples uncorked +and smelt at one of the bottles. “Very useful when you’re in a hurry +with a negative. I shouldn’t drink it, though, all the same. It +eliminates sodium hypophosphite, but I shouldn’t wonder if it would +eliminate human beings too.” He found a place for the last of the +litter on the crowded mantel-shelf, and came to sit before Mr. Cupples +on the table. “The great thing about a hotel sitting-room is that its +beauty does not distract the mind from work. It is no place for the +mayfly pleasures of a mind at ease. Have you ever been in this room +before, Cupples? I have, hundreds of times. It has pursued me all over +England for years. I should feel lost without it if, in some fantastic, +far-off hotel, they were to give me some other sitting-room. Look at +this table-cover; there is the ink I spilt on it when I had this room +in Halifax. I burnt that hole in the carpet when I had it in Ipswich. +But I see they have mended the glass over the picture of ‘Silent +Sympathy’, which I threw a boot at in Banbury. I do all my best work +here. This afternoon, for instance, since the inquest, I have finished +several excellent negatives. There is a very good dark room +downstairs.” +“The inquest—that reminds me,” said Mr. Cupples, who knew that this +sort of talk in Trent meant the excitement of action, and was wondering +what he could be about. “I came in to thank you, my dear fellow, for +looking after Mabel this morning. I had no idea she was going to feel +ill after leaving the box; she seemed quite unmoved, and, really, she +is a woman of such extraordinary self-command, I thought I could leave +her to her own devices and hear out the evidence, which I thought it +important I should do. It was a very fortunate thing she found a friend +to assist her, and she is most grateful. She is quite herself again +now.” +Trent, with his hands in his pockets and a slight frown on his brow, +made no reply to this. “I tell you what,” he said after a short pause, +“I was just getting to the really interesting part of the job when you +came in. Come; would you like to see a little bit of high-class police +work? It’s the very same kind of work that old Murch ought to be doing +at this moment. Perhaps he is; but I hope to glory he isn’t.” He sprang +off the table and disappeared into his bedroom. Presently he came out +with a large drawing-board on which a number of heterogeneous objects +was ranged. +“First I must introduce you to these little things,” he said, setting +them out on the table. “Here is a big ivory paper-knife; here are two +leaves cut out of a diary—my own diary; here is a bottle containing +dentifrice; here is a little case of polished walnut. Some of these +things have to be put back where they belong in somebody’s bedroom at +White Gables before night. That’s the sort of man I am—nothing stops +me. I borrowed them this very morning when every one was down at the +inquest, and I dare say some people would think it rather an odd +proceeding if they knew. Now there remains one object on the board. Can +you tell me, without touching it, what it is?” +“Certainly I can,” said Mr. Cupples, peering at it with great interest. +“It is an ordinary glass bowl. It looks like a finger-bowl. I see +nothing odd about it,” he added after some moments of close scrutiny. +“I can’t see much myself,” replied Trent, “and that is exactly where +the fun comes in. Now take this little fat bottle, Cupples, and pull +out the cork. Do you recognize that powder inside it? You have +swallowed pounds of it in your time, I expect. They give it to babies. +Grey powder is its ordinary name—mercury and chalk. It is great stuff. +Now, while I hold the basin sideways over this sheet of paper, I want +you to pour a little powder out of the bottle over this part of the +bowl—just here.... Perfect! Sir Edward Henry himself could not have +handled the powder better. You have done this before, Cupples, I can +see. You are an old hand.” +“I really am not,” said Mr. Cupples seriously, as Trent returned the +fallen powder to the bottle. “I assure you it is all a complete mystery +to me. What did I do then?” +“I brush the powdered part of the bowl lightly with this camel-hair +brush. Now look at it again. You saw nothing odd about it before. Do +you see anything now?” +Mr. Cupples peered again. “How curious!” he said. “Yes, there are two +large grey finger-marks on the bowl. They were not there before.” +“I am Hawkshaw the detective,” observed Trent. “Would it interest you +to hear a short lecture on the subject of glass finger-bowls? When you +take one up with your hand you leave traces upon it, usually +practically invisible, which may remain for days or months. You leave +the marks of your fingers. The human hand, even when quite clean, is +never quite dry, and sometimes—in moments of great anxiety, for +instance, Cupples—it is very moist. It leaves a mark on any cold smooth +surface it may touch. That bowl was moved by somebody with a rather +moist hand quite lately.” He sprinkled the powder again. “Here on the +other side, you see, is the thumb-mark—very good impressions all of +them.” He spoke without raising his voice, but Mr. Cupples could +perceive that he was ablaze with excitement as he stared at the faint +grey marks. “This one should be the index finger. I need not tell a man +of your knowledge of the world that the pattern of it is a +single-spiral whorl, with deltas symmetrically disposed. This, the +print of the second finger, is a simple loop, with a staple core and +fifteen counts. I know there are fifteen, because I have just the same +two prints on this negative, which I have examined in detail. Look!”—he +held one of the negatives up to the light of the declining sun and +demonstrated with a pencil point. “You can see they’re the same. You +see the bifurcation of that ridge. There it is in the other. You see +that little scar near the centre. There it is in the other. There are a +score of ridge-characteristics on which an expert would swear in the +witness-box that the marks on that bowl and the marks I have +photographed on this negative were made by the same hand.” +“And where did you photograph them? What does it all mean?” asked Mr +Cupples, wide-eyed. +“I found them on the inside of the left-hand leaf of the front window +in Mrs. Manderson’s bedroom. As I could not bring the window with me, I +photographed them, sticking a bit of black paper on the other side of +the glass for the purpose. The bowl comes from Manderson’s room. It is +the bowl in which his false teeth were placed at night. I could bring +that away, so I did.” +“But those cannot be Mabel’s finger-marks.” +“I should think not!” said Trent with decision. “They are twice the +size of any print Mrs. Manderson could make.” +“Then they must be her husband’s.” +“Perhaps they are. Now shall we see if we can match them once more? I +believe we can.” Whistling faintly, and very white in the face, Trent +opened another small squat bottle containing a dense black powder. +“Lamp-black,” he explained. “Hold a bit of paper in your hand for a +second or two, and this little chap will show you the pattern of your +fingers.” He carefully took up with a pair of tweezers one of the +leaves cut from his diary, and held it out for the other to examine. No +marks appeared on the leaf. He tilted some of the powder out upon one +surface of the paper, then, turning it over, upon the other; then shook +the leaf gently to rid it of the loose powder. He held it out to Mr. +Cupples in silence. On one side of the paper appeared unmistakably, +clearly printed in black, the same two finger-prints that he had +already seen on the bowl and on the photographic plate. He took up the +bowl and compared them. Trent turned the paper over, and on the other +side was a bold black replica of the thumb-mark that was printed in +grey on the glass in his hand. +“Same man, you see,” Trent said with a short laugh. “I felt that it +must be so, and now I know.” He walked to the window and looked out. +“Now I know,” he repeated in a low voice, as if to himself. His tone +was bitter. Mr. Cupples, understanding nothing, stared at his +motionless back for a few moments. +“I am still completely in the dark,” he ventured presently. “I have +often heard of this fingerprint business, and wondered how the police +went to work about it. It is of extraordinary interest to me, but upon +my life I cannot see how in this case Manderson’s fingerprints are +going—” +“I am very sorry, Cupples,” Trent broke in upon his meditative speech +with a swift return to the table. “When I began this investigation I +meant to take you with me every step of the way. You mustn’t think I +have any doubts about your discretion if I say now that I must hold my +tongue about the whole thing, at least for a time. I will tell you +this: I have come upon a fact that looks too much like having very +painful consequences if it is discovered by any one else.” He looked at +the other with a hard and darkened face, and struck the table with his +hand. “It is terrible for me here and now. Up to this moment I was +hoping against hope that I was wrong about the fact. I may still be +wrong in the surmise that I base upon that fact. There is only one way +of finding out that is open to me, and I must nerve myself to take it.” +He smiled suddenly at Mr. Cupples’s face of consternation. “All +right—I’m not going to be tragic any more, and I’ll tell you all about +it when I can. Look here, I’m not half through my game with the +powder-bottles yet.” +He drew one of the defamed chairs to the table and sat down to test the +broad ivory blade of the paper knife. Mr. Cupples, swallowing his +amazement, bent forward in an attitude of deep interest and handed +Trent the bottle of lamp-black. +Chapter X. +The Wife of Dives +Mrs. Manderson stood at the window of her sitting-room at White Gables +gazing out upon a wavering landscape of fine rain and mist. The weather +had broken as it seldom does in that part in June. White wreathings +drifted up the fields from the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken grey +deadness shedding pin-point moisture that was now and then blown +against the panes with a crepitation of despair. The lady looked out on +the dim and chilling prospect with a woeful face. It was a bad day for +a woman bereaved, alone, and without a purpose in life. +There was a knock, and she called “Come in,” drawing herself up with an +unconscious gesture that always came when she realized that the +weariness of the world had been gaining upon her spirit. Mr. Trent had +called, the maid said; he apologized for coming at such an early hour, +but hoped that Mrs. Manderson would see him on a matter of urgent +importance. Mrs Manderson would see Mr. Trent. She walked to a mirror, +looked into the olive face she saw reflected there, shook her head at +herself with the flicker of a grimace, and turned to the door as Trent +was shown in. +His appearance, she noted, was changed. He had the jaded look of the +sleepless, and a new and reserved expression, in which her quick +sensibilities felt something not propitious, took the place of his half +smile of fixed good-humour. +“May I come to the point at once?” he said, when she had given him her +hand. “There is a train I ought to catch at Bishopsbridge at twelve +o’clock, but I cannot go until I have settled this thing, which +concerns you only, Mrs. Manderson. I have been working half the night +and thinking the rest; and I know now what I ought to do.” +“You look wretchedly tired,” she said kindly. “Won’t you sit down? This +is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible business +and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can +properly tell you, Mr. Trent. I know that you won’t make it worse for +me than you can help in doing your duty here. If you say you must see +me about something, I know it must be because, as you say, you ought to +do it.” +“Mrs. Manderson,” said Trent, slowly measuring his words, “I won’t make +it worse for you than I can help. But I am bound to make it bad for +you—only between ourselves, I hope. As to whether you can properly tell +me what I shall ask you, you will decide that; but I tell you this on +my word of honour: I shall ask you only as much as will decide me +whether to publish or to withhold certain grave things that I have +found out about your husband’s death, things not suspected by any one +else, nor, I think, likely to be so. What I have discovered—what I +believe that I have practically proved—will be a great shock to you in +any case. But it may be worse for you than that; and if you give me +reason to think it would be so, then I shall suppress this manuscript,” +he laid a long envelope on the small table beside him, “and nothing of +what it has to tell shall ever be printed. It consists, I may tell you, +of a short private note to my editor, followed by a long dispatch for +publication in the _Record_. Now you may refuse to say anything to me. +If you do refuse, my duty to my employers, as I see it, is to take this +up to London with me today and leave it with my editor to be dealt with +at his discretion. My view is, you understand, that I am not entitled +to suppress it on the strength of a mere possibility that presents +itself to my imagination. But if I gather from you—and I can gather it +from no other person—that there is substance in that imaginary +possibility I speak of, then I have only one thing to do as a gentleman +and as one who”—he hesitated for a phrase—“wishes you well. I shall not +publish that dispatch of mine. In some directions I decline to assist +the police. Have you followed me so far?” he asked with a touch of +anxiety in his careful coldness; for her face, but for its pallor, gave +no sign as she regarded him, her hands clasped before her, and her +shoulders drawn back in a pose of rigid calm. She looked precisely as +she had looked at the inquest. +“I understand quite well,” said Mrs. Manderson in a low voice. She drew +a deep breath, and went on: “I don’t know what dreadful thing you have +found out, or what the possibility that has occurred to you can be, but +it was good, it was honourable of you to come to me about it. Now will +you please tell me?” +“I cannot do that,” Trent replied. “The secret is my newspaper’s if it +is not yours. If I find it is yours, you shall have my manuscript to +read and destroy. Believe me,” he broke out with something of his old +warmth, “I detest such mystery-making from the bottom of my soul; but +it is not I who have made this mystery. This is the most painful hour +of my life, and you make it worse by not treating me like a hound. The +first thing I ask you to tell me,” he reverted with an effort to his +colourless tone, “is this: is it true, as you stated at the inquest, +that you had no idea at all of the reason why your late husband had +changed his attitude toward you, and become mistrustful and reserved, +during the last few months of his life?” +Mrs. Manderson’s dark brows lifted and her eyes flamed; she quickly +rose from her chair. Trent got up at the same moment, and took his +envelope from the table; his manner said that he perceived the +interview to be at an end. But she held up a hand, and there was colour +in her cheeks and quick breathing in her voice as she said: “Do you +know what you ask, Mr Trent? You ask me if I perjured myself.” +“I do,” he answered unmoved; and he added after a pause, “you knew +already that I had not come here to preserve the polite fictions, Mrs. +Manderson. The theory that no reputable person, being on oath, could +withhold a part of the truth under any circumstances is a polite +fiction.” He still stood as awaiting dismissal, but she was silent. She +walked to the window, and he stood miserably watching the slight +movement of her shoulders until it subsided. Then with face averted, +looking out on the dismal weather, she spoke at last clearly. +“Mr. Trent,” she said, “you inspire confidence in people, and I feel +that things which I don’t want known or talked about are safe with you. +And I know you must have a very serious reason for doing what you are +doing, though I don’t know what it is. I suppose it would be assisting +justice in some way if I told you the truth about what you asked just +now. To understand that truth you ought to know about what went +before—I mean about my marriage. After all, a good many people could +tell you as well as I can that it was not... a very successful union. I +was only twenty. I admired his force and courage and certainty; he was +the only strong man I had ever known. But it did not take me long to +find out that he cared for his business more than for me, and I think I +found out even sooner that I had been deceiving myself and blinding +myself, promising myself impossible things and wilfully +misunderstanding my own feelings, because I was dazzled by the idea of +having more money to spend than an English girl ever dreams of. I have +been despising myself for that for five years. My husband’s feeling for +me... well, I cannot speak of that... what I want to say is that along +with it there had always been a belief of his that I was the sort of +woman to take a great place in society, and that I should throw myself +into it with enjoyment, and become a sort of personage and do him great +credit—that was his idea; and the idea remained with him after other +delusions had gone. I was a part of his ambition. That was his really +bitter disappointment, that I failed him as a social success. I think +he was too shrewd not to have known in his heart that such a man as he +was, twenty years older than I, with great business responsibilities +that filled every hour of his life, and caring for nothing else—he must +have felt that there was a risk of great unhappiness in marrying the +sort of girl I was, brought up to music and books and unpractical +ideas, always enjoying myself in my own way. But he had really reckoned +on me as a wife who would do the honours of his position in the world; +and I found I couldn’t.” +Mrs. Manderson had talked herself into a more emotional mood than she +had yet shown to Trent. Her words flowed freely, and her voice had +begun to ring and give play to a natural expressiveness that must +hitherto have been dulled, he thought, by the shock and self-restraint +of the past few days. Now she turned swiftly from the window and faced +him as she went on, her beautiful face flushed and animated, her eyes +gleaming, her hands moving in slight emphatic gestures, as she +surrendered herself to the impulse of giving speech to things long pent +up. +“The people,” she said. “Oh, those people! Can you imagine what it must +be for any one who has lived in a world where there was always creative +work in the background, work with some dignity about it, men and women +with professions or arts to follow, with ideals and things to believe +in and quarrel about, some of them wealthy, some of them quite poor; +can you think what it means to step out of that into another world +where you _have_ to be very rich, shamefully rich, to exist at +all—where money is the only thing that counts and the first thing in +everybody’s thoughts—where the men who make the millions are so jaded +by the work, that sport is the only thing they can occupy themselves +with when they have any leisure, and the men who don’t have to work are +even duller than the men who do, and vicious as well; and the women +live for display and silly amusements and silly immoralities; do you +know how awful that life is? Of course I know there are clever people, +and people of taste in that set, but they’re swamped and spoiled, and +it’s the same thing in the end; empty, empty! Oh! I suppose I’m +exaggerating, and I did make friends and have some happy times; but +that’s how I feel after it all. The seasons in New York and London—how +I hated them! And our house-parties and cruises in the yacht and the +rest—the same people, the same emptiness. +“And you see, don’t you, that my husband couldn’t have an idea of all +this. _His_ life was never empty. He did not live it in society, and +when he was in society he had always his business plans and +difficulties to occupy his mind. He hadn’t a suspicion of what I felt, +and I never let him know; I couldn’t, it wouldn’t have been fair. I +felt I must do _something_ to justify myself as his wife, sharing his +position and fortune; and the only thing I could do was to try, and +try, to live up to his idea about my social qualities... I did try. I +acted my best. And it became harder year by year... I never was what +they call a popular hostess, how could I be? I was a failure; but I +went on trying... I used to steal holidays now and then. I used to feel +as if I was not doing my part of a bargain—it sounds horrid to put it +like that, I know, but it _was_ so—when I took one of my old +school-friends, who couldn’t afford to travel, away to Italy for a +month or two, and we went about cheaply all by ourselves, and were +quite happy; or when I went and made a long stay in London with some +quiet people who had known me all my life, and we all lived just as in +the old days, when we had to think twice about seats at the theatre, +and told each other about cheap dressmakers. Those and a few other +expeditions of the same sort were my best times after I was married, +and they helped me to go through with it the rest of the time. But I +felt my husband would have hated to know how much I enjoyed every hour +of those returns to the old life. +“And in the end, in spite of everything I could do, he came to know.... +He could see through anything, I think, once his attention was turned +to it. He had always been able to see that I was not fulfilling his +idea of me as a figure in the social world, and I suppose he thought it +was my misfortune rather than my fault. But the moment he began to see, +in spite of my pretending, that I wasn’t playing my part with any +spirit, he knew the whole story; he divined how I loathed and was weary +of the luxury and the brilliancy and the masses of money just because +of the people who lived among them—who were made so by them, I +suppose.... It happened last year. I don’t know just how or when. It +may have been suggested to him by some woman—for _they_ all understood, +of course. He said nothing to me, and I think he tried not to change in +his manner to me at first; but such things hurt—and it was working in +both of us. I knew that he knew. After a time we were just being polite +and considerate to each other. Before he found me out we had been on a +footing of—how can I express it to you?—of intelligent companionship, I +might say. We talked without restraint of many things of the kind we +could agree or disagree about without its going very deep... if you +understand. And then that came to an end. I felt that the only possible +basis of our living in each other’s company was going under my feet. +And at last it was gone. +“It had been like that,” she ended simply, “for months before he died.” +She sank into the corner of a sofa by the window, as though relaxing +her body after an effort. For a few moments both were silent. Trent was +hastily sorting out a tangle of impressions. He was amazed at the +frankness of Mrs. Manderson’s story. He was amazed at the vigorous +expressiveness in her telling of it. In this vivid being, carried away +by an impulse to speak, talking with her whole personality, he had seen +the real woman in a temper of activity, as he had already seen the real +woman by chance in a temper of reverie and unguarded emotion. In both +she was very unlike the pale, self-disciplined creature of majesty that +she had been to the world. With that amazement of his went something +like terror of her dark beauty, which excitement kindled into an +appearance scarcely mortal in his eyes. Incongruously there rushed into +his mind, occupied as it was with the affair of the moment, a little +knot of ideas... she was unique not because of her beauty but because +of its being united with intensity of nature; in England all the very +beautiful women were placid, all the fiery women seemed to have burnt +up the best of their beauty; that was why no beautiful woman had ever +cast this sort of spell on him before; when it was a question of wit in +women he had preferred the brighter flame to the duller, without much +regarding the lamp. “All this is very disputable,” said his reason; and +instinct answered, “Yes, except that I am under a spell”; and a deeper +instinct cried out, “Away with it!” He forced his mind back to her +story, and found growing swiftly in him an irrepressible conviction. It +was all very fine; but it would not do. +“I feel as if I had led you into saying more than you meant to say, or +than I wanted to learn,” he said slowly. “But there is one brutal +question which is the whole point of my enquiry.” He braced his frame +like one preparing for a plunge into cold waters. “Mrs. Manderson, will +you assure me that your husband’s change toward you had nothing to do +with John Marlowe?” +And what he had dreaded came. “Oh!” she cried with a sound of anguish, +her face thrown up and open hands stretched out as if for pity; and +then the hands covered the burning face, and she flung herself aside +among the cushions at her elbow, so that he saw nothing but her heavy +crown of black hair, and her body moving with sobs that stabbed his +heart, and a foot turned inward gracelessly in an abandonment of +misery. Like a tall tower suddenly breaking apart she had fallen in +ruins, helplessly weeping. +Trent stood up, his face white and calm. With a senseless particularity +he placed his envelope exactly in the centre of the little polished +table. He walked to the door, closed it noiselessly as he went out, and +in a few minutes was tramping through the rain out of sight of White +Gables, going nowhere, seeing nothing, his soul shaken in the fierce +effort to kill and trample the raving impulse that had seized him in +the presence of her shame, that clamoured to him to drag himself before +her feet, to pray for pardon, to pour out words—he knew not what words, +but he knew that they had been straining at his lips—to wreck his +self-respect for ever, and hopelessly defeat even the crazy purpose +that had almost possessed him, by drowning her wretchedness in disgust, +by babbling with the tongue of infatuation to a woman with a husband +not yet buried, to a woman who loved another man. +Such was the magic of her tears, quickening in a moment the thing +which, as his heart had known, he must not let come to life. For Philip +Trent was a young man, younger in nature even than his years, and a way +of life that kept his edge keen and his spirit volcanic had prepared +him very ill for the meeting that comes once in the early manhood of +most of us, usually—as in his case, he told himself harshly—to no +purpose but the testing of virtue and the power of the will. +Chapter XI. +Hitherto Unpublished +My Dear Molloy:—This is in case I don’t find you at your office. I have +found out who killed Manderson, as this dispatch will show. This was my +problem; yours is to decide what use to make of it. It definitely +charges an unsuspected person with having a hand in the crime, and +practically accuses him of being the murderer, so I don’t suppose you +will publish it before his arrest, and I believe it is illegal to do so +afterwards until he has been tried and found guilty. You may decide to +publish it then; and you may find it possible to make some use or other +before then of the facts I have given. That is your affair. Meanwhile, +will you communicate with Scotland Yard, and let them see what I have +written? I have done with the Manderson mystery, and I wish to God I +had never touched it. Here follows my dispatch. P.T. +Marlstone, _June_ 16_th_. +I begin this, my third and probably my final dispatch to the _Record_ +upon the Manderson murder, with conflicting feelings. I have a strong +sense of relief, because in my two previous dispatches I was obliged, +in the interests of justice, to withhold facts ascertained by me which +would, if published then, have put a certain person upon his guard and +possibly have led to his escape; for he is a man of no common boldness +and resource. These facts I shall now set forth. But I have, I confess, +no liking for the story of treachery and perverted cleverness which I +have to tell. It leaves an evil taste in the mouth, a savour of +something revolting in the deeper puzzle of motive underlying the +puzzle of the crime itself, which I believe I have solved. +It will be remembered that in my first dispatch I described the +situation as I found it on reaching this place early on Tuesday +morning. I told how the body was found, and in what state; dwelt upon +the complete mystery surrounding the crime, and mentioned one or two +local theories about it; gave some account of the dead man’s domestic +surroundings; and furnished a somewhat detailed description of his +movements on the evening before his death. I gave, too, a little fact +which may or may not have seemed irrelevant: that a quantity of whisky +much larger than Manderson habitually drank at night had disappeared +from his private decanter since the last time he was seen alive. On the +following day, the day of the inquest, I wired little more than an +abstract of the proceedings in the coroner’s court, of which a verbatim +report was made at my request by other representatives of the _Record_. +That day is not yet over as I write these lines; and I have now +completed an investigation which has led me directly to the man who +must be called upon to clear himself of the guilt of the death of +Manderson. +Apart from the central mystery of Manderson’s having arisen long before +his usual hour to go out and meet his death, there were two minor +points of oddity about this affair which, I suppose, must have occurred +to thousands of those who have read the accounts in the newspapers: +points apparent from the very beginning. The first of these was that, +whereas the body was found at a spot not thirty yards from the house, +all the people of the house declared that they had heard no cry or +other noise in the night. Manderson had not been gagged; the marks on +his wrists pointed to a struggle with his assailant; and there had been +at least one pistol-shot. (I say at least one, because it is the fact +that in murders with firearms, especially if there has been a struggle, +the criminal commonly misses his victim at least once.) This odd fact +seemed all the more odd to me when I learned that Martin the butler was +a bad sleeper, very keen of hearing, and that his bedroom, with the +window open, faced almost directly toward the shed by which the body +was found. +The second odd little fact that was apparent from the outset was +Manderson’s leaving his dental plate by the bedside. It appeared that +he had risen and dressed himself fully, down to his necktie and watch +and chain, and had gone out of doors without remembering to put in this +plate, which he had carried in his mouth every day for years, and which +contained all the visible teeth of the upper jaw. It had evidently not +been a case of frantic hurry; and even if it had been, he would have +been more likely to forget almost anything than this denture. Any one +who wears such a removable plate will agree that the putting it in on +rising is a matter of second nature. Speaking as well as eating, to say +nothing of appearances, depend upon it. +Neither of these queer details, however, seemed to lead to anything at +the moment. They only awakened in me a suspicion of something lurking +in the shadows, something that lent more mystery to the already +mysterious question how and why and through whom Manderson met his end. +With this much of preamble I come at once to the discovery which, in +the first few hours of my investigation, set me upon the path which so +much ingenuity had been directed to concealing. +I have already described Manderson’s bedroom, the rigorous simplicity +of its furnishing, contrasted so strangely with the multitude of +clothes and shoes, and the manner of its communication with Mrs. +Manderson’s room. On the upper of the two long shelves on which the +shoes were ranged I found, where I had been told I should find them, +the pair of patent leather shoes which Manderson had worn on the +evening before his death. I had glanced over the row, not with any idea +of their giving me a clue, but merely because it happens that I am a +judge of shoes, and all these shoes were of the very best workmanship. +But my attention was at once caught by a little peculiarity in this +particular pair. They were the lightest kind of lace-up dress shoes, +very thin in the sole, without toe-caps, and beautifully made, like all +the rest. These shoes were old and well worn; but being carefully +polished, and fitted, as all the shoes were, upon their trees, they +looked neat enough. What caught my eye was a slight splitting of the +leather in that part of the upper known as the vamp—a splitting at the +point where the two laced parts of the shoe rise from the upper. It is +at this point that the strain comes when a tight shoe of this sort is +forced upon the foot, and it is usually guarded with a strong stitching +across the bottom of the opening. In both the shoes I was examining +this stitching had parted, and the leather below had given way. The +splitting was a tiny affair in each case, not an eighth of an inch +long, and the torn edges having come together again on the removal of +the strain, there was nothing that a person who was not something of a +connoisseur of shoe-leather would have noticed. Even less noticeable, +and indeed not to be seen at all unless one were looking for it, was a +slight straining of the stitches uniting the upper to the sole. At the +toe and on the outer side of each shoe this stitching had been dragged +until it was visible on a close inspection of the join. +These indications, of course, could mean only one thing—the shoes had +been worn by some one for whom they were too small. +Now it was clear at a glance that Manderson was always thoroughly well +shod, and careful, perhaps a little vain, of his small and narrow feet. +Not one of the other shoes in the collection, as I soon ascertained, +bore similar marks; they had not belonged to a man who squeezed himself +into tight shoe-leather. Someone who was not Manderson had worn these +shoes, and worn them recently; the edges of the tears were quite fresh. +The possibility of some one having worn them since Manderson’s death +was not worth considering; the body had only been found about +twenty-six hours when I was examining the shoes; besides, why should +any one wear them? The possibility of some one having borrowed +Manderson’s shoes and spoiled them for him while he was alive seemed +about as negligible. With others to choose from he would not have worn +these. Besides, the only men in the place were the butler and the two +secretaries. But I do not say that I gave those possibilities even as +much consideration as they deserved, for my thoughts were running away +with me, and I have always found it good policy, in cases of this sort, +to let them have their heads. Ever since I had got out of the train at +Marlstone early that morning I had been steeped in details of the +Manderson affair; the thing had not once been out of my head. Suddenly +the moment had come when the daemon wakes and begins to range. +Let me put it less fancifully. After all, it is a detail of psychology +familiar enough to all whose business or inclination brings them in +contact with difficult affairs of any kind. Swiftly and spontaneously, +when chance or effort puts one in possession of the key-fact in any +system of baffling circumstances, one’s ideas seem to rush to group +themselves anew in relation to that fact, so that they are suddenly +rearranged almost before one has consciously grasped the significance +of the key-fact itself. In the present instance, my brain had scarcely +formulated within itself the thought, “Somebody who was not Manderson +has been wearing these shoes,” when there flew into my mind a flock of +ideas, all of the same character and all bearing upon this new notion. +It was unheard-of for Manderson to drink much whisky at night. It was +very unlike him to be untidily dressed, as the body was when found—the +cuffs dragged up inside the sleeves, the shoes unevenly laced; very +unlike him not to wash when he rose, and to put on last night’s evening +shirt and collar and underclothing; very unlike him to have his watch +in the waistcoat pocket that was not lined with leather for its +reception. (In my first dispatch I mentioned all these points, but +neither I nor any one else saw anything significant in them when +examining the body.) It was very strange, in the existing domestic +situation, that Manderson should be communicative to his wife about his +doings, especially at the time of his going to bed, when he seldom +spoke to her at all. It was extraordinary that Manderson should leave +his bedroom without his false teeth. +All these thoughts, as I say, came flocking into my mind together, +drawn from various parts of my memory of the morning’s enquiries and +observations. They had all presented themselves, in far less time than +it takes to read them as set down here, as I was turning over the +shoes, confirming my own certainty on the main point. And yet when I +confronted the definite idea that had sprung up suddenly and +unsupported before me—“_It was not Manderson who was in the house that +night_”—it seemed a stark absurdity at the first formulating. It was +certainly Manderson who had dined at the house and gone out with +Marlowe in the car. People had seen him at close quarters. But was it +he who returned at ten? That question too seemed absurd enough. But I +could not set it aside. It seemed to me as if a faint light was +beginning to creep over the whole expanse of my mind, as it does over +land at dawn, and that presently the sun would be rising. I set myself +to think over, one by one, the points that had just occurred to me, so +as to make out, if possible, why any man masquerading as Manderson +should have done these things that Manderson would not have done. +I had not to cast about very long for the motive a man might have in +forcing his feet into Manderson’s narrow shoes. The examination of +footmarks is very well understood by the police. But not only was the +man concerned to leave no footmarks of his own: he was concerned to +leave Manderson’s, if any; his whole plan, if my guess was right, must +have been directed to producing the belief that Manderson was in the +place that night. Moreover, his plan did not turn upon leaving +footmarks. He meant to leave the shoes themselves, and he did so. The +maidservant had found them outside the bedroom door, as Manderson +always left his shoes, and had polished them, replacing them on the +shoe-shelves later in the morning, after the body had been found. +When I came to consider in this new light the leaving of the false +teeth, an explanation of what had seemed the maddest part of the affair +broke upon me at once. A dental plate is not inseparable from its +owner. If my guess was right, the unknown had brought the denture to +the house with him, and left it in the bedroom, with the same object as +he had in leaving the shoes: to make it impossible that any one should +doubt that Manderson had been in the house and had gone to bed there. +This, of course, led me to the inference that _Manderson was dead +before the false Manderson came to the house_; and other things +confirmed this. +For instance, the clothing, to which I now turned in my review of the +position. If my guess was right, the unknown in Manderson’s shoes had +certainly had possession of Manderson’s trousers, waistcoat, and +shooting jacket. They were there before my eyes in the bedroom; and +Martin had seen the jacket—which nobody could have mistaken—upon the +man who sat at the telephone in the library. It was now quite plain (if +my guess was right) that this unmistakable garment was a cardinal +feature of the unknown’s plan. He knew that Martin would take him for +Manderson at the first glance. +And there my thinking was interrupted by the realization of a thing +that had escaped me before. So strong had been the influence of the +unquestioned assumption that it was Manderson who was present that +night, that neither I nor, as far as I know, any one else had noted the +point. _Martin had not seen the man’s face, nor had Mrs. Manderson._ +Mrs. Manderson (judging by her evidence at the inquest, of which, as I +have said, I had a full report made by the _Record_ stenographers in +court) had not seen the man at all. She hardly could have done, as I +shall show presently. She had merely spoken with him as she lay half +asleep, resuming a conversation which she had had with her living +husband about an hour before. Martin, I perceived, could only have seen +the man’s back, as he sat crouching over the telephone; no doubt a +characteristic pose was imitated there. And the man had worn his hat, +Manderson’s broad-brimmed hat! There is too much character in the back +of a head and neck. The unknown, in fact, supposing him to have been of +about Manderson’s build, had had no need for any disguise, apart from +the jacket and the hat and his powers of mimicry. +I paused there to contemplate the coolness and ingenuity of the man. +The thing, I now began to see, was so safe and easy, provided that his +mimicry was good enough, and that his nerve held. Those two points +assured, only some wholly unlikely accident could unmask him. +To come back to my puzzling out of the matter as I sat in the dead +man’s bedroom with the tell-tale shoes before me. The reason for the +entrance by the window instead of by the front door will already have +occurred to any one reading this. Entering by the door, the man would +almost certainly have been heard by the sharp-eared Martin in his +pantry just across the hall; he might have met him face to face. +Then there was the problem of the whisky. I had not attached much +importance to it; whisky will sometimes vanish in very queer ways in a +household of eight or nine persons; but it had seemed strange that it +should go in that way on that evening. Martin had been plainly quite +dumbfounded by the fact. It seemed to me now that many a man—fresh, as +this man in all likelihood was, from a bloody business, from the +unclothing of a corpse, and with a desperate part still to play—would +turn to that decanter as to a friend. No doubt he had a drink before +sending for Martin; after making that trick with ease and success, he +probably drank more. +But he had known when to stop. The worst part of the enterprise was +before him: the business—clearly of such vital importance to him, for +whatever reason—of shutting himself in Manderson’s room and preparing a +body of convincing evidence of its having been occupied by Manderson; +and this with the risk—very slight, as no doubt he understood, but how +unnerving!—of the woman on the other side of the half-open door awaking +and somehow discovering him. True, if he kept out of her limited field +of vision from the bed, she could only see him by getting up and going +to the door. I found that to a person lying in her bed, which stood +with its head to the wall a little beyond the door, nothing was visible +through the doorway but one of the cupboards by Manderson’s bed-head. +Moreover, since this man knew the ways of the household, he would think +it most likely that Mrs. Manderson was asleep. Another point with him, +I guessed, might have been the estrangement between the husband and +wife, which they had tried to cloak by keeping up, among other things, +their usual practice of sleeping in connected rooms, but which was well +known to all who had anything to do with them. He would hope from this +that if Mrs. Manderson heard him, she would take no notice of the +supposed presence of her husband. +So, pursuing my hypothesis, I followed the unknown up to the bedroom, +and saw him setting about his work. And it was with a catch in my own +breath that I thought of the hideous shock with which he must have +heard the sound of all others he was dreading most: the drowsy voice +from the adjoining room. +What Mrs. Manderson actually said, she was unable to recollect at the +inquest. She thinks she asked her supposed husband whether he had had a +good run in the car. And now what does the unknown do? Here, I think, +we come to a supremely significant point. Not only does he—standing +rigid there, as I picture him, before the dressing-table, listening to +the sound of his own leaping heart—not only does he answer the lady in +the voice of Manderson; he volunteers an explanatory statement. He +tells her that he has, on a sudden inspiration, sent Marlowe in the car +to Southampton; that he has sent him to bring back some important +information from a man leaving for Paris by the steamboat that morning. +Why these details from a man who had long been uncommunicative to his +wife, and that upon a point scarcely likely to interest her? Why these +details _about Marlowe?_ +Having taken my story so far, I now put forward the following definite +propositions: that between a time somewhere about ten, when the car +started, and a time somewhere about eleven, Manderson was shot—probably +at a considerable distance from the house, as no shot was heard; that +the body was brought back, left by the shed, and stripped of its outer +clothing; that at some time round about eleven o’clock a man who was +not Manderson, wearing Manderson’s shoes, hat, and jacket, entered the +library by the garden window; that he had with him Manderson’s black +trousers, waistcoat, and motor-coat, the denture taken from Manderson’s +mouth, and the weapon with which he had been murdered; that he +concealed these, rang the bell for the butler, and sat down at the +telephone with his hat on and his back to the door; that he was +occupied with the telephone all the time Martin was in the room; that +on going up to the bedroom floor he quietly entered Marlowe’s room and +placed the revolver with which the crime had been committed—Marlowe’s +revolver—in the case on the mantelpiece from which it had been taken; +and that he then went to Manderson’s room, placed Manderson’s shoes +outside the door, threw Manderson’s garments on a chair, placed the +denture in the bowl by the bedside, and selected a suit of clothes, a +pair of shoes, and a tie from those in the bedroom. +Here I will pause in my statement of this man’s proceedings to go into +a question for which the way is now sufficiently prepared: +_Who was the false Manderson?_ +Reviewing what was known to me, or might almost with certainty be +surmised, about that person, I set down the following five conclusions: +(1.) He had been in close relations with the dead man. In his acting +before Martin and his speaking to Mrs. Manderson he had made no +mistake. +(2.) He was of a build not unlike Manderson’s, especially as to height +and breadth of shoulder, which mainly determine the character of the +back of a seated figure when the head is concealed and the body loosely +clothed. But his feet were larger, though not greatly larger, than +Manderson’s. +(3.) He had considerable aptitude for mimicry and acting—probably some +experience too. +(4.) He had a minute acquaintance with the ways of the Manderson +household. +(5.) He was under a vital necessity of creating the belief that +Manderson was alive and in that house until some time after midnight on +the Sunday night. +So much I took as either certain or next door to it. It was as far as I +could see. And it was far enough. +I proceed to give, in an order corresponding with the numbered +paragraphs above, such relevant facts as I was able to obtain about Mr. +John Marlowe, from himself and other sources: +(1.) He had been Mr. Manderson’s private secretary, upon a footing of +great intimacy, for nearly four years. +(2.) The two men were nearly of the same height, about five feet eleven +inches; both were powerfully built and heavy in the shoulder. Marlowe, +who was the younger by some twenty years, was rather slighter about the +body, though Manderson was a man in good physical condition. Marlowe’s +shoes (of which I examined several pairs) were roughly about one +shoemaker’s size longer and broader than Manderson’s. +(3.) In the afternoon of the first day of my investigation, after +arriving at the results already detailed, I sent a telegram to a +personal friend, a Fellow of a college at Oxford, whom I knew to be +interested in theatrical matters, in these terms: +_Please wire John Marlowe’s record in connection with acting at Oxford +some time past decade very urgent and confidential._ +My friend replied in the following telegram, which reached me next +morning (the morning of the inquest): +_Marlowe was member O.U.D.S for three years and president 19— played +Bardolph Cleon and Mercutio excelled in character acting and imitations +in great demand at smokers was hero of some historic hoaxes._ +I had been led to send the telegram which brought this very helpful +answer by seeing on the mantel-shelf in Marlowe’s bedroom a photograph +of himself and two others in the costume of Falstaff’s three followers, +with an inscription from _The Merry Wives_, and by noting that it bore +the imprint of an Oxford firm of photographers. +(4.) During his connection with Manderson, Marlowe had lived as one of +the family. No other person, apart from the servants, had his +opportunities for knowing the domestic life of the Mandersons in +detail. +(5.) I ascertained beyond doubt that Marlowe arrived at a hotel in +Southampton on the Monday morning at 6.30, and there proceeded to carry +out the commission which, according to his story, and according to the +statement made to Mrs. Manderson in the bedroom by the false Manderson, +had been entrusted to him by his employer. He had then returned in the +car to Marlstone, where he had shown great amazement and horror at the +news of the murder. +These, I say, are the relevant facts about Marlowe. We must now examine +fact number 5 (as set out above) in connection with conclusion number 5 +about the false Manderson. +I would first draw attention to one important fact. _The only person +who professed to have heard Manderson mention Southampton at all before +he started in the car was Marlowe_. His story—confirmed to some extent +by what the butler overheard—was that the journey was all arranged in a +private talk before they set out, and he could not say, when I put the +question to him, why Manderson should have concealed his intentions by +giving out that he was going with Marlowe for a moonlight drive. This +point, however, attracted no attention. Marlowe had an absolutely +air-tight alibi in his presence at Southampton by 6.30; nobody thought +of him in connection with a murder which must have been committed after +12.30—the hour at which Martin the butler had gone to bed. But it was +the Manderson who came back from the drive who went out of his way to +mention Southampton openly to two persons. _He even went so far as to +ring up a hotel at Southampton and ask questions which bore out +Marlowe’s story of his errand._ This was the call he was busy with when +Martin was in the library. +Now let us consider the alibi. If Manderson was in the house that +night, and if he did not leave it until some time after 12.30, Marlowe +could not by any possibility have had a direct hand in the murder. It +is a question of the distance between Marlstone and Southampton. If he +had left Marlstone in the car at the hour when he is supposed to have +done so—between 10 and 10.30—with a message from Manderson, the run +would be quite an easy one to do in the time. But it would be +physically impossible for the car—a 15 h.p. four-cylinder +Northumberland, an average medium-power car—to get to Southampton by +half-past six unless it left Marlstone by midnight at latest. Motorists +who will examine the road-map and make the calculations required, as I +did in Manderson’s library that day, will agree that on the facts as +they appeared there was absolutely no case against Marlowe. +But even if they were not as they appeared; if Manderson was dead by +eleven o’clock, and if at about that time Marlowe impersonated him at +White Gables; if Marlowe retired to Manderson’s bedroom—how can all +this be reconciled with his appearance next morning at Southampton? _He +had to get out of the house, unseen and unheard, and away in the car by +midnight._ And Martin, the sharp-eared Martin, was sitting up until +12.30 in his pantry, with the door open, listening for the telephone +bell. Practically he was standing sentry over the foot of the +staircase, the only staircase leading down from the bedroom floor. +With this difficulty we arrive at the last and crucial phase of my +investigation. Having the foregoing points clearly in mind, I spent the +rest of the day before the inquest in talking to various persons and in +going over my story, testing it link by link. I could only find the one +weakness which seemed to be involved in Martin’s sitting up until +12.30; and since his having been instructed to do so was certainly a +part of the plan, meant to clinch the alibi for Marlowe, I knew there +must be an explanation somewhere. If I could not find that explanation, +my theory was valueless. I must be able to show that at the time Martin +went up to bed the man who had shut himself in Manderson’s bedroom +might have been many miles away on the road to Southampton. +I had, however, a pretty good idea already—as perhaps the reader of +these lines has by this time, if I have made myself clear—of how the +escape of the false Manderson before midnight had been contrived. But I +did not want what I was now about to do to be known. If I had chanced +to be discovered at work, there would have been no concealing the +direction of my suspicions. I resolved not to test them on this point +until the next day, during the opening proceedings at the inquest. This +was to be held, I knew, at the hotel, and I reckoned upon having White +Gables to myself so far as the principal inmates were concerned. +So in fact it happened. By the time the proceedings at the hotel had +begun I was hard at work at White Gables. I had a camera with me. I +made search, on principles well known to and commonly practised by the +police, and often enough by myself, for certain indications. Without +describing my search, I may say at once that I found and was able to +photograph two fresh fingerprints, very large and distinct, on the +polished front of the right-hand top drawer of the chest of drawers in +Manderson’s bedroom; five more (among a number of smaller and less +recent impressions made by other hands) on the glasses of the French +window in Mrs. Manderson’s room, a window which always stood open at +night with a curtain before it; and three more upon the glass bowl in +which Manderson’s dental plate had been found lying. +I took the bowl with me from White Gables. I took also a few articles +which I selected from Marlowe’s bedroom, as bearing the most distinct +of the innumerable fingerprints which are always to be found upon +toilet articles in daily use. I already had in my possession, made upon +leaves cut from my pocket diary, some excellent fingerprints of +Marlowe’s which he had made in my presence without knowing it. I had +shown him the leaves, asking if he recognized them; and the few seconds +during which he had held them in his fingers had sufficed to leave +impressions which I was afterwards able to bring out. +By six o’clock in the evening, two hours after the jury had brought in +their verdict against a person or persons unknown, I had completed my +work, and was in a position to state that two of the five large prints +made on the window-glasses, and the three on the bowl, were made by the +left hand of Marlowe; that the remaining three on the window and the +two on the drawer were made by his right hand. +By eight o’clock I had made at the establishment of Mr. H. T. Copper, +photographer, of Bishopsbridge, and with his assistance, a dozen +enlarged prints of the finger-marks of Marlowe, clearly showing the +identity of those which he unknowingly made in my presence and those +left upon articles in his bedroom, with those found by me as I have +described, and thus establishing the facts that Marlowe was recently in +Manderson’s bedroom, where he had in the ordinary way no business, and +in Mrs Manderson’s room, where he had still less. I hope it may be +possible to reproduce these prints for publication with this dispatch. +At nine o’clock I was back in my room at the hotel and sitting down to +begin this manuscript. I had my story complete. I bring it to a close +by advancing these further propositions: that on the night of the +murder the impersonator of Manderson, being in Manderson’s bedroom, +told Mrs Manderson, as he had already told Martin, that Marlowe was at +that moment on his way to Southampton; that having made his +dispositions in the room, he switched off the light, and lay in the bed +in his clothes; that he waited until he was assured that Mrs. Manderson +was asleep; that he then arose and stealthily crossed Mrs. Manderson’s +bedroom in his stocking feet, having under his arm the bundle of +clothing and shoes for the body; that he stepped behind the curtain, +pushing the doors of the window a little further open with his hands, +strode over the iron railing of the balcony, and let himself down until +only a drop of a few feet separated him from the soft turf of the lawn. +All this might very well have been accomplished within half an hour of +his entering Manderson’s bedroom, which, according to Martin, he did at +about half-past eleven. +What followed your readers and the authorities may conjecture for +themselves. The corpse was found next morning clothed—rather untidily. +Marlowe in the car appeared at Southampton by half-past six. +I bring this manuscript to an end in my sitting-room at the hotel at +Marlstone. It is four o’clock in the morning. I leave for London by the +noon train from Bishopsbridge, and immediately after arriving I shall +place these pages in your hands. I ask you to communicate the substance +of them to the Criminal Investigation Department. +PHILIP TRENT. +Chapter XII. +Evil Days +“I am returning the cheque you sent for what I did on the Manderson +case,” Trent wrote to Sir James Molloy from Munich, whither he had gone +immediately after handing in at the _Record_ office a brief dispatch +bringing his work on the case to an unexciting close. “What I sent you +wasn’t worth one-tenth of the amount; but I should have no scruple +about pocketing it if I hadn’t taken a fancy—never mind why—not to +touch any money at all for this business. I should like you, if there +is no objection, to pay for the stuff at your ordinary space-rate, and +hand the money to some charity which does not devote itself to bullying +people, if you know of any such. I have come to this place to see some +old friends and arrange my ideas, and the idea that comes out uppermost +is that for a little while I want some employment with activity in it. +I find I can’t paint at all: I couldn’t paint a fence. Will you try me +as your Own Correspondent somewhere? If you can find me a good +adventure I will send you good accounts. After that I could settle down +and work.” +Sir James sent him instructions by telegram to proceed at once to +Kurland and Livonia, where Citizen Browning was abroad again, and town +and countryside blazed in revolt. It was a roving commission, and for +two months Trent followed his luck. It served him not less well than +usual. He was the only correspondent who saw General Dragilew killed in +the street at Volmar by a girl of eighteen. He saw burnings, lynchings, +fusillades, hangings; each day his soul sickened afresh at the +imbecilities born of misrule. Many nights he lay down in danger. Many +days he went fasting. But there was never an evening or a morning when +he did not see the face of the woman whom he hopelessly loved. +He discovered in himself an unhappy pride at the lasting force of this +infatuation. It interested him as a phenomenon; it amazed and +enlightened him. Such a thing had not visited him before. It confirmed +so much that he had found dubious in the recorded experience of men. +It was not that, at thirty-two, he could pretend to ignorance of this +world of emotion. About his knowledge let it be enough to say that what +he had learned had come unpursued and unpurchased, and was without +intolerable memories; broken to the realities of sex, he was still +troubled by its inscrutable history. He went through life full of a +strange respect for certain feminine weakness and a very simple terror +of certain feminine strength. He had held to a rather lukewarm faith +that something remained in him to be called forth, and that the voice +that should call would be heard in its own time, if ever, and not +through any seeking. +But he had not thought of the possibility that, if this proved true +some day, the truth might come in a sinister shape. The two things that +had taken him utterly by surprise in the matter of his feeling towards +Mabel Manderson were the insane suddenness of its uprising in full +strength and its extravagant hopelessness. Before it came, he had been +much disposed to laugh at the permanence of unrequited passion as a +generous boyish delusion. He knew now that he had been wrong, and he +was living bitterly in the knowledge. +Before the eye of his fancy the woman always came just as she was when +he had first had sight of her, with the gesture which he had surprised +as he walked past unseen on the edge of the cliff; that great gesture +of passionate joy in her new liberty which had told him more plainly +than speech that her widowhood was a release from torment, and had +confirmed with terrible force the suspicion, active in his mind before, +that it was her passport to happiness with a man whom she loved. He +could not with certainty name to himself the moment when he had first +suspected that it might be so. The seed of the thought must have been +sown, he believed, at his first meeting with Marlowe; his mind would +have noted automatically that such evident strength and grace, with the +sort of looks and manners that the tall young man possessed, might go +far with any woman of unfixed affections. And the connection of this +with what Mr. Cupples had told him of the Mandersons’ married life must +have formed itself in the unconscious depths of his mind. Certainly it +had presented itself as an already established thing when he began, +after satisfying himself of the identity of the murderer, to cast about +for the motive of the crime. Motive, motive! How desperately he had +sought for another, turning his back upon that grim thought, that +Marlowe—obsessed by passion like himself, and privy perhaps to +maddening truths about the wife’s unhappiness—had taken a leaf, the +guiltiest, from the book of Bothwell. But in all his investigations at +the time, in all his broodings on the matter afterwards, he had been +able to discover nothing that could prompt Marlowe to such a +deed—nothing but that temptation, the whole strength of which he could +not know, but which if it had existed must have pressed urgently upon a +bold spirit in which scruple had been somehow paralysed. If he could +trust his senses at all, the young man was neither insane nor by nature +evil. But that could not clear him. Murder for a woman’s sake, he +thought, was not a rare crime, Heaven knew! If the modern feebleness of +impulse in the comfortable classes, and their respect for the modern +apparatus of detection, had made it rare among them, it was yet far +from impossible. It only needed a man of equal daring and intelligence, +his soul drugged with the vapours of an intoxicating intrigue, to plan +and perform such a deed. +A thousand times, with a heart full of anguish, he had sought to reason +away the dread that Mabel Manderson had known too much of what had been +intended against her husband’s life. That she knew all the truth after +the thing was done he could not doubt; her unforgettable collapse in +his presence when the question about Marlowe was suddenly and bluntly +put, had swept away his last hope that there was no love between the +pair, and had seemed to him, moreover, to speak of dread of discovery. +In any case, she knew the truth after reading what he had left with +her; and it was certain that no public suspicion had been cast upon +Marlowe since. She had destroyed his manuscript, then, and taken him at +his word to keep the secret that threatened her lover’s life. +But it was the monstrous thought that she might have known murder was +brewing, and guiltily kept silence, that haunted Trent’s mind. She +might have suspected, have guessed something; was it conceivable that +she was aware of the whole plot, that she connived? He could never +forget that his first suspicion of Marlowe’s motive in the crime had +been roused by the fact that his escape was made through the lady’s +room. At that time, when he had not yet seen her, he had been ready +enough to entertain the idea of her equal guilt and her co-operation. +He had figured to himself some passionate _hystérique_, merciless as a +cat in her hate and her love, a zealous abettor, perhaps even the +ruling spirit in the crime. +Then he had seen her, had spoken with her, had helped her in her +weakness; and such suspicions, since their first meeting, had seemed +the vilest of infamy. He had seen her eyes and her mouth; he had +breathed the woman’s atmosphere. Trent was one of those who fancy they +can scent true wickedness in the air. In her presence he had felt an +inward certainty of her ultimate goodness of heart; and it was nothing +against this that she had abandoned herself a moment, that day on the +cliff, to the sentiment of relief at the ending of her bondage, of her +years of starved sympathy and unquickened motherhood. That she had +turned to Marlowe in her destitution he believed; that she had any +knowledge of his deadly purpose he did not believe. +And yet, morning and evening the sickening doubts returned, and he +recalled again that it was almost in her presence that Marlowe had made +his preparations in the bedroom of the murdered man, that it was by the +window of her own chamber that he had escaped from the house. Had he +forgotten his cunning and taken the risk of telling her then? Or had +he, as Trent thought more likely, still played his part with her then, +and stolen off while she slept? He did not think she had known of the +masquerade when she gave evidence at the inquest; it read like honest +evidence. Or—the question would never be silenced, though he scorned +it—had she lain expecting the footsteps in the room and the whisper +that should tell her that it was done? Among the foul possibilities of +human nature, was it possible that black ruthlessness and black deceit +as well were hidden behind that good and straight and gentle seeming? +These thoughts would scarcely leave him when he was alone. +Trent served Sir James, well earning his pay for six months, and then +returned to Paris where he went to work again with a better heart. His +powers had returned to him, and he began to live more happily than he +had expected among a tribe of strangely assorted friends, French, +English, and American, artists, poets, journalists, policemen, +hotel-keepers, soldiers, lawyers, business men, and others. His old +faculty of sympathetic interest in his fellows won for him, just as in +his student days, privileges seldom extended to the Briton. He enjoyed +again the rare experience of being taken into the bosom of a +Frenchman’s family. He was admitted to the momentous confidence of _les +jeunes_, and found them as sure that they had surprised the secrets of +art and life as the departed _jeunes_ of ten years before had been. +The bosom of the Frenchman’s family was the same as those he had known +in the past, even to the patterns of the wallpaper and movables. But +the _jeunes_, he perceived with regret, were totally different from +their forerunners. They were much more shallow and puerile, much less +really clever. The secrets they wrested from the Universe were not such +important and interesting secrets as had been wrested by the old +_jeunes_. This he believed and deplored until one day he found himself +seated at a restaurant next to a too well-fed man whom, in spite of the +ravages of comfortable living, he recognized as one of the _jeunes_ of +his own period. This one had been wont to describe himself and three or +four others as the Hermits of the New Parnassus. He and his school had +talked outside cafes and elsewhere more than solitaries do as a rule; +but, then, rules were what they had vowed themselves to destroy. They +proclaimed that verse, in particular, was free. The Hermit of the New +Parnassus was now in the Ministry of the Interior, and already +decorated: he expressed to Trent the opinion that what France needed +most was a hand of iron. He was able to quote the exact price paid for +certain betrayals of the country, of which Trent had not previously +heard. +Thus he was brought to make the old discovery that it was he who had +changed, like his friend of the Administration, and that _les jeunes_ +were still the same. Yet he found it hard to say what precisely he had +lost that so greatly mattered; unless indeed it were so simple a thing +as his high spirits. +One morning in June, as he descended the slope of the Rue des Martyrs, +he saw approaching a figure that he remembered. He glanced quickly +round, for the thought of meeting Mr. Bunner again was unacceptable. +For some time he had recognized that his wound was healing under the +spell of creative work; he thought less often of the woman he loved, +and with less pain. He would not have the memory of those three days +reopened. +But the straight and narrow thoroughfare offered no refuge, and the +American saw him almost at once. +His unforced geniality made Trent ashamed, for he had liked the man. +They sat long over a meal, and Mr. Bunner talked. Trent listened to +him, now that he was in for it, with genuine pleasure, now and then +contributing a question or remark. Besides liking his companion, he +enjoyed his conversation, with its unending verbal surprises, for its +own sake. +Bunner was, it appeared, resident in Paris as the chief Continental +agent of the Manderson firm, and fully satisfied with his position and +prospects. He discoursed on these for some twenty minutes. This subject +at length exhausted, he went on to tell Trent, who confessed that he +had been away from England for a year, that Marlowe had shortly after +the death of Manderson entered his father’s business, which was now +again in a flourishing state, and had already come to be practically in +control of it. They had kept up their intimacy, and were even now +planning a holiday for the summer. Mr. Bunner spoke with generous +admiration of his friend’s talent for affairs. “Jack Marlowe has a +natural big head,” he declared, “and if he had more experience, I +wouldn’t want to have him up against me. He would put a crimp in me +every time.” +As the American’s talk flowed on, Trent listened with a slowly growing +perplexity. It became more and more plain that something was very wrong +in his theory of the situation; there was no mention of its central +figure. Presently Mr. Bunner mentioned that Marlowe was engaged to be +married to an Irish girl, whose charms he celebrated with native +enthusiasm. +Trent clasped his hands savagely together beneath the table. What could +have happened? His ideas were sliding and shifting. At last he forced +himself to put a direct question. +Mr. Bunner was not very fully informed. He knew that Mrs. Manderson had +left England immediately after the settlement of her husband’s affairs, +and had lived for some time in Italy. She had returned not long ago to +London, where she had decided not to live in the house in Mayfair, and +had bought a smaller one in the Hampstead neighbourhood; also, he +understood, one somewhere in the country. She was said to go but little +into society. “And all the good hard dollars just waiting for some one +to spraddle them around,” said Mr. Bunner, with a note of pathos in his +voice. “Why, she has money to burn—money to feed to the birds—and +nothing doing. The old man left her more than half his wad. And think +of the figure she might make in the world. She is beautiful, and she is +the best woman I ever met, too. But she couldn’t ever seem to get the +habit of spending money the way it ought to be spent.” +His words now became a soliloquy: Trent’s thoughts were occupying all +his attention. He pleaded business soon, and the two men parted with +cordiality. +Half an hour later Trent was in his studio, swiftly and mechanically +“cleaning up”. He wanted to know what had happened; somehow he must +find out. He could never approach herself, he knew; he would never +bring back to her the shame of that last encounter with him; it was +scarcely likely that he would even set eyes on her. But he must get to +know!... Cupples was in London, Marlowe was there.... And, anyhow, he +was sick of Paris. +Such thoughts came and went; and below them all strained the fibres of +an unseen cord that dragged mercilessly at his heart, and that he +cursed bitterly in the moments when he could not deny to himself that +it was there. The folly, the useless, pitiable folly of it! +In twenty-four hours his feeble roots in Paris had been torn out. He +was looking over a leaden sea at the shining fortress-wall of the Dover +cliffs. +But though he had instinctively picked out the lines of a set purpose +from among the welter of promptings in his mind, he found it delayed at +the very outset. +He had decided that he must first see Mr. Cupples, who would be in a +position to tell him much more than the American knew. But Mr. Cupples +was away on his travels, not expected to return for a month; and Trent +had no reasonable excuse for hastening his return. Marlowe he would not +confront until he had tried at least to reconnoitre the position. He +constrained himself not to commit the crowning folly of seeking out +Mrs. Manderson’s house in Hampstead; he could not enter it, and the +thought of the possibility of being seen by her lurking in its +neighbourhood brought the blood to his face. +He stayed at an hotel, took a studio, and while he awaited Mr. +Cupples’s return attempted vainly to lose himself in work. +At the end of a week he had an idea that he acted upon with eager +precipitancy. She had let fall some word at their last meeting, of a +taste for music. Trent went that evening, and thenceforward regularly, +to the opera. He might see her; and if, in spite of his caution, she +caught sight of him, they could be blind to each other’s +presence—anybody might happen to go to the opera. +So he went alone each evening, passing as quickly as he might through +the people in the vestibule; and each evening he came away knowing that +she had not been in the house. It was a habit that yielded him a sort +of satisfaction along with the guilty excitement of his search; for he +too loved music, and nothing gave him so much peace while its magic +endured. +One night as he entered, hurrying through the brilliant crowd, he felt +a touch on his arm. Flooded with an incredible certainty at the touch, +he turned. +It was she: so much more radiant in the absence of grief and anxiety, +in the fact that she was smiling, and in the allurement of evening +dress, that he could not speak. She, too, breathed a little quickly, +and there was a light of daring in her eyes and cheeks as she greeted +him. +Her words were few. “I wouldn’t miss a note of _Tristan_,” she said, +“nor must you. Come and see me in the interval.” She gave him the +number of the box. +Chapter XIII. +Eruption +The following two months were a period in Trent’s life that he has +never since remembered without shuddering. He met Mrs. Manderson half a +dozen times, and each time her cool friendliness, a nicely calculated +mean between mere acquaintance and the first stage of intimacy, baffled +and maddened him. At the opera he had found her, to his further +amazement, with a certain Mrs. Wallace, a frisky matron whom he had +known from childhood. Mrs. Manderson, it appeared, on her return from +Italy, had somehow wandered into circles to which he belonged by +nurture and disposition. It came, she said, of her having pitched her +tent in their hunting-grounds; several of his friends were near +neighbours. He had a dim but horrid recollection of having been on that +occasion unlike himself, ill at ease, burning in the face, talking with +idiot loquacity of his adventures in the Baltic provinces, and finding +from time to time that he was addressing himself exclusively to Mrs. +Wallace. The other lady, when he joined them, had completely lost the +slight appearance of agitation with which she had stopped him in the +vestibule. She had spoken pleasantly to him of her travels, of her +settlement in London, and of people whom they both knew. +During the last half of the opera, which he had stayed in the box to +hear, he had been conscious of nothing, as he sat behind them, but the +angle of her cheek and the mass of her hair, the lines of her shoulder +and arm, her hand upon the cushion. The black hair had seemed at last a +forest, immeasurable, pathless and enchanted, luring him to a fatal +adventure.... At the end he had been pale and subdued, parting with +them rather formally. +The next time he saw her—it was at a country house where both were +guests—and the subsequent times, he had had himself in hand. He had +matched her manner and had acquitted himself, he thought, decently, +considering— +Considering that he lived in an agony of bewilderment and remorse and +longing. He could make nothing, absolutely nothing, of her attitude. +That she had read his manuscript and understood the suspicion indicated +in his last question to her at White Gables was beyond the possibility +of doubt. Then how could she treat him thus and frankly, as she treated +all the world of men who had done no injury? +For it had become clear to his intuitive sense, for all the absence of +any shade of differentiation in her outward manner, that an injury had +been done, and that she had felt it. Several times, on the rare and +brief occasions when they had talked apart, he had warning from the +same sense that she was approaching this subject; and each time he had +turned the conversation with the ingenuity born of fear. Two +resolutions he made. The first was that when he had completed a +commissioned work which tied him to London he would go away and stay +away. The strain was too great. He no longer burned to know the truth; +he wanted nothing to confirm his fixed internal conviction by faith, +that he had blundered, that he had misread the situation, +misinterpreted her tears, written himself down a slanderous fool. He +speculated no more on Marlowe’s motive in the killing of Manderson. Mr. +Cupples returned to London, and Trent asked him nothing. He knew now +that he had been right in those words—Trent remembered them for the +emphasis with which they were spoken—“So long as she considered herself +bound to him... no power on earth could have persuaded her.” He met +Mrs. Manderson at dinner at her uncle’s large and tomb-like house in +Bloomsbury, and there he conversed most of the evening with a professor +of archaeology from Berlin. +His other resolution was that he would not be with her alone. +But when, a few days after, she wrote asking him to come and see her on +the following afternoon, he made no attempt to excuse himself. This was +a formal challenge. +While she celebrated the rites of tea, and for some little time +thereafter, she joined with such natural ease in his slightly fevered +conversation on matters of the day that he began to hope she had +changed what he could not doubt had been her resolve, to corner him and +speak to him gravely. She was to all appearance careless now, smiling +so that he recalled, not for the first time since that night at the +opera, what was written long ago of a Princess of Brunswick: “Her mouth +has ten thousand charms that touch the soul.” She made a tour of the +beautiful room where she had received him, singling out this treasure +or that from the spoils of a hundred bric-à-brac shops, laughing over +her quests, discoveries, and bargainings. And when he asked if she +would delight him again with a favourite piece of his which he had +heard her play at another house, she consented at once. +She played with a perfection of execution and feeling that moved him +now as it had moved him before. “You are a musician born,” he said +quietly when she had finished, and the last tremor of the music had +passed away. “I knew that before I first heard you.” +“I have played a great deal ever since I can remember. It has been a +great comfort to me,” she said simply, and half-turned to him smiling. +“When did you first detect music in me? Oh, of course: I was at the +opera. But that wouldn’t prove much, would it?” +“No,” he said abstractedly, his sense still busy with the music that +had just ended. “I think I knew it the first time I saw you.” Then +understanding of his own words came to him, and turned him rigid. For +the first time the past had been invoked. +There was a short silence. Mrs. Manderson looked at Trent, then hastily +looked away. Colour began to rise in her cheeks, and she pursed her +lips as if for whistling. Then with a defiant gesture of the shoulders +which he remembered she rose suddenly from the piano and placed herself +in a chair opposite to him. +“That speech of yours will do as well as anything,” she began slowly, +looking at the point of her shoe, “to bring us to what I wanted to say. +I asked you here today on purpose, Mr. Trent, because I couldn’t bear +it any longer. Ever since the day you left me at White Gables I have +been saying to myself that it didn’t matter what you thought of me in +that affair; that you were certainly not the kind of man to speak to +others of what you believed about me, after what you had told me of +your reasons for suppressing your manuscript. I asked myself how it +could matter. But all the time, of course, I knew it did matter. It +mattered horribly. Because what you thought was not true.” She raised +her eyes and met his gaze calmly. Trent, with a completely +expressionless face, returned her look. +“Since I began to know you,” he said, “I have ceased to think it.” +“Thank you,” said Mrs. Manderson; and blushed suddenly and deeply. +Then, playing with a glove, she added, “But I want you to know what +_was_ true. +“I did not know if I should ever see you again,” she went on in a lower +voice, “but I felt that if I did I must speak to you about this. I +thought it would not be hard to do so, because you seemed to me an +understanding person; and besides, a woman who has been married isn’t +expected to have the same sort of difficulty as a young girl in +speaking about such things when it is necessary. And then we did meet +again, and I discovered that it was very difficult indeed. You made it +difficult.” +“How?” he asked quietly. +“I don’t know,” said the lady. “But yes—I do know. It was just because +you treated me exactly as if you had never thought or imagined anything +of that sort about me. I had always supposed that if I saw you again +you would turn on me that hard, horrible sort of look you had when you +asked me that last question—do you remember?—at White Gables. Instead +of that you were just like any other acquaintance. You were just”—she +hesitated and spread out her hands—“nice. You know. After that first +time at the opera when I spoke to you I went home positively wondering +if you had really recognized me. I mean, I thought you might have +recognized my face without remembering who it was.” +A short laugh broke from Trent in spite of himself, but he said +nothing. +She smiled deprecatingly. “Well, I couldn’t remember if you had spoken +my name; and I thought it might be so. But the next time, at the +Iretons’, you did speak it, so I knew; and a dozen times during those +few days I almost brought myself to tell you, but never quite. I began +to feel that you wouldn’t let me, that you would slip away from the +subject if I approached it. Wasn’t I right? Tell me, please.” He +nodded. “But why?” He remained silent. +“Well,” she said, “I will finish what I had to say, and then you will +tell me, I hope, why you had to make it so hard. When I began to +understand that you wouldn’t let me talk of the matter to you, it made +me more determined than ever. I suppose you didn’t realize that I would +insist on speaking even if you were quite discouraging. I dare say I +couldn’t have done it if I had been guilty, as you thought. You walked +into my parlour today, never thinking I should dare. Well, now you +see.” +Mrs. Manderson had lost all her air of hesitancy. She had, as she was +wont to say, talked herself enthusiastic, and in the ardour of her +purpose to annihilate the misunderstanding that had troubled her so +long she felt herself mistress of the situation. +“I am going to tell you the story of the mistake you made,” she +continued, as Trent, his hands clasped between his knees, still looked +at her enigmatically. “You will have to believe it, Mr. Trent; it is +utterly true to life, with its confusions and hidden things and +cross-purposes and perfectly natural mistakes that nobody thinks twice +about taking for facts. Please understand that I don’t blame you in the +least, and never did, for jumping to the conclusion you did. You knew +that I was estranged from my husband, and you knew what that so often +means. You knew before I told you, I expect, that he had taken up an +injured attitude towards me; and I was silly enough to try and explain +it away. I gave you the explanation of it that I had given myself at +first, before I realized the wretched truth; I told you he was +disappointed in me because I couldn’t take a brilliant lead in society. +Well, that was true; he was so. But I could see you weren’t convinced. +You had guessed what it took me much longer to see, because I knew how +irrational it was. Yes; my husband was jealous of John Marlowe; you +divined that. +“Then I behaved like a fool when you let me see you had divined it; it +was such a blow, you understand, when I had supposed all the +humiliation and strain was at an end, and that his delusion had died +with him. You practically asked me if my husband’s secretary was not my +lover, Mr. Trent—I _have_ to say it, because I want you to understand +why I broke down and made a scene. You took that for a confession; you +thought I was guilty of that, and I think you even thought I might be a +party to the crime, that I had consented.... That did hurt me; but +perhaps you couldn’t have thought anything else—I don’t know.” +Trent, who had not hitherto taken his eyes from her face, hung his head +at the words. He did not raise it again as she continued. “But really +it was simple shock and distress that made me give way, and the memory +of all the misery that mad suspicion had meant to me. And when I pulled +myself together again you had gone.” +She rose and went to an escritoire beside the window, unlocked a +drawer, and drew out a long, sealed envelope. +“This is the manuscript you left with me,” she said. “I have read it +through again and again. I have always wondered, as everybody does, at +your cleverness in things of this kind.” A faintly mischievous smile +flashed upon her face, and was gone. “I thought it was splendid, Mr. +Trent—I almost forgot that the story was my own, I was so interested. +And I want to say now, while I have this in my hand, how much I thank +you for your generous, chivalrous act in sacrificing this triumph of +yours rather than put a woman’s reputation in peril. If all had been as +you supposed, the facts must have come out when the police took up the +case you put in their hands. Believe me, I understood just what you had +done, and I never ceased to be grateful even when I felt most crushed +by your suspicion.” +As she spoke her thanks her voice shook a little, and her eyes were +bright. Trent perceived nothing of this. His head was still bent. He +did not seem to hear. She put the envelope into his hand as it lay +open, palm upwards, on his knee. There was a touch of gentleness about +the act which made him look up. +“Can you—” he began slowly. +She raised her hand as she stood before him. “No, Mr. Trent; let me +finish before you say anything. It is such an unspeakable relief to me +to have broken the ice at last, and I want to end the story while I am +still feeling the triumph of beginning it.” She sank down into the sofa +from which she had first risen. “I am telling you a thing that nobody +else knows. Everybody knew, I suppose, that something had come between +us, though I did everything in my power to hide it. But I don’t think +any one in the world ever guessed what my husband’s notion was. People +who know me don’t think that sort of thing about me, I believe. And his +fancy was so ridiculously opposed to the facts. I will tell you what +the situation was. Mr. Marlowe and I had been friendly enough since he +came to us. For all his cleverness—my husband said he had a keener +brain than any man he knew—I looked upon him as practically a boy. You +know I am a little older than he is, and he had a sort of amiable lack +of ambition that made me feel it the more. One day my husband asked me +what I thought was the best thing about Marlowe, and not thinking much +about it I said, ‘His manners.’ He surprised me very much by looking +black at that, and after a silence he said, ‘Yes, Marlowe is a +gentleman; that’s so’, not looking at me. +“Nothing was ever said about that again until about a year ago, when I +found that Mr. Marlowe had done what I always expected he would +do—fallen desperately in love with an American girl. But to my disgust +he had picked out the most worthless girl, I do believe, of all those +whom we used to meet. She was the daughter of wealthy parents, and she +did as she liked with them; very beautiful, well educated, very good at +games—what they call a woman-athlete—and caring for nothing on earth +but her own amusement. She was one of the most unprincipled flirts I +ever knew, and quite the cleverest. Every one knew it, and Mr. Marlowe +must have heard it; but she made a complete fool of him, brain and all. +I don’t know how she managed it, but I can imagine. She liked him, of +course; but it was quite plain to me that she was playing with him. The +whole affair was so idiotic, I got perfectly furious. One day I asked +him to row me in a boat on the lake—all this happened at our house by +Lake George. We had never been alone together for any length of time +before. In the boat I talked to him. I was very kind about it, I think, +and he took it admirably, but he didn’t believe me a bit. He had the +impudence to tell me that I misunderstood Alice’s nature. When I hinted +at his prospects—I knew he had scarcely anything of his own—he said +that if she loved him he could make himself a position in the world. I +dare say that was true, with his abilities and his friends—he is rather +well connected, you know, as well as popular. But his enlightenment +came very soon after that. +“My husband helped me out of the boat when we got back. He joked with +Mr Marlowe about something, I remember; for through all that followed +he never once changed in his manner to him, and that was one reason why +I took so long to realize what he thought about him and myself. But to +me he was reserved and silent that evening—not angry. He was always +perfectly cold and expressionless to me after he took this idea into +his head. After dinner he only spoke to me once. Mr. Marlowe was +telling him about some horse he had bought for the farm in Kentucky, +and my husband looked at me and said, ‘Marlowe may be a gentleman, but +he seldom quits loser in a horse-trade.’ I was surprised at that, but +at that time—and even on the next occasion when he found us together—I +didn’t understand what was in his mind. That next time was the morning +when Mr Marlowe received a sweet little note from the girl asking for +his congratulations on her engagement. It was in our New York house. He +looked so wretched at breakfast that I thought he was ill, and +afterwards I went to the room where he worked, and asked what was the +matter. He didn’t say anything, but just handed me the note, and turned +away to the window. I was very glad that was all over, but terribly +sorry for him too, of course. I don’t remember what I said, but I +remember putting my hand on his arm as he stood there staring out on +the garden and just then my husband appeared at the open door with some +papers. He just glanced at us, and then turned and walked quietly back +to his study. I thought that he might have heard what I was saying to +comfort Mr. Marlowe, and that it was rather nice of him to slip away. +Mr. Marlowe neither saw nor heard him. My husband left the house that +morning for the West while I was out. Even then I did not understand. +He used often to go off suddenly like that, if some business project +called him. +“It was not until he returned a week later that I grasped the +situation. He was looking white and strange, and as soon as he saw me +he asked me where Mr. Marlowe was. Somehow the tone of his question +told me everything in a flash. +“I almost gasped; I was wild with indignation. You know, Mr. Trent, I +don’t think I should have minded at all if any one had thought me +capable of openly breaking with my husband and leaving him for somebody +else. I dare say I might have done that. But that coarse suspicion... a +man whom he trusted... and the notion of concealment. It made me see +scarlet. Every shred of pride in me was strung up till I quivered, and +I swore to myself on the spot that I would never show by any word or +sign that I was conscious of his having such a thought about me. I +would behave exactly as I always had behaved, I determined—and that I +did, up to the very last. Though I knew that a wall had been made +between us now that could never be broken down—even if he asked my +pardon and obtained it—I never once showed that I noticed any change. +“And so it went on. I never could go through such a time again. My +husband showed silent and cold politeness to me always when we were +alone—and that was only when it was unavoidable. He never once alluded +to what was in his mind; but I felt it, and he knew that I felt it. +Both of us were stubborn in our different attitudes. To Mr. Marlowe he +was more friendly, if anything, than before—Heaven only knows why. I +fancied he was planning some sort of revenge; but that was only a +fancy. Certainly Mr. Marlowe never knew what was suspected of him. He +and I remained good friends, though we never spoke of anything intimate +after that disappointment of his; but I made a point of seeing no less +of him than I had always done. Then we came to England and to White +Gables, and after that followed—my husband’s dreadful end.” +She threw out her right hand in a gesture of finality. “You know about +the rest—so much more than any other man,” she added, and glanced up at +him with a quaint expression. +Trent wondered at that look, but the wonder was only a passing shadow +on his thought. Inwardly his whole being was possessed by thankfulness. +All the vivacity had returned to his face. Long before the lady had +ended her story he had recognized the certainty of its truth, as from +the first days of their renewed acquaintance he had doubted the story +that his imagination had built up at White Gables, upon foundations +that seemed so good to him. +He said, “I don’t know how to begin the apologies I have to make. There +are no words to tell you how ashamed and disgraced I feel when I +realize what a crude, cock-sure blundering at a conclusion my suspicion +was. Yes, I suspected—you! I had almost forgotten that I was ever such +a fool. Almost—not quite. Sometimes when I have been alone I have +remembered that folly, and poured contempt on it. I have tried to +imagine what the facts were. I have tried to excuse myself.” +She interrupted him quickly. “What nonsense! Do be sensible, Mr. Trent. +You had only seen me on two occasions in your life before you came to +me with your solution of the mystery.” Again the quaint expression came +and was gone. “If you talk of folly, it really is folly for a man like +you to pretend to a woman like me that I had innocence written all over +me in large letters—so large that you couldn’t believe very strong +evidence against me after seeing me twice.” +“What do you mean by ‘a man like me’?” he demanded with a sort of +fierceness. “Do you take me for a person without any normal instincts? +I don’t say you impress people as a simple, transparent sort of +character—what Mr. Calvin Bunner calls a case of open-work; I don’t say +a stranger might not think you capable of wickedness, if there was good +evidence for it: but I say that a man who, after seeing you and being +in your atmosphere, could associate you with the particular kind of +abomination I imagined, is a fool—the kind of fool who is afraid to +trust his senses.... As for my making it hard for you to approach the +subject, as you say, it is true. It was simply moral cowardice. I +understood that you wished to clear the matter up; and I was revolted +at the notion of my injurious blunder being discussed. I tried to show +you by my actions that it was as if it had never been. I hoped you +would pardon me without any words. I can’t forgive myself, and I never +shall. And yet if you could know—” He stopped short, and then added +quietly, “Well, will you accept all that as an apology? The very +scrubbiest sackcloth made, and the grittiest ashes on the heap.... I +didn’t mean to get worked up,” he ended lamely. +Mrs. Manderson laughed, and her laugh carried him away with it. He knew +well by this time that sudden rush of cascading notes of mirth, the +perfect expression of enjoyment; he had many times tried to amuse her +merely for his delight in the sound of it. +“But I love to see you worked up,” she said. “The bump with which you +always come down as soon as you realize that you are up in the air at +all is quite delightful. Oh, we’re actually both laughing. What a +triumphant end to our explanations, after all my dread of the time when +I should have it out with you. And now it’s all over, and you know; and +we’ll never speak of it any more.” +“I hope not,” Trent said in sincere relief. “If you’re resolved to be +so kind as this about it, I am not high-principled enough to insist on +your blasting me with your lightnings. And now, Mrs. Manderson, I had +better go. Changing the subject after this would be like playing +puss-in-the-corner after an earthquake.” He rose to his feet. +“You are right,” she said. “But no! Wait. There is another thing—part +of the same subject; and we ought to pick up all the pieces now while +we are about it. Please sit down.” She took the envelope containing +Trent’s manuscript dispatch from the table where he had laid it. “I +want to speak about this.” +His brows bent, and he looked at her questioningly. “So do I, if you +do,” he said slowly. “I want very much to know one thing.” +“Tell me.” +“Since my reason for suppressing that information was all a fantasy, +why did you never make any use of it? When I began to realize that I +had been wrong about you, I explained your silence to myself by saying +that you could not bring yourself to do a thing that would put a rope +round a man’s neck, whatever he might have done. I can quite understand +that feeling. Was that what it was? Another possibility I thought of +was that you knew of something that was by way of justifying or +excusing Marlowe’s act. Or I thought you might have a simple horror, +quite apart from humanitarian scruples, of appearing publicly in +connection with a murder trial. Many important witnesses in such cases +have to be practically forced into giving their evidence. They feel +there is defilement even in the shadow of the scaffold.” +Mrs. Manderson tapped her lips with the envelope without quite +concealing a smile. “You didn’t think of another possibility, I +suppose, Mr. Trent,” she said. +“No.” He looked puzzled. +“I mean the possibility of your having been wrong about Mr. Marlowe as +well as about me. No, no; you needn’t tell me that the chain of +evidence is complete. I know it is. But evidence of what? Of Mr. +Marlowe having impersonated my husband that night, and having escaped +by way of my window, and built up an alibi. I have read your dispatch +again and again, Mr. Trent, and I don’t see that those things can be +doubted.” +Trent gazed at her with narrowed eyes. He said nothing to fill the +brief pause that followed. Mrs. Manderson smoothed her skirt with a +preoccupied air, as one collecting her ideas. +“I did not make any use of the facts found out by you,” she slowly said +at last, “because it seemed to me very likely that they would be fatal +to Mr. Marlowe.” +“I agree with you,” Trent remarked in a colourless tone. +“And,” pursued the lady, looking up at him with a mild reasonableness +in her eyes, “as I knew that he was innocent I was not going to expose +him to that risk.” +There was another little pause. Trent rubbed his chin, with an +affectation of turning over the idea. Inwardly he was telling himself, +somewhat feebly, that this was very right and proper; that it was quite +feminine, and that he liked her to be feminine. It was permitted to +her—more than permitted—to set her loyal belief in the character of a +friend above the clearest demonstrations of the intellect. +Nevertheless, it chafed him. He would have had her declaration of faith +a little less positive in form. It was too irrational to say she +“knew”. In fact (he put it to himself bluntly), it was quite unlike +her. If to be unreasonable when reason led to the unpleasant was a +specially feminine trait, and if Mrs. Manderson had it, she was +accustomed to wrap it up better than any woman he had known. +“You suggest,” he said at length, “that Marlowe constructed an alibi +for himself, by means which only a desperate man would have attempted, +to clear himself of a crime he did not commit. Did he tell you he was +innocent?” +She uttered a little laugh of impatience. “So you think he has been +talking me round. No, that is not so. I am merely sure he did not do +it. Ah! I see you think that absurd. But see how unreasonable you are, +Mr Trent! Just now you were explaining to me quite sincerely that it +was foolishness in you to have a certain suspicion of me after seeing +me and being in my atmosphere, as you said.” Trent started in his +chair. She glanced at him, and went on: “Now, I and my atmosphere are +much obliged to you, but we must stand up for the rights of other +atmospheres. I know a great deal more about Mr. Marlowe’s atmosphere +than you know about mine even now. I saw him constantly for several +years. I don’t pretend to know all about him; but I do know that he is +incapable of a crime of bloodshed. The idea of his planning a murder is +as unthinkable to me as the idea of your picking a poor woman’s pocket, +Mr. Trent. I can imagine you killing a man, you know... if the man +deserved it and had an equal chance of killing you. I could kill a +person myself in some circumstances. But Mr. Marlowe was incapable of +doing it, I don’t care what the provocation might be. He had a temper +that nothing could shake, and he looked upon human nature with a sort +of cold magnanimity that would find excuses for absolutely anything. It +wasn’t a pose; you could see it was a part of him. He never put it +forward, but it was there always. It was quite irritating at times.... +Now and then in America, I remember, I have heard people talking about +lynching, for instance, when he was there. He would sit quite silent +and expressionless, appearing not to listen; but you could feel disgust +coming from him in waves. He really loathed and hated physical +violence. He was a very strange man in some ways, Mr. Trent. He gave +one a feeling that he might do unexpected things—do you know that +feeling one has about some people? What part he really played in the +events of that night I have never been able to guess. But nobody who +knew anything about him could possibly believe in his deliberately +taking a man’s life.” Again the movement of her head expressed +finality, and she leaned back in the sofa, calmly regarding him. +“Then,” said Trent, who had followed this with earnest attention, “we +are forced back on two other possibilities, which I had not thought +worth much consideration until this moment. Accepting what you say, he +might still conceivably have killed in self-defence; or he might have +done so by accident.” +The lady nodded. “Of course I thought of those two explanations when I +read your manuscript.” +“And I suppose you felt, as I did myself, that in either of those cases +the natural thing, and obviously the safest thing, for him to do was to +make a public statement of the truth, instead of setting up a series of +deceptions which would certainly stamp him as guilty in the eyes of the +law, if anything went wrong with them.” +“Yes,” she said wearily, “I thought over all that until my head ached. +And I thought somebody else might have done it, and that he was somehow +screening the guilty person. But that seemed wild. I could see no light +in the mystery, and after a while I simply let it alone. All I was +clear about was that Mr. Marlowe was not a murderer, and that if I told +what you had found out, the judge and jury would probably think he was. +I promised myself that I would speak to you about it if we should meet +again; and now I’ve kept my promise.” +Trent, his chin resting on his hand, was staring at the carpet. The +excitement of the hunt for the truth was steadily rising in him. He had +not in his own mind accepted Mrs. Manderson’s account of Marlowe’s +character as unquestionable. But she had spoken forcibly; he could by +no means set it aside, and his theory was much shaken. +“There is only one thing for it,” he said, looking up. “I must see +Marlowe. It worries me too much to have the thing left like this. I +will get at the truth. Can you tell me,” he broke off, “how he behaved +after the day I left White Gables?” +“I never saw him after that,” said Mrs. Manderson simply. “For some +days after you went away I was ill, and didn’t go out of my room. When +I got down he had left and was in London, settling things with the +lawyers. He did not come down to the funeral. Immediately after that I +went abroad. After some weeks a letter from him reached me, saying he +had concluded his business and given the solicitors all the assistance +in his power. He thanked me very nicely for what he called all my +kindness, and said goodbye. There was nothing in it about his plans for +the future, and I thought it particularly strange that he said not a +word about my husband’s death. I didn’t answer. Knowing what I knew, I +couldn’t. In those days I shuddered whenever I thought of that +masquerade in the night. I never wanted to see or hear of him again.” +“Then you don’t know what has become of him?” +“No, but I dare say Uncle Burton—Mr. Cupples, you know—could tell you. +Some time ago he told me that he had met Mr. Marlowe in London, and had +some talk with him. I changed the conversation.” She paused and smiled +with a trace of mischief. “I rather wonder what you supposed had +happened to Mr. Marlowe after you withdrew from the scene of the drama +that you had put together so much to your satisfaction.” +Trent flushed. “Do you really want to know?” he said. +“I ask you,” she retorted quietly. +“You ask me to humiliate myself again, Mrs. Manderson. Very well. I +will tell you what I thought I should most likely find when I returned +to London after my travels: that you had married Marlowe to live +abroad.” +She heard him with unmoved composure. “We certainly couldn’t have lived +very comfortably in England on his money and mine,” she observed +thoughtfully. “He had practically nothing then.” +He stared at her—“gaped”, she told him some time afterwards. At the +moment she laughed with a little embarrassment. +“Dear me, Mr. Trent! Have I said anything dreadful? You surely must +know.... I thought everybody understood by now.... I’m sure I’ve had to +explain it often enough... if I marry again I lose everything that my +husband left me.” +The effect of this speech upon Trent was curious. For an instant his +face was flooded with the emotion of surprise. As this passed away he +gradually drew himself together, as he sat, into a tense attitude. He +looked, she thought as she saw his knuckles grow white on the arms of +the chair, like a man prepared for pain under the hand of the surgeon. +But all he said, in a voice lower than his usual tone, was, “I had no +idea of it.” +“It is so,” she said calmly, trifling with a ring on her finger. +“Really, Mr. Trent, it is not such a very unusual thing. I think I am +glad of it. For one thing, it has secured me—at least since it became +generally known—from a good many attentions of a kind that a woman in +my position has to put up with as a rule.” +“No doubt,” he said gravely. “And... the other kind?” +She looked at him questioningly. “Ah!” she laughed. “The other kind +trouble me even less. I have not yet met a man silly enough to want to +marry a widow with a selfish disposition, and luxurious habits and +tastes, and nothing but the little my father left me.” +She shook her head, and something in the gesture shattered the last +remnants of Trent’s self-possession. +“Haven’t you, by Heaven!” he exclaimed, rising with a violent movement +and advancing a step towards her. “Then I am going to show you that +human passion is not always stifled by the smell of money. I am going +to end the business—my business. I am going to tell you what I dare say +scores of better men have wanted to tell you, but couldn’t summon up +what I have summoned up—the infernal cheek to do it. They were afraid +of making fools of themselves. I am not. You have accustomed me to the +feeling this afternoon.” He laughed aloud in his rush of words, and +spread out his hands. “Look at me! It is the sight of the century! It +is one who says he loves you, and would ask you to give up very great +wealth to stand at his side.” +She was hiding her face in her hands. He heard her say brokenly, +“Please... don’t speak in that way.” +He answered: “It will make a great difference to me if you will allow +me to say all I have to say before I leave you. Perhaps it is in bad +taste, but I will risk that; I want to relieve my soul; it needs open +confession. This is the truth. You have troubled me ever since the +first time I saw you—and you did not know it—as you sat under the edge +of the cliff at Marlstone, and held out your arms to the sea. It was +only your beauty that filled my mind then. As I passed by you it seemed +as if all the life in the place were crying out a song about you in the +wind and the sunshine. And the song stayed in my ears; but even your +beauty would be no more than an empty memory to me by now if that had +been all. It was when I led you from the hotel there to your house, +with your hand on my arm, that—what was it that happened? I only knew +that your stronger magic had struck home, and that I never should +forget that day, whatever the love of my life should be. Till that day +I had admired as I should admire the loveliness of a still lake; but +that day I felt the spell of the divinity of the lake. And next morning +the waters were troubled, and she rose—the morning when I came to you +with my questions, tired out with doubts that were as bitter as pain, +and when I saw you without your pale, sweet mask of composure—when I +saw you moved and glowing, with your eyes and your hands alive, and +when you made me understand that for such a creature as you there had +been emptiness and the mere waste of yourself for so long. Madness rose +in me then, and my spirit was clamouring to say what I say at last now: +that life would never seem a full thing again because you could not +love me, that I was taken for ever in the nets of your black hair and +by the incantation of your voice—” +“Oh, stop!” she cried, suddenly throwing back her head, her face +flaming and her hands clutching the cushions beside her. She spoke fast +and disjointedly, her breath coming quick. “You shall not talk me into +forgetting common sense. What does all this mean? Oh, I do not +recognize you at all—you seem another man. We are not children; have +you forgotten that? You speak like a boy in love for the first time. It +is foolish, unreal—I know that if you do not. I will not hear it. What +has happened to you?” She was half sobbing. “How can these +sentimentalities come from a man like you? Where is your +self-restraint?” +“Gone!” exclaimed Trent, with an abrupt laugh. “It has got right away. +I am going after it in a minute.” He looked gravely down into her eyes. +“I don’t care so much now. I never could declare myself to you under +the cloud of your great fortune. It was too heavy. There’s nothing +creditable in that feeling, as I look at it; as a matter of simple fact +it was a form of cowardice—fear of what you would think, and very +likely say—fear of the world’s comment too, I suppose. But the cloud +being rolled away, I have spoken, and I don’t care so much. I can face +things with a quiet mind now that I have told you the truth in its own +terms. You may call it sentimentality or any other nickname you like. +It is quite true that it was not intended for a scientific statement. +Since it annoys you, let it be extinguished. But please believe that it +was serious to me if it was comedy to you. I have said that I love you, +and honour you, and would hold you dearest of all the world. Now give +me leave to go.” +But she held out her hands to him. +Chapter XIV. +Writing a Letter +“If you insist,” Trent said, “I suppose you will have your way. But I +had much rather write it when I am not with you. However, if I must, +bring me a tablet whiter than a star, or hand of hymning angel; I mean +a sheet of note-paper not stamped with your address. Don’t +underestimate the sacrifice I am making. I never felt less like +correspondence in my life.” +She rewarded him. +“What shall I say?” he enquired, his pen hovering over the paper. +“Shall I compare him to a summer’s day? What _shall_ I say?” +“Say what you want to say,” she suggested helpfully. +He shook his head. “What I want to say—what I have been wanting for the +past twenty-four hours to say to every man, woman, and child I met—is +‘Mabel and I are betrothed, and all is gas and gaiters.’ But that +wouldn’t be a very good opening for a letter of strictly formal, not to +say sinister, character. I have got as far as ‘Dear Mr. Marlowe.’ What +comes next?” +“I am sending you a manuscript,” she prompted, “which I thought you +might like to see.” +“Do you realize,” he said, “that in that sentence there are only two +words of more than one syllable? This letter is meant to impress, not +to put him at his ease. We must have long words.” +“I don’t see why,” she answered. “I know it is usual, but why is it? I +have had a great many letters from lawyers and business people, and +they always begin, ‘with reference to our communication’, or some such +mouthful, and go on like that all the way through. Yet when I see them +they don’t talk like that. It seems ridiculous to me.” +“It is not at all ridiculous to them.” Trent laid aside the pen with an +appearance of relief and rose to his feet. “Let me explain. A people +like our own, not very fond of using its mind, gets on in the ordinary +way with a very small and simple vocabulary. Long words are abnormal, +and like everything else that is abnormal, they are either very funny +or tremendously solemn. Take the phrase ‘intelligent anticipation’, for +instance. If such a phrase had been used in any other country in +Europe, it would not have attracted the slightest attention. With us it +has become a proverb; we all grin when we hear it in a speech or read +it in a leading article; it is considered to be one of the best things +ever said. Why? Just because it consists of two long words. The idea +expressed is as commonplace as cold mutton. Then there’s +‘terminological inexactitude’. How we all roared, and are still +roaring, at that! And the whole of the joke is that the words are long. +It’s just the same when we want to be very serious; we mark it by +turning to long words. When a solicitor can begin a sentence with, +‘pursuant to the instructions communicated to our representative,’ or +some such gibberish, he feels that he is earning his +six-and-eightpence. Don’t laugh! It is perfectly true. Now Continentals +haven’t got that feeling. They are always bothering about ideas, and +the result is that every shopkeeper or peasant has a vocabulary in +daily use that is simply Greek to the vast majority of Britons. I +remember some time ago I was dining with a friend of mine who is a +Paris cabman. We had dinner at a dirty little restaurant opposite the +central post office, a place where all the clients were cabmen or +porters. Conversation was general, and it struck me that a London +cabman would have felt a little out of his depth. Words like +‘functionary’ and ‘unforgettable’ and ‘exterminate’ and ‘independence’ +hurtled across the table every instant. And these were just ordinary, +vulgar, jolly, red-faced cabmen. Mind you,” he went on hurriedly, as +the lady crossed the room and took up his pen, “I merely mention this +to illustrate my point. I’m not saying that cab-men ought to be +intellectuals. I don’t think so; I agree with Keats—happy is England, +sweet her artless cabmen, enough their simple loveliness for me. But +when you come to the people who make up the collective industrial +brain-power of the country.... Why, do you know—” +“Oh no, no, no!” cried Mrs. Manderson. “I don’t know anything at the +moment, except that your talking must be stopped somehow, if we are to +get any further with that letter to Mr. Marlowe. You shall not get out +of it. Come!” She put the pen into his hand. +Trent looked at it with distaste. “I warn you not to discourage my +talking,” he said dejectedly. “Believe me, men who don’t talk are even +worse to live with than men who do. O have a care of natures that are +mute. I confess I’m shirking writing this thing. It is almost an +indecency. It’s mixing two moods to write the sort of letter I mean to +write, and at the same time to be sitting in the same room with you.” +She led him to his abandoned chair before the escritoire and pushed him +gently into it. “Well, but please try. I want to see what you write, +and I want it to go to him at once. You see, I would be contented +enough to leave things as they are; but you say you must get at the +truth, and if you must, I want it to be as soon as possible. Do it +now—you know you can if you will—and I’ll send it off the moment it’s +ready. Don’t you ever feel that—the longing to get the worrying letter +into the post and off your hands, so that you can’t recall it if you +would, and it’s no use fussing any more about it?” +“I will do as you wish,” he said, and turned to the paper, which he +dated as from his hotel. Mrs. Manderson looked down at his bent head +with a gentle light in her eyes, and made as if to place a smoothing +hand upon his rather untidy crop of hair. But she did not touch it. +Going in silence to the piano, she began to play very softly. It was +ten minutes before Trent spoke. +“If he chooses to reply that he will say nothing?” +Mrs. Manderson looked over her shoulder. “Of course he dare not take +that line. He will speak to prevent you from denouncing him.” +“But I’m not going to do that anyhow. You wouldn’t allow it—you said +so; besides, I won’t if you would. The thing’s too doubtful now.” +“But,” she laughed, “poor Mr. Marlowe doesn’t know you won’t, does he?” +Trent sighed. “What extraordinary things codes of honour are!” he +remarked abstractedly. “I know that there are things I should do, and +never think twice about, which would make you feel disgraced if you did +them—such as giving any one who grossly insulted me a black eye, or +swearing violently when I barked my shin in a dark room. And now you +are calmly recommending me to bluff Marlowe by means of a tacit threat +which I don’t mean; a thing which hell’s most abandoned fiend did +never, in the drunkenness of guilt—well, anyhow, I won’t do it.” He +resumed his writing, and the lady, with an indulgent smile, returned to +playing very softly. +In a few minutes more, Trent said: “At last I am his faithfully. Do you +want to see it?” She ran across the twilight room, and turned on a +reading lamp beside the escritoire. Then, leaning on his shoulder, she +read what follows: +DEAR MR. MARLOWE,—_You will perhaps remember that we met, under unhappy +circumstances, in June of last year at Marlstone._ +_On that occasion it was my duty, as representing a newspaper, to +make an independent investigation of the circumstances of the death +of the late Sigsbee Manderson. I did so, and I arrived at certain +conclusions. You may learn from the enclosed manuscript, which was +originally written as a dispatch for my newspaper, what those +conclusions were. For reasons which it is not necessary to state I +decided at the last moment not to make them public, or to +communicate them to you, and they are known to only two persons +beside myself._ +At this point Mrs. Manderson raised her eyes quickly from the letter. +Her dark brows were drawn together. “Two persons?” she said with a note +of enquiry. +“Your uncle is the other. I sought him out last night and told him the +whole story. Have you anything against it? I always felt uneasy at +keeping it from him as I did, because I had led him to expect I should +tell him all I discovered, and my silence looked like mystery-making. +Now it is to be cleared up finally, and there is no question of +shielding you, I wanted him to know everything. He is a very shrewd +adviser, too, in a way of his own; and I should like to have him with +me when I see Marlowe. I have a feeling that two heads will be better +than one on my side of the interview.” +She sighed. “Yes, of course, uncle ought to know the truth. I hope +there is nobody else at all.” She pressed his hand. “I so much want all +that horror buried—buried deep. I am very happy now, dear, but I shall +be happier still when you have satisfied that curious mind of yours and +found out everything, and stamped down the earth upon it all.” She +continued her reading. +_Quite recently, however [the letter went on], facts have come to my +knowledge which have led me to change my decision. I do not mean that I +shall publish what I discovered, but that I have determined to approach +you and ask you for a private statement. If you have anything to say +which would place the matter in another light, I can imagine no reason +why you should withhold it._ +_I expect, then, to hear from you when and where I may call upon +you; unless you prefer the interview to take place at my hotel. In +either case I desire that Mr. Cupples whom you will remember, and +who has read the enclosed document, should be present +also.—Faithfully yours,_ +_Philip Trent._ +“What a very stiff letter!” she said. “Now I am sure you couldn’t have +made it any stiffer in your own rooms.” +Trent slipped the letter and enclosure into a long envelope. “Yes,” he +said, “I think it will make him sit up suddenly. Now this thing mustn’t +run any risk of going wrong. It would be best to send a special +messenger with orders to deliver it into his own hands. If he’s away it +oughtn’t to be left.” +She nodded. “I can arrange that. Wait here for a little.” +When Mrs. Manderson returned, he was hunting through the music cabinet. +She sank on the carpet beside him in a wave of dark brown skirts. “Tell +me something, Philip,” she said. +“If it is among the few things that I know.” +“When you saw uncle last night, did you tell him about—about us?” +“I did not,” he answered. “I remembered you had said nothing about +telling any one. It is for you—isn’t it?—to decide whether we take the +world into our confidence at once or later on.” +“Then will you tell him?” She looked down at her clasped hands. “I wish +you to tell him. Perhaps if you think you will guess why.... There! +that is settled.” She lifted her eyes again to his, and for a time +there was silence between them. +He leaned back at length in the deep chair. “What a world!” he said. +“Mabel, will you play something on the piano that expresses mere joy, +the genuine article, nothing feverish or like thorns under a pot, but +joy that has decided in favour of the universe? It’s a mood that can’t +last altogether, so we had better get all we can out of it.” +She went to the instrument and struck a few chords while she thought. +Then she began to work with all her soul at the theme in the last +movement of the Ninth Symphony which is like the sound of the opening +of the gates of Paradise. +Chapter XV. +Double Cunning +An old oaken desk with a deep body stood by the window in a room that +overlooked St. James’s Park from a height. The room was large, +furnished and decorated by some one who had brought taste to the work; +but the hand of the bachelor lay heavy upon it. John Marlowe unlocked +the desk and drew a long, stout envelope from the back of the well. +“I understand,” he said to Mr. Cupples, “that you have read this.” +“I read it for the first time two days ago,” replied Mr. Cupples, who, +seated on a sofa, was peering about the room with a benignant face. “We +have discussed it fully.” +Marlowe turned to Trent. “There is your manuscript,” he said, laying +the envelope on the table. “I have gone over it three times. I do not +believe there is another man who could have got at as much of the truth +as you have set down there.” +Trent ignored the compliment. He sat by the table gazing stonily at the +fire, his long legs twisted beneath his chair. “You mean, of course, he +said, drawing the envelope towards him, “that there is more of the +truth to be disclosed now. We are ready to hear you as soon as you +like. I expect it will be a long story, and the longer the better, so +far as I am concerned; I want to understand thoroughly. What we should +both like, I think, is some preliminary account of Manderson and your +relations with him. It seemed to me from the first that the character +of the dead man must be somehow an element in the business.” +“You were right, Marlowe answered grimly. He crossed the room and +seated himself on a corner of the tall cushion-topped fender. “I will +begin as you suggest.” +“I ought to tell you beforehand,” said Trent, looking him in the eyes, +“that although I am here to listen to you, I have not as yet any reason +to doubt the conclusions I have stated here.” He tapped the envelope. +“It is a defence that you will be putting forward—you understand that?” +“Perfectly.” Marlowe was cool and in complete possession of himself, a +man different indeed from the worn-out, nervous being Trent remembered +at Marlstone a year and a half ago. His tall, lithe figure was held +with the perfection of muscular tone. His brow was candid, his blue +eyes were clear, though they still had, as he paused collecting his +ideas, the look that had troubled Trent at their first meeting. Only +the lines of his mouth showed that he knew himself in a position of +difficulty, and meant to face it. +“Sigsbee Manderson was not a man of normal mind,” Marlowe began in his +quiet voice. “Most of the very rich men I met with in America had +become so by virtue of abnormal greed, or abnormal industry, or +abnormal personal force, or abnormal luck. None of them had remarkable +intellects. Manderson delighted too in heaping up wealth; he worked +incessantly at it; he was a man of dominant will; he had quite his +share of luck; but what made him singular was his brainpower. In his +own country they would perhaps tell you that it was his ruthlessness in +pursuit of his aims that was his most striking characteristic; but +there are hundreds of them who would have carried out his plans with +just as little consideration for others if they could have formed the +plans. +“I’m not saying Americans aren’t clever; they are ten times cleverer +than we are, as a nation; but I never met another who showed such a +degree of sagacity and foresight, such gifts of memory and mental +tenacity, such sheer force of intelligence, as there was behind +everything Manderson did in his money-making career. They called him +the ‘Napoleon of Wall Street’ often enough in the papers; but few +people knew so well as I did how much truth there was in the phrase. He +seemed never to forget a fact that might be of use to him, in the first +place; and he did systematically with the business facts that concerned +him what Napoleon did, as I have read, with military facts. He studied +them in special digests which were prepared for him at short intervals, +and which he always had at hand, so that he could take up his report on +coal or wheat or railways, or whatever it might be, in any unoccupied +moment. Then he could make a bolder and cleverer plan than any man of +them all. People got to know that Manderson would never do the obvious +thing, but they got no further; the thing he did do was almost always a +surprise, and much of his success flowed from that. The Street got +rattled, as they used to put it, when it was known that the old man was +out with his gun, and often his opponents seemed to surrender as easily +as Colonel Crockett’s coon in the story. The scheme I am going to +describe to you would have occupied most men long enough. Manderson +could have plotted the thing, down to the last detail, while he shaved +himself. +“I used to think that his strain of Indian blood, remote as it was, +might have something to do with the cunning and ruthlessness of the +man. Strangely enough, its existence was unknown to any one but himself +and me. It was when he asked me to apply my taste for genealogical work +to his own obscure family history that I made the discovery that he had +in him a share of the blood of the Iroquois chief Montour and his +French wife, a terrible woman who ruled the savage politics of the +tribes of the Wilderness two hundred years ago. The Mandersons were +active in the fur trade on the Pennsylvanian border in those days, and +more than one of them married Indian women. Other Indian blood than +Montour’s may have descended to Manderson, for all I can say, through +previous and subsequent unions; some of the wives’ antecedents were +quite untraceable, and there were so many generations of pioneering +before the whole country was brought under civilization. My researches +left me with the idea that there is a very great deal of the aboriginal +blood present in the genealogical make-up of the people of America, and +that it is very widely spread. The newer families have constantly +intermarried with the older, and so many of them had a strain of the +native in them—and were often rather proud of it, too, in those days. +But Manderson had the idea about the disgracefulness of mixed blood, +which grew much stronger, I fancy, with the rise of the negro question +after the war. He was thunderstruck at what I told him, and was anxious +to conceal it from every soul. Of course I never gave it away while he +lived, and I don’t think he supposed I would; but I have thought since +that his mind took a turn against me from that time onward. It happened +about a year before his death.” +“Had Manderson,” asked Mr. Cupples, so unexpectedly that the others +started, “any definable religious attitude?” +Marlowe considered a moment. “None that ever I heard of,” he said. +“Worship and prayer were quite unknown to him, so far as I could see, +and I never heard him mention religion. I should doubt if he had any +real sense of God at all, or if he was capable of knowing God through +the emotions. But I understood that as a child he had had a religious +upbringing with a strong moral side to it. His private life was, in the +usual limited sense, blameless. He was almost ascetic in his habits, +except as to smoking. I lived with him four years without ever knowing +him to tell a direct verbal falsehood, constantly as he used to +practise deceit in other forms. Can you understand the soul of a man +who never hesitated to take steps that would have the effect of +hoodwinking people, who would use every trick of the markets to +mislead, and who was at the same time scrupulous never to utter a +direct lie on the most insignificant matter? Manderson was like that, +and he was not the only one. I suppose you might compare the state of +mind to that of a soldier who is personally a truthful man, but who +will stick at nothing to deceive the enemy. The rules of the game allow +it; and the same may be said of business as many business men regard +it. Only with them it is always wartime.” +“It is a sad world,” observed Mr. Cupples. +“As you say,” Marlowe agreed. “Now I was saying that one could always +take Manderson’s word if he gave it in a definite form. The first time +I ever heard him utter a downright lie was on the night he died; and +hearing it, I believe, saved me from being hanged as his murderer.” +Marlowe stared at the light above his head and Trent moved impatiently +in his chair. “Before we come to that,” he said, “will you tell us +exactly on what footing you were with Manderson during the years you +were with him?” +“We were on very good terms from beginning to end,” answered Marlowe. +“Nothing like friendship—he was not a man for making friends—but the +best of terms as between a trusted employee and his chief. I went to +him as private secretary just after getting my degree at Oxford. I was +to have gone into my father’s business, where I am now, but my father +suggested that I should see the world for a year or two. So I took this +secretaryship, which seemed to promise a good deal of varied +experience, and I had let the year or two run on to four years before +the end came. The offer came to me through the last thing in the world +I should have put forward as a qualification for a salaried post, and +that was chess.” +At the word Trent struck his hands together with a muttered +exclamation. The others looked at him in surprise. +“Chess!” repeated Trent. “Do you know,” he said, rising and approaching +Marlowe, “what was the first thing I noted about you at our first +meeting? It was your eye, Mr. Marlowe. I couldn’t place it then, but I +know now where I had seen your eyes before. They were in the head of no +less a man than the great Nikolay Korchagin, with whom I once sat in +the same railway carriage for two days. I thought I should never forget +the chess eye after that, but I could not put a name to it when I saw +it in you. I beg your pardon,” he ended suddenly, resuming his +marmoreal attitude in his chair. +“I have played the game from my childhood, and with good players,” said +Marlowe simply. “It is an hereditary gift, if you can call it a gift. +At the University I was nearly as good as anybody there, and I gave +most of my brains to that and the O.U.D.S. and playing about generally. +At Oxford, as I dare say you know, inducements to amuse oneself at the +expense of one’s education are endless, and encouraged by the +authorities. Well, one day toward the end of my last term, Dr. Munro of +Queen’s, whom I had never defeated, sent for me. He told me that I +played a fairish game of chess. I said it was very good of him to say +so. Then he said, ‘They tell me you hunt, too.’ I said, ‘Now and then.’ +He asked, ‘Is there anything else you can do?’ ‘No,’ I said, not much +liking the tone of the conversation—the old man generally succeeded in +putting people’s backs up. He grunted fiercely, and then told me that +enquiries were being made on behalf of a wealthy American man of +business who wanted an English secretary. Manderson was the name, he +said. He seemed never to have heard it before, which was quite +possible, as he never opened a newspaper and had not slept a night +outside the college for thirty years. If I could rub up my spelling—as +the old gentleman put it—I might have a good chance for the post, as +chess and riding and an Oxford education were the only indispensable +points. +“Well, I became Manderson’s secretary. For a long time I liked the +position greatly. When one is attached to an active American plutocrat +in the prime of life one need not have many dull moments. Besides, it +made me independent. My father had some serious business reverses about +that time, and I was glad to be able to do without an allowance from +him. At the end of the first year Manderson doubled my salary. ‘It’s +big money,’ he said, ‘but I guess I don’t lose.’ You see, by that time +I was doing a great deal more than accompany him on horseback in the +morning and play chess in the evening, which was mainly what he had +required. I was attending to his houses, his farm in Ohio, his shooting +in Maine, his horses, his cars, and his yacht. I had become a walking +railway-guide and an expert cigar-buyer. I was always learning +something. +“Well, now you understand what my position was in regard to Manderson +during the last two or three years of my connection with him. It was a +happy life for me on the whole. I was busy, my work was varied and +interesting; I had time to amuse myself too, and money to spend. At one +time I made a fool of myself about a girl, and that was not a happy +time; but it taught me to understand the great goodness of Mrs. +Manderson.” Marlowe inclined his head to Mr. Cupples as he said this. +“She may choose to tell you about it. As for her husband, he had never +varied in his attitude towards me, in spite of the change that came +over him in the last months of his life, as you know. He treated me +well and generously in his unsympathetic way, and I never had a feeling +that he was less than satisfied with his bargain—that was the sort of +footing we lived upon. And it was that continuance of his attitude +right up to the end that made the revelation so shocking when I was +suddenly shown, on the night on which he met his end, the depth of +crazy hatred of myself that was in Manderson’s soul.” +The eyes of Trent and Mr. Cupples met for an instant. +“You never suspected that he hated you before that time?” asked Trent; +and Mr. Cupples asked at the same moment, “To what did you attribute +it?” +“I never guessed until that night,” answered Marlowe, “that he had the +smallest ill-feeling toward me. How long it had existed I do not know. +I cannot imagine why it was there. I was forced to think, when I +considered the thing in those awful days after his death, that it was a +case of a madman’s delusion, that he believed me to be plotting against +him, as they so often do. Some such insane conviction must have been at +the root of it. But who can sound the abysses of a lunatic’s fancy? Can +you imagine the state of mind in which a man dooms himself to death +with the object of delivering some one he hates to the hangman?” +Mr. Cupples moved sharply in his chair. “You say Manderson was +responsible for his own death?” he asked. +Trent glanced at him with an eye of impatience, and resumed his intent +watch upon the face of Marlowe. In the relief of speech it was now less +pale and drawn. +“I do say so,” Marlowe answered concisely, and looked his questioner in +the face. Mr. Cupples nodded. +“Before we proceed to the elucidation of your statement,” observed the +old gentleman, in a tone of one discussing a point of abstract science, +“it may be remarked that the state of mind which you attribute to +Manderson—” +“Suppose we have the story first,” Trent interrupted, gently laying a +hand on Mr. Cupples’s arm. “You were telling us,” he went on, turning +to Marlowe, “how things stood between you and Manderson. Now will you +tell us the facts of what happened that night?” +Marlowe flushed at the barely perceptible emphasis which Trent laid +upon the word “facts”. He drew himself up. +“Bunner and myself dined with Mr. and Mrs. Manderson that Sunday +evening,” he began, speaking carefully. “It was just like other dinners +at which the four of us had been together. Manderson was taciturn and +gloomy, as we had latterly been accustomed to see him. We others kept a +conversation going. We rose from the table, I suppose, about nine. Mrs. +Manderson went to the drawing-room, and Bunner went up to the hotel to +see an acquaintance. Manderson asked me to come into the orchard behind +the house, saying he wished to have a talk. We paced up and down the +pathway there, out of earshot from the house, and Manderson, as he +smoked his cigar, spoke to me in his cool, deliberate way. He had never +seemed more sane, or more well-disposed to me. He said he wanted me to +do him an important service. There was a big thing on. It was a secret +affair. Bunner knew nothing of it, and the less I knew the better. He +wanted me to do exactly as he directed, and not bother my head about +reasons. +“This, I may say, was quite characteristic of Manderson’s method of +going to work. If at times he required a man to be a mere tool in his +hand, he would tell him so. He had used me in the same kind of way a +dozen times. I assured him he could rely on me, and said I was ready. +‘Right now?’ he asked. I said of course I was. +“He nodded, and said—I tell you his words as well as I can recollect +them—attend to this. ‘There is a man in England now who is in this +thing with me. He was to have left tomorrow for Paris by the noon boat +from Southampton to Havre. His name is George Harris—at least that’s +the name he is going by. Do you remember that name?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, +‘when I went up to London a week ago you asked me to book a cabin in +that name on the boat that goes tomorrow. I gave you the ticket.’ ‘Here +it is,’ he said, producing it from his pocket. +“‘Now,’ Manderson said to me, poking his cigar-butt at me with each +sentence in a way he used to have, ‘George Harris cannot leave England +tomorrow. I find I shall want him where he is. And I want Bunner where +he is. But somebody has got to go by that boat and take certain papers +to Paris. Or else my plan is going to fall to pieces. Will you go?’ I +said, ‘Certainly. I am here to obey orders.’ +“He bit his cigar, and said, ‘That’s all right; but these are not just +ordinary orders. Not the kind of thing one can ask of a man in the +ordinary way of his duty to an employer. The point is this. The deal I +am busy with is one in which neither myself nor any one known to be +connected with me must appear as yet. That is vital. But these people I +am up against know your face as well as they know mine. If my secretary +is known in certain quarters to have crossed to Paris at this time and +to have interviewed certain people—and that would be known as soon as +it happened—then the game is up.’ He threw away his cigar-end and +looked at me questioningly. +“I didn’t like it much, but I liked failing Manderson at a pinch still +less. I spoke lightly. I said I supposed I should have to conceal my +identity, and I would do my best. I told him I used to be pretty good +at make-up. +“He nodded in approval. He said, ‘That’s good. I judged you would not +let me down.’ Then he gave me my instructions. ‘You take the car right +now,’ he said, ‘and start for Southampton—there’s no train that will +fit in. You’ll be driving all night. Barring accidents, you ought to +get there by six in the morning. But whenever you arrive, drive +straight to the Bedford Hotel and ask for George Harris. If he’s there, +tell him you are to go over instead of him, and ask him to telephone me +here. It is very important he should know that at the earliest moment +possible. But if he isn’t there, that means he has got the instructions +I wired today, and hasn’t gone to Southampton. In that case you don’t +want to trouble about him any more, but just wait for the boat. You can +leave the car at a garage under a fancy name—mine must not be given. +See about changing your appearance—I don’t care how, so you do it well. +Travel by the boat as George Harris. Let on to be anything you like, +but be careful, and don’t talk much to anybody. When you arrive, take a +room at the Hotel St Petersbourg. You will receive a note or message +there, addressed to George Harris, telling you where to take the wallet +I shall give you. The wallet is locked, and you want to take good care +of it. Have you got that all clear?’ +“I repeated the instructions. I asked if I should return from Paris +after handing over the wallet. ‘As soon as you like,’ he said. ‘And +mind this—whatever happens, don’t communicate with me at any stage of +the journey. If you don’t get the message in Paris at once, just wait +until you do—days, if necessary. But not a line of any sort to me. +Understand? Now get ready as quick as you can. I’ll go with you in the +car a little way. Hurry.’ +“That is, as far as I can remember, the exact substance of what +Manderson said to me that night. I went to my room, changed into day +clothes, and hastily threw a few necessaries into a kit-bag. My mind +was in a whirl, not so much at the nature of the business as at the +suddenness of it. I think I remember telling you the last time we +met”—he turned to Trent—“that Manderson shared the national fondness +for doings things in a story-book style. Other things being equal, he +delighted in a bit of mystification and melodrama, and I told myself +that this was Manderson all over. I hurried downstairs with my bag and +rejoined him in the library. He handed me a stout leather letter-case, +about eight inches by six, fastened with a strap with a lock on it. I +could just squeeze it into my side-pocket. Then I went to get the car +from the garage behind the house. +“As I was bringing it round to the front a disconcerting thought struck +me. I remembered that I had only a few shillings in my pocket. +“For some time past I had been keeping myself very short of cash, and +for this reason—which I tell you because it is a vital point, as you +shall see in a minute. I was living temporarily on borrowed money. I +had always been careless about money while I was with Manderson, and +being a gregarious animal I had made many friends, some of them +belonging to a New York set that had little to do but get rid of the +large incomes given them by their parents. Still, I was very well paid, +and I was too busy even to attempt to go very far with them in that +amusing occupation. I was still well on the right side of the ledger +until I began, merely out of curiosity, to play at speculation. It’s a +very old story—particularly in Wall Street. I thought it was easy; I +was lucky at first; I would always be prudent—and so on. Then came the +day when I went out of my depth. In one week I was separated from my +toll, as Bunner expressed it when I told him; and I owed money too. I +had had my lesson. Now in this pass I went to Manderson and told him +what I had done and how I stood. He heard me with a very grim smile, +and then, with the nearest approach to sympathy I had ever found in +him, he advanced me a sum on account of my salary that would clear me. +‘Don’t play the markets any more,’ was all he said. +“Now on that Sunday night Manderson knew that I was practically without +any money in the world. He knew that Bunner knew it too. He may have +known that I had even borrowed a little more from Bunner for +pocket-money until my next cheque was due, which, owing to my +anticipation of my salary, would not have been a large one. Bear this +knowledge of Manderson’s in mind. +“As soon as I had brought the car round I went into the library and +stated the difficulty to Manderson. +“What followed gave me, slight as it was, my first impression of +something odd being afoot. As soon as I mentioned the word ‘expenses’ +his hand went mechanically to his left hip-pocket, where he always kept +a little case containing notes to the value of about a hundred pounds +in our money. This was such a rooted habit in him that I was astonished +to see him check the movement suddenly. Then, to my greater amazement, +he swore under his breath. I had never heard him do this before; but +Bunner had told me that of late he had often shown irritation in this +way when they were alone. ‘Has he mislaid his note-case?’ was the +question that flashed through my mind. But it seemed to me that it +could not affect his plan at all, and I will tell you why. The week +before, when I had gone up to London to carry out various commissions, +including the booking of a berth for Mr. George Harris, I had drawn a +thousand pounds for Manderson from his bankers, and all, at his +request, in notes of small amounts. I did not know what this unusually +large sum in cash was for, but I did know that the packets of notes +were in his locked desk in the library, or had been earlier in the day, +when I had seen him fingering them as he sat at the desk. +“But instead of turning to the desk, Manderson stood looking at me. +There was fury in his face, and it was a strange sight to see him +gradually master it until his eyes grew cold again. ‘Wait in the car,’ +he said slowly. ‘I will get some money.’ We both went out, and as I was +getting into my overcoat in the hall I saw him enter the drawing-room, +which, you remember, was on the other side of the entrance hall. +“I stepped out on to the lawn before the house and smoked a cigarette, +pacing up and down. I was asking myself again and again where that +thousand pounds was; whether it was in the drawing-room, and if so, +why. Presently, as I passed one of the drawing-room windows, I noticed +Mrs Manderson’s shadow on the thin silk curtain. She was standing at +her escritoire. The window was open, and as I passed I heard her say, +‘I have not quite thirty pounds here. Will that be enough?’ I did not +hear the answer, but next moment Manderson’s shadow was mingled with +hers, and I heard the chink of money. Then, as he stood by the window, +and as I was moving away, these words of his came to my ears—and these +at least I can repeat exactly, for astonishment stamped them on my +memory—‘I’m going out now. Marlowe has persuaded me to go for a +moonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it. He says it will +help me to sleep, and I guess he is right.’ +I have told you that in the course of four years I had never once heard +Manderson utter a direct lie about anything, great or small. I believed +that I understood the man’s queer, skin-deep morality, and I could have +sworn that if he was firmly pressed with a question that could not be +evaded he would either refuse to answer or tell the truth. But what had +I just heard? No answer to any question. A voluntary statement, precise +in terms, that was utterly false. The unimaginable had happened. It was +almost as if some one I knew well, in a moment of closest sympathy, had +suddenly struck me in the face. The blood rushed to my head, and I +stood still on the grass. I stood there until I heard his step at the +front door, and then I pulled myself together and stepped quickly to +the car. He handed me a banker’s paper bag with gold and notes in it. +‘There’s more than you’ll want there,’ he said, and I pocketed it +mechanically. +“For a minute or so I stood discussing with Manderson—it was by one of +those _tours de force_ of which one’s mind is capable under great +excitement—points about the route of the long drive before me. I had +made the run several times by day, and I believe I spoke quite calmly +and naturally about it. But while I spoke my mind was seething in a +flood of suddenly born suspicion and fear. I did not know what I +feared. I simply felt fear, somehow—I did not know how—connected with +Manderson. My soul once opened to it, fear rushed in like an assaulting +army. I felt—I knew—that something was altogether wrong and sinister, +and I felt myself to be the object of it. Yet Manderson was surely no +enemy of mine. Then my thoughts reached out wildly for an answer to the +question why he had told that lie. And all the time the blood hammered +in my ears, ‘Where is that money?’ Reason struggled hard to set up the +suggestion that the two things were not necessarily connected. The +instinct of a man in danger would not listen to it. As we started, and +the car took the curve into the road, it was merely the unconscious +part of me that steered and controlled it, and that made occasional +empty remarks as we slid along in the moonlight. Within me was a +confusion and vague alarm that was far worse than any definite terror I +ever felt. +“About a mile from the house, you remember, one passed on one’s left a +gate, on the other side of which was the golf-course. There Manderson +said he would get down, and I stopped the car. ‘You’ve got it all +clear?’ he asked. With a sort of wrench I forced myself to remember and +repeat the directions given me. ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, then. +Stay with that wallet.’ Those were the last words I heard him speak, as +the car moved gently away from him.” +Marlowe rose from his chair and pressed his hands to his eyes. He was +flushed with the excitement of his own narrative, and there was in his +look a horror of recollection that held both the listeners silent. He +shook himself with a movement like a dog’s, and then, his hands behind +him, stood erect before the fire as he continued his tale. +“I expect you both know what the back-reflector of a motor car is.” +Trent nodded quickly, his face alive with anticipation; but Mr. +Cupples, who cherished a mild but obstinate prejudice against motor +cars, readily confessed to ignorance. +“It is a small round or more often rectangular mirror,” Marlowe +explained, “rigged out from the right side of the screen in front of +the driver, and adjusted in such a way that he can see, without turning +round, if anything is coming up behind to pass him. It is quite an +ordinary appliance, and there was one on this car. As the car moved on, +and Manderson ceased speaking behind me, I saw in that mirror a thing +that I wish I could forget.” +Marlowe was silent for a moment, staring at the wall before him. +“Manderson’s face,” he said in a low tone. “He was standing in the +road, looking after me, only a few yards behind, and the moonlight was +full on his face. The mirror happened to catch it for an instant. +“Physical habit is a wonderful thing. I did not shift hand or foot on +the controlling mechanism of the car. Indeed, I dare say it steadied me +against the shock to have myself braced to the business of driving. You +have read in books, no doubt, of hell looking out of a man’s eyes, but +perhaps you don’t know what a good metaphor that is. If I had not known +Manderson was there, I should not have recognized the face. It was that +of a madman, distorted, hideous in the imbecility of hate, the teeth +bared in a simian grin of ferocity and triumph; the eyes.... In the +little mirror I had this glimpse of the face alone. I saw nothing of +whatever gesture there may have been as that writhing white mask glared +after me. And I saw it only for a flash. The car went on, gathering +speed, and as it went, my brain, suddenly purged of the vapours of +doubt and perplexity, was as busy as the throbbing engine before my +feet. I knew. +“You say something in that manuscript of yours, Mr. Trent, about the +swift automatic way in which one’s ideas arrange themselves about some +new illuminating thought. It is quite true. The awful intensity of +ill-will that had flamed after me from those straining eyeballs poured +over my mind like a searchlight. I was thinking quite clearly now, and +almost coldly, for I knew what—at least I knew whom—I had to fear, and +instinct warned me that it was not a time to give room to the emotions +that were fighting to possess me. The man hated me insanely. That +incredible fact I suddenly knew. But the face had told me, it would +have told anybody, more than that. It was a face of hatred gratified, +it proclaimed some damnable triumph. It had gloated over me driving +away to my fate. This too was plain to me. And to what fate? +“I stopped the car. It had gone about two hundred and fifty yards, and +a sharp bend of the road hid the spot where I had set Manderson down. I +lay back in the seat and thought it out. Something was to happen to me. +In Paris? Probably—why else should I be sent there, with money and a +ticket? But why Paris? That puzzled me, for I had no melodramatic ideas +about Paris. I put the point aside for a moment. I turned to the other +things that had roused my attention that evening. The lie about my +‘persuading him to go for a moonlight run’. What was the intention of +that? Manderson, I said to myself, will be returning without me while I +am on my way to Southampton. What will he tell them about me? How +account for his returning alone, and without the car? As I asked myself +that sinister question there rushed into my mind the last of my +difficulties: ‘Where are the thousand pounds?’ And in the same instant +came the answer: ‘The thousand pounds are in my pocket.’ +“I got up and stepped from the car. My knees trembled and I felt very +sick. I saw the plot now, as I thought. The whole of the story about +the papers and the necessity of their being taken to Paris was a blind. +With Manderson’s money about me, of which he would declare I had robbed +him, I was, to all appearance, attempting to escape from England, with +every precaution that guilt could suggest. He would communicate with +the police at once, and would know how to put them on my track. I +should be arrested in Paris, if I got so far, living under a false +name, after having left the car under a false name, disguised myself, +and travelled in a cabin which I had booked in advance, also under a +false name. It would be plainly the crime of a man without money, and +for some reason desperately in want of it. As for my account of the +affair, it would be too preposterous. +“As this ghastly array of incriminating circumstances rose up before +me, I dragged the stout letter-case from my pocket. In the intensity of +the moment, I never entertained the faintest doubt that I was right, +and that the money was there. It would easily hold the packets of +notes. But as I felt it and weighed it in my hands it seemed to me +there must be more than this. It was too bulky. What more was to be +laid to my charge? After all, a thousand pounds was not much to tempt a +man like myself to run the risk of penal servitude. In this new +agitation, scarcely knowing what I did, I caught the surrounding strap +in my fingers just above the fastening and tore the staple out of the +lock. Those locks, you know, are pretty flimsy as a rule.” +Here Marlowe paused and walked to the oaken desk before the window. +Opening a drawer full of miscellaneous objects, he took out a box of +odd keys, and selected a small one distinguished by a piece of pink +tape. +He handed it to Trent. “I keep that by me as a sort of morbid memento. +It is the key to the lock I smashed. I might have saved myself the +trouble, if I had known that this key was at that moment in the +left-hand side-pocket of my overcoat. Manderson must have slipped it +in, either while the coat was hanging in the hall or while he sat at my +side in the car. I might not have found the tiny thing there for weeks: +as a matter of fact I did find it two days after Manderson was dead, +but a police search would have found it in five minutes. And then I—I +with the case and its contents in my pocket, my false name and my sham +spectacles and the rest of it—I should have had no explanation to offer +but the highly convincing one that I didn’t know the key was there.” +Trent dangled the key by its tape idly. Then: “How do you know this is +the key of that case?” he asked quickly. +“I tried it. As soon as I found it I went up and fitted it to the lock. +I knew where I had left the thing. So do you, I think, Mr. Trent. Don’t +you?” There was a faint shade of mockery in Marlowe’s voice. +“_Touché_,” Trent said, with a dry smile. “I found a large empty +letter-case with a burst lock lying with other odds and ends on the +dressing-table in Manderson’s room. Your statement is that you put it +there. I could make nothing of it.” He closed his lips. +“There was no reason for hiding it,” said Marlowe. “But to get back to +my story. I burst the lock of the strap. I opened the case before one +of the lamps of the car. The first thing I found in it I ought to have +expected, of course, but I hadn’t.” He paused and glanced at Trent. +“It was—” began Trent mechanically, and then stopped himself. “Try not +to bring me in any more, if you don’t mind,” he said, meeting the +other’s eye. “I have complimented you already in that document on your +cleverness. You need not prove it by making the judge help you out with +your evidence.” +“All right,” agreed Marlowe. “I couldn’t resist just that much. If +_you_ had been in my place you would have known before I did that +Manderson’s little pocket-case was there. As soon as I saw it, of +course, I remembered his not having had it about him when I asked for +money, and his surprising anger. He had made a false step. He had +already fastened his note-case up with the rest of what was to figure +as my plunder, and placed it in my hands. I opened it. It contained a +few notes as usual, I didn’t count them. +“Tucked into the flaps of the big case in packets were the other notes, +just as I had brought them from London. And with them were two small +wash-leather bags, the look of which I knew well. My heart jumped +sickeningly again, for this, too, was utterly unexpected. In those bags +Manderson kept the diamonds in which he had been investing for some +time past. I didn’t open them; I could feel the tiny stones shifting +under the pressure of my fingers. How many thousands of pounds’ worth +there were there I have no idea. We had regarded Manderson’s +diamond-buying as merely a speculative fad. I believe now that it was +the earliest movement in the scheme for my ruin. For any one like +myself to be represented as having robbed him, there ought to be a +strong inducement shown. That had been provided with a vengeance. +“Now, I thought, I have the whole thing plain, and I must act. I saw +instantly what I must do. I had left Manderson about a mile from the +house. It would take him twenty minutes, fifteen if he walked fast, to +get back to the house, where he would, of course, immediately tell his +story of robbery, and probably telephone at once to the police in +Bishopsbridge. I had left him only five or six minutes ago; for all +that I have just told you was as quick thinking as I ever did. It would +be easy to overtake him in the car before he neared the house. There +would be an awkward interview. I set my teeth as I thought of it, and +all my fears vanished as I began to savour the gratification of telling +him my opinion of him. There are probably few people who ever +positively looked forward to an awkward interview with Manderson; but I +was mad with rage. My honour and my liberty had been plotted against +with detestable treachery. I did not consider what would follow the +interview. That would arrange itself. +“I had started and turned the car, I was already going fast toward +White Gables, when I heard the sound of a shot in front of me, to the +right. +“Instantly I stopped the car. My first wild thought was that Manderson +was shooting at me. Then I realized that the noise had not been close +at hand. I could see nobody on the road, though the moonlight flooded +it. I had left Manderson at a spot just round the corner that was now +about a hundred yards ahead of me. After half a minute or so, I started +again, and turned the corner at a slow pace. Then I stopped again with +a jar, and for a moment I sat perfectly still. +“Manderson lay dead a few steps from me on the turf within the gate, +clearly visible to me in the moonlight.” +Marlowe made another pause, and Trent, with a puckered brow, enquired, +“On the golf-course?” +“Obviously,” remarked Mr. Cupples. “The eighth green is just there.” He +had grown more and more interested as Marlowe went on, and was now +playing feverishly with his thin beard. +“On the green, quite close to the flag,” said Marlowe. “He lay on his +back, his arms were stretched abroad, his jacket and heavy overcoat +were open; the light shone hideously on his white face and his +shirt-front; it glistened on his bared teeth and one of the eyes. The +other... you saw it. The man was certainly dead. As I sat there +stunned, unable for the moment to think at all, I could even see a thin +dark line of blood running down from the shattered socket to the ear. +Close by lay his soft black hat, and at his feet a pistol. +“I suppose it was only a few seconds that I sat helplessly staring at +the body. Then I rose and moved to it with dragging feet; for now the +truth had come to me at last, and I realized the fullness of my +appalling danger. It was not only my liberty or my honour that the +maniac had undermined. It was death that he had planned for me; death +with the degradation of the scaffold. To strike me down with certainty, +he had not hesitated to end his life; a life which was, no doubt, +already threatened by a melancholic impulse to self-destruction; and +the last agony of the suicide had been turned, perhaps, to a devilish +joy by the thought that he dragged down my life with his. For as far as +I could see at the moment my situation was utterly hopeless. If it had +been desperate on the assumption that Manderson meant to denounce me as +a thief, what was it now that his corpse denounced me as a murderer? +“I picked up the revolver and saw, almost without emotion, that it was +my own. Manderson had taken it from my room, I suppose, while I was +getting out the car. At the same moment I remembered that it was by +Manderson’s suggestion that I had had it engraved with my initials, to +distinguish it from a precisely similar weapon which he had of his own. +“I bent over the body and satisfied myself that there was no life left +in it. I must tell you here that I did not notice, then or afterwards, +the scratches and marks on the wrists, which were taken as evidence of +a struggle with an assailant. But I have no doubt that Manderson +deliberately injured himself in this way before firing the shot; it was +a part of his plan. +“Though I never perceived that detail, however, it was evident enough +as I looked at the body that Manderson had not forgotten, in his last +act on earth, to tie me tighter by putting out of court the question of +suicide. He had clearly been at pains to hold the pistol at arm’s +length, and there was not a trace of smoke or of burning on the face. +The wound was absolutely clean, and was already ceasing to bleed +outwardly. I rose and paced the green, reckoning up the points in the +crushing case against me. +“I was the last to be seen with Manderson. I had persuaded him—so he +had lied to his wife and, as I afterwards knew, to the butler—to go +with me for the drive from which he never returned. My pistol had +killed him. It was true that by discovering his plot I had saved myself +from heaping up further incriminating facts—flight, concealment, the +possession of the treasure. But what need of them, after all? As I +stood, what hope was there? What could I do?” +Marlowe came to the table and leaned forward with his hands upon it. “I +want,” he said very earnestly, “to try to make you understand what was +in my mind when I decided to do what I did. I hope you won’t be bored, +because I must do it. You may both have thought I acted like a fool. +But after all the police never suspected me. I walked that green for a +quarter of an hour, I suppose, thinking the thing out like a game of +chess. I had to think ahead and think coolly; for my safety depended on +upsetting the plans of one of the longest-headed men who ever lived. +And remember that, for all I knew, there were details of the scheme +still hidden from me, waiting to crush me. +“Two plain courses presented themselves at once. Either of them, I +thought, would certainly prove fatal. I could, in the first place, do +the completely straightforward thing: take back the dead man, tell my +story, hand over the notes and diamonds, and trust to the saving power +of truth and innocence. I could have laughed as I thought of it. I saw +myself bringing home the corpse and giving an account of myself, +boggling with sheer shame over the absurdity of my wholly unsupported +tale, as I brought a charge of mad hatred and fiendish treachery +against a man who had never, as far as I knew, had a word to say +against me. At every turn the cunning of Manderson had forestalled me. +His careful concealment of such a hatred was a characteristic feature +of the stratagem; only a man of his iron self-restraint could have done +it. You can see for yourselves how every fact in my statement would +appear, in the shadow of Manderson’s death, a clumsy lie. I tried to +imagine myself telling such a story to the counsel for my defence. I +could see the face with which he would listen to it; I could read in +the lines of it his thought, that to put forward such an impudent +farrago would mean merely the disappearance of any chance there might +be of a commutation of the capital sentence. +“True, I had not fled. I had brought back the body; I had handed over +the property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I +had yielded to a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve +left to clutch at the fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, +that I had not set out to kill but only to threaten, and that when I +found that I had done murder the heart went out of me. Turn it which +way I would, I could see no hope of escape by this plan of action. +“The second of the obvious things that I might do was to take the hint +offered by the situation, and to fly at once. That too must prove +fatal. There was the body. I had no time to hide it in such a way that +it would not be found at the first systematic search. But whatever I +should do with the body, Manderson’s not returning to the house would +cause uneasiness in two or three hours at most. Martin would suspect an +accident to the car, and would telephone to the police. At daybreak the +roads would be scoured and enquiries telegraphed in every direction. +The police would act on the possibility of there being foul play. They +would spread their nets with energy in such a big business as the +disappearance of Manderson. Ports and railway termini would be watched. +Within twenty-four hours the body would be found, and the whole country +would be on the alert for me—all Europe, scarcely less; I did not +believe there was a spot in Christendom where the man accused of +Manderson’s murder could pass unchallenged, with every newspaper crying +the fact of his death into the ears of all the world. Every stranger +would be suspect; every man, woman, and child would be a detective. The +car, wherever I should abandon it, would put people on my track. If I +had to choose between two utterly hopeless courses, I decided, I would +take that of telling the preposterous truth. +“But now I cast about desperately for some tale that would seem more +plausible than the truth. Could I save my neck by a lie? One after +another came into my mind; I need not trouble to remember them now. +Each had its own futilities and perils; but every one split upon the +fact—or what would be taken for fact—that I had induced Manderson to go +out with me, and the fact that he had never returned alive. Notion +after notion I swiftly rejected as I paced there by the dead man, and +doom seemed to settle down upon me more heavily as the moments passed. +Then a strange thought came to me. +“Several times I had repeated to myself half-consciously, as a sort of +refrain, the words in which I had heard Manderson tell his wife that I +had induced him to go out. ‘Marlowe has persuaded me to go for a +moonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it.’ All at once it +struck me that, without meaning to do so, I was saying this in +Manderson’s voice. +“As you found out for yourself, Mr. Trent, I have a natural gift of +mimicry. I had imitated Manderson’s voice many times so successfully as +to deceive even Bunner, who had been much more in his company than his +own wife. It was, you remember”—Marlowe turned to Mr. Cupples—“a +strong, metallic voice, of great carrying power, so unusual as to make +it a very fascinating voice to imitate, and at the same time very easy. +I said the words carefully to myself again, like this—” he uttered +them, and Mr. Cupples opened his eyes in amazement—“and then I struck +my hand upon the low wall beside me. ‘Manderson never returned alive?’ +I said aloud. ‘But Manderson _shall_ return alive!’” +“In thirty seconds the bare outline of the plan was complete in my +mind. I did not wait to think over details. Every instant was precious +now. I lifted the body and laid it on the floor of the car, covered +with a rug. I took the hat and the revolver. Not one trace remained on +the green, I believe, of that night’s work. As I drove back to White +Gables my design took shape before me with a rapidity and ease that +filled me with a wild excitement. I should escape yet! It was all so +easy if I kept my pluck. Putting aside the unusual and unlikely, I +should not fail. I wanted to shout, to scream! +“Nearing the house I slackened speed, and carefully reconnoitred the +road. Nothing was moving. I turned the car into the open field on the +other side of the road, about twenty paces short of the little door at +the extreme corner of the grounds. I brought it to rest behind a stack. +When, with Manderson’s hat on my head and the pistol in my pocket, I +had staggered with the body across the moonlit road and through that +door, I left much of my apprehension behind me. With swift action and +an unbroken nerve I thought I ought to succeed.” +With a long sigh Marlowe threw himself into one of the deep chairs at +the fireside and passed his handkerchief over his damp forehead. Each +of his hearers, too, drew a deep breath, but not audibly. +“Everything else you know,” he said. He took a cigarette from a box +beside him and lighted it. Trent watched the very slight quiver of the +hand that held the match, and privately noted that his own was at the +moment not so steady. +“The shoes that betrayed me to you,” pursued Marlowe after a short +silence, “were painful all the time I wore them, but I never dreamed +that they had given anywhere. I knew that no footstep of mine must +appear by any accident in the soft ground about the hut where I laid +the body, or between the hut and the house, so I took the shoes off and +crammed my feet into them as soon as I was inside the little door. I +left my own shoes, with my own jacket and overcoat, near the body, +ready to be resumed later. I made a clear footmark on the soft gravel +outside the French window, and several on the drugget round the carpet. +The stripping off of the outer clothing of the body, and the dressing +of it afterwards in the brown suit and shoes, and putting the things +into the pockets, was a horrible business; and getting the teeth out of +the mouth was worse. The head—but you don’t want to hear about it. I +didn’t feel it much at the time. I was wriggling my own head out of a +noose, you see. I wish I had thought of pulling down the cuffs, and had +tied the shoes more neatly. And putting the watch in the wrong pocket +was a bad mistake. It had all to be done so hurriedly. +“You were wrong, by the way, about the whisky. After one stiffish drink +I had no more; but I filled up a flask that was in the cupboard, and +pocketed it. I had a night of peculiar anxiety and effort in front of +me and I didn’t know how I should stand it. I had to take some once or +twice during the drive. Speaking of that, you give rather a generous +allowance of time in your document for doing that run by night. You say +that to get to Southampton by half-past six in that car, under the +conditions, a man must, even if he drove like a demon, have left +Marlstone by twelve at latest. I had not got the body dressed in the +other suit, with tie and watch-chain and so forth, until nearly ten +minutes past; and then I had to get to the car and start it going. But +then I don’t suppose any other man would have taken the risks I did in +that car at night, without a headlight. It turns me cold to think of it +now. +“There’s nothing much to say about what I did in the house. I spent the +time after Martin had left me in carefully thinking over the remaining +steps in my plan, while I unloaded and thoroughly cleaned the revolver +using my handkerchief and a penholder from the desk. I also placed the +packets of notes, the note-case, and the diamonds in the roll-top desk, +which I opened and relocked with Manderson’s key. When I went upstairs +it was a trying moment, for though I was safe from the eyes of Martin, +as he sat in his pantry, there was a faint possibility of somebody +being about on the bedroom floor. I had sometimes found the French maid +wandering about there when the other servants were in bed. Bunner, I +knew, was a deep sleeper. Mrs. Manderson, I had gathered from things I +had heard her say, was usually asleep by eleven; I had thought it +possible that her gift of sleep had helped her to retain all her beauty +and vitality in spite of a marriage which we all knew was an unhappy +one. Still it was uneasy work mounting the stairs, and holding myself +ready to retreat to the library again at the least sound from above. +But nothing happened. +“The first thing I did on reaching the corridor was to enter my room +and put the revolver and cartridges back in the case. Then I turned off +the light and went quietly into Manderson’s room. +“What I had to do there you know. I had to take off the shoes and put +them outside the door, leave Manderson’s jacket, waistcoat, trousers, +and black tie, after taking everything out of the pockets, select a +suit and tie and shoes for the body, and place the dental plate in the +bowl, which I moved from the washing-stand to the bedside, leaving +those ruinous finger-marks as I did so. The marks on the drawer must +have been made when I shut it after taking out the tie. Then I had to +lie down in the bed and tumble it. You know all about it—all except my +state of mind, which you couldn’t imagine and I couldn’t describe. +“The worst came when I had hardly begun my operations: the moment when +Mrs Manderson spoke from the room where I supposed her asleep. I was +prepared for it happening; it was a possibility; but I nearly lost my +nerve all the same. However.... +“By the way, I may tell you this: in the extremely unlikely contingency +of Mrs. Manderson remaining awake, and so putting out of the question +my escape by way of her window, I had planned simply to remain where I +was a few hours, and then, not speaking to her, to leave the house +quickly and quietly by the ordinary way. Martin would have been in bed +by that time. I might have been heard to leave, but not seen. I should +have done just as I had planned with the body, and then made the best +time I could in the car to Southampton. The difference would have been +that I couldn’t have furnished an unquestionable alibi by turning up at +the hotel at 6.30. I should have made the best of it by driving +straight to the docks, and making my ostentatious enquiries there. I +could in any case have got there long before the boat left at noon. I +couldn’t see that anybody could suspect me of the supposed murder in +any case; but if any one had, and if I hadn’t arrived until ten +o’clock, say, I shouldn’t have been able to answer, ‘It is impossible +for me to have got to Southampton so soon after shooting him.’ I should +simply have had to say I was delayed by a breakdown after leaving +Manderson at half-past ten, and challenged any one to produce any fact +connecting me with the crime. They couldn’t have done it. The pistol, +left openly in my room, might have been used by anybody, even if it +could be proved that that particular pistol was used. Nobody could +reasonably connect me with the shooting so long as it was believed that +it was Manderson who had returned to the house. The suspicion could +not, I was confident, enter any one’s mind. All the same, I wanted to +introduce the element of absolute physical impossibility; I knew I +should feel ten times as safe with that. So when I knew from the sound +of her breathing that Mrs. Manderson was asleep again, I walked quickly +across her room in my stocking feet, and was on the grass with my +bundle in ten seconds. I don’t think I made the least noise. The +curtain before the window was of soft, thick stuff and didn’t rustle, +and when I pushed the glass doors further open there was not a sound.” +“Tell me,” said Trent, as the other stopped to light a new cigarette, +“why you took the risk of going through Mrs. Manderson’s room to escape +from the house. I could see when I looked into the thing on the spot +why it had to be on that side of the house; there was a danger of being +seen by Martin, or by some servant at a bedroom window, if you got out +by a window on one of the other sides. But there were three unoccupied +rooms on that side; two spare bedrooms and Mrs. Manderson’s +sitting-room. I should have thought it would have been safer, after you +had done what was necessary to your plan in Manderson’s room, to leave +it quietly and escape through one of those three rooms.... The fact +that you went through her window, you know,” he added coldly, “would +have suggested, if it became known, various suspicions in regard to the +lady herself. I think you understand me.” +Marlowe turned upon him with a glowing face. “And I think you will +understand me, Mr. Trent,” he said in a voice that shook a little, +“when I say that if such a possibility had occurred to me then, I would +have taken any risk rather than make my escape by that way.... Oh +well!” he went on more coolly, “I suppose that to any one who didn’t +know her, the idea of her being privy to her husband’s murder might not +seem so indescribably fatuous. Forgive the expression.” He looked +attentively at the burning end of his cigarette, studiously unconscious +of the red flag that flew in Trent’s eyes for an instant at his words +and the tone of them. +That emotion, however, was conquered at once. “Your remark is perfectly +just,” Trent said with answering coolness. “I can quite believe, too, +that at the time you didn’t think of the possibility I mentioned. But +surely, apart from that, it would have been safer to do as I said; go +by the window of an unoccupied room.” +“Do you think so?” said Marlowe. “All I can say is, I hadn’t the nerve +to do it. I tell you, when I entered Manderson’s room I shut the door +of it on more than half my terrors. I had the problem confined before +me in a closed space, with only one danger in it, and that a known +danger: the danger of Mrs. Manderson. The thing was almost done; I had +only to wait until she was certainly asleep after her few moments of +waking up, for which, as I told you, I was prepared as a possibility. +Barring accidents, the way was clear. But now suppose that I, carrying +Manderson’s clothes and shoes, had opened that door again and gone in +my shirt-sleeves and socks to enter one of the empty rooms. The +moonlight was flooding the corridor through the end window. Even if my +face was concealed, nobody could mistake my standing figure for +Manderson’s. Martin might be going about the house in his silent way. +Bunner might come out of his bedroom. One of the servants who were +supposed to be in bed might come round the corner from the other +passage—I had found Célestine prowling about quite as late as it was +then. None of these things was very likely; but they were all too +likely for me. They were uncertainties. Shut off from the household in +Manderson’s room I knew exactly what I had to face. As I lay in my +clothes in Manderson’s bed and listened for the almost inaudible +breathing through the open door, I felt far more ease of mind, terrible +as my anxiety was, than I had felt since I saw the dead body on the +turf. I even congratulated myself that I had had the chance, through +Mrs Manderson’s speaking to me, of tightening one of the screws in my +scheme by repeating the statement about my having been sent to +Southampton.” +Marlowe looked at Trent, who nodded as who should say that his point +was met. +“As for Southampton,” pursued Marlowe, “you know what I did when I got +there, I have no doubt. I had decided to take Manderson’s story about +the mysterious Harris and act it out on my own lines. It was a +carefully prepared lie, better than anything I could improvise. I even +went so far as to get through a trunk call to the hotel at Southampton +from the library before starting, and ask if Harris was there. As I +expected, he wasn’t.” +“Was that why you telephoned?” Trent enquired quickly. +“The reason for telephoning was to get myself into an attitude in which +Martin couldn’t see my face or anything but the jacket and hat, yet +which was a natural and familiar attitude. But while I was about it, it +was obviously better to make a genuine call. If I had simply pretended +to be telephoning, the people at the exchange could have told at once +that there hadn’t been a call from White Gables that night.” +“One of the first things I did was to make that enquiry,” said Trent. +“That telephone call, and the wire you sent from Southampton to the +dead man to say Harris hadn’t turned up, and you were returning—I +particularly appreciated both those.” +A constrained smile lighted Marlowe’s face for a moment. “I don’t know +that there’s anything more to tell. I returned to Marlstone, and faced +your friend the detective with such nerve as I had left. The worst was +when I heard you had been put on the case—no, that wasn’t the worst. +The worst was when I saw you walk out of the shrubbery the next day, +coming away from the shed where I had laid the body. For one ghastly +moment I thought you were going to give me in charge on the spot. Now +I’ve told you everything, you don’t look so terrible.” +He closed his eyes, and there was a short silence. Then Trent got +suddenly to his feet. +“Cross-examination?” enquired Marlowe, looking at him gravely. +“Not at all,” said Trent, stretching his long limbs. “Only stiffness of +the legs. I don’t want to ask any questions. I believe what you have +told us. I don’t believe it simply because I always liked your face, or +because it saves awkwardness, which are the most usual reasons for +believing a person, but because my vanity will have it that no man +could lie to me steadily for an hour without my perceiving it. Your +story is an extraordinary one; but Manderson was an extraordinary man, +and so are you. You acted like a lunatic in doing what you did; but I +quite agree with you that if you had acted like a sane man you wouldn’t +have had the hundredth part of a dog’s chance with a judge and jury. +One thing is beyond dispute on any reading of the affair: you are a man +of courage.” +The colour rushed into Marlowe’s face, and he hesitated for words. +Before he could speak Mr. Cupples arose with a dry cough. +“For my part,” he said, “I never supposed you guilty for a moment.” +Marlowe turned to him in grateful amazement, Trent with an incredulous +stare. “But,” pursued Mr. Cupples, holding up his hand, “there is one +question which I should like to put.” +Marlowe bowed, saying nothing. +“Suppose,” said Mr. Cupples, “that some one else had been suspected of +the crime and put upon trial. What would you have done?” +“I think my duty was clear. I should have gone with my story to the +lawyers for the defence, and put myself in their hands.” +Trent laughed aloud. Now that the thing was over, his spirits were +rapidly becoming ungovernable. “I can see their faces!” he said. “As a +matter of fact, though, nobody else was ever in danger. There wasn’t a +shred of evidence against any one. I looked up Murch at the Yard this +morning, and he told me he had come round to Bunner’s view, that it was +a case of revenge on the part of some American black-hand gang. So +there’s the end of the Manderson case. Holy, suffering Moses! _What_ an +ass a man can make of himself when he thinks he’s being preternaturally +clever!” He seized the bulky envelope from the table and stuffed it +into the heart of the fire. “There’s for you, old friend! For want of +you the world’s course will not fail. But look here! It’s getting +late—nearly seven, and Cupples and I have an appointment at half-past. +We must go. Mr. Marlowe, goodbye.” He looked into the other’s eyes. “I +am a man who has worked hard to put a rope round your neck. Considering +the circumstances, I don’t know whether you will blame me. Will you +shake hands?” +Chapter XVI. +The Last Straw +“What was that you said about our having an appointment at half-past +seven?” asked Mr. Cupples as the two came out of the great gateway of +the pile of flats. “Have we such an appointment?” +“Certainly we have,” replied Trent. “You are dining with me. Only one +thing can properly celebrate this occasion, and that is a dinner for +which I pay. No, no! I asked you first. I have got right down to the +bottom of a case that must be unique—a case that has troubled even my +mind for over a year—and if that isn’t a good reason for standing a +dinner, I don’t know what is. Cupples, we will not go to my club. This +is to be a festival, and to be seen in a London club in a state of +pleasurable emotion is more than enough to shatter any man’s career. +Besides that, the dinner there is always the same, or, at least, they +always make it taste the same, I know not how. The eternal dinner at my +club hath bored millions of members like me, and shall bore; but +tonight let the feast be spread in vain, so far as we are concerned. We +will not go where the satraps throng the hall. We will go to +Sheppard’s.” +“Who is Sheppard?” asked Mr. Cupples mildly, as they proceeded up +Victoria Street. His companion went with an unnatural lightness, and a +policeman, observing his face, smiled indulgently at a look of +happiness which he could only attribute to alcohol. +“Who is Sheppard?” echoed Trent with bitter emphasis. “That question, +if you will pardon me for saying so, Cupples, is thoroughly +characteristic of the spirit of aimless enquiry prevailing in this +restless day. I suggest our dining at Sheppard’s, and instantly you +fold your arms and demand, in a frenzy of intellectual pride, to know +who Sheppard is before you will cross the threshold of Sheppard’s. I am +not going to pander to the vices of the modern mind. Sheppard’s is a +place where one can dine. I do not know Sheppard. It never occurred to +me that Sheppard existed. Probably he is a myth of totemistic origin. +All I know is that you can get a bit of saddle of mutton at Sheppard’s +that has made many an American visitor curse the day that Christopher +Columbus was born.... Taxi!” +A cab rolled smoothly to the kerb, and the driver received his +instructions with a majestic nod. +“Another reason I have for suggesting Sheppard’s,” continued Trent, +feverishly lighting a cigarette, “is that I am going to be married to +the most wonderful woman in the world. I trust the connection of ideas +is clear.” +“You are going to marry Mabel!” cried Mr. Cupples. “My dear friend, +what good news this is! Shake hands, Trent; this is glorious! I +congratulate you both from the bottom of my heart. And may I say—I +don’t want to interrupt your flow of high spirits, which is very +natural indeed, and I remember being just the same in similar +circumstances long ago—but may I say how earnestly I have hoped for +this? Mabel has seen so much unhappiness, yet she is surely a woman +formed in the great purpose of humanity to be the best influence in the +life of a good man. But I did not know her mind as regarded yourself. +_Your_ mind I have known for some time,” Mr. Cupples went on, with a +twinkle in his eye that would have done credit to the worldliest of +creatures. “I saw it at once when you were both dining at my house, and +you sat listening to Professor Peppmuller and looking at her. Some of +us older fellows have our wits about us still, my dear boy.” +“Mabel says she knew it before that,” replied Trent, with a slightly +crestfallen air. “And I thought I was acting the part of a person who +was not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good at +dissembling. I shouldn’t wonder if even old Peppmuller noticed +something through his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may +have been as an undeclared suitor,” he went on with a return to +vivacity, “I am going to be much worse now. As for your +congratulations, thank you a thousand times, because I know you mean +them. You are the sort of uncomfortable brute who would pull a face +three feet long if you thought we were making a mistake. By the way, I +can’t help being an ass tonight; I’m obliged to go on blithering. You +must try to bear it. Perhaps it would be easier if I sang you a +song—one of your old favourites. What was that song you used always to +be singing? Like this, wasn’t it?” He accompanied the following stave +with a dexterous clog-step on the floor of the cab: +“There was an old nigger, and he had a wooden leg. +He had no tobacco, no tobacco could he beg. +Another old nigger was as cunning as a fox, +And he always had tobacco in his old tobacco-box. +Now for the chorus! +Yes, he always had tobacco in his old tobacco-box. +But you’re not singing. I thought you would be making the welkin ring.” +“I never sang that song in my life,” protested Mr. Cupples. “I never +heard it before.” +“Are you sure?” enquired Trent doubtfully. “Well, I suppose I must take +your word for it. It is a beautiful song, anyhow: not the whole +warbling grove in concert heard can beat it. Somehow it seems to +express my feelings at the present moment as nothing else could; it +rises unbidden to the lips. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth +speaketh, as the Bishop of Bath and Wells said when listening to a +speech of Mr. Balfour’s.” +“When was that?” asked Mr. Cupples. +“On the occasion,” replied Trent, “of the introduction of the +Compulsory Notification of Diseases of Poultry Bill, which ill-fated +measure you of course remember. Hullo!” he broke off, as the cab rushed +down a side street and swung round a corner into a broad and populous +thoroughfare, “we’re there already”. The cab drew up. +“Here we are,” said Trent, as he paid the man, and led Mr. Cupples into +a long, panelled room set with many tables and filled with a hum of +talk. “This is the house of fulfilment of craving, this is the bower +with the roses around it. I see there are three bookmakers eating pork +at my favourite table. We will have that one in the opposite corner.” +He conferred earnestly with a waiter, while Mr. Cupples, in a pleasant +meditation, warmed himself before the great fire. “The wine here,” +Trent resumed, as they seated themselves, “is almost certainly made out +of grapes. What shall we drink?” +Mr. Cupples came out of his reverie. “I think,” he said, “I will have +milk and soda water.” +“Speak lower!” urged Trent. “The head-waiter has a weak heart, and +might hear you. Milk and soda water! Cupples, you may think you have a +strong constitution, and I don’t say you have not, but I warn you that +this habit of mixing drinks has been the death of many a robuster man +than you. Be wise in time. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine, leave +soda to the Turkish hordes. Here comes our food.” He gave another order +to the waiter, who ranged the dishes before them and darted away. Trent +was, it seemed, a respected customer. “I have sent,” he said, “for wine +that I know, and I hope you will try it. If you have taken a vow, then +in the name of all the teetotal saints drink water, which stands at +your elbow, but don’t seek a cheap notoriety by demanding milk and +soda.” +“I have never taken any pledge,” said Mr. Cupples, examining his mutton +with a favourable eye. “I simply don’t care about wine. I bought a +bottle once and drank it to see what it was like, and it made me ill. +But very likely it was bad wine. I will taste some of yours, as it is +your dinner, and I do assure you, my dear Trent, I should like to do +something unusual to show how strongly I feel on the present occasion. +I have not been so delighted for many years. To think,” he reflected +aloud as the waiter filled his glass, “of the Manderson mystery +disposed of, the innocent exculpated, and your own and Mabel’s +happiness crowned—all coming upon me together! I drink to you, my dear +friend.” And Mr. Cupples took a very small sip of the wine. +“You have a great nature,” said Trent, much moved. “Your outward +semblance doth belie your soul’s immensity. I should have expected as +soon to see an elephant conducting at the opera as you drinking my +health. Dear Cupples! May his beak retain ever that delicate +rose-stain!—No, curse it all!” he broke out, surprising a shade of +discomfort that flitted over his companion’s face as he tasted the wine +again. “I have no business to meddle with your tastes. I apologize. You +shall have what you want, even if it causes the head-waiter to perish +in his pride.” +When Mr. Cupples had been supplied with his monastic drink, and the +waiter had retired, Trent looked across the table with significance. +“In this babble of many conversations,” he said, “we can speak as +freely as if we were on a bare hillside. The waiter is whispering soft +nothings into the ear of the young woman at the pay-desk. We are alone. +What do you think of that interview of this afternoon?” He began to +dine with an appetite. +Without pausing in the task of cutting his mutton into very small +pieces Mr. Cupples replied: “The most curious feature of it, in my +judgement, was the irony of the situation. We both held the clue to +that mad hatred of Manderson’s which Marlowe found so mysterious. We +knew of his jealous obsession; which knowledge we withheld, as was very +proper, if only in consideration of Mabel’s feelings. Marlowe will +never know of what he was suspected by that person. Strange! Nearly all +of us, I venture to think, move unconsciously among a network of +opinions, often quite erroneous, which other people entertain about us. +I remember, for instance, discovering quite by accident some years ago +that a number of people of my acquaintance believed me to have been +secretly received into the Church of Rome. This absurd fiction was +based upon the fact, which in the eyes of many appeared conclusive, +that I had expressed myself in talk as favouring the plan of a weekly +abstinence from meat. Manderson’s belief in regard to his secretary +probably rested upon a much slighter ground. It was Mr Bunner, I think +you said, who told you of his rooted and apparently hereditary temper +of suspicious jealousy.... With regard to Marlowe’s story, it appeared +to me entirely straightforward, and not, in its essential features, +especially remarkable, once we have admitted, as we surely must, that +in the case of Manderson we have to deal with a more or less disordered +mind.” +Trent laughed loudly. “I confess,” he said, “that the affair struck me +as a little unusual. +“Only in the development of the details,” argued Mr. Cupples. “What is +there abnormal in the essential facts? A madman conceives a crazy +suspicion; he hatches a cunning plot against his fancied injurer; it +involves his own destruction. Put thus, what is there that any man with +the least knowledge of the ways of lunatics would call remarkable? Turn +now to Marlowe’s proceedings. He finds himself in a perilous position +from which, though he is innocent, telling the truth will not save him. +Is that an unheard-of situation? He escapes by means of a bold and +ingenious piece of deception. That seems to me a thing that might +happen every day, and probably does so.” He attacked his now +unrecognizable mutton. +“I should like to know,” said Trent, after an alimentary pause in the +conversation, “whether there is anything that ever happened on the face +of the earth that you could not represent as quite ordinary and +commonplace by such a line of argument as that.” +A gentle smile illuminated Mr. Cupples’s face. “You must not suspect me +of empty paradox,” he said. “My meaning will become clearer, perhaps, +if I mention some things which do appear to me essentially remarkable. +Let me see .... Well, I would call the life history of the liver-fluke, +which we owe to the researches of Poulton, an essentially remarkable +thing.” +“I am unable to argue the point,” replied Trent. “Fair science may have +smiled upon the liver-fluke’s humble birth, but I never even heard it +mentioned.” +“It is not, perhaps, an appetizing subject,” said Mr. Cupples +thoughtfully, “and I will not pursue it. All I mean is, my dear Trent, +that there are really remarkable things going on all round us if we +will only see them; and we do our perceptions no credit in regarding as +remarkable only those affairs which are surrounded with an accumulation +of sensational detail.” +Trent applauded heartily with his knife-handle on the table, as Mr. +Cupples ceased and refreshed himself with milk and soda water. “I have +not heard you go on like this for years,” he said. “I believe you must +be almost as much above yourself as I am. It is a bad case of the +unrest which men miscall delight. But much as I enjoy it, I am not +going to sit still and hear the Manderson affair dismissed as +commonplace. You may say what you like, but the idea of impersonating +Manderson in those circumstances was an extraordinarily ingenious +idea.” +“Ingenious—certainly!” replied Mr. Cupples. “Extraordinarily so—no! In +those circumstances (your own words) it was really not strange that it +should occur to a clever man. It lay almost on the surface of the +situation. Marlowe was famous for his imitation of Manderson’s voice; +he had a talent for acting; he had a chess-player’s mind; he knew the +ways of the establishment intimately. I grant you that the idea was +brilliantly carried out; but everything favoured it. As for the +essential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the same +class with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in a +discharged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading. +I do, however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect of +details the case had unusual features. It developed a high degree of +complexity.” +“Did it really strike you in that way?” enquired Trent with desperate +sarcasm. +“The affair became complicated,” went on Mr. Cupples unmoved, “because +after Marlowe’s suspicions were awakened, a second subtle mind came in +to interfere with the plans of the first. That sort of duel often +happens in business and politics, but less frequently, I imagine, in +the world of crime.” +“I should say never,” Trent replied; “and the reason is, that even the +cleverest criminals seldom run to strategic subtlety. When they do, +they don’t get caught, since clever policemen have if possible less +strategic subtlety than the ordinary clever criminal. But that rather +deep quality seems very rarely to go with the criminal make-up. Look at +Crippen. He was a very clever criminal as they go. He solved the +central problem of every clandestine murder, the disposal of the body, +with extreme neatness. But how far did he see through the game? The +criminal and the policeman are often swift and bold tacticians, but +neither of them is good for more than a quite simple plan. After all, +it’s a rare faculty in any walk of life.” +“One disturbing reflection was left on my mind,” said Mr. Cupples, who +seemed to have had enough of abstractions for the moment, “by what we +learned today. If Marlowe had suspected nothing and walked into the +trap, he would almost certainly have been hanged. Now how often may not +a plan to throw the guilt of murder on an innocent person have been +practised successfully? There are, I imagine, numbers of cases in which +the accused, being found guilty on circumstantial evidence, have died +protesting their innocence. I shall never approve again of a +death-sentence imposed in a case decided upon such evidence.” +“I never have done so, for my part,” said Trent. “To hang in such cases +seems to me flying in the face of the perfectly obvious and sound +principle expressed in the saying that ‘you never can tell’. I agree +with the American jurist who lays it down that we should not hang a +yellow dog for stealing jam on circumstantial evidence, not even if he +has jam all over his nose. As for attempts being made by malevolent +persons to fix crimes upon innocent men, of course it is constantly +happening. It’s a marked feature, for instance, of all systems of rule +by coercion, whether in Ireland or Russia or India or Korea; if the +police cannot get hold of a man they think dangerous by fair means, +they do it by foul. But there’s one case in the State Trials that is +peculiarly to the point, because not only was it a case of fastening a +murder on innocent people, but the plotter did in effect what Manderson +did; he gave up his own life in order to secure the death of his +victims. Probably you have heard of the Campden Case.” +Mr. Cupples confessed his ignorance and took another potato. +“John Masefield has written a very remarkable play about it,” said +Trent, “and if it ever comes on again in London, you should go and see +it, if you like having the fan-tods. I have often seen women weeping in +an undemonstrative manner at some slab of oleo-margarine sentiment in +the theatre. By George! what everlasting smelling-bottle hysterics they +ought to have if they saw that play decently acted! Well, the facts +were that John Perry accused his mother and brother of murdering a man, +and swore he had helped them to do it. He told a story full of +elaborate detail, and had an answer to everything, except the curious +fact that the body couldn’t be found; but the judge, who was probably +drunk at the time—this was in Restoration days—made nothing of that. +The mother and brother denied the accusation. All three prisoners were +found guilty and hanged, purely on John’s evidence. Two years after, +the man whom they were hanged for murdering came back to Campden. He +had been kidnapped by pirates and taken to sea. His disappearance had +given John his idea. The point about John is, that his including +himself in the accusation, which amounted to suicide, was the thing in +his evidence which convinced everybody of its truth. It was so obvious +that no man would do himself to death to get somebody else hanged. Now +that is exactly the answer which the prosecution would have made if +Marlowe had told the truth. Not one juryman in a million would have +believed in the Manderson plot.” +Mr. Cupples mused upon this a few moments. “I have not your +acquaintance with that branch of history,” he said at length; “in fact, +I have none at all. But certain recollections of my own childhood +return to me in connection with this affair. We know from the things +Mabel told you what may be termed the spiritual truth underlying this +matter; the insane depth of jealous hatred which Manderson concealed. +We can understand that he was capable of such a scheme. But as a rule +it is in the task of penetrating to the spiritual truth that the +administration of justice breaks down. Sometimes that truth is +deliberately concealed, as in Manderson’s case. Sometimes, I think, it +is concealed because simple people are actually unable to express it, +and nobody else divines it. When I was a lad in Edinburgh the whole +country went mad about the Sandyford Place murder.” +Trent nodded. “Mrs. M’Lachlan’s case. She was innocent right enough.” +“My parents thought so,” said Mr. Cupples. “I thought so myself when I +became old enough to read and understand that excessively sordid story. +But the mystery of the affair was so dark, and the task of getting at +the truth behind the lies told by everybody concerned proved so +hopeless, that others were just as fully convinced of the innocence of +old James Fleming. All Scotland took sides on the question. It was the +subject of debates in Parliament. The press divided into two camps, and +raged with a fury I have never seen equalled. Yet it is obvious, is it +not? for I see you have read of the case—that if the spiritual truth +about that old man could have been known there would have been very +little room for doubt in the matter. If what some surmised about his +disposition was true, he was quite capable of murdering Jessie +M’Pherson and then casting the blame on the poor feeble-minded creature +who came so near to suffering the last penalty of the law.” +“Even a commonplace old dotard like Fleming can be an unfathomable +mystery to all the rest of the human race,” said Trent, “and most of +all in a court of justice. The law certainly does not shine when it +comes to a case requiring much delicacy of perception. It goes wrong +easily enough over the Flemings of this world. As for the people with +temperaments who get mixed up in legal proceedings, they must feel as +if they were in a forest of apes, whether they win or lose. Well, I +dare say it’s good for their sort to have their noses rubbed in reality +now and again. But what would twelve red-faced realities in a jury-box +have done to Marlowe? His story would, as he says, have been a great +deal worse than no defence at all. It’s not as if there were a single +piece of evidence in support of his tale. Can’t you imagine how the +prosecution would tear it to rags? Can’t you see the judge simply +taking it in his stride when it came to the summing up? And the +jury—you’ve served on juries, I expect—in their room, snorting with +indignation over the feebleness of the lie, telling each other it was +the clearest case they ever heard of, and that they’d have thought +better of him if he hadn’t lost his nerve at the crisis, and had +cleared off with the swag as he intended. Imagine yourself on that +jury, not knowing Marlowe, and trembling with indignation at the record +unrolled before you—cupidity, murder, robbery, sudden cowardice, +shameless, impenitent, desperate lying! Why, you and I believed him to +be guilty until—” +“I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!” interjected Mr. Cupples, laying +down his knife and fork. “I was most careful, when we talked it all +over the other night, to say nothing indicating such a belief. _I_ was +always certain that he was innocent.” +“You said something of the sort at Marlowe’s just now. I wondered what +on earth you could mean. Certain that he was innocent! How can you be +certain? You are generally more careful about terms than that, +Cupples.” +“I said ‘certain’,” Mr. Cupples repeated firmly. +Trent shrugged his shoulders. “If you really were, after reading my +manuscript and discussing the whole thing as we did,” he rejoined, +“then I can only say that you must have totally renounced all trust in +the operations of the human reason; an attitude which, while it is bad +Christianity and also infernal nonsense, is oddly enough bad Positivism +too, unless I misunderstand that system. Why, man—” +“Let me say a word,” Mr. Cupples interposed again, folding his hands +above his plate. “I assure you I am far from abandoning reason. I am +certain he is innocent, and I always was certain of it, because of +something that I know, and knew from the very beginning. You asked me +just now to imagine myself on the jury at Marlowe’s trial. That would +be an unprofitable exercise of the mental powers, because I know that I +should be present in another capacity. I should be in the witness-box, +giving evidence for the defence. You said just now, ‘If there were a +single piece of evidence in support of his tale.’ There is, and it is +my evidence. And,” he added quietly, “it is conclusive.” He took up his +knife and fork and went contentedly on with his dinner. +The pallor of sudden excitement had turned Trent to marble while Mr +Cupples led laboriously up to this statement. At the last word the +blood rushed to his face again, and he struck the table with an +unnatural laugh. “It can’t be!” he exploded. “It’s something you +fancied, something you dreamed after one of those debauches of soda and +milk. You can’t really mean that all the time I was working on the case +down there you knew Marlowe was innocent.” +Mr. Cupples, busy with his last mouthful, nodded brightly. He made an +end of eating, wiped his sparse moustache, and then leaned forward over +the table. “It’s very simple,” he said. “I shot Manderson myself.” +“I am afraid I startled you,” Trent heard the voice of Mr. Cupples say. +He forced himself out of his stupefaction like a diver striking upward +for the surface, and with a rigid movement raised his glass. But half +of the wine splashed upon the cloth, and he put it carefully down again +untasted. He drew a deep breath, which was exhaled in a laugh wholly +without merriment. “Go on,” he said. +“It was not murder,” began Mr. Cupples, slowly measuring off inches +with a fork on the edge of the table. “I will tell you the whole story. +On that Sunday night I was taking my before-bedtime constitutional, +having set out from the hotel about a quarter past ten. I went along +the field path that runs behind White Gables, cutting off the great +curve of the road, and came out on the road nearly opposite that gate +that is just by the eighth hole on the golf-course. Then I turned in +there, meaning to walk along the turf to the edge of the cliff, and go +back that way. I had only gone a few steps when I heard the car coming, +and then I heard it stop near the gate. I saw Manderson at once. Do you +remember my telling you I had seen him once alive after our quarrel in +front of the hotel? Well, this was the time. You asked me if I had, and +I did not care to tell a falsehood.” +A slight groan came from Trent. He drank a little wine, and said +stonily, “Go on, please.” +“It was, as you know,” pursued Mr. Cupples, “a moonlight night, but I +was in shadow under the trees by the stone wall, and anyhow they could +not suppose there was any one near them. I heard all that passed just +as Marlowe has narrated it to us, and I saw the car go off towards +Bishopsbridge. I did not see Manderson’s face as it went, because his +back was to me, but he shook the back of his left hand at the car with +extraordinary violence, greatly to my amazement. Then I waited for him +to go back to White Gables, as I did not want to meet him again. But he +did not go. He opened the gate through which I had just passed, and he +stood there on the turf of the green, quite still. His head was bent, +his arms hung at his sides, and he looked somehow—rigid. For a few +moments he remained in this tense attitude, then all of a sudden his +right arm moved swiftly, and his hand was at the pocket of his +overcoat. I saw his face raised in the moonlight, the teeth bared, and +the eyes glittering, and all at once I knew that the man was not sane. +Almost as quickly as that flashed across my mind, something else +flashed in the moonlight. He held the pistol before him, pointing at +his breast. +“Now I may say here I shall always be doubtful whether Manderson really +meant to kill himself then. Marlowe naturally thinks so, knowing +nothing of my intervention. But I think it quite likely he only meant +to wound himself, and to charge Marlowe with attempted murder and +robbery. +“At that moment, however, I assumed it was suicide. Before I knew what +I was doing I had leapt out of the shadows and seized his arm. He shook +me off with a furious snarling noise, giving me a terrific blow in the +chest, and presenting the revolver at my head. But I seized his wrists +before he could fire, and clung with all my strength—you remember how +bruised and scratched they were. I knew I was fighting for my own life +now, for murder was in his eyes. We struggled like two beasts, without +an articulate word, I holding his pistol-hand down and keeping a grip +on the other. I never dreamed that I had the strength for such an +encounter. Then, with a perfectly instinctive movement—I never knew I +meant to do it—I flung away his free hand and clutched like lightning +at the weapon, tearing it from his fingers. By a miracle it did not go +off. I darted back a few steps, he sprang at my throat like a wild cat, +and I fired blindly in his face. He would have been about a yard away, +I suppose. His knees gave way instantly, and he fell in a heap on the +turf. +“I flung the pistol down and bent over him. The heart’s action ceased +under my hand. I knelt there staring, struck motionless; and I don’t +know how long it was before I heard the noise of the car returning. +“Trent, all the time that Marlowe paced that green, with the moonlight +on his white and working face, I was within a few yards of him, +crouching in the shadow of the furze by the ninth tee. I dared not show +myself. I was thinking. My public quarrel with Manderson the same +morning was, I suspected, the talk of the hotel. I assure you that +every horrible possibility of the situation for me had rushed across my +mind the moment I saw Manderson fall. I became cunning. I knew what I +must do. I must get back to the hotel as fast as I could, get in +somehow unperceived, and play a part to save myself. I must never tell +a word to any one. Of course I was assuming that Marlowe would tell +every one how he had found the body. I knew he would suppose it was +suicide; I thought every one would suppose so. +“When Marlowe began at last to lift the body, I stole away down the +wall and got out into the road by the clubhouse, where he could not see +me. I felt perfectly cool and collected. I crossed the road, climbed +the fence, and ran across the meadow to pick up the field path I had +come by that runs to the hotel behind White Gables. I got back to the +hotel very much out of breath.” +“Out of breath,” repeated Trent mechanically, still staring at his +companion as if hypnotized. +“I had had a sharp run,” Mr. Cupples reminded him. “Well, approaching +the hotel from the back I could see into the writing-room through the +open window. There was nobody in there, so I climbed over the sill, +walked to the bell and rang it, and then sat down to write a letter I +had meant to write the next day. I saw by the clock that it was a +little past eleven. When the waiter answered the bell I asked for a +glass of milk and a postage stamp. Soon afterwards I went up to bed. +But I could not sleep.” +Mr. Cupples, having nothing more to say, ceased speaking. He looked in +mild surprise at Trent, who now sat silent, supporting his bent head in +his hands. +“He could not sleep,” murmured Trent at last in a hollow tone. “A +frequent result of over-exertion during the day. Nothing to be alarmed +about.” He was silent again, then looked up with a pale face. “Cupples, +I am cured. I will never touch a crime-mystery again. The Manderson +affair shall be Philip Trent’s last case. His high-blown pride at +length breaks under him.” Trent’s smile suddenly returned. “I could +have borne everything but that last revelation of the impotence of +human reason. Cupples, I have absolutely nothing left to say, except +this: you have beaten me. I drink your health in a spirit of +self-abasement. And _you_ shall pay for the dinner.” +THE END.",Trent's Last Case,E. C. Bentley,290,['Sigsbee Manderson'] +"THE SECRET ADVERSARY +By Agatha Christie +TO ALL THOSE WHO LEAD +MONOTONOUS LIVES +IN THE HOPE THAT THEY MAY EXPERIENCE +AT SECOND HAND +THE DELIGHTS AND DANGERS OF +ADVENTURE +CONTENTS +PROLOGUE +CHAPTER I.   THE YOUNG ADVENTURERS, LTD. +CHAPTER II.   MR. WHITTINGTON’S OFFER +CHAPTER III.   A SET BACK +CHAPTER IV.   WHO IS JANE FINN? +CHAPTER V.   MR. JULIUS P. HERSHEIMMER +CHAPTER VI.   A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN +CHAPTER VII.   THE HOUSE IN SOHO +CHAPTER VIII.   THE ADVENTURES OF TOMMY +CHAPTER IX.   TUPPENCE ENTERS DOMESTIC SERVICE +CHAPTER X.   ENTER SIR JAMES PEEL EDGERTON +CHAPTER XI.   JULIUS TELLS A STORY +CHAPTER XII.   A FRIEND IN NEED +CHAPTER XIII.   THE VIGIL +CHAPTER XIV.   A CONSULTATION +CHAPTER XV.   TUPPENCE RECEIVES A PROPOSAL +CHAPTER XVI.   FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOMMY +CHAPTER XVII.   ANNETTE +CHAPTER XVIII.   THE TELEGRAM +CHAPTER XIX.   JANE FINN +CHAPTER XX.   TOO LATE +CHAPTER XXI.   TOMMY MAKES A DISCOVERY +CHAPTER XXII.   IN DOWNING STREET +CHAPTER XXIII.   A RACE AGAINST TIME +CHAPTER XXIV.   JULIUS TAKES A HAND +CHAPTER XXV.   JANE’S STORY +CHAPTER XXVI.   MR. BROWN +CHAPTER XXVII.   A SUPPER PARTY AT THE _SAVOY_ +CHAPTER XXVIII.     AND AFTER +PROLOGUE +IT was 2 p.m. on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. The _Lusitania_ had been +struck by two torpedoes in succession and was sinking rapidly, while +the boats were being launched with all possible speed. The women and +children were being lined up awaiting their turn. Some still clung +desperately to husbands and fathers; others clutched their children +closely to their breasts. One girl stood alone, slightly apart from +the rest. She was quite young, not more than eighteen. She did not seem +afraid, and her grave, steadfast eyes looked straight ahead. +“I beg your pardon.” +A man’s voice beside her made her start and turn. She had noticed the +speaker more than once amongst the first-class passengers. There had +been a hint of mystery about him which had appealed to her imagination. +He spoke to no one. If anyone spoke to him he was quick to rebuff the +overture. Also he had a nervous way of looking over his shoulder with a +swift, suspicious glance. +She noticed now that he was greatly agitated. There were beads of +perspiration on his brow. He was evidently in a state of overmastering +fear. And yet he did not strike her as the kind of man who would be +afraid to meet death! +“Yes?” Her grave eyes met his inquiringly. +He stood looking at her with a kind of desperate irresolution. +“It must be!” he muttered to himself. “Yes--it is the only way.” Then +aloud he said abruptly: “You are an American?” +“Yes.” +“A patriotic one?” +The girl flushed. +“I guess you’ve no right to ask such a thing! Of course I am!” +“Don’t be offended. You wouldn’t be if you knew how much there was at +stake. But I’ve got to trust some one--and it must be a woman.” +“Why?” +“Because of ‘women and children first.’” He looked round and lowered his +voice. “I’m carrying papers--vitally important papers. They may make all +the difference to the Allies in the war. You understand? These papers +have _got_ to be saved! They’ve more chance with you than with me. Will +you take them?” +The girl held out her hand. +“Wait--I must warn you. There may be a risk--if I’ve been followed. I +don’t think I have, but one never knows. If so, there will be danger. +Have you the nerve to go through with it?” +The girl smiled. +“I’ll go through with it all right. And I’m real proud to be chosen! +What am I to do with them afterwards?” +“Watch the newspapers! I’ll advertise in the personal column of the +_Times_, beginning ‘Shipmate.’ At the end of three days if there’s +nothing--well, you’ll know I’m down and out. Then take the packet to +the American Embassy, and deliver it into the Ambassador’s own hands. Is +that clear?” +“Quite clear.” +“Then be ready--I’m going to say good-bye.” He took her hand in his. +“Good-bye. Good luck to you,” he said in a louder tone. +Her hand closed on the oilskin packet that had lain in his palm. +The _Lusitania_ settled with a more decided list to starboard. In answer +to a quick command, the girl went forward to take her place in the boat. +CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG ADVENTURERS, LTD. +“TOMMY, old thing!” +“Tuppence, old bean!” +The two young people greeted each other affectionately, and momentarily +blocked the Dover Street Tube exit in doing so. The adjective “old” +was misleading. Their united ages would certainly not have totalled +forty-five. +“Not seen you for simply centuries,” continued the young man. “Where are +you off to? Come and chew a bun with me. We’re getting a bit unpopular +here--blocking the gangway as it were. Let’s get out of it.” +The girl assenting, they started walking down Dover Street towards +Piccadilly. +“Now then,” said Tommy, “where shall we go?” +The very faint anxiety which underlay his tone did not escape the astute +ears of Miss Prudence Cowley, known to her intimate friends for some +mysterious reason as “Tuppence.” She pounced at once. +“Tommy, you’re stony!” +“Not a bit of it,” declared Tommy unconvincingly. “Rolling in cash.” +“You always were a shocking liar,” said Tuppence severely, “though you +did once persuade Sister Greenbank that the doctor had ordered you beer +as a tonic, but forgotten to write it on the chart. Do you remember?” +Tommy chuckled. +“I should think I did! Wasn’t the old cat in a rage when she found +out? Not that she was a bad sort really, old Mother Greenbank! Good old +hospital--demobbed like everything else, I suppose?” +Tuppence sighed. +“Yes. You too?” +Tommy nodded. +“Two months ago.” +“Gratuity?” hinted Tuppence. +“Spent.” +“Oh, Tommy!” +“No, old thing, not in riotous dissipation. No such luck! The cost of +living--ordinary plain, or garden living nowadays is, I assure you, if +you do not know----” +“My dear child,” interrupted Tuppence, “there is nothing I do _not_ know +about the cost of living. Here we are at Lyons’, and we will each of us +pay for our own. That’s it!” And Tuppence led the way upstairs. +The place was full, and they wandered about looking for a table, +catching odds and ends of conversation as they did so. +“And--do you know, she sat down and _cried_ when I told her she couldn’t +have the flat after all.” “It was simply a _bargain_, my dear! Just like +the one Mabel Lewis brought from Paris----” +“Funny scraps one does overhear,” murmured Tommy. “I passed two Johnnies +in the street to-day talking about some one called Jane Finn. Did you +ever hear such a name?” +But at that moment two elderly ladies rose and collected parcels, and +Tuppence deftly ensconced herself in one of the vacant seats. +Tommy ordered tea and buns. Tuppence ordered tea and buttered toast. +“And mind the tea comes in separate teapots,” she added severely. +Tommy sat down opposite her. His bared head revealed a shock +of exquisitely slicked-back red hair. His face was pleasantly +ugly--nondescript, yet unmistakably the face of a gentleman and a +sportsman. His brown suit was well cut, but perilously near the end of +its tether. +They were an essentially modern-looking couple as they sat there. +Tuppence had no claim to beauty, but there was character and charm in +the elfin lines of her little face, with its determined chin and large, +wide-apart grey eyes that looked mistily out from under straight, black +brows. She wore a small bright green toque over her black bobbed hair, +and her extremely short and rather shabby skirt revealed a pair of +uncommonly dainty ankles. Her appearance presented a valiant attempt at +smartness. +The tea came at last, and Tuppence, rousing herself from a fit of +meditation, poured it out. +“Now then,” said Tommy, taking a large bite of bun, “let’s get +up-to-date. Remember, I haven’t seen you since that time in hospital in +1916.” +“Very well.” Tuppence helped herself liberally to buttered toast. +“Abridged biography of Miss Prudence Cowley, fifth daughter of +Archdeacon Cowley of Little Missendell, Suffolk. Miss Cowley left the +delights (and drudgeries) of her home life early in the war and came up +to London, where she entered an officers’ hospital. First month: Washed +up six hundred and forty-eight plates every day. Second month: Promoted +to drying aforesaid plates. Third month: Promoted to peeling potatoes. +Fourth month: Promoted to cutting bread and butter. Fifth month: +Promoted one floor up to duties of wardmaid with mop and pail. Sixth +month: Promoted to waiting at table. Seventh month: Pleasing appearance +and nice manners so striking that am promoted to waiting on the Sisters! +Eighth month: Slight check in career. Sister Bond ate Sister Westhaven’s +egg! Grand row! Wardmaid clearly to blame! Inattention in such important +matters cannot be too highly censured. Mop and pail again! How are the +mighty fallen! Ninth month: Promoted to sweeping out wards, where I +found a friend of my childhood in Lieutenant Thomas Beresford (bow, +Tommy!), whom I had not seen for five long years. The meeting was +affecting! Tenth month: Reproved by matron for visiting the pictures in +company with one of the patients, namely: the aforementioned Lieutenant +Thomas Beresford. Eleventh and twelfth months: Parlourmaid duties +resumed with entire success. At the end of the year left hospital in a +blaze of glory. After that, the talented Miss Cowley drove successively +a trade delivery van, a motor-lorry and a general! The last was the +pleasantest. He was quite a young general!” +“What blighter was that?” inquired Tommy. “Perfectly sickening the way +those brass hats drove from the War Office to the _Savoy_, and from the +_Savoy_ to the War Office!” +“I’ve forgotten his name now,” confessed Tuppence. “To resume, that was +in a way the apex of my career. I next entered a Government office. We +had several very enjoyable tea parties. I had intended to become a +land girl, a postwoman, and a bus conductress by way of rounding off +my career--but the Armistice intervened! I clung to the office with the +true limpet touch for many long months, but, alas, I was combed out at +last. Since then I’ve been looking for a job. Now then--your turn.” +“There’s not so much promotion in mine,” said Tommy regretfully, “and a +great deal less variety. I went out to France again, as you know. Then +they sent me to Mesopotamia, and I got wounded for the second time, +and went into hospital out there. Then I got stuck in Egypt till the +Armistice happened, kicked my heels there some time longer, and, as I +told you, finally got demobbed. And, for ten long, weary months I’ve +been job hunting! There aren’t any jobs! And, if there were, they +wouldn’t give ‘em to me. What good am I? What do I know about business? +Nothing.” +Tuppence nodded gloomily. +“What about the colonies?” she suggested. +Tommy shook his head. +“I shouldn’t like the colonies--and I’m perfectly certain they wouldn’t +like me!” +“Rich relations?” +Again Tommy shook his head. +“Oh, Tommy, not even a great-aunt?” +“I’ve got an old uncle who’s more or less rolling, but he’s no good.” +“Why not?” +“Wanted to adopt me once. I refused.” +“I think I remember hearing about it,” said Tuppence slowly. “You +refused because of your mother----” +Tommy flushed. +“Yes, it would have been a bit rough on the mater. As you know, I was +all she had. Old boy hated her--wanted to get me away from her. Just a +bit of spite.” +“Your mother’s dead, isn’t she?” said Tuppence gently. +Tommy nodded. +Tuppence’s large grey eyes looked misty. +“You’re a good sort, Tommy. I always knew it.” +“Rot!” said Tommy hastily. “Well, that’s my position. I’m just about +desperate.” +“So am I! I’ve hung out as long as I could. I’ve touted round. I’ve +answered advertisements. I’ve tried every mortal blessed thing. I’ve +screwed and saved and pinched! But it’s no good. I shall have to go +home!” +“Don’t you want to?” +“Of course I don’t want to! What’s the good of being sentimental? +Father’s a dear--I’m awfully fond of him--but you’ve no idea how I worry +him! He has that delightful early Victorian view that short skirts and +smoking are immoral. You can imagine what a thorn in the flesh I am to +him! He just heaved a sigh of relief when the war took me off. You see, +there are seven of us at home. It’s awful! All housework and mothers’ +meetings! I have always been the changeling. I don’t want to go back, +but--oh, Tommy, what else is there to do?” +Tommy shook his head sadly. There was a silence, and then Tuppence burst +out: +“Money, money, money! I think about money morning, noon and night! I +dare say it’s mercenary of me, but there it is!” +“Same here,” agreed Tommy with feeling. +“I’ve thought over every imaginable way of getting it too,” continued +Tuppence. “There are only three! To be left it, to marry it, or to make +it. First is ruled out. I haven’t got any rich elderly relatives. Any +relatives I have are in homes for decayed gentlewomen! I always help old +ladies over crossings, and pick up parcels for old gentlemen, in case +they should turn out to be eccentric millionaires. But not one of them +has ever asked me my name--and quite a lot never said ‘Thank you.’” +There was a pause. +“Of course,” resumed Tuppence, “marriage is my best chance. I made up my +mind to marry money when I was quite young. Any thinking girl would! +I’m not sentimental, you know.” She paused. “Come now, you can’t say I’m +sentimental,” she added sharply. +“Certainly not,” agreed Tommy hastily. “No one would ever think of +sentiment in connection with you.” +“That’s not very polite,” replied Tuppence. “But I dare say you mean it +all right. Well, there it is! I’m ready and willing--but I never meet +any rich men! All the boys I know are about as hard up as I am.” +“What about the general?” inquired Tommy. +“I fancy he keeps a bicycle shop in time of peace,” explained Tuppence. +“No, there it is! Now _you_ could marry a rich girl.” +“I’m like you. I don’t know any.” +“That doesn’t matter. You can always get to know one. Now, if I see a +man in a fur coat come out of the _Ritz_ I can’t rush up to him and say: +‘Look here, you’re rich. I’d like to know you.’” +“Do you suggest that I should do that to a similarly garbed female?” +“Don’t be silly. You tread on her foot, or pick up her handkerchief, or +something like that. If she thinks you want to know her she’s flattered, +and will manage it for you somehow.” +“You overrate my manly charms,” murmured Tommy. +“On the other hand,” proceeded Tuppence, “my millionaire would probably +run for his life! No--marriage is fraught with difficulties. Remains--to +_make_ money!” +“We’ve tried that, and failed,” Tommy reminded her. +“We’ve tried all the orthodox ways, yes. But suppose we try the +unorthodox. Tommy, let’s be adventurers!” +“Certainly,” replied Tommy cheerfully. “How do we begin?” +“That’s the difficulty. If we could make ourselves known, people might +hire us to commit crimes for them.” +“Delightful,” commented Tommy. “Especially coming from a clergyman’s +daughter!” +“The moral guilt,” Tuppence pointed out, “would be theirs--not mine. You +must admit that there’s a difference between stealing a diamond necklace +for yourself and being hired to steal it.” +“There wouldn’t be the least difference if you were caught!” +“Perhaps not. But I shouldn’t be caught. I’m so clever.” +“Modesty always was your besetting sin,” remarked Tommy. +“Don’t rag. Look here, Tommy, shall we really? Shall we form a business +partnership?” +“Form a company for the stealing of diamond necklaces?” +“That was only an illustration. Let’s have a--what do you call it in +book-keeping?” +“Don’t know. Never did any.” +“I have--but I always got mixed up, and used to put credit entries on +the debit side, and vice versa--so they fired me out. Oh, I know--a +joint venture! It struck me as such a romantic phrase to come across in +the middle of musty old figures. It’s got an Elizabethan flavour about +it--makes one think of galleons and doubloons. A joint venture!” +“Trading under the name of the Young Adventurers, Ltd.? Is that your +idea, Tuppence?” +“It’s all very well to laugh, but I feel there might be something in +it.” +“How do you propose to get in touch with your would-be employers?” +“Advertisement,” replied Tuppence promptly. “Have you got a bit of paper +and a pencil? Men usually seem to have. Just like we have hairpins and +powder-puffs.” +Tommy handed over a rather shabby green notebook, and Tuppence began +writing busily. +��Shall we begin: ‘Young officer, twice wounded in the war----’” +“Certainly not.” +“Oh, very well, my dear boy. But I can assure you that that sort of +thing might touch the heart of an elderly spinster, and she might adopt +you, and then there would be no need for you to be a young adventurer at +all.” +“I don’t want to be adopted.” +“I forgot you had a prejudice against it. I was only ragging you! +The papers are full up to the brim with that type of thing. Now +listen--how’s this? ‘Two young adventurers for hire. Willing to do +anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good.’ (We might as well make +that clear from the start.) Then we might add: ‘No reasonable offer +refused’--like flats and furniture.” +“I should think any offer we get in answer to that would be a pretty +_un_reasonable one!” +“Tommy! You’re a genius! That’s ever so much more chic. ‘No unreasonable +offer refused--if pay is good.’ How’s that?” +“I shouldn’t mention pay again. It looks rather eager.” +“It couldn’t look as eager as I feel! But perhaps you are right. Now +I’ll read it straight through. ‘Two young adventurers for hire. Willing +to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No unreasonable offer +refused.’ How would that strike you if you read it?” +“It would strike me as either being a hoax, or else written by a +lunatic.” +“It’s not half so insane as a thing I read this morning beginning +‘Petunia’ and signed ‘Best Boy.’” She tore out the leaf and handed it +to Tommy. “There you are. _Times_, I think. Reply to Box so-and-so. +I expect it will be about five shillings. Here’s half a crown for my +share.” +Tommy was holding the paper thoughtfully. His faced burned a deeper red. +“Shall we really try it?” he said at last. “Shall we, Tuppence? Just for +the fun of the thing?” +“Tommy, you’re a sport! I knew you would be! Let’s drink to success.” +She poured some cold dregs of tea into the two cups. +“Here’s to our joint venture, and may it prosper!” +“The Young Adventurers, Ltd.!” responded Tommy. +They put down the cups and laughed rather uncertainly. Tuppence rose. +“I must return to my palatial suite at the hostel.” +“Perhaps it is time I strolled round to the _Ritz_,” agreed Tommy with a +grin. “Where shall we meet? And when?” +“Twelve o’clock to-morrow. Piccadilly Tube station. Will that suit you?” +“My time is my own,” replied Mr. Beresford magnificently. +“So long, then.” +“Good-bye, old thing.” +The two young people went off in opposite directions. Tuppence’s hostel +was situated in what was charitably called Southern Belgravia. For +reasons of economy she did not take a bus. +She was half-way across St. James’s Park, when a man’s voice behind her +made her start. +“Excuse me,” it said. “But may I speak to you for a moment?” +CHAPTER II. MR. WHITTINGTON’S OFFER +TUPPENCE turned sharply, but the words hovering on the tip of her tongue +remained unspoken, for the man’s appearance and manner did not bear out +her first and most natural assumption. She hesitated. As if he read her +thoughts, the man said quickly: +“I can assure you I mean no disrespect.” +Tuppence believed him. Although she disliked and distrusted him +instinctively, she was inclined to acquit him of the particular motive +which she had at first attributed to him. She looked him up and down. He +was a big man, clean shaven, with a heavy jowl. His eyes were small and +cunning, and shifted their glance under her direct gaze. +“Well, what is it?” she asked. +The man smiled. +“I happened to overhear part of your conversation with the young +gentleman in Lyons’.” +“Well--what of it?” +“Nothing--except that I think I may be of some use to you.” +Another inference forced itself into Tuppence’s mind: +“You followed me here?” +“I took that liberty.” +“And in what way do you think you could be of use to me?” +The man took a card from his pocket and handed it to her with a bow. +Tuppence took it and scrutinized it carefully. It bore the inscription, +“Mr. Edward Whittington.” Below the name were the words “Esthonia +Glassware Co.,” and the address of a city office. Mr. Whittington spoke +again: +“If you will call upon me to-morrow morning at eleven o’clock, I will +lay the details of my proposition before you.” +“At eleven o’clock?” said Tuppence doubtfully. +“At eleven o’clock.” +Tuppence made up her mind. +“Very well. I’ll be there.” +“Thank you. Good evening.” +He raised his hat with a flourish, and walked away. Tuppence remained +for some minutes gazing after him. Then she gave a curious movement of +her shoulders, rather as a terrier shakes himself. +“The adventures have begun,” she murmured to herself. “What does he want +me to do, I wonder? There’s something about you, Mr. Whittington, that I +don’t like at all. But, on the other hand, I’m not the least bit afraid +of you. And as I’ve said before, and shall doubtless say again, little +Tuppence can look after herself, thank you!” +And with a short, sharp nod of her head she walked briskly onward. As a +result of further meditations, however, she turned aside from the direct +route and entered a post office. There she pondered for some moments, +a telegraph form in her hand. The thought of a possible five shillings +spent unnecessarily spurred her to action, and she decided to risk the +waste of ninepence. +Disdaining the spiky pen and thick, black treacle which a beneficent +Government had provided, Tuppence drew out Tommy’s pencil which she had +retained and wrote rapidly: “Don’t put in advertisement. Will explain +to-morrow.” She addressed it to Tommy at his club, from which in one +short month he would have to resign, unless a kindly fortune permitted +him to renew his subscription. +“It may catch him,” she murmured. “Anyway, it’s worth trying.” +After handing it over the counter she set out briskly for home, stopping +at a baker’s to buy three penny-worth of new buns. +Later, in her tiny cubicle at the top of the house she munched buns and +reflected on the future. What was the Esthonia Glassware Co., and what +earthly need could it have for her services? A pleasurable thrill of +excitement made Tuppence tingle. At any rate, the country vicarage had +retreated into the background again. The morrow held possibilities. +It was a long time before Tuppence went to sleep that night, and, when +at length she did, she dreamed that Mr. Whittington had set her to +washing up a pile of Esthonia Glassware, which bore an unaccountable +resemblance to hospital plates! +It wanted some five minutes to eleven when Tuppence reached the block +of buildings in which the offices of the Esthonia Glassware Co. were +situated. To arrive before the time would look over-eager. So Tuppence +decided to walk to the end of the street and back again. She did so. On +the stroke of eleven she plunged into the recesses of the building. +The Esthonia Glassware Co. was on the top floor. There was a lift, but +Tuppence chose to walk up. +Slightly out of breath, she came to a halt outside the ground glass door +with the legend painted across it “Esthonia Glassware Co.” +Tuppence knocked. In response to a voice from within, she turned the +handle and walked into a small rather dirty outer office. +A middle-aged clerk got down from a high stool at a desk near the window +and came towards her inquiringly. +“I have an appointment with Mr. Whittington,” said Tuppence. +“Will you come this way, please.” He crossed to a partition door with +“Private” on it, knocked, then opened the door and stood aside to let +her pass in. +Mr. Whittington was seated behind a large desk covered with papers. +Tuppence felt her previous judgment confirmed. There was something wrong +about Mr. Whittington. The combination of his sleek prosperity and his +shifty eye was not attractive. +He looked up and nodded. +“So you’ve turned up all right? That’s good. Sit down, will you?” +Tuppence sat down on the chair facing him. She looked particularly small +and demure this morning. She sat there meekly with downcast eyes whilst +Mr. Whittington sorted and rustled amongst his papers. Finally he pushed +them away, and leaned over the desk. +“Now, my dear young lady, let us come to business.” His large face +broadened into a smile. “You want work? Well, I have work to offer +you. What should you say now to £100 down, and all expenses paid?” Mr. +Whittington leaned back in his chair, and thrust his thumbs into the +arm-holes of his waistcoat. +Tuppence eyed him warily. +“And the nature of the work?” she demanded. +“Nominal--purely nominal. A pleasant trip, that is all.” +“Where to?” +Mr. Whittington smiled again. +“Paris.” +“Oh!” said Tuppence thoughtfully. To herself she said: “Of course, +if father heard that he would have a fit! But somehow I don’t see Mr. +Whittington in the role of the gay deceiver.” +“Yes,” continued Whittington. “What could be more delightful? To put the +clock back a few years--a very few, I am sure--and re-enter one of those +charming _pensionnats de jeunes filles_ with which Paris abounds----” +Tuppence interrupted him. +“A _pensionnat?_” +“Exactly. Madame Colombier’s in the Avenue de Neuilly.” +Tuppence knew the name well. Nothing could have been more select. She +had had several American friends there. She was more than ever puzzled. +“You want me to go to Madame Colombier’s? For how long?” +“That depends. Possibly three months.” +“And that is all? There are no other conditions?” +“None whatever. You would, of course, go in the character of my ward, +and you would hold no communication with your friends. I should have +to request absolute secrecy for the time being. By the way, you are +English, are you not?” +“Yes.” +“Yet you speak with a slight American accent?” +“My great pal in hospital was a little American girl. I dare say I +picked it up from her. I can soon get out of it again.” +“On the contrary, it might be simpler for you to pass as an American. +Details about your past life in England might be more difficult to +sustain. Yes, I think that would be decidedly better. Then----” +“One moment, Mr. Whittington! You seem to be taking my consent for +granted.” +Whittington looked surprised. +“Surely you are not thinking of refusing? I can assure you that Madame +Colombier’s is a most high-class and orthodox establishment. And the +terms are most liberal.” +“Exactly,” said Tuppence. “That’s just it. The terms are almost too +liberal, Mr. Whittington. I cannot see any way in which I can be worth +that amount of money to you.” +“No?” said Whittington softly. “Well, I will tell you. I could doubtless +obtain some one else for very much less. What I am willing to pay for +is a young lady with sufficient intelligence and presence of mind to +sustain her part well, and also one who will have sufficient discretion +not to ask too many questions.” +Tuppence smiled a little. She felt that Whittington had scored. +“There’s another thing. So far there has been no mention of Mr. +Beresford. Where does he come in?” +“Mr. Beresford?” +“My partner,” said Tuppence with dignity. “You saw us together +yesterday.” +“Ah, yes. But I’m afraid we shan’t require his services.” +“Then it’s off!” Tuppence rose. “It’s both or neither. Sorry--but that’s +how it is. Good morning, Mr. Whittington.” +“Wait a minute. Let us see if something can’t be managed. Sit down +again, Miss----” He paused interrogatively. +Tuppence’s conscience gave her a passing twinge as she remembered the +archdeacon. She seized hurriedly on the first name that came into her +head. +“Jane Finn,” she said hastily; and then paused open-mouthed at the +effect of those two simple words. +All the geniality had faded out of Whittington’s face. It was purple +with rage, and the veins stood out on the forehead. And behind it all +there lurked a sort of incredulous dismay. He leaned forward and hissed +savagely: +“So that’s your little game, is it?” +Tuppence, though utterly taken aback, nevertheless kept her head. She +had not the faintest comprehension of his meaning, but she was naturally +quick-witted, and felt it imperative to “keep her end up” as she phrased +it. +Whittington went on: +“Been playing with me, have you, all the time, like a cat and mouse? +Knew all the time what I wanted you for, but kept up the comedy. Is that +it, eh?” He was cooling down. The red colour was ebbing out of his face. +He eyed her keenly. “Who’s been blabbing? Rita?” +Tuppence shook her head. She was doubtful as to how long she could +sustain this illusion, but she realized the importance of not dragging +an unknown Rita into it. +“No,” she replied with perfect truth. “Rita knows nothing about me.” +His eyes still bored into her like gimlets. +“How much do you know?” he shot out. +“Very little indeed,” answered Tuppence, and was pleased to note that +Whittington’s uneasiness was augmented instead of allayed. To have +boasted that she knew a lot might have raised doubts in his mind. +“Anyway,” snarled Whittington, “you knew enough to come in here and +plump out that name.” +“It might be my own name,” Tuppence pointed out. +“It’s likely, isn’t it, then there would be two girls with a name like +that?” +“Or I might just have hit upon it by chance,” continued Tuppence, +intoxicated with the success of truthfulness. +Mr. Whittington brought his fist down upon the desk with a bang. +“Quit fooling! How much do you know? And how much do you want?” +The last five words took Tuppence’s fancy mightily, especially after a +meagre breakfast and a supper of buns the night before. Her present part +was of the adventuress rather than the adventurous order, but she did +not deny its possibilities. She sat up and smiled with the air of one +who has the situation thoroughly well in hand. +“My dear Mr. Whittington,” she said, “let us by all means lay our cards +upon the table. And pray do not be so angry. You heard me say yesterday +that I proposed to live by my wits. It seems to me that I have now +proved I have some wits to live by! I admit I have knowledge of a +certain name, but perhaps my knowledge ends there.” +“Yes--and perhaps it doesn’t,” snarled Whittington. +“You insist on misjudging me,” said Tuppence, and sighed gently. +“As I said once before,” said Whittington angrily, “quit fooling, and +come to the point. You can’t play the innocent with me. You know a great +deal more than you’re willing to admit.” +Tuppence paused a moment to admire her own ingenuity, and then said +softly: +“I shouldn’t like to contradict you, Mr. Whittington.” +“So we come to the usual question--how much?” +Tuppence was in a dilemma. So far she had fooled Whittington with +complete success, but to mention a palpably impossible sum might awaken +his suspicions. An idea flashed across her brain. +“Suppose we say a little something down, and a fuller discussion of the +matter later?” +Whittington gave her an ugly glance. +“Blackmail, eh?” +Tuppence smiled sweetly. +“Oh no! Shall we say payment of services in advance?” +Whittington grunted. +“You see,” explained Tuppence still sweetly, “I’m so very fond of +money!” +“You’re about the limit, that’s what you are,” growled Whittington, with +a sort of unwilling admiration. “You took me in all right. Thought you +were quite a meek little kid with just enough brains for my purpose.” +“Life,” moralized Tuppence, “is full of surprises.” +“All the same,” continued Whittington, “some one’s been talking. You say +it isn’t Rita. Was it----? Oh, come in.” +The clerk followed his discreet knock into the room, and laid a paper at +his master’s elbow. +“Telephone message just come for you, sir.” +Whittington snatched it up and read it. A frown gathered on his brow. +“That’ll do, Brown. You can go.” +The clerk withdrew, closing the door behind him. Whittington turned to +Tuppence. +“Come to-morrow at the same time. I’m busy now. Here’s fifty to go on +with.” +He rapidly sorted out some notes, and pushed them across the table to +Tuppence, then stood up, obviously impatient for her to go. +The girl counted the notes in a businesslike manner, secured them in her +handbag, and rose. +“Good morning, Mr. Whittington,” she said politely. “At least, au +revoir, I should say.” +“Exactly. Au revoir!” Whittington looked almost genial again, a +reversion that aroused in Tuppence a faint misgiving. “Au revoir, my +clever and charming young lady.” +Tuppence sped lightly down the stairs. A wild elation possessed her. A +neighbouring clock showed the time to be five minutes to twelve. +“Let’s give Tommy a surprise!” murmured Tuppence, and hailed a taxi. +The cab drew up outside the tube station. Tommy was just within the +entrance. His eyes opened to their fullest extent as he hurried forward +to assist Tuppence to alight. She smiled at him affectionately, and +remarked in a slightly affected voice: +“Pay the thing, will you, old bean? I’ve got nothing smaller than a +five-pound note!” +CHAPTER III. A SET BACK +THE moment was not quite so triumphant as it ought to have been. To +begin with, the resources of Tommy’s pockets were somewhat limited. In +the end the fare was managed, the lady recollecting a plebeian twopence, +and the driver, still holding the varied assortment of coins in his +hand, was prevailed upon to move on, which he did after one last hoarse +demand as to what the gentleman thought he was giving him? +“I think you’ve given him too much, Tommy,” said Tuppence innocently. “I +fancy he wants to give some of it back.” +It was possibly this remark which induced the driver to move away. +“Well,” said Mr. Beresford, at length able to relieve his feelings, +“what the--dickens, did you want to take a taxi for?” +“I was afraid I might be late and keep you waiting,” said Tuppence +gently. +“Afraid--you--might--be--late! Oh, Lord, I give it up!” said Mr. +Beresford. +“And really and truly,” continued Tuppence, opening her eyes very wide, +“I haven’t got anything smaller than a five-pound note.” +“You did that part of it very well, old bean, but all the same the +fellow wasn’t taken in--not for a moment!” +“No,” said Tuppence thoughtfully, “he didn’t believe it. That’s the +curious part about speaking the truth. No one does believe it. I found +that out this morning. Now let’s go to lunch. How about the _Savoy?_” +Tommy grinned. +“How about the _Ritz?_” +“On second thoughts, I prefer the _Piccadilly_. It’s nearer. We shan’t +have to take another taxi. Come along.” +“Is this a new brand of humour? Or is your brain really unhinged?” +inquired Tommy. +“Your last supposition is the correct one. I have come into money, and +the shock has been too much for me! For that particular form of mental +trouble an eminent physician recommends unlimited _Hors d’œuvre_, +Lobster _à l’américane_, Chicken Newberg, and Pêche Melba! Let’s go +and get them!” +“Tuppence, old girl, what has really come over you?” +“Oh, unbelieving one!” Tuppence wrenched open her bag. “Look here, and +here, and here!” +“Great Jehosaphat! My dear girl, don’t wave Fishers aloft like that!” +“They’re not Fishers. They’re five times better than Fishers, and this +one’s ten times better!” +Tommy groaned. +“I must have been drinking unawares! Am I dreaming, Tuppence, or do I +really behold a large quantity of five-pound notes being waved about in +a dangerous fashion?” +“Even so, O King! _Now_, will you come and have lunch?” +“I’ll come anywhere. But what have you been doing? Holding up a bank?” +“All in good time. What an awful place Piccadilly Circus is. There’s a +huge bus bearing down on us. It would be too terrible if they killed the +five-pound notes!” +“Grill room?” inquired Tommy, as they reached the opposite pavement in +safety. +“The other’s more expensive,” demurred Tuppence. +“That’s mere wicked wanton extravagance. Come on below.” +“Are you sure I can get all the things I want there?” +“That extremely unwholesome menu you were outlining just now? Of course +you can--or as much as is good for you, anyway.” +“And now tell me,” said Tommy, unable to restrain his pent-up curiosity +any longer, as they sat in state surrounded by the many _hors d’œuvre_ +of Tuppence’s dreams. +Miss Cowley told him. +“And the curious part of it is,” she ended, “that I really did invent +the name of Jane Finn! I didn’t want to give my own because of poor +father--in case I should get mixed up in anything shady.” +“Perhaps that’s so,” said Tommy slowly. “But you didn’t invent it.” +“What?” +“No. _I_ told it to you. Don’t you remember, I said yesterday I’d +overheard two people talking about a female called Jane Finn? That’s +what brought the name into your mind so pat.” +“So you did. I remember now. How extraordinary----” Tuppence tailed off +into silence. Suddenly she aroused herself. “Tommy!” +“Yes?” +“What were they like, the two men you passed?” +Tommy frowned in an effort at remembrance. +“One was a big fat sort of chap. Clean shaven, I think--and dark.” +“That’s him,” cried Tuppence, in an ungrammatical squeal. “That’s +Whittington! What was the other man like?” +“I can’t remember. I didn’t notice him particularly. It was really the +outlandish name that caught my attention.” +“And people say that coincidences don’t happen!” Tuppence tackled her +Pêche Melba happily. +But Tommy had become serious. +“Look here, Tuppence, old girl, what is this going to lead to?” +“More money,” replied his companion. +“I know that. You’ve only got one idea in your head. What I mean is, +what about the next step? How are you going to keep the game up?” +“Oh!” Tuppence laid down her spoon. “You’re right, Tommy, it is a bit of +a poser.” +“After all, you know, you can’t bluff him forever. You’re sure to slip +up sooner or later. And, anyway, I’m not at all sure that it isn’t +actionable--blackmail, you know.” +“Nonsense. Blackmail is saying you’ll tell unless you are given +money. Now, there’s nothing I could tell, because I don’t really know +anything.” +“Hm,” said Tommy doubtfully. “Well, anyway, what _are_ we going to do? +Whittington was in a hurry to get rid of you this morning, but next time +he’ll want to know something more before he parts with his money. He’ll +want to know how much _you_ know, and where you got your information +from, and a lot of other things that you can’t cope with. What are you +going to do about it?” +Tuppence frowned severely. +“We must think. Order some Turkish coffee, Tommy. Stimulating to the +brain. Oh, dear, what a lot I have eaten!” +“You have made rather a hog of yourself! So have I for that matter, but +I flatter myself that my choice of dishes was more judicious than yours. +Two coffees.” (This was to the waiter.) “One Turkish, one French.” +Tuppence sipped her coffee with a deeply reflective air, and snubbed +Tommy when he spoke to her. +“Be quiet. I’m thinking.” +“Shades of Pelmanism!” said Tommy, and relapsed into silence. +“There!” said Tuppence at last. “I’ve got a plan. Obviously what we’ve +got to do is to find out more about it all.” +Tommy applauded. +“Don’t jeer. We can only find out through Whittington. We must discover +where he lives, what he does--sleuth him, in fact! Now I can’t do it, +because he knows me, but he only saw you for a minute or two in Lyons’. +He’s not likely to recognize you. After all, one young man is much like +another.” +“I repudiate that remark utterly. I’m sure my pleasing features and +distinguished appearance would single me out from any crowd.” +“My plan is this,” Tuppence went on calmly, “I’ll go alone to-morrow. +I’ll put him off again like I did to-day. It doesn’t matter if I don’t +get any more money at once. Fifty pounds ought to last us a few days.” +“Or even longer!” +“You’ll hang about outside. When I come out I shan’t speak to you in +case he’s watching. But I’ll take up my stand somewhere near, and when +he comes out of the building I’ll drop a handkerchief or something, and +off you go!” +“Off I go where?” +“Follow him, of course, silly! What do you think of the idea?” +“Sort of thing one reads about in books. I somehow feel that in real +life one will feel a bit of an ass standing in the street for hours with +nothing to do. People will wonder what I’m up to.” +“Not in the city. Every one’s in such a hurry. Probably no one will even +notice you at all.” +“That’s the second time you’ve made that sort of remark. Never mind, I +forgive you. Anyway, it will be rather a lark. What are you doing this +afternoon?” +“Well,” said Tuppence meditatively. “I _had_ thought of hats! Or perhaps +silk stockings! Or perhaps----” +“Hold hard,” admonished Tommy. “There’s a limit to fifty pounds! But +let’s do dinner and a show to-night at all events.” +“Rather.” +The day passed pleasantly. The evening even more so. Two of the +five-pound notes were now irretrievably dead. +They met by arrangement the following morning and proceeded citywards. +Tommy remained on the opposite side of the road while Tuppence plunged +into the building. +Tommy strolled slowly down to the end of the street, then back again. +Just as he came abreast of the building, Tuppence darted across the +road. +“Tommy!” +“Yes. What’s up?” +“The place is shut. I can’t make anyone hear.” +“That’s odd.” +“Isn’t it? Come up with me, and let’s try again.” +Tommy followed her. As they passed the third floor landing a young clerk +came out of an office. He hesitated a moment, then addressed himself to +Tuppence. +“Were you wanting the Esthonia Glassware?” +“Yes, please.” +“It’s closed down. Since yesterday afternoon. Company being wound up, +they say. Not that I’ve ever heard of it myself. But anyway the office +is to let.” +“Th--thank you,” faltered Tuppence. “I suppose you don’t know Mr. +Whittington’s address?” +“Afraid I don’t. They left rather suddenly.” +“Thank you very much,” said Tommy. “Come on, Tuppence.” +They descended to the street again where they gazed at one another +blankly. +“That’s torn it,” said Tommy at length. +“And I never suspected it,” wailed Tuppence. +“Cheer up, old thing, it can’t be helped.” +“Can’t it, though!” Tuppence’s little chin shot out defiantly. “Do you +think this is the end? If so, you’re wrong. It’s just the beginning!” +“The beginning of what?” +“Of our adventure! Tommy, don’t you see, if they are scared enough to +run away like this, it shows that there must be a lot in this Jane Finn +business! Well, we’ll get to the bottom of it. We’ll run them down! +We’ll be sleuths in earnest!” +“Yes, but there’s no one left to sleuth.” +“No, that’s why we’ll have to start all over again. Lend me that bit of +pencil. Thanks. Wait a minute--don’t interrupt. There!” Tuppence handed +back the pencil, and surveyed the piece of paper on which she had +written with a satisfied eye: +“What’s that?” +“Advertisement.” +“You’re not going to put that thing in after all?” +“No, it’s a different one.” She handed him the slip of paper. +Tommy read the words on it aloud: +“WANTED, any information respecting Jane Finn. Apply Y. A.” +CHAPTER IV. WHO IS JANE FINN? +THE next day passed slowly. It was necessary to curtail expenditure. +Carefully husbanded, forty pounds will last a long time. Luckily the +weather was fine, and “walking is cheap,” dictated Tuppence. An outlying +picture house provided them with recreation for the evening. +The day of disillusionment had been a Wednesday. On Thursday the +advertisement had duly appeared. On Friday letters might be expected to +arrive at Tommy’s rooms. +He had been bound by an honourable promise not to open any such letters +if they did arrive, but to repair to the National Gallery, where his +colleague would meet him at ten o’clock. +Tuppence was first at the rendezvous. She ensconced herself on a red +velvet seat, and gazed at the Turners with unseeing eyes until she saw +the familiar figure enter the room. +“Well?” +“Well,” returned Mr. Beresford provokingly. “Which is your favourite +picture?” +“Don’t be a wretch. Aren’t there _any_ answers?” +Tommy shook his head with a deep and somewhat overacted melancholy. +“I didn’t want to disappoint you, old thing, by telling you right off. +It’s too bad. Good money wasted.” He sighed. “Still, there it is. The +advertisement has appeared, and--there are only two answers!” +“Tommy, you devil!” almost screamed Tuppence. “Give them to me. How +could you be so mean!” +“Your language, Tuppence, your language! They’re very particular at the +National Gallery. Government show, you know. And do remember, as I have +pointed out to you before, that as a clergyman’s daughter----” +“I ought to be on the stage!” finished Tuppence with a snap. +“That is not what I intended to say. But if you are sure that you have +enjoyed to the full the reaction of joy after despair with which I have +kindly provided you free of charge, let us get down to our mail, as the +saying goes.” +Tuppence snatched the two precious envelopes from him unceremoniously, +and scrutinized them carefully. +“Thick paper, this one. It looks rich. We’ll keep it to the last and +open the other first.” +“Right you are. One, two, three, go!” +Tuppence’s little thumb ripped open the envelope, and she extracted the +contents. +“DEAR SIR, +“Referring to your advertisement in this morning’s paper, I may be able +to be of some use to you. Perhaps you could call and see me at the above +address at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning. +“Yours truly, +“A. CARTER.” +“27 Carshalton Gardens,” said Tuppence, referring to the address. +“That’s Gloucester Road way. Plenty of time to get there if we tube.” +“The following,” said Tommy, “is the plan of campaign. It is my turn to +assume the offensive. Ushered into the presence of Mr. Carter, he and I +wish each other good morning as is customary. He then says: ‘Please take +a seat, Mr.--er?’ To which I reply promptly and significantly: ‘Edward +Whittington!’ whereupon Mr. Carter turns purple in the face and gasps +out: ‘How much?’ Pocketing the usual fee of fifty pounds, I rejoin you +in the road outside, and we proceed to the next address and repeat the +performance.” +“Don’t be absurd, Tommy. Now for the other letter. Oh, this is from the +_Ritz!_” +“A hundred pounds instead of fifty!” +“I’ll read it: +“DEAR SIR, +“Re your advertisement, I should be glad if you would call round +somewhere about lunch-time. +“Yours truly, +“JULIUS P. HERSHEIMMER.” +“Ha!” said Tommy. “Do I smell a Boche? Or only an American millionaire +of unfortunate ancestry? At all events we’ll call at lunch-time. It’s a +good time--frequently leads to free food for two.” +Tuppence nodded assent. +“Now for Carter. We’ll have to hurry.” +Carshalton Terrace proved to be an unimpeachable row of what Tuppence +called “ladylike looking houses.” They rang the bell at No. 27, and a +neat maid answered the door. She looked so respectable that Tuppence’s +heart sank. Upon Tommy’s request for Mr. Carter, she showed them into +a small study on the ground floor where she left them. Hardly a minute +elapsed, however, before the door opened, and a tall man with a lean +hawklike face and a tired manner entered the room. +“Mr. Y. A.?” he said, and smiled. His smile was distinctly attractive. +“Do sit down, both of you.” +They obeyed. He himself took a chair opposite to Tuppence and smiled at +her encouragingly. There was something in the quality of his smile that +made the girl’s usual readiness desert her. +As he did not seem inclined to open the conversation, Tuppence was +forced to begin. +“We wanted to know--that is, would you be so kind as to tell us anything +you know about Jane Finn?” +“Jane Finn? Ah!” Mr. Carter appeared to reflect. “Well, the question is, +what do _you_ know about her?” +Tuppence drew herself up. +“I don’t see that that’s got anything to do with it.” +“No? But it has, you know, really it has.” He smiled again in his tired +way, and continued reflectively. “So that brings us down to it again. +What do _you_ know about Jane Finn? +“Come now,” he continued, as Tuppence remained silent. “You must know +_something_ to have advertised as you did?” He leaned forward a little, +his weary voice held a hint of persuasiveness. “Suppose you tell me....” +There was something very magnetic about Mr. Carter’s personality. +Tuppence seemed to shake herself free of it with an effort, as she said: +“We couldn’t do that, could we, Tommy?” +But to her surprise, her companion did not back her up. His eyes were +fixed on Mr. Carter, and his tone when he spoke held an unusual note of +deference. +“I dare say the little we know won’t be any good to you, sir. But such +as it is, you’re welcome to it.” +“Tommy!” cried out Tuppence in surprise. +Mr. Carter slewed round in his chair. His eyes asked a question. +Tommy nodded. +“Yes, sir, I recognized you at once. Saw you in France when I was with +the Intelligence. As soon as you came into the room, I knew----” +Mr. Carter held up his hand. +“No names, please. I’m known as Mr. Carter here. It’s my cousin’s house, +by the way. She’s willing to lend it to me sometimes when it’s a case of +working on strictly unofficial lines. Well, now”--he looked from one to +the other--“who’s going to tell me the story?” +“Fire ahead, Tuppence,” directed Tommy. “It’s your yarn.” +“Yes, little lady, out with it.” +And obediently Tuppence did out with it, telling the whole story from +the forming of the Young Adventurers, Ltd., downwards. +Mr. Carter listened in silence with a resumption of his tired manner. +Now and then he passed his hand across his lips as though to hide a +smile. When she had finished he nodded gravely. +“Not much. But suggestive. Quite suggestive. If you’ll excuse my saying +so, you’re a curious young couple. I don’t know--you might succeed where +others have failed ... I believe in luck, you know--always have....” +He paused a moment, and then went on. +“Well, how about it? You’re out for adventure. How would you like +to work for me? All quite unofficial, you know. Expenses paid, and a +moderate screw?” +Tuppence gazed at him, her lips parted, her eyes growing wider and +wider. +“What should we have to do?” she breathed. +Mr. Carter smiled. +“Just go on with what you’re doing now. _Find Jane Finn_.” +“Yes, but--who _is_ Jane Finn?” +Mr. Carter nodded gravely. +“Yes, you’re entitled to know that, I think.” +He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, brought the tips of his +fingers together, and began in a low monotone: +“Secret diplomacy (which, by the way, is nearly always bad policy!) does +not concern you. It will be sufficient to say that in the early days of +1915 a certain document came into being. It was the draft of a secret +agreement--treaty--call it what you like. It was drawn up ready for +signature by the various representatives, and drawn up in America--at +that time a neutral country. It was dispatched to England by a special +messenger selected for that purpose, a young fellow called Danvers. It +was hoped that the whole affair had been kept so secret that nothing +would have leaked out. That kind of hope is usually disappointed. +Somebody always talks! +“Danvers sailed for England on the _Lusitania_. He carried the precious +papers in an oilskin packet which he wore next his skin. It was on that +particular voyage that the _Lusitania_ was torpedoed and sunk. Danvers +was among the list of those missing. Eventually his body was washed +ashore, and identified beyond any possible doubt. But the oilskin packet +was missing! +“The question was, had it been taken from him, or had he himself +passed it on into another’s keeping? There were a few incidents that +strengthened the possibility of the latter theory. After the torpedo +struck the ship, in the few moments during the launching of the boats, +Danvers was seen speaking to a young American girl. No one actually +saw him pass anything to her, but he might have done so. It seems to me +quite likely that he entrusted the papers to this girl, believing that +she, as a woman, had a greater chance of bringing them safely to shore. +“But if so, where was the girl, and what had she done with the papers? +By later advice from America it seemed likely that Danvers had been +closely shadowed on the way over. Was this girl in league with his +enemies? Or had she, in her turn, been shadowed and either tricked or +forced into handing over the precious packet? +“We set to work to trace her out. It proved unexpectedly difficult. +Her name was Jane Finn, and it duly appeared among the list of the +survivors, but the girl herself seemed to have vanished completely. +Inquiries into her antecedents did little to help us. She was an orphan, +and had been what we should call over here a pupil teacher in a small +school out West. Her passport had been made out for Paris, where she +was going to join the staff of a hospital. She had offered her services +voluntarily, and after some correspondence they had been accepted. +Having seen her name in the list of the saved from the _Lusitania_, the +staff of the hospital were naturally very surprised at her not arriving +to take up her billet, and at not hearing from her in any way. +“Well, every effort was made to trace the young lady--but all in vain. +We tracked her across Ireland, but nothing could be heard of her after +she set foot in England. No use was made of the draft treaty--as might +very easily have been done--and we therefore came to the conclusion that +Danvers had, after all, destroyed it. The war entered on another phase, +the diplomatic aspect changed accordingly, and the treaty was never +redrafted. Rumours as to its existence were emphatically denied. The +disappearance of Jane Finn was forgotten and the whole affair was lost +in oblivion.” +Mr. Carter paused, and Tuppence broke in impatiently: +“But why has it all cropped up again? The war’s over.” +A hint of alertness came into Mr. Carter’s manner. +“Because it seems that the papers were not destroyed after all, and that +they might be resurrected to-day with a new and deadly significance.” +Tuppence stared. Mr. Carter nodded. +“Yes, five years ago, that draft treaty was a weapon in our hands; +to-day it is a weapon against us. It was a gigantic blunder. If its +terms were made public, it would mean disaster.... It might possibly +bring about another war--not with Germany this time! That is an extreme +possibility, and I do not believe in its likelihood myself, but that +document undoubtedly implicates a number of our statesmen whom we cannot +afford to have discredited in any way at the present moment. As a party +cry for Labour it would be irresistible, and a Labour Government at this +juncture would, in my opinion, be a grave disability for British trade, +but that is a mere nothing to the _real_ danger.” +He paused, and then said quietly: +“You may perhaps have heard or read that there is Bolshevist influence +at work behind the present Labour unrest?” +Tuppence nodded. +“That is the truth. Bolshevist gold is pouring into this country for the +specific purpose of procuring a Revolution. And there is a certain man, +a man whose real name is unknown to us, who is working in the dark for +his own ends. The Bolshevists are behind the Labour unrest--but this +man is _behind the Bolshevists_. Who is he? We do not know. He is always +spoken of by the unassuming title of ‘Mr. Brown.’ But one thing is +certain, he is the master criminal of this age. He controls a marvellous +organization. Most of the Peace propaganda during the war was originated +and financed by him. His spies are everywhere.” +“A naturalized German?” asked Tommy. +“On the contrary, I have every reason to believe he is an Englishman. He +was pro-German, as he would have been pro-Boer. What he seeks to attain +we do not know--probably supreme power for himself, of a kind unique in +history. We have no clue as to his real personality. It is reported that +even his own followers are ignorant of it. Where we have come across his +tracks, he has always played a secondary part. Somebody else assumes +the chief rôle. But afterwards we always find that there has been some +nonentity, a servant or a clerk, who has remained in the background +unnoticed, and that the elusive Mr. Brown has escaped us once more.” +“Oh!” Tuppence jumped. “I wonder----” +“Yes?” +“I remember in Mr. Whittington’s office. The clerk--he called him Brown. +You don’t think----” +Carter nodded thoughtfully. +“Very likely. A curious point is that the name is usually mentioned. An +idiosyncrasy of genius. Can you describe him at all?” +“I really didn’t notice. He was quite ordinary--just like anyone else.” +Mr. Carter sighed in his tired manner. +“That is the invariable description of Mr. Brown! Brought a telephone +message to the man Whittington, did he? Notice a telephone in the outer +office?” +Tuppence thought. +“No, I don’t think I did.” +“Exactly. That ‘message’ was Mr. Brown’s way of giving an order to his +subordinate. He overheard the whole conversation of course. Was it after +that that Whittington handed you over the money, and told you to come +the following day?” +Tuppence nodded. +“Yes, undoubtedly the hand of Mr. Brown!” Mr. Carter paused. “Well, +there it is, you see what you are pitting yourselves against? Possibly +the finest criminal brain of the age. I don’t quite like it, you know. +You’re such young things, both of you. I shouldn’t like anything to +happen to you.” +“It won’t,” Tuppence assured him positively. +“I’ll look after her, sir,” said Tommy. +“And _I_‘ll look after _you_,” retorted Tuppence, resenting the manly +assertion. +“Well, then, look after each other,” said Mr. Carter, smiling. “Now +let’s get back to business. There’s something mysterious about this +draft treaty that we haven’t fathomed yet. We’ve been threatened with +it--in plain and unmistakable terms. The Revolutionary element as good +as declare that it’s in their hands, and that they intend to produce it +at a given moment. On the other hand, they are clearly at fault about +many of its provisions. The Government consider it as mere bluff +on their part, and, rightly or wrongly, have stuck to the policy of +absolute denial. I’m not so sure. There have been hints, indiscreet +allusions, that seem to indicate that the menace is a real one. The +position is much as though they had got hold of an incriminating +document, but couldn’t read it because it was in cipher--but we know +that the draft treaty wasn’t in cipher--couldn’t be in the nature of +things--so that won’t wash. But there’s _something_. Of course, Jane +Finn may be dead for all we know--but I don’t think so. The curious +thing is that _they’re trying to get information about the girl from +us_.” +“What?” +“Yes. One or two little things have cropped up. And your story, little +lady, confirms my idea. They know we’re looking for Jane Finn. Well, +they’ll produce a Jane Finn of their own--say at a _pensionnat_ in +Paris.” Tuppence gasped, and Mr. Carter smiled. “No one knows in the +least what she looks like, so that’s all right. She’s primed with a +trumped-up tale, and her real business is to get as much information as +possible out of us. See the idea?” +“Then you think”--Tuppence paused to grasp the supposition fully--“that +it _was_ as Jane Finn that they wanted me to go to Paris?” +Mr. Carter smiled more wearily than ever. +“I believe in coincidences, you know,” he said. +CHAPTER V. MR. JULIUS P. HERSHEIMMER +“WELL,” said Tuppence, recovering herself, “it really seems as though it +were meant to be.” +Carter nodded. +“I know what you mean. I’m superstitious myself. Luck, and all that sort +of thing. Fate seems to have chosen you out to be mixed up in this.” +Tommy indulged in a chuckle. +“My word! I don’t wonder Whittington got the wind up when Tuppence +plumped out that name! I should have myself. But look here, sir, we’re +taking up an awful lot of your time. Have you any tips to give us before +we clear out?” +“I think not. My experts, working in stereotyped ways, have failed. +You will bring imagination and an open mind to the task. Don’t be +discouraged if that too does not succeed. For one thing there is a +likelihood of the pace being forced.” +Tuppence frowned uncomprehendingly. +“When you had that interview with Whittington, they had time before +them. I have information that the big _coup_ was planned for early in +the new year. But the Government is contemplating legislative action +which will deal effectually with the strike menace. They’ll get wind of +it soon, if they haven’t already, and it’s possible that that may bring +things to a head. I hope it will myself. The less time they have to +mature their plans the better. I’m just warning you that you haven’t +much time before you, and that you needn’t be cast down if you fail. +It’s not an easy proposition anyway. That’s all.” +Tuppence rose. +“I think we ought to be businesslike. What exactly can we count upon you +for, Mr. Carter?” Mr. Carter’s lips twitched slightly, but he replied +succinctly: “Funds within reason, detailed information on any point, +and _no official recognition_. I mean that if you get yourselves into +trouble with the police, I can’t officially help you out of it. You’re +on your own.” +Tuppence nodded sagely. +“I quite understand that. I’ll write out a list of the things I want to +know when I’ve had time to think. Now--about money----” +“Yes, Miss Tuppence. Do you want to say how much?” +“Not exactly. We’ve got plenty to go with for the present, but when we +want more----” +“It will be waiting for you.” +“Yes, but--I’m sure I don’t want to be rude about the Government if +you’ve got anything to do with it, but you know one really has the devil +of a time getting anything out of it! And if we have to fill up a blue +form and send it in, and then, after three months, they send us a green +one, and so on--well, that won’t be much use, will it?” +Mr. Carter laughed outright. +“Don’t worry, Miss Tuppence. You will send a personal demand to me here, +and the money, in notes, shall be sent by return of post. As to salary, +shall we say at the rate of three hundred a year? And an equal sum for +Mr. Beresford, of course.” +Tuppence beamed upon him. +“How lovely. You are kind. I do love money! I’ll keep beautiful accounts +of our expenses all debit and credit, and the balance on the right side, +and red line drawn sideways with the totals the same at the bottom. I +really know how to do it when I think.” +“I’m sure you do. Well, good-bye, and good luck to you both.” +He shook hands with them, and in another minute they were descending the +steps of 27 Carshalton Terrace with their heads in a whirl. +“Tommy! Tell me at once, who is ‘Mr. Carter’?” +Tommy murmured a name in her ear. +“Oh!” said Tuppence, impressed. +“And I can tell you, old bean, he’s IT!” +“Oh!” said Tuppence again. Then she added reflectively, +“I like him, don’t you? He looks so awfully tired and bored, and yet you +feel that underneath he’s just like steel, all keen and flashing. Oh!” +She gave a skip. “Pinch me, Tommy, do pinch me. I can’t believe it’s +real!” +Mr. Beresford obliged. +“Ow! That’s enough! Yes, we’re not dreaming. We’ve got a job!” +“And what a job! The joint venture has really begun.” +“It’s more respectable than I thought it would be,” said Tuppence +thoughtfully. +“Luckily I haven’t got your craving for crime! What time is it? Let’s +have lunch--oh!” +The same thought sprang to the minds of each. Tommy voiced it first. +“Julius P. Hersheimmer!” +“We never told Mr. Carter about hearing from him.” +“Well, there wasn’t much to tell--not till we’ve seen him. Come on, we’d +better take a taxi.” +“Now who’s being extravagant?” +“All expenses paid, remember. Hop in.” +“At any rate, we shall make a better effect arriving this way,” said +Tuppence, leaning back luxuriously. “I’m sure blackmailers never arrive +in buses!” +“We’ve ceased being blackmailers,” Tommy pointed out. +“I’m not sure I have,” said Tuppence darkly. +On inquiring for Mr. Hersheimmer, they were at once taken up to his +suite. An impatient voice cried “Come in” in answer to the page-boy’s +knock, and the lad stood aside to let them pass in. +Mr. Julius P. Hersheimmer was a great deal younger than either Tommy or +Tuppence had pictured him. The girl put him down as thirty-five. He +was of middle height, and squarely built to match his jaw. His face was +pugnacious but pleasant. No one could have mistaken him for anything but +an American, though he spoke with very little accent. +“Get my note? Sit down and tell me right away all you know about my +cousin.” +“Your cousin?” +“Sure thing. Jane Finn.” +“Is she your cousin?” +“My father and her mother were brother and sister,” explained Mr. +Hersheimmer meticulously. +“Oh!” cried Tuppence. “Then you know where she is?” +“No!” Mr. Hersheimmer brought down his fist with a bang on the table. +“I’m darned if I do! Don’t you?” +“We advertised to receive information, not to give it,” said Tuppence +severely. +“I guess I know that. I can read. But I thought maybe it was her back +history you were after, and that you’d know where she was now?” +“Well, we wouldn’t mind hearing her back history,” said Tuppence +guardedly. +But Mr. Hersheimmer seemed to grow suddenly suspicious. +“See here,” he declared. “This isn’t Sicily! No demanding ransom or +threatening to crop her ears if I refuse. These are the British Isles, +so quit the funny business, or I’ll just sing out for that beautiful big +British policeman I see out there in Piccadilly.” +Tommy hastened to explain. +“We haven’t kidnapped your cousin. On the contrary, we’re trying to find +her. We’re employed to do so.” +Mr. Hersheimmer leant back in his chair. +“Put me wise,” he said succinctly. +Tommy fell in with this demand in so far as he gave him a guarded +version of the disappearance of Jane Finn, and of the possibility of her +having been mixed up unawares in “some political show.” He alluded to +Tuppence and himself as “private inquiry agents” commissioned to find +her, and added that they would therefore be glad of any details Mr. +Hersheimmer could give them. +That gentleman nodded approval. +“I guess that’s all right. I was just a mite hasty. But London gets my +goat! I only know little old New York. Just trot out your questions and +I’ll answer.” +For the moment this paralysed the Young Adventurers, but Tuppence, +recovering herself, plunged boldly into the breach with a reminiscence +culled from detective fiction. +“When did you last see the dece--your cousin, I mean?” +“Never seen her,” responded Mr. Hersheimmer. +“What?” demanded Tommy, astonished. +Hersheimmer turned to him. +“No, sir. As I said before, my father and her mother were brother and +sister, just as you might be”--Tommy did not correct this view of their +relationship--“but they didn’t always get on together. And when my aunt +made up her mind to marry Amos Finn, who was a poor school teacher out +West, my father was just mad! Said if he made his pile, as he seemed +in a fair way to do, she’d never see a cent of it. Well, the upshot was +that Aunt Jane went out West and we never heard from her again. +“The old man _did_ pile it up. He went into oil, and he went into steel, +and he played a bit with railroads, and I can tell you he made Wall +Street sit up!” He paused. “Then he died--last fall--and I got the +dollars. Well, would you believe it, my conscience got busy! Kept +knocking me up and saying: What about your Aunt Jane, way out West? It +worried me some. You see, I figured it out that Amos Finn would never +make good. He wasn’t the sort. End of it was, I hired a man to hunt her +down. Result, she was dead, and Amos Finn was dead, but they’d left a +daughter--Jane--who’d been torpedoed in the _Lusitania_ on her way to +Paris. She was saved all right, but they didn’t seem able to hear of her +over this side. I guessed they weren’t hustling any, so I thought I’d +come along over, and speed things up. I phoned Scotland Yard and the +Admiralty first thing. The Admiralty rather choked me off, but Scotland +Yard were very civil--said they would make inquiries, even sent a man +round this morning to get her photograph. I’m off to Paris to-morrow, +just to see what the Prefecture is doing. I guess if I go to and fro +hustling them, they ought to get busy!” +The energy of Mr. Hersheimmer was tremendous. They bowed before it. +“But say now,” he ended, “you’re not after her for anything? Contempt of +court, or something British? A proud-spirited young American girl might +find your rules and regulations in war time rather irksome, and get up +against it. If that’s the case, and there’s such a thing as graft in +this country, I’ll buy her off.” +Tuppence reassured him. +“That’s good. Then we can work together. What about some lunch? Shall we +have it up here, or go down to the restaurant?” +Tuppence expressed a preference for the latter, and Julius bowed to her +decision. +Oysters had just given place to Sole Colbert when a card was brought to +Hersheimmer. +“Inspector Japp, C.I.D. Scotland Yard again. Another man this time. What +does he expect I can tell him that I didn’t tell the first chap? I hope +they haven’t lost that photograph. That Western photographer’s place was +burned down and all his negatives destroyed--this is the only copy in +existence. I got it from the principal of the college there.” +An unformulated dread swept over Tuppence. +“You--you don’t know the name of the man who came this morning?” +“Yes, I do. No, I don’t. Half a second. It was on his card. Oh, I know! +Inspector Brown. Quiet, unassuming sort of chap.” +CHAPTER VI. A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN +A veil might with profit be drawn over the events of the next half-hour. +Suffice it to say that no such person as “Inspector Brown” was known to +Scotland Yard. The photograph of Jane Finn, which would have been of +the utmost value to the police in tracing her, was lost beyond recovery. +Once again “Mr. Brown” had triumphed. +The immediate result of this set-back was to effect a _rapprochement_ +between Julius Hersheimmer and the Young Adventurers. All barriers went +down with a crash, and Tommy and Tuppence felt they had known the young +American all their lives. They abandoned the discreet reticence of +“private inquiry agents,” and revealed to him the whole history of +the joint venture, whereat the young man declared himself “tickled to +death.” +He turned to Tuppence at the close of the narration. +“I’ve always had a kind of idea that English girls were just a mite +moss-grown. Old-fashioned and sweet, you know, but scared to move round +without a footman or a maiden aunt. I guess I’m a bit behind the times!” +The upshot of these confidential relations was that Tommy and Tuppence +took up their abode forthwith at the _Ritz_, in order, as Tuppence put +it, to keep in touch with Jane Finn’s only living relation. “And put +like that,” she added confidentially to Tommy, “nobody could boggle at +the expense!” +Nobody did, which was the great thing. +“And now,” said the young lady on the morning after their installation, +“to work!” +Mr. Beresford put down the _Daily Mail_, which he was reading, and +applauded with somewhat unnecessary vigour. He was politely requested by +his colleague not to be an ass. +“Dash it all, Tommy, we’ve got to _do_ something for our money.” +Tommy sighed. +“Yes, I fear even the dear old Government will not support us at the +_Ritz_ in idleness for ever.” +“Therefore, as I said before, we must _do_ something.” +“Well,” said Tommy, picking up the _Daily Mail_ again, “_do_ it. I +shan’t stop you.” +“You see,” continued Tuppence. “I’ve been thinking----” +She was interrupted by a fresh bout of applause. +“It’s all very well for you to sit there being funny, Tommy. It would do +you no harm to do a little brain work too.” +“My union, Tuppence, my union! It does not permit me to work before 11 +a.m.” +“Tommy, do you want something thrown at you? It is absolutely essential +that we should without delay map out a plan of campaign.” +“Hear, hear!” +“Well, let’s do it.” +Tommy laid his paper finally aside. “There’s something of the simplicity +of the truly great mind about you, Tuppence. Fire ahead. I’m listening.” +“To begin with,” said Tuppence, “what have we to go upon?” +“Absolutely nothing,” said Tommy cheerily. +“Wrong!” Tuppence wagged an energetic finger. “We have two distinct +clues.” +“What are they?” +“First clue, we know one of the gang.” +“Whittington?” +“Yes. I’d recognize him anywhere.” +“Hum,” said Tommy doubtfully, “I don’t call that much of a clue. You +don’t know where to look for him, and it’s about a thousand to one +against your running against him by accident.” +“I’m not so sure about that,” replied Tuppence thoughtfully. “I’ve often +noticed that once coincidences start happening they go on happening in +the most extraordinary way. I dare say it’s some natural law that we +haven’t found out. Still, as you say, we can’t rely on that. But there +_are_ places in London where simply every one is bound to turn up sooner +or later. Piccadilly Circus, for instance. One of my ideas was to take +up my stand there every day with a tray of flags.” +“What about meals?” inquired the practical Tommy. +“How like a man! What does mere food matter?” +“That’s all very well. You’ve just had a thundering good breakfast. No +one’s got a better appetite than you have, Tuppence, and by tea-time +you’d be eating the flags, pins and all. But, honestly, I don’t think +much of the idea. Whittington mayn’t be in London at all.” +“That’s true. Anyway, I think clue No. 2 is more promising.” +“Let’s hear it.” +“It’s nothing much. Only a Christian name--Rita. Whittington mentioned +it that day.” +“Are you proposing a third advertisement: Wanted, female crook, +answering to the name of Rita?” +“I am not. I propose to reason in a logical manner. That man, Danvers, +was shadowed on the way over, wasn’t he? And it’s more likely to have +been a woman than a man----” +“I don’t see that at all.” +“I am absolutely certain that it would be a woman, and a good-looking +one,” replied Tuppence calmly. +“On these technical points I bow to your decision,” murmured Mr. +Beresford. +“Now, obviously this woman, whoever she was, was saved.” +“How do you make that out?” +“If she wasn’t, how would they have known Jane Finn had got the papers?” +“Correct. Proceed, O Sherlock!” +“Now there’s just a chance, I admit it’s only a chance, that this woman +may have been ‘Rita.’” +“And if so?” +“If so, we’ve got to hunt through the survivors of the _Lusitania_ till +we find her.” +“Then the first thing is to get a list of the survivors.” +“I’ve got it. I wrote a long list of things I wanted to know, and sent +it to Mr. Carter. I got his reply this morning, and among other things +it encloses the official statement of those saved from the _Lusitania_. +How’s that for clever little Tuppence?” +“Full marks for industry, zero for modesty. But the great point is, is +there a ‘Rita’ on the list?” +“That’s just what I don’t know,” confessed Tuppence. +“Don’t know?” +“Yes. Look here.” Together they bent over the list. “You see, very few +Christian names are given. They’re nearly all Mrs. or Miss.” +Tommy nodded. +“That complicates matters,” he murmured thoughtfully. +Tuppence gave her characteristic “terrier” shake. +“Well, we’ve just got to get down to it, that’s all. We’ll start with +the London area. Just note down the addresses of any of the females who +live in London or roundabout, while I put on my hat.” +Five minutes later the young couple emerged into Piccadilly, and a few +seconds later a taxi was bearing them to The Laurels, Glendower Road, +N.7, the residence of Mrs. Edgar Keith, whose name figured first in a +list of seven reposing in Tommy’s pocket-book. +The Laurels was a dilapidated house, standing back from the road with +a few grimy bushes to support the fiction of a front garden. Tommy paid +off the taxi, and accompanied Tuppence to the front door bell. As she +was about to ring it, he arrested her hand. +“What are you going to say?” +“What am I going to say? Why, I shall say--Oh dear, I don’t know. It’s +very awkward.” +“I thought as much,” said Tommy with satisfaction. “How like a woman! No +foresight! Now just stand aside, and see how easily the mere male +deals with the situation.” He pressed the bell. Tuppence withdrew to a +suitable spot. +A slatternly looking servant, with an extremely dirty face and a pair of +eyes that did not match, answered the door. +Tommy had produced a notebook and pencil. +“Good morning,” he said briskly and cheerfully. “From the Hampstead +Borough Council. The new Voting Register. Mrs. Edgar Keith lives here, +does she not?” +“Yaas,” said the servant. +“Christian name?” asked Tommy, his pencil poised. +“Missus’s? Eleanor Jane.” +“Eleanor,” spelt Tommy. “Any sons or daughters over twenty-one?” +“Naow.” +“Thank you.” Tommy closed the notebook with a brisk snap. “Good +morning.” +The servant volunteered her first remark: +“I thought perhaps as you’d come about the gas,” she observed +cryptically, and shut the door. +Tommy rejoined his accomplice. +“You see, Tuppence,” he observed. “Child’s play to the masculine mind.” +“I don’t mind admitting that for once you’ve scored handsomely. I should +never have thought of that.” +“Good wheeze, wasn’t it? And we can repeat it _ad lib_.” +Lunch-time found the young couple attacking a steak and chips in an +obscure hostelry with avidity. They had collected a Gladys Mary and a +Marjorie, been baffled by one change of address, and had been forced to +listen to a long lecture on universal suffrage from a vivacious American +lady whose Christian name had proved to be Sadie. +“Ah!” said Tommy, imbibing a long draught of beer, “I feel better. +Where’s the next draw?” +The notebook lay on the table between them. Tuppence picked it up. +“Mrs. Vandemeyer,” she read, “20 South Audley Mansions. Miss Wheeler, 43 +Clapington Road, Battersea. She’s a lady’s maid, as far as I remember, +so probably won’t be there, and, anyway, she’s not likely.” +“Then the Mayfair lady is clearly indicated as the first port of call.” +“Tommy, I’m getting discouraged.” +“Buck up, old bean. We always knew it was an outside chance. And, +anyway, we’re only starting. If we draw a blank in London, there’s a +fine tour of England, Ireland and Scotland before us.” +“True,” said Tuppence, her flagging spirits reviving. “And all expenses +paid! But, oh, Tommy, I do like things to happen quickly. So far, +adventure has succeeded adventure, but this morning has been dull as +dull.” +“You must stifle this longing for vulgar sensation, Tuppence. Remember +that if Mr. Brown is all he is reported to be, it’s a wonder that he has +not ere now done us to death. That’s a good sentence, quite a literary +flavour about it.” +“You’re really more conceited than I am--with less excuse! Ahem! But it +certainly is queer that Mr. Brown has not yet wreaked vengeance upon us. +(You see, I can do it too.) We pass on our way unscathed.” +“Perhaps he doesn’t think us worth bothering about,” suggested the young +man simply. +Tuppence received the remark with great disfavour. +“How horrid you are, Tommy. Just as though we didn’t count.” +“Sorry, Tuppence. What I meant was that we work like moles in the dark, +and that he has no suspicion of our nefarious schemes. Ha ha!” +“Ha ha!” echoed Tuppence approvingly, as she rose. +South Audley Mansions was an imposing-looking block of flats just off +Park Lane. No. 20 was on the second floor. +Tommy had by this time the glibness born of practice. He rattled off +the formula to the elderly woman, looking more like a housekeeper than a +servant, who opened the door to him. +“Christian name?” +“Margaret.” +Tommy spelt it, but the other interrupted him. +“No, _g u e_.” +“Oh, Marguerite; French way, I see.” He paused, then plunged boldly. “We +had her down as Rita Vandemeyer, but I suppose that’s incorrect?” +“She’s mostly called that, sir, but Marguerite’s her name.” +“Thank you. That’s all. Good morning.” +Hardly able to contain his excitement, Tommy hurried down the stairs. +Tuppence was waiting at the angle of the turn. +“You heard?” +“Yes. Oh, _Tommy!_” +Tommy squeezed her arm sympathetically. +“I know, old thing. I feel the same.” +“It’s--it’s so lovely to think of things--and then for them really to +happen!” cried Tuppence enthusiastically. +Her hand was still in Tommy’s. They had reached the entrance hall. There +were footsteps on the stairs above them, and voices. +Suddenly, to Tommy’s complete surprise, Tuppence dragged him into the +little space by the side of the lift where the shadow was deepest. +“What the----” +“Hush!” +Two men came down the stairs and passed out through the entrance. +Tuppence’s hand closed tighter on Tommy’s arm. +“Quick--follow them. I daren’t. He might recognize me. I don’t know who +the other man is, but the bigger of the two was Whittington.” +CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE IN SOHO +WHITTINGTON and his companion were walking at a good pace. Tommy started +in pursuit at once, and was in time to see them turn the corner of the +street. His vigorous strides soon enabled him to gain upon them, and by +the time he, in his turn, reached the corner the distance between them +was sensibly lessened. The small Mayfair streets were comparatively +deserted, and he judged it wise to content himself with keeping them in +sight. +The sport was a new one to him. Though familiar with the technicalities +from a course of novel reading, he had never before attempted to +“follow” anyone, and it appeared to him at once that, in actual +practice, the proceeding was fraught with difficulties. Supposing, for +instance, that they should suddenly hail a taxi? In books, you simply +leapt into another, promised the driver a sovereign--or its modern +equivalent--and there you were. In actual fact, Tommy foresaw that it +was extremely likely there would be no second taxi. Therefore he +would have to run. What happened in actual fact to a young man who ran +incessantly and persistently through the London streets? In a main road +he might hope to create the illusion that he was merely running for a +bus. But in these obscure aristocratic byways he could not but feel that +an officious policeman might stop him to explain matters. +At this juncture in his thoughts a taxi with flag erect turned the +corner of the street ahead. Tommy held his breath. Would they hail it? +He drew a sigh of relief as they allowed it to pass unchallenged. Their +course was a zigzag one designed to bring them as quickly as possible +to Oxford Street. When at length they turned into it, proceeding in an +easterly direction, Tommy slightly increased his pace. Little by little +he gained upon them. On the crowded pavement there was little chance of +his attracting their notice, and he was anxious if possible to catch +a word or two of their conversation. In this he was completely +foiled; they spoke low and the din of the traffic drowned their voices +effectually. +Just before the Bond Street Tube station they crossed the road, Tommy, +unperceived, faithfully at their heels, and entered the big Lyons’. +There they went up to the first floor, and sat at a small table in the +window. It was late, and the place was thinning out. Tommy took a seat +at the table next to them, sitting directly behind Whittington in case +of recognition. On the other hand, he had a full view of the second man +and studied him attentively. He was fair, with a weak, unpleasant face, +and Tommy put him down as being either a Russian or a Pole. He was +probably about fifty years of age, his shoulders cringed a little as he +talked, and his eyes, small and crafty, shifted unceasingly. +Having already lunched heartily, Tommy contented himself with ordering +a Welsh rarebit and a cup of coffee. Whittington ordered a substantial +lunch for himself and his companion; then, as the waitress withdrew, he +moved his chair a little closer to the table and began to talk earnestly +in a low voice. The other man joined in. Listen as he would, Tommy could +only catch a word here and there; but the gist of it seemed to be some +directions or orders which the big man was impressing on his companion, +and with which the latter seemed from time to time to disagree. +Whittington addressed the other as Boris. +Tommy caught the word “Ireland” several times, also “propaganda,” but +of Jane Finn there was no mention. Suddenly, in a lull in the clatter of +the room, he got one phrase entire. Whittington was speaking. “Ah, but +you don’t know Flossie. She’s a marvel. An archbishop would swear she +was his own mother. She gets the voice right every time, and that’s +really the principal thing.” +Tommy did not hear Boris’s reply, but in response to it Whittington said +something that sounded like: “Of course--only in an emergency....” +Then he lost the thread again. But presently the phrases became distinct +again whether because the other two had insensibly raised their voices, +or because Tommy’s ears were getting more attuned, he could not tell. +But two words certainly had a most stimulating effect upon the listener. +They were uttered by Boris and they were: “Mr. Brown.” +Whittington seemed to remonstrate with him, but he merely laughed. +“Why not, my friend? It is a name most respectable--most common. Did +he not choose it for that reason? Ah, I should like to meet him--Mr. +Brown.” +There was a steely ring in Whittington’s voice as he replied: +“Who knows? You may have met him already.” +“Bah!” retorted the other. “That is children’s talk--a fable for the +police. Do you know what I say to myself sometimes? That he is a fable +invented by the Inner Ring, a bogy to frighten us with. It might be so.” +“And it might not.” +“I wonder ... or is it indeed true that he is with us and amongst us, +unknown to all but a chosen few? If so, he keeps his secret well. And +the idea is a good one, yes. We never know. We look at each other-- +_one of us is Mr. Brown_--which? He commands--but also he serves. Among +us--in the midst of us. And no one knows which he is....” +With an effort the Russian shook off the vagary of his fancy. He looked +at his watch. +“Yes,” said Whittington. “We might as well go.” +He called the waitress and asked for his bill. Tommy did likewise, and a +few moments later was following the two men down the stairs. +Outside, Whittington hailed a taxi, and directed the driver to go to +Waterloo. +Taxis were plentiful here, and before Whittington’s had driven off +another was drawing up to the curb in obedience to Tommy’s peremptory +hand. +“Follow that other taxi,” directed the young man. “Don’t lose it.” +The elderly chauffeur showed no interest. He merely grunted and jerked +down his flag. The drive was uneventful. Tommy’s taxi came to rest at +the departure platform just after Whittington’s. Tommy was behind him at +the booking-office. He took a first-class single ticket to Bournemouth, +Tommy did the same. As he emerged, Boris remarked, glancing up at the +clock: “You are early. You have nearly half an hour.” +Boris’s words had aroused a new train of thought in Tommy’s mind. +Clearly Whittington was making the journey alone, while the other +remained in London. Therefore he was left with a choice as to which he +would follow. Obviously, he could not follow both of them unless---- +Like Boris, he glanced up at the clock, and then to the announcement +board of the trains. The Bournemouth train left at 3.30. It was now ten +past. Whittington and Boris were walking up and down by the bookstall. +He gave one doubtful look at them, then hurried into an adjacent +telephone box. He dared not waste time in trying to get hold of +Tuppence. In all probability she was still in the neighbourhood of South +Audley Mansions. But there remained another ally. He rang up the _Ritz_ +and asked for Julius Hersheimmer. There was a click and a buzz. Oh, if +only the young American was in his room! There was another click, and +then “Hello” in unmistakable accents came over the wire. +“That you, Hersheimmer? Beresford speaking. I’m at Waterloo. I’ve +followed Whittington and another man here. No time to explain. +Whittington’s off to Bournemouth by the 3.30. Can you get there by +then?” +The reply was reassuring. +“Sure. I’ll hustle.” +The telephone rang off. Tommy put back the receiver with a sigh of +relief. His opinion of Julius’s power of hustling was high. He felt +instinctively that the American would arrive in time. +Whittington and Boris were still where he had left them. If Boris +remained to see his friend off, all was well. Then Tommy fingered his +pocket thoughtfully. In spite of the carte blanche assured to him, he +had not yet acquired the habit of going about with any considerable sum +of money on him. The taking of the first-class ticket to Bournemouth +had left him with only a few shillings in his pocket. It was to be hoped +that Julius would arrive better provided. +In the meantime, the minutes were creeping by: 3.15, 3.20, 3.25, 3.27. +Supposing Julius did not get there in time. 3.29.... Doors were banging. +Tommy felt cold waves of despair pass over him. Then a hand fell on his +shoulder. +“Here I am, son. Your British traffic beats description! Put me wise to +the crooks right away.” +“That’s Whittington--there, getting in now, that big dark man. The other +is the foreign chap he’s talking to.” +“I’m on to them. Which of the two is my bird?” +Tommy had thought out this question. +“Got any money with you?” +Julius shook his head, and Tommy’s face fell. +“I guess I haven’t more than three or four hundred dollars with me at +the moment,” explained the American. +Tommy gave a faint whoop of relief. +“Oh, Lord, you millionaires! You don’t talk the same language! Climb +aboard the lugger. Here’s your ticket. Whittington’s your man.” +“Me for Whittington!” said Julius darkly. The train was just starting +as he swung himself aboard. “So long, Tommy.” The train slid out of the +station. +Tommy drew a deep breath. The man Boris was coming along the platform +towards him. Tommy allowed him to pass and then took up the chase once +more. +From Waterloo Boris took the tube as far as Piccadilly Circus. Then he +walked up Shaftesbury Avenue, finally turning off into the maze of mean +streets round Soho. Tommy followed him at a judicious distance. +They reached at length a small dilapidated square. The houses there had +a sinister air in the midst of their dirt and decay. Boris looked round, +and Tommy drew back into the shelter of a friendly porch. The place was +almost deserted. It was a cul-de-sac, and consequently no traffic passed +that way. The stealthy way the other had looked round stimulated Tommy’s +imagination. From the shelter of the doorway he watched him go up the +steps of a particularly evil-looking house and rap sharply, with a +peculiar rhythm, on the door. It was opened promptly, he said a word or +two to the doorkeeper, then passed inside. The door was shut to again. +It was at this juncture that Tommy lost his head. What he ought to have +done, what any sane man would have done, was to remain patiently where +he was and wait for his man to come out again. What he did do was +entirely foreign to the sober common sense which was, as a rule, his +leading characteristic. Something, as he expressed it, seemed to snap in +his brain. Without a moment’s pause for reflection he, too, went up the +steps, and reproduced as far as he was able the peculiar knock. +The door swung open with the same promptness as before. A +villainous-faced man with close-cropped hair stood in the doorway. +“Well?” he grunted. +It was at that moment that the full realization of his folly began to +come home to Tommy. But he dared not hesitate. He seized at the first +words that came into his mind. +“Mr. Brown?” he said. +To his surprise the man stood aside. +“Upstairs,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, “second door +on your left.” +CHAPTER VIII. THE ADVENTURES OF TOMMY +TAKEN aback though he was by the man’s words, Tommy did not hesitate. +If audacity had successfully carried him so far, it was to be hoped +it would carry him yet farther. He quietly passed into the house and +mounted the ramshackle staircase. Everything in the house was filthy +beyond words. The grimy paper, of a pattern now indistinguishable, +hung in loose festoons from the wall. In every angle was a grey mass of +cobweb. +Tommy proceeded leisurely. By the time he reached the bend of the +staircase, he had heard the man below disappear into a back room. +Clearly no suspicion attached to him as yet. To come to the house and +ask for “Mr. Brown” appeared indeed to be a reasonable and natural +proceeding. +At the top of the stairs Tommy halted to consider his next move. In +front of him ran a narrow passage, with doors opening on either side of +it. From the one nearest him on the left came a low murmur of voices. +It was this room which he had been directed to enter. But what held +his glance fascinated was a small recess immediately on his right, +half concealed by a torn velvet curtain. It was directly opposite the +left-handed door and, owing to its angle, it also commanded a good view +of the upper part of the staircase. As a hiding-place for one or, at a +pinch, two men, it was ideal, being about two feet deep and three feet +wide. It attracted Tommy mightily. He thought things over in his usual +slow and steady way, deciding that the mention of “Mr. Brown” was not a +request for an individual, but in all probability a password used by +the gang. His lucky use of it had gained him admission. So far he had +aroused no suspicion. But he must decide quickly on his next step. +Suppose he were boldly to enter the room on the left of the passage. +Would the mere fact of his having been admitted to the house be +sufficient? Perhaps a further password would be required, or, at any +rate, some proof of identity. The doorkeeper clearly did not know all +the members of the gang by sight, but it might be different upstairs. +On the whole it seemed to him that luck had served him very well so far, +but that there was such a thing as trusting it too far. To enter +that room was a colossal risk. He could not hope to sustain his part +indefinitely; sooner or later he was almost bound to betray himself, and +then he would have thrown away a vital chance in mere foolhardiness. +A repetition of the signal knock sounded on the door below, and Tommy, +his mind made up, slipped quickly into the recess, and cautiously drew +the curtain farther across so that it shielded him completely from +sight. There were several rents and slits in the ancient material which +afforded him a good view. He would watch events, and any time he chose +could, after all, join the assembly, modelling his behaviour on that of +the new arrival. +The man who came up the staircase with a furtive, soft-footed tread was +quite unknown to Tommy. He was obviously of the very dregs of society. +The low beetling brows, and the criminal jaw, the bestiality of the +whole countenance were new to the young man, though he was a type that +Scotland Yard would have recognized at a glance. +The man passed the recess, breathing heavily as he went. He stopped at +the door opposite, and gave a repetition of the signal knock. A voice +inside called out something, and the man opened the door and passed in, +affording Tommy a momentary glimpse of the room inside. He thought there +must be about four or five people seated round a long table that took up +most of the space, but his attention was caught and held by a tall man +with close-cropped hair and a short, pointed, naval-looking beard, +who sat at the head of the table with papers in front of him. As the +new-comer entered he glanced up, and with a correct, but curiously +precise enunciation, which attracted Tommy’s notice, he asked: +“Your number, comrade?” +“Fourteen, gov’nor,” replied the other hoarsely. +“Correct.” +The door shut again. +“If that isn’t a Hun, I’m a Dutchman!” said Tommy to himself. “And +running the show darned systematically too--as they always do. Lucky I +didn’t roll in. I’d have given the wrong number, and there would have +been the deuce to pay. No, this is the place for me. Hullo, here’s +another knock.” +This visitor proved to be of an entirely different type to the last. +Tommy recognized in him an Irish Sinn Feiner. Certainly Mr. Brown’s +organization was a far-reaching concern. The common criminal, the +well-bred Irish gentleman, the pale Russian, and the efficient German +master of the ceremonies! Truly a strange and sinister gathering! Who +was this man who held in his finger these curiously variegated links of +an unknown chain? +In this case, the procedure was exactly the same. The signal knock, the +demand for a number, and the reply “Correct.” +Two knocks followed in quick succession on the door below. The first man +was quite unknown to Tommy, who put him down as a city clerk. A quiet, +intelligent-looking man, rather shabbily dressed. The second was of the +working classes, and his face was vaguely familiar to the young man. +Three minutes later came another, a man of commanding appearance, +exquisitely dressed, and evidently well born. His face, again, was not +unknown to the watcher, though he could not for the moment put a name to +it. +After his arrival there was a long wait. In fact Tommy concluded that +the gathering was now complete, and was just cautiously creeping out +from his hiding-place, when another knock sent him scuttling back to +cover. +This last-comer came up the stairs so quietly that he was almost abreast +of Tommy before the young man had realized his presence. +He was a small man, very pale, with a gentle almost womanish air. The +angle of the cheek-bones hinted at his Slavonic ancestry, otherwise +there was nothing to indicate his nationality. As he passed the recess, +he turned his head slowly. The strange light eyes seemed to burn through +the curtain; Tommy could hardly believe that the man did not know he was +there and in spite of himself he shivered. He was no more fanciful than +the majority of young Englishmen, but he could not rid himself of the +impression that some unusually potent force emanated from the man. The +creature reminded him of a venomous snake. +A moment later his impression was proved correct. The new-comer knocked +on the door as all had done, but his reception was very different. The +bearded man rose to his feet, and all the others followed suit. The +German came forward and shook hands. His heels clicked together. +“We are honoured,” he said. “We are greatly honoured. I much feared that +it would be impossible.” +The other answered in a low voice that had a kind of hiss in it: +“There were difficulties. It will not be possible again, I fear. But one +meeting is essential--to define my policy. I can do nothing without--Mr. +Brown. He is here?” +The change in the German’s voice was audible as he replied with slight +hesitation: +“We have received a message. It is impossible for him to be present +in person.” He stopped, giving a curious impression of having left the +sentence unfinished. +A very slow smile overspread the face of the other. He looked round at a +circle of uneasy faces. +“Ah! I understand. I have read of his methods. He works in the dark and +trusts no one. But, all the same, it is possible that he is among us +now....” He looked round him again, and again that expression of fear +swept over the group. Each man seemed eyeing his neighbour doubtfully. +The Russian tapped his cheek. +“So be it. Let us proceed.” +The German seemed to pull himself together. He indicated the place he +had been occupying at the head of the table. The Russian demurred, but +the other insisted. +“It is the only possible place,” he said, “for--Number One. Perhaps +Number Fourteen will shut the door?” +In another moment Tommy was once more confronting bare wooden panels, +and the voices within had sunk once more to a mere undistinguishable +murmur. Tommy became restive. The conversation he had overheard had +stimulated his curiosity. He felt that, by hook or by crook, he must +hear more. +There was no sound from below, and it did not seem likely that the +doorkeeper would come upstairs. After listening intently for a minute or +two, he put his head round the curtain. The passage was deserted. Tommy +bent down and removed his shoes, then, leaving them behind the curtain, +he walked gingerly out on his stockinged feet, and kneeling down by +the closed door he laid his ear cautiously to the crack. To his intense +annoyance he could distinguish little more; just a chance word here and +there if a voice was raised, which merely served to whet his curiosity +still farther. +He eyed the handle of the door tentatively. Could he turn it by degrees +so gently and imperceptibly that those in the room would notice nothing? +He decided that with great care it could be done. Very slowly, a +fraction of an inch at a time, he moved it round, holding his breath in +his excessive care. A little more--a little more still--would it never +be finished? Ah! at last it would turn no farther. +He stayed so for a minute or two, then drew a deep breath, and pressed +it ever so slightly inward. The door did not budge. Tommy was annoyed. +If he had to use too much force, it would almost certainly creak. +He waited until the voices rose a little, then he tried again. Still +nothing happened. He increased the pressure. Had the beastly thing +stuck? Finally, in desperation, he pushed with all his might. But the +door remained firm, and at last the truth dawned upon him. It was locked +or bolted on the inside. +For a moment or two Tommy’s indignation got the better of him. +“Well, I’m damned!” he said. “What a dirty trick!” +As his indignation cooled, he prepared to face the situation. Clearly +the first thing to be done was to restore the handle to its original +position. If he let it go suddenly, the men inside would be almost +certain to notice it, so, with the same infinite pains, he reversed his +former tactics. All went well, and with a sigh of relief the young man +rose to his feet. There was a certain bulldog tenacity about Tommy that +made him slow to admit defeat. Checkmated for the moment, he was far +from abandoning the conflict. He still intended to hear what was going +on in the locked room. As one plan had failed, he must hunt about for +another. +He looked round him. A little farther along the passage on the left was +a second door. He slipped silently along to it. He listened for a moment +or two, then tried the handle. It yielded, and he slipped inside. +The room, which was untenanted, was furnished as a bedroom. Like +everything else in the house, the furniture was falling to pieces, and +the dirt was, if anything, more abundant. +But what interested Tommy was the thing he had hoped to find, a +communicating door between the two rooms, up on the left by the window. +Carefully closing the door into the passage behind him, he stepped +across to the other and examined it closely. The bolt was shot across +it. It was very rusty, and had clearly not been used for some time. By +gently wriggling it to and fro, Tommy managed to draw it back without +making too much noise. Then he repeated his former manœuvres with the +handle--this time with complete success. The door swung open--a crack, +a mere fraction, but enough for Tommy to hear what went on. There was a +velvet _portière_ on the inside of this door which prevented him from +seeing, but he was able to recognize the voices with a reasonable amount +of accuracy. +The Sinn Feiner was speaking. His rich Irish voice was unmistakable: +“That’s all very well. But more money is essential. No money--no +results!” +Another voice which Tommy rather thought was that of Boris replied: +“Will you guarantee that there _are_ results?” +“In a month from now--sooner or later as you wish--I will guarantee you +such a reign of terror in Ireland as shall shake the British Empire to +its foundations.” +There was a pause, and then came the soft, sibilant accents of Number +One: +“Good! You shall have the money. Boris, you will see to that.” +Boris asked a question: +“Via the Irish Americans, and Mr. Potter as usual?” +“I guess that’ll be all right!” said a new voice, with a transatlantic +intonation, “though I’d like to point out, here and now, that things +are getting a mite difficult. There’s not the sympathy there was, and +a growing disposition to let the Irish settle their own affairs without +interference from America.” +Tommy felt that Boris had shrugged his shoulders as he answered: +“Does that matter, since the money only nominally comes from the +States?” +“The chief difficulty is the landing of the ammunition,” said the Sinn +Feiner. “The money is conveyed in easily enough--thanks to our colleague +here.” +Another voice, which Tommy fancied was that of the tall, +commanding-looking man whose face had seemed familiar to him, said: +“Think of the feelings of Belfast if they could hear you!” +“That is settled, then,” said the sibilant tones. “Now, in the matter +of the loan to an English newspaper, you have arranged the details +satisfactorily, Boris?” +“I think so.” +“That is good. An official denial from Moscow will be forthcoming if +necessary.” +There was a pause, and then the clear voice of the German broke the +silence: +“I am directed by--Mr. Brown, to place the summaries of the reports +from the different unions before you. That of the miners is most +satisfactory. We must hold back the railways. There may be trouble with +the A.S.E.” +For a long time there was a silence, broken only by the rustle of papers +and an occasional word of explanation from the German. Then Tommy heard +the light tap-tap of fingers, drumming on the table. +“And--the date, my friend?” said Number One. +“The 29th.” +The Russian seemed to consider: +“That is rather soon.” +“I know. But it was settled by the principal Labour leaders, and we +cannot seem to interfere too much. They must believe it to be entirely +their own show.” +The Russian laughed softly, as though amused. +“Yes, yes,” he said. “That is true. They must have no inkling that we +are using them for our own ends. They are honest men--and that is their +value to us. It is curious--but you cannot make a revolution without +honest men. The instinct of the populace is infallible.” He paused, and +then repeated, as though the phrase pleased him: “Every revolution has +had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.” +There was a sinister note in his voice. +The German resumed: +“Clymes must go. He is too far-seeing. Number Fourteen will see to +that.” +There was a hoarse murmur. +“That’s all right, gov’nor.” And then after a moment or two: “Suppose +I’m nabbed.” +“You will have the best legal talent to defend you,” replied the +German quietly. “But in any case you will wear gloves fitted with the +finger-prints of a notorious housebreaker. You have little to fear.” +“Oh, I ain’t afraid, gov’nor. All for the good of the cause. The streets +is going to run with blood, so they say.” He spoke with a grim relish. +“Dreams of it, sometimes, I does. And diamonds and pearls rolling about +in the gutter for anyone to pick up!” +Tommy heard a chair shifted. Then Number One spoke: +“Then all is arranged. We are assured of success?” +“I--think so.” But the German spoke with less than his usual confidence. +Number One’s voice held suddenly a dangerous quality: +“What has gone wrong?” +“Nothing; but----” +“But what?” +“The Labour leaders. Without them, as you say, we can do nothing. If +they do not declare a general strike on the 29th----” +“Why should they not?” +“As you’ve said, they’re honest. And, in spite of everything we’ve +done to discredit the Government in their eyes, I’m not sure that they +haven’t got a sneaking faith and belief in it.” +“But----” +“I know. They abuse it unceasingly. But, on the whole, public opinion +swings to the side of the Government. They will not go against it.” +Again the Russian’s fingers drummed on the table. +“To the point, my friend. I was given to understand that there was a +certain document in existence which assured success.” +“That is so. If that document were placed before the leaders, the result +would be immediate. They would publish it broadcast throughout England, +and declare for the revolution without a moment’s hesitation. The +Government would be broken finally and completely.” +“Then what more do you want?” +“The document itself,” said the German bluntly. +“Ah! It is not in your possession? But you know where it is?” +“No.” +“Does anyone know where it is?” +“One person--perhaps. And we are not sure of that even.” +“Who is this person?” +“A girl.” +Tommy held his breath. +“A girl?” The Russian’s voice rose contemptuously. “And you have not +made her speak? In Russia we have ways of making a girl talk.” +“This case is different,” said the German sullenly. +“How--different?” He paused a moment, then went on: “Where is the girl +now?” +“The girl?” +“Yes.” +“She is----” +But Tommy heard no more. A crashing blow descended on his head, and all +was darkness. +CHAPTER IX. TUPPENCE ENTERS DOMESTIC SERVICE +WHEN Tommy set forth on the trail of the two men, it took all Tuppence’s +self-command to refrain from accompanying him. However, she contained +herself as best she might, consoled by the reflection that her reasoning +had been justified by events. The two men had undoubtedly come from the +second floor flat, and that one slender thread of the name “Rita” had +set the Young Adventurers once more upon the track of the abductors of +Jane Finn. +The question was what to do next? Tuppence hated letting the grass grow +under her feet. Tommy was amply employed, and debarred from joining him +in the chase, the girl felt at a loose end. She retraced her steps +to the entrance hall of the mansions. It was now tenanted by a small +lift-boy, who was polishing brass fittings, and whistling the latest air +with a good deal of vigour and a reasonable amount of accuracy. +He glanced round at Tuppence’s entry. There was a certain amount of the +gamin element in the girl, at all events she invariably got on well +with small boys. A sympathetic bond seemed instantly to be formed. She +reflected that an ally in the enemy’s camp, so to speak, was not to be +despised. +“Well, William,” she remarked cheerfully, in the best approved +hospital-early-morning style, “getting a good shine up?” +The boy grinned responsively. +“Albert, miss,” he corrected. +“Albert be it,” said Tuppence. She glanced mysteriously round the hall. +The effect was purposely a broad one in case Albert should miss it. She +leaned towards the boy and dropped her voice: “I want a word with you, +Albert.” +Albert ceased operations on the fittings and opened his mouth slightly. +“Look! Do you know what this is?” With a dramatic gesture she flung back +the left side of her coat and exposed a small enamelled badge. It was +extremely unlikely that Albert would have any knowledge of it--indeed, +it would have been fatal for Tuppence’s plans, since the badge in +question was the device of a local training corps originated by the +archdeacon in the early days of the war. Its presence in Tuppence’s coat +was due to the fact that she had used it for pinning in some flowers a +day or two before. But Tuppence had sharp eyes, and had noted the corner +of a threepenny detective novel protruding from Albert’s pocket, and the +immediate enlargement of his eyes told her that her tactics were good, +and that the fish would rise to the bait. +“American Detective Force!” she hissed. +Albert fell for it. +“Lord!” he murmured ecstatically. +Tuppence nodded at him with the air of one who has established a +thorough understanding. +“Know who I’m after?” she inquired genially. +Albert, still round-eyed, demanded breathlessly: +“One of the flats?” +Tuppence nodded and jerked a thumb up the stairs. +“No. 20. Calls herself Vandemeyer. Vandemeyer! Ha! ha!” +Albert’s hand stole to his pocket. +“A crook?” he queried eagerly. +“A crook? I should say so. Ready Rita they call her in the States.” +“Ready Rita,” repeated Albert deliriously. “Oh, ain’t it just like the +pictures!” +It was. Tuppence was a great frequenter of the cinema. +“Annie always said as how she was a bad lot,” continued the boy. +“Who’s Annie?” inquired Tuppence idly. +“‘Ouse-parlourmaid. She’s leaving to-day. Many’s the time Annie’s said +to me: ‘Mark my words, Albert, I wouldn’t wonder if the police was to +come after her one of these days.’ Just like that. But she’s a stunner +to look at, ain’t she?” +“She’s some peach,” allowed Tuppence carelessly. “Finds it useful in her +lay-out, you bet. Has she been wearing any of the emeralds, by the way?” +“Emeralds? Them’s the green stones, isn’t they?” +Tuppence nodded. +“That’s what we’re after her for. You know old man Rysdale?” +Albert shook his head. +“Peter B. Rysdale, the oil king?” +“It seems sort of familiar to me.” +“The sparklers belonged to him. Finest collection of emeralds in the +world. Worth a million dollars!” +“Lumme!” came ecstatically from Albert. “It sounds more like the +pictures every minute.” +Tuppence smiled, gratified at the success of her efforts. +“We haven’t exactly proved it yet. But we’re after her. And”--she +produced a long-drawn-out wink--“I guess she won’t get away with the +goods this time.” +Albert uttered another ejaculation indicative of delight. +“Mind you, sonny, not a word of this,” said Tuppence suddenly. “I guess +I oughtn’t to have put you wise, but in the States we know a real smart +lad when we see one.” +“I’ll not breathe a word,” protested Albert eagerly. “Ain’t there +anything I could do? A bit of shadowing, maybe, or such like?” +Tuppence affected to consider, then shook her head. +“Not at the moment, but I’ll bear you in mind, son. What’s this about +the girl you say is leaving?” +“Annie? Regular turn up, they ‘ad. As Annie said, servants is some one +nowadays, and to be treated accordingly, and, what with her passing the +word round, she won’t find it so easy to get another.” +“Won’t she?” said Tuppence thoughtfully. “I wonder----” +An idea was dawning in her brain. She thought a minute or two, then +tapped Albert on the shoulder. +“See here, son, my brain’s got busy. How would it be if you mentioned +that you’d got a young cousin, or a friend of yours had, that might suit +the place. You get me?” +“I’m there,” said Albert instantly. “You leave it to me, miss, and I’ll +fix the whole thing up in two ticks.” +“Some lad!” commented Tuppence, with a nod of approval. “You might say +that the young woman could come in right away. You let me know, and if +it’s O.K. I’ll be round to-morrow at eleven o’clock.” +“Where am I to let you know to?” +“_Ritz_,” replied Tuppence laconically. “Name of Cowley.” +Albert eyed her enviously. +“It must be a good job, this tec business.” +“It sure is,” drawled Tuppence, “especially when old man Rysdale backs +the bill. But don’t fret, son. If this goes well, you shall come in on +the ground floor.” +With which promise she took leave of her new ally, and walked briskly +away from South Audley Mansions, well pleased with her morning’s work. +But there was no time to be lost. She went straight back to the _Ritz_ +and wrote a few brief words to Mr. Carter. Having dispatched this, and +Tommy not having yet returned--which did not surprise her--she started +off on a shopping expedition which, with an interval for tea and +assorted creamy cakes, occupied her until well after six o’clock, and +she returned to the hotel jaded, but satisfied with her purchases. +Starting with a cheap clothing store, and passing through one or two +second-hand establishments, she had finished the day at a well-known +hairdresser’s. Now, in the seclusion of her bedroom, she unwrapped +that final purchase. Five minutes later she smiled contentedly at her +reflection in the glass. With an actress’s pencil she had slightly +altered the line of her eyebrows, and that, taken in conjunction with +the new luxuriant growth of fair hair above, so changed her appearance +that she felt confident that even if she came face to face with +Whittington he would not recognize her. She would wear elevators in her +shoes, and the cap and apron would be an even more valuable disguise. +From hospital experience she knew only too well that a nurse out of +uniform is frequently unrecognized by her patients. +“Yes,” said Tuppence aloud, nodding at the pert reflection in the glass, +“you’ll do.” She then resumed her normal appearance. +Dinner was a solitary meal. Tuppence was rather surprised at Tommy’s +non-return. Julius, too, was absent--but that to the girl’s mind was +more easily explained. His “hustling” activities were not confined +to London, and his abrupt appearances and disappearances were fully +accepted by the Young Adventurers as part of the day’s work. It +was quite on the cards that Julius P. Hersheimmer had left for +Constantinople at a moment’s notice if he fancied that a clue to his +cousin’s disappearance was to be found there. The energetic young +man had succeeded in making the lives of several Scotland Yard men +unbearable to them, and the telephone girls at the Admiralty had learned +to know and dread the familiar “Hullo!” He had spent three hours in +Paris hustling the Prefecture, and had returned from there imbued with +the idea, possibly inspired by a weary French official, that the true +clue to the mystery was to be found in Ireland. +“I dare say he’s dashed off there now,” thought Tuppence. “All very +well, but this is very dull for _me!_ Here I am bursting with news, and +absolutely no one to tell it to! Tommy might have wired, or something. I +wonder where he is. Anyway, he can’t have ‘lost the trail’ as they say. +That reminds me----” And Miss Cowley broke off in her meditations, and +summoned a small boy. +Ten minutes later the lady was ensconced comfortably on her bed, +smoking cigarettes and deep in the perusal of _Garnaby Williams, the Boy +Detective_, which, with other threepenny works of lurid fiction, she had +sent out to purchase. She felt, and rightly, that before the strain +of attempting further intercourse with Albert, it would be as well to +fortify herself with a good supply of local colour. +The morning brought a note from Mr. Carter: +“DEAR MISS TUPPENCE, +“You have made a splendid start, and I congratulate you. I feel, though, +that I should like to point out to you once more the risks you are +running, especially if you pursue the course you indicate. Those people +are absolutely desperate and incapable of either mercy or pity. I feel +that you probably underestimate the danger, and therefore warn you +again that I can promise you no protection. You have given us valuable +information, and if you choose to withdraw now no one could blame you. +At any rate, think the matter over well before you decide. +“If, in spite of my warnings, you make up your mind to go through with +it, you will find everything arranged. You have lived for two years with +Miss Dufferin, The Parsonage, Llanelly, and Mrs. Vandemeyer can apply to +her for a reference. +“May I be permitted a word or two of advice? Stick as near to the truth +as possible--it minimizes the danger of ‘slips.’ I suggest that you +should represent yourself to be what you are, a former V.A.D., who has +chosen domestic service as a profession. There are many such at the +present time. That explains away any incongruities of voice or manner +which otherwise might awaken suspicion. +“Whichever way you decide, good luck to you. +“Your sincere friend, +“MR. CARTER.” +Tuppence’s spirits rose mercurially. Mr. Carter’s warnings passed +unheeded. The young lady had far too much confidence in herself to pay +any heed to them. +With some reluctance she abandoned the interesting part she had sketched +out for herself. Although she had no doubts of her own powers to sustain +a role indefinitely, she had too much common sense not to recognize the +force of Mr. Carter’s arguments. +There was still no word or message from Tommy, but the morning post +brought a somewhat dirty postcard with the words: “It’s O.K.” scrawled +upon it. +At ten-thirty Tuppence surveyed with pride a slightly battered tin trunk +containing her new possessions. It was artistically corded. It was with +a slight blush that she rang the bell and ordered it to be placed in a +taxi. She drove to Paddington, and left the box in the cloak room. +She then repaired with a handbag to the fastnesses of the ladies’ +waiting-room. Ten minutes later a metamorphosed Tuppence walked demurely +out of the station and entered a bus. +It was a few minutes past eleven when Tuppence again entered the hall +of South Audley Mansions. Albert was on the look-out, attending to his +duties in a somewhat desultory fashion. He did not immediately recognize +Tuppence. When he did, his admiration was unbounded. +“Blest if I’d have known you! That rig-out’s top-hole.” +“Glad you like it, Albert,” replied Tuppence modestly. “By the way, am I +your cousin, or am I not?” +“Your voice too,” cried the delighted boy. “It’s as English as anything! +No, I said as a friend of mine knew a young gal. Annie wasn’t best +pleased. She’s stopped on till to-day--to oblige, _she_ said, but really +it’s so as to put you against the place.” +“Nice girl,” said Tuppence. +Albert suspected no irony. +“She’s style about her, and keeps her silver a treat--but, my word, +ain’t she got a temper. Are you going up now, miss? Step inside the +lift. No. 20 did you say?” And he winked. +Tuppence quelled him with a stern glance, and stepped inside. +As she rang the bell of No. 20 she was conscious of Albert’s eyes slowly +descending beneath the level of the floor. +A smart young woman opened the door. +“I’ve come about the place,” said Tuppence. +“It’s a rotten place,” said the young woman without hesitation. “Regular +old cat--always interfering. Accused me of tampering with her letters. +Me! The flap was half undone anyway. There’s never anything in the +waste-paper basket--she burns everything. She’s a wrong ‘un, that’s what +she is. Swell clothes, but no class. Cook knows something about her--but +she won’t tell--scared to death of her. And suspicious! She’s on to you +in a minute if you as much as speak to a fellow. I can tell you----” +But what more Annie could tell, Tuppence was never destined to learn, +for at that moment a clear voice with a peculiarly steely ring to it +called: +“Annie!” +The smart young woman jumped as if she had been shot. +“Yes, ma’am.” +“Who are you talking to?” +“It’s a young woman about the situation, ma’am.” +“Show her in then. At once.” +“Yes, ma’am.” +Tuppence was ushered into a room on the right of the long passage. A +woman was standing by the fireplace. She was no longer in her first +youth, and the beauty she undeniably possessed was hardened and +coarsened. In her youth she must have been dazzling. Her pale gold hair, +owing a slight assistance to art, was coiled low on her neck, her eyes, +of a piercing electric blue, seemed to possess a faculty of boring into +the very soul of the person she was looking at. Her exquisite figure was +enhanced by a wonderful gown of indigo charmeuse. And yet, despite her +swaying grace, and the almost ethereal beauty of her face, you felt +instinctively the presence of something hard and menacing, a kind of +metallic strength that found expression in the tones of her voice and in +that gimlet-like quality of her eyes. +For the first time Tuppence felt afraid. She had not feared Whittington, +but this woman was different. As if fascinated, she watched the long +cruel line of the red curving mouth, and again she felt that sensation +of panic pass over her. Her usual self-confidence deserted her. Vaguely +she felt that deceiving this woman would be very different to deceiving +Whittington. Mr. Carter’s warning recurred to her mind. Here, indeed, +she might expect no mercy. +Fighting down that instinct of panic which urged her to turn tail and +run without further delay, Tuppence returned the lady’s gaze firmly and +respectfully. +As though that first scrutiny had been satisfactory, Mrs. Vandemeyer +motioned to a chair. +“You can sit down. How did you hear I wanted a house-parlourmaid?” +“Through a friend who knows the lift boy here. He thought the place +might suit me.” +Again that basilisk glance seemed to pierce her through. +“You speak like an educated girl?” +Glibly enough, Tuppence ran through her imaginary career on the lines +suggested by Mr. Carter. It seemed to her, as she did so, that the +tension of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s attitude relaxed. +“I see,” she remarked at length. “Is there anyone I can write to for a +reference?” +“I lived last with a Miss Dufferin, The Parsonage, Llanelly. I was with +her two years.” +“And then you thought you would get more money by coming to London, +I suppose? Well, it doesn’t matter to me. I will give you +£50--£60--whatever you want. You can come in at once?” +“Yes, ma’am. To-day, if you like. My box is at Paddington.” +“Go and fetch it in a taxi, then. It’s an easy place. I am out a good +deal. By the way, what’s your name?” +“Prudence Cooper, ma’am.” +“Very well, Prudence. Go away and fetch your box. I shall be out to +lunch. The cook will show you where everything is.” +“Thank you, ma’am.” +Tuppence withdrew. The smart Annie was not in evidence. In the hall +below a magnificent hall porter had relegated Albert to the background. +Tuppence did not even glance at him as she passed meekly out. +The adventure had begun, but she felt less elated than she had done +earlier in the morning. It crossed her mind that if the unknown Jane +Finn had fallen into the hands of Mrs. Vandemeyer, it was likely to have +gone hard with her. +CHAPTER X. ENTER SIR JAMES PEEL EDGERTON +TUPPENCE betrayed no awkwardness in her new duties. The daughters of the +archdeacon were well grounded in household tasks. They were also experts +in training a “raw girl,” the inevitable result being that the raw girl, +once trained, departed elsewhere where her newly acquired knowledge +commanded a more substantial remuneration than the archdeacon’s meagre +purse allowed. +Tuppence had therefore very little fear of proving inefficient. Mrs. +Vandemeyer’s cook puzzled her. She evidently went in deadly terror of +her mistress. The girl thought it probable that the other woman had some +hold over her. For the rest, she cooked like a _chef_, as Tuppence had +an opportunity of judging that evening. Mrs. Vandemeyer was expecting a +guest to dinner, and Tuppence accordingly laid the beautifully polished +table for two. She was a little exercised in her own mind as to this +visitor. It was highly possible that it might prove to be Whittington. +Although she felt fairly confident that he would not recognize her, yet +she would have been better pleased had the guest proved to be a total +stranger. However, there was nothing for it but to hope for the best. +At a few minutes past eight the front door bell rang, and Tuppence went +to answer it with some inward trepidation. She was relieved to see that +the visitor was the second of the two men whom Tommy had taken upon +himself to follow. +He gave his name as Count Stepanov. Tuppence announced him, and Mrs. +Vandemeyer rose from her seat on a low divan with a quick murmur of +pleasure. +“It is delightful to see you, Boris Ivanovitch,” she said. +“And you, madame!” He bowed low over her hand. +Tuppence returned to the kitchen. +“Count Stepanov, or some such,” she remarked, and affecting a frank and +unvarnished curiosity: “Who’s he?” +“A Russian gentleman, I believe.” +“Come here much?” +“Once in a while. What d’you want to know for?” +“Fancied he might be sweet on the missus, that’s all,” explained the +girl, adding with an appearance of sulkiness: “How you do take one up!” +“I’m not quite easy in my mind about the _soufflé_,” explained the +other. +“You know something,” thought Tuppence to herself, but aloud she only +said: “Going to dish up now? Right-o.” +Whilst waiting at table, Tuppence listened closely to all that was said. +She remembered that this was one of the men Tommy was shadowing when she +had last seen him. Already, although she would hardly admit it, she was +becoming uneasy about her partner. Where was he? Why had no word of any +kind come from him? She had arranged before leaving the _Ritz_ to have +all letters or messages sent on at once by special messenger to a small +stationer’s shop near at hand where Albert was to call in frequently. +True, it was only yesterday morning that she had parted from Tommy, and +she told herself that any anxiety on his behalf would be absurd. Still, +it was strange that he had sent no word of any kind. +But, listen as she might, the conversation presented no clue. Boris and +Mrs. Vandemeyer talked on purely indifferent subjects: plays they had +seen, new dances, and the latest society gossip. After dinner they +repaired to the small boudoir where Mrs. Vandemeyer, stretched on the +divan, looked more wickedly beautiful than ever. Tuppence brought in the +coffee and liqueurs and unwillingly retired. As she did so, she heard +Boris say: +“New, isn’t she?” +“She came in to-day. The other was a fiend. This girl seems all right. +She waits well.” +Tuppence lingered a moment longer by the door which she had carefully +neglected to close, and heard him say: +“Quite safe, I suppose?” +“Really, Boris, you are absurdly suspicious. I believe she’s the cousin +of the hall porter, or something of the kind. And nobody even dreams +that I have any connection with our--mutual friend, Mr. Brown.” +“For heaven’s sake, be careful, Rita. That door isn’t shut.” +“Well, shut it then,” laughed the woman. +Tuppence removed herself speedily. +She dared not absent herself longer from the back premises, but she +cleared away and washed up with a breathless speed acquired in hospital. +Then she slipped quietly back to the boudoir door. The cook, more +leisurely, was still busy in the kitchen and, if she missed the other, +would only suppose her to be turning down the beds. +Alas! The conversation inside was being carried on in too low a tone +to permit of her hearing anything of it. She dared not reopen the +door, however gently. Mrs. Vandemeyer was sitting almost facing it, and +Tuppence respected her mistress’s lynx-eyed powers of observation. +Nevertheless, she felt she would give a good deal to overhear what was +going on. Possibly, if anything unforeseen had happened, she might get +news of Tommy. For some moments she reflected desperately, then her +face brightened. She went quickly along the passage to Mrs. Vandemeyer’s +bedroom, which had long French windows leading on to a balcony that ran +the length of the flat. Slipping quickly through the window, Tuppence +crept noiselessly along till she reached the boudoir window. As she +had thought it stood a little ajar, and the voices within were plainly +audible. +Tuppence listened attentively, but there was no mention of anything +that could be twisted to apply to Tommy. Mrs. Vandemeyer and the Russian +seemed to be at variance over some matter, and finally the latter +exclaimed bitterly: +“With your persistent recklessness, you will end by ruining us!” +“Bah!” laughed the woman. “Notoriety of the right kind is the best way +of disarming suspicion. You will realize that one of these days--perhaps +sooner than you think!” +“In the meantime, you are going about everywhere with Peel Edgerton. +Not only is he, perhaps, the most celebrated K.C. in England, but his +special hobby is criminology! It is madness!” +“I know that his eloquence has saved untold men from the gallows,” said +Mrs. Vandemeyer calmly. “What of it? I may need his assistance in that +line myself some day. If so, how fortunate to have such a friend at +court--or perhaps it would be more to the point to say _in_ court.” +Boris got up and began striding up and down. He was very excited. +“You are a clever woman, Rita; but you are also a fool! Be guided by me, +and give up Peel Edgerton.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer shook her head gently. +“I think not.” +“You refuse?” There was an ugly ring in the Russian’s voice. +“I do.” +“Then, by Heaven,” snarled the Russian, “we will see----” +But Mrs. Vandemeyer also rose to her feet, her eyes flashing. +“You forget, Boris,” she said. “I am accountable to no one. I take my +orders only from--Mr. Brown.” +The other threw up his hands in despair. +“You are impossible,” he muttered. “Impossible! Already it may be too +late. They say Peel Edgerton can _smell_ a criminal! How do we know what +is at the bottom of his sudden interest in you? Perhaps even now his +suspicions are aroused. He guesses----” +Mrs. Vandemeyer eyed him scornfully. +“Reassure yourself, my dear Boris. He suspects nothing. With less than +your usual chivalry, you seem to forget that I am commonly accounted a +beautiful woman. I assure you that is all that interests Peel Edgerton.” +Boris shook his head doubtfully. +“He has studied crime as no other man in this kingdom has studied it. Do +you fancy that you can deceive him?” +Mrs. Vandemeyer’s eyes narrowed. +“If he is all that you say--it would amuse me to try!” +“Good heavens, Rita----” +“Besides,” added Mrs. Vandemeyer, “he is extremely rich. I am not one +who despises money. The ‘sinews of war,’ you know, Boris!” +“Money--money! That is always the danger with you, Rita. I believe you +would sell your soul for money. I believe----” He paused, then in a +low, sinister voice he said slowly: “Sometimes I believe that you would +sell-- _us!_” +Mrs. Vandemeyer smiled and shrugged her shoulders. +“The price, at any rate, would have to be enormous,” she said lightly. +“It would be beyond the power of anyone but a millionaire to pay.” +“Ah!” snarled the Russian. “You see, I was right!” +“My dear Boris, can you not take a joke?” +“Was it a joke?” +“Of course.” +“Then all I can say is that your ideas of humour are peculiar, my dear +Rita.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer smiled. +“Let us not quarrel, Boris. Touch the bell. We will have some drinks.” +Tuppence beat a hasty retreat. She paused a moment to survey herself in +Mrs. Vandemeyer’s long glass, and be sure that nothing was amiss with +her appearance. Then she answered the bell demurely. +The conversation that she had overheard, although interesting in that +it proved beyond doubt the complicity of both Rita and Boris, threw very +little light on the present preoccupations. The name of Jane Finn had +not even been mentioned. +The following morning a few brief words with Albert informed her that +nothing was waiting for her at the stationer’s. It seemed incredible +that Tommy, if all was well with him, should not send any word to her. +A cold hand seemed to close round her heart.... Supposing.... She choked +her fears down bravely. It was no good worrying. But she leapt at a +chance offered her by Mrs. Vandemeyer. +“What day do you usually go out, Prudence?” +“Friday’s my usual day, ma’am.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer lifted her eyebrows. +“And to-day is Friday! But I suppose you hardly wish to go out to-day, +as you only came yesterday.” +“I was thinking of asking you if I might, ma’am.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer looked at her a minute longer, and then smiled. +“I wish Count Stepanov could hear you. He made a suggestion about +you last night.” Her smile broadened, catlike. “Your request is +very--typical. I am satisfied. You do not understand all this--but +you can go out to-day. It makes no difference to me, as I shall not be +dining at home.” +“Thank you, ma’am.” +Tuppence felt a sensation of relief once she was out of the other’s +presence. Once again she admitted to herself that she was afraid, +horribly afraid, of the beautiful woman with the cruel eyes. +In the midst of a final desultory polishing of her silver, Tuppence was +disturbed by the ringing of the front door bell, and went to answer it. +This time the visitor was neither Whittington nor Boris, but a man of +striking appearance. +Just a shade over average height, he nevertheless conveyed the +impression of a big man. His face, clean-shaven and exquisitely mobile, +was stamped with an expression of power and force far beyond the +ordinary. Magnetism seemed to radiate from him. +Tuppence was undecided for the moment whether to put him down as an +actor or a lawyer, but her doubts were soon solved as he gave her his +name: Sir James Peel Edgerton. +She looked at him with renewed interest. This, then, was the famous K.C. +whose name was familiar all over England. She had heard it said that he +might one day be Prime Minister. He was known to have refused office in +the interests of his profession, preferring to remain a simple Member +for a Scotch constituency. +Tuppence went back to her pantry thoughtfully. The great man had +impressed her. She understood Boris’s agitation. Peel Edgerton would not +be an easy man to deceive. +In about a quarter of an hour the bell rang, and Tuppence repaired to +the hall to show the visitor out. He had given her a piercing glance +before. Now, as she handed him his hat and stick, she was conscious of +his eyes raking her through. As she opened the door and stood aside to +let him pass out, he stopped in the doorway. +“Not been doing this long, eh?” +Tuppence raised her eyes, astonished. She read in his glance kindliness, +and something else more difficult to fathom. +He nodded as though she had answered. +“V.A.D. and hard up, I suppose?” +“Did Mrs. Vandemeyer tell you that?” asked Tuppence suspiciously. +“No, child. The look of you told me. Good place here?” +“Very good, thank you, sir.” +“Ah, but there are plenty of good places nowadays. And a change does no +harm sometimes.” +“Do you mean----?” began Tuppence. +But Sir James was already on the topmost stair. He looked back with his +kindly, shrewd glance. +“Just a hint,” he said. “That’s all.” +Tuppence went back to the pantry more thoughtful than ever. +CHAPTER XI. JULIUS TELLS A STORY +DRESSED appropriately, Tuppence duly sallied forth for her “afternoon +out.” Albert was in temporary abeyance, but Tuppence went herself to the +stationer’s to make quite sure that nothing had come for her. Satisfied +on this point, she made her way to the _Ritz_. On inquiry she learnt +that Tommy had not yet returned. It was the answer she had expected, but +it was another nail in the coffin of her hopes. She resolved to appeal +to Mr. Carter, telling him when and where Tommy had started on his +quest, and asking him to do something to trace him. The prospect of +his aid revived her mercurial spirits, and she next inquired for Julius +Hersheimmer. The reply she got was to the effect that he had returned +about half an hour ago, but had gone out immediately. +Tuppence’s spirits revived still more. It would be something to see +Julius. Perhaps he could devise some plan for finding out what +had become of Tommy. She wrote her note to Mr. Carter in Julius’s +sitting-room, and was just addressing the envelope when the door burst +open. +“What the hell----” began Julius, but checked himself abruptly. “I beg +your pardon, Miss Tuppence. Those fools down at the office would have it +that Beresford wasn’t here any longer--hadn’t been here since Wednesday. +Is that so?” +Tuppence nodded. +“You don’t know where he is?” she asked faintly. +“I? How should I know? I haven’t had one darned word from him, though I +wired him yesterday morning.” +“I expect your wire’s at the office unopened.” +“But where is he?” +“I don’t know. I hoped you might.” +“I tell you I haven’t had one darned word from him since we parted at +the depot on Wednesday.” +“What depot?” +“Waterloo. Your London and South Western road.” +“Waterloo?” frowned Tuppence. +“Why, yes. Didn’t he tell you?” +“I haven’t seen him either,” replied Tuppence impatiently. “Go on about +Waterloo. What were you doing there?” +“He gave me a call. Over the phone. Told me to get a move on, and +hustle. Said he was trailing two crooks.” +“Oh!” said Tuppence, her eyes opening. “I see. Go on.” +“I hurried along right away. Beresford was there. He pointed out the +crooks. The big one was mine, the guy you bluffed. Tommy shoved a ticket +into my hand and told me to get aboard the cars. He was going to sleuth +the other crook.” Julius paused. “I thought for sure you’d know all +this.” +“Julius,” said Tuppence firmly, “stop walking up and down. It makes me +giddy. Sit down in that armchair, and tell me the whole story with as +few fancy turns of speech as possible.” +Mr. Hersheimmer obeyed. +“Sure,” he said. “Where shall I begin?” +“Where you left off. At Waterloo.” +“Well,” began Julius, “I got into one of your dear old-fashioned +first-class British compartments. The train was just off. First thing I +knew a guard came along and informed me mighty politely that I wasn’t +in a smoking-carriage. I handed him out half a dollar, and that settled +that. I did a bit of prospecting along the corridor to the next coach. +Whittington was there right enough. When I saw the skunk, with his big +sleek fat face, and thought of poor little Jane in his clutches, I felt +real mad that I hadn’t got a gun with me. I’d have tickled him up some. +“We got to Bournemouth all right. Whittington took a cab and gave the +name of an hotel. I did likewise, and we drove up within three minutes +of each other. He hired a room, and I hired one too. So far it was all +plain sailing. He hadn’t the remotest notion that anyone was on to him. +Well, he just sat around in the hotel lounge, reading the papers and so +on, till it was time for dinner. He didn’t hurry any over that either. +“I began to think that there was nothing doing, that he’d just come on +the trip for his health, but I remembered that he hadn’t changed for +dinner, though it was by way of being a slap-up hotel, so it seemed +likely enough that he’d be going out on his real business afterwards. +“Sure enough, about nine o’clock, so he did. Took a car across the +town--mighty pretty place by the way, I guess I’ll take Jane there for +a spell when I find her--and then paid it off and struck out along those +pine-woods on the top of the cliff. I was there too, you understand. +We walked, maybe, for half an hour. There’s a lot of villas all the way +along, but by degrees they seemed to get more and more thinned out, and +in the end we got to one that seemed the last of the bunch. Big house it +was, with a lot of piny grounds around it. +“It was a pretty black night, and the carriage drive up to the house was +dark as pitch. I could hear him ahead, though I couldn’t see him. I +had to walk carefully in case he might get on to it that he was being +followed. I turned a curve and I was just in time to see him ring the +bell and get admitted to the house. I just stopped where I was. It was +beginning to rain, and I was soon pretty near soaked through. Also, it +was almighty cold. +“Whittington didn’t come out again, and by and by I got kind of restive, +and began to mouch around. All the ground floor windows were shuttered +tight, but upstairs, on the first floor (it was a two-storied house) I +noticed a window with a light burning and the curtains not drawn. +“Now, just opposite to that window, there was a tree growing. It was +about thirty foot away from the house, maybe, and I sort of got it into +my head that, if I climbed up that tree, I’d very likely be able to see +into that room. Of course, I knew there was no reason why Whittington +should be in that room rather than in any other--less reason, in fact, +for the betting would be on his being in one of the reception-rooms +downstairs. But I guess I’d got the hump from standing so long in the +rain, and anything seemed better than going on doing nothing. So I +started up. +“It wasn’t so easy, by a long chalk! The rain had made the boughs mighty +slippery, and it was all I could do to keep a foothold, but bit by bit I +managed it, until at last there I was level with the window. +“But then I was disappointed. I was too far to the left. I could only +see sideways into the room. A bit of curtain, and a yard of wallpaper +was all I could command. Well, that wasn’t any manner of good to me, but +just as I was going to give it up, and climb down ignominiously, some +one inside moved and threw his shadow on my little bit of wall--and, by +gum, it was Whittington! +“After that, my blood was up. I’d just _got_ to get a look into that +room. It was up to me to figure out how. I noticed that there was a long +branch running out from the tree in the right direction. If I could only +swarm about half-way along it, the proposition would be solved. But it +was mighty uncertain whether it would bear my weight. I decided I’d +just got to risk that, and I started. Very cautiously, inch by inch, I +crawled along. The bough creaked and swayed in a nasty fashion, and it +didn’t do to think of the drop below, but at last I got safely to where +I wanted to be. +“The room was medium-sized, furnished in a kind of bare hygienic way. +There was a table with a lamp on it in the middle of the room, and +sitting at that table, facing towards me, was Whittington right enough. +He was talking to a woman dressed as a hospital nurse. She was sitting +with her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face. Although the blinds +were up, the window itself was shut, so I couldn’t catch a word of what +they said. Whittington seemed to be doing all the talking, and the nurse +just listened. Now and then she nodded, and sometimes she’d shake +her head, as though she were answering questions. He seemed very +emphatic--once or twice he beat with his fist on the table. The rain had +stopped now, and the sky was clearing in that sudden way it does. +“Presently, he seemed to get to the end of what he was saying. He got +up, and so did she. He looked towards the window and asked something--I +guess it was whether it was raining. Anyway, she came right across and +looked out. Just then the moon came out from behind the clouds. I +was scared the woman would catch sight of me, for I was full in the +moonlight. I tried to move back a bit. The jerk I gave was too much for +that rotten old branch. With an almighty crash, down it came, and Julius +P. Hersheimmer with it!” +“Oh, Julius,” breathed Tuppence, “how exciting! Go on.” +“Well, luckily for me, I pitched down into a good soft bed of earth--but +it put me out of action for the time, sure enough. The next thing I +knew, I was lying in bed with a hospital nurse (not Whittington’s one) +on one side of me, and a little black-bearded man with gold glasses, +and medical man written all over him, on the other. He rubbed his hands +together, and raised his eyebrows as I stared at him. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘So +our young friend is coming round again. Capital. Capital.’ +“I did the usual stunt. Said: ‘What’s happened?’ And ‘Where am I?’ But +I knew the answer to the last well enough. There’s no moss growing on +my brain. ‘I think that’ll do for the present, sister,’ said the little +man, and the nurse left the room in a sort of brisk well-trained way. +But I caught her handing me out a look of deep curiosity as she passed +through the door. +“That look of hers gave me an idea. ‘Now then, doc,’ I said, and tried +to sit up in bed, but my right foot gave me a nasty twinge as I did so. +‘A slight sprain,’ explained the doctor. ‘Nothing serious. You’ll be +about again in a couple of days.’” +“I noticed you walked lame,” interpolated Tuppence. +Julius nodded, and continued: +“‘How did it happen?’ I asked again. He replied dryly. ‘You fell, with +a considerable portion of one of my trees, into one of my newly planted +flower-beds.’ +“I liked the man. He seemed to have a sense of humour. I felt sure that +he, at least, was plumb straight. ‘Sure, doc,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry about +the tree, and I guess the new bulbs will be on me. But perhaps you’d +like to know what I was doing in your garden?’ ‘I think the facts do +call for an explanation,’ he replied. ‘Well, to begin with, I wasn’t +after the spoons.’ +“He smiled. ‘My first theory. But I soon altered my mind. By the way, +you are an American, are you not?’ I told him my name. ‘And you?’ ‘I am +Dr. Hall, and this, as you doubtless know, is my private nursing home.’ +“I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to put him wise. I was just thankful +for the information. I liked the man, and I felt he was straight, but +I wasn’t going to give him the whole story. For one thing he probably +wouldn’t have believed it. +“I made up my mind in a flash. ‘Why, doctor,’ I said, ‘I guess I feel +an almighty fool, but I owe it to you to let you know that it wasn’t +the Bill Sikes business I was up to.’ Then I went on and mumbled out +something about a girl. I trotted out the stern guardian business, and a +nervous breakdown, and finally explained that I had fancied I recognized +her among the patients at the home, hence my nocturnal adventures. I +guess it was just the kind of story he was expecting. ‘Quite a romance,’ +he said genially, when I’d finished. ‘Now, doc,’ I went on, ‘will you +be frank with me? Have you here now, or have you had here at any time, +a young girl called Jane Finn?’ He repeated the name thoughtfully. ‘Jane +Finn?’ he said. ‘No.’ +“I was chagrined, and I guess I showed it. ‘You are sure?’ ‘Quite sure, +Mr. Hersheimmer. It is an uncommon name, and I should not have been +likely to forget it.’ +“Well, that was flat. It laid me out for a space. I’d kind of hoped +my search was at an end. ‘That’s that,’ I said at last. ‘Now, there’s +another matter. When I was hugging that darned branch I thought I +recognized an old friend of mine talking to one of your nurses.’ I +purposely didn’t mention any name because, of course, Whittington might +be calling himself something quite different down here, but the doctor +answered at once. ‘Mr. Whittington, perhaps?’ ‘That’s the fellow,’ I +replied. ‘What’s he doing down here? Don’t tell me _his_ nerves are out +of order?’ +“Dr. Hall laughed. ‘No. He came down to see one of my nurses, Nurse +Edith, who is a niece of his.’ ‘Why, fancy that!’ I exclaimed. ‘Is he +still here?’ ‘No, he went back to town almost immediately.’ ‘What a +pity!’ I ejaculated. ‘But perhaps I could speak to his niece--Nurse +Edith, did you say her name was?’ +“But the doctor shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that, too, is impossible. +Nurse Edith left with a patient to-night also.’ ‘I seem to be real +unlucky,’ I remarked. ‘Have you Mr. Whittington’s address in town? +I guess I’d like to look him up when I get back.’ ‘I don’t know his +address. I can write to Nurse Edith for it if you like.’ I thanked him. +‘Don’t say who it is wants it. I’d like to give him a little surprise.’ +“That was about all I could do for the moment. Of course, if the girl +was really Whittington’s niece, she might be too cute to fall into the +trap, but it was worth trying. Next thing I did was to write out a wire +to Beresford saying where I was, and that I was laid up with a sprained +foot, and telling him to come down if he wasn’t busy. I had to be +guarded in what I said. However, I didn’t hear from him, and my foot +soon got all right. It was only ricked, not really sprained, so to-day I +said good-bye to the little doctor chap, asked him to send me word if +he heard from Nurse Edith, and came right away back to town. Say, Miss +Tuppence, you’re looking mighty pale!” +“It’s Tommy,” said Tuppence. “What can have happened to him?” +“Buck up, I guess he’s all right really. Why shouldn’t he be? See here, +it was a foreign-looking guy he went off after. Maybe they’ve gone +abroad--to Poland, or something like that?” +Tuppence shook her head. +“He couldn’t without passports and things. Besides I’ve seen that man, +Boris Something, since. He dined with Mrs. Vandemeyer last night.” +“Mrs. Who?” +“I forgot. Of course you don’t know all that.” +“I’m listening,” said Julius, and gave vent to his favourite expression. +“Put me wise.” +Tuppence thereupon related the events of the last two days. Julius’s +astonishment and admiration were unbounded. +“Bully for you! Fancy you a menial. It just tickles me to death!” Then +he added seriously: “But say now, I don’t like it, Miss Tuppence, I sure +don’t. You’re just as plucky as they make ‘em, but I wish you’d keep +right out of this. These crooks we’re up against would as soon croak a +girl as a man any day.” +“Do you think I’m afraid?” said Tuppence indignantly, valiantly +repressing memories of the steely glitter in Mrs. Vandemeyer’s eyes. +“I said before you were darned plucky. But that doesn’t alter facts.” +“Oh, bother _me!_” said Tuppence impatiently. “Let’s think about what +can have happened to Tommy. I’ve written to Mr. Carter about it,” she +added, and told him the gist of her letter. +Julius nodded gravely. +“I guess that’s good as far as it goes. But it’s for us to get busy and +do something.” +“What can we do?” asked Tuppence, her spirits rising. +“I guess we’d better get on the track of Boris. You say he’s been to +your place. Is he likely to come again?” +“He might. I really don’t know.” +“I see. Well, I guess I’d better buy a car, a slap-up one, dress as a +chauffeur and hang about outside. Then if Boris comes, you could make +some kind of signal, and I’d trail him. How’s that?” +“Splendid, but he mightn’t come for weeks.” +“We’ll have to chance that. I’m glad you like the plan.” He rose. +“Where are you going?” +“To buy the car, of course,” replied Julius, surprised. “What make do +you like? I guess you’ll do some riding in it before we’ve finished.” +“Oh,” said Tuppence faintly, “I _like_ Rolls-Royces, but----” +“Sure,” agreed Julius. “What you say goes. I’ll get one.” +“But you can’t at once,” cried Tuppence. “People wait ages sometimes.” +“Little Julius doesn’t,” affirmed Mr. Hersheimmer. “Don’t you worry any. +I’ll be round in the car in half an hour.” +Tuppence got up. +“You’re awfully good, Julius. But I can’t help feeling that it’s rather +a forlorn hope. I’m really pinning my faith to Mr. Carter.” +“Then I shouldn’t.” +“Why?” +“Just an idea of mine.” +���Oh; but he must do something. There’s no one else. By the way, I forgot +to tell you of a queer thing that happened this morning.” +And she narrated her encounter with Sir James Peel Edgerton. Julius was +interested. +“What did the guy mean, do you think?” he asked. +“I don’t quite know,” said Tuppence meditatively. “But I think that, in +an ambiguous, legal, without prejudishish lawyer’s way, he was trying to +warn me.” +“Why should he?” +“I don’t know,” confessed Tuppence. “But he looked kind, and +simply awfully clever. I wouldn’t mind going to him and telling him +everything.” +Somewhat to her surprise, Julius negatived the idea sharply. +“See here,” he said, “we don’t want any lawyers mixed up in this. That +guy couldn’t help us any.” +“Well, I believe he could,” reiterated Tuppence obstinately. +“Don’t you think it. So long. I’ll be back in half an hour.” +Thirty-five minutes had elapsed when Julius returned. He took Tuppence +by the arm, and walked her to the window. +“There she is.” +“Oh!” said Tuppence with a note of reverence in her voice, as she gazed +down at the enormous car. +“She’s some pace-maker, I can tell you,” said Julius complacently. +“How did you get it?” gasped Tuppence. +“She was just being sent home to some bigwig.” +“Well?” +“I went round to his house,” said Julius. “I said that I reckoned a car +like that was worth every penny of twenty thousand dollars. Then I told +him that it was worth just about fifty thousand dollars to me if he’d +get out.” +“Well?” said Tuppence, intoxicated. +“Well,” returned Julius, “he got out, that’s all.” +CHAPTER XII. A FRIEND IN NEED +FRIDAY and Saturday passed uneventfully. Tuppence had received a brief +answer to her appeal from Mr. Carter. In it he pointed out that the +Young Adventurers had undertaken the work at their own risk, and had +been fully warned of the dangers. If anything had happened to Tommy he +regretted it deeply, but he could do nothing. +This was cold comfort. Somehow, without Tommy, all the savour went out +of the adventure, and, for the first time, Tuppence felt doubtful of +success. While they had been together she had never questioned it for +a minute. Although she was accustomed to take the lead, and to pride +herself on her quick-wittedness, in reality she had relied upon Tommy +more than she realized at the time. There was something so eminently +sober and clear-headed about him, his common sense and soundness of +vision were so unvarying, that without him Tuppence felt much like a +rudderless ship. It was curious that Julius, who was undoubtedly much +cleverer than Tommy, did not give her the same feeling of support. She +had accused Tommy of being a pessimist, and it is certain that he +always saw the disadvantages and difficulties which she herself was +optimistically given to overlooking, but nevertheless she had really +relied a good deal on his judgment. He might be slow, but he was very +sure. +It seemed to the girl that, for the first time, she realized the +sinister character of the mission they had undertaken so lightheartedly. +It had begun like a page of romance. Now, shorn of its glamour, it +seemed to be turning to grim reality. Tommy--that was all that mattered. +Many times in the day Tuppence blinked the tears out of her eyes +resolutely. “Little fool,” she would apostrophize herself, “don’t +snivel. Of course you’re fond of him. You’ve known him all your life. +But there’s no need to be sentimental about it.” +In the meantime, nothing more was seen of Boris. He did not come to the +flat, and Julius and the car waited in vain. Tuppence gave herself over +to new meditations. Whilst admitting the truth of Julius’s objections, +she had nevertheless not entirely relinquished the idea of appealing to +Sir James Peel Edgerton. Indeed, she had gone so far as to look up his +address in the _Red Book_. Had he meant to warn her that day? If so, +why? Surely she was at least entitled to demand an explanation. He had +looked at her so kindly. Perhaps he might tell them something concerning +Mrs. Vandemeyer which might lead to a clue to Tommy’s whereabouts. +Anyway, Tuppence decided, with her usual shake of the shoulders, it was +worth trying, and try it she would. Sunday was her afternoon out. She +would meet Julius, persuade him to her point of view, and they would +beard the lion in his den. +When the day arrived Julius needed a considerable amount of persuading, +but Tuppence held firm. “It can do no harm,” was what she always came +back to. In the end Julius gave in, and they proceeded in the car to +Carlton House Terrace. +The door was opened by an irreproachable butler. Tuppence felt a little +nervous. After all, perhaps it _was_ colossal cheek on her part. She +had decided not to ask if Sir James was “at home,” but to adopt a more +personal attitude. +“Will you ask Sir James if I can see him for a few minutes? I have an +important message for him.” +The butler retired, returning a moment or two later. +“Sir James will see you. Will you step this way?” +He ushered them into a room at the back of the house, furnished as a +library. The collection of books was a magnificent one, and Tuppence +noticed that all one wall was devoted to works on crime and criminology. +There were several deep-padded leather arm-chairs, and an old-fashioned +open hearth. In the window was a big roll-top desk strewn with papers at +which the master of the house was sitting. +He rose as they entered. +“You have a message for me? Ah”--he recognized Tuppence with a +smile--“it’s you, is it? Brought a message from Mrs. Vandemeyer, I +suppose?” +“Not exactly,” said Tuppence. “In fact, I’m afraid I only said that to +be quite sure of getting in. Oh, by the way, this is Mr. Hersheimmer, +Sir James Peel Edgerton.” +“Pleased to meet you,” said the American, shooting out a hand. +“Won’t you both sit down?” asked Sir James. He drew forward two chairs. +“Sir James,” said Tuppence, plunging boldly, “I dare say you will think +it is most awful cheek of me coming here like this. Because, of course, +it’s nothing whatever to do with you, and then you’re a very important +person, and of course Tommy and I are very unimportant.” She paused for +breath. +“Tommy?” queried Sir James, looking across at the American. +“No, that’s Julius,” explained Tuppence. “I’m rather nervous, and that +makes me tell it badly. What I really want to know is what you meant by +what you said to me the other day? Did you mean to warn me against Mrs. +Vandemeyer? You did, didn’t you?” +“My dear young lady, as far as I recollect I only mentioned that there +were equally good situations to be obtained elsewhere.” +“Yes, I know. But it was a hint, wasn’t it?” +“Well, perhaps it was,” admitted Sir James gravely. +“Well, I want to know more. I want to know just _why_ you gave me a +hint.” +Sir James smiled at her earnestness. +“Suppose the lady brings a libel action against me for defamation of +character?” +“Of course,” said Tuppence. “I know lawyers are always dreadfully +careful. But can’t we say ‘without prejudice’ first, and then say just +what we want to.” +“Well,” said Sir James, still smiling, “without prejudice, then, if I +had a young sister forced to earn her living, I should not like to see +her in Mrs. Vandemeyer’s service. I felt it incumbent on me just to give +you a hint. It is no place for a young and inexperienced girl. That is +all I can tell you.” +“I see,” said Tuppence thoughtfully. “Thank you very much. But I’m not +_really_ inexperienced, you know. I knew perfectly that she was a bad +lot when I went there--as a matter of fact that’s _why_ I went----” She +broke off, seeing some bewilderment on the lawyer’s face, and went on: +“I think perhaps I’d better tell you the whole story, Sir James. I’ve a +sort of feeling that you’d know in a minute if I didn’t tell the truth, +and so you might as well know all about it from the beginning. What do +you think, Julius?” +“As you’re bent on it, I’d go right ahead with the facts,” replied the +American, who had so far sat in silence. +“Yes, tell me all about it,” said Sir James. “I want to know who Tommy +is.” +Thus encouraged Tuppence plunged into her tale, and the lawyer listened +with close attention. +“Very interesting,” he said, when she finished. “A great deal of what +you tell me, child, is already known to me. I’ve had certain theories +of my own about this Jane Finn. You’ve done extraordinarily well so +far, but it’s rather too bad of--what do you know him as?--Mr. Carter to +pitchfork you two young things into an affair of this kind. By the +way, where did Mr. Hersheimmer come in originally? You didn’t make that +clear?” +Julius answered for himself. +“I’m Jane’s first cousin,” he explained, returning the lawyer’s keen +gaze. +“Ah!” +“Oh, Sir James,” broke out Tuppence, “what do you think has become of +Tommy?” +“H’m.” The lawyer rose, and paced slowly up and down. “When you arrived, +young lady, I was just packing up my traps. Going to Scotland by the +night train for a few days’ fishing. But there are different kinds of +fishing. I’ve a good mind to stay, and see if we can’t get on the track +of that young chap.” +“Oh!” Tuppence clasped her hands ecstatically. +“All the same, as I said before, it’s too bad of--of Carter to set you +two babies on a job like this. Now, don’t get offended, Miss--er----” +“Cowley. Prudence Cowley. But my friends call me Tuppence.” +“Well, Miss Tuppence, then, as I’m certainly going to be a friend. Don’t +be offended because I think you’re young. Youth is a failing only too +easily outgrown. Now, about this young Tommy of yours----” +“Yes.” Tuppence clasped her hands. +“Frankly, things look bad for him. He’s been butting in somewhere where +he wasn’t wanted. Not a doubt of it. But don’t give up hope.” +“And you really will help us? There, Julius! He didn’t want me to come,” +she added by way of explanation. +“H’m,” said the lawyer, favouring Julius with another keen glance. “And +why was that?” +“I reckoned it would be no good worrying you with a petty little +business like this.” +“I see.” He paused a moment. “This petty little business, as you call +it, bears directly on a very big business, bigger perhaps than either +you or Miss Tuppence know. If this boy is alive, he may have very +valuable information to give us. Therefore, we must find him.” +“Yes, but how?” cried Tuppence. “I’ve tried to think of everything.” +Sir James smiled. +“And yet there’s one person quite near at hand who in all probability +knows where he is, or at all events where he is likely to be.” +“Who is that?” asked Tuppence, puzzled. +“Mrs. Vandemeyer.” +“Yes, but she’d never tell us.” +“Ah, that is where I come in. I think it quite likely that I shall be +able to make Mrs. Vandemeyer tell me what I want to know.” +“How?” demanded Tuppence, opening her eyes very wide. +“Oh, just by asking her questions,” replied Sir James easily. “That’s +the way we do it, you know.” +He tapped with his finger on the table, and Tuppence felt again the +intense power that radiated from the man. +“And if she won’t tell?” asked Julius suddenly. +“I think she will. I have one or two powerful levers. Still, in that +unlikely event, there is always the possibility of bribery.” +“Sure. And that’s where I come in!” cried Julius, bringing his fist down +on the table with a bang. “You can count on me, if necessary, for one +million dollars. Yes, sir, one million dollars!” +Sir James sat down and subjected Julius to a long scrutiny. +“Mr. Hersheimmer,” he said at last, “that is a very large sum.” +“I guess it’ll have to be. These aren’t the kind of folk to offer +sixpence to.” +“At the present rate of exchange it amounts to considerably over two +hundred and fifty thousand pounds.” +“That’s so. Maybe you think I’m talking through my hat, but I can +deliver the goods all right, with enough over to spare for your fee.” +Sir James flushed slightly. +“There is no question of a fee, Mr. Hersheimmer. I am not a private +detective.” +“Sorry. I guess I was just a mite hasty, but I’ve been feeling bad about +this money question. I wanted to offer a big reward for news of Jane +some days ago, but your crusted institution of Scotland Yard advised me +against it. Said it was undesirable.” +“They were probably right,” said Sir James dryly. +“But it’s all O.K. about Julius,” put in Tuppence. “He’s not pulling +your leg. He’s got simply pots of money.” +“The old man piled it up in style,” explained Julius. “Now, let’s get +down to it. What’s your idea?” +Sir James considered for a moment or two. +“There is no time to be lost. The sooner we strike the better.” He +turned to Tuppence. “Is Mrs. Vandemeyer dining out to-night, do you +know?” +“Yes, I think so, but she will not be out late. Otherwise, she would +have taken the latchkey.” +“Good. I will call upon her about ten o’clock. What time are you +supposed to return?” +“About nine-thirty or ten, but I could go back earlier.” +“You must not do that on any account. It might arouse suspicion if you +did not stay out till the usual time. Be back by nine-thirty. I will +arrive at ten. Mr. Hersheimmer will wait below in a taxi perhaps.” +“He’s got a new Rolls-Royce car,” said Tuppence with vicarious pride. +“Even better. If I succeed in obtaining the address from her, we can +go there at once, taking Mrs. Vandemeyer with us if necessary. You +understand?” +“Yes.” Tuppence rose to her feet with a skip of delight. “Oh, I feel so +much better!” +“Don’t build on it too much, Miss Tuppence. Go easy.” +Julius turned to the lawyer. +“Say, then. I’ll call for you in the car round about nine-thirty. Is +that right?” +“Perhaps that will be the best plan. It would be unnecessary to have two +cars waiting about. Now, Miss Tuppence, my advice to you is to go and +have a good dinner, a _really_ good one, mind. And don’t think ahead +more than you can help.” +He shook hands with them both, and a moment later they were outside. +“Isn’t he a duck?” inquired Tuppence ecstatically, as she skipped down +the steps. “Oh, Julius, isn’t he just a duck?” +“Well, I allow he seems to be the goods all right. And I was wrong about +its being useless to go to him. Say, shall we go right away back to the +_Ritz?_” +“I must walk a bit, I think. I feel so excited. Drop me in the park, +will you? Unless you’d like to come too?” +“I want to get some petrol,” he explained. “And send off a cable or +two.” +“All right. I’ll meet you at the _Ritz_ at seven. We’ll have to dine +upstairs. I can’t show myself in these glad rags.” +“Sure. I’ll get Felix help me choose the menu. He’s some head waiter, +that. So long.” +Tuppence walked briskly along towards the Serpentine, first glancing at +her watch. It was nearly six o’clock. She remembered that she had had no +tea, but felt too excited to be conscious of hunger. She walked as +far as Kensington Gardens and then slowly retraced her steps, feeling +infinitely better for the fresh air and exercise. It was not so easy to +follow Sir James’s advice, and put the possible events of the evening +out of her head. As she drew nearer and nearer to Hyde Park corner, the +temptation to return to South Audley Mansions was almost irresistible. +At any rate, she decided, it would do no harm just to go and _look_ +at the building. Perhaps, then, she could resign herself to waiting +patiently for ten o’clock. +South Audley Mansions looked exactly the same as usual. What Tuppence +had expected she hardly knew, but the sight of its red brick stolidity +slightly assuaged the growing and entirely unreasonable uneasiness +that possessed her. She was just turning away when she heard a piercing +whistle, and the faithful Albert came running from the building to join +her. +Tuppence frowned. It was no part of the programme to have attention +called to her presence in the neighbourhood, but Albert was purple with +suppressed excitement. +“I say, miss, she’s a-going!” +“Who’s going?” demanded Tuppence sharply. +“The crook. Ready Rita. Mrs. Vandemeyer. She’s a-packing up, and she’s +just sent down word for me to get her a taxi.” +“What?” Tuppence clutched his arm. +“It’s the truth, miss. I thought maybe as you didn’t know about it.” +“Albert,” cried Tuppence, “you’re a brick. If it hadn’t been for you +we’d have lost her.” +Albert flushed with pleasure at this tribute. +“There’s no time to lose,” said Tuppence, crossing the road. “I’ve got +to stop her. At all costs I must keep her here until----” She broke off. +“Albert, there’s a telephone here, isn’t there?” +The boy shook his head. +“The flats mostly have their own, miss. But there’s a box just round the +corner.” +“Go to it then, at once, and ring up the _Ritz Hotel_. Ask for Mr. +Hersheimmer, and when you get him tell him to get Sir James and come on +at once, as Mrs. Vandemeyer is trying to hook it. If you can’t get him, +ring up Sir James Peel Edgerton, you’ll find his number in the book, and +tell him what’s happening. You won’t forget the names, will you?” +Albert repeated them glibly. “You trust to me, miss, it’ll be all right. +But what about you? Aren’t you afraid to trust yourself with her?” +“No, no, that’s all right. _But go and telephone_. Be quick.” +Drawing a long breath, Tuppence entered the Mansions and ran up to the +door of No. 20. How she was to detain Mrs. Vandemeyer until the two men +arrived, she did not know, but somehow or other it had to be done, and +she must accomplish the task single-handed. What had occasioned this +precipitate departure? Did Mrs. Vandemeyer suspect her? +Speculations were idle. Tuppence pressed the bell firmly. She might +learn something from the cook. +Nothing happened and, after waiting some minutes, Tuppence pressed the +bell again, keeping her finger on the button for some little while. +At last she heard footsteps inside, and a moment later Mrs. Vandemeyer +herself opened the door. She lifted her eyebrows at the sight of the +girl. +“You?” +“I had a touch of toothache, ma’am,” said Tuppence glibly. “So thought +it better to come home and have a quiet evening.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer said nothing, but she drew back and let Tuppence pass +into the hall. +“How unfortunate for you,” she said coldly. “You had better go to bed.” +“Oh, I shall be all right in the kitchen, ma’am. Cook will----” +“Cook is out,” said Mrs. Vandemeyer, in a rather disagreeable tone. “I +sent her out. So you see you had better go to bed.” +Suddenly Tuppence felt afraid. There was a ring in Mrs. Vandemeyer’s +voice that she did not like at all. Also, the other woman was slowly +edging her up the passage. Tuppence turned at bay. +“I don’t want----” +Then, in a flash, a rim of cold steel touched her temple, and Mrs. +Vandemeyer’s voice rose cold and menacing: +“You damned little fool! Do you think I don’t know? No, don’t answer. If +you struggle or cry out, I’ll shoot you like a dog.” +The rim of steel pressed a little harder against the girl’s temple. +“Now then, march,” went on Mrs. Vandemeyer. “This way--into my room. In +a minute, when I’ve done with you, you’ll go to bed as I told you to. +And you’ll sleep--oh yes, my little spy, you’ll sleep all right!” +There was a sort of hideous geniality in the last words which Tuppence +did not at all like. For the moment there was nothing to be done, and +she walked obediently into Mrs. Vandemeyer’s bedroom. The pistol never +left her forehead. The room was in a state of wild disorder, clothes +were flung about right and left, a suit-case and a hat box, half-packed, +stood in the middle of the floor. +Tuppence pulled herself together with an effort. Her voice shook a +little, but she spoke out bravely. +“Come now,” she said. “This is nonsense. You can’t shoot me. Why, every +one in the building would hear the report.” +“I’d risk that,” said Mrs. Vandemeyer cheerfully. “But, as long as you +don’t sing out for help, you’re all right--and I don’t think you will. +You’re a clever girl. You deceived _me_ all right. I hadn’t a suspicion +of you! So I’ve no doubt that you understand perfectly well that this +is where I’m on top and you’re underneath. Now then--sit on the bed. Put +your hands above your head, and if you value your life don’t move them.” +Tuppence obeyed passively. Her good sense told her that there was +nothing else to do but accept the situation. If she shrieked for help +there was very little chance of anyone hearing her, whereas there was +probably quite a good chance of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s shooting her. In the +meantime, every minute of delay gained was valuable. +Mrs. Vandemeyer laid down the revolver on the edge of the washstand +within reach of her hand, and, still eyeing Tuppence like a lynx in case +the girl should attempt to move, she took a little stoppered bottle from +its place on the marble and poured some of its contents into a glass +which she filled up with water. +“What’s that?” asked Tuppence sharply. +“Something to make you sleep soundly.” +Tuppence paled a little. +“Are you going to poison me?” she asked in a whisper. +“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Vandemeyer, smiling agreeably. +“Then I shan’t drink it,” said Tuppence firmly. “I’d much rather be +shot. At any rate that would make a row, and some one might hear it. But +I won’t be killed off quietly like a lamb.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer stamped her foot. +“Don’t be a little fool! Do you really think I want a hue and cry for +murder out after me? If you’ve any sense at all, you’ll realize that +poisoning you wouldn’t suit my book at all. It’s a sleeping draught, +that’s all. You’ll wake up to-morrow morning none the worse. I simply +don’t want the bother of tying you up and gagging you. That’s the +alternative--and you won’t like it, I can tell you! I can be very rough +if I choose. So drink this down like a good girl, and you’ll be none the +worse for it.” +In her heart of hearts Tuppence believed her. The arguments she had +adduced rang true. It was a simple and effective method of getting her +out of the way for the time being. Nevertheless, the girl did not take +kindly to the idea of being tamely put to sleep without as much as one +bid for freedom. She felt that once Mrs. Vandemeyer gave them the slip, +the last hope of finding Tommy would be gone. +Tuppence was quick in her mental processes. All these reflections +passed through her mind in a flash, and she saw where a chance, a very +problematical chance, lay, and she determined to risk all in one supreme +effort. +Accordingly, she lurched suddenly off the bed and fell on her knees +before Mrs. Vandemeyer, clutching her skirts frantically. +“I don’t believe it,” she moaned. “It’s poison--I know it’s poison. +Oh, don’t make me drink it”--her voice rose to a shriek--“don’t make me +drink it!” +Mrs. Vandemeyer, glass in hand, looked down with a curling lip at this +sudden collapse. +“Get up, you little idiot! Don’t go on drivelling there. How you ever +had the nerve to play your part as you did I can’t think.” She stamped +her foot. “Get up, I say.” +But Tuppence continued to cling and sob, interjecting her sobs with +incoherent appeals for mercy. Every minute gained was to the good. +Moreover, as she grovelled, she moved imperceptibly nearer to her +objective. +Mrs. Vandemeyer gave a sharp impatient exclamation, and jerked the girl +to her knees. +“Drink it at once!” Imperiously she pressed the glass to the girl’s +lips. +Tuppence gave one last despairing moan. +“You swear it won’t hurt me?” she temporized. +“Of course it won’t hurt you. Don’t be a fool.” +“Will you swear it?” +“Yes, yes,” said the other impatiently. “I swear it.” +Tuppence raised a trembling left hand to the glass. +“Very well.” Her mouth opened meekly. +Mrs. Vandemeyer gave a sigh of relief, off her guard for the moment. +Then, quick as a flash, Tuppence jerked the glass upward as hard as she +could. The fluid in it splashed into Mrs. Vandemeyer’s face, and during +her momentary gasp, Tuppence’s right hand shot out and grasped the +revolver where it lay on the edge of the washstand. The next moment +she had sprung back a pace, and the revolver pointed straight at Mrs. +Vandemeyer’s heart, with no unsteadiness in the hand that held it. +In the moment of victory, Tuppence betrayed a somewhat unsportsmanlike +triumph. +“Now who’s on top and who’s underneath?” she crowed. +The other’s face was convulsed with rage. For a minute Tuppence thought +she was going to spring upon her, which would have placed the girl in an +unpleasant dilemma, since she meant to draw the line at actually letting +off the revolver. However, with an effort Mrs. Vandemeyer controlled +herself, and at last a slow evil smile crept over her face. +“Not a fool, then, after all! You did that well, girl. But you shall pay +for it--oh, yes, you shall pay for it! I have a long memory!” +“I’m surprised you should have been gulled so easily,” said Tuppence +scornfully. “Did you really think I was the kind of girl to roll about +on the floor and whine for mercy?” +“You may do--some day!” said the other significantly. +The cold malignity of her manner sent an unpleasant chill down +Tuppence’s spine, but she was not going to give in to it. +“Supposing we sit down,” she said pleasantly. “Our present attitude is +a little melodramatic. No--not on the bed. Draw a chair up to the table, +that’s right. Now I’ll sit opposite you with the revolver in front of +me--just in case of accidents. Splendid. Now, let’s talk.” +“What about?” said Mrs. Vandemeyer sullenly. +Tuppence eyed her thoughtfully for a minute. She was remembering several +things. Boris’s words, “I believe you would sell-- _us!_” and her +answer, “The price would have to be enormous,” given lightly, it was +true, yet might not there be a substratum of truth in it? Long ago, +had not Whittington asked: “Who’s been blabbing? Rita?” Would Rita +Vandemeyer prove to be the weak spot in the armour of Mr. Brown? +Keeping her eyes fixed steadily on the other’s face, Tuppence replied +quietly: +“Money----” +Mrs. Vandemeyer started. Clearly, the reply was unexpected. +“What do you mean?” +“I’ll tell you. You said just now that you had a long memory. A long +memory isn’t half as useful as a long purse! I dare say it relieves your +feelings a good deal to plan out all sorts of dreadful things to do to +me, but is that _practical?_ Revenge is very unsatisfactory. Every one +always says so. But money”--Tuppence warmed to her pet creed--“well, +there’s nothing unsatisfactory about money, is there?” +“Do you think,” said Mrs. Vandemeyer scornfully, “that I am the kind of +woman to sell my friends?” +“Yes,” said Tuppence promptly. “If the price was big enough.” +“A paltry hundred pounds or so!” +“No,” said Tuppence. “I should suggest--a hundred thousand!” +Her economical spirit did not permit her to mention the whole million +dollars suggested by Julius. +A flush crept over Mrs. Vandemeyer’s face. +“What did you say?” she asked, her fingers playing nervously with a +brooch on her breast. In that moment Tuppence knew that the fish was +hooked, and for the first time she felt a horror of her own money-loving +spirit. It gave her a dreadful sense of kinship to the woman fronting +her. +“A hundred thousand pounds,” repeated Tuppence. +The light died out of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s eyes. She leaned back in her +chair. +“Bah!” she said. “You haven’t got it.” +“No,” admitted Tuppence, “I haven’t--but I know some one who has.” +“Who?” +“A friend of mine.” +“Must be a millionaire,” remarked Mrs. Vandemeyer unbelievingly. +“As a matter of fact he is. He’s an American. He’ll pay you that +without a murmur. You can take it from me that it’s a perfectly genuine +proposition.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer sat up again. +“I’m inclined to believe you,” she said slowly. +There was silence between them for some time, then Mrs. Vandemeyer +looked up. +“What does he want to know, this friend of yours?” +Tuppence went through a momentary struggle, but it was Julius’s money, +and his interests must come first. +“He wants to know where Jane Finn is,” she said boldly. +Mrs. Vandemeyer showed no surprise. +“I’m not sure where she is at the present moment,” she replied. +“But you could find out?” +“Oh, yes,” returned Mrs. Vandemeyer carelessly. “There would be no +difficulty about that.” +“Then”--Tuppence’s voice shook a little--“there’s a boy, a friend of +mine. I’m afraid something’s happened to him, through your pal Boris.” +“What’s his name?” +“Tommy Beresford.” +“Never heard of him. But I’ll ask Boris. He’ll tell me anything he +knows.” +“Thank you.” Tuppence felt a terrific rise in her spirits. It impelled +her to more audacious efforts. “There’s one thing more.” +“Well?” +Tuppence leaned forward and lowered her voice. +_“Who is Mr. Brown?”_ +Her quick eyes saw the sudden paling of the beautiful face. With an +effort Mrs. Vandemeyer pulled herself together and tried to resume her +former manner. But the attempt was a mere parody. +She shrugged her shoulders. +“You can’t have learnt much about us if you don’t know that _nobody +knows who Mr. Brown is_....” +“You do,” said Tuppence quietly. +Again the colour deserted the other’s face. +“What makes you think that?” +“I don’t know,” said the girl truthfully. “But I’m sure.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer stared in front of her for a long time. +“Yes,” she said hoarsely, at last, “_I_ know. I was beautiful, you +see--very beautiful----” +“You are still,” said Tuppence with admiration. +Mrs. Vandemeyer shook her head. There was a strange gleam in her +electric-blue eyes. +“Not beautiful enough,” she said in a soft dangerous voice. +“Not--beautiful--enough! And sometimes, lately, I’ve been afraid.... +It’s dangerous to know too much!” She leaned forward across the table. +“Swear that my name shan’t be brought into it--that no one shall ever +know.” +“I swear it. And, once’s he caught, you’ll be out of danger.” +A terrified look swept across Mrs. Vandemeyer’s face. +“Shall I? Shall I ever be?” She clutched Tuppence’s arm. “You’re sure +about the money?” +“Quite sure.” +“When shall I have it? There must be no delay.” +“This friend of mine will be here presently. He may have to send cables, +or something like that. But there won’t be any delay--he’s a terrific +hustler.” +A resolute look settled on Mrs. Vandemeyer’s face. +“I’ll do it. It’s a great sum of money, and besides”--she gave a curious +smile--“it is not--wise to throw over a woman like me!” +For a moment or two, she remained smiling, and lightly tapping her +fingers on the table. Suddenly she started, and her face blanched. +“What was that?” +“I heard nothing.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer gazed round her fearfully. +“If there should be some one listening----” +“Nonsense. Who could there be?” +“Even the walls might have ears,” whispered the other. “I tell you I’m +frightened. You don’t know him!” +“Think of the hundred thousand pounds,” said Tuppence soothingly. +Mrs. Vandemeyer passed her tongue over her dried lips. +“You don’t know him,” she reiterated hoarsely. “He’s--ah!” +With a shriek of terror she sprang to her feet. Her outstretched hand +pointed over Tuppence’s head. Then she swayed to the ground in a dead +faint. +Tuppence looked round to see what had startled her. +In the doorway were Sir James Peel Edgerton and Julius Hersheimmer. +CHAPTER XIII. THE VIGIL +SIR James brushed past Julius and hurriedly bent over the fallen woman. +“Heart,” he said sharply. “Seeing us so suddenly must have given her a +shock. Brandy--and quickly, or she’ll slip through our fingers.” +Julius hurried to the washstand. +“Not there,” said Tuppence over her shoulder. “In the tantalus in the +dining-room. Second door down the passage.” +Between them Sir James and Tuppence lifted Mrs. Vandemeyer and carried +her to the bed. There they dashed water on her face, but with no result. +The lawyer fingered her pulse. +“Touch and go,” he muttered. “I wish that young fellow would hurry up +with the brandy.” +At that moment Julius re-entered the room, carrying a glass half full of +the spirit which he handed to Sir James. While Tuppence lifted her head +the lawyer tried to force a little of the spirit between her closed +lips. Finally the woman opened her eyes feebly. Tuppence held the glass +to her lips. +“Drink this.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer complied. The brandy brought the colour back to her +white cheeks, and revived her in a marvellous fashion. She tried to sit +up--then fell back with a groan, her hand to her side. +“It’s my heart,” she whispered. “I mustn’t talk.” +She lay back with closed eyes. +Sir James kept his finger on her wrist a minute longer, then withdrew it +with a nod. +“She’ll do now.” +All three moved away, and stood together talking in low voices. One +and all were conscious of a certain feeling of anticlimax. Clearly any +scheme for cross-questioning the lady was out of the question for the +moment. For the time being they were baffled, and could do nothing. +Tuppence related how Mrs. Vandemeyer had declared herself willing +to disclose the identity of Mr. Brown, and how she had consented to +discover and reveal to them the whereabouts of Jane Finn. Julius was +congratulatory. +“That’s all right, Miss Tuppence. Splendid! I guess that hundred +thousand pounds will look just as good in the morning to the lady as it +did over night. There’s nothing to worry over. She won’t speak without +the cash anyway, you bet!” +There was certainly a good deal of common sense in this, and Tuppence +felt a little comforted. +“What you say is true,” said Sir James meditatively. “I must confess, +however, that I cannot help wishing we had not interrupted at the minute +we did. Still, it cannot be helped, it is only a matter of waiting until +the morning.” +He looked across at the inert figure on the bed. Mrs. Vandemeyer lay +perfectly passive with closed eyes. He shook his head. +“Well,” said Tuppence, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “we must wait +until the morning, that’s all. But I don’t think we ought to leave the +flat.” +“What about leaving that bright boy of yours on guard?” +“Albert? And suppose she came round again and hooked it. Albert couldn’t +stop her.” +“I guess she won’t want to make tracks away from the dollars.” +“She might. She seemed very frightened of ‘Mr. Brown.’” +“What? Real plumb scared of him?” +“Yes. She looked round and said even walls had ears.” +“Maybe she meant a dictaphone,” said Julius with interest. +“Miss Tuppence is right,” said Sir James quietly. “We must not leave the +flat--if only for Mrs. Vandemeyer’s sake.” +Julius stared at him. +“You think he’d get after her? Between now and to-morrow morning. How +could he know, even?” +“You forget your own suggestion of a dictaphone,” said Sir James dryly. +“We have a very formidable adversary. I believe, if we exercise all due +care, that there is a very good chance of his being delivered into our +hands. But we must neglect no precaution. We have an important witness, +but she must be safeguarded. I would suggest that Miss Tuppence should +go to bed, and that you and I, Mr. Hersheimmer, should share the vigil.” +Tuppence was about to protest, but happening to glance at the bed she +saw Mrs. Vandemeyer, her eyes half-open, with such an expression of +mingled fear and malevolence on her face that it quite froze the words +on her lips. +For a moment she wondered whether the faint and the heart attack had +been a gigantic sham, but remembering the deadly pallor she could hardly +credit the supposition. As she looked the expression disappeared as by +magic, and Mrs. Vandemeyer lay inert and motionless as before. For a +moment the girl fancied she must have dreamt it. But she determined +nevertheless to be on the alert. +“Well,” said Julius, “I guess we’d better make a move out of here any +way.” +The others fell in with his suggestion. Sir James again felt Mrs. +Vandemeyer’s pulse. +“Perfectly satisfactory,” he said in a low voice to Tuppence. “She’ll be +absolutely all right after a night’s rest.” +The girl hesitated a moment by the bed. The intensity of the expression +she had surprised had impressed her powerfully. Mrs. Vandemeyer lifted +her lids. She seemed to be struggling to speak. Tuppence bent over her. +“Don’t--leave----” she seemed unable to proceed, murmuring something +that sounded like “sleepy.” Then she tried again. +Tuppence bent lower still. It was only a breath. +“Mr.--Brown----” The voice stopped. +But the half-closed eyes seemed still to send an agonized message. +Moved by a sudden impulse, the girl said quickly: +“I shan’t leave the flat. I shall sit up all night.” +A flash of relief showed before the lids descended once more. Apparently +Mrs. Vandemeyer slept. But her words had awakened a new uneasiness in +Tuppence. What had she meant by that low murmur: “Mr. Brown?” Tuppence +caught herself nervously looking over her shoulder. The big wardrobe +loomed up in a sinister fashion before her eyes. Plenty of room for a +man to hide in that.... Half-ashamed of herself, Tuppence pulled it open +and looked inside. No one--of course! She stooped down and looked under +the bed. There was no other possible hiding-place. +Tuppence gave her familiar shake of the shoulders. It was absurd, this +giving way to nerves! Slowly she went out of the room. Julius and Sir +James were talking in a low voice. Sir James turned to her. +“Lock the door on the outside, please, Miss Tuppence, and take out the +key. There must be no chance of anyone entering that room.” +The gravity of his manner impressed them, and Tuppence felt less ashamed +of her attack of “nerves.” +“Say,” remarked Julius suddenly, “there’s Tuppence’s bright boy. I guess +I’d better go down and ease his young mind. That’s some lad, Tuppence.” +“How did you get in, by the way?” asked Tuppence suddenly. “I forgot to +ask.” +“Well, Albert got me on the phone all right. I ran round for Sir James +here, and we came right on. The boy was on the look out for us, and was +just a mite worried about what might have happened to you. He’d been +listening outside the door of the flat, but couldn’t hear anything. +Anyhow he suggested sending us up in the coal lift instead of ringing +the bell. And sure enough we landed in the scullery and came right along +to find you. Albert’s still below, and must be just hopping mad by this +time.” With which Julius departed abruptly. +“Now then, Miss Tuppence,” said Sir James, “you know this place better +than I do. Where do you suggest we should take up our quarters?” +Tuppence considered for a moment or two. +“I think Mrs. Vandemeyer’s boudoir would be the most comfortable,” she +said at last, and led the way there. +Sir James looked round approvingly. +“This will do very well, and now, my dear young lady, do go to bed and +get some sleep.” +Tuppence shook her head resolutely. +“I couldn’t, thank you, Sir James. I should dream of Mr. Brown all +night!” +“But you’ll be so tired, child.” +“No, I shan’t. I’d rather stay up--really.” +The lawyer gave in. +Julius reappeared some minutes later, having reassured Albert and +rewarded him lavishly for his services. Having in his turn failed to +persuade Tuppence to go to bed, he said decisively: +“At any rate, you’ve got to have something to eat right away. Where’s +the larder?” +Tuppence directed him, and he returned in a few minutes with a cold pie +and three plates. +After a hearty meal, the girl felt inclined to pooh-pooh her fancies of +half an hour before. The power of the money bribe could not fail. +“And now, Miss Tuppence,” said Sir James, “we want to hear your +adventures.” +“That’s so,” agreed Julius. +Tuppence narrated her adventures with some complacence. Julius +occasionally interjected an admiring “Bully.” Sir James said nothing +until she had finished, when his quiet “well done, Miss Tuppence,” made +her flush with pleasure. +“There’s one thing I don’t get clearly,” said Julius. “What put her up +to clearing out?” +“I don’t know,” confessed Tuppence. +Sir James stroked his chin thoughtfully. +“The room was in great disorder. That looks as though her flight was +unpremeditated. Almost as though she got a sudden warning to go from +some one.” +“Mr. Brown, I suppose,” said Julius scoffingly. +The lawyer looked at him deliberately for a minute or two. +“Why not?” he said. “Remember, you yourself have once been worsted by +him.” +Julius flushed with vexation. +“I feel just mad when I think of how I handed out Jane’s photograph to +him like a lamb. Gee, if I ever lay hands on it again, I’ll freeze on to +it like--like hell!” +“That contingency is likely to be a remote one,” said the other dryly. +“I guess you’re right,” said Julius frankly. “And, in any case, it’s the +original I’m out after. Where do you think she can be, Sir James?” +The lawyer shook his head. +“Impossible to say. But I’ve a very good idea where she _has_ been.” +“You have? Where?” +Sir James smiled. +“At the scene of your nocturnal adventures, the Bournemouth nursing +home.” +“There? Impossible. I asked.” +“No, my dear sir, you asked if anyone of the name of Jane Finn had been +there. Now, if the girl had been placed there it would almost certainly +be under an assumed name.” +“Bully for you,” cried Julius. “I never thought of that!” +“It was fairly obvious,” said the other. +“Perhaps the doctor’s in it too,” suggested Tuppence. +Julius shook his head. +“I don’t think so. I took to him at once. No, I’m pretty sure Dr. Hall’s +all right.” +“Hall, did you say?” asked Sir James. “That is curious--really very +curious.” +“Why?” demanded Tuppence. +“Because I happened to meet him this morning. I’ve known him slightly on +and off for some years, and this morning I ran across him in the street. +Staying at the _Métropole_, he told me.” He turned to Julius. “Didn’t +he tell you he was coming up to town?” +Julius shook his head. +“Curious,” mused Sir James. “You did not mention his name this +afternoon, or I would have suggested your going to him for further +information with my card as introduction.” +“I guess I’m a mutt,” said Julius with unusual humility. “I ought to +have thought of the false name stunt.” +“How could you think of anything after falling out of that tree?” cried +Tuppence. “I’m sure anyone else would have been killed right off.” +“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, anyway,” said Julius. “We’ve got +Mrs. Vandemeyer on a string, and that’s all we need.” +“Yes,” said Tuppence, but there was a lack of assurance in her voice. +A silence settled down over the party. Little by little the magic of +the night began to gain a hold on them. There were sudden creaks of the +furniture, imperceptible rustlings in the curtains. Suddenly Tuppence +sprang up with a cry. +“I can’t help it. I know Mr. Brown’s somewhere in the flat! I can _feel_ +him.” +“Sure, Tuppence, how could he be? This door’s open into the hall. No +one could have come in by the front door without our seeing and hearing +him.” +“I can’t help it. I _feel_ he’s here!” +She looked appealingly at Sir James, who replied gravely: +“With due deference to your feelings, Miss Tuppence (and mine as well +for that matter), I do not see how it is humanly possible for anyone to +be in the flat without our knowledge.” +The girl was a little comforted by his words. +“Sitting up at night is always rather jumpy,” she confessed. +“Yes,” said Sir James. “We are in the condition of people holding a +séance. Perhaps if a medium were present we might get some marvellous +results.” +“Do you believe in spiritualism?” asked Tuppence, opening her eyes wide. +The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. +“There is some truth in it, without a doubt. But most of the testimony +would not pass muster in the witness-box.” +The hours drew on. With the first faint glimmerings of dawn, Sir James +drew aside the curtains. They beheld, what few Londoners see, the slow +rising of the sun over the sleeping city. Somehow, with the coming +of the light, the dreads and fancies of the past night seemed absurd. +Tuppence’s spirits revived to the normal. +“Hooray!” she said. “It’s going to be a gorgeous day. And we shall find +Tommy. And Jane Finn. And everything will be lovely. I shall ask Mr. +Carter if I can’t be made a Dame!” +At seven o’clock Tuppence volunteered to go and make some tea. She +returned with a tray, containing the teapot and four cups. +“Who’s the other cup for?” inquired Julius. +“The prisoner, of course. I suppose we might call her that?” +“Taking her tea seems a kind of anticlimax to last night,” said Julius +thoughtfully. +“Yes, it does,” admitted Tuppence. “But, anyway, here goes. Perhaps +you’d both come, too, in case she springs on me, or anything. You see, +we don’t know what mood she’ll wake up in.” +Sir James and Julius accompanied her to the door. +“Where’s the key? Oh, of course, I’ve got it myself.” +She put it in the lock, and turned it, then paused. +“Supposing, after all, she’s escaped?” she murmured in a whisper. +“Plumb impossible,” replied Julius reassuringly. +But Sir James said nothing. +Tuppence drew a long breath and entered. She heaved a sigh of relief as +she saw that Mrs. Vandemeyer was lying on the bed. +“Good morning,” she remarked cheerfully. “I’ve brought you some tea.” +Mrs. Vandemeyer did not reply. Tuppence put down the cup on the table +by the bed and went across to draw up the blinds. When she turned, Mrs. +Vandemeyer still lay without a movement. With a sudden fear clutching +at her heart, Tuppence ran to the bed. The hand she lifted was cold as +ice.... Mrs. Vandemeyer would never speak now.... +Her cry brought the others. A very few minutes sufficed. Mrs. Vandemeyer +was dead--must have been dead some hours. She had evidently died in her +sleep. +“If that isn’t the cruellest luck,” cried Julius in despair. +The lawyer was calmer, but there was a curious gleam in his eyes. +“If it is luck,” he replied. +“You don’t think--but, say, that’s plumb impossible--no one could have +got in.” +“No,” admitted the lawyer. “I don’t see how they could. And yet--she is +on the point of betraying Mr. Brown, and--she dies. Is it only chance?” +“But how----” +“Yes, _how!_ That is what we must find out.” He stood there silently, +gently stroking his chin. “We must find out,” he said quietly, and +Tuppence felt that if she was Mr. Brown she would not like the tone of +those simple words. +Julius’s glance went to the window. +“The window’s open,” he remarked. “Do you think----” +Tuppence shook her head. +“The balcony only goes along as far as the boudoir. We were there.” +“He might have slipped out----” suggested Julius. +But Sir James interrupted him. +“Mr. Brown’s methods are not so crude. In the meantime we must send for +a doctor, but before we do so, is there anything in this room that might +be of value to us?” +Hastily, the three searched. A charred mass in the grate indicated +that Mrs. Vandemeyer had been burning papers on the eve of her flight. +Nothing of importance remained, though they searched the other rooms as +well. +“There’s that,” said Tuppence suddenly, pointing to a small, +old-fashioned safe let into the wall. “It’s for jewellery, I believe, +but there might be something else in it.” +The key was in the lock, and Julius swung open the door, and searched +inside. He was some time over the task. +“Well,” said Tuppence impatiently. +There was a pause before Julius answered, then he withdrew his head and +shut to the door. +“Nothing,” he said. +In five minutes a brisk young doctor arrived, hastily summoned. He was +deferential to Sir James, whom he recognized. +“Heart failure, or possibly an overdose of some sleeping-draught.” He +sniffed. “Rather an odour of chloral in the air.” +Tuppence remembered the glass she had upset. A new thought drove her to +the washstand. She found the little bottle from which Mrs. Vandemeyer +had poured a few drops. +It had been three parts full. Now-- _it was empty_. +CHAPTER XIV. A CONSULTATION +NOTHING was more surprising and bewildering to Tuppence than the ease +and simplicity with which everything was arranged, owing to Sir James’s +skilful handling. The doctor accepted quite readily the theory that Mrs. +Vandemeyer had accidentally taken an overdose of chloral. He doubted +whether an inquest would be necessary. If so, he would let Sir James +know. He understood that Mrs. Vandemeyer was on the eve of departure for +abroad, and that the servants had already left? Sir James and his young +friends had been paying a call upon her, when she was suddenly stricken +down and they had spent the night in the flat, not liking to leave +her alone. Did they know of any relatives? They did not, but Sir James +referred him to Mrs. Vandemeyer’s solicitor. +Shortly afterwards a nurse arrived to take charge, and the other left +the ill-omened building. +“And what now?” asked Julius, with a gesture of despair. “I guess we’re +down and out for good.” +Sir James stroked his chin thoughtfully. +“No,” he said quietly. “There is still the chance that Dr. Hall may be +able to tell us something.” +“Gee! I’d forgotten him.” +“The chance is slight, but it must not be neglected. I think I told you +that he is staying at the _Métropole_. I should suggest that we call +upon him there as soon as possible. Shall we say after a bath and +breakfast?” +It was arranged that Tuppence and Julius should return to the _Ritz_, +and call for Sir James in the car. This programme was faithfully carried +out, and a little after eleven they drew up before the _Métropole_. +They asked for Dr. Hall, and a page-boy went in search of him. In a few +minutes the little doctor came hurrying towards them. +“Can you spare us a few minutes, Dr. Hall?” said Sir James pleasantly. +“Let me introduce you to Miss Cowley. Mr. Hersheimmer, I think, you +already know.” +A quizzical gleam came into the doctor’s eye as he shook hands with +Julius. +“Ah, yes, my young friend of the tree episode! Ankle all right, eh?” +“I guess it’s cured owing to your skilful treatment, doc.” +“And the heart trouble? Ha ha!” +“Still searching,” said Julius briefly. +“To come to the point, can we have a word with you in private?” asked +Sir James. +“Certainly. I think there is a room here where we shall be quite +undisturbed.” +He led the way, and the others followed him. They sat down, and the +doctor looked inquiringly at Sir James. +“Dr. Hall, I am very anxious to find a certain young lady for the +purpose of obtaining a statement from her. I have reason to believe +that she has been at one time or another in your establishment at +Bournemouth. I hope I am transgressing no professional etiquette in +questioning you on the subject?” +“I suppose it is a matter of testimony?” +Sir James hesitated a moment, then he replied: +“Yes.” +“I shall be pleased to give you any information in my power. What is +the young lady’s name? Mr. Hersheimmer asked me, I remember----” He half +turned to Julius. +“The name,” said Sir James bluntly, “is really immaterial. She would be +almost certainly sent to you under an assumed one. But I should like to +know if you are acquainted with a Mrs. Vandemeyer?” +“Mrs. Vandemeyer, of 20 South Audley Mansions? I know her slightly.” +“You are not aware of what has happened?” +“What do you mean?” +“You do not know that Mrs. Vandemeyer is dead?” +“Dear, dear, I had no idea of it! When did it happen?” +“She took an overdose of chloral last night.” +“Purposely?” +“Accidentally, it is believed. I should not like to say myself. Anyway, +she was found dead this morning.” +“Very sad. A singularly handsome woman. I presume she was a friend of +yours, since you are acquainted with all these details.” +“I am acquainted with the details because--well, it was I who found her +dead.” +“Indeed,” said the doctor, starting. +“Yes,” said Sir James, and stroked his chin reflectively. +“This is very sad news, but you will excuse me if I say that I do not +see how it bears on the subject of your inquiry?” +“It bears on it in this way, is it not a fact that Mrs. Vandemeyer +committed a young relative of hers to your charge?” +Julius leaned forward eagerly. +“That is the case,” said the doctor quietly. +“Under the name of----?” +“Janet Vandemeyer. I understood her to be a niece of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s.” +“And she came to you?” +“As far as I can remember in June or July of 1915.” +“Was she a mental case?” +“She is perfectly sane, if that is what you mean. I understood from Mrs. +Vandemeyer that the girl had been with her on the _Lusitania_ when +that ill-fated ship was sunk, and had suffered a severe shock in +consequence.” +“We’re on the right track, I think?” Sir James looked round. +“As I said before, I’m a mutt!” returned Julius. +The doctor looked at them all curiously. +“You spoke of wanting a statement from her,” he said. “Supposing she is +not able to give one?” +“What? You have just said that she is perfectly sane.” +“So she is. Nevertheless, if you want a statement from her concerning +any events prior to May 7, 1915, she will not be able to give it to +you.” +They looked at the little man, stupefied. He nodded cheerfully. +“It’s a pity,” he said. “A great pity, especially as I gather, Sir +James, that the matter is important. But there it is, she can tell you +nothing.” +“But why, man? Darn it all, why?” +The little man shifted his benevolent glance to the excited young +American. +“Because Janet Vandemeyer is suffering from a complete loss of memory.” +_“What?”_ +“Quite so. An interesting case, a _very_ interesting case. Not so +uncommon, really, as you would think. There are several very well known +parallels. It’s the first case of the kind that I’ve had under my own +personal observation, and I must admit that I’ve found it of absorbing +interest.” There was something rather ghoulish in the little man’s +satisfaction. +“And she remembers nothing,” said Sir James slowly. +“Nothing prior to May 7, 1915. After that date her memory is as good as +yours or mine.” +“Then the first thing she remembers?” +“Is landing with the survivors. Everything before that is a blank. She +did not know her own name, or where she had come from, or where she was. +She couldn’t even speak her own tongue.” +“But surely all this is most unusual?” put in Julius. +“No, my dear sir. Quite normal under the circumstances. Severe shock to +the nervous system. Loss of memory proceeds nearly always on the same +lines. I suggested a specialist, of course. There’s a very good man in +Paris--makes a study of these cases--but Mrs. Vandemeyer opposed the +idea of publicity that might result from such a course.” +“I can imagine she would,” said Sir James grimly. +“I fell in with her views. There is a certain notoriety given to these +cases. And the girl was very young--nineteen, I believe. It seemed +a pity that her infirmity should be talked about--might damage her +prospects. Besides, there is no special treatment to pursue in such +cases. It is really a matter of waiting.” +“Waiting?” +“Yes, sooner or later, the memory will return--as suddenly as it +went. But in all probability the girl will have entirely forgotten the +intervening period, and will take up life where she left off--at the +sinking of the _Lusitania_.” +“And when do you expect this to happen?” +The doctor shrugged his shoulders. +“Ah, that I cannot say. Sometimes it is a matter of months, sometimes +it has been known to be as long as twenty years! Sometimes another shock +does the trick. One restores what the other took away.” +“Another shock, eh?” said Julius thoughtfully. +“Exactly. There was a case in Colorado----” The little man’s voice +trailed on, voluble, mildly enthusiastic. +Julius did not seem to be listening. He had relapsed into his own +thoughts and was frowning. Suddenly he came out of his brown study, +and hit the table such a resounding bang with his fist that every one +jumped, the doctor most of all. +“I’ve got it! I guess, doc, I’d like your medical opinion on the plan +I’m about to outline. Say Jane was to cross the herring pond again, and +the same thing was to happen. The submarine, the sinking ship, every one +to take to the boats--and so on. Wouldn’t that do the trick? Wouldn’t it +give a mighty big bump to her subconscious self, or whatever the jargon +is, and start it functioning again right away?” +“A very interesting speculation, Mr. Hersheimmer. In my own opinion, it +would be successful. It is unfortunate that there is no chance of the +conditions repeating themselves as you suggest.” +“Not by nature, perhaps, doc. But I’m talking about art.” +“Art?” +“Why, yes. What’s the difficulty? Hire a liner----” +“A liner!” murmured Dr. Hall faintly. +“Hire some passengers, hire a submarine--that’s the only difficulty, I +guess. Governments are apt to be a bit hide-bound over their engines of +war. They won’t sell to the first-comer. Still, I guess that can be got +over. Ever heard of the word ‘graft,’ sir? Well, graft gets there every +time! I reckon that we shan’t really need to fire a torpedo. If every +one hustles round and screams loud enough that the ship is sinking, it +ought to be enough for an innocent young girl like Jane. By the time +she’s got a life-belt on her, and is being hustled into a boat, with +a well-drilled lot of artistes doing the hysterical stunt on deck, +why--she ought to be right back where she was in May, 1915. How’s that +for the bare outline?” +Dr. Hall looked at Julius. Everything that he was for the moment +incapable of saying was eloquent in that look. +“No,” said Julius, in answer to it, “I’m not crazy. The thing’s +perfectly possible. It’s done every day in the States for the movies. +Haven’t you seen trains in collision on the screen? What’s the +difference between buying up a train and buying up a liner? Get the +properties and you can go right ahead!” +Dr. Hall found his voice. +“But the expense, my dear sir.” His voice rose. “The expense! It will be +_colossal!_” +“Money doesn’t worry me any,” explained Julius simply. +Dr. Hall turned an appealing face to Sir James, who smiled slightly. +“Mr. Hersheimmer is very well off--very well off indeed.” +The doctor’s glance came back to Julius with a new and subtle quality in +it. This was no longer an eccentric young fellow with a habit of falling +off trees. The doctor’s eyes held the deference accorded to a really +rich man. +“Very remarkable plan. Very remarkable,” he murmured. “The movies--of +course! Your American word for the kinema. Very interesting. I fear we +are perhaps a little behind the times over here in our methods. And you +really mean to carry out this remarkable plan of yours.” +“You bet your bottom dollar I do.” +The doctor believed him--which was a tribute to his nationality. If an +Englishman had suggested such a thing, he would have had grave doubts as +to his sanity. +“I cannot guarantee a cure,” he pointed out. “Perhaps I ought to make +that quite clear.” +“Sure, that’s all right,” said Julius. “You just trot out Jane, and +leave the rest to me.” +“Jane?” +“Miss Janet Vandemeyer, then. Can we get on the long distance to your +place right away, and ask them to send her up; or shall I run down and +fetch her in my car?” +The doctor stared. +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Hersheimmer. I thought you understood.” +“Understood what?” +“That Miss Vandemeyer is no longer under my care.” +CHAPTER XV. TUPPENCE RECEIVES A PROPOSAL +JULIUS sprang up. +“What?” +“I thought you were aware of that.” +“When did she leave?” +“Let me see. To-day is Monday, is it not? It must have been last +Wednesday--why, surely--yes, it was the same evening that you--er--fell +out of my tree.” +“That evening? Before, or after?” +“Let me see--oh yes, afterwards. A very urgent message arrived from Mrs. +Vandemeyer. The young lady and the nurse who was in charge of her left +by the night train.” +Julius sank back again into his chair. +“Nurse Edith--left with a patient--I remember,” he muttered. “My God, to +have been so near!” +Dr. Hall looked bewildered. +“I don’t understand. Is the young lady not with her aunt, after all?” +Tuppence shook her head. She was about to speak when a warning glance +from Sir James made her hold her tongue. The lawyer rose. +“I’m much obliged to you, Hall. We’re very grateful for all you’ve +told us. I’m afraid we’re now in the position of having to track Miss +Vandemeyer anew. What about the nurse who accompanied her; I suppose you +don’t know where she is?” +The doctor shook his head. +“We’ve not heard from her, as it happens. I understood she was to remain +with Miss Vandemeyer for a while. But what can have happened? Surely the +girl has not been kidnapped.” +“That remains to be seen,” said Sir James gravely. +The other hesitated. +“You do not think I ought to go to the police?” +“No, no. In all probability the young lady is with other relations.” +The doctor was not completely satisfied, but he saw that Sir James was +determined to say no more, and realized that to try and extract +more information from the famous K.C. would be mere waste of labour. +Accordingly, he wished them goodbye, and they left the hotel. For a few +minutes they stood by the car talking. +“How maddening,” cried Tuppence. “To think that Julius must have been +actually under the same roof with her for a few hours.” +“I was a darned idiot,” muttered Julius gloomily. +“You couldn’t know,” Tuppence consoled him. “Could he?” She appealed to +Sir James. +“I should advise you not to worry,” said the latter kindly. “No use +crying over spilt milk, you know.” +“The great thing is what to do next,” added Tuppence the practical. +Sir James shrugged his shoulders. +“You might advertise for the nurse who accompanied the girl. That is +the only course I can suggest, and I must confess I do not hope for much +result. Otherwise there is nothing to be done.” +“Nothing?” said Tuppence blankly. “And--Tommy?” +“We must hope for the best,” said Sir James. “Oh yes, we must go on +hoping.” +But over her downcast head his eyes met Julius’s, and almost +imperceptibly he shook his head. Julius understood. The lawyer +considered the case hopeless. The young American’s face grew grave. Sir +James took Tuppence’s hand. +“You must let me know if anything further comes to light. Letters will +always be forwarded.” +Tuppence stared at him blankly. +“You are going away?” +“I told you. Don’t you remember? To Scotland.” +“Yes, but I thought----” The girl hesitated. +Sir James shrugged his shoulders. +“My dear young lady, I can do nothing more, I fear. Our clues have all +ended in thin air. You can take my word for it that there is nothing +more to be done. If anything should arise, I shall be glad to advise you +in any way I can.” +His words gave Tuppence an extraordinarily desolate feeling. +“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Anyway, thank you very much for +trying to help us. Good-bye.” +Julius was bending over the car. A momentary pity came into Sir James’s +keen eyes, as he gazed into the girl’s downcast face. +“Don’t be too disconsolate, Miss Tuppence,” he said in a low voice. +“Remember, holiday-time isn’t always all playtime. One sometimes manages +to put in some work as well.” +Something in his tone made Tuppence glance up sharply. He shook his head +with a smile. +“No, I shan’t say any more. Great mistake to say too much. Remember +that. Never tell all you know--not even to the person you know best. +Understand? Good-bye.” +He strode away. Tuppence stared after him. She was beginning to +understand Sir James’s methods. Once before he had thrown her a hint +in the same careless fashion. Was this a hint? What exactly lay +behind those last brief words? Did he mean that, after all, he had not +abandoned the case; that, secretly, he would be working on it still +while---- +Her meditations were interrupted by Julius, who adjured her to “get +right in.” +“You’re looking kind of thoughtful,” he remarked as they started off. +“Did the old guy say anything more?” +Tuppence opened her mouth impulsively, and then shut it again. Sir +James’s words sounded in her ears: “Never tell all you know--not even +to the person you know best.” And like a flash there came into her mind +another memory. Julius before the safe in the flat, her own question and +the pause before his reply, “Nothing.” Was there really nothing? Or +had he found something he wished to keep to himself? If he could make a +reservation, so could she. +“Nothing particular,” she replied. +She felt rather than saw Julius throw a sideways glance at her. +“Say, shall we go for a spin in the park?” +“If you like.” +For a while they ran on under the trees in silence. It was a beautiful +day. The keen rush through the air brought a new exhilaration to +Tuppence. +“Say, Miss Tuppence, do you think I’m ever going to find Jane?” +Julius spoke in a discouraged voice. The mood was so alien to him that +Tuppence turned and stared at him in surprise. He nodded. +“That’s so. I’m getting down and out over the business. Sir James to-day +hadn’t got any hope at all, I could see that. I don’t like him--we don’t +gee together somehow--but he’s pretty cute, and I guess he wouldn’t quit +if there was any chance of success--now, would he?” +Tuppence felt rather uncomfortable, but clinging to her belief that +Julius also had withheld something from her, she remained firm. +“He suggested advertising for the nurse,” she reminded him. +“Yes, with a ‘forlorn hope’ flavour to his voice! No--I’m about fed up. +I’ve half a mind to go back to the States right away.” +“Oh no!” cried Tuppence. “We’ve got to find Tommy.” +“I sure forgot Beresford,” said Julius contritely. “That’s so. We must +find him. But after--well, I’ve been day-dreaming ever since I started +on this trip--and these dreams are rotten poor business. I’m quit of +them. Say, Miss Tuppence, there’s something I’d like to ask you.” +“Yes?” +“You and Beresford. What about it?” +“I don’t understand you,” replied Tuppence with dignity, adding rather +inconsequently: “And, anyway, you’re wrong!” +“Not got a sort of kindly feeling for one another?” +“Certainly not,” said Tuppence with warmth. “Tommy and I are +friends--nothing more.” +“I guess every pair of lovers has said that sometime or another,” +observed Julius. +“Nonsense!” snapped Tuppence. “Do I look the sort of girl that’s always +falling in love with every man she meets?” +“You do not. You look the sort of girl that’s mighty often getting +fallen in love with!” +“Oh!” said Tuppence, rather taken aback. “That’s a compliment, I +suppose?” +“Sure. Now let’s get down to this. Supposing we never find Beresford +and--and----” +“All right--say it! I can face facts. Supposing he’s--dead! Well?” +“And all this business fiddles out. What are you going to do?” +“I don’t know,” said Tuppence forlornly. +“You’ll be darned lonesome, you poor kid.” +“I shall be all right,” snapped Tuppence with her usual resentment of +any kind of pity. +“What about marriage?” inquired Julius. “Got any views on the subject?” +“I intend to marry, of course,” replied Tuppence. “That is, if”--she +paused, knew a momentary longing to draw back, and then stuck to her +guns bravely--“I can find some one rich enough to make it worth my +while. That’s frank, isn’t it? I dare say you despise me for it.” +“I never despise business instinct,” said Julius. “What particular +figure have you in mind?” +“Figure?” asked Tuppence, puzzled. “Do you mean tall or short?” +“No. Sum--income.” +“Oh, I--I haven’t quite worked that out.” +“What about me?” +_“You?”_ +“Sure thing.” +“Oh, I couldn’t!” +“Why not?” +“I tell you I couldn’t.” +“Again, why not?” +“It would seem so unfair.” +“I don’t see anything unfair about it. I call your bluff, that’s all. I +admire you immensely, Miss Tuppence, more than any girl I’ve ever met. +You’re so darned plucky. I’d just love to give you a real, rattling good +time. Say the word, and we’ll run round right away to some high-class +jeweller, and fix up the ring business.” +“I can’t,” gasped Tuppence. +“Because of Beresford?” +“No, no, _no!_” +“Well then?” +Tuppence merely continued to shake her head violently. +“You can’t reasonably expect more dollars than I’ve got.” +“Oh, it isn’t that,” gasped Tuppence with an almost hysterical laugh. +“But thanking you very much, and all that, I think I’d better say no.” +“I’d be obliged if you’d do me the favour to think it over until +to-morrow.” +“It’s no use.” +“Still, I guess we’ll leave it like that.” +“Very well,” said Tuppence meekly. +Neither of them spoke again until they reached the _Ritz_. +Tuppence went upstairs to her room. She felt morally battered to the +ground after her conflict with Julius’s vigorous personality. Sitting +down in front of the glass, she stared at her own reflection for some +minutes. +“Fool,” murmured Tuppence at length, making a grimace. “Little fool. +Everything you want--everything you’ve ever hoped for, and you go and +bleat out ‘no’ like an idiotic little sheep. It’s your one chance. Why +don’t you take it? Grab it? Snatch at it? What more do you want?” +As if in answer to her own question, her eyes fell on a small snapshot +of Tommy that stood on her dressing-table in a shabby frame. For a +moment she struggled for self-control, and then abandoning all presence, +she held it to her lips and burst into a fit of sobbing. +“Oh, Tommy, Tommy,” she cried, “I do love you so--and I may never see +you again....” +At the end of five minutes Tuppence sat up, blew her nose, and pushed +back her hair. +“That’s that,” she observed sternly. “Let’s look facts in the face. I +seem to have fallen in love--with an idiot of a boy who probably doesn’t +care two straws about me.” Here she paused. “Anyway,” she resumed, as +though arguing with an unseen opponent, “I don’t _know_ that he does. +He’d never have dared to say so. I’ve always jumped on sentiment--and +here I am being more sentimental than anybody. What idiots girls are! +I’ve always thought so. I suppose I shall sleep with his photograph +under my pillow, and dream about him all night. It’s dreadful to feel +you’ve been false to your principles.” +Tuppence shook her head sadly, as she reviewed her backsliding. +“I don’t know what to say to Julius, I’m sure. Oh, what a fool I feel! +I’ll have to say _something_--he’s so American and thorough, he’ll +insist upon having a reason. I wonder if he did find anything in that +safe----” +Tuppence’s meditations went off on another tack. She reviewed the events +of last night carefully and persistently. Somehow, they seemed bound up +with Sir James’s enigmatical words.... +Suddenly she gave a great start--the colour faded out of her face. Her +eyes, fascinated, gazed in front of her, the pupils dilated. +“Impossible,” she murmured. “Impossible! I must be going mad even to +think of such a thing....” +Monstrous--yet it explained everything.... +After a moment’s reflection she sat down and wrote a note, weighing each +word as she did so. Finally she nodded her head as though satisfied, and +slipped it into an envelope which she addressed to Julius. She went +down the passage to his sitting-room and knocked at the door. As she had +expected, the room was empty. She left the note on the table. +A small page-boy was waiting outside her own door when she returned to +it. +“Telegram for you, miss.” +Tuppence took it from the salver, and tore it open carelessly. Then she +gave a cry. The telegram was from Tommy! +CHAPTER XVI. FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOMMY +FROM a darkness punctuated with throbbing stabs of fire, Tommy dragged +his senses slowly back to life. When he at last opened his eyes, he was +conscious of nothing but an excruciating pain through his temples. He +was vaguely aware of unfamiliar surroundings. Where was he? What had +happened? He blinked feebly. This was not his bedroom at the _Ritz_. And +what the devil was the matter with his head? +“Damn!” said Tommy, and tried to sit up. He had remembered. He was in +that sinister house in Soho. He uttered a groan and fell back. Through +his almost-closed lids he reconnoitred carefully. +“He is coming to,” remarked a voice very near Tommy’s ear. He recognized +it at once for that of the bearded and efficient German, and lay +artistically inert. He felt that it would be a pity to come round too +soon; and until the pain in his head became a little less acute, he felt +quite incapable of collecting his wits. Painfully he tried to puzzle out +what had happened. Obviously somebody must have crept up behind him as +he listened and struck him down with a blow on the head. They knew +him now for a spy, and would in all probability give him short shrift. +Undoubtedly he was in a tight place. Nobody knew where he was, therefore +he need expect no outside assistance, and must depend solely on his own +wits. +“Well, here goes,” murmured Tommy to himself, and repeated his former +remark. +“Damn!” he observed, and this time succeeded in sitting up. +In a minute the German stepped forward and placed a glass to his lips, +with the brief command “Drink.” Tommy obeyed. The potency of the draught +made him choke, but it cleared his brain in a marvellous manner. +He was lying on a couch in the room in which the meeting had been held. +On one side of him was the German, on the other the villainous-faced +doorkeeper who had let him in. The others were grouped together at a +little distance away. But Tommy missed one face. The man known as Number +One was no longer of the company. +“Feel better?” asked the German, as he removed the empty glass. +“Yes, thanks,” returned Tommy cheerfully. +“Ah, my young friend, it is lucky for you your skull is so thick. The +good Conrad struck hard.” He indicated the evil-faced doorkeeper by a +nod. The man grinned. +Tommy twisted his head round with an effort. +“Oh,” he said, “so you’re Conrad, are you? It strikes me the thickness +of my skull was lucky for you too. When I look at you I feel it’s almost +a pity I’ve enabled you to cheat the hangman.” +The man snarled, and the bearded man said quietly: +“He would have run no risk of that.” +“Just as you like,” replied Tommy. “I know it’s the fashion to run down +the police. I rather believe in them myself.” +His manner was nonchalant to the last degree. Tommy Beresford was one +of those young Englishmen not distinguished by any special intellectual +ability, but who are emphatically at their best in what is known as a +“tight place.” Their natural diffidence and caution fall from them like +a glove. Tommy realized perfectly that in his own wits lay the only +chance of escape, and behind his casual manner he was racking his brains +furiously. +The cold accents of the German took up the conversation: +“Have you anything to say before you are put to death as a spy?” +“Simply lots of things,” replied Tommy with the same urbanity as before. +“Do you deny that you were listening at that door?” +“I do not. I must really apologize--but your conversation was so +interesting that it overcame my scruples.” +“How did you get in?” +“Dear old Conrad here.” Tommy smiled deprecatingly at him. “I hesitate +to suggest pensioning off a faithful servant, but you really ought to +have a better watchdog.” +Conrad snarled impotently, and said sullenly, as the man with the beard +swung round upon him: +“He gave the word. How was I to know?” +“Yes,” Tommy chimed in. “How was he to know? Don’t blame the poor +fellow. His hasty action has given me the pleasure of seeing you all +face to face.” +He fancied that his words caused some discomposure among the group, but +the watchful German stilled it with a wave of his hand. +“Dead men tell no tales,” he said evenly. +“Ah,” said Tommy, “but I’m not dead yet!” +“You soon will be, my young friend,” said the German. +An assenting murmur came from the others. +Tommy’s heart beat faster, but his casual pleasantness did not waver. +“I think not,” he said firmly. “I should have a great objection to +dying.” +He had got them puzzled, he saw that by the look on his captor’s face. +“Can you give us any reason why we should not put you to death?” asked +the German. +“Several,” replied Tommy. “Look here, you’ve been asking me a lot of +questions. Let me ask you one for a change. Why didn’t you kill me off +at once before I regained consciousness?” +The German hesitated, and Tommy seized his advantage. +“Because you didn’t know how much I knew--and where I obtained that +knowledge. If you kill me now, you never will know.” +But here the emotions of Boris became too much for him. He stepped +forward waving his arms. +“You hell-hound of a spy,” he screamed. “We will give you short shrift. +Kill him! Kill him!” +There was a roar of applause. +“You hear?” said the German, his eyes on Tommy. “What have you to say to +that?” +“Say?” Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “Pack of fools. Let them ask +themselves a few questions. How did I get into this place? Remember what +dear old Conrad said-- _with your own password_, wasn’t it? How did I +get hold of that? You don’t suppose I came up those steps haphazard and +said the first thing that came into my head?” +Tommy was pleased with the concluding words of this speech. His only +regret was that Tuppence was not present to appreciate its full flavour. +“That is true,” said the working man suddenly. “Comrades, we have been +betrayed!” +An ugly murmur arose. Tommy smiled at them encouragingly. +“That’s better. How can you hope to make a success of any job if you +don’t use your brains?” +“You will tell us who has betrayed us,” said the German. “But that shall +not save you--oh, no! You shall tell us all that you know. Boris, here, +knows pretty ways of making people speak!” +“Bah!” said Tommy scornfully, fighting down a singularly unpleasant +feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You will neither torture me nor kill +me.” +“And why not?” asked Boris. +“Because you’d kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,” replied Tommy +quietly. +There was a momentary pause. It seemed as though Tommy’s persistent +assurance was at last conquering. They were no longer completely sure of +themselves. The man in the shabby clothes stared at Tommy searchingly. +“He’s bluffing you, Boris,” he said quietly. +Tommy hated him. Had the man seen through him? +The German, with an effort, turned roughly to Tommy. +“What do you mean?” +“What do you think I mean?” parried Tommy, searching desperately in his +own mind. +Suddenly Boris stepped forward, and shook his fist in Tommy’s face. +“Speak, you swine of an Englishman--speak!” +“Don’t get so excited, my good fellow,” said Tommy calmly. “That’s the +worst of you foreigners. You can’t keep calm. Now, I ask you, do I look +as though I thought there were the least chance of your killing me?” +He looked confidently round, and was glad they could not hear the +persistent beating of his heart which gave the lie to his words. +“No,” admitted Boris at last sullenly, “you do not.” +“Thank God, he’s not a mind reader,” thought Tommy. Aloud he pursued his +advantage: +“And why am I so confident? Because I know something that puts me in a +position to propose a bargain.” +“A bargain?” The bearded man took him up sharply. +“Yes--a bargain. My life and liberty against----” He paused. +“Against what?” +The group pressed forward. You could have heard a pin drop. +Slowly Tommy spoke. +“The papers that Danvers brought over from America in the _Lusitania_.” +The effect of his words was electrical. Every one was on his feet. +The German waved them back. He leaned over Tommy, his face purple with +excitement. +“_Himmel!_ You have got them, then?” +With magnificent calm Tommy shook his head. +“You know where they are?” persisted the German. +Again Tommy shook his head. “Not in the least.” +“Then--then----” angry and baffled, the words failed him. +Tommy looked round. He saw anger and bewilderment on every face, but his +calm assurance had done its work--no one doubted but that something lay +behind his words. +“I don’t know where the papers are--but I believe that I can find them. +I have a theory----” +“Pah!” +Tommy raised his hand, and silenced the clamours of disgust. +“I call it a theory--but I’m pretty sure of my facts--facts that are +known to no one but myself. In any case what do you lose? If I can +produce the papers--you give me my life and liberty in exchange. Is it a +bargain?” +“And if we refuse?” said the German quietly. +Tommy lay back on the couch. +“The 29th,” he said thoughtfully, “is less than a fortnight ahead----” +For a moment the German hesitated. Then he made a sign to Conrad. +“Take him into the other room.” +For five minutes, Tommy sat on the bed in the dingy room next door. His +heart was beating violently. He had risked all on this throw. How would +they decide? And all the while that this agonized questioning went on +within him, he talked flippantly to Conrad, enraging the cross-grained +doorkeeper to the point of homicidal mania. +At last the door opened, and the German called imperiously to Conrad to +return. +“Let’s hope the judge hasn’t put his black cap on,” remarked Tommy +frivolously. “That’s right, Conrad, march me in. The prisoner is at the +bar, gentlemen.” +The German was seated once more behind the table. He motioned to Tommy +to sit down opposite to him. +“We accept,” he said harshly, “on terms. The papers must be delivered to +us before you go free.” +“Idiot!” said Tommy amiably. “How do you think I can look for them if +you keep me tied by the leg here?” +“What do you expect, then?” +“I must have liberty to go about the business in my own way.” +The German laughed. +“Do you think we are little children to let you walk out of here leaving +us a pretty story full of promises?” +“No,” said Tommy thoughtfully. “Though infinitely simpler for me, I +did not really think you would agree to that plan. Very well, we must +arrange a compromise. How would it be if you attached little Conrad here +to my person. He’s a faithful fellow, and very ready with the fist.” +“We prefer,” said the German coldly, “that you should remain here. +One of our number will carry out your instructions minutely. If the +operations are complicated, he will return to you with a report and you +can instruct him further.” +“You’re tying my hands,” complained Tommy. “It’s a very delicate affair, +and the other fellow will muff it up as likely as not, and then where +shall I be? I don’t believe one of you has got an ounce of tact.” +The German rapped the table. +“Those are our terms. Otherwise, death!” +Tommy leaned back wearily. +“I like your style. Curt, but attractive. So be it, then. But one thing +is essential, I must see the girl.” +“What girl?” +“Jane Finn, of course.” +The other looked at him curiously for some minutes, then he said slowly, +and as though choosing his words with care: +“Do you not know that she can tell you nothing?” +Tommy’s heart beat a little faster. Would he succeed in coming face to +face with the girl he was seeking? +“I shall not ask her to tell me anything,” he said quietly. “Not in so +many words, that is.” +“Then why see her?” +Tommy paused. +“To watch her face when I ask her one question,” he replied at last. +Again there was a look in the German’s eyes that Tommy did not quite +understand. +“She will not be able to answer your question.” +“That does not matter. I shall have seen her face when I ask it.” +“And you think that will tell you anything?” He gave a short +disagreeable laugh. More than ever, Tommy felt that there was a +factor somewhere that he did not understand. The German looked at +him searchingly. “I wonder whether, after all, you know as much as we +think?” he said softly. +Tommy felt his ascendancy less sure than a moment before. His hold had +slipped a little. But he was puzzled. What had he said wrong? He spoke +out on the impulse of the moment. +“There may be things that you know which I do not. I have not pretended +to be aware of all the details of your show. But equally I’ve got +something up my sleeve that _you_ don’t know about. And that’s where I +mean to score. Danvers was a damned clever fellow----” He broke off as +if he had said too much. +But the German’s face had lightened a little. +“Danvers,” he murmured. “I see----” He paused a minute, then waved to +Conrad. “Take him away. Upstairs--you know.” +“Wait a minute,” said Tommy. “What about the girl?” +“That may perhaps be arranged.” +“It must be.” +“We will see about it. Only one person can decide that.” +“Who?” asked Tommy. But he knew the answer. +“Mr. Brown----” +“Shall I see him?” +“Perhaps.” +“Come,” said Conrad harshly. +Tommy rose obediently. Outside the door his gaoler motioned to him to +mount the stairs. He himself followed close behind. On the floor above +Conrad opened a door and Tommy passed into a small room. Conrad lit a +hissing gas burner and went out. Tommy heard the sound of the key being +turned in the lock. +He set to work to examine his prison. It was a smaller room than the +one downstairs, and there was something peculiarly airless about the +atmosphere of it. Then he realized that there was no window. He walked +round it. The walls were filthily dirty, as everywhere else. Four +pictures hung crookedly on the wall representing scenes from Faust. +Marguerite with her box of jewels, the church scene, Siebel and his +flowers, and Faust and Mephistopheles. The latter brought Tommy’s mind +back to Mr. Brown again. In this sealed and closed chamber, with its +close-fitting heavy door, he felt cut off from the world, and the +sinister power of the arch-criminal seemed more real. Shout as he would, +no one could ever hear him. The place was a living tomb.... +With an effort Tommy pulled himself together. He sank on to the bed +and gave himself up to reflection. His head ached badly; also, he was +hungry. The silence of the place was dispiriting. +“Anyway,” said Tommy, trying to cheer himself, “I shall see the +chief--the mysterious Mr. Brown and with a bit of luck in bluffing I +shall see the mysterious Jane Finn also. After that----” +After that Tommy was forced to admit the prospect looked dreary. +CHAPTER XVII. ANNETTE +THE troubles of the future, however, soon faded before the troubles of +the present. And of these, the most immediate and pressing was that of +hunger. Tommy had a healthy and vigorous appetite. The steak and +chips partaken of for lunch seemed now to belong to another decade. He +regretfully recognized the fact that he would not make a success of a +hunger strike. +He prowled aimlessly about his prison. Once or twice he discarded +dignity, and pounded on the door. But nobody answered the summons. +“Hang it all!” said Tommy indignantly. “They can’t mean to starve me +to death.” A new-born fear passed through his mind that this might, +perhaps, be one of those “pretty ways” of making a prisoner speak, which +had been attributed to Boris. But on reflection he dismissed the idea. +“It’s that sour-faced brute Conrad,” he decided. “That’s a fellow I +shall enjoy getting even with one of these days. This is just a bit of +spite on his part. I’m certain of it.” +Further meditations induced in him the feeling that it would be +extremely pleasant to bring something down with a whack on Conrad’s +egg-shaped head. Tommy stroked his own head tenderly, and gave himself +up to the pleasures of imagination. Finally a bright idea flashed +across his brain. Why not convert imagination into reality? Conrad +was undoubtedly the tenant of the house. The others, with the possible +exception of the bearded German, merely used it as a rendezvous. +Therefore, why not wait in ambush for Conrad behind the door, and when +he entered bring down a chair, or one of the decrepit pictures, smartly +on to his head. One would, of course, be careful not to hit too hard. +And then--and then, simply walk out! If he met anyone on the way down, +well---- Tommy brightened at the thought of an encounter with his fists. +Such an affair was infinitely more in his line than the verbal encounter +of this afternoon. Intoxicated by his plan, Tommy gently unhooked the +picture of the Devil and Faust, and settled himself in position. His +hopes were high. The plan seemed to him simple but excellent. +Time went on, but Conrad did not appear. Night and day were the same +in this prison room, but Tommy’s wrist-watch, which enjoyed a certain +degree of accuracy, informed him that it was nine o’clock in the +evening. Tommy reflected gloomily that if supper did not arrive soon +it would be a question of waiting for breakfast. At ten o’clock hope +deserted him, and he flung himself on the bed to seek consolation in +sleep. In five minutes his woes were forgotten. +The sound of the key turning in the lock awoke him from his slumbers. +Not belonging to the type of hero who is famous for awaking in full +possession of his faculties, Tommy merely blinked at the ceiling and +wondered vaguely where he was. Then he remembered, and looked at his +watch. It was eight o’clock. +“It’s either early morning tea or breakfast,” deduced the young man, +“and pray God it’s the latter!” +The door swung open. Too late, Tommy remembered his scheme of +obliterating the unprepossessing Conrad. A moment later he was glad that +he had, for it was not Conrad who entered, but a girl. She carried a +tray which she set down on the table. +In the feeble light of the gas burner Tommy blinked at her. He decided +at once that she was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. +Her hair was a full rich brown, with sudden glints of gold in it as +though there were imprisoned sunbeams struggling in its depths. There +was a wild-rose quality about her face. Her eyes, set wide apart, were +hazel, a golden hazel that again recalled a memory of sunbeams. +A delirious thought shot through Tommy’s mind. +“Are you Jane Finn?” he asked breathlessly. +The girl shook her head wonderingly. +“My name is Annette, monsieur.” +She spoke in a soft, broken English. +“Oh!” said Tommy, rather taken aback. _“Française?”_ he hazarded. +“Oui, monsieur. Monsieur parle français?” +“Not for any length of time,” said Tommy. “What’s that? Breakfast?” +The girl nodded. Tommy dropped off the bed and came and inspected the +contents of the tray. It consisted of a loaf, some margarine, and a jug +of coffee. +“The living is not equal to the _Ritz_,” he observed with a sigh. “But +for what we are at last about to receive the Lord has made me truly +thankful. Amen.” +He drew up a chair, and the girl turned away to the door. +“Wait a sec,” cried Tommy. “There are lots of things I want to ask you, +Annette. What are you doing in this house? Don’t tell me you’re Conrad’s +niece, or daughter, or anything, because I can’t believe it.” +“I do the _service_, monsieur. I am not related to anybody.” +“I see,” said Tommy. “You know what I asked you just now. Have you ever +heard that name?” +“I have heard people speak of Jane Finn, I think.” +“You don’t know where she is?” +Annette shook her head. +“She’s not in this house, for instance?” +“Oh no, monsieur. I must go now--they will be waiting for me.” +She hurried out. The key turned in the lock. +“I wonder who ‘they’ are,” mused Tommy, as he continued to make inroads +on the loaf. “With a bit of luck, that girl might help me to get out of +here. She doesn’t look like one of the gang.” +At one o’clock Annette reappeared with another tray, but this time +Conrad accompanied her. +“Good morning,” said Tommy amiably. “You have _not_ used Pear’s soap, I +see.” +Conrad growled threateningly. +“No light repartee, have you, old bean? There, there, we can’t always +have brains as well as beauty. What have we for lunch? Stew? How did I +know? Elementary, my dear Watson--the smell of onions is unmistakable.” +“Talk away,” grunted the man. “It’s little enough time you’ll have to +talk in, maybe.” +The remark was unpleasant in its suggestion, but Tommy ignored it. He +sat down at the table. +“Retire, varlet,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Prate not to thy +betters.” +That evening Tommy sat on the bed, and cogitated deeply. Would Conrad +again accompany the girl? If he did not, should he risk trying to make +an ally of her? He decided that he must leave no stone unturned. His +position was desperate. +At eight o’clock the familiar sound of the key turning made him spring +to his feet. The girl was alone. +“Shut the door,” he commanded. “I want to speak to you.” She obeyed. +“Look here, Annette, I want you to help me get out of this.” She shook +her head. +“Impossible. There are three of them on the floor below.” +“Oh!” Tommy was secretly grateful for the information. “But you would +help me if you could?” +“No, monsieur.” +“Why not?” +The girl hesitated. +“I think--they are my own people. You have spied upon them. They are +quite right to keep you here.” +“They’re a bad lot, Annette. If you’ll help me, I’ll take you away from +the lot of them. And you’d probably get a good whack of money.” +But the girl merely shook her head. +“I dare not, monsieur; I am afraid of them.” +She turned away. +“Wouldn’t you do anything to help another girl?” cried Tommy. “She’s +about your age too. Won’t you save her from their clutches?” +“You mean Jane Finn?” +“Yes.” +“It is her you came here to look for? Yes?” +“That’s it.” +The girl looked at him, then passed her hand across her forehead. +“Jane Finn. Always I hear that name. It is familiar.” +Tommy came forward eagerly. +“You must know _something_ about her?” +But the girl turned away abruptly. +“I know nothing--only the name.” She walked towards the door. Suddenly +she uttered a cry. Tommy stared. She had caught sight of the picture +he had laid against the wall the night before. For a moment he caught a +look of terror in her eyes. As inexplicably it changed to relief. Then +abruptly she went out of the room. Tommy could make nothing of it. Did +she fancy that he had meant to attack her with it? Surely not. He rehung +the picture on the wall thoughtfully. +Three more days went by in dreary inaction. Tommy felt the strain +telling on his nerves. He saw no one but Conrad and Annette, and the +girl had become dumb. She spoke only in monosyllables. A kind of dark +suspicion smouldered in her eyes. Tommy felt that if this solitary +confinement went on much longer he would go mad. He gathered from Conrad +that they were waiting for orders from “Mr. Brown.” Perhaps, thought +Tommy, he was abroad or away, and they were obliged to wait for his +return. +But the evening of the third day brought a rude awakening. +It was barely seven o’clock when he heard the tramp of footsteps outside +in the passage. In another minute the door was flung open. Conrad +entered. With him was the evil-looking Number 14. Tommy’s heart sank at +the sight of them. +“Evenin’, gov’nor,” said the man with a leer. “Got those ropes, mate?” +The silent Conrad produced a length of fine cord. The next minute Number +14’s hands, horribly dexterous, were winding the cord round his limbs, +while Conrad held him down. +“What the devil----?” began Tommy. +But the slow, speechless grin of the silent Conrad froze the words on +his lips. +Number 14 proceeded deftly with his task. In another minute Tommy was a +mere helpless bundle. Then at last Conrad spoke: +“Thought you’d bluffed us, did you? With what you knew, and what you +didn’t know. Bargained with us! And all the time it was bluff! Bluff! +You know less than a kitten. But your number’s up now all right, you +b---- swine.” +Tommy lay silent. There was nothing to say. He had failed. Somehow +or other the omnipotent Mr. Brown had seen through his pretensions. +Suddenly a thought occurred to him. +“A very good speech, Conrad,” he said approvingly. “But wherefore the +bonds and fetters? Why not let this kind gentleman here cut my throat +without delay?” +“Garn,” said Number 14 unexpectedly. “Think we’re as green as to do you +in here, and have the police nosing round? Not ‘alf! We’ve ordered the +carriage for your lordship to-morrow mornin’, but in the meantime we’re +not taking any chances, see!” +“Nothing,” said Tommy, “could be plainer than your words--unless it was +your face.” +“Stow it,” said Number 14. +“With pleasure,” replied Tommy. “You’re making a sad mistake--but yours +will be the loss.” +“You don’t kid us that way again,” said Number 14. “Talking as though +you were still at the blooming _Ritz_, aren’t you?” +Tommy made no reply. He was engaged in wondering how Mr. Brown had +discovered his identity. He decided that Tuppence, in the throes of +anxiety, had gone to the police, and that his disappearance having been +made public the gang had not been slow to put two and two together. +The two men departed and the door slammed. Tommy was left to his +meditations. They were not pleasant ones. Already his limbs felt cramped +and stiff. He was utterly helpless, and he could see no hope anywhere. +About an hour had passed when he heard the key softly turned, and the +door opened. It was Annette. Tommy’s heart beat a little faster. He had +forgotten the girl. Was it possible that she had come to his help? +Suddenly he heard Conrad’s voice: +“Come out of it, Annette. He doesn’t want any supper to-night.” +“Oui, oui, je sais bien. But I must take the other tray. We need the +things on it.” +“Well, hurry up,” growled Conrad. +Without looking at Tommy the girl went over to the table, and picked up +the tray. She raised a hand and turned out the light. +“Curse you”--Conrad had come to the door--“why did you do that?” +“I always turn it out. You should have told me. Shall I relight it, +Monsieur Conrad?” +“No, come on out of it.” +“Le beau petit monsieur,” cried Annette, pausing by the bed in the +darkness. “You have tied him up well, _hein?_ He is like a trussed +chicken!” The frank amusement in her tone jarred on the boy; but at +that moment, to his amazement, he felt her hand running lightly over +his bonds, and something small and cold was pressed into the palm of his +hand. +“Come on, Annette.” +“Mais me voilà.” +The door shut. Tommy heard Conrad say: +“Lock it and give me the key.” +The footsteps died away. Tommy lay petrified with amazement. The object +Annette had thrust into his hand was a small penknife, the blade open. +From the way she had studiously avoided looking at him, and her action +with the light, he came to the conclusion that the room was overlooked. +There must be a peep-hole somewhere in the walls. Remembering how +guarded she had always been in her manner, he saw that he had probably +been under observation all the time. Had he said anything to give +himself away? Hardly. He had revealed a wish to escape and a desire +to find Jane Finn, but nothing that could have given a clue to his +own identity. True, his question to Annette had proved that he was +personally unacquainted with Jane Finn, but he had never pretended +otherwise. The question now was, did Annette really know more? Were her +denials intended primarily for the listeners? On that point he could +come to no conclusion. +But there was a more vital question that drove out all others. Could he, +bound as he was, manage to cut his bonds? He essayed cautiously to +rub the open blade up and down on the cord that bound his two wrists +together. It was an awkward business, and drew a smothered “Ow” of pain +from him as the knife cut into his wrist. But slowly and doggedly he +went on sawing to and fro. He cut the flesh badly, but at last he felt +the cord slacken. With his hands free, the rest was easy. Five minutes +later he stood upright with some difficulty, owing to the cramp in his +limbs. His first care was to bind up his bleeding wrist. Then he sat on +the edge of the bed to think. Conrad had taken the key of the door, so +he could expect little more assistance from Annette. The only outlet +from the room was the door, consequently he would perforce have to wait +until the two men returned to fetch him. But when they did.... Tommy +smiled! Moving with infinite caution in the dark room, he found and +unhooked the famous picture. He felt an economical pleasure that his +first plan would not be wasted. There was now nothing to do but to wait. +He waited. +The night passed slowly. Tommy lived through an eternity of hours, but +at last he heard footsteps. He stood upright, drew a deep breath, and +clutched the picture firmly. +The door opened. A faint light streamed in from outside. Conrad went +straight towards the gas to light it. Tommy deeply regretted that it was +he who had entered first. It would have been pleasant to get even with +Conrad. Number 14 followed. As he stepped across the threshold, Tommy +brought the picture down with terrific force on his head. Number 14 went +down amidst a stupendous crash of broken glass. In a minute Tommy had +slipped out and pulled to the door. The key was in the lock. He turned +it and withdrew it just as Conrad hurled himself against the door from +the inside with a volley of curses. +For a moment Tommy hesitated. There was the sound of some one stirring +on the floor below. Then the German’s voice came up the stairs. +“Gott im Himmel! Conrad, what is it?” +Tommy felt a small hand thrust into his. Beside him stood Annette. She +pointed up a rickety ladder that apparently led to some attics. +“Quick--up here!” She dragged him after her up the ladder. In another +moment they were standing in a dusty garret littered with lumber. Tommy +looked round. +“This won’t do. It’s a regular trap. There’s no way out.” +“Hush! Wait.” The girl put her finger to her lips. She crept to the top +of the ladder and listened. +The banging and beating on the door was terrific. The German and another +were trying to force the door in. Annette explained in a whisper: +“They will think you are still inside. They cannot hear what Conrad +says. The door is too thick.” +“I thought you could hear what went on in the room?” +“There is a peep-hole into the next room. It was clever of you to guess. +But they will not think of that--they are only anxious to get in.” +“Yes--but look here----” +“Leave it to me.” She bent down. To his amazement, Tommy saw that she +was fastening the end of a long piece of string to the handle of a big +cracked jug. She arranged it carefully, then turned to Tommy. +“Have you the key of the door?” +“Yes.” +“Give it to me.” +He handed it to her. +“I am going down. Do you think you can go halfway, and then swing +yourself down _behind_ the ladder, so that they will not see you?” +Tommy nodded. +“There’s a big cupboard in the shadow of the landing. Stand behind it. +Take the end of this string in your hand. When I’ve let the others out-- +_pull! _” +Before he had time to ask her anything more, she had flitted lightly +down the ladder and was in the midst of the group with a loud cry: +“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?” +The German turned on her with an oath. +“Get out of this. Go to your room!” +Very cautiously Tommy swung himself down the back of the ladder. So +long as they did not turn round ... all was well. He crouched behind the +cupboard. They were still between him and the stairs. +“Ah!” Annette appeared to stumble over something. She stooped. “Mon +Dieu, voilà la clef!” +The German snatched it from her. He unlocked the door. Conrad stumbled +out, swearing. +“Where is he? Have you got him?” +“We have seen no one,” said the German sharply. His face paled. “Who do +you mean?” +Conrad gave vent to another oath. +“He’s got away.” +“Impossible. He would have passed us.” +At that moment, with an ecstatic smile Tommy pulled the string. A crash +of crockery came from the attic above. In a trice the men were pushing +each other up the rickety ladder and had disappeared into the darkness +above. +Quick as a flash Tommy leapt from his hiding-place and dashed down the +stairs, pulling the girl with him. There was no one in the hall. He +fumbled over the bolts and chain. At last they yielded, the door swung +open. He turned. Annette had disappeared. +Tommy stood spell-bound. Had she run upstairs again? What madness +possessed her! He fumed with impatience, but he stood his ground. He +would not go without her. +And suddenly there was an outcry overhead, an exclamation from the +German, and then Annette’s voice, clear and high: +“Ma foi, he has escaped! And quickly! Who would have thought it?” +Tommy still stood rooted to the ground. Was that a command to him to go? +He fancied it was. +And then, louder still, the words floated down to him: +“This is a terrible house. I want to go back to Marguerite. To +Marguerite. _To Marguerite!_” +Tommy had run back to the stairs. She wanted him to go and leave her. +But why? At all costs he must try and get her away with him. Then his +heart sank. Conrad was leaping down the stairs, uttering a savage cry at +the sight of him. After him came the others. +Tommy stopped Conrad’s rush with a straight blow with his fist. It +caught the other on the point of the jaw and he fell like a log. The +second man tripped over his body and fell. From higher up the staircase +there was a flash, and a bullet grazed Tommy’s ear. He realized that +it would be good for his health to get out of this house as soon as +possible. As regards Annette he could do nothing. He had got even with +Conrad, which was one satisfaction. The blow had been a good one. +He leapt for the door, slamming it behind him. The square was deserted. +In front of the house was a baker’s van. Evidently he was to have been +taken out of London in that, and his body found many miles from the +house in Soho. The driver jumped to the pavement and tried to bar +Tommy’s way. Again Tommy’s fist shot out, and the driver sprawled on the +pavement. +Tommy took to his heels and ran--none too soon. The front door opened +and a hail of bullets followed him. Fortunately none of them hit him. He +turned the corner of the square. +“There’s one thing,” he thought to himself, “they can’t go on shooting. +They’ll have the police after them if they do. I wonder they dared to +there.” +He heard the footsteps of his pursuers behind him, and redoubled his own +pace. Once he got out of these by-ways he would be safe. There would be +a policeman about somewhere--not that he really wanted to invoke the aid +of the police if he could possibly do without it. It meant explanations, +and general awkwardness. In another moment he had reason to bless his +luck. He stumbled over a prostrate figure, which started up with a yell +of alarm and dashed off down the street. Tommy drew back into a doorway. +In a minute he had the pleasure of seeing his two pursuers, of whom the +German was one, industriously tracking down the red herring! +Tommy sat down quietly on the doorstep and allowed a few moments to +elapse while he recovered his breath. Then he strolled gently in the +opposite direction. He glanced at his watch. It was a little after +half-past five. It was rapidly growing light. At the next corner he +passed a policeman. The policeman cast a suspicious eye on him. Tommy +felt slightly offended. Then, passing his hand over his face, he +laughed. He had not shaved or washed for three days! What a guy he must +look. +He betook himself without more ado to a Turkish Bath establishment which +he knew to be open all night. He emerged into the busy daylight feeling +himself once more, and able to make plans. +First of all, he must have a square meal. He had eaten nothing since +midday yesterday. He turned into an A.B.C. shop and ordered eggs and +bacon and coffee. Whilst he ate, he read a morning paper propped up +in front of him. Suddenly he stiffened. There was a long article on +Kramenin, who was described as the “man behind Bolshevism” in Russia, +and who had just arrived in London--some thought as an unofficial envoy. +His career was sketched lightly, and it was firmly asserted that he, +and not the figurehead leaders, had been the author of the Russian +Revolution. +In the centre of the page was his portrait. +“So that’s who Number 1 is,” said Tommy with his mouth full of eggs and +bacon. “Not a doubt about it, I must push on.” +He paid for his breakfast, and betook himself to Whitehall. There he +sent up his name, and the message that it was urgent. A few minutes +later he was in the presence of the man who did not here go by the name +of “Mr. Carter.” There was a frown on his face. +“Look here, you’ve no business to come asking for me in this way. I +thought that was distinctly understood?” +“It was, sir. But I judged it important to lose no time.” +And as briefly and succinctly as possible he detailed the experiences of +the last few days. +Half-way through, Mr. Carter interrupted him to give a few cryptic +orders through the telephone. All traces of displeasure had now left his +face. He nodded energetically when Tommy had finished. +“Quite right. Every moment’s of value. Fear we shall be too late anyway. +They wouldn’t wait. Would clear out at once. Still, they may have left +something behind them that will be a clue. You say you’ve recognized +Number 1 to be Kramenin? That’s important. We want something against him +badly to prevent the Cabinet falling on his neck too freely. What about +the others? You say two faces were familiar to you? One’s a Labour man, +you think? Just look through these photos, and see if you can spot him.” +A minute later, Tommy held one up. Mr. Carter exhibited some surprise. +“Ah, Westway! Shouldn’t have thought it. Poses as being moderate. As for +the other fellow, I think I can give a good guess.” He handed another +photograph to Tommy, and smiled at the other’s exclamation. “I’m right, +then. Who is he? Irishman. Prominent Unionist M.P. All a blind, of +course. We’ve suspected it--but couldn’t get any proof. Yes, you’ve done +very well, young man. The 29th, you say, is the date. That gives us very +little time--very little time indeed.” +“But----” Tommy hesitated. +Mr. Carter read his thoughts. +“We can deal with the General Strike menace, I think. It’s a +toss-up--but we’ve got a sporting chance! But if that draft treaty turns +up--we’re done. England will be plunged in anarchy. Ah, what’s that? +The car? Come on, Beresford, we’ll go and have a look at this house of +yours.” +Two constables were on duty in front of the house in Soho. An inspector +reported to Mr. Carter in a low voice. The latter turned to Tommy. +“The birds have flown--as we thought. We might as well go over it.” +Going over the deserted house seemed to Tommy to partake of the +character of a dream. Everything was just as it had been. The prison +room with the crooked pictures, the broken jug in the attic, the meeting +room with its long table. But nowhere was there a trace of papers. +Everything of that kind had either been destroyed or taken away. And +there was no sign of Annette. +“What you tell me about the girl puzzled me,” said Mr. Carter. “You +believe that she deliberately went back?” +“It would seem so, sir. She ran upstairs while I was getting the door +open.” +“H’m, she must belong to the gang, then; but, being a woman, didn’t feel +like standing by to see a personable young man killed. But evidently +she’s in with them, or she wouldn’t have gone back.” +“I can’t believe she’s really one of them, sir. She--seemed so +different----” +“Good-looking, I suppose?” said Mr. Carter with a smile that made Tommy +flush to the roots of his hair. He admitted Annette’s beauty rather +shamefacedly. +“By the way,” observed Mr. Carter, “have you shown yourself to Miss +Tuppence yet? She’s been bombarding me with letters about you.” +“Tuppence? I was afraid she might get a bit rattled. Did she go to the +police?” +Mr. Carter shook his head. +“Then I wonder how they twigged me.” +Mr. Carter looked inquiringly at him, and Tommy explained. The other +nodded thoughtfully. +“True, that’s rather a curious point. Unless the mention of the _Ritz_ +was an accidental remark?” +“It might have been, sir. But they must have found out about me suddenly +in some way.” +“Well,” said Mr. Carter, looking round him, “there’s nothing more to be +done here. What about some lunch with me?” +“Thanks awfully, sir. But I think I’d better get back and rout out +Tuppence.” +“Of course. Give her my kind regards and tell her not to believe you’re +killed too readily next time.” +Tommy grinned. +“I take a lot of killing, sir.” +“So I perceive,” said Mr. Carter dryly. “Well, good-bye. Remember you’re +a marked man now, and take reasonable care of yourself.” +“Thank you, sir.” +Hailing a taxi briskly Tommy stepped in, and was swiftly borne to the +_Ritz_, dwelling the while on the pleasurable anticipation of startling +Tuppence. +“Wonder what she’s been up to. Dogging ‘Rita’ most likely. By the way, +I suppose that’s who Annette meant by Marguerite. I didn’t get it at the +time.” The thought saddened him a little, for it seemed to prove that +Mrs. Vandemeyer and the girl were on intimate terms. +The taxi drew up at the _Ritz_. Tommy burst into its sacred portals +eagerly, but his enthusiasm received a check. He was informed that Miss +Cowley had gone out a quarter of an hour ago. +CHAPTER XVIII. THE TELEGRAM +BAFFLED for the moment, Tommy strolled into the restaurant, and ordered +a meal of surpassing excellence. His four days’ imprisonment had taught +him anew to value good food. +He was in the middle of conveying a particularly choice morsel of Sole +à la Jeanette to his mouth, when he caught sight of Julius entering +the room. Tommy waved a menu cheerfully, and succeeded in attracting the +other’s attention. At the sight of Tommy, Julius’s eyes seemed as though +they would pop out of his head. He strode across, and pump-handled +Tommy’s hand with what seemed to the latter quite unnecessary vigour. +“Holy snakes!” he ejaculated. “Is it really you?” +“Of course it is. Why shouldn’t it be?” +“Why shouldn’t it be? Say, man, don’t you know you’ve been given up +for dead? I guess we’d have had a solemn requiem for you in another few +days.” +“Who thought I was dead?” demanded Tommy. +“Tuppence.” +“She remembered the proverb about the good dying young, I suppose. There +must be a certain amount of original sin in me to have survived. Where +is Tuppence, by the way?” +“Isn’t she here?” +“No, the fellows at the office said she’d just gone out.” +“Gone shopping, I guess. I dropped her here in the car about an hour +ago. But, say, can’t you shed that British calm of yours, and get down +to it? What on God’s earth have you been doing all this time?” +“If you’re feeding here,” replied Tommy, “order now. It’s going to be a +long story.” +Julius drew up a chair to the opposite side of the table, summoned a +hovering waiter, and dictated his wishes. Then he turned to Tommy. +“Fire ahead. I guess you’ve had some few adventures.” +“One or two,” replied Tommy modestly, and plunged into his recital. +Julius listened spellbound. Half the dishes that were placed before him +he forgot to eat. At the end he heaved a long sigh. +“Bully for you. Reads like a dime novel!” +“And now for the home front,” said Tommy, stretching out his hand for a +peach. +“We-el,” drawled Julius, “I don’t mind admitting we’ve had some +adventures too.” +He, in his turn, assumed the rôle of narrator. Beginning with his +unsuccessful reconnoitring at Bournemouth, he passed on to his return +to London, the buying of the car, the growing anxieties of Tuppence, +the call upon Sir James, and the sensational occurrences of the previous +night. +“But who killed her?” asked Tommy. “I don’t quite understand.” +“The doctor kidded himself she took it herself,” replied Julius dryly. +“And Sir James? What did he think?” +“Being a legal luminary, he is likewise a human oyster,” replied Julius. +“I should say he ‘reserved judgment.’” He went on to detail the events +of the morning. +“Lost her memory, eh?” said Tommy with interest. “By Jove, that explains +why they looked at me so queerly when I spoke of questioning her. Bit of +a slip on my part, that! But it wasn’t the sort of thing a fellow would +be likely to guess.” +“They didn’t give you any sort of hint as to where Jane was?” +Tommy shook his head regretfully. +“Not a word. I’m a bit of an ass, as you know. I ought to have got more +out of them somehow.” +“I guess you’re lucky to be here at all. That bluff of yours was the +goods all right. How you ever came to think of it all so pat beats me to +a frazzle!” +“I was in such a funk I had to think of something,” said Tommy simply. +There was a moment’s pause, and then Tommy reverted to Mrs. Vandemeyer’s +death. +“There’s no doubt it was chloral?” +“I believe not. At least they call it heart failure induced by an +overdose, or some such claptrap. It’s all right. We don’t want to +be worried with an inquest. But I guess Tuppence and I and even the +highbrow Sir James have all got the same idea.” +“Mr. Brown?” hazarded Tommy. +“Sure thing.” +Tommy nodded. +“All the same,” he said thoughtfully, “Mr. Brown hasn’t got wings. I +don’t see how he got in and out.” +“How about some high-class thought transference stunt? Some magnetic +influence that irresistibly impelled Mrs. Vandemeyer to commit suicide?” +Tommy looked at him with respect. +“Good, Julius. Distinctly good. Especially the phraseology. But it +leaves me cold. I yearn for a real Mr. Brown of flesh and blood. I think +the gifted young detectives must get to work, study the entrances and +exits, and tap the bumps on their foreheads until the solution of the +mystery dawns on them. Let’s go round to the scene of the crime. I wish +we could get hold of Tuppence. The _Ritz_ would enjoy the spectacle of +the glad reunion.” +Inquiry at the office revealed the fact that Tuppence had not yet +returned. +“All the same, I guess I’ll have a look round upstairs,” said Julius. +“She might be in my sitting-room.” He disappeared. +Suddenly a diminutive boy spoke at Tommy’s elbow: +“The young lady--she’s gone away by train, I think, sir,” he murmured +shyly. +“What?” Tommy wheeled round upon him. +The small boy became pinker than before. +“The taxi, sir. I heard her tell the driver Charing Cross and to look +sharp.” +Tommy stared at him, his eyes opening wide in surprise. Emboldened, the +small boy proceeded. “So I thought, having asked for an A.B.C. and a +Bradshaw.” +Tommy interrupted him: +“When did she ask for an A.B.C. and a Bradshaw?” +“When I took her the telegram, sir.” +“A telegram?” +“Yes, sir.” +“When was that?” +“About half-past twelve, sir.” +“Tell me exactly what happened.” +The small boy drew a long breath. +“I took up a telegram to No. 891--the lady was there. She opened it +and gave a gasp, and then she said, very jolly like: ‘Bring me up a +Bradshaw, and an A.B.C., and look sharp, Henry.’ My name isn’t Henry, +but----” +“Never mind your name,” said Tommy impatiently. “Go on.” +“Yes, sir. I brought them, and she told me to wait, and looked up +something. And then she looks up at the clock, and ‘Hurry up,’ she says. +‘Tell them to get me a taxi,’ and she begins a-shoving on of her hat in +front of the glass, and she was down in two ticks, almost as quick as I +was, and I seed her going down the steps and into the taxi, and I heard +her call out what I told you.” +The small boy stopped and replenished his lungs. Tommy continued to +stare at him. At that moment Julius rejoined him. He held an open letter +in his hand. +“I say, Hersheimmer”--Tommy turned to him--“Tuppence has gone off +sleuthing on her own.” +“Shucks!” +“Yes, she has. She went off in a taxi to Charing Cross in the deuce of a +hurry after getting a telegram.” His eye fell on the letter in Julius’s +hand. “Oh; she left a note for you. That’s all right. Where’s she off +to?” +Almost unconsciously, he held out his hand for the letter, but +Julius folded it up and placed it in his pocket. He seemed a trifle +embarrassed. +“I guess this is nothing to do with it. It’s about something +else--something I asked her that she was to let me know about.” +“Oh!” Tommy looked puzzled, and seemed waiting for more. +“See here,” said Julius suddenly, “I’d better put you wise. I asked Miss +Tuppence to marry me this morning.” +“Oh!” said Tommy mechanically. He felt dazed. Julius’s words were +totally unexpected. For the moment they benumbed his brain. +“I’d like to tell you,” continued Julius, “that before I suggested +anything of the kind to Miss Tuppence, I made it clear that I didn’t +want to butt in in any way between her and you----” +Tommy roused himself. +“That’s all right,” he said quickly. “Tuppence and I have been pals for +years. Nothing more.” He lit a cigarette with a hand that shook ever +so little. “That’s quite all right. Tuppence always said that she was +looking out for----” +He stopped abruptly, his face crimsoning, but Julius was in no way +discomposed. +“Oh, I guess it’ll be the dollars that’ll do the trick. Miss Tuppence +put me wise to that right away. There’s no humbug about her. We ought to +gee along together very well.” +Tommy looked at him curiously for a minute, as though he were about +to speak, then changed his mind and said nothing. Tuppence and Julius! +Well, why not? Had she not lamented the fact that she knew no rich men? +Had she not openly avowed her intention of marrying for money if she +ever had the chance? Her meeting with the young American millionaire +had given her the chance--and it was unlikely she would be slow to avail +herself of it. She was out for money. She had always said so. Why blame +her because she had been true to her creed? +Nevertheless, Tommy did blame her. He was filled with a passionate and +utterly illogical resentment. It was all very well to _say_ things +like that--but a _real_ girl would never marry for money. Tuppence was +utterly cold-blooded and selfish, and he would be delighted if he never +saw her again! And it was a rotten world! +Julius’s voice broke in on these meditations. +“Yes, we ought to gee along together very well. I’ve heard that a girl +always refuses you once--a sort of convention.” +Tommy caught his arm. +“Refuses? Did you say _refuses?_” +“Sure thing. Didn’t I tell you that? She just rapped out a ‘no’ without +any kind of reason to it. The eternal feminine, the Huns call it, I’ve +heard. But she’ll come round right enough. Likely enough, I hustled her +some----” +But Tommy interrupted regardless of decorum. +“What did she say in that note?” he demanded fiercely. +The obliging Julius handed it to him. +“There’s no earthly clue in it as to where she’s gone,” he assured +Tommy. “But you might as well see for yourself if you don’t believe me.” +The note, in Tuppence’s well-known schoolboy writing, ran as follows: +“DEAR JULIUS, +“It’s always better to have things in black and white. I don’t feel I +can be bothered to think of marriage until Tommy is found. Let’s leave +it till then. +“Yours affectionately, +“TUPPENCE.” +Tommy handed it back, his eyes shining. His feelings had undergone a +sharp reaction. He now felt that Tuppence was all that was noble and +disinterested. Had she not refused Julius without hesitation? True, the +note betokened signs of weakening, but he could excuse that. It read +almost like a bribe to Julius to spur him on in his efforts to find +Tommy, but he supposed she had not really meant it that way. Darling +Tuppence, there was not a girl in the world to touch her! When he saw +her----His thoughts were brought up with a sudden jerk. +“As you say,” he remarked, pulling himself together, “there’s not a hint +here as to what she’s up to. Hi--Henry!” +The small boy came obediently. Tommy produced five shillings. +“One thing more. Do you remember what the young lady did with the +telegram?” +Henry gasped and spoke. +“She crumpled it up into a ball and threw it into the grate, and made a +sort of noise like ‘Whoop!’ sir.” +“Very graphic, Henry,” said Tommy. “Here’s your five shillings. Come on, +Julius. We must find that telegram.” +They hurried upstairs. Tuppence had left the key in her door. The room +was as she had left it. In the fireplace was a crumpled ball of orange +and white. Tommy disentangled it and smoothed out the telegram. +“Come at once, Moat House, Ebury, Yorkshire, great developments--TOMMY.” +They looked at each other in stupefaction. Julius spoke first: +“You didn’t send it?” +“Of course not. What does it mean?” +“I guess it means the worst,” said Julius quietly. “They’ve got her.” +_“What?”_ +“Sure thing! They signed your name, and she fell into the trap like a +lamb.” +“My God! What shall we do?” +“Get busy, and go after her! Right now! There’s no time to waste. It’s +almighty luck that she didn’t take the wire with her. If she had we’d +probably never have traced her. But we’ve got to hustle. Where’s that +Bradshaw?” +The energy of Julius was infectious. Left to himself, Tommy would +probably have sat down to think things out for a good half-hour before +he decided on a plan of action. But with Julius Hersheimmer about, +hustling was inevitable. +After a few muttered imprecations he handed the Bradshaw to Tommy as +being more conversant with its mysteries. Tommy abandoned it in favour +of an A.B.C. +“Here we are. Ebury, Yorks. From King’s Cross. Or St. Pancras. (Boy must +have made a mistake. It was King’s Cross, not _Charing_ Cross.) 12.50, +that’s the train she went by. 2.10, that’s gone. 3.20 is the next--and a +damned slow train too.” +“What about the car?” +Tommy shook his head. +“Send it up if you like, but we’d better stick to the train. The great +thing is to keep calm.” +Julius groaned. +“That’s so. But it gets my goat to think of that innocent young girl in +danger!” +Tommy nodded abstractedly. He was thinking. In a moment or two, he said: +“I say, Julius, what do they want her for, anyway?” +“Eh? I don’t get you?” +“What I mean is that I don’t think it’s their game to do her any harm,” +explained Tommy, puckering his brow with the strain of his mental +processes. “She’s a hostage, that’s what she is. She’s in no immediate +danger, because if we tumble on to anything, she’d be damned useful to +them. As long as they’ve got her, they’ve got the whip hand of us. See?” +“Sure thing,” said Julius thoughtfully. “That’s so.” +“Besides,” added Tommy, as an afterthought, “I’ve great faith in +Tuppence.” +The journey was wearisome, with many stops, and crowded carriages. They +had to change twice, once at Doncaster, once at a small junction. Ebury +was a deserted station with a solitary porter, to whom Tommy addressed +himself: +“Can you tell me the way to the Moat House?” +“The Moat House? It’s a tidy step from here. The big house near the sea, +you mean?” +Tommy assented brazenly. After listening to the porter’s meticulous +but perplexing directions, they prepared to leave the station. It was +beginning to rain, and they turned up the collars of their coats as they +trudged through the slush of the road. Suddenly Tommy halted. +“Wait a moment.” He ran back to the station and tackled the porter anew. +“Look here, do you remember a young lady who arrived by an earlier +train, the 12.50 from London? She’d probably ask you the way to the Moat +House.” +He described Tuppence as well as he could, but the porter shook his +head. Several people had arrived by the train in question. He could not +call to mind one young lady in particular. But he was quite certain that +no one had asked him the way to the Moat House. +Tommy rejoined Julius, and explained. Depression was settling on him +like a leaden weight. He felt convinced that their quest was going to +be unsuccessful. The enemy had over three hours’ start. Three hours was +more than enough for Mr. Brown. He would not ignore the possibility of +the telegram having been found. +The way seemed endless. Once they took the wrong turning and went nearly +half a mile out of their direction. It was past seven o’clock when a +small boy told them that “t’ Moat House” was just past the next corner. +A rusty iron gate swinging dismally on its hinges! An overgrown drive +thick with leaves. There was something about the place that struck a +chill to both their hearts. They went up the deserted drive. The leaves +deadened their footsteps. The daylight was almost gone. It was like +walking in a world of ghosts. Overhead the branches flapped and creaked +with a mournful note. Occasionally a sodden leaf drifted silently down, +startling them with its cold touch on their cheek. +A turn of the drive brought them in sight of the house. That, too, +seemed empty and deserted. The shutters were closed, the steps up to +the door overgrown with moss. Was it indeed to this desolate spot +that Tuppence had been decoyed? It seemed hard to believe that a human +footstep had passed this way for months. +Julius jerked the rusty bell handle. A jangling peal rang discordantly, +echoing through the emptiness within. No one came. They rang again and +again--but there was no sign of life. Then they walked completely round +the house. Everywhere silence, and shuttered windows. If they could +believe the evidence of their eyes the place was empty. +“Nothing doing,” said Julius. +They retraced their steps slowly to the gate. +“There must be a village handy,” continued the young American. “We’d +better make inquiries there. They’ll know something about the place, and +whether there’s been anyone there lately.” +“Yes, that’s not a bad idea.” +Proceeding up the road, they soon came to a little hamlet. On the +outskirts of it, they met a workman swinging his bag of tools, and Tommy +stopped him with a question. +“The Moat House? It’s empty. Been empty for years. Mrs. Sweeny’s got the +key if you want to go over it--next to the post office.” +Tommy thanked him. They soon found the post office, which was also a +sweet and general fancy shop, and knocked at the door of the cottage +next to it. A clean, wholesome-looking woman opened it. She readily +produced the key of the Moat House. +“Though I doubt if it’s the kind of place to suit you, sir. In a +terrible state of repair. Ceilings leaking and all. ‘Twould need a lot +of money spent on it.” +“Thanks,” said Tommy cheerily. “I dare say it’ll be a washout, but +houses are scarce nowadays.” +“That they are,” declared the woman heartily. “My daughter and +son-in-law have been looking for a decent cottage for I don’t know how +long. It’s all the war. Upset things terribly, it has. But excuse me, +sir, it’ll be too dark for you to see much of the house. Hadn’t you +better wait until to-morrow?” +“That’s all right. We’ll have a look around this evening, anyway. We’d +have been here before only we lost our way. What’s the best place to +stay at for the night round here?” +Mrs. Sweeny looked doubtful. +“There’s the _Yorkshire Arms_, but it’s not much of a place for +gentlemen like you.” +“Oh, it will do very well. Thanks. By the way, you’ve not had a young +lady here asking for this key to-day?” +The woman shook her head. +“No one’s been over the place for a long time.” +“Thanks very much.” +They retraced their steps to the Moat House. As the front door swung +back on its hinges, protesting loudly, Julius struck a match and +examined the floor carefully. Then he shook his head. +“I’d swear no one’s passed this way. Look at the dust. Thick. Not a sign +of a footmark.” +They wandered round the deserted house. Everywhere the same tale. Thick +layers of dust apparently undisturbed. +“This gets me,” said Julius. “I don’t believe Tuppence was ever in this +house.” +“She must have been.” +Julius shook his head without replying. +“We’ll go over it again to-morrow,” said Tommy. “Perhaps we’ll see more +in the daylight.” +On the morrow they took up the search once more, and were reluctantly +forced to the conclusion that the house had not been invaded for some +considerable time. They might have left the village altogether but for +a fortunate discovery of Tommy’s. As they were retracing their steps to +the gate, he gave a sudden cry, and stooping, picked something up from +among the leaves, and held it out to Julius. It was a small gold brooch. +“That’s Tuppence’s!” +“Are you sure?” +“Absolutely. I’ve often seen her wear it.” +Julius drew a deep breath. +“I guess that settles it. She came as far as here, anyway. We’ll make +that pub our head-quarters, and raise hell round here until we find her. +Somebody _must_ have seen her.” +Forthwith the campaign began. Tommy and Julius worked separately and +together, but the result was the same. Nobody answering to Tuppence’s +description had been seen in the vicinity. They were baffled--but not +discouraged. Finally they altered their tactics. Tuppence had certainly +not remained long in the neighbourhood of the Moat House. That pointed +to her having been overcome and carried away in a car. They renewed +inquiries. Had anyone seen a car standing somewhere near the Moat House +that day? Again they met with no success. +Julius wired to town for his own car, and they scoured the neighbourhood +daily with unflagging zeal. A grey limousine on which they had set high +hopes was traced to Harrogate, and turned out to be the property of a +highly respectable maiden lady! +Each day saw them set out on a new quest. Julius was like a hound on +the leash. He followed up the slenderest clue. Every car that had passed +through the village on the fateful day was tracked down. He forced his +way into country properties and submitted the owners of the motors to +a searching cross-examination. His apologies were as thorough as his +methods, and seldom failed in disarming the indignation of his victims; +but, as day succeeded day, they were no nearer to discovering Tuppence’s +whereabouts. So well had the abduction been planned that the girl seemed +literally to have vanished into thin air. +And another preoccupation was weighing on Tommy’s mind. +“Do you know how long we’ve been here?” he asked one morning as they +sat facing each other at breakfast. “A week! We’re no nearer to finding +Tuppence, _and next Sunday is the_ 29_th!_” +“Shucks!” said Julius thoughtfully. “I’d almost forgotten about the +29th. I’ve been thinking of nothing but Tuppence.” +“So have I. At least, I hadn’t forgotten about the 29th, but it didn’t +seem to matter a damn in comparison to finding Tuppence. But to-day’s +the 23rd, and time’s getting short. If we’re ever going to get hold of +her at all, we must do it before the 29th--her life won’t be worth an +hour’s purchase afterwards. The hostage game will be played out by then. +I’m beginning to feel that we’ve made a big mistake in the way we’ve set +about this. We’ve wasted time and we’re no forrader.” +“I’m with you there. We’ve been a couple of mutts, who’ve bitten off a +bigger bit than they can chew. I’m going to quit fooling right away!” +“What do you mean?” +“I’ll tell you. I’m going to do what we ought to have done a week ago. +I’m going right back to London to put the case in the hands of your +British police. We fancied ourselves as sleuths. Sleuths! It was a piece +of damn-fool foolishness! I’m through! I’ve had enough of it. Scotland +Yard for me!” +“You’re right,” said Tommy slowly. “I wish to God we’d gone there right +away.” +“Better late than never. We’ve been like a couple of babes playing ‘Here +we go round the Mulberry Bush.’ Now I’m going right along to Scotland +Yard to ask them to take me by the hand and show me the way I should go. +I guess the professional always scores over the amateur in the end. Are +you coming along with me?” +Tommy shook his head. +“What’s the good? One of us is enough. I might as well stay here and +nose round a bit longer. Something _might_ turn up. One never knows.” +“Sure thing. Well, so long. I’ll be back in a couple of shakes with a +few inspectors along. I shall tell them to pick out their brightest and +best.” +But the course of events was not to follow the plan Julius had laid +down. Later in the day Tommy received a wire: +“Join me Manchester Midland Hotel. Important news--JULIUS.” +At 7.30 that night Tommy alighted from a slow cross-country train. +Julius was on the platform. +“Thought you’d come by this train if you weren’t out when my wire +arrived.” +Tommy grasped him by the arm. +“What is it? Is Tuppence found?” +Julius shook his head. +“No. But I found this waiting in London. Just arrived.” +He handed the telegraph form to the other. Tommy’s eyes opened as he +read: +“Jane Finn found. Come Manchester Midland Hotel immediately--PEEL +EDGERTON.” +Julius took the form back and folded it up. +“Queer,” he said thoughtfully. “I thought that lawyer chap had quit!” +CHAPTER XIX. JANE FINN +“MY train got in half an hour ago,” explained Julius, as he led the way +out of the station. “I reckoned you’d come by this before I left London, +and wired accordingly to Sir James. He’s booked rooms for us, and will +be round to dine at eight.” +“What made you think he’d ceased to take any interest in the case?” +asked Tommy curiously. +“What he said,” replied Julius dryly. “The old bird’s as close as an +oyster! Like all the darned lot of them, he wasn’t going to commit +himself till he was sure he could deliver the goods.” +“I wonder,” said Tommy thoughtfully. +Julius turned on him. +“You wonder what?” +“Whether that was his real reason.” +“Sure. You bet your life it was.” +Tommy shook his head unconvinced. +Sir James arrived punctually at eight o’clock, and Julius introduced +Tommy. Sir James shook hands with him warmly. +“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Beresford. I have heard +so much about you from Miss Tuppence”--he smiled involuntarily--“that it +really seems as though I already know you quite well.” +“Thank you, sir,” said Tommy with his cheerful grin. He scanned the +great lawyer eagerly. Like Tuppence, he felt the magnetism of the +other’s personality. He was reminded of Mr. Carter. The two men, totally +unlike so far as physical resemblance went, produced a similar effect. +Beneath the weary manner of the one and the professional reserve of the +other, lay the same quality of mind, keen-edged like a rapier. +In the meantime he was conscious of Sir James’s close scrutiny. When the +lawyer dropped his eyes the young man had the feeling that the other had +read him through and through like an open book. He could not but wonder +what the final judgment was, but there was little chance of learning +that. Sir James took in everything, but gave out only what he chose. A +proof of that occurred almost at once. +Immediately the first greetings were over Julius broke out into a flood +of eager questions. How had Sir James managed to track the girl? Why had +he not let them know that he was still working on the case? And so on. +Sir James stroked his chin and smiled. At last he said: +“Just so, just so. Well, she’s found. And that’s the great thing, isn’t +it? Eh! Come now, that’s the great thing?” +“Sure it is. But just how did you strike her trail? Miss Tuppence and I +thought you’d quit for good and all.” +“Ah!” The lawyer shot a lightning glance at him, then resumed operations +on his chin. “You thought that, did you? Did you really? H’m, dear me.” +“But I guess I can take it we were wrong,” pursued Julius. +“Well, I don’t know that I should go so far as to say that. But it’s +certainly fortunate for all parties that we’ve managed to find the young +lady.” +“But where is she?” demanded Julius, his thoughts flying off on another +tack. “I thought you’d be sure to bring her along?” +“That would hardly be possible,” said Sir James gravely. +“Why?” +“Because the young lady was knocked down in a street accident, and has +sustained slight injuries to the head. She was taken to the infirmary, +and on recovering consciousness gave her name as Jane Finn. When--ah!--I +heard that, I arranged for her to be removed to the house of a +doctor--a friend of mine, and wired at once for you. She relapsed into +unconsciousness and has not spoken since.” +“She’s not seriously hurt?” +“Oh, a bruise and a cut or two; really, from a medical point of view, +absurdly slight injuries to have produced such a condition. Her state is +probably to be attributed to the mental shock consequent on recovering +her memory.” +“It’s come back?” cried Julius excitedly. +Sir James tapped the table rather impatiently. +“Undoubtedly, Mr. Hersheimmer, since she was able to give her real name. +I thought you had appreciated that point.” +“And you just happened to be on the spot,” said Tommy. “Seems quite like +a fairy tale.” +But Sir James was far too wary to be drawn. +“Coincidences are curious things,” he said dryly. +Nevertheless Tommy was now certain of what he had before only suspected. +Sir James’s presence in Manchester was not accidental. Far from +abandoning the case, as Julius supposed, he had by some means of his own +successfully run the missing girl to earth. The only thing that puzzled +Tommy was the reason for all this secrecy. He concluded that it was a +foible of the legal mind. +Julius was speaking. +“After dinner,” he announced, “I shall go right away and see Jane.” +“That will be impossible, I fear,” said Sir James. “It is very unlikely +they would allow her to see visitors at this time of night. I should +suggest to-morrow morning about ten o’clock.” +Julius flushed. There was something in Sir James which always stirred +him to antagonism. It was a conflict of two masterful personalities. +“All the same, I reckon I’ll go round there to-night and see if I can’t +ginger them up to break through their silly rules.” +“It will be quite useless, Mr. Hersheimmer.” +The words came out like the crack of a pistol, and Tommy looked up with +a start. Julius was nervous and excited. The hand with which he raised +his glass to his lips shook slightly, but his eyes held Sir James’s +defiantly. For a moment the hostility between the two seemed likely to +burst into flame, but in the end Julius lowered his eyes, defeated. +“For the moment, I reckon you’re the boss.” +“Thank you,” said the other. “We will say ten o’clock then?” With +consummate ease of manner he turned to Tommy. “I must confess, Mr. +Beresford, that it was something of a surprise to me to see you here +this evening. The last I heard of you was that your friends were in +grave anxiety on your behalf. Nothing had been heard of you for +some days, and Miss Tuppence was inclined to think you had got into +difficulties.” +“I had, sir!” Tommy grinned reminiscently. “I was never in a tighter +place in my life.” +Helped out by questions from Sir James, he gave an abbreviated account +of his adventures. The lawyer looked at him with renewed interest as he +brought the tale to a close. +“You got yourself out of a tight place very well,” he said gravely. “I +congratulate you. You displayed a great deal of ingenuity and carried +your part through well.” +Tommy blushed, his face assuming a prawnlike hue at the praise. +“I couldn’t have got away but for the girl, sir.” +“No.” Sir James smiled a little. “It was lucky for you she happened +to--er--take a fancy to you.” Tommy appeared about to protest, but Sir +James went on. “There’s no doubt about her being one of the gang, I +suppose?” +“I’m afraid not, sir. I thought perhaps they were keeping her there by +force, but the way she acted didn’t fit in with that. You see, she went +back to them when she could have got away.” +Sir James nodded thoughtfully. +“What did she say? Something about wanting to be taken to Marguerite?” +“Yes, sir. I suppose she meant Mrs. Vandemeyer.” +“She always signed herself Rita Vandemeyer. All her friends spoke of +her as Rita. Still, I suppose the girl must have been in the habit of +calling her by her full name. And, at the moment she was crying out to +her, Mrs. Vandemeyer was either dead or dying! Curious! There are one +or two points that strike me as being obscure--their sudden change +of attitude towards yourself, for instance. By the way, the house was +raided, of course?” +“Yes, sir, but they’d all cleared out.” +“Naturally,” said Sir James dryly. +“And not a clue left behind.” +“I wonder----” The lawyer tapped the table thoughtfully. +Something in his voice made Tommy look up. Would this man’s eyes have +seen something where theirs had been blind? He spoke impulsively: +“I wish you’d been there, sir, to go over the house!” +“I wish I had,” said Sir James quietly. He sat for a moment in silence. +Then he looked up. “And since then? What have you been doing?” +For a moment, Tommy stared at him. Then it dawned on him that of course +the lawyer did not know. +“I forgot that you didn’t know about Tuppence,” he said slowly. The +sickening anxiety, forgotten for a while in the excitement of knowing +Jane Finn was found at last, swept over him again. +The lawyer laid down his knife and fork sharply. +“Has anything happened to Miss Tuppence?” His voice was keen-edged. +“She’s disappeared,” said Julius. +“When?” +“A week ago.” +“How?” +Sir James’s questions fairly shot out. Between them Tommy and Julius +gave the history of the last week and their futile search. +Sir James went at once to the root of the matter. +“A wire signed with your name? They knew enough of you both for that. +They weren’t sure of how much you had learnt in that house. Their +kidnapping of Miss Tuppence is the counter-move to your escape. If +necessary they could seal your lips with a threat of what might happen +to her.” +Tommy nodded. +“That’s just what I thought, sir.” +Sir James looked at him keenly. “You had worked that out, had you? Not +bad--not at all bad. The curious thing is that they certainly did not +know anything about you when they first held you prisoner. You are sure +that you did not in any way disclose your identity?” +Tommy shook his head. +“That’s so,” said Julius with a nod. “Therefore I reckon some one put +them wise--and not earlier than Sunday afternoon.” +“Yes, but who?” +“That almighty omniscient Mr. Brown, of course!” +There was a faint note of derision in the American’s voice which made +Sir James look up sharply. +“You don’t believe in Mr. Brown, Mr. Hersheimmer?” +“No, sir, I do not,” returned the young American with emphasis. “Not +as such, that is to say. I reckon it out that he’s a figurehead--just a +bogy name to frighten the children with. The real head of this business +is that Russian chap Kramenin. I guess he’s quite capable of running +revolutions in three countries at once if he chose! The man Whittington +is probably the head of the English branch.” +“I disagree with you,” said Sir James shortly. “Mr. Brown exists.” He +turned to Tommy. “Did you happen to notice where that wire was handed +in?” +“No, sir, I’m afraid I didn’t.” +“H’m. Got it with you?” +“It’s upstairs, sir, in my kit.” +“I’d like to have a look at it sometime. No hurry. You’ve wasted a +week”--Tommy hung his head--“a day or so more is immaterial. We’ll deal +with Miss Jane Finn first. Afterwards, we’ll set to work to rescue Miss +Tuppence from bondage. I don’t think she’s in any immediate danger. That +is, so long as they don’t know that we’ve got Jane Finn, and that +her memory has returned. We must keep that dark at all costs. You +understand?” +The other two assented, and, after making arrangements for meeting on +the morrow, the great lawyer took his leave. +At ten o’clock, the two young men were at the appointed spot. Sir +James had joined them on the doorstep. He alone appeared unexcited. He +introduced them to the doctor. +“Mr. Hersheimmer--Mr. Beresford--Dr. Roylance. How’s the patient?” +“Going on well. Evidently no idea of the flight of time. Asked this +morning how many had been saved from the _Lusitania_. Was it in the +papers yet? That, of course, was only what was to be expected. She seems +to have something on her mind, though.” +“I think we can relieve her anxiety. May we go up?” +“Certainly.” +Tommy’s heart beat sensibly faster as they followed the doctor upstairs. +Jane Finn at last! The long-sought, the mysterious, the elusive Jane +Finn! How wildly improbable success had seemed! And here in this house, +her memory almost miraculously restored, lay the girl who held the +future of England in her hands. A half groan broke from Tommy’s lips. +If only Tuppence could have been at his side to share in the triumphant +conclusion of their joint venture! Then he put the thought of Tuppence +resolutely aside. His confidence in Sir James was growing. There was +a man who would unerringly ferret out Tuppence’s whereabouts. In the +meantime Jane Finn! And suddenly a dread clutched at his heart. It +seemed too easy.... Suppose they should find her dead ... stricken down +by the hand of Mr. Brown? +In another minute he was laughing at these melodramatic fancies. The +doctor held open the door of a room and they passed in. On the white +bed, bandages round her head, lay the girl. Somehow the whole scene +seemed unreal. It was so exactly what one expected that it gave the +effect of being beautifully staged. +The girl looked from one to the other of them with large wondering eyes. +Sir James spoke first. +“Miss Finn,” he said, “this is your cousin, Mr. Julius P. Hersheimmer.” +A faint flush flitted over the girl’s face, as Julius stepped forward +and took her hand. +“How do, Cousin Jane?” he said lightly. +But Tommy caught the tremor in his voice. +“Are you really Uncle Hiram’s son?” she asked wonderingly. +Her voice, with the slight warmth of the Western accent, had an almost +thrilling quality. It seemed vaguely familiar to Tommy, but he thrust +the impression aside as impossible. +“Sure thing.” +“We used to read about Uncle Hiram in the papers,” continued the girl, +in her low soft tones. “But I never thought I’d meet you one day. Mother +figured it out that Uncle Hiram would never get over being mad with +her.” +“The old man was like that,” admitted Julius. “But I guess the new +generation’s sort of different. Got no use for the family feud business. +First thing I thought about, soon as the war was over, was to come along +and hunt you up.” +A shadow passed over the girl’s face. +“They’ve been telling me things--dreadful things--that my memory went, +and that there are years I shall never know about--years lost out of my +life.” +“You didn’t realize that yourself?” +The girl’s eyes opened wide. +“Why, no. It seems to me as though it were no time since we were being +hustled into those boats. I can see it all now.” She closed her eyes +with a shudder. +Julius looked across at Sir James, who nodded. +“Don’t worry any. It isn’t worth it. Now, see here, Jane, there’s +something we want to know about. There was a man aboard that boat with +some mighty important papers on him, and the big guns in this country +have got a notion that he passed on the goods to you. Is that so?” +The girl hesitated, her glance shifting to the other two. Julius +understood. +“Mr. Beresford is commissioned by the British Government to get those +papers back. Sir James Peel Edgerton is an English Member of Parliament, +and might be a big gun in the Cabinet if he liked. It’s owing to him +that we’ve ferreted you out at last. So you can go right ahead and tell +us the whole story. Did Danvers give you the papers?” +“Yes. He said they’d have a better chance with me, because they would +save the women and children first.” +“Just as we thought,” said Sir James. +“He said they were very important--that they might make all the +difference to the Allies. But, if it’s all so long ago, and the war’s +over, what does it matter now?” +“I guess history repeats itself, Jane. First there was a great hue +and cry over those papers, then it all died down, and now the whole +caboodle’s started all over again--for rather different reasons. Then +you can hand them over to us right away?” +“But I can’t.” +“What?” +“I haven’t got them.” +“You--haven’t--got them?” Julius punctuated the words with little +pauses. +“No--I hid them.” +“You _hid_ them?” +“Yes. I got uneasy. People seemed to be watching me. It scared +me--badly.” She put her hand to her head. “It’s almost the last thing I +remember before waking up in the hospital....” +“Go on,” said Sir James, in his quiet penetrating tones. “What do you +remember?” +She turned to him obediently. +“It was at Holyhead. I came that way--I don’t remember why....” +“That doesn’t matter. Go on.” +“In the confusion on the quay I slipped away. Nobody saw me. I took a +car. Told the man to drive me out of the town. I watched when we got on +the open road. No other car was following us. I saw a path at the side +of the road. I told the man to wait.” +She paused, then went on. “The path led to the cliff, and down to the +sea between big yellow gorse bushes--they were like golden flames. I +looked round. There wasn’t a soul in sight. But just level with my head +there was a hole in the rock. It was quite small--I could only just get +my hand in, but it went a long way back. I took the oilskin packet from +round my neck and shoved it right in as far as I could. Then I tore off +a bit of gorse--My! but it did prick--and plugged the hole with it so +that you’d never guess there was a crevice of any kind there. Then I +marked the place carefully in my own mind, so that I’d find it again. +There was a queer boulder in the path just there--for all the world +like a dog sitting up begging. Then I went back to the road. The car was +waiting, and I drove back. I just caught the train. I was a bit ashamed +of myself for fancying things maybe, but, by and by, I saw the man +opposite me wink at a woman who was sitting next to me, and I felt +scared again, and was glad the papers were safe. I went out in the +corridor to get a little air. I thought I’d slip into another carriage. +But the woman called me back, said I’d dropped something, and when I +stooped to look, something seemed to hit me--here.” She placed her hand +to the back of her head. “I don’t remember anything more until I woke up +in the hospital.” +There was a pause. +“Thank you, Miss Finn.” It was Sir James who spoke. “I hope we have not +tired you?” +“Oh, that’s all right. My head aches a little, but otherwise I feel +fine.” +Julius stepped forward and took her hand again. +“So long, Cousin Jane. I’m going to get busy after those papers, but +I’ll be back in two shakes of a dog’s tail, and I’ll tote you up to +London and give you the time of your young life before we go back to the +States! I mean it--so hurry up and get well.” +CHAPTER XX. TOO LATE +IN the street they held an informal council of war. Sir James had drawn +a watch from his pocket. “The boat train to Holyhead stops at Chester at +12.14. If you start at once I think you can catch the connection.” +Tommy looked up, puzzled. +“Is there any need to hurry, sir? To-day is only the 24th.” +“I guess it’s always well to get up early in the morning,” said Julius, +before the lawyer had time to reply. “We’ll make tracks for the depot +right away.” +A little frown had settled on Sir James’s brow. +“I wish I could come with you. I am due to speak at a meeting at two +o’clock. It is unfortunate.” +The reluctance in his tone was very evident. It was clear, on the other +hand, that Julius was easily disposed to put up with the loss of the +other’s company. +“I guess there’s nothing complicated about this deal,” he remarked. +“Just a game of hide-and-seek, that’s all.” +“I hope so,” said Sir James. +“Sure thing. What else could it be?” +“You are still young, Mr. Hersheimmer. At my age you will probably have +learnt one lesson. ‘Never underestimate your adversary.’” +The gravity of his tone impressed Tommy, but had little effect upon +Julius. +“You think Mr. Brown might come along and take a hand? If he does, I’m +ready for him.” He slapped his pocket. “I carry a gun. Little Willie +here travels round with me everywhere.” He produced a murderous-looking +automatic, and tapped it affectionately before returning it to its +home. “But he won’t be needed this trip. There’s nobody to put Mr. Brown +wise.” +The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. +“There was nobody to put Mr. Brown wise to the fact that Mrs. Vandemeyer +meant to betray him. Nevertheless, _Mrs. Vandemeyer died without +speaking_.” +Julius was silenced for once, and Sir James added on a lighter note: +“I only want to put you on your guard. Good-bye, and good luck. Take +no unnecessary risks once the papers are in your hands. If there is any +reason to believe that you have been shadowed, destroy them at once. +Good luck to you. The game is in your hands now.” He shook hands with +them both. +Ten minutes later the two young men were seated in a first-class +carriage _en route_ for Chester. +For a long time neither of them spoke. When at length Julius broke the +silence, it was with a totally unexpected remark. +“Say,” he observed thoughtfully, “did you ever make a darned fool of +yourself over a girl’s face?” +Tommy, after a moment’s astonishment, searched his mind. +“Can’t say I have,” he replied at last. “Not that I can recollect, +anyhow. Why?” +“Because for the last two months I’ve been making a sentimental idiot of +myself over Jane! First moment I clapped eyes on her photograph my heart +did all the usual stunts you read about in novels. I guess I’m ashamed +to admit it, but I came over here determined to find her and fix it all +up, and take her back as Mrs. Julius P. Hersheimmer!” +“Oh!” said Tommy, amazed. +Julius uncrossed his legs brusquely and continued: +“Just shows what an almighty fool a man can make of himself! One look at +the girl in the flesh, and I was cured!” +Feeling more tongue-tied than ever, Tommy ejaculated “Oh!” again. +“No disparagement to Jane, mind you,” continued the other. “She’s a real +nice girl, and some fellow will fall in love with her right away.” +“I thought her a very good-looking girl,” said Tommy, finding his +tongue. +“Sure she is. But she’s not like her photo one bit. At least I suppose +she is in a way--must be--because I recognized her right off. If I’d +seen her in a crowd I’d have said ‘There’s a girl whose face I know’ +right away without any hesitation. But there was something about that +photo”--Julius shook his head, and heaved a sigh--“I guess romance is a +mighty queer thing!” +“It must be,” said Tommy coldly, “if you can come over here in love with +one girl, and propose to another within a fortnight.” +Julius had the grace to look discomposed. +“Well, you see, I’d got a sort of tired feeling that I’d never find +Jane--and that it was all plumb foolishness anyway. And then--oh, well, +the French, for instance, are much more sensible in the way they look at +things. They keep romance and marriage apart----” +Tommy flushed. +“Well, I’m damned! If that’s----” +Julius hastened to interrupt. +“Say now, don’t be hasty. I don’t mean what you mean. I take it +Americans have a higher opinion of morality than you have even. What I +meant was that the French set about marriage in a businesslike way--find +two people who are suited to one another, look after the money affairs, +and see the whole thing practically, and in a businesslike spirit.” +“If you ask me,” said Tommy, “we’re all too damned businesslike +nowadays. We’re always saying, ‘Will it pay?’ The men are bad enough, +and the girls are worse!” +“Cool down, son. Don’t get so heated.” +“I feel heated,” said Tommy. +Julius looked at him and judged it wise to say no more. +However, Tommy had plenty of time to cool down before they reached +Holyhead, and the cheerful grin had returned to his countenance as they +alighted at their destination. +After consultation, and with the aid of a road map, they were fairly +well agreed as to direction, so were able to hire a taxi without more +ado and drive out on the road leading to Treaddur Bay. They instructed +the man to go slowly, and watched narrowly so as not to miss the path. +They came to it not long after leaving the town, and Tommy stopped the +car promptly, asked in a casual tone whether the path led down to the +sea, and hearing it did paid off the man in handsome style. +A moment later the taxi was slowly chugging back to Holyhead. Tommy and +Julius watched it out of sight, and then turned to the narrow path. +“It’s the right one, I suppose?” asked Tommy doubtfully. “There must be +simply heaps along here.” +“Sure it is. Look at the gorse. Remember what Jane said?” +Tommy looked at the swelling hedges of golden blossom which bordered the +path on either side, and was convinced. +They went down in single file, Julius leading. Twice Tommy turned his +head uneasily. Julius looked back. +“What is it?” +“I don’t know. I’ve got the wind up somehow. Keep fancying there’s some +one following us.” +“Can’t be,” said Julius positively. “We’d see him.” +Tommy had to admit that this was true. Nevertheless, his sense of +uneasiness deepened. In spite of himself he believed in the omniscience +of the enemy. +“I rather wish that fellow would come along,” said Julius. He patted his +pocket. “Little William here is just aching for exercise!” +“Do you always carry it--him--with you?” inquired Tommy with burning +curiosity. +“Most always. I guess you never know what might turn up.” +Tommy kept a respectful silence. He was impressed by little William. It +seemed to remove the menace of Mr. Brown farther away. +The path was now running along the side of the cliff, parallel to the +sea. Suddenly Julius came to such an abrupt halt that Tommy cannoned +into him. +“What’s up?” he inquired. +“Look there. If that doesn’t beat the band!” +Tommy looked. Standing out half obstructing the path was a huge boulder +which certainly bore a fanciful resemblance to a “begging” terrier. +“Well,” said Tommy, refusing to share Julius’s emotion, “it’s what we +expected to see, isn’t it?” +Julius looked at him sadly and shook his head. +“British phlegm! Sure we expected it--but it kind of rattles me, all the +same, to see it sitting there just where we expected to find it!” +Tommy, whose calm was, perhaps, more assumed than natural, moved his +feet impatiently. +“Push on. What about the hole?” +They scanned the cliff-side narrowly. Tommy heard himself saying +idiotically: +“The gorse won’t be there after all these years.” +And Julius replied solemnly: +“I guess you’re right.” +Tommy suddenly pointed with a shaking hand. +“What about that crevice there?” +Julius replied in an awestricken voice: +“That’s it--for sure.” +They looked at each other. +“When I was in France,” said Tommy reminiscently, “whenever my batman +failed to call me, he always said that he had come over queer. I never +believed it. But whether he felt it or not, there _is_ such a sensation. +I’ve got it now! Badly!” +He looked at the rock with a kind of agonized passion. +“Damn it!” he cried. “It’s impossible! Five years! Think of it! +Bird’s-nesting boys, picnic parties, thousands of people passing! It +can’t be there! It’s a hundred to one against its being there! It’s +against all reason!” +Indeed, he felt it to be impossible--more, perhaps, because he could not +believe in his own success where so many others had failed. The thing +was too easy, therefore it could not be. The hole would be empty. +Julius looked at him with a widening smile. +“I guess you’re rattled now all right,” he drawled with some enjoyment. +“Well, here goes!” He thrust his hand into the crevice, and made a +slight grimace. “It’s a tight fit. Jane’s hand must be a few sizes +smaller than mine. I don’t feel anything--no--say, what’s this? Gee +whiz!” And with a flourish he waved aloft a small discoloured packet. +“It’s the goods all right. Sewn up in oilskin. Hold it while I get my +penknife.” +The unbelievable had happened. Tommy held the precious packet tenderly +between his hands. They had succeeded! +“It’s queer,” he murmured idly, “you’d think the stitches would have +rotted. They look just as good as new.” +They cut them carefully and ripped away the oilskin. Inside was a small +folded sheet of paper. With trembling fingers they unfolded it. The +sheet was blank! They stared at each other, puzzled. +“A dummy?” hazarded Julius. “Was Danvers just a decoy?” +Tommy shook his head. That solution did not satisfy him. Suddenly his +face cleared. +“I’ve got it! _Sympathetic ink!_” +“You think so?” +“Worth trying anyhow. Heat usually does the trick. Get some sticks. +We’ll make a fire.” +In a few minutes the little fire of twigs and leaves was blazing +merrily. Tommy held the sheet of paper near the glow. The paper curled a +little with the heat. Nothing more. +Suddenly Julius grasped his arm, and pointed to where characters were +appearing in a faint brown colour. +“Gee whiz! You’ve got it! Say, that idea of yours was great. It never +occurred to me.” +Tommy held the paper in position some minutes longer until he judged the +heat had done its work. Then he withdrew it. A moment later he uttered a +cry. +Across the sheet in neat brown printing ran the words: WITH THE +COMPLIMENTS OF MR. BROWN. +CHAPTER XXI. TOMMY MAKES A DISCOVERY +FOR a moment or two they stood staring at each other stupidly, dazed +with the shock. Somehow, inexplicably, Mr. Brown had forestalled them. +Tommy accepted defeat quietly. Not so Julius. +“How in tarnation did he get ahead of us? That’s what beats me!” he +ended up. +Tommy shook his head, and said dully: +“It accounts for the stitches being new. We might have guessed....” +“Never mind the darned stitches. How did he get ahead of us? We hustled +all we knew. It’s downright impossible for anyone to get here quicker +than we did. And, anyway, how did he know? Do you reckon there was a +dictaphone in Jane’s room? I guess there must have been.” +But Tommy’s common sense pointed out objections. +“No one could have known beforehand that she was going to be in that +house--much less that particular room.” +“That’s so,” admitted Julius. “Then one of the nurses was a crook and +listened at the door. How’s that?” +“I don’t see that it matters anyway,” said Tommy wearily. “He may have +found out some months ago, and removed the papers, then----No, by Jove, +that won’t wash! They’d have been published at once.” +“Sure thing they would! No, some one’s got ahead of us to-day by an hour +or so. But how they did it gets my goat.” +“I wish that chap Peel Edgerton had been with us,” said Tommy +thoughtfully. +“Why?” Julius stared. “The mischief was done when we came.” +“Yes----” Tommy hesitated. He could not explain his own feeling--the +illogical idea that the K.C.’s presence would somehow have averted the +catastrophe. He reverted to his former point of view. “It’s no good +arguing about how it was done. The game’s up. We’ve failed. There’s only +one thing for me to do.” +“What’s that?” +“Get back to London as soon as possible. Mr. Carter must be warned. It’s +only a matter of hours now before the blow falls. But, at any rate, he +ought to know the worst.” +The duty was an unpleasant one, but Tommy had no intention of shirking +it. He must report his failure to Mr. Carter. After that his work was +done. He took the midnight mail to London. Julius elected to stay the +night at Holyhead. +Half an hour after arrival, haggard and pale, Tommy stood before his +chief. +“I’ve come to report, sir. I’ve failed--failed badly.” +Mr. Carter eyed him sharply. +“You mean that the treaty----” +“Is in the hands of Mr. Brown, sir.” +“Ah!” said Mr. Carter quietly. The expression on his face did not +change, but Tommy caught the flicker of despair in his eyes. It +convinced him as nothing else had done that the outlook was hopeless. +“Well,” said Mr. Carter after a minute or two, “we mustn’t sag at the +knees, I suppose. I’m glad to know definitely. We must do what we can.” +Through Tommy’s mind flashed the assurance: “It’s hopeless, and he knows +it’s hopeless!” +The other looked up at him. +“Don’t take it to heart, lad,” he said kindly. “You did your best. You +were up against one of the biggest brains of the century. And you came +very near success. Remember that.” +“Thank you, sir. It’s awfully decent of you.” +“I blame myself. I have been blaming myself ever since I heard this +other news.” +Something in his tone attracted Tommy’s attention. A new fear gripped at +his heart. +“Is there--something more, sir?” +“I’m afraid so,” said Mr. Carter gravely. He stretched out his hand to a +sheet on the table. +“Tuppence----?” faltered Tommy. +“Read for yourself.” +The typewritten words danced before his eyes. The description of a green +toque, a coat with a handkerchief in the pocket marked P.L.C. He looked +an agonized question at Mr. Carter. The latter replied to it: +“Washed up on the Yorkshire coast--near Ebury. I’m afraid--it looks very +much like foul play.” +“My God!” gasped Tommy. “_Tuppence!_ Those devils--I’ll never rest till +I’ve got even with them! I’ll hunt them down! I’ll----” +The pity on Mr. Carter’s face stopped him. +“I know what you feel like, my poor boy. But it’s no good. You’ll waste +your strength uselessly. It may sound harsh, but my advice to you is: +Cut your losses. Time’s merciful. You’ll forget.” +“Forget Tuppence? Never!” +Mr. Carter shook his head. +“So you think now. Well, it won’t bear thinking of--that brave little +girl! I’m sorry about the whole business--confoundedly sorry.” +Tommy came to himself with a start. +“I’m taking up your time, sir,” he said with an effort. “There’s no need +for you to blame yourself. I dare say we were a couple of young fools to +take on such a job. You warned us all right. But I wish to God I’d been +the one to get it in the neck. Good-bye, sir.” +Back at the _Ritz_, Tommy packed up his few belongings mechanically, +his thoughts far away. He was still bewildered by the introduction of +tragedy into his cheerful commonplace existence. What fun they had +had together, he and Tuppence! And now--oh, he couldn’t believe it--it +couldn’t be true! _Tuppence--dead!_ Little Tuppence, brimming over with +life! It was a dream, a horrible dream. Nothing more. +They brought him a note, a few kind words of sympathy from Peel +Edgerton, who had read the news in the paper. (There had been a large +headline: EX-V.A.D. FEARED DROWNED.) The letter ended with the offer +of a post on a ranch in the Argentine, where Sir James had considerable +interests. +“Kind old beggar,” muttered Tommy, as he flung it aside. +The door opened, and Julius burst in with his usual violence. He held an +open newspaper in his hand. +“Say, what’s all this? They seem to have got some fool idea about +Tuppence.” +“It’s true,” said Tommy quietly. +“You mean they’ve done her in?” +Tommy nodded. +“I suppose when they got the treaty she--wasn’t any good to them any +longer, and they were afraid to let her go.” +“Well, I’m darned!” said Julius. “Little Tuppence. She sure was the +pluckiest little girl----” +But suddenly something seemed to crack in Tommy’s brain. He rose to his +feet. +“Oh, get out! You don’t really care, damn you! You asked her to marry +you in your rotten cold-blooded way, but I _loved_ her. I’d have given +the soul out of my body to save her from harm. I’d have stood by without +a word and let her marry you, because you could have given her the sort +of time she ought to have had, and I was only a poor devil without a +penny to bless himself with. But it wouldn’t have been because I didn’t +care!” +“See here,” began Julius temperately. +“Oh, go to the devil! I can’t stand your coming here and talking about +‘little Tuppence.’ Go and look after your cousin. Tuppence is my girl! +I’ve always loved her, from the time we played together as kids. We +grew up and it was just the same. I shall never forget when I was in +hospital, and she came in in that ridiculous cap and apron! It was like +a miracle to see the girl I loved turn up in a nurse’s kit----” +But Julius interrupted him. +“A nurse’s kit! Gee whiz! I must be going to Colney Hatch! I could swear +I’ve seen Jane in a nurse’s cap too. And that’s plumb impossible! No, +by gum, I’ve got it! It was her I saw talking to Whittington at that +nursing home in Bournemouth. She wasn’t a patient there! She was a +nurse!” +“I dare say,” said Tommy angrily, “she’s probably been in with them from +the start. I shouldn’t wonder if she stole those papers from Danvers to +begin with.” +“I’m darned if she did!” shouted Julius. “She’s my cousin, and as +patriotic a girl as ever stepped.” +“I don’t care a damn what she is, but get out of here!” retorted Tommy +also at the top of his voice. +The young men were on the point of coming to blows. But suddenly, with +an almost magical abruptness, Julius’s anger abated. +“All right, son,” he said quietly, “I’m going. I don’t blame you any for +what you’ve been saying. It’s mighty lucky you did say it. I’ve been +the most almighty blithering darned idiot that it’s possible to imagine. +Calm down”--Tommy had made an impatient gesture--“I’m going right away +now--going to the London and North Western Railway depot, if you want to +know.” +“I don’t care a damn where you’re going,” growled Tommy. +As the door closed behind Julius, he returned to his suit-case. +“That’s the lot,” he murmured, and rang the bell. +“Take my luggage down.” +“Yes, sir. Going away, sir?” +“I’m going to the devil,” said Tommy, regardless of the menial’s +feelings. +That functionary, however, merely replied respectfully: +“Yes, sir. Shall I call a taxi?” +Tommy nodded. +Where was he going? He hadn’t the faintest idea. Beyond a fixed +determination to get even with Mr. Brown he had no plans. He re-read Sir +James’s letter, and shook his head. Tuppence must be avenged. Still, it +was kind of the old fellow. +“Better answer it, I suppose.” He went across to the writing-table. +With the usual perversity of bedroom stationery, there were innumerable +envelopes and no paper. He rang. No one came. Tommy fumed at the +delay. Then he remembered that there was a good supply in Julius’s +sitting-room. The American had announced his immediate departure, there +would be no fear of running up against him. Besides, he wouldn’t mind if +he did. He was beginning to be rather ashamed of the things he had said. +Old Julius had taken them jolly well. He’d apologize if he found him +there. +But the room was deserted. Tommy walked across to the writing-table, +and opened the middle drawer. A photograph, carelessly thrust in face +upwards, caught his eye. For a moment he stood rooted to the ground. +Then he took it out, shut the drawer, walked slowly over to an +arm-chair, and sat down still staring at the photograph in his hand. +What on earth was a photograph of the French girl Annette doing in +Julius Hersheimmer’s writing-table? +CHAPTER XXII. IN DOWNING STREET +THE Prime Minister tapped the desk in front of him with nervous fingers. +His face was worn and harassed. He took up his conversation with Mr. +Carter at the point it had broken off. “I don’t understand,” he said. +“Do you really mean that things are not so desperate after all?” +“So this lad seems to think.” +“Let’s have a look at his letter again.” +Mr. Carter handed it over. It was written in a sprawling boyish hand. +“DEAR MR. CARTER, +“Something’s turned up that has given me a jar. Of course I may be +simply making an awful ass of myself, but I don’t think so. If my +conclusions are right, that girl at Manchester was just a plant. The +whole thing was prearranged, sham packet and all, with the object of +making us think the game was up--therefore I fancy that we must have +been pretty hot on the scent. +“I think I know who the real Jane Finn is, and I’ve even got an idea +where the papers are. That last’s only a guess, of course, but I’ve a +sort of feeling it’ll turn out right. Anyhow, I enclose it in a sealed +envelope for what it’s worth. I’m going to ask you not to open it until +the very last moment, midnight on the 28th, in fact. You’ll understand +why in a minute. You see, I’ve figured it out that those things of +Tuppence’s are a plant too, and she’s no more drowned than I am. The way +I reason is this: as a last chance they’ll let Jane Finn escape in +the hope that she’s been shamming this memory stunt, and that once she +thinks she’s free she’ll go right away to the cache. Of course it’s +an awful risk for them to take, because she knows all about them--but +they’re pretty desperate to get hold of that treaty. _But if they know +that the papers have been recovered by us_, neither of those two girls’ +lives will be worth an hour’s purchase. I must try and get hold of +Tuppence before Jane escapes. +“I want a repeat of that telegram that was sent to Tuppence at the +_Ritz_. Sir James Peel Edgerton said you would be able to manage that +for me. He’s frightfully clever. +“One last thing--please have that house in Soho watched day and night. +“Yours, etc., +“THOMAS BERESFORD.” +The Prime Minister looked up. +“The enclosure?” +Mr. Carter smiled dryly. +“In the vaults of the Bank. I am taking no chances.” +“You don’t think”--the Prime Minister hesitated a minute--“that it would +be better to open it now? Surely we ought to secure the document, that +is, provided the young man’s guess turns out to be correct, at once. We +can keep the fact of having done so quite secret.” +“Can we? I’m not so sure. There are spies all round us. Once it’s known +I wouldn’t give that”--he snapped his fingers--“for the life of those +two girls. No, the boy trusted me, and I shan’t let him down.” +“Well, well, we must leave it at that, then. What’s he like, this lad?” +“Outwardly, he’s an ordinary clean-limbed, rather block-headed young +Englishman. Slow in his mental processes. On the other hand, it’s quite +impossible to lead him astray through his imagination. He hasn’t got +any--so he’s difficult to deceive. He worries things out slowly, and +once he’s got hold of anything he doesn’t let go. The little lady’s +quite different. More intuition and less common sense. They make a +pretty pair working together. Pace and stamina.” +“He seems confident,” mused the Prime Minister. +“Yes, and that’s what gives me hope. He’s the kind of diffident youth +who would have to be _very_ sure before he ventured an opinion at all.” +A half smile came to the other’s lips. +“And it is this--boy who will defeat the master criminal of our time?” +“This--boy, as you say! But I sometimes fancy I see a shadow behind.” +“You mean?” +“Peel Edgerton.” +“Peel Edgerton?” said the Prime Minister in astonishment. +“Yes. I see his hand in _this_.” He struck the open letter. “He’s +there--working in the dark, silently, unobtrusively. I’ve always felt +that if anyone was to run Mr. Brown to earth, Peel Edgerton would be the +man. I tell you he’s on the case now, but doesn’t want it known. By the +way, I got rather an odd request from him the other day.” +“Yes?” +“He sent me a cutting from some American paper. It referred to a man’s +body found near the docks in New York about three weeks ago. He asked me +to collect any information on the subject I could.” +“Well?” +Carter shrugged his shoulders. +“I couldn’t get much. Young fellow about thirty-five--poorly +dressed--face very badly disfigured. He was never identified.” +“And you fancy that the two matters are connected in some way?” +“Somehow I do. I may be wrong, of course.” +There was a pause, then Mr. Carter continued: +“I asked him to come round here. Not that we’ll get anything out of him +he doesn’t want to tell. His legal instincts are too strong. But there’s +no doubt he can throw light on one or two obscure points in young +Beresford’s letter. Ah, here he is!” +The two men rose to greet the new-comer. A half whimsical thought +flashed across the Premier’s mind. “My successor, perhaps!” +“We’ve had a letter from young Beresford,” said Mr. Carter, coming to +the point at once. “You’ve seen him, I suppose?” +“You suppose wrong,” said the lawyer. +“Oh!” Mr. Carter was a little nonplussed. +Sir James smiled, and stroked his chin. +“He rang me up,” he volunteered. +“Would you have any objection to telling us exactly what passed between +you?” +“Not at all. He thanked me for a certain letter which I had written to +him--as a matter of fact, I had offered him a job. Then he reminded +me of something I had said to him at Manchester respecting that bogus +telegram which lured Miss Cowley away. I asked him if anything untoward +had occurred. He said it had--that in a drawer in Mr. Hersheimmer’s room +he had discovered a photograph.” The lawyer paused, then continued: “I +asked him if the photograph bore the name and address of a Californian +photographer. He replied: ‘You’re on to it, sir. It had.’ Then he went +on to tell me something I _didn’t_ know. The original of that photograph +was the French girl, Annette, who saved his life.” +“What?” +“Exactly. I asked the young man with some curiosity what he had done +with the photograph. He replied that he had put it back where he found +it.” The lawyer paused again. “That was good, you know--distinctly +good. He can use his brains, that young fellow. I congratulated him. The +discovery was a providential one. Of course, from the moment that the +girl in Manchester was proved to be a plant everything was altered. +Young Beresford saw that for himself without my having to tell it +him. But he felt he couldn’t trust his judgment on the subject of +Miss Cowley. Did I think she was alive? I told him, duly weighing the +evidence, that there was a very decided chance in favour of it. That +brought us back to the telegram.” +“Yes?” +“I advised him to apply to you for a copy of the original wire. It +had occurred to me as probable that, after Miss Cowley flung it on the +floor, certain words might have been erased and altered with the express +intention of setting searchers on a false trail.” +Carter nodded. He took a sheet from his pocket, and read aloud: +“Come at once, Astley Priors, Gatehouse, Kent. Great +developments--TOMMY.” +“Very simple,” said Sir James, “and very ingenious. Just a few words +to alter, and the thing was done. And the one important clue they +overlooked.” +“What was that?” +“The page-boy’s statement that Miss Cowley drove to Charing Cross. They +were so sure of themselves that they took it for granted he had made a +mistake.” +“Then young Beresford is now?” +“At Gatehouse, Kent, unless I am much mistaken.” +Mr. Carter looked at him curiously. +“I rather wonder you’re not there too, Peel Edgerton?” +“Ah, I’m busy on a case.” +“I thought you were on your holiday?” +“Oh, I’ve not been briefed. Perhaps it would be more correct to say I’m +preparing a case. Any more facts about that American chap for me?” +“I’m afraid not. Is it important to find out who he was?” +“Oh, I know who he was,” said Sir James easily. “I can’t prove it +yet--but I know.” +The other two asked no questions. They had an instinct that it would be +mere waste of breath. +“But what I don’t understand,” said the Prime-Minister suddenly, “is how +that photograph came to be in Mr. Hersheimmer’s drawer?” +“Perhaps it never left it,” suggested the lawyer gently. +“But the bogus inspector? Inspector Brown?” +“Ah!” said Sir James thoughtfully. He rose to his feet. “I mustn’t keep +you. Go on with the affairs of the nation. I must get back to--my case.” +Two days later Julius Hersheimmer returned from Manchester. A note from +Tommy lay on his table: +“DEAR HERSHEIMMER, +“Sorry I lost my temper. In case I don’t see you again, good-bye. I’ve +been offered a job in the Argentine, and might as well take it. +“Yours, +“TOMMY BERESFORD.” +A peculiar smile lingered for a moment on Julius’s face. He threw the +letter into the waste-paper basket. +“The darned fool!” he murmured. +CHAPTER XXIII. A RACE AGAINST TIME +AFTER ringing up Sir James, Tommy’s next procedure was to make a call +at South Audley Mansions. He found Albert discharging his professional +duties, and introduced himself without more ado as a friend of +Tuppence’s. Albert unbent immediately. +“Things has been very quiet here lately,” he said wistfully. “Hope the +young lady’s keeping well, sir?” +“That’s just the point, Albert. She’s disappeared.” +“You don’t mean as the crooks have got her?” +“They have.” +“In the Underworld?” +“No, dash it all, in this world!” +“It’s a h’expression, sir,” explained Albert. “At the pictures the +crooks always have a restoorant in the Underworld. But do you think as +they’ve done her in, sir?” +“I hope not. By the way, have you by any chance an aunt, a cousin, +a grandmother, or any other suitable female relation who might be +represented as being likely to kick the bucket?” +A delighted grin spread slowly over Albert’s countenance. +“I’m on, sir. My poor aunt what lives in the country has been mortal bad +for a long time, and she’s asking for me with her dying breath.” +Tommy nodded approval. +“Can you report this in the proper quarter and meet me at Charing Cross +in an hour’s time?” +“I’ll be there, sir. You can count on me.” +As Tommy had judged, the faithful Albert proved an invaluable ally. The +two took up their quarters at the inn in Gatehouse. To Albert fell the +task of collecting information. There was no difficulty about it. +Astley Priors was the property of a Dr. Adams. The doctor no longer +practiced, had retired, the landlord believed, but he took a few private +patients--here the good fellow tapped his forehead knowingly--“balmy +ones! You understand!” The doctor was a popular figure in the village, +subscribed freely to all the local sports--“a very pleasant, affable +gentleman.” Been there long? Oh, a matter of ten years or so--might be +longer. Scientific gentleman, he was. Professors and people often came +down from town to see him. Anyway, it was a gay house, always visitors. +In the face of all this volubility, Tommy felt doubts. Was it possible +that this genial, well-known figure could be in reality a dangerous +criminal? His life seemed so open and aboveboard. No hint of sinister +doings. Suppose it was all a gigantic mistake? Tommy felt a cold chill +at the thought. +Then he remembered the private patients--“balmy ones.” He inquired +carefully if there was a young lady amongst them, describing Tuppence. +But nothing much seemed to be known about the patients--they were seldom +seen outside the grounds. A guarded description of Annette also failed +to provoke recognition. +Astley Priors was a pleasant red-brick edifice, surrounded by +well-wooded grounds which effectually shielded the house from +observation from the road. +On the first evening Tommy, accompanied by Albert, explored the grounds. +Owing to Albert’s insistence they dragged themselves along painfully on +their stomachs, thereby producing a great deal more noise than if +they had stood upright. In any case, these precautions were totally +unnecessary. The grounds, like those of any other private house after +nightfall, seemed untenanted. Tommy had imagined a possible fierce +watchdog. Albert’s fancy ran to a puma, or a tame cobra. But they +reached a shrubbery near the house quite unmolested. +The blinds of the dining-room window were up. There was a large company +assembled round the table. The port was passing from hand to hand. It +seemed a normal, pleasant company. Through the open window scraps of +conversation floated out disjointedly on the night air. It was a heated +discussion on county cricket! +Again Tommy felt that cold chill of uncertainty. It seemed impossible +to believe that these people were other than they seemed. Had he been +fooled once more? The fair-bearded, spectacled gentleman who sat at the +head of the table looked singularly honest and normal. +Tommy slept badly that night. The following morning the indefatigable +Albert, having cemented an alliance with the greengrocer’s boy, took the +latter’s place and ingratiated himself with the cook at Malthouse. +He returned with the information that she was undoubtedly “one of +the crooks,” but Tommy mistrusted the vividness of his imagination. +Questioned, he could adduce nothing in support of his statement except +his own opinion that she wasn’t the usual kind. You could see that at a +glance. +The substitution being repeated (much to the pecuniary advantage of the +real greengrocer’s boy) on the following day, Albert brought back the +first piece of hopeful news. There _was_ a French young lady staying +in the house. Tommy put his doubts aside. Here was confirmation of +his theory. But time pressed. To-day was the 27th. The 29th was the +much-talked-of “Labour Day,” about which all sorts of rumours were +running riot. Newspapers were getting agitated. Sensational hints of a +Labour _coup d’état_ were freely reported. The Government said nothing. +It knew and was prepared. There were rumours of dissension among the +Labour leaders. They were not of one mind. The more far-seeing among +them realized that what they proposed might well be a death-blow to the +England that at heart they loved. They shrank from the starvation and +misery a general strike would entail, and were willing to meet the +Government half-way. But behind them were subtle, insistent forces at +work, urging the memories of old wrongs, deprecating the weakness of +half-and-half measures, fomenting misunderstandings. +Tommy felt that, thanks to Mr. Carter, he understood the position fairly +accurately. With the fatal document in the hands of Mr. Brown, +public opinion would swing to the side of the Labour extremists and +revolutionists. Failing that, the battle was an even chance. The +Government with a loyal army and police force behind them might +win--but at a cost of great suffering. But Tommy nourished another and +a preposterous dream. With Mr. Brown unmasked and captured he +believed, rightly or wrongly, that the whole organization would crumble +ignominiously and instantaneously. The strange permeating influence +of the unseen chief held it together. Without him, Tommy believed an +instant panic would set in; and, the honest men left to themselves, an +eleventh-hour reconciliation would be possible. +“This is a one-man show,” said Tommy to himself. “The thing to do is to +get hold of the man.” +It was partly in furtherance of this ambitious design that he had +requested Mr. Carter not to open the sealed envelope. The draft +treaty was Tommy’s bait. Every now and then he was aghast at his own +presumption. How dared he think that he had discovered what so many +wiser and clever men had overlooked? Nevertheless, he stuck tenaciously +to his idea. +That evening he and Albert once more penetrated the grounds of Astley +Priors. Tommy’s ambition was somehow or other to gain admission to the +house itself. As they approached cautiously, Tommy gave a sudden gasp. +On the second floor window some one standing between the window and +the light in the room threw a silhouette on the blind. It was one Tommy +would have recognized anywhere! Tuppence was in that house! +He clutched Albert by the shoulder. +“Stay here! When I begin to sing, watch that window.” +He retreated hastily to a position on the main drive, and began in a +deep roar, coupled with an unsteady gait, the following ditty: +I am a Soldier +A jolly British Soldier; +You can see that I’m a Soldier by my feet.... +It had been a favourite on the gramophone in Tuppence’s hospital days. +He did not doubt but that she would recognize it and draw her own +conclusions. Tommy had not a note of music in his voice, but his lungs +were excellent. The noise he produced was terrific. +Presently an unimpeachable butler, accompanied by an equally +unimpeachable footman, issued from the front door. The butler +remonstrated with him. Tommy continued to sing, addressing the butler +affectionately as “dear old whiskers.” The footman took him by one arm, +the butler by the other. They ran him down the drive, and neatly out +of the gate. The butler threatened him with the police if he intruded +again. It was beautifully done--soberly and with perfect decorum. Anyone +would have sworn that the butler was a real butler, the footman a real +footman--only, as it happened, the butler was Whittington! +Tommy retired to the inn and waited for Albert’s return. At last that +worthy made his appearance. +“Well?” cried Tommy eagerly. +“It’s all right. While they was a-running of you out the window opened, +and something was chucked out.” He handed a scrap of paper to Tommy. “It +was wrapped round a letterweight.” +On the paper were scrawled three words: “To-morrow--same time.” +“Good egg!” cried Tommy. “We’re getting going.” +“I wrote a message on a piece of paper, wrapped it round a stone, and +chucked it through the window,” continued Albert breathlessly. +Tommy groaned. +“Your zeal will be the undoing of us, Albert. What did you say?” +“Said we was a-staying at the inn. If she could get away, to come there +and croak like a frog.” +“She’ll know that’s you,” said Tommy with a sigh of relief. “Your +imagination runs away with you, you know, Albert. Why, you wouldn’t +recognize a frog croaking if you heard it.” +Albert looked rather crest-fallen. +“Cheer up,” said Tommy. “No harm done. That butler’s an old friend of +mine--I bet he knew who I was, though he didn’t let on. It’s not their +game to show suspicion. That’s why we’ve found it fairly plain sailing. +They don’t want to discourage me altogether. On the other hand, they +don’t want to make it too easy. I’m a pawn in their game, Albert, that’s +what I am. You see, if the spider lets the fly walk out too easily, +the fly might suspect it was a put-up job. Hence the usefulness of that +promising youth, Mr. T. Beresford, who’s blundered in just at the right +moment for them. But later, Mr. T. Beresford had better look out!” +Tommy retired for the night in a state of some elation. He had +elaborated a careful plan for the following evening. He felt sure that +the inhabitants of Astley Priors would not interfere with him up to +a certain point. It was after that that Tommy proposed to give them a +surprise. +About twelve o’clock, however, his calm was rudely shaken. He was told +that some one was demanding him in the bar. The applicant proved to be a +rude-looking carter well coated with mud. +“Well, my good fellow, what is it?” asked Tommy. +“Might this be for you, sir?” The carter held out a very dirty folded +note, on the outside of which was written: “Take this to the gentleman +at the inn near Astley Priors. He will give you ten shillings.” +The handwriting was Tuppence’s. Tommy appreciated her quick-wittedness +in realizing that he might be staying at the inn under an assumed name. +He snatched at it. +“That’s all right.” +The man withheld it. +“What about my ten shillings?” +Tommy hastily produced a ten-shilling note, and the man relinquished his +find. Tommy unfastened it. +“DEAR TOMMY, +“I knew it was you last night. Don’t go this evening. They’ll be lying +in wait for you. They’re taking us away this morning. I heard something +about Wales--Holyhead, I think. I’ll drop this on the road if I get a +chance. Annette told me how you’d escaped. Buck up. +“Yours, +“TWOPENCE.” +Tommy raised a shout for Albert before he had even finished perusing +this characteristic epistle. +“Pack my bag! We’re off!” +“Yes, sir.” The boots of Albert could be heard racing upstairs. +Holyhead? Did that mean that, after all---- Tommy was puzzled. He read +on slowly. +The boots of Albert continued to be active on the floor above. +Suddenly a second shout came from below. +“Albert! I’m a damned fool! Unpack that bag!” +“Yes, sir.” +Tommy smoothed out the note thoughtfully. +“Yes, a damned fool,” he said softly. “But so’s some one else! And at +last I know who it is!” +CHAPTER XXIV. JULIUS TAKES A HAND +IN his suite at Claridge’s, Kramenin reclined on a couch and dictated to +his secretary in sibilant Russian. +Presently the telephone at the secretary’s elbow purred, and he took up +the receiver, spoke for a minute or two, then turned to his employer. +“Some one below is asking for you.” +“Who is it?” +“He gives the name of Mr. Julius P. Hersheimmer.” +“Hersheimmer,” repeated Kramenin thoughtfully. “I have heard that name +before.” +“His father was one of the steel kings of America,” explained the +secretary, whose business it was to know everything. “This young man +must be a millionaire several times over.” +The other’s eyes narrowed appreciatively. +“You had better go down and see him, Ivan. Find out what he wants.” +The secretary obeyed, closing the door noiselessly behind him. In a few +minutes he returned. +“He declines to state his business--says it is entirely private and +personal, and that he must see you.” +“A millionaire several times over,” murmured Kramenin. “Bring him up, my +dear Ivan.” +The secretary left the room once more, and returned escorting Julius. +“Monsieur Kramenin?” said the latter abruptly. +The Russian, studying him attentively with his pale venomous eyes, +bowed. +“Pleased to meet you,” said the American. “I’ve got some very important +business I’d like to talk over with you, if I can see you alone.” He +looked pointedly at the other. +“My secretary, Monsieur Grieber, from whom I have no secrets.” +“That may be so--but I have,” said Julius dryly. “So I’d be obliged if +you’d tell him to scoot.” +“Ivan,” said the Russian softly, “perhaps you would not mind retiring +into the next room----” +“The next room won’t do,” interrupted Julius. “I know these ducal +suites--and I want this one plumb empty except for you and me. Send him +round to a store to buy a penn’orth of peanuts.” +Though not particularly enjoying the American’s free and easy manner +of speech, Kramenin was devoured by curiosity. “Will your business take +long to state?” +“Might be an all night job if you caught on.” +“Very good, Ivan. I shall not require you again this evening. Go to the +theatre--take a night off.” +“Thank you, your excellency.” +The secretary bowed and departed. +Julius stood at the door watching his retreat. Finally, with a satisfied +sigh, he closed it, and came back to his position in the centre of the +room. +“Now, Mr. Hersheimmer, perhaps you will be so kind as to come to the +point?” +“I guess that won’t take a minute,” drawled Julius. Then, with an abrupt +change of manner: “Hands up--or I shoot!” +For a moment Kramenin stared blindly into the big automatic, then, with +almost comical haste, he flung up his hands above his head. In that +instant Julius had taken his measure. The man he had to deal with was an +abject physical coward--the rest would be easy. +“This is an outrage,” cried the Russian in a high hysterical voice. “An +outrage! Do you mean to kill me?” +“Not if you keep your voice down. Don’t go edging sideways towards that +bell. That’s better.” +“What do you want? Do nothing rashly. Remember my life is of the utmost +value to my country. I may have been maligned----” +“I reckon,” said Julius, “that the man who let daylight into you would +be doing humanity a good turn. But you needn’t worry any. I’m not +proposing to kill you this trip--that is, if you’re reasonable.” +The Russian quailed before the stern menace in the other’s eyes. He +passed his tongue over his dry lips. +“What do you want? Money?” +“No. I want Jane Finn.” +“Jane Finn? I--never heard of her!” +“You’re a darned liar! You know perfectly who I mean.” +“I tell you I’ve never heard of the girl.” +“And I tell you,” retorted Julius, “that Little Willie here is just +hopping mad to go off!” +The Russian wilted visibly. +“You wouldn’t dare----” +“Oh, yes, I would, son!” +Kramenin must have recognized something in the voice that carried +conviction, for he said sullenly: +“Well? Granted I do know who you mean--what of it?” +“You will tell me now--right here--where she is to be found.” +Kramenin shook his head. +“I daren’t.” +“Why not?” +“I daren’t. You ask an impossibility.” +“Afraid, eh? Of whom? Mr. Brown? Ah, that tickles you up! There is such +a person, then? I doubted it. And the mere mention of him scares you +stiff!” +“I have seen him,” said the Russian slowly. “Spoken to him face to face. +I did not know it until afterwards. He was one of a crowd. I should not +know him again. Who is he really? I do not know. But I know this--he is +a man to fear.” +“He’ll never know,” said Julius. +“He knows everything--and his vengeance is swift. Even +I--Kramenin!--would not be exempt!” +“Then you won’t do as I ask you?” +“You ask an impossibility.” +“Sure that’s a pity for you,” said Julius cheerfully. “But the world in +general will benefit.” He raised the revolver. +“Stop,” shrieked the Russian. “You cannot mean to shoot me?” +“Of course I do. I’ve always heard you Revolutionists held life cheap, +but it seems there’s a difference when it’s your own life in question. +I gave you just one chance of saving your dirty skin, and that you +wouldn’t take!” +“They would kill me!” +“Well,” said Julius pleasantly, “it’s up to you. But I’ll just say this. +Little Willie here is a dead cert, and if I was you I’d take a sporting +chance with Mr. Brown!” +“You will hang if you shoot me,” muttered the Russian irresolutely. +“No, stranger, that’s where you’re wrong. You forget the dollars. A +big crowd of solicitors will get busy, and they’ll get some high-brow +doctors on the job, and the end of it all will be that they’ll say my +brain was unhinged. I shall spend a few months in a quiet sanatorium, my +mental health will improve, the doctors will declare me sane again, and +all will end happily for little Julius. I guess I can bear a few months’ +retirement in order to rid the world of you, but don’t you kid yourself +I’ll hang for it!” +The Russian believed him. Corrupt himself, he believed implicitly in the +power of money. He had read of American murder trials running much on +the lines indicated by Julius. He had bought and sold justice himself. +This virile young American, with the significant drawling voice, had the +whip hand of him. +“I’m going to count five,” continued Julius, “and I guess, if you let me +get past four, you needn’t worry any about Mr. Brown. Maybe he’ll send +some flowers to the funeral, but _you_ won’t smell them! Are you ready? +I’ll begin. One--two--three--four----” +The Russian interrupted with a shriek: +“Do not shoot. I will do all you wish.” +Julius lowered the revolver. +“I thought you’d hear sense. Where is the girl?” +“At Gatehouse, in Kent. Astley Priors, the place is called.” +“Is she a prisoner there?” +“She’s not allowed to leave the house--though it’s safe enough really. +The little fool has lost her memory, curse her!” +“That’s been annoying for you and your friends, I reckon. What about the +other girl, the one you decoyed away over a week ago?” +“She’s there too,” said the Russian sullenly. +“That’s good,” said Julius. “Isn’t it all panning out beautifully? And a +lovely night for the run!” +“What run?” demanded Kramenin, with a stare. +“Down to Gatehouse, sure. I hope you’re fond of motoring?” +“What do you mean? I refuse to go.” +“Now don’t get mad. You must see I’m not such a kid as to leave you +here. You’d ring up your friends on that telephone first thing! Ah!” He +observed the fall on the other’s face. “You see, you’d got it all fixed. +No, sir, you’re coming along with me. This your bedroom next door here? +Walk right in. Little Willie and I will come behind. Put on a thick +coat, that’s right. Fur lined? And you a Socialist! Now we’re ready. We +walk downstairs and out through the hall to where my car’s waiting. And +don’t you forget I’ve got you covered every inch of the way. I can shoot +just as well through my coat pocket. One word, or a glance even, at one +of those liveried menials, and there’ll sure be a strange face in the +Sulphur and Brimstone Works!” +Together they descended the stairs, and passed out to the waiting car. +The Russian was shaking with rage. The hotel servants surrounded them. +A cry hovered on his lips, but at the last minute his nerve failed him. +The American was a man of his word. +When they reached the car, Julius breathed a sigh of relief. The +danger-zone was passed. Fear had successfully hypnotized the man by his +side. +“Get in,” he ordered. Then as he caught the other’s sidelong glance, +“No, the chauffeur won’t help you any. Naval man. Was on a submarine in +Russia when the Revolution broke out. A brother of his was murdered by +your people. George!” +“Yes, sir?” The chauffeur turned his head. +“This gentleman is a Russian Bolshevik. We don’t want to shoot him, but +it may be necessary. You understand?” +“Perfectly, sir.” +“I want to go to Gatehouse in Kent. Know the road at all?” +“Yes, sir, it will be about an hour and a half’s run.” +“Make it an hour. I’m in a hurry.” +“I’ll do my best, sir.” The car shot forward through the traffic. +Julius ensconced himself comfortably by the side of his victim. He kept +his hand in the pocket of his coat, but his manner was urbane to the +last degree. +“There was a man I shot once in Arizona----” he began cheerfully. +At the end of the hour’s run the unfortunate Kramenin was more dead than +alive. In succession to the anecdote of the Arizona man, there had been +a tough from ‘Frisco, and an episode in the Rockies. Julius’s narrative +style, if not strictly accurate, was picturesque! +Slowing down, the chauffeur called over his shoulder that they were just +coming into Gatehouse. Julius bade the Russian direct them. His plan was +to drive straight up to the house. There Kramenin was to ask for the two +girls. Julius explained to him that Little Willie would not be tolerant +of failure. Kramenin, by this time, was as putty in the other’s hands. +The terrific pace they had come had still further unmanned him. He had +given himself up for dead at every corner. +The car swept up the drive, and stopped before the porch. The chauffeur +looked round for orders. +“Turn the car first, George. Then ring the bell, and get back to your +place. Keep the engine going, and be ready to scoot like hell when I +give the word.” +“Very good, sir.” +The front door was opened by the butler. Kramenin felt the muzzle of the +revolver pressed against his ribs. +“Now,” hissed Julius. “And be careful.” +The Russian beckoned. His lips were white, and his voice was not very +steady: +“It is I--Kramenin! Bring down the girl at once! There is no time to +lose!” +Whittington had come down the steps. He uttered an exclamation of +astonishment at seeing the other. +“You! What’s up? Surely you know the plan----” +Kramenin interrupted him, using the words that have created many +unnecessary panics: +“We have been betrayed! Plans must be abandoned. We must save our own +skins. The girl! And at once! It’s our only chance.” +Whittington hesitated, but for hardly a moment. +“You have orders--from _him?_” +“Naturally! Should I be here otherwise? Hurry! There is no time to be +lost. The other little fool had better come too.” +Whittington turned and ran back into the house. The agonizing minutes +went by. Then--two figures hastily huddled in cloaks appeared on the +steps and were hustled into the car. The smaller of the two was inclined +to resist and Whittington shoved her in unceremoniously. Julius leaned +forward, and in doing so the light from the open door lit up his face. +Another man on the steps behind Whittington gave a startled exclamation. +Concealment was at an end. +“Get a move on, George,” shouted Julius. +The chauffeur slipped in his clutch, and with a bound the car started. +The man on the steps uttered an oath. His hand went to his pocket. There +was a flash and a report. The bullet just missed the taller girl by an +inch. +“Get down, Jane,” cried Julius. “Flat on the bottom of the car.” He +thrust her sharply forward, then standing up, he took careful aim and +fired. +“Have you hit him?” cried Tuppence eagerly. +“Sure,” replied Julius. “He isn’t killed, though. Skunks like that take +a lot of killing. Are you all right, Tuppence?” +“Of course I am. Where’s Tommy? And who’s this?” She indicated the +shivering Kramenin. +“Tommy’s making tracks for the Argentine. I guess he thought you’d +turned up your toes. Steady through the gate, George! That’s right. +It’ll take ‘em at least five minutes to get busy after us. They’ll use +the telephone, I guess, so look out for snares ahead--and don’t take the +direct route. Who’s this, did you say, Tuppence? Let me present Monsieur +Kramenin. I persuaded him to come on the trip for his health.” +The Russian remained mute, still livid with terror. +“But what made them let us go?” demanded Tuppence suspiciously. +“I reckon Monsieur Kramenin here asked them so prettily they just +couldn’t refuse!” +This was too much for the Russian. He burst out vehemently: +“Curse you--curse you! They know now that I betrayed them. My life won’t +be safe for an hour in this country.” +“That’s so,” assented Julius. “I’d advise you to make tracks for Russia +right away.” +“Let me go, then,” cried the other. “I have done what you asked. Why do +you still keep me with you?” +“Not for the pleasure of your company. I guess you can get right off now +if you want to. I thought you’d rather I tooled you back to London.” +“You may never reach London,” snarled the other. “Let me go here and +now.” +“Sure thing. Pull up, George. The gentleman’s not making the return +trip. If I ever come to Russia, Monsieur Kramenin, I shall expect a +rousing welcome, and----” +But before Julius had finished his speech, and before the car had +finally halted, the Russian had swung himself out and disappeared into +the night. +“Just a mite impatient to leave us,” commented Julius, as the car +gathered way again. “And no idea of saying good-bye politely to the +ladies. Say, Jane, you can get up on the seat now.” +For the first time the girl spoke. +“How did you ‘persuade’ him?” she asked. +Julius tapped his revolver. +“Little Willie here takes the credit!” +“Splendid!” cried the girl. The colour surged into her face, her eyes +looked admiringly at Julius. +“Annette and I didn’t know what was going to happen to us,” said +Tuppence. “Old Whittington hurried us off. _We_ thought it was lambs to +the slaughter.” +“Annette,” said Julius. “Is that what you call her?” +His mind seemed to be trying to adjust itself to a new idea. +“It’s her name,” said Tuppence, opening her eyes very wide. +“Shucks!” retorted Julius. “She may think it’s her name, because her +memory’s gone, poor kid. But it’s the one real and original Jane Finn +we’ve got here.” +“What?” cried Tuppence. +But she was interrupted. With an angry spurt, a bullet embedded itself +in the upholstery of the car just behind her head. +“Down with you,” cried Julius. “It’s an ambush. These guys have got busy +pretty quickly. Push her a bit, George.” +The car fairly leapt forward. Three more shots rang out, but went +happily wide. Julius, upright, leant over the back of the car. +“Nothing to shoot at,” he announced gloomily. “But I guess there’ll be +another little picnic soon. Ah!” +He raised his hand to his cheek. +“You are hurt?” said Annette quickly. +“Only a scratch.” +The girl sprang to her feet. +“Let me out! Let me out, I say! Stop the car. It is me they’re after. +I’m the one they want. You shall not lose your lives because of me. Let +me go.” She was fumbling with the fastenings of the door. +Julius took her by both arms, and looked at her. She had spoken with no +trace of foreign accent. +“Sit down, kid,” he said gently. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with +your memory. Been fooling them all the time, eh?” +The girl looked at him, nodded, and then suddenly burst into tears. +Julius patted her on the shoulder. +“There, there--just you sit tight. We’re not going to let you quit.” +Through her sobs the girl said indistinctly: +“You’re from home. I can tell by your voice. It makes me home-sick.” +“Sure I’m from home. I’m your cousin--Julius Hersheimmer. I came over to +Europe on purpose to find you--and a pretty dance you’ve led me.” +The car slackened speed. George spoke over his shoulder: +“Cross-roads here, sir. I’m not sure of the way.” +The car slowed down till it hardly moved. As it did so a figure climbed +suddenly over the back, and plunged head first into the midst of them. +“Sorry,” said Tommy, extricating himself. +A mass of confused exclamations greeted him. He replied to them +severally: +“Was in the bushes by the drive. Hung on behind. Couldn’t let you know +before at the pace you were going. It was all I could do to hang on. Now +then, you girls, get out!” +“Get out?” +“Yes. There’s a station just up that road. Train due in three minutes. +You’ll catch it if you hurry.” +“What the devil are you driving at?” demanded Julius. “Do you think you +can fool them by leaving the car?” +“You and I aren’t going to leave the car. Only the girls.” +“You’re crazed, Beresford. Stark staring mad! You can’t let those girls +go off alone. It’ll be the end of it if you do.” +Tommy turned to Tuppence. +“Get out at once, Tuppence. Take her with you, and do just as I say. +No one will do you any harm. You’re safe. Take the train to London. Go +straight to Sir James Peel Edgerton. Mr. Carter lives out of town, but +you’ll be safe with him.” +“Darn you!” cried Julius. “You’re mad. Jane, you stay where you are.” +With a sudden swift movement, Tommy snatched the revolver from Julius’s +hand, and levelled it at him. +“Now will you believe I’m in earnest? Get out, both of you, and do as I +say--or I’ll shoot!” +Tuppence sprang out, dragging the unwilling Jane after her. +“Come on, it’s all right. If Tommy’s sure--he’s sure. Be quick. We’ll +miss the train.” +They started running. +Julius’s pent-up rage burst forth. +“What the hell----” +Tommy interrupted him. +“Dry up! I want a few words with you, Mr. Julius Hersheimmer.” +CHAPTER XXV. JANE’S STORY +HER arm through Jane’s, dragging her along, Tuppence reached the +station. Her quick ears caught the sound of the approaching train. +“Hurry up,” she panted, “or we’ll miss it.” +They arrived on the platform just as the train came to a standstill. +Tuppence opened the door of an empty first-class compartment, and the +two girls sank down breathless on the padded seats. +A man looked in, then passed on to the next carriage. Jane started +nervously. Her eyes dilated with terror. She looked questioningly at +Tuppence. +“Is he one of them, do you think?” she breathed. +Tuppence shook her head. +“No, no. It’s all right.” She took Jane’s hand in hers. “Tommy wouldn’t +have told us to do this unless he was sure we’d be all right.” +“But he doesn’t know them as I do!” The girl shivered. “You can’t +understand. Five years! Five long years! Sometimes I thought I should go +mad.” +“Never mind. It’s all over.” +“Is it?” +The train was moving now, speeding through the night at a gradually +increasing rate. Suddenly Jane Finn started up. +“What was that? I thought I saw a face--looking in through the window.” +“No, there’s nothing. See.” Tuppence went to the window, and lifting the +strap let the pane down. +“You’re sure?” +“Quite sure.” +The other seemed to feel some excuse was necessary: +“I guess I’m acting like a frightened rabbit, but I can’t help it. If +they caught me now they’d----” Her eyes opened wide and staring. +“_Don’t!_” implored Tuppence. “Lie back, and _don’t think_. You can be +quite sure that Tommy wouldn’t have said it was safe if it wasn’t.” +“My cousin didn’t think so. He didn’t want us to do this.” +“No,” said Tuppence, rather embarrassed. +“What are you thinking of?” said Jane sharply. +“Why?” +“Your voice was so--queer!” +“I _was_ thinking of something,” confessed Tuppence. “But I don’t want +to tell you--not now. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. It’s just +an idea that came into my head a long time ago. Tommy’s got it too--I’m +almost sure he has. But don’t _you_ worry--there’ll be time enough for +that later. And it mayn’t be so at all! Do what I tell you--lie back and +don’t think of anything.” +“I’ll try.” The long lashes drooped over the hazel eyes. +Tuppence, for her part, sat bolt upright--much in the attitude of a +watchful terrier on guard. In spite of herself she was nervous. Her eyes +flashed continually from one window to the other. She noted the exact +position of the communication cord. What it was that she feared, she +would have been hard put to it to say. But in her own mind she was +far from feeling the confidence displayed in her words. Not that she +disbelieved in Tommy, but occasionally she was shaken with doubts as to +whether anyone so simple and honest as he was could ever be a match for +the fiendish subtlety of the arch-criminal. +If they once reached Sir James Peel Edgerton in safety, all would be +well. But would they reach him? Would not the silent forces of Mr. Brown +already be assembling against them? Even that last picture of Tommy, +revolver in hand, failed to comfort her. By now he might be overpowered, +borne down by sheer force of numbers.... Tuppence mapped out her plan of +campaign. +As the train at length drew slowly into Charing Cross, Jane Finn sat up +with a start. +“Have we arrived? I never thought we should!” +“Oh, I thought we’d get to London all right. If there’s going to be any +fun, now is when it will begin. Quick, get out. We’ll nip into a taxi.” +In another minute they were passing the barrier, had paid the necessary +fares, and were stepping into a taxi. +“King’s Cross,” directed Tuppence. Then she gave a jump. A man looked in +at the window, just as they started. She was almost certain it was the +same man who had got into the carriage next to them. She had a horrible +feeling of being slowly hemmed in on every side. +“You see,” she explained to Jane, “if they think we’re going to Sir +James, this will put them off the scent. Now they’ll imagine we’re going +to Mr. Carter. His country place is north of London somewhere.” +Crossing Holborn there was a block, and the taxi was held up. This was +what Tuppence had been waiting for. +“Quick,” she whispered. “Open the right-hand door!” +The two girls stepped out into the traffic. Two minutes later they were +seated in another taxi and were retracing their steps, this time direct +to Carlton House Terrace. +“There,” said Tuppence, with great satisfaction, “this ought to do them. +I can’t help thinking that I’m really rather clever! How that other taxi +man will swear! But I took his number, and I’ll send him a postal order +to-morrow, so that he won’t lose by it if he happens to be genuine. +What’s this thing swerving----Oh!” +There was a grinding noise and a bump. Another taxi had collided with +them. +In a flash Tuppence was out on the pavement. A policeman was +approaching. Before he arrived Tuppence had handed the driver five +shillings, and she and Jane had merged themselves in the crowd. +“It’s only a step or two now,” said Tuppence breathlessly. The accident +had taken place in Trafalgar Square. +“Do you think the collision was an accident, or done deliberately?” +“I don’t know. It might have been either.” +Hand-in-hand, the two girls hurried along. +“It may be my fancy,” said Tuppence suddenly, “but I feel as though +there was some one behind us.” +“Hurry!” murmured the other. “Oh, hurry!” +They were now at the corner of Carlton House Terrace, and their spirits +lightened. Suddenly a large and apparently intoxicated man barred their +way. +“Good evening, ladies,” he hiccupped. “Whither away so fast?” +“Let us pass, please,” said Tuppence imperiously. +“Just a word with your pretty friend here.” He stretched out an unsteady +hand, and clutched Jane by the shoulder. Tuppence heard other footsteps +behind. She did not pause to ascertain whether they were friends or +foes. Lowering her head, she repeated a manœuvre of childish days, +and butted their aggressor full in the capacious middle. The success of +these unsportsmanlike tactics was immediate. The man sat down abruptly +on the pavement. Tuppence and Jane took to their heels. The house they +sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their +breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James’s door. +Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker. +The man who had stopped them reached the foot of the steps. For a moment +he hesitated, and as he did so the door opened. They fell into the hall +together. Sir James came forward from the library door. +“Hullo! What’s this?” +He stepped forward, and put his arm round Jane as she swayed +uncertainly. He half carried her into the library, and laid her on the +leather couch. From a tantalus on the table he poured out a few drops of +brandy, and forced her to drink them. With a sigh she sat up, her eyes +still wild and frightened. +“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid, my child. You’re quite safe.” +Her breath came more normally, and the colour was returning to her +cheeks. Sir James looked at Tuppence quizzically. +“So you’re not dead, Miss Tuppence, any more than that Tommy boy of +yours was!” +“The Young Adventurers take a lot of killing,” boasted Tuppence. +“So it seems,” said Sir James dryly. “Am I right in thinking that the +joint venture has ended in success, and that this”--he turned to the +girl on the couch--“is Miss Jane Finn?” +Jane sat up. +“Yes,” she said quietly, “I am Jane Finn. I have a lot to tell you.” +“When you are stronger----” +“No--now!” Her voice rose a little. “I shall feel safer when I have told +everything.” +“As you please,” said the lawyer. +He sat down in one of the big arm-chairs facing the couch. In a low +voice Jane began her story. +“I came over on the _Lusitania_ to take up a post in Paris. I was +fearfully keen about the war, and just dying to help somehow or other. I +had been studying French, and my teacher said they were wanting help in +a hospital in Paris, so I wrote and offered my services, and they were +accepted. I hadn’t got any folk of my own, so it made it easy to arrange +things. +“When the _Lusitania_ was torpedoed, a man came up to me. I’d noticed +him more than once--and I’d figured it out in my own mind that he +was afraid of somebody or something. He asked me if I was a patriotic +American, and told me he was carrying papers which were just life or +death to the Allies. He asked me to take charge of them. I was to watch +for an advertisement in the _Times_. If it didn’t appear, I was to take +them to the American Ambassador. +“Most of what followed seems like a nightmare still. I see it in my +dreams sometimes.... I’ll hurry over that part. Mr. Danvers had told me +to watch out. He might have been shadowed from New York, but he didn’t +think so. At first I had no suspicions, but on the boat to Holyhead I +began to get uneasy. There was one woman who had been very keen to look +after me, and chum up with me generally--a Mrs. Vandemeyer. At first I’d +been only grateful to her for being so kind to me; but all the time I +felt there was something about her I didn’t like, and on the Irish +boat I saw her talking to some queer-looking men, and from the way they +looked I saw that they were talking about me. I remembered that she’d +been quite near me on the _Lusitania_ when Mr. Danvers gave me the +packet, and before that she’d tried to talk to him once or twice. I +began to get scared, but I didn’t quite see what to do. +“I had a wild idea of stopping at Holyhead, and not going on to London +that day, but I soon saw that that would be plumb foolishness. The only +thing was to act as though I’d noticed nothing, and hope for the best. +I couldn’t see how they could get me if I was on my guard. One thing +I’d done already as a precaution--ripped open the oilskin packet and +substituted blank paper, and then sewn it up again. So, if anyone did +manage to rob me of it, it wouldn’t matter. +“What to do with the real thing worried me no end. Finally I opened it +out flat--there were only two sheets--and laid it between two of the +advertisement pages of a magazine. I stuck the two pages together +round the edge with some gum off an envelope. I carried the magazine +carelessly stuffed into the pocket of my ulster. +“At Holyhead I tried to get into a carriage with people that looked all +right, but in a queer way there seemed always to be a crowd round me +shoving and pushing me just the way I didn’t want to go. There was +something uncanny and frightening about it. In the end I found myself in +a carriage with Mrs. Vandemeyer after all. I went out into the corridor, +but all the other carriages were full, so I had to go back and sit down. +I consoled myself with the thought that there were other people in the +carriage--there was quite a nice-looking man and his wife sitting just +opposite. So I felt almost happy about it until just outside London. I +had leaned back and closed my eyes. I guess they thought I was asleep, +but my eyes weren’t quite shut, and suddenly I saw the nice-looking man +get something out of his bag and hand it to Mrs. Vandemeyer, and as he +did so he _winked_.... +“I can’t tell you how that wink sort of froze me through and through. My +only thought was to get out in the corridor as quick as ever I could. I +got up, trying to look natural and easy. Perhaps they saw something--I +don’t know--but suddenly Mrs. Vandemeyer said ‘Now,’ and flung something +over my nose and mouth as I tried to scream. At the same moment I felt a +terrific blow on the back of my head....” +She shuddered. Sir James murmured something sympathetically. In a minute +she resumed: +“I don’t know how long it was before I came back to consciousness. I +felt very ill and sick. I was lying on a dirty bed. There was a +screen round it, but I could hear two people talking in the room. Mrs. +Vandemeyer was one of them. I tried to listen, but at first I couldn’t +take much in. When at last I did begin to grasp what was going on--I was +just terrified! I wonder I didn’t scream right out there and then. +“They hadn’t found the papers. They’d got the oilskin packet with the +blanks, and they were just mad! They didn’t know whether _I_‘d changed +the papers, or whether Danvers had been carrying a dummy message, +while the real one was sent another way. They spoke of”--she closed her +eyes--“torturing me to find out! +“I’d never known what fear--really sickening fear--was before! Once +they came to look at me. I shut my eyes and pretended to be still +unconscious, but I was afraid they’d hear the beating of my heart. +However, they went away again. I began thinking madly. What could I do? +I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand up against torture very long. +“Suddenly something put the thought of loss of memory into my head. The +subject had always interested me, and I’d read an awful lot about it. +I had the whole thing at my finger-tips. If only I could succeed in +carrying the bluff through, it might save me. I said a prayer, and drew +a long breath. Then I opened my eyes and started babbling in _French!_ +“Mrs. Vandemeyer came round the screen at once. Her face was so wicked I +nearly died, but I smiled up at her doubtfully, and asked her in French +where I was. +“It puzzled her, I could see. She called the man she had been talking +to. He stood by the screen with his face in shadow. He spoke to me in +French. His voice was very ordinary and quiet, but somehow, I don’t know +why, he scared me worse than the woman. I felt he’d seen right through +me, but I went on playing my part. I asked again where I was, and +then went on that there was something I _must_ remember--_must_ +remember--only for the moment it was all gone. I worked myself up to +be more and more distressed. He asked me my name. I said I didn’t +know--that I couldn’t remember anything at all. +“Suddenly he caught my wrist, and began twisting it. The pain was awful. +I screamed. He went on. I screamed and screamed, but I managed to shriek +out things in French. I don’t know how long I could have gone on, but +luckily I fainted. The last thing I heard was his voice saying: ‘That’s +not bluff! Anyway, a kid of her age wouldn’t know enough.’ I guess he +forgot American girls are older for their age than English ones, and +take more interest in scientific subjects. +“When I came to, Mrs. Vandemeyer was sweet as honey to me. She’d had her +orders, I guess. She spoke to me in French--told me I’d had a shock +and been very ill. I should be better soon. I pretended to be rather +dazed--murmured something about the ‘doctor’ having hurt my wrist. She +looked relieved when I said that. +“By and by she went out of the room altogether. I was suspicious still, +and lay quite quiet for some time. In the end, however, I got up and +walked round the room, examining it. I thought that even if anyone +_was_ watching me from somewhere, it would seem natural enough under +the circumstances. It was a squalid, dirty place. There were no windows, +which seemed queer. I guessed the door would be locked, but I didn’t +try it. There were some battered old pictures on the walls, representing +scenes from _Faust_.” +Jane’s two listeners gave a simultaneous “Ah!” The girl nodded. +“Yes--it was the place in Soho where Mr. Beresford was imprisoned. Of +course, at the time I didn’t even know if I was in London. One thing was +worrying me dreadfully, but my heart gave a great throb of relief when +I saw my ulster lying carelessly over the back of a chair. _And the +magazine was still rolled up in the pocket!_ +“If only I could be certain that I was not being overlooked! I looked +carefully round the walls. There didn’t seem to be a peep-hole of any +kind--nevertheless I felt kind of sure there must be. All of a sudden I +sat down on the edge of the table, and put my face in my hands, sobbing +out a ‘Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!’ I’ve got very sharp ears. I distinctly heard +the rustle of a dress, and slight creak. That was enough for me. I was +being watched! +“I lay down on the bed again, and by and by Mrs. Vandemeyer brought me +some supper. She was still sweet as they make them. I guess she’d been +told to win my confidence. Presently she produced the oilskin packet, +and asked me if I recognized it, watching me like a lynx all the time. +“I took it and turned it over in a puzzled sort of way. Then I shook my +head. I said that I felt I _ought_ to remember something about it, that +it was just as though it was all coming back, and then, before I could +get hold of it, it went again. Then she told me that I was her niece, +and that I was to call her ‘Aunt Rita.’ I did obediently, and she told +me not to worry--my memory would soon come back. +“That was an awful night. I’d made my plan whilst I was waiting for her. +The papers were safe so far, but I couldn’t take the risk of leaving +them there any longer. They might throw that magazine away any minute. +I lay awake waiting until I judged it must be about two o’clock in the +morning. Then I got up as softly as I could, and felt in the dark along +the left-hand wall. Very gently, I unhooked one of the pictures from its +nail--Marguerite with her casket of jewels. I crept over to my coat and +took out the magazine, and an odd envelope or two that I had shoved in. +Then I went to the washstand, and damped the brown paper at the back +of the picture all round. Presently I was able to pull it away. I had +already torn out the two stuck-together pages from the magazine, and now +I slipped them with their precious enclosure between the picture and its +brown paper backing. A little gum from the envelopes helped me to +stick the latter up again. No one would dream the picture had ever been +tampered with. I rehung it on the wall, put the magazine back in my +coat pocket, and crept back to bed. I was pleased with my hiding-place. +They’d never think of pulling to pieces one of their own pictures. I +hoped that they’d come to the conclusion that Danvers had been carrying +a dummy all along, and that, in the end, they’d let me go. +“As a matter of fact, I guess that’s what they did think at first, and, +in a way, it was dangerous for me. I learnt afterwards that they nearly +did away with me then and there--there was never much chance of their +‘letting me go’--but the first man, who was the boss, preferred to keep +me alive on the chance of my having hidden them, and being able to tell +where if I recovered my memory. They watched me constantly for weeks. +Sometimes they’d ask me questions by the hour--I guess there was nothing +they didn’t know about the third degree!--but somehow I managed to hold +my own. The strain of it was awful, though.... +“They took me back to Ireland, and over every step of the journey again, +in case I’d hidden it somewhere _en route_. Mrs. Vandemeyer and another +woman never left me for a moment. They spoke of me as a young relative +of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s whose mind was affected by the shock of the +_Lusitania_. There was no one I could appeal to for help without +giving myself away to _them_, and if I risked it and failed--and Mrs. +Vandemeyer looked so rich, and so beautifully dressed, that I felt +convinced they’d take her word against mine, and think it was part of my +mental trouble to think myself ‘persecuted’--I felt that the horrors in +store for me would be too awful once they knew I’d been only shamming.” +Sir James nodded comprehendingly. +“Mrs. Vandemeyer was a woman of great personality. With that and her +social position she would have had little difficulty in imposing her +point of view in preference to yours. Your sensational accusations +against her would not easily have found credence.” +“That’s what I thought. It ended in my being sent to a sanatorium at +Bournemouth. I couldn’t make up my mind at first whether it was a sham +affair or genuine. A hospital nurse had charge of me. I was a special +patient. She seemed so nice and normal that at last I determined to +confide in her. A merciful providence just saved me in time from falling +into the trap. My door happened to be ajar, and I heard her talking to +some one in the passage. _She was one of them!_ They still fancied it +might be a bluff on my part, and she was put in charge of me to make +sure! After that, my nerve went completely. I dared trust nobody. +“I think I almost hypnotized myself. After a while, I almost forgot +that I was really Jane Finn. I was so bent on playing the part of Janet +Vandemeyer that my nerves began to play me tricks. I became really +ill--for months I sank into a sort of stupor. I felt sure I should +die soon, and that nothing really mattered. A sane person shut up in a +lunatic asylum often ends by becoming insane, they say. I guess I was +like that. Playing my part had become second nature to me. I wasn’t even +unhappy in the end--just apathetic. Nothing seemed to matter. And the +years went on. +“And then suddenly things seemed to change. Mrs. Vandemeyer came down +from London. She and the doctor asked me questions, experimented with +various treatments. There was some talk of sending me to a specialist in +Paris. In the end, they did not dare risk it. I overheard something that +seemed to show that other people--friends--were looking for me. I +learnt later that the nurse who had looked after me went to Paris, +and consulted a specialist, representing herself to be me. He put her +through some searching tests, and exposed her loss of memory to be +fraudulent; but she had taken a note of his methods and reproduced +them on me. I dare say I couldn’t have deceived the specialist for a +minute--a man who has made a lifelong study of a thing is unique--but +I managed once again to hold my own with them. The fact that I’d not +thought of myself as Jane Finn for so long made it easier. +“One night I was whisked off to London at a moment’s notice. They took +me back to the house in Soho. Once I got away from the sanatorium I felt +different--as though something in me that had been buried for a long +time was waking up again. +“They sent me in to wait on Mr. Beresford. (Of course I didn’t know +his name then.) I was suspicious--I thought it was another trap. But he +looked so honest, I could hardly believe it. However, I was careful in +all I said, for I knew we could be overheard. There’s a small hole, high +up in the wall. +“But on the Sunday afternoon a message was brought to the house. They +were all very disturbed. Without their knowing, I listened. Word had +come that he was to be killed. I needn’t tell the next part, because +you know it. I thought I’d have time to rush up and get the papers from +their hiding-place, but I was caught. So I screamed out that he was +escaping, and I said I wanted to go back to Marguerite. I shouted the +name three times very loud. I knew the others would think I meant +Mrs. Vandemeyer, but I hoped it might make Mr. Beresford think of the +picture. He’d unhooked one the first day--that’s what made me hesitate +to trust him.” +She paused. +“Then the papers,” said Sir James slowly, “are still at the back of the +picture in that room.” +“Yes.” The girl had sunk back on the sofa exhausted with the strain of +the long story. +Sir James rose to his feet. He looked at his watch. +“Come,” he said, “we must go at once.” +“To-night?” queried Tuppence, surprised. +“To-morrow may be too late,” said Sir James gravely. “Besides, by +going to-night we have the chance of capturing that great man and +super-criminal--Mr. Brown!” +There was dead silence, and Sir James continued: +“You have been followed here--not a doubt of it. When we leave the house +we shall be followed again, but not molested, _for it is Mr. Brown’s +plan that we are to lead him_. But the Soho house is under police +supervision night and day. There are several men watching it. When we +enter that house, Mr. Brown will not draw back--he will risk all, on the +chance of obtaining the spark to fire his mine. And he fancies the risk +not great--since he will enter in the guise of a friend!” +Tuppence flushed, then opened her mouth impulsively. +“But there’s something you don’t know--that we haven’t told you.” Her +eyes dwelt on Jane in perplexity. +“What is that?” asked the other sharply. “No hesitations, Miss Tuppence. +We need to be sure of our going.” +But Tuppence, for once, seemed tongue-tied. +“It’s so difficult--you see, if I’m wrong--oh, it would be dreadful.” +She made a grimace at the unconscious Jane. “Never forgive me,” she +observed cryptically. +“You want me to help you out, eh?” +“Yes, please. _You_ know who Mr. Brown is, don’t you?” +“Yes,” said Sir James gravely. “At last I do.” +“At last?” queried Tuppence doubtfully. “Oh, but I thought----” She +paused. +“You thought correctly, Miss Tuppence. I have been morally certain of +his identity for some time--ever since the night of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s +mysterious death.” +“Ah!” breathed Tuppence. +“For there we are up against the logic of facts. There are only two +solutions. Either the chloral was administered by her own hand, which +theory I reject utterly, or else----” +“Yes?” +“Or else it was administered in the brandy you gave her. Only three +people touched that brandy--you, Miss Tuppence, I myself, and one +other--Mr. Julius Hersheimmer!” +Jane Finn stirred and sat up, regarding the speaker with wide astonished +eyes. +“At first, the thing seemed utterly impossible. Mr. Hersheimmer, as the +son of a prominent millionaire, was a well-known figure in America. It +seemed utterly impossible that he and Mr. Brown could be one and the +same. But you cannot escape from the logic of facts. Since the thing +was so--it must be accepted. Remember Mrs. Vandemeyer’s sudden and +inexplicable agitation. Another proof, if proof was needed. +“I took an early opportunity of giving you a hint. From some words of +Mr. Hersheimmer’s at Manchester, I gathered that you had understood and +acted on that hint. Then I set to work to prove the impossible possible. +Mr. Beresford rang me up and told me, what I had already suspected, +that the photograph of Miss Jane Finn had never really been out of Mr. +Hersheimmer’s possession----” +But the girl interrupted. Springing to her feet, she cried out angrily: +“What do you mean? What are you trying to suggest? That Mr. Brown is +_Julius?_ Julius--my own cousin!” +“No, Miss Finn,” said Sir James unexpectedly. “Not your cousin. The man +who calls himself Julius Hersheimmer is no relation to you whatsoever.” +CHAPTER XXVI. MR. BROWN +SIR James’s words came like a bomb-shell. Both girls looked equally +puzzled. The lawyer went across to his desk, and returned with a small +newspaper cutting, which he handed to Jane. Tuppence read it over +her shoulder. Mr. Carter would have recognized it. It referred to the +mysterious man found dead in New York. +“As I was saying to Miss Tuppence,” resumed the lawyer, “I set to work +to prove the impossible possible. The great stumbling-block was the +undeniable fact that Julius Hersheimmer was not an assumed name. When I +came across this paragraph my problem was solved. Julius Hersheimmer set +out to discover what had become of his cousin. He went out West, where +he obtained news of her and her photograph to aid him in his search. On +the eve of his departure from New York he was set upon and murdered. His +body was dressed in shabby clothes, and the face disfigured to prevent +identification. Mr. Brown took his place. He sailed immediately for +England. None of the real Hersheimmer’s friends or intimates saw him +before he sailed--though indeed it would hardly have mattered if they +had, the impersonation was so perfect. Since then he had been hand and +glove with those sworn to hunt him down. Every secret of theirs has been +known to him. Only once did he come near disaster. Mrs. Vandemeyer knew +his secret. It was no part of his plan that that huge bribe should ever +be offered to her. But for Miss Tuppence’s fortunate change of plan, she +would have been far away from the flat when we arrived there. Exposure +stared him in the face. He took a desperate step, trusting in his +assumed character to avert suspicion. He nearly succeeded--but not +quite.” +“I can’t believe it,” murmured Jane. “He seemed so splendid.” +“The real Julius Hersheimmer _was_ a splendid fellow! And Mr. Brown is +a consummate actor. But ask Miss Tuppence if she also has not had her +suspicions.” +Jane turned mutely to Tuppence. The latter nodded. +“I didn’t want to say it, Jane--I knew it would hurt you. And, after +all, I couldn’t be sure. I still don’t understand why, if he’s Mr. +Brown, he rescued us.” +“Was it Julius Hersheimmer who helped you to escape?” +Tuppence recounted to Sir James the exciting events of the evening, +ending up: “But I can’t see _why!_” +“Can’t you? I can. So can young Beresford, by his actions. As a last +hope Jane Finn was to be allowed to escape--and the escape must be +managed so that she harbours no suspicions of its being a put-up job. +They’re not averse to young Beresford’s being in the neighbourhood, and, +if necessary, communicating with you. They’ll take care to get him out +of the way at the right minute. Then Julius Hersheimmer dashes up and +rescues you in true melodramatic style. Bullets fly--but don’t hit +anybody. What would have happened next? You would have driven straight +to the house in Soho and secured the document which Miss Finn would +probably have entrusted to her cousin’s keeping. Or, if he conducted the +search, he would have pretended to find the hiding-place already rifled. +He would have had a dozen ways of dealing with the situation, but the +result would have been the same. And I rather fancy some accident would +have happened to both of you. You see, you know rather an inconvenient +amount. That’s a rough outline. I admit I was caught napping; but +somebody else wasn’t.” +“Tommy,” said Tuppence softly. +“Yes. Evidently when the right moment came to get rid of him--he was too +sharp for them. All the same, I’m not too easy in my mind about him.” +“Why?” +“Because Julius Hersheimmer is Mr. Brown,” said Sir James dryly. “And it +takes more than one man and a revolver to hold up Mr. Brown....” +Tuppence paled a little. +“What can we do?” +“Nothing until we’ve been to the house in Soho. If Beresford has still +got the upper hand, there’s nothing to fear. If otherwise, our enemy +will come to find us, and he will not find us unprepared!” From a drawer +in the desk, he took a service revolver, and placed it in his coat +pocket. +“Now we’re ready. I know better than even to suggest going without you, +Miss Tuppence----” +“I should think so indeed!” +“But I do suggest that Miss Finn should remain here. She will be +perfectly safe, and I am afraid she is absolutely worn out with all she +has been through.” +But to Tuppence’s surprise Jane shook her head. +“No. I guess I’m going too. Those papers were my trust. I must go +through with this business to the end. I’m heaps better now anyway.” +Sir James’s car was ordered round. During the short drive Tuppence’s +heart beat tumultuously. In spite of momentary qualms of uneasiness +respecting Tommy, she could not but feel exultation. They were going to +win! +The car drew up at the corner of the square and they got out. Sir James +went up to a plain-clothes man who was on duty with several others, and +spoke to him. Then he rejoined the girls. +“No one has gone into the house so far. It is being watched at the back +as well, so they are quite sure of that. Anyone who attempts to enter +after we have done so will be arrested immediately. Shall we go in?” +A policeman produced a key. They all knew Sir James well. They had also +had orders respecting Tuppence. Only the third member of the party was +unknown to them. The three entered the house, pulling the door to behind +them. Slowly they mounted the rickety stairs. At the top was the ragged +curtain hiding the recess where Tommy had hidden that day. Tuppence had +heard the story from Jane in her character of “Annette.” She looked at +the tattered velvet with interest. Even now she could almost swear it +moved--as though _some one_ was behind it. So strong was the illusion +that she almost fancied she could make out the outline of a form.... +Supposing Mr. Brown--Julius--was there waiting.... +Impossible of course! Yet she almost went back to put the curtain aside +and make sure.... +Now they were entering the prison room. No place for anyone to hide +here, thought Tuppence, with a sigh of relief, then chided herself +indignantly. She must not give way to this foolish fancying--this +curious insistent feeling that _Mr. Brown was in the house_.... Hark! +what was that? A stealthy footstep on the stairs? There _was_ some one +in the house! Absurd! She was becoming hysterical. +Jane had gone straight to the picture of Marguerite. She unhooked it +with a steady hand. The dust lay thick upon it, and festoons of cobwebs +lay between it and the wall. Sir James handed her a pocket-knife, and +she ripped away the brown paper from the back.... The advertisement +page of a magazine fell out. Jane picked it up. Holding apart the frayed +inner edges she extracted two thin sheets covered with writing! +No dummy this time! The real thing! +“We’ve got it,” said Tuppence. “At last....” +The moment was almost breathless in its emotion. Forgotten the faint +creakings, the imagined noises of a minute ago. None of them had eyes +for anything but what Jane held in her hand. +Sir James took it, and scrutinized it attentively. +“Yes,” he said quietly, “this is the ill-fated draft treaty!” +“We’ve succeeded,” said Tuppence. There was awe and an almost wondering +unbelief in her voice. +Sir James echoed her words as he folded the paper carefully and put it +away in his pocket-book, then he looked curiously round the dingy room. +“It was here that our young friend was confined for so long, was +it not?” he said. “A truly sinister room. You notice the absence of +windows, and the thickness of the close-fitting door. Whatever took +place here would never be heard by the outside world.” +Tuppence shivered. His words woke a vague alarm in her. What if there +_was_ some one concealed in the house? Some one who might bar that door +on them, and leave them to die like rats in a trap? Then she realized +the absurdity of her thought. The house was surrounded by police who, +if they failed to reappear, would not hesitate to break in and make a +thorough search. She smiled at her own foolishness--then looked up with +a start to find Sir James watching her. He gave her an emphatic little +nod. +“Quite right, Miss Tuppence. You scent danger. So do I. So does Miss +Finn.” +“Yes,” admitted Jane. “It’s absurd--but I can’t help it.” +Sir James nodded again. +“You feel--as we all feel-- _the presence of Mr. Bown_. Yes”--as +Tuppence made a movement--“not a doubt of it-- _Mr. Brown is here_....” +“In this house?” +“In this room.... You don’t understand? _I am Mr. Brown_....” +Stupefied, unbelieving, they stared at him. The very lines of his face +had changed. It was a different man who stood before them. He smiled a +slow cruel smile. +“Neither of you will leave this room alive! You said just now we had +succeeded. _I_ have succeeded! The draft treaty is mine.” His smile grew +wider as he looked at Tuppence. “Shall I tell you how it will be? Sooner +or later the police will break in, and they will find three victims of +Mr. Brown--three, not two, you understand, but fortunately the third +will not be dead, only wounded, and will be able to describe the attack +with a wealth of detail! The treaty? It is in the hands of Mr. Brown. So +no one will think of searching the pockets of Sir James Peel Edgerton!” +He turned to Jane. +“You outwitted me. I make my acknowledgments. But you will not do it +again.” +There was a faint sound behind him, but, intoxicated with success, he +did not turn his head. +He slipped his hand into his pocket. +“Checkmate to the Young Adventurers,” he said, and slowly raised the big +automatic. +But, even as he did so, he felt himself seized from behind in a grip of +iron. The revolver was wrenched from his hand, and the voice of Julius +Hersheimmer said drawlingly: +“I guess you’re caught redhanded with the goods upon you.” +The blood rushed to the K.C.’s face, but his self-control was +marvellous, as he looked from one to the other of his two captors. He +looked longest at Tommy. +“You,” he said beneath his breath. “_You!_ I might have known.” +Seeing that he was disposed to offer no resistance, their grip +slackened. Quick as a flash his left hand, the hand which bore the big +signet ring, was raised to his lips.... +“‘_Ave, Cæsar! te morituri salutant_,’” he said, still looking at +Tommy. +Then his face changed, and with a long convulsive shudder he fell +forward in a crumpled heap, whilst an odour of bitter almonds filled the +air. +CHAPTER XXVII. A SUPPER PARTY AT THE _SAVOY_ +THE supper party given by Mr. Julius Hersheimmer to a few friends on the +evening of the 30th will long be remembered in catering circles. It took +place in a private room, and Mr. Hersheimmer’s orders were brief and +forcible. He gave carte blanche--and when a millionaire gives carte +blanche he usually gets it! +Every delicacy out of season was duly provided. Waiters carried bottles +of ancient and royal vintage with loving care. The floral decorations +defied the seasons, and fruits of the earth as far apart as May and +November found themselves miraculously side by side. The list of guests +was small and select. The American Ambassador, Mr. Carter, who had taken +the liberty, he said, of bringing an old friend, Sir William Beresford, +with him, Archdeacon Cowley, Dr. Hall, those two youthful adventurers, +Miss Prudence Cowley and Mr. Thomas Beresford, and last, but not least, +as guest of honour, Miss Jane Finn. +Julius had spared no pains to make Jane’s appearance a success. A +mysterious knock had brought Tuppence to the door of the apartment she +was sharing with the American girl. It was Julius. In his hand he held a +cheque. +“Say, Tuppence,” he began, “will you do me a good turn? Take this, and +get Jane regularly togged up for this evening. You’re all coming to +supper with me at the _Savoy_. See? Spare no expense. You get me?” +“Sure thing,” mimicked Tuppence. “We shall enjoy ourselves. It will be a +pleasure dressing Jane. She’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” +“That’s so,” agreed Mr. Hersheimmer fervently. +His fervour brought a momentary twinkle to Tuppence’s eye. +“By the way, Julius,” she remarked demurely, “I--haven’t given you my +answer yet.” +“Answer?” said Julius. His face paled. +“You know--when you asked me to--marry you,” faltered Tuppence, her +eyes downcast in the true manner of the early Victorian heroine, “and +wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’ve thought it well over----” +“Yes?” said Julius. The perspiration stood on his forehead. +Tuppence relented suddenly. +“You great idiot!” she said. “What on earth induced you to do it? I +could see at the time you didn’t care a twopenny dip for me!” +“Not at all. I had--and still have--the highest sentiments of esteem and +respect--and admiration for you----” +“H’m!” said Tuppence. “Those are the kind of sentiments that very soon +go to the wall when the other sentiment comes along! Don’t they, old +thing?” +“I don’t know what you mean,” said Julius stiffly, but a large and +burning blush overspread his countenance. +“Shucks!” retorted Tuppence. She laughed, and closed the door, reopening +it to add with dignity: “Morally, I shall always consider I have been +jilted!” +“What was it?” asked Jane as Tuppence rejoined her. +“Julius.” +“What did he want?” +“Really, I think, he wanted to see you, but I wasn’t going to let him. +Not until to-night, when you’re going to burst upon every one like King +Solomon in his glory! Come on! _We’re going to shop!_” +To most people the 29th, the much-heralded “Labour Day,” had passed much +as any other day. Speeches were made in the Park and Trafalgar Square. +Straggling processions, singing the _Red Flag_, wandered through the +streets in a more or less aimless manner. Newspapers which had hinted at +a general strike, and the inauguration of a reign of terror, were forced +to hide their diminished heads. The bolder and more astute among +them sought to prove that peace had been effected by following their +counsels. In the Sunday papers a brief notice of the sudden death of Sir +James Peel Edgerton, the famous K.C., had appeared. Monday’s paper +dealt appreciatively with the dead man’s career. The exact manner of his +sudden death was never made public. +Tommy had been right in his forecast of the situation. It had been a +one-man show. Deprived of their chief, the organization fell to pieces. +Kramenin had made a precipitate return to Russia, leaving England early +on Sunday morning. The gang had fled from Astley Priors in a panic, +leaving behind, in their haste, various damaging documents which +compromised them hopelessly. With these proofs of conspiracy in their +hands, aided further by a small brown diary taken from the pocket of the +dead man which had contained a full and damning résumé of the whole +plot, the Government had called an eleventh-hour conference. The Labour +leaders were forced to recognize that they had been used as a cat’s +paw. Certain concessions were made by the Government, and were eagerly +accepted. It was to be Peace, not War! +But the Cabinet knew by how narrow a margin they had escaped utter +disaster. And burnt in on Mr. Carter’s brain was the strange scene which +had taken place in the house in Soho the night before. +He had entered the squalid room to find that great man, the friend of +a lifetime, dead--betrayed out of his own mouth. From the dead man’s +pocket-book he had retrieved the ill-omened draft treaty, and then +and there, in the presence of the other three, it had been reduced to +ashes.... England was saved! +And now, on the evening of the 30th, in a private room at the _Savoy_, +Mr. Julius P. Hersheimmer was receiving his guests. +Mr. Carter was the first to arrive. With him was a choleric-looking old +gentleman, at sight of whom Tommy flushed up to the roots of his hair. +He came forward. +“Ha!” said the old gentleman, surveying him apoplectically. “So you’re +my nephew, are you? Not much to look at--but you’ve done good work, it +seems. Your mother must have brought you up well after all. Shall we +let bygones be bygones, eh? You’re my heir, you know; and in future I +propose to make you an allowance--and you can look upon Chalmers Park as +your home.” +“Thank you, sir, it’s awfully decent of you.” +“Where’s this young lady I’ve been hearing such a lot about?” +Tommy introduced Tuppence. +“Ha!” said Sir William, eyeing her. “Girls aren’t what they used to be +in my young days.” +“Yes, they are,” said Tuppence. “Their clothes are different, perhaps, +but they themselves are just the same.” +“Well, perhaps you’re right. Minxes then--minxes now!” +“That’s it,” said Tuppence. “I’m a frightful minx myself.” +“I believe you,” said the old gentleman, chuckling, and pinched her ear +in high good-humour. Most young women were terrified of the “old bear,” +as they termed him. Tuppence’s pertness delighted the old misogynist. +Then came the timid archdeacon, a little bewildered by the company in +which he found himself, glad that his daughter was considered to have +distinguished herself, but unable to help glancing at her from time +to time with nervous apprehension. But Tuppence behaved admirably. She +forbore to cross her legs, set a guard upon her tongue, and steadfastly +refused to smoke. +Dr. Hall came next, and he was followed by the American Ambassador. +“We might as well sit down,” said Julius, when he had introduced all his +guests to each other. “Tuppence, will you----” +He indicated the place of honour with a wave of his hand. +But Tuppence shook her head. +“No--that’s Jane’s place! When one thinks of how she’s held out all +these years, she ought to be made the queen of the feast to-night.” +Julius flung her a grateful glance, and Jane came forward shyly to the +allotted seat. Beautiful as she had seemed before, it was as nothing to +the loveliness that now went fully adorned. Tuppence had performed her +part faithfully. The model gown supplied by a famous dressmaker had been +entitled “A tiger lily.” It was all golds and reds and browns, and out +of it rose the pure column of the girl’s white throat, and the bronze +masses of hair that crowned her lovely head. There was admiration in +every eye, as she took her seat. +Soon the supper party was in full swing, and with one accord Tommy was +called upon for a full and complete explanation. +“You’ve been too darned close about the whole business,” Julius accused +him. “You let on to me that you were off to the Argentine--though I +guess you had your reasons for that. The idea of both you and Tuppence +casting me for the part of Mr. Brown just tickles me to death!” +“The idea was not original to them,” said Mr. Carter gravely. “It was +suggested, and the poison very carefully instilled, by a past-master in +the art. The paragraph in the New York paper suggested the plan to him, +and by means of it he wove a web that nearly enmeshed you fatally.” +“I never liked him,” said Julius. “I felt from the first that there was +something wrong about him, and I always suspected that it was he who +silenced Mrs. Vandemeyer so appositely. But it wasn’t till I heard that +the order for Tommy’s execution came right on the heels of our interview +with him that Sunday that I began to tumble to the fact that he was the +big bug himself.” +“I never suspected it at all,” lamented Tuppence. “I’ve always thought +I was so much cleverer than Tommy--but he’s undoubtedly scored over me +handsomely.” +Julius agreed. +“Tommy’s been the goods this trip! And, instead of sitting there as dumb +as a fish, let him banish his blushes, and tell us all about it.” +“Hear! hear!” +“There’s nothing to tell,” said Tommy, acutely uncomfortable. “I was an +awful mug--right up to the time I found that photograph of Annette, and +realized that she was Jane Finn. Then I remembered how persistently she +had shouted out that word ‘Marguerite’--and I thought of the pictures, +and--well, that’s that. Then of course I went over the whole thing to +see where I’d made an ass of myself.” +“Go on,” said Mr. Carter, as Tommy showed signs of taking refuge in +silence once more. +“That business about Mrs. Vandemeyer had worried me when Julius told me +about it. On the face of it, it seemed that he or Sir James must have +done the trick. But I didn’t know which. Finding that photograph in the +drawer, after that story of how it had been got from him by Inspector +Brown, made me suspect Julius. Then I remembered that it was Sir James +who had discovered the false Jane Finn. In the end, I couldn’t make up +my mind--and just decided to take no chances either way. I left a note +for Julius, in case he was Mr. Brown, saying I was off to the Argentine, +and I dropped Sir James’s letter with the offer of the job by the desk +so that he would see it was a genuine stunt. Then I wrote my letter to +Mr. Carter and rang up Sir James. Taking him into my confidence would +be the best thing either way, so I told him everything except where I +believed the papers to be hidden. The way he helped me to get on the +track of Tuppence and Annette almost disarmed me, but not quite. I kept +my mind open between the two of them. And then I got a bogus note from +Tuppence--and I knew!” +“But how?” +Tommy took the note in question from his pocket and passed it round the +table. +“It’s her handwriting all right, but I knew it wasn’t from her because +of the signature. She’d never spell her name ‘Twopence,’ but anyone +who’d never seen it written might quite easily do so. Julius _had_ seen +it--he showed me a note of hers to him once--but _Sir James hadn’t!_ +After that everything was plain sailing. I sent off Albert post-haste to +Mr. Carter. I pretended to go away, but doubled back again. When Julius +came bursting up in his car, I felt it wasn’t part of Mr. Brown’s +plan--and that there would probably be trouble. Unless Sir James was +actually caught in the act, so to speak, I knew Mr. Carter would never +believe it of him on my bare word----” +“I didn’t,” interposed Mr. Carter ruefully. +“That’s why I sent the girls off to Sir James. I was sure they’d fetch +up at the house in Soho sooner or later. I threatened Julius with the +revolver, because I wanted Tuppence to repeat that to Sir James, so that +he wouldn’t worry about us. The moment the girls were out of sight I +told Julius to drive like hell for London, and as we went along I told +him the whole story. We got to the Soho house in plenty of time and met +Mr. Carter outside. After arranging things with him we went in and hid +behind the curtain in the recess. The policemen had orders to say, if +they were asked, that no one had gone into the house. That’s all.” +And Tommy came to an abrupt halt. +There was silence for a moment. +“By the way,” said Julius suddenly, “you’re all wrong about that +photograph of Jane. It _was_ taken from me, but I found it again.” +“Where?” cried Tuppence. +“In that little safe on the wall in Mrs. Vandemeyer’s bedroom.” +“I knew you found something,” said Tuppence reproachfully. “To tell you +the truth, that’s what started me off suspecting you. Why didn’t you +say?” +“I guess I was a mite suspicious too. It had been got away from me once, +and I determined I wouldn’t let on I’d got it until a photographer had +made a dozen copies of it!” +“We all kept back something or other,” said Tuppence thoughtfully. “I +suppose secret service work makes you like that!” +In the pause that ensued, Mr. Carter took from his pocket a small shabby +brown book. +“Beresford has just said that I would not have believed Sir James Peel +Edgerton to be guilty unless, so to speak, he was caught in the act. +That is so. Indeed, not until I read the entries in this little book +could I bring myself fully to credit the amazing truth. This book will +pass into the possession of Scotland Yard, but it will never be publicly +exhibited. Sir James’s long association with the law would make it +undesirable. But to you, who know the truth, I propose to read certain +passages which will throw some light on the extraordinary mentality of +this great man.” +He opened the book, and turned the thin pages. +“... It is madness to keep this book. I know that. It is documentary +evidence against me. But I have never shrunk from taking risks. And I +feel an urgent need for self-expression.... The book will only be taken +from my dead body.... +“... From an early age I realized that I had exceptional abilities. Only +a fool underestimates his capabilities. My brain power was greatly above +the average. I know that I was born to succeed. My appearance was +the only thing against me. I was quiet and insignificant--utterly +nondescript.... +“... When I was a boy I heard a famous murder trial. I was deeply +impressed by the power and eloquence of the counsel for the defence. +For the first time I entertained the idea of taking my talents to that +particular market.... Then I studied the criminal in the dock.... The +man was a fool--he had been incredibly, unbelievably stupid. Even +the eloquence of his counsel was hardly likely to save him. I felt +an immeasurable contempt for him.... Then it occurred to me that the +criminal standard was a low one. It was the wastrels, the failures, the +general riff-raff of civilization who drifted into crime.... +Strange that men of brains had never realized its extraordinary +opportunities.... I played with the idea.... What a magnificent +field--what unlimited possibilities! It made my brain reel.... +“... I read standard works on crime and criminals. They all confirmed my +opinion. Degeneracy, disease--never the deliberate embracing of a career +by a far-seeing man. Then I considered. Supposing my utmost ambitions +were realized--that I was called to the bar, and rose to the height of +my profession? That I entered politics--say, even, that I became Prime +Minister of England? What then? Was that power? Hampered at every turn +by my colleagues, fettered by the democratic system of which I should +be the mere figurehead! No--the power I dreamed of was absolute! An +autocrat! A dictator! And such power could only be obtained by working +outside the law. To play on the weaknesses of human nature, then on the +weaknesses of nations--to get together and control a vast organization, +and finally to overthrow the existing order, and rule! The thought +intoxicated me.... +“... I saw that I must lead two lives. A man like myself is bound to +attract notice. I must have a successful career which would mask my true +activities.... Also I must cultivate a personality. I modelled myself +upon famous K.C.’s. I reproduced their mannerisms, their magnetism. If I +had chosen to be an actor, I should have been the greatest actor living! +No disguises--no grease paint--no false beards! Personality! I put it +on like a glove! When I shed it, I was myself, quiet, unobtrusive, a man +like every other man. I called myself Mr. Brown. There are hundreds of +men called Brown--there are hundreds of men looking just like me.... +“... I succeeded in my false career. I was bound to succeed. I shall +succeed in the other. A man like me cannot fail.... +“... I have been reading a life of Napoleon. He and I have much in +common.... +“... I make a practice of defending criminals. A man should look after +his own people.... +“... Once or twice I have felt afraid. The first time was in Italy. +There was a dinner given. Professor D----, the great alienist, was +present. The talk fell on insanity. He said, ‘A great many men are +mad, and no one knows it. They do not know it themselves.’ I do not +understand why he looked at me when he said that. His glance was +strange.... I did not like it.... +“... The war has disturbed me.... I thought it would further my plans. +The Germans are so efficient. Their spy system, too, was excellent. +The streets are full of these boys in khaki. All empty-headed young +fools.... Yet I do not know.... They won the war.... It disturbs me.... +“... My plans are going well.... A girl butted in--I do not think she +really knew anything.... But we must give up the Esthonia.... No risks +now.... +“.... All goes well. The loss of memory is vexing. It cannot be a fake. +No girl could deceive ME!... +“...The 29th.... That is very soon....” Mr. Carter paused. +“I will not read the details of the _coup_ that was planned. But there +are just two small entries that refer to the three of you. In the light +of what happened they are interesting. +“... By inducing the girl to come to me of her own accord, I have +succeeded in disarming her. But she has intuitive flashes that might be +dangerous.... She must be got out of the way.... I can do nothing with +the American. He suspects and dislikes me. But he cannot know. I fancy +my armour is impregnable.... Sometimes I fear I have underestimated +the other boy. He is not clever, but it is hard to blind his eyes to +facts....” +Mr. Carter shut the book. +“A great man,” he said. “Genius, or insanity, who can say?” +There was silence. +Then Mr. Carter rose to his feet. +“I will give you a toast. The Joint Venture which has so amply justified +itself by success!” +It was drunk with acclamation. +“There’s something more we want to hear,” continued Mr. Carter. He +looked at the American Ambassador. “I speak for you also, I know. We’ll +ask Miss Jane Finn to tell us the story that only Miss Tuppence has +heard so far--but before we do so we’ll drink her health. The health of +one of the bravest of America’s daughters, to whom is due the thanks and +gratitude of two great countries!” +CHAPTER XXVIII. AND AFTER +“THAT was a mighty good toast, Jane,” said Mr. Hersheimmer, as he and +his cousin were being driven back in the Rolls-Royce to the _Ritz_. +“The one to the joint venture?” +“No--the one to you. There isn’t another girl in the world who could +have carried it through as you did. You were just wonderful!” +Jane shook her head. +“I don’t feel wonderful. At heart I’m just tired and lonesome--and +longing for my own country.” +“That brings me to something I wanted to say. I heard the Ambassador +telling you his wife hoped you would come to them at the Embassy right +away. That’s good enough, but I’ve got another plan. Jane--I want you to +marry me! Don’t get scared and say no at once. You can’t love me right +away, of course, that’s impossible. But I’ve loved you from the very +moment I set eyes on your photo--and now I’ve seen you I’m simply crazy +about you! If you’ll only marry me, I won’t worry you any--you shall +take your own time. Maybe you’ll never come to love me, and if that’s +the case I’ll manage to set you free. But I want the right to look after +you, and take care of you.” +“That’s what I want,” said the girl wistfully. “Some one who’ll be good +to me. Oh, you don’t know how lonesome I feel!” +“Sure thing I do. Then I guess that’s all fixed up, and I’ll see the +archbishop about a special license to-morrow morning.” +“Oh, Julius!” +“Well, I don’t want to hustle you any, Jane, but there’s no sense in +waiting about. Don’t be scared--I shan’t expect you to love me all at +once.” +But a small hand was slipped into his. +“I love you now, Julius,” said Jane Finn. “I loved you that first moment +in the car when the bullet grazed your cheek....” +Five minutes later Jane murmured softly: +“I don’t know London very well, Julius, but is it such a very long way +from the _Savoy_ to the _Ritz?_” +“It depends how you go,” explained Julius unblushingly. “We’re going by +way of Regent’s Park!” +“Oh, Julius--what will the chauffeur think?” +“At the wages I pay him, he knows better than to do any independent +thinking. Why, Jane, the only reason I had the supper at the _Savoy_ was +so that I could drive you home. I didn’t see how I was ever going to +get hold of you alone. You and Tuppence have been sticking together +like Siamese twins. I guess another day of it would have driven me and +Beresford stark staring mad!” +“Oh. Is he----?” +“Of course he is. Head over ears.” +“I thought so,” said Jane thoughtfully. +“Why?” +“From all the things Tuppence didn’t say!” +“There you have me beat,” said Mr. Hersheimmer. But Jane only laughed. +In the meantime, the Young Adventurers were sitting bolt upright, +very stiff and ill at ease, in a taxi which, with a singular lack of +originality, was also returning to the _Ritz_ via Regent’s Park. +A terrible constraint seemed to have settled down between them. Without +quite knowing what had happened, everything seemed changed. They were +tongue-tied--paralysed. All the old _camaraderie_ was gone. +Tuppence could think of nothing to say. +Tommy was equally afflicted. +They sat very straight and forbore to look at each other. +At last Tuppence made a desperate effort. +“Rather fun, wasn’t it?” +“Rather.” +Another silence. +“I like Julius,” essayed Tuppence again. +Tommy was suddenly galvanized into life. +“You’re not going to marry him, do you hear?” he said dictatorially. “I +forbid it.” +“Oh!” said Tuppence meekly. +“Absolutely, you understand.” +“He doesn’t want to marry me--he really only asked me out of kindness.” +“That’s not very likely,” scoffed Tommy. +“It’s quite true. He’s head over ears in love with Jane. I expect he’s +proposing to her now.” +“She’ll do for him very nicely,” said Tommy condescendingly. +“Don’t you think she’s the most lovely creature you’ve ever seen?” +“Oh, I dare say.” +“But I suppose you prefer sterling worth,” said Tuppence demurely. +“I--oh, dash it all, Tuppence, you know!” +“I like your uncle, Tommy,” said Tuppence, hastily creating a diversion. +“By the way, what are you going to do, accept Mr. Carter’s offer of +a Government job, or accept Julius’s invitation and take a richly +remunerated post in America on his ranch?” +“I shall stick to the old ship, I think, though it’s awfully good of +Hersheimmer. But I feel you’d be more at home in London.” +“I don’t see where I come in.” +“I do,” said Tommy positively. +Tuppence stole a glance at him sideways. +“There’s the money, too,” she observed thoughtfully. +“What money?” +“We’re going to get a cheque each. Mr. Carter told me so.” +“Did you ask how much?” inquired Tommy sarcastically. +“Yes,” said Tuppence triumphantly. “But I shan’t tell you.” +“Tuppence, you are the limit!” +“It has been fun, hasn’t it, Tommy? I do hope we shall have lots more +adventures.” +“You’re insatiable, Tuppence. I’ve had quite enough adventures for the +present.” +“Well, shopping is almost as good,” said Tuppence dreamily. “Think of +buying old furniture, and bright carpets, and futurist silk curtains, +and a polished dining-table, and a divan with lots of cushions.” +“Hold hard,” said Tommy. “What’s all this for?” +“Possibly a house--but I think a flat.” +“Whose flat?” +“You think I mind saying it, but I don’t in the least! _Ours_, so +there!” +“You darling!” cried Tommy, his arms tightly round her. “I was +determined to make you say it. I owe you something for the relentless +way you’ve squashed me whenever I’ve tried to be sentimental.” +Tuppence raised her face to his. The taxi proceeded on its course round +the north side of Regent’s Park. +“You haven’t really proposed now,” pointed out Tuppence. “Not what our +grandmothers would call a proposal. But after listening to a rotten one +like Julius’s, I’m inclined to let you off.” +“You won’t be able to get out of marrying me, so don’t you think it.” +“What fun it will be,” responded Tuppence. “Marriage is called all sorts +of things, a haven, and a refuge, and a crowning glory, and a state of +bondage, and lots more. But do you know what I think it is?” +“What?” +“A sport!” +“And a damned good sport too,” said Tommy.",The Secret Adversary,Agatha Christie,320,"['James Peel Edgerton Brown', 'Jane Finn']" +" + + + It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, + to look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to + Sherlock Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all + that was going on at the police headquarters. In return for the + news which Lestrade would bring, Holmes was always ready to + listen with attention to the details of any case upon which the + detective was engaged, and was able occasionally, without any + active interference, to give some hint or suggestion drawn from + his own vast knowledge and experience. + + On this particular evening, Lestrade had spoken of the weather + and the newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing + thoughtfully at his cigar. Holmes looked keenly at him. + + “Anything remarkable on hand?” he asked. + + “Oh, no, Mr. Holmes—nothing very particular.” + + “Then tell me about it.” + + Lestrade laughed. + + “Well, Mr. Holmes, there is no use denying that there _is_ + something on my mind. And yet it is such an absurd business, that + I hesitated to bother you about it. On the other hand, although + it is trivial, it is undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have + a taste for all that is out of the common. But, in my opinion, it + comes more in Dr. Watson’s line than ours.” + + “Disease?” said I. + + “Madness, anyhow. And a queer madness, too. You wouldn’t think + there was anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred + of Napoleon the First that he would break any image of him that + he could see.” + + Holmes sank back in his chair. + + “That’s no business of mine,” said he. + + “Exactly. That’s what I said. But then, when the man commits + burglary in order to break images which are not his own, that + brings it away from the doctor and on to the policeman.” + + Holmes sat up again. + + “Burglary! This is more interesting. Let me hear the details.” + + Lestrade took out his official notebook and refreshed his memory + from its pages. + + “The first case reported was four days ago,” said he. “It was at + the shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of + pictures and statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had + left the front shop for an instant, when he heard a crash, and + hurrying in he found a plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with + several other works of art upon the counter, lying shivered into + fragments. He rushed out into the road, but, although several + passers-by declared that they had noticed a man run out of the + shop, he could neither see anyone nor could he find any means of + identifying the rascal. It seemed to be one of those senseless + acts of hooliganism which occur from time to time, and it was + reported to the constable on the beat as such. The plaster cast + was not worth more than a few shillings, and the whole affair + appeared to be too childish for any particular investigation. + + “The second case, however, was more serious, and also more + singular. It occurred only last night. + + “In Kennington Road, and within a few hundred yards of Morse + Hudson’s shop, there lives a well-known medical practitioner, + named Dr. Barnicot, who has one of the largest practices upon the + south side of the Thames. His residence and principal + consulting-room is at Kennington Road, but he has a branch + surgery and dispensary at Lower Brixton Road, two miles away. + This Dr. Barnicot is an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and his + house is full of books, pictures, and relics of the French + Emperor. Some little time ago he purchased from Morse Hudson two + duplicate plaster casts of the famous head of Napoleon by the + French sculptor, Devine. One of these he placed in his hall in + the house at Kennington Road, and the other on the mantelpiece of + the surgery at Lower Brixton. Well, when Dr. Barnicot came down + this morning he was astonished to find that his house had been + burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save + the plaster head from the hall. It had been carried out and had + been dashed savagely against the garden wall, under which its + splintered fragments were discovered.” + + Holmes rubbed his hands. + + “This is certainly very novel,” said he. + + “I thought it would please you. But I have not got to the end + yet. Dr. Barnicot was due at his surgery at twelve o’clock, and + you can imagine his amazement when, on arriving there, he found + that the window had been opened in the night and that the broken + pieces of his second bust were strewn all over the room. It had + been smashed to atoms where it stood. In neither case were there + any signs which could give us a clue as to the criminal or + lunatic who had done the mischief. Now, Mr. Holmes, you have got + the facts.” + + “They are singular, not to say grotesque,” said Holmes. “May I + ask whether the two busts smashed in Dr. Barnicot’s rooms were + the exact duplicates of the one which was destroyed in Morse + Hudson’s shop?” + + “They were taken from the same mould.” + + “Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks + them is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon. Considering + how many hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in + London, it is too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a + promiscuous iconoclast should chance to begin upon three + specimens of the same bust.” + + “Well, I thought as you do,” said Lestrade. “On the other hand, + this Morse Hudson is the purveyor of busts in that part of + London, and these three were the only ones which had been in his + shop for years. So, although, as you say, there are many hundreds + of statues in London, it is very probable that these three were + the only ones in that district. Therefore, a local fanatic would + begin with them. What do you think, Dr. Watson?” + + “There are no limits to the possibilities of monomania,” I + answered. “There is the condition which the modern French + psychologists have called the _idée fixe_, which may be trifling + in character, and accompanied by complete sanity in every other + way. A man who had read deeply about Napoleon, or who had + possibly received some hereditary family injury through the great + war, might conceivably form such an _idée fixe_ and under its + influence be capable of any fantastic outrage.” + + “That won’t do, my dear Watson,” said Holmes, shaking his head, + “for no amount of _idée fixe_ would enable your interesting + monomaniac to find out where these busts were situated.” + + “Well, how do _you_ explain it?” + + “I don’t attempt to do so. I would only observe that there is a + certain method in the gentleman’s eccentric proceedings. For + example, in Dr. Barnicot’s hall, where a sound might arouse the + family, the bust was taken outside before being broken, whereas + in the surgery, where there was less danger of an alarm, it was + smashed where it stood. The affair seems absurdly trifling, and + yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my + most classic cases have had the least promising commencement. You + will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty + family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the + parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. I can’t afford, + therefore, to smile at your three broken busts, Lestrade, and I + shall be very much obliged to you if you will let me hear of any + fresh development of so singular a chain of events.” + + The development for which my friend had asked came in a quicker + and an infinitely more tragic form than he could have imagined. I + was still dressing in my bedroom next morning, when there was a + tap at the door and Holmes entered, a telegram in his hand. He + read it aloud: + + “Come instantly, 131, Pitt Street, Kensington.—LESTRADE.” + + “What is it, then?” I asked. + + “Don’t know—may be anything. But I suspect it is the sequel of + the story of the statues. In that case our friend the + image-breaker has begun operations in another quarter of London. + There’s coffee on the table, Watson, and I have a cab at the + door.” + + In half an hour we had reached Pitt Street, a quiet little + backwater just beside one of the briskest currents of London + life. No. 131 was one of a row, all flat-chested, respectable, + and most unromantic dwellings. As we drove up, we found the + railings in front of the house lined by a curious crowd. Holmes + whistled. + + “By George! It’s attempted murder at the least. Nothing less will + hold the London message-boy. There’s a deed of violence indicated + in that fellow’s round shoulders and outstretched neck. What’s + this, Watson? The top steps swilled down and the other ones dry. + Footsteps enough, anyhow! Well, well, there’s Lestrade at the + front window, and we shall soon know all about it.” + + The official received us with a very grave face and showed us + into a sitting-room, where an exceedingly unkempt and agitated + elderly man, clad in a flannel dressing-gown, was pacing up and + down. He was introduced to us as the owner of the house—Mr. + Horace Harker, of the Central Press Syndicate. + + “It’s the Napoleon bust business again,” said Lestrade. “You + seemed interested last night, Mr. Holmes, so I thought perhaps + you would be glad to be present now that the affair has taken a + very much graver turn.” + + “What has it turned to, then?” + + “To murder. Mr. Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly + what has occurred?” + + The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most + melancholy face. + + “It’s an extraordinary thing,” said he, “that all my life I have + been collecting other people’s news, and now that a real piece of + news has come my own way I am so confused and bothered that I + can’t put two words together. If I had come in here as a + journalist, I should have interviewed myself and had two columns + in every evening paper. As it is, I am giving away valuable copy + by telling my story over and over to a string of different + people, and I can make no use of it myself. However, I’ve heard + your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and if you’ll only explain this + queer business, I shall be paid for my trouble in telling you the + story.” + + Holmes sat down and listened. + + “It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which I + bought for this very room about four months ago. I picked it up + cheap from Harding Brothers, two doors from the High Street + Station. A great deal of my journalistic work is done at night, + and I often write until the early morning. So it was to-day. I + was sitting in my den, which is at the back of the top of the + house, about three o’clock, when I was convinced that I heard + some sounds downstairs. I listened, but they were not repeated, + and I concluded that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about + five minutes later, there came a most horrible yell—the most + dreadful sound, Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard. It will ring in my + ears as long as I live. I sat frozen with horror for a minute or + two. Then I seized the poker and went downstairs. When I entered + this room I found the window wide open, and I at once observed + that the bust was gone from the mantelpiece. Why any burglar + should take such a thing passes my understanding, for it was only + a plaster cast and of no real value whatever. + + “You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open + window could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. + This was clearly what the burglar had done, so I went round and + opened the door. Stepping out into the dark, I nearly fell over a + dead man, who was lying there. I ran back for a light and there + was the poor fellow, a great gash in his throat and the whole + place swimming in blood. He lay on his back, his knees drawn up, + and his mouth horribly open. I shall see him in my dreams. I had + just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must have + fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman + standing over me in the hall.” + + “Well, who was the murdered man?” asked Holmes. + + “There’s nothing to show who he was,” said Lestrade. “You shall + see the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up + to now. He is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than + thirty. He is poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be a + labourer. A horn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of blood + beside him. Whether it was the weapon which did the deed, or + whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not know. There was no + name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save an apple, + some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here it + is.” + + It was evidently taken by a snapshot from a small camera. It + represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man, with thick + eyebrows and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the + face, like the muzzle of a baboon. + + “And what became of the bust?” asked Holmes, after a careful + study of this picture. + + “We had news of it just before you came. It has been found in the + front garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. It was + broken into fragments. I am going round now to see it. Will you + come?” + + “Certainly. I must just take one look round.” He examined the + carpet and the window. “The fellow had either very long legs or + was a most active man,” said he. “With an area beneath, it was no + mean feat to reach that window ledge and open that window. + Getting back was comparatively simple. Are you coming with us to + see the remains of your bust, Mr. Harker?” + + The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a + writing-table. + + “I must try and make something of it,” said he, “though I have no + doubt that the first editions of the evening papers are out + already with full details. It’s like my luck! You remember when + the stand fell at Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in + the stand, and my journal the only one that had no account of it, + for I was too shaken to write it. And now I’ll be too late with a + murder done on my own doorstep.” + + As we left the room, we heard his pen travelling shrilly over the + foolscap. + + The spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only + a few hundred yards away. For the first time our eyes rested upon + this presentment of the great emperor, which seemed to raise such + frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown. It lay + scattered, in splintered shards, upon the grass. Holmes picked up + several of them and examined them carefully. I was convinced, + from his intent face and his purposeful manner, that at last he + was upon a clue. + + “Well?” asked Lestrade. + + Holmes shrugged his shoulders. + + “We have a long way to go yet,” said he. “And yet—and yet—well, + we have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possession of this + trifling bust was worth more, in the eyes of this strange + criminal, than a human life. That is one point. Then there is the + singular fact that he did not break it in the house, or + immediately outside the house, if to break it was his sole + object.” + + “He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. He + hardly knew what he was doing.” + + “Well, that’s likely enough. But I wish to call your attention + very particularly to the position of this house, in the garden of + which the bust was destroyed.” + + Lestrade looked about him. + + “It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be + disturbed in the garden.” + + “Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street + which he must have passed before he came to this one. Why did he + not break it there, since it is evident that every yard that he + carried it increased the risk of someone meeting him?” + + “I give it up,” said Lestrade. + + Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads. + + “He could see what he was doing here, and he could not there. + That was his reason.” + + “By Jove! that’s true,” said the detective. “Now that I come to + think of it, Dr. Barnicot’s bust was broken not far from his red + lamp. Well, Mr. Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?” + + “To remember it—to docket it. We may come on something later + which will bear upon it. What steps do you propose to take now, + Lestrade?” + + “The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to + identify the dead man. There should be no difficulty about that. + When we have found who he is and who his associates are, we + should have a good start in learning what he was doing in Pitt + Street last night, and who it was who met him and killed him on + the doorstep of Mr. Horace Harker. Don’t you think so?” + + “No doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which I should + approach the case.” + + “What would you do then?” + + “Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way. I suggest that + you go on your line and I on mine. We can compare notes + afterwards, and each will supplement the other.” + + “Very good,” said Lestrade. + + “If you are going back to Pitt Street, you might see Mr. Horace + Harker. Tell him for me that I have quite made up my mind, and + that it is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic, with + Napoleonic delusions, was in his house last night. It will be + useful for his article.” + + Lestrade stared. + + “You don’t seriously believe that?” + + Holmes smiled. + + “Don’t I? Well, perhaps I don’t. But I am sure that it will + interest Mr. Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central + Press Syndicate. Now, Watson, I think that we shall find that we + have a long and rather complex day’s work before us. I should be + glad, Lestrade, if you could make it convenient to meet us at + Baker Street at six o’clock this evening. Until then I should + like to keep this photograph, found in the dead man’s pocket. It + is possible that I may have to ask your company and assistance + upon a small expedition which will have be undertaken to-night, + if my chain of reasoning should prove to be correct. Until then + good-bye and good luck!” + + Sherlock Holmes and I walked together to the High Street, where + we stopped at the shop of Harding Brothers, whence the bust had + been purchased. A young assistant informed us that Mr. Harding + would be absent until afternoon, and that he was himself a + newcomer, who could give us no information. Holmes’s face showed + his disappointment and annoyance. + + “Well, well, we can’t expect to have it all our own way, Watson,” + he said, at last. “We must come back in the afternoon, if Mr. + Harding will not be here until then. I am, as you have no doubt + surmised, endeavouring to trace these busts to their source, in + order to find if there is not something peculiar which may + account for their remarkable fate. Let us make for Mr. Morse + Hudson, of the Kennington Road, and see if he can throw any light + upon the problem.” + + A drive of an hour brought us to the picture-dealer’s + establishment. He was a small, stout man with a red face and a + peppery manner. + + “Yes, sir. On my very counter, sir,” said he. “What we pay rates + and taxes for I don’t know, when any ruffian can come in and + break one’s goods. Yes, sir, it was I who sold Dr. Barnicot his + two statues. Disgraceful, sir! A Nihilist plot—that’s what I make + it. No one but an anarchist would go about breaking statues. Red + republicans—that’s what I call ’em. Who did I get the statues + from? I don’t see what that has to do with it. Well, if you + really want to know, I got them from Gelder & Co., in Church + Street, Stepney. They are a well-known house in the trade, and + have been this twenty years. How many had I? Three—two and one + are three—two of Dr. Barnicot’s, and one smashed in broad + daylight on my own counter. Do I know that photograph? No, I + don’t. Yes, I do, though. Why, it’s Beppo. He was a kind of + Italian piece-work man, who made himself useful in the shop. He + could carve a bit, and gild and frame, and do odd jobs. The + fellow left me last week, and I’ve heard nothing of him since. + No, I don’t know where he came from nor where he went to. I had + nothing against him while he was here. He was gone two days + before the bust was smashed.” + + “Well, that’s all we could reasonably expect from Morse Hudson,” + said Holmes, as we emerged from the shop. “We have this Beppo as + a common factor, both in Kennington and in Kensington, so that is + worth a ten-mile drive. Now, Watson, let us make for Gelder & + Co., of Stepney, the source and origin of the busts. I shall be + surprised if we don’t get some help down there.” + + In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable + London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, + commercial London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came to + a riverside city of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement + houses swelter and reek with the outcasts of Europe. Here, in a + broad thoroughfare, once the abode of wealthy City merchants, we + found the sculpture works for which we searched. Outside was a + considerable yard full of monumental masonry. Inside was a large + room in which fifty workers were carving or moulding. The + manager, a big blond German, received us civilly and gave a clear + answer to all Holmes’s questions. A reference to his books showed + that hundreds of casts had been taken from a marble copy of + Devine’s head of Napoleon, but that the three which had been sent + to Morse Hudson a year or so before had been half of a batch of + six, the other three being sent to Harding Brothers, of + Kensington. There was no reason why those six should be different + from any of the other casts. He could suggest no possible cause + why anyone should wish to destroy them—in fact, he laughed at the + idea. Their wholesale price was six shillings, but the retailer + would get twelve or more. The cast was taken in two moulds from + each side of the face, and then these two profiles of plaster of + Paris were joined together to make the complete bust. The work + was usually done by Italians, in the room we were in. When + finished, the busts were put on a table in the passage to dry, + and afterwards stored. That was all he could tell us. + + But the production of the photograph had a remarkable effect upon + the manager. His face flushed with anger, and his brows knotted + over his blue Teutonic eyes. + + “Ah, the rascal!” he cried. “Yes, indeed, I know him very well. + This has always been a respectable establishment, and the only + time that we have ever had the police in it was over this very + fellow. It was more than a year ago now. He knifed another + Italian in the street, and then he came to the works with the + police on his heels, and he was taken here. Beppo was his + name—his second name I never knew. Serve me right for engaging a + man with such a face. But he was a good workman—one of the best.” + + “What did he get?” + + “The man lived and he got off with a year. I have no doubt he is + out now, but he has not dared to show his nose here. We have a + cousin of his here, and I daresay he could tell you where he is.” + + “No, no,” cried Holmes, “not a word to the cousin—not a word, I + beg of you. The matter is very important, and the farther I go + with it, the more important it seems to grow. When you referred + in your ledger to the sale of those casts I observed that the + date was June 3rd of last year. Could you give me the date when + Beppo was arrested?” + + “I could tell you roughly by the pay-list,” the manager answered. + “Yes,” he continued, after some turning over of pages, “he was + paid last on May 20th.” + + “Thank you,” said Holmes. “I don’t think that I need intrude upon + your time and patience any more.” With a last word of caution + that he should say nothing as to our researches, we turned our + faces westward once more. + + The afternoon was far advanced before we were able to snatch a + hasty luncheon at a restaurant. A news-bill at the entrance + announced “Kensington Outrage. Murder by a Madman,” and the + contents of the paper showed that Mr. Horace Harker had got his + account into print after all. Two columns were occupied with a + highly sensational and flowery rendering of the whole incident. + Holmes propped it against the cruet-stand and read it while he + ate. Once or twice he chuckled. + + “This is all right, Watson,” said he. “Listen to this: + + “It is satisfactory to know that there can be no difference of + opinion upon this case, since Mr. Lestrade, one of the most + experienced members of the official force, and Mr. Sherlock + Holmes, the well-known consulting expert, have each come to the + conclusion that the grotesque series of incidents, which have + ended in so tragic a fashion, arise from lunacy rather than from + deliberate crime. No explanation save mental aberration can cover + the facts. + + “The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only + know how to use it. And now, if you have quite finished, we will + hark back to Kensington and see what the manager of Harding + Brothers has to say on the matter.” + + The founder of that great emporium proved to be a brisk, crisp + little person, very dapper and quick, with a clear head and a + ready tongue. + + “Yes, sir, I have already read the account in the evening papers. + Mr. Horace Harker is a customer of ours. We supplied him with the + bust some months ago. We ordered three busts of that sort from + Gelder & Co., of Stepney. They are all sold now. To whom? Oh, I + daresay by consulting our sales book we could very easily tell + you. Yes, we have the entries here. One to Mr. Harker you see, + and one to Mr. Josiah Brown, of Laburnum Lodge, Laburnum Vale, + Chiswick, and one to Mr. Sandeford, of Lower Grove Road, Reading. + No, I have never seen this face which you show me in the + photograph. You would hardly forget it, would you, sir, for I’ve + seldom seen an uglier. Have we any Italians on the staff? Yes, + sir, we have several among our workpeople and cleaners. I daresay + they might get a peep at that sales book if they wanted to. There + is no particular reason for keeping a watch upon that book. Well, + well, it’s a very strange business, and I hope that you will let + me know if anything comes of your inquiries.” + + Holmes had taken several notes during Mr. Harding’s evidence, and + I could see that he was thoroughly satisfied by the turn which + affairs were taking. He made no remark, however, save that, + unless we hurried, we should be late for our appointment with + Lestrade. Sure enough, when we reached Baker Street the detective + was already there, and we found him pacing up and down in a fever + of impatience. His look of importance showed that his day’s work + had not been in vain. + + “Well?” he asked. “What luck, Mr. Holmes?” + + “We have had a very busy day, and not entirely a wasted one,” my + friend explained. “We have seen both the retailers and also the + wholesale manufacturers. I can trace each of the busts now from + the beginning.” + + “The busts,” cried Lestrade. “Well, well, you have your own + methods, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and it is not for me to say a word + against them, but I think I have done a better day’s work than + you. I have identified the dead man.” + + “You don’t say so?” + + “And found a cause for the crime.” + + “Splendid!” + + “We have an inspector who makes a specialty of Saffron Hill and + the Italian Quarter. Well, this dead man had some Catholic emblem + round his neck, and that, along with his colour, made me think he + was from the South. Inspector Hill knew him the moment he caught + sight of him. His name is Pietro Venucci, from Naples, and he is + one of the greatest cut-throats in London. He is connected with + the Mafia, which, as you know, is a secret political society, + enforcing its decrees by murder. Now, you see how the affair + begins to clear up. The other fellow is probably an Italian also, + and a member of the Mafia. He has broken the rules in some + fashion. Pietro is set upon his track. Probably the photograph we + found in his pocket is the man himself, so that he may not knife + the wrong person. He dogs the fellow, he sees him enter a house, + he waits outside for him, and in the scuffle he receives his own + death-wound. How is that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” + + Holmes clapped his hands approvingly. + + “Excellent, Lestrade, excellent!” he cried. “But I didn’t quite + follow your explanation of the destruction of the busts.” + + “The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After + all, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. It + is the murder that we are really investigating, and I tell you + that I am gathering all the threads into my hands.” + + “And the next stage?” + + “Is a very simple one. I shall go down with Hill to the Italian + Quarter, find the man whose photograph we have got, and arrest + him on the charge of murder. Will you come with us?” + + “I think not. I fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. I + can’t say for certain, because it all depends—well, it all + depends upon a factor which is completely outside our control. + But I have great hopes—in fact, the betting is exactly two to + one—that if you will come with us to-night I shall be able to + help you to lay him by the heels.” + + “In the Italian Quarter?” + + “No, I fancy Chiswick is an address which is more likely to find + him. If you will come with me to Chiswick to-night, Lestrade, + I’ll promise to go to the Italian Quarter with you to-morrow, and + no harm will be done by the delay. And now I think that a few + hours’ sleep would do us all good, for I do not propose to leave + before eleven o’clock, and it is unlikely that we shall be back + before morning. You’ll dine with us, Lestrade, and then you are + welcome to the sofa until it is time for us to start. In the + meantime, Watson, I should be glad if you would ring for an + express messenger, for I have a letter to send and it is + important that it should go at once.” + + Holmes spent the evening in rummaging among the files of the old + daily papers with which one of our lumber-rooms was packed. When + at last he descended, it was with triumph in his eyes, but he + said nothing to either of us as to the result of his researches. + For my own part, I had followed step by step the methods by which + he had traced the various windings of this complex case, and, + though I could not yet perceive the goal which we would reach, I + understood clearly that Holmes expected this grotesque criminal + to make an attempt upon the two remaining busts, one of which, I + remembered, was at Chiswick. No doubt the object of our journey + was to catch him in the very act, and I could not but admire the + cunning with which my friend had inserted a wrong clue in the + evening paper, so as to give the fellow the idea that he could + continue his scheme with impunity. I was not surprised when + Holmes suggested that I should take my revolver with me. He had + himself picked up the loaded hunting-crop, which was his + favourite weapon. + + A four-wheeler was at the door at eleven, and in it we drove to a + spot at the other side of Hammersmith Bridge. Here the cabman was + directed to wait. A short walk brought us to a secluded road + fringed with pleasant houses, each standing in its own grounds. + In the light of a street lamp we read “Laburnum Villa” upon the + gate-post of one of them. The occupants had evidently retired to + rest, for all was dark save for a fanlight over the hall door, + which shed a single blurred circle on to the garden path. The + wooden fence which separated the grounds from the road threw a + dense black shadow upon the inner side, and here it was that we + crouched. + + “I fear that you’ll have a long wait,” Holmes whispered. “We may + thank our stars that it is not raining. I don’t think we can even + venture to smoke to pass the time. However, it’s a two to one + chance that we get something to pay us for our trouble.” + + It proved, however, that our vigil was not to be so long as + Holmes had led us to fear, and it ended in a very sudden and + singular fashion. In an instant, without the least sound to warn + us of his coming, the garden gate swung open, and a lithe, dark + figure, as swift and active as an ape, rushed up the garden path. + We saw it whisk past the light thrown from over the door and + disappear against the black shadow of the house. There was a long + pause, during which we held our breath, and then a very gentle + creaking sound came to our ears. The window was being opened. The + noise ceased, and again there was a long silence. The fellow was + making his way into the house. We saw the sudden flash of a dark + lantern inside the room. What he sought was evidently not there, + for again we saw the flash through another blind, and then + through another. + + “Let us get to the open window. We will nab him as he climbs + out,” Lestrade whispered. + + But before we could move, the man had emerged again. As he came + out into the glimmering patch of light, we saw that he carried + something white under his arm. He looked stealthily all round + him. The silence of the deserted street reassured him. Turning + his back upon us he laid down his burden, and the next instant + there was the sound of a sharp tap, followed by a clatter and + rattle. The man was so intent upon what he was doing that he + never heard our steps as we stole across the grass plot. With the + bound of a tiger Holmes was on his back, and an instant later + Lestrade and I had him by either wrist, and the handcuffs had + been fastened. As we turned him over I saw a hideous, sallow + face, with writhing, furious features, glaring up at us, and I + knew that it was indeed the man of the photograph whom we had + secured. + + But it was not our prisoner to whom Holmes was giving his + attention. Squatted on the doorstep, he was engaged in most + carefully examining that which the man had brought from the + house. It was a bust of Napoleon, like the one which we had seen + that morning, and it had been broken into similar fragments. + Carefully Holmes held each separate shard to the light, but in no + way did it differ from any other shattered piece of plaster. He + had just completed his examination when the hall lights flew up, + the door opened, and the owner of the house, a jovial, rotund + figure in shirt and trousers, presented himself. + + “Mr. Josiah Brown, I suppose?” said Holmes. + + “Yes, sir; and you, no doubt, are Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I had the + note which you sent by the express messenger, and I did exactly + what you told me. We locked every door on the inside and awaited + developments. Well, I’m very glad to see that you have got the + rascal. I hope, gentlemen, that you will come in and have some + refreshment.” + + However, Lestrade was anxious to get his man into safe quarters, + so within a few minutes our cab had been summoned and we were all + four upon our way to London. Not a word would our captive say, + but he glared at us from the shadow of his matted hair, and once, + when my hand seemed within his reach, he snapped at it like a + hungry wolf. We stayed long enough at the police-station to learn + that a search of his clothing revealed nothing save a few + shillings and a long sheath knife, the handle of which bore + copious traces of recent blood. + + “That’s all right,” said Lestrade, as we parted. “Hill knows all + these gentry, and he will give a name to him. You’ll find that my + theory of the Mafia will work out all right. But I’m sure I am + exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Holmes, for the workmanlike way + in which you laid hands upon him. I don’t quite understand it all + yet.” + + “I fear it is rather too late an hour for explanations,” said + Holmes. “Besides, there are one or two details which are not + finished off, and it is one of those cases which are worth + working out to the very end. If you will come round once more to + my rooms at six o’clock to-morrow, I think I shall be able to + show you that even now you have not grasped the entire meaning of + this business, which presents some features which make it + absolutely original in the history of crime. If ever I permit you + to chronicle any more of my little problems, Watson, I foresee + that you will enliven your pages by an account of the singular + adventure of the Napoleonic busts.” + + When we met again next evening, Lestrade was furnished with much + information concerning our prisoner. His name, it appeared, was + Beppo, second name unknown. He was a well-known ne’er-do-well + among the Italian colony. He had once been a skilful sculptor and + had earned an honest living, but he had taken to evil courses and + had twice already been in jail—once for a petty theft, and once, + as we had already heard, for stabbing a fellow-countryman. He + could talk English perfectly well. His reasons for destroying the + busts were still unknown, and he refused to answer any questions + upon the subject, but the police had discovered that these same + busts might very well have been made by his own hands, since he + was engaged in this class of work at the establishment of Gelder + & Co. To all this information, much of which we already knew, + Holmes listened with polite attention, but I, who knew him so + well, could clearly see that his thoughts were elsewhere, and I + detected a mixture of mingled uneasiness and expectation beneath + that mask which he was wont to assume. At last he started in his + chair, and his eyes brightened. There had been a ring at the + bell. A minute later we heard steps upon the stairs, and an + elderly red-faced man with grizzled side-whiskers was ushered in. + In his right hand he carried an old-fashioned carpet-bag, which + he placed upon the table. + + “Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” + + My friend bowed and smiled. “Mr. Sandeford, of Reading, I + suppose?” said he. + + “Yes, sir, I fear that I am a little late, but the trains were + awkward. You wrote to me about a bust that is in my possession.” + + “Exactly.” + + “I have your letter here. You said, ‘I desire to possess a copy + of Devine’s Napoleon, and am prepared to pay you ten pounds for + the one which is in your possession.’ Is that right?” + + “Certainly.” + + “I was very much surprised at your letter, for I could not + imagine how you knew that I owned such a thing.” + + “Of course you must have been surprised, but the explanation is + very simple. Mr. Harding, of Harding Brothers, said that they had + sold you their last copy, and he gave me your address.” + + “Oh, that was it, was it? Did he tell you what I paid for it?” + + “No, he did not.” + + “Well, I am an honest man, though not a very rich one. I only + gave fifteen shillings for the bust, and I think you ought to + know that before I take ten pounds from you. + + “I am sure the scruple does you honour, Mr. Sandeford. But I have + named that price, so I intend to stick to it.” + + “Well, it is very handsome of you, Mr. Holmes. I brought the bust + up with me, as you asked me to do. Here it is!” He opened his + bag, and at last we saw placed upon our table a complete specimen + of that bust which we had already seen more than once in + fragments. + + Holmes took a paper from his pocket and laid a ten-pound note + upon the table. + + “You will kindly sign that paper, Mr. Sandeford, in the presence + of these witnesses. It is simply to say that you transfer every + possible right that you ever had in the bust to me. I am a + methodical man, you see, and you never know what turn events + might take afterwards. Thank you, Mr. Sandeford; here is your + money, and I wish you a very good evening.” + + When our visitor had disappeared, Sherlock Holmes’s movements + were such as to rivet our attention. He began by taking a clean + white cloth from a drawer and laying it over the table. Then he + placed his newly acquired bust in the centre of the cloth. + Finally, he picked up his hunting-crop and struck Napoleon a + sharp blow on the top of the head. The figure broke into + fragments, and Holmes bent eagerly over the shattered remains. + Next instant, with a loud shout of triumph he held up one + splinter, in which a round, dark object was fixed like a plum in + a pudding. + + “Gentlemen,” he cried, “let me introduce you to the famous black + pearl of the Borgias.” + + Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a + spontaneous impulse, we both broke at clapping, as at the + well-wrought crisis of a play. A flush of colour sprang to + Holmes’s pale cheeks, and he bowed to us like the master + dramatist who receives the homage of his audience. It was at such + moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine, + and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same + singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with + disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its + depths by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend. + + “Yes, gentlemen,” said he, “it is the most famous pearl now + existing in the world, and it has been my good fortune, by a + connected chain of inductive reasoning, to trace it from the + Prince of Colonna’s bedroom at the Dacre Hotel, where it was + lost, to the interior of this, the last of the six busts of + Napoleon which were manufactured by Gelder & Co., of Stepney. You + will remember, Lestrade, the sensation caused by the + disappearance of this valuable jewel and the vain efforts of the + London police to recover it. I was myself consulted upon the + case, but I was unable to throw any light upon it. Suspicion fell + upon the maid of the Princess, who was an Italian, and it was + proved that she had a brother in London, but we failed to trace + any connection between them. The maid’s name was Lucretia + Venucci, and there is no doubt in my mind that this Pietro who + was murdered two nights ago was the brother. I have been looking + up the dates in the old files of the paper, and I find that the + disappearance of the pearl was exactly two days before the arrest + of Beppo, for some crime of violence—an event which took place in + the factory of Gelder & Co., at the very moment when these busts + were being made. Now you clearly see the sequence of events, + though you see them, of course, in the inverse order to the way + in which they presented themselves to me. Beppo had the pearl in + his possession. He may have stolen it from Pietro, he may have + been Pietro’s confederate, he may have been the go-between of + Pietro and his sister. It is of no consequence to us which is the + correct solution. + + “The main fact is that he _had_ the pearl, and at that moment, + when it was on his person, he was pursued by the police. He made + for the factory in which he worked, and he knew that he had only + a few minutes in which to conceal this enormously valuable prize, + which would otherwise be found on him when he was searched. Six + plaster casts of Napoleon were drying in the passage. One of them + was still soft. In an instant Beppo, a skilful workman, made a + small hole in the wet plaster, dropped in the pearl, and with a + few touches covered over the aperture once more. It was an + admirable hiding-place. No one could possibly find it. But Beppo + was condemned to a year’s imprisonment, and in the meanwhile his + six busts were scattered over London. He could not tell which + contained his treasure. Only by breaking them could he see. Even + shaking would tell him nothing, for as the plaster was wet it was + probable that the pearl would adhere to it—as, in fact, it has + done. Beppo did not despair, and he conducted his search with + considerable ingenuity and perseverance. Through a cousin who + works with Gelder, he found out the retail firms who had bought + the busts. He managed to find employment with Morse Hudson, and + in that way tracked down three of them. The pearl was not there. + Then, with the help of some Italian employee, he succeeded in + finding out where the other three busts had gone. The first was + at Harker’s. There he was dogged by his confederate, who held + Beppo responsible for the loss of the pearl, and he stabbed him + in the scuffle which followed.” + + “If he was his confederate, why should he carry his photograph?” + I asked. + + “As a means of tracing him, if he wished to inquire about him + from any third person. That was the obvious reason. Well, after + the murder I calculated that Beppo would probably hurry rather + than delay his movements. He would fear that the police would + read his secret, and so he hastened on before they should get + ahead of him. Of course, I could not say that he had not found + the pearl in Harker’s bust. I had not even concluded for certain + that it was the pearl, but it was evident to me that he was + looking for something, since he carried the bust past the other + houses in order to break it in the garden which had a lamp + overlooking it. Since Harker’s bust was one in three, the chances + were exactly as I told you—two to one against the pearl being + inside it. There remained two busts, and it was obvious that he + would go for the London one first. I warned the inmates of the + house, so as to avoid a second tragedy, and we went down, with + the happiest results. By that time, of course, I knew for certain + that it was the Borgia pearl that we were after. The name of the + murdered man linked the one event with the other. There only + remained a single bust—the Reading one—and the pearl must be + there. I bought it in your presence from the owner—and there it + lies.” + + We sat in silence for a moment. + + “Well,” said Lestrade, “I’ve seen you handle a good many cases, + Mr. Holmes, but I don’t know that I ever knew a more workmanlike + one than that. We’re not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, + sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow, + there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest + constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.” + + “Thank you!” said Holmes. “Thank you!” and as he turned away, it + seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human + emotions than I had ever seen him. A moment later he was the cold + and practical thinker once more. “Put the pearl in the safe, + Watson,” said he, “and get out the papers of the Conk-Singleton + forgery case. Good-bye, Lestrade. If any little problem comes + your way, I shall be happy, if I can, to give you a hint or two + as to its solution.” + + + + + +",The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,Arthur Conan Doyle,16,['Beppo'] +"cover +The Sign of the Four +by Arthur Conan Doyle +Contents +Chapter I. The Science of Deduction +Chapter II. The Statement of the Case +Chapter III. In Quest of a Solution +Chapter IV. The Story of the Bald-Headed Man +Chapter V. The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge +Chapter VI. Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration +Chapter VII. The Episode of the Barrel +Chapter VIII. The Baker Street Irregulars +Chapter IX. A Break in the Chain +Chapter X. The End of the Islander +Chapter XI. The Great Agra Treasure +Chapter XII. The Strange Story of Jonathan Small +Chapter I +The Science of Deduction +Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and +his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, +white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back +his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully +upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with +innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, +pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined +arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction. +Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but +custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to +day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled +nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to +protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver +my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant +air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would +care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his +masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many +extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing +him. +Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken +with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme +deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no +longer. +“Which is it to-day?” I asked,—“morphine or cocaine?” +He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he +had opened. “It is cocaine,” he said,—“a seven-per-cent. solution. +Would you care to try it?” +“No, indeed,” I answered, brusquely. “My constitution has not got over +the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon +it.” +He smiled at my vehemence. “Perhaps you are right, Watson,” he said. “I +suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, +so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its +secondary action is a matter of small moment.” +“But consider!” I said, earnestly. “Count the cost! Your brain may, as +you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid +process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a +permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon +you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a +mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which +you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to +another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to +some extent answerable.” +He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips +together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who +has a relish for conversation. +“My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me +work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate +analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then +with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. +I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own +particular profession,—or rather created it, for I am the only one in +the world.” +“The only unofficial detective?” I said, raising my eyebrows. +“The only unofficial consulting detective,” he answered. “I am the last +and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or +Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way, is their +normal state—the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an +expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit in such +cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure +of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But +you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the +Jefferson Hope case.” +“Yes, indeed,” said I, cordially. “I was never so struck by anything in +my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat +fantastic title of ‘A Study in Scarlet.’” +He shook his head sadly. “I glanced over it,” said he. “Honestly, I +cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact +science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. +You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much +the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the +fifth proposition of Euclid.” +“But the romance was there,” I remonstrated. “I could not tamper with +the facts.” +“Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of +proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the +case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from +effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it.” +I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially +designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the +egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be +devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that +I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity +underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, +however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through +it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it +ached wearily at every change of the weather. +“My practice has extended recently to the Continent,” said Holmes, +after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. “I was consulted +last week by François Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come +rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all +the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide +range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments +of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some +features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, +the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have +suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this +morning acknowledging my assistance.” He tossed over, as he spoke, a +crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, +catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray “magnifiques,” +“coup-de-maîtres,” and “tours-de-force,” all testifying to the ardent +admiration of the Frenchman. +“He speaks as a pupil to his master,” said I. +“Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,” said Sherlock Holmes, lightly. +“He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three +qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of +observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and +that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into +French.” +“Your works?” +“Oh, didn’t you know?” he cried, laughing. “Yes, I have been guilty of +several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for +example, is one ‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various +Tobaccoes.’ In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-, +cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the +difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in +criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a +clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been +done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows +your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much difference +between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of +bird’s-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato.” +“You have an extraordinary genius for minutiæ,” I remarked. +“I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing +of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a +preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the +influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the +hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and +diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the +scientific detective,—especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in +discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my +hobby.” +“Not at all,” I answered, earnestly. “It is of the greatest interest to +me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your +practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and +deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.” +“Why, hardly,” he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair, +and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. “For example, +observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street +Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there +you dispatched a telegram.” +“Right!” said I. “Right on both points! But I confess that I don’t see +how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have +mentioned it to no one.” +“It is simplicity itself,” he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,—“so +absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may +serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation +tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. +Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken up the pavement +and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult +to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar +reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the +neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.” +“How, then, did you deduce the telegram?” +“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat +opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that +you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards. What could +you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate +all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.” +“In this case it certainly is so,” I replied, after a little thought. +“The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think +me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?” +“On the contrary,” he answered, “it would prevent me from taking a +second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem +which you might submit to me.” +“I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object +in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it +in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a +watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the +kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the +late owner?” +I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my +heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I +intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he +occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at +the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked +eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from +smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and +handed it back. +“There are hardly any data,” he remarked. “The watch has been recently +cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.” +“You are right,” I answered. “It was cleaned before being sent to me.” +In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame and +impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he expect from an +uncleaned watch? +“Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,” he +observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes. +“Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to +your elder brother, who inherited it from your father.” +“That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?” +“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is +nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so +it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descends to the +eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. +Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, +therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother.” +“Right, so far,” said I. “Anything else?” +“He was a man of untidy habits,—very untidy and careless. He was left +with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time +in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, +taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.” +I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with +considerable bitterness in my heart. +“This is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I said. “I could not have believed +that you would have descended to this. You have made inquires into the +history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this +knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that +you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to speak +plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.” +“My dear doctor,” said he, kindly, “pray accept my apologies. Viewing +the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and +painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never +even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch.” +“Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? +They are absolutely correct in every particular.” +“Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of +probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate.” +“But it was not mere guess-work?” +“No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the +logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do +not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which +large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your +brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that +watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but it +is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard +objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no +great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so +cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched +inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty +well provided for in other respects.” +I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning. +“It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a +watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the +inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk +of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four +such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. +Inference,—that your brother was often at low water. Secondary +inference,—that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not +have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the inner +plate, which contains the key-hole. Look at the thousands of scratches +all round the hole,—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s +key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a +drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves +these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?” +“It is as clear as daylight,” I answered. “I regret the injustice which +I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty. May +I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?” +“None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else +is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, +dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the +street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more +hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, +doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is +commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those +which are commonplace have any function upon earth.” +I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp knock +our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver. +“A young lady for you, sir,” she said, addressing my companion. +“Miss Mary Morstan,” he read. “Hum! I have no recollection of the name. +Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don’t go, doctor. I should +prefer that you remain.” +Chapter II +The Statement of the Case +Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure +of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and +dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and +simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited +means. The dress was a sombre greyish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, +and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a +suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity +of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and +amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and +sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends over many nations +and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which +gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature. I could not +but observe that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes placed for +her, her lip trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every sign of +intense inward agitation. +“I have come to you, Mr. Holmes,” she said, “because you once enabled +my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic +complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and skill.” +“Mrs. Cecil Forrester,” he repeated thoughtfully. “I believe that I was +of some slight service to her. The case, however, as I remember it, was +a very simple one.” +“She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine. I +can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly inexplicable, +than the situation in which I find myself.” +Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in +his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his +clear-cut, hawklike features. “State your case,” said he, in brisk, +business tones. +I felt that my position was an embarrassing one. “You will, I am sure, +excuse me,” I said, rising from my chair. +To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me. +“If your friend,” she said, “would be good enough to stop, he might be +of inestimable service to me.” +I relapsed into my chair. +“Briefly,” she continued, “the facts are these. My father was an +officer in an Indian regiment who sent me home when I was quite a +child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England. I was +placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at Edinburgh, +and there I remained until I was seventeen years of age. In the year +1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment, obtained twelve +months’ leave and came home. He telegraphed to me from London that he +had arrived all safe, and directed me to come down at once, giving the +Langham Hotel as his address. His message, as I remember, was full of +kindness and love. On reaching London I drove to the Langham, and was +informed that Captain Morstan was staying there, but that he had gone +out the night before and had not yet returned. I waited all day without +news of him. That night, on the advice of the manager of the hotel, I +communicated with the police, and next morning we advertised in all the +papers. Our inquiries led to no result; and from that day to this no +word has ever been heard of my unfortunate father. He came home with +his heart full of hope, to find some peace, some comfort, and instead—” +She put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the +sentence. +“The date?” asked Holmes, opening his note-book. +“He disappeared upon the 3rd of December, 1878,—nearly ten years ago.” +“His luggage?” +“Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a clue,—some +clothes, some books, and a considerable number of curiosities from the +Andaman Islands. He had been one of the officers in charge of the +convict-guard there.” +“Had he any friends in town?” +“Only one that we know of,—Major Sholto, of his own regiment, the 34th +Bombay Infantry. The major had retired some little time before, and +lived at Upper Norwood. We communicated with him, of course, but he did +not even know that his brother officer was in England.” +“A singular case,” remarked Holmes. +“I have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six +years ago—to be exact, upon the 4th of May, 1882—an advertisement +appeared in the _Times_ asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan and +stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. There was no +name or address appended. I had at that time just entered the family of +Mrs. Cecil Forrester in the capacity of governess. By her advice I +published my address in the advertisement column. The same day there +arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed to me, which +I found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. No word of writing +was enclosed. Since then every year upon the same date there has always +appeared a similar box, containing a similar pearl, without any clue as +to the sender. They have been pronounced by an expert to be of a rare +variety and of considerable value. You can see for yourselves that they +are very handsome.” She opened a flat box as she spoke, and showed me +six of the finest pearls that I had ever seen. +“Your statement is most interesting,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Has +anything else occurred to you?” +“Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you. This +morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for +yourself.” +“Thank you,” said Holmes. “The envelope too, please. Postmark, London, +S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man’s thumb-mark on corner,—probably postman. +Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet. Particular man in +his stationery. No address. ‘Be at the third pillar from the left +outside the Lyceum Theatre to-night at seven o’clock. If you are +distrustful, bring two friends. You are a wronged woman, and shall have +justice. Do not bring police. If you do, all will be in vain. Your +unknown friend.’ Well, really, this is a very pretty little mystery. +What do you intend to do, Miss Morstan?” +“That is exactly what I want to ask you.” +“Then we shall most certainly go. You and I and—yes, why, Dr. Watson is +the very man. Your correspondent says two friends. He and I have worked +together before.” +“But would he come?” she asked, with something appealing in her voice +and expression. +“I should be proud and happy,” said I, fervently, “if I can be of any +service.” +“You are both very kind,” she answered. “I have led a retired life, and +have no friends whom I could appeal to. If I am here at six it will do, +I suppose?” +“You must not be later,” said Holmes. “There is one other point, +however. Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box +addresses?” +“I have them here,” she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of +paper. +“You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition. Let +us see, now.” He spread out the papers upon the table, and gave little +darting glances from one to the other. “They are disguised hands, +except the letter,” he said, presently, “but there can be no question +as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek _e_ will break +out, and see the twirl of the final _s_. They are undoubtedly by the +same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss Morstan, +but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of your +father?” +“Nothing could be more unlike.” +“I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then, at +six. Pray allow me to keep the papers. I may look into the matter +before then. It is only half-past three. _Au revoir_, then.” +“_Au revoir_,” said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from +one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and +hurried away. Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly +down the street, until the grey turban and white feather were but a +speck in the sombre crowd. +“What a very attractive woman!” I exclaimed, turning to my companion. +He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. +“Is she?” he said, languidly. “I did not observe.” +“You really are an automaton,—a calculating-machine!” I cried. “There +is something positively inhuman in you at times.” +He smiled gently. “It is of the first importance,” he said, “not to +allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to +me a mere unit,—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are +antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning +woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for +their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is +a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the +London poor.” +“In this case, however—” +“I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have you +ever had occasion to study character in handwriting? What do you make +of this fellow’s scribble?” +“It is legible and regular,” I answered. “A man of business habits and +some force of character.” +Holmes shook his head. “Look at his long letters,” he said. “They +hardly rise above the common herd. That _d_ might be an _a_, and that +_l_ an _e_. Men of character always differentiate their long letters, +however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his _k_’s and +self-esteem in his capitals. I am going out now. I have some few +references to make. Let me recommend this book,—one of the most +remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade’s ‘Martyrdom of Man.’ I +shall be back in an hour.” +I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were +far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our +late visitor,—her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the strange +mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of +her father’s disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now,—a sweet +age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little +sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until such dangerous +thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged +furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an army +surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account, that I should +dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a factor,—nothing more. +If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man +than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o’-the-wisps of the +imagination. +Chapter III +In Quest of a Solution +It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager, and +in excellent spirits,—a mood which in his case alternated with fits of +the blackest depression. +“There is no great mystery in this matter,” he said, taking the cup of +tea which I had poured out for him. “The facts appear to admit of only +one explanation.” +“What! you have solved it already?” +“Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive +fact, that is all. It is, however, _very_ suggestive. The details are +still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files of +the _Times_, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th +Bombay Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882.” +“I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests.” +“No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan +disappears. The only person in London whom he could have visited is +Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London. +Four years later Sholto dies. _Within a week of his death_ Captain +Morstan’s daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from +year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a +wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation of +her father? And why should the presents begin immediately after +Sholto’s death, unless it is that Sholto’s heir knows something of the +mystery and desires to make compensation? Have you any alternative +theory which will meet the facts?” +“But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too, +should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again, the +letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It is +too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no other +injustice in her case that you know of.” +“There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties,” said +Sherlock Holmes, pensively. “But our expedition of to-night will solve +them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside. Are +you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a little past the +hour.” +I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes +took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It +was clear that he thought that our night’s work might be a serious one. +Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was +composed, but pale. She must have been more than woman if she did not +feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were +embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered +the few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her. +“Major Sholto was a very particular friend of papa’s,” she said. “His +letters were full of allusions to the major. He and papa were in +command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a +great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in papa’s +desk which no one could understand. I don’t suppose that it is of the +slightest importance, but I thought you might care to see it, so I +brought it with me. It is here.” +Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his knee. +He then very methodically examined it all over with his double lens. +“It is paper of native Indian manufacture,” he remarked. “It has at +some time been pinned to a board. The diagram upon it appears to be a +plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and +passages. At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it +is ‘3.37 from left,’ in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand corner +is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with their arms +touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters, +‘The sign of the four,—Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, +Dost Akbar.’ No, I confess that I do not see how this bears upon the +matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance. It has been kept +carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as clean as the other.” +“It was in his pocket-book that we found it.” +“Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be of +use to us. I begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be much +deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must reconsider my +ideas.” He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow +and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morstan and I +chatted in an undertone about our present expedition and its possible +outcome, but our companion maintained his impenetrable reserve until +the end of our journey. +It was a September evening, and not yet seven o’clock, but the day had +been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. +Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down the +Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which threw +a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare +from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and +threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There +was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless +procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of +light,—sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they +flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once +more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull, heavy evening, +with the strange business upon which we were engaged, combined to make +me nervous and depressed. I could see from Miss Morstan’s manner that +she was suffering from the same feeling. Holmes alone could rise +superior to petty influences. He held his open note-book upon his knee, +and from time to time he jotted down figures and memoranda in the light +of his pocket-lantern. +At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the +side-entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and +four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of +shirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly +reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small, +dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us. +“Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?” he asked. +“I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends,” said she. +He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon us. +“You will excuse me, miss,” he said with a certain dogged manner, “but +I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your companions +is a police-officer.” +“I give you my word on that,” she answered. +He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a +four-wheeler and opened the door. The man who had addressed us mounted +to the box, while we took our places inside. We had hardly done so +before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away at a +furious pace through the foggy streets. +The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an unknown place, +on an unknown errand. Yet our invitation was either a complete +hoax,—which was an inconceivable hypothesis,—or else we had good reason +to think that important issues might hang upon our journey. Miss +Morstan’s demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever. I endeavored +to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my adventures in +Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so excited at our +situation and so curious as to our destination that my stories were +slightly involved. To this day she declares that I told her one moving +anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of night, +and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. At first I had some +idea as to the direction in which we were driving; but soon, what with +our pace, the fog, and my own limited knowledge of London, I lost my +bearings, and knew nothing, save that we seemed to be going a very long +way. Sherlock Holmes was never at fault, however, and he muttered the +names as the cab rattled through squares and in and out by tortuous +by-streets. +“Rochester Row,” said he. “Now Vincent Square. Now we come out on the +Vauxhall Bridge Road. We are making for the Surrey side, apparently. +Yes, I thought so. Now we are on the bridge. You can catch glimpses of +the river.” +We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames with the +lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on, and +was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the other side. +“Wordsworth Road,” said my companion. “Priory Road. Lark Hall Lane. +Stockwell Place. Robert Street. Cold Harbor Lane. Our quest does not +appear to take us to very fashionable regions.” +We had, indeed, reached a questionable and forbidding neighbourhood. +Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse glare +and tawdry brilliancy of public houses at the corner. Then came rows of +two-storied villas each with a fronting of miniature garden, and then +again interminable lines of new staring brick buildings,—the monster +tentacles which the giant city was throwing out into the country. At +last the cab drew up at the third house in a new terrace. None of the +other houses were inhabited, and that at which we stopped was as dark +as its neighbours, save for a single glimmer in the kitchen window. On +our knocking, however, the door was instantly thrown open by a Hindoo +servant clad in a yellow turban, white loose-fitting clothes, and a +yellow sash. There was something strangely incongruous in this Oriental +figure framed in the commonplace doorway of a third-rate suburban +dwelling-house. +“The Sahib awaits you,” said he, and even as he spoke there came a high +piping voice from some inner room. “Show them in to me, khitmutgar,” it +cried. “Show them straight in to me.” +Chapter IV +The Story of the Bald-Headed Man +We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill-lit and +worse furnished, until he came to a door upon the right, which he threw +open. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the centre +of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a bristle +of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which +shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed +his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual +jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose. +Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and a too visible line of yellow +and irregular teeth, which he strove feebly to conceal by constantly +passing his hand over the lower part of his face. In spite of his +obtrusive baldness, he gave the impression of youth. In point of fact +he had just turned his thirtieth year. +“Your servant, Miss Morstan,” he kept repeating, in a thin, high voice. +“Your servant, gentlemen. Pray step into my little sanctum. A small +place, miss, but furnished to my own liking. An oasis of art in the +howling desert of South London.” +We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which he +invited us. In that sorry house it looked as out of place as a diamond +of the first water in a setting of brass. The richest and glossiest of +curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back here and there to +expose some richly-mounted painting or Oriental vase. The carpet was of +amber-and-black, so soft and so thick that the foot sank pleasantly +into it, as into a bed of moss. Two great tiger-skins thrown athwart it +increased the suggestion of Eastern luxury, as did a huge hookah which +stood upon a mat in the corner. A lamp in the fashion of a silver dove +was hung from an almost invisible golden wire in the centre of the +room. As it burned it filled the air with a subtle and aromatic odour. +“Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,” said the little man, still jerking and smiling. +“That is my name. You are Miss Morstan, of course. And these +gentlemen—” +“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr. Watson.” +“A doctor, eh?” cried he, much excited. “Have you your stethoscope? +Might I ask you—would you have the kindness? I have grave doubts as to +my mitral valve, if you would be so very good. The aortic I may rely +upon, but I should value your opinion upon the mitral.” +I listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find anything +amiss, save indeed that he was in an ecstasy of fear, for he shivered +from head to foot. “It appears to be normal,” I said. “You have no +cause for uneasiness.” +“You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan,” he remarked, airily. “I am +a great sufferer, and I have long had suspicions as to that valve. I am +delighted to hear that they are unwarranted. Had your father, Miss +Morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart, he might have +been alive now.” +I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I at this +callous and off-hand reference to so delicate a matter. Miss Morstan +sat down, and her face grew white to the lips. “I knew in my heart that +he was dead,” said she. +“I can give you every information,” said he, “and, what is more, I can +do you justice; and I will, too, whatever Brother Bartholomew may say. +I am so glad to have your friends here, not only as an escort to you, +but also as witnesses to what I am about to do and say. The three of us +can show a bold front to Brother Bartholomew. But let us have no +outsiders,—no police or officials. We can settle everything +satisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference. Nothing would +annoy Brother Bartholomew more than any publicity.” He sat down upon a +low settee and blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery blue +eyes. +“For my part,” said Holmes, “whatever you may choose to say will go no +further.” +I nodded to show my agreement. +“That is well! That is well!” said he. “May I offer you a glass of +Chianti, Miss Morstan? Or of Tokay? I keep no other wines. Shall I open +a flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no objection to +tobacco-smoke, to the mild balsamic odour of the Eastern tobacco. I am +a little nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative.” He +applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled merrily +through the rose-water. We sat all three in a semi-circle, with our +heads advanced, and our chins upon our hands, while the strange, jerky +little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in the +centre. +“When I first determined to make this communication to you,” said he, +“I might have given you my address, but I feared that you might +disregard my request and bring unpleasant people with you. I took the +liberty, therefore, of making an appointment in such a way that my man +Williams might be able to see you first. I have complete confidence in +his discretion, and he had orders, if he were dissatisfied, to proceed +no further in the matter. You will excuse these precautions, but I am a +man of somewhat retiring, and I might even say refined, tastes, and +there is nothing more unæsthetic than a policeman. I have a natural +shrinking from all forms of rough materialism. I seldom come in contact +with the rough crowd. I live, as you see, with some little atmosphere +of elegance around me. I may call myself a patron of the arts. It is my +weakness. The landscape is a genuine Corot, and, though a connoisseur +might perhaps throw a doubt upon that Salvator Rosa, there cannot be +the least question about the Bouguereau. I am partial to the modern +French school.” +“You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto,” said Miss Morstan, “but I am here at +your request to learn something which you desire to tell me. It is very +late, and I should desire the interview to be as short as possible.” +“At the best it must take some time,” he answered; “for we shall +certainly have to go to Norwood and see Brother Bartholomew. We shall +all go and try if we can get the better of Brother Bartholomew. He is +very angry with me for taking the course which has seemed right to me. +I had quite high words with him last night. You cannot imagine what a +terrible fellow he is when he is angry.” +“If we are to go to Norwood it would perhaps be as well to start at +once,” I ventured to remark. +He laughed until his ears were quite red. “That would hardly do,” he +cried. “I don’t know what he would say if I brought you in that sudden +way. No, I must prepare you by showing you how we all stand to each +other. In the first place, I must tell you that there are several +points in the story of which I am myself ignorant. I can only lay the +facts before you as far as I know them myself. +“My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John Sholto, once of the +Indian army. He retired some eleven years ago, and came to live at +Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood. He had prospered in India, and +brought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large collection +of valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants. With these +advantages he bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury. My +twin-brother Bartholomew and I were the only children. +“I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the +disappearance of Captain Morstan. We read the details in the papers, +and, knowing that he had been a friend of our father’s, we discussed +the case freely in his presence. He used to join in our speculations as +to what could have happened. Never for an instant did we suspect that +he had the whole secret hidden in his own breast,—that of all men he +alone knew the fate of Arthur Morstan. +“We did know, however, that some mystery—some positive danger—overhung +our father. He was very fearful of going out alone, and he always +employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at Pondicherry Lodge. +Williams, who drove you to-night, was one of them. He was once +light-weight champion of England. Our father would never tell us what +it was he feared, but he had a most marked aversion to men with wooden +legs. On one occasion he actually fired his revolver at a wooden-legged +man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman canvassing for orders. We +had to pay a large sum to hush the matter up. My brother and I used to +think this a mere whim of my father’s, but events have since led us to +change our opinion. +“Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which was a great +shock to him. He nearly fainted at the breakfast-table when he opened +it, and from that day he sickened to his death. What was in the letter +we could never discover, but I could see as he held it that it was +short and written in a scrawling hand. He had suffered for years from +an enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse, and towards the +end of April we were informed that he was beyond all hope, and that he +wished to make a last communication to us. +“When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and breathing +heavily. He besought us to lock the door and to come upon either side +of the bed. Then, grasping our hands, he made a remarkable statement to +us, in a voice which was broken as much by emotion as by pain. I shall +try and give it to you in his own very words. +“‘I have only one thing,’ he said, ‘which weighs upon my mind at this +supreme moment. It is my treatment of poor Morstan’s orphan. The cursed +greed which has been my besetting sin through life has withheld from +her the treasure, half at least of which should have been hers. And yet +I have made no use of it myself,—so blind and foolish a thing is +avarice. The mere feeling of possession has been so dear to me that I +could not bear to share it with another. See that chaplet dipped with +pearls beside the quinine-bottle. Even that I could not bear to part +with, although I had got it out with the design of sending it to her. +You, my sons, will give her a fair share of the Agra treasure. But send +her nothing—not even the chaplet—until I am gone. After all, men have +been as bad as this and have recovered. +“‘I will tell you how Morstan died,’ he continued. ‘He had suffered for +years from a weak heart, but he concealed it from every one. I alone +knew it. When in India, he and I, through a remarkable chain of +circumstances, came into possession of a considerable treasure. I +brought it over to England, and on the night of Morstan’s arrival he +came straight over here to claim his share. He walked over from the +station, and was admitted by my faithful old Lal Chowdar, who is now +dead. Morstan and I had a difference of opinion as to the division of +the treasure, and we came to heated words. Morstan had sprung out of +his chair in a paroxysm of anger, when he suddenly pressed his hand to +his side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell backwards, cutting +his head against the corner of the treasure-chest. When I stooped over +him I found, to my horror, that he was dead. +“‘For a long time I sat half distracted, wondering what I should do. My +first impulse was, of course, to call for assistance; but I could not +but recognise that there was every chance that I would be accused of +his murder. His death at the moment of a quarrel, and the gash in his +head, would be black against me. Again, an official inquiry could not +be made without bringing out some facts about the treasure, which I was +particularly anxious to keep secret. He had told me that no soul upon +earth knew where he had gone. There seemed to be no necessity why any +soul ever should know. +“‘I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw my +servant, Lal Chowdar, in the doorway. He stole in and bolted the door +behind him. “Do not fear, Sahib,” he said. “No one need know that you +have killed him. Let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?” “I did +not kill him,” said I. Lal Chowdar shook his head and smiled. “I heard +it all, Sahib,” said he. “I heard you quarrel, and I heard the blow. +But my lips are sealed. All are asleep in the house. Let us put him +away together.” That was enough to decide me. If my own servant could +not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it good before +twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box? Lal Chowdar and I disposed of +the body that night, and within a few days the London papers were full +of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Morstan. You will see from +what I say that I can hardly be blamed in the matter. My fault lies in +the fact that we concealed not only the body, but also the treasure, +and that I have clung to Morstan’s share as well as to my own. I wish +you, therefore, to make restitution. Put your ears down to my mouth. +The treasure is hidden in—’ +“At this instant a horrible change came over his expression; his eyes +stared wildly, his jaw dropped, and he yelled, in a voice which I can +never forget, ‘Keep him out! For Christ’s sake keep him out!’ We both +stared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was fixed. A +face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the +whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It was a +bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of +concentrated malevolence. My brother and I rushed towards the window, +but the man was gone. When we returned to my father his head had +dropped and his pulse had ceased to beat. +“We searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the intruder, +save that just under the window a single footmark was visible in the +flower-bed. But for that one trace, we might have thought that our +imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face. We soon, however, +had another and a more striking proof that there were secret agencies +at work all round us. The window of my father’s room was found open in +the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been rifled, and upon his +chest was fixed a torn piece of paper, with the words ‘The sign of the +four’ scrawled across it. What the phrase meant, or who our secret +visitor may have been, we never knew. As far as we can judge, none of +my father’s property had been actually stolen, though everything had +been turned out. My brother and I naturally associated this peculiar +incident with the fear which haunted my father during his life; but it +is still a complete mystery to us.” +The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully +for a few moments. We had all sat absorbed, listening to his +extraordinary narrative. At the short account of her father’s death +Miss Morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment I feared that +she was about to faint. She rallied however, on drinking a glass of +water which I quietly poured out for her from a Venetian carafe upon +the side-table. Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair with an +abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering eyes. +As I glanced at him I could not but think how on that very day he had +complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life. Here at least was a +problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost. Mr. Thaddeus Sholto +looked from one to the other of us with an obvious pride at the effect +which his story had produced, and then continued between the puffs of +his overgrown pipe. +“My brother and I,” said he, “were, as you may imagine, much excited as +to the treasure which my father had spoken of. For weeks and for months +we dug and delved in every part of the garden, without discovering its +whereabouts. It was maddening to think that the hiding-place was on his +very lips at the moment that he died. We could judge the splendour of +the missing riches by the chaplet which he had taken out. Over this +chaplet my brother Bartholomew and I had some little discussion. The +pearls were evidently of great value, and he was averse to part with +them, for, between friends, my brother was himself a little inclined to +my father’s fault. He thought, too, that if we parted with the chaplet +it might give rise to gossip and finally bring us into trouble. It was +all that I could do to persuade him to let me find out Miss Morstan’s +address and send her a detached pearl at fixed intervals, so that at +least she might never feel destitute.” +“It was a kindly thought,” said our companion, earnestly. “It was +extremely good of you.” +The little man waved his hand deprecatingly. “We were your trustees,” +he said. “That was the view which I took of it, though Brother +Bartholomew could not altogether see it in that light. We had plenty of +money ourselves. I desired no more. Besides, it would have been such +bad taste to have treated a young lady in so scurvy a fashion. ‘Le +mauvais goût mène au crime.’ The French have a very neat way of putting +these things. Our difference of opinion on this subject went so far +that I thought it best to set up rooms for myself: so I left +Pondicherry Lodge, taking the old khitmutgar and Williams with me. +Yesterday, however, I learn that an event of extreme importance has +occurred. The treasure has been discovered. I instantly communicated +with Miss Morstan, and it only remains for us to drive out to Norwood +and demand our share. I explained my views last night to Brother +Bartholomew: so we shall be expected, if not welcome, visitors.” +Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased, and sat twitching on his luxurious settee. +We all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new development +which the mysterious business had taken. Holmes was the first to spring +to his feet. +“You have done well, sir, from first to last,” said he. “It is possible +that we may be able to make you some small return by throwing some +light upon that which is still dark to you. But, as Miss Morstan +remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the matter through +without delay.” +Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his +hookah, and produced from behind a curtain a very long befrogged +topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs. This he buttoned tightly up, +in spite of the extreme closeness of the night, and finished his attire +by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which covered the +ears, so that no part of him was visible save his mobile and peaky +face. “My health is somewhat fragile,” he remarked, as he led the way +down the passage. “I am compelled to be a valetudinarian.” +Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently +prearranged, for the driver started off at once at a rapid pace. +Thaddeus Sholto talked incessantly, in a voice which rose high above +the rattle of the wheels. +“Bartholomew is a clever fellow,” said he. “How do you think he found +out where the treasure was? He had come to the conclusion that it was +somewhere indoors: so he worked out all the cubic space of the house, +and made measurements everywhere, so that not one inch should be +unaccounted for. Among other things, he found that the height of the +building was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights of +all the separate rooms, and making every allowance for the space +between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the total +to more than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted for. These +could only be at the top of the building. He knocked a hole, therefore, +in the lath-and-plaster ceiling of the highest room, and there, sure +enough, he came upon another little garret above it, which had been +sealed up and was known to no one. In the centre stood the +treasure-chest, resting upon two rafters. He lowered it through the +hole, and there it lies. He computes the value of the jewels at not +less than half a million sterling.” +At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another +open-eyed. Miss Morstan, could we secure her rights, would change from +a needy governess to the richest heiress in England. Surely it was the +place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to +say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my heart turned as +heavy as lead within me. I stammered out some few halting words of +congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to +the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed +hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth +interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to the +composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, some of which he +bore about in a leather case in his pocket. I trust that he may not +remember any of the answers which I gave him that night. Holmes +declares that he overheard me caution him against the great danger of +taking more than two drops of castor oil, while I recommended +strychnine in large doses as a sedative. However that may be, I was +certainly relieved when our cab pulled up with a jerk and the coachman +sprang down to open the door. +“This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge,” said Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, +as he handed her out. +Chapter V +The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge +It was nearly eleven o’clock when we reached this final stage of our +night’s adventures. We had left the damp fog of the great city behind +us, and the night was fairly fine. A warm wind blew from the westward, +and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a moon peeping +occasionally through the rifts. It was clear enough to see for some +distance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one of the side-lamps from the +carriage to give us a better light upon our way. +Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds, and was girt round with a +very high stone wall topped with broken glass. A single narrow +iron-clamped door formed the only means of entrance. On this our guide +knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat. +“Who is there?” cried a gruff voice from within. +“It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock by this time.” +There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. The +door swung heavily back, and a short, deep-chested man stood in the +opening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his +protruded face and twinkling distrustful eyes. +“That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the others? I had no orders about +them from the master.” +“No, McMurdo? You surprise me! I told my brother last night that I +should bring some friends.” +“He ain’t been out o’ his room to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have no +orders. You know very well that I must stick to regulations. I can let +you in, but your friends must just stop where they are.” +This was an unexpected obstacle. Thaddeus Sholto looked about him in a +perplexed and helpless manner. “This is too bad of you, McMurdo!” he +said. “If I guarantee them, that is enough for you. There is the young +lady, too. She cannot wait on the public road at this hour.” +“Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus,” said the porter, inexorably. “Folk may be +friends o’ yours, and yet no friends o’ the master’s. He pays me well +to do my duty, and my duty I’ll do. I don’t know none o’ your friends.” +“Oh, yes you do, McMurdo,” cried Sherlock Holmes, genially. “I don’t +think you can have forgotten me. Don’t you remember the amateur who +fought three rounds with you at Alison’s rooms on the night of your +benefit four years back?” +“Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” roared the prize-fighter. “God’s truth! how +could I have mistook you? If instead o’ standin’ there so quiet you had +just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw, I’d +ha’ known you without a question. Ah, you’re one that has wasted your +gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the +fancy.” +“You see, Watson, if all else fails me I have still one of the +scientific professions open to me,” said Holmes, laughing. “Our friend +won’t keep us out in the cold now, I am sure.” +“In you come, sir, in you come,—you and your friends,” he answered. +“Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict. Had to be +certain of your friends before I let them in.” +Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump of +a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a +moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. The vast +size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck a +chill to the heart. Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the +lantern quivered and rattled in his hand. +“I cannot understand it,” he said. “There must be some mistake. I +distinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is no +light in his window. I do not know what to make of it.” +“Does he always guard the premises in this way?” asked Holmes. +“Yes; he has followed my father’s custom. He was the favourite son, you +know, and I sometimes think that my father may have told him more than +he ever told me. That is Bartholomew’s window up there where the +moonshine strikes. It is quite bright, but there is no light from +within, I think.” +“None,” said Holmes. “But I see the glint of a light in that little +window beside the door.” +“Ah, that is the housekeeper’s room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstone +sits. She can tell us all about it. But perhaps you would not mind +waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together and she +has no word of our coming she may be alarmed. But hush! what is that?” +He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light +flickered and wavered all round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and +we all stood with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From the great +black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and most +pitiful of sounds,—the shrill, broken whimpering of a frightened woman. +“It is Mrs. Bernstone,” said Sholto. “She is the only woman in the +house. Wait here. I shall be back in a moment.” He hurried for the +door, and knocked in his peculiar way. We could see a tall old woman +admit him, and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him. +“Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad you +have come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!” We heard her reiterated rejoicings until +the door was closed and her voice died away into a muffled monotone. +Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round, and +peered keenly at the house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which +cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand +was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who +had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even +look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble +our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it +since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should +go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also +the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand +in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all +the dark things that surrounded us. +“What a strange place!” she said, looking round. +“It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. +I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, +where the prospectors had been at work.” +“And from the same cause,” said Holmes. “These are the traces of the +treasure-seekers. You must remember that they were six years looking +for it. No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit.” +At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto +came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes. +“There is something amiss with Bartholomew!” he cried. “I am +frightened! My nerves cannot stand it.” He was, indeed, half blubbering +with fear, and his twitching feeble face peeping out from the great +Astrakhan collar had the helpless appealing expression of a terrified +child. +“Come into the house,” said Holmes, in his crisp, firm way. +“Yes, do!” pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. “I really do not feel equal to +giving directions.” +We all followed him into the housekeeper’s room, which stood upon the +left-hand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up and down +with a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of Miss +Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her. +“God bless your sweet calm face!” she cried, with an hysterical sob. +“It does me good to see you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried this +day!” +Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few +words of kindly womanly comfort which brought the colour back into the +other’s bloodless cheeks. +“Master has locked himself in and will not answer me,” she explained. +“All day I have waited to hear from him, for he often likes to be +alone; but an hour ago I feared that something was amiss, so I went up +and peeped through the key-hole. You must go up, Mr. Thaddeus,—you must +go up and look for yourself. I have seen Mr. Bartholomew Sholto in joy +and in sorrow for ten long years, but I never saw him with such a face +on him as that.” +Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto’s +teeth were chattering in his head. So shaken was he that I had to pass +my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees were +trembling under him. Twice as we ascended Holmes whipped his lens out +of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to be +mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoa-nut matting which served +as a stair-carpet. He walked slowly from step to step, holding the +lamp, and shooting keen glances to right and left. Miss Morstan had +remained behind with the frightened housekeeper. +The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some length, +with a great picture in Indian tapestry upon the right of it and three +doors upon the left. Holmes advanced along it in the same slow and +methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our long black +shadows streaming backwards down the corridor. The third door was that +which we were seeking. Holmes knocked without receiving any answer, and +then tried to turn the handle and force it open. It was locked on the +inside, however, and by a broad and powerful bolt, as we could see when +we set our lamp up against it. The key being turned, however, the hole +was not entirely closed. Sherlock Holmes bent down to it, and instantly +rose again with a sharp intaking of the breath. +“There is something devilish in this, Watson,” said he, more moved than +I had ever before seen him. “What do you make of it?” +I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror. Moonlight was streaming +into the room, and it was bright with a vague and shifty radiance. +Looking straight at me, and suspended, as it were, in the air, for all +beneath was in shadow, there hung a face,—the very face of our +companion Thaddeus. There was the same high, shining head, the same +circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance. The +features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and unnatural +grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring to the +nerves than any scowl or contortion. So like was the face to that of +our little friend that I looked round at him to make sure that he was +indeed with us. Then I recalled to mind that he had mentioned to us +that his brother and he were twins. +“This is terrible!” I said to Holmes. “What is to be done?” +“The door must come down,” he answered, and, springing against it, he +put all his weight upon the lock. It creaked and groaned, but did not +yield. Together we flung ourselves upon it once more, and this time it +gave way with a sudden snap, and we found ourselves within Bartholomew +Sholto’s chamber. +It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A double +line of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite the +door, and the table was littered over with Bunsen burners, test-tubes, +and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid in wicker baskets. +One of these appeared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream of +dark-coloured liquid had trickled out from it, and the air was heavy +with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like odour. A set of steps stood at one +side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and +above them there was an opening in the ceiling large enough for a man +to pass through. At the foot of the steps a long coil of rope was +thrown carelessly together. +By the table, in a wooden arm-chair, the master of the house was seated +all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder, and that +ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold, and +had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his +features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most +fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar +instrument,—a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a +hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet +of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. Holmes glanced at it, +and then handed it to me. +“You see,” he said, with a significant raising of the eyebrows. +In the light of the lantern I read, with a thrill of horror, “The sign +of the four.” +“In God’s name, what does it all mean?” I asked. +“It means murder,” said he, stooping over the dead man. “Ah, I expected +it. Look here!” He pointed to what looked like a long, dark thorn stuck +in the skin just above the ear. +“It looks like a thorn,” said I. +“It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is +poisoned.” +I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skin so +readily that hardly any mark was left behind. One tiny speck of blood +showed where the puncture had been. +“This is all an insoluble mystery to me,” said I. “It grows darker +instead of clearer.” +“On the contrary,” he answered, “it clears every instant. I only +require a few missing links to have an entirely connected case.” +We had almost forgotten our companion’s presence since we entered the +chamber. He was still standing in the doorway, the very picture of +terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly, however, +he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry. +“The treasure is gone!” he said. “They have robbed him of the treasure! +There is the hole through which we lowered it. I helped him to do it! I +was the last person who saw him! I left him here last night, and I +heard him lock the door as I came downstairs.” +“What time was that?” +“It was ten o’clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be called +in, and I shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh, yes, I am +sure I shall. But you don’t think so, gentlemen? Surely you don’t think +that it was I? Is it likely that I would have brought you here if it +were I? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I know that I shall go mad!” He jerked his +arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive frenzy. +“You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto,” said Holmes, kindly, putting +his hand upon his shoulder. “Take my advice, and drive down to the +station to report this matter to the police. Offer to assist them in +every way. We shall wait here until your return.” +The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard him +stumbling down the stairs in the dark. +Chapter VI +Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration +“Now, Watson,” said Holmes, rubbing his hands, “we have half an hour to +ourselves. Let us make good use of it. My case is, as I have told you, +almost complete; but we must not err on the side of over-confidence. +Simple as the case seems now, there may be something deeper underlying +it.” +“Simple!” I ejaculated. +“Surely,” said he, with something of the air of a clinical professor +expounding to his class. “Just sit in the corner there, that your +footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In the first place, +how did these folk come, and how did they go? The door has not been +opened since last night. How of the window?” He carried the lamp across +to it, muttering his observations aloud the while, but addressing them +to himself rather than to me. “Window is snibbed on the inner side. +Framework is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us open it. No +water-pipe near. Roof quite out of reach. Yet a man has mounted by the +window. It rained a little last night. Here is the print of a foot in +mould upon the sill. And here is a circular muddy mark, and here again +upon the floor, and here again by the table. See here, Watson! This is +really a very pretty demonstration.” +I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs. “This is not a +footmark,” said I. +“It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a +wooden stump. You see here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy boot +with the broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the +timber-toe.” +“It is the wooden-legged man.” +“Quite so. But there has been some one else,—a very able and efficient +ally. Could you scale that wall, doctor?” +I looked out of the open window. The moon still shone brightly on that +angle of the house. We were a good sixty feet from the ground, and, +look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a crevice +in the brick-work. +“It is absolutely impossible,” I answered. +“Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a friend up here who lowered +you this good stout rope which I see in the corner, securing one end of +it to this great hook in the wall. Then, I think, if you were an active +man, You might swarm up, wooden leg and all. You would depart, of +course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw up the rope, +untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the inside, and get +away in the way that he originally came. As a minor point it may be +noted,” he continued, fingering the rope, “that our wooden-legged +friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional sailor. His hands +were far from horny. My lens discloses more than one blood-mark, +especially towards the end of the rope, from which I gather that he +slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin off his hand.” +“This is all very well,” said I, “but the thing becomes more +unintelligible than ever. How about this mysterious ally? How came he +into the room?” +“Yes, the ally!” repeated Holmes, pensively. “There are features of +interest about this ally. He lifts the case from the regions of the +commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals +of crime in this country,—though parallel cases suggest themselves from +India, and, if my memory serves me, from Senegambia.” +“How came he, then?” I reiterated. “The door is locked, the window is +inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?” +“The grate is much too small,” he answered. “I had already considered +that possibility.” +“How then?” I persisted. +“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often +have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible +whatever remains, _however improbable_, must be the truth? We know that +he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also +know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no +concealment possible. Whence, then, did he come?” +“He came through the hole in the roof,” I cried. +“Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the kindness +to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches to the room +above,—the secret room in which the treasure was found.” +He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he swung +himself up into the garret. Then, lying on his face, he reached down +for the lamp and held it while I followed him. +The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way and +six the other. The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin +lath-and-plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from beam +to beam. The roof ran up to an apex, and was evidently the inner shell +of the true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and +the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor. +“Here you are, you see,” said Sherlock Holmes, putting his hand against +the sloping wall. “This is a trap-door which leads out on to the roof. +I can press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping at a gentle +angle. This, then, is the way by which Number One entered. Let us see +if we can find any other traces of his individuality.” +He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the +second time that night a startled, surprised look come over his face. +For myself, as I followed his gaze my skin was cold under my clothes. +The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot,—clear, +well defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the size of those of an +ordinary man. +“Holmes,” I said, in a whisper, “a child has done the horrid thing.” +He had recovered his self-possession in an instant. “I was staggered +for the moment,” he said, “but the thing is quite natural. My memory +failed me, or I should have been able to foretell it. There is nothing +more to be learned here. Let us go down.” +“What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?” I asked, eagerly, +when we had regained the lower room once more. +“My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself,” said he, with a touch +of impatience. “You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be +instructive to compare results.” +“I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts,” I answered. +“It will be clear enough to you soon,” he said, in an off-hand way. “I +think that there is nothing else of importance here, but I will look.” +He whipped out his lens and a tape measure, and hurried about the room +on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose +only a few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes gleaming and +deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were his +movements, like those of a trained blood-hound picking out a scent, +that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made +had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law, instead of +exerting them in its defence. As he hunted about, he kept muttering to +himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow of delight. +“We are certainly in luck,” said he. “We ought to have very little +trouble now. Number One has had the misfortune to tread in the +creosote. You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here at +the side of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy has been cracked, You +see, and the stuff has leaked out.” +“What then?” I asked. +“Why, we have got him, that’s all,” said he. “I know a dog that would +follow that scent to the world’s end. If a pack can track a trailed +herring across a shire, how far can a specially-trained hound follow so +pungent a smell as this? It sounds like a sum in the rule of three. The +answer should give us the—But halloa! here are the accredited +representatives of the law.” +Heavy steps and the clamour of loud voices were audible from below, and +the hall door shut with a loud crash. +“Before they come,” said Holmes, “just put your hand here on this poor +fellow’s arm, and here on his leg. What do you feel?” +“The muscles are as hard as a board,” I answered. +“Quite so. They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding +the usual _rigor mortis_. Coupled with this distortion of the face, +this Hippocratic smile, or ‘_risus sardonicus_,’ as the old writers +called it, what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?” +“Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid,” I answered,—“some +strychnine-like substance which would produce tetanus.” +“That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the drawn +muscles of the face. On getting into the room I at once looked for the +means by which the poison had entered the system. As you saw, I +discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force +into the scalp. You observe that the part struck was that which would +be turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the man were erect in his +chair. Now examine the thorn.” +I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lantern. It was +long, sharp, and black, with a glazed look near the point as though +some gummy substance had dried upon it. The blunt end had been trimmed +and rounded off with a knife. +“Is that an English thorn?” he asked. +“No, it certainly is not.” +“With all these data you should be able to draw some just inference. +But here are the regulars; so the auxiliary forces may beat a retreat.” +As he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly on +the passage, and a very stout, portly man in a grey suit strode heavily +into the room. He was red-faced, burly and plethoric, with a pair of +very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from between swollen +and puffy pouches. He was closely followed by an inspector in uniform, +and by the still palpitating Thaddeus Sholto. +“Here’s a business!” he cried, in a muffled, husky voice. “Here’s a +pretty business! But who are all these? Why, the house seems to be as +full as a rabbit-warren!” +“I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney Jones,” said Holmes, +quietly. +“Why, of course I do!” he wheezed. “It’s Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the +theorist. Remember you! I’ll never forget how you lectured us all on +causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate jewel case. It’s +true you set us on the right track; but you’ll own now that it was more +by good luck than good guidance.” +“It was a piece of very simple reasoning.” +“Oh, come, now, come! Never be ashamed to own up. But what is all this? +Bad business! Bad business! Stern facts here,—no room for theories. How +lucky that I happened to be out at Norwood over another case! I was at +the station when the message arrived. What d’you think the man died +of?” +“Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorise over,” said Holmes, +dryly. +“No, no. Still, we can’t deny that you hit the nail on the head +sometimes. Dear me! Door locked, I understand. Jewels worth half a +million missing. How was the window?” +“Fastened; but there are steps on the sill.” +“Well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do with +the matter. That’s common sense. Man might have died in a fit; but then +the jewels are missing. Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me +at times.—Just step outside, sergeant, and you, Mr. Sholto. Your friend +can remain.—What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own +confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on +which Sholto walked off with the treasure. How’s that?” +“On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on +the inside.” +“Hum! There’s a flaw there. Let us apply common sense to the matter. +This Thaddeus Sholto _was_ with his brother; there _was_ a quarrel; so +much we know. The brother is dead and the jewels are gone. So much also +we know. No one saw the brother from the time Thaddeus left him. His +bed had not been slept in. Thaddeus is evidently in a most disturbed +state of mind. His appearance is—well, not attractive. You see that I +am weaving my web round Thaddeus. The net begins to close upon him.” +“You are not quite in possession of the facts yet,” said Holmes. “This +splinter of wood, which I have every reason to believe to be poisoned, +was in the man’s scalp where you still see the mark; this card, +inscribed as you see it, was on the table; and beside it lay this +rather curious stone-headed instrument. How does all that fit into your +theory?��� +“Confirms it in every respect,” said the fat detective, pompously. +“House is full of Indian curiosities. Thaddeus brought this up, and if +this splinter be poisonous Thaddeus may as well have made murderous use +of it as any other man. The card is some hocus-pocus,—a blind, as like +as not. The only question is, how did he depart? Ah, of course, here is +a hole in the roof.” With great activity, considering his bulk, he +sprang up the steps and squeezed through into the garret, and +immediately afterwards we heard his exulting voice proclaiming that he +had found the trap-door. +“He can find something,” remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. “He +has occasional glimmerings of reason. _Il n’y a pas des sots si +incommodes que ceux qui ont de l’esprit!_” +“You see!” said Athelney Jones, reappearing down the steps again. +“Facts are better than mere theories, after all. My view of the case is +confirmed. There is a trap-door communicating with the roof, and it is +partly open.” +“It was I who opened it.” +“Oh, indeed! You did notice it, then?” He seemed a little crestfallen +at the discovery. “Well, whoever noticed it, it shows how our gentleman +got away. Inspector!” +“Yes, sir,” from the passage. +“Ask Mr. Sholto to step this way.—Mr. Sholto, it is my duty to inform +you that anything which you may say will be used against you. I arrest +you in the Queen’s name as being concerned in the death of your +brother.” +“There, now! Didn’t I tell you!” cried the poor little man, throwing +out his hands, and looking from one to the other of us. +“Don’t trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto,” said Holmes. “I think +that I can engage to clear you of the charge.” +“Don’t promise too much, Mr. Theorist,—don’t promise too much!” snapped +the detective. “You may find it a harder matter than you think.” +“Not only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will make you a free +present of the name and description of one of the two people who were +in this room last night. His name, I have every reason to believe, is +Jonathan Small. He is a poorly-educated man, small, active, with his +right leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the +inner side. His left boot has a coarse, square-toed sole, with an iron +band round the heel. He is a middle-aged man, much sunburned, and has +been a convict. These few indications may be of some assistance to you, +coupled with the fact that there is a good deal of skin missing from +the palm of his hand. The other man—” +“Ah! the other man—?” asked Athelney Jones, in a sneering voice, but +impressed none the less, as I could easily see, by the precision of the +other’s manner. +“Is a rather curious person,” said Sherlock Holmes, turning upon his +heel. “I hope before very long to be able to introduce you to the pair +of them.—A word with you, Watson.” +He led me out to the head of the stair. “This unexpected occurrence,” +he said, “has caused us rather to lose sight of the original purpose of +our journey.” +“I have just been thinking so,” I answered. “It is not right that Miss +Morstan should remain in this stricken house.” +“No. You must escort her home. She lives with Mrs. Cecil Forrester, in +Lower Camberwell: so it is not very far. I will wait for you here if +you will drive out again. Or perhaps you are too tired?” +“By no means. I don’t think I could rest until I know more of this +fantastic business. I have seen something of the rough side of life, +but I give you my word that this quick succession of strange surprises +to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like, however, to see +the matter through with you, now that I have got so far.” +“Your presence will be of great service to me,” he answered. “We shall +work the case out independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult +over any mare’s-nest which he may choose to construct. When you have +dropped Miss Morstan I wish you to go on to No. 3, Pinchin Lane, down +near the water’s edge at Lambeth. The third house on the right-hand +side is a bird-stuffer’s: Sherman is the name. You will see a weasel +holding a young rabbit in the window. Knock old Sherman up, and tell +him, with my compliments, that I want Toby at once. You will bring Toby +back in the cab with you.” +“A dog, I suppose.” +“Yes,—a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. I would +rather have Toby’s help than that of the whole detective force of +London.” +“I shall bring him, then,” said I. “It is one now. I ought to be back +before three, if I can get a fresh horse.” +“And I,” said Holmes, “shall see what I can learn from Mrs. Bernstone, +and from the Indian servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tell me, sleeps in the +next garret. Then I shall study the great Jones’s methods and listen to +his not too delicate sarcasms. ‘_Wir sind gewohnt das die Menschen +verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen._’ Goethe is always pithy.” +Chapter VII +The Episode of the Barrel +The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted Miss +Morstan back to her home. After the angelic fashion of women, she had +borne trouble with a calm face as long as there was some one weaker +than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by the +side of the frightened housekeeper. In the cab, however, she first +turned faint, and then burst into a passion of weeping,—so sorely had +she been tried by the adventures of the night. She has told me since +that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey. She little +guessed the struggle within my breast, or the effort of self-restraint +which held me back. My sympathies and my love went out to her, even as +my hand had in the garden. I felt that years of the conventionalities +of life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave nature as had this +one day of strange experiences. Yet there were two thoughts which +sealed the words of affection upon my lips. She was weak and helpless, +shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to +obtrude love upon her at such a time. Worse still, she was rich. If +Holmes’s researches were successful, she would be an heiress. Was it +fair, was it honourable, that a half-pay surgeon should take such +advantage of an intimacy which chance had brought about? Might she not +look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker? I could not bear to risk +that such a thought should cross her mind. This Agra treasure +intervened like an impassable barrier between us. +It was nearly two o’clock when we reached Mrs. Cecil Forrester’s. The +servants had retired hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so +interested by the strange message which Miss Morstan had received that +she had sat up in the hope of her return. She opened the door herself, +a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how tenderly +her arm stole round the other’s waist and how motherly was the voice in +which she greeted her. She was clearly no mere paid dependant, but an +honoured friend. I was introduced, and Mrs. Forrester earnestly begged +me to step in and tell her our adventures. I explained, however, the +importance of my errand, and promised faithfully to call and report any +progress which we might make with the case. As we drove away I stole a +glance back, and I still seem to see that little group on the step, the +two graceful, clinging figures, the half-opened door, the hall-light +shining through stained glass, the barometer, and the bright +stair-rods. It was soothing to catch even that passing glimpse of a +tranquil English home in the midst of the wild, dark business which had +absorbed us. +And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it +grew. I reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as I +rattled on through the silent gas-lit streets. There was the original +problem: that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain +Morstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter,—we +had had light upon all those events. They had only led us, however, to +a deeper and far more tragic mystery. The Indian treasure, the curious +plan found among Morstan’s baggage, the strange scene at Major Sholto’s +death, the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed by the +murder of the discoverer, the very singular accompaniments to the +crime, the footsteps, the remarkable weapons, the words upon the card, +corresponding with those upon Captain Morstan’s chart,—here was indeed +a labyrinth in which a man less singularly endowed than my +fellow-lodger might well despair of ever finding the clue. +Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby two-storied brick houses in the lower +quarter of Lambeth. I had to knock for some time at No. 3 before I +could make my impression. At last, however, there was the glint of a +candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the upper window. +“Go on, you drunken vagabone,” said the face. “If you kick up any more +row I’ll open the kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon you.” +“If you’ll let one out it’s just what I have come for,” said I. +“Go on!” yelled the voice. “So help me gracious, I have a wiper in the +bag, an’ I’ll drop it on your ’ead if you don’t hook it.” +“But I want a dog,” I cried. +“I won’t be argued with!” shouted Mr. Sherman. “Now stand clear, for +when I say ‘three,’ down goes the wiper.” +“Mr. Sherlock Holmes—” I began, but the words had a most magical +effect, for the window instantly slammed down, and within a minute the +door was unbarred and open. Mr. Sherman was a lanky, lean old man, with +stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue-tinted glasses. +“A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome,” said he. “Step in, sir. +Keep clear of the badger; for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty, would you +take a nip at the gentleman?” This to a stoat which thrust its wicked +head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. “Don’t mind that, sir: +it’s only a slow-worm. It hain’t got no fangs, so I gives it the run o’ +the room, for it keeps the beetles down. You must not mind my bein’ +just a little short wi’ you at first, for I’m guyed at by the children, +and there’s many a one just comes down this lane to knock me up. What +was it that Mr. Sherlock Holmes wanted, sir?” +“He wanted a dog of yours.” +“Ah! that would be Toby.” +“Yes, Toby was the name.” +“Toby lives at No. 7 on the left here.” He moved slowly forward with +his candle among the queer animal family which he had gathered round +him. In the uncertain, shadowy light I could see dimly that there were +glancing, glimmering eyes peeping down at us from every cranny and +corner. Even the rafters above our heads were lined by solemn fowls, +who lazily shifted their weight from one leg to the other as our voices +disturbed their slumbers. +Toby proved to be an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half +spaniel and half lurcher, brown-and-white in colour, with a very clumsy +waddling gait. It accepted after some hesitation a lump of sugar which +the old naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed an alliance, +it followed me to the cab, and made no difficulties about accompanying +me. It had just struck three on the Palace clock when I found myself +back once more at Pondicherry Lodge. The ex-prize-fighter McMurdo had, +I found, been arrested as an accessory, and both he and Mr. Sholto had +been marched off to the station. Two constables guarded the narrow +gate, but they allowed me to pass with the dog on my mentioning the +detective’s name. +Holmes was standing on the door-step, with his hands in his pockets, +smoking his pipe. +“Ah, you have him there!” said he. “Good dog, then! Atheney Jones has +gone. We have had an immense display of energy since you left. He has +arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the gatekeeper, the housekeeper, +and the Indian servant. We have the place to ourselves, but for a +sergeant upstairs. Leave the dog here, and come up.” +We tied Toby to the hall table, and re-ascended the stairs. The room +was as he had left it, save that a sheet had been draped over the +central figure. A weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the corner. +“Lend me your bull’s-eye, sergeant,” said my companion. “Now tie this +bit of card round my neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank you. +Now I must kick off my boots and stockings.—Just you carry them down +with you, Watson. I am going to do a little climbing. And dip my +handkerchief into the creasote. That will do. Now come up into the +garret with me for a moment.” +We clambered up through the hole. Holmes turned his light once more +upon the footsteps in the dust. +“I wish you particularly to notice these footmarks,” he said. “Do you +observe anything noteworthy about them?” +“They belong,” I said, “to a child or a small woman.” +“Apart from their size, though. Is there nothing else?” +“They appear to be much as other footmarks.” +“Not at all. Look here! This is the print of a right foot in the dust. +Now I make one with my naked foot beside it. What is the chief +difference?” +“Your toes are all cramped together. The other print has each toe +distinctly divided.” +“Quite so. That is the point. Bear that in mind. Now, would you kindly +step over to that flap-window and smell the edge of the wood-work? I +shall stay here, as I have this handkerchief in my hand.” +I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry +smell. +“That is where he put his foot in getting out. If _you_ can trace him, +I should think that Toby will have no difficulty. Now run downstairs, +loose the dog, and look out for Blondin.” +By the time that I got out into the grounds Sherlock Holmes was on the +roof, and I could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling very +slowly along the ridge. I lost sight of him behind a stack of chimneys, +but he presently reappeared, and then vanished once more upon the +opposite side. When I made my way round there I found him seated at one +of the corner eaves. +“That you, Watson?” he cried. +“Yes.” +“This is the place. What is that black thing down there?” +“A water-barrel.” +“Top on it?” +“Yes.” +“No sign of a ladder?” +“No.” +“Confound the fellow! It’s a most break-neck place. I ought to be able +to come down where he could climb up. The water-pipe feels pretty firm. +Here goes, anyhow.” +There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily +down the side of the wall. Then with a light spring he came on to the +barrel, and from there to the earth. +“It was easy to follow him,” he said, drawing on his stockings and +boots. “Tiles were loosened the whole way along, and in his hurry he +had dropped this. It confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors express it.” +The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven out +of coloured grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung round it. In +shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside were half a +dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the other, +like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto. +“They are hellish things,” said he. “Look out that you don’t prick +yourself. I’m delighted to have them, for the chances are that they are +all he has. There is the less fear of you or me finding one in our skin +before long. I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself. Are you game +for a six-mile trudge, Watson?” +“Certainly,” I answered. +“Your leg will stand it?” +“Oh, yes.” +“Here you are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!” He +pushed the creasote handkerchief under the dog’s nose, while the +creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most comical +cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the _bouquet_ of a famous +vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a +stout cord to the mongrel’s collar, and led him to the foot of the +water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a succession of high, +tremulous yelps, and, with his nose on the ground, and his tail in the +air, pattered off upon the trail at a pace which strained his leash and +kept us at the top of our speed. +The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some +distance in the cold grey light. The square, massive house, with its +black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and forlorn, +behind us. Our course led right across the grounds, in and out among +the trenches and pits with which they were scarred and intersected. The +whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and ill-grown shrubs, had a +blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized with the black tragedy which +hung over it. +On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly, +underneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a +young beech. Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been +loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the +lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder. Holmes +clambered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped it over upon the +other side. +“There’s the print of wooden-leg’s hand,” he remarked, as I mounted up +beside him. “You see the slight smudge of blood upon the white plaster. +What a lucky thing it is that we have had no very heavy rain since +yesterday! The scent will lie upon the road in spite of their +eight-and-twenty hours’ start.” +I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great +traffic which had passed along the London road in the interval. My +fears were soon appeased, however. Toby never hesitated or swerved, but +waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. Clearly, the pungent smell +of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents. +“Do not imagine,” said Holmes, “that I depend for my success in this +case upon the mere chance of one of these fellows having put his foot +in the chemical. I have knowledge now which would enable me to trace +them in many different ways. This, however, is the readiest and, since +fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable if I neglected +it. It has, however, prevented the case from becoming the pretty little +intellectual problem which it at one time promised to be. There might +have been some credit to be gained out of it, but for this too palpable +clue.” +“There is credit, and to spare,” said I. “I assure you, Holmes, that I +marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case, even +more than I did in the Jefferson Hope Murder. The thing seems to me to +be deeper and more inexplicable. How, for example, could you describe +with such confidence the wooden-legged man?” +“Pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself. I don’t wish to be +theatrical. It is all patent and above-board. Two officers who are in +command of a convict-guard learn an important secret as to buried +treasure. A map is drawn for them by an Englishman named Jonathan +Small. You remember that we saw the name upon the chart in Captain +Morstan’s possession. He had signed it in behalf of himself and his +associates,—the sign of the four, as he somewhat dramatically called +it. Aided by this chart, the officers—or one of them—gets the treasure +and brings it to England, leaving, we will suppose, some condition +under which he received it unfulfilled. Now, then, why did not Jonathan +Small get the treasure himself? The answer is obvious. The chart is +dated at a time when Morstan was brought into close association with +convicts. Jonathan Small did not get the treasure because he and his +associates were themselves convicts and could not get away.” +“But that is mere speculation,” said I. +“It is more than that. It is the only hypothesis which covers the +facts. Let us see how it fits in with the sequel. Major Sholto remains +at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his treasure. Then +he receives a letter from India which gives him a great fright. What +was that?” +“A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free.” +“Or had escaped. That is much more likely, for he would have known what +their term of imprisonment was. It would not have been a surprise to +him. What does he do then? He guards himself against a wooden-legged +man,—a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white tradesman for him, +and actually fires a pistol at him. Now, only one white man’s name is +on the chart. The others are Hindoos or Mohammedans. There is no other +white man. Therefore we may say with confidence that the wooden-legged +man is identical with Jonathan Small. Does the reasoning strike you as +being faulty?” +“No: it is clear and concise.” +“Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of Jonathan Small. Let us +look at it from his point of view. He comes to England with the double +idea of regaining what he would consider to be his rights and of having +his revenge upon the man who had wronged him. He found out where Sholto +lived, and very possibly he established communications with some one +inside the house. There is this butler, Lal Rao, whom we have not seen. +Mrs. Bernstone gives him far from a good character. Small could not +find out, however, where the treasure was hid, for no one ever knew, +save the major and one faithful servant who had died. Suddenly Small +learns that the major is on his death-bed. In a frenzy lest the secret +of the treasure die with him, he runs the gauntlet of the guards, makes +his way to the dying man’s window, and is only deterred from entering +by the presence of his two sons. Mad with hate, however, against the +dead man, he enters the room that night, searches his private papers in +the hope of discovering some memorandum relating to the treasure, and +finally leaves a momento of his visit in the short inscription upon the +card. He had doubtless planned beforehand that should he slay the major +he would leave some such record upon the body as a sign that it was not +a common murder, but, from the point of view of the four associates, +something in the nature of an act of justice. Whimsical and bizarre +conceits of this kind are common enough in the annals of crime, and +usually afford valuable indications as to the criminal. Do you follow +all this?” +“Very clearly.” +“Now, what could Jonathan Small do? He could only continue to keep a +secret watch upon the efforts made to find the treasure. Possibly he +leaves England and only comes back at intervals. Then comes the +discovery of the garret, and he is instantly informed of it. We again +trace the presence of some confederate in the household. Jonathan, with +his wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty room of +Bartholomew Sholto. He takes with him, however, a rather curious +associate, who gets over this difficulty, but dips his naked foot into +creasote, whence comes Toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay officer +with a damaged tendo Achillis.” +“But it was the associate, and not Jonathan, who committed the crime.” +“Quite so. And rather to Jonathan’s disgust, to judge by the way he +stamped about when he got into the room. He bore no grudge against +Bartholomew Sholto, and would have preferred if he could have been +simply bound and gagged. He did not wish to put his head in a halter. +There was no help for it, however: the savage instincts of his +companion had broken out, and the poison had done its work: so Jonathan +Small left his record, lowered the treasure-box to the ground, and +followed it himself. That was the train of events as far as I can +decipher them. Of course as to his personal appearance he must be +middle-aged, and must be sunburned after serving his time in such an +oven as the Andamans. His height is readily calculated from the length +of his stride, and we know that he was bearded. His hairiness was the +one point which impressed itself upon Thaddeus Sholto when he saw him +at the window. I don’t know that there is anything else.” +“The associate?” +“Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. But you will know all +about it soon enough. How sweet the morning air is! See how that one +little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. +Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It +shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a +stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty +ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces +of nature! Are you well up in your Jean Paul?” +“Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle.” +“That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes one +curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man’s real +greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you +see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a +proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter. You have +not a pistol, have you?” +“I have my stick.” +“It is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we get +to their lair. Jonathan I shall leave to you, but if the other turns +nasty I shall shoot him dead.” He took out his revolver as he spoke, +and, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the +right-hand pocket of his jacket. +We had during this time been following the guidance of Toby down the +half-rural villa-lined roads which lead to the metropolis. Now, +however, we were beginning to come among continuous streets, where +labourers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were +taking down shutters and brushing door-steps. At the square-topped +corner public houses business was just beginning, and rough-looking men +were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after their +morning wet. Strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly at us as +we passed, but our inimitable Toby looked neither to the right nor to +the left, but trotted onwards with his nose to the ground and an +occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent. +We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camberwell, and now found +ourselves in Kennington Lane, having borne away through the +side-streets to the east of the Oval. The men whom we pursued seemed to +have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of escaping +observation. They had never kept to the main road if a parallel +side-street would serve their turn. At the foot of Kennington Lane they +had edged away to the left through Bond Street and Miles Street. Where +the latter street turns into Knight’s Place, Toby ceased to advance, +but began to run backwards and forwards with one ear cocked and the +other drooping, the very picture of canine indecision. Then he waddled +round in circles, looking up to us from time to time, as if to ask for +sympathy in his embarrassment. +“What the deuce is the matter with the dog?” growled Holmes. “They +surely would not take a cab, or go off in a balloon.” +“Perhaps they stood here for some time,” I suggested. +“Ah! it’s all right. He’s off again,” said my companion, in a tone of +relief. +He was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made up +his mind, and darted away with an energy and determination such as he +had not yet shown. The scent appeared to be much hotter than before, +for he had not even to put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his +leash and tried to break into a run. I could see by the gleam in +Holmes’s eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of our journey. +Our course now ran down Nine Elms until we came to Broderick and +Nelson’s large timber-yard, just past the White Eagle tavern. Here the +dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the side-gate into +the enclosure, where the sawyers were already at work. On the dog raced +through sawdust and shavings, down an alley, round a passage, between +two wood-piles, and finally, with a triumphant yelp, sprang upon a +large barrel which still stood upon the hand-trolley on which it had +been brought. With lolling tongue and blinking eyes, Toby stood upon +the cask, looking from one to the other of us for some sign of +appreciation. The staves of the barrel and the wheels of the trolley +were smeared with a dark liquid, and the whole air was heavy with the +smell of creasote. +Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each other, and then burst +simultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. +Chapter VIII +The Baker Street Irregulars +“What now?” I asked. “Toby has lost his character for infallibility.” +“He acted according to his lights,” said Holmes, lifting him down from +the barrel and walking him out of the timber-yard. “If you consider how +much creasote is carted about London in one day, it is no great wonder +that our trail should have been crossed. It is much used now, +especially for the seasoning of wood. Poor Toby is not to blame.” +“We must get on the main scent again, I suppose.” +“Yes. And, fortunately, we have no distance to go. Evidently what +puzzled the dog at the corner of Knight’s Place was that there were two +different trails running in opposite directions. We took the wrong one. +It only remains to follow the other.” +There was no difficulty about this. On leading Toby to the place where +he had committed his fault, he cast about in a wide circle and finally +dashed off in a fresh direction. +“We must take care that he does not now bring us to the place where the +creasote-barrel came from,” I observed. +“I had thought of that. But you notice that he keeps on the pavement, +whereas the barrel passed down the roadway. No, we are on the true +scent now.” +It tended down towards the river-side, running through Belmont Place +and Prince’s Street. At the end of Broad Street it ran right down to +the water’s edge, where there was a small wooden wharf. Toby led us to +the very edge of this, and there stood whining, looking out on the dark +current beyond. +“We are out of luck,” said Holmes. “They have taken to a boat here.” +Several small punts and skiffs were lying about in the water and on the +edge of the wharf. We took Toby round to each in turn, but, though he +sniffed earnestly, he made no sign. +Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a wooden +placard slung out through the second window. “Mordecai Smith” was +printed across it in large letters, and, underneath, “Boats to hire by +the hour or day.” A second inscription above the door informed us that +a steam launch was kept,—a statement which was confirmed by a great +pile of coke upon the jetty. Sherlock Holmes looked slowly round, and +his face assumed an ominous expression. +“This looks bad,” said he. “These fellows are sharper than I expected. +They seem to have covered their tracks. There has, I fear, been +preconcerted management here.” +He was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a little, +curly-headed lad of six came running out, followed by a stoutish, +red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand. +“You come back and be washed, Jack,” she shouted. “Come back, you young +imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that, he’ll let +us hear of it.” +“Dear little chap!” said Holmes, strategically. “What a rosy-cheeked +young rascal! Now, Jack, is there anything you would like?” +The youth pondered for a moment. “I’d like a shillin’,” said he. +“Nothing you would like better?” +“I’d like two shillin’ better,” the prodigy answered, after some +thought. +“Here you are, then! Catch!—A fine child, Mrs. Smith!” +“Lor’ bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. He gets a’most too much +for me to manage, ’specially when my man is away days at a time.” +“Away, is he?” said Holmes, in a disappointed voice. “I am sorry for +that, for I wanted to speak to Mr. Smith.” +“He’s been away since yesterday mornin’, sir, and, truth to tell, I am +beginnin’ to feel frightened about him. But if it was about a boat, +sir, maybe I could serve as well.” +“I wanted to hire his steam launch.” +“Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone. +That’s what puzzles me; for I know there ain’t more coals in her than +would take her to about Woolwich and back. If he’d been away in the +barge I’d ha’ thought nothin’; for many a time a job has taken him as +far as Gravesend, and then if there was much doin’ there he might ha’ +stayed over. But what good is a steam launch without coals?” +“He might have bought some at a wharf down the river.” +“He might, sir, but it weren’t his way. Many a time I’ve heard him call +out at the prices they charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I don’t like +that wooden-legged man, wi’ his ugly face and outlandish talk. What did +he want always knockin’ about here for?” +“A wooden-legged man?” said Holmes, with bland surprise. +“Yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that’s called more’n once for my +old man. It was him that roused him up yesternight, and, what’s more, +my man knew he was comin’, for he had steam up in the launch. I tell +you straight, sir, I don’t feel easy in my mind about it.” +“But, my dear Mrs. Smith,” said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders, “You +are frightening yourself about nothing. How could you possibly tell +that it was the wooden-legged man who came in the night? I don’t quite +understand how you can be so sure.” +“His voice, sir. I knew his voice, which is kind o’ thick and foggy. He +tapped at the winder,—about three it would be. ‘Show a leg, matey,’ +says he: ‘time to turn out guard.’ My old man woke up Jim,—that’s my +eldest,—and away they went, without so much as a word to me. I could +hear the wooden leg clackin’ on the stones.” +“And was this wooden-legged man alone?” +“Couldn’t say, I am sure, sir. I didn’t hear no one else.” +“I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam launch, and I have heard +good reports of the—Let me see, what is her name?” +“The _Aurora_, sir.” +“Ah! She’s not that old green launch with a yellow line, very broad in +the beam?” +“No, indeed. She’s as trim a little thing as any on the river. She’s +been fresh painted, black with two red streaks.” +“Thanks. I hope that you will hear soon from Mr. Smith. I am going down +the river; and if I should see anything of the _Aurora_ I shall let him +know that you are uneasy. A black funnel, you say?” +“No, sir. Black with a white band.” +“Ah, of course. It was the sides which were black. Good-morning, Mrs. +Smith.—There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall take it +and cross the river. +“The main thing with people of that sort,” said Holmes, as we sat in +the sheets of the wherry, “is never to let them think that their +information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do, they +will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you listen to them under +protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want.” +“Our course now seems pretty clear,” said I. +“What would you do, then?” +“I would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the +_Aurora_.” +“My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. She may have touched at +any wharf on either side of the stream between here and Greenwich. +Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing-places for +miles. It would take you days and days to exhaust them, if you set +about it alone.” +“Employ the police, then.” +“No. I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He is +not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which would +injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for working it out +myself, now that we have gone so far.” +“Could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?” +“Worse and worse! Our men would know that the chase was hot at their +heels, and they would be off out of the country. As it is, they are +likely enough to leave, but as long as they think they are perfectly +safe they will be in no hurry. Jones’s energy will be of use to us +there, for his view of the case is sure to push itself into the daily +press, and the runaways will think that every one is off on the wrong +scent.” +“What are we to do, then?” I asked, as we landed near Millbank +Penitentiary. +“Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour’s +sleep. It is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night again. +Stop at a telegraph-office, cabby! We will keep Toby, for he may be of +use to us yet.” +We pulled up at the Great Peter Street post-office, and Holmes +despatched his wire. “Whom do you think that is to?” he asked, as we +resumed our journey. +“I am sure I don’t know.” +“You remember the Baker Street division of the detective police force +whom I employed in the Jefferson Hope case?” +“Well,” said I, laughing. +“This is just the case where they might be invaluable. If they fail, I +have other resources; but I shall try them first. That wire was to my +dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his gang +will be with us before we have finished our breakfast.” +It was between eight and nine o’clock now, and I was conscious of a +strong reaction after the successive excitements of the night. I was +limp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in body. I had not the +professional enthusiasm which carried my companion on, nor could I look +at the matter as a mere abstract intellectual problem. As far as the +death of Bartholomew Sholto went, I had heard little good of him, and +could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers. The treasure, +however, was a different matter. That, or part of it, belonged +rightfully to Miss Morstan. While there was a chance of recovering it I +was ready to devote my life to the one object. True, if I found it it +would probably put her forever beyond my reach. Yet it would be a petty +and selfish love which would be influenced by such a thought as that. +If Holmes could work to find the criminals, I had a tenfold stronger +reason to urge me on to find the treasure. +A bath at Baker Street and a complete change freshened me up +wonderfully. When I came down to our room I found the breakfast laid +and Homes pouring out the coffee. +“Here it is,” said he, laughing, and pointing to an open newspaper. +“The energetic Jones and the ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up +between them. But you have had enough of the case. Better have your ham +and eggs first.” +I took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was headed +“Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood.” +“About twelve o’clock last night,” said the _Standard_, “Mr. +Bartholomew Sholto, of Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found dead +in his room under circumstances which point to foul play. As far as we +can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr. Sholto’s +person, but a valuable collection of Indian gems which the deceased +gentleman had inherited from his father has been carried off. The +discovery was first made by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who had +called at the house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, brother of the deceased. +By a singular piece of good fortune, Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known +member of the detective police force, happened to be at the Norwood +Police Station, and was on the ground within half an hour of the first +alarm. His trained and experienced faculties were at once directed +towards the detection of the criminals, with the gratifying result that +the brother, Thaddeus Sholto, has already been arrested, together with +the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, an Indian butler named Lal Rao, and a +porter, or gatekeeper, named McMurdo. It is quite certain that the +thief or thieves were well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones’s +well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation +have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not +have entered by the door or by the window, but must have made their way +across the roof of the building, and so through a trap-door into a room +which communicated with that in which the body was found. This fact, +which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that it was +no mere haphazard burglary. The prompt and energetic action of the +officers of the law shows the great advantage of the presence on such +occasions of a single vigorous and masterful mind. We cannot but think +that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to see our +detectives more decentralised, and so brought into closer and more +effective touch with the cases which it is their duty to investigate.” +“Isn’t it gorgeous!” said Holmes, grinning over his coffee-cup. “What +do you think of it?” +“I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested for +the crime.” +“So do I. I wouldn’t answer for our safety now, if he should happen to +have another of his attacks of energy.” +At this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear Mrs. +Hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and +dismay. +“By heaven, Holmes,” I said, half rising, “I believe that they are +really after us.” +“No, it’s not quite so bad as that. It is the unofficial force,—the +Baker Street irregulars.” +As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the +stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and +ragged little street-Arabs. There was some show of discipline among +them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in +line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number, +taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging +superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little +scarecrow. +“Got your message, sir,” said he, “and brought ’em on sharp. Three bob +and a tanner for tickets.” +“Here you are,” said Holmes, producing some silver. “In future they can +report to you, Wiggins, and you to me. I cannot have the house invaded +in this way. However, it is just as well that you should all hear the +instructions. I want to find the whereabouts of a steam launch called +the _Aurora_, owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red streaks, funnel +black with a white band. She is down the river somewhere. I want one +boy to be at Mordecai Smith’s landing-stage opposite Millbank to say if +the boat comes back. You must divide it out among yourselves, and do +both banks thoroughly. Let me know the moment you have news. Is that +all clear?” +“Yes, guv’nor,” said Wiggins. +“The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat. +Here’s a day in advance. Now off you go!” He handed them a shilling +each, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw them a moment +later streaming down the street. +“If the launch is above water they will find her,” said Holmes, as he +rose from the table and lit his pipe. “They can go everywhere, see +everything, overhear every one. I expect to hear before evening that +they have spotted her. In the meanwhile, we can do nothing but await +results. We cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the +_Aurora_ or Mr. Mordecai Smith.” +“Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say. Are you going to bed, +Holmes?” +“No; I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember +feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. I am +going to smoke and to think over this queer business to which my fair +client has introduced us. If ever man had an easy task, this of ours +ought to be. Wooden-legged men are not so common, but the other man +must, I should think, be absolutely unique.” +“That other man again!” +“I have no wish to make a mystery of him,—to you, anyway. But you must +have formed your own opinion. Now, do consider the data. Diminutive +footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet, stone-headed +wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts. What do you make of +all this?” +“A savage!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps one of those Indians who were the +associates of Jonathan Small.” +“Hardly that,” said he. “When first I saw signs of strange weapons I +was inclined to think so; but the remarkable character of the footmarks +caused me to reconsider my views. Some of the inhabitants of the Indian +Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such marks as that. +The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The sandal-wearing Mohammedan +has the great toe well separated from the others, because the thong is +commonly passed between. These little darts, too, could only be shot in +one way. They are from a blow-pipe. Now, then, where are we to find our +savage?” +“South American,” I hazarded. +He stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky volume from the shelf. +“This is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being published. +It may be looked upon as the very latest authority. What have we here? +‘Andaman Islands, situated 340 miles to the north of Sumatra, in the +Bay of Bengal.’ Hum! hum! What’s all this? Moist climate, coral reefs, +sharks, Port Blair, convict-barracks, Rutland Island, cottonwoods—Ah, +here we are. ‘The aborigines of the Andaman Islands may perhaps claim +the distinction of being the smallest race upon this earth, though some +anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of Africa, the Digger Indians of +America, and the Terra del Fuegians. The average height is rather below +four feet, although many full-grown adults may be found who are very +much smaller than this. They are a fierce, morose, and intractable +people, though capable of forming most devoted friendships when their +confidence has once been gained.’ Mark that, Watson. Now, then, listen +to this. ‘They are naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, +small, fierce eyes, and distorted features. Their feet and hands, +however, are remarkably small. So intractable and fierce are they that +all the efforts of the British official have failed to win them over in +any degree. They have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews, +braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs, or shooting them +with their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by +a cannibal feast.’ Nice, amiable people, Watson! If this fellow had +been left to his own unaided devices this affair might have taken an +even more ghastly turn. I fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small +would give a good deal not to have employed him.” +“But how came he to have so singular a companion?” +“Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, however, we had already +determined that Small had come from the Andamans, it is not so very +wonderful that this islander should be with him. No doubt we shall know +all about it in time. Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie +down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep.” +He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he +began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,—his own, no doubt, for +he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance +of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow. +Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound, +until I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan +looking down upon me. +Chapter IX +A Break in the Chain +It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and refreshed. +Sherlock Holmes still sat exactly as I had left him, save that he had +laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked across at me, +as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and troubled. +“You have slept soundly,” he said. “I feared that our talk would wake +you.” +“I heard nothing,” I answered. “Have you had fresh news, then?” +“Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am surprised and disappointed. I +expected something definite by this time. Wiggins has just been up to +report. He says that no trace can be found of the launch. It is a +provoking check, for every hour is of importance.” +“Can I do anything? I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for +another night’s outing.” +“No, we can do nothing. We can only wait. If we go ourselves, the +message might come in our absence, and delay be caused. You can do what +you will, but I must remain on guard.” +“Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil +Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday.” +“On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?” asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile in +his eyes. +“Well, of course Miss Morstan too. They were anxious to hear what +happened.” +“I would not tell them too much,” said Holmes. “Women are never to be +entirely trusted,—not the best of them.” +I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. “I shall be +back in an hour or two,” I remarked. +“All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you +may as well return Toby, for I don’t think it is at all likely that we +shall have any use for him now.” +I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a +half-sovereign, at the old naturalist’s in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell +I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night’s adventures, but +very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of +curiosity. I told them all that we had done, suppressing, however, the +more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus, although I spoke of Mr. +Sholto’s death, I said nothing of the exact manner and method of it. +With all my omissions, however, there was enough to startle and amaze +them. +“It is a romance!” cried Mrs. Forrester. “An injured lady, half a +million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. +They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.” +“And two knight-errants to the rescue,” added Miss Morstan, with a +bright glance at me. +“Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I don’t +think that you are nearly excited enough. Just imagine what it must be +to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!” +It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no +sign of elation at the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss of +her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took small +interest. +“It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,” she said. “Nothing +else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly +and honourably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful +and unfounded charge.” +It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I +reached home. My companion’s book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had +disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but there was +none. +“I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out,” I said to Mrs. +Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds. +“No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir,” sinking her +voice into an impressive whisper, “I am afraid for his health?” +“Why so, Mrs. Hudson?” +“Well, he’s that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he +walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of +his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and +every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with ‘What is +that, Mrs. Hudson?’ And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can +hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he’s not going to be +ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine, +but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don’t know how ever I +got out of the room.” +“I don’t think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson,” I +answered. “I have seen him like this before. He has some small matter +upon his mind which makes him restless.” I tried to speak lightly to +our worthy landlady, but I was myself somewhat uneasy when through the +long night I still from time to time heard the dull sound of his tread, +and knew how his keen spirit was chafing against this involuntary +inaction. +At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of +feverish colour upon either cheek. +“You are knocking yourself up, old man,” I remarked. “I heard you +marching about in the night.” +“No, I could not sleep,” he answered. “This infernal problem is +consuming me. It is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle, when +all else had been overcome. I know the men, the launch, everything; and +yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at work, and used +every means at my disposal. The whole river has been searched on either +side, but there is no news, nor has Mrs. Smith heard of her husband. I +shall come to the conclusion soon that they have scuttled the craft. +But there are objections to that.” +“Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent.” +“No, I think that may be dismissed. I had inquiries made, and there is +a launch of that description.” +“Could it have gone up the river?” +“I have considered that possibility too, and there is a search-party +who will work up as far as Richmond. If no news comes to-day, I shall +start off myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than the boat. +But surely, surely, we shall hear something.” +We did not, however. Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or from +the other agencies. There were articles in most of the papers upon the +Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be rather hostile to the +unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No fresh details were to be found, +however, in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the +following day. I walked over to Camberwell in the evening to report our +ill success to the ladies, and on my return I found Holmes dejected and +somewhat morose. He would hardly reply to my questions, and busied +himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which involved +much heating of retorts and distilling of vapours, ending at last in a +smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. Up to the small hours +of the morning I could hear the clinking of his test-tubes which told +me that he was still engaged in his malodorous experiment. +In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him +standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket, +and a coarse red scarf round his neck. +“I am off down the river, Watson,” said he. “I have been turning it +over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it. It is worth +trying, at all events.” +“Surely I can come with you, then?” said I. +“No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my +representative. I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that +some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent +about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and to +act on your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon you?” +“Most certainly.” +“I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can hardly +tell yet where I may find myself. If I am in luck, however, I may not +be gone so very long. I shall have news of some sort or other before I +get back.” +I had heard nothing of him by breakfast-time. On opening the +_Standard_, however, I found that there was a fresh allusion to the +business. “With reference to the Upper Norwood tragedy,” it remarked, +“we have reason to believe that the matter promises to be even more +complex and mysterious than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has +shown that it is quite impossible that Mr. Thaddeus Sholto could have +been in any way concerned in the matter. He and the housekeeper, Mrs. +Bernstone, were both released yesterday evening. It is believed, +however, that the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and that +it is being prosecuted by Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard, with +all his well-known energy and sagacity. Further arrests may be expected +at any moment.” +“That is satisfactory so far as it goes,” thought I. “Friend Sholto is +safe, at any rate. I wonder what the fresh clue may be; though it seems +to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made a blunder.” +I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye +caught an advertisement in the agony column. It ran in this way: +“Lost.—Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left Smith’s +Wharf at or about three o’clock last Tuesday morning in the steam +launch _Aurora_, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white +band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can give +information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith’s Wharf, or at 221_b_ Baker Street, +as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch +_Aurora_.” +This was clearly Holmes’s doing. The Baker Street address was enough to +prove that. It struck me as rather ingenious, because it might be read +by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the natural +anxiety of a wife for her missing husband. +It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or a sharp +step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either Holmes +returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to read, but my +thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the ill-assorted +and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I wondered, +some radical flaw in my companion’s reasoning. Might he be suffering +from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and +speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I +had never known him to be wrong; and yet the keenest reasoner may +occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error +through the over-refinement of his logic,—his preference for a subtle +and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay +ready to his hand. Yet, on the other hand, I had myself seen the +evidence, and I had heard the reasons for his deductions. When I looked +back on the long chain of curious circumstances, many of them trivial +in themselves, but all tending in the same direction, I could not +disguise from myself that even if Holmes’s explanation were incorrect +the true theory must be equally _outré_ and startling. +At three o’clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell, an +authoritative voice in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a person +than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me. Very different was he, +however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who +had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His expression +was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic. +“Good-day, sir; good-day,” said he. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I +understand.” +“Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back. But perhaps you would +care to wait. Take that chair and try one of these cigars.” +“Thank you; I don’t mind if I do,” said he, mopping his face with a red +bandanna handkerchief. +“And a whiskey-and-soda?” +“Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time of year; and I have +had a good deal to worry and try me. You know my theory about this +Norwood case?” +“I remember that you expressed one.” +“Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I had my net drawn tightly +round Mr. Sholto, sir, when pop he went through a hole in the middle of +it. He was able to prove an alibi which could not be shaken. From the +time that he left his brother’s room he was never out of sight of some +one or other. So it could not be he who climbed over roofs and through +trap-doors. It’s a very dark case, and my professional credit is at +stake. I should be very glad of a little assistance.” +“We all need help sometimes,” said I. +“Your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir,” said he, in +a husky and confidential voice. “He’s a man who is not to be beat. I +have known that young man go into a good many cases, but I never saw +the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. He is irregular in +his methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at theories, but, on +the whole, I think he would have made a most promising officer, and I +don’t care who knows it. I have had a wire from him this morning, by +which I understand that he has got some clue to this Sholto business. +Here is the message.” +He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me. It was +dated from Poplar at twelve o’clock. “Go to Baker Street at once,” it +said. “If I have not returned, wait for me. I am close on the track of +the Sholto gang. You can come with us to-night if you want to be in at +the finish.” +“This sounds well. He has evidently picked up the scent again,” said I. +“Ah, then he has been at fault too,” exclaimed Jones, with evident +satisfaction. “Even the best of us are thrown off sometimes. Of course +this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as an officer of +the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is some one at the door. +Perhaps this is he.” +A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and +rattling as from a man who was sorely put to it for breath. Once or +twice he stopped, as though the climb were too much for him, but at +last he made his way to our door and entered. His appearance +corresponded to the sounds which we had heard. He was an aged man, clad +in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his throat. +His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing was +painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his +shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He had a +coloured scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his face save +a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows, and long grey +side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a respectable +master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty. +“What is it, my man?” I asked. +He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age. +“Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” said he. +“No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for +him.” +“It was to him himself I was to tell it,” said he. +“But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith’s +boat?” +“Yes. I knows well where it is. An’ I knows where the men he is after +are. An’ I knows where the treasure is. I knows all about it.” +“Then tell me, and I shall let him know.” +“It was to him I was to tell it,” he repeated, with the petulant +obstinacy of a very old man. +“Well, you must wait for him.” +“No, no; I ain’t goin’ to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr. +Holmes ain’t here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself. I +don’t care about the look of either of you, and I won’t tell a word.” +He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him. +“Wait a bit, my friend,” said he. “You have important information, and +you must not walk off. We shall keep you, whether you like or not, +until our friend returns.” +The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney Jones +put his broad back up against it, he recognised the uselessness of +resistance. +“Pretty sort o’ treatment this!” he cried, stamping his stick. “I come +here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw in my life, seize +me and treat me in this fashion!” +“You will be none the worse,” I said. “We shall recompense you for the +loss of your time. Sit over here on the sofa, and you will not have +long to wait.” +He came across sullenly enough, and seated himself with his face +resting on his hands. Jones and I resumed our cigars and our talk. +Suddenly, however, Holmes’s voice broke in upon us. +“I think that you might offer me a cigar too,” he said. +We both started in our chairs. There was Holmes sitting close to us +with an air of quiet amusement. +“Holmes!” I exclaimed. “You here! But where is the old man?” +“Here is the old man,” said he, holding out a heap of white hair. “Here +he is,—wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all. I thought my disguise was +pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would stand that test.” +“Ah, You rogue!” cried Jones, highly delighted. “You would have made an +actor, and a rare one. You had the proper workhouse cough, and those +weak legs of yours are worth ten pounds a week. I thought I knew the +glint of your eye, though. You didn’t get away from us so easily, You +see.” +“I have been working in that get-up all day,” said he, lighting his +cigar. “You see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know +me,—especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my +cases: so I can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise like +this. You got my wire?” +“Yes; that was what brought me here.” +“How has your case prospered?” +“It has all come to nothing. I have had to release two of my prisoners, +and there is no evidence against the other two.” +“Never mind. We shall give you two others in the place of them. But you +must put yourself under my orders. You are welcome to all the official +credit, but you must act on the line that I point out. Is that agreed?” +“Entirely, if you will help me to the men.” +“Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat—a steam +launch—to be at the Westminster Stairs at seven o’clock.” +“That is easily managed. There is always one about there; but I can +step across the road and telephone to make sure.” +“Then I shall want two stanch men, in case of resistance.” +“There will be two or three in the boat. What else?” +“When we secure the men we shall get the treasure. I think that it +would be a pleasure to my friend here to take the box round to the +young lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs. Let her be the first +to open it.—Eh, Watson?” +“It would be a great pleasure to me.” +“Rather an irregular proceeding,” said Jones, shaking his head. +“However, the whole thing is irregular, and I suppose we must wink at +it. The treasure must afterwards be handed over to the authorities +until after the official investigation.” +“Certainly. That is easily managed. One other point. I should much like +to have a few details about this matter from the lips of Jonathan Small +himself. You know I like to work the detail of my cases out. There is +no objection to my having an unofficial interview with him, either here +in my rooms or elsewhere, as long as he is efficiently guarded?” +“Well, you are master of the situation. I have had no proof yet of the +existence of this Jonathan Small. However, if you can catch him I don’t +see how I can refuse you an interview with him.” +“That is understood, then?” +“Perfectly. Is there anything else?” +“Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half +an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little +choice in white wines.—Watson, you have never yet recognised my merits +as a housekeeper.” +Chapter X +The End of the Islander +Our meal was a merry one. Holmes could talk exceedingly well when he +chose, and that night he did choose. He appeared to be in a state of +nervous exaltation. I have never known him so brilliant. He spoke on a +quick succession of subjects,—on miracle-plays, on mediæval pottery, on +Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the war-ships +of the future,—handling each as though he had made a special study of +it. His bright humour marked the reaction from his black depression of +the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be a sociable soul in his +hours of relaxation, and faced his dinner with the air of a _bon +vivant_. For myself, I felt elated at the thought that we were nearing +the end of our task, and I caught something of Holmes’s gaiety. None of +us alluded during dinner to the cause which had brought us together. +When the cloth was cleared, Holmes glanced at his watch, and filled up +three glasses with port. “One bumper,” said he, “to the success of our +little expedition. And now it is high time we were off. Have you a +pistol, Watson?” +“I have my old service-revolver in my desk.” +“You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. I see that the +cab is at the door. I ordered it for half-past six.” +It was a little past seven before we reached the Westminster wharf, and +found our launch awaiting us. Holmes eyed it critically. +“Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?” +“Yes,—that green lamp at the side.” +“Then take it off.” +The small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were cast +off. Jones, Holmes, and I sat in the stern. There was one man at the +rudder, one to tend the engines, and two burly police-inspectors +forward. +“Where to?” asked Jones. +“To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite Jacobson’s Yard.” +Our craft was evidently a very fast one. We shot past the long lines of +loaded barges as though they were stationary. Holmes smiled with +satisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her behind us. +“We ought to be able to catch anything on the river,” he said. +“Well, hardly that. But there are not many launches to beat us.” +“We shall have to catch the _Aurora_, and she has a name for being a +clipper. I will tell you how the land lies, Watson. You recollect how +annoyed I was at being balked by so small a thing?” +“Yes.” +“Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical +analysis. One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work +is the best rest. So it is. When I had succeeded in dissolving the +hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came back to our problem of the +Sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again. My boys had been up +the river and down the river without result. The launch was not at any +landing-stage or wharf, nor had it returned. Yet it could hardly have +been scuttled to hide their traces,—though that always remained as a +possible hypothesis if all else failed. I knew this man Small had a +certain degree of low cunning, but I did not think him capable of +anything in the nature of delicate finesse. That is usually a product +of higher education. I then reflected that since he had certainly been +in London some time—as we had evidence that he maintained a continual +watch over Pondicherry Lodge—he could hardly leave at a moment’s +notice, but would need some little time, if it were only a day, to +arrange his affairs. That was the balance of probability, at any rate.” +“It seems to me to be a little weak,” said I. “It is more probable that +he had arranged his affairs before ever he set out upon his +expedition.” +“No, I hardly think so. This lair of his would be too valuable a +retreat in case of need for him to give it up until he was sure that he +could do without it. But a second consideration struck me. Jonathan +Small must have felt that the peculiar appearance of his companion, +however much he may have top-coated him, would give rise to gossip, and +possibly be associated with this Norwood tragedy. He was quite sharp +enough to see that. They had started from their head-quarters under +cover of darkness, and he would wish to get back before it was broad +light. Now, it was past three o’clock, according to Mrs. Smith, when +they got the boat. It would be quite bright, and people would be about +in an hour or so. Therefore, I argued, they did not go very far. They +paid Smith well to hold his tongue, reserved his launch for the final +escape, and hurried to their lodgings with the treasure-box. In a +couple of nights, when they had time to see what view the papers took, +and whether there was any suspicion, they would make their way under +cover of darkness to some ship at Gravesend or in the Downs, where no +doubt they had already arranged for passages to America or the +Colonies.” +“But the launch? They could not have taken that to their lodgings.” +“Quite so. I argued that the launch must be no great way off, in spite +of its invisibility. I then put myself in the place of Small, and +looked at it as a man of his capacity would. He would probably consider +that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would make +pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track. How, then, +could he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand when wanted? I +wondered what I should do myself if I were in his shoes. I could only +think of one way of doing it. I might hand the launch over to some +boat-builder or repairer, with directions to make a trifling change in +her. She would then be removed to his shed or yard, and so be +effectually concealed, while at the same time I could have her at a few +hours’ notice.” +“That seems simple enough.” +“It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be +overlooked. However, I determined to act on the idea. I started at once +in this harmless seaman’s rig and inquired at all the yards down the +river. I drew blank at fifteen, but at the sixteenth—Jacobson’s—I +learned that the _Aurora_ had been handed over to them two days ago by +a wooden-legged man, with some trivial directions as to her rudder. +‘There ain’t naught amiss with her rudder,’ said the foreman. ‘There +she lies, with the red streaks.’ At that moment who should come down +but Mordecai Smith, the missing owner? He was rather the worse for +liquor. I should not, of course, have known him, but he bellowed out +his name and the name of his launch. ‘I want her to-night at eight +o’clock,’ said he,—‘eight o’clock sharp, mind, for I have two gentlemen +who won’t be kept waiting.’ They had evidently paid him well, for he +was very flush of money, chucking shillings about to the men. I +followed him some distance, but he subsided into an ale-house: so I +went back to the yard, and, happening to pick up one of my boys on the +way, I stationed him as a sentry over the launch. He is to stand at +water’s edge and wave his handkerchief to us when they start. We shall +be lying off in the stream, and it will be a strange thing if we do not +take men, treasure, and all.” +“You have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men or +not,” said Jones; “but if the affair were in my hands I should have had +a body of police in Jacobson’s Yard, and arrested them when they came +down.” +“Which would have been never. This man Small is a pretty shrewd fellow. +He would send a scout on ahead, and if anything made him suspicious lie +snug for another week.” +“But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, and so been led to their +hiding-place,” said I. +“In that case I should have wasted my day. I think that it is a hundred +to one against Smith knowing where they live. As long as he has liquor +and good pay, why should he ask questions? They send him messages what +to do. No, I thought over every possible course, and this is the best.” +While this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting the +long series of bridges which span the Thames. As we passed the City the +last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit of St. +Paul’s. It was twilight before we reached the Tower. +“That is Jacobson’s Yard,” said Holmes, pointing to a bristle of masts +and rigging on the Surrey side. “Cruise gently up and down here under +cover of this string of lighters.” He took a pair of night-glasses from +his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. “I see my sentry at his +post,” he remarked, “but no sign of a handkerchief.” +“Suppose we go down-stream a short way and lie in wait for them,” said +Jones, eagerly. We were all eager by this time, even the policemen and +stokers, who had a very vague idea of what was going forward. +“We have no right to take anything for granted,” Holmes answered. “It +is certainly ten to one that they go down-stream, but we cannot be +certain. From this point we can see the entrance of the yard, and they +can hardly see us. It will be a clear night and plenty of light. We +must stay where we are. See how the folk swarm over yonder in the +gaslight.” +“They are coming from work in the yard.” +“Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little +immortal spark concealed about him. You would not think it, to look at +them. There is no _a priori_ probability about it. A strange enigma is +man!” +“Some one calls him a soul concealed in an animal,” I suggested. +“Winwood Reade is good upon the subject,” said Holmes. “He remarks +that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate +he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never +foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what +an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages +remain constant. So says the statistician. But do I see a handkerchief? +Surely there is a white flutter over yonder.” +“Yes, it is your boy,” I cried. “I can see him plainly.” +“And there is the _Aurora_,” exclaimed Holmes, “and going like the +devil! Full speed ahead, engineer. Make after that launch with the +yellow light. By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves to +have the heels of us!” +She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind two +or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up before we +saw her. Now she was flying down the stream, near in to the shore, +going at a tremendous rate. Jones looked gravely at her and shook his +head. +“She is very fast,” he said. “I doubt if we shall catch her.” +“We _must_ catch her!” cried Holmes, between his teeth. “Heap it on, +stokers! Make her do all she can! If we burn the boat we must have +them!” +We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the powerful +engines whizzed and clanked, like a great metallic heart. Her sharp, +steep prow cut through the river-water and sent two rolling waves to +right and to left of us. With every throb of the engines we sprang and +quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our bows +threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. Right ahead a +dark blur upon the water showed where the _Aurora_ lay, and the swirl +of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was going. We +flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and out, behind +this one and round the other. Voices hailed us out of the darkness, but +still the _Aurora_ thundered on, and still we followed close upon her +track. +“Pile it on, men, pile it on!” cried Holmes, looking down into the +engine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager, +aquiline face. “Get every pound of steam you can.” +“I think we gain a little,” said Jones, with his eyes on the _Aurora_. +“I am sure of it,” said I. “We shall be up with her in a very few +minutes.” +At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with +three barges in tow blundered in between us. It was only by putting our +helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before we could round +them and recover our way the _Aurora_ had gained a good two hundred +yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the murky uncertain +twilight was setting into a clear starlit night. Our boilers were +strained to their utmost, and the frail shell vibrated and creaked with +the fierce energy which was driving us along. We had shot through the +Pool, past the West India Docks, down the long Deptford Reach, and up +again after rounding the Isle of Dogs. The dull blur in front of us +resolved itself now clearly enough into the dainty _Aurora_. Jones +turned our search-light upon her, so that we could plainly see the +figures upon her deck. One man sat by the stern, with something black +between his knees over which he stooped. Beside him lay a dark mass +which looked like a Newfoundland dog. The boy held the tiller, while +against the red glare of the furnace I could see old Smith, stripped to +the waist, and shovelling coals for dear life. They may have had some +doubt at first as to whether we were really pursuing them, but now as +we followed every winding and turning which they took there could no +longer be any question about it. At Greenwich we were about three +hundred paces behind them. At Blackwall we could not have been more +than two hundred and fifty. I have coursed many creatures in many +countries during my checkered career, but never did sport give me such +a wild thrill as this mad, flying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we +drew in upon them, yard by yard. In the silence of the night we could +hear the panting and clanking of their machinery. The man in the stern +still crouched upon the deck, and his arms were moving as though he +were busy, while every now and then he would look up and measure with a +glance the distance which still separated us. Nearer we came and +nearer. Jones yelled to them to stop. We were not more than four boat’s +lengths behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. It was a +clear reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and the +melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in the +stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clinched fists at us, +cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a good-sized, +powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs astride I could +see that from the thigh downwards there was but a wooden stump upon the +right side. At the sound of his strident, angry cries there was +movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It straightened itself +into a little black man—the smallest I have ever seen—with a great, +misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair. Holmes had +already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this +savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster +or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that face was enough +to give a man a sleepless night. Never have I seen features so deeply +marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and +burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were writhed back from +his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with a half animal fury. +“Fire if he raises his hand,” said Holmes, quietly. We were within a +boat’s-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry. I +can see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his legs +far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with his +hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light +of our lantern. +It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he +plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood, like +a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out +together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of +choking cough fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of +his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters. At the +same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder and put +it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the southern bank, +while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a few feet. We were +round after her in an instant, but she was already nearly at the bank. +It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon glimmered upon a wide +expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant water and beds of +decaying vegetation. The launch with a dull thud ran up upon the +mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern flush with the water. +The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank its whole length +into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and writhed. Not one step +could he possibly take either forwards or backwards. He yelled in +impotent rage, and kicked frantically into the mud with his other foot, +but his struggles only bored his wooden pin the deeper into the sticky +bank. When we brought our launch alongside he was so firmly anchored +that it was only by throwing the end of a rope over his shoulders that +we were able to haul him out, and to drag him, like some evil fish, +over our side. The two Smiths, father and son, sat sullenly in their +launch, but came aboard meekly enough when commanded. The _Aurora_ +herself we hauled off and made fast to our stern. A solid iron chest of +Indian workmanship stood upon the deck. This, there could be no +question, was the same that had contained the ill-omened treasure of +the Sholtos. There was no key, but it was of considerable weight, so we +transferred it carefully to our own little cabin. As we steamed slowly +up-stream again, we flashed our search-light in every direction, but +there was no sign of the Islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze at the +bottom of the Thames lie the bones of that strange visitor to our +shores. +“See here,” said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. “We were +hardly quick enough with our pistols.” There, sure enough, just behind +where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts which we +knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant that we +fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy +fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the horrible +death which had passed so close to us that night. +Chapter XI +The Great Agra Treasure +Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had done +so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned, reckless-eyed +fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all over his mahogany +features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a singular +prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be +easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or +thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with grey. His +face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and +aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression +when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, +and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen, +twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-doings. +It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid and +contained countenance. Once he looked up at me with a gleam of +something like humour in his eyes. +“Well, Jonathan Small,” said Holmes, lighting a cigar, “I am sorry that +it has come to this.” +“And so am I, sir,” he answered, frankly. “I don’t believe that I can +swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised +hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot +one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as +grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil +with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could not +undo it again.” +“Have a cigar,” said Holmes; “and you had best take a pull out of my +flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak a +man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while you +were climbing the rope?” +“You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The truth +is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of the house +pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually went down to +his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The best defence +that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had been the old +major I would have swung for him with a light heart. I would have +thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar. But it’s +cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young Sholto, with whom I +had no quarrel whatever.” +“You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard. He +is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true +account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if you +do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the +poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached +the room.” +“That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw him +grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed through the +window. It fairly shook me, sir. I’d have half killed Tonga for it if +he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his club, and +some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say helped to put +you on our track; though how you kept on it is more than I can tell. I +don’t feel no malice against you for it. But it does seem a queer +thing,” he added, with a bitter smile, “that I who have a fair claim to +nigh upon half a million of money should spend the first half of my +life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and am like to spend the +other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was an evil day for me when +first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet and had to do with the +Agra treasure, which never brought anything but a curse yet upon the +man who owned it. To him it brought murder, to Major Sholto it brought +fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery for life.” +At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy shoulders +into the tiny cabin. “Quite a family party,” he remarked. “I think I +shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we may all +congratulate each other. Pity we didn’t take the other alive; but there +was no choice. I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it rather +fine. It was all we could do to overhaul her.” +“All is well that ends well,” said Holmes. “But I certainly did not +know that the _Aurora_ was such a clipper.” +“Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that +if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should never +have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood business.” +“Neither he did,” cried our prisoner,—“not a word. I chose his launch +because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing, but we paid +him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached our +vessel, the _Esmeralda_, at Gravesend, outward bound for the Brazils.” +“Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to him. +If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick in +condemning them.” It was amusing to notice how the consequential Jones +was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of the +capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock Holmes’s +face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon him. +“We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently,” said Jones, “and shall land +you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you that I +am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing this. It is +most irregular; but of course an agreement is an agreement. I must, +however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector with you, since you +have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no doubt?” +“Yes, I shall drive.” +“It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first. You +will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?” +“At the bottom of the river,” said Small, shortly. +“Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have +had work enough already through you. However, doctor, I need not warn +you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker Street +rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station.” +They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff, +genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour’s drive brought +us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester’s. The servant seemed surprised at so late a +visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening, she explained, +and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan, however, was in the +drawing-room: so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand, leaving the +obliging inspector in the cab. +She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white +diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and +waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned back +in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and tinting +with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant hair. One +white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and her whole +pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy. At the sound of my +foot-fall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright flush of +surprise and of pleasure coloured her pale cheeks. +“I heard a cab drive up,” she said. “I thought that Mrs. Forrester had +come back very early, but I never dreamed that it might be you. What +news have you brought me?” +“I have brought something better than news,” said I, putting down the +box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my +heart was heavy within me. “I have brought you something which is worth +all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune.” +She glanced at the iron box. “Is that the treasure, then?” she asked, +coolly enough. +“Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half is +Thaddeus Sholto’s. You will have a couple of hundred thousand each. +Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There will be few +richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?” +I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that +she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her +eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously. +“If I have it,” said she, “I owe it to you.” +“No, no,” I answered, “not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes. +With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue +which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very nearly +lost it at the last moment.” +“Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson,” said she. +I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her +last,—Holmes’s new method of search, the discovery of the _Aurora_, the +appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the +wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and shining +eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the dart which +had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I feared that she +was about to faint. +“It is nothing,” she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water. “I +am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed my +friends in such horrible peril.” +“That is all over,” I answered. “It was nothing. I will tell you no +more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is the +treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring it +with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see +it.” +“It would be of the greatest interest to me,” she said. There was no +eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it +might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which +had cost so much to win. +“What a pretty box!” she said, stooping over it. “This is Indian work, +I suppose?” +“Yes; it is Benares metal-work.” +“And so heavy!” she exclaimed, trying to raise it. “The box alone must +be of some value. Where is the key?” +“Small threw it into the Thames,” I answered. “I must borrow Mrs. +Forrester’s poker.” There was in the front a thick and broad hasp, +wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end +of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open +with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both +stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty! +No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch +thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest +constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or crumb +of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was absolutely and completely +empty. +“The treasure is lost,” said Miss Morstan, calmly. +As I listened to the words and realised what they meant, a great shadow +seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had +weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed. It was selfish, +no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realise nothing save that the +golden barrier was gone from between us. “Thank God!” I ejaculated from +my very heart. +She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. “Why do you say +that?” she asked. +“Because you are within my reach again,” I said, taking her hand. She +did not withdraw it. “Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man +loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my lips. Now +that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said, +‘Thank God.’” +“Then I say, ‘Thank God,’ too,” she whispered, as I drew her to my +side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained +one. +Chapter XII +The Strange Story of Jonathan Small +A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary +time before I rejoined him. His face clouded over when I showed him the +empty box. +“There goes the reward!” said he, gloomily. “Where there is no money +there is no pay. This night’s work would have been worth a tenner each +to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there.” +“Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man,” I said. “He will see that you are +rewarded, treasure or no.” +The inspector shook his head despondently, however. “It’s a bad job,” +he repeated; “and so Mr. Athelney Jones will think.” +His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank +enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They +had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had +changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon +the way. My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual listless +expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with his wooden +leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty box he leaned +back in his chair and laughed aloud. +“This is your doing, Small,” said Athelney Jones, angrily. +“Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it,” he +cried, exultantly. “It is my treasure; and if I can’t have the loot +I’ll take darned good care that no one else does. I tell you that no +living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the +Andaman convict-barracks and myself. I know now that I cannot have the +use of it, and I know that they cannot. I have acted all through for +them as much as for myself. It’s been the sign of four with us always. +Well I know that they would have had me do just what I have done, and +throw the treasure into the Thames rather than let it go to kith or kin +of Sholto or of Morstan. It was not to make them rich that we did for +Achmet. You’ll find the treasure where the key is, and where little +Tonga is. When I saw that your launch must catch us, I put the loot +away in a safe place. There are no rupees for you this journey.” +“You are deceiving us, Small,” said Athelney Jones, sternly. “If you +had wished to throw the treasure into the Thames it would have been +easier for you to have thrown box and all.” +“Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover,” he answered, +with a shrewd, sidelong look. “The man that was clever enough to hunt +me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a +river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a +harder job. It went to my heart to do it, though. I was half mad when +you came up with us. However, there’s no good grieving over it. I’ve +had ups in my life, and I’ve had downs, but I’ve learned not to cry +over spilled milk.” +“This is a very serious matter, Small,” said the detective. “If you had +helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would have had +a better chance at your trial.” +“Justice!” snarled the ex-convict. “A pretty justice! Whose loot is +this, if it is not ours? Where is the justice that I should give it up +to those who have never earned it? Look how I have earned it! Twenty +long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under the +mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts, bitten +by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed black-faced +policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. That was how I +earned the Agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice because I +cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only that another may +enjoy it! I would rather swing a score of times, or have one of Tonga’s +darts in my hide, than live in a convict’s cell and feel that another +man is at his ease in a palace with the money that should be mine.” +Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this came out in a wild +whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the handcuffs clanked +together with the impassioned movement of his hands. I could +understand, as I saw the fury and the passion of the man, that it was +no groundless or unnatural terror which had possessed Major Sholto when +he first learned that the injured convict was upon his track. +“You forget that we know nothing of all this,” said Holmes quietly. “We +have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may +originally have been on your side.” +“Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see that +I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists. Still, +I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. If you want +to hear my story I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you is +God’s truth, every word of it. Thank you; you can put the glass beside +me here, and I’ll put my lips to it if I am dry. +“I am a Worcestershire man myself,—born near Pershore. I dare say you +would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look. I +have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth is that +I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt if they would +be so very glad to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going folk, +small farmers, well-known and respected over the country-side, while I +was always a bit of a rover. At last, however, when I was about +eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a +girl, and could only get out of it again by taking the Queen’s shilling +and joining the 3rd Buffs, which was just starting for India. +“I wasn’t destined to do much soldiering, however. I had just got past +the goose-step, and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough +to go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily for me, my company sergeant, John +Holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was one of the finest +swimmers in the service. A crocodile took me, just as I was half-way +across, and nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon could have +done it, just above the knee. What with the shock and the loss of +blood, I fainted, and should have drowned if Holder had not caught hold +of me and paddled for the bank. I was five months in hospital over it, +and when at last I was able to limp out of it with this timber toe +strapped to my stump I found myself invalided out of the army and +unfitted for any active occupation. +“I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for I +was a useless cripple though not yet in my twentieth year. However, my +misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. A man named Abel +White, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an overseer +to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work. He happened +to be a friend of our colonel’s, who had taken an interest in me since +the accident. To make a long story short, the colonel recommended me +strongly for the post and, as the work was mostly to be done on +horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough knee left to +keep good grip on the saddle. What I had to do was to ride over the +plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked, and to report the +idlers. The pay was fair, I had comfortable quarters, and altogether I +was content to spend the remainder of my life in indigo-planting. Mr. +Abel White was a kind man, and he would often drop into my little +shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white folk out there feel their +hearts warm to each other as they never do here at home. +“Well, I was never in luck’s way long. Suddenly, without a note of +warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay as still +and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next there were +two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a +perfect hell. Of course you know all about it, gentlemen,—a deal more +than I do, very like, since reading is not in my line. I only know what +I saw with my own eyes. Our plantation was at a place called Muttra, +near the border of the Northwest Provinces. Night after night the whole +sky was alight with the burning bungalows, and day after day we had +small companies of Europeans passing through our estate with their +wives and children, on their way to Agra, where were the nearest +troops. Mr. Abel White was an obstinate man. He had it in his head that +the affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow over as +suddenly as it had sprung up. There he sat on his veranda, drinking +whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the country was in a blaze +about him. Of course we stuck by him, I and Dawson, who, with his wife, +used to do the book-work and the managing. Well, one fine day the crash +came. I had been away on a distant plantation, and was riding slowly +home in the evening, when my eye fell upon something all huddled +together at the bottom of a steep nullah. I rode down to see what it +was, and the cold struck through my heart when I found it was Dawson’s +wife, all cut into ribbons, and half eaten by jackals and native dogs. +A little further up the road Dawson himself was lying on his face, +quite dead, with an empty revolver in his hand and four Sepoys lying +across each other in front of him. I reined up my horse, wondering +which way I should turn, but at that moment I saw thick smoke curling +up from Abel White’s bungalow and the flames beginning to burst through +the roof. I knew then that I could do my employer no good, but would +only throw my own life away if I meddled in the matter. From where I +stood I could see hundreds of the black fiends, with their red coats +still on their backs, dancing and howling round the burning house. Some +of them pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past my head; so I +broke away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late at night safe +within the walls at Agra. +“As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. The +whole country was up like a swarm of bees. Wherever the English could +collect in little bands they held just the ground that their guns +commanded. Everywhere else they were helpless fugitives. It was a fight +of the millions against the hundreds; and the cruellest part of it was +that these men that we fought against, foot, horse, and gunners, were +our own picked troops, whom we had taught and trained, handling our own +weapons, and blowing our own bugle-calls. At Agra there were the 3rd +Bengal Fusiliers, some Sikhs, two troops of horse, and a battery of +artillery. A volunteer corps of clerks and merchants had been formed, +and this I joined, wooden leg and all. We went out to meet the rebels +at Shahgunge early in July, and we beat them back for a time, but our +powder gave out, and we had to fall back upon the city. +“Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side,—which is not to +be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we were +right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hundred miles +to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south. From every point +on the compass there was nothing but torture and murder and outrage. +“The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce +devil-worshippers of all sorts. Our handful of men were lost among the +narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved across the river, therefore, +and took up his position in the old fort at Agra. I don’t know if any +of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that old fort. It +is a very queer place,—the queerest that ever I was in, and I have been +in some rum corners, too. First of all, it is enormous in size. I +should think that the enclosure must be acres and acres. There is a +modern part, which took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and +everything else, with plenty of room over. But the modern part is +nothing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody goes, and which +is given over to the scorpions and the centipedes. It is all full of +great deserted halls, and winding passages, and long corridors twisting +in and out, so that it is easy enough for folk to get lost in it. For +this reason it was seldom that any one went into it, though now and +again a party with torches might go exploring. +“The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects it, +but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had to be +guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in that which was +actually held by our troops. We were short-handed, with hardly men +enough to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns. It was +impossible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard at every one of +the innumerable gates. What we did was to organise a central +guard-house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the +charge of one white man and two or three natives. I was selected to +take charge during certain hours of the night of a small isolated door +upon the southwest side of the building. Two Sikh troopers were placed +under my command, and I was instructed if anything went wrong to fire +my musket, when I might rely upon help coming at once from the central +guard. As the guard was a good two hundred paces away, however, and as +the space between was cut up into a labyrinth of passages and +corridors, I had great doubts as to whether they could arrive in time +to be of any use in case of an actual attack. +“Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me, since +I was a raw recruit, and a game-legged one at that. For two nights I +kept the watch with my Punjaubees. They were tall, fierce-looking +chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name, both old fighting-men +who had borne arms against us at Chilian-wallah. They could talk +English pretty well, but I could get little out of them. They preferred +to stand together and jabber all night in their queer Sikh lingo. For +myself, I used to stand outside the gateway, looking down on the broad, +winding river and on the twinkling lights of the great city. The +beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and the yells and howls of the +rebels, drunk with opium and with bang, were enough to remind us all +night of our dangerous neighbours across the stream. Every two hours +the officer of the night used to come round to all the posts, to make +sure that all was well. +“The third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small, driving +rain. It was dreary work standing in the gateway hour after hour in +such weather. I tried again and again to make my Sikhs talk, but +without much success. At two in the morning the rounds passed, and +broke for a moment the weariness of the night. Finding that my +companions would not be led into conversation, I took out my pipe, and +laid down my musket to strike the match. In an instant the two Sikhs +were upon me. One of them snatched my firelock up and levelled it at my +head, while the other held a great knife to my throat and swore between +his teeth that he would plunge it into me if I moved a step. +“My first thought was that these fellows were in league with the +rebels, and that this was the beginning of an assault. If our door were +in the hands of the Sepoys the place must fall, and the women and +children be treated as they were in Cawnpore. Maybe you gentlemen think +that I am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my word +that when I thought of that, though I felt the point of the knife at my +throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a scream, if it +was my last one, which might alarm the main guard. The man who held me +seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as I braced myself to it, he +whispered, ‘Don’t make a noise. The fort is safe enough. There are no +rebel dogs on this side of the river.’ There was the ring of truth in +what he said, and I knew that if I raised my voice I was a dead man. I +could read it in the fellow’s brown eyes. I waited, therefore, in +silence, to see what it was that they wanted from me. +“‘Listen to me, Sahib,’ said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the +one whom they called Abdullah Khan. ‘You must either be with us now or +you must be silenced forever. The thing is too great a one for us to +hesitate. Either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on the +cross of the Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown into +the ditch and we shall pass over to our brothers in the rebel army. +There is no middle way. Which is it to be, death or life? We can only +give you three minutes to decide, for the time is passing, and all must +be done before the rounds come again.’ +“‘How can I decide?’ said I. ‘You have not told me what you want of me. +But I tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of the +fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your knife and +welcome.’ +“‘It is nothing against the fort,’ said he. ‘We only ask you to do that +which your countrymen come to this land for. We ask you to be rich. If +you will be one of us this night, we will swear to you upon the naked +knife, and by the threefold oath which no Sikh was ever known to break, +that you shall have your fair share of the loot. A quarter of the +treasure shall be yours. We can say no fairer.’ +“‘But what is the treasure, then?’ I asked. ‘I am as ready to be rich +as you can be, if you will but show me how it can be done.’ +“‘You will swear, then,’ said he, ‘by the bones of your father, by the +honour of your mother, by the cross of your faith, to raise no hand and +speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?’ +“‘I will swear it,’ I answered, ‘provided that the fort is not +endangered.’ +“‘Then my comrade and I will swear that you shall have a quarter of the +treasure which shall be equally divided among the four of us.’ +“‘There are but three,’ said I. +“‘No; Dost Akbar must have his share. We can tell the tale to you while +we await them. Do you stand at the gate, Mahomet Singh, and give notice +of their coming. The thing stands thus, Sahib, and I tell it to you +because I know that an oath is binding upon a Feringhee, and that we +may trust you. Had you been a lying Hindoo, though you had sworn by all +the gods in their false temples, your blood would have been upon the +knife, and your body in the water. But the Sikh knows the Englishman, +and the Englishman knows the Sikh. Hearken, then, to what I have to +say. +“‘There is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth, +though his lands are small. Much has come to him from his father, and +more still he has set by himself, for he is of a low nature and hoards +his gold rather than spend it. When the troubles broke out he would be +friends both with the lion and the tiger,—with the Sepoy and with the +Company’s Raj. Soon, however, it seemed to him that the white men’s day +was come, for through all the land he could hear of nothing but of +their death and their overthrow. Yet, being a careful man, he made such +plans that, come what might, half at least of his treasure should be +left to him. That which was in gold and silver he kept by him in the +vaults of his palace, but the most precious stones and the choicest +pearls that he had he put in an iron box, and sent it by a trusty +servant who, under the guise of a merchant, should take it to the fort +at Agra, there to lie until the land is at peace. Thus, if the rebels +won he would have his money, but if the Company conquered his jewels +would be saved to him. Having thus divided his hoard, he threw himself +into the cause of the Sepoys, since they were strong upon his borders. +By doing this, mark you, Sahib, his property becomes the due of those +who have been true to their salt. +“‘This pretended merchant, who travels under the name of Achmet, is now +in the city of Agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort. He has +with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost Akbar, who +knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him to a +side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose. Here +he will come presently, and here he will find Mahomet Singh and myself +awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none shall know of his coming. +The world shall know of the merchant Achmet no more, but the great +treasure of the rajah shall be divided among us. What say you to it, +Sahib?’ +“In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred thing; +but it is very different when there is fire and blood all round you and +you have been used to meeting death at every turn. Whether Achmet the +merchant lived or died was a thing as light as air to me, but at the +talk about the treasure my heart turned to it, and I thought of what I +might do in the old country with it, and how my folk would stare when +they saw their ne’er-do-well coming back with his pockets full of gold +moidores. I had, therefore, already made up my mind. Abdullah Khan, +however, thinking that I hesitated, pressed the matter more closely. +“‘Consider, Sahib,’ said he, ‘that if this man is taken by the +commandant he will be hung or shot, and his jewels taken by the +government, so that no man will be a rupee the better for them. Now, +since we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as well? +The jewels will be as well with us as in the Company’s coffers. There +will be enough to make every one of us rich men and great chiefs. No +one can know about the matter, for here we are cut off from all men. +What could be better for the purpose? Say again, then, Sahib, whether +you are with us, or if we must look upon you as an enemy.’ +“‘I am with you heart and soul,’ said I. +“‘It is well,’ he answered, handing me back my firelock. ‘You see that +we trust you, for your word, like ours, is not to be broken. We have +now only to wait for my brother and the merchant.’ +“‘Does your brother know, then, of what you will do?’ I asked. +“‘The plan is his. He has devised it. We will go to the gate and share +the watch with Mahomet Singh.’ +“The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the beginning of +the wet season. Brown, heavy clouds were drifting across the sky, and +it was hard to see more than a stone-cast. A deep moat lay in front of +our door, but the water was in places nearly dried up, and it could +easily be crossed. It was strange to me to be standing there with those +two wild Punjaubees waiting for the man who was coming to his death. +“Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other side +of the moat. It vanished among the mound-heaps, and then appeared again +coming slowly in our direction. +“‘Here they are!’ I exclaimed. +“‘You will challenge him, Sahib, as usual,’ whispered Abdullah. ‘Give +him no cause for fear. Send us in with him, and we shall do the rest +while you stay here on guard. Have the lantern ready to uncover, that +we may be sure that it is indeed the man.’ +“The light had flickered onwards, now stopping and now advancing, until +I could see two dark figures upon the other side of the moat. I let +them scramble down the sloping bank, splash through the mire, and climb +half-way up to the gate, before I challenged them. +“‘Who goes there?’ said I, in a subdued voice. +“‘Friends,’ came the answer. I uncovered my lantern and threw a flood +of light upon them. The first was an enormous Sikh, with a black beard +which swept nearly down to his cummerbund. Outside of a show I have +never seen so tall a man. The other was a little, fat, round fellow, +with a great yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up in a +shawl. He seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, for his hands +twitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning to left and +right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he +ventures out from his hole. It gave me the chills to think of killing +him, but I thought of the treasure, and my heart set as hard as a flint +within me. When he saw my white face he gave a little chirrup of joy +and came running up towards me. +“‘Your protection, Sahib,’ he panted,—‘your protection for the unhappy +merchant Achmet. I have travelled across Rajpootana that I might seek +the shelter of the fort at Agra. I have been robbed and beaten and +abused because I have been the friend of the Company. It is a blessed +night this when I am once more in safety,—I and my poor possessions.’ +“‘What have you in the bundle?’ I asked. +“‘An iron box,’ he answered, ‘which contains one or two little family +matters which are of no value to others, but which I should be sorry to +lose. Yet I am not a beggar; and I shall reward you, young Sahib, and +your governor also, if he will give me the shelter I ask.’ +“I could not trust myself to speak longer with the man. The more I +looked at his fat, frightened face, the harder did it seem that we +should slay him in cold blood. It was best to get it over. +“‘Take him to the main guard,’ said I. The two Sikhs closed in upon him +on each side, and the giant walked behind, while they marched in +through the dark gateway. Never was a man so compassed round with +death. I remained at the gateway with the lantern. +“I could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through +the lonely corridors. Suddenly it ceased, and I heard voices, and a +scuffle, with the sound of blows. A moment later there came, to my +horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud +breathing of a running man. I turned my lantern down the long, straight +passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind, with a smear +of blood across his face, and close at his heels, bounding like a +tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife flashing in his hand. +I have never seen a man run so fast as that little merchant. He was +gaining on the Sikh, and I could see that if he once passed me and got +to the open air he would save himself yet. My heart softened to him, +but again the thought of his treasure turned me hard and bitter. I cast +my firelock between his legs as he raced past, and he rolled twice over +like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger to his feet the Sikh was upon +him, and buried his knife twice in his side. The man never uttered moan +nor moved muscle, but lay were he had fallen. I think myself that he +may have broken his neck with the fall. You see, gentlemen, that I am +keeping my promise. I am telling you every work of the business just +exactly as it happened, whether it is in my favour or not.” +He stopped, and held out his manacled hands for the whiskey-and-water +which Holmes had brewed for him. For myself, I confess that I had now +conceived the utmost horror of the man, not only for this cold-blooded +business in which he had been concerned, but even more for the somewhat +flippant and careless way in which he narrated it. Whatever punishment +was in store for him, I felt that he might expect no sympathy from me. +Sherlock Holmes and Jones sat with their hands upon their knees, deeply +interested in the story, but with the same disgust written upon their +faces. He may have observed it, for there was a touch of defiance in +his voice and manner as he proceeded. +“It was all very bad, no doubt,” said he. “I should like to know how +many fellows in my shoes would have refused a share of this loot when +they knew that they would have their throats cut for their pains. +Besides, it was my life or his when once he was in the fort. If he had +got out, the whole business would come to light, and I should have been +court-martialled and shot as likely as not; for people were not very +lenient at a time like that.” +“Go on with your story,” said Holmes, shortly. +“Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and I. A fine weight he was, +too, for all that he was so short. Mahomet Singh was left to guard the +door. We took him to a place which the Sikhs had already prepared. It +was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to a great empty +hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to pieces. The earth +floor had sunk in at one place, making a natural grave, so we left +Achmet the merchant there, having first covered him over with loose +bricks. This done, we all went back to the treasure. +“It lay where he had dropped it when he was first attacked. The box was +the same which now lies open upon your table. A key was hung by a +silken cord to that carved handle upon the top. We opened it, and the +light of the lantern gleamed upon a collection of gems such as I have +read of and thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore. It was +blinding to look upon them. When we had feasted our eyes we took them +all out and made a list of them. There were one hundred and forty-three +diamonds of the first water, including one which has been called, I +believe, ‘the Great Mogul’ and is said to be the second largest stone +in existence. Then there were ninety-seven very fine emeralds, and one +hundred and seventy rubies, some of which, however, were small. There +were forty carbuncles, two hundred and ten sapphires, sixty-one agates, +and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes, cats’-eyes, turquoises, and +other stones, the very names of which I did not know at the time, +though I have become more familiar with them since. Besides this, there +were nearly three hundred very fine pearls, twelve of which were set in +a gold coronet. By the way, these last had been taken out of the chest +and were not there when I recovered it. +“After we had counted our treasures we put them back into the chest and +carried them to the gateway to show them to Mahomet Singh. Then we +solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other and be true to our +secret. We agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the country +should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally among +ourselves. There was no use dividing it at present, for if gems of such +value were found upon us it would cause suspicion, and there was no +privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep them. We carried +the box, therefore, into the same hall where we had buried the body, +and there, under certain bricks in the best-preserved wall, we made a +hollow and put our treasure. We made careful note of the place, and +next day I drew four plans, one for each of us, and put the sign of the +four of us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we should each always +act for all, so that none might take advantage. That is an oath that I +can put my hand to my heart and swear that I have never broken. +“Well, there’s no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the Indian +mutiny. After Wilson took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow the back +of the business was broken. Fresh troops came pouring in, and Nana +Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying column under +Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies away from +it. Peace seemed to be settling upon the country, and we four were +beginning to hope that the time was at hand when we might safely go off +with our shares of the plunder. In a moment, however, our hopes were +shattered by our being arrested as the murderers of Achmet. +“It came about in this way. When the rajah put his jewels into the +hands of Achmet he did it because he knew that he was a trusty man. +They are suspicious folk in the East, however: so what does this rajah +do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to play the +spy upon the first? This second man was ordered never to let Achmet out +of his sight, and he followed him like his shadow. He went after him +that night and saw him pass through the doorway. Of course he thought +he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied for admission there +himself next day, but could find no trace of Achmet. This seemed to him +so strange that he spoke about it to a sergeant of guides, who brought +it to the ears of the commandant. A thorough search was quickly made, +and the body was discovered. Thus at the very moment that we thought +that all was safe we were all four seized and brought to trial on a +charge of murder,—three of us because we had held the gate that night, +and the fourth because he was known to have been in the company of the +murdered man. Not a word about the jewels came out at the trial, for +the rajah had been deposed and driven out of India: so no one had any +particular interest in them. The murder, however, was clearly made out, +and it was certain that we must all have been concerned in it. The +three Sikhs got penal servitude for life, and I was condemned to death, +though my sentence was afterwards commuted into the same as the others. +“It was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then. There +we were all four tied by the leg and with precious little chance of +ever getting out again, while we each held a secret which might have +put each of us in a palace if we could only have made use of it. It was +enough to make a man eat his heart out to have to stand the kick and +the cuff of every petty jack-in-office, to have rice to eat and water +to drink, when that gorgeous fortune was ready for him outside, just +waiting to be picked up. It might have driven me mad; but I was always +a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on and bided my time. +“At last it seemed to me to have come. I was changed from Agra to +Madras, and from there to Blair Island in the Andamans. There are very +few white convicts at this settlement, and, as I had behaved well from +the first, I soon found myself a sort of privileged person. I was given +a hut in Hope Town, which is a small place on the slopes of Mount +Harriet, and I was left pretty much to myself. It is a dreary, +fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clearings was infested +with wild cannibal natives, who were ready enough to blow a poisoned +dart at us if they saw a chance. There was digging, and ditching, and +yam-planting, and a dozen other things to be done, so we were busy +enough all day; though in the evening we had a little time to +ourselves. Among other things, I learned to dispense drugs for the +surgeon, and picked up a smattering of his knowledge. All the time I +was on the lookout for a chance of escape; but it is hundreds of miles +from any other land, and there is little or no wind in those seas: so +it was a terribly difficult job to get away. +“The surgeon, Dr. Somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the +other young officers would meet in his rooms of an evening and play +cards. The surgery, where I used to make up my drugs, was next to his +sitting-room, with a small window between us. Often, if I felt +lonesome, I used to turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then, +standing there, I could hear their talk and watch their play. I am fond +of a hand at cards myself, and it was almost as good as having one to +watch the others. There was Major Sholto, Captain Morstan, and +Lieutenant Bromley Brown, who were in command of the native troops, and +there was the surgeon himself, and two or three prison-officials, +crafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game. A very snug little +party they used to make. +“Well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was that +the soldiers used always to lose and the civilians to win. Mind, I +don’t say that there was anything unfair, but so it was. These +prison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they had +been at the Andamans, and they knew each other’s game to a point, while +the others just played to pass the time and threw their cards down +anyhow. Night after night the soldiers got up poorer men, and the +poorer they got the more keen they were to play. Major Sholto was the +hardest hit. He used to pay in notes and gold at first, but soon it +came to notes of hand and for big sums. He sometimes would win for a +few deals, just to give him heart, and then the luck would set in +against him worse than ever. All day he would wander about as black as +thunder, and he took to drinking a deal more than was good for him. +“One night he lost even more heavily than usual. I was sitting in my +hut when he and Captain Morstan came stumbling along on the way to +their quarters. They were bosom friends, those two, and never far +apart. The major was raving about his losses. +“‘It’s all up, Morstan,’ he was saying, as they passed my hut. ‘I shall +have to send in my papers. I am a ruined man.’ +“‘Nonsense, old chap!’ said the other, slapping him upon the shoulder. +‘I’ve had a nasty facer myself, but—’ That was all I could hear, but it +was enough to set me thinking. +“A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach: so I +took the chance of speaking to him. +“‘I wish to have your advice, major,’ said I. +“‘Well, Small, what is it?’ he asked, taking his cheroot from his lips. +“‘I wanted to ask you, sir,’ said I, ‘who is the proper person to whom +hidden treasure should be handed over. I know where half a million +worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought perhaps the best +thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the proper +authorities, and then perhaps they would get my sentence shortened for +me.’ +“‘Half a million, Small?’ he gasped, looking hard at me to see if I was +in earnest. +“‘Quite that, sir,—in jewels and pearls. It lies there ready for any +one. And the queer thing about it is that the real owner is outlawed +and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first comer.’ +“‘To government, Small,’ he stammered,—‘to government.’ But he said it +in a halting fashion, and I knew in my heart that I had got him. +“‘You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the +Governor-General?’ said I, quietly. +“‘Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might repent. +Let me hear all about it, Small. Give me the facts.’ +“I told him the whole story, with small changes so that he could not +identify the places. When I had finished he stood stock still and full +of thought. I could see by the twitch of his lip that there was a +struggle going on within him. +“‘This is a very important matter, Small,’ he said, at last. ‘You must +not say a word to any one about it, and I shall see you again soon.’ +“Two nights later he and his friend Captain Morstan came to my hut in +the dead of the night with a lantern. +“‘I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your own +lips, Small,’ said he. +“I repeated it as I had told it before. +“‘It rings true, eh?’ said he. ‘It’s good enough to act upon?’ +“Captain Morstan nodded. +“‘Look here, Small,’ said the major. ‘We have been talking it over, my +friend here and I, and we have come to the conclusion that this secret +of yours is hardly a government matter, after all, but is a private +concern of your own, which of course you have the power of disposing of +as you think best. Now, the question is, what price would you ask for +it? We might be inclined to take it up, and at least look into it, if +we could agree as to terms.’ He tried to speak in a cool, careless way, +but his eyes were shining with excitement and greed. +“‘Why, as to that, gentlemen,’ I answered, trying also to be cool, but +feeling as excited as he did, ‘there is only one bargain which a man in +my position can make. I shall want you to help me to my freedom, and to +help my three companions to theirs. We shall then take you into +partnership, and give you a fifth share to divide between you.’ +“‘Hum!’ said he. ‘A fifth share! That is not very tempting.’ +“‘It would come to fifty thousand apiece,’ said I. +“‘But how can we gain your freedom? You know very well that you ask an +impossibility.’ +“‘Nothing of the sort,’ I answered. ‘I have thought it all out to the +last detail. The only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat fit +for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time. There +are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras which would +serve our turn well. Do you bring one over. We shall engage to get +aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any part of the Indian +coast you will have done your part of the bargain.’ +“‘If there were only one,’ he said. +“‘None or all,’ I answered. ‘We have sworn it. The four of us must +always act together.’ +“‘You see, Morstan,’ said he, ‘Small is a man of his word. He does not +flinch from his friend. I think we may very well trust him.’ +“‘It’s a dirty business,’ the other answered. ‘Yet, as you say, the +money would save our commissions handsomely.’ +“‘Well, Small,’ said the major, ‘we must, I suppose, try and meet you. +We must first, of course, test the truth of your story. Tell me where +the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go back to India +in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.’ +“‘Not so fast,’ said I, growing colder as he got hot. ‘I must have the +consent of my three comrades. I tell you that it is four or none with +us.’ +“‘Nonsense!’ he broke in. ‘What have three black fellows to do with our +agreement?’ +“‘Black or blue,’ said I, ‘they are in with me, and we all go +together.’ +“Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh, +Abdullah Khan, and Dost Akbar were all present. We talked the matter +over again, and at last we came to an arrangement. We were to provide +both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort and mark the +place in the wall where the treasure was hid. Major Sholto was to go to +India to test our story. If he found the box he was to leave it there, +to send out a small yacht provisioned for a voyage, which was to lie +off Rutland Island, and to which we were to make our way, and finally +to return to his duties. Captain Morstan was then to apply for leave of +absence, to meet us at Agra, and there we were to have a final division +of the treasure, he taking the major’s share as well as his own. All +this we sealed by the most solemn oaths that the mind could think or +the lips utter. I sat up all night with paper and ink, and by the +morning I had the two charts all ready, signed with the sign of +four,—that is, of Abdullah, Akbar, Mahomet, and myself. +“Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my +friend Mr. Jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey. I’ll +make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went off to India, but he +never came back again. Captain Morstan showed me his name among a list +of passengers in one of the mail-boats very shortly afterwards. His +uncle had died, leaving him a fortune, and he had left the army, yet he +could stoop to treat five men as he had treated us. Morstan went over +to Agra shortly afterwards, and found, as we expected, that the +treasure was indeed gone. The scoundrel had stolen it all, without +carrying out one of the conditions on which we had sold him the secret. +From that day I lived only for vengeance. I thought of it by day and I +nursed it by night. It became an overpowering, absorbing passion with +me. I cared nothing for the law,—nothing for the gallows. To escape, to +track down Sholto, to have my hand upon his throat,—that was my one +thought. Even the Agra treasure had come to be a smaller thing in my +mind than the slaying of Sholto. +“Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one +which I did not carry out. But it was weary years before my time came. +I have told you that I had picked up something of medicine. One day +when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander was +picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death, and had +gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he was as +venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him all +right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and would +hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I +learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him all the +fonder of me. +“Tonga—for that was his name—was a fine boatman, and owned a big, roomy +canoe of his own. When I found that he was devoted to me and would do +anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. I talked it over with +him. He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to an old wharf +which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me up. I gave him +directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of yams, +cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes. +“He was stanch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more +faithful mate. At the night named he had his boat at the wharf. As it +chanced, however, there was one of the convict-guard down there,—a vile +Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring me. I +had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as if fate +had placed him in my way that I might pay my debt before I left the +island. He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his carbine on +his shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out his brains with, +but none could I see. Then a queer thought came into my head and showed +me where I could lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darkness +and unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long hops I was on him. He put +his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the +whole front of his skull in. You can see the split in the wood now +where I hit him. We both went down together, for I could not keep my +balance, but when I got up I found him still lying quiet enough. I made +for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea. Tonga had brought +all his earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods. Among +other things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some Andaman cocoa-nut +matting, with which I made a sort of sail. For ten days we were beating +about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were picked up by a +trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah with a cargo of Malay +pilgrims. They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon managed to settle +down among them. They had one very good quality: they let you alone and +asked no questions. +“Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum and +I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have you here until +the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted about the world, +something always turning up to keep us from London. All the time, +however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at +night. A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At last, however, +some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in England. I had no +great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived, and I set to work to +discover whether he had realised the treasure, or if he still had it. I +made friends with someone who could help me,—I name no names, for I +don’t want to get any one else in a hole,—and I soon found that he +still had the jewels. Then I tried to get at him in many ways; but he +was pretty sly, and had always two prize-fighters, besides his sons and +his khitmutgar, on guard over him. +“One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once to +the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that, and, +looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with his sons +on each side of him. I’d have come through and taken my chance with the +three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw dropped, and I knew +that he was gone. I got into his room that same night, though, and I +searched his papers to see if there was any record of where he had +hidden our jewels. There was not a line, however: so I came away, +bitter and savage as a man could be. Before I left I bethought me that +if I ever met my Sikh friends again it would be a satisfaction to know +that I had left some mark of our hatred; so I scrawled down the sign of +the four of us, as it had been on the chart, and I pinned it on his +bosom. It was too much that he should be taken to the grave without +some token from the men whom he had robbed and befooled. +“We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs +and other such places as the black cannibal. He would eat raw meat and +dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful of pennies after a day’s +work. I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge, and for some +years there was no news to hear, except that they were hunting for the +treasure. At last, however, came what we had waited for so long. The +treasure had been found. It was up at the top of the house, in Mr. +Bartholomew Sholto’s chemical laboratory. I came at once and had a look +at the place, but I could not see how with my wooden leg I was to make +my way up to it. I learned, however, about a trap-door in the roof, and +also about Mr. Sholto’s supper-hour. It seemed to me that I could +manage the thing easily through Tonga. I brought him out with me with a +long rope wound round his waist. He could climb like a cat, and he soon +made his way through the roof, but, as ill luck would have it, +Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room, to his cost. Tonga thought he +had done something very clever in killing him, for when I came up by +the rope I found him strutting about as proud as a peacock. Very much +surprised was he when I made at him with the rope’s end and cursed him +for a little blood-thirsty imp. I took the treasure-box and let it +down, and then slid down myself, having first left the sign of the four +upon the table, to show that the jewels had come back at last to those +who had most right to them. Tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the +window, and made off the way that he had come. +“I don’t know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a +waterman speak of the speed of Smith’s launch the _Aurora_, so I +thought she would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged with old +Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our ship. He +knew, no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was not in our +secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you, gentlemen, it +is not to amuse you,—for you have not done me a very good turn,—but it +is because I believe the best defence I can make is just to hold back +nothing, but let all the world know how badly I have myself been served +by Major Sholto, and how innocent I am of the death of his son.” +“A very remarkable account,” said Sherlock Holmes. “A fitting wind-up +to an extremely interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me in +the latter part of your narrative, except that you brought your own +rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost +all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.” +“He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow-pipe +at the time.” +“Ah, of course,” said Holmes. “I had not thought of that.” +“Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?” asked the +convict, affably. +“I think not, thank you,” my companion answered. +“Well, Holmes,” said Athelney Jones, “You are a man to be humoured, and +we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is duty, and +I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend asked me. I +shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under +lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors +downstairs. I am much obliged to you both for your assistance. Of +course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night to you.” +“Good-night, gentlemen both,” said Jonathan Small. +“You first, Small,” remarked the wary Jones as they left the room. +“I’ll take particular care that you don’t club me with your wooden leg, +whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the Andaman Isles.” +“Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we +had set some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last +investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your +methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband +in prospective.” +He gave a most dismal groan. “I feared as much,” said he. “I really +cannot congratulate you.” +I was a little hurt. “Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my +choice?” I asked. +“Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I +ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been +doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she +preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But +love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to +that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never +marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.” +“I trust,” said I, laughing, “that my judgment may survive the ordeal. +But you look weary.” +“Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for +a week.” +“Strange,” said I, “how terms of what in another man I should call +laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour.” +“Yes,” he answered, “there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer +and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines +of old Goethe,— +Schade dass die Natur nur _einen_ Mensch aus Dir schuf, +Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff. +“By the way, _à propos_ of this Norwood business, you see that they +had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other +than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honour of +having caught one fish in his great haul.” +“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the +work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, +pray what remains for you?” +“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the +cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.",The Sign of the Four,Arthur Conan Doyle,128,['Jonathan Small'] +"Produced by Tim Lindell, Melissa McDaniel and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +Transcriber’s Note: +Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have +been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. +On page 117, ""Mrs. Thipps's forehead"" should possibly be ""Mr. +Thipps's forehead."" +Whose Body? +[Illustration: AS MY WHIMSY TAKES ME] +Whose Body? +DOROTHY L. SAYERS +A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel +[Illustration] +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS +WHOSE BODY? +Copyright, 1923, by Dorothy Sayers +Printed in the United States of America +All rights in this book are reserved. +No part of the book may be used or reproduced +in any manner whatsoever without written permission +except in the case of brief quotations +embodied in critical articles and reviews. For +information address Harper & Brothers +49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N. Y. +The Singular Adventure of the +Man with the Golden Pince-Nez +To M. J. +Dear Jim: +This book is your fault. If it had not been for your brutal insistence, +Lord Peter would never have staggered through to the end of this +enquiry. Pray consider that he thanks you with his accustomed suavity. +Yours ever, +D. L. S. +CHAPTER I +“Oh, damn!” said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus. “Hi, driver!” +The taxi man, irritated at receiving this appeal while negotiating the +intricacies of turning into Lower Regent Street across the route of a +19 ’bus, a 38-B and a bicycle, bent an unwilling ear. +“I’ve left the catalogue behind,” said Lord Peter deprecatingly. +“Uncommonly careless of me. D’you mind puttin’ back to where we came +from?” +“To the Savile Club, sir?” +“No—110 Piccadilly—just beyond—thank you.” +“Thought you was in a hurry,” said the man, overcome with a sense of +injury. +“I’m afraid it’s an awkward place to turn in,” said Lord Peter, +answering the thought rather than the words. His long, amiable face +looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white +maggots breed from Gorgonzola. +The taxi, under the severe eye of a policeman, revolved by slow jerks, +with a noise like the grinding of teeth. +The block of new, perfect and expensive flats in which Lord Peter +dwelt upon the second floor, stood directly opposite the Green Park, +in a spot for many years occupied by the skeleton of a frustrate +commercial enterprise. As Lord Peter let himself in he heard his man’s +voice in the library, uplifted in that throttled stridency peculiar to +well-trained persons using the telephone. +“I believe that’s his lordship just coming in again—if your Grace would +kindly hold the line a moment.” +“What is it, Bunter?” +“Her Grace has just called up from Denver, my lord. I was just saying +your lordship had gone to the sale when I heard your lordship’s +latchkey.” +“Thanks,” said Lord Peter; “and you might find me my catalogue, would +you? I think I must have left it in my bedroom, or on the desk.” +He sat down to the telephone with an air of leisurely courtesy, as +though it were an acquaintance dropped in for a chat. +“Hullo, Mother—that you?” +“Oh, there you are, dear,” replied the voice of the Dowager Duchess. “I +was afraid I’d just missed you.” +“Well, you had, as a matter of fact. I’d just started off to +Brocklebury’s sale to pick up a book or two, but I had to come back for +the catalogue. What’s up?” +“Such a quaint thing,” said the Duchess. “I thought I’d tell you. You +know little Mr. Thipps?” +“Thipps?” said Lord Peter. “Thipps? Oh, yes, the little architect man +who’s doing the church roof. Yes. What about him?” +“Mrs. Throgmorton’s just been in, in quite a state of mind.” +“Sorry, Mother, I can’t hear. Mrs. Who?” +“Throgmorton—Throgmorton—the vicar’s wife.” +“Oh, Throgmorton, yes?” +“Mr. Thipps rang them up this morning. It was his day to come down, you +know.” +“Yes?” +“He rang them up to say he couldn’t. He was so upset, poor little man. +He’d found a dead body in his bath.” +“Sorry, Mother, I can’t hear; found what, where?” +“A dead body, dear, in his bath.” +“What?—no, no, we haven’t finished. Please don’t cut us off. Hullo! +Hullo! Is that you, Mother? Hullo!—Mother!—Oh, yes—sorry, the girl was +trying to cut us off. What sort of body?” +“A dead man, dear, with nothing on but a pair of pince-nez. Mrs. +Throgmorton positively blushed when she was telling me. I’m afraid +people do get a little narrow-minded in country vicarages.” +“Well, it sounds a bit unusual. Was it anybody he knew?” +“No, dear, I don’t think so, but, of course, he couldn’t give her many +details. She said he sounded quite distracted. He’s such a respectable +little man—and having the police in the house and so on, really worried +him.” +“Poor little Thipps! Uncommonly awkward for him. Let’s see, he lives in +Battersea, doesn’t he?” +“Yes, dear; 59, Queen Caroline Mansions; opposite the Park. That big +block just round the corner from the Hospital. I thought perhaps you’d +like to run round and see him and ask if there’s anything we can do. I +always thought him a nice little man.” +“Oh, quite,” said Lord Peter, grinning at the telephone. The Duchess +was always of the greatest assistance to his hobby of criminal +investigation, though she never alluded to it, and maintained a polite +fiction of its non-existence. +“What time did it happen, Mother?” +“I think he found it early this morning, but, of course, he didn’t +think of telling the Throgmortons just at first. She came up to me just +before lunch—so tiresome, I had to ask her to stay. Fortunately, I was +alone. I don’t mind being bored myself, but I hate having my guests +bored.” +“Poor old Mother! Well, thanks awfully for tellin’ me. I think I’ll +send Bunter to the sale and toddle round to Battersea now an’ try and +console the poor little beast. So-long.” +“Good-bye, dear.” +“Bunter!” +“Yes, my lord.” +“Her Grace tells me that a respectable Battersea architect has +discovered a dead man in his bath.” +“Indeed, my lord? That’s very gratifying.” +“Very, Bunter. Your choice of words is unerring. I wish Eton and +Balliol had done as much for me. Have you found the catalogue?” +“Here it is, my lord.” +“Thanks. I am going to Battersea at once. I want you to attend the sale +for me. Don’t lose time—I don’t want to miss the Folio Dante[A] nor the +de Voragine—here you are—see? ‘Golden Legend’—Wynkyn de Worde, 1493—got +that?—and, I say, make a special effort for the Caxton folio of the +‘Four Sons of Aymon’—it’s the 1489 folio and unique. Look! I’ve marked +the lots I want, and put my outside offer against each. Do your best +for me. I shall be back to dinner.” +“Very good, my lord.” +“Take my cab and tell him to hurry. He may for you; he doesn’t like +me very much. Can I,” said Lord Peter, looking at himself in the +eighteenth-century mirror over the mantelpiece, “can I have the heart +to fluster the flustered Thipps further—that’s very difficult to say +quickly—by appearing in a top-hat and frock-coat? I think not. Ten to +one he will overlook my trousers and mistake me for the undertaker. +A grey suit, I fancy, neat but not gaudy, with a hat to tone, suits +my other self better. Exit the amateur of first editions; new motive +introduced by solo bassoon; enter Sherlock Holmes, disguised as a +walking gentleman. There goes Bunter. Invaluable fellow—never offers to +do his job when you’ve told him to do somethin’ else. Hope he doesn’t +miss the ‘Four Sons of Aymon.’ Still, there _is_ another copy of +that—in the Vatican.[B] It might become available, you never know —if +the Church of Rome went to pot or Switzerland invaded Italy—whereas a +strange corpse doesn’t turn up in a suburban bathroom more than once +in a lifetime—at least, I should think not—at any rate, the number +of times it’s happened, _with_ a pince-nez, might be counted on the +fingers of one hand, I imagine. Dear me! it’s a dreadful mistake to +ride two hobbies at once.” +He had drifted across the passage into his bedroom, and was changing +with a rapidity one might not have expected from a man of his +mannerisms. He selected a dark-green tie to match his socks and tied it +accurately without hesitation or the slightest compression of his lips; +substituted a pair of brown shoes for his black ones, slipped a monocle +into a breast pocket, and took up a beautiful Malacca walking-stick +with a heavy silver knob. +“That’s all, I think,” he murmured to himself. “Stay—I may as well have +you—you may come in useful—one never knows.” He added a flat silver +matchbox to his equipment, glanced at his watch, and seeing that it +was already a quarter to three, ran briskly downstairs, and, hailing a +taxi, was carried to Battersea Park. +* * * * * +Mr. Alfred Thipps was a small, nervous man, whose flaxen hair was +beginning to abandon the unequal struggle with destiny. One might +say that his only really marked feature was a large bruise over the +left eyebrow, which gave him a faintly dissipated air incongruous +with the rest of his appearance. Almost in the same breath with his +first greeting, he made a self-conscious apology for it, murmuring +something about having run against the dining-room door in the dark. +He was touched almost to tears by Lord Peter’s thoughtfulness and +condescension in calling. +“I’m sure it’s most kind of your lordship,” he repeated for the +dozenth time, rapidly blinking his weak little eyelids. “I appreciate +it very deeply, very deeply, indeed, and so would Mother, only she’s +so deaf, I don’t like to trouble you with making her understand. It’s +been very hard all day,” he added, “with the policemen in the house +and all this commotion. It’s what Mother and me have never been used +to, always living very retired, and it’s most distressing to a man of +regular habits, my lord, and reely, I’m almost thankful Mother doesn’t +understand, for I’m sure it would worry her terribly if she was to know +about it. She was upset at first, but she’s made up some idea of her +own about it now, and I’m sure it’s all for the best.” +The old lady who sat knitting by the fire nodded grimly in response to +a look from her son. +“I always said as you ought to complain about that bath, Alfred,” she +said suddenly, in the high, piping voice peculiar to the deaf, “and +it’s to be ’oped the landlord’ll see about it now; not but what I think +you might have managed without having the police in, but there! you +always were one to make a fuss about a little thing, from chicken-pox +up.” +“There now,” said Mr. Thipps apologetically, “you see how it is. +Not but what it’s just as well she’s settled on that, because she +understands we’ve locked up the bathroom and don’t try to go in +there. But it’s been a terrible shock to me, sir—my lord, I should +say, but there! my nerves are all to pieces. Such a thing has never +’appened—happened to me in all my born days. Such a state I was in this +morning—I didn’t know if I was on my head or my heels—I reely didn’t, +and my heart not being too strong, I hardly knew how to get out of +that horrid room and telephone for the police. It’s affected me, sir, +it’s affected me, it reely has—I couldn’t touch a bit of breakfast, +nor lunch neither, and what with telephoning and putting off clients +and interviewing people all morning, I’ve hardly known what to do with +myself.” +“I’m sure it must have been uncommonly distressin’,” said Lord Peter, +sympathetically, “especially comin’ like that before breakfast. Hate +anything tiresome happenin’ before breakfast. Takes a man at such a +confounded disadvantage, what?” +“That’s just it, that’s just it,” said Mr. Thipps, eagerly. “When I saw +that dreadful thing lying there in my bath, mother-naked, too, except +for a pair of eyeglasses, I assure you, my lord, it regularly turned +my stomach, if you’ll excuse the expression. I’m not very strong, sir, +and I get that sinking feeling sometimes in the morning, and what with +one thing and another I ’ad—had to send the girl for a stiff brandy, +or I don’t know _what_ mightn’t have happened. I felt so queer, though +I’m anything but partial to spirits as a rule. Still, I make it a rule +never to be without brandy in the house, in case of emergency, you +know?” +“Very wise of you,” said Lord Peter, cheerfully. “You’re a very +far-seein’ man, Mr. Thipps. Wonderful what a little nip’ll do in case +of need, and the less you’re used to it the more good it does you. +Hope your girl is a sensible young woman, what? Nuisance to have women +faintin’ and shriekin’ all over the place.” +“Oh, Gladys is a good girl,” said Mr. Thipps, “very reasonable indeed. +She was shocked, of course; that’s very understandable. I was shocked +myself, and it wouldn’t be proper in a young woman not to be shocked +under the circumstances, but she is reely a helpful, energetic girl in +a crisis, if you understand me. I consider myself very fortunate these +days to have got a good, decent girl to do for me and Mother, even +though she is a bit careless and forgetful about little things, but +that’s only natural. She was very sorry indeed about having left the +bathroom window open, she reely was, and though I was angry at first, +seeing what’s come of it, it wasn’t anything to speak of, not in the +ordinary way, as you might say. Girls will forget things, you know, my +lord, and reely she was so distressed I didn’t like to say too much to +her. All I said was: ‘It might have been burglars,’ I said, ‘remember +that, next time you leave a window open all night; this time it was +a dead man,’ I said, ‘and that’s unpleasant enough, but next time it +might be burglars,’ I said, ‘and all of us murdered in our beds.’ But +the police-inspector—Inspector Sugg, they called him, from the Yard—he +was very sharp with her, poor girl. Quite frightened her, and made her +think he suspected her of something, though what good a body could be +to her, poor girl, I can’t imagine, and so I told the Inspector. He was +quite rude to me, my lord—I may say I didn’t like his manner at all. +‘If you’ve got anything definite to accuse Gladys or me of, Inspector,’ +I said to him, ‘bring it forward, that’s what you have to do,’ I said, +‘but I’ve yet to learn that you’re paid to be rude to a gentleman in +his own ’ouse—house.’ Reely,” said Mr. Thipps, growing quite pink on +the top of his head, “he regularly roused me, regularly roused me, my +lord, and I’m a mild man as a rule.” +“Sugg all over,” said Lord Peter. “I know him. When he don’t know what +else to say, he’s rude. Stands to reason you and the girl wouldn’t +go collectin’ bodies. Who’d want to saddle himself with a body? +Difficulty’s usually to get rid of ’em. Have you got rid of this one +yet, by the way?” +“It’s still in the bathroom,” said Mr. Thipps. “Inspector Sugg +said nothing was to be touched till his men came in to move it. I’m +expecting them at any time. If it would interest your lordship to have +a look at it—” +“Thanks awfully,” said Lord Peter. “I’d like to very much, if I’m not +puttin’ you out.” +“Not at all,” said Mr. Thipps. His manner as he led the way along +the passage convinced Lord Peter of two things—first, that, gruesome +as his exhibit was, he rejoiced in the importance it reflected upon +himself and his flat, and secondly, that Inspector Sugg had forbidden +him to exhibit it to anyone. The latter supposition was confirmed by +the action of Mr. Thipps, who stopped to fetch the door-key from his +bedroom, saying that the police had the other, but that he made it a +rule to have two keys to every door, in case of accident. +The bathroom was in no way remarkable. It was long and narrow, the +window being exactly over the head of the bath. The panes were of +frosted glass; the frame wide enough to admit a man’s body. Lord Peter +stepped rapidly across to it, opened it and looked out. +The flat was the top one of the building and situated about the middle +of the block. The bathroom window looked out upon the back-yards of the +flats, which were occupied by various small outbuildings, coal-holes, +garages, and the like. Beyond these were the back gardens of a parallel +line of houses. On the right rose the extensive edifice of St. Luke’s +Hospital, Battersea, with its grounds, and, connected with it by a +covered way, the residence of the famous surgeon, Sir Julian Freke, +who directed the surgical side of the great new hospital, and was, in +addition, known in Harley Street as a distinguished neurologist with a +highly individual point of view. +This information was poured into Lord Peter’s ear at considerable +length by Mr. Thipps, who seemed to feel that the neighbourhood of +anybody so distinguished shed a kind of halo of glory over Queen +Caroline Mansions. +“We had him round here himself this morning,” he said, “about this +horrid business. Inspector Sugg thought one of the young medical +gentlemen at the hospital might have brought the corpse round +for a joke, as you might say, they always having bodies in the +dissecting-room. So Inspector Sugg went round to see Sir Julian this +morning to ask if there was a body missing. He was very kind, was Sir +Julian, very kind indeed, though he was at work when they got there, in +the dissecting-room. He looked up the books to see that all the bodies +were accounted for, and then very obligingly came round here to look at +this”—he indicated the bath—“and said he was afraid he couldn’t help +us—there was no corpse missing from the hospital, and this one didn’t +answer to the description of any they’d had.” +“Nor to the description of any of the patients, I hope,” suggested Lord +Peter casually. +At this grisly hint Mr. Thipps turned pale. +“I didn’t hear Inspector Sugg inquire,” he said, with some agitation. +“What a very horrid thing that would be—God bless my soul, my lord, I +never thought of it.” +“Well, if they had missed a patient they’d probably have discovered it +by now,” said Lord Peter. “Let’s have a look at this one.” +He screwed his monocle into his eye, adding: “I see you’re troubled +here with the soot blowing in. Beastly nuisance, ain’t it? I get it, +too—spoils all my books, you know. Here, don’t you trouble, if you +don’t care about lookin’ at it.” +He took from Mr. Thipps’s hesitating hand the sheet which had been +flung over the bath, and turned it back. +The body which lay in the bath was that of a tall, stout man of +about fifty. The hair, which was thick and black and naturally curly, +had been cut and parted by a master hand, and exuded a faint violet +perfume, perfectly recognisable in the close air of the bathroom. The +features were thick, fleshy and strongly marked, with prominent dark +eyes, and a long nose curving down to a heavy chin. The clean-shaven +lips were full and sensual, and the dropped jaw showed teeth stained +with tobacco. On the dead face the handsome pair of gold pince-nez +mocked death with grotesque elegance; the fine gold chain curved over +the naked breast. The legs lay stiffly stretched out side by side; the +arms reposed close to the body; the fingers were flexed naturally. Lord +Peter lifted one arm, and looked at the hand with a little frown. +“Bit of a dandy, your visitor, what?” he murmured. “Parma violet and +manicure.” He bent again, slipping his hand beneath the head. The +absurd eyeglasses slipped off, clattering into the bath, and the noise +put the last touch to Mr. Thipps’s growing nervousness. +“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured, “it makes me feel quite faint, it +reely does.” +He slipped outside, and he had no sooner done so than Lord Peter, +lifting the body quickly and cautiously, turned it over and inspected +it with his head on one side, bringing his monocle into play with +the air of the late Joseph Chamberlain approving a rare orchid. He +then laid the head over his arm, and bringing out the silver matchbox +from his pocket, slipped it into the open mouth. Then making the +noise usually written “Tut-tut,” he laid the body down, picked up +the mysterious pince-nez, looked at it, put it on his nose and looked +through it, made the same noise again, readjusted the pince-nez upon +the nose of the corpse, so as to leave no traces of interference for +the irritation of Inspector Sugg; rearranged the body; returned to +the window and, leaning out, reached upwards and sideways with his +walking-stick, which he had somewhat incongruously brought along with +him. Nothing appearing to come of these investigations, he withdrew his +head, closed the window, and rejoined Mr. Thipps in the passage. +Mr. Thipps, touched by this sympathetic interest in the younger son +of a duke, took the liberty, on their return to the sitting-room, of +offering him a cup of tea. Lord Peter, who had strolled over to the +window and was admiring the outlook on Battersea Park, was about to +accept, when an ambulance came into view at the end of Prince of Wales +Road. Its appearance reminded Lord Peter of an important engagement, +and with a hurried “By Jove!” he took his leave of Mr. Thipps. +“My mother sent kind regards and all that,” he said, shaking hands +fervently; “hopes you’ll soon be down at Denver again. Good-bye, Mrs. +Thipps,” he bawled kindly into the ear of the old lady. “Oh, no, my +dear sir, please don’t trouble to come down.” +He was none too soon. As he stepped out of the door and turned towards +the station, the ambulance drew up from the other direction, and +Inspector Sugg emerged from it with two constables. The Inspector spoke +to the officer on duty at the Mansions, and turned a suspicious gaze on +Lord Peter’s retreating back. +“Dear old Sugg,” said that nobleman, fondly, “dear, dear old bird! How +he does hate me, to be sure.” +CHAPTER II +“Excellent, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, sinking with a sigh into a +luxurious armchair. “I couldn’t have done better myself. The thought +of the Dante makes my mouth water—and the ‘Four Sons of Aymon.’ And +you’ve saved me £60—that’s glorious. What shall we spend it on, Bunter? +Think of it—all ours, to do as we like with, for as Harold Skimpole so +rightly observes, £60 saved is £60 gained, and I’d reckoned on spending +it all. It’s your saving, Bunter, and properly speaking, your £60. +What do we want? Anything in your department? Would you like anything +altered in the flat?” +“Well, my lord, as your lordship is so good”—the man-servant paused, +about to pour an old brandy into a liqueur glass. +“Well, out with it, my Bunter, you imperturbable old hypocrite. It’s +no good talking as if you were announcing dinner—you’re spilling the +brandy. The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of +Esau. What does that blessed darkroom of yours want now?” +“There’s a Double Anastigmat with a set of supplementary lenses, my +lord,” said Bunter, with a note almost of religious fervour. “If it +was a case of forgery now—or footprints—I could enlarge them right up +on the plate. Or the wide-angled lens would be useful. It’s as though +the camera had eyes at the back of its head, my lord. Look—I’ve got it +here.” +He pulled a catalogue from his pocket, and submitted it, quivering, to +his employer’s gaze. +Lord Peter perused the description slowly, the corners of his long +mouth lifted into a faint smile. +“It’s Greek to me,” he said, “and £50 seems a ridiculous price for a +few bits of glass. I suppose, Bunter, you’d say £750 was a bit out of +the way for a dirty old book in a dead language, wouldn’t you?” +“It wouldn’t be my place to say so, my lord.” +“No, Bunter, I pay you £200 a year to keep your thoughts to yourself. +Tell me, Bunter, in these democratic days, don’t you think that’s +unfair?” +“No, my lord.” +“You don’t. D’you mind telling me frankly why you don’t think it +unfair?” +“Frankly, my lord, your lordship is paid a nobleman’s income to +take Lady Worthington in to dinner and refrain from exercising your +lordship’s undoubted powers of repartee.” +Lord Peter considered this. +“That’s your idea, is it, Bunter? Noblesse oblige—for a consideration. +I daresay you’re right. Then you’re better off than I am, because I’d +have to behave myself to Lady Worthington if I hadn’t a penny. Bunter, +if I sacked you here and now, would you tell me what you think of me?” +“No, my lord.” +“You’d have a perfect right to, my Bunter, and if I sacked you on top +of drinking the kind of coffee you make, I’d deserve everything you +could say of me. You’re a demon for coffee, Bunter—I don’t want to know +how you do it, because I believe it to be witchcraft, and I don’t want +to burn eternally. You can buy your cross-eyed lens.” +“Thank you, my lord.” +“Have you finished in the dining-room?” +“Not quite, my lord.” +“Well, come back when you have. I have many things to tell you. Hullo! +who’s that?” +The doorbell had rung sharply. +“Unless it’s anybody interestin’ I’m not at home.” +“Very good, my lord.” +Lord Peter’s library was one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in +London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with +rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the +embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood +fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on +the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the +eyes of the young man who was ushered in from the raw November fog it +seemed not only rare and unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like +a colourful and gilded paradise in a mediaeval painting. +“Mr. Parker, my lord.” +Lord Peter jumped up with genuine eagerness. +“My dear man, I’m delighted to see you. What a beastly foggy night, +ain’t it? Bunter, some more of that admirable coffee and another glass +and the cigars. Parker, I hope you’re full of crime—nothing less than +arson or murder will do for us tonight. ‘On such a night as this—’ +Bunter and I were just sitting down to carouse. I’ve got a Dante, and +a Caxton folio that is practically unique, at Sir Ralph Brocklebury’s +sale. Bunter, who did the bargaining, is going to have a lens which +does all kinds of wonderful things with its eyes shut, and +We both have got a body in a bath, +We both have got a body in a bath— +For in spite of all temptations +To go in for cheap sensations +We insist upon a body in a bath— +Nothing less will do for us, Parker. It’s mine at present, but we’re +going shares in it. Property of the firm. Won’t you join us? You really +must put _something_ in the jack-pot. Perhaps you have a body. Oh, do +have a body. Every body welcome. +Gin a body meet a body +Hauled before the beak, +Gin a body jolly well knows who murdered a +body and that old Sugg is on the wrong tack, +Need a body speak? +Not a bit of it. He tips a glassy wink to yours truly and yours truly +reads the truth.” +“Ah,” said Parker, “I knew you’d been round to Queen Caroline Mansions. +So’ve I, and met Sugg, and he told me he’d seen you. He was cross, too. +Unwarrantable interference, he calls it.” +“I knew he would,” said Lord Peter. “I love taking a rise out of dear +old Sugg, he’s always so rude. I see by the Star that he has excelled +himself by taking the girl, Gladys What’s-her-name, into custody. Sugg +of the evening, beautiful Sugg! But what were _you_ doing there?” +“To tell you the truth,” said Parker, “I went round to see if the +Semitic-looking stranger in Mr. Thipps’s bath was by any extraordinary +chance Sir Reuben Levy. But he isn’t.” +“Sir Reuben Levy? Wait a minute, I saw something about that. I know! A +headline: ‘Mysterious disappearance of famous financier.’ What’s it all +about? I didn’t read it carefully.” +“Well, it’s a bit odd, though I daresay it’s nothing really—old +chap may have cleared for some reason best known to himself. It only +happened this morning, and nobody would have thought anything about +it, only it happened to be the day on which he had arranged to attend a +most important financial meeting and do some deal involving millions—I +haven’t got all the details. But I know he’s got enemies who’d just +as soon the deal didn’t come off, so when I got wind of this fellow +in the bath, I buzzed round to have a look at him. It didn’t seem +likely, of course, but unlikelier things do happen in our profession. +The funny thing is, old Sugg had got bitten with the idea it is him, +and is wildly telegraphing to Lady Levy to come and identify him. But +as a matter of fact, the man in the bath is no more Sir Reuben Levy +than Adolf Beck, poor devil, was John Smith. Oddly enough, though, +he would be really extraordinarily like Sir Reuben if he had a beard, +and as Lady Levy is abroad with the family, somebody may say it’s him, +and Sugg will build up a lovely theory, like the Tower of Babel, and +destined so to perish.” +“Sugg’s a beautiful, braying ass,” said Lord Peter. “He’s like a +detective in a novel. Well, I don’t know anything about Levy, but I’ve +seen the body, and I should say the idea was preposterous upon the face +of it. What do you think of the brandy?” +“Unbelievable, Wimsey—sort of thing makes one believe in heaven. But I +want your yarn.” +“D’you mind if Bunter hears it, too? Invaluable man, Bunter—amazin’ +fellow with a camera. And the odd thing is, he’s always on the spot +when I want my bath or my boots. I don’t know when he develops things—I +believe he does ’em in his sleep. Bunter!” +“Yes, my lord.” +“Stop fiddling about in there, and get yourself the proper things to +drink and join the merry throng.” +“Certainly, my lord.” +“Mr. Parker has a new trick: The Vanishing Financier. Absolutely no +deception. Hey, presto, pass! and where is he? Will some gentleman from +the audience kindly step upon the platform and inspect the cabinet? +Thank you, sir. The quickness of the ’and deceives the heye.” +“I’m afraid mine isn’t much of a story,” said Parker. “It’s just one +of those simple things that offer no handle. Sir Reuben Levy dined last +night with three friends at the Ritz. After dinner the friends went to +the theatre. He refused to go with them on account of an appointment. I +haven’t yet been able to trace the appointment, but anyhow, he returned +home to his house—9a, Park Lane—at twelve o’clock.” +“Who saw him?�� +“The cook, who had just gone up to bed, saw him on the doorstep, and +heard him let himself in. He walked upstairs, leaving his greatcoat on +the hall peg and his umbrella in the stand—you remember how it rained +last night. He undressed and went to bed. Next morning he wasn’t there. +That’s all,” said Parker abruptly, with a wave of the hand. +“It isn’t all, it isn’t all. Daddy, go on, that’s not _half_ a story,” +pleaded Lord Peter. +“But it _is_ all. When his man came to call him he wasn’t there. The +bed had been slept in. His pyjamas and all his clothes were there, +the only odd thing being that they were thrown rather untidily on +the ottoman at the foot of the bed, instead of being neatly folded +on a chair, as is Sir Reuben’s custom—looking as though he had been +rather agitated or unwell. No clean clothes were missing, no suit, +no boots—nothing. The boots he had worn were in his dressing-room +as usual. He had washed and cleaned his teeth and done all the usual +things. The housemaid was down cleaning the hall at half-past six, and +can swear that nobody came in or out after that. So one is forced to +suppose that a respectable middle-aged Hebrew financier either went mad +between twelve and six a.m. and walked quietly out of the house in his +birthday suit on a November night, or else was spirited away like the +lady in the ‘Ingoldsby Legends,’ body and bones, leaving only a heap of +crumpled clothes behind him.” +“Was the front door bolted?” +“That’s the sort of question you _would_ ask, straight off; it took me +an hour to think of it. No; contrary to custom, there was only the Yale +lock on the door. On the other hand, some of the maids had been given +leave to go to the theatre, and Sir Reuben may quite conceivably have +left the door open under the impression they had not come in. Such a +thing has happened before.” +“And that’s really all?” +“Really all. Except for one very trifling circumstance.” +“I love trifling circumstances,” said Lord Peter, with childish +delight; “so many men have been hanged by trifling circumstances. What +was it?” +“Sir Reuben and Lady Levy, who are a most devoted couple, always share +the same room. Lady Levy, as I said before, is in Mentonne at the +moment for her health. In her absence, Sir Reuben sleeps in the double +bed as usual, and invariably on his own side—the outside—of the bed. +Last night he put the two pillows together and slept in the middle, or, +if anything, rather closer to the wall than otherwise. The housemaid, +who is a most intelligent girl, noticed this when she went up to make +the bed, and, with really admirable detective instinct, refused to +touch the bed or let anybody else touch it, though it wasn’t till later +that they actually sent for the police.” +“Was nobody in the house but Sir Reuben and the servants?” +“No; Lady Levy was away with her daughter and her maid. The valet, +cook, parlourmaid, housemaid and kitchenmaid were the only people in +the house, and naturally wasted an hour or two squawking and gossiping. +I got there about ten.” +“What have you been doing since?” +“Trying to get on the track of Sir Reuben’s appointment last night, +since, with the exception of the cook, his ‘appointer’ was the last +person who saw him before his disappearance. There may be some quite +simple explanation, though I’m dashed if I can think of one for the +moment. Hang it all, a man doesn’t come in and go to bed and walk away +again ‘mid nodings on’ in the middle of the night.” +“He may have been disguised.” +“I thought of that—in fact, it seems the only possible explanation. +But it’s deuced odd, Wimsey. An important city man, on the eve of an +important transaction, without a word of warning to anybody, slips +off in the middle of the night, disguised down to his skin, leaving +behind his watch, purse, cheque-book, and—most mysterious and important +of all—his spectacles, without which he can’t see a step, as he is +extremely short-sighted. He—” +“That _is_ important,” interrupted Wimsey. “You are sure he didn’t take +a second pair?” +“His man vouches for it that he had only two pairs, one of which was +found on his dressing-table, and the other in the drawer where it is +always kept.” +Lord Peter whistled. +“You’ve got me there, Parker. Even if he’d gone out to commit suicide +he’d have taken those.” +“So you’d think—or the suicide would have happened the first time he +started to cross the road. However, I didn’t overlook the possibility. +I’ve got particulars of all today’s street accidents, and I can lay my +hand on my heart and say that none of them is Sir Reuben. Besides, he +took his latchkey with him, which looks as though he’d meant to come +back.” +“Have you seen the men he dined with?” +“I found two of them at the club. They said that he seemed in the best +of health and spirits, spoke of looking forward to joining Lady Levy +later on—perhaps at Christmas—and referred with great satisfaction to +this morning’s business transaction, in which one of them—a man called +Anderson of Wyndham’s—was himself concerned.” +“Then up till about nine o’clock, anyhow, he had no apparent intention +or expectation of disappearing.” +“None—unless he was a most consummate actor. Whatever happened to +change his mind must have happened either at the mysterious appointment +which he kept after dinner, or while he was in bed between midnight and +5.30 a.m.” +“Well, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “what do you make of it?” +“Not in my department, my lord. Except that it is odd that a gentleman +who was too flurried or unwell to fold his clothes as usual should +remember to clean his teeth and put his boots out. Those are two things +that quite frequently get overlooked, my lord.” +“If you mean anything personal, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “I can +only say that I think the speech an unworthy one. It’s a sweet little +problem, Parker mine. Look here, I don’t want to butt in, but I should +dearly love to see that bedroom tomorrow. ’Tis not that I mistrust +thee, dear, but I should uncommonly like to see it. Say me not nay—take +another drop of brandy and a Villar Villar, but say not, say not nay!” +“Of course you can come and see it—you’ll probably find lots of things +I’ve overlooked,” said the other, equably, accepting the proffered +hospitality. +“Parker, acushla, you’re an honour to Scotland Yard. I look at you, and +Sugg appears a myth, a fable, an idiot-boy, spawned in a moonlight hour +by some fantastic poet’s brain. Sugg is too perfect to be possible. +What does he make of the body, by the way?” +“Sugg says,” replied Parker, with precision, “that the body died from +a blow on the back of the neck. The doctor told him that. He says it’s +been dead a day or two. The doctor told him that, too. He says it’s the +body of a well-to-do Hebrew of about fifty. Anybody could have told +him that. He says it’s ridiculous to suppose it came in through the +window without anybody knowing anything about it. He says it probably +walked in through the front door and was murdered by the household. +He’s arrested the girl because she’s short and frail-looking and quite +unequal to downing a tall and sturdy Semite with a poker. He’d arrest +Thipps, only Thipps was away in Manchester all yesterday and the day +before and didn’t come back till late last night—in fact, he wanted to +arrest him till I reminded him that if the body had been a day or two +dead, little Thipps couldn’t have done him in at 10.30 last night. But +he’ll arrest him tomorrow as an accessory—and the old lady with the +knitting, too, I shouldn’t wonder.” +“Well, I’m glad the little man has so much of an alibi,” said Lord +Peter, “though if you’re only glueing your faith to cadaveric lividity, +rigidity, and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared to have +some sceptical beast of a prosecuting counsel walk slap-bang through +the medical evidence. Remember Impey Biggs defending in that Chelsea +tea-shop affair? Six bloomin’ medicos contradictin’ each other in +the box, an’ old Impey elocutin’ abnormal cases from Glaister and +Dixon Mann till the eyes of the jury reeled in their heads! ‘Are you +prepared to swear, Dr. Thingumtight, that the onset of rigor mortis +indicates the hour of death without the possibility of error?’ ‘So far +as my experience goes, in the majority of cases,’ says the doctor, all +stiff. ‘Ah!’ says Biggs, ‘but this is a Court of Justice, Doctor, not +a Parliamentary election. We can’t get on without a minority report. +The law, Dr. Thingumtight, respects the rights of the minority, alive +or dead.’ Some ass laughs, and old Biggs sticks his chest out and +gets impressive. ‘Gentlemen, this is no laughing matter. My client—an +upright and honourable gentleman—is being tried for his life—for his +life, gentlemen—and it is the business of the prosecution to show his +guilt—if they can—without a shadow of doubt. Now, Dr. Thingumtight, +I ask you again, can you solemnly swear, without the least shadow of +doubt,—probable, possible shadow of doubt—that this unhappy woman met +her death neither sooner nor later than Thursday evening? A probable +opinion? Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are straightforward +Englishmen. You cannot ask a British-born jury to convict any man on +the authority of a probable opinion.’ Hum of applause.” +“Biggs’s man was guilty all the same,” said Parker. +“Of course he was. But he was acquitted all the same, an’ what you’ve +just said is libel.” Wimsey walked over to the bookshelf and took down +a volume of Medical Jurisprudence. “‘Rigor mortis—can only be stated in +a very general way—many factors determine the result.’ Cautious brute. +‘On the average, however, stiffening will have begun—neck and jaw—5 to +6 hours after death’—m’m—‘in all likelihood have passed off in the bulk +of cases by the end of 36 hours. Under certain circumstances, however, +it may appear unusually early, or be retarded unusually long!’ Helpful, +ain’t it, Parker? ‘Brown-Séquard states ... 3½ minutes after death.... +In certain cases not until lapse of 16 hours after death ... present +as long as 21 days thereafter.’ Lord! ‘Modifying factors—age—muscular +state—or febrile diseases—or where temperature of environment is +high’—and so on and so on—any bloomin’ thing. Never mind. You can run +the argument for what it’s worth to Sugg. _He_ won’t know any better.” +He tossed the book away. “Come back to facts. What did _you_ make of +the body?” +“Well,” said the detective, “not very much—I was puzzled—frankly. I +should say he had been a rich man, but self-made, and that his good +fortune had come to him fairly recently.” +“Ah, you noticed the calluses on the hands—I thought you wouldn’t miss +that.” +“Both his feet were badly blistered—he had been wearing tight shoes.” +“Walking a long way in them, too,” said Lord Peter, “to get such +blisters as that. Didn’t that strike you as odd, in a person evidently +well off?” +“Well, I don’t know. The blisters were two or three days old. He might +have got stuck in the suburbs one night, perhaps—last train gone and no +taxi—and had to walk home.” +“Possibly.” +“There were some little red marks all over his back and one leg I +couldn’t quite account for.” +“I saw them.” +“What did you make of them?” +“I’ll tell you afterwards. Go on.” +“He was very long-sighted—oddly long-sighted for a man in the prime +of life; the glasses were like a very old man’s. By the way, they +had a very beautiful and remarkable chain of flat links chased with a +pattern. It struck me he might be traced through it.” +“I’ve just put an advertisement in the _Times_ about it,” said Lord +Peter. “Go on.” +“He had had the glasses some time—they had been mended twice.” +“Beautiful, Parker, beautiful. Did you realize the importance of that?” +“Not specially, I’m afraid—why?” +“Never mind—go on.” +“He was probably a sullen, ill-tempered man—his nails were filed down +to the quick as though he habitually bit them, and his fingers were +bitten as well. He smoked quantities of cigarettes without a holder. He +was particular about his personal appearance.” +“Did you examine the room at all? I didn’t get a chance.” +“I couldn’t find much in the way of footprints. Sugg & Co. had tramped +all over the place, to say nothing of little Thipps and the maid, but +I noticed a very indefinite patch just behind the head of the bath, as +though something damp might have stood there. You could hardly call it +a print.” +“It rained hard all last night, of course.” +“Yes; did you notice that the soot on the window-sill was vaguely +marked?” +“I did,” said Wimsey, “and I examined it hard with this little fellow, +but I could make nothing of it except that something or other had +rested on the sill.” He drew out his monocle and handed it to Parker. +“My word, that’s a powerful lens.” +“It is,” said Wimsey, “and jolly useful when you want to take a good +squint at somethin’ and look like a bally fool all the time. Only it +don’t do to wear it permanently—if people see you full-face they say: +‘Dear me! how weak the sight of that eye must be!’ Still, it’s useful.” +“Sugg and I explored the ground at the back of the building,” went on +Parker, “but there wasn’t a trace.” +“That’s interestin’. Did you try the roof?” +“No.” +“We’ll go over it tomorrow. The gutter’s only a couple of feet off the +top of the window. I measured it with my stick—the gentleman-scout’s +vade-mecum, I call it—it’s marked off in inches. Uncommonly handy +companion at times. There’s a sword inside and a compass in the head. +Got it made specially. Anything more?” +“Afraid not. Let’s hear your version, Wimsey.” +“Well, I think you’ve got most of the points. There are just one or +two little contradictions. For instance, here’s a man wears expensive +gold-rimmed pince-nez and has had them long enough to be mended twice. +Yet his teeth are not merely discoloured, but badly decayed and look as +if he’d never cleaned them in his life. There are four molars missing +on one side and three on the other and one front tooth broken right +across. He’s a man careful of his personal appearance, as witness his +hair and his hands. What do you say to that?” +“Oh, these self-made men of low origin don’t think much about teeth, +and are terrified of dentists.” +“True; but one of the molars has a broken edge so rough that it had +made a sore place on the tongue. Nothing’s more painful. D’you mean +to tell me a man would put up with that if he could afford to get the +tooth filed?” +“Well, people are queer. I’ve known servants endure agonies rather than +step over a dentist’s doormat. How did you see that, Wimsey?” +“Had a look inside; electric torch,” said Lord Peter. “Handy little +gadget. Looks like a matchbox. Well—I daresay it’s all right, but +I just draw your attention to it. Second point: Gentleman with hair +smellin’ of Parma violet and manicured hands and all the rest of it, +never washes the inside of his ears. Full of wax. Nasty.” +“You’ve got me there, Wimsey; I never noticed it. Still—old bad habits +die hard.” +“Right oh! Put it down at that. Third point: Gentleman with the +manicure and the brilliantine and all the rest of it suffers from +fleas.” +“By Jove, you’re right! Flea-bites. It never occurred to me.” +“No doubt about it, old son. The marks were faint and old, but +unmistakable.” +“Of course, now you mention it. Still, that might happen to anybody. I +loosed a whopper in the best hotel in Lincoln the week before last. I +hope it bit the next occupier!” +“Oh, all these things _might_ happen to anybody—separately. Fourth +point: Gentleman who uses Parma violet for his hair, etc., etc., washes +his body in strong carbolic soap—so strong that the smell hangs about +twenty-four hours later.” +“Carbolic to get rid of the fleas.” +“I will say for you, Parker, you’ve an answer for everything. Fifth +point: Carefully got-up gentleman, with manicured, though masticated, +finger-nails, has filthy black toe-nails which look as if they hadn’t +been cut for years.” +“All of a piece with habits as indicated.” +“Yes, I know, but such habits! Now, sixth and last point: This +gentleman with the intermittently gentlemanly habits arrives in the +middle of a pouring wet night, and apparently through the window, when +he has already been twenty-four hours dead, and lies down quietly in +Mr. Thipps’s bath, unseasonably dressed in a pair of pince-nez. Not +a hair on his head is ruffled—the hair has been cut so recently that +there are quite a number of little short hairs stuck on his neck and +the sides of the bath—and he has shaved so recently that there is a +line of dried soap on his cheek—” +“Wimsey!” +“Wait a minute—and _dried soap in his mouth_.” +Bunter got up and appeared suddenly at the detective’s elbow, the +respectful man-servant all over. +“A little more brandy, sir?” he murmured. +“Wimsey,” said Parker, “you are making me feel cold all over.” He +emptied his glass—stared at it as though he were surprised to find +it empty, set it down, got up, walked across to the bookcase, turned +round, stood with his back against it and said: +“Look here, Wimsey—you’ve been reading detective stories; you’re +talking nonsense.” +“No, I ain’t,” said Lord Peter, sleepily, “uncommon good incident for +a detective story, though, what? Bunter, we’ll write one, and you shall +illustrate it with photographs.” +“Soap in his—Rubbish!” said Parker. “It was something else—some +discoloration—” +“No,” said Lord Peter, “there were hairs as well. Bristly ones. He had +a beard.” +He took his watch from his pocket, and drew out a couple of longish, +stiff hairs, which he had imprisoned between the inner and the outer +case. +Parker turned them over once or twice in his fingers, looked at them +close to the light, examined them with a lens, handed them to the +impassible Bunter, and said: +“Do you mean to tell me, Wimsey, that any man alive would”—he laughed +harshly—“shave off his beard with his mouth open, and then go and get +killed with his mouth full of hairs? You’re mad.” +“I don’t tell you so,” said Wimsey. “You policemen are all alike—only +one idea in your skulls. Blest if I can make out why you’re ever +appointed. He was shaved after he was dead. Pretty, ain’t it? +Uncommonly jolly little job for the barber, what? Here, sit down, man, +and don’t be an ass, stumpin’ about the room like that. Worse things +happen in war. This is only a blinkin’ old shillin’ shocker. But I’ll +tell you what, Parker, we’re up against a criminal—_the_ criminal—the +real artist and blighter with imagination—real, artistic, finished +stuff. I’m enjoyin’ this, Parker.” +CHAPTER III +Lord Peter finished a Scarlatti sonata, and sat looking thoughtfully +at his own hands. The fingers were long and muscular, with wide, flat +joints and square tips. When he was playing, his rather hard grey eyes +softened, and his long, indeterminate mouth hardened in compensation. +At no other time had he any pretensions to good looks, and at all times +he was spoilt by a long, narrow chin, and a long, receding forehead, +accentuated by the brushed-back sleekness of his tow-coloured hair. +Labour papers, softening down the chin, caricatured him as a typical +aristocrat. +“That’s a wonderful instrument,” said Parker. +“It ain’t so bad,” said Lord Peter, “but Scarlatti wants a harpsichord. +Piano’s too modern—all thrills and overtones. No good for our job, +Parker. Have you come to any conclusion?” +“The man in the bath,” said Parker, methodically, “was _not_ a well-off +man careful of his personal appearance. He was a labouring man, +unemployed, but who had only recently lost his employment. He had been +tramping about looking for a job when he met with his end. Somebody +killed him and washed him and scented him and shaved him in order to +disguise him, and put him into Thipps’s bath without leaving a trace. +Conclusion: the murderer was a powerful man, since he killed him with +a single blow on the neck, a man of cool head and masterly intellect, +since he did all that ghastly business without leaving a mark, a man +of wealth and refinement, since he had all the apparatus of an elegant +toilet handy, and a man of bizarre, and almost perverted imagination, +as is shown in the two horrible touches of putting the body in the bath +and of adorning it with a pair of pince-nez.” +“He is a poet of crime,” said Wimsey. “By the way, your difficulty +about the pince-nez is cleared up. Obviously, the pince-nez never +belonged to the body.” +“That only makes a fresh puzzle. One can’t suppose the murderer left +them in that obliging manner as a clue to his own identity.” +“We can hardly suppose that; I’m afraid this man possessed what most +criminals lack—a sense of humour.” +“Rather macabre humour.” +“True. But a man who can afford to be humorous at all in such +circumstances is a terrible fellow. I wonder what he did with the +body between the murder and depositing it chez Thipps. Then there are +more questions. How did he get it there? And why? Was it brought in +at the door, as Sugg of our heart suggests? or through the window, +as we think, on the not very adequate testimony of a smudge on the +window-sill? Had the murderer accomplices? Is little Thipps really +in it, or the girl? It don’t do to put the notion out of court merely +because Sugg inclines to it. Even idiots occasionally speak the truth +accidentally. If not, why was Thipps selected for such an abominable +practical joke? Has anybody got a grudge against Thipps? Who are the +people in the other flats? We must find out that. Does Thipps play +the piano at midnight over their heads or damage the reputation of +the staircase by bringing home dubiously respectable ladies? Are there +unsuccessful architects thirsting for his blood? Damn it all, Parker, +there must be a motive somewhere. Can’t have a crime without a motive, +you know.” +“A madman—” suggested Parker, doubtfully. +“With a deuced lot of method in his madness. He hasn’t made a +mistake—not one, unless leaving hairs in the corpse’s mouth can be +called a mistake. Well, anyhow, it’s not Levy—you’re right there. I +say, old thing, neither your man nor mine has left much clue to go +upon, has he? And there don’t seem to be any motives knockin’ about, +either. And we seem to be two suits of clothes short in last night’s +work. Sir Reuben makes tracks without so much as a fig-leaf, and a +mysterious individual turns up with a pince-nez, which is quite useless +for purposes of decency. Dash it all! If only I had some good excuse +for takin’ up this body case officially—” +The telephone bell rang. The silent Bunter, whom the other two had +almost forgotten, padded across to it. +“It’s an elderly lady, my lord,” he said. “I think she’s deaf—I can’t +make her hear anything, but she’s asking for your lordship.” +Lord Peter seized the receiver, and yelled into it a “Hullo!” that +might have cracked the vulcanite. He listened for some minutes with an +incredulous smile, which gradually broadened into a grin of delight. +At length he screamed: “All right! all right!” several times, and rang +off. +“By Jove!” he announced, beaming, “sportin’ old bird! It’s old Mrs. +Thipps. Deaf as a post. Never used the ’phone before. But determined. +Perfect Napoleon. The incomparable Sugg has made a discovery and +arrested little Thipps. Old lady abandoned in the flat. Thipps’s last +shriek to her: ‘Tell Lord Peter Wimsey.’ Old girl undaunted. Wrestles +with telephone book. Wakes up the people at the exchange. Won’t take +no for an answer (not bein’ able to hear it), gets through, says: +‘Will I do what I can?’ Says she would feel safe in the hands of a +real gentleman. Oh, Parker, Parker! I could kiss her, I reely could, +as Thipps says. I’ll write to her instead—no, hang it, Parker, we’ll +go round. Bunter, get your infernal machine and the magnesium. I say, +we’ll all go into partnership—pool the two cases and work ’em out +together. You shall see my body tonight, Parker, and I’ll look for your +wandering Jew tomorrow. I feel so happy, I shall explode. O Sugg, Sugg, +how art thou suggified! Bunter, my shoes. I say, Parker, I suppose +yours are rubber-soled. Not? Tut, tut, you mustn’t go out like that. +We’ll lend you a pair. Gloves? Here. My stick, my torch, the lampblack, +the forceps, knife, pill-boxes—all complete?” +“Certainly, my lord.” +“Oh, Bunter, don’t look so offended. I mean no harm. I believe in +you, I trust you—what money have I got? That’ll do. I knew a man +once, Parker, who let a world-famous poisoner slip through his fingers +because the machine on the Underground took nothing but pennies. There +was a queue at the booking office and the man at the barrier stopped +him, and while they were arguing about accepting a five-pound-note +(which was all he had) for a twopenny ride to Baker Street, the +criminal had sprung into a Circle train, and was next heard of in +Constantinople, disguised as an elderly Church of England clergyman +touring with his niece. Are we all ready? Go!” +They stepped out, Bunter carefully switching off the lights behind them. +* * * * * +As they emerged into the gloom and gleam of Piccadilly, Wimsey stopped +short with a little exclamation. +“Wait a second,” he said. “I’ve thought of something. If Sugg’s there +he’ll make trouble. I must short-circuit him.” +He ran back, and the other two men employed the few minutes of his +absence in capturing a taxi. +Inspector Sugg and a subordinate Cerberus were on guard at 59, Queen +Caroline Mansions, and showed no disposition to admit unofficial +inquirers. Parker, indeed, they could not easily turn away, but Lord +Peter found himself confronted with a surly manner and what Lord +Beaconsfield described as a masterly inactivity. It was in vain that +Lord Peter pleaded that he had been retained by Mrs. Thipps on behalf +of her son. +“Retained!” said Inspector Sugg, with a snort. “_She’ll_ be retained +if she doesn’t look out. Shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t in it herself, +only she’s so deaf, she’s no good for anything at all.” +“Look here, Inspector,” said Lord Peter, “what’s the use of bein’ so +bally obstructive? You’d much better let me in—you know I’ll get there +in the end. Dash it all, it’s not as if I was takin’ the bread out of +your children’s mouths. Nobody paid me for finding Lord Attenbury’s +emeralds for you.” +“It’s my duty to keep out the public,” said Inspector Sugg, morosely, +“and it’s going to stay out.” +“I never said anything about your keeping out of the public,” said +Lord Peter, easily, sitting down on the staircase to thrash the matter +out comfortably, “though I’ve no doubt pussyfoot’s a good thing, on +principle, if not exaggerated. The golden mean, Sugg, as Aristotle +says, keeps you from bein’ a golden ass. Ever been a golden ass, Sugg? +I have. It would take a whole rose-garden to cure me, Sugg— +“‘You are my garden of beautiful roses, +My own rose, my one rose, that’s you!’” +“I’m not going to stay any longer talking to you,” said the harassed +Sugg; “it’s bad enough— Hullo, drat that telephone. Here, Cawthorn, go +and see what it is, if that old catamaran will let you into the room. +Shutting herself up there and screaming,” said the Inspector, “it’s +enough to make a man give up crime and take to hedging and ditching.” +The constable came back: +“It’s from the Yard, sir,” he said, coughing apologetically; “the Chief +says every facility is to be given to Lord Peter Wimsey, sir. Um!” He +stood apart noncommittally, glazing his eyes. +“Five aces,” said Lord Peter, cheerfully. “The Chief’s a dear friend +of my mother’s. No go, Sugg, it’s no good buckin’; you’ve got a full +house. I’m goin’ to make it a bit fuller.” +He walked in with his followers. +The body had been removed a few hours previously, and when the bathroom +and the whole flat had been explored by the naked eye and the camera +of the competent Bunter, it became evident that the real problem of +the household was old Mrs. Thipps. Her son and servant had both been +removed, and it appeared that they had no friends in town, beyond +a few business acquaintances of Thipps’s, whose very addresses the +old lady did not know. The other flats in the building were occupied +respectively by a family of seven, at present departed to winter +abroad, an elderly Indian colonel of ferocious manners, who lived +alone with an Indian man-servant, and a highly respectable family on +the third floor, whom the disturbance over their heads had outraged to +the last degree. The husband, indeed, when appealed to by Lord Peter, +showed a little human weakness, but Mrs. Appledore, appearing suddenly +in a warm dressing-gown, extricated him from the difficulties into +which he was carelessly wandering. +“I am sorry,” she said, “I’m afraid we can’t interfere in any way. +This is a very unpleasant business, Mr.— I’m afraid I didn’t catch +your name, and we have always found it better not to be mixed up with +the police. Of course, _if_ the Thippses are innocent, and I am sure +I hope they are, it is very unfortunate for them, but I must say that +the circumstances seem to me most suspicious, and to Theophilus too, +and I should not like to have it said that we had assisted murderers. +We might even be supposed to be accessories. Of course you are young, +Mr.—” +“This is Lord Peter Wimsey, my dear,” said Theophilus mildly. +She was unimpressed. +“Ah, yes,” she said, “I believe you are distantly related to my late +cousin, the Bishop of Carisbrooke. Poor man! He was always being taken +in by impostors; he died without ever learning any better. I imagine +you take after him, Lord Peter.” +“I doubt it,” said Lord Peter. “So far as I know he is only a +connection, though it’s a wise child that knows its own father. I +congratulate you, dear lady, on takin’ after the other side of the +family. You’ll forgive my buttin’ in upon you like this in the middle +of the night, though, as you say, it’s all in the family, and I’m +sure I’m very much obliged to you, and for permittin’ me to admire +that awfully fetchin’ thing you’ve got on. Now, don’t you worry, Mr. +Appledore. I’m thinkin’ the best thing I can do is to trundle the old +lady down to my mother and take her out of your way, otherwise you +might be findin’ your Christian feelin’s gettin’ the better of you some +fine day, and there’s nothin’ like Christian feelin’s for upsettin’ +a man’s domestic comfort. Good-night, sir—good-night, dear lady—it’s +simply rippin’ of you to let me drop in like this.” +“Well!” said Mrs. Appledore, as the door closed behind him. +And— +“I thank the goodness and the grace +That on my birth have smiled,” +said Lord Peter, “and taught me to be bestially impertinent when I +choose. Cat!” +Two a.m. saw Lord Peter Wimsey arrive in a friend’s car at the Dower +House, Denver Castle, in company with a deaf and aged lady and an +antique portmanteau. +* * * * * +“It’s very nice to see you, dear,” said the Dowager Duchess, placidly. +She was a small, plump woman, with perfectly white hair and exquisite +hands. In feature she was as unlike her second son as she was like +him in character; her black eyes twinkled cheerfully, and her manners +and movements were marked with a neat and rapid decision. She wore a +charming wrap from Liberty’s, and sat watching Lord Peter eat cold beef +and cheese as though his arrival in such incongruous circumstances and +company were the most ordinary event possible, which with him, indeed, +it was. +“Have you got the old lady to bed?” asked Lord Peter. +“Oh, yes, dear. Such a striking old person, isn’t she? And very +courageous. She tells me she has never been in a motor-car before. But +she thinks you a very nice lad, dear—that careful of her, you remind +her of her own son. Poor little Mr. Thipps—whatever made your friend +the inspector think he could have murdered anybody?” +“My friend the inspector—no, no more, thank you, Mother—is determined +to prove that the intrusive person in Thipps’s bath is Sir Reuben Levy, +who disappeared mysteriously from his house last night. His line of +reasoning is: We’ve lost a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes on +in Park Lane; we’ve found a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes +on in Battersea. Therefore they’re one and the same person, Q.E.D., and +put little Thipps in quod.” +“You’re very elliptical, dear,” said the Duchess, mildly. “Why should +Mr. Thipps be arrested even if they are the same?” +“Sugg must arrest somebody,” said Lord Peter, “but there is one odd +little bit of evidence come out which goes a long way to support +Sugg’s theory, only that I know it to be no go by the evidence of +my own eyes. Last night at about 9.15 a young woman was strollin’ up +the Battersea Park Road for purposes best known to herself, when she +saw a gentleman in a fur coat and top-hat saunterin’ along under an +umbrella, lookin’ at the names of all the streets. He looked a bit out +of place, so, not bein’ a shy girl, you see, she walked up to him, and +said: ‘Good-evening.’ ‘Can you tell me, please,’ says the mysterious +stranger, ‘whether this street leads into Prince of Wales Road?’ She +said it did, and further asked him in a jocular manner what he was +doing with himself and all the rest of it, only she wasn’t altogether +so explicit about that part of the conversation, because she was +unburdenin’ her heart to Sugg, d’you see, and he’s paid by a grateful +country to have very pure, high-minded ideals, what? Anyway, the old +boy said he couldn’t attend to her just then as he had an appointment. +‘I’ve got to go and see a man, my dear,’ was how she said he put it, +and he walked on up Alexandra Avenue towards Prince of Wales Road. She +was starin’ after him, still rather surprised, when she was joined +by a friend of hers, who said: ‘It’s no good wasting your time with +him—that’s Levy—I knew him when I lived in the West End, and the girls +used to call him Peagreen Incorruptible’—friend’s name suppressed, +owing to implications of story, but girl vouches for what was said. She +thought no more about it till the milkman brought news this morning +of the excitement at Queen Caroline Mansions; then she went round, +though not likin’ the police as a rule, and asked the man there whether +the dead gentleman had a beard and glasses. Told he had glasses but +no beard, she incautiously said: ‘Oh, then, it isn’t him,’ and the +man said: ‘Isn’t who?’ and collared her. That’s her story. Sugg’s +delighted, of course, and quodded Thipps on the strength of it.” +“Dear me,” said the Duchess, “I hope the poor girl won’t get into +trouble.” +“Shouldn’t think so,” said Lord Peter. “Thipps is the one that’s going +to get it in the neck. Besides, he’s done a silly thing. I got that +out of Sugg, too, though he was sittin’ tight on the information. +Seems Thipps got into a confusion about the train he took back from +Manchester. Said first he got home at 10.30. Then they pumped Gladys +Horrocks, who let out he wasn’t back till after 11.45. Then Thipps, +bein’ asked to explain the discrepancy, stammers and bungles and says, +first, that he missed the train. Then Sugg makes inquiries at St. +Pancras and discovers that he left a bag in the cloakroom there at ten. +Thipps, again asked to explain, stammers worse an’ says he walked about +for a few hours—met a friend—can’t say who—didn’t meet a friend—can’t +say what he did with his time—can’t explain why he didn’t go back for +his bag—can’t say what time he _did_ get in—can’t explain how he got a +bruise on his forehead. In fact, can’t explain himself at all. Gladys +Horrocks interrogated again. Says, this time, Thipps came in at 10.30. +Then admits she didn’t hear him come in. Can’t say why she didn’t hear +him come in. Can’t say why she said first of all that she _did_ hear +him. Bursts into tears. Contradicts herself. Everybody’s suspicion +roused. Quod ’em both.” +“As you put it, dear,” said the Duchess, “it all sounds very confusing, +and not quite respectable. Poor little Mr. Thipps would be terribly +upset by anything that wasn’t respectable.” +“I wonder what he did with himself,” said Lord Peter thoughtfully. “I +really don’t think he was committing a murder. Besides, I believe the +fellow has been dead a day or two, though it don’t do to build too much +on doctors’ evidence. It’s an entertainin’ little problem.” +“Very curious, dear. But so sad about poor Sir Reuben. I must write +a few lines to Lady Levy; I used to know her quite well, you know, +dear, down in Hampshire, when she was a girl. Christine Ford, she was +then, and I remember so well the dreadful trouble there was about her +marrying a Jew. That was before he made his money, of course, in that +oil business out in America. The family wanted her to marry Julian +Freke, who did so well afterwards and was connected with the family, +but she fell in love with this Mr. Levy and eloped with him. He was +very handsome, then, you know, dear, in a foreign-looking way, but he +hadn’t any means, and the Fords didn’t like his religion. Of course +we’re all Jews nowadays, and they wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d +pretended to be something else, like that Mr. Simons we met at Mrs. +Porchester’s, who always tells everybody that he got his nose in Italy +at the Renaissance, and claims to be descended somehow or other from +La Bella Simonetta—so foolish, you know, dear—as if anybody believed +it; and I’m sure some Jews are very good people, and personally I’d +much rather they believed something, though of course it must be very +inconvenient, what with not working on Saturdays and circumcising the +poor little babies and everything depending on the new moon and that +funny kind of meat they have with such a slang-sounding name, and never +being able to have bacon for breakfast. Still, there it was, and it was +much better for the girl to marry him if she was really fond of him, +though I believe young Freke was really devoted to her, and they’re +still great friends. Not that there was ever a real engagement, only +a sort of understanding with her father, but he’s never married, you +know, and lives all by himself in that big house next to the hospital, +though he’s very rich and distinguished now, and I know ever so many +people have tried to get hold of him—there was Lady Mainwaring wanted +him for that eldest girl of hers, though I remember saying at the +time it was no use expecting a surgeon to be taken in by a figure that +was all padding—they have so many opportunities of judging, you know, +dear.” +“Lady Levy seems to have had the knack of makin’ people devoted to +her,” said Peter. “Look at the pea-green incorruptible Levy.” +“That’s quite true, dear; she was a most delightful girl, and they +say her daughter is just like her. I rather lost sight of them when +she married, and you know your father didn’t care much about business +people, but I know everybody always said they were a model couple. +In fact it was a proverb that Sir Reuben was as well loved at home +as he was hated abroad. I don’t mean in foreign countries, you know, +dear—just the proverbial way of putting things—like ‘a saint abroad and +a devil at home’—only the other way on, reminding one of the _Pilgrim’s +Progress_.” +“Yes,” said Peter, “I daresay the old man made one or two enemies.” +“Dozens, dear—such a dreadful place, the City, isn’t it? Everybody +Ishmaels together—though I don’t suppose Sir Reuben would like to be +called that, would he? Doesn’t it mean illegitimate, or not a proper +Jew, anyway? I always did get confused with those Old Testament +characters.” +Lord Peter laughed and yawned. +“I think I’ll turn in for an hour or two,” he said. “I must be back in +town at eight—Parker’s coming to breakfast.” +The Duchess looked at the clock, which marked five minutes to three. +“I’ll send up your breakfast at half-past six, dear,” she said. “I hope +you’ll find everything all right. I told them just to slip a hot-water +bottle in; those linen sheets are so chilly; you can put it out if it’s +in your way.” +CHAPTER IV +“—So there it is, Parker,” said Lord Peter, pushing his coffee-cup +aside and lighting his after-breakfast pipe; “you may find it leads +you to something, though it don’t seem to get me any further with my +bathroom problem. Did you do anything more at that after I left?” +“No; but I’ve been on the roof this morning.” +“The deuce you have—what an energetic devil you are! I say, Parker, I +think this co-operative scheme is an uncommonly good one. It’s much +easier to work on someone else’s job than one’s own—gives one that +delightful feelin’ of interferin’ and bossin’ about, combined with the +glorious sensation that another fellow is takin’ all one’s own work off +one’s hands. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, what? Did you +find anything?” +“Not very much. I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, +with all this rain, there wasn’t a sign. Of course, if this were a +detective story, there’d have been a convenient shower exactly an +hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could only +have come there between two and three in the morning, but this being +real life in a London November, you might as well expect footprints +in Niagara. I searched the roofs right along—and came to the jolly +conclusion that any person in any blessed flat in the blessed row might +have done it. All the staircases open on to the roof and the leads are +quite flat; you can walk along as easy as along Shaftesbury Avenue. +Still, I’ve got some evidence that the body did walk along there.” +“What’s that?” +Parker brought out his pocketbook and extracted a few shreds of +material, which he laid before his friend. +“One was caught in the gutter just above Thipps’s bathroom window, +another in a crack of the stone parapet just over it, and the rest +came from the chimney-stack behind, where they had caught in an iron +stanchion. What do you make of them?” +Lord Peter scrutinized them very carefully through his lens. +“Interesting,” he said, “damned interesting. Have you developed those +plates, Bunter?” he added, as that discreet assistant came in with the +post. +“Yes, my lord.” +“Caught anything?” +“I don’t know whether to call it anything or not, my lord,” said +Bunter, dubiously. “I’ll bring the prints in.” +“Do,” said Wimsey. “Hallo! here’s our advertisement about the gold +chain in the _Times_—very nice it looks: ‘Write,’phone or call 110, +Piccadilly.’ Perhaps it would have been safer to put a box number, +though I always think that the franker you are with people, the more +you’re likely to deceive ’em; so unused is the modern world to the open +hand and the guileless heart, what?” +“But you don’t think the fellow who left that chain on the body is +going to give himself away by coming here and inquiring about it?” +“I don’t, fathead,” said Lord Peter, with the easy politeness of the +real aristocracy; “that’s why I’ve tried to get hold of the jeweller +who originally sold the chain. See?” He pointed to the paragraph. +“It’s not an old chain—hardly worn at all. Oh, thanks, Bunter. Now, +see here, Parker, these are the finger-marks you noticed yesterday on +the window-sash and on the far edge of the bath. I’d overlooked them; I +give you full credit for the discovery, I crawl, I grovel, my name is +Watson, and you need not say what you were just going to say, because +I admit it all. Now we shall—Hullo, hullo, hullo!” +The three men stared at the photographs. +“The criminal,” said Lord Peter, bitterly, “climbed over the roofs in +the wet and not unnaturally got soot on his fingers. He arranged the +body in the bath, and wiped away all traces of himself except two, +which he obligingly left to show us how to do our job. We learn from +a smudge on the floor that he wore india rubber boots, and from this +admirable set of finger-prints on the edge of the bath that he had the +usual number of fingers and wore rubber gloves. That’s the kind of man +he is. Take the fool away, gentlemen.” +He put the prints aside, and returned to an examination of the shreds +of material in his hand. Suddenly he whistled softly. +“Do you make anything of these, Parker?” +“They seemed to me to be ravellings of some coarse cotton stuff—a +sheet, perhaps, or an improvised rope.” +“Yes,” said Lord Peter—“yes. It may be a mistake—it may be _our_ +mistake. I wonder. Tell me, d’you think these tiny threads are long +enough and strong enough to hang a man?” +He was silent, his long eyes narrowing into slits behind the smoke of +his pipe. +“What do you suggest doing this morning?” asked Parker. +“Well,” said Lord Peter, “it seems to me it’s about time I took a hand +in your job. Let’s go round to Park Lane and see what larks Sir Reuben +Levy was up to in bed last night.” +* * * * * +“And now, Mrs. Pemming, if you would be so kind as to give me a +blanket,” said Mr. Bunter, coming down into the kitchen, “and permit of +me hanging a sheet across the lower part of this window, and drawing +the screen across here, so—so as to shut off any reflections, if you +understand me, we’ll get to work.” +Sir Reuben Levy’s cook, with her eye upon Mr. Bunter’s gentlemanly +and well-tailored appearance, hastened to produce what was necessary. +Her visitor placed on the table a basket, containing a water-bottle, +a silver-backed hair-brush, a pair of boots, a small roll of linoleum, +and the “Letters of a Self-made Merchant to His Son,” bound in polished +morocco. He drew an umbrella from beneath his arm and added it to +the collection. He then advanced a ponderous photographic machine and +set it up in the neighbourhood of the kitchen range; then, spreading +a newspaper over the fair, scrubbed surface of the table, he began +to roll up his sleeves and insinuate himself into a pair of surgical +gloves. Sir Reuben Levy’s valet, entering at the moment and finding +him thus engaged, put aside the kitchenmaid, who was staring from a +front-row position, and inspected the apparatus critically. Mr. Bunter +nodded brightly to him, and uncorked a small bottle of grey powder. +“Odd sort of fish, your employer, isn’t he?” said the valet, carelessly. +“Very singular, indeed,” said Mr. Bunter. “Now, my dear,” he added, +ingratiatingly, to the kitchen-maid, “I wonder if you’d just pour +a little of this grey powder over the edge of the bottle while I’m +holding it—and the same with this boot—here, at the top—thank you, +Miss—what is your name? Price? Oh, but you’ve got another name besides +Price, haven’t you? Mabel, eh? That’s a name I’m uncommonly partial +to—that’s very nicely done, you’ve a steady hand, Miss Mabel—see that? +That’s the finger marks—three there, and two here, and smudged over in +both places. No, don’t you touch ’em, my dear, or you’ll rub the bloom +off. We’ll stand ’em up here till they’re ready to have their portraits +taken. Now then, let’s take the hair-brush next. Perhaps, Mrs. Pemming, +you’d like to lift him up very carefully by the bristles.” +“By the bristles, Mr. Bunter?” +“If you please, Mrs. Pemming—and lay him here. Now, Miss Mabel, +another little exhibition of your skill, _if_ you please. No—we’ll try +lamp-black this time. Perfect. Couldn’t have done it better myself. +Ah! there’s a beautiful set. No smudges this time. That’ll interest +his lordship. Now the little book—no, I’ll pick that up myself—with +these gloves, you see, and by the edges—I’m a careful criminal, Mrs. +Pemming, I don’t want to leave any traces. Dust the cover all over, +Miss Mabel; now this side—that’s the way to do it. Lots of prints and +no smudges. All according to plan. Oh, please, Mr. Graves, you mustn’t +touch it—it’s as much as my place is worth to have it touched.” +“D’you have to do much of this sort of thing?” inquired Mr. Graves, +from a superior standpoint. +“Any amount,” replied Mr. Bunter, with a groan calculated to appeal to +Mr. Graves’s heart and unlock his confidence. “If you’d kindly hold one +end of this bit of linoleum, Mrs. Pemming, I’ll hold up this end while +Miss Mabel operates. Yes, Mr. Graves, it’s a hard life, valeting by day +and developing by night—morning tea at any time from 6.30 to 11, and +criminal investigation at all hours. It’s wonderful, the ideas these +rich men with nothing to do get into their heads.” +“I wonder you stand it,” said Mr. Graves. “Now there’s none of that +here. A quiet, orderly, domestic life, Mr. Bunter, has much to be +said for it. Meals at regular hours; decent, respectable families to +dinner—none of your painted women—and no valeting at night, there’s +_much_ to be said for it. I don’t hold with Hebrews as a rule, Mr. +Bunter, and of course I understand that you may find it to your +advantage to be in a titled family, but there’s less thought of that +these days, and I will say, for a self-made man, no one could call Sir +Reuben vulgar, and my lady at any rate is county—Miss Ford, she was, +one of the Hampshire Fords, and both of them always most considerate.” +“I agree with you, Mr. Graves—his lordship and me have never held with +being narrow-minded—why, yes, my dear, of course it’s a footmark, this +is the washstand linoleum. A good Jew can be a good man, that’s what +I’ve always said. And regular hours and considerate habits have a great +deal to recommend them. Very simple in his tastes, now, Sir Reuben, +isn’t he? for such a rich man, I mean.” +“Very simple indeed,” said the cook; “the meals he and her ladyship +have when they’re by themselves with Miss Rachel—well, there now—if it +wasn’t for the dinners, which is always good when there’s company, I’d +be wastin’ my talents and education here, if you understand me, Mr. +Bunter.” +Mr. Bunter added the handle of the umbrella to his collection, and +began to pin a sheet across the window, aided by the housemaid. +“Admirable,” said he. “Now, if I might have this blanket on the table +and another on a towel-horse or something of that kind by way of a +background—you’re very kind, Mrs. Pemming.... Ah! I wish his lordship +never wanted valeting at night. Many’s the time I’ve sat up till three +and four, and up again to call him early to go off Sherlocking at the +other end of the country. And the mud he gets on his clothes and his +boots!” +“I’m sure it’s a shame, Mr. Bunter,” said Mrs. Pemming, warmly. “Low, +I calls it. In my opinion, police-work ain’t no fit occupation for a +gentleman, let alone a lordship.” +“Everything made so difficult, too,” said Mr. Bunter nobly sacrificing +his employer’s character and his own feelings in a good cause; “boots +chucked into a corner, clothes hung up on the floor, as they say—” +“That’s often the case with these men as are born with a silver spoon +in their mouths,” said Mr. Graves. “Now, Sir Reuben, he’s never lost +his good old-fashioned habits. Clothes folded up neat, boots put +out in his dressing-room, so as a man could get them in the morning, +everything made easy.” +“He forgot them the night before last, though.” +“The clothes, not the boots. Always thoughtful for others, is Sir +Reuben. Ah! I hope nothing’s happened to him.” +“Indeed, no, poor gentleman,” chimed in the cook, “and as for what +they’re sayin’, that he’d ’ave gone out surrepshous-like to do +something he didn’t ought, well, I’d never believe it of him, Mr. +Bunter, not if I was to take my dying oath upon it.” +“Ah!” said Mr. Bunter, adjusting his arc-lamps and connecting them with +the nearest electric light, “and that’s more than most of us could say +of them as pays us.” +* * * * * +“Five foot ten,” said Lord Peter, “and not an inch more.” He peered +dubiously at the depression in the bed clothes, and measured it a +second time with the gentleman-scout’s vade-mecum. Parker entered this +particular in a neat pocketbook. +“I suppose,” he said, “a six-foot-two man _might_ leave a five-foot-ten +depression if he curled himself up.” +“Have you any Scotch blood in you, Parker?” inquired his colleague, +bitterly. +“Not that I know of,” replied Parker. “Why?” +“Because of all the cautious, ungenerous, deliberate and cold-blooded +devils I know,” said Lord Peter, “you are the most cautious, +ungenerous, deliberate and cold-blooded. Here am I, sweating my brains +out to introduce a really sensational incident into your dull and +disreputable little police investigation, and you refuse to show a +single spark of enthusiasm.” +“Well, it’s no good jumping at conclusions.” +“Jump? You don’t even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion. I +believe if you caught the cat with her head in the cream-jug you’d say +it was conceivable that the jug was empty when she got there.” +“Well, it would be conceivable, wouldn’t it?” +“Curse you,” said Lord Peter. He screwed his monocle into his eye, +and bent over the pillow, breathing hard and tightly through his nose. +“Here, give me the tweezers,” he said presently. “Good heavens, man, +don’t blow like that, you might be a whale.” He nipped up an almost +invisible object from the linen. +“What is it?” asked Parker. +“It’s a hair,” said Wimsey grimly, his hard eyes growing harder. “Let’s +go and look at Levy’s hats, shall we? And you might just ring for that +fellow with the churchyard name, do you mind?” +Mr. Graves, when summoned, found Lord Peter Wimsey squatting on the +floor of the dressing-room before a row of hats arranged upside down +before him. +“Here you are,” said that nobleman cheerfully. “Now, Graves, this is a +guessin’ competition—a sort of three-hat trick, to mix metaphors. Here +are nine hats, including three top-hats. Do you identify all these hats +as belonging to Sir Reuben Levy? You do? Very good. Now I have three +guesses as to which hat he wore the night he disappeared, and if I +guess right, I win; if I don’t, you win. See? Ready? Go. I suppose you +know the answer yourself, by the way?” +“Do I understand your lordship to be asking which hat Sir Reuben wore +when he went out on Monday night, your lordship?” +“No, you don’t understand a bit,” said Lord Peter. “I’m asking if _you_ +know—don’t tell me, I’m going to guess.” +“I do know, your lordship,” said Mr. Graves, reprovingly. +“Well,” said Lord Peter, “as he was dinin’ at the Ritz he wore a +topper. Here are three toppers. In three guesses I’d be bound to hit +the right one, wouldn’t I? That don’t seem very sportin’. I’ll take one +guess. It was this one.” +He indicated the hat next the window. +“Am I right, Graves—have I got the prize?” +“That _is_ the hat in question, my lord,” said Mr. Graves, without +excitement. +“Thanks,” said Lord Peter, “that’s all I wanted to know. Ask Bunter to +step up, would you?” +Mr. Bunter stepped up with an aggrieved air, and his usually smooth +hair ruffled by the focussing cloth. +“Oh, there you are, Bunter,” said Lord Peter; “look here—” +“Here I am, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, with respectful reproach, “but +if you’ll excuse me saying so, downstairs is where I ought to be, +with all those young women about—they’ll be fingering the evidence, my +lord.” +“I cry your mercy,” said Lord Peter, “but I’ve quarrelled hopelessly +with Mr. Parker and distracted the estimable Graves, and I want you to +tell me what finger-prints you have found. I shan’t be happy till I get +it, so don’t be harsh with me, Bunter.” +“Well, my lord, your lordship understands I haven’t photographed them +yet, but I won’t deny that their appearance is interesting, my lord. +The little book off the night table, my lord, has only the marks of +one set of fingers—there’s a little scar on the right thumb which makes +them easy recognised. The hair-brush, too, my lord, has only the same +set of marks. The umbrella, the toothglass and the boots all have two +sets: the hand with the scarred thumb, which I take to be Sir Reuben’s, +my lord, and a set of smudges superimposed upon them, if I may put it +that way, my lord, which may or may not be the same hand in rubber +gloves. I could tell you better when I’ve got the photographs made, +to measure them, my lord. The linoleum in front of the washstand is +very gratifying indeed, my lord, if you will excuse my mentioning it. +Besides the marks of Sir Reuben’s boots which your lordship pointed +out, there’s the print of a man’s naked foot—a much smaller one, my +lord, not much more than a ten-inch sock, I should say if you asked +me.” +Lord Peter’s face became irradiated with almost a dim, religious light. +“A mistake,” he breathed, “a mistake, a little one, but he can’t afford +it. When was the linoleum washed last, Bunter?” +“Monday morning, my lord. The housemaid did it and remembered to +mention it. Only remark she’s made yet, and it’s to the point. The +other domestics—” +His features expressed disdain. +“What did I say, Parker? Five-foot-ten and not an inch longer. And he +didn’t dare to use the hair-brush. Beautiful. But he _had_ to risk the +top-hat. Gentleman can’t walk home in the rain late at night without +a hat, you know, Parker. Look! what do you make of it? Two sets of +finger-prints on everything but the book and the brush, two sets of +feet on the linoleum, and two kinds of hair in the hat!” +He lifted the top-hat to the light, and extracted the evidence with +tweezers. +“Think of it, Parker—to remember the hair-brush and forget the hat—to +remember his fingers all the time, and to make that one careless step +on the tell-tale linoleum. Here they are, you see, black hair and tan +hair—black hair in the bowler and the panama, and black and tan in +last night’s topper. And then, just to make certain that we’re on the +right track, just one little auburn hair on the pillow, on this pillow, +Parker, which isn’t quite in the right place. It almost brings tears to +my eyes.” +“Do you mean to say—” said the detective, slowly. +“I mean to say,” said Lord Peter, “that it was not Sir Reuben Levy whom +the cook saw last night on the doorstep. I say that it was another man, +perhaps a couple of inches shorter, who came here in Levy’s clothes and +let himself in with Levy’s latchkey. Oh, he was a bold, cunning devil, +Parker. He had on Levy’s boots, and every stitch of Levy’s clothing +down to the skin. He had rubber gloves on his hands which he never took +off, and he did everything he could to make us think that Levy slept +here last night. He took his chances, and won. He walked upstairs, he +undressed, he even washed and cleaned his teeth, though he didn’t use +the hair-brush for fear of leaving red hairs in it. He had to guess +what Levy did with boots and clothes; one guess was wrong and the other +right, as it happened. The bed must look as if it had been slept in, so +he gets in, and lies there in his victim’s very pyjamas. Then, in the +morning sometime, probably in the deadest hour between two and three, +he gets up, dresses himself in his own clothes that he has brought with +him in a bag, and creeps downstairs. If anybody wakes, he is lost, but +he is a bold man, and he takes his chance. He knows that people do not +wake as a rule—and they don’t wake. He opens the street door which he +left on the latch when he came in—he listens for the stray passer-by +or the policeman on his beat. He slips out. He pulls the door quietly +to with the latchkey. He walks briskly away in rubber-soled shoes—he’s +the kind of criminal who isn’t complete without rubber-soled shoes. In +a few minutes he is at Hyde Park Corner. After that—” +He paused, and added: +“He did all that, and unless he had nothing at stake, he had everything +at stake. Either Sir Reuben Levy has been spirited away for some silly +practical joke, or the man with the auburn hair has the guilt of murder +upon his soul.” +“Dear me!” ejaculated the detective, “you’re very dramatic about it.” +Lord Peter passed his hand rather wearily over his hair. +“My true friend,” he murmured in a voice surcharged with emotion, +“you recall me to the nursery rhymes of my youth—the sacred duty of +flippancy: +“There was an old man of Whitehaven +Who danced a quadrille with a raven, +But they said: It’s absurd +To encourage that bird— +So they smashed that old man of Whitehaven. +That’s the correct attitude, Parker. Here’s a poor old buffer spirited +away—such a joke—and I don’t believe he’d hurt a fly himself—that makes +it funnier. D’you know, Parker, I don’t care frightfully about this +case after all.” +“Which, this or yours?” +“Both. I say, Parker, shall we go quietly home and have lunch and go to +the Coliseum?” +“You can if you like,” replied the detective; “but you forget I do this +for my bread and butter.” +“And I haven’t even that excuse,” said Lord Peter; “well, what’s the +next move? What would you do in my case?” +“I’d do some good, hard grind,” said Parker. “I’d distrust every +bit of work Sugg ever did, and I’d get the family history of every +tenant of every flat in Queen Caroline Mansions. I’d examine all their +box-rooms and rooftraps, and I would inveigle them into conversations +and suddenly bring in the words ‘body’ and ‘pince-nez,’ and see if they +wriggled, like those modern psyo-what’s-his-names.” +“You would, would you?” said Lord Peter with a grin. “Well, we’ve +exchanged cases, you know, so just you toddle off and do it. I’m going +to have a jolly time at Wyndham’s.” +Parker made a grimace. +“Well,” he said, “I don’t suppose you’d ever do it, so I’d better. +You’ll never become a professional till you learn to do a little work, +Wimsey. How about lunch?” +“I’m invited out,” said Lord Peter, magnificently. “I’ll run around +and change at the club. Can’t feed with Freddy Arbuthnot in these bags; +Bunter!” +“Yes, my lord.” +“Pack up if you’re ready, and come round and wash my face and hands for +me at the club.” +“Work here for another two hours, my lord. Can’t do with less than +thirty minutes’ exposure. The current’s none too strong.” +“You see how I’m bullied by my own man, Parker? Well, I must bear it, +I suppose. Ta-ta!” +He whistled his way downstairs. +The conscientious Mr. Parker, with a groan, settled down to a +systematic search through Sir Reuben Levy’s papers, with the assistance +of a plate of ham sandwiches and a bottle of Bass. +* * * * * +Lord Peter and the Honourable Freddy Arbuthnot, looking together like +an advertisement for gents’ trouserings, strolled into the dining-room +at Wyndham’s. +“Haven’t seen you for an age,” said the Honourable Freddy. “What have +you been doin’ with yourself?” +“Oh, foolin’ about,” said Lord Peter, languidly. +“Thick or clear, sir?” inquired the waiter of the Honourable Freddy. +“Which’ll you have, Wimsey?” said that gentleman, transferring the +burden of selection to his guest. “They’re both equally poisonous.” +“Well, clear’s less trouble to lick out of the spoon,” said Lord Peter. +“Clear,” said the Honourable Freddy. +“Consommé Polonais,” agreed the waiter. “Very nice, sir.” +Conversation languished until the Honourable Freddy found a bone in the +filleted sole, and sent for the head waiter to explain its presence. +When this matter had been adjusted Lord Peter found energy to say: +“Sorry to hear about your gov’nor, old man.” +“Yes, poor old buffer,” said the Honourable Freddy; “they say he can’t +last long now. What? Oh! the Montrachet ’08. There’s nothing fit to +drink in this place,” he added gloomily. +After this deliberate insult to a noble vintage there was a further +pause, till Lord Peter said: “How’s ’Change?” +“Rotten,” said the Honourable Freddy. +He helped himself gloomily to salmis of game. +“Can I do anything?” asked Lord Peter. +“Oh, no, thanks—very decent of you, but it’ll pan out all right in +time.” +“This isn’t a bad salmis,” said Lord Peter. +“I’ve eaten worse,” admitted his friend. +“What about those Argentines?” inquired Lord Peter. “Here, waiter, +there’s a bit of cork in my glass.” +“Cork?” cried the Honourable Freddy, with something approaching +animation; “you’ll hear about this, waiter. It’s an amazing thing a +fellow who’s paid to do the job can’t manage to take a cork out of a +bottle. What you say? Argentines? Gone all to hell. Old Levy bunkin’ +off like that’s knocked the bottom out of the market.” +“You don’t say so,” said Lord Peter. “What d’you suppose has happened +to the old man?” +“Cursed if I know,” said the Honourable Freddy; “knocked on the head by +the bears, I should think.” +“P’r’aps he’s gone off on his own,” suggested Lord Peter. “Double life, +you know. Giddy old blighters, some of these City men.” +“Oh, no,” said the Honourable Freddy, faintly roused; “no, hang it all, +Wimsey, I wouldn’t care to say that. He’s a decent old domestic bird, +and his daughter’s a charmin’ girl. Besides, he’s straight enough—he’d +_do_ you down fast enough, but he wouldn’t _let_ you down. Old Anderson +is badly cut up about it.” +“Who’s Anderson?” +“Chap with property out there. He belongs here. He was goin’ to meet +Levy on Tuesday. He’s afraid those railway people will get in now, and +then it’ll be all U. P.” +“Who’s runnin’ the railway people over here?” inquired Lord Peter. +“Yankee blighter, John P. Milligan. He’s got an option, or says he has. +You can’t trust these brutes.” +“Can’t Anderson hold on?” +“Anderson isn’t Levy. Hasn’t got the shekels. Besides, he’s only one. +Levy covers the ground—he could boycott Milligan’s beastly railway if +he liked. That’s where he’s got the pull, you see.” +“B’lieve I met the Milligan man somewhere,” said Lord Peter, +thoughtfully. “Ain’t he a hulking brute with black hair and a beard?” +“You’re thinkin’ of somebody else,” said the Honourable Freddy. +“Milligan don’t stand any higher than I do, unless you call +five-feet-ten hulking—and he’s bald, anyway.” +Lord Peter considered this over the Gorgonzola. Then he said: “Didn’t +know Levy had a charmin’ daughter.” +“Oh, yes,” said the Honourable Freddy, with an elaborate detachment. +“Met her and Mamma last year abroad. That’s how I got to know the old +man. He’s been very decent. Let me into this Argentine business on the +ground floor, don’t you know?” +“Well,” said Lord Peter, “you might do worse. Money’s money, ain’t it? +And Lady Levy is quite a redeemin’ point. At least, my mother knew her +people.” +“Oh, _she’s_ all right,” said the Honourable Freddy, “and the old man’s +nothing to be ashamed of nowadays. He’s self-made, of course, but he +don’t pretend to be anything else. No side. Toddles off to business on +a 96 ’bus every morning. ‘Can’t make up my mind to taxis, my boy,’ he +says. ‘I had to look at every halfpenny when I was a young man, and I +can’t get out of the way of it now.’ Though, if he’s takin’ his family +out, nothing’s too good. Rachel—that’s the girl—always laughs at the +old man’s little economies.” +“I suppose they’ve sent for Lady Levy,” said Lord Peter. +“I suppose so,” agreed the other. “I’d better pop round and express +sympathy or somethin’, what? Wouldn’t look well not to, d’you think? +But it’s deuced awkward. What am I to say?” +“I don’t think it matters much what you say,” said Lord Peter, +helpfully. “I should ask if you can do anything.” +“Thanks,” said the lover, “I will. Energetic young man. Count on me. +Always at your service. Ring me up any time of the day or night. That’s +the line to take, don’t you think?” +“That’s the idea,” said Lord Peter. +* * * * * +Mr. John P. Milligan, the London representative of the great Milligan +railroad and shipping company, was dictating code cables to his +secretary in an office in Lombard Street, when a card was brought up to +him, bearing the simple legend: +LORD PETER WIMSEY +_Marlborough Club_ +Mr. Milligan was annoyed at the interruption, but, like many of his +nation, if he had a weak point, it was the British aristocracy. He +postponed for a few minutes the elimination from the map of a modest +but promising farm, and directed that the visitor should be shown up. +“Good-afternoon,” said that nobleman, ambling genially in, “it’s most +uncommonly good of you to let me come round wastin’ your time like +this. I’ll try not to be too long about it, though I’m not awfully good +at comin’ to the point. My brother never would let me stand for the +county, y’know—said I wandered on so nobody’d know what I was talkin’ +about.” +“Pleased to meet you, Lord Wimsey,” said Mr. Milligan. “Won’t you take +a seat?” +“Thanks,” said Lord Peter, “but I’m not a peer, you know—that’s my +brother Denver. My name’s Peter. It’s a silly name, I always think, +so old-world and full of homely virtue and that sort of thing, but my +godfathers and godmothers in my baptism are responsible for that, I +suppose, officially—which is rather hard on them, you know, as they +didn’t actually choose it. But we always have a Peter, after the third +duke, who betrayed five kings somewhere about the Wars of the Roses, +though come to think of it, it ain’t anything to be proud of. Still, +one has to make the best of it.” +Mr. Milligan, thus ingeniously placed at that disadvantage which +attends ignorance, manoeuvred for position, and offered his interrupter +a Corona Corona. +“Thanks, awfully,” said Lord Peter, “though you really mustn’t tempt +me to stay here burblin’ all afternoon. By Jove, Mr. Milligan, if you +offer people such comfortable chairs and cigars like these, I wonder +they don’t come an’ live in your office.” He added mentally: “I wish to +goodness I could get those long-toed boots off you. How’s a man to know +the size of your feet? And a head like a potato. It’s enough to make +one swear.” +“Say now, Lord Peter,” said Mr. Milligan, “can I do anything for you?” +“Well, d’you know,” said Lord Peter, “I’m wonderin’ if you would. +It’s damned cheek to ask you, but fact is, it’s my mother, you know. +Wonderful woman, but don’t realize what it means, demands on the time +of a busy man like you. We don’t understand hustle over here, you know, +Mr. Milligan.” +“Now don’t you mention that,” said Mr. Milligan; “I’d be surely charmed +to do anything to oblige the Duchess.” +He felt a momentary qualm as to whether a duke’s mother were also a +duchess, but breathed more freely as Lord Peter went on: +“Thanks—that’s uncommonly good of you. Well, now, it’s like this. +My mother—most energetic, self-sacrificin’ woman, don’t you see, +is thinkin’ of gettin’ up a sort of a charity bazaar down at Denver +this winter, in aid of the church roof, y’know. Very sad case, Mr. +Milligan—fine old antique—early English windows and decorated angel +roof, and all that—all tumblin’ to pieces, rain pourin’ in and so +on—vicar catchin’ rheumatism at early service, owin’ to the draught +blowin’ in over the altar—you know the sort of thing. They’ve got a +man down startin’ on it—little beggar called Thipps—lives with an aged +mother in Battersea—vulgar little beast, but quite good on angel roofs +and things, I’m told.” +At this point, Lord Peter watched his interlocutor narrowly, but +finding that this rigmarole produced in him no reaction more startling +than polite interest tinged with faint bewilderment, he abandoned this +line of investigation, and proceeded: +“I say, I beg your pardon, frightfully—I’m afraid I’m bein’ beastly +long-winded. Fact is, my mother is gettin’ up this bazaar, and +she thought it’d be an awfully interestin’ side-show to have some +lectures—sort of little talks, y’know—by eminent business men of all +nations. ‘How I Did It’ kind of touch, y’know—‘A Drop of Oil with +a Kerosene King’—‘Cash Conscience and Cocoa’ and so on. It would +interest people down there no end. You see, all my mother’s friends +will be there, and we’ve none of us any money—not what you’d call +money, I mean—I expect our incomes wouldn’t pay your telephone calls, +would they?—but we like awfully to hear about the people who can make +money. Gives us a sort of uplifted feelin’, don’t you know. Well, +anyway, I mean, my mother’d be frightfully pleased and grateful to +you, Mr. Milligan, if you’d come down and give us a few words as a +representative American. It needn’t take more than ten minutes or so, +y’know, because the local people can’t understand much beyond shootin’ +and huntin’, and my mother’s crowd can’t keep their minds on anythin’ +more than ten minutes together, but we’d really appreciate it very much +if you’d come and stay a day or two and just give us a little breezy +word on the almighty dollar.” +“Why, yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “I’d like to, Lord Peter. It’s kind of +the Duchess to suggest it. It’s a very sad thing when these fine old +antiques begin to wear out. I’ll come with great pleasure. And perhaps +you’d be kind enough to accept a little donation to the Restoration +Fund.” +This unexpected development nearly brought Lord Peter up all standing. +To pump, by means of an ingenious lie, a hospitable gentleman whom +you are inclined to suspect of a peculiarly malicious murder, and to +accept from him in the course of the proceedings a large cheque for a +charitable object, has something about it unpalatable to any but the +hardened Secret Service agent. Lord Peter temporized. +“That’s awfully decent of you,” he said. “I’m sure they’d be no +end grateful. But you’d better not give it to me, you know. I +might spend it, or lose it. I’m not very reliable, I’m afraid. +The vicar’s the right person—the Rev. Constantine Throgmorton, St. +John-before-the-Latin-Gate Vicarage, Duke’s Denver, if you like to send +it there.” +“I will,” said Mr. Milligan. “Will you write it out now for a thousand +pounds, Scoot, in case it slips my mind later?” +The secretary, a sandy-haired young man with a long chin and no +eyebrows, silently did as he was requested. Lord Peter looked from the +bald head of Mr. Milligan to the red head of the secretary, hardened +his heart and tried again. +“Well, I’m no end grateful to you, Mr. Milligan, and so’ll my mother +be when I tell her. I’ll let you know the date of the bazaar—it’s not +quite settled yet, and I’ve got to see some other business men, don’t +you know. I thought of askin’ someone from one of the big newspaper +combines to represent British advertisin’ talent, what?—and a friend of +mine promises me a leadin’ German financier—very interestin’ if there +ain’t too much feelin’ against it down in the country, and I’ll have +to find somebody or other to do the Hebrew point of view. I thought of +askin’ Levy, y’know, only he’s floated off in this inconvenient way.” +“Yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “that’s a very curious thing, though I don’t +mind saying, Lord Peter, that it’s a convenience to me. He had a cinch +on my railroad combine, but I’d nothing against him personally, and if +he turns up after I’ve brought off a little deal I’ve got on, I’ll be +happy to give him the right hand of welcome.” +A vision passed through Lord Peter’s mind of Sir Reuben kept somewhere +in custody till a financial crisis was over. This was exceedingly +possible, and far more agreeable than his earlier conjecture; it also +agreed better with the impression he was forming of Mr. Milligan. +“Well, it’s a rum go,” said Lord Peter, “but I daresay he had his +reasons. Much better not inquire into people’s reasons, y’know, what? +Specially as a police friend of mine who’s connected with the case says +the old johnnie dyed his hair before he went.” +Out of the tail of his eye, Lord Peter saw the redheaded secretary add +up five columns of figures simultaneously and jot down the answer. +“Dyed his hair, did he?” said Mr. Milligan. +“Dyed it red,” said Lord Peter. The secretary looked up. “Odd thing +is,” continued Wimsey, “they can’t lay hands on the bottle. Somethin’ +fishy there, don’t you think, what?” +The secretary’s interest seemed to have evaporated. He inserted a fresh +sheet into his looseleaf ledger, and carried forward a row of digits +from the preceding page. +“I daresay there’s nothin’ in it,” said Lord Peter, rising to go. +“Well, it’s uncommonly good of you to be bothered with me like this, +Mr. Milligan—my mother’ll be no end pleased. She’ll write you about the +date.” +“I’m charmed,” said Mr. Milligan. “Very pleased to have met you.” +Mr. Scoot rose silently to open the door, uncoiling as he did so a +portentous length of thin leg, hitherto hidden by the desk. With a +mental sigh Lord Peter estimated him at six-foot-four. +“It’s a pity I can’t put Scoot’s head on Milligan’s shoulders,” said +Lord Peter, emerging into the swirl of the city. “And what _will_ my +mother say?” +CHAPTER V +Mr. Parker was a bachelor, and occupied a Georgian but inconvenient +flat at No. 12A Great Ormond Street, for which he paid a pound a +week. His exertions in the cause of civilization were rewarded, not +by the gift of diamond rings from empresses or munificent cheques from +grateful Prime Ministers, but by a modest, though sufficient, salary, +drawn from the pockets of the British taxpayer. He awoke, after a long +day of arduous and inconclusive labour, to the smell of burnt porridge. +Through his bedroom window, hygienically open top and bottom, a raw fog +was rolling slowly in, and the sight of a pair of winter pants, flung +hastily over a chair the previous night, fretted him with a sense of +the sordid absurdity of the human form. The telephone bell rang, and +he crawled wretchedly out of bed and into the sitting-room, where Mrs. +Munns, who did for him by the day, was laying the table, sneezing as +she went. +Mr. Bunter was speaking. +“His lordship says he’d be very glad, sir, if you could make it +convenient to step round to breakfast.” +If the odour of kidneys and bacon had been wafted along the wire, Mr. +Parker could not have experienced a more vivid sense of consolation. +“Tell his lordship I’ll be with him in half an hour,” he said, +thankfully, and plunging into the bathroom, which was also the kitchen, +he informed Mrs. Munns, who was just making tea from a kettle which had +gone off the boil, that he should be out to breakfast. +“You can take the porridge home for the family,” he added, viciously, +and flung off his dressing-gown with such determination that Mrs. Munns +could only scuttle away with a snort. +A 19 ’bus deposited him in Piccadilly only fifteen minutes later +than his rather sanguine impulse had prompted him to suggest, and +Mr. Bunter served him with glorious food, incomparable coffee, and +the _Daily Mail_ before a blazing fire of wood and coal. A distant +voice singing the “et iterum venturus est” from Bach’s Mass in B minor +proclaimed that for the owner of the flat cleanliness and godliness +met at least once a day, and presently Lord Peter roamed in, moist and +verbena-scented, in a bath-robe cheerfully patterned with unnaturally +variegated peacocks. +“Mornin’, old dear,” said that gentleman. “Beast of a day, ain’t it? +Very good of you to trundle out in it, but I had a letter I wanted you +to see, and I hadn’t the energy to come round to your place. Bunter and +I’ve been makin’ a night of it.” +“What’s the letter?” asked Parker. +“Never talk business with your mouth full,” said Lord Peter, +reprovingly; “have some Oxford marmalade—and then I’ll show you my +Dante; they brought it round last night. What ought I to read this +morning, Bunter?” +“Lord Erith’s collection is going to be sold, my lord. There is +a column about it in the _Morning Post_. I think your lordship +should look at this review of Sir Julian Freke’s new book on ‘The +Physiological Bases of the Conscience’ in the _Times Literary +Supplement_. Then there is a very singular little burglary in +the _Chronicle_, my lord, and an attack on titled families in +the _Herald_—rather ill-written, if I may say so, but not without +unconscious humour which your lordship will appreciate.” +“All right, give me that and the burglary,” said his lordship. +“I have looked over the other papers,” pursued Mr. Bunter, indicating a +formidable pile, “and marked your lordship’s after-breakfast reading.” +“Oh, pray don’t allude to it,” said Lord Peter; “you take my appetite +away.” +There was silence, but for the crunching of toast and the crackling of +paper. +“I see they adjourned the inquest,” said Parker presently. +“Nothing else to do,” said Lord Peter; “but Lady Levy arrived last +night, and will have to go and fail to identify the body this morning +for Sugg’s benefit.” +“Time, too,” said Mr. Parker shortly. +Silence fell again. +“I don’t think much of your burglary, Bunter,” said Lord Peter. +“Competent, of course, but no imagination. I want imagination in a +criminal. Where’s the _Morning Post_?” +After a further silence, Lord Peter said: “You might send for the +catalogue, Bunter, that Apollonios Rhodios[C] might be worth looking +at. No, I’m damned if I’m going to stodge through that review, but you +can stick the book on the library list if you like. His book on crime +was entertainin’ enough as far as it went, but the fellow’s got a bee +in his bonnet. Thinks God’s a secretion of the liver—all right once +in a way, but there’s no need to keep on about it. There’s nothing +you can’t prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited. Look at +Sugg.” +“I beg your pardon,” said Parker; “I wasn’t attending. Argentines are +steadying a little, I see.” +“Milligan,” said Lord Peter. +“Oil’s in a bad way. Levy’s made a difference there. That funny little +boom in Peruvians that came on just before he disappeared has died away +again. I wonder if he was concerned in it. D’you know at all?” +“I’ll find out,” said Lord Peter. “What was it?” +“Oh, an absolutely dud enterprise that hadn’t been heard of for years. +It suddenly took a little lease of life last week. I happened to notice +it because my mother got let in for a couple of hundred shares a long +time ago. It never paid a dividend. Now it’s petered out again.” +Wimsey pushed his plate aside and lit a pipe. +“Having finished, I don’t mind doing some work,” he said. “How did you +get on yesterday?” +“I didn’t,” replied Parker. “I sleuthed up and down those flats in my +own bodily shape and two different disguises. I was a gas-meter man and +a collector for a Home for Lost Doggies, and I didn’t get a thing to +go on, except a servant in the top flat at the Battersea Bridge Road +end of the row who said she thought she heard a bump on the roof one +night. Asked which night, she couldn’t rightly say. Asked if it was +Monday night, she thought it very likely. Asked if it mightn’t have +been in that high wind on Saturday night that blew my chimney-pot off, +she couldn’t say but what it might have been. Asked if she was sure it +was on the roof and not inside the flat, said to be sure they did find +a picture tumbled down next morning. Very suggestible girl. I saw your +friends, Mr. and Mrs. Appledore, who received me coldly, but could make +no definite complaint about Thipps except that his mother dropped her +h’s, and that he once called on them uninvited, armed with a pamphlet +about anti-vivisection. The Indian Colonel on the first floor was loud, +but unexpectedly friendly. He gave me Indian curry for supper and some +very good whisky, but he’s a sort of hermit, and all _he_ could tell me +was that he couldn’t stand Mrs. Appledore.” +“Did you get nothing at the house?” +“Only Levy’s private diary. I brought it away with me. Here it is. +It doesn’t tell one much, though. It’s full of entries like: ‘Tom and +Annie to dinner’; and ‘My dear wife’s birthday; gave her an old opal +ring’; ‘Mr. Arbuthnot dropped in to tea; he wants to marry Rachel, but +I should like someone steadier for my treasure.’ Still, I thought it +would show who came to the house and so on. He evidently wrote it up at +night. There’s no entry for Monday.” +“I expect it’ll be useful,” said Lord Peter, turning over the pages. +“Poor old buffer. I say, I’m not so certain now he was done away with.” +He detailed to Mr. Parker his day’s work. +“Arbuthnot?” said Parker. “Is that the Arbuthnot of the diary?” +“I suppose so. I hunted him up because I knew he was fond of fooling +round the Stock Exchange. As for Milligan, he _looks_ all right, but I +believe he’s pretty ruthless in business and you never can tell. Then +there’s the red-haired secretary—lightnin’ calculator man with a face +like a fish, keeps on sayin’ nuthin’—got the Tarbaby in his family +tree, I should think. Milligan’s got a jolly good motive for, at any +rate, suspendin’ Levy for a few days. Then there’s the new man.” +“What new man?” +“Ah, that’s the letter I mentioned to you. Where did I put it? Here we +are. Good parchment paper, printed address of solicitor’s office in +Salisbury, and postmark to correspond. Very precisely written with a +fine nib by an elderly business man of old-fashioned habits.” +Parker took the letter and read: +CRIMPLESHAM AND WICKS, +_Solicitors_, +MILFORD HILL, SALISBURY, +17 November, 192—. +Sir, +With reference to your advertisement today in the +personal column of _The Times_, I am disposed to believe +that the eyeglasses and chain in question may be those +I lost on the L. B. & S. C. Electric Railway while +visiting London last Monday. I left Victoria by the +5.45 train, and did not notice my loss till I arrived at +Balham. This indication and the optician’s specification +of the glasses, which I enclose, should suffice at once +as an identification and a guarantee of my bona fides. +If the glasses should prove to be mine, I should be +greatly obliged to you if you would kindly forward them +to me by registered post, as the chain was a present +from my daughter, and is one of my dearest possessions. +Thanking you in advance for this kindness, and +regretting the trouble to which I shall be putting you, +I am, +Yours very truly, +THOS. CRIMPLESHAM +Lord Peter Wimsey, +110, Piccadilly, W. +(Encl.) +“Dear me,” said Parker, “this is what you might call unexpected.” +“Either it is some extraordinary misunderstanding,” said Lord Peter, +“or Mr. Crimplesham is a very bold and cunning villain. Or possibly, of +course, they are the wrong glasses. We may as well get a ruling on that +point at once. I suppose the glasses are at the Yard. I wish you’d just +ring ’em up and ask ’em to send round an optician’s description of them +at once—and you might ask at the same time whether it’s a very common +prescription.” +“Right you are,” said Parker, and took the receiver off its hook. +“And now,” said his friend, when the message was delivered, “just come +into the library for a minute.” +On the library table, Lord Peter had spread out a series of bromide +prints, some dry, some damp, and some but half-washed. +“These little ones are the originals of the photos we’ve been taking,” +said Lord Peter, “and these big ones are enlargements all made +to precisely the same scale. This one here is the footmark on the +linoleum; we’ll put that by itself at present. Now these finger-prints +can be divided into five lots. I’ve numbered ’em on the prints—see?—and +made a list: +“A. The finger-prints of Levy himself, off his little bedside book and +his hair-brush—this and this—you can’t mistake the little scar on the +thumb. +“B. The smudges made by the gloved fingers of the man who slept in +Levy’s room on Monday night. They show clearly on the water-bottle +and on the boots—superimposed on Levy’s. They are very distinct on the +boots—surprisingly so for gloved hands, and I deduce that the gloves +were rubber ones and had recently been in water. +“Here’s another interestin’ point. Levy walked in the rain on Monday +night, as we know, and these dark marks are mud-splashes. You see they +lie _over_ Levy’s finger-prints in every case. Now see: on this left +boot we find the stranger’s thumb-mark _over_ the mud on the leather +above the heel. That’s a funny place to find a thumb-mark on a boot, +isn’t it? That is, if Levy took off his own boots. But it’s the place +where you’d expect to see it if somebody forcibly removed his boots +for him. Again, most of the stranger’s finger-marks come _over_ the +mud-marks, but here is one splash of mud which comes on top of them +again. Which makes me infer that the stranger came back to Park Lane, +wearing Levy’s boots, in a cab, carriage or car, but that at some point +or other he walked a little way—just enough to tread in a puddle and +get a splash on the boots. What do you say?” +“Very pretty,” said Parker. “A bit intricate, though, and the marks are +not all that I could wish a finger-print to be.” +“Well, I won’t lay too much stress on it. But it fits in with our +previous ideas. Now let’s turn to: +“C. The prints obligingly left by my own particular villain on the +further edge of Thipps’s bath, where you spotted them, and I ought to +be scourged for not having spotted them. The left hand, you notice, the +base of the palm and the fingers, but not the tips, looking as though +he had steadied himself on the edge of the bath while leaning down to +adjust something at the bottom, the pince-nez perhaps. Gloved, you see, +but showing no ridge or seam of any kind—I say rubber, you say rubber. +That’s that. Now see here: +“D and E come off a visiting-card of mine. There’s this thing at the +corner, marked F, but that you can disregard; in the original document +it’s a sticky mark left by the thumb of the youth who took it from me, +after first removing a piece of chewing-gum from his teeth with his +finger to tell me that Mr. Milligan might or might not be disengaged. D +and E are the thumb-marks of Mr. Milligan and his red-haired secretary. +I’m not clear which is which, but I saw the youth with the chewing-gum +hand the card to the secretary, and when I got into the inner shrine +I saw John P. Milligan standing with it in his hand, so it’s one or +the other, and for the moment it’s immaterial to our purpose which is +which. I boned the card from the table when I left. +“Well, now, Parker, here’s what’s been keeping Bunter and me up till +the small hours. I’ve measured and measured every way backwards and +forwards till my head’s spinnin’, and I’ve stared till I’m nearly +blind, but I’m hanged if I can make my mind up. Question 1. Is C +identical with B? Question 2. Is D or E identical with B? There’s +nothing to go on but the size and shape, of course, and the marks are +so faint—what do you think?” +Parker shook his head doubtfully. +“I think E might almost be put out of the question,” he said; “it +seems such an excessively long and narrow thumb. But I think there is a +decided resemblance between the span of B on the water-bottle and C on +the bath. And I don’t see any reason why D shouldn’t be the same as B, +only there’s so little to judge from.” +“Your untutored judgment and my measurements have brought us both to +the same conclusion—if you can call it a conclusion,” said Lord Peter, +bitterly. +“Another thing,” said Parker. “Why on earth should we try to connect +B with C? The fact that you and I happen to be friends doesn’t make +it necessary to conclude that the two cases we happen to be interested +in have any organic connection with one another. Why should they? The +only person who thinks they have is Sugg, and he’s nothing to go by. It +would be different if there were any truth in the suggestion that the +man in the bath was Levy, but we know for a certainty he wasn’t. It’s +ridiculous to suppose that the same man was employed in committing two +totally distinct crimes on the same night, one in Battersea and the +other in Park Lane.” +“I know,” said Wimsey, “though of course we mustn’t forget that Levy +_was_ in Battersea at the time, and now we know he didn’t return +home at twelve as was supposed, we’ve no reason to think he ever left +Battersea at all.” +“True. But there are other places in Battersea besides Thipps’s +bathroom. And he _wasn’t_ in Thipps’s bathroom. In fact, come to think +of it, that’s the one place in the universe where we know definitely +that he wasn’t. So what’s Thipps’s bath got to do with it?” +“I don’t know,” said Lord Peter. “Well, perhaps we shall get something +better to go on today.” +He leaned back in his chair and smoked thoughtfully for some time over +the papers which Bunter had marked for him. +“They’ve got you out in the limelight,” he said. “Thank Heaven, Sugg +hates me too much to give me any publicity. What a dull Agony Column! +‘Darling Pipsey—Come back soon to your distracted Popsey’—and the usual +young man in need of financial assistance, and the usual injunction +to ‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.’ Hullo! there’s the +bell. Oh, it’s our answer from Scotland Yard.” +The note from Scotland Yard enclosed an optician’s specification +identical with that sent by Mr. Crimplesham, and added that it was +an unusual one, owing to the peculiar strength of the lenses and the +marked difference between the sight of the two eyes. +“That’s good enough,” said Parker. +“Yes,” said Wimsey. “Then Possibility No. 3 is knocked on the head. +There remain Possibility No. 1: Accident or Misunderstanding, and No. +2: Deliberate Villainy, of a remarkably bold and calculating kind—of +a kind, in fact, characteristic of the author or authors of our two +problems. Following the methods inculcated at that University of which +I have the honour to be a member, we will now examine severally the +various suggestions afforded by Possibility No. 2. This Possibility +may be again subdivided into two or more Hypotheses. On Hypothesis 1 +(strongly advocated by my distinguished colleague Professor Snupshed), +the criminal, whom we may designate as X, is not identical with +Crimplesham, but is using the name of Crimplesham as his shield, or +aegis. This hypothesis may be further subdivided into two alternatives. +Alternative A: Crimplesham is an innocent and unconscious accomplice, +and X is in his employment. X writes in Crimplesham’s name on +Crimplesham’s office-paper and obtains that the object in question, +i.e., the eyeglasses, be despatched to Crimplesham’s address. He is in +a position to intercept the parcel before it reaches Crimplesham. The +presumption is that X is Crimplesham’s charwoman, office-boy, clerk, +secretary or porter. This offers a wide field of investigation. The +method of inquiry will be to interview Crimplesham and discover whether +he sent the letter, and if not, who has access to his correspondence. +Alternative B: Crimplesham is under X’s influence or in his power, +and has been induced to write the letter by (_a_) bribery, (_b_) +misrepresentation or (_c_) threats. X may in that case be a persuasive +relation or friend, or else a creditor, blackmailer or assassin; +Crimplesham, on the other hand, is obviously venal or a fool. The +method of inquiry in this case, I would tentatively suggest, is again +to interview Crimplesham, put the facts of the case strongly before +him, and assure him in the most intimidating terms that he is liable +to a prolonged term of penal servitude as an accessory after the fact +in the crime of murder— Ah-hem! Trusting, gentlemen, that you have +followed me thus far, we will pass to the consideration of Hypothesis +No. 2, to which I personally incline, and according to which X is +identical with Crimplesham. +“In this case, Crimplesham, who is, in the words of an English classic, +a man-of-infinite-resource-and-sagacity, correctly deduces that, +of all people, the last whom we shall expect to find answering our +advertisement is the criminal himself. Accordingly, he plays a bold +game of bluff. He invents an occasion on which the glasses may very +easily have been lost or stolen, and applies for them. If confronted, +nobody will be more astonished than he to learn where they were found. +He will produce witnesses to prove that he left Victoria at 5.45 and +emerged from the train at Balham at the scheduled time, and sat up all +Monday night playing chess with a respectable gentleman well known +in Balham. In this case, the method of inquiry will be to pump the +respectable gentleman in Balham, and if he should happen to be a single +gentleman with a deaf housekeeper, it may be no easy matter to impugn +the alibi, since, outside detective romances, few ticket-collectors and +’bus-conductors keep an exact remembrance of all the passengers passing +between Balham and London on any and every evening of the week. +“Finally, gentlemen, I will frankly point out the weak point of all +these hypotheses, namely: that none of them offers any explanation as +to why the incriminating article was left so conspicuously on the body +in the first instance.” +Mr. Parker had listened with commendable patience to this academic +exposition. +“Might not X,” he suggested, “be an enemy of Crimplesham’s, who +designed to throw suspicion upon him?” +“He might. In that case he should be easy to discover, since he +obviously lives in close proximity to Crimplesham and his glasses, and +Crimplesham in fear of his life will then be a valuable ally for the +prosecution.” +“How about the first possibility of all, misunderstanding or accident?” +“Well! Well, for purposes of discussion, nothing, because it really +doesn’t afford any data for discussion.” +“In any case,” said Parker, “the obvious course appears to be to go to +Salisbury.” +“That seems indicated,” said Lord Peter. +“Very well,” said the detective, “is it to be you or me or both of us?” +“It is to be me,” said Lord Peter, “and that for two reasons. +First, because, if (by Possibility No. 2, Hypothesis 1, Alternative +A) Crimplesham is an innocent catspaw, the person who put in the +advertisement is the proper person to hand over the property. Secondly, +because, if we are to adopt Hypothesis 2, we must not overlook the +sinister possibility that Crimplesham-X is laying a careful trap to rid +himself of the person who so unwarily advertised in the daily press his +interest in the solution of the Battersea Park mystery.” +“That appears to me to be an argument for our both going,” objected the +detective. +“Far from it,” said Lord Peter. “Why play into the hands of +Crimplesham-X by delivering over to him the only two men in London with +the evidence, such as it is, and shall I say the wits, to connect him +with the Battersea body?” +“But if we told the Yard where we were going, and we both got nobbled,” +said Mr. Parker, “it would afford strong presumptive evidence of +Crimplesham’s guilt, and anyhow, if he didn’t get hanged for murdering +the man in the bath he’d at least get hanged for murdering us.” +“Well,” said Lord Peter, “if he only murdered me you could still hang +him—what’s the good of wasting a sound, marriageable young male like +yourself? Besides, how about old Levy? If you’re incapacitated, do you +think anybody else is going to find him?” +“But we could frighten Crimplesham by threatening him with the Yard.” +“Well, dash it all, if it comes to that, I can frighten him by +threatening him with _you_, which, seeing you hold what evidence there +is, is much more to the point. And, then, suppose it’s a wild-goose +chase after all, you’ll have wasted time when you might have been +getting on with the case. There are several things that need doing.” +“Well,” said Parker, silenced but reluctant, “why can’t I go, in that +case?” +“Bosh!” said Lord Peter. “I am retained (by old Mrs. Thipps, for whom +I entertain the greatest respect) to deal with this case, and it’s only +by courtesy I allow you to have anything to do with it.” +Mr. Parker groaned. +“Will you at least take Bunter?” he said. +“In deference to your feelings,” replied Lord Peter, “I will +take Bunter, though he could be far more usefully employed taking +photographs or overhauling my wardrobe. When is there a good train to +Salisbury, Bunter?” +“There is an excellent train at 10.50, my lord.” +“Kindly make arrangements to catch it,” said Lord Peter, throwing +off his bath-robe and trailing away with it into his bedroom. “And, +Parker—if you have nothing else to do you might get hold of Levy’s +secretary and look into that little matter of the Peruvian oil.” +* * * * * +Lord Peter took with him, for light reading in the train, Sir Reuben +Levy’s diary. It was a simple, and in the light of recent facts, rather +a pathetic document. The terrible fighter of the Stock Exchange, who +could with one nod set the surly bear dancing, or bring the savage bull +to feed out of his hand, whose breath devastated whole districts with +famine or swept financial potentates from their seats, was revealed +in private life as kindly, domestic, innocently proud of himself +and his belongings, confiding, generous and a little dull. His own +small economies were duly chronicled side by side with extravagant +presents to his wife and daughter. Small incidents of household routine +appeared, such as: “Man came to mend the conservatory roof,” or “The +new butler (Simpson) has arrived, recommended by the Goldbergs. I +think he will be satisfactory.” All visitors and entertainments were +duly entered, from a very magnificent lunch to Lord Dewsbury, the +Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Jabez K. Wort, the American +plenipotentiary, through a series of diplomatic dinners to eminent +financiers, down to intimate family gatherings of persons designated +by Christian names or nicknames. About May there came a mention of +Lady Levy’s nerves, and further reference was made to the subject in +subsequent months. In September it was stated that “Freke came to see +my dear wife and advised complete rest and change of scene. She thinks +of going abroad with Rachel.” The name of the famous nerve-specialist +occurred as a diner or luncher about once a month, and it came +into Lord Peter’s mind that Freke would be a good person to consult +about Levy himself. “People sometimes tell things to the doctor,” he +murmured to himself. “And, by Jove! if Levy was simply going round +to see Freke on Monday night, that rather disposes of the Battersea +incident, doesn’t it?” He made a note to look up Sir Julian and turned +on further. On September 18th, Lady Levy and her daughter had left for +the south of France. Then suddenly, under the date October 5th, Lord +Peter found what he was looking for: “Goldberg, Skriner and Milligan to +dinner.” +There was the evidence that Milligan had been in that house. There had +been a formal entertainment—a meeting as of two duellists shaking hands +before the fight. Skriner was a well-known picture-dealer; Lord Peter +imagined an after-dinner excursion upstairs to see the two Corots in +the drawing-room, and the portrait of the oldest Levy girl, who had +died at the age of sixteen. It was by Augustus John, and hung in the +bedroom. The name of the red-haired secretary was nowhere mentioned, +unless the initial S., occurring in another entry, referred to him. +Throughout September and October, Anderson (of Wyndham’s) had been a +frequent visitor. +Lord Peter shook his head over the diary, and turned to the +consideration of the Battersea Park mystery. Whereas in the Levy affair +it was easy enough to supply a motive for the crime, if crime it were, +and the difficulty was to discover the method of its carrying out and +the whereabouts of the victim, in the other case the chief obstacle +to inquiry was the entire absence of any imaginable motive. It was odd +that, although the papers had carried news of the affair from one end +of the country to the other and a description of the body had been sent +to every police station in the country, nobody had as yet come forward +to identify the mysterious occupant of Mr. Thipps’s bath. It was true +that the description, which mentioned the clean-shaven chin, elegantly +cut hair and the pince-nez, was rather misleading, but on the other +hand, the police had managed to discover the number of molars missing, +and the height, complexion and other data were correctly enough stated, +as also the date at which death had presumably occurred. It seemed, +however, as though the man had melted out of society without leaving +a gap or so much as a ripple. Assigning a motive for the murder of +a person without relations or antecedents or even clothes is like +trying to visualize the fourth dimension—admirable exercise for the +imagination, but arduous and inconclusive. Even if the day’s interview +should disclose black spots in the past or present of Mr. Crimplesham, +how were they to be brought into connection with a person apparently +without a past, and whose present was confined to the narrow limits of +a bath and a police mortuary? +“Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “I beg that in the future you will restrain +me from starting two hares at once. These cases are gettin’ to be a +strain on my constitution. One hare has nowhere to run from, and the +other has nowhere to run to. It’s a kind of mental D.T., Bunter. When +this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, forswear the police news, and take +to an emollient diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice.” +* * * * * +It was its comparative proximity to Milford Hill that induced Lord +Peter to lunch at the Minster Hotel rather than at the White Hart +or some other more picturesquely situated hostel. It was not a +lunch calculated to cheer his mind; as in all Cathedral cities, the +atmosphere of the Close pervades every nook and corner of Salisbury, +and no food in that city but seems faintly flavoured with prayer-books. +As he sat sadly consuming that impassive pale substance known to +the English as “cheese” unqualified (for there are cheeses which go +openly by their names, as Stilton, Camembert, Gruyère, Wensleydale +or Gorgonzola, but “cheese” is cheese and everywhere the same), he +inquired of the waiter the whereabouts of Mr. Crimplesham’s office. +The waiter directed him to a house rather further up the street on the +opposite side, adding: “But anybody’ll tell you, sir; Mr. Crimplesham’s +very well known hereabouts.” +“He’s a good solicitor, I suppose?” said Lord Peter. +“Oh, yes, sir,” said the waiter, “you couldn’t do better than trust +to Mr. Crimplesham, sir. There’s folk say he’s old-fashioned, but I’d +rather have my little bits of business done by Mr. Crimplesham than +by one of these fly-away young men. Not but what Mr. Crimplesham’ll +be retiring soon, sir, I don’t doubt, for he must be close on eighty, +sir, if he’s a day, but then there’s young Mr. Wicks to carry on the +business, and he’s a very nice, steady-like young gentleman.” +“Is Mr. Crimplesham really as old as that?” said Lord Peter. “Dear +me! He must be very active for his years. A friend of mine was doing +business with him in town last week.” +“Wonderful active, sir,” agreed the waiter, “and with his game leg, +too, you’d be surprised. But there, sir, I often think when a man’s +once past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher he gets, and +women the same or more so.” +“Very likely,” said Lord Peter, calling up and dismissing the mental +picture of a gentleman of eighty with a game leg carrying a dead +body over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. “‘He’s tough, +sir, tough, is old Joey Bagstock, tough and devilish sly,’” he added, +thoughtlessly. +“Indeed, sir?” said the waiter. “I couldn’t say, I’m sure.” +“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Peter; “I was quoting poetry. Very silly +of me. I got the habit at my mother’s knee and I can’t break myself of +it.” +“No, sir,” said the waiter, pocketing a liberal tip. “Thank you +very much, sir. You’ll find the house easy. Just afore you come to +Penny-farthing Street, sir, about two turnings off, on the right-hand +side opposite.” +“Afraid that disposes of Crimplesham-X,” said Lord Peter. “I’m rather +sorry; he was a fine sinister figure as I had pictured him. Still, his +may yet be the brain behind the hands—the aged spider sitting invisible +in the centre of the vibrating web, you know, Bunter.” +“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter. They were walking up the street together. +“There is the office over the way,” pursued Lord Peter. “I think, +Bunter, you might step into this little shop and purchase a sporting +paper, and if I do not emerge from the villain’s lair—say within +three-quarters of an hour, you may take such steps as your perspicuity +may suggest.” +Mr. Bunter turned into the shop as desired, and Lord Peter walked +across and rang the lawyer’s bell with decision. +“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is my long suit +here, I fancy,” he murmured, and when the door was opened by a clerk he +delivered over his card with an unflinching air. +He was ushered immediately into a confidential-looking office, +obviously furnished in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and +never altered since. A lean, frail-looking old gentleman rose briskly +from his chair as he entered and limped forward to meet him. +“My dear sir,” exclaimed the lawyer, “how extremely good of you to come +in person! Indeed, I am ashamed to have given you so much trouble. I +trust you were passing this way, and that my glasses have not put you +to any great inconvenience. Pray take a seat, Lord Peter.” He peered +gratefully at the young man over a pince-nez obviously the fellow of +that now adorning a dossier in Scotland Yard. +Lord Peter sat down. The lawyer sat down. Lord Peter picked up a glass +paper-weight from the desk and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. +Subconsciously he noted what an admirable set of finger-prints he was +leaving upon it. He replaced it with precision on the exact centre of +a pile of letters. +“It’s quite all right,” said Lord Peter. “I was here on business. Very +happy to be of service to you. Very awkward to lose one’s glasses, Mr. +Crimplesham.” +“Yes,” said the lawyer, “I assure you I feel quite lost without them. +I have this pair, but they do not fit my nose so well—besides, that +chain has a great sentimental value for me. I was terribly distressed +on arriving at Balham to find that I had lost them. I made inquiries of +the railway, but to no purpose. I feared they had been stolen. There +were such crowds at Victoria, and the carriage was packed with people +all the way to Balham. Did you come across them in the train?” +“Well, no,” said Lord Peter, “I found them in rather an unexpected +place. Do you mind telling me if you recognized any of your +fellow-travellers on that occasion?” +The lawyer stared at him. +“Not a soul,” he answered. “Why do you ask?” +“Well,” said Lord Peter, “I thought perhaps the—the person with whom I +found them might have taken them for a joke.” +The lawyer looked puzzled. +“Did the person claim to be an acquaintance of mine?” he inquired. “I +know practically nobody in London, except the friend with whom I was +staying in Balham, Dr. Philpots, and I should be very greatly surprised +at his practising a jest upon me. He knew very well how distressed I +was at the loss of the glasses. My business was to attend a meeting +of shareholders in Medlicott’s Bank, but the other gentlemen present +were all personally unknown to me, and I cannot think that any of them +would take so great a liberty. In any case,” he added, “as the glasses +are here, I will not inquire too closely into the manner of their +restoration. I am deeply obliged to you for your trouble.” +Lord Peter hesitated. +“Pray forgive my seeming inquisitiveness,” he said, “but I must ask you +another question. It sounds rather melodramatic, I’m afraid, but it’s +this. Are you aware that you have any enemy—anyone, I mean, who would +profit by your—er—decease or disgrace?” +Mr. Crimplesham sat frozen into stony surprise and disapproval. +“May I ask the meaning of this extraordinary question?” he inquired +stiffly. +“Well,” said Lord Peter, “the circumstances are a little unusual. You +may recollect that my advertisement was addressed to the jeweller who +sold the chain.” +“That surprised me at the time,” said Mr. Crimplesham, “but I begin to +think your advertisement and your behaviour are all of a piece.” +“They are,” said Lord Peter. “As a matter of fact I did not expect +the owner of the glasses to answer my advertisement. Mr. Crimplesham, +you have no doubt read what the papers have to say about the Battersea +Park mystery. Your glasses are the pair that was found on the body, and +they are now in the possession of the police at Scotland Yard, as you +may see by this.” He placed the specification of the glasses and the +official note before Crimplesham. +“Good God!” exclaimed the lawyer. He glanced at the paper, and then +looked narrowly at Lord Peter. +“Are you yourself connected with the police?” he inquired. +“Not officially,” said Lord Peter. “I am investigating the matter +privately, in the interests of one of the parties.” +Mr. Crimplesham rose to his feet. +“My good man,” he said, “this is a very impudent attempt, but blackmail +is an indictable offence, and I advise you to leave my office before +you commit yourself.” He rang the bell. +“I was afraid you’d take it like that,” said Lord Peter. “It looks as +though this ought to have been my friend Detective Parker’s job, after +all.” He laid Parker’s card on the table beside the specification, and +added: “If you should wish to see me again, Mr. Crimplesham, before +tomorrow morning, you will find me at the Minster Hotel.” +Mr. Crimplesham disdained to reply further than to direct the clerk who +entered to “show this person out.” +* * * * * +In the entrance Lord Peter brushed against a tall young man who was +just coming in, and who stared at him with surprised recognition. +His face, however, aroused no memories in Lord Peter’s mind, and that +baffled nobleman, calling out Bunter from the newspaper shop, departed +to his hotel to get a trunk-call through to Parker. +* * * * * +Meanwhile, in the office, the meditations of the indignant Mr. +Crimplesham were interrupted by the entrance of his junior partner. +“I say,” said the latter gentleman, “has somebody done something really +wicked at last? Whatever brings such a distinguished amateur of crime +on our sober doorstep?” +“I have been the victim of a vulgar attempt at blackmail,” said the +lawyer; “an individual passing himself off as Lord Peter Wimsey—” +“But that _is_ Lord Peter Wimsey,” said Mr. Wicks, “there’s no +mistaking him. I saw him give evidence in the Attenbury emerald case. +He’s a big little pot in his way, you know, and goes fishing with the +head of Scotland Yard.” +“Oh, dear,” said Mr. Crimplesham. +* * * * * +Fate arranged that the nerves of Mr. Crimplesham should be tried that +afternoon. When, escorted by Mr. Wicks, he arrived at the Minster +Hotel, he was informed by the porter that Lord Peter Wimsey had +strolled out, mentioning that he thought of attending Evensong. “But +his man is here, sir,” he added, “if you’d like to leave a message.” +Mr. Wicks thought that on the whole it would be well to leave a +message. Mr. Bunter, on inquiry, was found to be sitting by the +telephone, waiting for a trunk-call. As Mr. Wicks addressed him the +bell rang, and Mr. Bunter, politely excusing himself, took down the +receiver. +“Hullo!” he said. “Is that Mr. Parker? Oh, thanks! Exchange! Exchange! +Sorry, can you put me through to Scotland Yard? Excuse me, gentlemen, +keeping you waiting.—Exchange! all right—Scotland Yard—Hullo! Is that +Scotland Yard?—Is Detective Parker round there?—Can I speak to him?—I +shall have done in a moment, gentlemen.—Hullo! is that you, Mr. Parker? +Lord Peter would be much obliged if you could find it convenient to +step down to Salisbury, sir. Oh, no, sir, he’s in excellent health, +sir—just stepped round to hear Evensong, sir—oh, no, I think tomorrow +morning would do excellently, sir, thank you, sir.” +CHAPTER VI +It was, in fact, inconvenient for Mr. Parker to leave London. He +had had to go and see Lady Levy towards the end of the morning, and +subsequently his plans for the day had been thrown out of gear and his +movements delayed by the discovery that the adjourned inquest of Mr. +Thipps’s unknown visitor was to be held that afternoon, since nothing +very definite seemed forthcoming from Inspector Sugg’s inquiries. Jury +and witnesses had been convened accordingly for three o’clock. Mr. +Parker might altogether have missed the event, had he not run against +Sugg that morning at the Yard and extracted the information from him +as one would a reluctant tooth. Inspector Sugg, indeed, considered Mr. +Parker rather interfering; moreover, he was hand-in-glove with Lord +Peter Wimsey, and Inspector Sugg had no words for the interferingness +of Lord Peter. He could not, however, when directly questioned, deny +that there was to be an inquest that afternoon, nor could he prevent +Mr. Parker from enjoying the inalienable right of any interested +British citizen to be present. At a little before three, therefore, Mr. +Parker was in his place, and amusing himself with watching the efforts +of those persons who arrived after the room was packed to insinuate, +bribe or bully themselves into a position of vantage. The Coroner, +a medical man of precise habits and unimaginative aspect, arrived +punctually, and looking peevishly round at the crowded assembly, +directed all the windows to be opened, thus letting in a stream of +drizzling fog upon the heads of the unfortunates on that side of the +room. This caused a commotion and some expressions of disapproval, +checked sternly by the Coroner, who said that with the influenza about +again an unventilated room was a death-trap; that anybody who chose to +object to open windows had the obvious remedy of leaving the court, and +further, that if any disturbance was made he would clear the court. +He then took a Formamint lozenge, and proceeded, after the usual +preliminaries, to call up fourteen good and lawful persons and swear +them diligently to inquire and a true presentment make of all matters +touching the death of the gentleman with the pince-nez and to give +a true verdict according to the evidence, so help them God. When an +expostulation by a woman juror—an elderly lady in spectacles who kept a +sweet-shop, and appeared to wish she was back there—had been summarily +quashed by the Coroner, the jury departed to view the body. Mr. Parker +gazed round again and identified the unhappy Mr. Thipps and the girl +Gladys led into an adjoining room under the grim guard of the police. +They were soon followed by a gaunt old lady in a bonnet and mantle. +With her, in a wonderful fur coat and a motor bonnet of fascinating +construction, came the Dowager Duchess of Denver, her quick, dark +eyes darting hither and thither about the crowd. The next moment they +had lighted on Mr. Parker, who had several times visited the Dower +House, and she nodded to him, and spoke to a policeman. Before long, +a way opened magically through the press, and Mr. Parker found himself +accommodated with a front seat just behind the Duchess, who greeted him +charmingly, and said: “What’s happened to poor Peter?” Parker began to +explain, and the Coroner glanced irritably in their direction. Somebody +went up and whispered in his ear, at which he coughed, and took another +Formamint. +“We came up by car,” said the Duchess—“so tiresome—such bad roads +between Denver and Gunbury St. Walters—and there were people coming +to lunch—I had to put them off—I couldn’t let the old lady go alone, +could I? By the way, such an odd thing’s happened about the Church +Restoration Fund—the Vicar—oh, dear, here are these people coming +back again; well, I’ll tell you afterwards—do look at that woman +looking shocked, and the girl in tweeds trying to look as if she sat +on undraped gentlemen every day of her life—I don’t mean that—corpses +of course—but one finds oneself being so Elizabethan nowadays—what +an awful little man the coroner is, isn’t he? He’s looking daggers at +me—do you think he’ll dare to clear me out of the court or commit me +for what-you-may-call-it?” +The first part of the evidence was not of great interest to Mr. Parker. +The wretched Mr. Thipps, who had caught cold in gaol, deposed in an +unhappy croak to having discovered the body when he went in to take his +bath at eight o’clock. He had had such a shock, he had to sit down and +send the girl for brandy. He had never seen the deceased before. He had +no idea how he came there. +Yes, he had been in Manchester the day before. He had arrived at St. +Pancras at ten o’clock. He had cloak-roomed his bag. At this point Mr. +Thipps became very red, unhappy and confused, and glanced nervously +about the court. +“Now, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner, briskly, “we must have your +movements quite clear. You must appreciate the importance of the +matter. You have chosen to give evidence, which you need not have done, +but having done so, you will find it best to be perfectly explicit.” +“Yes,” said Mr. Thipps faintly. +“Have you cautioned this witness, officer?” inquired the Coroner, +turning sharply to Inspector Sugg. +The Inspector replied that he had told Mr. Thipps that anything he said +might be used agin’ him at his trial. Mr. Thipps became ashy, and said +in a bleating voice that he ’adn’t—hadn’t meant to do anything that +wasn’t right. +This remark produced a mild sensation, and the Coroner became even more +acidulated in manner than before. +“Is anybody representing Mr. Thipps?” he asked, irritably. “No? Did you +not explain to him that he could—that he _ought_ to be represented? You +did not? Really, Inspector! Did you not know, Mr. Thipps, that you had +a right to be legally represented?” +Mr. Thipps clung to a chair-back for support, and said, “No,” in a +voice barely audible. +“It is incredible,” said the Coroner, “that so-called educated people +should be so ignorant of the legal procedure of their own country. This +places us in a very awkward position. I doubt, Inspector, whether I +should permit the prisoner—Mr. Thipps—to give evidence at all. It is a +delicate position.” +The perspiration stood on Mrs. Thipps’s forehead. +“Save us from our friends,” whispered the Duchess to Parker. “If that +cough-drop-devouring creature had openly instructed those fourteen +people—and what unfinished-looking faces they have—so characteristic, I +always think, of the lower middle-class, rather like sheep, or calves’ +head (boiled, I mean), to bring in wilful murder against the poor +little man, he couldn’t have made himself plainer.” +“He can’t let him incriminate himself, you know,” said Parker. +“Stuff!” said the Duchess. “How could the man incriminate himself when +he never did anything in his life? You men never think of anything but +your red tape.” +Meanwhile Mr. Thipps, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, had summoned +up courage. He stood up with a kind of weak dignity, like a small white +rabbit brought to bay. +“I would rather tell you,” he said, “though it’s reelly very unpleasant +for a man in my position. But I reelly couldn’t have it thought for a +moment that I’d committed this dreadful crime. I assure you, gentlemen, +I _couldn’t bear_ that. No. I’d rather tell you the truth, though I’m +afraid it places me in rather a—well, I’ll tell you.” +“You fully understand the gravity of making such a statement, Mr. +Thipps,” said the Coroner. +“Quite,” said Mr. Thipps. “It’s all right—I—might I have a drink of +water?” +“Take your time,” said the Coroner, at the same time robbing his remark +of all conviction by an impatient glance at his watch. +“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Thipps. “Well, then, it’s true I got to St. +Pancras at ten. But there was a man in the carriage with me. He’d got +in at Leicester. I didn’t recognise him at first, but he turned out to +be an old school-fellow of mine.” +“What was this gentleman’s name?” inquired the Coroner, his pencil +poised. +Mr. Thipps shrank together visibly. +“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” he said. “You see—that is, you +_will_ see—it would get him into trouble, and I couldn’t do that—no, I +reelly couldn’t do that, not if my life depended on it. No!” he added, +as the ominous pertinence of the last phrase smote upon him, “I’m sure +I couldn’t do that.” +“Well, well,” said the Coroner. +The Duchess leaned over to Parker again. “I’m beginning quite to admire +the little man,” she said. +Mr. Thipps resumed. +“When we got to St. Pancras I was going home, but my friend said no. +We hadn’t met for a long time and we ought to—to make a night of it, +was his expression. I fear I was weak, and let him overpersuade me to +accompany him to one of his haunts. I use the word advisedly,” said Mr. +Thipps, “and I assure you, sir, that if I had known beforehand where we +were going I never would have set foot in the place. +“I cloak-roomed my bag, for he did not like the notion of our being +encumbered with it, and we got into a taxicab and drove to the corner +of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. We then walked a little way, +and turned into a side street (I do not recollect which) where there +was an open door, with the light shining out. There was a man at a +counter, and my friend bought some tickets, and I heard the man at the +counter say something to him about ‘Your friend,’ meaning me, and my +friend said, ‘Oh, yes, he’s been here before, haven’t you, Alf?’ (which +was what they called me at school), though I assure you, sir”—here Mr. +Thipps grew very earnest—“I never had, and nothing in the world should +induce me to go to such a place again. +“Well, we went down into a room underneath, where there were drinks, +and my friend had several, and made me take one or two—though I am an +abstemious man as a rule—and he talked to some other men and girls +who were there—a very vulgar set of people, I thought them, though +I wouldn’t say but what some of the young ladies were nice-looking +enough. One of them sat on my friend’s knee and called him a slow old +thing, and told him to come on—so we went into another room, where +there were a lot of people dancing all these up-to-date dances. My +friend went and danced, and I sat on a sofa. One of the young ladies +came up to me and said, didn’t I dance, and I said ‘No,’ so she said +wouldn’t I stand her a drink then. ‘You’ll stand us a drink then, +darling,’ that was what she said, and I said, ‘Wasn’t it after hours?’ +and she said that didn’t matter. So I ordered the drink—a gin and +bitters it was—for I didn’t like not to, the young lady seemed to +expect it of me and I felt it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to refuse when +she asked. But it went against my conscience—such a young girl as +she was—and she put her arm round my neck afterwards and kissed me +just like as if she was paying for the drink—and it reelly went to +my ’eart,” said Mr. Thipps, a little ambiguously, but with uncommon +emphasis. +Here somebody at the back said, “Cheer-oh!” and a sound was heard as of +the noisy smacking of lips. +“Remove the person who made that improper noise,” said the Coroner, +with great indignation. “Go on, please, Mr. Thipps.” +“Well,” said Mr. Thipps, “about half-past twelve, as I should reckon, +things began to get a bit lively, and I was looking for my friend to +say good-night, not wishing to stay longer, as you will understand, +when I saw him with one of the young ladies, and they seemed to be +getting on altogether too well, if you follow me, my friend pulling the +ribbons off her shoulder and the young lady laughing—and so on,” said +Mr. Thipps, hurriedly, “so I thought I’d just slip quietly out, when I +heard a scuffle and a shout—and before I knew what was happening there +were half-a-dozen policemen in, and the lights went out, and everybody +stampeding and shouting—quite horrid, it was. I was knocked down in +the rush, and hit my head a nasty knock on a chair—that was where I got +that bruise they asked me about—and I was dreadfully afraid I’d never +get away and it would all come out, and perhaps my photograph in the +papers, when someone caught hold of me—I think it was the young lady +I’d given the gin and bitters to—and she said, ‘This way,’ and pushed +me along a passage and out at the back somewhere. So I ran through some +streets, and found myself in Goodge Street, and there I got a taxi and +came home. I saw the account of the raid afterwards in the papers, and +saw my friend had escaped, and so, as it wasn’t the sort of thing I +wanted made public, and I didn’t want to get him into difficulties, I +just said nothing. But that’s the truth.” +“Well, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner, “we shall be able to substantiate +a certain amount of this story. Your friend’s name—” +“No,” said Mr. Thipps, stoutly, “not on any account.” +“Very good,” said the Coroner. “Now, can you tell us what time you did +get in?” +“About half-past one, I should think. Though reelly, I was so upset—” +“Quite so. Did you go straight to bed?” +“Yes, I took my sandwich and glass of milk first. I thought it might +settle my inside, so to speak,” added the witness, apologetically, “not +being accustomed to alcohol so late at night and on an empty stomach, +as you may say.” +“Quite so. Nobody sat up for you?” +“Nobody.” +“How long did you take getting to bed first and last?” +Mr. Thipps thought it might have been half-an-hour. +“Did you visit the bathroom before turning in?” +“No.” +“And you heard nothing in the night?” +“No. I fell fast asleep. I was rather agitated, so I took a little dose +to make me sleep, and what with being so tired and the milk and the +dose, I just tumbled right off and didn’t wake till Gladys called me.” +Further questioning elicited little from Mr. Thipps. Yes, the bathroom +window had been open when he went in in the morning, he was sure of +that, and he had spoken very sharply to the girl about it. He was ready +to answer any questions; he would be only too ’appy—happy to have this +dreadful affair sifted to the bottom. +Gladys Horrocks stated that she had been in Mr. Thipps’s employment +about three months. Her previous employers would speak to her +character. It was her duty to make the round of the flat at night, when +she had seen Mrs. Thipps to bed at ten. Yes, she remembered doing so on +Monday evening. She had looked into all the rooms. Did she recollect +shutting the bathroom window that night? Well, no, she couldn’t swear +to it, not in particular, but when Mr. Thipps called her into the +bathroom in the morning it certainly _was_ open. She had not been into +the bathroom before Mr. Thipps went in. Well, yes, it had happened that +she had left that window open before, when anyone had been ’aving a +bath in the evening and ’ad left the blind down. Mrs. Thipps ’ad ’ad a +bath on Monday evening, Mondays was one of her regular bath nights. She +was very much afraid she ’adn’t shut the window on Monday night, though +she wished her ’ead ’ad been cut off afore she’d been so forgetful. +Here the witness burst into tears and was given some water, while the +Coroner refreshed himself with a third lozenge. +Recovering, witness stated that she had certainly looked into all the +rooms before going to bed. No, it was quite impossible for a body +to be ’idden in the flat without her seeing of it. She ’ad been in +the kitchen all evening, and there wasn’t ’ardly room to keep the +best dinner service there, let alone a body. Old Mrs. Thipps sat in +the drawing-room. Yes, she was sure she’d been into the dining-room. +How? Because she put Mr. Thipps’s milk and sandwiches there ready +for him. There had been nothing in there—that she could swear to. Nor +yet in her own bedroom, nor in the ’all. Had she searched the bedroom +cupboard and the box-room? Well, no, not to say searched; she wasn’t +use to searchin’ people’s ’ouses for skelintons every night. So that +a man might have concealed himself in the box-room or a wardrobe? She +supposed he might. +In reply to a woman juror—well, yes, she was walking out with a young +man. Williams was his name, Bill Williams,—well, yes, William Williams, +if they insisted. He was a glazier by profession. Well, yes, he ’ad +been in the flat sometimes. Well, she supposed you might say he was +acquainted with the flat. Had she ever—no, she ’adn’t, and if she’d +thought such a question was going to be put to a respectable girl she +wouldn’t ’ave offered to give evidence. The vicar of St. Mary’s would +speak to her character and to Mr. Williams’s. Last time Mr. Williams +was at the flat was a fortnight ago. +Well, no, it wasn’t exactly the last time she ’ad seen Mr. Williams. +Well, yes, the last time was Monday—well, yes, Monday night. Well, +if she must tell the truth, she must. Yes, the officer had cautioned +her, but there wasn’t any ’arm in it, and it was better to lose her +place than to be ’ung, though it was a cruel shame a girl couldn’t +’ave a bit of fun without a nasty corpse comin’ in through the window +to get ’er into difficulties. After she ’ad put Mrs. Thipps to bed, +she ’ad slipped out to go to the Plumbers’ and Glaziers’ Ball at the +“Black Faced Ram.” Mr. Williams ’ad met ’er and brought ’er back. ’E +could testify to where she’d been and that there wasn’t no ’arm in it. +She’d left before the end of the ball. It might ’ave been two o’clock +when she got back. She’d got the keys of the flat from Mrs. Thipps’s +drawer when Mrs. Thipps wasn’t looking. She ’ad asked leave to go, but +couldn’t get it, along of Mr. Thipps bein’ away that night. She was +bitterly sorry she ’ad be’aved so, and she was sure she’d been punished +for it. She had ’eard nothing suspicious when she came in. She had gone +straight to bed without looking round the flat. She wished she were +dead. +No, Mr. and Mrs. Thipps didn’t ’ardly ever ’ave any visitors; they kep’ +themselves very retired. She had found the outside door bolted that +morning as usual. She wouldn’t never believe any ’arm of Mr. Thipps. +Thank you, Miss Horrocks. Call Georgiana Thipps, and the Coroner +thought we had better light the gas. +The examination of Mrs. Thipps provided more entertainment than +enlightenment, affording as it did an excellent example of the game +called “cross questions and crooked answers.” After fifteen minutes’ +suffering, both in voice and temper, the Coroner abandoned the +struggle, leaving the lady with the last word. +“You needn’t try to bully me, young man,” said that octogenarian with +spirit, “settin’ there spoilin’ your stomach with them nasty jujubes.” +At this point a young man arose in court and demanded to give evidence. +Having explained that he was William Williams, glazier, he was sworn, +and corroborated the evidence of Gladys Horrocks in the matter of +her presence at the “Black Faced Ram” on the Monday night. They had +returned to the flat rather before two, he thought, but certainly later +than 1.30. He was sorry that he had persuaded Miss Horrocks to come out +with him when she didn’t ought. He had observed nothing of a suspicious +nature in Prince of Wales Road at either visit. +Inspector Sugg gave evidence of having been called in at about +half-past eight on Monday morning. He had considered the girl’s manner +to be suspicious and had arrested her. On later information, leading +him to suspect that the deceased might have been murdered that night, +he had arrested Mr. Thipps. He had found no trace of breaking into +the flat. There were marks on the bathroom window-sill which pointed +to somebody having got in that way. There were no ladder marks or +footmarks in the yard; the yard was paved with asphalt. He had examined +the roof, but found nothing on the roof. In his opinion the body had +been brought into the flat previously and concealed till the evening by +someone who had then gone out during the night by the bathroom window, +with the connivance of the girl. In that case, why should not the +girl have let the person out by the door? Well, it might have been so. +Had he found traces of a body or a man or both having been hidden in +the flat? He found nothing to show that they might _not_ have been so +concealed. What was the evidence that led him to suppose that the death +had occurred that night? +At this point Inspector Sugg appeared uneasy, and endeavoured to retire +upon his professional dignity. On being pressed, however, he admitted +that the evidence in question had come to nothing. +_One of the jurors_: Was it the case that any finger-marks had been +left by the criminal? +Some marks had been found on the bath, but the criminal had worn gloves. +_The Coroner_: Do you draw any conclusion from this fact as to the +experience of the criminal? +_Inspector Sugg_: Looks as if he was an old hand, sir. +_The Juror_: Is that very consistent with the charge against Alfred +Thipps, Inspector? +The Inspector was silent. +_The Coroner_: In the light of the evidence which you have just +heard, do you still press the charge against Alfred Thipps and Gladys +Horrocks? +_Inspector Sugg_: I consider the whole set-out highly suspicious. +Thipps’s story isn’t corroborated, and as for the girl Horrocks, how do +we know this Williams ain’t in it as well? +_William Williams_: Now, you drop that. I can bring a ’undred witnesses— +_The Coroner_: Silence, if you please. I am surprised, Inspector, that +you should make this suggestion in that manner. It is highly improper. +By the way, can you tell us whether a police raid was actually carried +out on the Monday night on any Night Club in the neighbourhood of St. +Giles’s Circus? +_Inspector Sugg_ (sulkily): I believe there was something of the sort. +_The Coroner_: You will, no doubt, inquire into the matter. I seem to +recollect having seen some mention of it in the newspapers. Thank you, +Inspector, that will do. +Several witnesses having appeared and testified to the characters of +Mr. Thipps and Gladys Horrocks, the Coroner stated his intention of +proceeding to the medical evidence. +“Sir Julian Freke.” +There was considerable stir in the court as the great specialist +walked up to give evidence. He was not only a distinguished man, +but a striking figure, with his wide shoulders, upright carriage and +leonine head. His manner as he kissed the Book presented to him with +the usual deprecatory mumble by the Coroner’s officer, was that of a +St. Paul condescending to humour the timid mumbo-jumbo of superstitious +Corinthians. +“So handsome, I always think,” whispered the Duchess to Mr. Parker; +“just exactly like William Morris, with that bush of hair and beard +and those exciting eyes looking out of it—so splendid, these dear men +always devoted to something or other—not but what I think socialism is +a mistake—of course it works with all those nice people, so good and +happy in art linen and the weather always perfect—Morris, I mean, you +know—but so difficult in real life. Science is different—I’m sure if I +had nerves I should go to Sir Julian just to look at him—eyes like that +give one something to think about, and that’s what most of these people +want, only I never had any—nerves, I mean. Don’t you think so?” +“You are Sir Julian Freke,” said the Coroner, “and live at St. Luke’s +House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea, where you exercise a general +direction over the surgical side of St. Luke’s Hospital?” +Sir Julian assented briefly to this definition of his personality. +“You were the first medical man to see the deceased?” +“I was.” +“And you have since conducted an examination in collaboration with Dr. +Grimbold of Scotland Yard?” +“I have.” +“You are in agreement as to the cause of death?” +“Generally speaking, yes.” +“Will you communicate your impressions to the Jury?” +“I was engaged in research work in the dissecting room at St. Luke’s +Hospital at about nine o’clock on Monday morning, when I was informed +that Inspector Sugg wished to see me. He told me that the dead body of +a man had been discovered under mysterious circumstances at 59 Queen +Caroline Mansions. He asked me whether it could be supposed to be a +joke perpetrated by any of the medical students at the hospital. I was +able to assure him, by an examination of the hospital’s books, that +there was no subject missing from the dissecting room.” +“Who would be in charge of such bodies?” +“William Watts, the dissecting-room attendant.” +“Is William Watts present?” inquired the Coroner of the officer. +William Watts was present, and could be called if the Coroner thought +it necessary. +“I suppose no dead body would be delivered to the hospital without your +knowledge, Sir Julian?” +“Certainly not.” +“Thank you. Will you proceed with your statement?” +“Inspector Sugg then asked me whether I would send a medical man round +to view the body. I said that I would go myself.” +“Why did you do that?” +“I confess to my share of ordinary human curiosity, Mr. Coroner.” +Laughter from a medical student at the back of the room. +“On arriving at the flat I found the deceased lying on his back in +the bath. I examined him, and came to the conclusion that death had +been caused by a blow on the back of the neck, dislocating the fourth +and fifth cervical vertebrae, bruising the spinal cord and producing +internal haemorrhage and partial paralysis of the brain. I judged the +deceased to have been dead at least twelve hours, possibly more. I +observed no other sign of violence of any kind upon the body. Deceased +was a strong, well-nourished man of about fifty to fifty-five years of +age.” +“In your opinion, could the blow have been self-inflicted?” +“Certainly not. It had been made with a heavy, blunt instrument +from behind, with great force and considerable judgment. It is quite +impossible that it was self-inflicted.” +“Could it have been the result of an accident?” +“That is possible, of course.” +“If, for example, the deceased had been looking out of the window, and +the sash had shut violently down upon him?” +“No; in that case there would have been signs of strangulation and a +bruise upon the throat as well.” +“But deceased might have been killed through a heavy weight +accidentally falling upon him?” +“He might.” +“Was death instantaneous, in your opinion?” +“It is difficult to say. Such a blow might very well cause death +instantaneously, or the patient might linger in a partially paralyzed +condition for some time. In the present case I should be disposed +to think that deceased might have lingered for some hours. I base my +decision upon the condition of the brain revealed at the autopsy. I may +say, however, that Dr. Grimbold and I are not in complete agreement on +the point.” +“I understand that a suggestion has been made as to the identification +of the deceased. _You_ are not in a position to identify him?” +“Certainly not. I never saw him before. The suggestion to which you +refer is a preposterous one, and ought never to have been made. I was +not aware until this morning that it had been made; had it been made to +me earlier, I should have known how to deal with it, and I should like +to express my strong disapproval of the unnecessary shock and distress +inflicted upon a lady with whom I have the honour to be acquainted.” +_The Coroner_: It was not my fault, Sir Julian; I had nothing to +do with it; I agree with you that it was unfortunate you were not +consulted. +The reporters scribbled busily, and the court asked each other what was +meant, while the jury tried to look as if they knew already. +“In the matter of the eyeglasses found upon the body, Sir Julian. Do +these give any indication to a medical man?” +“They are somewhat unusual lenses; an oculist would be able to speak +more definitely, but I will say for myself that I should have expected +them to belong to an older man than the deceased.” +“Speaking as a physician, who has had many opportunities of observing +the human body, did you gather anything from the appearance of the +deceased as to his personal habits?” +“I should say that he was a man in easy circumstances, but who had only +recently come into money. His teeth are in a bad state, and his hands +shows signs of recent manual labour.” +“An Australian colonist, for instance, who had made money?” +“Something of that sort; of course, I could not say positively.” +“Of course not. Thank you, Sir Julian.” +Dr. Grimbold, called, corroborated his distinguished colleague in every +particular, except that, in his opinion, death had not occurred for +several days after the blow. It was with the greatest hesitancy that he +ventured to differ from Sir Julian Freke, and he might be wrong. It was +difficult to tell in any case, and when he saw the body, deceased had +been dead at least twenty-four hours, in his opinion. +Inspector Sugg, recalled. Would he tell the jury what steps had been +taken to identify the deceased? +A description had been sent to every police station and had been +inserted in all the newspapers. In view of the suggestion made by Sir +Julian Freke, had inquiries been made at all the seaports? They had. +And with no results? With no results at all. No one had come forward +to identify the body? Plenty of people had come forward; but nobody +had succeeded in identifying it. Had any effort been made to follow +up the clue afforded by the eyeglasses? Inspector Sugg submitted that, +having regard to the interests of justice, he would beg to be excused +from answering that question. Might the jury see the eyeglasses? The +eyeglasses were handed to the jury. +William Watts, called, confirmed the evidence of Sir Julian Freke with +regard to dissecting-room subjects. He explained the system by which +they were entered. They usually were supplied by the workhouses and +free hospitals. They were under his sole charge. The young gentlemen +could not possibly get the keys. Had Sir Julian Freke, or any of the +house surgeons, the keys? No, not even Sir Julian Freke. The keys had +remained in his possession on Monday night? They had. And, in any case, +the inquiry was irrelevant, as there was no body missing, nor ever had +been? That was the case. +The Coroner then addressed the jury, reminding them with some +asperity that they were not there to gossip about who the deceased +could or could not have been, but to give their opinion as to the +cause of death. He reminded them that they should consider whether, +according to the medical evidence, death could have been accidental +or self-inflicted, or whether it was deliberate murder, or homicide. +If they considered the evidence on this point insufficient, they could +return an open verdict. In any case, their verdict could not prejudice +any person; if they brought it in “murder,” all the whole evidence +would have to be gone through again before the magistrate. He then +dismissed them, with the unspoken adjuration to be quick about it. +Sir Julian Freke, after giving his evidence, had caught the eye of the +Duchess, and now came over and greeted her. +“I haven’t seen you for an age,” said that lady. “How are you?” +“Hard at work,” said the specialist. “Just got my new book out. This +kind of thing wastes time. Have you seen Lady Levy yet?” +“No, poor dear,” said the Duchess. “I only came up this morning, for +this. Mrs. Thipps is staying with me—one of Peter’s eccentricities, +you know. Poor Christine! I must run round and see her. This is Mr. +Parker,” she added, “who is investigating that case.” +“Oh,” said Sir Julian, and paused. “Do you know,” he said in a low +voice to Parker, “I am very glad to meet you. Have you seen Lady Levy +yet?” +“I saw her this morning.” +“Did she ask you to go on with the inquiry?” +“Yes,” said Parker; “she thinks,” he added, “that Sir Reuben may be +detained in the hands of some financial rival or that perhaps some +scoundrels are holding him to ransom.” +“And is that _your_ opinion?” asked Sir Julian. +“I think it very likely,” said Parker, frankly. +Sir Julian hesitated again. +“I wish you would walk back with me when this is over,” he said. +“I should be delighted,” said Parker. +At this moment the jury returned and took their places, and there was a +little rustle and hush. The Coroner addressed the foreman and inquired +if they were agreed upon their verdict. +“We are agreed, Mr. Coroner, that deceased died of the effects of a +blow upon the spine, but how that injury was inflicted we consider that +there is not sufficient evidence to show.” +* * * * * +Mr. Parker and Sir Julian Freke walked up the road together. +“I had absolutely no idea until I saw Lady Levy this morning,” said the +doctor, “that there was any idea of connecting this matter with the +disappearance of Sir Reuben. The suggestion was perfectly monstrous, +and could only have grown up in the mind of that ridiculous police +officer. If I had had any idea what was in his mind I could have +disabused him and avoided all this.” +“I did my best to do so,” said Parker, “as soon as I was called in to +the Levy case—” +“Who called you in, if I may ask?” inquired Sir Julian. +“Well, the household first of all, and then Sir Reuben’s uncle, Mr. +Levy of Portman Square, wrote to me to go on with the investigation.” +“And now Lady Levy has confirmed those instructions?” +“Certainly,” said Parker in some surprise. +Sir Julian was silent for a little time. +“I’m afraid I was the first person to put the idea into Sugg’s head,” +said Parker, rather penitently. “When Sir Reuben disappeared, my first +step, almost, was to hunt up all the street accidents and suicides and +so on that had turned up during the day, and I went down to see this +Battersea Park body as a matter of routine. Of course, I saw that the +thing was ridiculous as soon as I got there, but Sugg froze on to the +idea—and it’s true there was a good deal of resemblance between the +dead man and the portraits I’ve seen of Sir Reuben.” +“A strong superficial likeness,” said Sir Julian. “The upper part of +the face is a not uncommon type, and as Sir Reuben wore a heavy beard +and there was no opportunity of comparing the mouths and chins, I can +understand the idea occurring to anybody. But only to be dismissed at +once. I am sorry,” he added, “as the whole matter has been painful to +Lady Levy. You may know, Mr. Parker, that I am an old, though I should +not call myself an intimate, friend of the Levys.” +“I understood something of the sort.” +“Yes. When I was a young man I—in short, Mr. Parker, I hoped once to +marry Lady Levy.” (Mr. Parker gave the usual sympathetic groan.) “I +have never married, as you know,” pursued Sir Julian. “We have remained +good friends. I have always done what I could to spare her pain.” +“Believe me, Sir Julian,” said Parker, “that I sympathize very much +with you and with Lady Levy, and that I did all I could to disabuse +Inspector Sugg of this notion. Unhappily, the coincidence of Sir +Reuben’s being seen that evening in the Battersea Park Road—” +“Ah, yes,” said Sir Julian. “Dear me, here we are at home. Perhaps +you would come in for a moment, Mr. Parker, and have tea or a +whisky-and-soda or something.” +Parker promptly accepted this invitation, feeling that there were other +things to be said. +The two men stepped into a square, finely furnished hall with a +fireplace on the same side as the door, and a staircase opposite. The +dining-room door stood open on their right, and as Sir Julian rang the +bell a man-servant appeared at the far end of the hall. +“What will you take?” asked the doctor. +“After that dreadfully cold place,” said Parker, “what I really want is +gallons of hot tea, if you, as a nerve specialist, can bear the thought +of it.” +“Provided you allow of a judicious blend of China in it,” replied +Sir Julian in the same tone, “I have no objection to make. Tea in the +library at once,” he added to the servant, and led the way upstairs. +“I don’t use the downstairs rooms much, except the dining-room,” he +explained as he ushered his guest into a small but cheerful library +on the first floor. “This room leads out of my bedroom and is more +convenient. I only live part of my time here, but it’s very handy for +my research work at the hospital. That’s what I do there, mostly. It’s +a fatal thing for a theorist, Mr. Parker, to let the practical work get +behindhand. Dissection is the basis of all good theory and all correct +diagnosis. One must keep one’s hand and eye in training. This place +is far more important to me than Harley Street, and some day I shall +abandon my consulting practice altogether and settle down here to cut +up my subjects and write my books in peace. So many things in this life +are a waste of time, Mr. Parker.” +Mr. Parker assented to this. +“Very often,” said Sir Julian, “the only time I get for any research +work—necessitating as it does the keenest observation and the faculties +at their acutest—has to be at night, after a long day’s work and by +artificial light, which, magnificent as the lighting of the dissecting +room here is, is always more trying to the eyes than daylight. +Doubtless your own work has to be carried on under even more trying +conditions.” +“Yes, sometimes,” said Parker; “but then you see,” he added, “the +conditions are, so to speak, part of the work.” +“Quite so, quite so,” said Sir Julian; “you mean that the burglar, for +example, does not demonstrate his methods in the light of day, or plant +the perfect footmark in the middle of a damp patch of sand for you to +analyze.” +“Not as a rule,” said the detective, “but I have no doubt many of your +diseases work quite as insidiously as any burglar.” +“They do, they do,” said Sir Julian, laughing, “and it is my pride, as +it is yours, to track them down for the good of society. The neuroses, +you know, are particularly clever criminals—they break out into as many +disguises as—” +“As Leon Kestrel, the Master-Mummer,” suggested Parker, who read +railway-stall detective stories on the principle of the ’busman’s +holiday. +“No doubt,” said Sir Julian, who did not, “and they cover up their +tracks wonderfully. But when you can really investigate, Mr. Parker, +and break up the dead, or for preference the living body with the +scalpel, you always find the footmarks—the little trail of ruin or +disorder left by madness or disease or drink or any other similar +pest. But the difficulty is to trace them back, merely by observing +the surface symptoms—the hysteria, crime, religion, fear, shyness, +conscience, or whatever it may be; just as you observe a theft or a +murder and look for the footsteps of the criminal, so I observe a fit +of hysterics or an outburst of piety and hunt for the little mechanical +irritation which has produced it.” +“You regard all these things as physical?” +“Undoubtedly. I am not ignorant of the rise of another school of +thought, Mr. Parker, but its exponents are mostly charlatans or +self-deceivers. ‘_Sie haben sich so weit darin eingeheimnisst_’ +that, like Sludge the Medium, they are beginning to believe their own +nonsense. I should like to have the exploring of some of their brains, +Mr. Parker; I would show you the little faults and landslips in the +cells—the misfiring and short-circuiting of the nerves, which produce +these notions and these books. At least,” he added, gazing sombrely at +his guest, “at least, if I could not quite show you today, I shall be +able to do so tomorrow—or in a year’s time—or before I die.” +He sat for some minutes gazing into the fire, while the red light +played upon his tawny beard and struck out answering gleams from his +compelling eyes. +Parker drank tea in silence, watching him. On the whole, however, he +remained but little interested in the causes of nervous phenomena and +his mind strayed to Lord Peter, coping with the redoubtable Crimplesham +down in Salisbury. Lord Peter had wanted him to come: that meant, +either that Crimplesham was proving recalcitrant or that a clue wanted +following. But Bunter had said that tomorrow would do, and it was just +as well. After all, the Battersea affair was not Parker’s case; he had +already wasted valuable time attending an inconclusive inquest, and he +really ought to get on with his legitimate work. There was still Levy’s +secretary to see and the little matter of the Peruvian Oil to be looked +into. He looked at his watch. +“I am very much afraid—if you will excuse me—” he murmured. +Sir Julian came back with a start to the consideration of actuality. +“Your work calls you?” he said, smiling. “Well, I can understand that. +I won’t keep you. But I wanted to say something to you in connection +with your present inquiry—only I hardly know—I hardly like—” +Parker sat down again, and banished every indication of hurry from his +face and attitude. +“I shall be very grateful for any help you can give me,” he said. +“I’m afraid it’s more in the nature of hindrance,” said Sir Julian, +with a short laugh. “It’s a case of destroying a clue for you, and a +breach of professional confidence on my side. But since—accidentally—a +certain amount has come out, perhaps the whole had better do so.” +Mr. Parker made the encouraging noise which, among laymen, supplies the +place of the priest’s insinuating, “Yes, my son?” +“Sir Reuben Levy’s visit on Monday night was to me,” said Sir Julian. +“Yes?” said Mr. Parker, without expression. +“He found cause for certain grave suspicions concerning his health,” +said Sir Julian, slowly, as though weighing how much he could in +honour disclose to a stranger. “He came to me, in preference to his +own medical man, as he was particularly anxious that the matter should +be kept from his wife. As I told you, he knew me fairly well, and Lady +Levy had consulted me about a nervous disorder in the summer.” +“Did he make an appointment with you?” asked Parker. +“I beg your pardon,” said the other, absently. +“Did he make an appointment?” +“An appointment? Oh, no! He turned up suddenly in the evening after +dinner when I wasn’t expecting him. I took him up here and examined +him, and he left me somewhere about ten o’clock, I should think.” +“May I ask what was the result of your examination?” +“Why do you want to know?” +“It might illuminate—well, conjecture as to his subsequent conduct,” +said Parker, cautiously. This story seemed to have little coherence +with the rest of the business, and he wondered whether coincidence was +alone responsible for Sir Reuben’s disappearance on the same night that +he visited the doctor. +“I see,” said Sir Julian. “Yes. Well, I will tell you in confidence +that I saw grave grounds of suspicion, but as yet, no absolute +certainty of mischief.” +“Thank you. Sir Reuben left you at ten o’clock?” +“Then or thereabouts. I did not at first mention the matter as it was +so very much Sir Reuben’s wish to keep his visit to me secret, and +there was no question of accident in the street or anything of that +kind, since he reached home safely at midnight.” +“Quite so,” said Parker. +“It would have been, and is, a breach of confidence,” said Sir Julian, +“and I only tell you now because Sir Reuben was accidentally seen, and +because I would rather tell you in private than have you ferretting +round here and questioning my servants, Mr. Parker. You will excuse my +frankness.” +“Certainly,” said Parker. “I hold no brief for the pleasantness of my +profession, Sir Julian. I am very much obliged to you for telling me +this. I might otherwise have wasted valuable time following up a false +trail.” +“I am sure I need not ask you, in your turn, to respect this +confidence,” said the doctor. “To publish the matter abroad could only +harm Sir Reuben and pain his wife, besides placing me in no favourable +light with my patients.” +“I promise to keep the thing to myself,” said Parker, “except of +course,” he added hastily, “that I must inform my colleague.” +“You have a colleague in the case?” +“I have.” +“What sort of person is he?” +“He will be perfectly discreet, Sir Julian.” +“Is he a police officer?” +“You need not be afraid of your confidence getting into the records at +Scotland Yard.” +“I see that you know how to be discreet, Mr. Parker.” +“We also have our professional etiquette, Sir Julian.” +* * * * * +On returning to Great Ormond Street, Mr. Parker found a wire awaiting +him, which said: “Do not trouble to come. All well. Returning tomorrow. +Wimsey.” +CHAPTER VII +On returning to the flat just before lunch-time on the following +morning, after a few confirmatory researches in Balham and the +neighbourhood of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at the +door by Mr. Bunter (who had gone straight home from Waterloo) with a +telephone message and a severe and nursemaid-like eye. +“Lady Swaffham rang up, my lord, and said she hoped your lordship had +not forgotten you were lunching with her.” +“I have forgotten, Bunter, and I mean to forget. I trust you told +her I had succumbed to lethargic encephalitis suddenly, no flowers by +request.” +“Lady Swaffham said, my lord, she was counting on you. She met the +Duchess of Denver yesterday—” +“If my sister-in-law’s there I won’t go, that’s flat,” said Lord Peter. +“I beg your pardon, my lord, the Dowager Duchess.” +“What’s she doing in town?” +“I imagine she came up for the inquest, my lord.” +“Oh, yes—we missed that, Bunter.” +“Yes, my lord. Her Grace is lunching with Lady Swaffham.” +“Bunter, I can’t. I can’t, really. Say I’m in bed with whooping cough, +and ask my mother to come round after lunch.” +“Very well, my lord. Mrs. Tommy Frayle will be at Lady Swaffham’s, my +lord, and Mr. Milligan—” +“Mr. who?” +“Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and—” +“Good God, Bunter, why didn’t you say so before? Have I time to get +there before he does? All right. I’m off. With a taxi I can just—” +“Not in those trousers, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, blocking the way to +the door with deferential firmness. +“Oh, Bunter,” pleaded his lordship, “do let me—just this once. You +don’t know how important it is.” +“Not on any account, my lord. It would be as much as my place is worth.” +“The trousers are all right, Bunter.” +“Not for Lady Swaffham’s, my lord. Besides, your lordship forgets the +man that ran against you with a milk-can at Salisbury.” +And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a slight stain of grease +showing across the light cloth. +“I wish to God I’d never let you grow into a privileged family +retainer, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, bitterly, dashing his walking-stick +into the umbrella-stand. “You’ve no conception of the mistakes my +mother may be making.” +Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim away. +When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered, rather late for lunch, into +Lady Swaffham’s drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver was seated +on a sofa, plunged in intimate conversation with Mr. John P. Milligan +of Chicago. +* * * * * +“I’m vurry pleased to meet you, Duchess,” had been that financier’s +opening remark, “to thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. I +assure you it’s a compliment I deeply appreciate.” +The Duchess beamed at him, while conducting a rapid rally of all her +intellectual forces. +“Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. Milligan,” she said. “I do +so love talking to you great business men—let me see, is it a railway +king you are or something about puss-in-the-corner—at least, I don’t +mean that exactly, but that game one used to play with cards, all +about wheat and oats, and there was a bull and a bear, too—or was it a +horse?—no, a bear, because I remember one always had to try and get rid +of it and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled and torn, poor thing, +always being handed about, one got to recognise it, and then one had to +buy a new pack—so foolish it must seem to you, knowing the real thing, +and dreadfully noisy, but really excellent for breaking the ice with +rather stiff people who didn’t know each other—I’m quite sorry it’s +gone out.” +Mr. Milligan sat down. +“Wal, now,” he said, “I guess it’s as interesting for us business men +to meet British aristocrats as it is for Britishers to meet American +railway kings, Duchess. And I guess I’ll make as many mistakes talking +your kind of talk as you would make if you were tryin’ to run a corner +in wheat in Chicago. Fancy now, I called that fine lad of yours Lord +Wimsey the other day, and he thought I’d mistaken him for his brother. +That made me feel rather green.” +This was an unhoped-for lead. The Duchess walked warily. +“Dear boy,” she said, “I am so glad you met him, Mr. Milligan. _Both_ +my sons are a _great_ comfort to me, you know, though, of course, +Gerald is more conventional—just the right kind of person for the House +of Lords, you know, and a splendid farmer. I can’t see Peter down at +Denver half so well, though he is always going to all the right things +in town, and very amusing sometimes, poor boy.” +“I was vurry much gratified by Lord Peter’s suggestion,” pursued +Mr. Milligan, “for which I understand you are responsible, and I’ll +surely be very pleased to come any day you like, though I think you’re +flattering me too much.” +“Ah, well,” said the Duchess, “I don’t know if you’re the best judge of +that, Mr. Milligan. Not that I know anything about business myself,” +she added. “I’m rather old-fashioned for these days, you know, and I +can’t pretend to do more than know a nice _man_ when I see him; for the +other things I rely on my son.” +The accent of this speech was so flattering that Mr. Milligan purred +almost audibly, and said: +“Wal, Duchess, I guess that’s where a lady with a real, beautiful, +old-fashioned soul has the advantage of these modern young +blatherskites—there aren’t many men who wouldn’t be nice—to her, and +even then, if they aren’t rock-bottom she can see through them.” +“But that leaves me where I was,” thought the Duchess. “I believe,” +she said aloud, “that I ought to be thanking you in the name of the +vicar of Duke’s Denver for a very munificent cheque which reached him +yesterday for the Church Restoration Fund. He was so delighted and +astonished, poor dear man.” +“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mr. Milligan, “we haven’t any fine old +crusted buildings like yours over on our side, so it’s a privilege to +be allowed to drop a little kerosene into the worm-holes when we hear +of one in the old country suffering from senile decay. So when your +lad told me about Duke’s Denver I took the liberty to subscribe without +waiting for the Bazaar.” +“I’m sure it was very kind of you,” said the Duchess. “You are coming +to the Bazaar, then?” she continued, gazing into his face appealingly. +“Sure thing,” said Mr. Milligan, with great promptness. “Lord Peter +said you’d let me know for sure about the date, but we can always make +time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of course I’m hoping to +be able to avail myself of your kind invitation to stop, but if I’m +rushed, I’ll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my piece and pop back +again.” +“I hope so very much,” said the Duchess. “I must see what can be done +about the date—of course, I can’t promise—” +“No, no,” said Mr. Milligan heartily. “I know what these things are to +fix up. And then there’s not only me—there’s all the real big men of +European eminence your son mentioned, to be consulted.” +The Duchess turned pale at the thought that any one of these +illustrious persons might some time turn up in somebody’s drawing-room, +but by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, and was even +beginning to find her range. +“I can’t say how grateful we are to you,” she said; “it will be such a +treat. Do tell me what you think of saying.” +“Wal—” began Mr. Milligan. +Suddenly everybody was standing up and a penitent voice was heard to +say: +“Really, most awfully sorry, y’know—hope you’ll forgive me, Lady +Swaffham, what? Dear lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from +you? Fact is, I had to go an’ see a man down in Salisbury—absolutely +true, ’pon my word, and the fellow wouldn’t let me get away. I’m simply +grovellin’ before you, Lady Swaffham. Shall I go an’ eat my lunch in +the corner?” +Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit. +“Your dear mother is here,” she said. +“How do, Mother?” said Lord Peter, uneasily. +“How are you, dear?” replied the Duchess. “You really oughtn’t to +have turned up just yet. Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what +a thrilling speech he’s preparing for the Bazaar, when you came and +interrupted us.” +Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, on the Battersea +inquest, the Duchess giving a vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps being +interrogated by the Coroner. +“‘Did you hear anything unusual in the night?’ says the little man, +leaning forward and screaming at her, and so crimson in the face +and his ears sticking out so—just like a cherubim in that poem of +Tennyson’s—or is a cherub blue?—perhaps it’s a seraphim I mean—anyway, +you know what I mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And +dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, ‘Of course I have, any time these eighty +years,’ and _such_ a sensation in court till they found out she thought +he’d said, ‘Do you sleep without a light?’ and everybody laughing, and +then the Coroner said quite loudly, ‘Damn the woman,’ and she heard +that, I can’t think why, and said: ‘Don’t you get swearing, young man, +sitting there in the presence of Providence, as you may say. I don’t +know what young people are coming to nowadays’—and he’s sixty if he’s +a day, you know,” said the Duchess. +* * * * * +By a natural transition, Mrs. Tommy Frayle referred to the man who was +hanged for murdering three brides in a bath. +“I always thought that was so ingenious,” she said, gazing soulfully +at Lord Peter, “and do you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made +me insure my life, and I got so frightened, I gave up my morning bath +and took to having it in the afternoon when he was in the House—I mean, +when he was _not_ in the house—not at home, I mean.” +“Dear lady,” said Lord Peter, reproachfully, “I have a distinct +recollection that all those brides were thoroughly unattractive. But +it was an uncommonly ingenious plan—the first time of askin’—only he +shouldn’t have repeated himself.” +“One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers,” +said Lady Swaffham. “Like dramatists, you know—so much easier in +Shakespeare’s time, wasn’t it? Always the same girl dressed up as +a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody. +I’m sure if I’d been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a +slim-legged young page-boy I’d have said: ‘Odsbodikins! There’s that +girl again!’” +“That’s just what happened, as a matter of fact,” said Lord Peter. “You +see, Lady Swaffham, if ever you want to commit a murder, the thing +you’ve got to do is to prevent people from associatin’ their ideas. +Most people don’t associate anythin’—their ideas just roll about like +so many dry peas on a tray, makin’ a lot of noise and goin’ nowhere, +but once you begin lettin’ ’em string their peas into a necklace, it’s +goin’ to be strong enough to hang you, what?” +“Dear me!” said Mrs. Tommy Frayle, with a little scream, “what a +blessing it is none of my friends have any ideas at all!” +“Y’see,” said Lord Peter, balancing a piece of duck on his fork and +frowning, “it’s only in Sherlock Holmes and stories like that, that +people think things out logically. Or’nar’ly, if somebody tells you +somethin’ out of the way, you just say, ‘By Jove!’ or ‘How sad!’ +an’ leave it at that, an’ half the time you forget about it, ’nless +somethin’ turns up afterwards to drive it home. F’r instance, Lady +Swaffham, I told you when I came in that I’d been down to Salisbury, +’n’ that’s true, only I don’t suppose it impressed you much; ’n’ I +don’t suppose it’d impress you much if you read in the paper tomorrow +of a tragic discovery of a dead lawyer down in Salisbury, but if I went +to Salisbury again next week ’n’ there was a Salisbury doctor found +dead the day after, you might begin to think I was a bird of ill omen +for Salisbury residents; and if I went there again the week after, +’n’ you heard next day that the see of Salisbury had fallen vacant +suddenly, you might begin to wonder what took me to Salisbury, an’ +why I’d never mentioned before that I had friends down there, don’t +you see, an’ you might think of goin’ down to Salisbury yourself, an’ +askin’ all kinds of people if they’d happened to see a young man in +plum-coloured socks hangin’ round the Bishop’s Palace.” +“I daresay I should,” said Lady Swaffham. +“Quite. An’ if you found that the lawyer and the doctor had once upon +a time been in business at Poggleton-on-the-Marsh when the Bishop +had been vicar there, you’d begin to remember you’d once heard of me +payin’ a visit to Poggleton-on-the-Marsh a long time ago, an’ you’d +begin to look up the parish registers there an’ discover I’d been +married under an assumed name by the vicar to the widow of a wealthy +farmer, who’d died suddenly of peritonitis, as certified by the doctor, +after the lawyer’d made a will leavin’ me all her money, and _then_ +you’d begin to think I might have very good reasons for gettin’ rid of +such promisin’ blackmailers as the lawyer, the doctor an’ the bishop. +Only, if I hadn’t started an association in your mind by gettin’ rid +of ’em all in the same place, you’d never have thought of goin’ to +Poggleton-on-the-Marsh, ’n’ you wouldn’t even have remembered I’d ever +been there.” +“_Were_ you ever there, Lord Peter?” inquired Mrs. Tommy, anxiously. +“I don’t think so,” said Lord Peter; “the name threads no beads in my +mind. But it might, any day, you know.” +“But if you were investigating a crime,” said Lady Swaffham, “you’d +have to begin by the usual things, I suppose—finding out what the +person had been doing, and who’d been to call, and looking for a +motive, wouldn’t you?” +“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter, “but most of us have such dozens of motives +for murderin’ all sorts of inoffensive people. There’s lots of people +I’d like to murder, wouldn’t you?” +“Heaps,” said Lady Swaffham. “There’s that dreadful—perhaps I’d better +not say it, though, for fear you should remember it later on.” +“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Peter, amiably. “You never know. +It’d be beastly awkward if the person died suddenly tomorrow.” +“The difficulty with this Battersea case, I guess,” said Mr. Milligan, +“is that nobody seems to have any associations with the gentleman in +the bath.” +“So hard on poor Inspector Sugg,” said the Duchess. “I quite felt for +the man, having to stand up there and answer a lot of questions when he +had nothing at all to say.” +Lord Peter applied himself to the duck, having got a little behindhand. +Presently he heard somebody ask the Duchess if she had seen Lady Levy. +“She is in great distress,” said the woman who had spoken, a Mrs. +Freemantle, “though she clings to the hope that he will turn up. I +suppose you knew him, Mr. Milligan—know him, I should say, for I hope +he’s still alive somewhere.” +Mrs. Freemantle was the wife of an eminent railway director, and +celebrated for her ignorance of the world of finance. Her _faux pas_ in +this connection enlivened the tea parties of City men’s wives. +“Wal, I’ve dined with him,” said Mr. Milligan, good-naturedly. “I think +he and I’ve done our best to ruin each other, Mrs. Freemantle. If this +were the States,” he added, “I’d be much inclined to suspect myself of +having put Sir Reuben in a safe place. But we can’t do business that +way in your old country; no, ma’am.” +“It must be exciting work doing business in America,” said Lord Peter. +“It is,” said Mr. Milligan. “I guess my brothers are having a good +time there now. I’ll be joining them again before long, as soon as I’ve +fixed up a little bit of work for them on this side.” +“Well, you mustn’t go till after my bazaar,” said the Duchess. +Lord Peter spent the afternoon in a vain hunt for Mr. Parker. He ran +him down eventually after dinner in Great Ormond Street. +Parker was sitting in an elderly but affectionate armchair, with his +feet on the mantelpiece, relaxing his mind with a modern commentary +on the Epistle to the Galatians. He received Lord Peter with quiet +pleasure, though without rapturous enthusiasm, and mixed him a +whisky-and-soda. Peter took up the book his friend had laid down and +glanced over the pages. +“All these men work with a bias in their minds, one way or other,” he +said; “they find what they are looking for.” +“Oh, they do,” agreed the detective; “but one learns to discount that +almost automatically, you know. When I was at college, I was all on +the other side—Conybeare and Robertson and Drews and those people, +you know, till I found they were all so busy looking for a burglar +whom nobody had ever seen, that they couldn’t recognise the footprints +of the household, so to speak. Then I spent two years learning to be +cautious.” +“Hum,” said Lord Peter, “theology must be good exercise for the brain +then, for you’re easily the most cautious devil I know. But I say, +do go on reading—it’s a shame for me to come and root you up in your +off-time like this.” +“It’s all right, old man,” said Parker. +The two men sat silent for a little, and then Lord Peter said: +“D’you like your job?” +The detective considered the question, and replied: +“Yes—yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and I am fitted to it. I do it +quite well—not with inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take +a pride in it. It is full of variety and it forces one to keep up to +the mark and not get slack. And there’s a future to it. Yes, I like it. +Why?” +“Oh, nothing,” said Peter. “It’s a hobby to me, you see. I took it up +when the bottom of things was rather knocked out for me, because it was +so damned exciting, and the worst of it is, I enjoy it—up to a point. +If it was all on paper I’d enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning +of a job—when one doesn’t know any of the people and it’s just exciting +and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and +getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there don’t seem as if +there was any excuse for me buttin’ in, since I don’t have to make my +livin’ by it. And I feel as if I oughtn’t ever to find it amusin’. But +I do.” +Parker gave this speech his careful attention. +“I see what you mean,” he said. +“There’s old Milligan, f’r instance,” said Lord Peter. “On paper, +nothin’ would be funnier than to catch old Milligan out. But he’s +rather a decent old bird to talk to. Mother likes him. He’s taken a +fancy to me. It’s awfully entertainin’ goin’ and pumpin’ him with stuff +about a bazaar for church expenses, but when he’s so jolly pleased +about it and that, I feel a worm. S’pose old Milligan has cut Levy’s +throat and plugged him into the Thames. It ain’t my business.” +“It’s as much yours as anybody’s,” said Parker; “it’s no better to do +it for money than to do it for nothing.” +“Yes, it is,” said Peter stubbornly. “Havin’ to live is the only excuse +there is for doin’ that kind of thing.” +“Well, but look here!” said Parker. “If Milligan has cut poor old +Levy’s throat for no reason except to make himself richer, I don’t see +why he should buy himself off by giving £1,000 to Duke’s Denver church +roof, or why he should be forgiven just because he’s childishly vain, +or childishly snobbish.” +“That’s a nasty one,” said Lord Peter. +“Well, if you like, even because he has taken a fancy to you.” +“No, but—” +“Look here, Wimsey—do you think he _has_ murdered Levy?” +“Well, he may have.” +“But do you think he has?” +“I don’t want to think so.” +“Because he has taken a fancy to you?” +“Well, that biases me, of course—” +“I daresay it’s quite a legitimate bias. You don’t think a callous +murderer would be likely to take a fancy to you?” +“Well—besides, I’ve taken rather a fancy to him.” +“I daresay that’s quite legitimate, too. You’ve observed him and made +a subconscious deduction from your observations, and the result is, you +don’t think he did it. Well, why not? You’re entitled to take that into +account.” +“But perhaps I’m wrong and he did do it.” +“Then why let your vainglorious conceit in your own power of estimating +character stand in the way of unmasking the singularly cold-blooded +murder of an innocent and lovable man?” +“I know—but I don’t feel I’m playing the game somehow.” +“Look here, Peter,” said the other with some earnestness, “suppose you +get this playing-fields-of-Eton complex out of your system once and +for all. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that something unpleasant +has happened to Sir Reuben Levy. Call it murder, to strengthen the +argument. If Sir Reuben has been murdered, is it a game? and is it fair +to treat it as a game?” +“That’s what I’m ashamed of, really,” said Lord Peter. “It _is_ a game +to me, to begin with, and I go on cheerfully, and then I suddenly see +that somebody is going to be hurt, and I want to get out of it.” +“Yes, yes, I know,” said the detective, “but that’s because you’re +thinking about your attitude. You want to be consistent, you want to +look pretty, you want to swagger debonairly through a comedy of puppets +or else to stalk magnificently through a tragedy of human sorrows and +things. But that’s childish. If you’ve any duty to society in the way +of finding out the truth about murders, you must do it in any attitude +that comes handy. You want to be elegant and detached? That’s all +right, if you find the truth out that way, but it hasn’t any value +in itself, you know. You want to look dignified and consistent—what’s +that got to do with it? You want to hunt down a murderer for the sport +of the thing and then shake hands with him and say, ‘Well played—hard +luck—you shall have your revenge tomorrow!’ Well, you can’t do it like +that. Life’s not a football match. You want to be a sportsman. You +can’t be a sportsman. You’re a responsible person.” +“I don’t think you ought to read so much theology,” said Lord Peter. +���It has a brutalizing influence.” +He got up and paced about the room, looking idly over the bookshelves. +Then he sat down again, filled and lit his pipe, and said: +“Well, I’d better tell you about the ferocious and hardened +Crimplesham.” +He detailed his visit to Salisbury. Once assured of his bona fides, Mr. +Crimplesham had given him the fullest details of his visit to town. +“And I’ve substantiated it all,” groaned Lord Peter, “and unless he’s +corrupted half Balham, there’s no doubt he spent the night there. And +the afternoon was really spent with the bank people. And half the +residents of Salisbury seem to have seen him off on Monday before +lunch. And nobody but his own family or young Wicks seems to have +anything to gain by his death. And even if young Wicks wanted to make +away with him, it’s rather far-fetched to go and murder an unknown man +in Thipps’s place in order to stick Crimplesham’s eyeglasses on his +nose.” +“Where was young Wicks on Monday?” asked Parker. +“At a dance given by the Precentor,” said Lord Peter, wildly. +“David—his name is David—dancing before the ark of the Lord in the face +of the whole Cathedral Close.” +There was a pause. +“Tell me about the inquest,” said Wimsey. +Parker obliged with a summary of the evidence. +“Do you believe the body could have been concealed in the flat after +all?” he asked. “I know we looked, but I suppose we might have missed +something.” +“We might. But Sugg looked as well.” +“Sugg!” +“You do Sugg an injustice,” said Lord Peter; “if there had been any +signs of Thipps’s complicity in the crime, Sugg would have found them.” +“Why?” +“Why? Because he was looking for them. He’s like your commentators on +Galatians. He thinks that either Thipps, or Gladys Horrocks, or Gladys +Horrocks’s young man did it. Therefore he found marks on the window +sill where Gladys Horrocks’s young man might have come in or handed +something in to Gladys Horrocks. He didn’t find any signs on the roof, +because he wasn’t looking for them.” +“But he went over the roof before me.” +“Yes, but only in order to prove that there were no marks there. He +reasons like this: Gladys Horrocks’s young man is a glazier. Glaziers +come on ladders. Glaziers have ready access to ladders. Therefore +Gladys Horrocks’s young man had ready access to a ladder. Therefore +Gladys Horrocks’s young man came on a ladder. Therefore there will +be marks on the window sill and none on the roof. Therefore he finds +marks on the window sill but none on the roof. He finds no marks on +the ground, but he thinks he would have found them if the yard didn’t +happen to be paved with asphalt. Similarly, he thinks Mr. Thipps may +have concealed the body in the box-room or elsewhere. Therefore you may +be sure he searched the box-room and all the other places for signs of +occupation. If they had been there he would have found them, because +he was looking for them. Therefore, if he didn’t find them it’s because +they weren’t there.” +“All right,” said Parker, “stop talking. I believe you.” +He went on to detail the medical evidence. +“By the way,” said Lord Peter, “to skip across for a moment to the +other case, has it occurred to you that perhaps Levy was going out to +see Freke on Monday night?” +“He was; he did,” said Parker, rather unexpectedly, and proceeded to +recount his interview with the nerve-specialist. +“Humph!” said Lord Peter. “I say, Parker, these are funny cases, ain’t +they? Every line of inquiry seems to peter out. It’s awfully exciting +up to a point, you know, and then nothing comes of it. It’s like rivers +getting lost in the sand.” +“Yes,” said Parker. “And there’s another one I lost this morning.” +“What’s that?” +“Oh, I was pumping Levy’s secretary about his business. I couldn’t get +much that seemed important except further details about the Argentine +and so on. Then I thought I’d just ask round in the City about those +Peruvian Oil shares, but Levy hadn’t even heard of them so far as I +could make out. I routed out the brokers, and found a lot of mystery +and concealment, as one always does, you know, when somebody’s been +rigging the market, and at last I found one name at the back of it. But +it wasn’t Levy’s.” +“No? Whose was it?” +“Oddly enough, Freke’s. It seems mysterious. He bought a lot of shares +last week, in a secret kind of way, a few of them in his own name, and +then quietly sold ’em out on Tuesday at a small profit—a few hundreds, +not worth going to all that trouble about, you wouldn’t think.” +“Shouldn’t have thought he ever went in for that kind of gamble.” +“He doesn’t as a rule. That’s the funny part of it.” +“Well, you never know,” said Lord Peter; “people do these things just +to prove to themselves or somebody else that they could make a fortune +that way if they liked. I’ve done it myself in a small way.” +He knocked out his pipe and rose to go. +“I say, old man,” he said suddenly, as Parker was letting him out, +“does it occur to you that Freke’s story doesn’t fit in awfully well +with what Anderson said about the old boy having been so jolly at +dinner on Monday night? Would you be, if you thought you’d got anything +of that sort?” +“No, I shouldn’t,” said Parker; “but,” he added with his habitual +caution, “some men will jest in the dentist’s waiting-room. You, for +one.” +“Well, that’s true,” said Lord Peter, and went downstairs. +CHAPTER VIII +Lord Peter reached home about midnight, feeling extraordinarily wakeful +and alert. Something was jigging and worrying in his brain; it felt +like a hive of bees, stirred up by a stick. He felt as though he were +looking at a complicated riddle, of which he had once been told the +answer but had forgotten it and was always on the point of remembering. +“Somewhere,” said Lord Peter to himself, “somewhere I’ve got the key to +these two things. I know I’ve got it, only I can’t remember what it is. +Somebody said it. Perhaps I said it. I can’t remember where, but I know +I’ve got it. Go to bed, Bunter, I shall sit up a little. I’ll just slip +on a dressing-gown.” +Before the fire he sat down with his pipe in his mouth and his +jazz-coloured peacocks gathered about him. He traced out this line and +that line of investigation—rivers running into the sand. They ran out +from the thought of Levy, last seen at ten o’clock in Prince of Wales +Road. They ran back from the picture of the grotesque dead man in Mr. +Thipps’s bathroom—they ran over the roof, and were lost—lost in the +sand. Rivers running into the sand—rivers running underground, very far +down— +Where Alph, the sacred river, ran +Through caverns measureless to man +Down to a sunless sea. +By leaning his head down, it seemed to Lord Peter that he could hear +them, very faintly, lipping and gurgling somewhere in the darkness. But +where? He felt quite sure that somebody had told him once, only he had +forgotten. +He roused himself, threw a log on the fire, and picked up a book which +the indefatigable Bunter, carrying on his daily fatigues amid the +excitements of special duty, had brought from the Times Book Club. +It happened to be Sir Julian Freke’s “Physiological Bases of the +Conscience,” which he had seen reviewed two days before. +“This ought to send one to sleep,” said Lord Peter; “if I can’t leave +these problems to my subconscious I’ll be as limp as a rag tomorrow.” +He opened the book slowly, and glanced carelessly through the preface. +“I wonder if that’s true about Levy being ill,” he thought, putting the +book down; “it doesn’t seem likely. And yet—Dash it all, I’ll take my +mind off it.” +He read on resolutely for a little. +“I don’t suppose Mother’s kept up with the Levys much,” was the next +importunate train of thought. “Dad always hated self-made people and +wouldn’t have ’em at Denver. And old Gerald keeps up the tradition. I +wonder if she knew Freke well in those days. She seems to get on with +Milligan. I trust Mother’s judgment a good deal. She was a brick about +that bazaar business. I ought to have warned her. She said something +once—” +He pursued an elusive memory for some minutes, till it vanished +altogether with a mocking flicker of the tail. He returned to his +reading. +Presently another thought crossed his mind aroused by a photograph of +some experiment in surgery. +“If the evidence of Freke and that man Watts hadn’t been so positive,” +he said to himself, “I should be inclined to look into the matter of +those shreds of lint on the chimney.” +He considered this, shook his head and read with determination. +Mind and matter were one thing, that was the theme of the physiologist. +Matter could erupt, as it were, into ideas. You could carve passions in +the brain with a knife. You could get rid of imagination with drugs and +cure an outworn convention like a disease. “The knowledge of good and +evil is an observed phenomenon, attendant upon a certain condition of +the brain-cells, which is removable.” That was one phrase; and again: +“Conscience in man may, in fact, be compared to the sting of a +hive-bee, which, so far from conducing to the welfare of its possessor, +cannot function, even in a single instance, without occasioning its +death. The survival-value in each case is thus purely social; and +if humanity ever passes from its present phase of social development +into that of a higher individualism, as some of our philosophers have +ventured to speculate, we may suppose that this interesting mental +phenomenon may gradually cease to appear; just as the nerves and +muscles which once controlled the movements of our ears and scalps +have, in all save a few backward individuals, become atrophied and of +interest only to the physiologist.” +“By Jove!” thought Lord Peter, idly, “that’s an ideal doctrine for the +criminal. A man who believed that would never—” +And then it happened—the thing he had been half-unconsciously +expecting. It happened suddenly, surely, as unmistakably, as sunrise. +He remembered—not one thing, nor another thing, nor a logical +succession of things, but everything—the whole thing, perfect, +complete, in all its dimensions as it were and instantaneously; as +if he stood outside the world and saw it suspended in infinitely +dimensional space. He no longer needed to reason about it, or even to +think about it. He knew it. +There is a game in which one is presented with a jumble of letters and +is required to make a word out of them, as thus: +C O S S S S R I +The slow way of solving the problem is to try out all the permutations +and combinations in turn, throwing away impossible conjunctions of +letters, as: +S S S I R C +or +S C S R S O +Another way is to stare at the inco-ordinate elements until, by no +logical process that the conscious mind can detect, or under some +adventitious external stimulus, the combination: +S C I S S O R S +presents itself with calm certainty. After that, one does not even need +to arrange the letters in order. The thing is done. +Even so, the scattered elements of two grotesque conundrums, flung +higgledy-piggledy into Lord Peter’s mind, resolved themselves, +unquestioned henceforward. A bump on the roof of the end house—Levy +in a welter of cold rain talking to a prostitute in the Battersea +Park Road—a single ruddy hair—lint bandages—Inspector Sugg calling +the great surgeon from the dissecting-room of the hospital—Lady +Levy with a nervous attack—the smell of carbolic soap—the Duchess’s +voice—“not really an engagement, only a sort of understanding with her +father”—shares in Peruvian Oil—the dark skin and curved, fleshy profile +of the man in the bath—Dr. Grimbold giving evidence, “In my opinion, +death did not occur for several days after the blow”—india-rubber +gloves—even, faintly, the voice of Mr. Appledore, “He called on me, +sir, with an anti-vivisectionist pamphlet”—all these things and many +others rang together and made one sound, they swung together like bells +in a steeple, with the deep tenor booming through the clamour: +“The knowledge of good and evil is a phenomenon of the brain, and is +removable, removable, removable. The knowledge of good and evil is +removable.” +Lord Peter Wimsey was not a young man who habitually took himself very +seriously, but this time he was frankly appalled. “It’s impossible,” +said his reason, feebly; “_credo quia impossibile_,” said his interior +certainty with impervious self-satisfaction. “All right,” said +conscience, instantly allying itself with blind faith, “what are you +going to do about it?” +Lord Peter got up and paced the room: “Good Lord!” he said. “Good +Lord!” He took down “Who’s Who” from the little shelf over the +telephone and sought comfort in its pages: +FREKE, Sir Julian, Kt. _cr._ 1916; G.C.V.O. _cr._ 1919; +K.C.V.O. 1917; K.C.B. 1918; M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., +Dr. en Méd. Paris; D. Sci. Cantab.; Knight of Grace of +the Order of S. John of Jerusalem; Consulting Surgeon +of St. Luke’s Hospital, Battersea. _b._ Gryllingham, +16 March, 1872, _only son_ of Edward Curzon Freke, +Esq., of Gryll Court, Gryllingham. _Educ._ Harrow and +Trinity Coll., Cambridge; Col. A.M.S.; late Member +of the Advisory Board of the Army Medical Service. +_Publications_: Some Notes on the Pathological Aspects +of Genius, 1892; Statistical Contributions to the +Study of Infantile Paralysis in England and Wales, +1894; Functional Disturbances of the Nervous System, +1899; Cerebro-Spinal Diseases, 1904; The Borderland +of Insanity, 1906; An Examination into the Treatment +of Pauper Lunacy in the United Kingdom, 1906; Modern +Developments in Psycho-Therapy: A Criticism, 1910; +Criminal Lunacy, 1914; The Application of Psycho-Therapy +to the Treatment of Shell-Shock, 1917; An Answer to +Professor Freud, with a Description of Some Experiments +Carried Out at the Base Hospital at Amiens, 1919; +Structural Modifications Accompanying the More Important +Neuroses, 1920. _Clubs_: White’s; Oxford and Cambridge; +Alpine, etc. _Recreations_: Chess, Mountaineering, +Fishing. _Address_: 282, Harley Street and St. Luke’s +House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea Park, S.W.11. +He flung the book away. “Confirmation!” he groaned. “As if I needed it!” +He sat down again and buried his face in his hands. He remembered quite +suddenly how, years ago, he had stood before the breakfast table at +Denver Castle—a small, peaky boy in blue knickers, with a thunderously +beating heart. The family had not come down; there was a great silver +urn with a spirit lamp under it, and an elaborate coffee-pot boiling +in a glass dome. He had twitched the corner of the tablecloth—twitched +it harder, and the urn moved ponderously forward and all the teaspoons +rattled. He seized the tablecloth in a firm grip and pulled his +hardest—he could feel now the delicate and awful thrill as the urn +and the coffee machine and the whole of a Sèvres breakfast service had +crashed down in one stupendous ruin—he remembered the horrified face of +the butler, and the screams of a lady guest. +A log broke across and sank into a fluff of white ash. A belated +motor-lorry rumbled past the window. +Mr. Bunter, sleeping the sleep of the true and faithful servant, was +aroused in the small hours by a hoarse whisper, “Bunter!” +“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter, sitting up and switching on the light. +“Put that light out, damn you!” said the voice. “Listen—over +there—listen—can’t you hear it?” +“It’s nothing, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, hastily getting out of bed +and catching hold of his master; “it’s all right, you get to bed quick +and I’ll fetch you a drop of bromide. Why, you’re all shivering—you’ve +been sitting up too late.” +“Hush! no, no—it’s the water,” said Lord Peter with chattering teeth; +“it’s up to their waists down there, poor devils. But listen! can’t you +hear it? Tap, tap, tap—they’re mining us—but I don’t know where—I can’t +hear—I can’t. Listen, you! There it is again—we must find it—we must +stop it.... Listen! Oh, my God! I can’t hear—I can’t hear anything for +the noise of the guns. Can’t they stop the guns?” +“Oh, dear!” said Mr. Bunter to himself. “No, no—it’s all right, +Major—don’t you worry.” +“But I hear it,” protested Peter. +“So do I,” said Mr. Bunter stoutly; “very good hearing, too, my lord. +That’s our own sappers at work in the communication trench. Don’t you +fret about that, sir.” +Lord Peter grasped his wrist with a feverish hand. +“Our own sappers,” he said; “sure of that?” +“Certain of it,” said Mr. Bunter, cheerfully. +“They’ll bring down the tower,” said Lord Peter. +“To be sure they will,” said Mr. Bunter, “and very nice, too. You just +come and lay down a bit, sir—they’ve come to take over this section.” +“You’re sure it’s safe to leave it?” said Lord Peter. +“Safe as houses, sir,” said Mr. Bunter, tucking his master’s arm under +his and walking him off to his bedroom. +Lord Peter allowed himself to be dosed and put to bed without further +resistance. Mr. Bunter, looking singularly un-Bunterlike in striped +pyjamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about his head, sat grimly +watching the younger man’s sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under +his eyes. +“Thought we’d had the last of these attacks,” he said. “Been overdoin’ +of himself. Asleep?” He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate note +crept into his voice. “Bloody little fool!” said Sergeant Bunter. +CHAPTER IX +Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 110 Piccadilly, arrived to +find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly. +“I am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the week-end,” +she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his +friend’s entrance with a brief nod. “He’s been doing too much—running +about to Salisbury and places and up till all hours of the night—you +really shouldn’t encourage him, Mr. Parker, it’s very naughty of +you—waking poor Bunter up in the middle of the night with scares about +Germans, as if that wasn’t all over years ago, and he hasn’t had an +attack for ages, but there! Nerves are such funny things, and Peter +always did have nightmares when he was quite a little boy—though very +often of course it was only a little pill he wanted; but he was so +dreadfully bad in 1918, you know, and I suppose we can’t expect to +forget all about a great war in a year or two, and, really, I ought to +be very thankful with both my boys safe. Still, I think a little peace +and quiet at Denver won’t do him any harm.” +“Sorry you’ve been having a bad turn, old man,” said Parker, vaguely +sympathetic; “you’re looking a bit seedy.” +“Charles,” said Lord Peter, in a voice entirely void of expression, +“I am going away for a couple of days because I can be no use to you +in London. What has got to be done for the moment can be much better +done by you than by me. I want you to take this”—he folded up his +writing and placed it in an envelope—“to Scotland Yard immediately and +get it sent out to all the workhouses, infirmaries, police stations, +Y.M.C.A.’s and so on in London. It is a description of Thipps’s corpse +as he was before he was shaved and cleaned up. I want to know whether +any man answering to that description has been taken in anywhere, alive +or dead, during the last fortnight. You will see Sir Andrew Mackenzie +personally, and get the paper sent out at once, by his authority; you +will tell him that you have solved the problems of the Levy murder and +the Battersea mystery”—Mr. Parker made an astonished noise to which his +friend paid no attention—“and you will ask him to have men in readiness +with a warrant to arrest a very dangerous and important criminal at any +moment on your information. When the replies to this paper come in, you +will search for any mention of St. Luke’s Hospital, or of any person +connected with St. Luke’s Hospital, and you will send for me at once. +“Meanwhile you will scrape acquaintance—I don’t care how—with one of +the students at St. Luke’s. Don’t march in there blowing about murders +and police warrants, or you may find yourself in Queer Street. I shall +come up to town as soon as I hear from you, and I shall expect to find +a nice ingenuous Sawbones here to meet me.” He grinned faintly. +“D’you mean you’ve got to the bottom of this thing?” asked Parker. +“Yes. I may be wrong. I hope I am, but I know I’m not.” +“You won’t tell me?” +“D’you know,” said Peter, “honestly I’d rather not. I say I _may_ be +wrong—and I’d feel as if I’d libelled the Archbishop of Canterbury.” +“Well, tell me—is it one mystery or two?” +“One.” +“You talked of the Levy murder. Is Levy dead?” +“God—yes!” said Peter, with a strong shudder. +The Duchess looked up from where she was reading the _Tatler_. +“Peter,” she said, “is that your ague coming on again? Whatever you two +are chattering about, you’d better stop it at once if it excites you. +Besides, it’s about time to be off.” +“All right, Mother,” said Peter. He turned to Bunter, standing +respectfully in the door with an overcoat and suitcase. “You understand +what you have to do, don’t you?” he said. +“Perfectly, thank you, my lord. The car is just arriving, your Grace.” +“With Mrs. Thipps inside it,” said the Duchess. “She’ll be delighted +to see you again, Peter. You remind her so of Mr. Thipps. Good-morning, +Bunter.” +“Good-morning, your Grace.” +Parker accompanied them downstairs. +When they had gone he looked blankly at the paper in his hand—then, +remembering that it was Saturday and there was need for haste, he +hailed a taxi. +“Scotland Yard!” he cried. +* * * * * +Tuesday morning saw Lord Peter and a man in a velveteen jacket swishing +merrily through seven acres of turnip-tops, streaked yellow with early +frosts. A little way ahead, a sinuous undercurrent of excitement among +the leaves proclaimed the unseen yet ever-near presence of one of +the Duke of Denver’s setter pups. Presently a partridge flew up with +a noise like a police rattle, and Lord Peter accounted for it very +creditably for a man who, a few nights before, had been listening to +imaginary German sappers. The setter bounded foolishly through the +turnips, and fetched back the dead bird. +“Good dog,” said Lord Peter. +Encouraged by this, the dog gave a sudden ridiculous gambol and barked, +its ear tossed inside out over its head. +“Heel,” said the man in velveteen, violently. The animal sidled up, +ashamed. +“Fool of a dog, that,” said the man in velveteen; “can’t keep quiet. +Too nervous, my lord. One of old Black Lass’s pups.” +“Dear me,” said Peter, “is the old dog still going?” +“No, my lord; we had to put her away in the spring.” +Peter nodded. He always proclaimed that he hated the country and +was thankful to have nothing to do with the family estates, but this +morning he enjoyed the crisp air and the wet leaves washing darkly over +his polished boots. At Denver things moved in an orderly way; no one +died sudden and violent deaths except aged setters—and partridges, to +be sure. He sniffed up the autumn smell with appreciation. There was a +letter in his pocket which had come by the morning post, but he did not +intend to read it just yet. Parker had not wired; there was no hurry. +* * * * * +He read it in the smoking-room after lunch. His brother was there, +dozing over the _Times_—a good, clean Englishman, sturdy and +conventional, rather like Henry VIII in his youth; Gerald, sixteenth +Duke of Denver. The Duke considered his cadet rather degenerate, and +not quite good form; he disliked his taste for police-court news. +The letter was from Mr. Bunter. +110, Piccadilly, +W.1. +My Lord: +I write (Mr. Bunter had been carefully educated and knew +that nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of +beginning a letter with the first person singular) as +your lordship directed, to inform you of the result of +my investigations. +I experienced no difficulty in becoming acquainted with +Sir Julian Freke’s man-servant. He belongs to the same +club as the Hon. Frederick Arbuthnot’s man, who is a +friend of mine, and was very willing to introduce me. +He took me to the club yesterday (Sunday) evening, and +we dined with the man, whose name is John Cummings, +and afterwards I invited Cummings to drinks and a +cigar in the flat. Your lordship will excuse me doing +this, knowing that it is not my habit, but it has +always been my experience that the best way to gain a +man’s confidence is to let him suppose that one takes +advantage of one’s employer. +(“I always suspected Bunter of being a student of human +nature,” commented Lord Peter.) +I gave him the best old port (“The deuce you did,” said +Lord Peter), having heard you and Mr. Arbuthnot talk +over it. (“Hum!” said Lord Peter.) +Its effects were quite equal to my expectations as +regards the principal matter in hand, but I very much +regret to state that the man had so little understanding +of what was offered to him that he smoked a cigar with +it (one of your lordship’s Villar Villars). You will +understand that I made no comment on this at the time, +but your lordship will sympathize with my feelings. +May I take this opportunity of expressing my grateful +appreciation of your lordship’s excellent taste in food, +drink and dress? It is, if I may say so, more than a +pleasure—it is an education, to valet and buttle your +lordship. +Lord Peter bowed his head gravely. +“What on earth are you doing, Peter, sittin’ there noddin’ an’ grinnin’ +like a what-you-may-call-it?” demanded the Duke, coming suddenly out of +a snooze. “Someone writin’ pretty things to you, what?” +“Charming things,” said Lord Peter. +The Duke eyed him doubtfully. +“Hope to goodness you don’t go and marry a chorus beauty,” he muttered +inwardly, and returned to the _Times_. +* * * * * +Over dinner I had set myself to discover Cummings’s tastes, and found +them to run in the direction of the music-hall stage. During his first +glass I drew him out in this direction, your lordship having kindly +given me opportunities of seeing every performance in London, and I +spoke more freely than I should consider becoming in the ordinary way +in order to make myself pleasant to him. I may say that his views on +women and the stage were such as I should have expected from a man who +would smoke with your lordship’s port. +With the second glass I introduced the subject of your lordship’s +inquiries. In order to save time I will write our conversation in the +form of a dialogue, as nearly as possible as it actually took place. +_Cummings_: You seem to get many opportunities of seeing a bit of life, +Mr. Bunter. +_Bunter_: One can always make opportunities if one knows how. +_Cummings_: Ah, it’s very easy for you to talk, Mr. Bunter. You’re not +married, for one thing. +_Bunter_: I know better than that, Mr. Cummings. +_Cummings_: So do I—_now_, when it’s too late. (He sighed heavily, and +I filled up his glass.) +_Bunter_: Does Mrs. Cummings live with you at Battersea? +_Cummings_: Yes, her and me we do for my governor. Such a life! Not but +what there’s a char comes in by the day. But what’s a char? I can tell +you it’s dull all by ourselves in that d—d Battersea suburb. +_Bunter_: Not very convenient for the Halls, of course. +_Cummings_: I believe you. It’s all right for you, here in Piccadilly, +right on the spot as you might say. And I daresay your governor’s often +out all night, eh? +_Bunter_: Oh, frequently, Mr. Cummings. +_Cummings_: And I daresay you take the opportunity to slip off yourself +every so often, eh? +_Bunter_: Well, what do _you_ think, Mr. Cummings? +_Cummings_: That’s it; there you are! But what’s a man to do with a +nagging fool of a wife and a blasted scientific doctor for a governor, +as sits up all night cutting up dead bodies and experimenting with +frogs? +_Bunter_: Surely he goes out sometimes. +_Cummings_: Not often. And always back before twelve. And the way he +goes on if he rings the bell and you ain’t there. I give you _my_ word, +Mr. Bunter. +_Bunter_: Temper? +_Cummings_: No-o-o—but looking through you, nasty-like, as if you was +on that operating table of his and he was going to cut you up. Nothing +a man could rightly complain of, you understand, Mr. Bunter, just nasty +looks. Not but what I will say he’s very correct. Apologizes if he’s +been inconsiderate. But what’s the good of that when he’s been and gone +and lost you your night’s rest? +_Bunter_: How does he do that? Keeps you up late, you mean? +_Cummings_: Not him; far from it. House locked up and household to bed +at half-past ten. That’s his little rule. Not but what I’m glad enough +to go as a rule, it’s that dreary. Still, when I _do_ go to bed I like +to go to sleep. +_Bunter_: What does he do? Walk about the house? +_Cummings_: Doesn’t he? All night. And in and out of the private door +to the hospital. +_Bunter_: You don’t mean to say, Mr. Cummings, a great specialist like +Sir Julian Freke does night work at the hospital? +_Cummings_: No, no; he does his own work—research work, as you may +say. Cuts people up. They say he’s very clever. Could take you or me to +pieces like a clock, Mr. Bunter, and put us together again. +_Bunter_: Do you sleep in the basement, then, to hear him so plain? +_Cummings_: No; our bedroom’s at the top. But, Lord! what’s that? He’ll +bang the door so you can hear him all over the house. +_Bunter_: Ah, many’s the time I’ve had to speak to Lord Peter about +that. And talking all night. And baths. +_Cummings_: Baths? You may well say that, Mr. Bunter. Baths? Me and my +wife sleep next to the cistern-room. Noise fit to wake the dead. All +hours. When d’you think he chose to have a bath, no later than last +Monday night, Mr. Bunter? +_Bunter_: I’ve known them to do it at two in the morning, Mr. Cummings. +_Cummings_: Have you, now? Well, this was at three. Three o’clock in +the morning we was waked up. I give you _my_ word. +_Bunter_: You don’t say so, Mr. Cummings. +_Cummings_: He cuts up diseases, you see, Mr. Bunter, and then he +don’t like to go to bed till he’s washed the bacilluses off, if you +understand me. Very natural, too, I daresay. But what I say is, the +middle of the night’s no time for a gentleman to be occupying his mind +with diseases. +_Bunter_: These great men have their own way of doing things. +_Cummings_: Well, all I can say is, it isn’t my way. +(I could believe that, your lordship. Cummings has no signs of +greatness about him, and his trousers are not what I would wish to see +in a man of his profession.) +_Bunter_: Is he habitually as late as that, Mr. Cummings? +_Cummings_: Well, no, Mr. Bunter, I will say, not as a general rule. +He apologized, too, in the morning, and said he would have the cistern +seen to—and very necessary, in my opinion, for the air gets into the +pipes, and the groaning and screeching as goes on is something awful. +Just like Niagara, if you follow me, Mr. Bunter, I give you _my_ word. +_Bunter_: Well, that’s as it should be, Mr. Cummings. One can put up +with a great deal from a gentleman that has the manners to apologize. +And, of course, sometimes they can’t help themselves. A visitor will +come in unexpectedly and keep them late, perhaps. +_Cummings_: That’s true enough, Mr. Bunter. Now I come to think of +it, there _was_ a gentleman come in on Monday evening. Not that he +came late, but he stayed about an hour, and may have put Sir Julian +behindhand. +_Bunter_: Very likely. Let me give you some more port, Mr. Cummings. Or +a little of Lord Peter’s old brandy. +_Cummings_: A little of the brandy, thank you, Mr. Bunter. I suppose +you have the run of the cellar here. (He winked at me.) +“Trust me for that,” I said, and I fetched him the Napoleon. I assure +your lordship it went to my heart to pour it out for a man like that. +However, seeing we had got on the right tack, I felt it wouldn’t be +wasted. +“I’m sure I wish it was always gentlemen that come here at night,” +I said. (Your lordship will excuse me, I am sure, making such a +suggestion.) +(“Good God,” said Lord Peter, “I wish Bunter was less thorough in his +methods.”) +_Cummings_: Oh, he’s that sort, his lordship, is he? (He chuckled and +poked me. I suppress a portion of his conversation here, which could +not fail to be as offensive to your lordship as it was to myself. He +went on:) No, it’s none of that with Sir Julian. Very few visitors at +night, and always gentlemen. And going early as a rule, like the one I +mentioned. +_Bunter:_ Just as well. There’s nothing I find more wearisome, Mr. +Cummings, than sitting up to see visitors out. +_Cummings:_ Oh, I didn’t see this one out. Sir Julian let him out +himself at ten o’clock or thereabouts. I heard the gentleman shout +“Good-night” and off he goes. +_Bunter:_ Does Sir Julian always do that? +_Cummings:_ Well, that depends. If he sees visitors downstairs, he lets +them out himself: if he sees them upstairs in the library, he rings for +me. +_Bunter:_ This was a downstairs visitor, then? +_Cummings:_ Oh, yes. Sir Julian opened the door to him, I remember. He +happened to be working in the hall. Though now I come to think of it, +they went up to the library afterwards. That’s funny. I know they did, +because I happened to go up to the hall with coals, and I heard them +upstairs. Besides, Sir Julian rang for me in the library a few minutes +later. Still, anyway, we heard him go at ten, or it may have been a bit +before. He hadn’t only stayed about three-quarters of an hour. However, +as I was saying, there was Sir Julian banging in and out of the private +door all night, and a bath at three in the morning, and up again for +breakfast at eight—it beats me. If I had all his money, curse me if +I’d go poking about with dead men in the middle of the night. I’d find +something better to do with my time, eh, Mr. Bunter— +I need not repeat any more of his conversation, as it became unpleasant +and incoherent, and I could not bring him back to the events of Monday +night. I was unable to get rid of him till three. He cried on my neck, +and said I was the bird, and you were the governor for him. He said +that Sir Julian would be greatly annoyed with him for coming home so +late, but Sunday night was his night out and if anything was said about +it he would give notice. I think he will be ill-advised to do so, as I +feel he is not a man I could conscientiously recommend if I were in Sir +Julian Freke’s place. I noticed that his boot-heels were slightly worn +down. +I should wish to add, as a tribute to the great merits of your +lordship’s cellar, that, although I was obliged to drink a somewhat +large quantity both of the Cockburn ’68 and the 1800 Napoleon I feel no +headache or other ill effects this morning. +Trusting that your lordship is deriving real benefit from the country +air, and that the little information I have been able to obtain will +prove satisfactory, I remain. +With respectful duty to all the family, +Obediently yours, +MERVYN BUNTER. +“Y’know,” said Lord Peter thoughtfully to himself, “I sometimes think +Mervyn Bunter’s pullin’ my leg. What is it, Soames?” +“A telegram, my lord.” +“Parker,” said Lord Peter, opening it. It said: +“Description recognised Chelsea Workhouse. Unknown +vagrant injured street accident Wednesday week. Died +workhouse Monday. Delivered St. Luke’s same evening by +order Freke. Much puzzled. Parker.” +“Hurray!” said Lord Peter, suddenly sparkling. “I’m glad I’ve puzzled +Parker. Gives me confidence in myself. Makes me feel like Sherlock +Holmes. ‘Perfectly simple, Watson.’ Dash it all, though! this is a +beastly business. Still, it’s puzzled Parker.” +“What’s the matter?” asked the Duke, getting up and yawning. +“Marching orders,” said Peter, “back to town. Many thanks for your +hospitality, old bird—I’m feelin’ no end better. Ready to tackle +Professor Moriarty or Leon Kestrel or any of ’em.” +“I do wish you’d keep out of the police courts,” grumbled the Duke. +“It makes it so dashed awkward for me, havin’ a brother makin’ himself +conspicuous.” +“Sorry, Gerald,” said the other; “I know I’m a beastly blot on the +’scutcheon.” +“Why can’t you marry and settle down and live quietly, doin’ something +useful?” said the Duke, unappeased. +“Because that was a wash-out as you perfectly well know,” said Peter; +“besides,” he added cheerfully, “I’m bein’ no end useful. You may come +to want me yourself, you never know. When anybody comes blackmailin’ +you, Gerald, or your first deserted wife turns up unexpectedly from +the West Indies, you’ll realize the pull of havin’ a private detective +in the family. ‘Delicate private business arranged with tact and +discretion. Investigations undertaken. Divorce evidence a specialty. +Every guarantee!’ Come, now.” +“Ass!” said Lord Denver, throwing the newspaper violently into his +armchair. “When do you want the car?” +“Almost at once. I say, Jerry, I’m taking Mother up with me.” +“Why should she be mixed up in it?” +“Well, I want her help.” +“I call it most unsuitable,” said the Duke. +The Dowager Duchess, however, made no objection. +“I used to know her quite well,” she said, “when she was Christine +Ford. Why, dear?” +“Because,” said Lord Peter, “there’s a terrible piece of news to be +broken to her about her husband.” +“Is he dead, dear?” +“Yes; and she will have to come and identify him.” +“Poor Christine.” +“Under very revolting circumstances, Mother.” +“I’ll come with you, dear.” +“Thank you, Mother, you’re a brick. D’you mind gettin’ your things +on straight away and comin’ up with me? I’ll tell you about it in the +car.” +CHAPTER X +Mr. Parker, a faithful though doubting Thomas, had duly secured his +medical student: a large young man like an overgrown puppy, with +innocent eyes and a freckled face. He sat on the Chesterfield before +Lord Peter’s library fire, bewildered in equal measure by his errand, +his surroundings and the drink which he was absorbing. His palate, +though untutored, was naturally a good one, and he realized that +even to call this liquid a drink—the term ordinarily used by him to +designate cheap whisky, post-war beer or a dubious glass of claret in +a Soho restaurant—was a sacrilege; this was something outside normal +experience: a genie in a bottle. +The man called Parker, whom he had happened to run across the evening +before in the public-house at the corner of Prince of Wales Road, +seemed to be a good sort. He had insisted on bringing him round to +see this friend of his, who lived splendidly in Piccadilly. Parker +was quite understandable; he put him down as a government servant, or +perhaps something in the City. The friend was embarrassing; he was +a lord, to begin with, and his clothes were a kind of rebuke to the +world at large. He talked the most fatuous nonsense, certainly, but +in a disconcerting way. He didn’t dig into a joke and get all the fun +out of it; he made it in passing, so to speak, and skipped away to +something else before your retort was ready. He had a truly terrible +man-servant—the sort you read about in books—who froze the marrow in +your bones with silent criticism. Parker appeared to bear up under +the strain, and this made you think more highly of Parker; he must be +more habituated to the surroundings of the great than you would think +to look at him. You wondered what the carpet had cost on which Parker +was carelessly spilling cigar ash; your father was an upholsterer—Mr. +Piggott, of Piggott & Piggott, Liverpool—and you knew enough about +carpets to know that you couldn’t even guess at the price of this one. +When you moved your head on the bulging silk cushion in the corner of +the sofa, it made you wish you shaved more often and more carefully. +The sofa was a monster—but even so, it hardly seemed big enough to +contain you. This Lord Peter was not very tall—in fact, he was rather +a small man, but he didn’t look undersized. He looked right; he made +you feel that to be six-foot-three was rather vulgarly assertive; you +felt like Mother’s new drawing-room curtains—all over great big blobs. +But everybody was very decent to you, and nobody said anything you +couldn’t understand, or sneered at you. There were some frightfully +deep-looking books on the shelves all round, and you had looked into +a great folio Dante which was lying on the table, but your hosts were +talking quite ordinarily and rationally about the sort of books you +read yourself—clinking good love stories and detective stories. You had +read a lot of those, and could give an opinion, and they listened to +what you had to say, though Lord Peter had a funny way of talking about +books, too, as if the author had confided in him beforehand, and told +him how the story was put together, and which bit was written first. It +reminded you of the way old Freke took a body to pieces. +“Thing I object to in detective stories,” said Mr. Piggott, “is the way +fellows remember every bloomin’ thing that’s happened to ’em within +the last six months. They’re always ready with their time of day and +was it rainin’ or not, and what were they doin’ on such an’ such a +day. Reel it all off like a page of poetry. But one ain’t like that in +real life, d’you think so, Lord Peter?” Lord Peter smiled, and young +Piggott, instantly embarrassed, appealed to his earlier acquaintance. +“You know what I mean, Parker. Come now. One day’s so like another, I’m +sure I couldn’t remember—well, I might remember yesterday, p’r’aps, but +I couldn’t be certain about what I was doin’ last week if I was to be +shot for it.” +“No,” said Parker, “and evidence given in police statements sounds +just as impossible. But they don’t really get it like that, you know. I +mean, a man doesn’t just say, ‘Last Friday I went out at 10 a.m. to buy +a mutton chop. As I was turning into Mortimer Street I noticed a girl +of about twenty-two with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a green +jumper, check skirt, Panama hat and black shoes, riding a Royal Sunbeam +Cycle at about ten miles an hour turning the corner by the Church of +St. Simon and St. Jude on the wrong side of the road riding towards the +market place!’ It amounts to that, of course, but it’s really wormed +out of him by a series of questions.” +“And in short stories,” said Lord Peter, “it has to be put in statement +form, because the real conversation would be so long and twaddly and +tedious, and nobody would have the patience to read it. Writers have to +consider their readers, if any, y’see.” +“Yes,” said Mr. Piggott, “but I bet you most people would find it +jolly difficult to remember, even if you asked ’em things. I should—of +course, I know I’m a bit of a fool, but then, most people are, ain’t +they? You know what I mean. Witnesses ain’t detectives, they’re just +average idiots like you and me.” +“Quite so,” said Lord Peter, smiling as the force of the last phrase +sank into its unhappy perpetrator; “you mean, if I were to ask you in a +general way what you were doin’—say, a week ago today, you wouldn’t be +able to tell me a thing about it offhand?” +“No—I’m sure I shouldn’t.” He considered. “No. I was in at the Hospital +as usual, I suppose, and, being Tuesday, there’d be a lecture on +something or the other—dashed if I know what—and in the evening I +went out with Tommy Pringle—no, that must have been Monday—or was it +Wednesday? I tell you, I couldn’t swear to anything.” +“You do yourself an injustice,” said Lord Peter gravely. “I’m sure, for +instance, you recollect what work you were doing in the dissecting-room +on that day, for example.” +“Lord, no! not for certain. I mean, I daresay it might come back to me +if I thought for a long time, but I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of +law.” +“I’ll bet you half-a-crown to sixpence,” said Lord Peter, “that you’ll +remember within five minutes.” +“I’m sure I can’t.” +“We’ll see. Do you keep a notebook of the work you do when you dissect? +Drawings or anything?” +“Oh, yes.” +“Think of that. What’s the last thing you did in it?” +“That’s easy, because I only did it this morning. It was leg muscles.” +“Yes. Who was the subject?” +“An old woman of sorts; died of pneumonia.” +“Yes. Turn back the pages of your drawing book in your mind. What came +before that?” +“Oh, some animals—still legs; I’m doing motor muscles at present. Yes. +That was old Cunningham’s demonstration on comparative anatomy. I did +rather a good thing of a hare’s legs and a frog’s, and rudimentary legs +on a snake.” +“Yes. Which day does Mr. Cunningham lecture?” +“Friday.” +“Friday; yes. Turn back again. What comes before that?” +Mr. Piggott shook his head. +“Do your drawings of legs begin on the right-hand page or the left-hand +page? Can you see the first drawing?” +“Yes—yes—I can see the date written at the top. It’s a section of a +frog’s hind leg, on the right-hand page.” +“Yes. Think of the open book in your mind’s eye. What is opposite to +it?” +This demanded some mental concentration. +“Something round—coloured—oh, yes—it’s a hand.” +“Yes. You went on from the muscles of the hand and arm to leg- and +foot-muscles?” +“Yes; that’s right. I’ve got a set of drawings of arms.” +“Yes. Did you make those on the Thursday?” +“No; I’m never in the dissecting-room on Thursday.” +“On Wednesday, perhaps?” +“Yes; I must have made them on Wednesday. Yes; I did. I went in there +after we’d seen those tetanus patients in the morning. I did them on +Wednesday afternoon. I know I went back because I wanted to finish ’em. +I worked rather hard—for me. That’s why I remember.” +“Yes; you went back to finish them. When had you begun them, then?” +“Why, the day before.” +“The day before. That was Tuesday, wasn’t it?” +“I’ve lost count—yes, the day before Wednesday—yes, Tuesday.” +“Yes. Were they a man’s arms or a woman’s arms?” +“Oh, a man’s arms. +“Yes; last Tuesday, a week ago today, you were dissecting a man’s arms +in the dissecting-room. Sixpence, please.” +“By Jove!” +“Wait a moment. You know a lot more about it than that. You’ve no idea +how much you know. You know what kind of man he was.” +“Oh, I never saw him complete, you know. I got there a bit late that +day, I remember. I’d asked for an arm specially, because I was rather +weak in arms, and Watts—that’s the attendant—had promised to save me +one.” +“Yes. You have arrived late and found your arm waiting for you. You are +dissecting it—taking your scissors and slitting up the skin and pinning +it back. Was it very young, fair skin?” +“Oh, no—no. Ordinary skin, I think—with dark hairs on it—yes, that was +it.” +“Yes. A lean, stringy arm, perhaps, with no extra fat anywhere?” +“Oh, no—I was rather annoyed about that. I wanted a good, muscular arm, +but it was rather poorly developed and the fat got in my way.” +“Yes; a sedentary man who didn’t do much manual work.” +“That’s right.” +“Yes. You dissected the hand, for instance, and made a drawing of it. +You would have noticed any hard calluses.” +“Oh, there was nothing of that sort.” +“No. But should you say it was a young man’s arm? Firm young flesh and +limber joints?” +“No—no.” +“No. Old and stringy, perhaps.” +“No. Middle-aged—with rheumatism. I mean, there was a chalky deposit in +the joints, and the fingers were a bit swollen.” +“Yes. A man about fifty.” +“About that.” +“Yes. There were other students at work on the same body.” +“Oh, yes.” +“Yes. And they made all the usual sort of jokes about it.” +“I expect so—oh, yes!” +“You can remember some of them. Who is your local funny man, so to +speak?” +“Tommy Pringle.” +“What was Tommy Pringle’s doing?” +“Can’t remember.” +“Whereabouts was Tommy Pringle working?” +“Over by the instrument cupboard—by sink C.” +“Yes. Get a picture of Tommy Pringle in your mind’s eye.” +Piggott began to laugh. +“I remember now. Tommy Pringle said the old Sheeny—” +“Why did he call him a Sheeny?” +“I don’t know. But I know he did.” +“Perhaps he looked like it. Did you see his head?” +“No.” +“Who had the head?” +“I don’t know—oh, yes, I do, though. Old Freke bagged the head himself, +and little Bouncible Binns was very cross about it, because he’d been +promised a head to do with old Scrooger.” +“I see. What was Sir Julian doing with the head?” +“He called us up and gave us a jaw on spinal haemorrhage and nervous +lesions.” +“Yes. Well, go back to Tommy Pringle.” +Tommy Pringle’s joke was repeated, not without some embarrassment. +“Quite so. Was that all?” +“No. The chap who was working with Tommy said that sort of thing came +from over-feeding.” +“I deduce that Tommy Pringle’s partner was interested in the alimentary +canal.” +“Yes; and Tommy said, if he’d thought they’d feed you like that he’d go +to the workhouse himself.” +“Then the man was a pauper from the workhouse?” +“Well, he must have been, I suppose.” +“Are workhouse paupers usually fat and well-fed?” +“Well, no—come to think of it, not as a rule.” +“In fact, it struck Tommy Pringle and his friend that this was +something a little out of the way in a workhouse subject?” +“Yes.” +“And if the alimentary canal was so entertaining to these gentlemen, I +imagine the subject had come by his death shortly after a full meal.” +“Yes—oh, yes—he’d have had to, wouldn’t he?” +“Well, I don’t know,” said Lord Peter. “That’s in your department, you +know. That would be your inference, from what they said.” +“Oh, yes. Undoubtedly.” +“Yes; you wouldn’t, for example, expect them to make that observation +if the patient had been ill for a long time and fed on slops.” +“Of course not.” +“Well, you see, you really know a lot about it. On Tuesday week you +were dissecting the arm muscles of a rheumatic middle-aged Jew, of +sedentary habits, who had died shortly after eating a heavy meal, of +some injury producing spinal haemorrhage and nervous lesions, and so +forth, and who was presumed to come from the workhouse?” +“Yes.” +“And you could swear to those facts, if need were?” +“Well, if you put it in that way, I suppose I could.” +“Of course you could.” +Mr. Piggott sat for some moments in contemplation. +“I say,” he said at last, “I did know all that, didn’t I?” +“Oh, yes—you knew it all right—like Socrates’s slave.” +“Who’s he?” +“A person in a book I used to read as a boy.” +“Oh—does he come in ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’?” +“No—another book—I daresay you escaped it. It’s rather dull.” +“I never read much except Henty and Fenimore Cooper at school.... +But—have I got rather an extra good memory, then?” +“You have a better memory than you credit yourself with.” +“Then why can’t I remember all the medical stuff? It all goes out of my +head like a sieve.” +“Well, why can’t you?” said Lord Peter, standing on the hearthrug and +smiling down at his guest. +“Well,” said the young man, “the chaps who examine one don’t ask the +same sort of questions you do.” +“No?” +“No—they leave you to remember all by yourself. And it’s beastly hard. +Nothing to catch hold of, don’t you know? But, I say—how did you know +about Tommy Pringle being the funny man and—” +“I didn’t, till you told me.” +“No; I know. But how did you know he’d be there if you did ask? I +mean to say—I say,” said Mr. Piggott, who was becoming mellowed by +influences themselves not unconnected with the alimentary canal—“I say, +are you rather clever, or am I rather stupid?” +“No, no,” said Lord Peter, “it’s me. I’m always askin’ such stupid +questions, everybody thinks I must mean somethin’ by ’em.” +This was too involved for Mr. Piggott. +“Never mind,” said Parker, soothingly, “he’s always like that. You +mustn’t take any notice. He can’t help it. It’s premature senile decay, +often observed in the families of hereditary legislators. Go away, +Wimsey, and play us the ‘Beggar’s Opera,’ or something.” +“That’s good enough, isn’t it?” said Lord Peter, when the happy Mr. +Piggott had been despatched home after a really delightful evening. +“I’m afraid so,” said Parker. “But it seems almost incredible.” +“There’s nothing incredible in human nature,” said Lord Peter; “at +least, in educated human nature. Have you got that exhumation order?” +“I shall have it tomorrow. I thought of fixing up with the workhouse +people for tomorrow afternoon. I shall have to go and see them first.” +“Right you are; I’ll let my mother know.” +“I begin to feel like you, Wimsey, I don’t like this job.” +“I like it a deal better than I did.” +“You are really certain we’re not making a mistake?” +Lord Peter had strolled across to the window. The curtain was not +perfectly drawn, and he stood gazing out through the gap into lighted +Piccadilly. At this he turned round: +“If we are,” he said, “we shall know tomorrow, and no harm will have +been done. But I rather think you will receive a certain amount of +confirmation on your way home. Look here, Parker, d’you know, if I were +you I’d spend the night here. There’s a spare bedroom; I can easily put +you up.” +Parker stared at him. +“Do you mean—I’m likely to be attacked?” +“I think it very likely indeed.” +“Is there anybody in the street?” +“Not now; there was half-an-hour ago.” +“When Piggott left?” +“Yes.” +“I say—I hope the boy is in no danger.” +“That’s what I went down to see. I don’t think so. Fact is, I don’t +suppose anybody would imagine we’d exactly made a confidant of Piggott. +But I think you and I are in danger. You’ll stay?” +“I’m damned if I will, Wimsey. Why should I run away?” +“Bosh!” said Peter. “You’d run away all right if you believed me, and +why not? You don’t believe me. In fact, you’re still not certain I’m on +the right tack. Go in peace, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” +“I won’t; I’ll dictate a message with my dying breath to say I was +convinced.” +“Well, don’t walk—take a taxi.” +“Very well, I’ll do that.” +“And don’t let anybody else get into it.” +“No.” +It was a raw, unpleasant night. A taxi deposited a load of people +returning from the theatre at the block of flats next door, and Parker +secured it for himself. He was just giving the address to the driver, +when a man came hastily running up from a side street. He was in +evening dress and an overcoat. He rushed up, signalling frantically. +“Sir—sir!—dear me! why, it’s Mr. Parker! How fortunate! If you +would be so kind—summoned from the club—a sick friend—can’t find +a taxi—everybody going home from the theatre—if I might share your +cab—you are returning to Bloomsbury? I want Russell Square—if I might +presume—a matter of life and death.” +He spoke in hurried gasps, as though he had been running violently and +far. Parker promptly stepped out of the taxi. +“Delighted to be of service to you, Sir Julian,” he said; “take my +taxi. I am going down to Craven Street myself, but I’m in no hurry. +Pray make use of the cab.” +“It’s extremely kind of you,” said the surgeon. “I am ashamed—” +“That’s all right,” said Parker, cheerily. “I can wait.” He assisted +Freke into the taxi. “What number? 24 Russell Square, driver, and look +sharp.” +The taxi drove off. Parker remounted the stairs and rang Lord Peter’s +bell. +“Thanks, old man,” he said. “I’ll stop the night, after all.” +“Come in,” said Wimsey. +“Did you see that?” asked Parker. +“I saw something. What happened exactly?” +Parker told his story. “Frankly,” he said, “I’ve been thinking you a +bit mad, but now I’m not quite so sure of it.” +Peter laughed. +“Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Bunter, Mr. +Parker will stay the night.” +“Look here, Wimsey, let’s have another look at this business. Where’s +that letter?” +Lord Peter produced Bunter’s essay in dialogue. Parker studied it for +a short time in silence. +“You know, Wimsey, I’m as full of objections to this idea as an egg is +of meat.” +“So’m I, old son. That’s why I want to dig up our Chelsea pauper. But +trot out your objections.” +“Well—” +“Well, look here, I don’t pretend to be able to fill in all the blanks +myself. But here we have two mysterious occurrences in one night, and +a complete chain connecting the one with another through one particular +person. It’s beastly, but it’s not unthinkable.” +“Yes, I know all that. But there are one or two quite definite +stumbling-blocks.” +“Yes, I know. But, see here. On the one hand, Levy disappeared after +being last seen looking for Prince of Wales Road at nine o’clock. At +eight next morning a dead man, not unlike him in general outline, is +discovered in a bath in Queen Caroline Mansions. Levy, by Freke’s own +admission, was going to see Freke. By information received from Chelsea +workhouse a dead man, answering to the description of the Battersea +corpse in its natural state, was delivered that same day to Freke. We +have Levy with a past, and no future, as it were; an unknown vagrant +with a future (in the cemetery) and no past, and Freke stands between +their future and their past.” +“That looks all right—” +“Yes. Now, further: Freke has a motive for getting rid of Levy—an old +jealousy.” +“Very old—and not much of a motive.” +“People have been known to do that sort of thing.[D] You’re thinking +that people don’t keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. +Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word +and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. +Humiliation. And we’ve all got a sore spot we don’t like to have +touched. I’ve got it. You’ve got it. Some blighter said hell knew no +fury like a woman scorned. Stickin’ it on to women, poor devils. Sex +is every man’s loco spot—you needn’t fidget, you know it’s true—he’ll +take a disappointment, but not a humiliation. I knew a man once who’d +been turned down—not too charitably—by a girl he was engaged to. He +spoke quite decently about her. I asked what had become of her. ‘Oh,’ +he said, ‘she married the other fellow.’ And then burst out—couldn’t +help himself. ‘Lord, yes!’ he cried. ‘To think of it—jilted for a +Scotchman!’ I don’t know why he didn’t like Scots, but that was what +got him on the raw. Look at Freke. I’ve read his books. His attacks on +his antagonists are savage. And he’s a scientist. Yet he can’t bear +opposition, even in his work, which is where any first-class man is +most sane and open-minded. Do you think he’s a man to take a beating +from any man on a side-issue? On a man’s most sensitive side-issue? +People are opinionated about side-issues, you know. I see red if +anybody questions my judgment about a book. And Levy—who was nobody +twenty years ago—romps in and carries off Freke’s girl from under +his nose. It isn’t the girl Freke would bother about—it’s having his +aristocratic nose put out of joint by a little Jewish nobody. +“There’s another thing. Freke’s got another side-issue. He likes crime. +In that criminology book of his he gloats over a hardened murderer. +I’ve read it, and I’ve seen the admiration simply glaring out between +the lines whenever he writes about a callous and successful criminal. +He reserves his contempt for the victims or the penitents or the men +who lose their heads and get found out. His heroes are Edmond de la +Pommerais, who persuaded his mistress into becoming an accessory to +her own murder, and George Joseph Smith of Brides-in-a-bath fame, who +could make passionate love to his wife in the night and carry out his +plot to murder her in the morning. After all, he thinks conscience is a +sort of vermiform appendix. Chop it out and you’ll feel all the better. +Freke isn’t troubled by the usual conscientious deterrent. Witness his +own hand in his books. Now again. The man who went to Levy’s house in +his place knew the house: Freke knew the house; he was a red-haired +man, smaller than Levy, but not much smaller, since he could wear +his clothes without appearing ludicrous: you have seen Freke—you know +his height—about five-foot-eleven, I suppose, and his auburn mane; he +probably wore surgical gloves: Freke is a surgeon; he was a methodical +and daring man: surgeons are obliged to be both daring and methodical. +Now take the other side. The man who got hold of the Battersea corpse +had to have access to dead bodies. Freke obviously had access to +dead bodies. He had to be cool and quick and callous about handling a +dead body. Surgeons are all that. He had to be a strong man to carry +the body across the roofs and dump it in at Thipps’s window. Freke +is a powerful man and a member of the Alpine Club. He probably wore +surgical gloves and he let the body down from the roof with a surgical +bandage. This points to a surgeon again. He undoubtedly lived in the +neighbourhood. Freke lives next door. The girl you interviewed heard a +bump on the roof of the end house. That is the house next to Freke’s. +Every time we look at Freke, he leads somewhere, whereas Milligan and +Thipps and Crimplesham and all the other people we’ve honoured with our +suspicion simply led nowhere.” +“Yes; but it’s not quite so simple as you make out. What was Levy doing +in that surreptitious way at Freke’s on Monday night?” +“Well, you have Freke’s explanation.” +“Rot, Wimsey. You said yourself it wouldn’t do.” +“Excellent. It won’t do. Therefore Freke was lying. Why should he lie +about it, unless he had some object in hiding the truth?” +“Well, but why mention it at all?” +“Because Levy, contrary to all expectation, had been seen at the corner +of the road. That was a nasty accident for Freke. He thought it best to +be beforehand with an explanation—of sorts. He reckoned, of course, on +nobody’s ever connecting Levy with Battersea Park.” +“Well, then, we come back to the first question: Why did Levy go there?” +“I don’t know, but he was got there somehow. Why did Freke buy all +those Peruvian Oil shares?” +“I don’t know,” said Parker in his turn. +“Anyway,” went on Wimsey, “Freke expected him, and made arrangements to +let him in himself, so that Cummings shouldn’t see who the caller was.” +“But the caller left again at ten.” +“Oh, Charles! I did not expect this of you. This is the purest Suggery! +Who saw him go? Somebody said ‘Good-night’ and walked away down the +street. And you believe it was Levy because Freke didn’t go out of his +way to explain that it wasn’t.” +“D’you mean that Freke walked cheerfully out of the house to Park Lane, +and left Levy behind—dead or alive—for Cummings to find?” +“We have Cummings’s word that he did nothing of the sort. A few minutes +after the steps walked away from the house, Freke rang the library bell +and told Cummings to shut up for the night.” +“Then—” +“Well—there’s a side door to the house, I suppose—in fact, you know +there is—Cummings said so—through the hospital.” +“Yes—well, where was Levy?” +“Levy went up into the library and never came down. You’ve been in +Freke’s library. Where would you have put him?” +“In my bedroom next door.” +“Then that’s where he did put him.” +“But suppose the man went in to turn down the bed?” +“Beds are turned down by the housekeeper, earlier than ten o’clock.” +“Yes.... But Cummings heard Freke about the house all night.” +“He heard him go in and out two or three times. He’d expect him to do +that, anyway.” +“Do you mean to say Freke got all that job finished before three in the +morning?” +“Why not?” +“Quick work.” +“Well, call it quick work. Besides, why three? Cummings never saw him +again till he called him for eight o’clock breakfast.” +“But he was having a bath at three.” +“I don’t say he didn’t get back from Park Lane before three. But I +don’t suppose Cummings went and looked through the bathroom keyhole to +see if he was in the bath.” +Parker considered again. +“How about Crimplesham’s pince-nez?” he asked. +“That is a bit mysterious,” said Lord Peter. +“And why Thipps’s bathroom?” +“Why, indeed? Pure accident, perhaps—or pure devilry.” +“Do you think all this elaborate scheme could have been put together in +a night, Wimsey?” +“Far from it. It was conceived as soon as that man who bore a +superficial resemblance to Levy came into the workhouse. He had several +days.” +“I see.” +“Freke gave himself away at the inquest. He and Grimbold disagreed +about the length of the man’s illness. If a small man (comparatively +speaking) like Grimbold presumes to disagree with a man like Freke, +it’s because he is sure of his ground.” +“Then—if your theory is sound—Freke made a mistake.” +“Yes. A very slight one. He was guarding, with unnecessary caution, +against starting a train of thought in the mind of anybody—say, the +workhouse doctor. Up till then he’d been reckoning on the fact that +people don’t think a second time about anything (a body, say) that’s +once been accounted for.” +“What made him lose his head?” +“A chain of unforeseen accidents. Levy’s having been recognised—my +mother’s son having foolishly advertised in the _Times_ his connection +with the Battersea end of the mystery—Detective Parker (whose +photograph has been a little prominent in the illustrated press lately) +seen sitting next door to the Duchess of Denver at the inquest. His aim +in life was to prevent the two ends of the problem from linking up. And +there were two of the links, literally side by side. Many criminals are +wrecked by over-caution.” +Parker was silent. +CHAPTER XI +“A regular pea-souper, by Jove,” said Lord Peter. +Parker grunted, and struggled irritably into an overcoat. +“It affords me, if I may say so, the greatest satisfaction,” +continued the noble lord, “that in a collaboration like ours all the +uninteresting and disagreeable routine work is done by you.” +Parker grunted again. +“Do you anticipate any difficulty about the warrant?” inquired Lord +Peter. +Parker grunted a third time. +“I suppose you’ve seen to it that all this business is kept quiet?” +“Of course.” +“You’ve muzzled the workhouse people?” +“Of course.” +“And the police?” +“Yes.” +“Because, if you haven’t there’ll probably be nobody to arrest.” +“My dear Wimsey, do you think I’m a fool?” +“I had no such hope.” +Parker grunted finally and departed. +Lord Peter settled down to a perusal of his Dante. It afforded him no +solace. Lord Peter was hampered in his career as a private detective +by a public-school education. Despite Parker’s admonitions, he was +not always able to discount it. His mind had been warped in its young +growth by “Raffles” and “Sherlock Holmes,” or the sentiments for which +they stand. He belonged to a family which had never shot a fox. +“I am an amateur,” said Lord Peter. +Nevertheless, while communing with Dante, he made up his mind. +* * * * * +In the afternoon he found himself in Harley Street. Sir Julian Freke +might be consulted about one’s nerves from two till four on Tuesdays +and Fridays. Lord Peter rang the bell. +“Have you an appointment, sir?” inquired the man who opened the door. +“No,” said Lord Peter, “but will you give Sir Julian my card? I think +it possible he may see me without one.” +He sat down in the beautiful room in which Sir Julian’s patients +awaited his healing counsel. It was full of people. Two or three +fashionably dressed women were discussing shops and servants together, +and teasing a toy griffon. A big, worried-looking man by himself in +a corner looked at his watch twenty times a minute. Lord Peter knew +him by sight. It was Wintrington, a millionaire, who had tried to +kill himself a few months ago. He controlled the finances of five +countries, but he could not control his nerves. The finances of five +countries were in Sir Julian Freke’s capable hands. By the fireplace +sat a soldierly-looking young man, of about Lord Peter’s own age. His +face was prematurely lined and worn; he sat bolt upright, his restless +eyes darting in the direction of every slightest sound. On the sofa +was an elderly woman of modest appearance, with a young girl. The girl +seemed listless and wretched; the woman’s look showed deep affection, +and anxiety tempered with a timid hope. Close beside Lord Peter was +another younger woman, with a little girl, and Lord Peter noticed in +both of them the broad cheekbones and beautiful grey, slanting eyes +of the Slav. The child, moving restlessly about, trod on Lord Peter’s +patent-leather toe, and the mother admonished her in French before +turning to apologize to Lord Peter. +“Mais je vous en prie, madame,” said the young man, “it is nothing.” +“She is nervous, pauvre petite,” said the young woman. +“You are seeking advice for her?” +“Yes. He is wonderful, the doctor. Figure to yourself, monsieur, she +cannot forget, poor child, the things she has seen.” She leaned nearer, +so that the child might not hear. “We have escaped—from starving +Russia—six months ago. I dare not tell you—she has such quick ears, +and then, the cries, the tremblings, the convulsions—they all begin +again. We were skeletons when we arrived—mon Dieu!—but that is better +now. See, she is thin, but she is not starved. She would be fatter +but for the nerves that keep her from eating. We who are older, we +forget—enfin, on apprend à ne pas y penser—but these children! When one +is young, monsieur, tout ça impressionne trop.” +Lord Peter, escaping from the thraldom of British good form, expressed +himself in that language in which sympathy is not condemned to mutism. +“But she is much better, much better,” said the mother, proudly; “the +great doctor, he does marvels.” +“C’est un homme précieux,” said Lord Peter. +“Ah, monsieur, c’est un saint qui opère des miracles! Nous prions +pour lui, Natasha et moi, tous les jours. N’est-ce pas, chérie? And +consider, monsieur, that he does it all, ce grand homme, cet homme +illustre, for nothing at all. When we come here, we have not even +the clothes upon our backs—we are ruined, famished. Et avec ça que +nous sommes de bonne famille—mais hélas! monsieur, en Russie, comme +vous savez, ça ne vous vaut que des insultes—des atrocités. Enfin! +the great Sir Julian sees us, he says—‘Madame, your little girl is +very interesting to me. Say no more. I cure her for nothing—pour ses +beaux yeux,’ a-t-il ajouté en riant. Ah, monsieur, c’est un saint, un +véritable saint! and Natasha is much, much better.” +“Madame, je vous en félicite.” +“And you, monsieur? You are young, well, strong—you also suffer? It is +still the war, perhaps?” +“A little remains of shell-shock,” said Lord Peter. +“Ah, yes. So many good, brave, young men—” +“Sir Julian can spare you a few minutes, my lord, if you will come in +now,” said the servant. +Lord Peter bowed to his neighbour, and walked across the waiting-room. +As the door of the consulting-room closed behind him, he remembered +having once gone, disguised, into the staff-room of a German officer. +He experienced the same feeling—the feeling of being caught in a trap, +and a mingling of bravado and shame. +* * * * * +He had seen Sir Julian Freke several times from a distance, but +never close. Now, while carefully and quite truthfully detailing +the circumstances of his recent nervous attack, he considered the +man before him. A man taller than himself, with immense breadth of +shoulder, and wonderful hands. A face beautiful, impassioned and +inhuman; fanatical, compelling eyes, bright blue amid the ruddy bush +of hair and beard. They were not the cool and kindly eyes of the family +doctor, they were the brooding eyes of the inspired scientist, and they +searched one through. +“Well,” thought Lord Peter, “I shan’t have to be explicit, anyhow.” +“Yes,” said Sir Julian, “yes. You had been working too hard. Puzzling +your mind. Yes. More than that, perhaps—troubling your mind, shall we +say?” +“I found myself faced with a very alarming contingency.” +“Yes. Unexpectedly, perhaps.” +“Very unexpected indeed.” +“Yes. Following on a period of mental and physical strain.” +“Well—perhaps. Nothing out of the way.” +“Yes. The unexpected contingency was—personal to yourself?” +“It demanded an immediate decision as to my own actions—yes, in that +sense it was certainly personal.” +“Quite so. You would have to assume some responsibility, no doubt.” +“A very grave responsibility.” +“Affecting others besides yourself?” +“Affecting one other person vitally, and a very great number +indirectly.” +“Yes. The time was night. You were sitting in the dark?” +“Not at first. I think I put the light out afterwards.” +“Quite so—that action would naturally suggest itself to you. Were you +warm?” +“I think the fire had died down. My man tells me that my teeth were +chattering when I went in to him.” +“Yes. You live in Piccadilly?” +“Yes.” +“Heavy traffic sometimes goes past during the night, I expect.” +“Oh, frequently.” +“Just so. Now this decision you refer to—you had taken that decision.” +“Yes.” +“Your mind was made up?” +“Oh, yes.” +“You had decided to take the action, whatever it was.” +“Yes.” +“Yes. It involved perhaps a period of inaction.” +“Of comparative inaction—yes.” +“Of suspense, shall we say?” +“Yes—of suspense, certainly.” +“Possibly of some danger?” +“I don’t know that that was in my mind at the time.” +“No—it was a case in which you could not possibly consider yourself.” +“If you like to put it that way.” +“Quite so. Yes. You had these attacks frequently in 1918?” +“Yes—I was very ill for some months.” +“Quite. Since then they have recurred less frequently?” +“Much less frequently.” +“Yes—when did the last occur?” +“About nine months ago.” +“Under what circumstances?” +“I was being worried by certain family matters. It was a question of +deciding about some investments, and I was largely responsible.�� +“Yes. You were interested last year, I think, in some police case?” +“Yes—in the recovery of Lord Attenbury’s emerald necklace.” +“That involved some severe mental exercise?” +“I suppose so. But I enjoyed it very much.” +“Yes. Was the exertion of solving the problem attended by any bad +results physically?” +“None.” +“No. You were interested, but not distressed.” +“Exactly.” +“Yes. You have been engaged in other investigations of the kind?” +“Yes. Little ones.” +“With bad results for your health?” +“Not a bit of it. On the contrary. I took up these cases as a sort of +distraction. I had a bad knock just after the war, which didn’t make +matters any better for me, don’t you know.” +“Ah! you are not married?” +“No.” +“No. Will you allow me to make an examination? Just come a little +nearer to the light. I want to see your eyes. Whose advice have you had +till now?” +“Sir James Hodges’.” +“Ah! yes—he was a sad loss to the medical profession. A really great +man—a true scientist. Yes. Thank you. Now I should like to try you with +this little invention.” +“What’s it do?” +“Well—it tells me about your nervous reactions. Will you sit here?” +The examination that followed was purely medical. When it was +concluded, Sir Julian said: +“Now, Lord Peter, I’ll tell you about yourself in quite untechnical +language—” +“Thanks,” said Peter, “that’s kind of you. I’m an awful fool about long +words.” +“Yes. Are you fond of private theatricals, Lord Peter?” +“Not particularly,” said Peter, genuinely surprised. “Awful bore as a +rule. Why?” +“I thought you might be,” said the specialist, drily. “Well, now. You +know quite well that the strain you put on your nerves during the war +has left its mark on you. It has left what I may call old wounds in +your brain. Sensations received by your nerve-endings sent messages +to your brain, and produced minute physical changes there—changes we +are only beginning to be able to detect, even with our most delicate +instruments. These changes in their turn set up sensations; or I should +say, more accurately, that sensations are the names we give to these +changes of tissue when we perceive them: we call them horror, fear, +sense of responsibility and so on.” +“Yes, I follow you.” +“Very well. Now, if you stimulate those damaged places in your brain +again, you run the risk of opening up the old wounds. I mean, that if +you get nerve-sensations of any kind producing the reactions which we +call horror, fear, and sense of responsibility, they may go on to make +disturbance right along the old channel, and produce in their turn +physical changes which you will call by the names you were accustomed +to associate with them—dread of German mines, responsibility for the +lives of your men, strained attention and the inability to distinguish +small sounds through the overpowering noise of guns.” +“I see.” +“This effect would be increased by extraneous circumstances producing +other familiar physical sensations—night, cold or the rattling of heavy +traffic, for instance.” +“Yes.” +“Yes. The old wounds are nearly healed, but not quite. The ordinary +exercise of your mental faculties has no bad effect. It is only when +you excite the injured part of your brain.” +“Yes, I see.” +“Yes. You must avoid these occasions. You must learn to be +irresponsible, Lord Peter.” +“My friends say I’m only too irresponsible already.” +“Very likely. A sensitive nervous temperament often appears so, owing +to its mental nimbleness.” +“Oh!” +“Yes. This particular responsibility you were speaking of still rests +upon you?” +“Yes, it does.” +“You have not yet completed the course of action on which you have +decided?” +“Not yet.” +“You feel bound to carry it through?” +“Oh, yes—I can’t back out of it now.” +“No. You are expecting further strain?” +“A certain amount.” +“Do you expect it to last much longer?” +“Very little longer now.” +“Ah! Your nerves are not all they should be.” +“No?” +“No. Nothing to be alarmed about, but you must exercise care while +undergoing this strain, and afterwards you should take a complete +rest. How about a voyage in the Mediterranean or the South Seas or +somewhere?” +“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” +“Meanwhile, to carry you over the immediate trouble I will give you +something to strengthen your nerves. It will do you no permanent good, +you understand, but it will tide you over the bad time. And I will give +you a prescription.” +“Thank you.” +Sir Julian got up and went into a small surgery leading out of the +consulting-room. Lord Peter watched him moving about—boiling something +and writing. Presently he returned with a paper and a hypodermic +syringe. +“Here is the prescription. And now, if you will just roll up your +sleeve, I will deal with the necessity of the immediate moment.” +Lord Peter obediently rolled up his sleeve. Sir Julian Freke selected +a portion of his forearm and anointed it with iodine. +“What’s that you’re goin’ to stick into me. Bugs?” +The surgeon laughed. +“Not exactly,” he said. He pinched up a portion of flesh between his +finger and thumb. “You’ve had this kind of thing before, I expect.” +“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter. He watched the cool fingers, fascinated, +and the steady approach of the needle. “Yes—I’ve had it before—and, +d’you know—I don’t care frightfully about it.” +He had brought up his right hand, and it closed over the surgeon’s +wrist like a vice. +The silence was like a shock. The blue eyes did not waver; they burned +down steadily upon the heavy white lids below them. Then these slowly +lifted; the grey eyes met the blue—coldly, steadily—and held them. +When lovers embrace, there seems no sound in the world but their own +breathing. So the two men breathed face to face. +“As you like, of course, Lord Peter,” said Sir Julian, courteously. +“Afraid I’m rather a silly ass,” said Lord Peter, “but I never could +abide these little gadgets. I had one once that went wrong and gave me +a rotten bad time. They make me a bit nervous.” +“In that case,” replied Sir Julian, “it would certainly be better not +to have the injection. It might rouse up just those sensations which we +are desirous of avoiding. You will take the prescription, then, and do +what you can to lessen the immediate strain as far as possible.” +“Oh, yes—I’ll take it easy, thanks,” said Lord Peter. He rolled his +sleeve down neatly. “I’m much obliged to you. If I have any further +trouble I’ll look in again.” +“Do—do—” said Sir Julian, cheerfully. “Only make an appointment another +time. I’m rather rushed these days. I hope your mother is quite well. +I saw her the other day at that Battersea inquest. You should have been +there. It would have interested you.” +CHAPTER XII +The vile, raw fog tore your throat and ravaged your eyes. You could not +see your feet. You stumbled in your walk over poor men’s graves. +The feel of Parker’s old trench-coat beneath your fingers was +comforting. You had felt it in worse places. You clung on now for fear +you should get separated. The dim people moving in front of you were +like Brocken spectres. +“Take care, gentlemen,” said a toneless voice out of the yellow +darkness, “there’s an open grave just hereabouts.” +You bore away to the right, and floundered in a mass of freshly turned +clay. +“Hold up, old man,” said Parker. +“Where is Lady Levy?” +“In the mortuary; the Duchess of Denver is with her. Your mother is +wonderful, Peter.” +“Isn’t she?” said Lord Peter. +A dim blue light carried by somebody ahead wavered and stood still. +“Here you are,” said a voice. +Two Dantesque shapes with pitchforks loomed up. +“Have you finished?” asked somebody. +“Nearly done, sir.” The demons fell to work again with the +pitchforks—no, spades. +Somebody sneezed. Parker located the sneezer and introduced him. +“Mr. Levett represents the Home Secretary. Lord Peter Wimsey. We are +sorry to drag you out on such a day, Mr. Levett.” +“It’s all in the day’s work,” said Mr. Levett, hoarsely. He was muffled +to the eyes. +The sound of the spades for many minutes. An iron noise of tools thrown +down. Demons stooping and straining. +A black-bearded spectre at your elbow. Introduced. The Master of the +Workhouse. +“A very painful matter, Lord Peter. You will forgive me for hoping you +and Mr. Parker may be mistaken.” +“I should like to be able to hope so too.” +Something heaving, straining, coming up out of the ground. +“Steady, men. This way. Can you see? Be careful of the graves—they lie +pretty thick hereabouts. Are you ready?” +“Right you are, sir. You go on with the lantern. We can follow you.” +Lumbering footsteps. Catch hold of Parker’s trench-coat again. “That +you, old man? Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Levett—thought you were +Parker.” +“Hullo, Wimsey—here you are.” +More graves. A headstone shouldered crookedly aslant. A trip and jerk +over the edge of the rough grass. The squeal of gravel under your feet. +“This way, gentlemen, mind the step.” +The mortuary. Raw red brick and sizzling gas-jets. Two women in black, +and Dr. Grimbold. The coffin laid on the table with a heavy thump. +“’Ave you got that there screw-driver, Bill? Thank ’ee. Be keerful wi’ +the chisel now. Not much substance to these ’ere boards, sir.” +Several long creaks. A sob. The Duchess’s voice, kind but peremptory. +“Hush, Christine. You mustn’t cry.” +A mutter of voices. The lurching departure of the Dante demons—good, +decent demons in corduroy. +Dr. Grimbold’s voice—cool and detached as if in the consulting room. +“Now—have you got that lamp, Mr. Wingate? Thank you. Yes, here on +the table, please. Be careful not to catch your elbow in the flex, +Mr. Levett. It would be better, I think, if you came on this side. +Yes—yes—thank you. That’s excellent.” +The sudden brilliant circle of an electric lamp over the table. Dr. +Grimbold’s beard and spectacles. Mr. Levett blowing his nose. Parker +bending close. The Master of the Workhouse peering over him. The rest +of the room in the enhanced dimness of the gas-jets and the fog. +A low murmur of voices. All heads bent over the work. +Dr. Grimbold again—beyond the circle of the lamplight. +“We don’t want to distress you unnecessarily, Lady Levy. If you will +just tell us what to look for—the—? Yes, yes, certainly—and—yes—stopped +with gold? Yes—the lower jaw, the last but one on the right? Yes—no +teeth missing—no—yes? What kind of a mole? Yes—just over the left +breast? Oh, I beg your pardon, just under—yes—appendicitis? Yes—a +long one—yes—in the middle? Yes, I quite understand—a scar on the +arm? Yes, I don’t know if we shall be able to find that—yes—any little +constitutional weakness that might—? Oh, yes—arthritis—yes—thank you, +Lady Levy—that’s very clear. Don’t come unless I ask you to. Now, +Wingate.” +A pause. A murmur. “Pulled out? After death, you think—well, so do +I. Where is Dr. Colegrove? You attended this man in the workhouse? +Yes. Do you recollect—? No? You’re quite certain about that? Yes—we +mustn’t make a mistake, you know. Yes, but there are reasons why Sir +Julian can’t be present; I’m asking _you_, Dr. Colegrove. Well, you’re +certain—that’s all I want to know. Just bring the light closer, Mr. +Wingate, if you please. These miserable shells let the damp in so +quickly. Ah! what do you make of this? Yes—yes—well, that’s rather +unmistakable, isn’t it? Who did the head? Oh, Freke—of course. I was +going to say they did good work at St. Luke’s. Beautiful, isn’t it, +Dr. Colegrove? A wonderful surgeon—I saw him when he was at Guy’s. Oh, +no, gave it up years ago. Nothing like keeping your hand in. Ah—yes, +undoubtedly that’s it. Have you a towel handy, sir? Thank you. Over +the head, if you please—I think we might have another here. Now, Lady +Levy—I am going to ask you to look at a scar, and see if you recognise +it. I’m sure you are going to help us by being very firm. Take your +time—you won’t see anything more than you absolutely must.” +“Lucy, don’t leave me.” +“No, dear.” +A space cleared at the table. The lamplight on the Duchess’s white hair. +“Oh, yes—oh, yes! No, no—I couldn’t be mistaken. There’s that funny +little kink in it. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. Oh, Lucy—Reuben!” +“Only a moment more, Lady Levy. The mole—” +“I—I think so—oh, yes, that is the very place.” +“Yes. And the scar—was it three-cornered, just above the elbow?” +“Yes, oh, yes.” +“Is this it?” +“Yes—yes—” +“I must ask you definitely, Lady Levy. Do you, from these three marks +identify the body as that of your husband?” +“Oh! I must, mustn’t I? Nobody else could have them just the same in +just those places? It is my husband. It is Reuben. Oh—” +“Thank you, Lady Levy. You have been very brave and very helpful.” +“But—I don’t understand yet. How did he come here? Who did this +dreadful thing?” +“Hush, dear,” said the Duchess; “the man is going to be punished.” +“Oh, but—how cruel! Poor Reuben! Who could have wanted to hurt him? Can +I see his face?” +“No, dear,” said the Duchess. “That isn’t possible. Come away—you +mustn’t distress the doctors and people.” +“No—no—they’ve all been so kind. Oh, Lucy!” +“We’ll go home, dear. You don’t want us any more, Dr. Grimbold?” +“No, Duchess, thank you. We are very grateful to you and to Lady Levy +for coming.” +There was a pause, while the two women went out, Parker, collected and +helpful, escorting them to their waiting car. Then Dr. Grimbold again: +“I think Lord Peter Wimsey ought to see—the correctness of his +deductions—Lord Peter—very painful—you may wish to see—yes, I was +uneasy at the inquest—yes—Lady Levy—remarkably clear evidence—yes—most +shocking case—ah, here’s Mr. Parker—you and Lord Peter Wimsey entirely +justified—do I really understand—? Really? I can hardly believe +it—so distinguished a man—as you say, when a great brain turns to +crime—yes—look here! Marvellous work—marvellous—somewhat obscured by +this time, of course—but the most beautiful sections—here, you see, +the left hemisphere—and here—through the corpus striatum—here again—the +very track of the damage done by the blow—wonderful—guessed it—saw the +effect of the blow as he struck it, you know—ah, I should like to see +_his_ brain, Mr. Parker—and to think that—heavens, Lord Peter, you +don’t know what a blow you have struck at the whole profession—the +whole civilized world! Oh, my dear sir! Can you ask me? My lips are +sealed of course—all our lips are sealed.” +The way back through the burial ground. Fog again, and the squeal of +wet gravel. +“Are your men ready, Charles?” +“They have gone. I sent them off when I saw Lady Levy to the car.” +“Who is with them?” +“Sugg.” +“Sugg?” +“Yes—poor devil. They’ve had him up on the mat at headquarters for +bungling the case. All that evidence of Thipps’s about the night club +was corroborated, you know. That girl he gave the gin-and-bitters to +was caught, and came and identified him, and they decided their case +wasn’t good enough, and let Thipps and the Horrocks girl go. Then +they told Sugg he had overstepped his duty and ought to have been more +careful. So he ought, but he can’t help being a fool. I was sorry for +him. It may do him some good to be in at the death. After all, Peter, +you and I had special advantages.” +“Yes. Well, it doesn’t matter. Whoever goes won’t get there in time. +Sugg’s as good as another.” +But Sugg—an experience rare in his career—was in time. +* * * * * +Parker and Lord Peter were at 110 Piccadilly. Lord Peter was playing +Bach and Parker was reading Origen when Sugg was announced. +“We’ve got our man, sir,” said he. +“Good God!” said Peter. “Alive?” +“We were just in time, my lord. We rang the bell and marched straight +up past his man to the library. He was sitting there doing some +writing. When we came in, he made a grab for his hypodermic, but we +were too quick for him, my lord. We didn’t mean to let him slip through +our hands, having got so far. We searched him thoroughly and marched +him off.” +“He is actually in gaol, then?” +“Oh, yes—safe enough—with two warders to see he doesn’t make away with +himself.” +“You surprise me, Inspector. Have a drink.” +“Thank you, my lord. I may say that I’m very grateful to you—this +case was turning out a pretty bad egg for me. If I was rude to your +lordship—” +“Oh, it’s all right, Inspector,” said Lord Peter, hastily. “I don’t see +how you could possibly have worked it out. I had the good luck to know +something about it from other sources.” +“That’s what Freke says.” Already the great surgeon was a common +criminal in the inspector’s eyes—a mere surname. “He was writing a full +confession when we got hold of him, addressed to your lordship. The +police will have to have it, of course, but seeing it’s written for +you, I brought it along for you to see first. Here it is.” +He handed Lord Peter a bulky document. +“Thanks,” said Peter. “Like to hear it, Charles?” +“Rather.” +Accordingly Lord Peter read it aloud. +CHAPTER XIII +Dear Lord Peter—When I was a young man I used to play chess with an +old friend of my father’s. He was a very bad, and a very slow, player, +and he could never see when a checkmate was inevitable, but insisted +on playing every move out. I never had any patience with that kind of +attitude, and I will freely admit now that the game is yours. I must +either stay at home and be hanged or escape abroad and live in an idle +and insecure obscurity. I prefer to acknowledge defeat. +If you have read my book on “Criminal Lunacy,” you will remember that +I wrote: “In the majority of cases, the criminal betrays himself +by some abnormality attendant upon this pathological condition of +the nervous tissues. His mental instability shows itself in various +forms: an overweening vanity, leading him to brag of his achievement; +a disproportionate sense of the importance of the offence, resulting +from the hallucination of religion, and driving him to confession; +egomania, producing the sense of horror or conviction of sin, and +driving him to headlong flight without covering his tracks; a reckless +confidence, resulting in the neglect of the most ordinary precautions, +as in the case of Henry Wainwright, who left a boy in charge of the +murdered woman’s remains while he went to call a cab, or on the other +hand, a nervous distrust of apperceptions in the past, causing him to +revisit the scene of the crime to assure himself that all traces have +been as safely removed as _his own judgment knows them to be_. I will +not hesitate to assert that a perfectly sane man, not intimidated by +religious or other delusions, could always render himself perfectly +secure from detection, provided, that is, that the crime were +sufficiently premeditated and that he were not pressed for time or +thrown out in his calculations by purely fortuitous coincidence. +You know as well as I do, how far I have made this assertion good +in practice. The two accidents which betrayed me, I could not by any +possibility have foreseen. The first was the chance recognition of Levy +by the girl in the Battersea Park Road, which suggested a connection +between the two problems. The second was that Thipps should have +arranged to go down to Denver on the Tuesday morning, thus enabling +your mother to get word of the matter through to you before the body +was removed by the police and to suggest a motive for the murder out +of what she knew of my previous personal history. If I had been able +to destroy these two accidentally forged links of circumstance, I will +venture to say that you would never have so much as suspected me, still +less obtained sufficient evidence to convict. +Of all human emotions, except perhaps those of hunger and fear, +the sexual appetite produces the most violent, and, under some +circumstances, the most persistent reactions; I think, however, I am +right in saying that at the time when I wrote my book, my original +sensual impulse to kill Sir Reuben Levy had already become profoundly +modified by my habits of thought. To the animal lust to slay and +the primitive human desire for revenge, there was added the rational +intention of substantiating my own theories for the satisfaction of +myself and the world. If all had turned out as I had planned, I should +have deposited a sealed account of my experiment with the Bank of +England, instructing my executors to publish it after my death. Now +that accident has spoiled the completeness of my demonstration, I +entrust the account to you, whom it cannot fail to interest, with the +request that you will make it known among scientific men, in justice to +my professional reputation. +The really essential factors of success in any undertaking are money +and opportunity, and as a rule, the man who can make the first can make +the second. During my early career, though I was fairly well-off, I +had not absolute command of circumstance. Accordingly I devoted myself +to my profession, and contented myself with keeping up a friendly +connection with Reuben Levy and his family. This enabled me to remain +in touch with his fortunes and interests, so that, when the moment for +action should arrive, I might know what weapons to use. +Meanwhile, I carefully studied criminology in fiction and fact—my work +on “Criminal Lunacy” was a side-product of this activity—and saw how, +in every murder, the real crux of the problem was the disposal of the +body. As a doctor, the means of death were always ready to my hand, and +I was not likely to make any error in that connection. Nor was I likely +to betray myself on account of any illusory sense of wrong-doing. The +sole difficulty would be that of destroying all connection between +my personality and that of the corpse. You will remember that Michael +Finsbury, in Stevenson’s entertaining romance, observes: “What hangs +people is the unfortunate circumstance of guilt.” It became clear to +me that the mere leaving about of a superfluous corpse could convict +nobody, provided that nobody was guilty in connection _with that +particular corpse_. Thus the idea of substituting the one body for +the other was early arrived at, though it was not till I obtained +the practical direction of St. Luke’s Hospital that I found myself +perfectly unfettered in the choice and handling of dead bodies. From +this period on, I kept a careful watch on all the material brought in +for dissection. +My opportunity did not present itself until the week before Sir +Reuben’s disappearance, when the medical officer at the Chelsea +workhouse sent word to me that an unknown vagrant had been injured that +morning by the fall of a piece of scaffolding, and was exhibiting some +very interesting nervous and cerebral reactions. I went round and saw +the case, and was immediately struck by the man’s strong superficial +resemblance to Sir Reuben. He had been heavily struck on the back +of the neck, dislocating the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae and +heavily bruising the spinal cord. It seemed highly unlikely that he +could ever recover, either mentally or physically, and in any case +there appeared to me to be no object in indefinitely prolonging so +unprofitable an existence. He had obviously been able to support life +until recently, as he was fairly well nourished, but the state of his +feet and clothing showed that he was unemployed, and under present +conditions he was likely to remain so. I decided that he would suit my +purpose very well, and immediately put in train certain transactions +in the City which I had already sketched out in my own mind. In +the meantime, the reactions mentioned by the workhouse doctor were +interesting, and I made careful studies of them, and arranged for the +delivery of the body to the hospital when I should have completed my +preparations. +On the Thursday and Friday of that week I made private arrangements +with various brokers to buy the stock of certain Peruvian Oil-fields, +which had gone down almost to waste-paper. This part of my experiment +did not cost me very much, but I contrived to arouse considerable +curiosity, and even a mild excitement. At this point I was of course +careful not to let my name appear. The incidence of Saturday and Sunday +gave me some anxiety lest my man should after all die before I was +ready for him, but by the use of saline injections I contrived to keep +him alive and, late on Sunday night, he even manifested disquieting +symptoms of at any rate a partial recovery. +On Monday morning the market in Peruvians opened briskly. Rumours had +evidently got about that somebody knew something, and this day I was +not the only buyer in the market. I bought a couple of hundred more +shares in my own name, and left the matter to take care of itself. At +lunch time I made my arrangements to run into Levy accidentally at the +corner of the Mansion House. He expressed (as I expected) his surprise +at seeing me in that part of London. I simulated some embarrassment and +suggested that we should lunch together. I dragged him to a place a bit +off the usual beat, and there ordered a good wine and drank of it as +much as he might suppose sufficient to induce a confidential mood. I +asked him how things were going on ’Change. He said, “Oh, all right,” +but appeared a little doubtful, and asked me whether I did anything in +that way. I said I had a little flutter occasionally, and that, as a +matter of fact, I’d been put on to rather a good thing. I glanced round +apprehensively at this point, and shifted my chair nearer to his. +“I suppose you don’t know anything about Peruvian Oil, do you?” he said. +I started and looked round again, and leaning across to him, said, +dropping my voice: +“Well, I do, as a matter of fact, but I don’t want it to get about. I +stand to make a good bit on it.” +“But I thought the thing was hollow,” he said; “it hasn’t paid a +dividend for umpteen years.” +“No,” I said, “it hasn’t, but it’s going to. I’ve got inside +information.” He looked a bit unconvinced, and I emptied off my glass, +and edged right up to his ear. +“Look here,” I said, “I’m not giving this away to everyone, but I don’t +mind doing you and Christine a good turn. You know, I’ve always kept +a soft place in my heart for her, ever since the old days. You got in +ahead of me that time, and now it’s up to me to heap coals of fire on +you both.” +I was a little excited by this time, and he thought I was drunk. +“It’s very kind of you, old man,” he said, “but I’m a cautious bird, +you know, always was. I’d like a bit of proof.” +And he shrugged up his shoulders and looked like a pawnbroker. +“I’ll give it to you,” I said, “but it isn’t safe here. Come round to +my place tonight after dinner, and I’ll show you the report.” +“How d’you get hold of it?” said he. +“I’ll tell you tonight,” said I. “Come round after dinner—any time +after nine, say.” +“To Harley Street?” he asked, and I saw that he meant coming. +“No,” I said, “to Battersea—Prince of Wales Road; I’ve got some work to +do at the hospital. And look here,” I said, “don’t you let on to a soul +that you’re coming. I bought a couple of hundred shares today, in my +own name, and people are sure to get wind of it. If we’re known to be +about together, someone’ll twig something. In fact, it’s anything but +safe talking about it in this place.” +“All right,” he said, “I won’t say a word to anybody. I’ll turn up +about nine o’clock. You’re sure it’s a sound thing?” +“It can’t go wrong,” I assured him. And I meant it. +We parted after that, and I went round to the workhouse. My man had +died at about eleven o’clock. I had seen him just after breakfast, and +was not surprised. I completed the usual formalities with the workhouse +authorities, and arranged for his delivery at the hospital at about +seven o’clock. +In the afternoon, as it was not one of my days to be in Harley Street, +I looked up an old friend who lives close to Hyde Park, and found +that he was just off to Brighton on some business or other. I had +tea with him, and saw him off by the 5.35 from Victoria. On issuing +from the barrier it occurred to me to purchase an evening paper, and +I thoughtlessly turned my steps to the bookstall. The usual crowds +were rushing to catch suburban trains home, and on moving away I found +myself involved in a contrary stream of travellers coming up out of the +Underground, or bolting from all sides for the 5.45 to Battersea Park +and Wandsworth Common. I disengaged myself after some buffeting and +went home in a taxi; and it was not till I was safely seated there that +I discovered somebody’s gold-rimmed pince-nez involved in the astrakhan +collar of my overcoat. The time from 6.15 to seven I spent concocting +something to look like a bogus report for Sir Reuben. +At seven I went through to the hospital, and found the workhouse van +just delivering my subject at the side door. I had him taken straight +up to the theatre, and told the attendant, William Watts, that I +intended to work there that night. I told him I would prepare the +body myself—the injection of a preservative would have been a most +regrettable complication. I sent him about his business, and then went +home and had dinner. I told my man that I should be working in the +hospital that evening, and that he could go to bed at 10.30 as usual, +as I could not tell whether I should be late or not. He is used to +my erratic ways. I only keep two servants in the Battersea house—the +man-servant and his wife, who cooks for me. The rougher domestic work +is done by a charwoman, who sleeps out. The servants’ bedroom is at the +top of the house, overlooking Prince of Wales Road. +As soon as I had dined I established myself in the hall with some +papers. My man had cleared dinner by a quarter past eight, and I told +him to give me the syphon and tantalus; and sent him downstairs. Levy +rang the bell at twenty minutes past nine, and I opened the door to him +myself. My man appeared at the other end of the hall, but I called to +him that it was all right, and he went away. Levy wore an overcoat with +evening dress and carried an umbrella. “Why, how wet you are!” I said. +“How did you come?” “By ’bus,” he said, “and the fool of a conductor +forgot to put me down at the end of the road. It’s pouring cats and +dogs and pitch-dark—I couldn’t see where I was.” I was glad he hadn’t +taken a taxi, but I had rather reckoned on his not doing so. “Your +little economies will be the death of you one of these days,” I said. +I was right there, but I hadn’t reckoned on their being the death of me +as well. I say again, I could not have foreseen it. +I sat him down by the fire, and gave him a whisky. He was in high +spirits about some deal in Argentines he was bringing off the next day. +We talked money for about a quarter of an hour and then he said: +“Well, how about this Peruvian mare’s-nest of yours?” +“It’s no mare’s-nest,” I said; “come and have a look at it.” +I took him upstairs into the library, and switched on the centre light +and the reading lamp on the writing table. I gave him a chair at the +table with his back to the fire, and fetched the papers I had been +faking, out of the safe. He took them, and began to read them, poking +over them in his short-sighted way, while I mended the fire. As soon as +I saw his head in a favourable position I struck him heavily with the +poker, just over the fourth cervical. It was delicate work calculating +the exact force necessary to kill him without breaking the skin, but +my professional experience was useful to me. He gave one loud gasp, +and tumbled forward on to the table quite noiselessly. I put the poker +back, and examined him. His neck was broken, and he was quite dead. I +carried him into my bedroom and undressed him. It was about ten minutes +to ten when I had finished. I put him away under my bed, which had been +turned down for the night, and cleared up the papers in the library. +Then I went downstairs, took Levy’s umbrella, and let myself out at +the hall door, shouting “Good-night” loudly enough to be heard in the +basement if the servants should be listening. I walked briskly away +down the street, went in by the hospital side door, and returned to +the house noiselessly by way of the private passage. It would have been +awkward if anybody had seen me then, but I leaned over the back stairs +and heard the cook and her husband still talking in the kitchen. I +slipped back into the hall, replaced the umbrella in the stand, cleared +up my papers there, went up into the library and rang the bell. When +the man appeared I told him to lock up everything except the private +door to the hospital. I waited in the library until he had done so, +and about 10.30 I heard both servants go up to bed. I waited a quarter +of an hour longer and then went through to the dissecting-room. I +wheeled one of the stretcher tables through the passage to the house +door, and then went to fetch Levy. It was a nuisance having to get him +downstairs, but I had not liked to make away with him in any of the +ground-floor rooms, in case my servant should take a fancy to poke his +head in during the few minutes that I was out of the house, or while +locking up. Besides, that was a flea-bite to what I should have to +do later. I put Levy on the table, wheeled him across to the hospital +and substituted him for my interesting pauper. I was sorry to have to +abandon the idea of getting a look at the latter’s brain, but I could +not afford to incur suspicion. It was still rather early, so I knocked +down a few minutes getting Levy ready for dissection. Then I put my +pauper on the table and trundled him over to the house. It was now five +past eleven, and I thought I might conclude that the servants were in +bed. I carried the body into my bedroom. He was rather heavy, but less +so than Levy, and my Alpine experience had taught me how to handle +bodies. It is as much a matter of knack as of strength, and I am, in +any case, a powerful man for my height. I put the body into the bed—not +that I expected anyone to look in during my absence, but if they should +they might just as well see me apparently asleep in bed. I drew the +clothes a little over his head, stripped, and put on Levy’s clothes, +which were fortunately a little big for me everywhere, not forgetting +to take his spectacles, watch and other oddments. At a little before +half-past eleven I was in the road looking for a cab. People were just +beginning to come home from the theatre, and I easily secured one at +the corner of Prince of Wales Road. I told the man to drive me to Hyde +Park Corner. There I got out, tipped him well, and asked him to pick +me up again at the same place in an hour’s time. He assented with an +understanding grin, and I walked on up Park Lane. I had my own clothes +with me in a suitcase, and carried my own overcoat and Levy’s umbrella. +When I got to No. 9A there were lights in some of the top windows. +I was very nearly too early, owing to the old man’s having sent the +servants to the theatre. I waited about for a few minutes, and heard it +strike the quarter past midnight. The lights were extinguished shortly +after, and I let myself in with Levy’s key. +It had been my original intention, when I thought over this plan +of murder, to let Levy disappear from the study or the dining-room, +leaving only a heap of clothes on the hearth-rug. The accident of my +having been able to secure Lady Levy’s absence from London, however, +made possible a solution more misleading, though less pleasantly +fantastic. I turned on the hall light, hung up Levy’s wet overcoat and +placed his umbrella in the stand. I walked up noisily and heavily to +the bedroom and turned off the light by the duplicate switch on the +landing. I knew the house well enough, of course. There was no chance +of my running into the man-servant. Old Levy was a simple old man, +who liked doing things for himself. He gave his valet little work, +and never required any attendance at night. In the bedroom I took off +Levy’s gloves and put on a surgical pair, so as to leave no tell-tale +finger-prints. As I wished to convey the impression that Levy had gone +to bed in the usual way, I simply went to bed. The surest and simplest +method of making a thing appear to have been done is to do it. A bed +that has been rumpled about with one’s hands, for instance, never looks +like a bed that has been slept in. I dared not use Levy’s brush, of +course, as my hair is not of his colour, but I did everything else. I +supposed that a thoughtful old man like Levy would put his boots handy +for his valet, and I ought to have deduced that he would fold up his +clothes. That was a mistake, but not an important one. Remembering that +well-thought-out little work of Mr. Bentley’s, I had examined Levy’s +mouth for false teeth, but he had none. I did not forget, however, to +wet his tooth-brush. +At one o’clock I got up and dressed in my own clothes by the light of +my own pocket torch. I dared not turn on the bedroom lights, as there +were light blinds to the windows. I put on my own boots and an old +pair of goloshes outside the door. There was a thick Turkey carpet on +the stairs and hall-floor, and I was not afraid of leaving marks. I +hesitated whether to chance the banging of the front door, but decided +it would be safer to take the latchkey. (It is now in the Thames. +I dropped it over Battersea Bridge the next day.) I slipped quietly +down, and listened for a few minutes with my ear to the letter-box. +I heard a constable tramp past. As soon as his steps had died away +in the distance I stepped out and pulled the door gingerly to. It +closed almost soundlessly, and I walked away to pick up my cab. I +had an overcoat of much the same pattern as Levy’s, and had taken the +precaution to pack an opera hat in my suitcase. I hoped the man would +not notice that I had no umbrella this time. Fortunately the rain +had diminished for the moment to a sort of drizzle, and if he noticed +anything he made no observation. I told him to stop at 50 Overstrand +Mansions, and I paid him off there, and stood under the porch till +he had driven away. Then I hurried round to my own side door and let +myself in. It was about a quarter to two, and the harder part of my +task still lay before me. +My first step was so to alter the appearance of my subject as to +eliminate any immediate suggestion either of Levy or of the workhouse +vagrant. A fairly superficial alteration was all I considered +necessary, since there was not likely to be any hue-and-cry after the +pauper. He was fairly accounted for, and his deputy was at hand to +represent him. Nor, if Levy was after all traced to my house, would +it be difficult to show that the body in evidence was, as a matter of +fact, not his. A clean shave and a little hair-oiling and manicuring +seemed sufficient to suggest a distinct personality for my silent +accomplice. His hands had been well washed in hospital, and though +calloused, were not grimy. I was not able to do the work as thoroughly +as I should have liked, because time was getting on. I was not sure +how long it would take me to dispose of him, and moreover, I feared +the onset of _rigor mortis_, which would make my task more difficult. +When I had him barbered to my satisfaction, I fetched a strong sheet +and a couple of wide roller bandages, and fastened him up carefully, +padding him with cotton wool wherever the bandages might chafe or leave +a bruise. +Now came the really ticklish part of the business. I had already +decided in my own mind that the only way of conveying him from the +house was by the roof. To go through the garden at the back in this +soft wet weather was to leave a ruinous trail behind us. To carry +a dead man down a suburban street in the middle of the night seemed +outside the range of practical politics. On the roof, on the other +hand, the rain, which would have betrayed me on the ground, would stand +my friend. +To reach the roof, it was necessary to carry my burden to the top +of the house, past my servants’ room, and hoist him out through the +trap-door in the box-room roof. Had it merely been a question of +going quietly up there myself, I should have had no fear of waking the +servants, but to do so burdened by a heavy body was more difficult. +It would be possible, provided that the man and his wife were soundly +asleep, but if not, the lumbering tread on the narrow stair and the +noise of opening the trap-door would be only too plainly audible. +I tiptoed delicately up the stair and listened at their door. To my +disgust I heard the man give a grunt and mutter something as he moved +in his bed. +I looked at my watch. My preparations had taken nearly an hour, first +and last, and I dared not be too late on the roof. I determined to +take a bold step and, as it were, bluff out an alibi. I went without +precaution against noise into the bathroom, turned on the hot and cold +water taps to the full and pulled out the plug. +My household has often had occasion to complain of my habit of using +the bath at irregular night hours. Not only does the rush of water +into the cistern disturb any sleepers on the Prince of Wales Road +side of the house, but my cistern is afflicted with peculiarly loud +gurglings and thumpings, while frequently the pipes emit a loud +groaning sound. To my delight, on this particular occasion, the cistern +was in excellent form, honking, whistling and booming like a railway +terminus. I gave the noise five minutes’ start, and when I calculated +that the sleepers would have finished cursing me and put their heads +under the clothes to shut out the din, I reduced the flow of water to +a small stream and left the bathroom, taking good care to leave the +light burning and lock the door after me. Then I picked up my pauper +and carried him upstairs as lightly as possible. +The box-room is a small attic on the side of the landing opposite to +the servants’ bedroom and the cistern-room. It has a trap-door, reached +by a short, wooden ladder. I set this up, hoisted up my pauper and +climbed up after him. The water was still racing into the cistern, +which was making a noise as though it were trying to digest an iron +chain, and with the reduced flow in the bathroom the groaning of the +pipes had risen almost to a hoot. I was not afraid of anybody hearing +other noises. I pulled the ladder through on to the roof after me. +Between my house and the last house in Queen Caroline Mansions there +is a space of only a few feet. Indeed, when the Mansions were put up, +I believe there was some trouble about ancient lights, but I suppose +the parties compromised somehow. Anyhow, my seven-foot ladder reached +well across. I tied the body firmly to the ladder, and pushed it over +till the far end was resting on the parapet of the opposite house. Then +I took a short run across the cistern-room and the box-room roof, and +landed easily on the other side, the parapet being happily both low and +narrow. +The rest was simple. I carried my pauper along the flat roofs, +intending to leave him, like the hunchback in the story, on someone’s +staircase or down a chimney. I had got about half-way along when I +suddenly thought, “Why, this must be about little Thipps’s place,” and +I remembered his silly face, and his silly chatter about vivisection. +It occurred to me pleasantly how delightful it would be to deposit my +parcel with him and see what he made of it. I lay down and peered over +the parapet at the back. It was pitch-dark and pouring with rain again +by this time, and I risked using my torch. That was the only incautious +thing I did, and the odds against being seen from the houses opposite +were long enough. One second’s flash showed me what I had hardly dared +to hope—an open window just below me. +I knew those flats well enough to be sure it was either the bathroom +or the kitchen. I made a noose in a third bandage that I had brought +with me, and made it fast under the arms of the corpse. I twisted it +into a double rope, and secured the end to the iron stanchion of a +chimney-stack. Then I dangled our friend over. I went down after him +myself with the aid of a drain-pipe and was soon hauling him in by +Thipps’s bathroom window. +By that time I had got a little conceited with myself, and spared a +few minutes to lay him out prettily and make him shipshape. A sudden +inspiration suggested that I should give him the pair of pince-nez +which I had happened to pick up at Victoria. I came across them in my +pocket while I was looking for a penknife to loosen a knot, and I saw +what distinction they would lend his appearance, besides making it more +misleading. I fixed them on him, effaced all traces of my presence as +far as possible, and departed as I had come, going easily up between +the drain-pipe and the rope. +I walked quietly back, re-crossed my crevasse and carried in my ladder +and sheet. My discreet accomplice greeted me with a reassuring gurgle +and thump. I didn’t make a sound on the stairs. Seeing that I had now +been having a bath for about three-quarters of an hour, I turned the +water off, and enabled my deserving domestics to get a little sleep. I +also felt it was time I had a little myself. +First, however, I had to go over to the hospital and make all safe +there. I took off Levy’s head, and started to open up the face. In +twenty minutes his own wife could not have recognised him. I returned, +leaving my wet goloshes and mackintosh by the garden door. My trousers +I dried by the gas stove in my bedroom, and brushed away all traces of +mud and brickdust. My pauper’s beard I burned in the library. +I got a good two hours’ sleep from five to seven, when my man called me +as usual. I apologized for having kept the water running so long and so +late, and added that I thought I would have the cistern seen to. +I was interested to note that I was rather extra hungry at breakfast, +showing that my night’s work had caused a certain wear-and-tear of +tissue. I went over afterwards to continue my dissection. During the +morning a peculiarly thick-headed police inspector came to inquire +whether a body had escaped from the hospital. I had him brought to me +where I was, and had the pleasure of showing him the work I was doing +on Sir Reuben Levy’s head. Afterwards I went round with him to Thipps’s +and was able to satisfy myself that my pauper looked very convincing. +As soon as the Stock Exchange opened I telephoned my various brokers, +and by exercising a little care, was able to sell out the greater +part of my Peruvian stock on a rising market. Towards the end of the +day, however, buyers became rather unsettled as a result of Levy’s +death, and in the end I did not make more than a few hundreds by the +transaction. +Trusting I have now made clear to you any point which you may have +found obscure, and with congratulations on the good fortune and +perspicacity which have enabled you to defeat me, I remain, with kind +remembrances to your mother, +Yours very truly, +JULIAN FREKE +_Post-Scriptum_: My will is made, leaving my money to St. Luke’s +Hospital, and bequeathing my body to the same institution for +dissection. I feel sure that my brain will be of interest to the +scientific world. As I shall die by my own hand, I imagine that there +may be a little difficulty about this. Will you do me the favour, if +you can, of seeing the persons concerned in the inquest, and obtaining +that the brain is not damaged by an unskilful practitioner at the +post-mortem, and that the body is disposed of according to my wish? +By the way, it may be of interest to you to know that I appreciated +your motive in calling this afternoon. It conveyed a warning, and I +am acting upon it in spite of the disastrous consequences to myself. +I was pleased to realize that you had not underestimated my nerve and +intelligence, and refused the injection. Had you submitted to it, you +would, of course, never have reached home alive. No trace would have +been left in your body of the injection, which consisted of a harmless +preparation of strychnine, mixed with an almost unknown poison, for +which there is at present no recognised test, a concentrated solution +of sn— +* * * * * +At this point the manuscript broke off. +“Well, that’s all clear enough,” said Parker. +“Isn’t it queer?” said Lord Peter. “All that coolness, all those +brains—and then he couldn’t resist writing a confession to show how +clever he was, even to keep his head out of the noose.” +“And a very good thing for us,” said Inspector Sugg, “but Lord bless +you, sir, these criminals are all alike.” +“Freke’s epitaph,” said Parker, when the Inspector had departed. “What +next, Peter?” +“I shall now give a dinner party,” said Lord Peter, “to Mr. John P. +Milligan and his secretary and to Messrs. Crimplesham and Wicks. I feel +they deserve it for not having murdered Levy.” +“Well, don’t forget the Thippses,” said Mr. Parker. +“On no account,” said Lord Peter, “would I deprive myself of the +pleasure of Mrs. Thipps’s company. Bunter!” +“My lord?” +“The Napoleon brandy.” +FOOTNOTES +[A] This is the first Florence edition, 1481, by Niccolo +di Lorenzo. Lord Peter’s collection of printed Dantes +is worth inspection. It includes, besides the famous +Aldine 8vo. of 1502, the Naples folio of 1477—“edizione +rarissima,” according to Colomb. This copy has no +history, and Mr. Parker’s private belief is that its +present owner conveyed it away by stealth from somewhere +or other. Lord Peter’s own account is that he “picked +it up in a little place in the hills,” when making a +walking-tour through Italy. +[B] Lord Peter’s wits were wool-gathering. The book is +in the possession of Earl Spencer. The Brocklebury copy +is incomplete, the last five signatures being altogether +missing, but is unique in possessing the colophon. +[C] Apollonios Rhodios. Lorenzobodi Alopa. Firenze. +of the Battersea Mystery did not prevent Lord Peter +from securing this rare work before his departure for +Corsica. +[D] Lord Peter was not without authority for his +opinion: “With respect to the alleged motive, it is of +great importance to see whether there was a motive for +committing such a crime, or whether there was not, or +whether there is an improbability of its having been +committed so strong as not to be overpowered by positive +evidence. But _if there be any motive which can be +assigned, I am bound to tell you that the inadequacy of +that motive is of little importance_. We know, from the +experience of criminal courts, that atrocious crimes of +this sort have been committed from very slight motives; +_not merely from malice and revenge_, but to gain a +small pecuniary advantage, and to drive off for a time +pressing difficulties.”—L. C. J. Campbell, summing up in +Reg. v. Palmer, Shorthand Report, p. 308 C. C. C., May, +1856, Sess. Pa. 5. (Italics mine. D. L. S.)",Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel,Dorothy L. Sayers,288,"['Julian Freke', 'Ballmeyer']" +" + +It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one +man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man +the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of +comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves. + +I remember the date very well, for it was in the same month that Holmes +refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps some day be +described. I only refer to the matter in passing, for in my position +of partner and confidant I am obliged to be particularly careful to +avoid any indiscretion. I repeat, however, that this enables me to fix +the date, which was the latter end of June, 1902, shortly after the +conclusion of the South African War. Holmes had spent several days in +bed, as was his habit from time to time, but he emerged that morning +with a long foolscap document in his hand and a twinkle of amusement in +his austere grey eyes. + +""There is a chance for you to make some money, friend Watson,"" said he. +""Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?"" + +I admitted that I had not. + +""Well, if you can lay your hand upon a Garrideb, there's money in it."" + +""Why?"" + +""Ah, that's a long story--rather a whimsical one, too. I don't think +in all our explorations of human complexities we have ever come upon +anything more singular. The fellow will be here presently for +cross-examination, so I won't open the matter up till he comes. But +meanwhile, that's the name we want."" + +The telephone directory lay on the table beside me, and I turned over +the pages in a rather hopeless quest. But to my amazement there was +this strange name in its due place. I gave a cry of triumph. + +""Here you are, Holmes! Here it is!"" + +Holmes took the book from my hand. + +""'Garrideb, N.,'"" he read, ""'136 Little Ryder Street, W.' Sorry to +disappoint you, my dear Watson, but this is the man himself. That is +the address upon his letter. We want another to match him."" + +Mrs. Hudson had come in with a card upon a tray. I took it up and +glanced at it. + +""Why, here it is!"" I cried in amazement. ""This is a different initial. +John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law, Moorville, Kansas, U.S.A."" + +Holmes smiled as he looked at the card. ""I am afraid you must make yet +another effort, Watson,"" said he. ""This gentleman is also in the plot +already, though I certainly did not expect to see him this morning. +However, he is in a position to tell us a good deal which I want to +know."" + +A moment later he was in the room. Mr. John Garrideb, Counsellor at +Law, was a short, powerful man with the round, fresh, clean-shaven face +characteristic of so many American men of affairs. The general effect +was chubby and rather childlike, so that one received the impression of +quite a young man with a broad set smile upon his face. His eyes, +however, were arresting. Seldom in any human head have I seen a pair +which bespoke a more intense inward life, so bright were they, so +alert, so responsive to every change of thought. His accent was +American, but was not accompanied by any eccentricity of speech. + +""Mr. Holmes?"" he asked, glancing from one to the other. ""Ah, yes! +Your pictures are not unlike you, sir, if I may say so. I believe you +have had a letter from my namesake, Mr. Nathan Garrideb, have you not?"" + +""Pray sit down,"" said Sherlock Holmes. ""We shall, I fancy, have a good +deal to discuss."" He took up his sheets of foolscap. ""You are, of +course, the Mr. John Garrideb mentioned in this document. But surely +you have been in England some time?"" + +""Why do you say that, Mr. Holmes?"" I seemed to read sudden suspicion in +those expressive eyes. + +""Your whole outfit is English."" + +Mr. Garrideb forced a laugh. ""I've read of your tricks, Mr. Holmes, +but I never thought I would be the subject of them. Where do you read +that?"" + +""The shoulder cut of your coat, the toes of your boots--could anyone +doubt it?"" + +""Well, well, I had no idea I was so obvious a Britisher. But business +brought me over here some time ago, and so, as you say, my outfit is +nearly all London. However, I guess your time is of value, and we did +not meet to talk about the cut of my socks. What about getting down to +that paper you hold in your hand?"" + +Holmes had in some way ruffled our visitor, whose chubby face had +assumed a far less amiable expression. + +""Patience! Patience, Mr. Garrideb!"" said my friend in a soothing +voice. ""Dr. Watson would tell you that these little digressions of +mine sometimes prove in the end to have some bearing on the matter. +But why did Mr. Nathan Garrideb not come with you?"" + +""Why did he ever drag you into it at all?"" asked our visitor, with a +sudden outflame of anger. ""What in thunder had you to do with it? +Here was a bit of professional business between two gentlemen, and one +of them must needs call in a detective! I saw him this morning, and he +told me this fool-trick he had played me, and that's why I am here. +But I feel bad about it, all the same."" + +""There was no reflection upon you, Mr. Garrideb. It was simply zeal +upon his part to gain your end--an end which is, I understand, equally +vital for both of you. He knew that I had means of getting +information, and, therefore, it was very natural that he should apply +to me."" + +Our visitor's angry face gradually cleared. + +""Well, that puts it different,"" said he. ""When I went to see him this +morning and he told me he had sent to a detective, I just asked for +your address and came right away. I don't want police butting into a +private matter. But if you are content just to help us find the man, +there can be no harm in that."" + +""Well, that is just how it stands,"" said Holmes. ""And now, sir, since +you are here, we had best have a clear account from your own lips. My +friend here knows nothing of the details."" + +Mr. Garrideb surveyed me with not too friendly a gaze. + +""Need he know?"" he asked. + +""We usually work together."" + +""Well, there's no reason it should be kept a secret. I'll give you the +facts as short as I can make them. If you came from Kansas I would not +need to explain to you who Alexander Hamilton Garrideb was. He made +his money in real estate, and afterwards in the wheat pit at Chicago, +but he spent it in buying up as much land as would make one of your +counties, lying along the Arkansas River, west of Fort Dodge. It's +grazing-land and lumber-land and arable-land and mineralized-land, and +just every sort of land that brings dollars to the man that owns it. + +""He had no kith nor kin--or, if he had, I never heard of it. But he +took a kind of pride in the queerness of his name. That was what +brought us together. I was in the law at Topeka, and one day I had a +visit from the old man, and he was tickled to death to meet another man +with his own name. It was his pet fad, and he was dead set to find out +if there were any more Garridebs in the world. 'Find me another!' said +he. I told him I was a busy man and could not spend my life hiking +round the world in search of Garridebs. 'None the less,' said he, +'that is just what you will do if things pan out as I planned them.' I +thought he was joking, but there was a powerful lot of meaning in the +words, as I was soon to discover. + +""For he died within a year of saying them, and he left a will behind +him. It was the queerest will that has ever been filed in the State of +Kansas. His property was divided into three parts, and I was to have +one on condition that I found two Garridebs who would share the +remainder. It's five million dollars for each if it is a cent, but we +can't lay a finger on it until we all three stand in a row. + +""It was so big a chance that I just let my legal practice slide and I +set forth looking for Garridebs. There is not one in the United +States. I went through it, sir, with a fine-toothed comb and never a +Garrideb could I catch. Then I tried the old country. Sure enough +there was the name in the London Telephone Directory. I went after him +two days ago and explained the whole matter to him. But he is a lone +man, like myself, with some women relations, but no men. It says three +adult men in the will. So you see we still have a vacancy, and if you +can help to fill it we will be very ready to pay your charges."" + +""Well, Watson,"" said Holmes, with a smile, ""I said it was rather +whimsical, did I not? I should have thought, sir, that your obvious +way was to advertise in the agony columns of the papers."" + +""I have done that, Mr. Holmes. No replies."" + +""Dear me! Well, it is certainly a most curious little problem. I may +take a glance at it in my leisure. By the way, it is curious that you +should have come from Topeka. I used to have a correspondent--he is +dead now--old Dr. Lysander Starr, who was Mayor in 1890."" + +""Good old Dr. Starr!"" said our visitor. ""His name is still honoured. +Well, Mr. Holmes, I suppose all we can do is to report to you and let +you know how we progress. I reckon you will hear within a day or two."" +With this assurance our American bowed and departed. + +Holmes had lit his pipe, and he sat for some time with a curious smile +upon his face. + +""Well?"" I asked at last. + +""I am wondering, Watson--just wondering!"" + +""At what?"" + +Holmes took his pipe from his lips. + +""I was wondering, Watson, what on earth could be the object of this man +in telling us such a rigmarole of lies. I nearly asked him so--for +there are times when a brutal frontal attack is the best policy--but I +judged it better to let him think he had fooled us. Here is a man with +an English coat frayed at the elbow and trousers bagged at the knee +with a year's wear, and yet by this document and by his own account he +is a provincial American lately landed in London. There have been no +advertisements in the agony columns. You know that I miss nothing +there. They are my favourite covert for putting up a bird, and I would +never have overlooked such a cock pheasant as that. I never knew a Dr. +Lysander Starr of Topeka. Touch him where you would he was false. I +think the fellow is really an American, but he has worn his accent +smooth with years of London. What is his game, then, and what motive +lies behind this preposterous search for Garridebs? It's worth our +attention, for, granting that the man is a rascal, he is certainly a +complex and ingenious one. We must now find out if our other +correspondent is a fraud also. Just ring him up, Watson."" + +I did so, and heard a thin, quavering voice at the other end of the +line. + +""Yes, yes, I am Mr. Nathan Garrideb. Is Mr. Holmes there? I should +very much like to have a word with Mr. Holmes."" + +My friend took the instrument and I heard the usual syncopated dialogue. + +""Yes, he has been here. I understand that you don't know him.... How +long? ... Only two days! ... Yes, yes, of course, it is a most +captivating prospect. Will you be at home this evening? I suppose +your namesake will not be there? ... Very good, we will come then, for +I would rather have a chat without him.... Dr. Watson will come with +me.... I understood from your note that you did not go out often.... +Well, we shall be round about six. You need not mention it to the +American lawyer.... Very good. Good-bye!"" + +It was twilight of a lovely spring evening, and even Little Ryder +Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a +stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and +wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The particular +house to which we were directed was a large, old-fashioned, Early +Georgian edifice with a flat brick face broken only by two deep bay +windows on the ground floor. It was on this ground floor that our +client lived, and, indeed, the low windows proved to be the front of +the huge room in which he spent his waking hours. Holmes pointed as we +passed to the small brass plate which bore the curious name. + +""Up some years, Watson,"" he remarked, indicating its discoloured +surface. ""It's his real name, anyhow, and that is something to note."" + +The house had a common stair, and there were a number of names painted +in the hall some indicating offices and some private chambers. It was +not a collection of residential flats, but rather the abode of Bohemian +bachelors. Our client opened the door for us himself and apologized by +saying that the woman in charge left at four o'clock. Mr. Nathan +Garrideb proved to be a very tall, loose-jointed, round-backed person, +gaunt and bald, some sixty-odd years of age. He had a cadaverous face, +with the dull dead skin of a man to whom exercise was unknown. Large +round spectacles and a small projecting goat's beard combined with his +stooping attitude to give him an expression of peering curiosity. The +general effect, however, was amiable, though eccentric. + +The room was as curious as its occupant. It looked like a small +museum. It was both broad and deep, with cupboards and cabinets all +round, crowded with specimens, geological and anatomical. Cases of +butterflies and moths flanked each side of the entrance. A large table +in the centre was littered with all sorts of debris, while the tall +brass tube of a powerful microscope bristled up amongst them. As I +glanced round I was surprised at the universality of the man's +interests. Here was a case of ancient coins. There was a cabinet of +flint instruments. Behind his central table was a large cupboard of +fossil bones. Above was a line of plaster skulls with such names as +""Neanderthal,"" ""Heidelberg,"" ""Cromagnon"" printed beneath them. It was +clear that he was a student of many subjects. As he stood in front of +us now, he held a piece of chamois leather in his right hand with which +he was polishing a coin. + +""Syracusan--of the best period,"" he explained, holding it up. ""They +degenerated greatly towards the end. At their best I hold them +supreme, though some prefer the Alexandrian school. You will find a +chair here, Mr. Holmes. Pray allow me to clear these bones. And you, +sir--ah, yes, Dr. Watson--if you would have the goodness to put the +Japanese vase to one side. You see round me my little interests in +life. My doctor lectures me about never going out, but why should I go +out when I have so much to hold me here? I can assure you that the +adequate cataloguing of one of those cabinets would take me three good +months."" + +Holmes looked round him with curiosity. + +""But do you tell me that you _never_ go out?"" he said + +""Now and again I drive down to Sotheby's or Christie's. Otherwise I +very seldom leave my room. I am not too strong, and my researches are +very absorbing. But you can imagine, Mr. Holmes, what a terrific +shock--pleasant but terrific--it was for me when I heard of this +unparalleled good fortune. It only needs one more Garrideb to complete +the matter, and surely we can find one. I had a brother, but he is +dead, and female relatives are disqualified. But there must surely be +others in the world. I had heard that you handled strange cases, and +that was why I sent to you. Of course, this American gentleman is +quite right, and I should have taken his advice first, but I acted for +the best."" + +""I think you acted very wisely indeed,"" said Holmes. ""But are you +really anxious to acquire an estate in America?"" + +""Certainly not, sir. Nothing would induce me to leave my collection. +But this gentleman has assured me that he will buy me out as soon as we +have established our claim. Five million dollars was the sum named. +There are a dozen specimens in the market at the present moment which +fill gaps in my collection, and which I am unable to purchase for want +of a few hundred pounds. Just think what I could do with five million +dollars. Why, I have the nucleus of a national collection. I shall be +the Hans Sloane of my age."" + +His eyes gleamed behind his great spectacles. It was very clear that +no pains would be spared by Mr. Nathan Garrideb in finding a namesake. + +""I merely called to make your acquaintance, and there is no reason why +I should interrupt your studies,"" said Holmes. ""I prefer to establish +personal touch with those with whom I do business. There are few +questions I need ask, for I have your very clear narrative in my +pocket, and I filled up the blanks when this American gentleman called. +I understand that up to this week you were unaware of his existence."" + +""That is so. He called last Tuesday."" + +""Did he tell you of our interview to-day?"" + +""Yes, he came straight back to me. He had been very angry."" + +""Why should he be angry?"" + +""He seemed to think it was some reflection on his honour. But he was +quite cheerful again when he returned."" + +""Did he suggest any course of action?"" + +""No, sir, he did not."" + +""Has he had, or asked for, any money from you?"" + +""No, sir, never!"" + +""You see no possible object he has in view?"" + +""None, except what he states."" + +""Did you tell him of our telephone appointment?"" + +""Yes, sir, I did."" + +Holmes was lost in thought. I could see that he was puzzled. + +""Have you any articles of great value in your collection?"" + +""No, sir. I am not a rich man. It is a good collection, but not a +very valuable one."" + +""You have no fear of burglars?"" + +""Not the least."" + +""How long have you been in these rooms?"" + +""Nearly five years."" + +Holmes's cross-examination was interrupted by an imperative knocking at +the door. No sooner had our client unlatched it than the American +lawyer burst excitedly into the room. + +""Here you are!"" he cried, waving a paper over his head. ""I thought I +should be in time to get you. Mr. Nathan Garrideb, my congratulations! +You are a rich man, sir. Our business is happily finished and all is +well. As to you, Mr. Holmes, we can only say we are sorry if we have +given you any useless trouble."" + +He handed over the paper to our client, who stood staring at a marked +advertisement. Holmes and I leaned forward and read it over his +shoulder. This is how it ran: + + +-----------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | HOWARD GARRIDEB. | + | | + | Constructor of Agricultural Machinery. | + | | + | Binders, reapers' steam and hand plows, drills, | + | harrows, farmers' carts, buckboards, and all other | + | appliances. | + | | + | Estimates for Artesian Wells. | + | | + | Apply Grosvenor Buildings, Aston. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------+ + + +""Glorious!"" gasped our host. ""That makes our third man."" + +""I had opened up inquiries in Birmingham,"" said the American, ""and my +agent there has sent me this advertisement from a local paper. We must +hustle and put the thing through. I have written to this man and told +him that you will see him in his office to-morrow afternoon at four +o'clock."" + +""You want _me_ to see him?"" + +""What do you say, Mr. Holmes? Don't you think it would be wiser? Here +am I, a wandering American with a wonderful tale. Why should he +believe what I tell him? But you are a Britisher with solid +references, and he is bound to take notice of what you say. I would go +with you if you wished, but I have a very busy day to-morrow, and I +could always follow you if you are in any trouble."" + +""Well, I have not made such a journey for years."" + +""It is nothing, Mr. Garrideb. I have figured out your connections. +You leave at twelve and should be there soon after two. Then you can +be back the same night. All you have to do is to see this man, explain +the matter, and get an affidavit of his existence. By the Lord!"" he +added hotly, ""considering I've come all the way from the centre of +America, it is surely little enough if you go a hundred miles in order +to put this matter through."" + +""Quite so,"" said Holmes. ""I think what this gentleman says is very +true."" + +Mr. Nathan Garrideb shrugged his shoulders with a disconsolate air. +""Well, if you insist I shall go,"" said he. ""It is certainly hard for +me to refuse you anything, considering the glory of hope that you have +brought into my life."" + +""Then that is agreed,"" said Holmes, ""and no doubt you will let me have +a report as soon as you can."" + +""I'll see to that,"" said the American. ""Well,"" he added, looking at +his watch, ""I'll have to get on. I'll call to-morrow, Mr. Nathan, and +see you off to Birmingham. Coming my way, Mr. Holmes? Well, then, +good-bye, and we may have good news for you to-morrow night."" + +I noticed that my friend's face cleared when the American left the +room, and the look of thoughtful perplexity had vanished. + +""I wish I could look over your collection, Mr. Garrideb,"" said he. ""In +my profession all sorts of odd knowledge comes useful, and this room of +yours is a storehouse of it."" + +Our client shone with pleasure and his eyes gleamed from behind his big +glasses. + +""I had always heard, sir, that you were a very intelligent man,"" said +he. ""I could take you round now, if you have the time."" + +""Unfortunately, I have not. But these specimens are so well labelled +and classified that they hardly need your personal explanation. If I +should be able to look in to-morrow, I presume that there would be no +objection to my glancing over them?"" + +""None at all. You are most welcome. The place will, of course, be +shut up, but Mrs. Saunders is in the basement up to four o'clock and +would let you in with her key."" + +""Well, I happen to be clear to-morrow afternoon. If you would say a +word to Mrs. Saunders it would be quite in order. By the way, who is +your house-agent?"" + +Our client was amazed at the sudden question. + +""Holloway and Steele, in the Edgware Road. But why?"" + +""I am a bit of an archæologist myself when it comes to houses,"" said +Holmes, laughing. ""I was wondering if this was Queen Anne or Georgian."" + +""Georgian, beyond doubt."" + +""Really. I should have thought a little earlier. However, it is +easily ascertained. Well, good-bye, Mr. Garrideb, and may you have +every success in your Birmingham journey."" + +The house-agent's was close by, but we found that it was closed for the +day, so we made our way back to Baker Street. It was not till after +dinner that Holmes reverted to the subject. + +""Our little problem draws to a close,"" said he. ""No doubt you have +outlined the solution in your own mind."" + +""I can make neither head nor tail of it."" + +""The head is surely clear enough and the tail we should see to-morrow. +Did you notice nothing curious about that advertisement?"" + +""I saw that the word 'plough' was misspelt."" + +""Oh, you did notice that, did you? Come, Watson, you improve all the +time. Yes, it was bad English but good American. The printer had set +it up as received. Then the buckboards. That is American also. And +artesian wells are commoner with them than with us. It was a typical +American advertisement, but purporting to be from an English firm. +What do you make of that?"" + +""I can only suppose that this American lawyer put it in himself. What +his object was I fail to understand."" + +""Well, there are alternative explanations. Anyhow, he wanted to get +this good old fossil up to Birmingham. That is very clear. I might +have told him that he was clearly going on a wild-goose chase, but, on +second thoughts, it seemed better to clear the stage by letting him go. +To-morrow, Watson--well, to-morrow will speak for itself."" + + +Holmes was up and out early. When he returned at lunch-time I noticed +that his face was very grave. + +""This is a more serious matter than I had expected, Watson,"" said he. +""It is fair to tell you so, though I know it will only be an additional +reason to you for running your head into danger. I should know my +Watson by now. But there is danger, and you should know it."" + +""Well, it is not the first we have shared, Holmes. I hope it may not +be the last. What is the particular danger this time?"" + +""We are up against a very hard case. I have identified Mr. John +Garrideb, Counsellor at Law. He is none other than 'Killer' Evans, of +sinister and murderous reputation."" + +""I fear I am none the wiser."" + +""Ah, it is not part of your profession to carry about a portable +Newgate Calendar in your memory. I have been down to see friend +Lestrade at the Yard. There may be an occasional want of imaginative +intuition down there, but they lead the world for thoroughness and +method. I had an idea that we might get on the track of our American +friend in their records. Sure enough, I found his chubby face smiling +up at me from the Rogues' Portrait Gallery. James Winter, _alias_ +Morecroft, _alias_ Killer Evans, was the inscription below."" Holmes +drew an envelope from his pocket. ""I scribbled down a few points from +his dossier. Aged forty-four. Native of Chicago. Known to have shot +three men in the States. Escaped from penitentiary through political +influence. Came to London in 1893. Shot a man over cards in a night +club in the Waterloo Road in January, 1895. Man died, but he was shown +to have been the aggressor in the row. Dead man was identified as +Rodger Prescott, famous as forger and coiner in Chicago. Killer Evans +released in 1901. Has been under police supervision since, but so far +as known has led an honest life. Very dangerous man, usually carries +arms and is prepared to use them. That is our bird, Watson--a sporting +bird, as you must admit."" + +""But what is his game?"" + +""Well, it begins to define itself. I have been to the house-agents. +Our client, as he told us, has been there five years. It was unlet for +a year before then. The previous tenant was a gentleman at large named +Waldron. Waldron's appearance was well remembered at the office. He +had suddenly vanished and nothing more been heard of him. He was a +tall, bearded man with very dark features. Now, Prescott, the man whom +Killer Evans had shot, was, according to Scotland Yard, a tall, dark +man with a beard. As a working hypothesis, I think we may take it that +Prescott, the American criminal, used to live in the very room which +our innocent friend now devotes to his museum. So at last we get a +link, you see."" + +""And the next link?"" + +""Well, we must go now and look for that."" + +He took a revolver from the drawer and handed it to me. + +""I have my old favourite with me. If our Wild West friend tries to +live up to his nickname, we must be ready for him. I'll give you an +hour for a siesta, Watson, and then I think it will be time for our +Ryder Street adventure."" + +It was just four o'clock when we reached the curious apartment of +Nathan Garrideb. Mrs. Saunders, the caretaker, was about to leave, but +she had no hesitation in admitting us, for the door shut with a spring +lock and Holmes promised to see that all was safe before we left. +Shortly afterwards the outer door closed, her bonnet passed the bow +window, and we knew that we were alone in the lower floor of the house. +Holmes made a rapid examination of the premises. There was one +cupboard in a dark corner which stood out a little from the wall. It +was behind this that we eventually crouched, while Holmes in a whisper +outlined his intentions. + +""He wanted to get our amiable friend out of his room--that is very +clear, and, as the collector never went out, it took some planning to +do it. The whole of this Garrideb invention was apparently for no +other end. I must say, Watson, that there is a certain devilish +ingenuity about it, even if the queer name of the tenant did give him +an opening which he could hardly have expected. He wove his plot with +remarkable cunning."" + +""But what did he want?"" + +""Well, that is what we are here to find out. It has nothing whatever +to do with our client, so far as I can read the situation. It is +something connected with the man he murdered--the man who may have been +his confederate in crime. There is some guilty secret in the room. +That is how I read it. At first I thought our friend might have +something in his collection more valuable than he knew--something worth +the attention of a big criminal. But the fact that Rodger Prescott of +evil memory inhabited these rooms points to some deeper reason. Well, +Watson, we can but possess our souls in patience and see what the hour +may bring."" + +That hour was not long in striking. We crouched closer in the shadow +as we heard the outer door open and shut. Then came the sharp, +metallic snap of a key, and the American was in the room. He closed +the door softly behind him, took a sharp glance around him to see that +all was safe, threw off his overcoat, and walked up to the central +table with the brisk manner of one who knows exactly what he has to do +and how to do it. He pushed the table to one side, tore up the square +of carpet on which it rested, rolled it completely back, and then, +drawing a jemmy from his inside pocket, he knelt down and worked +vigorously upon the floor. Presently we heard the sound of sliding +boards, and an instant later a square had opened in the planks. Killer +Evans struck a match, lit a stump of candle, and vanished from our view. + +Clearly our moment had come. Holmes touched my wrist as a signal, and +together we stole across to the open trapdoor. Gently as we moved, +however, the old floor must have creaked under our feet, for the head +of our American, peering anxiously round, emerged suddenly from the +open space. His face turned upon us with a glare of baffled rage, +which gradually softened into a rather shamefaced grin as he realized +that two pistols were pointed at his head. + +""Well, well!"" said he, coolly, as he scrambled to the surface. ""I +guess you have been one too many for me, Mr. Holmes. Saw through my +game, I suppose, and played me for a sucker from the first. Well, sir, +I hand it to you; you have me beat and----"" + +In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had +fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had +been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes's pistol came +down on the man's head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor +with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. +Then my friend's wiry arms were round me and he was leading me to a +chair. + +""You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!"" + +It was worth a wound--it was worth many wounds--to know the depth of +loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes +were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one +and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great +brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in +that moment of revelation. + +""It's nothing, Holmes. It's a mere scratch."" + +He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife. + +""You are right,"" he cried, with an immense sigh of relief. ""It is +quite superficial."" His face set like flint as he glared at our +prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. ""By the Lord, it is as +well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of +this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?"" + +He had nothing to say for himself. He only lay and scowled. I leaned +on Holmes's arm, and together we looked down into the small cellar +which had been disclosed by the secret flap. It was still illuminated +by the candle which Evans had taken down with him. Our eyes fell upon +a mass of rusted machinery, great rolls of paper, a litter of bottles, +and, neatly arranged upon a small table, a number of neat little +bundles. + +""A printing press--a counterfeiter's outfit,"" said Holmes. + +""Yes, sir,"" said our prisoner, staggering slowly to his feet and then +sinking into the chair. ""The greatest counterfeiter London ever saw. +That's Prescott's machine, and those bundles on the table are two +thousand of Prescott's notes worth a hundred each and fit to pass +anywhere. Help yourselves, gentlemen. Call it a deal and let me beat +it."" + +Holmes laughed. + +""We don't do things like that, Mr. Evans. There is no bolt-hole for +you in this country. You shot this man Prescott, did you not?"" + +""Yes, sir, and got five years for it, though it was he who pulled on +me. Five years--when I should have had a medal the size of a soup +plate. No living man could tell a Prescott from a Bank of England, and +if I hadn't put him out he would have flooded London with them. I was +the only one in the world who knew where he made them. Can you wonder +that I wanted to get to the place? And can you wonder that when I +found this crazy boob of a bug-hunter with the queer name squatting +right on the top of it, and never quitting his room, I had to do the +best I could to shift him? Maybe I would have been wiser if I had put +him away. It would have been easy enough, but I'm a soft-hearted guy +that can't begin shooting unless the other man has a gun also. But +say, Mr. Holmes, what have I done wrong, anyhow? I've not used this +plant. I've not hurt this old stiff. Where do you get me?"" + +""Only attempted murder, so far as I can see,"" said Holmes. ""But that's +not our job. They take that at the next stage. What we wanted at +present was just your sweet self. Please give the Yard a call, Watson. +It won't be entirely unexpected."" + +So those were the facts about Killer Evans and his remarkable invention +of the three Garridebs. We heard later that our poor old friend never +got over the shock of his dissipated dreams. When his castle in the +air fell down, it buried him beneath the ruins. He was last heard of +at a nursing-home in Brixton. It was a glad day at the Yard when the +Prescott outfit was discovered, for, though they knew that it existed, +they had never been able, after the death of the man, to find out where +it was. Evans had indeed done great service and caused several worthy +C.I.D. men to sleep the sounder, for the counterfeiter stands in a +class by himself as a public danger. They would willingly have +subscribed to that soup-plate medal of which the criminal had spoken, +but an unappreciative Bench took a less favourable view, and the Killer +returned to those shades from which he had just emerged. + + + + +VII + + +",The Adventure of the Three Garridebs,Arthur Conan Doyle,17,"['James Winter', 'Killer Evans']" +"The D’Arblay Mystery +by R. Austin Freeman +CONTENTS +I. The Pool in the Wood +II. A Conference with Dr. Thorndyke +III. The Doctor’s Revelations +IV. Mr. Bendelow +V. Inspector Follett’s Discovery +VI. Marion D’Arblay at Home +VII. Thorndyke Enlarges His Knowledge +VIII. Simon Bendelow, Deceased +IX. A Strange Misadventure +X. Marion’s Peril +XI. Arms and the Man +XII. A Dramatic Discovery +XIII. A Narrow Escape +XIV. The Haunted Man +XV. Thorndyke Proposes a New Move +XVI. A Surprise for the Superintendent +XVII. A Chapter of Surprises +XVIII. The Last Act +XIX. Thorndyke Disentangles the Threads +CHAPTER I. +The Pool in the Wood +There are certain days in our lives which, as we recall them, seem to +detach themselves from the general sequence as forming the +starting-point of a new epoch. Doubtless, if we examined them +critically, we should find them to be but links in a connected chain. +But in a retrospective glance their continuity with the past is +unperceived, and we see them in relation to the events which followed +them rather than to those which went before. +Such a day is that on which I look back through a vista of some twenty +years; for on that day I was, suddenly and without warning, plunged +into the very heart of a drama so strange and incredible that in the +recital of its events I am conscious of a certain diffidence and +hesitation. +The picture that rises before me as I write is very clear and vivid. I +see myself, a youngster of twenty-five, the owner of a brand-new +medical diploma, wending my way gaily down Wood-lane, Highgate, at +about eight o’clock on a sunny morning in early autumn. I was taking a +day’s holiday, the last I was likely to enjoy for some time; for on +the morrow I was to enter on the duties of my first professional +appointment. I had nothing in view to-day but sheer, delightful +idleness. It is true that a sketch-book in one pocket and a box of +collecting-tubes in another suggested a bare hint of purpose in the +expedition; but primarily it was a holiday, a pleasure jaunt, to which +art and science were no more than possible sources of contributory +satisfaction. +At the lower end of the lane was the entrance to Church-yard Bottom +Wood, then open and unguarded save by a few hurdles (it has since been +enclosed and re-named “Queen’s Wood”). I entered and took my way along +the broad, rough path, pleasantly conscious of the deep silence and +seeming remoteness of this surviving remnant of the primeval forest of +Britain, and letting my thoughts stray to the great plague-pit in the +haunted wood that gave the place its name. The foliage of the oaks was +still unchanged despite the waning of the year. The low-slanting +sunlight spangled it with gold and made rosy patterns on the path, +where lay a few prematurely fallen leaves; but in the hollows among +the undergrowth traces of the night-mists lingered, shrouding +tree-bole, bush, and fern in a mystery of gauzy blue. +A turn of the path brought me suddenly within a few paces of a girl +who was stooping at the entrance to a side-track, and seemed to be +peering into the undergrowth as if looking for something. As I +appeared, she stood up and looked round at me with a startled, +apprehensive manner that caused me to look away and pass as if I had +not seen her. But the single glance had shown me that she was a +strikingly handsome girl—indeed, I should have used the word +“beautiful”; that she seemed to be about my own age, and that she was +evidently a lady. +The apparition, pleasant as it was, set me speculating as I strode +forward. It was early for a girl like this to be afoot in the woods, +and alone, too. Not so very safe, either, as she had seemed to +realize, judging by the start that my approach seemed to have given +her. And what could it be that she was looking for? Had she lost +something at some previous time and come to search for it before any +one was about? It might be so. Certainly she was not a poacher, for +there was nothing to poach, and she hardly had the manner or +appearance of a naturalist. +A little farther on I struck into a side path which led, as I knew, in +the direction of a small pond. That pond I had had in my mind when I +put the box of collecting-tubes in my pocket, and I now made my way to +it as directly as the winding track would let me; but still it was not +the pond or its inmates that occupied my thoughts, but the mysterious +maiden whom I had left peering into the undergrowth. Perhaps if she +had been less attractive I might have given her less consideration. +But I was twenty-five; and if a man at twenty-five has not a keen and +appreciative eye for a pretty girl, there must be something radically +wrong with his mental make-up. +In the midst of my reflections I came out into a largish opening in +the wood, at the centre of which, in a slight hollow, was the pond: a +small oval piece of water, fed by the trickle of a tiny stream, the +continuation of which carried away the overflow towards the invisible +valley. +Approaching the margin, I brought out my box of tubes and, uncorking +one, stooped and took a trial dip. When I held the glass tube against +the light and examined its contents through my pocket lens I found +that I was in luck. The “catch” included a green hydra, clinging to a +rootlet of duckweed, several active water-fleas, a scarlet water-mite, +and a beautiful sessile rotifer. Evidently this pond was a rich +hunting ground. +Delighted with my success, I corked the tube, put it away, and brought +out another, with which I took a fresh dip. This was less successful, +but the naturalist’s ardour and the collector’s cupidity being +thoroughly aroused, I persevered, gradually enriching my collection +and working my way slowly round the margin of the pond, forgetful of +everything—even of the mysterious maiden—but the objects of my search; +indeed, so engrossed was I with my pursuit of the minute denizens of +this watery world that I failed to observe a much larger object which +must have been in view most of the time. Actually, I did not see it +until I was right over it. Then, as I was stooping to clear away the +duckweed for a fresh dip, I found myself confronted by a human face, +just below the surface and half-concealed by the pond-weed. +It was a truly appalling experience. Utterly unprepared for this awful +apparition, I was so overcome by astonishment and horror that I +remained stooping, with motion arrested, as if petrified, staring at +the thing in silence and hardly breathing. The face was that of a man +of about fifty or a little more: a handsome, refined, rather +intellectual face, with a moustache and Vandyke beard, and surmounted +by a thickish growth of iron-grey hair. Of the rest of the body little +was to be seen, for the duckweed and water-crowfoot had drifted over +it, and I had no inclination to disturb them. +Recovering somewhat from the shock of this sudden and fearful +encounter, I stood up and rapidly considered what I had better do. It +was clearly not for me to make any examination or meddle with the +corpse in any way; indeed, when I considered the early hour and the +remoteness of this solitary place, it seemed prudent to avoid the +possibility of being seen there by any chance stranger. Thus +reflecting, with my eyes still riveted on the pallid, impassive face, +so strangely sleeping below the glassy surface and conveying to me +somehow a dim sense of familiarity, I pocketed my tubes, and, turning +back, stole away along the woodland track, treading lightly, almost +stealthily, as one escaping from the scene of a crime. +Very different was my mood, as I retraced my steps, from that in which +I had come. Gone was all my gaiety and holiday spirit. The dread +meeting had brought me into an atmosphere of tragedy, perchance even +of something more than tragedy. With death I was familiar enough; +death as it comes to men, prefaced by sickness or even by injury. But +the dead man who lay in that still and silent pool in the heart of the +wood had come there by none of the ordinary chances of normal life. It +seemed barely possible that he could have fallen in by mere +misadventure, for the pond was too shallow and its bottom shelved too +gently for accidental drowning to be conceivable. Nor was the strange, +sequestered spot without significance. It was just such a spot as +might well be chosen by one who sought to end his life—or another’s. +I had nearly reached the main path when an abrupt turn of the narrow +track brought me once more face to face with the girl whose existence +I had till now forgotten. She was still peering into the dense +undergrowth as if searching for something; and again, on my sudden +appearance, she turned a startled face towards me. But this time I did +not look away. Something in her face struck me with a nameless fear. +It was not only that she was pale and haggard, but that her expression +betokened anxiety and even terror. As I looked at her I understood in +a flash the dim sense of familiarity of which I had been conscious in +the pallid face beneath the water. It was her face that it had +recalled. +With my heart in my mouth, I halted and, taking off my cap, addressed +her. +“Pray pardon me; you seem to be searching for something. Can I help +you in any way or give you any information?” +She looked at me a little shyly and, as I thought, with slight +distrust, but she answered civilly enough, though rather stiffly: +“Thank you, but I am afraid you can’t help me. I am not in need of any +assistance.” +This, under ordinary circumstances, would have brought the interview +to an abrupt end. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and as she +made as if to pass me I ventured to persist. +“Please,” I urged, “don’t think me impertinent, but would you mind +telling me what you are looking for? I have a reason for asking, and +it isn’t curiosity.” +She reflected for a few moments before replying, and I feared that she +was about to administer another snub. Then, without looking at me, she +replied: +“I am looking for my father” (and at these words my heart sank). “He +did not come home last night. He left Hornsey to come home, and he +would ordinarily have come by the path through the wood. He always +came that way from Hornsey. So I am looking through the wood in case +he missed his way, or was taken ill, or——” +Here the poor girl suddenly broke off, and, letting her dignity go, +burst into tears. I huskily murmured a few indistinct words of +condolence, but, in truth, I was little less affected than she was. It +was a terrible position, but there was no escape from it. The corpse +that I had just seen was almost certainly her father’s corpse. At any +rate, the question whether it was or not had to be settled now, and +settled by me—and her. That was quite clear; but yet I could not screw +my courage up to the point of telling her. While I was hesitating, +however, she forced the position by a direct question. +“You said just now that you had a reason for asking what I was +searching for. Would it be——?” She paused and looked at me inquiringly +as she wiped her eyes. +I made a last, frantic search for some means of breaking the horrid +news to her. Of course there was none. Eventually I stammered: +“The reason I asked was—er—the fact is that I have just seen the body +of a man lying——” +“Where?” she demanded. “Show me the place!” +Without replying, I turned and began quickly to retrace my steps along +the narrow track. A few minutes brought me to the opening in which the +pond was situated, and I was just beginning to skirt the margin, +closely followed by my companion, when I heard her utter a low, +gasping cry. The next moment she had passed me and was running along +the bank towards a spot where I could now see the toe of a boot just +showing through the duckweed. I stopped short and watched her with my +heart in my throat. Straight to the fatal spot she ran, and for a +moment stood on the brink, stooping over the weedy surface. Then, with +a terrible, wailing cry, she stepped into the water. +Instantly I ran forward and waded into the pond to her side. Already +she had her arms round the dead man’s neck and was raising the face +above the surface. I saw that she meant to bring the body ashore, and, +useless as it was, it seemed a natural thing to do. Silently I passed +my arms under the corpse and lifted it; and as she supported the head +we bore it through the shallows and up the bank, where I laid it down +gently in the high grass. +Not a word had been spoken, nor was there any question that need be +asked. The pitiful tale told itself only too plainly. As I stood +looking with swimming eyes at the tragic group, a whole history seemed +to unfold itself; a history of love and companionship, of a happy, +peaceful past made sunny by mutual affection, shattered in an instant +by the hideous present, with its portent of a sad and lonely future. +She had sat down on the grass and taken the dead head on her lap, +tenderly wiping the face with her handkerchief, smoothing the grizzled +hair and crooning or moaning words of endearment into the insensible +ears. She had forgotten my presence: indeed, she was oblivious of +everything but the still form that bore the outward semblance of her +father. +Some minutes passed thus. I stood a little apart, cap in hand, more +moved than I had ever been in my life, and, naturally enough, +unwilling to break in upon a grief so overwhelming and, as it seemed +to me, so sacred. But presently it began to be borne in on me that +something had to be done. The body would have to be removed from this +place, and the proper authorities ought to be notified. Still, it was +some time before I could gather courage to intrude on her sorrow; to +profane her grief with the sordid realities of everyday life. At last +I braced myself up for the effort, and addressed her. +“Your father,” I said gently—I could not refer to him as “the +body”—“will have to be taken away from here; and the proper persons +will have to be informed of what has happened. Shall I go alone, or +will you come with me? I don’t like to leave you here.” +She looked up at me, and to my relief answered me with quiet +composure: +“I can’t leave him here all alone. I must stay with him until he is +taken away. Do you mind telling whoever ought to be told”—like me, she +instinctively avoided the word “police”—“and making what arrangements +are necessary?” +There was nothing more to be said; and loath as I was to leave her +alone with the dead, my heart assented to her decision. In her place, +I should have had the same feeling. Accordingly, with a promise to +return as quickly as I could, I stole away along the woodland track. +When I turned to take a last glance at her before plunging into the +wood, she was once more leaning over the head that lay in her lap, +looking with fond grief into the impassive face and stroking the dank +hair. +My intention had been to go straight to the police-station, when I had +ascertained its whereabouts, and make my report to the officer in +charge. But a fortunate chance rendered this proceeding unnecessary, +for, at the moment when I emerged from the top of Wood-lane, I saw a +police-officer, mounted on a bicycle—a road patrol, as I assumed him +to be—approaching along the Archway-road. I hailed him to stop, and as +he dismounted and stepped on to the footway I gave him a brief account +of the finding of the body and my meeting with the daughter of the +dead man. He listened with calm, business-like interest, and, when I +had finished, said: +“We had better get the body removed as quickly as possible. I will run +along to the station and get the wheeled stretcher. There is no need +for you to come. If you will go back and wait for us at the entrance +to the wood that will save time. We shall be there within a quarter of +an hour.” +I agreed gladly to this arrangement, and when I had seen him mount his +machine and shoot away along the road, I turned back down the Lane and +re-entered the wood. Before taking up my post, I walked quickly down +the path and along the track to the opening by the pond. My new friend +was sitting just as I had left her, but she looked up as I emerged +from the track and advanced towards her. I told her briefly what had +happened and was about to retire when she asked: “Will they take him +to our house?” +“I am afraid not,” I replied. “There will have to be an inquiry by the +coroner, and until that is finished his body will have to remain in +the mortuary.” +“I was afraid it might be so,” she said with quiet resignation; and as +she spoke she looked down with infinite sadness at the waxen face in +her lap. A good deal relieved by her reasonable acceptance of the +painful necessities, I turned back and made my way to the rendezvous +at the entrance to the wood. +As I paced to and fro on the shady path, keeping a look-out up the +Lane, my mind was busy with the tragedy to which I had become a party. +It was a grievous affair. The passionate grief which I had witnessed +spoke of no common affection. On one life at least this disaster had +inflicted irreparable loss, and there were probably others on whom the +blow had yet to fall. But it was not only a grievous affair; it was +highly mysterious. The dead man had apparently been returning home at +night in a customary manner and by a familiar way. That he could have +strayed by chance from the open, well-worn path into the recesses of +the wood was inconceivable, while the hour and the circumstances made +it almost as incredible that he should have been wandering in the wood +by choice. And again, the water in which he had been lying was quite +shallow; so shallow as to rule out accidental drowning as an +impossibility. +What could the explanation be? There seemed to be but three +possibilities, and two of them could hardly be entertained. The idea +of intoxication I rejected at once. The girl was evidently a lady, and +her father was presumably a gentleman, who would not be likely to be +wandering abroad drunk; nor could a man who was sober enough to have +reached the pond have been so helpless as to be drowned in its shallow +waters. To suppose that he might have fallen into the water in a fit +was to leave unexplained the circumstance of his being in that remote +place at such an hour. The only possibility that remained was that of +suicide; and I could not but admit that some of the appearances seemed +to support that view. The solitary place—more solitary still at +night—was precisely such as an intending suicide might be expected to +seek; the shallow water presented no inconsistency; and when I +recalled how I had found his daughter searching the wood with evident +foreboding of evil, I could not escape the feeling that the dreadful +possibility had not been entirely unforeseen. +My meditations had reached this point when, as I turned once more +towards the entrance and looked up the Lane, I saw two constables +approaching, trundling a wheeled stretcher, while a third man, +apparently an inspector, walked by its side. As the little procession +reached the entrance, and I turned back to show the way, the latter +joined me and began at once to interrogate me. I gave him my name, +address, and occupation, and followed this with a rapid sketch of the +facts as known to me, which he jotted down in a large notebook, and he +then said: +“As you are a doctor, you can probably tell me how long the man had +been dead when you first saw him.” +“By the appearance and the rigidity,” I replied, “I should say about +nine or ten hours; which agrees pretty well with the account his +daughter gave of his movements.” +The inspector nodded. “The man and the young lady,” said he, “are +strangers to you, I understand. I suppose you haven’t picked up +anything that would throw any light on the affair?” +“No,” I answered; “I know nothing but what I have told you.” +“Well,” he remarked, “it’s a queer business. It is a queer place for a +man to be in at night, and he must have gone there of his own accord. +But there, it is no use guessing. It will all be thrashed out at the +inquest.” +As he reached this discreet conclusion, we came out into the opening +and I heard him murmur very feelingly, “Dear, dear! Poor thing.” The +girl seemed hardly to have changed her position since I had last seen +her, but she now tenderly laid the dead head on the grass and rose as +we approached; and I saw with great concern that her skirts were +soaked almost from the waist downwards. +The officer took off his cap and as he drew near looked down gravely +but with an inquisitive eye at the dead man. Then he turned to the +girl and said in a singularly gentle and deferential manner: +“This is a very terrible thing, Miss. A dreadful thing. I assure you +that I am more sorry for you than I can tell; and I hope you will +forgive me for having to intrude on your sorrow by asking questions. I +won’t trouble you more than I can help.” +“Thank you,” she replied quietly. “Of course I realize your position. +What do you want me to tell you?” +“I understand,” replied the inspector, “that this poor gentleman was +your father. Would you mind telling me who he was and where he lived +and giving me your own name and address?” +“My father’s name,” she answered, “was Julius D’Arblay. His private +address was Ivy Cottage, North Grove, Highgate. His studio and +workshop, where he carried on the profession of a modeller, is in +Abbey-road, Hornsey. My name is Marion D’Arblay, and I lived with my +father. He was a widower and I was his only child.” +As she concluded, with a slight break in her voice, the inspector +shook his head, and again murmured, “Dear, dear,” as he rapidly +entered her answers in his notebook. Then, in a deeply apologetic +tone, he asked: +“Would you mind telling us what you know as to how this happened?” +“I know very little,” she replied. “As he did not come home last +night, I went to the studio this morning quite early to see if he was +there. He sometimes stayed there all night when he was working very +late. The woman who lives in the adjoining house and looks after the +studio, told me that he had been working late last night, but that he +left to come home soon after ten. He always used to come through the +wood because it was the shortest way and the most pleasant. So when I +learned that he had started to come home, I came to the wood to see if +I could find any traces of him. Then I met this gentleman, and he told +me that he had seen a dead man in the wood, and——” Here she suddenly +broke down, and, sobbing passionately, flung out her hand towards the +corpse. +The inspector shut his notebook and, murmuring some indistinct words +of sympathy, nodded to the constables, who had drawn up the stretcher +a few paces away and lifted off the cover. On this silent instruction +they approached the body, and, with the inspector’s assistance and +mine, lifted it on to the stretcher without removing the latter from +its carriage. As they picked up the cover the inspector turned to Miss +D’Arblay and said gently but finally: “You had better not come with +us. We must take him to the mortuary, but you will see him again after +the inquest, when he will be brought to your house if you wish it.” +She made no objection; but as the constables approached with the cover +she stooped over the stretcher and kissed the dead man on the +forehead. Then she turned away; the cover was placed in position; the +inspector and the constables saluted reverently, and the stretcher was +wheeled away along the narrow track. +For some time after it had gone, we stood in silence at the margin of +the pond with our eyes fixed on the place where it had disappeared. I +considered in no little embarrassment what was to be done next. It was +most desirable that Miss D’Arblay should be got home as soon as +possible, and I did not at all like the idea of her going alone, for +her appearance, with her drenched skirts and her dazed and rather wild +expression, was such as to attract unpleasant attention. But I was a +total stranger to her, and I felt a little shy of pressing my company +on her. However, it seemed a plain duty, and, as I saw her shiver +slightly, I said: +“You had better go home now and change your clothes. They are very +wet. And you have some distance to go.” +She looked down at her soaked dress and then she looked at me. +“You are rather wet, too,” she said. “I am afraid I have given you a +great deal of trouble.” +“It is little enough that I have been able to do,” I replied. “But you +must really go home now; and if you will let me walk with you and see +you safely to your house, I shall be much more easy in my mind.” +“Thank you,” she replied. “It is kind of you to offer to see me home, +and I am glad not to have to go alone.” +With this, we walked together to the edge of the opening, and +proceeded in single file along the track to the main path, and so out +into Wood-lane, at the top of which we crossed the Archway Road into +Southwood-lane. We walked mostly in silence, for I was unwilling to +disturb her meditations with attempts at conversation, which could +only have seemed banal or impertinent. For her part, she appeared to +be absorbed in reflections the nature of which I could easily guess, +and her grief was too fresh for any thought of distraction. But I +found myself speculating with profound discomfort on what might be +awaiting her at home. It is true that her own desolate state as an +orphan without brothers or sisters had its compensation in that there +was no wife to whom the dreadful tidings had to be imparted, nor any +fellow orphans to have their bereavement broken to them. But there +must be some one who cared; or, if there were not, what a terrible +loneliness would reign in that house! +“I hope,” I said, as we approached our destination, “that there is +some one at home to share your grief and comfort you a little.” +“There is,” she replied. “I was thinking of her, and how grievous it +will be to have to tell her: an old servant and a dear friend. She was +my mother’s nurse when the one was a child and the other but a young +girl. She came to our house when my mother married, and has managed +our home ever since. This will be a terrible shock to her, for she +loved my father dearly—every one loved him who knew him. And she has +been like a mother to me since my own mother died. I don’t know how I +shall break it to her.” +Her voice trembled as she concluded and I was deeply troubled to think +of the painful homecoming that loomed before her; but still it was a +comfort to know that her sorrow would be softened by sympathy and +loving companionship, not heightened by the empty desolation that I +had feared. +A few minutes more brought us to the little square—which, by the way, +was triangular—and to a pleasant little old-fashioned house, on the +gate of which was painted the name, “Ivy Cottage.” In the bay window +on the ground floor I observed a formidable-looking elderly woman, who +was watching our approach with evident curiosity; which, as we drew +nearer and the state of our clothing became visible, gave place to +anxiety and alarm. Then she disappeared suddenly, to reappear a few +moments later at the open door, where she stood viewing us both with +consternation and me in particular with profound disfavour. +At the gate Miss D’Arblay halted and held out her hand. “Good-bye,” +she said. “I must thank you some other time for all your kindness;” +and with this she turned abruptly, and, opening the gate, walked up +the little paved path to the door where the old woman was waiting. +CHAPTER II. +A Conference with Dr. Thorndyke +The sound of the closing door seemed, as it were, to punctuate my +experiences and to mark the end of a particular phase. So long as Miss +D’Arblay was present, my attention was entirely taken up by her grief +and distress; but now that I was alone I found myself considering at +large the events of this memorable morning. What was the meaning of +this tragedy? How came this man to be lying dead in that pool? No +common misadventure seemed to fit the case. A man may easily fall into +deep water and be drowned; may step over a quay-side in the dark or +trip on a mooring-rope or ring-bolt. But here there was nothing to +suggest any possible accident. The water was hardly two feet deep +where the body was lying and much less close to the edge. If he had +walked in in the dark, he would simply have walked out again. Besides, +how came he there at all? The only explanation that was intelligible +was that he went there with the deliberate purpose of making away with +himself. +I pondered this explanation, and found myself unwilling to accept it, +notwithstanding that his daughter’s presence in the wood, her obvious +apprehension, and her terrified searching among the underwood seemed +to hint at a definite expectation on her part. But yet that +possibility was discounted by what his daughter had told me of him. +Little as she had said, it was clear that he was a man universally +beloved. Such men, in making the world a pleasant place for others, +make it pleasant for themselves. They are usually happy men; and happy +men do not commit suicide. Yet, if the idea of suicide were rejected, +what was left? Nothing but an insoluble mystery. +I turned the problem over again and again as I sat on the top of the +tram (where I could keep my wet trousers out of sight), not as a +matter of mere curiosity but as one in which I was personally +concerned. Friendships spring up into sudden maturity under great +emotional stress. I had known Marion D’Arblay but an hour or two, but +they were hours which neither of us would ever forget; and in that +brief space she had become to me a friend who was entitled, as of +right, to sympathy and service. So, as I revolved in my mind the +mystery of this man’s death, I found myself thinking of him not as a +chance stranger but as the father of a friend; and thus it seemed to +devolve upon me to elucidate the mystery, if possible. +It is true that I had no special qualifications for investigating an +obscure case of this kind, but yet I was better equipped than most +young medical men. For my hospital, St. Margaret’s, though its medical +school was but a small one, had one great distinction; the chair of +Medical Jurisprudence was occupied by one of the greatest living +authorities on the subject, Dr. John Thorndyke. To him and his +fascinating lectures my mind naturally turned as I ruminated on the +problem; and presently, when I found myself unable to evolve any +reasonable suggestion, the idea occurred to me to go and lay the facts +before the great man himself. +Once started, the idea took full possession of me, and I decided to +waste no time but to seek him at once. This was not his day for +lecturing at the hospital, but I could find his address in our school +calendar; and as my means, though modest, allowed of my retaining him +in a regular way, I need have no scruples as to occupying his time. I +looked at my watch. It was even now but a little past noon. I had time +to change and get an early lunch and still make my visit while the day +was young. +A couple of hours later found me walking slowly down the pleasant, +tree-shaded footway of King’s Bench-walk in the Inner Temple, looking +up at the numbers above the entries. Dr. Thorndyke’s number was 5a, +which I presently discovered inscribed on the keystone of a fine, +dignified brick portico of the seventeenth century, on the jamb +whereof was painted his name as the occupant of the “1st pair.” I +accordingly ascended the first pair, and was relieved to find that my +teacher was apparently at home; for a massive outer door, above which +his name was painted, stood wide open, revealing an inner door, +furnished with a small, brilliantly burnished brass knocker, on which +I ventured to execute a modest rat-tat. Almost immediately the door +was opened by a small, clerical-looking gentleman who wore a black +linen apron—and ought, from his appearance, to have had black gaiters +to match—and who regarded me with a look of polite inquiry. +“I wanted to see Dr. Thorndyke,” said I, adding discreetly, “on a +matter of professional business.” +The little gentleman beamed on me benevolently. “The doctor,” said he, +“has gone to lunch at his club, but he will be coming in quite +shortly. Would you like to wait for him?” +“Thank you,” I replied, “I should, if you think I shall not be +disturbing him.” +The little gentleman smiled; that is to say, the multitudinous +wrinkles that covered his face arranged themselves into a sort of +diagram of geniality. It was the crinkliest smile that I have ever +seen, but a singularly pleasant one. +“The doctor,” said he, “is never disturbed by professional business. +No man is ever disturbed by having to do what he enjoys doing.” +As he spoke, his eyes turned unconsciously to the table, on which +stood a microscope, a tray of slides and mounting material, and a +small heap of what looked like dressmaker’s cuttings. +“Well,” I said, “don’t let me disturb you, if you are busy.” +He thanked me very graciously, and, having installed me in an easy +chair, sat down at the table and resumed his occupation, which +apparently consisted in isolating fibres from the various samples of +cloth and mounting them as microscopic specimens. I watched him as he +worked, admiring his neat, precise, unhurried methods, and speculating +on the purpose of his proceedings; whether he was preparing what one +might call museum specimens, to be kept for reference, or whether +these preparations were related to some particular case. I was +considering whether it would be admissible for me to ask a question on +the subject when he paused in his work, assuming a listening attitude, +with one hand—holding a mounting-needle—raised and motionless. +“Here comes the doctor,” said he. +I listened intently and became aware of footsteps, very faint and far +away, and only barely perceptible. But my clerical friend—who must +have had the auditory powers of a watch-dog—had no doubts as to their +identity, for he began quietly to pack all his material on the tray. +Meanwhile the footsteps drew nearer; they turned in at the entry and +ascended the “first pair,” by which time my crinkly-faced acquaintance +had the door open. The next moment Dr. Thorndyke entered and was duly +informed that “a gentleman was waiting to see” him. +“You under-estimate my powers of observation, Polton,” he informed his +subordinate, with a smile. “I can see the gentleman distinctly with +the naked eye. How do you do, Gray?”—and he shook my hand cordially. +“I hope I haven’t come at the wrong time, sir,” said I. “If I have, +you must adjourn me. But I want to consult you about a rather queer +case.” +“Good,” said Thorndyke. “There is no wrong time for a queer case. Let +me hang up my hat and fill my pipe and then you can proceed to make my +flesh creep.” +He disposed of his hat, and when Mr. Polton had departed with his tray +of material he filled his pipe, laid a note block on the table, and +invited me to begin; whereupon I gave him a detailed account of what +had befallen me in the course of the morning, to which he listened +with close attention, jotting down an occasional note, but not +interrupting my narrative. When I had finished he read through his +notes and then said: +“It is, of course, evident to you that all the appearances point to +suicide. Have you any reasons, other than those you have mentioned, +for rejecting that view?” +“I am afraid not,” I replied gloomily. “But you have always taught us +to beware of too ready acceptance of the theory of suicide in doubtful +cases.” +He nodded approvingly. “Yes,” he said, “that is a cardinal principle +in medico-legal practice. All other possibilities should be explored +before suicide is accepted. But our difficulty in this case is that we +have hardly any of the relevant facts. The evidence at the inquest may +make everything clear. On the other hand it may leave things obscure. +But what is your concern with the case? You are merely a witness to +the finding of the body. The parties are all strangers to you, are +they not?” +“They were,” I replied. “But I feel that some one ought to keep an eye +on things for Miss D’Arblay’s sake, and circumstances seem to have put +the duty on me. So, as I can afford to pay any costs that are likely +to be incurred, I proposed to ask you to undertake the case—on a +strict business footing, you know, sir.” +“When you speak of my undertaking the case,” said he, “what is it that +is in your mind? What do you want me to do in the matter?” +“I want you to take any measures that you may think necessary,” I +replied, “to ascertain definitely, if possible, how this man came by +his death.” +He reflected awhile before answering. At length he said: +“The examination of the body will be conducted by the person whom the +coroner appoints, probably the police surgeon. I will write to the +coroner for permission to be present at the post-mortem examination. +He will certainly make no difficulties. I will also write to the +police surgeon, who is sure to be quite helpful. If the post-mortem +throws no light on the case—in fact, in any event—I will instruct a +first-class shorthand writer to attend at the inquest and make a +verbatim report of the evidence; and you, of course, will be present +as a witness. That, I think, is about all that we can do at present. +When we have heard all the evidence, including that furnished by the +body itself, we shall be able to judge whether the case calls for +further investigation. How will that do?” +“It is all that I could wish,” I answered, “and I am most grateful to +you, sir, for giving your time to the case. I hope you don’t think I +have been unduly meddlesome.” +“Not in the least,” he replied warmly. “I think you have shown a very +proper spirit in the way you have interpreted your neighbourly duties +to this poor, bereaved girl, who, apparently, has no one else to watch +over her interests. And I take it as a compliment from an old pupil +that you should seek my help.” +I thanked him again, very sincerely, and had risen to take my leave, +when he held up his hand. +“Sit down, Gray, if you are not in a hurry,” said he. “I hear the +pleasant clink of crockery. Let us follow the example of the eminent +Mr. Pepys—though it isn’t always a safe thing to do—and taste of the +‘China drinke called Tee,’ while you tell me what you have been doing +since you went forth from the fold.” +It struck me that the sense of hearing was uncommonly well developed +in this establishment, for I had heard nothing; but a few moments +later the door opened very quietly, and Mr. Polton entered with a tray +on which was a very trim, and even dainty, tea service, which he set +out noiselessly and with a curious neatness of hand, on a small table +placed conveniently between our chairs. +“Thank you, Polton,” said Thorndyke. “I see you diagnosed my visitor +as a professional brother.” +Polton crinkled benevolently and admitted that he “thought the +gentleman looked like one of us’; and with this he melted away, +closing the door behind him without a sound. +“Well,” said Thorndyke, as he handed me my tea-cup, “what have you +been doing with yourself since you left the hospital?” +“Principally looking for a job,” I replied; “and now I’ve found one—a +temporary job, though I don’t know how temporary. To-morrow I take +over the practice of a man named Cornish in Mecklenburgh-square. +Cornish is a good deal run down, and wants to take a quiet holiday on +the East Coast. He doesn’t know how long he will be away. It depends +on his health; but I have told him that I am prepared to stay as long +as he wants me to. I hope I shan’t make a mess of the job, but I know +nothing of general practice.” +“You will soon pick it up,” said Thorndyke; “but you had better get +your principal to show you the ropes before he goes, particularly the +dispensing and bookkeeping. The essentials of practice, you know, but +the little practical details have to be learnt, and you are doing well +to make your first plunge into professional life in a practice that is +a going concern. The experience will be valuable when you make a start +on your own account.” +On this plane of advice and comment our talk proceeded until I thought +that I had stayed long enough, when I once more rose to depart. Then, +as we were shaking hands, Thorndyke reverted to the object of my +visit. +“I shall not appear in this case unless the coroner wishes me to,” +said he. “I shall consult with the official medical witness, and he +will probably give our joint conclusions in his evidence; unless we +should fail to agree, which is very unlikely. But you will be present, +and you had better attend closely to the evidence of all the witnesses +and let me have your account of the inquest as well as the shorthand +writer’s report. Good-bye, Gray. You won’t be far away if you should +want my help or advice.” +I left the precincts of the Temple in a much more satisfied frame of +mind. The mystery which seemed to me to surround the death of Julius +D’Arblay would be investigated by a supremely competent observer, and +I need not further concern myself with it. Perhaps there was no +mystery at all. Possibly the evidence at the inquest would supply a +simple explanation. At any rate, it was out of my hands and into those +of one immeasurably more capable and I could now give my undivided +attention to the new chapter of my life that was to open on the +morrow. +CHAPTER III. +The Doctor’s Revelations +It was in the evening of the very day on which I took up my duties at +number 61 Mecklenburgh-square that the little blue paper was delivered +summoning me to attend at the inquest on the following day. +Fortunately, Dr. Cornish’s practice was not of a highly strenuous +type, and the time of year tended to a small visiting list, so that I +had no difficulty in making the necessary arrangements. In fact, I +made them so well that I was the first to arrive at the little +building in which the inquiry was to be held and was admitted by the +caretaker to the empty room. A few minutes later, however, the +inspector made his appearance, and while I was exchanging a few words +with him the jury began to straggle in, followed by the reporters, a +few spectators and witnesses, and finally the coroner, who immediately +took his place at the head of the table and prepared to open the +proceedings. +At this moment I observed Miss D’Arblay standing hesitatingly in the +doorway and looking into the room as if reluctant to enter. I at once +rose and went to her, and as I approached she greeted me with a +friendly smile and held out her hand; and I then perceived, lurking +just outside, a tall, black-apparelled woman, whose face I recognized +as that which I had seen at the window. +“This,” said Miss D’Arblay, presenting me, “is my friend, Miss Boler, +of whom I spoke to you. This, Arabella dear, is the gentleman who was +so kind to me on that dreadful day.” +I bowed deferentially, and Miss Boler recognized my existence by a +majestic inclination, remarking that she remembered me. As the coroner +now began his preliminary address to the jury, I hastened to find +three chairs near the table, and, having inducted the ladies into two +of them, took the third myself, next to Miss D’Arblay. The coroner and +the jury now rose and went out to the adjacent mortuary to view the +body, and during their absence I stole an occasional critical glance +at my fair friend. +Marion D’Arblay was, as I have said, a strikingly handsome girl. The +fact seemed now to dawn on me afresh, as a new discovery; for the +harrowing circumstances of our former meeting had so preoccupied me +that I had given little attention to her personality. But now, as I +looked her over anxiously to see how the grievous days had dealt with +her, it was with a sort of surprised admiration that I noted the +beautiful, thoughtful face, the fine features, and the wealth of dark, +gracefully disposed hair. I was relieved, too, to see the change that +a couple of days had wrought. The wild, dazed look was gone. Though +she was pale and heavy-eyed and looked tired and infinitely sad, her +manner was calm, quiet and perfectly self-possessed. +“I am afraid,” said I, “that this is going to be rather a painful +ordeal for you.” +“Yes,” she agreed; “it is all very dreadful. But it is a dreadful +thing in any case to be bereft in a moment of the one whom one loves +best in all the world. The circumstances of the loss cannot make very +much difference. It is the loss itself that matters. The worst moment +was when the blow fell—when we found him. This inquiry and the funeral +are just the drab accompaniments that bring home the reality of what +has happened.” +“Has the inspector called on you?” I asked. +“Yes,” she replied. “He had to, to get the particulars; and he was so +kind and delicate that I am not in the least afraid of the examination +by the coroner. Every one has been kind to me, but none so kind as you +were on that terrible morning.” +I could not see that I had done anything to call for so much +gratitude, and I was about to enter a modest disclaimer when the +coroner and the jury returned, and the inspector approached somewhat +hurriedly. +“It will be necessary,” said he, “for Miss D’Arblay to see the +body—just to identify deceased; a glance will be enough. And, as you +are a witness, Doctor, you had better go with her to the mortuary. I +will show you the way.” +Miss D’Arblay rose without any comment or apparent reluctance, and we +followed the inspector to the adjoining mortuary, where, having +admitted us, he stood outside awaiting us. The body lay on the +slate-topped table, covered with a sheet excepting the face, which was +exposed and was undisfigured by any traces of the examination. I +watched my friend a little nervously as we entered the grim chamber, +fearful that this additional trial might be too much for her +self-control. But she kept command of herself, though she wept quietly +as she stood beside the table looking down on the still, waxen-faced +figure. After standing thus for a few moments, she turned away with a +smothered sob, wiped her eyes, and walked out of the mortuary. +When we re-entered the court-room, we found our chairs moved up to the +table, and the coroner waiting to call the witnesses. As I had +expected, my name was the first on the list, and, on being called, I +took my place by the table near to the coroner and was duly sworn. +“Will you give us your name, occupation, and address?” the coroner +asked. +“My name is Stephen Gray,” I replied. “I am a medical practitioner, +and my temporary address is 61, Mecklenburgh-square, London.” +“When you say ‘your temporary address’ you mean——?” +“I am taking charge of a medical practice at that address. I shall be +there six weeks or more.” +“Then that will be your address for our purposes. Have you viewed the +body that is now lying in the mortuary, and, if so, do you recognize +it?” +“Yes. It is the body which I saw lying in a pond in Church-yard Bottom +Wood on the morning of the 16th instant—last Tuesday.” +“Can you tell us how long deceased had been dead when you first saw +the body?” +“I should say he had been dead nine or ten hours.” +“Will you relate the circumstances under which you discovered the +body?” +I gave a circumstantial account of the manner in which I made the +tragic discovery, to which not only the jury but also the spectators +listened with eager interest. When I had finished my narrative, the +coroner asked: “Did you observe anything which led you, as a medical +man, to form any opinion as to the cause of death?” +“No,” I replied. “I saw no injuries or marks of violence or anything +which was not consistent with death by drowning.” +This concluded my evidence, and when I had resumed my seat, the name +of Marion D’Arblay was called by the coroner, who directed that a +chair should be placed for the witness. When she had taken her seat, +he conveyed to her, briefly, but feelingly, his own and the jury’s +sympathy. +“It has been a terrible experience for you,” he said, “and we are most +sorry to have to trouble you in your great affliction, but you will +understand that it is unavoidable.” +“I quite understand that,” she replied, “and I wish to thank you and +the jury for your kind sympathy.” +She was then sworn, and having given her name and address, proceeded +to answer the questions addressed to her, which elicited a narrative +of the events substantially identical with that which she had given to +the inspector and which I have already recorded. +“You have told us,” said the coroner, “that when Dr. Gray spoke to +you, you were searching among the bushes. Will you tell us what was in +your mind—what you were searching for, and what induced you to make +that search?” +“I was very uneasy about my father,” she replied. “He had not been +home that night, and he had not told me that he intended to stay at +the studio—as he sometimes did when he was working very late. So, in +the morning I went to the studio in Abbey-road to see if he was there; +but the caretaker told me that he had started for home about ten +o’clock. Then I began to fear that something had happened to him, and +as he always came home by the path through the wood, I went there to +see if—if anything had happened to him.” +“Had you in your mind any definite idea as to what might have happened +to him?” +“I thought he might have been taken ill or have fallen down dead. He +once told me that he would probably die quite suddenly. I believe that +he suffered from some affection of the heart, but he did not like +speaking about his health.” +“Are you sure that there was nothing more than this in your mind?” +“There was nothing more. I thought that his heart might have failed +and that he might have wandered, in a half-conscious state, away from +the main path and fallen dead in one of the thickets.” +The coroner pondered this reply for some time. I could not see why, +for it was plain and straightforward enough. At length he said, very +gravely and with what seemed to me unnecessary emphasis: +“I want you to be quite frank and open with us, Miss D’Arblay. Can you +swear that there was no other possibility in your mind than that of +sudden illness?” +She looked at him in surprise, apparently not understanding the drift +of the question. As to me, I assumed that he was endeavoring +delicately to ascertain whether deceased was addicted to drink. +“I have told you exactly what was in my mind,” she replied. +“Have you ever had any reason to suppose, or to entertain the +possibility, that your father might take his own life?” +“Never,” she answered emphatically. “He was a happy, even-tempered +man, always interested in his work, and always in good spirits. I am +sure he would never have taken his own life.” +The coroner nodded with a rather curious air of satisfaction, as if he +were concurring with the witness’s statement. Then he asked in the +same grave, emphatic manner: +“So far as you know, had your father any enemies?” +“No,” she replied confidently. “He was a kindly, amiable man who +disliked nobody, and every one who knew him loved him.” +As she uttered this panegyric (and what prouder testimony could a +daughter have given?), her eyes filled, and the coroner looked at her +with deep sympathy but yet with a somewhat puzzled expression. +“You are sure,” he said gently, “that there was no one whom he might +have injured—even inadvertently—or who bore him any grudge or +ill-will?” +“I am sure,” she answered, “that he never injured or gave offence to +any one, and I do not believe that there was any person in the whole +world who bore him anything but goodwill.” +The coroner noted this reply, and as he entered it in the depositions +his face bore the same curious puzzled or doubtful expression. When he +had written the answer down, he asked: +“By the way, what was the deceased’s occupation?” +“He was a sculptor by profession, but in late years he worked +principally as a modeller for various trades—pottery manufacturers, +picture-frame makers, carvers, and the makers of high-class wax +figures for shop windows.” +“Had he any assistants or subordinates?” +“No. He worked alone. Occasionally I helped him with his moulds when +he was very busy or had a very large work on hand; but usually he did +everything himself. Of course, he occasionally employed models.” +“Do you know who those models were?” +“They were professional models. The men, I think, were all Italians, +and some of the women were too. I believe my father kept a list of +them in his address book.” +“Was he working from a model on the night of his death?” +“No. He was making the moulds for a porcelain statuette.” +“Did you ever hear that he had any kind of trouble with his models?” +“Never. He seemed always on the best of terms with them, and he used +to speak of them most appreciatively.” +“What sort of persons are professional models? Should you say they are +a decent, well-conducted class?” +“Yes. They are usually most respectable, hard-working people; and, of +course, they are sober and decent in their habits or they would be of +no use for their professional duties.” +The coroner meditated on these replies with a speculative eye on the +witness. After a short pause, he began along another line. +“Did deceased ever carry about with him property of any considerable +value?” +“Never, to my knowledge.” +“No jewellery, plate, or valuable material?” +“No. His work was practically all in plaster or wax. He did no +goldsmith’s work and he used no precious material.” +“Did he ever have any considerable sums of money about him?” +“No. He received all his payments by cheque and he made his payments +in the same way. His habit was to carry very little money on his +person—usually not more than one or two pounds.” +Once more the coroner reflected profoundly. It seemed to me that he +was trying to elicit some fact—I could not imagine what—and was +failing utterly. At length, after another puzzled look at the witness, +he turned to the jury and inquired if any of them wished to put any +questions; and when they had severally shaken their heads he thanked +Miss D’Arblay for the clear and straightforward way in which she had +given her evidence and released her. +While the examination had been proceeding, I had allowed my eyes to +wander round the room with some curiosity: for this was the first time +that I had ever been present at an inquest. From the jury, the +witnesses in waiting and the reporters—among whom I tried to identify +Dr. Thorndyke’s stenographer—my attention was presently transferred to +the spectators. There were only a few of them, but I found myself +wondering why there should be any. What kind of person attends as a +spectator at an ordinary inquest such as this appeared to be? The +newspaper reports of the finding of the body were quite unsensational +and promised no startling developments. Finally I decided that they +were probably local residents who had some knowledge of the deceased +and were just indulging their neighbourly curiosity. +Among them my attention was particularly attracted by a middle-aged +woman who sat near me: at least I judged her to be middle-aged, though +the rather dense black veil that she wore obscured her face to a great +extent. Apparently she was a widow, and advertised the fact by the +orthodox, old-fashioned “weeds.” But I could see that she had white +hair and wore spectacles. She held a folded newspaper on her knee, +apparently dividing her attention between the printed matter and the +proceedings of the court. She gave me the impression of having come in +to spend an idle hour, combining a somewhat perfunctory reading of the +paper with a still more perfunctory attention to the rather gruesome +entertainment that the inquest afforded. +The next witness called was the doctor who had made the official +examination of the body; on whom my bereaved friend bestowed a +listless, incurious glance and then returned to her newspaper. He was +a youngish man, though his hair was turning gray, with a quiet but +firm and confident manner and a very clear, pleasant voice. The +preliminaries having been disposed of, the coroner led off with the +question: +“You have made an examination of the body of the deceased?” +“Yes. It is that of a well-proportioned, fairly muscular man of about +sixty, quite healthy with the exception of the heart, one of the +valves of which—the mitral valve—was incompetent and allowed some +leakage of blood to take place.” +“Was the heart affection sufficient to account for the death of +deceased?” +“No. It was quite a serviceable heart. There was good +compensation—that is to say, there was extra growth of muscle to make +up for the leaky valve. So far as his heart was concerned, deceased +might have lived for another twenty years.” +“Were you able to ascertain what actually was the cause of death?” +“Yes. The cause of death was aconitine poisoning.” +At this reply a murmur of astonishment arose from the jury, and I +heard Miss D’Arblay suddenly draw in her breath. The spectators sat up +on their benches, and even the veiled lady was so far interested as to +look up from her paper. +“How had the poison been administered?” the coroner asked. +“It had been injected under the skin by means of a hypodermic +syringe.” +“Can you give an opinion as to whether the poison was administered to +deceased by himself or by some other person?” +“It could not have been injected by deceased himself,” the witness +replied. “The needle-puncture was in the back, just below the left +shoulder-blade. It is, in my opinion, physically impossible for any +one to inject into his own body with a hypodermic syringe in that +spot. And, of course, a person who was administering an injection to +himself would select the most convenient spot—such as the front of the +thigh. But apart from the question of convenience, the place in which +the needle-puncture was found was actually out of reach.” Here the +witness produced a hypodermic syringe, the action of which he +demonstrated with the aid of a glass of water; and having shown the +impossibility of applying it to the spot that he had described, passed +the syringe round for the jury’s inspection. +“Have you formed any opinion as to the purpose for which this drug was +administered in this manner?” +“I have no doubt that it was administered for the purpose of causing +the death of deceased.” +“Might it not have been administered for medicinal purposes?” +“That is quite inconceivable. Leaving out of consideration the +circumstances—the time and place where the administration occurred—the +dose excludes the possibility of medicinal purposes. It was a lethal +dose. From the tissues round the needle-puncture we recovered the +twelfth of a grain of aconitine. That alone was more than enough to +cause death. But a quantity of the poison had been absorbed, as was +shown by the fact that we recovered a recognizable trace from the +liver.” +“What is the medicinal dose of aconitine?” +“The maximum medicinal dose is about the four-hundredth of a grain, +and even that is not very safe. As a matter of fact, aconitine is very +seldom used in medical practice. It is a dangerous drug, and of no +particular value.” +“How much aconitine do you suppose was injected?” +“Not less than the tenth of a grain—that is about forty times the +maximum medicinal dose. Probably more.” +“There can, I suppose, be no doubt as to the accuracy of the facts +that you have stated—as to the nature and quantity of the poison?” +“There can be no doubt whatever. The analysis was made in my presence +by Professor Woodford, of St. Margaret’s Hospital, after I had removed +the tissues from the body in his presence. He has not been called +because, in accordance with the procedure under Coroner’s Law, I am +responsible for the analysis and the conclusions drawn from it.” +“Taking the medical facts as known to you, are you able to form an +opinion as to what took place when the poison was administered?” +“That,” the witness replied, “is a matter of inference or conjecture. +I infer that the person who administered the poison thrust the needle +violently into the back of the deceased, intending to inject the +poison into the chest. Actually, the needle struck a rib and bent up +sharply, so that the contents of the syringe were delivered just under +the skin. Then I take it that the assailant ran away—probably towards +the pond—and deceased pursued him. Very soon the poison would take +effect, and then deceased would have fallen. He may have fallen into +the pond, or more probably, was thrown in. He was alive when he fell +into the pond, as is proved by the presence of water in the lungs; but +he must then have been insensible; and in a dying condition, for there +was no water in the stomach, which proves that the swallowing reflex +had already ceased.” +“Your considered opinion, then, based on the medical facts ascertained +by you, is, I understand, that deceased died from the effects of a +poison injected into his body by some other person with homicidal +intent?” +“Yes; that is my considered opinion, and I affirm that the facts do +not admit of any other interpretation.” +The coroner looked towards the jury. “Do any of you gentlemen wish to +ask the witness any questions?” he inquired; and when the foreman had +replied that the jury were entirely satisfied with the doctor’s +explanations, he thanked the witness, who thereupon retired. The +medical witness was succeeded by the inspector, who made a short +statement respecting the effects found on the person of deceased. They +comprised a small sum of money—under two pounds—a watch, keys, and +other articles, none of them of any appreciable value, but, such as +they were, furnishing evidence that at least petty robbery had not +been the object of the attack. +When the last witness had been heard, the coroner glanced at his notes +and then proceeded to address the jury. +“There is little, gentlemen,” he began, “that I need say to you. The +facts are before you, and they seem to admit of only one +interpretation. I remind you that, by the terms of your oath, your +finding must be ‘according to the evidence.’ Now the medical evidence +is quite clear and definite. It is to the effect that deceased met his +death by poison, administered violently by some other person: that is +by homicide. Homicide is the killing of a human being, and it may or +may not be criminal. But if the homicidal act is done with the intent +to kill; if that intention has been deliberately formed—that is to +say, if the homicidal act has been premeditated; then that homicide is +wilful murder. +“Now the person who killed the deceased came to the place where the +act was done provided with a solution of a very powerful and uncommon +vegetable poison. He was also provided with a very special +appliance—to wit, a hypodermic syringe—for injecting it into the body. +The fact that he was furnished with the poison and the appliance +creates a strong enough presumption that he came to this place with +the deliberate intention of killing the deceased. That is to say, this +fact constitutes strong evidence of premeditation. +“As to the motive for this act, we are completely in the dark; nor +have we any evidence pointing to the identity of the person who +committed that act. But a coroner’s inquest is not necessarily +concerned with motives, nor is it our business to fix the act on any +particular person. We have to find how and by what means the deceased +met his death; and for that purpose we have clear and sufficient +evidence. I need say no more, but will leave you to agree upon your +finding.” +There was a brief interval of silence when the coroner had finished +speaking. The jury whispered together for a few seconds; then the +foreman announced that they had agreed upon their verdict. +“And what is your decision, gentlemen?” the coroner asked. +“We find,” was the reply, “that deceased met his death by wilful +murder, committed by some person unknown.” +The coroner bowed. “I am in entire agreement with you, gentlemen,” +said he. “No other verdict was possible, and I am sure you will join +me in the hope that the wretch who committed this dastardly crime may +be identified and in due course brought to justice.” +This brought the proceedings to an end. As the Court rose the +spectators filed out of the building and the coroner approached Miss +D’Arblay to express once more his deep sympathy with her in her tragic +bereavement. I stood apart with Miss Boler, whose rugged face was wet +with tears, but set in a grim and wrathful scowl. +“Things have taken a terrible turn,” I ventured to observe. +She shook her head and uttered a sort of low growl. “It won’t bear +thinking of,” she said gruffly. “There is no possible retribution that +would meet the case. One has thought that some of the old punishments +were cruel and barbarous, but if I could lay my hands on the villain +that did this——” She broke off, leaving the conclusion to my +imagination, and in an extraordinarily different voice said: “Come, +Miss Marion, let us get out of this awful place.” +As we walked away slowly and in silence, I looked at Miss D’Arblay, +not without anxiety. She was very pale, and the dazed expression that +her face had borne on the fatal day of the discovery had, to some +extent, reappeared. But now the signs of bewilderment and grief were +mingled with something new. The rigid face, the compressed lips, and +lowered brows spoke of a deep and abiding wrath. +Suddenly she turned to me and said, abruptly, almost harshly: +“I was wrong in what I said to you before the inquiry. You remember +that I said that the circumstances of the loss could make no +difference; but they make a whole world of difference. I had supposed +that my dear father had died as he had thought he would die; that it +was the course of Nature, which we cannot rebel against. Now I know, +from what the doctor said, that he might have lived on happily for the +full span of human life but for the malice of this unknown wretch. His +life was not lost; it was stolen—from him and from me.” +“Yes,” I said somewhat lamely. “It is a horrible affair.” +“It is beyond bearing!” she exclaimed. “If his death had been natural, +I would have tried to resign myself to it. I would have tried to put +my grief away. But to think that his happy, useful life has been +snatched from him—that he has been torn from us who loved him by the +deliberate act of this murderer—it is unendurable. It will be with me +every hour of my life until I die. And every hour I shall call on God +for justice against this wretch.” +I looked at her with a sort of admiring surprise. A quiet, gentle girl +as I believed her to be at ordinary times, now, with her flushed +cheeks, her flashing eyes and ominous brows, she reminded me of one of +the heroines of the French Revolution. Her grief seemed to be merged +in a longing for vengeance. +While she had been speaking Miss Boler had kept up a running +accompaniment in a deep, humming bass. I could not catch the words—if +there were any—but was aware only of a low, continuous bourdon. She +now said with grim decision: +“God will not let him escape. He shall pay the debt to the uttermost +farthing.” Then, with sudden fierceness, she added: “If I should ever +meet with him I could kill him with my own hand.” +After this both women relapsed into silence, which I was loth to +interrupt. The circumstances were too tragic for conversation. When we +reached their gate Miss D’Arblay held out her hand and once again +thanked me for my help and sympathy. +“I have done nothing,” said I, “that any stranger would not have done, +and I deserve no thanks. But I should like to think that you will look +on me as a friend, and if you should need any help will let me have +the privilege of being of use to you.” +“I look on you as a friend already,” she replied; “and I hope you will +come and see us sometimes—when we have settled down to our new +conditions of life.” +As Miss Boler seemed to confirm this invitation, I thanked them both +and took my leave, glad to think that I had now a recognized status as +a friend and might pursue a project which had formed in my mind even +before we had left the court-house. +The evidence of the murder, which had fallen like a thunderbolt on us +all, had a special significance for me; for I knew that Dr. Thorndyke +was behind this discovery, though to what extent I could not judge. +The medical witness was an obviously capable man, and it might be that +he would have made the discovery without assistance. But a +needle-puncture in the back is a very inconspicuous thing. Ninety-nine +doctors in a hundred would almost certainly have overlooked it, +especially in the case of a body apparently “found drowned,” and +seeming to call for no special examination beyond the search for gross +injuries. The revelation was very characteristic of Thorndyke’s +methods and principles. It illustrated in a most striking manner the +truth which he was never tired of insisting on: that it is never safe +to accept obvious appearances, and that every case, no matter how +apparently simple and commonplace, should be approached with suspicion +and scepticism and subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny. That was +precisely what had been done in this case; and thereby an obvious +suicide had been resolved into a cunningly planned and skilfully +executed murder. It was quite possible that, but for my visit to +Thorndyke, those cunning plans would have succeeded and the murderer +have secured the cover of a verdict of “Death by misadventure” or +“Suicide while temporarily insane.” At any rate, the results had +justified me in invoking Dr. Thorndyke’s aid; and the question now +arose whether it would be possible to retain him for the further +investigation of the case. +This was the project that had occurred to me as I listened to the +evidence and realized how completely the unknown murderer had covered +up his tracks. But there were difficulties. Thorndyke might consider +such an investigation outside his province. Again, the costs involved +might be on a scale entirely beyond my means. The only thing to be +done was to call on Thorndyke and hear what he had to say on the +subject, and this I determined to do on the first opportunity. And +having formed this resolution, I made my way back by the shortest +route to Mecklenburgh-square, where the evening consultations were now +nearly due. +CHAPTER IV. +Mr. Bendelow +There are certain districts in London the appearance of which conveys +to the observer the impression that the houses, and indeed, the entire +streets, have been picked up second-hand. There is in this aspect a +grey, colourless, mouldy quality, reminiscent, not of the antique +shop, but rather of the marine store dealers; a quality which even +communicates itself to the inhabitants, so that one gathers the +impression that the whole neighbourhood was taken as a going concern. +It was on such a district that I found myself looking down from the +top of an omnibus a few days after the inquest (Dr. Cornish’s brougham +being at the moment under repairs and his horse “out to grass” during +the slack season), being bound for a street in the neighbourhood of +Hoxton—Market-street by name—which abutted, as I had noticed when +making out my route, on the Regent’s Canal. The said route I had +written out, and now, in the intervals of my surveys of the unlovely +prospect, I divided my attention between it and the note which had +summoned me to these remote regions. +Concerning the latter I was somewhat curious, for the envelope was +addressed, not to Dr. Cornish, but to “Dr. Stephen Gray.” This was +really quite an odd circumstance. Either the writer knew me personally +or was aware that I was acting as locum tenens for Cornish. But the +name—James Morris—was unknown to me, and a careful inspection of the +index of the ledger had failed to bring to light any one answering to +the description. So Mr. Morris was presumably a stranger to my +principal also. The note, which had been left by hand in the morning, +requested me to call “as early in the forenoon as possible,” which +seemed to hint at some degree of urgency. Naturally, as a young +practitioner, I speculated with interest, not entirely unmingled with +anxiety, on the possible nature of the case, and also on the patient’s +reasons for selecting a medical attendant whose residence was so +inconveniently far away. +In accordance with my written route, I got off the omnibus at the +corner of Shepherdess-walk, and pursuing that pastoral thoroughfare +for some distance, presently plunged into a labyrinth of streets +adjoining it and succeeded most effectually in losing myself. However, +inquiries addressed to an intelligent fish-vendor elicited a most +lucid direction and I soon found myself in a little, drab street which +justified its name by giving accommodation to a row of stationary +barrows loaded with what looked like the “throw-outs” from a colossal +spring clean. Passing along this kerb-side market and reflecting (like +Diogenes, in similar circumstances) how many things there were in the +world that I did not want, I walked slowly up the street looking for +Number 23—my patient’s number—and the canal which I had seen on the +map. I located them both at the same instant, for Number 23 turned out +to be the last house on the opposite side, and a few yards beyond it +the street was barred by a low wall, over which, as I looked, the mast +of a sailing-barge came into view and slowly crept past. I stepped up +to the wall and looked over. Immediately beneath me was the +towing-path, alongside which the barge was now bringing up and +beginning to lower her mast, apparently in order to pass under a +bridge that spanned the canal some two hundred yards farther along. +From these nautical manœuvres I transferred my attention to my +patient’s house—or, at least, so much of it as I could see; for Number +23 appeared to consist of a shop with nothing over it. There was, +however, in a wall which extended to the canal wall a side door with a +bell and knocker, so I inferred that the house was behind the shop, +and that the latter had been built on a formerly existing front +garden. The shop itself was somewhat reminiscent of the stalls down +the street, for though the fascia was newly painted (with the +inscription “J. Morris, General Dealer”) the stock-in-trade exhibited +in the window was in the last stage of senile decay. It included, I +remember, a cracked Toby jug, a mariner’s sextant of an obsolete type, +a Dutch clock without hands, a snuff-box, one or two plaster +statuettes, an invalid punch-bowl, a shiny, dark, and inscrutable oil +painting and a plaster mask, presumably the death mask of some +celebrity whose face was unknown to me. +My examination of this collection was brought to a sudden end by the +apparition of a face above the half-blind of glazed shop-door; the +face of a middle-aged woman who seemed to be inspecting me with +malevolent interest. Assuming—rather too late—a brisk, professional +manner, I opened the shop door, thereby setting a bell jangling +within, and confronted the owner of the face. +“I am Dr. Gray,” I began to explain. +“Side door,” she interrupted brusquely. “Ring the bell and knock.” +I backed out hastily and proceeded to follow the directions, giving a +tug at the bell and delivering a flourish on the knocker. The hollow +reverberations of the latter almost suggested an empty house, but my +vigorous pull at the bell-handle produced no audible result, from +which I inferred—wrongly, as afterwards appeared—that it was out of +repair. After waiting quite a considerable time, I was about to repeat +the performance when I heard sounds within; and then the door was +opened, to my surprise, by the identical sour-faced woman whom I had +seen in the shop. As her appearance and manner did not invite +conversation, and she uttered no word, I followed her in silence +through a long passage, or covered way, which ran parallel to the side +of the shop and presumably crossed the site of the garden. It ended at +a door which opened into the hall proper; a largish square space into +which the doors of the ground-floor rooms opened. It contained the +main staircase and was closed in at the farther end by a heavy curtain +which extended from wall to wall. +We proceeded in this funereal manner up the stairs to the first floor +on the landing of which my conductress halted and for the first time +broke the silence. +“You will probably find Mr. Bendelow asleep or dozing,” she said in a +rather gruff voice. “If he is, there is no need for you to disturb +him.” +“Mr. Bendelow!” I exclaimed. “I understood that his name was Morris.” +“Well, it isn’t,” she retorted. “It is Bendelow. My name is Morris and +so is my husband’s. It was he who wrote to you.” +“By the way,” said I, “how did he know my name? I am acting for Dr. +Cornish, you know.” +“I didn’t know,” said she, “and I don’t suppose he did. Probably the +servant told him. But it doesn’t matter. Here you are, and you will do +as well as another. I was telling you about Mr. Bendelow. He is in a +pretty bad way. The specialist whom Mr. Morris took him to—Dr. Artemus +Cropper—said he had cancer of the bi-lorus, whatever that is——” +“Pylorus,” I corrected. +“Well, pylorus, then, if you prefer it,” she said impatiently. “At any +rate, whatever it is, he’s got cancer of it; and, as I said before, he +is in a pretty bad way. Dr. Cropper told us what to do, and we are +doing it. He wrote out full directions as to diet—I will show them to +you presently—and he said that Mr. Bendelow was to have a dose of +morphia if he complained of pain—which he does, of course; and that, +as there was no chance of his getting better, it didn’t matter how +much morphia he had. The great thing was to keep him out of pain. So +we give it to him twice a day—at least, my husband does—and that keeps +him fairly comfortable. In fact, he sleeps most of the time, and is +probably dozing now; so you are not likely to get much out of him, +especially as he is rather hard of hearing even when he is awake. And +now you had better come in and have a look at him.” +She advanced to the door of a room and opened it softly, and I +followed in a somewhat uncomfortable frame of mind. It seemed to me +that I had no function but that of a mere figure-head. Dr. Cropper, +whom I knew by name as a physician of some reputation, had made the +diagnosis and prescribed the treatment, neither of which I, as a mere +beginner, would think of contesting. It was an unsatisfactory, even an +ignominious, position from which my professional pride revolted. But +apparently it had to be accepted. +Mr. Bendelow was a most remarkable-looking man. Probably he had always +been somewhat peculiar in appearance; but now the frightful emaciation +(which strongly confirmed Cropper’s diagnosis) had so accentuated his +original peculiarities that he had the appearance of some dreadful, +mirthless caricature. Under the influence of the remorseless disease, +every structure which was capable of shrinking had shrunk to the +vanishing-point, leaving the unshrinkable skeleton jutting out with a +most horrible and grotesque effect. His great hooked nose, which must +always have been strikingly prominent, stuck out now, thin and sharp, +like the beak of some bird of prey. His heavy, beetling brows, which +must always have given to his face a frowning sullenness, now overhung +sockets which had shrunk away into mere caverns. His naturally high +cheek-bones were now not only prominent, but exhibited the details of +their structure as one sees them in a dry skull. Altogether, his +aspect was at once pitiable and forbidding. Of his age I could form no +estimate. He might have been a hundred. The wonder was that he was +still alive; that there was yet left in that shrivelled body enough +material to enable its mechanism to continue its functions. +He was not asleep, but was in that somnolent, lethargic state that is +characteristic of the effects of morphia. He took no notice of me when +I approached the bed, nor even when I spoke his name somewhat loudly. +“I told you you wouldn’t get much out of him,” said Mrs. Morris, +looking at me with a sort of grim satisfaction. “He doesn’t have a +great deal to say to any of us nowadays.” +“Well,” said I, “there is no need to rouse him, but I had better just +examine him, if only as a matter of form. I can’t take the case +entirely on hearsay.” +“I suppose not,” she agreed. “You know best. Do what you think +necessary, but don’t disturb him more than you can help.” +It was not a prolonged examination. The first touch of my fingers on +the shrunken abdomen made me aware of the unmistakable hard mass and +rendered further exploration needless. There could be no doubt as to +the nature of the case or of what the future held in store. It was +only a question of time, and a short time at that. +The patient submitted to the examination quite passively, but he +seemed to be fully aware of what was going on, for he looked at me in +a sort of drunken, dreamy fashion, but without any sign of interest in +my proceedings. When I had finished, I looked him over again, trying +to reconstitute him as he might have been before this deadly disease +fastened on him. I observed that he seemed to have a fair crop of hair +of a darkish iron-grey. I say “seemed,” because the greater part of +his head was covered by a skull cap of black silk; but a fringe of +hair straying from under it on to the forehead suggested that he was +not bald. His teeth, too, which were rather conspicuous, were natural +teeth and in good preservation. In order to verify this fact, I +stooped and raised his lip the better to examine them. But at this +point Mrs. Morris intervened. +“There, that will do,” she said impatiently. “You are not a dentist, +and his teeth will last as long as he will want them. If you have +finished you had better come with me and I will show you Dr. Cropper’s +prescriptions. Then you can tell me if you have any further directions +to give.” +She led the way out of the room, and when I had made a farewell +gesture to the patient (of which he took no notice) I followed her +down the stairs to the ground floor where she ushered me into a small, +rather elegantly furnished room. Here she opened the flap of a bureau +and from one of the little drawers took an open envelope which she +handed to me. It contained one or two prescriptions for occasional +medicines, and a sheet of directions relative to the diet and general +management of the patient, including the administration of morphia. +The latter read, under the general heading, “Simon Bendelow, Esq.”: +“As the case progresses, it will probably be necessary to administer +morphine regularly, but the amount given should, if possible, be +restricted to ¼ gr. Morph. Sulph., not more than twice a day; but, of +course, the hopeless prognosis and probable early termination of the +case make some latitude admissible.” +Although I was in complete agreement with the writer, I was a little +puzzled by these documents. They were signed “Artemus Cropper, M.D.,” +but they were not addressed to any person by name. They appeared to +have been given to Mr. Morris, in whose possession they now were; but +the use of the word “morphine” instead of the more familiar “morphia” +and the generally technical phraseology seemed inappropriate to +directions addressed to lay persons. As I returned them I remarked: +“These directions read as if they had been intended for the +information of a medical man.” +“They were,” she replied. “They were meant for the doctor who was +attending Mr. Bendelow at the time. When we moved to this place I got +them from him to show to the new doctor. You are the new doctor.” +“Then you haven’t been here very long?” +“No,” she replied. “We have only just moved in. And that reminds me +that our stock of morphia is running out. Could you bring a fresh tube +of the tabloids next time you call? My husband left an empty tube for +me to give you to remind you what size the tabloids are. He gives Mr. +Bendelow the injections.” +“Thank you,” said I, “but I don’t want the empty tube. I read the +prescription and shan’t forget the dose. I will bring a new tube +to-morrow—that is, if you want me to call every day. It seems hardly +necessary.” +“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “I should think twice a week would be +quite enough. Monday and Thursday would suit me best; if you could +manage to come about this time I should be sure to be in. My time is +rather taken up, as I haven’t a servant at present.” +It was a bad arrangement. Fixed appointments are things to avoid in +medical practice. Nevertheless I agreed to it—subject to unforeseen +obstacles—and was forthwith conducted back along the covered way and +launched into the outer world with a farewell which it would be +inadequate to describe as unemotional. +As I turned away from the door I cast a passing glance at the shop +window; and once again I perceived a face above the half-blind. It was +a man’s face this time; presumably the face of Mr. Morris. And, like +his wife, he seemed to be “taking stock of me.” I returned the +attention, and carried away with me the instantaneous mental +photograph of a man in that unprepossessing transitional state between +being clean-shaved and wearing a beard which is characterized by a +sort of grubby prickliness that disfigures the features without +obscuring them. His stubble was barely a week old, but as his +complexion and hair were dark, the effect was very untidy and +disreputable. And yet, as I have said, it did not obscure the +features. I was even able, in that momentary glance, to note a detail +which would probably have escaped a non-medical eye: the scar of a +hare-lip which had been very neatly and skilfully mended, and which a +moustache would probably have concealed altogether. +I did not, however, give much thought to Mr. Morris. It was his +dour-faced wife, with her gruff, over-bearing manner who principally +occupied my reflections. She seemed to have divined in some way that I +was but a beginner—perhaps my youthful appearance gave her the +hint—and to have treated me with almost open contempt. In truth my +position was not a very dignified one. The diagnosis of the case had +been made for me, the treatment had been prescribed for me, and was +being carried out by other hands than mine. My function was to support +a kind of legal fiction that I was conducting the case, but +principally to supply the morphia (which a chemist might have refused +to do), and when the time came, to sign the death certificate. It was +an ignominious rôle for a young and ambitious practitioner, and my +pride was disposed to boggle at it. But yet there was nothing to which +I could object. The diagnosis was undoubtedly correct, and the +treatment and management of the case exactly such as I should have +prescribed. Finally I decided that my dissatisfaction was principally +due to the unattractive personality of Mrs. Morris; and with this +conclusion I dismissed the case from my mind and let my thoughts +wander into more agreeable channels. +CHAPTER V. +Inspector Follett’s Discovery +To a man whose mind is working actively, walking is a more acceptable +mode of progression than riding in a vehicle. There is a sort of +reciprocity between the muscles and the brain—possibly due to the +close association of the motor and psychical centres—whereby the +activity of the one appears to act as a stimulus to the other. A sharp +walk sets the mind working, and, conversely, a state of lively +reflection begets an impulse to bodily movement. +Hence, when I had emerged from Market-street and set my face +homewards, I let the omnibuses rumble past unheeded. I knew my way +now. I had but to retrace the route by which I had come, and, +preserving my isolation amidst the changing crowd, let my thoughts +keep pace with my feet. And I had, in fact, a good deal to think +about; a general subject for reflection which arranged itself around +two personalities, Miss D’Arblay and Dr. Thorndyke. +To the former I had written suggesting a call on her, “subject to the +exigencies of the service,” on Sunday afternoon, and had received a +short but cordial note definitely inviting me to tea. So that matter +was settled, and really required no further consideration, though it +did actually occupy my thoughts for an appreciable part of my walk. +But that was mere self-indulgence: the preliminary savouring of an +anticipated pleasure. My cogitations respecting Dr. Thorndyke were, on +the other hand, somewhat troubled. I was eager to invoke his aid in +solving the hideous mystery which his acuteness had (I felt convinced) +brought into view. But it would probably be a costly business, and my +pecuniary resources were not great. To apply to him for services of +which I could not meet the cost was not to be thought of. The +too-common meanness of sponging on a professional man was totally +abhorrent to me. +But what was the alternative? The murder of Julius D’Arblay was one of +those crimes which offer the police no opportunity; at least, so it +seemed to me. Out of the darkness this fiend had stolen to commit this +unspeakable atrocity, and into the darkness he had straightway +vanished, leaving no trace of his identity nor any hint of his +diabolical motive. It might well be that he had vanished for ever; +that the mystery of the crime was beyond solution. But if any solution +was possible, the one man who seemed capable of discovering it was +John Thorndyke. +This conclusion, to which my reflections led again and again, +committed me to the dilemma that either this villain must be allowed +to go his way unmolested, if the police could find no clue to his +identity—a position that I utterly refused to accept; or that the one +supremely skilful investigator should be induced, if possible, to take +up the inquiry. In the end I decided to call on Thorndyke and frankly +lay the facts before him, but to postpone the interview until I had +seen Miss D’Arblay and ascertained what view the police took of the +case, and whether any new facts had transpired. +The train of reflection which brought me to this conclusion had +brought me also, by way of Pentonville, to the more familiar +neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, and I had just turned into a somewhat +squalid by-street, which seemed to bear in the right direction, when +my attention was arrested by a brass plate affixed to the door of one +of those hybrid establishments, intermediate between a shop and a +private house, known by the generic name of “Open Surgery.” The name +upon the plate—“Dr. Solomon Usher”—awakened certain reminiscences. In +my freshman days there had been a student of that name at our +hospital; a middle-aged man (elderly, we considered him, seeing that +he was near upon forty), who, after years of servitude as an +unqualified assistant, had scraped together the means of completing +his curriculum. I remembered him very well: a facetious, seedy, +slightly bibulous but entirely good-natured man, invincibly amiable +(as he had need to be), and always in the best of spirits. I recalled +the quaint figure that furnished such rich material for our schoolboy +wit; the solemn spectacles, the ridiculous side-whiskers, the +chimney-pot hat, the formal frock-coat (too often decorated with a +label secretly pinned to the coat-tail, and bearing some such +inscription as “This style 10/6,” or other scintillations of freshman +humour), and, looking over the establishment, decided that it seemed +to present a complete congruity with that well-remembered personality. +But the identification was not left to mere surmise, for even as my +eye roamed along a range of stoppered bottles that peeped over the +wire blind, the door opened and there he was, spectacles, +side-whiskers, top-hat, and frock-coat, all complete, plus an +œdematous-looking umbrella. +He did not recognize me at first—naturally, for I had changed a good +deal more than he had in the five or six years that had slipped +away—but inquired gravely if I wished to see him. I replied that it +had been the dearest wish of my heart, now at length gratified. Then, +as I grinned in his face, my identity suddenly dawned on him. +“Why, it’s Gray!” he exclaimed, seizing my hand. “God bless me, what a +surprise! I didn’t know you. Getting quite a man. Well, I am delighted +to see you. Come in and have a drink.” +He held the door open invitingly, but I shook my head. +“No, thanks,” I replied. “Not at this time in the day.” +“Nonsense,” he urged. “Do you good. I’ve just had one myself. Can’t +say more than that, excepting that I am ready to have another. Won’t +you really? Pity. Should never waste an opportunity. Which way are you +going?” +It seemed that we were going the same way for some distance and we +accordingly set off together. +“So you’ve flopped out of the nest,” he remarked, looking me over, “at +least so I judge by the adult clothes that you are wearing. Are you in +practice in these parts?” +“No,” I replied, “I am doing a locum. Only just qualified, you know.” +“Good,” said he. “A locum’s the way to begin. Try your ’prentice hand +on somebody else’s patients and pick up the art of general practice, +which they don’t teach you at the hospital.” +“You mean bookkeeping and dispensing and the general routine of the +day’s work?” I suggested. +“No, I don’t,” he replied. “I mean practice; the art of pleasing your +patients and keeping your end up. You’ve got a lot to learn, my boy. +Experientia does it. Scientific stuff is all very well at the +hospital, but in practice it is experience, gumption, tact, knowledge +of human nature, that counts.” +“I suppose a little knowledge of diagnosis and treatment is useful?” I +suggested. +“For your own satisfaction, yes,” he admitted, “but for practical +purposes a little knowledge of men and women is a good deal better. It +isn’t your scientific learning that brings you kudos, nor is it +out-of-the-way cases. It is just common sense brought to bear on +common ailments. Take the case of an aurist. You think that he lives +by dealing with obscure and difficult middle and internal ear cases. +Nothing of the kind. He lives on wax. Wax is the foundation of his +practice. Patient comes to him as deaf as a post. He does all the +proper jugglery—tuning-fork, otoscope, speculum, and so on, for the +moral effect. Then he hikes out a good old plug of cerumen, and the +patient hears perfectly. Of course, he is delighted. Thinks a miracle +has been performed. Goes away convinced that the aurist is a genius; +and so he is if he has managed the case properly. I made my reputation +here on a fish-bone.” +“Well, a fish-bone isn’t always so very easy to extract,” said I. +“It isn’t,” he agreed. “Especially if it isn’t there.” +“What do you mean?” I asked. +“I’ll tell you about it,” he replied. “A chappie here got a fish-bone +stuck in his throat. Of course, it didn’t stay there. They never do. +But the prick in his soft palate did, and he was convinced that the +bone was still there. So he sent for a doctor. Doctor came, looked in +his throat. Couldn’t see any fish-bone, and, like a fool, said so. +Tried to persuade the patient that there was no bone there. But the +chappie said it was his throat and he knew better. He could feel it +there. So he sent for another doctor and the same thing happened. No +go. He had four different doctors and they hadn’t the sense of an +infant among them. Then he sent for me. +“Now, as soon as I heard how the land lay, I nipped into the surgery +and got a fish-bone that I keep there in a pill-box for emergencies, +stuck it into the jaws of a pair of throat forceps, and off I went. +‘Show me whereabouts it is,’ says I, handing him a probe to point +with. He showed me the spot and nearly swallowed the probe. ‘All +right,’ said I. ‘I can see it. Just shut your eyes and open your mouth +wide and I will have it out in a jiffy.’ I popped the forceps into his +mouth, gave a gentle prod with the point on the soft palate; patient +hollered out, ‘Hoo!’ I whisked out the forceps and held them up before +his eyes with the fish-bone grasped in their jaws. +“‘Ha!’ says he. ‘Thank Gawd! What a relief! I can swallow quite well +now.’ And so he could. It was a case of suggestion and +counter-suggestion. Imaginary fish-bone cured by imaginary extraction. +And it made my local reputation. Well, good-bye, old chap. I’ve got a +visit to make here. Come in one evening and smoke a pipe with me. You +know where to find me. And take my advice to heart. Never go to +extract a fish-bone without one in your pocket; and it isn’t a bad +thing to keep a dried earwig by you. I do. People will persist in +thinking they’ve got one in their ears. So long. Look me up soon,” and +with a farewell flourish of the umbrella, he turned to a shabby street +door and began to work the top bell-pull as if it were the handle of +an air-pump. +I went on my way, not a little amused by my friend’s genial cynicism, +nor entirely uninstructed. For “there is a soul of truth in things +erroneous,” as the philosopher reminds us; and if the precepts of +Solomon Usher did not sound the highest note of professional ethics, +they were based on a very solid foundation of worldly wisdom. +When, having finished my short round of visits, I arrived at my +temporary home, I was informed by the housemaid in a mysterious +whisper that a police officer was waiting to see me. “Name of +Follett,” she added. “He’s waiting in the consulting-room.” +Proceeding thither, I found my friend, the Highgate inspector, with +one eye closed, standing before a card of test-types that hung on the +wall. We greeted one another cordially and then, as I looked at him +inquiringly, he produced from his pocket without remark an official +envelope from which he extracted a coin, a silver pencil-case and a +button. These objects he laid on the writing-table and silently +directed my attention to them. A little puzzled by his manner I picked +up the coin and examined it attentively. It was a Charles the Second +guinea dated 1663, very clean and bright and in remarkably perfect +preservation. But I could not see that it was any concern of mine. +“It is a beautiful coin,” I remarked; “but what about it?” +“It doesn’t belong to you, then?” he asked. +“No. I wish it did.” +“Have you ever seen it before?” +“Never, to my knowledge.” +“What about the pencil-case?” +I picked it up and turned it over in my fingers. “No,” I said; “it is +not mine and I have no recollection of ever having seen it before.” +“And the button?” +“It is apparently a waistcoat button,” I said after having inspected +it, “apparently belonging to a tweed waistcoat; and judging by the +appearance of the thread and the wisp of cloth that it still holds, it +must have been pulled off with some violence. But it isn’t off my +waist-coat, if that is what you want to know.�� +“I didn’t much think it was,” he replied, “but I thought it best to +make sure. And it didn’t come from poor Mr. D’Arblay’s waistcoat, +because I have examined that and there is no button missing. I showed +these things to Miss D’Arblay, and she is sure that none of them +belonged to her father. He never used a pencil-case—artists don’t, as +a rule—and as to the guinea, she knew nothing about it. If it was her +father’s, he must have come by it immediately before his death; +otherwise she felt sure he would have shown it to her, seeing that +they were both interested in anything in the nature of sculpture.” +“Where did you get these things?” I asked. +“From the pond in the wood,” he replied. “I will tell you how I came +to find them—that is, if I am not taking up too much of your time.” +“Not at all,” I assured him; and even as I spoke I thought of Solomon +Usher. He wouldn’t have said that. He would have anxiously consulted +his engagement-book to see how many minutes he could spare. However, +Inspector Follett was not a patient, and I wanted to hear his story. +So having established him in the easy-chair, I sat down to listen. +“The morning after the inquest,” he began, “an officer of the C.I.D. +came up to get particulars of the case and see what was to be done. +Well, as soon as I had told him all I knew and shown him our copy of +the depositions, it was pretty clear to me that he didn’t think there +was anything to be done but wait for some fresh evidence. Mind you, +Doctor, this is in strict confidence.” +“I understand that. But if the Criminal Investigation Department +doesn’t investigate crime, what the deuce is the good of it?” +“That is hardly a fair way of putting it,” he protested. “The people +at Scotland Yard have got their hands pretty full, and they can’t +spend their time in speculating about cases in which there is no +evidence. They can’t create evidence; and you can see for yourself +that there isn’t the ghost of a clue to the identity of the man who +committed this murder. But they are keeping the case in mind, and +meanwhile we have got to report any new facts that may turn up. Those +were our instructions, and when I heard them I decided to do a bit of +investigating on my own, with the Superintendent’s permission, of +course. +“Well, I began by searching the wood thoroughly, but I got nothing out +of that excepting Mr. D’Arblay’s hat, which I found in the undergrowth +not far from the main path. +“Then I thought of dragging the pond; but I decided that, as it was +only a small pond and shallow, it would be best to empty it and expose +the bottom completely. So I dammed up the little stream that feeds it, +and deepened the outflow, and very soon I had it quite empty excepting +a few small puddles. And I think it was well worth the trouble. These +things don’t tell us much, but they may be useful one day for +identification. And they do tell us something. They suggest that this +man was a collector of coins; and they make it fairly clear that there +was a struggle in the pond before Mr. D’Arblay fell down.” +“That is, assuming that the things belonged to the murderer,” I +interposed. “There is no evidence that they did.” +“No, there isn’t,” he admitted; “but if you consider the three things +together they suggest a very strong probability. Here is a waistcoat +button violently pulled off, and here are two things such as would be +carried in a waistcoat pocket and might fall out if the waistcoat were +dragged at violently when the wearer was stooping over a fallen man +and struggling to avoid being pulled down with him. And then there is +this coin. Its face value is a guinea, but it must be worth a good +deal more than that. Do you suppose anybody would leave a thing of +that kind in a shallow pond, from which it could be easily recovered +with a common landing-net? Why, it would have paid to have had the +pond dragged or even emptied. But, as I say, that wouldn’t have been +necessary.” +“I am inclined to think you are right, Inspector,” said I, rather +impressed by the way in which he had reasoned the matter out; “but +even so, it doesn’t seem to me that we are much more forward. The +things don’t point to any particular person.” +“Not at present,” he rejoined. “But a fact is a fact, and you can +never tell in advance what you may get out of it. If we should get a +hint of any other kind pointing to some particular person, these +things might furnish invaluable evidence connecting that person with +the crime. They may even give a clue now to the people at the C.I.D., +though that isn’t very likely.” +“Then you are going to hand them over to the Scotland Yard people?” +“Certainly. The C.I.D. are the lions, you know. I’m only a jackal.” +I was rather sorry to hear this, for the idea had floated into my mind +that I should have liked Thorndyke to see these waifs, which, could +they have spoken, would have had so much to tell. To me they conveyed +nothing that threw any light on the ghastly events of that night of +horror. But to my teacher, with his vast experience and his wonderful +power of analyzing evidence they might convey some quite important +significance. +I reflected rapidly on the matter. It would not be wise to say +anything to the inspector about Thorndyke, and it was quite certain +that a loan of the articles would not be entertained. Probably a +description of them would be enough for the purpose; but still I had a +feeling that an inspection of them would be better. Suddenly I had a +bright idea, and proceeded cautiously to broach it. +“I should rather like to have a record of these things,” said I; +“particularly of the coin. Would you object to my taking an impression +of it in sealing-wax?” +Inspector Follett looked doubtful. “It would be a bit irregular,” he +said. “It is a bit irregular for me to have shown it to you, but you +are interested in the case, and you are a responsible person. What did +you want the impression for?” +“Well,” I said, “we don’t know much about that coin. I thought I might +be able to pick up some further information. Of course, I understand +that what you have told me is strictly confidential. I shouldn’t go +showing the thing about, or talking. But I should like to have the +impression to refer to if necessary.” +“Very well,” said he. “On that understanding, I have no objection. But +see that you don’t leave any wax on the coin, or the C.I.D. people +will be asking questions.” +With this permission, I set about the business gleefully, determined +to get as good an impression as possible. From the surgery I fetched +an ointment slab, a spirit lamp, a stick of sealing-wax, a teaspoon, +some powder-papers, a bowl of water, and a jar of vaseline. Laying a +paper on the slab, I put the coin on it and traced its outline with a +pencil. Then I broke off a piece of sealing-wax, melted it in the +teaspoon, and poured it out carefully into the marked circle so that +it formed a round, convex button of the right size. While the wax was +cooling to the proper consistency, I smeared the coin with vaseline, +and wiped the excess off with my handkerchief. Then I carefully laid +it on the stiffening wax and made steady pressure. After a few moments +I cautiously lifted the paper and dropped it into the water, leaving +it to cool completely. When, finally, I turned it over under water, +the coin dropped away by its own weight. +“It is a beautiful impression,” the inspector remarked, as he examined +it with the aid of my pocket lens, while I prepared to operate on the +reverse of the coin. “As good as the original. You seem rather a dab +at this sort of thing, Doctor. I wonder if you would mind doing +another pair for me?” +Of course, I complied gladly; and when the inspector departed a few +minutes later he took with him a couple of excellent wax impressions +to console him for the necessity of parting with the original. +As soon as he was gone I proceeded to execute a plan that had already +formed in my mind. First I packed the two wax impressions very +carefully in lint and bestowed them in a tin tobacco-box, which I made +up into a neat parcel and addressed it to Dr. Thorndyke. Then I wrote +him a short letter giving him the substance of my talk with Inspector +Follett and asking for an appointment early in the following week to +discuss the situation with him. I did not suppose that the wax +impressions would convey, even to him, anything that would throw fresh +light on this extraordinarily obscure crime. But one never knew. And +the mere finding of the coin might suggest to him some significance +that I had overlooked. In any case, the new incident gave me an excuse +for reopening the matter with him. +I did not trust the precious missives to the maid, but as soon as the +letter was written I took it and the parcel in my own hands to the +post, dropping the letter into the box but giving the parcel the added +security of registration. This business being thus despatched, my mind +was free to occupy itself with pleasurable anticipations of the +projected visit to Highgate on the morrow and to deal with whatever +exigencies might arise in the course of the Saturday evening +consultations. +CHAPTER VI. +Marion D’Arblay at Home +Most of us have, I imagine, been conscious at times of certain +misgivings as to whether the Progress of which we hear so much has +done for us all that it is assumed to have done; whether the undoubted +gain of advancing knowledge has not a somewhat heavy counterpoise of +loss. We moderns are accustomed to look upon a world filled with +objects that would have made our forefathers gasp with admiring +astonishment; and we are accordingly a little puffed up by our +superiority. But the museums and galleries and ancient buildings +sometimes tell a different tale. By them we are made aware that these +same “rude forefathers” were endowed with certain powers and aptitudes +that seem to be denied to the present generation. +Some such reflections as these passed through my mind as I sauntered +about the ancient village of Highgate, having arrived in the +neighbourhood nearly an hour too early. Very delightful the old +village was to look upon, and so it had been, even when the mellow red +brick was new and the plaster on the timber houses was but freshly +laid; when the great elms were saplings and the stage-wagon with its +procession of horses rumbled along the road which now resounds to the +thunder of the electric tram. It was not Time that had made beautiful +its charming old houses and pleasant streets and closes, but fine +workmanship guided by unerring taste. +At four o’clock precisely, by the chime of the church clock, I pushed +open the gate of Ivy Cottage, and as I walked up the flagged path, +read the date, 1709, on a stone tablet let into the brickwork. I had +no occasion to knock, for my approach had been observed, and as I +mounted the threshold the door opened and Miss D’Arblay stood in the +opening. +“Miss Boler saw you coming up the Grove,” she explained, as we shook +hands. “It is surprising how much of the outer world you can see from +a bay window. It is as good as a watch tower.” She disposed of my hat +and stick, and then preceded me into the room to which the window +appertained, where, beside a bright fire, Miss Boler was at the moment +occupied with a brilliantly burnished copper kettle and a silver +teapot. She greeted me with an affable smile, and as much of a bow as +was possible under the circumstances, and then proceeded to make the +tea with an expression of deep concentration. +“I do like punctual people,” she remarked, placing the teapot on a +carved wooden stand. “You know where you are with them. At the very +moment when you turned the corner, Sir, Miss Marion finished buttering +the last muffin and the kettle boiled over. So you won’t have to wait +a moment.” +Miss D’Arblay laughed softly. “You speak as if Dr. Gray had staggered +into the house in a famished condition, roaring for food,” said she. +“Well,” retorted Miss Boler, “you said ‘tea at four o’clock,’ and at +four o’clock the tea was ready and Dr. Gray was here. If he hadn’t +been he would have had to eat leathery muffins, that’s all.” +“Horrible!” exclaimed Miss D’Arblay. “One doesn’t like to think of it; +and there is no need to, as it hasn’t happened. Remember that this is +a gate-legged table, Dr. Gray, when you sit down. They are +delightfully picturesque, but exceedingly bad for the knees of the +unwary.” +I thanked her for the warning, and took my seat with due caution. Then +Miss Boler poured out the tea and uncovered the muffins with the grave +and attentive air of one performing some ceremonial rite. +As the homely, simple meal proceeded, to an accompaniment of desultory +conversation on every-day topics, I found myself looking at the two +women with a certain ill-defined surprise. Both were garbed in +unobtrusive black, and both, in moments of repose, looked somewhat +tired and worn. But in their manner and the subjects of their +conversation, they were astonishingly ordinary and normal. No +stranger, looking at them and listening to their talk, would have +dreamed of the tragedy that overshadowed their lives. But so it +constantly happens. We go into a house of mourning, and are almost +scandalized by its cheerfulness, forgetting that whereas to us the +bereavement is the one salient fact, to the bereaved there is the +necessity of taking up afresh the threads of their lives. Food must be +prepared even while the corpse lies under the roof, and the common +daily round of duty stands still for no human affliction. +But, as I have said, in the pauses of the conversation, when their +faces were in repose, both women looked strained and tired. Especially +was this so in the case of Miss D’Arblay. She was not only pale, but +she had a nervous, shaken manner which I did not like. And as I looked +anxiously at the delicate, pallid face, I noticed, not for the first +time, several linear scratches on the cheek and a small cut on the +temple. +“What have you been doing to yourself?” I asked. “You look as if you +had had a fall.” +“She has,” said Miss Boler in an indignant tone. “It is a marvel that +she is here to tell the tale. The wretches!” +I looked at Miss D’Arblay in consternation. “What wretches?” I asked. +“Ah! indeed!” growled Miss Boler. “I wish I knew. Tell him about it, +Miss Marion.” +“It was really rather a terrifying experience,” said Miss D’Arblay; +“and most mysterious. You know Southwood Lane and the long, steep hill +at the bottom of it?” I nodded, and she continued: “I have been going +down to the studio every day on my bicycle, just to tidy up, and, of +course, I went by Southwood Lane. It is really the only way. But I +always put on the brake at the top of the hill and go down quite +slowly because of the crossroads at the bottom. Well, three days ago I +started as usual and ran down the Lane pretty fast until I got on the +hill. Then I put on the brake; and I could feel at once that it wasn’t +working.” +“Has your bicycle only one brake?” I asked. +“It had. I am having a second one fixed now. Well, when I found that +the brake wasn’t acting, I was terrified. I was already going too fast +to jump off, and the speed increased every moment. I simply flew down +the hill, faster and faster with the wind whistling about my ears and +the trees and the houses whirling past like express trains. Of course, +I could do nothing but steer straight down the hill; but at the bottom +there was the Archway Road with the trams and ’buses and wagons. I +knew that if a tram crossed the bottom of the Lane as I reached the +road, it was practically certain death. I was horribly frightened. +“However, mercifully the Archway Road was clear when I flew across it, +and I steered to run on down Muswell Hill Road, which is nearly in a +line with the lane. But suddenly I saw a steam roller and a heavy +cart, side by side and taking up the whole of the road. There was no +room to pass. The only possible thing was to swerve round, if I could, +into Wood-lane. And I just managed it. But Wood-lane is pretty steep, +and I flew down it faster than ever. That nearly broke down my nerve; +for at the bottom of the lane is the wood—the horrible wood that I can +never even think of without a shudder. And there I seemed to be +rushing towards it to my death.” +She paused and drew a deep breath, and her hand shook so that the cup +which it held rattled in the saucer. +“Well,” she continued, “down the Lane I flew with my heart in my mouth +and the entrance to the wood rushing to meet me. I could see that the +opening in the hurdles was just wide enough for me to pass through, +and I steered for it. I whizzed through into the wood and the bicycle +went bounding down the steep, rough path at a fearful pace until it +came to a sharp turn; and then I don’t quite know what happened. There +was a crash of snapping branches and a violent shock, but I must have +been partly stunned, for the next thing that I remember is opening my +eyes and looking stupidly at a lady who was stooping over me. She had +seen me fly down the Lane, and had followed me into the wood to see +what happened to me. She lived in the Lane, and she very kindly took +me to her house and cared for me until I was quite recovered; and then +she saw me home and wheeled the bicycle.” +“It is a wonder you were not killed outright!” I exclaimed. +“Yes,” she agreed; “it was a narrow escape. But the odd thing is that, +with the exception of these scratches and a few slight bruises, I was +not hurt at all; only very much shaken. And the bicycle was not +damaged a bit.” +“By the way,” said I, “what had happened to the brake?” +“Ah!” exclaimed Miss Boler; “there you are. The villains!” +Miss D’Arblay laughed softly. “Ferocious Arabella!” said she. “But it +is really a most mysterious affair. Naturally, I thought that the wire +of the brake had snapped. But it hadn’t. It had been cut.” +“Are you quite sure of that?” I asked. +“Oh, there is no doubt at all,” she replied. “The man at the repair +shop showed it to me. It wasn’t merely cut in one place. A length of +it had been cut right out. And I can tell within a few minutes when it +was done, for I had been riding the machine in the morning and I know +the brake was all right then. But I left it for a few minutes outside +the gate while I went into the house to change my shoes, and when I +came out, I started on my adventurous journey. In those few minutes +some one must have come along and just snipped the wire through in two +places and taken away the piece.” +“Scoundrel!” muttered Miss Boler; and I agreed with her most +cordially. +“It was an infamous thing to do,” I exclaimed, “and the act of an +abject fool. I suppose you have no idea or suspicion as to who the +idiot might be?” +“Not the slightest,” Miss D’Arblay replied. “I can’t even guess at the +kind of person who would do such a thing. Boys are sometimes very +mischievous, but this is hardly like a boy’s mischief.” +“No,” I agreed, “it is more like the mischief of a mentally defective +adult; the sort of half-baked larrykin who sets fire to a rick if he +gets the chance.” +Miss Boler sniffed. “Looks to me more like deliberate malice,” said +she. +“Mischievous acts usually do,” I rejoined; “but yet they are mostly +the outcome of stupidity that is indifferent to consequences.” +“And it is of no use arguing about it,” said Miss D’Arblay, “because +we don’t know who did it or why he did it, and we have no means of +finding out. But I shall have two brakes in future, and I shall test +them both every time I take the machine out.” +“I hope you will,” said Miss Boler; and this closed the topic so far +as conversation went, though I suspect that, in the interval of +silence that followed, we all continued to pursue it in our thoughts. +And to all of us, doubtless, the mention of Church-yard Bottom Wood +had awakened memories of that fatal morning when the pool gave up its +dead. No reference to the tragedy had yet been made, but it was +inevitable that the thoughts which were at the back of all our minds +should sooner or later come to the surface. They were, in fact, +brought there by me, though unintentionally; for, as I sat at the +table, my eyes had strayed more than once to a bust—or rather a head, +for there were no shoulders—which occupied the centre of the +mantelpiece. It was apparently of lead, and was a portrait, and a very +good one, of Miss D’Arblay’s father. At the first glance I had +recognized the face which I had first seen through the water of the +pool. Miss D’Arblay, who was sitting facing it, caught my glance, and +said: “You are looking at that head of my dear father. I suppose you +recognized it?” +“Yes, instantly. I should take it to be an excellent likeness.” +“It is,” she replied; “and that is something of an achievement in a +self-portrait in the round.” +“Then he modelled it himself?” +“Yes, with the aid of one or two photographs and a couple of mirrors. +I helped him by taking the dimensions with callipers and drawing out a +scale. Then he made a wax cast and a fireproof mould, and we cast it +together in type-metal, as we had no means of melting bronze. Poor +Daddy! How proud he was when we broke away the mould and found the +casting quite perfect!” +She sighed as she gazed fondly on the beloved features, and her eyes +filled. Then, after a brief silence, she turned to me and asked: +“Did Inspector Follett call on you? He said he was going to.” +“Yes, he called yesterday to show me the things that he had found in +the pond. Of course, they were not mine, and he seemed to have no +doubt—and I think he is right—that they belonged to the—to the——” +“Murderer,” said Miss Boler. +“Yes. He seemed to think that they might furnish some kind of clue, +but I am afraid he had nothing very clear in his mind. I suppose that +coin suggested nothing to you?” +Miss D’Arblay shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied. “As it is an +ancient coin, the man may be a collector or a dealer——” +“Or a forger,” interposed Miss Boler. +“Or a forger. But no such person is known to us. And even that is mere +guesswork.” +“Your father was not interested in coins, then?” +“As a sculptor, yes, and more especially in medals and plaquettes. But +not as a collector. He had no desire to possess; only to create. And +so far as I know, he was not acquainted with any collectors. So this +discovery of the inspector’s, so far from solving the mystery, only +adds a fresh problem.” +She reflected for a few moments with knitted brows; then, turning to +me quickly, she asked: +“Did the inspector take you into his confidence at all? He was very +reticent to me, though most kind and sympathetic. But do you think +that he, or the others, are taking any active measures?” +“My impression,” I answered reluctantly, “is that the police are not +in a position to do anything. The truth is that this villain seems to +have got away without leaving a trace.” +“That is what I feared,” she sighed. Then with sudden passion, though +in a quiet, suppressed voice, she exclaimed: “But he must not escape! +It would be too hideous an injustice. Nothing can bring back my dear +father from the grave; but if there is a God of Justice, this +murderous wretch must be called to account and made to pay the penalty +of his crime.” +“He must,” Miss Boler assented in deep, ominous tones, “and he shall; +though God knows how it is to be done.” +“For the present,” said I, “there is nothing to be done but to wait +and see if the police are able to obtain any fresh information; and +meanwhile to turn over every circumstance that you can think of; to +recall the way your father spent his time, the people he knew, and the +possibility in each case that some cause of enmity may have arisen.” +“That is what I have done,” said Miss D’Arblay. “Every night I lie +awake, thinking, thinking; but nothing comes of it. The thing is +incomprehensible. This man must have been a deadly enemy of my +father’s. He must have hated him with the most intense hatred, or he +must have had some strong reason other than mere hatred for making +away with him. But I cannot imagine any person hating my father, and I +certainly have no knowledge of any such person, nor can I conceive of +any reason that any human creature could have had for wishing for my +father’s death. I cannot begin to understand the meaning of what has +happened.” +“But yet,” said I, “there must be a meaning. This man—unless he was a +lunatic, which he apparently was not—must have had a motive for +committing the murder. That motive must have had some background, some +connexion with circumstances of which somebody has knowledge. Sooner +or later those circumstances will almost certainly come to light, and +then the motive for the murder will come into view. But once the +motive is known, it should not be difficult to discover who could be +influenced by such a motive. Let us, for the present, be patient and +see how events shape, but let us also keep a constant watch for any +glimmer of light, for any fact that may bear on either the motive or +the person.” +The two women looked at me earnestly and with an expression of +respectful confidence, of which I knew myself to be wholly +undeserving. +“It gives me new courage,” said Miss D’Arblay, “to hear you speak in +that reasonable, confident tone. I was in despair, but I feel that you +are right. There must be some explanation of this awful thing; and if +there is, it must be possible to discover it. But we ought not to put +the burden of our troubles on you, though you have been so kind.” +“You have done me the honour,” said I, “to allow me to consider myself +your friend. Surely friends should help to bear one another’s +burdens.” +“Yes,” she replied, “in reason; and you have given most generous help +already. But we must not put too much on you. When my father was +alive, he was my great interest and chief concern. Now that he is +gone, the great purpose of my life is to find the wretch who murdered +him and to see that justice is done. That is all that seems to matter +to me. But it is my own affair. I ought not to involve my friends in +it.” +“I can’t admit that,” said I. “The foundation of friendship is +sympathy and service. If I am your friend, then what matters to you +matters to me; and I may say that in the very moment when I first knew +that your father had been murdered, I made the resolve to devote +myself to the discovery and punishment of his murderer by any means +that lay in my power. So you must count me as your ally as well as +your friend.” +As I made this declaration—to an accompaniment of approving growls +from Miss Boler—Marion D’Arblay gave me one quick glance and then +looked down; and once more, her eyes filled. For a few moments she +made no reply; and when, at length, she spoke, her voice trembled. +“You leave me nothing to say,” she murmured, “but to thank you from my +heart. But you little know what it means to us, who felt so helpless, +to know that we have a friend so much wiser and stronger than +ourselves.” +I was a little abashed, knowing my own weakness and helplessness, to +find her putting so much reliance on me. However, there was Thorndyke +in the background; and now I was resolved that, if the thing was in +any way to be compassed, his help must be secured without delay. +A longish pause followed, and as it seemed to me that there was +nothing more to say on this subject until I had seen Thorndyke, I +ventured to open a fresh topic. +“What will happen to your father’s practice?” I asked. “Will you be +able to get any one to carry it on for you?” +“I am glad you asked that,” said Miss D’Arblay, “because, now that you +are our counsellor we can take your opinion, I have already talked the +matter over with Arabella—with Miss Boler.” +“There’s no need to stand on ceremony,” the latter lady interposed. +“Arabella is good enough for me.” +“Arabella is good enough for any one,” said Miss D’Arblay. “Well, the +position is this. The part of my father’s practice that was concerned +with original work—pottery figures and reliefs and models for +goldsmith’s work—will have to go. No one but a sculptor of his own +class could carry that on. But the wax figures for the shop windows +are different. When he first started, he used to model the heads and +limbs in clay and make plaster casts from which to make the gelatine +moulds for the wax-work. But as time went on, these casts accumulated +and he very seldom had need to model fresh heads or limbs. The old +casts could be used over and over again. Now there is a large +collection of plaster models in the studio—heads, arms, legs, and +faces, especially faces—and as I have a fair knowledge of the +wax-work, from watching my father and sometimes helping him, it seemed +that I might be able to carry on that part of the practice.” +“You think you could make the wax figures yourself?” I asked. +“Of course she could,” exclaimed Miss Boler. “She’s her father’s +daughter. Julius D’Arblay was a man who could do anything he turned +his hand to and do it well. And Miss Marion is just like him. She is +quite a good modeller—so her father said; and she wouldn’t have to +make the figures. Only the wax parts.” +“Then they are not wax all over?” said I. +“No,” answered Miss D’Arblay. “They are just dummies; wooden +frameworks covered with stuffed canvas, with wax heads, busts, and +arms, and shaped legs. That was what poor Daddy used to hate about +them. He would have liked to model complete figures.” +“And as to the business side. Could you dispose of them?” +“Yes, if I could do them satisfactorily. The agent who dealt with my +father’s work has already written to me asking if I could carry on. I +know he will help me so far as he can. He was quite fond of my +father.” +“And you have nothing else in view?” +“Nothing by which I could earn a real living. For the last year or two +I have worked at writing and illuminating; addresses, testimonials, +and church services, when I could get them, and filled in the time +writing special window-tickets. But that isn’t very remunerative, +whereas the wax figures would yield quite a good living. And then,” +she added, after a pause, “I have the feeling that Daddy would have +liked me to carry on his work, and I should like it myself. He taught +me quite a lot and I think he meant me to join him when he got old.” +As she had evidently made up her mind, and as her decision seemed +quite a wise one, I concurred with as much enthusiasm as I could +muster. +“I am glad you agree,” said she, “and I know Arabella does. So that is +settled, subject to my being able to carry out the plan. And now, if +we have finished, I should like to show you some of my father’s works. +The house is full of them and so, even, is the garden. Perhaps we had +better go there first before the light fails.” +As the treasures of this singularly interesting home were presented, +one after another, for my inspection, I began to realize the truth of +Miss Boler’s statement. Julius D’Arblay had been a remarkably +versatile man. He had worked in all sorts of mediums and in all +equally well. From the carved stone sundial and the leaden garden +figures to the clock-case decorated with gilded gesso and enriched +with delicate bronze plaquettes, all his works were eloquent of +masterly skill and a fresh, graceful fancy. It seems to me little +short of a tragedy that an artist of his ability should have spent the +greater part of his time in fabricating those absurd, posturing +effigies that simper and smirk so grotesquely in the enormous windows +of Vanity Fair. +I had intended, in compliance with the polite conventions, to make +this, my first visit, a rather short one; but a tentative movement to +depart only elicited protests, and I was easily persuaded to stay +until the exigencies of Dr. Cornish’s practice seemed to call me. When +at last I shut the gate of Ivy Cottage behind me and glanced back at +the two figures standing in the lighted doorway, I had the feeling of +turning away from a house with which, and its inmates, I had been +familiar for years. +On my arrival at Mecklenburgh-square I found a note which had been +left by hand earlier in the evening. It was from Dr. Thorndyke, asking +me, if possible, to lunch with him at his chambers on the morrow. I +looked over my visiting list, and finding that Monday would be a light +day—most of my days here were light days—I wrote a short letter +accepting the invitation and posted it forthwith. +CHAPTER VII. +Enlarging Thorndyke’s Knowledge +“I am glad you were able to come,” said Thorndyke, as we took our +places at the table. “Your letter was a shade ambiguous. You spoke of +discussing the D’Arblay case, but I think you had something more than +discussion in your mind.” +“You are quite right,” I replied. “I had in my mind to ask if it would +be possible for me to retain you—I believe that is the correct +expression—to investigate the case, as the police seem to think there +is nothing to go on; and if the costs would be likely to be within my +means.” +“As to the costs,” said he, “we can dismiss them. I see no reason to +suppose that there would be any costs.” +“But your time, Sir——” I began. +He laughed derisively. “Do you propose to pay me for indulging in my +pet hobby? No, my dear fellow, it is I who should pay you for bringing +a most interesting and intriguing case to my notice. So your questions +are answered. I shall be delighted to look into this case, and there +will be no costs unless we have to pay for some special services. If +we do, I will let you know.” +I was about to utter a protest, but he continued: +“And now, having disposed of the preliminaries, let us consider the +case itself. Your very shrewd and capable inspector believes that the +Scotland Yard people will take no active measures unless some new +facts turn up. I have no doubt he is right, and I think they are +right, too. They can’t spend a lot of time—which means public money—on +a case in which hardly any data are available, and which holds out no +promise of any result. But we mustn’t forget that we are in the same +boat. Our chances of success are infinitesimal. This investigation is +a forlorn hope. That, I may say, is what commends it to me; but I want +you to understand clearly that failure is what we have to expect.” +“I understand that,” I answered gloomily, but nevertheless rather +disappointed at this pessimistic view. “There seems to be nothing +whatever to go upon.” +“Oh, it isn’t so bad as that,” he rejoined. “Let us just run over the +data that we have. Our object is to fix the identity of the man who +killed Julius D’Arblay. Let us see what we know about him. We will +begin with the evidence at the inquest. From that we learned: 1. That +he is a man of some education, ingenious, subtle, resourceful. This +murder was planned with extraordinary ingenuity and foresight. The +body was found in the pond with no telltale mark on it but an almost +invisible pinprick in the back. The chances were a thousand to one, or +more, against that tiny puncture ever being observed; and if it had +not been observed, the verdict would have been ‘Found drowned,’ or +‘Found dead,’ and the fact of the murder would never have been +discovered. +“2. We also learn that he has some knowledge of poisons. The common, +vulgar, poisoner is reduced to fly-papers, weed-killer, or +rat-poison—arsenic or strychnine. But this man selects the most +suitable of all poisons for his purpose, and administers it in the +most effective manner; with a hypodermic syringe. +“3. We learned further that he must have had some extraordinarily +strong reason for making away with D’Arblay. He made most elaborate +plans, he took endless trouble—for instance, it must have been no easy +matter to get possession of that quantity of aconitine (unless he were +a doctor, which God forbid!). That strong reason—the motive, in +fact—is the key of the problem. It is the murderer’s one vulnerable +point, for it can hardly be beyond discovery; and its discovery must +be our principal objective.” +I nodded, not without some self-congratulation as I recalled how I had +made this very point in my talk with Miss D’Arblay. +“Those,” Thorndyke continued, “are the data that the inquest +furnished. Now we come to those added by Inspector Follett.” +“I don’t see that they help us at all,” said I. “The ancient coin was +a curious find, but it doesn’t appear to tell us anything new +excepting that this man may have been a collector or a dealer. On the +other hand, he may not. It doesn’t seem to me that the coin has any +significance.” +“Doesn’t it really?” said Thorndyke, as he refilled my glass. “You are +surely overlooking the very curious coincidence that it presents.” +“What coincidence is that?” I asked, in some surprise. +“The coincidence,” he replied, “that both the murderer and the victim +should be, to a certain extent, connected with a particular form of +activity. Here is a man who commits a murder and who, at the time of +committing it appears to have been in possession of a coin, which is +not a current coin, but a collector’s piece; and behold! the murdered +man is a sculptor—a man who, presumably, was capable of making a coin, +or at least the working model.” +“There is no evidence,” I objected, “that D’Arblay was capable of +cutting a die. He was not a die sinker.” +“There was no need for him to be,” Thorndyke rejoined. “Formerly, the +medallist who designed the coin cut the die himself. But that is not +the modern practice. Nowadays, the designer makes the model, first in +wax and then in plaster, on a comparatively large scale. The model of +a shilling may be three inches or more in diameter. The actual +die-sinking is done by a copying machine which produces a die of the +required size by mechanical reduction. I think there could be no doubt +that D’Arblay could have modelled the design for a coin on the usual +scale, say three or four inches in diameter.” +“Yes,” I agreed, “he certainly could, for I have seen some of his +small relief work; some little plaquettes, not more than two inches +long and most delicately and beautifully modelled. But still, I don’t +see the connexion, otherwise than as a rather odd coincidence.” +“There may be nothing more,” said he. “There may be nothing in it at +all. But odd coincidences should always be noted with very special +attention.” +“Yes, I realize that. But I can’t imagine what significance there +could be in the coincidence.” +“Well,” said Thorndyke, “let us take an imaginary case, just as an +illustration. Suppose this man to have been a fraudulent dealer in +antiquities; and suppose him to have obtained enlarged photographs of +a medal or coin of extreme rarity and of great value, which was in +some museum or private collection. Suppose him to have taken the +photographs to D’Arblay and commissioned him to model from them a pair +of exact replicas in hardened plaster. From those plaster models he +could, with a copying machine, produce a pair of dies with which he +could strike replicas in the proper metal and of the exact size; and +these could be sold for large sums to judiciously chosen collectors.” +“I don’t believe D’Arblay would have accepted such a commission,” I +exclaimed indignantly. +“We may assume that he would not, if the fraudulent intent had been +known to him. But it would not have been; and there is no reason why +he should have refused a commission merely to make a copy. Still, I am +not suggesting that anything of the kind really happened. I am simply +giving you an illustration of one of the innumerable ways in which a +perfectly honest sculptor might be made use of by a fraudulent dealer. +In that case his honesty would be a source of danger to him; for if a +really great fraud were perpetrated by means of his work, it would +clearly be to the interest of the perpetrator to get rid of him. An +honest and unconscious collaborator in a crime is apt to be a +dangerous witness if questions arise.” +I was a good deal impressed by this demonstration. Here, it seemed to +me, was something very like a tangible clue. But at this point +Thorndyke again applied a cold douche. +“Still,” he said, “we are only dealing with generalities, and rather +speculative ones. Our assumptions are subject to all sorts of +qualifications. It is possible, for instance, though very improbable, +that D’Arblay may have been murdered in error by a perfect stranger; +that he may have walked into an ambush prepared for some one else. +Again, the coin may not have belonged to the murderer at all, though +that is also most improbable. But there are numerous possibilities of +error; and we can eliminate them only by following up each suggested +clue and seeking verification or disproof. Every new fact that we +learn is a multiple gain. For as money makes money, so knowledge +begets knowledge.” +“That is very true,” I answered dejectedly—for it sounded rather like +a platitude; “but I don’t see any means of following up any of these +clues.” +“We are going to follow up one of them after lunch, if you have time,” +said he. As he spoke, he took from the table drawer a paper packet and +a jeweller’s leather case. “This,” he said, handing me the packet, +“contains your sealing-wax moulds. You had better take care of them +and keep the box with the marked side up to prevent the wax from +warping. Here are a pair of casts in hardened plaster—‘fictile ivory,’ +as it is called—which my assistant, Polton, has made.” +He opened the case and passed it to me, when I saw that it was lined +with purple velvet and contained what looked like two old ivory +replicas of the mysterious coin. +“Mr. Polton is quite an artist,” I said, regarding them admiringly. +“But what are you going to do with these?” +“I had intended to take them round to the British Museum and show them +to the keeper of the coins and medals, or one of his colleagues. But I +think I will just ask a few questions and hear what he says before I +produce the casts. Have you time to come round with me?” +“I shall make time. But what do you want to know about the coin?” +“It is just a matter of verification,” he replied. “My books on the +British coinage describe the Charles the Second guinea as having a +tiny elephant under the bust on the obverse, to show that the gold +from which it was minted came from the Guinea Coast.” +“Yes,” said I. “Well, there is a little elephant under the bust in +this coin.” +“True,” he replied. “But this elephant has a castle on his back, and +would ordinarily be described as an elephant and castle, to +distinguish him from the plain elephant which appeared on some coins. +What I want to ascertain is whether there were two different types of +guinea. The books make no mention of a second variety.” +“Surely they would have referred to it if there had been,” said I. +“So I thought,” he replied; “but it is better to make sure than to +think.” +“I suppose it is,” I agreed without much conviction, “though I don’t +see that, even if there were two varieties, that fact would have any +bearing on what we want to know.” +“Neither do I,” he admitted. “But then you can never tell what a fact +will prove until you are in possession of the fact. And now, as we +seem to have finished, perhaps we had better make our way to the +Museum.” +The department of coins and medals is associated in my mind with an +impassive-looking Chinese person in bronze who presides over the upper +landing of the main staircase. In fact, we halted for a moment before +him to exchange a final word. +“It will probably be best,” said Thorndyke, “to say nothing about this +coin, or, indeed, about anything else. We don’t want to enter into any +explanations.” +“No,” I agreed. “It is best to keep one’s own counsel;” and with this +we entered the hall, where Thorndyke led the way to a small door and +pressed the electric bell-push. An attendant admitted us, and when we +had signed our names in the visitors’ book, he ushered us into the +keeper’s room. As we entered, a keen-faced, middle-aged man who was +seated at a table inspected us over his spectacles, and, apparently +recognizing Thorndyke, rose and held out his hand. +“Quite a long time since I have seen you,” he remarked after the +preliminary greetings. “I wonder what your quest is this time.” +“It is a very simple one,” said Thorndyke. “I am going to ask if you +can let me look at a Charles the Second guinea dated 1663.” +“Certainly I can,” was the reply, accompanied by an inquisitive glance +at my friend. “It is not a rarity, you know.” +He crossed the room to a large cabinet, and having run his eye over +the multitudinous labels, drew out a small, very shallow drawer. With +this in his hand he returned, and picking a coin out of its circular +pit, held it out to Thorndyke, who took it from him, holding it +delicately by the edge. He looked at it attentively for a few moments, +and then silently presented the obverse for my inspection. Naturally +my eye at once sought the little elephant under the bust, and there it +was; but there was no castle on its back. +“Is this the only type of guinea issued at that date?” Thorndyke +asked. +“The only type,” was the reply. “This is the first issue of the +guinea.” +“There was no variation or alternative form?” +“There was a form which had no elephant under the bust. Only those +which were minted from African gold bore the elephant.” +“I notice that this coin has a plain elephant under the bust; but I +seem to have heard of a guinea, bearing this date, which had an +elephant and castle under the bust. You are sure there was no such +guinea?” +Our official friend shook his head as he took the coin from Thorndyke +and replaced it in its cell. “As sure,” he replied, “as one can be of +a universal negative. The elephant and castle did not appear until +1685.” He picked up the drawer and was just moving away towards the +cabinet when there came a sudden change in his manner. +“Wait!” he exclaimed, stopping and putting down the drawer. “You are +quite right. Only it was not an issue; it was a trial piece, and only +a single coin was struck. I will tell you about it. There is a rather +curious story hanging to that piece. +“This guinea, as you probably know, was struck from dies cut by John +Roettier, and was one of the first coined by the mill-and-screw +process in place of the old hammer-and-pile method. Now when Roettier +had finished the dies, a trial piece was struck; and in striking that +piece the obverse die cracked right across, but apparently only at the +last turn of the screw, for the trial piece was quite perfect. Of +course, Roettier had to cut a new die; and for some reason he made a +slight alteration. The first die had an elephant and castle under the +bust. In the second one he changed this to a plain elephant. So your +impression was, so far, correct; but the coin, if it still exists, is +absolutely unique.” +“Is it not known, then, what became of that trial piece?” +“Oh, yes—up to a point. That is the queerest part of the story. For a +time it remained in the possession of the Slingsby family—Slingsby was +the Master of the Mint when it was struck. Then it passed through the +hands of various collectors, and finally was bought by an American +collector named Van Zellen. Now Van Zellen was a millionaire, and his +collection was a typical millionaire’s collection. It consisted +entirely of things of enormous value which no ordinary man could +afford, or of unique things of which nobody could possibly have a +duplicate. It seems that he was a rather solitary man, and that he +spent most of his evenings alone in his museum, gloating over his +possessions. +“One morning Van Zellen was found dead in the little study attached to +the museum. That was about eighteen months ago. There was an empty +champagne bottle on the table and a half-emptied glass, which smelt of +bitter almonds, and in his pocket was an empty phial labelled +‘Hydrocyanic Acid.’ At first it was assumed that he had committed +suicide, but when, later, the collection was examined, it was found +that a considerable part of it was missing. A clean sweep had been +made of the gems, jewels, and other portable objects of value, and, +among other things, this unique trial guinea had vanished. Surely you +remember the case?” +“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “I do, now you mention it, but I never heard +what was stolen. Do you happen to know what the later developments +were?” +“There were none. The identity of the murderer was never even guessed +at, and not a single item of the stolen property has ever been traced. +To this day the crime remains an impenetrable mystery—unless you know +something about it,” and again our friend cast an inquisitive glance +at Thorndyke. +“My practice,” the latter replied, “does not extend to the United +States. Their own very efficient investigators seem to be able to do +all that is necessary. But I am very much obliged to you for having +given us so much of your time, to say nothing of this extremely +interesting information. I shall make a note of it, for American crime +occasionally has its repercussions on this side.” +I secretly admired the adroit way in which Thorndyke had evaded the +rather pointed question without making any actual mis-statement. But +the motive for the evasion was not very obvious to me. I was about to +put a question on the subject, but he anticipated it, for, as soon as +we were outside, he remarked with a chuckle: “It is just as well that +we didn’t begin by exhibiting the casts. We could hardly have sworn +our friend to secrecy, seeing that the original is undoubtedly stolen +property.” +“But aren’t you going to draw the attention of the police to the +fact?” +“I think not,” he replied. “They have got the original, and no doubt +they have a list of the stolen property. We must assume that they will +make use of their knowledge; but if they don’t, it may be all the +better for us. The police are very discreet; but they do sometimes +give the Press more information than I should. And what is told to the +Press is told to the criminal.” +“And why not?” I asked. “What is the harm of his knowing?” +“My dear Gray!” exclaimed Thorndyke. “You surprise me. Just consider +the position. This man aimed at being entirely unsuspected. That +failed. But still his identity is unknown, and he is probably +confident that it will never be ascertained. Then he is, so far, off +his guard. There is no need for him to disappear or go into hiding. +But let him know that he is being tracked and he will almost certainly +take fresh precautions against discovery. Probably he will slip away +beyond our reach. Our aim must be to encourage in him a feeling of +perfect security; and that aim commits us to the strictest secrecy. No +one must know what cards we hold or that we hold any; or even that we +are taking a hand.” +“What about Miss D’Arblay?” I asked anxiously. “May I not tell her +that you are working on her behalf?” +He looked at me somewhat dubiously. “It would obviously be better not +to,” he said, “but that might seem a little unfriendly and +unsympathetic.” +“It would be an immense relief to her to know that you are trying to +help her, and I think you could trust her to keep your secrets.” +“Very well,” he conceded. “But warn her very thoroughly. Remember that +our antagonist is hidden from us. Let us remain hidden from him, so +far as our activities are concerned.” +“I will make her promise absolute secrecy,” I agreed: and then, with a +slight sense of anti-climax, I added: “But we don’t seem to have so +very much to conceal. This curious story of the stolen coin is +interesting, but it doesn’t appear to get us any more forward.” +“Doesn’t it?” he asked. “Now I was just congratulating myself on the +progress that we had made; on the way in which we are narrowing down +the field of inquiry. Let us trace our progress. When you found the +body there was no evidence as to the cause of death; no suspicion of +any agent whatever. Then came the inquest, demonstrating the cause of +death and bringing into view a person of unknown identity, but having +certain distinguishing characteristics. Then Follett’s discovery added +some further characteristics and suggested certain possible motives +for the crime. But still there was no hint as to the person’s identity +or position in life. Now we have good evidence that he is a +professional criminal of a dangerous type, that he is connected with +another crime and with a quantity of easily identified stolen +property. We also know that he was in America about eighteen months +ago, and we can easily get exact information as to dates and locality. +This man is no longer a mere formless shadow. He is in a definite +category of possible persons.” +“But,” I objected, “the fact that he had the coin in his possession +does not prove that he is the man who stole it.” +“Not by itself,” Thorndyke agreed. “But taken in conjunction with the +crime, it is almost conclusive. You appear to be overlooking the +striking similarity of the two crimes. Each was a violent murder +committed by means of poison; and in each case, the poison selected +was the most suitable one for the purpose. The one, aconitine, was +calculated to escape detection; the other, hydrocyanic acid—the most +rapidly acting of all poisons—was calculated to produce almost instant +death in a man who was probably struggling and might have raised an +alarm. I think we are fairly justified in assuming that the murderer +of Van Zellen was the murderer of D’Arblay. If that is so, we have two +groups of circumstances to investigate, two tracks by which to follow +him; and, sooner or later, I feel confident, we shall be able to give +him a name. Then if we have kept our own counsel, and he is +unconscious of the pursuit, we shall be able to lay our hands on him. +But here we are at the Foundling Hospital. It is time for each of us +to get back to the routine of duty.” +CHAPTER VIII. +Simon Bendelow, Deceased +It was near the close of my incumbency of Dr. Cornish’s +practice—indeed, Cornish had returned on the previous evening—that my +unsatisfactory attendance on Mr. Simon Bendelow came to an end. It had +been a wearisome affair. In medical practice, perhaps even more than +in most human activities, continuous effort calls for the sustenance +of achievement. A patient who cannot be cured or even substantially +relieved is of all patients the most depressing. Week after week I had +made my fruitless visits, had watched the silent, torpid sufferer grow +yet more shrivelled and wasted, speculating even a little impatiently +on the possible duration of his long-drawn-out passage to the grave. +But at last the end came. +“Good morning, Mrs. Morris,” I said as that grim female opened the +door and surveyed me impassively, “and how is our patient to-day?” +“He isn’t our patient any longer,” she replied. “He’s dead.” +“Ha!” I exclaimed. “Well, it had to be, sooner or later. Poor Mr. +Bendelow! When did he die?” +“Yesterday afternoon, about five,” she answered. +“H’m. If you had sent me a note I could have brought the certificate. +However, I can post it to you. Shall I go up and have a look at him?” +“You can if you like,” she replied. “But the ordinary certificate +won’t be enough in this case. He is going to be cremated.” +“Oh, indeed!” said I, once more unpleasantly conscious of my +inexperience. “What sort of certificate is required for cremation?” +“Oh, all sorts of formalities have to be gone through,” she answered. +“Just come into the drawing-room, and I will tell you what has to be +done.” +She preceded me along the passage, and I followed meekly, +anathematizing myself for my ignorance, and my instructors for having +sent me forth crammed with academic knowledge, but with the practical +business of my profession all to learn. +“Why are you having him cremated?” I asked, as we entered the room and +shut the door. +“Because it is one of the provisions of his will,” she answered. “I +may as well let you see it.” +She opened a bureau and took from it a foolscap envelope, from which +she drew out a folded document. This she first unfolded and then +re-folded, so that its concluding clauses were visible, and laid it on +the flap of the bureau. Placing her finger on it, she said: “That is +the cremation clause. You had better read it.” +I ran my eye over the clause, which read: “I desire that my body shall +be cremated, and I appoint Sarah Elizabeth Morris, the wife of the +aforesaid James Morris, to be the residuary legatee and sole executrix +of this my will.” Then followed the attestation clause, underneath +which was the shaky but characteristic signature of “Simon Bendelow,” +and opposite this the signatures of the witnesses, Anne Dewsnep and +Martha Bonington, both described as spinsters and both of a joint +address which was hidden by the folding of the document. +“So much for that,” said Mrs. Morris, returning the will to its +envelope; “and now as to the certificate. There is a special form for +cremation which has to be signed by two doctors, and one of them must +be a hospital doctor or a consultant. So I wrote off at once to Dr. +Cropper, as he knew the patient, and I have had a telegram from him +this morning saying that he will be here this evening at eight o’clock +to examine the body and sign the certificate. Can you manage to meet +him at that time?” +“Yes,” I replied, “fortunately I can, as Dr. Cornish is back.” +“Very well,” said she; “then in that case you needn’t go up now. You +will be able to make the examination together. Eight o’clock, sharp, +remember.” +With this she re-conducted me along the passage and—I had almost said +ejected me; but she sped the parting guest with a business-like +directness that was perhaps accounted for by the presence opposite the +door of one of those grim parcels-delivery vans in which undertakers +distribute their wares, and from which a rough-looking coffin was at +the moment being hoisted out by two men. +The extraordinary promptitude of this proceeding so impressed me that +I remarked: “They haven’t been long making the coffin.” +“They didn’t have to make it,” she replied. “I ordered it a month ago. +It’s no use leaving things to the last moment.” +I turned away with somewhat mixed feelings. There was certainly a +horrible efficiency about this woman. Executrix, indeed! Her +promptness in carrying out the provisions of the will was positively +appalling. She must have written to Cropper before the breath was +fairly out of poor Bendelow’s body, but her forethought in the matter +of the coffin fairly made my flesh creep. +Dr. Cornish made no difficulty about taking over the evening +consultations, in fact he had intended to do so in any case. +Accordingly, after a rather early dinner, I made my way in leisurely +fashion back to Hoxton, where, after all, I arrived fully ten minutes +too soon. I realized my prematureness when I halted at the corner of +Market-street to look at my watch; and as ten additional minutes of +Mrs. Morris’s society offered no allurement, I was about to turn back +and fill up the time with a short walk when my attention was arrested +by a mast which had just appeared above the wall at the end of the +street. With its black-painted truck and halyard blocks and its long +tricolour pennant, it looked like the mast of a Dutch schuyt or +galliot, but I could hardly believe it possible that such a craft +could make its appearance in the heart of London. All agog with +curiosity, I hurried up the street and looked over the wall at the +canal below; and there, sure enough, she was—a big Dutch sloop, +broad-bosomed, massive, and mediæval, just such a craft as one may see +in the pictures of old Vandervelde, painted when Charles the Second +was king. +I leaned on the low wall and watched her with delighted interest as +she crawled forward slowly to her berth, bringing with her, as it +seemed, a breath of the distant sea and the echo of the surf, +murmuring on sandy beaches. I noted appreciatively her old-world air, +her antique build, her gay and spotless paint, and the muslin curtains +in the little windows of her deck-house, and was, in fact, so absorbed +in watching her that the late Simon Bendelow had passed completely out +of my mind. Suddenly, however, the chiming of a clock recalled me to +my present business. With a hasty glance at my watch I tore myself +away reluctantly, darted across the street, and gave a vigorous pull +at the bell. +Dr. Cropper had not yet arrived, but the deceased had not been +entirely neglected, for when I had spent some five minutes staring +inquisitively about the drawing-room into which Mrs. Morris had shown +me, that lady returned, accompanied by two other ladies, whom she +introduced to me somewhat informally by the names of Miss Dewsnep and +Miss Bonington respectively. I recognized the names as those of the +two witnesses to the will and inspected them with furtive curiosity, +though, indeed, they were quite unremarkable excepting as typical +specimens of the genus elderly spinster. +“Poor Mr. Bendelow!” murmured Miss Dewsnep, shaking her head and +causing an artificial cherry on her bonnet to waggle idiotically. “How +beautiful he looks in his coffin!” +She looked at me as if for confirmation, so that I was fain to admit +that his beauty in this new setting had not yet been revealed to me. +“So peaceful,” she added, with another shake of her head, and Miss +Bonington chimed in with the comment, “Peaceful and restful.” Then +they both looked at me and I mumbled indistinctly that I had no doubt +he did; the fact being that the inmates of coffins are not in general +much addicted to boisterous activity. +“Ah!” Miss Dewsnep resumed, “how little did I think when I first saw +him, sitting up in bed so cheerful in that nice, sunny room in the +house at——” +“Why not?” interrupted Mrs. Morris. “Did you think he was going to +live for ever?” +“No, Mrs. Morris, ma’am,” was the dignified reply, “I did not. No such +idea ever entered my head. I know too well that we mortals are all +born to be gathered in at last as the—er—as the——” +“Sparks fly upwards,” murmured Miss Bonington. +“As the corn is gathered in at harvest time,” Miss Dewsnep continued +with slight emphasis. “But not to be cast into a burning fiery +furnace. When I first saw him in the other house at——” +“I don’t see what objection you need have to cremation,” interrupted +Mrs. Morris. “It was his own choice, and a good one, too. Look at +those great cemeteries. What sense is there in letting the dead occupy +the space that is wanted for the living?” +“Well,” said Miss Dewsnep, “I may be old-fashioned, but it does seem +to me that a nice, quiet funeral with plenty of flowers and a proper, +decent grave in a church-yard is the natural end to a human life. That +is what I look forward to, myself.” +“Then you are not likely to be disappointed,” said Mrs. Morris; +“though I don’t quite see what satisfaction you expect to get out of +your own funeral.” +Miss Dewsnep made no reply, and an interval of dismal silence +followed. Mrs. Morris was evidently impatient of Dr. Cropper’s +unpunctuality. I could see that she was listening intently for the +sound of the bell, as she had been even while the conversation was in +progress; indeed, I had been dimly conscious all the while of a sense +of tension and anxiety on her part. She had seemed to me to watch her +two friends with a sort of uneasiness, and to give a quite +uncalled-for attention to their rather trivial utterances. +At length her suspense was relieved by a loud ringing of the bell. She +started up and opened the door, but she had barely crossed the +threshold when she suddenly turned back and addressed me. +“That will be Dr. Cropper. Perhaps you had better come out with me and +meet him.” +It struck me as an odd suggestion, but I rose without comment and +followed her along the passage to the street door, which we reached +just as another loud peal of the bell sounded in the house behind us. +She flung the door wide open, and a small, spectacled man charged in +and seized my hand, which he shook with violent cordiality. +“How do you do, Mr. Morris?” he exclaimed. “So sorry to keep you +waiting, but I was unfortunately detained at a consultation.” +Here Mrs. Morris sourly intervened to explain who I was; upon which he +shook my hand again, and expressed his joy at making my acquaintance. +He also made polite inquiries as to our hostess’ health, which she +acknowledged gruffly over her shoulder as she preceded us along the +passage, which was now pitch-dark, and where Cropper dropped his hat +and trod on it, finally bumping his head against the unseen wall in a +frantic effort to recover it. +When we emerged into the dimly lighted hall, I observed the two ladies +peering inquisitively out of the drawing-room door. But Mrs. Morris +took no notice of them, leading the way directly up the stairs to the +room with which I was already familiar. It was poorly illuminated by a +single gas-bracket over the fireplace, but the light was enough to +show us a coffin resting on three chairs, and beyond it the shadowy +figure of a man whom I recognized as Mr. Morris. +We crossed the room to the coffin, which was plainly finished with +zinc fastenings, in accordance with the regulations of the cremation +authorities, and had let into the top what I first took to be a pane +of glass, but which turned out to be a plate of clear celluloid. When +we had made our salutations to Mr. Morris, Cropper and I looked in +through the celluloid window. The yellow, shrunken face of the dead +man, surmounted by the skull cap which he had always worn, looked so +little changed that he might still have been in the drowsy, torpid +state in which I had been accustomed to see him. He had always looked +so like a dead man that the final transition was hardly noticeable. +“I suppose,” said Morris, “you would like to have the coffin-lid taken +off?” +“God bless my soul, yes!” exclaimed Cropper. “What are we here for? We +shall want him out of the coffin, too.” +“Are you proposing to make a post-mortem?” I asked, observing that Dr. +Cropper had brought a good-sized handbag. “It seems hardly necessary, +as we both know what he died of.” +Cropper shook his head. “That won’t do,” said he. “You mustn’t treat a +cremation certificate as a mere formality. We have got to certify that +we have verified the cause of death. Looking at a body through a +window is not verifying the cause of death. We should cut a pretty +figure in a court of law if any question arose and we had to admit +that we had certified without any examination at all. But we needn’t +do much, you know. Just get the body out on the bed and a single small +incision will settle the nature of the growth. Then everything will be +regular and in order. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Morris,” he added, +suavely, turning to that lady. +“You must do what you think necessary,” she replied, indifferently. +“It is no affair of mine;” and with this she went out of the room and +shut the door. +While we had been speaking, Mr. Morris, who apparently had kept a +screwdriver in readiness for the possible contingency, had been neatly +extracting the zinc screws and now lifted off the coffin-lid. Then the +three of us raised the shrivelled body—it was as light as a +child’s—and laid it on the bed. I left Cropper to do what he thought +necessary, and while he was unpacking his instruments I took the +opportunity to have a good look at Mr. Morris; for it is a singular +fact that in all the weeks of my attendance at this house I had never +come into contact with him since that first morning when I had caught +a momentary glimpse of him as he looked out over the blind through the +glazed shop door. In the interval his appearance had changed +considerably for the better. He was no longer a merely unshaved man; +his beard had grown to a respectable length, and, so far as I could +judge in the uncertain light, the hare-lip scar was completely +concealed by his moustache. +“Let me see,” said Cropper, as he polished a scalpel on the palm of +his hand, “when did you say Mr. Bendelow died?” +“Yesterday afternoon at about five o’clock,” replied Mr. Morris. +“Did he really?” said Cropper, lifting one of the limp arms and +letting it drop on the bed. “Yesterday afternoon! Now, Gray, doesn’t +that show how careful one should be in giving opinions as to the time +that has elapsed since death? If I had been shown this body and asked +how long the man had been dead, I should have said three or four days. +There isn’t the least trace of rigor mortis left; and the other +appearances—but there it is. You are never safe in giving dogmatic +opinions.” +“No,” I agreed. “I should have said he had been dead more than +twenty-four hours. But I suppose there is a good deal of variation.” +“There is,” he replied. “You can’t apply averages to particular +cases.” +I did not consider it necessary to take any active part in the +proceedings. It was his diagnosis, and it was for him to verify it. At +his request Mr. Morris fetched a candle and held it as he was +directed; and while these preparations were in progress, I looked out +of the window, which commanded a partial view of the canal. The moon +had now risen and its full light fell on the white-painted hull of the +Dutch sloop, which had come to rest and made fast alongside a small +wharf. It was quite a pleasant picture, strangely at variance with the +squalid neighbourhood around. As I looked down on the little vessel, +with the ruddy light glowing from the deck-house windows and casting +shimmering reflections in the quiet water, the sight seemed to carry +me far away from the sordid streets around into the fellowship of the +breezy ocean and the far-away shores whence the little craft had +sailed; and I determined, as soon as our business was finished, to +seek some access to the canal and indulge myself with a quiet stroll +in the moonlight along the deserted towing-path. +“Well, Gray,” said Cropper, standing up with the scalpel and forceps +in his hands, “there it is if you want to see it. Typical carcinoma. +Now we can sign the certificates with a clear conscience. I’ll just +put in a stitch or two, and then we can put him back in his coffin. I +suppose you have got the forms?” +“They are downstairs,” said Mr. Morris. “When we have got him back I +will show you the way down.” +This, however, was unnecessary, as there was only one staircase, and I +was not a stranger. Accordingly, when we had replaced the body, we +took our leave of Mr. Morris and departed; and, glancing back as I +passed out of the door, I saw him driving in the screws with the ready +skill of a cabinet-maker. +The filling-up of the forms was a portentous business which was +carried out in the drawing-room under the superintendence of Mrs. +Morris, and was watched with respectful interest by the two spinsters. +When it was finished and I had handed the registration certificate to +Mrs. Morris, Cropper gathered up the forms “B” and “C,” and slipped +them into a long envelope on which the Medical Referee’s address was +printed. +“I will post this off to-night,” said he; “and you will send in Form +A, Mrs. Morris, when you have filled it in.” +“I have sent it off already,” she replied. +“Good,” said Dr. Cropper. “Then that is all; and now I must run away. +Can I put you down anywhere, Gray?” +“Thank you, no,” I replied. “I thought of taking a walk along the +tow-path, if you can tell me how to get down to it, Mrs. Morris.” +“I can’t,” she replied. “But when Dr. Cropper has gone, I will run up +and ask my husband. I daresay he knows.” +We escorted Cropper along the passage to the door, which he reached +without mishap, and having seen him into his brougham, turned back to +the hall, where Mrs. Morris ascended the stairs, and I went into the +drawing-room, where the two spinsters appeared to be preparing for +departure. In a couple of minutes Mrs. Morris returned, and seeing +both the ladies standing, said: “You are not going yet, Miss Dewsnep. +You must have some refreshment before you go. Besides, I thought you +wanted to see Mr. Bendelow again.” +“So we should,” said Miss Dewsnep. “Just a little peep, to see how he +looks after——” +“I will take you up in a minute,” interrupted Mrs. Morris. “When Dr. +Gray has gone.” Then addressing me, she said: “My husband says that +you can get down to the tow-path through that alley nearly opposite. +There is a flight of steps at the end which comes right out on the +path.” +I thanked her for the direction, and having bidden farewell to the +spinsters, was once more escorted along the passage and finally +launched into the outer world. +CHAPTER IX. +A Strange Misadventure +Although I had been in harness but a few weeks, it was with a pleasant +sense of freedom that I turned from the door and crossed the road +towards the alley. My time was practically my own, for, though I was +remaining with Dr. Cornish until the end of the week, he was now in +charge, and my responsibilities were at an end. +The alley was entered by an arched opening, so narrow that I had never +suspected it of being a public thoroughfare, and I now threaded it +with my shoulders almost touching the walls. Whither it finally led I +have no idea, for when I reached another arched opening in the left +hand wall and saw that this gave on a flight of stone steps, I +descended the latter and found myself on the tow-path. At the foot of +the steps I stood awhile and looked about me. The moon was nearly +full, and shone brightly on the opposite side of the canal, but the +tow-path was in deep shadow, being flanked by a high wall, behind +which were the houses of the adjoining streets. Looking back—that is, +to my left—I could just make out the bridge and the adjoining +buildings, all their unlovely details blotted out by the thin +night-haze, which reduced them to mere flat shapes of grey. A little +nearer, one or two spots of ruddy light with wavering reflections +beneath them, marked the cabin windows of the sloop, and her mast, +rising above the grey obscurity, was clearly visible against the sky. +Naturally, I turned in that direction, sauntering luxuriously and +filling my pipe as I went. Doubtless, by day the place was sordid +enough in aspect—though it is hard to vulgarize a navigable +water-way—but now, in the moon-lit haze, the scene was almost +romantic. And it was astonishingly quiet and peaceful. From above, +beyond the high wall, the noises of the streets came subdued and +distant, like sounds from another world; but here there was neither +sound nor movement. The tow-path was utterly deserted, and the only +sign of human life was the glimmer of light from the sloop. +It was delightfully restful. I found myself treading the gravel +lightly not to disturb the grateful silence, and as I strolled along, +enjoying my pipe, I let my thoughts ramble idly from one topic to +another. Somewhere above me, in that rather mysterious house, Simon +Bendelow was lying in his narrow bed, the wasted, yellow face looking +out into the darkness through that queer little celluloid window, or +perhaps Miss Dewsnep and her friend were even now taking their +farewell peep at him. I looked up, but, of course, the house was not +visible from the tow-path, nor was I now able to guess at its +position. +A little farther, and the hull of the sloop came clearly into view, +and nearly opposite to it, on the tow-path, I could see some kind of +shed or hut against the wall, with a derrick in front of it +overhanging a little quay. When I had nearly reached the shed, I +passed a door in the wall, which apparently communicated with some +house in one of the streets above. Then I came to the shed, a small +wooden building which probably served as a lighterman’s office, and I +noticed that the derrick swung from one of the corner-posts. But at +this moment my attention was attracted by sounds of mild revelry from +across the canal. Some one in the sloop’s deck-house had burst into +song. +I stepped out on to the little quay and stood at the edge, looking +across at the homely curtained windows and wondering what the interior +of the deck-house looked like at this moment. Suddenly my ear caught +an audible creak from behind me. I was in the act of turning to see +whence it came when something struck me a heavy, glancing blow on the +arm, crashed to the ground, and sent me flying over the edge of the +quay. +Fortunately the water here was not more than four feet deep, and as I +had plunged in feet first, and am a good swimmer, I never lost control +of myself. In a moment I was standing up with my head and shoulders +out of water, not particularly alarmed, though a good deal annoyed and +much puzzled as to what had happened. My first care was to recover my +hat, which was floating forlornly close by, and the next was to +consider how I should get ashore. My left arm was numb from the blow +and was evidently useless for climbing. Moreover, the face of the quay +was of smooth concrete, as was also the wall below the tow-path. But I +remembered having passed a pair of boat-steps some fifty yards back, +and decided to make for them. I had thought of hailing the sloop, but +as the droning song still came from the deck-house, it was clear that +the Dutchmen had heard nothing, and I did not think it worth while to +disturb them. Accordingly, I set forth for the steps, walking with no +little difficulty over the soft, muddy bottom, keeping close to the +side and steadying myself with my right hand, with which I could just +reach the edge of the coping. +It seemed a long journey, for one cannot progress very fast over soft +mud with the water up to one’s armpits; but at last I reached the +steps and managed to scramble up on to the tow-path. There I stood for +a moment or two irresolute. My first impulse was to hurry back as fast +as I could and seek the Morrises’ hospitality; for I was already +chilled to the bone and felt as physically wretched as the proverbial +cat in similar circumstances. But I was devoured by curiosity as to +what had happened, and moreover I believed that I had dropped my stick +on the quay. The latter consideration decided me, for it was a +favourite stick, and I set out for the quay at a very different pace +from that at which I had approached it the first time. +The mystery was solved long before I arrived at the quay; at least it +was solved in part. For the derrick which had overhung the quay, now +lay on the ground. Obviously it had fallen—and had missed my head only +by a matter of inches. But how had it come to fall? Again, obviously, +the guy-rope had given way. As it could not have broken, seeing that +the derrick was unloaded and the rope must have been strong enough to +bear the last load, I was a good deal puzzled as to how the accident +could have befallen. Nor was I much less puzzled when I had made my +inspection. The rope was, of course, unbroken and its “fall”—the part +below the pulley-blocks—passed into the shed through a window-like +hole. This I could see as I approached, and also that a door in the +end of the shed nearest to me was ajar. Opening it, I plunged into the +dark interior, and partly by touch and partly by the faint glimmer +that came in at the window, I was able to make out the state of +affairs. Just below the hole through which the rope entered was a +large cleat, on which the fall must have been delayed. But the cleat +was vacant, the rope hung down from the hole and its end lay in an +untidy raffle on the floor. It looked as if it had been cast off the +cleat; but as there had apparently been no one in the shed, the only +possible supposition was that the rope had been badly secured, that it +had gradually worked loose and had at last slipped off the cleat. But +it was difficult to understand how it had slipped right off. +I found my stick lying at the edge of the quay and close by it my +pipe. Having recovered these treasures, I set off to retrace my steps +along the tow-path, sped on my way by a jovial chorus from the sloop. +A very few minutes brought me to the steps, which I ascended two at a +time, and then, having traversed the alley, I came out sheepishly into +Market-street. To my relief, I saw a light in Mr. Morris’ shop, and +could even make out a moving figure in the background. I hurried +across, and, opening the glazed door, entered the shop, at the back of +which Mr Morris was seated at a bench filing some small object which +was fixed in a vice. He looked round at me with no great cordiality, +but suddenly observing my condition, he dropped his file on the bench, +and exclaimed: +“Good Lord, Doctor! What on earth have you been doing?” +“Nothing on earth,” I replied, with a feeble grin, “but something in +the water. I’ve been into the canal.” +“But what for?” he demanded. +“Oh, I didn’t go in intentionally,” I replied; and then I gave him a +sketch of the incident, as short as I could make it, for my teeth were +chattering and explanations were chilly work. However, he rose nobly +to the occasion. “You’ll catch your death of cold!” he exclaimed, +starting up. “Come in here, and slip off your things at once, while I +go for some blankets.” +He led me into a little den behind the shop, and, having lighted a gas +fire, went out by a back door. I lost no time in peeling off my +dripping clothes, and by the time that he returned I was in a state in +which I ought to have been when I took my plunge. +“Here you are,” said he. “Put on this dressing-gown and wrap yourself +in the blankets. We’ll draw this chair up to the fire, and then you +will be all right for the present.” +I followed his directions, pouring out my thanks as well as my +chattering teeth would let me. +“Oh, that’s all right,” said he. “If you will empty your pockets, the +missus can put some of the things through the wringer, and then +they’ll soon dry. There happens to be a good fire in the kitchen; some +advance cooking on account of the funeral. You can dry your hat and +boots here. If any one comes to the shop you might just press that +electric bell-push.” +When he had gone, I drew the Windsor armchair close to the fire and +made myself as comfortable as I could, dividing my attention between +my hat and my boots, which called for careful roasting, and the +contents of the room. The latter appeared to be a sort of store for +the reserve stock-in-trade, and certainly this was a most amazing +collection. I could not see a single article for which I would have +given sixpence. The array on the shelves suggested that the shop had +been stocked with the sweepings of all the stalls in Market-street, +with those of Shoreditch High-street thrown in. As I ran my eye along +the ranks of dial-less clocks, cracked fiddles, stopperless decanters, +and tattered theological volumes, I found myself speculating +profoundly on how Mr. Morris made a livelihood. He professed to be a +“dealer in antiques,” and there was assuredly no question as to the +antiquity of the goods in this room. But there is little pecuniary +value in the kind of antiquity that is unearthed from a dust bin. +It was really rather mysterious. Mr. Morris was a somewhat superior +man, and he did not appear to be poor. Yet this shop did not seem +capable of yielding an income that would have been acceptable to a +rag-picker. And during the whole of the time in which I sat warming +myself, there was not a single visitor to the shop. However, it was no +concern of mine; and I had just reached this sage conclusion when Mr. +Morris returned with my clothes. +“There,” he said, “they are very creased and disreputable, but they +are quite dry. They would have had to be cleaned and pressed, in any +case.” +With this he went out into the shop and resumed his filing, while I +put on the stiff and crumpled garments. When I was dressed, I followed +him and thanked him effusively for his kind offices, leaving also a +grateful message for his wife. He took my thanks rather stolidly, and +having wished me “good night,” picked up his file and fell to work +again. +I decided to walk home; principally, I think, to avoid exhibiting +myself in a public vehicle. But my self-consciousness soon wore off, +and when, in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, I perceived Dr. Usher, +on the opposite side of the street, I crossed the road and touched his +arm. He looked round quickly, and, recognizing me, shook hands +cordially. +“What are you doing on my beat at this time of night?” he asked. “You +are not still at Cornish’s, are you?” +“Yes,” I answered, “but not for long. I have just made my last visit +and signed the death certificate.” +“Good man,” said he. “Very methodical. Nothing like finishing a case +up neatly. They didn’t invite you to the funeral, I suppose?” +“No,” I replied, “and I shouldn’t have gone if they had.” +“Quite right,” he agreed. “Funerals are rather outside medical +practice. But you have to go sometimes. Policy, you know. I had to go +to one the day before yesterday. Beastly nuisance it was. Chappie +would insist on putting me down at my own door in the mourning coach. +Meant well, of course, but it was very awkward. All the neighbours +came to their shop doors and grinned as I got out. Felt an awful fool; +couldn’t grin back, you see. Had to keep up the farce to the end.” +“I don’t see that it was exactly a farce,” I objected. +“That is because you weren’t there,” he retorted. “It was the silliest +exhibition you ever saw. Just think of it! The parson who ran the show +had actually got a lot of schoolchildren to stand round the grave and +sing a blooming hymn: ‘Safe in the arms of’—you know the confounded +doggerel.” +“Well, why not?” I protested. “I daresay the friends of the deceased +liked it.” +“No doubt,” said he. “I expect they put the parson up to it. But it +was sickening to hear those kids bleating that stuff. How did they +know where he was—an old rip with malignant disease of the pancreas, +too!” +“Really, Usher!” I exclaimed, laughing at his quaint cynicism, “you +are unreasonable. There are no pathological disqualifications for the +better land, I hope.” +“I suppose not,” he agreed, with a grin. “Don’t have to show a clean +bill of health before they let you in. But it was a trying business, +you must admit. I hate cant of that sort; and yet one had to pull a +long face and join in the beastly chorus.” +The picture that his last words suggested was too much for my gravity. +I laughed long and joyously. However, Usher was not offended; indeed, +I suspect that he appreciated the humour of the situation as much as I +did. But he had trained himself to an outward solemnity of manner that +was doubtless a valuable asset in his particular class of practice, +and he walked at my side in unmoved gravity, taking an occasional, +quick, critical look at me. When we came to the parting of our ways he +once more shook my hand warmly and delivered a little farewell speech. +“You’ve never been to see me, Gray. Haven’t had time, I suppose. But +when you are free you might look me up one evening to have a smoke and +a glass and talk over old times. There’s always a bit of grub going, +you know.” +I promised to drop in before long, and he then added: “I gave you one +or two tips when I saw you last. Now I’m going to give you another. +Never neglect your appearance. It’s a great mistake. Treat yourself +with respect and the world will respect you. No need to be a dandy. +But just keep an eye on your tailor and your laundress—especially your +laundress. Clean collars don’t cost much and they pay; and so does a +trousers press. People expect a doctor to be well turned out. Now you +mustn’t think me impertinent. We are old pals and I want you to get +on. So long, old chap. Look me up as soon as you can”; and without +giving me the opportunity to reply, he turned about and bustled off, +swinging his umbrella and offering, perhaps, a not very impressive +illustration of his own excellent precepts. But his words served as a +reminder which caused me to pursue the remainder of my journey by way +of side-streets neither too well lighted nor too much frequented. +As I let myself in with my key and closed the street door, Cornish +stepped out of the dining-room. +“I thought you were lost, Gray,” said he. “Where the deuce have you +been all this time?” Then, as I came into the light of the hall lamp, +he exclaimed: “And what in the name of Fortune have you been up to?” +“I have had a wetting,” I explained. “I’ll tell you all about it +presently.” +“Dr. Thorndyke is in the dining-room,” said he; “came in a few minutes +ago to see you.” He seized me by the arm and ran me into the room, +where I found Thorndyke methodically filling his pipe. He looked up as +I entered and regarded me with raised eyebrows. +“Why, my dear fellow, you’ve been in the water!” he exclaimed. “But +yet your clothes are not wet. What has been happening to you?” +“If you can wait a few minutes,” I replied, “while I wash and change, +I will relate my adventures. But perhaps you haven’t time.” +“I want to hear all about it,” he replied, “so run along and be as +quick as you can.” +I bustled up to my room, and having washed and executed a lightning +change, came down to the dining-room, where I found Cornish in the act +of setting out decanters and glasses. +“I’ve told Dr. Thorndyke what took you to Hoxton,” said he, “and he +wants a full account of everything that happened. He is always +suspicious of cremation cases, as you know from his lectures.” +“Yes, I remember his warnings,” said I. “But this was a perfectly +commonplace, straightforward affair.” +“Did you go for your swim before or after the examination?” Thorndyke +asked. +“Oh, after,” I replied. +“Then let us hear about the examination first,” said he. +On this I plunged into a detailed account of all that had befallen +since my arrival at Market-street, to which Thorndyke listened, not +only patiently, but with the closest attention, and even +cross-examined me to elicit further details. Everything seemed to +interest him, from the construction of the coffin to the contents of +Mr. Morris’ shop. When I had finished, Cornish remarked: +“Well, it is a queer affair. I don’t understand that rope at all. +Ropes don’t uncleat themselves. They may slip, but they don’t come +right off the cleat. It looks more as if some mischievous fool had +cast it off for a joke.” +“But there was no one there,” said I. “The shed was empty when I +examined it, and there was not a soul in sight on the tow-path.” +“Could you see the shed when you were in the water?” Thorndyke asked. +“No. My head was below the level of the tow-path. But if any one had +run out and made off, I must have seen him on the path when I came +out. He couldn’t have got out of sight in the time. Besides, it is +incredible that even a fool should play such a trick as that.” +“It is,” he agreed. “But every explanation seems incredible. The only +plain fact is that it happened. It is a queer business altogether; and +not the least queer feature in the case is your friend Morris. Hoxton +is an unlikely place for a dealer in antiques, unless he should happen +to deal in other things as well; things, I mean, of ambiguous +ownership.” +“Just what I was thinking,” said Cornish. “Sounds uncommonly like a +fence. However, that is no business of ours.” +“No,” agreed Thorndyke, rising and knocking out his pipe. “And now I +must be going. Do you care to walk with me to the bottom of +Doughty-street, Gray?” +I assented at once, suspecting that he had something to say to me that +he did not wish to say before Cornish. And so it turned out; for as +soon as we were outside he said: +“What I really called about was this: it seems that we have done the +police an injustice. They were more on the spot than we gave them +credit for. I have learned—and this is in the strictest +confidence—that they took that coin round to the British Museum for +the expert’s report. Then a very curious fact came to light. That coin +is not the original which was stolen. It is an electrotype in gold, +made in two halves very neatly soldered together and carefully worked +on the milled edge to hide the join. That is extremely important in +several respects. In the first place, it suggests an explanation of +the otherwise incredible circumstance that it was being carried loose +in the waistcoat pocket. It had probably been recently obtained from +the electrotyper. That suggests the question, is it possible that +D’Arblay might have been that electrotyper? Did he ever work the +electrotype process? We must ascertain whether he did.” +“There is no need,” said I. “It is known to me as a fact that he did. +The little plaquettes that I took for castings are electrotypes, made +by himself. He worked the process quite a lot, and was very skilful in +finishing. For instance, he did a small bust of his daughter in two +parts and brazed them together.” +“Then, you see, Gray,” said Thorndyke, “that advances us considerably. +We now have a plausible suggestion as to the motive and a new field of +investigation. Let us suppose that this man employed D’Arblay to make +electrotype copies of certain unique objects with the intention of +disposing of them to collectors. The originals, being stolen property, +would be almost impossible to dispose of with safety, but a copy would +not necessarily incriminate the owner. But when D’Arblay had made the +copies, he would be a dangerous person, for he would know who had the +originals. Here, to a man whom we know to be a callous murderer, would +be a sufficient reason for making away with D’Arblay.” +“But do you think that D’Arblay would have undertaken such a decidedly +fishy job? It seems hardly like him.” +“Why not?” demanded Thorndyke. “There was nothing suspicious about the +transaction. The man who wanted the copies was the owner of the +originals, and D’Arblay would not know or suspect that they were +stolen.” +“That is true,” I admitted. “But you were speaking of a new field of +investigation.” +“Yes. If a number of copies of different objects have been made, there +is a fair chance that some of them have been disposed of. If they +have, and can be traced, they will give us a start along a new line, +which may bring us in sight of the man himself. Do you ever see Miss +D’Arblay now?” +“Oh, yes,” I replied. “I am quite one of the family at Highgate. I +have been there every Sunday lately.” +“Have you!” he exclaimed with a smile. “You are a pretty locum tenens. +However, if you are quite at home there you can make a few discreet +inquiries. Find out, if you can, whether any electros had been made +recently, and if so, what they were and who was the client. Will you +do that?” +I agreed readily, only too glad to take an active part in the +investigation; and having by this time reached the end of +Doughty-street, I took leave of Thorndyke, and made my way back to +Cornish’s house. +CHAPTER X. +Marion’s Peril +The mist, which had been gathering since the early afternoon, began to +thicken ominously as I approached Abbey-road, Hornsey, from Crouch End +Station, causing me to quicken my pace so that I might make my +destination before the fog closed in; for this was my first visit to +Marion D’Arblay’s studio, and the neighbourhood was strange to me. And +in fact I was none too soon; for hardly had I set my hand on the +quaint bronze knocker above the plate inscribed “Mr. J. D’Arblay,” +when the adjoining houses grew pale and shadowy and then vanished +altogether. +My elaborate knock—in keeping with the distinguished knocker—was +followed by soft, quick footsteps, the sound whereof set my heart +ticking in double-quick time; the door opened, and there stood Miss +D’Arblay, garbed in a most alluring blue smock or pinafore, with +sleeves rolled up to the elbow, with a smile of friendly welcome on +her comely face, and looking so sweet and charming that I yearned then +and there to take her in my arms and kiss her. This, however being +inadmissible, I shook her hand warmly and was forthwith conducted +through the outer lobby into the main studio, where I stood looking +about me with amused surprise. She looked at me inquiringly as I +emitted an audible chuckle. +“It is a queer-looking place,” said I; “something between a +miracle-shrine hung with votive offerings from sufferers who have been +cured of sore heads and arms and legs, and a meat emporium in a +cannibal district.” +“It is nothing of the kind!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I don’t mind +the votive offerings, but I reject the cannibal meat-market as a gross +and libellous fiction. But I suppose it does look rather queer to a +stranger.” +“To a what?” I demanded fiercely. +“Oh, I only meant a stranger to the place, of course, and you know I +did. So you needn’t be cantankerous.” +She glanced smilingly round the studio, and for the first time, +apparently, the oddity of its appearance dawned on her, for she +laughed softly and then turned a mischievous eye on me as I gaped +about me like a bumpkin at a fair. The studio was a very large and +lofty room or hall, with a partially glazed roof and a single large +window just below the skylight. The walls were fitted partly with rows +of large shelves, and the remainder with ranks of pegs. From the +latter hung row after row of casts of arms, hands, legs, and +faces—especially faces—while the shelves supported a weird succession +of heads, busts, and a few half-length but armless figures. The +general effect was very strange and uncanny, and what made it more so +was the fact that all the heads presented perfectly smooth, bare +craniums. +“Are artists’ models usually bald?” I inquired, as I noted this latter +phenomenon. +“Now you are being foolish,” she replied; “wilfully and deliberately +foolish. You know very well that all these heads have got to be fitted +with wigs; and you couldn’t fit a wig to a head that already had a +fine covering of plaster curls. But I must admit that it rather +detracts from the beauty of a girl’s head if you represent it without +hair. The models used to hate it when they were shown with heads like +old gentlemen’s, and so did poor Daddy; in fact, he usually rendered +the hair in the clay, just sketchily, for the sake of the model’s +feelings and his own, and took it off afterwards with a wire tool. But +there is the kettle boiling over. I must make the tea.” +While this ceremony was being performed I strolled round the studio +and inspected the casts, more particularly the heads and faces. Of +these latter the majority were obviously modelled, but I noticed a +number with closed eyes, having very much the appearance of death +masks. When we had taken our places at the little table near the great +gas-ring I inquired what they were. +“They do look rather cadaverous, don’t they?” she said, as she poured +out the tea; “but they are not death masks. They are casts from living +faces, mostly from the faces of models, but my father always used to +take a cast from any one who would let him, They are quite useful to +work from, though, of course, the eyes have to be put in from another +cast or from life.” +“It must be rather an unpleasant operation,” I said, “having the +plaster poured over the face. How does the victim manage to breathe?” +“The usual plan is to put little tubes or quills into the nostrils. +But my father could keep the nostrils free without any tubes. He was a +very skilful moulder; and then he always used the best plaster, which +set very quickly, so that it only took a few minutes.” +“And how are you getting on, and what were you doing when I came in?” +“I am getting on quite well,” she replied. “My work has been passed as +satisfactory, and I have three new commissions. When you came in I was +just getting ready to make a mould for a head and shoulders. After tea +I shall go on with it, and you shall help me. But tell me about +yourself. You have finished with Dr. Cornish, haven’t you?” +“Yes, I am a gentleman at large for the time being, but that won’t do. +I shall have to look out for another job.” +“I hope it will be a London job,” she said. “Arabella and I would feel +quite lonely if you went away even for a week or two. We both look +forward so much to our little family gathering on Sunday afternoon.” +“You don’t look forward to it as much as I do,” I said warmly. “It is +difficult for me to realize that there was ever a time when you were +not a part of my life. And yet we are quite new friends.” +“Yes,” she said; “only a few weeks old. But I have the same feeling. I +seem to have known you for years, and as for Arabella, she speaks of +you as if she had nursed you from infancy. You have a very insinuating +way with you.” +“Oh, don’t spoil it by calling me insinuating!” I protested. +“No, I won’t,” she replied. “It was the wrong word. I meant +sympathetic. You have the gift of entering into other people’s +troubles and feeling them as if they were your own; which is a very +precious gift—to the other people.” +“Your troubles are my own,” said I, “since I have the privilege to be +your friend. But I have been a happier man since I shared them.” +“It is very nice of you to say that,” she murmured, with a quick +glance at me and just a faint heightening of colour; and then for a +while neither of us spoke. +“Have you seen Dr. Thorndyke lately?” she asked, when she had refilled +our cups, and thereby, as it were, punctuated our silence. +“Yes,” I answered. “I saw him only a night or two ago. And that +reminds me that I was commissioned to make some inquiries. Can you +tell me if your father ever did any electrotype work for outsiders?” +“I don’t know,” she answered. “He used latterly to electrotype most of +his own work instead of sending it to the bronze-founders, but it is +hardly likely that he would do electros for outsiders. There are firms +who do nothing else, and I know that, when he was busy, he used to +send his work to them. But why do you ask?” +I related to her what Thorndyke had told me, and pointed out the +importance of ascertaining the facts, which she saw at once. +“As soon as we have finished tea,” she said, “we will go and look over +the cupboard where the electro moulds were kept—that is, the permanent +ones. The gelatine moulds for works in the round couldn’t be kept. +They were melted down again. But the water-proofed plaster moulds were +stored away in this cupboard, and the gutta-percha ones, too, until +they were wanted to soften down to make new moulds. And even if the +moulds were destroyed, Father usually kept a cast.” +“Would you be able to tell by looking through the cupboard?” I asked. +“Yes. I should know a strange mould, of course, as I saw all the +original work that he did. Have we finished? Then let us go and settle +the question now.” +She produced a bunch of keys from her pocket and crossed the studio to +a large, tall cupboard in a corner. Selecting a key, she inserted it +and was trying vainly to turn it when the door came open. She looked +at it in surprise and then turned to me with a somewhat puzzled +expression. +“This is really very curious,” she said. “When I came here this +morning I found the outer door unlocked. Naturally I thought I must +have forgotten to lock it, though that would have been an +extraordinary oversight. And now I find this door unlocked. But I +distinctly remember locking it before going away last night, when I +had put back the box of modelling wax. What do you make of that?” +“It looks as if some one had entered the studio last night with false +keys or by picking the lock. But why should they? Perhaps the cupboard +will tell. You will know if it has been disturbed.” +She ran her eyes along the shelves and said at once: “It has been. The +things are all in disorder and one of the moulds is broken. We had +better take them all out and see if anything is missing—so far as I +can judge, that is, for the moulds were just as my father left them.” +We dragged a small work-table to the cupboard and emptied the shelves +one by one. She examined each mould as we took it out, and I jotted +down a rough list at her dictation. When we had been through the whole +collection and re-arranged the moulds on the shelves—they were mostly +plaques and medallions—she slowly read through the list and reflected +for a few moments. At length she said: +“I don’t miss anything that I can remember. But the question is, Were +there any moulds or casts that I did not know about? I am thinking of +Dr. Thorndyke’s question. If there were any, they have gone, so that +question cannot be answered.” +We looked at one another gravely, and in both our minds was the same +unspoken question: “Who was it that had entered the studio last +night?” +We had just closed the cupboard and were moving away when my eye +caught a small object half-hidden in the darkness under the cupboard +itself—the bottom of which was raised by low feet about an inch and a +half from the floor. I knelt down and passed my hand into the shallow +space and was just able to hook it out. It proved to be a fragment of +a small plaster mould, saturated with wax and black-leaded on the +inside. Miss D’Arblay stooped over it eagerly and exclaimed: “I don’t +know that one. What a pity it is such a small piece. But it is +certainly part of a coin.” +“It is part of _the_ coin,” said I. “There can be no doubt of that. I +examined the cast that Dr. Thorndyke made and I recognize this as the +same. There is the lower part of the bust, the letters C A—the first +two letters of Carolus—and the tiny elephant and castle. That is +conclusive. This is the mould from which that electrotype was made. +But I had better hand it to Dr. Thorndyke to compare with the cast +that he has.” +I carefully bestowed the fragment in my tobacco-pouch, as the safest +place for the time being, and meanwhile Miss D’Arblay looked fixedly +at me with a very singular expression. +“You realize,” she said in a hushed voice, “what this means. _He_ was +in here last night.” +I nodded. The same conclusion had instantly occurred to me, and a very +uncomfortable one it was. There was something very sinister and horrid +in the thought of that murderous villain quietly letting himself into +this studio and ransacking its hiding-places in the dead of the night. +So unpleasantly suggestive was it that for a time neither of us spoke +a word, but stood looking blankly at one another in silent dismay. And +in the midst of the tense silence there came a knock at the door. +We both started as if we had been struck. Then Miss D’Arblay, +recovering herself quickly, said: “I had better go,” and hurried down +the studio to the lobby. +I listened nervously, for I was a little unstrung. I heard her go into +the lobby and open the outer door. I heard a low voice, apparently +asking a question; the outer door closed, and then came a sudden +scuffling sound and a piercing shriek. With a shout of alarm, I raced +down the studio, knocking over a chair as I ran, and darted into the +lobby just as the outer door slammed. +For a moment I hesitated. Miss D’Arblay had shrunk into a corner, and +stood in the semi-darkness with both her hands pressed tightly to her +breast. But she called out excitedly: “Follow him! I am not hurt”; and +on this I wrenched open the door and stepped out. +But the first glance showed me that pursuit was hopeless. The fog had +now become so dense that I could hardly see my own feet. I dared not +leave the threshold for fear of not being able to find my way back. +Then she would be alone—and _he_ was probably lurking close by even +now. +I stood irresolute, stock-still; listening intently. The silence was +profound. All the natural noises of a populous neighbourhood seemed to +be smothered by the dense blanket of dark yellow vapour. Not a sound +came to my ear; no stealthy footfall, no rustle of movement. Nothing +but stark silence. +Uneasily I crept back until the open doorway showed as a dim rectangle +of shadow; crept back and peered fearfully into the darkness of the +lobby. She was still standing in the corner—an upright smudge of +deeper darkness in the obscurity. But even as I looked, the shadowy +figure collapsed and slid noiselessly to the floor. +In an instant the pursuit was forgotten, and I darted into the lobby, +shutting the outer door behind me, and dropped on my knees at her +side. Where she had fallen a streak of light came in from the studio, +and the sight that it revealed turned me sick with terror. The whole +front of her smock, from the breast downwards, was saturated with +blood; both her hands were crimson and gory, and her face was +dead-white to the lips. +For an instant I was paralyzed with horror. I could see no movement of +breathing, and the white face with its parted lips and half-closed +eyes, was as the face of the dead. But when I dared to search for the +wound, I was a little reassured; for, closely as I scrutinized it, the +gory smock showed no sign of a cut excepting on the bloodstained right +sleeve. And now I noticed a deep gash on the left hand, which was +still bleeding freely, and was probably the source of the blood which +had soaked the smock. There seemed to be no vital wound. +With a deep breath of relief, I hastily tore my handkerchief into +strips and applied the improvised bandage tightly enough to control +the bleeding. Then with the scissors from my pocket-case, which I now +carried from habit, I laid open the blood-stained sleeve. The wound on +the arm, just above the elbow, was quite shallow; a glancing wound, +which tailed off upwards into a scratch. A turn of the remaining strip +of bandage secured it for the time being, and this done I once more +explored the front of the smock, pulling its folds tightly apart in +search of the dreaded cut. But there was none; and now, the bleeding +being controlled, it was safe to take measures of restoration. +Tenderly—and not without effort—I lifted her and carried her into the +studio, where was a shabby but roomy couch, on which poor D’Arblay had +been accustomed to rest when he stayed for the night. On this I laid +her, and fetching some water and a towel, dabbed her face and neck. +Presently she opened her eyes and heaved a deep sigh, looking at me +with a troubled, bewildered expression, and evidently only +half-conscious. Suddenly her eye caught the great blood-stain on her +smock, and her expression grew wild and terrified. For a few moments +she gazed at me with eyes full of horror; then, as the memory of her +dreadful experience rushed back on her, she uttered a little cry and +burst into tears, moaning and sobbing almost hysterically. +I rested her head on my shoulder and tried to comfort her; and she, +poor girl, weak and shaken by the awful shock, clung to me trembling, +and wept passionately with her face buried in my breast. As for me, I +was almost ready to weep, too, if only from sheer relief and revulsion +from my late terrors. +“Marion, darling!” I murmured into her ear as I stroked her damp hair. +“Poor dear little woman! It was horrible. But you mustn’t cry any more +now. Try to forget it, dearest.” +She shook her head passionately. “I can never do that,” she sobbed. +“It will haunt me as long as I live. Oh! and I am so frightened, even +now. What a coward I am!” +“Indeed you are not!” I exclaimed. “You are just weak from loss of +blood. Why did you let me leave you, Marion?” +“I didn’t think I was hurt, and I wasn’t particularly frightened then; +and I hoped that if you followed him he might be caught. Did you see +him?” +“No. There is a thick fog outside. I didn’t dare to leave the +threshold. Were you able to see what he was like?” +She shuddered and choked down a sob. “He is a dreadful-looking man,” +she said. “I loathed him at the first glance: a beetle-browed, +hook-nosed wretch, with a face like that of some horrible bird of +prey. But I couldn’t see him very distinctly, for it is rather dark in +the lobby, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat, pulled down over his +brows.” +“Would you know him again? And can you give a description of him that +would be of use to the police?” +“I am sure I should know him again,” she said with a shudder. “It was +a face that one could never forget. A hideous face! The face of a +demon. I can see it now, and it will haunt me, sleeping and waking, +until I die.” +Her words ended with a catch of the breath, and she looked piteously +into my face with wide, terrified eyes. I took her trembling hand and +once more drew her head to my shoulder. +“You mustn’t think that, dear,” said I. “You are all unstrung now, but +these terrors will pass. Try to tell me quietly just what this man was +like. What was his height, for instance?” +“He was not very tall. Not much taller than I. And he was rather +slightly built.” +“Could you see whether he was dark or fair?” +“He was rather dark. I could see a shock of hair sticking out from +under his hat, and he had a moustache with turned-up ends and a beard; +a rather short beard.” +“And now as to his face. You say he had a hooked nose?” +“Yes; a great, high-bridged nose like the beak of some horrible bird. +And his eyes seemed to be deep-set under heavy brows with bushy +eyebrows. The face was rather thin, with high cheek-bones; a fierce, +scowling, repulsive face.” +“And the voice? Should you know that again?” +“I don’t know,” she answered. “He spoke in quite a low tone, rather +indistinctly. And he said only a few words—something about having come +to make some inquiries about the cost of a wax model. Then he stepped +into the lobby and shut the outer door, and immediately, without +another word, he seized my right arm and struck at me. But I saw the +knife in his hand, and as I called out I snatched at it with my left +hand, so that it missed my body and I felt it cut my right arm. Then I +got hold of his wrist. But he had heard you coming, and wrenched +himself free. The next moment he had opened the door and rushed out, +shutting it behind him.” +She paused, and then added in a shaking voice: “If you had not been +here—if I had been alone——” +“We won’t think of that, Marion. You were not alone, and you will +never be again in this place. I shall see to that.” +At this she gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and looked into my +face with the pallid ghost of a smile. +“Then I shan’t be frightened any more,” she murmured; and, closing her +eyes, she lay for a while, breathing quietly as if asleep. She looked +very delicate and frail, with her waxen cheeks and the dark shadows +under her eyes, but still I noted a faint tinge of colour stealing +back into her lips. I gazed down at her with fond anxiety, as a mother +might look at a sleeping child that had just passed the crisis of a +dangerous illness. Of the bare chance that had snatched her from +imminent death I would not allow myself to think. The horror of that +moment was too fresh for the thought to be endurable. Instead I began +to occupy myself with the practical question as to how she was to be +got home. It was a long way to North Grove—some two miles I +reckoned—too far for her to walk in her present weak state; and there +was the fog. Unless it lifted it would be impossible for her to find +her way; and I could give her no help, as I was a stranger to this +locality. Nor was it by any means safe; for our enemy might still be +lurking near, waiting for the opportunity that the fog would offer. +I was still turning over these difficulties when she opened her eyes +and looked up at me a little shyly. +“I’m afraid I’ve been rather a baby,” she said, “but I am much better +now. Hadn’t I better get up?” +“No,” I answered. “Lie quiet and rest. I am trying to think how you +are to be got home. Didn’t you say something about a caretaker?” +“Yes; a woman in the little house next door, which really belongs to +the studio. Daddy used to leave the key with her at night, so that she +could clean up. But I just fetch her in when I want her help. Why do +you ask?” +“Do you think she could get a cab for us?” +“I am afraid not. There is no cab-stand anywhere near here. But I +think I could walk, unless the fog is too thick. Shall we go and see +what it is like?” +“I will go,” said I, rising. But she clung to my arm. “You are not to +go alone,” she said, in sudden alarm. “_He_ may be there still.” +I thought it best to humour her, and accordingly helped her to rise. +For a few moments she seemed rather unsteady on her feet, but soon she +was able to walk, supported by my arm, to the studio door, which I +opened, and through which wreaths of vapour drifted in. But the fog +was perceptibly thinner; and even as I was looking across the road at +the now faintly visible houses, two spots of dull yellow light +appeared up the road, and my ear caught the muffled sound of wheels. +Gradually the lights grew brighter, and at length there stole out of +the fog the shadowy form of a cab with a man leading the horse at a +slow walk. Here seemed a chance of escape from our dilemma. +“Go in and shut the door while I speak to the cabman,” said I. “He may +be able to take us. I shall give four knocks when I come back.” +She was unwilling to let me go, but I gently pushed her in and shut +the door, and then advanced to meet the cab. A few words set my +anxieties at rest, for it appeared that the cabman had to set down a +fare a little way along the street, and was very willing to take a +return fare, on suitable terms. As any terms would have been suitable +to me under the circumstances the cabman was able to make a good +bargain, and we parted with mutual satisfaction and a cordial au +revoir. Then I steered back along the fence to the studio door, on +which I struck four distinct knocks and announced myself vocally by +name. Immediately, the door opened, and a hand drew me in by the +sleeve. +“I am so glad you have come back,” she whispered. “It was horrid to be +alone in the lobby even for a few minutes. What did the cabman say?” +I told her the joyful tidings, and we at once made ready for our +departure. In a minute or two the welcome glare of the cab-lamps +reappeared, and when I had locked up the studio and pocketed the key, +I helped her into the rather ramshackle vehicle. +I don’t mind admitting that the cabman’s charges were extortionate; +but I grudged him never a penny. It was probably the slowest journey +that I had ever made, but yet the funereal pace was all too swift. +Half-ashamed as I was to admit it to myself, this horrible adventure +was bearing sweet fruit to me in the unquestioned intimacy that had +been born in the troubled hour. Little enough was said; but I sat +happily by her side, holding her uninjured hand in mine (on the +pretence of keeping it warm), blissfully conscious that our sympathy +and friendship had grown to something sweeter and more precious. +“What are we to say to Arabella?” I asked. “I suppose she will have to +be told?” +“Of course she will,” replied Marion; “you shall tell her. But,” she +added, in a lower tone, “you needn’t tell her everything—I mean what a +baby I was and how you had to comfort and soothe me. She is as brave +as a lion, and she thinks I am, too. So you needn’t undeceive her too +much.” +“I needn’t undeceive her at all,” said I, “because you are”; and we +were still arguing this weighty question when the cab drew up at Ivy +Cottage. I sent the cabman off, rejoicing, and then escorted Marion up +the path to the door, where Miss Boler was waiting, having apparently +heard the cab arrive. +“Thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “I was wondering how on earth you +would manage to get home.” Then she suddenly observed Marion’s +bandaged hand, and uttered an exclamation of alarm. +“Miss Marion has cut her hand rather badly,” I explained. “We won’t +talk about it just now. I will tell you everything presently when you +have put her to bed. Now I want some stuff to make dressings and +bandages.” +Miss Boler looked at me suspiciously, but made no comment. With +extraordinary promptitude she produced a supply of linen, warm water, +and other necessaries, and then stood by to watch the operation and +give assistance. +“It is a nasty wound,” I said, as I removed the extemporized dressing, +“but not so bad as I feared. There will be no lasting injury.” +I put on the permanent dressing and then exposed the wound on the arm, +at the sight of which Miss Boler’s eyebrows went up. But she made no +remark; and when a dressing had been put on this, too, she took charge +of the patient to conduct her up to the bedroom. +“I shall come up and see that she is all right before I go,” said I, +“and meanwhile, no questions, Arabella.” +She cast a significant look at me over her shoulder and departed with +her arm about the patient’s waist. +The rites and ceremonies abovestairs were briefer than I had +expected—perhaps the promised explanations had accelerated matters. At +any rate, in a very few minutes Miss Boler bustled into the room and +said: “You can go up now, but don’t stop to gossip. I am bursting with +curiosity.” +Thereupon I ascended to my lady’s chamber, which I entered as +diffidently and reverentially as though such visits were not the +commonplace of my professional life. As I approached the bed she +heaved a little sigh of content and murmured: +“What a fortunate girl I am! To be petted and cared for and pampered +in this way! Arabella is a perfect angel, and you, Dr. Gray——” +“Oh, Marion!” I protested. “Not Dr. Gray.” +“Well, then, Stephen,” she corrected, with a faint blush. +“That is better. And what am I?” +“Never mind,” she replied, very pink and smiling. “I expect you know. +If you don’t, ask Arabella when you go down.” +“I expect she will do most of the asking,” said I. “And I have strict +orders not to stop to gossip, so let me see the bandages, and then I +must go.” +I made my inspection without undue hurry, and, having seen that all +was well, I took her hand. +“You are to stay here until I have seen you to-morrow morning, and you +are to be a good girl and try not to think of unpleasant things.” +“Yes; I will do everything that you tell me.” +“Then I can go away happy. Good night, Marion.” +“Good night, Stephen.” +I pressed her hand and felt her fingers close on mine. Then I turned +away, and with only a moment’s pause at the door for a last look at +the sweet, smiling face, descended the stairs to confront the +formidable Arabella. +Of my cautious statement and her keen cross-examination I will say +nothing. I made the proceedings as short as was decent, for I wanted, +if possible, to take counsel with Thorndyke. On my explaining this, +the brevity of my account was condoned, and even my refusal of food. +“But remember, Arabella,” I said, as she escorted me to the gate, “she +has had a very severe shock. The less you say to her about the affair +for the present the quicker will be her recovery.” +With this warning I set forth through the rapidly thinning fog to +catch the first conveyance that I could find to bear me southward. +CHAPTER XI. +Arms and the Man +The fog had thinned to a mere haze when the porter admitted me at the +Inner Temple Gate, so that, as I passed the Cloisters and looked +through into Pump-court I could see the lighted windows of the +residents’ chambers at the far end. The sight of them encouraged me to +hope that the chambers in King’s Bench-walk might throw out a similar +hopeful gleam. Nor was I disappointed; and the warm glow from the +windows of No. 5a sent me tripping up the stairs profoundly relieved, +though a trifle abashed at the untimely hour of my visit. +The door was opened by Thorndyke himself, who instantly cut short my +apologies. +“Nonsense, Gray!” he exclaimed, shaking my hand. “It is no +interruption at all. On the contrary, how beautiful upon the staircase +are the feet of him that bringeth—well, what sort of tidings?” +“Not good, I am afraid, sir.” +“Well, let us have them. Come and sit by the fire.” He drew up an easy +chair, and, having installed me in it and taken a critical look at me, +invited me to proceed. I accordingly proceeded bluntly to inform him +that an attempt had been made to murder Miss D’Arblay. +“Ha!” he exclaimed. “These are bad tidings indeed! I hope she is not +injured in any way.” +I reassured him on this point, and gave him the details as to the +patient’s condition, and he then asked: +“When did the attempt occur, and how did you hear of it?” +“It happened this evening, and I was present.” +“You were present!” he repeated, gazing at me in the utmost +astonishment. “And what became of the assailant?” +“He vanished into the fog,” I replied. +“Ah, yes. The fog. I had forgotten that. But now let us drop this +question and answer method. Give me a narrative from the beginning, +with the events in their proper sequence. And omit nothing, no matter +how trivial.” +I took him at his word—up to a certain point. I described my arrival +at the studio, the search in the cupboard, the sinister interruption, +the attack, and the unavailing attempt at pursuit. As to what befell +thereafter I gave him a substantially complete account—with certain +reservations—up to my departure from Ivy Cottage. +“Then you never saw the man at all?” +“No, but Miss D’Arblay did;” and here I gave him such details of the +man’s appearance as I had been able to gather from Marion. +“It is quite a vivid description,” he said, as he wrote down the +details; “and now shall we have a look at that piece of the mould?” +I disinterred it from my tobacco-pouch and handed it to him. He +glanced at it and then went to a cabinet, from a drawer in which he +produced the little case containing Polton’s casts of the guinea and a +box, which he placed on the table and opened. From it he took a lump +of moulding-wax and a bottle of powdered French chalk. Pinching off a +piece of the wax, he rolled it into a ball, dusted it lightly with the +chalk powder, and pressed it with his thumb into the mould. It came +away on his thumb, bearing a perfect impression of the inside of the +mould. +“That settles it,” said he, taking the obverse cast from the case and +laying it on the table beside the wax “squeeze.” “The squeeze and the +cast are identical. There is now no possible doubt that the +electrotype guinea that was found in the pond was made by Julius +D’Arblay. Probably it had been delivered by him to the murderer on the +very evening of his death. So we are undoubtedly dealing with that +same man. It is a most alarming situation.” +“It would be alarming if it were any other man,” I remarked. +“No doubt,” he agreed. “But there is something very special about this +man. He is a criminal of a type that is almost unknown here, but is +not uncommon in South European and Slav countries. You find him, too, +in the United States, principally among the foreign-born or alien +population. He is not a normal human being. He is an inveterate +murderer, to whom a human life does not count at all. And this type of +man continually grows more and more dangerous for two reasons: first, +the murder habit becomes more confirmed with each crime; second, there +is virtually no penalty for the succeeding murders, for the first one +entails the death sentence, and fifty murders can involve no more. +This man killed Van Zellen as a mere incident of a robbery. Then he +appears to have killed D’Arblay to secure his own safety, and he is +now attempting to kill Miss D’Arblay, apparently for the same reason. +And he will kill you and he will kill me if our existence is +inconvenient or dangerous to him. We must bear that in mind, and take +the necessary measures.” +“I can’t imagine,” said I, “what motive he can have for wanting to +kill Miss D’Arblay.” +“Probably he believes that she knows something that would be dangerous +to him; something connected with those moulds, or perhaps something +else. We are rather in the dark. We don’t know for certain what it was +he came to look for when he entered the studio, or whether or not he +found what he wanted. But to return to the danger. It is obvious that +he knows the Abbey-road district well, for he found his way to the +studio in the fog. He may be living close by. There is no reason why +he should not be. His identity is quite unknown.” +“That is a horrid thought!” I exclaimed. +“It is,” he agreed; “but it is the assumption that we have to act +upon. We must not leave a loop-hole unwatched. He mustn’t get another +chance.” +“No,” I concurred warmly; “he certainly must not—if we can help it. +But it is an awful position. We carry that poor girl’s life in our +hands, and there is always the possibility that we may be caught off +our guard, just for a moment.” +He nodded gravely. “You are quite right, Gray. An awful responsibility +rests on us. I am very unhappy about this poor young lady. Of course, +there is the other side—but at present we are concerned with Miss +D’Arblay’s safety.” +“What other side is there?” I demanded. +“I mean,” he replied, “that if we can hold out, this man is going to +deliver himself into our hands.” +“What makes you think that?” I asked eagerly. +“I recognize a familiar phenomenon,” he replied. “My large experience +and extensive study of crimes against the person have shown me that in +the overwhelming majority of cases of obscure crimes the discovery has +been brought about by the criminal’s own efforts to make himself safe. +He is constantly trying to hide his tracks—and making fresh ones. Now +this man is one of those criminals who won’t let well alone. He kills +Van Zellen and disappears, leaving no trace. He seems to be quite +safe. But he is not satisfied. He can’t keep quiet. He kills D’Arblay, +he enters the studio, he tries to kill Miss D’Arblay; all to make +himself more safe. And every time he moves he tells us something fresh +about himself. If we can only wait and watch, we shall have him.” +“What has he told us about himself this time?” I asked. +“We won’t go into that now, Gray. We have other business on hand. But +you know all that I know as to the facts. If you will turn over those +facts at your leisure, you will find that they yield some very curious +and striking inferences.” +I was about to press the question when the door opened and Mr. Polton +appeared on the threshold. Observing me, he crinkled benevolently, and +then, in answer to Thorndyke’s inquiring glance, said: “I thought I +had better remind you, sir, that you have not had any supper.” +“Dear me, Polton!” Thorndyke exclaimed, “now you mention it, I believe +you are right. And I suspect that Dr. Gray is in the same case. So we +place ourselves in your hands. Supper and pistols are what we want.” +“Pistols, sir!” exclaimed Polton, opening his eyes to an unusual +extent and looking at us suspiciously. +“Don’t be alarmed, Polton,” Thorndyke chuckled. “It isn’t a duel. I +just want to go over our stock of pistols and ammunition.” +At this I thought I detected a belligerent gleam in Polton’s eye, but +even as I looked, he was gone. Not for long, however. In a couple of +minutes he was back with a large hand-bag which he placed on the table +and again retired. Thorndyke opened the bag and took out quite a +considerable assortment of weapons—single pistols, revolvers, and +automatics—which he laid out on the table, each with its box of +appropriate cartridges. +“I hate fire-arms!” he exclaimed as he viewed the collection +distastefully. “They are dangerous things, and when it comes to +business they are scurvy weapons. Any poltroon can pull a trigger. But +we must put ourselves on equal terms with our opponent, who is certain +to be provided. Which will you have? I recommend this Baby Browning +for portability. Have you had any practice?” +“Only target practice. But I am a fair shot with a revolver. I have +never used an automatic.” +“We will go over the mechanism after supper,” said he. “Meanwhile, I +hear the approach of Polton and am conscious of a voracious interest +in what he is bringing. When did you feed last?” +“I had tea at the studio about half-past four.” +“My poor Gray!” he exclaimed, “you must be starving. I ought to have +asked you sooner. However, here comes relief.” He opened a folding +table by the fire just as Polton entered with the tray, on which I was +gratified to observe a good-sized dish-cover and a claret-jug. Polton +rapidly laid the little table and then, whisking off the cover, +retired with a triumphant crinkle. +“You have a regular kitchen upstairs, I presume,” said I, as we took +our seats at the table, “as well as a laboratory? And a pretty good +cook, too, to judge by the results.” +Thorndyke chuckled. “The kitchen and the laboratory are one,” he +replied, “and Polton is the cook. An uncommonly good cook, as you +suggest, but his methods are weird. These cutlets were probably +grilled in the cupel furnace, but I have known him to do a steak with +the brazing-jet. There is nothing conventional about Polton. But +whatever he does, he does to a finish; which is fortunate, because I +thought of calling in his aid in our present difficulty.” +I looked at him inquiringly, and he continued: “If Miss D’Arblay is to +go on with her work, which she ought to, as it is her livelihood, she +must be guarded constantly. I had considered applying to Inspector +Follett, and we may have to later; but for the present it will be +better for us to keep our own counsel and play our own hand. We have +two objects in view. First—and paramount—is the necessity of securing +Miss D’Arblay’s safety. But, second, we want to lay our hands on this +man, not to frighten him away, as we might do if we put the police on +his track. When once we have him, her safety is secured for ever, +whereas if he were merely scared away he would be an abiding menace. +We have got to catch him, and at present he is catchable. Secure in +his unknown identity, he is lurking within reach, ready to strike, but +also ready to be pounced upon when we are ready to pounce. Let us keep +him confident of his safety while we are gathering up the clues.” +“H’m—yes,” I assented, without much enthusiasm. “What is it that you +propose to do?” +“Somebody,” he replied, “must keep watch over Miss D’Arblay from the +moment when she leaves her house until she returns to it. How much +time—if any—can you give up to this duty?” +“My whole time,” I answered promptly. “I shall let everything else +go.” +“Then,” said he, “I propose that you and Polton relieve one another on +duty. It will be better than for you to be there all the time.” +I saw what he meant, and agreed at once. The conventions must be +respected as far as possible. +“But,” I suggested, “isn’t Polton rather a light-weight—if it should +come to a scrap, I mean?” +“Don’t undervalue small men, even physically,” he replied. “They are +commonly better built than big men and more enduring and energetic. +Polton is remarkably strong, and he has the pluck of a bulldog. But we +must see how he is placed as regards work.” +The question was put to him and the position of affairs explained when +he came down to clear the table; whereupon it appeared (from his own +account) that he was absolutely without occupation of any kind and +pining for something to do. Thorndyke laughed incredulously but did +not contest this outrageous and barefaced untruth, merely remarking: +“I am afraid it will be rather an idle time for you.” +“Oh, no, it won’t, sir,” Polton assured him emphatically. “I’ve always +wanted to learn something about sculptor’s moulding and wax-casting, +but I’ve never had a chance. Now I shall have. And that opportunity +isn’t going to be wasted.” +Thorndyke regarded his assistant with a twinkling eye. “So it was mere +self-seeking that made you so enthusiastic,” he said. “But you are +quite a good moulder already.” +“Not a sculptor’s moulder, sir,” replied Polton; “and I know nothing +about wax-work. But I shall, before I have been there many days.” +“I am sure you will,” said Thorndyke. “Miss D’Arblay will have an +apprentice and journeyman in one. You will be able to give her quite a +lot of help; which will be valuable just now while her hand is +disabled. When do you think she will be able to go back to work, +Gray?” +“I can’t say. Not to-morrow certainly. Shall I send you a report when +I have seen her?” +“Do,” he replied; “or, better still, come in to-morrow evening and +give me the news. So, Polton, we sha’n’t want you for another day or +so.” +“Ah!” said Polton, “then I shall be able to finish that +recording-clock before I go;” upon which Thorndyke and I laughed aloud +and Polton, his mendacity thus unmasked, retired with the tray, +crinkling but unabashed. +The short remainder of the evening—or rather, of the night—was spent +in the study of the mechanism and mode of use of automatic pistols. +When I finally bestowed the “Baby,” fully loaded, in my hip-pocket, +and rose to go, Thorndyke sped me on my way with a few words of +warning and advice. +“Be constantly on your guard, Gray. You are going to make a bitter +enemy of a man who knows no scruples; indeed, you have done so +already, and something tells me that he is aware of it. Avoid all +solitary or unfrequented places. Keep to main thoroughfares and +well-lighted streets, and maintain a diligent look-out for any +suspicious appearances. You have said truly that we carry Miss +D’Arblay’s life in our hands. But to preserve her life we must +preserve our own; which we should probably prefer to do in any case. +Don’t get jumpy—I don’t much think you will; but keep your attention +alert and your weather eye-lid lifting.” +With these encouraging words and a hearty hand-shake, he let me out +and stood watching me as I descended the stairs. +CHAPTER XII. +A Dramatic Discovery +About eleven o’clock in the forenoon of the third day after the +terrible events of that unforgettable night of the great fog, Marion +and I drew up on our bicycles opposite the studio door. She was now +outwardly quite recovered, excepting as to her left hand, but I +noticed that, as I inserted the key into the door, she cast a quick, +nervous glance up and down the road; and as we passed through the +lobby, she looked down for one moment at the great blood-stain on the +floor and then hastily averted her face. +“Now,” I said, assuming a brisk, cheerful tone, “we must get to work. +Mr. Polton will be here in half an hour and we must be ready to put +his nose on the grindstone at once.” +“Then your nose will have to go on first,” she replied with a smile, +“and so will mine, with two raw apprentices to teach and an important +job waiting to be done. But, dear me! what a lot of trouble I am +giving!” +“Nothing of the kind, Marion,” I exclaimed; “you are a public +benefactor. Polton is delighted at the chance to come here and enlarge +his experience, and as for me——” +“Well? As for you?” She looked at me half-shyly, half-mischievously. +“Go on. You’ve stopped at the most interesting point.” +“I think I had better not,” said I. “We don’t want the forewoman to +get too uppish.” +She laughed softly, and when I had helped her out of her overcoat and +rolled up the sleeve of her one serviceable arm, I went out to the +lobby to stow away the bicycles and lock the outer door. When I +returned, she had got out from the cupboard a large box of flaked +gelatine and a massive spouted bucket which she was filling at the +sink. +“Hadn’t you better explain to me what we are going to do?” I asked. +“Oh, explanations are of no use,” she replied. “You just do as I tell +you and then you will know all about it. This isn’t a school; it’s a +workshop. When we have got the gelatine in to soak, I will show you +how to make a plaster case.” +“It seems to me,” I retorted, “that my instructress has graduated in +the academy of Squeers. ‘W-i-n-d-e-r winder; now go and clean one.’ +Isn’t that the method?” +“Apprentices are not allowed to waste time in wrangling,” she +rejoined, severely. “Go and put on one of Daddy’s blouses and I will +set you to work.” +This practical method of instruction justified itself abundantly. The +reasons for each process emerged at once as soon as the process was +completed. And it was withal a pleasant method, for there is no +comradeship so sympathetic as the comradeship of work; nor any which +begets so wholesome and friendly an intimacy. But though there were +playful and frivolous interludes—as when the forewoman’s working hand +became encrusted with clay and had to be cleansed with a sponge by the +apprentice—we worked to such purpose that by the time Mr. Polton was +due, the plaster bust (of which a wax replica was to be made) was +firmly fixed on the work-table on a clay foundation and surrounded by +a carefully levelled platform of clay, in which it was embedded to +half its thickness. I had just finished smoothing the surface when +there came a knock at the outer door; on which Marion started +violently and clutched my arm. But she recovered in a moment, and +exclaimed in a tone of vexation: +“How silly I am! Of course, it is Mr. Polton.” +It was. I found him on the threshold in rapt contemplation of the +knocker, and looking rather like an archdeacon on tour. He greeted me +with a friendly crinkle and I then conducted him into the studio and +presented him to Marion, who shook his hand warmly and thanked him so +profusely for coming to her aid that he was quite abashed. However, he +did not waste time in compliments, but, producing an apron from his +hand-bag, took off his coat, donned the apron, rolled up so sleeves, +and beamed inquiringly at the bust. +“We are going to make a plaster case for the gelatine mould, Mr. +Polton,” Marion explained, and proceeded to a few preliminary +directions, to which the new apprentice listened with respectful +attention. But she had hardly finished when he fell to work with a +quiet, unhurried facility that filled me with envy. He seemed to know +where to find everything. He discovered the waste-paper with which to +cover the model to prevent the clay from sticking to it, he pounced on +the clay bin at the first shot, and when he had built up the shape for +the case, found the plaster-bin, mixing-bowl, and spoon as if he had +been born and bred in the workshop, stopping only for a moment to test +the condition of the gelatine in the bucket. +“Mr. Polton,” Marion said, after watching him for a while, “you are an +impostor—a dreadful impostor. You pretend to come here as an improver, +but you really know all about gelatine moulding; now, don’t you?” +Polton admitted apologetically that he “had done a little in that way. +But,” he added, in extenuation, “I have never done any work in wax. +And, talking of wax, the doctor will be here presently.” +“Dr. Thorndyke?” Marion asked. +“Yes, Miss. He had some business in Holloway, so he thought he would +come on here to make your acquaintance and take a look at the +premises.” +“All the same, Mr. Polton,” said I, “I don’t quite see the connexion +between Dr. Thorndyke and wax.” +He crinkled with a slightly embarrassed air and explained that he must +have been thinking of something that the doctor had said to him; but +his explanations were cut short by a knock at the door. +“That is his knock,” said Polton; and he and I together proceeded to +open the door, when I inducted the distinguished visitor into the +studio and presented him to the presiding goddess. I noticed that each +of them inspected the other with some curiosity, and that the first +impressions appeared to be mutually satisfactory, though Marion was at +first a little overawed by Thorndyke’s impressive personality. +“You mustn’t let me interrupt your work,” the latter said, when the +preliminary politenesses had been exchanged. “I have just come to fill +in Dr. Gray’s outline sketches with details of my own observing. I +wanted to see you—to convert a name into an actual person, to see the +studio for the same reason, and to get as precise a description as +possible of the man whom we are trying to identify. Will it distress +you to recall his appearance?” +She had turned a little pale at the mention of her late assailant, but +she answered stoutly enough: “Not at all; besides, it is necessary.” +“Thank you,” said he; “then I will read out the description that I had +from Dr. Gray, and we will see if you can add anything to it.” +He produced a note-book, from which he read out the particulars that I +had given him, at the conclusion of which he looked at her +inquiringly. +“I think that is all that I remember,” she said. “There was very +little light, and I really only glanced at him.” +Thorndyke looked at her reflectively. “It is a fairly full +description,” said he. “Perhaps the nose is a little sketchy. You +speak of a hooked nose with a high bridge. Was it a curved nose of the +Jewish type, or a squarer, Roman nose?” +“It was rather square in profile; a Wellington nose, but with a rather +broad base. Like a vulture’s beak, and very large.” +“Was it actually a hook-nose? I mean, had it a drooping tip?” +“Yes, the tip projected downwards and it was rather sharp—not +bulbous.” +“And the chin? Should you call it a pronounced or a retreating chin?” +“Oh, it was quite a projecting chin, rather of the Wellington type.” +Thorndyke reflected once more; then, having jotted down the answers to +his questions, he closed the book and returned it to his pocket. +“It is a great thing to have a trained eye,” he remarked. “In your one +glance you saw more than an ordinary person would have noted in a +leisurely inspection in a good light. You have no doubt that you would +know this man again if you should meet him?” +“Not the slightest,” she replied, with a shudder. “I can see him now +if I shut my eyes.” +“Well,” he rejoined, with a smile, “I wouldn’t recall that unpleasant +vision too often, if I were you. And now, may I, without disturbing +you further, just take a look round the premises?” +“But, of course, Dr. Thorndyke,” she replied. “Do exactly what you +please.” +With this permission, he drew away and stood for some moments letting +a very reflective eye travel round the interior; and meanwhile I +watched him curiously and wondered what he had really come for. His +first proceeding was to walk slowly round the studio and examine +closely, one by one, all the casts which hung on pegs. Next, in the +same systematic manner, he inspected all the shelves, mounting a chair +to examine the upper ones. It was after scrutinizing one of the latter +that he turned towards Marion and asked: +“Have you moved these casts lately, Miss D’Arblay?” +“No,” she replied; “so far as I know, they have not been touched for +months.” +“Some one has moved them within the last day or two,” said he. +“Apparently the nocturnal explorer went over the shelves as well as +the cupboard.” +“I wonder why,” said Marion. “There were no moulds on the shelves.” +Thorndyke made no rejoinder, but as he stood on the chair he once more +ran his eye round the studio. Suddenly he stepped down from the chair, +picked it up, carried it over to the tall cupboard, and once more +mounted it. His stature enabled him easily to look over the cornice on +to the top of the cupboard, and it was evident that something there +had attracted his attention. +“Here is a derelict of some sort,” he announced, “which certainly has +not been moved for some months.” As he spoke, he reached over the +cornice into the enclosed space and lifted out an excessively grimy +plaster mask, from which he blew the thick coating of dust, and then +stood for a while looking at it thoughtfully. +“A striking face this,” he remarked, “but not attractive. It rather +suggests a Russian or Polish Jew; do you recognize the person, Miss +D’Arblay?” +He stepped down from the chair, and handed the mask to Marion, who had +advanced to look at it, and who now held it in her hand regarding it +with a frown of perplexity. +“This is very curious,” she said. “I thought I knew all the casts that +have been made here. But I have never seen this one before, and I +don’t know the face. I wonder who he was. It doesn’t look like an +English face, but I should hardly have taken it for the face of a Jew, +with that rather small and nearly straight nose.” +“The East-European Jews are not a very pure breed,” said Thorndyke. +“You will see many a face of that type in Whitechapel High-street and +the Jewish quarters hard by.” +At this point, deserting the work-table, I came and looked over +Marion’s shoulder at the mask which she was holding at arm’s length. +And then I got a surprise of the most singular kind, for I recognized +the face at a glance. +“What is it, Gray?” asked Thorndyke, who had apparently observed my +astonishment. +“This is the most extraordinary coincidence!” I exclaimed. “Do you +remember my speaking to you about a certain Mr. Morris?” +“The dealer in antiques?” he queried. +“Yes. Well, this is his face.” +He regarded me for some moments with a strangely intent expression. +Then he asked: “When you say that this is Morris’ face, do you mean +that it resembles his face, or that you identify it positively?” +“I identify it positively. I can swear to the identity. It isn’t a +face that one would forget. And if any doubt were possible, there is +this hare-lip scar, which you can see quite plainly on the cast.” +“Yes, I noticed that. And Morris has a hare-lip scar, hasn’t he?” +“Yes; and in the same position and of the same character. I think you +can take it as a fact that this cast was undoubtedly taken from +Morris’ face.” +“Which,” said Thorndyke, “is a really important fact and one that is +worth looking into.” +“In what way is it important?” I asked. +“In this respect,” he answered. “This man, Morris, is unknown to Miss +D’Arblay; but he was not unknown to her father. Here we have evidence +that Mr. D’Arblay had dealings with people of whom his daughter had no +knowledge. The circumstances of the murder made it clear that there +must be such people; but here we have proof of their existence, and we +can give to one of them ‘a local habitation and a name.’ And you will +notice that this particular person is a dealer in curios and possibly +in more questionable things. There is just a hint that he may have had +some rather queer acquaintances.” +“He seemed to have had rather a fancy for plaster masks,” I remarked. +“I remember that he had one in his shop window.” +“Did your father make many life or death masks as commissions, Miss +D’Arblay?” Thorndyke asked. +“Only one or two, so far as I know,” she replied. “There is very +little demand for portrait masks nowadays. Photography has superseded +them.” +“That is what I should have supposed,” said he. “This would be just a +chance commission. However, as it establishes the fact that this man +Morris was in some way connected with your father, I think I should +like to have a record of his appearance. May I take this mask away +with me to get a photograph of it made? I will take great care of it, +and let you have it back safely.” +“Certainly,” replied Marion; “but why not keep it, if it is of any +interest to you? I have no use for it.” +“That is very good of you,” said he; “and if you will give me some rag +and paper to pack it in, I will take myself off, and leave you to +finish your work in peace.” +Marion took the cast from him, and, having procured some rag and +paper, began very carefully to wrap it up. While she was thus engaged, +Thorndyke stood, letting his eye travel once more round the studio. +“I see,” he remarked, “that you have quite a number of masks moulded +from life, or death. Do I understand that they were not commissions?” +“Very few of them were,” Marion replied. “Most of them were taken from +professional models, but some from acquaintances whom my father bribed +with the gift of a duplicate mask.” +“But why did he make them? They could not have been used for producing +wax faces for the show figures; for you could hardly turn a shop +window into a wax-work exhibition with lifelike portraits of real +persons.” +“No,” Marion agreed, “that wouldn’t do at all. These masks were +principally used for reference as to details of features when my +father was modelling a head in clay. But he did sometimes make moulds +for the wax from these masks, only he obliterated the likeness, so +that the wax face was not a portrait.” +“By working on the wax, I suppose?” +“Yes; or more usually by altering the mask before making the mould. It +is quite easy to alter a face. Let me show you.” +She lifted one of the masks from its peg and laid it on the table. +“You see,” she said, “that this is the face of a young girl—one of my +father’s models. It is a round, smooth, smiling face, with a very +short, weak chin and a projecting upper lip. We can change all that in +a moment.” +She took up a lump of clay and, pinching off a pellet, laid it on the +right cheek-bone and spread it out. Having treated the other side in +the same manner, she rolled an elongated pellet, with which she built +up the lower lip. Then, with a larger pellet, she enlarged the chin +downwards and forwards, and, having added a small touch to each of the +eyebrows, she dipped a sponge in thick clay-water, or “slip,” and +dabbed the mask all over to bring it to a uniform colour. +“There,” she said, “it is very rough, but you see what I mean.” +The result was truly astonishing. The weak, chubby, girlish face had +been changed by these few touches into the strong, coarse face of a +middle-aged woman. +“It really is amazing!” I exclaimed. “It is a perfectly different +face. I wouldn’t have believed that such a thing was possible.” +“It is a most striking and interesting demonstration,” said Thorndyke. +“But yet I don’t know that we need be so surprised. If we consider +that of all the millions of persons in this island alone each one has +a face which is different from any other, and yet that all those faces +are made up of the same anatomical parts, we realize that the +differences which distinguish one face from another must be +excessively subtle and minute.” +“We do,” agreed Marion, “especially when we are modelling a portrait +bust and the likeness won’t come although every part appears to be +correct and all the measurements seem to agree. A true likeness is an +extraordinarily subtle and exact piece of work.” +“So I have always thought,” said Thorndyke. “But I mustn’t delay you +any longer. May I have my precious parcel?” +Marion handed him the not very presentable bundle with a smile and a +bow. He then took his leave of her and I escorted him to the door, +where he paused for a moment as we shook hands. +“You are bearing my advice in mind, I hope, Gray,” he said. +“As to keeping clear of unfrequented places? Yes, I have been very +careful in that respect, and I never go abroad without the pistol. It +is in my hip-pocket now. But I have seen no sign of anything to +justify so much caution. I doubt if our friend is even aware of my +existence, and in any case, I don’t see that he has anything against +me, excepting as Miss D’Arblay’s watch-dog.” +“Don’t be too sure, Gray,” he rejoined earnestly. “There may be +certain little matters that you have overlooked. At any rate, don’t +relax your caution. Give all unfrequented places a wide berth and keep +a bright look-out.” +With this final warning, he turned away and strode off down the road +while I re-entered the studio just in time to see Polton mix the first +bowl of plaster, as Marion, having washed the clay from the +transformed mask, dried it and rehung it on its peg. +CHAPTER XIII. +A Narrow Escape +The statement that I had made to Thorndyke was perfectly true in +substance; but it was hardly as significant in fact as the words +implied. I had, it is true, in my journeyings abroad, restricted +myself to well-beaten thoroughfares. But then I had had no occasion to +do otherwise. Until Polton’s arrival on the scene my time had been +wholly taken up in keeping a watch on Marion; and so it would have +continued if I had followed my own inclination. But at the end of the +first day’s work she intervened resolutely. +“I am perfectly ashamed,” she said, “to occupy the time of two men, +both of whom have their own affairs to attend to, though I can’t tell +you how grateful I am to you for sacrificing yourselves.” +“We are acting under the doctor’s orders, Miss,” said Polton, thereby, +in his opinion, closing the subject. +“You mean Dr. Thorndyke’s?” said Marion, not realizing—or not choosing +to realize—that, to Polton, there was no other doctor in the world who +counted. +“Yes, Miss. The doctor’s orders must be carried out.” +“Of course they must,” she agreed warmly, “since he has been so very +good as to take all this trouble about my safety. But there is no need +for both of you to be here together. Couldn’t you arrange to take +turns on duty—alternate days or a half-day each? I hate the thought +that I am wasting the whole of both your times.” +I did not look on the suggestion with favour, for I was reluctant to +yield up to any man—even to Polton—the privilege of watching over the +safety of one who was so infinitely dear to me. Nor was Polton much +less unwilling to agree, for he loathed to leave a piece of work +uncompleted. However, Marion refused to accept our denials (as is the +way of women), and the end of it was that Polton and I had to arrange +our duties in half-day shifts, changing over at the end of each week, +the first spell allotting the mornings to me and the latter half of +the day—with the duty of seeing Marion home—to him. +Thus, during each of the following six working days, I found myself +with the entire afternoon and evening free. The former I usually spent +at the hospital, but in the evenings, feeling too unsettled for study, +I occupied myself very pleasantly with long walks through the +inexhaustible streets, extending my knowledge of the town and making +systematic explorations of such distant regions as Mile End, +Kingsland, Dalston, Wapping, and the Borough. +One evening I bethought me of my promise to look in on Usher. I did +not find myself yearning for his society, but a promise is a promise. +Accordingly, when I had finished my solitary dinner, I set forth from +my lodgings in Camden-square and made a bee-line for Clerkenwell: so +far, that is to say, as was possible, while keeping to the wider +streets. For in this respect, I followed Thorndyke’s instructions to +the letter, though, as to the other matter—that of keeping a bright +look-out—I was less attentive, my mind being much more occupied with +thoughts of Marion (who would, just now, be on her way home under +Polton’s escort) than with any considerations of my own personal +safety. Indeed, to tell the truth, I was inclined to be more than a +little sceptical as to the need for these extraordinary precautions. +I found Usher in the act of bowing out the last of the “evening +consultations,” and was welcomed by him with enthusiasm. +“Delighted to see you, old chap!” he exclaimed, shaking my hand +warmly. “It is good of you to drop in on an old fossil like me. Didn’t +much think you would. I suppose you don’t often come this way?” +“No,” I replied. “It is rather off my beat. I’ve finished with +Hoxton—for the present, at any rate.” +“So have I,” said Usher, “since poor old Crile went off to the better +land.” +“Crile?” I repeated. “Who was he?” +“Don’t you remember my telling you about his funeral, when they had +those Sunday-school kids yowling hymns round the grave? That was Mr. +Crile—Christian name, Jonathan.” +“I remember; but I didn’t realize that he was a Hoxton aristocrat.” +“Well, he was. Fifty-two, Field-street was his earthly abode. I used +to remember it by the number of weeks in the year. And glad enough I +was when he hopped off his perch, for his confounded landlady, a Mrs. +Pepper, would insist on fixing the times for my visits, and deuced +inconvenient times, too. Between four and six on Tuesdays and Fridays. +I hate patients who turn your visits into appointments. Upsets your +whole visiting-list.” +“It seems to be the fashion in Hoxton,” I remarked. “I had to make my +visits at appointed times, too. It would have been frightfully +inconvenient if I had been busy. Is it often done?” +“They will always do it if you let ’em. Of course, it is a convenience +to a woman who doesn’t keep a servant, to know what time the doctor is +going to call; but it doesn’t do to give way to ’em.” +I assented to this excellent principle, noting, however, that he +seemed to have “given way to ’em,” all the same. +As we had been talking, we had gradually drifted from the surgery up a +flight of stairs to a shabby, cosy little room on the first floor, +where a cheerful fire was burning and a copper kettle on a trivet +purred contentedly and breathed forth little clouds of steam. Usher +inducted me into a large easy chair, the depressed seat of which +suggested its customary use by an elephant of sedentary habits, and +produced from a cupboard a spirit decanter, a high-shouldered Dutch +gin-bottle, a sugar-basin, and a couple of tumblers and +sugar-crushers. +“Whisky or Hollands?” he demanded; and, as curiosity led me to select +the latter, he commented: “That’s right, Gray. Good stuff, Hollands. +Touches up the cubical epithelium—what! I am rather partial to a drop +of Hollands.” +It was no empty profession. The initial dose made me open my eyes; and +that was only a beginning. In a twinkling, as it seemed, his tumbler +was empty and the collaboration of the bottle and the copper kettle +was repeated. And so it went on for nearly an hour, until I began to +grow quite uneasy, though without any visible cause, so far as Usher +was concerned. He did not turn a hair (he hadn’t very many to turn, +for that matter, but I speak figuratively). The only effect that I +could observe was an increasing fluency of speech with a tendency to +discursiveness; and I must admit that his conversation was highly +entertaining. But his evident intention to “make a night of it” set me +planning to make my escape without appearing to slight his +hospitality. How I should have managed it, unaided by the direct +interposition of Providence, I cannot guess: for his conversation had +now taken the form of an interminable sentence punctuated by +indistinguishable commas; but in the midst of this steadily flowing +stream of eloquence the outer silence was rent by the sudden jangling +of a bell. +Usher stopped short, stared at me solemnly, deliberately emptied his +tumbler, and stood up. +“Night bell, ol’ chappie,” he explained. “Got to go out. But don’t you +disturb yourself. Back in a few minutes. Soon polish ’em off.” +“I’ll walk round with you as far as your patient’s house,” said I, +“and then I shall have to get home. It is past ten and I have a +longish walk to Camden-square.” +He was disposed to argue the point, but another violent jangling cut +his protests short and sent him hurrying down the stairs with me close +at his heels. A couple of minutes later we were out in the street, +following in the wake of a hurrying figure; and, looking at Usher as +he walked sedately at my side, with his top-hat, his whiskers, and his +inevitable umbrella, I had the feeling that all those jorums of +Hollands had been consumed in vain. In appearance, in manner, in +speech, and in gait, he was just his normal self, with never a hint of +any change from the status quo ante bellum. +Our course led us into the purlieus of St. John Street-road, where we +presently turned into a narrow, winding, and curiously desolate little +street, along which we proceeded for a few hundred yards, when our +“fore-runner” halted at a door into which he inserted a latch-key. +When we arrived at the open door, inside which a shadowy figure was +lurking, Usher stopped and held out his hand. +“Good night, old chap,” he said. “Sorry you can’t come back with me. +If you keep straight on and turn to the left at the cross-roads you +will come out presently into the King’s Cross-road. Then you’ll know +your way. So long.” +He turned into the dark passage, the door was closed, and I went on my +way. +The little meandering street was singularly silent and deserted; and +its windings cut off the light from the scanty street-lamps so that +stretches of it were in almost total darkness. As I strode forward, +the echoes of my footfalls resounded with hollow reverberations which +smote my ear—and ought to have smitten my conscience—causing me to +wonder, with grim amusement, what Thorndyke would have said if he +could have seen me thus setting his instructions at defiance. Indeed, +I was so far sensible of the impropriety of my being in such a place +at such an hour that I was about to turn to take a look back along the +street; but at the very moment that I halted within a few feet of a +street-lamp, something struck the brim of my hat with a sharp, weighty +blow like the stroke of a hammer, and I heard a dull thud from the +lamp-post. +In an instant I spun round, mighty fierce, whipping out my pistol, +cocking it, and pointing it down the street as I raced back towards +the spot from whence the missile had appeared to come. There was not a +soul in sight nor any sound of movement, and the shallow doorways +seemed to offer no possible hiding place. But some thirty yards back I +came suddenly on a narrow opening like an empty doorway, but actually +the entrance to a covered alley not more than three feet wide and as +dark as a pocket. This was evidently the ambush (which I had passed, +like a fool, without observing it), and I halted beside it, with my +pistol still pointed, listening intently and considering what I had +better do. My first impulse had been to charge into the alley, but a +moment’s reflection showed the futility of such a proceeding. Probably +my assailant had made off by some well-known outlet; but in any case +it would be sheer insanity for me to plunge into that pitch-dark +passage. For if he were still lurking there he would be invisible to +me, whereas I should be a clear silhouette against the dim light of +the street. Moreover, I had seen no one, and I could not shoot at any +chance stranger whom I might find there. Reluctantly I recognized that +there was nothing for it but to retreat cautiously and be more careful +in future. +My retirement would have looked an odd proceeding to an observer, if +there had been one, for I had to retreat crab-wise in order that I +might keep the entrance of the alley covered with my pistol and yet +see where I was going. When I reached the lamp-post I scanned the area +of lighted ground beneath it, and, almost at the first glance, +perceived an object like a largish marble lying in the road. It +proved, when I picked it up, to be a leaden ball, like an +old-fashioned musket-ball, with one flattened side, which had +prevented it from rolling away from the spot where it had fallen. I +dropped it into my pocket and resumed my masterly retreat until, at +length, the cross-roads came into view. Then I quickened my pace, and +as I reached the corner put away my pistol after slipping in the +safety catch. +Once more out in the lighted and frequented main streets, my thoughts +were free to turn over this extraordinary experience. But I did not +allow them to divert me from a very careful look-out. All my +scepticism was gone now. I realized that Thorndyke had not been making +mere vague guesses, but that he had clearly foreseen that something of +this kind would probably happen. That was, to me, the most perplexing +feature of this incomprehensible affair. +I turned it over in my mind again and again, and could make nothing of +it. I could see no adequate reason why this man should want to make +away with me. True, I was Marion’s protector; but that—even if he were +aware of it—did not seem an adequate reason. Indeed, I could not see +why he was seeking to make away with her—nor, even, was it clear to me +that there had been a reasonable motive for murdering her father. But +as to myself, I seemed to be out of the picture altogether. The man +had nothing to fear from me or to gain by my death. +That was how it appeared to me; and yet I saw plainly that I must be +mistaken. There must be something behind all this—something that was +unknown to me but was known to Thorndyke. What could it be? I found +myself unable to make any sort of guess. In the end, I decided to call +on Thorndyke the following evening, report the incident, and see if I +could get any enlightenment from him. +The first part of this programme I carried out successfully enough, +but the second presented more difficulties. +Thorndyke was not a very communicative man, and a perfectly impossible +one to pump. What he chose to tell he told freely; and beyond that, no +amount of ingenuity could extract the faintest shadow of a hint. +“I am afraid I am disturbing you, Sir,” I said in some alarm, as I +noted a portentous heap of documents on the table. +“No,” he replied. “I have nearly finished, and I shall treat you as a +friend, and keep you waiting while I do the little that is left.” He +turned to his papers and took up his pen, but paused to cast one of +his quick, penetrating glances at me. +“Has anything fresh happened?” he asked. +“Our unknown friend has had a pot at me,” I answered. “That is all.” +He laid down his pen, and leaning back in his chair, demanded +particulars. I gave him an account of what had happened on the +preceding night, and, taking the leaden ball from my pocket, laid it +on the table. He picked it up, examined it curiously, and then placed +it on the letter balance. +“Just over half an ounce,” he said. “It is a mercy it missed your +head. With that weight and the velocity indicated by the flattening, +it would have dropped you insensible with a fractured skull.” +“And then he would have come along and put the finishing touches, I +suppose. But I wonder how he shot the thing. Could he have used an air +gun?” +Thorndyke shook his head. “An air gun that would discharge a ball of +that weight would make quite a loud report, and you say you heard +nothing. You are quite sure of that, by the way?” +“Perfectly. The place was as silent as the grave.” +“Then he must have used a catapult; and an uncommonly efficient weapon +it is in skilful hands, and as portable as a pistol. You mustn’t give +him another chance, Gray.” +“I am not going to, if I can help it. But what the deuce does the +fellow want to pot at me for? It is a most mysterious thing. Do you +understand what it is all about, Sir?” +“I do not,” he replied. “My knowledge of the facts of this case is +nearly all second-hand knowledge, derived from you. You know all that +I know and probably more.” +“That is all very well, Sir,” said I; “but you foresaw that this was +likely to happen. I didn’t. Therefore you must know more about the +case than I do.” +He chuckled softly. “You are confusing knowledge and inference,” said +he. “We had the same facts, but our inferences were not the same. It +is just a matter of experience. You haven’t squeezed out of the facts +as much as they are capable of yielding. Come, now, Gray; while I am +finishing my work you shall look over my notes of this case, and then +you should take a sort of bird’s-eye view of the whole case, and see +if anything new occurs to you. And you must add to those notes that +this man has been at the enormous trouble of stalking you +continuously, that he shadowed you to Usher’s, that he waited +patiently for you to come out, that he followed you most skilfully, +and took instant advantage of the first opportunity that you gave him. +You might also note that he did not elect to overtake you and make a +direct attack on you, as he did on Miss D’Arblay. Note those facts, +and consider what their significance may be. And now just go through +this little dossier. It won’t take you many minutes.” +He took out of a drawer a small portfolio, on the cover of which was +written, “J. D’Arblay, dec’d.,” and, passing it to me, returned to his +documents. I opened it and found it to contain a number of separate +abstracts, each duly headed with its descriptive title, and an +envelope marked, “Photographs.” Glancing over the abstracts, I saw +that they dealt respectively with J. D’Arblay, The Inquest, The Van +Zellen Case, Miss D’Arblay, Dr. Gray, and Mr. Morris; the last +containing, somewhat to my surprise, all the details that I had given +Thorndyke respecting that rather mysterious person, together with an +account of my dealings with him and cross-references to the abstract +bearing my name. It was all very complete and methodical, but none of +the abstracts contained any information that was new to me. If this +represented all the facts that were known to Thorndyke, then he was no +better informed than I was. But he had evidently got a great deal more +out of the information than I had. +Returning the abstracts with some disappointment to the portfolio, I +turned to the photographs; and then I got a very thorough surprise. +There were only three, and the first two were of no great interest, +one representing the two casts of the guinea and the other the plaster +mask of Morris. But the third fairly took away my breath. It was a +very bad photograph, apparently an enlargement from a rather poor +snap-shot portrait; but, bad as it was, it gave a very vivid +presentment of one of the most evil-looking faces that I have ever +looked on; a lean, bearded face, with high cheek-bones, with heavy, +frowning brows that overhung deep-shadowed, hollow eye-sockets and an +almost grotesquely large nose, thin, curved, and sharp, that jutted +out like a great predatory beak. +I stared at the photograph in speechless amazement. At the first +glance I had been struck by the perfect way in which this crude +portrait realized Marion’s description of the man who had tried to +murder her. But that was not all. There was another resemblance which +I now perceived with even more astonishment; indeed, it was so +incredible that the perception of it reduced me to something like +stupefaction. I sat for fully a minute with the portrait in my hand, +and my thoughts surging confusedly in a vain effort to grasp the +meaning of this extraordinary likeness; then, happening to glance up +at Thorndyke, I found him quietly regarding me with undisguised +interest. +“Well,” he said, as he caught my eye. +“Who is he?” I demanded, holding up the photograph. +“That is what I want to know,” he replied. “The photograph came to me +without any description. The identity of the subject is unknown. Who +do you think he is?” +“To begin with,” I answered, “he exactly corresponds in appearance +with Miss D’Arblay’s description of her would-be murderer. Don’t you +think so?’ +“I do,” he replied. “The correspondence seems complete in every +detail, so far as I can judge. That was why I secured the photograph. +But the actual resemblance will have to be settled by her. I suggest +that you take the portrait and let her see it; but you had better not +show it to her pointedly for identification. It would be better to put +it in some place where she will see it without previous suggestion or +preparation. But you said just now ‘to begin with.’ Was there anything +else that struck you about this photograph?” +“Yes,” I answered, “there was; a most amazing thing. You remember my +telling you about the patient I attended in Morris’ house?” +“The man who died of gastric cancer and was eventually cremated?” +“Yes. His name was Bendelow. Well, this photograph might have been a +portrait of Bendelow, taken with a beard and moustache before the +disease got hold of him. Excepting for the emaciation and the +beard—Bendelow was clean-shaved—I should think it would be quite an +excellent likeness of him.” +Thorndyke made no immediate reply or comment, but sat quite still, +looking at me with a very singular expression. I could see that he was +thinking rapidly and intensely, but I suspected that his thoughts were +in a good deal less confusion than mine had been. +“It is,” he remarked at length, “as you say, a most amazing affair. +The face is no ordinary face. It would be difficult to mistake it, and +one would have to go far to find another with which it could be +confused. Still, one must not forget the possibility of a chance +resemblance. Nature doesn’t take out letters-patent even for a human +face. But I will ask you, Gray, to write down and send to me all that +you know about the late Mr. Bendelow, including all the details of +your attendance on him, dead and alive.” +“I will,” said I, “though it is difficult to imagine what connexion he +could have had with the D’Arblay case.” +“It seems incredible that he could have had any,” Thorndyke agreed. +“But at present we are collecting facts, and we must note everything +impartially. It is a fatal mistake to select your facts in accordance +with the apparent probabilities. By the way, if Bendelow was like this +photograph he must have corresponded pretty exactly with Miss +D’Arblay’s very complete and lucid description. I wonder why you did +not realize that at the time.” +“That is what I have been wondering. But I suppose it was the beard +and the absence of any kind of association between Bendelow and the +D’Arblays.” +“Probably,” he agreed. “A beard and moustache alters very greatly even +a striking face like this. Incidentally, it illustrates the +superiority of a picture over a verbal description for purposes of +identification. No mere description will enable you to visualize +correctly a face which you have never seen. I shall be curious to hear +what Miss D’Arblay has to say about this photograph.” +“I will let you know without delay,” said I; and then, as he seemed to +have completed his work, and put the documents aside, I made a final +effort to extract some definite information from him. +“It is evident,” I said, “that the body of facts in your notes has +conveyed a good deal more to you than it has to me.” +“Probably,” he agreed. “If it had not, I should seem to have profited +little by years of professional practice.” +“Then,” I said persuasively, “may I ask if you have formed a really +satisfactory theory as to who this man is and why he murdered +D’Arblay?” +Thorndyke reflected for a few moments and then replied: +“My position, Gray, is this: I have arrived at a very definite theory +as to the motive of the murder, and a most extraordinary motive it is. +But there are one or two points that I do not understand. There are +some links missing from the chain of evidence. So with the identity of +the man. We know pretty certainly that he is the murderer of Van +Zellen, and we know what he is like to look at, but we can’t give him +a name and a definite personality. There are links missing there, too. +But I have great hopes of finding those missing links. If I find them +I shall have a complete case against this man, and I shall forthwith +set the law in motion. I can’t tell you more than that at present, but +I repeat that you are in possession of all the facts, and that if you +think over all that has happened and ask yourself what it can mean, +though you will not arrive at a complete solution any more than I +have, you will at least begin to see the light.” +This was all that I could get out of him, and as it was now growing +late I presently rose to take my departure. He walked with me as far +as the Middle Temple Gate and stood outside the wicket watching me as +I strode away westward. +CHAPTER XIV. +The Haunted Man +When I arrived at the studio on the following afternoon I found the +door open and Polton waiting just inside with his hat and overcoat on +and his bag in his hand. +“I am glad you are punctual, Sir,” he said, with his benevolent smile. +“I wanted to get back to the chambers in good time to-day. It won’t +matter to-morrow, which is fortunate, as you may be late.” +“Why may I be late to-morrow?” I asked. +“I have a message for you from the doctor,” he replied. “It is about +what you were discussing last night. He told me to tell you that he is +expecting a visit from an officer of the Criminal Investigation +Department, and he would like you to be present, if it would be +convenient. About half-past ten, Sir.” +“I will certainly be there,” said I. +“Thank you, Sir,” said he. “And the doctor told me to warn you, in +case you should arrive after the officer, not to make any comment on +anything that may be said, or to seem to know anything about the +subject of the interview.” +“This is very mysterious, Polton,” I remarked. +“Why, not particularly, Sir,” he replied. “You see the officer is +coming to give certain information, but he will try to get some for +himself if he can. But he won’t get anything out of the doctor; and +the only way for you to prevent his pumping you is to say nothing and +appear to know nothing.” +I laughed at his ingenuous wiliness. “Why,” I exclaimed, “you are as +bad as the doctor, Polton. A regular Machiavelli.” +“I never heard of him,” said Polton, “but most Scotsmen are pretty +close. Oh, and there is another little matter that I wanted to speak +to you about—on my own account this time. I gathered from the doctor, +in confidence, that some one had been following you about. Now, Sir, +don’t you think it would be very useful to be able to see behind you +without turning your head?” +“By Jove!” I exclaimed. “It would indeed! Capital! I never thought of +it. I will have a supplementary eye fixed in the back of my head +without delay.” +Polton crinkled deprecatingly. “No need for that, Sir,” said he. “I +have invented quite a lot of different appliances for enabling you to +see behind you; reflecting spectacles and walking sticks with prisms +in the handle, and so on. But for use at night I think this will +answer your purpose best.” +He produced from his pocket an object somewhat like a watchmaker’s +eye-glass, and having fixed it in his eye to show me how it worked, +handed it to me with the request that I would try it. I did so, and +was considerably surprised at the efficiency of the appliance; for it +gave me a perfectly clear view of the street almost directly behind +me. +“I am very much obliged to you, Polton,” I said, enthusiastically. +“This is a most valuable gift, especially under the present +circumstances.” +He was profoundly gratified. “I think you will find it useful, Sir,” +he said. “The doctor uses these things sometimes, and so do I if the +occasion arises. You see, Sir, if you are being shadowed it is a fatal +thing to turn round and look behind you. You never get a chance of +seeing what the stalker is like, and you put him on his guard.” +I saw this clearly enough and once more thanked him for his timely +gift. Then, having shaken his hand and sped him on his way, I entered +the lobby and shut the outer door, at the same time transferring +Thorndyke’s photograph from my letter-case to my jacket pocket. When I +passed through into the studio I found Marion putting the finishing +touches to a plaster case. She greeted me with a smile as I entered +and then plunged her hand once more into the bowl of rapidly +thickening plaster; whereupon I took the opportunity to lay the +photograph on a side-bench as I walked towards the table on which she +was working. +“Good afternoon, Marion,” said I. +“Good afternoon, Stephen,” she responded, adding, “I cannot shake +hands until I have washed,” and held out her emplastered hands in +evidence. +“That will be too late,” said I; and as she looked up at me +inquiringly I stooped and kissed her. +“You are very resourceful,” she remarked with a smile and a warm +blush, as she scooped up another handful of plaster; and then, as if +to cover her slight confusion, she asked: “What was all that solemn +pow-wow about with Mr. Polton? And why did he wait for you at the door +in that suspicious manner? Had he some secret message for you?” +“I don’t know whether it was intended to be secret,” I answered; “but +it isn’t going to be so far as you are concerned;” and I repeated to +her the substance of Thorndyke’s message, to which she listened with +an eagerness that rather surprised me, until her further inquiries +explained it. +“This sounds rather encouraging,” she said; “as if Dr. Thorndyke had +been making some progress in his investigations. I wonder if he has. +Do you think he really knows much more than we do?” +“I am sure he does,” I replied; “but how much more, I cannot guess. He +is extraordinarily close. But I have a feeling that the end is not so +very far off. He seems to be quite hopeful of laying his hand on this +villain.” +“Oh! I hope you are right, Stephen,” she exclaimed. “I have been +getting so anxious. There has seemed to be no end to this deadlock. +And yet it can’t go on indefinitely.” +“What do you mean, Marion?” I asked. +“I mean,” she answered, “that you can’t go on wasting your time here +and letting your career go. Of course, it is delightful to have you +here. I don’t dare to think what the place will be like without you. +But it makes me wretched to think how much you are sacrificing for +me.” +“I am not really sacrificing anything,” said I. “On the contrary, I am +spending my time most profitably in the pursuit of knowledge and most +happily in a sweet companionship which I wouldn’t exchange for +anything in the world.” +“It is very nice of you to say that,” she said, “but, still, I shall +be very relieved when the danger is over and you are free.” +“Free!” I exclaimed, “I don’t want to be free. When my apprenticeship +has run out I am coming on as journeyman. And now I had better get my +blouse on and start work.” +I went to the further end of the studio, and, taking the blouse down +from its peg, proceeded to exchange it for my coat. Suddenly I was +startled by a sharp cry, and, turning round, beheld Marion stooping +over the photograph with an expression of the utmost horror. +“Where did this come from?” she demanded, turning a white, +terror-stricken face on me. +“I put it there, Marion,” I answered somewhat sheepishly, hurrying to +her side. “But what is the matter? Do you know the man?” +“Do I know him?” she repeated. “Of course I do. It is he—the man who +came here that night.” +“Are you quite sure?” I asked. “Are you certain that it is not just a +chance resemblance?” +She shook her head emphatically. “It is he, Stephen. I can swear to +him. It is no mere resemblance. It is a likeness, and a perfect one, +though it is such a bad photograph. But where did you get it? And why +didn’t you show it to me when you came in?” +I told her how I came by it and explained Thorndyke’s instructions. +“Then,” she said, “Dr. Thorndyke knows who the man is.” +“He says he doesn’t, and he was very close and rather obscure as to +how the photograph came into his possession.” +“It is very mysterious,” said she, with another terrified glance at +the photograph. Then suddenly she snatched it up and with averted face +held it out to me. Put it away, Stephen,” she entreated. “I can’t bear +the sight of that horrible face. It brings back afresh all the terrors +of that awful night.” +I hastily returned the photograph to my letter-case, and, taking her +arm, led her back to the work-table. “Now,” I said, “let us forget it +and get on with our work;” and I proceeded to turn the case over and +fix it in the new position with lumps of clay. For a little while she +watched me in silence, and I could see by her pallor that she was +still suffering from the shock of that unexpected encounter. But +presently she picked up a scraper and joined me in trimming up the +edges of the case, cutting out the “key-ways” and making ready for the +second half; and by degrees her colour came back and the interest of +the work banished her terrors. +We were, in fact, extremely industrious. We not only finished the +case—it was an arm from the shoulder which was to be made—cut the +pouring-holes, and varnished the inside with knotting, but we filled +one-half with the melted gelatine which was to form the actual mould +in which the wax would be cast. This brought the day’s work to an end, +for nothing more could be done until the gelatine had set—a matter of +at least twelve hours. +“It is too late to begin anything fresh,” said Marion. “You had better +come and have supper with me and Arabella.” +I agreed readily enough to this proposal, and when we had tidied up in +readiness for the morning’s work we set forth at a brisk pace—for it +was a cold evening—towards Highgate, gossiping cheerfully as we went. +By the time we reached Ivy Cottage eight o’clock was striking, and +“the village” was beginning to settle down for the night. The +premature quiet reminded me that the adjacent town would presently be +settling down, too, and that I should do well to start for home before +the streets had become too deserted. +Nevertheless, so pleasantly did the time slip away in the cosy +sitting-room with my two companions that it was close upon half-past +ten when I rose to take my departure. Marion escorted me to the door, +and as I stood in the hall buttoning up my overcoat, she said: +“You needn’t worry if you are detained to-morrow. We shall be making +the wax cast of the bust, and I am certain Mr. Polton won’t leave the +studio until it is finished, whether you are there or not. He is +perfectly mad on wax-work. He wormed all the secrets of the trade out +of me the very first time we were alone, and he is extraordinarily +quick at learning. But I can’t imagine what use the knowledge will be +to him.” +“Perhaps he thinks of starting an opposition establishment,” I +suggested, “or he may have an eye to a partnership. But if he has he +will have a competitor, and one with a prior claim. Good-night, dear +child. Save some of the wax-work for me to-morrow.” +She promised to restrain Polton’s enthusiasm as far as possible, and +wishing me “Good night,” held out her hand, but submitted without +demur to being kissed; and I took my departure in high spirits, more +engrossed with the pleasant leave-taking than with the necessity of +keeping a bright look-out. +I was nearing the bottom of the High-street when the prevailing quiet +recalled me to the grim realities of my position, and I was on the +point of stopping to take a look round when I bethought me of Polton’s +appliance and also of that cunning artificer’s advice not to put a +possible “stalker” on his guard. I accordingly felt in my pocket, and +having found the appliance carefully fixed it in my eye without +altering my pace. The first result was a collision with a lamp-post, +which served to remind me of the necessity of keeping both eyes open. +The instrument was, in fact, not very easy to use while walking, and +it took me a minute or two to learn how to manage it. Presently, +however, I found myself able to divide my attention between the +pathway in front and the view behind, and then it was that I became +aware of a man following me at a distance of about a hundred yards. Of +course, there was nothing remarkable or suspicious in this, for it was +a main thoroughfare and by no means deserted at this comparatively +early hour. Nevertheless, I kept the man in view, noting that he wore +a cloth cap and a monkey-jacket, that he carried no stick or umbrella, +and that when I slightly slackened my pace he did not seem to overtake +me. As this suggested that he was accommodating his pace to mine, I +decided to put the matter to the test by giving him an opportunity to +pass me at the next side turning. +At this moment the Roman Catholic Church came into view and I recalled +that at its side a narrow lane—Dartmouth Park Hill—ran down steeply +between high fences towards Kentish Town. Instantly I decided to turn +into the lane—which bent sharply to the left behind the church—walk a +few yards down it and then return slowly. If my follower were a +harmless stranger he would then have passed on down Highgate Hill, +whereas if he were stalking me I should meet him at the entrance to +the lane and could then see what he was like. +But I was not very well satisfied with this plan, for the obvious +manœuvre would show him that he was suspected; and as I approached the +church, a better plan suggested itself. On one side by the entrance to +the lane were some low railings and a gate with large brick piers. In +a moment I had vaulted over the railings and taken up a position +behind one of the piers, where I stood motionless, listening intently. +Very soon I caught the sound of distinctly rapid footsteps, which +suddenly grew louder as my follower came opposite the entrance to the +lane, and louder still as, without a moment’s hesitation, he turned +into it. +From my hiding-place in the deep shadow of the pier I could safely +peep out into the wide space at the entrance of the lane; and as this +space was well lighted by a lamp I was able to get an excellent view +of my follower. And very much puzzled I was therewith. Naturally I had +expected to recognize the man whose photograph I had in my pocket. But +this was quite a different type of man. It is true that he was +shortish and rather slightly built, and that he had a beard: but there +the resemblance ended. His face, which I could see plainly by the +lamp-light, so far from being of an aquiline or vulturine cast, was +rather of the blunt and bibulous type. The short, though rather +bulbous nose, made up in colour what it lacked in size, and its florid +tint extended into the cheek on either side in the form of what +dermatologists call _acne rosacea_. +I say that his appearance puzzled me; but it was not his appearance +alone. For the latter showed that he was a stranger to me and +suggested that he was going down the lane on his lawful occasions; but +his movements did not support that suggestion. He had turned into the +lane and passed my hiding-place at a very quick walk. But just as he +reached the sharp turn he slackened his pace, stepping lightly, and +then stopped for a moment, listening intently and peering forward into +the darkness of the lane. At length he started again and disappeared +round the corner, and by the sound of his retreating footsteps I could +tell that he was once more putting on the pace. +I listened until these sounds had nearly died away and was just about +to emerge from my shelter when I became aware of footsteps approaching +from the opposite direction, and as I did not choose to be seen in the +act of climbing the railings I decided to remain perdu until this +person had passed. These footsteps, too, had a distinctly hurried +sound, a fact which I noted with some surprise; but I was a good deal +more surprised when the newcomer turned sharply into the entrance, +walked swiftly past my ambush, and then, as he approached the corner, +suddenly slowed down, advancing cautiously on tip-toe, and finally +halted to listen and stare into the obscurity of the lane. +I peered out at this new arrival with an amazement that I cannot +describe. Like the first man, he was a complete stranger to me: a +tallish, athletic-looking man of about thirty-five, not ill-looking, +and having something of a military air; fair-complexioned, with a +sandy moustache, but otherwise clean-shaved and dressed in a suit of +thick tweed, with no overcoat. I could see these details clearly by +the light of the lamp; and even as I was noting them, he disappeared +round the corner and I could hear him walking quickly but lightly down +the lane. +As soon as he was gone I looked out from my hiding-place and listened +attentively. There was no one in sight, nor could I hear any one +approaching. I accordingly came forth, and, quickly climbing over the +railings, stood for a few moments irresolute. The obviously reasonable +thing to do was to make off down Highgate Hill as fast as I could and +take the first conveyance that I could get homeward. But the +appearance of that second man had inflamed me with curiosity. What was +he here for? Was he shadowing me or was he in pursuit of the other +man? Either supposition was incredible, but one of them must be true. +The end of it was that curiosity got the better of discretion and I, +too, started down the lane, walking as fast as I could and treading as +lightly as circumstances permitted. +The second man was some considerable distance ahead, for his footsteps +came to me but faintly, and I did not seem to be gaining on him; and I +took it that his speed was a fair measure of that of the man in front. +Keeping thus within hearing of my quarry, I sped on, turning over the +amazing situation in my bewildered mind. The first man was a mystery +to me, though apparently not to Thorndyke. Who could he be, and why on +earth was he taking this prodigious amount of trouble to get rid of a +harmless person like myself? For there could be no mistake as to the +magnitude of the efforts that he was making. He must have waited +outside the studio; followed Marion and me to her home, and there kept +a patient vigil of over two hours, waiting for me to come out. It was +a stupendous labour. And what was it all about? I could not form the +most shadowy guess; while as to the other man, the very thought of him +reduced me to a state of hopeless bewilderment. +As my reflections petered out to this rather nebulous conclusion, I +halted for a moment to listen for the footsteps ahead. They were still +audible, though they sounded somewhat farther away. But now I caught +the sound of other footsteps, approaching from behind. Some one else +was coming down the lane. Of course, there was nothing surprising in +that circumstance, for, after all, this was a public thoroughfare, +little frequented as it was, especially after dark. Nevertheless, +something in the character of those footsteps put me on the qui vive. +For this man, too, was walking quickly—very quickly—and with a certain +stealthiness, as if he had rubber-soled boots, and, like the rest of +us, was making as little noise as possible. +I walked on at my previous rapid pace, keeping my ears cocked now both +fore and aft; and, as I went, my mind surged with wild speculations. +Could it be that I had yet another follower? The thing was becoming +grotesque. My bewilderment began to mingle with a spice of grim +amusement; but still I listened, not without anxiety, to those +footsteps from behind, which seemed to be growing rapidly more +distinct. Whoever this newcomer might be, he was no mean walker, for +he was overtaking me apace; and this fact gave a pretty broad hint as +to his size and strength. +I looked back from time to time, but without stopping or slackening my +pace, trying to pierce the deep obscurity of the narrow, closed-in +lane. But it was a dark winter’s night, and the high fences shut out +even the glimmer from the murky sky. It was not until the approaching +footfalls sounded quite near that I was able, at length, to make out a +smear of deeper darkness on the general obscurity. Then I drew out my +pistol and, withdrawing the safety catch, put my hand, grasping it, +into my overcoat pocket. Having thus made ready for possible +contingencies, I watched the black shape emerge from the darkness +until it developed into a tall, portly man, bearing down on me with +long, swinging strides, when I halted and drew back against the fence +to let him pass. +But he had no intention of passing. As he came up to me, he, too, +halted, and, looking into my face with undissembled curiosity, he +addressed me in a brusque though not uncivil tone. +“Now, sir, I must ask you to explain what is going on.” +“What do you mean?” I demanded. +“I’ll tell you,” he replied. “I saw you, a little time ago, climb over +the railings and hide behind a gate-post. Then I saw a man come up in +a deuce of a hurry and turn into the lane. I saw him stop and listen +for a moment and then bustle off down the hill. Close on this fellow’s +heels comes another man, also in a devil of a hurry. _He_ turns into +the lane, too, and suddenly he pulls up and creeps forward on tip-toe +like a cat on hot bricks. _He_ stops and listens, too; and then off he +goes down the lane like a lamplighter. Then out you come from behind +the gate-post, over the railings you climb, and then _you_ creep up to +the corner and listen, and then off _you_ go down the hill like +another lamplighter. Now, sir, what’s it all about?” +“I assume,” said I, repressing a strong tendency to giggle, “that you +have some authority for making these inquiries?” +“I have, sir,” he replied. “I am a police officer on plain-clothes +duty. I happened to be at the corner of Hornsey-lane when I saw you +coming down the High-street walking in a queer sort of way as if you +couldn’t see where you were going. So I drew back into the shadow and +had a look at you. Then I saw you nip into the lane and climb over the +railings, so I waited to see what was going to happen next. And then +those other two came along. Well, now, I ask you again, sir, what’s +going on? What is it all about?” +“The fact is,” I said a little sheepishly, “I thought the first man +was following me, so I hid just to see what he was up to.” +“What about the second man?” +“I don’t know anything about him.” +“What do you know about the first man?” +“Nothing, except that he certainly was following me.” +“Why should he be following you?” +“I can’t imagine. He is a stranger to me, and so is the other man.” +“Hm,” said the officer, regarding me with a distrustful eye. “Damn +funny affair. I think you had better walk up to the station with me +and give us a few particulars about yourself.” +“I will with pleasure,” said I. “But I am not altogether a stranger +there. Inspector Follett knows me quite well. My name is Gray—Dr. +Gray.” +The officer did not reply for a few moments. He seemed to be listening +to something. And now my ear caught the sound of footsteps approaching +hurriedly from down the lane. As they drew near, my friend peered into +the darkness and muttered in an undertone: +“Will that be one of ’em coming back?” He listened again for a moment +or two, and then, resuming his inquiries, said aloud: “You say +Inspector Follett knows you. Well, perhaps you had better come and see +Inspector Follett.” +As he finished speaking, he again listened intently, and his mouth +opened slightly. I suspect my own did, too. For the footsteps had +ceased. There was now a dead silence in the lane. +“That chap has stopped to listen,” my new friend remarked in a low +voice. “We had better see what his game is. Come along, sir;” and with +this he strode off at a pace that taxed my powers to keep up with him. +But at the very moment that he started, the footsteps became audible +again, only now they were obviously retreating; and straining my ears +I caught the faint sound of other and more distant footfalls, also +retreating, so far as I could judge, and in the same hurried fashion. +For a couple of minutes the officer swung along like a professional +pedestrian, and I struggled on just behind him, perspiring freely, and +wishing that I could shed my overcoat. Still, despite our efforts, +there was no sign of our gaining on the men ahead. My friend evidently +realized this, for he presently growled over his shoulder, “This won’t +do,” and forthwith broke into a run. +Instantly this acceleration communicated itself to the men in front. +The rhythm of both sets of footfalls showed that our fore-runners were +literally justifying that description of them; and as both had +necessarily given up any attempt to move silently, the sounds of their +retreat were borne to us quite distinctly. And from those sounds the +unsatisfactory conclusion emerged that they were drawing ahead pretty +rapidly. My friend, the officer, was, as I have said, an uncommonly +fine walker. But he was no runner. His figure was against him. He was +fully six feet in height and he had a “presence.” He could have walked +me off my legs; but when it came to running I found myself ambling +behind him with such ease that I was able to get out my pistol and, +after replacing the safety-catch, stow the weapon in my hip pocket, +out of harm’s way. +However, if my friend was no sprinter he was certainly a stayer, for +he lumbered on doggedly until the lane entered the new neighbourhood +of Dartmouth Park; and here it was that the next act opened. We had +just passed the end of the first of the streets when I saw a +surprisingly agile policeman dart out from a shady corner and follow +on in our wake in proper Lillie-bridge style. I immediately put on a +spurt and shot past my companion, and a few moments later sounds of +objurgation arose from behind. I stopped at once and turned back, just +in time to hear an apologetic voice exclaim: +“I’m sure I beg your pardon, Mr. Plonk. I didn’t reckernize you in the +dark.” +“No, of course you wouldn’t,” replied the plain-clothes officer. “Did +you see two men run past here just now?” +“I did,” answered the constable. “One after the other, and both +running as if the devil was after them. I was half-way up the street, +but I popped down to have a look at them, and when I got to the corner +I heard you coming. So I just kept out of sight and waited for you.” +“Quite right too,” said Mr. Plonk. “Well, I don’t see or hear anything +of those chaps now.” +“No,” agreed the constable, “and you are not likely to. There’s a +regular maze of new streets about here. You can take it that they’ve +got clear away.” +“Yes, I’m afraid they have,” said Plonk. “Well, it can’t be helped, +and there’s nothing much in it. Good night, constable.” +He moved off briskly, not wishing, apparently, to discuss the affair, +and in a few minutes we came to the wide cross-roads. Here he halted +and looked me over by the light of a street lamp. Apparently the +result was satisfactory, for he said: “It’s hardly worth while to take +you all the way back to the station at this time of night. Where do +you live?” +I told him Camden-square and offered a card in corroboration. +“Then you are pretty close home,” said he, inspecting my card. “Very +well, Doctor. I’ll speak to Inspector Follett about this affair, and +if you have any further trouble of this sort you had better let us +know. And you had better let us have a description of the men in any +case.” +I promised to send him the particulars on the following day, and we +then parted with mutual good wishes, he making his way towards +Holloway-road and I setting my face homeward by way of the +Brecknock-road and keeping an uncommonly sharp look-out as I went. +CHAPTER XV. +Thorndyke Proposes a New Move +On the following morning, in order to make sure of arriving before the +detective officer, I presented myself at King’s Bench-walk a good +half-hour before I was due. The door was opened by Thorndyke himself, +and as we shook hands he said: “I am glad you have come early, Gray. +No doubt Polton explained the programme to you, but I should like to +make our position quite clear. The officer who is coming here +presently is Detective-Superintendent Miller, of the Criminal +Investigation Department. He is quite an old friend, and he is coming +at my request to give me certain information. But, of course, he is a +detective officer, with his own duties to his department, and an +exceedingly shrewd, capable man. Naturally, if he can pick up any +crumbs of information from us, he will; and I don’t want him to learn +more, at present, than I choose to tell him.” +“Why do you want to keep him in the dark?” I asked. +“Because,” he replied, “we are doing quite well, and I want to get the +case complete before I call in the police. If I were to tell him all I +know and all I think, he might get too busy, and scare our man away +before we have enough evidence to justify an arrest. As soon as the +investigation is finished, and we have such evidence as will secure a +conviction, I shall turn the case over to him; meanwhile, we keep our +own counsel. Your rôle this morning will be that of listener. Whatever +happens, make no comment. Act as if you knew nothing that is not of +public knowledge.” +I promised to follow his directions to the letter, though I could not +get rid of the feeling that all this secrecy was somewhat futile. Then +I began to tell him of my experiences of the previous night, to which +he listened at first with grave interest, but with growing amusement +as the story developed. When I came to the final chase and the +pursuing policeman, he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. +“Why,” he exclaimed, wiping his eyes, “it was a regular procession! It +only wanted a string of sausages and a harlequin to bring it up to +pantomime form.” +“Yes,” I admitted with a grin, “it was a ludicrous affair. But it was +a mighty mysterious affair too. You see, neither of the men was the +man I had expected. There must be more people in this business than we +had supposed. Have you any idea who these men can be?” +“It isn’t much use making vague guesses,” he replied. “The important +point to note is that this incident, farcical as it turned out, might +easily have taken a tragical turn; and the moral is that for the +present you can’t be too careful in keeping out of harm’s way.” +It was obvious to me that he was evading my question; that those two +sinister strangers were not the mystery to him that they were to me, +and I was about to return to the charge with a more definitely pointed +question when an elaborate flourish on the little brass knocker of the +inner door announced a visitor. +The tall, military-looking man whom Thorndyke admitted was evidently +the Superintendent, as I gathered from the mutual greetings. He looked +rather hard at me until Thorndyke introduced me, which he did with +characteristic reticence. +“This is Dr. Gray, Miller; you may remember his name. It was he who +discovered the body of Mr. D’Arblay.” +“Yes, I remember,” said the Superintendent, shaking my hand +unemotionally and still looking at me with a slightly dubious air. +“He is a good deal interested in the case,” Thorndyke continued, “not +only professionally, but as a friend of the family—since the +catastrophe.” +“I see,” said the Superintendent, taking a final inquisitive look at +me and obviously wondering why the deuce I was there. “Well, there is +nothing of a very secret nature in what I have to tell you, and I +suppose you can rely on Dr. Gray to keep his own counsel and ours.” +“Certainly,” replied Thorndyke. “He quite understands that our talk is +confidential, even if it is not secret.” +The officer nodded, and, having been inducted into an easy chair, by +the side of which a decanter, a siphon, and a box of cigars had been +placed, settled himself comfortably, lit a cigar, mixed himself a +modest refresher, and drew from his pocket a bundle of papers secured +with red tape. +“You asked me, Doctor,” he began, “to get you all particulars up to +date of the Van Zellen case. Well, I can do that without difficulty as +the case—or at least what is left of it—is in my hands. The +circumstances of the actual crime I think you know already, so I will +take up the story from that point. +“Van Zellen, as you know, was found dead in his room, poisoned with +prussic acid, and a quantity of very valuable portable property was +missing. It was not clear whether the murderer had let himself in with +false keys or whether Van Zellen had let him in; but the place hadn’t +been broken into. The job had been done with remarkable skill, so that +not a trace of the murderer was left. Consequently, all that was left +for the police to do was to consider whether they knew of any one +whose methods agreed with those of this murderer. +“Well, they did know of such a person, but they had nothing against +him but suspicion. He had never been convicted of any serious crime, +though he had been in chokee once or twice for receiving. But there +had been a number of cases of robbery with murder—or rather murder +with robbery, for this man seemed to have committed the murder as a +preliminary precaution—and they were all of this kind; a solitary +crime, very skilfully carried out by means of poison. There was never +any trace of the criminal; but gradually the suspicions of the police +settled down on a rather mysterious individual of the name of +Bendelow; Simon Bendelow. Consequently, when the Van Zellen crime came +to light, they were inclined to put it on this man Bendelow, and they +began making fresh inquiries about him. But presently it transpired +that some one had seen a man, on the morning of the crime, coming away +from the neighbourhood of Van Zellen’s house just about the time when +the murder must have been committed.” +“Was there anything to connect him with the crime?” Thorndyke asked. +“Well, there was the time—the small hours of the morning—and the man +was carrying a good-sized hand-bag, which seemed to be pretty heavy +and which would have held the stuff that was missing. But the most +important point was the man’s appearance. He was described as a +smallish man, clean-shaved, with a big hooked nose and very heavy +eyebrows set close down over his eyes. +“Now this put Bendelow out of it as the principal suspect, because the +description didn’t fit him at all” (here I caught Thorndyke’s eye for +an instant and was warned afresh, and not unnecessarily, to make no +comment); “but,” continued the Superintendent, “it didn’t put him out +altogether. For the man whom the description did fit—and it fitted him +to a T—was a fellow named Crile—Jonathan Crile—who was a pal of +Bendelow’s and was known to have worked with him as a confederate in +the receiving business and had been in prison once or twice. So the +police started to make inquiries about Crile, and before long they +were able to run him to earth. But that didn’t do them much good; for +it turned out that Crile wasn’t in New York at all. He was in +Philadelphia; and it was clearly proved that he had been there on the +day of the murder, on the day before and the day after. So they seemed +to have drawn a blank; but they were still a bit suspicious of Mr. +Crile, who seems to have been as downy a bird as his friend Bendelow, +and of the other chappie, too. But they hadn’t a crumb of evidence +against either. +“So there the matter stuck. A complete deadlock. There was nothing to +be done; for you can’t arrest a man on mere suspicion with not a +single fact to support it. But the police kept their eye on both +gents, so far as they could, and presently they got a chance. Bendelow +made a slip—or, at any rate, they said he did. It was a little +trumpery affair, something in the receiving line, and of no importance +at all. Probably, a faked charge, too. But they thought that if they +could get him arrested they might be able to squeeze something out of +him—the police in America can do things that we aren’t allowed to. So +they tried to pounce on him. But Mr. Bendelow was a slippery customer, +and he got wind of their intentions just in time. When they got into +his rooms they found that he had left—in a deuce of a hurry, too, and +only a few minutes before they arrived. They searched the place, but +found nothing incriminating, and they tried to get on Bendelow’s +track, but they didn’t succeed. He had managed to get clear away, and +Crile seemed to have disappeared, too. +“Well, that seemed to be the end of the affair. Both of these crooks +had made off without leaving a trace, and the police—having no +evidence—didn’t worry any more about them. And so things went on for +about a year, until the Van Zellen case had been given up and nearly +forgotten. Then something happened quite recently that gave the police +a fresh start. +“It appears that there was a fire in the house in which Bendelow’s +rooms were, and a good deal of damage was done, so that they had to do +some rebuilding; and in the course of the repairs, the builder’s men +found, hidden under the floor-boards, a small parcel containing part +of the Van Zellen swag. There was nothing of real value; just coins +and medals and seal-rings and truck of that kind. But the things were +all identified by means of Van Zellen’s catalogue, and, of course, the +finding of them in what had been Bendelow’s rooms put the murder +pretty clearly on to him. +“On this, as you can guess, the police and the detective agencies got +busy. They searched high and low for the missing man, but for a long +time they could pick up no traces of him. At last they discovered that +he and Crile had taken a passage nearly a year ago on a tramp steamer +bound for England. Thereupon they sent a very smart, experienced +detective over to work at the case in conjunction with our own +detective department. +“But we didn’t have much to do with it. The American—Wilson was his +name—had all the particulars, with the prison photographs and +finger-prints of both the men, and he made most of the inquiries +himself. However, there were two things that we did for him. We handed +over to him the Van Zellen guinea and the particulars of the D’Arblay +murder; and we were able to inform him that his friend, Bendelow, was +dead.” +“How did you find that out?” Thorndyke asked. +“Oh, quite by chance. One of our men happened to be at Somerset House +looking up some details of a will when in the list of wills he came +across the name of Simon Bendelow, which he had heard from Wilson +himself. He at once got out the will, copied out the address of the +executrix and the names and addresses of the witnesses, and handed +them over to Wilson, who was mightily taken aback, as you may suppose. +However, he wasn’t taking anything for granted. He set off instantly +to look up the executrix—a Mrs. Morris. But there he got another +disappointment, for the Morrises had gone away and no one knew where +they had gone.” +“I take it,” said Thorndyke, “that probate of the will had been +granted.” +“Yes; everything in that way had been finished up. Well, on this, +Wilson went off in search of the witnesses, and he had better luck +this time. They were two elderly spinsters who lived together in a +house in Turnpike-lane, Hornsey. They didn’t know much about Bendelow, +for they had only made his acquaintance after he had taken to his bed. +They were introduced to him by his friend and landlady, Mrs. Morris, +who used to take them up to his room to talk to him and cheer him up a +bit. However, they knew all about his death, for they had seen him in +his coffin and they followed him to the Ilford Crematorium.” +“Ha!” said Thorndyke. “So he was cremated.” +“Yes,” chuckled the Superintendent, with a sly look at Thorndyke. “I +thought that would make you prick up your ears, Doctor. Yes, there +were no half measures for Mr. Bendelow. He had gone literally to +ashes. But it was all right, you know. There couldn’t have been any +hanky panky. These two ladies had not only seen him in his coffin; +they actually had a last look at him through a little celluloid window +in the coffin-lid, just before the coffin was passed through into the +cremation furnace.” +“And there was no doubt as to his identity?” +“None whatever. Wilson showed the old ladies his photograph, and they +recognized him instantly; picked his photograph out of a dozen +others.” +“Where was Bendelow living when they made his acquaintance?” +“Not far from their house; in Abbey-road, Hornsey. But the Morrises +moved afterwards to Market-street, Hoxton, and that is where he died +and where the will was signed.” +“I suppose Wilson ascertained the cause of death?” +“Oh, yes. The old ladies told him that. But he went to Somerset House +and got a copy of the death certificate. I haven’t got that, as he +took it back with him; but the cause of death was cancer of the +pylorus—that’s some part of the gizzard, I believe, but you’ll know +all about it. At any rate, there was no doubt on the subject, as the +two doctors made a post-mortem before they signed the death +certificate. It was all perfectly plain and straightforward. +“Well, so much for Mr. Bendelow. When Wilson had done with him, he +turned his attention to Crile. And then he really did get a proper +shake-up. When he was at Somerset House, looking up Bendelow’s death +certificate, it occurred to him just to run his eye down the list and +make sure that Crile was still in the land of the living. And there, +to his astonishment, he found Crile’s name. He was dead, too! And not +only was he dead: he, also, had died of cancer—it was the pancreas +this time; another part of the gizzard—and he had died at Hoxton, too, +and he had died just four days before Bendelow. The thing was +ridiculous. It looked like a conspiracy. But here again everything was +plain and above-board. Wilson got a copy of the certificate and called +on the doctor who had signed it, a man named Usher. Of course, Dr. +Usher remembered all about the case as it had occurred quite recently. +There was not a shadow of doubt that Crile was dead. Usher had helped +to put him in his coffin and had attended at his funeral; and he, too, +had no difficulty in picking out Crile’s photograph, and he had no +doubt at all as to what Crile died of. So there it was. Queer as it +looked, there was no denying the plain facts. Those two crooks had +slipped through the fingers of the law, so far as it was possible to +see. +“But I must admit that I was not quite satisfied; the circumstances +were so remarkably odd. I told Wilson so, and I advised him to look +further into the matter. I reminded him of the D’Arblay murder and the +finding of that guinea, but he said that the murder was our affair, +that the men he had come to look for were dead, and that was all that +concerned him. So back he went to New York, taking with him the death +certificates and the two photographs with the certificates of +recognition on the backs of them. But he left the notes of the case +with me, on the chance that they might be useful to me, and the two +sets of finger-prints, which certainly don’t seem likely to be of much +use under the circumstances.” +“You never know,” said Thorndyke, with an enigmatical smile. +The Superintendent gave him a quick, inquisitive look and agreed: “No, +you don’t, especially when you are dealing with Dr. John Thorndyke.” +He pulled out his watch, and, staring at it anxiously, exclaimed: +“What a confounded nuisance! I’ve got an appointment at the Law Courts +in five minutes. It is quite a small matter. Won’t take me more than +half an hour. May I come back when I have finished? I should like to +hear what you think of this extraordinary story.” +“Come back, by all means,” said Thorndyke, “and I will turn over the +facts in my mind while you are gone. Possibly some suggestion may +present itself in the interval.” +He let the officer out, and when the hurried footsteps had died away +on the stairs he closed the door and turned to me with a smile. +“Well, Gray,” he said, “what do you think of that? Isn’t it a very +pretty puzzle for a medical jurist?” +“It is a hopeless tangle to me,” I replied. “My brain is in a whirl. +You can’t dispute the facts, and yet you can’t believe them. I don’t +know what to make of the affair.” +“You note the fact that, whoever may be dead, there is somebody +alive—very much alive, and that that somebody is the murderer of +Julius D’Arblay.” +“Yes, I realize that. But obviously he can’t be either Crile or +Bendelow. The question is: Who is he?” +“You note the link between him and the Van Zellen murder; I mean the +electrotype guinea?” +“Yes, there is evidently some connexion, but I can’t imagine what it +can be. By the way, you noticed that the American police had got +muddled about the personal appearance of these two men. The +description of that man who was seen coming away from Van Zellen’s +house, and who was said to be quite unlike Bendelow, actually fitted +him perfectly. They had evidently made a mistake of some kind.” +“Yes, I noticed that. But the description may have fitted Crile +better. We must get into touch with this man, Usher. I wonder if he +will be the Usher who used to attend at St. Margaret’s.” +“He is; and I am in touch with him already. In fact, he was telling me +about this very patient, Jonathan Crile.” +“Indeed! Can you remember the substance of what he told you?” +“I think so. It wasn’t very thrilling.” And here I gave him, as well +as I could remember them, the details with which Usher had entertained +me of his attendance on the late Jonathan Crile, his dealings with the +landlady, Mrs. Pepper, and the incidents of the funeral, including +Usher’s triumphant return in the mourning coach. It seemed a dull and +trivial story, but Thorndyke listened to it with the keenest interest, +and when I had finished he asked: “He didn’t happen to mention where +Crile lived, I suppose?” +“Yes, curiously enough, he did. The address, I remember, was 52, +Field-street, Hoxton.” +“Ha!” said Thorndyke. “You are a mine of information, Gray.” +He rose and, taking down from the bookshelves Phillip’s Atlas of +London, opened it and pored over one of the maps. Then, replacing the +Atlas, he got out his notes of the D’Arblay case and searched for a +particular entry. It was evidently quite a short one, for when he had +found it he gave it but a single glance and closed the portfolio. +Then, returning to the bookshelves, he took out the Post Office +Directory and opened it at the “streets” section. Here also his search +was but a short one though it appeared to be concerned with two +separate items; for, having examined one, he turned to a different +part of the section to find the other. Finally he closed the unwieldy +volume and, having replaced it on the shelf, turned and once more +looked at me inquiringly. +“Reflecting on what Miller has told us,” he said, “does anything +suggest itself to you? Any sort of hypothesis as to what the real +facts may be?” +“Nothing whatever,” I replied. “The confusion that was already in my +mind is only the worse confounded. But that is not your case, I take +it.” +“Not entirely,” he admitted. “The fact is that I had already formed a +hypothesis as to the motives and circumstances which lay behind the +murder of Julius D’Arblay, and I find this new matter not inconsistent +with it. But that hypothesis may, nevertheless, turn out to be quite +wrong when we put it to the test of further investigation.” +“You have some further investigation in view, then.” +“Yes. I am going to make a proposal to Superintendent Miller—and here +he comes, before his time; by which I judge that he, also, is keen on +the solution of this puzzle.” +Thorndyke’s opinion seemed to be justified, for the Superintendent +entered all agog, and opened the subject at once. +“Well, Doctor, I suppose you have been thinking over Wilson’s story? +How does it strike you? Have you come to any conclusion?” +“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “I have come to the conclusion that I can’t +accept that story at its face value as representing the actual facts.” +Miller laughed with an air of mingled amusement and vexation. “That is +just my position,” said he. “The story seems incredible, but yet you +can’t raise any objection. The evidence in support of it is absolutely +conclusive at every point. There isn’t a single weak spot in it—at +least, I haven’t found one. Perhaps you have?” And here he looked at +Thorndyke with eager inquiry in his eyes. +“I won’t say that,” Thorndyke replied. “But I put it to you, Miller, +that the alleged facts that are offered are too abnormal to be +entertained. We cannot accept that string of coincidences. It must be +obvious to you that there is a fallacy somewhere and that the actual +facts are not what they seem.” +“Yes, I feel that, myself,” rejoined Miller. “But what are we to do? +How are we to find the flaw in the evidence, if there is one? Can you +see where to look for it? I believe you can.” +“I think there is one point which ought to be verified,” said +Thorndyke. “The identification of Crile doesn’t strike me as perfectly +convincing.” +“How does his case differ from Bendelow’s?” Miller demanded. +“In two respects,” was the reply. “First, Bendelow was identified by +two persons who had known him well for some time and who gave a most +circumstantial account of his illness, his death, and the disposal of +his body; and second, Bendelow’s remains have been cremated and are +therefore, presumably, beyond our reach for purposes of +identification.” +“Well,” Miller objected, “Crile isn’t so very accessible, being some +few feet under ground.” +“Still, he is there; and he has been buried only a few weeks. It would +be possible to exhume the body and settle the question of his identity +once for all.” +“Then you are not satisfied with Dr. Usher’s identification?” +“No. Usher saw him only after a long, wasting illness, which must have +altered his appearance very greatly; whereas the photograph was taken +when Crile was in his normal health. It couldn’t have been so very +like Usher’s patient.” +“That’s true,” said Miller; “and I remember that Usher wasn’t so very +positive, according to Wilson. But he agreed that it seemed to be the +same man; and all the other facts seemed to point to the certainty +that it was really Crile. Still, you are not satisfied? It’s a pity +Wilson took the photograph back with him.” +“The photograph is of no consequence,” said Thorndyke. “You have the +finger-prints; properly authenticated finger-prints, actually taken +from the man in the presence of witnesses. After this short time it +will be possible to get perfectly recognizable finger-prints from the +body, and those finger-prints will settle the identity of Usher’s +patient beyond any possible doubt.” +The Superintendent scratched his chin thoughtfully. “It’s a bit of a +job to get an exhumation order,” said he. “Before I raise the question +with the Commissioner, I should like to have a rather more definite +opinion from you. Do you seriously doubt that the man in that coffin +is Jonathan Crile?” +“It is my opinion,” replied Thorndyke—“of course, I may be wrong—but +it is my considered opinion that the Crile who is in that coffin is +not the Crile whose finger-prints are in your possession.” +“Very well, Doctor,” said Miller, rising and picking up his hat, “that +is good enough for me. I won’t ask you for your reasons because I know +you won’t give them. But I have known you long enough to feel sure +that you wouldn’t give a definite opinion like that unless you had got +something pretty solid to go on. And I don’t think we shall have any +difficulty about the exhumation order after what you have said.” +With this the Superintendent took his leave, and very shortly +afterwards Thorndyke carried me off to lunch at his club before +dismissing me to take up my duties at the studio. +CHAPTER XVI. +A Surprise for the Superintendent +It appeared that Thorndyke was correct in his estimate of the +Superintendent’s state of mind, for that officer managed to dispose in +a very short space of time of the formalities necessary for the +obtaining of an exhumation license from the Home Office. It was less +than a week after the interview that I have recorded when I received a +note from Thorndyke asking me to join him and Miller at King’s +Bench-walk on the following morning at the unholy hour of half-past +six. He offered to put me up for the night at his chambers, but I +declined this hospitality, not wishing to trouble him unnecessarily; +and after a perfunctory breakfast by gaslight, a ride on an early +tram, and a walk through the dim, lamp-lit streets, I entered the +Temple just as the subdued notes of an invisible clock bell announced +a quarter past six. On my arrival at Thorndyke’s chambers I observed a +roomy hired carriage drawn up at the entry, and, ascending the stairs, +found “the Doctor” and Miller ready to start, each provided with a +good-sized hand-bag. +“This is a queer sort of function,” I remarked as we took our way down +the stairs; “a sort of funeral the wrong way about.” +“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed; “it is what Lewis Carroll would have called +an unfuneral—and very appropriately, too. I didn’t give you any +particulars in my note, but you understand the object of this +expedition?” +“I assume that we are going to resurrect the late Jonathan Crile,” I +replied. “It isn’t very clear to me what I have to do with the +business, as I never knew Mr. Crile, though I am delighted to have +this rather uncommon experience. But I should have thought that Usher +would be the proper person to accompany you.” +“So the Superintendent thought,” said Thorndyke, “and quite rightly; +so I have arranged to pick up Usher and take him with us. He will be +able to identify the body as that of his late patient, and you and I +will help the Superintendent to take the finger-prints.” +“I am taking your word for it, Doctor,” said Miller, “that the +finger-prints will be recognizable, and that they will be the wrong +ones.” +“I don’t guarantee that,” Thorndyke replied, “but still, I shall be +surprised if you get the right ones.” +Miller nodded with an air of satisfaction, and nothing more was said +on the subject until we drew up before Dr. Usher’s surgery. That +discreet practitioner was already waiting at the open door, and at +once took his place in the carriage, watched curiously by observers +from adjacent windows. +“This is a rum go,” he remarked, diffusing a vinous aroma into the +atmosphere of the carriage. “I really did think I had paid my last +visit to Mr. Crile. But there’s no such thing as certainty in this +world.” He chuckled softly and continued: “A bit different this +journey from the last. No hatbands this time, and no Sunday-school +children. Lord! When I think of those kids piping round the open +grave, and that our dear departed brother was wanted by the police so +badly that they were actually going to dig him up, it makes me smile, +it does, indeed.” +In effect, it made him cackle; and as Miller had not heard the account +of the funeral, it was repeated for his benefit in great detail. Then +the anecdotal ball was set rolling in a fresh direction by one or two +questions from Thorndyke, with the result that the entire history of +Usher’s attendance on the deceased, including the misdeeds of Mrs. +Pepper, was retailed with such a wealth of circumstance that the +narration lasted until we stopped at the cemetery gate. +Our arrival was not unexpected, for as we got out of the carriage, two +gentlemen approached the entrance, and one of them unlocked a gate to +admit us. He appeared to be the official in charge of the cemetery, +while the other, to whom he introduced us, was no less a person than +Dr. Garroll, the Medical Officer of Health. +“The Home Office license,” the latter explained, “directs that the +removal shall be carried out under my supervision and to my +satisfaction; very necessary in a populous neighbourhood like this.” +“Very necessary,” Thorndyke agreed gravely. +“I have provided a supply of fresh ground lime, according to the +directions,” Dr. Garroll continued; “and as a further precaution, I +have brought with me a large formalin spray. That, I think, should +satisfy all sanitary requirements.” +“It should certainly be sufficient,” Thorndyke agreed, “to meet the +requirements of the present case. Has the excavation been commenced +yet?” +“Oh, yes,” replied the cemetery official. “It was started quite early, +and has been carried down nearly to the full depth; but I thought that +the coffin had better not be uncovered until you arrived. I have had a +canvas screen put up round the grave so that the proceedings may be +quite private. We can send the labourers outside before we unscrew the +coffin-lid. You said, Superintendent, that you were anxious to avoid +any kind of publicity; and I have warned the men to say nothing to any +one about the affair.” +“Quite right,” said Miller. “We don’t want this to get into the +papers, in case—well, in any case.” +“Exactly, sir,” agreed the official, who was evidently bursting with +curiosity himself. “Exactly. Here is the screen. If you will step +inside, the excavation can be proceeded with.” +We passed inside the screen, where we found four men reposefully +contemplating a coil of stout rope, a basket, attached to another +rope, and a couple of spades. The grave yawned in the middle of the +enclosure, flanked on one side by the mound of newly dug earth and on +the other by a tub of lime and a Winchester quart bottle fitted with a +spray nozzle and a large rubber bellows. +“You can get on with the digging now,” said the official; whereupon +one of the men was let down into the grave, together with a spade and +the basket, and fell to work briskly. Then Dr. Garroll directed one of +the other men to sprinkle in a little lime; which he did, with a +pleased smile and so little discretion that the man below was seen to +stop digging, and after looking up indignantly, take off his cap, +shake it violently and ostentatiously dust his shoulders with it. +When about a dozen basketfuls of earth had been hoisted up, a hollow, +woody sound accompanying the thrusts of the spade announced that the +coffin had been reached. Thereupon more lime was sprinkled in, and Dr. +Garroll, picking up the formalin bottle, sprayed vigorously into the +cavity until a plaintive voice from below—accompanied by an +unnaturally loud sneeze—was heard to declare that “he’d ’ave brought +his umbrella if he’d knowed he was goin’ to be squirted at.” A few +minutes’ more work exposed the coffin and enabled us to read the +confirmatory inscription on the plate. Then the rope slings were let +down and with some difficulty worked into position by the excavator +below; who, when he had completed his task, climbed to the surface and +grasped one end of a sling in readiness to haul on it. +“It’s a good deal easier letting ’em down than hoisting ‘em up,” Usher +remarked, as the final shower of lime descended and the men began to +haul; “but poor old Crile oughtn’t to take much lifting. There was +nothing of him but skin and bone.” +However this might be, it took the united efforts of the four men to +draw the coffin up to the surface and slew it round clear of the +yawning grave. But at last this was accomplished, and it was lifted, +for convenience of inspection, on to one of the mounds of newly dug +earth. +“Now,” said the presiding official, “you men had better go outside and +wait down at the end of the path until you are wanted again:” an order +that was received with evident disfavour and complied with rather +sulkily. As soon as they were gone, our friend produced a couple of +screw-drivers, with which he and Miller proceeded in a very +workmanlike manner to extract the screws, while Dr. Garroll enveloped +them in a cloud of spray, and Thorndyke, Usher, and I stood apart to +keep out of range. It was not a long process; indeed, it came to an +end sooner than I had expected, for the first intimation that I +received of its completion was a loud exclamation (consisting of the +single word “Snakes!”) in the voice of Superintendent Miller. I turned +quickly and saw that officer standing with the raised coffin-lid in +his hand, staring into the interior with a look of perfectly +indescribable amazement. Instantly I rushed forward and looked into +the coffin; and then I was no less amazed. For in place of the mortal +remains of the late Jonathan Crile, was a portly sack oozing sawdust +from a hole in its side, through which coyly peeped a length of thick +lead pipe. +For a sensible time we all stood in breathless silence gazing down at +that incredible sack. Suddenly Miller looked up eagerly at Thorndyke, +whose sphinx-like countenance showed the faintest shadow of a smile. +“You knew this coffin was empty, Doctor?” said he. +Thorndyke shook his head. “If I had known,” he replied, “I should have +told you.” +“Well, you suspected that it was empty.” +“Yes,” Thorndyke admitted, “I don’t deny that.” +“I wonder why you did, and why it never occurred to me.” +“It did not occur to you, perhaps, because you were not in possession +of certain suggestive facts which are known to me. Still, if you +consider that the circumstances surrounding the alleged deaths of +these two men were so incredible as to make us both feel certain that +there was some fallacy or deception in regard to the apparent facts, +you will see that this was a very obvious possibility. Two men were +alleged to have died, and one of them was certainly cremated. It +followed that either the other man had died, as alleged, or that his +funeral was a mock funeral. There was no other alternative. You must +admit that, Miller.” +“I do, I do,” the Superintendent replied ruefully. “It is always like +this. Your explanations are so obvious when you have given them, and +yet no one thinks of them but yourself. All the same, this isn’t so +very obvious, even now. There are some extraordinary discrepancies +that have yet to be explained. But we can discuss them on the way +back. The question now is, what is to be done with this coffin?” +“The first thing to be done,” replied Thorndyke, “is to screw on the +lid. Then we can leave the cemetery authorities to deal with it. But +those men must be sworn to absolute secrecy. That is vitally +important, for if this exhumation should get reported in the Press, we +should probably lose the whole advantage of this discovery.” +“Yes, by Jove!” the Superintendent agreed, emphatically. “It would be +a disaster. At present, the late Mr. Crile is at large, perfectly +happy and secure and entirely off his guard. We can just follow him up +at our leisure and take him unawares. But if he got wind of this, he +would be out of reach in a twinkling—that is, if he is alive, which I +suppose——” and here the Superintendent suddenly paused, with knitted +brows. +“Exactly,” said Thorndyke. “The advantage of surprise is with us, and +we must keep it at all costs. You realize the position,” he added, +addressing the cemetery official and the Medical Officer. +“Perfectly,” the latter replied, a little glumly, I thought, “and you +may rely on us both to do everything that we can to keep the affair +secret.” +With this we all emerged from the screen and walked back slowly +towards the gate; and as we went, I strove vainly to get my ideas into +some kind of order. But the more I considered the astonishing event +which had just happened the more incomprehensible did it appear. And +yet I saw plainly that it could not really be incomprehensible since +Thorndyke had actually arrived at its probability in advance. The +glaring discrepancies and inconsistencies which chased one another +through my mind could not be real. They must be susceptible of +reconciliation with the observed facts. But by no effort was I able to +reconcile them. +Nor, evidently, was I alone the subject of these difficulties and +bewilderments. The Superintendent walked with corrugated brows and an +air of profound cogitation, and even Usher—when he could detach his +thoughts from the juvenile choir at the funeral—was obviously puzzled. +In fact, it was he who opened the discussion as the carriage moved +off. +“This job,” he observed with conviction, “is what the sporting men +would call a fair knock-out. I can’t make head nor tail of it. You +talk of the late Mr. Crile being at large and perfectly happy. But the +late Mr. Crile died of cancer of the pancreas. I attended him in his +illness. There was no doubt about the cancer, though I wouldn’t swear +to the pancreas. But he died of cancer all right. I saw him dead; and, +what is more, I helped to put him into that coffin. What do you say to +that, Dr. Thorndyke?” +“What is there to say?” was the elusive reply. “You are a competent +observer, and your facts are beyond dispute. But inasmuch as Mr. Crile +was not in that coffin when we opened it, the unavoidable inference is +that after you had put him in, somebody else must have taken him out.” +“Yes, that is clear enough,” rejoined Usher. “But what has become of +him? The man was dead; that I am ready to swear to. But where is he?” +“Yes,” said Miller. “That is what is bothering me. There has evidently +been some hanky-panky. But I can’t follow it. It isn’t as though we +were dealing with a supposititious body. There was a real dead man. +That isn’t disputed—at least, I take it that it isn’t.” +“It certainly is not disputed by me,” said Thorndyke. +“Then what the deuce became of him? And why, in the name of blazes, +was he taken out of the coffin? That’s what I want to know. Can you +tell me, Doctor? But there! What is the good of asking you? Of course +you know all about it! You always do. But it is the same old story. +You have got the ace of trumps up your sleeve, but you won’t bring it +out until it is time to take the trick. Now isn’t that the position, +Doctor?” +Thorndyke’s impassive face softened with a faint, inscrutable smile. +“We hold a promising hand, Miller,” he replied quietly; “but if the +ace is there, it is you who will have the satisfaction of playing it. +And I hope to see you put it down quite soon.” +Miller grunted. “Very well,” said he. “I can see that I am not going +to get any more out of you than that; so I must wait for you to +develop your plans. Meanwhile I am going to ask Dr. Usher for a signed +statement.” +“Yes, that is very necessary,” said Thorndyke. “You two had better go +on together and set down Gray and me in the Kingsland-road, where he +and I have some other business to transact.” +I glanced at him quickly as he made this astonishing statement—for we +had no business there, or anywhere else that I knew of. But I said +nothing. My recent training had not been in vain. +A few minutes later, near to Dalston Junction, he stopped the +carriage, and, having made our adieux, we got out. Then Thorndyke +strode off down the Kingsland-road but presently struck off westward +through a bewildering maze of seedy suburban streets and shabby +squares in which I was as completely lost as if I had been dropped +into the midst of the Sahara. +“What is the nature of the business that we are going to transact?” I +ventured to ask as we turned yet another corner. +“In the first place,” he replied, “I wanted to hear what conclusions +you had reached in view of this discovery at the cemetery.” +“Well, that won’t take long,” I said, with a grin. “They can be summed +up in half a dozen words: I have come to the conclusion that I am a +fool.” +He laughed good-humouredly. “There is no harm in thinking that,” he +said, “provided you are not right—which you are not. But did that +empty coffin suggest no new ideas to you?” +“On the contrary,” I replied, “it scattered the few ideas that I had. +I am in the same condition as Superintendent Miller: an inextricable +muddle.” +“But,” he objected, “you are not in the same position as the +Superintendent. If he knew all that you and I know, he wouldn’t be in +a muddle at all. What is your difficulty?” +“Primarily the discrepancies about this man Crile. There seems to be +no possible doubt that he died. But apparently he was never buried; +and you and Miller seem to believe that he is still alive. Further, I +don’t see what business Crile is of ours at all.” +“You will see that presently,” said he, “and meanwhile you must not +confuse Miller’s beliefs with mine. However,” he added, as we crossed +a bridge over a canal—presumably the Regent’s Canal—“we will adjourn +the discussion for the moment. Do you know what street that is ahead +of us?” +“No,” I answered; “I have never been here before, so far as I know.” +“That is Field-street,” said he. +“The street that the late Mr. Crile lived in?” +“Yes,” he answered; and as we passed on into the street from the foot +of the bridge, he added, pointing to a house on our left hand: “And +that is the residence of the late Mr. Crile—empty, and to let, as you +observe.” +As we walked past I looked curiously at the house, with its shabby +front and its blank, sightless windows, its desolate condition +emphasized by the bills which announced it; but I made no remark until +we came to the bottom of the street, when I recognized the cross road +as the one along which I used to pass on my way to the Morrises’ +house. I mentioned the fact to Thorndyke, and he replied: “Yes. That +is where we are going now. We are going to take a look over the +premises. That house also is empty, and I have got a permit from the +agent to view it and have been entrusted with the keys.” +In a few minutes we turned into the familiar little thoroughfare, and +as we took our way past its multitudinous stalls and barrows I +speculated on the object of this exploration. But it was futile to ask +questions, seeing that I had but to wait a matter of minutes for the +answer to declare itself. Soon we reached the house and halted for a +moment to look through the glazed door into the empty shop. Then +Thorndyke inserted the key into the side door and pushed it open. +There is always something a little melancholy in the sight of an empty +house which one has known in its occupied state. Nothing, indeed, +could be more cheerless than the Morris household; yet it was with a +certain feeling of depression that I looked down the long passage +(where Cropper had bumped his head in the dark) and heard the clang of +the closing door. This was a dead house—a mere empty shell. The feeble +life that I had known in it was no more. So I reflected as I walked +slowly down the passage at Thorndyke’s side, recalling the ungracious +personalities of Mrs. Morris and her husband and the pathetic figure +of poor Mr. Bendelow. +When from the passage we came out into the hall, the sense of +desolation was intensified, for here not only the bare floor and +vacant walls proclaimed the untenanted state of the house. The big +curtain that had closed in the end of the hall, and to a great extent +furnished it, was gone, leaving the place very naked and chill. +Incidentally, its disappearance revealed a feature of whose existence +I had been unaware. +“Why,” I exclaimed, “they had a second street door. I never saw that. +It was hidden by a curtain. But it can’t open into Market-street.” +“It doesn’t,” replied Thorndyke. “It opens on Field-street.” +“On Field-street!” I repeated in surprise. “I wonder why they didn’t +let me in that way. It is really the front of the house.” +“I think,” answered Thorndyke, “that if you open the door and look +out, you will understand why you were admitted at the back.” +I unbolted the door, and, opening it, stepped out on the wide +threshold and looked up and down the street. Thorndyke was right. The +thoroughfare was undoubtedly Field-street, down which we had passed +only a few minutes ago, and close by, on the right hand, was the canal +bridge. Strongly impressed with the oddity of the affair, I turned to +re-enter, and as I turned I glanced up at the number on the door. As +my eye lighted on it I uttered a cry of astonishment. For the number +was fifty-two! +“But this is amazing!” I exclaimed, re-entering the hall—where +Thorndyke stood watching me with quiet amusement—and shutting the +door. “It seems that Usher and I were actually visiting at the same +house.” +“Evidently,” said he. +“But it almost looks as if we were visiting the same patient!” +“There can be practically no doubt that you were,” he agreed. “It was +on that assumption that I induced Miller to apply for the exhumation +order, and the empty coffin seems to confirm it completely.” +I was thunderstruck, not only by the incredible thing that had +happened, but by Thorndyke’s uncanny knowledge of all the +circumstances. +“Then,” I said, after a pause, “if Usher and I were attending the same +man, we were both attending Bendelow.” +“That is certainly what the appearances suggest,” he agreed. +“It was undoubtedly Bendelow who was cremated,” said I. +“All the circumstances seem to point to that conclusion,” he admitted, +“unless you can think of any that point in the opposite direction.” +“I cannot,” I replied. “Everything points in the same direction. The +dead man was seen and identified as Bendelow by those two ladies, Miss +Dewsnep and Miss Bonington, and they not only saw him here, but they +actually saw him in his coffin just before it was passed through into +the crematorium. And there is no doubt that they knew Bendelow by +sight, for you remember that they recognized the photograph of him +that the American detective showed them.” +“Yes,” he admitted, “that is so. But their identification is a point +that requires further investigation. And it is a vitally important +point. I have my own hypothesis as to what took place, but that +hypothesis will have to be tested; and that test will be what the +logicians would call the Experimentum Crucis. It will settle one way +or the other whether my theory of this case is correct. If my +hypothesis as to their identification is true, there will be nothing +left to investigate. The case will be complete and ready to turn over +to Miller.” +I listened to this statement in complete bewilderment. Thorndyke’s +reference to “the case” conveyed nothing definite to me. It was all so +involved that I had almost lost count of the subject of our +investigation. +“When you speak of ‘the case,’” said I, “what case are you referring +to?” +“My dear Gray!” he protested. “Do you not realize that we are trying +to discover who murdered Julius D’Arblay?” +“I thought you were,” I answered; “but I can’t connect this new +mystery with his death in any way.” +“Never mind,” said he. “When the case is completed we will have a +general elucidation. Meanwhile there is something else that I have to +show you before we go. It is through this side door.” +He led me out into a large neglected garden and along a wide path that +was all overgrown with weeds. As we went, I tried to collect and +arrange my confused ideas, and suddenly a new discrepancy occurred to +me. I proceeded to propound it. +“By the way, you are not forgetting that the two alleged deaths were +some days apart? I saw Bendelow dead on a Monday. He had died on the +preceding afternoon. But Crile’s funeral had already taken place a day +or two previously.” +“I see no difficulty in that,” Thorndyke replied. “Crile’s funeral +occurred, as I have ascertained, on a Saturday. You saw Bendelow alive +for the last time on Thursday morning. Usher was sent for, and saw +Crile dead on Thursday evening, he having evidently died—with or +without assistance—soon after you left. Of course, the date of death +given to you was false; and you mention in your notes of the case that +both you and Cropper were surprised at the condition of the body. The +previous funeral offers no difficulty, seeing that we know that the +coffin was empty. This is what I thought you might be interested to +see.” +He pointed to a flight of stone steps, at the bottom of which was a +wooden gate set in the wall that enclosed the garden. I looked at the +steps—a little vacantly, I am afraid—and inquired what there was about +them that I was expected to find of interest. +“Perhaps,” he replied, “you will see better if we open the gate.” +We descended the steps, and he inserted a key into the gate, drawing +my attention to the fact that the lock had been oiled at no very +distant date and was in quite good condition. Then he threw the gate +open, and we both stepped out on to the tow-path of the canal. I +looked about me in considerable surprise, for we were within a few +yards of the hut with the derrick and the little wharf from which I +had been flung into the canal. +“I remember this gate,” said I; “in fact, I think I mentioned it to +you in my account of my adventure here. But I little imagined that it +belonged to the Morris’ house. It would have been a short way in, if I +had known. But I expect it was locked at the time.” +“I expect it was,” Thorndyke agreed, and thereupon turned and +re-entered. We passed once more down the long passage, and came out +into Market-street, when Thorndyke locked the door and pocketed the +key. +“That is an extraordinary arrangement,” I remarked; “one house having +two frontages on separate streets.” +“It is not a very uncommon one,” Thorndyke replied. “You see how it +comes about. A house fronting on one street has a long back garden +extending to another street which is not yet fully built on. As the +new street fills up, a shop is built at the end of the garden. A small +house may be built in connexion with it and cut off from the garden, +or the shop may be connected with the original house, as in this +instance. But in either case the shop belongs to the new street and +has its own number. What are you going to do now?” +“I am going straight on to the studio,” I replied. +“You had better come and have an early lunch with me first,” said he. +“There is no occasion to hurry. Polton is there and you won’t easily +get rid of him, for I understand that Miss D’Arblay is doing the +finishing work on a wax bust.” +“I ought to see that, too,” said I. +He looked at me with a mischievous smile. “I expect you will have +plenty of opportunities in the future,” said he, “whereas Polton must +make hay while the sun shines. And, by the way, he may have something +to tell you. I have instructed him to make arrangements with those two +ladies, Miss Dewsnep and her friend, to go into the question of their +identification of Bendelow. I want you to be present at the interview, +but I have left him to fix the date. Possibly he has made the +arrangement by now. You had better ask him.” +At this moment, an eligible omnibus making its appearance, we both +climbed on board and were duly conveyed to King’s Cross, where we +alighted and lunched at a modest restaurant, thereafter separating to +go our respective ways north and south. +CHAPTER XVII. +A Chapter of Surprises +In answer to my knock the studio door was opened by Polton; and as I +met his eyes for a moment I was conscious of something unusual in his +appearance. I had scanty opportunity to examine him, for he seemed to +be in a hurry, bustling away after a few hasty words of apology and +returning whence he had come. Following close on his heels, I saw what +was the occasion of his hurry. He was engaged with a brush and a pot +of melted wax in painting a layer of the latter on the insides of the +moulds of a pair of arms, while Marion, seated on a high stool, was +working at a wax bust, which was placed on a revolving +modelling-stand, obliterating the seams and other irregularities with +a steel tool which she heated from time to time at a small spirit +lamp. +When I had made my salutations, I offered my help to Polton, which he +declined—without looking up from his work—saying that he wanted to +carry the job through by himself. I sympathized with this natural +desire, but it left me without occupation; for the work which Marion +was doing was essentially a one-person job, and in any case was far +beyond the capabilities of either of the apprentices. For a minute or +two I stood idly looking on at Polton’s proceedings, but, noticing +that my presence seemed to worry him, I presently moved away—again +with a vague impression that there was something unusual in his +appearance—and, drawing up another high stool beside Marion’s, settled +myself to take a lesson in the delicate and difficult technique of +surface finishing. +We were all very silent. My two companions were engrossed by their +respective occupations, and I must needs refrain from distracting them +by untimely conversation; so I sat, well content to watch the magical +tool stealing caressingly over the wax surface, causing the +disfiguring seams to vanish miraculously into an unbroken contour. But +my own attention was somewhat divided; for even as I watched the +growing perfection of the bust there would float into my mind now and +again an idle speculation as to the change in Polton’s appearance. +What could it be? It was something that seemed to have altered, to +some extent, his facial expression. It couldn’t be that he had shaved +off his moustache or whiskers, for he had none to shave. Could he have +parted his hair in a new way? It seemed hardly sufficient to account +for the change; and looking round at him cautiously I could detect +nothing unfamiliar about his hair. +At this point he picked up his wax-pot and carried it away to the +farther end of the studio to exchange it for another which was heating +in a water-bath. I took the opportunity to lean towards Marion and ask +in a whisper: +“Have you noticed anything unusual about Polton?” +She nodded emphatically, and cast a furtive glance over her shoulder +in his direction. +“What is it?” I asked in the same low tone. +She took another precautionary glance, and then leaning towards me +with an expression of exaggerated mystery, whispered: +“He has cut his eyelashes off.” +I gazed at her in amazement, and was about to put a further question, +but she held up a warning forefinger and turned again to her work. +However, my curiosity was now at boiling-point. As soon as Polton +returned to his bench, I slipped off my stool and sauntered over to it +on the pretence of seeing how his wax cast was progressing. +Marion’s report was perfectly correct. His eyelids were as bare of +lashes as those of a marble bust. And this was not all. Now that I +came to look at him critically, his eyebrows had a distinctly +moth-eaten appearance. He had been doing something to them, too. +It was an amazing affair. For one moment I was on the point of +demanding an explanation, but good sense and good manners conquered +the inquisitive impulse in time. Returning to my stool I cast an +enquiring glance at Marion, from whom, however, I got no enlightenment +but such as I could gather from a most alluring dimple that hovered +about the corner of her mouth and that speedily diverted my thoughts +into other channels. +My two companions continued for some time to work silently, leaving me +to my meditations—which concerned themselves alternately with Polton’s +eyelashes and the dimple aforesaid. Suddenly Marion turned to me and +asked: +“Has Mr. Polton told you that we are all to have a holiday to-morrow?” +“No,” I answered; “but Dr. Thorndyke mentioned that Mr. Polton might +have something to tell us. Why are we all to have a holiday?” +“Why, you see, sir,” said Polton, standing up and forgetting all about +his eyelashes, “the Doctor instructed me to make an appointment with +those two ladies, Miss Dewsnep and Miss Bonington, to come to our +chambers on a matter of identification. I have made the appointment +for ten o’clock to-morrow morning; and as the Doctor wants you to be +present at the interview and wants me to be in attendance, and we +can’t leave Miss D’Arblay here alone, we have arranged to shut up the +studio for to-morrow.” +“Yes,” said Marion; “and Arabella and I are going to spend the morning +looking at the shops in Regent-street, and then we are coming to lunch +with you and Dr. Thorndyke. It will be quite a red-letter day.” +“I don’t quite see what these ladies are coming to the chambers for,” +said I. +“You will see, all in good time, sir,” replied Polton; and, as if to +head me off from any further questions, he added: “I forgot to ask how +your little party went off this morning.” +“It went off with a bang,” I answered. “We got the coffin up all +right, but Mr. Fox wasn’t at home. The coffin was empty.” +“I rather think that was what the Doctor expected,” said Polton. +Marion looked at me with eager curiosity. “This sounds rather +thrilling,” she said. “May one ask who it was that you expected to +find in that coffin?” +“My impression is,” I replied, “that the missing tenant was a person +who bore a strong resemblance to that photograph that I showed you.” +“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “What a pity! I wish that coffin hadn’t +been empty. But, of course, it could hardly have been occupied, under +the circumstances. I suppose I mustn’t ask for fuller details?” +“I don’t imagine that there is any secrecy about the affair, so far as +you are concerned,” I answered; “but I would rather that you had the +details from Dr. Thorndyke, or, at least, with his express authority. +He is conducting the investigations, and what I know has been imparted +to me in confidence.” +This view was warmly endorsed by Polton (who had by now either +forgotten his eyelashes or abandoned concealment as hopeless). The +subject was accordingly dropped, and the two workers resumed their +occupations. When Polton had painted a complete skin of wax over the +interior of both pairs of moulds, I helped him to put the latter +together and fasten them with cords. Then into each completed mould we +poured enough melted wax to fill it, and after a few seconds poured it +out again, leaving a solid layer to thicken the skin and unite the two +halves of the wax cast. This finished Polton’s job, and shortly +afterwards he took his departure. Nor did we remain very much longer, +for the final stages of the surface finishing were too subtle to be +carried out by artificial light, and had to be postponed until +daylight was available. +As we walked homewards we discussed the situation so far as was +possible without infringing Thorndyke’s confidences. +“I am very confused and puzzled about it all,” she said. “It seems +that Dr. Thorndyke is trying to get on the track of the man who +murdered my father. But whenever I hear any details of his +investigations they always seem to be concerned with somebody else or +with something that has no apparent connexion with the crime.” +“That is exactly my condition,” said I. “He seems to be busily working +at problems that are totally irrelevant. As far as I can make out, the +murderer has never once come into sight, excepting when he appeared at +the studio that terrible night. The people in whom Thorndyke has +interested himself are mere outsiders—suspicious characters, no doubt, +but not suspected of the murder. This man, Crile, for instance, whose +empty coffin we dug up, was certainly a shady character. But he was +not the murderer, though he seems to have been associated with the +murderer at one time. Then there is that fellow Morris, whose mask we +found at the studio. He is another queer customer. But he is certainly +not the murderer, though he was also probably an associate. Thorndyke +has taken an immense interest in him. But I can’t see why. He doesn’t +seem to me to be in the picture, or, at any rate, not in the +foreground of it. Of the actual murderer we seem to know nothing at +all—at least, that is my position.” +“Do you think Dr. Thorndyke has really got anything to go on?” she +asked. +“My dear Marion,” I exclaimed, “I am confident that he has the whole +case cut and dried and perfectly clear in his mind. What I was saying +referred only to myself. _My_ ideas are all in confusion, but _his_ +are not. He can see quite clearly who is in the picture and in what +part of it. The blindness is mine. But let us wait and see what +to-morrow brings forth. I have a sort of feeling—in fact, he +hinted—that this interview is the final move. He may have something to +tell you when you arrive.” +“I do hope he may,” she said earnestly; and with this we dismissed the +subject. A few minutes later we parted at the gate of Ivy Cottage, and +I took my way (by the main thoroughfares) home to my lodgings. +On the following morning I made a point of presenting myself at +Thorndyke’s chambers well in advance of the appointed time in order +that I might have a few words with him before the two ladies arrived. +With the same purpose, no doubt, Superintendent Miller took a similar +course, the result being that we converged simultaneously at the entry +and ascended the stairs together. The “oak” was already open, and the +inner door was opened by Thorndyke, who smilingly remarked that he +seemed thereby to have killed two early birds with one stone. +“So you have, Doctor,” assented the Superintendent—“two early birds +who have come betimes to catch the elusive worm—and I suspect they +won’t catch him.” +“Don’t be pessimistic, Miller,” said Thorndyke with a quiet chuckle. +“He isn’t such a slippery worm as that. I suppose you want to know +something of the programme?” +“Naturally, I do, and so, I suppose, does Dr. Gray.” +“Well,” said Thorndyke, “I am not going to tell you much——” +“I knew it,” groaned Miller. +“Because it will be better for every one to have an open mind——” +“Well,” interposed Miller, “mine is open enough. Wide open, and +nothing inside.” +“And then,” pursued Thorndyke, “there is the possibility that we shall +not get the result we hoped for, and in that case the less you expect +the less you will be disappointed.” +“But,” persisted Miller, “in general terms, what are we here for? I +understand that those two ladies, the witnesses to Bendelow’s will, +are coming presently. What are they coming for? Do you expect to get +any information out of them?” +“I have some hopes,” he replied, “of learning something from them. In +particular, I want to test them in respect of their identification of +Bendelow.” +“Ha! Then you have got a photograph of him?” +Thorndyke shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I have not been able to +get a photograph of him.” +“Then you have an exact description of him?” +“No,” was the reply. “I have no description of him at all.” +The Superintendent banged his hat on the table. “Then what the deuce +have you got, sir?” he demanded distractedly. “You must have +something, you know, if you are going to test these witnesses on the +question of identification. You haven’t got a photograph, you haven’t +got a description, and you can’t have the man himself because he is at +present reposing in a little terra-cotta pot in the form of bone-ash. +Now, what have you got?” +Thorndyke regarded the exasperated Superintendent with an inscrutable +smile and then glanced at Polton, who had just stolen into the room +and was now listening with an expression of such excessive crinkliness +that I wrote him down an accomplice on the spot. +“You had better ask Polton,” said Thorndyke. “He is the stage manager +on this occasion.” +The Superintendent turned sharply to confront my fellow apprentice, +whose eyes thereupon disappeared into a labyrinth of crow’s-feet. +“It’s no use asking me, sir,” said he. “I’m only an accessory before +the fact, so to speak. But you’ll know all about it when the ladies +arrive—and I rather think I hear ’em coming now.” +In corroboration, light footsteps and feminine voices became audible, +apparently ascending our stairs. We hastily seated ourselves while +Polton took his station by the door and Thorndyke said to me in a low +voice: +“Remember, Gray, no comments of any kind. These witnesses must act +without any sort of suggestion from anybody.” +I gave a quick assent, and at that moment Polton threw open the door +with a flourish and announced majestically: +“Miss Dewsnep, Miss Bonington.” +We all rose, and Thorndyke advanced to receive his visitors, while +Polton placed chairs for them. +“It is exceedingly good of you to take all this trouble to help us,” +said Thorndyke. “I hope it was not in any way inconvenient to you to +come here this morning.” +“Oh, not at all,” replied Miss Dewsnep; “only we are not quite clear +as to what it is that you want us to do.” +“We will go into that question presently,” said Thorndyke. “Meanwhile, +may I introduce to you these two gentlemen, who are interested in our +little business—Mr. Miller and Dr. Gray?” +The two ladies bowed; and Miss Dewsnep remarked: +“We are already acquainted with Dr. Gray. We had the melancholy +pleasure of meeting him at Mrs. Morris’ house on the sad occasion when +he came to examine the mortal remains of poor Mr. Bendelow, who is now +with the angels.” +“And no doubt,” added Miss Bonington, “in extremely congenial +society.” +At this statement of Miss Dewsnep’s the Superintendent turned and +looked at me sharply with an expression of enlightenment; but he made +no remark, and the latter lady returned to her original inquiry. +“You were going to tell us what it is that you want us to do.” +“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “It is quite a simple matter. We want you to +look at the face of a certain person who will be shown to you, and to +tell us if you recognize and can give a name to that person.” +“Not an insane person, I hope!” exclaimed Miss Dewsnep. +“No,” Thorndyke assured her, “not an insane person.” +“Nor a criminal person in custody, I trust,” added Miss Bonington. +“Certainly not,” replied Thorndyke. “In short, let me assure you that +the inspection of this person need not cause you the slightest +embarrassment. It will be a perfectly simple affair, as you will see. +But perhaps we had better proceed at once. If you two gentlemen will +follow Polton, I will conduct the ladies upstairs myself.” +On this we rose, and Miller and I followed Polton out on to the +landing, where he turned and began to ascend the stairs at a slow and +solemn pace, as if he were conducting a funeral. The Superintendent +walked at my side and muttered as he went, being evidently in a state +of bewilderment fully equal to my own. +“Now, what the blazes,” he growled, “can the Doctor be up to now? I +never saw such a man for springing surprises on one. But who the deuce +can he have up there?” +At the top of the second flight we came on to a landing and, +proceeding along it, reached a door which Polton unlocked and opened. +“You understand, gentlemen,” he said, halting in the doorway, “that no +remarks or comments are to be made until the witnesses have gone. +Those were my instructions.” +With this he entered the room, closely followed by Miller, who, as he +crossed the threshold, set at naught Polton’s instructions by +exclaiming in a startled voice: “Snakes!” +I followed quickly, all agog with curiosity, but whatever I had +expected to see—if I had expected anything—I was totally unprepared +for what I did see. +The room was a smallish room, completely bare and empty of furniture +save for four chairs—on two of which Polton firmly seated us; and in +the middle of the floor, raised on a pair of trestles, was a coffin +covered with a black linen cloth. At this gruesome object Miller and I +gazed in speechless astonishment, but, apart from Polton’s injunction, +there was no opportunity for an exchange of sentiments; for we had +hardly taken our seats when we heard the sound of ascending footsteps +mingled with Thorndyke’s bland and persuasive accents. A few moments +later the party reached the door; and as the two ladies came in sight +of the coffin, both started back with a cry of alarm. +“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Miss Dewsnep, “it’s a dead person! Who is it, +sir? Is it any one we know?” +“That is what we want you to tell us,” Thorndyke replied. +“How mysterious!” exclaimed Miss Bonington, in a hushed voice. “How +dreadful! Some poor creature who has been found dead, I suppose? I +hope it won’t be very—er—you know what I mean, sir—when the coffin is +opened.” +“There will be no need to open the coffin,” Thorndyke reassured her. +“There is an inspection window in the coffin-lid through which you can +see the face. All you have to do is to look through the window and +tell us if the face that you see is the face of any one who is known +to you. Are you ready, Polton?” +Polton replied that he was, having taken up his position at the head +of the coffin with an air of profound gravity, approaching to gloom. +The two ladies shuddered audibly, but their nervousness being now +overcome by a devouring curiosity, they advanced, one on either side +of the coffin, and, taking up a position close to Polton, gazed +eagerly at the covered coffin. There was a solemn pause as Polton +carefully gathered up the two corners of the linen pall. Then, with a +quick movement, he threw it back. The two witnesses simultaneously +stooped and peered in at the window. Simultaneously their mouths +opened, and they sprang back with a shriek. +“Why, it’s Mr. Bendelow!” +“You are quite sure it is Mr. Bendelow?” Thorndyke asked. +“Perfectly,” replied Miss Dewsnep. “And yet,” she continued with a +mystified look, “it can’t be; for I saw him passed through the bronze +doors into the cremation furnace. I saw him with my own eyes,” she +added, somewhat unnecessarily. “And what’s more, I saw his ashes in +the casket.” +She gazed with wide-open eyes at Thorndyke, and then at her friend, +and the two women tiptoed forward and once more stared in at the +window with starting eyes and dropped chins. +“It is Mr. Bendelow,” said Miss Bonington, in an awe-stricken voice. +“But it can’t be,” Miss Dewsnep protested in tremulous tones. “You saw +him put through those doors yourself, Susan, and you saw his ashes +afterwards.” +“I can’t help that, Sarah,” the other lady retorted. “This is Mr. +Bendelow. You can’t deny that it is.” +“Our eyes must be deceived,” said Miss Dewsnep, the said eyes being +still riveted on the face within the window. “It can’t be—and yet it +is—but yet it is impossible——” +She paused suddenly, and raised a distinctly alarmed face to her +friend. +“Susan,” she said, in a low, rather shaky voice, “there is something +here with which we, as Christian women, are better not concerned. +Something against nature. The dead has been recalled from a burning +fiery furnace by some means which we may not inquire into. It were +better, Susan, that we should now depart from this place.” +This was evidently Susan’s opinion, too, for she assented with +uncommon alacrity and with a distinctly uncomfortable air; and the +pair moved with one accord towards the door. But Thorndyke gently +detained them. +“Do we understand,” he asked, “that, apart from the apparently +impossible circumstances, the body in that coffin is, in your opinion, +the body of the late Simon Bendelow?” +“You do,” Miss Dewsnep replied in a resentfully nervous tone and +regarding Thorndyke with very evident alarm. “If it were possible that +it could be, I would swear that those unnatural remains were those of +my poor friend, Mr. Bendelow. As it’s not possible, it cannot be.” +“Thank you,” said Thorndyke with the most extreme suavity of manner. +“You have done us a great service by coming here to-day, and a great +service to humanity—how great a service you will learn later. I am +afraid it has been a disagreeable experience to both of you, for which +I am sincerely sorry; but you must let me assure you that there is +nothing unlawful or supernatural in what you have seen. Later, I hope +you will be able to realize that. And now I trust that you will allow +Mr. Polton to accompany you to the dining-room and offer you a little +refreshment.” +As neither of the ladies raised any objection to this programme, we +all took our leave of them, and they departed down the stairs, +escorted by Polton. When they had gone, Miller stepped across to the +coffin and cast a curious glance in at the window. +“So that is Mr. Bendelow,” said he. “I don’t think much of him, and I +don’t see how he is going to help us. But you have given those two old +girls a rare shake-up, and I don’t wonder. Of course, this can’t be a +dead body that you have got in this coffin, but it is a most lifelike +representation of one, and it took in those poor old Judies properly. +What have you got to tell us about this affair, Doctor? I can see that +your scheme, whatever it was, has come off. They always do. But what +about it? What has this experiment proved?” +“It has turned a mere name into an actual person,” was the reply. +“Yes, I know,” rejoined Miller. “Very interesting, too. Now we know +exactly what he looked like. But what about it? And what is the next +move?” +“The next move on my part is to lay a sworn information against him as +the murderer of Julius D’Arblay; which I will do now, if you will +administer the oath and witness my signature.” As he spoke Thorndyke +produced a paper from his pocket and laid it on the coffin. +The Superintendent looked at the paper with a surprised grin. +“A little late, isn’t it,” he said, “to be swearing an information? Of +course you can if you like; but when you’ve done it, what then?” +“Then,” replied Thorndyke, “it will be for you to arrest him and bring +him to trial.” +At this reply the Superintendent’s eyes opened until his face might +have been a symbolic mask of astonishment. Grasping his hair with both +hands, he rose slowly from his chair, staring at Thorndyke as if at +some alarming apparition. +“You’ll be the death of me, Doctor!” he exclaimed. “You really will. I +am not fit for these shocks at my time of life. What is it you ask me +to do? I am to arrest this man! What man? Here is a wax-work gentleman +in a coffin—at least, I suppose that is what he is—that might have +come straight from Madame Tussaud’s. Am I to arrest him? And there is +a casket full of ashes somewhere. Am I to arrest those? Or am I off my +head or dreaming?” +Thorndyke smiled at him indulgently. “Now, Miller,” said he, “don’t +pretend to be foolish, because you are not. The man whom you are to +arrest is a live man, and what is more, he is easily accessible +whenever you choose to lay your hands on him.” +“Do you know where to find him?” +“Yes,” Thorndyke replied. “I, myself, will conduct you to his house, +which is in Abbey-road, Hornsey, nearly opposite Miss D’Arblay’s +studio.” +I gave a gasp of amazement on hearing this, which directed the +Superintendent’s attention to me. +“Very well, Doctor,” he said, “I will take your information, but you +needn’t swear to it: just sign your name. I must be off now, but I +will look in to-night about nine, if that will do, to get the +necessary particulars and settle the arrangements with you. Probably +to-morrow afternoon will be a good time to make the arrest. What do +you think?” +“I should think it would be an excellent time,” Thorndyke replied; +“but we can settle definitely to-night.” +With this, the Superintendent, having taken the signed paper from +Thorndyke, shook both our hands and bustled away with the traces of +his late surprise still visible on his countenance. +The recognition of the tenant of the coffin as Simon Bendelow had come +on me with almost as great a shock as it had on the two witnesses, but +for a different reason. My late experiences enabled me to guess at +once that the mysterious tenant was a wax-work figure, presumably of +Polton’s creation. But what I found utterly inexplicable was that such +a wax-work should have been produced in the likeness of a man whom +neither Polton nor Thorndyke had ever seen. The astonishing +conversation between the latter and Miller had, for the moment, driven +this mystery out of my mind; but as soon as the Superintendent had +gone, I stepped over to the coffin and looked in at the window. And +then I was more amazed than ever. For the face that I saw was not the +face that I had expected to see. There, it is true, was the old +familiar skull-cap, which Bendelow had worn, pulled down over the +temples above the jaw-bandage. But it was the wrong face (incidentally +I now understood what had become of Polton’s eyelashes. That +conscientious realist had evidently taken no risks.). +“But,” I protested, “this is not Bendelow. This is Morris.” +Thorndyke nodded. “You have just heard two competent witnesses declare +with complete conviction and certainty that this is Simon Bendelow; +and, as you, yourself, pointed out, there can be no doubt as to their +knowledge of Bendelow since they recognized the photograph of him that +was shown to them by the American detective.” +“That is perfectly true,” I admitted. “But it is a most +incomprehensible affair. This is not the man who was cremated.” +“Evidently not, since he is still alive.” +“But these two women saw Bendelow cremated—at least they saw him +passed through into the crematorium, which is near enough. And they +had seen him in the coffin a few minutes before I saw him in the +coffin, and they saw him again a few minutes after Cropper and Morris +and I had put him back in the coffin. And the man whom we put into the +coffin was certainly not this man.” +“Obviously not, since he helped you to put the corpse in.” +“And again,” I urged; “if the body that we put into the coffin was not +the body that was cremated, what has become of it? It wasn’t buried, +for the other coffin was empty. Those women must have made some +mistake.” +He shook his head. “The solution of the mystery is staring you in the +face,” said he. “It is perfectly obvious, and I am not going to give +you any further hints now. When we have made the arrest you shall have +a full exposition of the case. But tell me, now; did those two women +ever meet Morris?” +I considered for a few moments and then replied: “I have no evidence +that they ever met him. They certainly never did in my presence. But +even if they had, they would hardly have recognized him as the person +whom they have identified to-day. He had grown a beard and moustache, +you will remember, and his appearance was very much altered from what +it was when I first saw him.” +Thorndyke nodded. “It would be,” he agreed. Then, turning to another +subject, he said: “I am afraid it will be necessary for you to be +present at the arrest. I would much rather that you were not, for he +is a dangerous brute and will probably fight like a wild cat; but you +are the only one of us who really knows him by sight in his present +state.” +“I should like to be in at the death,” I said eagerly. +“That is well enough,” said he, “so long as it is his death. You must +bring your pistol, and don’t be afraid to use it.” +“And how shall I know when I am wanted?” I asked. +“You had better go to the studio to-morrow morning,” he replied. “I +will send a note by Polton giving you particulars of the time when we +shall call for you. And now we may as well help Polton to prepare for +our other visitors; and I think, Gray, we will say as little as +possible about this morning’s proceedings or those of to-morrow. +Explanations will come better after the event.” +With this, we went down to the dining-room, where we found Polton +sedately laying the table, having just got rid of the two ladies. We +made a show of assisting him, and I ventured to inquire: +“Who is doing the cooking to-day, Polton? Or is it to be a cold +lunch?” +He looked at me almost reproachfully as he replied: +“It is to be a hot lunch, and I am doing the cooking, of course.” +“But,” I protested, “you have been up to your eyes in other affairs +all the morning.” +He regarded me with a patronizing crinkle. “You can do a good deal,” +said he, “with one or two casseroles, a hay-box, and a four-story +cooker on a gas stove. Things don’t cook any better for your standing +and staring at them.” +Events went to prove the soundness of Polton’s culinary principles; +and the brilliant success of their application in practice gave a +direction to the conversation which led it comfortably away from other +and less discussable topics. +CHAPTER XVIII. +The Last Act +Shortly before leaving Thorndyke’s chambers with Marion and Miss Boler +I managed to secure his permission to confide to them, in general +terms, what was to happen on the morrow; and very relieved I was +thereat, for I had little doubt that questions would be asked which it +would seem ungracious to evade. Events proved that I was not mistaken; +indeed, we were hardly clear of the precincts of the Temple when +Marion opened the inquisition. +“You said yesterday,” she began, “that Dr. Thorndyke might have +something to tell us to-day, and I hoped that he might. I even tried +to pluck up courage to ask him, but then I was afraid that it might +seem intrusive. He isn’t the sort of man that you can take liberties +with. So I suppose that whatever it was that happened this morning is +a dead secret?” +“Not entirely,” I replied. “I mustn’t go into details at present, but +I am allowed to give you the most important item of information. There +is going to be an arrest to-morrow.” +“Do you mean that Dr. Thorndyke has discovered the man?” Marion +demanded incredulously. +“He says that he has, and I take it that he knows. What is more, he +offered to conduct the police to the house. He has actually given them +the address.” +“I would give all that I possess,” exclaimed Miss Boler, “to be there +and see the villain taken.” +“Well,” I said, “you won’t be far away, for the man lives in +Abbey-road, nearly opposite the studio.” +Marion stopped and looked at me aghast. “What a horrible thing to +think of,” she gasped. “Oh, I am glad I didn’t know! I could never +have gone to the studio if I had. But now we can understand how he +managed to find his way to the place that foggy night, and to escape +so easily.” +“Oh, but it is not that man,” I interposed, with a sudden sense of +hopeless bewilderment. For I had forgotten this absolute discrepancy +when I was talking to Thorndyke about the identification. +“Not that man!” she repeated, gazing at me in wild astonishment. “But +that man was my father’s murderer. I feel certain of it.” +“So do I,” was my rather lame rejoinder. +“Besides,” she persisted; “if he was not the murderer, who was he, and +why should he want to kill me?” +“Exactly,” I agreed, “it seems conclusive. But apparently it isn’t. At +any rate, the man they are going to arrest is the man whose mask +Thorndyke found at the studio.” +“Then they are going to arrest the wrong man,” said she, looking at me +with a deeply troubled face. I was uncomfortable, too, for I saw what +was in her mind. The memory of the ruffian who had made that murderous +attack on her still lingered in her mind as a thing of horror. The +thought that he was still at large and might at any moment reappear, +made it impossible for her ever to work alone in the studio, or even +to walk abroad without protection. She had looked, as I had, to the +discovery of the murderer to rid her of this abiding menace. But now +it seemed that even alter the arrest of the murderer, this terrible +menace would remain. +“I can’t understand it,” she said dejectedly. “When you showed me that +photograph of the man who tried to kill me, I naturally hoped that Dr. +Thorndyke had discovered who he was. But now it appears that he is at +large and still untraced, yet I am convinced that he is the man who +ought to have been followed.” +“Never mind, my dear,” I said cheerfully. “Let us see the affair out. +You don’t understand it and neither do I. But Thorndyke does. I have +absolute faith in him, and so, I can see, have the police.” +She assented without much conviction, and then Miss Boler began to +press for further particulars. I mentioned the probable time of the +arrest and the part that I was required to play in identifying the +accused. +“You don’t mean that you are asked to be present when the actual +arrest is made, do you?” Marion asked anxiously. +“Yes,” I answered. “You see I am the only person who really knows the +man by sight.” +“But,” she urged, “you are not a policeman. Suppose this man should be +violent, like that other man; and he probably will be.” +“Oh,” I answered airily, “that will be provided for. Besides, I am not +asked to arrest him; only to point him out to the police.” +“I wish,” she said, “you would stay in the studio until they have +secured him. Then you could go and identify him. That would be much +safer.” +“No doubt,” I agreed. “But it might lead to their arresting the wrong +man and letting the right one slip. No, Marion, we must make sure of +him if we can. Surely you are at least as anxious as any of us that he +should be caught and made to pay the penalty?” +“Yes,” she answered, “if he is really the right man—which I can hardly +believe. But still, punishing him will not bring poor Daddy back, +whereas if anything were to happen to you, Stephen—— Oh! I don’t dare +to think of it!” +“You needn’t think of it, Marion,” I rejoined, cheerfully. “I shall be +all right. And you wouldn’t have your apprentice hang back when these +Bobbies are taking the affair as a mere every-day job.” +She made no reply beyond another anxious glance; and I was glad enough +to let the subject drop, bearing in mind Thorndyke’s words with regard +to the pistol. As a diversion, I suggested a visit to the National +Gallery, which we were now approaching, and the suggestion being +adopted, without acclamation, we drifted in and rather listlessly +perambulated the galleries, gazing vacantly at the exhibits and +exchanging tepid comments. It was a spiritless proceeding, of which I +remember very little but some rather severe observations by Miss Boler +concerning a certain “hussy” (by one, Bronzino) in the great room. But +we soon gave up this hollow pretence, and went forth to board a yellow +’bus which was bound for the Archway Tavern; and so home to an early +supper. +On the following morning I made my appearance betimes at Ivy Cottage, +but it was later than usual when Marion and I started to walk in +leisurely fashion to the studio. +“I don’t know why we are going at all,” said she. “I don’t feel like +doing any work.” +“Let us forget the arrest for the moment,” said I. “There is plenty to +do. Those arms of Polton’s have got to be taken out of the moulds and +worked. It will be much better to keep ourselves occupied.” +“I suppose it will,” she agreed; and then, as we turned a corner and +came in sight of the studio, she exclaimed: “Why, what on earth is +this? There are some painters at work on the studio! I wonder who sent +them. I haven’t given any orders. There must be some extraordinary +mistake.” +There was not, however. As we came up, one of the two linen-coated +operators advanced, brush in hand, to meet us, and briefly explained +that he and his mate had been instructed by Superintendent Miller to +wash down the paint-work and keep an eye on the premises opposite. +They were, in fact, “plain-clothes” men on special duty. +“We have been here since seven o’clock,” our friend informed us, as we +made a pretence of examining the window-sashes, “and we took over from +a man who had been watching the house all night. My nabs is there all +right. He came home early yesterday evening, and he hasn’t come out +since.” +“Then you know the man by sight?” Marion asked eagerly. +“Well, Miss,” was the reply, “we have a description of him, and the +man who went into the house seemed to agree with it; and, as far as we +know, there isn’t any other man living there. But I understand that we +are relying on Dr. Gray to establish the identity. Could I have a look +at the inside woodwork?” +Marion unlocked the door and we entered, followed by the detective, +whose interest seemed to be concerned exclusively with the woodwork of +windows; and from windows in general finally became concentrated on a +small window in the lobby which commanded a view of the houses +opposite. Having examined the sashes of this, with his eye cocked on +one of the houses aforesaid, he proceeded to operate on it with his +brush, which, being wet and dirty and used with a singular lack of +care, soon covered the glass so completely with a mass of opaque +smears that it was impossible to see through it at all. Then he +cautiously raised the sash about an inch, and, whipping out a prism +binocular from under his apron, stood back a couple of feet and took a +leisurely survey through the narrow opening of one of the opposite +houses. +“Hallo!” said he. “There is a woman visible at the first-floor window. +Just have a look at her, sir. She can’t see us through this narrow +crack.” +He handed me the glass, indicating the house, and I put the instrument +to my eyes. It was a powerful glass, and seemed to bring the window +and the figure of the woman within a dozen feet of me. But at the +moment she had turned her head away, apparently to speak to some one +inside the room, and all that I could see was that she seemed to be an +elderly woman who wore what looked like an old-fashioned widow’s cap. +Suddenly she turned and looked out over the half-curtain, giving me a +perfectly clear view of her face, and then I felt myself lapsing into +the old sense of confusion and bewilderment. +I had, of course, expected to recognize Mrs. Morris. But this was +evidently not she, although not such a very different-looking woman: +an elderly, white-haired widow in a crape cap and spectacles—reading +spectacles they must be, since she was looking over and not through +them. She seemed to be a stranger—and not yet quite a stranger, for as +I looked at her some chord of memory stirred. But the cup of my +confusion was not yet full. As I stared at her, trying vainly to sound +a clearer note on that chord of memory, a man slowly emerged from the +darkness of the room behind and stood beside her, and him I recognized +instantly as the bottle-nosed person whom I had watched from my ambush +at the top of Dartmouth-Park-Hill. +“Well, sir,” said the detective, as the man and woman turned away from +the window and vanished, “what do you make of ’em? Do you recognize +’em?” +“I recognize the man,” I replied, “and I believe I have seen the woman +before, but they aren’t the people I expected to see.” +“Oh, dear!” said he. “That’s a bad look-out. Because I don’t think +there is anybody else there.” +“Then,” I said, “we have made a false shot—and yet—well, I don’t know. +I had better think this over and see if I can make anything of it.” +I turned into the studio, where I found Marion—who had been listening +attentively to this dialogue—in markedly better spirits. +“It seems a regular muddle,” she remarked cheerfully. “They have come +to arrest the wrong man and now it appears that he isn’t there.” +“Don’t talk to me for a few minutes, Marion, dear,” said I. “There is +something behind this and I want to think what it can be. I have seen +that woman somewhere, I feel certain. Now where was it?” +I cudgelled my brains for some time without succeeding in recovering +the recollections connected with her. I re-visualized the face that I +had seen through the glass, with its deep-set, hollow eyes and strong, +sharply-sloping eyebrows, and tried to connect it with some person +whom I had seen, but in vain. And then in a flash it came to me. She +was the widow whom I had noticed at the inquest. The identification, +indeed, was not very complete, for the veil that she had worn on that +occasion had considerably obscured her features. But I had no doubt +that I was right, for her present appearance agreed in all that I +could see with that of the woman at the inquest. +The next question was, Who could she be? Her association with the +bottle-nosed man connected her in some way with what Thorndyke would +have called “the case”; for that man, whoever he was, had certainly +been shadowing me. Then her presence at the inquest had now a sinister +suggestiveness. She would seem to have been there to watch +developments on behalf of others. Could she be a relative of Mrs. +Morris? A certain faint resemblance seemed to support this idea. As to +the man, I gave him up. Evidently there were several persons concerned +in this crime, but I knew too little about the circumstances to be +able to make even a profitable guess. Having reached this +unsatisfactory conclusion, I turned, a little irritably, to Marion, +exclaiming: +“I can make nothing of it. Let us get on with some work to pass the +time.” +Accordingly we began, in a half-hearted way, upon Polton’s two moulds. +But the presence of the two detectives was disturbing, especially +when, having finished the exterior, they brought their pails and +ladders inside and took up their station at the lobby window. We +struggled on for a time; but when, about noon, Miss Boler made her +appearance with a basket of provisions and a couple of bottles of +wine, we abandoned the attempt, and occupied ourselves in tidying up +and laying a table. +“Don’t you think, Marion,” I said, as we sat down to lunch (having +provided for the needs of the two “painters,” who lunched in the +lobby), “that it would be best for you and Arabella to go home before +any fuss begins?” +“Whatever Miss Marion thinks,” Arabella interposed firmly, “I am not +going home. I came down expressly to see this villain captured, and +here I stay until he is safely in custody.” +“And I,” said Marion, “am going to stay with Arabella. You know why, +Stephen. I couldn’t bear to go away and leave you here after what you +have told me. We shall be quite safe in here.” +“Well,” I temporized, seeing plainly that they had made up their +minds, “you must keep the door bolted until the business is over.” +“As to that,” said Miss Boler, “we shall be guided by circumstances;” +and from this ambiguous position neither she nor Marion would budge. +Shortly after lunch I received a further shock of surprise. In answer +to a loud single knock, I hurried out to open the door. A tradesman’s +van had drawn up at the kerb, and two men stood on the threshold, one +of them holding a good-sized parcel. I stared at the latter in +astonishment, for I recognized him instantly as the second shadower of +the Dartmouth Park Hill adventure; but before I could make any comment +both men entered—with the curt explanation “police business”—and the +last-comer shut the door, when I heard the van drive off. +“I am Detective-sergeant Porter,” the stranger explained. “You know +what I am here for, of course.” +“Yes,” I replied, and, turning to the other man, I said: “I think I +have seen you before. Are you a police-officer, too?” +My acquaintance grinned. “Retired Detective-sergeant,” he explained, +“name of Barber. At present employed by Dr. Thorndyke. I think I have +seen you before, Sir,” and he grinned again, somewhat more broadly. +“I should like to know how you were employed when I saw you last,” +said I. But here Sergeant Porter interposed: “Better leave +explanations till later, Sir. You’ve got a back gate, I think.” +“Yes,” said one of the “painters.” “At the bottom of the garden. It +opens on an alley that leads into the next road—Chilton-road.” +“Can we get into the garden through the studio?” the Sergeant asked; +and on my answering in the affirmative, he requested permission to +inspect the rear premises. I conducted both men to the back door and +let them out into the garden, where they passed out at the back gate +to reconnoitre the alley. In a minute or two they returned; and they +had hardly re-entered the studio when another knock at the door +announced more visitors. They turned out to be Thorndyke and +Superintendent Miller: of whom the latter inquired of the senior +painter: +“Is everything in going order, Jenks?” +“Yes, Sir,” was the reply. “The man is there all right. Dr. Gray saw +him; but I should mention, Sir, that he doesn’t think it’s the right +man.” +“The devil he doesn’t!” exclaimed Miller, looking at me uneasily, and +then glancing at Thorndyke. +“That man isn’t Morris,” said I. “He is that red-nosed man whom I told +you about. You remember.” +“I remember,” Thorndyke replied calmly. “Well, I suppose we shall have +to content ourselves with the red-nosed man;” upon which ex-Sergeant +Barber’s countenance became wreathed in smiles and the Superintendent +looked relieved. +“Are all the arrangements complete, Sergeant?” Miller inquired, +turning to Sergeant Porter. +“Yes, sir,” the latter replied. “Inspector Follett has got some local +men, who know the neighbourhood well, posted in the rear watching the +back garden, and there are some uniformed men waiting round both the +corners to stop him, in case he slips past us. Everything is ready, +sir.” +“Then,” said the Superintendent, “we may as well open the ball at +once. I hope it will go off quietly. It ought to. We have got enough +men on the job.” +He nodded to Sergeant Porter, who at once picked up his parcel and +went out into the garden, accompanied by Barber. Miller, Thorndyke, +and I now adjourned to the lobby window, where, with the two +painter-detectives, we established a look-out. Presently we saw the +Sergeant and Barber advancing separately on the opposite side of the +road, the latter leading and carrying the parcel. Arrived at the +house, he entered the front garden and knocked a loud single knock. +Immediately the mysterious woman appeared at the ground-floor +window—it was a bay-window—and took a long, inquisitive look at +ex-Sergeant Barber. There ensued a longish pause, during which +Sergeant Porter walked slowly past the house. Then the door opened a +very short distance—being evidently chained—and the woman appeared in +the narrow opening. Barber offered the parcel, which was much too +large to go through the opening without unchaining the door, and +appeared to be giving explanations. But the woman evidently denied all +knowledge of it, and, having refused to receive it, tried to shut the +door, into the opening of which Barber had inserted his foot; but he +withdrew it somewhat hastily as a coal-hammer descended, and before he +could recover himself the door shut with a bang and was immediately +bolted. +The ball was opened, as Miller had expressed it, and the developments +followed with a bewildering rapidity that far outpaced any possible +description. +The Sergeant returning, and joining Barber, the two men were about to +force the ground-floor window, when pistol shots and police whistles +from the rear announced a new field of operations. At once, Miller +opened the studio door and sallied forth, with the two detectives and +Thorndyke; and when I had called out to Marion to bolt the door, I +followed, shutting it after me. Meanwhile, from the rear of the +opposite houses came a confused noise of police-whistles, barking dogs +and women’s voices, with an occasional report. Following three rapid +pistol-shots there came a brief interval; then, suddenly, the door of +a house farther down the street burst open and the fugitive rushed +out, wild-eyed and terrified, his white face contrasting most +singularly with his vividly-red nose. Instantly, the two detectives +and Miller started in pursuit, followed by the Sergeant and Barber; +but the man ran like a hare and was speedily drawing ahead when +suddenly a party of constables appeared from a side turning and +blocked the road. The fugitive zigzagged and made as if he would try +to dodge between them, flinging away his empty pistol and drawing out +another. The detectives and Miller were close on him, when in an +instant he turned, and with extraordinary agility, avoided them. Then, +as the two Sergeants bore down on him, he fired at them at close +range, stopping them both, though neither actually fell. Again he +outran his pursuers, racing down the road towards us, yelling like a +maniac and firing his pistol wildly at Thorndyke and me. And suddenly +my left leg doubled up and I fell heavily to the ground nearly +opposite the studio door. +The fall confused me for a moment and as I lay, half-dazed, I was +horrified to see Marion dart out of the studio. In an instant she was +kneeling by my side with her arm around my neck. “Stephen! Oh, +Stephen, darling!” she sobbed, and gazed into my face with eyes full +of terror and affection, oblivious of everything but my peril. I +besought her to go back, and struggled to get out my pistol, for the +man, still gaining on his pursuers, was now rapidly approaching. He +had flung away his second pistol and had drawn a large knife; and as +he bore down on us, mad with rage and terror, he gibbered and grinned +like a wild cat. +When he was but a couple of dozen paces away, I saw Thorndyke raise +his pistol and take a careful aim. But before he had time to fire, a +most singular diversion occurred. From the open door of the studio, +Miss Boler emerged, swinging a massive stool with amazing ease. The +man, whose eyes were fixed on me and Marion, did not observe her until +she was within a few paces of him; when, gathering all her strength, +she hurled the heavy stool with almost incredible force. It struck him +below the knees, knocking his feet from under him, and he fell with a +sort of dive or half-somersault, falling with the hand that grasped +the knife under him. +He made no attempt to rise, but lay with slightly twitching limbs but +otherwise motionless. Miss Boler stalked up to him and stood looking +down on him with grim interest until Thorndyke, still holding his +pistol, stooped, and, grasping one arm, gently turned him over. Then +we could see the handle of the knife sticking out from his chest near +the right shoulder. +“Ha!” said Thorndyke. “Bad luck to the last. It must have gone through +the arch of the aorta. But perhaps it is just as well.” +He rose, and stepping across to where I sat, supported by Marion and +still nursing my pistol, bent over me with an anxious face. +“What is it, Gray?” he asked. “Not a fracture, I hope?” +“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Damaged muscle and perhaps nerve. It +is all numb at present, but it doesn’t seem to be bleeding much. I +think I could hobble if you would help me up.” +He shook his head and beckoned to a couple of constables, with whose +aid he carried me into the studio and deposited me on the sofa. +Immediately afterwards the two wounded officers were brought in, and I +was relieved to hear that neither of them was dangerously hurt, though +the Sergeant had a fractured arm and Barber a flesh wound of the chest +and a cracked rib. The ladies having been politely ejected into the +garden, Thorndyke examined the various injuries and applied temporary +dressings, producing the materials from a very business-like-looking +bag which he had providently brought with him. While he was thus +engaged three constables entered carrying the corpse, which, with a +few words of apology, they deposited on the floor by the side of the +sofa. +I looked down at the ill-omened figure with lively curiosity, and +especially was I impressed and puzzled by the very singular appearance +of the face. Its general colour was of that waxen pallor +characteristic of the faces of the dead, particularly of those who +have died from hemorrhage. But the nose and the acne patches remained +unchanged. Indeed, their colour seemed intensified, for their vivid +red “stared” from the surrounding white like the painted patches on a +clown’s face. +The mystery was solved when, the surgical business being concluded, +Barber came and seated himself on the edge of the sofa. +“Masterly make-up, that,” said he, nodding at the corpse. “Looks queer +enough now, but when he was alive you couldn’t spot it even in +daylight.” +“Make-up!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could make-up off the +stage.” +“You can’t wear a celluloid nose off the stage, or a tie-on beard,” he +replied. “But when it is done as well as this—a touch or two of +nose-paste or toupée-paste, tinted carefully with grease-paint and +finished up with powder—it’s hard to spot. These experts in make-up +are a holy terror to the police.” +“Did you know that he was made-up?” I asked, looking at Thorndyke. +“I inferred that he was,” the latter replied, “and so did Sergeant +Barber. But now we had better see what his natural appearance is.” +He stooped over the corpse, and with a small ivory paper-knife scraped +from the end of the nose and the parts adjacent a layer of coloured +plastic material about the consistency of modelling-wax. Then with +vaseline and cotton-wool he cleaned away the red pigment until the +pallid skin showed unsullied. +“Why, it _is_ Morris after all!” I exclaimed. “It is perfectly +incredible; and you seemed to remove such a very small quantity of +paste, too! I wouldn’t have believed that it would make such a +change.” +“Not after that very instructive demonstration that Miss D’Arblay gave +us with the clay and the plaster mask?” he asked with a smile. +I smiled sheepishly in return. “I told you I was a fool, Sir;” and +then, as a new idea burst upon me, I asked: “And that other man—the +hook-nosed man?” +“Morris—that is to say, Bendelow,” he replied, “with a different, more +exaggerated, make-up.” +I was pondering with profound relief on this answer when one of the +painter-detectives entered in search of the Superintendent. +“We got into the house from the back, Sir,” he reported. “The woman is +dead. We found her lying on the bed in the first-floor front; and we +found a tumbler half-full of water and this by the bedside.” +He exhibited a small, wide-mouthed bottle labelled “Potassium +Cyanide,” which the Superintendent took from him. +“I will come and look over the house presently,” the latter said. +“Don’t let anybody in, and let me know when the cabs are here.” +“There are two here now, sir,” the detective announced, “and they have +sent down three wheeled stretchers.” +“One cab will carry our two casualties, and I expect the doctor will +want the other. The bodies can be put on two of the stretchers, but +you had better send the woman here for Dr. Gray to see.” +The detective saluted and retired, and in a few minutes a stretcher +dismounted from its carriage was borne in by two constables and placed +on the floor beside Morris’ corpse. But even now, prepared as I was, +and knowing who the new arrival must be, I looked doubtfully at the +pitiful effigy that lay before me so limp and passive that but an hour +since had been a strong, courageous, resourceful woman. Not until the +white wig, the cap, and the spectacles had been removed, the heavy +eyebrows detached with spirit, and the dark pigment cleaned away from +the eyelids, could I say with certainty that this was the corpse of +Mrs. Morris. +“Well, Doctor,” said the Superintendent, when the wounded and the dead +had been borne away and we were alone in the studio, “you have done +your part to a finish, as usual, but ours is a bit of a failure. I +_should_ have liked to bring that fellow to trial.” +“I sympathize with you,” replied Thorndyke. “The gallows ought to have +had him. But yet I am not sure that what has happened is not all for +the best. The evidence in both cases—the D’Arblay and the Van Zellen +murders—is entirely circumstantial and extremely intricate. That is +not good evidence for a jury. A conviction would not have been a +certainty either here or in America, and an acquittal would have been +a disaster that I don’t dare to think of. No, Miller, I think that, on +the whole, I am satisfied, and I think that you ought to be, too.” +“I suppose I ought,” Miller conceded, “but it _would_ have been a +triumph to put him in the dock, after he had been written off as dead +and cremated. However, we must take things as we find them; and now I +had better go and look over that house.” +With a friendly nod to me, he took himself off, and Thorndyke went off +to notify the ladies that the intruders had departed. +As he returned with them I heard Marion cross-examining him with +regard to my injuries and listened anxiously for his report. +“So far as I can see, Miss D’Arblay,” he answered, “the damage is +confined to one or two muscles. If so, there will be no permanent +disablement and he should soon be quite well again. But he will want +proper surgical treatment without delay. I propose to take him +straight to our hospital if he agrees.” +“Miss Boler and I were hoping,” said Marion, “that we might have the +privilege of nursing him at our house.” +“That is very good of you,” said Thorndyke, “and perhaps you might +look after him during his convalescence. But for the present he needs +skilled surgical treatment. If it should not be necessary for him to +stay in the hospital after the wound has been attended to, it would be +best for him to occupy one of the spare bedrooms at my chambers, where +he can be seen daily by the surgeon, and I can keep an eye on him. +Come,” he added coaxingly, “let us make a compromise. You or Miss +Boler shall come to the Temple every day for as long as you please and +do what nursing is necessary. There is a spare room, of which you can +take possession; and as to your work here, Polton will give you any +help that he can. How will that do?” +Marion accepted the offer gratefully (with my concurrence), but begged +to be allowed to accompany me to the hospital. +“That was what I was going to suggest,” said Thorndyke. “The cab will +hold the four of us, and the sooner we start the better.” +Our preparations were very soon made. Then the door was opened, I was +assisted out through a lane of hungry-eyed spectators, held at bay by +two constables, and deposited in the cab; and when the studio had been +locked up, we drove off, leaving the neighbourhood to settle down to +its normal condition. +CHAPTER XIX. +Thorndyke Disentangles the Threads +The days of my captivity at No. 5a, King’s Bench-walk passed with a +tranquillity that made me realize the weight of the incubus that had +been lifted. Now, in the mornings, when Polton ministered to me—until +Arabella arrived and was ungrudgingly installed in office—I could let +my untroubled thoughts stray to Marion, working alone in the studio +with restored security, free for ever from the hideous menace which +had hung over her. And later, when she, herself, released by her +faithful apprentice, came to take her spell of nursing, what a joy it +was to see her looking so fresh and rosy, so youthful and buoyant! +Of Thorndyke—the giver of these gifts—I saw little in the first few +days, for he had heavy arrears of work to make up. However, he paid me +brief visits from time to time, especially in the mornings and at +night, when I was alone, and very delightful those visits were. For he +had now dropped the investigator, and there had come into his manner +something new—something fatherly or elder-brotherly; and he managed to +convey to me that my presence in his chambers was a source of pleasure +to him: a refinement of hospitality that filled up the cup of my +gratitude to him. +It was on the fifth day, when I was allowed to sit up in bed—for my +injury was no more than a perforating wound of the outer side of the +calf, which had missed every important structure—that I sat watching +Marion making somewhat premature preparations for tea, and observed +with interest that a third cup had been placed on the tray. +“Yes,” Marion replied to my inquiry, “‘the Doctor’ is coming to tea +with us to-day. Mr. Polton gave me the message when he arrived.” She +gave a few further touches to the tea-set, and continued: “How sweet +Dr. Thorndyke has been to us, Stephen! He treats me as if I were his +daughter, and, however busy he is, he always walks with me to the +Temple gate and puts me into a cab. I am infinitely grateful to +him—almost as grateful as I am to you.” +“I don’t see what you have got to be grateful to me for,” I remarked. +“Don’t you?” said she. “Is it nothing to me, do you suppose, that in +the moment of my terrible grief and desolation, I found a noble, +chivalrous friend whom I trusted instantly? That I have been guarded +through all the dangers that threatened me, and that at last I have +been rescued from them and set free to go my ways in peace and +security? Surely, Stephen, dear, all this is abundant matter for +gratitude. And I owe it all to you.” +“To me!” I exclaimed in astonishment, recalling secretly what a +consummate donkey I had been. “But there, I suppose it is the way of a +woman to imagine that her particular gander is a swan.” +She smiled a superior smile. “Women,” said she, “are very intelligent +creatures. They are able to distinguish between swans and ganders, +whereas the swans themselves are apt to be muddle-headed and +self-depreciatory.” +“I agree to the muddle-headed factor,” I rejoined, “and I won’t be +unduly ostentatious as to the ganderism. But to return to Thorndyke, +it is extraordinarily good of him to allow himself to be burdened with +me.” +“With us,” she corrected. +“It is the same thing, sweetheart. Do you know if he is going to give +us a long visit?” +“I hope so,” she replied. “Mr. Polton said that he had got through his +arrears of work and had this afternoon free.” +“Then,” said I, “perhaps he will give us the elucidation that he +promised me some time ago. I am devoured by curiosity as to how he +unravelled the web of mystification that the villain, Bendelow, spun +round himself.” +“So am I,” said she; “and I believe I can hear his footsteps on the +stair.” +A few moments later Thorndyke entered the room, and having greeted us +with quiet geniality, seated himself in the easy chair by the table +and regarded us with a benevolent smile. +“We were just saying, Sir,” said I, “how very kind it is of you to +allow your chambers to be invaded by a stray cripple and his—his +belongings.” +“I believe you were going to say ‘baggage,’” Marion murmured. +“Well,” said Thorndyke, smiling at the interpolation, “I may tell you +both in confidence that you were talking nonsense. It is I who am the +beneficiary.” +“It is a part of your goodness to say so, Sir,” I said. +“But,” he rejoined, “it is the simple truth. You enable me to combine +the undoubted economic advantages of bachelordom with the satisfaction +of having a family under my roof; and you even allow me to participate +in a way, as a sort of supercargo, in a certain voyage of discovery +which is to be undertaken by two young adventurers, in the near +future—in the very near future, as I hope.” +“As I hope, too,” said I, glancing at Marion, who had become a little +more rosy than usual and who now adroitly diverted the current of the +conversation. +“We were also wondering,” said she, “if we might hope for some +enlightenment on things which have puzzled us so much lately.” +“That,” he replied, “was in my mind when I arranged to keep this +afternoon and evening free. I wanted to give Stephen—who is my +professional offspring, so to speak—a full exposition of this very +intricate and remarkable case. If you, my dear, will keep my cup +charged as occasion arises, I will begin forthwith. I will address +myself to Stephen, who has all the facts first-hand; and if, in my +exposition, I should seem somewhat callously to ignore the human +aspects of this tragic story—aspects which have meant so much in +irreparable loss and bereavement to you, poor child—remember that it +is an exposition of evidence, and necessarily passionless and +impersonal.” +“I quite realize that,” said Marion, “and you may trust me to +understand.” +He bowed gravely, and, after a brief pause, began: +“I propose to treat the subject historically, so to speak; to take you +over the ground that I traversed myself, recounting my observations +and inferences in the order in which they occurred. The inquiry falls +naturally into certain successive stages, corresponding to the +emergence of new facts, of which the first was concerned with the data +elicited at the inquest. Let us begin with them. +“First, as to the crime itself. It was a murder of a very distinctive +type. There was evidence, not only of premeditation in the bare legal +sense, but of careful preparation and planning. It was a considered +act, and not a crime of impulse or passion. What could be the motive +for such a crime? There appeared to be only two alternative +possibilities; either it was a crime of revenge or a crime of +expediency. The hypothesis of revenge could not be explored, because +there were no data excepting the evidence of the victim’s daughter, +which was to the effect that deceased had no enemies, actual or +potential; and this evidence was supported by the very deliberate +character of the crime. +“We were therefore thrown back on the hypothesis of expediency, which +was, in fact, the more probable one, and which became still more +probable as the circumstances were further examined. But having +assumed, as a working hypothesis, that this crime had been committed +in pursuit of a definite purpose which was not revenge, the next +question was: What could that purpose have been? And that question +could be answered only by a careful consideration of all that was +known of the parties to the crime: the criminal and the victim and +their possible relations to one another. +“As to the former, the circumstances indicated that he was a person of +some education, that he had an unusual acquaintance with poisons, and +such social position and personal qualities as would enable him to get +possession of them; that he was subtle, ingenious, and resourceful, +but not far-sighted, since he took risks that could have been avoided. +His mentality appeared to be that of the gambler, whose attention +tends to be riveted on the winning chances, and who makes insufficient +provision for possible failure. He staked everything on the chance of +the needle-puncture being overlooked and the presence of the poison +being undiscovered. +“But the outstanding and most significant quality was his profound +criminality. Premeditated murder is the most atrocious of crimes, and +murder for expediency is the most atrocious form of murder. This man, +then, was of a profoundly criminal type, and was most probably a +practicing criminal. +“Turning now to the victim, the evidence showed that he was a man of +high moral qualities: honest, industrious, thrifty, kindly and +amiable, and of good reputation—the exact reverse of the other. Any +illicit association between these two men was, therefore, excluded, +and yet there must have been an association of some kind. Of what kind +could it have been? +“Now, in the case of this man, as in that of the other, there was one +outstanding fact. He was a sculptor. And not only a sculptor, but an +artist in the highest class of wax-work. And not only this. He was +probably the only artist of this kind practicing in this country. For +wax-work is almost exclusively a French art. So far as I know, all the +wax figures and high-class lay figures that are made are produced in +France. This man, therefore, appeared to be the unique English +practitioner of this very curious art. +“The fact impressed me profoundly. To realize its significance we must +realize the unique character of the art. Wax-work is a fine art; but +it differs from all other fine arts in that its main purpose is one +that is expressly rejected by all those other arts. An ordinary work +of sculpture, no matter how realistic, is frankly an object of metal, +stone, or pottery. Its realism is restricted to truth of form. No +deception is aimed at but, on the contrary, is expressly avoided. But +the aim of wax-work is complete deception; and its perfection is +measured by the completeness of the deception achieved. How complete +that may be can be judged by incidents that have occurred at Madame +Tussaud’s. When that exhibition was at the old Baker-street Bazaar, +the snuff-taker—whose arms, head, and eyes were moved by +clock-work—used to be seated on an open bench; and it is recorded +that, quite frequently, visitors would sit down by him on the bench +and try to open conversation with him. So, too, the wax-work policeman +near the outer door was occasionally accosted with questions by +arriving visitors. +“Bearing this fact in mind, it is obvious that this art is peculiarly +adapted to employment in certain kinds of fraud, such as personation, +false alibi, and the like; and it is probable that the only reason why +it is not so employed is the great difficulty of obtaining first-class +wax-works. +“Naturally, then, when I observed this connexion of a criminal with a +wax-work artist, I asked myself whether the motive of the murder was +not to be sought in that artist’s unique powers. Could it be that an +attempt had been made to employ the deceased on some work designed for +a fraudulent purpose? If such an attempt had been made, whether it had +or had not been successful, the deceased would be in possession of +knowledge which would be highly dangerous to the criminal; but +especially if a work had actually been executed and used as an +instrument of fraud. +“But there were other possibilities in the case of a sculptor who was +also a medallist. He might have been employed to produce—quite +innocently—copies of valuable works which were intended for fraudulent +use; and the second stage of the investigation was concerned with +these possibilities. That stage was ushered in by Follett’s discovery +of the guinea; the additional facts that we obtained at the Museum, +and later, when we learned that the guinea that had been found was an +electrotype copy, and that deceased was an expert electrotyper, all +seemed to point to the production of forgeries as the crime in which +Julius D’Arblay had been implicated. That was the view to which we +seemed to be committed; but it did not seem to me satisfactory, for +several reasons. First, the motive was insufficient—there was really +nothing to conceal. When the forgeries were offered for sale, it would +be obvious that some one had made them, and that some one could be +traced by the purchaser through the vendor. The killing of the actual +maker would give no security to the man who sold the forgeries, and +who would have to appear in the transaction. And then, although +deceased was unique as a wax-worker, he was not as a copyist or +electrotyper. For those purposes, much more suitable accomplices might +have been found. The execution of copies by deceased appeared to be a +fact; but my own feeling was that they had been a mere by-product—that +they had been used as a means of introduction to deceased for some +other purpose connected with wax-work. +“At the end of this stage we had made some progress. We had identified +this unknown man with another unknown man, who was undoubtedly a +professional criminal. We had found, in the forged guinea, a possible +motive for the murder. But, as I have said, that explanation did not +satisfy me, and I still kept a look-out for new evidence connected +with the wax-works. +“The next stage opened on that night when you arrived at Cornishes’, +looking like a resuscitated ‘found drowned.’ Your account of your fall +into the canal and the immediately antecedent events made a deep +impression on me, though I did not, at the time, connect them with the +crime that we were investigating. But the whole affair was so abnormal +that it seemed to call for very careful consideration; and the more I +considered it the more abnormal did it appear. +“The theory of an accident could not be entertained, nor could the +dropping of that derrick have been a practical joke. Your objection +that no one was in sight had no weight, since there was a gate in the +wall by which a person could have made his escape. Some one had +attempted to murder you: and that attempt had been made immediately +after you had signed a cremation certificate. That was a very +impressive fact. As you know, it is my habit to look very narrowly at +cremation cases, for the reason that cremation offers great facilities +for certain kinds of crime. Poisoners—and particularly arsenic and +antimony poisoners—have repeatedly been convicted on evidence +furnished by an exhumed body. If such poisoners can get the corpse of +the victim cremated, they are virtually safe; for whatever suspicions +may thereafter arise, no conviction is possible, since the means of +proving the administration have been destroyed. +“Accordingly, I considered very carefully your account of the +proceedings, and as I did so strong suggestions of fraud arose in all +directions. There was, for instance, the inspection window in the +coffin. What was its object? Inspection windows are usually provided +only in cases where the condition of the body is such that it has to +be enclosed in a hermetically sealed coffin. But no such condition +existed in this case. There was no reason why the friends should not +have viewed the body in the usual manner in an open coffin. Again, +there was the curious alternation of you and the two witnesses. First +they went up and viewed deceased—through the window. Then, after a +considerable interval, you and Cropper went up and viewed deceased +through the window. Then you took out the body, examined it, and put +it back. Again, after a considerable interval, the witnesses went up a +second time and viewed the deceased—through the window. +“It was all rather queer and suspicious, especially when considered in +conjunction with the attempt on your life. Reflecting on the latter, +the question of the gate in the wall by the canal arose in my mind, +and I examined the map to see if I could locate it. It was not marked, +but the wharf was, and from this and your description it appeared +certain that the gate must be in the wall of the garden of Morris’ +house. Here was another suspicious fact. For Morris—who could have let +you out by this side gate—sent you by a long, round-about route to the +tow-path. He knew which way you must be going—westward—and could have +slipped out of the gate and waited for you in the hut by the wharf. It +was possible, and there seemed to be no other explanation of what had +happened to you. Incidentally, I made another discovery. This map +showed that Morris’ house had two frontages, one on Field-street and +one on Market-street, and that you appeared to have been admitted by +the back entrance. Which was another slightly abnormal circumstance. +“I was very much puzzled by the affair. There was a distinct +suggestion that some fraud—some deception—had been practiced; that +what the spinsters saw through the coffin window was not the same +thing as that which you saw. And yet, what could the deception have +been? There was no question about the body. It was a real body. The +disease was undoubtedly genuine, and was, at least, the effective +cause of death. And the cremation was necessarily genuine; for though +you can bury an empty coffin, you can’t cremate one. The absence of +calcined bone would expose the fraud instantly. +“I considered the possibility of a second body; that of a murdered +person, for instance. But that would not do. For if a substitution had +been effected, there would still have been a redundant body to dispose +of and account for. Nothing would have been gained by the +substitution. +“But there was another possibility to which no such objection applied. +Assuming a fraud to have been perpetrated, here was a case adapted in +the most perfect manner to the use of a wax-work. Of course, a +full-length figure would have been impossible, because it would have +left no calcined bones. But the inspection window would have made it +unnecessary. A wax head would have done; or, better still, a wax mask, +which could have been simply placed over the face of the real corpse. +The more I thought about it the more was I impressed by the singular +suitability of the arrangements to the use of a wax mask. The +inspection window seemed to be designed for the very purpose—to +restrict the view to a mere face and to prevent the mask from being +touched and the fraud thus discovered—and the alternate inspections by +you and the spinsters were quite in keeping with a deception of that +kind. +“There was another very queer feature in the case. These people, +living at Hoxton, elected to employ a doctor who lived miles away at +Bloomsbury. Why did they not call in a neighbouring practitioner? +Also, they arranged the days and even the hours at which the visits +were to be made. Why? There was an evident suggestion of something +that the doctor was not to know—something or somebody that he was not +desired to see; that some preparations had to be made for his visits. +“Again, the note was addressed to Dr. Stephen Gray, not to Dr. +Cornish. They knew your name and address, although you had only just +come there, and they did not know Dr. Cornish, who was an old +resident. How was this? The only explanation seemed to be that they +had read the report of the inquest, or even been present at it. You +there stated publicly that your temporary address was at 61, +Mecklenburgh-square; that you were, in fact, a bird of passage; and +you gave your full name and your age. Now if any fraud was being +carried out, a bird of passage, who might be difficult to find later, +and a young one at that, was just the most suitable kind of doctor. +“To sum up the evidence at this stage: The circumstances, taken as a +whole, suggested in the strongest possible manner that there was +something fraudulent about this cremation. That fraud must be some +kind of substitution or personation with the purpose of obtaining a +certificate that some person had been cremated who had, in fact, not +been cremated. In that case it was nearly certain that the dead man +was not Simon Bendelow; for the certificates would be required to +agree with the false appearances, not with the true. There was a +suggestion—but only a speculative one—that the deception might have +been effected by means of a wax mask. +“There were, however, two objections. As to the wax mask, there was +the great difficulty of obtaining one. A perfect portrait mask could +have been obtained only either from an artist in Paris or from Julius +D’Arblay. The objection to the substitution theory was that there was +a real body—the body of a real person. If the cremation was in a name +which was not the name of that person, then the disappearance of that +person would remain unaccounted for. +“So you see that the whole theory of the fraud was purely conjectural. +There was not a single particle of direct evidence. You also see that +at two points there was a faint hint of a connexion between this case +and the murder of Mr. D’Arblay. These people seemed to have read of, +or attended at the inquest; and if a wax mask existed, it was quite +probably made by him. +“The next stage opens with the discovery of the mask at the studio. +But there are certain antecedent matters that must first be glanced +at. When the attempt was made to murder Marion, I asked myself four +questions: ‘1. Why did this man want to kill Marion? 2. What did he +come to the studio on the preceding night to search for? 3. Did he +find it, whatever it was? 4. Why did he delay so long to make the +search?’ +“Let us begin with the second question. What had he come to look for? +The obvious suggestion was that he had come to get possession of some +incriminating object. But what was that object? Could it be the mould +of some forged coin or medal? I did not believe that it was. For since +the forgery or forgeries were extant, the moulds had no particular +significance; and what little significance they had applied to Mr. +D’Arblay, who was, technically, the forger. My feeling was that the +object was in some way connected with wax-work, and in all probability +with a wax portrait mask, as the most likely thing to be used for a +fraudulent purpose. And I need hardly say that the cremation case +lurked in the back of my mind. +“This view was supported by consideration of the third question. Did +he find what he came to seek? If he came for moulds of coins or +medals, he must have found them; for none remained. But the fact that +he came the next night and attempted to murder Marion—believing her to +be alone—suggested that his search had failed. And consideration of +the fourth question led—less decisively—to the same conclusion as to +the nature of the object sought. +“Why had he waited all this time to make the search? Why had he not +entered the studio immediately after the murder, when the place was +mostly unoccupied? The most probable explanation appeared to me to be +that he had only recently become aware that there was any +incriminating object in existence. Proceeding on the hypothesis that +he had commissioned Mr. D’Arblay to make a wax portrait mask, I +further assumed that he knew little of the process, and—perhaps +misunderstanding Mr. D’Arblay—confused the technique of wax with that +of plaster. In making a plaster mask from life—as you probably know by +this time—you have to destroy the mould to get the mask out. So when +the mask has been delivered to the client, there is nothing left. +“But to make a wax mask, you must first make one of plaster to serve +as a matrix from which to make the gelatine mould for the wax. Then, +when the wax mask has been delivered to the client, the plaster matrix +remains in the possession of the artist. +“The suggestion, then, was that this man had supposed that the mould +had been destroyed in making the mask, and that only some time after +the murder had he, in some way, discovered his mistake. When he did +discover it, he would see what an appalling blunder he had made; for +the plaster matrix was the likeness of his own face. +“You see that all this was highly speculative. It was all +hypothetical, and it might all have been totally fallacious. We still +had not a single solid fact; but all the hypothetical matter was +consistent, and each inference seemed to support the others.” +“And what,” I asked, “did you suppose was his motive for trying to +make away with Marion?” +“In the first place,” he replied, “I inferred that he looked on her as +a dangerous person who might have some knowledge of his transactions +with her father. This was probably the explanation of his attempt when +he cut the brake-wire of her bicycle. But the second, more desperate +attack, was made, I assume, when he had realized the existence of the +plaster mask, and supposed that she knew of it, too. If he had killed +her, he would probably have made another search with the studio fully +lighted up. +“To return to our inquiry. You see that I had a mass of hypothesis but +not a single real fact. But I still had a firm belief that a wax mask +had been made and that—if it had not been destroyed—there must be a +plaster mask somewhere in the studio. That was what I came to look for +that morning; and as it happens that I am some six inches taller than +Bendelow was, I was able to see what had been invisible to him. When I +discovered that mask, and when Marion had disclaimed all knowledge of +it, my hopes began to rise. But when you identified the face as that +of Morris, I felt that our problem was solved. In an instant, my +card-house of speculative hypothesis was changed into a solid edifice. +What had been but bare possibilities had now become so highly probable +that they were almost certainties. +“Let us consider what the finding of this mask proved—subject, of +course, to verification. It proved that a wax mask of Morris had been +made—for here was the matrix, varnished, as you will remember, in +readiness for the gelatine mould; and that mask was obviously obtained +for the purpose of a fraudulent cremation. And that mask was made by +Julius D’Arblay. +“What was the purpose of the fraud? It was perfectly obvious. Morris +was clearly the real Simon Bendelow, and the purpose of the fraud was +to create undeniable evidence that he was dead. But why did he want to +prove that he was dead? Well, we knew that he was the murderer of Van +Zellen, for whom the American police were searching, and he might be +in more danger than we knew. At any rate, a death certificate would +make him absolutely secure—on one condition—that the body was +cremated. Mere burial would not be enough; for an exhumation would +discover the fraud. But perfect security could be secured only by +destruction of all evidence of the fraud. Julius D’Arblay held such +evidence. Therefore Julius D’Arblay must be got rid of. Here, then, +was an amply sufficient motive for the murder. The only point which +remained obscure was the identity of your patient, and the means by +which his disappearance had been accounted for. +“My hypothesis, then, had been changed into highly probable theory. +The next stage was the necessary verification. I began with a rather +curious experiment. The man who tried to murder Marion could have been +no other than her father’s murderer. Then he must have been Morris. +But it seemed that he was totally unlike Morris, and the mask +evidently suggested to her no resemblance. But yet it was probable +that the man was Morris, for the striking features—the hook nose and +the heavy brows—would be easily ‘made up,’ especially at night. The +question was whether the face was Morris’s with these additions. I +determined to put that question to the test. And here Polton’s new +accomplishment came to our aid. +“First, with a pinch of clay, we built up on Morris’s mask a nose of +the shape described and slightly thickened the brows. Then Polton made +a gelatine mould, and from this produced a wax mask. He fitted it with +glass eyes and attached it to a rough plaster head, with ears which +were casts of my own painted. We then fixed on a moustache, beard, and +wig, and put on a shirt, collar, and jacket. It was an extraordinarily +crude affair, suggestive of the fifth of November. But it answered the +purpose, which was to produce a photograph; for we made the photograph +so bad—so confused and ill-focussed—that the crudities disappeared, +while the essential likeness remained. As you know, that photograph +was instantly recognized, without any sort of suggestion. So the first +test gave a positive result. Marion’s assailant was pretty certainly +Morris.” +“I should like to have seen Mr. Polton’s ’prentice effort,” said +Marion, who had been listening, enthralled by this description. +“You shall see it now,” Thorndyke replied with a smile. “It is in the +next room, concealed in a cupboard.” +He went out, and presently returned, carrying what looked like an +excessively crude hairdresser’s dummy, but a most extraordinarily +horrible and repulsive one. As he turned the face towards us, Marion +gave a little cry of horror and then tried to laugh—without very +striking success. +“It is a dreadful-looking thing!” she exclaimed; “and so hideously +like that fiend.” She gazed at it with the most extreme repugnance for +a while, and then said, apologetically: “I hope you won’t think me +very silly, but——” +“Of course I don’t,” Thorndyke interrupted. “It is going back to its +cupboard at once;” and with this he bore it away, returning in a few +moments with a smaller object, wrapped in a cloth, which he laid on +the table. “Another ‘exhibit,’ as they say in the courts,” he +explained, “which we shall want presently. Meanwhile we resume the +thread of our argument. +“The photograph of this wax-work, then, furnished corroboration of the +theory that Morris was the man whom we were seeking. My next move was +to inquire at Scotland Yard if there were any fresh developments of +the Van Zellen case. The answer was that there were; and +Superintendent Miller arranged to come and tell me all about them. You +were present at the interview and will remember what passed. His +information was highly important, not only by confirming my inference +that Bendelow was the murderer, but especially by disposing of the +difficulty connected with the disappearance of your patient. For now +there came into view a second man—Crile—who had died at Hoxton of an +abdominal cancer and had been duly buried; and when you were able to +give me this man’s address, a glance at the map and at the Post Office +Directory showed that the two men had died in the same house. This +fact, with the further facts that they had died of virtually the same +disease and within a day or two of the same date, left no reasonable +doubt that we were really dealing with one man, who had died and for +whom two death certificates, in different names, and two corresponding +burial orders, had been obtained. There was only one body, and that +was cremated in the name of Bendelow. It followed that the coffin +which was buried at Mr. Crile’s funeral must have been an empty +coffin. I was so confident that this must be so that I induced Miller +to apply for an exhumation, with the results that you know. +“There now remained only a single point requiring verification: the +question as to what face it was that those two ladies saw when they +looked into the coffin of Simon Bendelow. Here again Polton’s new +accomplishments came to our aid. From the plaster mask your apprentice +made a most realistic wax mask, which I offer for your critical +inspection.” +He unfolded the cloth and produced a mask of thin, yellowish wax and +of a most cadaverous aspect, which he handed to Marion. +“Yes,” she said approvingly, “it is an excellent piece of work; and +what beautiful eyelashes. They look exactly like real ones.” +“They are real ones,” Thorndyke explained with a chuckle. +She looked up at him inquiringly, and then, breaking into a ripple of +laughter, exclaimed: “Of course! They are his own! Oh! How like Mr. +Polton. But he was quite right, you know. He couldn’t have got the +effect any other way.” +“So he declared,” said Thorndyke. “Well, we hired a coffin and had an +inspection window put in the lid, and we got a black skull cap. We put +a dummy head in the coffin with a wig on it; we laid the mask where +the face should have been, and we adjusted the jaw-bandage and the +skull cap so as to cover up the edges of the mask, and we got the two +ladies here and showed them the coffin. When they had identified the +tenant as Mr. Bendelow, the verification was complete. The hypothesis +was now converted into ascertained fact, and all that remained to be +done was to lay hands on the murderer.” +“How did you find out where Morris was living?” I asked. +“Barber did that,” he replied. “When I learned that you were being +stalked, I employed Barber to shadow you. He, of course, observed +Morris on your track and followed him home.” +“That was what I supposed,” said I; and for a while we were all +silent. Presently Marion said: “It is all very involved and confusing. +Would you mind telling us exactly what happened?” +“In a direct narrative, you mean?” said he. “Yes, I will try to +reconstruct the events in the order of their occurrence. They began +with the murder of Van Zellen by Bendelow. There was no evidence +against him at the time, but he had to fly from America for other +reasons, and he left behind him incriminating traces which he knew +must presently be discovered, and which would fix the murder on him. +His friend, Crile, who fled with him, developed gastric cancer, and +had only a month or two to live. Then Bendelow decided that when Crile +should die, he would make believe to die at the same time. To this +end, he commissioned your father to make a wax mask—a portrait mask of +himself with the eyes closed. His wife must then have persuaded the +two spinsters to visit him—he, of course, taking to his bed when they +called, and being represented as a mortally sick man. Then he moved +from Hornsey to Hoxton, taking Crile with him. There he engaged two +doctors—Usher and Gray, both of whom lived at a distance—to attend +Crile, and to visit him on alternate days. Crile seems to have been +deaf, or, at least, hard of hearing, and was kept continuously under +the influence of morphia. Usher, who was employed by Mrs. Bendelow, +whom he knew as Mrs. Pepper, came to the front of the house, in +Field-street, to visit Mr. Crile, while Stephen—who was employed by +the Bendelows, whom he knew by the name of Morris—entered at the rear +of the house in Market-street, to visit the same man under the name of +Bendelow. About the time of the move Bendelow committed the murder in +order to destroy all evidence of the making of the wax mask. +“Eventually Crile died—or was finished off with an extra dose of +morphia—on a Thursday. Usher gave the certificate, and the funeral +took place on the Saturday. But previously—probably on the Friday +night—the coffin-lid was unscrewed by Bendelow, the body taken out and +replaced by a sack of sawdust with some lead pipe in it. +“On the Monday the body was again produced: this time as that of Simon +Bendelow, who was represented as having died on the Sunday afternoon. +It was put in a cremation coffin with a celluloid window in the lid. +The wax mask was placed over the face; the jaw-bandage and the skull +cap adjusted to hide the place where the wax face joined the real +face; and the two spinsters were brought up to see Mr. Bendelow in his +coffin. They looked in through the window, and, of course, saw the wax +mask of Bendelow. They then retired. The coffin-lid was taken off, the +wax mask removed, the coffin-lid screwed on again, and then the two +doctors were brought up. They removed the body from the coffin, +examined it, and put it back; and Bendelow—or Morris—put on the +coffin-lid. +“As soon as the doctors were gone, the coffin-lid was taken off again, +the wax mask was put back and adjusted, and the coffin-lid replaced +and screwed down finally. Then the two ladies were brought up again to +take a last look at poor Mr. Bendelow; not actually the last look, +for, at the funeral they peeped in at the window and saw the wax face +just before the coffin was passed through into the crematorium.” +“It was a diabolically clever scheme,” said I. +“It was,” he agreed. “It was perfectly convincing and consistent. If +you and those two ladies had been put in the witness-box, your +testimony and theirs would have been in complete agreement. They had +seen Simon Bendelow (whom they knew quite well) in his coffin. A few +minutes later, you had seen Simon Bendelow in his coffin, had taken +the body out, examined it thoroughly, and put it back, and had seen +the coffin-lid screwed down, and again a few minutes later, they had +looked in through the coffin-window and had again seen Simon Bendelow. +The evidence would appear to be beyond the possibility of a doubt. +Simon Bendelow was proved conclusively to be dead and cremated and was +doubly certified to have died from natural causes. Nothing could be +more complete. +“And yet,” he continued, after a pause, “while we are impressed by the +astonishing subtlety and ingenuity displayed, we are almost more +impressed by the fundamental stupidity exhibited along with it; a +stupidity that seems to be characteristic of this type of criminal. +For all the security that was gained by one part of the scheme was +destroyed by the idiotic efforts to guard against dangers that had no +existence. The murder was not only a foul crime; it was a technical +blunder of the most elementary kind. But for that murder, Bendelow +would now be alive and in unchallenged security. The cremation scheme +was completely successful. It deceived everybody. Even the two +detectives, though they felt vague suspicions, saw no loophole. They +had to accept the appearances at their face value. +“But it was the old story. The wrongdoer could not keep quiet. He must +be for ever making himself safer and yet more safe. And at each move, +he laid down fresh tracks. And so, in the end, he delivered himself +into our hands.” +He paused and for a while seemed to be absorbed in reflection on what +he had been telling us. Presently he looked up, and addressing Marion, +said in grave, quiet tones: +“We have ended our quest and we have secured retribution. Justice was +beyond our reach, for complete justice implies restitution; and to +attain that, the dead must have been recalled from the grave. But, at +least sometimes, out of evil cometh good. Surely it will seem to you, +when, in the happy years which I trust and confidently believe lie +before you, your thoughts turn back to the days of your mourning and +grief, that the beloved father, who, when living, made your happiness +his chief concern, even in dying, bequeathed to you a blessing.” +THE END +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES +This transcription follows the text of the 1926 edition published by +A. L. Burt Company in 1927. However, the following alterations have +been made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the +text: +* Four missing quotation marks have been restored. +* The word “addess” has been corrected to “address” (Ch. I). +* The word “precints” has been corrected to “precincts” (Ch. II). +* The word “herb-side” has been corrected to “kerb-side” (Ch. IV). +* The word “elphant” has been corrected to “elephant” (Ch. XIII).",The D'Arblay Mystery,Dorothy L. Sayers,250,"['Simon Bendelow', 'Morris']" +" + + + We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small + stage at Baker Street, but I cannot recollect anything more + sudden and startling than the first appearance of Thorneycroft + Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D., etc. His card, which seemed too small to + carry the weight of his academic distinctions, preceded him by a + few seconds, and then he entered himself—so large, so pompous, + and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of + self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action, when the + door had closed behind him, was to stagger against the table, + whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that + majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin + hearth-rug. + + We had sprung to our feet, and for a few moments we stared in + silent amazement at this ponderous piece of wreckage, which told + of some sudden and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life. Then + Holmes hurried with a cushion for his head, and I with brandy for + his lips. The heavy, white face was seamed with lines of trouble, + the hanging pouches under the closed eyes were leaden in colour, + the loose mouth drooped dolorously at the corners, the rolling + chins were unshaven. Collar and shirt bore the grime of a long + journey, and the hair bristled unkempt from the well-shaped head. + It was a sorely stricken man who lay before us. + + “What is it, Watson?” asked Holmes. + + “Absolute exhaustion—possibly mere hunger and fatigue,” said I, + with my finger on the thready pulse, where the stream of life + trickled thin and small. + + “Return ticket from Mackleton, in the north of England,” said + Holmes, drawing it from the watch-pocket. “It is not twelve + o’clock yet. He has certainly been an early starter.” + + The puckered eyelids had begun to quiver, and now a pair of + vacant grey eyes looked up at us. An instant later the man had + scrambled on to his feet, his face crimson with shame. + + “Forgive this weakness, Mr. Holmes, I have been a little + overwrought. Thank you, if I might have a glass of milk and a + biscuit, I have no doubt that I should be better. I came + personally, Mr. Holmes, in order to insure that you would return + with me. I feared that no telegram would convince you of the + absolute urgency of the case.” + + “When you are quite restored——” + + “I am quite well again. I cannot imagine how I came to be so + weak. I wish you, Mr. Holmes, to come to Mackleton with me by the + next train.” + + My friend shook his head. + + “My colleague, Dr. Watson, could tell you that we are very busy + at present. I am retained in this case of the Ferrers Documents, + and the Abergavenny murder is coming up for trial. Only a very + important issue could call me from London at present.” + + “Important!” Our visitor threw up his hands. “Have you heard + nothing of the abduction of the only son of the Duke of + Holdernesse?” + + “What! the late Cabinet Minister?” + + “Exactly. We had tried to keep it out of the papers, but there + was some rumour in the _Globe_ last night. I thought it might + have reached your ears.” + + Holmes shot out his long, thin arm and picked out Volume “H” in + his encyclopædia of reference. + + “‘Holdernesse, 6th Duke, K.G., P.C.’—half the alphabet! ‘Baron + Beverley, Earl of Carston’—dear me, what a list! ‘Lord Lieutenant + of Hallamshire since 1900. Married Edith, daughter of Sir Charles + Appledore, 1888. Heir and only child, Lord Saltire. Owns about + two hundred and fifty thousand acres. Minerals in Lancashire and + Wales. Address: Carlton House Terrace; Holdernesse Hall, + Hallamshire; Carston Castle, Bangor, Wales. Lord of the + Admiralty, 1872; Chief Secretary of State for——’ Well, well, this + man is certainly one of the greatest subjects of the Crown!” + + “The greatest and perhaps the wealthiest. I am aware, Mr. Holmes, + that you take a very high line in professional matters, and that + you are prepared to work for the work’s sake. I may tell you, + however, that his Grace has already intimated that a check for + five thousand pounds will be handed over to the person who can + tell him where his son is, and another thousand to him who can + name the man or men who have taken him.” + + “It is a princely offer,” said Holmes. “Watson, I think that we + shall accompany Dr. Huxtable back to the north of England. And + now, Dr. Huxtable, when you have consumed that milk, you will + kindly tell me what has happened, when it happened, how it + happened, and, finally, what Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable, of the + Priory School, near Mackleton, has to do with the matter, and why + he comes three days after an event—the state of your chin gives + the date—to ask for my humble services.” + + Our visitor had consumed his milk and biscuits. The light had + come back to his eyes and the colour to his cheeks, as he set + himself with great vigour and lucidity to explain the situation. + + “I must inform you, gentlemen, that the Priory is a preparatory + school, of which I am the founder and principal. _Huxtable’s + Sidelights on Horace_ may possibly recall my name to your + memories. The Priory is, without exception, the best and most + select preparatory school in England. Lord Leverstoke, the Earl + of Blackwater, Sir Cathcart Soames—they all have intrusted their + sons to me. But I felt that my school had reached its zenith + when, weeks ago, the Duke of Holdernesse sent Mr. James Wilder, + his secretary, with intimation that young Lord Saltire, ten years + old, his only son and heir, was about to be committed to my + charge. Little did I think that this would be the prelude to the + most crushing misfortune of my life. + + “On May 1st the boy arrived, that being the beginning of the + summer term. He was a charming youth, and he soon fell into our + ways. I may tell you—I trust that I am not indiscreet, but + half-confidences are absurd in such a case—that he was not + entirely happy at home. It is an open secret that the Duke’s + married life had not been a peaceful one, and the matter had + ended in a separation by mutual consent, the Duchess taking up + her residence in the south of France. This had occurred very + shortly before, and the boy’s sympathies are known to have been + strongly with his mother. He moped after her departure from + Holdernesse Hall, and it was for this reason that the Duke + desired to send him to my establishment. In a fortnight the boy + was quite at home with us and was apparently absolutely happy. + + “He was last seen on the night of May 13th—that is, the night of + last Monday. His room was on the second floor and was approached + through another larger room, in which two boys were sleeping. + These boys saw and heard nothing, so that it is certain that + young Saltire did not pass out that way. His window was open, and + there is a stout ivy plant leading to the ground. We could trace + no footmarks below, but it is sure that this is the only possible + exit. + + “His absence was discovered at seven o’clock on Tuesday morning. + His bed had been slept in. He had dressed himself fully, before + going off, in his usual school suit of black Eton jacket and dark + grey trousers. There were no signs that anyone had entered the + room, and it is quite certain that anything in the nature of + cries or a struggle would have been heard, since Caunter, the + elder boy in the inner room, is a very light sleeper. + + “When Lord Saltire’s disappearance was discovered, I at once + called a roll of the whole establishment—boys, masters, and + servants. It was then that we ascertained that Lord Saltire had + not been alone in his flight. Heidegger, the German master, was + missing. His room was on the second floor, at the farther end of + the building, facing the same way as Lord Saltire’s. His bed had + also been slept in, but he had apparently gone away partly + dressed, since his shirt and socks were lying on the floor. He + had undoubtedly let himself down by the ivy, for we could see the + marks of his feet where he had landed on the lawn. His bicycle + was kept in a small shed beside this lawn, and it also was gone. + + “He had been with me for two years, and came with the best + references, but he was a silent, morose man, not very popular + either with masters or boys. No trace could be found of the + fugitives, and now, on Thursday morning, we are as ignorant as we + were on Tuesday. Inquiry was, of course, made at once at + Holdernesse Hall. It is only a few miles away, and we imagined + that, in some sudden attack of homesickness, he had gone back to + his father, but nothing had been heard of him. The Duke is + greatly agitated, and, as to me, you have seen yourselves the + state of nervous prostration to which the suspense and the + responsibility have reduced me. Mr. Holmes, if ever you put + forward your full powers, I implore you to do so now, for never + in your life could you have a case which is more worthy of them.” + + Sherlock Holmes had listened with the utmost intentness to the + statement of the unhappy schoolmaster. His drawn brows and the + deep furrow between them showed that he needed no exhortation to + concentrate all his attention upon a problem which, apart from + the tremendous interests involved must appeal so directly to his + love of the complex and the unusual. He now drew out his notebook + and jotted down one or two memoranda. + + “You have been very remiss in not coming to me sooner,” said he, + severely. “You start me on my investigation with a very serious + handicap. It is inconceivable, for example, that this ivy and + this lawn would have yielded nothing to an expert observer.” + + “I am not to blame, Mr. Holmes. His Grace was extremely desirous + to avoid all public scandal. He was afraid of his family + unhappiness being dragged before the world. He has a deep horror + of anything of the kind.” + + “But there has been some official investigation?” + + “Yes, sir, and it has proved most disappointing. An apparent clue + was at once obtained, since a boy and a young man were reported + to have been seen leaving a neighbouring station by an early + train. Only last night we had news that the couple had been + hunted down in Liverpool, and they prove to have no connection + whatever with the matter in hand. Then it was that in my despair + and disappointment, after a sleepless night, I came straight to + you by the early train.” + + “I suppose the local investigation was relaxed while this false + clue was being followed up?” + + “It was entirely dropped.” + + “So that three days have been wasted. The affair has been most + deplorably handled.” + + “I feel it and admit it.” + + “And yet the problem should be capable of ultimate solution. I + shall be very happy to look into it. Have you been able to trace + any connection between the missing boy and this German master?” + + “None at all.” + + “Was he in the master’s class?” + + “No, he never exchanged a word with him, so far as I know.” + + “That is certainly very singular. Had the boy a bicycle?” + + “No.” + + “Was any other bicycle missing?” + + “No.” + + “Is that certain?” + + “Quite.” + + “Well, now, you do not mean to seriously suggest that this German + rode off upon a bicycle in the dead of the night, bearing the boy + in his arms?” + + “Certainly not.” + + “Then what is the theory in your mind?” + + “The bicycle may have been a blind. It may have been hidden + somewhere, and the pair gone off on foot.” + + “Quite so, but it seems rather an absurd blind, does it not? Were + there other bicycles in this shed?” + + “Several.” + + “Would he not have hidden _a couple_, had he desired to give the + idea that they had gone off upon them?” + + “I suppose he would.” + + “Of course he would. The blind theory won’t do. But the incident + is an admirable starting-point for an investigation. After all, a + bicycle is not an easy thing to conceal or to destroy. One other + question. Did anyone call to see the boy on the day before he + disappeared?” + + “No.” + + “Did he get any letters?” + + “Yes, one letter.” + + “From whom?” + + “From his father.” + + “Do you open the boys’ letters?” + + “No.” + + “How do you know it was from the father?” + + “The coat of arms was on the envelope, and it was addressed in + the Duke’s peculiar stiff hand. Besides, the Duke remembers + having written.” + + “When had he a letter before that?” + + “Not for several days.” + + “Had he ever one from France?” + + “No, never. + + “You see the point of my questions, of course. Either the boy was + carried off by force or he went of his own free will. In the + latter case, you would expect that some prompting from outside + would be needed to make so young a lad do such a thing. If he has + had no visitors, that prompting must have come in letters; hence + I try to find out who were his correspondents.” + + “I fear I cannot help you much. His only correspondent, so far as + I know, was his own father.” + + “Who wrote to him on the very day of his disappearance. Were the + relations between father and son very friendly?” + + “His Grace is never very friendly with anyone. He is completely + immersed in large public questions, and is rather inaccessible to + all ordinary emotions. But he was always kind to the boy in his + own way.” + + “But the sympathies of the latter were with the mother?” + + “Yes.” + + “Did he say so?” + + “No.” + + “The Duke, then?” + + “Good Heavens, no!” + + “Then how could you know?” + + “I have had some confidential talks with Mr. James Wilder, his + Grace’s secretary. It was he who gave me the information about + Lord Saltire’s feelings.” + + “I see. By the way, that last letter of the Duke’s—was it found + in the boy’s room after he was gone?” + + “No, he had taken it with him. I think, Mr. Holmes, it is time + that we were leaving for Euston.” + + “I will order a four-wheeler. In a quarter of an hour, we shall + be at your service. If you are telegraphing home, Mr. Huxtable, + it would be well to allow the people in your neighbourhood to + imagine that the inquiry is still going on in Liverpool, or + wherever else that red herring led your pack. In the meantime I + will do a little quiet work at your own doors, and perhaps the + scent is not so cold but that two old hounds like Watson and + myself may get a sniff of it.” + + That evening found us in the cold, bracing atmosphere of the Peak + country, in which Dr. Huxtable’s famous school is situated. It + was already dark when we reached it. A card was lying on the hall + table, and the butler whispered something to his master, who + turned to us with agitation in every heavy feature. + + “The Duke is here,” said he. “The Duke and Mr. Wilder are in the + study. Come, gentlemen, and I will introduce you.” + + I was, of course, familiar with the pictures of the famous + statesman, but the man himself was very different from his + representation. He was a tall and stately person, scrupulously + dressed, with a drawn, thin face, and a nose which was + grotesquely curved and long. His complexion was of a dead pallor, + which was more startling by contrast with a long, dwindling beard + of vivid red, which flowed down over his white waistcoat with his + watch-chain gleaming through its fringe. Such was the stately + presence who looked stonily at us from the centre of Dr. + Huxtable’s hearthrug. Beside him stood a very young man, whom I + understood to be Wilder, the private secretary. He was small, + nervous, alert with intelligent light-blue eyes and mobile + features. It was he who at once, in an incisive and positive + tone, opened the conversation. + + “I called this morning, Dr. Huxtable, too late to prevent you + from starting for London. I learned that your object was to + invite Mr. Sherlock Holmes to undertake the conduct of this case. + His Grace is surprised, Dr. Huxtable, that you should have taken + such a step without consulting him.” + + “When I learned that the police had failed——” + + “His Grace is by no means convinced that the police have failed.” + + “But surely, Mr. Wilder——” + + “You are well aware, Dr. Huxtable, that his Grace is particularly + anxious to avoid all public scandal. He prefers to take as few + people as possible into his confidence.” + + “The matter can be easily remedied,” said the brow-beaten doctor; + “Mr. Sherlock Holmes can return to London by the morning train.” + + “Hardly that, Doctor, hardly that,” said Holmes, in his blandest + voice. “This northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I + propose to spend a few days upon your moors, and to occupy my + mind as best I may. Whether I have the shelter of your roof or of + the village inn is, of course, for you to decide.” + + I could see that the unfortunate doctor was in the last stage of + indecision, from which he was rescued by the deep, sonorous voice + of the red-bearded Duke, which boomed out like a dinner-gong. + + “I agree with Mr. Wilder, Dr. Huxtable, that you would have done + wisely to consult me. But since Mr. Holmes has already been taken + into your confidence, it would indeed be absurd that we should + not avail ourselves of his services. Far from going to the inn, + Mr. Holmes, I should be pleased if you would come and stay with + me at Holdernesse Hall.” + + “I thank your Grace. For the purposes of my investigation, I + think that it would be wiser for me to remain at the scene of the + mystery.” + + “Just as you like, Mr. Holmes. Any information which Mr. Wilder + or I can give you is, of course, at your disposal.” + + “It will probably be necessary for me to see you at the Hall,” + said Holmes. “I would only ask you now, sir, whether you have + formed any explanation in your own mind as to the mysterious + disappearance of your son?” + + “No, sir, I have not.” + + “Excuse me if I allude to that which is painful to you, but I + have no alternative. Do you think that the Duchess had anything + to do with the matter?” + + The great minister showed perceptible hesitation. + + “I do not think so,” he said, at last. + + “The other most obvious explanation is that the child has been + kidnapped for the purpose of levying ransom. You have not had any + demand of the sort?” + + “No, sir.” + + “One more question, your Grace. I understand that you wrote to + your son upon the day when this incident occurred.” + + “No, I wrote upon the day before.” + + “Exactly. But he received it on that day?” + + “Yes.” + + “Was there anything in your letter which might have unbalanced + him or induced him to take such a step?” + + “No, sir, certainly not.” + + “Did you post that letter yourself?” + + The nobleman’s reply was interrupted by his secretary, who broke + in with some heat. + + “His Grace is not in the habit of posting letters himself,” said + he. “This letter was laid with others upon the study table, and I + myself put them in the post-bag.” + + “You are sure this one was among them?” + + “Yes, I observed it.” + + “How many letters did your Grace write that day?” + + “Twenty or thirty. I have a large correspondence. But surely this + is somewhat irrelevant?” + + “Not entirely,” said Holmes. + + “For my own part,” the Duke continued, “I have advised the police + to turn their attention to the south of France. I have already + said that I do not believe that the Duchess would encourage so + monstrous an action, but the lad had the most wrong-headed + opinions, and it is possible that he may have fled to her, aided + and abetted by this German. I think, Dr. Huxtable, that we will + now return to the Hall.” + + I could see that there were other questions which Holmes would + have wished to put, but the nobleman’s abrupt manner showed that + the interview was at an end. It was evident that to his intensely + aristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family + affairs with a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared + lest every fresh question would throw a fiercer light into the + discreetly shadowed corners of his ducal history. + + When the nobleman and his secretary had left, my friend flung + himself at once with characteristic eagerness into the + investigation. + + The boy’s chamber was carefully examined, and yielded nothing + save the absolute conviction that it was only through the window + that he could have escaped. The German master’s room and effects + gave no further clue. In his case a trailer of ivy had given way + under his weight, and we saw by the light of a lantern the mark + on the lawn where his heels had come down. That one dint in the + short, green grass was the only material witness left of this + inexplicable nocturnal flight. + + Sherlock Holmes left the house alone, and only returned after + eleven. He had obtained a large ordnance map of the + neighbourhood, and this he brought into my room, where he laid it + out on the bed, and, having balanced the lamp in the middle of + it, he began to smoke over it, and occasionally to point out + objects of interest with the reeking amber of his pipe. + + “This case grows upon me, Watson,” said he. “There are decidedly + some points of interest in connection with it. In this early + stage, I want you to realize those geographical features which + may have a good deal to do with our investigation. + + Holmes'-map + + HOLMES’ MAP OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE SCHOOL. + + “Look at this map. This dark square is the Priory School. I’ll + put a pin in it. Now, this line is the main road. You see that it + runs east and west past the school, and you see also that there + is no side road for a mile either way. If these two folk passed + away by road, it was _this_ road.” + + “Exactly.” + + “By a singular and happy chance, we are able to some extent to + check what passed along this road during the night in question. + At this point, where my pipe is now resting, a county constable + was on duty from twelve to six. It is, as you perceive, the first + cross-road on the east side. This man declares that he was not + absent from his post for an instant, and he is positive that + neither boy nor man could have gone that way unseen. I have + spoken with this policeman to-night and he appears to me to be a + perfectly reliable person. That blocks this end. We have now to + deal with the other. There is an inn here, the Red Bull, the + landlady of which was ill. She had sent to Mackleton for a + doctor, but he did not arrive until morning, being absent at + another case. The people at the inn were alert all night, + awaiting his coming, and one or other of them seems to have + continually had an eye upon the road. They declare that no one + passed. If their evidence is good, then we are fortunate enough + to be able to block the west, and also to be able to say that the + fugitives did _not_ use the road at all.” + + “But the bicycle?” I objected. + + “Quite so. We will come to the bicycle presently. To continue our + reasoning: if these people did not go by the road, they must have + traversed the country to the north of the house or to the south + of the house. That is certain. Let us weigh the one against the + other. On the south of the house is, as you perceive, a large + district of arable land, cut up into small fields, with stone + walls between them. There, I admit that a bicycle is impossible. + We can dismiss the idea. We turn to the country on the north. + Here there lies a grove of trees, marked as the ‘Ragged Shaw,’ + and on the farther side stretches a great rolling moor, Lower + Gill Moor, extending for ten miles and sloping gradually upward. + Here, at one side of this wilderness, is Holdernesse Hall, ten + miles by road, but only six across the moor. It is a peculiarly + desolate plain. A few moor farmers have small holdings, where + they rear sheep and cattle. Except these, the plover and the + curlew are the only inhabitants until you come to the + Chesterfield high road. There is a church there, you see, a few + cottages, and an inn. Beyond that the hills become precipitous. + Surely it is here to the north that our quest must lie.” + + “But the bicycle?” I persisted. + + “Well, well!” said Holmes, impatiently. “A good cyclist does not + need a high road. The moor is intersected with paths, and the + moon was at the full. Halloa! what is this?” + + There was an agitated knock at the door, and an instant + afterwards Dr. Huxtable was in the room. In his hand he held a + blue cricket-cap with a white chevron on the peak. + + “At last we have a clue!” he cried. “Thank heaven! at last we are + on the dear boy’s track! It is his cap.” + + “Where was it found?” + + “In the van of the gipsies who camped on the moor. They left on + Tuesday. To-day the police traced them down and examined their + caravan. This was found.” + + “How do they account for it?” + + “They shuffled and lied—said that they found it on the moor on + Tuesday morning. They know where he is, the rascals! Thank + goodness, they are all safe under lock and key. Either the fear + of the law or the Duke’s purse will certainly get out of them all + that they know.” + + “So far, so good,” said Holmes, when the doctor had at last left + the room. “It at least bears out the theory that it is on the + side of the Lower Gill Moor that we must hope for results. The + police have really done nothing locally, save the arrest of these + gipsies. Look here, Watson! There is a watercourse across the + moor. You see it marked here in the map. In some parts it widens + into a morass. This is particularly so in the region between + Holdernesse Hall and the school. It is vain to look elsewhere for + tracks in this dry weather, but at _that_ point there is + certainly a chance of some record being left. I will call you + early to-morrow morning, and you and I will try if we can throw + some little light upon the mystery.” + + The day was just breaking when I woke to find the long, thin form + of Holmes by my bedside. He was fully dressed, and had apparently + already been out. + + “I have done the lawn and the bicycle shed,” said he. “I have + also had a rumble through the Ragged Shaw. Now, Watson, there is + cocoa ready in the next room. I must beg you to hurry, for we + have a great day before us.” + + His eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration + of the master workman who sees his work lie ready before him. A + very different Holmes, this active, alert man, from the + introspective and pallid dreamer of Baker Street. I felt, as I + looked upon that supple figure, alive with nervous energy, that + it was indeed a strenuous day that awaited us. + + And yet it opened in the blackest disappointment. With high hopes + we struck across the peaty, russet moor, intersected with a + thousand sheep paths, until we came to the broad, light-green + belt which marked the morass between us and Holdernesse. + Certainly, if the lad had gone homeward, he must have passed + this, and he could not pass it without leaving his traces. But no + sign of him or the German could be seen. With a darkening face my + friend strode along the margin, eagerly observant of every muddy + stain upon the mossy surface. Sheep-marks there were in + profusion, and at one place, some miles down, cows had left their + tracks. Nothing more. + + “Check number one,” said Holmes, looking gloomily over the + rolling expanse of the moor. “There is another morass down + yonder, and a narrow neck between. Halloa! halloa! halloa! what + have we here?” + + We had come on a small black ribbon of pathway. In the middle of + it, clearly marked on the sodden soil, was the track of a + bicycle. + + “Hurrah!” I cried. “We have it.” + + But Holmes was shaking his head, and his face was puzzled and + expectant rather than joyous. + + “A bicycle, certainly, but not _the_ bicycle,” said he. “I am + familiar with forty-two different impressions left by tires. + This, as you perceive, is a Dunlop, with a patch upon the outer + cover. Heidegger’s tires were Palmer’s, leaving longitudinal + stripes. Aveling, the mathematical master, was sure upon the + point. Therefore, it is not Heidegger’s track.” + + “The boy’s, then?” + + “Possibly, if we could prove a bicycle to have been in his + possession. But this we have utterly failed to do. This track, as + you perceive, was made by a rider who was going from the + direction of the school.” + + “Or towards it?” + + “No, no, my dear Watson. The more deeply sunk impression is, of + course, the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. You perceive + several places where it has passed across and obliterated the + more shallow mark of the front one. It was undoubtedly heading + away from the school. It may or may not be connected with our + inquiry, but we will follow it backwards before we go any + farther.” + + We did so, and at the end of a few hundred yards lost the tracks + as we emerged from the boggy portion of the moor. Following the + path backwards, we picked out another spot, where a spring + trickled across it. Here, once again, was the mark of the + bicycle, though nearly obliterated by the hoofs of cows. After + that there was no sign, but the path ran right on into Ragged + Shaw, the wood which backed on to the school. From this wood the + cycle must have emerged. Holmes sat down on a boulder and rested + his chin in his hands. I had smoked two cigarettes before he + moved. + + “Well, well,” said he, at last. “It is, of course, possible that + a cunning man might change the tires of his bicycle in order to + leave unfamiliar tracks. A criminal who was capable of such a + thought is a man whom I should be proud to do business with. We + will leave this question undecided and hark back to our morass + again, for we have left a good deal unexplored.” + + We continued our systematic survey of the edge of the sodden + portion of the moor, and soon our perseverance was gloriously + rewarded. Right across the lower part of the bog lay a miry path. + Holmes gave a cry of delight as he approached it. An impression + like a fine bundle of telegraph wires ran down the centre of it. + It was the Palmer tires. + + “Here is Herr Heidegger, sure enough!” cried Holmes, exultantly. + “My reasoning seems to have been pretty sound, Watson.” + + “I congratulate you.” + + “But we have a long way still to go. Kindly walk clear of the + path. Now let us follow the trail. I fear that it will not lead + very far.” + + We found, however, as we advanced that this portion of the moor + is intersected with soft patches, and, though we frequently lost + sight of the track, we always succeeded in picking it up once + more. + + “Do you observe,” said Holmes, “that the rider is now undoubtedly + forcing the pace? There can be no doubt of it. Look at this + impression, where you get both tires clear. The one is as deep as + the other. That can only mean that the rider is throwing his + weight on to the handle-bar, as a man does when he is sprinting. + By Jove! he has had a fall.” + + There was a broad, irregular smudge covering some yards of the + track. Then there were a few footmarks, and the tire reappeared + once more. + + “A side-slip,” I suggested. + + Holmes held up a crumpled branch of flowering gorse. To my horror + I perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with + crimson. On the path, too, and among the heather were dark stains + of clotted blood. + + “Bad!” said Holmes. “Bad! Stand clear, Watson! Not an unnecessary + footstep! What do I read here? He fell wounded—he stood up—he + remounted—he proceeded. But there is no other track. Cattle on + this side path. He was surely not gored by a bull? Impossible! + But I see no traces of anyone else. We must push on, Watson. + Surely, with stains as well as the track to guide us, he cannot + escape us now.” + + Our search was not a very long one. The tracks of the tire began + to curve fantastically upon the wet and shining path. Suddenly, + as I looked ahead, the gleam of metal caught my eye from amid the + thick gorse-bushes. Out of them we dragged a bicycle, + Palmer-tired, one pedal bent, and the whole front of it horribly + smeared and slobbered with blood. On the other side of the bushes + a shoe was projecting. We ran round, and there lay the + unfortunate rider. He was a tall man, full-bearded, with + spectacles, one glass of which had been knocked out. The cause of + his death was a frightful blow upon the head, which had crushed + in part of his skull. That he could have gone on after receiving + such an injury said much for the vitality and courage of the man. + He wore shoes, but no socks, and his open coat disclosed a + nightshirt beneath it. It was undoubtedly the German master. + + Holmes turned the body over reverently, and examined it with + great attention. He then sat in deep thought for a time, and I + could see by his ruffled brow that this grim discovery had not, + in his opinion, advanced us much in our inquiry. + + “It is a little difficult to know what to do, Watson,” said he, + at last. “My own inclinations are to push this inquiry on, for we + have already lost so much time that we cannot afford to waste + another hour. On the other hand, we are bound to inform the + police of the discovery, and to see that this poor fellow’s body + is looked after.” + + “I could take a note back.” + + “But I need your company and assistance. Wait a bit! There is a + fellow cutting peat up yonder. Bring him over here, and he will + guide the police.” + + I brought the peasant across, and Holmes dispatched the + frightened man with a note to Dr. Huxtable. + + “Now, Watson,” said he, “we have picked up two clues this + morning. One is the bicycle with the Palmer tire, and we see what + that has led to. The other is the bicycle with the patched + Dunlop. Before we start to investigate that, let us try to + realize what we _do_ know, so as to make the most of it, and to + separate the essential from the accidental.” + + “First of all, I wish to impress upon you that the boy certainly + left of his own free-will. He got down from his window and he + went off, either alone or with someone. That is sure.” + + I assented. + + “Well, now, let us turn to this unfortunate German master. The + boy was fully dressed when he fled. Therefore, he foresaw what he + would do. But the German went without his socks. He certainly + acted on very short notice.” + + “Undoubtedly.” + + “Why did he go? Because, from his bedroom window, he saw the + flight of the boy, because he wished to overtake him and bring + him back. He seized his bicycle, pursued the lad, and in pursuing + him met his death.” + + “So it would seem.” + + “Now I come to the critical part of my argument. The natural + action of a man in pursuing a little boy would be to run after + him. He would know that he could overtake him. But the German + does not do so. He turns to his bicycle. I am told that he was an + excellent cyclist. He would not do this, if he did not see that + the boy had some swift means of escape.” + + “The other bicycle.” + + “Let us continue our reconstruction. He meets his death five + miles from the school—not by a bullet, mark you, which even a lad + might conceivably discharge, but by a savage blow dealt by a + vigorous arm. The lad, then, _had_ a companion in his flight. And + the flight was a swift one, since it took five miles before an + expert cyclist could overtake them. Yet we survey the ground + round the scene of the tragedy. What do we find? A few + cattle-tracks, nothing more. I took a wide sweep round, and there + is no path within fifty yards. Another cyclist could have had + nothing to do with the actual murder, nor were there any human + foot-marks.” + + “Holmes,” I cried, “this is impossible.” + + “Admirable!” he said. “A most illuminating remark. It _is_ + impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect + have stated it wrong. Yet you saw for yourself. Can you suggest + any fallacy?” + + “He could not have fractured his skull in a fall?” + + “In a morass, Watson?” + + “I am at my wits’ end.” + + “Tut, tut, we have solved some worse problems. At least we have + plenty of material, if we can only use it. Come, then, and, + having exhausted the Palmer, let us see what the Dunlop with the + patched cover has to offer us.” + + We picked up the track and followed it onward for some distance, + but soon the moor rose into a long, heather-tufted curve, and we + left the watercourse behind us. No further help from tracks could + be hoped for. At the spot where we saw the last of the Dunlop + tire it might equally have led to Holdernesse Hall, the stately + towers of which rose some miles to our left, or to a low, grey + village which lay in front of us and marked the position of the + Chesterfield high road. + + As we approached the forbidding and squalid inn, with the sign of + a game-cock above the door, Holmes gave a sudden groan, and + clutched me by the shoulder to save himself from falling. He had + had one of those violent strains of the ankle which leave a man + helpless. With difficulty he limped up to the door, where a + squat, dark, elderly man was smoking a black clay pipe. + + “How are you, Mr. Reuben Hayes?” said Holmes. + + “Who are you, and how do you get my name so pat?” the countryman + answered, with a suspicious flash of a pair of cunning eyes. + + “Well, it’s printed on the board above your head. It’s easy to + see a man who is master of his own house. I suppose you haven’t + such a thing as a carriage in your stables?” + + “No, I have not.” + + “I can hardly put my foot to the ground.” + + “Don’t put it to the ground.” + + “But I can’t walk.” + + “Well, then hop.” + + Mr. Reuben Hayes’s manner was far from gracious, but Holmes took + it with admirable good-humour. + + “Look here, my man,” said he. “This is really rather an awkward + fix for me. I don’t mind how I get on.” + + “Neither do I,” said the morose landlord. + + “The matter is very important. I would offer you a sovereign for + the use of a bicycle.” + + The landlord pricked up his ears. + + “Where do you want to go?” + + “To Holdernesse Hall.” + + “Pals of the Dook, I suppose?” said the landlord, surveying our + mud-stained garments with ironical eyes. + + Holmes laughed good-naturedly. + + “He’ll be glad to see us, anyhow.” + + “Why?” + + “Because we bring him news of his lost son.” + + The landlord gave a very visible start. + + “What, you’re on his track?” + + “He has been heard of in Liverpool. They expect to get him every + hour.” + + Again a swift change passed over the heavy, unshaven face. His + manner was suddenly genial. + + “I’ve less reason to wish the Dook well than most men,” said he, + “for I was head coachman once, and cruel bad he treated me. It + was him that sacked me without a character on the word of a lying + corn-chandler. But I’m glad to hear that the young lord was heard + of in Liverpool, and I’ll help you to take the news to the Hall.” + + “Thank you,” said Holmes. “We’ll have some food first. Then you + can bring round the bicycle.” + + “I haven’t got a bicycle.” + + Holmes held up a sovereign. + + “I tell you, man, that I haven’t got one. I’ll let you have two + horses as far as the Hall.” + + “Well, well,” said Holmes, “we’ll talk about it when we’ve had + something to eat.” + + When we were left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen, it was + astonishing how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. It was + nearly nightfall, and we had eaten nothing since early morning, + so that we spent some time over our meal. Holmes was lost in + thought, and once or twice he walked over to the window and + stared earnestly out. It opened on to a squalid courtyard. In the + far corner was a smithy, where a grimy lad was at work. On the + other side were the stables. Holmes had sat down again after one + of these excursions, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair + with a loud exclamation. + + “By heaven, Watson, I believe that I’ve got it!” he cried. “Yes, + yes, it must be so. Watson, do you remember seeing any cow-tracks + to-day?” + + “Yes, several.” + + “Where?” + + “Well, everywhere. They were at the morass, and again on the + path, and again near where poor Heidegger met his death.” + + “Exactly. Well, now, Watson, how many cows did you see on the + moor?” + + “I don’t remember seeing any.” + + “Strange, Watson, that we should see tracks all along our line, + but never a cow on the whole moor. Very strange, Watson, eh?” + + “Yes, it is strange.” + + “Now, Watson, make an effort, throw your mind back. Can you see + those tracks upon the path?” + + “Yes, I can.” + + “Can you recall that the tracks were sometimes like that, + Watson,”—he arranged a number of breadcrumbs in this fashion—: : + : : :—“and sometimes like this”—: . : . : . : .—“and occasionally + like this”—.・.・.・. “Can you remember that?” + + “No, I cannot.” + + “But I can. I could swear to it. However, we will go back at our + leisure and verify it. What a blind beetle I have been, not to + draw my conclusion.” + + “And what is your conclusion?” + + “Only that it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and + gallops. By George! Watson, it was no brain of a country publican + that thought out such a blind as that. The coast seems to be + clear, save for that lad in the smithy. Let us slip out and see + what we can see.” + + There were two rough-haired, unkempt horses in the tumble-down + stable. Holmes raised the hind leg of one of them and laughed + aloud. + + “Old shoes, but newly shod—old shoes, but new nails. This case + deserves to be a classic. Let us go across to the smithy.” + + The lad continued his work without regarding us. I saw Holmes’s + eye darting to right and left among the litter of iron and wood + which was scattered about the floor. Suddenly, however, we heard + a step behind us, and there was the landlord, his heavy eyebrows + drawn over his savage eyes, his swarthy features convulsed with + passion. He held a short, metal-headed stick in his hand, and he + advanced in so menacing a fashion that I was right glad to feel + the revolver in my pocket. + + “You infernal spies!” the man cried. “What are you doing there?” + + “Why, Mr. Reuben Hayes,” said Holmes, coolly, “one might think + that you were afraid of our finding something out.” + + The man mastered himself with a violent effort, and his grim + mouth loosened into a false laugh, which was more menacing than + his frown. + + “You’re welcome to all you can find out in my smithy,” said he. + “But look here, mister, I don’t care for folk poking about my + place without my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get + out of this the better I shall be pleased.” + + “All right, Mr. Hayes, no harm meant,” said Holmes. “We have been + having a look at your horses, but I think I’ll walk, after all. + It’s not far, I believe.” + + “Not more than two miles to the Hall gates. That’s the road to + the left.” He watched us with sullen eyes until we had left his + premises. + + We did not go very far along the road, for Holmes stopped the + instant that the curve hid us from the landlord’s view. + + “We were warm, as the children say, at that inn,” said he. “I + seem to grow colder every step that I take away from it. No, no, + I can’t possibly leave it.” + + “I am convinced,” said I, “that this Reuben Hayes knows all about + it. A more self-evident villain I never saw.” + + “Oh! he impressed you in that way, did he? There are the horses, + there is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this + Fighting Cock. I think we shall have another look at it in an + unobtrusive way.” + + A long, sloping hillside, dotted with grey limestone boulders, + stretched behind us. We had turned off the road, and were making + our way up the hill, when, looking in the direction of + Holdernesse Hall, I saw a cyclist coming swiftly along. + + “Get down, Watson!” cried Holmes, with a heavy hand upon my + shoulder. We had hardly sunk from view when the man flew past us + on the road. Amid a rolling cloud of dust, I caught a glimpse of + a pale, agitated face—a face with horror in every lineament, the + mouth open, the eyes staring wildly in front. It was like some + strange caricature of the dapper James Wilder whom we had seen + the night before. + + “The Duke’s secretary!” cried Holmes. “Come, Watson, let us see + what he does.” + + We scrambled from rock to rock, until in a few moments we had + made our way to a point from which we could see the front door of + the inn. Wilder’s bicycle was leaning against the wall beside it. + No one was moving about the house, nor could we catch a glimpse + of any faces at the windows. Slowly the twilight crept down as + the sun sank behind the high towers of Holdernesse Hall. Then, in + the gloom, we saw the two side-lamps of a trap light up in the + stable-yard of the inn, and shortly afterwards heard the rattle + of hoofs, as it wheeled out into the road and tore off at a + furious pace in the direction of Chesterfield. + + “What do you make of that, Watson?” Holmes whispered. + + “It looks like a flight.” + + “A single man in a dog-cart, so far as I could see. Well, it + certainly was not Mr. James Wilder, for there he is at the door.” + + A red square of light had sprung out of the darkness. In the + middle of it was the black figure of the secretary, his head + advanced, peering out into the night. It was evident that he was + expecting someone. Then at last there were steps in the road, a + second figure was visible for an instant against the light, the + door shut, and all was black once more. Five minutes later a lamp + was lit in a room upon the first floor. + + “It seems to be a curious class of custom that is done by the + Fighting Cock,” said Holmes. + + “The bar is on the other side.” + + “Quite so. These are what one may call the private guests. Now, + what in the world is Mr. James Wilder doing in that den at this + hour of night, and who is the companion who comes to meet him + there? Come, Watson, we must really take a risk and try to + investigate this a little more closely.” + + Together we stole down to the road and crept across to the door + of the inn. The bicycle still leaned against the wall. Holmes + struck a match and held it to the back wheel, and I heard him + chuckle as the light fell upon a patched Dunlop tire. Up above us + was the lighted window. + + “I must have a peep through that, Watson. If you bend your back + and support yourself upon the wall, I think that I can manage.” + + An instant later, his feet were on my shoulders, but he was + hardly up before he was down again. + + “Come, my friend,” said he, “our day’s work has been quite long + enough. I think that we have gathered all that we can. It’s a + long walk to the school, and the sooner we get started the + better.” + + He hardly opened his lips during that weary trudge across the + moor, nor would he enter the school when he reached it, but went + on to Mackleton Station, whence he could send some telegrams. + Late at night I heard him consoling Dr. Huxtable, prostrated by + the tragedy of his master’s death, and later still he entered my + room as alert and vigorous as he had been when he started in the + morning. “All goes well, my friend,” said he. “I promise that + before to-morrow evening we shall have reached the solution of + the mystery.” + + At eleven o’clock next morning my friend and I were walking up + the famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered + through the magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace’s + study. There we found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but + with some trace of that wild terror of the night before still + lurking in his furtive eyes and in his twitching features. + + “You have come to see his Grace? I am sorry, but the fact is that + the Duke is far from well. He has been very much upset by the + tragic news. We received a telegram from Dr. Huxtable yesterday + afternoon, which told us of your discovery.” + + “I must see the Duke, Mr. Wilder.” + + “But he is in his room.” + + “Then I must go to his room.” + + “I believe he is in his bed.” + + “I will see him there.” + + Holmes’s cold and inexorable manner showed the secretary that it + was useless to argue with him. + + “Very good, Mr. Holmes, I will tell him that you are here.” + + After an hour’s delay, the great nobleman appeared. His face was + more cadaverous than ever, his shoulders had rounded, and he + seemed to me to be an altogether older man than he had been the + morning before. He greeted us with a stately courtesy and seated + himself at his desk, his red beard streaming down on the table. + + “Well, Mr. Holmes?” said he. + + But my friend’s eyes were fixed upon the secretary, who stood by + his master’s chair. + + “I think, your Grace, that I could speak more freely in Mr. + Wilder’s absence.” + + The man turned a shade paler and cast a malignant glance at + Holmes. + + “If your Grace wishes——” + + “Yes, yes, you had better go. Now, Mr. Holmes, what have you to + say?” + + My friend waited until the door had closed behind the retreating + secretary. + + “The fact is, your Grace,” said he, “that my colleague, Dr. + Watson, and myself had an assurance from Dr. Huxtable that a + reward had been offered in this case. I should like to have this + confirmed from your own lips.” + + “Certainly, Mr. Holmes.” + + “It amounted, if I am correctly informed, to five thousand pounds + to anyone who will tell you where your son is?” + + “Exactly.” + + “And another thousand to the man who will name the person or + persons who keep him in custody?” + + “Exactly.” + + “Under the latter heading is included, no doubt, not only those + who may have taken him away, but also those who conspire to keep + him in his present position?” + + “Yes, yes,” cried the Duke, impatiently. “If you do your work + well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of + niggardly treatment.” + + My friend rubbed his thin hands together with an appearance of + avidity which was a surprise to me, who knew his frugal tastes. + + “I fancy that I see your Grace’s check-book upon the table,” said + he. “I should be glad if you would make me out a check for six + thousand pounds. It would be as well, perhaps, for you to cross + it. The Capital and Counties Bank, Oxford Street branch are my + agents.” + + His Grace sat very stern and upright in his chair and looked + stonily at my friend. + + “Is this a joke, Mr. Holmes? It is hardly a subject for + pleasantry.” + + “Not at all, your Grace. I was never more earnest in my life.” + + “What do you mean, then?” + + “I mean that I have earned the reward. I know where your son is, + and I know some, at least, of those who are holding him.” + + The Duke’s beard had turned more aggressively red than ever + against his ghastly white face. + + “Where is he?” he gasped. + + “He is, or was last night, at the Fighting Cock Inn, about two + miles from your park gate.” + + The Duke fell back in his chair. + + “And whom do you accuse?” + + Sherlock Holmes’s answer was an astounding one. He stepped + swiftly forward and touched the Duke upon the shoulder. + + “I accuse _you_,” said he. “And now, your Grace, I’ll trouble you + for that check.” + + Never shall I forget the Duke’s appearance as he sprang up and + clawed with his hands, like one who is sinking into an abyss. + Then, with an extraordinary effort of aristocratic self-command, + he sat down and sank his face in his hands. It was some minutes + before he spoke. + + “How much do you know?” he asked at last, without raising his + head. + + “I saw you together last night.” + + “Does anyone else beside your friend know?” + + “I have spoken to no one.” + + The Duke took a pen in his quivering fingers and opened his + check-book. + + “I shall be as good as my word, Mr. Holmes. I am about to write + your check, however unwelcome the information which you have + gained may be to me. When the offer was first made, I little + thought the turn which events might take. But you and your friend + are men of discretion, Mr. Holmes?” + + “I hardly understand your Grace.” + + “I must put it plainly, Mr. Holmes. If only you two know of this + incident, there is no reason why it should go any farther. I + think twelve thousand pounds is the sum that I owe you, is it + not?” + + But Holmes smiled and shook his head. + + “I fear, your Grace, that matters can hardly be arranged so + easily. There is the death of this schoolmaster to be accounted + for.” + + “But James knew nothing of that. You cannot hold him responsible + for that. It was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the + misfortune to employ.” + + “I must take the view, your Grace, that when a man embarks upon a + crime, he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring + from it.” + + “Morally, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. But surely not in + the eyes of the law. A man cannot be condemned for a murder at + which he was not present, and which he loathes and abhors as much + as you do. The instant that he heard of it he made a complete + confession to me, so filled was he with horror and remorse. He + lost not an hour in breaking entirely with the murderer. Oh, Mr. + Holmes, you must save him—you must save him! I tell you that you + must save him!” The Duke had dropped the last attempt at + self-command, and was pacing the room with a convulsed face and + with his clenched hands raving in the air. At last he mastered + himself and sat down once more at his desk. “I appreciate your + conduct in coming here before you spoke to anyone else,” said he. + “At least, we may take counsel how far we can minimize this + hideous scandal.” + + “Exactly,” said Holmes. “I think, your Grace, that this can only + be done by absolute frankness between us. I am disposed to help + your Grace to the best of my ability, but, in order to do so, I + must understand to the last detail how the matter stands. I + realize that your words applied to Mr. James Wilder, and that he + is not the murderer.” + + “No, the murderer has escaped.” + + Sherlock Holmes smiled demurely. + + “Your Grace can hardly have heard of any small reputation which I + possess, or you would not imagine that it is so easy to escape + me. Mr. Reuben Hayes was arrested at Chesterfield, on my + information, at eleven o’clock last night. I had a telegram from + the head of the local police before I left the school this + morning.” + + The Duke leaned back in his chair and stared with amazement at my + friend. + + “You seem to have powers that are hardly human,” said he. “So + Reuben Hayes is taken? I am right glad to hear it, if it will not + react upon the fate of James.” + + “Your secretary?” + + “No, sir, my son.” + + It was Holmes’s turn to look astonished. + + “I confess that this is entirely new to me, your Grace. I must + beg you to be more explicit.” + + “I will conceal nothing from you. I agree with you that complete + frankness, however painful it may be to me, is the best policy in + this desperate situation to which James’s folly and jealousy have + reduced us. When I was a very young man, Mr. Holmes, I loved with + such a love as comes only once in a lifetime. I offered the lady + marriage, but she refused it on the grounds that such a match + might mar my career. Had she lived, I would certainly never have + married anyone else. She died, and left this one child, whom for + her sake I have cherished and cared for. I could not acknowledge + the paternity to the world, but I gave him the best of + educations, and since he came to manhood I have kept him near my + person. He surmised my secret, and has presumed ever since upon + the claim which he has upon me, and upon his power of provoking a + scandal which would be abhorrent to me. His presence had + something to do with the unhappy issue of my marriage. Above all, + he hated my young legitimate heir from the first with a + persistent hatred. You may well ask me why, under these + circumstances, I still kept James under my roof. I answer that it + was because I could see his mother’s face in his, and that for + her dear sake there was no end to my long-suffering. All her + pretty ways too—there was not one of them which he could not + suggest and bring back to my memory. I _could_ not send him away. + But I feared so much lest he should do Arthur—that is, Lord + Saltire—a mischief, that I dispatched him for safety to Dr. + Huxtable’s school. + + “James came into contact with this fellow Hayes, because the man + was a tenant of mine, and James acted as agent. The fellow was a + rascal from the beginning, but, in some extraordinary way, James + became intimate with him. He had always a taste for low company. + When James determined to kidnap Lord Saltire, it was of this + man’s service that he availed himself. You remember that I wrote + to Arthur upon that last day. Well, James opened the letter and + inserted a note asking Arthur to meet him in a little wood called + the Ragged Shaw, which is near to the school. He used the + Duchess’s name, and in that way got the boy to come. That evening + James bicycled over—I am telling you what he has himself + confessed to me—and he told Arthur, whom he met in the wood, that + his mother longed to see him, that she was awaiting him on the + moor, and that if he would come back into the wood at midnight he + would find a man with a horse, who would take him to her. Poor + Arthur fell into the trap. He came to the appointment, and found + this fellow Hayes with a led pony. Arthur mounted, and they set + off together. It appears—though this James only heard + yesterday—that they were pursued, that Hayes struck the pursuer + with his stick, and that the man died of his injuries. Hayes + brought Arthur to his public-house, the Fighting Cock, where he + was confined in an upper room, under the care of Mrs. Hayes, who + is a kindly woman, but entirely under the control of her brutal + husband. + + “Well, Mr. Holmes, that was the state of affairs when I first saw + you two days ago. I had no more idea of the truth than you. You + will ask me what was James’s motive in doing such a deed. I + answer that there was a great deal which was unreasoning and + fanatical in the hatred which he bore my heir. In his view he + should himself have been heir of all my estates, and he deeply + resented those social laws which made it impossible. At the same + time, he had a definite motive also. He was eager that I should + break the entail, and he was of opinion that it lay in my power + to do so. He intended to make a bargain with me—to restore Arthur + if I would break the entail, and so make it possible for the + estate to be left to him by will. He knew well that I should + never willingly invoke the aid of the police against him. I say + that he would have proposed such a bargain to me, but he did not + actually do so, for events moved too quickly for him, and he had + not time to put his plans into practice. + + “What brought all his wicked scheme to wreck was your discovery + of this man Heidegger’s dead body. James was seized with horror + at the news. It came to us yesterday, as we sat together in this + study. Dr. Huxtable had sent a telegram. James was so overwhelmed + with grief and agitation that my suspicions, which had never been + entirely absent, rose instantly to a certainty, and I taxed him + with the deed. He made a complete voluntary confession. Then he + implored me to keep his secret for three days longer, so as to + give his wretched accomplice a chance of saving his guilty life. + I yielded—as I have always yielded—to his prayers, and instantly + James hurried off to the Fighting Cock to warn Hayes and give him + the means of flight. I could not go there by daylight without + provoking comment, but as soon as night fell I hurried off to see + my dear Arthur. I found him safe and well, but horrified beyond + expression by the dreadful deed he had witnessed. In deference to + my promise, and much against my will, I consented to leave him + there for three days, under the charge of Mrs. Hayes, since it + was evident that it was impossible to inform the police where he + was without telling them also who was the murderer, and I could + not see how that murderer could be punished without ruin to my + unfortunate James. You asked for frankness, Mr. Holmes, and I + have taken you at your word, for I have now told you everything + without an attempt at circumlocution or concealment. Do you in + turn be as frank with me.” + + “I will,” said Holmes. “In the first place, your Grace, I am + bound to tell you that you have placed yourself in a most serious + position in the eyes of the law. You have condoned a felony, and + you have aided the escape of a murderer, for I cannot doubt that + any money which was taken by James Wilder to aid his accomplice + in his flight came from your Grace’s purse.” + + The Duke bowed his assent. + + “This is, indeed, a most serious matter. Even more culpable in my + opinion, your Grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. + You leave him in this den for three days.” + + “Under solemn promises——” + + “What are promises to such people as these? You have no guarantee + that he will not be spirited away again. To humour your guilty + elder son, you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent + and unnecessary danger. It was a most unjustifiable action.” + + The proud lord of Holdernesse was not accustomed to be so rated + in his own ducal hall. The blood flushed into his high forehead, + but his conscience held him dumb. + + “I will help you, but on one condition only. It is that you ring + for the footman and let me give such orders as I like.” + + Without a word, the Duke pressed the electric bell. A servant + entered. + + “You will be glad to hear,” said Holmes, “that your young master + is found. It is the Duke’s desire that the carriage shall go at + once to the Fighting Cock Inn to bring Lord Saltire home. + + “Now,” said Holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared, + “having secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with + the past. I am not in an official position, and there is no + reason, so long as the ends of justice are served, why I should + disclose all that I know. As to Hayes, I say nothing. The gallows + awaits him, and I would do nothing to save him from it. What he + will divulge I cannot tell, but I have no doubt that your Grace + could make him understand that it is to his interest to be + silent. From the police point of view he will have kidnapped the + boy for the purpose of ransom. If they do not themselves find it + out, I see no reason why I should prompt them to take a broader + point of view. I would warn your Grace, however, that the + continued presence of Mr. James Wilder in your household can only + lead to misfortune.” + + “I understand that, Mr. Holmes, and it is already settled that he + shall leave me forever, and go to seek his fortune in Australia.” + + “In that case, your Grace, since you have yourself stated that + any unhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence, I + would suggest that you make such amends as you can to the + Duchess, and that you try to resume those relations which have + been so unhappily interrupted.” + + “That also I have arranged, Mr. Holmes. I wrote to the Duchess + this morning.” + + “In that case,” said Holmes, rising, “I think that my friend and + I can congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from + our little visit to the North. There is one other small point + upon which I desire some light. This fellow Hayes had shod his + horses with shoes which counterfeited the tracks of cows. Was it + from Mr. Wilder that he learned so extraordinary a device?” + + The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense + surprise on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into a + large room furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass case + in a corner, and pointed to the inscription. + + “These shoes,” it ran, “were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse + Hall. They are for the use of horses, but they are shaped below + with a cloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the + track. They are supposed to have belonged to some of the + marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the Middle Ages.” + + Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it + along the shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin. + + “Thank you,” said he, as he replaced the glass. “It is the second + most interesting object that I have seen in the North.” + + “And the first?” + + Holmes folded up his check and placed it carefully in his + notebook. “I am a poor man,” said he, as he patted it + affectionately, and thrust it into the depths of his inner + pocket. + + + + + +",The Adventure of the Priory School,Arthur Conan Doyle,20,['James Wilder'] +"[Cover Illustration] +──────────────────────────────── +POPULAR NOVELS +BY +EDGAR WALLACE +PUBLISHED BY +WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED +_In various editions_ +——— +SANDERS OF THE RIVER +BONES +BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER +BONES IN LONDON +THE KEEPERS OF THE KING’S PEACE +THE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE +THE DUKE IN THE SUBURBS +THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER +DOWN UNDER DONOVAN +PRIVATE SELBY +THE ADMIRABLE CARFEW +THE MAN WHO BOUGHT LONDON +THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA +THE SECRET HOUSE +KATE, PLUS TEN +LIEUTENANT BONES +THE GREEN RUST +THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE +JACK O’ JUDGMENT +THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY +THE NINE BEARS +THE BOOK OF ALL POWER +MR. JUSTICE MAXELL +THE BOOKS OF BART +THE DARK EYES OF LONDON +CHICK +SANDI THE KING-MAKER +THOSE FOLK OF BULBORO’ +THE THREE OAK MYSTERY +THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG +BLUE HAND +──────────────────────────────── +THE FELLOWSHIP +OF THE FROG +BY +EDGAR WALLACE +WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED +LONDON AND MELBOURNE +1926 +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London +CONTENTS +CHAP. PAGE +FOREWORD: THE FROGS- - - - - - - - - - - 7 +I AT MAYTREE COTTAGE- - - - - - - - - - - 11 +II A TALK ABOUT FROGS- - - - - - - - - - - 17 +III THE FROG- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20 +IV ELK- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 25 +V MR. MAITLAND GOES HOME- - - - - - - - - 31 +VI MR. MAITLAND GOES SHOPPING- - - - - - - 41 +VII A CALL ON MR. MAITLAND- - - - - - - - - 49 +VIII THE OFFENSIVE RAY- - - - - - - - - - - - 58 +IX THE MAN WHO WAS WRECKED- - - - - - - - - 67 +X ON HARLEY TERRACE- - - - - - - - - - - - 72 +XI MR. BROAD EXPLAINS- - - - - - - - - - - 79 +XII THE EMBELLISHMENT OF MR. MAITLAND- - - - 83 +XIII A RAID ON ELDOR STREET- - - - - - - - - 91 +XIV “ALL BULLS HEAR!”- - - - - - - - - - - - 99 +XV THE MORNING AFTER- - - - - - - - - - - - 103 +XVI RAY LEARNS THE TRUTH- - - - - - - - - - 107 +XVII THE COMING OF MILLS- - - - - - - - - - - 114 +XVIII THE BROADCAST- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 118 +XIX IN ELSHAM WOOD- - - - - - - - - - - - - 127 +XX HAGN- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 133 +XXI MR. JOHNSON’S VISITOR- - - - - - - - - - 143 +XXII THE INQUIRY- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 148 +XXIII A MEETING- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 154 +XXIV WHY MAITLAND CAME- - - - - - - - - - - - 158 +XXV IN REGARD TO SAUL MORRIS- - - - - - - - 166 +XXVI PROMOTION FOR BALDER- - - - - - - - - - 172 +XXVII MR. BROAD IS INTERESTING- - - - - - - - 184 +XXVIII MURDER- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 190 +XXIX THE FOOTMAN- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 196 +XXX THE TRAMPS- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 204 +XXXI THE CHEMICAL CORPORATION- - - - - - - - 215 +XXXII IN GLOUCESTER PRISON- - - - - - - - - - 220 +XXXIII THE FROG OF THE NIGHT- - - - - - - - - - 223 +XXXIV THE PHOTO-PLAY- - - - - - - - - - - - - 233 +XXXV GETTING THROUGH- - - - - - - - - - - - - 242 +XXXVI THE POWER CABLE- - - - - - - - - - - - - 247 +XXXVII THE GET-AWAY- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 254 +XXXVIII THE MYSTERY MAN- - - - - - - - - - - - - 258 +XXXIX THE AWAKENING- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 261 +XL FROG- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 266 +XLI IN QUARRY HOUSE- - - - - - - - - - - - - 273 +XLII JOSHUA BROAD EXPLAINS- - - - - - - - - - 279 +FOREWORD +THE FROGS +IT was of interest to those who study the psychology of the mass that, +until the prosperous but otherwise insignificant James G. Bliss became +the object of their attention, the doings and growth of the Frogs were +almost unnoticed. There were strong references in some of the country +newspapers to the lawless character of the association; one Sunday +journal had an amusing article headed +“TRAMPS’ TRADE UNION TAKES FROG FOR +SYMBOL OF MYSTIC ORDER” +and gave a humorous and quite fanciful extract from its rules and +ritual. The average man made casual references: +“I say, have you seen this story about the tramps’ Union—every member a +walking delegate? . . .” +There was a more serious leading article on the growth of trade +unionism, in which the Frogs were cited, and although from time to time +came accounts of mysterious outrages which had been put to the discredit +of the Frogs, the generality of citizens regarded the society, order, or +whatever it was, as something benevolent in its intentions and +necessarily eccentric in its constitution, and, believing this, were in +their turn benevolently tolerant. +In some such manner as the mass may learn with mild interest of a +distant outbreak of epidemic disease, which slays its few, and wake one +morning to find the sinister malady tapping at their front doors, so did +the world become alive and alarmed at the terror-growth which suddenly +loomed from the mists. +James G. Bliss was a hardware merchant, and a man well known on +exchange, where he augmented the steady profits of the Bliss General +Hardware Corporation with occasional windfalls from legitimate +speculation. A somewhat pompous and, in argument, aggressive person, he +had the advantage which mediocrity, blended with a certain expansive +generosity, gives to a man, in that he had no enemies; and since his +generosity was run on sane business principles, it could not even be +said of him, as is so often said of others, that his worst enemy was +himself. He held, and still holds, the bulk of the stock in the B.G.H. +Corporation—a fact which should be noted because it was a practice of +Mr. Bliss to manipulate from time to time the price of his shares by +judicious operations. +It was at a time coincident with the little boom in industrials which +brought Bliss Hardware stock at a jump from 12.50 to 23.75, that the +strange happening occurred which focussed for the moment all eyes upon +the Frogs. +Mr. Bliss has a country place at Long Beach, Hampshire. It is referred +to as “The Hut,” but is the sort of hut that King Solomon might have +built for the Queen of Sheba, had that adventurous man been sufficiently +well acquainted with modern plumbing, the newest systems of heating and +lighting, and the exigent requirements of up-to-date chauffeurs. In +these respects Mr. Bliss was wiser than Solomon. +He had returned to his country home after a strenuous day in the City, +and was walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. He was (and +is) married, but his wife and two daughters were spending the spring in +Paris—a wise course, since the spring is the only season when Paris has +the slightest pretensions to being a beautiful city. +He had come from his kennels, and was seen walking across the home park +toward a covert which bordered his property. Hearing a scream, his +kennel man and a groom ran toward the wood, to discover Bliss lying on +the ground unconscious, his face and shoulders covered with blood. He +had been struck down by some heavy weapon; there were a slight fracture +of the parietal bone and several very ugly scalp wounds. +For three weeks this unfortunate man hovered between life and death, +unconscious except at intervals, and unable during his lucid moments to +throw any light on, or make any coherent statement concerning, the +assault, except to murmur, “Frog . . . frog . . . left arm . . . frog.” +It was the first of many similar outrages, seemingly purposeless and +wanton, in no case to be connected with robbery, and invariably (except +once) committed upon people who occupied fairly unimportant positions in +the social hierarchy. +The Frogs advanced instantly to a first-class topic. The disease was +found to be widespread, and men who had read, light-heartedly, of minor +victimizations, began to bolt their own doors and carry lethal weapons +when they went abroad at nights. +And they were wise, for there was a force in being that had been born in +fear and had matured in obscurity (to the wonder of its creator) so that +it wielded the tyrannical power of governments. +In the centre of many ramifications sat the Frog, drunk with authority, +merciless, terrible. One who lived two lives and took full pleasure from +both, and all the time nursing the terror that Saul Morris had inspired +one foggy night in London, when the grimy streets were filled with armed +policemen looking for the man who cleaned the strong-room of the S.S. +_Mantania_ of three million pounds between the port of Southampton and +the port of Cherbourg. +THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG +CHAPTER I +AT MAYTREE COTTAGE +A DRY radiator coincided with a burst tyre. The second coincidence was +the proximity of Maytree Cottage on the Horsham Road. The cottage was +larger than most, with a timbered front and a thatched roof. Standing at +the gate, Richard Gordon stopped to admire. The house dated back to the +days of Elizabeth, but his interest and admiration were not those of the +antiquary. +Nor, though he loved flowers, of the horticulturist, though the broad +garden was a patchwork of colour and the fragrance of cabbage roses came +to delight his senses. Nor was it the air of comfort and cleanliness +that pervaded the place, the scrubbed red-brick pathway that led to the +door, the spotless curtains behind leaded panes. +It was the girl, in the red-lined basket chair, that arrested his gaze. +She sat on a little lawn in the shade of a mulberry tree, with her +shapely young limbs stiffly extended, a book in her hand, a large box of +chocolates by her side. Her hair, the colour of old gold, an old gold +that held life and sheen; a flawless complexion, and, when she turned +her head in his direction, a pair of grave, questioning eyes, deeper +than grey, yet greyer than blue. . . . +She drew up her feet hurriedly and rose. +“I’m so sorry to disturb you,”—Dick, hat in hand, smiled his +apology—“but I want water for my poor little Lizzie. She’s developed a +prodigious thirst.” +She frowned for a second, and then laughed. +“Lizzie—you mean a car? If you’ll come to the back of the cottage I’ll +show you where the well is.” +He followed, wondering who she was. The tiny hint of patronage in her +tone he understood. It was the tone of matured girlhood addressing a boy +of her own age. Dick, who was thirty and looked eighteen, with his +smooth, boyish face, had been greeted in that “little boy” tone before, +and was inwardly amused. +“Here is the bucket and that is the well,” she pointed. “I would send a +maid to help you, only we haven’t a maid, and never had a maid, and I +don’t think ever shall have a maid!” +“Then some maid has missed a very good job,” said Dick, “for this garden +is delightful.” +She neither agreed nor dissented. Perhaps she regretted the familiarity +she had shown. She conveyed to him an impression of aloofness, as she +watched the process of filling the buckets, and when he carried them to +the car on the road outside, she followed. +“I thought it was a—a—what did you call it—Lizzie?” +“She is Lizzie to me,” said Dick stoutly as he filled the radiator of +the big Rolls, “and she will never be anything else. There are people +who think she should be called ‘Diana,’ but those high-flown names never +had any attraction for me. She is Liz—and will always be Liz.” +She walked round the machine, examining it curiously. +“Aren’t you afraid to be driving a big car like that?” she asked. “I +should be scared to death. It is so tremendous and . . . and +unmanageable.” +Dick paused with a bucket in hand. +“Fear,” he boasted, “is a word which I have expunged from the bright +lexicon of my youth.” +For a second puzzled, she began to laugh softly. +“Did you come by way of Welford?” she asked. +He nodded. +“I wonder if you saw my father on the road?” +“I saw nobody on the road except a sour-looking gentleman of middle age +who was breaking the Sabbath by carrying a large brown box on his back.” +“Where did you pass him?” she asked, interested. +“Two miles away—less than that.” And then, a doubt intruding: “I hope +that I wasn’t describing your parent?” +“It sounds rather like him,” she said without annoyance. “Daddy is a +naturalist photographer. He takes moving pictures of birds and +things—he is an amateur, of course.” +“Of course,” agreed Dick. +He brought the buckets back to where he had found them and lingered. +Searching for an excuse, he found it in the garden. How far he might +have exploited this subject is a matter for conjecture. Interruption +came in the shape of a young man who emerged from the front door of the +cottage. He was tall and athletic, good-looking. . . . Dick put his age +at twenty. +“Hello, Ella! Father back?” he began, and then saw the visitor. +“This is my brother,” said the girl, and Dick Gordon nodded. He was +conscious that this free-and-easy method of getting acquainted was due +largely, if not entirely, to his youthful appearance. To be treated as +an inconsiderable boy had its advantages. And so it appeared. +“I was telling him that boys ought not to be allowed to drive big cars,” +she said. “You remember the awful smash there was at the Shoreham +cross-roads?” +Ray Bennett chuckled. +“This is all part of a conspiracy to keep me from getting a +motor-bicycle. Father thinks I’ll kill somebody, and Ella thinks I’ll +kill myself.” +Perhaps there was something in Dick Gordon’s quick smile that warned the +girl that she had been premature in her appraisement of his age, for +suddenly, almost abruptly, she nodded an emphatic dismissal and turned +away. Dick was at the gate when a further respite arrived. It was the +man he had passed on the road. Tall, loose-framed, grey and gaunt of +face, he regarded the stranger with suspicion in his deep-set eyes. +“Good morning,” he said curtly. “Car broken down?” +“No, thank you. I ran out of water, and Miss—er——” +“Bennett,” said the man. “She gave you the water, eh? Well, good +morning.” +He stood aside to let Gordon pass, but Dick opened the gate and waited +till the owner of Maytree Cottage had entered. +“My name is Gordon,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ella +had turned back and stood with her brother within earshot. “I am greatly +obliged to you for your kindness.” +The old man, with a nod, went on carrying his heavy burden into the +house, and Dick in desperation turned to the girl. +“You are wrong when you think this is a difficult car to drive—won’t +you experiment? Or perhaps your brother?” +The girl hesitated, but not so young Bennett. +“I’d like to try,” he said eagerly. “I’ve never handled a big machine.” +That he could handle one if the opportunity came, he showed. They +watched the car gliding round the corner, the girl with a little frown +gathering between her eyes, Dick Gordon oblivious to everything except +that he had snatched a few minutes’ closer association with the girl. He +was behaving absurdly, he told himself. He, a public official, an +experienced lawyer, was carrying on like an irresponsible, love-smitten +youth of nineteen. The girl’s words emphasized his folly. +“I wish you hadn’t let Ray drive,” she said. “It doesn’t help a boy who +is always wanting something better, to put him in charge of a beautiful +car . . . perhaps you don’t understand me. Ray is very ambitious and +dreams in millions. A thing like this unsettles him.” +The older man came out at that moment, a black pipe between his teeth, +and, seeing the two at the gate, a cloud passed over his face. +“Let him drive your car, have you?” he said grimly. “I wish you +hadn’t—it was very kind of you, Mr. Gordon, but in Ray’s case a +mistaken kindness.” +“I’m very sorry,” said the penitent Dick. “Here he comes!” +The big car spun toward them and halted before the gate. +“She’s a beauty!” +Ray Bennett jumped out and looked at the machine with admiration and +regret. +“My word, if she were mine!” +“She isn’t,” snapped the old man, and then, as though regretting his +petulance: “Some day perhaps you’ll own a fleet, Ray—are you going to +London, Mr. Gordon?” +Dick nodded. +“Maybe you wouldn’t care to stop and eat a very frugal meal with us?” +asked the elder Bennett, to his surprise and joy. “And you’ll be able to +tell this foolish son of mine that owning a big car isn’t all +joy-riding.” +Dick’s first impression was of the girl’s astonishment. Apparently he +was unusually honoured, and this was confirmed after John Bennett had +left them. +“You’re the first boy that has ever been asked to dinner,” she said when +they were alone. “Isn’t he, Ray?” +Ray smiled. +“Dad doesn’t go in for the social life, and that’s a fact,” he said. “I +asked him to have Philo Johnson down for a week-end, and he killed the +idea before it was born. And the old philosopher is a good fellow and +the boss’s confidential secretary. You’ve heard of Maitlands +Consolidated, I suppose?” +Dick nodded. The marble palace on the Strand Embankment in which the +fabulously rich Mr. Maitland operated, was one of the show buildings of +London. +“I’m in his office—exchange clerk,” said the young man, “and Philo +could do a whole lot for me if dad would pull out an invitation. As it +is, I seem doomed to be a clerk for the rest of my life.” +The white hand of the girl touched his lips. +“You’ll be rich some day, Ray dear, and it is foolish to blame daddy.” +The young man growled something under the hand, and then laughed a +little bitterly. +“Dad has tried every get-rich-quick scheme that the mind and ingenuity +of man——” +“And why?” +The voice was harsh, tremulous with anger. None of them had noticed the +reappearance of John Bennett. +“You’re doing work you don’t like. My God! What of me? I’ve been trying +for twenty years to get out. I’ve tried every silly scheme—that’s true. +But it was for you——” +He stopped abruptly at the sight of Gordon’s embarrassment. +“I invited you to dinner, and I’m pulling out the family skeleton,” he +said with rough good-humour. +He took Dick’s arm and led him down the garden path between the serried +ranks of rose bushes. +“I don’t know why I asked you to stay, young man,” he said. “An impulse, +I suppose . . . maybe a bad conscience. I don’t give these young people +all the company they ought to have at home, and I’m not much of a +companion for them. It’s too bad that you should be the witness of the +first family jar we’ve had for years.” +His voice and manner were those of an educated man. Dick wondered what +occupation he followed, and why it should be so particularly obnoxious +that he should be seeking some escape. +The girl was quiet throughout the meal. She sat at Dick’s left hand and +she spoke very seldom. Stealing an occasional glance at her, he thought +she looked preoccupied and troubled, and blamed his presence as the +cause. +Apparently no servant was kept at the cottage. She did the waiting +herself, and she had replaced the plates when the old man asked: +“I shouldn’t think you were as young as you look, Mr. Gordon—what do +you do for a living?” +“I’m quite old,” smiled Dick. “Thirty-one.” +“Thirty-one?” gasped Ella, going red. “And I’ve been talking to you as +though you were a child!” +“Think of me as a child at heart,” he said gravely. “As to my +occupation—I’m a persecutor of thieves and murderers and bad characters +generally. My name is Richard Gordon——” +The knife fell with a clatter from John Bennett’s hand and his face went +white. +“Gordon—Richard Gordon?” he said hollowly. +For a second their eyes met, the clear blue and the faded blue. +“Yes—I am the Assistant Director of Prosecutions,” said Gordon quietly. +“And I have an idea that you and I have met before.” +The pale eyes did not waver. John Bennett’s face was a mask. +“Not professionally, I hope,” he said, and there was a challenge in his +voice. +Dick laughed again as at the absurdity of the question. +“Not professionally,” he said with mock gravity. +On his way back to London that night his memory worked overtime, but he +failed to place John Bennett of Horsham. +CHAPTER II +A TALK ABOUT FROGS +MAITLANDS Consolidated had grown from one small office to its present +palatial proportions in a comparatively short space of time. Maitland +was a man advanced in years, patriarchal in appearance, sparing of +speech. He had arrived in London unheralded, and had arrived, in the +less accurate sense of the word, before London was aware of his +existence. +Dick Gordon saw the speculator for the first time as he was waiting in +the marble-walled vestibule. A man of middle height, bearded to his +waist; his eyes almost hidden under heavy white brows; stout and +laborious of gait, he came slowly through the outer office, where a +score of clerks sat working under their green-shaded lamps, and, looking +neither to the right nor left, walked into the elevator and was lost to +view. +“That is the old man: have you seen him before?” asked Ray Bennett, who +had come out to meet the caller a second before. “He’s a venerable old +cuss, but as tight as a soundproof door. You couldn’t pry money from +him, not if you used dynamite! He pays Philo a salary that the average +secretary wouldn’t look at, and if Philo wasn’t such an easygoing devil, +he’d have left years ago.” +Dick Gordon was feeling a little uncomfortable. His presence at +Maitlands was freakish, his excuse for calling as feeble as any weak +brain could conceive. If he had spoken the truth to the flattered young +man on whom he called in business hours, he would have said: “I have +idiotically fallen in love with your sister. I am not especially +interested in you, but I regard you as a line that will lead me to +another meeting, therefore I have made my being in the neighbourhood an +excuse for calling. And because of this insane love I have for your +sister, I am willing to meet even Philo, who will surely bore me.” +Instead he said: +“You are a friend of Philo—why do you call him that?” +“Because he’s a philosophical old horse—his other name is Philip,” said +the other with a twinkle in his eye. “Everybody is a friend of +Philo’s—he’s the kind of man that makes friendship easy.” +The elevator door opened at that moment and a man came out. +Instinctively Dick Gordon knew that this bald and middle-aged man with +the good-humoured face was the subject of their discussion. His round, +fat face creased in a smile as he recognized Ray, and after he had +handed a bundle of documents to one of the clerks, he came over to where +they were standing. +“Meet Mr. Gordon,” said Ray. “This is my friend Johnson.” +Philo grasped the extended hand warmly. +“Warm” was a word which had a special significance in relation to Mr. +Johnson. He seemed to radiate a warming and quickening influence. Even +Dick Gordon, who was not too ready to respond, came under the immediate +influence of his geniality. +“You’re Mr. Gordon of the Public Prosecution Department—Ray was telling +me,” he said. “I should like you to come one day and prosecute old man +Maitland! He is certainly the most prosecutable gentleman I’ve met for +years!” +The jest tickled Mr. Johnson. He was, thought Dick, inclined to laugh at +himself. +“I’ve got to get back: he’s in a tantrum this morning. Anyone would +think the Frogs were after him.” +Philo Johnson, with a cheery nod, hurried back to the lift. Was it +imagination on Dick’s part? He could have sworn the face of Ray Bennett +was a deeper shade of red, and that there was a look of anxiety in his +eyes. +“It’s very good of you to keep your promise and call . . . yes, I’ll be +glad to lunch with you, Gordon. And my sister will also, I’m sure. She +is often in town.” +His adieux were hurried and somewhat confused. Dick Gordon went out into +the street puzzled. Of one thing he was certain: that behind the young +man’s distress lay that joking reference to the Frogs. +When he returned to his office, still sore with himself that he had +acted rather like a moon-calf or a farm hand making his awkward advances +to the village belle, he found a troubled-looking chief of police +waiting for him, and at the sight of him Dick’s eyes narrowed. +“Well?” he asked. “What of Genter?” +The police chief made a grimace like one who was swallowing an +unpleasant potion. +“They slipped me,” he said. “The Frog arrived in a car—I wasn’t +prepared for that. Genter got in, and they were gone before I realized +what had happened. Not that I’m worried. Genter has a gun, and he’s a +pretty tough fellow in a rough house.” +Dick Gordon stared at and through the man, and then: +“I think you should have been prepared for the car,” he said. “If +Genter’s message was well founded, and he is on the track of the Frog, +you should have expected a car. Sit down, Wellingdale.” +The grey-haired man obeyed. +“I’m not excusing myself,” he growled. “The Frogs have got me rattled. I +treated them as a joke once.” +“Maybe we’d be wiser if we treated them as a joke now,” suggested Dick, +biting off the end of a cigar. “They may be nothing but a foolish secret +society. Even tramps are entitled to their lodges and pass-words, grips +and signs.” +Wellingdale shook his head. +“You can’t get away from the record of the past seven years,” he said. +“It isn’t the fact that every other bad road-criminal we pull in has the +frog tattooed on his wrist. That might be sheer imitation—and, in any +case, all crooks of low mentality have tattoo marks. But in that seven +years we’ve had a series of very unpleasant crimes. First there was the +attack upon the _chargé d’affaires_ of the United States +Embassy—bludgeoned to sleep in Hyde Park. Then there was the case of +the President of the Northern Trading Company—clubbed as he was +stepping out of his car in Park Lane. Then the big fire which destroyed +the Mersey Rubber Stores, where four million pounds’ worth of raw rubber +went up in smoke. Obviously the work of a dozen fire bugs, for the +stores consist of six big warehouses and each was fired simultaneously +and in two places. And the Frogs were in it. We caught two of the men +for the Rubber job; they were both ‘Frogs’ and bore the totem of the +tribe—they were both ex-convicts, and one of them admitted that he had +had instructions to carry out the job, but took back his words next day. +I never saw a man more scared than he was. And I can’t blame him. If +half that is said about the Frog is true, his admission cost him +something. There it is, Mr. Gordon. I can give you a dozen cases. Genter +has been two years on their track. He has been tramping the country, +sleeping under hedges, hogging in with all sorts of tramps, stealing +rides with them and thieving with them; and when he wrote me and said he +had got into touch with the organization and expected to be initiated, I +thought we were near to getting them. I’ve had Genter shadowed since he +struck town. I’m sick about this morning.” +Dick Gordon opened a drawer of his desk, took out a leather folder and +turned the leaves of its contents. They consisted of pages of +photographs of men’s wrists. He studied them carefully, as though he +were looking at them for the first time, though, in truth, he had +examined these records of captured men almost every day for years. Then +he closed the portfolio thoughtfully and put it away in the drawer. For +a few minutes he sat, drumming his fingers on the edge of the +writing-table, a frown on his youthful face. +“The frog is always on the left wrist, always a little lob-sided, and +there is always one small blob tattooed underneath,” he said. “Does that +strike you as being remarkable?” +The Superintendent, who was not a brilliant man, saw nothing remarkable +in the fact. +CHAPTER III +THE FROG +IT was growing dark when the two tramps, skirting the village of Morby, +came again to the post road. The circumvention of Morby had been a +painful and tiring business, for the rain which had been falling all day +had transformed the ploughed fields into glutinous brown seas that made +walking a test of patience. +One was tall, unshaven, shabby, his faded brown coat was buttoned to his +chin, his sagged and battered hat rested on the back of his head. His +companion seemed short by comparison, though he was a well-made, +broad-shouldered man, above the average height. +They spoke no word as they plodded along the muddy road. Twice the +shorter man stopped and peered backward in the gathering darkness, as +though searching for a pursuer, and once he clutched the big man’s arm +and drew him to hiding behind the bushes that fringed the road. This was +when a car tore past with a roar and a splattering of liquid mud. +After a while they turned off the road, and crossing a field, came to +the edge of a wild waste of land traversed by an ancient cart track. +“We’re nearly there,” growled the smaller man, and the other grunted. +But for all his seeming indifference, his keen eyes were taking in every +detail of the scene. Solitary building on the horizon . . . looked like +a barn. Essex County (he guessed this from the indicator number on the +car that had passed); waste land probably led to a disused clay pit +. . . or was it quarry? There was an old notice-board fixed to a groggy +post near the gate through which the cart track passed. It was too dark +to read the faded lettering, but he saw the word “lime.” Limestone? It +would be easy to locate. +The only danger was if the Frogs were present in force. Under cover of +his overcoat, he felt for the Browning and slipped it into his overcoat +pocket. +If the Frogs were in strength, there might be a tough fight. Help there +was none. He never expected there would be. Carlo had picked him up on +the outskirts of the city in his disreputable car, and had driven him +through the rain, tacking and turning, following secondary roads, +avoiding towns and hamlets, so that, had he been sitting by the driver’s +side, he might have grown confused. But he was not. He was sitting in +the darkness of the little van, and saw nothing. Wellingdale, with the +shadows who had been watching him, had not been prepared for the car. A +tramp with a motor-car was a monstrosity. Even Genter himself was taken +aback when the car drew up to the pavement where he was waiting, and the +voice of Carlo hissed, “Jump in!” +They crossed the crest of a weed-grown ridge. Below, Genter saw a +stretch of ground littered with rusting trollies, twisted Decourville +rails, and pitted with deep, rain-filled holes. Beyond, on the sharp +line of the quarry’s edge, was a small wooden hut, and towards this +Carlo led the way. +“Not nervous, are you?” he asked, and there was a sneer in his voice. +“Not very,” said the other coolly. “I suppose the fellows are in that +shack?” +Carlo laughed softly. +“There are no others,” he said, “only the Frog himself. He comes up the +quarry face—there’s a flight of steps that come up under the hut. Good +idea, eh? The hut hangs over the edge, and you can’t even see the steps, +not if you hang over. I tried once. They’d never catch him, not if they +brought forty million cops.” +“Suppose they surrounded the quarry?” suggested Genter, but the man +scoffed. +“Wouldn’t he know it was being surrounded before he came in? He knows +everything, does the Frog.” +He looked down at the other’s hand. +“It won’t hurt,” he said, “and it’s worth it if it does! You’ll never be +without a friend again, Harry. If you get into trouble, there’s always +the best lawyer to defend you. And you’re the kind of chap we’re looking +for—there is plenty of trash. Poor fools that want to get in for the +sake of the pickings. But you’ll get big work, and if you do a special +job for him, there’s hundreds and hundreds of money for you! If you’re +hungry or ill, the Frogs will find you out and help you. That’s pretty +good, ain’t it?” +Genter said nothing. They were within a dozen yards of the hut now, a +strong structure built of stout timber bulks, with one door and a +shuttered window. +Motioning Genter to remain where he was, the man called Carlo went +forward and tapped on the door. Genter heard a voice, and then he saw +the man step to the window, and the shutter open an inch. There followed +a long conversation in an undertone, and then Carlo came back. +“He says he has a job for you that will bring in a thousand—you’re +lucky! Do you know Rochmore?” +Genter nodded. He knew that aristocratic suburb. +“There’s a man there that has got to be coshed. He comes home from his +club every night by the eleven-five. Walks to his house. It is up a dark +road, and a fellow could get him with a club without trouble. Just one +smack and he’s finished. It’s not killing, you understand.” +“Why does he want me to do it?” asked the tall tramp curiously. +The explanation was logical. +“All new fellows have to do something to show their pluck and +straightness. What do you say?” +Genter had not hesitated. +“I’ll do it,” he said. +Carlo returned to the window, and presently he called his companion. +“Stand here and put your left arm through the window,” he ordered. +Genter pulled back the cuff of his soddened coat and thrust his bare arm +through the opening. His hand was caught in a firm grip, and immediately +he felt something soft and wet pressed against his wrist. A rubber +stamp, he noted mentally, and braced himself for the pain which would +follow. It came, the rapid pricking of a thousand needles, and he +winced. Then the grip on his hand relaxed and he withdrew it, to look +wonderingly on the blurred design of ink and blood that the tattooer had +left. +“Don’t wipe it,” said a muffled voice from the darkness of the hut. “Now +you may come in.” +The shutter closed and was bolted. Then came the snick of a lock turning +and the door opened. Genter went into the pitch-black darkness of the +hut and heard the door locked by the unseen occupant. +“Your number is K 971,” said the hollow voice. “When you see that in the +personal column of _The Times_, you report here, wherever you are. Take +that. . . .” +Genter put out his hand and an envelope was placed in his outstretched +palm. It was as though the mysterious Frog could see, even in that +blackness. +“There is journey money and a map of the district. If you spend the +journey money, or if you fail to come when you are wanted, you will be +killed. Is that clear?” +“Yes.” +“You will find other money—that you can use for your expenses. Now +listen. At Rochmore, 17 Park Avenue, lives Hallwell Jones, the +banker——” +He must have sensed the start of surprise which the recruit gave. +“You know him?” +“Yes—worked for him years ago,” said Genter. +Stealthily, he drew his Browning from his pocket and thumbed down the +safety catch. +“Between now and Friday he has to be clubbed. You need not kill him. If +you do, it doesn’t matter. I expect his head’s too hard——” +Genter located the man now, and, growing accustomed to the darkness, +guessed rather than saw the bulk of him. Suddenly his hand shot out and +grasped the arm of the Frog. +“I’ve got a gun and I’ll shoot,” he said between his teeth. “I want you, +Frog! I am Inspector Genter from police headquarters, and if you resist +I’ll kill you!” +For a second there was a deathly silence. Then Genter felt his pistol +wrist seized in a vice-like grip. He struck out with his other hand, but +the man stooped and the blow fell in the air, and then with a wrench the +pistol was forced out of the big man’s hand and he closed with his +prisoner. So doing, his face touched the Frog’s. Was it a mask he was +wearing? . . . The cold mica goggles came against his cheek. That +accounted for the muffled voice. . . . +Powerful as he was, he could not break away from the arms which +encircled him, and they struggled backward and forward in the darkness. +Suddenly the Frog lifted his foot, and Genter, anticipating the kick, +swerved round. There was a crash of broken glass, and then something +came to the detective—a faint but pungent odour. He tried to breathe, +but found himself strangling, and his arms fell feebly by his side. +The Frog held him for a minute, and then let the limp figure fall with a +thud to the ground. In the morning a London police patrol found the body +of Inspector Genter lying in the garden of an empty house, and rang for +an ambulance. But a man who has been gassed by the concentrated fumes of +hydrocyanic acid dies very quickly, and Genter had been dead ten seconds +after the Frog smashed the thin glass cylinder which he kept in the hut +for such emergencies as these. +CHAPTER IV +ELK +THERE was no detective in the world who looked less like a police +officer, and a clever police officer, than Elk. He was tall and thin, +and a slight stoop accentuated his weediness. His clothes seemed +ill-fitting, and hung upon rather than fitted him. His dark, cadaverous +face was set permanently in an expression of the deepest gloom, and few +had ever seen him smile. His superiors found him generally a depressing +influence, for his outlook on life was prejudiced and apparently +embittered by his failure to secure promotion. Faulty education stood in +his way here. Ten times he had come up for examination, and ten times he +had failed, invariably in the same subject—history. +Dick, who knew him better than his immediate chiefs, guessed that these +failures did not worry Mr. Elk as much as people thought. Indeed, he +often detected a glum pride in his inability to remember historical +dates, and once, in a moment of astonishing confidence, Elk had +confessed that promotion would be an embarrassment to a man of his +limited educational attainments. For Elk’s everyday English was one of +his weaknesses. +“There’s no rest for the wicked, Mr. Gordon,” he sighed as he sat down. +“I thought I’d get a holiday after my trip to the U.S.A.” +“I want to know all about Lola Bassano—who are her friends, why she has +suddenly attached herself to Raymond Bennett, a clerk in the employ of +Maitlands Consolidated. Particularly why she picked him up at the corner +of St. James’s Square and drove him to Horsham last night. I saw them by +accident as I was coming out of my club, and followed. They sat in her +coupé for the greater part of two hours within a hundred yards of +Bennett’s house, and they were talking. I know, because I stood in the +rain behind the car, listening. If he had been making love to her I +should have understood—a little. But they were talking, and talking +money. I heard certain sums mentioned. At four o’clock he got out of the +car and went into his house, and Lola drove off.” +Elk, puffing, sadly shook his head. +“Lola wouldn’t talk about anything but money anyway,” he said. “She’s +like Queen What’s-her-name who died in 1077, or maybe it was 1573. She +married King Henry, or it may have been Charles, because she wanted a +gold snuff-box he had. I’m not sure whether it was a gold snuff-box or a +silver bed. Anyway, she got it an’ was be’eaded in . . . I don’t +remember the date.” +“Thank you for the parallel,” smiled Dick. “But Lola is not after +snuff-boxes of gold or silver. Young Bennett hasn’t twopence of his own. +There is something particularly interesting to me about this +acquaintance.” +Elk smoked thoughtfully, watching the smoke rings rise to the ceiling. +“Bennett’s got a sister,” he said, to the other’s amazement. “Pretty, as +far as looks go. Old man Bennett’s a crook of some kind. Doesn’t do any +regular work, but goes away for days at a time and comes back looking +ill.” +“You know them?” +Elk nodded. +“Old man Bennett attracted me. Somebody reported his movements as +suspicious—the local police. They’ve got nothing to do except guard +chickens, and naturally they look on anybody who doesn’t keep chickens +as bein’ a suspicious character. I kept old Bennett under observation, +but I never got to the bottom of his movements. He has run lots of queer +stunts. He wrote a play once and put it on. It went dead on the fourth +night. Then he took to playing the races on a system. That nearly broke +him. Then he started a correspondence school at Horsham—‘How to write +good English’—and he lost money. Now he’s taking pictures.” +“How long has he been trying those methods of getting a living?” +“Years. I traced a typewriting agency to him seventeen years ago. They +haven’t all been failures. He made money out of some. But I’d give my +head to know what his regular game is. Once a month regular, sometimes +twice, sometimes more often, he disappears and you can’t find him or +trail him. I’ve sounded every crook in town, but they’re as much puzzled +as I am. Lew Brady—that’s the big sporting fellow who worked with +Lola—he’s interested too. He hates Bennett. Years ago he tackled the +old man and tried to bully him into telling him what his lay was, and +Bennett handled him rough.” +“The old man?” asked Dick incredulously. +“The old man. He’s as strong as an ox. Don’t forget it. I’ll see Lola. +She’s not a bad girl—up to a point. Personally, vamps never appeal to +me. Genter’s dead, they tell me? The Frog’s in that too?” +“There’s no doubt about it,” said Dick, rising. “And here, Elk, is one +of the men who killed him.” +He walked to the window and looked out, Elk behind him. The man who had +stood on the sidewalk had disappeared. +“Where?” asked Elk. +“He’s gone now. I——” +At that moment the window shattered inward, and splinters of glass stung +his face. Another second, and Elk was dragged violently to cover. +“From the roof of Onslow Gardens,” said Richard Gordon calmly. “I +wondered where the devils would shoot from—that’s twice they’ve tried +to get me since daylight.” +A spent cartridge on the flat roof of 94, Onslow Gardens, and the print +of feet, were all the evidence that the assassin left behind. No. 94 was +empty except for a caretaker, who admitted that he was in the habit of +going out every morning to buy provisions for the day. Admission had +been gained by the front door; there was a tradesman who saw a man let +himself into the house, carrying what looked to be a fishing-rod under +his arm, but which undoubtedly was a rifle in a cloth case. +“Very simple,” said Dick; “and, of course, from the Frog’s point of +view, effective. The shooter had half-a-dozen ways of escape, including +the fire-escape.” +Elk was silent and glum. Dick Gordon as silent, but cheerful, until the +two men were back in his office. +“It was my inquiry at the garage that annoyed them,” he said, “and I’ll +give them this credit, that they are rapid! I was returning to my house +when the first attempt was made. The most ingenious effort to run me +down with a light car—the darned thing even mounted the pavement after +me.” +“Number?” +“XL.19741,” said Dick, “but fake. There is no such number on the +register. The driver was gone before I could stop him.” +Elk scratched his chin, surveying the youthful Public Prosecutor with a +dubious eye. +“Almost sounds interesting to me,” he said. “Of course I’ve heard of the +Frogs, but I didn’t give much attention. Nowadays secret societies are +so common that every time a man shakes hands with me, he looks sort of +disappointed if I don’t pull my ear or flap my feet. And gang work on a +large scale I’ve always looked upon as something you only hear about in +exciting novels by my old friend Shylock——” +“Sherlock—and he didn’t write them,” murmured Dick. +Again Elk fingered his cheek. +“I don’t believe in it, anyway,” he said after thought. “It’s not +natural that tramps should do anything systematic. It’s too much like +work. I’ll bet there’s nothing in it, only a lot of wild coincidences +stickin’ together. I’ll bet that the Frogs are just a silly society +without any plan or reason. And I’ll bet that Lola knows all about ’em,” +he added inconsistently. +Elk walked back to “The Yard” by the most circuitous route. With his +furled and ancient umbrella hanging on his arm, he had the appearance of +an out-of-work clerk. His steel-rimmed spectacles, clipped at a groggy +angle, assisted the illusion. Winter and summer he wore a soiled fawn +top-coat, which was invariably unbuttoned, and he had worn the same +yellowish-brown suit for as long as anybody could remember. The rain +came down, not in any great quantities, but incessantly. His hard derby +hat glistened with moisture, but he did not put up his umbrella. Nobody +had ever seen that article opened. +He walked to Trafalgar Square and then stopped, stood in thought for +some time, and retraced his steps. Opposite the Public Prosecutor’s +office stood a tall street-seller with a little tray of matches, +key-rings, pencils and the odds and ends that such men sell. His wares, +for the moment, were covered by a shining oil-cloth. Elk had not noticed +him before, and wondered why the man had taken up so unfavourable a +stand, for the end of Onslow Gardens, the windiest and least comfortable +position in Whitehall, is not a place where the hurrying pedestrian +would stop to buy, even on a fine day. The hawker was dressed in a +shabby raincoat that reached to his heels; a soft felt hat was pulled +down over his eyes, but Elk saw the hawk-like face and stopped. +“Busy?” +“Naw.” +Elk was immediately interested. This man was American, and was trying to +disguise his voice so that it appeared Cockney—the most impossible task +that any American had ever undertaken, for the whine and intonation of +the Cockney are inimitable. +“You’re American—what state?” +“Georgia,” was the reply, and this time the hawker made no attempt at +disguise. “Came over on a cattle-boat during the war.” +Elk held out his hand. +“Let me see that licence of yours, brother,” he said. +Without hesitation the man produced the written police permit to sell on +the streets. It was made out in the name of “Joshua Broad,” and was in +order. +“You’re not from Georgia,” said Elk, “but that doesn’t matter. You’re +from Hampshire or Massachusetts.” +“Connecticut, to be exact,” said the man coolly, “but I’ve lived in +Georgia. Want a key-ring?” +There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes—the merest flash. +“No. Never had a key. Never had anything worth locking up,” said Elk, +fingering the articles on the tray. “Not a good pitch, this.” +“No,” said the other; “too near to Scotland Yard, Mr. Elk.” +Elk cast a swift glance at the man. +“Know me, do you?” +“Most people do, don’t they?” asked the other innocently. +Elk took the pedlar in from the soles of his stout shoes to his soddened +hat, and, with a nod, went on. The hawker looked after the detective +until he was out of sight, and then, fixing a cover over his tray, +strapped it tight and walked in the direction Elk had taken. +Coming out of Maitlands to lunch, Ray Bennett saw a shabby and saturnine +man standing on the edge of the pavement, but gave him no more than a +passing glance. He, at any rate, did not know Elk and was quite +unconscious of the fact that he was being followed to the little +chop-house where Philo Johnson and he took their modest luncheon. +In any circumstances Ray would not have observed the shadow, but to-day, +in his condition of mind, he had no thought for anybody but himself, or +any offence but the bearded and ancient Maitland’s outrageous behaviour. +“The old devil!” he said as he walked by Johnson’s side. “To make a ten +per cent cut in salaries and to start on me! And this morning the papers +say that he has given five thousand to the Northern Hospitals!” +“He’s a charitable cuss, and as to the cut, it was either that or +standing you off,” said Johnson cheerfully. “What’s the use of kicking? +Trade has been bad, and the stock market is as dead as Ptolemy. The old +man wanted to put you off—said that you were superfluous anyway. If +you’d only look on the bright side of things, Ray——” +“Bright!” snorted the young man, his face going pink with anger. “I’m +getting a boy’s salary, and I want money mighty badly, Philo.” +Philo sighed, and for once his good-humoured face was clouded. Then it +relaxed into a broad grin. +“If I thought the same way as you, I’d go mad or turn into a first-class +crook. I only earn about fifty per cent more than you, and yet the old +man allows me to handle hundreds of thousands. It’s too bad.” +Nevertheless, the “badness” of the parsimonious Maitland did not +interfere with his appetite. +“The art of being happy,” he said as he pushed back his plate and lit a +cigarette, “is to want nothing. Then you’re always getting more than you +need. How is your sister?” +“She’s all right,” said Ray indifferently. “Ella’s the same mind as you. +It’s easy to be a philosopher over other people’s worries. Who’s that +disreputable bird?” he added, as a man seated himself at a table +opposite to them. +Philo fixed his glasses—he was a little near-sighted. +“That’s Elk—a Scotland Yard man,” he said, and grinned at the +new-comer, a recognition which, to Ray’s annoyance—and his annoyance +was tinged with uneasiness—brought the seedy man to their table. +“This is my friend, Mr. Bennett—Inspector Elk, Ray.” +“Sergeant,” suggested Elk dourly. “Fate has always been against me in +the matter of promotion. Can’t remember dates.” +So far from making a secret of his failure, Mr. Elk was never tired of +discussing the cause. +“Though why a man is a better thief-taker for knowin’ when George +Washington was born and when Napoleon Bonaparte died, is a mystery to +me. Dine here every day, Mr. Bennett?” +Ray nodded. +“Know your father, I think—John Bennett of Horsham, isn’t it? Thought +so.” +In desperation Ray got up with an excuse and left them alone. +“Nice boy, that,” said Elk. +CHAPTER V +MR. MAITLAND GOES HOME +THEY were nearing the imposing home of Maitlands Consolidated, when Mr. +Johnson suddenly broke off in the middle of an interesting exposition of +his philosophy and quickened his pace. On the pavement ahead of them he +saw Ray Bennett, and by his side the slim figure of a girl. Their backs +were toward the two men, but Elk guessed rightly when he decided that +the girl was Ella Bennett. He had seen her twice before, and he had a +wonderful memory for backs. +Turning as the stout man came up to her, hat in hand, she greeted him +with a quick and friendly smile. +“This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Bennett.” +There was a pink tinge to Johnson’s homely face (“Sweet on her,” thought +Elk, interested), and his handshake was warm and something more than +cordial. +“I didn’t intend coming to town, but father has gone off on one of his +mysterious excursions,” she said with a little laugh, “this time to the +West. And, curiously enough, I am absolutely sure I saw him on a ’bus +just now, though his train left two hours ago.” +She glanced at Elk hovering in the background, and the sight of his glum +countenance seemed to arouse some unpleasant memory, for the brightness +went out of her face. +“My friend, Mr. Elk,” said Johnson a little awkwardly, and Elk nodded. +“Glad to meet you, Miss Bennett,” he said, and noted Ray’s annoyance +with inward satisfaction which, in a more cheerful man, would have been +mirth. +She bowed slightly and then said something in a low tone to her brother. +Elk saw the boy frown. +“I shan’t be very late,” he said, loudly enough for the detective to +hear. +She put out her hand to Johnson, Elk she favoured with a distant +inclination of her head, and was gone, leaving the three men looking +after her. Two, for when Mr. Elk looked around, the boy had disappeared +into the building. +“You know Miss Bennett?” +“Slightly,” said Elk grudgingly. “I know almost everybody slightly. Good +people and bad people. The gooder they are, the slighter I know ’em. +Queer devil.” +“Who?” asked the startled Johnson. “You mean her father? I wish he +wasn’t so chilly with me.” +Elk’s lips twitched. +“I guess you do,” he said drily. “So long.” +He strolled aimlessly away as Johnson walked up the steps into +Maitlands, but he did not go far. Crossing the road, he retraced his +steps and took up his station in the doorway. +At four o’clock a taxicab drew up before the imposing door of Maitlands +Consolidated, and a few minutes later the old man shuffled out, looking +neither to the right nor to the left. Elk regarded him with more than +ordinary interest. He knew the financier by sight, and had paid two or +three visits to the office in connection with certain petty thefts +committed by cleaners. In this way he had become acquainted with Philo +Johnson, for old Maitland had delegated the interview to his +subordinate. +Elk judged the old man to be in the region of seventy, and wondered for +the first time where he lived, and in what state. Had he relations? It +was a curious fact that he knew nothing whatever about the financier, +the least paragraphed of any of the big City forces. +The detective had no business with the head of this flourishing firm. +His task was to discover the association between Lola Bassano and this +impecunious clerk. He knew inside him that Dick Gordon’s interest in the +young man was not altogether disinterested, and suspected rightly that +the pretty sister of Ray Bennett lay behind it. +But the itch for knowledge about Maitland, suddenly aroused by the +realization that the old man’s home life was an unknown quantity, was +too strong to be resisted. As the taxicab moved off, Elk beckoned +another. +“Follow that cab,” he said, and the driver nodded his agreement without +question, for there was no taximan on the streets who did not know this +melancholy policeman. +The first of the cabs drove rapidly in the direction of North London, +and halted at a busy junction of streets in Finsbury Park. This is a +part of the town which great financiers do not as a rule choose for +their habitations. It is a working-class district, full of small houses, +usually occupied by two or more families; and when the cab stopped and +the old man nimbly descended, Elk’s mouth opened in an ‘O’ of surprise. +Maitland did not pay the cabman, but hurried round the corner into the +busy thoroughfare, with Elk at his heels. He walked a hundred yards, and +then boarded a street car. Elk sprinted, and swung himself on board as +the car was moving. The old man found a seat, took a battered newspaper +from his pocket, and began reading. +The car ran down Seven Sisters Road into Tottenham, and here Mr. +Maitland descended. He turned into a side street of apparently +interminable length, crossed the road, and came into a narrow and even +meaner street than that which he had traversed; and then, to Elk’s +amazement, pushed open the iron gate of a dark and dirty little house, +opened the door and went in, closing it behind him. +The detective looked up and down the street. It was crowded with poor +children. Elk looked at the house again, scarcely believing his eyes. +The windows were unclean, the soiled curtains visible were ragged, and +the tiny forecourt bore an appearance of neglect. And this was the home +of Ezra Maitland, a master of millions, the man who gave £5,000 to the +London hospitals! It was incredible. +He made up his mind, and, walking to the door, knocked. For some time +there was no reply, and then he heard the shuffle of slippered feet in +the passage, and an old woman with a yellow face opened the door. +“Excuse me,” said Elk; “I think the gentleman who just came in dropped +this.” He produced a handkerchief from his pocket, and she glared at it +for a moment, and then, reaching out her hand, took it from him and +slammed the door in his face. +“And that’s the last of my good handkerchief,” thought Elk bitterly. +He had caught one glimpse of the interior. A grimy-looking passage with +a strip of faded carpet, and a flight of uncovered stairs. He proceeded +to make a few local inquiries. +“Maitland or Mainland, I don’t know which,” said a tradesman who kept a +general store at the corner. “The old gentleman goes out every morning +at nine, and comes home just about this hour. I don’t know who or what +he is. I can tell you this, though; he doesn’t eat much! He buys all his +goods here. What those two people live on, an ordinary healthy child +would eat at one meal!” +Elk went back to the west, a little mystified. The miser was a common +figure of fiction, and not uncommonly met with in real life. But old +Maitland must be a super-miser, he thought, and decided to give the +matter a little further attention. For the moment, he was concentrating +his efforts upon Miss Lola Bassano, that interesting lady. +In one of the fashionable thoroughfares leading from Cavendish Square is +a block of flats, occupied by wealthy tenants. Its rents are remarkably +high, even for that exclusive quarter, and even Elk, who was not easily +surprised, was a little staggered when he learnt that Lola Bassano +occupied a suite in this expensive building. +It was to Caverley House that he made his way after returning to +Maitland’s office, to find the premises closed. There was no indicator +on the wall, but the lift-man, who regarded Elk with some suspicion, as +he was entitled to do, announced that Miss Bassano lived on the third +floor. +“How long has she been here?” asked Elk. +“That’s no business of yours,” said the lift-man; “and I think what you +want, my friend, is the tradesmen’s entrance.” +“I’ve often wondered,” ruminated Elk, “what people like you do their +thinking with.” +“Now look here——!” began the lift-man indignantly. +“Look here,” retorted Elk, and at the sight of his badge the man grew +more polite and more informative. +“She’s been here two months,” he said. “And, to tell you the truth, Mr. +Elk, I’ve often wondered how she got a suite in Caverley House. They +tell me she used to run a gambling joint on Jermyn Street. You haven’t +come to raid her, have you?” he asked anxiously. “That’d get Caverley +House a pretty bad name.” +“I’ve come to make a friendly call,” said Elk carefully. +“That’s the door.” The man stepped out of the lift and pointed to one of +the two sober mahogany doors on the landing. “This other flat belongs to +an American millionaire.” +“Is there such a thing?” asked Elk. +He was about to say something more when the lift-man walked to the door +and peered at one of its polished panels. +“That’s queer,” he said. “What do you make of this?” +Elk joined him, and at a glance saw and understood. +On the panel had been stamped a small white frog—an exact replica of +those he had seen that morning on the photographs that Dick Gordon had +shown him. A squatting frog, slightly askew. +He touched it. The ink was still wet and showed on his finger. And then +the strangest thing of all happened. The door opened suddenly, and a man +of middle age appeared in the doorway. In his hand was a long-barrelled +Browning, and it covered the detective’s heart. +“Put up your hands!” he said sharply. Then he stopped and stared at the +detective. +Elk returned the gaze, speechless; for the elegantly dressed man who +stood there was the hawk-faced pedlar he had seen in Whitehall! +The American was the first to recover. Not a muscle of his face moved, +but Elk saw again that light of amusement in his eyes as he stepped back +and opened the door still wider. +“Come right in, Mr. Elk,” he said, and, to the amazed lift-man; “It’s +all right, Worth. I was practising a little joke on Mr. Elk.” +He closed the door behind him, and with a gesture beckoned the detective +into a prettily furnished drawing-room. Elk went in, leaving the matter +of the frog on the door for discussion later. +“We’re quite alone, Mr. Elk, so you needn’t lower your voice when you +talk of my indiscretions. Will you smoke a cigar?” +Elk stretched out his fingers mechanically and selected a big Cabana. +“Unless I’m greatly mistaken, I saw you this morning,” he began. +“You weren’t mistaken at all,” interrupted the other coolly. “You saw me +on Whitehall. I was peddling key-rings. My name is Joshua Broad. You +haven’t anything on me for trading in a false name.” +The detective lit his cigar before he spoke. +“This apartment must cost you a whole lot to keep up,” he said slowly, +“and I don’t blame you for trying to earn something on the side. But it +seems to me that peddling key-rings is a very poor proposition for a +first-class business man.” +Joshua Broad nodded. +“I haven’t made a million out of that business,” he said, “but it amuses +me, Mr. Elk. I am something of a philosopher.” +He lit a cigar and settled himself comfortably in a deep, chintz-covered +arm-chair, his legs crossed, the picture of contentment. +“As an American, I am interested in social problems, and I have found +that the best way to understand the very poor of any country is to get +right down amongst them.” +His tone was easy, apologetic, but quite self-possessed. +“I think I forestalled any question on your part as to whether I had a +licence in my own name, by telling you that I had.” +Elk settled his glasses more firmly on his nose, and his eyes strayed to +Mr. Broad’s pocket, whither the pistol had returned. +“This is a pretty free country,” he said in his deliberate way, “and a +man can peddle key-rings, even if he’s a member of the House of Lords. +But one thing he mustn’t do, Mr. Broad, is to stick fire-arms under the +noses of respectable policemen.” +Broad chuckled. +“I’m afraid I was a little rattled,” he said. “But the truth is, I’ve +been waiting for the greater part of an hour, expecting somebody to come +to my door, and when I heard your stealthy footsteps”—he shrugged—“it +was a fool mistake for a grown man to make,” he said, “and I guess I’m +feeling as badly about it as you would have me feel.” +The unwavering eyes of Mr. Elk did not leave his face. +“I won’t insult your intelligence by asking you if you were expecting a +friend,” he said. “But I should like to know the name of the other +guest.” +“So should I,” said the other, “and so would a whole lot of people.” +He reached out his hand to flick the ash from his cigar, looking at Elk +thoughtfully the while. +“I was expecting a man who has every reason to be very much afraid of +me,” he said. “His name is—well, it doesn’t matter, and I’ve only met +him once in my life, and then I didn’t see his face.” +“And you beat him up?” suggested Elk. +The other man laughed. +“I didn’t even beat him up. In fact, I behaved most generously to him,” +he said quietly. “I was not with him more than five minutes, in a +darkened room, the only light being a lantern which was on the table. +And I guess that’s about all I can tell you, Inspector.” +“Sergeant,” murmured Elk. “It’s curious the number of people who think +I’m an Inspector.” +There was an awkward pause. Elk could think of no other questions he +wanted to ask, and his host displayed as little inclination to advance +any further statement. +“Neighbour friends of yours?” asked Elk, and jerked his head toward the +passage. +“Who—Bassano and her friend? No. Are you after them?” he asked quickly. +Elk shook his head. +“Making a friendly call,” he said. “Just that. I’ve just come back from +your country, Mr. Broad. A good country, but too full of distances.” +He ruminated, looking down at the carpet for a long time, and presently +he said: +“I’d like to meet that friend of yours, Mr. Broad—American?” +Broad shook his head. Not a word was spoken as they went up the passage +to the front door, and it almost seemed as if Elk was going without +saying good-bye, for he walked out absent-mindedly, and only turned as +though the question of any farewell had occurred to him. +“Shall be glad to meet you again, Mr. Broad,” he said. “Perhaps I shall +see you in Whitehall——” +And then his eyes strayed to the grotesque white frog on the door. Broad +said nothing. He put his finger on the imprint and it smudged under his +touch. +“Recently stamped,” he drawled. “Well, now, what do you think of that, +Mr. Elk?” +Elk was examining the mat before the door. There was a little spot of +white, and he stooped and smeared his finger over it. +“Yes, quite recent. It must have been done just before I came in,” he +said. And there his interest in the Frog seemed to evaporate. “I’ll be +going along now,” he said with a nod. +In the exquisitely appointed drawing-room of Suite No. 6, Lola Bassano +sat cuddled up in a deep, over-cushioned chair, her feet tucked under +her, a thin cigarette between her lips, a scowl upon her pretty face. +From time to time she glanced at the man who stood by the window, hands +in pockets, staring down into the square. He was tall, heavily built, +heavily jowled, unprepossessing. All the help that tailor and valet gave +to him could not disguise his origin. He was pugilist, run to fat. For a +time, a very short time, Lew Brady had been welter-weight champion of +Europe, a terrific fighter with just that yellow thread in his +composition which makes all the difference between greatness and +mediocrity in the ring. A harder man had discovered his weakness, and +the glory of Lew Brady faded with remarkable rapidity. He had one +advantage over his fellows which saved him from utter extinction. A +philanthropist had found him in the gutter as a child, and had given him +an education. He had gone to a good school and associated with boys who +spoke good English. The benefit of that association he had never lost, +and his voice was so curiously cultured that people who for the first +time heard this brute-man speak, listened open-mouthed. +“What time do you expect that rat of yours?” he asked. +Lola lifted her silk-clad shoulders, took out her cigarette to yawn, and +settled herself more cosily. +“I don’t know. He leaves his office at five.” +The man turned from the window and began to pace the room slowly. +“Why Frog worries about him I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Lola, I’m +surely getting tired of old man Frog.” +Lola smiled and blew out a ring of smoke. +“Perhaps you’re tired of getting money for nothing, Brady,” she said. +“Personally speaking, that kind of weariness never comes to me. There is +one thing sure; Frog wouldn’t bother with young Bennett if there wasn’t +something in it.” +He pulled out a watch and glanced at its jewelled face. +“Five o’clock. I suppose that fellow doesn’t know you’re married to me?” +“Don’t be a fool,” said Lola wearily. “Am I likely to boast about it?” +He grinned and resumed his pacings. Presently he heard the faint tinkle +of the bell and glanced at the girl. She got up, shook the cushions and +nodded. +“Open the door,” she said, and the man went out of the room obediently. +Ray Bennett crossed the room with quick strides and caught the girl’s +hand in both of his. +“I’m late. Old Johnson kept me running round after the clerks had gone. +Moses, this is a fine room, Lola! I hadn’t any idea you lived in such +style.” +“You know Lew Brady?” +Ray nodded smilingly. He was a picture of happiness, and the presence of +Lew Brady made no difference to him. He had met Lola at a supper club, +and knew that she and Brady had some business association. Moreover, Ray +prided himself upon that confusion of standards which is called +“broad-mindedness.” He visualized a new social condition which was +superior to the bondage which old-fashioned rules of conduct imposed +upon men and women in their relationship one to the other. He was young, +clean-minded, saw things as he would have them be. Breadth of mind not +infrequently accompanies limitation of knowledge. +“Now for your wonderful scheme,” he said as, at a gesture from her, he +settled himself by the girl’s side. “Does Brady know?” +“It is Lew’s idea,” she said lightly. “He is always looking out for +opportunities—not for himself but for other people.” +“It’s a weakness of mine,” said Lew apologetically. “And anyway, I don’t +know if you’ll like the scheme. I’d have taken it on myself, but I’m too +busy. Did Lola tell you anything about it?” +Ray nodded. +“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I always thought such things belonged to +magazine stories! Lola says that the Government of Japan wants a secret +agent in London. Somebody they can disown, if necessary. But what is the +work?” +“There you’ve got me,” said Lew, shaking his head. “So far as I can +discover, you’ve nothing to do but live! Perhaps they’ll want you to +keep track of what is going on in the political world. The thing I don’t +like about it is that you’ll have to live a double life. Nobody must +know that you’re a clerk at Maitlands. You can call yourself by any name +you like, and you’ll have to make your domestic arrangements as best you +know.” +“That will be easy,” interrupted the boy. “My father says I ought to +have a room in town—he thinks the journey to and from Horsham every day +is too expensive. I fixed that with him on Sunday. I shall have to go +down to the cottage some week-ends—but what am I to do, and to whom do +I report?” +Lola laughed softly. +“Poor boy,” she mocked. “The prospect of owning a beautiful flat and +seeing me every day is worrying him.” +CHAPTER VI +MR. MAITLAND GOES SHOPPING +ELDOR STREET, Tottenham, was one of thousands of drab and ugly +thoroughfares that make up the central suburbs of London. Imagine two +rows of houses set on either side of a straight street, lighted at +economic intervals by yellow lamps. Each house has a protuberance, +called a bay window; each house is separated from the road by iron +railings pierced by an iron gate. There is a tiny forecourt in which the +hardiest of shrubs battle desperately for existence; there is one +recessed door, and on the floor above two windows exactly alike. +Elk found himself in Eldor Street at nine o’clock that night. The rain +was pelting down, and the street in consequence was a desert. Most of +the houses were dark, for Eldor Street lives in its kitchens, which are +back of the houses. In the front window of No. 47 one crack of light +showed past the edge of the lowered blind, and, creeping up to the +window, he heard, at long intervals, the mumble of conversation. +It was difficult to believe that he was standing at the door of Ezra +Maitland’s home. That morning the newspapers had given prominence to the +newest speculation of Maitlands Consolidated—a deal involving something +over a million. And the master-mind of the concern lived in this +squalor! +Whilst he was standing there, the light was extinguished and there came +to him the sound of feet in the uncarpeted passage. He had time to reach +the obscurity of the other side of the street, when the door opened and +two people came out: Maitland and the old woman he had seen. By the +light of a street-lamp he saw that Maitland wore an overcoat buttoned to +his chin. The old woman had on a long ulster, and in her hand she +carried a string bag. They were going marketing! It was Saturday night, +and the main street, through which Elk had passed, had been thronged +with late shoppers—Tottenham leaves its buying to the last, when food +can be had at bargain prices. +Waiting until they were out of sight, Elk walked down the street to the +end and turned to the left. He followed a wall covered with posters +until he reached a narrow opening. This was the passage between the +gardens—a dark, unlighted alleyway, three feet wide and running between +tar-coated wooden fences. He counted the gates on his left with the help +of his flash-lamp, and after a while stopped before one of them and +pushed gently. The gate was locked—it was not bolted. There was a +keyhole that had the appearance of use. Elk grunted his satisfaction, +and, taking from his pocket a wallet, extracted a small wooden handle, +into which he fitted a steel hook, chosen with care from a dozen others. +This he inserted into the lock and turned. Evidently the lock was more +complicated than he had expected. He tried another hook of a different +shape, and yet another. At the fourth trial the lock turned and he +pushed open the door gently. +The back of the house was in darkness, the yard singularly free from the +obstructions which he had anticipated. He crossed to the door leading +into the house. To his surprise it was unfastened, and he replaced his +tools in his pocket. He found himself in a small scullery. Passing +through a door into the bare passage, he came to the room in which he +had seen the light. It was meanly and shabbily furnished. The arm-chair +near the fireplace had broken springs, there was an untidy bed in one +corner, and in the centre of the room a table covered with a patched +cloth. On this were two or three books and a few sheets of paper covered +with the awkward writing of a child. Elk read curiously. +“Look at the dog,” it ran. “The man goes up to the dog and the dog barks +at the man.” +There was more in similar strain. The books were children’s primers of +an elementary kind. Looking round, he saw a cheap gramophone and on the +sideboard half a dozen scratched and chipped records. +The child must be in the house. Turning on the gas, he lit it, after +slipping a bolt in the front door to guard against surprise. In the more +brilliant light, the poverty of the room staggered him. The carpet was +worn and full of holes; there was not one article of furniture which had +not been repaired at some time or other. On the dingy sideboard was a +child’s abacus—a frame holding wires on which beads were strung, and by +means of which the young are taught to count. A paper on the mantelpiece +attracted him. It was a copy of the million pound contract which +Maitland had signed that morning. His neat signature, with the +characteristic flourish beneath, was at the foot. +Elk replaced the paper and began a search of the apartment. In a +cupboard by the side of the fireplace he found an iron money-box, which +he judged was half-full of coins. In addition, there were nearly a +hundred letters addressed to E. Maitland, 47 Eldor Street, Tottenham. +Elk, glancing through them, recognized their unimportance. Every one was +either a tradesman’s circular or those political pamphlets with which +candidates flood their constituencies. And they were all unopened. Mr. +Maitland evidently knew what they were also, and had not troubled to +examine their contents. Probably the hoarding instincts of age had made +him keep them. There was nothing else in the room of interest. He was +certain that this was where the old man slept—where was the child? +Turning out the light, he went upstairs. One door was locked, and here +his instruments were of no avail, for the lock was a patent one and was +recently fixed. Possibly the child was there, he thought. The second +room, obviously the old woman’s, was as meanly furnished as the parlour. +Coming back to the landing, his foot was poised to reach the first stair +when he heard a faint “click.” It came from below, and was the sound of +a door closing. Elk waited, listening. The sound was not repeated, and +he descended softly. At first he thought that the old man had returned, +and was trying his key on the bolted door, but when he crept to the door +to listen, he heard no sound, and slipping back the bolt, he went to the +second of the rooms on the ground floor and put his light on the door. +Elk was a man of keen observation; very little escaped him, and he was +perfectly certain that this door had been ajar when he had passed it on +entering the house. It was closed now and fastened from the inside, the +key being in the lock. +Was it the child, frightened by his presence? Elk was wise enough a man +not to investigate too closely. He made the best of his way back to the +garden passage and into the street. Here he waited, taking up a position +which enabled him to see the length of Eldor Street and the passage +opening in the wall. Presently he saw Maitland returning. The old man +was carrying the string bag, which now bulged. Elk saw the green of a +cabbage as they passed under the light. He watched them until the +darkness swallowed them up, and heard the sound of their closing door. +Five minutes later, a dark figure came from the passage behind the +houses. It was a man, and Elk, alert and watchful, swung off in pursuit. +The stranger plunged into a labyrinth of little streets with the +detective at his heels. He was walking quickly, but not too quickly for +Elk, who was something of a pedestrian. Into the glare of the main road +the stranger turned, Elk a dozen paces behind him. He could not see his +face, nor did he until his quarry stopped by the side of a waiting car, +opened the door and jumped in. Then it was that Elk came abreast and +raised his hand in cheery salutation. +For a second the man in the closed limousine was taken aback, and then +he opened the door. +“Come right in out of the rain, Elk,” he said, and Elk obeyed. +“Been doing your Sunday shopping?” he asked innocently. +The man’s hawk-like face relaxed into a smile. +“I never eat on Sundays,” he said. +It was Joshua Broad, that rich American who peddled key-rings in +Whitehall, lived in the most expensive flats in London, and found time +to be intensely interested in Ezra Maitland. +He turned abruptly as Elk seated himself. +“Say, Elk, did you see the child?” +Elk shook his head. +“No,” he said, and heard the chuckle of his companion as the car moved +toward the civilized west. +“Yes, I saw that baby,” said Mr. Broad, puffing gently at the cigar he +had lit; “and, believe me, Elk, I’ve stopped loving children. Yes, sir. +The education of the young means less than nothing to me for evermore.” +“Where was she?” +“It’s a ‘he,’” replied Broad calmly, “and I hope I’ll be excused +answering your question. I had been in the house an hour when you +arrived—I was in the back room, which is empty, by the way. You scared +me. I heard you come in and thought it was old St. Nicholas of the +Whiskers. Especially when I saw the light go on. I’d had it on when you +opened the scullery door—I left that unfastened, by the way. Didn’t +want to stop my bolt hole. Well, what do you think?” +“About Maitland?” +“Eccentric, eh? You don’t know how eccentric!” +As the car stopped before the door of Caverley House, Elk broke a long +silence. +“What are you, Mr. Broad?” +“I’ll give you ten guesses,” said the other cheerfully as they got out. +“Secret Service man,” suggested Elk promptly. +“Wrong—you mean U.S.? No, you’re wrong. I’m a private detective who +makes a hobby of studying the criminal classes—will you come up and +have a drink?” +“I will come up, but I won’t drink,” said Elk virtuously, “not if you +offer gin and orange. That visit to the United States has spoilt my +digestion.” +Broad was fitting a key in the lock of his flat, when a strange cold +sensation ran down the spine of the detective, and he laid his hand on +the American’s arm. +“Don’t open that door,” he said huskily. +Broad looked round in surprise. The yard man’s face was tense and drawn. +“Why not?” +“I don’t know . . . just a feeling, that’s all. I’m Scot by birth . . . +we’ve got a word ‘fey,’ which means something supernatural. And it says +inside me, ‘don’t open that door.’” +Broad put down his hand. +“Are you being fey or funny?” he asked. +“If I look funny,” said Elk, “I’m entitled to sue my face for libel. +There’s something at the other side of that door that isn’t good. I’ll +take an oath on it! Give me that!” +He took the key from the unwilling hand of Joshua Broad, thrust it in +the lock and turned it. Then, with a quick push, he threw open the door, +pushing Broad to the cover of the wall. +Nothing happened for a second, and then: +“Run!” cried Elk, and leapt for the stairs. +The American saw the first large billow of greenish-yellowy mist that +rolled from the open door, and followed. +The hall-porter was closing his office for the night when Elk appeared, +hatless and breathless. +“Can you ’phone the flats?—good! Get on at once to every one on and +below the third floor, and tell them on no account to open their doors. +Tell ’em to close all cracks with paper, to stop up their letter-boxes, +and open all windows. Don’t argue—do it! The building is full of poison +gas!” +He himself ’phoned the fire station, and in a few seconds the jangle of +bells sounded in the street outside, and men in gas-masks were +clattering up the stairs. +Fortunately, every tenant except Broad and his neighbour was out of town +for the week-end. +“And Miss Bassano doesn’t come in till early morning,” said the porter. +It was daylight before the building was cleared by the aid of +high-pressure air-hoses and chemical precipitants. Except that his +silver was tarnished black, and every window glass and mirror covered +with a yellow deposit, little harm had been done. A musty odour pervaded +the flat in spite of the open windows, but later came the morning breeze +to dispel the last trace of this malodorous souvenir of the attempt. +Together the two men made a search of the rooms to discover the manner +in which the gas was introduced. +“Through that open fireplace,” Elk pointed. “The gas is heavier than +air, and could be poured down the chimney as easily as pouring water.” +A search of the flat roof satisfied him that his theory was right. They +found ten large glass cylinders and a long rope, to which a wicker +cradle was attached. Moreover, one of the chimney-pots (easily reached +from the roof) was scratched and discoloured. +“The operator came into the building when the porter was busy—working +the lift probably. He made his way to the roof, carrying the rope and +the basket. Somebody in the street fixed the cylinders in the basket, +which the man hauled to the roof one by one. It was dead easy, but +ingenious. They must have made a pretty careful survey beforehand, or +they wouldn’t have known which chimney led to your room.” +They returned to the flat, and for once Joshua Broad was serious. +“Fortunately, my servant is on a holiday,” he said, “or he would have +been in heaven!” +“I hope so,” responded Elk piously. +The sun was tipping the roofs of the houses when he finally left, a +sleepy and a baffled man. He heard the sound of boisterous voices before +he reached the vestibule. A big car stood at the entrance of the flats, +and, seated at the wheel, was a young man in evening dress. By him sat +Lew Brady, and on the pavement was a girl in evening finery. +“A jolly evening, eh, Lola! When I get going, I’m a mover, eh?” +Ray Bennett’s voice was thick and unsteady. He had been drinking—was +within measurable distance of being drunk. +With a yell he recognized the detective as he came into the street. +“Why, it’s old Elk—the Elk of Elks! Greetings, most noble copper! Lola, +meet Elky of Elksburg, the Sherlock of Fact, the Sleuth——” +“Shut up!” hissed the savage-voiced Lew Brady in his ear, but Ray was in +too exalted a mood to be silenced. +“Where’s the priceless Gordon?—say, Elk, watch Gordon! Look after poor +old Gordon—my sister’s very much attached to Gordon.” +“Fine car, Mr. Bennett,” said Elk, regarding the machine thoughtfully. +“Present from your father?” +The mention of his father’s name seemed to sober the young man. +“No, it isn’t,” he snapped, “it belongs to a friend. ’Night, Lola.” He +pumped at the starter, missed picking up, and stamped again. “S’long, +Elk!” +With a jerk the car started, and Elk watched it out of sight. +“That young fellow is certainly in danger of knocking his nut against +the moon,” he said. “Had a good time, Lola?” +“Yes—why?” +She fixed her suspicious eyes upon him expectantly. +“Didn’t forget to turn off the gas when you went out, did you? If I was +Shylock Holmes, maybe I’d tell from the stain on your glove that you +didn’t.” +“What do you mean about gas? I never use the cooker.” +“Somebody does, and he nearly cooked me and a friend of mine—nearly +cooked us good!” +He saw her frown. Since she was a woman he expected her to be an +actress, but somehow he was ready to believe in her sincerity. +“There’s been a gas attack on Caverley House,” he explained, “and not +cooking gas either. I guess you’ll smell it as you go up.” +“What kind of gas—poison?” +Elk nodded. +“But who put it there—emptied it, or whatever is done with gas?” +Elk looked at her with that wounded expression which so justly irritated +his victims. +“If I knew, Lola, would I be standing here discussing the matter? Maybe +my old friend Shylock Holmes would, but I wouldn’t. I don’t know. It was +upset in Mr. Broad’s flat.” +“That is the American who lives opposite to us—to me,” she said. “I’ve +only seen him once. He seems a nice man.” +“Somebody didn’t think so,” said Elk. “I say, Lola, what’s that boy +doing—young Bennett?” +“Why do you ask me? He is making a lot of money just now, and I suppose +he is running a little wild. They all do.” +“I didn’t,” said Elk; “but if I’d made money and started something, I’d +have chosen a better pacemaker than a dud fighting man.” +The angry colour rose to her pretty face, and the glance she shot at him +was as venomous as the gas he had fought all night. +“And I think I’d have put through a few enquiries to central office +about my female acquaintances,” Elk went on remorselessly. “I can +understand why you’re glued to the game, because money naturally +attracts you. But what gets me is where the money comes from.” +“That won’t be the only thing that will get you,” she said between her +teeth as she flounced into the half-opened door of Caverley House. +Elk stood where she had left him, his melancholy face expressionless. +For five minutes he stood so, and then walked slowly in the direction of +his modest bachelor home. +He lived over a lock-up shop, a cigar store, and he was the sole +occupant of the building. As he crossed Gray’s Inn Road, he glanced idly +up at the windows of his rooms and noted that they were closed. He +noticed something more. Every pane of glass was misty with some yellow, +opalescent substance. +Elk looked up and down the silent street, and at a short distance away +saw where road repairers had been at work. The night watchman dozed +before his fire, and did not hear Elk’s approach or remark his unusual +action. The detective found in a heap of gravel, three rounded pebbles, +and these he took back with him. Standing in the centre of the road, he +threw one of the pebbles unerringly. +There was a crash of glass as the window splintered. Elk waited, and +presently he saw a yellow wraith of poison-vapour curl out and downward +through the broken pane. +“This is getting monotonous,” said Elk wearily, and walked to the +nearest fire alarm. +CHAPTER VII +A CALL ON MR. MAITLAND +OUTWARDLY, John Bennett accepted his son’s new life as a very natural +development which might be expected in a young man. Inwardly he was +uneasy, fearful. Ray was his only son; the pride of his life, though +this he never showed. None knew better than John Bennett the snares that +await the feet of independent youth in a great city. Worst of all, for +his peace of mind, he knew Ray. +Ella did not discuss the matter with her father, but she guessed his +trouble and made up her mind as to what action she would take. +The Sunday before, Ray had complained bitterly about the new cut to his +salary. He had been desperate and had talked wildly of throwing up his +work and finding a new place. And that possibility filled Ella with +dismay. The Bennetts lived frugally on a very limited income. Apparently +her father had few resources, though he always gave her the impression +that from one of these he received a fairly comfortable income. +The cottage was Bennett’s own property, and the cost of living was +ridiculously cheap. A woman from the village came in every morning to do +heavy work, and once a week to assist with the wash. That was the only +luxury which her father’s meagre allowance provided for. So that she +faced the prospect of an out-of-work Ray with alarm and decided upon her +line of action. +One morning Johnson, crossing the marble floor of Maitland’s main +office, saw a delicious figure come through the swing doors, and almost +ran to meet it. +“My dear Miss Bennett, this is a wonderful surprise—Ray is out, but if +you’ll wait——” +“I’m glad he is out,” she said, relieved. “I want to see Mr. Maitland. +Is it possible?” +The cheery face of the philosopher clouded. +“I’m afraid that will be difficult,” he said. “The old man never sees +people—even the biggest men in the City. He hates women and strangers, +and although I’ve been with him all these years, I’m not so sure that he +has got used to me! What is it about?” +She hesitated. +“It’s about Ray’s salary,” and then, as he shook his head, she went on +urgently: “It is so important, Mr. Johnson. Ray has extravagant tastes, +and if they cut his salary it means—well, you know Ray so well!” +He nodded. +“I don’t know whether I can do anything,” he said dubiously. “I’ll go up +and ask Mr. Maitland, but I’m afraid that it is a million to one chance +against his seeing you.” +When he came back, the jovial face of Mr. Johnson was one broad smile. +“Come up before he changes his mind,” he said, and led her to the lift. +“You’ll have to do all the talking, Miss Bennett—he’s an eccentric old +cuss and as hard as flint.” +He showed her into a small and comfortably furnished room, and waved his +hand to a writing-table littered with papers. +“My little den,” he explained. +From the “den” a large rosewood door opened upon Mr. Maitland’s office. +Johnson knocked softly, and, with a heart that beat a little faster, +Ella was ushered into the presence of the strange old man who at that +moment was dominating the money market. +The room was large, and the luxury of the fittings took her breath away. +The walls were of rosewood inlaid with exquisite silver inlay. Light +came from concealed lamps in the cornice as well as from the long +stained-glass windows. Each article of furniture in the room was worth a +fortune, and she guessed that the carpet, into which her feet sank, +equalled in costliness the whole contents of an average house. +Behind a vast ormolu writing-table sat the great Maitland, bolt upright, +watching her from under his shaggy white brows. A few stray hairs of his +spotless beard rested on the desk, and as he raised his hand to sweep +them into place, she saw he wore fingerless woollen gloves. His head was +completely bald . . . she looked at his big ears, standing away from his +head, fascinated. Patriarchal, yet repulsive. There was something gross, +obscene, about him that hurt her. It was not the untidiness of his +dress, it was not his years. Age brings refinement, that beauty of decay +that the purists call caducity. This old man had grown old coarsely. +His scrutiny lacked the assurance she expected. It almost seemed that he +was nervous, ill at ease. His gaze shifted from the girl to his +secretary, and then to the rich colouring of the windows, and then +furtively back to Ella again. +“This is Miss Bennett, sir. You remember that Bennett is our exchange +clerk, and a very smart fellow indeed. Miss Bennett wants you to +reconsider your decision about that salary cut.” +“You see, Mr. Maitland,” Ella broke in, “we’re not particularly well +off, and the reduction makes a whole lot of difference to us.” +Mr. Maitland wagged his bald head impatiently. +“I don’t care whether you’re well off or not well off,” he said loudly. +“When I reduces salaries I reduces ’um, see?” +She stared at him in amazement. The voice was harsh and common. The +language and tone were of the gutter. In that sentence he confirmed all +her first impressions. +“If he don’t like it he can go, and if you don’t like it”—he fixed his +dull eyes on the uncomfortable-looking Johnson—“you can go too. There’s +lots of fellers I can get—pick ’um up on the streets! Millions of ’um! +That’s all.” Johnson tiptoed from the presence and closed the door +behind her. +“He’s a horror!” she gasped. “How can you endure contact with him, Mr. +Johnson?” +The stout man smiled quietly. +“‘Millions of ’um,’” he repeated, “and he’s right. With a million and a +half unemployed on the streets, I can’t throw up a good job——” +“I’m sorry,” she said, impulsively putting her hand on his arm. “I +didn’t know he was like that,” she went on more mildly. +“He’s—terrible!” +“He’s a self-made man, and perhaps he would have been well advised to +have got an artisan to do the job,” smiled Johnson, “but he’s not really +bad. I wonder why he saw you?” +“Doesn’t he see people?” +He shook his head. +“Not unless it is absolutely necessary, and that only happens about +twice a year. I don’t think there is anybody in this building that he’s +ever spoken to—not even the managers.” +He took her down to the general office. Ray had not come back. +“The truth is,” confessed Johnson when she asked him, “that Ray hasn’t +been to the office this morning. He sent word to say that he wasn’t +feeling any too good, and I fixed it so that he has a day off.” +“He’s not ill?” she asked in alarm, but Johnson reassured her. +“No. I got on the telephone to him—he has a telephone at his new flat.” +“I thought he had an ordinary apartment!” she said, aghast, the +housewife in her perturbed. “A flat—where is it?” +“In Knightsbridge,” replied Johnson quietly. “Yes, it sounds expensive, +but I believe he has a bargain. A man who was going abroad sub-let it to +him for a song. I suppose he wrote to you from the lodgings in +Bloomsbury where he intended going. May I be candid, Miss Bennett?” +“If it is about Ray, I wish you would,” she answered quickly. +“Ray is rather worrying me,” said Johnson. “Naturally I want to do all +that I can for him, for I am fond of him. At present my job is covering +up his rather frequent absences from the office—you need not mention +this fact to him—but it is rather a strain, for the old man has an +uncanny instinct for a shirker. He is living in better style than he +ought to be able to afford, and I’ve seen him dressed to kill with some +of the swellest people in town—at least, they looked swell.” +The girl felt herself go cold, and the vague unrest in her mind became +instantly a panic. +“There isn’t . . . anything wrong at the office?” she asked anxiously. +“No. I took the liberty of going through his books. They’re square. His +cash account is right to a centimo. Crudely stated, he isn’t +stealing—at least, not from us. There’s another thing. He calls himself +Raymond Lester at Knightsbridge. I found this out by accident, and asked +him why he had taken another name. His explanation was fairly plausible. +He didn’t want Mr. Bennett to hear that he was cutting a shine. He has +some profitable outside work, but he won’t tell me what it is.” +Ella was glad to get away, glad to reach the seclusion which the wide +spaces of the park afforded. She must think and decide upon the course +she would take. Ray was not the kind of boy to accept the draconic +attitude, either in her or in John Bennett. His father must not +know—she must appeal to Ray. Perhaps it was true that he had found a +remunerative sideline. Lots of young men ran spare time work with profit +to themselves—only Ray was not a worker. +She sat down on a park chair to wrestle with the problem, and so intent +was she upon its solution that she did not realize that somebody had +stopped before her. +“This is a miracle!” said a laughing voice, and she looked up into the +blue eyes of Dick Gordon. “And now you can tell me what is the +difficulty?” he asked as he pulled another chair toward her and sat +down. +“Difficulty . . . who . . . who said I was in difficulties?” she +countered. +“Your face is the traitor,” he smiled. “Forgive this attire. I have been +to make an official call at the United States Embassy.” +She noticed for the first time that he wore the punctilious costume of +officialdom, the well-fitting tail-coat, the polished top-hat and +regulation cravat. She observed first of all that he looked very well in +them, and that he seemed even younger. +“I have an idea it is your brother,” he said. “I saw him a few minutes +ago—there he is now.” +She followed the direction of his eyes, and half rose from her chair in +her astonishment. Riding on the tan track which ran parallel to the park +road, were a man and a girl. The man was Ray. He was smartly dressed, +and from the toes of his polished riding-boots to the crown of his grey +hat, was all that was creditable to expensive tailoring. The girl at his +side was young, pretty, petite. +The riders passed without Ray noticing the interested spectators. He was +in his gayest mood, and the sound of his laughter came back to the +dumbfounded girl. +“But . . . I don’t understand—do you know the lady, Mr. Gordon?” +“Very well by repute,” said Dick drily. “Her name is Lola Bassano.” +“Is she—a lady?” +Dick’s eyes twinkled. +“Elk says she’s not, but Elk is prejudiced. She has money and education +and breed. Whether or not these three assets are sufficient to +constitute a lady, I don’t know. Elk says not, but, as I say, Elk is +considerably prejudiced.” +She sat silent, her mind in a whirl. +“I have an idea that you want help . . . about your brother,” said Dick +quietly. “He is frightening you, isn’t he?” +She nodded. +“I thought so. He is puzzling _me_. I know all about him, his salary and +prospects and his queer masquerade under an _alias_. I’m not troubling +about that, because boys love those kinds of mysteries. Unfortunately, +they are expensive mysteries, and I want to know how he can afford to +keep up this suddenly acquired position.” +He mentioned a sum and she gasped. +“It costs all that,” said Dick. “Elk, who has a passion for exact +detail, and who knows to a penny what the riding suit costs, supplied me +with particulars.” +She interrupted him with such a gesture of despair that he felt a brute. +“What can I do . . . what can I do?” she asked. “Everybody wants to +help—you, Mr. Johnson, and, I’m sure, Mr. Elk. But he is +impossible—Ray, I mean. It will be fighting a feather bed. It may seem +absurd to you, so much fuss over Ray’s foolish escapade, but it means, +oh, so much to us, father and me!” +Dick said nothing. It was too delicate a matter for an outsider to +intrude upon. But the real delicacy of the situation was comprised in +the boy’s riding companion. As though guessing his thoughts, she asked +suddenly: +“Is she a nice girl—Miss Bassano? I mean, is she one whom Ray should +know?” +“She is very charming,” he answered after a pause, and she noted the +evasion and carried the subject no farther. Presently she turned the +talk to her call on Ezra Maitland, and he heard her description without +expressing surprise. +“He’s a rough diamond,” he said. “Elk knows something about him which he +refuses to tell. Elk enjoys mystifying his chiefs even more than +detecting criminals. But I’ve heard about Maitland from other sources.” +“Why does he wear gloves in the office?” she asked unexpectedly. +“Gloves—I didn’t know that,” he said, surprised. “Why shouldn’t he?” +She shook her head. +“I don’t know . . . it was a silly idea, but I thought—it has only +occurred to me since . . .” +He waited. +“When he put up his hand to smooth his beard, I’m almost sure I saw a +tattoo mark on his left wrist—just the edge of it showing above the end +of the glove—the head and eyes of a frog.” +Dick Gordon listened, thunderstruck. +“Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination, Miss Bennett?” he asked. “I am +afraid the Frog is getting on all our nerves.” +“It may have been,” she nodded; “but I was within a few feet of him, and +a patch of light, reflected from his blotter, caught the wrist for a +second.” +“Did you speak to Johnson about it?” +She shook her head. +“I thought afterwards that even he, with all his long years of service, +might not have observed the tattoo mark. I remember now that Ray told me +Mr. Maitland always wore gloves, summer or winter.” +Dick was puzzled. It was unlikely that this man, the head of a great +financial corporation, should be associated with a gang of tramps. And +yet—— +“When is your brother going to Horsham?” he asked. +“On Sunday,” said the girl. “He has promised father to come to lunch.” +“I suppose,” said the cunning young man, “that it isn’t possible to ask +me to be a fourth?” +“You will be a fifth,” she smiled. “Mr. Johnson is coming down too. Poor +Mr. Johnson is scared of father, and I think the fear is mutual. Father +resembles Maitland in that respect, that he does not like strangers. +I’ll invite you anyway,” she said, and the prospect of the Sunday +meeting cheered her. +Elk came to see him that night, just as he was going out to a theatre, +and Dick related the girl’s suspicion. To his surprise, Elk took the +startling theory very coolly. +“It’s possible,” he said, “but it’s more likely that the tattoo mark +isn’t a frog at all. Old Maitland was a seaman as a boy—at least, that +is what the only biography of him in existence says. It’s a half-column +that appeared in a London newspaper about twelve years ago, when he +bought up Lord Meister’s place on the Embankment and began to enlarge +his offices. I’ll tell you this, Mr. Gordon, that I’m quite prepared to +believe anything of old Maitland.” +“Why?” asked Dick in astonishment. He knew nothing of the discoveries +which the detective had made. +“Because I just should,” said Elk. “Men who make millions are not +ordinary. If they were ordinary they wouldn’t be millionaires. I’ll +inquire about that tattoo mark.” +Dick’s attention was diverted from the Frogs that week by an unusual +circumstance. On the Tuesday he was sent for by the Foreign Minister’s +secretary, and, to his surprise, he was received personally by the +august head of that department. The reason for this signal honour was +disclosed. +“Captain Gordon,” said the Minister, “I am expecting from France the +draft commercial treaty that is to be signed as between ourselves and +the French and Italian Governments. It is very important that this +document should be well guarded because—and I tell you this in +confidence—it deals with a revision of tariff rates. I won’t compromise +you by telling you in what manner the revisions are applied, but it is +essential that the King’s Messenger who is bringing the treaty should be +well guarded, and I wish to supplement the ordinary police protection by +sending you to Dover to meet him. It is a little outside your duties, +but your Intelligence work during the war must be my excuse for saddling +you with this responsibility. Three members of the French and Italian +secret police will accompany him to Dover, when you and your men will +take on the guard duty, and remain until you personally see the document +deposited in my own safe.” +Like many other important duties, this proved to be wholly unexciting. +The Messenger was picked up on the quay at Dover, shepherded into a +Pullman coupé which had been reserved for him, and the passage-way +outside the coupé was patrolled by two men from Scotland Yard. At +Victoria a car, driven by a chauffeur-policeman and guarded by armed +men, picked up the Messenger and Dick, and drove them to Calden Gardens. +In his library the Foreign Secretary examined the seals carefully, and +then, in the presence of Dick and the Detective-Inspector who had +commanded the escort, placed the envelope in the safe. +“I don’t suppose for one moment,” said the Foreign Minister with a +smile, after all the visitors but Dick had departed, “that our friends +the Frogs are greatly interested. Yet, curiously enough, I had them in +my mind, and this was responsible for the extraordinary precautions we +have taken. There is, I suppose, no further clue in the Genter murder?” +“None, sir—so far as I know. Domestic crime isn’t really in my +department. And any kind of crime does not come to the Public Prosecutor +until the case against an accused person is ready to be presented.” +“It is a pity,” said Lord Farmley. “I could wish that the matter of the +Frogs was not entirely in the hands of Scotland Yard. It is so out of +the ordinary, and such a menace to society, that I should feel more +happy if some extra department were controlling the investigations.” +Dick Gordon might have said that he was itching to assume that control, +but he refrained. His lordship fingered his shaven chin thoughtfully. He +was an austere man of sixty, delicately featured, as delicately +wrinkled, the product of that subtle school of diplomacy which is at +once urbane and ruthless, which slays with a bow, and is never quite so +dangerous as when it is most polite. +“I will speak to the Prime Minister,” he said. “Will you dine with me, +Captain Gordon?” +Early in the next afternoon, Dick Gordon was summoned to Downing Street, +and was informed that a special department had been created to deal +exclusively with this social menace. +“You have _carte blanche_, Captain Gordon. I may be criticized for +giving you this appointment, but I am perfectly satisfied that I have +the right man,” said the Prime Minister; “and you may employ any officer +from Scotland Yard you wish.” +“I’ll take Sergeant Elk,” said Dick promptly, and the Prime Minister +looked dubious. +“That is not a very high rank,” he demurred. +“He is a man with thirty years’ service,” said Dick; “and I believe that +only his failure in the educational test has stopped his further +promotion. Let me have him, sir, and give him the temporary rank of +Inspector.” +The older man laughed. +“Have it your own way,” he said. +Sergeant Elk, lounging in to report progress that afternoon, was greeted +by a new title. For a while he was dazed, and then a slow smile dawned +on his homely face. +“I’ll bet I’m the only inspector in England who doesn’t know where Queen +Elizabeth is buried!” he said, not without pride. +CHAPTER VIII +THE OFFENSIVE RAY +IT was perfectly absurd, Dick told himself a dozen times during the days +which followed, that a grown man of his experience should punctiliously +and solemnly strike from the calendar, one by one, the days which +separated him from Sunday. A schoolboy might so behave, but it would +have to be a very callow schoolboy. And a schoolboy might sit at his +desk and dream away the time that might have been devoted to official +correspondence. +A pretty face . . . ? Dick had admired many. A graciousness of carriage, +an inspiring refinement of manner . . . ? He gave up the attempt to +analyse the attraction which Ella Bennett held. All that he knew was, +that he was waiting impatiently for Sunday. +When Dick opened the garden gate, he saw the plump figure of +philosophical Johnson ensconced cosily in a garden chair. The secretary +rose with a beaming smile and held out his hand. Dick liked the man. He +stood for that patient class which, struggling under the stifling +handicap of its own mediocrity, has its superlative virtue in loyalty +and unremitting application to the task it finds at hand. +“Ray told me you were coming, Mr. Gordon—he is with Miss Bennett in the +orchard, and from a casual view of him just now, he is hearing a few +home truths. What do you make of it?” +“Has he given up coming to the office?” asked Dick, as he stripped his +dust-coat. +“I am afraid he is out for good.” Johnson’s face was sad. “I had to tell +him to go. The old man found out that he’d been staying away, and by +some uncanny and underground system of intelligence he has learnt that +Ray was going the pace. He had an accountant in to see the books, but +thank heaven they were O.K.! I was very nearly fired myself.” +This was an opportunity not to be missed. +“Do you know where Maitland lives—in what state? Has he a town house?” +Johnson smiled. +“Oh yes, he has a town house all right,” he said sarcastically. “I only +discovered where it was a year ago, and I’ve never told a single soul +until now. And even now I won’t give details. But old Maitland is living +in some place that is nearly a slum—living meanly and horribly like an +unemployed labourer! And he is worth millions! He has a cheap house in +one of the suburbs, a place I wouldn’t use to stable a cow! He and his +sister live there; she looks after the place and does the housekeeping. +I guess she has a soft job. I’ve never known Maitland to spend a penny +on himself. I’m sure that he is wearing the suit he wore when I first +came to him. He has a penny glass of milk and a penny roll for lunch, +and tries to swindle me into paying for that, some days!” +“Tell me, Mr. Johnson, why does the old man wear gloves in the office?” +Johnson shook his head. +“I don’t know. I used to think it was to hide the scar on the back of +his hand, but he’s not the kind of man to wear gloves for that. He is +tattooed with crowns and anchors and dolphins all up his arms. . . .” +“And frogs?” asked Dick quietly, and the question seemed to surprise the +other. +“No, I’ve never seen a frog. There’s a bunch of snakes on one +wrist—I’ve seen that. Why, old man Maitland wouldn’t be a Frog, would +he?” he asked, and Dick smiled at the anxiety in his tone. +“I wondered,” he said. +Johnson’s usually cheerful countenance was glum. +“I reckon he is mean enough to be a Frog or ’most anything,” he said, +and at that minute Ray and his sister came into view. On Ray’s forehead +sat a thundercloud, which deepened at the sight of Dick Gordon. The girl +was flushed and obviously on the verge of tears. +“Hallo, Gordon!” the boy began without preliminary. “I fancy you’re the +fellow that has been carrying yarns to my sister. You set Elk to spy on +me—I know, because I found Elk in the act——” +“Ray, you’re not to speak like that to Mr. Gordon,” interrupted the girl +hotly. “He has never told me anything to your discredit. All I know I +have seen. You seem to forget that Mr. Gordon is father’s guest.” +“Everybody is fussing over me,” Ray grumbled. “Even old Johnson!” He +grinned sheepishly at the bald man, but Johnson did not return the +smile. +“Somebody has got to worry about you, boy,” he said. +The strained situation was only relieved when John Bennett, camera on +back, came up the red path to greet his visitors. +“Why, Mr. Johnson, I owe you many apologies for putting you off, but I’m +glad to see you here at last. How is Ray doing at the office?” +Johnson shot a helpless and pathetic glance at Dick. +“Er—fine, Mr. Bennett,” he blurted. +So John Bennett was not to be told that his son had launched forth on a +new career? The fact that he was fathering this deception made Dick +Gordon a little uncomfortable. Apparently it reduced Mr. Johnson to +despair, for when a somewhat tense luncheon had ended and they were +alone again in the garden, that worthy man unburdened himself of his +trouble. +“I feel that I’m playing it low on old Bennett,” he said. “Ray should +have told him.” +Dick could only agree. He was in no mood to discuss Ray at the moment. +The boy’s annoyance and self-assurance irritated him, and it did not +help matters to recognize the sudden and frank hostility which the +brother of Ella Bennett was showing toward him. That was disconcerting, +and emphasized his anomalous position in relation to the Bennetts. He +was discovering what many young men in love have to discover: that the +glamour which surrounds their dears does not extend to the relations and +friends of their dears. He made yet another discovery. The plump Mr. +Johnson was in love with the girl. He was nervous and incoherent in her +presence; miserable when she went away. More miserable still when Dick +boldly took her arm and led her into the rose-garden behind the house. +“I don’t know why that fellow comes here,” said Ray savagely as the two +disappeared. “He isn’t a man of our class, and he loathes me.” +“I don’t know that he loathes you, Ray,” said Johnson, waking from the +unhappy daydream into which he seemed to have fallen. “He’s an extremely +nice man——” +“Fiddlesticks!” said the other scornfully. “He’s a snob! Anyway, he’s a +policemen, and I hate cops! If you imagine the he doesn’t look good on +you and me, you’re wrong. I’m as good as he is, and I bet I’ll make more +money before I’m finished!” +“Money isn’t everything,” said Johnson tritely. “What work are you +doing, Ray?” +It required a great effort on his part to bring his mind back to his +friend’s affairs. +“I can’t tell you. It’s very confidential,” said Ray mysteriously. “I +couldn’t even tell Ella, though she’s been jawing at me for hours. There +are some jobs that a man can’t speak about without betraying secrets +that aren’t his to tell. This is one of them.” +Mr. Johnson said nothing. He was thinking of Ella and wondering how long +it would be before her good-looking companion brought her back. +Good-looking and young. Mr. Johnson was not good-looking, and only just +on the right side of fifty. And he was bald. But, worst of all, in her +presence he was tongue-tied. He was rather amazed with himself. +In the seclusion of the rose-garden another member of the Bennett family +was relating her fears to a more sympathetic audience. +“I feel that father guesses,” she said. “He was out most of last night. +I was awake when he came in, and he looked terrible. He said he had been +walking about half the night, and by the mud on his boots I think he +must have been.” +Dick did not agree. +“Knowing very little about Mr. Bennett, I should hardly think he is the +kind of man to suffer in silence where your brother is concerned,” he +said. “I could better imagine a most unholy row. Why has your brother +become so unpleasant to me?” +She shook her head. +“I don’t know. Ray has changed suddenly. This morning when he kissed me, +his breath smelt of whisky—he never used to drink. This new life is +ruining him—why should he take a false name if . . . if the work he is +doing is quite straight?” +She had ceased addressing him as “Mr. Gordon.” The compromise of calling +him by no name at all was very pleasant to Dick Gordon, because he +recognized that it _was_ a compromise. The day was hot and the sky +cloudless. Ella had made arrangements to serve tea on the lawn, and she +found two eager helpers in Dick and Johnson, galvanized to radiant +activity by the opportunity of assisting. The boy’s attitude remained +antagonistic, and after a few futile attempts to overcome this, Dick +gave it up. +Even the presence of his father, who had kept aloof from the party all +afternoon, brought no change for the better. +“The worst of being a policeman is that you’re always on duty,” he said +during the meal. “I suppose you’re storing every scrap of talk in your +mind, in case you have to use it.” +Dick folded a thin slice of bread and butter very deliberately before he +replied. +“I have certainly a good memory,” he said. “It helps me to forget. It +also helps me keep silent in circumstances which are very difficult and +trying.” +Suddenly Ray spun round in his chair. +“I told you he was on duty!” he cried triumphantly. “Look! There’s the +chief of the spy corps! The faithful Elk!” +Dick looked in astonishment. He had left Elk on the point of going north +to follow up a new Frog clue that had come to light. And there he was, +his hands resting on the gate, his chin on his chest, gazing mournfully +over his glasses at the group. +“Can I come in, Mr. Bennett?” +John Bennett, alert and watchful, beckoned. +“Happened to be round about here, so I thought I’d call. Good afternoon, +miss—good afternoon, Mr. Johnson.” +“Give Sergeant Elk your chair,” growled John Bennett, and his son rose +with a scowl. +“Inspector,” said Elk. “No, I’d rather stand, mister. Stand and grow +good, eh? Yes, I’m Inspector. I don’t realize it myself sometimes, +especially when the men salute me—forget to salute ’em back. Now, in +America I believe patrol men salute sergeants. That’s as it should be.” +His sad eyes moved from one to the other. +“I suppose your promotion has made a lot of crooks very scared, Elk?” +sneered Ray. +“Why, yes. I believe it has. Especially the amatchoors,” said Elk. “The +crooks that are only fly-nuts. The fancy crooks, who think they know it +all, and will go on thinking so till one day somebody says, ‘Get your +hat—the chief wants you!’ Otherwise,” confessed Elk modestly, “the news +has created no sensation, and London is just as full as ever of +tale-pitchers who’ll let you distribute their money amongst the poor if +you’ll only loan ’em a hundred to prove your confidence. And,” Elk +continued after a moment’s cogitation, “there’s nearly as many dud +prize-fighters living on blackmail an’ robbery, an’ almost as many +beautiful young ladies running faro parlours and dance emporiums.” +Ray’s face went a dull red, and if looks could blast, Inspector Elk’s +friends would have been speaking of him in hushed tones. +Only then did he turn his attention to Dick Gordon. +“I was wondering, Captain, if I could have a day off next week—I’ve a +little family trouble.” +Dick, who did not even know that his friend had a family was startled. +“I’m sorry to hear that, Elk,” he said sympathetically. +Elk sighed. +“It’s hard on me,” he said, “but I feel I ought to tell you, if you’ll +excuse me, Miss Bennett?” +Dick rose and followed the detective to the gate, and then Elk spoke in +a low tone. +“Lord Farmley’s house was burgled at one o’clock this morning, and the +Frogs have got away with the draft treaty!” +Watching the two furtively, the girl saw nothing in Dick Gordon’s +demeanour to indicate that he had received any news which was of +consequence to himself. He came slowly back to the table. +“I am afraid I must go,” he said. “Elk’s trouble is sufficiently +important to take me back to town.” +He saw the regret in Ella’s eyes and was satisfied. The leave-taking was +short, for it was very necessary that he should get back to town as +quickly as his car could carry him. +On the journey Elk told all that he knew. Lord Farmley had spent the +week-end in his town house. He was working on two new clauses which had +been inserted on the private representation of the American ambassador, +who, as usual, held a watching brief in the matter, but managed (also as +usual) to secure the amendment of a clause dealing with transshipments +that, had it remained unamended, would have proved detrimental to his +country. All this Dick learnt later. He was unaware at the time that the +embassy knew of the treaty’s existence. +Lord Farmley had replaced the document in the safe, which was a “Cham” +of the latest make, and built into the wall of his study, locked and +double-locked the steel doors, switched on the burglar alarm, and went +to bed. +He had no occasion to go to the safe until after lunch. To all +appearances, the safe-doors had not been touched. After lunch, intending +to work again on the treaty, he put his key in the lock, to discover +that, when it turned, the wards met no resistance. He pulled at the +handle. It came away in his hand. The safe was open in the sense that it +was not locked, and the treaty, together with his notes and amendments, +had gone. +“How did they get in?” asked Dick as the car whizzed furiously along the +country road. +“Pantry window—butlers’ pantries were invented by a burglar-architect,” +said Elk. “It’s a real job—the finest bit of work I’ve seen in twenty +years, and there are only two men in the world who could have done it. +No finger-prints, no ugly holes blown into the safe, everything neat and +beautifully done. It’s a pleasure to see.” +“I hope Lord Farmley has got as much satisfaction out of the workmanship +as you have,” said Dick grimly, and Elk sniffed. +“He wasn’t laughing,” he said, “at least, not when I came away.” +His lordship was not laughing when Elk returned. +“This is terrible, Gordon—terrible! We’re holding a Cabinet on the +matter this evening; the Prime Minister has returned to town. This means +political ruin for me.” +“You think the Frogs are responsible?” +Lord Farmley’s answer was to pull open the door of the safe. On the +inside panel was a white imprint, an exact replica of that which Elk had +seen on the door of Mr. Broad’s flat. It was almost impossible for the +non-expert to discover how the safe had been opened. It was Elk who +showed the fine work that had extracted the handle and had enabled the +thieves to shatter the lock by some powerful explosive which nobody in +the house had heard. +“They used a silencer,” said Elk. “It’s just as easy to prevent gases +escaping too quickly from a lock as it is from a gun barrel. I tell you, +there are only two men who could have done this.” +“Who are they?” +“Young Harry Lyme is one—he’s been dead for years. And Saul Morris is +the other—and Saul’s dead too.” +“As the work is obviously not that of two dead men, you would be well +advised to think of a third,” said his lordship, pardonably annoyed. +Elk shook his head slowly. +“There must be a third, and he’s the cleverest of the lot,” he said, +speaking his thoughts aloud. “I know the lot—Wal Cormon, George the +Rat, Billy Harp, Ike Velleco, Pheeny Moore—and I’ll take an oath that +it wasn’t any of them. This is master work, my lord. It’s the work of a +great artist such as we seldom meet nowadays. And I fancy I know who he +is.” +Lord Farmley, who had listened as patiently as he could to this +rhapsody, stalked from the library soon after, leaving the men alone. +“Captain,” said Elk, walking after the peer and closing the door, “do +you happen to know where old Bennett was last night?” +Elk’s tone was careless, but Dick Gordon felt the underlying +significance of the question, and for a moment, realizing all that lay +behind the question, all that it meant to the girl, who was dearer to +him than he had guessed, his breath came more quickly. +“He was out most of the night,” he said. “Miss Bennett told me that he +went away on Friday and did not return until this morning at daybreak. +Why?” +Elk took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it slowly and adjusted his +glasses. +“I’ve had a man keeping tag of Bennett’s absences from home,” he said +slowly. “It was easy, because the woman who goes every morning to clean +his house has a wonderful memory. He has been away fifteen times this +past year, and every time he has gone there’s been a first-class +burglary committed somewhere!” +Dick drew a long breath. +“What are you suggesting?” he asked. +“I’m suggesting,” replied Elk deliberately, “that if Bennett can’t +account for his movements on Saturday night, I’m going to pull him in. +Saul Morris I’ve never met, nor young Wal Cormon either—they were +before I did big work. But if my idea is right, Saul Morris isn’t as +dead as he ought to be. I’m going down to see Brother Bennett, and I +think perhaps I’ll be doing a bit of resurrecting!” +CHAPTER IX +THE MAN WHO WAS WRECKED +JOHN BENNETT was working in his garden in the early morning when Elk +called, and the inspector came straight to the point. +“There was a burglary committed at the residence of Lord Farmley on +Saturday night and Sunday morning. Probably between midnight and three +o’clock. The safe was blown and important documents stolen. I’m asking +you to account for your movements on Saturday night and Sunday morning.” +Bennett looked the detective straight in the eyes. +“I was on the London road—I walked from town. At two o’clock I was +speaking with a policeman in Dorking. At midnight I was in Kingbridge, +and again I spoke to a policeman. Both these men know me because I +frequently walk to Dorking and Kingbridge. The man at Dorking is an +amateur photographer like myself.” +Elk considered. +“I’ve a car here; suppose you come along and see these policemen?” he +suggested, and to his surprise Bennett agreed at once. +At Dorking they discovered their man; he was just going off duty. +“Yes, Inspector, I remember Mr. Bennett speaking to me. We were +discussing animal photography.” +“You’re sure of the time?” +“Absolutely. At two o’clock the patrol sergeant visits me, and he came +up whilst we were talking.” +The patrol sergeant, wakened from his morning sleep, confirmed this +statement. The result of the Kingbridge inquiries produced the same +results. +Elk ordered the driver of his car to return to Horsham. +“I’m not going to apologize to you, Bennett,” he said, “and you know +enough about my work to appreciate my position.” +“I’m not complaining,” said Bennett gruffly. “Duty is duty. But I’m +entitled to know why you suspect me of all men in the world.” +Elk tapped the window of the car and it stopped. +“Walk along the road: I can talk better,” he said. +They got out and went some distance without speaking. +“Bennett, you’re under suspicion for two reasons. You’re a mystery man +in the sense that nobody knows how you get a living. You haven’t an +income of your own. You haven’t an occupation, and at odd intervals you +disappear from home and nobody knows where you go. If you were a younger +man I’d suspect a double life in the usual sense. But you’re not that +kind. That is suspicious circumstance Number One. Here is Number Two. +Every time you disappear there’s a big burglary somewhere. And I’ve an +idea it’s a Frog steal. I’ll give you my theory. These Frogs are mostly +dirt. There isn’t enough brain in the whole outfit to fill an average +nut—I’m talking about the mass of ’em. There are clever men higher up, +I grant. But they don’t include the regular fellows who make a living +from crime. These boys haven’t any time for such nonsense. They plan a +job and pull it off, or they get pinched. If they make a getaway, they +divide up the stuff and sit around in cafés with girls till all the +stuff is gone, and then they go out for some more. But the Frogs are +willing to pay good men who are outside the organization for extra +work.” +“And you suggest that I may be one of the ‘good men’?” said Bennett. +“That’s just what I am suggesting. This Frog job at Lord Farmley’s was +done by an expert—it looks like Saul Morris.” +His keen eyes were focused upon Bennett’s face, but not by so much as a +flicker of an eyelash did he betray his thoughts. +“I remember Saul Morris,” said Bennett slowly. “I’ve never seen him, but +I’ve heard of his work. Was he—anything like me?” +Elk pursed his lips, his chin went nearer to his chest, and his gaze +became more and more intensified. +“If you know anything about Saul Morris,” he said slowly, “you also know +that he was never in the hands of the police, that nobody except his own +gang ever saw him, so as to be able to recognize him again.” +Another silence. +“I wasn’t aware of that,” said Bennett. +On the way back to the car, Bennett spoke again. +“I bear no malice. My movements are suspicious, but there is a good +reason. As to the burglaries—I know nothing about them. I should say +that in any case, whether I knew or not. I ask you not to mention this +matter to my daughter, because—well, you don’t want me to tell you +why.” +Ella was standing at the garden gate when the car came up, and at the +sight of Elk the smile left her face. Elk knew instinctively that the +thought of her brother, and the possibility of his being in trouble, +were the causes of her apprehension. +“Mr. Elk came down to ask me a few questions about the attack on Mr. +Gordon,” said her father briefly. +Whatever else he was, thought Elk, he was a poor and unconvincing liar. +That the girl was not convinced, he was sure. When they were alone she +asked: +“Is anything wrong, Mr. Elk?” +“Nothing, miss. Just come down to refresh my memory—which was never a +good one, especially in the matter of dates. The only date I really +remember is the landing of William the Conqueror—1140 or thereabouts. +Brother gone back to town?” +“He went last night,” she said, and then, almost defiantly: “He is in a +good position now, Mr. Elk.” +“So they tell me,” said Elk. “I wish he wasn’t working in the same shop +as the bunch who are with him. I’m not letting him out of my sight. Miss +Bennett,” he said in a kinder tone. “Perhaps I’ll be able to slip in the +right word one of these days. He wouldn’t listen now if I said +‘get!’—he’s naturally in the condition of mind when he’s making up +press cuttings about himself. And in a way he’s right. If you don’t know +it all at twenty-one you never will. What’s that word that begins with a +‘z’?—‘zenith,’ that’s it. He’s at the zenith of his +sure-and-certainness. From now on he’ll start unloading his cargo of +dreams an’ take in ballast. But he’ll hate to hear the derricks at +work.” +“You talk like a sailor,” she smiled in spite of her trouble. +“I was that once,” said Elk, “the same as old man Maitland—though I’ve +never sailed with him—I guess he left the sea years before I was born. +Like him?” +“Mr. Maitland? No!” she shivered. “I think he is a terrible man.” +Elk did not disagree. +To Dick Gordon that morning he confessed his error. +“I don’t know why I jumped at Bennett,” he said. “I’m getting young! I +see the evening newspapers have got the burglary.” +“But they do not know what was stolen,” said Dick in a low voice. “That +must be kept secret.” +They were in the inner bureau, which Dick occupied temporarily. Two men +were at work in his larger office replacing a panel which had been +shattered by the bullet which had been fired at him on the morning Elk +came into the case, and it was symptomatic of the effect that the Frogs +had had upon headquarters that both men had almost mechanically +scrutinized the left arms of the workmen. The sight of the damaged panel +switched Elk’s thoughts to a matter which he had intended raising +before—the identity of the tramp Carlo. In spite of the precautions +Gordon had taken, and although the man was under observation, Carlo had +vanished, and the combined efforts of headquarters and the country +offices had failed to locate him. It was a sore point with Gordon, as +Elk had reason to know. +For Carlo was the reputable “Number Seven,” the most important man in +the organization after the Frog himself. +“I’d like to see this Carlo,” he said thoughtfully. “There’s not much +use in putting another man out on the road to follow up Genter’s work. +That system doesn’t work twice. I wonder how much Lola knows?” +“Of the Frogs? They wouldn’t trust a woman,” said Dick. “She may work +for them, but, as you said, it is likely they bring in outsiders for +special jobs and pay them well.” +Elk did not carry the matter any further, and spent the rest of the day +in making fruitless inquiries. Returning to his room at headquarters +that night, he sat for a long time hunched up in his chair, his hands +thrust into his trousers pockets, staring down at the blotting-pad. Then +he pressed a bell, and his clerk, Balder, came. +“Go to Records, get me all that is known about every safe-breaker known +in this country. You needn’t worry about the German and French, but +there’s a Swede or two who are mighty clever with the lamp, and of +course there are the Americans.” +They came after a long interval—a considerable pile of papers, +photographs and finger-prints. +“You can go, Balder—the night man can take them back.” He settled +himself down to an enjoyable night’s reading. +He was nearing the end of the pile when he came to the portrait of a +young man with a drooping moustache and a bush of curly hair. It was one +of those sharp positives that unromantic police officials take, and +showed whatever imperfections of skin there were. Beneath the photograph +was the name, carefully printed: “Henry John Lyme, R.V.” +“R.V.” was the prison code. Every year from 1874 to 1899 was indicated +by a capital letter in the alphabet. Thereafter ran the small letters. +The “R” meant that Henry J. Lyme had been sentenced to penal servitude +in 1891. The “V” that he had suffered a further term of convict +imprisonment in 1895. +Elk read the short and terrible record. Born in Guernsey in 1873, the +man had been six times convicted before he was twenty (the minor +convictions are not designated by letters in the code). In the space at +the foot of the blank in which particulars were given of his crime, were +the words: +“Dangerous; carries firearms.” In another hand, and in the red ink which +is used to close a criminal career, was written: “Died at sea. _Channel +Queen_. Black Rock. Feb. 1, 1898.” +Elk remembered the wreck of the Guernsey mail packet on the Black Rocks. +He turned back the page to read particulars of the dead man’s crimes, +and the comments of those who from time to time had been brought into +official contact with him. In these scraps of description was the real +biography. “Works alone,” was one comment, and another; “No women +clue—women never seen with him.” A third scrawl was difficult to +decipher, but when Elk mastered the evil writing, he half rose from the +chair in his excitement. It was: +“Add to body marks in general D.C.P. 14 frog tattooed left +wrist. New. J. J. M.” +The date against which this was written was the date of the man’s last +conviction. Elk turned up the printed blank “D.C.P.14” and found it to +be a form headed “Description of Convicted Person.” The number was the +classification. There was no mention of tattooed frogs: somebody had +been careless. Word by word he read the description: +“Henry John Lyme, _a._ Young Harry, _a._ Thomas Martin, _a._ Boy +Peace, _a._ Boy Harry (there were five lines of aliases). +Burglar (dangerous; carries firearms). Height 5 ft. 6 in. Chest +dimple in chin. Nose straight. Hair brown, wavy, worn long. Face +round. Moustache drooping; wears side-whiskers. Feet and hands +normal. Little toe left foot amputated first joint owing to +accident, H.M. Prison, Portland. Speaks well, writes good hand. +Hobbies none. Smokes cigarettes. Poses as public official, tax +collector, sanitary inspector, gas or water man. Speaks French +and Italian fluently. Never drinks; plays cards but no gambler. +Favourite hiding place, Rome or Milan. No conviction abroad. No +relations. Excellent organizer. Immediately after crime, look +for him at good hotel in Midlands or working to Hull for the +Dutch or Scandinavian boats. Has been known to visit +Guernsey. . . .” +Here followed the Bertillon measurements and body marks—this was in the +days before the introduction of the finger-print system. But there was +no mention of the Frog on the left wrist. Elk dropped his pen in the ink +and wrote in the missing data. Underneath he added: +“This man may still be alive,” and signed his initials. +CHAPTER X +ON HARLEY TERRACE +SO writing, the telephone buzzed, and in his unflurried way he finished +his entry and blotted it before he took up the instrument. +“Captain Gordon wishes you to take the first taxi you can find and come +to his house—the matter is very urgent,” said a voice. “I am speaking +from Harley Terrace.” +“All right.” Elk found his hat and umbrella, stopped long enough to +return the records to their home, and went out into the dark courtyard. +There are two entrances to Scotland Yard: one that opens into Whitehall +and was by far the best route for him, since Whitehall is filled with +cabs; the other on to the Thames Embankment, which, in addition to +offering the longest way round, would bring him to a thoroughfare where, +at this hour of the night, taxis would be few and far between. So +engrossed was Elk with his thoughts that he was on the Embankment before +he realized where he was going. He turned toward the Houses of +Parliament into Bridge Street, found an ancient cab and gave the +address. The driver was elderly and probably a little fuddled, for, +instead of stopping at No. 273, he overshot the mark by a dozen houses, +and only stopped at all on the vitriolic representations of his fare. +“What’s the matter with you, Noah?—this ain’t Mount Ararat!” snapped +Elk as he descended. “You’re boozed, you poor fish.” +“Wish I was,” murmured the driver, holding out his hand for the fare. +Elk would have argued the matter but for the urgency of the summons. +Whilst he was waiting for the driver to unbutton his many coats to find +change, he glanced back along the street. A car was standing near the +door of Dick Gordon’s house, its headlights dimmed to the least possible +degree. That in itself was not remarkable. The two men who waited on the +pavement were. They stood with their backs to the railings, one (as he +guessed) on either side of the door. To him came the soft purring of the +motor-car’s engine. He took a step back and brought the opposite +pavement into his range of vision. There were two other men, also +lounging idly, and they were exactly opposite 273. +Elk looked round. The cab had stopped before a doctor’s house, and the +detective did not take a long time to make up his mind. +“Wait till I come out.” +“Don’t be long,” pleaded the aged driver. “The bars will be shut in a +quarter of an hour.” +“Wait, Batchus,” said Elk, who had a nodding acquaintance with ancient +mythology, but only a hazy idea of pronunciation. Bacchus growled, but +waited. +Fortunately, the doctor was at home, and to him Elk revealed his +identity. In a few seconds he was connected with Mary Lane Police +Station. +“Elk, Central Office, speaking,” he said rapidly, and gave his code +number. “Send every man you can put your hand on, to close Harley +Terrace north and south of 273. Stop all cars from the moment you get my +signal—two long two short flashes. How soon can your men be in place?” +“In five minutes, Mr. Elk. The night reliefs are parading, and I have a +couple of motor-trucks here—just pinched the drivers for being drunk.” +He replaced the receiver and went into the hall. +“Anything wrong?” asked the startled doctor as Elk slid back the jacket +of his automatic and pushed the safety catch into place. +“I hope so, sir,” said Elk truthfully. “If I’ve turned out the division +because a few innocent fellows are leaning against the railings of +Harley Terrace, I’m going to get myself into trouble.” +He waited five minutes, then opened the door and went out. The men were +still in their positions, and as he stood there two motor-trucks drove +into the thoroughfare from either end, turned broadside in the middle of +the road and stopped. +Elk’s pocket lamp flashed to left and right, and he jumped for the +pavement. +And now he saw that his suspicions were justified. The men on the +opposite pavement came across the road at the double, and leapt to the +running-board of the car with the dim lights as it moved. Simultaneously +the two who had been guarding the entrance of 273 sprang into the +machine. But the fugitives were too late. The car swerved to avoid the +blocking motor-truck, but even as it turned, the truck ran backwards. +There was a crash, a sound of splintering glass, and by the time Elk +arrived, the five occupants of the car were in the hands of the +uniformed policemen who swarmed at the end of the street. +The prisoners accepted their capture without resistance. One (the +chauffeur) who tried to throw away a revolver unobtrusively, was +detected in the act and handcuffed, but the remainder gave no trouble. +At the police-station Elk had a view of his prisoners. Four very fine +specimens of the genus tramp, wearing their new ready-to-wear suits +awkwardly. The fifth, who gave a Russian name, and was obviously the +driver, a little man with small, sharp eyes that glanced uneasily from +face to face. +Two of the prisoners carried loaded revolvers; in the car they found +four walking-sticks heavily weighted. +“Take off your coats and roll up your sleeves,” commanded the inspector. +“You needn’t trouble, Elk.” It was the little chauffeur speaking. “All +us boys are good Frogs.” +“There ain’t any good Frogs,” said Elk. “There’s only bad Frogs and +worse Frogs and the worst Frog of all. But we won’t argue. Let these men +into their cells, sergeant, and keep them separate. I’ll take Litnov to +headquarters.” +The chauffeur looked uneasily from Elk to the station sergeant. +“What’s the great idea?” he asked. “You’re not allowed to use the third +degree in England.” +“The law has been altered,” said Elk ominously, and re-snapped the +handcuffs on the man’s wrists. +The law had not been altered, but this the little Russian did not know. +Throughout the journey to headquarters he communed with himself, and +when he was pushed into Elk’s bare-looking room, he was prepared to +talk. . . . +Dick was waiting for the detective when he came back to Harley Terrace, +and heard the story. +“I never dreamt that it was a plant until I spotted the lads waiting for +me,” said Elk. “Of course you didn’t telephone; they caught me napping +there. Thorough! The Frogs are all that! They expected me to leave +headquarters by the Whitehall entrance, and had a taxi waiting to pick +me up, but in case they missed me that way, they told off a party to +meet me in Harley Terrace. Thorough!” +“Who gave them their orders?” +Elk shrugged. +“Mr. Nobody. Litnov had his by post. It was signed ‘Seven,’ and gave him +the rendezvous, and that was all. He says he has never seen a Frog since +he was initiated. Where he was sworn in he doesn’t remember. The car +belongs to Frogs, and he receives so much a week for looking after it. +Ordinarily he is employed by Heron’s Club—drives a truck for them. He +tells me that there are twenty other cars cached in London somewhere, +just standing in their garages, and each has its own driver, who goes +once a week to give it a clean up.” +“Heron’s Club—that is the dance club which Lola and Lew Brady are +interested in!” said Dick thoughtfully, and Elk considered. +“I never thought of that. Of course, it doesn’t mean that the management +of Heron’s know anything about Litnov’s evening work. I’ll look up that +club.” +He was saved the trouble, for the next morning, when he reached the +office, he found a man waiting to see him. +“I’m Mr. Hagn, the manager of the Heron’s Club,” he introduced himself. +“I understand one of my men has been in trouble.” +Hagn was a tall, good-looking Swede who spoke without any trace of a +foreign accent. +“How have you heard that, Mr. Hagn?” asked Elk suspiciously. “The man +has been under lock and key since last night, and he hasn’t held any +communication with anybody.” +Mr. Hagn smiled. +“You can’t arrest people and take them to a police-station without +somebody knowing all about it,” he said with truth. “One of my waiters +saw Litnov being taken to Mary Lane handcuffed, and as Litnov hasn’t +reported for duty this morning, there was only one conclusion to be +drawn. What is the trouble, Mr. Elk?” +Elk shook his head. +“I can’t give you any information on the matter,” he said. +“Can I see him?” +“You can’t even see him,” said Elk. “He has slept well, and sends his +love to all kind friends.” +Mr. Hagn seemed distressed. +“Is it possible to discover where he put the key of the coal cellar?” he +urged. “This is rather important to me. This man usually keeps it.” +The detective hesitated. +“I can find out,” he said, and, leaving Mr. Hagn under the watchful eyes +of his secretary, he crossed the yard to the cells where the Russian was +held. +Litnov rose from his plank bed as the cell door opened. +“Friend of yours called,” said Elk. “Wants to know where you put the key +of the coal cellar.” +It was only the merest flicker of light and understanding that came to +the little man’s eyes, but Elk saw it. +“Tell him I believe I left it with the Wandsworth man,” he said. +“Um!” said Elk, and went back to the waiting Hagn. +“He said he left it in the Pentonville Road,” said Elk untruthfully, but +Mr. Hagn seemed satisfied. +Returning to the cells, Elk saw the gaoler. +“Has this man asked you where he was to be taken from here?” +“Yes, sir,” said the officer. “I told him he was going to Wandsworth +Prison—we usually tell prisoners where they are going on remand, in +case they wish to let their relatives know.” +Elk had guessed right. The inquiry about the key was prearranged. A +telephone message to Mary Lane, where the remainder of the gang were +held, produced the curious information that a woman, reputedly the wife +of one of the men, had called that morning, and, on being refused an +interview, begged for news about the missing key of the coal cellar, and +had been told that it was in the possession of “the Brixton man.” +“The men are to be remitted to Wormwood Scrubbs Prison, and they are not +to be told where they are going,” ordered Elk. +That afternoon a horse-driven prison-van drew out of Cannon Row and +rumbled along Whitehall. At the juncture of St. Martin’s Lane and +Shaftesbury Avenue, a carelessly-driven motor lorry smashed into its +side, slicing off the near wheel. Instantly there came from nowhere a +crowd of remarkable appearance. It seemed as if all the tramps in the +world had been lying in wait to crowd about the crippled van. The door +was wrenched open, and the gaoler on duty hauled forth. Before he could +be handled, the van disgorged twenty Central Office men, and from the +side streets came a score of mounted policemen, clubs in hand. The riot +lasted less then three minutes. Some of the wild-looking men succeeded +in making their escape, but the majority, chained in twos, went, meekly +enough, between their mounted escorts. +Dick Gordon, who was also something of an organizer, watched the fight +from the top of an omnibus, which, laden with policemen, had shadowed +the van. He joined Elk after the excitement had subsided. +“Have you arrested anybody of importance?” he asked. +“It’s too early to say,” said Elk. “They look like ordinary tadpoles to +me. I guess Litnov is in Wandsworth by now—I sent him in a closed +police car before the van left.” +Arrived at Scotland Yard, he paraded the Frogs in two open ranks, +watched, at a distance, by the curious crowd which packed both +entrances. One by one he examined their wrists, and in every case the +tattoo mark was present. +He finished his scrutiny at last, and his captives were herded into an +inner yard under an armed guard. +“One man wants to speak to you, sir.” +The last file had disappeared when the officer in charge reported, and +Elk exchanged a glance with his chief. +“See him,” said Dick. “We can’t afford to miss any information.” +A policeman brought the Frog to them—a tall man with a week’s growth of +beard, poorly dressed and grimy. His battered hat was pulled down over +his eyes, his powerful wrists visible beneath the sleeves of a jacket +that was made for a smaller man. +“Well, Frog?” said Elk, glowering at him. “What’s your croak?” +“Croak is a good word,” said the man, and at the sound of his voice Elk +stared. “You don’t think that old police car of yours is going to reach +Wandsworth, do you?” +“Who are you?” asked Elk, peering forward. +“They want Litnov badly,” said the Frog. “They want to settle with him, +and if the poor fish thinks it’s brotherly love that makes old man Frog +go to all this trouble, he’s reserved a big jar for himself.” +“Broad! What . . . !” +The American licked his finger and wiped away the frog from his wrist. +“I’ll explain after, Mr. Elk, but take a friend’s advice and call up +Wandsworth.” +Elk’s telephone was buzzing furiously when he reached his office. +It was Wandsworth station calling. +“Your police car was held up on the Common, two of your men were +wounded, and the prisoner was shot dead,” was the report. +“Thank you!” said Elk bitterly. +CHAPTER XI +MR. BROAD EXPLAINS +DETAINED under police supervision, Mr. Broad did not seem in any way +surprised or disconcerted. Dick Gordon and his assistant reached +Wandsworth Common ten minutes after the news came through, and found the +wreckage of the police car surrounded by a large crowd, kept at a +distance by police. +The dead prisoner had been taken into the prison, together with one of +the attackers, who had been captured by a party of warders, returning to +the gaol after their luncheon hour. +A brief examination of Litnov told them no more than they knew. He had +been shot through the heart, and death, must have been instantaneous. +The prisoner, brought from a cell, was a man of thirty and better +educated than the average run of Frogs. No weapon had been found upon +him and he protested his innocence of any complicity in the plot. +According to his story, he was an out-of-work clerk who had been +strolling across the Common when the ambush occurred. He had seen the +fight, seen the second motor-car which carried the attackers away, and +had been arrested whilst running in pursuit of the murderers. +His captors told a different story. The warder responsible for his +arrest said that the man was on the point of boarding the car when the +officer had thrown his truncheon at him and brought him down. The car +was moving at the time, and the remainder of the party had not dared to +stop and pick up their comrade. Most damning evidence of all was the +tattoo mark on his wrist. +“Frog, you’re a dead man,” said Elk in his most sepulchral voice. “Where +did you live when you were alive?” +The captive confessed that his home was in North London. +“North Londoners don’t come to Wandsworth to walk on the Common,” said +Elk. +He had a conference with the chief warder, and, taking the prisoner into +the courtyard, Elk spoke his mind. +“What happens to you if you spill the beans, Frog?” he asked. +The man showed his teeth in an unpleasant smile. +“The beans aren’t grown that I can spill,” he said. +Elk looked around. The courtyard was a small, stone-paved quadrangle, +surrounded by high, discoloured walls. Against one of these was a little +shed with grey sliding doors. +“Come here,” said Elk. +He took the key that the chief warder had given him, unlocked the doors +and slid them back. They were looking into a bare, clean apartment with +whitewashed walls. Across the ceiling ran two stout oak beams, and +between them three stubby steel bars. +The prisoner frowned as Elk walked to a long steel lever near one of the +walls. +“Watch, Frog!” he said. +He pulled at the lever, and the centre of the floor divided and fell +with a crash, revealing a deep, brick-lined pit. +“See that trap . . . see that ‘T’ mark in chalk? That’s where a man puts +his feet when the hangman straps his legs. The rope hangs from that +beam, Frog!” +The man’s face was livid as he shrank back. +“You . . . can’t . . . hang—me,” he breathed. “I’ve done nothing!” +“You’ve killed a man,” said Elk as he pulled the doors to and locked +them. “You’re the only fellow we’ve got, and you’ll have to suffer for +the lot. Are them beans growin’?” +The prisoner raised his shaking hand to his lips. +“I’ll tell you all I know,” he said huskily. +Elk led him back to his cell. +An hour later, Dick was speeding back to his headquarters with +considerable information. His first act was to send for Joshua Broad, +and the eagle-faced “tramp” came cheerfully. +“Now, Mr. Broad, I’ll have your story,” said Dick, and motioned the +other to be seated. +Joshua seated himself slowly. +“There’s nothing much to tell,” he said. “For a week I’ve been getting +acquainted with the Frogs. I guessed that it was unlikely that the bulk +of them would be unknown to one another, and I just froze on to the +first I found. Met him in a Deptford lodging-house. Then I heard there +was a hurry-up call for a big job to-day and joined. The Frogs knew that +the real attack might be somewhere else, and on the way to Scotland Yard +I heard that a party had been told off to watch for Litnov at +Wandsworth.” +“Did you see any of the big men?” +Broad shook his head. +“They looked all alike, but undoubtedly there were two or three section +leaders in charge. There was never any question of rescuing. They were +out to kill. They knew that Litnov had told all that he knew, and he was +doomed—they got him, I suppose?” +“Yes—they got him!” said Dick, and then: “What is your interest in the +Frogs?” +“Purely adventitious,” replied the other lazily. “I’m a rich man with a +whole lot of time on my hands, and I have a big interest in criminology. +A few years ago I heard about the Frogs, and they seized on my +imagination. Since then I’ve been trailing them.” +His gaze did not waver under Dick Gordon’s scrutiny. +“Now will you tell me,” said Dick quietly, “how you became a rich man? +In the latter days of the war you arrived in this country on a +cattle-boat—with about twenty dollars in your pocket. You told Elk you +had arrived by that method, and you spoke the truth. I’ve been almost as +much interested in you as you have been in the Frogs,” he said with a +half-smile, “and I have been putting through a few inquiries. You came +to England 1917 and deserted your ship. In May, 1917, you negotiated for +the hire of an old tumbledown shack near Eastleigh, Hampshire. There you +lived, patching up this crazy cottage and living, so far as I can +discover, on the few dollars you brought from the ship. Then suddenly +you disappeared, and were next seen in Paris on Christmas Eve of that +year. You were conspicuous in rescuing a family that had been buried in +a house bombed in an air raid, and your name was taken by the police +with the idea of giving you some reward. The French police report is +that you were ‘very poorly dressed’—they thought you might be a +deserter from the American Army. Yet in February you were staying at the +Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, with plenty of money and an extensive +wardrobe!” +Joshua Broad sat through the recital unmoved, except for the ghost of a +smile which showed at the corner of his unshaven mouth. +“Surely, Captain, Monte Carlo is the place where a man _would_ have +money?” +“If he brought it there,” said Dick, and went on: “I’m not suggesting +that you are a bad character, or that your money came in any other way +than honestly. I merely state the facts that your sudden rise from +poverty to riches was, to say the least, remarkable.” +“It surely was,” agreed the other; “and, judging by appearances, my +change from riches to poverty is as sudden.” +Dick looked at the dirty-looking tramp who sat on the other side of the +table and laughed silently. +“You mean, if it is possible for you to masquerade now, it was possible +then, and that, even though you were apparently broke in 1917, you might +very well have been a rich man?” +“Exactly,” said Mr. Joshua Broad. +Gordon was serious again. +“I would prefer that you remained your more presentable self,” he said. +“I hate telling an American that I may have to deport him, because that +sounds as if it is a punishment to return to the United States. But I +may find myself with no other alternative.” +Joshua Broad rose. +“That, Captain Gordon, is too broad for a hint and too kindly for a +threat—henceforth, Joshua Broad is a respectable member of society. +Maybe I’ll take the Prince of Caux’s house and entertain bims and be a +modern Harun al Raschid. I’ve got to meet them somehow.” +At the mention of that show house that had cost a king’s ransom to build +and a queen’s dowry to furnish, Dick smiled. +“It isn’t necessary you should advertise your respectability that way,” +he said. But Broad was not smiling. +“The only thing I ask is that you do not advise the police to withdraw +my permits,” he said. +Dick’s eyebrows rose. +“Permits?” +“I carry two guns, and the time is coming when two won’t be enough,” +said Mr. Broad. “And it is coming soon.” +CHAPTER XII +THE EMBELLISHMENT OF MR. MAITLAND +THERE was a concert that night at the Queen’s Hall, and the spacious +auditorium was crowded to hear the summer recital of a great violinist. +Dick Gordon, in the midst of an evening’s work, remembered that he had +reserved a seat. He felt fagged, baffled, inclined to hopelessness. A +note from Lord Farmley had come to him, urging instant action to recover +the lost commercial treaty. It was such a letter as a man, himself +worried, would write without realizing that in so doing he was passing +on his panic to those who it was very necessary should not be stampeded +into precipitate action. It was a human letter, but not statesmanlike. +Dick decided upon the concert. +He had finished dressing when he remembered that it was more than likely +that the omniscient Frogs would know of his reservation. He must take +the risk, if risk there was. He ’phoned to the garage where his own +machine was housed and hired a closed car, and in ten minutes was one of +two thousand people who were listening, entranced, to the master. In the +interval he strolled out to the lobby to smoke, and almost the first +person he saw was a Central Office man who avoided his eye. Another +detective stood by the stairway leading to the bar, a third was smoking +on the steps of the hall outside. But the sensation of the evening was +not this evidence of Elk’s foresight. The warning bell had sounded, and +Dick was in the act of throwing away his cigarette, when a magnificent +limousine drew up before the building, a smart footman alighted to open +the door, and there stepped heavily to the pavement—Mr. Ezra Maitland! +Dick heard a gasp behind him, and turned his head to see Elk in the one +and only dress suit he had ever possessed. +“Mother of Moses!” he said in an awed voice. +And there was reason for his astonishment. Not only was Mr. Maitland’s +equipage worthy of a reigning monarch, with its silver fittings, +lacquered body and expensively uniformed servants, but the old man was +wearing a dress suit of the latest fashion. His beard had been shortened +a few inches, and across the spotless white waistcoat was stretched a +heavy gold chain. On his hand many rings blazed and flashed in the light +of the street standard. There was a camellia in his perfect lapel, and +on his head the glossiest of silk hats. Leaning on a stick of ebony and +ivory, he strutted across the pavement. +“Silk socks . . . patent leather shoes. My God! Look at his _rings_,” +hissed Elk. +His profanity was almost excusable. The vision of splendour passed +through the doors into the hall. +“He’s gone gay!” said Elk hollowly, and followed like a man in a dream. +From where he was placed, Dick had a good view of the millionaire. He +sat throughout the second part of the programme with closed eyes, and so +slow was he to start applauding after each item, that Dick was certain +that he had been asleep and the clapping had awakened him. +Once he detected the old man stifling a yawn in the very midst of the +second movement of Elgar’s violin concerto, which held the audience +spellbound by its delicate beauty. With his big hands, now enshrined in +white kid gloves, crossed on his stomach, the head of Mr. Maitland +nodded and jerked. +When at last the concert was over, he looked round fearfully, as though +to make absolutely certain that it _was_ over, then rose and made his +way out of the hall, his silk hat held clumsily in his hand. +A manager came in haste to meet him. +“I hope, Mr. Maitland, you enjoyed yourself?” Dick heard him say. +“Very pooty—very pooty,” replied Maitland hoarsely. “That fiddler ought +to play a few toons, though—nothing like a hornpipe on a fiddle.” +The manager looked after him open-mouthed, then hurried out to help the +old man into his car. +“Gay—he’s gay!” said Elk, as bewildered as the manager. “Jumping +snakes! Who was that?” +He addressed the unnecessary question to the manager, who had returned +from his duty. +“That is Maitland, the millionaire, Mr. Elk,” said the other. “First +time we’ve had him here, but now that he’s come to live in town——” +“Where is he living?” asked Elk. +“He has taken the Prince of Caux’s house in Berkeley Square,” said the +manager. +Elk blinked at him. +“Say that again?” +“He has taken the Prince of Caux’s house,” said the manager. “And what +is more, has bought it—the agent told me this afternoon.” +Elk was incapable of comment, and the manager continued his surprising +narrative. +“I don’t think he knows much about music, but he has booked seats for +every big musical event next season—his secretary came in this +afternoon. He seemed a bit dazed.” +Poor Johnson! thought Dick. +“He wanted me to fix dancing lessons for the old boy——” +Elk clapped his hand to his mouth—he had an insane desire to scream. +“And as a matter of fact, I fixed them. He’s a bit old, but Socrates or +somebody learnt Greek at eighty, and maybe Mr. Maitland’s regretting the +wasted years of his life. I admit it is a bit late to start night +clubs——” +Elk laid a chiding hand upon the managerial shoulder. +“You certainly deceived me, brother,” he said. “And here was I, drinking +it all in, and you with a face as serious as the dial of a poorhouse +clock! You’ve put it all over Elk, and I’m man enough to admit you +fooled me.” +“I don’t think our friend is trying to fool you,” said Dick quietly. +“You really mean what you say—old Maitland has started dancing and +night clubs?” +“Certainly!” said the other. “He hasn’t started dancing, but that is +where he has gone to-night—to the Heron’s. I heard him tell the +chauffeur.” +It was incredible, but a little amusing—most amusing of all to see +Elk’s face. +The detective was frankly dumbfounded by the news. +“Heron’s is my idea of a good finish to a happy evening,” said Elk at +last, drawing a long breath. He beckoned one of his escort. “How many +man do you want to cover Heron’s Club?” he asked. +“Six,” was the prompt reply. “Ten to raid it, and twenty for a rough +house.” +“Get thirty!” said Elk emphatically. +Heron’s from the exterior was an unpretentious building. But once under +the curtained doors, and the character of its exterior was forgotten. A +luxurious lounge, softly lit and heavily carpeted, led to the large +saloon, which was at once restaurant and dance-hall. +Dick stood in the doorway awaiting the arrival of the manager, and +admired the richness and subtle suggestion of cosiness which the room +conveyed. The tables were set about an oblong square of polished +flooring; from a gallery at the far end came the strain of a coloured +orchestra; and on the floor itself a dozen couples swayed and glided in +rhythm to the staccato melody. +“Gilded vice,” said Elk disparagingly. “A regular haunt of sin and +self-indulgence. I wonder what they charge for the food—there’s +Mathusalem.” +“Mathusalem” was sitting, a conspicuous figure, at the most prominent +table in the room. His polished head glistened in the light from the +crystal candelabras, and in the shadow that it cast, his patriarchal +beard so melted into the white of his snowy shirt front that for a +moment Dick did not recognize him. +Before him was set a large glass mug filled with beer. +“He’s human anyway,” said Elk. +Hagn came at that moment, smiling, affable, willing to oblige. +“This is an unexpected pleasure, Captain,” he said. “You want me to pass +you in? Gentlemen, there is no necessity! Every police officer of rank +is an honorary member of the club.” +He bustled in, threading his way between the tables, and found them a +vacant sofa in one of the alcoves. There were revellers whose faces +showed alarm at the arrival of the new guests—one at least stole forth +and did not come back. +“We have many notable people here to-night,” said Hagn, rubbing his +hands. “There are Lord and Lady Belfin” . . . he mentioned others; “and +that gentleman with the beard is the great Maitland . . . his secretary +is here somewhere. Poor gentleman, I fear he is not happy. But I invited +him myself—it is sometimes desirable that we should elect the . . . +what shall I say? . . . higher servants of important people?” +“Johnson?” asked Dick in surprise. “Where?” +Presently he saw that plump and philosophical man. He sat in a remote +corner, looking awkward and miserable in his old-fashioned dress +clothes. Before him was a glass which, Dick guessed, contained an orange +squash. +A solemn, frightened figure he made, sitting on the edge of his chair, +his big red hands resting on the table. Dick Gordon laughed softly and +whispered to Elk: +“Go and get him!” +Elk, who was never self-conscious, walked through the dancers and +reached Mr. Johnson, who looked up startled and shook hands with the +vigour of one rescued from a desert island. +“It was good of you to ask me to come over,” said Johnson, as he greeted +Dick. “This is new to me, and I’m feeling about as much at home as a +chicken in a pie.” +“Your first visit?” +“And my last,” said Johnson emphatically. “This isn’t the kind of life +that I care for. It interferes with my reading, and it—well, it’s sad.” +His eyes were fixed on a noisy little party in the opposite alcove. +Gordon had seen them almost as soon as he had sat down. Ray, in his most +hectic mood, Lola Bassano, beautifully and daringly gowned, and the +heavy-looking ex-pugilist, Lew Brady. +Presently, with a sigh, Johnson’s eyes roved toward the old man and +remained fixed on him, fascinated. +“Isn’t it a miracle?” he asked in a hushed voice. “He changes his habits +in a day! Bought the house in Berkeley Square, called in an army of +tailors, sent me rushing round to fix theatre seats, bought jewellery +. . .” +He shook his head. +“I can’t understand it,” he confessed, “because it has made no +difference to him in the office. He’s the same old hog. He wanted me to +become his resident secretary, but I struck at that. I must have some +sort of life worth living. What scares me is that he may fire me if I +don’t agree. He’s been very unpleasant this week. I wonder if Ray has +seen him?” +Ray Bennett had not seen his late employer. He was too completely +engrossed in the joy of being with Lola, too inspired and stimulated +from more material sources, to take an interest in anything but himself +and the immediate object of his affections. +“You are making a fool of yourself, Ray. Everybody is looking at you,” +warned Lola. +He glanced round, and for the first time began to notice who was in the +room. Presently his eyes fell upon the shining pate of Mr. Maitland, and +his jaw dropped. He could not believe the evidence of his vision, and, +rising, walked unsteadily across the floor, shouldering the other +guests, stumbling against chairs and tables, until he stood by the table +of his late employer. +“Gosh!” he gasped. “It _is_ you!” +The old man raised his eyes slowly from the cloth which he had been +contemplating steadily for ten minutes, and his steely eyes met the gaze +steadily. +“You hoary old sinner!” breathed Ray. +“Go away,” snarled Mr. Maitland. +“‘Go away,’ is it? I’m going to talk to you and give you a few words of +advice and warning, Moses!” +Ray sat down suddenly in a chair, and faced his glaring victim with +drunken solemnity. His words of warning remained unuttered. Somebody +gripped his arm and jerked him to his feet, and he looked into the dark +face of Lew Brady. +“Here, what——” he began. But Brady led him and pushed him back to his +own table. +“You fool!” he hissed. “Why do you want to advertise yourself in this +way? You’re a hell of a Secret Service man!” +“I don’t want any of that stuff from you,” said Ray roughly as he jerked +his arm free. +“Sit down, Ray,” said Lola in a low voice. “Half Scotland Yard is in the +club, watching you.” +He followed the direction of her eyes and saw Dick Gordon regarding him +gravely, and the sight and knowledge of that surveillance maddened him. +Leaping to his feet, he crossed the room to where they sat. +“Looking for me?” he asked loudly. “Want me for anything?” +Dick shook his head. +“You damned police spy!” stormed the youth, white with unreasoning +passion. “Bringing your bloodhounds after me! What are you doing with +this gang, Johnson? Are you turned policeman too?” +“My dear Ray,” murmured Johnson. +“My dear Ray!” sneered the other. “You’re jealous, you poor +worm—jealous because I’ve got away from the bloodsucker’s clutches! As +to you”—he waved a threatening finger in Dick’s face—“you leave me +alone—see? You’ve got a whole lot of work to do without carrying tales +to my sister.” +“I think you had better go back to your friends,” said Dick coolly. “Or, +better still, go home and sleep.” +All this had occurred between the dances, and now the band struck up, +but if the attention of the crowded clubroom was in no wise relaxed, +there was this change, that Ray’s high voice now did not rise above the +efforts of the trap drummer. +Dick looked round for the watchful Hagn. He knew that the manager, or +one of the officials of the club, would interfere instantly. It was not +Hagn, but a head waiter, who came up and pushed the young man back. +So intent was everybody on that little scene that followed, in the +spectacle of that flushed youth struggling against the steady pressure +which the head waiter and his fellows asserted, that nobody saw the man +who for a while stood in the doorway surveying the scene, before pushing +aside the attendants he strode into the centre of the room. +Ray, looking round, was almost sobered by the sight of his father. +The rugged, grey-haired man, in his worn, tweed suit, made a striking +contrast to that gaily-dressed throng. He stood, his hands behind him, +his face white and set, surveying his son, and the boy’s eyes dropped +before him. +“I want you, Ray,” he said simply. +The floor was deserted; the music ceased, as though the leader of the +orchestra had been signalled that something was wrong. +“Come back with me to Horsham, boy.” +“I’m not going,” said Ray sullenly. +“He is not with you, Mr. Gordon?” +Dick shook his head, and at this intervention the fury of Ray Bennett +flamed again. +“With him!” he said scornfully. “Would I be with a sneaking policeman?” +“Go with your father, Ray.” It was Johnson’s urgent advice, and his hand +lay for a second on the boy’s shoulder. +Ray shook him off. +“I’ll stay here,” he said, and his voice was loud and defiant. “I’m not +a baby, that I can’t be trusted out alone. You’ve no right to come here, +making me look a fool.” He glowered at his father. “You’ve kept me down +all these years, denied me money that I ought to have had—and who are +you that you should pretend to be shocked because I’m in a decent club, +wearing decent clothes? I’m straight: can you say the same? If I wasn’t +straight, could you blame me? You’re not going to put any of that kind +father stuff over——” +“Come away.” John Bennett’s voice was hoarse. +“I’m staying here,” said Ray violently. “And in future you can leave me +alone. The break had to come some time, and it might as well come now.” +They stood facing one another, father and son, and in the tired eyes of +John Bennett was a look of infinite sadness. +“You’re a silly boy, Ray. Perhaps I haven’t done all I could——” +“Perhaps!��� sneered the other. “Why, you know it! You get out!” +And then, as he turned his head, he saw the suppressed smiles on the +face of the audience, and the hurt to his vanity drove him mad. +“Come,” said John gently, and laid his hand on the boy’s arm. +With a roar of fury Ray broke loose . . . in a second the thing was +done. The blow that struck John Bennett staggered him, but he did not +fall. +And then, through the guests who thronged about the two, came Ella. She +realized instantly what had happened. Elk had slipped from his seat and +was standing behind the boy, ready to pin him if he raised his hand +again. But Ray Bennett stood, frozen with horror, speechless, incapable +of movement. +“Father!” The white-faced girl whispered the word. +The head of John Bennett dropped, and he suffered himself to be led +away. +Dick Gordon wanted to follow and comfort, but he saw Johnson going after +them and went back to his table. Again the music started, and they took +Ray Bennett back to his table, where he sat, head on hand, till Lola +signalled a waiter to bring more wine. +“There are times,” said Elk, “when the prodigal son and the fatted calf +look so like one another that you can’t tell ’em apart.” +Dick said nothing, but his heart bled for the mystery man of Horsham. +For he had seen in John Bennett’s face the agony of the damned. +CHAPTER XIII +A RAID ON ELDOR STREET +JOHNSON did not come back, and in many respects the two men were glad. +Elk had been on the point of telling the secretary to clear, and he +hoped that Mr. Maitland would follow his example. As if reading his +thoughts, the old man rose soon after the room had quietened down. He +had sat through the scene which had followed Ray’s meeting with his +father, and had apparently displayed not the slightest interest in the +proceedings. It was as though his mind were so far away that he could +not bring himself to a realization of actualities. +“He’s going, and he hasn’t paid his bill,” whispered Elk. +In spite of his remissness, the aged millionaire was escorted to the +door by the three chief waiters, his top-coat, silk hat and +walking-stick were brought to him, and he was out of Dick Gordon’s sight +before the bowing servants had straightened themselves. +Elk looked at his watch: it wanted five minutes of one. Hagn had not +returned—a circumstance which irritated the detective and was a source +of uneasiness to Dick Gordon. The merriment again worked up to its +highest point, when the two men rose from the table and strolled toward +the door. A waiter came after them hurriedly. +“Monsieur has not paid his bill.” +“We will pay that later,” said Dick, and at that moment the hands of the +clock pointed to the hour. +Precisely five minutes later the club was in the hands of the police. By +1.15 it was empty, save for the thirty raiding detectives and the staff. +“Where is Hagn?” Dick asked the chief waiter. +“He has gone home, monsieur,” said the man sullenly. “He always goes +home early.” +“That’s a lie,” said Elk. “Show me to his room.” +Hagn’s office was in the basement, a part of the old mission hall that +had remained untouched. They were shown to a large, windowless cubicle, +comfortably furnished, which was Hagn’s private bureau, but the man had +disappeared. Whilst his subordinates were searching for the books and +examining, sheet by sheet, the documents in the clerk’s office, Elk made +an examination of the room. In one corner was a small safe, upon which +he put the police seal; and lying on a sofa in some disorder was a suit +of clothes, evidently discarded in a hurry. Elk looked at them, carried +them under the ceiling light, and examined them. It was the suit Hagn +had been wearing when he had shown them to their seats. +“Bring in that head waiter,” said Elk. +The head waiter either wouldn’t or couldn’t give information. +“Mr. Hagn always changes his clothes before he goes home,” he said. +“Why did he go before the club was closed?” +The man shrugged his shoulders. +“I don’t know anything about his private affairs,” he said, and Elk +dismissed him. +Against the wall was a dressing-table and a mirror, and on each side of +the mirror stood a small table-lamp, which differed from other +table-lamps in that it was not shaded. Elk turned the switch, and in the +glaring light scrutinized the table. Presently he found two wisps of +hair, and held them against the sleeve of his black coat. In the drawer +he found a small bottle of spirit gum, and examined the brush. Then he +picked up a little wastepaper basket and turned its contents upon the +table. He found a few torn bills, business letters, a tradesman’s +advertisement, three charred cigarette ends, and some odd scraps of +paper. One of these was covered with gum and stuck together. +“I reckon he wiped the brush on this,” said Elk, and with some +difficulty pulled the folded slip apart. +It was typewritten, and consisted of three lines: +“Urgent. See Seven at E.S.2. No raid. Get M.’s +statement. Urgent. F.1.” +Dick took the paper from his subordinate’s hand and read it. +“He’s wrong about the no raid,” he said. “E. S., of course, is Eldor +Street, and two is either the number two or two o’clock.” +“Who’s ‘M.’?” asked Elk, frowning. +“Obviously Mills—the man we caught at Wandsworth. He made a written +statement, didn’t he?” +“He has signed one,” said Elk thoughtfully. +He turned the papers over, and after a while found what he was looking +for—a small envelope. It was addressed in typewritten characters to “G. +V. Hagn,” and bore on the back the stamp of the District Messenger +service. +The staff were still held by the police, and Elk sent for the +doorkeeper. +“What time was this delivered?” he asked. +The man was an ex-soldier, the only one of the prisoners who seemed to +feel his position. +“It came at about nine o’clock, sir,” he said readily, and produced the +letter-book in confirmation. “It was brought by a District Messenger +boy,” he explained unnecessarily. +“Does Mr. Hagn get many notes by District Messenger?” +“Very few, sir,” said the doorkeeper, and added an anxious inquiry as to +his own fate. +“You can go,” said Elk. “Under escort,” he added, “to your own home. +You’re not to communicate with anybody, or tell any of the servants here +that I have made inquiries about this letter. Do you understand?” +“Yes, sir.” +To make assurance doubly sure, Elk had called up exchange and placed a +ban upon all ’phone communications. It was now a quarter to two, and, +leaving half-a-dozen detectives in charge of the club, he got the +remainder on to the car that had brought them, and, accompanied by Dick, +went full speed for Tottenham. +Within a hundred yards of Eldor Street the car stopped and unloaded. The +first essential was that whoever was meeting No. 7 in Eldor Street +should not be warned of their approach. It was more than possible that +Frog scouts would be watching at each end of the street. +“I don’t know why they should,” said Elk, when Dick put this possibility +forward. +“I can give you one very excellent reason,” said Dick quietly. “It is +this: that the Frogs know all about your previous visit to Maitland’s +slum residence.” +“What makes you think that?” asked Elk in surprise, but Dick did not +enlighten him. +Sending the men round by circuitous routes, he went forward with Elk, +and at the very corner of Eldor Street, Elk found that his chief’s +surmise was well founded. Under a lamp-post Elk saw the dim figure of a +man standing, and instantly began an animated and raucous conversation +concerning a mythical Mr. Brown. Realizing that this was intended for +the watcher, Gordon joined in. The man under the lamp-post hesitated +just a little too long. As they came abreast of him, Elk turned. +“Have you got a match?” he asked. +“No,” growled the other, and the next instant was on the ground, with +Elk’s knee on his chest and the detective’s bony hand around his throat. +“Shout, Frog, and I’ll throttle you,” hissed the detective ferociously. +There was no scuffle, no sound. The thing was done so quickly that, if +there were other watchers in the street, they could not have known what +had happened, or have received any warning from their comrade’s fate. +The man was in the hands of the following detective, gagged and +handcuffed, and on his way to the police car, before he knew exactly +what tornado had struck him. +“Do you mind if I sing?” said Elk as they turned into the street on the +opposite side to that where Mr. Maitland’s late residence was situated. +Without waiting permission Elk broke into song. His voice was thin and +flat. As a singer, he was a miserable failure, and Dick Gordon had never +in his life listened with so much patience to sounds more hideous. But +there would be watchers at each end of the street, he thought, and soon +saw that Elk’s precautions were necessary. +Again it was in the shadow of a street-lamp that the sentinel stood—a +tall, thickset man, more conscientious in the discharge of his duties +than his friend, for Dick saw something glittering in his mouth, and +knew that it was a whistle. +“Give me the woild for a wishing well,” wailed Elk, staggering slightly, +“Say that my dre-em will come true . . .” +And as he sang he made appropriate gestures. His outflung hand caught +the whistle and knocked it from the man’s mouth, and in a second the two +sprang at him and flung him face downward on the pavement. Elk pulled +his prisoner’s cap over his mouth; something black and shiny flashed +before the sentry’s eyes, and a cold, circular instrument was thrust +against the back of his ear. +“If you make a sound, you’re a dead Frog,” said Elk; and that portion of +his party which had made the circuit coming up at that moment, he handed +his prisoner over and replaced his fountain-pen in his pocket. +“Everything now depends upon whether the gentleman who is patrolling the +passage between the gardens has witnessed this disgusting fracas,” said +Elk, dusting himself. “If he was standing at the entrance to the passage +he has seen it, and there’s going to be trouble.” +Apparently the patrol was in the alleyway itself and had heard no sound. +Creeping to the entrance, Elk listened and presently heard the soft pad +of footsteps. He signalled to Dick to remain where he was, and slipped +into the passage, walking softly, but not so softly that the man on +guard at the back gate of Mr. Maitland’s house did not hear him. +“Who’s that?” he demanded in a gruff voice. +“It’s me,” whispered Elk. “Don’t make so much noise.” +“You’re not supposed to be here,” said the other in a tone of authority. +“I told you to stay under the lamp-post——” +Elk’s eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and now he saw his man. +“There are two queer-looking people in the street: I wanted you to see +them,” he whispered. +All turned now upon the discipline which the Frogs maintained. +“Who are they?” asked the unknown in a low voice. +“A man and a woman,” whispered Elk. +“I don’t suppose they’re anybody important,” grumbled the other. +In his youth Elk had played football; and, measuring the distance as +best he could, he dropped suddenly and tackled low. The man struck the +earth with a jerk which knocked all the breath out of his body and made +him incapable of any other sound than the involuntary gasp which +followed his knock-out. In a second Elk was on him, his bony knee on the +man’s throat. +“Pray, Frog,” he whispered in the man’s ear, “but don’t shout!” +The stricken man was incapable of shouting, and was still breathless +when willing hands threw him into the patrol wagon. +“We’ll have to go the back way, boys,” said Elk in a whisper. +This time his task was facilitated by the fact that the garden gate was +not locked. The door into the scullery was, however, but there was a +window, the catch of which Elk forced noiselessly. He had pulled off his +boots and was in his stockinged feet, and he sidled along the darkened +passage. Apparently none of the dilapidated furniture had been removed +from the house, for he felt the small table that had stood in the hall +on his last visit. Gently turning the handle of Maitland’s room, he +pushed. +The door was open, the room in darkness and empty. Elk came back to the +scullery. +“There’s nobody here on the ground floor,” he said. “We’ll try +upstairs.” +He was half-way up when he heard the murmur of voices and stopped. +Raising his eyes to the level of the floor, he saw a crack of light +under the doorway of the front room—the apartment which had been +occupied by Maitland’s housekeeper. He listened, but could distinguish +no consecutive words. Then, with a bound, he took the remaining stairs +in three strides, flew along the landing, and flung himself upon the +door. It was locked. At the sound of his footsteps the light inside went +out. Twice he threw himself with all his weight at the frail door, and +at the third attempt it crashed in. +“Hands up, everybody!” he shouted. +The room was in darkness, and there was a complete silence. Crouching +down in the doorway, he flung the gleam of his electric torch into the +room. It was empty! +His officers came crowding in at his heels, the lamp on the table was +relit—the glass chimney was hot—and a search was made of the room. It +was too small to require a great deal of investigation. There was a bed, +under which it was possible to hide, but they drew blank in this +respect. At one end of the room near the bed was a wardrobe, which was +filled with old dresses suspended from hangers. +“Throw out those clothes,” ordered Elk. “There must be a door there into +the next house.” +A glance at the window showed him that it was impossible for the inmates +of the room to have escaped that way. Presently the clothes were heaped +on the floor, and the detectives were attacking the wooden back of the +wardrobe, which did, in fact, prove to be a door leading into the next +house. Whilst they were so engaged, Dick made a scrutiny of the table, +which was littered with papers. He saw something and called Elk. +“What is this, Elk?” +The detective took the four closely-typed sheets of paper from his hand. +“Mills’ confession,” he said in amazement. “There are only two copies, +one of which I have, and the other is in the possession of your +department, Captain Gordon.” +At this moment the wardrobe backing was smashed in, and the detectives +were pouring through to the next house. +And then it was that they made the interesting discovery that, to all +intents and purposes, communication was continuous between a block of +ten houses that ran to the end of the street. And they were not +untenanted. Three typical Frogs occupied the first room into which they +burst. They found others on the lower floor; and it soon became clear +that the whole of the houses comprising the end block had been turned +into a sleeping-place for the recruits of Frogdom. Since any one of +these might have been No. 7, they were placed under arrest. +All the communicating doors were now opened. Except in the case of +Maitland’s house, no attempt had been made to camouflage the entrances, +which in the other houses consisted of oblong apertures, roughly cut +through the brick party walls. +“We may have got him, but I doubt it,” said Elk, coming back, breathless +and grimy, to where Dick was examining the remainder of the documents +which he had found. “I haven’t seen any man who looks like owning +brains.” +“Nobody has escaped from the block?” +Elk shook his head. +“My men are in the passage and the street. In addition, the uniformed +police are here. Didn’t you hear the whistle?” +Elk’s assistant reported at that moment. +“A man has been found in one of the back yards, sir,” he said. “I’ve +taken the liberty of relieving the constable of his prisoner. Would you +like to see him?” +“Bring him up,” said Elk, and a few minutes later a handcuffed man was +pushed into the room. +He was above medium height; his hair was fair and long, his yellow beard +was trimmed to a point. +For a moment Dick looked at him wonderingly, and then: +“Carlo, I think?” he said. +“Hagn, I’m sure!” said Elk. “Get those whiskers off, you Frog, and we’ll +talk numbers, beginning with seven!” +Hagn! Even now Dick could not believe his eyes. The wig was so perfectly +made, the beard so cunningly fixed, that he could not believe it was the +manager of Heron’s Club. But when he heard the voice, he knew that Elk +was right. +“Number Seven, eh?” drawled Hagn. “I guess Number Seven will get through +your cordon without being challenged, Mr. Elk. He’s friendly with the +police. What do you want me for?” +“I want you for the part you played in the murder of Chief Inspector +Genter on the night of the fourteenth of May,” said Elk. +Hagn’s lips curled. +“Why don’t you take Broad?—he was there. Perhaps he’ll come as witness +for me.” +“When I see him——” began Elk. +“Look out of the window,” interrupted Hagn. “He’s there!” +Dick walked to the window and, throwing up the sash, leant out. A crowd +of locals in shawls and overcoats were watching the transference of the +prisoners. Dick caught the sheen of a silk hat and the unmistakable +voice of Broad hailed him. +“Good morning, Captain Gordon—Frog stock kind of slumped, hasn’t it? By +the way, did you see the baby?” +CHAPTER XIV +“ALL BULLS HEAR!” +ELK went out on the street to see the American. Mr. Broad was in +faultless evening dress, and the gleaming head-lamps of his car +illuminated the mean street. +“You’ve certainly a nose for trouble,” said Elk with respect; “and +whilst you’re telling me how you came to know about this raid, which +hadn’t been decided on until half-an-hour ago, I’ll do some quiet +wondering.” +“I didn’t know there was a raid,” confessed Joshua Broad, “but when I +saw twenty Central Office men dash out of Heron’s Club and drive +furiously away, I am entitled to guess that their haste doesn’t indicate +their anxiety to get to bed before the clock strikes two. I usually call +at Heron’s Club in the early hours. In many ways its members are less +desirable acquaintances than the general run of Frogs, but they amuse +me. And they are mildly instructive. That is my explanation—I saw you +leave in a hurry and I followed you. And I repeat my question. Did you +see the dear little baby who is learning to spell R-A-T, Rat?” +“No,” said Elk shortly. He had a feeling that the suave and +self-possessed American was laughing at him. “Come in and see the +chief.” +Broad followed the inspector to the bedroom, where Dick was assembling +the papers which in his hurried departure No. 7 had left behind. The +capture was the most important that had been made since the campaign +against the Frogs was seriously undertaken. +In addition to the copy of the secret report on Mills, there was a +bundle of notes, many of them cryptic and unintelligible to the reader. +Some, however, were in plain English. They were typewritten, and +obviously they corresponded to the General Orders of an army. They were, +in fact, the Frog’s own instructions, issued under the name of his chief +of staff, for each bore the signature “Seven.” +One ran: +“Raymond Bennett must go faster. L. to tell him that he is a +Frog. Whatever is done with him must be carried out with +somebody unknown as Frog.” +Another slip: +“Gordon has an engagement to dine American Embassy Thursday. +Settle. Elk has fixed new alarm under fourth tread of stairs. +Elk goes to Wandsworth 4.15 to-morrow for interview with Mills.” +There were other notes dealing with people of whom Dick had never heard. +He was reading again the reference to himself, and smiling over the +laconic instruction “settle,” when the American came in. +“Sit down, Mr. Broad—by the sad look on Elk’s face I guess you have +explained your presence satisfactorily?” +Broad nodded smilingly. +“And Mr. Elk takes quite a lot of convincing,” he said. His eyes fell +upon the papers on the table. “Would it be indiscreet to ask if that is +Frog stuff?” he asked. +“Very,” said Dick, “In fact, any reference to the Frogs would be the +height of indiscretion, unless you’re prepared to add to the sum of our +knowledge.” +“I can tell you, without committing myself, that Frog Seven has made a +getaway,” said the American calmly. +“How do you know?” +“I heard the Frogs jubilating as they passed down the street in +custody,” said Broad. “Frog Seven’s disguise was perfect—he wore the +uniform of a policeman.” +Elk swore softly but savagely. +“That was it!” he said. “He was the ‘policeman’ who was spiriting Hagn +away under the pretence of arresting him! And if one of my men had not +taken his prisoner from him they would both have escaped. Wait!” +He went in search of the detective who had brought in Hagn. +“I don’t know the constable,” said that officer. “This is a strange +division to me. He was a tallish man with a heavy black moustache. If it +was a disguise, it was perfect, sir.” +Elk returned to report and question. But again Mr. Broad’s explanation +was a simple one. +“I tell you that the Frogs were openly enjoying the joke. I heard one +say that the ‘rozzer’ got away—and another refer to the escaped man as +a ‘flattie’—both, I believe, are cant terms for policemen?” +Elk nodded. +“What is your interest in the Frogs, Broad?” he asked bluntly. “Forget +for the minute that you’re a parlour-criminologist and imagine that +you’re writin’ the true story of your life.” +Broad considered for a while, examining the cigar he had been smoking. +“The Frogs mean nothing to me—the Frog everything.” The American puffed +a ring of smoke into the air and watched it dissolve. +“I’m mighty curious to know what game he is playing with Ray Bennett,” +he said. “That is certainly the most intriguing feature of Frog +strategy.” +He rose and took up his hat. +“I envy you your search of this fine old mansion,” he said, and, with a +twinkle in his eye: “Don’t forget the kindergarten, Mr. Elk.” +When he had gone, Elk made a close scrutiny of the house. He found two +children’s books, both well-thumbed, and an elementary copybook, in +which a childish hand had followed, shakily, the excellent copperplate +examples. The _abacus_ was gone, however. In the cupboard where he had +seen the unopened circulars, he made a discovery. It was a complete +outfit, as far as he could judge, for a boy of six or seven. Every +article was new—not one had been worn. Elk carried his find to where +Dick was still puzzling over some of the more obscure notes which “No. +7” had left in his flight. +“What do you make of these?” he asked. +The Prosecutor turned over the articles one by one, then leant back in +his chair and stared into vacancy. +“All new,” he said absently, and then a slow smile dawned on his face. +Elk, who saw nothing funny in the little bundle, wondered what was +amusing him. +“I think these clothes supply a very valuable clue; does this?” He +passed a paper across the table, and Elk read: +“All bulls hear on Wednesday 3.1.A. L.V.M.B. Important.” +“There are twenty-five copies of that simple but moving message,” said +Dick; “and as there are no envelopes for any of the instructions, I can +only suppose that they are despatched by Hagn either from the club or +his home. This is how far I have got in figuring the organization of the +Frogs. Frog Number One works through ‘Seven,’ who may or may not be +aware of his chief’s identity. Hagn—whose number is thirteen, by the +way, and mighty unlucky it will be for him—is the executive chief of +Number Seven’s bureau, and actually communicates with the section +chiefs. He may or may not know ‘Seven’—probably he does. Seven takes +orders from the Frog, but may act without consultation if emergencies +arise. There is here,” he tapped the paper, “an apology for employing +Mills, which bears this out.” +“No handwriting?” +“None—nor finger-prints.” +Elk took up one of the slips on which the messages were written, and +held it to the light. +“Watermark Three Lion Bond,” he read. “Typewriter new, written by +somebody who was taught and has a weak little finger of the left +hand—the ‘q’ and ‘a’ are faint. That shows he’s a touch typist—uses +the same finger every time. Self-taught typists seldom use their little +fingers. Especially the little finger of the left hand. I once caught a +bank thief through knowing this.” He read the message again. +“‘All bulls hear on Wednesday . . .’ Bulls are the big men, the bull +frogs, eh? Where do they hear? ‘3.1.A.’? That certainly leaves me +guessing, Captain. Why, what do you think?” +Dick was regarding him oddly. +“It doesn’t get me guessing,” he said slowly. “At 3.1 a.m. on Wednesday +morning, I shall be listening in for the code signal L.V.M.B.—we are +going to hear that great Frog talk!” +“Will he talk about the durned treaty?” growled Elk. +CHAPTER XV +THE MORNING AFTER +RAY BENNETT woke with a groan. His temples were splitting, his tongue +was parched and dry. When he tried to lift his aching head from the +pillow he groaned again, but with an effort of will succeeded in +dragging himself from the bed and staggering to the window. He pushed +open a leaded casement and looked out upon the green of Hyde Park, and +all the time his temples throbbed painfully. +Pouring a glass of water from a carafe, he drank greedily, and, sitting +down on the edge of the bed, his head between his hands, he tried to +think. Only dimly did he recall the events of the night before, but he +was conscious that something dreadful had happened. Slowly his mind +started to sort out his experiences, and with a sinking heart he +remembered he had struck his father! He shuddered at the recollection, +and then began a frantic mental search for justification. The vanity of +youth does not readily reject excuses for its own excesses, and Ray was +no exception. By the time he had had his bath and was in the first +stages of dressing, he had come to the conclusion that he had been very +badly treated. It was unpardonable in him to strike his father—he must +write to him expressing his sorrow and urging his condition as a reason +for the act. It would not be a crawling letter (he told himself) but +something dignified and a little distant. After all, these quarrels +occurred in every family. Parents were temporarily estranged from their +children, and were eventually reconciled. Some day he would go to his +father a rich man. . . . +He pursed his lips uneasily. A rich man? He was well off now. He had an +expensive flat. Every week crisp new banknotes came by registered post. +He had the loan of a car—how long would this state of affairs continue? +He was no fool. Not perhaps as clever as he thought he was, but no fool. +Why should the Japanese or any other Government pay him for information +they could get from any handbook available to all and purchasable for a +few shillings at most booksellers? +He dismissed the thought—he had the gift of putting out of his mind +those matters which troubled him. Opening the door which led into his +dining-room, he stood stock-still, paralysed with astonishment. +Ella was sitting at the open window, her elbow on the ledge, her chin in +her hand. She looked pale, and there were heavy shadows under her eyes. +“Why, Ella, what on earth are you doing here?” he asked. “How did you +get in?” +“The porter opened the door with his pass-key when I told him I was your +sister,” she said listlessly. “I came early this morning. Oh, +Ray—aren’t you . . . aren’t you ashamed?” +He scowled. +“Why should I be?” he asked loudly. “Father ought to have known better +than tackle me when I was lit up! Of course, it was an awful thing to +do, but I wasn’t responsible for my actions at the time. What did he +say?” he asked uncomfortably. +“Nothing—he said nothing. I wish he had. Won’t you go to Horsham and +see him, Ray?” +“No—let it blow over for a day or two,” he said hastily. He most +assuredly had no anxiety to meet his father. “If . . . if he forgives me +he’ll only want me to come back and chuck this life. He had no right to +make me look little before all those people. I suppose you’ve been to +see your friend Gordon?” he sneered. +“No,” she said simply, “I have been nowhere but here. I came up by the +workmen’s train. Would it be a dreadful sacrifice, Ray, to give up +this?” +He made an impatient gesture. +“It isn’t—this, my dear Ella, if by ‘this’ you mean the flat. It is my +work that you and father want me to give up. I have to live up to my +position.” +“What is your work?” she asked. +“You wouldn’t understand,” he said loftily, and her lips twitched. +“It would have to be very extraordinary if I could not understand it,” +she said. “Is it Secret Service work?” +Ray went red. +“I suppose Gordon has been talking to you,” he complained bitterly. “If +that fellow sticks his nose into my affairs he is going to have it +pulled!” +“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked. +This was a new tone in her, and one that made him stare at her. Ella had +always been the indulgent, approving, excusing sister. The buffer who +stood between him and his father’s reproof. +“Why shouldn’t he?” she repeated. “Mr. Gordon should know something of +Secret Service work—he himself is an officer of the law. You are either +working lawfully, in which case it doesn’t matter what he knows, or +unlawfully, and the fact that he knows should make a difference to you.” +He looked at her searchingly. +“Why are you so interested in Gordon—are you in love with him?” he +asked. +Her steady eyes did not waver, and only the faintest tinge of pink came +to the skin that sleeplessness had paled. +“That is the kind of question that a gentleman does not ask in such a +tone,” she said quietly, “not even of his sister. Ray, you are coming +back to daddy, aren’t you—to-day?” +He shook his head. +“No. I’m not. I’m going to write to him. I admit I did wrong. I shall +tell him so in my letter. I can’t do more than that.” +There came a discreet knock on the door. +“Come in,” growled Ray. It was his servant, a man who came by the day. +“Will you see Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady, sir?” he asked in a hoarse +whisper, and glanced significantly at Ella. +“Of course he’ll see me,” said a voice outside. “Why all this +formality—oh, I see.” +Lola Bassano’s eyes fell upon the girl seated by the window. +“This is my sister—Ella, this is Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady.” +Ella looked at the petite figure in the doorway, and, looking, could +only admire. It was the first time they had met face to face, and she +thought Lola was lovely. +“Glad to meet you, Miss Bennett. I suppose you’ve come up to roast this +brother of yours for his disgraceful conduct last night. Boy, you were +certainly mad! It _was_ your father, Miss Bennett?” +Ella nodded, and heard with gratitude the sympathetic click of Lew +Brady’s lips. +“If I’d been near you, Ray, I’d have beaten you. Too bad, Miss Bennett.” +A strange coldness came suddenly to the girl—and a second before she +had glowed to their sympathy. It was the suspicion of their insincerity +that chilled her. Their kindness was just a little too glib and too +ready. Brady’s just a little too overpowering. +“Do you like your brother’s flat?” asked Lola, sitting down and +stretching her silk-covered legs to a patch of sunlight. +“It is very—handsome,” said Ella. “He will find Horsham rather dull +when he comes back.” +“Will he go back?” Lola flashed a smile at the youth as she asked the +question. +“Not much I won’t,” said Ray energetically. “I’ve been trying to make +Ella understand that my business is too important to leave.” +Lola nodded, and now the antagonism which Ella in her charity was +holding back came with a rush. +“What is the business?” she asked. +He went on to give her a vague and cautious exposition of his work, and +she listened without comment. +“So if you think that I’m doing anything crooked, or have friends that +aren’t as straight as you and father are, get the idea out of your head. +I’m not afraid of Gordon or Elk or any of that lot. Don’t think I am. +Nor is Brady, nor Miss Bassano. Gordon is one of those cheap detectives +who has got his ideas out of books.” +“That’s perfectly true, Miss Bennett,” said Lew virtuously. “Gordon is +just a bit too clever. He’s got the idea that everybody but himself is +crook. Why, he sent Elk down to cross-examine your own father! Believe +me, I’m not scared of Gordon, or any——” +_Tap . . . tap . . . tappity . . . tap._ +The taps were on the door, slow, deliberate, unmistakable. The effect on +Lew Brady was remarkable. His big body seemed to shrink, his puffed face +grew suddenly hollow. +_Tap . . . tap . . . tappity . . . tap._ +The hand that went up to Brady’s mouth was trembling. Ella looked from +the man to Lola, and she saw, to her amazement, that Lola had grown pale +under her rouge. Brady stumbled to the door, and the sound of his heavy +breathing sounded loud in the silence. +“Come in,” he muttered, and flung the door wide open. +It was Dick Gordon who entered. +He looked from one to the other, laughter in his eyes. +“The old Frog tap seems to frighten some of you,” he said pleasantly. +CHAPTER XVI +RAY LEARNS THE TRUTH +LOLA was the quickest to recover. +“What do you mean . . . Frog tap? Got that Frog stuff roaming loose in +your head, haven’t you?” +“It is a new accomplishment,” said Dick with mock gravity. “A +thirty-third degree Frog taught me. It’s the signal the old Grand Master +Frog gives when he enters the presence of his inferiors.” +“Your thirty-third degree Frog is probably lying,” said Lola, her colour +returning. “Anyway, Mills——” +“I never mentioned Mills,” said Dick. +“I know it was he. His arrest was in the newspapers.” +“It hasn’t even appeared in the newspapers,” said Dick, “unless it was +splashed in _The Frog Gazette_—probably on the personality page.” +He inclined his head toward the girl. Ray, for the moment, he would have +ignored if the young man had not taken a step toward him. +“Do you want anything, Gordon?” he asked. +“I want a private talk with you, Bennett,” said Dick. +“There’s nothing you can’t say before my friends,” said Ray, his ready +temper rising. +“The only person I recognize by that title is your sister,” replied +Gordon. +“Let us go, Lew,” said Lola with a shrug, but Ray Bennett stopped them. +“Wait a minute! Is this my house, or isn’t it?” he demanded furiously. +“You can clear out, Gordon! I’ve had just about as much of your +interference as I want. You push your way in here, you’re offensive to +my friends—you practically tell them to get out—I like your nerve! +There’s the door���you can go.” +“I’ll go if you feel that way,” said Dick, “but I want to warn you——” +“Pshaw! I’m sick of your warnings.” +“I want to warn you that the Frog has decided that you’ve got to earn +your money! That is all.” +There was a dead silence, which Ella broke. +“The Frog?” she repeated, open-eyed. “But . . . but, Mr. Gordon, Ray +isn’t . . . with the Frogs?” +“Perhaps it will be news to him—but he is,” said Dick. “These two +people are faithful servants of the reptile,” he pointed. “Lola is +financed by him—her husband is financed by him——” +“You’re a liar!” screamed Ray. “Lola isn’t married! You’re a sneaking +liar—get out before I throw you out! You poor Frog-chaser—you think +everything that’s green lives in a pond! Get out and stay out!” +It was Ella’s appealing glance that made Dick Gordon walk to the door. +Turning, his cold gaze rested on Lew Brady. +“There is a big question-mark against your name in the Frog-book, Brady. +You watch out!” +Lew shrank under the blow, for blow it was. Had he dared, he would have +followed Gordon into the corridor and sought further information. But +here his moral courage failed him, and he stood, a pathetic figure, +looking wistfully at the door that the visitor had closed behind him. +“For God’s sake let us get some air in the room!” snarled Ray, thrusting +open the windows. “That fellow is a pestilence! Married! Trying to get +me to believe that!” +Ella had taken up her handbag from the sideboard where she had placed +it. +“Going, Ella?” +She nodded. +“Tell father . . . I’ll write anyway. Talk to him, Ella, and show him +where he was wrong.” +She held out her hand. +“Good-bye, Ray,” she said. “Perhaps one day you will come back to us. +Please God this madness will end soon. Oh, Ray, it isn’t true about the +Frogs, is it? You aren’t with those people?” +His laugh reassured her for the moment. +“Of course I’m not—it’s about as true as the yarn that Lola is married! +Gordon was trying to make a sensation; that’s the worst of these +third-rate detectives, they live on sensation.” +She nodded to Lola as he escorted her to the lift. Lew Brady watched her +with hungry eyes. +“What did he mean, Lola?” asked Brady as the door closed behind the two. +“That fellow knows something! There’s a mark against my name in the +Frog-book! That sounds bad to me. Lola, I’m finished with these Frogs! +They’re getting on my nerves.” +“You’re a fool,” she said calmly. “Gordon has got just the effect he +wanted—he has scared you!” +“Scared?” he answered savagely. “Nothing scares me. You’re not scared +because you’ve no imagination. I’m . . . not scared, but worried, +because I’m beginning to see that the Frogs are bigger than I dreamt. +They killed that Scotsman Maclean the other day, and they’re not going +to think twice about settling with me. I’ve talked to these Frogs, +Lola—they’d do anything from murder upwards. They look on the Frog as a +god—he’s a religion with them! A question-mark against my name! I +believe it too—I’ve talked flip about ’em, and they won’t forgive +that——” +“Hush!” she warned him in a low voice as the door handle turned and Ray +came back. +“Phew!” he said. “Thank God she’s gone! What a morning! +Frogs—Frogs—Frogs! The poor fool!” +Lola opened a small jewelled case and took out a cigarette and lit it, +extinguishing the match with a snick of her fingers. Then she turned her +beautiful eyes upon Ray. +“What is the matter with the Frogs anyway?” she asked coolly. “They pay +well and they ask for little.” +Ray gaped at her. +“You’re not working for them, are you?” he asked astonished. “Why, +they’re just low tramps who murder people!” +She shook her head. +“Not all of them,” she corrected. “They are only the body—the big Frogs +are different. I am one and Lew is one.” +“What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Lew, half in fear, half +in wrath. +“He ought to know—and he has got to know sooner or later,” said Lola, +unperturbed. “He’s too sensible a boy to imagine that the Japanese or +any other embassy is paying his overhead charges. He’s a Frog.” +Ray collapsed into a chair, incapable of speech. +“A Frog?” he repeated mechanically. “What . . . what do you mean?” +Lola laughed. +“I don’t see that it is any worse being a Frog than an agent of another +country, selling your own country’s secrets,” she said. “Don’t be silly, +Ray! You ought to be pleased and honoured. They chose you from thousands +because they wanted the right kind of intelligence . . .” +And so she flattered and soothed him, until his plastic mind, wax in her +hands, took another shape. +“I suppose it is all right,” he said at last. “Of course, I wouldn’t do +anything really bad, and I don’t approve of all this clubbing, but, as +you say, the Frog can’t be responsible for all that his people do. But +on one thing I’m firm, Lola! I’ll have no tattooing!” +She laughed and extended her white arm. +“Am I marked?” she asked. “Is Lew marked? No; the big people aren’t +marked at all. Boy, you’ve a great future.” +Ray took her hand and fondled it. +“Lola . . . about that story that Gordon told . . . your being married: +it isn’t true?” +She laughed again and patted the hand on hers. +“Gordon is jealous,” she said. “I can’t tell you why—now. But he has +good reasons.” Suddenly her mood grew gay, and she slipped away. +“Listen, I’m going to ’phone for a table for lunch, and you will join +us, and we’ll drink to the great little Frog who feeds us!” +The telephone was on the sideboard, and as she lifted the receiver she +saw the square black metal box clamped to its base. +“Something new in ’phones, Ray?” she asked. +“They fixed it yesterday. It’s a resistance. The man told me that +somebody who was talking into a ’phone during a thunderstorm had a bad +shock, so they’re fitting these things as an experiment. It makes the +instrument heavier, and it’s ugly, but——” +Slowly she put the receiver down and stooped to look at the attachment. +“It’s a detectaphone,” she said quietly. “And all the time we’ve been +talking somebody has been making a note of our conversation.” +She walked to the fireplace, took up a poker and brought it down with a +crash on the little box. . . . +Inspector Elk, with a pair of receivers clamped to his head, sat in a +tiny office on the Thames Embankment, and put down his pencil with a +sigh. Then he took up his telephone and called Headquarters Exchange. +“You can switch off that detectaphone to Knightsbridge 93718,” he said. +“I don’t think we shall want it any more.” +“Did I put you through in time, sir?” asked the operator’s voice. “They +had only just started talking when I called you.” +“Plenty of time, Angus,” said Elk, “plenty of time.” +He gathered up his notes and went to his desk and placed them tidily by +the side of his blotting-pad. +Strolling to the window, he looked out upon the sunlit river, and there +was peace and comfort in his heart, for overnight the prisoner Mills had +decided to tell all he knew about the Frogs on the promise of a free +pardon and a passage to Canada. And Mills knew more than he had, as yet, +told. +“I can give you a line to Number 7 that will put him into your +hands,” his note had run. +Number Seven! Elk caught a long breath. No. 7 was the hub on which the +wheel turned. +He rubbed his hands cheerfully, for it seemed that the mystery of the +Frog was at last to be solved. Perhaps “the line” would lead to the +missing treaty—and at the thought of the lost document Elk’s face +clouded. Two ministers, a great state department and innumerable +under-secretaries spent their time in writing frantic notes of inquiry +to headquarters concerning Lord Farmley’s loss. +“They want miracles,” said Elk, and wondered if the day would produce +one. +He went to his overcoat pocket to find a cigar, and his hand touched a +thick roll of papers. He pulled them out and threw them upon the desk, +and as he did so the first words on the first sheet caught his eye. +“_By the King’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council_——” +Elk tried to yell, but his voice failed him, and then he snatched up the +paper from the desk and turned the leaves with trembling hands. +It was the lost treaty! +Elk held the precious document in his hand, and his mind went back +quickly over the night’s adventures. When had he taken off his top-coat? +When had he last put his hand in his pocket? He had taken off the coat +at Heron’s Club, and he could not remember having used the pockets +since. It was a light coat that he either carried or wore, summer or +winter. He had brought it to the office that morning on his arm. +At the club! Probably when he had parted with the garment to the +cloak-room attendant. Then the Frog must have been there. One of the +waiters probably—an admirable disguise for the chief of the gang. Elk +sat down to think. +To question anybody in the building would be futile. Nobody had touched +the coat but himself. +“Dear me!” said Elk, as he hung up the coat again. +At the touch of his bell, Balder came. +“Balder, do you remember seeing me pass your room?” +“Yes, sir.” +“I had my coat on my arm, didn’t I?” +“I never looked,” said Balder with satisfaction. +He invariably gave Elk the impression that he derived a great deal of +satisfaction out of not being able to help. +“It’s queer,” said Elk. +“Anything wrong, sir?” +“No, not exactly. You understand what has to be done with Mills? He is +to see nobody. Immediately he arrives he is to be put into the +waiting-room—alone. There is to be no conversation of any kind, and, if +he speaks, he is not to be answered.” +In the privacy of his office he inspected his find again. Everything was +there—the treaty and Lord Farmley’s notes. Elk called up his lordship +and told the good news. Later came a small deputation from the Foreign +Office to collect the precious document, and to offer, in the name of +the Ministry, their thanks for his services in recovering the lost +papers. All of which Elk accepted graciously. He would have been cursed +with as great heartiness if he had failed, and would have been equally +innocent of responsibility. +He had arranged for Mills to be brought to Headquarters at noon. There +remained an hour to be filled, and he spent that hour unprofitably in a +rough interrogation of Hagn, who, stripped of his beard, occupied a +special cell segregated from the ordinary places of confinement in +Cannon Row Station—which is virtually Scotland Yard itself. +Hagn refused to make any statement—even when formally charged with the +murder of Inspector Genter. He did, however, make a comment on the +charge when Elk saw him this morning. +“You have no proof, Elk,” he said, “and you know that I am innocent.” +“You were the last man seen in Genter’s company,” said Elk sternly. “It +is established that you brought his body back to town. In addition to +which, Mills has spilt everything.” +“I’m aware what Mills has said,” remarked the other. +“You’re not so aware either,” suggested Elk. “And now I’ll tell you +something: we’ve had Number Seven under lock and key since morning—now +laugh!” +To his amazement the man’s face relaxed in a broad grin. +“Bluff!” he said. “And cheap bluff. It might deceive a poor little +thief, but it doesn’t get past with me. If you’d caught ‘Seven,’ you +wouldn’t be talking fresh to me. Go and find him, Elk,” he mocked, “and +when you’ve got him, hold him tight. Don’t let him get away—as Mills +will.” +Elk returned from the interview feeling that it had not gone as well as +it might—but as he was leaving the station he beckoned the chief +inspector. +“I’m planting a pigeon on Hagn this afternoon. Put ’um together and +leave ’um alone,” he said. +The inspector nodded understandingly. +CHAPTER XVII +THE COMING OF MILLS +ON the morning that Elk waited for the arrival of the informer, +elaborate precautions were being made to transfer the man to +headquarters. All night the prison had been surrounded by a cordon of +armed guards, whilst patrols had remained on duty in the yard where he +was confined. +The captured Frog was a well-educated man who had fallen on evil times +and had been recruited when “on the road” through the agency of two +tramping members of the fraternity. From the first statement he made, it +appeared that he had acted as section leader, his duty being to pass on +instructions and “calls” to the rank and file, to report casualties and +to assist in the attacks which were made from time to time upon those +people who had earned the Frog’s enmity. Apparently only section leaders +and trustees were given this type of work. +They brought him from his cell at eleven o’clock, and the man, despite +his assurance, was nervous and apprehensive. Moreover, he had a cold and +was coughing. This may have been a symptom of nerves also. +At eleven-fifteen the gates of the prison were opened, and three +motor-cyclists came out abreast. A closed car followed, the curtains +drawn. On either side of the car rode other armed men on motor-cycles, +and a second car, containing Central Office men, followed. +The cortège reached Scotland Yard without mishap; the gates at both ends +were closed, and the prisoner was rushed into the building. +Balder, Elk’s clerk, and a detective-sergeant, took charge of the man, +who was now white and shaking, and he was put into a small room +adjoining Elk’s office, a room the windows of which were heavily barred +(it had been used for the safe holding of spies during the war). Two men +were put on duty outside the door, and the discontented Balder reported. +“We’ve put that fellow in the waiting-room, Mr. Elk.” +“Did he say anything?” asked Dick, who had arrived for the +interrogation. +“No, sir—except to ask if the window could be shut. I shut it.” +“Bring the prisoner,” said Elk. +They waited a while, heard the clash of keys, and then an excited buzz +of talk. Then Balder rushed in. +“He’s ill . . . fainted or something,” he gasped, and Elk sprang past +him, along the corridor into the guard-room. +Mills half sat, half lay, against the wall. His eyes were closed, his +face was ashen. +Dick bent over the prisoner and laid him flat on the ground. Then he +stooped and smelt. +“Cyanide of potassium,” he said. “The man is dead.” +That morning Mills had been stripped to the skin and every article of +clothing searched thoroughly and well. As an additional precaution his +pockets had been sewn up. To the two detectives who accompanied him in +the car he had spoken hopefully of his forthcoming departure to Canada. +None but police officers had touched him, and he had had no +communication with any outsider. +The first thing that Dick Gordon noticed was the window, which Balder +said he had shut. It was open some six inches at the bottom. +“Yes, sir, I’m sure I shut it,” said the clerk emphatically. “Sergeant +Jeller saw me.” +The sergeant was also under that impression. Dick lifted the window +higher and looked out. Four horizontal bars traversed the brickwork, +but, by craning his head, he saw that, a foot away from the window and +attached to the wall, was a long steel ladder running from the roof (as +he guessed) to the ground. The room was on the third floor, and beneath +was a patch of shrub-filled gardens. Beyond that, high railings. +“What are those gardens?” he asked, pointing to the space on the other +side of the railings. +“They belong to Onslow Gardens,” said Elk. +“Onslow Gardens?” said Dick thoughtfully. “Wasn’t it from Onslow Gardens +that the Frogs tried to shoot me?” +Elk shook his head helplessly. +“What do you suggest. Captain Gordon?” +“I don’t know what to suggest,” admitted Dick. “It doesn’t seem an +intelligent theory that somebody climbed the ladder and handed poison to +Mills—less acceptable, that he would be willing to take the dose. There +is the fact. Balder swears that the window was shut, and now the window +is open. You can trust Balder?” +Elk nodded. +The divisional surgeon came soon after, and, as Dick had expected, +pronounced life extinct, and supported the view that cyanide was the +cause. +“Cyanide has a peculiar odour,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any +doubt at all that the man was killed, either by poison administered from +outside, or by poison taken voluntarily by himself.” +After the body had been removed. Elk accompanied Dick Gordon to his +Whitehall office. +“I have never been frightened in my life,” said Elk, “but these Frogs +are now on top of me! Here is a man killed practically under our eyes! +He was guarded, he was never let out of our sight, except for the few +minutes he was in that room, and yet the Frog can reach him—it’s +frightening, Captain Gordon.” +Dick unlocked the door of his office and ushered Elk into the cosy +interior. +“I know of no better cure for shaken nerves than a _Cabana Cesare_,” he +said cheerfully. “And without desiring to indulge in a boastful gesture, +I can only tell you, Elk, that they don’t frighten me, any more than +they frighten you. Frog is human, and has very human fears. Where is +friend Broad?” +“The American?” +Dick nodded, and Elk, without a second’s hesitation, pulled the +telephone toward him and gave a number. +After a little delay, Broad’s voice answered him. +“That you, Mr. Broad? What are you doing now?” asked Elk, in that +caressing tone he adopted for telephone conversation. +“Is that Elk? I’m just going out.” +“Thought I saw you in Whitehall about five minutes ago,” said Elk. +“Then you must have seen my double,” replied the other, “for I haven’t +been out of my bath ten minutes. Do you want me?” +“No, no,” cooed Elk. “Just wanted to know you were all right.” +“Why, is anything wrong?” came the sharp question. +“Everything’s fine,” said Elk untruthfully. “Perhaps you’ll call round +and see me at my office one of these days—good-bye!” +He pushed the telephone back, and raising his eyes to the ceiling, made +a quick calculation. +“From Whitehall to Cavendish Square takes four minutes in a good car,” +he said. “So his being in the flat means nothing.” +He pulled the telephone toward him again, and this time called +Headquarters. +“I want a man to shadow Mr. Joshua Broad, of Caverley House; not to +leave him until eight o’clock to-night; to report to me.” +When he had finished, he sat back in his chair and lit the long cigar +that Dick had pressed upon him. +“To-day is Tuesday,” he ruminated, “to-morrow’s Wednesday. Where do you +propose to listen in, Captain Gordon? +“At the Admiralty,” said Dick. “I have arranged with the First Lord to +be in the instrument room at a quarter to three.” +He bought the early editions of the evening newspapers, and was relieved +to find that no reference had been made to the murder—as murder he +believed it to be. Once, in the course of the day, looking out from his +window on to Whitehall, he saw Elk walking along on the other side of +the road, his umbrella hanging on his arm, his ancient derby hat at the +back of his head, an untidy and unimposing figure. Then, an hour later, +he saw him again, coming from the opposite direction. He wondered what +particular business the detective was engaged in. He learnt, quite by +accident, that Elk had made two visits to the Admiralty that day, but he +did not discover the reason until they met later in the evening. +“Don’t know much about wireless,” said Elk, “though I’m not one of those +people who believe that, if God had intended us to use wireless, +telegraph poles would have been born without wires. But it seems to me +that I remember reading something about ‘directional.’ If you want to +know where a wireless message is coming from, you listen in at two or +three different points——��� +“Of course! What a fool I am!” said Dick, annoyed with himself. “It +never occurred to me that we might pick up the broadcasting station.” +“I get these ideas,” explained Elk modestly. “The Admiralty have sent +messages to Milford Haven, Harwich, Portsmouth and Plymouth, telling +ships to listen in and give us the direction. The evening papers haven’t +got that story.” +“You mean about Mills? No, thank heaven! It is certain to come out at +the inquest, but I’ve arranged for that to be postponed for a week or +two; and somehow I feel that within the next few weeks things will +happen.” +“To us,” said Elk ominously. “I dare not eat a grilled sausage since +that fellow was killed! And I’m partial to sausages.” +CHAPTER XVIII +THE BROADCAST +HIS jaundiced clerk was, as usual, in a complaining mood. “Records have +been making a fuss and have been blaming me,” he said bitterly. “Records +give themselves more airs than the whole darned office.” +The war between Balder and “Records”—which was a short title for that +section of Headquarters which kept exact data of criminals’ pasts,—was +of long standing. “Records” was aloof, detached, sublimely superior to +everything except tabulated facts. It was no respecter of persons; would +as soon snap at a Chief Commissioner who broke its inflexible rules, as +it would at the latest joined constable. +“What’s the trouble?” asked Elk. +“You remember you had a lot of stuff out the other day about a man +called—I can’t remember his name now.” +“Lyme?” suggested Elk. +“That’s the fellow. Well, it appears that one of the portraits is +missing. The morning after you were looking at them, I went to Records +and got the documents again for you, thinking you wanted to see them in +the morning. When you didn’t turn up, I returned them, and now they say +the portrait and measurements are short.” +“Do you mean to say they’re lost?” +“If they’re lost,” said the morose Balder, “then Records have lost ’em! +I suppose they think I’m a Frog or somethin’. They’re always accusing me +of mislaying their finger-print cards.” +“I’ve promised you a chance to make a big noise, Balder, and now I’m +going to give it to you. You’ve been passed over for promotion, son, +because the men upstairs think you were one of the leaders of the last +strike. I know that ‘passed over’ feeling—it turns you sour. Will you +take a big chance?” +Balder nodded, holding his breath. +“Hagn’s in the special cell,” said Elk. “Change into your civilian kit, +roughen yourself up a bit, and I’ll put you in with him. If you’re +scared I’ll let you carry a gun and fix it so that you won’t be +searched. Get Hagn to talk. Tell him that you were pulled in over the +Dundee murder. He won’t know you. Get that story, Balder, and I’ll have +the stripes on your arm in a week.” +Balder nodded. The querulous character of his voice had changed when he +spoke again. +“It’s a chance,” he said; “and thank you, Mr. Elk, for giving it to me.” +An hour later, a detective brought a grimy-looking prisoner into Cannon +Row and pushed him into the steel pen, and the only man who recognized +the prisoner was the chief inspector who had waited for the arrival of +the pigeon. +It was that high official himself who conducted Balder to the separate +cell and pushed him in. +“Good night, Frog!” he said. +Balder’s reply was unprintable. +After seeing his subordinate safely caged, Elk went back to his room, +locked the door, cut off his telephone and lay down to snatch a few +hours’ sleep. It was a practice of his, when he was engaged in any work +which kept him up at night, to take these intermediate siestas, and he +had trained himself to sleep as and when the opportunity presented +itself. It was unusual in him, however, to avail himself of the office +sofa, a piece of furniture to which he was not entitled, and which, as +his superiors had often pointed out, occupied space which might better +be employed. +For once, however, he could not sleep. His mind ranged from Balder to +Dick Gordon, from Lola Bassano to the dead man Mills. His own position +had been seriously jeopardized, but that worried him not at all. He was +a bachelor, had a snug sum invested. His mind went to the puzzling +Maitland. His association with the Frogs had been proved almost up to +the hilt. And Maitland was in a position to benefit by these many +inexplicable attacks which had been made upon seemingly inoffensive +people. +The old man lived a double life. By day the business martinet, before +whom his staff trembled, the cutter of salaries, the shrewd manipulator +of properties; by night the associate of thieves and worse than thieves. +Who was the child? That was another snag. +“Nothing but snags!” growled Elk, his hands under his head, looking +resentfully at the ceiling. “Nothing but snags.” +Finding he could not sleep, he got up and went across to Cannon Row. The +gaoler told him that the new prisoner had been talking a lot to Hagn, +and Elk grinned. He only hoped that the “new prisoner” would not be +tempted to discuss his grievances against the police administration. +At a quarter to three he joined Dick Gordon in the instrument room at +the Admiralty. An operator had been placed at their disposal; and after +the preliminary instructions they took their place at the table where he +manipulated his keys. Dick listened, fascinated, hearing the calls of +far-off ships and the chatter of transmitting stations. Once he heard a +faint squeak of sound, so faint that he wasn’t sure that he had not been +mistaken. +“Cape Race,” said the operator. “You’ll hear Chicago in a minute. He +usually gets talkative round about now.” +As the hands of the clock approached three, the operator began varying +his wave lengths, reaching out into the ether for the message which was +coming. Exactly at one minute after three he said suddenly: +“There is your L.V.M.B.” +Dick listened to the staccato sounds, and then: +“_All Frogs listen. Mills is dead. Number Seven finished him this +morning. Number Seven receives a bonus of a hundred pounds._” +The voice was clear and singularly sweet. It was a woman’s. +“_Twenty-third district will arrange to receive Number Seven’s +instructions at the usual place._” +Dick’s heart was beating thunderously. He recognized the speaker, knew +the soft cadences, the gentle intonations. +There could be no doubt at all: it was Ella Bennett’s voice! Dick felt a +sudden sensation of sickness, but, looking across the table and seeing +Elk’s eyes fixed upon him, he made an effort to control his emotions. +“There doesn’t seem to be any more coming through,” said the operator +after a few minutes’ wait. +Dick took off the headpiece and rose. +“We must wait for the direction signals to come through,” he said as +steadily as he could. +Presently they began to arrive, and were worked out by a naval officer +on a large scale map. +“The broadcasting station is in London,” he said. “All the lines meet +somewhere in the West End, I should imagine; possibly in the very heart +of town. Did you find any difficulty in picking up the Frog call?” he +asked the operator. +“Yes, sir,” said the man. “I think they were sending from very close at +hand.” +“In what part of town would you say it would be?” asked Elk. +The officer indicated a pencil mark that he had ruled across the page. +“It is somewhere on this mark,” he said, and Elk, peering over, saw that +the line passed through Cavendish Square and Cavendish Place and that, +whilst the Portsmouth line missed Cavendish Place only by a block, the +Harwich line crossed the Plymouth line a little to the south of the +square. +“Caverley House, obviously,” said Dick. +He wanted to get out in the open, he wanted to talk, to discuss this +monstrous thing with Elk. Had the detective also recognized the voice, +he wondered? Any doubt he had on that point was set at rest. He had +hardly reached Whitehall before Elk said: +“Sounded very like a friend of ours, Captain Gordon?” +Dick made no reply. +“Very like,” said Elk as if he were speaking half to himself. “In fact, +I’ll take any number of oaths that I know the young lady who was talking +for old man Frog.” +“Why should she do it?” groaned Dick. “Why, for the love of heaven, +should she do it?” +“I remember years ago hearing her,” said Elk reminiscently. +Dick Gordon stopped, and, turning, glared at the other. +“You remember . . . what do you mean?” he demanded. +“She was on the stage at the time—quite a kid,” continued Elk. “They +called her ‘The Child Mimic.’ There’s another thing I’ve noticed, +Captain: if you take a magnifying glass and look at your skin, you see +its defects, don’t you? That wireless telephone acts as a sort of +magnifying glass to the voice. She always had a little lisp that I +jumped at straight away. You may not have noticed it, but I’ve got +pretty sharp ears. She can’t pronounce her ‘S’s’ properly, there’s a +sort of faint ‘th’ sound in ’um. You heard that?” +Dick had heard, and nodded. +“I never knew that she was ever on the stage,” he said more calmly. “You +are sure, Elk?” +“Sure. In some things I’m . . . what’s the word?—infall-i-able. I’m a +bit shaky on dates, such as when Henry the First an’ all that bunch got +born—I never was struck on birthdays anyway—but I know voices an’ +noses. Never forget ’um.” +They were turning into the dark entrance of Scotland Yard when Dick said +in a tone of despair: +“It was her voice, of course. I had no idea she had been on the +stage—is her father in this business?” +“She hasn’t a father so far as I know,” was the staggering reply, and +again Gordon halted. +“Are you mad?” he asked. “Ella Bennett has a father——” +“I’m not talking about Ella Bennett,” said the calm Elk. “I’m talking +about Lola Bassano.” +There was a silence. +“Was it her voice?” asked Gordon a little breathlessly. +���Sure it was Lola. It was a pretty good imitation of Miss Bennett, but +any mimic will tell you that these soft voices are easy. It’s the pace +of a voice that makes it . . .” +“You villain!” said Dick Gordon, as a weight rolled from his heart. “You +knew I meant Ella Bennett when I was talking, and you strung me along!” +“Blame me,” said Elk. “What’s the time?” +It was half-past three. He gathered his reserves, and ten minutes later +the police cars dropped a party at the closed door of Caverley House. +The bell brought the night porter, who recognized Elk. +“More gas trouble?” he asked. +“Want to see the house plan,” said Elk, and listened as the porter +detailed the names, occupations and peculiarities of the tenants. +“Who owns this block?” asked the detective. +“This is one of Maitland’s properties—Maitlands Consolidated. He’s got +the Prince of Caux’s house in Berkeley Square and——” +“Don’t worry about giving me his family history. What time did Miss +Bassano come in?” +“She’s been in all the evening—since eleven.” +“Anybody with her?” +The man hesitated. +“Mr. Maitland came in with her, but he went soon after.” +“Nobody else?” +“Nobody except Mr. Maitland.” +“Give me your master-key.” +The porter demurred. +“I’ll lose my job,” he pleaded. “Can’t you knock?” +“Knocking is my speciality—I don’t pass a day without knocking +somebody,” replied Elk, “but I want that key.” +He did not doubt that Lola would have bolted her door, and his surmise +proved sound. He had both to knock and ring before the light showed +behind the transom, and Lola in a kimono and boudoir cap appeared. +“What is the meaning of this, Mr. Elk?” she demanded. She did not even +attempt to appear surprised. +“A friendly call—can I come in?” +She opened the door wider, and Elk went in, followed by Gordon and two +detectives. Dick she ignored. +“I’m seeing the Commissioner to-morrow,” she said, “and if he doesn’t +give me satisfaction I’ll get on to the newspapers. This persecution is +disgraceful. To break into a single girl’s flat in the middle of the +night, when she is alone and unprotected——” +“If there is any time when a single girl should be alone and +unprotected, it is in the middle of the night,” said Elk primly. “I’m +just going to have a look at your little home, Lola. We’ve got +information that you’ve been burgled, Lola. Perhaps at this very minute +there’s a sinister man hidden under your bed. The idea of leaving you +alone, so to speak, at the mercy of unlawful characters, is repugnant to +our feelin’s. Try the dining-room, Williams; I’ll search the +parlour—_and_ the bedroom.” +“You’ll keep out of my room if you’ve any sense of decency,” said the +girl. +“I haven’t,” admitted Elk, “no false sense, anyway. Besides, Lola, I’m a +family man. One of ten. And when there’s anything I shouldn’t see, just +say ‘Shut your eyes’ and I’ll shut ’um.” +To all appearances there was nothing that looked in the slightest degree +suspicious. A bathroom led from the bedroom, and the bathroom window was +open. Flashing his lamp along the wall outside, Elk saw a small glass +spool attached to the wall. +“Looks to me like an insulator,” he said. +Returning to the bedroom, he began to search for the instrument. There +was a tall mahogany wardrobe against one of the walls. Opening the door, +he saw row upon row of dresses and thrust in his hand. +It was the shallowest wardrobe he had ever seen, and the backing was +warm to the touch. +“Hot cupboard, Lola?” he asked. +She did not reply, but stood watching him, a scowl on her pretty face, +her arms folded. +Elk closed the door and his sensitive fingers searched the surface for a +spring. It took him a long time to discover it, but at last he found a +slip of wood that yielded to the pressure of his hand. +There was a “click” and the front of the wardrobe began to fall. +“A wardrobe bed, eh? Grand little things for a flat.” +But it was no sleeping-place that was revealed (and he would have been +disappointed if it had been) as he eased down the “bed.” Set on a frame +were row upon row of valve lamps, transformers—all the apparatus +requisite for broadcasting. +Elk looked, and, looking, admired. +“You’ve got a licence, I suppose?” asked Elk. He supposed nothing of the +kind, for licences to transmit are jealously issued in England. He was +surprised when she went to a bureau and produced the document. Elk read +and nodded. +“You’ve got _some_ pull,” he said with respect. “Now I’ll see your Frog +licence.” +“Don’t get funny, Elk,” she said tartly. “I’d like to know whether +you’re in the habit of waking people to ask for their permits.” +“You’ve been using this to-night to broadcast the Frogs,” Elk nodded +accusingly; “and perhaps you’ll explain to Captain Gordon why?” +She turned to Dick for the first time. +“I’ve not used the instrument for weeks,” she said. “But the sister of a +friend of mine—perhaps you know her—asked if she might use it. She +left here an hour ago.” +“You mean Miss Bennett, of course,” said Gordon, and she raised her +eyebrows in simulated astonishment. +“Why, how did you guess that?” +“I guessed it,” said Elk, “the moment I heard you giving one of your +famous imitations. I guessed she was around, teaching you how to talk +like her. Lola, you’re cooked! Miss Bennett was standing right alongside +me when you started talking Frog-language. She was right at my very +side, and she said ‘Now, Mr. Elk, isn’t she the artfullest thing!’ +You’re cooked, Lola, and you can’t do better than sit right down and +tell us the truth. I’ll make it right for you. We caught ‘Seven’ last +night and he’s told us everything. Frog will be in irons to-day, and I +came here to give you the last final chance of getting out of all your +trouble.” +“Isn’t that wonderful of you?” she mocked him. “So you’ve caught ‘Seven’ +and you’re catching the Frog! Put a pinch of salt on his tail!” +“Yes,” said the imperturbable Elk, untruthfully, “we caught Seven and +Hagn’s split. But I like you, Lol—always did. There’s something about +you that reminds me of a girl I used to be crazy about—I never married +her; it was a tragedy.” +“Not for her,” said Lola. “Now I’ll tell _you_ something, Elk! You +haven’t caught anybody and you won’t. You’ve put a flat-footed stool +pigeon named Balder into the same cell as Hagn, with the idea of getting +information, and you’re going to have a jar.” +In other circumstances Dick Gordon would have been amused by the effect +of this revelation upon Elk. The jaw of the unhappy detective dropped as +he glared helplessly over his glasses at the girl, smiling her triumph. +Then the smile vanished. +“Hagn wouldn’t talk, because Frog could reach him, as he reached Mills +and Litnov. As he will reach you when he decides you’re worth while. And +now you can take me if you want. I’m a Frog—I never pretend I’m not. +You heard all the tale that I told Ray Bennett—heard it over the +detectaphone you planted. Take me and charge me!” +Elk knew that there was no charge upon which he could hold her. And she +knew that he knew. +“Do you think you’ll get away with it, Bassano?” +It was Gordon who spoke, and she turned her wrathful eyes upon him. +“I’ve got a Miss to my name, Gordon,” she rapped at him. +“Sooner or later you’ll have a number,” said Dick calmly. “You and your +crowd are having the time of your young lives—perhaps because I’m +incompetent, or because I’m unfortunate. But some day we shall get you, +either I or my successor. You can’t fight the law and win because the +law is everlasting and constant.” +“A search of my flat I don’t mind—but a sermon I will not have,” she +said contemptuously. “And now, if you men have finished, I should like +to get a little beauty sleep.” +“That is the one thing you don’t require,” said the gallant Elk, and she +laughed. +“You’re not a bad man, Elk,” she said. “You’re a bad detective, but +you’ve a heart of gold.” +“If I had, I shouldn’t trust myself alone with you,” was Elk’s parting +shot. +CHAPTER XIX +IN ELSHAM WOOD +DICK GORDON, in the sudden lightening of his heart which had come to him +when he realized that his horrible fears were without foundation, was +inclined to regard the night as having been well spent. This was not +Elk’s view. He was genuinely grave as they drove back to headquarters. +“I’m frightened of these Frogs, and I admit it,” he confessed. “There’s +a bad leakage somewhere—how should she know that I put Balder in with +Hagn? That has staggered me. Nobody but two men, in addition to +ourselves, is in the secret; and if the Frogs are capable of getting +that kind of news, it is any odds on Hagn knowing that he is being +drawn. They frighten me, I tell you, Captain Gordon. If they only knew a +little, and hadn’t got that quite right, I should be worried. But they +know everything!” +Dick nodded. +“The whole trouble, Elk, is that the Frogs are not an illegal +association. It may be necessary to ask the Prime Minister to proclaim +the society.” +“Perhaps he’s a Frog too,” said Elk gloomily. “Don’t laugh, Captain +Gordon! There are big people behind these Frogs. I’m beginning to +suspect everybody.” +“Start by suspecting me,” said Gordon good-humouredly. +“I have,” was the frank reply. “Then it occurred to me that possibly I +walk in my sleep—I used to as a boy. Likely I lead a double life, and I +am a detective by day and a Frog by night—you never know. It is clear +that there is a genius at the back of the Frogs,” he went on, with +unconscious immodesty. +“Lola Bassano?” suggested Dick. +“I’ve thought of her, but she’s no organizer. She had a company on the +road when she was nineteen, and it died the death from bad organization. +I suppose you think that that doesn’t mean she couldn’t run the +Frogs—but it does. You want exactly the same type of intelligence to +control the Frogs as you want to control a bank. Maitland is the man. I +narrowed the circle down to him after I had a talk with Johnson. Johnson +says he’s never seen the old man’s pass-book, and although he is his +private secretary, knows nothing whatever of his business transactions +except that he buys property and sells it. The money old Maitland makes +on the side never appears in the books, and Johnson was a very surprised +man when I suggested that Maitland transacted any business at all +outside the general routine of the company. And it’s not a company at +all—not an incorporated company. It’s a one man show. Would you like to +make sure, Captain Gordon?” +“Sure of what?” asked Dick, startled. +“That Miss Bennett isn’t in this at all.” +“You don’t think for one moment she is?” asked Dick, aghast at the +thought. +“I’m prepared to believe anything,” said Elk. “We’ve got a clear road; +we could be at Horsham in an hour, and it is our business to make sure. +In my mind I’m perfectly satisfied that it was not Miss Bennett’s voice. +But when we come down to writing out reports for the people upstairs to +read” (‘the people upstairs’ was Elk’s invariable symbol for his +superiors) “we are going to look silly if we say that we heard Miss +Bennett’s voice and didn’t trouble to find out where Miss Bennett was.” +“That is true,” said Dick thoughtfully, and, leaning out to the driver, +Elk gave new directions. +The grey of dawn was in the sky as the car ran through the deserted +streets of Horsham and began the steady climb toward Maytree Cottage, +which lay on the slope of the Shoreham Road. +The cottage showed no signs of life. The blinds were drawn; there was no +light of any kind. Dick hesitated, with his hand on the gate. +“I don’t like waking these people,” he confessed. “Old Bennett will +probably think that I’ve brought some bad news about his son.” +“I have no conscience,” said Elk, and walked up the brick path. +But John Bennett required no waking. Elk was hailed from one of the +windows above, and, looking up, saw the mystery man leaning with his +elbows on the window-sill. +“What’s the trouble, Elk?” he asked in a low voice, as though he did not +wish to awaken his daughter. +“No trouble at all,” said Elk cheerfully. “We picked up a wireless +telephone message in the night, and I’m under the impression that it was +your daughter’s voice I heard.” +John Bennett frowned, and Dick saw that he doubted the truth of this +explanation. +“It is perfectly true, Mr. Bennett,” he said. “I heard the voice too. We +were listening in for a rather important message, and we heard Miss +Bennett in circumstances which make it necessary for us to assure +ourselves that it was not she who was speaking.” +The cloud passed from John Bennett’s face. +“That’s a queer sort of story, Captain Gordon, but I believe you. I’ll +come down and let you in.” +Wearing an old dressing-gown, he opened the door and ushered them into +the darkened sitting-room. +“I’ll call Ella, and perhaps she’ll be able to satisfy you that she was +in bed at ten o’clock last night.” +He went out of the room, after drawing the curtains to let in the light, +and Dick waited with a certain amount of pleasurable anticipation. He +had been only too glad of the excuse to come to Horsham, if the truth be +told. This girl had so gripped his heart that the days between their +meetings seemed like eternity. They heard the feet of Bennett on the +stairs, and presently the old man came in, and distress was written +largely on his face. +“I can’t understand it,” he said. “Ella is not in her room! The bed has +been slept in, but she has evidently dressed and gone out.” +Elk scratched his chin, avoiding Dick’s eyes. +“A lot of young people like getting up early,” he said. “When I was a +young man, nothing gave me greater pleasure than to see the sun +rise—before I went to bed. Is she in the habit of taking a morning +stroll?” +John Bennett shook his head. +“I’ve never known her to do that before. It’s curious I did not hear +her, because I slept very badly last night. Will you excuse me, +gentlemen?” +He went upstairs and came down in a few minutes, dressed. Together they +passed out into the garden. It was now quite light, though the sun had +not yet tipped the horizon. John Bennett made a brief but fruitless +search of the ground behind the cottage, and came back to them with a +confession of failure. He was no more troubled than Dick Gordon. It was +impossible that it could have been she, that Elk was mistaken. Yet Lola +had been emphatic. Against that, the hall-porter at Caverley House had +been equally certain that the only visitor to Lola’s flat that night was +the aged Mr. Maitland; and so far as he knew, or Elk had been able to +discover, there was no other entrance into the building. +“I see you have a car here. You came down by road. Did you pass +anybody?” +Dick shook his head. +“Do you mind if we take the car in the opposite direction toward +Shoreham?” +“I was going to suggest that,” said Gordon. “Isn’t it rather dangerous +for her, walking at this hour? The roads are thronged with tramps.” +The older man made no reply. He sat with the driver, his eyes fixed +anxiously upon the road ahead. The car went ten miles at express speed, +then turned, and began a search of the side roads. Nearing the cottage +again, Dick pointed. +“What is that wood?” he asked pointing to a dense wood to which a narrow +road led. +“That is Elsham Wood; she wouldn’t go there,” he hesitated. +“Let us try it,” said Dick, and the bonnet of the car was turned on to a +narrow road. In a few minutes they were running through a glade of high +trees, the entwining tops of which made the road a place of gloom. +“There are car tracks here,” said Dick suddenly, but John Bennett shook +his head. +“People come here for picnics,” he said, but Dick was not satisfied. +These marks were new, and presently he saw them turn off the road to a +‘ride’ between the trees. He caught no glimpse of a car, however. The +direction of the tracks supported the old man’s theory. The road ended a +mile farther along, and beyond that was a waste of bracken and tree +stumps, for the wood had been extensively thinned during the war. +With some difficulty the car was turned and headed back again. They came +through the glade into the open, and then Dick uttered a cry. +John Bennett had already seen the girl. She was walking quickly in the +centre of the road, and stepped on to the grassy border without looking +round as the car came abreast of her. Then, looking up, she saw her +father, and went pale. +He was in the road in a moment. +“My dear,” he said reproachfully, “where have you been at this hour?” +She looked frightened, Dick thought. The eyes of Elk narrowed as he +surveyed her. +“I couldn’t sleep, so I dressed and went out, father,” she said, and +nodded to Dick. “You’re a surprising person, Captain Gordon. Why are you +here at this hour?” +“I came to interview you,” said Dick, forcing a smile. +“Me!” She was genuinely astonished. “Why me?” +“Captain Gordon heard your voice on a wireless telephone in the middle +of the night, and wanted to know all about it,” said her father. +If he was relieved, he was also troubled. Looking at him, Elk suddenly +saw the relief intensified, and with his quick intuition guessed the +cause before John Bennett put the question. +“Was it Ray?” he asked eagerly. “Did he come down?” +She shook her head. +“No, father,” she said quietly. “And as to the wireless telephone, I +have never spoken into a wireless telephone, and I don’t think I’ve ever +seen one,” she said. +“Of course you haven’t,” said Dick. “Only we were rather worried when we +heard your voice, but Mr. Elk’s explanation, that it was somebody +speaking whose voice was very much like yours, is obviously correct.” +“Tell me this, Miss Bennett,” said Elk quietly. “Were you in town last +night?” +She did not reply. +“My daughter went to bed at ten,” said John Bennett roughly. “What is +the sense of asking her whether she was in London last night?” +“Were you in town in the early hours of this morning, Miss Bennett?” +persisted Elk, and to Dick’s amazement she nodded. +“Were you at Caverley House?” +“No,” she answered instantly. +“But, Ella, what were you doing in town?” asked John Bennett. “Did you +go to see that wretched brother of yours?” +Again the hesitation, and then: +“No.” +“Did you go by yourself?” +“No,” said Ella, and her lip trembled. “I wish you wouldn’t ask me any +further questions. I’m not a free agent in the matter. Daddy, you’ve +always trusted me: you’ll trust me now, won’t you?” +He took her hand and held it in both of his. +“I’ll trust you always, girlie,” he said; “and these gentlemen must do +the same.” +Her challenging eyes met Dick’s, and he nodded. +“I am one who will share that trust,” he said, and something in her look +rewarded him. +Elk rubbed his chin fiercely. +“Being naturally of a trusting nature, I should no more think of +doubting your word, Miss Bennett, than I should of believing myself.” He +looked at his watch. “I think we’ll go along and fetch poor old Balder +from the house of sin,” he said. +“You’ll stop and have some breakfast?” +Dick looked pleadingly at Elk, and the detective, with an air of +resignation, agreed. +“Anyway, Balder won’t mind an hour more or less,” he said. +Whilst Ella was preparing the breakfast, Dick and Elk paced the road +outside. +“Well, what do you think of it, Captain?” +“I don’t understand, but I have every confidence that Miss Bennett has +not lied,” said Dick. +“Faith is a wonderful thing,” murmured Elk, and Dick turned on him +sharply. +“What do you mean?” +“I mean what I say. I have got faith in Miss Bennett,” he said +soothingly; “and, after all, she’s only another little bit of the jigsaw +puzzle that will fall into place when we fix the piece that’s shaped +like a Frog. And John Bennett’s another,” he said after a moment’s +thought. +From where they stood they could see, looking toward Shoreham, the +opening of the narrow Elsham Wood road. +“The thing that puzzles me,” Elk was saying, “is why she should go into +that wood in the middle of the night——” He stopped, lowering his head. +There came to them the soft purr of a motor-car. “Where is that?” he +asked. +The question was answered instantly. Slowly there came into view from +the wood road the bonnet of a car, followed immediately by the remainder +of a large limousine, which turned toward them, gathering speed as it +came. A moment later it flashed past them, and they saw the solitary +occupant. +“Well, I’m damned!” said Elk, who very infrequently indulged in +profanity, but Dick felt that on this occasion at least he was +justified. For the man in the limousine was the bearded Ezra Maitland; +and he knew that it was to see Maitland that the girl had gone to Elsham +Wood. +CHAPTER XX +HAGN +A MINUTE later Ella came to the door to call them. +“Was that a car went past?” she asked, and they detected a note of +anxiety in her tone. +“Yes,” said Elk, “it was a big car. Didn’t see who was in it, but it was +a big car.” +Dick heard her sigh of relief. +“Will you come in, please?” she said. “Breakfast is waiting for you.” +They left half an hour later, and each man was so busy with his own +thoughts that Dick did not speak until they were passing the villas +where the body of Genter had been found. It was near Horsham that Genter +was killed, he remembered with a little shudder. Outside of Horsham he +himself had seen the dead man’s feet extended beyond the back of a +motor-van. Hagn should die for that; whether he was Frog or not, he was +party to that murder. As if reading his thoughts, Elk turned to him and +said: +“Do you think your evidence is strong enough to hang Hagn?” +“I was wondering,” said Dick. “There is no supporting evidence, +unfortunately, but the car which you have under lock and key, and the +fact that the garage keeper may be able to identify him.” +“With his beard?” asked Elk significantly. “There is going to be some +difficulty in securing a conviction against this Frog, believe me, +Captain Gordon. And unless old Balder induces him to make a statement, +we shall have all the difficulty in the world in convincing a jury. +Personally,” he added, “if I was condemned to spend a night with Balder, +I should tell the truth, if it was only to get rid of him. He’s a pretty +clever fellow, is Balder. People don’t realize that—he has the makings +of a first-class detective, if we could only get him to take a happier +view of life.” +He directed the driver to go straight to the door of Cannon Row. +Dick’s mind was on another matter. +“What did she want with Maitland?” he asked. +Elk shook his head. +“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Of course, she might have been persuading +him to take back her brother, but old Maitland isn’t the kind of +adventurer who’d get up in the middle of the night to discuss giving Ray +Bennett his job back. If he was a younger man, yes. But he’s not young. +He’s darned old. And he’s a wicked old man, who doesn’t care two cents +whether Ray Bennett is working at his desk for so much per, or whether +he’s breaking stones on Dartmoor. I tell you, that’s one of the minor +mysteries which will be cleared up when we get the Frog piece in its +place.” +The car stopped at the entrance of Cannon Row police-station, and the +men jumped down. The desk sergeant stood up as they came in, and eyed +them wonderingly. +“I’m going to take Balder out, sergeant.” +“Balder?” said the man in surprise. “I didn’t know Balder was in.” +“I put him in with Hagn.” +A light dawned upon the station official. +“That’s queer. I didn’t know it was Balder,” he said. “I wasn’t on duty +when he came in, but the other sergeant told me that a man had been put +in with Hagn. Here is the gaoler.” +That official came in at that moment, and was as astonished as the +sergeant to learn the identity of the second prisoner. +“I had no idea it was Balder, sir,” he said. “That accounts for the long +talk they had—they were talking up till one o’clock.” +“Are they still talking?” asked Elk. +“No, sir, they’re sleeping now. I had a look at them a little time +ago—you remember you gave me orders to leave them alone and not to go +near them.” +Dick Gordon and his subordinate followed the gaoler down a long passage +faced with glazed brick, the wall of which was studded at intervals by +narrow black doors. Reaching the end of the corridor, they turned at +right angles. The second passage had only one door, and that was at the +end. Snapping back the lock, the gaoler threw open the door, and Elk +went in. +Elk went to the first of the figures and pulled aside the blanket which +covered the face. Then, with an oath, he drew the blanket clear. +It was Balder, and he was lying on his back, covered from head to foot +with a blanket. A silk scarf was twisted round his mouth; his wrists +were not only handcuffed but strapped, as were his legs. +Elk dashed at the second figure, but as he touched the blanket, it sank +under his hands. A folded coat, to give resemblance to a human figure, a +pair of battered shoes, placed artificially at the end of the +blanket—these were all. Hagn had disappeared! +When they got the man into Elk’s office, and had given him brandy, and +Elk, by sheer bullying, had reduced him to coherence, Balder told his +story. +“I think it was round about two o’clock when it happened,” he said. “I’d +been talking all the evening to this Hagn, though it was very clear to +me, with my experience, that he spotted me the moment I came in, as a +police officer, and was kidding me along all the evening. Still, I +persevered, Mr. Elk. I’m the sort of man that never says die. That’s the +peculiar thing about me——” +“The peculiar thing about you,” said Elk wearily, “is your passionate +admiration of Balder. Get on!” +“Anyway, I did try,” said Balder in an injured voice; “and I thought I’d +got over his suspicion, because he began talking about Frogs, and +telling me that there was going to be a wireless call to all the heads +to-night—that is, last night. He told me that Number Seven would never +be captured, because he was too clever. He asked me how Mills had been +killed, but I’m perfectly sure, the way he put the question, that he +knew. We didn’t talk very much after one, and at a quarter-past one I +lay down, and I must have gone to sleep almost at once. The first thing +I knew was that they were putting a gag in my mouth. I tried to +struggle, but they held me——” +“They?” said Elk. “How many were there?” +“There may have been two or three—I’m not certain,” said Balder. “If it +had been only two, I think I could have managed, for I am naturally +strong. There must have been more. I only saw two besides Hagn.” +“Was the cell door open?” +“Yes, sir, it was ajar,” said Balder after he had considered a moment. +“What did they look like?” +“They were wearing long black overcoats, but they made no attempt to +hide their faces. I should know them anywhere. They were young men—at +least, one was. What happened after that I don’t know. They put a strap +round my legs, pulled the blanket over me, and that’s all I saw or heard +until the cell door closed. I have been lying there all night, sir, +thinking of my wife and children . . .” +Elk cut him short, and, leaving the man in charge of another police +clerk, he went across to make a more careful examination of the cell. +The two passages were shaped like a capital L, the special cell being at +the end of the shorter branch. At the elbow was a barred door leading +into the courtyard, where men waiting trial were loaded into the +prison-van and distributed to various places of detention. The warder +sat at the top of the L, in a small glass-panelled cubby-hole, where the +cell indicators were. Each cell was equipped with a bell-push in case of +illness, and the signals showed in this tiny office. From where he sat, +the warder commanded, not only a view of the passage, but a side view of +the door. Questioned, he admitted that he had been twice into the +charge-room for a few minutes at a time; once when a man arrested for +drunkenness had demanded to see a doctor, and another time, about +half-past two in the morning, to take over a burglar who had been +captured in the course of the night. +“And, of course, it was during that time that the men got away,” said +Elk. +The door into the courtyard was locked but not bolted. It could be +opened from either side. The cell door could also open from both sides. +In this respect it differed from every other cell in the station; but +the explanation was that it was frequently used for important prisoners, +whom it was necessary to subject to lengthy interrogations; and the lock +had been chosen to give the police officers who were inside an +opportunity of leaving the cell when they desired, without calling for +the gaoler. The lock had not been picked, neither had the lock of the +yard door. +Elk sent immediately for the policemen who were on duty at either +entrance of Scotland Yard. The officer who was on guard at the +Embankment entrance had seen nobody. The man at the Whitehall opening +remembered seeing an inspector of police pass out at half-past two. He +was perfectly sure the officer was an inspector, because he wore the +hanging sword-belt, and the policeman had seen the star on his shoulder +and had saluted him—a salute which the officer had returned. +“This may or may not be one of them,” said Elk. “If it is, what happened +to the other two?” +But here evidence failed. The men had disappeared as though they had +dissipated into air. +“We’re going to get a roasting for this, Captain Gordon,” said Elk; “and +if we escape without being scorched, we’re lucky. Fortunately, nobody +but ourselves knows that Hagn has been arrested; and when I say +‘ourselves,’ I wish I meant it! You had better go home and go to bed; I +had some sleep in the night. If you’ll wait while I send this bleating +clerk of mine home to his well-advertised wife and family, I’ll walk +home with you.” +Dick was waiting on the edge of Whitehall when Elk joined him. +“There will be a departmental inquiry, of course. We can’t help that,” +he said. “The only thing that worries me is that I’ve got poor old +Balder into bad odour, and I was trying to put him right. I don’t know +what the experience of the Boy Scouts is,” he went off at a tangent, +“but my own is that the worst service you can render to any man is to +try to do him a good turn.” +It was now nearly ten o’clock, and Dick was feeling faint with hunger +and lack of sleep, for he had eaten nothing at Horsham. Once or twice, +as they walked toward Harley Terrace, Elk looked back over his shoulder. +“Expecting anybody?” asked Dick, suddenly alive to the possibility of +danger. +“No-o, not exactly,” said Elk. “But I’ve got a hunch that we’re being +followed.” +“I saw a man just now who I thought was following us,” said Dick, “a man +in a fawn raincoat.” +“Oh, him?” said Elk, indifferent alike to the rules of grammar and the +presence of his shadow. “That is one of my men. There’s another on the +other side of the road. I’m not thinking of them, my mind for the moment +being fixed on Frogs. Do you mind if we cross the road?” he asked +hurriedly, and, without waiting for a reply, caught Gordon’s arm and led +him across the broad thoroughfare. “I always object to walking on the +same side of a street as the traffic runs. I like to meet traffic; it’s +not good to be overtaken. I thought so!” +A small Ford van, painted with the name of a laundry, which had been +crawling along behind them, suddenly spurted and went ahead at top +speed. Elk followed the car with his eyes until it reached the Trafalgar +Square end of Whitehall. Instead of branching left toward Pall Mall or +right to the Strand, the van swung round in a half-circle and came back +to meet them. Elk half turned and made a signal. +“This is where we follow the example of the chicken,” said Elk, and made +another hurried crossing. +When they reached the pavement he looked round. The detectives who were +following him had understood his signal, and one had leaped on the +running-board of the van, which was pulled up to the pavement. There was +a few minutes’ talk between the driver and the officer, and then they +all drove off together. +“Pinched,” said Elk laconically. “He’ll take him to the station on some +charge or other and hold him. I guessed he’d see what I was after—my +man, I mean. The easiest way to shadow is to shadow in a trade truck,” +said Elk. “A trade van can do anything it likes; it can loiter by the +pavement, it can turn round and go back, it can go fast or slow, and +nobody takes the slightest notice. If that had been a limousine, it +would have attracted the attention of every policeman by drawling along +by the pavement, so as to overtake us just at the right minute. Probably +it wasn’t any more than a shadow, but to me,” he said with a quiver of +his shoulder, “it felt rather like sudden death!” +Whether Elk’s cheerfulness was assumed or natural, he succeeded in +impressing his companion. +“Let’s take a cab,” said Dick, and such was his doubt that he waited for +three empty taxis to pass before he hailed the fourth. “Come in,” said +Dick when the cab dropped them at Harley Terrace. “I’ve got a spare room +if you want to sleep.” +Elk shook his head to the latter suggestion, but accompanied Gordon into +the house. The man who opened the door had evidently something to say. +“There’s a gentleman waiting to see you, sir. He’s been here for half an +hour.” +“What is his name?” +“Mr. Johnson, sir.” +“Johnson?” said Dick in surprise, and hurried to the dining-room, into +which the visitor had been ushered. +It was, indeed, “the philosopher,” though Mr. Johnson lacked for the +moment evidence of that equilibrium which is the chiefest of his +possessions. The stout man was worried; his face was unusually long; and +when Dick went into the room, he was sitting uncomfortably on the edge +of a chair, as he had seen him sitting at Heron’s Club, his gloomy eyes +fixed upon the carpet. +“I hope you’ll forgive me for coming to see you, Captain Gordon,” he +said. “I’ve really no right to bring my troubles to you.” +“I hope your troubles aren’t as pressing as mine,” smiled Dick as he +shook hands. “You know Mr. Elk?” +“Mr. Elk is an old friend,” said Johnson, almost cheerful for a second. +“Well, what is your kick?—sit down, won’t you?” said Dick. “I’m going +to have a real breakfast. Will you join me?” +“With pleasure, sir. I’ve eaten nothing this morning. I usually have a +little lunch about eleven, but I can’t say that I feel very hungry. The +fact is, Captain Gordon, I’m fired.” +Dick raised his eyebrows. +“What—has Maitland fired you?” +Johnson nodded. +“And to think that I’ve served the old devil all these years faithfully, +on a clerk’s salary! I’ve never given him any cause for complaint, I’ve +handled hundreds of thousands—yes, and millions! And although it’s not +for me to blow my own trumpet, I’ve never once been a penny out in my +accounts. Of course, if I had been, he would have found it out in less +than no time, for he is the greatest mathematician I’ve ever met. And as +sharp as a needle! He can write twice as fast as any other man I’ve +known,” he added with reluctant admiration. +“It’s rather curious that a man of his uncouth appearance and speech +should have those attainments,” said Dick. +“It’s a wonder to me,” confessed Johnson. “In fact, it has been a +standing wonder to me ever since I’ve known him. You’d think he was a +dustman or a tramp, to hear him talk, yet he’s a very well-read man, of +extraordinary educational qualities.” +“Can he remember dates?” asked Elk. +“He can even remember dates,” replied Johnson seriously. “A queer old +man, and in many ways an unpleasant old man. I’m not saying this because +he’s fired me; I’ve always had the same view. He’s without a single +spark of kindness; I think the only human thing about him is his love +for this little boy.” +“What little boy?” asked Elk, immediately interested. +“I’ve never seen him,” said Johnson. “The child has never been brought +to the office. I don’t know who he is or whose he is; I’ve an idea he’s +a grandchild of Maitland’s.” +There was a pause. +“I see,” said Dick softly, and well he did see, for in that second began +his understanding of the Frog and the secret of the Frog. +“Why were you fired?” he asked. +Johnson shrugged his shoulders. +“Over a stupid thing; in fact, it’s hardly worth talking about. It +appears the old man saw me at Heron’s Club the other night, and ever +since then he’s been going carefully into my petty cash account, +probably under the impression that I was living a fast life! Beyond the +usual grousing, there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he +intended getting rid of me; but this morning, when I came, I found that +he had already arrived, which was an unusual circumstance. He doesn’t as +a rule get to the office until about an hour after we start work. +‘Johnson,’ he said, ‘I understand that you know a Miss Ella Bennett.’ I +replied that I was fortunate enough to know the lady. ‘And I +understand,’ he went on, ’that you’ve been down there to lunch on one or +two occasions.’ ‘That is perfectly true, Mr. Maitland,’ I replied. ‘Very +well, Johnson,’ said Maitland, ‘you’re fired.’” +“And that was all?” asked Dick in amazement. +“That was all,” said Johnson in a hushed voice. “Can you understand it?” +Dick could have said yes, but he did not. Elk, more curious, and +passionately anxious to extend his knowledge of the mysterious Maitland, +had something to ask. +“Johnson, you’ve been right close to this man Maitland for years. Have +you noticed anything about him that’s particularly suspicious?” +“Like what, Mr. Elk?” +“Has he had any visitors for whom you couldn’t account? Have you known +him, for example, to do anything which would suggest to you that he had +something to do with the Frogs?” +“The Frogs?” Johnson opened his eyes wide, and his voice emphasized his +incredulity. “Bless you, no! I shouldn’t imagine he knows anything about +these people. You mean the tramps who have committed so many crimes? No, +Mr. Elk, I’ve never heard or seen or read anything which gave me that +impression.” +“You’ve seen the records of most of his transactions; are there any that +he has made which would lead you to believe that he had benefited, say, +by the death of Mr. Maclean in Dundee, or by the attack which was made +upon the woollen merchant at Derby? For example, do you know whether he +has been engaged in the buying or selling of French brandies or +perfumes?” +Johnson shook his head. +“No, sir, he deals only in real estate. He has properties in this +country and in the South of France and in America. He has done a little +business in exchanges; in fact, we did a very large exchange business +until the mark broke.” +“What are you going to do now, Mr. Johnson?” asked Dick. +The other made a gesture of helplessness. +“What can I do, sir?” he asked. “I am nearly fifty; I’ve spent most of +my working life in one job, and it is very unlikely that I can get +another. Fortunately for me, I’ve not only saved money, but I have had +one or two lucky investments, and for those I must be grateful to the +old man. I don’t think he was particularly pleased when he found that +I’d followed his advice, but that’s beside the question. I do owe him +that. I’ve just about enough money to keep me for the rest of my life if +I go quietly and do not engage in any extraordinary speculations. Why I +came to see you was to ask you, Captain Gordon, if you had any kind of +opening. I should like a little spare time work, and I’d be most happy +to work with you.” +Dick was rather embarrassed, because the opportunities for employing Mr. +Johnson were few and far between. Nevertheless, he was anxious to help +the man. +“Let me give the matter a day or two’s thought,” he said. “What is +Maitland doing for a secretary?” +“I don’t know. That is my chief worry. I saw a letter lying on his desk, +addressed to Miss Ella Bennett, and I have got an idea that he intends +offering her the job.” +Dick could hardly believe his ears. +“What makes you think that?” +“I don’t know, sir, only once or twice the old man has inquired whether +Ray has a sister. He took quite an interest in her for two or three +days, and then let the matter drop. It is as astonishing as anything he +has ever done.” +Elk for some reason felt immensely sorry for the man. He was so +obviously and patently unfitted for the rough and tumble of competition. +And the opportunities which awaited a man of fifty worn to one groove +were practically non-existent. +“I don’t know that I can help you either, Mr. Johnson,” he said. “As far +as Miss Bennett is concerned, I imagine that there is no possibility of +her accepting any such offer, supposing Maitland made it. I’ll have your +address in case I want to communicate with you.” +“431, Fitzroy Square,” replied Johnson, and produced a somewhat soiled +card with an apology. “I haven’t much use for cards,” he said. +He walked to the door and hesitated with his hand on its edge. +“I’m—I’m very fond of Miss Bennett,” he said, “and I’d like her to know +that Maitland isn’t as bad as he looks. I’ve got to be fair to him!” +“Poor devil!” said Elk, watching the man through the window as he walked +dejectedly along Harley Terrace. “It’s tough on him. You nearly told him +about seeing Maitland this morning! I saw that, and was ready to jump +in. It’s the young lady’s secret.” +“I wish to heaven it wasn’t,” said Dick sincerely, and remembered that +he had asked Johnson to stay to breakfast. +CHAPTER XXI +MR. JOHNSON’S VISITOR +THERE is a certain murky likeness between the houses in Fitzroy Square, +London, and Gramercy Park, New York. Fitzroy Square belongs to the +Georgian days, when Soho was a fashionable suburb, and St. +Martins-in-the-Fields was really in the fields, and was not tucked away +between a Vaudeville house and a picture gallery. +No. 431 had been subdivided by its owner into three self-contained +flats, Johnson’s being situated on the ground floor. There was a fourth +basement flat, which was occupied by a man and his wife who acted for +the owners, and, incidentally, were responsible, in the case of Johnson, +for keeping his apartments clean and supplying him with the very few +meals that he had on the premises. +It was nearly ten o’clock when philosopher Johnson arrived home that +evening, and he was a very tired man. He had spent the greater part of +the day in making a series of calls upon financial and real estate +houses. To his inevitable inquiries he received an inevitable answer. +There were no vacancies, and certainly no openings for a stoutish man of +fifty, who looked, to the discerning eyes of the merchants concerned or +their managing clerks, past his best years of work. Patient Mr. Johnson +accepted each rebuff and moved on to another field, only to find his +experience repeated. +He let himself in with a latchkey, walked wearily into a little +sitting-room, and dropped with a sigh to the Chesterfield, for he was +not given to violent exercise. +The room in which he sat was prettily, but not expensively furnished. A +large green carpet covered the floor; the walls were hidden by +book-shelves; and there was about the place a certain cosiness which +money cannot buy. Rising after some little time, he walked to his +book-shelf, took down a volume and spent the next two hours in reading. +It was nearly midnight when he turned out the light and went to bed. +His bedroom was at the farther end of the short corridor, and in five +minutes he was undressed and asleep. +Mr. Johnson was usually a light but consistent sleeper, but to-night he +had not been asleep an hour before he was awake again. And wider awake +than he had been at any portion of the day. Softly he got out of bed, +put on his slippers and pulled a dressing-gown round him; then, taking +something from a drawer in his bureau, he opened the door and crept +softly along the carpeted passage toward his sitting-room. +He had heard no sound; it was sheer premonition of a pressing danger +which had wakened him. His hand was on the door-knob, and he had turned +it, when he heard a faint click. It was the sound of a light being +turned off, and the sound came from the sitting-room. +With a quick jerk he threw open the door and reached out his hand for +the switch; and then, from the blackness of the room, came a warning +voice. +“Touch that light and you die! I’ve got you covered. Put your gun on the +floor at your feet—quick!” +Johnson stooped and laid down the revolver he had taken from his bureau. +“Now step inside, and step lively,” said the voice. +“Who are you?” asked Johnson steadily. +He strained his eyes to pierce the darkness, and saw the figure now. It +was standing by his desk, and the shine of something in its hand warned +him that the threat was no idle one. +“Never met me?” There was a chuckle of laughter in the voice of the +Unknown. “I’ll bet you haven’t! Friend—meet the Frog!” +“The Frog?” Johnson repeated the words mechanically. +“One name’s as good as another. That will do for mine,” said the +stranger. “Throw over the key of your desk.” +There was a silence. +“I haven’t my key here,” said Johnson. “It is in the bedroom.” +“Stay where you are,” warned the voice. +Johnson had kicked off his slippers softly, and was feeling with his +feet for the pistol he had laid so obediently on the floor in the first +shock of surprise. Presently he found it and drew it toward him with his +bare toes. +“What do you want?” he asked, temporizing. +“I want to see your office papers—all the papers you’ve brought from +Maitlands.” +“There is nothing here of any value,” said Johnson. +The revolver was now at his feet and a little ahead of him. He kept his +toes upon the butt, ready to drop just as soon as he could locate with +any certainty the position of the burglar. But now, though his eyes were +growing accustomed to the darkness, he could no longer see the owner of +the voice. +“Come nearer,” said the stranger, “and hold out your hands.” +Johnson made as though to obey, but dropped suddenly to his knees. The +explosion deafened him. He heard a cry, saw, in the flash of his pistol, +a dark figure, and then something struck him. +He came to consciousness ten minutes later, to find the room empty. +Staggering to his feet, he put on the light and walked unsteadily back +to his bedroom, to examine the extent of his injuries. He felt the bump +on his head gingerly, and grinned. Somebody was knocking at the outer +door, a peremptory, authoritative knocking. With a wet towel to his +injured head he went out into the passage and opened the front door. He +found two policemen at the step and a small crowd gathered on the +pavement. +“Has there been shooting here?” +“Yes, constable,” said Johnson, “I did a little shooting, but I don’t +think I hit anything.” +“Have you been hurt, sir? Was it burglars?” +“I can’t tell you. Come in,” said Johnson, and led the way back to the +disordered library. +The blind was flapping in the draught, for the window, which looked out +upon a side street, was open. +“Have you missed anything?” +“No, I don’t think so,” said Johnson. “I think it was rather more +important than an ordinary burglary. I am going to call Inspector Elk of +Scotland Yard, and I think you had better leave the room as it is until +he arrives.” +Elk was in his office, laboriously preparing a report on the escape of +Hagn, when the call came through. He listened attentively, and then: +“I’ll come down, Johnson. Tell the constable to leave things—ask him to +speak to me.” +By the time Elk had arrived, the philosopher was dressed. +“He gave you a pretty hefty one,” said Elk, examining the contusion with +a professional eye. +“I wasn’t prepared for it. I expected him to shoot, and he must have +struck at me as I fired.” +“You say it was the Frog himself?” said the sceptical Elk. “I doubt it. +The Frog has never undertaken a job on his own, so far as I can +remember.” +“It was either the Frog or one of his trusted emissaries,” said Johnson +with a good-humoured smile. “Look at this.” +On the centre of his pink blotting-pad was stamped the inevitable Frog. +It appeared also on the panel of the door. +“That is supposed to be a warning, isn’t it?” said Johnson. “Well, I +hadn’t time to get acquainted with the warning before I got mine!” +“There are worse things than a clubbing,” said Elk cheerfully. “You’ve +missed nothing?” +Johnson shook his head. +“No, nothing.” +Elk’s inspection of the room was short but thorough. It was near the +open window, blown by the breeze into the folds of the curtain, that he +found the parcel-room ticket. It was a green slip acknowledging the +reception of a handbag, and it was issued at the terminus of the Great +Northern Railway. +“Is this yours?” he asked. +Johnson took the slip from him, examined it and shook his head. +“No,” he said, “I’ve never seen it before.” +“Anybody else in your flat likely to have left a bag at King’s Cross +station?” +Again Johnson shook his head and smiled. +“There is nobody else in this flat,” he said, ���except myself.” +Elk took the paper under the light and scrutinized the date-stamp. The +luggage had been deposited a fortnight before, and, as is usual in such +tickets, the name of the depositor was not given. +“It may have blown in from the garden,” he said. “There is a stiff +breeze to-night, but I should not imagine that anybody who had got an +important piece of luggage would leave the ticket to fly around. I’ll +investigate this,” he said, and put the ticket carefully away in his +pocket-book. “You didn’t see the man?” +“I caught a glimpse of him as I fired, and I am under the impression +that he was masked.” +“Did you recognize his voice?” +“No,” said Johnson, shaking his head. +Elk examined the window. The catch had been cleverly forced—“cleverly” +because it was a new type of patent fastening familiar to him, and which +he did not remember ever having seen forced from the outside before. +Instinctively his mind went back to the burglary at Lord Farmley’s, to +that beautifully cut handle and blown lock; and though, by no stretch of +imagination, could the two jobs be compared, yet there was a similarity +in finish and workmanship which immediately struck him. +What made this burglary all the more remarkable was that, for the first +time, there had appeared somebody who claimed to be the Frog himself. +Never before had the Frog given tangible proof of his existence. He +understood the organization well enough to know that none of the Frog’s +willing slaves would have dared to use his name. And why did he consider +that Johnson was worthy of his personal attention? +“No,” said Johnson in answer to his question, “there are no documents +here of the slightest value. I used to bring home a great deal of work +from Maitlands; in fact, I have often worked into the middle of the +night. That is why my dismissal is such a scandalous piece of +ingratitude.” +“You have never had any private papers of Maitland’s here, which perhaps +you might have forgotten to return?” asked Elk thoughtfully, and +Johnson’s ready smile and twinkling eyes supplied an answer. +“That’s rather a graceful way of putting the matter,” he said. “No, I +have none of Maitland’s documents here. If you care, you can see the +contents of all my cupboards, drawers and boxes, but I can assure you +that I’m a very methodical man; I know practically every paper in my +possession.” +Walking home, Elk reviewed the matter of this surprising appearance. If +the truth be told, he was very glad to have some additional problem to +keep his mind off the very unpleasant interview which was promised for +the morning. Captain Dick Gordon would assume all responsibility, and +probably the Commissioners would exonerate Elk from any blame; but to +the detective, the “people upstairs” were almost as formidable as the +Frog himself. +CHAPTER XXII +THE INQUIRY +HE intended making an early call at King’s Cross to examine the contents +of the bag, but awoke the next morning, his mind filled with the coming +inquiry to the exclusion of all other matters; and although he entered +Johnson’s burglary in his report book very carefully, and locked away +the cloak-room ticket in his safe, he was much too absorbed and worried +to make immediate inquiries. +Dick arrived for the inquiry, and his assistant gave him a brief sketch +of the burglary in Fitzroy Square. +“Let me see that ticket,” he asked. +Elk, unlocking the safe, produced the green slip. +“The ticket has been attached to something,” said Dick, carrying the +slip to the window. “There is the mark of a paper-fastener, and the mark +is recent. This may produce a little information,” he said as he handed +it back. +“It’s very unlikely,” said Elk despondently as he locked the door of the +safe. “Those people upstairs are going to give us hell.” +“Don’t worry,” said Dick. “I tell you, our friends above are so tickled +to death at recovering the Treaty that they’re not going to worry much +about Hagn.” +It was a remarkable prophecy, remarkably fulfilled. Elk was gratified +and surprised when he was called into the presence of the great—every +Commissioner and Chief Constable sat round the green board of +judgment—to discover that the attitude of his superiors was rather one +of benevolent interest than of disapproval. +“With an organization of this character we are prepared for very +unexpected developments,” said the Chief Commissioner. “In ordinary +circumstances, the escape of Hagn would be a matter calling for severe +measures against those responsible. But I really cannot apportion the +blame in this particular case. Balder seems to have behaved with perfect +propriety; I quite approve of your having put him into the cell with +Hagn; and I do not see what I can do with the gaoler. The truth is, that +the Frogs are immensely powerful—more powerful than the agents of an +enemy Government, because they are working with inside knowledge, and in +addition, of course, they are our own people. You think it is possible, +Captain Gordon, to round up the Frogs?—I know it will be a tremendous +business. Is it worth while?” +Dick shook his head. +“No, sir,” he replied. “They are too numerous, and the really dangerous +men are going to be difficult to identify. It has come to our knowledge +that the chiefs of this organization—at least, some of them—are not so +marked.” +Not all the members of the Board of Inquiry were as pleasant as the +Chief Commissioner. +“It comes to this,” said a white-haired Chief Constable, “that in the +space of a week we have had two prisoners killed under the eyes of the +police, and one who has practically walked out of the cell in which he +was guarded by a police officer, without being arrested or any clue +being furnished as to the method the Frogs employed.” He shook his head. +“That’s bad, Captain Gordon.” +“Perhaps you would like to take charge of the inquiry, sir,” said Dick. +“This is not the ordinary petty larceny type of crime, and I seem to +remember having dealt with a case of yours whilst I was in the +Prosecutor’s Department, presenting less complicated features, in which +you were no more successful than I and my officers have been in dealing +with the Frogs. You must allow me the greatest latitude and exercise +patience beyond the ordinary. I know the Frog,” he said simply. +For some time they did not realize what he had said. +“You know him?” asked the Chief Commissioner incredulously. +Dick nodded. +“If I were to tell you who it was,” he said, “you would probably laugh +at me. And obviously, whilst it is quite possible for me to secure an +arrest this morning, it is not as easy a matter to produce overwhelming +evidence that will convict. You must give me rope if I am to succeed.” +“But how did you discover him, Captain Gordon?” asked the Chief, and +Elk, who had listened, dumbfounded, to this claim of his superior, +waited breathlessly for the reply. +“It was clear to me,” said Dick, speaking slowly and deliberately, “when +I learnt from Mr. Johnson, who was Maitland’s secretary, that somewhere +concealed in the old man’s house was a mysterious child.” He smiled as +he looked at the blank faces of the Board. “That doesn’t sound very +convincing, I’m afraid,” he said, “but nevertheless, you will learn in +due course why, when I discovered this, I was perfectly satisfied that I +could take the Frog whenever I wished. It is not necessary to say that, +knowing as I do, or as I am convinced I do, the identity of this +individual, events from now on will take a more interesting and a more +satisfactory course. I do not profess to be able to explain how Hagn +came to make his escape. I have a suspicion—it is no more than a +suspicion—but even that event is soluble if my other theory is right, +as I am sure it is.” +Until the meeting was over and the two men were again in Elk’s office, +the detective spoke no word. Then, closing the door carefully, he said: +“If that was a bluff of yours, Captain Gordon, it was the finest bluff I +have ever heard, and I’ve an idea it wasn’t a bluff.” +“It was no bluff,” said Dick quietly. “I tell you I am satisfied that I +know the Frog.” +“Who is it?” +Dick shook his head. +“This isn’t the time to tell you. I don’t think any useful purpose would +be served if I made my views known—even to you. Now what about your +cloak-room ticket?” +Dick did not accompany him to King’s Cross, for he had some work to do +in his office, and Elk went alone to the cloak-room. Producing the +ticket, he paid the extra fees for the additional period of storage, and +received from the attendant a locked brown leather bag. +“Now, son,” said Elk, having revealed his identity, “perhaps you will +tell me if you remember who brought this bag?” +The attendant grinned. +“I haven’t that kind of memory,” he said. +“I sympathize with you,” said Elk, “but possibly if you concentrated +your mind, you might be able to recall something. Faces aren’t dates.” +The attendant turned over the leaves of his book to make sure. +“Yes, I was on duty that day.” +“What time was it handed in?” +He examined the counterfoils. +“About eleven o’clock in the morning,” he said. He shook his head. “I +can’t remember who brought it. We get so much luggage entered at that +time in the morning that it’s almost impossible for me to recall any +particular person. I know one thing, that there wasn’t anything peculiar +about him, or I should have remembered.” +“You mean that the person who handed this in was very ordinary. Was he +an American?” +Again the attendant thought. +“No, I don’t think he was an American, sir,” he said. “I should have +remembered that. I don’t think we have had an American here for weeks.” +Elk took the bag to the office of the station police inspector, and with +the aid of his key unlocked and pulled it wide open. Its contents were +unusual. A suit of clothes, a shirt, collar and tie, a brand-new shaving +outfit, a small bottle of Annatto, a colouring material used by +dairymen, a passport made out in the name of “John Henry Smith,” but +with the photograph missing, a Browning pistol, fully loaded, an +envelope containing 5,000 francs and five one-hundred-dollar bills; +these comprised the contents. +Elk surveyed the articles as they were spread on the inspector’s table. +“What do you make of that?” +The railwayman shook his head. +“It’s a fairly complete outfit,” he said. +“You mean a get-away outfit? That’s what I think,” said Elk; “and I’d +like to bet that one of these bags is stored at every railway terminus +in London!” +The clothing bore no marks, the Browning was of Belgian manufacture, +whilst the passport might, or might not, have been forged, though the +blank on which it was written was obviously genuine. (A later inquiry +put through to the Foreign Office revealed the fact that it had not been +officially issued.) +Elk packed away the outfit into the bag. +“I shall take these to the Yard. Perhaps they’ll be called for—but more +likely they won’t.” +Elk came out of the Inspector’s office on to the broad platform, +wondering what it would be best to do. Should he leave the bag in the +cloak-room and set a man to watch? . . . That would be a little futile, +for nobody could call unless he had the ticket, and it would mean +employing a good officer for nothing. He decided in the end to take the +bag to the Yard and hand it over for a more thorough inspection. +One of the Northern expresses had just pulled into the station, two +hours late, due to a breakdown on the line. Elk stood looking idly at +the stream of passengers passing out through the barrier, and, so +watching, he saw a familiar face. His mind being occupied with this, the +familiarity did not force itself upon his attention until the man he had +recognized had passed out of view. It was John Bennett—a furtive, +hurrying figure, with his battered suit-case in his hand, a dark felt +hat pulled over his eyes. +Elk strolled across to the barrier where a station official was +standing. +“Where does this train come from?” +“Aberdeen, sir.” +“Last stop?” asked Elk. +“Last stop Doncaster,” said the official. +Whilst he was speaking, Elk saw Bennett returning. Apparently he had +forgotten something, for there was a frown of annoyance on his face. He +pushed his way through the stream of people that were coming from the +barriers, and Elk wondered what was the cause of his return. He had not +long to wait before he learnt. +When Bennett appeared again, he was carrying a heavy brown box, fastened +with a strap, and Elk recognized the motion picture camera with which +this strange man pursued his paying hobby. +“Queer bird!” said Elk to himself and, calling a cab, carried his find +back to headquarters. +He put the bag in his safe, and sent for two of his best men. +“I want the cloak-rooms of every London terminus inspected for bags of +this kind,” he said, showing the bag. “It has probably been left for +weeks. Push the usual inquiries as to the party who made the deposit, +select all likely bags, and, to make sure, have them opened on the spot. +If they contained a complete shaving kit, a gun, a passport and money, +they are to be brought to Scotland Yard and held for me.” +Gordon, whom he afterwards saw, agreed with his explanation for the +presence of this interesting find. +“At any hour of the day or night he’s ready to jump for safety,” said +Elk admiringly; “and at any terminus we shall find money, a change of +kit and the necessary passport to carry him abroad, Annatto to stain his +face and hands—I expect he carries his own photograph. And by the way, +I saw John Bennett.” +“At the station?” asked Dick. +Elk nodded. +“He was returning from the north, from one of five towns—Aberdeen, +Arbroath, Edinburgh, York or Doncaster. He didn’t see me, and I didn’t +push myself forward. Captain, what do you think of this man Bennett?” +Dick did not reply. +“Is he your Frog?” challenged Elk, and Dick Gordon chuckled. +“You’re not going to get my Frog by a process of elimination. Elk, and +you can save yourself a whole lot of trouble if you cut out the idea +that cross-examining me will produce good results.” +“I never thought anything so silly,” said Elk. “But John Bennett gets me +guessing. If he were the Frog, he couldn’t have been in Johnson’s +sitting-room last night.” +“Not unless he motored to Doncaster to catch an alibi train,” said Dick, +and then: “I wonder if the Doncaster police are going to call in +headquarters, or whether they’ll rely upon their own intelligence +department.” +“About what?” asked Elk surprised. +“Mabberley Hall, which is just outside Doncaster, was burgled last +night,” said Dick, “and Lady FitzHerman’s diamond tiara was +stolen—rather supports your theory, doesn’t it, Elk?” +Elk said nothing, but he wished most fervently that he had some excuse +or other for searching John Bennett’s bag. +CHAPTER XXIII +A MEETING +HERON’S CLUB had been temporarily closed by order of the police, but now +was allowed to open its doors again. Ray invariably lunched at Heron’s +unless he was taking the meal with Lola, who preferred a brighter +atmosphere than the club offered at midday. +Only a few tables were occupied when he arrived. The stigma of the +police raid lay upon Heron’s, and its more cautious clients had not yet +begun to drift back. It was fairly well known that something had +happened to Hagn, the manager, for the man had not appeared since the +night of the raid. There were unconfirmed rumours of his arrest. Ray had +not troubled to call for letters as he passed through the hall, for very +little correspondence came to him at the club. He was therefore +surprised when the waiter, having taken his order, returned, accompanied +by the clerk carrying in his hand two letters, one heavily sealed and +weighty, the other smaller. +He opened the big envelope first, and was putting in his fingers to +extract the contents when he realized that the envelope contained +nothing but money. He did not care to draw out the contents, even before +the limited public. Peeping, he was gratified to observe the number and +denomination of the bills. There was no message, but the other letter +was addressed in the same handwriting. He tore this open. It was +innocent of address or date, and the typewritten message ran: +“On Friday morning you will assume a dress which will be sent to +you, and you will make your way towards Nottingham by road. You +will take the name of Jim Carter, and papers of identification +in that name will be found in the pockets of the clothes which +will reach you by special messenger to-morrow. From now onward +you are not to appear in public, you are not to shave, receive +visitors or pay visits. Your business at Nottingham will be +communicated to you. Remember that you are to travel by road, +sleeping in such lodging-houses, casual wards or Salvation Army +shelters as tramps usually patronize. At Barnet, on the Great +North Road, near the ninth milestone, you will meet another whom +you know, and will accompany him for the remainder of the +journey. At Nottingham you will receive further orders. It is +very likely that you will not be required, and certainly, the +work you will be asked to do will not compromise you in any way. +Remember your name is Carter. Remember you are not to shave. +Remember also the ninth milestone on Friday morning. When these +facts are impressed upon you, take this letter, the envelope, +and the envelope containing the money, to the club fireplace, +and burn them. I shall see you.” +The letter was signed “Frog.” +So the hour had come when the Frogs had need of him. He had dreaded the +day, and yet in a way had looked forward to it as one who wished to know +the worst. +He faithfully carried out the instructions, and, under the curious eyes +of the guests, carried the letter and the envelopes to the empty brick +fireplace, lit a match and burnt them, putting his foot upon the ashes. +His pulse beat a little quicker, the thump of his heart was a little +more pronounced, as he went back to his untouched lunch. So the Frog +would see him—was here! He looked round the sparsely filled tables, and +presently he met the gaze of a man whose eyes had been fixed upon him +ever since he had sat down. The face was familiar, and yet unfamiliar. +He beckoned the waiter. +“Don’t look immediately,” he said in a low voice, “but tell me who is +that gentleman sitting in the second alcove.” +The waiter looked carelessly round. +“That is Mr. Joshua Broad, sir,” he said. +Almost as the waiter spoke, Joshua Broad rose from his seat, walked +across the room to where Ray was sitting. +“Good morning, Mr. Bennett. I don’t think we have met before, though we +are fellow-members of Heron’s and I’ve seen you a lot of times here. My +name is Broad.” +“Won’t you sit down?” Ray had some difficulty in controlling his voice. +“Glad to meet you, Mr. Broad. Have you finished your lunch? If not, +perhaps you’ll take it with me.” +“No,” he said, “I’ve finished lunch. I eat very little. But if it +doesn’t annoy you, I’ll smoke a cigarette.” +Ray offered his case. +“I’m a neighbour of a friend of yours,” said Broad, choosing a +cigarette, “Miss Lola Bassano. She has an apartment facing mine in +Caverley House—I guess that’s where I’ve seen you most often.” +Now Ray remembered. This was the strange American who lived opposite to +Lola, and about whose business he had so often heard Lola and Lew Brady +speculate. +“And I think we have a mutual friend in—Captain Gordon,” suggested the +other, his keen eyes fixed upon the boy. +“Captain Gordon is not a friend of mine,” said Ray quickly. “I’m not +particularly keen on police folk as friends.” +“They can be mighty interesting,” said Broad, “but I can quite +understand your feeling in the matter. Have you known Brady long?” +“Lew? No, I can’t say that I have. He’s a very nice fellow,” said Ray +unenthusiastically. “He’s not exactly the kind of friend I’d have +chosen, but it happens that he is a particularly close friend of a +friend of mine.” +“Of Miss Bassano,” said Broad. “You used to be at Maitlands?” +“I was there once,” said Ray indifferently, and from his tone one might +have imagined that he had merely been a visitor attracted by morbid +curiosity to that establishment. +“Queer cuss, old Maitland.” +“I know very little of him,” said Ray. +“A very queer fellow. He’s got a smart secretary, though.” +“You mean Johnson?” Ray smiled. “Poor old philosopher, he’s lost his +job!” +“You don’t say? When did this happen?” Mr. Broad’s voice was urgent, +eager. +“The other day—I don’t know when. I met Johnson this morning and he +told me. I don’t know how the old boy will get on without Philo.” +“I was wondering the same thing,” said Broad softly. “You surprise me. I +wonder he has the nerve, though I don’t think he’s lacking in that +quality.” +“The nerve?” said the puzzled Ray. “I don’t think it requires much nerve +to fire a secretary.” +A fleeting smile played on the hard face of the American. +“By that I meant that it requires nerve for a man of Maitland’s +character to dismiss a man who must share a fair number of his secrets. +Not that I should imagine there would be any great confidence between +these two. What is Johnson doing?” +“He’s looking for a job, I think,” said Ray. He was getting a little +irritated by the persistence of the stranger’s questions. He had a +feeling that he was being “pumped.” Possibly Mr. Broad sensed this +suspicion, for he dropped his flow of interrogations and switched to the +police raid, a prolific source of discussion amongst the members of +Heron’s. +Ray looked after him as he walked out a little later and was puzzled. +Why was he so keen on knowing all these things? Was he testing him? He +was glad to be alone to consider this extraordinary commission which had +come to him. The adventure of it, the disguise of it, all were +particularly appealing to a romantic young man; and Ray Bennett lacked +nothing in the matter of romance. There was a certain delightful +suggestion of danger, a hint almost as thrilling of lawlessness, in +these instructions. What might be the end of the adventure, he did not +trouble to consider. It was well for his peace of mind that he was no +seer; for, if he had been, he would have flown that very moment, seeking +for some desolate place, some hole in the ground where he could lie and +shiver and hide. +CHAPTER XXIV +WHY MAITLAND CAME +ELLA BENNETT was cooking the dinner when her father came in, depositing +his heavy camera on the floor of the sitting-room, but carrying, as was +usual, his grip to the bedroom. She heard the closing of the cupboard +door and the turning of the lock, but had long ceased to wonder why he +invariably kept his bag locked in that cupboard. He was looking very +tired and old; there were deeper lines under his eyes, and the pallor of +his cheeks was even more pronounced. +“Did you have a good time, father?” she asked. It was the invariable +question, and invariably John Bennett made no other reply than a nod. +“I nearly lost my camera this morning—forgot it,” he said. “It was +quite a success—taking the camera away with me—but I must get used to +remembering that I have it. I found a stretch of country full of wild +fowl, and got some really good pictures. Round about Horsham my +opportunities are limited, and I think I shall take the machine with me +wherever I go.” +He seated himself in the old chair by the fireplace and was filling his +pipe slowly. +“I saw Elk on the platform at King’s Cross,” he said. “I suppose he was +looking for somebody.” +“What time did you leave where you were?” she asked. +“Last night,” he replied briefly, but did not volunteer any further +information about his movements. +She was in and out of the kitchen, laying the table, and she did not +speak to him on the matter which was near her heart, until he had drawn +up his chair, and then: +“I had a letter from Ray this morning, father,” she said. It was the +first time she had mentioned the boy’s name since that night of horrible +memories at Heron’s Club. +“Yes?” he answered, without looking up from his plate. +“He wanted to know if you had his letter.” +“Yes, I had his letter,” said John Bennett, “but I didn’t answer it. If +Ray wants to see me, he knows where I am. Did you hear from anybody +else?” he asked, with surprising calm. +She had been dreading what might follow the mention of Ray’s name. +“I heard from Mr. Johnson. He has left Maitlands.” +Bennett finished his glass of water and set it down before he replied. +“He had a good job, too. I’m sorry. I suppose he couldn’t get on with +the old man.” +Should she tell him? she wondered again. She had been debating the +advisability of taking her father into her confidence ever since—— +“Father, I’ve met Mr. Maitland,” she said. +“I know. You saw him at his office; you told me.” +“I’ve met him since. You remember the morning I was out, when Captain +Gordon came—the morning I went to the wood? I went to see Mr. +Maitland.” +He put down his knife and fork and stared at her incredulously. +“But why on earth did you see him at that hour of the morning? Had you +made arrangements to meet him?” +She shook her head. +“I hadn’t any idea that I was going to see him,” she said, “but that +night I was wakened by somebody throwing a stone at the window. I +thought it was Ray, who had come back late. That was his habit; I never +told you, but sometimes he was very late indeed, and he used to wake me +that way. It was just dawn, and when I looked out, to my astonishment, I +saw Mr. Maitland. He asked me to come down in that queerly abrupt way of +his, and, thinking it had something to do with Ray, I dressed and went +out into the garden, not daring to wake you. We walked up the road to +where his car was. It was the queerest interview you could imagine, +because he said—nothing.” +“Nothing?” +“Well, he asked me if I’d be his friend. If it had been anybody else but +Mr. Maitland, I should have been frightened. But he was so pathetic, so +very old, so appealing. He kept saying ‘I’ll tell you something, miss,’ +but every time he spoke he looked round with a frightened air. ‘Let’s go +where we can’t be seen,’ he said, and begged me to step into the car. Of +course I refused, until I discovered that the chauffeur was a woman—a +very old woman, his sister. It was a most extraordinary experience. I +think she must be nearly seventy, but during the war she learnt to drive +a motor-car, and apparently she was wearing one of the chauffeur’s +coats, and a more ludicrous sight you could not imagine, once you +realized that she was a woman. +“I let him drive me down to the wood, and then: ‘Is it about Ray?’ I +asked. But it wasn’t about Ray at all that he wanted to speak. He was so +incoherent, so strange, that I really did get nervous. And then, when he +had begun to compose himself and had even made a few connected remarks, +you came along in Mr. Elk’s car. He was terrified and was shaking from +head to foot! He begged me to go away, and almost went on his knees to +implore me not to say that I had seen him.” +“Phew!” John Bennett pushed back his chair. “And you learnt nothing?” +She shook her head. +“He came again last night,” she said, “but this time I did not go out, +and he refused to come in. He struck me as a man who was expecting to be +trapped.” +“Did he give you any idea of what he wanted to say?” +“No, but it was something which was vitally important to him, I think. I +couldn’t understand half that he said. He spoke in loud whispers, and +I’ve told you how harsh his voice is.” +Bennett relit his pipe, and sat for a while with downcast eyes, +revolving the matter in his mind. +“The next time he comes you’d better let me see him,” he said. +“I don’t think so, daddy,” she answered quietly. “If he has anything +very important to say, I think I ought to know what it is. I have a +feeling that he is asking for help.” +John Bennett looked up. +“A millionaire asking for help? Ella, that sounds queer to me.” +“And it _is_ queer,” she insisted. “He didn’t seem half so terrible as +he appeared when I first saw him. There was something tragic about him, +something very sad. He will come to-night, and I’ve promised to see him. +May I?” +Her father considered. +“Yes, you may see him, provided you do not go outside this garden. I +promise that I will not appear, but I shall be on hand. Do you think it +is about Ray—that Ray has committed some act of folly that he wants to +tell you about?” he asked with a note of anxiety. +“I don’t think so, daddy. Maitland was quite indifferent to Ray or what +becomes of him. I’ve been wondering whether I ought to tell somebody.” +“Captain Gordon or Mr. Elk,” suggested her father dryly, and the girl +flushed. “You like that young man, Ella? No, I’m not referring to Elk, +who is anything but young; I mean Dick Gordon.” +“Yes,” she said after a pause, “I like him very much.” +“I hope you aren’t going to like him too much, darling,” said John +Bennett, and their eyes met. +“Why not, daddy?” It almost hurt her to ask. +“Because”—he seemed at a loss as to how he should proceed—“because +it’s not desirable. He occupies a different position from ourselves, but +that isn’t the only reason. I don’t want you to have a heartache, and I +say this, knowing that, if that heartache comes, I shall be the cause.” +He saw her face change, and then: +“What do you wish me to do?” she asked. +He rose slowly, and, walking to her, put his arm about her shoulder. +“Do whatever you like, Ella,” he said gently. “There is a curse upon me, +and you must suffer for my sin. Perhaps he will never know—but I am +tired of expecting miracles.” +“Father, what do you mean?” she asked anxiously. +“I don’t know what I mean,” he said as he patted her shoulder. “Things +may work out as they do in stories. Perhaps . . .” He ruminated for a +while. “Those pictures I took yesterday may be the making of me, Ella. +But I’ve thought that of so many things. Always there seems to be a +great possibility opening out, and always I have been disappointed. But +I’m getting the knack of this picture taking. The apparatus is working +splendidly, and the man who buys them—he has a shop in Wardour +Street—told me that the quality of the films is improving with every +new ‘shot.’ I took a mother duck on the nest, just as the youngsters +were hatching out. I’m not quite sure how the picture will develop, +because I had to be at some distance from the nest. As it was, I nearly +scared the poor lady when I fixed the camera.” +Very wisely she did not pursue a subject which was painful to her. +That afternoon she saw a strange man standing in the roadway opposite +the gate, looking toward the house. He was a gentleman, well dressed, +and he was smoking a long cigar. She thought, by his shell glasses, that +he might be an American, and when he spoke to her, his New England +accent left no doubt. He came toward the gate, hat in hand. +“Am I right in thinking that I’m speaking to Miss Bennett?” he asked, +and when she nodded: “My name is Broad. I was just taking a look round, +and I seemed to remember that you lived somewhere in the neighbourhood. +In fact, I think your brother told me to-day.” +“Are you a friend of Ray?” she asked. +“Why, no,” said Broad with a smile. “I can’t say that I’m a friend of +Mr. Bennett; I’m what you might call a club acquaintance.” +He made no attempt to approach her any closer, and apparently he did not +expect to be invited into the house on the strength of his acquaintance +with Ray Bennett. Presently, with a commonplace remark about the weather +(he had caught the English habit perfectly) he moved off, and from the +gate she saw him walking up towards the wood road. That long +_cul-de-sac_ was a favourite parking place of motorists who came to the +neighbourhood, and she was not surprised when, a few minutes later, she +saw the car come out. Mr. Broad raised his hat as he passed, and waved a +little greeting to some person who was invisible to her. Her curiosity +whetted, she opened the gate and walked on to the road. A little way +down, a man was sitting on a tree trunk, reading a newspaper and smoking +a large-bowled pipe. An hour later, when she came out, he was still +there, but this time he was standing; a tall, soldier-like-looking man, +who turned his head away when she looked in his direction. A detective, +she thought, in dismay. +Her instinct was not at fault: of that she was sure. For some reason or +other, Maytree Cottage was under observation. At first she was +frightened, then indignant. She had half a mind to go into the village +and telephone to Elk, to demand an explanation. Somehow it never +occurred to her to be angry with Dick, though he was solely responsible +for placing the men who were guarding her day and night. +She went to bed early, setting her alarm for three o’clock. She woke +before the bell roused her, and, dressing quickly, went down to make +some coffee. As she passed her father’s door, he called her. +“I’m up, if you want me, Ella.” +“Thank you, daddy,” she said gratefully. She was glad to know that he +was around. It gave her a feeling of confidence which she had never +before possessed in the presence of this old man. +The first light was showing in the sky when she saw the silhouette of +Mr. Maitland against the dawn, and heard the soft click of the latch as +he opened the garden gate. She had not heard the car nor seen it. This +time Maitland had alighted some distance short of the house. +He was, as usual, nervous and for the time being speechless. A heavy +overcoat, which had seen its best days, was buttoned up to his neck, and +a big cap covered his hairless head. +“That you, miss?” he asked in a husky whisper. +“Yes, Mr. Maitland.” +“You coming along for a little walk? . . . Got something to tell +you. . . . Very important, miss.” +“We will walk in the garden,” she said, lowering her voice. +He demurred. +“Suppose anybody sees us, eh? That’d be a fine lookout for me! Just a +little way up the road, miss,” he pleaded. “Nobody will hear us.” +“We can go on to the lawn. There are some chairs there.” +“Is everybody asleep? All your servant gels?” +“We have no servant girls,” she smiled. +He shook his head. +“I don’t blame you. I hate ’um. Got six fellows in uniform at my house. +They frighten me stiff!” +She led him across the lawn, carrying a cushion, and, settling him in a +chair, waited. The beginnings of these interviews had always seemed as +promising, but after a while Mr. Maitland had a trick of rambling off at +a tangent into depths which she could not plumb. +“You’re a nice gel,” said Maitland huskily. “I thought so the first time +I saw you . . . you wouldn’t do a poor old man any ’arm, would you, +miss?” +“Why, of course not, Mr. Maitland.” +“I know you wouldn’t. I told Matilda you wouldn’t. She says you’re all +right. . . . Ever been in the workhouse, miss?” +“In the poorhouse?” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “Why, no, +I’ve never been in a poorhouse.” +He looked round fearfully from side to side, peering under his white +eyebrows at a clump of bushes which might conceal an eavesdropper. +“Ever been in quod?” +She did not recognize the word. +“I have,” he went on. “Quod’s prison, miss. Naturally you wouldn’t +understand them words.” +Again he looked round. +“Suppose you was me. . . . It all comes to that question—suppose you +was me!” +“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Maitland.” +She watched his frightened scrutiny of the grounds, and then he bent +over toward her. +“Them fellows will get me,” he said slowly and impressively. “They’ll +get me, _and_ Matilda. And I’ve left all my money to a certain person. +That’s the joke. That’s the whole joke of it, miss.” He chuckled +wheezily. “And then they’ll get him.” +He slapped his knee, convulsed with silent laughter, and the girl +honestly thought he was mad and edged away from him. +“But I’ve got a great idea—got it when I saw you. It’s one of the +greatest ideas I’ve ever had, miss. Are you a typewriter?” +“A typist?” she smiled. “No, I can type, but I’m not a very good +typist.” +His voice sank until it was almost unintelligible. +“You come up to my office one day, and we’ll have a great joke. Wouldn’t +think I was a joker, would you? Eighty-seven I am, miss. You come up to +my office and I’ll make you laugh!” +Suddenly he became more serious. +“They’ll get me—I know it. I haven’t told Matilda, because she’d start +screaming. But _I_ know. _And_ the baby!” +This seemed to afford the saturnine old man the greatest possible +enjoyment. He rocked from side to side with mirth, until a fit of +coughing attacked him. +“That’s all, miss. You come up to my office. Old Johnson isn’t there. +You come up and see me. Never had a letter from me, have you?” he +suddenly asked, as he rose. +“No, Mr. Maitland,” she said in surprise. +“There was one wrote,” said he. “Maybe I didn’t post it. Maybe I thought +better. I dunno.” +He started and drew back as a figure appeared before the house. +“Who’s that?” he asked, and she felt a hand on her arm that trembled. +“That is my father, Mr. Maitland,” she said. “I expect he got a little +nervous about my being out.” +“Your father, eh?” He was more relieved than resentful. “Mr. John +Bennett, his name is, by all accounts. Don’t tell him I’ve been in the +workhouse,” he urged, “or in quod. And I have been in quod, miss. Met +all the big men, every one of ’um. And met a few of ’um out, too. I bet +I’m the only man in this country that’s ever seen Saul Morris, the +grandest feller in the business. Only met him once, but I shall never +forget him.” +John Bennett saw them pacing toward him, and stood undecided as to +whether he should join them or whether Ella would be embarrassed by such +a move. Maitland decided the matter by hobbling over to him. +“Morning, mister,” he said. “Just having a talk to your gel. Rather +early in the morning, eh? Hope you don’t mind, Mr. Bennett.” +“I don’t mind,” said John Bennett. “Won’t you come inside, Mr. +Maitland?” +“No, no, no,” said the other fearfully. “I’ve got to get on. Matilda +will be waiting for me. Don’t forget, miss: come up to my office and +have that joke!” +He did not offer to shake hands, nor did he take off his hat. In fact, +his manners were deplorable. A curt nod to the girl, and then: +“Well, so long, mister——” he began, and at that moment John Bennett +moved out from the shadow of the house. +“Good-bye, Mr. Maitland,” he said. +Maitland did not speak. His eyes were open wide with terror, his face +blanched to the colour of death. +“You . . . you!” he croaked. “Oh, my God!” +He seemed to totter, and the girl sprang to catch him, but he recovered +himself, and, turning, ran down the path with an agility which was +surprising in one of his age, tore open the gate and flew along the +road. They heard his dry sobs coming back to them. +“Father,” whispered the girl in fear, “did he know you? Did he recognize +you?” +“I wonder,” said John Bennett of Horsham. +CHAPTER XXV +IN REGARD TO SAUL MORRIS +DICK GORDON ’phoned across to headquarters, and Elk reported +immediately. +“I’ve discovered six good get-away bags, and each one is equipped as +completely and exactly as the one we found at King’s Cross.” +“No clue as to the gentleman who deposited them?” +“No, sir, not so much as a clue. We’ve tested them all for +finger-prints, and we’ve got a few results; but as they have been +handled by half a dozen attendants, I don���t think we shall get much out +of it. Still, we can but try.” +“Elk, I would give a few years of my life to get to the inside of this +Frog mystery. I’m having Lola shadowed, though I shouldn’t think she’d +be in that lot. I know of nobody who looks less like a tramp than Lola +Bassano! Lew has disappeared, and when I sent a man round this morning +to discover what had happened to that young man about town, Mr. Raymond +Bennett, he was not visible. He refused to see the caller on the plea +that he was ill, and is staying in his room all day. Elk, who’s the +Frog?” +Elk paced up and down the apartment, his hands in his pockets, his +steel-rimmed spectacles sliding lower and lower down his long nose. +“There are only two possibilities,” he said. “One is Harry Lyme—an +ex-convict who was supposed to have been drowned in the _Channel Queen_ +some years ago. I put him amongst them, because all the records we have +of him show that he was a brilliant organizer, a super-crook, and one of +the two men capable of opening Lord Farmley’s safe and slipping that +patent catch on Johnson’s window. And believe me, Captain Gordon, it was +an artist who burgled Johnson!” +“The other man?” said Dick. +“He’s also comfortably dead,” said Elk grimly. “Saul Morris, the +cleverest of all. He’s got Lyme skinned to death—an expression I picked +up in my recent travels, Captain. And Morris is American; and although +I’m as patriotic as any man in this country, I hand it to the Americans +when it comes to smashing safes. I’ve examined two thousand records of +known criminals, and I’ve fined it down to these two fellows—and +they’re both dead! They say that dead men leave no trails, and if Frog +is Morris or Lyme, they’re about right. Lyme’s dead—drowned. Morris was +killed in a railway accident in the United States. The question is, +which of the ghosts we can charge.” +Dick Gordon pulled open the drawer of his desk and took out an envelope +that bore the inscription of the Western Union. He threw it across the +table. +“What’s this. Captain Gordon?” +“It’s an answer to a question. You mentioned Saul Morris before, and I +have been making inquiries in New York. Here’s the reply.” +The cablegram was from the Chief of Police, New York City. +“Answering your inquiry. Saul Morris is alive, and is believed +to be in England at this moment. No charges pending against him +here, but generally supposed to be the man who cleared out +strong room of ss. _Mantania_, February 17, 1898, Southampton, +England, and got away with 55,000,000 francs. Acknowledge.” +Elk read and re-read the cablegram, then he folded it carefully, put it +back in its envelope and passed it across the table. +“Saul Morris is in England,” he said mechanically. “That seems to +explain a whole lot.” +The search which detectives had conducted at the railway termini had +produced nine bags, all of which contained identical outfits. In every +case there was a spare suit, a clean shirt, two collars, one tie, a +Browning pistol with cartridges, a forged passport without photograph, +the Annatio and money. Only in one respect did the grips differ. At +Paddington the police had recovered one which was a little larger than +its fellows, all of which were of the same pattern and size. This held +the same outfit as the remainder, with the exception that, in addition, +there was a thick pad of cheque forms, every cheque representing a +different branch of a different bank. There were cheques upon the Credit +Lyonnais, upon the Ninth National Bank of New York, upon the Burrowstown +Trust, upon the Bank of Spain, the Banks of Italy and Roumania, in +addition to about fifty branches of the five principal banks of England. +Occupied as he had been, Elk had not had time to make a very close +inspection, but in the morning he determined to deal seriously with the +cheques. He was satisfied that inquiries made at the banks and branches +would reveal different depositors; but the numbers might enable him to +bring the ownership home to one man or one group of men. +As the bags were brought in, they had been examined superficially and +placed in Elk’s safe, and to accommodate them, the ordinary contents of +the safe had been taken out and placed in other repositories. Each bag +had been numbered and labelled with the name of the station from whence +it was taken, the name of the officer who had brought it in, and +particulars of its contents. These facts are important, as having a +bearing upon what subsequently happened. +Elk arrived at his office soon after ten o’clock, having enjoyed the +first full night’s sleep he had had for weeks. He had, as his +assistants, Balder and a detective-sergeant named Fayre, a promising +young man, in whom Elk placed considerable trust. Dick Gordon arrived +almost simultaneously with the detective chief, and they went into the +building together. +“There isn’t the ghost of a chance that we shall be rewarded for the +trouble we’ve taken to trace these cheques,” said Elk, “and I am +inclined to place more hope upon the possibility of the handbags +yielding a few items which were not apparent at first examination. All +these bags are lined, and there is a possibility that they have false +bottoms. I am going to cut them up thoroughly, and if there’s anything +left after I’m through, the Frogs are welcome to their secret.” +In the office, Balder and the detective-sergeant were waiting, and Elk +searched for his key. The production of the key of the safe was +invariably something of a ritual where Elk was concerned. He gave Dick +Gordon the impression that he was preparing to disrobe, for the key +reposed in some mysterious region which involved the loosening of coat, +waistcoat, and the diving into a pocket where no pocket should be. +Presently the ceremony was through, Elk solemnly inserted the key and +swung back the door. +The safe was so packed with bags that they began to slide toward him, +when the restraining pressure of the door was removed. One by one he +handed them out, and Fayre put them on the table. +“We’ll take that Paddington one first,” said Elk, pointing to the +largest of the bags. “And get me that other knife, Balder.” +The two men walked out into the passage, leaving Fayre alone. +“Can you see the end of this, Captain Gordon?” asked Elk. +“The end of the Frogs? Why, yes, I think I can. I could almost say I was +sure.” +They had reached the door of the clerk’s office and found Balder holding +a murderous looking weapon in his hand. +“Here it is——” he began, and the next instant Dick was flung violently +to the floor, with Elk on top of him. +There was the shrill shriek of smashed glass, a pressure of wind, and, +through all this violence, the deafening thunder of an explosion. +Elk was first to his feet and flew back to his room. The door hung on +its hinges; every pane of glass was gone, and the sashes with them. From +his room poured a dense volume of smoke, into which he plunged. He had +hardly taken a step before he tripped on the prostrate figure of Fayre, +and, stooping, he half-lifted and half-dragged him into the corridor. +One glance was sufficient to show that, if the man was not dead, there +seemed little hope of his recovery. The fire-bells were ringing +throughout the building. A swift rush of feet on the stairs, and the +fire squad came pelting down the corridor, dragging their hose behind +them. +What fire there was, was soon extinguished, but Elk’s office was a +wreck. Even the door of the safe had been blown from its hinges. There +was not a single article of furniture left, and a big hole gaped in the +floor. +“Save those bags,” said Elk and went back to look after the injured man, +and not until he had seen his assistant placed in the ambulance did he +return to a contemplation of the ruin which the bomb had made. +“Oh, yes, it was a bomb, sir,” said Elk. +A group of senior officers stood in the corridor, looking at the havoc. +“And something particularly heavy in the shape of bombs. The wonder is +that Captain Gordon and I were not there. I told Fayre to open the bag, +but I thought he’d wait until we returned with the knife—we intended +examining the lining. Fayre must have opened the bag and the bomb +exploded.” +“But weren’t the bags examined before?” asked the Commissioner +wrathfully. +Elk nodded. +“They were examined by me yesterday—every one. The Paddington bag was +turned inside out, every article it contained was placed on my table, +and catalogued. I myself returned them. There was no bomb.” +“But how could they be got at?” asked the other. +Elk shook his head. +“I don’t know, sir. The only other person who has a key to this safe is +the Assistant Commissioner of my department, Colonel McClintock, who is +on his holidays. We might all have been killed.” +“What was the explosive?” +“Dynamite,” said Elk promptly. “It blew down.” He pointed to the hole in +the floor. “Nitro-glycerine blows up and sideways,” he sniffed. “There’s +no doubt about it being dynamite.” +In his search of the office he found a twisted coil of thin steel, later +the blackened and crumpled face of a cheap alarm dock. +“Both time and contact,” he said. “Those Frogs are taking no chances.” +He shifted such of his belongings as he could discover into Balder’s +office. +There was little chance that this outrage would be kept from the +newspapers. The explosion had blown out the window and a portion of the +brickwork and had attracted a crowd on the Embankment outside. Indeed, +when Elk left headquarters, he was confronted by newspaper bills telling +of the event. +His first call was at the near-by hospital, to where the unfortunate +Fayre had been taken, and the news he received was encouraging. The +doctors thought that, with any kind of luck, they would not only save +the man’s life, but also save him from any serious mutilation. +“He may lose a finger or two, and he’s had a most amazing escape,” said +the house surgeon. “I can’t understand why he wasn’t blown to pieces.” +“What I can’t understand,” said Elk emphatically, “is why _I_ wasn’t +blown to pieces.” +The surgeon nodded. +“These high explosives play curious tricks,” said the surgeon. “I +understand that the force of the explosion blew off the door of the +safe, and yet this paper, which must also have been within range, is +scarcely singed.” +He took a square of paper out of his pocket; the edges were blackened; +one corner had been burnt off. +“I found this in his clothing. It must have been driven there when the +bomb detonated,” said the surgeon. +Elk smoothed out the paper and read: +“_With the compliments of Number Seven._” +Carefully he folded the paper. +“I’ll take this,” he said, and put it tenderly away in the interior of +his spectacle case. “Do you believe in hunches, doctor?” +“Do you mean premonitions?” smiled the surgeon. “To an extent I do.” +Elk nodded. +“I have a hunch that I’m going to meet Number Seven—very shortly,” he +said. +CHAPTER XXVI +PROMOTION FOR BALDER +A WEEK had passed, and the explosion at headquarters was ancient +history. The injured detective was making fair progress toward recovery, +and in some respects the situation was stagnant. +Elk apparently accepted failure as an inevitability, and seemed, even to +his greatest admirer, to be hypnotized into a fatalistic acceptance of +the situation. His attitude was a little deceptive. On the sixth day +following the explosion, headquarters made a raid upon the cloak-rooms, +and again, as Elk had expected, produced from every single terminus +parcels office, a brand-new bag with exactly the same equipment as the +others had had, except that the Paddington find differed from none of +its fellows. +The bags were opened by an Inspector of Explosives, after very careful +preliminary tests; but they contained nothing more deadly than the +Belgian pistols and the self-same passports, this time made out in the +name of “Clarence Fielding.” +“These fellows are certainly thorough,” said Elk with reluctant +admiration, surveying his haul. +“Are you keeping the bags in your office?” asked Dick, but Elk shook his +melancholy head. +“I think not,” said he. +He had had the bags immediately emptied, their contents sent to the +Research Department; the bags themselves were now stripped of leather +and steel frames, for they had been scientifically sliced, inch by inch. +“My own opinion,” said Balder oracularly, “is that there’s somebody at +police headquarters who is working against us. I’ve been considering it +for a long time, and after consulting my wife——” +“You haven’t consulted your children, too, have you?” asked Elk +unpleasantly. “The less you talk about headquarters’ affairs in your +domestic circle, the better will be your chance of promotion.” +Mr. Balder sniffed. +“There’s no fear of that, anyway,” he said sourly. “I’ve got myself in +their bad books. And I did think there was a chance for me—it all comes +of your putting me in with Hagn.” +“You’re an ungrateful devil,” said Elk. +“Who’s this Number Seven, sir?” asked Balder. “Thinking the matter over, +and having discussed it with my wife, I’ve come to the conclusion that +he’s one of the most important Frogs, and if we could only get him, we’d +be a long way towards catching the big fellow.” +Elk put down his pen—he was writing his report at the time—and +favoured his subordinate with a patient and weary smile. +“You ought to have gone into politics,” he said, and waved his +subordinate from the room with the end of his penholder. +He had finished his report and was reading it over with a critical eye, +when the service ’phone announced a visitor. +“Send him up,” said Elk when he had heard the name. He rang his bell for +Balder. “This report goes to Captain Gordon to initial,” he said, and as +he put down the envelope, Joshua Broad stood in the doorway. +“Good morning, Mr. Elk.” He nodded to Balder, although he had never met +him. “Good morning,” he said. +“Good morning,” said Elk. “Come right in and sit down, Mr. Broad. To +what do I owe the pleasure of this call?—excuse my politeness, but in +the early morning I’m that way. All right, Balder, you can go.” +Broad offered his cigar-case to the detective. “I’ve come on a curious +errand,” he said. +“Nobody ever comes to headquarters on any other,” replied Elk. +“It concerns a neighbour of mine.” +“Lola Bassano?” +“Her husband,” said the other, “Lew Brady.” +Elk pushed up his spectacles. +“You don’t tell me that she’s properly married to Lew Brady?” he asked +in surprise. +“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” said Broad, “though I’m +perfectly certain that her young friend Bennett is not aware of the +fact. Brady has been staying at Caverley House for a week, and during +that time he has not gone out of doors. What is more, the boy hasn’t +called; I don’t think there’s a quarrel—I have a notion there’s +something much deeper than that. I saw Brady by accident as I was coming +out of my door. Bassano’s door also happened to be open: the maid was +taking in the milk: and I caught a glimpse of him. He has the finest +crop of whiskers I’ve seen on a retired pugilist and their ambitions do +not as a rule run to hair! That made me pretty curious,” he said, +carefully knocking the ash of his cigar into a tray that was on the +table, “and I wondered if there was any connection between this sudden +defiance of the barber and Ray Bennett’s actions. I made a call on +him—I met him the other day at the club and had, as an excuse, the fact +that I have also managed to meet Miss Ella Bennett. His servant—he has +a man in by the day to brush his clothes and tidy up the place—told me +that he was not well and was not visible.” +Mr. Broad blew out a ring of smoke and watched it thoughtfully. +“If you want a servant to be faithful, he must live on the premises,” he +said. “These occasional men aren’t with you long enough to get +trustworthy. It cost me, at the present rate of exchange, two dollars +and thirty-five cents to discover that Mr. Ray Bennett is also in the +hair-restoring business. If there were an election on, these two fellows +might be political cranks who had vowed a vow that they wouldn’t touch +their razors until their party was returned to power. And if Lew Brady +were a real sportsman, I should guess that they were doing this for a +bet. As it is, I’m rather intrigued.” +Elk rolled his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. +“I’m not well acquainted with the Statute Book,” he said, “but I’m under +the impression there is no law preventing people from cultivating +undergrowth. The—what’s the word?—psych——” +“Psychology,” suggested Mr. Broad. +“That’s it. The psychology of whiskers has never quite reached me. +You’re American, aren’t you, Mr. Broad?” +“I have the distinction,” said the other with that half-smile that came +so readily to his eyes. +“Ah!” said Elk absently, as he stared through the window. “Ever heard of +a man called Saul Morris?” +He brought his eyes back to the other’s face. Mr. Joshua Broad was +frowning in an effort of thought. +“I seem to remember the name. He was a criminal of sorts, wasn’t he—an +American criminal, if I remember rightly? Yes, I’ve heard of him. I seem +to remember that he was killed a few years ago.” +Elk scratched his chin irritably. +“I’d like to meet somebody who was at his funeral,” he said, “somebody I +could believe on oath.” +“You’re not suggesting that Lew Brady——” +“No. I’m not suggesting anything about Lew Brady, except that he’s a +very poor boxer. I’ll look into this distressing whisker competition, +Mr. Broad, and thank you for telling me.” +He wasn’t especially interested in the eccentric toilet of Ray Bennett. +At five o’clock Balder came to him and asked if he might go home. +“I promised my wife——” he began. +“Keep it,” said Elk. +After his subordinate’s departure there came an official letter to +Inspector Elk, and, reading its contents, Mr. Elk beamed. It was a +letter from the Superintendent who controlled the official careers of +police officers at headquarters. +“Sir,” it ran, “I am directed by the Chief Commissioner of +Police to inform you that the promotion of Police-Constable J. +J. Balder to the rank of Acting-Sergeant has been approved. The +appointment will date as from the 1st May.” +Elk folded up the paper and was genuinely pleased. He rang the bell for +Balder before he remembered that he had sent his assistant home. Elk’s +evening was free, and in the kindness of his heart he decided upon +conveying the news personally. +“I’d like to see this wife of his,” said Elk, addressing nobody, “and +the children!” +Elk turned up the official pass register, and found that Balder lived at +93, Leaford Road, Uxbridge. The names of his wife and children were not +entered, to Elk’s disappointment. He would like to have addressed the +latter personally, but no new entry had been made on the sheet since +Balder’s enlistment. +His police car took him to Leaford Road; 93 was a respectable little +house—such a house as Elk always imagined his assistant would live in. +His knock was answered by an elderly woman who was dressed for going +out, and Elk was surprised to see that she wore the uniform of a nurse. +“Yes, Mr. Balder lives here,” she said, apparently surprised to see the +visitor. “That is to say, he has two rooms here, though he very seldom +stays here the night. He usually comes here to change, and then I think +he goes on to his friends.” +“Does his wife live here?” +“His wife?” said the woman in surprise. “I didn’t know that he was +married.” +Elk had brought Balder’s official record with him, to procure some dates +which it was necessary he should certify for pension purposes. In the +space against Balder’s address, he noticed for the first time that there +were two addresses given, and that Leaford Road had been crossed out +with ink so pale that he only noticed it now that he saw the paper in +daylight. The second address was one in Stepney. +“I seem to have made a mistake,” he said. “His address here is Orchard +Street, Stepney.” But the nurse smiled. +“He was with me many years ago,” she said, “then he went to Stepney, but +during the war he came here, because the air raids were rather bad in +the East End of London. I am under the impression he has still a room in +Stepney.” +“Oh?” said Elk thoughtfully. +He was at the gate when the nurse called him back. +“I don’t think he goes to Stepney, though I don’t know whether I ought +to talk about his business to a stranger; but if you want him +particularly, I should imagine you would find him at Slough. I’m a +monthly nurse,” she said, “and I’ve seen his car twice going into Seven +Gables on the Slough Road. I think he must have a friend there.” +“Whose car?” asked the startled Elk. +“It may be his or his friend’s car,” said the nurse. “Is he a friend of +yours?” +“He is in a way,” said Elk cautiously. +She stood for a moment thinking. +“Will you come in, please?” +He followed her into the clean and tidy little parlour. +“I don’t know why I told you, or why I’ve been talking so freely to +you,” she said, “but the truth is, I’ve given Mr. Balder notice. He +makes so many complaints, and he’s so difficult to please, that I can’t +satisfy him. It isn’t as though he paid me a lot of money—he doesn’t. I +make very little profit out of his rooms, and I’ve a chance of letting +them at a better rent. And then he’s so particular about his letters. +I’ve had a letter-box put on the door, but even that is not big enough +to hold them some days. What his other business is, I don’t know. The +letters that come here are for the Didcot Chemical Works. You probably +think that I am a very difficult woman to please, because, after all, +he’s out all day and seldom sleeps here at night.” +Elk drew a long breath. +“I think you’re nearly the finest woman I’ve ever met,” he said. “Are +you going out now?” +She nodded. +“I’ve an all night case, and I shan’t be back till eleven to-morrow. You +were very fortunate in finding anybody at home.” +“I think you said ‘his car’; what sort of a car is it?” asked Elk. +“It’s a black machine—I don’t know the make; I think it is an American +make. And he must have something to do with the ownership because once I +found a lot of tyre catalogues in his bedroom, and some of the tyres he +had marked with a pencil, so I suppose he’s responsible to an extent.” +One last question Elk asked. +“Does he come back here at night after you’ve gone?” +“Very rarely, I imagine,” replied the woman. “He has his own key, and as +I’m very often out at night I’m not sure whether he returns or not.” +Elk stood with one foot on the running-board of his car. +“Perhaps I can drop you somewhere, madam?” he said, and the elderly +woman gratefully accepted. +Elk went back to headquarters, opened a drawer of his desk and took out +a few implements of his profession, and, after filing a number of urgent +instructions, returned to the waiting car, driving to Harley Terrace. +Dick Gordon had an engagement that night to join a theatre party with +the members of the American Embassy, and he was in one of the boxes at +the Hilarity Theatre when Elk opened the door quietly, tapped him on the +shoulder, and brought him out into the corridor, without the remainder +of the party being aware that their guest had retired. +“Anything wrong, Elk?” asked Gordon. +“Balder’s got his promotion,” said Elk solemnly, and Dick stared at him. +“He’s an Acting-Sergeant,” Elk went on, “and I don’t know a better rank +for Balder. When this news comes to him and his wife and children, +there’ll be some happy hearts, believe me.” +Elk never drank: this was the first thought that came to Dick Gordon’s +mind; but there was a possibility that the anxieties and worries of the +past few weeks might have got on top of him. +“I’m very glad for Balder,” he said gently, “and I’m glad for you too, +Elk, because I know you tried hard to get this miserable devil a step in +the right direction.” +“Go on with what you were thinking,” said Elk. +“I don’t know that I was thinking anything,” laughed Dick. +“You were thinking that I must be suffering from sunstroke, or I +shouldn’t take you out of your comfortable theatre to announce Balder’s +promotion. Now will you get your coat, Captain Gordon, and come along +with me? I want to break the news to Balder.” +Mystified, but asking no further questions, Gordon went to the +cloak-room, got his coat, and joined the detective in the vestibule. +“We’re going to Slough—to the Seven Gables,” he added. “It’s a fine +house. I haven’t seen it, but I know it’s a fine house, with a carriage +drive and grand furniture, electric light, telephone and a modern +bathroom. That’s deduction. I’ll tell you something else—also +deduction. There are trip wires on the lawn, burglar alarms in the +windows, about a hundred servants——” +“What the devil are you talking about?” asked Dick, and Elk chuckled +hysterically. +They were running through Uxbridge when a long-bodied motor-car whizzed +past them at full speed. It was crowded with men who were jammed into +the seats or sat upon one another’s knees. +“That’s a merry little party,” said Dick. +“Very,” replied Elk laconically. +A few seconds later, a second car flashed past, going much faster than +they. +“That looks to me like one of your police cars,” said Dick. +This, too, was crowded. +“It certainly looks like one of my police cars,” agreed Elk. “In America +they’ve got a better stunt. As you probably know, they’ve a fine patrol +wagon system. I’d like to introduce it into this country; it’s very +handy.” +As the car slowed to pass through the narrow, crooked street of +Colnebrook, a third of the big machines squeezed past, and this time +there was no mistaking its character. The man who sat with the driver, +Dick knew as a detective inspector. He winked at Elk as he passed, and +Elk winked back with great solemnity. +“What is the idea?” asked Dick, his curiosity now thoroughly piqued. +“We’re having a smoking concert,” said Elk, “to celebrate Balder’s +promotion. And it will be one of the greatest successes that we’ve had +in the history of the Force. There will be the brothers Mick and Mac, +the trick cyclists, in their unrivalled act . . .” He babbled on +foolishly. +At Langley the fourth and fifth police cars came past. Dick had long +since realized that the slow pace at which his own car was moving was +designed to allow these laden machines to overtake them. Beyond Langley, +the Windsor road turned abruptly to the left, and, leaning over the +driver, Elk gave new instructions. There was no sign of the police cars: +they had apparently gone on to Slough. A solitary country policeman +stood at the cross-roads and watched them as they disappeared in the +dusk with a certain languid interest. +“We’ll stop here,” said Elk, and the car was pulled from the road on to +the green sidewalk. +Elk got down. +“Walk a little up the road while I talk to Captain Gordon,” he said to +the chauffeur, and then he talked, and Dick listened in amazement and +unbelief. +“Now,” said Elk, “we’ve got about five minutes’ walk, as far as I can +remember. I haven’t been to Windsor races for so long that I’ve almost +forgotten where the houses are.” +They found the entrance to the Seven Gables between two stiff yew +hedges. There was no gateway; a broad, gravelled path ran between a +thick belt of pine trees, behind which the house was hidden. Elk went a +little ahead. Presently he stopped and raised his hand warningly. Dick +came a little nearer, and, looking over the shoulder of the detective, +had his first view of Seven Gables. +It was a large house, with timbered walls and high, twisted +chimney-stacks. +“Pseudo-Elizabethan,” said Dick admiringly. +“1066,” murmured Elk, “or was it 1599? That’s _some_ house!” +It was growing dusk, and lights were showing from a broad window at the +farther end of the building. The arched doorway was facing them. +“Let us go back,” whispered Elk, and they retraced their steps. +It was not until darkness had fallen that he led the way up the carriage +drive to the point they had reached on their earlier excursion. The +light still showed in the window, but the cream-coloured blinds were +drawn down. +“It is safe up as far as the door,” whispered Elk; “but right and left +of that, watch out!” +He had pulled a pair of thick stockings over his shoes, and handed +another pair to Dick; and then, with an electric torch in his hand, he +began to move along the path which ran parallel with the building. +Presently he stopped. +“Step over,” he whispered. +Dick, looking down, saw the black thread traversing the path, and very +cautiously avoided the obstacle. +A few more paces, and again Elk stopped and warned Dick to step high, +turning to show his light upon the second of the threads, almost +invisible even in the powerful glare of the electric lamp. He did not +move from where he stood until he had made a careful examination of the +path ahead; and it was well that he did so, for the third trip wire was +less than two feet from the second. +They were half-an-hour covering the twenty yards which separated them +from the window. The night was warm, and one of the casements was open. +Elk crept close under the window-sill, his sensitive fingers feeling for +the alarm which he expected to find protecting the broad sill. This he +discovered and avoided, and, raising his hand, he gently drew aside the +window blind. +He saw a large, oaken-panelled room, luxuriously furnished. The wide, +open stone fireplace was banked with flowers, and before it, at a small +table, sat two men. The first was Balder—unmistakably Balder, and +strangely good-looking. Balder’s red nose was no longer red. He was in +evening dress and between his teeth was a long amber cigarette-holder. +Dick saw it all, his cheek against Elk’s head, heard the quick intake of +the detective’s breath, and then noticed the second man. It was Mr. +Maitland. +Mr. Maitland sat, his face in his hands, and Balder was looking at him +with a cynical smile. +They were too far away to hear what the men were saying, but apparently +Maitland was being made the object of reproof. He looked up after a +while, and got on to his feet and began talking. They heard the rumble +of his excited voice, but again no word was intelligible. Then they saw +him raise his fist and shake it at the smiling man, who watched him with +a calm, detached interest, as though he were some strange insect which +had come into his ken. With this parting gesture of defiance, old +Maitland shuffled from the room and the door closed behind him. In a few +minutes he came out of the house, not through the doorway, as they +expected, but apparently through a gateway on the other side of the +hedge, for they saw the gleam of the headlights of his car as it passed. +Left alone, Balder poured himself a drink and apparently rang for one of +the servants. The man who came in arrested Dick’s attention instantly. +He wore the conventional uniform of a footman, the dark trousers and the +striped waistcoat, but it was easy to see, from the way he moved, that +he was not an ordinary type of servant. A big man, powerfully built, his +every action was slow and curiously deliberate. Balder said something to +him, and the footman nodded, and, taking up the tray, went out with the +same leisurely, almost pompous, step that had distinguished his entry. +And then it flashed upon Dick, and he whispered into the detective’s ear +one word. +“Blind!” +Elk nodded. Again the door opened, and this time three footmen came in, +carrying a heavy-looking table with a canvas cover. At first Gordon +thought that it was Balder’s meal that was being brought, but he was +soon to discover the truth. Above the fireplace, hanging on a single +wire, was a large electric lamp, which was not alight. Standing on a +chair, one of the footmen took out the lamp and inserted a plug from the +end of which ran a wire connecting with the table. +“They’re all blind,” said Elk in a whisper. “And that is Balder’s own +broadcasting apparatus, and the aerial is attached to the lamp.” +The three servants went out, and, rising, Balder walked to the door and +locked it. +There were another set of windows in the room, looking out upon the side +of the house, and one by one Balder closed and shuttered them. He was +busy with the second of the three, when Elk put his foot upon a ledge of +brick, and, tearing aside the curtain, leapt into the room. +At the sound, Balder spun round. +“Evening, Balder,” said Elk. +The man made no reply. He stood, watching his sometime chief, with eyes +that did not waver. +“Thought I’d come along and tell you that you’ve got your promotion,” +said Elk, “as Acting-Sergeant from the 1st of May, in recognition of the +services you’ve rendered to the State by poisoning Frog Mills, loosing +Frog Hagn, and blowing up my office with a bomb that you planted +overnight.” +Still the man did not speak, nor did he move; and here he was discreet, +for the long-barrelled Browning in Elk’s hand covered the lower button +of his white piqué waistcoat. +“And now,” said Elk—there was a ring of triumph in his voice—“you’ll +take a little walk with me—I want you, _Number Seven_!” +“Haven’t you made a mistake?” drawled Balder, so unlike his usual voice +that Elk was for a moment taken aback. +“I never have made a mistake except about the date when Henry the Eighth +married,” said Elk. +“Who do you imagine I am?” asked this debonair man of the world. +“I’ve ceased imagining anything about you, Balder—I know!” +Elk walked with a quick movement toward him and thrust the muzzle of the +pistol in his prisoner’s diaphragm. +“Put up your hands and turn round,” he said. +Balder obeyed. Slipping a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, Elk snapped +them on to the wrists. Deftly the detective strapped the arms from +behind, drawing them tight, so that the manacled hands had no play. +“This is very uncomfortable,” said Balder. “Is it usual for you to make +mistakes of this character, Mr. Elk? My name is Collett-Banson.” +“Your name is Mud,” said Elk, “but I’m willing to listen to anything you +like to say. I’d rather have your views on cyanide of potassium than +anything. You can sit down.” +Dick saw a gleam come to the man’s eye; it flashed for a second and was +gone. Evidently Elk saw it too. +“Don’t let your hopes rest upon any monkey tricks that might be played +by your attendants,” he said, “because fifty C.I.D. men, most of whom +are known personally to you, are disposed round this house.” +Balder laughed. +“If they were round the house and on top of the house, they wouldn’t +worry me,” he said. “I tell you, inspector, you’ve made a very grave +error, and one which will cost you dear. If a gentleman cannot sit in +his own drawing-room”—he glanced at the table—“listening to a wireless +concert at The Hague without interfering policemen—then it is about +time the police force was disbanded.” +He walked across to the fireplace carelessly and stood with his back to +it; then, lifting his foot, he kicked back one of the steel fire-dogs +which stood on either side of the wide hearth, and the “dog” fell over +on its side. It was a nervous act of a man who was greatly worried and +was not quite conscious of what he was doing. Even Elk, who was all +suspicion, saw nothing to excite his apprehension. +“You think my name is Balder, do you?” the man went on. “Well, all I can +say is——” +Suddenly he flung himself sideways on to the hearthrug, but Elk was +quicker. As an oblong slip of the floor gave way beneath the man’s +weight, Elk gripped him by the collar and together they dragged him back +to the room. +In a second the three were struggling on the floor together, and in his +desperation Balder’s strength was unbelievable. His roaring cry for help +was heard. There came a heavy blow on the door, the babble of angry +voices without, and then, from the ground outside, a series of sharp +explosions, as the army of detectives raced across the lawn, oblivious +to the presence of the alarm-guns. +The fight was short and sharp. The six blind men who comprised the +household of No. 7 were hustled away, and in the last car travelled +Acting-Sergeant Balder, that redoubtable No. 7, who was the right hand +and the left hand of the terrible Frog. +CHAPTER XXVII +MR. BROAD IS INTERESTING +DICK GORDON ended his interview with Mr. Ezra Maitland at three o’clock +in the morning, and went to Headquarters, to find the charge-room at +Cannon Row singularly empty. When he had left, it was impossible to get +in or out for the crowd of detectives which filled or surrounded the +place. +“On the whole, Pentonville is safest, and I’ve got him there. I asked +the Governor to put him in the condemned cell, but it is not etiquette. +Anyway, Pentonville is the safest spot I know, and I think that, unless +Frogs eat stones, he’ll stay. What has Maitland got to say, Captain?” +“Maitland’s story, so far as one can get a story from him, is that he +went to see Balder by invitation. ‘When you’re sent for by the police, +what can you do?’ he asked, and the question is unanswerable.” +“There is no doubt at all,” said Elk, “that Maitland knew Balder’s +character, and it was not in his capacity as policeman that the old man +visited him. There is less doubt that this man is hand in glove with the +Frog, but it is going to be very difficult to prove.” +“Maitland puzzles me,” said Dick. “He’s such a bully, and yet such a +frightened old man. I thought he was going to drop through the floor +when I told him who I was, and why I had come. And when I mentioned the +fact that Balder had been arrested, he almost collapsed.” +“That line has to be followed,” said Elk thoughtfully. “I have sent for +Johnson. He ought to be here by now. Johnson must know something about +the old man’s business, and he will be a very valuable witness if we can +connect the two.” +The philosopher arrived half-an-hour later, having been aroused from his +sleep to learn that his presence was required at Headquarters. +“Mr. Elk will tell you something which will be public property in a day +or two,” said Gordon. “Balder has been arrested in connection with the +explosion which occurred in Mr. Elk’s office.” +It was necessary to explain to Johnson exactly who Balder was, and Dick +went on to tell him of the old man’s visit to Slough. Johnson shook his +head. +“I didn’t know that Maitland had a friend of that name,” he said. +“Balder? What other name had he?” +“He called himself Collett-Banson,” said Dick, and a look of +understanding came to the face of Johnson. +“I know that name very well. Mr. Banson used frequently to call at the +office, generally late in the evenings—Maitland spends three nights a +week working after the clerks have gone, as I know to my cost,” he said. +“A rather tall, good-looking fellow of about forty?” +“Yes, that is the man.” +“He has a house near Windsor. I have never been there, but I know +because I have posted letters to him.” +“What sort of business did Collett-Banson have with Maitland?” +“I’ve never been able to discover. I always thought of him as a man who +had property to sell, for that was the only type of outsider who was +ever admitted to Maitland’s presence. I remember that he had the child +staying with him for about a week——” +“That is, the child in Maitland’s house?” +Johnson nodded. +“You don’t know what association there is between the child and these +two men?” +“No, sir, except that I am certain that Mr. Collett-Banson had the +little boy with him, because I sent toys—mechanical engines or +something of the sort—by Mr. Maitland’s directions. It was the day that +Mr. Maitland made his will, about eighteen months ago. I remember the +day particularly for a peculiar reason. I had expected Mr. Maitland to +ask me to witness the will and was piqued, for no cause, because he +brought two clerks up from the office to sign. These little things +impress themselves upon one,” he added. +“Was the will made in favour of the child?” +Johnson shook his head. +“I haven’t the slightest knowledge of how the property goes,” he said. +“He never discussed the matter with me; he wouldn’t even employ a +lawyer. In fact, I don’t remember his ever employing a lawyer all the +time I was with him, except for conveyancing work. He told me he had +copied the form of will from a book, but beyond feeling hurt that I, an +old and faithful servant of his, hadn’t been taken a little into his +confidence, I wasn’t greatly interested in the matter. But I do remember +that that morning I went down to a store and bought a whole lot of toys, +had them packed and brought them back to the office. The old man played +with them all the afternoon!” +Early in the morning Dick Gordon interviewed the prisoners at +Pentonville, and found them in a very obstinate mood. +“I know nothing about babies or children; and if Johnson says he sent +toys, he is lying,” said Balder defiantly. “I refuse to make any +statement about Maitland or my association with Maitland. I am the +victim of police persecution, and I defy you to bring any proof that I +have committed a single act in my life—unless it is a crime to live +like a gentleman—for which you can imprison me.” +“Have you any message for your wife and children?” asked Dick +sarcastically, and the sullen features of the man relaxed for a second. +“No, Elk will look after them,” he said humorously. +The most stringent precautions had been taken to prevent a rescue, and +the greatest care was exercised that no communication passed between No. +7 and the outside world. He was charged at Bow Street an hour before the +court usually sat. Evidence of arrest was taken, and he was remanded, +being removed to Pentonville in a motor-van under armed guard. +On the third night of his imprisonment, romance came into the life of +the second chief warder of Pentonville Prison. He was comparatively +young and single, not without good looks, and lived, with his widowed +mother, at Shepherd’s Bush. It was his practice to return home after his +day’s duty by omnibus, and he was alighting on this day when a lady, who +had got off before him, stumbled and fell. Instantly he was by her side, +and had lifted her to her feet. She was young and astonishingly pretty +and he helped her gain the pavement. +“It was nothing,” she said smilingly, but with a grimace of pain. “It +was very foolish of me to come by ’bus; I was visiting an old servant of +mine who is ill. Will you call me a taxi, please?” +“Certainly, madam,” said the gallant chief warder. +The taxi which was passing was beckoned to the kerb. The girl looked +round helplessly. +“I wish I could see somebody I know. I don’t want to go home alone; I’m +so afraid of fainting.” +“If you would not object to my escort,” said the man, with all the +warm-hearted earnestness which the sight of a woman in distress awakens +in the bosom of impressionable man, “I will see you home.” +She shot a glance at him which was full of gratitude and accepted his +escort, murmuring her regret for the trouble she was giving him. +It was a beautiful apartment she occupied. The chief warder thought he +had never met so gracious and beautiful a lady before, so appropriately +housed, and he was right. He would have attended to her injury, but she +felt so much better, and her maid was coming in soon, and would he have +a whisky-and-soda, and would he please smoke? She indicated where the +cigarettes were to be found, and for an hour the chief warder spoke +about himself, and had an enjoyable evening. +“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Bron,” she said at parting. “I feel +I’ve wasted your evening.” +“I can assure you,” said Mr. Bron earnestly, “that if this is a waste of +time, then time has no use!” +She laughed. +“That is a pretty speech,” she said, “and I will let you call to-morrow +and see me.” +He took a careful note of the address; it was an exclusive maisonette in +Bloomsbury Square; and the next evening found him ringing the bell, but +this time he was not in uniform. +He left at ten o’clock, an ecstatic man who held his head high and +dreamt golden dreams, for the fragrance of her charm (as he wrote her) +“permeated his very being.” Ten minutes after he had gone, the girl came +out, closed the door behind her and went out into the street, and the +idler who had been promenading the pavement threw away his cigar. +“Good evening. Miss Bassano,” he said. +She drew herself up. +“I am afraid you have made a mistake,” she said stiffly. +“Not at all. You’re Miss Bassano, and my only excuse for addressing you +is that I am a neighbour of yours.” +She looked more closely at him. +“Oh, Mr. Broad!” she said in a more gracious tone. “I’ve been visiting a +friend of mine who is rather ill.” +“So I’m told, and a nice flat your friend occupies,” he said as he fell +in by her side. “I was thinking of hiring it a few days ago. These +furnished apartments are difficult to find. Maybe it was a week +ago—yes, it was a week ago,” he said carefully; “it was the day before +you had your lamentable accident in Shepherd’s Bush.” +“I don’t quite understand you,” she said, on her guard at once. +“The truth is,” said Mr. Broad apologetically, “that I’ve been trying to +get at Bron too. I’ve been making a very careful study of the prison +staff for the past two months, and I’ve a list of the easy boys that has +cost me a lot of money to compile. I suppose you didn’t reach the stage +where you persuaded him to talk about his interesting prisoner? I tried +him last week,” he went on reminiscently. “He goes to a dance club at +Hammersmith, and I got acquainted with him through a girl he’s keen +about—you’re not the only young love of his life, by the way.” +She laughed softly. +“What a clever man you are, Mr. Broad!” she said. “No, I’m not very +interested in prisoners. By the way, who is this person you were +referring to?” +“I was referring to Number Seven, who is in Pentonville Gaol,” said Mr. +Broad coolly, “and I’ve got an idea he is a friend of yours.” +“Number Seven?” Her perplexity would have convinced a less hardened man +than Joshua Broad. “I have an idea that that is something to do with the +Frogs.” +“That is something to do with the Frogs,” agreed the other gravely, +“about whom I daresay you have read. Miss Bassano, I’ll make you an +offer.” +“Offer me a taxi, for I’m tired of walking,” she said, and when they +were seated side by side she asked: “What is your offer?” +“I offer you all that you require to get out of this country and to keep +you out for a few years, until this old Frog busts—as he will bust! +I’ve been watching you for a long time, and, if you won’t consider it an +impertinence, I like you. There’s something about you that is very +attractive—don’t stop me, because I’m not going to get fresh with you, +or suggest that you’re the only girl that ever made tobacco taste like +molasses—I like you in a kind of pitying way, and you needn’t get +offended at that either. And I don’t want to see you hurt.” +He was very serious; she recognized his sincerity, and the word of +sarcasm that rose to her lips remained unuttered. +“Are you wholly disinterested?” she asked. +“So far as you are concerned, I am,” he replied. “There is going to be +an almighty smash, and it is more than likely that you’ll get in the way +of some of the flying pieces.” +She did not answer him at once. What he had said merely intensified her +own uneasiness. +“I suppose you know I’m married?” +“I guessed that,” he answered. “Take your husband with you. What are you +going to do with that boy?” +“You mean Ray Bennett?” +It was curious that she made no attempt to disguise either her position +or the part that she was playing. She wondered at herself after she was +home. But Joshua Broad had a compelling way, and she never dreamt of +deceiving him. +“I don’t know,” she said. “I wish he wasn’t in it. He is on my +conscience. Are you smiling?” +“At your having a conscience? No, I fancied that was how you stood. And +the growing beard?” +She did not laugh. +“I don’t know about that. All I know is that we’ve had—why am I telling +you this? Who are you, Mr. Broad?” +He chuckled. +“Some day I’ll tell you,” he said; “and I promise you that, if you’re +handy, you shall be the first to know. Go easy with that boy, Lola.” +She did not resent the employment of her first name, but rather it +warmed her towards this mystery man. +“And write to Mr. Bron, Assistant Chief Warder of Pentonville Gaol, and +tell him that you’ve been called out of town and won’t be able to see +him again for ten years.” +To this she made no rejoinder. He left her at the door of her flat and +took her little hand in his. +“If you want money to get away, I’ll send you a blank cheque,” he said. +“There is no one else on the face of the earth that I’d give a blank +cheque to, believe me.” +She nodded, most unusual tears in her eyes. Lola was breaking under the +strain, and nobody knew it better than the hawk-faced man who watched +her as she passed into her flat. +CHAPTER XXVIII +MURDER +THE stone which woke Ella Bennett was aimed with such force that the +pane cracked. She slipped quickly from bed and pulled aside the +curtains. There had been a thunderstorm in the night, and the skies were +so grey and heavy, and the light so bad, that she could only distinguish +the shape of the man that stood under her window. John Bennett heard her +go from her room and came to his door. +“Is it Maitland?” he asked. +“I think so,” she said. +He frowned. +“I can’t understand these visits,” he said. “Do you think he’s mad?” +She shook her head. After the precipitate flight of the old man on his +last visit, she had not expected that he would come again, and guessed +that only some matter of the greatest urgency would bring him. She heard +her father moving about his room as she went through the darkened +dining-room into the passage which opened directly on to the garden. +“Is that you, miss?” quavered a voice in the darkness. +“Yes, Mr. Maitland.” +“Is _he_ up?” he asked in an awe-stricken whisper. +“You mean my father? Yes, he’s awake.” +“I’ve got to see you,” the old man almost wailed. “They’ve took him.” +“Taken whom?” she asked with a catch in her voice. +“That fellow Balder. I knew they would.” +She remembered having heard Elk mention Balder. +“The policeman?” she asked. “Mr. Elk’s man?” +But he was off on another tack. +“It’s you he’s after.” He came nearer to her and clutched her arm. “I +warned you—don’t forget I warned you. Tell him that I warned you. He’ll +make it good for me, won’t he?” he almost pleaded, and she began to +understand dimly that the “he” to whom the old man was referring was +Dick Gordon. “He’s been with me most of the night, prying and asking +questions. I’ve had a terrible night, miss, terrible,” he almost sobbed. +“First Balder and then him. He’ll get you—not that police gentleman I +don’t mean, but Frog. That’s why I wrote you the letter, telling you to +come up. You didn’t get no letter, did you, miss?” +She could not make head or tail of what he was saying or to whom he was +referring, as he went on babbling his story of fear, a story +interspersed with wild imprecations against “him.” +“Tell your father, dearie, what I said to you.” He became suddenly +calmer. “Matilda said I ought to have told your father, but I’m afraid +of him, my dear, I’m afraid of him!” +He took one of her hands in his and fondled it. +“You’ll speak a word for me, won’t you?” She knew he was weeping, though +she could not see his face. +“Of course I’ll speak a word for you, Mr. Maitland. Oughtn’t you to see +a doctor?” she asked anxiously. +“No, no, no doctors for me. But tell him, won’t you—not your father, I +mean, the other feller—that I did all I could for you. That’s what I’ve +come to see you about. They’ve got Balder——” He stopped short suddenly +and craned his head forward. “Is that your father?” he asked in a husky +whisper. +She had heard the footsteps of John Bennett on the stairs. +“Yes, I think it is, Mr. Maitland,” and at her words he pulled his hand +from hers with a jerk and went shuffling down the pathway into the road +and out of sight. +“What did he want?” +“I really don’t know, father,” she said. “I don’t think he can be very +well.” +“Do you mean mad?” +“Yes, and yet he was quite sensible for a little time. He said they’ve +got Balder.” +He did not reply to her, and she thought he had not heard her. +“They’ve taken Balder, Mr. Elk’s assistant. I suppose that means he has +been arrested?” +“I suppose so,” said John Bennett, and then: “My dear, you ought to be +in bed. Which way did he go?” +“He went toward Shoreham,” said the girl. “Are you going after him, +father?” she asked in surprise. +“I’ll walk up the road. I’d like to see him,” said John Bennett. “You go +to bed, my dear.” +But she stood waiting by the door, long after his footsteps had ceased +to sound on the road. Five minutes, ten minutes passed, a quarter of an +hour, and then she heard the whine of a car and the big limousine flew +past the gate, spattering mud, and then came John Bennett. +“Aren’t you in bed?” he asked almost roughly. +“No, father, I don’t feel sleepy. It is late now, so I think I’ll do +some work. Did you see him?” +“Who, the old man? Yes, I saw him for a minute or two.” +“Did you speak to him?” +“Yes, I spoke to him.” The man did not seem inclined to pursue the +subject, but this time Ella persisted. +“Father, why is he frightened of you?” +“Will you make me some coffee?” said Bennett. +“Why is he frightened of you?” +“How do I know? My dear, don’t ask so many questions. You worry me. He +knows me, he’s seen me—that is all. Balder is held for murder. I think +he is a very bad man.” +Later in the day she revived the subject of Maitland’s visit. +“I wish he would not come,” she said. “He frightens me.” +“He will not come again,” said John Bennett prophetically. +* * * * * * +The house in Berkeley Square which had passed into the possession of +Ezra Maitland had been built by a nobleman to whom money had no +significance. Loosely described as one of the show places of the +Metropolis, very few outsiders had ever marvelled at the beauty of its +interior. It was a palace, though none could guess as much from viewing +its conventional exterior. In the gorgeous saloon, with its lapis-lazuli +columns, its fireplaces of onyx and silver, its delicately panelled +walls and silken hangings, Mr. Ezra Maitland sat huddled in a large +Louis Quinze chair, a glass of beer before him, a blackened clay pipe +between his gums. The muddy marks of his feet showed on the priceless +Persian carpet; his hat half eclipsed a golden Venus of Marrionnet, +which stood on a pedestal by his side. His hands clasped across his +stomach, he glared from under his white eyebrows at the floor. One +shaded lamp relieved the gloom, for the silken curtains were drawn and +the light of day did not enter. +Presently, with an effort, he reached out, took the mug of beer, which +had gone flat, and drained its contents. This done and the mug replaced, +he sank back into his former condition of torpor. There was a gentle +knock at the door and a footman came in, a man of powder and calves. +“Three gentlemen to see you, sir. Captain Gordon, Mr. Elk, and Mr. +Johnson.” +The old man suddenly sat up. +“Johnson?” he said. “What does he want?” +“They are in the little drawing-room, sir.” +“Push them in,” growled the old man. +He seemed indifferent to the presence of the two police officers, and it +was Johnson he addressed. +“What do you want?” he asked violently. “What do you mean by coming +here?” +“It was my suggestion that Mr. Johnson should come,” said Dick. +“Oh, your suggestion, was it?” said the old man, and his attitude was +strangely insolent compared with his dejection of the early morning. +Elk’s eyes fell upon the empty beer-mug, and he wondered how often that +had been filled since Ezra Maitland had returned to the house. He +guessed it had been employed fairly often, for there was a truculence in +the ancient man’s tone, a defiance in his eye, which suggested something +more than spiritual exaltation. +“I’m not going to answer any questions,” he said loudly. “I’m not going +to tell any truth, and I’m not going to tell any lies.” +“Mr. Maitland,” said Johnson hesitatingly, “these gentlemen are anxious +to know about the child.” +The old man closed his eyes. +“I’m not going to tell no truth and I’m not going to tell no lies,” he +repeated monotonously. +“Now, Mr. Maitland,” said the good-humoured Elk, “forget your good +resolution and tell us just why you lived in that slum of Eldor Street.” +“No truth and no lies,” murmured the old man. “You can lock me up but I +won’t tell you anything. Lock me up. My name’s Ezra Maitland; I am a +millionaire. I’ve got millions and millions and millions! I could buy +you up and I could buy up mostly anybody! Old Ezra Maitland! I’ve been +in the workhouse and I’ve been in quod.” +Dick and his companion exchanged glances, and Elk shook his head to +signify the futility of further questioning the old man. Nevertheless, +Dick tried again. +“Why did you go to Horsham this morning?” he asked, and could have +bitten his tongue when he realized his blunder. +Instantly the old man was wide awake. +“I never went to Horsham,” he roared. “Don’t know what you’re talking +about. I’m not going to tell you anything. Throw ’em out, Johnson.” +When they were in the street again, Elk asked a question. +“No, I’ve never known him to drink before,” said Johnson. “He has always +been very abstemious so long as I’ve known him. I never thought I could +persuade him to talk.” +“Nor did I,” said Dick Gordon—a statement which more than a little +surprised the detective. +Dick signalled to the other to get rid of Johnson, and when that +philosophical gentleman had been thanked and sent away, Dick Gordon +spoke urgently. +“We must have two men in this house at once. What excuse can we offer +for planting detectives on Maitland?” +Elk pursed his lips. +“I don’t know,” he confessed. “We shall have to get a warrant before we +arrest him; we could easily get another warrant to search the house; but +beyond that I fear we can’t go, unless he asks for protection.” +“Then put him under arrest,” said Dick promptly. +“What is the charge?” +“Hold him on suspicion of being associated with the Frogs, and if +necessary move him to the nearest police-station. But it has to be done +at once.” +Elk was perturbed. +“It isn’t a small matter to arrest a millionaire, you know, Captain +Gordon. I daresay in America it is simple, and I am told you could pinch +the President if you found him with a flask in his pocket. But here it +is a little different.” +How very different it was, Dick discovered when he made application in +private for the necessary warrants. At four o’clock they were delivered +to him by the clerk of a reluctant magistrate, and, accompanied by +police officers, he went back to Maitland’s palatial home. +The footman who admitted them said that Mr. Maitland was lying down and +that he did not care to disturb him. In proof, he sent for a second +footman, who confirmed the statement. +“Which is his room?” said Dick Gordon. “I am a police officer and I want +to see him.” +“On the second floor, sir.” +He showed them to an electric lift, which carried the five to the second +floor. Opposite the lift grille was a large double door, heavily +burnished and elaborately gilded. +“Looks more like the entrance to a theatre,” said Elk in an undertone. +Dick knocked. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Still there was no +answer. And then, to Elk’s surprise, the young man launched himself at +the door with all his strength. There was a sound of splitting wood and +the door parted. Dick stood in the entrance, rooted to the ground. +Ezra Maitland lay half on the bed, his legs dragging over the side. At +his feet was the prostrate figure of the old woman whom he called +Matilda. They were both dead, and the pungent fumes of cordite still +hung in a blue cloud beneath the ceiling. +CHAPTER XXIX +THE FOOTMAN +DICK ran to the bedside, and one glance at the still figures told him +all he wanted to know. +“Both shot,” he said, and looked up at the filmy cloud under the +ceiling. “May have happened any time—a quarter of an hour ago. This +stuff hangs about for hours.” +“Hold every servant in the house,” said Elk in an undertone to the men +who were with him. +A doorway led to a smaller bedroom, which was evidently that occupied by +Maitland’s sister. +“The shot was fired from this entrance,” said Dick. “Probably a silencer +was used, but we shall hear about that later.” +He searched the floor and found two spent cartridges of a heavy calibre +automatic. +“They killed the woman, of course,” he said, speaking his thoughts +aloud. “I was afraid of this. If I could only have got our men in!” +“You expected him to be murdered?” said Elk in astonishment. +Dick nodded. He was trying the window of the woman’s room. It was +unfastened, and led on to a narrow parapet, protected by a low +balustrade. From there, access could be had into another room on the +same floor, and no attempt had been made by the murderer to conceal the +fact that this was the way he had passed. The window was wide open, and +there were wet footmarks on the floor. It was a guest room, slightly +overcrowded with surplus furniture, which had been put there apparently +by the housekeeper instead of in a lumber-room. +The door opened again into the corridor, and faced a narrow flight of +stairs leading to the servants’ quarters above. Elk went down on his +knees and examined the tread of the carpet carefully. +“Up here, I think,” he said, and ran ahead of his chief. +The third floor consisted entirely of servants’ rooms, and it was some +time before Elk could pick up the footprints which led directly to No. +his foot and kicked open the door. He found himself in a servant’s +bedroom, which was empty. An attic window opened on to the sloping roof +of another parapet, and without a second’s hesitation Dick went out, +following the course of that very precarious alleyway. Farther along, +iron rails protected the walker, and this was evidently one of the ways +of escape in case of fire. He followed the “path” across three roofs +until he came to a short flight of iron stairs, which reached down to +the flat roof of another house, and a guard fire-escape. Guarded it had +been, but now the iron gate which barred progress was open, and Dick ran +down the narrow stairs into a concrete yard surrounded on three sides by +high walls and on the fourth by the back of a house, which was +apparently unoccupied, for the blinds were all drawn. +There was a gate in the third wall, and it was ajar. Passing through, he +was in a mews. A man was washing a motor-car a dozen paces from where he +stood, and they hurried toward him. +“Yes, sir,” said the cleaner, wiping his streaming forehead with the +back of his hand, “I saw a man come out of there about five minutes ago. +He was a servant—a footman or something—I didn’t recognize him, but he +seemed in a hurry.” +“Did he wear a hat?” +The man considered. +“Yes, sir, I think he did,” he said. “He went out that way,” and he +pointed. +The two men hurried along, turned into Berkeley Street, and as they did +so, the car-washer turned to the closed doors of his garage and whistled +softly. The door opened slowly and Mr. Joshua Broad came out. +“Thank you,” he said, and a piece of crisp and crackling paper went into +the washer’s hand. +He was out of sight before Dick and the detective came back from their +vain quest. +No doubt existed in Dick’s mind as to who the murderer was. One of the +footmen was missing. The remaining servants were respectable individuals +of unimpeachable character. The seventh had come at the same time as Mr. +Maitland; and although he wore a footman’s livery, he had apparently no +previous experience of the duties which he was expected to perform. He +was an ill-favoured man, who spoke very little, and “kept himself to +himself,” as they described it; took part in none of their pleasures or +gossip; was never in the servants’ hall a second longer than was +necessary. +“Obviously a Frog,” said Elk, and was overjoyed to learn that there was +a photograph of the man in existence. +The photograph had its origin in an elaborate and somewhat pointless +joke which had been played on the cook by the youngest of the footmen. +The joke consisted of finding in the cook’s workbasket a photograph of +the ugly footman, and for this purpose the young servant had taken a +snap of the man. +“Do you know him?” asked Dick, looking at the picture. +Elk nodded. +“He has been through my hands, and I don’t think I shall have any +difficulty in placing him, although for the moment his name escapes me.” +A search of the records, however, revealed the identity of the missing +man, and by the evening an enlargement of the photograph, and his name, +aliases and general characteristics, were locked into the form of every +newspaper in the metropolis. +One of the servants had heard the shot, but thought it was the door +being slammed—a pardonable mistake, because Mr. Maitland was in the +habit of banging doors. +“Maitland was a Frog all right,” reported Elk after he had seen the body +removed to the mortuary. “He’s well decorated on the left wrist—yes, +slightly askew. That is one of the points that you’ve never cleared up +to me, Captain Gordon. Why they should be tattooed on the left wrist I +can understand, but why the frog shouldn’t be stamped square I’ve never +understood.” +“That is one of the little mysteries that can’t be cleared up until we +are through with the big ones,” said Dick. +A telegram had been received that afternoon by the missing footman. This +fact was not remembered until after Elk had returned to headquarters. A +’phone message through to the district post-office brought a copy of the +message. It was very simple. +“Finish and clear,” were the three words. The message was unsigned. It +had been handed in at the Temple Post Office at two o’clock, and the +murderer had lost no time in carrying out his instructions. +Maitland’s office was in the hands of the police, and a systematic +search had already begun of its documents and books. At seven o’clock +that night Elk went to Fitzroy Square, and Johnson opened the door to +him. Looking past him, Elk saw that the passage was filled with +furniture and packing cases, and remembered that early in the morning +Johnson had mentioned that he was moving, and had taken two cheaper +rooms in South London. +“You’ve packed?” +Johnson nodded. +“I hate leaving this place,” he said, “but it’s much too expensive. It +seems as though I shall never get another job, and I’d better face that +fact sensibly. If I live at Balham, I can live comfortably. I’ve very +few expensive tastes.” +“If you have, you can indulge them,” said Elk. “We found the old man’s +will. He has left you everything!” +Johnson’s jaw dropped, his eyes opened wide. +“Are you joking?” he said. +“I was never more serious in my life. The old man has left you every +penny he had. Here is a copy of the will: I thought you’d like to see +it.” +He opened his pocket-case, producing a sheet of foolscap, and Johnson +read: +“I, Ezra Maitland, of 193, Eldor Road, in the County of +Middlesex, declare this to be my last will and testament, and I +formally revoke all other wills and codicils to such wills. I +bequeath all my property, movable or immovable, all lands, +houses, deeds, shares in stock companies whatsoever, and all +jewellery, reversions, carriages, motor-cars, and all other +possessions absolutely, to Philip Johnson, of 471, Fitzroy +Square, in the County of London, clerk. I declare him to be the +only honest man I have ever met with in my long and sorrowful +life, and I direct him to devote himself with unremitting care +to the destruction of that society or organization which is +known as the Frogs, and which for four and twenty years has +extracted large sums of blackmail from me.” +It was signed in a clerkly hand familiar to Johnson, and was witnessed +by two men whose names he knew. +He sat down and did not attempt to speak for a long time. +“I read of the murder in the evening paper,” he said after a while. “In +fact, I’ve been up to the house, but the policemen referred me to you, +and I knew you were too busy to be bothered. How was he killed?” +“Shot,” said Elk. +“Have they caught the man?” +“We shall have him by the morning,” said Elk with confidence. “Now that +we’ve taken Balder, there’ll be nobody to warn the men we want.” +“It is very dreadful,” said Johnson after a while. “But this”—he looked +at the paper—“this has quite knocked me out. I don’t know what to say. +Where was it found?” +“In one of his deed boxes.” +“I wish he hadn’t,” said Johnson with emphasis. “I mean, left me his +money. I hate responsibility. I’m temperamentally unfitted to run a big +business . . . I wish he hadn’t!” +“How did he take it?” asked Dick when Elk had returned. +“He’s absolutely hazed. Poor devil, I felt sorry for him, and I never +thought I should feel sorry for any man who came into money. He was just +getting ready to move into a cheaper house when I arrived. I suppose he +won’t go to the Prince of Caux’s mansion. The change in Johnson’s +prospects might make a difference to Ray Bennett: does that strike you, +Captain Gordon?” +“I thought of that possibility,” said Dick shortly. +He had an interview in the afternoon with the Director of Public +Prosecutions in regard to Balder. And that learned gentleman echoed his +own fears. +“I can’t see how we’re going to get a verdict of murder against this +man, although it is as plain as daylight that he poisoned Mills and was +responsible for the bomb outrage. But you can’t hang a man on suspicion, +even though the suspicion is not open to doubt. How did he kill Mills, +do you think?” +“Mills had a cold,” said Dick. “He had been coughing all the way up in +the car, and had asked Balder to close the window of the room. Balder +obviously closed, or nearly closed the window, and probably slipped a +cyanide tablet to the man, telling him it was good for his cold. It was +a fairly natural thing for Mills to take and swallow the tablet, and +that, I am sure, is what happened. We made a search of Balder’s house at +Slough, and found a duplicate set of keys, including one to Elk’s safe. +Balder got there early in the morning and planted the bomb, knowing that +Elk and I would be opening the bags that morning.” +“And helped Hagn to escape,” said the Public Prosecutor. +“That was much more simple,” explained Dick. “I gather that the +inspector who was seen walking out at half-past-two was Hagn. When +Balder went into the cell to keep the man company, he must have been +dressed underneath in the police uniform, and have carried the necessary +handcuffs and pass-keys with him. He was not searched—a fact for which +I am as much responsible as Elk. The chief danger we had to fear from +Balder came from his closeness to us, and his ability to communicate +immediately to his chief every movement which we made. His name is +Kramer, and he is by birth a Lithuanian. He was expelled from Germany at +the age of eighteen for his revolutionary activities, and came to this +country two years later, where he joined the police. At what time he +came into contact with the Frogs I do not know, but it is fairly clear, +from evidence we have obtained, that the man has been engaged in various +illegal operations for many years past. I’m afraid you are right about +Balder: it will be immensely difficult to get a conviction until we have +caught Frog himself.” +“And will you catch the Frog, do you think?” +Dick Gordon smiled cryptically. +No fresh news had come about the murder of Maitland and his sister, and +he seized the opportunity which the lull gave to him. Ella Bennett was +in the vegetable garden, engaged in the prosaic task of digging potatoes +when he appeared, and she came running toward him, stripping her leather +gloves. +“This is a splendid surprise,” she said, and flushed at the +consciousness of her own enthusiasm. “Poor man, you must be having a +terrible time! I saw the newspaper this morning. Isn’t it dreadful about +poor Mr. Maitland? He was here yesterday morning.” +He nodded. +“Is it true that Mr. Johnson has been left the whole of Maitland’s +money? Isn’t that splendid!” +“Do you like Johnson?” he asked. +“Yes, he’s a nice man,” she nodded. “I don’t know a great deal about +him; indeed, I’ve only met him once or twice, but he was very kind to +Ray, and saved him from getting into trouble. I am wondering whether, +now that he is rich, he will induce Ray to go back to Maitlands.” +“I wonder if he will induce you——” He stopped. +“Induce me to what?” she asked in astonishment. +“Johnson is rather fond of you—he’s never made any disguise of the +fact, and he’s a very rich man. Not that I think that would make any +difference to you,” he added hastily. “I’m not a very rich man, but I’m +comfortably off.” +The fingers in his hand stole round his, and pressed them tightly, and +then suddenly they relaxed. +“I don’t know,” she said, and drew herself free. +“Father said——” She hesitated. “I don’t think father would like it. He +thinks there is such a difference between our social positions.” +“Rats!” said Dick inelegantly. +“And there’s something else.” She found it an effort to tell him what +that something was. “I don’t know what father does for a living, but it +is . . . work that he never wishes to speak about; something that he +looks upon as disgraceful.” +The last words were spoken so low that he hardly caught them. +“Suppose I know the worst about your father?” he asked quietly, and she +stood back, looking at him from under knit brows. +“Do you mean that? What is it, Dick?” +He shook his head. +“I may know or I may not. It is only a wild guess. And you’re not to +tell him that I know, or that I’m in any way suspicious. Will you please +do that for me?” +“And knowing this, would it make any difference to you?” +“None.” +She had plucked a flower, and was pulling it petal from petal in her +abstraction. +“Is it very dreadful?” she asked. “Has he committed a crime? No, no, +don’t tell me.” +Once more he was near her, his arm about her trembling shoulders, his +hand beneath her chin. +“My dear!” murmured the youthful Public Prosecutor, and forgot there was +such a thing as murder in the world. +John Bennett was glad to see him, eager to tell the news of his triumph. +He had a drawer full of press cuttings, headed “Wonderful Nature +Studies. Remarkable Pictures by an Amateur,” and others equally +flattering. And there had come to him a cheque which had left him +gasping. +“This means—you don’t know what it means to me, Mr. Gordon,” he said, +“or Captain Gordon—I always forget you’ve got a military title. When +that boy of mine recovers his senses and returns home, he’s going to +have just the good time he wants. He’s at the age when most boys are +fools—what I call the showing-off age. Sometimes it runs to pimples and +introspection, sometimes to the kind of life that a man doesn’t like to +look back on. Ray has probably taken the less vicious course.” +It was a relief to hear the man speak so. Dick always thought of Ray +Bennett as one who had committed the unforgiveable sin. +“This time next year I’m going to be an artist of leisure,” said John +Bennett, who looked ten years younger. +Dick offered to drive him to town, but this he would not hear of. He had +to make a call at Dorking. Apparently he had letters addressed to him in +that town (Dick learnt of this from the girl) concerning his mysterious +errands. Dick left Horsham with a heart lighter than he had brought to +that little country town, and was in the mood to rally Inspector Elk for +the profound gloom which had settled on him since he had discovered that +there was not sufficient evidence to try Balder for his life. +CHAPTER XXX +THE TRAMPS +LEW BRADY sat disconsolately in Lola Bassano’s pretty drawing-room, and +a more incongruous figure in that delicate setting it was impossible to +imagine. A week’s growth of beard had transfigured him into the most +unsavoury looking ruffian, and the soiled old clothes he wore, the +broken and discoloured boots, the grimy shirt, no less than his own +personal uncleanliness of appearance made him a revolting object. +So Lola thought, eyeing him anxiously, a foreboding of trouble in her +heart. +“I’m finished with the Frog,” growled Brady. “He pays—of course he +pays! But how long is it going on, Lola? You brought me into this!” He +glowered at her. +“I brought you in, when you wanted to be brought into something,” she +said calmly. “You can’t live on my savings all your life, Lew, and it +was nearly time you made a little on the side.” +He played with a silver seal, twiddling it between his fingers, his eyes +gloomily downcast. +“Balder’s caught, and the old man’s dead,” he said. “They’re the big +people. What chance have I got?” +“What were your instructions, Lew?” she asked for the twentieth time +that day. +He shook his head. +“I’m taking no risks, Lola. I don’t trust anybody, not even you.” +He took a small bottle from his pocket and examined it. +“What is that?” she asked curiously. +“Dope of some kind.” +“Is that part of the instructions too?” +He nodded. +“Are you going in your own name?” +“No, I’m not,” he snapped. “Don’t ask questions. I’m not going to tell +you anything, see? This trip’s going to last a fortnight, and when it’s +finished, I’m finished with Frog.” +“The boy—is he going with you?” +“How do I know? I’m to meet somebody somewhere, and that’s all about +it.” He looked at the clock and rose with a grunt. “It’s the last time I +shall sit in a decent parlour for a fortnight.” He gave a curt nod and +walked to the door. +There was a servants’ entrance, a gallery which was reached through the +kitchen, and he passed down the stairs unobserved, into the night. +It was dark by the time he reached Barnet; his feet were aching; he was +hot and wretched. He had suffered the indignity of being chased off the +pavement by a policeman he could have licked with one hand, and he +cursed the Frog with every step he took. There was still a long walk +ahead of him once he was clear of Barnet; and it was not until a village +clock was striking the hour of eleven that he ambled up to a figure that +was sitting on the side of the road, just visible in the pale moonlight, +but only recognizable when he spoke. +“Is that you?” said a voice. +“Yes, it’s me. You’re Carter, aren’t you?” +“Good Lord!” gasped Ray as he recognized the voice. “It’s Lew Brady!” +“It’s nothing of the kind!” snarled the other man. “My name���s Phenan. +Yours is Carter. Sit down for a bit. I’m dead beat.” +“What is the idea?” asked the youth as they sat side by side. +“How the devil do I know?” said the other savagely as, with a tender +movement, he slipped off his boots and rubbed his bruised feet. +“I had no idea it was you,” said Ray. +“I knew it was you, all right,” said the other. “And why I should be +called upon to take a mug around this country, God knows!” +After a while he was rested sufficiently to continue the tramp. +“There’s a barn belonging to a shopkeeper in the next village. He’ll let +us sleep there for a few pence.” +“Why not try to get a room?” +“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Lew. “Who’s going to take in a couple of +tramps, do you think? We know we’re clean, but they don’t. No, we’ve got +to go the way the tramps go.” +“Where? To Nottingham?” +“I don’t know. If they told you Nottingham, I should say that’s the last +place in the world we shall go to. I’ve got a sealed envelope in my +pocket. When we reach Baldock I shall open it.” +They slept that night in the accommodating barn—a draughty shed, +populated, it seemed, by chickens and rats, and Ray had a restless night +and thought longingly of his own little bed at Maytree Cottage. +Strangely enough, he did not dwell on the more palatial establishment in +Knightsbridge. +The next day it rained, and they did not reach Baldock until late in the +afternoon, and, sitting down under the cover of a hedge, Brady opened +the envelope and read its contents, his companion watching him +expectantly. +“You will branch from Baldock and take the nearest G.W. train +for Bath. Then by road to Gloucester. At the village of +Laverstock you will reveal to Carter the fact that you are +married to Lola Bassano. You should take him to the _Red Lion_ +for this purpose, and tell him as offensively as possible in +order to force a quarrel, but in no circumstances are you to +allow him to part company from you. Go on to Ibbley Copse. You +will find an open space near where three dead trees stand, and +there you will stop, take back the statement you made that you +are married to Lola, and make an apology. You are carrying with +you a whisky flask; you must have the dope and the whisky +together at this point. After he is asleep, you will make your +way to Gloucester, to 289 Hendry Street, where you will find a +complete change of clothing. Here you will shave and return to +town by the 2.19.” +Every word, every syllable, he read over and over again, until he had +mastered the details. Then, striking a match, he set fire to the paper +and watched it burn. +“What are the orders?” asked Ray. +“The same as yours, I suppose. What did you do with yours?” +“Burnt them,” said Ray. “Did he tell you where we’re going?” +“We are going to take the Gloucester Road; I thought we should. That +means striking across country till we reach the Bath Road. We can take a +train to Bath.” +“Thank goodness for that!” said Ray fervently. “I don’t feel I can walk +another step.” +At seven o’clock that night, two tramps turned out of a third-class +carriage on Bath station. One, the younger, was limping slightly, and +sat down on a station seat. +“Come on, you can’t stay here,” said the other gruffly. “We’ll get a bed +in the town. There’s a Salvation Army shelter somewhere in Bath.” +“Wait a bit,” said the other. “I’m so cramped with sitting in that +infernal carriage that I can hardly move.” +They had joined the London train at Reading, and the passengers were +pouring down the steps to the subway. Ray looked at them enviously. They +had homes to go to, clean and comfortable beds to sleep in. The thought +of it gave him a pain. And then he saw a figure and shrank back. A tall, +angular man, who carried a heavy box in one hand and a bag in the other. +It was his father. +John Bennett went down the steps, with a casual glance at the two +unsavoury tramps on the seat, never dreaming that one was the son whose +future he was at that moment planning. +John Bennett spent an ugly night, and an even more ugly early morning. +He collected the camera where he had left it, at a beerhouse on the +outskirts of the town, and, fixing the improvised carrier, he slipped +the big box on his back, and, with his bag in his hand, took the road. A +policeman eyed him disapprovingly as he passed, and seemed in two minds +as to whether or not he should stop him, but refrained. The strength and +stamina of this grey man were remarkable. He breasted a hill and, +without slackening his pace, reached the top, and strode steadily along +the white road that was cut in the face of the hill. Below him stretched +the meadow lands of Somerset, vast fields speckled with herds, +glittering streaks of light where the river wound; above his head a blue +sky, flecked white here and there. As he walked, the load on his heart +was absorbed. All that was bright and happy in life came to him. His +hand strayed to his waistcoat pocket mechanically. There were the +precious press cuttings that he had brought from town and had read and +re-read in the sleepless hours of the night. +He thought of Ella, and all that Ella meant to him, and of Dick +Gordon—but that made him wince, and he came back to the comfort of his +pictures. Somebody had told him that there were badgers to be seen; a +man in the train had carefully located a veritable paradise for the +lover of Nature; and it was toward this beauty spot that he was making +his way with the aid of a survey map which he had bought overnight at a +stationer’s shop. +Another hour’s tramp brought him to a wooden hollow, and, consulting his +map, he found he had reached his objective. There was ample evidence of +the truth that his chance-found friend had told him. He saw a stoat, +flying on the heels of a terrified rabbit; a hawk wheeled ceaselessly on +stiff pinions above him; and presently he found the “run” he was looking +for, the artfully concealed entrance to a badger’s lair. +In the years he had been following his hobby he had overcome many +difficulties, learnt much. To-day, failure had taught him something of +the art of concealment. It took him time to poise and hide the camera in +a bush of wild laurel, and even then it was necessary that he should +take a long shot, for the badger is the shyest of its kind. There were +young ones in the lair: he saw evidence of that; and a badger who has +young is doubly shy. +He had replaced the pneumatic attachment which set the camera moving, by +an electrical contrivance, and this enabled him to work with greater +surety. He unwound the long flex and laid it to its fullest extent, +taking a position on the slope of the hill eighty yards away, making +himself comfortable. Taking off his coat, which acted as a pillow on +which his arms rested, he put his field-glasses near at hand. +He had been waiting half an hour when he thought he saw a movement at +the mouth of the burrow, and slowly focussed his glasses. It was the tip +of a black nose he saw, and he took the switch of the starter in his +hand, ready to set the camera revolving. Minutes followed minutes; +five—ten—fifteen—but there was no further movement in the burrow, and +in a dull way John Bennett was glad, because the warmth of the day, +combined with his own weariness and his relaxed position, brought to him +a rare sensation of bodily comfort and well-being. Deeper and deeper +grew the languorous haze of comfort that fell on him like a fog, until +it obscured all that was visible and audible. John Bennett slept, and, +sleeping, dreamed of success and of peace and of freedom from all that +had broken his heart, and had dried up the sweet waters of life within +him. In his dream he heard voices and a sharp sound, like a shot. But he +knew it was not a shot, and shivered. He knew that “crack,” and in his +sleep clenched his hands convulsively. The electric starter was still in +his hand. +* * * * * * +At nine o’clock that morning there had come into Laverstock two limping +tramps, though one limped more than the other. The bigger of the two +stopped at the door of the _Red Lion_, and an unfriendly landlord +surveyed the men over the top of the curtain which gave the habitués of +the bar a semi-privacy. +“Come in,” growled Lew Brady. +Ray was glad to follow. The landlord’s bulk blocked the entrance to the +bar. +“What do you want?” he asked. +“I want a drink.” +“There’s no free drinks going in this parish,” said the landlord, +looking at the unpromising customer. +“Where did you get that ‘free drink’ stuff from?” snarled Lew. “My +money’s as good as anybody else’s, isn’t it?” +“If it’s honestly come by,” said the landlord. “Let us have a look at +it.” +Lew pulled out a handful of silver, and the master of the _Red Lion_ +stood back. +“Come in,” he said, “but don’t make a home of my bar. You can have your +drink and go.” +Lew growled the order, and the landlord poured out the two portions of +whisky. +“Here’s yours, Carter,” said Lew, and Ray swallowed the fiery dram and +choked. +“I’ll be glad to get back,” said Lew in a low voice. “It’s all right for +you single men, but this tramping is pretty tough on us fellows who’ve +got wives—even though the wives aren’t all they might be.” +“I didn’t know you were married,” said Ray, faintly interested. +“There’s a lot you don’t know,” sneered the other. “Of course I’m +married. You were told once, and you hadn’t the brains to believe it.” +Ray looked at the man open-mouthed. +“Do you mean—what Gordon said?” +The other nodded. +“You mean that Lola is your wife?” +“Why, certainly she’s my wife,” said Lew coolly. “I don’t know how many +husbands she’s had, but I’m her present one.” +“Oh, my God!” +Ray whispered the words. +“What’s the matter with you? And take that look off your face,” said Lew +Brady viciously. “I’m not blaming you for being sweet on her. I like to +see people admire my wife, even such kids as you.” +“Your wife!” said Ray again. He could not believe the man was speaking +the truth. “Is she—is she a Frog?” +“Why shouldn’t she be?” said Brady. “And keep your voice down, can’t +you? That fat old devil behind the counter is trying hard to listen. Of +course she’s Frog, and she’s crook. We’re all crooks. You’re crook too. +That’s the way with Lola, she likes the crooks best. Perhaps you’ll have +a chance, after you’ve done a job or two——” +“You beast!” hissed Ray, and struck the man full in the face. +Before Lew Brady could come to his feet, the landlord was between them. +“Outside, both of you!” he shouted, and, dashing to the door, roared +half a dozen names. He was back in time to see Lew Brady on his feet, +glaring at the other. +“You’ll know all about that, Mr. Carter, one of these days,” he said. +“I’ll settle with you!” +“And, by God, I’ll settle with you!” said Ray furiously, and at that +moment a brawny ostler caught him by the arm and flung him into the road +outside. +He waited for Brady to come out. +“I’ve finished with you,” he said. His face was white, his voice was +quivering. “Finished with the whole rotten shoot of you! I’m going +back.” +“You’re not going back,” said Lew. “Oh, listen, boy, what’s making you +mad? We’ve got to go on to Gloucester, and we might as well finish our +job. And if you don’t want to be with me after that—well, you can go +ahead just as you like.” +“I’m going alone,” said Ray. +“Don’t be a fool.” Lew Brady came after him and seized his arm. +For a second the situation looked ugly to the onlookers, and then, with +a shrug, Ray Bennett suffered the arm to remain. +“I don’t believe you,” he said—the first words he spoke for half an +hour after they had left the _Red Lion_. “Why should you have lied?” +“I’ve got sick of your good temper, that’s the whole truth, Ray—just +sick to death of it. I had to make you mad, or I’d have gone mad +myself.” +“But is it true about Lola?” +“Of course it’s not true,” lied Brady contemptuously. “Do you think +she’d have anything to do with a chap like me? Not likely! Lola’s a good +girl. Forget all I said, Ray.” +“I shall ask her myself. She wouldn’t lie to me,” said the boy. +“Of course she wouldn’t lie to you,” agreed the other. +They were nearing their rendezvous now—the tree-furred cut in the +hills—and his eyes were searching for the three white trunks that the +lightning had struck. Presently he saw them. +“Come on in, and I’ll tell you all about it,” he said. “I’m not going to +walk much farther to-day. My feet are so raw you couldn’t cook ’em!” +He led the way between the trees, over the age-old carpet of pine +needles, and presently he stopped. +“Sit down here, boy,” he said, “and let us have a drink and a smoke.” +Ray sat with his head on his hands, a figure so supremely miserable that +any other man than Lew Brady would have felt sorry for him. +“The whole truth is,” began Lew slowly, “that Lola’s very strong for +you, boy.” +“Then why did you tell me the other thing? Who was that?” He looked +round. +“What is it?” asked Lew. His own nerves were on edge. +“I thought I heard somebody moving.” +“A twig broke. Rabbits, it may be; there are thousands of ’em round +here,” said Lew. “No, Lola’s a good girl.” He fished from his pocket a +flask, pulled off the cup at the bottom and unscrewed the stopper, +holding the flask to the light. “She’s a good girl,” he repeated, “and +may she never be anything else.” +He poured out a cupful, looked at the remainder in the bottle. +“I’m going to drink her health. No, you drink first.” +Ray shook his head. +“I don’t like the stuff,” he said. +The other man laughed. +“For a fellow who’s been pickled night after night, that’s certainly an +amusing view to take,” he said. “If you can’t hold a dram of whisky for +the sake of drinking Lola’s health, well, you’re a poor——” +“Give it to me.” Ray snatched the cup, but spilt a portion, and, +drinking down the contents at a draught, he threw the metal holder to +his companion. +“Ugh! I don’t care for that whisky. I don’t think I care for any whisky +at all. There’s nothing harder to pretend you like than drinking, if you +don’t happen to like it.” +“I don’t think anybody likes it at first,” said Lew. “It’s like +tomatoes—a cultivated taste.” +He was watching his companion keenly. +“Where do we go from Gloucester?” asked Ray. +“We don’t go anywhere from Gloucester. We just stop there for a day, and +then we change and come back.” +“It’s a stupid idea,” said Ray Bennett, screwing up his eyes and +yawning. “Who is this Frog, Lew?” He yawned again, lay back on the +grass, his hands under his head. +Lew Brady emptied the remainder of the flask’s contents upon the grass, +screwed up the stopper and shook the cup before he rose and walked +across to the sleeping boy. +“Hi, get up!” he said. +There was no answer. +“Get up, you!” +With a groan, Ray turned over, his head on his arms, and did not move +again. A sudden misgiving came to Lew Brady. Suppose he was dead? He +went livid at the thought. That quarrel, so cleverly engineered by the +Frog, would be enough to convict him. He whipped the flask from his +pocket and slipped it into the coat pocket of the sleeper. And then he +heard a sound, and, turning, saw a man watching him. Lew stared, opened +his mouth to speak, and: +“_Plop!_” +He saw the flash of the flame before the bullet struck him. He tried to +open his mouth to speak, and: +“_Plop!_” +Lew Brady was dead before he touched the ground. +The man removed the silencer of the pistol, walked leisurely across to +where Ray Bennett was sleeping, and put the pistol by his hand. Then he +came back and turned over the body of the dead man, looking down into +the face. Taking one of three cigars from his waistcoat pocket, he lit +it, being careful to put the match in the box whence he had taken it. He +liked smoking cigars—especially other men’s cigars. Then, without +haste, he walked back the way he had come, gained the main road after a +careful reconnaissance, and reached the car he had left by the roadside. +Inside the car a youth was sitting in the shelter of the curtained hood, +loose-mouthed, glassy-eyed, staring at nothing. He wore an ill-fitting +suit and one end of his collar was unfastened. +“You know this place, Bill?” +“Yes, sir.” The voice was guttural and hoarse. “Ibbley Copse.” +“You have just killed a man: you shot him, just as you said you did in +your confession.” +The half-witted youth nodded. +“I killed him because I hated him,” he said. +The Frog nodded obediently and got into the driver’s seat. . . . +John Bennett woke with a start. He looked at the damp bell-push in his +hand with a rueful smile, and began winding up the flex. Presently he +reached the bush where the camera was concealed, and, to his dismay, +found that the indicator showed the loss—for loss it was—of five +hundred feet. He looked at the badger hole resentfully, and there, as in +mockery, he saw again the tip of a black nose, and shook his fist at it. +Beyond, he saw two men lying, both asleep, and both, apparently, tramps. +He carried the camera back to where he had left his coat, put it on, +hoisted the box into position and set off for Laverstock village, where, +if his watch was right, he could catch the local that would connect him +with Bath in time for the London express; and as he walked, he +calculated his loss. +CHAPTER XXXI +THE CHEMICAL CORPORATION +ELK had promised to dine at Gordon’s club. Dick waited for him until +twenty minutes past the hour of appointment, and Elk had neither +telephoned nor put in an appearance. At twenty-five minutes past he +arrived in a hurry. +“Good Lord!” he gasped, looking at the clock. “I had no idea it was so +late, Captain. I must buy a watch.” +They went into the dining-hall together, and Elk felt that he was +entering a church, there was such solemn dignity about the stately room, +with its prim and silent diners. +“It certainly has Heron’s beat in the matter of Dicky-Orum.” +“I don’t know the gentleman,” said the puzzled Dick. “Oh, do you mean +decorum? Yes, this is a little more sedate. What kept you, Elk? I’m not +complaining, but when you’re not on time, I worry as to what has +happened to you.” +“Nothing has happened to me,” said Elk, nodding pleasantly to an +embarrassed club waiter. “Only we had an inquiry in Gloucester. I +thought we’d struck another Frog case, but the two men involved had no +Frog marks.” +“Who are they?” +“Phenan is one—he’s the man that’s dead.” +“A murder?” +“I think so,” said Elk, spearing a sardine. “I think he was thoroughly +dead when they found him at Ibbley Copse. They pinched the man who was +with him; he was drunk. Apparently they’d been to Laverstock and had +quarrelled and fought in the bar of the _Red Lion_. The police were +informed later, and telephoned through to the next village, to tell the +constable to keep his eye on these two fellows, but they hadn’t passed +through, so they sent a bicycle patrol to look for them—there’s been +one or two housebreakings in that neighbourhood.” +“And they found them?” +Elk nodded. +“One man dead and the other man bottled. Apparently they’d quarrelled, +and the drunken gentleman shot the other. They’re both tramps or of that +class. Identification marks on them show they’ve come from Wales. They +slept at Bath last night, at Rooney’s lodging-house, and that’s all +that’s known of ’em. Carter is the murderer—they’ve taken him to +Gloucester Gaol. It’s a very simple case, and the Gloucester police gave +a haughty smile at the idea of calling in Headquarters. It is a crime, +anyway, that is up to the intellectual level of the country police.” +Dick’s lips twitched. +“Just now, the country police are passing unpleasant comments on our +intelligence,” he said. +“Let ’um,” scoffed Elk. “Those people are certainly entitled to their +simple pleasures, and I’d be the last to deny them the right. I saw John +Bennett in town to-night, at Paddington this time. I’m always knocking +against him at railway stations. That man is certainly a traveller. He +had his old camera with him too. I spoke to him this time, and he’s full +of trouble: went to sleep, pushed the gadget in his dreams and wasted a +fortune in film. But he’s pleased with himself, and I don’t wonder. I +saw a note about his pictures the other day in one of the newspapers. He +looks like turning into a first-class success.” +“I sincerely hope so,” said Dick quietly, and something in his tone made +his guest look up. +“Which reminds me,” he said, “that I had a note from friend Johnson +asking me whether I knew Ray Bennett’s address. He said he called up +Heron’s Club, but Ray hadn’t been there for days. He wants to give him a +job. Quite a big position, too. There’s a lot that’s very fine in +Johnson.” +“Did you give the address?” +Elk nodded. +“I gave him the address, and I called on the boy, but he’s out of +town—went out a few days ago, and is not likely to be back for a +fortnight. It will be too bad if he loses this job. I think Johnson was +sore with the side young Bennett put on, but he doesn’t seem to bear any +malice. Perhaps there’s another influence at work,” he said +significantly. +Dick knew that he meant Ella, but did not accept the opening. +They adjourned to the smoke-room after dinner, and whilst Elk puffed +luxuriously at one of his host’s best cigars, Dick wrote a brief note to +the girl, who had been in his thoughts all that day. It was an +unnecessary note, as such epistles are liable to be; but it might have +had, as its excuse, the news that he had heard from Elk, only, for some +reason, he never thought of that until after the letter was finished and +sealed. When he turned to his companion, Elk propounded a theory. +“I sent a man up to look at some chemical works. It’s a fake +company—less than a dozen hands employed, and those only occasionally. +But it has a very powerful electrical installation. It is an old poison +gas factory. The present company bought it for a song, and two fellows +we are holding were the nominal purchasers.” +“Where is it?” asked Dick. +“Between Newbury and Didcot. I found out a great deal about them for a +curious reason. It appears there was some arrangement between the +factory, when it was under Government control, that it should make an +annual contribution to the Newbury Fire Brigade, and, in taking over the +property, the company also took over that contract, which they’re now +trying to get out of, for the charge is a stiff one. They told the +Newbury Brigade, in so many words, to disconnect the factory from their +alarm service, but the Newbury Brigade, being on a good thing and having +lost money by the arrangement during the war, refused to cancel the +contract, which has still three years to run.” +Dick was not interested in the slightest degree in the quarrel between +the chemical factory and the fire brigade. Later, he had cause to be +thankful that conversation had drifted into such a prosaic channel; but +this he could not foresee. +“Yes, very remarkable,” he said absent-mindedly. +* * * * * * +A fortnight after the disappearance from town of Ray Bennett, Elk +accepted the invitation of the American to lunch. It was an invitation +often given, and only accepted now because there had arisen in Elk’s +mind a certain doubt about Joshua Broad—a doubt which he wished to +mould into assurance. +Broad was waiting for the detective when he arrived, and Elk, to whom +time had no particular significance, arrived ten minutes late. +“Ten minutes after one,” said Elk. “I can’t keep on time anyhow. There’s +been a lot of trouble at the office over the new safe they’ve got me. +Somethin’s wrong with it, and even the lock-maker doesn’t know what it +is.” +“Can’t you open it?” +“That’s just it, I can’t, and I’ve got to get some papers out to-day +that are mighty important,” said Elk. “I was wondering, as I came along, +whether, having such a wide experience of the criminal classes, you’ve +ever heard any way by which it could be opened—it needs a proper +engineer, and, if I remember rightly, you told me you were an engineer +once, Mr. Broad?” +“Your memory is at fault,” said the other calmly as he unfolded his +napkin and regarded the detective with a twinkle in his eye. +“Safe-opening is not my profession.” +“And I never dreamt it was,” said Elk heartily. “But it has always +struck me that the Americans are much more clever with their hands than +the people in this country, and I thought that you might be able to give +me a word of advice.” +“Maybe I’ll introduce you to my pet burglar,” said Broad gravely, and +they laughed together. “What do you think of me?” asked the American +unexpectedly. “I’m not expecting you to give your view of my character +or personal appearance, but what do you think I am doing in London, +dodging around, doing nothing but a whole lot of amateur police work?” +“I’ve never given you much thought,” said Elk untruthfully. “Being an +American, I expect you to be out of the ordinary——” +“Flatterer,” murmured Mr. Broad. +“I wouldn’t go so far as to flatter you,” protested Elk. “Flattery is +repugnant to me anyway.” +He unfolded an evening newspaper he had brought. +“Looking for those tailless amphibians?” +“Eh?” Elk looked up puzzled. +“Frogs,” explained the other. +“No, I’m not exactly looking for Frogs, though I understand a few of ’em +are looking for me. As a matter of fact, there’s very little in the +newspaper about those interesting animals, but there’s going to be!” +“When?” +The question was a challenge. +“When we get Frog Number One.” +Mr. Broad crumpled a roll in his hand, and broke it. +“Do you think you’ll get Number One before I get him?” he asked quietly, +and Elk looked across the table over his spectacles. +“I’ve been wondering that for a long time,” he said, and for a second +their eyes met. +“Do you think I shall get him?” asked Broad. +“If all my speculations and surmises are what they ought to be, I think +you will,” said Elk, and suddenly his attention was focussed upon a +paragraph. “Quick work,” he said. “We beat you Americans in that +respect.” +“In what respect is that?” asked Broad. “I’m sufficient of a +cosmopolitan to agree that there are many things in England which you do +better than we in America.” +Elk looked up at the ceiling. +“Fifteen days?” he said. “Of course, he just managed to catch the +Assizes.” +“Who’s that?” +“That man Carter, who shot a tramp near Gloucester,” said Elk. +“What has happened to him?” asked the other. +“He was sentenced to death this morning,” said the detective. +Joshua Broad frowned. +“Sentenced to death this morning? Carter, you say? I didn’t read the +story of the murder.” +“There was nothing complicated about it,” said Elk. “Two tramps had a +quarrel—I think they got drinking—and one shot the other and was found +lying in a drunken sleep by the dead man’s side. There’s practically no +evidence; the prisoner refused to make any statement, or to instruct a +lawyer—it must have been one of the shortest murder trials on record.” +“Where did this happen?” asked Broad, arousing himself from the reverie +into which he had fallen. +“Near Gloucester. There was little in the paper; it wasn’t a really +interesting murder. There was no woman in it, so far as the evidence +went, and who cared a cent about two tramps?” +He folded the paper and put it down, and for the rest of the meal was +engaged in a much more fascinating discussion, the police methods of the +United States, on which matter Mr. Broad was, apparently, something of +an authority. +The object of the American’s invitation was very apparent. Again and +again he attempted to turn the conversation to the man under arrest; and +as skilfully as he introduced the subject of Balder, did Elk turn the +discussion back to the merits of the third degree as a method of crime +detection. +“Elk, you’re as close as an oyster,” said Broad, beckoning a waiter to +bring his bill. “And yet I could tell you almost as much about this man +Balder as you know.” +“Tell me the prison he’s in?” demanded Elk. +“He’s in Pentonville, Ward Seven, Cell Eighty-four,” said the other +immediately, and Elk sat bolt upright. “And you needn’t trouble to shift +him to somewhere else, just because I happen to know his exact location; +I should be just as well informed if he was at Brixton, Wandsworth, +Holloway, Wormwood Scrubbs, Maidstone, or Chelmsford.” +CHAPTER XXXII +IN GLOUCESTER PRISON +THERE is a cell in Gloucester Prison; the end cell in a long corridor of +the old building. Next door is another cell, which is never occupied, +for an excellent reason. That in which Ray Bennett sat was furnished +more expensively than any other in the prison. There was an iron +bedstead, a plain deal table, a comfortable Windsor chair and two other +chairs, on one of which, night and day, sat a warder. +The walls were distempered pink. One big window, near the ceiling, +heavily barred, covered with toughened opaque glass, admitted light, +which was augmented all the time by an electric globe in the arched +ceiling. +Three doors led from the cell: one into the corridor, the other into a +little annexe fitted with a washing-bowl and a bath; the third into the +unoccupied cell, which had a wooden floor, and in the centre of the +floor a square trap. Ray Bennett did not know then how close he was to +the death house, and if he had known he would not have cared. For death +was the least of the terrors which oppressed him. +He had awakened from his drugged sleep, to find himself in the cell of a +country lock-up, and had heard, bemused, the charge of murder that had +been made against him. He had no clear recollection of what had +happened. All that he knew was that he had hated Lew Brady and that he +had wanted to kill him. After that, he had a recollection of walking +with him and of sitting down somewhere. +They told him that Brady was dead, and that the weapon with which the +murder was committed had been found in his hand. Ray had racked his +brains in an effort to remember whether he had a revolver or not. He +must have had. And of course he had been drugged. They had had whisky at +the _Red Lion_, and Lew must have said something about Lola and he had +shot him. It was strange that he did not think longingly of Lola. His +love for her had gone. He thought of her as he thought of Lew Brady, as +something unimportant that belonged to the past. All that mattered now +was that his father and Ella should not know. At all costs the disgrace +must be kept from them. He had waited in a fever of impatience for the +trial to end, so that he might get away from the public gaze. +Fortunately, the murder was not of sufficient interest even for the +ubiquitous press photographers. He wanted to be done with it all, to go +out of life unknown. The greatest tragedy that could occur to him was +that he should be identified. +He dared not think of Ella or of his father. He was Jim Carter, without +parents or friends; and if he died as Jim Carter, he must spend his last +days of life as Jim Carter. He was not frightened; he had no fear, his +only nightmare was that he should be recognized. +The warder who was with him, and who was not supposed to speak to him, +had told him that, by the law, three clear Sundays must elapse between +his sentence and execution. The chaplain visited him every day, and the +Governor. A tap at the cell door told him it was the Governor’s hour, +and he rose as the grey-haired official came in. +“Any complaints, Carter?” +“None, sir.” +“Is there anything you want?” +“No, sir.” +The Governor looked at the table. The writing-pad, which had been placed +for the condemned prisoner’s use, had not been touched. +“You have no letters to write? I suppose you can write?” +“Yes, sir. I’ve no letters to write.” +“What are you, Carter? You’re not an ordinary tramp. You’re better +educated than that class.” +“I’m an ordinary tramp, sir,” said Ray quietly. +“Have you all the books you need?” +Ray nodded, and the Governor went out. Every day came these inevitable +inquiries. Sometimes the Governor made reference to his friends, but he +grew tired of asking questions about the unused blotting-pad. +Ray Bennett had reached the stage of sane understanding where he did not +even regret. It was inevitable. He had been caught up in the machinery +of circumstance, and must go slowly round to the crashing-place. Every +morning and afternoon he paced the square exercise yard, watched by +three men in uniform, and jealously screened from the observation of +other prisoners; and his serenity amazed all who saw him. He was caught +up in the wheel and must go the full round. He could even smile at +himself, observe his own vanity with the eye of an outsider. And he +could not weep, because there was nothing left to weep about. He was +already a dead man. Nobody troubled to organize a reprieve for him; he +was too uninteresting a murderer. The newspapers did not flame into +headlines, demanding a new trial. Fashionable lawyers would not +foregather to discuss an appeal. He had murdered; he must die. +Once, when he was washing, and was about to put his hand in the water, +he saw the reflection of his face staring back at him, and he did not +recognize himself, for his beard had grown weedily. He laughed, and when +the wondering warders looked at him, he said: +“I’m only now beginning to cultivate a sense of humour—I’ve left it +rather late, haven’t I?” +He could have had visitors, could have seen anybody he wished, but +derived a strange satisfaction from his isolation. He had done with all +that was artificial and emotional in life. Lola? He thought of her again +and shook his head. She was very pretty. He wondered what she would do +now that Lew was dead; what she was doing at that moment. He thought, +too, of Dick Gordon, remembered that he liked him that day when Dick had +given him a ride in his big Rolls. How queerly far off that seemed! And +yet it could have only been a few months ago. +One day the Governor came in a more ceremonial style, and with him was a +gentleman whom Ray remembered having seen in the court-house on the day +of the trial. It was the Under Sheriff, and there was an important +communication to be made. The Governor had to clear his throat twice. +“Carter,” he said a little unsteadily, “the Secretary of State has +informed me that he sees no reason for interfering with the course of +the law. The High Sheriff has fixed next Wednesday morning at eight +o’clock as the date and hour of your execution.” +Ray inclined his head. +“Thank you, sir,” he said. +CHAPTER XXXIII +THE FROG OF THE NIGHT +JOHN BENNETT emerged from the wood-shed, which he had converted into a +dark room, bearing a flat square box in either hand. +“Don’t talk to me for a minute, Ella,” he said as she rose from her +knees—she was weeding her own pet garden—“or I shall get these blamed +things mixed. This one”—he shook his right hand—“is a picture of +trout, and it is a great picture,” he said enthusiastically. “The man +who runs the trout farm, let me take it through the glass side of the +trench, and it was a beautifully sunny day.” +“What is the other one, daddy?” she asked, and John Bennett pulled a +face. +“That is the dud,” he said regretfully. “Five hundred feet of good film +gone west! I may have got a picture by accident, but I can’t afford to +have it developed on the off-chance. I’ll keep it by, and one day, when +I’m rolling in money, I’ll go to the expense of satisfying my +curiosity.” +He took the boxes into the house, and turned round to his stationery +rack to find two adhesive labels, and had finished writing them, when +Dick Gordon’s cheery voice came through the open window. He rose eagerly +and went out to him. +“Well, Captain Gordon, did you get it?” he asked. +“I got it,” said Dick solemnly, waving an envelope. “You’re the first +cinematographer that has been allowed in the Zoological Gardens, and I +had to _crawl_ to the powers that be to secure the permission!” +The pale face of John Bennett flushed with pleasure. +“It is a tremendous thing,” he said. “The Zoo has never been put on the +pictures, and Selinski has promised me a fabulous sum for the film if I +can take it.” +“The fabulous sum is in your pocket, Mr. Bennett,” said Dick, “and I am +glad that you mentioned it.” +“I am under the impression you mentioned it first,” said John Bennett. +Ella did not remember having seen her father smile before. +“Perhaps I did,” said Dick cheerfully. “I knew you were interested in +animal photography.” +He did not tell John Bennett that it was Ella who had first spoken about +the difficulties of securing Zoo photographs and her father’s inability +to obtain the necessary permission. +John Bennett went back to his labelling with a lighter heart than he had +borne for many a day. He wrote the two slips, wetted the gum and +hesitated. Then he laid down the papers and went into the garden. +“Ella, do you remember which of those boxes had the trout in?” +“The one in your right hand, daddy,” she said. +“I thought so,” he said, and went to finish his work. +It was only after the boxes were labelled that he had any misgivings. +Where had he stood when he put them down? On which side of the table? +Then, with a shrug, he began to wrap the trout picture, and they saw him +carrying it under his arm to the village post-office. +“No news of Ray?” asked Dick. +The girl shook her head. +“What does your father think?” +“He doesn’t talk about Ray, and I haven’t emphasized the fact that it is +such a long time since I had a letter.” +They were strolling through the garden toward the little summer-house +that John Bennett had built in the days when Ray was a schoolboy. +“You have not heard?” she asked. “I credit you with an omniscience which +perhaps isn’t deserved. You have not found the man who killed Mr. +Maitland?” +“No,” said Dick. “I don’t expect we shall until we catch Frog himself.” +“Will you?” she asked quietly. +He nodded. +“Yes, he can’t go on for ever. Even Elk is taking a cheerful view. +Ella,” he asked suddenly, “are you the kind of person who keeps a +promise?” +“Yes,” she said in surprise. +“In all circumstances, if you make a promise, do you keep it?” +“Why, of course. If I do not think I can keep it, I do not make a +promise. Why?” +“Well, I want you to make me a promise—and to keep it,” he said. +She looked past him, and then: +“It depends what the promise is.” +“I want you to promise to be my wife,” said Dick Gordon. +Her hand lay in his, and she did not draw it from him. +“It is . . . very . . . businesslike, isn’t it?” she said, biting her +unruly underlip. +“Will you promise?” +She looked round at him, tears in her eyes, though her lips were +smiling, and he caught her in his arms. +John Bennett waited a long time for his lunch that day. Going out to see +where his daughter was, he met Dick, and in a few words Dick Gordon told +him all. He saw the pain in the man’s face, and dropped his hand upon +the broad shoulder. +“Ella has promised me, and she will not go back on her promise. Whatever +happens, whatever she learns.” +The man raised his eyes to the other’s face. +“Will you go back on your promise?” he asked huskily. “Whatever you +learn?” +“I know,” said Dick simply. +Ella Bennett walked on air that day. A new and splendid colour had come +into her life; a tremendous certainty which banished all the fears and +doubts she had felt; a light which revealed delightful vistas. +Her father went over to Dorking that afternoon, and came back hurriedly, +wearing that strained look which it hurt her to see. +“I shall have to go to town, dearie,” he said. “There’s been a letter +waiting for me for two days. I’ve been so absorbed in my picture work +that I’d forgotten I had any other responsibility.” +He did not look for her in the garden to kiss her good-bye, and when she +came back to the house he was gone, and in such a hurry that he had not +taken his camera with him. +Ella did not mind being alone; in the days when Ray was at home, she had +spent many nights in the cottage by herself, and the house was on the +main road. She made some tea and sat down to write to Dick, though she +told herself reprovingly that he hadn’t been gone more than two or three +hours. Nevertheless, she wrote, for the spirit of logic avoids the +lover. +There was a postal box a hundred yards up the road; it was a bright +night and people were standing at their cottage gates, gossipping, as +she passed. The letter dropped in the box, she came back to the cottage, +went inside, locked and bolted the door, and sat down with a workbasket +by her side to fill in the hour which separated her from bedtime. +So working, her mind was completely occupied, to the exclusion of all +other thoughts, by Dick Gordon. Once or twice the thought of her father +and Ray strayed across her mind, but it was to Dick she returned. +The only illumination in the cosy dining-room was a shaded kerosene lamp +which stood on the table by her side and gave her sufficient light for +her work. All outside the range of the lamp was shadow. She had finished +darning a pair of her father’s socks, and had laid down the needle with +a happy sigh, when her eyes went to the door leading to the kitchen. It +was ajar, and it was opening slowly. +For a moment she sat paralysed with terror, and then leapt to her feet. +“Who’s there?” she called. +There came into the shadowy doorway a figure, the very sight of which +choked the scream in her throat. It looked tall, by reason of the +tightly-fitting black coat it wore. The face and head were hidden behind +a hideous mask of rubber and mica. The reflection of the lamp shone on +the big goggles and filled them with a baleful fire. +“Don’t scream, don’t move!” said the masked man, and his voice sounded +hollow and far away. “I will not hurt you.” +“Who are you?” she managed to gasp. +“I am The Frog,” said the stranger. +For an eternity, as it seemed, she stood helpless, incapable of +movement, and it was he who spoke. +“How many men love you, Ella Bennett?” he asked. “Gordon and +Johnson—and The Frog, who loves you most of all!” +He paused, as though he expected her to speak, but she was incapable of +answering him. +“Men work for women, and they murder for women, and behind all that they +do, respectably or unrespectably, there is a woman,” said the Frog. “And +you are that woman for me, Ella.” +“Who are you?” she managed to say. +“I am The Frog,” he replied again, “and you shall know my name when I +have given it to you. I want you! Not now”—he raised his hand as he saw +the terror rising in her face. “You shall come to me willingly.” +“You’re mad!” she cried. “I do not know you. How can I—oh, it’s too +wicked to suggest . . . please go away.” +“I will go presently,” said the Frog. “Will you marry me, Ella?” +She shook her head. +“Will you marry me, Ella?” he asked again. +“No.” She had recovered her calm and something of her self-possession. +“I will give you——” +“If you gave me all the money there was in the world, I would not many +you,” she said. +“I will give you something more precious.” His voice was softer, +scarcely audible. “I will give you a life!” +She thought he was speaking of Dick Gordon. +“I will give you the life of your brother.” +For a second the room spun round and she clutched a chair to keep her +feet. +“What do you mean?” she asked. +“I will give you the life of your brother, who is lying in Gloucester +Gaol under sentence of death!” said the Frog. +With a supreme effort Ella guided herself to a chair and sat down. +“My brother?” she said dully. “Under sentence of death?” +“To-day is Monday,” said the Frog. “On Wednesday he dies. Give me your +word that when I send for you, you will come, and I will save him.” +“How can you save him?” The question came mechanically. +“A man has made a confession—a man named Gill, a half-witted fellow who +thinks he killed Lew Brady.” +“Brady?” she gasped. +The Frog nodded. +“It isn’t true,” she breathed. “You’re lying! You’re telling me this to +frighten me.” +“Will you marry me?” he asked. +“Never, never!” she cried. “I would rather die. You are lying to me.” +“When you want me, send for me,” said the Frog. “Put in your window a +white card, and I will save your brother.” +She half lay on the table, her head upon her folded arms. +“It’s not true, it’s not true,” she muttered. +There was no reply, and, looking up, she saw that the room was empty. +Staggering to her feet, she went out into the kitchen. The kitchen door +was open; and, peering into the dark garden, she saw no sign of the man. +She had strength to bolt the door, and dragged herself up to her room +and to her bed, and then she fainted. +Daylight showed in the windows when she sat up. She was painfully weary, +her eyes were red with weeping, her head was in a whirl. It had been a +night of horror—and it was not true, it could not be true. She had +heard of no murder; and if there had been, it could not be Ray. She +would have known; Ray would have sent for her father. +She dragged her aching limbs to the bathroom and turned the cold-water +tap. Half an hour later she was sane, and looking at her experience +dispassionately. Ray was alive. The man had tried to frighten her. Who +was he? She shivered. +She saw only one solution to her terrible problem, and after she had +made herself a cup of tea, she dressed and walked down into the town, in +time to catch an early train. What other thought came to her, she never +dreamt for one moment of surrender, never so much as glanced at the +window where a white card could be placed, might save the life of her +brother. In her heart of hearts, she knew that this man would not have +come to her with such a story unless it was well founded. That was not +the Frog’s way. What advantage would he gain if he had invented this +tragedy? Nevertheless, she did not even look for a white card, or think +of its possible use. +Dick was at breakfast when she arrived, and a glance at her face told +him that she brought bad news. +“Don’t go, Mr. Elk,” she said as the inspector pushed back his chair. +“You must know this.” +As briefly as she could, she narrated the events of the night before, +and Dick listened with rising wrath until she came to the climax of the +story. +“Ray under sentence?” he said incredulously. “Of course it isn’t true.” +“Where did he say the boy was?” asked Elk. +“In Gloucester Prison.” +In their presence her reserve had melted and she was near to tears. +“Gloucester Prison?” repeated Elk slowly. “There _is_ a man there under +sentence of death, a man named”—he strove to remember—“Carter,” he +said at last. “That is it—Carter, a tramp. He killed another tramp +named Phenan.” +“Of course it isn’t Ray,” said Dick, laying his hand on hers. “This +brute tried to frighten you. When did he say the execution had been +fixed for?” +“To-morrow.” She was weeping; now that the tension had relaxed, it +seemed that she had reached the reserve of her strength. +“Ray is probably on the Continent,” Dick soothed her, and here Elk +thought it expedient and delicate to steal silently forth. +He was not as convinced as Gordon that the Frog had made a bluff. No +sooner was he in his office than he rang for his new clerk. +“Records,” he said briefly. “I want particulars of a man named Carter, +now lying under sentence of death in Gloucester Prison—photograph, +finger-prints, and record of the crime.” +The man was gone ten minutes, and returned with a small portfolio. +“No photograph has been received yet, sir,” he said. “In murder cases we +do not get the full records from the County police until after the +execution.” +Elk cursed the County police fluently, and addressed himself to the +examination of the dossier. That told him little or nothing. The height +and weight of the man tallied, he guessed, with Ray’s. There were no +body marks and the description “Slight beard——” +He sat bolt upright. Slight beard! Ray Bennett had been growing a beard +for some reason. He remembered that Broad had told him this. +“Pshaw!” he said, throwing down the finger-print card. “It is +impossible!” +It was impossible, and yet—— +He drew a telegraph pad toward him and wrote a wire. +“Governor, H.M. Prison, Gloucester. Very urgent. Send by special +messenger prison photograph of James Carter under sentence of +death in your prison to Headquarters Records. Messenger must +leave by first train. Very urgent.” +He took the liberty of signing it with the name of the Chief +Commissioner. The telegram despatched, he returned to a scrutiny of the +description sheet, and presently he saw a remark which he had +overlooked. +“Vaccination marks on right forearm.” +That was unusual. People are usually vaccinated on the left arm, a +little below the shoulder. He made a note of this fact, and turned to +the work that was waiting for him. At noon a wire arrived from +Gloucester, saying that the photograph was on its way. That, at least, +was satisfactory; though, even if it proved to be Ray, what could be +done? In his heart Elk prayed most fervently that the Frog had bluffed. +Just before one, Dick telephoned him and asked him to lunch with them at +the Auto Club, an invitation which, in any circumstances, was not to be +refused, for Elk had a passion for visiting other people’s clubs. +When he arrived—on this occasion strictly on time—he found the girl in +a calm, even a cheerful mood, and his quick eye detected upon her finger +a ring of surprising brilliance that he had not seen before. Dick Gordon +had made very good use of his spare time that morning. +“I feel I’m neglecting my business, Elk,” he said after he had led them +into the palatial dining-room of the Auto, and had found a cushion for +the girl’s back, and had placed her chair exactly where it was least +comfortable, “but I guess you’ve got through the morning without feeling +my loss.” +“I certainly have,” said Elk. “A very interesting morning. There is a +smallpox scare in the East End,” he went on, “and I’ve heard some talk +at Headquarters of having the whole staff vaccinated. If there’s one +thing that I do not approve of, it is vaccination. At my time of life I +ought to be immune from any germ that happens to be going round.” +The girl laughed. +“Poor Mr. Elk! I sympathize with you. Ray and I had a dreadful time when +we were vaccinated about five years ago during the big epidemic, +although I didn’t have so bad a time as Ray. And neither of us had such +an experience as the majority of victims, because we had an excellent +doctor, with unique views on vaccination.” +She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse and showed three tiny scars on +the underside of the right forearm. +“The doctor said he would put it where it wouldn’t show. Isn’t that a +good idea?” +“Yes,” said Elk slowly. “And did he vaccinate your brother the same +way?” +She nodded, and then: +“What is the matter, Mr. Elk?” +“I swallowed an olive stone,” said Elk. “I wonder somebody doesn’t start +cultivating olives without stones.” He looked out of the window. “You’ve +got a pretty fine day for your visit, Miss Bennett,” he said, and +launched forth into a rambling condemnation of the English climate. +It seemed hours to Elk before the meal was finished. The girl was going +back to Gordon’s house to look at catalogues which Dick had ordered to +be sent to Harley Terrace by telephone. +“You won’t be coming to the office?” asked Elk. +“No: do you think it is necessary?” +“I wanted to see you for ten minutes,” drawled the other, “perhaps a +quarter of an hour.” +“Come back to the house.” +“Well, I wasn’t thinking of coming back to the house,” said Elk. +“Perhaps you’ve got a lady’s drawing-room. I remember seeing one as I +came through the marble hall, and Miss Bennett would not mind——” +“Why, of course not,” she said. “If I’m in the way, I’ll do anything you +wish. Show me your lady’s drawing-room.” +When Dick had come back, the detective was smoking, his elbows on the +table, his thin, brown hands clasped under his chin, and he was +examining, with the eye of a connoisseur, the beautifully carved +ceiling. +“What’s the trouble, Elk?” said Gordon as he sat down. +“The man under sentence of death is Ray Bennett,” said Elk without +preliminary. +CHAPTER XXXIV +THE PHOTO-PLAY +DICK’S face went white. +“How do you know this?” +“Well, there’s a photograph coming along; it will be in London this +afternoon; but I needn’t see that. This man under sentence has three +vaccination marks on the right forearm.” +There was a dead silence. +“I wondered why you turned the talk to vaccination,” said Dick quietly. +“I ought to have known there was something in it. What can we do?” +“I’ll tell you what you can’t do,” said Elk. “You can’t let that girl +know. For good and sufficient reasons, Ray Bennett has decided not to +reveal his identity, and he must pass out. You’re going to have a rotten +afternoon, Captain Gordon,” said Elk gently, “and I’d rather be me than +you. But you’ve got to keep up your light-hearted chatter, or that young +woman is going to guess that something is wrong.” +“My God! How dreadful!” said Dick in a low voice. +“Yes, it is,” admitted Elk, “and we can do nothing. We’ve got to accept +it as a fact that he’s guilty. If you thought any other way, it would +drive you mad. And even if he was as innocent as you or I, what chance +have we of getting an inquiry or stopping the sentence being carried +into execution?” +“Poor John Bennett!” said Dick in a hushed voice. +“If you’re starting to get sentimental,” snarled Elk, blinking +furiously, “I’m going into a more practical atmosphere. Good afternoon.” +“Wait. I can’t face this girl for a moment. Come back to the house with +me.” +Elk hesitated, and then grudgingly agreed. +Ella could not guess, from their demeanour, the horror that was in the +minds of these men. Elk fell back upon history and dates—a prolific and +a favourite subject. +“Thank heaven those catalogues have arrived!” said Dick, as, with a sigh +of relief, he saw the huge pile of literature on his study table. +“Why ‘thank heaven’?” she smiled. +“Because his conscience is pricking him, and he wants an excuse for +working.” Elk came to the rescue. +The strain was one which even he found almost insupportable; and when, +after a pleading glance at the other, Dick nodded, he got up with a +sense of holiday. +“I’ll be going now, Miss Bennett,” he said. “I expect you’ll be busy all +the afternoon furnishing your cottage. I must come down and see it,” he +went on, wilfully dense. “Though it struck me that there wouldn’t be +much room for new furniture at Maytree.” +So far he got when he heard voices in the hall—the excited voice of a +woman, shrill, insistent, hysterical. Before Dick could get to the door, +it was flung open, and Lola rushed in. +“Gordon! Gordon! Oh, my God!” she sobbed. “Do you know?” +“Hush!” said Dick, but the girl was beside herself. +“They’ve got Ray! They’re going to hang him! Lew’s dead.” +The mischief was done. Ella came slowly to her feet, rigid with fear. +“My brother?” she asked, and then Lola saw her for the first time and +nodded. +“I found out,” she sobbed. “I had a suspicion, and I wrote . . . I’ve +got a photograph of Phenan. I knew it was Lew at once, and I guessed the +rest. The Frog did it! He planned it; months in advance he planned it. +I’m not sorry about Lew; I swear I’m not sorry about Lew! It’s the boy. +I sent him to his death, Gordon——” And then she broke into a fit of +hysterical sobbing. +“Put her out,” said Gordon, and Elk lifted the helpless girl in his arms +and carried her into the dining-room. +“True!” Ella whispered the word, and Dick nodded. +“I’m afraid it’s true, Ella.” +She sat down slowly. +“I wonder where I can find father,” she said, as calmly as though she +were discussing some everyday event. +“You can do nothing. He knows nothing. Do you think it is kind to tell +him?” +She searched his face wonderingly. +“I think you’re right. Of course you’re right, Dick. I’m sure you’re +right. Father mustn’t know. Couldn’t I see him—Ray, I mean?” +Dick shook his head. +“Ella, if Ray has kept silent to save you from this, all his +forbearance, all his courage will be wasted if you go to him.” +Again her lips drooped. +“Yes. It is good of you to think for me.” She put her hand on his, and +he felt no tremor. “I don’t know what I can do,” she said. “It is +so—stunning. What can I do?” +“You can do nothing, my dear.” His arm went round her and her tired head +fell upon his shoulder. +“No, I can do nothing,” she whispered. +Elk came in. +“A telegram for Miss Bennett,” he said. “The messenger just arrived with +it. Been redirected from Horsham, I expect.” +Dick took the wire. +“Open it, please,” said the girl. “It may be from father.” +He tore open the envelope. The telegram ran: +“Have printed your picture. Cannot understand the murder. Were +you trying take photo-play? Come and see me. Silenski House, +Wardour Street.” +“What does it mean?” she asked. +“It is Greek to me,” said Dick. “‘Cannot understand murder’—has your +father been trying to take photo-plays?” +“No, dear, I’m sure he hasn’t; he would have told me.” +“What photographs did your father take?” +“It was a picture of trout,” she said, gathering her scattered thoughts; +“but he took another picture—in his sleep. He was in the country +waiting for a badger, and dozed. He must have pressed the starter; he +thought that picture was a failure. It can’t be the trout; it doesn’t +mention the trout; it must be the other.” +“We will go to Wardour Street.” +It was Elk who spoke so definitely, Elk who called a cab and hustled the +two people into it. When they arrived at Wardour Street, Mr. Silenski +was out at lunch, and nobody knew anything whatever about the film, or +had authority to show it. +For an hour and a half they waited, fuming, in that dingy office, whilst +messengers went in search of Silenski. He arrived at last, a polite and +pleasant little Hebrew, who was all apologies, though no apology was +called for, since he had not expected his visitors. +“Yes, it is a curious picture,” he said. “Your father, miss, is a very +good amateur; in fact, he’s a professional now; and if it is true that +he can get these Zoo photographs, he ought to be in the first rank of +nature photographers.” +They followed him up a flight of stairs into a big room across which +were row upon row of chairs. Facing them as they sat was a small white +screen, and behind them an iron partition with two square holes. +“This is our theatre,” he explained. “You’ve no idea whether your father +is trying to take motion pictures—I mean photo-plays? If he is, then +this scene was pretty well acted, but I can’t understand why he did it. +It’s labelled ‘Trout in a Pond’ or something of the sort, but there are +no trout here, and there is no pond either!” +There was a click, and the room went black; and then there was shown on +the screen a picture which showed in the foreground a stretch of grey, +sandy soil, and the dark opening of a burrow, out of which peeped a +queer-looking animal. +“That’s a badger,” explained Mr. Silenski. “It looked very promising up +to there, and then I don’t know what he did. You’ll see he changed the +elevation of the camera.” +As he spoke, the picture jerked round a little to the right, as though +it had been pulled violently. And they were looking upon two men, +obviously tramps. One was sitting with his head on his hands, the other, +close by him, was pouring out whisky into a container. +“That’s Lew Brady,” whispered Elk fiercely, and at that moment the other +man looked up, and Ella Bennett uttered a cry. +“It is Ray! Oh, Dick, it is Ray!” +There was no question of it. The light beard he wore melted into the +shadows which the strong sunlight cast. They saw Brady offer him a +drink, saw him toss it down and throw the cup back to the man; watched +him as his arms stretched in a yawn; and then saw him curl up to sleep, +lie back, and Lew Brady standing over him. The prostrate figure turned +on to its face, and Lew, stooping, put something in his pocket. They +caught the reflection of glass. +“The flask,” said Elk. +And then the figure standing in the centre of the picture spun round. +There walked toward him a man. His face was invisible. Never once during +that period did he turn his face to that eager audience. +They saw his arm go up quickly, saw the flash of the two shots, watched +breathless, spellbound, horrified, the tragedy that followed. +The man stooped and placed the pistol by the side of the sleeping Ray, +and then, as he turned, the screen went white. +“That’s the end of the picture,” said Mr. Silenski. “And what it means, +heaven knows.” +“He’s innocent! Dick, he’s innocent!” the girl cried wildly. “Don’t you +see, it was not he who fired?” +She was half-mad with grief and terror, and Dick caught her firmly by +the shoulders, the dumbfounded Silenski gaping at the scene. +“You are going back to my house and you will read! Do you hear, Ella? +You’re to do nothing until you hear from me. You are not to go out; you +are to sit and _read_! I don’t care what you read—the Bible, the Police +News, anything you like. But you must not think of this business. Elk +and I will do all that is possible.” +She mastered her wild terror and tried to smile. +“I know you will,” she said between her chattering teeth. “Get me to +your house, please.” +He left Elk to go to Fleet Street to collect every scrap of information +about the murder he could from the newspaper offices, and brought the +girl back to Harley Terrace. As he got out of the cab, he saw a man +waiting on the steps. It was Joshua Broad. One glance at his face told +Dick that he knew of the murder, and he guessed the source. +He waited in the hall until Dick had put the girl in the study, and had +collected every illustrated newspaper, every book he could find. +“Lola told me of this business.” +“I guessed so,” said Dick. “Do you know anything about it?” +“I knew these two men started out in the disguise of tramps,” said +Broad, “but I understood they were going north. This is Frog work—why?” +“I don’t know. Yes, I do,” Dick said suddenly. “The Frog came to Miss +Bennett last night and asked her to marry him, promising that he would +save her brother if she agreed. But it can hardly be that he planned +this diabolical trick to that end.” +“To no other end,” said Broad coolly. “You don’t know Frog, Gordon! The +man is a strategist—probably the greatest strategist in the world. Can +I do anything?” +“I would ask you to stay and keep Miss Bennett amused——” Dick began. +“I think you might do worse,” said the American quietly. +Ella looked up with a look of pain as the visitor entered the room. She +felt that she could not endure the presence of a stranger at this +moment, that she would break under any new strain, and she glanced at +Dick imploringly. +“If you don’t want me to stay, Miss Bennett,” smiled Broad, “well, I’ll +go just as soon as you tell me. But I’ve one piece of information to +pass to you, and it is this: that your brother will not die.” +His eyes met Dick Gordon’s, and the Prosecutor bit his lip to restrain +the cry that came involuntarily. +“Why?” she asked eagerly, but neither of the men could tell her. +Dick telephoned to the garage for his car, the very machine that Ray +Bennett had driven the first day they had met. His first call was at the +office of the Public Prosecutor, and to him he stated the facts. +“It is a most remarkable story, and I can do nothing, of course. You’d +better see the Secretary of State at once, Gordon.” +“Is the House of Commons sitting, sir?” +“No—I’ve an idea that the Secretary, who is the only man that can do +anything for you—is out of town. He may be on the Continent. I’m not +sure. There was a conference at San Remo last week, and I’ve a dim +notion that he went there.” +Dick’s heart almost stood still. +“Is there nobody else at the Home Office who could help?” +��There is the Under Secretary: you’d better see him.” +The Public Prosecutor’s Department was housed in the Home Office +building, and Dick went straight away in search of the responsible +official. The permanent secretary, to whom he explained the +circumstances, shook his head. +“I’m afraid we can do nothing now, Gordon,” he said, “and the Secretary +of State is in the country and very ill.” +“Where is the Under Secretary?” asked Dick desperately. +“He’s at San Remo.” +“How far out of town is Mr. Whitby’s house?” +The official considered. +“About thirty miles—this side of Tunbridge Wells,” and Dick wrote the +address on a slip of paper. +Half an hour later, a long yellow Rolls was flying across Westminster +Bridge, threading the traffic with a recklessness which brought the +hearts of hardened chauffeurs to their mouths; and forty minutes after +he had left Whitehall, Dick was speeding up an elm-bordered avenue to +the home of the Secretary of State. +The butler who met him could give him no encouragement. +“I’m afraid Mr. Whitby cannot see you, sir. He has a very bad attack of +gout, and the doctors have told him that he mustn’t touch any kind of +business whatever.” +“This is a matter of life and death,” said Dick, “and I must see him. +Or, failing him, I must see the King.” +This message, conveyed to the invalid, produced an invitation to walk +upstairs. +“What is it, sir?” asked the Minister sharply as Dick came in. “I cannot +possibly attend to any business whatever. I’m suffering the tortures of +the damned with this infernal foot of mine. Now tell me, what is it?” +Quickly Gordon related his discovery. +“An astounding story,” said the Minister, and winced. “Where is the +picture?” +“In London, sir.” +“I can’t come to London: it is humanly impossible. Can’t you get +somebody at the Home Office to certify this? When is this man to be +hanged?” +“To-morrow morning, sir, at eight o’clock.” +The Secretary of State considered, rubbing his chin irritably. +“I should be no man if I refused to see this damned picture,” he said, +and Dick made allowance for his language as he rubbed his suffering +limb. “But I can’t go to town unless you get me an ambulance. You had +better ’phone a garage in London to send a car down, or, better still, +get one from the local hospital.” +Everything seemed to be conspiring against him, for the local hospital’s +ambulance was under repair, but at last Dick put through a message to +town, with the promise that an ambulance would be on its way in ten +minutes. +“An extraordinary story, a perfectly amazing story! And of course, I can +grant you a respite. Or, if I’m convinced of the truth of this +astounding romance, we could get the King to-night; I could even promise +you a reprieve. But my death will lie at your door if I catch cold.” +Two hours passed before the ambulance came. The chauffeur had had to +change his tyres twice on the journey. Very gingerly, accompanied by +furious imprecations from the Cabinet Minister, his stretcher was lifted +into the ambulance. +To Dick the journey seemed interminable. He had telephoned through to +Silenski, asking him to keep his office open until his arrival. It was +eight o’clock by the time the Minister was assisted up to the theatre, +and the picture was thrown upon the screen. +Mr. Whitby watched the drama with the keenest interest, and when it was +finished he drew a long breath. +“That’s all right so far as it goes,” he said, “but how do I know this +hasn’t been play-acted in order to get this man a reprieve? And how am I +to be sure that this wretched tramp _is_ your man?” +“I can assure you of that, sir,” said Elk. “I got the photograph up from +Gloucester this afternoon.” +He produced from his pocket-book two photographs, one in profile and one +full-face, and put them on the table before the Minister. +“Show the picture again,” he ordered, and again they watched the +presentation of the tragedy. “But how on earth did the man manage to +take this picture?” +“I’ve since discovered, sir, that he was in the neighbourhood on that +very day. He went out to get a photograph of a badger—I know this, sir, +because Mr. Silenski has given me all the information in his power.” +Mr. Whitby looked up at Dick. +“You’re in the Public Prosecutor’s Department? I remember you very well, +Captain Gordon. I must take your word. This is not a matter for respite, +but for reprieve, until the whole of the circumstances are +investigated.” +“Thank you, sir,” said Dick, wiping his streaming forehead. +“You’d better take me along to the Home Office,” grumbled the great man. +“To-morrow I shall be cursing your name and memory, though I must +confess that I’m feeling better for the drive. I want that picture.” +They had to wait until the picture was replaced in its box, and then +Dick Gordon and Elk assisted the Secretary of State to the waiting +ambulance. +At a quarter-past eight, a reprieve, ready for the Royal +counter-signature, was in Dick’s hand, and the miracle, which Mr. Whitby +had not dared expect, had happened. He was able, with the aid of a +stick, to hobble to a car. Before the great Palace, streams of carriages +and motor-cars were passing. It was the night of the first ball of the +season, and the hall of the Palace was a brilliant sight. The glitter of +women’s jewels, the scarlet, blue and green of diplomatic uniforms, the +flash of innumerable Orders, no less than the organization of this +gorgeous gathering, interested Dick as he stood, a strangely contrasting +figure, watching the pageant pass him. +The Minister had disappeared into an ante-room and presently came back +and crooked his finger; Dick followed him down a red-carpeted passage +past white-haired footmen in scarlet and gold, until they came to a +door, before which another footman stood. A whispered word, the footman +knocked, and a voice bade them enter. The servant opened the door and +they went in. +The man who was sitting at the table rose. He wore the scarlet uniform +of a general; across his breast was the blue ribbon of the Garter. There +was in his eyes a kindliness and humanity which Dick had not imagined he +would find. +“Will you be seated? Now please tell me the story as quickly as you can, +because I have an appointment elsewhere, and punctuality is the +politeness of princes,” he smiled. +He listened attentively, stopping Gordon now and again to ask a +question. When Dick had finished, he took up a pen and wrote a word in a +bold, boyish hand, blotted it punctiliously and handed it to the +Secretary of State. +“There is your reprieve. I am very glad,” he said, and Dick, bowing over +the extended hand, felt the music of triumph in his soul, forgot for the +moment the terrible danger in which this boy had stood; and forgot, too, +the most important factor of all—the Frog, still vigilant, still +vengeful, still powerful! +When he got back to the Home Office and had taken farewell, with a very +earnest expression of gratitude, of the irascible, but kindly Minister, +Dick flew up the stairs to his own office and seized the telephone. +“Put me through to Gloucester 8585 Official,” he said, and waited for +the long-distance signal. +It came after a few minutes. +“Sorry, sir, no call through to Gloucester. Line out of order. Trunk +wires cut.” +Dick put down the ’phone slowly. Then it was that he remembered that the +Frog still lived. +CHAPTER XXXV +GETTING THROUGH +WHEN Elk came up to the Prosecutor’s room, Dick was sitting at the +table, writing telegrams. They were each addressed to the Governor of +Gloucester Prison, and contained a brief intimation that a reprieve for +James Carter was on its way. Each was marked viâ a different route. +“What’s the idea?” said Elk. +“The ’phone to Gloucester is out of order,” said Dick, and Elk bit his +lip thoughtfully. +“Is that so?” he drawled. “Then if the ’phone’s out of order——” +“I don’t want to think that,” said Dick. +Elk took up the instrument. +“Give me the Central Telegraph Office, miss,” he said. “I want to speak +to the Chief Clerk. . . . Yes, Inspector Elk, C.I.D.” +After a pause, he announced himself again. +“We’re putting some wires through to Gloucester. I suppose the lines are +all right?” +His face did not move a muscle while he listened, then: +“I see,” he said. “Any roundabout route we can get? What’s the nearest +town open?” A wait. “Is that so? Thank you.” +He put down the instrument. +“All wires to Gloucester are cut. The trunk wire has been cut in three +places; the connection with Birmingham, which runs in an earthenware +pipe underground, has been blown up, also in three places.” Dick’s eyes +narrowed. +“Try the Radio Company,” he said. “They’ve got a station at Devizes, and +another one somewhere near Cheltenham, and they could send on a +message.” +Again Elk applied himself to the telephone. +“Is that the Radio Station? Inspector Elk, Headquarters Police, +speaking. I want to get a message through to Gloucester, to Gloucester +Prison, viâ—eh? . . . But I thought you’d overcome that difficulty. How +long has it been jammed? . . . Thank you,” he said, and put down the +telephone for the second time. +“There’s a jam,” he said. “No messages are getting through. The radio +people say that somebody in this country has got a secret apparatus +which was used by the Germans during the war, and that when the jam is +on, it is impossible to get anything through.” +Dick looked at his watch. It was now half-past nine. +“You can catch the ten-five for Gloucester, Elk, but somehow I don’t +think it will get through.” +“As a telephone expert,” said Elk, as he patiently applied himself to +the instrument, “I have many of the qualities that make, so to speak, +for greatness. Hullo! Get me Great Western, please. Great Western +Stationmaster. . . . I have a perfect voice, a tremendous amount of +patience, and a faith in my fellow-man, and—Hullo! Is that you, +Stationmaster? . . . Inspector Elk. I told you that before—no, it was +somebody else. Inspector Elk, C.I.D. Is there any trouble on your road +to-night?” . . . A longer pause this time. “Glory be!” said Elk +unemotionally. “Any chance of getting through? . . . None whatever? What +time will you have trains running? . . . Thank you.” +He turned to Dick. +“Three culverts and a bridge down at Swindon, blown at seven o’clock; +two men in custody; one man dead, shot by rail guard. Two culverts down +at Reading; the metals blown up at Slough. I won’t trouble to call up +the other roads, because—well, the Frog’s thorough.” +Dick Gordon opened a cupboard and took out a leather coat and a soft +leather helmet. In his drawer he found two ugly-looking Browning pistols +and examined their magazines before he slipped them into his pocket. +Then he selected half-a-dozen cigars, and packed them carefully in the +breast pocket of the coat. +“You’re not going alone, Gordon?” asked Elk sternly. Dick nodded. +“I’m going alone,” he said. “If I don’t get through, you follow. Send a +police car after me and tell them to drive carefully. I don’t think +they’ll stop me this side of Newbury,” he said. “I can make that before +the light goes. Tell Miss Bennett that the reprieve is signed, and that +I am on my way.” +Elk said nothing, but followed his chief into the street, and stood by +him with the policeman who had been left in charge of the car, while +Dick made a careful scrutiny of the tyres and petrol tank. +So Dick Gordon took the Bath road; and the party of gunmen that waited +at the two aerodromes of London to shoot him down if he attempted to +leave by the aerial route, waited in vain. He avoided the direct road to +Reading, and was taking the longer way round. He came into Newbury at +eleven o’clock, and learnt of more dynamited culverts. The town was full +of it. Two laden trains were held up on the down line, and their +passengers thronged the old-fashioned streets of the town. Outside _The +Chequers_ he spoke to the local inspector of police. Beyond the outrages +they had heard nothing, and apparently the road was in good order, for a +car had come through from Swindon only ten minutes before Dick arrived. +“You’re safe as far as Swindon, anyway,” said the inspector. “The +countryside has been swarming with tramps lately, but my mounted +patrols, that have just come in, have seen none on the roads.” +A thought struck Dick, and he drove the inspector round to the +police-station and went inside with him. +“I want an envelope and some official paper,” he said, and, sitting down +at the desk, he made a rough copy of the reprieve with its quaint +terminology, sealed the envelope with wax and put it into his pocket. +Then he took the real reprieve, and, taking off his shoe and sock, put +it between his bare foot and his sock. Replacing his shoe, he jumped on +to the car and started his cautious way toward Didcot. Both his glare +lamps were on, and the road before him was as light as day. +Nevertheless, he went at half speed, one of his Brownings on the cushion +beside him. +Against the afterglow of the sunset, a faint, pale light which is the +glory of late summer, he saw three inverted V’s and knew they were the +ends of a building, possibly an aerodrome. And then he remembered that +Elk had told him of the chemical factory. Probably this was the place, +and he drove with greater caution. He had turned the bend, when, ahead +of him, he saw three red lights stretched across the road, and in the +light of the head-lamps stood a policeman. He slowed the machine and +stopped within a few yards of the officer. +“You can’t go this way, sir. The road’s up.” +“How long has it been up?” asked Dick. +“It’s been blown up, sir, about twenty minutes ago,” was the reply. +“There’s a side road a mile back, which will bring you to the other side +of the railway lines. You can back in here.” He indicated a gateway +evidently leading to the factory. Dick pulled back his lever to the +reverse, and sent the Rolls spinning backward into the opening. His hand +was reaching to change the direction, when the policeman, who had walked +to the side of the car, struck at him. +Gordon’s head was bent. He was incapable of resistance. Only the helmet +he wore saved him from death. He saw nothing, only suddenly the world +went black. Scarcely had the blow been struck when half-a-dozen men came +from the shadows. Somebody jumped into the driver’s seat, and, flinging +out the limp figure of its owner, brought the car still further +backward, and switched off the lights. Another of the party removed the +red lamps. The policeman bent over the prostrate figure of Dick Gordon. +“I thought I’d settled him,” he said, disappointed. +“Well, settle him now,” said somebody in the darkness, but evidently the +assailant changed his mind. +“Hagn will want him,” he said. “Lift him up.” +They carried the inanimate figure over the rough ground, through a +sliding door, into a big, ill-lit factory hall, bare of machinery. At +the far end was a brick partition forming an office, and into this he +was carried and flung on the floor. +“Here’s your man, Hagn,” growled the policeman. “I think he’s through.” +Hagn got up from his table and walked across to where Dick Gordon lay. +“I don’t think there’s much wrong with him,” he said. “You couldn’t kill +a man through that helmet, anyway. Take it off.” +They took the leather helmet from the head of the unconscious man, and +Hagn made a brief inspection. +“No, he’s all right,” he said. “Throw some water over him. Wait; you’d +better search him first. Those cigars,” he said, pointing to the brown +cylinders that protruded from his breast pocket, “I want.” +The first thing found was the blue envelope, and this Hagn tore open and +read. +“It seems all right,” he said, and locked it away in the roll-top desk +at which he was sitting when Dick had been brought in. “Now give him the +water!” +Dick came to his senses with a throbbing head and a feeling of +resentment against the consciousness which was being forced upon him. He +sat up, rubbing his face like a man roused from a heavy sleep, screwed +up his eyes in the face of the bright light, and unsteadily stumbled to +his feet, looking around from one to the other of the grinning faces. +“Oh!” he said at last. “I seem to have struck it. Who hit me?” +“We’ll give you his card presently,” sneered Hagn. “Where are you off to +at this time of night?” +“I’m going to Gloucester,” said Dick. +“Like hell you are!” scoffed Hagn. “Put him upstairs, boys.” +Leading up from the office was a flight of unpainted pine stairs, and up +this he was partly pushed and partly dragged. The room above had been +used in war time as an additional supervisor’s office. It had a large +window, commanding a view of the whole of the floor space. The window +was now thick with grime, and the floor littered with rubbish which the +present occupants had not thought it worth while to move. +“Search him again, and make sure he hasn’t any gun on him. And take away +his boots,” said Hagn. +A small carbon filament lamp cast a sickly yellow light upon the +sinister group that surrounded Dick Gordon. He had time to take his +bearings. The window he had seen, and escape that way was impossible; +the ceiling was covered with matchboards that had once been varnished. +There was no other way out, save down the steps. +“You’ve got to stay here for a day or two, Gordon, but perhaps, if the +Government will give us Balder, you’ll get away with your life. If they +don’t, then it’ll be a case of ‘good-night, nurse!’” +CHAPTER XXXVI +THE POWER CABLE +DICK GORDON knew that any discussion with his captors was a waste of +breath, and that repartee was profitless. His head was aching, but no +sooner was he left alone than he gave himself a treatment which an +osteopath had taught him. He put his chin on his breast, and his two +open hands behind his neck, the finger-tips pressing hard, then he +slowly raised his head (it was an agony to do so), bringing his fingers +down over the jugular. Three times repeated, his head was comparatively +clear. +The door was of thin wood and could easily be forced, but the room below +was filled with men. Presently the light below went out, and the place +was in darkness. He guessed that it was because Hagn did not wish the +light to be seen from the road; though it was unlikely that there would +come any inquiries, he had taken effective steps to deal with the police +car which he knew would follow. +They had not taken his matches away, and Dick struck one and looked +round. Standing before a fireplace filled with an indescribable litter +of half-burnt papers and dust, was a steel plate, with holes for rivets, +evidently part of a tank which had not been assembled. There was a heavy +switch on the wall, and Dick turned it, hoping that it controlled the +light; but apparently that was on the same circuit as the light below. +He struck another match and followed the casing of the switch. By and by +he saw a thick black cable running in the angle of the wall and the +ceiling. It terminated abruptly on the right of the fireplace; and from +the marks on the floor, Dick guessed that at some time or other there +had been an experimental welding plant housed there. He turned the +switch again and sat down to consider what would be the best thing to +do. He could hear the murmur of voices below, and, lying on the floor, +put his ear to the trap, which he cleared with a piece of wire he found +in the fireplace. Hagn seemed to do most of the talking. +“If we blow up the road between here and Newbury, they’ll smell a rat,” +he said. +“It’s a stupid idea you put forward, Hagn. What are you going to do with +the chap upstairs?” +“I don’t know. I’m waiting to hear from Frog. Perhaps the Frog will want +him killed.” +“He’d be a good man to hold for Balder, though, if Frog thought it was +worth while.” +Towards five o’clock, Hagn, who had been out of the office, came back. +“Frog says he’s got to die,” he said in a low voice. +* * * * * * +Two people sat in Dick Gordon’s study. The hour was four o’clock in the +morning. Elk had gone, for the twentieth time, to Headquarters, and for +the twentieth time was on his way back. Ella Bennett had tried +desperately hard to carry out Dick’s instructions, and turned page after +page determinedly, but had read and yet had seen nothing. With a deep +sigh she put down the book and clasped her hands, her eyes fixed upon +the clock. +“Do you think he will get to Gloucester?” she asked. +“I certainly do,” said Broad confidently. “That young man will get +anywhere. He is the right kind and the right type, and nothing is going +to hold him.” +She picked up the book but did not look at its printed page. +“What happened to the police cars? Mr. Elk was telling me a lot about +them last night,” she said. “I haven’t heard since.” +Joshua Broad licked his dry lips. +“Oh, they got through all right,” he said vaguely. +He did not tell her that two police cars had been ditched between +Newbury and Reading, the cars smashed and three men injured by a mine +which had been sprung under them. Nor did he give her the news, that had +arrived by motor-cyclist from Swindon, that Dick’s car had not been +seen. +“They are dreadful people, dreadful!” She shivered. “How did they come +into existence, Mr. Broad?” +Broad was smoking (at her request) a long, thin cigar, and he puffed for +a long time before he spoke. +“I guess I’m the father of the Frogs,” he said to her amazement. +“You!” +He nodded. +“I didn’t know I was producing this outfit, but there it is.” How, he +did not seem disposed to explain at that moment. +Soon he heard the whirr of the bell, and thinking that Elk had perhaps +forgotten the key, he rose, and, going along the passage, opened the +door. It was not Elk. +“Forgive me for calling. Is that Mr. Broad?” The visitor peered forward +in the darkness. +“I’m Broad all right. You’re Mr. Johnson, aren’t you? Come right in, Mr. +Johnson.” +He closed the door behind him and turned on the light. The stout man was +in a state of pitiable agitation. +“I was up late last night,” he said, “and my servant brought me an early +copy of the _Post Herald_. +“So you know, eh?” +“It’s terrible, terrible! I can’t believe it!” +He took a crumpled paper from his pocket and looked at the stop-press +space as though to reassure himself. +“I didn’t know it was in the paper.” +Johnson handed the newspaper to the American. +“Yes, they’ve got it. I suppose old man Whitby must have given away the +story.” +“I think it came from the picture man, Silenski. Is it true that Ray is +under sentence of death?” +Broad nodded. +“How dreadful!” said Johnson in a hushed voice. “Thank God they’ve found +it out in time! Mr. Broad,” he said earnestly, “I hope you will tell +Ella Bennett that she can rely on me for every penny I possess to +establish her brother’s innocence. I suppose there will be a respite and +a new trial? If there is, the very best lawyers must be employed.” +“She’s here. Won’t you come in and see her?” +“Here?” Johnson’s jaw dropped. “I had no idea,” he stammered. +“Come in.” +Broad returned to the girl. +“Here is a friend of yours who has turned up—Mr. Johnson.” +The philosopher crossed the room with quick, nervous strides, and held +out both his hands to the girl. +“I’m so sorry, Miss Bennett,” he said, “so very, very sorry! It must be +dreadful for you, dreadful! Can I do anything?” +She shook her head, tears of gratitude in her eyes. +“It is very sweet of you, Mr. Johnson. You’ve done so much for Ray, and +Inspector Elk was telling me that you had offered him a position in your +office.” +Johnson shook his head. +“It is nothing. I’m very fond of Ray, and he really has splendid +capabilities. Once we get him out of this mess, I’ll put him on his feet +again. Your father doesn’t know? Thank God for that!” +“I wish this news hadn’t got into the papers,” she said, when he told +her how he had learnt of the happening. +“Silenski, of course,” said Broad. “A motion picture publicity man would +use his own funeral to get a free par. How are you feeling in your new +position, Johnson?” he asked, to distract the girl’s mind from the +tragic thoughts which were oppressing her. +Johnson smiled. +“I’m bewildered. I can’t understand why poor Mr. Maitland did this. But +I had my first Frog warning to-day; I feel almost important,” he said. +From a worn pocket-case he extracted a sheet of paper. It contained only +three words; +“You are next!” +and bore the familiar sign manual of the Frog. +“I don’t know what harm I have done to these people, but I presume that +it is something fairly bad, for within ten minutes of getting this note, +the porter brought me my afternoon tea. I took one sip and it tasted so +bitter that I washed my mouth out with a disinfectant.” +“When was this?” +“Yesterday,” said Johnson. “This morning I had the analysis—I had the +tea bottled and sent off at once to an analytical chemist. It contained +enough hydrocyanic acid to kill a hundred people. The chemist cannot +understand how I could have taken the sip I did without very serious +consequences. I am going to put the matter in the hands of the police +to-day.” +The front door opened, and Elk came in. +“What is the news?” asked the girl eagerly, rising to meet him. +“Fine!” said Elk. “You needn’t worry at all, Miss Bennett. That Gordon +man can certainly move. I guess he’s in Gloucester by now, sleeping in +the best bed in the city.” +“But do you _know_ he’s in Gloucester?” she asked stubbornly. +“I’ve had no exact news, but I can tell you this, that we’ve had no bad +news,” said Elk; “and when there’s no news, you can bet that things are +going according to schedule.” +“How did you hear about it, Johnson?” +The new millionaire explained. +“I ought to have pulled in Silenski and his operator,” said Elk +thoughtfully. “These motion picture men lack reticence. And how does it +feel to be rich, Johnson?” he asked. +“Mr. Johnson doesn’t think it feels too good,” said Broad. “He has +attracted the attention of old man Frog.” +Elk examined the warning carefully. +“When did this come?” +“I found it on my desk yesterday morning,” said Johnson, and told him of +the tea incident. “Do you think, Mr. Elk, you will ever put your hand on +the Frog?” +“I’m as certain as that I’m standing here, that Frog will go the +way——” Elk checked himself, and fortunately the girl was not +listening. +It was getting light when Johnson left, and Elk walked with him to the +door and watched him passing down the deserted street. +“There’s a lot about that boy I like,” he said; “and he’s certainly +fortunate. Why the old man didn’t leave his money to that baby of +his——” +“Did you ever find the baby?” interrupted Broad. +“No, sir, there was no sign of that innocent child in the house. That’s +another Frog mystery to be cleared up.” +Johnson had reached the corner, and they saw him crossing the road, when +a man came out of the shadow to meet him. There was a brief parley, and +then Elk saw the flash of a pistol, and heard a shot. Johnson staggered +back, and his opponent, turning, fled. In a second Elk was flying along +the street. Apparently the philosopher was not hurt, though he seemed +shaken. +The inspector ran round the corner, but the assassin had disappeared. He +returned to the philosopher, to find him sitting on the edge of the +pavement, and at first he thought he had been wounded. +“No, I think I just had a shock,” gasped Johnson. “I was quite +unprepared for that method of attack.” +“What happened?” asked Elk. +“I can hardly realize,” said the other, who appeared dazed. “I was +crossing the road when a man came up and asked me if my name was +Johnson; then, before I knew what had happened, he had fired.” +His coat was singed by the flame of the shot, but the bullet must have +gone wide. Later in the day, Elk found it embedded in the brickwork of a +house. +“No, no, I won’t come back,” said Johnson. “I don’t suppose they’ll +repeat the attempt.” +By this time one of the two detectives who had been guarding Harley +Terrace had come up, and under his escort Johnson was sent home. +“They’re certainly the busiest little fellows,” said Elk, shaking his +head. “You’d think they’d be satisfied with the work they were doing at +Gloucester, without running sidelines.” +Joshua Broad was silent until they were going up the steps of the house. +“When you know as much about the Frog as I know, you’ll be surprised at +nothing,” he said, and did not add to this cryptic remark. +Six o’clock came, and there was no further news from the west. Seven +o’clock, and the girl’s condition became pitiable. She had borne herself +throughout the night with a courage that excited the admiration of the +men; but now, as the hour was drawing close, she seemed on the verge of +collapse. At half-past seven the telephone bell rang, and Elk answered. +It was the Chief of Police at Newbury speaking. +“Captain Gordon left Didcot an hour ago,” was the message. +“Didcot!” gasped Elk in consternation. He looked at the clock. “An hour +ago—and he had to make Gloucester in sixty minutes!” +The girl, who had been in the dining-room trying to take coffee which +Gordon’s servant had prepared, came into the study, and Elk dared not +continue the conversation. +“All right,” he said loudly, and smashed down the receiver. +“What is the news, Mr. Elk?” The girl’s voice was a wail. +“The news,” said Elk, twisting his face into a smile, “is fine!” +“What do they say?” she persisted. +“Oh, them?” said Elk, looking at the telephone. “That was a friend of +mine, asking me if I’d dine with him to-night.” +She went back to the dining-room, only half-satisfied, and Elk called +the American to him. +“Go and get a doctor,” he said in a low voice, “and tell him to bring +something that’ll put this young lady to sleep for twelve hours.” +“Why?” asked Broad. “Is the news bad?” +Elk nodded. +“There isn’t a chance of saving this boy—not the ghost of a chance!” he +said. +CHAPTER XXXVII +THE GET-AWAY +DICK, with his ear to the floor, heard the words “Frog says he’s got to +die,” and his cracked lips parted in a grin. +“Have you heard him moving about?” asked Hagn. +“No, he’s asleep, I expect,” said another voice. “We shall have to wait +for light. We can’t do it in the dark. We shall be killing one another.” +This view commended itself to most of the men present. Dick counted six +voices. He struck a match for another survey, and again his eye fell +upon the cable. And then an inspiration came to him. Moving stealthily +across the floor, he reached up, and, gripping the cable, pulled on it +steadily. Under his weight, the supporting insulator broke loose. By +great good luck it fell upon the heap of rubbish in the fireplace and +made no sound. For the next half-hour he worked feverishly, unwrapping +the rubber insulation from the wires of the cable, pulling the copper +strands free. His hands were bleeding, his nails broken; but after +half-an-hour’s hard work, he had the end of the cable frayed. The door +opened outward, he remembered with satisfaction, and, lifting the steel +plate, he laid it tight against the door, so that whoever entered must +step upon it. Then he began to fasten the frayed copper wires of the +cable to the rivet holes; and he had hardly finished his work before he +heard a stealthy sound on the stairs. +Day had come now, and light was streaming through the glass roof of the +factory. He heard a faint whisper, and even as faint a click, as the +bolts of the door were pulled; and, creeping to the switch, he turned it +down. +The door was jerked open, and a man stepped upon the plate. Before his +scream could warn him who followed the second of the party had been +flung senseless to the floor. +“What the devil’s wrong?” It was Hagn’s voice. He came running up the +stairs, put one foot on the electric plate, and stood for the space of a +second motionless. Then, with a gasping sob, he fell backward, and Dick +heard the crash as he struck the stairs. +He did not wait any longer. Jumping over the plate, he leapt down the +stairs, treading underfoot the senseless figure of Hagn. The little +office was empty. On the table lay one of his pistols. He gripped it, +and fled along the bare factory hall, through a door into the open. He +heard a shout, and, looking round, saw two of the party coming at him, +and, raising his pistol, he pressed the trigger. There was a click—Hagn +had emptied the magazine. +A Browning is an excellent weapon even if it is not loaded, and Dick +Gordon brought the barrel down with smashing force upon the head of the +man who tried to grapple with him. Then he turned and ran. +He had made a mistake when he thought there were only six men in the +building; there must have been twenty, and most of them were in full +cry. +He tried to reach the road, and was separated only by a line of bushes. +But here he blundered. The bushes concealed a barbed wire fence, and he +had to run along uneven ground, and in his stockinged feet the effort +was painful. His slow progress enabled his pursuers to get ahead. +Doubling back, Dick flew for the second of the three buildings, and as +he ran, he took out the magazine of his pistol. As he feared, it was +empty. +Now they were on him. He could hear the leading man’s breath, and he +himself was nearly spent. And then, before him, he saw a round +fire-alarm, fixed to the wall, and in a flash the memory of an almost +forgotten conversation came back to him. With his bare hands he smashed +the glass and tugged at the alarm, and at that minute they were on him. +He fought desperately, but against their numbers resistance was almost +useless. He must gain time. +“Get up, you fellows!” he shouted. “Hagn’s dead.” +It was an unfortunate statement, for Hagn came out of the next building +at that moment, very shaken but very alive. He was livid with rage, and +babbled in some language which Dick did not know, but which he guessed +was Swedish. +“I’ll fix you for that. You shall try electric shock yourself, you dog!” +He drove his fist at the prisoner’s face, but Dick twisted his head and +the blow struck the brickwork of the building against which he stood. +With a scream, the man leapt at him, clawing and tearing with open +hands, and this was Dick’s salvation. For the men who were gripping his +arms released their hold, that their chief might have freer play. Dick +struck out, hitting scientifically for the body, and with a yell Hagn +collapsed. Before they could stop him, Gordon was away like the wind, +this time making for the gate. +He had reached it when the hand of the nearest man fell on him. He flung +him aside and staggered into the roadway, and then, from down the +straight road, came the clang of bells, a glitter of brass and a touch +of crimson. A motor fire-engine was coming at full speed. +For a moment the men grouped about the gate stared at this intervention. +Then, without taking any further notice of their quarry, they turned and +ran. A word to the fire chief explained the situation. Another engine +was coming, at breakneck speed, and firemen were men for whom Frogs had +no terror. +Whilst Hagn was being carried to one of the waiting wagons, Dick looked +at his watch; it was six o’clock. He went in search of his car, fearing +the worst. Hagn, however, had made no attempt to put the car out of +gear; probably he had some plan for using it himself. Three minutes +later, Dick, dishevelled, grimy, bearing the marks of Hagn’s talons upon +his face, swung out into the road and set the bonnet of the car for +Gloucester. He could not have gone faster even had he known that his +watch was stopped. +Through Swindon at breakneck speed, and he was on the Gloucester Road. +He looked at his watch again. The hands still pointed to six, and he +gave a gasp. He was going all out now, but the road was bad, full of +windings, and once he was nearly thrown out of the car when he struck a +ridge on the road. +A tyre burst, and he almost swerved into the hedge, but he got her nose +straight again and continued on a flat tyre. It brought his speed down +appreciably, and he grew hot and cold, as mile after mile of the road +flashed past without a sign of the town. +And then, with Gloucester Cathedral showing its spires above the hill, a +second tyre exploded. He could not stop: he must go on, if he had to run +in to Gloucester on the rims. And now the pace was painfully slow in +comparison with that frantic rush which had carried him through +Berkshire and Wiltshire to the edge of Somerset. +He was entering the straggling suburbs of the town. The roads were +terrible; he was held up by a street car, but, disregarding a +policeman’s warning, flew past almost under the wheels of a great +traction engine. And now he saw the time—two minutes to eight, and the +gaol was half a mile farther on. He set his teeth and prayed. +As he turned into the main street, with the gaol gates before him, the +clocks of the cathedral struck eight, and to Dick Gordon they were the +notes of doom. +They would delay the carrying out of the death penalty for nothing short +of the reprieve he carried. Punctually to the second, Ray Bennett would +die. The agony of that moment was a memory that turned him grey. He +brought the bumping car to a halt before the prison gates and staggered +to the bell. Twice he pulled, but the gates remained closed. Dick pulled +off his sock and found the soddened reprieve, streaky with blood, for +his feet were bleeding. Again he rang with the fury of despair. Then a +little wicket opened and the dark face of a warder appeared. +“You’re not allowed in,” he said curtly. “You know what is happening +here.” +“Home Office,” said Dick thickly, “Home Office messenger. I have a +reprieve!” +The wicket closed, and, after an eternity, the lock turned and the heavy +door opened. +“I’m Captain Gordon,” gasped Dick, “from the Public Prosecutor’s office, +and I carry a reprieve for James Carter.” +The warder shook his head. +“The execution took place five minutes ago, sir,” he said. +“But the Cathedral clock!” gasped Dick. +“The Cathedral clock is four minutes slow,” said the warder. “I am +afraid Carter is dead.” +CHAPTER XXXVIII +THE MYSTERY MAN +RAY BENNETT woke from a refreshing sleep and sat up in bed. One of the +warders, who had watched him all night, got up and came over. +“Do you want your clothes. Carter?” he said. “The Governor thought you +wouldn’t care to wear those old things of yours.” +“And he was right,” said the grateful Ray. “This looks a good suit,” he +said as he pulled on the trousers. +The warder coughed. +“Yes, it’s a good suit,” he agreed. +He did not say more, but something in his demeanour betrayed the truth. +These were the clothes in which some man had been hanged, and yet Ray’s +hands did not shake as he fixed the webbed braces which held them. Poor +clothes, to do duty on two such dismal occasions! He hoped they would be +spared the indignity of a third experience. +They brought him his breakfast at six o’clock. Yet once more his eyes +strayed toward the writing-pad, and then, with breakfast over, came the +chaplain, a quiet man in minister’s garb, strength in every line of his +mobile face. They talked awhile, and then the warder suggested that Ray +should go to take exercise in the paved yard outside. He was glad of the +privilege. He wanted once more to look upon the blue sky, to draw into +his lungs the balm of God’s air. +Yet he knew that it was not a disinterested kindness, and well guessed +why this privilege had been afforded to him, as he walked slowly round +the exercise yard, arm in arm with the clergyman. He knew now what lay +behind the third door. They were going to try the trap in the death +house, and they wished to spare his feelings. +In half an hour he was back in the cell. +“Do you want to make any confession. Carter? Is that your name?” +“No, it is not my name, sir,” said Ray quietly, “but that doesn’t +matter.” +“Did you kill this man?” +“I don’t know,” said Ray. “I wanted to kill him, and therefore it is +likely that I did.” +At ten minutes to eight came the Governor to shake hands, and with him +the Sheriff. The clock in the prison hall moved slowly, inexorably +forward. Through the open door of the cell Ray could see it, and, +knowing this, the Governor closed the door, for it was one minute to +eight, and it would soon open again. Ray saw the door move. For a second +his self-possession deserted him, and he turned his back to the man who +came with a quick step, and, gripping his hands, strapped them. +“God forgive me! God forgive me!” murmured somebody behind him, and at +the sound of that voice Ray spun round and faced the executioner. +The hangman was John Bennett! +Father and son, executioner and convicted murderer soon to be launched +to death, they faced one another, and then, in a voice that was almost +inaudible, John Bennett breathed the word: +“Ray!” +Ray nodded. It was strange that, in that moment, his mind was going back +over the mysterious errands of his father, his hatred of the job into +which circumstances had forced him. +“Ray!” breathed the man again. +“Do you know this man?” It was the Governor, and his voice was shaking +with emotion. +John Bennett turned. +“He is my son,” he said, and with a quick pull loosed the strap. +“You must go on with this, Bennett.” The Governor’s voice was stern and +terrible. +“Go on with it?” repeated John Bennett mechanically. “Go on with this? +Kill my own son? Are you mad? Do you think I am mad?” He took the boy in +his arms, his cheek against the hairy face. “My boy! Oh, my boy!” he +said, and smoothed his hair as he had done in the days when Ray was a +child. Then, recovering himself instantly, he thrust the boy through the +open door into the death chamber, followed him and slammed the door, +bolting it. +There was no other doorway except that, to which he had the key, and +this he thrust into the lock that it might not be opened from the other +side. Ray looked at the bare chamber, the dangling yellow rope, the +marks of the trap, and fell back against the wall, his eyes shut, +shivering. Then, standing in the middle of the trap, John Bennett hacked +the rope until it was severed, hacked it in pieces as it lay on the +floor. Then: +_Crack, crash!_ +The two traps dropped, and into the yawning gap he flung the cut rope. +“Father!” +Ray was staring at him; oblivious to the thunderous blows which were +being rained on the door, the old man came towards him, took the boy’s +face between his hands and kissed him. +“Will you forgive me, Ray?” he asked brokenly. “I had to do this. I was +forced to do it. I starved before I did it. I came once . . . out of +curiosity to help the executioner—a broken-down doctor, who had taken +on the work. And he was ill . . . I hanged the murderer. I had just come +from the medical school. It didn’t seem so dreadful to me then. I tried +to find some other way of making money, and lived in dread all my life +that somebody would point his finger at me, and say: ‘There goes Benn, +the executioner.’” +“Benn, the executioner!” said Ray wonderingly. “Are you Benn?” +The old man nodded. +“Benn, come out! I give you my word of honour that I will postpone the +execution until to-morrow. You can’t stay there.” +John Bennett looked round at the grating, then up to the cut rope. The +execution could not proceed. Such was the routine of death that the rope +must be expressly issued from the headquarter gaol. No other rope would +serve. All the paraphernalia of execution, down to the piece of chalk +that marks the “T” on the trap where a man must put his feet, must be +punctiliously forwarded from prison headquarters, and as punctiliously +returned. +John shot back the bolts, opened the door and stepped out. +The faces of the men in the condemned cell were ghastly. The Governor’s +was white and drawn, the prison doctor seemed to have shrunk, and the +Sheriff sat on the bed, his face hidden in his hands. +“I will telegraph to London and tell them the circumstances,” said the +Governor. “I’m not condemning you for what you’re doing, Benn. It would +be monstrous to expect you to have done—this thing.” +A warder came along the corridor and through the door of the cell. And +behind him, entering the prison by virtue of his authority, a +dishevelled, dust-stained, limping figure, his face scratched, streaks +of dried blood on his face, his eyes red with weariness. For a second +John Bennett did not recognize him, and then: +“A reprieve, by the King’s own hand,” said Dick Gordon unsteadily, and +handed the stained envelope to the Governor. +CHAPTER XXXIX +THE AWAKENING +THROUGHOUT the night Ella Bennett lay, half waking, half sleeping. She +remembered the doctor coming; she remembered Elk’s urgent request that +she should drink the draught he had prepared; and though she had +suspected its nature and at first had fought against drinking that +milky-white potion, she had at last succumbed, and had lain down on the +sofa, determined that she would not sleep until she knew the worst or +the best. She was exhausted with the mental fight she had put up to +preserve her sanity, and then she had dozed. +She was dimly conscious, as she came back to understanding, that she was +lying on a bed, and that somebody had taken off her shoes and loosened +her hair. With a tremendous effort she opened her eyes and saw a woman, +sitting by a window, reading. The room was intensely masculine; it smelt +faintly of smoke. +“Dick’s bed,” she muttered, and the woman put down her book and got up. +Ella looked at her, puzzled. Why did she wear those white bands about +her hair, and that butcher-blue wrapper and the white cuffs? She was a +nurse, of course. Satisfied with having solved that problem, Ella closed +her eyes and went back again into the land of dreams. +She woke again. The woman was still there, but this time the girl’s mind +was in order. +“What time is it?” she asked. +The nurse came over with a glass of water, and Ella drank greedily. +“It is seven o’clock,” she said. +“Seven!” The girl shivered, and then, with a cry, tried to rise. “It is +evening!” she gasped. “Oh, what happened?” +“Your father is downstairs, miss,” said the nurse. “I’ll call him.” +“Father—here?” She frowned. “Is there any other news?” +“Mr. Gordon is downstairs too, miss, and Mr. Johnson.” +The woman was faithfully carrying out the instructions which had been +given to her. +“Nobody—else?” asked Ella in a whisper. +“No, miss, the other gentleman is coming to-morrow or the next day—your +brother, I mean.” +With a sob the girl buried her face in the pillow. +“You are not telling the truth!” +“Oh yes, I am,” said the woman, and there was something in her laugh +which made Ella look up. +The nurse went out of the room and was gone a little while. Presently +the door opened, and John Bennett came in. Instantly she was in his +arms, sobbing her joy. +“It is true, it is true, daddy?” +“Yes, my love, it is true,” said Bennett. “Ray will be here to-morrow. +There are some formalities to be gone through; they can’t secure a +release immediately, as they do in story-books. We are discussing his +future. Oh, my girl, my poor girl!” +“When did you know, daddy?” +“I knew this morning,” said her father quietly. +“Were you—were you dreadfully hurt?” she asked. +He nodded. +“Johnson wants to give Ray the management of Maitlands Consolidated,” he +said. “It would be a splendid thing for Ray. Ella, our boy has changed.” +“Have you seen him?” she asked in surprise. +“Yes, I saw him this morning.” +She thought it was natural that her father should have seen him, and did +not question him as to how he managed to get behind the jealously +guarded doors of the prison. +“I don’t think Ray will accept Johnson’s offer,” he said. “If I know him +as he is now, I am sure he will not accept. He will not take any +ready-made position; he wants to work for himself. He is coming back to +us, Ella.” +She wanted to ask him something, but feared to hurt him. +“Daddy, when Ray comes back,” she said after a long silence, “will it be +possible for you to leave this—this work you hate so much?” +“I have left it, dear,” he replied quietly. “Never again—never +again—never again, thank God!” +She did not see his face, but she felt the tremor that passed through +the frame of the man who held her. +Downstairs, the study was blue with smoke. Dick Gordon, conspicuously +bandaged about the head, something of his good looks spoiled by three +latitudinal scratches which ran down his face, sat in his dressing-gown +and slippers, a big pipe clenched between his teeth, the picture of +battered contentment. +“Very good of you, Johnson,” he said. “I wonder whether Bennett will +take your offer. Honestly, do you think he’s competent to act as the +manager of this enormous business?” +Johnson looked dubious. +“He was a clerk at Maitlands. You can have no knowledge of his +administrative qualities. Aren’t you being just a little too generous?” +“I don’t know. Perhaps I am,” said Johnson quietly. “I naturally want to +help. There may be other positions less important, and perhaps, as you +say, Ray might not care to take any quite as responsible.” +“I’m sure he won’t,” said Dick decidedly. +“It seems to me,” said Elk, “that the biggest job of all is to get young +Bennett out of the clutches of the Frogs. Once a Frog, always a Frog, +and this old man is not going to sit down and take his beating like a +little gentleman. We had a proof of that yesterday morning. They shot at +Johnson in this very street.” +Dick took out his pipe, sent a cloud of blue smoke toward the haze that +lay on the room. +“The Frog is finished,” he said. “The only question now is, what is the +best and most effective way to make an end? Balder is caught; Hagn is in +gaol; Lew Brady, who was one of their most helpful agents, though he did +not hold any executive position—Lew is dead; Lola——” +“Lola is through.” It was the American who spoke. “She left this morning +for the United States, and I took the liberty of facilitating her +passage—there remains Frog himself, and the organization which Frog +controls. Catch him, and you’ve finished with the gang.” +John Bennett came back at that moment, and the conversation took another +turn; soon after, Joshua Broad and Johnson went away together. +“You have not told Ella anything, Mr. Bennett?” +“About myself?—no. Is it necessary?” +“I hope you will not think so,” said Dick quietly. “Let that remain your +own secret, and Ray’s secret. It has been known to me for a very long +time. The day Elk told me he had seen you coming from King’s Cross +station, and that a burglary had been committed, I saw in the newspapers +that a man had been executed in York Prison. And then I took the trouble +to look up the files of the newspapers, and I found that your absences +had certainly coincided with burglaries—and there are so many +burglaries in England in the course of a year that it would have been +remarkable if they had not coincided—there were also other +coincidences. On the day the murder was committed at Ibbley Copse, you +were in Gloucester, and on that day Waldsen, the Hereford murderer, was +executed.” +John Bennett hung his head. +“You knew, and yet . . .” he hesitated. +Dick nodded. +“I knew none of the circumstances which drove you to this dreadful +business, Mr. Bennett,” he said gently. “To me you are an officer of the +law—no more and no less terrible than I, who have helped send many men +to the scaffold. No more unclean than the judge who sentences them and +signs the warrant for their death. We are instruments of Order.” +Ella and her father stayed that night at Harley Terrace, and in the +morning drove down to Paddington Station to meet the boy. Neither Dick +nor Elk accompanied them. +“There are two things which strike me as remarkable,” said Elk. “One is, +that neither you nor I recognized Bennett.” +“Why should we?” asked Dick. “Neither you nor I attend executions, and +the identity of the hangman has always been more or less unknown except +to a very few people. If he cares to advertise himself, he is known. +Bennett shrank from publicity, avoided even the stations of the towns +where the executions took place, and usually alighted at some wayside +village and tramped into the town on foot. The chief warder at +Gloucester told me that he never arrived at the gaol until midnight +before an execution. Nobody saw him come or go.” +“Old man Maitland must have recognized him.” +“He did,” nodded Dick. “At some period Maitland was in gaol, and it is +possible for prisoners, especially privileged prisoners, to catch a +glimpse of the hangman. By ‘privileged prisoners’ I mean men who, by +reason of their good conduct, were allowed to move about the gaol +freely. Maitland told Miss Bennett that he had been in ‘quod,’ and I am +certain that that is the true explanation. All Bennett’s official +letters came to him at Dorking, where he rented a room for years. His +mysterious journeys to town were not mysterious to the people of +Dorking, who did not know him by sight or name.” +To Elk’s surprise, when he came back to Harley Terrace, Dick was not +there. His servant said that his master had had a short sleep, had +dressed and gone out, and had left no message as to where he was going. +Dick did not, as a rule, go out on these solitary expeditions, and Elk’s +first thought was that he had gone to Horsham. He ate his dinner, and +thought longingly of his comfortable bed. He did not wish to retire for +the night until he had seen his chief. +He made himself comfortable in the study, and was fast asleep, when +somebody shook him gently by the shoulder. He looked up and saw Dick. +“Hullo!” he said sleepily. “Are you staying up all night?” +“I’ve got the car at the door,” said Dick. “Get your top-coat. We’re +going to Horsham.” +Elk yawned at the clock. +“She’ll be thinking of bed,” he protested. +“I hope so,” said Dick, “but I have my fears. Frog was seen on the +Horsham Road at nine o’clock to-night.” +“How do you know?” asked Elk, now wide awake. +“I’ve been shadowing him all the evening,” said Dick, “but he slipped +me.” +“You’ve been watching Frog?” repeated Elk slowly. “Do you know him?” +“I’ve known him for the greater part of a month,” said Dick Gordon. “Get +your gun!” +CHAPTER XL +FROG +THERE is a happiness which has no parallel in life—the happiness which +comes when a dear one is restored. Ray Bennett sat by his father’s +chair, and was content to absorb the love and tenderness which made the +room radiant. It seemed like a dream to be back in this cosy +sitting-room with its cretonnes, its faint odour of lavender, the wide +chimney-place, the leaded windows, and Ella, most glorious vision of +all. The rainstorm that lashed the window-panes gave the comfort and +peace of his home a new and a more beautiful value. From time to time he +fingered his shaven face absently. It was the only sure evidence to him +that he was awake and that this experience belonged to the world of +reality. +“Pull up your chair, boy,” said John Bennett, as Ella carried in a +steaming teapot and put it on the table. +Ray rose obediently and placed the big Windsor chair where it had always +been when he lived at home, on his father’s right hand. +John Bennett sat at the table, his head bent forward. It was the old +grace that his father had said for years and years, and which secretly +amused him in other days, but which now was invested with a beautiful +significance that made him choke. +“_For all the blessings we have received this day, may the Lord make us +truly thankful!_” +It was a wonderful meal, more wonderful than any he had eaten at Heron’s +or at those expensive restaurants which he had favoured. Home-cured +tongue, home-made bread, and a great jar of home-made preserves, tea +that was fragrant with the bouquet of the East. He laid down his knife +and fork and leant back with a happy smile. +“Home,” he said simply, and his father gripped his hand under cover of +the table-cloth, gripped and held it so tightly that the boy winced. +“Ray, they want you to take over the management of Maitlands—Johnson +does. What do you think of that, son?” +Ray shook his head. +“I’m no more fit to manage Maitlands than I am to be President of the +Bank of England,” he said with a little laugh. “No, dad, my views are +less exalted than they were. I think I might earn a respectable living +hoeing potatoes—and I should be happy to do so!” +The older man was looking thoughtfully at the table. +“I—I shall want an assistant if these pictures of mine are the success +that Silenski says they will be. Perhaps you can hoe potatoes between +whiles—when Ella is married.” +The girl went red. +“Is Ella going to be married? Are you, Ella?” Ray jumped up and, going +to the girl, kissed her. “Ella, it won’t make a difference, will +it—about me, I mean?” +“I don’t think so, dear. I’ve promised.” +“What is the matter?” asked John Bennett, as he saw the cloud that came +to the girl’s face. +“I was thinking of something unpleasant, daddy,” she said, and for the +first time told of the hideous visitation. +“The Frog wanted to marry you?” said Ray with a frown. “It is +incredible! Did you see his face?” +She shook her head. +“He was masked,” she said. “Don’t let us talk about it.” +She got up quickly and began to clear away the meal, and, for the first +time for many years, Ray helped her. +“A terrible night,” she said, coming back from the kitchen. “The wind +burst open the window and blew out the lamp, and the rain is coming down +in torrents!” +“All nights are good nights to me,” said Ray, and in his chuckle she +detected a little sob. +No word had been spoken since they met of his terrible ordeal; it was +tacitly agreed that that nightmare should remain in the region of bad +dreams, and only now and again did he betray the horror of those three +weeks of waiting. +“Bolt the back door, darling,” said John Bennett, looking up as she went +out. +The two men sat smoking, each busy with his own thoughts. Then Ray spoke +of Lola. +“I do not think she was bad, father,” he said. “She could not have known +what was going to happen. The thing was so diabolically planned that +even to the very last, until I learnt from Gordon the true story, I was +under the impression that I had killed Brady. This man must have the +brain of a general.” +Bennett nodded. +“I always used to think,” Ray went on, “that Maitland had something to +do with the Frogs. I suppose he had, really. I first guessed that much +after he turned up at Heron’s Club—what is the matter?” +“Ella!” called the old man. +There was no answer from the kitchen. +“I don’t want her to stay out there, washing up. Ray, boy, call her in.” +Ray got up and opened the door of the kitchen. It was in darkness. +“Bring the lamp, father,” he called, and John Bennett came hurrying +after him. +The door of the kitchen was closed but not bolted. Something white lay +on the floor, and Ray stooped to pick it up. It was a torn portion of +the apron which Ella had been wearing. +The two men looked at one another, and Ray, running up to his room, came +down with a storm lantern, which he lit. +“She may be in the garden,” he said in a strained voice, and, throwing +open the door, went out into the storm. +The rain beat down unmercifully; the men were wet through before they +had gone a dozen yards. Ray held the light down to the ground. There +were tracks of many feet in the soft mud, and presently he found one of +Ella’s. The tracks disappeared on to the edge of the lawn, but they were +making straight for the side gate which opened into a narrow lane. This +passage-way connected the road with a meadow behind Maytree Cottage, and +the roadway gate was usually kept chained and padlocked. Ray was the +first to see the car tracks, and then he found that the gate was open +and the broken chain lay in the muddy roadway. Running out into the +road, he saw that the tracks turned to the right. +“We had better search the garden first to make absolutely sure, father,” +he said. “I will arouse some of the cottagers and get them to help.” +By the time he came back to the house, John Bennett had made a thorough +search of the garden and the house, but the girl had disappeared. +“Go down to the town and telephone to Gordon,” he said, and his voice +was strangely calm. +In a quarter of an hour Ray Bennett jumped off his old bicycle at the +door of Maytree Cottage, to tell his grave news. +“The ’phone line has been cut,” he said tersely. “I’ve ordered a car to +be sent up from the garage. We will try to follow the tracks.” +The machine had arrived when the blazing head-lamps of Dick’s car came +into view. Gordon knew the worst before he had sprung to the ground. +There was a brief, unemotional consultation. Dick went rapidly through +the kitchen and followed the tracks until they came back to the road, to +find Elk going slowly along the opposite side, examining the ground with +an electric lamp. +“There’s a small wheel track over here,” he said. “Too heavy for a +bicycle, too light for a car; looks to me like a motor-cycle.” +“It was a car,” said Dick briefly, “and a very big one.” +He sent Ray and his father to the house to change; insisted on this +being done before they moved a step. They came out, wrapped in +mackintoshes, and leapt into the car as it was moving. +For five miles the tracks were visible, and then they came to a village. +A policeman had seen a car come through “a little time ago”—and a +motor-cyclist. +“Where was the cyclist?” asked Elk. +“He was behind, about a hundred yards,” said the policeman. “I tried to +pull him up because his lamp was out, but he took no notice.” +They went on for another mile, and then struck the hard surface of a +newly tarred road, and here all trace of the tracks was lost. Going on +for a mile farther, they reached a point where the road broke into +three. Two of these were macadamized and showed no wheel tracks; nor did +the third, although it had a soft surface, offer any encouragement to +follow. +“It is one of these two,” said Dick. “We had better try the right-hand +road first.” +The macadam lasted until they reached another village. The road was +undergoing repair in the village itself, but the night watchman shook +his head when Dick asked him. +“No, sir, no car has passed here for two hours.” +“We must drive back,” said Dick, despair in his heart, and the car spun +round and flew at top speed to the juncture of the roads. +Down this they went, and they had not gone far before Dick half leapt at +the sight of the red tail-lamp of the machine ahead. His hopes, however, +were fated to be dashed. A car had broken down on the side of the road, +but the disgruntled driver was able to give them valuable information. A +car had passed him three-quarters of an hour before; he described it +minutely, had even been able to distinguish its make. The cyclist was +driving a Red Indian. +Again the cyclist! +“How far was he behind the car?” +“A good hundred yards, I should say,” was the reply. +From now on they received frequent news of the car, but at the second +village, the motor-cyclist had not been seen, nor at subsequent places +where the machine had been identified, was there any reference to a +motor-cyclist. +It was past midnight when they came up with the machine they were +chasing. It stood outside a garage on the Shoreham Road, and Elk was the +first to reach it. It was empty and unattended. Inside the garage, the +owner of that establishment was busy making room for the last comer. +“Yes, sir, a quarter of an hour ago,” he said, when Elk had produced his +authority. “The chauffeur said he was going to find lodgings in the +town.” +With the aid of a powerful electric lamp they made an examination of the +car’s interior. There was no doubt whatever that Ella had been an +inmate. A little ivory pin which John Bennett had given her on her +birthday, was found, broken, in a corner of the floor. +“It is not worth while looking for the chauffeur,” said Elk. “Our only +chance is that he’ll come back to the garage.” +The local police were called into consultation. +“Shoreham is a very big place,” said the police chief. “If you had luck, +you might find your man immediately. If he’s with a gang of crooks, it +is more likely that you’ll not find him at all, or that he’ll never come +back for the machine.” +One matter puzzled Elk more than any other. It was the disappearance of +the motor-cyclist. If the story was true, that he had been riding a +hundred yards behind and that he had fallen out between two villages, +they must have passed him. There were a few cottages on the road, into +which he might have turned, but Elk dismissed this possibility. +“We had better go back,” he said. “It is fairly certain that Miss +Bennett has been taken out somewhere on the road. The motor-cyclist is +now the best clue, because she evidently went with him. This cyclist was +either the Frog, or one of his men.” +“They disappeared somewhere between Shoreham and Morby,” said Dick. “You +know the country about here, Mr. Bennett. Is there any place where +they’d be likely to go near Morby?” +“I know the country,” agreed Bennett, “and I’ve been trying to think. +There is nothing but a very few houses outside of Morby. Of course, +there is Morby Fields, but I can’t imagine Ella being taken there.” +“What are Morby Fields?” asked Dick, as the car went slowly back the way +it had come. +“Morby Fields is a disused quarry. The company went into liquidation +some years ago,” replied Bennett. +They passed through Morby at snail pace, stopping at the local +policeman’s house for any further news which might have been gleaned in +their absence. There was, however, nothing fresh. +“You are perfectly certain that you did not see the motor-cyclist?” +“I am quite certain, sir,” said the man. “The car was as close to me as +I am to you. In fact, I had to step to the pavement to prevent myself +being splashed with mud; and there was no motor-cyclist. In fact, the +impression I had was that the car was empty.” +“Why did you think that?” asked Elk quickly. +“It was riding light, for one thing, and the chauffeur was smoking for +another. I always associate a smoking chauffeur with an empty car.” +“Son,” said the admiring Elk, “there are possibilities about you,” and a +recruit to Headquarters was noted. +“I’m inclined to agree with that village policeman,” said Dick when they +walked back to their machine. “The car was empty when it came through +here, and that accounts for the absence of the motor-cyclist. It is +between Morby and Wellan that we’ve got to look.” +And now they moved at a walking pace. The brackets that held the +head-lamps were wrenched round to throw a light upon the ditch and hedge +on either side of the road. They had not gone five hundred yards when +Elk roared: +“Stop!” and jumped into the roadway. +He was gone a few minutes, and then he called Dick, and the three men +went back to where the detective was standing, looking at a big red +motor-cycle that stood under the shelter of a crumbling stone wall. They +had passed it without observation, for its owner had chosen the other +side of the wall, and it was only the gleam of the light on a handlebar +which showed just above its screen, that had led to its detection. +Dick ran to the car and backed it so that the wall and machine were +visible. The cycle was almost new; it was splattered with mud, and its +acetylene head-lamps were cold to the touch. Elk had an inspiration. At +the back of the seat was a heavy tool-wallet, attached by a firm strap, +and this he began to unfasten. +“If this is a new machine, the maker will have put the name and address +of the owner in his wallet,” he said. +Presently the tool-bag was detached, and Elk unstrapped the last +fastening and turned back the flap. +“Great Moses!” said Elk. +Neatly painted on the undressed leather was: +“Joshua Broad, 6, Caverley House, Cavendish Square!” +CHAPTER XLI +IN QUARRY HOUSE +THE first impression that Ella Bennett had when she returned to the +kitchen to fasten the door that shut off the sitting-room, was that the +tea-cloth, which she had hung up to dry on the line near the lofty +ceiling, had fallen. With startling suddenness she was enveloped in the +folds of a heavy, musty cloth. And then an arm was flung round her, a +hand covered her mouth and drew back her head. She tried to scream, but +no sound came. She kicked out toward the door and an arm clutched at her +dress and pulled back her foot. She heard the sound of something +tearing, and then a strap was put round her ankles. She felt the rush of +the cold air as the door was opened, and in another second she was in +the garden. +“Walk,” hissed a voice, and she discovered her feet were loosened. +She could see nothing, only she could feel the rain beating down upon +the cloth that covered her head, and the strength of the wind against +her face. It blew the cloth so tightly over her mouth and nose that she +could hardly breathe. Where they were taking her she could only guess. +It was not until she felt her feet squelch in liquid mud that she knew +she was in the lane by the side of the house. She had hardly identified +the place before she was lifted bodily into the waiting car; she heard +somebody scrambling in by her side, and the car jerked forward. Then +with dexterous hand, one of the men sitting at her side whisked the +cloth from her head. Ahead, in one of the two bucket seats, the only one +occupied, was a dark figure, the face of which she could not see. +“What are you doing? Who are you?” she asked, and no sooner did the +voice of the man before her come to her ears than she knew she was in +the power of the Frog. +“I’m going to give you your last chance,” he said. “After to-night that +chance is gone.” +She composed the tremor in her voice with an effort, and then: +“What do you mean by my last chance?” she asked. +“You will undertake to marry me, and to leave the country with me in the +morning. I’ve such faith in you that I will take your word,” he said. +She shook her head, until she realized that, in the darkness, he could +not see her. +“I will never do that,” she answered quietly, and no other word was +spoken through the journey. Once, at a whispered word from the man in +the mask—she saw the reflection of his mica eye-pieces even though the +blinds were drawn, as the car went through some village street—one of +the men looked back through the glass in the hood. +“Nothing,” he said. +No violence was offered to her; she was not bound, or restricted in any +way, though she knew it was perfectly hopeless for her to dream of +escape. +They were running along a dark country road when the car slowed and +stopped. The passengers turned out quickly; she was the last. A man +caught her arm as she descended and led her, through an opening of the +hedge, into what seemed to her to be a ploughed field. +The other came after her, bringing her an oilskin coat and helping her +into it. +The rain flogged across the waste, rattling against the oil-coat; she +heard the man holding her arm mutter something under his breath. The +Frog walked ahead, only looking back once. She slipped and stumbled, and +would have often fallen but for the hand which held her up. +“Where are you taking me?” she asked at last. +There was no reply. She wondered if she could wrench herself free, and +trust to the cover of darkness to hide her, but even as the thought +occurred, she saw a gleam of water to the right—a round, ghostly patch. +“These are Morby Fields,” she said suddenly, recognizing the place. +“You’re taking me to the quarry.” +Again no answer. They tramped on doggedly, until she knew they were +within measurable distance of the quarry itself. She wondered what would +be her fate when she finally refused, as she would refuse. Did this +terrible man intend to kill her? +“Wait,” said the Frog suddenly, and disappeared into the gloom. +Then she saw a light, which came from a small wooden house; two patches +of light, one long, one square—a window and a door. The window +disappeared as he closed the shutter. Then his figure stood silhouetted +in the doorway. +“Come,” he said, and she went forward. +At the door of the hut she drew back, but the hand on her arm tightened. +She was pushed into the interior, and the door was slammed and bolted. +She was alone with Frog! +Curiosity overcame her fear. She looked round the little room. It was +about ten feet long by six feet broad. The furnishings were simple: a +bed, a table, two chairs and a fireplace. The wooden floor was covered +by an old and grimy rug. Against one of the walls were piled two shallow +wooden boxes, and the wood was new. The mask followed the direction of +her eyes and she heard his slow chuckle. +“Money,” he said tersely, “your money and my money. There is a million +there.” +She looked, fascinated. Near the boxes were four long glass cylinders, +containing an opaque substance or liquid—she could not tell from where +she stood. The nature of this the Frog did not then trouble to explain. +“Sit down,” he said. +His manner was brisk and businesslike. She expected him to take off his +mask as he seated himself opposite her, but in this she was +disappointed. He sat, and through the mica pieces she saw his hard eyes +watching her. +“Well, Ella Bennett, what do you say? Will you marry me, or will you go +into a welcome oblivion? You leave this hut either as my wife, or we +leave together—dead.” +He got up and went to where the glass cylinders lay and touched one. +“I will smash one of these with my foot and take off my mask, and you +shall have at least the satisfaction that you know who I am before you +die—but only just before you die!” +She looked at him steadily. +“I will never marry you,” she said, “never! If for no other reason, for +your villainous plot against my brother.” +“Your brother is a fool,” said the hollow voice. “He need never have +gone through that agony, if you had only promised to marry me. I had a +man ready to confess, I myself would have taken the risk of supporting +his confession.” +“Why do you want to marry me?” she asked. +It sounded banal, stupid. Yet so grotesque was the suggestion, that she +could talk of the matter in cold blood and almost without emotion. +“Because I love you,” was the reply. “Whether I love you as Dick Gordon +loves you, I do not know. It may well be that you are something which I +cannot possess, and therefore are all the more precious to me—I have +never been thwarted in any desire.” +“I would welcome death,” she said quickly, and she heard the muffled +chuckle. +“There are worse things than death to a sensitive woman,” he said +significantly, “and you shall not die until the end.” +He did not attempt to speak again, but, pulling a pack of cards from his +pocket, played solitaire. After an hour’s play, he swept the cards into +the fireplace and rose. +He looked at her and there was something in his eyes that froze her +blood. +“Perhaps you will never see my face,” he said, and reached out his hand +to the oil lamp which stood on the table. +Lower and lower sank the flame, and then came a gentle tap at the door. +_Tap . . . tap . . . tappity . . . tap!_ +The Frog stood still, his hand upon the lamp. +_Tap . . . tap . . . tappity . . . tap!_ +It came again. He turned up the light a little and went to the door. +“Who’s that?” he asked. +“Hagn,” said a deep voice, and the Frog took a startled step backward. +“Quick! Open!’” +The mask turned the heavy bar, and, taking a key from his pocket, he +drew back the lock. +“Hagn, how did you get away?” +The door was pushed open with such violence that he was flung back +against the wall, and Ella uttered a scream of joy. +Standing in the doorway was a bareheaded man, in a shining trench-coat. +It was Joshua Broad. +“Keep back!” +He did not look round, but she knew the words were addressed to her and +stood stock-still. Both Broad’s hands were in the deep pockets of his +coat; his eyes did not leave the mask. +“Harry,” he said softly, “you know what I want.” +“Take yours!” screeched the Frog. His hand moved so quickly that the +girl could not follow it. +Two shots rang out together and the Frog staggered back against the +wall. His foot was within a few inches of the glass cylinders, and he +raised it. Again Broad fired, and the Frog fell backward, his head in +the fireplace. He came struggling to his feet, and then, with a little +choking sob, fell backward, his arms outstretched. +There was a sound of voices outside, a scraping of feet on the muddy +path, and John Bennett came into the hut. In a moment the girl was in +his arms. Broad looked round. Elk and Dick Gordon were standing in the +doorway, taking in the scene. +“Gentlemen,” said Joshua Broad, “I call you to witness that I killed +this man in self-defence.” +“Who is it?” said Dick. +“It is the Frog,” said Joshua Broad calmly. “His other name is Harry +Lyme. He is an English convict.” +“I knew it was Harry Lyme.” It was Elk who spoke. “Is he dead?” +Broad stooped and thrust his hand under the man’s waistcoat. +“Yes, he is dead,” he announced simply. “I’m sorry that I have robbed +you of your prey, Mr. Elk, but it was vitally necessary that he should +be killed before I was, and one of us had to die this night!” +Elk knelt by the still figure and began to unfasten the hideous rubber +mask. +“It was here that Genter was killed,” said Dick Gordon in a low voice. +“Do you see the gas?” +Elk looked at the glass cylinders and nodded. Then his eyes came back to +the bareheaded American. +“Saul Morris, I believe?” he said, and “Joshua Broad” nodded. +Elk pursed his lips thoughtfully, and his eyes went back to the still +figure at his feet. +“Now, Frog, let me see you,” he said, and tore away the mask. +He looked down into the face of Philosopher Johnson! +CHAPTER XLII +JOSHUA BROAD EXPLAINS +THE sunlight was pouring through the windows of Maytree Cottage; the +breakfast things still stood upon the table, when the American began his +story. +“My name, as you rightly surmised, Mr. Elk, is Saul Morris. I am, by all +moral standards, a criminal, though I have not been guilty of any +criminal practice for the past ten years. I was born at Hertford in +Connecticut. +“I am not going to offer you an apology, conventional or unconventional, +for my ultimate choice; nor will I insult your intelligence by inviting +sympathy for my first fall. I guess I was born with light fingers and a +desire for money that I had not earned. I was not corrupted, I was not +tempted, I had no evil companions; in fact, the beginnings of my career +were singularly unlike any of the careers of criminals which I have ever +read. +“I studied bank robberies as a doctor might take up the study of +anatomy. I understand perfectly every system of banking—and there are +only two, one of which succeeds, the other produces a plentiful crop of +fraudulent directors—and I have added to this a knowledge of lockcraft. +A burglar who starts business without understanding the difficulties and +obstacles he has to overcome is—to use the parallel I have already +employed—like the doctor who starts off to operate without knowing what +arteries, tissues and nerves he will be severing. The difference between +a surgeon and a butcher is that one doesn’t know the name of the tissues +he is cutting! +“When I decided upon my career, I served for five years in the factory +of the greatest English safe-maker in Wolverhampton. I studied locks, +safes, the tensile qualities of steel, until I was proficient, and my +spare time I gave up to as important a study—the transportation of +negotiable currency. That in itself is a study which might well occupy a +man’s full time. +“I returned to America at the age of twenty-five, and accumulated a kit +of tools, which cost me several thousand dollars, and with these, and +alone, I smashed the Ninth National Bank, getting away, on my first +attempt, with three hundred thousand dollars. I will not give you a long +list of my many crimes; some of them I have conveniently forgotten. +Others are too unimportant, and contain too many disappointments to tell +you in detail. It is sufficient to say that there is no proof, other +than my word, that I was responsible for any of these depredations. My +name has only been associated with one—the robbery of the strong-room +on the _Mantania_. +“In 1898 I learnt that the _Mantania_ was carrying to France fifty-five +million francs in paper currency. The money was packed in two stout +wooden cases, and before being packed, was submitted to hydraulic +pressure in order to reduce the bulk. In one case were thirty-five +packets, each containing a thousand mille notes, and in the second case +twenty packets. I particularly want you to remember that there were two +cases, because you will understand a little better what happened +subsequently. +“It was intended that the ship should call at a French port; I think it +was Havre, because the trans-Atlantic boats in those days did not call +at Cherbourg. I had made all my plans for getting away with the stuff, +and the robbery had actually been committed and the boxes were in my +cabin trunk, substitute boxes of an exact shape having been left in the +strong-room of the _Mantania_, when to my dismay we lost a propeller +blade whilst off the coast of Ireland, and the captain of the _Mantania_ +decided to put in to Southampton without making the French port. +“A change of plans, to a man of my profession, is almost as embarrassing +as a change of plan in the middle of a battle. I had on this occasion an +assistant—a man who afterwards died in _delirium tremens_. It was +absolutely impossible to work alone; the job was too big, and my +assistant was a man I had every reason to trust.” +“Harry Lyme?” suggested Elk. +“Joshua Broad” shook his head. +“No, you’re wrong. I will not tell you his name—the man is dead, and he +was a very faithful and loyal fellow, though inclined to booze, a +weakness which I never shared. However, the reason we were so +embarrassed was that, had we gone ashore at the French port, the robbery +in the strong-room would not have been discovered, because it was +unlikely that the purser would go to the strong-room until the ship was +in Southampton Water. I had fixed everything, the passing of my bags +through the Customs being the most important. This change meant that we +must improvise a method to get ashore at Southampton before the hue and +cry was raised, and, if possible, before the robbery was discovered, +though it did not seem possible that we should succeed. +“Fortunately, there was a fog in the Solent, and we had to go dead slow; +and, if you remember the circumstances, as the _Mantania_ came up the +Solent, she collided with a steam dredger that was going into +Portsmouth. The dredger’s foremast became entangled in the bowsprit of +the _Mantania_ and it was some time before they were extricated. It was +then that I seized my opportunity. From an open port-way on my deck, +where we were waiting with our baggage, ready to land, we were level +with the side of the dredger as she swung round under the impact. I +flung the two grips that held the boxes on to the dredger’s deck, and I +and my friend jumped together. +“As I say, a fog lay on the water, and we were not seen, and not +discovered by the crew of the dredger until we had parted company with +the _Mantania_, and although the story we told to the dredger’s captain +was the thinnest imaginable—namely, that we thought it was a tender +that had come off to collect us—he very readily accepted it, and the +twenty-dollar bill which I gave him. +“We made Portsmouth after a great deal of difficulty late in the +evening. There was no Customs inspection and we got our bags safely on +land. I intended staying the night at Portsmouth, but after we had taken +our lodgings, my friend and I went round to a little bar to get a drink, +and there we heard something which sent us back to our rooms at full +pelt. What we heard was that the robbery had been discovered, and that +the police were looking for two men who had made their escape on the +dredger. As it was the dredger’s captain who had recommended our +lodgings, I had little expectation of getting into the room and out +again without capture. +“However, we did, and as we passed out of the street at one end, the +police came in at the other. I carried one bag, my friend the lighter, +and we started on foot across country, and before the morning we had +reached a place called Eastleigh. It was to Eastleigh, you will +remember, Mr. Elk, that I came when I left the cattle-boat during the +war and suddenly changed my character from a hard-up cattle-puncher to a +wealthy gambler at Monte Carlo. +“That matter I will explain later. When we reached Eastleigh, I had a +talk with my companion, and it was a pretty straight talk, because he’d +got a load of liquor on board and was becoming more and more unreliable. +It ended by his going into the town to buy some food and not returning. +When I went in search of him, I found him lying in the street, incapably +drunk. There was nothing to do but to leave him; and getting a little +food, I took the two bags and struck the road. The bags, however, were +much too heavy for me, and I had to consider my position. +“Standing by the road was an old cottage, and on a board was an +announcement that it was to be sold. I took the address; it was the name +of a Winchester lawyer; and then I got over the fence and made an +inspection of the ground, to find that, at the lower end of the rank +garden, was an old, disused well, boarded over by rotten planks. I could +in safety drop the lighter of my burdens down the well and cover it up +with the rubble, of which there was plenty around. I might have buried +both; in many ways a lot of trouble would have been saved if I had. But +I was loth to leave all that I had striven for with such care and pains, +and I took the second box on with me, reached Winchester, bought a +change of clothing, and spent a comfortable day there, interviewing the +lawyer, who owned the cottage. +“I had some English money with me, and the purchase was effected. I gave +strict instructions that the place was not to be let in any +circumstances, and that it was to remain as it was until I came back +from Australia—I posed as a wealthy Australian who was repurchasing the +house in which he was born. +“From Winchester I reached London, never dreaming that I was in any +danger. My companion had given me the name of an English crook, an +acquaintance of his, who, he said, was the finest safe-man in Europe—a +man who was called ‘Lyme’ and who, I discovered many years after, was +the same Harry Lyme. He told me Lyme would help me in any emergency. +“And that emergency soon arose. The first man I saw when I put my foot +on the platform at Waterloo was the purser of the _Mantania_, and with +him was the ship’s detective. I dodged back, and, fortunately for me, +there was a suburban train leaving from the opposite platform, and I +went on to Surbiton, reaching London by another route. Afterwards, I +learnt that my companion had been arrested, and in his half-drunken +state had told all he knew. The thing to do now was to cache the +remainder of the money—thirty-five million francs. I immediately +thought of Harry Lyme. I have never suffered from the illusion that +there is honour amongst thieves. My own experience is that that is one +of the most stupid of proverbs. But I thought that at least I might make +it worth Lyme’s while to help me out of a mess. +“I learnt from the newspapers that there was a special force of police +looking for me, and that they were watching the houses of well-known +criminals, to whom, they thought, I might gravitate. At first I thought +this was a bluff, but I was to discover that this was not the case. I +reached Lyme’s house, in a disreputable thoroughfare in Camden Town. The +fog was thick and yellow, and I had some difficulty in finding my way. +It was a small house in a mean, squalid street, and at first I could get +no reply to my knocking. Then the door was opened cautiously. +“‘Is that Lyme?’ I asked. ‘He’s not at home,’ said a man, and he would +have shut the door, but my instinct told me this was the fellow I was +seeking, and I put my foot in the way of the closing door. ‘Come in,’ he +said at last, and led the way into a small room, the only light of which +was a lantern which stood on the table. The room was thick with fog, for +the window was open, as I learnt afterwards, to allow Lyme to make his +escape. +“‘Are you the American?’ he asked. ‘You’re mad to come here. The police +have been watching this place ever since this afternoon.’ I told him +briefly what my difficulty was. ‘I have here thirty-five million +francs—that’s a million, three hundred thousand pounds,’ said I, ‘and +there’s enough for both of us. Can you plant this whilst I make a +get-away?’ ‘Yes, I will,’ he said. ‘What do I get out of it?’ ‘I’ll give +you half,’ I promised, and he seemed to be satisfied with that. +“I was surprised that he spoke in the voice and tone of an educated man, +and I learnt afterwards that he also had been intended for some +profession, and, like myself, had chosen the easier way. Now, you’ll not +believe me when I tell you that I did not see his face, and that I +carried no very vivid impression away with me. This is due to the fact +that I concentrated my attention upon the frog which was tattooed on his +wrist, and which afterwards, at great expense, he succeeded in having +removed by a Spanish doctor at Valladolid, who specialized in that kind +of work. That frog was tattooed a little askew, and I knew, and he knew +too, that, whether I remembered his face or not, he had a mark which was +certain to guide me back to him. +“The arrangement I made was that, when I got back to America, I should +send a cable to him, at an address we agreed upon, and that he was then +to send me, by registered post to the Grand Hotel, Montreal, a half of +the money he had in the box. To cut a long story short, I made my +escape, and eventually reached the Continent by way of Hook of Holland. +Encumbered with any baggage, that would have been impossible. In due +course I left for the United States from Bremen, Germany, and +immediately on my arrival sent the cable to Lyme, and went up to +Montreal to await the arrival of the money. It did not come. I cabled +again; still it did not come. +“It was months after that I learnt what had happened. It came from a +cutting of a newspaper, saying that Lyme had been drowned on his way to +Guernsey. How he sent that, I don’t know and never have inquired. Lyme +was, in fact, very much alive. He had some six million dollars’ worth of +French notes, and his job was to negotiate them. His first step was to +move to a Midland town, where for six months he posed as a man of +business, in the meantime changing his whole appearance, shaving off his +moustache and producing an artificial baldness by the application of +some chemical. +“Whilst he was doing this, and determined that every penny he had taken +from me he would hold, he decided to make assurance doubly sure, and +started in a small way the Fellowship of the Frog. The object of this +was to spread the mark of identification by which I should know him, as +far and wide as possible. He may have had no other idea in his mind, and +probably had not, but to broadcast this mark of the frog, a little +askew, the exact replica of his. Obviously, no class would be willing to +suffer the tortures of tattooing for nothing. So began this curious +Benefit Fund of his. From this little beginning grew the great Frog +organization. Almost one of the first men he came into contact with was +an old criminal named Maitland, a man who could neither read nor write.” +There was a gasp. +“Why, of course!” said Elk, and smacked his knee impatiently. “That is +the explanation of the baby!” +“There never was a baby,” smiled “Broad.” “The baby was Maitland +himself, learning to write. The clothes of the baby, which were planted +for your special benefit in the Elder Street house, were put there by +Johnson. The toys for the baby were inventions to keep you guessing. +There never was a baby. Once he had Maitland properly coached, he came +to London, and Maitlands Consolidated was formed. Maitland had nothing +to do except to sit around and look picturesque. His alleged clerk, one +of the cleverest actors I have ever met, was the real head of the +business, and remained Maitland’s clerk just as long as it suited him. +When he thought suspicion was veering toward him, he had himself +dismissed; just as, when he thought you had identified him with the +Frog, he made one of his men shoot at him with a blank cartridge in +Harley Terrace. He was the real Maitland. +“In the meantime the Frog organization was growing, and he sat down to +consider how best he could use the society for his advantage. Money was +going out, and he naturally hated to see it go. New recruits were +appearing every day, and they all cost money. But what he did get from +this rabble were one or two brilliant minds. Balder was one, Hagn was +one, and there were others, who perhaps will now never be known. +“As the controlling force of Maitlands Consolidated, he had not the +slightest difficulty in disposing of his francs. And then he set +Maitlands speculating in other directions, and when his speculations +were failing, he found ways of cutting his loss. He was once caught +short in a wool transaction—the Frog maimed the only man who could have +ruined him. Whenever he found it expedient for the benefit of himself to +club a man, whether he was a military attaché or a very plain City +merchant speculating in his own stocks, Johnson never hesitated. People +who were bothering him were put beyond the opportunities of mischief. He +made one great mistake. He allowed Maitland to live like a hog in a +house he had bought. That was folly. When he found that the old man had +been trailed, he shifted him to Berkeley Square, got him tailored, and +eventually murdered him for daring to go to Horsham. I saw the murderer +escape, for I was on the roof when the shots were fired. Incidentally, I +had a narrow escape myself. +“But to return to my own narrative. Five years ago I was broke, and I +decided to have another attempt to get my money; and there was also the +fact that a very large sum of money waited reclaiming at Eastleigh, +always providing that I had not been identified as the man who bought +the house. It took me a long time before I made absolutely certain that +I was unknown, and then, with the title deeds in my pocket, I sailed on +a cattle-boat and landed, as you have said, Mr. Elk, with a few dollars +in my pocket, at Southampton. I went straight to the house, which was +now in a shocking state of repair, and there I made myself as +comfortable as I possibly could whilst, night after night, I toiled in +the well to recover the small box of money, amounting to a very +considerable sum. When this was recovered, I left for Paris, and the +rest, so far as my public history is concerned, you know. +“I then began my search for Frog, and I very soon saw that, if I +depended upon the identification of the tattoo marks, my search was +hopeless. Naturally, when I discovered, as I soon did, that Maitland was +a Frog, I narrowed my search to that office. I discovered that Maitland +was an illiterate by the simple expedient of stopping him in the street +one day near his house, and showing him an envelope on which I had +written ‘You are a fake,’ and asking him if he knew the address. He +pointed to a house farther along the street, and hurried in.” +“I knew that Maitland could neither read nor write when I learnt that +the children’s clothes had been left at Eldor Street,” said Dick, “and +from that moment I knew that Johnson was the Frog.” +“Joshua Broad” nodded. +“That, I think, is about all I have to say. Johnson was a genius. The +way he handled that huge organization, which he ran practically in his +spare time when he was away from the office, was a revelation. He drew +everybody into his net, and yet nobody knew him. Balder was a godsend; +he was perhaps the highest paid agent of the lot. You will find that his +income ran into six figures!” +* * * * * * +When “Joshua Broad” had gone back to London, Dick walked with Elk to the +garden gate. +“I shan’t be coming up for a little while,” he said. +“I never expected you would,” said Elk. “Say, Captain Gordon, what +happened to those two wooden boxes that were in the quarry hut last +night?” +“I didn’t see the boxes.” +“I saw them,” said Elk, nodding. “They were there when we took Miss +Bennett away, and when I came back with the police they were gone, and +‘Joshua Broad’ was there all the time,” he added. +They looked at one another. +“I don’t think I should inquire too closely into that matter,” said +Dick. “I owe ‘Broad’ something.” +“I owe him a bit too,” said Elk with a hint of enthusiasm. “Do you know, +he taught me a rhyme last night? There are about a hundred and fifty +verses, but I only know four. It starts: +William the Conqueror started his tricks, +Battle of Hastings, ten sixty-six. +That’s a grand rhyme, Captain Gordon. If I’d only known that ten years +ago I might have been a Chief Commissioner by now!” +He walked down the road towards the station, for he was returning by +tram. The sun glittered upon the rain-fringed banners of the hollyhocks +that filled the cottagers’ gardens. Then from the hedge a tiny green +figure hopped, and Elk stood still and watched it. The little reptile +looked round and eyed the detective with black, staring eyes. +“Frog,” Elk raised a reproachful finger, “have a heart and go home—this +is not your Day!” +And, as if he understood what the man had said, the frog leaped back to +the shelter of the long grass. +THE END +TRANSCRIBER NOTES +Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple +spellings occur, majority use has been employed. +Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors +occur.",The Fellowship of the Frog,Edgar Wallace,280,['Philo Johnson'] +" + + + I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental + and physical, than in the year ’95. His increasing fame had + brought with it an immense practice, and I should be guilty of an + indiscretion if I were even to hint at the identity of some of + the illustrious clients who crossed our humble threshold in Baker + Street. Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his + art’s sake, and, save in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I + have seldom known him claim any large reward for his inestimable + services. So unworldly was he—or so capricious—that he frequently + refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem + made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of + most intense application to the affairs of some humble client + whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which + appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity. + + In this memorable year ’95, a curious and incongruous succession + of cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous + investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca—an inquiry + which was carried out by him at the express desire of His + Holiness the Pope—down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious + canary-trainer, which removed a plague-spot from the East End of + London. Close on the heels of these two famous cases came the + tragedy of Woodman’s Lee, and the very obscure circumstances + which surrounded the death of Captain Peter Carey. No record of + the doings of Mr. Sherlock Holmes would be complete which did not + include some account of this very unusual affair. + + During the first week of July, my friend had been absent so often + and so long from our lodgings that I knew he had something on + hand. The fact that several rough-looking men called during that + time and inquired for Captain Basil made me understand that + Holmes was working somewhere under one of the numerous disguises + and names with which he concealed his own formidable identity. He + had at least five small refuges in different parts of London, in + which he was able to change his personality. He said nothing of + his business to me, and it was not my habit to force a + confidence. The first positive sign which he gave me of the + direction which his investigation was taking was an extraordinary + one. He had gone out before breakfast, and I had sat down to mine + when he strode into the room, his hat upon his head and a huge + barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm. + + “Good gracious, Holmes!” I cried. “You don’t mean to say that you + have been walking about London with that thing?” + + “I drove to the butcher’s and back.” + + “The butcher’s?” + + “And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no + question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before + breakfast. But I am prepared to bet that you will not guess the + form that my exercise has taken.” + + “I will not attempt it.” + + He chuckled as he poured out the coffee. + + “If you could have looked into Allardyce’s back shop, you would + have seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a + gentleman in his shirt sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this + weapon. I was that energetic person, and I have satisfied myself + that by no exertion of my strength can I transfix the pig with a + single blow. Perhaps you would care to try?” + + “Not for worlds. But why were you doing this?” + + “Because it seemed to me to have an indirect bearing upon the + mystery of Woodman’s Lee. Ah, Hopkins, I got your wire last + night, and I have been expecting you. Come and join us.” + + Our visitor was an exceedingly alert man, thirty years of age, + dressed in a quiet tweed suit, but retaining the erect bearing of + one who was accustomed to official uniform. I recognized him at + once as Stanley Hopkins, a young police inspector, for whose + future Holmes had high hopes, while he in turn professed the + admiration and respect of a pupil for the scientific methods of + the famous amateur. Hopkins’s brow was clouded, and he sat down + with an air of deep dejection. + + “No, thank you, sir. I breakfasted before I came round. I spent + the night in town, for I came up yesterday to report.” + + “And what had you to report?” + + “Failure, sir, absolute failure.” + + “You have made no progress?” + + “None.” + + “Dear me! I must have a look at the matter.” + + “I wish to heavens that you would, Mr. Holmes. It’s my first big + chance, and I am at my wits’ end. For goodness’ sake, come down + and lend me a hand.” + + “Well, well, it just happens that I have already read all the + available evidence, including the report of the inquest, with + some care. By the way, what do you make of that tobacco pouch, + found on the scene of the crime? Is there no clue there?” + + Hopkins looked surprised. + + “It was the man’s own pouch, sir. His initials were inside it. + And it was of sealskin,—and he was an old sealer.” + + “But he had no pipe.” + + “No, sir, we could find no pipe. Indeed, he smoked very little, + and yet he might have kept some tobacco for his friends.” + + “No doubt. I only mention it because, if I had been handling the + case, I should have been inclined to make that the starting-point + of my investigation. However, my friend, Dr. Watson, knows + nothing of this matter, and I should be none the worse for + hearing the sequence of events once more. Just give us some short + sketches of the essentials.” + + Stanley Hopkins drew a slip of paper from his pocket. + + “I have a few dates here which will give you the career of the + dead man, Captain Peter Carey. He was born in ’45—fifty years of + age. He was a most daring and successful seal and whale fisher. + In 1883 he commanded the steam sealer _Sea Unicorn_, of Dundee. + He had then had several successful voyages in succession, and in + the following year, 1884, he retired. After that he travelled for + some years, and finally he bought a small place called Woodman’s + Lee, near Forest Row, in Sussex. There he has lived for six + years, and there he died just a week ago to-day. + + “There were some most singular points about the man. In ordinary + life, he was a strict Puritan—a silent, gloomy fellow. His + household consisted of his wife, his daughter, aged twenty, and + two female servants. These last were continually changing, for it + was never a very cheery situation, and sometimes it became past + all bearing. The man was an intermittent drunkard, and when he + had the fit on him he was a perfect fiend. He has been known to + drive his wife and daughter out of doors in the middle of the + night and flog them through the park until the whole village + outside the gates was aroused by their screams. + + “He was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar, + who had called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct. + In short, Mr. Holmes, you would go far before you found a more + dangerous man than Peter Carey, and I have heard that he bore the + same character when he commanded his ship. He was known in the + trade as Black Peter, and the name was given him, not only on + account of his swarthy features and the colour of his huge beard, + but for the humours which were the terror of all around him. I + need not say that he was loathed and avoided by every one of his + neighbours, and that I have not heard one single word of sorrow + about his terrible end. + + “You must have read in the account of the inquest about the man’s + cabin, Mr. Holmes, but perhaps your friend here has not heard of + it. He had built himself a wooden outhouse—he always called it + the ‘cabin’—a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here + that he slept every night. It was a little, single-roomed hut, + sixteen feet by ten. He kept the key in his pocket, made his own + bed, cleaned it himself, and allowed no other foot to cross the + threshold. There are small windows on each side, which were + covered by curtains and never opened. One of these windows was + turned towards the high road, and when the light burned in it at + night the folk used to point it out to each other and wonder what + Black Peter was doing in there. That’s the window, Mr. Holmes, + which gave us one of the few bits of positive evidence that came + out at the inquest. + + “You remember that a stonemason, named Slater, walking from + Forest Row about one o’clock in the morning—two days before the + murder—stopped as he passed the grounds and looked at the square + of light still shining among the trees. He swears that the shadow + of a man’s head turned sideways was clearly visible on the blind, + and that this shadow was certainly not that of Peter Carey, whom + he knew well. It was that of a bearded man, but the beard was + short and bristled forward in a way very different from that of + the captain. So he says, but he had been two hours in the + public-house, and it is some distance from the road to the + window. Besides, this refers to the Monday, and the crime was + done upon the Wednesday. + + “On the Tuesday, Peter Carey was in one of his blackest moods, + flushed with drink and as savage as a dangerous wild beast. He + roamed about the house, and the women ran for it when they heard + him coming. Late in the evening, he went down to his own hut. + About two o’clock the following morning, his daughter, who slept + with her window open, heard a most fearful yell from that + direction, but it was no unusual thing for him to bawl and shout + when he was in drink, so no notice was taken. On rising at seven, + one of the maids noticed that the door of the hut was open, but + so great was the terror which the man caused that it was midday + before anyone would venture down to see what had become of him. + Peeping into the open door, they saw a sight which sent them + flying, with white faces, into the village. Within an hour, I was + on the spot and had taken over the case. + + “Well, I have fairly steady nerves, as you know, Mr. Holmes, but + I give you my word, that I got a shake when I put my head into + that little house. It was droning like a harmonium with the flies + and bluebottles, and the floor and walls were like a + slaughter-house. He had called it a cabin, and a cabin it was, + sure enough, for you would have thought that you were in a ship. + There was a bunk at one end, a sea-chest, maps and charts, a + picture of the _Sea Unicorn_, a line of logbooks on a shelf, all + exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain’s room. And + there, in the middle of it, was the man himself—his face twisted + like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck + upward in his agony. Right through his broad breast a steel + harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of + the wall behind him. He was pinned like a beetle on a card. Of + course, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that + he had uttered that last yell of agony. + + “I know your methods, sir, and I applied them. Before I permitted + anything to be moved, I examined most carefully the ground + outside, and also the floor of the room. There were no + footmarks.” + + “Meaning that you saw none?” + + “I assure you, sir, that there were none.” + + “My good Hopkins, I have investigated many crimes, but I have + never yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature. As + long as the criminal remains upon two legs so long must there be + some indentation, some abrasion, some trifling displacement which + can be detected by the scientific searcher. It is incredible that + this blood-bespattered room contained no trace which could have + aided us. I understand, however, from the inquest that there were + some objects which you failed to overlook?” + + The young inspector winced at my companion’s ironical comments. + + “I was a fool not to call you in at the time Mr. Holmes. However, + that’s past praying for now. Yes, there were several objects in + the room which called for special attention. One was the harpoon + with which the deed was committed. It had been snatched down from + a rack on the wall. Two others remained there, and there was a + vacant place for the third. On the stock was engraved ‘SS. _Sea + Unicorn_, Dundee.’ This seemed to establish that the crime had + been done in a moment of fury, and that the murderer had seized + the first weapon which came in his way. The fact that the crime + was committed at two in the morning, and yet Peter Carey was + fully dressed, suggested that he had an appointment with the + murderer, which is borne out by the fact that a bottle of rum and + two dirty glasses stood upon the table.” + + “Yes,” said Holmes; “I think that both inferences are + permissible. Was there any other spirit but rum in the room?” + + “Yes, there was a tantalus containing brandy and whisky on the + sea-chest. It is of no importance to us, however, since the + decanters were full, and it had therefore not been used.” + + “For all that, its presence has some significance,” said Holmes. + “However, let us hear some more about the objects which do seem + to you to bear upon the case.” + + “There was this tobacco-pouch upon the table.” + + “What part of the table?” + + “It lay in the middle. It was of coarse sealskin—the + straight-haired skin, with a leather thong to bind it. Inside was + ‘P.C.’ on the flap. There was half an ounce of strong ship’s + tobacco in it.” + + “Excellent! What more?” + + Stanley Hopkins drew from his pocket a drab-covered notebook. The + outside was rough and worn, the leaves discoloured. On the first + page were written the initials “J.H.N.” and the date “1883.” + Holmes laid it on the table and examined it in his minute way, + while Hopkins and I gazed over each shoulder. On the second page + were the printed letters “C.P.R.,” and then came several sheets + of numbers. Another heading was “Argentine,” another “Costa + Rica,” and another “San Paulo,” each with pages of signs and + figures after it. + + “What do you make of these?” asked Holmes. + + “They appear to be lists of Stock Exchange securities. I thought + that ‘J.H.N.’ were the initials of a broker, and that ‘C.P.R.’ + may have been his client.” + + “Try Canadian Pacific Railway,” said Holmes. + + Stanley Hopkins swore between his teeth, and struck his thigh + with his clenched hand. + + “What a fool I have been!” he cried. “Of course, it is as you + say. Then ‘J.H.N.’ are the only initials we have to solve. I have + already examined the old Stock Exchange lists, and I can find no + one in 1883, either in the house or among the outside brokers, + whose initials correspond with these. Yet I feel that the clue is + the most important one that I hold. You will admit, Mr. Holmes, + that there is a possibility that these initials are those of the + second person who was present—in other words, of the murderer. I + would also urge that the introduction into the case of a document + relating to large masses of valuable securities gives us for the + first time some indication of a motive for the crime.” + + Sherlock Holmes’s face showed that he was thoroughly taken aback + by this new development. + + “I must admit both your points,” said he. “I confess that this + notebook, which did not appear at the inquest, modifies any views + which I may have formed. I had come to a theory of the crime in + which I can find no place for this. Have you endeavoured to trace + any of the securities here mentioned?” + + “Inquiries are now being made at the offices, but I fear that the + complete register of the stockholders of these South American + concerns is in South America, and that some weeks must elapse + before we can trace the shares.” + + Holmes had been examining the cover of the notebook with his + magnifying lens. + + “Surely there is some discolouration here,” said he. + + “Yes, sir, it is a blood-stain. I told you that I picked the book + off the floor.” + + “Was the blood-stain above or below?” + + “On the side next the boards.” + + “Which proves, of course, that the book was dropped after the + crime was committed.” + + “Exactly, Mr. Holmes. I appreciated that point, and I conjectured + that it was dropped by the murderer in his hurried flight. It lay + near the door.” + + “I suppose that none of these securities have been found among + the property of the dead man?” + + “No, sir.” + + “Have you any reason to suspect robbery?” + + “No, sir. Nothing seemed to have been touched.” + + “Dear me, it is certainly a very interesting case. Then there was + a knife, was there not?” + + “A sheath-knife, still in its sheath. It lay at the feet of the + dead man. Mrs. Carey has identified it as being her husband’s + property.” + + Holmes was lost in thought for some time. + + “Well,” said he, at last, “I suppose I shall have to come out and + have a look at it.” + + Stanley Hopkins gave a cry of joy. + + “Thank you, sir. That will, indeed, be a weight off my mind.” + + Holmes shook his finger at the inspector. + + “It would have been an easier task a week ago,” said he. “But + even now my visit may not be entirely fruitless. Watson, if you + can spare the time, I should be very glad of your company. If you + will call a four-wheeler, Hopkins, we shall be ready to start for + Forest Row in a quarter of an hour.” + + Alighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles + through the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of + that great forest which for so long held the Saxon invaders at + bay—the impenetrable “weald,” for sixty years the bulwark of + Britain. Vast sections of it have been cleared, for this is the + seat of the first iron-works of the country, and the trees have + been felled to smelt the ore. Now the richer fields of the North + have absorbed the trade, and nothing save these ravaged groves + and great scars in the earth show the work of the past. Here, in + a clearing upon the green slope of a hill, stood a long, low, + stone house, approached by a curving drive running through the + fields. Nearer the road, and surrounded on three sides by bushes, + was a small outhouse, one window and the door facing in our + direction. It was the scene of the murder. + + Stanley Hopkins led us first to the house, where he introduced us + to a haggard, grey-haired woman, the widow of the murdered man, + whose gaunt and deep-lined face, with the furtive look of terror + in the depths of her red-rimmed eyes, told of the years of + hardship and ill-usage which she had endured. With her was her + daughter, a pale, fair-haired girl, whose eyes blazed defiantly + at us as she told us that she was glad that her father was dead, + and that she blessed the hand which had struck him down. It was a + terrible household that Black Peter Carey had made for himself, + and it was with a sense of relief that we found ourselves in the + sunlight again and making our way along a path which had been + worn across the fields by the feet of the dead man. + + The outhouse was the simplest of dwellings, wooden-walled, + shingle-roofed, one window beside the door and one on the farther + side. Stanley Hopkins drew the key from his pocket and had + stooped to the lock, when he paused with a look of attention and + surprise upon his face. + + “Someone has been tampering with it,” he said. + + There could be no doubt of the fact. The woodwork was cut, and + the scratches showed white through the paint, as if they had been + that instant done. Holmes had been examining the window. + + “Someone has tried to force this also. Whoever it was has failed + to make his way in. He must have been a very poor burglar.” + + “This is a most extraordinary thing,” said the inspector, “I + could swear that these marks were not here yesterday evening.” + + “Some curious person from the village, perhaps,” I suggested. + + “Very unlikely. Few of them would dare to set foot in the + grounds, far less try to force their way into the cabin. What do + you think of it, Mr. Holmes?” + + “I think that fortune is very kind to us.” + + “You mean that the person will come again?” + + “It is very probable. He came expecting to find the door open. He + tried to get in with the blade of a very small penknife. He could + not manage it. What would he do?” + + “Come again next night with a more useful tool.” + + “So I should say. It will be our fault if we are not there to + receive him. Meanwhile, let me see the inside of the cabin.” + + The traces of the tragedy had been removed, but the furniture + within the little room still stood as it had been on the night of + the crime. For two hours, with most intense concentration, Holmes + examined every object in turn, but his face showed that his quest + was not a successful one. Once only he paused in his patient + investigation. + + “Have you taken anything off this shelf, Hopkins?” + + “No, I have moved nothing.” + + “Something has been taken. There is less dust in this corner of + the shelf than elsewhere. It may have been a book lying on its + side. It may have been a box. Well, well, I can do nothing more. + Let us walk in these beautiful woods, Watson, and give a few + hours to the birds and the flowers. We shall meet you here later, + Hopkins, and see if we can come to closer quarters with the + gentleman who has paid this visit in the night.” + + It was past eleven o’clock when we formed our little ambuscade. + Hopkins was for leaving the door of the hut open, but Holmes was + of the opinion that this would rouse the suspicions of the + stranger. The lock was a perfectly simple one, and only a strong + blade was needed to push it back. Holmes also suggested that we + should wait, not inside the hut, but outside it, among the bushes + which grew round the farther window. In this way we should be + able to watch our man if he struck a light, and see what his + object was in this stealthy nocturnal visit. + + It was a long and melancholy vigil, and yet brought with it + something of the thrill which the hunter feels when he lies + beside the water-pool, and waits for the coming of the thirsty + beast of prey. What savage creature was it which might steal upon + us out of the darkness? Was it a fierce tiger of crime, which + could only be taken fighting hard with flashing fang and claw, or + would it prove to be some skulking jackal, dangerous only to the + weak and unguarded? + + In absolute silence we crouched amongst the bushes, waiting for + whatever might come. At first the steps of a few belated + villagers, or the sound of voices from the village, lightened our + vigil, but one by one these interruptions died away, and an + absolute stillness fell upon us, save for the chimes of the + distant church, which told us of the progress of the night, and + for the rustle and whisper of a fine rain falling amid the + foliage which roofed us in. + + Half-past two had chimed, and it was the darkest hour which + precedes the dawn, when we all started as a low but sharp click + came from the direction of the gate. Someone had entered the + drive. Again there was a long silence, and I had begun to fear + that it was a false alarm, when a stealthy step was heard upon + the other side of the hut, and a moment later a metallic scraping + and clinking. The man was trying to force the lock. This time his + skill was greater or his tool was better, for there was a sudden + snap and the creak of the hinges. Then a match was struck, and + next instant the steady light from a candle filled the interior + of the hut. Through the gauze curtain our eyes were all riveted + upon the scene within. + + The nocturnal visitor was a young man, frail and thin, with a + black moustache, which intensified the deadly pallor of his face. + He could not have been much above twenty years of age. I have + never seen any human being who appeared to be in such a pitiable + fright, for his teeth were visibly chattering, and he was shaking + in every limb. He was dressed like a gentleman, in Norfolk jacket + and knickerbockers, with a cloth cap upon his head. We watched + him staring round with frightened eyes. Then he laid the + candle-end upon the table and disappeared from our view into one + of the corners. He returned with a large book, one of the + logbooks which formed a line upon the shelves. Leaning on the + table, he rapidly turned over the leaves of this volume until he + came to the entry which he sought. Then, with an angry gesture of + his clenched hand, he closed the book, replaced it in the corner, + and put out the light. He had hardly turned to leave the hut when + Hopkin’s hand was on the fellow’s collar, and I heard his loud + gasp of terror as he understood that he was taken. The candle was + relit, and there was our wretched captive, shivering and cowering + in the grasp of the detective. He sank down upon the sea-chest, + and looked helplessly from one of us to the other. + + “Now, my fine fellow,” said Stanley Hopkins, “who are you, and + what do you want here?” + + The man pulled himself together, and faced us with an effort at + self-composure. + + “You are detectives, I suppose?” said he. “You imagine I am + connected with the death of Captain Peter Carey. I assure you + that I am innocent.” + + “We’ll see about that,” said Hopkins. “First of all, what is your + name?” + + “It is John Hopley Neligan.” + + I saw Holmes and Hopkins exchange a quick glance. + + “What are you doing here?” + + “Can I speak confidentially?” + + “No, certainly not.” + + “Why should I tell you?” + + “If you have no answer, it may go badly with you at the trial.” + + The young man winced. + + “Well, I will tell you,” he said. “Why should I not? And yet I + hate to think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life. + Did you ever hear of Dawson and Neligan?” + + I could see, from Hopkins’s face, that he never had, but Holmes + was keenly interested. + + “You mean the West Country bankers,” said he. “They failed for a + million, ruined half the county families of Cornwall, and Neligan + disappeared.” + + “Exactly. Neligan was my father.” + + At last we were getting something positive, and yet it seemed a + long gap between an absconding banker and Captain Peter Carey + pinned against the wall with one of his own harpoons. We all + listened intently to the young man’s words. + + “It was my father who was really concerned. Dawson had retired. I + was only ten years of age at the time, but I was old enough to + feel the shame and horror of it all. It has always been said that + my father stole all the securities and fled. It is not true. It + was his belief that if he were given time in which to realize + them, all would be well and every creditor paid in full. He + started in his little yacht for Norway just before the warrant + was issued for his arrest. I can remember that last night when he + bade farewell to my mother. He left us a list of the securities + he was taking, and he swore that he would come back with his + honour cleared, and that none who had trusted him would suffer. + Well, no word was ever heard from him again. Both the yacht and + he vanished utterly. We believed, my mother and I, that he and + it, with the securities that he had taken with him, were at the + bottom of the sea. We had a faithful friend, however, who is a + business man, and it was he who discovered some time ago that + some of the securities which my father had with him had + reappeared on the London market. You can imagine our amazement. I + spent months in trying to trace them, and at last, after many + doubtings and difficulties, I discovered that the original seller + had been Captain Peter Carey, the owner of this hut. + + “Naturally, I made some inquiries about the man. I found that he + had been in command of a whaler which was due to return from the + Arctic seas at the very time when my father was crossing to + Norway. The autumn of that year was a stormy one, and there was a + long succession of southerly gales. My father’s yacht may well + have been blown to the north, and there met by Captain Peter + Carey’s ship. If that were so, what had become of my father? In + any case, if I could prove from Peter Carey’s evidence how these + securities came on the market it would be a proof that my father + had not sold them, and that he had no view to personal profit + when he took them. + + “I came down to Sussex with the intention of seeing the captain, + but it was at this moment that his terrible death occurred. I + read at the inquest a description of his cabin, in which it + stated that the old logbooks of his vessel were preserved in it. + It struck me that if I could see what occurred in the month of + August, 1883, on board the _Sea Unicorn_, I might settle the + mystery of my father’s fate. I tried last night to get at these + logbooks, but was unable to open the door. To-night I tried again + and succeeded, but I find that the pages which deal with that + month have been torn from the book. It was at that moment I found + myself a prisoner in your hands.” + + “Is that all?” asked Hopkins. + + “Yes, that is all.” His eyes shifted as he said it. + + “You have nothing else to tell us?” + + He hesitated. + + “No, there is nothing.” + + “You have not been here before last night?” + + “No. + + “Then how do you account for _that_?” cried Hopkins, as he held + up the damning notebook, with the initials of our prisoner on the + first leaf and the blood-stain on the cover. + + The wretched man collapsed. He sank his face in his hands, and + trembled all over. + + “Where did you get it?” he groaned. “I did not know. I thought I + had lost it at the hotel.” + + “That is enough,” said Hopkins, sternly. “Whatever else you have + to say, you must say in court. You will walk down with me now to + the police-station. Well, Mr. Holmes, I am very much obliged to + you and to your friend for coming down to help me. As it turns + out your presence was unnecessary, and I would have brought the + case to this successful issue without you, but, none the less, I + am grateful. Rooms have been reserved for you at the Brambletye + Hotel, so we can all walk down to the village together.” + + “Well, Watson, what do you think of it?” asked Holmes, as we + travelled back next morning. + + “I can see that you are not satisfied.” + + “Oh, yes, my dear Watson, I am perfectly satisfied. At the same + time, Stanley Hopkins’s methods do not commend themselves to me. + I am disappointed in Stanley Hopkins. I had hoped for better + things from him. One should always look for a possible + alternative, and provide against it. It is the first rule of + criminal investigation.” + + “What, then, is the alternative?” + + “The line of investigation which I have myself been pursuing. It + may give us nothing. I cannot tell. But at least I shall follow + it to the end.” + + Several letters were waiting for Holmes at Baker Street. He + snatched one of them up, opened it, and burst out into a + triumphant chuckle of laughter. + + “Excellent, Watson! The alternative develops. Have you telegraph + forms? Just write a couple of messages for me: ‘Sumner, Shipping + Agent, Ratcliff Highway. Send three men on, to arrive ten + to-morrow morning.—Basil.’ That’s my name in those parts. The + other is: ‘Inspector Stanley Hopkins, 46 Lord Street, Brixton. + Come breakfast to-morrow at nine-thirty. Important. Wire if + unable to come.—Sherlock Holmes.’ There, Watson, this infernal + case has haunted me for ten days. I hereby banish it completely + from my presence. To-morrow, I trust that we shall hear the last + of it forever.” + + Sharp at the hour named Inspector Stanley Hopkins appeared, and + we sat down together to the excellent breakfast which Mrs. Hudson + had prepared. The young detective was in high spirits at his + success. + + “You really think that your solution must be correct?” asked + Holmes. + + “I could not imagine a more complete case.” + + “It did not seem to me conclusive.” + + “You astonish me, Mr. Holmes. What more could one ask for?” + + “Does your explanation cover every point?” + + “Undoubtedly. I find that young Neligan arrived at the Brambletye + Hotel on the very day of the crime. He came on the pretence of + playing golf. His room was on the ground-floor, and he could get + out when he liked. That very night he went down to Woodman’s Lee, + saw Peter Carey at the hut, quarrelled with him, and killed him + with the harpoon. Then, horrified by what he had done, he fled + out of the hut, dropping the notebook which he had brought with + him in order to question Peter Carey about these different + securities. You may have observed that some of them were marked + with ticks, and the others—the great majority—were not. Those + which are ticked have been traced on the London market, but the + others, presumably, were still in the possession of Carey, and + young Neligan, according to his own account, was anxious to + recover them in order to do the right thing by his father’s + creditors. After his flight he did not dare to approach the hut + again for some time, but at last he forced himself to do so in + order to obtain the information which he needed. Surely that is + all simple and obvious?” + + Holmes smiled and shook his head. + + “It seems to me to have only one drawback, Hopkins, and that is + that it is intrinsically impossible. Have you tried to drive a + harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut my dear sir, you must really + pay attention to these details. My friend Watson could tell you + that I spent a whole morning in that exercise. It is no easy + matter, and requires a strong and practised arm. But this blow + was delivered with such violence that the head of the weapon sank + deep into the wall. Do you imagine that this anæmic youth was + capable of so frightful an assault? Is he the man who hobnobbed + in rum and water with Black Peter in the dead of the night? Was + it his profile that was seen on the blind two nights before? No, + no, Hopkins, it is another and more formidable person for whom we + must seek.” + + The detective’s face had grown longer and longer during Holmes’s + speech. His hopes and his ambitions were all crumbling about him. + But he would not abandon his position without a struggle. + + “You can’t deny that Neligan was present that night, Mr. Holmes. + The book will prove that. I fancy that I have evidence enough to + satisfy a jury, even if you are able to pick a hole in it. + Besides, Mr. Holmes, I have laid my hand upon _my_ man. As to + this terrible person of yours, where is he?” + + “I rather fancy that he is on the stair,” said Holmes, serenely. + “I think, Watson, that you would do well to put that revolver + where you can reach it.” He rose and laid a written paper upon a + side-table. “Now we are ready,” said he. + + There had been some talking in gruff voices outside, and now Mrs. + Hudson opened the door to say that there were three men inquiring + for Captain Basil. + + “Show them in one by one,” said Holmes. + + “The first who entered was a little Ribston pippin of a man, with + ruddy cheeks and fluffy white side-whiskers. Holmes had drawn a + letter from his pocket. + + “What name?” he asked. + + “James Lancaster.” + + “I am sorry, Lancaster, but the berth is full. Here is half a + sovereign for your trouble. Just step into this room and wait + there for a few minutes.” + + The second man was a long, dried-up creature, with lank hair and + sallow cheeks. His name was Hugh Pattins. He also received his + dismissal, his half-sovereign, and the order to wait. + + The third applicant was a man of remarkable appearance. A fierce + bull-dog face was framed in a tangle of hair and beard, and two + bold, dark eyes gleamed behind the cover of thick, tufted, + overhung eyebrows. He saluted and stood sailor-fashion, turning + his cap round in his hands. + + “Your name?” asked Holmes. + + “Patrick Cairns.” + + “Harpooner?” + + “Yes, sir. Twenty-six voyages.” + + “Dundee, I suppose?” + + “Yes, sir.” + + “And ready to start with an exploring ship?” + + “Yes, sir.” + + “What wages?” + + “Eight pounds a month.” + + “Could you start at once?” + + “As soon as I get my kit.” + + “Have you your papers?” + + “Yes, sir.” He took a sheaf of worn and greasy forms from his + pocket. Holmes glanced over them and returned them. + + “You are just the man I want,” said he. “Here’s the agreement on + the side-table. If you sign it the whole matter will be settled.” + + The seaman lurched across the room and took up the pen. + + “Shall I sign here?” he asked, stooping over the table. + + Holmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over his + neck. + + “This will do,” said he. + + I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. The + next instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground + together. He was a man of such gigantic strength that, even with + the handcuffs which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon his + wrists, he would have very quickly overpowered my friend had + Hopkins and I not rushed to his rescue. Only when I pressed the + cold muzzle of the revolver to his temple did he at last + understand that resistance was vain. We lashed his ankles with + cord, and rose breathless from the struggle. + + “I must really apologize, Hopkins,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I fear + that the scrambled eggs are cold. However, you will enjoy the + rest of your breakfast all the better, will you not, for the + thought that you have brought your case to a triumphant + conclusion.” + + Stanley Hopkins was speechless with amazement. + + “I don’t know what to say, Mr. Holmes,” he blurted out at last, + with a very red face. “It seems to me that I have been making a + fool of myself from the beginning. I understand now, what I + should never have forgotten, that I am the pupil and you are the + master. Even now I see what you have done, but I don’t know how + you did it or what it signifies.” + + “Well, well,” said Holmes, good-humouredly. “We all learn by + experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never + lose sight of the alternative. You were so absorbed in young + Neligan that you could not spare a thought to Patrick Cairns, the + true murderer of Peter Carey.” + + The hoarse voice of the seaman broke in on our conversation. + + “See here, mister,” said he, “I make no complaint of being + man-handled in this fashion, but I would have you call things by + their right names. You say I murdered Peter Carey, I say I + _killed_ Peter Carey, and there’s all the difference. Maybe you + don’t believe what I say. Maybe you think I am just slinging you + a yarn.” + + “Not at all,” said Holmes. “Let us hear what you have to say.” + + “It’s soon told, and, by the Lord, every word of it is truth. I + knew Black Peter, and when he pulled out his knife I whipped a + harpoon through him sharp, for I knew that it was him or me. + That’s how he died. You can call it murder. Anyhow, I’d as soon + die with a rope round my neck as with Black Peter’s knife in my + heart.” + + “How came you there?” asked Holmes. + + “I’ll tell it you from the beginning. Just sit me up a little, so + as I can speak easy. It was in ’83 that it happened—August of + that year. Peter Carey was master of the _Sea Unicorn_, and I was + spare harpooner. We were coming out of the ice-pack on our way + home, with head winds and a week’s southerly gale, when we picked + up a little craft that had been blown north. There was one man on + her—a landsman. The crew had thought she would founder and had + made for the Norwegian coast in the dinghy. I guess they were all + drowned. Well, we took him on board, this man, and he and the + skipper had some long talks in the cabin. All the baggage we took + off with him was one tin box. So far as I know, the man’s name + was never mentioned, and on the second night he disappeared as if + he had never been. It was given out that he had either thrown + himself overboard or fallen overboard in the heavy weather that + we were having. Only one man knew what had happened to him, and + that was me, for, with my own eyes, I saw the skipper tip up his + heels and put him over the rail in the middle watch of a dark + night, two days before we sighted the Shetland Lights. Well, I + kept my knowledge to myself, and waited to see what would come of + it. When we got back to Scotland it was easily hushed up, and + nobody asked any questions. A stranger died by accident and it + was nobody’s business to inquire. Shortly after Peter Carey gave + up the sea, and it was long years before I could find where he + was. I guessed that he had done the deed for the sake of what was + in that tin box, and that he could afford now to pay me well for + keeping my mouth shut. I found out where he was through a sailor + man that had met him in London, and down I went to squeeze him. + The first night he was reasonable enough, and was ready to give + me what would make me free of the sea for life. We were to fix it + all two nights later. When I came, I found him three parts drunk + and in a vile temper. We sat down and we drank and we yarned + about old times, but the more he drank the less I liked the look + on his face. I spotted that harpoon upon the wall, and I thought + I might need it before I was through. Then at last he broke out + at me, spitting and cursing, with murder in his eyes and a great + clasp-knife in his hand. He had not time to get it from the + sheath before I had the harpoon through him. Heavens! what a yell + he gave! and his face gets between me and my sleep. I stood + there, with his blood splashing round me, and I waited for a bit, + but all was quiet, so I took heart once more. I looked round, and + there was the tin box on the shelf. I had as much right to it as + Peter Carey, anyhow, so I took it with me and left the hut. Like + a fool I left my baccy-pouch upon the table. + + “Now I’ll tell you the queerest part of the whole story. I had + hardly got outside the hut when I heard someone coming, and I hid + among the bushes. A man came slinking along, went into the hut, + gave a cry as if he had seen a ghost, and legged it as hard as he + could run until he was out of sight. Who he was or what he wanted + is more than I can tell. For my part I walked ten miles, got a + train at Tunbridge Wells, and so reached London, and no one the + wiser. + + “Well, when I came to examine the box I found there was no money + in it, and nothing but papers that I would not dare to sell. I + had lost my hold on Black Peter and was stranded in London + without a shilling. There was only my trade left. I saw these + advertisements about harpooners, and high wages, so I went to the + shipping agents, and they sent me here. That’s all I know, and I + say again that if I killed Black Peter, the law should give me + thanks, for I saved them the price of a hempen rope.” + + “A very clear statement said Holmes,” rising and lighting his + pipe. “I think, Hopkins, that you should lose no time in + conveying your prisoner to a place of safety. This room is not + well adapted for a cell, and Mr. Patrick Cairns occupies too + large a proportion of our carpet.” + + “Mr. Holmes,” said Hopkins, “I do not know how to express my + gratitude. Even now I do not understand how you attained this + result.” + + “Simply by having the good fortune to get the right clue from the + beginning. It is very possible if I had known about this notebook + it might have led away my thoughts, as it did yours. But all I + heard pointed in the one direction. The amazing strength, the + skill in the use of the harpoon, the rum and water, the sealskin + tobacco-pouch with the coarse tobacco—all these pointed to a + seaman, and one who had been a whaler. I was convinced that the + initials ‘P.C.’ upon the pouch were a coincidence, and not those + of Peter Carey, since he seldom smoked, and no pipe was found in + his cabin. You remember that I asked whether whisky and brandy + were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are + there who would drink rum when they could get these other + spirits? Yes, I was certain it was a seaman.” + + “And how did you find him?” + + “My dear sir, the problem had become a very simple one. If it + were a seaman, it could only be a seaman who had been with him on + the _Sea Unicorn_. So far as I could learn he had sailed in no + other ship. I spent three days in wiring to Dundee, and at the + end of that time I had ascertained the names of the crew of the + _Sea Unicorn_ in 1883. When I found Patrick Cairns among the + harpooners, my research was nearing its end. I argued that the + man was probably in London, and that he would desire to leave the + country for a time. I therefore spent some days in the East End, + devised an Arctic expedition, put forth tempting terms for + harpooners who would serve under Captain Basil—and behold the + result!” + + “Wonderful!” cried Hopkins. “Wonderful!” + + “You must obtain the release of young Neligan as soon as + possible,” said Holmes. “I confess that I think you owe him some + apology. The tin box must be returned to him, but, of course, the + securities which Peter Carey has sold are lost forever. There’s + the cab, Hopkins, and you can remove your man. If you want me for + the trial, my address and that of Watson will be somewhere in + Norway—I’ll send particulars later.” + + + + + +",The Adventure of Black Peter,Arthur Conan Doyle,18,['Patrick Cairns'] +" + +""It can't hurt now,"" was Mr. Sherlock Holmes's comment when, for the +tenth time in as many years, I asked his leave to reveal the following +narrative. So it was that at last I obtained permission to put on +record what was, in some ways, the supreme moment of my friend's career. + +Both Holmes and I had a weakness for the Turkish Bath. It was over a +smoke in the pleasant lassitude of the drying-room that I have found +him less reticent and more human than anywhere else. On the upper +floor of the Northumberland Avenue establishment there is an isolated +corner where two couches lie side by side, and it was on these that we +lay upon September 3, 1902, the day when my narrative begins. I had +asked him whether anything was stirring, and for answer he had shot his +long, thin, nervous arm out of the sheets which enveloped him and had +drawn an envelope from the inside pocket of the coat which hung beside +him. + + +""It may be some fussy, self-important fool, it may be a matter of life +or death,"" said he, as he handed me the note. ""I know no more than +this message tells me."" + +It was from the Carlton Club, and dated the evening before. This is +what I read: + + +""Sir James Damery presents his compliments to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and +will call upon him at 4.30 to-morrow. Sir James begs to say that the +matter upon which he desires to consult Mr. Holmes is very delicate, +and also very important. He trusts, therefore, that Mr. Holmes will +make every effort to grant this interview, and that he will confirm it +over the telephone to the Carlton Club."" + + +""I need not say that I have confirmed it, Watson,"" said Holmes, as I +returned the paper. ""Do you know anything of this man Damery?"" + +""Only that his name is a household word in Society."" + +""Well, I can tell you a little more than that. He has rather a +reputation for arranging delicate matters which are to be kept out of +the papers. You may remember his negotiations with Sir George Lewis +over the Hammerford Will case. He is a man of the world with a natural +turn for diplomacy. I am bound, therefore, to hope that it is not a +false scent and that he has some real need for our assistance."" + +""Our?"" + +""Well, if you will be so good, Watson."" + +""I shall be honoured."" + +""Then you have the hour--four-thirty. Until then we can put the matter +out of our heads."" + + +I was living in my own rooms in Queen Anne Street at the time, but I +was round at Baker Street before the time named. Sharp to the +half-hour, Colonel Sir James Damery was announced. It is hardly +necessary to describe him, for many will remember that large, bluff, +honest personality, that broad, clean-shaven face, above all, that +pleasant, mellow voice. Frankness shone from his grey Irish eyes, and +good humour played round his mobile, smiling lips. His lucent top-hat, +his dark frock-coat, indeed, every detail, from the pearl pin in the +black satin cravat to the lavender spats over the varnished shoes, +spoke of the meticulous care in dress for which he was famous. The +big, masterful aristocrat dominated the little room. + +""Of course, I was prepared to find Dr. Watson,"" he remarked, with a +courteous bow. ""His collaboration may be very necessary, for we are +dealing on this occasion, Mr. Holmes, with a man to whom violence is +familiar and who will, literally, stick at nothing. I should say that +there is no more dangerous man in Europe."" + +""I have had several opponents to whom that flattering term has been +applied,"" said Holmes, with a smile. ""Don't you smoke? Then you will +excuse me if I light my pipe. If your man is more dangerous than the +late Professor Moriarty, or than the living Colonel Sebastian Moran, +then he is indeed worth meeting. May I ask his name?"" + +""Have you ever heard of Baron Gruner? + +""You mean the Austrian murderer?"" + +Colonel Damery threw up his kid-gloved hands with a laugh. ""There is +no getting past you, Mr. Holmes! Wonderful! So you have already sized +him up as a murderer?"" + +""It is my business to follow the details of Continental crime. Who +could possibly have read what happened at Prague and have any doubts as +to the man's guilt! It was a purely technical legal point and the +suspicious death of a witness that saved him! I am as sure that he +killed his wife when the so-called 'accident' happened in the Splügen +Pass as if I had seen him do it. I knew, also, that he had come to +England, and had a presentiment that sooner or later he would find me +some work to do. Well, what has Baron Gruner been up to? I presume it +is not this old tragedy which has come up again?"" + +""No, it is more serious than that. To revenge crime is important, but +to prevent it is more so. It is a terrible thing, Mr. Holmes, to see a +dreadful event, an atrocious situation, preparing itself before your +eyes, to clearly understand whither it will lead and yet to be utterly +unable to avert it. Can a human being be placed in a more trying +position?"" + +""Perhaps not."" + +""Then you will sympathize with the client in whose interests I am +acting."" + +""I did not understand that you were merely an intermediary. Who is the +principal?"" + +""Mr. Holmes, I must beg you not to press that question. It is +important that I should be able to assure him that his honoured name +has been in no way dragged into the matter. His motives are, to the +last degree, honourable and chivalrous, but he prefers to remain +unknown. I need not say that your fees will be assured and that you +will be given a perfectly free hand. Surely the actual name of your +client is immaterial?"" + +""I am sorry,"" said Holmes. ""I am accustomed to have mystery at one end +of my cases, but to have it at both ends is too confusing. I fear, Sir +James, that I must decline to act."" + +Our visitor was greatly disturbed. His large, sensitive face was +darkened with emotion and disappointment. + +""You hardly realize the effect of your own action, Mr. Holmes,"" said +he. ""You place me in a most serious dilemma, for I am perfectly +certain that you would be proud to take over the case if I could give +you the facts, and yet a promise forbids me from revealing them all. +May I, at least, lay all that I can before you?"" + +""By all means, so long as it is understood that I commit myself to +nothing."" + +""That is understood. In the first place, you have no doubt heard of +General de Merville?"" + +""De Merville of Khyber fame? Yes, I have heard of him."" + +""He has a daughter, Violet de Merville, young, rich, beautiful, +accomplished, a wonder-woman in every way. It is this daughter, this +lovely, innocent girl, whom we are endeavouring to save from the +clutches of a fiend."" + +""Baron Gruner has some hold over her, then?"" + +""The strongest of all holds where a woman is concerned--the hold of +love. The fellow is, as you may have heard, extraordinarily handsome, +with a most fascinating manner, a gentle voice, and that air of romance +and mystery which means so much to a woman. He is said to have the +whole sex at his mercy and to have made ample use of the fact. + +""But how came such a man to meet a lady of the standing of Miss Violet +de Merville?"" + +""It was on a Mediterranean yachting voyage. The company, though +select, paid their own passages. No doubt the promoters hardly +realized the Baron's true character until it was too late. The villain +attached himself to the lady, and with such effect that he has +completely and absolutely won her heart. To say that she loves him +hardly expresses it. She dotes upon him, she is obsessed by him. +Outside of him there is nothing on earth. She will not hear one word +against him. Everything has been done to cure her of her madness, but +in vain. To sum up, she proposes to marry him next month. As she is +of age and has a will of iron, it is hard to know how to prevent her."" + +""Does she know about the Austrian episode?"" + +""The cunning devil has told her every unsavoury public scandal of his +past life, but always in such a way as to make himself out to be an +innocent martyr. She absolutely accepts his version and will listen to +no other."" + +""Dear me! But surely you have inadvertently let out the name of your +client? It is no doubt General de Merville."" + +Our visitor fidgeted in his chair. + +""I could deceive you by saying so, Mr. Holmes, but it would not be +true. De Merville is a broken man. The strong soldier has been +utterly demoralized by this incident. He has lost the nerve which +never failed him on the battlefield and has become a weak, doddering +old man, utterly incapable of contending with a brilliant, forceful +rascal like this Austrian. My client, however, is an old friend, one +who has known the General intimately for many years and taken a +paternal interest in this young girl since she wore short frocks. He +cannot see this tragedy consummated without some attempt to stop it. +There is nothing in which Scotland Yard can act. It was his own +suggestion that you should be called in, but it was, as I have said, on +the express stipulation that he should not be personally involved in +the matter. I have no doubt, Mr. Holmes, with your great powers you +could easily trace my client back through me, but I must ask you, as a +point of honour, to refrain from doing so, and not to break in upon his +incognito."" + +Holmes gave a whimsical smile. + +""I think I may safely promise that,"" said he. ""I may add that your +problem interests me, and that I shall be prepared to look into it. +How shall I keep in touch with you?"" + +""The Carlton Club will find me. But, in case of emergency, there is a +private telephone call, 'XX.31.'"" + +Holmes noted it down and sat, still smiling, with the open +memorandum-book upon his knee. + +""The Baron's present address, please?"" + +""Vernon Lodge, near Kingston. It is a large house. He has been +fortunate in some rather shady speculations and is a rich man, which, +naturally, makes him a more dangerous antagonist."" + +""Is he at home at present?"" + +""Yes."" + +""Apart from what you have told me, can you give me any further +information about the man?"" + +""He has expensive tastes. He is a horse fancier. For a short time he +played polo at Hurlingham, but then this Prague affair got noised about +and he had to leave. He collects books and pictures. He is a man with +a considerable artistic side to his nature. He is, I believe, a +recognized authority upon Chinese pottery, and has written a book upon +the subject."" + +""A complex mind,"" said Holmes. ""All great criminals have that. My old +friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso. Wainwright was no mean +artist. I could quote many more. Well, Sir James, you will inform +your client that I am turning my mind upon Baron Gruner. I can say no +more. I have some sources of information of my own, and dare say we +may find some means of opening matter up."" + + +When our visitor had left us, Holmes sat so long in deep thought that +it seemed to me that he had forgotten my presence. At last, however, +he came briskly back to earth. + +""Well, Watson, any views?"" he asked. + +""I should think you had better see the young lady herself."" + +""My dear Watson, if her poor old broken father cannot move her, how +shall I, a stranger, prevail? And yet there is something in the +suggestion if all else fails. But I think we must begin from a +different angle. I rather fancy that Shinwell Johnson might be a help."" + +I have not had occasion to mention Shinwell Johnson in these memoirs +because I have seldom drawn my cases from the latter phases of my +friend's career. During the first years of the century he became a +valuable assistant. Johnson, I grieve to say, made his name first as a +very dangerous villain and served two terms at Parkhurst. Finally, he +repented and allied himself to Holmes, acting as his agent in the huge +criminal underworld of London, and obtaining information which often +proved to be of vital importance. Had Johnson been a ""nark"" of the +police he would soon have been exposed, but as he dealt with cases +which never came directly into the courts, his activities were never +realized by his companions. With the glamour of his two convictions +upon him, he had the _entrée_ of every night-club, doss-house, and +gambling-den in the town, and his quick observation and active brain +made him an ideal agent for gaining information. It was to him that +Sherlock Holmes now proposed to turn. + +It was not possible for me to follow the immediate steps taken by my +friend, for I had some pressing professional business of my own, but I +met him by appointment that evening at Simpson's, where, sitting at a +small table in the front window, and looking down at the rushing stream +of life in the Strand, he told me something of what had passed. + +""Johnson is on the prowl,"" said he. ""He may pick up some garbage in +the darker recesses of the underworld, for it is down there, amid the +black roots of crime, that we must hunt for this man's secrets."" + +""But, if the lady will not accept what is already known, why should any +fresh discovery of yours turn her from her purpose?"" + +""Who knows, Watson? Woman's heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to +the male. Murder might be condoned or explained, and yet some smaller +offence might rankle. Baron Gruner remarked to me----"" + +""He remarked to you!"" + +""Oh, to be sure, I had not told you of my plans! Well, Watson, I love +to come to close grips with my man. I like to meet him eye to eye and +read for myself the stuff that he is made of. When I had given Johnson +his instructions, I took a cab out to Kingston and found the Baron in a +most affable mood."" + +""Did he recognize you?"" + +""There was no difficulty about that, for I simply sent in my card. He +is an excellent antagonist, cool as ice, silky voiced and soothing as +one of your fashionable consultants, and poisonous as a cobra. He has +breed in him, a real aristocrat of crime, with a superficial suggestion +of afternoon tea and all the cruelty of the grave behind it. Yes, I am +glad to have had my attention called to Baron Adelbert Gruner."" + +""You say he was affable?"" + +""A purring cat who thinks he sees prospective mice. Some people's +affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls. His +greeting was characteristic. 'I rather thought I should see you sooner +or later, Mr. Holmes,' said he. 'You have been engaged, no doubt, by +General de Merville to endeavour to stop my marriage with his daughter, +Violet. That is so, is it not?' + +""I acquiesced. + +""'My dear man,' said he, 'you will only ruin your own well-deserved +reputation. It is not a case in which you can possibly succeed. You +will have barren work, to say nothing of incurring some danger. Let me +very strongly advise you to draw off at once.' + +""'It is curious,' I answered, 'but that was the very advice which I had +intended to give you. I have a respect for your brains, Baron, and the +little which I have seen of your personality has not lessened it. Let +me put it to you as man to man. No one wants to rake up your past and +make you unduly uncomfortable. It is over, and you are now in smooth +waters, but if you persist in this marriage you will raise up a swarm +of powerful enemies who will never leave you alone until they have made +England too hot to hold you. Is the game worth it? Surely you would +be wiser if you left the lady alone. It would not be pleasant for you +if these facts of your past were brought to her notice.' + +""The Baron has little waxed tips of hair under his nose, like the short +antennae of an insect. These quivered with amusement as he listened, +and he finally broke into a gentle chuckle. + +""'Excuse my amusement, Mr. Holmes,' said he, 'but it is really funny to +see you trying to play a hand with no cards in it. I don't think +anyone could do it better, but it is rather pathetic, all the same. +Not a colour card there, Mr. Holmes, nothing but the smallest of the +small.' + +""'So you think.' + +""'So I know. Let me make the thing clear to you, for my own hand is so +strong that I can afford to show it. I have been fortunate enough to +win the entire affection of this lady. This was given to me in spite +of the fact that I told her very clearly of all the unhappy incidents +in my past life. I also told her that certain wicked and designing +persons--I hope you recognize yourself--would come to her and tell her +these things, and I warned her how to treat them. You have heard of +post-hypnotic suggestion, Mr. Holmes? Well, you will see how it works, +for a man of personality can use hypnotism without any vulgar passes or +tomfoolery. So she is ready for you and, I have no doubt, would give +you an appointment, for she is quite amenable to her father's +will--save only in the one little matter.' + +""Well, Watson, there seemed to be no more to say, so I took my leave +with as much cold dignity as I could summon, but, as I had my hand on +the door-handle, he stopped me. + +""'By the way, Mr. Holmes,' said he, 'did you know Le Brun, the French +agent?' + +""'Yes,' said I. + +""'Do you know what befell him?' + +""'I heard that he was beaten by some Apaches in the Montmartre district +and crippled for life.' + +""'Quite true, Mr. Holmes. By a curious coincidence he had been +inquiring into my affairs only a week before. Don't do it, Mr. Holmes; +it's not a lucky thing to do. Several have found that out. My last +word to you is, go your own way and let me go mine. Good-bye!' + +""So there you are, Watson. You are up to date now."" + +""The fellow seems dangerous."" + +""Mighty dangerous. I disregard the blusterer, but this is the sort of +man who says rather less than he means."" + +""Must you interfere? Does it really matter if he marries the girl?"" + +""Considering that he undoubtedly murdered his last wife, I should say +it mattered very much. Besides, the client! Well, well, we need not +discuss that. When you have finished your coffee you had best come +home with me, for the blithe Shinwell will be there with his report."" + +We found him sure enough, a huge, coarse, red-faced, scorbutic man, +with a pair of vivid black eyes which were the only external sign of +the very cunning mind within. It seems that he had dived down into +what was peculiarly his kingdom, and beside him on the settee was a +brand which he had brought up in the shape of a slim, flame-like young +woman with a pale, intense face, youthful, and yet so worn with sin and +sorrow that one read the terrible years which had left their leprous +mark upon her. + +""This is Miss Kitty Winter,"" said Shinwell Johnson, waving his fat hand +as an introduction. ""What she don't know--well, there, she'll speak +for herself. Put my hand right on her, Mr. Holmes, within an hour of +your message."" + +""I'm easy to find,"" said the young woman. ""Hell, London, gets me every +time. Same address for Porky Shinwell. We're old mates, Porky, you +and I. But, by Gripes! there is another who ought to be down in a +lower hell than we if there was any justice in the world! That is the +man you are after, Mr. Holmes."" + +Holmes smiled. ""I gather we have your good wishes, Miss Winter."" + +""If I can help to put him where he belongs, I'm yours to the rattle,"" +said our visitor, with fierce energy. There was an intensity of hatred +in her white, set face and her blazing eyes such as woman seldom and +man never can attain. ""You needn't go into my past, Mr. Holmes. +That's neither here nor there. But what I am Adelbert Gruner made me. +If I could pull him down!"" She clutched frantically with her hands +into the air. ""Oh, if I could only pull him into the pit where he has +pushed so many!"" + +""You know how the matter stands?"" + +""Porky Shinwell has been telling me. He's after some other poor fool +and wants to marry her this time. You want to stop it. Well, you +surely know enough about this devil to prevent any decent girl in her +senses wanting to be in the same parish with him."" + +""She is not in her senses. She is madly in love. She has been told +all about him. She cares nothing."" + +""Told about the murder?"" + +""Yes."" + +""My Lord, she must have a nerve!"" + +""She puts them all down as slanders."" + +""Couldn't you lay proofs before her silly eyes?"" + +""Well, can you help us do so?"" + +""Ain't I a proof myself? If I stood before her and told her how he +used me----"" + +""Would you do this?"" + +""Would I? Would I not!"" + +""Well, it might be worth trying. But he has told her most of his sins +and had pardon from her, and I understand she will not reopen the +question."" + +""I'll lay he didn't tell her all,"" said Miss Winter. ""I caught a +glimpse of one or two murders besides the one that made such a fuss. +He would speak of someone in his velvet way and then look at me with a +steady eye and say: 'He died within a month.' It wasn't hot air, +either. But I took little notice--you see, I loved him myself at that +time. Whatever he did went with me, same as with this poor fool! +There was just one thing that shook me. Yes, by Gripes! if it had not +been for his poisonous, lying tongue that explains and soothes, I'd +have left him that very night. It's a book he has--a brown leather +book with a lock, and his arms in gold on the outside. I think he was +a bit drunk that night, or he would not have shown it to me."" + +""What was it, then?"" + +""I tell you, Mr. Holmes, this man collects women, and takes a pride in +his collection, as some men collect moths or butterflies. He had it +all in that book. Snapshot photographs, names, details, everything +about them. It was a beastly book--a book no man, even if he had come +from the gutter, could have put together. But it was Adelbert Gruner's +book all the same. 'Souls I have ruined.' He could have put that on +the outside if he had been so minded. However, that's neither here nor +there, for the book would not serve you, and, if it would, you can't +get it."" + +""Where is it?"" + +""How can I tell you where it is now? It's more than a year since I +left him. I know where he kept it then. He's a precise, tidy cat of a +man in many of his ways, so maybe it is still in the pigeon-hole of the +old bureau in the inner study. Do you know his house?"" + +""I've been in the study,"" said Holmes. + +""Have you, though? You haven't been slow on the job if you only +started this morning. Maybe dear Adelbert has met his match this time. +The outer study is the one with the Chinese crockery in it--big glass +cupboard between the windows. Then behind his desk is the door that +leads to the inner study--a small room where he keeps papers and +things."" + +""Is he not afraid of burglars?"" + +""Adelbert is no coward. His worst enemy couldn't say that of him. He +can look after himself. There's a burglar alarm at night. Besides, +what is there for a burglar--unless they got away with all this fancy +crockery?"" + +""No good,"" said Shinwell Johnson, with the decided voice of the expert. +""No fence wants stuff of that sort that you can neither melt nor sell."" + +""Quite so,"" said Holmes. ""Well, now, Miss Winter, if you would call +here to-morrow evening at five, I would consider in the meanwhile +whether your suggestion of seeing this lady personally may not be +arranged. I am exceedingly obliged to you for your co-operation. I +need not say that my clients will consider liberally----"" + +""None of that, Mr. Holmes,"" cried the young woman. ""I am not out for +money. Let me see this man in the mud, and I've got all I worked +for--in the mud with my foot on his cursed face. That's my price. I'm +with you to-morrow or any other day so long as you are on his track. +Porky here can tell you always where to find me."" + + +I did not see Holmes again until the following evening, when we dined +once more at our Strand restaurant. He shrugged his shoulders when I +asked him what luck he had had in his interview. Then he told the +story, which I would repeat in this way. His hard, dry statement needs +some little editing to soften it into the terms of real life. + +""There was no difficulty at all about the appointment,"" said Holmes, +""for the girl glories in showing abject filial obedience in all +secondary things in an attempt to atone for her flagrant breach of it +in her engagement. The General 'phoned that all was ready, and the +fiery Miss W. turned up according to schedule, so that at half-past +five a cab deposited us outside 104 Berkeley Square, where the old +soldier resides--one of those awful grey London castles which would +make a church seem frivolous. A footman showed us into a great +yellow-curtained drawing-room, and there was the lady awaiting us, +demure, pale, self-contained, as inflexible and remote as a snow image +on a mountain. + +""I don't quite know how to make her clear to you, Watson. Perhaps you +may meet her before we are through, and you can use your own gift of +words. She is beautiful, but with the ethereal other-world beauty of +some fanatic whose thoughts are set on high. I have seen such faces in +the pictures of the old masters of the Middle Ages. How a beast-man +could have laid his vile paws upon such a being of the beyond I cannot +imagine. You may have noticed how extremes call to each other, the +spiritual to the animal, the cave-man to the angel. You never saw a +worse case than this. + +""She knew what we had come for, of course--that villain had lost no +time in poisoning her mind against us. Miss Winter's advent rather +amazed her, I think, but she waved us into our respective chairs like a +Reverend Abbess receiving two rather leprous mendicants. If your head +is inclined to swell, my dear Watson, take a course of Miss Violet de +Merville. + +""'Well, sir,' said she, in a voice like the wind from an iceberg, 'your +name is familiar to me. You have called, as I understand, to malign my +fiancé, Baron Gruner. It is only by my father's request that I see you +at all, and I warn you in advance that anything you can say could not +possibly have the slightest effect upon my mind.' + +""I was sorry for her, Watson. I thought of her for the moment as I +would have thought of a daughter of my own. I am not often eloquent. +I use my head, not my heart. But I really did plead with her with all +the warmth of words that I could find in my nature. I pictured to her +the awful position of the woman who only wakes to a man's character +after she is his wife--a woman who has to submit to be caressed by +bloody hands and lecherous lips. I spared her nothing--the shame, the +fear, the agony, the hopelessness of it all. All my hot words could +not bring one tinge of colour to those ivory cheeks or one gleam of +emotion to those abstracted eyes. I thought of what the rascal had +said about a post-hypnotic influence. One could really believe that +she was living above the earth in some ecstatic dream. Yet there was +nothing indefinite in her replies. + +""'I have listened to you with patience, Mr. Holmes,' said she. 'The +effect upon my mind is exactly as predicted. I am aware that Adelbert, +that my fiancé, has had a stormy life in which he has incurred bitter +hatreds and most unjust aspersions. You are only the last of a series +who have brought their slanders before me. Possibly you mean well, +though I learn that you are a paid agent who would have been equally +willing to act for the Baron as against him. But in any case I wish +you to understand once for all that I love him and that he loves me, +and that the opinion of all the world is no more to me than the twitter +of those birds outside the window. If his noble nature has ever for an +instant fallen, it may be that I have been specially sent to raise it +to its true and lofty level. I am not clear,' here she turned her eyes +upon my companion, 'who this young lady may be.' + +""I was about to answer when the girl broke in like a whirlwind. If +ever you saw flame and ice face to face, it was those two women. + +""'I'll tell you who I am,' she cried, springing out of her chair, her +mouth all twisted with passion--'I am his last mistress. I am one of a +hundred that he has tempted and used and ruined and thrown into the +refuse heap, as he will you also. _Your_ refuse heap is more likely to +be a grave, and maybe that's the best. I tell you, you foolish woman, +if you marry this man he'll be the death of you. It may be a broken +heart or it may be a broken neck, but he'll have you one way or the +other. It's not out of love for you I'm speaking. I don't care a +tinker's curse whether you live or die. It's out of hate for him and +to spite him and to get back on him for what he did to me. But it's +all the same, and you needn't look at me like that, my fine lady, for +you may be lower than I am before you are through with it.' + +""'I should prefer not to discuss such matters,' said Miss de Merville +coldly. 'Let me say once for all that I am aware of three passages in +my fiancé's life in which he became entangled with designing women, and +that I am assured of his hearty repentance for any evil that he may +have done.' + +""'Three passages!' screamed my companion. 'You fool! You unutterable +fool!' + +""'Mr. Holmes, I beg that you will bring this interview to an end,' said +the icy voice. 'I have obeyed my father's wish in seeing you, but I am +not compelled to listen to the ravings of this person.' + +""With an oath Miss Winter darted forward, and if I had not caught her +wrist she would have clutched this maddening woman by the hair. I +dragged her towards the door, and was lucky to get her back into the +cab without a public scene, for she was beside herself with rage. In a +cold way I felt pretty furious myself, Watson, for there was something +indescribably annoying in the calm aloofness and supreme +self-complaisance of the woman whom we were trying to save. So now +once again you know exactly how we stand, and it is clear that I must +plan some fresh opening move, for this gambit won't work. I'll keep in +touch with you, Watson, for it is more than likely that you will have +your part to play, though it is just possible that the next move may +lie with them rather than with us."" + +And it did. Their blow fell--or his blow rather, for never could I +believe that the lady was privy to it. I think I could show you the +very paving-stone upon which I stood when my eyes fell upon the +placard, and a pang of horror passed through my very soul. It was +between the ""Grand Hotel"" and Charing Cross Station, where a one-legged +news-vendor displayed his evening papers. The date was just two days +after the last conversation. There, black upon yellow, was the +terrible news-sheet: + + +-------------+ + | MURDEROUS | + | ATTACK | + | UPON | + | SHERLOCK | + | HOLMES. | + +-------------+ + + +I think I stood stunned for some moments. Then I have a confused +recollection of snatching at a paper, of the remonstrance of the man, +whom I had not paid, and, finally, of standing in the doorway of a +chemist's shop while I turned up the fateful paragraph. This was how +it ran: + + +""We learn with regret that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known private +detective, was the victim this morning of a murderous assault which has +left him in a precarious position. There are no exact details to hand, +but the event seems to have occurred about twelve o'clock in Regent +Street, outside the Café Royal. The attack was made by two men armed +with sticks, and Mr. Holmes was beaten about the head and body, +receiving injuries which the doctors describe as most serious. He was +carried to Charing Cross Hospital, and afterwards insisted upon being +taken to his rooms in Baker Street. The miscreants who attacked him +appear to have been respectably dressed men, who escaped from the +bystanders by passing through the Café Royal and out into Glasshouse +Street behind it. No doubt they belonged to that criminal fraternity +which has so often had occasion to bewail the activity and ingenuity of +the injured man."" + + +I need not say that my eyes had hardly glanced over the paragraph +before I had sprung into a hansom and was on my way to Baker Street. I +found Sir Leslie Oakshott, the famous surgeon in the hall and his +brougham waiting at the kerb. + +""No immediate danger,"" was his report. ""Two lacerated scalp wounds and +some considerable bruises. Several stitches have been necessary. +Morphine has been injected and quiet is essential, but an interview of +a few minutes would not be absolutely forbidden."" + +With this permission I stole into the darkened room. The sufferer was +wide awake, and I heard my name in a hoarse whisper. The blind was +three-quarters down, but one ray of sunlight slanted through and struck +the bandaged head of the injured man. A crimson patch had soaked +through the white linen compress. I sat beside him and bent my head. + +""All right, Watson. Don't look so scared,"" he muttered in a very weak +voice. ""It's not as bad as it seems."" + +""Thank God for that!"" + +""I'm a bit of a single-stick expert, as you know. I took most of them +on my guard. It was the second man that was too much for me."" + +""What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set +them on. I'll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word."" + +""Good old Watson! No, we can do nothing there unless the police lay +their hands on the men. But their get-away had been well prepared. We +may be sure of that. Wait a little. I have my plans. The first thing +is to exaggerate my injuries. They'll come to you for news. Put it on +thick, Watson. Lucky if I live the week +out--concussion--delirium--what you like! You can't overdo it."" + +""But Sir Leslie Oakshott?"" + +""Oh, he's all right. He shall see the worst side of me. I'll look +after that."" + +""Anything else?"" + +""Yes. Tell Shinwell Johnson to get that girl out of the way. Those +beauties will be after her now. They know, of course, that she was +with me in the case. If they dared to do me in it is not likely they +will neglect her. That is urgent. Do it to-night."" + +""I'll go now. Anything more?"" + +""Put my pipe on the table--and the tobacco-slipper. Right! Come in +each morning and we will plan our campaign."" + +I arranged with Johnson that evening to take Miss Winter to a quiet +suburb and see that she lay low until the danger was past. + +For six days the public were under the impression that Holmes was at +the door of death. The bulletins were very grave and there were +sinister paragraphs in the papers. My continual visits assured me that +it was not so bad as that. His wiry constitution and his determined +will were working wonders. He was recovering fast, and I had +suspicions at times that he was really finding himself faster than he +pretended, even to me. There was a curious secretive streak in the man +which led to many dramatic effects, but left even his closest friend +guessing as to what his exact plans might be. He pushed to an extreme +the axiom that the only safe plotter was he who plotted alone. I was +nearer him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap +between. + +On the seventh day the stitches were taken out, in spite of which there +was a report of erysipelas in the evening papers. The same evening +papers had an announcement which I was bound, sick or well, to carry to +my friend. It was simply that among the passengers on the Cunard boat +_Ruritania_, starting from Liverpool on Friday, was the Baron Adelbert +Gruner, who had some important financial business to settle in the +States before his impending wedding to Miss Violet de Merville, only +daughter of, etc., etc. Holmes listened to the news with a cold, +concentrated look upon his pale face, which told me that it hit him +hard. + +""Friday!"" he cried. ""Only three clear days. I believe the rascal +wants to put himself out of danger's way. But he won't, Watson! By +the Lord Harry, he won't! Now, Watson, I want you to do something for +me."" + +""I am here to be used, Holmes."" + +""Well, then, spend the next twenty-four hours in an intensive study of +Chinese pottery."" + +He gave no explanations and I asked for none. By long experience I had +learned the wisdom of obedience. But when I had left his room I walked +down Baker Street, revolving in my head how on earth I was to carry out +so strange an order. Finally I drove to the London Library in St. +James's Square, put the matter to my friend Lomax, the sub-librarian, +and departed to my rooms with a goodly volume under my arm. + +It is said that the barrister who crams up a case with such care that +he can examine an expert witness upon the Monday has forgotten all his +forced knowledge before the Saturday. Certainly I should not like now +to pose as an authority upon ceramics. And yet all that evening, and +all that night with a short interval for rest, and all next morning I +was sucking in knowledge and committing names to memory. There I +learned of the hall-marks of the great artist-decorators, of the +mystery of cyclical dates, the marks of the Hung-wu and the beauties of +the Yung-lo, the writings of Tang-ying, and the glories of the +primitive period of the Sung and the Yuan. I was charged with all this +information when I called upon Holmes next evening. He was out of bed +now, though you would not have guessed it from the published reports, +and he sat with his much-bandaged head resting upon his hand in the +depth of his favourite arm-chair. + +""Why, Holmes,"" I said, ""if one believed the papers you are dying."" + +""That,"" said he, ""is the very impression which I intended to convey. +And now, Watson, have you learned your lessons?"" + +""At least I have tried to."" + +""Good. You could keep up an intelligent conversation on the subject?"" + +""I believe I could."" + +""Then hand me that little box from the mantel-piece."" + +He opened the lid and took out a small object most carefully wrapped in +some fine Eastern silk. This he unfolded, and disclosed a delicate +little saucer of the most beautiful deep-blue colour. + +""It needs careful handling, Watson. This is the real egg-shell pottery +of the Ming dynasty. No finer piece ever passed through Christie's. A +complete set of this would be worth a king's ransom--in fact, it is +doubtful if there is a complete set outside the Imperial palace of +Peking. The sight of this would drive a real connoisseur wild."" + +""What am I to do with it?"" + +Holmes handed me a card upon which was printed: ""Dr. Hill Barton, 369 +Half Moon Street."" + +""That is your name for the evening, Watson. You will call upon Baron +Gruner. I know something of his habits, and at half-past eight he +would probably be disengaged. A note will tell him in advance that you +are about to call, and you will say that you are bringing him a +specimen of an absolutely unique set of Ming china. You may as well be +a medical man, since that is a part which you can play without +duplicity. You are a collector, this set has come your way, you have +heard of the Baron's interest in the subject, and you are not averse to +selling at a price."" + +""What price?"" + +""Well asked, Watson. You would certainly fall down badly if you did +not know the value of your own wares. This saucer was got for me by +Sir James, and comes, I understand, from the collection of his client. +You will not exaggerate if you say that it could hardly be matched in +the world."" + +""I could perhaps suggest that the set should be valued by an expert."" + +""Excellent, Watson! You scintillate to-day. Suggest Christie or +Sotheby. Your delicacy prevents your putting a price for yourself."" + +""But if he won't see me?"" + +""Oh, yes, he will see you. He has the collection mania in its most +acute form--and especially on this subject, on which he is an +acknowledged authority. Sit down, Watson, and I will dictate the +letter. No answer needed. You will merely say that you are coming, +and why."" + +It was an admirable document, short, courteous, and stimulating to the +curiosity of the connoisseur. A district messenger was duly dispatched +with it. On the same evening, with the precious saucer in my hand and +the card of Dr. Hill Barton in my pocket, I set off on my own adventure. + + +The beautiful house and grounds indicated that Baron Gruner was, as Sir +James had said, a man of considerable wealth. A long winding drive, +with banks of rare shrubs on either side, opened out into a great +gravelled square adorned with statues. The place had been built by a +South African gold king in the days of the great boom, and the long, +low house with the turrets at the corners, though an architectural +nightmare, was imposing in its size and solidity. A butler who would +have adorned a bench of bishops showed me in, and handed me over to a +plush-clad footman, who ushered me into the Baron's presence. + +He was standing at the open front of a great case which stood between +the windows, and which contained part of his Chinese collection. He +turned as I entered with a small brown vase in his hand. + +""Pray sit down, doctor,"" said he. ""I was looking over my own treasures +and wondering whether I could really afford to add to them. This +little Tang specimen, which dates from the seventh century, would +probably interest you. I am sure you never saw finer workmanship or a +richer glaze. Have you the Ming saucer with you of which you spoke?"" + +I carefully unpacked it and handed it to him. He seated himself at his +desk, pulled over the lamp, for it was growing dark, and set himself to +examine it. As he did so the yellow light beat upon his own features, +and I was able to study them at my ease. + +He was certainly a remarkably handsome man. His European reputation +for beauty was fully deserved. In figure he was not more than of +middle size, but was built upon graceful and active lines. His face +was swarthy, almost Oriental, with large, dark, languorous eyes which +might easily hold an irresistible fascination for women. His hair and +moustache were raven black, the latter short, pointed, and carefully +waxed. His features were regular and pleasing, save only his straight, +thin-lipped mouth. If ever I saw a murderer's mouth it was there--a +cruel, hard gash in the face, compressed, inexorable, and terrible. He +was ill-advised to train his moustache away from it, for it was +Nature's danger-signal, set as a warning to his victims. His voice was +engaging and his manners perfect. In age I should have put him at +little over thirty, though his record afterwards showed that he was +forty-two. + +""Very fine--very fine indeed!"" he said at last. ""And you say you have +a set of six to correspond. What puzzles me is that I should not have +heard of such magnificent specimens. I only know of one in England to +match this, and it is certainly not likely to be in the market. Would +it be indiscreet if I were to ask you, Dr. Hill Barton, how you +obtained this?"" + +""Does it really matter?"" I asked, with as careless an air as I could +muster. ""You can see that the piece is genuine, and, as to the value, +I am content to take an expert's valuation."" + +""Very mysterious,"" said he, with a quick, suspicious flash of his dark +eyes. ""In dealing with objects of such value, one naturally wishes to +know all about the transaction. That the piece is genuine is certain. +I have no doubts at all about that. But suppose--I am bound to take +every possibility into account--that it should prove afterwards that +you had no right to sell?"" + +""I would guarantee you against any claim of the sort."" + +""That, of course, would open up the question as to what your guarantee +was worth."" + +""My bankers would answer that."" + +""Quite so. And yet the whole transaction strikes me as rather unusual."" + +""You can do business or not,"" said I, with indifference. ""I have given +you the first offer as I understood that you were a connoisseur, but I +shall have no difficulty in other quarters."" + +""Who told you I was a connoisseur?"" + +""I was aware that you had written a book upon the subject."" + +""Have you read the book?"" + +""No."" + +""Dear me, this becomes more and more difficult for me to understand! +You are a connoisseur and collector with a very valuable piece in your +collection, and yet you have never troubled to consult the one book +which would have told you of the real meaning and value of what you +held. How do you explain that?"" + +""I am a very busy man. I am a doctor in practice."" + +""That is no answer. If a man has a hobby he follows it up, whatever +his other pursuits may be. You said in your note that you were a +connoisseur."" + +""So I am."" + +""Might I ask you a few questions to test you? I am obliged to tell +you, doctor--if you are indeed a doctor--that the incident becomes more +and more suspicious. I would ask you what do you know of the Emperor +Shomu and how do you associate him with the Shoso-in near Nara? Dear +me, does that puzzle you? Tell me a little about the Northern Wei +dynasty and its place in the history of ceramics."" + +I sprang from my chair in simulated anger. + +""This is intolerable, sir,"" said I. ""I came here to do you a favour, +and not to be examined as if I were a schoolboy. My knowledge on these +subjects may be second only to your own, but I certainly shall not +answer questions which have been put in so offensive a way."" + +He looked at me steadily. The languor had gone from his eyes. They +suddenly glared. There was a gleam of teeth from between those cruel +lips. + +""What is the game? You are here as a spy. You are an emissary of +Holmes. This is a trick that you are playing upon me. The fellow is +dying, I hear, so he sends his tools to keep watch upon me. You've +made your way in here without leave, and, by God! you may find it +harder to get out than to get in."" + +He had sprung to his feet, and I stepped back, bracing myself for an +attack, for the man was beside himself with rage. He may have +suspected me from the first; certainly this cross-examination had shown +him the truth; but it was clear that I could not hope to deceive him. +He dived his hand into a side-drawer and rummaged furiously. Then +something struck upon his ear, for he stood listening intently. + +""Ah!"" he cried. ""Ah!"" and dashed into the room behind him. + +Two steps took me to the open door, and my mind will ever carry a clear +picture of the scene within. The window leading out to the garden was +wide open. Beside it, looking like some terrible ghost, his head girt +with bloody bandages, his face drawn and white, stood Sherlock Holmes. +The next instant he was through the gap, and I heard the crash of his +body among the laurel bushes outside. With a howl of rage the master +of the house rushed after him to the open window. + +And then! It was done in an instant, and yet I clearly saw it. An +arm--a woman's arm--shot out from among the leaves. At the same +instant the Baron uttered a horrible cry--a yell which will always ring +in my memory. He clapped his two hands to his face and rushed round +the room, beating his head horribly against the walls. Then he fell +upon the carpet, rolling and writhing, while scream after scream +resounded through the house. + +""Water! For God's sake, water!"" was his cry. + +I seized a carafe from a side-table and rushed to his aid. At the same +moment the butler and several footmen ran in from the hall. I remember +that one of them fainted as I knelt by the injured man and turned that +awful face to the light of the lamp. The vitriol was eating into it +everywhere and dripping from the ears and the chin. One eye was +already white and glazed. The other was red and inflamed. The +features which I had admired a few minutes before were now like some +beautiful painting over which the artist has passed a wet and foul +sponge. They were blurred, discoloured, inhuman, terrible. + +In a few words I explained exactly what had occurred, so far as the +vitriol attack was concerned. Some had climbed through the window and +others had rushed out on to the lawn, but it was dark and it had begun +to rain. Between his screams the victim raged and raved against the +avenger. ""It was that hell-cat, Kitty Winter!"" he cried. ""Oh, the +she-devil! She shall pay for it! She shall pay! Oh, God in heaven, +this pain is more than I can bear!"" + +I bathed his face in oil, put cotton wadding on the raw surfaces, and +administered a hypodermic of morphia. All suspicion of me had passed +from his mind in the presence of this shock, and he clung to my hands +as if I might have the power even yet to clear those dead-fish eyes +which gazed up at me. I could have wept over the ruin had I not +remembered very clearly the vile life which had led up to so hideous a +change. It was loathsome to feel the pawing of his burning hands, and +I was relieved when his family surgeon, closely followed by a +specialist, came to relieve me of my charge. An inspector of police +had also arrived, and to him I handed my real card. It would have been +useless as well as foolish to do otherwise, for I was nearly as well +known by sight at the Yard as Holmes himself. Then I left that house +of gloom and terror. Within an hour I was at Baker Street. + +Holmes was seated in his familiar chair, looking very pale and +exhausted. Apart from his injuries, even his iron nerves had been +shocked by the events of the evening, and he listened with horror to my +account of the Baron's transformation. + +""The wages of sin, Watson--the wages of sin!"" said he. ""Sooner or +later it will always come. God knows, there was sin enough,"" he added, +taking up a brown volume from the table. ""Here is the book the woman +talked of. If this will not break off the marriage, nothing ever +could. But it will, Watson. It must. No self-respecting woman could +stand it."" + +""It is his love diary?"" + +""Or his lust diary. Call it what you will. The moment the woman told +us of it I realized what a tremendous weapon was there, if we could but +lay our hands on it. I said nothing at the time to indicate my +thoughts, for this woman might have given it away. But I brooded over +it. Then this assault upon me gave me the chance of letting the Baron +think that no precautions need be taken against me. That was all to +the good. I would have waited a little longer, but his visit to +America forced my hand. He would never have left so compromising a +document behind him. Therefore we had to act at once. Burglary at +night is impossible. He takes precautions. But there was a chance in +the evening if I could only be sure that his attention was engaged. +That was where you and your blue saucer came in. But I had to be sure +of the position of the book, and I knew I had only a few minutes in +which to act, for my time was limited by your knowledge of Chinese +pottery. Therefore I gathered the girl up at the last moment. How +could I guess what the little packet was that she carried so carefully +under her cloak? I thought she had come altogether on my business, but +it seems she had some of her own."" + +""He guessed I came from you."" + +""I feared he would. But you held him in play just long enough for me +to get the book, though not long enough for an unobserved escape. Ah, +Sir James, I am very glad you have come!"" + +Our courtly friend had appeared in answer to a previous summons. He +listened with the deepest attention to Holmes's account of what had +occurred. + +""You have done wonders--wonders!"" he cried, when he had heard the +narrative. ""But if these injuries are as terrible as Dr. Watson +describes, then surely our purpose of thwarting the marriage is +sufficiently gained without the use of this horrible book."" + +Holmes shook his head. + +""Women of the de Merville type do not act like that. She would love +him the more as a disfigured martyr. No, no. It is his moral side, +not his physical, which we have to destroy. That book will bring her +back to earth--and I know nothing else that could. It is in his own +writing. She cannot get past it."" + +Sir James carried away both it and the precious saucer. As I was +myself overdue, I went down with him into the street. A brougham was +waiting for him. He sprang in, gave a hurried order to the cockaded +coachman, and drove swiftly away. He flung his overcoat half out of +the window to cover the armorial bearings upon the panel, but I had +seen them in the glare of our fanlight none the less. I gasped with +surprise. Then I turned back and ascended the stair to Holmes's room. + +""I have found out who our client is,"" I cried, bursting with my great +news. ""Why, Holmes, it is----"" + +""It is a loyal friend and a chivalrous gentleman,"" said Holmes, holding +up a restraining hand. ""Let that now and for ever be enough for us."" + +I do not know how the incriminating book was used. Sir James may have +managed it. Or it is more probable that so delicate a task was +entrusted to the young lady's father. The effect, at any rate, was all +that could be desired. Three days later appeared a paragraph in _The +Morning Post_ to say that the marriage between Baron Adelbert Gruner +and Miss Violet de Merville would not take place. The same paper had +the first police-court hearing of the proceedings against Miss Kitty +Winter on the grave charge of vitriol-throwing. Such extenuating +circumstances came out in the trial that the sentence, as will be +remembered, was the lowest that was possible for such an offence. +Sherlock Holmes was threatened with a prosecution for burglary, but +when an object is good and a client is sufficiently illustrious, even +the rigid British law becomes human and elastic. My friend has not yet +stood in the dock. + + + + +II + + +",The Adventure of the Illustrious Client,Arthur Conan Doyle,18,['Adelbert Gruner']