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']