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| CHAPTER | |
| I. | OUTSIDE |
| II. | INSIDE |
| III. | THE MAN IN THE BED |
| IV. | A LONELY VIGIL |
| V. | AN INSTRUCTION TO COMMIT BURGLARY |
| VI. | A SINGULAR FELONY |
| VII. | THE GREAT PAUL LESSINGHAM |
| VIII. | THE MAN IN THE STREET |
| IX. | THE CONTENTS OF THE PACKET |
"NO room!--Full up!"
He banged the door in my face.
That was the final blow.
To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food; and to have tramped and to have begged in vain,--that was bad. But sick at heart depressed in mind and in body, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, to have been compelled to pocket any little pride I might have left, and solicit, as the penniless, homeless tramp which indeed I was, a night's lodging in the casual ward,--and to solicit it in vain!--that was worse. Much worse. About as bad as bad could be.
I stared, stupidly, at the door which had just been banged in my face. I could scarcely believe that the thing was possible. I had hardly expected to figure as a tramp; but, supposing it conceivable that I could become a tramp that I should be refused admission to that abode of all ignominy, the tramps' ward, was to have attained a depth of misery of which never even in nightmares I had dreamed.
As I stood wondering what I should do, a man slouched towards me out of the shadow of the wall.
"Won't 'e let yer in?"
"He says it's full."
"Says it's full, does 'e? That's the lay at Fulham,--they always says it's full. They wants to keep the number down."
I looked at the man askance. His head hung forward; his hands were in his trouser pockets; his clothes were rags; his tone was husky.
"Do you mean that they say it's full when it isn't,--that they won't let me in although there's room?"
"That's it,--bloke's a-kiddin' yer."
"But, if there's room, aren't they bound to let me in?"
"Course they are,--and, blimey, if I was you I'd make 'em. Blimey I would!"
He broke into a volley of execrations.
"But what am I to do?"
"Why, give 'em another rouser--let 'em know as you won't be kidded!"
I hesitated; then, acting on his suggestion, for the second time I rang the bell. The door was flung wide open, and the grizzled pauper, who had previously responded to my summons, stood in the open doorway. Had he been the Chairman of the Board of Guardians himself he could not have addressed me with greater scorn.
"What, here again! What's your little game? Think I've nothing better to do than to wait upon the likes of you?"
"I want to be admitted."
"Then you won't be admitted!"
"I want to see someone in authority."
"Ain't yer seein' someone in authority?"
"I want to see someone beside you,--I want to see the master."
"Then you won't see the master!"
He moved the door swiftly to; but, prepared for such a manœuvre, I thrust my foot sufficiently inside to prevent his shutting it. I continued to address him.
"Are you sure that the ward is full?"
"Full two hours ago!"
"But what am I to do?"
"I don't know what you're to do!"
"Which is the next nearest workhouse?"
"Kensington."
Suddenly opening the door, as he answered me, putting out his arm he thrust me backwards. Before I could recover the door was closed. The man in rags had continued a grim spectator of the scene. Now he spoke.
"Nice bloke, ain't he?"
"He's only one of the paupers,--has he any right to act as one of the officials?"
"I tell yer some of them paupers is wuss than the orficers,--a long sight wuss! They thinks they owns the 'ouses, blimey they do. Oh it's a ---- fine world, this is!"
He paused. I hesitated. For some time there had been a suspicion of rain in the air. Now it was commencing to fall in a fine but soaking drizzle. It only needed that to fill my cup to overflowing. My companion was regarding me with a sort of sullen curiosity.
"Ain't you got no money?"
"Not a farthing."
"Done much of this sort of thing?"
"It's the first time I've been to a casual ward,--and it doesn't seem as if I'm going to get in now."
"I thought you looked as if you was a bit fresh.--What are yer goin' to do?"
"How far is it to Kensington?"
"Work'us?--about three mile;--but, if I was you, I'd try St. George's."
"Where's that?"
"In the Fulham Road. Kensington's only a small place, they do you well there, and it's always full as soon as the door's opened;--you'd 'ave more chawnce at St. George's."
He was silent. I turned his words over in my mind, feeling as little disposed to try the one place as the other. Presently he began again.
"I've travelled from Reading this ---- day, I 'ave,--tramped every ---- foot!--and all the way as I come along, I'll 'ave a shakedown at 'Ammersmith, I says,--and now I'm as fur off from it as ever! This is a ---- fine country, this is,--I wish every ---- soul in it was swept into the ---- sea, blimey, I do! But I ain't goin' to go no further,--I'll 'ave a bed in 'Ammersmith or I'll know the reason why."
"How are you going to manage it,--have you got any money?"
"Got any money?--My crikey!--I look as though I 'ad,--I sound as though I 'ad too! I ain't 'ad no brads, 'cept now and then a brown, this larst six months."
"How are you going to get a bed then?"
"'Ow am I going to?--why, like this way." He picked up two stones, one in either hand. The one in his left he flung at the glass which was over the door of the casual ward. It crashed through it, and through the lamp beyond. "That's 'ow I'm goin' to get a bed."
The door was hastily opened. The grizzled pauper reappeared. He shouted as he peered at us in the darkness.
"Who done that?"
"I done it, guvnor,--and, if you like, you can see me do the other. It might do your eyesight good."
Before the grizzled pauper could interfere, he had hurled the stone in his right hand through another pane. I felt that it was time for me to go. He was earning a night's rest at a price which, even in my extremity, I was not disposed to pay.
When I left two or three other persons had appeared upon the scene, and the man in rags was addressing them with a degree of frankness which, in that direction, left little to be desired. I slunk away unnoticed. But had not gone far before I had almost decided that I might as well have thrown in my fortune with the bolder wretch, and smashed a window too. Indeed, more than once my feet faltered, as I all but returned to do the feat which I had left undone.
A more miserable night for an out-of-door excursion I could hardly have chosen. The rain was like a mist, and was not only drenching me to the skin, but it was rendering it difficult to see more than a little distance in any direction. The neighbourhood was badly lighted. It was one in which I was a stranger. I had come to Hammersmith as a last resource. It had seemed to me that I had tried to find some occupation which would enable me to keep body and soul together in every other part of London, and that now only Hammersmith was left. And, at Hammersmith, even the workhouse would have none of me!
Retreating from the inhospitable portal of the casual ward, I had taken the first turning to the left,--and, at the moment, had been glad to take it. In the darkness and the rain, the locality which I was entering appeared unfinished. I seemed to be leaving civilization behind me. The path was unpaved; the road rough and uneven, as if it had never been properly made. Houses were few and far between. Those which I did encounter, seemed, in the imperfect light, amid the general desolation, to be cottages which were crumbling to decay.
Exactly where I was I could not tell. I had a faint notion that, if I only kept on long enough, I should strike some part of Walham Green. How long I should have to keep on I could only guess. Not a creature seemed to be about of whom I could make inquiries. It was as if I was in a land of desolation.
I suppose it was between eleven o'clock and midnight. I had not given up my quest for work till all the shops were closed,--and in Hammersmith, that night, at any rate, they were not early closers. Then I had lounged about dispiritedly, wondering what was the next thing I could do. It was only because I feared that if I attempted to spend the night in the open air, without food, when the morning came I should be broken up, and fit for nothing, that I sought a night's free board and lodging. It was really hunger which drove me to the workhouse door. That was Wednesday. Since the Sunday night preceding nothing had passed my lips save water from the public fountains,--with the exception of a crust of bread which a man had given me whom I had found crouching at the root of a tree in Holland Park. For three days I had been fasting,--practically all the time upon my feet. It seemed to me that if I had to go hungry till the morning I should collapse--there would be an end. Yet, in that strange and inhospitable place, where was I to get food at that time of night, and how?
I do not know how far I went. Every yard I covered, my feet dragged more. I was dead beat, inside and out. I had neither strength nor courage left. And within there was that frightful craving, which was as though it shrieked aloud. I leant against some palings, dazed and giddy. If only death had come upon me quickly, painlessly, how true a friend I should have thought it! It was the agony of dying inch by inch which was so hard to bear.
It was some minutes before I could collect myself sufficiently to withdraw from the support of the railings, and to start afresh. I stumbled blindly over the uneven road. Once, like a drunken man, I lurched forward, and fell upon my knees. Such was my backboneless state that for some seconds I remained where I was, half disposed to let things slide, accept the good the gods had sent me, and make a night of it just there. A long night, I fancy, it would have been, stretching from time unto eternity.
Having regained my feet, I had gone perhaps another couple of hundred yards along the road--Heaven knows that it seemed to me just then a couple of miles!--when there came over me again that overpowering giddiness which, I take it, was born of my agony of hunger. I staggered, helplessly, against a low wall which, just there, was at the side of the path. Without it I ,should have fallen in a heap. The attack appeared to last for hours, I suppose it was only seconds; and, when I came to myself, it was as though I had been aroused from a swoon of sleep,--aroused, to an extremity of pain. I exclaimed aloud,
"For a loaf of bread what wouldn't I do!"
I looked about me, in a kind of frenzy. As I did so I for the first time became conscious that behind me was a house. It was not a large one. It was one of those so-called villas which are springing up in multitudes all round London and which are let at rentals of from twenty-five to forty pounds a year. It was detached. So far as I could see, in the imperfect light, there was not another building within twenty or thirty yards of either side of it. It was in two storeys. There were three windows in the upper storey. Behind each the blinds were closely drawn. The hall door was on my right. It was approached by a little wooden gate.
The house itself was so close to the public road that by leaning over the wall I could have touched either of the windows on the lower floor. There were two of them. One of them was a bow window. The bow window was open. The bottom centre sash was raised about six inches.
I REALISED, and, so to speak, mentally photographed all the little details of the house in front of which I was standing with what almost amounted to a gleam of preternatural perception. An instant before, the world swam before my eyes. I saw nothing. Now I saw everything, with a clearness which, as it were, was shocking.
Above all, I saw the open window. I stared at it, conscious, as I did so, of a curious catching of the breath. It was so near to me; so very near. I had but to stretch out my hand to thrust it through the aperture. Once inside, my hand would at least be dry. How it rained out there! My scanty clothing was soaked; I was wet to the skin! I was shivering. And, each second, it seemed to rain still faster. My teeth were chattering. The damp was liquefying the very marrow in my bones.
And, inside that open window, it was, it must be, so warm, so dry!
There was not a soul in sight. Not a human being anywhere near. I listened; there was not a sound. I alone was at the mercy of the sodden night. Of all God's creatures the only one unsheltered from the fountains of Heaven which He had opened. There was not one to see what I might do; not one to care. I need fear no spy.
Perhaps the house was empty; nay, probably. It was my plain duty to knock at the door, rouse the inmates, and call attention to their oversight,--the open window. The least they could do would be to reward me for my pains. But suppose the place was empty, what would be the use of knocking? It would be to make a useless clatter. Possibly to disturb the neighbourhood, for nothing. And, even if the people were at home, I might go unrewarded. I had learned, in a hard school, the world's ingratitude. To have caused the window to be closed--the inviting window, the tempting window, the convenient window!--and then to be no better for it after all, but still to be penniless, hopeless, hungry, out in the cold and the rain--better anything than that. In such a situation, too late, I should say to myself that mine had been the conduct of a fool. And I should say it justly too. To be sure.
Leaning over the low wall I found that I could very easily put my hand inside the room. How warm it was in there! I could feel the difference of temperature in my finger-tips. Very quietly I stepped right over the wall. There was just room to stand in comfort between the window and the wall. The ground felt to the foot as if it were cemented. Stooping down, I peered through the opening. I could see nothing. It was black as pitch inside. The blind was drawn right up; it seemed incredible that anyone could be at home and have gone to bed, leaving the blind up, and the window open. I placed my ear to the crevice. How still it was! Beyond doubt, the place was empty.
I decided to push the window up another inch or two, so as to enable me to reconnoitre. If anyone caught me in the act, then there would be an opportunity to describe the circumstances, and to explain how I was just on the point of giving the alarm. Only, I must go carefully. In such damp weather it was probable that the sash would creak.
Not a bit of it. It moved as readily and as noiselessly as if it had been oiled. This silence of the sash so emboldened me that I raised it more than I intended. In fact, as far as it would go. Not by a sound did it betray me. Bending over the sill I put my head and half my body into the room. But I was no forwarder. I could see nothing. Not a thing. For all I could tell the room might be unfurnished. Indeed, the likelihood of such an explanation began to occur to me. I might have chanced upon an empty house. In the darkness there was nothing to suggest the contrary. What was I to do?
Well, if the house was empty, in such a plight as mine I might be said to have a moral, if not a legal, right, to its bare shelter. Who, with a heart in his bosom, would deny it me? Hardly the most punctilious landlord. Raising myself by means of the sill I slipped my legs into the room.
The moment I did so I became conscious that, at any rate, the room was not entirely unfurnished. The floor was carpeted. I have had my feet on some good carpets in my time; I know what carpets are; but never did I stand upon a softer one than that. It reminded me, somehow, even then, of the turf in Richmond Park,--it caressed my instep, and sprang beneath my tread. To my poor, travel-worn feet, it was luxury after the puddly, uneven road. Should I, now I had ascertained that the room was, at least, partially furnished, beat a retreat? Or should I push my researches further? It would have been rapture to have thrown off my clothes, and to have sunk down, on the carpet, then and there, to sleep. But,--I was so hungry; so famine-goaded, what would I not have given to have lighted on something good to eat!
I moved a step or two forward, gingerly, reaching out with my hands, lest I struck, unawares, against some unseen thing. When I had taken three or four such steps, without encountering an obstacle, or, indeed anything at all, I began, all at once, to wish I had not seen the house; that I had passed it by; that I had not come through the window; that I were safely out of it again. I became, on a sudden, aware, that something was with me in the room. There was nothing, ostensible, to lead me to such a conviction; it may be that my faculties were unnaturally keen; but, all at once, I knew that there was something there. What was more, I had a horrible persuasion that, though unseeing, I was seen; that my every movement was being watched.
What it was that was with me I could not tell; I could not even guess. It was as though something in my mental organization had been stricken by a sudden paralysis. It may seem childish to use such language; but I was overwrought, played out; physically speaking, at my last counter; and, in an instant without the slightest warning, I was conscious of a very curious sensation the like of which I had never felt before, and the like of which I pray that I never may feel again--a sensation of panic fear. I remained rooted to the spot on which I stood, not daring to move, fearing to draw my breath. I felt that the presence with me in the room was something strange, something evil.
I do not know how long I stood there, spellbound, but certainly for some considerable space of time. By degrees, as nothing moved, nothing was seen, nothing was heard and nothing happened, I made an effort to better play the man. I knew that, at the moment, I played the cur. And endeavoured to ask myself of what it was I was afraid. I was shivering at my own imaginings. What could be in the room, to have suffered me to open the window and to enter unopposed? Whatever it was, was surely to the full as great a coward as I was or why permit, unchecked, my burglarious entry. Since I had been allowed to enter the probability was that I should be at liberty to retreat,--and I was sensible of a much keener desire to retreat than I had ever had to enter.
I had to put the greatest amount of pressure upon myself before I could summon up sufficient courage to enable me to even turn my head upon my shoulders,--and the moment I did so I turned it back again. What constrained me, to save my soul I could not have said,--but I was constrained. My heart was palpitating in my bosom; I could hear it beat. I was trembling so that I could scarcely stand. I was overwhelmed by a fresh flood of terror. I stared in front of me with eyes in which, had it been light, would have been seen the frenzy of unreasoning fear. My ears were strained so that I listened with an acuteness of tension which was painful.
Something moved. Slightly, with so slight a sound, that it would scarcely have been audible to other ears save mine. But I heard. I was looking in the direction from which the movement came, and, as I looked, I saw in front of me two specks of light. They had not been there a moment before, that I would swear. They were there now. They were eyes,--I told myself they were eyes. I had heard how cats' eyes gleam in the dark, though I had never seen them, and I said to myself that these were cats' eyes; that the thing in front of me was nothing but a cat. But I knew I lied. I knew that these were eyes, and I knew they were not cats' eyes, but what eyes they were I did not know,--nor dared to think.
They moved,--towards me. The creature to which the eyes belonged was coming closer. So intense was my desire to fly that I would much rather have died than stood there still; yet I could not control a limb; my limbs were as if they were not mine. The eyes came on,--noiselessly. At first they were between two and three feet from the ground; but, on a sudden, there was a squelching sound, as if some yielding body had been squashed upon the floor. The eyes vanished,--to reappear, a moment afterwards, at what I judged to be a distance of some six inches from the floor. And they again came on.
So it seemed that the creature, whatever it was to which the eyes belonged was, after all, but small. Why I did not obey the frantic longing which I had to flee from it, I cannot tell; I only know, I could not. I take it that the stress and privations which I had lately undergone, and which I was, even then, still undergoing, had much to do with my conduct at that moment, and with the part I played in all that followed. Ordinarily I believe that I have as high a spirit as the average man, and as solid a resolution; but when one has been dragged through the Valley of Humiliation, and plunged, again and again into the Waters of Bitterness and Privation, a man can be constrained to a course of action of which, in his happier moments, he would have deemed himself incapable. I know this of my own knowledge.
Slowly the eyes came on, with a strange slowness, and as they came they moved from side to side as if their owner walked unevenly. Nothing could have exceeded the horror with which I awaited their approach,--except my incapacity to escape them. Not for an instant did my glance pass from them,--I could not have shut my eyes for all the gold the world contains!--so that as they came closer I had to look right down to what seemed to be almost the level of my feet. And at last, they reached my feet. They never paused. On a sudden I felt something on my boot, and, with a sense of shrinking, horror, nausea, rendering me momentarily more helpless, I realized that the creature was beginning to ascend my legs, to climb my body. Even then what it was I could not tell,--it mounted me, apparently, with as much ease as if I had been horizontal instead of perpendicular. It was as though it were some gigantic spider,--a spider of the nightmares; a monstrous conception of some dreadful vision. It pressed lightly against my clothing with what might, for all the world, have been spider's legs. There was an amazing host of them,--I felt the pressure of each separate one. They embraced me softly, stickily, as if the creature glued and unglued them, each time it moved.
Higher and higher! It had gained my loins. It was moving towards the pit of my stomach. The helplessness with which I suffered its invasion was not the least part of my agony,--it was that helplessness which we know in dreadful dreams. I understood, quite well, that if I did but give myself a hearty shake, the creature would fall off; but I had not a muscle at my command.
As the creature mounted its eyes began to play the part of two small lamps; they positively emitted rays of light. By their rays I began to perceive faint outlines of its body. It seemed larger than I had supposed. Either the body itself was slightly phosphorescent, or it was of a peculiar yellow hue. It gleamed in the darkness. What it was there was still nothing to positively show, but the impression grew upon me that it was some member of the spider family, some monstrous member, of the like of which I had never heard or read. It was heavy, so heavy indeed, that I wondered how, with so slight a pressure, it managed to retain its hold,--that it did so by the aid of some adhesive substance at the end of its legs I was sure,--I could feel it stick. Its weight increased as it ascended,--and it smelt! I had been for some time aware that it emitted an unpleasant, fœtid odour; as it neared my face it became so intense as to be unbearable.
It was at my chest. I became more and more conscious of an uncomfortable wobbling motion, as if each time it breathed its body heaved. Its forelegs touched the bare skin about the base of my neck; they stuck to it,--shall I ever forget the feeling? I have it often in my dreams. While it hung on with those in front it seemed to draw its other legs up after it. It crawled up my neck, with hideous slowness, a quarter of an inch at a time, its weight compelling me to brace the muscles of my back. It reached my chin, it touched my lips,--and I stood still and bore it all, while it enveloped my face with its huge, slimy, evil-smelling body, and embraced me with its myriad legs. The horror of it made me mad. I shook myself like one stricken by the shaking ague. I shook the creature off. It squashed upon the floor. Shrieking like some lost spirit, turning, I dashed towards the window. As I went, my foot, catching in some obstacle, I fell headlong to the floor.
Picking myself up as quickly as I could I resumed my flight,--rain or no rain, oh to get out of that room! I already had my hand upon the sill, in another instant I should have been over it,--then, despite my hunger, my fatigues, let anyone have stopped me if they could!--when someone behind me struck a light.
THE illumination which instantly followed was unexpected. It startled me causing a moment's check, from which I was just recovering when a voice said,
"Keep still!"
There was a quality in the voice which I cannot describe. Not only an accent of command, but a something malicious, a something saturnine. It was a little guttural, though whether it was a man speaking I could not have positively said; but I had no doubt it was a foreigner. It was the most disagreeable voice I had ever heard, and it had on me the most disagreeable effect; for when it said, "Keep still!" I kept still. It was as though there was nothing else for me to do.
"Turn round!"
I turned round, mechanically, like an automaton. Such passivity was worse than undignified, it was galling, I knew that well. I resented it with secret rage. But in that room, in that presence I was invertebrate.
When I turned I found myself confronting someone who was lying in bed. At the head of the bed was a shelf. On the shelf was a small lamp which gave the most brilliant light I had ever seen. It caught me full in the eyes, having on me such a blinding effect that for some seconds I could see nothing. Throughout the whole of that strange interview I cannot affirm that I saw clearly; the dazzling glare caused dancing specks to obscure my vision. Yet after an interval of time, I did see something; and what I did see I had rather have left unseen.
I saw someone in front of me lying in a bed. I could not at once decide if it was a man or a woman. Indeed at first I doubted if it was anything human. But, afterwards, I knew it to be a man,--for this reason, if for no other, that it was impossible such a creature could be feminine. The bedclothes were drawn up to his shoulders; only his head was visible. He lay on his left side his head resting on his left hand; motionless, eyeing me as if he sought to read my inmost soul. And, in very truth, I believe he read it. His age I could not guess; such a look of age I had never imagined. Had he asserted that he had been living through the ages, I should have been forced to admit that, at least, he looked it. And yet I felt that it was quite within the range of possibility that he was no older than myself,--there was a vitality in his eyes which was startling. It might have been that he had been afflicted by some terrible disease, and it was that which had made him so supernaturally ugly.
There was not a hair upon his face or head, but, to make up for it, the skin, which was a saffron yellow, was an amazing mass of wrinkles. The cranium, and, indeed, the whole skull, was so small as to be disagreeably suggestive of something animal. The nose, on the other hand, was abnormally large; so extravagant were its dimensions, and so peculiar its shape, it resembled the beak of some bird of prey. A characteristic of the face--and an uncomfortable one!--was that, practically, it stopped short at the mouth. The mouth, with its blubber lips, came immediately underneath the nose, and chin, to all intents and purposes, there was none. This deformity--for the absence of chin amounted to that--it was which gave to the face the appearance of something not human,--that, and the eyes. For so marked a feature of the man were his eyes, that, ere long, it seemed to me that he was nothing but eyes.
His eyes ran, literally, across the whole of the upper portion of his face,--remember, the face was unwontedly small, and the columna of the nose was razor-edged. They were long, and they looked out of narrow windows, and they seemed to be lighted by some internal radiance, for they shone out like lamps in a lighthouse tower. Escape them I could not, while, as I endeavoured to meet them, it was as if I shrivelled into nothingness. Never before had I realized what was meant by the power of the eye. They held me enchained, helpless, spell-bound. I felt that they could do with me as they would; and they did. Their gaze was unfaltering, having the bird-like trick of never blinking; this man could have glared at me for hours and never moved an eyelid.
It was he who broke the silence. I was speechless.
"Shut the window." I did as he bade me. "Pull down the blind." I obeyed. "Turn round again." I was still obedient. "What is your name?"
Then I spoke,--to answer him. There was this odd thing about the words I uttered, that they came from me, not in response to my will power, but in response to his. It was not I who willed that I should speak; it was he. What he willed that I should say, I said. Just that, and nothing more. For the time I was no longer a man; my manhood was merged in his. I was, in the extremest sense, an example of passive obedience.
"Robert Holt."
"What are you?"
"A clerk."
"You look as if you were a clerk." There was a flame of scorn in his voice which scorched me even then. "What sort of a clerk are you?"
"I am out of a situation."
"You look as if you were out of a situation." Again the scorn. "Are you the sort of clerk who is always out of a situation? You are a thief."
"I am not a thief."
"Do clerks come through the window?" I was still,--he putting no constraint on me to speak. "Why did you come through the window?"
"Because it was open."
"So!--Do you always come through a window which is open?"
"No."
"Then why through this?"
"Because I was wet--and cold--and hungry--and tired."
The words came from me as if he had dragged them one by one,--which, in fact, he did.
"Have you no home?"
"No."
"Money?"
"No."
"Friends?"
"No."
"Then what sort of a clerk are you?"
I did not answer him,--I did not know what it was he wished me to say. I was the victim of bad luck, nothing else,--I swear it. Misfortune had followed hard upon misfortune. The firm by whom I had been employed for years suspended payment. I obtained a situation with one of their creditors at a lower salary. They reduced their staff, which entailed my going. After an interval I obtained a temporary engagement; the occasion which required my services passed, and I with it. After another, and a longer interval, I again found temporary employment, the pay for which was but a pittance. When that was over I could find nothing. That was nine months ago, and since then I had not earned a penny. It is so easy to grow shabby, when you are on the everlasting tramp, and are living on your stock of clothes. I had trudged all over London in search of work,--work of any kind would have been welcome so long as it would have enabled me to keep body and soul together. And I had trudged in vain. Now I had been refused admittance as a casual,--how easy is the descent! But I did not tell the man lying on the bed all this. He did not wish to hear,--had he wished he would have made me tell him.
It may be that he read my story, unspoken though it was,--it is conceivable. His eyes had powers of penetration which were peculiarly their own,--that I know.
"Undress!"
When he spoke again that was what he said, in those guttural tones of his in which there was a reminiscence of some foreign land. I obeyed, letting my sodden, shabby clothes fall anyhow upon the floor. A look came on his face, as I stood naked in front of him, which, if it was meant for a smile, was a satyr's smile, and which filled me with a sensation of shuddering repulsion.
"What a white skin you have,--how white! What would I not give for a skin as white as that,--ah yes!" He paused, devouring me with his glances; then continued. "Go to the cupboard; you will find a cloak; put it on."
I went to a cupboard which was in a corner of the room, his eyes following me as I moved. It was full of clothing,--garments which might have formed the stock-in-trade of a costumier whose speciality was providing costumes for masquerades. A long dark cloak hung on a peg. My hand moved towards it, apparently of its own volition. I put it on, its ample folds falling to my feet.
"In the other cupboard you will find meat, and bread, and wine. Eat and drink."
On the opposite side of the room, near the head of his bed, there was a second cupboard. In this, upon a shelf, I found what looked like pressed beef, several round cakes of what tasted like rye bread, and some thin, sour wine, in a straw-covered flask. But I was in no mood to criticize; I crammed myself, I believe, like some famished wolf, he watching me, in silence, all the time. When I had done, which was when I had eaten and drunk as much as I could hold, there returned to his face that satyr's grin.
"I would that I could eat and drink like that,--ah yes!--Put back what is left." I put it back,--which seemed an unnecessary exertion, there was so little to put. "Look me in the face."
I looked him in the face,--and immediately became conscious, as I did so, that something was going from me,--the capacity, as it were, to be myself. His eyes grew larger and larger, till they seemed to fill all space--till I became lost in their immensity. He moved his hand, doing something to me, I know not what, as it passed through the air--cutting the solid ground from underneath my feet, so that I fell headlong to the ground. Where I fell, there I lay, like a log.
And the light went out.
I KNEW that the light went out. For not the least singular, nor, indeed, the least distressing part of my condition was the fact that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I never once lost consciousness during the long hours which followed. I was aware of the extinction of the lamp, and of the black darkness which ensued. I heard a rustling sound, as if the man in the bed was settling himself between the sheets. Then all was still. And throughout that interminable night I remained, my brain awake, my body dead, waiting, watching, for the day. What had happened to me I could not guess. That I probably wore some of the external evidences of death my instinct told me,--I knew I did. Paradoxical though it may sound, I felt as a man might feel who had actually died,--as, in moments of speculation, in the days gone by, I had imagined it as quite possible that he would feel. It is very far from certain that feeling necessarily expires with what we call life. I continually asked myself if I could be dead,--the inquiry pressed itself on me with awful iteration. Does the body die, and the brain--the I, the ego--still live on? God only knows. But, then! The agony of the thought.
The hours passed. By slow degrees, the
silence was eclipsed. Sounds of traffic, of hurrying
footsteps,--life!--were ushers of the morn. Outside the
window sparrows twittered,--a cat mewed, a dog barked--there
was the clatter of a milk can. Shafts of light stole past
the blind, increasing in intensity. It still rained, now and
again it pattered against the pane. The wind must have
shifted, because, for the first time, there came, on a
sudden, the clang of a distant clock striking the
hour,--seven. Then, with the interval of a lifetime between
each chiming, eight,--nine, So far, in the room itself there had not been
a sound. When the clock had struck ten, as it seemed to me,
years ago, there came a rustling noise, from the direction
of the bed. Feet stepped upon the floor,--moving towards
where I was lying. It was, of course, now broad day, and I,
presently, perceived that a figure, clad in some queer
coloured garment, was standing at my side, looking down at
me. It stooped, then knelt. My only covering was
unceremoniously thrown off me, so that I lay there in my
nakedness. Fingers prodded me then and there, as if I had
been some beast ready for the butcher's stall. A face looked
into mine, and, in front of me, were those dreadful eyes.
Then, whether I was dead or living, I said to myself that
this could be nothing human,--nothing fashioned in God's
image could wear such a shape as that. Fingers were pressed
into my cheeks, they were thrust into my mouth, they touched
my staring eyes, shut my eyelids, then opened them again,
and--horror of horrors!--the blubber lips were pressed to
mine--the soul of something evil entered into me in the
guise of a kiss.
Then this travesty of manhood reascended to
his feet, and said, whether speaking to me or to himself I
could not tell.
"Dead!--dead!--as good as dead!--and
better! We'll have him buried."
He moved away from me. I heard a door open
and shut, and knew that he was gone.
And he continued gone throughout the day. I
had no actual knowledge of his issuing out into the street,
but he must have done so, because the house appeared
deserted. What had become of the dreadful creature of the
night before I could not guess. My first fear was that he
had left it behind him in the room with me,--it might be, as
a sort of watchdog. But, as the minutes and the hours passed
and there was still no sign or sound of anything living, I
concluded that, if the thing was there, it was, possibly, as
helpless as myself, and that during its owner's absence, at
anyrate,
I had nothing to fear from its too pressing attentions.
That, with the exception of myself, the house
held nothing human, I had strong presumptive proof more than
once in the course of the day. Several times, both in the
morning and the afternoon, people without endeavoured to
attract the attention of whoever was within.
Vehicles-- The distant clock had just struck noon when I
heard the gate open, and someone approached the front door.
Since nothing but silence followed, I supposed that the
occupant of the place had returned, and had chosen to do so
as silently as he had gone. Presently, however, there came
from the doorstep a slight but peculiar call, as if a rat
was squeaking. It was repeated three times, and then there
was the sound of footsteps quietly retreating, and the gate
re-closing. Between one and two the caller came again; there
was a repetition of the same signal,--that it was a signal I
did not doubt; followed by the same retreat. About three the
mysterious visitant returned. The signal was repeated, and,
when there was no response, fingers tapped softly against
the panels of the front door. When there was still no answer
footsteps stole softly round the side of the house, and
there came the signal from the rear,--and then, again,
tapping of fingers against what was, apparently the back
door. No notice being taken of these various proceedings the
footsteps returned the way they went, and, as before, the
gate was closed.
Shortly after darkness had fallen this
assiduous caller returned, to make a fourth and more
resolute attempt to call attention to his presence. From the
peculiar character of his manœuvres it seemed that he
suspected that whoever was within had particular reasons for
ignoring him without. He went through the familiar pantomime
of the three squeaky calls both at the front door and the
back,--followed by the tapping of the fingers on the panels.
This time, however, he also tried the window panes,--I could
hear, quite distinctly, the clear, yet distinct, noise of
what seemed like knuckles rapping against the windows
behind. Disappointed there, he renewed his efforts at the
front. The curiously quiet footsteps came round the house,
to pause before the window of the room in which I lay,--and
then something singular occurred.
While I waited for the tapping, there came,
instead, the sound of someone or something, scrambling on to
the window-sill, Whatever it was, it had gained the summit of
its desires,-- the
window-sill. It panted as if its efforts at climbing had
made it short of breath. Then began the tapping. In the
light of my new discovery, I perceived, clearly enough, that
the tapping was hardly that which was likely to be the
product of human fingers,--it was sharp and definite, rather
resembling the striking of the point of a nail against the
glass. It was not loud, but in time--it continued with much
persistency--it became plainly vicious. It was accompanied
by what I can only describe as the most extraordinary
noises. There were squeaks, growing angrier and shriller as
the minutes passed; what seemed like gaspings for breath;
and a peculiar buzzing sound like, yet unlike, the purring
of a cat.
The creature's resentment at its want of
success in attracting attention was unmistakable. The
tapping became like the clattering of hailstones; it kept up
a continuous noise with its cries and pantings; there was
the sound as of some large body being rubbed against the
glass, as if it were extending itself against the window,
and endeavouring, by force of pressure, to gain an entrance
through the pane. So violent did its contortions become that
I momentarily anticipated the yielding of the glass, and the
excited assailant coming crashing through. Considerably to
my relief the window proved more impregnable than seemed at
one time likely. The stolid resistance proved, in the end,
to be too much either for its endurance or its patience.
Just as I was looking for some fresh manifestation of fury,
it seemed rather to tumble than to spring off the sill; then
came, once more, the same sound of quietly retreating
footsteps; and what, under the circumstances, seemed odder
still, the same closing of the gate.
During the two or three hours which
immediately ensued nothing happened at all out of the
way,--and then took place the most surprising incident of
all. The clock had struck ten some time before. Since before
the striking of the hour nothing and no one had passed along
what was evidently the little frequented road in front of
that uncanny house. On a sudden two sounds broke the
stillness without,--of someone running, and of cries.
Judging from his hurrying steps someone seemed to be flying
for his life,--to the accompaniment of curious cries. It was
only when the runner reached the front of the house that, in
the cries, I recognized the squeaks of the persistent
caller. I imagined that he had returned, as before, alone,
to renew his attacks upon the window,--until it was made
plain, as it quickly was, that, with him, was some sort of a
companion. Immediately there arose, from without, the noise
of battle. Two creatures, whose cries were, to me, of so
unusual a character, that I found it impossible to even
guess at their identity, seemed to be waging war to the
knife upon the doorstep. After a minute or two of furious
contention, victory seemed to rest with one of the
combatants, for the other fled, squeaking as with pain.
While I listened, with strained attention, for the next
episode in this queer drama, expecting that now would come
another assault upon the window, to my unbounded surprise I
heard a key thrust in the keyhole, the lock turned, and the
front door thrown open with a furious bang. It was closed as
loudly as it was opened. Then the door of the room in which
I was, was dashed open, with the same display of excitement,
and of clamour, footsteps came hurrying in, the door was
slammed to with a force which shook the house to its
foundations, there was a rustling as of bed-clothes, the
brilliant illumination of the night before, and a voice,
which I had only too good reason to remember said
"Stand up."
I stood up, automatically, at the word of
command, facing towards the bed.
There, between the sheets, with his head
resting on his hand in the attitude in which I had seen him
last, was the being I had made acquaintance with under
circumstances which I was never likely to forget,--the same,
yet not the same.
THAT the man in the bed was the one
whom, to my cost, I had suffered myself to stumble on the
night before, there could, of course, not be the faintest
doubt. And yet, directly I saw him, I recognized that some
astonishing alteration had taken place in his appearance. To
begin with, he seemed younger,--the decrepitude of age had
given place to something very like the fire of youth. His
features had undergone some subtle change. His nose, for
instance, was not by any means so grotesque; its beak-like
quality was less conspicuous. The most part of his wrinkles
had disappeared, as if by magic. And, though his skin was
still as yellow as saffron, his contours had rounded,--he
had even come into possession of a modest allowance of chin.
But the most astounding novelty was that about the face
there was something which was essentially feminine; so
feminine, indeed, that I wondered if I could by any
possibility have blundered, and mistaken a woman for a man;
some ghoulish example of her sex, who had so yielded to her
depraved instincts as to have become nothing but a ghastly
reminiscence of womanhood.
The effect of the changes which had come
about in his appearance--for, after all I told myself that
it was impossible that I could have been such a simpleton as
to have been mistaken on such a question as gender--was
heightened by the self-evident fact that, very recently, he
had been engaged in some pitched battle; some hand to hand,
and, probably, discreditable encounter, from which he had
borne away uncomfortable proofs of his opponent's prowess.
His antagonist could hardly have been a chivalrous fighter,
for his countenance was marked by a dozen different
scratches which seemed to suggest that the weapons used had
been someone's finger-nails. It was, perhaps, because the
heat of the battle was still in his veins that he was in
such a state of excitement. He seemed to be almost
overwhelmed by the strength of his own feelings. His eyes
seemed literally to flame with fire. The muscles of his face
were working as if they were wholly beyond his own control.
When he spoke his accent was markedly foreign; the words
rushed from his lips in an inarticulate torrent; he kept
repeating the same thing over and over again in a fashion
which was not a little suggestive of insanity.
"So you're not dead!--you're not
dead:--you're alive!--you're alive! Well,--how does it feel
to be dead? I ask you!--Is it not good to be dead? To keep
dead is better,--it is the best of all! To have made an end
of all things, to cease to strive and to cease to weep, to
cease to want and to cease to have, to cease to annoy and to
cease to long, to no more care,--no!--not for anything, to
put from you the curse of life,--forever!--is that not the
best? Oh yes!--I tell you!--do I not know? But for you such
knowledge is not yet. For you there is the return to life,
the coming out of death,--you shall live on!--for me!--Live
on!"
He made a movement with his hand, and,
directly he did so, it happened as on the previous evening,
that a metamorphosis took place in the very abysses of my
being. I woke from my torpor, as he put it, I came out of
death, and was alive again. I was far, yet, from being my
own man; I realized that he exercised on me a degree of
mesmeric force which I had never dreamed that one creature
could exercise on another; but, at least, I was no longer in
doubt as to whether I was or was not dead. I knew I was
alive.
He lay, watching me, as if he was reading the
thoughts which occupied my brain,--and, for all I know, he
was.
"Robert Holt, you are a thief."
"I am not."
My own voice, as I heard it, startled me,--it
was so long since it had sounded in my ears.
I did know it, and the knowledge of my
impotence was terrible. I felt that if I could only get away
from him; only release myself from the bonds with which he
had bound me about; only remove myself from the horrible
glamour of his near neighbourhood; only get one or two
square meals and have an opportunity of recovering from the
enervating stress of mental and bodily fatigue;--I felt that
then I might be something like his match, and that a second
time, he would endeavour in vain to bring me within the
compass of his magic. But, as it was, I was conscious that I
was helpless, and the consciousness was agony. He persisted
in reiterating his former falsehood.
"I say you are a thief!--a thief, Robert
Holt, a thief! You came through a window for your own
pleasure, now you will go through a window for mine,--not
this window, but another." Where the jest lay I did not
perceive; but it tickled him, for a grating sound came from
his throat which was meant for laughter. "This time it
is as a thief that you will go--oh yes, be sure."
He paused as it seemed, to transfix me with
his gaze. His unblinking eyes never for an instant quitted
my face. With what a frightful fascination they constrained
me,--and how I loathed them!
When he spoke again there was a new
intonation in his speech,--something bitter, cruel,
unrelenting.
"Do you know Paul Lessingham?"
He pronounced the name as if he hated
it,--and yet as if he loved to have it on his tongue.
"What Paul Lessingham?"
"There is only one Paul Lessingham!
The Paul Lessingham,--the great Paul
Lessingham!"
He shrieked, rather than said this, with an
outburst of rage so frenzied that I thought, for the moment,
that he was going to spring on me and rend me. I shook all
over. I do not doubt that, as I replied, my voice was
sufficiently tremulous.
"All the world knows Paul
Lessingham,--the politician,--the statesman."
As he glared at me his eyes dilated. I still
stood in expectation of a physical assault. But, for the
present, he contented himself with words.
"To-night you are going through his
window like a thief!"
I had no inkling of his meaning,--and,
apparently, judging from his next words, I looked something
of the bewilderment I felt.
"You do not understand? He repeated my words as if in mockery. I
am--I make it my boast!--of that great multitude which
regards Paul Lessingham as the greatest living force in
practical politics; and which looks to him, with confidence,
to carry through that great work of constitutional and
social reform which he has set himself to do. I daresay that
my tone, in speaking of him, savoured of laudation,--which,
plainly, the man in the bed resented. What he meant by his
wild words about my going through Paul Lessingham's window
like a thief, I still had not the faintest notion. They
sounded like the ravings of a madman.
As I continued silent, and he yet stared,
there came into his tone another note,--a note of
tenderness,--a note of which I had not deemed him capable.
"He is good to look at, Paul
Lessingham,--is he not good to look at?"
I was aware that, physically, Mr. Lessingham
was a fine specimen of manhood, but I was not prepared for
the assertion of the fact in such a quarter,--nor for the
manner in which the temporary master of my fate continued to
harp and enlarge upon the theme.
"He is straight,--straight as the mast
of a ship,--he is tall,--his skin is white he is strong--do
I not know that he is strong--how strong!--oh yes! Is there
a better thing than to be his wife? his well-beloved? the
light of his eyes? Is there for a woman a happier chance? Oh
no, not one! His wife!--Paul Lessingham!"
As, with soft cadences, he gave vent to these
unlooked-for sentiments, the fashion of his countenance was
changed. A look of longing came into his face--of savage,
frantic longing--which, unalluring though it was, for the
moment transfigured him. But the mood was transient
"To be his wife,--oh yes!--the wife of
his scorn! the despised and rejected!"
The return to the venom of his former
bitterness was rapid,--I could not but feel that this was
the natural man. Though why a creature such as he was should
go out of his way to apostrophize, in such a manner, a
publicist of Mr. Lessingham's eminence, surpassed my
comprehension. Yet he stuck to his subject like a leech,--as
if it had been one in which he had an engrossing personal
interest.
"He is a devil,--hard as the granite
rock,--cold as the snows of Ararat. In him there is none of
life's warm blood,--he is accursed! He is false,--ay, false
as the fables of those who lie for love of lies,--he is all
treachery. Her whom he has taken to his bosom he would put
away from him as if she had never been,--he would steal from
her like a thief in the night,--he would forget she ever
was! But the avenger follows after, lurking in the shadows,
hiding among the rocks, waiting, watching, till his time
shall come. And it shall come!--the day of the avenger!--ay,
the day!"
Raising himself to a sitting posture, he
threw his arms above his head, and shrieked with a demoniac
fury. Presently he became a trifle calmer. Reverting to his
recumbent position, resting his head upon his hand, he eyed
me steadily; then asked me a question which struck me as
being, under the circumstances, more than a little singular.
"You know his house,--the house of the
great Paul Lessingham,--the politician,--the
statesman?"
"I do not."
"You lie!--you do!"
The words came from him with a sort of
snarl,--as if he would have lashed me across the face with
them.
"I do not. Men in my position are not
acquainted with the residences of men in his. I may, at some
time, have seen his address in print; but, if so, I have
forgotten it."
He looked at me intently, for some moments,
as if to learn if I spoke the truth and apparently, at last,
was satisfied that I did.
"You do not know it?--Well! I will show
it you,--I will show the house of the great Paul
Lessingham."
What he meant I did not know; but I was soon
to learn--an astounding revelation it proved to be. There
was about his manner something hardly human something which,
for want of a better phrase, I would call vulpine. In his
tone there was a mixture of mockery and bitterness, as if he
wished his words to have the effect of corrosive sublimate,
and to sear me as he uttered them.
"Listen with all your ears. Give me your
whole attention. Hearken to my bidding, so that you may do
as I bid you. Not that I fear your obedience,--oh no!"
He paused,--as if to enable me to fully
realize the picture of my helplessness conjured up by his
jibes.
"You came through my window, like a
thief. You will go through my window, like a fool. You will
go to the house of the great Paul Lessingham. You say you do
not know it? Well, I will show it you. I will be your guide.
Unseen, in the darkness and the night, I will stalk beside
you, and will lead you to where I would have you go.--You
will go just as you are, with bare feet, and head uncovered,
and with but a single garment to hide your nakedness. You
will be cold, your feet will be cut and bleeding,--but what
better does a thief deserve? If any see you, at the least
they will take you for a madman, there will be trouble. But
have no fear; bear a bold heart. None shall see you while I
stalk at your side. I will cover you with the cloak of
invisibility,--so that you may come in safety to the house
of the great Paul Lessingham."
He paused again. What he said, wild and
wanton though it was, was beginning to fill me with a sense
of the most extreme discomfort. His sentences, in some
strange, indescribable way, seemed, as they came from his
lips, to warp my limbs; to enwrap themselves about me; to
confine me, tighter and tighter, within, as it were,
swaddling clothes; to make me more and more helpless. I was
already conscious that whatever mad freak he chose to set me
on I should have no option but to carry it through.
"When you come to the house, you will
stand, and look, and seek for a window convenient for entry.
It may be that you will find one open, as you did mine; if
not, you will open one. How,--that is your affair, not mine.
You will practise the arts of a thief to steal into his
house."
The monstrosity of his suggestion fought
against the spell which he again was casting upon me, and
forced me into speech,--endowed me with the power to show
that there still was in me something of a man; though every
second the strands of my manhood, as it seemed, were
slipping faster through the fingers which were strained to
clutch them.
"I will not."
He was silent. He looked at me. The pupils of
his eyes dilated,--until they seemed all pupil.
"You will.--Do you hear?--I say you
will."
"I am not a thief, I am an honest
man,--why should I do this thing?"
"Because I bid you."
"Have mercy!"
"On whom--on you, or on Paul
Lessingham?--Who, at any time, has shown mercy unto me, that
I should show mercy unto any?"
He stopped, and then again went
on,--reiterating his former incredible suggestion with an
emphasis which seemed to eat its way into my brain
"You will practise the arts of a thief
to steal into his house and being in will listen. If all be
still, you will make your way to the room he calls his
study."
"How shall I find it? I know nothing of
his house."
The question was wrung from me; I felt that
the sweat was standing in great drops upon my brow.
"I will show it you."
"Shall you go with me?"
"Ay,--I shall go with you. All the time
I shall be with you. You will not see me, but I shall be
there. Be not afraid."
His claim to supernatural powers, for what he
said amounted to nothing less, was, on the face of it,
preposterous, but, then, I was in no condition to even hint
at its absurdity. He continued.
"When you have gained the study, you
will go to a certain drawer, which is in a certain bureau,
in a corner of the room--I see it now; when you are there
you shall see It too--and you will open it."
"Should it be locked?"
"You still will open it."
"But how shall I open it if it is
locked?"
"By those arts in which a thief is
skilled. I say to you again that that is your affair, not
mine."
I made no attempt to answer him. Even
supposing that he forced me, by the wicked, and
unconscionable exercise of what, I presumed were the
hypnotic powers with which nature had to such a dangerous
degree endowed him, to carry the adventure to a certain
stage, since he could hardly, at an instant's notice, endow
me with the knack of picking locks, should the drawer he
alluded to be locked--which might Providence
permit!-- "You will open it,--though it be doubly
and trebly locked, I say that you will open it.--In it you
will find----" he hesitated, as if to
reflect--"some letters; it may be two or three,--I know
not just how many,--they are bound about by a silken ribbon.
You will take them out of the drawer, and, having taken
them, you will make the best of your way out of the house,
and bear them back to me."
"And should anyone come upon me while
engaged in these nefarious proceedings,--for instance,
should I encounter Mr. Lessingham himself, what then?"
"Paul Lessingham?--You need have no fear
if you encounter him."
"I need have no fear!--If he finds me,
in his own house, at dead of night, committing
burglary!"
"You need have no fear of him."
"On your account, or on my own?--At
least he will have me haled to gaol."
"I say you need have no fear of him. I
say what I mean."
"How, then, shall I escape his righteous
vengeance? He is not the man to suffer a midnight robber to
escape him scatheless,--shall I have to kill him?"
"You will not touch him with a
finger,--nor will he touch you."
"By what spell shall I prevent
him?"
"By the spell of two words."
"What words are they?"
"Should Paul Lessingham chance to come
upon you, and find you in his house, a thief, and should
seek to stay you from whatever it is you may be at, you will
not flinch nor flee from him, but you will stand still, and
you will
Something in the crescendo accents of his
voice, something weird and ominous, caused my heart to press
against my ribs, so that when he stopped, in my eagerness I
cried out,
"What?"
"THE BEETLE!"
As the words came from him in a kind of
screech, the lamp went out, and the place was all in
darkness, and I knew, so that the knowledge filled me with a
sense of loathing, that with me, in the room, was the evil
presence of the night before. Two bright specks gleamed in
front of me; something flopped from off the bed on to the
ground; the thing was coming towards me across the floor. It
came slowly on, and on, and on. I stood still, speechless in
the sickness of my horror. Until, on my bare feet, it
touched me with slimy feelers, and my terror lest it should
creep up my naked body lent me voice, and I fell shrieking
like a soul in agony.
It may be that my shrieking drove it from me.
At least, it went. I knew it went. And all was still. Until,
on a sudden, the lamp flamed out again, and there, lying, as
before, in bed, glaring at me with his baleful eyes, was the
being whom, in my folly, or in my wisdom,-- "You will say that to him; those two
words; they only; no more. And you will see what you will
see. But Paul Lessingham is a man of resolution. Should he
still persist in interference, or seek to hinder you, you
will say those two words again. You need do no more. Twice
will suffice, I promise you.--Now go.--Draw up the blind;
open the window, climb through it. Hasten to do what I have
bidden you. I wait here for your return,--and all the way I
shall be with you."
I WENT to the window; I drew up the
blind, unlatching the sash, I threw it open, and clad, or,
rather, unclad as I was, I clambered through it into the
open air. I was not only incapable of resistance, I was
incapable of distinctly formulating the desire to offer
resistance. Some compelling influence moved me hither and
thither, with completest disregard of whether I would or
would not.
And yet, when I found myself without, I was
conscious of a sense of exultation at having escaped from
the miasmic atmosphere of that room of unholy memories. And
a faint hope began to dawn within my bosom that, as I
increased the distance between myself and it, I might shake
off something of the nightmare helplessness which numbed and
tortured me. I lingered for a moment by the window; then
stepped over the short dividing wall into the street; and
then again I lingered.
My condition was one of dual
personality, There was a moment, in which the gravelled
pathway first made itself known to my naked feet, and the
cutting wind to my naked flesh, when I think it possible
that, had I gritted my teeth, and strained my every nerve, I
might have shaken myself free from the bonds which shackled
me and bade defiance to the ancient sinner who, for all I
knew, was peeping at me through the window. But so depressed
was I by the knowledge of the ridiculous appearance I
presented that, before I could take advantage of it the
moment passed,--not to return again that night.
I did catch, as it were, at its fringe, as it
was flying past me, making a hurried movement to one
side,--the first I had made, of my own initiative, for
hours. But it was too late. My tormentor,--as if, though
unseen, he saw--tightened his grip, I was whirled round, and
sped hastily onwards in a direction in which I certainly had
no desire of travelling.
All the way I never met a soul. I have since
wondered whether in that respect my experience was not a
normal one; whether it might not have happened to any. If
so, there are streets in London, long lines of streets
which, at a certain period of the night, in a certain sort
of weather--probably the weather had something to do with
it--are clean deserted; in which there is neither
foot-passenger nor vehicle--not even a policeman. The
greater part of the route along which I was driven--I know
no juster word--was one with which I had some sort of
acquaintance. It led, at first, through what, I take it, was
some part of Walham Green; then along the Lillie Road,
through Brompton, across the Fulham Road, through the
network of streets leading to Sloane Street, across Sloane
Street into Lowndes Square. Who goes that way goes some
distance, and goes through some important thoroughfares; yet
not a creature did I see, nor, I imagine, was there a
creature who saw me. As I crossed Sloane Street, I fancied
that I heard the distant rumbling of a vehicle along the
Knightsbridge Road, but that was the only sound I heard.
It is painful even to recollect the plight in
which I was when I was stopped,--for stopped I was, as
shortly and as sharply, as the beast of burden, with a
bridle in its mouth, whose driver puts a period to his
career. I was wet,--intermittent gusts of rain were borne on
the scurrying wind; in spite of the pace at which I had been
brought, I was chilled to the bone; and--worst of all!--my
mud-stained feet, all cut and bleeding, were so painful--for
unfortunately, I was still susceptible enough to pain--that
it was agony to have them come into contact with the cold
and the slime of the hard, unyielding pavement.
I had been stopped on the opposite side of
the square,--that nearest to the hospital; in front of a
house which struck me as being somewhat smaller than the
rest. It was a house with a portico; about the pillars of
this portico was trelliswork, and on the trelliswork was
trained some climbing plant. AS I stood, shivering,
wondering what would happen next, some strange impulse
mastered me, and, immediately, to my own unbounded
amazement, I found myself scrambling up the trellis towards
the verandah above. I am no gymnast, either by nature or by
education; I doubt whether, previously, I had ever attempted
to climb anything more difficult than a step ladder. The
result was, that, though the impulse might be given me, the
skill could not, and I had only ascended a yard or so when,
losing my footing, I came slithering down upon my back.
Bruised and shaken though I was, I was not allowed to
inquire into my injuries. In a moment I was on my feet
again, and again I was impelled to climb,--only, however,
again to come to grief. This time the demon, or whatever it
was, that had entered into me, seeming to appreciate the
impossibility of getting me to the top of that verandah,
directed me to try another way. I mounted the steps leading
to the front door, got on to the low parapet which was at
one side, thence on to the sill of the adjacent window,--had
I slipped then I should have fallen a sheer descent of at
least twenty feet to the bottom of the deep area down below.
But the sill was broad, and--if it is proper to use such
language in connection with a transaction of the sort in
which I was engaged--fortune favoured me. I did not fall. In
my clenched fist I had a stone. With this I struck the pane
of glass, as with a hammer. Through the hole which resulted,
I could just insert my hand, and reach the latch within. In
another minute the sash was raised, and I was in the
house,--I had committed burglary.
As I look back and reflect upon the audacity
of the whole proceeding, even now I tremble. Hapless slave
of another's will although in very truth I was, I cannot
repeat too often that I realized to the full just what it
was that I was being compelled to do--a fact which was very
far from rendering my situation less distressful! Anyhow, as I stood within the room which I
had violated, listening for signs of someone being on the
alert, I could hear nothing. Within the house there seemed
to be the silence of the grave. I drew down the window, and
made for the door.
It proved by no means easy to find. The
windows were obscured by heavy curtains, so that the room
inside was dark as pitch. It appeared to be unusually full
of furniture,--an appearance due, perhaps, to my being a
stranger in the midst of such Cimmerian blackness. I had to
feel my way, very gingerly indeed, among the various
impedimenta. As it was I seemed to come into contact with
most of the obstacles there were to come into contact with,
stumbling more than once over footstools, and over what
seemed to be dwarf chairs. It was a miracle that my
movements still continued to be unheard,--but I believe that
the explanation was, that the house was well built; that the
servants were the only persons in it at the time; that their
bedrooms were on the top floor; that they were fast asleep;
and that they were little likely to be disturbed by anything
that might occur in the room which I had entered.
Reaching the door at last, I opened
it,--listening for any promise of being
interrupted In the brilliant glow of the electric light I
took a leisurely survey of the contents of the room. It was,
as the man in the bed had said it would be a study,--a fine,
spacious apartment, evidently intended rather for work than
for show. There were three separate writing-tables, one very
large and two smaller ones, all covered with an orderly
array of manuscripts and papers. A typewriter stood at the
side of one. On the floor, under and about them, were piles
of books, portfolios, and official-looking documents. Every
available foot of wall space on three sides of the room was
lined with shelves, full as they could hold with books. On
the fourth side, facing the door, was a large lock-up oak
bookcase, and, in the further corner, a quaint old bureau.
So soon as I saw this bureau I went for it, straight as an
arrow from a bow,--indeed, it would be no abuse of metaphor
to say that I was propelled towards it like an arrow from a
bow.
It had drawers below, glass doors above, and
between the drawers and the doors was a flap to let down. It
was to this flap my attention was directed. I put out my
hand to open it; it was locked at the top. I pulled at it
with both hands; it refused to budge.
So this was the lock I was, if necessary, to
practise the arts of a thief to open. I was no picklock; I
had flattered myself that nothing, and no one, could make me
such a thing. Yet now that I found myself confronted by that
unyielding flap, I found that pressure, irresistible
pressure, was being put upon me to gain, by any and every
means, access to its interior. I had no option but to yield.
I looked about me in search of some convenient tool with
which to ply the felon's trade. I found it close beside me.
Leaning against the wall, within a yard of where I stood,
were examples of various kinds of weapons--among them,
spear-heads. Taking one of these spear-heads, with much
difficulty I forced the point between the flap and the
bureau. Using the leverage thus obtained, I attempted to
prise it open. The flap held fast; the spear-head snapped in
two. I tried another, with the same result; a third, to fail
again. There were no more. The most convenient thing
remaining was a queer, heavy-headed sharp-edged hatchet.
This I took, brought the sharp edge down with all my force
upon the refractory flap. The hatchet went through--before I
had done with it, it was open with a vengeance.
But I was destined on the occasion of my
first--and, I trust, last--experience of the burglar's
calling, to carry the part completely through. I had gained
access to the flap itself only to find that at the back were
several small drawers, on one of which my observation was
brought to bear in a fashion which it was quite impossible
to disregard. As a matter of course it was locked, and, once
more, I had to search for something which would serve as a
rough-and- There was nothing at all suitable among the
weapons,--I could hardly for such a purpose use the hatchet;
the drawer in question was such a little one that to have
done so would have been to shiver it to splinters. On the
mantelshelf, in an open leather case, were a pair of
revolvers. Statesmen, nowadays, sometimes stand in actual
peril of their lives. It is possible that Mr.Lessingham,
conscious of continually threatened danger, carried them
about with him as a necessary protection. They were
serviceable weapons, large, and somewhat weighty,--of the
type which, I believe, upon occasion the police are armed.
Not only were all the barrels loaded, but, in the case
itself there was a supply of cartridges more than sufficient
to charge them all again.
I was handling the weapons, wondering--if, in
my condition, the word was applicable--what use I could make
of them to enable me to gain admission to that drawer, when
there came, on a sudden, from the street without, the sound
of approaching wheels. There was a whirring within my brain,
as if someone was endeavouring to explain to me to what
service to apply the revolvers, and I, perforce, strained
every nerve to grasp the meaning of my invisible mentor.
While I did so, the wheels drew rapidly nearer, and, just as
I was expecting them to go whirling by, stopped,--in front
of the house. My heart leapt in my bosom. In a convulsion of
frantic terror, again, during the passage of one frenzied
moment, I all but burst the bonds that held me, and fled,
haphazard, from the imminent peril. But the bonds were
stronger than I,--it was as if I had been rooted to the
ground.
A key was inserted in the keyhole of the
front door, the lock was turned, the door thrown open, firm
footsteps entered the house. If I could I would not have
stood upon the order of my going, but.gone at once,
anywhere, anyhow; but, at that moment, my comings and goings
were not matters in which I was consulted. Panic fear raging
within, outwardly I was calm as possible, and stood, turning
the revolvers over and over, asking myself what it could be
that I was intended to do with them. All at once it came to
me in an illuminating flash,--I was to fire at the lock of
the drawer, and blow it open.
A madder scheme it would have been impossible
to hit upon. The servants had slept through a good deal, but
they would hardly sleep through the discharge of a revolver
in a room below them,--not to speak of the person who had
just entered the premises, and whose footsteps were already
audible as he came up the stairs. I struggled to make a dumb
protest against the insensate folly which was hurrying me to
infallible destruction, without success. For me there was
only obedience. With a revolver in either hand I marched
towards the bureau as unconcernedly as if I would not have
given my life to have escaped the dénouement which I
needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was
close at hand. I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers
against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide
had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger. The lock
was shattered, the contents of the drawer were at my mercy.
I snatched up a bundle of letters, about which a pink ribbon
was wrapped. Startled by a noise behind me immediately
following the report of the pistol, I glanced over my
shoulder.
The room door was open, and Mr. Lessingham
was standing with the handle in his hand.
HE was in evening dress. He carried
a small portfolio in his left hand. If the discovery of my
presence startled him, as it could scarcely have failed to
do, he allowed no sign of surprise to escape him. Paul
Lessingham's impenetrability is proverbial. Whether on
platforms addressing excited crowds, or in the midst of
heated discussion in the House of Commons, all the world
knows that his coolness remains unruffled. It is generally
understood that he owes his success in the political arena
in no slight measure to the adroitness which is born of his
invulnerable presence of mind. He gave me a taste of its
quality then. Standing in the attitude which has been
familiarized to us by caricaturists, his feet apart, his
broad shoulders well set back, his handsome head a little
advanced, his keen blue eyes having in them something
suggestive of a bird of prey considering just when, where,
and how to pounce, he regarded me for some seconds in
perfect silence,--whether outwardly I flinched I cannot say;
inwardly I know I did. When he spoke, it was without moving
from where he stood, and in the calm, airy tones in which he
might have addressed an acquaintance who had just dropped
in.
"May I ask, sir, to what I am indebted
for the pleasure of your company?"
He paused, as if waiting for my answer. When
none came, he put his question in another form.
"Pray, sir, who are you, and on whose
invitation do I find you here?"
As I still stood speechless, motionless,
meeting his glance without a twitching of an eyebrow, nor a
tremor of the hand, I imagine that he began to consider me
with an even closer intentness than before. And that the--to
say the least of it--peculiarity of my appearance, caused
him to suspect that he was face to face with an adventure of
a peculiar kind. Whether he took me for a lunatic I cannot
certainly say; but, from his manner, I think it possible he
did. He began to move towards me from across the room,
addressing me with the utmost suavity and courtesy.
"Be so good as to give me the revolver,
and the papers you are holding in your hand."
As he came on, something entered into me, and
forced itself from between my lips, so that I said, in a
low, hissing voice, which I vow was never mine,
"THE BEETLE!"
Whether it was, or was not, owing, in some
degree, to a trick of my imagination, I cannot determine,
but, as the words were spoken, it seemed to me that the
lights went low, so that the place was all in darkness, and
I again was filled with the nauseous consciousness of the
presence of something evil in the room. But if, in that
matter, my abnormally strained imagination played me a
trick, there could be no doubt whatever as to the effect
which the words had on Mr. Lessingham. When the mist of the
blackness--real or supposititious--had passed from before my
eyes, I found that he had retreated to the extremest limits
of the room, and was crouching his back against the
bookshelves, clutching at them, in the attitude of a man who
has received a staggering blow, from which, as yet, he has
had no opportunity of recovering. A most extraordinary
change had taken place in the expression of his face; in his
countenance amazement, fear, and horror seemed struggling
for the mastery. I was filled with a most discomforting
qualm as I gazed at the frightened figure in front of me,
and realized that it was that of the great Paul Lessingham,
the god of my political idolatry.
"Who are you?--In God's name, who are
you?"
His very voice seemed changed; his frenzied,
choking accents would hardly have been recognized by either
friend or foe.
"Who are you?--Do you hear me ask, who
are you? In the name of God, I bid you say!"
As he perceived that I was still, he began to
show a species of excitement which it was unpleasant to
witness, especially as he continued to crouch against the
bookshelf, as if he was afraid to stand up straight. So far
from exhibiting the impassivity for which he was renowned,
all the muscles in his face and all the limbs in his body
seemed to be in motion at once; he was like a man afflicted
with the shivering ague,--his very fingers were twitching
aimlessly, as they were stretched out on either side of him,
as if seeking for support from the shelves against which he
leaned.
"Where have you come from? what do you
want? who sent you here? what concern have you with me? is
it necessary that you should come and play these childish
tricks with me? why? why?"
The questions came from him with astonishing
rapidity. When he saw that I continued silent, they came
still faster, mingled with what sounded to me like a stream
of inchoate abuse.
"Why do you stand there in that
extraordinary garment,--it's worse than nakedness, yes,
worse than nakedness! For that alone I could have you
punished, and I will!--and try to play the fool? Do you
think I am a boy to be bamboozled by every bogey a blunderer
may try to conjure up? If so, you're wrong, as whoever sent
you might have had sense enough to let you know. If you tell
me who you are, and who sent you here, and what it is you
want, I will be merciful; if not, the police shall be sent
for, and the law shall take its course,--to the bitter
end!--I warn you.--Do you hear? You fool! tell me who you
are?"
The last words came from him in what was very
like a burst of childish fury. He himself seemed conscious,
the moment after, that his passion was sadly lacking in
dignity, and to be ashamed of it. He drew himself straight
up. With a pocket- "Well, sir, is your continued silence
part of the business of the rôle you have set yourself
to play?"
His tone was firmer, and his bearing more in
keeping with his character.
"If it be so, I presume that I at least
have liberty to speak. When I find a gentleman, even one
gifted with your eloquence of silence, playing the part of
burglar, I think you will grant that a few words on my part
cannot justly be considered to be out of place."
Again he paused. I could not but feel that he
was employing the vehicle of somewhat cumbrous sarcasm to
gain time, and to give himself the opportunity of
recovering, if the thing was possible, his pristine courage.
That, for some cause wholly hidden from me, the mysterious
utterance had shaken his nature to its deepest foundation,
was made plainer by his endeavour to treat the whole
business with a sort of cynical levity.
"To commence with, may I ask if you have
come through London, or through any portion of it, in that
costume,--or rather, in that want of costume? It would seem
out of place in a Cairene street,--would it not?--even in
the Rue de Rabagas,--was it not the Rue de Rabagas?"
He asked the question with an emphasis the
meaning of which was wholly lost on me. What he referred to
either then, or in what immediately followed, I, of course,
knew no more than the man in the moon,--though I should
probably have found great difficulty in convincing him of my
ignorance.
"I take it that you are a reminiscence
of the Rue de Rabagas,--that, of course;--is it not of course?
The little house with the blue-grey venetians, and the piano
with the F sharp missing? Is there still the piano? With the
tinny treble--indeed, the whole atmosphere, was it not
tinny?--You agree with me?--I have not forgotten. I am not
even afraid to remember,--you perceive it?"
A new idea seemed to strike him,--born,
perhaps, of my continued silence.
"You look English,--is it possible that
you are not English? What are you then--French? We shall
see!"
He addressed me in a tongue which I
recognized as French, but with which I was not sufficiently
acquainted to understand. Although, I flatter myself
that,--as the present narrative should show--I have not made
an ill-use of the opportunities which I have had to improve
my, originally, modest education, I regret that I have never
had so much as a ghost of a chance to acquire an even
rudimentary knowledge of any language except my own.
Recognizing, I suppose, from my looks, that he was
addressing me in a tongue to which I was a stranger, after a
time he stopped, added something with a smile, and then
began to talk to me in a lingo to which, in a manner of
speaking, I was even stranger, for this time I had not the
faintest notion what it was,--it might have been gibberish
for all that I could tell. Quickly perceiving that he had
succeeded no better than before, he returned to English.
"You do not know French?--nor the
patois of the Rue de Rabagas? Very good,--then what is
it that you do know? Are you under a vow of silence, or are
you dumb,--except upon occasion? Your face is English,--what
can be seen of it, and I will take it, therefore, that
English spoken words convey some meaning to your brain. So
listen, sir, to what I have to say,--do me the favour to
listen carefully."
He was becoming more and more his former
self. In his clear, modulated tones there was a ring of
something like a threat,--a something which went very far
beyond his words.
"You know something of a period which I
choose to have forgotten,--that is plain; you come from a
person who, probably, knows still more. Go back to that
person and say that what I have forgotten I have forgotten;
nothing will be gained by anyone by an endeavour to induce
me to remember,--be very sure upon that point, say that
nothing will be gained by anyone. That time was one of
mirage, of delusion, of disease. I was in a condition,
mentally and bodily, in which pranks could have been played
upon me by any trickster. Such pranks were played. I know
that now quite well. I do not pretend to be proficient in
the modus operandi of the hankey-pankey man, but I
know that he has a method, all the same,--one susceptible,
too, of facile explanation. Go back to your friend, and tell
him that I am not again likely to be made the butt o f his
old method,--nor of his new one either.--You hear me,
sir?"
I remained motionless and silent,--an attitude
which, plainly he resented.
"Are you deaf and dumb? You certainly
are not dumb, for you spoke to me just now. Be advised by
me, and do not compel me to resort to measures which will be
the cause to you of serious discomfort.--You hear me,
sir?"
Still, from me, not a sign of
comprehension,--to his increased annoyance.
"So be it. Keep your own counsel, if you
choose. Yours will be the bitterness not mine. You may play
the lunatic, and play it excellently well, but that you do
understand what is said to you is clear.--Come to business,
sir. Give me that revolver, and the packet of letters which
you have stolen from my desk."
He had been speaking with the air of one who
desired to convince himself as much as me,--and about his
last words there was almost a flavour of braggadocio. I
remained unheeding.
"Are you going to do as I require, or
are you insane enough to refuse?--in which case I shall
summon assistance, and there will quickly be an end of it.
Pray do not imagine that you can trick me into supposing
that you do not grasp the situation. I know better.--Once
more, are you going to give me that revolver and those
letters?"
Yet no reply. His anger was- growing
momentarily greater,--and his agitation too. On my first
introduction to Paul Lessingham I was not destined to
discover in him any one of those qualities of which the
world held him to be the undisputed possessor. He showed
himself to be as unlike the statesman I had conceived, and
esteemed, as he easily could have done.
"Do you think I stand in awe of
you?--you!--of such a thing as you! Do as I tell you, or I
myself will make you,--and, at the same time, teach you a
much-needed lesson."
He raised his voice. In his bearing there was
a would-be defiance. He might not have been aware of it, but
the repetitions of the threats were, in themselves,
confessions of weakness. He came a step or two forward,--then,
stopping short, began to tremble. The perspiration
broke out upon his brow; he made spasmodic little dabs at it
with his crumpled-up handkerchief. His eyes wandered hither
and thither, as if searching for something which they feared
to see yet were constrained to seek. He began to talk to
himself, out loud, in odd disconnected sentences,--apparently
ignoring me entirely.
"What was that?--It was nothing.--It was
my imagination.--My nerves are out of order.--I have been
working too hard.--I am not well.--What's
that? This last inquiry came from him in a
half-stifled shriek,--as the door opened to admit the head
and body of an elderly man in a state of considerable
undress. He had the tousled appearance of one who had been
unexpectedly roused out of slumber, and unwillingly dragged
from bed. Mr. Lessingham stared at him as if he had been a
ghost, while he stared back at Mr. Lessingham as if he found
a difficulty in crediting the evidence of his own eyes. It
was he who broke the silence,--stutteringly.
"I am sure I beg your pardon, sir, but
one of the maids thought that she heard the sound of a shot,
and we came down to see if there was anything the matter,--I
had no idea, sir, that you were here." His eyes
travelled from Mr. Lessingham towards me,--suddenly
increasing, when they saw me, to about twice their previous
size. "God save us!--who is that?"
The man's self-evident cowardice possibly
impressed Mr. Lessingham with the conviction that he himself
was not cutting the most dignified of figures. At any rate,
he made a notable effort to, once more, assume a bearing of
greater determination.
"You are quite right, Matthews, quite
right. I am obliged by your watchfulness. At present you may
leave the room--I propose to deal with this fellow
myself,--only remain with the other men upon the landing, so
that, if I call, you may come to my assistance."
Matthews did as he was told, he left the
room,--with, I fancy, more rapidity than he had entered it.
Mr. Lessingham returned to me, his manner distinctly more
determined, as if he found his resolution reinforced by the
near neighbourhood of his retainers.
"Now, my man, you see how the case
stands, at a word from me you will be overpowered and doomed
to undergo a long period of imprisonment. Yet I am still
willing to listen to the dictates of mercy. Put down that
revolver, give me those letters,--you will not find me
disposed to treat you hardly."
For all the attention I paid him, I might
have been a graven image. He misunderstood, or pretended to
misunderstand, the cause of my silence.
"Come, I see that you suppose my
intentions to be harsher than they really are,--do not let us
have a scandal, and a scene,--be sensible!--give me those
letters!"
Again he moved in my direction; again, after
he had taken a step or two, to stumble and stop, and look
about him with frightened eyes; again to begin to mumble to
himself aloud.
"It's a conjurer's trick!--Of
course!--Nothing more.--What else could it be?--I m not to
be fooled.--I'm older than I was. I've been overdoing
it,--that's all."
Suddenly he broke into cries.
"Matthews! Matthews!--Help! help!"
Matthews entered the room, followed by three
other men, younger than himself. Evidently all had slipped
into the first articles of clothing they could lay their
hands upon, and each carried a stick, or some similar
rudimentary weapon.
Their master spurred them on.
"Strike the revolver out of his hand,
Matthews!--knock him down!--take the letters from
him!--don't be afraid!--I'm not afraid!"
In proof of it, he rushed at me, as it seemed
half blindly. As he did so I was constrained to shout out,
in tones which I should not have recognized as mine,
"THE BEETLE!"
And that moment the room was all in darkness,
and there were screams as of someone in an agony of terror
or of pain. I felt that something had come into the room, I
knew not whence nor how,--something of horror. And the next
action of which I was conscious was, that under cover of the
darkness, I was flying from the room, propelled by I knew
not what.
WHETHER anyone pursued I cannot say.
I have some dim recollection, as I came out of the room, of
women being huddled against the wall upon the landing, and
of their screaming as I went past. But whether any effort
was made to arrest my progress I cannot tell. My own
impression is that not the slightest attempt to impede my
headlong flight was made by anyone.
In what direction I was going I did not know.
I was like a man flying through the phantasmagoric
happenings of a dream, knowing neither how nor whither. I
tore along what I suppose was a broad passage, through a
door at the end into what, I fancy, was a drawing-room.
Across this room I dashed helter-skelter, bringing down, in
the gloom, unseen articles of furniture, with myself
sometimes on top, and sometimes under them. In a trice, each
time I fell, I was on my feet again,--until I went crashing
against a window which was concealed by curtains. It would
not have been strange had I crashed through it,--but I was
spared that. Thrusting aside the curtains, I fumbled for the
fastening of the window. It was a tall French casement
extending, so far as I could judge, from floor to ceiling.
When I had it open I stepped through it on to the verandah
without- to find that I was on the top of the portico which
I had vainly essayed to ascend from below.
I tried the road down which I had tried
up,--proceeding with a breakneck recklessness of which now I
shudder to think. It was, probably, some thirty feet above
the pavement, yet I rushed at the descent with as much
disregard for the safety of life and limb as if it had been
only three. Over the edge of the parapet I went, obtaining,
with my naked feet, a precarious foothold on the
latticework,--then down I commenced to scramble. I never did
get a proper hold, and when I had descended, perhaps, rather
more than half the distance,--scraping, as it seemed to me,
every scrap of skin off my body in the process--I lost what
little hold I had. Down to the bottom I went tumbling,
rolling right across the pavement into the muddy road. It
was a miracle I was not seriously injured,--but in that
sense, certainly, that night the miracles were on my side.
Hardly was I down, than I was up again,--mud and all.
Just as I was getting on to my feet I felt a
firm hand grip me by the shoulder. Turning I found myself
confronted by a tall, slenderly built man, with a long
drooping moustache, and an overcoat buttoned up to the chin,
who held me with a grasp of steel. He looked at me,--and I
looked back at him.
"After the ball,--eh?"
Even then I was struck by something pleasant
in his voice, and some quality as of sunshine in his
handsome face.
Seeing that I said nothing he went on,--with a
curious, half mocking smile.
"Is that the way to come slithering down
the Apostle's pillar?--Is it simple burglary, or simpler
murder?--Tell me the glad tidings that you've killed St.
Paul, and I'll let you go."
Whether he was mad or not I cannot say,--there
was some excuse for thinking so. He did not look mad, though
his words and actions alike were strange.
"Although you have confined yourself to
gentle felony, shall I not shower blessings on the head of
him who has been robbing Paul?--Away with you!"
He removed his grip, giving me a gentle push
as he did so,--and I was away. I neither stayed nor paused.
I know little of records, but if anyone has
made a better record than I did that night between Lowndes
Square and Walham Green I should like to know just what it
was,--I should, too, like to have seen it done.
In an incredibly short space of time I was
once more in front of the house with the open window,--the
packet of letters--which were like to have cost me so
dear--gripped tightly in my hand.
I PULLED up sharply,--as if a brake
had been suddenly, and even mercilessly applied to bring me
to a standstill. In front of the window I stood shivering. A
shower had recently commenced,--the falling rain was being
blown before the breeze. I was in a terrible sweat,--yet
tremulous as with cold; covered with mud; bruised, and cut,
and bleeding,--as piteous an object as you would care to see.
Every limb in my body ached; every muscle was exhausted
mentally and physically I was done; had I not been held up,
willy nilly, by the spell which was upon me, I should have
sunk down, then and there, in a hopeless, helpless, hapless
heap.
But my tormentor was not yet at an end with
me.
As I stood there, like some broken and beaten
hack, waiting for the word of command, it came. It was as if
some strong magnetic current had been switched on to me
through the window to draw me into the room. Over the low
wall I went, over the sill,--once more I stood in that
chamber of my humiliation and my shame. And once again I was
conscious of that awful sense of the presence of an evil
thing. How much of it was fact, and how much of it was the
product of imagination I cannot say; but, looking back, it
seems to me that it was as if I had been taken out of the
corporeal body to be plunged into the inner chambers of all
nameless sin. There was the sound of something flopping from
off the bed on to the ground, and I knew that the thing was
coming at me across the floor. My stomach quaked, my heart
melted within me,--the very anguish of my terror gave me
strength to scream,--and scream! Sometimes, even now, I seem
to hear those screams of mine ringing through the night, and
I bury my face in the pillow, and it is as though I was
passing through the very Valley of the Shadow.
The thing went back,--I could hear it slipping
and sliding across the floor. There was silence. And,
presently, the lamp was lit, and the room was all in
brightness. There, on the bed, in the familiar attitude
between the sheets, his head resting on his hand, his eyes
blazing like living coals, was the dreadful cause of all my
agonies. He looked at me with his unpitying, unblinking
glance.
"So!--Through the window again!--like a
thief!--Is it always through that door that you come into a
house?"
He paused,--as if to give me time to digest
his gibe.
"You saw Paul Lessingham,--well?--the
great Paul Lessingham!--Was he, then, so great?"
His rasping voice, with its queer foreign
twang, reminded me, in some uncomfortable way, of a rusty
saw,--the things he said, and the manner in which he said
them, were alike intended.to add to my discomfort. It was
solely because the feat was barely possible that he only
partially succeeded.
"Like a thief you went into his
house,--did I not tell you that you would? Like a thief he
found you,--were you not ashamed? Since, like a thief he
found you, how comes it that you have escaped,--by what
robber's artifice have you saved yourself from gaol?"
His manner changed,--so that, all at once, he
seemed to snarl at me.
"Is he great?--well!--is he great,--Paul
Lessingham? You are small, but he is smaller,--your great
Paul Lessingham!--Was there ever a man so less than
nothing?"
With the recollection fresh upon me of Mr.
Lessingham as I had so lately seen him I could not but feel
that there might be a modicum of truth in what, with such an
intensity of bitterness, the speaker suggested. The picture
which, in my mental gallery, I had hung in the place of
honour, seemed, to say the least, to have become a trifle
smudged.
As usual, the man in the bed seemed to
experience not the slightest difficulty in deciphering what
was passing through my mind.
"That is so,--you and he, you are a
pair,--the great Paul Lessingham is as great a thief as
you--and greater--for, at least, than you he has more
courage."
For some moments he was still; then
exclaimed, with sudden fierceness,
"Give me what you have stolen!"
I moved towards the bed--most
unwillingly--and held out to him the packet of letters which
I had abstracted from the little drawer. Perceiving my
disinclination to his near neighbourhood, he set himself to
play with it. Ignoring my outstretched hand, he stared me
straight in the face.
"What ails you? Are you not well? Is it
not sweet to stand close at my side? You, with your white
skin, if I were a woman, would you not take me for a
wife?"
There was something about the manner in which
this was said which was so essentially feminine that once
more I wondered if I could possibly be mistaken in the
creature's sex. I would have given much to have been able to
strike him across the face,--or, better, to have taken him by
the neck, and thrown him through the window, and rolled him
in the mud.
He condescended to notice what I was holding
out to him.
"So!--that is what you have stolen! That
is what you have taken from the drawer in the bureau--the
drawer which was locked--and which you used the arts in
which a thief is skilled to enter. Give it to
me,--thief!"
He snatched the packet from me, scratching
the back of my hand as he did so, as if his nails had been
talons. He turned the packet over and over, glaring at it as
he did so,--it was strange what a relief it was to have his
glance removed from off my face.
"You kept it in your inner drawer, Paul
Lessingham, where none but you could see it,--did you? You
hid it as one hides treasure. There should be something here
worth having, worth seeing, worth knowing,--yes, worth
knowing!--since you found it worth your while to hide it up
so closely."
As I have said, the packet was bound about by
a string of pink-ribbon,--a fact on which he presently began
to comment.
"With what a pretty string you have
encircled it,--and how neatly it is tied! Surely only a
woman's hand could tie a knot like that,--who would have
guessed yours were such agile fingers?--So! An endorsement
on the cover! What's this?--let's see what's written!--'The
letters of my dear love, Marjorie Lindon'."
As he read these words, which, as he said,
were endorsed upon the outer sheet of paper which served as
a cover for the letters which were enclosed within, his face
became transfigured. Never did I suppose that rage could
have so possessed a human countenance. His jaw dropped open
so that his yellow fangs gleamed through his parted lips,--he
held his breath so long that each moment I looked to see him
fall down in a fit; the veins stood out all over his face
and head like seams of blood. I know not how long he
continued speechless. When his breath returned, it was with
chokings and gaspings in the midst of which he hissed out
his words, as if their mere passage through his throat
brought him near to strangulation.
"The letters of his dear love!--of his
dear love!--his!--Paul Lessingham's!--So!--It is as I
guessed,--as I knew,--as I saw!--Marjorie Lindon!--Sweet
Marjorie!--His dear love!--Paul Lessingham's dear love!--She
with the lily face, the corn-hued hair!--What is it his dear
love has found in her fond heart to write Paul
Lessingham?"
Sitting up in bed he tore the packet open. It
contained, perhaps, eight or nine letters,--some mere notes,
some long epistles. But, short or long, he devoured them
with equal appetite, each one over and over again, till I
thought he never would have done re-reading them. They were
on thick white paper, of a peculiar shade of whiteness, with
untrimmed edges. On each sheet a crest and an address were
stamped in gold, and all the sheets were of the same shape
and size. I told myself that if anywhere, at any time, I saw
writing paper like that again, I should not fail to know it.
The caligraphy was, like the paper, unusual, bold, decided,
and, I should have guessed, produced by a J pen.
All the time that he was reading he kept
emitting sounds, more resembling yelps and snarls than
anything more human,--like some savage beast nursing its
pent-up rage. When he had made an end of reading,--for the
season,--he let his passion have full vent.
"So!--That is what his dear love has
found it in her heart to write Paul Lessingham!--Paul
Lessingham!"
Pen cannot describe the concentrated frenzy
of hatred with which the speaker dwelt upon the name,--it was
demoniac.
"It is enough!--it is the end!--it is
his doom! He shall be ground between the upper and the
nether stones in the towers of anguish, and all that is left
of him shall be cast on the accursed stream of the bitter
waters, to stink under the blood-grimed sun! And for
her--for Marjorie Lindon!--for his dear love!--it shall come
to pass that she shall wish that she was never born,--nor he!
- and the gods of the shadows shall smell the sweet incense
of her suffering!--It shall be! it shall be! It is I that
say it,--even I!"
In the madness of his rhapsodical frenzy I
believe that he had actually forgotten I was there. But, on
a sudden, glancing aside, he saw me, and remembered,--and was
prompt to take advantage of an opportunity to wreak his rage
upon a tangible object.
"It is you!--you thief!--you still
live!--to make a mock of one of the children of the
gods!"
He leaped, shrieking, off the bed, and sprang
at me, clasping my throat with his horrid hands, bearing me
backwards on to the floor; I felt his breath mingle with
mine and then God, in His mercy, sent oblivion.
(End of Book One.) Go to Book Two of The BeetleCHAPTER V
AN INSTRUCTION TO COMMIT BURGLARY
CHAPTER VI
A SINGULAR FELONY
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT PAUL LESSINGHAM
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAN IN THE STREET
CHAPTER IX
THE CONTENTS OF THE PACKET
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