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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beetle, by Richard Marsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Beetle
+       A Mystery
+
+Author: Richard Marsh
+
+Posting Date: October 18, 2014 [EBook #5164]
+Release Date: February, 2004
+First Posted: May 27, 2002
+Last Updated: March 19, 2015
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEETLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BEETLE: A MYSTERY
+
+BY
+
+RICHARD MARSH
+
+
+WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN WILLIAMSON
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+The House with the Open Window
+
+
+CHAPTER I, OUTSIDE
+
+CHAPTER II, INSIDE
+
+CHAPTER III, THE MAN IN THE BED
+
+CHAPTER IV, A LONELY VIGIL
+
+CHAPTER 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
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+The Haunted Man
+
+
+CHAPTER X, REJECTED
+
+CHAPTER XI, A MIDNIGHT EPISODE
+
+CHAPTER XII, A MORNING VISITOR
+
+CHAPTER XIII, THE PICTURE
+
+CHAPTER XIV, THE DUCHESS' BALL
+
+CHAPTER XV, MR LESSINGHAM SPEAKS
+
+CHAPTER XVI, ATHERTON'S MAGIC VAPOUR
+
+CHAPTER XVII, MAGIC?--OR MIRACLE?
+
+CHAPTER XVIII, THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE BEETLE
+
+CHAPTER XIX, THE LADY RAGES
+
+CHAPTER XX, A HEAVY FATHER
+
+CHAPTER XXI, THE TERROR IN THE NIGHT
+
+CHAPTER XXII, THE HAUNTED MAN
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+The Terror By Night and the Terror by Day
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII, THE WAY HE TOLD HER
+
+CHAPTER XXIV, A WOMAN'S VIEW
+
+CHAPTER XXV, THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+CHAPTER XXVI, A FATHER'S NO
+
+CHAPTER XXVII, THE TERROR BY NIGHT
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII, THE STRANGE STORY OF THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+CHAPTER XXIX, THE HOUSE ON THE ROAD FROM THE WORKHOUSE
+
+CHAPTER XXX, THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR HOLT
+
+CHAPTER XXXI, THE TERROR BY DAY
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+In Pursuit
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII, A NEW CLIENT
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII, WHAT CAME OF LOOKING THROUGH A LATTICE
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV, AFTER TWENTY YEARS
+
+CHAPTER XXXV, A BRINGER OF TIDINGS
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI, WHAT THE TIDINGS WERE
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII, WHAT WAS HIDDEN UNDER THE FLOOR
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII, THE REST OF THE FIND
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX, MISS LOUISA COLEMAN
+
+CHAPTER XL, WHAT MISS COLEMAN SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW
+
+CHAPTER XLI, THE CONSTABLE,--HIS CLUE,--AND THE CAB
+
+CHAPTER XLII, THE QUARRY DOUBLES
+
+CHAPTER XLIII, THE MURDER AT MRS 'ENDERSON'S
+
+CHAPTER XLIV, THE MAN WHO WAS MURDERED
+
+CHAPTER XLV, ALL THAT MRS 'ENDERSON KNEW
+
+CHAPTER XLVI, THE SUDDEN STOPPING
+
+CHAPTER XLVII, THE CONTENTS OF THE THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGE
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII, THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+The House with the Open Window
+
+
+The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+OUTSIDE
+
+
+'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 tramp's 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 besides 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 manoeuvre, 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 civilisation
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+INSIDE
+
+
+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 fingertips. 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 organisation 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, spell-bound, 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 realised 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, foetid 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE MAN IN THE BED
+
+
+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 realised 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
+criticise; 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A LONELY VIGIL
+
+
+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,--ten.
+
+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 from
+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 any rate, 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--probably tradesmen's carts--drew up in front, their stopping
+being followed by more or less assiduous assaults upon the knocker and
+the bell. But in every case their appeals remained unheeded. Whatever
+it was they wanted, they had to go unsatisfied away. Lying there,
+torpid, with nothing to do but listen, I was, possibly, struck by very
+little, but it did occur to me that one among the callers was more
+persistent than the rest.
+
+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 manoeuvres 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,--as if some
+creature, unable to reach the window from the ground, was endeavouring
+to gain the vantage of the sill. Some ungainly creature, unskilled in
+surmounting such an obstacle as a perpendicular brick wall. There was
+the noise of what seemed to be the scratching of claws, as if it
+experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining a hold on the
+unyielding surface. What kind of creature it was I could not think,--I
+was astonished to find that it was a creature at all. I had taken it
+for granted that the persevering visitor was either a woman or a man.
+If, however, as now seemed likely, it was some sort of animal, the fact
+explained the squeaking sounds,--though what, except a rat, did squeak
+like that was more than I could say--and the absence of any knocking or
+ringing.
+
+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 recognised 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AN INSTRUCTION TO COMMIT BURGLARY
+
+
+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 recognised 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
+realised 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.
+
+'You are a thief! Only thieves come through windows,--did you not come
+through the window?' I was still,--what would my contradiction have
+availed me? 'But it is well that you came through the window,--well you
+are a thief,--well for me! for me! It is you that I am wanting,--at the
+happy moment you have dropped yourself into my hands,--in the nick of
+time. For you are my slave,--at my beck and call,--my familiar spirit,
+to do with as I will,--you know this,--eh?'
+
+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?--no!--it is simple!--what could be simpler? I
+say that to-night--to-night!--you are going through his window like a
+thief. You came through my window,--why not through the window of Paul
+Lessingham, the politician--the statesman.'
+
+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 apostrophise, 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 realise 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!--nothing serious might issue from it after all. He
+read my thoughts.
+
+'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 say--'
+
+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,--whichever it was!--I was beginning to credit with the
+possession of unhallowed, unlawful powers.
+
+'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.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A SINGULAR FELONY
+
+
+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 hither, 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,--while, physically, I was
+bound, mentally, to a considerable extent, I was free. But this measure
+of freedom on my mental side made my plight no better. For, among other
+things, I realised what a ridiculous figure I must be cutting,
+barefooted and bareheaded, abroad, at such an hour of the night, in
+such a boisterous breeze,--for I quickly discovered that the wind
+amounted to something like a gale. Apart from all other considerations,
+the notion of parading the streets in such a condition filled me with
+profound disgust. And I do believe that if my tyrannical oppressor had
+only permitted me to attire myself in my own garments, I should have
+started with a comparatively light heart on the felonious mission on
+which he apparently was sending me. I believe, too, that the
+consciousness of the incongruity of my attire increased my sense of
+helplessness, and that, had I been dressed as Englishmen are wont to
+be, who take their walks abroad, he would not have found in me, on that
+occasion, the facile instrument which, in fact, he did.
+
+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 thorough fares; 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 realised 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!--and every detail of my
+involuntary actions was projected upon my brain in a series of
+pictures, whose clear-cut outlines, so long as memory endures, will
+never fade. Certainly no professional burglar, nor, indeed, any
+creature in his senses, would have ventured to emulate my surprising
+rashness. The process of smashing the pane of glass--it was plate
+glass--was anything but a noiseless one. There was, first, the blow
+itself, then the shivering of the glass, then the clattering of
+fragments into the area beneath. One would have thought that the whole
+thing would have made din enough to have roused the Seven Sleepers.
+But, here, again the weather was on my side. About that time the wind
+was howling wildly,--it came shrieking across the square. It is
+possible that the tumult which it made deadened all other sounds.
+
+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--and--to adapt a hackneyed phrase--directed by the
+power which shaped my end, I went across the hall and up the stairs. I
+passed up the first landing, and, on the second, moved to a door upon
+the right. I turned the handle, it yielded, the door opened, I entered,
+closing it behind me. I went to the wall just inside the door, found a
+handle, jerked it, and switched on the electric light,--doing, I make
+no doubt, all these things, from a spectator's point of view, so
+naturally, that a judge and jury would have been with difficulty
+persuaded that they were not the product of my own volition.
+
+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 farther 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-ready
+substitute for the missing key.
+
+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 with 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 denouement
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GREAT PAUL LESSINGHAM
+
+
+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 familiarised 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 realised 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 recognised 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-handkerchief which he took from an inner
+pocket of his coat, he wiped his lips. Then, clutching it tightly in
+his hand, he eyed me with a fixedness which, under any other
+circumstances, I should have found unbearable.
+
+'Well, sir, is your continued silence part of the business of the role
+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 foundations, 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 recognised 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. Recognising, 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 of
+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
+recognised 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+
+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 knew 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE CONTENTS OF THE PACKET
+
+
+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 though 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.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+The Haunted Man
+
+
+The Story according to Sydney Atherton, Esquire
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+REJECTED
+
+
+It was after our second waltz I did it. In the usual quiet
+corner--which, that time, was in the shadow of a palm in the hall.
+Before I had got into my stride she checked me,--touching my sleeve
+with her fan, turning towards me with startled eyes.
+
+'Stop, please!'
+
+But I was not to be stopped. Cliff Challoner passed, with Gerty Cazell.
+I fancy that, as he passed, he nodded. I did not care. I was wound up
+to go, and I went it. No man knows how he can talk till he does
+talk,--to the girl he wants to marry. It is my impression that I gave
+her recollections of the Restoration poets. She seemed surprised,--not
+having previously detected in me the poetic strain, and insisted on
+cutting in.
+
+'Mr Atherton, I am so sorry.'
+
+Then I did let fly.
+
+'Sorry that I love you!--why? Why should you be sorry that you have
+become the one thing needful in any man's eyes,--even in mine? The one
+thing precious,--the one thing to be altogether esteemed! Is it so
+common for a woman to come across a man who would be willing to lay
+down his life for her that she should be sorry when she finds him?'
+
+'I did not know that you felt like this, though I confess that I have
+had my--my doubts.'
+
+'Doubts!--I thank you.'
+
+'You are quite aware, Mr Atherton, that I like you very much.'
+
+'Like me!--Bah!'
+
+'I cannot help liking you,--though it may be "bah."'
+
+'I don't want you to like me,--I want you to love me.'
+
+'Precisely,--that is your mistake.'
+
+'My mistake!--in wanting you to love me!--when I love you--'
+
+'Then you shouldn't,--though I can't help thinking that you are
+mistaken even there.'
+
+'Mistaken!--in supposing that I love you!--when I assert and reassert
+it with the whole force of my being! What do you want me to do to prove
+I love you,--take you in my arms and crush you to my bosom, and make a
+spectacle of you before every creature in the place?'
+
+'I'd rather you wouldn't, and perhaps you wouldn't mind not talking
+quite so loud. Mr Challoner seems to be wondering what you're shouting
+about.'
+
+'You shouldn't torture me.'
+
+She opened and shut her fan,--as she looked down at it I am disposed to
+suspect that she smiled.
+
+'I am glad we have had this little explanation, because, of course, you
+are my friend.'
+
+'I am not your friend.'
+
+'Pardon me, you are.'
+
+'I say I'm not,--if I can't be something else, I'll be no friend.'
+
+She went on,--calmly ignoring me,--playing with her fan.
+
+'As it happens, I am, just now, in rather a delicate position, in which
+a friend is welcome.'
+
+'What's the matter? Who's been worrying you,--your father?'
+
+'Well,--he has not,--as yet; but he may be soon.'
+
+'What's in the wind?'
+
+'Mr Lessingham.'
+
+She dropped her voice,--and her eyes. For the moment I did not catch
+her meaning.
+
+'What?'
+
+'Your friend, Mr Lessingham.'
+
+'Excuse me, Miss Lindon, but I am by no means sure that anyone is
+entitled to call Mr Lessingham a friend of mine.'
+
+'What!--Not when I am going to be his wife?'
+
+That took me aback. I had had my suspicions that Paul Lessingham was
+more with Marjorie than he had any right to be, but I had never
+supposed that she could see anything desirable in a stick of a man like
+that. Not to speak of a hundred and one other
+considerations,--Lessingham on one side of the House, and her father on
+the other; and old Lindon girding at him anywhere and everywhere--with
+his high-dried Tory notions of his family importance,--to say nothing
+of his fortune.
+
+I don't know if I looked what I felt,--if I did, I looked uncommonly
+blank.
+
+'You have chosen an appropriate moment, Miss Lindon, to make to me such
+a communication.'
+
+She chose to disregard my irony.
+
+'I am glad you think so, because now you will understand what a
+difficult position I am in.'
+
+'I offer you my hearty congratulations.'
+
+'And I thank you for them, Mr Atherton, in the spirit in which they are
+offered, because from you I know they mean so much.'
+
+I bit my lip,--for the life of me I could not tell how she wished me to
+read her words.
+
+'Do I understand that this announcement has been made to me as one of
+the public?'
+
+'You do not. It is made to you, in confidence, as my friend,--as my
+greatest friend; because a husband is something more than friend.' My
+pulses tingled. 'You will be on my side?'
+
+She had paused,--and I stayed silent.
+
+'On your side,--or Mr Lessingham's?'
+
+'His side is my side, and my side is his side;--you will be on our
+side?'
+
+'I am not sure that I altogether follow you.'
+
+'You are the first I have told. When papa hears it is possible that
+there will be trouble,--as you know. He thinks so much of you and of
+your opinion; when that trouble comes I want you to be on our side,--on
+my side.'
+
+'Why should I?--what does it matter? You are stronger than your
+father,--it is just possible that Lessingham is stronger than you;
+together, from your father's point of view, you will be invincible.'
+
+'You are my friend,--are you not my friend?'
+
+'In effect, you offer me an Apple of Sodom.'
+
+'Thank you;--I did not think you so unkind.'
+
+'And you,--are you kind? I make you an avowal of my love, and,
+straightway, you ask me to act as chorus to the love of another.'
+
+'How could I tell you loved me,--as you say! I had no notion. You have
+known me all your life, yet you have not breathed a word of it till
+now.'
+
+'If I had spoken before?'
+
+I imagine that there was a slight movement of her shoulders,--almost
+amounting to a shrug.
+
+'I do not know that it would have made any difference.--I do not
+pretend that it would. But I do know this, I believe that you yourself
+have only discovered the state of your own mind within the last
+half-hour.'
+
+If she had slapped my face she could not have startled me more. I had
+no notion if her words were uttered at random, but they came so near
+the truth they held me breathless. It was a fact that only during the
+last few minutes had I really realised how things were with me,--only
+since the end of that first waltz that the flame had burst out in my
+soul which was now consuming me. She had read me by what seemed so like
+a flash of inspiration that I hardly knew what to say to her. I tried
+to be stinging.
+
+'You flatter me, Miss Lindon, you flatter me at every point. Had you
+only discovered to me the state of your mind a little sooner I should
+not have discovered to you the state of mine at all.'
+
+'We will consider it terra incognita.'
+
+'Since you wish it.' Her provoking calmness stung me,--and the
+suspicion that she was laughing at me in her sleeve. I gave her a
+glimpse of the cloven hoof. 'But, at the same time, since you assert
+that you have so long been innocent, I beg that you will continue so no
+more. At least, your innocence shall be without excuse. For I wish you
+to understand that I love you, that I have loved you, that I shall love
+you. Any understanding you may have with Mr Lessingham will not make
+the slightest difference. I warn you, Miss Lindon, that, until death,
+you will have to write me down your lover.'
+
+She looked at me, with wide open eyes,--as if I almost frightened her.
+To be frank, that was what I wished to do.
+
+'Mr Atherton!'
+
+'Miss Lindon?'
+
+'That is not like you at all.'
+
+'We seem to be making each other's acquaintance for the first time.'
+
+She continued to gaze at me with her big eyes,--which, to be candid, I
+found it difficult to meet. On a sudden her face was lighted by a
+smile,--which I resented.
+
+'Not after all these years,--not after all these years! I know you, and
+though I daresay you're not flawless, I fancy you'll be found to ring
+pretty true.'
+
+Her manner was almost sisterly,--elder-sisterly. I could have shaken
+her. Hartridge coming to claim his dance gave me an opportunity to
+escape with such remnants of dignity as I could gather about me. He
+dawdled up,--his thumbs, as usual, in his waistcoat pockets.
+
+'I believe, Miss Lindon, this is our dance.'
+
+She acknowledged it with a bow, and rose to take his arm. I got up, and
+left her, without a word.
+
+As I crossed the hall I chanced on Percy Woodville. He was in his
+familiar state of fluster, and was gaping about him as if he had
+mislaid the Koh-i-noor, and wondered where in thunder it had got to.
+When he saw it was I he caught me by the arm.
+
+'I say, Atherton, have you seen Miss Lindon?'
+
+'I have.'
+
+'No!--Have you?--By Jove!--Where? I've been looking for her all over
+the place, except in the cellars and the attics,--and I was just going
+to commence on them. This is our dance.'
+
+'In that case, she's shunted you.'
+
+'No!--Impossible!' His mouth went like an O,--and his eyes ditto, his
+eyeglass clattering down on to his shirt front. 'I expect the mistake's
+mine. Fact is, I've made a mess of my programme. It's either the last
+dance, or this dance, or the next, that I've booked with her, but I'm
+hanged if I know which. Just take a squint at it, there's a good chap,
+and tell me which one you think it is.'
+
+I 'took a squint'--since he held the thing within an inch of my nose I
+could hardly help it; one 'squint,' and that was enough--and more. Some
+men's ball programmes are studies in impressionism, Percy's seemed to
+me to be a study in madness. It was covered with hieroglyphics, but
+what they meant, or what they did there anyhow, it was absurd to
+suppose that I could tell,--I never put them there!--Proverbially, the
+man's a champion hasher.
+
+'I regret, my dear Percy, that I am not an expert in cuneiform writing.
+If you have any doubt as to which dance is yours, you'd better ask the
+lady,--she'll feel flattered.'
+
+Leaving him to do his own addling I went to find my coat,--I panted to
+get into the open air; as for dancing I felt that I loathed it. Just as
+I neared the cloak-room someone stopped me. It was Dora Grayling.
+
+'Have you forgotten that this is our dance?'
+
+I had forgotten,--clean. And I was not obliged by her remembering.
+Though as I looked at her sweet, grey eyes, and at the soft contours of
+her gentle face, I felt that I deserved well kicking. She is an
+angel,--one of the best!--but I was in no mood for angels. Not for a
+very great deal would I have gone through that dance just then, nor,
+with Dora Grayling, of all women in the world, would I have sat it
+out.--So I was a brute and blundered.
+
+'You must forgive me, Miss Grayling, but--I am not feeling very well,
+and--I don't think I'm up to any more dancing.--Good-night.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A MIDNIGHT EPISODE
+
+
+The weather out of doors was in tune with my frame of mind,--I was in a
+deuce of a temper, and it was a deuce of a night. A keen north-east
+wind, warranted to take the skin right off you, was playing
+catch-who-catch-can with intermittent gusts of blinding rain. Since it
+was not fit for a dog to walk, none of your cabs for me,--nothing would
+serve but pedestrian exercise.
+
+So I had it.
+
+I went down Park Lane,--and the wind and rain went with me,--also,
+thoughts of Dora Grayling. What a bounder I had been,--and was! If
+there is anything in worse taste than to book a lady for a dance, and
+then to leave her in the lurch, I should like to know what that thing
+is,--when found it ought to be made a note of. If any man of my
+acquaintance allowed himself to be guilty of such a felony in the first
+degree, I should cut him. I wished someone would try to cut me,--I
+should like to see him at it.
+
+It was all Marjorie's fault,--everything! past, present, and to come. I
+had known that girl when she was in long frocks--I had, at that period
+of our acquaintance, pretty recently got out of them; when she was
+advanced to short ones; and when, once more, she returned to long. And
+all that time,--well, I was nearly persuaded that the whole of the time
+I had loved her. If I had not mentioned it, it was because I had
+suffered my affection, 'like the worm, to lie hidden in the bud,'--or
+whatever it is the fellow says.
+
+At any rate, I was perfectly positive that if I had had the faintest
+notion that she would ever seriously consider such a man as Lessingham
+I should have loved her long ago. Lessingham! Why, he was old enough to
+be her father,--at least he was a good many years older than I was. And
+a wretched Radical! It is true that on certain points I, also, am what
+some people would call a Radical,--but not a Radical of the kind he is.
+Thank Heaven, no! No doubt I have admired traits in his character,
+until I learnt this thing of him. I am even prepared to admit that he
+is a man of ability,--in his way! which is, emphatically, not mine. But
+to think of him in connection with such a girl as Marjorie
+Lindon,--preposterous! Why, the man's as dry as a stick,--drier! And
+cold as an iceberg. Nothing but a politician, absolutely. He a
+lover!--how I could fancy such a stroke of humour setting all the
+benches in a roar. Both by education, and by nature, he was incapable
+of even playing such a part; as for being the thing,--absurd! If you
+were to sink a shaft from the crown of his head to the soles of his
+feet, you would find inside him nothing but the dry bones of parties
+and of politics.
+
+What my Marjorie--if everyone had his own, she is mine, and, in that
+sense, she always will be mine--what my Marjorie could see in such a
+dry-as-dust out of which even to construct the rudiments of a husband
+was beyond my fathoming.
+
+Suchlike agreeable reflections were fit company for the wind and the
+wet, so they bore me company all down the lane. I crossed at the
+corner, going round the hospital towards the square. This brought me to
+the abiding-place of Paul the Apostle. Like the idiot I was, I went out
+into the middle of the street, and stood awhile in the mud to curse him
+and his house,--on the whole, when one considers that that is the kind
+of man I can be, it is, perhaps, not surprising that Marjorie disdained
+me.
+
+'May your following,' I cried,--it is an absolute fact that the words
+were shouted!--'both in the House and out of it, no longer regard you
+as a leader! May your party follow after other gods! May your political
+aspirations wither, and your speeches be listened to by empty benches!
+May the Speaker persistently and strenuously refuse to allow you to
+catch his eye, and, at the next election, may your constituency reject
+you!--Jehoram!--what's that?'
+
+I might well ask. Until that moment I had appeared to be the only
+lunatic at large, either outside the house or in it, but, on a sudden,
+a second lunatic came on the scene, and that with a vengeance. A window
+was crashed open from within,--the one over the front door, and someone
+came plunging through it on to the top of the portico. That it was a
+case of intended suicide I made sure,--and I began to be in hopes that
+I was about to witness the suicide of Paul. But I was not so assured of
+the intention when the individual in question began to scramble down
+the pillar of the porch in the most extraordinary fashion I ever
+witnessed,--I was not even convinced of a suicidal purpose when he came
+tumbling down, and lay sprawling in the mud at my feet.
+
+I fancy, if I had performed that portion of the act I should have lain
+quiet for a second or two, to consider whereabouts I was, and which end
+of me was uppermost. But there was no nonsense of that sort about that
+singularly agile stranger,--if he was not made of india-rubber he ought
+to have been. So to speak, before he was down he was up,--it was all I
+could do to grab at him before he was off like a rocket.
+
+Such a figure as he presented is seldom seen,--at least, in the streets
+of London. What he had done with the rest of his apparel I am not in a
+position to say,--all that was left of it was a long, dark cloak which
+he strove to wrap round him. Save for that,--and mud!--he was bare as
+the palm of my hand, Yet it was his face that held me. In my time I
+have seen strange expressions on men's faces, but never before one such
+as I saw on his. He looked like a man might look who, after living a
+life of undiluted crime, at last finds himself face to face with the
+devil. It was not the look of a madman,--far from it; it was something
+worse.
+
+It was the expression on the man's countenance, as much as anything
+else, which made me behave as I did. I said something to him,--some
+nonsense, I know not what. He regarded me with a silence which was
+supernatural. I spoke to him again;--not a word issued from those rigid
+lips; there was not a tremor of those awful eyes,--eyes which I was
+tolerably convinced saw something which I had never seen, or ever
+should. Then I took my hand from off his shoulder, and let him go. I
+know not why,--I did.
+
+He had remained as motionless as a statue while I held him,--indeed,
+for any evidence of life he gave, he might have been a statue; but,
+when my grasp was loosed, how he ran! He had turned the corner and was
+out of sight before I could say, 'How do!'
+
+It was only then,--when he had gone, and I had realised the
+extra-double-express-flash-of-lightning rate at which he had taken his
+departure--that it occurred to me of what an extremely sensible act I
+had been guilty in letting him go at all. Here was an individual who
+had been committing burglary, or something very like it, in the house
+of a budding cabinet minister, and who had tumbled plump into my arms,
+so that all I had to do was to call a policeman and get him
+quodded,--and all that I had done was something of a totally different
+kind.
+
+'You're a nice type of an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself, 'A
+first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,--to connive at the escape of
+the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the villain go,
+the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire how
+he's feeling.'
+
+I went to Lessingham's front door and knocked,--I knocked once, I
+knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and the third time, I give you my
+word, I made the echoes ring,--but still there was not a soul that
+answered.
+
+'If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the gentleman
+in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature the
+house contains, perhaps it's just as well I've chanced upon the
+scene,--still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answer
+the door. If it is possible to make noise enough to waken the dead, you
+bet I'm on to it.'
+
+And I was,--I punished that knocker! until I warrant the pounding I
+gave it was audible on the other side of Green Park. And, at last, I
+woke the dead,--or, rather, I roused Matthews to a consciousness that
+something was going on. Opening the door about six inches, through the
+interstice he protruded his ancient nose.
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+'Nothing, my dear sir, nothing and no one. It must have been your
+vigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was,--you
+let it run away with you.'
+
+Then he knew me,--and opened the door about two feet.
+
+'Oh, it's you, Mr Atherton. I beg your pardon, sir,--I thought it might
+have been the police.'
+
+'What then? Do you stand in terror of the minions of the law,--at last?'
+
+A most discreet servant, Matthews,--just the fellow for a budding
+cabinet minister. He glanced over his shoulder,--I had suspected the
+presence of a colleague at his back, now I was assured. He put his hand
+up to his mouth,--and I thought how exceedingly discreet he looked, in
+his trousers and his stockinged feet, and with his hair all rumpled,
+and his braces dangling behind, and his nightshirt creased.
+
+'Well, sir, I have received instructions not to admit the police.'
+
+'The deuce you have!--From whom?'
+
+Coughing behind his hand, leaning forward, he addressed me with an air
+which was flatteringly confidential.
+
+'From Mr Lessingham, sir.'
+
+'Possibly Mr Lessingham is not aware that a robbery has been committed
+on his premises, that the burglar has just come out of his drawing-room
+window with a hop, skip, and a jump, bounded out of the window like a
+tennis-ball, flashed round the corner like a rocket,'
+
+Again Matthews glanced over his shoulder, as if not clear which way
+discretion lay, whether fore or aft.
+
+'Thank you, sir. I believe that Mr Lessingham is aware of something of
+the kind.' He seemed to come to a sudden resolution, dropping his voice
+to a whisper. 'The fact is, sir, that I fancy Mr Lessingham's a good
+deal upset.'
+
+'Upset?' I stared at him. There was something in his manner I did not
+understand. 'What do you mean by upset? Has the scoundrel attempted
+violence?'
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+The voice was Lessingham's, calling to Matthews from the staircase,
+though, for an instant, I hardly recognised it, it was so curiously
+petulant. Pushing past Matthews, I stepped into the hall. A young man,
+I suppose a footman, in the same undress as Matthews, was holding a
+candle,--it seemed the only light about the place. By its glimmer I
+perceived Lessingham standing half-way up the stairs. He was in full
+war paint,--as he is not the sort of man who dresses for the House, I
+took it that he had been mixing pleasure with business.
+
+'It's I, Lessingham,--Atherton. Do you know that a fellow has jumped
+out of your drawing-room window?'
+
+It was a second or two before he answered. When he did, his voice had
+lost its petulance.
+
+'Has he escaped?'
+
+'Clean,--he's a mile away by now.'
+
+It seemed to me that in his tone, when he spoke again, there was a note
+of relief.
+
+'I wondered if he had. Poor fellow! more sinned against than sinning!
+Take my advice, Atherton, and keep out of politics. They bring you into
+contact with all the lunatics at large. Good night! I am much obliged
+to you for knocking us up. Matthews, shut the door.'
+
+Tolerably cool, on my honour,--a man who brings news big with the fate
+of Rome does not expect to receive such treatment. He expects to be
+listened to with deference, and to hear all that there is to hear, and
+not to be sent to the right-about before he has had a chance of really
+opening his lips. Before I knew it--almost!--the door was shut, and I
+was on the doorstep. Confound the Apostle's impudence! next time he
+might have his house burnt down--and him in it!--before I took the
+trouble to touch his dirty knocker.
+
+What did he mean by his allusion to lunatics in politics,--did he think
+to fool me? There was more in the business than met the eye,--and a
+good deal more than he wished to meet mine,--hence his insolence. The
+creature.
+
+What Marjorie Lindon could see in such an opusculum surpassed my
+comprehension; especially when there was a man of my sort walking
+about, who adored the very ground she trod upon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A MORNING VISITOR
+
+
+All through the night, waking and sleeping, and in my dreams, I
+wondered what Marjorie could see in him! In those same dreams I
+satisfied myself that she could, and did, see nothing in him, but
+everything in me,--oh the comfort! The misfortune was that when I awoke
+I knew it was the other way round,--so that it was a sad awakening. An
+awakening to thoughts of murder.
+
+So, swallowing a mouthful and a peg, I went into my laboratory to plan
+murder--legalised murder--on the biggest scale it ever has been
+planned. I was on the track of a weapon which would make war not only
+an affair of a single campaign, but of a single half-hour. It would not
+want an army to work it either. Once let an individual, or two or three
+at most, in possession of my weapon-that-was-to-be, get within a mile
+or so of even the largest body of disciplined troops that ever yet a
+nation put into the field, and--pouf!--in about the time it takes you
+to say that they would be all dead men. If weapons of precision, which
+may be relied upon to slay, are preservers of the peace--and the man is
+a fool who says that they are not!--then I was within reach of the
+finest preserver of the peace imagination ever yet conceived.
+
+What a sublime thought to think that in the hollow of your own hand
+lies the life and death of nations,--and it was almost in mine.
+
+I had in front of me some of the finest destructive agents you could
+wish to light upon--carbon-monoxide, chlorine-trioxide, mercuric-oxide,
+conine, potassamide, potassium-carboxide, cyanogen--when Edwards
+entered. I was wearing a mask of my own invention, a thing that covered
+ears and head and everything, something like a diver's helmet--I was
+dealing with gases a sniff of which meant death; only a few days
+before, unmasked, I had been doing some fool's trick with a couple of
+acids--sulphuric and cyanide of potassium--when, somehow, my hand
+slipped, and, before I knew it, minute portions of them combined. By
+the mercy of Providence I fell backwards instead of forwards;--sequel,
+about an hour afterwards Edwards found me on the floor, and it took the
+remainder of that day, and most of the doctors in town, to bring me
+back to life again.
+
+Edwards announced his presence by touching me on the shoulder,--when I
+am wearing that mask it isn't always easy to make me hear.
+
+'Someone wishes to see you, sir.'
+
+'Then tell someone that I don't wish to see him.'
+
+Well-trained servant, Edwards,--he walked off with the message as
+decorously as you please. And then I thought there was an end,--but
+there wasn't.
+
+I was regulating the valve of a cylinder in which I was fusing some
+oxides when, once more, someone touched me on the shoulder. Without
+turning I took it for granted it was Edwards back again.
+
+'I have only to give a tiny twist to this tap, my good fellow, and you
+will be in the land where the bogies bloom. Why will you come where
+you're not wanted?' Then I looked round. 'Who the devil are you?'
+
+For it was not Edwards at all, but quite a different class of character.
+
+I found myself confronting an individual who might almost have sat for
+one of the bogies I had just alluded to. His costume was reminiscent of
+the 'Algerians' whom one finds all over France, and who are the most
+persistent, insolent and amusing of pedlars. I remember one who used to
+haunt the repetitions at the Alcazar at Tours,--but there! This
+individual was like the originals, yet unlike,--he was less gaudy, and
+a good deal dingier, than his Gallic prototypes are apt to be. Then he
+wore a burnoose,--the yellow, grimy-looking article of the Arab of the
+Soudan, not the spick and span Arab of the boulevard. Chief difference
+of all, his face was clean shaven,--and whoever saw an Algerian of
+Paris whose chiefest glory was not his well-trimmed moustache and beard?
+
+I expected that he would address me in the lingo which these gentlemen
+call French,--but he didn't.
+
+'You are Mr Atherton?'
+
+'And you are Mr--Who?--how did you come here? Where's my servant?'
+
+The fellow held up his hand. As he did so, as if in accordance with a
+pre-arranged signal, Edwards came into the room looking excessively
+startled. I turned to him.
+
+'Is this the person who wished to see me?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Didn't I tell you to say that I didn't wish to see him?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Then why didn't you do as I told you?'
+
+'I did, sir.'
+
+'Then how comes he here?'
+
+'Really, sir,'--Edwards put his hand up to his head as if he was half
+asleep--'I don't quite know.'
+
+'What do you mean by you don't know? Why didn't you stop him?'
+
+'I think, sir, that I must have had a touch of sudden faintness,
+because I tried to put out my hand to stop him, and--I couldn't.'
+
+'You're an idiot.--Go!' And he went. I turned to the stranger. 'Pray,
+sir, are you a magician?'
+
+He replied to my question with another.
+
+'You, Mr Atherton,--are you also a magician?'
+
+He was staring at my mask with an evident lack of comprehension.
+
+'I wear this because, in this place, death lurks in so many subtle
+forms, that, without it, I dare not breathe,' He inclined his
+head--though I doubt if he understood. 'Be so good as to tell me,
+briefly, what it is you wish with me.'
+
+He slipped his hand into the folds of his burnoose, and, taking out a
+slip of paper, laid it on the shelf by which we were standing. I
+glanced at it, expecting to find on it a petition, or a testimonial, or
+a true statement of his sad case; instead it contained two words
+only,--'Marjorie Lindon.' The unlooked-for sight of that well-loved
+name brought the blood into my cheeks.
+
+'You come from Miss Lindon?' He narrowed his shoulders, brought his
+finger-tips together, inclined his head, in a fashion which was
+peculiarly Oriental, but not particularly explanatory,--so I repeated
+my question.
+
+'Do you wish me to understand that you do come from Miss Lindon?'
+
+Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a slip
+of paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at it, again
+nothing was written on it but a name,--'Paul Lessingham.'
+
+'Well?--I see,--Paul Lessingham.--What then?'
+
+'She is good,--he is bad,--is it not so?'
+
+He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other. I stared.
+
+'Pray how do you happen to know?'
+
+'He shall never have her,--eh?'
+
+'What on earth do you mean?'
+
+'Ah!--what do I mean!'
+
+'Precisely, what do you mean? And also, and at the same time, who the
+devil are you?'
+
+'It is as a friend I come to you.'
+
+'Then in that case you may go; I happen to be over-stocked in that line
+just now.'
+
+'Not with the kind of friend I am!'
+
+'The saints forefend!'
+
+'You love her,--you love Miss Lindon! Can you bear to think of him in
+her arms?'
+
+I took off my mask,--feeling that the occasion required it. As I did so
+he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his burnoose, so that
+I saw more of his face. I was immediately conscious that in his eyes
+there was, in an especial degree, what, for want of a better term, one
+may call the mesmeric quality. That his was one of those morbid
+organisations which are oftener found, thank goodness, in the east than
+in the west, and which are apt to exercise an uncanny influence over
+the weak and the foolish folk with whom they come in contact,--the kind
+of creature for whom it is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope
+close handy. I was, also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the
+removal of my mask to try his strength on me,--than which he could not
+have found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in the
+hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.
+
+'I see you are a mesmerist.'
+
+He started.
+
+'I am nothing,--a shadow!'
+
+'And I'm a scientist. I should like, with your permission--or without
+it!--to try an experiment or two on you.'
+
+He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which suggested
+that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree,--that, in the
+estimation of his own people, he was qualified to take his standing as
+a regular devil-doctor.
+
+'We will try experiments together, you and I,--on Paul Lessingham.'
+
+'Why on him?'
+
+'You do not know?'
+
+'I do not.'
+
+'Why do you lie to me?'
+
+'I don't lie to you,--I haven't the faintest notion what is the nature
+of your interest in Mr Lessingham.'
+
+'My interest?--that is another thing; it is your interest of which we
+are speaking.'
+
+'Pardon me,--it is yours.'
+
+'Listen! you love her,--and he! But at a word from you he shall not
+have her,--never! It is I who say it,--I!'
+
+'And, once more, sir, who are you?'
+
+'I am of the children of Isis!'
+
+'Is that so?--It occurs to me that you have made a slight
+mistake,--this is London, not a dog-hole in the desert.'
+
+'Do I not know?--what does it matter?--you shall see! There will come a
+time when you will want me,--you will find that you cannot bear to
+think of him in her arms,--her whom you love! You will call to me, and
+I shall come, and of Paul Lessingham there shall be an end.'
+
+While I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded, or
+whether he was some impudent charlatan who had an axe of his own to
+grind, and thought that he had found in me a grindstone, he had
+vanished from the room. I moved after him.
+
+'Hang it all!--stop!' I cried.
+
+He must have made pretty good travelling, because, before I had a foot
+in the hall, I heard the front door slam, and, when I reached the
+street, intent on calling him back, neither to the right nor to the
+left was there a sign of him to be seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE PICTURE
+
+
+'I wonder what that nice-looking beggar really means, and who he
+happens to be?' That was what I said to myself when I returned to the
+laboratory. 'If it is true that, now and again, Providence does write a
+man's character on his face, then there can't be the slightest shred of
+a doubt that a curious one's been written on his. I wonder what his
+connection has been with the Apostle,--or if it's only part of his game
+of bluff.'
+
+I strode up and down,--for the moment my interest in the experiments I
+was conducting had waned.
+
+'If it was all bluff I never saw a better piece of acting,--and yet
+what sort of finger can such a precisian as St Paul have in such a pie?
+The fellow seemed to squirm at the mere mention of the
+rising-hope-of-the-Radicals' name. Can the objection be political? Let
+me consider,--what has Lessingham done which could offend the religious
+or patriotic susceptibilities of the most fanatical of Orientals?
+Politically, I can recall nothing. Foreign affairs, as a rule, he has
+carefully eschewed. If he has offended--and if he hasn't the seeming
+was uncommonly good!--the cause will have to be sought upon some other
+track. But, then, what track?'
+
+The more I strove to puzzle it out, the greater the puzzlement grew.
+
+'Absurd!--The rascal has had no more connection with St Paul than St
+Peter. The probability is that he's a crackpot; and if he isn't, he has
+some little game on foot--in close association with the hunt of the
+oof-bird!--which he tried to work off on me, but couldn't. As for--for
+Marjorie--my Marjorie!--only she isn't mine, confound it!--if I had had
+my senses about me, I should have broken his head in several places for
+daring to allow her name to pass his lips,--the unbaptised
+Mohammedan!--Now to return to the chase of splendid murder!'
+
+I snatched up my mask--one of the most ingenious inventions, by the
+way, of recent years; if the armies of the future wear my mask they
+will defy my weapon!--and was about to re-adjust it in its place, when
+someone knocked at the door.
+
+'Who's there?--Come in!'
+
+It was Edwards. He looked round him as if surprised.
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir,--I thought you were engaged. I didn't know
+that--that gentleman had gone.'
+
+'He went up the chimney, as all that kind of gentlemen do.--Why the
+deuce did you let him in when I told you not to?' 'Really, sir, I don't
+know. I gave him your message, and--he looked at me, and--that is all I
+remember till I found myself standing in this room.'
+
+Had it not been Edwards I might have suspected him of having had his
+palm well greased,--but, in his case, I knew better. It was as I
+thought,--my visitor was a mesmerist of the first class; he had
+actually played some of his tricks, in broad daylight, on my servant,
+at my own front door,--a man worth studying. Edwards continued.
+
+'There is someone else, sir, who wishes to see you,--Mr Lessingham.'
+
+'Mr Lessingham!' At that moment the juxtaposition seemed odd, though I
+daresay it was so rather in appearance than in reality. 'Show him in.'
+
+Presently in came Paul.
+
+I am free to confess,--I have owned it before!--that, in a sense, I
+admire that man,--so long as he does not presume to thrust himself into
+a certain position. He possesses physical qualities which please my
+eye--speaking as a mere biologist like the suggestion conveyed by his
+every pose, his every movement, of a tenacious hold on life,--of
+reserve force, of a repository of bone and gristle on which he can fall
+back at pleasure. The fellow's lithe and active; not hasty, yet agile;
+clean built, well hung,--the sort of man who might be relied upon to
+make a good recovery. You might beat him in a sprint,--mental or
+physical--though to do that you would have to be spry!--but in a
+staying race he would see you out. I do not know that he is exactly the
+kind of man whom I would trust,--unless I knew that he was on the
+job,--which knowledge, in his case, would be uncommonly hard to attain.
+He is too calm; too self-contained; with the knack of looking all round
+him even in moments of extremest peril,--and for whatever he does he
+has a good excuse. He has the reputation, both in the House and out of
+it, of being a man of iron nerve,--and with some reason; yet I am not
+so sure. Unless I read him wrongly his is one of those individualities
+which, confronted by certain eventualities, collapse,--to rise, the
+moment of trial having passed, like Phoenix from her ashes. However it
+might be with his adherents, he would show no trace of his disaster.
+
+And this was the man whom Marjorie loved. Well, she could show some
+cause. He was a man of position,--destined, probably, to rise much
+higher; a man of parts,--with capacity to make the most of them; not
+ill-looking; with agreeable manners,--when he chose; and he came within
+the lady's definition of a gentleman, 'he always did the right thing,
+at the right time, in the right way.' And yet--! Well, I take it that
+we are all cads, and that we most of us are prigs; for mercy's sake do
+not let us all give ourselves away.
+
+He was dressed as a gentleman should be dressed,--black frock coat,
+black vest, dark grey trousers, stand-up collar, smartly-tied bow,
+gloves of the proper shade, neatly brushed hair, and a smile, which if
+was not childlike, at any rate was bland.
+
+'I am not disturbing you?'
+
+'Not at all.'
+
+'Sure?--I never enter a place like this, where a man is matching
+himself with nature, to wrest from her her secrets, without feeling
+that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown. The last time I was in
+this room was just after you had taken out the final patents for your
+System of Telegraphy at Sea, which the Admiralty
+purchased,--wisely--What is it, now?'
+
+'Death.'
+
+'No?--really?--what do you mean?'
+
+'If you are a member of the next government, you will possibly learn; I
+may offer them the refusal of a new wrinkle in the art of murder.'
+
+'I see,--a new projectile.--How long is this race to continue between
+attack and defence?'
+
+'Until the sun grows cold.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'There'll be no defence,--nothing to defend.'
+
+He looked at me with his calm, grave eyes.
+
+'The theory of the Age of Ice towards which we are advancing is not a
+cheerful one.' He began to finger a glass retort which lay upon a
+table. 'By the way, it was very good of you to give me a look in last
+night. I am afraid you thought me peremptory,--I have come to
+apologise.'
+
+'I don't know that I thought you peremptory; I thought you--queer.'
+
+'Yes.' He glanced at me with that expressionless look upon his face
+which he could summon at will, and which is at the bottom of the
+superstition about his iron nerve. 'I was worried, and not well.
+Besides, one doesn't care to be burgled, even by a maniac.'
+
+'Was he a maniac?'
+
+'Did you see him?'
+
+'Very clearly.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'In the street.'
+
+'How close were you to him?'
+
+'Closer than I am to you.'
+
+'Indeed. I didn't know you were so close to him as that. Did you try to
+stop him?'
+
+'Easier said than done,--he was off at such a rate.'
+
+'Did you see how he was dressed,--or, rather, undressed?'
+
+'I did.'
+
+'In nothing but a cloak on such a night. Who but a fanatic would have
+attempted burglary in such a costume?'
+
+'Did he take anything?'
+
+'Absolutely nothing.'
+
+'It seems to have been a curious episode.'
+
+He moved his eyebrows,--according to members of the House the only
+gesture in which he has been known to indulge.
+
+'We become accustomed to curious episodes. Oblige me by not mentioning
+it to anyone,--to anyone.' He repeated the last two words, as if to
+give them emphasis. I wondered if he was thinking of Marjorie. 'I am
+communicating with the police. Until they move I don't want it to get
+into the papers,--or to be talked about. It's a worry,--you understand?'
+
+I nodded. He changed the theme.
+
+'This that you're engaged upon,--is it a projectile or a weapon?'
+
+'If you are a member of the next government you will possibly know; if
+you aren't you possibly won't.'
+
+'I suppose you have to keep this sort of thing secret?'
+
+'I do. It seems that matters of much less moment you wish to keep
+secret.'
+
+'You mean that business of last night? If a trifle of that sort gets
+into the papers, or gets talked about,--which is the same thing!--you
+have no notion how we are pestered. It becomes an almost unbearable
+nuisance. Jones the Unknown can commit murder with less inconvenience
+to himself than Jones the Notorious can have his pocket picked,--there
+is not so much exaggeration in that as there sounds.--Good-bye,--thanks
+for your promise.' I had given him no promise, but that was by the way.
+He turned as to go,--then stopped. 'There's another thing,--I believe
+you're a specialist on questions of ancient superstitions and extinct
+religions.'
+
+'I am interested in such subjects, but I am not a specialist.'
+
+'Can you tell me what were the exact tenets of the worshippers of Isis?'
+
+'Neither I nor any man,--with scientific certainty. As you know, she
+had a brother; the cult of Osiris and Isis was one and the same. What,
+precisely, were its dogmas, or its practices, or anything about it,
+none, now, can tell. The Papyri, hieroglyphics, and so on, which remain
+are very far from being exhaustive, and our knowledge of those which do
+remain, is still less so.'
+
+'I suppose that the marvels which are told of it are purely legendary?'
+
+'To what marvels do you particularly refer?'
+
+'Weren't supernatural powers attributed to the priests of Isis?'
+
+'Broadly speaking, at that time, supernatural powers were attributed to
+all the priests of all the creeds.'
+
+'I see.' Presently he continued. 'I presume that her cult is long since
+extinct,--that none of the worshippers of Isis exist to-day.'
+
+I hesitated,--I was wondering why he had hit on such a subject; if he
+really had a reason, or if he was merely asking questions as a cover
+for something else,--you see, I knew my Paul.
+
+'That is not so sure.'
+
+He looked at me with that passionless, yet searching glance of his.
+
+'You think that she still is worshipped?
+
+'I think it possible, even probable, that, here and there, in
+Africa--Africa is a large order!--homage is paid to Isis, quite in the
+good old way.'
+
+'Do you know that as a fact?'
+
+'Excuse me, but do you know it as a fact?--Are you aware that you are
+treating me as if I was on the witness stand?--Have you any special
+purpose in making these inquiries?'
+
+He smiled.
+
+'In a kind of a way I have. I have recently come across rather a
+curious story; I am trying to get to the bottom of it.'
+
+'What is the story?'
+
+'I am afraid that at present I am not at liberty to tell it you; when I
+am I will. You will find it interesting,--as an instance of a singular
+survival.--Didn't the followers of Isis believe in transmigration?'
+
+'Some of them,--no doubt.'
+
+'What did they understand by transmigration?'
+
+'Transmigration.'
+
+'Yes,--but of the soul or of the body?'
+
+'How do you mean?--transmigration is transmigration. Are you driving at
+something in particular? If you'll tell me fairly and squarely what it
+is I'll do my best to give you the information you require; as it is,
+your questions are a bit perplexing.'
+
+'Oh, it doesn't matter,--as you say, "transmigration is
+transmigration."' I was eyeing him keenly; I seemed to detect in his
+manner an odd reluctance to enlarge on the subject he himself had
+started. He continued to trifle with the retort upon the table. 'Hadn't
+the followers of Isis a--what shall I say?--a sacred emblem?'
+
+'How?'
+
+'Hadn't they an especial regard for some sort of a--wasn't it some sort
+of a--beetle?'
+
+'You mean Scarabaeus sacer,--according to Latreille, Scarabaeus
+Egyptiorum? Undoubtedly,--the scarab was venerated throughout
+Egypt,--indeed, speaking generally, most things that had life, for
+instance, cats; as you know, Orisis continued among men in the figure
+of Apis, the bull.'
+
+'Weren't the priests of Isis--or some of them--supposed to assume,
+after death, the form of a--scarabaeus?'
+
+'I never heard of it.'
+
+'Are you sure?--think!'
+
+'I shouldn't like to answer such a question positively, offhand, but I
+don't, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition of the kind.'
+
+'Don't laugh at me--I'm not a lunatic!--but I understand that recent
+researches have shown that even in some of the most astounding of the
+ancient legends there was a substratum of fact. Is it absolutely
+certain that there could be no shred of truth in such a belief?'
+
+'In what belief?'
+
+'In the belief that a priest of Isis--or anyone--assumed after death
+the form of a scarabaeus?'
+
+'It seems to me, Lessingham, that you have lately come across some
+uncommonly interesting data, of a kind, too, which it is your bounden
+duty to give to the world,--or, at any rate, to that portion of the
+world which is represented by me. Come,--tell us all about it!--what
+are you afraid of?'
+
+'I am afraid of nothing,--and some day you shall be told,--but not now.
+At present, answer my question.'
+
+'Then repeat your question,--clearly.'
+
+'Is it absolutely certain that there could be no foundation of truth in
+the belief that a priest of Isis--or anyone--assumed after death the
+form of a beetle?'
+
+'I know no more than the man in the moon,--how the dickens should I?
+Such a belief may have been symbolical. Christians believe that after
+death the body takes the shape of worms--and so, in a sense, it
+does,--and, sometimes, eels.'
+
+'That is not what I mean.'
+
+'Then what do you mean?'
+
+'Listen. If a person, of whose veracity there could not be a vestige of
+a doubt, assured you that he had seen such a transformation actually
+take place, could it conceivably be explained on natural grounds?'
+
+'Seen a priest of Isis assume the form of a beetle?'
+
+'Or a follower of Isis?'
+
+'Before, or after death?'
+
+He hesitated. I had seldom seen him wear such an appearance of
+interest,--to be frank, I was keenly interested too!--but, on a sudden
+there came into his eyes a glint of something that was almost terror.
+When he spoke, it was with the most unwonted awkwardness.
+
+'In--in the very act of dying.'
+
+'In the very act of dying?'
+
+'If--he had seen a follower of Isis in--the very act of dying,
+assume--the form of a--a beetle, on any conceivable grounds would such
+a transformation be susceptible of a natural explanation?'
+
+I stared,--as who would not? Such an extraordinary question was
+rendered more extraordinary by coming from such a man,--yet I was
+almost beginning to suspect that there was something behind it more
+extraordinary still.
+
+'Look here, Lessingham, I can see you've a capital tale to tell,--so
+tell it, man! Unless I'm mistaken, it's not the kind of tale in which
+ordinary scruples can have any part or parcel,--anyhow, it's hardly
+fair of you to set my curiosity all agog, and then to leave it
+unappeased.'
+
+He eyed me steadily, the appearance of interest fading more and more,
+until, presently, his face assumed its wonted expressionless
+mask,--somehow I was conscious that what he had seen in my face was not
+altogether to his liking. His voice was once more bland and
+self-contained.
+
+'I perceive you are of opinion that I have been told a taradiddle. I
+suppose I have.'
+
+'But what is the taradiddle?--don't you see I'm burning?'
+
+'Unfortunately, Atherton, I am on my honour. Until I have permission to
+unloose it, my tongue is tied.' He picked up his hat and umbrella from
+where he had placed them on the table. Holding them in his left hand,
+he advanced to me with his right outstretched. 'It is very good of you
+to suffer my continued interruption; I know, to my sorrow, what such
+interruptions mean,--believe me, I am not ungrateful. What is this?'
+
+On the shelf, within a foot or so of where I stood, was a sheet of
+paper,--the size and shape of half a sheet of post note. At this he
+stooped to glance. As he did so, something surprising occurred. On the
+instant a look came on to his face which, literally, transfigured him.
+His hat and umbrella fell from his grasp on to the floor. He retreated,
+gibbering, his hands held out as if to ward something off from him,
+until he reached the wall on the other side of the room. A more amazing
+spectacle than he presented I never saw.
+
+'Lessingham!' I exclaimed. 'What's wrong with you?'
+
+My first impression was that he was struck by a fit of
+epilepsy,--though anyone less like an epileptic subject it would be
+hard to find. In my bewilderment I looked round to see what could be
+the immediate cause. My eye fell upon the sheet of paper, I stared at
+it with considerable surprise. I had not noticed it there previously, I
+had not put it there,--where had it come from? The curious thing was
+that, on it, produced apparently by some process of photogravure, was
+an illustration of a species of beetle with which I felt that I ought
+to be acquainted, and yet was not. It was of a dull golden green; the
+colour was so well brought out,--even to the extent of seeming to
+scintillate, and the whole thing was so dexterously done that the
+creature seemed alive. The semblance of reality was, indeed, so vivid
+that it needed a second glance to be assured that it was a mere trick
+of the reproducer. Its presence there was odd,--after what we had been
+talking about it might seem to need explanation; but it was absurd to
+suppose that that alone could have had such an effect on a man like
+Lessingham.
+
+With the thing in my hand, I crossed to where he was,--pressing his
+back against the wall, he had shrunk lower inch by inch till he was
+actually crouching on his haunches.
+
+'Lessingham!--come, man, what's wrong with you?'
+
+Taking him by the shoulder, I shook him with some vigour. My touch had
+on him the effect of seeming to wake him out of a dream, of restoring
+him to consciousness as against the nightmare horrors with which he was
+struggling. He gazed up at me with that look of cunning on his face
+which one associates with abject terror.
+
+'Atherton?--Is it you?--It's all right,--quite right.--I'm well,--very
+well.'
+
+As he spoke, he slowly drew himself up, till he was standing erect.
+
+'Then, in that case, all I can say is that you have a queer way of
+being very well.'
+
+He put his hand up to his mouth, as if to hide the trembling of his
+lips.
+
+'It's the pressure of overwork,--I've had one or two attacks like
+this,--but it's nothing, only--a local lesion.'
+
+I observed him keenly; to my thinking there was something about him
+which was very odd indeed.
+
+'Only a local lesion!--If you take my strongly-urged advice you'll get
+a medical opinion without delay,--if you haven't been wise enough to
+have done so already.'
+
+'I'll go to-day;--at once; but I know it's only mental overstrain.'
+
+'You're sure it's nothing to do with this?'
+
+I held out in front of him the photogravure of the beetle. As I did so
+he backed away from me, shrieking, trembling as with palsy.
+
+'Take it away! take it away!' he screamed.
+
+I stared at him, for some seconds, astonished into speechlessness. Then
+I found my tongue.
+
+'Lessingham!--It's only a picture!--Are you stark mad?'
+
+He persisted in his ejaculations.
+
+'Take it away! take it away!--Tear it up!--Burn it!'
+
+His agitation was so unnatural,--from whatever cause it arose!--that,
+fearing the recurrence of the attack from which he had just recovered,
+I did as he bade me. I tore the sheet of paper into quarters, and,
+striking a match, set fire to each separate piece. He watched the
+process of incineration as if fascinated. When it was concluded, and
+nothing but ashes remained, he gave a gasp of relief.
+
+'Lessingham,' I said, 'you're either mad already, or you're going
+mad,--which is it?'
+
+'I think it's neither. I believe I am as sane as you. It's--it's that
+story of which I was speaking; it--it seems curious, but I'll tell you
+all about it--some day. As I observed, I think you will find it an
+interesting instance of a singular survival.' He made an obvious effort
+to become more like his usual self. 'It is extremely unfortunate,
+Atherton, that I should have troubled you with such a display of
+weakness,--especially as I am able to offer you so scant an
+explanation. One thing I would ask of you,--to observe strict
+confidence. What has taken place has been between ourselves. I am in
+your hands, but you are my friend, I know I can rely on you not to
+speak of it to anyone,--and, in particular, not to breathe a hint of it
+to Miss Lindon.'
+
+'Why, in particular, not to Miss Lindon?'
+
+'Can you not guess?'
+
+I hunched my shoulder.
+
+'If what I guess is what you mean is not that a cause the more why
+silence would be unfair to her?'
+
+'It is for me to speak, if for anyone. I shall not fail to do what
+should be done.--Give me your promise that you will not hint a word to
+her of what you have so unfortunately seen?'
+
+I gave him the promise he required.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+There was no more work for me that day. The Apostle, his divagations,
+his example of the coleoptera, his Arabian friend,--these things were
+as microbes which, acting on a system already predisposed for their
+reception, produced high fever; I was in a fever,--of unrest. Brain in
+a whirl!--Marjorie, Paul, Isis, beetle, mesmerism, in delirious jumble.
+Love's upsetting!--in itself a sufficiently severe disease; but when
+complications intervene, suggestive of mystery and novelties, so that
+you do not know if you are moving in an atmosphere of dreams or of
+frozen facts,--if, then, your temperature does not rise, like that
+rocket of M. Verne's,--which reached the moon, then you are a freak of
+an entirely genuine kind, and if the surgeons do not preserve you, and
+place you on view, in pickle, they ought to, for the sake of historical
+doubters, for no one will believe that there ever was a man like you,
+unless you yourself are somewhere around to prove them Thomases.
+
+Myself,--I am not that kind of man. When I get warm I grow heated, and
+when I am heated there is likely to be a variety show of a gaudy kind.
+When Paul had gone I tried to think things out, and if I had kept on
+trying something would have happened--so I went on the river instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE DUCHESS' BALL
+
+
+That night was the Duchess of Datchet's ball--the first person I saw as
+I entered the dancing-room was Dora Grayling.
+
+I went straight up to her.
+
+'Miss Grayling, I behaved very badly to you last night, I have come to
+make to you my apologies,--to sue for your forgiveness!'
+
+'My forgiveness?' Her head went back,--she has a pretty bird-like trick
+of cocking it a little on one side. 'You were not well. Are you better?'
+
+'Quite.--You forgive me? Then grant me plenary absolution by giving me
+a dance for the one I lost last night.'
+
+She rose. A man came up,--a stranger to me; she's one of the best
+hunted women in England,--there's a million with her.
+
+'This is my dance, Miss Grayling.'
+
+She looked at him.
+
+'You must excuse me. I am afraid I have made a mistake. I had forgotten
+that I was already engaged.'
+
+I had not thought her capable of it. She took my arm, and away we went,
+and left him staring.
+
+'It's he who's the sufferer now,' I whispered, as we went round,--she
+can waltz!
+
+'You think so? It was I last night,--I did not mean, if I could help
+it, to suffer again. To me a dance with you means something.' She went
+all red,--adding, as an afterthought, 'Nowadays so few men really
+dance. I expect it's because you dance so well.'
+
+'Thank you.'
+
+We danced the waltz right through, then we went to an impromptu shelter
+which had been rigged up on a balcony. And we talked. There's something
+sympathetic about Miss Grayling which leads one to talk about one's
+self,--before I was half aware of it I was telling her of all my plans
+and projects,--actually telling her of my latest notion which,
+ultimately, was to result in the destruction of whole armies as by a
+flash of lightning. She took an amount of interest in it which was
+surprising.
+
+'What really stands in the way of things of this sort is not theory but
+practice,--one can prove one's facts on paper, or on a small scale in a
+room; what is wanted is proof on a large scale, by actual experiment.
+If, for instance, I could take my plant to one of the forests of South
+America, where there is plenty of animal life but no human, I could
+demonstrate the soundness of my position then and there.'
+
+'Why don't you?'
+
+'Think of the money it would cost.'
+
+'I thought I was a friend of yours.'
+
+'I had hoped you were.'
+
+'Then why don't you let me help you?'
+
+'Help me?--How?'
+
+'By letting you have the money for your South American experiment;--it
+would be an investment on which I should expect to receive good
+interest.'
+
+I fidgeted.
+
+'It is very good of you, Miss Grayling, to talk like that.'
+
+She became quite frigid.
+
+'Please don't be absurd!--I perceive quite clearly that you are
+snubbing me, and that you are trying to do it as delicately as you know
+how.'
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'I understand that it was an impertinence on my part to volunteer
+assistance which was unasked; you have made that sufficiently plain.'
+
+'I assure you--'
+
+'Pray don't. Of course, if it had been Miss Lindon it would have been
+different; she would at least have received a civil answer. But we are
+not all Miss Lindon.'
+
+I was aghast. The outburst was so uncalled for,--I had not the faintest
+notion what I had said or done to cause it; she was in such a
+surprising passion--and it suited her!--I thought I had never seen her
+look prettier,--I could do nothing else but stare. So she went
+on,--with just as little reason.
+
+'Here is someone coming to claim this dance,--I can't throw all my
+partners over. Have I offended you so irremediably that it will be
+impossible for you to dance with me again?'
+
+'Miss Grayling!--I shall be only too delighted.' She handed me her
+card. 'Which may I have?'
+
+'For your own sake you had better place it as far off as you possibly
+can.'
+
+'They all seem taken.'
+
+'That doesn't matter; strike off any name you please, anywhere and put
+your own instead.'
+
+It was giving me an almost embarrassingly free hand. I booked myself
+for the next waltz but two--who it was who would have to give way to me
+I did not trouble to inquire.
+
+'Mr Atherton!--is that you?'
+
+It was,--it was also she. It was Marjorie! And so soon as I saw her I
+knew that there was only one woman in the world for me,--the mere sight
+of her sent the blood tingling through my veins. Turning to her
+attendant cavalier, she dismissed him with a bow.
+
+'Is there an empty chair?'
+
+She seated herself in the one Miss Grayling had just vacated. I sat
+down beside her. She glanced at me, laughter in her eyes. I was all in
+a stupid tremblement.
+
+'You remember that last night I told you that I might require your
+friendly services in diplomatic intervention?' I nodded,--I felt that
+the allusion was unfair. 'Well, the occasion's come,--or, at least,
+it's very near.' She was still,--and I said nothing to help her. 'You
+know how unreasonable papa can be.'
+
+I did,--never a more pig-headed man in England than Geoffrey
+Lindon,--or, in a sense, a duller. But, just then, I was not prepared
+to admit it to his child.
+
+'You know what an absurd objection he has to--Paul.'
+
+There was an appreciative hesitation before she uttered the fellow's
+Christian name,--when it came it was with an accent of tenderness which
+stung me like a gadfly. To speak to me--of all men,--of the fellow in
+such a tone was--like a woman.
+
+'Has Mr Lindon no notion of how things stand between you?'
+
+'Except what he suspects. That is just where you are to come in, papa
+thinks so much of you--I want you to sound Paul's praises in his
+ear--to prepare him for what must come.' Was ever rejected lover
+burdened with such a task? Its enormity kept me still. 'Sydney, you
+have always been my friend,--my truest, dearest friend. When I was a
+little girl you used to come between papa and me, to shield me from his
+wrath. Now that I am a big girl I want you to be on my side once more,
+and to shield me still.'
+
+Her voice softened. She laid her hand upon my arm. How, under her
+touch, I burned.
+
+'But I don't understand what cause there has been for secrecy,--why
+should there have been any secrecy from the first?'
+
+'It was Paul's wish that papa should not be told.'
+
+'Is Mr Lessingham ashamed of you?'
+
+'Sydney!'
+
+'Or does he fear your father?'
+
+'You are unkind. You know perfectly well that papa has been prejudiced
+against him all along, you know that his political position is just now
+one of the greatest difficulty, that every nerve and muscle is kept on
+the continual strain, that it is in the highest degree essential that
+further complications of every and any sort should be avoided. He is
+quite aware that his suit will not be approved of by papa, and he
+simply wishes that nothing shall be said about it till the end of the
+session,--that is all'
+
+'I see! Mr Lessingham is cautious even in love-making,--politician
+first, and lover afterwards.'
+
+'Well!--why not?--would you have him injure the cause he has at heart
+for want of a little patience?'
+
+'It depends what cause it is he has at heart.'
+
+'What is the matter with you?--why do you speak to me like that?--it is
+not like you at all.' She looked at me shrewdly, with flashing eyes.
+'Is it possible that you are--jealous?--that you were in earnest in
+what you said last night?--I thought that was the sort of thing you
+said to every girl.'
+
+I would have given a great deal to take her in my arms, and press her
+to my bosom then and there,--to think that she should taunt me with
+having said to her the sort of thing I said to every girl.
+
+'What do you know of Mr Lessingham?'
+
+'What all the world knows,--that history will be made by him.'
+
+'There are kinds of history in the making of which one would not desire
+to be associated. What do you know of his private life,--it was to that
+that I was referring.'
+
+'Really,--you go too far. I know that he is one of the best, just as he
+is one of the greatest, of men; for me, that is sufficient.'
+
+'If you do know that, it is sufficient.'
+
+'I do know it,--all the world knows it. Everyone with whom he comes in
+contact is aware--must be aware, that he is incapable of a
+dishonourable thought or action.'
+
+'Take my advice, don't appreciate any man too highly. In the book of
+every man's life there is a page which he would wish to keep turned
+down.'
+
+'There is no such page in Paul's,--there may be in yours; I think that
+probable.'
+
+'Thank you. I fear it is more than probable. I fear that, in my case,
+the page may extend to several. There is nothing Apostolic about
+me,--not even the name.'
+
+'Sydney!--you are unendurable!--It is the more strange to hear you talk
+like this since Paul regards you as his friend.'
+
+'He flatters me.'
+
+'Are you not his friend?'
+
+'Is it not sufficient to be yours?'
+
+'No,--who is against Paul is against me.'
+
+'That is hard.'
+
+'How is it hard? Who is against the husband can hardly be for the
+wife,--when the husband and the wife are one.'
+
+'But as yet you are not one.--Is my cause so hopeless?'
+
+'What do you call your cause?--are you thinking of that nonsense you
+were talking about last night?'
+
+She laughed!
+
+'You call it nonsense.--You ask for sympathy, and give--so much!'
+
+'I will give you all the sympathy you stand in need of,--I promise it!
+My poor, dear Sydney!--don't be so absurd! Do you think that I don't
+know you? You're the best of friends, and the worst of lovers,--as the
+one, so true; so fickle as the other. To my certain knowledge, with how
+many girls have you been in love,--and out again. It is true that, to
+the best of my knowledge and belief, you have never been in love with
+me before,--but that's the merest accident. Believe me, my dear, dear
+Sydney, you'll be in love with someone else tomorrow,--if you're not
+half-way there to-night. I confess, quite frankly, that, in that
+direction, all the experience I have had of you has in nowise
+strengthened my prophetic instinct. Cheer up!--one never knows!--Who is
+this that's coming?'
+
+It was Dora Grayling who was coming,--I went off with her without a
+word,--we were half-way through the dance before she spoke to me.
+
+'I am sorry that I was cross to you just now, and--disagreeable.
+Somehow I always seem destined to show to you my most unpleasant side.'
+
+'The blame was mine,--what sort of side do I show you? You are far
+kinder to me than I deserve,--now, and always. 'That is what you say.'
+
+'Pardon me, it's true,--else how comes it that, at this time of day,
+I'm without a friend in all the world?'
+
+'You!--without a friend!--I never knew a man who had so many!--I never
+knew a person of whom so many men and women join in speaking well!'
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'As for never having done anything worth doing, think of what you have
+done. Think of your discoveries, think of your inventions, think
+of--but never mind! The world knows you have done great things, and it
+confidently looks to you to do still greater. You talk of being
+friendless, and yet when I ask, as a favour--as a great favour!--to be
+allowed to do something to show my friendship, you--well, you snub me.'
+
+'I snub you!'
+
+'You know you snubbed me.'
+
+'Do you really mean that you take an interest in--in my work?'
+
+'You know I mean it.'
+
+She turned to me, her face all glowing,--and I did know it.
+
+'Will you come to my laboratory to-morrow morning?'
+
+'Will I!--won't I!'
+
+'With your aunt?'
+
+'Yes, with my aunt.'
+
+'I'll show you round, and tell you all there is to be told, and then if
+you still think there's anything in it, I'll accept your offer about
+that South American experiment,--that is, if it still holds good.'
+
+'Of course it still holds good.'
+
+'And we'll be partners.'
+
+'Partners?--Yes,--we will be partners.'
+
+'It will cost a terrific sum.'
+
+'There are some things which never can cost too much.'
+
+'That's not my experience.'
+
+'I hope it will be mine.'
+
+'It's a bargain?'
+
+'On my side, I promise you that it's a bargain.'
+
+When I got outside the room I found that Percy Woodville was at my
+side. His round face was, in a manner of speaking as long as my arm. He
+took his glass out of his eye, and rubbed it with his handkerchief,--and
+directly he put it back he took it out and rubbed it again, I believe
+that I never saw him in such a state of fluster,--and, when one speaks
+of Woodville, that means something.
+
+'Atherton, I am in a devil of a stew.' He looked it. 'All of a
+heap!--I've had a blow which I shall never get over!'
+
+'Then get under.'
+
+Woodville is one of those fellows who will insist on telling me their
+most private matters,--even to what they owe their washerwomen for the
+ruination of their shirts. Why, goodness alone can tell,--heaven knows
+I am not sympathetic.
+
+'Don't be an idiot!--you don't know what I'm suffering!--I'm as nearly
+as possible stark mad.'
+
+'That's all right, old chap,--I've seen you that way more than once
+before.'
+
+'Don't talk like that,--you're not a perfect brute!'
+
+'I bet you a shilling that I am.'
+
+'Don't torture me,--you're not. Atherton!' He seized me by the lapels
+of my coat, seeming half beside himself,--fortunately he had drawn me
+into a recess, so that we were noticed by few observers. 'What do you
+think has happened?'
+
+'My dear chap, how on earth am I to know?'
+
+'She's refused me!'
+
+'Has she!--Well I never!--Buck up,--try some other address,--there are
+quite as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.'
+
+'Atherton, you're a blackguard.'
+
+He had crumpled his handkerchief into a ball, and was actually bobbing
+at his eyes with it,--the idea of Percy Woodville being dissolved in
+tears was excruciatingly funny,--but, just then, I could hardly tell
+him so.
+
+'There's not a doubt of it,--it's my way of being sympathetic. Don't be
+so down, man,--try her again!'
+
+'It's not the slightest use--I know it isn't--from the way she treated
+me.'
+
+'Don't be so sure--women often say what they mean least. Who's the
+lady?'
+
+'Who?--Is there more women in the world than one for me, or has there
+ever been? You ask me who! What does the word mean to me but Marjorie
+Lindon!'
+
+'Marjorie Lindon?'
+
+I fancy that my jaw dropped open,--that, to use his own vernacular, I
+was 'all of a heap.' I felt like it.
+
+I strode away--leaving him mazed--and all but ran into Marjorie's arms.
+
+'I'm just leaving. Will you see me to the carriage, Mr Atherton?' I saw
+her to the carriage. 'Are you off?--can I give you a lift?'
+
+'Thank you,--I am not thinking of being off.'
+
+'I'm going to the House of Commons,--won't you come?'
+
+'What are you going there for?'
+
+Directly she spoke of it I knew why she was going,--and she knew that I
+knew, as her words showed.
+
+'You are quite well aware of what the magnet is. You are not so
+ignorant as not to know that the Agricultural Amendment Act is on
+to-night, and that Paul is to speak. I always try to be there when Paul
+is to speak, and I mean to always keep on trying.'
+
+'He is a fortunate man.'
+
+'Indeed,--and again indeed. A man with such gifts as his is
+inadequately described as fortunate.--But I must be off. He expected to
+be up before, but I heard from him a few minutes ago that there has
+been a delay, but that he will be up within half-an-hour.--Till our
+next meeting.'
+
+As I returned into the house, in the hall I met Percy Woodville. He had
+his hat on.
+
+'Where are you off to?'
+
+'I'm off to the House.'
+
+'To hear Paul Lessingham?'
+
+'Damn Paul Lessingham!'
+
+'With all my heart!'
+
+'There's a division expected,--I've got to go.'
+
+'Someone else has gone to hear Paul Lessingham,--Marjorie Lindon.'
+
+'No!--you don't say so!--by Jove!--I say, Atherton, I wish I could make
+a speech,--I never can. When I'm electioneering I have to have my
+speeches written for me, and then I have to read 'em. But, by Jove, if
+I knew Miss Lindon was in the gallery, and if I knew anything about the
+thing, or could get someone to tell me something, hang me if I wouldn't
+speak,--I'd show her I'm not the fool she thinks I am!'
+
+'Speak, Percy, speak!--you'd knock 'em silly, sir!--I tell you what
+I'll do,--I'll come with you! I'll to the House as well!--Paul
+Lessingham shall have an audience of three.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MR LESSINGHAM SPEAKS
+
+
+The House was full. Percy and I went upstairs,--to the gallery which is
+theoretically supposed to be reserved for what are called
+'distinguished strangers,'--those curious animals. Trumperton was up,
+hammering out those sentences which smell, not so much of the lamp as
+of the dunderhead. Nobody was listening,--except the men in the Press
+Gallery; where is the brain of the House, and ninety per cent, of its
+wisdom.
+
+It was not till Trumperton had finished that I discovered Lessingham.
+The tedious ancient resumed his seat amidst a murmur of sounds which, I
+have no doubt, some of the press-men interpreted next day as 'loud and
+continued applause.' There was movement in the House, possibly
+expressive of relief; a hum of voices; men came flocking in. Then, from
+the Opposition benches, there rose a sound which was applause,--and I
+perceived that, on a cross bench close to the gangway, Paul Lessingham
+was standing up bareheaded.
+
+I eyed him critically,--as a collector might eye a valuable specimen,
+or a pathologist a curious subject. During the last four and twenty
+hours my interest in him had grown apace. Just then, to me, he was the
+most interesting man the world contained.
+
+When I remembered how I had seen him that same morning, a nerveless,
+terror-stricken wretch, grovelling, like some craven cur, upon the
+floor, frightened, to the verge of imbecility, by a shadow, and less
+than a shadow, I was confronted by two hypotheses. Either I had
+exaggerated his condition then, or I exaggerated his condition now. So
+far as appearance went, it was incredible that this man could be that
+one.
+
+I confess that my feeling rapidly became one of admiration. I love the
+fighter. I quickly recognised that here we had him in perfection. There
+was no seeming about him then,--the man was to the manner born. To his
+finger-tips a fighting man. I had never realised it so clearly before.
+He was coolness itself. He had all his faculties under complete
+command. While never, for a moment, really exposing himself, he would
+be swift in perceiving the slightest weakness in his opponents'
+defence, and, so soon as he saw it, like lightning, he would slip in a
+telling blow. Though defeated, he would hardly be disgraced; and one
+might easily believe that their very victories would be so expensive to
+his assailants, that, in the end, they would actually conduce to his
+own triumph.
+
+'Hang me!' I told myself, 'if, after all, I am surprised if Marjorie
+does see something in him.' For I perceived how a clever and
+imaginative young woman, seeing him at his best, holding his own, like
+a gallant knight, against overwhelming odds, in the lists in which he
+was so much at home, might come to think of him as if he were always
+and only there, ignoring altogether the kind of man he was when the
+joust was finished.
+
+It did me good to hear him, I do know that,--and I could easily imagine
+the effect he had on one particular auditor who was in the Ladies'
+Cage. It was very far from being an 'oration' in the American sense; it
+had little or nothing of the fire and fury of the French Tribune; it
+was marked neither by the ponderosity nor the sentiment of the eloquent
+German; yet it was as satisfying as are the efforts of either of the
+three, producing, without doubt, precisely the effect which the speaker
+intended. His voice was clear and calm, not exactly musical, yet
+distinctly pleasant, and it was so managed that each word he uttered
+was as audible to every person present as if it had been addressed
+particularly to him. His sentences were short and crisp; the words
+which he used were not big ones, but they came from him with an
+agreeable ease; and he spoke just fast enough to keep one's interest
+alert without invoking a strain on the attention.
+
+He commenced by making, in the quietest and most courteous manner,
+sarcastic comments on the speeches and methods of Trumperton and his
+friends which tickled the House amazingly. But he did not make the
+mistake of pushing his personalities too far. To a speaker of a certain
+sort nothing is easier than to sting to madness. If he likes, his every
+word is barbed. Wounds so given fester; they are not easily
+forgiven;--it is essential to a politician that he should have his
+firmest friends among the fools; or his climbing days will soon be
+over. Soon his sarcasms were at an end. He began to exchange them for
+sweet-sounding phrases. He actually began to say pleasant things to his
+opponents; apparently to mean them. To put them in a good conceit with
+themselves. He pointed out how much truth there was in what they said;
+and then, as if by accident, with what ease and at how little cost,
+amendments might be made. He found their arguments, and took them for
+his own, and flattered them, whether they would or would not, by
+showing how firmly they were founded upon fact; and grafted other
+arguments upon them, which seemed their natural sequelae; and
+transformed them, and drove them hither and thither; and brought
+them--their own arguments!--to a round, irrefragable conclusion, which
+was diametrically the reverse of that to which they themselves had
+brought them. And he did it all with an aptness, a readiness, a grace,
+which was incontestable. So that, when he sat down, he had performed
+that most difficult of all feats, he had delivered what, in a House of
+Commons' sense, was a practical, statesmanlike speech, and yet one
+which left his hearers in an excellent humour.
+
+It was a great success,--an immense success. A parliamentary triumph of
+almost the highest order. Paul Lessingham had been coming on by leaps
+and bounds. When he resumed his seat, amidst applause which, this time,
+really was applause, there were, probably, few who doubted that he was
+destined to go still farther. How much farther it is true that time
+alone could tell; but, so far as appearances went, all the prizes,
+which are as the crown and climax of a statesman's career, were well
+within his reach.
+
+For my part, I was delighted. I had enjoyed an intellectual
+exercise,--a species of enjoyment not so common as it might be. The
+Apostle had almost persuaded me that the political game was one worth
+playing, and that its triumphs were things to be desired. It is
+something, after all, to be able to appeal successfully to the passions
+and aspirations of your peers; to gain their plaudits; to prove your
+skill at the game you yourself have chosen; to be looked up to and
+admired. And when a woman's eyes look down on you, and her ears drink
+in your every word, and her heart beats time with yours,--each man to
+his own temperament, but when that woman is the woman whom you love, to
+know that your triumph means her glory, and her gladness, to me that
+would be the best part of it all.
+
+In that hour,--the Apostle's hour!--I almost wished that I were a
+politician too!
+
+The division was over. The business of the night was practically done.
+I was back again in the lobby! The theme of conversation was the
+Apostle's speech,--on every side they talked of it.
+
+Suddenly Marjorie was at my side. Her face was glowing. I never saw her
+look more beautiful,--or happier. She seemed to be alone.
+
+'So you have come, after all!--Wasn't it splendid?--wasn't it
+magnificent? Isn't it grand to have such great gifts, and to use them
+to such good purpose?--Speak, Sydney! Don't feign a coolness which is
+foreign to your nature!'
+
+I saw that she was hungry for me to praise the man whom she delighted
+to honour. But, somehow, her enthusiasm cooled mine.
+
+'It was not a bad speech, of a kind.'
+
+'Of a kind!' How her eyes flashed fire! With what disdain she treated
+me! 'What do you mean by "of a kind?" My dear Sydney, are you not aware
+that it is an attribute of small minds to attempt to belittle those
+which are greater? Even if you are conscious of inferiority, it's
+unwise to show it. Mr Lessingham's was a great speech, of any kind;
+your incapacity to recognise the fact simply reveals your lack of the
+critical faculty.'
+
+'It is fortunate for Mr Lessingham that there is at least one person in
+whom the critical faculty is so bountifully developed. Apparently, in
+your judgment, he who discriminates is lost.'
+
+I thought she was going to burst into passion. But, instead, laughing,
+she placed her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+'Poor Sydney!--I understand!--It is so sad!--Do you know you are like a
+little boy who, when he is beaten, declares that the victor has cheated
+him. Never mind! as you grow older, you will learn better.'
+
+She stung me almost beyond bearing,--I cared not what I said.
+
+'You, unless I am mistaken, will learn better before you are older.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+Before I could have told her--if I had meant to tell; which I did
+not--Lessingham came up.
+
+'I hope I have not kept you waiting; I have been delayed longer than I
+expected.'
+
+'Not at all,--though I am quite ready to get away; it's a little
+tiresome waiting here.'
+
+This with a mischievous glance towards me,--a glance which compelled
+Lessingham to notice me.
+
+'You do not often favour us.'
+
+'I don't. I find better employment for my time.'
+
+'You are wrong. It's the cant of the day to underrate the House of
+Commons, and the work which it performs; don't you suffer yourself to
+join in the chorus of the simpletons. Your time cannot be better
+employed than in endeavouring to improve the body politic.'
+
+'I am obliged to you.--I hope you are feeling better than when I saw
+you last.'
+
+A gleam came into his eyes, fading as quickly as it came. He showed no
+other sign of comprehension, surprise, or resentment.
+
+'Thank you.--I am very well.'
+
+Marjorie perceived that I meant more than met the eye, and that what I
+meant was meant unpleasantly.
+
+'Come,--let us be off. It is Mr Atherton to-night who is not well.'
+
+She had just slipped her arm through Lessingham's when her father
+approached. Old Lindon stared at her on the Apostle's arm, as if he
+could hardly believe that it was she.
+
+'I thought that you were at the Duchess'?'
+
+'So I have been, papa; and now I'm here.'
+
+'Here!' Old Lindon began to stutter and stammer, and to grow red in the
+face, as is his wont when at all excited. 'W--what do you mean by
+here?--wh--where's the carriage?'
+
+'Where should it be, except waiting for me outside,--unless the horses
+have run away.'
+
+'I--I--I'll take you down to it. I--I don't approve of y--your
+w--w--waiting in a place like this.'
+
+'Thank you, papa, but Mr Lessingham is going to take me down.--I shall
+see you afterwards.--Good bye.'
+
+Anything cooler than the way in which she walked off I do not think I
+ever saw. This is the age of feminine advancement. Young women think
+nothing of twisting their mothers round their fingers, let alone their
+fathers; but the fashion in which that young woman walked off, on the
+Apostle's arm, and left her father standing there, was, in its way, a
+study.
+
+Lindon seemed scarcely able to realise that the pair of them had gone.
+Even after they had disappeared in the crowd he stood staring after
+them, growing redder and redder, till the veins stood out upon his
+face, and I thought that an apoplectic seizure threatened. Then, with a
+gasp, he turned to me.
+
+'Damned scoundrel!' I took it for granted that he alluded to the
+gentleman,--even though his following words hardly suggested it. 'Only
+this morning I forbade her to have anything to do with him, and n--now
+he's w--walked off with her! C--confounded adventurer! That's what he
+is, an adventurer, and before many hours have passed I'll take the
+liberty to tell him so!'
+
+Jamming his fists into his pockets, and puffing like a grampus in
+distress, he took himself away,--and it was time he did, for his words
+were as audible as they were pointed, and already people were wondering
+what the matter was. Woodville came up as Lindon was going,--just as
+sorely distressed as ever.
+
+'She went away with Lessingham,--did you see her?'
+
+'Of course I saw her. When a man makes a speech like Lessingham's any
+girl would go away with him,--and be proud to. When you are endowed
+with such great powers as he is, and use them for such lofty purposes,
+she'll walk away with you,--but, till then, never.'
+
+He was at his old trick of polishing his eyeglass.
+
+'It's bitter hard. When I knew that she was there, I'd half a mind to
+make a speech myself, upon my word I had, only I didn't know what to
+speak about, and I can't speak anyhow,--how can a fellow speak when
+he's shoved into the gallery?'
+
+'As you say, how can he?--he can't stand on the railing and
+shout,--even with a friend holding him behind.'
+
+'I know I shall speak one day,--bound to; and then she won't be there.'
+
+'It'll be better for you if she isn't.'
+
+'Think so?--Perhaps you're right. I'd be safe to make a mess of it, and
+then, if she were to see me at it, it'd be the devil! 'Pon my word,
+I've been wishing, lately, I was clever.'
+
+He rubbed his nose with the rim of his eyeglass, looking the most
+comically disconsolate figure.
+
+'Put black care behind you, Percy!--buck up, my boy! The division's
+over--you are free--now we'll go "on the fly."'
+
+And we did 'go on the fly.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ATHERTON'S MAGIC VAPOUR
+
+
+I bore him off to supper at the Helicon. All the way in the cab he was
+trying to tell me the story of how he proposed to Marjorie,--and he was
+very far from being through with it when we reached the club. There was
+the usual crowd of supperites, but we got a little table to ourselves,
+in a corner of the room, and before anything was brought for us to eat
+he was at it again. A good many of the people were pretty near to
+shouting, and as they seemed to be all speaking at once, and the band
+was playing, and as the Helicon supper band is not piano, Percy did not
+have it quite all to himself, but, considering the delicacy of his
+subject, he talked as loudly as was decent,--getting more so as he went
+on. But Percy is peculiar.
+
+'I don't know how many times I've tried to tell her,--over and over
+again.'
+
+'Have you now?'
+
+'Yes, pretty near every time I met her,--but I never seemed to get
+quite to it, don't you know.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'Why, just as I was going to say, "Miss Lindon, may I offer you the
+gift of my affection---"'
+
+'Was that how you invariably intended to begin?'
+
+'Well, not always--one time like that, another time another way. Fact
+is, I got off a little speech by heart, but I never got a chance to
+reel it off, so I made up my mind to just say anything.'
+
+'And what did you say?'
+
+'Well, nothing,--you see, I never got there. Just as I was feeling my
+way, she'd ask me if I preferred big sleeves to little ones, or top
+hats to billycocks, or some nonsense of the kind.'
+
+'Would she now?'
+
+'Yes,--of course I had to answer, and by the time I'd answered the
+chance was lost.' Percy was polishing his eye-glass. 'I tried to get
+there so many times, and she choked me off so often, that I can't help
+thinking that she suspected what it was that I was after.'
+
+'You think she did?'
+
+'She must have done. Once I followed her down Piccadilly, and chivied
+her into a glove shop in the Burlington Arcade. I meant to propose to
+her in there,--I hadn't had a wink of sleep all night through dreaming
+of her, and I was just about desperate.'
+
+'And did you propose?'
+
+'The girl behind the counter made me buy a dozen pairs of gloves
+instead. They turned out to be three sizes too large for me when they
+came home. I believe she thought I'd gone to spoon the glove girl,--she
+went out and left me there. That girl loaded me with all sorts of
+things when she was gone,--I couldn't get away. She held me with her
+blessed eye. I believe it was a glass one.'
+
+'Miss Linden's--or the glove girl's?'
+
+'The glove girl's. She sent me home a whole cartload of green ties, and
+declared I'd ordered them. I shall never forget that day. I've never
+been up the Arcade since, and never mean to.'
+
+'You gave Miss Lindon a wrong impression.'
+
+'I don't know. I was always giving her wrong impressions. Once she said
+that she knew I was not a marrying man, that I was the sort of chap who
+never would marry, because she saw it in my face.'
+
+'Under the circumstances, that was trying.'
+
+'Bitter hard.' Percy sighed again. 'I shouldn't mind if I wasn't so
+gone. I'm not a fellow who does get gone, but when I do get gone, I get
+so beastly gone.'
+
+'I tell you what, Percy,--have a drink!'
+
+'I'm a teetotaler,--you know I am.'
+
+'You talk of your heart being broken, and of your being a teetotaler in
+the same breath,--if your heart were really broken you'd throw
+teetotalism to the winds.'
+
+'Do you think so,--why?'
+
+'Because you would,--men whose hearts are broken always do,--you'd
+swallow a magnum at the least.'
+
+Percy groaned.
+
+'When I drink I'm always ill,--but I'll have a try.'
+
+He had a try,--making a good beginning by emptying at a draught the
+glass which the waiter had just now filled. Then he relapsed into
+melancholy.
+
+'Tell me, Percy,--honest Indian!--do you really love her?'
+
+'Love her?' His eyes grew round as saucers. 'Don't I tell you that I
+love her?'
+
+'I know you tell me, but that sort of thing is easy telling. What does
+it make you feel like, this love you talk so much about?'
+
+'Feel like?--Just anyhow,--and nohow. You should look inside me, and
+then you'd know.'
+
+'I see.--It's like that, is it?--Suppose she loved another man, what
+sort of feeling would you feel towards him?'
+
+'Does she love another man?'
+
+'I say, suppose.'
+
+'I dare say she does. I expect that's it.--What an idiot I am not to
+have thought of that before.' He sighed,--and refilled his glass. 'He's
+a lucky chap, whoever he is. I'd--I'd like to tell him so.'
+
+'You'd like to tell him so?'
+
+'He's such a jolly lucky chap, you know.'
+
+'Possibly,--but his jolly good luck is your jolly bad luck. Would you
+be willing to resign her to him without a word?'
+
+'If she loves him.'
+
+'But you say you love her.'
+
+'Of course I do.'
+
+'Well then?'
+
+'You don't suppose that, because I love her, I shouldn't like to see
+her happy?--I'm not such a beast!--I'd sooner see her happy than
+anything else in all the world.'
+
+'I see,--Even happy with another?--I'm afraid that my philosophy is not
+like yours. If I loved Miss Lindon, and she loved, say, Jones, I'm
+afraid I shouldn't feel like that towards Jones at all.'
+
+'What would you feel like?'
+
+'Murder.--Percy, you come home with me,--we've begun the night
+together, let's end it together,--and I'll show you one of the finest
+notions for committing murder on a scale of real magnificence you ever
+dreamed of. I should like to make use of it to show my feelings towards
+the supposititious Jones,--he'd know what I felt for him when once he
+had been introduced to it.'
+
+Percy went with me without a word. He had not had much to drink, but it
+had been too much for him, and he was in a condition of maundering
+sentimentality. I got him into a cab. We dashed along Piccadilly.
+
+He was silent, and sat looking in front of him with an air of vacuous
+sullenness which ill-became his cast of countenance. I bade the cabman
+pass though Lowndes Square. As we passed the Apostle's I pulled him up.
+I pointed out the place to Woodville.
+
+'You see, Percy, that's Lessingham's house!--that's the house of the
+man who went away with Marjorie!'
+
+'Yes.' Words came from him slowly, with a quite unnecessary stress on
+each. 'Because he made a speech.--I'd like to make a speech.--One day
+I'll make a speech.'
+
+'Because he made a speech,--only that, and nothing more! When a man
+speaks with an Apostle's tongue, he can witch any woman in the
+land.--Hallo, who's that?--Lessingham, is that you?'
+
+I saw, or thought I saw, someone, or something, glide up the steps, and
+withdraw into the shadow of the doorway, as if unwilling to be seen.
+When I hailed no one answered. I called again.
+
+'Don't be shy, my friend!'
+
+I sprang out of the cab, ran across the pavement, and up the steps. To
+my surprise, there was no one in the doorway. It seemed incredible, but
+the place was empty. I felt about me with my hands, as if I had been
+playing at blind man's buff, and grasped at vacancy. I came down a step
+or two.
+
+'Ostensibly, there's a vacuum,--which nature abhors.--I say, driver,
+didn't you see someone come up the steps?'
+
+'I thought I did, sir,--I could have sworn I did.'
+
+'So could I.--It's very odd.'
+
+'Perhaps whoever it was has gone into the 'ouse, sir.'
+
+'I don't see how. We should have heard the door open, if we hadn't seen
+it,--and we should have seen it, it's not so dark as that.--I've half a
+mind to ring the bell and inquire.'
+
+'I shouldn't do that if I was you, sir,--you jump in, and I'll get
+along. This is Mr Lessingham's,--the great Mr Lessingham's.'
+
+I believe the cabman thought that I was drunk,--and not respectable
+enough to claim acquaintance with the great Mr Lessingham.
+
+'Wake up, Woodville! Do you know I believe there's some mystery about
+this place,--I feel assured of it. I feel as if I were in the presence
+of something uncanny,--something which I can neither see, nor touch,
+nor hear.'
+
+The cabman bent down from his seat, wheedling me.
+
+'Jump in, sir, and we'll be getting along.'
+
+I jumped in, and we got along,--but not far. Before we had gone a dozen
+yards, I was out again, without troubling the driver to stop. He pulled
+up, aggrieved.
+
+'Well, sir, what's the matter now? You'll be damaging yourself before
+you've done, and then you'll be blaming me.'
+
+I had caught sight of a cat crouching in the shadow of the railings,--a
+black one. That cat was my quarry. Either the creature was unusually
+sleepy, or slow, or stupid, or it had lost its wits--which a cat seldom
+does lose!--anyhow, without making an attempt to escape it allowed me
+to grab it by the nape of the neck.
+
+So soon as we were inside my laboratory, I put the cat into my glass
+box. Percy stared.
+
+'What have you put it there for?'
+
+'That, my dear Percy, is what you are shortly about to see. You are
+about to be the witness of an experiment which, to a legislator--such
+as you are!--ought to be of the greatest possible interest. I am going
+to demonstrate, on a small scale, the action of the force which, on a
+large scale, I propose to employ on behalf of my native land.'
+
+He showed no signs of being interested. Sinking into a chair, he
+recommenced his wearisome reiteration.
+
+'I hate cats!--Do let it go!--I'm always miserable when there's a cat
+in the room.'
+
+'Nonsense,--that's your fancy! What you want's a taste of
+whisky--you'll be as chirpy as a cricket.'
+
+'I don't want anything more to drink!--I've had too much already!'
+
+I paid no heed to what he said. I poured two stiff doses into a couple
+of tumblers. Without seeming to be aware of what it was that he was
+doing he disposed of the better half of the one I gave him at a
+draught. Putting his glass upon the table, he dropped his head upon his
+hands, and groaned.
+
+'What would Marjorie think of me if she saw me now?'
+
+'Think?--nothing. Why should she think of a man like you, when she has
+so much better fish to fry?'
+
+'I'm feeling frightfully ill!--I'll be drunk before I've done!'
+
+'Then be drunk!--only, for gracious sake, be lively drunk, not deadly
+doleful.--Cheer up, Percy!' I clapped him on the shoulder,--almost
+knocking him off his seat on to the floor. 'I am now going to show you
+that little experiment of which I was speaking!--You see that cat?'
+
+'Of course I see it!--the beast!--I wish you'd let it go!'
+
+'Why should I let it go?--Do you know whose cat that is? That cat's
+Paul Lessingham's.'
+
+'Paul Lessingham's?'
+
+'Yes, Paul Lessingham's,--the man who made the speech,--the man whom
+Marjorie went away with.'
+
+'How do you know it's his?'
+
+'I don't know it is, but I believe it is,--I choose to believe it
+is!--I intend to believe it is!--It was outside his house, therefore
+it's his cat,--that's how I argue. I can't get Lessingham inside that
+box, so I get his cat instead.'
+
+'Whatever for?'
+
+'You shall see.--You observe how happy it is?'
+
+'It don't seem happy.'
+
+'We've all our ways of seeming happy,--that's its way,'
+
+The creature was behaving like a cat gone mad, dashing itself against
+the sides of its glass prison, leaping to and fro, and from side to
+side, squealing with rage, or with terror, or with both. Perhaps it
+foresaw what was coming,--there is no fathoming the intelligence of
+what we call the lower animals.
+
+'It's a funny way.'
+
+'We some of us have funny ways, beside cats. Now, attention! Observe
+this little toy,--you've seen something of its kind before. It's a
+spring gun; you pull the spring-drop the charge into the
+barrel--release the spring--and the charge is fired. I'll unlock this
+safe, which is built into the wall. It's a letter lock, the combination
+just now, is "whisky,"--you see, that's a hint to you. You'll notice
+the safe is strongly made,--it's air-tight, fire-proof, the outer
+casing is of triple-plated drill-proof steel,--the contents are
+valuable--to me!--and devilish dangerous,--I'd pity the thief who, in
+his innocent ignorance, broke in to steal. Look inside--you see it's
+full of balls,--glass balls, each in its own little separate nest;
+light as feathers; transparent,--you can see right through them. Here
+are a couple, like tiny pills. They contain neither dynamite, nor
+cordite, nor anything of the kind, yet, given a fair field and no
+favour, they'll work more mischief than all the explosives man has
+fashioned. Take hold of one--you say your heart is broken!--squeeze
+this under your nose--it wants but a gentle pressure--and in less time
+than no time you'll be in the land where they say there are no broken
+hearts.'
+
+He shrunk back.
+
+'I don't know what you're talking about.--I don't want the thing.--Take
+it away.'
+
+'Think twice,--the chance may not recur.'
+
+'I tell you I don't want it.'
+
+'Sure?--Consider!'
+
+'Of course I'm sure!'
+
+'Then the cat shall have it.'
+
+'Let the poor brute go!'
+
+'The poor brute's going,--to the land which is so near, and yet so far.
+Once more, if you please, attention. Notice what I do with this toy
+gun. I pull back the spring; I insert this small glass pellet; I thrust
+the muzzle of the gun through the opening in the glass box which
+contains the Apostle's cat,--you'll observe it fits quite close, which,
+on the whole, is perhaps as well for us.--I am about to release the
+spring.--Close attention, please.--Notice the effect.'
+
+'Atherton, let the brute go!'
+
+'The brute's gone! I've released the spring--the pellet has been
+discharged--it has struck against the roof of the glass box--it has
+been broken by the contact,--and, hey presto! the cat lies dead,--and
+that in face of its nine lives. You perceive how still it is,--how
+still! Let's hope that, now, it's really happy. The cat which I choose
+to believe is Paul Lessingham's has received its quietus; in the
+morning I'll send it back to him, with my respectful compliments. He'll
+miss it if I don't.--Reflect! think of a huge bomb, filled with what
+we'll call Atherton's Magic Vapour, fired, say, from a hundred and
+twenty ton gun, bursting at a given elevation over the heads of an
+opposing force. Properly managed, in less than an instant of time, a
+hundred thousand men,--quite possibly more!--would drop down dead, as
+if smitten by the lightning of the skies. Isn't that something like a
+weapon, sir?'
+
+'I'm not well!--I want to get away!--I wish I'd never come!'
+
+That was all Woodville had to say.
+
+'Rubbish!--You're adding to your stock of information every second,
+and, in these days, when a member of Parliament is supposed to know all
+about everything, information's the one thing wanted. Empty your glass,
+man,--that's the time of day for you!'
+
+I handed him his tumbler. He drained what was left of its contents,
+then, in a fit of tipsy, childish temper he flung the tumbler from him.
+I had placed--carelessly enough--the second pellet within a foot of the
+edge of the table. The shock of the heavy beaker striking the board
+close to it, set it rolling. I was at the other side. I started forward
+to stop its motion, but I was too late. Before I could reach the
+crystal globule, it had fallen off the edge of the table on to the
+floor at Woodville's feet, and smashed in falling. As it smashed, he
+was looking down, wondering, no doubt, in his stupidity, what the
+pother was about,--for I was shouting, and making something of a
+clatter in my efforts to prevent the catastrophe which I saw was
+coming. On the instant, as the vapour secreted in the broken pellet
+gained access to the air, he fell forward on to his face. Rushing to
+him, I snatched his senseless body from the ground, and dragged it,
+staggeringly, towards the door which opened on to the yard. Flinging
+the door open, I got him into the open air.
+
+As I did so, I found myself confronted by someone who stood outside. It
+was Lessingham's mysterious Egypto-Arabian friend,--my morning's
+visitor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAGIC?--OR MIRACLE?
+
+
+The passage into the yard from the electrically lit laboratory was a
+passage from brilliancy to gloom. The shrouded figure, standing in the
+shadow, was like some object in a dream. My own senses reeled. It was
+only because I had resolutely held my breath, and kept my face averted
+that I had not succumbed to the fate which had overtaken Woodville. Had
+I been a moment longer in gaining the open air, it would have been too
+late. As it was, in placing Woodville on the ground, I stumbled over
+him. My senses left me. Even as they went I was conscious of
+exclaiming,--remembering the saying about the engineer being hoist by
+his own petard,
+
+'Atherton's Magic Vapour!'
+
+My sensations on returning to consciousness were curious. I found
+myself being supported in someone's arms, a stranger's face was bending
+over me, and the most extraordinary pair of eyes I had ever seen were
+looking into mine.
+
+'Who the deuce are you?' I asked.
+
+Then, understanding that it was my uninvited visitor, with scant
+ceremony I drew myself away from him. By the light which was streaming
+through the laboratory door I saw that Woodville was lying close beside
+me,--stark and still.
+
+'Is he dead?' I cried. 'Percy.--speak, man!--it's not so bad with you
+as that!'
+
+But it was pretty bad,--so bad that, as I bent down and looked at him,
+my heart beat uncomfortably fast lest it was as bad as it could be. His
+heart seemed still,--the vapour took effect directly on the cardiac
+centres. To revive their action and that instantly, was indispensable.
+Yet my brain was in such a whirl that I could not even think of how to
+set about beginning. Had I been alone, it is more than probable
+Woodville would have died. As I stared at him, senselessly, aimlessly,
+the stranger, passing his arms beneath his body, extended himself at
+full length upon his motionless form. Putting his lips to Percy's, he
+seemed to be pumping life from his own body into the unconscious man's.
+As I gazed bewildered, surprised, presently there came a movement of
+Percy's body. His limbs twitched, as if he was in pain. By degrees, the
+motions became convulsive,--till on a sudden he bestirred himself to
+such effect that the stranger was rolled right off him. I bent
+down,--to find that the young gentleman's condition still seemed very
+far from satisfactory. There was a rigidity about the muscles of his
+face, a clamminess about his skin, a disagreeable suggestiveness about
+the way in which his teeth and the whites of his eyes were exposed,
+which was uncomfortable to contemplate.
+
+The stranger must have seen what was passing through my mind,--not a
+very difficult thing to see. Pointing to the recumbent Percy, he said,
+with that queer foreign twang of his, which, whatever it had seemed
+like in the morning, sounded musical enough just then.
+
+'All will be well with him.'
+
+'I am not so sure.'
+
+The stranger did not deign to answer. He was kneeling on one side of
+the victim of modern science, I on the other. Passing his hand to and
+fro in front of the unconscious countenance, as if by magic all
+semblance of discomfort vanished from Percy's features, and, to all
+appearances, he was placidly asleep.
+
+'Have you hypnotised him?'
+
+'What does it matter?'
+
+If it was a case of hypnotism, it was very neatly done. The conditions
+were both unusual and trying, the effect produced seemed all that could
+be desired,--the change brought about in half a dozen seconds was quite
+remarkable. I began to be aware of a feeling of quasi-respect for Paul
+Lessingham's friend. His morals might be peculiar, and manners he might
+have none, but in this case, at any rate, the end seemed to have
+justified the means. He went on.
+
+'He sleeps. When he awakes he will remember nothing that has been.
+Leave him,--the night is warm,--all will be well.'
+
+As he said, the night was warm,--and it was dry. Percy would come to
+little harm by being allowed to enjoy, for a while, the pleasant
+breezes. So I acted on the stranger's advice, and left him lying in the
+yard, while I had a little interview with the impromptu physician.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE BEETLE
+
+
+The laboratory door was closed. The stranger was standing a foot or two
+away from it. I was further within the room, and was subjecting him to
+as keen a scrutiny as circumstances permitted. Beyond doubt he was
+conscious of my observation, yet he bore himself with an air of
+indifference, which was suggestive of perfect unconcern. The fellow was
+oriental to the finger-tips,--that much was certain; yet in spite of a
+pretty wide personal knowledge of oriental people I could not make up
+my mind as to the exact part of the east from which he came. He was
+hardly an Arab, he was not a fellah,--he was not, unless I erred, a
+Mohammedan at all. There was something about him which was distinctly
+not Mussulmanic. So far as looks were concerned, he was not a
+flattering example of his race, whatever his race might be. The
+portentous size of his beak-like nose would have been, in itself,
+sufficient to damn him in any court of beauty. His lips were thick and
+shapeless,--and this, joined to another peculiarity in his appearance,
+seemed to suggest that, in his veins there ran more than a streak of
+negro blood. The peculiarity alluded to was his semblance of great age.
+As one eyed him one was reminded of the legends told of people who have
+been supposed to have retained something of their pristine vigour after
+having lived for centuries. As, however, one continued to gaze, one
+began to wonder if he really was so old as he seemed,--if, indeed, he
+was exceptionally old at all. Negroes, and especially negresses, are
+apt to age with extreme rapidity. Among coloured folk one sometimes
+encounters women whose faces seem to have been lined by the passage of
+centuries, yet whose actual tale of years would entitle them to regard
+themselves, here in England, as in the prime of life. The senility of
+the fellow's countenance, besides, was contradicted by the juvenescence
+of his eyes. No really old man could have had eyes like that. They were
+curiously shaped, reminding me of the elongated, faceted eyes of some
+queer creature, with whose appearance I was familiar, although I could
+not, at the instant, recall its name. They glowed not only with the
+force and fire, but, also, with the frenzy of youth. More
+uncanny-looking eyes I had never encountered,--their possessor could
+not be, in any sense of the word, a clubable person. Owing, probably,
+to some peculiar formation of the optic-nerve one felt, as one met his
+gaze, that he was looking right through you. More obvious danger
+signals never yet were placed in a creature's head. The individual who,
+having once caught sight of him, still sought to cultivate their
+owner's acquaintance, had only himself to thank if the very worst
+results of frequenting evil company promptly ensued.
+
+It happens that I am myself endowed with an unusual tenacity of vision.
+I could, for instance, easily outstare any man I ever met. Yet, as I
+continued to stare at this man, I was conscious that it was only by an
+effort of will that I was able to resist a baleful something which
+seemed to be passing from his eyes to mine. It might have been
+imagination, but, in that sense, I am not an imaginative man; and, if
+it was, it was imagination of an unpleasantly vivid kind. I could
+understand how, in the case of a nervous, or a sensitive temperament,
+the fellow might exercise, by means of the peculiar quality of his
+glance alone, an influence of a most disastrous sort, which given an
+appropriate subject in the manifestation of its power might approach
+almost to the supernatural. If ever man was endowed with the
+traditional evil eye, in which Italians, among modern nations, are such
+profound believers, it was he.
+
+When we had stared at each other for, I daresay, quite five minutes, I
+began to think I had had about enough of it. So, by way of breaking the
+ice, I put to him a question.
+
+'May I ask how you found your way into my back yard?'
+
+He did not reply in words, but, raising his hands he lowered them,
+palms downward, with a gesture which was peculiarly oriental.
+
+'Indeed?--Is that so?--Your meaning may be lucidity itself to you, but,
+for my benefit, perhaps you would not mind translating it into words.
+Once more I ask, how did you find your way into my back yard?'
+
+Again nothing but the gesture.
+
+'Possibly you are not sufficiently acquainted with English manners and
+customs to be aware that you have placed yourself within reach of the
+pains and penalties of the law. Were I to call in the police you would
+find yourself in an awkward situation,--and, unless you are presently
+more explanatory, called in they will be.'
+
+By way of answer he indulged in a distortion of the countenance which
+might have been meant for a smile,--and which seemed to suggest that he
+regarded the police with a contempt which was too great for words.
+
+'Why do you laugh--do you think that being threatened with the police
+is a joke? You are not likely to find it so.--Have you suddenly been
+bereft of the use of your tongue?'
+
+He proved that he had not by using it.
+
+'I have still the use of my tongue.'
+
+'That, at least, is something. Perhaps, since the subject of how you
+got into my back yard seems to be a delicate one, you will tell me why
+you got there.'
+
+'You know why I have come.'
+
+'Pardon me if I appear to flatly contradict you, but that is precisely
+what I do not know.'
+
+'You do know.'
+
+'Do I?--Then, in that case, I presume that you are here for the reason
+which appears upon the surface,--to commit a felony.'
+
+'You call me thief?'
+
+'What else are you?'
+
+'I am no thief.--You know why I have come.'
+
+He raised his head a little. A look came into his eyes which I felt
+that I ought to understand, yet to the meaning of which I seemed, for
+the instant, to have mislaid the key. I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+'I have come because you wanted me.'
+
+'Because I wanted you!--On my word!--That's sublime!'
+
+'All night you have wanted me,--do I not know? When she talked to you
+of him, and the blood boiled in your veins; when he spoke, and all the
+people listened, and you hated him, because he had honour in her eyes.'
+
+I was startled. Either he meant what it appeared incredible that he
+could mean, or--there was confusion somewhere.
+
+'Take my advice, my friend, and don't try to come the bunco-steerer
+over me,--I'm a bit in that line myself, you know.'
+
+This time the score was mine,--he was puzzled.
+
+'I know not what you talk of.'
+
+'In that case, we're equal,--I know not what you talk of either.'
+
+His manner, for him, was childlike and bland.
+
+'What is it you do not know? This morning did I not say,--if you want
+me, then I come?'
+
+'I fancy I have some faint recollection of your being so good as to say
+something of the kind, but--where's the application?'
+
+'Do you not feel for him the same as I?'
+
+'Who's the him?'
+
+'Paul Lessingham.'
+
+It was spoken quietly, but with a degree of--to put it
+gently--spitefulness which showed that at least the will to do the
+Apostle harm would not be lacking.
+
+'And, pray, what is the common feeling which we have for him?'
+
+'Hate.'
+
+Plainly, with this gentleman, hate meant hate,--in the solid oriental
+sense. I should hardly have been surprised if the mere utterance of the
+words had seared his lips.
+
+'I am by no means prepared to admit that I have this feeling which you
+attribute to me, but, even granting that I have, what then?'
+
+'Those who hate are kin.'
+
+'That, also, I should be slow to admit; but--to go a step farther--what
+has all this to do with your presence on my premises at this hour of
+the night?'
+
+'You love her.' This time I did not ask him to supply the name,--being
+unwilling that it should be soiled by the traffic of his lips. 'She
+loves him,--that is not well. If you choose, she shall love you,--that
+will be well.'
+
+'Indeed.--And pray how is this consummation which is so devoutly to be
+desired to be brought about?'
+
+'Put your hand into mine. Say that you wish it. It shall be done.'
+
+Moving a step forward, he stretched out his hand towards me. I
+hesitated. There was that in the fellow's manner which, for the moment,
+had for me an unwholesome fascination. Memories flashed through my mind
+of stupid stories which have been told of compacts made with the devil.
+I almost felt as if I was standing in the actual presence of one of the
+powers of evil. I thought of my love for Marjorie,--which had revealed
+itself after all these years; of the delight of holding her in my arms,
+of feeling the pressure of her lips to mine. As my gaze met his, the
+lower side of what the conquest of this fair lady would mean, burned in
+my brain; fierce imaginings blazed before my eyes. To win her,--only to
+win her!
+
+What nonsense he was talking! What empty brag it was! Suppose, just for
+the sake of the joke, I did put my hand in his, and did wish, right
+out, what it was plain he knew. If I wished, what harm would it do! It
+would be the purest jest. Out of his own mouth he would be confounded,
+for it was certain that nothing would come of it. Why should I not do
+it then?
+
+I would act on his suggestion,--I would carry the thing right through.
+Already I was advancing towards him, when--I stopped. I don't know why.
+On the instant, my thoughts went off at a tangent.
+
+What sort of a blackguard did I call myself that I should take a
+woman's name in vain for the sake of playing fool's tricks with such
+scum of the earth as the hideous vagabond in front of me,--and that the
+name of the woman whom I loved? Rage took hold of me.
+
+'You hound!' I cried.
+
+In my sudden passage from one mood to another, I was filled with the
+desire to shake the life half out of him. But so soon as I moved a step
+in his direction, intending war instead of peace, he altered the
+position of his hand, holding it out towards me as if forbidding my
+approach. Directly he did so, quite involuntarily, I pulled up
+dead,--as if my progress had been stayed by bars of iron and walls of
+steel.
+
+For the moment, I was astonished to the verge of stupefaction. The
+sensation was peculiar. I was as incapable of advancing another inch in
+his direction as if I had lost the use of my limbs,--I was even
+incapable of attempting to attempt to advance. At first I could only
+stare and gape. Presently I began to have an inkling of what had
+happened.
+
+The scoundrel had almost succeeded in hypnotising me.
+
+That was a nice thing to happen to a man of my sort at my time of life.
+A shiver went down my back,--what might have occurred if I had not
+pulled up in time! What pranks might a creature of that character not
+have been disposed to play. It was the old story of the peril of
+playing with edged tools; I had made the dangerous mistake of
+underrating the enemy's strength. Evidently, in his own line, the
+fellow was altogether something out of the usual way.
+
+I believe that even as it was he thought he had me. As I turned away,
+and leaned against the table at my back, I fancy that he shivered,--as
+if this proof of my being still my own master was unexpected. I was
+silent,--it took some seconds to enable me to recover from the shock of
+the discovery of the peril in which I had been standing. Then I
+resolved that I would endeavour to do something which should make me
+equal to this gentleman of many talents.
+
+'Take my advice, my friend, and don't attempt to play that hankey
+pankey off on to me again.'
+
+'I don't know what you talk of.'
+
+'Don't lie to me,--or I'll burn you into ashes.'
+
+Behind me was an electrical machine, giving an eighteen inch spark. It
+was set in motion by a lever fitted into the table, which I could
+easily reach from where I sat. As I spoke the visitor was treated to a
+little exhibition of electricity. The change in his bearing was
+amusing. He shook with terror. He salaamed down to the ground.
+
+'My lord!--my lord!--have mercy, oh my lord!'
+
+'Then you be careful, that's all. You may suppose yourself to be
+something of a magician, but it happens, unfortunately for you, that I
+can do a bit in that line myself,--perhaps I'm a trifle better at the
+game than you are. Especially as you have ventured into my stronghold,
+which contains magic enough to make a show of a hundred thousand such
+as you.'
+
+Taking down a bottle from a shelf, I sprinkled a drop or two of its
+contents on the floor. Immediately flames arose, accompanied by a
+blinding vapour. It was a sufficiently simple illustration of one of
+the qualities of phosphorous-bromide, but its effect upon my visitor
+was as startling as it was unexpected. If I could believe the evidence
+of my own eyesight, in the very act of giving utterance to a scream of
+terror he disappeared, how, or why, or whither, there was nothing to
+show,--in his place, where he had been standing, there seemed to be a
+dim object of some sort in a state of frenzied agitation on the floor.
+The phosphorescent vapour was confusing; the lights appeared to be
+suddenly burning low; before I had sense enough to go and see if there
+was anything there, and, if so, what, the flames had vanished, the man
+himself had reappeared, and, prostrated on his knees, was salaaming in
+a condition of abject terror.
+
+'My lord! my lord!' he whined. 'I entreat you, my lord, to use me as
+your slave!'
+
+'I'll use you as my slave!' Whether he or I was the more agitated it
+would have been difficult to say,--but, at least, it would not have
+done to betray my feelings as he did his.
+
+'Stand up!'
+
+He stood up. I eyed him as he did with an interest which, so far as I
+was concerned, was of a distinctly new and original sort. Whether or
+not I had been the victim of an ocular delusion I could not be sure. It
+was incredible to suppose that he could have disappeared as he had
+seemed to disappear,--it was also incredible that I could have imagined
+his disappearance. If the thing had been a trick, I had not the
+faintest notion how it had been worked; and, if it was not a trick,
+then what was it? Was it something new in scientific marvels? Could he
+give me as much instruction in the qualities of unknown forces as I
+could him?
+
+In the meanwhile he stood in an attitude of complete submission, with
+downcast eyes, and hands crossed upon his breast. I started to
+cross-examine him.
+
+'I am going to ask you some questions. So long as you answer them
+promptly, truthfully, you will be safe. Otherwise you had best beware.'
+
+'Ask, oh my lord.'
+
+'What is the nature of your objection to Mr Lessingham?'
+
+'Revenge.'
+
+'What has he done to you that you should wish to be revenged on him?'
+
+'It is the feud of the innocent blood.'
+
+'What do you mean by that?'
+
+'On his hands is the blood of my kin. It cries aloud for vengeance.'
+
+'Who has he killed?'
+
+'That, my lord, is for me,--and for him.'
+
+'I see.--Am I to understand that you do not choose to answer me, and
+that I am again to use my--magic?'
+
+I saw that he quivered.
+
+'My lord, he has spilled the blood of her who has lain upon his breast.'
+
+I hesitated. What he meant appeared clear enough. Perhaps it would be
+as well not to press for further details. The words pointed to what it
+might be courteous to call an Eastern Romance,--though it was hard to
+conceive of the Apostle figuring as the hero of such a theme. It was
+the old tale retold, that to the life of every man there is a
+background,--that it is precisely in the unlikeliest cases that the
+background's darkest. What would that penny-plain-and-twopence-coloured
+bogey, the Nonconformist Conscience, make of such a story if it were
+blazoned through the land. Would Paul not come down with a run?
+
+'"Spilling blood" is a figure of speech; pretty, perhaps, but vague. If
+you mean that Mr Lessingham has been killing someone, your surest and
+most effectual revenge would be gained by an appeal to the law.'
+
+'What has the Englishman's law to do with me?'
+
+'If you can prove that he has been guilty of murder it would have a
+great deal to do with you. I assure you that at any rate, in that
+sense, the Englishman's law is no respecter of persons. Show him to be
+guilty, and it would hang Paul Lessingham as indifferently, and as
+cheerfully, as it would hang Bill Brown.'
+
+'Is that so?'
+
+'It is so, as, if you choose, you will be easily able to prove to your
+own entire satisfaction.'
+
+He had raised his head, and was looking at something which he seemed to
+see in front of him with a maleficent glare in his sensitive eyes which
+it was not nice to see.
+
+'He would be shamed?'
+
+'Indeed he would be shamed.'
+
+'Before all men?'
+
+'Before all men,--and, I take it, before all women too.'
+
+'And he would hang?'
+
+'If shown to have been guilty of wilful murder,--yes.'
+
+His hideous face was lighted up by a sort of diabolical exultation
+which made it, if that were possible, more hideous still. I had
+apparently given him a wrinkle which pleased him most consummately.
+
+'Perhaps I will do that in the end,--in the end!' He opened his eyes to
+their widest limits, then shut them tight,--as if to gloat on the
+picture which his fancy painted. Then reopened them. 'In the meantime I
+will have vengeance in my own fashion. He knows already that the
+avenger is upon him,--he has good reason to know it. And through the
+days and the nights the knowledge shall be with him still, and it shall
+be to him as the bitterness of death,--aye, of many deaths. For he will
+know that escape there is none, and that for him there shall be no more
+sun in the sky, and that the terror shall be with him by night and by
+day, at his rising up and at his lying down, wherever his eyes shall
+turn it shall be there,--yet, behold, the sap and the juice of my
+vengeance is in this, in that though he shall be very sure that the
+days that are, are as the days of his death, yet shall he know that THE
+DEATH, THE GREAT DEATH, is coming--coming--and shall be on him--when I
+will!'
+
+The fellow spoke like an inspired maniac. If he meant half what he
+said,--and if he did not then his looks and his tones belied him!--then
+a promising future bade fair to be in store for Mr Lessingham,--and,
+also, circumstances being as they were, for Marjorie. It was this
+latter reflection which gave me pause. Either this imprecatory fanatic
+would have to be disposed of, by Lessingham himself, or by someone
+acting on his behalf, and, so far as their power of doing mischief
+went, his big words proved empty windbags, or Marjorie would have to be
+warned that there was at least one passage in her suitor's life, into
+which, ere it was too late, it was advisable that inquiry should be
+made. To allow Marjorie to irrevocably link her fate with the
+Apostle's, without being first of all made aware that he was, to all
+intents and purposes, a haunted man--that was not to be thought of.
+
+'You employ large phrases.'
+
+My words cooled the other's heated blood. Once more his eyes were cast
+down, his hands crossed upon his breast
+
+'I crave my lord's pardon. My wound is ever new.'
+
+'By the way, what was the secret history, this morning, of that little
+incident of the cockroach?'
+
+He glanced up quickly.
+
+'Cockroach?--I know not what you say.'
+
+'Well,--was it beetle, then?'
+
+'Beetle!'
+
+He seemed, all at once, to have lost his voice,--the word was gasped.
+
+'After you went we found, upon a sheet of paper, a capitally executed
+drawing of a beetle, which, I fancy, you must have left behind
+you,--Scaraboeus sacer, wasn't it?'
+
+'I know not what you talk of.'
+
+'Its discovery seemed to have quite a singular effect on Mr Lessingham.
+Now, why was that?'
+
+'I know nothing.'
+
+'Oh yes you do,--and, before you go, I mean to know something too.'
+
+The man was trembling, looking this way and that, showing signs of
+marked discomfiture. That there was something about that ancient
+scarab, which figures so largely in the still unravelled tangles of the
+Egyptian mythologies, and the effect which the mere sight of its
+cartouch--for the drawing had resembled something of the kind--had had
+on such a seasoned vessel as Paul Lessingham, which might be well worth
+my finding out, I felt convinced,--the man's demeanour, on my recurring
+to the matter, told its own plain tale. I made up my mind, if possible,
+to probe the business to the bottom, then and there.
+
+'Listen to me, my friend. I am a plain man, and I use plain
+speech,--it's a kind of hobby I have. You will give me the information
+I require, and that at once, or I will pit my magic against yours,--in
+which case I think it extremely probable that you will come off worst
+from the encounter.'
+
+I reached out for the lever, and the exhibition of electricity
+recommenced. Immediately his tremors were redoubled.
+
+'My lord, I know not of what you talk.'
+
+'None of your lies for me.--Tell me why, at the sight of the thing on
+that sheet of paper, Paul Lessingham went green and yellow.'
+
+'Ask him, my lord.'
+
+'Probably, later on, that is what I shall do. In the meantime, I am
+asking you. Answer,--or look out for squalls.'
+
+The electrical exhibition was going on. He was glaring at it as if he
+wished that it would stop. As if ashamed of his cowardice, plainly, on
+a sudden, he made a desperate effort to get the better of his
+fears,--and succeeded better than I had expected or desired. He drew
+himself up with what, in him, amounted to an air of dignity.
+
+'I am a child of Isis!'
+
+It struck me that he made this remark, not so much to impress me, as
+with a view of elevating his own low spirits,
+
+'Are you?--Then, in that case, I regret that I am unable to
+congratulate the lady on her offspring.'
+
+When I said that, a ring came into his voice which I had not heard
+before.
+
+'Silence!--You know not of what you speak!--I warn you, as I warned
+Paul Lessingham, be careful not to go too far. Be not like him,--heed
+my warning.'
+
+'What is it I am being warned against,--the beetle?'
+
+'Yes,--the beetle!'
+
+Were I upon oath, and this statement being made, in the presence of
+witnesses, say, in a solicitor's office, I standing in fear of pains
+and penalties, I think that, at this point, I should leave the paper
+blank. No man likes to own himself a fool, or that he ever was a
+fool,--and ever since I have been wondering whether, on that occasion,
+that 'child of Isis' did, or did not, play the fool with me. His
+performance was realistic enough at the time, heaven knows. But, as it
+gets farther and farther away, I ask myself, more and more confidently,
+as time effluxes, whether, after all, it was not clever
+juggling,--superhumanly clever juggling, if you will; that, and nothing
+more. If it was something more, then, with a vengeance! there is more
+in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophy. The mere
+possibility opens vistas which the sane mind fears to contemplate.
+
+Since, then, I am not on oath, and, should I fall short of verbal
+accuracy, I do not need to fear the engines of the law, what seemed to
+happen was this.
+
+He was standing within about ten feet of where I leaned against the
+edge of the table. The light was full on, so that it was difficult to
+suppose that I could make a mistake as to what took place in front of
+me. As he replied to my mocking allusion to the beetle by echoing my
+own words, he vanished,--or, rather, I saw him taking a different shape
+before my eyes. His loose draperies all fell off him, and, as they were
+in the very act of falling, there issued, or there seemed to issue out
+of them, a monstrous creature of the beetle type,--the man himself was
+gone. On the point of size I wish to make myself clear. My impression,
+when I saw it first, was that it was as large as the man had been, and
+that it was, in some way, standing up on end, the legs towards me. But,
+the moment it came in view, it began to dwindle, and that so rapidly
+that, in a couple of seconds at most, a little heap of drapery was
+lying on the floor, on which was a truly astonishing example of the
+coleoptera. It appeared to be a beetle. It was, perhaps, six or seven
+inches high, and about a foot in length. Its scales were of a vivid
+golden green. I could distinctly see where the wings were sheathed
+along the back, and, as they seemed to be slightly agitated, I looked,
+every moment, to see them opened, and the thing take wing.
+
+I was so astonished,--as who would not have been?--that for an
+appreciable space of time I was practically in a state of stupefaction.
+I could do nothing but stare. I was acquainted with the legendary
+transmigrations of Isis, and with the story of the beetle which issues
+from the woman's womb through all eternity, and with the other pretty
+tales, but this, of which I was an actual spectator, was something new,
+even in legends. If the man, with whom I had just been speaking, was
+gone, where had he gone to? If this glittering creature was there, in
+his stead, whence had it come?
+
+I do protest this much, that, after the first shock of surprise had
+passed, I retained my presence of mind. I felt as an investigator might
+feel, who has stumbled, haphazard, on some astounding, some
+epoch-making, discovery. I was conscious that I should have to make the
+best use of my mental faculties if I was to take full advantage of so
+astonishing an accident. I kept my glance riveted on the creature, with
+the idea of photographing it on my brain. I believe that if it were
+possible to take a retinal print--which it someday will be--you would
+have a perfect picture of what it was I saw, Beyond doubt it was a
+lamellicorn, one of the copridae. With the one exception of its
+monstrous size, there were the characteristics in plain view;--the
+convex body, the large head, the projecting clypeus. More, its smooth
+head and throat seemed to suggest that it was a female. Equally beyond
+a doubt, apart from its size, there were unusual features present too.
+The eyes were not only unwontedly conspicuous, they gleamed as if they
+were lighted by internal flames,--in some indescribable fashion they
+reminded me of my vanished visitor. The colouring was superb, and the
+creature appeared to have the chameleon-like faculty of lightening and
+darkening the shades at will. Its not least curious feature was its
+restlessness. It was in a state of continual agitation; and, as if it
+resented my inspection, the more I looked at it the more its agitation
+grew. As I have said, I expected every moment to see it take wing and
+circle through the air.
+
+All the while I was casting about in my mind as to what means I could
+use to effect its capture. I did think of killing it, and, on the
+whole, I rather wish that I had at any rate attempted slaughter,--there
+were dozens of things, lying ready to my hand, any one of which would
+have severely tried its constitution;--but, on the spur of the moment,
+the only method of taking it alive which occurred to me, was to pop
+over it a big tin canister which had contained soda-lime. This canister
+was on the floor to my left. I moved towards it, as nonchalantly as I
+could, keeping an eye on that shining wonder all the time. Directly I
+moved, its agitation perceptibly increased,--it was, so to speak, all
+one whirr of tremblement; it scintillated, as if its coloured scales
+had been so many prisms; it began to unsheath its wings, as if it had
+finally decided that it would make use of them. Picking up the tin,
+disembarrassing it of its lid, I sprang towards my intended victim. Its
+wings opened wide; obviously it was about to rise; but it was too late.
+Before it had cleared the ground, the tin was over it.
+
+It remained over it, however, for an instant only. I had stumbled, in
+my haste, and, in my effort to save myself from falling face foremost
+on to the floor, I was compelled to remove my hands from the tin.
+Before I was able to replace them, the tin was sent flying, and, while
+I was still partially recumbent, within eighteen inches of me, that
+beetle swelled and swelled, until it had assumed its former portentous
+dimensions, when, as it seemed, it was enveloped by a human shape, and
+in less time than no time, there stood in front of me, naked from top
+to toe, my truly versatile oriental friend. One startling fact nudity
+revealed,--that I had been egregiously mistaken on the question of sex.
+My visitor was not a man, but a woman, and, judging from the brief
+glimpse which I had of her body, by no means old or ill-shaped either.
+
+If that transformation was not a bewildering one, then two and two make
+five. The most level-headed scientist would temporarily have lost his
+mental equipoise on witnessing such a quick change as that within a
+span or two of his own nose I was not only witless, I was breathless
+too,--I could only gape. And, while I gaped, the woman, stooping down,
+picking up her draperies, began to huddle them on her anyhow,--and,
+also, to skeddadle towards the door which led into the yard. When I
+observed this last manoeuvre, to some extent I did rise to the
+requirements of the situation. Leaping up, I rushed to stay her flight.
+
+'Stop!' I shouted.
+
+But she was too quick for me. Ere I could reach her, she had opened the
+door, and was through it,--and, what was more, she had slammed it in my
+face. In my excitement, I did some fumbling with the handle. When, in
+my turn, I was in the yard, she was out of sight. I did fancy I saw a
+dim form disappearing over the wall at the further side, and I made for
+it as fast as I knew how. I clambered on to the wall, looking this way
+and that, but there was nothing and no one to be seen. I listened for
+the sound of retreating footsteps, but all was still. Apparently I had
+the entire neighbourhood to my own sweet self. My visitor had vanished.
+Time devoted to pursuit I felt would be time ill-spent.
+
+As I returned across the yard, Woodville, who still was taking his rest
+under the open canopy of heaven, sat up. Seemingly my approach had
+roused him out of slumber. At sight of me he rubbed his eyes, and
+yawned, and blinked.
+
+'I say,' he remarked, not at all unreasonably, 'where am I?'
+
+'You're on holy--or on haunted ground,--hang me if I quite know
+which!--but that's where you are, my boy.'
+
+'By Jove!--I am feeling queer!--I have got a headache, don't you know.'
+
+'I shouldn't be in the least surprised at anything you have, or
+haven't,--I'm beyond surprise. It's a drop of whisky you are
+wanting,--and what I'm wanting too,--only, for goodness sake, drop me
+none of your drops! Mine is a case for a bottle at the least.'
+
+I put my arm through his, and went with him into the laboratory. And,
+when we were in, I shut, and locked, and barred the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LADY RAGES
+
+
+Dora Grayling stood in the doorway.
+
+'I told your servant he need not trouble to show me in,--and I've come
+without my aunt. I hope I'm not intruding.'
+
+She was--confoundedly; and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her
+so. She came into the room, with twinkling eyes, looking radiantly
+happy,--that sort of look which makes even a plain young woman
+prepossessing.
+
+'Am I intruding?--I believe I am.'
+
+She held out her hand, while she was still a dozen feet away, and when
+I did not at once dash forward to make a clutch at it, she shook her
+head and made a little mouth at me.
+
+'What's the matter with you?--Aren't you well?'
+
+I was not well,--I was very far from well. I was as unwell as I could
+be without being positively ill, and any person of common discernment
+would have perceived it at a glance. At the same time I was not going
+to admit anything of the kind to her.
+
+'Thank you,--I am perfectly well.'
+
+'Then, if I were you, I would endeavour to become imperfectly well; a
+little imperfection in that direction might make you appear to more
+advantage.'
+
+'I am afraid that that I am not one of those persons who ever do appear
+to much advantage,--did I not tell you so last night?'
+
+'I believe you did say something of the kind,--it's very good of you to
+remember. Have you forgotten something else which you said to me last
+night?'
+
+'You can hardly expect me to keep fresh in my memory all the follies of
+which my tongue is guilty.'
+
+'Thank you.--That is quite enough.--Good-day.'
+
+She turned as if to go.
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'Mr Atherton?'
+
+'What's the matter?--What have I been saying now?'
+
+'Last night you invited me to come and see you this morning,--is that
+one of the follies of which your tongue was guilty?'
+
+The engagement had escaped my recollection--it is a fact--and my face
+betrayed me.
+
+'You had forgotten?' Her cheeks flamed; her eyes sparkled. 'You must
+pardon my stupidity for not having understood that the imitation was of
+that general kind which is never meant to be acted on.'
+
+She was half way to the door before I stopped her,--I had to take her
+by the shoulder to do it.
+
+'Miss Grayling!--You are hard on me.'
+
+'I suppose I am.--Is anything harder than to be intruded on by an
+undesired, and unexpected, guest?'
+
+'Now you are harder still.--If you knew what I have gone through since
+our conversation of last night, in your strength you would be merciful.'
+
+'Indeed?--What have you gone through?'
+
+I hesitated. What I actually had gone through I certainly did not
+propose to tell her. Other reasons apart I did not desire to seem
+madder than I admittedly am,--and I lacked sufficient plausibility to
+enable me to concoct, on the spur of the moment, a plain tale of the
+doings of my midnight visitor which would have suggested that the
+narrator was perfectly sane. So I fenced,--or tried to.
+
+'For one thing,--I have had no sleep.'
+
+I had not,--not one single wink. When I did get between the sheets,
+'all night I lay in agony,' I suffered from that worst form of
+nightmare,--the nightmare of the man who is wide awake. There was
+continually before my fevered eyes the strange figure of that Nameless
+Thing. I had often smiled at tales of haunted folk,--here was I one of
+them. My feelings were not rendered more agreeable by a strengthening
+conviction that if I had only retained the normal attitude of a
+scientific observer I should, in all probability, have solved the
+mystery of my oriental friend, and that his example of the genus of
+copridae might have been pinned,--by a very large pin!--on a piece--a
+monstrous piece!--of cork. It was galling to reflect that he and I had
+played together a game of bluff,--a game at which civilisation was once
+more proved to be a failure.
+
+She could not have seen all this in my face; but she saw
+something--because her own look softened.
+
+'You do look tired.' She seemed to be casting about in her own mind for
+a cause. 'You have been worrying.' She glanced round the big
+laboratory. 'Have you been spending the night in this--wizard's cave?'
+
+'Pretty well'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+The monosyllable, as she uttered it, was big with meaning. Uninvited,
+she seated herself in an arm-chair, a huge old thing, of shagreen
+leather, which would have held half a dozen of her. Demure in it she
+looked, like an agreeable reminiscence, alive, and a little up-to-date,
+of the women of long ago. Her dove grey eyes seemed to perceive so much
+more than they cared to show.
+
+'How is it that you have forgotten that you asked me to come?--didn't
+you mean it?'
+
+'Of course I meant it.'
+
+'Then how is it you've forgotten?'
+
+'I didn't forget.'
+
+'Don't tell fibs.--Something is the matter,--tell me what it is.--Is it
+that I am too early?'
+
+'Nothing of the sort,--you couldn't be too early.'
+
+'Thank you.--When you pay a compliment, even so neat an one as that,
+sometimes, you should look as if you meant it.--It is early,--I know
+it's early, but afterwards I want you to come to lunch. I told aunt
+that I would bring you back with me.'
+
+'You are much better to me than I deserve.'
+
+'Perhaps.' A tone came into her voice which was almost pathetic. 'I
+think that to some men women are almost better than they deserve. I
+don't know why. I suppose it pleases them. It is odd.' There was a
+different intonation,--a dryness. 'Have you forgotten what I came for?'
+
+'Not a bit of it,--I am not quite the brute I seem. You came to see an
+illustration of that pleasant little fancy of mine for slaughtering my
+fellows. The fact is, I'm hardly in a mood for that just now,--I've
+been illustrating it too much already.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Well, for one thing it's been murdering Lessingham's cat.'
+
+'Mr Lessingham's cat?'
+
+'Then it almost murdered Percy Woodville.'
+
+'Mr Atherton!--I wish you wouldn't talk like that.'
+
+'It's a fact. It was a question of a little matter in a wrong place,
+and, if it hadn't been for something very like a miracle, he'd be dead.'
+
+'I wish you wouldn't have anything to do with such things--I hate them.'
+
+I stared.
+
+'Hate them?--I thought you'd come to see an illustration.'
+
+'And pray what was your notion of an illustration?'
+
+'Well, another cat would have had to be killed, at least.'
+
+'And do you suppose that I would have sat still while a cat was being
+killed for my--edification?'
+
+'It needn't necessarily have been a cat, but something would have had
+to be killed,--how are you going to illustrate the death-dealing
+propensities of a weapon of that sort without it?'
+
+'Is it possible that you imagine that I came here to see something
+killed?'
+
+'Then for what did you come?'
+
+I do not know what there was about the question which was startling,
+but as soon as it was out, she went a fiery red.
+
+'Because I was a fool.'
+
+I was bewildered. Either she had got out of the wrong side of bed, or I
+had,--or we both had. Here she was, assailing me, hammer and tongs, so
+far as I could see, for absolutely nothing.
+
+'You are pleased to be satirical at my expense.'
+
+'I should not dare. Your detection of me would be so painfully rapid.'
+
+I was in no mood for jangling. I turned a little away from her.
+Immediately she was at my elbow.
+
+'Mr Atherton?'
+
+'Miss Grayling.'
+
+'Are you cross with me?'
+
+'Why should I be? If it pleases you to laugh at my stupidity you are
+completely justified.'
+
+'But you are not stupid.'
+
+'No?--Nor you satirical.'
+
+'You are not stupid,--you know you are not stupid; it was only
+stupidity on my part to pretend that you were.'
+
+'It is very good of you to say so.--But I fear that I am an indifferent
+host. Although you would not care for an illustration, there may be
+other things which you might find amusing.'
+
+'Why do you keep on snubbing me?'
+
+'I keep on snubbing you!'
+
+'You are always snubbing me,--you know you are. Some times I feel as if
+I hated you.'
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'I do! I do! I do!'
+
+'After all, it is only natural.'
+
+'That is how you talk,--as if I were a child, and you were,--oh I don't
+know what.--Well, Mr Atherton, I am sorry to be obliged to leave you. I
+have enjoyed my visit very much. I only hope I have not seemed too
+intrusive.'
+
+She flounced--'flounce' was the only appropriate word!--out of the room
+before I could stop her. I caught her in the passage.
+
+'Miss Grayling, I entreat you--'
+
+'Pray do not entreat me, Mr Atherton.' Standing still she turned to me.
+'I would rather show myself to the door as I showed myself in, but, if
+that is impossible, might I ask you not to speak to me between this and
+the street?'
+
+The hint was broad enough, even for me. I escorted her through the hall
+without a word,--in perfect silence she shook the dust of my abode from
+off her feet.
+
+I had made a pretty mess of things. I felt it as I stood on the top of
+the steps and watched her going,--she was walking off at four miles an
+hour; I had not even ventured to ask to be allowed to call a hansom.
+
+It was beginning to occur to me that this was a case in which another
+blow upon the river might be, to say the least of it, advisable--and I
+was just returning into the house with the intention of putting myself
+into my flannels, when a cab drew up, and old Lindon got out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A HEAVY FATHER
+
+
+Mr Lindon was excited,--there is no mistaking it when he is, because
+with him excitement means perspiration, and as soon as he was out of
+the cab he took off his hat and began to wipe the lining.
+
+'Atherton, I want to speak to you--most particularly--somewhere in
+private.'
+
+I took him into my laboratory. It is my rule to take no one there; it
+is a workshop, not a playroom,--the place is private; but, recently, my
+rules had become dead letters. Directly he was inside, Lindon began
+puffing and stewing, wiping his forehead, throwing out his chest, as if
+he were oppressed by a sense of his own importance. Then he started off
+talking at the top of his voice,--and it is not a low one either.
+
+'Atherton, I--I've always looked on you as a--a kind of a son.'
+
+'That's very kind of you.'
+
+'I've always regarded you as a--a level-headed fellow; a man from whom
+sound advice can be obtained when sound advice--is--is most to be
+desired.'
+
+'That also is very kind of you.'
+
+'And therefore I make no apology for coming to you at--at what may be
+regarded as a--a strictly domestic crisis; at a moment in the history
+of the Lindons when delicacy and common sense are--are essentially
+required.'
+
+This time I contented myself with nodding. Already I perceived what was
+coming; somehow, when I am with a man I feel so much more clear-headed
+than I do when I am with a woman,--realise so much better the nature of
+the ground on which I am standing.
+
+'What do you know of this man Lessingham?'
+
+I knew it was coming.
+
+'What all the world knows.'
+
+'And what does all the world know of him?--I ask you that! A flashy,
+plausible, shallow-pated, carpet-bagger,--that is what all the world
+knows of him. The man's a political adventurer,--he snatches a
+precarious, and criminal, notoriety, by trading on the follies of his
+fellow-countrymen. He is devoid of decency, destitute of principle, and
+impervious to all the feelings of a gentleman. What do you know of him
+besides this?'
+
+'I am not prepared to admit that I do know that.'
+
+'Oh yes you do!--don't talk nonsense!--you choose to screen the fellow!
+I say what I mean,--I always have said, and I always shall say.--What
+do you know of him outside politics,--of his family--of his private
+life?'
+
+'Well,--not very much.'
+
+'Of course you don't!--nor does anybody else! The man's a mushroom,--or
+a toadstool, rather!--sprung up in the course of a single night,
+apparently out of some dirty ditch.--Why, sir, not only is he without
+ordinary intelligence, he is even without a Brummagen substitute for
+manners.'
+
+He had worked himself into a state of heat in which his countenance
+presented a not too agreeable assortment of scarlets and purples. He
+flung himself into a chair, threw his coat wide open, and his arms too,
+and started off again.
+
+'The family of the Lindons is, at this moment, represented by a--a
+young woman,--by my daughter, sir. She represents me, and it's her duty
+to represent me adequately--adequately, sir! And what's more, between
+ourselves, sir, it's her duty to marry. My property's my own, and I
+wouldn't have it pass to either of my confounded brothers on any
+account. They're next door to fools, and--and they don't represent me
+in any possible sense of the word. My daughter, sir, can marry whom she
+pleases,--whom she pleases! There's no one in England, peer or
+commoner, who would not esteem it an honour to have her for his
+wife--I've told her so,--yes, sir, I've told her, though you--you'd
+think that she, of all people in the world, wouldn't require telling.
+Yet what do you think she does? She--she actually carries on what I--I
+can't help calling a--a compromising acquaintance with this man
+Lessingham!'
+
+'No!'
+
+'But I say yes!--and I wish to heaven I didn't. I--I've warned her
+against the scoundrel more than once; I--I've told her to cut him dead.
+And yet, as--as you saw yourself, last night, in--in the face of the
+assembled House of Commons, after that twaddling clap-trap speech of
+his, in which there was not one sound sentiment, nor an idea
+which--which would hold water, she positively went away with him,
+in--in the most ostentatious and--and disgraceful fashion, on--on his
+arm, and--and actually snubbed her father.--It is monstrous that a
+parent--a father!--should be subjected to such treatment by his child.'
+
+The poor old boy polished his brow with his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+'When I got home I--I told her what I thought of her, I promise you
+that,--and I told her what I thought of him,--I didn't mince my words
+with her. There are occasions when plain speaking is demanded,--and
+that was one. I positively forbade her to speak to the fellow again, or
+to recognise him if she met him in the street. I pointed out to her,
+with perfect candour, that the fellow was an infernal scoundrel,--that
+and nothing else!--and that he would bring disgrace on whoever came
+into contact with him, even with the end of a barge pole.--And what do
+you think she said?'
+
+'She promised to obey you, I make no doubt.'
+
+'Did she, sir!--By gad, did she!--That shows how much you know
+her!--She said, and, by gad, by her manner, and--and the way she went
+on, you'd--you'd have thought that she was the parent and I was the
+child--she said that I--I grieved her, that she was disappointed in me,
+that times have changed,--yes, sir, she said that times have
+changed!--that, nowadays, parents weren't Russian autocrats--no, sir,
+not Russian autocrats!--that--that she was sorry she couldn't oblige
+me,--yes, sir, that was how she put it,--she was sorry she couldn't
+oblige me, but it was altogether out of the question to suppose that
+she could put a period to a friendship which she valued, simply on
+account of-of my unreasonable prejudices,--and--and--and, in short,
+she--she told me to go the devil, sir!'
+
+'And did you--'
+
+I was on the point of asking him if he went,--but I checked myself in
+time.
+
+'Let us look at the matter as men of the world. What do you know
+against Lessingham, apart from his politics?'
+
+'That's just it,--I know nothing.'
+
+'In a sense, isn't that in his favour?'
+
+'I don't see how you make that out. I--I don't mind telling you that
+I--I've had inquiries made. He's not been in the House six years--this
+is his second Parliament--he's jumped up like a Jack-in-the-box. His
+first constituency was Harwich--they've got him still, and much good
+may he do 'em!--but how he came to stand for the place,--or who, or
+what, or where he was before he stood for the place, no one seems to
+have the faintest notion.'
+
+'Hasn't he been a great traveller?'
+
+'I never heard of it.'
+
+'Not in the East?'
+
+'Has he told you so?'
+
+'No,--I was only wondering. Well, it seems to me that to find out that
+nothing is known against him is something in his favour!'
+
+'My dear Sydney, don't talk nonsense. What it proves is simply,--that
+he's a nothing and a nobody. Had he been anything or anyone, something
+would have been known about him, either for or against. I don't want my
+daughter to marry a man who--who--who's shot up through a trap, simply
+because nothing is known against him. Ha-hang me, if I wouldn't ten
+times sooner she should marry you.'
+
+When he said that, my heart leaped in my bosom. I had to turn away.
+
+'I am afraid that is out of the question.'
+
+He stopped in his tramping, and looked at me askance.
+
+'Why?'
+
+I felt that, if I was not careful, I should be done for,--and,
+probably, in his present mood, Marjorie too.
+
+'My dear Lindon, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for your
+suggestion, but I can only repeat that--unfortunately, anything of the
+kind is out of the question.'
+
+'I don't see why.'
+
+'Perhaps not.'
+
+'You--you're a pretty lot, upon my word!'
+
+'I'm afraid we are.'
+
+'I--I want you to tell her that Lessingham is a damned scoundrel.'
+
+'I see.--But I would suggest that if I am to use the influence with
+which you credit me to the best advantage, or to preserve a shred of
+it, I had hardly better state the fact quite so bluntly as that.'
+
+'I don't care how you state it,--state it as you like. Only--only I
+want you to soak her mind with a loathing of the fellow; I--I--I want
+you to paint him in his true colours; in--in--in fact, I--I want you to
+choke him off.'
+
+While he still struggled with his words, and with the perspiration on
+his brow, Edwards entered. I turned to him.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Miss Lindon, sir, wishes to see you particularly, and at once.'
+
+At that moment I found the announcement a trifle perplexing,--it
+delighted Lindon. He began to stutter and to stammer.
+
+'T-the very thing!--c-couldn't have been better!--show her in here!
+H--hide me somewhere,--I don't care where,--behind that screen! Y-you
+use your influence with her;--g-give her a good talking to;--t-tell her
+what I've told you; and at--at the critical moment I'll come in, and
+then--then if we can't manage her between us, it'll be a wonder.'
+
+The proposition staggered me.
+
+'But, my dear Mr Lindon, I fear that I cannot--'
+
+He cut me short.
+
+'Here she comes!'
+
+Ere I could stop him he was behind the screen,--I had not seen him move
+with such agility before!--and before I could expostulate Marjorie was
+in the room. Something which was in her bearing, in her face, in her
+eyes, quickened the beating of my pulses,--she looked as if something
+had come into her life, and taken the joy clean out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE TERROR IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+'Sydney!' she cried, 'I'm so glad that I can see you!'
+
+She might be,--but, at that moment, I could scarcely assert that I was
+a sharer of her joy.
+
+'I told you that if trouble overtook me I should come to you, and--I'm
+in trouble now. Such strange trouble.'
+
+So was I,--and in perplexity as well. An idea occurred to me,--I would
+outwit her eavesdropping father.
+
+'Come with me into the house,--tell me all about it there.'
+
+She refused to budge.
+
+'No,--I will tell you all about it here.' She looked about her,--as it
+struck me queerly. 'This is just the sort of place in which to unfold a
+tale like mine. It looks uncanny.'
+
+'But--'
+
+'"But me no buts!" Sydney, don't torture me,--let me stop here where I
+am,--don't you see I'm haunted?'
+
+She had seated herself. Now she stood up, holding her hands out in
+front of her in a state of extraordinary agitation, her manner as wild
+as her words.
+
+'Why are you staring at me like that? Do you think I'm mad?--I wonder
+if I'm going mad.--Sydney, do people suddenly go mad? You're a bit of
+everything, you're a bit of a doctor too, feel my pulse,--there it
+is!--tell me if I'm ill!'
+
+I felt her pulse,--it did not need its swift beating to inform me that
+fever of some sort was in her veins. I gave her something in a glass.
+She held it up to the level of her eyes.
+
+'What's this?'
+
+'It's a decoction of my own. You might not think it, but my brain
+sometimes gets into a whirl. I use it as a sedative. It will do you
+good.'
+
+She drained the glass.
+
+'It's done me good already,--I believe it has; that's being something
+like a doctor.--Well, Sydney, the storm has almost burst. Last night
+papa forbade me to speak to Paul Lessingham--by way of a prelude.'
+
+'Exactly. Mr Lindon---'
+
+'Yes, Mr Lindon,--that's papa. I fancy we almost quarrelled. I know
+papa said some surprising things,--but it's a way he has,--he's apt to
+say surprising things. He's the best father in the world, but--it's not
+in his nature to like a really clever person; your good high dried old
+Tory never can;--I've always thought that that's why he's so fond of
+you.'
+
+'Thank you, I presume that is the reason, though it had not occurred to
+me before.'
+
+Since her entry, I had, to the best of my ability, been turning the
+position over in my mind. I came to the conclusion that, all things
+considered, her father had probably as much right to be a sharer of his
+daughter's confidence as I had, even from the vantage of the
+screen,--and that for him to hear a few home truths proceeding from her
+lips might serve to clear the air. From such a clearance the lady would
+not be likely to come off worst. I had not the faintest inkling of what
+was the actual purport of her visit.
+
+She started off, as it seemed to me, at a tangent.
+
+'Did I tell you last night about what took place yesterday
+morning,--about the adventure of my finding the man?'
+
+'Not a word.'
+
+'I believe I meant to,--I'm half disposed to think he's brought me
+trouble. Isn't there some superstition about evil befalling whoever
+shelters a homeless stranger?'
+
+'We'll hope not, for humanity's sake.'
+
+'I fancy there is,--I feel sure there is.--Anyhow, listen to my story.
+Yesterday morning, before breakfast,--to be accurate, between eight and
+nine, I looked out of the window, and I saw a crowd in the street. I
+sent Peter out to see what was the matter. He came back and said there
+was a man in a fit. I went out to look at the man in the fit. I found,
+lying on the ground, in the centre of the crowd, a man who, but for the
+tattered remnants of what had apparently once been a cloak, would have
+been stark naked. He was covered with dust, and dirt, and blood,--a
+dreadful sight. As you know, I have had my smattering of instruction in
+First Aid to the Injured, and that kind of thing, so, as no one else
+seemed to have any sense, and the man seemed as good as dead, I thought
+I would try my hand. Directly I knelt down beside him, what do you
+think he said?'
+
+'Thank you.'
+
+'Nonsense.--He said, in such a queer, hollow, croaking voice, "Paul
+Lessingham." I was dreadfully startled. To hear a perfect stranger, a
+man in his condition, utter that name in such a fashion--to me, of all
+people in the world!--took me aback. The policeman who was holding his
+head remarked, "That's the first time he's opened his mouth. I thought
+he was dead." He opened his mouth a second time. A convulsive movement
+went all over him, and he exclaimed, with the strangest earnestness,
+and so loudly that you might have heard him at the other end of the
+street, "Be warned, Paul Lessingham, be warned!" It was very silly of
+me, perhaps, but I cannot tell you how his words, and his manner--the
+two together--affected me.--Well, the long and the short of it was,
+that I had him taken into the house, and washed, and put to bed,--and I
+had the doctor sent for. The doctor could make nothing of it at all. He
+reported that the man seemed to be suffering from some sort of
+cataleptic seizure,--I could see that he thought it likely to turn out
+almost as interesting a case as I did.'
+
+'Did you acquaint your father with the addition to his household?'
+
+She looked at me, quizzically.
+
+'You see, when one has such a father as mine one cannot tell him
+everything, at once. There are occasions on which one requires time.'
+
+I felt that this would be wholesome hearing for old Lindon.
+
+'Last night, after papa and I had exchanged our little
+courtesies,--which, it is to be hoped, were to papa's satisfaction,
+since they were not to be mine--I went to see the patient. I was told
+that he had neither eaten nor drunk, moved nor spoken. But, so soon as
+I approached his bed, he showed signs of agitation. He half raised
+himself upon his pillow, and he called out, as if he had been
+addressing some large assembly--I can't describe to you the dreadful
+something which was in his voice, and on his face,--"Paul
+Lessingham!--Beware!--The Beetle!"'
+
+When she said that, I was startled.
+
+'Are you sure those were the words he used?'
+
+'Quite sure. Do you think I could mistake them,--especially after what
+has happened since? I hear them singing in my ears,--they haunt me all
+the time.'
+
+She put her hands up to her face, as if to veil something from her
+eyes. I was becoming more and more convinced that there was something
+about the Apostle's connection with his Oriental friend which needed
+probing to the bottom.
+
+'What sort of a man is he to look at, this patient of yours?'
+
+I had my doubts as to the gentleman's identity,--which her words
+dissolved; only, however, to increase my mystification in another
+direction.
+
+'He seems to be between thirty and forty. He has light hair, and
+straggling sandy whiskers. He is so thin as to be nothing but skin and
+bone,--the doctor says it's a case of starvation.'
+
+'You say he has light hair, and sandy whiskers. Are you sure the
+whiskers are real?'
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+'Of course they're real. Why shouldn't they be real?'
+
+'Does he strike you as being a--foreigner?'
+
+'Certainly not. He looks like an Englishman, and he speaks like one,
+and not, I should say, of the lowest class. It is true that there is a
+very curious, a weird, quality in his voice, what I have heard of it,
+but it is not un-English. If it is catalepsy he is suffering from, then
+it is a kind of catalepsy I never heard of. Have you ever seen a
+clairvoyant?' I nodded. 'He seems to me to be in a state of
+clairvoyance. Of course the doctor laughed when I told him so, but we
+know what doctors are, and I still believe that he is in some condition
+of the kind. When he said that last night he struck me as being under
+what those sort of people call 'influence,' and that whoever had him
+under influence was forcing him to speak against his will, for the
+words came from his lips as if they had been wrung from him in agony.'
+
+Knowing what I did know, that struck me as being rather a remarkable
+conclusion for her to have reached, by the exercise of her own unaided
+powers of intuition,--but I did not choose to let her know I thought so.
+
+'My dear Marjorie!--you who pride yourself on having your imagination
+so strictly under control!--on suffering it to take no errant flights!'
+
+'Is not the fact that I do so pride myself proof that I am not likely
+to make assertions wildly,--proof, at any rate, to you? Listen to me.
+When I left that unfortunate creature's room,--I had had a nurse sent
+for, I left him in her charge--and reached my own bedroom, I was
+possessed by a profound conviction that some appalling, intangible, but
+very real danger, was at that moment threatening Paul.'
+
+'Remember,--you had had an exciting evening; and a discussion with your
+father. Your patient's words came as a climax.'
+
+'That is what I told myself,--or, rather, that was what I tried to tell
+myself; because, in some extraordinary fashion, I had lost the command
+of my powers of reflection.'
+
+'Precisely.'
+
+'It was not precisely,--or, at least, it was not precisely in the sense
+you mean. You may laugh at me, Sydney, but I had an altogether
+indescribable feeling, a feeling which amounted to knowledge, that I
+was in the presence of the supernatural.'
+
+'Nonsense!'
+
+'It was not nonsense,--I wish it had been nonsense. As I have said, I
+was conscious, completely conscious, that some frightful peril was
+assailing Paul. I did not know what it was, but I did know that it was
+something altogether awful, of which merely to think was to shudder. I
+wanted to go to his assistance, I tried to, more than once; but I
+couldn't, and I knew that I couldn't,--I knew that I couldn't move as
+much as a finger to help him.--Stop,--let me finish!--I told myself
+that it was absurd, but it wouldn't do; absurd or not, there was the
+terror with me in the room. I knelt down, and I prayed, but the words
+wouldn't come. I tried to ask God to remove this burden from my brain,
+but my longings wouldn't shape themselves into words, and my tongue was
+palsied. I don't know how long I struggled, but, at last, I came to
+understand that, for some cause, God had chosen to leave me to fight
+the fight alone. So I got up, and undressed, and went to bed,--and that
+was the worst of all. I had sent my maid away in the first rush of my
+terror, afraid, and, I think, ashamed, to let her see my fear. Now I
+would have given anything to summon her back again, but I couldn't do
+it, I couldn't even ring the bell. So, as I say, I got into bed.'
+
+She paused, as if to collect her thoughts. To listen to her words, and
+to think of the suffering which they meant to her, was almost more than
+I could endure. I would have thrown away the world to have been able to
+take her in my arms, and soothe her fears. I knew her to be, in
+general, the least hysterical of young women; little wont to become the
+prey of mere delusions; and, incredible though it sounded, I had an
+innate conviction that, even in its wildest periods, her story had some
+sort of basis in solid fact. What that basis amounted to, it would be
+my business, at any and every cost, quickly to determine.
+
+'You know how you have always laughed at me because of my objection
+to--cockroaches, and how, in spring, the neighbourhood of May-bugs has
+always made me uneasy. As soon as I got into bed I felt that something
+of the kind was in the room.'
+
+'Something of what kind?'
+
+'Some kind of--beetle. I could hear the whirring of its wings; I could
+hear its droning in the air; I knew that it was hovering above my head;
+that it was coming lower and lower, nearer and nearer. I hid myself; I
+covered myself all over with the clothes,--then I felt it bumping
+against the coverlet. And, Sydney!' She drew closer. Her blanched
+cheeks and frightened eyes made my heart bleed. Her voice became but an
+echo of itself. 'It followed me.'
+
+'Marjorie!'
+
+'It got into the bed.'
+
+'You imagined it.'
+
+'I didn't imagine it. I heard it crawl along the sheets, till it found
+a way between them, and then it crawled towards me. And I felt
+it--against my face.--And it's there now.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+She raised the forefinger of her left hand.
+
+'There!--Can't you hear it droning?'
+
+She listened, intently. I listened too. Oddly enough, at that instant
+the droning of an insect did become audible.
+
+'It's only a bee, child, which has found its way through the open
+window.'
+
+'I wish it were only a bee, I wish it were.--Sydney, don't you feel as
+if you were in the presence of evil? Don't you want to get away from
+it, back into the presence of God?'
+
+'Marjorie!'
+
+'Pray, Sydney, pray!--I can't!--I don't know why, but I can't!
+
+She flung her arms about my neck, and pressed herself against me in
+paroxysmal agitation. The violence of her emotion bade fair to unman me
+too. It was so unlike Marjorie,--and I would have given my life to save
+her from a toothache. She kept repeating her own words,--as if she
+could not help it.
+
+'Pray, Sydney, pray!'
+
+At last I did as she wished me. At least, there is no harm in
+praying,--I never heard of its bringing hurt to anyone. I repeated
+aloud the Lord's Prayer,---the first time for I know not how long. As
+the divine sentences came from my lips, hesitatingly enough, I make no
+doubt, her tremors ceased. She became calmer. Until, as I reached the
+last great petition, 'Deliver us from evil,' she loosed her arms from
+about my neck, and dropped upon her knees, close to my feet. And she
+joined me in the closing words, as a sort of chorus.
+
+'For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever and ever.
+Amen.'
+
+When the prayer was ended, we both of us were still. She with her head
+bowed, and her hands clasped; and I with something tugging at my
+heart-strings which I had not felt there for many and many a year,
+almost as if it had been my mother's hand;--I daresay that sometimes
+she does stretch out her hand, from her place among the angels, to
+touch my heart-strings, and I know nothing of it all the while.
+
+As the silence still continued, I chanced to glance up, and there was
+old Lindon peeping at us from his hiding-place behind the screen. The
+look of amazed perplexity which was on his big red face struck me with
+such a keen sense of the incongruous that it was all I could do to keep
+from laughter. Apparently the sight of us did nothing to lighten the fog
+which was in his brain, for he stammered out, in what was possibly
+intended for a whisper,
+
+'Is--is she m-mad?'
+
+The whisper,--if it was meant for a whisper--was more than sufficiently
+audible to catch his daughter's ears. She started--raised her
+head--sprang to her feet--turned--and saw her father.
+
+'Papa!'
+
+Immediately her sire was seized with an access of stuttering.
+
+'W-w-what the d-devil's the--the m-m-meaning of this?'
+
+Her utterance was clear enough,--I fancy her parent found it almost
+painfully clear.
+
+'Rather it is for me to ask, what is the meaning of this! Is it
+possible, that, all the time, you have actually been concealed behind
+that--screen?'
+
+Unless I am mistaken the old gentleman cowered before the directness of
+his daughter's gaze,--and endeavoured to conceal the fact by an
+explosion of passion.
+
+Do-don't you s-speak to me li-like that, you un-undutiful girl! I--I'm
+your father!'
+
+'You certainly are my father; though I was unaware until now that my
+father was capable of playing the part of eavesdropper.'
+
+Rage rendered him speechless,--or, at any rate, he chose to let us
+believe that that was the determining cause of his continuing silence.
+So Marjorie turned to me,--and, on the whole, I had rather she had not.
+Her manner was very different from what it had been just now,--it was
+more than civil, it was freezing.
+
+'Am I to understand, Mr Atherton, that this has been done with your
+cognisance? That while you suffered me to pour out my heart to you
+unchecked, you were aware, all the time, that there was a listener
+behind the screen?'
+
+I became keenly aware, on a sudden, that I had borne my share in
+playing her a very shabby trick,--I should have liked to throw old
+Lindon through the window.
+
+'The thing was not of my contriving. Had I had the opportunity I would
+have compelled Mr Lindon to face you when you came in. But your
+distress caused me to lose my balance. And you will do me the justice
+to remember that I endeavoured to induce you to come with me into
+another room.'
+
+'But I do not seem to remember your hinting at there being any
+particular reason why I should have gone.'
+
+'You never gave me a chance.'
+
+'Sydney!--I had not thought you would have played me such a trick!'
+
+When she said that--in such a tone!--the woman whom I loved!--I could
+have hammered my head against the wall. The hound I was to have treated
+her so scurvily!
+
+Perceiving I was crushed she turned again to face her father, cool,
+calm, stately;--she was, on a sudden, once more, the Marjorie with whom
+I was familiar. The demeanour of parent and child was in striking
+contrast. If appearances went for aught, the odds were heavy that in
+any encounter which might be coming the senior would suffer.
+
+'I hope, papa, that you are going to tell me that there has been some
+curious mistake, and that nothing was farther from your intention than
+to listen at a keyhole. What would you have thought--and said--if I had
+attempted to play the spy on you? And I have always understood that men
+were so particular on points of honour.'
+
+Old Lindon was still hardly fit to do much else than
+splutter,--certainly not qualified to chop phrases with this
+sharp-tongued maiden.
+
+'D-don't talk to me li-like that, girl!--I--I believe you're s-stark
+mad!' He turned to me. 'W-what was that tomfoolery she was talking to
+you about?'
+
+'To what do you allude?'
+
+'About a rub-rubbishing b-beetle, and g-goodness alone knows
+what,--d-diseased and m-morbid imagination,--r-reared on the literature
+of the gutter!--I never thought that a child of mine could have s-sunk
+to such a depth!--Now, Atherton, I ask you to t-tell me frankly,--what
+do you think of a child who behaves as she has done? Who t-takes a
+nameless vagabond into the house and con-conceals his presence from her
+father? And m-mark the sequel! even the vagabond warns her against the
+r-rascal Lessingham!--Now, Atherton, tell me what you think of a girl
+who behaves like that?' I shrugged my shoulders. 'I--I know very well
+what you d-do think of her,--don't be afraid to say it out because
+she's present.'
+
+'No; Sydney, don't be afraid.'
+
+I saw that her eyes were dancing,--in a manner of speaking, her looks
+brightened under the sunshine of her father's displeasure.
+
+'Let's hear what you think of her as a--as a m-man of the world!'
+
+'Pray, Sydney, do!'
+
+'What you feel for her in your--your heart of hearts!'
+
+'Yes, Sydney, what do you feel for me in your heart of hearts?'
+
+The baggage beamed with heartless sweetness,--she was making a mock of
+me. Her father turned as if he would have rent her.
+
+'D-don't you speak until you're spoken to! Atherton, I--I hope I'm not
+deceived in you; I--I hope you're the man I--I took you for; that
+you're willing and--and ready to play the part of a-a-an honest friend
+to this mis-misguided simpleton. T-this is not the time for mincing
+words, it--it's the time for candid speech. Tell this--this weak minded
+young woman, right out, whether this man Lessingham is, or is not, a
+damned scoundrel.'
+
+'Papa!--Do you really think that Sydney's opinion, or your opinion, is
+likely to alter facts?'
+
+'Do you hear, Atherton, tell this wretched girl the truth!'
+
+'My dear Mr Lindon, I have already told you that I know nothing either
+for or against Mr Lessingham except what is known to all the world.'
+
+'Exactly,--and all the world knows him to be a miserable adventurer who
+is scheming to entrap my daughter.'
+
+'I am bound to say, since you press me, that your language appears to
+me to be unnecessarily strong.'
+
+'Atherton, I--I'm ashamed of you!'
+
+'You see, Sydney, even papa is ashamed of you; now you are outside the
+pale.--My dear papa, if you will allow me to speak, I will tell you
+what I know to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth.--That Mr Lessingham is a man with great gifts goes without
+saying,--permit me, papa! He is a man of genius. He is a man of honour.
+He is a man of the loftiest ambitions, of the highest aims. He has
+dedicated his whole life to the improvement of the conditions amidst
+which the less fortunate of his fellow countrymen are at present
+compelled to exist. That seems to me to be an object well worth having.
+He has asked me to share his life-work, and I have told him that I
+will; when, and where, and how, he wants me to. And I will. I do not
+suppose his life has been free from peccadilloes. I have no delusion on
+the point. What man's life has? Who among men can claim to be without
+sin? Even the members of our highest families sometimes hide behind
+screens. But I know that he is, at least, as good a man as I ever met,
+I am persuaded that I shall never meet a better; and I thank God that I
+have found favour in his eyes.--Good-bye, Sydney.--I suppose I shall
+see you again, papa.'
+
+With the merest inclination of her head to both of us she straightway
+left the room. Lindon would have stopped her.
+
+'S-stay, y-y-y-you--' he stuttered.
+
+But I caught him by the arm.
+
+'If you will be advised by me, you will let her go. No good purpose
+will be served by a multiplication of words.'
+
+'Atherton, I--I'm disappointed in you. You--you haven't behaved as I
+expected. I--I haven't received from you the assistance which I looked
+for.'
+
+'My dear Lindon, it seems to me that your method of diverting the young
+lady from the path which she has set herself to tread is calculated to
+send her furiously along it.'
+
+'C-confound the women! c-confound the women! I don't mind telling you,
+in c-confidence, that at--at times, her mother was the devil, and I'll
+be--I'll be hanged if her daughter isn't worse.--What was the
+tomfoolery she was talking to you about? Is she mad?'
+
+'No,--I don't think she's mad.'
+
+'I never heard such stuff, it made my blood run cold to hear her.
+What's the matter with the girl?'
+
+'Well,--you must excuse my saying that I don't fancy you quite
+understand women.'
+
+'I--I don't,--and I--I--I don't want to either.'
+
+I hesitated; then resolved on a taradiddle,--in Marjorie's interest.
+
+'Marjorie is high-strung,--extremely sensitive. Her imagination is
+quickly aflame. Perhaps, last night, you drove her as far as was safe.
+You heard for yourself how, in consequence, she suffered. You don't
+want people to say you have driven her into a lunatic asylum.'
+
+'I--good heavens, no! I--I'll send for the doctor directly I get
+home,--I--I'll have the best opinion in town.'
+
+'You'll do nothing of the kind,--you'll only make her worse. What you
+have to do is to be patient with her, and let her have peace.--As for
+this affair of Lessingham's, I have a suspicion that it may not be all
+such plain sailing as she supposes.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'I mean nothing. I only wish you to understand that until you hear from
+me again you had better let matters slide. Give the girl her head.'
+
+'Give the girl her head! H-haven't I--I g-given the g-girl her h-head
+all her l-life!' He looked at his watch. 'Why, the day's half gone!' He
+began scurrying towards the front door, I following at his heels. 'I've
+got a committee meeting on at the club,--m-most important! For weeks
+they've been giving us the worst food you ever tasted in your
+life,--p-played havoc with my digestion, and I--I'm going to tell them
+if--things aren't changed, they--they'll have to pay my doctor's
+bills.--As for that man, Lessingham--'
+
+As he spoke, he himself opened the hall door, and there, standing on
+the step was 'that man Lessingham' himself. Lindon was a picture. The
+Apostle was as cool as a cucumber. He held out his hand.
+
+'Good morning, Mr Lindon. What delightful weather we are having.'
+
+Lindon put his hand behind his back,--and behaved as stupidly as he
+very well could have done.
+
+'You will understand, Mr Lessingham, that, in future, I don't know you,
+and that I shall decline to recognise you anywhere; and that what I say
+applies equally to any member of my family.'
+
+With his hat very much on the back of his head he went down the steps
+like an inflated turkeycock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE HAUNTED MAN
+
+
+To have received the cut discourteous from his future father-in-law
+might have been the most commonplace of incidents,--Lessingham evinced
+not a trace of discomposure. So far as I could judge, he took no notice
+of the episode whatever, behaving exactly as if nothing had happened.
+He merely waited till Mr Lindon was well off the steps; then, turning
+to me, he placidly observed,
+
+'Interrupting you again, you see.--May I?'
+
+The sight of him had set up such a turmoil in my veins, that, for the
+moment, I could not trust myself to speak. I felt, acutely, that an
+explanation with him was, of all things, the thing most to be
+desired,--and that quickly. Providence could not have thrown him more
+opportunely in the way. If, before he went away, we did not understand
+each other a good deal more clearly, upon certain points, the fault
+should not be mine. Without a responsive word, turning on my heels, I
+led the way into the laboratory.
+
+Whether he noticed anything peculiar in my demeanour, I could not tell.
+Within he looked about him with that purely facial smile, the sight of
+which had always engendered in me a certain distrust of him.
+
+'Do you always receive visitors in here?'
+
+'By no means.'
+
+'What is this?'
+
+Stooping down, he picked up something from the floor. It was a lady's
+purse,--a gorgeous affair, of crimson leather and gleaming gold.
+Whether it was Marjorie's or Miss Grayling's I could not tell. He
+watched me as I examined it.
+
+'Is it yours?'
+
+'No. It is not mine.'
+
+Placing his hat and umbrella on one chair, he placed himself upon
+another,--very leisurely. Crossing his legs, laying his folded hands
+upon his knees, he sat and looked at me. I was quite conscious of his
+observation; but endured it in silence, being a little wishful that he
+should begin.
+
+Presently he had, as I suppose, enough of looking at me, and spoke.
+
+'Atherton, what is the matter with you?--Have I done something to
+offend you too?'
+
+'Why do you ask?'
+
+'Your manner seems a little singular.'
+
+'You think so?'
+
+'I do.'
+
+'What have you come to see me about?'
+
+'Just now, nothing.--I like to know where I stand.'
+
+His manner was courteous, easy, even graceful. I was outmanoeuvred. I
+understood the man sufficiently well to be aware that when once he was
+on the defensive, the first blow would have to come from me. So I
+struck it.
+
+'I, also, like to know where I stand.--Lessingham, I am aware, and you
+know that I am aware, that you have made certain overtures to Miss
+Lindon. That is a fact in which I am keenly interested.'
+
+'As--how?'
+
+'The Lindons and the Athertons are not the acquaintances of one
+generation only. Marjorie Lindon and I have been friends since
+childhood. She looks upon me as a brother--'
+
+'As a brother?'
+
+'As a brother.'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Mr Lindon regains me as a son. He has given me his confidence; as I
+believe you are aware, Marjorie has given me hers; and now I want you
+to give me yours.'
+
+'What do you want to know?'
+
+'I wish to explain my position before I say what I have to say, because
+I want you to understand me clearly.--I believe, honestly, that the
+thing I most desire in this world is to see Marjorie Lindon happy. If I
+thought she would be happy with you, I should say, God speed you both!
+and I should congratulate you with all my heart, because I think that
+you would have won the best girl in the whole world to be your wife.'
+
+'I think so too.'
+
+'But, before I did that, I should have to see, at least, some
+reasonable probability that she would be happy with you.'
+
+'Why should she not?'
+
+'Will you answer a question?'
+
+'What is the question?'
+
+'What is the story in your life of which you stand in such hideous
+terror?'
+
+There was a perceptible pause before he answered.
+
+'Explain yourself.'
+
+'No explanation is needed,--you know perfectly well what I mean.'
+
+'You credit me with miraculous acumen.'
+
+'Don't juggle, Lessingham,--be frank!'
+
+'The frankness should not be all on one side.--There is that in your
+frankness, although you may be unconscious of it, which some men might
+not unreasonably resent.'
+
+'Do you resent it?'
+
+'That depends. If you are arrogating to yourself the right to place
+yourself between Miss Lindon and me, I do resent it, strongly.'
+
+'Answer my question!'
+
+'I answer no question which is addressed to me in such a tone.'
+
+He was as calm as you please. I recognised that already I was in peril
+of losing my temper,--which was not at all what I desired. I eyed him
+intently, he returning me look for look. His countenance betrayed no
+sign of a guilty conscience; I had not seen him more completely at his
+ease. He smiled,--facially, and also, as it seemed to me, a little
+derisively. I am bound to admit that his bearing showed not the
+faintest shadow of resentment, and that in his eyes there was a
+gentleness, a softness, which I had not observed in them before,--I
+could almost have suspected him of being sympathetic.
+
+'In this matter, you must know, I stand in the place of Mr Lindon.'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Surely you must understand that before anyone is allowed to think of
+marriage with Marjorie Lindon he will have to show that his past, as
+the advertisements have it, will bear the fullest investigation.'
+
+'Is that so?--Will your past bear the fullest investigation?'
+
+I winced.
+
+'At any rate, it is known to all the world.'
+
+'Is it?--Forgive me if I say, I doubt it. I doubt if, of any wise man,
+that can be said with truth. In all our lives there are episodes which
+we keep to ourselves.'
+
+I felt that that was so true that, for the instant, I hardly knew what
+to say.
+
+'But there are episodes and episodes, and when it comes to a man being
+haunted one draws the line.'
+
+'Haunted?'
+
+'As you are.'
+
+He got up.
+
+'Atherton, I think that I understand you, but I fear that you do not
+understand me.' He went to where a self-acting mercurial air-pump was
+standing on a shelf. 'What is this curious arrangement of glass tubes
+and bulbs?'
+
+'I do not think that you do understand me, or you would know that I am
+in no mood to be trifled with.'
+
+'Is it some kind of an exhauster?'
+
+'My dear Lessingham, I am entirely at your service. I intend to have an
+answer to my question before you leave this room, but, in the
+meanwhile, your convenience is mine. There are some very interesting
+things here which you might care to see.'
+
+'Marvellous, is it not, how the human intellect progresses,--from
+conquest unto conquest.'
+
+'Among the ancients the progression had proceeded farther than with us.'
+
+'In what respect?'
+
+'For instance, in the affair of the Apotheosis of the Beetle;--I saw it
+take place last night.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'Here,--within a few feet of where you are standing.'
+
+'Are you serious?'
+
+'Perfectly.'
+
+'What did you see?'
+
+'I saw the legendary Apotheosis of the Beetle performed, last night,
+before my eyes, with a gaudy magnificence at which the legends never
+hinted.'
+
+'That is odd. I once thought that I saw something of the kind myself.'
+
+'So I understand.'
+
+'From whom?'
+
+'From a friend of yours.'
+
+'From a friend of mine?--Are you sure it was from a friend of mine?'
+
+The man's attempt at coolness did him credit,--but it did not deceive
+me. That he thought I was endeavouring to bluff him out of his secret I
+perceived quite clearly; that it was a secret which he would only
+render with his life I was beginning to suspect. Had it not been for
+Marjorie, I should have cared nothing,--his affairs were his affairs;
+though I realised perfectly well that there was something about the man
+which, from the scientific explorer's point of view, might be well
+worth finding out. Still, as I say, if it had not been for Marjorie, I
+should have let it go; but, since she was so intimately concerned in
+it, I wondered more and more what it could be.
+
+My attitude towards what is called the supernatural is an open one.
+That all things are possible I unhesitatingly believe,--I have, even in
+my short time, seen so many so-called impossibilities proved possible.
+That we know everything, I doubt;--that our
+great-great-great-great-grandsires, our forebears of thousands of years
+ago, of the extinct civilisations, knew more on some subjects than we
+do, I think is, at least, probable. All the legends can hardly be false.
+
+Because men claimed to be able to do things in those days which we
+cannot do, and which we do not know how they did we profess to think
+that their claims are finally dismissed by exclaiming--lies! But it is
+not so sure.
+
+For my part, what I had seen I had seen. I had seen some devil's trick
+played before my very eyes. Some trick of the same sort seemed to have
+been played upon my Marjorie,--I repeat that I write 'my Marjorie'
+because, to me, she will always be 'my' Marjorie! It had driven her
+half out of her senses. As I looked at Lessingham, I seemed to see her
+at his side, as I had seen her not long ago, with her white, drawn
+face, and staring eyes, dumb with an agony of fear. Her life was
+bidding fair to be knit with his,--what Upas tree of horror was rooted
+in his very bones? The thought that her sweet purity was likely to be
+engulfed in a devil's slough in which he was wallowing was not to be
+endured. As I realised that the man was more than my match at the game
+which I was playing--in which such vital interests were at stake!--my
+hands itched to clutch him by the throat, and try another way.
+
+Doubtless my face revealed my feelings, because, presently, he said,
+
+'Are you aware how strangely you are looking at me, Atherton? Were my
+countenance a mirror I think you would be surprised to see in it your
+own.'
+
+I drew back from him,--I daresay, sullenly.
+
+'Not so surprised as, yesterday morning, you would have been to have
+seen yours,--at the mere sight of a pictured scarab.'
+
+'How easily you quarrel.'
+
+'I do not quarrel.'
+
+'Then perhaps it's I. If that is so, then, at once, the quarrel's
+ended,--pouf! it's done. Mr Lindon, I fear, because, politically, we
+differ, regards me as anathema. Has he put some of his spirit into
+you?--You are a wiser man.'
+
+'I am aware that you are an adept with words. But this is a case in
+which words only will not serve.'
+
+'Then what will serve?'
+
+'I am myself beginning to wonder.'
+
+'And I.'
+
+'As you so courteously suggest, I believe I am wiser than Lindon. I do
+not care for your politics, or for what you call your politics, one
+fig. I do not care if you are as other men are, as I am,--not unspotted
+from the world! But I do care if you are leprous. And I believe you
+are.'
+
+'Atherton!'
+
+'Ever since I have known you I have been conscious of there being
+something about you which I found it difficult to diagnose;--in an
+unwholesome sense, something out of the common, non-natural; an
+atmosphere of your own. Events, so far as you are concerned, have,
+during the last few days moved quickly. They have thrown an
+uncomfortably lurid light on that peculiarity of yours which I have
+noticed. Unless you can explain them to my satisfaction, you will
+withdraw your pretensions to Miss Lindon's hand, or I shall place
+certain facts before that lady, and, if necessary, publish them to the
+world.'
+
+He grew visibly paler but he smiled--facially.
+
+'You have your own way of conducting a conversation, Mr Atherton.--What
+are the events to whose rapid transit you are alluding?'
+
+'Who was the individual, practically stark naked, who came out of your
+house, in such singular fashion, at dead of night?'
+
+'Is that one of the facts with which you propose to tickle the public
+ear?'
+
+'Is that the only explanation which you have to offer?'
+
+'Proceed, for the present, with your indictment.'
+
+'I am not so unobservant as you appear to imagine. There were features
+about the episode which struck me forcibly at the time, and which have
+struck me more forcibly since. To suggest, as you did yesterday
+morning, that it was an ordinary case of burglary, or that the man was
+a lunatic, is an absurdity.
+
+'Pardon me,--I did nothing of the kind.'
+
+'Then what do you suggest?'
+
+'I suggested, and do suggest, nothing. All the suggestions come from
+you.'
+
+'You went very much out of your way to beg me to keep the matter quiet.
+There is an appearance of suggestion about that.'
+
+'You take a jaundiced view of all my actions, Mr Atherton. Nothing, to
+me, could seem more natural.--However,--proceed.'
+
+He had his hands behind his back, and rested them on the edge of the
+table against which he was leaning. He was undoubtedly ill at ease; but
+so far I had not made the impression on him, either mentally or
+morally, which I desired.
+
+'Who is your Oriental friend?'
+
+'I do not follow you.'
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'I am certain. Repeat your question.'
+
+'Who is your Oriental friend?'
+
+'I was not aware that I had one.'
+
+'Do you swear that?'
+
+He laughed, a strange laugh.
+
+'Do you seek to catch me tripping? You conduct your case with too much
+animus. You must allow me to grasp the exact purport of your inquiry
+before I can undertake to reply to it on oath.'
+
+'Are you not aware that at present there is in London an individual who
+claims to have had a very close, and a very curious, acquaintance with
+you in the East?'
+
+'I am not.'
+
+'That you swear?'
+
+'That I do swear.'
+
+'That is singular.'
+
+'Why is it singular?'
+
+'Because I fancy that that individual haunts you.'
+
+'Haunts me?'
+
+'Haunts you.'
+
+'You jest.'
+
+'You think so?--You remember that picture of the scarabaeus which,
+yesterday morning, frightened you into a state of semi-idiocy.'
+
+'You use strong language.--I know what you allude to.'
+
+'Do you mean to say that you don't know that you were indebted for that
+to your Oriental friend?'
+
+'I don't understand you.'
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'Certainly I am sure.--It occurs to me, Mr Atherton, that an
+explanation is demanded from you rather than from me. Are you aware
+that the purport of my presence here is to ask you how that picture
+found its way into your room?'
+
+'It was projected by the Lord of the Beetle.'
+
+The words were chance ones,--but they struck a mark.
+
+'The Lord--' He faltered,--and stopped. He showed signs of
+discomposure. 'I will be frank with you,--since frankness is what you
+ask.' His smile, that time, was obviously forced. 'Recently I have been
+the victim of delusions;' there was a pause before the word, 'of a
+singular kind. I have feared that they were the result of mental
+overstrain. Is it possible that you can enlighten me as to their
+source?'
+
+I was silent. He was putting a great strain upon himself, but the
+twitching of his lips betrayed him. A little more, and I should reach
+the other side of Mr Lessingham,--the side which he kept hidden from
+the world.
+
+'Who is this--individual whom you speak of as my--Oriental friend?'
+
+'Being your friend, you should know better than I do.'
+
+'What sort of man is he to look at?'
+
+'I did not say it was a man.'
+
+'But I presume it is a man.'
+
+'I did not say so.'
+
+He seemed, for a moment, to hold his breath,--and he looked at me with
+eyes which were not friendly. Then, with a display of self-command
+which did him credit, he drew himself upright, with an air of dignity
+which well became him.
+
+'Atherton, consciously, or unconsciously, you are doing me a serious
+injustice. I do not know what conception it is which you have formed of
+me, or on what the conception is founded, but I protest that, to the
+best of my knowledge and belief, I am as reputable, as honest, and as
+clean a man as you are.'
+
+'But you're haunted.'
+
+'Haunted?' He held himself erect, looking me straight in the face. Then
+a shiver went all over him; the muscles of his mouth twitched; and, in
+an instant, he was livid. He staggered against the table. 'Yes, God
+knows it's true,--I'm haunted.'
+
+'So either you're mad, and therefore unfit to marry; or else you've
+done something which places you outside the tolerably generous
+boundaries of civilised society, and are therefore still more unfit to
+marry. You're on the horns of a dilemma.'
+
+'I--I'm the victim of a delusion.'
+
+'What is the nature of the delusion? Does it take the shape of
+a--beetle?'
+
+'Atherton!'
+
+Without the slightest warning, he collapsed,--was transformed; I can
+describe the change which took place in him in no other way. He sank in
+a heap on the floor; he held up his hands above his head; and he
+gibbered,--like some frenzied animal. A more uncomfortable spectacle
+than he presented it would be difficult to find. I have seen it matched
+in the padded rooms of lunatic asylums, but nowhere else. The sight of
+him set every nerve of my body on edge.
+
+'In Heaven's name, what is the matter with you, man? Are you stark,
+staring mad? Here,--drink this!'
+
+Filling a tumbler with brandy, I forced it between his quivering
+fingers. Then it was some moments before I could get him to understand
+what it was I wanted him to do. When he did get the glass to his lips,
+he swallowed its contents as if they were so much water. By degrees his
+senses returned to him. He stood up. He looked about him, with a smile
+which was positively ghastly.
+
+'It's--it's a delusion.'
+
+'It's a very queer kind of a delusion, if it is.'
+
+I eyed him, curiously. He was evidently making the most strenuous
+efforts to regain his self-control,--all the while with that horrible
+smile about his lips.
+
+'Atherton, you--you take me at an advantage.' I was still. 'Who--who's
+your Oriental friend?'
+
+'My Oriental friend?--you mean yours. I supposed, at first, that the
+individual in question was a man; but it appears that she's a woman.'
+
+'A woman?--Oh.--How do you mean?'
+
+'Well, the face is a man's--of an uncommonly disagreeable type, of
+which the powers forbid that there are many!--and the voice is a
+man's,--also of a kind!--but the body, as, last night, I chanced to
+discover, is a woman's.'
+
+'That sounds very odd.' He closed his eyes. I could see that his cheeks
+were clammy. 'Do you--do you believe in witchcraft?'
+
+'That depends.'
+
+'Have you heard of Obi?'
+
+'I have.'
+
+'I have been told that an Obeah man can put a spell upon a person which
+compels a person to see whatever he--the Obeah man--may please. Do you
+think that's possible?'
+
+'It is not a question to which I should be disposed to answer either
+yes or no.'
+
+He looked at me out of his half-closed eyes. It struck me that he was
+making conversation,--saying anything for the sake of gaining time.
+
+'I remember reading a book entitled "Obscure Diseases of the Brain." It
+contained some interesting data on the subject of hallucinations.'
+
+'Possibly.'
+
+'Now, candidly, would you recommend me to place myself in the hands of
+a mental pathologist?'
+
+'I don't think that you're insane, if that's what you mean.'
+
+'No?--That is good hearing. Of all diseases insanity is the most to be
+dreaded.--Well, Atherton, I'm keeping you. The truth is that, insane or
+not, I am very far from well. I think I must give myself a holiday.'
+
+He moved towards his hat and umbrella.
+
+'There is something else which you must do.'
+
+'What is that?'
+
+'You must resign your pretensions to Miss Lindon's hand.
+
+'My dear Atherton, if my health is really failing me, I shall resign
+everything,--everything!'
+
+He repeated his own word with a little movement of his hands which was
+pathetic.
+
+'Understand me, Lessingham. What else you do is no affair of mine. I am
+concerned only with Miss Lindon. You must give me your definite
+promise, before you leave this room, to terminate your engagement with
+her before to-night.'
+
+His back was towards me.
+
+'There will come a time when your conscience will prick you because of
+your treatment of me; when you will realise that I am the most
+unfortunate of men.'
+
+'I realise that now. It is because I realise it that I am so desirous
+that the shadow of your evil fortune shall not fall upon an innocent
+girl.'
+
+He turned.
+
+'Atherton, what is your actual position with reference to Marjorie
+Lindon?'
+
+'She regards me as a brother.'
+
+'And do you regard her as a sister? Are your sentiments towards her
+purely fraternal?'
+
+'You know that I love her.'
+
+'And do you suppose that my removal will clear the path for you?'
+
+'I suppose nothing of the kind. You may believe me or not, but my one
+desire is for her happiness, and surely, if you love her, that is your
+desire too.'
+
+'That is so.' He paused. An expression of sadness stole over his face
+of which I had not thought it capable. 'That is so to an extent of
+which you do not dream. No man likes to have his hand forced,
+especially by one whom he regards--may I say it?--as a possible rival.
+But I will tell you this much. If the blight which has fallen on my
+life is likely to continue, I would not wish,--God forbid that I should
+wish to join her fate with mine,--not for all that the world could
+offer me.'
+
+He stopped. And I was still. Presently he continued.
+
+'When I was younger I was subject to a--similar delusion. But it
+vanished,--I saw no trace of it for years,--I thought that I had done
+with it for good. Recently, however, it has returned,--as you have
+witnessed. I shall institute inquiries into the cause of its
+reappearance; if it seems likely to be irremovable, or even if it bids
+fair to be prolonged, I shall not only, as you phrase it, withdraw my
+pretensions to Miss Linden's hand, but to all my other ambitions. In
+the interim, as regards Miss Lindon I shall be careful to hold myself
+on the footing of a mere acquaintance.'
+
+'You promise me?'
+
+'I do.--And on your side, Atherton, in the meantime, deal with me more
+gently. Judgment in my case has still to be given. You will find that I
+am not the guilty wretch you apparently imagine. And there are few
+things more disagreeable to one's self-esteem than to learn, too late,
+that one has persisted in judging another man too harshly. Think of all
+that the world has, at this moment, to offer me, and what it will mean
+if I have to turn my back on it,--owing to a mischievous twist of
+fortune's wheel.'
+
+He turned, is if to go. Then stopped, and looked round, in an attitude
+of listening.
+
+'What's that?'
+
+There was a sound of droning,--I recalled what Marjorie had said of her
+experiences of the night before, it was like the droning of a beetle.
+The instant the Apostle heard it, the fashion of his countenance began
+to change,--it was pitiable to witness. I rushed to him.
+
+'Lessingham!--don't be a fool!--play the man!'
+
+He gripped my left arm with his right hand till it felt as if it were
+being compressed in a vice.
+
+'Then--I shall have to have some more brandy.'
+
+Fortunately the bottle was within reach from where I stood, otherwise I
+doubt if he would have released my arm to let me get at it. I gave him
+the decanter and the glass. He helped himself to a copious libation. By
+the time that he had swallowed it the droning sound had gone. He put
+down the empty tumbler.
+
+'When a man has to resort to alcohol to keep his nerves up to concert
+pitch, things are in a bad way with him, you may be sure of that,--but
+then you have never known what it is to stand in momentary expectation
+of a tete-a-tete with the devil.'
+
+Again he turned to leave the room,--and this time he actually went. I
+let him go alone. I heard his footsteps passing along the passage, and
+the hall-door close. Then I sat in an arm-chair, stretched my legs out
+in front of me, thrust my hands in my trouser pockets, and--I wondered.
+
+I had been there, perhaps, four or five minutes, when there was a
+slight noise at my side. Glancing round, I saw a sheet of paper come
+fluttering through the open window. It fell almost at my feet. I picked
+it up. It was a picture of a beetle,--a facsimile of the one which had
+had such an extraordinary effect on Mr Lessingham the day before.
+
+'If this was intended for St Paul, it's a trifle late;--unless--'
+
+I could hear that someone was approaching along the corridor. I looked
+up, expecting to see the Apostle reappear;--in which expectation I was
+agreeably disappointed. The newcomer was feminine. It was Miss
+Grayling. As she stood in the open doorway, I saw that her cheeks were
+red as roses.
+
+'I hope I am not interrupting you again, but--I left my purse here.'
+She stopped; then added, as if it were an afterthought, 'And--I want
+you to come and lunch with me.'
+
+I locked the picture of the beetle in the drawer,--and I lunched with
+Dora Grayling.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+The Terror by Night and the Terror by Day
+
+
+Miss Marjorie Lindon tells the Tale
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE WAY HE TOLD HER
+
+
+I am the happiest woman in the world! I wonder how many women have said
+that of themselves in their time,--but I am. Paul has told me that he
+loves me. How long I have made inward confession of my love for him, I
+should be ashamed to say. It sounds prosaic, but I believe it is a fact
+that the first stirring of my pulses was caused by the report of a
+speech of his which I read in the Times. It was on the Eight Hours'
+Bill. Papa was most unflattering. He said that he was an oily spouter,
+an ignorant agitator, an irresponsible firebrand, and a good deal more
+to the same effect. I remember very well how papa fidgeted with the
+paper, declaring that it read even worse than it had sounded, and
+goodness knew that it had sounded bad enough. He was so very emphatic
+that when he had gone I thought I would see what all the pother was
+about, and read the speech for myself. So I read it. It affected me
+quite differently. The speaker's words showed such knowledge, charity,
+and sympathy that they went straight to my heart.
+
+After that I read everything of Paul Lessingham's which I came across.
+And the more I read the more I was impressed. But it was some time
+before we met. Considering what papa's opinions were, it was not likely
+that he would go out of his way to facilitate a meeting. To him, the
+mere mention of the name was like a red rag to a bull. But at last we
+did meet. And then I knew that he was stronger, greater, better even
+than his words. It is so often the other way; one finds that men, and
+women too, are so apt to put their best, as it were, into their shop
+windows, that the discovery was as novel as it was delightful.
+
+When the ice was once broken, we often met. I do not know how it was.
+We did not plan our meetings,--at first, at any rate. Yet we seemed
+always meeting. Seldom a day passed on which we did not
+meet,--sometimes twice or thrice. It was odd how we were always coming
+across each other in the most unlikely places. I believe we did not
+notice it at the time, but looking back I can see that we must have
+managed our engagements so that somewhere, somehow, we should be
+certain to have an opportunity of exchanging half a dozen words. Those
+constant encounters could not have all been chance ones.
+
+But I never supposed he loved me,--never. I am not even sure that, for
+some time, I was aware that I loved him. We were great on friendship,
+both of us.--I was quite aware that I was his friend,--that he regarded
+me as his friend; he told me so more than once.
+
+'I tell you this,' he would say, referring to this, that, or the other,
+'because I know that, in speaking to you, I am speaking to a friend.'
+
+With him those were not empty words. All kinds of people talk to one
+like that,--especially men; it is a kind of formula which they use with
+every woman who shows herself disposed to listen. But Paul is not like
+that. He is chary of speech; not by any means a woman's man. I tell him
+that is his weakest point. If legend does not lie more even than is
+common, few politicians have achieved prosperity without the aid of
+women. He replies that he is not a politician; that he never means to
+be a politician. He simply wishes to work for his country; if his
+country does not need his services--well, let it be. Papa's political
+friends have always so many axes of their own to grind, that, at first,
+to hear a member of Parliament talk like that was almost disquieting. I
+had dreamed of men like that; but I never encountered one till I met
+Paul Lessingham.
+
+Our friendship was a pleasant one. It became pleasanter and pleasanter.
+Until there came a time when he told me everything; the dreams he
+dreamed; the plans which he had planned; the great purposes which, if
+health and strength were given him, he intended to carry to a great
+fulfilment. And, at last, he told me something else.
+
+It was after a meeting at a Working Women's Club in Westminster. He had
+spoken, and I had spoken too. I don't know what papa would have said,
+if he had known, but I had. A formal resolution had been proposed, and
+I had seconded it,--in perhaps a couple of hundred words; but that
+would have been quite enough for papa to have regarded me as an
+Abandoned Wretch,--papa always puts those sort of words into capitals.
+Papa regards a speechifying woman as a thing of horror,--I have known
+him look askance at a Primrose Dame.
+
+The night was fine. Paul proposed that I should walk with him down the
+Westminster Bridge Road, until we reached the House, and then he would
+see me into a cab. I did as he suggested. It was still early, not yet
+ten, and the streets were alive with people. Our conversation, as we
+went, was entirely political. The Agricultural Amendment Act was then
+before the Commons, and Paul felt very strongly that it was one of
+those measures which give with one hand, while taking with the other.
+The committee stage was at hand, and already several amendments were
+threatened, the effect of which would be to strengthen the landlord at
+the expense of the tenant. More than one of these, and they not the
+most moderate, were to be proposed by papa. Paul was pointing out how
+it would be his duty to oppose these tooth and nail, when, all at once,
+he stopped.
+
+'I sometimes wonder how you really feel upon this matter.'
+
+'What matter?'
+
+'On the difference of opinion, in political matters, which exists
+between your father and myself. I am conscious that Mr Lindon regards
+my action as a personal question, and resents it so keenly, that I am
+sometimes moved to wonder if at least a portion of his resentment is
+not shared by you.'
+
+'I have explained; I consider papa the politician as one person, and
+papa the father as quite another.'
+
+'You are his daughter.'
+
+'Certainly I am;--but would you, on that account, wish me to share his
+political opinions, even though I believe them to be wrong?'
+
+'You love him.'
+
+'Of course I do,--he is the best of fathers.'
+
+'Your defection will be a grievous disappointment.'
+
+I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. I wondered what was
+passing through his mind. The subject of my relations with papa was one
+which, without saying anything at all about it, we had consented to
+taboo.
+
+'I am not so sure. I am permeated with a suspicion that papa has no
+politics.'
+
+'Miss Lindon!--I fancy that I can adduce proof to the contrary.'
+
+'I believe that if papa were to marry again, say, a Home Ruler, within
+three weeks his wife's politics would be his own.'
+
+Paul thought before he spoke; then he smiled.
+
+'I suppose that men sometimes do change their coats to please their
+wives,--even their political ones.'
+
+'Papa's opinions are the opinions of those with whom he mixes. The
+reason why he consorts with Tories of the crusted school is because he
+fears that if he associated with anybody else--with Radicals,
+say,--before he knew it, he would be a Radical too. With him,
+association is synonymus with logic.'
+
+Paul laughed outright. By this time we had reached Westminster Bridge.
+Standing, we looked down upon the river. A long line of lanterns was
+gliding mysteriously over the waters; it was a tug towing a string of
+barges. For some moments neither spoke. Then Paul recurred to what I
+had just been saying.
+
+'And you,--do you think marriage would colour your convictions?'
+
+'Would it yours?'
+
+'That depends.' He was silent. Then he said, in that tone which I had
+learned to look for when he was most in earnest, 'It depends on whether
+you would marry me.'
+
+I was still. His words were so unexpected that they took my breath
+away. I knew not what to make of them. My head was in a whirl. Then he
+addressed to me a monosyllabic interrogation.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'I found my voice,--or a part of it.
+
+'Well?--to what?'
+
+He came a little closer.
+
+'Will you be my wife?'
+
+The part of my voice which I had found, was lost again. Tears came into
+my eyes. I shivered. I had not thought that I could be so absurd. Just
+then the moon came from behind a cloud; the rippling waters were tipped
+with silver. He spoke again, so gently that his words just reached my
+ears.
+
+'You know that I love you.'
+
+Then I knew that I loved him too. That what I had fancied was a feeling
+of friendship was something very different. It was as if somebody, in
+tearing a veil from before my eyes, had revealed a spectacle which
+dazzled me. I was speechless. He misconstrued my silence.
+
+'Have I offended you?'
+
+'No.'
+
+I fancy that he noted the tremor which was in my voice, and read it
+rightly. For he too was still. Presently his hand stole along the
+parapet, and fastened upon mine, and held it tight.
+
+And that was how it came about. Other things were said; but they were
+hardly of the first importance. Though I believe we took some time in
+saying them. Of myself I can say with truth, that my heart was too full
+for copious speech; I was dumb with a great happiness. And, I believe,
+I can say the same of Paul. He told me as much when we were parting.
+
+It seemed that we had only just come there when Paul started. Turning,
+he stared up at Big Ben.
+
+'Midnight!--The House up!--Impossible!'
+
+But it was more than possible, it was fact. We had actually been on the
+Bridge two hours, and it had not seemed ten minutes. Never had I
+supposed that the flight of time could have been so entirely unnoticed.
+Paul was considerably taken aback. His legislative conscience pricked
+him. He excused himself--in his own fashion.
+
+'Fortunately, for once in a way, my business in the House was not so
+important as my business out of it.'
+
+He had his arm through mine. We were standing face to face.
+
+'So you call this business!'
+
+He laughed.
+
+He not only saw me into a cab, but he saw me home in it. And in the cab
+he kissed me. I fancy I was a little out of sorts that night. My
+nervous system was, perhaps, demoralised. Because, when he kissed me, I
+did a thing which I never do,--I have my own standard of behaviour, and
+that sort of thing is quite outside of it; I behaved like a sentimental
+chit. I cried. And it took him all the way to my father's door to
+comfort me.
+
+I can only hope that, perceiving the singularity of the occasion, he
+consented to excuse me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A WOMAN'S VIEW
+
+
+Sydney Atherton has asked me to be his wife. It is not only annoying;
+worse, it is absurd.
+
+This is the result of Paul's wish that our engagement should not be
+announced. He is afraid of papa;--not really, but for the moment. The
+atmosphere of the House is charged with electricity. Party feeling runs
+high. They are at each other, hammer and tongs, about this Agricultural
+Amendment Act. The strain on Paul is tremendous. I am beginning to feel
+positively concerned. Little things which I have noticed about him
+lately convince me that he is being overwrought. I suspect him of
+having sleepless nights. The amount of work which he has been getting
+through lately has been too much for any single human being, I care not
+who he is. He himself admits that he shall be glad when the session is
+at an end. So shall I.
+
+In the meantime, it is his desire that nothing shall be said about our
+engagement until the House rises. It is reasonable enough. Papa is sure
+to be violent,--lately, the barest allusion to Paul's name has been
+enough to make him explode. When the discovery does come, he will be
+unmanageable,--I foresee it clearly. From little incidents which have
+happened recently I predict the worst. He will be capable of making a
+scene within the precincts of the House. And, as Paul says, there is
+some truth in the saying that the last straw breaks the camel's back.
+He will be better able to face papa's wild wrath when the House has
+risen.
+
+So the news is to bide a wee. Of course Paul is right. And what he
+wishes I wish too. Still, it is not all such plain sailing for me as he
+perhaps thinks. The domestic atmosphere is almost as electrical as that
+in the House. Papa is like the terrier who scents a rat,--he is always
+sniffing the air. He has not actually forbidden me to speak to
+Paul,--his courage is not quite at the sticking point; but he is
+constantly making uncomfortable allusions to persons who number among
+their acquaintance 'political adventurers,' 'grasping carpet-baggers,'
+'Radical riff-raff,' and that kind of thing. Sometimes I venture to
+call my soul my own; but such a tempest invariably follows that I
+become discreet again as soon as I possibly can. So, as a rule, I
+suffer in silence.
+
+Still, I would with all my heart that the concealment were at an end.
+No one need imagine that I am ashamed of being about to marry
+Paul,--papa least of all. On the contrary, I am as proud of it as a
+woman can be. Sometimes, when he has said or done something unusually
+wonderful, I fear that my pride will out,--I do feel it so strong
+within me. I should be delighted to have a trial of strength with papa;
+anywhere, at any time,--I should not be so rude to him as he would be
+to me. At the bottom of his heart papa knows that I am the more
+sensible of the two; after a pitched battle or so he would understand
+it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all
+these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who,
+burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk
+behind hedges, and be shot at.
+
+One result is that Sydney has actually made a proposal of marriage,--he
+of all people! It is too comical. The best of it was that he took
+himself quite seriously. I do not know how many times he has confided
+to me the sufferings which he has endured for love of other women--some
+of them, I am sorry to say, decent married women too; but this is the
+first occasion on which the theme has been a personal one. He was so
+frantic, as he is wont to be, that, to calm him, I told him about
+Paul,--which, under the circumstances, to him I felt myself at liberty
+to do. In return, he was melodramatic; hinting darkly at I know not
+what, I was almost cross with him.
+
+He is a curious person, Sydney Atherton. I suppose it is because I have
+known him all my life, and have always looked upon him, in cases of
+necessity, as a capital substitute for a brother, that I criticise him
+with so much frankness. In some respects, he is a genius; in others--I
+will not write fool, for that he never is, though he has often done
+some extremely foolish things. The fame of his inventions is in the
+mouths of all men; though the half of them has never been told. He is
+the most extraordinary mixture. The things which most people would like
+to have proclaimed in the street, he keeps tightly locked in his own
+bosom; while those which the same persons would be only too glad to
+conceal, he shouts from the roofs. A very famous man once told me that
+if Mr Atherton chose to become a specialist, to take up one branch of
+inquiry, and devote his life to it, his fame, before he died, would
+bridge the spheres. But sticking to one thing is not in Sydney's line
+at all. He prefers, like the bee, to roam from flower to flower.
+
+As for his being in love with me, it is ridiculous. He is as much in
+love with the moon. I cannot think what has put the idea into his head.
+Some girl must have been ill-using him, or he imagines that she has.
+The girl whom he ought to marry, and whom he ultimately will marry, is
+Dora Grayling. She is young, charming, immensely rich, and over head
+and ears in love with him;--if she were not, then he would be over head
+and ears in love with her. I believe he is very near it as it
+is,--sometimes he is so very rude to her. It is a characteristic of
+Sydney's, that he is apt to be rude to a girl whom he really likes. As
+for Dora, I suspect she dreams of him. He is tall, straight, very
+handsome, with a big moustache, and the most extraordinary eyes;--I
+fancy that those eyes of his have as much to do with Dora's state as
+anything. I have heard it said that he possesses the hypnotic power to
+an unusual degree, and that, if he chose to exercise it, he might
+become a danger to society. I believe he has hypnotised Dora.
+
+He makes an excellent brother. I have gone to him, many and many a
+time, for help,--and some excellent advice I have received. I daresay I
+shall consult him still. There are matters of which one would hardly
+dare to talk to Paul. In all things he is the great man. He could
+hardly condescend to chiffons. Now Sydney can and does. When he is in
+the mood, on the vital subject of trimmings a woman could not appeal to
+a sounder authority. I tell him, if he had been a dressmaker, he would
+have been magnificent. I am sure he would.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+
+This morning I had an adventure.
+
+I was in the breakfast-room. Papa, as usual, was late for breakfast,
+and I was wondering whether I should begin without him, when, chancing
+to look round, something caught my eye in the street. I went to the
+window to see what it was. A small crowd of people was in the middle of
+the road, and they were all staring at something which, apparently, was
+lying on the ground. What it was I could not see.
+
+The butler happened to be in the room. I spoke to him.
+
+'Peter, what is the matter in the street? Go and see.'
+
+He went and saw; and, presently, he returned. Peter is an excellent
+servant; but the fashion of his speech, even when conveying the most
+trivial information, is slightly sesquipedalian. He would have made a
+capital cabinet minister at question time,--he wraps up the smallest
+petitions of meaning in the largest possible words.
+
+'An unfortunate individual appears to have been the victim of a
+catastrophe. I am informed that he is dead. The constable asserts that
+he is drunk.'
+
+'Drunk?--dead? Do you mean that he is dead drunk?--at this hour!'
+
+'He is either one or the other. I did not behold the individual myself.
+I derived my information from a bystander.'
+
+That was not sufficiently explicit for me. I gave way to a, seemingly,
+quite causeless impulse of curiosity, I went out into the street, just
+as I was, to see for myself. It was, perhaps, not the most sensible
+thing I could have done, and papa would have been shocked; but I am
+always shocking papa. It had been raining in the night, and the shoes
+which I had on were not so well suited as they might have been for an
+encounter with the mud.
+
+I made my way to the point of interest.
+
+'What's the matter?' I asked.
+
+A workman, with a bag of tools over his shoulder, answered me.
+
+'There's something wrong with someone. Policeman says he's drunk, but
+he looks to me as if he was something worse.'
+
+'Will you let me pass, please?'
+
+When they saw I was a woman, they permitted me to reach the centre of
+the crowd.
+
+A man was lying on his back, in the grease and dirt of the road. He was
+so plastered with mud, that it was difficult, at first, to be sure that
+he really was a man. His head and feet were bare. His body was
+partially covered by a long ragged cloak. It was obvious that that one
+wretched, dirt-stained, sopping wet rag was all the clothing he had on.
+A huge constable was holding his shoulders in his hands, and was
+regarding him as if he could not make him out at all. He seemed
+uncertain as to whether it was or was not a case of shamming.
+
+He spoke to him as if he had been some refractory child.
+
+'Come, my lad, this won't do!--Wake up!--What's the matter?'
+
+But he neither woke up, nor explained what was the matter. I took hold
+of his hand. It was icy cold. Apparently the wrist was pulseless.
+Clearly this was no ordinary case of drunkenness.
+
+'There is something seriously wrong, officer. Medical assistance ought
+to be had at once.'
+
+'Do you think he's in a fit, miss?'
+
+'That a doctor should be able to tell you better than I can. There
+seems to be no pulse. I should not be surprised to find that he was--'
+
+The word 'dead' was actually on my lips, when the stranger saved me
+from making a glaring exposure of my ignorance by snatching his wrist
+away from me, and sitting up in the mud. He held out his hands in front
+of him, opened his eyes, and exclaimed, in a loud, but painfully
+raucous tone of voice, as if he was suffering from a very bad cold,
+
+'Paul Lessingham!'
+
+I was so surprised that I all but sat down in the mud. To hear Paul--my
+Paul!--apostrophised by an individual of his appearance, in that
+fashion, was something which I had not expected. Directly the words
+were uttered, he closed his eyes again, sank backward, and seemingly
+relapsed into unconsciousness,--the constable gripping him by the
+shoulder just in time to prevent him banging the back of his head
+against the road.
+
+The officer shook him,--scarcely gently.
+
+'Now, my lad, it's plain that you're not dead!--What's the meaning of
+this?--Move yourself!'
+
+Looking round I found that Peter was close behind. Apparently he had
+been struck by the singularity of his mistress' behaviour, and had
+followed to see that it did not meet with the reward which it deserved.
+I spoke to him.
+
+'Peter, let someone go at once for Dr Cotes!'
+
+Dr Cotes lives just round the corner, and since it was evident that the
+man's lapse into consciousness had made the policeman sceptical as to
+his case being so serious as it seemed, I thought it might be advisable
+that a competent opinion should be obtained without delay.
+
+Peter was starting, when again the stranger returned to
+consciousness,--that is, if it really was consciousness, as to which I
+was more than a little in doubt. He repeated his previous pantomime;
+sat up in the mud, stretched out his arms, opened his eyes unnaturally
+wide,--and yet they appeared unseeing!--a sort of convulsion went all
+over him, and he shrieked--it really amounted to shrieking--as a man
+might shriek who was in mortal terror.
+
+'Be warned, Paul Lessingham--be warned!'
+
+For my part, that settled it. There was a mystery here which needed to
+be unravelled. Twice had he called upon Paul's name,--and in the
+strangest fashion! It was for me to learn the why and the wherefore; to
+ascertain what connection there was between this lifeless creature and
+Paul Lessingham. Providence might have cast him there before my door. I
+might be entertaining an angel unawares. My mind was made up on the
+instant.
+
+'Peter, hasten for Dr Cotes.' Peter passed the word, and immediately a
+footman started running as fast as his legs would carry him. 'Officer,
+I will have this man taken into my father's house.--Will some of you
+men help to carry him?'
+
+There were volunteers enough, and to spare. I spoke to Peter in the
+hall.
+
+'Is papa down yet?'
+
+'Mr Lindon has sent down to say that you will please not wait for him
+for breakfast. He has issued instructions to have his breakfast
+conveyed to him upstairs.'
+
+'That's all right.' I nodded towards the poor wretch who was being
+carried through the hall. 'You will say nothing to him about this
+unless he particularly asks. You understand?'
+
+Peter bowed. He is discretion itself. He knows I have my vagaries, and
+it is not his fault if the savour of them travels to papa.
+
+The doctor was in the house almost as soon as the stranger.
+
+'Wants washing,' he remarked, directly he saw him.
+
+And that certainly was true,--I never saw a man who stood more
+obviously in need of the good offices of soap and water. Then he went
+through the usual medical formula, I watching all the while. So far as
+I could see the man showed not the slightest sign of life.
+
+'Is he dead?'
+
+'He will be soon, if he doesn't have something to eat. The fellow's
+starving.'
+
+The doctor asked the policeman what he knew of him.
+
+That sagacious officer's reply was vague. A boy had run up to him
+crying that a man was lying dead in the street. He had straightway
+followed the boy, and discovered the stranger. That was all he knew.
+
+'What is the matter with the man?' I inquired of the doctor, when the
+constable had gone.
+
+'Don't know.--It may be catalepsy, and it mayn't.--When I do know, you
+may ask again.'
+
+Dr Cotes' manner was a trifle brusque,--particularly, I believe, to me.
+I remember that once he threatened to box my ears. When I was a small
+child I used to think nothing of boxing his.
+
+Realising that no satisfaction was to be got out of a speechless
+man--particularly as regards his mysterious references to Paul--I went
+upstairs. I found that papa was under the impression that he was
+suffering from a severe attack of gout. But as he was eating a capital
+breakfast, and apparently enjoying it,--while I was still fasting--I
+ventured to hope that the matter was not so serious as he feared.
+
+I mentioned nothing to him about the person whom I had found in the
+street,--lest it should aggravate his gout. When he is like that, the
+slightest thing does.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A FATHER'S NO
+
+
+Paul has stormed the House of Commons with one of the greatest speeches
+which even he has delivered, and I have quarrelled with papa. And,
+also, I have very nearly quarrelled with Sydney.
+
+Sydney's little affair is nothing. He actually still persists in
+thinking himself in love with me,--as if, since last night, when he
+what he calls 'proposed' to me, he has not time to fall out of love,
+and in again, half a dozen times; and, on the strength of it, he seems
+to consider himself entitled to make himself as disagreeable as he can.
+That I should not mind,--for Sydney disagreeable is about as nice as
+Sydney any other way; but when it comes to his shooting poisoned shafts
+at Paul, I object. If he imagines that anything he can say, or hint,
+will lessen my estimation of Paul Lessingham by one hair's breadth, he
+has less wisdom even than I gave him credit for. By the way, Percy
+Woodville asked me to be his wife tonight,--which, also, is nothing; he
+has been trying to do it for the last three years,--though, under the
+circumstances, it is a little trying; but he would not spit venom
+merely because I preferred another man,--and he, I believe, does care
+for me.
+
+Papa's affair is serious. It is the first clashing of the foils,--and
+this time, I imagine, the buttons are really off. This morning he said
+a few words, not so much to, as at me. He informed me that Paul was
+expected to speak to-night,--as if I did not know it!--and availed
+himself of the opening to load him with the abuse which, in his case,
+he thinks is not unbecoming to a gentleman. I don't know--or, rather, I
+do know what he would think, if he heard another man use, in the
+presence of a woman, the kind of language which he habitually employs.
+However, I said nothing. I had a motive for allowing the chaff to fly
+before the wind.
+
+But, to-night, issue was joined.
+
+I, of course, went to hear Paul speak,--as I have done over and over
+again before. Afterwards, Paul came and fetched me from the cage. He
+had to leave me for a moment, while he gave somebody a message; and in
+the lobby, there was Sydney,--all sneers! I could have pinched him.
+Just as I was coming to the conclusion that I should have to stick a
+pin into his arm, Paul returned,--and, positively, Sydney was rude to
+him. I was ashamed, if Mr Atherton was not. As if it was not enough
+that he should be insulted by a mere popinjay, at the very moment when
+he had been adding another stone to the fabric of his country's
+glory,--papa came up. He actually wanted to take me away from Paul. I
+should have liked to see him do it. Of course I went down with Paul to
+the carriage, leaving papa to follow if he chose. He did not
+choose,--but, none the less, he managed to be home within three minutes
+after I had myself returned.
+
+Then the battle began.
+
+It is impossible for me to give an idea of papa in a rage. There may be
+men who look well when they lose their temper, but, if there are, papa
+is certainly not one. He is always talking about the magnificence, and
+the high breeding of the Lindons, but anything less high-bred than the
+head of the Lindons, in his moments of wrath, it would be hard to
+conceive. His language I will not attempt to portray,--but his
+observations consisted, mainly, of abuse of Paul, glorification of the
+Lindons, and orders to me.
+
+'I forbid you--I forbid you--' when papa wishes to be impressive he
+repeats his own words three or four times over; I don't know if he
+imagines that they are improved by repetition; if he does, he is
+wrong--'I forbid you ever again to speak to that--that--that--'
+
+Here followed language.
+
+I was silent.
+
+My cue was to keep cool. I believe that, with the exception, perhaps,
+of being a little white, and exceedingly sorry that papa should so
+forget himself, I was about the same as I generally am.
+
+'Do you hear me?--do you hear what I say?--do you hear me, miss?'
+
+'Yes, papa; I hear you.'
+
+'Then--then--then promise me!--promise that you will do as I tell
+you!--mark my words, my girl, you shall promise before you leave this
+room!'
+
+'My dear papa!--do you intend me to spend the remainder of my life in
+the drawing-room?'
+
+'Don't you be impertinent!--do-do-don't you speak to me like
+that!--I--I--I won't have it!'
+
+'I tell you what it is, papa, if you don't take care you'll have
+another attack of gout.'
+
+'Damn gout.'
+
+That was the most sensible thing he said; if such a tormentor as gout
+can be consigned to the nether regions by the mere utterance of a word,
+by all means let the word be uttered. Off he went again.
+
+'The man's a ruffianly, rascally,--' and so on. 'There's not such a
+villainous vagabond--' and all the rest of it. 'And I order you,--I'm a
+Lindon, and I order you! I'm your father, and I order you!--I order you
+never to speak to such a--such a'--various vain repetitions--'again,
+and--and--and I order you never to look at him!'
+
+'Listen to me, papa. I will promise you never to speak to Paul
+Lessingham again, if you will promise me never to speak to Lord
+Cantilever again,--or to recognise him if you meet him in the street.'
+
+'You should have seen how papa glared. Lord Cantilever is the head of
+his party. Its august, and, I presume, reverenced leader. He is papa's
+particular fetish. I am not sure that he does regard him as being any
+lower than the angels, but if he does it is certainly something in
+decimals. My suggestion seemed as outrageous to him as his suggestion
+seemed to me. But it is papa's misfortune that he can only see one side
+of a question,--and that's his own.'
+
+'You--you dare to compare Lord Cantilever to--to that--that--that--!'
+
+'I am not comparing them. I am not aware of there being anything in
+particular against Lord Cantilever,--that is against his character.
+But, of course, I should not dream of comparing a man of his calibre,
+with one of real ability, like Paul Lessingham. It would be to treat
+his lordship with too much severity.'
+
+I could not help it,--but that did it. The rest of papa's conversation
+was a jumble of explosions. It was all so sad.
+
+Papa poured all the vials of his wrath upon Paul,--to his own sore
+disfigurement. He threatened me with all the pains and penalties of the
+inquisition if I did not immediately promise to hold no further
+communication with Mr Lessingham,--of course I did nothing of the kind.
+He cursed me, in default, by bell, book, and candle,--and by ever so
+many other things beside. He called me the most dreadful names,--me!
+his only child. He warned me that I should find myself in prison before
+I had done,--I am not sure that he did not hint darkly at the gallows.
+Finally, he drove me from the room in a whirlwind of anathemas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE TERROR BY NIGHT
+
+
+When I left papa,--or, rather, when papa had driven me from him--I went
+straight to the man whom I had found in the street. It was late, and I
+was feeling both tired and worried, so that I only thought of seeing
+for myself how he was. In some way, he seemed to be a link between Paul
+and myself, and as, at that moment, links of that kind were precious, I
+could not have gone to bed without learning something of his condition.
+
+The nurse received me at the door.
+
+'Well, nurse, how's the patient?'
+
+Nurse was a plump, motherly woman, who had attended more than one odd
+protege of mine, and whom I kept pretty constantly at my beck and call.
+She held out her hands.
+
+'It's hard to tell. He hasn't moved since I came.'
+
+'Not moved?--Is he still insensible?'
+
+'He seems to me to be in some sort of trance. He does not appear to
+breathe, and I can detect no pulsation, but the doctor says he's still
+alive,--it's the queerest case I ever saw.'
+
+I went farther into the room. Directly I did so the man in the bed gave
+signs of life which were sufficiently unmistakable. Nurse hastened to
+him.
+
+'Why,' she exclaimed, 'he's moving!--he might have heard you enter!'
+
+He not only might have done, but it seemed possible that that was what
+he actually had done. As I approached the bed, he raised himself to a
+sitting posture, as, in the morning, he had done in the street, and he
+exclaimed, as if he addressed himself to someone whom he saw in front
+of him,--I cannot describe the almost more than human agony which was
+in his voice,
+
+'Paul Lessingham!--Beware!--The Beetle!'
+
+What he meant I had not the slightest notion. Probably that was why
+what seemed more like a pronouncement of delirium than anything else
+had such an extraordinary effect upon my nerves. No sooner had he
+spoken than a sort of blank horror seemed to settle down upon my mind.
+I actually found myself trembling at the knees. I felt, all at once, as
+if I was standing in the immediate presence of something awful yet
+unseen.
+
+As for the speaker, no sooner were the words out of his lips, than, as
+was the case in the morning, he relapsed into a condition of trance.
+Nurse, bending over him, announced the fact.
+
+'He's gone off again!--What an extraordinary thing!--I suppose it is
+real.' It was clear, from the tone of her voice, that she shared the
+doubt which had troubled the policeman, 'There's not a trace of a
+pulse. From the look of things he might be dead. Of one thing I'm sure,
+that there's something unnatural about the man. No natural illness I
+ever heard of, takes hold of a man like this.'
+
+Glancing up, she saw that there was something unusual in my face; an
+appearance which startled her.
+
+'Why, Miss Marjorie, what's the matter!--You look quite ill!'
+
+I felt ill, and worse than ill; but, at the same time, I was quite
+incapable of describing what I felt to nurse. For some inscrutable
+reason I had even lost the control of my tongue,--I stammered.
+
+'I--I--I'm not feeling very well, nurse; I--I--I think I'll be better
+in bed.'
+
+As I spoke, I staggered towards the door, conscious, all the while,
+that nurse was staring at me with eyes wide open, When I got out of the
+room, it seemed, in some incomprehensible fashion, as if something had
+left it with me, and that It and I were alone together in the corridor.
+So overcome was I by the consciousness of its immediate propinquity,
+that, all at once, I found myself cowering against the wall,--as if I
+expected something or someone to strike me.
+
+How I reached my bedroom I do not know. I found Fanchette awaiting me.
+For the moment her presence was a positive comfort,--until I realised
+the amazement with which she was regarding me.
+
+'Mademoiselle is not well?'
+
+'Thank you, Fanchette, I--I am rather tired. I will undress myself
+to-night--you can go to bed.'
+
+'But if mademoiselle is so tired, will she not permit me to assist her?'
+
+The suggestion was reasonable enough,--and kindly too; for, to say the
+least of it, she had as much cause for fatigue as I had. I hesitated. I
+should have liked to throw my arms about her neck, and beg her not to
+leave me; but, the plain truth is, I was ashamed. In my inner
+consciousness I was persuaded that the sense of terror which had
+suddenly come over me was so absolutely causeless, that I could not
+bear the notion of playing the craven in my maid's eyes. While I
+hesitated, something seemed to sweep past me through the air, and to
+brush against my cheek in passing. I caught at Fanchette's arm.
+
+'Fanchette!--Is there something with us in the room?'
+
+'Something with us in the room?--Mademoiselle?--What does mademoiselle
+mean?'
+
+She looked disturbed,--which was, on the whole, excusable. Fanchette is
+not exactly a strong-minded person, and not likely to be much of a
+support when a support was most required. If I was going to play the
+fool, I would be my own audience. So I sent her off.
+
+'Did you not hear me tell you that I will undress myself?--you are to
+go to bed.'
+
+She went to bed,--with quite sufficient willingness.
+
+The instant that she was out of the room I wished that she was back
+again. Such a paroxysm of fear came over me, that I was incapable of
+stirring from the spot on which I stood, and it was all I could do to
+prevent myself from collapsing in heap on the floor. I had never, till
+then, had reason to suppose that I was a coward. Nor to suspect myself
+of being the possessor of 'nerves.' I was as little likely as anyone to
+be frightened by shadows. I told myself that the whole thing was sheer
+absurdity, and that I should be thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct
+when the morning came. 'If you don't want to be self-branded as a
+contemptible idiot, Marjorie Lindon, you will call up your courage, and
+these foolish fears will fly.' But it would not do. Instead of flying,
+they grew worse. I became convinced,--and the process of conviction was
+terrible beyond words!--that there actually was something with me in
+the room, some invisible horror,--which, at any moment, might become
+visible. I seemed to understand--with a sense of agony which nothing
+can describe!--that this thing which was with me was with Paul. That we
+were linked together by the bond of a common, and a dreadful terror.
+That, at that moment, that same awful peril which was threatening me,
+was threatening him, and that I was powerless to move a finger in his
+aid. As with a sort of second sight, I saw out of the room in which I
+was, into another, in which Paul was crouching on the floor, covering
+his face with his hands, and shrieking. The vision came again and again
+with a degree of vividness of which I cannot give the least conception.
+At last the horror, and the reality of it, goaded me to frenzy. 'Paul!
+Paul!' I screamed. As soon as I found my voice, the vision faded. Once
+more I understood that, as a matter of simple fact, I was standing in
+my own bedroom; that the lights were burning brightly; that I had not
+yet commenced to remove a particle of dress. 'Am I going mad?' I
+wondered. I had heard of insanity taking extraordinary forms, but what
+could have caused softening of the brain in me I had not the faintest
+notion. Surely that sort of thing does not come on one--in such a
+wholly unmitigated form!--without the slightest notice,--and that my
+mental faculties were sound enough a few minutes back I was certain.
+The first premonition of anything of the kind had come upon me with the
+melodramatic utterance of the man I had found in the street.
+
+'Paul Lessingham!--Beware!--The Beetle!'
+
+The words were ringing in my ears.--What was that?--. There was a
+buzzing sound behind me. I turned to see what it was. It moved as I
+moved, so that it was still at my back. I swung, swiftly, right round
+on my heels. It still eluded me,--it was still behind.
+
+I stood and listened,--what was it that hovered so persistently at my
+back?
+
+The buzzing was distinctly audible. It was like the humming of a bee.
+Or--could it be a beetle?
+
+My whole life long I have had an antipathy to beetles,--of any sort or
+kind. I have objected neither to rats nor mice, nor cows, nor bulls,
+nor snakes, nor spiders, nor toads, nor lizards, nor any of the
+thousand and one other creatures, animate or otherwise, to which so
+many people have a rooted, and, apparently, illogical dislike. My
+pet--and only--horror has been beetles. The mere suspicion of a
+harmless, and, I am told, necessary cockroach, being within several
+feet has always made me seriously uneasy. The thought that a great,
+winged beetle--to me, a flying beetle is the horror of horrors!--was
+with me in my bedroom,--goodness alone knew how it had got there!--was
+unendurable. Anyone who had beheld me during the next few moments would
+certainly have supposed I was deranged. I turned and twisted, sprang
+from side to side, screwed myself into impossible positions, in order
+to obtain a glimpse of the detested visitant,--but in vain. I could
+hear it all the time; but see it--never! The buzzing sound was
+continually behind.
+
+The terror returned,--I began to think that my brain must be softening.
+I dashed to the bed. Flinging myself on my knees, I tried to pray. But
+I was speechless,--words would not come; my thoughts would not take
+shape. I all at once became conscious, as I struggled to ask help of
+God, that I was wrestling with something evil,--that if I only could
+ask kelp of Him, evil would flee. But I could not. I was
+helpless,--overmastered. I hid my face in the bedclothes, cramming my
+fingers into my ears. But the buzzing was behind me all the time.
+
+I sprang up, striking out, blindly, wildly, right and left, hitting
+nothing,--the buzzing always came from a point at which, at the moment,
+I was not aiming.
+
+I tore off my clothes. I had on a lovely frock which I had worn for the
+first time that night; I had had it specially made for the occasion of
+the Duchess' ball, and--more especially--in honour of Paul's great
+speech. I had said to myself, when I saw my image in a mirror, that it
+was the most exquisite gown I had ever had, that it suited me to
+perfection, and that it should continue in my wardrobe for many a day,
+if only as a souvenir of a memorable night. Now, in the madness of my
+terror, all reflections of that sort were forgotten. My only desire was
+to away with it. I tore it off anyhow, letting it fall in rags on the
+floor at my feet. All else that I had on I flung in the same way after
+it; it was a veritable holocaust of dainty garments,--I acting as
+relentless executioner who am, as a rule, so tender with my things. I
+leaped upon the bed, switched off the electric light, hurried into bed,
+burying myself, over head and all, deep down between the sheets.
+
+I had hoped that by shutting out the light, I might regain my senses.
+That in the darkness I might have opportunity for sane reflection. But
+I had made a grievous error. I had exchanged bad for worse. The
+darkness lent added terrors. The light had not been out five seconds
+before I would have given all that I was worth to be able to switch it
+on again.
+
+As I cowered beneath the bedclothes I heard the buzzing sound above my
+head,--the sudden silence of the darkness had rendered it more audible
+than it had been before. The thing, whatever it was, was hovering above
+the bed. It came nearer and nearer; it grew clearer and clearer. I felt
+it alight upon the coverlet;--shall I ever forget the sensations with
+which I did feel it? It weighed upon me like a ton of lead. How much of
+the seeming weight was real, and how much imaginary, I cannot pretend
+to say; but that it was much heavier than any beetle I have ever seen
+or heard of, I am sure.
+
+For a time it was still,--and during that time I doubt if I even drew
+my breath. Then I felt it begin to move, in wobbling fashion, with
+awkward, ungainly gait, stopping every now and then, as if for rest. I
+was conscious that it was progressing, slowly, yet surely, towards the
+head of the bed. The emotion of horror with which I realised what this
+progression might mean, will be, I fear, with me to the end of my
+life,--not only in dreams, but too often, also, in my waking hours. My
+heart, as the Psalmist has it, melted like wax within me, I was
+incapable of movement,--dominated by something as hideous as, and
+infinitely more powerful than, the fascination of the serpent.
+
+When it reached the head of the bed, what I feared--with what a
+fear!--would happen, did happen. It began to find its way inside,--to
+creep between the sheets; the wonder is I did not die! I felt it coming
+nearer and nearer, inch by inch; I knew that it was upon me, that
+escape there was none; I felt something touch my hair.
+
+And then oblivion did come to my aid. For the first time in my life I
+swooned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE STRANGE STORY OF THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+
+I have been anticipating for some weeks past, that things would become
+exciting,--and they have. But hardly in the way which I foresaw. It is
+the old story of the unexpected happening. Suddenly events of the most
+extraordinary nature have come crowding on me from the most
+unlooked-for quarters.
+
+Let me try to take them in something like their proper order.
+
+To begin with, Sydney has behaved very badly. So badly that it seems
+likely that I shall have to re-cast my whole conception of his
+character. It was nearly nine o'clock this morning when I,--I cannot
+say woke up, because I do not believe that I had really been
+asleep--but when I returned to consciousness. I found myself sitting up
+in bed, trembling like some frightened child. What had actually
+happened to me I did not know,--could not guess. I was conscious of an
+overwhelming sense of nausea, and, generally, I was feeling very far
+from well. I endeavoured to arrange my thoughts, and to decide upon
+some plan of action. Finally, I decided to go for advice and help where
+I had so often gone before,--to Sydney Atherton.
+
+I went to him. I told him the whole gruesome story. He saw, he could
+not help but see what a deep impress the events of the night had made
+on me. He heard me to the end with every appearance of sympathy,--and
+then all at once I discovered that all the time papa had been concealed
+behind a large screen which was in the room, listening to every word I
+had been uttering. That I was dumfoundered, goes without saying. It was
+bad enough in papa, but in Sydney it seemed, and it was, such
+treachery. He and I have told each other secrets all our lives; it has
+never entered my imagination, as he very well knows, to play him false,
+in one jot or tittle; and I have always understood that, in this sort
+of matter, men pride themselves on their sense of honour being so much
+keener than women's. I told them some plain truths; and I fancy that I
+left them both feeling heartily ashamed of themselves.
+
+One result the experience had on me,--it wound me up. It had on me the
+revivifying effect of a cold douche. I realised that mine was a
+situation in which I should have to help myself.
+
+When I returned home I learned that the man whom I had found in the
+street was himself again, and was as conscious as he was ever likely to
+be. Burning with curiosity to learn the nature of the connection which
+existed between Paul and him, and what was the meaning of his oracular
+apostrophes, I merely paused to remove my hat before hastening into his
+apartment.
+
+When he saw me, and heard who I was, the expressions of his gratitude
+were painful in their intensity. The tears streamed down his cheeks. He
+looked to me like a man who had very little life left in him. He looked
+weak, and white, and worn to a shadow. Probably he never had been
+robust, and it was only too plain that privation had robbed him of what
+little strength he had ever had. He was nothing else but skin and bone.
+Physical and mental debility was written large all over him.
+
+He was not bad-looking,--in a milk and watery sort of way. He had pale
+blue eyes and very fair hair, and, I daresay, at one time, had been a
+spruce enough clerk. It was difficult to guess his age, one ages so
+rapidly under the stress of misfortune, but I should have set him down
+as being about forty. His voice, though faint enough at first, was that
+of an educated man, and as he went on, and gathered courage, and became
+more and more in earnest, he spoke with a simple directness which was
+close akin to eloquence. It was a curious story which he had to tell.
+
+So curious, so astounding indeed, that, by the time it was finished, I
+was in such a state of mind, that I could perceive no alternative but
+to forgive Sydney, and, in spite of his recent, and scandalous
+misbehaviour, again appeal to him for assistance. It seemed, if the
+story told by the man whom I had found in the street was true,--and
+incredible though it sounded, he spoke like a truthful man!--that Paul
+was threatened by some dreadful, and, to me, wholly incomprehensible
+danger; that it was a case in which even moments were precious; and I
+felt that, with the best will in the world, it was a position in which
+I could not move alone. The shadow of the terror of the night was with
+me still, and with that fresh in my recollection how could I hope,
+single-handed, to act effectually against the mysterious being of whom
+this amazing tale was told? No! I believed that Sydney did care for me,
+in his own peculiar way; I knew that he was quick, and cool, and
+fertile in resource, and that he showed to most advantage in a
+difficult situation; it was possible that he had a conscience, of a
+sort, and that, this time, I might not appeal to it in vain.
+
+So I sent a servant off to fetch him, helter skelter.
+
+As luck would have it, the servant returned with him within five
+minutes. It appeared that he had been lunching with Dora Grayling, who
+lives just at the end of the street, and the footman had met him coming
+down the steps. I had him shown into my own room.
+
+'I want you to go to the man whom I found in the street, and listen to
+what he has to say.'
+
+'With pleasure.'
+
+'Can I trust you?'
+
+'To listen to what he has to say?--I believe so.'
+
+'Can I trust you to respect my confidence?'
+
+He was not at all abashed,--I never saw Sydney Atherton when he was
+abashed. Whatever the offence of which he has been guilty, he always
+seems completely at his ease. His eyes twinkled.
+
+'You can,--I will not breathe a syllable even to papa.'
+
+'In that case, come! But, you understand, I am going to put to the test
+the affirmations which you have made during all these years, and to
+prove if you have any of the feeling for me which you pretend.'
+
+Directly we were in the stranger's room, Sydney marched straight up to
+the bed, stared at the man who was lying in it, crammed his hands into
+his trouser pockets, and whistled. I was amazed.
+
+'So!' he exclaimed. 'It's you!'
+
+'Do you know this man?' I asked.
+
+'I am hardly prepared to go so far as to say that I know him, but, I
+chance to have a memory for faces, and it happens that I have met this
+gentleman on at least one previous occasion. Perhaps he remembers
+me.--Do you?'
+
+The stranger seemed uneasy,--as if he found Sidney's tone and manner
+disconcerting.
+
+'I do. You are the man in the street.'
+
+'Precisely. I am that--individual. And you are the man who came through
+the window. And in a much more comfortable condition you appear to be
+than when first I saw you.' Sydney turned to me. 'It is just possible,
+Miss Lindon, that I may have a few remarks to make to this gentleman
+which would be better made in private,--if you don't mind.'
+
+'But I do mind,--I mind very much. What do you suppose I sent for you
+here for?'
+
+Sydney smiled that absurd, provoking smile of his,--as if the occasion
+were not sufficiently serious.
+
+'To show that you still repose in me a vestige of your confidence.'
+
+'Don't talk nonsense. This man has told me a most extraordinary story,
+and I have sent for you--as you may believe, not too willingly'--Sydney
+bowed--'in order that he may repeat it in your presence, and in mine.'
+
+'Is that so?--Well!-Permit me to offer you a chair,--this tale may turn
+out to be a trifle long.'
+
+To humour him I accepted the chair he offered, though I should have
+preferred to stand;--he seated himself on the side of the bed, fixing
+on the stranger those keen, quizzical, not too merciful, eyes of his.
+
+'Well, sir, we are at your service,--if you will be so good as to
+favour us with a second edition of that pleasant yarn you have been
+spinning. But--let us begin at the right end!--what's your name?'
+
+'My name is Robert Holt.'
+
+'That so?--Then, Mr Robert Holt,--let her go!'
+
+Thus encouraged, Mr Holt repeated the tale which he had told me, only
+in more connected fashion than before. I fancy that Sydney's glances
+exercised on him a sort of hypnotic effect, and this kept him to the
+point,--he scarcely needed a word of prompting from the first syllable
+to the last.
+
+He told how, tired, wet, hungry, desperate, despairing, he had been
+refused admittance to the casual ward,--that unfailing resource, as one
+would have supposed, of those who had abandoned even hope. How he had
+come upon an open window in an apparently empty house, and, thinking of
+nothing but shelter from the inclement night, he had clambered through
+it. How he had found himself in the presence of an extraordinary being,
+who, in his debilitated and nervous state, had seemed to him to be only
+half human. How this dreadful creature had given utterance to wild
+sentiments of hatred towards Paul Lessingham,--my Paul! How he had
+taken advantage of Holt's enfeebled state to gain over him the most
+complete, horrible, and, indeed, almost incredible ascendency. How he
+actually had sent Holt, practically naked, into the storm-driven
+streets, to commit burglary at Paul's house,--and how he,--Holt,--had
+actually gone without being able to offer even a shadow of opposition.
+How Paul, suddenly returning home, had come upon Holt engaged in the
+very act of committing burglary, and how, on his hearing Holt make a
+cabalistic reference to some mysterious beetle, the manhood had gone
+out of him, and he had suffered the intruder to make good his escape
+without an effort to detain him.
+
+The story had seemed sufficiently astonishing the first time, it seemed
+still more astonishing the second,--but, as I watched Sydney listening,
+what struck me chiefly was the conviction that he had heard it all
+before. I charged him with it directly Holt had finished.
+
+'This is not the first time you have been told this tale.'
+
+'Pardon me,--but it is. Do you suppose I live in an atmosphere of fairy
+tales?'
+
+Something in his manner made me feel sure he was deceiving me.
+
+'Sydney!--Don't tell me a story!--Paul has told you!'
+
+'I am not telling you a story,--at least, on this occasion; and Mr
+Lessingham has not told me. Suppose we postpone these details to a
+little later. And perhaps, in the interim, you will permit me to put a
+question or two to Mr Holt.'
+
+I let him have his way,--though I knew he was concealing something from
+me; that he had a more intimate acquaintance with Mr Holt's strange
+tale than he chose to confess. And, for some cause, his reticence
+annoyed me.
+
+He looked at Mr Holt in silence for a second or two.
+
+Then he said, with the quizzical little air of bland impertinence which
+is peculiarly his own,
+
+'I presume, Mr Holt, you have been entertaining us with a novelty in
+fables, and that we are not expected to believe this pleasant little
+yarn of yours.'
+
+'I expect nothing. But I have told you the truth. And you know it.'
+
+This seemed to take Sydney aback.
+
+'I protest that, like Miss Lindon, you credit me with a more extensive
+knowledge than I possess. However, we will let that pass.--I take it
+that you paid particular attention to this mysterious habitant of this
+mysterious dwelling.'
+
+I saw that Mr Holt shuddered.
+
+'I am not likely ever to forget him.'
+
+'Then, in that case, you will be able to describe him to us.'
+
+'To do so adequately would be beyond my powers. But I will do my best.'
+
+If the original was more remarkable than the description which he gave
+of him, then he must have been remarkable indeed. The impression
+conveyed to my mind was rather of a monster than a human being. I
+watched Sydney attentively as he followed Mr Holt's somewhat lurid
+language, and there was something in his demeanour which made me more
+and more persuaded that he was more behind the scenes in this strange
+business than he pretended, or than the speaker suspected. He put a
+question which seemed uncalled for by anything which Mr Holt had said.
+
+'You are sure this thing of beauty was a man?'
+
+'No, sir, that is exactly what I am not sure.'
+
+There was a note in Sydney's voice which suggested that he had received
+precisely the answer which he had expected.
+
+'Did you think it was a woman?'
+
+'I did think so, more than once. Though I can hardly explain what made
+me think so. There was certainly nothing womanly about the face.' He
+paused, as if to reflect. Then added, 'I suppose it was a question of
+instinct.'
+
+'I see.--Just so.--It occurs to me, Mr Holt, that you are rather strong
+on questions of instinct.' Sydney got off the bed. He stretched
+himself, as if fatigued,--which is a way he has. 'I will not do you the
+injustice to hint that I do not believe a word of your charming, and
+simple, narrative. On the contrary, I will demonstrate my perfect
+credence by remarking that I have not the slightest doubt that you will
+be able to point out to me, for my particular satisfaction, the
+delightful residence on which the whole is founded.'
+
+Mr Holt coloured,--Sydney's tone could scarcely have been more
+significant.
+
+'You must remember, sir, that it was a dark night, that I had never
+been in that neighbourhood before, and that I was not in a condition to
+pay much attention to locality.'
+
+'All of which is granted, but--how far was it from Hammersmith
+Workhouse?'
+
+'Possibly under half a mile.'
+
+'Then, in that case, surely you can remember which turning you took on
+leaving Hammersmith Workhouse,--I suppose there are not many turnings
+you could have taken.'
+
+'I think I could remember.'
+
+'Then you shall have an opportunity to try. It isn't a very far cry to
+Hammersmith,--don't you think you are well enough to drive there now,
+just you and I together in a cab?'
+
+'I should say so. I wished to get up this morning. It is by the
+doctor's orders I have stayed in bed.'
+
+'Then, for once in a while, the doctor's orders shall be ignored,--I
+prescribe fresh air.' Sydney turned to me. 'Since Mr Holt's wardrobe
+seems rather to seek, don't you think a suit of one of the men might
+fit him,--if Mr Holt wouldn't mind making shift for the moment?--Then,
+by the time you've finished dressing, Mr Holt, I shall be ready.'
+
+While they were ascertaining which suit of clothes would be best
+adapted to his figure, I went with Sydney to my room. So soon as we
+were in, I let him know that this was not a matter in which I intended
+to be trifled with.
+
+'Of course you understand, Sydney, that I am coming with you.'
+
+He pretended not to know what I meant.
+
+'Coming with me?--I am delighted to hear it,--but where?'
+
+'To the house of which Mr Holt has been speaking.'
+
+'Nothing could give me greater pleasure, but--might I point out?--Mr
+Holt has to find it yet?'
+
+'I will come to help you to help him find it.'
+
+Sydney laughed,--but I could see he did not altogether relish the
+suggestion.
+
+'Three in a hansom?'
+
+'There is such a thing as a four-wheeled cab,--or I could order a
+carriage if you'd like one.'
+
+Sydney looked at me out of the corners of his eyes; then began to walk
+up and down the room, with his hands in his trouser pockets. Presently
+he began to talk nonsense.
+
+'I need not say with what a sensation of joy I should anticipate the
+delights of a drive with you,--even in a four-wheeled cab; but, were I
+in your place, I fancy that I should allow Holt and your humble servant
+to go hunting out this house of his alone. It may prove a more tedious
+business than you imagine. I promise that, after the hunt is over, I
+will describe the proceedings to you with the most literal accuracy.'
+
+'I daresay.--Do you think I don't know you've been deceiving me all the
+time?'
+
+'Deceiving you?--I!'
+
+'Yes,--you! Do you think I'm quite an idiot?'
+
+'My dear Marjorie!'
+
+'Do you think I can't see that you know all about what Mr Holt has been
+telling us,--perhaps more about it than he knows himself?'
+
+'On my word!--With what an amount of knowledge you do credit me.'
+
+'Yes, I do,--or discredit you, rather. If I were to trust you, you
+would tell me just as much as you chose,--which would be nothing. I'm
+coming with you,--so there's an end.'
+
+'Very well.--Do you happen to know if there are any revolvers in the
+house?'
+
+'Revolvers?--whatever for?'
+
+'Because I should like to borrow one. I will not conceal from
+you--since you press me--that this is a case in which a revolver is
+quite likely to be required.'
+
+'You are trying to frighten me.'
+
+'I am doing nothing of the kind, only, under the circumstances, I am
+bound to point out to you what it is you may expect.'
+
+'Oh, you think that you're bound to point that out, do you,--then now
+your bounden duty's done. As for there being any revolvers in the
+house, papa has a perfect arsenal,--would you like to take them all?'
+
+'Thanks, but I daresay I shall be able to manage with one,--unless you
+would like one too. You may find yourself in need of it.'
+
+'I am obliged to you, but, on this occasion, I don't think I'll
+trouble. I'll run the risk.--Oh, Sydney, what a hypocrite you are!'
+
+'It's for your sake, if I seem to be. I tell you most seriously, that I
+earnestly advise you to allow Mr Holt and I to manage this affair
+alone. I don't mind going so far as to say that this is a matter with
+which, in days to come, you will wish that you had not allowed yourself
+to be associated.'
+
+'What do you mean by that? Do you dare to insinuate anything
+against--Paul?'
+
+'I insinuate nothing. What I mean, I say right out; and, my dear
+Marjorie, what I actually do mean is this,--that if, in spite of my
+urgent solicitations, you will persist in accompanying us, the
+expedition, so far as I am concerned, will be postponed.'
+
+'That is what you do mean, is it? Then that's settled.' I rang the
+bell. The servant came. 'Order a four-wheeled cab at once. And let me
+know the moment Mr Holt is ready.' The servant went. I turned to
+Sydney. 'If you will excuse me, I will go and put my hat on. You are,
+of course, at liberty to please yourself as to whether you will or will
+not go, but, if you don't, then I shall go with Mr Holt alone.'
+
+I moved to the door. He stopped me.
+
+'My dear Marjorie, why will you persist in treating me with such
+injustice? Believe me, you have no idea what sort of adventure this is
+which you are setting out upon,--or you would hear reason. I assure you
+that you are gratuitously proposing to thrust yourself into imminent
+peril.'
+
+'What sort of peril? Why do you beat about the bush,--why don't you
+speak right out?'
+
+'I can't speak right out, there are circumstances which render it
+practically impossible--and that's the plain truth,--but the danger is
+none the less real on that account. I am not jesting,--I am in earnest;
+won't you take my word for it?'
+
+'It is not a question of taking your word only,--it is a question of
+something else beside. I have not forgotten my adventures of last
+night,--and Mr Holt's story is mysterious enough in itself; but there
+is something more mysterious still at the back of it,--something which
+you appear to suggest points unpleasantly at Paul. My duty is clear,
+and nothing you can say will turn me from it. Paul, as you are very
+well aware, is already over-weighted with affairs of state, pretty
+nearly borne down by them,--or I would take the tale to him, and he
+would talk to you after a fashion of his own. Things being as they are,
+I propose to show you that, although I am not yet Paul's wife, I can
+make his interests my own as completely as though I were. I can,
+therefore, only repeat that it is for you to decide what you intend to
+do; but, if you prefer to stay, I shall go with Mr Holt,--alone.'
+
+'Understand that, when the time for regret comes--as it will come!--you
+are not to blame me for having done what I advised you not to do.'
+
+'My dear Mr Atherton, I will undertake to do my utmost to guard your
+spotless reputation; I should be sorry that anyone should hold you
+responsible for anything I either said or did.'
+
+'Very well!--Your blood be on your own head!'
+
+'My blood?'
+
+'Yes,--your blood. I shouldn't be surprised if it comes to blood before
+we're through.--Perhaps you'll oblige me with the loan of one of that
+arsenal of revolvers of which you spoke.'
+
+I let him have his old revolver,--or, rather, I let him have one of
+papa's new ones. He put it in the hip pocket in his trousers. And the
+expedition started,--in a four-wheeled car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE HOUSE ON THE ROAD FROM THE WORKHOUSE
+
+
+Mr Holt looked as if he was in somebody else's garments. He was so
+thin, and worn, and wasted, that the suit of clothes which one of the
+men had lent him hung upon him as on a scarecrow. I was almost ashamed
+of myself for having incurred a share of the responsibility of taking
+him out of bed. He seemed so weak and bloodless that I should not have
+been surprised if he had fainted on the road. I had taken care that he
+should eat as much as he could eat before we started--the suggestion of
+starvation which he had conveyed to one's mind was dreadful!--and I had
+brought a flask of brandy in case of accidents, but, in spite of
+everything, I could not conceal from myself that he would be more at
+home in a sick-bed than in a jolting cab.
+
+It was not a cheerful drive. There was in Sydney's manner towards me an
+air of protection which I instinctively resented,--he appeared to be
+regarding me as a careful, and anxious, nurse might regard a
+wrong-headed and disobedient child. Conversation distinctly languished.
+Since Sydney seemed disposed to patronise me, I was bent on snubbing
+him. The result was, that the majority of the remarks which were
+uttered were addressed to Mr Holt.
+
+The cab stopped,--after what had appeared to me to be an interminable
+journey. I was rejoiced at the prospect of its being at an end. Sydney
+put his head out of the window. A short parley with the driver ensued.
+
+'This is 'Ammersmith Workhouse, it's a large place, sir,--which part of
+it might you be wanting?'
+
+Sydney appealed to Mr Holt. He put his head out of the window in his
+turn,--he did not seem to recognise our surroundings at all.
+
+'We have come a different way,--this is not the way I went; I went
+through Hammersmith,--and to the casual ward; I don't see that here.'
+
+Sydney spoke to the cabman.
+
+'Driver, where's the casual ward?'
+
+'That's the other end, sir.'
+
+'Then take us there.'
+
+He took us there. Then Sydney appealed again to Mr Holt.
+
+'Shall I dismiss the cabman,--or don't you feel equal to walking?'
+
+'Thank you, I feel quite equal to walking,--I think the exercise will
+do me good.'
+
+So the cabman was dismissed,--a step which we--and I, in
+particular--had subsequent cause to regret. Mr Holt took his bearings.
+He pointed to a door which was just in front of us.
+
+'That's the entrance to the casual ward, and that, over it, is the
+window through which the other man threw a stone. I went to the
+right,--back the way I had come.' We went to the right. 'I reached this
+corner.' We had reached a corner. Mr Holt looked about him,
+endeavouring to recall the way he had gone. A good many roads appeared
+to converge at that point, so that he might have wandered in either of
+several directions.
+
+Presently he arrived at something like a decision.
+
+'I think this is the way I went,--I am nearly sure it is.'
+
+He led the way, with something of an air of dubitation, and we
+followed. The road he had chosen seemed to lead to nothing and nowhere.
+We had not gone many yards from the workhouse gates before we were
+confronted by something like chaos. In front and on either side of us
+were large spaces of waste land. At some more or less remote period
+attempts appeared to have been made at brick-making,--there were untidy
+stacks of bilious-looking bricks in evidence. Here and there enormous
+weather-stained boards announced that 'This Desirable Land was to be
+Let for Building Purposes.' The road itself was unfinished. There was
+no pavement, and we had the bare uneven ground for sidewalk. It seemed,
+so far as I could judge, to lose itself in space, and to be swallowed
+up by the wilderness of 'Desirable Land' which lay beyond. In the near
+distance there were houses enough, and to spare--of a kind. But they
+were in other roads. In the one in which we actually were, on the
+right, at the end, there was a row of unfurnished carcases, but only
+two buildings which were in anything like a fit state for occupation.
+One stood on either side, not facing each other,--there was a distance
+between them of perhaps fifty yards. The sight of them had a more
+exciting effect on Mr Holt than it had on me. He moved rapidly
+forward,--coming to a standstill in front of the one upon our left,
+which was the nearer of the pair.
+
+'This is the house!' he exclaimed.
+
+He seemed almost exhilarated,--I confess that I was depressed. A more
+dismal-looking habitation one could hardly imagine. It was one of those
+dreadful jerry-built houses which, while they are still new, look old.
+It had quite possibly only been built a year or two, and yet, owing to
+neglect, or to poverty of construction, or to a combination of the two,
+it was already threatening to tumble down. It was a small place, a
+couple of storeys high, and would have been dear--I should think!--at
+thirty pounds a year. The windows had surely never been washed since
+the house was built,--those on the upper floor seemed all either
+cracked or broken. The only sign of occupancy consisted in the fact
+that a blind was down behind the window of the room on the ground
+floor. Curtains there were none. A low wall ran in front, which had
+apparently at one time been surmounted by something in the shape of an
+iron railing,--a rusty piece of metal still remained on one end; but,
+since there was only about a foot between it and the building, which
+was practically built upon the road,--whether the wall was intended to
+ensure privacy, or was merely for ornament, was not clear.
+
+'This is the house!' repeated Mr Holt, showing more signs of life than
+I had hitherto seen in him.
+
+Sydney looked it up and down,--it apparently appealed to his aesthetic
+sense as little as it did to mine.
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'I am certain.'
+
+'It seems empty.'
+
+'It seemed empty to me that night,--that is why I got into it in search
+of shelter.'
+
+'Which is the window which served you as a door?'
+
+'This one.' Mr Holt pointed to the window on the ground floor,--the one
+which was screened by a blind. 'There was no sign of a blind when I
+first saw it, and the sash was up,--it was that which caught my eye.'
+
+Once more Sydney surveyed the place, in comprehensive fashion, from
+roof to basement,--then he scrutinisingly regarded Mr Holt.
+
+'You are quite sure this is the house? It might be awkward if you
+proved mistaken. I am going to knock at the door, and if it turns out
+that that mysterious acquaintance of yours does not, and never has
+lived here, we might find an explanation difficult.'
+
+'I am sure it is the house,--certain! I know it,--I feel it here,--and
+here.'
+
+Mr Holt touched his breast, and his forehead. His manner was distinctly
+odd. He was trembling, and a fevered expression had come into his eyes.
+Sydney glanced at him, for a moment, in silence. Then he bestowed his
+attention upon me.
+
+'May I ask if I may rely upon your preserving your presence of mind?'
+
+The mere question ruffled my plumes.
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What I say. I am going to knock at that door, and I am going to get
+through it, somehow. It is quite within the range of possibility that,
+when I am through, there will be some strange happenings,--as you have
+heard from Mr Holt. The house is commonplace enough without; you may
+not find it so commonplace within. You may find yourself in a position
+in which it will be in the highest degree essential that you should
+keep your wits about you.'
+
+'I am not likely to let them stray.'
+
+'Then that's all right.--Do I understand that you propose to come in
+with me?'
+
+'Of course I do,--what do you suppose I've come for? What nonsense you
+are talking.
+
+'I hope that you will still continue to consider it nonsense by the
+time this little adventure's done.'
+
+That I resented his impertinence goes without saying--to be talked to
+in such a strain by Sydney Atherton, whom I had kept in subjection ever
+since he was in knickerbockers, was a little trying,--but I am forced
+to admit that I was more impressed by his manner, or his words, or by
+Mr Holt's manner, or something, than I should have cared to own. I had
+not the least notion what was going to happen, or what horrors that
+woebegone-looking dwelling contained. But Mr Holt's story had been of
+the most astonishing sort, my experiences of the previous night were
+still fresh, and, altogether, now that I was in such close
+neighbourhood with the Unknown--with a capital U!--although it was
+broad daylight, it loomed before me in a shape for which,--candidly!--I
+was not prepared.
+
+A more disreputable-looking front door I have not seen,--it was in
+perfect harmony with the remainder of the establishment. The paint was
+off; the woodwork was scratched and dented; the knocker was red with
+rust. When Sydney took it in his hand I was conscious of quite a little
+thrill. As he brought it down with a sharp rat-tat, I half expected to
+see the door fly open, and disclose some gruesome object glaring out at
+us. Nothing of the kind took place; the door did not budge,--nothing
+happened. Sydney waited a second or two, then knocked again; another
+second or two, then another knock. There was still no sign of any
+notice being taken of our presence. Sydney turned to Mr Holt.
+
+'Seems as if the place was empty.'
+
+Mr Holt was in the most singular condition of agitation,--it made me
+uncomfortable to look at him.
+
+'You do not know,--you cannot tell; there may be someone there who
+hears and pays no heed.'
+
+'I'll give them another chance.'
+
+Sydney brought down the knocker with thundering reverberations. The din
+must have been audible half a mile away. But from within the house
+there was still no sign that any heard. Sydney came down the step.
+
+'I'll try another way,--I may have better fortune at the back.'
+
+He led the way round to the rear, Mr Holt and I following in single
+file. There the place seemed in worse case even than in the front.
+There were two empty rooms on the ground floor at the back,--there was
+no mistake about their being empty, without the slightest difficulty we
+could see right into them. One was apparently intended for a kitchen
+and wash-house combined, the other for a sitting-room. There was not a
+stick of furniture in either, nor the slightest sign of human
+habitation. Sydney commented on the fact.
+
+'Not only is it plain that no one lives in these charming apartments,
+but it looks to me uncommonly as if no one ever had lived in them.'
+
+To my thinking Mr Holt's agitation was increasing every moment. For
+some reason of his own, Sydney took no notice of it whatever,--possibly
+because he judged that to do so would only tend to make it worse. An
+odd change had even taken place in Mr Holt's voice,--he spoke in a sort
+of tremulous falsetto.
+
+'It was only the front room which I saw.'
+
+'Very good; then, before very long, you shall see that front room
+again.'
+
+Sydney rapped with his knuckles on the glass panels of the back door.
+He tried the handle; when it refused to yield he gave it a vigorous
+shaking. He saluted the dirty windows,--so far as succeeding in
+attracting attention was concerned, entirely in vain. Then he turned
+again to Mr Holt,--half mockingly.
+
+'I call you to witness that I have used every lawful means to gain the
+favourable notice of your mysterious friend. I must therefore beg to
+stand excused if I try something slightly unlawful for a change. It is
+true that you found the window already open; but, in my case, it soon
+will be.'
+
+He took a knife out of his pocket, and, with the open blade, forced
+back the catch,--as I am told that burglars do. Then he lifted the sash.
+
+'Behold!' he exclaimed. 'What did I tell you?--Now, my dear Marjorie,
+if I get in first and Mr Holt gets in after me, we shall be in a
+position to open the door for you.'
+
+I immediately saw through his design.
+
+'No, Mr Atherton; you will get in first, and I will get in after you,
+through the window,--before Mr Holt. I don't intend to wait for you to
+open the door.'
+
+Sydney raised his hands and opened his eyes, as if grieved at my want
+of confidence. But I did not mean to be left in the lurch, to wait
+their pleasure, while on pretence of opening the door, they searched
+the house. So Sydney climbed in first, and I second,--it was not a
+difficult operation, since the window-sill was under three feet from
+the ground--and Mr Holt last. Directly we were in, Sydney put his hand
+up to his mouth, and shouted.
+
+'Is there anybody in this house? If so, will he kindly step this way,
+as there is someone wishes to see him.'
+
+His words went echoing through the empty rooms in a way which was
+almost uncanny. I suddenly realised that if, after all, there did
+happen to be somebody in the house, and he was at all disagreeable, our
+presence on his premises might prove rather difficult to explain.
+However, no one answered. While I was waiting for Sydney to make the
+next move, he diverted my attention to Mr Holt.
+
+'Hollo, Holt, what's the matter with you? Man, don't play the fool like
+that!'
+
+Something was the matter with Mr Holt. He was trembling all over as if
+attacked by a shaking palsy. Every muscle in his body seemed twitching
+at once. A strained look had come on his face, which was not nice to
+see. He spoke as with an effort.
+
+'I'm all right.--It's nothing.'
+
+'Oh, is it nothing? Then perhaps you'll drop it. Where's that brandy?'
+I handed Sydney the flask. 'Here, swallow this.'
+
+Mr Holt swallowed the cupful of neat spirit which Sydney offered
+without an attempt at parley. Beyond bringing some remnants of colour
+to his ashen cheeks it seemed to have no effect on him whatever. Sydney
+eyed him with a meaning in his glance which I was at a loss to
+understand.
+
+'Listen to me, my lad. Don't think you can deceive me by playing any of
+your fool tricks, and don't delude yourself into supposing that I shall
+treat you as anything but dangerous if you do. I've got this.' He
+showed the revolver of papa's which I had lent him. 'Don't imagine that
+Miss Lindon's presence will deter me from using it.'
+
+Why he addressed Mr Holt in such a strain surpassed my comprehension.
+Mr Holt, however, evinced not the faintest symptoms of resentment,--he
+had become, on a sudden, more like an automaton than a man. Sydney
+continued to gaze at him as if he would have liked his glance to
+penetrate to his inmost soul.
+
+'Keep in front of me, if you please, Mr Holt, and lead the way to this
+mysterious apartment in which you claim to have had such a remarkable
+experience.'
+
+Of me he asked in a whisper,
+
+'Did you bring a revolver?'
+
+I was startled.
+
+'A revolver?--The idea!--How absurd you are!'
+
+Sydney said something which was so rude--and so uncalled for!--that it
+was worthy of papa in his most violent moments.
+
+'I'd sooner be absurd than a fool in petticoats.' I was so angry that I
+did not know what to say,--and before I could say it he went on. 'Keep
+your eyes and ears well open; be surprised at nothing you see or hear.
+Stick close to me. And for goodness sake remain mistress of as many of
+your senses as you conveniently can.'
+
+I had not the least idea what was the meaning of it all. To me there
+seemed nothing to make such a pother about. And yet I was conscious of
+a fluttering of the heart as if there soon might be something, I knew
+Sydney sufficiently well to be aware that he was one of the last men in
+the world to make a fuss without reason,--and that he was as little
+likely to suppose that there was a reason when as a matter of fact
+there was none.
+
+Mr Holt led the way, as Sydney desired--or, rather, commanded, to the
+door of the room which was in front of the house. The door was closed.
+Sydney tapped on a panel. All was silence. He tapped again.
+
+'Anyone in there?' he demanded.
+
+As there was still no answer, he tried the handle. The door was locked.
+
+'The first sign of the presence of a human being we have had,--doors
+don't lock themselves. It's just possible that there may have been
+someone or something about the place, at some time or other, after all.'
+
+Grasping the handle firmly, he shook it with all his might,--as he had
+done with the door at the back. So flimsily was the place constructed
+that he made even the walls to tremble.
+
+'Within there!--if anyone is in there!--if you don't open this door, I
+shall.'
+
+There was no response.
+
+So be it!--I'm going to pursue my wild career of defiance of
+established law and order, and gain admission in one way, if I can't in
+another.'
+
+Putting his right shoulder against the door, he pushed with his whole
+force. Sydney is a big man, and very strong, and the door was weak.
+Shortly, the lock yielded before the continuous pressure, and the door
+flew open. Sydney whistled.
+
+'So!--It begins to occur to me, Mr Holt, that that story of yours may
+not have been such pure romance as it seemed.'
+
+It was plain enough that, at any rate, this room had been occupied, and
+that recently,--and, if his taste in furniture could be taken as a
+test, by an eccentric occupant to boot. My own first impression was
+that there was someone, or something, living in it still,--an
+uncomfortable odour greeted our nostrils, which was suggestive of some
+evil-smelling animal. Sydney seemed to share my thought.
+
+'A pretty perfume, on my word! Let's shed a little more light on the
+subject, and see what causes it. Marjorie, stop where you are until I
+tell you.'
+
+I had noticed nothing, from without, peculiar about the appearance of
+the blind which screened the window, but it must have been made of some
+unusually thick material, for, within, the room was strangely dark.
+Sydney entered, with the intention of drawing up the blind, but he had
+scarcely taken a couple of steps when he stopped.
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'It's it,' said Mr Holt, in a voice which was so unlike his own that it
+was scarcely recognisable.
+
+'It?--What do you mean by it?'
+
+'The Beetle!'
+
+Judging from the sound of his voice Sydney was all at once in a state
+of odd excitement.
+
+'Oh, is it!--Then, if this time I don't find out the how and the why
+and the wherefore of that charming conjuring trick, I'll give you leave
+to write me down an ass,--with a great, big A.'
+
+He rushed farther into the room,--apparently his efforts to lighten it
+did not meet with the immediate success which he desired.
+
+'What's the matter with this confounded blind? There's no cord! How do
+you pull it up?--What the--'
+
+In the middle of his sentence Sydney ceased speaking. Suddenly Mr Holt,
+who was standing by my side on the threshold of the door, was seized
+with such a fit of trembling, that, fearing he was going to fall, I
+caught him by the arm. A most extraordinary look was on his face. His
+eyes were distended to their fullest width, as if with horror at what
+they saw in front of them. Great beads of perspiration were on his
+forehead.
+
+'It's coming!' he screamed.
+
+Exactly what happened I do not know. But, as he spoke, I heard,
+proceeding from the room, the sound of the buzzing of wings. Instantly
+it recalled my experiences of the night before,--as it did so I was
+conscious of a most unpleasant qualm. Sydney swore a great oath, as if
+he were beside himself with rage.
+
+'If you won't go up, you shall come down.'
+
+I suppose, failing to find a cord, he seized the blind from below, and
+dragged it down,--it came, roller and all, clattering to the floor. The
+room was all in light. I hurried in. Sydney was standing by the window,
+with a look of perplexity upon his face which, under any other
+circumstances, would have been comical. He was holding papa's revolver
+in his hand, and was glaring round and round the room, as if wholly at
+a loss to understand how it was he did not see what he was looking for.
+
+'Marjorie!' he exclaimed. 'Did you hear anything?'
+
+'Of course I did. It was that which I heard last night,--which so
+frightened me.'
+
+'Oh, was it? Then, by--' in his excitement he must have been completely
+oblivious of my presence, for he used the most terrible language, 'when
+I find it there'll be a small discussion. It can't have got out of the
+room,--I know the creature's here; I not only heard it, I felt it brush
+against my face.--Holt, come inside and shut that door.'
+
+Mr Holt raised his arms, as if he were exerting himself to make a
+forward movement,--but he remained rooted to the spot on which he stood.
+
+'I can't!' he cried.
+
+'You can't.'--Why?'
+
+'It won't let me.'
+
+'What won't let you?'
+
+'The Beetle!'
+
+Sydney moved till he was close in front of him. He surveyed him with
+eager eyes. I was just at his back. I heard him murmur,--possibly to me.
+
+'By George!--It's just as I thought!--The beggar's hypnotised!'
+
+Then he said aloud,
+
+'Can you see it now?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'Behind you.'
+
+As Mr Holt spoke, I again heard, quite close to me, that buzzing sound.
+Sydney seemed to hear it too,--it caused him to swing round so quickly
+that he all but whirled me off my feet.
+
+'I beg your pardon, Marjorie, but this is of the nature of an
+unparalleled experience,--didn't you hear something then?'
+
+'I did,--distinctly; it was close to me,--within an inch or two of my
+face.'
+
+We stared about us, then back at each other,--there was nothing else to
+be seen. Sydney laughed, doubtfully.
+
+'It's uncommonly queer. I don't want to suggest that there are visions
+about, or I might suspect myself of softening of the brain. But--it's
+queer. There's a trick about it somewhere, I am convinced; and no doubt
+it's simple enough when you know how it's done,--but the difficulty is
+to find that out.--Do you think our friend over there is acting?'
+
+'He looks to me as if he were ill.'
+
+'He does look ill. He also looks as if he were hypnotised. If he is, it
+must be by suggestion,--and that's what makes me doubtful, because it
+will be the first plainly established case of hypnotism by suggestion
+I've encountered.--Holt!'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'That,' said Sydney in my ear, 'is the voice and that is the manner of
+a hypnotised man, but, on the other hand, a person under influence
+generally responds only to the hypnotist,--which is another feature
+about our peculiar friend which arouses my suspicions.' Then, aloud,
+'Don't stand there like an idiot,--come inside.'
+
+Again Mr Holt made an apparently futile effort to do as he was bid. It
+was painful to look at him,--he was like a feeble, frightened,
+tottering child, who would come on, but cannot.
+
+'I can't.'
+
+'No nonsense, my man! Do you think that this is a performance in a
+booth, and that I am to be taken in by all the humbug of the
+professional mesmerist? Do as I tell you,--come into the room.'
+
+There was a repetition, on Mr Holt's part, of his previous pitiful
+struggle; this time it was longer sustained than before,--but the
+result was the same.
+
+'I can't!' he wailed.
+
+'Then I say you can,--and shall! If I pick you up, and carry you,
+perhaps you will not find yourself so helpless as you wish me to
+suppose.'
+
+Sydney moved forward to put his threat into execution. As he did so, a
+strange alteration took place in Mr Holt's demeanour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR HOLT
+
+
+I was standing in the middle of the room, Sydney was between the door
+and me; Mr Holt was in the hall, just outside the doorway, in which he,
+so to speak, was framed. As Sydney advanced towards him he was seized
+with a kind of convulsion,--he had to lean against the side of the door
+to save himself from falling. Sydney paused, and watched. The spasm
+went as suddenly as it came,--Mr Holt became as motionless as he had
+just now been the other way. He stood in an attitude of febrile
+expectancy,--his chin raised, his head thrown back, his eyes glancing
+upwards,--with the dreadful fixed glare which had come into them ever
+since we had entered the house. He looked to me as if his every faculty
+was strained in the act of listening,--not a muscle in his body seemed
+to move; he was as rigid as a figure carved in stone. Presently the
+rigidity gave place to what, to an onlooker, seemed causeless agitation.
+
+'I hear!' he exclaimed, in the most curious voice I had ever heard. 'I
+come!'
+
+It was as though he was speaking to someone who was far away. Turning,
+he walked down the passage to the front door.
+
+'Hollo!' cried Sydney. 'Where are you off to?'
+
+We both of us hastened to see. He was fumbling with the latch; before
+we could reach him, the door was open, and he was through it. Sydney,
+rushing after him, caught him on the step and held him by the arm.
+
+'What's the meaning of this little caper?--Where do you think you're
+going now?'
+
+Mr Holt did not condescend to turn and look at him. He said, in the
+same dreamy, faraway, unnatural tone of voice,--and he kept his
+unwavering gaze fixed on what was apparently some distant object which
+was visible only to himself.
+
+'I am going to him. He calls me.'
+
+'Who calls you?'
+
+'The Lord of the Beetle.'
+
+Whether Sydney released his arm or not I cannot say. As he spoke, he
+seemed to me to slip away from Sydney's grasp. Passing through the
+gateway, turning to the right, he commenced to retrace his steps in the
+direction we had come. Sydney stared after him in unequivocal
+amazement. Then he looked at me.
+
+'Well!--this is a pretty fix!--now what's to be done?'
+
+'What's the matter with him?' I inquired. 'Is he mad?'
+
+'There's method in his madness if he is. He's in the same condition in
+which he was that night I saw him come out of the Apostle's window.'
+Sydney has a horrible habit of calling Paul 'the Apostle'; I have
+spoken to him about it over and over again,--but my words have not made
+much impression. 'He ought to be followed,--he may be sailing off to
+that mysterious friend of his this instant.--But, on the other hand, he
+mayn't, and it may be nothing but a trick of our friend the conjurer's
+to get us away from this elegant abode of his. He's done me twice
+already, I don't want to be done again,--and I distinctly do not want
+him to return and find me missing. He's quite capable of taking the
+hint, and removing himself into the Ewigkeit,--when the clue to as
+pretty a mystery as ever I came across will have vanished.'
+
+'I can stay,' I said.
+
+'You?--Alone?'
+
+He eyed me doubtingly,--evidently not altogether relishing the
+proposition.
+
+'Why not? You might send the first person you meet,--policeman, cabman,
+or whoever it is--to keep me company. It seems a pity now that we
+dismissed that cab.'
+
+'Yes, it does seem a pity.' Sydney was biting his lip. 'Confound that
+fellow! how fast he moves.'
+
+Mr Holt was already nearing the end of the road.
+
+'If you think it necessary, by all means follow to see where he
+goes,--you are sure to meet somebody whom you will be able to send
+before you have gone very far.'
+
+'I suppose I shall.--You won't mind being left alone?'
+
+'Why should I?--I'm not a child.'
+
+Mr Holt, reaching the corner, turned it, and vanished out of sight.
+Sydney gave an exclamation of impatience.
+
+'If I don't make haste I shall lose him. I'll do as you
+suggest--dispatch the first individual I come across to hold watch and
+ward with you.'
+
+'That'll be all right.'
+
+He started off at a run,--shouting to me as he went.
+
+'It won't be five minutes before somebody comes!'
+
+I waved my hand to him. I watched him till he reached the end of the
+road. Turning, he waved his hand to me. Then he vanished, as Mr Holt
+had done.
+
+And I was alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE TERROR BY DAY
+
+
+My first impulse, after Sydney's disappearance, was to laugh. Why
+should he display anxiety on my behalf merely because I was to be the
+sole occupant of an otherwise empty house for a few minutes more or
+less,--and in broad daylight too! To say the least, the anxiety seemed
+unwarranted.
+
+I lingered at the gate, for a moment or two, wondering what was at the
+bottom of Mr Holt's singular proceedings, and what Sydney really
+proposed to gain by acting as a spy upon his wanderings. Then I turned
+to re-enter the house. As I did so, another problem suggested itself to
+my mind,--what connection, of the slightest importance, could a man in
+Paul Lessingham's position have with the eccentric being who had
+established himself in such an unsatisfactory dwelling-place? Mr Holt's
+story I had only dimly understood,--it struck me that it would require
+a deal of understanding. It was more like a farrago of nonsense, an
+outcome of delirium, than a plain statement of solid facts. To tell the
+truth, Sydney had taken it more seriously than I expected. He seemed to
+see something in it which I emphatically did not. What was double Dutch
+to me, seemed clear as print to him. So far as I could judge, he
+actually had the presumption to imagine that Paul--my Paul!--Paul
+Lessingham!--the great Paul Lessingham!--was mixed up in the very
+mysterious adventures of poor, weak-minded, hysterical Mr Holt, in a
+manner which was hardly to his credit.
+
+Of course, any idea of the kind was purely and simply balderdash.
+Exactly what bee Sydney had got in his bonnet, I could not guess. But I
+did know Paul. Only let me find myself face to face with the fantastic
+author of Mr Holt's weird tribulations, and I, a woman, single-handed,
+would do my best to show him that whoever played pranks with Paul
+Lessingham trifled with edged tools.
+
+I had returned to that historical front room which, according to Mr
+Holt, had been the scene of his most disastrous burglarious entry.
+Whoever had furnished it had had original notions of the resources of
+modern upholstery. There was not a table in the place,--no chair or
+couch, nothing to sit down upon except the bed. On the floor there was
+a marvellous carpet which was apparently of eastern manufacture. It was
+so thick, and so pliant to the tread, that moving over it was like
+walking on thousand-year-old turf. It was woven in gorgeous colours,
+and covered with--
+
+When I discovered what it actually was covered with, I was conscious of
+a disagreeable sense of surprise.
+
+It was covered with beetles!
+
+All over it, with only a few inches of space between each, were
+representations of some peculiar kind of beetle,--it was the same
+beetle, over, and over, and over. The artist had woven his undesirable
+subject into the warp and woof of the material with such cunning skill
+that, as one continued to gaze, one began to wonder if by any
+possibility the creatures could be alive.
+
+In spite of the softness of the texture, and the art--of a kind!--which
+had been displayed in the workmanship, I rapidly arrived at the
+conclusion that it was the most uncomfortable carpet I had ever seen. I
+wagged my finger at the repeated portrayals of the--to me!--unspeakable
+insect.
+
+'If I had discovered that you were there before Sydney went, I think it
+just possible that I should have hesitated before I let him go.'
+
+Then there came a revulsion of feeling. I shook myself.
+
+'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Marjorie Lindon, to even think
+such nonsense. Are you all nerves and morbid imaginings,--you who have
+prided yourself on being so strong-minded! A pretty sort you are to do
+battle for anyone.--Why, they're only make-believes!'
+
+Half involuntarily, I drew my foot over one of the creatures. Of
+course, it was nothing but imagination; but I seemed to feel it squelch
+beneath my shoe. It was disgusting.
+
+'Come!' I cried. 'This won't do! As Sydney would phrase it,--am I going
+to make an idiot of myself?'
+
+I turned to the window,--looking at my watch.
+
+'It's more than five minutes ago since Sydney went. That companion of
+mine ought to be already on the way. I'll go and see if he is coming.'
+
+I went to the gate. There was not a soul in sight. It was with such a
+distinct sense of disappointment that I perceived this was so, that I
+was in two minds what to do. To remain where I was, looking, with
+gaping eyes, for the policeman, or the cabman, or whoever it was Sydney
+was dispatching to act as my temporary associate, was tantamount to
+acknowledging myself a simpleton,--while I was conscious of a most
+unmistakable reluctance to return within the house.
+
+Common sense, or what I took for common sense, however, triumphed, and,
+after loitering for another five minutes, I did go in again.
+
+This time, ignoring, to the best of my ability, the beetles on the
+floor, I proceeded to expend my curiosity--and occupy my thoughts--in
+an examination of the bed. It only needed a very cursory examination,
+however, to show that the seeming bed was, in reality, none at all,--or
+if it was a bed after the manner of the Easterns it certainly was not
+after the fashion of the Britons. There was no framework,--nothing to
+represent the bedstead. It was simply a heap of rugs piled apparently
+indiscriminately upon the floor. A huge mass of them there seemed to
+be; of all sorts, and shapes, and sizes,--and materials too.
+
+The top one was of white silk,--in quality, exquisite. It was of huge
+size, yet, with a little compression, one might almost have passed it
+through the proverbial wedding ring. So far as space admitted I spread
+it out in front of me. In the middle was a picture,--whether it was
+embroidered on the substance or woven in it, I could not quite make
+out. Nor, at first, could I gather what it was the artist had intended
+to depict,--there was a brilliancy about it which was rather dazzling.
+By degrees, I realised that the lurid hues were meant for flames,--and,
+when one had got so far, one perceived that they were by no means badly
+imitated either. Then the meaning of the thing dawned on me,--it was a
+representation of a human sacrifice. In its way, as ghastly a piece of
+realism as one could see.
+
+On the right was the majestic seated figure of a goddess. Her hands
+were crossed upon her knees, and she was naked from her waist upwards.
+I fancied it was meant for Isis. On her brow was perched a
+gaily-apparelled beetle--that ubiquitous beetle!--forming a bright spot
+of colour against her coppery skin,--it was an exact reproduction of
+the creatures which were imaged on the carpet. In front of the idol was
+an enormous fiery furnace. In the very heart of the flames was an
+altar. On the altar was a naked white woman being burned alive. There
+could be no doubt as to her being alive, for she was secured by chains
+in such a fashion that she was permitted a certain amount of freedom,
+of which she was availing herself to contort and twist her body into
+shapes which were horribly suggestive of the agony which she was
+enduring,--the artist, indeed, seemed to have exhausted his powers in
+his efforts to convey a vivid impression of the pains which were
+tormenting her.
+
+'A pretty picture, on my word! A pleasant taste in art the garnitures
+of this establishment suggest! The person who likes to live with this
+kind of thing, especially as a covering to his bed, must have his own
+notions as to what constitute agreeable surroundings.'
+
+As I continued staring at the thing, all at once it seemed as if the
+woman on the altar moved. It was preposterous, but she appeared to
+gather her limbs together, and turn half over.
+
+'What can be the matter with me? Am I going mad? She can't be moving!'
+
+If she wasn't, then certainly something was,--she was lifted right into
+the air. An idea occurred to me. I snatched the rug aside.
+
+The mystery was explained!
+
+A thin, yellow, wrinkled hand was protruding from amidst the heap of
+rugs,--it was its action which had caused the seeming movement of the
+figure on the altar. I stared, confounded. The hand was followed by an
+arm; the arm by a shoulder; the shoulder by a head,--and the most
+awful, hideous, wicked-looking face I had ever pictured even in my most
+dreadful dreams. A pair of baleful eyes were glaring up at mine.
+
+I understood the position in a flash of startled amazement.
+
+Sydney, in following Mr Holt, had started on a wild goose chase after
+all. I was alone with the occupant of that mysterious house,--the chief
+actor in Mr Holt's astounding tale. He had been hidden in the heap of
+rugs all the while.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+In Pursuit
+
+
+The Conclusion of the Matter is extracted from the Case-Book of the
+Hon. Augustus Champnell, Confidential Agent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A NEW CLIENT
+
+
+On the afternoon of Friday, June 2, 18--, I was entering in my
+case-book some memoranda having reference to the very curious matter of
+the Duchess of Datchet's Deed-box. It was about two o'clock. Andrews
+came in and laid a card upon my desk. On it was inscribed 'Mr Paul
+Lessingham.'
+
+'Show Mr Lessingham in.'
+
+Andrews showed him in. I was, of course, familiar with Mr Lessingham's
+appearance, but it was the first time I had had with him any personal
+communication. He held out his hand to me.
+
+'You are Mr Champnell?'
+
+'I am.'
+
+'I believe that I have not had the honour of meeting you before, Mr
+Champnell, but with your father, the Earl of Glenlivet, I have the
+pleasure of some acquaintance.'
+
+I bowed. He looked at me, fixedly, as if he were trying to make out
+what sort of man I was. 'You are very young, Mr Champnell.'
+
+'I have been told that an eminent offender in that respect once
+asserted that youth is not of necessity a crime.'
+
+'And you have chosen a singular profession,--one in which one hardly
+looks for juvenility.'
+
+'You yourself, Mr Lessingham, are not old. In a statesman one expects
+grey hairs.--I trust that I am sufficiently ancient to be able to do
+you service.'
+
+He smiled.
+
+'I think it possible. I have heard of you more than once, Mr Champnell,
+always to your advantage. My friend, Sir John Seymour, was telling me,
+only the other day, that you have recently conducted for him some
+business, of a very delicate nature, with much skill and tact; and he
+warmly advised me, if ever I found myself in a predicament, to come to
+you. I find myself in a predicament now.'
+
+Again I bowed.
+
+'A predicament, I fancy, of an altogether unparalleled sort. I take it
+that anything I may say to you will be as though it were said to a
+father confessor.'
+
+'You may rest assured of that.'
+
+'Good.--Then, to make the matter clear to you I must begin by telling
+you a story,--if I may trespass on your patience to that extent. I will
+endeavour not to be more verbose than the occasion requires.'
+
+I offered him a chair, placing it in such a position that the light
+from the window would have shone full upon his face. With the calmest
+possible air, as if unconscious of my design, he carried the chair to
+the other side of my desk, twisting it right round before he sat on
+it,--so that now the light was at his back and on my face. Crossing his
+legs, clasping his hands about his knee, he sat in silence for some
+moments, as if turning something over in his mind. He glanced round the
+room.
+
+'I suppose, Mr Champnell, that some singular tales have been told in
+here.'
+
+'Some very singular tales indeed. I am never appalled by singularity.
+It is my normal atmosphere.'
+
+'And yet I should be disposed to wager that you have never listened to
+so strange a story as that which I am about to tell you now. So
+astonishing, indeed, is the chapter in my life which I am about to open
+out to you, that I have more than once had to take myself to task, and
+fit the incidents together with mathematical accuracy in order to
+assure myself of its perfect truth.'
+
+He paused. There was about his demeanour that suggestion of reluctance
+which I not uncommonly discover in individuals who are about to take
+the skeletons from their cupboards and parade them before my eyes. His
+next remark seemed to point to the fact that he perceived what was
+passing through my thoughts.
+
+'My position is not rendered easier by the circumstance that I am not
+of a communicative nature. I am not in sympathy with the spirit of the
+age which craves for personal advertisement. I hold that the private
+life even of a public man should be held inviolate. I resent, with
+peculiar bitterness, the attempts of prying eyes to peer into matters
+which, as it seems to me, concern myself alone. You must, therefore,
+bear with me, Mr Champnell, if I seem awkward in disclosing to you
+certain incidents in my career which I had hoped would continue locked
+in the secret depository of my own bosom, at any rate till I was
+carried to the grave. I am sure you will suffer me to stand excused if
+I frankly admit that it is only an irresistible chain of incidents
+which has constrained me to make of you a confidant.'
+
+'My experience tells me, Mr Lessingham, that no one ever does come to
+me until they are compelled. In that respect I am regarded as something
+worse even than a medical man.'
+
+A wintry smile flitted across his features,--it was clear that he
+regarded me as a good deal worse than a medical man. Presently he began
+to tell me one of the most remarkable tales which even I had heard. As
+he proceeded I understood how strong, and how natural, had been his
+desire for reticence. On the mere score of credibility he must have
+greatly preferred to have kept his own counsel. For my part I own,
+unreservedly, that I should have deemed the tale incredible had it been
+told me by Tom, Dick, or Harry, instead of by Paul Lessingham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+WHAT CAME OF LOOKING THROUGH A LATTICE
+
+
+He began in accents which halted not a little. By degrees his voice
+grew firmer. Words came from him with greater fluency.
+
+'I am not yet forty. So when I tell you that twenty years ago I was a
+mere youth I am stating what is a sufficiently obvious truth. It is
+twenty years ago since the events of which I am going to speak
+transpired.
+
+'I lost both my parents when I was quite a lad, and by their death I
+was left in a position in which I was, to an unusual extent in one so
+young, my own master. I was ever of a rambling turn of mind, and when,
+at the mature age of eighteen, I left school, I decided that I should
+learn more from travel than from sojourn at a university. So, since
+there was no one to say me nay, instead of going either to Oxford or
+Cambridge, I went abroad. After a few months I found myself in
+Egypt,--I was down with fever at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo. I had
+caught it by drinking polluted water during an excursion with some
+Bedouins to Palmyra.
+
+'When the fever had left me I went out one night into the town in
+search of amusement. I went, unaccompanied, into the native quarter,
+not a wise thing to do, especially at night, but at eighteen one is not
+always wise, and I was weary of the monotony of the sick-room, and
+eager for something which had in it a spice of adventure, I found
+myself in a street which I have reason to believe is no longer
+existing. It had a French name, and was called the Rue de Rabagas,--I
+saw the name on the corner as I turned into it, and it has left an
+impress on the tablets of my memory which is never likely to be
+obliterated.
+
+'It was a narrow street, and, of course, a dirty one, ill-lit, and,
+apparently, at the moment of my appearance, deserted. I had gone,
+perhaps, half-way down its tortuous length, blundering more than once
+into the kennel, wondering what fantastic whim had brought me into such
+unsavoury quarters, and what would happen to me if, as seemed extremely
+possible, I lost my way. On a sudden my ears were saluted by sounds
+which proceeded from a house which I was passing,--sounds of music and
+of singing.
+
+'I paused. I stood awhile to listen.
+
+'There was an open window on my right, which was screened by latticed
+blinds. From the room which was behind these blinds the sounds were
+coming. Someone was singing, accompanied by an instrument resembling a
+guitar,--singing uncommonly well.'
+
+Mr Lessingham stopped. A stream of recollection seemed to come flooding
+over him. A dreamy look came into his eyes.
+
+'I remember it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. How it all comes
+back,--the dirty street, the evil smells, the imperfect light, the
+girl's voice filling all at once the air. It was a girl's voice,--full,
+and round, and sweet; an organ seldom met with, especially in such a
+place as that. She sang a little chansonnette, which, just then, half
+Europe was humming,--it occurred in an opera which they were acting at
+one of the Boulevard theatres,--"La P'tite Voyageuse." The effect,
+coming so unexpectedly, was startling. I stood and heard her to an end.
+
+'Inspired by I know not what impulse of curiosity, when the song was
+finished, I moved one of the lattice blinds a little aside, so as to
+enable me to get a glimpse of the singer. I found myself looking into
+what seemed to be a sort of cafe,--one of those places which are found
+all over the Continent, in which women sing in order to attract custom.
+There was a low platform at one end of the room, and on it were seated
+three women. One of them had evidently just been accompanying her own
+song,--she still had an instrument of music in her hands, and was
+striking a few idle notes. The other two had been acting as audience.
+They were attired in the fantastic apparel which the women who are
+found in such places generally wear. An old woman was sitting knitting
+in a corner, whom I took to be the inevitable patronne. With the
+exception of these four the place was empty.
+
+'They must have heard me touch the lattice, or seen it moving, for no
+sooner did I glance within than the three pairs of eyes on the platform
+were raised and fixed on mine. The old woman in the corner alone showed
+no consciousness of my neighbourhood. We eyed one another in silence
+for a second or two. Then the girl with the harp,--the instrument she
+was manipulating proved to be fashioned more like a harp than a
+guitar--called out to me,
+
+'"Entrez, monsieur!--Soye le bienvenu!"
+
+'I was a little tired. Rather curious as to whereabouts I was,--the
+place struck me, even at that first momentary glimpse, as hardly in the
+ordinary line of that kind of thing. And not unwilling to listen to a
+repetition of the former song, or to another sung by the same singer.
+
+'"On condition," I replied, "that you sing me another song."
+
+'"Ah, monsieur, with the greatest pleasure in the world I will sing you
+twenty."
+
+'She was almost, if not quite, as good as her word. She entertained me
+with song after song. I may safely say that I have seldom if ever heard
+melody more enchanting. All languages seemed to be the same to her. She
+sang in French and Italian, German and English,--in tongues with which
+I was unfamiliar. It was in these Eastern harmonies that she was most
+successful. They were indescribably weird and thrilling, and she
+delivered them with a verve and sweetness which was amazing. I sat at
+one of the little tables with which the room was dotted, listening
+entranced.
+
+'Time passed more rapidly than I supposed. While she sang I sipped the
+liquor with which the old woman had supplied me. So enthralled was I by
+the display of the girl's astonishing gifts that I did not notice what
+it was I was drinking. Looking back I can only surmise that it was some
+poisonous concoction of the creature's own. That one small glass had on
+me the strangest effect. I was still weak from the fever which I had
+only just succeeded in shaking off, and that, no doubt, had something
+to do with the result. But, as I continued to sit, I was conscious that
+I was sinking into a lethargic condition, against which I was incapable
+of struggling.
+
+'After a while the original performer ceased her efforts, and, her
+companions taking her place, she came and joined me at the little
+table. Looking at my watch I was surprised to perceive the lateness of
+the hour. I rose to leave. She caught me by the wrist.
+
+'"Do not go," she said;--she spoke English of a sort, and with the
+queerest accent. "All is well with you. Rest awhile."
+
+'You will smile,--I should smile, perhaps, were I the listener instead
+of you, but it is the simple truth that her touch had on me what I can
+only describe as a magnetic influence. As her fingers closed upon my
+wrist, I felt as powerless in her grasp as if she held me with bands of
+steel. What seemed an invitation was virtually a command. I had to stay
+whether I would or wouldn't. She called for more liquor, and at what
+again was really her command I drank of it. I do not think that after
+she touched my wrist I uttered a word. She did all the talking. And,
+while she talked, she kept her eyes fixed on my face. Those eyes of
+hers! They were a devil's. I can positively affirm that they had on me
+a diabolical effect. They robbed me of my consciousness, of my power of
+volition, of my capacity to think,--they made me as wax in her hands.
+My last recollection of that fatal night is of her sitting in front of
+me, bending over the table, stroking my wrist with her extended
+fingers, staring at me with her awful eyes. After that, a curtain seems
+to descend. There comes a period of oblivion.'
+
+Mr Lessingham ceased. His manner was calm and self-contained enough;
+but, in spite of that I could see that the mere recollection of the
+things which he told me moved his nature to its foundations. There was
+eloquence in the drawn lines about his mouth, and in the strained
+expression of his eyes.
+
+So far his tale was sufficiently commonplace. Places such as the one
+which he described abound in the Cairo of to-day; and many are the
+Englishmen who have entered them to their exceeding bitter cost. With
+that keen intuition which has done him yeoman's service in the
+political arena, Mr Lessingham at once perceived the direction my
+thoughts were taking.
+
+'You have heard this tale before?--No doubt. And often. The traps are
+many, and the fools and the unwary are not a few. The singularity of my
+experience is still to come. You must forgive me if I seem to stumble
+in the telling. I am anxious to present my case as baldly, and with as
+little appearance of exaggeration as possible. I say with as little
+appearance, for some appearance of exaggeration I fear is unavoidable.
+My case is so unique, and so out of the common run of our every-day
+experience, that the plainest possible statement must smack of the
+sensational.
+
+'As, I fancy, you have guessed, when understanding returned to me, I
+found myself in an apartment with which I was unfamiliar. I was lying,
+undressed, on a heap of rugs in a corner of a low-pitched room which
+was furnished in a fashion which, when I grasped the details, filled me
+with amazement. By my side knelt the Woman of the Songs. Leaning over,
+she wooed my mouth with kisses. I cannot describe to you the sense of
+horror and of loathing with which the contact of her lips oppressed me.
+There was about her something so unnatural, so inhuman, that I believe
+even then I could have destroyed her with as little sense of moral
+turpitude as if she had been some noxious insect.
+
+'"Where am I?" I exclaimed.
+
+'"You are with the children of Isis," she replied. What she meant I did
+not know, and do not to this hour. "You are in the hands of the great
+goddess,--of the mother of men."
+
+'"How did I come here?"
+
+'"By the loving kindness of the great mother."
+
+'I do not, of course, pretend to give you the exact text of her words,
+but they were to that effect.
+
+'Half raising myself on the heap of rugs, I gazed about me,--and was
+astounded at what I saw.
+
+'The place in which I was, though the reverse of lofty, was of
+considerable size,--I could not conceive whereabouts it could be. The
+walls and roof were of bare stone,--as though the whole had been hewed
+out of the solid rock. It seemed to be some sort of temple, and was
+redolent with the most extraordinary odour. An altar stood about the
+centre, fashioned out of a single block of stone. On it a fire burned
+with a faint blue flame,--the fumes which rose from it were no doubt
+chiefly responsible for the prevailing perfumes. Behind it was a huge
+bronze figure, more than life size. It was in a sitting posture, and
+represented a woman. Although it resembled no portrayal of her I have
+seen either before or since, I came afterwards to understand that it
+was meant for Isis. On the idol's brow was poised a beetle. That the
+creature was alive seemed clear, for, as I looked at it, it opened and
+shut its wings.
+
+'If the one on the forehead of the goddess was the only live beetle
+which the place contained, it was not the only representation. It was
+modelled in the solid stone of the roof, and depicted in flaming
+colours on hangings which here and there were hung against the walls.
+Wherever the eye turned it rested on a scarab. The effect was
+bewildering. It was as though one saw things through the distorted
+glamour of a nightmare. I asked myself if I were not still dreaming; if
+my appearance of consciousness were not after all a mere delusion; if I
+had really regained my senses.
+
+'And, here, Mr Champnell, I wish to point out, and to emphasise the
+fact, that I am not prepared to positively affirm what portion of my
+adventures in that extraordinary, and horrible place, was actuality,
+and what the product of a feverish imagination. Had I been persuaded
+that all I thought I saw, I really did see, I should have opened my
+lips long ago, let the consequences to myself have been what they
+might. But there is the crux. The happenings were of such an incredible
+character, and my condition was such an abnormal one,--I was never
+really myself from the first moment to the last--that I have hesitated,
+and still do hesitate, to assert where, precisely, fiction ended and
+fact began.
+
+'With some misty notion of testing my actual condition I endeavoured to
+get off the heap of rugs on which I reclined. As I did so the woman at
+my side laid her hand against my chest, lightly. But, had her gentle
+pressure been the equivalent of a ton of iron, it could not have been
+more effectual. I collapsed, sank back upon the rugs, and lay there,
+panting for breath, wondering if I had crossed the border line which
+divides madness from sanity.
+
+'"Let me get up!--let me go!" I gasped.
+
+'"Nay," she murmured, "stay with me yet awhile, O my beloved."
+
+'And again she kissed me.'
+
+Once more Mr Lessingham paused. An involuntary shudder went all over
+him. In spite of the evidently great effort which he was making to
+retain his self-control his features were contorted by an anguished
+spasm. For some seconds he seemed at a loss to find words to enable him
+to continue.
+
+When he did go on, his voice was harsh and strained.
+
+'I am altogether incapable of even hinting to you the nauseous nature
+of that woman's kisses. They filled me with an indescribable repulsion.
+I look back at them with a feeling of physical, mental, and moral
+horror, across an interval of twenty years. The most dreadful part of
+it was that I was wholly incapable of offering even the faintest
+resistance to her caresses. I lay there like a log. She did with me as
+she would, and in dumb agony I endured.'
+
+He took his handkerchief from his pocket, and, although the day was
+cool, with it he wiped the perspiration from his brow.
+
+'To dwell in detail on what occurred during my involuntary sojourn in
+that fearful place is beyond my power. I cannot even venture to attempt
+it. The attempt, were it made, would be futile, and, to me, painful
+beyond measure. I seem to have seen all that happened as in a glass
+darkly,--with about it all an element of unreality. As I have already
+remarked, the things which revealed themselves, dimly, to my
+perception, seemed too bizarre, too hideous, to be true.
+
+'It was only afterwards, when I was in a position to compare dates,
+that I was enabled to determine what had been the length of my
+imprisonment. It appears that I was in that horrible den more than two
+months,--two unspeakable months. And the whole time there were comings
+and goings, a phantasmagoric array of eerie figures continually passed
+to and fro before my hazy eyes. What I judge to have been religious
+services took place; in which the altar, the bronze image, and the
+beetle on its brow, figure largely. Not only were they conducted with a
+bewildering confusion of mysterious rites, but, if my memory is in the
+least degree trustworthy, they were orgies of nameless horrors. I seem
+to have seen things take place at them at the mere thought of which the
+brain reels and trembles.
+
+'Indeed it is in connection with the cult of the obscene deity to whom
+these wretched creatures paid their scandalous vows that my most awful
+memories seem to have been associated. It may have been--I hope it was,
+a mirage born of my half delirious state, but it seemed to me that they
+offered human sacrifices.'
+
+When Mr Lessingham said this, I pricked up my ears. For reasons of my
+own, which will immediately transpire, I had been wondering if he would
+make any reference to a human sacrifice. He noted my display of
+interest,--but misapprehended the cause.
+
+'I see you start, I do not wonder. But I repeat that unless I was the
+victim of some extraordinary species of double sight--in which case the
+whole business would resolve itself into the fabric of a dream, and I
+should indeed thank God!--I saw, on more than one occasion, a human
+sacrifice offered on that stone altar, presumably to the grim image
+which looked down on it. And, unless I err, in each case the
+sacrificial object was a woman, stripped to the skin, as white as you
+or I,--and before they burned her they subjected her to every variety
+of outrage of which even the minds of demons could conceive. More than
+once since then I have seemed to hear the shrieks of the victims
+ringing through the air, mingled with the triumphant cries of her
+frenzied murderers, and the music of their harps.
+
+'It was the cumulative horrors of such a scene which gave me the
+strength, or the courage, or the madness, I know not which it was, to
+burst the bonds which bound me, and which, even in the bursting, made
+of me, even to this hour, a haunted man.
+
+'There had been a sacrifice,--unless, as I have repeatedly observed,
+the whole was nothing but a dream. A woman--a young and lovely
+Englishwoman, if I could believe the evidence of my own eyes, had been
+outraged, and burnt alive, while I lay there helpless, looking on. The
+business was concluded. The ashes of the victim had been consumed by
+the participants. The worshippers had departed. I was left alone with
+the woman of the songs, who apparently acted as the guardian of that
+worse than slaughterhouse. She was, as usual after such an orgie,
+rather a devil than a human being, drunk with an insensate frenzy,
+delirious with inhuman longings. As she approached to offer to me her
+loathed caresses, I was on a sudden conscious of something which I had
+not felt before when in her company. It was as though something had
+slipped away from me,--some weight which had oppressed me, some bond by
+which I had been bound. I was aroused, all at once, to a sense of
+freedom; to a knowledge that the blood which coursed through my veins
+was after all my own, that I was master of my own honour.
+
+'I can only suppose that through all those weeks she had kept me there
+in a state of mesmeric stupor. That, taking advantage of the weakness
+which the fever had left behind, by the exercise of her diabolical
+arts, she had not allowed me to pass out of a condition of hypnotic
+trance. Now, for some reason, the cord was loosed. Possibly her
+absorption in her religious duties had caused her to forget to tighten
+it. Anyhow, as she approached me, she approached a man, and one who,
+for the first time for many a day, was his own man. She herself seemed
+wholly unconscious of anything of the kind. As she drew nearer to me,
+and nearer, she appeared to be entirely oblivious of the fact that I
+was anything but the fibreless, emasculated creature which, up to that
+moment, she had made of me.
+
+'But she knew it when she touched me,--when she stooped to press her
+lips to mine. At that instant the accumulating rage which had been
+smouldering in my breast through all those leaden torturing hours,
+sprang into flame. Leaping off my couch of rugs, I flung my hands about
+her throat,--and then she knew I was awake. Then she strove to tighten
+the cord which she had suffered to become unduly loose. Her baleful
+eyes were fixed on mine. I knew that she was putting out her utmost
+force to trick me of my manhood. But I fought with her like one
+possessed, and I conquered--in a fashion. I compressed her throat with
+my two hands as with an iron vice. I knew that I was struggling for
+more than life, that the odds were all against me, that I was staking
+my all upon the casting of a die,--I stuck at nothing which could make
+me victor.
+
+'Tighter and tighter my pressure grew,--I did not stay to think if I
+was killing her--till on a sudden--'
+
+Mr Lessingham stopped. He stared with fixed, glassy eyes, as if the
+whole was being re-enacted in front of him. His voice faltered. I
+thought he would break down. But, with an effort, he continued.
+
+'On a sudden, I felt her slipping from between my fingers. Without the
+slightest warning, in an instant she had vanished, and where, not a
+moment before, she herself had been, I found myself confronting a
+monstrous beetle,--a huge, writhing creation of some wild nightmare.
+
+'At first the creature stood as high as I did. But, as I stared at it,
+in stupefied amazement,--as you may easily imagine,--the thing dwindled
+while I gazed. I did not stop to see how far the process of dwindling
+continued,--a stark raving madman for the nonce, I fled as if all the
+fiends in hell were at my heels.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+AFTER TWENTY YEARS
+
+
+'How I reached the open air I cannot tell you,--I do not know. I have a
+confused recollection of rushing through vaulted passages, through
+endless corridors, of trampling over people who tried to arrest my
+passage,--and the rest is blank.
+
+'When I again came to myself I was lying in the house of an American
+missionary named Clements. I had been found, at early dawn, stark
+naked, in a Cairo street, and picked up for dead. Judging from
+appearances I must have wandered for miles, all through the night.
+Whence I had come, or whither I was going, none could tell,--I could
+not tell myself. For weeks I hovered between life and death. The
+kindness of Mr and Mrs Clements was not to be measured by words. I was
+brought to their house a penniless, helpless, battered stranger, and
+they gave me all they had to offer, without money and without
+price,--with no expectation of an earthly reward. Let no one pretend
+that there is no Christian charity under the sun. The debt I owed that
+man and woman I was never able to repay. Before I was properly myself
+again, and in a position to offer some adequate testimony of the
+gratitude I felt, Mrs Clements was dead, drowned during an excursion on
+the Nile, and her husband had departed on a missionary expedition into
+Central Africa, from which he never returned.
+
+'Although, in a measure, my physical health returned, for months after
+I had left the roof of my hospitable hosts, I was in a state of
+semi-imbecility. I suffered from a species of aphasia. For days
+together I was speechless, and could remember nothing,--not even my own
+name. And, when that stage had passed, and I began to move more freely
+among my fellows, for years I was but a wreck of my former self. I was
+visited, at all hours of the day and night, by frightful--I know not
+whether to call them visions, they were real enough to me, but since
+they were visible to no one but myself, perhaps that is the word which
+best describes them. Their presence invariably plunged me into a state
+of abject terror, against which I was unable to even make a show of
+fighting. To such an extent did they embitter my existence, that I
+voluntarily placed myself under the treatment of an expert in mental
+pathology. For a considerable period of time I was under his constant
+supervision, but the visitations were as inexplicable to him as they
+were to me.
+
+'By degrees, however, they became rarer and rarer, until at last I
+flattered myself that I had once more become as other men. After an
+interval, to make sure, I devoted myself to politics. Thenceforward I
+have lived, as they phrase it, in the public eye. Private life, in any
+peculiar sense of the term, I have had none.'
+
+Mr Lessingham ceased. His tale was not uninteresting, and, to say the
+least of it, was curious. But I still was at a loss to understand what
+it had to do with me, or what was the purport of his presence in my
+room. Since he remained silent, as if the matter, so far as he was
+concerned, was at an end, I told him so.
+
+'I presume, Mr Lessingham, that all this is but a prelude to the play.
+At present I do not see where it is that I come in.'
+
+Still for some seconds he was silent. When he spoke his voice was grave
+and sombre, as if he were burdened by a weight of woe.
+
+'Unfortunately, as you put it, all this has been but a prelude to the
+play. Were it not so I should not now stand in such pressing want of
+the services of a confidential agent,--that is, of an experienced man
+of the world, who has been endowed by nature with phenomenal perceptive
+faculties, and in whose capacity and honour I can place the completest
+confidence.'
+
+I smiled,--the compliment was a pointed one.
+
+'I hope your estimate of me is not too high.'
+
+'I hope not,--for my sake, as well as for your own. I have heard great
+things of you. If ever man stood in need of all that human skill and
+acumen can do for him, I certainly am he.'
+
+His words aroused my curiosity. I was conscious of feeling more
+interested than heretofore.
+
+'I will do my best for you. Man can do no more. Only give my best a
+trial.'
+
+'I will. At once.'
+
+He looked at me long and earnestly. Then, leaning forward, he said,
+lowering his voice perhaps unconsciously,
+
+'The fact is, Mr Champnell, that quite recently events have happened
+which threaten to bridge the chasm of twenty years, and to place me
+face to face with that plague spot of the past. At this moment I stand
+in imminent peril of becoming again the wretched thing I was when I
+fled from that den of all the devils. It is to guard me against this
+that I have come to you. I want you to unravel the tangled thread which
+threatens to drag me to my doom,--and, when unravelled to sunder
+it--for ever, if God wills!--in twain.'
+
+'Explain.'
+
+To be frank, for the moment I thought him mad. He went on.
+
+'Three weeks ago, when I returned late one night from a sitting in the
+House of Commons, I found, on my study table, a sheet of paper on which
+there was a representation--marvellously like!--of the creature into
+which, as it seemed to me, the woman of the songs was transformed as I
+clutched her throat between my hands. The mere sight of it brought back
+one of those visitations of which I have told you, and which I thought
+I had done with for ever,--I was convulsed by an agony of fear, thrown
+into a state approximating to a paralysis both of mind and body.'
+
+'But why?'
+
+'I cannot tell you. I only know that I have never dared to allow my
+thoughts to recur to that last dread scene, lest the mere recurrence
+should drive me mad.'
+
+'What was this you found upon your study table,--merely a drawing?'
+
+'It was a representation, produced by what process I cannot say, which
+was so wonderfully, so diabolically, like the original, that for a
+moment I thought the thing itself was on my table.'
+
+'Who put it there?'
+
+'That is precisely what I wish you to find out,--what I wish you to
+make it your instant business to ascertain. I have found the thing,
+under similar circumstances, on three separate occasions, on my study
+table,--and each time it has had on me the same hideous effect.'
+
+'Each time after you have returned from a late sitting in the House of
+Commons?'
+
+'Exactly.'
+
+'Where are these--what shall I call them--delineations?'
+
+'That, again, I cannot tell you.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What I say. Each time, when I recovered, the thing had vanished.'
+
+'Sheet of paper and all?'
+
+'Apparently,--though on that point I could not be positive. You will
+understand that my study table is apt to be littered with sheets of
+paper, and I could not absolutely determine that the thing had not
+stared at me from one of those. The delineation itself, to use your
+word, certainly had vanished.'
+
+I began to suspect that this was a case rather for a doctor than for a
+man of my profession. And hinted as much.
+
+'Don't you think it is possible, Mr Lessingham, that you have been
+overworking yourself--that you have been driving your brain too hard,
+and that you have been the victim of an optical delusion?'
+
+'I thought so myself; I may say that I almost hoped so. But wait till I
+have finished. You will find that there is no loophole in that
+direction.'
+
+He appeared to be recalling events in their due order. His manner was
+studiously cold,--as if he were endeavouring, despite the strangeness
+of his story, to impress me with the literal accuracy of each syllable
+he uttered.
+
+'The night before last, on returning home, I found in my study a
+stranger.'
+
+'A stranger?'
+
+'Yes.--In other words, a burglar.'
+
+'A burglar?--I see.--Go on.'
+
+He had paused. His demeanour was becoming odder and odder.
+
+'On my entry he was engaged in forcing an entry into my bureau. I need
+hardly say that I advanced to seize him. But--I could not.'
+
+'You could not?--How do you mean you could not?'
+
+'I mean simply what I say. You must understand that this was no
+ordinary felon. Of what nationality he was I cannot tell you. He only
+uttered two words, and they were certainly in English, but apart from
+that he was dumb. He wore no covering on his head or feet. Indeed, his
+only garment was a long dark flowing cloak which, as it fluttered about
+him, revealed that his limbs were bare.'
+
+'An unique costume for a burglar.'
+
+'The instant I saw him I realised that he was in some way connected
+with that adventure in the Rue de Rabagas. What he said and did, proved
+it to the hilt.'
+
+'What did he say and do?'
+
+'As I approached to effect his capture, he pronounced aloud two words
+which recalled that awful scene the recollection of which always
+lingers in my brain, and of which I never dare to permit myself to
+think. Their very utterance threw me into a sort of convulsion.'
+
+'What were the words?'
+
+Mr Lessingham opened his mouth,--and shut it. A marked change took
+place in the expression of his countenance. His eyes became fixed and
+staring,--resembling the glassy orbs of the somnambulist. For a moment
+I feared that he was going to give me an object lesson in the
+'visitations' of which I had heard so much. I rose, with a view of
+offering him assistance. He motioned me back.
+
+'Thank you.--It will pass away.'
+
+His voice was dry and husky,--unlike his usual silvern tones. After an
+uncomfortable interval he managed to continue.
+
+'You see for yourself, Mr Champnell, what a miserable weakling, when
+this subject is broached, I still remain. I cannot utter the words the
+stranger uttered, I cannot even write them down. For some inscrutable
+reason they have on me an effect similar to that which spells and
+incantations had on people in tales of witchcraft.'
+
+'I suppose, Mr Lessingham, that there is no doubt that this mysterious
+stranger was not himself an optical delusion?'
+
+'Scarcely. There is the evidence of my servants to prove the contrary.'
+
+'Did your servants see him?'
+
+'Some of them,--yes. Then there is the evidence of the bureau. The
+fellow had smashed the top right in two. When I came to examine the
+contents I learned that a packet of letters was missing. They were
+letters which I had received from Miss Lindon, a lady whom I hope to
+make my wife. This, also, I state to you in confidence.'
+
+'What use would he be likely to make of them?'
+
+'If matters stand as I fear they do, he might make a very serious
+misuse of them. If the object of these wretches, after all these years,
+is a wild revenge, they would be capable, having discovered what she is
+to me, of working Miss Lindon a fatal mischief,--or, at the very least,
+of poisoning her mind.'
+
+'I see.--How did the thief escape,--did he, like the delineation,
+vanish into air?'
+
+'He escaped by the much more prosaic method of dashing through the
+drawing-room window, and clambering down from the verandah into the
+street, where he ran right into someone's arms.'
+
+'Into whose arms,--a constable's?'
+
+'No; into Mr Atherton's,--Sydney Atherton's.'
+
+'The inventor?'
+
+'The same.--Do you know him?'
+
+'I do. Sydney Atherton and I are friends of a good many years'
+standing.--But Atherton must have seen where he came from;--and,
+anyhow, if he was in the state of undress which you have described, why
+didn't he stop him?'
+
+'Mr Atherton's reasons were his own. He did not stop him, and, so far
+as I can learn, he did not attempt to stop him. Instead, he knocked at
+my hall door to inform me that he had seen a man climb out of my
+window.'
+
+'I happen to know that, at certain seasons, Atherton is a queer
+fish,--but that sounds very queer indeed.'
+
+'The truth is, Mr Champnell, that, if it were not for Mr Atherton, I
+doubt if I should have troubled you even now. The accident of his being
+an acquaintance of yours makes my task easier.'
+
+He drew his chair closer to me with an air of briskness which had been
+foreign to him before. For some reason, which I was unable to fathom,
+the introduction of Atherton's name seemed to have enlivened him.
+However, I was not long to remain in darkness. In half a dozen
+sentences he threw more light on the real cause of his visit to me than
+he had done in all that had gone before. His bearing, too, was more
+businesslike and to the point. For the first time I had some
+glimmerings of the politician,--alert, keen, eager,--as he is known to
+all the world.
+
+'Mr Atherton, like myself, has been a postulant for Miss Lindon's hand.
+Because I have succeeded where he has failed, he has chosen to be
+angry. It seems that he has had dealings, either with my visitor of
+Tuesday night, or with some other his acquaintance, and he proposes to
+use what he has gleaned from him to the disadvantage of my character. I
+have just come from Mr Atherton. From hints he dropped I conclude that,
+probably during the last few hours, he has had an interview with
+someone who was connected in some way with that lurid patch in my
+career; that this person made so-called revelations, which were nothing
+but a series of monstrous lies; and these so-called revelations Mr
+Atherton has threatened, in so many words, to place before Miss Lindon.
+That is an eventuality which I wish to avoid. My own conviction is that
+there is at this moment in London an emissary from that den in the
+whilom Rue de Rabagas--for all I know it may be the Woman of the Songs
+herself. Whether the sole purport of this individual's presence is to
+do me injury, I am, as yet, in no position to say, but that it is
+proposed to work me mischief, at any rate, by the way, is plain. I
+believe that Mr Atherton knows more about this person's individuality
+and whereabouts than he has been willing, so far, to admit. I want you,
+therefore, to ascertain these things on my behalf; to find out what,
+and where, this person is, to drag her!--or him;--out into the light of
+day. In short, I want you to effectually protect me from the terrorism
+which threatens once more to overwhelm my mental and my physical
+powers,--which bids fair to destroy my intellect, my career, my life,
+my all.'
+
+'What reason have you for suspecting that Mr Atherton has seen this
+individual of whom you speak,--has he told you so?'
+
+'Practically,--yes.'
+
+'I know Atherton well. In his not infrequent moments of excitement he
+is apt to use strong language, but it goes no further. I believe him to
+be the last person in the world to do anyone an intentional injustice,
+under any circumstances whatever. If I go to him, armed with
+credentials from you, when he understands the real gravity of the
+situation,--which it will be my business to make him do, I believe
+that, spontaneously, of his own accord, he will tell me as much about
+this mysterious individual as he knows himself.'
+
+'Then go to him at once.'
+
+'Good. I will. The result I will communicate to you.'
+
+I rose from my seat. As I did so, someone rushed into the outer office
+with a din and a clatter. Andrews' voice, and another, became
+distinctly audible,--Andrews' apparently raised in vigorous
+expostulation. Raised, seemingly, in vain, for presently the door of my
+own particular sanctum was thrown open with a crash, and Mr Sydney
+Atherton himself came dashing in,--evidently conspicuously under the
+influence of one of those not infrequent 'moments of excitement' of
+which I had just been speaking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A BRINGER OF TIDINGS
+
+
+Atherton did not wait to see who might or might not be present, but,
+without even pausing to take breath, he broke into full cry on the
+instant,--as is occasionally his wont.
+
+'Champnell!--Thank goodness I've found you in!--I want you!--At
+once!--Don't stop to talk, but stick your hat on, and put your best
+foot forward,--I'll tell you all about it in the cab.'
+
+I endeavoured to call his attention to Mr Lessingham's presence,--but
+without success.
+
+'My dear fellow--'
+
+When I had got as far as that he cut me short.
+
+'Don't "dear fellow" me!--None of your jabber! And none of your excuses
+either! I don't care if you've got an engagement with the Queen, you'll
+have to chuck it. Where's that dashed hat of yours,--or are you going
+without it? Don't I tell you that every second cut to waste may mean
+the difference between life and death?--Do you want me to drag you down
+to the cab by the hair of your head?'
+
+'I will try not to constrain you to quite so drastic a resource,--and I
+was coming to you at once in any case. I only want to call your
+attention to the fact that I am not alone.--Here is Mr Lessingham.'
+
+In his harum-scarum haste Mr Lessingham had gone unnoticed. Now that
+his observation was particularly directed to him, Atherton started,
+turned, and glared at my latest client in a fashion which was scarcely
+flattering.
+
+'Oh!--It's you, is it?--What the deuce are you doing here?'
+
+Before Lessingham could reply to this most unceremonious query,
+Atherton, rushing forward, gripped him by the arm.
+
+'Have you seen her?'
+
+Lessingham, not unnaturally nonplussed by the other's curious conduct,
+stared at him in unmistakable amazement.
+
+'Have I seen whom?'
+
+'Marjorie Lindon!'
+
+'Marjorie Lindon?'
+
+Lessingham paused. He was evidently asking himself what the inquiry
+meant.
+
+'I have not seen Miss Lindon since last night. Why do you ask?'
+
+'Then Heaven help us!--As I'm a living man I believe he, she, or it has
+got her!'
+
+His words were incomprehensible enough to stand in copious need of
+explanation,--as Mr Lessingham plainly thought.
+
+'What is it that you mean, sir?'
+
+'What I say,--I believe that that Oriental friend of yours has got her
+in her clutches,--if it is a "her;" goodness alone knows what the
+infernal conjurer's real sex may be.'
+
+'Atherton!--Explain yourself!'
+
+On a sudden Lessingham's tones rang out like a trumpet call.
+
+'If damage comes to her I shall be fit to cut my throat,--and yours!'
+
+Mr Lessingham's next proceeding surprised me,--I imagine it surprised
+Atherton still more. Springing at Sydney like a tiger, he caught him by
+the throat.
+
+'You--you hound! Of what wretched folly have you been guilty? If so
+much as a hair of her head is injured you shall repay it me ten
+thousandfold!--You mischief-making, intermeddling, jealous fool!'
+
+He shook Sydney as if he had been a rat,--then flung him from him
+headlong on to the floor. It reminded me of nothing so much as
+Othello's treatment of Iago. Never had I seen a man so transformed by
+rage. Lessingham seemed to have positively increased in stature. As he
+stood glowering down at the prostrate Sydney, he might have stood for a
+materialistic conception of human retribution.
+
+Sydney, I take it, was rather surprised than hurt. For a moment or two
+he lay quite still. Then, lifting his head, he looked up his assailant.
+Then, raising himself to his feet, he shook himself,--as if with a view
+of learning if all his bones were whole. Putting his hands up to his
+neck, he rubbed it, gently. And he grinned.
+
+'By God, Lessingham, there's more in you than I thought. After all, you
+are a man. There's some holding power in those wrists of
+yours,--they've nearly broken my neck. When this business is finished,
+I should like to put on the gloves with you, and fight it out. You're
+clean wasted upon politics,--Damn it, man, give me your hand!'
+
+Mr Lessingham did not give him his hand. Atherton took it,--and gave it
+a hearty shake with both of his.
+
+If the first paroxysm of his passion had passed, Lessingham was still
+sufficiently stern.
+
+'Be so good as not to trifle, Mr Atherton. If what you say is correct,
+and the wretch to whom you allude really has Miss Lindon at her mercy,
+then the woman I love--and whom you also pretend to love!--stands in
+imminent peril not only of a ghastly death, but of what is infinitely
+worse than death.'
+
+'The deuce she does!' Atherton wheeled round towards me. 'Champnell,
+haven't you got that dashed hat of yours yet? Don't stand there like a
+tailor's dummy, keeping me on tenter-hooks,--move yourself! I'll tell
+you all about it in the cab.--And, Lessingham, if you'll come with us
+I'll tell you too.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+WHAT THE TIDINGS WERE
+
+
+Three in a hansom cab is not, under all circumstances, the most
+comfortable method of conveyance,--when one of the trio happens to be
+Sydney Atherton in one of his 'moments of excitement' it is distinctly
+the opposite; as, on that occasion, Mr Lessingham and I both quickly
+found. Sometimes he sat on my knees, sometimes on Lessingham's, and
+frequently, when he unexpectedly stood up, and all but precipitated
+himself on to the horse's back, on nobody's. In the eagerness of his
+gesticulations, first he knocked off my hat, then he knocked off
+Lessingham's, then his own, then all three together,--once, his own hat
+rolling into the mud, he sprang into the road, without previously going
+through the empty form of advising the driver of his intention, to pick
+it up. When he turned to speak to Lessingham, he thrust his elbow into
+my eye; and when he turned to speak to me, he thrust it into
+Lessingham's. Never, for one solitary instant, was he at rest, or
+either of us at ease. The wonder is that the gymnastics in which he
+incessantly indulged did not sufficiently attract public notice to
+induce a policeman to put at least a momentary period to our progress.
+Had speed not been of primary importance I should have insisted on the
+transference of the expedition to the somewhat wider limits of a
+four-wheeler.
+
+His elucidation of the causes of his agitation was apparently more
+comprehensible to Lessingham than it was to me. I had to piece this and
+that together under considerable difficulties. By degrees I did arrive
+at something like a clear notion of what had actually taken place.
+
+He commenced by addressing Lessingham,--and thrusting his elbow into my
+eye.
+
+'Did Marjorie tell you about the fellow she found in the street?' Up
+went his arm to force the trap-door open overhead,--and off went my
+hat. 'Now then, William Henry!--let her go!--if you kill the horse I'll
+buy you another!'
+
+We were already going much faster than, legally, we ought to have
+done,--but that, seemingly to him was not a matter of the slightest
+consequence. Lessingham replied to his inquiry.
+
+'She did not.'
+
+'You know the fellow I saw coming out of your drawing-room window?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, Marjorie found him the morning after in front of her
+breakfast-room window--in the middle of the street. Seems he had been
+wandering about all night, unclothed,--in the rain and the mud, and all
+the rest of it,--in a condition of hypnotic trance.'
+
+'Who is the----gentleman you are alluding to?'
+
+'Says his name's Holt, Robert Holt.'
+
+'Holt?--Is he an Englishman?'
+
+'Very much so,--City quill-driver out of a shop,--stony broke
+absolutely! Got the chuck from the casual ward,--wouldn't let him
+in,--house full, and that sort of thing,--poor devil! Pretty passes you
+politicians bring men to!'
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'Of what?'
+
+'Are you sure that this man, Robert Holt, is the same person whom, as
+you put it, you saw coming out of my drawing-room window?'
+
+'Sure!--Of course I'm sure!--Think I didn't recognise him?--Besides,
+there was the man's own tale,--owned to it himself,--besides all the
+rest, which sent one rushing Fulham way.'
+
+'You must remember, Mr Atherton, that I am wholly in the dark as to
+what has happened. What has the man, Holt, to do with the errand on
+which we are bound?'
+
+'Am I not coming to it? If you would let me tell the tale in my own way
+I should get there in less than no time, but you will keep on cutting
+in,--how the deuce do you suppose Champnell is to make head or tail of
+the business if you will persist in interrupting?--Marjorie took the
+beggar in,--he told his tale to her,--she sent for me--that was just
+now; caught me on the steps after I had been lunching with Dora
+Grayling. Holt re-dished his yarn--I smelt a rat--saw that a connection
+possibly existed between the thief who'd been playing confounded
+conjuring tricks off on to me and this interesting party down Fulham
+way--'
+
+'What party down Fulham way?'
+
+'This friend of Holt's--am I not telling you? There you are, you
+see,--won't let me finish! When Holt slipped through the window--which
+is the most sensible thing he seems to have done; if I'd been in his
+shoes I'd have slipped through forty windows!--dusky coloured charmer
+caught him on the hop,--doctored him--sent him out to commit burglary
+by deputy. I said to Holt, "Show us this agreeable little crib, young
+man." Holt was game--then Marjorie chipped in--she wanted to go and see
+it too. I said, "You'll be sorry if you do,"--that settled it! After
+that she'd have gone if she'd died,--I never did have a persuasive way
+with women. So off we toddled, Marjorie, Holt, and I, in a
+growler,--spotted the crib in less than no time,--invited ourselves in
+by the kitchen window--house seemed empty. Presently Holt became
+hypnotised before my eyes,--the best established case of hypnotism by
+suggestion I ever yet encountered--started off on a pilgrimage of one.
+Like an idiot I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me--'
+
+'Alone?'
+
+'Alone!--Am I not telling you?--Great Scott, Lessingham, in the House
+of Commons they must be hazy to think you smart! I said, "I'll send the
+first sane soul I meet to keep you company." As luck would have it, I
+never met one,--only kids, and a baker, who wouldn't leave his cart, or
+take it with him either. I'd covered pretty nearly two miles before I
+came across a peeler,--and when I did the man was cracked--and he
+thought me mad, or drunk, or both. By the time I'd got myself within
+nodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police in the
+execution of their duty, without inducing him to move a single one of
+his twenty-four-inch feet, Holt was out of sight. So, since all my
+pains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing left
+for me but to scurry back to Marjorie,--so I scurried, and I found the
+house empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.'
+
+'But, I don't quite follow--'
+
+Atherton impetuously declined to allow Mr Lessingham to conclude.
+
+'Of course you don't quite follow, and you'll follow still less if you
+will keep getting in front. I went upstairs and downstairs, inside and
+out--shouted myself hoarse as a crow--nothing was to be seen of
+Marjorie,--or heard; until, as I was coming down the stairs for about
+the five-and-fiftieth time, I stepped on something hard which was lying
+in the passage. I picked it up,--it was a ring; this ring. Its shape is
+not just what it was,--I'm not as light as gossamer, especially when I
+come jumping downstairs six at a time,--but what's left of it is here.'
+
+Sydney held something in front of him. Mr Lessingham wriggled to one
+side to enable him to see. Then he made a snatch at it.
+
+'It's mine!'
+
+Sydney dodged it out of his reach.
+
+'What do you mean, it's yours?'
+
+'It's the ring I gave Marjorie for an engagement ring. Give it me, you
+hound!--unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab.'
+
+With complete disregard of the limitations of space,--or of my
+comfort,--Lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. Then gripping Sydney
+by the wrist, he seized the gaud,--Sydney yielding it just in time to
+save himself from being precipitated into the street. Ravished of his
+treasure, Sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher with something like a
+glance of admiration.
+
+'Hang me, Lessingham, if I don't believe there is some warm blood in
+those fishlike veins of yours. Please the piper, I'll live to fight you
+after all,--with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman should do.'
+
+Lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him whatever. He was surveying
+the ring, which Sydney had trampled out of shape, with looks of the
+deepest concern.
+
+'Marjorie's ring!--The one I gave her! Something serious must have
+happened to her before she would have dropped my ring, and left it
+lying where it fell.'
+
+Atherton went on.
+
+'That's it!--What has happened to her!--I'll be dashed if I know!--When
+it was clear that there she wasn't, I tore off to find out where she
+was. Came across old Lindon,--he knew nothing;--I rather fancy I
+startled him in the middle of Pall Mall, when I left he stared after me
+like one possessed, and his hat was lying in the gutter. Went
+home,--she wasn't there. Asked Dora Grayling,--she'd seen nothing of
+her. No one had seen anything of her,--she had vanished into air. Then
+I said to myself, "You're a first-class idiot, on my honour! While
+you're looking for her, like a lost sheep, the betting is that the
+girl's in Holt's friend's house the whole jolly time. When you were
+there, the chances are that she'd just stepped out for a stroll, and
+that now she's back again, and wondering where on earth you've gone!"
+So I made up my mind that I'd fly back and see,--because the idea of
+her standing on the front doorstep looking for me, while I was going
+off my nut looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense of
+humour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of wisdom
+to pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be backed to
+find a needle in any amount of hay-stacks it is the great
+Augustus.--That horse has moved itself after all, because here we are.
+Now, cabman, don't go driving further on,--you'll have to put a girdle
+round the earth if you do; because you'll have to reach this point
+again before you get your fare.--This is the magician's house!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+WHAT WAS HIDDEN UNDER THE FLOOR
+
+
+The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap 'villa' in an
+unfinished cheap neighbourhood,--the whole place a living monument of
+the defeat of the speculative builder.
+
+Atherton leaped out on to the grass-grown rubble which was meant for a
+footpath.
+
+'I don't see Marjorie looking for me on the doorstep.'
+
+Nor did I,--I saw nothing but what appeared to be an unoccupied
+ramshackle brick abomination. Suddenly Sydney gave an exclamation.
+
+'Hullo!--The front door's closed!'
+
+I was hard at his heels.
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Why, when I went I left the front door open. It looks as if I've made
+an idiot of myself after all, and Marjorie's returned,--let's hope to
+goodness that I have.'
+
+He knocked. While we waited for a response I questioned him.
+
+'Why did you leave the door open when you went?'
+
+'I hardly know,--I imagine that it was with some dim idea of Marjorie's
+being able to get in if she returned while I was absent,--but the truth
+is I was in such a condition of helter skelter that I am not prepared
+to swear that I had any reasonable reason.'
+
+'I suppose there is no doubt that you did leave it open?'
+
+'Absolutely none,--on that I'll stake my life.'
+
+'Was it open when you returned from your pursuit of Holt?'
+
+'Wide open,--I walked straight in expecting to find her waiting for me
+in the front room,--I was struck all of a heap when I found she wasn't
+there.'
+
+'Were there any signs of a struggle?'
+
+'None,--there were no signs of anything. Everything was just as I had
+left it, with the exception of the ring which I trod on in the passage,
+and which Lessingham has.'
+
+'If Miss Lindon has returned, it does not look as if she were in the
+house at present.'
+
+It did not,--unless silence had such meaning. Atherton had knocked
+loudly three times without succeeding in attracting the slightest
+notice from within.
+
+'It strikes me that this is another case of seeking admission through
+that hospitable window at the back.'
+
+Atherton led the way to the rear. Lessingham and I followed. There was
+not even an apology for a yard, still less a garden,--there was not
+even a fence of any sort, to serve as an enclosure, and to shut off the
+house from the wilderness of waste land. The kitchen window was open. I
+asked Sydney if he had left it so.
+
+'I don't know,--I dare say we did; I don't fancy that either of us
+stood on the order of his coming.'
+
+While he spoke, he scrambled over the sill. We followed. When he was
+in, he shouted at the top of his voice,
+
+'Marjorie! Marjorie! Speak to me, Marjorie,--it is I,--Sydney!'
+
+The words echoed through the house. Only silence answered. He led the
+way to the front room. Suddenly he stopped.
+
+'Hollo!' he cried. 'The blind's down!' I had noticed, when we were
+outside, that the blind was down at the front room window. 'It was up
+when I went, that I'll swear. That someone has been here is pretty
+plain,--let's hope it's Marjorie.'
+
+He had only taken a step forward into the room when he again stopped
+short to exclaim.
+
+'My stars!--here's a sudden clearance!--Why, the place is
+empty,--everything's clean gone!'
+
+'What do you mean?--was it furnished when you left?'
+
+The room was empty enough then.
+
+'Furnished?--I don't know that it was exactly what you'd call
+furnished,--the party who ran this establishment had a taste in
+upholstery which was all his own,--but there was a carpet, and a bed,
+and--and lots of things,--for the most part, I should have said,
+distinctly Eastern curiosities. They seem to have evaporated into
+smoke,--which may be a way which is common enough among Eastern
+curiosities, though it's queer to me.'
+
+Atherton was staring about him as if he found it difficult to credit
+the evidence of his own eyes.
+
+'How long ago is it since you left?'
+
+He referred to his watch.
+
+'Something over an hour,--possibly an hour and a half; I couldn't swear
+to the exact moment, but it certainly isn't more.'
+
+'Did you notice any signs of packing up?'
+
+'Not a sign.' Going to the window he drew up the blind,--speaking as he
+did so. 'The queer thing about this business is that when we first got
+in this blind wouldn't draw up a little bit, so, since it wouldn't go
+up I pulled it down, roller and all, now it draws up as easily and
+smoothly as if it had always been the best blind that ever lived.'
+
+Standing at Sydney's back I saw that the cabman on his box was
+signalling to us with his outstretched hand. Sydney perceived him too.
+He threw up the sash.
+
+'What's the matter with you?'
+
+'Excuse me, sir, but who's the old gent?'
+
+'What old gent?'
+
+'Why the old gent peeping through the window of the room upstairs?'
+
+The words were hardly out of the driver's mouth when Sydney was through
+the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather more
+soberly,--his methods were a little too flighty for me. When I reached
+the landing, dashing out of the front room he rushed into the one at
+the back,--then through a door at the side. He came out shouting.
+
+'What's the idiot mean!--with his old gent! I'd old gent him if I got
+him!--There's not a creature about the place!'
+
+He returned into the front room,--I at his heels. That certainly was
+empty,--and not only empty, but it showed no traces of recent
+occupation. The dust lay thick upon the floor,--there was that mouldy,
+earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments which have been
+long untenanted.
+
+'Are you sure, Atherton, that there is no one at the back?'
+
+'Of course I'm sure,--you can go and see for yourself if you like; do
+you think I'm blind? Jehu's drunk.' Throwing up the sash he addressed
+the driver. 'What do you mean with your old gent at the window?--what
+window?'
+
+'That window, sir.'
+
+'Go to!--you're dreaming, man!--there's no one here.'
+
+'Begging your pardon, sir, but there was someone there not a minute
+ago.'
+
+'Imagination, cabman,--the slant of the light on the glass,--or your
+eyesight's defective.'
+
+'Excuse me, sir, but it's not my imagination, and my eyesight's as good
+as any man's in England,--and as for the slant of the light on the
+glass, there ain't much glass for the light to slant on. I saw him
+peeping through that bottom broken pane on your left hand as plainly as
+I see you. He must be somewhere about,--he can't have got away,--he's
+at the back. Ain't there a cupboard nor nothing where he could hide?'
+
+The cabman's manner was so extremely earnest that I went myself to see.
+There was a cupboard on the landing, but the door of that stood wide
+open, and that obviously was bare. The room behind was small, and,
+despite the splintered glass in the window frame, stuffy. Fragments of
+glass kept company with the dust on the floor, together with a choice
+collection of stones, brickbats, and other missiles,--which not
+improbably were the cause of their being there. In the corner stood a
+cupboard,--but a momentary examination showed that that was as bare as
+the other. The door at the side, which Sydney had left wide open,
+opened on to a closet, and that was empty. I glanced up,--there was no
+trap door which led to the roof. No practicable nook or cranny, in
+which a living being could lie concealed, was anywhere at hand.
+
+I returned to Sydney's shoulder to tell the cabman so.
+
+'There is no place in which anyone could hide, and there is no one in
+either of the rooms,--you must have been mistaken, driver.'
+
+The man waxed wroth.
+
+'Don't tell me! How could I come to think I saw something when I
+didn't?'
+
+'One's eyes are apt to play us tricks;--how could you see what wasn't
+there?'
+
+'That's what I want to know. As I drove up, before you told me to stop,
+I saw him looking through the window,--the one at which you are. He'd
+got his nose glued to the broken pane, and was staring as hard as he
+could stare. When I pulled up, off he started,--I saw him get up off
+his knees, and go to the back of the room. When the gentleman took to
+knocking, back he came,--to the same old spot, and flopped down on his
+knees. I didn't know what caper you was up to,--you might be bum
+bailiffs for all I knew!--and I supposed that he wasn't so anxious to
+let you in as you might be to get inside, and that was why he didn't
+take no notice of your knocking, while all the while he kept a eye on
+what was going on. When you goes round to the back, up he gets again,
+and I reckoned that he was going to meet yer, and perhaps give yer a
+bit of his mind, and that presently I should hear a shindy, or that
+something would happen. But when you pulls up the blind downstairs, to
+my surprise back he come once more. He shoves his old nose right
+through the smash in the pane, and wags his old head at me like a
+chattering magpie. That didn't seem to me quite the civil thing to
+do,--I hadn't done no harm to him; so I gives you the office, and lets
+you know that he was there. But for you to say that he wasn't there,
+and never had been,--blimey! that cops the biscuit. If he wasn't there,
+all I can say is I ain't here, and my 'orse ain't here, and my cab
+ain't neither,--damn it!--the house ain't here, and nothing ain't!'
+
+He settled himself on his perch with an air of the most extreme ill
+usage,--he had been standing up to tell his tale. That the man was
+serious was unmistakable. As he himself suggested, what inducement
+could he have had to tell a lie like that? That he believed himself to
+have seen what he declared he saw was plain. But, on the other hand,
+what could have become--in the space of fifty seconds!--of his 'old
+gent'?
+
+Atherton put a question.
+
+'What did he look like,--this old gent of yours?'
+
+'Well, that I shouldn't hardly like to say. It wasn't much of his face
+I could see, only his face and his eyes,--and they wasn't pretty. He
+kept a thing over his head all the time, as if he didn't want too much
+to be seen.'
+
+'What sort of a thing?'
+
+'Why,--one of them cloak sort of things, like them Arab blokes used to
+wear what used to be at Earl's Court Exhibition,--you know!'
+
+This piece of information seemed to interest my companions more than
+anything he had said before.
+
+'A burnoose do you mean?'
+
+'How am I to know what the thing's called? I ain't up in foreign
+languages,--'tain't likely! All I know that them Arab blokes what was
+at Earl's Court used to walk about in them all over the
+place,--sometimes they wore them over their heads, and sometimes they
+didn't. In fact if you'd asked me, instead of trying to make out as I
+sees double, or things what was only inside my own noddle, or something
+or other, I should have said this here old gent what I've been telling
+you about was a Arab bloke,--when he gets off his knees to sneak away
+from the window, I could see that he had his cloak thing, what was over
+his head, wrapped all round him.'
+
+Mr Lessingham turned to me, all quivering with excitement.
+
+'I believe that what he says is true!'
+
+'Then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to,--can you
+suggest an explanation? It is strange, to say the least of it, that the
+cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything of him.'
+
+'Some devil's trick has been played,--I know it, I feel it!--my
+instinct tells me so!'
+
+I stared. In such a matter one hardly expects a man of Paul
+Lessingham's stamp to talk of 'instinct.' Atherton stared too. Then, on
+a sudden, he burst out,
+
+'By the Lord, I believe the Apostle's right,--the whole place reeks to
+me of hankey-pankey,--it did as soon as I put my nose inside. In
+matters of prestidigitation, Champnell, we Westerns are among the
+rudiments,--we've everything to learn,--Orientals leave us at the post.
+If their civilisation's what we're pleased to call extinct, their
+conjuring--when you get to know it!--is all alive oh!'
+
+He moved towards the door. As he went he slipped, or seemed to, all but
+stumbling on to his knees.
+
+'Something tripped me up,--what's this?' He was stamping on the floor
+with his foot. 'Here's a board loose. Come and lend me a hand, one of
+you fellows, to get it up. Who knows what mystery's beneath?'
+
+I went to his aid. As he said, a board in the floor was loose. His
+stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble. Together we prised it
+out of its place,--Lessingham standing by and watching us the while.
+Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed.
+
+There was something there.
+
+'Why,' cried Atherton 'it's a woman's clothing!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE REST OF THE FIND
+
+
+It was a woman's clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow,--as if
+the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry. An
+entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corsets, and
+all,--even to hat, gloves, and hairpins;--these latter were mixed up
+with the rest of the garments in strange confusion. It seemed plain
+that whoever had worn those clothes had been stripped to the skin.
+
+Lessingham and Sydney stared at me in silence as I dragged them out and
+laid them on the floor. The dress was at the bottom,--it was an alpaca,
+of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and ribbons, as is the
+fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green silk. It had perhaps been
+a 'charming confection' once--and that a very recent one!--but now it
+was all soiled and creased and torn and tumbled. The two spectators
+made a simultaneous pounce at it as I brought it to the light.
+
+'My God!' cried Sydney, 'it's Marjorie's!--she was wearing it when I
+saw her last!'
+
+'It's Marjorie's!' gasped Lessingham,--he was clutching at the ruined
+costume, staring at it like a man who has just received sentence of
+death. 'She wore it when she was with me yesterday,--I told her how it
+suited her, and how pretty it was!'
+
+There was silence,--it was an eloquent find; it spoke for itself. The
+two men gazed at the heap of feminine glories,--it might have been the
+most wonderful sight they ever had seen. Lessingham was the first to
+speak,--his face had all at once grown grey and haggard.
+
+'What has happened to her?'
+
+I replied to his question with another.
+
+'Are you sure this is Miss Linden's dress?'
+
+'I am sure,--and were proof needed, here it is.'
+
+He had found the pocket, and was turning out the contents. There was a
+purse, which contained money and some visiting cards on which were her
+name and address; a small bunch of keys, with her nameplate attached; a
+handkerchief, with her initials in a corner. The question of ownership
+was placed beyond a doubt.
+
+'You see,' said Lessingham, exhibiting the money which was in the
+purse, 'it is not robbery which has been attempted. Here are two
+ten-pound notes, and one for five, besides gold and silver,--over
+thirty pounds in all.'
+
+Atherton, who had been turning over the accumulation of rubbish between
+the joists, proclaimed another find.
+
+'Here are her rings, and watch, and a bracelet,--no, it certainly does
+not look as if theft had been an object.'
+
+Lessingham was glowering at him with knitted brows.
+
+'I have to thank you for this.'
+
+Sydney was unwontedly meek.
+
+'You are hard on me, Lessingham, harder than I deserve,--I had rather
+have thrown away my own life than have suffered misadventure to have
+come to her.'
+
+'Yours are idle words. Had you not meddled this would not have
+happened. A fool works more mischief with his folly than of malice
+prepense. If hurt has befallen Marjorie Lindon you shall account for it
+to me with your life's blood.'
+
+'Let it be so,' said Sydney. 'I am content. If hurt has come to
+Marjorie, God knows that I am willing enough that death should come to
+me.'
+
+While they wrangled, I continued to search. A little to one side, under
+the flooring which was still intact, I saw something gleam. By
+stretching out my hand, I could just manage to reach it,--it was a long
+plait of woman's hair. It had been cut off at the roots,--so close to
+the head in one place that the scalp itself had been cut, so that the
+hair was clotted with blood.
+
+They were so occupied with each other that they took no notice of me. I
+had to call their attention to my discovery.
+
+'Gentlemen, I fear that I have here something which will distress
+you,--is not this Miss Lindon's hair?'
+
+They recognised it on the instant. Lessingham, snatching it from my
+hands, pressed it to his lips.
+
+'This is mine,--I shall at least have something.' He spoke with a
+grimness which was a little startling. He held the silken tresses at
+arm's length. 'This points to murder,--foul, cruel, causeless murder.
+As I live, I will devote my all,--money, time, reputation!--to gaining
+vengeance on the wretch who did this deed.'
+
+Atherton chimed in.
+
+'To that I say, Amen!' He lifted his hand. 'God is my witness!'
+
+'It seems to me, gentlemen, that we move too fast,--to my mind it does
+not by any means of necessity point to murder. On the contrary, I doubt
+if murder has been done. Indeed, I don't mind owning that I have a
+theory of my own which points all the other way.'
+
+Lessingham caught me by the sleeve.
+
+'Mr Champnell, tell me your theory.'
+
+'I will, a little later. Of course it may be altogether wrong;--though
+I fancy it is not; I will explain my reasons when we come to talk of
+it. But, at present, there are things which must be done.'
+
+'I vote for tearing up every board in the house!' cried Sydney. 'And
+for pulling the whole infernal place to pieces. It's a conjurer's
+den.--I shouldn't be surprised if cabby's old gent is staring at us all
+the while from some peephole of his own.'
+
+We examined the entire house, methodically, so far as we were able,
+inch by inch. Not another board proved loose,--to lift those which were
+nailed down required tools, and those we were without. We sounded all
+the walls,--with the exception of the party walls they were the usual
+lath and plaster constructions, and showed no signs of having been
+tampered with. The ceilings were intact; if anything was concealed in
+them it must have been there some time,--the cement was old and dirty.
+We took the closet to pieces; examined the chimneys; peered into the
+kitchen oven and the copper;--in short, we pried into everything which,
+with the limited means at our disposal, could be pried into,--without
+result. At the end we found ourselves dusty, dirty, and discomfited.
+The cabman's 'old gent' remained as much a mystery as ever, and no
+further trace had been discovered of Miss Lindon.
+
+Atherton made no effort to disguise his chagrin.
+
+'Now what's to be done? There seems to be just nothing in the place at
+all, and yet that there is, and that it's the key to the whole
+confounded business I should be disposed to swear.'
+
+'In that case I would suggest that you should stay and look for it. The
+cabman can go and look for the requisite tools, or a workman to assist
+you, if you like. For my part it appears to me that evidence of another
+sort is, for the moment, of paramount importance; and I propose to
+commence my search for it by making a call at the house which is over
+the way.'
+
+I had observed, on our arrival, that the road only contained two houses
+which were in anything like a finished state,--that which we were in,
+and another, some fifty or sixty yards further down, on the opposite
+side. It was to this I referred. The twain immediately proffered their
+companionship.
+
+'I will come with you,' said Mr Lessingham.
+
+'And I,' echoed Sydney. 'We'll leave this sweet homestead in charge of
+the cabman,--I'll pull it to pieces afterwards.' He went out and spoke
+to the driver. 'Cabby, we're going to pay a visit to the little crib
+over there,--you keep an eye on this one. And if you see a sign of
+anyone being about the place,--living, or dead, or anyhow--you give me
+a yell. I shall be on the lookout, and I'll be with you before you can
+say Jack Robinson.'
+
+'You bet I'll yell,--I'll raise the hair right off you.' The fellow
+grinned. 'But I don't know if you gents are hiring me by the day,--I
+want to change my horse; he ought to have been in his stable a couple
+of hours ago.'
+
+'Never mind your horse,--let him rest a couple of hours extra to-morrow
+to make up for those he has lost to-day. I'll take care you don't lose
+anything by this little job,--or your horse either.--By the way, look
+here,--this will be better than yelling.'
+
+Taking a revolver out of his trousers' pocket he handed it up to the
+grinning driver.
+
+'If that old gent of yours does appear, you have a pop at him,--I shall
+hear that easier than a yell. You can put a bullet through him if you
+like,--I give you my word it won't be murder.'
+
+'I don't care if it is,' declared the cabman, handling the weapon like
+one who was familiar with arms of precision. 'I used to fancy my
+revolver shooting when I was with the colours, and if I do get a chance
+I'll put a shot through the old hunks, if only to prove to you that I'm
+no liar.'
+
+Whether the man was in earnest or not I could not tell,--nor whether
+Atherton meant what he said in answer.
+
+'If you shoot him I'll give you fifty pounds.'
+
+'All right!' The driver laughed. 'I'll do my best to earn that fifty!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+MISS LOUISA COLEMAN
+
+
+That the house over the way was tenanted was plain to all the
+world,--at least one occupant sat gazing through the window of the
+first floor front room. An old woman in a cap,--one of those large
+old-fashioned caps which our grandmothers used to wear, tied with
+strings under the chin. It was a bow window, and as she was seated in
+the bay looking right in our direction she could hardly have failed to
+see us as we advanced,--indeed she continued to stare at us all the
+while with placid calmness. Yet I knocked once, twice, and yet again
+without the slightest notice being taken of my summons.
+
+Sydney gave expression to his impatience in his own peculiar vein.
+
+'Knockers in this part of the world seem intended for ornament
+only,--nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they're used. The
+old lady upstairs must be either deaf or dotty.' He went out into the
+road to see if she still was there. 'She's looking at me as calmly as
+you please,--what does she think we're doing here, I wonder; playing a
+tune on her front door by way of a little amusement?--Madam!' He took
+off his hat and waved it to her. 'Madam! might I observe that if you
+won't condescend to notice that we're here your front door will run the
+risk of being severely injured!--She don't care for me any more than if
+I was nothing at all,--sound another tattoo upon that knocker. Perhaps
+she's so deaf that nothing short of a cataclysmal uproar will reach her
+auditory nerves.'
+
+She immediately proved, however, that she was nothing of the sort.
+Hardly had the sounds of my further knocking died away than, throwing
+up the window, she thrust out her head and addressed me in a fashion
+which, under the circumstances, was as unexpected as it was uncalled
+for.
+
+'Now, young man, you needn't be in such a hurry!'
+
+Sydney explained.
+
+'Pardon me, madam, it's not so much a hurry we're in as pressed for
+time,--this is a matter of life and death.'
+
+She turned her attention to Sydney,--speaking with a frankness for
+which, I imagine, he was unprepared.
+
+'I don't want none of your imperence, young man. I've seen you
+before,--you've been hanging about here the whole day long!--and I
+don't like the looks of you, and so I'll let you know. That's my front
+door, and that's my knocker,--I'll come down and open when I like, but
+I'm not going to be hurried, and if the knocker's so much as touched
+again, I won't come down at all.'
+
+She closed the window with a bang. Sydney seemed divided between mirth
+and indignation.
+
+'That's a nice old lady, on my honour,--one of the good old crusty
+sort. Agreeable characters this neighbourhood seems to grow,--a sojourn
+hereabouts should do one good. Unfortunately I don't feel disposed just
+now to stand and kick my heels in the road.' Again saluting the old
+dame by raising his hat he shouted to her at the top of his voice.
+'Madam, I beg ten thousand pardons for troubling you, but this is a
+matter in which every second is of vital importance,--would you allow
+me to ask you one or two questions?'
+
+Up went the window; out came the old lady's head.
+
+'Now, young man, you needn't put yourself out to holler at me,--I won't
+be hollered at! I'll come down and open that door in five minutes by
+the clock on my mantelpiece, and not a moment before.'
+
+The fiat delivered, down came the window. Sydney looked rueful,--he
+consulted his watch.
+
+'I don't know what you think, Champnell, but I really doubt if this
+comfortable creature can tell us anything worth waiting another five
+minutes to hear. We mustn't let the grass grow under our feet, and time
+is getting on.'
+
+I was of a different opinion,--and said so.
+
+'I'm afraid, Atherton, that I can't agree with you. She seems to have
+noticed you hanging about all day; and it is at least possible that she
+has noticed a good deal which would be well worth our hearing. What
+more promising witness are we likely to find?--her house is the only
+one which overlooks the one we have just quitted. I am of opinion that
+it may not only prove well worth our while to wait five minutes, but
+also that it would be as well, if possible, not to offend her by the
+way. She's not likely to afford us the information we require if you
+do.'
+
+'Good. If that's what you think I'm sure I'm willing to wait,--only
+it's to be hoped that that clock upon her mantelpiece moves quicker
+than its mistress.'
+
+Presently, when about a minute had gone, he called to the cabman.
+
+'Seen a sign of anything?'
+
+The cabman shouted back.
+
+'Ne'er a sign,--you'll hear a sound of popguns when I do.'
+
+Those five minutes did seem long ones. But at last Sydney, from his
+post of vantage in the road, informed us that the old lady was moving.
+
+'She's getting up;--she's leaving the window;--let's hope to goodness
+she's coming down to open the door. That's been the longest five
+minutes I've known.'
+
+I could hear uncertain footsteps descending the stairs. They came along
+the passage. The door was opened--'on the chain.' The old lady peered
+at us through an aperture of about six inches.
+
+'I don't know what you young men think you're after, but have all three
+of you in my house I won't. I'll have him and you'--a skinny finger was
+pointed to Lessingham and me; then it was directed towards
+Atherton--'but have him I won't. So if it's anything particular you
+want to say to me, you'll just tell him to go away.'
+
+On hearing this Sydney's humility was abject. His hat was in his
+hand,--he bent himself double.
+
+'Suffer me to make you a million apologies, madam, if I have in any way
+offended you; nothing, I assure you, could have been farther from my
+intention, or from my thoughts.'
+
+'I don't want none of your apologies, and I don't want none of you
+neither; I don't like the looks of you, and so I tell you. Before I let
+anybody into my house you'll have to sling your hook.'
+
+The door was banged in our faces. I turned to Sydney.
+
+'The sooner you go the better it will be for us. You can wait for us
+over the way.'
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and groaned,--half in jest, half in earnest.
+
+'If I must I suppose I must,--it's the first time I've been refused
+admittance to a lady's house in all my life! What have I done to
+deserve this thing?--If you keep me waiting long I'll tear that
+infernal den to pieces!'
+
+He sauntered across the road, viciously kicking the stones as he went.
+The door reopened.
+
+'Has that other young man gone?'
+
+'He has.'
+
+'Then now I'll let you in. Have him inside my house I won't.'
+
+The chain was removed. Lessingham and I entered. Then the door was
+refastened and the chain replaced. Our hostess showed us into the front
+room on the ground floor; it was sparsely furnished and not too
+clean,--but there were chairs enough for us to sit upon; which she
+insisted on our occupying.
+
+'Sit down, do,--I can't abide to see folks standing; it gives me the
+fidgets.'
+
+So soon as we were seated, without any overture on our parts she
+plunged in medias res.
+
+'I know what it is you've come about,--I know! You want me to tell you
+who it is as lives in the house over the road. Well, I can tell
+you,--and I dare bet a shilling that I'm about the only one who can.'
+
+I inclined my head.
+
+'Indeed. Is that so, madam?'
+
+She was huffed at once.
+
+'Don't madam me,--I can't bear none of your lip service. I'm a
+plain-spoken woman, that's what I am, and I like other people's tongues
+to be as plain as mine. My name's Miss Louisa Coleman; but I'm
+generally called Miss Coleman,--I'm only called Louisa by my relatives.'
+
+Since she was apparently between seventy and eighty--and looked every
+year of her apparent age--I deemed that possible. Miss Coleman was
+evidently a character. If one was desirous of getting information out
+of her it would be necessary to allow her to impart it in her own
+manner,--to endeavour to induce her to impart it in anybody else's
+would be time clean wasted. We had Sydney's fate before our eyes.
+
+She started with a sort of roundabout preamble.
+
+'This property is mine; it was left me by my uncle, the late George
+Henry Jobson,--he's buried in Hammersmith Cemetery just over the
+way,--he left me the whole of it. It's one of the finest building sites
+near London, and it increases in value every year, and I'm not going to
+let it for another twenty, by which time the value will have more than
+trebled,--so if that is what you've come about, as heaps of people do,
+you might have saved yourselves the trouble. I keep the boards
+standing, just to let people know that the ground is to let,--though,
+as I say, it won't be for another twenty years, when it'll be for the
+erection of high-class mansions only, same as there is in Grosvenor
+Square,--no shops or public houses, and none of your shanties. I live
+in this place just to keep an eye upon the property,--and as for the
+house over the way, I've never tried to let it, and it never has been
+let, not until a month ago, when, one morning, I had this letter. You
+can see it if you like.'
+
+She handed me a greasy envelope which she ferreted out of a capacious
+pocket which was suspended from her waist, and which she had to lift up
+her skirt to reach. The envelope was addressed, in unformed characters,
+'Miss Louisa Coleman, The Rhododendrons, Convolvulus Avenue, High Oaks
+Park, West Kensington.'--I felt, if the writer had not been of a
+humorous turn of mind, and drawn on his imagination, and this really
+was the lady's correct address, then there must be something in a name.
+
+The letter within was written in the same straggling, characterless
+caligraphy,--I should have said, had I been asked offhand, that the
+whole thing was the composition of a servant girl. The composition was
+about on a par with the writing.
+
+'The undersigned would be oblidged if Miss Coleman would let her emptey
+house. I do not know the rent but send fifty pounds. If more will send.
+Please address, Mohamed el Kheir, Post Office, Sligo Street, London.'
+
+It struck me as being as singular an application for a tenancy as I
+remembered to have encountered. When I passed it on to Lessingham, he
+seemed to think so too.
+
+'This is a curious letter, Miss Coleman.'
+
+'So I thought,--and still more so when I found the fifty pounds inside.
+There were five ten-pound notes, all loose, and the letter not even
+registered. If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, I
+should have said, at the most, not more than twenty pounds,--because,
+between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fit
+to live in as it stands.'
+
+I had had sufficient evidence of the truth of this altogether apart
+from the landlady's frank admission.
+
+'Why, for all he could have done to help himself I might have kept the
+money, and only sent him a receipt for a quarter. And some folks would
+have done,--but I'm not one of that sort myself, and shouldn't care to
+be. So I sent this here party,--I never could pronounce his name, and
+never shall--a receipt for a year.'
+
+Miss Coleman paused to smooth her apron, and consider.
+
+'Well, the receipt should have reached this here party on the Thursday
+morning, as it were,--I posted it on the Wednesday night, and on the
+Thursday, after breakfast, I thought I'd go over the way to see if
+there was any little thing I could do,--because there wasn't hardly a
+whole pane of glass in the place,--when I all but went all of a heap.
+When I looked across the road, blessed it the party wasn't in
+already,--at least as much as he ever was in, which, so far as I can
+make out, never has been anything particular,--though how he had got
+in, unless it was through a window in the middle of the night, is more
+than I should care to say,--there was nobody in the house when I went
+to bed, that I could pretty nearly take my Bible oath,--yet there was
+the blind up at the parlour, and, what's more, it was down, and it's
+been down pretty nearly ever since.
+
+'"Well," I says to myself, "for right down imperence this beats
+anything,--why he's in the place before he knows if I'll let him have
+it. Perhaps he thinks I haven't got a word to say in the matter,--fifty
+pounds or no fifty pounds, I'll soon show him." So I slips on my
+bonnet, and I walks over the road, and I hammers at the door.
+
+'Well, I have seen people hammering since then, many a one, and how
+they've kept it up has puzzled me,--for an hour, some of them,--but I
+was the first one as begun it. I hammers, and I hammers, and I kept on
+hammering, but it wasn't no more use than if I'd been hammering at a
+tombstone. So I starts rapping at the window, but that wasn't no use
+neither. So I goes round behind, and I hammers at the back door,--but
+there, I couldn't make anyone hear nohow. So I says to myself, "Perhaps
+the party as is in, ain't in, in a manner of speaking; but I'll keep an
+eye on the house, and when he is in I'll take care that he ain't out
+again before I've had a word to say."
+
+'So I come back home, and as I said I would, I kept an eye on the house
+the whole of that livelong day, but never a soul went either out or in.
+But the next day, which it was a Friday, I got out of bed about five
+o'clock, to see if it was raining, through my having an idea of taking
+a little excursion if the weather was fine, when I see a party coming
+down the road. He had on one of them dirty-coloured bed-cover sort of
+things, and it was wrapped all over his head and round his body, like,
+as I have been told, them there Arabs wear,--and, indeed, I've seen
+them in them myself at West Brompton, when they was in the exhibition
+there. It was quite fine, and broad day, and I see him as plainly as I
+see you,--he comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at the
+house over the way, opens the front door, and lets himself in.
+
+'"So," I says to myself, "there you are. Well, Mr Arab, or whatever, or
+whoever, you may be, I'll take good care that you don't go out again
+before you've had a word from me. I'll show you that landladies have
+their rights, like other Christians, in this country, however it may be
+in yours." So I kept an eye on the house, to see that he didn't go out
+again, and nobody never didn't, and between seven and eight I goes and
+I knocks at the door,--because I thought to myself that the earlier I
+was the better it might be.
+
+'If you'll believe me, no more notice was taken of me than if I was one
+of the dead. I hammers, and I hammers, till my wrist was aching, I
+daresay I hammered twenty times,--and then I went round to the back
+door, and I hammers at that,--but it wasn't the least good in the
+world. I was that provoked to think I should be treated as if I was
+nothing and nobody, by a dirty foreigner, who went about in a bed-gown
+through the public streets, that it was all I could do to hold myself.
+
+'I comes round to the front again, and I starts hammering at the
+window, with every knuckle on my hands, and I calls out, "I'm Miss
+Louisa Coleman, and I'm the owner of this house, and you can't deceive
+me,--I saw you come in, and you're in now, and if you don't come and
+speak to me this moment I'll have the police."
+
+'All of a sudden, when I was least expecting it, and was hammering my
+very hardest at the pane, up goes the blind, and up goes the window
+too, and the most awful-looking creature ever I heard of, not to
+mention seeing, puts his head right into my face,--he was more like a
+hideous baboon than anything else, let alone a man. I was struck all of
+a heap, and plumps down on the little wall, and all but tumbles head
+over heels backwards, And he starts shrieking, in a sort of a kind of
+English, and in such a voice as I'd never heard the like,--it was like
+a rusty steam engine.
+
+'"Go away! go away! I don't want you! I will not have you,--never! You
+have your fifty pounds,--you have your money,--that is the whole of
+you,--that is all you want! You come to me no more!--never!--never no
+more!--or you be sorry!--Go away!"
+
+'I did go away, and that as fast as ever my legs would carry me,--what
+with his looks, and what with his voice, and what with the way that he
+went on, I was nothing but a mass of trembling. As for answering him
+back, or giving him a piece of my mind, as I had meant to, I wouldn't
+have done it not for a thousand pounds. I don't mind confessing,
+between you and me, that I had to swallow four cups of tea, right
+straight away, before my nerves was steady.
+
+'"Well," I says to myself, when I did feel, as it might be, a little
+more easy, "you never have let that house before, and now you've let it
+with a vengeance,--so you have. If that there new tenant of yours isn't
+the greatest villain that ever went unhung it must be because he's got
+near relations what's as bad as himself,--because two families like his
+I'm sure there can't be. A nice sort of Arab party to have sleeping
+over the road he is!"
+
+'But after a time I cools down, as it were,--because I'm one of them
+sort as likes to see on both sides of a question. "After all," I says
+to myself, "he has paid his rent, and fifty pounds is fifty pounds,--I
+doubt if the whole house is worth much more, and he can't do much
+damage to it whatever he does."
+
+'I shouldn't have minded, so far as that went, if he'd set fire to the
+place, for, between ourselves, it's insured for a good bit over its
+value. So I decided that I'd let things be as they were, and see how
+they went on. But from that hour to this I've never spoken to the man,
+and never wanted to, and wouldn't, not of my own free will, not for a
+shilling a time,--that face of his will haunt me if I live till Noah,
+as the saying is. I've seen him going in and out at all hours of the
+day and night,--that Arab party's a mystery if ever there was one,--he
+always goes tearing along as if he's flying for his life. Lots of
+people have come to the house, all sorts and kinds, men and
+women--they've been mostly women, and even little children. I've seen
+them hammer and hammer at that front door, but never a one have I seen
+let in,--or yet seen taken any notice of, and I think I may say, and
+yet tell no lie, that I've scarcely took my eye off the house since
+he's been inside it, over and over again in the middle of the night
+have I got up to have a look, so that I've not missed much that has
+took place.
+
+'What's puzzled me is the noises that's come from the house. Sometimes
+for days together there's not been a sound, it might have been a house
+of the dead; and then, all through the night, there've been yells and
+screeches, squawks and screams,--I never heard nothing like it. I have
+thought, and more than once, that the devil himself must be in that
+front room, let alone all the rest of his demons. And as for
+cats!--where they've come from I can't think. I didn't use to notice
+hardly a cat in the neighbourhood till that there Arab party
+came,--there isn't much to attract them; but since he came there's been
+regiments. Sometimes at night there's been troops about the place,
+screeching like mad,--I've wished them farther, I can tell you. That
+Arab party must be fond of 'em. I've seen them inside the house, at the
+windows, upstairs and downstairs, as it seemed to me, a dozen at a time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+WHAT MISS COLEMAN SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW
+
+
+As Miss Coleman had paused, as if her narrative was approaching a
+conclusion, I judged it expedient to make an attempt to bring the
+record as quickly as possible up to date.
+
+'I take it, Miss Coleman, that you have observed what has occurred in
+the house to-day.'
+
+She tightened her nut-cracker jaws and glared at me disdainfully,--her
+dignity was ruffled.
+
+'I'm coming to it, aren't I?--if you'll let me. If you've got no
+manners I'll learn you some. One doesn't like to be hurried at my time
+of life, young man.'
+
+I was meekly silent;--plainly, if she was to talk, every one else must
+listen.
+
+'During the last few days there have been some queer goings on over the
+road,--out of the common queer, I mean, for goodness knows that they
+always have been queer enough. That Arab party has been flitting about
+like a creature possessed,--I've seen him going in and out twenty times
+a day. This morning--'
+
+She paused,--to fix her eyes on Lessingham. She apparently observed his
+growing interest as she approached the subject which had brought us
+there,--and resented it.
+
+'Don't look at me like that, young man, because I won't have it. And as
+for questions, I may answer questions when I'm done, but don't you dare
+to ask me one before, because I won't be interrupted.'
+
+Up to then Lessingham had not spoken a word,--but it seemed as if she
+was endowed with the faculty of perceiving the huge volume of the words
+which he had left unuttered.
+
+'This morning--as I've said already,--' she glanced at Lessingham as if
+she defied his contradiction--'when that Arab party came home it was
+just on the stroke of seven. I know what was the exact time because,
+when I went to the door to the milkman, my clock was striking the half
+hour, and I always keep it thirty minutes fast. As I was taking the
+milk, the man said to me, "Hollo, Miss Coleman, here's your friend
+coming along." "What friend?" I says,--for I ain't got no friends, as I
+know, round here, nor yet, I hope no enemies neither.
+
+'And I looks round, and there was the Arab party coming tearing down
+the road, his bedcover thing all flying in the wind, and his arms
+straight out in front of him,--I never did see anyone go at such a
+pace. "My goodness," I says, "I wonder he don't do himself an injury."
+"I wonder someone else don't do him an injury," says the milkman. "The
+very sight of him is enough to make my milk go sour." And he picked up
+his pail and went away quite grumpy,--though what that Arab party's
+done to him is more than I can say.--I have always noticed that
+milkman's temper's short like his measure. I wasn't best pleased with
+him for speaking of that Arab party as my friend, which he never has
+been, and never won't be, and never could be neither.
+
+'Five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone, and that
+there Arab party was safe inside,--three of them was commercials, that
+I know, because afterwards they came to me. But of course they none of
+them got no chance with that there Arab party except of hammering at
+his front door, which ain't what you might call a paying game, nor nice
+for the temper but for that I don't blame him, for if once those
+commercials do begin talking they'll talk for ever.
+
+'Now I'm coming to this afternoon.'
+
+I thought it was about time,--though for the life of me, I did not dare
+to hint as much.
+
+'Well, it might have been three, or it might have been half past,
+anyhow it was thereabouts, when up there comes two men and a woman,
+which one of the men was that young man what's a friend of yours. "Oh,"
+I says to myself, "here's something new in callers, I wonder what it is
+they're wanting." That young man what was a friend of yours, he starts
+hammering, and hammering, as the custom was with every one who came,
+and, as usual, no more notice was taken of him than nothing,--though I
+knew that all the time the Arab party was indoors.'
+
+At this point I felt that at all hazards I must interpose a question.
+
+'You are sure he was indoors?'
+
+She took it better than I feared she might.
+
+'Of course I'm sure,--hadn't I seen him come in at seven, and he never
+hadn't gone out since, for I don't believe that I'd taken my eyes off
+the place not for two minutes together, and I'd never had a sight of
+him. If he wasn't indoors, where was he then?'
+
+For the moment, so far as I was concerned, the query was unanswerable.
+She triumphantly continued:
+
+'Instead of doing what most did, when they'd had enough of hammering,
+and going away, these three they went round to the back, and I'm
+blessed if they mustn't have got through the kitchen window, woman and
+all, for all of a sudden the blind in the front room was pulled not up,
+but down--dragged down it was, and there was that young man what's a
+friend of yours standing with it in his hand.
+
+'"Well," I says to myself, "if that ain't cool I should like to know
+what is. If, when you ain't let in, you can let yourself in, and that
+without so much as saying by your leave, or with your leave, things is
+coming to a pretty pass. Wherever can that Arab party be, and whatever
+can he be thinking of, to let them go on like that because that he's
+the sort to allow a liberty to be took with him, and say nothing, I
+don't believe."
+
+'Every moment I expects to hear a noise and see a row begin, but, so
+far as I could make out, all was quiet and there wasn't nothing of the
+kind. So I says to myself, "There's more in this than meets the eye,
+and them three parties must have right upon their side, or they
+wouldn't be doing what they are doing in the way they are, there'd be a
+shindy."
+
+'Presently, in about five minutes, the front door opens, and a young
+man--not the one what's your friend, but the other--comes sailing out,
+and through the gate, and down the road, as stiff and upright as a
+grenadier,--I never see anyone walk more upright, and few as fast. At
+his heels comes the young man what is your friend, and it seems to me
+that he couldn't make out what this other was a-doing of. I says to
+myself, "There's been a quarrel between them two, and him as has gone
+has hooked it." This young man what is your friend he stood at the
+gate, all of a fidget, staring after the other with all his eyes, as if
+he couldn't think what to make of him, and the young woman, she stood
+on the doorstep, staring after him too.
+
+'As the young man what had hooked it turned the corner, and was out of
+sight, all at once your friend he seemed to make up his mind, and he
+started off running as hard as he could pelt,--and the young woman was
+left alone. I expected, every minute, to see him come back with the
+other young man, and the young woman, by the way she hung about the
+gate, she seemed to expect it too. But no, nothing of the kind. So
+when, as I expect, she'd had enough of waiting, she went into the house
+again, and I see her pass the front room window. After a while, back
+she comes to the gate, and stands looking and looking, but nothing was
+to be seen of either of them young men. When she'd been at the gate, I
+daresay five minutes, back she goes into the house,--and I never saw
+nothing of her again.'
+
+'You never saw anything of her again?--Are you sure she went back into
+the house?'
+
+'As sure as I am that I see you.'
+
+'I suppose that you didn't keep a constant watch upon the premises?'
+
+'But that's just what I did do. I felt something queer was going on,
+and I made up my mind to see it through. And when I make up my mind to
+a thing like that I'm not easy to turn aside. I never moved off the
+chair at my bedroom window, and I never took my eyes off the house, not
+till you come knocking at my front door.'
+
+'But, since the young lady is certainly not in the house at present,
+she must have eluded your observation, and, in some manner, have left
+it without your seeing her.'
+
+'I don't believe she did, I don't see how she could have done,--there's
+something queer about that house, since that Arab party's been inside
+it. But though I didn't see her, I did see someone else.'
+
+'Who was that?'
+
+'A young man.'
+
+'A young man?'
+
+'Yes, a young man, and that's what puzzled me, and what's been puzzling
+me ever since, for see him go in I never did do.'
+
+'Can you describe him?'
+
+'Not as to the face, for he wore a dirty cloth cap pulled down right
+over it, and he walked so quickly that I never had a proper look. But I
+should know him anywhere if I saw him, if only because of his clothes
+and his walk.'
+
+'What was there peculiar about his clothes and his walk?'
+
+'Why, his clothes were that old, and torn, and dirty, that a ragman
+wouldn't have given a thank you for them,--and as for fit,--there
+wasn't none, they hung upon him like a scarecrow--he was a regular
+figure of fun; I should think the boys would call after him if they saw
+him in the street. As for his walk, he walked off just like the first
+young man had done, he strutted along with his shoulders back, and his
+head in the air, and that stiff and straight that my kitchen poker
+would have looked crooked beside of him.'
+
+'Did nothing happen to attract your attention between the young lady's
+going back into the house and the coming out of this young man?'
+
+Miss Coleman cogitated.
+
+'Now you mention it there did,--though I should have forgotten all
+about it if you hadn't asked me,--that comes of your not letting me
+tell the tale in my own way. About twenty minutes after the young woman
+had gone in someone put up the blind in the front room, which that
+young man had dragged right down, I couldn't see who it was for the
+blind was between us, and it was about ten minutes after that that
+young man came marching out.'
+
+'And then what followed?'
+
+'Why, in about another ten minutes that Arab party himself comes
+scooting through the door.'
+
+'The Arab party?'
+
+'Yes, the Arab party! The sight of him took me clean aback. Where he'd
+been, and what he'd been doing with himself while them there people
+played hi-spy-hi about his premises I'd have given a shilling out of my
+pocket to have known, but there he was, as large as life, and carrying
+a bundle.'
+
+'A bundle?'
+
+'A bundle, on his head, like a muffin-man carries his tray. It was a
+great thing, you never would have thought he could have carried it, and
+it was easy to see that it was as much as he could manage; it bent him
+nearly double, and he went crawling along like a snail,--it took him
+quite a time to get to the end of the road.'
+
+Mr Lessingham leaped up from his seat, crying, 'Marjorie was in that
+bundle!'
+
+'I doubt it,' I said.
+
+He moved about the room distractedly, wringing his hands.
+
+'She was! she must have been! God help us all!'
+
+'I repeat that I doubt it. If you will be advised by me you will wait
+awhile before you arrive at any such conclusion.'
+
+All at once there was a tapping at the window pane. Atherton was
+staring at us from without.
+
+He shouted through the glass, 'Come out of that, you fossils!--I've
+news for you!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE CONSTABLE,--HIS CLUE,--AND THE CAB
+
+
+Miss Coleman, getting up in a fluster, went hurrying to the door.
+
+'I won't have that young man in my house. I won't have him! Don't let
+him dare to put his nose across my doorstep.'
+
+I endeavoured to appease her perturbation.
+
+'I promise you that he shall not come in, Miss Coleman. My friend here,
+and I, will go and speak to him outside.'
+
+She held the front door open just wide enough to enable Lessingham and
+me to slip through, then she shut it after us with a bang. She
+evidently had a strong objection to any intrusion on Sydney's part.
+
+Standing just without the gate he saluted us with a characteristic
+vigour which was scarcely flattering to our late hostess. Behind him
+was a constable.
+
+'I hope you two have been mewed in with that old pussy long enough.
+While you've been tittle-tattling I've been doing,--listen to what this
+bobby's got to say.'
+
+The constable, his thumbs thrust inside his belt, wore an indulgent
+smile upon his countenance. He seemed to find Sydney amusing. He spoke
+in a deep bass voice,--as if it issued from his boots.
+
+'I don't know that I've got anything to say.
+
+It was plain that Sydney thought otherwise.
+
+'You wait till I've given this pretty pair of gossips a lead, officer,
+then I'll trot you out.' He turned to us.
+
+'After I'd poked my nose into every dashed hole in that infernal den,
+and been rewarded with nothing but a pain in the back for my trouble, I
+stood cooling my heels on the doorstep, wondering if I should fight the
+cabman, or get him to fight me, just to pass the time away,--for he
+says he can box, and he looks it,--when who should come strolling along
+but this magnificent example of the metropolitan constabulary.' He
+waved his hand towards the policeman, whose grin grew wider. 'I looked
+at him, and he looked at me, and then when we'd had enough of admiring
+each other's fine features and striking proportions, he said to me,
+"Has he gone?" I said, "Who?--Baxter?--or Bob Brown?" He said, "No, the
+Arab." I said, "What do you know about any Arab?" He said, "Well, I saw
+him in the Broadway about three-quarters of an hour ago, and then,
+seeing you here, and the house all open, I wondered if he had gone for
+good." With that I almost jumped out of my skin, though you can bet
+your life I never showed it. I said, "How do you know it was he?" He
+said, "It was him right enough, there's no doubt about that. If you've
+seen him once, you're not likely to forget him." "Where was he going?"
+"He was talking to a cabman,--four-wheeler. He'd got a great bundle on
+his head,--wanted to take it inside with him. Cabman didn't seem to see
+it." That was enough for me,--I picked this most deserving officer up
+in my arms, and carried him across the road to you two fellows like a
+flash of lightning.'
+
+Since the policeman was six feet three or four, and more than
+sufficiently broad in proportion, his scarcely seemed the kind of
+figure to be picked up in anybody's arms and carried like a 'flash of
+lightning,' which,--as his smile grew more indulgent, he himself
+appeared to think.
+
+Still, even allowing for Atherton's exaggeration, the news which he had
+brought was sufficiently important. I questioned the constable upon my
+own account.
+
+'There is my card, officer, probably, before the day is over, a charge
+of a very serious character will be preferred against the person who
+has been residing in the house over the way. In the meantime it is of
+the utmost importance that a watch should be kept upon his movements. I
+suppose you have no sort of doubt that the person you saw in the
+Broadway was the one in question?'
+
+'Not a morsel. I know him as well as I do my own brother,--we all do
+upon this beat. He's known amongst us as the Arab. I've had my eye on
+him ever since he came to the place. A queer fish he is. I always have
+said that he's up to some game or other. I never came across one like
+him for flying about in all sorts of weather, at all hours of the
+night, always tearing along as if for his life. As I was telling this
+gentleman I saw him in the Broadway,--well, now it's about an hour
+since, perhaps a little more. I was coming on duty when I saw a crowd
+in front of the District Railway Station,--and there was the Arab,
+having a sort of argument with the cabman. He had a great bundle on his
+head, five or six feet long, perhaps longer. He wanted to take this
+great bundle with him into the cab, and the cabman, he didn't see it.'
+
+'You didn't wait to see him drive off.'
+
+'No,--I hadn't time. I was due at the station,--I was cutting it pretty
+fine as it was.'
+
+'You didn't speak to him,--or to the cabman?'
+
+'No, it wasn't any business of mine you understand. The whole thing
+just caught my eye as I was passing.'
+
+'And you didn't take the cabman's number?'
+
+'No, well, as far as that goes it wasn't needful. I know the cabman,
+his name and all about him, his stable's in Bradmore.'
+
+I whipped out my note-book.
+
+'Give me his address.'
+
+'I don't know what his Christian name is, Tom, I believe, but I'm not
+sure. Anyhow his surname's Ellis and his address is Church Mews, St
+John's Road, Bradmore,--I don't know his number, but any one will tell
+you which is his place, if you ask for Four-Wheel Ellis,--that's the
+name he's known by among his pals because of his driving a
+four-wheeler.'
+
+'Thank you, officer. I am obliged to you.' Two half-crowns changed
+hands. 'If you will keep an eye on the house and advise me at the
+address which you will find on my card, of any thing which takes place
+there during the next few days, you will do me a service.'
+
+We had clambered back into the hansom, the driver was just about to
+start, when the constable was struck by a sudden thought.
+
+'One moment, sir,--blessed if I wasn't going to forget the most
+important bit of all. I did hear him tell Ellis where to drive him
+to,--he kept saying it over and over again, in that queer lingo of his.
+"Waterloo Railway Station, Waterloo Railway Station." "All right," said
+Ellis, "I'll drive you to Waterloo Railway Station right enough, only
+I'm not going to have that bundle of yours inside my cab. There isn't
+room for it, so you put it on the roof." "To Waterloo Railway Station,"
+said the Arab, "I take my bundle with me to Waterloo Railway
+Station,--I take it with me." "Who says you don't take it with you?"
+said Ellis. "You can take it, and twenty more besides, for all I care,
+only you don't take it inside my cab,--put it on the roof." "I take it
+with me to Waterloo Railway Station," said the Arab, and there they
+were, wrangling and jangling, and neither seeming to be able to make
+out what the other was after, and the people all laughing.'
+
+'Waterloo Railway Station,--you are sure that was what he said?'
+
+'I'll take my oath to it, because I said to myself, when I heard it, "I
+wonder what you'll have to pay for that little lot, for the District
+Railway Station's outside the four-mile radius."' As we drove off I was
+inclined to ask myself, a little bitterly--and perhaps unjustly--if it
+were not characteristic of the average London policeman to almost
+forget the most important part of his information,--at any rate to
+leave it to the last and only to bring it to the front on having his
+palm crossed with silver.
+
+As the hansom bowled along we three had what occasionally approached a
+warm discussion.
+
+'Marjorie was in that bundle,' began Lessingham, in the most lugubrious
+of tones, and with the most woe-begone of faces.
+
+'I doubt it,' I observed.
+
+'She was,--I feel it,--I know it. She was either dead and mutilated, or
+gagged and drugged and helpless. All that remains is vengeance.'
+
+'I repeat that I doubt it.'
+
+Atherton struck in.
+
+'I am bound to say, with the best will in the world to think otherwise,
+that I agree with Lessingham.'
+
+'You are wrong.'
+
+'It's all very well for you to talk in that cock-sure way, but it's
+easier for you to say I'm wrong than to prove it. If I am wrong, and if
+Lessingham's wrong, how do you explain his extraordinary insistance on
+taking it inside the cab with him, which the bobby describes? If there
+wasn't something horrible, awful in that bundle of his, of which he
+feared the discovery, why was he so reluctant to have it placed upon
+the roof?'
+
+'There probably was something in it which he was particularly anxious
+should not be discovered, but I doubt if it was anything of the kind
+which you suggest.'
+
+'Here is Marjorie in a house alone--nothing has been seen of her
+since,--her clothing, her hair, is found hidden away under the floor.
+This scoundrel sallies forth with a huge bundle on his head,--the bobby
+speaks of it being five or six feet long, or longer,--a bundle which he
+regards with so much solicitude that he insists on never allowing it to
+go, for a single instant, out of his sight and reach. What is in the
+thing? don't all the facts most unfortunately point in one direction?'
+
+Mr Lessingham covered his face with his hands, and groaned.
+
+'I fear that Mr Atherton is right.'
+
+'I differ from you both.'
+
+Sydney at once became heated.
+
+'Then perhaps you can tell us what was in the bundle?'
+
+'I fancy I could make a guess at the contents.'
+
+'Oh you could, could you, then, perhaps, for our sakes, you'll make
+it,--and not play the oracular owl!--Lessingham and I are interested in
+this business, after all.'
+
+'It contained the bearer's personal property: that, and nothing more.
+Stay! before you jeer at me, suffer me to finish. If I am not mistaken
+as to the identity of the person whom the constable describes as the
+Arab, I apprehend that the contents of that bundle were of much more
+importance to him than if they had consisted of Miss Lindon, either
+dead or living. More. I am inclined to suspect that if the bundle was
+placed on the roof of the cab, and if the driver did meddle with it,
+and did find out the contents, and understand them, he would have been
+driven, out of hand, stark staring mad.'
+
+Sydney was silent, as if he reflected. I imagine he perceived there was
+something in what I said.
+
+'But what has become of Miss Lindon?'
+
+'I fancy that Miss Lindon, at this moment, is--somewhere; I don't, just
+now, know exactly where, but I hope very shortly to be able to give you
+a clearer notion,--attired in a rotten, dirty pair of boots; a filthy,
+tattered pair of trousers; a ragged, unwashed apology for a shirt; a
+greasy, ancient, shapeless coat; and a frowsy peaked cloth cap.'
+
+They stared at me, opened-eyed. Atherton was the first to speak.
+
+'What on earth do you mean?'
+
+'I mean that it seems to me that the facts point in the direction of my
+conclusions rather than yours--and that very strongly too. Miss Coleman
+asserts that she saw Miss London return into the house; that within a
+few minutes the blind was replaced at the front window; and that
+shortly after a young man, attired in the costume I have described,
+came walking out of the front door. I believe that young man was Miss
+Marjorie Lindon.'
+
+Lessingham and Atherton both broke out into interrogations, with
+Sydney, as usual, loudest.
+
+'But--man alive! what on earth should make her do a thing like that?
+Marjorie, the most retiring, modest girl on all God's earth, walk about
+in broad daylight, in such a costume, and for no reason at all! my dear
+Champnell, you are suggesting that she first of all went mad.'
+
+'She was in a state of trance.'
+
+'Good God!--Champnell!'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Then you think that--juggling villain did get hold of her?'
+
+'Undoubtedly. Here is my view of the case, mind it is only a hypothesis
+and you must take it for what it is worth. It seems to me quite clear
+that the Arab, as we will call the person for the sake of
+identification, was somewhere about the premises when you thought he
+wasn't.'
+
+'But--where? We looked upstairs, and downstairs, and everywhere--where
+could he have been?'
+
+'That, as at present advised, I am not prepared to say, but I think you
+may take it for granted that he was there. He hypnotised the man Holt,
+and sent him away, intending you to go after him, and so being rid of
+you both--'
+
+'The deuce he did, Champnell! You write me down an ass!'
+
+'As soon as the coast was clear he discovered himself to Miss Lindon,
+who, I expect, was disagreeably surprised, and hypnotised her.'
+
+'The hound!'
+
+'The devil!'
+
+The first exclamation was Lessingham's, the second Sydney's.
+
+'He then constrained her to strip herself to the skin--'
+
+'The wretch!'
+
+'The fiend!'
+
+'He cut off her hair; he hid it and her clothes under the floor where
+we found them--where I think it probable that he had already some
+ancient masculine garments concealed--'
+
+'By Jove! I shouldn't be surprised if they were Holt's. I remember the
+man saying that that nice joker stripped him of his duds,--and
+certainly when I saw him,--and when Marjorie found him!--he had
+absolutely nothing on but a queer sort of cloak. Can it be possible
+that that humorous professor of hankey-pankey--may all the maledictions
+of the accursed alight upon his head!--can have sent Marjorie Lindon,
+the daintiest damsel in the land!--into the streets of London rigged
+out in Holt's old togs!'
+
+'As to that, I am not able to give an authoritative opinion, but, if I
+understand you aright, it at least is possible. Anyhow I am disposed to
+think that he sent Miss Lindon after the man Holt, taking it for
+granted that he had eluded you.--'
+
+'That's it. Write me down an ass again!'
+
+'That he did elude you, you have yourself admitted.'
+
+'That's because I stopped talking with that mutton-headed bobby,--I'd
+have followed the man to the ends of the earth if it hadn't been for
+that.'
+
+'Precisely; the reason is immaterial, it is the fact with which we are
+immediately concerned. He did elude you. And I think you will find that
+Miss Lindon and Mr Holt are together at this moment.'
+
+'In men's clothing?'
+
+'Both in men's clothing, or, rather, Miss Lindon is in a man's rags.'
+
+'Great Potiphar! To think of Marjorie like that!'
+
+'And where they are, the Arab is not very far off either.'
+
+Lessingham caught me by the arm.
+
+'And what diabolical mischief do you imagine that he proposes to do to
+her?'
+
+I shirked the question.
+
+'Whatever it is, it is our business to prevent his doing it.'
+
+'And where do you think they have been taken?'
+
+'That it will be our immediate business to endeavour to discover,--and
+here, at any rate, we are at Waterloo.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+THE QUARRY DOUBLES
+
+
+I turned towards the booking-office on the main departure platform. As
+I went, the chief platform inspector, George Bellingham, with whom I
+had some acquaintance, came out of his office. I stopped him.
+
+'Mr Bellingham, will you be so good as to step with me to the
+booking-office, and instruct the clerk in charge to answer one or two
+questions which I wish to put to him. I will explain to you afterwards
+what is their exact import, but you know me sufficiently to be able to
+believe me when I say that they refer to a matter in which every moment
+is of the first importance.'
+
+He turned and accompanied us into the interior of the booking-case.
+
+'To which of the clerks, Mr Champnell, do you wish to put your
+questions?'
+
+'To the one who issues third-class tickets to Southampton.'
+
+Bellingham beckoned to a man who was counting a heap of money, and
+apparently seeking to make it tally with the entries in a huge ledger
+which lay open before him,--he was a short, slightly-built young
+fellow, with a pleasant face and smiling eyes.
+
+'Mr Stone, this gentleman wishes to ask you one or two questions.'
+
+'I am at his service.'
+
+I put my questions.
+
+'I want to know, Mr Stone, if, in the course of the day, you have
+issued any tickets to a person dressed in Arab costume?'
+
+His reply was prompt.
+
+'I have--by the last train, the 7.25,--three singles.'
+
+Three singles! Then my instinct had told me rightly.
+
+'Can you describe the person?'
+
+Mr Stone's eyes twinkled.
+
+'I don't know that I can, except in a general way,--he was uncommonly
+old and uncommonly ugly, and he had a pair of the most extraordinary
+eyes I ever saw,--they gave me a sort of all-overish feeling when I saw
+them glaring at me through the pigeon hole. But I can tell you one
+thing about him, he had a great bundle on his head, which he steadied
+with one hand, and as it bulged out in all directions it's presence
+didn't make him popular with other people who wanted tickets too.'
+
+Undoubtedly this was our man.
+
+'You are sure he asked for three tickets?'
+
+'Certain. He said three tickets to Southampton; laid down the exact
+fare,--nineteen and six--and held up three fingers--like that. Three
+nasty looking fingers they were, with nails as long as talons.'
+
+'You didn't see who were his companions?'
+
+'I didn't,--I didn't try to look. I gave him his tickets and off he
+went,--with the people grumbling at him because that bundle of his kept
+getting in their way.'
+
+Bellingham touched me on the arm.
+
+'I can tell you about the Arab of whom Mr Stone speaks. My attention
+was called to him by his insisting on taking his bundle with him into
+the carriage,--it was an enormous thing, he could hardly squeeze it
+through the door; it occupied the entire seat. But as there weren't as
+many passengers as usual, and he wouldn't or couldn't be made to
+understand that his precious bundle would be safe in the luggage van
+along with the rest of the luggage, and as he wasn't the sort of person
+you could argue with to any advantage, I had him put into an empty
+compartment, bundle and all.'
+
+'Was he alone then?'
+
+'I thought so at the time, he said nothing about having more than one
+ticket, or any companions, but just before the train started two other
+men--English men--got into his compartment; and as I came down the
+platform, the ticket inspector at the barrier informed me that these
+two men were with him, because he held tickets for the three, which, as
+he was a foreigner, and they seemed English, struck the inspector as
+odd.'
+
+'Could you describe the two men?'
+
+'I couldn't, not particularly, but the man who had charge of the
+barrier might. I was at the other end of the train when they got in.
+All I noticed was that one seemed to be a commonplace looking
+individual and that the other was dressed like a tramp, all rags and
+tatters, a disreputable looking object he appeared to be.'
+
+'That,' I said to myself, 'was Miss Marjorie Lindon, the lovely
+daughter of a famous house; the wife-elect of a coming statesman.'
+
+To Bellingham I remarked aloud:
+
+'I want you to strain a point, Mr Bellingham, and to do me a service
+which I assure you you shall never have any cause to regret. I want you
+to wire instructions down the line to detain this Arab and his
+companions and to keep them in custody until the receipt of further
+instructions. They are not wanted by the police as yet, but they will
+be as soon as I am able to give certain information to the authorities
+at Scotland Yard,--and wanted very badly. But, as you will perceive for
+yourself, until I am able to give that information every moment is
+important.--Where's the Station Superintendent?'
+
+'He's gone. At present I'm in charge.'
+
+'Then will you do this for me? I repeat that you shall never have any
+reason to regret it.'
+
+'I will if you'll accept all responsibility.'
+
+'I'll do that with the greatest pleasure.'
+
+Bellingham looked at his watch.
+
+'It's about twenty minutes to nine. The train's scheduled for
+Basingstoke at 9.6. If we wire to Basingstoke at once they ought to be
+ready for them when they come.'
+
+'Good!'
+
+The wire was sent.
+
+We were shown into Bellingham's office to await results Lessingham
+paced agitatedly to and fro; he seemed to have reached the limits of
+his self-control, and to be in a condition in which movement of some
+sort was an absolute necessity. The mercurial Sydney, on the contrary,
+leaned back in a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his
+hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, and stared at Lessingham,
+as if he found relief to his feelings in watching his companion's
+restlessness. I, for my part, drew up as full a precis of the case as I
+deemed advisable, and as time permitted, which I despatched by one of
+the company's police to Scotland Yard.
+
+Then I turned to my associates.
+
+'Now, gentlemen, it's past dinner time. We may have a journey in front
+of us. If you take my advice you'll have something to eat.'
+
+Lessingham shook his head.
+
+'I want nothing.'
+
+'Nor I,' echoed Sydney.
+
+I started up.
+
+'You must pardon my saying nonsense, but surely you of all men, Mr
+Lessingham, should be aware that you will not improve the situation by
+rendering yourself incapable of seeing it through. Come and dine.'
+
+I haled them off with me, willy nilly, to the refreshment room, I
+dined,--after a fashion; Mr Lessingham swallowed with difficulty, a
+plate of soup; Sydney nibbled at a plate of the most unpromising
+looking 'chicken and ham,'--he proved, indeed, more intractable than
+Lessingham, and was not to be persuaded to tackle anything easier of
+digestion.
+
+I was just about to take cheese after chop when Bellingham came
+hastening in, in his hand an open telegram.
+
+'The birds have flown,' he cried.
+
+'Flown!--How?'
+
+In reply he gave me the telegram. I glanced at it. It ran:
+
+'Persons described not in the train. Guard says they got out at
+Vauxhall. Have wired Vauxhall to advise you.'
+
+'That's a level-headed chap,' said Bellingham. 'The man who sent that
+telegram. His wiring to Vauxhall should save us a lot of time,--we
+ought to hear from there directly. Hollo! what's this? I shouldn't be
+surprised if this is it.'
+
+As he spoke a porter entered,--he handed an envelope to Bellingham. We
+all three kept our eyes fixed on the inspector's face as he opened it.
+When he perceived the contents he gave an exclamation of surprise.
+
+'This Arab of yours, and his two friends, seem rather a curious lot, Mr
+Champnell.'
+
+He passed the paper on to me. It took the form of a report. Lessingham
+and Sydney, regardless of forms and ceremonies, leaned over my shoulder
+as I read it.
+
+'Passengers by 7.30 Southampton, on arrival of train, complained of
+noises coming from a compartment in coach 8964. Stated that there had
+been shrieks and yells ever since the train left Waterloo, as if
+someone was being murdered. An Arab and two Englishmen got out of the
+compartment in question, apparently the party referred to in wire just
+to hand from Basingstoke. All three declared that there was nothing the
+matter. That they had been shouting for fun. Arab gave up three third
+singles for Southampton, saying, in reply to questions, that they had
+changed their minds, and did not want to go any farther. As there were
+no signs of a struggle or of violence, nor, apparently, any definite
+cause for detention, they were allowed to pass. They took a
+four-wheeler, No. 09435. The Arab and one man went inside, and the
+other man on the box. They asked to be driven to Commercial Road,
+Limehouse. The cab has since returned. Driver says he put the three men
+down, at their request, in Commercial Road, at the corner of Sutcliffe
+Street, near the East India Docks. They walked up Sutcliffe Street, the
+Englishmen in front, and the Arab behind, took the first turning to the
+right, and after that he saw nothing of them. The driver further states
+that all the way the Englishman inside, who was so ragged and dirty
+that he was reluctant to carry him, kept up a sort of wailing noise
+which so attracted his attention that he twice got off his box to see
+what was the matter, and each time he said it was nothing. The cabman
+is of opinion that both the Englishmen were of weak intellect. We were
+of the same impression here. They said nothing, except at the seeming
+instigation of the Arab, but when spoken to stared and gaped like
+lunatics.
+
+'It may be mentioned that the Arab had with him an enormous bundle,
+which he persisted, in spite of all remonstrances, on taking with him
+inside the cab.'
+
+As soon as I had mastered the contents of the report, and perceived
+what I believed to be--unknown to the writer himself--its hideous inner
+meaning, I turned to Bellingham.
+
+'With your permission, Mr Bellingham, I will keep this
+communication,--it will be safe in my hands, you will be able to get a
+copy, and it may be necessary that I should have the original to show
+to the police. If any inquiries are made for me from Scotland Yard,
+tell them that I have gone to the Commercial Road, and that I will
+report my movements from Limehouse Police Station.'
+
+In another minute we were once more traversing the streets of
+London,--three in a hansom cab.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+THE MURDER AT MRS 'ENDERSON'S
+
+
+It is something of a drive from Waterloo to Limehouse,--it seems longer
+when all your nerves are tingling with anxiety to reach your journey's
+end; and the cab I had hit upon proved to be not the fastest I might
+have chosen. For some time after our start, we were silent. Each was
+occupied with his own thoughts.
+
+Then Lessingham, who was sitting at my side, said to me,
+
+'Mr Champnell, you have that report.'
+
+'I have.'
+
+'Will you let me see it once more?'
+
+I gave it to him. He read it once, twice,--and I fancy yet again. I
+purposely avoided looking at him as he did so. Yet all the while I was
+conscious of his pallid cheeks, the twitched muscles of his mouth, the
+feverish glitter of his eyes,--this Leader of Men, whose predominate
+characteristic in the House of Commons was immobility, was rapidly
+approximating to the condition of a hysterical woman. The mental strain
+which he had been recently undergoing was proving too much for his
+physical strength. This disappearance of the woman he loved bade fair
+to be the final straw. I felt convinced that unless something was done
+quickly to relieve the strain upon his mind he was nearer to a state of
+complete mental and moral collapse than he himself imagined. Had he
+been under my orders I should have commanded him to at once return
+home, and not to think; but conscious that, as things were, such a
+direction would be simply futile, I decided to do something else
+instead. Feeling that suspense was for him the worst possible form of
+suffering I resolved to explain, so far as I was able, precisely what
+it was I feared, and how I proposed to prevent it.
+
+Presently there came the question for which I had been waiting, in a
+harsh, broken voice which no one who had heard him speak on a public
+platform, or in the House of Commons, would have recognised as his.
+
+'Mr Champnell,--who do you think this person is of whom the report from
+Vauxhall Station speaks as being all in rags and tatters?'
+
+He knew perfectly well,--but I understood the mental attitude which
+induced him to prefer that the information should seem to come from me.
+
+'I hope that it will prove to be Miss Lindon.'
+
+'Hope!' He gave a sort of gasp.
+
+'Yes, hope,--because if it is I think it possible, nay probable, that
+within a few hours you will have her again enfolded in your arms.'
+
+'Pray God that it may be so! pray God!--pray the good God!'
+
+I did not dare to look round for, from the tremor which was in his
+tone, I was persuaded that in the speaker's eyes were tears. Atherton
+continued silent. He was leaning half out of the cab, staring straight
+ahead, as if he saw in front a young girl's face, from which he could
+not remove his glance, and which beckoned him on.
+
+After a while Lessingham spoke again, as if half to himself and half to
+me.
+
+'This mention of the shrieks on the railway, and of the wailing noise
+in the cab,--what must this wretch have done to her? How my darling
+must have suffered!'
+
+That was a theme on which I myself scarcely ventured to allow my
+thoughts to rest. The notion of a gently-nurtured girl being at the
+mercy of that fiend incarnate, possessed--as I believed that so-called
+Arab to be possessed--of all the paraphernalia of horror and of dread,
+was one which caused me tangible shrinkings of the body. Whence had
+come those shrieks and yells, of which the writer of the report spoke,
+which had caused the Arab's fellow-passengers to think that murder was
+being done? What unimaginable agony had caused them? what speechless
+torture? And the 'wailing noise,' which had induced the prosaic,
+indurated London cabman to get twice off his box to see what was the
+matter, what anguish had been provocative of that? The helpless girl
+who had already endured so much, endured, perhaps, that to which death
+would have been preferred!--shut up in that rattling, jolting box on
+wheels, alone with that diabolical Asiatic, with the enormous bundle,
+which was but the lurking place of nameless terrors,--what might she
+not, while being borne through the heart of civilised London, have been
+made to suffer? What had she not been made to suffer to have kept up
+that continued 'wailing noise'?
+
+It was not a theme on which it was wise to permit one's thoughts to
+linger,--and particularly was it clear that it was one from which
+Lessingham's thoughts should have been kept as far as possible away.
+
+'Come, Mr Lessingham, neither you nor I will do himself any good by
+permitting his reflections to flow in a morbid channel. Let us talk of
+something else. By the way, weren't you due to speak in the House
+to-night?'
+
+'Due!--Yes, I was due,--but what does it matter?'
+
+'But have you acquainted no one with the cause of your non-attendance?'
+
+'Acquaint!--whom should I acquaint?'
+
+'My good sir! Listen to me, Mr Lessingham. Let me entreat you very
+earnestly, to follow my advice. Call another cab,--or take this! and go
+at once to the House. It is not too late. Play the man, deliver the
+speech you have undertaken to deliver, perform your political duties.
+By coming with me you will be a hindrance rather than a help, and you
+may do your reputation an injury from which it never may recover. Do as
+I counsel you, and I will undertake to do my very utmost to let you
+have good news by the time your speech is finished.'
+
+He turned on me with a bitterness for which I was unprepared.
+
+'If I were to go down to the House, and try to speak in the state in
+which I am now, they would laugh at me, I should be ruined.'
+
+'Do you not run an equally great risk of being ruined by staying away?'
+
+He gripped me by the arm.
+
+'Mr Champnell, do you know that I am on the verge of madness? Do you
+know that as I am sitting here by your side I am living in a dual
+world? I am going on and on to catch that--that fiend, and I am back
+again in that Egyptian den, upon that couch of rugs, with the Woman of
+the Songs beside me, and Marjorie is being torn and tortured, and burnt
+before my eyes! God help me! Her shrieks are ringing in my ears!'
+
+He did not speak loudly, but his voice was none the less impressive on
+that account. I endeavoured my hardest to be stern.
+
+'I confess that you disappoint me, Mr Lessingham. I have always
+understood that you were a man of unusual strength; you appear instead,
+to be a man of extraordinary weakness; with an imagination so
+ill-governed that its ebullitions remind me of nothing so much as
+feminine hysterics, Your wild language is not warranted by
+circumstances. I repeat that I think it quite possible that by
+to-morrow morning she will be returned to you.'
+
+'Yes,--but how? as the Marjorie I have known, as I saw her last,--or
+how?'
+
+That was the question which I had already asked myself, in what
+condition would she be when we had succeeded in snatching her from her
+captor's grip? It was a question to which I had refused to supply an
+answer. To him I lied by implication.
+
+'Let us hope that, with the exception of being a trifle scared, she
+will be as sound and hale and hearty as even in her life.'
+
+'Do you yourself believe that she'll be like that,--untouched,
+unchanged, unstained?'
+
+Then I lied right out,--it seemed to me necessary to calm his growing
+excitement.
+
+'I do.'
+
+'You don't!'
+
+'Mr Lessingham!'
+
+'Do you think that I can't see your face and read in it the same
+thoughts which trouble me? As a man of honour do you care to deny that
+when Marjorie Lindon is restored to me,--if she ever is!--you fear she
+will be but the mere soiled husk of the Marjorie whom I knew and loved?'
+
+'Even supposing that there may be a modicum of truth in what you
+say,--which I am far from being disposed to admit--what good purpose do
+you propose to serve by talking in such a strain?'
+
+'None,--no good purpose,--unless it be the desire of looking the truth
+in the face. For, Mr Champnell, you must not seek to play with me the
+hypocrite, nor try to hide things from me as if I were a child. If my
+life is ruined--it is ruined,--let me know it, and look the knowledge
+in the face. That, to me, is to play the man.'
+
+I was silent.
+
+The wild tale he had told me of that Cairene inferno, oddly enough--yet
+why oddly, for the world is all coincidence!--had thrown a flood of
+light on certain events which had happened some three years previously
+and which ever since had remained shrouded in mystery. The conduct of
+the business afterwards came into my hands,--and briefly, what had
+occurred was this:
+
+Three persons,--two sisters and their brother, who was younger than
+themselves, members of a decent English family, were going on a trip
+round the world. They were young, adventurous, and--not to put too fine
+a point on it--foolhardy. The evening after their arrival in Cairo, by
+way of what is called 'a lark,' in spite of the protestations of people
+who were better informed than themselves, they insisted on going,
+alone, for a ramble through the native quarter.
+
+They went,--but they never returned. Or, rather the two girls never
+returned. After an interval the young man was found again,--what was
+left of him. A fuss was made when there were no signs of their
+re-appearance, but as there were no relations, nor even friends of
+theirs, but only casual acquaintances on board the ship by which they
+had travelled, perhaps not so great a fuss as might have been was made.
+Anyhow, nothing was discovered. Their widowed mother, alone in England,
+wondering how it was that beyond the receipt of a brief wire,
+acquainting her with their arrival at Cairo, she had heard nothing
+further of their wanderings, placed herself in communication with the
+diplomatic people over there,--to learn that, to all appearances, her
+three children had vanished from off the face of the earth.
+
+Then a fuss was made,--with a vengeance. So far as one can judge the
+whole town and neighbourhood was turned pretty well upside down. But
+nothing came of it,--so far as any results were concerned, the
+authorities might just as well have left the mystery of their
+vanishment alone. It continued where it was in spite of them.
+
+However, some three months afterwards a youth was brought to the
+British Embassy by a party of friendly Arabs who asserted that they had
+found him naked and nearly dying in some remote spot in the Wady Haifa
+desert. It was the brother of the two lost girls. He was as nearly
+dying as he very well could be without being actually dead when they
+brought him to the Embassy,--and in a state of indescribable
+mutilation. He seemed to rally for a time under careful treatment, but
+he never again uttered a coherent word. It was only from his delirious
+ravings that any idea was formed of what had really occurred.
+
+Shorthand notes were taken of some of the utterances of his delirium.
+Afterwards they were submitted to me. I remembered the substance of
+them quite well, and when Mr Lessingham began to tell me of his own
+hideous experiences they came back to me more clearly still. Had I laid
+those notes before him I have little doubt but that he would have
+immediately perceived that seventeen years after the adventure which
+had left such an indelible scar upon his own life, this youth--he was
+little more than a boy--had seen the things which he had seen, and
+suffered the nameless agonies and degradations which he had suffered.
+The young man was perpetually raving about some indescribable den of
+horror which was own brother to Lessingham's temple and about some
+female monster, whom he regarded with such fear and horror that every
+allusion he made to her was followed by a convulsive paroxysm which
+taxed all the ingenuity of his medical attendants to bring him out of.
+He frequently called upon his sisters by name, speaking of them in a
+manner which inevitably suggested that he had been an unwilling and
+helpless witness of hideous tortures which they had undergone; and then
+he would rise in bed, screaming, 'They're burning them! they're burning
+them! Devils! devils!' And at those times it required all the strength
+of those who were in attendance to restrain his maddened frenzy.
+
+The youth died in one of these fits of great preternatural excitement,
+without, as I have previously written, having given utterance to one
+single coherent word, and by some of those who were best able to judge
+it was held to have been a mercy that he did die without having been
+restored to consciousness. And, presently, tales began to be whispered,
+about some idolatrous sect, which was stated to have its headquarters
+somewhere in the interior of the country--some located it in this
+neighbourhood, and some in that--which was stated to still practise,
+and to always have practised, in unbroken historical continuity, the
+debased, unclean, mystic, and bloody rites, of a form of idolatry which
+had had its birth in a period of the world's story which was so remote,
+that to all intents and purposes it might be described as pre-historic.
+
+While the ferment was still at its height, a man came to the British
+Embassy who said that he was a member of a tribe which had its habitat
+on the banks of the White Nile. He asserted that he was in association
+with this very idolatrous sect,--though he denied that he was one of
+the actual sectaries. He did admit, however, that he had assisted more
+than once at their orgies, and declared that it was their constant
+practice to offer young women as sacrifices--preferably white Christian
+women, with a special preference, if they could get them, to young
+English women. He vowed that he himself had seen with his own eyes,
+English girls burnt alive. The description which he gave of what
+preceded and followed these foul murders appalled those who listened.
+He finally wound up by offering, on payment of a stipulated sum of
+money, to guide a troop of soldiers to this den of demons, so that they
+should arrive there at a moment when it was filled with worshippers,
+who were preparing to participate in an orgie which was to take place
+during the next few days.
+
+His offer was conditionally accepted. He was confined in an apartment
+with one man on guard inside and another on guard outside the room.
+That night the sentinel without was startled by hearing a great noise
+and frightful screams issuing from the chamber in which the native was
+interned. He summoned assistance. The door was opened. The soldier on
+guard within was stark, staring mad,--he died within a few months, a
+gibbering maniac to the end. The native was dead. The window, which was
+a very small one, was securely fastened inside and strongly barred
+without. There was nothing to show by what means entry had been gained.
+Yet it was the general opinion of those who saw the corpse that the man
+had been destroyed by some wild beast. A photograph was taken of the
+body after death, a copy of which is still in my possession. In it are
+distinctly shown lacerations about the neck and the lower portion of
+the abdomen, as if they had been produced by the claws of some huge and
+ferocious animal. The skull is splintered in half-a-dozen places, and
+the face is torn to rags.
+
+That was more than three years ago. The whole business has remained as
+great a mystery as ever. But my attention has once or twice been caught
+by trifling incidents, which have caused me to more than suspect that
+the wild tale told by that murdered native had in it at least the
+elements of truth; and which have even led me to wonder if the trade in
+kidnapping was not being carried on to this very hour, and if women of
+my own flesh and blood were not still being offered up on that infernal
+altar. And now, here was Paul Lessingham, a man of world-wide
+reputation, of great intellect, of undoubted honour, who had come to me
+with a wholly unconscious verification of all my worst suspicions!
+
+That the creature spoken of as an Arab,--and who was probably no more
+an Arab than I was, and whose name was certainly not Mohamed el
+Kheir!--was an emissary from that den of demons, I had no doubt. What
+was the exact purport of the creature's presence in England was another
+question, Possibly part of the intention was the destruction of Paul
+Lessingham, body, soul and spirit; possibly another part was the
+procuration of fresh victims for that long-drawn-out holocaust. That
+this latter object explained the disappearance of Miss Lindon I felt
+persuaded. That she was designed by the personification of evil who was
+her captor, to suffer all the horrors at which the stories pointed, and
+then to be burned alive, amidst the triumphant yells of the attendant
+demons, I was certain. That the wretch, aware that the pursuit was in
+full cry, was tearing, twisting, doubling, and would stick at nothing
+which would facilitate the smuggling of the victim out of England, was
+clear.
+
+My interest in the quest was already far other than a merely
+professional one. The blood in my veins tingled at the thought of such
+a woman as Miss Lindon being in the power of such a monster. I may
+assuredly claim that throughout the whole business I was urged forward
+by no thought of fee or of reward. To have had a share in rescuing that
+unfortunate girl, and in the destruction of her noxious persecutor,
+would have been reward enough for me.
+
+One is not always, even in strictly professional matters, influenced by
+strictly professional instincts.
+
+The cab slowed. A voice descended through the trap door.
+
+'This is Commercial Road, sir,--what part of it do you want?'
+
+'Drive me to Limehouse Police Station.'
+
+We were driven there. I made my way to the usual inspector behind the
+usual pigeon-hole.
+
+'My name is Champnell. Have you received any communication from
+Scotland Yard to-night having reference to a matter in which I am
+interested?'
+
+'Do you mean about the Arab? We received a telephonic message about
+half an hour ago.'
+
+'Since communicating with Scotland Yard this has come to hand from the
+authorities at Vauxhall Station. Can you tell me if anything has been
+seen of the person in question by the men of your division?'
+
+I handed the Inspector the 'report.' His reply was laconic.
+
+'I will inquire.'
+
+He passed through a door into an inner room and the 'report' went with
+him.
+
+'Beg pardon, sir, but was that a Harab you was a-talking about to the
+Hinspector?'
+
+The speaker was a gentleman unmistakably of the gutter-snipe class. He
+was seated on a form. Close at hand hovered a policeman whose special
+duty it seemed to be to keep an eye upon his movements.
+
+'Why do you ask?'
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir, but I saw a Harab myself about a hour
+ago,--leastways he looked like as if he was a Harab.'
+
+'What sort of a looking person was he?'
+
+'I can't 'ardly tell you that, sir, because I didn't never have a
+proper look at him,--but I know he had a bloomin' great bundle on 'is
+'ead. ... It was like this, 'ere. I was comin' round the corner, as he
+was passin', I never see 'im till I was right atop of 'im, so that I
+haccidentally run agin 'im,--my heye! didn't 'e give me a downer! I was
+down on the back of my 'ead in the middle of the road before I knew
+where I was and 'e was at the other end of the street. If 'e 'adn't
+knocked me more'n 'arf silly I'd been after 'im, sharp,--I tell you!
+and hasked 'im what 'e thought 'e was a-doin' of, but afore my senses
+was back agin 'e was out o' sight,--clean!'
+
+'You are sure he had a bundle on his head?'
+
+'I noticed it most particular.'
+
+'How long ago do you say this was? and where?'
+
+'About a hour ago,--perhaps more, perhaps less.'
+
+'Was he alone?'
+
+'It seemed to me as if a cove was a follerin' 'im, leastways there was
+a bloke as was a-keepin' close at 'is 'eels,--though I don't know what
+'is little game was, I'm sure. Ask the pleesman--he knows, he knows
+everything the pleesman do.'
+
+I turned to the 'pleesman.'
+
+'Who is this man?'
+
+The 'pleesman' put his hands behind his back, and threw out his chest.
+His manner was distinctly affable.
+
+'Well,--he's being detained upon suspicion. He's given us an address at
+which to make inquiries, and inquiries are being made. I shouldn't pay
+too much attention to what he says if I were you. I don't suppose he'd
+be particular about a lie or two.'
+
+This frank expression of opinion re-aroused the indignation of the
+gentleman on the form.
+
+'There you hare! at it again! That's just like you peelers,--you're all
+the same! What do you know about me?--Nuffink! This gen'leman ain't got
+no call to believe me, not as I knows on,--it's all the same to me if
+'e do or don't, but it's trewth what I'm sayin', all the same.'
+
+At this point the Inspector re-appeared at the pigeon-hole. He cut
+short the flow of eloquence.
+
+'Now then, not so much noise outside there!' He addressed me. 'None of
+our men have seen anything of the person you're inquiring for, so far
+as we're aware. But, if you like, I will place a man at your disposal,
+and he will go round with you, and you will be able to make your own
+inquiries.'
+
+A capless, wildly excited young ragamuffin came dashing in at the
+street door. He gasped out, as clearly as he could for the speed which
+he had made:
+
+'There's been murder done, Mr Pleesman,--a Harab's killed a bloke.'
+
+'Mr Pleesman' gripped him by the shoulder.
+
+'What's that?'
+
+The youngster put up his arm, and ducked his head, instinctively, as if
+to ward off a blow.
+
+'Leave me alone! I don't want none of your 'andling!--I ain't done
+nuffink to you! I tell you 'e 'as!'
+
+The Inspector spoke through the pigeon-hole.
+
+'He has what, my lad? What do you say has happened?'
+
+'There's been murder done--it's right enough!--there 'as!--up at Mrs
+'Enderson's, in Paradise Place,--a Harab's been and killed a bloke!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+THE MAN WHO WAS MURDERED
+
+
+The Inspector spoke to me.
+
+'If what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom you
+are seeking may have had a finger in the pie.'
+
+I was of the same opinion, as, apparently, were Lessingham and Sidney.
+Atherton collared the youth by the shoulder which Mr Pleesman had left
+disengaged.
+
+'What sort of looking bloke is it who's been murdered?'
+
+'I dunno! I 'aven't seen 'im! Mrs 'Enderson, she says to me! "'Gustus
+Barley," she says, "a bloke's been murdered. That there Harab what I
+chucked out 'alf a hour ago been and murdered 'im, and left 'im behind
+up in my back room. You run as 'ard as you can tear and tell them there
+dratted pleese what's so fond of shovin' their dirty noses into
+respectable people's 'ouses." So I comes and tells yer. That's all I
+knows about it.'
+
+We went four in the hansom which had been waiting in the street to Mrs
+Henderson's in Paradise Place,--the Inspector and we three. 'Mr
+Pleesman' and ''Gustus Barley' followed on foot. The Inspector was
+explanatory.
+
+'Mrs Henderson keeps a sort of lodging-house,--a "Sailors' Home" she
+calls it, but no one could call it sweet. It doesn't bear the best of
+characters, and if you asked me what I thought of it, I should say in
+plain English that it was a disorderly house.'
+
+Paradise Place proved to be within three or four hundred yards of the
+Station House. So far as could be seen in the dark it consisted of a
+row of houses of considerable dimensions,--and also of considerable
+antiquity. They opened on to two or three stone steps which led
+directly into the street. At one of the doors stood an old lady with a
+shawl drawn over her head. This was Mrs Henderson. She greeted us with
+garrulous volubility.
+
+'So you 'ave come, 'ave you? I thought you never was a-comin' that I
+did.' She recognised the Inspector. 'It's you, Mr Phillips, is it?'
+Perceiving us, she drew a little back 'Who's them 'ere parties? They
+ain't coppers?'
+
+Mr Phillips dismissed her inquiry, curtly.
+
+'Never you mind who they are. What's this about someone being murdered.'
+
+'Ssh!' The old lady glanced round. 'Don't you speak so loud, Mr
+Phillips. No one don't know nothing about it as yet. The parties what's
+in my 'ouse is most respectable,--most! and they couldn't abide the
+notion of there being police about the place.'
+
+'We quite believe that, Mrs Henderson.'
+
+The Inspector's tone was grim.
+
+Mrs Henderson led the way up a staircase which would have been
+distinctly the better for repairs. It was necessary to pick one's way
+as one went, and as the light was defective stumbles were not
+infrequent.
+
+Our guide paused outside a door on the topmost landing. From some
+mysterious recess in her apparel she produced a key.
+
+'It's in 'ere. I locked the door so that nothing mightn't be disturbed.
+I knows 'ow particular you pleesmen is.'
+
+She turned the key. We all went in--we, this time, in front, and she
+behind.
+
+A candle was guttering on a broken and dilapidated single washhand
+stand. A small iron bedstead stood by its side, the clothes on which
+were all tumbled and tossed. There was a rush-seated chair with a hole
+in the seat,--and that, with the exception of one or two chipped pieces
+of stoneware, and a small round mirror which was hung on a nail against
+the wall, seemed to be all that the room contained. I could see nothing
+in the shape of a murdered man. Nor, it appeared, could the Inspector
+either.
+
+'What's the meaning of this, Mrs Henderson? I don't see anything here.'
+
+'It's be'ind the bed, Mr Phillips. I left 'im just where I found 'im, I
+wouldn't 'ave touched 'im not for nothing, nor yet 'ave let nobody else
+'ave touched 'im neither, because, as I say, I know 'ow particular you
+pleesmen is.'
+
+We all four went hastily forward. Atherton and I went to the head of
+the bed, Lessingham and the Inspector, leaning right across the bed,
+peeped over the side. There, on the floor in the space which was
+between the bed and the wall, lay the murdered man.
+
+At sight of him an exclamation burst from Sydney's lips.
+
+'It's Holt!'
+
+'Thank God!' cried Lessingham. 'It isn't Marjorie!'
+
+The relief in his tone was unmistakable. That the one was gone was
+plainly nothing to him in comparison with the fact that the other was
+left.
+
+Thrusting the bed more into the centre of the room I knelt down beside
+the man on the floor. A more deplorable spectacle than he presented I
+have seldom witnessed. He was decently clad in a grey tweed suit, white
+hat, collar and necktie, and it was perhaps that fact which made his
+extreme attenuation the more conspicuous. I doubt if there was an ounce
+of flesh on the whole of his body. His cheeks and the sockets of his
+eyes were hollow. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheek bones,--the
+bones themselves were staring through. Even his nose was wasted, so
+that nothing but a ridge of cartilage remained. I put my arm beneath
+his shoulder and raised him from the floor; no resistance was offered
+by the body's gravity,--he was as light as a little child.
+
+'I doubt,' I said, 'if this man has been murdered. It looks to me like
+a case of starvation, or exhaustion,--possibly a combination of both.'
+
+'What's that on his neck?' asked the Inspector,--he was kneeling at my
+side.
+
+He referred to two abrasions of the skin,--one on either side of the
+man's neck.
+
+'They look to me like scratches. They seem pretty deep, but I don't
+think they're sufficient in themselves to cause death.'
+
+'They might be, joined to an already weakened constitution. Is there
+anything in his pockets?--let's lift him on to the bed.'
+
+We lifted him on to the bed,--a featherweight he was to lift. While the
+Inspector was examining his pockets--to find them empty--a tall man
+with a big black beard came bustling in. He proved to be Dr Glossop,
+the local police surgeon, who had been sent for before our quitting the
+Station House.
+
+His first pronouncement, made as soon as he commenced his examination,
+was, under the circumstances, sufficiently startling.
+
+'I don't believe the man's dead. Why didn't you send for me directly
+you found him?'
+
+The question was put to Mrs Henderson.
+
+'Well, Dr Glossop, I wouldn't touch 'im myself, and I wouldn't 'ave 'im
+touched by no one else, because, as I've said afore, I know 'ow
+particular them pleesmen is.'
+
+'Then in that case, if he does die you'll have had a hand in murdering
+him,--that's all'
+
+The lady sniggered. 'Of course Dr Glossop, we all knows that you'll
+always 'ave your joke.'
+
+'You'll find it a joke if you have to hang, as you ought to, you--' The
+doctor said what he did say to himself, under his breath. I doubt if it
+was flattering to Mrs Henderson. 'Have you got any brandy in the house?'
+
+'We've got everythink in the 'ouse for them as likes to pay for
+it,--everythink.' Then, suddenly remembering that the police were
+present, and that hers were not exactly licensed premises, 'Leastways
+we can send out for it for them parties as gives us the money, being,
+as is well known, always willing to oblige.'
+
+'Then send for some,--to the tap downstairs, if that's the nearest! If
+this man dies before you've brought it I'll have you locked up as sure
+as you're a living woman.'
+
+The arrival of the brandy was not long delayed,--but the man on the bed
+had regained consciousness before it came. Opening his eyes he looked
+up at the doctor bending over him.
+
+'Hollo, my man! that's more like the time of day! How are you feeling?'
+
+The patient stared hazily up at the doctor, as if his sense of
+perception was not yet completely restored,--as if this big bearded man
+was something altogether strange. Atherton bent down beside the doctor.
+
+'I'm glad to see you looking better, Mr Holt. You know me don't you?
+I've been running about after you all day long.'
+
+'You are--you are--' The man's eyes closed, as if the effort at
+recollection exhausted him. He kept them closed as he continued to
+speak.
+
+'I know who you are. You are--the gentleman.'
+
+'Yes, that's it, I'm the gentleman,--name of Atherton.--Miss Lindon's
+friend. And I daresay you're feeling pretty well done up, and in want
+of something to eat and drink,--here's some brandy for you.'
+
+The doctor had some in a tumbler. He raised the patient's head,
+allowing it to trickle down his throat. The man swallowed it
+mechanically, motionless, as if unconscious what it was that he was
+doing. His cheeks flushed, the passing glow of colour caused their
+condition of extraordinary, and, indeed, extravagant attentuation, to
+be more prominent than ever. The doctor laid him back upon the bed,
+feeling his pulse with one hand, while he stood and regarded him in
+silence.
+
+Then, turning to the Inspector, he said to him in an undertone;
+
+'If you want him to make a statement he'll have to make it now, he's
+going fast. You won't be able to get much out of him,--he's too far
+gone, and I shouldn't bustle him, but get what you can.'
+
+The Inspector came to the front, a notebook in his hand.
+
+'I understand from this gentleman--' signifying Atherton--'that your
+name's Robert Holt. I'm an Inspector of police, and I want you to tell
+me what has brought you into this condition. Has anyone been assaulting
+you?'
+
+Holt, opening his eyes, glanced up at the speaker mistily, as if he
+could not see him clearly,--still less understand what it was that he
+was saying. Sydney, stooping over him, endeavoured to explain.
+
+'The Inspector wants to know how you got here, has anyone been doing
+anything to you? Has anyone been hurting you?'
+
+The man's eyelids were partially closed. Then they opened wider and
+wider. His mouth opened too. On his skeleton features there came a look
+of panic fear. He was evidently struggling to speak. At last words came.
+
+'The beetle!' He stopped. Then, after an effort, spoke again. 'The
+beetle!'
+
+'What's he mean?' asked the Inspector.
+
+'I think I understand,' Sydney answered; then turning again to the man
+in the bed. 'Yes, I hear what you say,--the beetle. Well, has the
+beetle done anything to you?'
+
+'It took me by the throat!'
+
+'Is that the meaning of the marks upon your neck?'
+
+'The beetle killed me.'
+
+The lids closed. The man relapsed into a state of lethargy. The
+Inspector was puzzled;--and said so.
+
+'What's he mean about a beetle?'
+
+Atherton replied.
+
+'I think I understand what he means,--and my friends do too. We'll
+explain afterwards. In the meantime I think I'd better get as much out
+of him as I can,--while there's time.'
+
+'Yes,' said the doctor, his hand upon the patient's pulse, 'while
+there's time. There isn't much--only seconds.'
+
+Sydney endeavoured to rouse the man from his stupor.
+
+'You've been with Miss Lindon all the afternoon and evening, haven't
+you, Mr Holt?'
+
+Atherton had reached a chord in the man's consciousness. His lips
+moved,--in painful articulation.
+
+'Yes--all the afternoon--and evening--God help me!'
+
+'I hope God will help you my poor fellow; you've been in need of His
+help if ever man was. Miss Lindon is disguised in your old clothes,
+isn't she?'
+
+'Yes,--in my old clothes. My God!'
+
+'And where is Miss Lindon now?'
+
+The man had been speaking with his eyes closed. Now he opened them,
+wide; there came into them the former staring horror. He became
+possessed by uncontrollable agitation,--half raising himself in bed.
+Words came from his quivering lips as if they were only drawn from him
+by the force of his anguish.
+
+'The beetle's going to kill Miss Lindon.'
+
+A momentary paroxysm seemed to shake the very foundations of his being.
+His whole frame quivered. He fell back on to the bed,--ominously. The
+doctor examined him in silence--while we too were still.
+
+'This time he's gone for good, there'll be no conjuring him back again.'
+
+I felt a sudden pressure on my arm, and found that Lessingham was
+clutching me with probably unconscious violence. The muscles of his
+face were twitching. He trembled. I turned to the doctor.
+
+'Doctor, if there is any of that brandy left will you let me have it
+for my friend?'
+
+Lessingham disposed of the remainder of the 'shillings worth.' I rather
+fancy it saved us from a scene.
+
+The Inspector was speaking to the woman of the house.
+
+'Now, Mrs Henderson, perhaps you'll tell us what all this means. Who is
+this man, and how did he come in here, and who came in with him, and
+what do you know about it altogether? If you've got anything to say,
+say it, only you'd better be careful, because it's my duty to warn you
+that anything you do say may be used against you.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+ALL THAT MRS 'ENDERSON KNEW
+
+
+Mrs Henderson put her hands under her apron and smirked.
+
+'Well, Mr Phillips, it do sound strange to 'ear you talkin' to me like
+that. Anybody'd think I'd done something as I didn't ought to 'a' done
+to 'ear you going on. As for what's 'appened, I'll tell you all I know
+with the greatest willingness on earth. And as for bein' careful, there
+ain't no call for you to tell me to be that, for that I always am, as
+by now you ought to know.'
+
+'Yes,--I do know. Is that all you have to say?'
+
+'Rilly, Mr Phillips, what a man you are for catching people up, you
+rilly are. O' course that ain't all I've got to say,--ain't I just
+a-comin' to it?'
+
+'Then come.'
+
+'If you presses me so you'll muddle of me up, and then if I do 'appen
+to make a herror, you'll say I'm a liar, when goodness knows there
+ain't no more truthful woman not in Limehouse.'
+
+Words plainly trembled on the Inspector's lips,--which he refrained
+from uttering. Mrs Henderson cast her eyes upwards, as if she sought
+for inspiration from the filthy ceiling.
+
+'So far as I can swear it might 'ave been a hour ago, or it might 'ave
+been a hour and a quarter, or it might 'ave been a hour and twenty
+minutes--'
+
+'We're not particular as to the seconds.'
+
+'When I 'ears a knockin' at my front door, and when I comes to open it,
+there was a Harab party, with a great bundle on 'is 'ead, bigger nor
+'isself, and two other parties along with him. This Harab party says,
+in that queer foreign way them Harab parties 'as of talkin', "A room
+for the night, a room." Now I don't much care for foreigners, and never
+did, especially them Harabs, which their 'abits ain't my own,--so I as
+much 'ints the same. But this 'ere Harab party, he didn't seem to quite
+foller of my meaning, for all he done was to say as he said afore, "A
+room for the night, a room." And he shoves a couple of 'arf crowns into
+my 'and. Now it's always been a motter o' mine, that money is money,
+and one man's money is as good as another man's. So, not wishing to be
+disagreeable--which other people would have taken 'em if I 'adn't, I
+shows 'em up 'ere. I'd been downstairs it might 'ave been 'arf a hour,
+when I 'ears a shindy a-coming from this room--'
+
+'What sort of a shindy?'
+
+'Yelling and shrieking--oh my gracious, it was enough to set your blood
+all curdled,--for ear-piercingness I never did 'ear nothing like it. We
+do 'ave troublesome parties in 'ere, like they do elsewhere, but I
+never did 'ear nothing like that before. I stood it for about a minute,
+but it kep' on, and kep' on, and every moment I expected as the other
+parties as was in the 'ouse would be complainin', so up I comes and I
+thumps at the door, and it seemed that thump I might for all the notice
+that was took of me.'
+
+'Did the noise keep on?'
+
+'Keep on! I should think it did keep on! Lord love you! shriek after
+shriek, I expected to see the roof took off.'
+
+'Were there any other noises? For instance, were there any sounds of
+struggling, or of blows?'
+
+'There weren't no sounds except of the party hollering.'
+
+'One party only?'
+
+'One party only. As I says afore, shriek after shriek,--when you put
+your ear to the panel there was a noise like some other party
+blubbering, but that weren't nothing, as for the hollering you wouldn't
+have thought that nothing what you might call 'umin could 'ave kep' up
+such a screechin'. I thumps and thumps and at last when I did think
+that I should 'ave to 'ave the door broke down, the Harab says to me
+from inside, "Go away! I pay for the room! go away!" I did think that
+pretty good, I tell you that. So I says, "Pay for the room or not pay
+for the room, you didn't pay to make that shindy!" And what's more I
+says, "If I 'ear it again," I says, "out you goes! And if you don't go
+quiet I'll 'ave somebody in as'll pretty quickly make you!"'
+
+'Then was there silence?'
+
+'So to speak there was,--only there was this sound as if some party was
+a-blubbering, and another sound as if a party was a-panting for his
+breath.'
+
+'Then what happened?'
+
+'Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet, down I went again. And in
+another quarter of a hour, or it might 'ave been twenty minutes, I went
+to the front door to get a mouthful of hair. And Mrs Barker, what lives
+over the road, at No. 24, she comes to me and says, "That there Arab
+party of yours didn't stop long." I looks at 'er, "I don't quite foller
+you," I says,--which I didn't. "I saw him come in," she says, "and
+then, a few minutes back, I see 'im go again, with a great bundle on
+'is 'ead he couldn't 'ardly stagger under!" "Oh," I says, "that's news
+to me, I didn't know 'e'd gone, nor see him neither---" which I didn't.
+So, up I comes again, and, sure enough, the door was open, and it seems
+to me that the room was empty, till I come upon this pore young man
+what was lying be'ind the bed,'
+
+There was a growl from the doctor.
+
+'If you'd had any sense, and sent for me at once, he might have been
+alive at this moment.'
+
+''Ow was I to know that, Dr Glossop? I couldn't tell. My finding 'im
+there murdered was quite enough for me. So I runs downstairs, and I
+nips 'old of 'Gustus Barley, what was leaning against the wall, and I
+says to him, "'Gustus Barley, run to the station as fast as you can and
+tell 'em that a man's been murdered,--that Harab's been and killed a
+bloke." And that's all I know about it, and I couldn't tell you no
+more, Mr Phillips, not if you was to keep on asking me questions not
+for hours and hours'
+
+'Then you think it was this man'--with a motion towards the bed--'who
+was shrieking?'
+
+'To tell you the truth, Mr Phillips, about that I don't 'ardly know
+what to think. If you 'ad asked me I should 'ave said it was a woman. I
+ought to know a woman's holler when I 'ear it, if any one does, I've
+'eard enough of 'em in my time, goodness knows. And I should 'ave said
+that only a woman could 'ave hollered like that and only 'er when she
+was raving mad. But there weren't no woman with him. There was only
+this man what's murdered, and the other man,--and as for the other man
+I will say this, that 'e 'adn't got twopennyworth of clothes to cover
+'im. But, Mr Phillips, howsomever that may be, that's the last Harab
+I'll 'ave under my roof, no matter what they pays, and you may mark my
+words I'll 'ave no more.'
+
+Mrs Henderson, once more glancing upward, as if she imagined herself to
+have made some declaration of a religious nature, shook her head with
+much solemnity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+THE SUDDEN STOPPING
+
+
+As we were leaving the house a constable gave the Inspector a note.
+Having read it he passed it to me. It was from the local office.
+
+'Message received that an Arab with a big bundle on his head has been
+noticed loitering about the neighbourhood of St Pancras Station. He
+seemed to be accompanied by a young man who had the appearance of a
+tramp. Young man seemed ill. They appeared to be waiting for a train,
+probably to the North. Shall I advise detention?'
+
+I scribbled on the flyleaf of the note.
+
+'Have them detained. If they have gone by train have a special in
+readiness.'
+
+In a minute we were again in the cab. I endeavoured to persuade
+Lessingham and Atherton to allow me to conduct the pursuit alone,--in
+vain. I had no fear of Atherton's succumbing, but I was afraid for
+Lessingham. What was more almost than the expectation of his collapse
+was the fact that his looks and manner, his whole bearing, so eloquent
+of the agony and agitation of his mind, was beginning to tell upon my
+nerves. A catastrophe of some sort I foresaw. Of the curtain's fall
+upon one tragedy we had just been witnesses. That there was worse--much
+worse, to follow I did not doubt. Optimistic anticipations were out of
+the question,--that the creature we were chasing would relinquish the
+prey uninjured, no one, after what we had seen and heard, could by any
+possibility suppose. Should a necessity suddenly arise for prompt and
+immediate action, that Lessingham would prove a hindrance rather than a
+help I felt persuaded.
+
+But since moments were precious, and Lessingham was not to be persuaded
+to allow the matter to proceed without him, all that remained was to
+make the best of his presence.
+
+The great arch of St Pancras was in darkness. An occasional light
+seemed to make the darkness still more visible. The station seemed
+deserted. I thought, at first, that there was not a soul about the
+place, that our errand was in vain, that the only thing for us to do
+was to drive to the police station and to pursue our inquiries there.
+But as we turned towards the booking-office, our footsteps ringing out
+clearly through the silence and the night, a door opened, a light shone
+out from the room within, and a voice inquired:
+
+'Who's that?'
+
+'My name's Champnell. Has a message been received from me from the
+Limehouse Police Station?'
+
+'Step this way.'
+
+We stepped that way,--into a snug enough office, of which one of the
+railway inspectors was apparently in charge. He was a big man, with a
+fair beard. He looked me up and down, as if doubtfully. Lessingham he
+recognised at once. He took off his cap to him.
+
+'Mr Lessingham, I believe?'
+
+'I am Mr Lessingham. Have you any news for me?
+
+I fancy, by his looks,--that the official was struck by the pallor of
+the speaker's face,--and by his tremulous voice.
+
+'I am instructed to give certain information to a Mr Augustus
+Champnell.'
+
+'I am Mr Champnell. What's your information?'
+
+'With reference to the Arab about whom you have been making inquiries.
+A foreigner, dressed like an Arab, with a great bundle on his head,
+took two single thirds for Hull by the midnight express.'
+
+'Was he alone?'
+
+'It is believed that he was accompanied by a young man of very
+disreputable appearance. They were not together at the booking-office,
+but they had been seen together previously. A minute or so after the
+Arab had entered the train this young man got into the same
+compartment--they were in the front waggon.'
+
+'Why were they not detained?'
+
+'We had no authority to detain them, nor any reason, until your message
+was received a few minutes ago we at this station were not aware that
+inquiries were being made for them.'
+
+'You say he booked to Hull,--does the train run through to Hull?'
+
+'No--it doesn't go to Hull at all. Part of it's the Liverpool and
+Manchester Express, and part of it's for Carlisle. It divides at Derby.
+The man you're looking for will change either at Sheffield or at
+Cudworth Junction and go on to Hull by the first train in the morning.
+There's a local service.'
+
+I looked at my watch.
+
+'You say the train left at midnight. It's now nearly five-and-twenty
+past. Where's it now?'
+
+'Nearing St Albans, it's due there 12.35.'
+
+'Would there be time for a wire to reach St Albans?'
+
+'Hardly,--and anyhow there'll only be enough railway officials about
+the place to receive and despatch the train. They'll be fully occupied
+with their ordinary duties. There won't be time to get the police
+there.'
+
+'You could wire to St Albans to inquire if they were still in the
+train?'
+
+'That could be done,--certainly. I'll have it done at once if you like.
+
+'Then where's the next stoppage?'
+
+'Well, they're at Luton at 12.51. But that's another case of St Albans.
+You see there won't be much more than twenty minutes by the time you've
+got your wire off, and I don't expect there'll be many people awake at
+Luton. At these country places sometimes there's a policeman hanging
+about the station to see the express go through, but, on the other
+hand, very often there isn't, and if there isn't, probably at this time
+of night it'll take a good bit of time to get the police on the
+premises. I tell you what I should advise.'
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'The train is due at Bedford at 1.29--send your wire there. There ought
+to be plenty of people about at Bedford, and anyhow there'll be time to
+get the police to the station.'
+
+'Very good. I instructed them to tell you to have a special
+ready,--have you got one?'
+
+'There's an engine with steam up in the shed,--we'll have all ready for
+you in less than ten minutes. And I tell you what,--you'll have about
+fifty minutes before the train is due at Bedford. It's a fifty mile
+run. With luck you ought to get there pretty nearly as soon as the
+express does.--Shall I tell them to get ready?'
+
+'At once.'
+
+While he issued directions through a telephone to what, I presume, was
+the engine shed, I drew up a couple of telegrams. Having completed his
+orders he turned to me.
+
+'They're coming out of the siding now--they'll be ready in less than
+ten minutes. I'll see that the line's kept clear. Have you got those
+wires?'
+
+'Here is one,--this is for Bedford.'
+
+It ran:
+
+'Arrest the Arab who is in train due at 1.29. When leaving St Pancras
+he was in a third-class compartment in front waggon. He has a large
+bundle, which detain. He took two third singles for Hull. Also detain
+his companion, who is dressed like a tramp. This is a young lady whom
+the Arab has disguised and kidnapped while in a condition of hypnotic
+trance. Let her have medical assistance and be taken to a hotel. All
+expenses will be paid on the arrival of the undersigned who is
+following by special train. As the Arab will probably be very violent a
+sufficient force of police should be in waiting.
+
+'AUGUSTUS CHAMPNELL.'
+
+'And this is the other. It is probably too late to be of any use at St
+Albans,--but send it there, and also to Luton.' 'Is Arab with companion
+in train which left St Pancras at 13.0? If so, do not let them get out
+till train reaches Bedford, where instructions are being wired for
+arrest.'
+
+The Inspector rapidly scanned them both.
+
+'They ought to do your business, I should think. Come along with
+me--I'll have them sent at once, and we'll see if your train's ready.'
+
+The train was not ready,--nor was it ready within the prescribed ten
+minutes. There was some hitch, I fancy, about a saloon. Finally we had
+to be content with an ordinary old-fashioned first-class carriage. The
+delay, however, was not altogether time lost. Just as the engine with
+its solitary coach was approaching the platform someone came running up
+with an envelope in his hand.
+
+'Telegram from St Albans.'
+
+I tore it open. It was brief and to the point.
+
+'Arab with companion was in train when it left here. Am wiring Luton.'
+
+'That's all right. Now unless something wholly unforeseen takes place,
+we ought to have them.'
+
+That unforeseen!
+
+I went forward with the Inspector and the guard of our train to
+exchange a few final words with the driver. The Inspector explained
+what instructions he had given.
+
+'I've told the driver not to spare his coal but to take you into
+Bedford within five minutes after the arrival of the express. He says
+he thinks that he can do it.'
+
+The driver leaned over his engine, rubbing his hands with the usual
+oily rag. He was a short, wiry man with grey hair and a grizzled
+moustache, with about him that bearing of semi-humorous, frank-faced
+resolution which one notes about engine-drivers as a class.
+
+'We ought to do it, the gradients are against us, but it's a clear
+night and there's no wind. The only thing that will stop us will be if
+there's any shunting on the road, or any luggage trains; of course, if
+we are blocked, we are blocked, but the Inspector says he'll clear the
+way for us.'
+
+'Yes,' said the Inspector, 'I'll clear the way. I've wired down the
+road already.'
+
+Atherton broke in.
+
+'Driver, if you get us into Bedford within five minutes of the arrival
+of the mail there'll be a five-pound note to divide between your mate
+and you.'
+
+The driver grinned.
+
+'We'll get you there in time, sir, if we have to go clear through the
+shunters. It isn't often we get a chance of a five-pound note for a run
+to Bedford, and we'll do our best to earn it.'
+
+The fireman waved his hand in the rear.
+
+'That's right, sir!' he cried. 'We'll have to trouble you for that
+five-pound note.'
+
+So soon as we were clear of the station it began to seem probable that,
+as the fireman put it, Atherton would be 'troubled.' Journeying in a
+train which consists of a single carriage attached to an engine which
+is flying at topmost speed is a very different business from being an
+occupant of an ordinary train which is travelling at ordinary express
+rates. I had discovered that for myself before. That night it was
+impressed on me more than ever. A tyro--or even a nervous
+'season'--might have been excused for expecting at every moment we were
+going to be derailed. It was hard to believe that the carriage had any
+springs,--it rocked and swung, and jogged and jolted. Of smooth
+travelling had we none. Talking was out of the question;--and for that,
+I, personally, was grateful. Quite apart from the difficulty we
+experienced in keeping our seats--and when every moment our position
+was being altered and we were jerked backwards and forwards up and
+down, this way and that, that was a business which required care,--the
+noise was deafening. It was as though we were being pursued by a legion
+of shrieking, bellowing, raging demons.
+
+'George!' shrieked Atherton, 'he does mean to earn that fiver. I hope
+I'll be alive to pay it him!'
+
+He was only at the other end of the carriage, but though I could see by
+the distortion of his visage that he was shouting at the top of his
+voice,--and he has a voice,--I only caught here and there a word or two
+of what he was saying. I had to make sense of the whole.
+
+Lessingham's contortions were a study. Few of that large multitude of
+persons who are acquainted with him only by means of the portraits
+which have appeared in the illustrated papers, would then have
+recognised the rising statesman. Yet I believe that few things could
+have better fallen in with his mood than that wild travelling. He might
+have been almost shaken to pieces,--but the very severity of the
+shaking served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic which
+threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then
+there was the tonic influence of the element of risk. The pick-me-up
+effect of a spice of peril. Actual danger there quite probably was
+none; but there very really seemed to be. And one thing was absolutely
+certain, that if we did come to smash while going at that speed we
+should come to as everlasting smash as the heart of man could by any
+possibility desire. It is probable that the knowledge that this was so
+warmed the blood in Lessingham's veins. At any rate as--to use what in
+this case, was simply a form of speech--I sat and watched him, it
+seemed to me that he was getting a firmer hold of the strength which
+had all but escaped him, and that with every jog and jolt he was
+becoming more and more of a man.
+
+On and on we went dashing, clashing, smashing, roaring, rumbling.
+Atherton, who had been endeavouring to peer through the window,
+strained his lungs again in the effort to make himself audible.
+
+'Where the devil are we?'
+
+Looking at my watch I screamed back at him.
+
+'It's nearly one, so I suppose we're somewhere in the neighbourhood of
+Luton.--Hollo! What's the matter?'
+
+That something was the matter seemed certain. There was a shrill
+whistle from the engine. In a second we were conscious--almost too
+conscious--of the application of the Westinghouse brake. Of all the
+jolting that was ever jolted! the mere reverberation of the carriage
+threatened to resolve our bodies into their component parts. Feeling
+what we felt then helped us to realise the retardatory force which that
+vacuum brake must be exerting,--it did not seem at all surprising that
+the train should have been brought to an almost instant stand-still.
+
+Simultaneously all three of us were on our feet. I let down my window
+and Atherton let down his,--he shouting out,
+
+'I should think that Inspector's wire hasn't had it's proper effect,
+looks as if we're blocked--or else we've stopped at Luton. It can't be
+Bedford.'
+
+It wasn't Bedford--so much seemed clear. Though at first from my window
+I could make out nothing. I was feeling more than a trifle
+dazed,--there was a singing in my ears,--the sudden darkness was
+impenetrable. Then I became conscious that the guard was opening the
+door of his compartment. He stood on the step for a moment, seeming to
+hesitate. Then, with a lamp in his hand, he descended on to the line.
+
+'What's the matter?' I asked.
+
+'Don't know, sir. Seems as if there was something on the road. What's
+up there?'
+
+This was to the man on the engine. The fireman replied:
+
+'Someone in front there's waving a red light like mad,--lucky I caught
+sight of him, we should have been clean on top of him in another
+moment. Looks as if there was something wrong. Here he comes.'
+
+As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I became aware that
+someone was making what haste he could along the six-foot way, swinging
+a red light as he came. Our guard advanced to meet him, shouting as he
+went:
+
+'What's the matter! Who's that?'
+
+A voice replied,
+
+'My God! Is that George Hewett. I thought you were coming right on top
+of us!'
+
+Our guard again.
+
+'What! Jim Branson! What the devil are you doing here, what's wrong? I
+thought you were on the twelve out, we're chasing you.'
+
+'Are you? Then you've caught us. Thank God for it!--We're a wreck.'
+
+I had already opened the carriage door. With that we all three
+clambered out on to the line.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+THE CONTENTS OF THE THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGE
+
+
+I moved to the stranger who was holding the lamp. He was in official
+uniform.
+
+'Are you the guard of the 12.0 out from St Pancras?'
+
+'I am.'
+
+'Where's your train? What's happened?'
+
+'As for where it is, there it is, right in front of you, what's left of
+it. As to what's happened, why, we're wrecked.'
+
+'What do you mean by you're wrecked?'
+
+'Some heavy loaded trucks broke loose from a goods in front and came
+running down the hill on top of us.'
+
+'How long ago was it?'
+
+'Not ten minutes. I was just starting off down the road to the signal
+box, it's a good two miles away, when I saw you coming. My God! I
+thought there was going to be another smash.'
+
+'Much damage done?'
+
+'Seems to me as if we're all smashed up. As far as I can make out
+they're matchboxed up in front. I feel as if I was all broken up inside
+of me. I've been in the service going on for thirty years, and this is
+the first accident I've been in.'
+
+It was too dark to see the man's face, but judging from his tone he was
+either crying or very near to it.
+
+Our guard turned and shouted back to our engine,
+
+'You'd better go back to the box and let 'em know!'
+
+'All right!' came echoing back.
+
+The special immediately commenced retreating, whistling continually as
+it went. All the country side must have heard the engine shrieking, and
+all who did hear must have understood that on the line something was
+seriously wrong.
+
+The smashed train was all in darkness, the force of the collision had
+put out all the carriage lamps. Here was a flickering candle, there the
+glimmer of a match, these were all the lights which shone upon the
+scene. People were piling up debris by the side of the line, for the
+purpose of making a fire,--more for illumination than for warmth.
+
+Many of the passengers had succeeded in freeing themselves, and were
+moving hither and thither about the line. But the majority appeared to
+be still imprisoned. The carriage doors were jammed. Without the
+necessary tools it was impossible to open them. Every step we took our
+ears were saluted by piteous cries. Men, women, children, appealed to
+us for help.
+
+'Open the door, sir!' 'In the name of God, sir, open the door!'
+
+Over and over again, in all sorts of tones, with all degrees of
+violence, the supplication was repeated.
+
+The guards vainly endeavoured to appease the, in many cases,
+half-frenzied creatures.
+
+'All right, sir! If you'll only wait a minute or two, madam! We can't
+get the doors open without tools, a special train's just started off to
+get them. If you'll only have patience there'll be plenty of help for
+everyone of you directly. You'll be quite safe in there, if you'll only
+keep still.'
+
+But that was just what they found it most difficult to do--keep still!
+
+In the front of the train all was chaos. The trucks which had done the
+mischief--there were afterwards shown to be six of them, together with
+two guards' vans--appeared to have been laden with bags of Portland
+cement. The bags had burst, and everything was covered with what seemed
+gritty dust. The air was full of the stuff, it got into our eyes, half
+blinding us. The engine of the express had turned a complete
+somersault. It vomited forth smoke, and steam, and flames,--every
+moment it seemed as if the woodwork of the carriages immediately behind
+and beneath would catch fire.
+
+The front coaches were, as the guard had put it, 'match-boxed.' They
+were nothing but a heap of debris,--telescoped into one another in a
+state of apparently inextricable confusion. It was broad daylight
+before access was gained to what had once been the interiors. The
+condition of the first third-class compartment revealed an
+extraordinary state of things.
+
+Scattered all over it were pieces of what looked like partially burnt
+rags, and fragments of silk and linen. I have those fragments now.
+Experts have assured me that they are actually neither of silk nor
+linen! but of some material--animal rather than vegetable--with which
+they are wholly unacquainted. On the cushions and woodwork--especially
+on the woodwork of the floor--were huge blotches,--stains of some sort.
+When first noticed they were damp, and gave out a most unpleasant
+smell. One of the pieces of woodwork is yet in my possession,--with the
+stain still on it. Experts have pronounced upon it too,--with the
+result that opinions are divided. Some maintain that the stain was
+produced by human blood, which had been subjected to a great heat, and,
+so to speak, parboiled. Others declare that it is the blood of some
+wild animal,--possibly of some creature of the cat species. Yet others
+affirm that it is not blood at all, but merely paint. While a fourth
+describes it as--I quote the written opinion which lies in front of
+me--'caused apparently by a deposit of some sort of viscid matter,
+probably the excretion of some variety of lizard.'
+
+In a corner of the carriage was the body of what seemed a young man
+costumed like a tramp. It was Marjorie Lindon.
+
+So far as a most careful search revealed, that was all the compartment
+contained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER
+
+
+It is several years since I bore my part in the events which I have
+rapidly sketched,--or I should not have felt justified in giving them
+publicity. Exactly how many years, for reasons which should be
+sufficiently obvious, I must decline to say.
+
+Marjorie Lindon still lives. The spark of life which was left in her,
+when she was extricated from among the debris of the wrecked express,
+was fanned again into flame. Her restoration was, however, not merely
+an affair of weeks or months, it was a matter of years. I believe that,
+even after her physical powers were completely restored--in itself a
+tedious task--she was for something like three years under medical
+supervision as a lunatic. But all that skill and money could do was
+done, and in course of time--the great healer--the results were
+entirely satisfactory.
+
+Her father is dead,--and has left her in possession of the family
+estates. She is married to the individual who, in these pages, has been
+known as Paul Lessingham. Were his real name divulged she would be
+recognised as the popular and universally reverenced wife of one of the
+greatest statesmen the age has seen.
+
+Nothing has been said to her about the fateful day on which she
+was--consciously or unconsciously--paraded through London in the
+tattered masculine habiliments of a vagabond. She herself has never
+once alluded to it. With the return of reason the affair seems to have
+passed from her memory as wholly as if it had never been, which,
+although she may not know it, is not the least cause she has for
+thankfulness. Therefore what actually transpired will never, in all
+human probability, be certainly known and particularly what precisely
+occurred in the railway carriage during that dreadful moment of sudden
+passing from life unto death. What became of the creature who all but
+did her to death; who he was--if it was a 'he,' which is extremely
+doubtful; whence he came; whither he went; what was the purport of his
+presence here,--to this hour these things are puzzles.
+
+Paul Lessingham has not since been troubled by his old tormentor. He
+has ceased to be a haunted man. None the less he continues to have what
+seems to be a constitutional disrelish for the subject of beetles, nor
+can he himself be induced to speak of them. Should they be mentioned in
+a general conversation, should he be unable to immediately bring about
+a change of theme, he will, if possible, get up and leave the room.
+More, on this point he and his wife are one.
+
+The fact may not be generally known, but it is so. Also I have reason
+to believe that there still are moments in which he harks back, with
+something like physical shrinking, to that awful nightmare of the past,
+and in which he prays God, that as it is distant from him now so may it
+be kept far off from him for ever.
+
+Before closing, one matter may be casually mentioned. The tale has
+never been told, but I have unimpeachable authority for its
+authenticity.
+
+During the recent expeditionary advance towards Dongola, a body of
+native troops which was encamped at a remote spot in the desert was
+aroused one night by what seemed to be the sound of a loud explosion.
+The next morning, at a distance of about a couple of miles from the
+camp, a huge hole was discovered in the ground,--as if blasting
+operations, on an enormous scale, had recently been carried on. In the
+hole itself, and round about it, were found fragments of what seemed
+bodies; credible witnesses have assured me that they were bodies
+neither of men nor women, but of creatures of some monstrous growth. I
+prefer to believe, since no scientific examination of the remains took
+place, that these witnesses ignorantly, though innocently, erred.
+
+One thing is sure. Numerous pieces, both of stone and of metal, were
+seen, which went far to suggest that some curious subterranean building
+had been blown up by the force of the explosion. Especially were there
+portions of moulded metal which seemed to belong to what must have been
+an immense bronze statue. There were picked up also, more than a dozen
+replicas in bronze of the whilom sacred scarabaeus.
+
+That the den of demons described by Paul Lessingham, had, that night,
+at last come to an end, and that these things which lay scattered, here
+and there, on that treeless plain, were the evidences of its final
+destruction, is not a hypothesis which I should care to advance with
+any degree of certainty. But, putting this and that together, the facts
+seem to point that way,--and it is a consummation devoutly to be
+desired.
+
+By-the-bye, Sydney Atherton has married Miss Dora Grayling. Her wealth
+has made him one of the richest men in England. She began, the story
+goes, by loving him immensely; I can answer for the fact that he has
+ended by loving her as much. Their devotion to each other contradicts
+the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that every marriage must be of
+necessity a failure. He continues his career of an inventor. His
+investigations into the subject of aerial flight, which have brought
+the flying machine within the range of practical politics, are on
+everybody's tongue.
+
+The best man at Atherton's wedding was Percy Woodville, now the Earl of
+Barnes. Within six months afterwards he married one of Mrs Atherton's
+bridesmaids.
+
+It was never certainly shown how Robert Holt came to his end. At the
+inquest the coroner's jury was content to return a verdict of 'Died of
+exhaustion.' He lies buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, under a handsome
+tombstone, the cost of which, had he had it in his pockets, might have
+indefinitely prolonged his days.
+
+It should be mentioned that that portion of this strange history which
+purports to be The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt was compiled
+from the statements which Holt made to Atherton, and to Miss Lindon, as
+she then was, when, a mud-stained, shattered derelict he lay at the
+lady's father's house.
+
+Miss Linden's contribution towards the elucidation of the mystery was
+written with her own hand. After her physical strength had come back to
+her, and, while mentally, she still hovered between the darkness and
+the light, her one relaxation was writing. Although she would never
+speak of what she had written, it was found that her theme was always
+the same. She confided to pen and paper what she would not speak of
+with her lips. She told, and re-told, and re-told again, the story of
+her love, and of her tribulation so far as it is contained in the
+present volume. Her MSS. invariably began and ended at the same point.
+They have all of them been destroyed, with one exception. That
+exception is herein placed before the reader.
+
+On the subject of the Mystery of the Beetle I do not propose to
+pronounce a confident opinion. Atherton and I have talked it over many
+and many a time, and at the end we have got no 'forrarder.' So far as I
+am personally concerned, experience has taught me that there are indeed
+more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,
+and I am quite prepared to believe that the so-called Beetle, which
+others saw, but I never, was--or is, for it cannot be certainly shown
+that the thing is not still existing--a creature born neither of God
+nor man.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beetle, by Richard Marsh
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEETLE ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beetle, by Richard Marsh
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Beetle
+       A Mystery
+
+Author: Richard Marsh
+
+Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5164]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 27, 2002]
+[Date last updated: July 18, 2005]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEETLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEETLE: A MYSTERY
+
+BY
+
+RICHARD MARSH
+
+
+WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN WILLIAMSON
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+The House with the Open Window
+
+
+CHAPTER I, OUTSIDE
+
+CHAPTER II, INSIDE
+
+CHAPTER III, THE MAN IN THE BED
+
+CHAPTER IV, A LONELY VIGIL
+
+CHAPTER 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
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+The Haunted Man
+
+
+CHAPTER X, REJECTED
+
+CHAPTER XI, A MIDNIGHT EPISODE
+
+CHAPTER XII, A MORNING VISITOR
+
+CHAPTER XIII, THE PICTURE
+
+CHAPTER XIV, THE DUCHESS' BALL
+
+CHAPTER XV, MR LESSINGHAM SPEAKS
+
+CHAPTER XVI, ATHERTON'S MAGIC VAPOUR
+
+CHAPTER XVII, MAGIC?--OR MIRACLE?
+
+CHAPTER XVIII, THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE BEETLE
+
+CHAPTER XIX, THE LADY RAGES
+
+CHAPTER XX, A HEAVY FATHER
+
+CHAPTER XXI, THE TERROR IN THE NIGHT
+
+CHAPTER XXII, THE HAUNTED MAN
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+The Terror By Night and the Terror by Day
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII, THE WAY HE TOLD HER
+
+CHAPTER XXIV, A WOMAN'S VIEW
+
+CHAPTER XXV, THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+CHAPTER XXVI, A FATHER'S NO
+
+CHAPTER XXVII, THE TERROR BY NIGHT
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII, THE STRANGE STORY OF THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+CHAPTER XXIX, THE HOUSE ON THE ROAD FROM THE WORKHOUSE
+
+CHAPTER XXX, THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR HOLT
+
+CHAPTER XXXI, THE TERROR BY DAY
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+In Pursuit
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII, A NEW CLIENT
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII, WHAT CAME OF LOOKING THROUGH A LATTICE
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV, AFTER TWENTY YEARS
+
+CHAPTER XXXV, A BRINGER OF TIDINGS
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI, WHAT THE TIDINGS WERE
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII, WHAT WAS HIDDEN UNDER THE FLOOR
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII, THE REST OF THE FIND
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX, MISS LOUISA COLEMAN
+
+CHAPTER XL, WHAT MISS COLEMAN SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW
+
+CHAPTER XLI, THE CONSTABLE,--HIS CLUE,--AND THE CAB
+
+CHAPTER XLII, THE QUARRY DOUBLES
+
+CHAPTER XLIII, THE MURDER AT MRS 'ENDERSON'S
+
+CHAPTER XLIV, THE MAN WHO WAS MURDERED
+
+CHAPTER XLV, ALL THAT MRS 'ENDERSON KNEW
+
+CHAPTER XLVI, THE SUDDEN STOPPING
+
+CHAPTER XLVII, THE CONTENTS OF THE THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGE
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII, THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+The House with the Open Window
+
+
+The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+OUTSIDE
+
+
+'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 tramp's 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 besides 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 manoeuvre,
+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
+civilisation 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+INSIDE
+
+
+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 fingertips. 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 organisation 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, spell-bound, 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 realised 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, foetid 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE MAN IN THE BED
+
+
+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 realised 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 criticise; 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A LONELY VIGIL
+
+
+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,--ten.
+
+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 from 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 any rate, 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--probably tradesmen's carts--drew up in front,
+their stopping being followed by more or less assiduous assaults
+upon the knocker and the bell. But in every case their appeals
+remained unheeded. Whatever it was they wanted, they had to go
+unsatisfied away. Lying there, torpid, with nothing to do but
+listen, I was, possibly, struck by very little, but it did occur
+to me that one among the callers was more persistent than the
+rest.
+
+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 manoeuvres 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,--as if
+some creature, unable to reach the window from the ground, was
+endeavouring to gain the vantage of the sill. Some ungainly
+creature, unskilled in surmounting such an obstacle as a
+perpendicular brick wall. There was the noise of what seemed to be
+the scratching of claws, as if it experienced considerable
+difficulty in obtaining a hold on the unyielding surface. What
+kind of creature it was I could not think,--I was astonished to
+find that it was a creature at all. I had taken it for granted
+that the persevering visitor was either a woman or a man. If,
+however, as now seemed likely, it was some sort of animal, the
+fact explained the squeaking sounds,--though what, except a rat,
+did squeak like that was more than I could say--and the absence of
+any knocking or ringing.
+
+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 recognised
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AN INSTRUCTION TO COMMIT BURGLARY
+
+
+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
+recognised 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 realised 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.
+
+'You are a thief! Only thieves come through windows,--did you not
+come through the window?' I was still,--what would my
+contradiction have availed me? 'But it is well that you came
+through the window,--well you are a thief,--well for me! for me!
+It is you that I am wanting,--at the happy moment you have dropped
+yourself into my hands,--in the nick of time. For you are my
+slave,--at my beck and call,--my familiar spirit, to do with as I
+will,--you know this,--eh?'
+
+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?--no!--it is simple!--what could be
+simpler? I say that to-night--to-night!--you are going through his
+window like a thief. You came through my window,--why not through
+the window of Paul Lessingham, the politician--the statesman.'
+
+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 apostrophise,
+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 realise 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!--nothing serious might issue from
+it after all. He read my thoughts.
+
+'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 say--'
+
+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,--whichever it was!--I was beginning to credit with the
+possession of unhallowed, unlawful powers.
+
+'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.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A SINGULAR FELONY
+
+
+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
+hither, 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,--while, physically, I
+was bound, mentally, to a considerable extent, I was free. But
+this measure of freedom on my mental side made my plight no
+better. For, among other things, I realised what a ridiculous
+figure I must be cutting, barefooted and bareheaded, abroad, at
+such an hour of the night, in such a boisterous breeze,--for I
+quickly discovered that the wind amounted to something like a
+gale. Apart from all other considerations, the notion of parading
+the streets in such a condition filled me with profound disgust.
+And I do believe that if my tyrannical oppressor had only
+permitted me to attire myself in my own garments, I should have
+started with a comparatively light heart on the felonious mission
+on which he apparently was sending me. I believe, too, that the
+consciousness of the incongruity of my attire increased my sense
+of helplessness, and that, had I been dressed as Englishmen are
+wont to be, who take their walks abroad, he would not have found
+in me, on that occasion, the facile instrument which, in fact, he
+did.
+
+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 thorough fares; 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
+realised 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!--and every detail of my involuntary actions was
+projected upon my brain in a series of pictures, whose clear-cut
+outlines, so long as memory endures, will never fade. Certainly no
+professional burglar, nor, indeed, any creature in his senses,
+would have ventured to emulate my surprising rashness. The process
+of smashing the pane of glass--it was plate glass--was anything
+but a noiseless one. There was, first, the blow itself, then the
+shivering of the glass, then the clattering of fragments into the
+area beneath. One would have thought that the whole thing would
+have made din enough to have roused the Seven Sleepers. But, here,
+again the weather was on my side. About that time the wind was
+howling wildly,--it came shrieking across the square. It is
+possible that the tumult which it made deadened all other sounds.
+
+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--and--to adapt a hackneyed phrase--directed
+by the power which shaped my end, I went across the hall and up
+the stairs. I passed up the first landing, and, on the second,
+moved to a door upon the right. I turned the handle, it yielded,
+the door opened, I entered, closing it behind me. I went to the
+wall just inside the door, found a handle, jerked it, and switched
+on the electric light,--doing, I make no doubt, all these things,
+from a spectator's point of view, so naturally, that a judge and
+jury would have been with difficulty persuaded that they were not
+the product of my own volition.
+
+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 farther 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-ready substitute for the missing key.
+
+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
+with 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 denouement 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GREAT PAUL LESSINGHAM
+
+
+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 inpenetrability 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 familiarised 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
+realised 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 recognised 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-handkerchief which he
+took from an inner pocket of his coat, he wiped his lips. Then,
+clutching it tightly in his hand, he eyed me with a fixedness
+which, under any other circumstances, I should have found
+unbearable.
+
+'Well, sir, is your continued silence part of the business of the
+role 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
+foundations, 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 recognised 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. Recognising,
+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 of 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 recognised 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+
+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 knew 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE CONTENTS OF THE PACKET
+
+
+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 though 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.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+The Haunted Man
+
+
+The Story according to Sydney Atherton, Esquire
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+REJECTED
+
+
+It was after our second waltz I did it. In the usual quiet
+corner.--which, that time, was in the shadow of a palm in the
+hall. Before I had got into my stride she checked me,--touching my
+sleeve with her fan, turning towards me with startled eyes.
+
+'Stop, please!'
+
+But I was not to be stopped. Cliff Challoner passed, with Gerty
+Cazell. I fancy that, as he passed, he nodded. I did not care. I
+was wound up to go, and I went it. No man knows how he can talk
+till he does talk,--to the girl he wants to marry. It is my
+impression that I gave her recollections of the Restoration poets.
+She seemed surprised,--not having previously detected in me the
+poetic strain, and insisted on cutting in.
+
+'Mr Atherton, I am so sorry.'
+
+Then I did let fly.
+
+'Sorry that I love you!--why? Why should you be sorry that you
+have become the one thing needful in any man's eyes,--even in
+mine? The one thing precious,--the one thing to be altogether
+esteemed! Is it so common for a woman to come across a man who
+would be willing to lay down his life for her that she should be
+sorry when she finds him?'
+
+'I did not know that you felt like this, though I confess that I
+have had my--my doubts.'
+
+'Doubts!--I thank you.'
+
+'You are quite aware, Mr Atherton, that I like you very much.'
+
+'Like me!--Bah!'
+
+'I cannot help liking you,--though it may be "bah."'
+
+'I don't want you to like me,--I want you to love me.'
+
+'Precisely,--that is your mistake.'
+
+'My mistake!--in wanting you to love me!--when I love you--'
+
+'Then you shouldn't,--though I can't help thinking that you are
+mistaken even there.'
+
+'Mistaken!--in supposing that I love you!--when I assert and
+reassert it with the whole force of my being! What do you want me
+to do to prove I love you,--take you in my arms and crush you to
+my bosom, and make a spectacle of you before every creature in the
+place?'
+
+'I'd rather you wouldn't, and perhaps you wouldn't mind not
+talking quite so loud. Mr Challoner seems to be wondering what
+you're shouting about.'
+
+'You shouldn't torture me.'
+
+She opened and shut her fan,--as she looked down at it I am
+disposed to suspect that she smiled.
+
+'I am glad we have had this little explanation, because, of
+course, you are my friend.'
+
+'I am not your friend.'
+
+'Pardon me, you are.'
+
+'I say I'm not,--if I can't be something else, I'll be no friend.'
+
+She went on,--calmly ignoring me,--playing with her fan.
+
+'As it happens, I am, just now, in rather a delicate position, in
+which a friend is welcome.'
+
+'What's the matter? Who's been worrying you,--your father?'
+
+'Well,--he has not,--as yet; but he may be soon.'
+
+'What's in the wind?'
+
+'Mr Lessingham.'
+
+She dropped her voice,--and her eyes. For the moment I did not
+catch her meaning.
+
+'What?'
+
+'Your friend, Mr Lessingham.'
+
+'Excuse me, Miss Lindon, but I am by no means sure that anyone is
+entitled to call Mr Lessingham a friend of mine.'
+
+'What!--Not when I am going to be his wife?'
+
+That took me aback. I had had my suspicions that Paul Lessingham
+was more with Marjorie than he had any right to be, but I had
+never supposed that she could see anything desirable in a stick of
+a man like that. Not to speak of a hundred and one other
+considerations,--Lessingham on one side of the House, and her
+father on the other; and old Lindon girding at him anywhere and
+everywhere--with his high-dried Tory notions of his family
+importance,--to say nothing of his fortune.
+
+I don't know if I looked what I felt,--if I did, I looked
+uncommonly blank.
+
+'You have chosen an appropriate moment, Miss Lindon, to make to me
+such a communication.'
+
+She chose to disregard my irony.
+
+'I am glad you think so, because now you will understand what a
+difficult position I am in.'
+
+'I offer you my hearty congratulations.'
+
+'And I thank you for them, Mr Atherton, in the spirit in which
+they are offered, because from you I know they mean so much.'
+
+I bit my lip,--for the life of me I could not tell how she wished
+me to read her words.
+
+'Do I understand that this announcement has been made to me as one
+of the public?'
+
+'You do not. It is made to you, in confidence, as my friend,--as
+my greatest friend; because a husband is something more than
+friend.' My pulses tingled. 'You will be on my side?'
+
+She had paused,--and I stayed silent.
+
+'On your side,--or Mr Lessingham's?'
+
+'His side is my side, and my side is his side;--you will be on our
+side?'
+
+'I am not sure that I altogether follow you.'
+
+'You are the first I have told. When papa hears it is possible
+that there will be trouble,--as you know. He thinks so much of you
+and of your opinion; when that trouble comes I want you to be on
+our side,--on my side.'
+
+'Why should I?--what does it matter? You are stronger than your
+father,--it is just possible that Lessingham is stronger than you;
+together, from your father's point of view, you will be
+invincible.'
+
+'You are my friend,--are you not my friend?'
+
+'In effect, you offer me an Apple of Sodom.'
+
+'Thank you;--I did not think you so unkind.'
+
+'And you,--are you kind? I make you an avowal of my love, and,
+straightway, you ask me to act as chorus to the love of another.'
+
+'How could I tell you loved me,--as you say! I had no notion. You
+have known me all your life, yet you have not breathed a word of
+it till now.'
+
+'If I had spoken before?'
+
+I imagine that there was a slight movement of her shoulders,--
+almost amounting to a shrug.
+
+'I do not know that it would have made any difference.--I do not
+pretend that it would. But I do know this, I believe that you
+yourself have only discovered the state of your own mind within
+the last half-hour.'
+
+If she had slapped my face she could not have startled me more. I
+had no notion if her words were uttered at random, but they came
+so near the truth they held me breathless. It was a fact that only
+during the last few minutes had I really realised how things were
+with me,--only since the end of that first waltz that the flame
+had burst out in my soul which was now consuming me. She had read
+me by what seemed so like a flash of inspiration that I hardly
+knew what to say to her. I tried to be stinging.
+
+'You flatter me, Miss Lindon, you flatter me at every point. Had
+you only discovered to me the state of your mind a little sooner I
+should not have discovered to you the state of mine at all.'
+
+'We will consider it terra incognita.'
+
+'Since you wish it.' Her provoking calmness stung me,--and the
+suspicion that she was laughing at me in her sleeve. I gave her a
+glimpse of the cloven hoof. 'But, at the same time, since you
+assert that you have so long been innocent, I beg that you will
+continue so no more. At least, your innocence shall be without
+excuse. For I wish you to understand that I love you, that I have
+loved you, that I shall love you. Any understanding you may have
+with Mr Lessingham will not make the slightest difference. I warn
+you, Miss Lindon, that, until death, you will have to write me
+down your lover.'
+
+She looked at me, with wide open eyes,--as if I almost frightened
+her. To be frank, that was what I wished to do.
+
+'Mr Atherton!'
+
+'Miss Lindon?'
+
+'That is not like you at all.'
+
+'We seem to be making each other's acquaintance for the first
+time.'
+
+She continued to gaze at me with her big eyes,--which, to be
+candid, I found it difficult to meet. On a sudden her face was
+lighted by a smile,--which I resented.
+
+'Not after all these years,--not after all these years! I know
+you, and though I daresay you're not flawless, I fancy you'll be
+found to ring pretty true.'
+
+Her manner was almost sisterly,--elder-sisterly. I could have
+shaken her. Hartridge coming to claim his dance gave me an
+opportunity to escape with such remnants of dignity as I could
+gather about me. He dawdled up,--his thumbs, as usual, in his
+waistcoat pockets.
+
+'I believe, Miss Lindon, this is our dance.'
+
+She acknowledged it with a bow, and rose to take his arm. I got
+up, and left her, without a word.
+
+As I crossed the hall I chanced on Percy Woodville. He was in his
+familiar state of fluster, and was gaping about him as if he had
+mislaid the Koh-i-noor, and wondered where in thunder it had got
+to. When he saw it was I he caught me by the arm.
+
+'I say, Atherton, have you seen Miss Lindon?'
+
+'I have.'
+
+'No!--Have you?--By Jove!--Where? I've been looking for her all
+over the place, except in the cellars and the attics,--and I was
+just going to commence on them. This is our dance.'
+
+'In that case, she's shunted you.'
+
+'No!--Impossible!' His mouth went like an O,--and his eyes ditto,
+his eyeglass clattering down on to his shirt front. 'I expect the
+mistake's mine. Fact is, I've made a mess of my programme. It's
+either the last dance, or this dance, or the next, that I've
+booked with her, but I'm hanged if I know which. Just take a
+squint at it, there's a good chap, and tell me which one you think
+it is.'
+
+I 'took a squint'--since he held the thing within an inch of my
+nose I could hardly help it; one 'squint,' and that was enough--
+and more. Some men's ball programmes are studies in impressionism,
+Percy's seemed to me to be a study in madness. It was covered with
+hieroglyphics, but what they meant, or what they did there anyhow,
+it was absurd to suppose that I could tell,--I never put them
+there!--Proverbially, the man's a champion hasher.
+
+'I regret, my dear Percy, that I am not an expert in cuneiform
+writing. If you have any doubt as to which dance is yours, you'd
+better ask the lady,--she'll feel flattered.'
+
+Leaving him to do his own addling I went to find my coat,--I
+panted to get into the open air; as for dancing I felt that I
+loathed it. Just as I neared the cloak-room someone stopped me. It
+was Dora Grayling.
+
+'Have you forgotten that this is our dance?'
+
+I had forgotten,--clean. And I was not obliged by her remembering.
+Though as I looked at her sweet, grey eyes, and at the soft
+contours of her gentle face, I felt that I deserved well kicking.
+She is an angel,--one of the best!--but I was in no mood for
+angels. Not for a very great deal would I have gone through that
+dance just then, nor, with Dora Grayling, of all women in the
+world, would I have sat it out.--So I was a brute and blundered.
+
+'You must forgive me, Miss Grayling, but--I am not feeling very
+well, and--I don't think I'm up to any more dancing.--Good-night.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A MIDNIGHT EPISODE
+
+
+The weather out of doors was in tune with my frame of mind,--I was
+in a deuce of a temper, and it was a deuce of a night. A keen
+north-east wind, warranted to take the skin right off you, was
+playing catch-who-catch-can with intermittent gusts of blinding
+rain. Since it was not fit for a dog to walk, none of your cabs
+for me,--nothing would serve but pedestrian exercise.
+
+So I had it.
+
+I went down Park Lane,--and the wind and rain went with me,--also,
+thoughts of Dora Grayling. What a bounder I had been,--and was! If
+there is anything in worse taste than to book a lady for a dance,
+and then to leave her in the lurch, I should like to know what
+that thing is,--when found it ought to be made a note of. If any
+man of my acquaintance allowed himself to be guilty of such a
+felony in the first degree, I should cut him. I wished someone
+would try to cut me,--I should like to see him at it.
+
+It was all Marjorie's fault,--everything! past, present, and to
+come. I had known that girl when she was in long frocks--I had, at
+that period of our acquaintance, pretty recently got out of them;
+when she was advanced to short ones; and when, once more, she
+returned to long. And all that time,--well, I was nearly persuaded
+that the whole of the time I had loved her. If I had not mentioned
+it, it was because I had suffered my affection, 'like the worm, to
+lie hidden in the bud,'--or whatever it is the fellow says.
+
+At any rate, I was perfectly positive that if I had had the
+faintest nation that she would ever seriously consider such a man
+as Lessingham I should have loved her long ago. Lessingham! Why,
+he was old enough to be her father,--at least he was a good many
+years older than I was. And a wretched Radical! It is true that on
+certain points I, also, am what some people would call a Radical,
+--but not a Radical of the kind he is. Thank Heaven, no! No doubt I
+have admired traits in his character, until I learnt this thing of
+him. I am even prepared to admit that he is a man of ability,--in
+his way! which is, emphatically, not mine. But to think of him in
+connection with such a girl as Marjorie Lindon,--preposterous!
+Why, the man's as dry as a stick,--drier! And cold as an iceberg.
+Nothing but a politician, absolutely. He a lover!--how I could
+fancy such a stroke of humour setting all the benches in a roar.
+Both by education, and by nature, he was incapable of even playing
+such a part; as for being the thing,--absurd! If you were to sink
+a shaft from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, you
+would find inside him nothing but the dry bones of parties and of
+politics.
+
+What my Marjorie--if everyone had his own, she is mine, and, in
+that sense, she always will be mine--what my Marjorie could see in
+such a dry-as-dust out of which even to construct the rudiments of
+a husband was beyond my fathoming.
+
+Suchlike agreeable reflections were fit company for the wind and
+the wet, so they bore me company all down the lane. I crossed at
+the corner, going round the hospital towards the square. This
+brought me to the abiding-place of Paul the Apostle. Like the
+idiot I was, I went out into the middle of the street, and stood
+awhile in the mud to curse him and his house,--on the whole, when
+one considers that that is the kind of man I can be, it is,
+perhaps, not surprising that Marjorie disdained me.
+
+'May your following,' I cried,--it is an absolute fact that the
+words were shouted!--'both in the House and out of it, no longer
+regard you as a leader! May your party follow after other gods!
+May your political aspirations wither, and your speeches be
+listened to by empty benches! May the Speaker persistently and
+strenuously refuse to allow you to catch his eye, and, at the next
+election, may your constituency reject you!--Jehoram!--what's
+that?'
+
+I might well ask. Until that moment I had appeared to be the only
+lunatic at large, either outside the house or in it, but, on a
+sudden, a second lunatic came on the scene, and that with a
+vengeance. A window was crashed open from within,--the one over
+the front door, and someone came plunging through it on to the top
+of the portico. That it was a case of intended suicide I made
+sure,--and I began to be in hopes that I was about to witness the
+suicide of Paul. But I was not so assured of the intention when
+the individual in question began to scramble down the pillar of
+the porch in the most extraordinary fashion I ever witnessed,--I
+was not even convinced of a suicidal purpose when he came tumbling
+down, and lay sprawling in the mud at my feet.
+
+I fancy, if I had performed that portion of the act I should have
+lain quiet for a second or two, to consider whereabouts I was, and
+which end of me was uppermost. But there was no nonsense of that
+sort about that singularly agile stranger,--if he was not made of
+india-rubber he ought to have been. So to speak, before he was
+down he was up,--it was all I could do to grab at him before he
+was off like a rocket.
+
+Such a figure as he presented is seldom seen,--at least, in the
+streets of London. What he had done with the rest of his apparel I
+am not in a position to say,--all that was left of it was a long,
+dark cloak which he strove to wrap round him. Save for that,--and
+mud!--he was bare as the palm of my hand, Yet it was his face that
+held me. In my time I have seen strange expressions on men's
+faces, but never before one such as I saw on his. He looked like a
+man might look who, after living a life of undiluted crime, at
+last finds himself face to face with the devil. It was not the
+look of a madman,--far from it; it was something worse.
+
+It was the expression on the man's countenance, as much as
+anything else, which made me behave as I did. I said something to
+him,--some nonsense, I know not what. He regarded me with a
+silence which was supernatural. I spoke to him again;--not a word
+issued from those rigid lips; there was not a tremor of those
+awful eyes,--eyes which I was tolerably convinced saw something
+which I had never seen, or ever should. Then I took my hand from
+off his shoulder, and let him go. I know not why,--I did.
+
+He had remained as motionless, as a statue while I held him,--
+indeed, for any evidence of life he gave, he might have been a
+statue; but, when my grasp was loosed, how he ran! He had turned
+the corner and was out of sight before I could say, 'How do!'
+
+It was only then,--when he had gone, and I had realised the extra-
+double-express-flash-of-lightning rate at which he had taken his
+departure--that it occurred to me of what an extremely sensible
+act I had been guilty in letting him go at all. Here was an
+individual who had been committing burglary, or something very
+like it, in the house of a budding cabinet minister, and who had
+tumbled plump into my arms, so that all I had to do was to call a
+policeman and get him quodded,--and all that I had done was
+something of a totally different kind.
+
+'You're a nice type of an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself,
+'A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,--to connive at the
+escape of the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the
+villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the
+Apostle, and inquire how he's feeling.'
+
+I went to Lessingham's front door and knocked,--I knocked once, I
+knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and the third time, I give you my
+word, I made the echoes ring,--but still there was not a soul that
+answered.
+
+'If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the
+gentleman in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living
+creature the house contains, perhaps it's just as well I've
+chanced upon the scene,--still I do think that one of the corpses
+might get up to answer the door. If it is possible to make noise
+enough to waken the dead, you bet I'm on to it.'
+
+And I was,--I punished that knocker! until I warrant the pounding
+I gave it was audible on the other side of Green Park. And, at
+last, I woke the dead,--or, rather, I roused Matthews to a
+consciousness that something was going on. Opening the door about
+six inches, through the interstice he protruded his ancient nose.
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+'Nothing, my dear sir, nothing and no one. It must have been your
+vigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was,
+--you let it run away with you.'
+
+Then he knew me,--and opened the door about two feet.
+
+'Oh, it's you, Mr Atherton. I beg your pardon, sir,--I thought it
+might have been the police.'
+
+'What then? Do you stand in terror of the minions of the law,--at
+last?'
+
+A most discreet servant, Matthews,--just the fellow for a budding
+cabinet minister. He glanced over his shoulder,--I had suspected
+the presence of a colleague at his back, now I was assured. He put
+his hand up to his mouth,--and I thought how exceedingly discreet
+he looked, in his trousers and his stockinged feet, and with his
+hair all rumpled, and his braces dangling behind, and his
+nightshirt creased.
+
+'Well, sir, I have received instructions not to admit the police.'
+
+'The deuce you have!--From whom?'
+
+Coughing behind his hand, leaning forward, he addressed me with an
+air which was flatteringly confidential.
+
+'From Mr Lessingham, sir.'
+
+'Possibly Mr Lessingham is not aware that a robbery has been
+committed on his premises, that the burglar has just come out of
+his drawing-room window with a hop, skip, and a jump, bounded out
+of the window like a tennis-ball, flashed round the corner like a
+rocket,'
+
+Again Matthews glanced over his shoulder, as if not clear which
+way discretion lay, whether fore or aft.
+
+'Thank you, sir. I believe that Mr Lessingham is aware of
+something of the kind.' He seemed to come to a sudden resolution,
+dropping his voice to a whisper. 'The fact is, sir, that I fancy
+Mr Lessingham's a good deal upset.'
+
+'Upset?' I stared at him. There was something in his manner I did
+not understand. 'What do you mean by upset? Has the scoundrel
+attempted violence?'
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+The voice was Lessingham's, calling to Matthews from the
+staircase, though, for an instant, I hardly recognised it, it was
+so curiously petulant. Pushing past Matthews, I stepped into the
+hall. A young man, I suppose a footman, in the same undress as
+Matthews, was holding a candle,--it seemed the only light about
+the place. By its glimmer I perceived Lessingham standing half-way
+up the stairs. He was in full war paint,--as he is not the sort of
+man who dresses for the House, I took it that he had been mixing
+pleasure with business.
+
+'It's I, Lessingham,--Atherton. Do you know that a fellow has
+jumped out of your drawing-room window?'
+
+It was a second or two before he answered. When he did, his voice
+had lost its petulance.
+
+'Has he escaped?'
+
+'Clean,--he's a mile away by now.'
+
+It seemed to me that in his tone, when he spoke again, there was a
+note of relief.
+
+'I wondered if he had. Poor fellow! more sinned against than
+sinning! Take my advice, Atherton, and keep out of politics. They
+bring you into contact with all the lunatics at large. Good night!
+I am much obliged to you for knocking us up. Matthews, shut the
+door.'
+
+Tolerably cool, on my honour,--a man who brings news big with the
+fate of Rome does not expect to receive such treatment. He expects
+to be listened to with deference, and to hear all that there is to
+hear, and not to be sent to the right-about before he has had a
+chance of really opening his lips. Before I knew it--almost!--the
+door was shut, and I was on the doorstep. Confound the Apostle's
+impudence! next time he might have his house burnt down--and him
+in it!--before I took the trouble to touch his dirty knocker.
+
+What did he mean by his allusion to lunatics in politics,--did he
+think to fool me? There was more in the business than met the
+eye,--and a good deal more than he wished to meet mine,--hence his
+insolence. The creature.
+
+What Marjorie Lindon could see in such an opusculum surpassed my
+comprehension; especially when there was a man of my sort walking
+about, who adored the very ground she trod upon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A MORNING VISITOR
+
+
+All through the night, waking and sleeping, and in my dreams, I
+wondered what Marjorie could see in him! In those same dreams I
+satisfied myself that she could, and did, see nothing in him, but
+everything in me,--oh the comfort! The misfortune was that when I
+awoke I knew it was the other way round,--so that it was a sad
+awakening. An awakening to thoughts of murder.
+
+So, swallowing a mouthful and a peg, I went into my laboratory to
+plan murder--legalised murder--on the biggest scale it ever has
+been planned. I was on the track of a weapon which would make war
+not only an affair of a single campaign, but of a single half-
+hour. It would not want an army to work it either. Once let an
+individual, or two or three at most, in possession of my weapon-
+that-was-to-be, get within a mile or so of even the largest body
+of disciplined troops that ever yet a nation put into the field,
+and--pouf!--in about the time it takes you to say that they would
+be all dead men. If weapons of precision, which may be relied upon
+to slay, are preservers of the peace--and the man is a fool who
+says that they are not!--then I was within reach of the finest
+preserver of the peace imagination ever yet conceived.
+
+What a sublime thought to think that in the hollow of your own
+hand lies the life and death of nations,--and it was almost in
+mine.
+
+I had in front of me some of the finest destructive agents you
+could wish to light upon--carbon-monoxide, chlorine-trioxide,
+mercuric-oxide, conine, potassamide, potassium-carboxide,
+cyanogen--when Edwards entered. I was wearing a mask of my own
+invention, a thing that covered ears and head and everything,
+something like a diver's helmet--I was dealing with gases a sniff
+of which meant death; only a few days before, unmasked, I had been
+doing some fool's trick with a couple of acids--sulphuric and
+cyanide of potassium--when, somehow, my hand slipped, and, before
+I knew it, minute portions of them combined. By the mercy of
+Providence I fell backwards instead of forwards;--sequel, about an
+hour afterwards Edwards found me on the floor, and it took the
+remainder of that day, and most of the doctors in town, to bring
+me back to life again.
+
+Edwards announced his presence by touching me on the shoulder,--
+when I am wearing that mask it isn't always easy to make me hear.
+
+'Someone wishes to see you, sir.'
+
+'Then tell someone that I don't wish to see him.'
+
+Well-trained servant, Edwards,--he walked off with the message as
+decorously as you please. And then I thought there was an end,--
+but there wasn't.
+
+I was regulating the valve of a cylinder in which I was fusing
+some oxides when, once more, someone touched me on the shoulder.
+Without turning I took it for granted it was Edwards back again.
+
+'I have only to give a tiny twist to this tap, my good fellow, and
+you will be in the land where the bogies bloom. Why will you come
+where you're not wanted?' Then I looked round. 'Who the devil are
+you?'
+
+For it was not Edwards at all, but quite a different class of
+character.
+
+I found myself confronting an individual who might almost have sat
+for one of the bogies I had just alluded to. His costume was
+reminiscent of the 'Algerians' whom one finds all over France, and
+who are the most persistent, insolent and amusing of pedlars. I
+remember one who used to haunt the repetitions at the Alcazar at
+Tours,--but there! This individual was like the originals, yet
+unlike,--he was less gaudy, and a good deal dingier, than his
+Gallic prototypes are apt to be. Then he wore a burnoose,--the
+yellow, grimy-looking article of the Arab of the Soudan, not the
+spick and span Arab of the boulevard. Chief difference of all, his
+face was clean shaven,--and whoever saw an Algerian of Paris whose
+chiefest glory was not his well-trimmed moustache and beard?
+
+I expected that he would address me in the lingo which these
+gentlemen call French,--but he didn't.
+
+'You are Mr Atherton?'
+
+'And you are Mr--Who?--how did you come here? Where's my servant?'
+
+The fellow held up his hand. As he did so, as if in accordance
+with a pre-arranged signal, Edwards came into the room looking
+excessively startled. I turned to him.
+
+'Is this the person who wished to see me?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Didn't I tell you to say that I didn't wish to see him?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Then why didn't you do as I told you?'
+
+'I did, sir.'
+
+'Then how comes he here?'
+
+'Really, sir,'--Edwards put his hand up to his head as if be was
+half asleep--'I don't quite know.'
+
+'What do you mean by you don't know? Why didn't you stop him?'
+
+'I think, sir, that I must have had a touch of sudden faintness,
+because I tried to put out my hand to stop him, and--I couldn't.'
+
+'You're an idiot.--Go!' And he went. I turned to the stranger.
+'Pray, sir, are you a magician?'
+
+He replied to my question with another.
+
+'You, Mr Atherton,--are you also a magician?'
+
+He was staring at my mask with an evident lack of comprehension.
+
+'I wear this because, in this place, death lurks in so many subtle
+forms, that, without it, I dare not breathe,' He inclined his
+head.--though I doubt if he understood. 'Be so good as to tell me,
+briefly, what it is you wish with me.'
+
+He slipped his hand into the folds of his burnoose, and, taking
+out a slip of paper, laid it on the shelf by which we were
+standing. I glanced at it, expecting to find on it a petition, or
+a testimonial, or a true statement of his sad case; instead it
+contained two words only,--'Marjorie Lindon.' The unlooked-for
+sight of that well-loved name brought the blood into my cheeks.
+
+'You come from Miss Lindon?' He narrowed his shoulders, brought
+his finger-tips together, inclined his head, in a fashion which
+was peculiarly Oriental, but not particularly explanatory,--so I
+repeated my question.
+
+'Do you wish me to understand that you do come from Miss Lindon?'
+
+Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a
+slip of paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at
+it, again nothing was written on it but a name,--'Paul
+Lessingham.'
+
+'Well?--I see,--Paul Lessingham.--What then?'
+
+'She is good,--he is bad,--is it not so?'
+
+He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other. I stared.
+
+'Pray how do you happen to know?'
+
+'He shall never have her,--eh?'
+
+'What on earth do you mean?'
+
+'Ah!--what do I mean!'
+
+'Precisely, what do you mean? And also, and at the same time, who
+the devil are you?'
+
+'It is as a friend I come to you.'
+
+'Then in that case you may go; I happen to be over-stocked in that
+line just now.'
+
+'Not with the kind of friend I am!'
+
+'The saints forefend!'
+
+'You love her,--you love Miss Lindon! Can you bear to think of him
+in her arms?'
+
+I took off my mask,--feeling that the occasion required it As I
+did so he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his
+burnoose, so that I saw more of his face. I was immediately
+conscious that in his eyes there was, in an especial degree, what,
+for want of a better term, one may call the mesmeric quality. That
+his was one of those morbid organisations which are oftener found,
+thank goodness, in the east than in the west, and which are apt to
+exercise an uncanny influence over the weak and the foolish folk
+with whom they come in contact,--the kind of creature for whom it
+is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope close handy. I was,
+also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my
+mask to try his strength on me,--than which he could not have
+found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in the
+hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.
+
+'I see you are a mesmerist.'
+
+He started.
+
+'I am nothing,--a shadow!'
+
+'And I'm a scientist. I should like, with your permission--or
+without it!--to try an experiment or two on you.'
+
+He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which
+suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual
+degree,--that, in the estimation of his own people, he was
+qualified to take his standing as a regular devil-doctor.
+
+'We will try experiments together, you and I,--on Paul
+Lessingham.'
+
+'Why on him?'
+
+'You do not know?'
+
+'I do not.'
+
+'Why do you lie to me?'
+
+'I don't lie to you,--I haven't the faintest notion what is the
+nature of your interest in Mr Lessingham.'
+
+'My interest?--that is another thing; it is your interest of which
+we are speaking.'
+
+'Pardon me,--it is yours.'
+
+'Listen! you love her,--and he! But at a word from you he shall
+not have her,--never! It is I who say it,--I!'
+
+'And, once more, sir, who are you?'
+
+'I am of the children of Isis!'
+
+'Is that so?--It occurs to me that you have made a slight
+mistake,--this is London, not a dog-hole in the desert.'
+
+'Do I not know?--what does it matter?--you shall see! There will
+come a time when you will want me,--you will find that you cannot
+bear to think of him in her arms,--her whom you love! You will
+call to me, and I shall come, and of Paul Lessingham there shall
+be an end.'
+
+While I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded,
+or whether he was some impudent charlatan who had an axe of his
+own to grind, and thought that he had found in me a grindstone, he
+had vanished from the room. I moved after him.
+
+'Hang it all!--stop!' I cried.
+
+He must have made pretty good travelling, because, before I had a
+foot in the hall, I heard the front door slam, and, when I reached
+the street, intent on calling him back, neither to the right nor
+to the left was there a sign of him to be seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE PICTURE
+
+
+'I wonder what that nice-looking beggar really means, and who he
+happens to be?' That was what I said to myself when I returned to
+the laboratory. 'If it is true that, now and again, Providence
+does write a man's character on his face, then there can't be the
+slightest shred of a doubt that a curious one's been written on
+his. I wonder what his connection has been with the Apostle,--or
+if it's only part of his game of bluff.'
+
+I strode up and down,--for the moment my interest in the
+experiments I was conducting had waned.
+
+'If it was all bluff I never saw a better piece of acting,--and
+yet what sort of finger can such a precisian as St Paul have in
+such a pie? The fellow seemed to squirm at the mere mention of the
+rising-hope-of-the-Radicals' name. Can the objection be political?
+Let me consider,--what has Lessingham done which could offend the
+religious or patriotic susceptibilities of the most fanatical of
+Orientals? Politically, I can recall nothing. Foreign affairs, as
+a rule, he has carefully eschewed. If he has offended--and if he
+hasn't the seeming was uncommonly good!--the cause will have to be
+sought upon some other track. But, then, what track?'
+
+The more I strove to puzzle it out, the greater the puzzlement
+grew.
+
+'Absurd!--The rascal has had no more connection with St Paul than
+St Peter. The probability is that he's a crackpot; and if he
+isn't, he has some little game on foot--in close association with
+the hunt of the oof-bird!--which he tried to work off on me, but
+couldn't. As for--for Marjorie--my Marjorie!--only she isn't mine,
+confound it!--if I had had my senses about me, I should have
+broken his head in several places for daring to allow her name to
+pass his lips,--the unbaptised Mohammedan!--Now to return to the
+chase of splendid murder!'
+
+I snatched up my mask--one of the most ingenious inventions, by
+the way, of recent years; if the armies of the future wear my mask
+they will defy my weapon!--and was about to re-adjust it in its
+place, when someone knocked at the door.
+
+'Who's there?--Come in!'
+
+It was Edwards. He looked round him as if surprised.
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir,--I thought you were engaged. I didn't
+know that--that gentleman had gone.'
+
+'He went up the chimney, as all that kind of gentlemen do.--Why
+the deuce did you let him in when I told you not to?' 'Really,
+sir, I don't know. I gave him your message, and--he looked at me,
+and--that is all I remember till I found myself standing in this
+room.'
+
+Had it not been Edwards I might have suspected him of having had
+his palm well greased,--but, in his case, I knew better. It was as
+I thought,--my visitor was a mesmerist of the first class; he had
+actually played some of his tricks, in broad daylight, on my
+servant, at my own front door,--a man worth studying. Edwards
+continued.
+
+'There is someone else, sir, who wishes to see you,--Mr
+Lessingham.'
+
+'Mr Lessingham!' At that moment the juxtaposition seemed odd,
+though I daresay it was so rather in appearance than in reality.
+'Show him in.'
+
+Presently in came Paul.
+
+I am free to confess,--I have owned it before!--that, in a sense,
+I admire that man,--so long as he does not presume to thrust
+himself into a certain position. He possesses physical qualities
+which please my eye--speaking as a mere biologist like the
+suggestion conveyed by his every pose, his every movement, of a
+tenacious hold on life,--of reserve force, of a repository of bone
+and gristle on which he can fall back at pleasure. The fellow's
+lithe and active; not hasty, yet agile; clean built, well hung,--
+the sort of man who might be relied upon to make a good recovery.
+You might beat him in a sprint,--mental or physical--though to do
+that you would have to be spry!--but in a staying race he would
+see you out. I do not know that he is exactly the kind of man whom
+I would trust,--unless I knew that he was on the job,--which
+knowledge, in his case, would be uncommonly hard to attain. He is
+too calm; too self-contained; with the knack of looking all round
+him even in moments of extremest peril,--and for whatever he does
+he has a good excuse. He has the reputation, both in the House and
+out of it, of being a man of iron nerve,--and with some reason;
+yet I am not so sure. Unless I read him wrongly his is one of
+those individualities which, confronted by certain eventualities,
+collapse,--to rise, the moment of trial having passed, like
+Phoenix from her ashes. However it might be with his adherents, he
+would show no trace of his disaster.
+
+And this was the man whom Marjorie loved. Well, she could show
+some cause. He was a man of position,--destined, probably, to rise
+much higher; a man of parts,--with capacity to make the most of
+them; not ill-looking; with agreeable manners,--when he chose; and
+he came within the lady's definition of a gentleman, 'he always
+did the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.' And
+yet--! Well, I take it that we are all cads, and that we most of
+us are prigs; for mercy's sake do not let us all give ourselves
+away.
+
+He was dressed as a gentleman should be dressed,--black frock
+coat, black vest, dark grey trousers, stand-up collar, smartly-
+tied bow, gloves of the proper shade, neatly brushed hair, and a
+smile, which if was not childlike, at any rate was bland.
+
+'I am not disturbing you?'
+
+'Not at all.'
+
+'Sure?--I never enter a place like this, where a man is matching
+himself with nature, to wrest from her her secrets, without
+feeling that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown. The last
+time I was in this room was just after you had taken out the final
+patents for your System of Telegraphy at Sea, which the Admiralty
+purchased,--wisely--What is it, now?'
+
+'Death.'
+
+'No?--really?--what do you mean?'
+
+'If you are a member of the next government, you will possibly
+learn; I may offer them the refusal of a new wrinkle in the art of
+murder.'
+
+'I see,--a new projectile.--How long is this race to continue
+between attack and defence?'
+
+'Until the sun grows cold.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'There'll be no defence,--nothing to defend.'
+
+He looked at me with his calm, grave eyes.
+
+'The theory of the Age of Ice towards which we are advancing is
+not a cheerful one.' He began to finger a glass retort which lay
+upon a table. 'By the way, it was very good of you to give me a
+look in last night. I am afraid you thought me peremptory,--I have
+come to apologise.'
+
+'I don't know that I thought you peremptory; I thought you--
+queer.'
+
+'Yes.' He glanced at me with that expressionless look upon his
+face which he could summon at will, and which is at the bottom of
+the superstition about his iron nerve. 'I was worried, and not
+well. Besides, one doesn't care to be burgled, even by a maniac.'
+
+'Was he a maniac?'
+
+'Did you see him?'
+
+'Very clearly.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'In the street.'
+
+'How close were you to him?'
+
+'Closer than I am to you.'
+
+'Indeed. I didn't know you were so close to him as that. Did you
+try to stop him?'
+
+'Easier said than done,--he was off at such a rate.'
+
+'Did you see how he was dressed,--or, rather, undressed?'
+
+'I did.'
+
+'In nothing but a cloak on such a night. Who but a fanatic would
+have attempted burglary in such a costume?'
+
+'Did he take anything?'
+
+'Absolutely nothing.'
+
+'It seems to have been a curious episode.'
+
+He moved his eyebrows,--according to members of the House the only
+gesture in which he has been known to indulge.
+
+'We become accustomed to curious episodes. Oblige me by not
+mentioning it to anyone,--to anyone.' He repeated the last two
+words, as if to give them emphasis. I wondered if he was thinking
+of Marjorie. 'I am communicating with the police. Until they move
+I don't want it to get into the papers,--or to be talked about.
+It's a worry,--you understand?'
+
+I nodded. He changed the theme.
+
+'This that you're engaged upon,--is it a projectile or a weapon?'
+
+'If you are a member of the next government you will possibly
+know; if you aren't you possibly won't.'
+
+'I suppose you have to keep this sort of thing secret?'
+
+'I do. It seems that matters of much less moment you wish to keep
+secret.'
+
+'You mean that business of last night? If a trifle of that sort
+gets into the papers, or gets talked about,--which is the same
+thing!--you have no notion how we are pestered. It becomes an
+almost unbearable nuisance. Jones the Unknown can commit murder
+with less inconvenience to himself than Jones the Notorious can
+have his pocket picked,--there is not so much exaggeration in that
+as there sounds.--Good-bye,--thanks for your promise.' I had given
+him no promise, but that was by the way. He turned as to go,--then
+stopped. 'There's another thing,--I believe you're a specialist on
+questions of ancient superstitions and extinct religions.'
+
+'I am interested in such subjects, but I am not a specialist.'
+
+'Can you tell me what were the exact tenets of the worshippers of
+Isis?'
+
+'Neither I nor any man,--with scientific certainty. As you know,
+she had a brother; the cult of Osiris and Isis was one and the
+same. What, precisely, were its dogmas, or its practices, or
+anything about it, none, now, can tell. The Papyri, hieroglyphics,
+and so on, which remain are very far from being exhaustive, and
+our knowledge of those which do remain, is still less so.'
+
+'I suppose that the marvels which are told of it are purely
+legendary?'
+
+'To what marvels do you particularly refer?'
+
+'Weren't supernatural powers attributed to the priests of Isis?'
+
+'Broadly speaking, at that time, supernatural powers were
+attributed to all the priests of all the creeds.'
+
+'I see.' Presently he continued. 'I presume that her cult is long
+since extinct,--that none of the worshippers of Isis exist to-
+day.'
+
+I hesitated,--I was wondering why he had hit on such a subject; if
+he really had a reason, or if he was merely asking questions as a
+cover for something else,--you see, I knew my Paul.
+
+'That is not so sure.'
+
+He looked at me with that passionless, yet searching glance of
+his.
+
+'You think that she still is worshipped?
+
+'I think it possible, even probable, that, here and there, in
+Africa--Africa is a large order!--homage is paid to Isis, quite in
+the good old way.'
+
+'Do you know that as a fact?'
+
+'Excuse me, but do you know it as a fact?--Are you aware that you
+are treating me as if I was on the witness stand?--Have you any
+special purpose in making these inquiries?'
+
+He smiled.
+
+'In a kind of a way I have. I have recently come across rather a
+curious story; I am trying to get to the bottom of it.'
+
+'What is the story?'
+
+'I am afraid that at present I am not at liberty to tell it you;
+when I am I will. You will find it interesting,--as an instance of
+a singular survival.--Didn't the followers of Isis believe in
+transmigration?'
+
+'Some of them,--no doubt.'
+
+'What did they understand by transmigration?'
+
+'Transmigration.'
+
+'Yes,--but of the soul or of the body?'
+
+'How do you mean?--transmigration is transmigration. Are you
+driving at something in particular? If you'll tell me fairly and
+squarely what it is I'll do my best to give you the information
+you require; as it is, your questions are a bit perplexing.'
+
+'Oh, it doesn't matter,--as you say, "transmigration is
+transmigration."' I was eyeing him keenly; I seemed to detect in
+his manner an odd reluctance to enlarge on the subject he himself
+had started. He continued to trifle with the retort upon the
+table. 'Hadn't the followers of Isis a--what shall I say?--a
+sacred emblem?'
+
+'How?'
+
+'Hadn't they an especial regard for some sort of a--wasn't it some
+sort of a--beetle?'
+
+'You mean Scarabaeus sacer,--according to Latreille, Scarabaeus
+Egyptiorum? Undoubtedly,--the scarab was venerated throughout
+Egypt,--indeed, speaking generally, most things that had life, for
+instance, cats; as you know, Orisis continued among men in the
+figure of Apis, the bull.'
+
+'Weren't the priests of Isis--or some of them--supposed to assume,
+after death, the form of a--scarabaeus?'
+
+'I never heard of it.'
+
+'Are you sure?--think!'
+
+'I shouldn't like to answer such a question positively, offhand,
+but I don't, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition of
+the kind.'
+
+'Don't laugh at me--I'm not a lunatic!--but I understand that
+recent researches have shown that even in some of the most
+astounding of the ancient legends there was a substratum of fact.
+Is it absolutely certain that there could be no shred of truth in
+such a belief?'
+
+'In what belief?'
+
+'In the belief that a priest of Isis--or anyone--assumed after
+death the form of a scarabaeus?'
+
+'It seems to me, Lessingham, that you have lately come across some
+uncommonly interesting data, of a kind, too, which it is your
+bounden duty to give to the world,--or, at any rate, to that
+portion of the world which is represented by me. Come,--tell us
+all about it!--what are you afraid of?'
+
+'I am afraid of nothing,--and some day you shall be told,--but not
+now. At present, answer my question.'
+
+'Then repeat your question,--clearly.'
+
+'Is it absolutely certain that there could be no foundation of
+truth in the belief that a priest of Isis--or anyone--assumed
+after death the form of a beetle?'
+
+'I know no more than the man in the moon,--how the dickens should
+I? Such a belief may have been symbolical. Christians believe that
+after death the body takes the shape of worms--and so, in a sense,
+it does,--and, sometimes, eels.'
+
+'That is not what I mean.'
+
+'Then what do you mean?'
+
+'Listen. If a person, of whose veracity there could not be a
+vestige of a doubt, assured you that he had seen such a
+transformation actually take place, could it conceivably be
+explained on natural grounds?'
+
+'Seen a priest of Isis assume the form of a beetle?'
+
+'Or a follower of Isis?'
+
+'Before, or after death?'
+
+He hesitated. I had seldom seen him wear such an appearance of
+interest,--to be frank, I was keenly interested too!--but, on a
+sudden there came into his eyes a glint of something that was
+almost terror. When he spoke, it was with the most unwonted
+awkwardness.
+
+'In--in the very act of dying.'
+
+'In the very act of dying?'
+
+'If--he had seen a follower of Isis in--the very act of dying,
+assume--the form of a--a beetle, on any conceivable grounds would
+such a transformation be susceptible of a natural explanation?'
+
+I stared,--as who would not? Such an extraordinary question was
+rendered more extraordinary by coming from such a man,--yet I was
+almost beginning to suspect that there was something behind it
+more extraordinary still.
+
+'Look here, Lessingham, I can see you've a capital tale to tell,--
+so tell it, man! Unless I'm mistaken, it's not the kind of tale in
+which ordinary scruples can have any part or parcel,--anyhow, it's
+hardly fair of you to set my curiosity all agog, and then to leave
+it unappeased.'
+
+He eyed me steadily, the appearance of interest fading more and
+more, until, presently, his face assumed its wonted expressionless
+mask,--somehow I was conscious that what he had seen in my face
+was not altogether to his liking. His voice was once more bland
+and self-contained.
+
+'I perceive you are of opinion that I have been told a taradiddle.
+I suppose I have.'
+
+'But what is the taradiddle?--don't you see I'm burning?'
+
+'Unfortunately, Atherton, I am on my honour. Until I have
+permission to unloose it, my tongue is tied.' He picked up his hat
+and umbrella from where he had placed them on the table. Holding
+them in his left hand, he advanced to me with his right
+outstretched. 'It is very good of you to suffer my continued
+interruption; I know, to my sorrow, what such interruptions mean,
+--believe me, I am not ungrateful. What is this?'
+
+On the shelf, within a foot or so of where I stood, was a sheet of
+paper,--the size and shape of half a sheet of post note. At this
+he stooped to glance. As he did so, something surprising occurred.
+On the instant a look came on to his face which, literally,
+transfigured him. His hat and umbrella fell from his grasp on to
+the floor. He retreated, gibbering, his hands held out as if to
+ward something off from him, until he reached the wall on the
+other side of the room. A more amazing spectacle than he presented
+I never saw.
+
+'Lessingham!' I exclaimed. 'What's wrong with you?'
+
+My first impression was that he was struck by a fit of epilepsy,--
+though anyone less like an epileptic subject it would be hard to
+find. In my bewilderment I looked round to see what could be the
+immediate cause. My eye fell upon the sheet of paper, I stared at
+it with considerable surprise. I had not noticed it there
+previously I had not put it there,--where had it come from? The
+curious thing was that, on it, produced apparently by some process
+of photogravure, was an illustration of a species of beetle with
+which I felt that I ought to be acquainted, and yet was not. It
+was of a dull golden green; the colour was so well brought out,--
+even to the extent of seeming to scintillate, and the whole thing
+was so dexterously done that the creature seemed alive. The
+semblance of reality was, indeed, so vivid that it needed a second
+glance to be assured that it was a mere trick of the reproducer.
+Its presence there was odd,--after what we had been talking about
+it might seem to need explanation; but it was absurd to suppose
+that that alone could have had such an effect on a man like
+Lessingham.
+
+With the thing in my hand, I crossed to where he was,--pressing
+his back against the wall, he had shrunk lower inch by inch till
+he was actually crouching on his haunches.
+
+'Lessingham!--come, man, what's wrong with you?'
+
+Taking him by the shoulder, I shook him with some vigour. My touch
+had on him the effect of seeming to wake him out of a dream, of
+restoring him to consciousness as against the nightmare horrors
+with which he was struggling. He gazed up at me with that look of
+cunning on his face which one associates with abject terror.
+
+'Atherton?--Is it you?--It's all right,--quite right.--I'm well,--
+very well.'
+
+As he spoke, he slowly drew himself up, till he was standing
+erect.
+
+'Then, in that case, all I can say is that you have a queer way of
+being very well.'
+
+He put his hand up to his mouth, as if to hide the trembling of
+his lips.
+
+'It's the pressure of overwork,--I've had one or two attacks like
+this,--but it's nothing, only--a local lesion.'
+
+I observed him keenly; to my thinking there was something about
+him which was very odd indeed.
+
+'Only a local lesion!--If you take my strongly-urged advice you'll
+get a medical opinion without delay,--if you haven't been wise
+enough to have done so already.'
+
+'I'll go to-day;--at once; but I know it's only mental
+overstrain.'
+
+'You're sure it's nothing to do with this?'
+
+I held out in front of him the photogravure of the beetle. As I
+did so he backed away from me, shrieking, trembling as with palsy.
+
+'Take it away! take it away!' he screamed.
+
+I stared at him, for some seconds, astonished into speechlessness.
+Then I found my tongue.
+
+'Lessingham!--It's only a picture!--Are you stark mad?'
+
+He persisted in his ejaculations.
+
+'Take it away! take it away!--Tear it up!--Burn it!'
+
+His agitation was so unnatural,--from whatever cause it arose!--
+that, fearing the recurrence of the attack from which he had just
+recovered, I did as he bade me. I tore the sheet of paper into
+quarters, and, striking a match, set fire to each separate piece.
+He watched the process of incineration as if fascinated. When it
+was concluded, and nothing but ashes remained, he gave a gasp of
+relief.
+
+'Lessingham,' I said, 'you're either mad already, or you're going
+mad,--which is it?'
+
+'I think it's neither. I believe I am as sane as you. It's--it's
+that story of which I was speaking; it--it seems curious, but I'll
+tell you all about it--some day. As I observed, I think you will
+find it an interesting instance of a singular survival.' He made
+an obvious effort to become more like his usual self. 'It is
+extremely unfortunate, Atherton, that I should have troubled you
+with such a display of weakness,--especially as I am able to offer
+you so scant an explanation. One thing I would ask of you,--to
+observe strict confidence. What has taken place has been between
+ourselves. I am in your hands, but you are my friend, I know I can
+rely on you not to speak of it to anyone,--and, in particular, not
+to breathe a hint of it to Miss Lindon.'
+
+'Why, in particular, not to Miss Lindon?'
+
+'Can you not guess?'
+
+I hunched my shoulder.
+
+'If what I guess is what you mean is not that a cause the more why
+silence would be unfair to her?'
+
+'It is for me to speak, if for anyone. I shall not fail to do what
+should be done.--Give me your promise that you will not hint a
+word to her of what you have so unfortunately seen?'
+
+I gave him the promise he required.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+There was no more work for me that day. The Apostle, his
+divagations, his example of the coleoptera, his Arabian friend,--
+these things were as microbes which, acting on a system already
+predisposed for their reception, produced high fever; I was in a
+fever,--of unrest. Brain in a whirl!--Marjorie, Paul, Isis,
+beetle, mesmerism, in delirious jumble. Love's upsetting!--in
+itself a sufficiently severe disease; but when complications
+intervene, suggestive of mystery and novelties, so that you do not
+know if you are moving in an atmosphere of dreams or of frozen
+facts,--if, then, your temperature does not rise, like that rocket
+of M. Verne's,--which reached the moon, then you are a freak of an
+entirely genuine kind, and if the surgeons do not preserve you,
+and place you on view, in pickle, they ought to, for the sake of
+historical doubters, for no one will believe that there ever was a
+man like you, unless you yourself are somewhere around to prove
+them Thomases.
+
+Myself,--I am not that kind of man. When I get warm I grow heated,
+and when I am heated there is likely to be a variety show of a
+gaudy kind. When Paul had gone I tried to think things out, and if
+I had kept on trying something would have happened--so I went on
+the river instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE DUCHESS' BALL
+
+
+That night was the Duchess of Datchet's ball--the first person I
+saw as I entered the dancing-room was Dora Grayling.
+
+I went straight up to her.
+
+'Miss Grayling, I behaved very badly to you last night, I have
+come to make to you my apologies,--to sue for your forgiveness!'
+
+'My forgiveness?' Her head went back,--she has a pretty bird-like
+trick of cocking it a little on one side. 'You were not well. Are
+you better?'
+
+'Quite.--You forgive me? Then grant me plenary absolution by
+giving me a dance for the one I lost last night.'
+
+She rose. A man came up,--a stranger to me; she's one of the best
+hunted women in England,--there's a million with her.
+
+'This is my dance, Miss Grayling.'
+
+She looked at him.
+
+'You must excuse me. I am afraid I have made a mistake. I had
+forgotten that I was already engaged.'
+
+I had not thought her capable of it. She took my arm, and away we
+went, and left him staring.
+
+'It's he who's the sufferer now,' I whispered, as we went round,--
+she can waltz!
+
+'You think so? It was I last night,--I did not mean, if I could
+help it, to suffer again. To me a dance with you means something.'
+She went all red,--adding, as an afterthought, 'Nowadays so few
+men really dance. I expect it's because you dance so well.'
+
+'Thank you.'
+
+We danced the waltz right through, then we went to an impromptu
+shelter which had been rigged up on a balcony. And we talked.
+There's something sympathetic about Miss Grayling which leads one
+to talk about one's self,--before I was half aware of it I was
+telling her of all my plans and projects,--actually telling her of
+my latest notion which, ultimately, was to result in the
+destruction of whole armies as by a flash of lightning. She took
+an amount of interest in it which was surprising.
+
+'What really stands in the way of things of this sort is not
+theory but practice,--one can prove one's facts on paper, or on a
+small scale in a room; what is wanted is proof on a large scale,
+by actual experiment. If, for instance, I could take my plant to
+one of the forests of South America, where there is plenty of
+animal life but no human, I could demonstrate the soundness of my
+position then and there.'
+
+'Why don't you?'
+
+'Think of the money it would cost.'
+
+'I thought I was a friend of yours.'
+
+'I had hoped you were.'
+
+'Then why don't you let me help you?'
+
+'Help me?--How?'
+
+'By letting you have the money for your South American
+experiment;--it would be an investment on which I should expect to
+receive good interest.'
+
+I fidgeted.
+
+'It is very good of you, Miss Grayling, to talk like that.'
+
+She became quite frigid.
+
+'Please don't be absurd!--I perceive quite clearly that you are
+snubbing me, and that you are trying to do it as delicately as you
+know how.'
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'I understand that it was an impertinence on my part to volunteer
+assistance which was unasked; you have made that sufficiently
+plain.'
+
+'I assure you--'
+
+'Pray don't. Of course, if it had been Miss Lindon it would have
+been different; she would at least have received a civil answer.
+But we are not all Miss Lindon.'
+
+I was aghast. The outburst was so uncalled for,--I had not the
+faintest notion what I had said or done to cause it; she was in
+such a surprising passion--and it suited her!--I thought I had
+never seen her look prettier,--I could do nothing else but stare.
+So she went on,--with just as little reason.
+
+'Here is someone coming to claim this dance,--I can't throw all my
+partners over. Have I offended you so irremediably that it will be
+impossible for you to dance with me again?'
+
+'Miss Grayling!--I shall be only too delighted.' She handed me her
+card. 'Which may I have?'
+
+'For your own sake you had better place it as far off as you
+possibly can.'
+
+'They all seem taken.'
+
+'That doesn't matter; strike off any name you please, anywhere and
+put your own instead.'
+
+It was giving me an almost embarrassingly free hand. I booked
+myself for the next waltz but two--who it was who would have to
+give way to me I did not trouble to inquire.
+
+'Mr Atherton!--is that you?'
+
+It was,--it was also she. It was Marjorie! And so soon as I saw her
+I knew that there was only one woman in the world for me,--the
+mere sight of her sent the blood tingling through my veins.
+Turning to her attendant cavalier, she dismissed him with a bow.
+
+'Is there an empty chair?'
+
+She seated herself in the one Miss Grayling had just vacated. I
+sat down beside her. She glanced at me, laughter in her eyes. I
+was all in a stupid tremblement.
+
+'You remember that last night I told you that I might require your
+friendly services in diplomatic intervention?' I nodded,--I felt
+that the allusion was unfair. 'Well, the occasion's come,--or, at
+least, it's very near.' She was still,--and I said nothing to help
+her. 'You know how unreasonable papa can be.'
+
+I did,--never a more pig-headed man in England than Geoffrey
+Lindon,--or, in a sense, a duller. But, just then, I was not
+prepared to admit it to his child.
+
+'You know what an absurd objection he has to--Paul.'
+
+There was an appreciative hesitation before she uttered the
+fellow's Christian name,--when it came it was with an accent of
+tenderness which stung me like a gadfly. To speak to me--of all
+men,--of the fellow in such a tone was--like a woman.
+
+'Has Mr Lindon no notion of how things stand between you?'
+
+'Except what he suspects. That is just where you are to come in,
+papa thinks so much of you--I want you to sound Paul's praises in
+his ear--to prepare him for what must come.' Was ever rejected
+lover burdened with such a task? Its enormity kept me still.
+'Sydney, you have always been my friend,--my truest, dearest
+friend. When I was a little girl you used to come between papa and
+me, to shield me from his wrath. Now that I am a big girl I want
+you to be on my side once more, and to shield me still.'
+
+Her voice softened. She laid her hand upon my arm. How, under her
+touch, I burned.
+
+'But I don't understand what cause there has been for secrecy,--
+why should there have been any secrecy from the first?'
+
+'It was Paul's wish that papa should not be told.'
+
+'Is Mr Lessingham ashamed of you?'
+
+'Sydney!'
+
+'Or does he fear your father?'
+
+'You are unkind. You know perfectly well that papa has been
+prejudiced against him all along, you know that his political
+position is just now one of the greatest difficulty, that every
+nerve and muscle is kept on the continual strain, that it is in
+the highest degree essential that further complications of every
+and any sort should be avoided. He is quite aware that his suit
+will not be approved of by papa, and he simply wishes that nothing
+shall be said about it till the end of the session,--that is all'
+
+'I see! Mr Lessingham is cautious even in love-making,--politician
+first, and lover afterwards.'
+
+'Well!--why not?--would you have him injure the cause he has at
+heart for want of a little patience?'
+
+'It depends what cause it is he has at heart.'
+
+'What is the matter with you?--why do you speak to me like that?--
+it is not like you at all.' She looked at me shrewdly, with
+flashing eyes. 'Is it possible that you are--jealous?--that you
+were in earnest in what you said last night?--I thought that was
+the sort of thing you said to every girl.'
+
+I would have given a great deal to take her in my arms, and press
+her to my bosom then and there,--to think that she should taunt me
+with having said to her the sort of thing I said to every girl.
+
+'What do you know of Mr Lessingham?'
+
+'What all the world knows,--that history will be made by him.'
+
+'There are kinds of history in the making of which one would not
+desire to be associated. What do you know of his private life,--it
+was to that that I was referring.'
+
+'Really,--you go too far. I know that he is one of the best, just
+as he is one of the greatest, of men; for me, that is sufficient.'
+
+'If you do know that, it is sufficient.'
+
+'I do know it,--all the world knows it. Everyone with whom he
+comes in contact is aware--must be aware, that he is incapable of
+a dishonourable thought or action.'
+
+'Take my advice, don't appreciate any man too highly. In the book
+of every man's life there is a page which he would wish to keep
+turned down.'
+
+'There is no such page in Paul's,--there may be in yours; I think
+that probable.'
+
+'Thank you. I fear it is more than probable. I fear that, in my
+case, the page may extend to several. There is nothing Apostolic
+about me,--not even the name.'
+
+'Sydney!--you are unendurable!--It is the more strange to hear you
+talk like this since Paul regards you as his friend.'
+
+'He flatters me.'
+
+'Are you not his friend?'
+
+'Is it not sufficient to be yours?'
+
+'No,--who is against Paul is against me.'
+
+'That is hard.'
+
+'How is it hard? Who is against the husband can hardly be for the
+wife,--when the husband and the wife are one.'
+
+'But as yet you are not one.--Is my cause so hopeless?'
+
+'What do you call your cause?--are you thinking of that nonsense
+you were talking about last night?'
+
+She laughed!
+
+'You call it nonsense.--You ask for sympathy, and give--so much!'
+
+'I will give you all the sympathy you stand in need of,--I promise
+it! My poor, dear Sydney!--don't be so absurd! Do you think that I
+don't know you? You're the best of friends, and the worst of
+lovers,--as the one, so true; so fickle as the other. To my
+certain knowledge, with how many girls have you been in love,--and
+out again. It is true that, to the best of my knowledge and
+belief, you have never been in love with me before,--but that's
+the merest accident. Believe me, my dear, dear Sydney, you'll be
+in love with someone else tomorrow,--if you're not half-way there
+to night. I confess, quite frankly, that, in that direction, all
+the experience I have had of you has in nowise strengthened my
+prophetic instinct. Cheer up!--one never knows!--Who is this
+that's coming?'
+
+It was Dora Grayling who was coming,--I went off with her without
+a word,--we were half-way through the dance before she spoke to
+me.
+
+'I am sorry that I was cross to you just now, and--disagreeable.
+Somehow I always seem destined to show to you my most unpleasant
+side.'
+
+'The blame was mine,--what sort of side do I show you? You are far
+kinder to me than I deserve,--now, and always. 'That is what you
+say.'
+
+'Pardon me, it's true,--else how comes it that, at this time of
+day, I'm without a friend in all the world?'
+
+'You!--without a friend!--I never knew a man who had so many!--I
+never knew a person of whom so many men and women join in speaking
+well!'
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'As for never having done anything worth doing, think of what you
+have done. Think of your discoveries, think of your inventions,
+think of--but never mind! The world knows you have done great
+things, and it confidently looks to you to do still greater. You
+talk of being friendless, and yet when I ask, as a favour--as a
+great favour!--to be allowed to do something to show my
+friendship, you--well, you snub me.'
+
+'I snub you!'
+
+'You know you snubbed me.'
+
+'Do you really mean that you take an interest in--in my work?'
+
+'You know I mean it.'
+
+She turned to me, her face all glowing,--and I did know it.
+
+'Will you come to my laboratory to-morrow morning?'
+
+'Will I!--won't I!'
+
+'With your aunt?'
+
+'Yes, with my aunt.'
+
+'I'll show you round, and tell you all there is to be told, and
+then if you still think there's anything in it, I'll accept your
+offer about that South American experiment,--that is, if it still
+holds good.'
+
+'Of course it still holds good.'
+
+'And we'll be partners.'
+
+'Partners?--Yes,--we will be partners.
+
+'It will cost a terrific sum.
+
+'There are some things which never can cost too much.'
+
+'That's not my experience,'
+
+'I hope it will be mine.'
+
+'It's a bargain?'
+
+'On my side, I promise you that it's a bargain.'
+
+When I got outside the room I found that Percy Woodville was at my
+side. His round face was, in a manner of speaking as long as my
+arm. He took his glass out of his eye, and rubbed it with his
+handkerchief,-and directly he put it back he took it out and
+rubbed it again, I believe that I never saw him in such a state of
+fluster,-and, when one speaks of Woodville, that means something.
+
+'Atherton, I am in a devil of a stew.' He looked it. 'All of a
+heap!--I've had a blow which I shall never get over!'
+
+'Then get under.'
+
+Woodville is one of those fellows who will insist on telling me
+their most private matters,--even to what they owe their
+washerwomen for the ruination of their shirts. Why, goodness alone
+can tell,--heaven knows I am not sympathetic.
+
+'Don't be an idiot!--you don't know what I'm suffering!--I'm as
+nearly as possible stark mad.'
+
+'That's all right, old chap,--I've seen you that way more than
+once before.'
+
+'Don't talk like that,--you're not a perfect brute!'
+
+'I bet you a shilling that I am.'
+
+'Don't torture me,--you're not. Atherton!' He seized me by the
+lapels of my coat, seeming half beside himself,--fortunately he
+had drawn me into a recess, so that we were noticed by few
+observers. 'What do you think has happened?'
+
+'My dear chap, how on earth am I to know?'
+
+'She's refused me!'
+
+'Has she!--Well I never!--Buck up,--try some other address,--there
+are quite as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.'
+
+'Atherton, you're a blackguard.'
+
+He had crumpled his handkerchief into a ball, and was actually
+bobbing at his eyes with it,--the idea of Percy Woodville being
+dissolved in tears was excruciatingly funny,--but, just then, I
+could hardly tell him so.
+
+'There's not a doubt of it,--it's my way of being sympathetic.
+Don't be so down, man,--try her again!'
+
+'It's not the slightest use--I know it isn't--from the way she
+treated me.'
+
+'Don't be so sure--women often say what they mean least. Who's the
+lady?'
+
+'Who?--Is there more women in the world than one for me, or has
+there ever been? You ask me who! What does the word mean to me but
+Marjorie Lindon!'
+
+'Marjorie Lindon?'
+
+I fancy that my jaw dropped open,--that, to use his own
+vernacular, I was 'all of a heap.' I felt like it.
+
+I strode away--leaving him mazed--and all but ran into Marjorie's
+arms.
+
+'I'm just leaving. Will you see me to the carriage, Mr Atherton?'
+I saw her to the carriage. 'Are you off?--can I give you a lift?'
+
+'Thank you,--I am not thinking of being off.'
+
+'I'm going to the House of Commons,--won't you come?'
+
+'What are you going there for?'
+
+Directly she spoke of it I knew why she was going,--and she knew
+that I knew, as her words showed.
+
+'You are quite well aware of what the magnet is. You are not so
+ignorant as not to know that the Agricultural Amendment Act is on
+to-night, and that Paul is to speak. I always try to be there when
+Paul is to speak, and I mean to always keep on trying.'
+
+'He is a fortunate man.'
+
+'Indeed,--and again indeed. A man with such gifts as his is
+inadequately described as fortunate.--But I must be off. He
+expected to be up before, but I heard from him a few minutes ago
+that there has been a delay, but that he will be up within half-
+an-hour.--Till our next meeting.'
+
+As I returned into the house, in the hall I met Percy Woodville.
+He had his hat on.
+
+'Where are you off to?'
+
+'I'm off to the House.'
+
+'To hear Paul Lessingham?'
+
+'Damn Paul Lessingham!'
+
+'With all my heart!'
+
+'There's a division expected,--I've got to go.'
+
+'Someone else has gone to hear Paul Lessingham,--Marjorie Lindon.'
+
+'No!--you don't say so!--by Jove!--I say, Atherton, I wish I could
+make a speech,--I never can. When I'm electioneering I have to
+have my speeches written for me, and then I have to read 'em. But,
+by Jove, if I knew Miss Lindon was in the gallery, and if I knew
+anything about the thing, or could get someone to tell me
+something, hang me if I wouldn't speak,--I'd show her I'm not the
+fool she thinks I am!'
+
+'Speak, Percy, speak!--you'd knock 'em silly, sir!--I tell you
+what I'll do,--I'll come with you! I'll to the House as well!--
+Paul Lessingham shall have an audience of three.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MR LESSINGHAM SPEAKS
+
+
+The House was full. Percy and I went upstairs,--to the gallery
+which is theoretically supposed to be reserved for what are called
+'distinguished strangers,'--those curious animals. Trumperton was
+up, hammering out those sentences which smell, not so much of the
+lamp as of the dunderhead. Nobody was listening,--except the men
+in the Press Gallery; where is the brain of the House, and ninety
+per cent, of its wisdom.
+
+It was not till Trumperton had finished that I discovered
+Lessingham. The tedious ancient resumed his seat amidst a murmur
+of sounds which, I have no doubt, some of the press-men
+interpreted next day as 'loud and continued applause.' There was
+movement in the House, possibly expressive of relief; a hum of
+voices; men came flocking in. Then, from the Opposition benches,
+there rose a sound which was applause,-and I perceived that, on a
+cross bench close to the gangway, Paul Lessingham was standing up
+bareheaded.
+
+I eyed him critically,--as a collector might eye a valuable
+specimen, or a pathologist a curious subject. During the last four
+and twenty hours my interest in him had grown apace. Just then, to
+me, he was the most interesting man the world contained.
+
+When I remembered how I had seen him that same morning, a
+nerveless, terror-stricken wretch, grovelling, like some craven
+cur, upon the floor, frightened, to the verge of imbecility, by a
+shadow, and less than a shadow, I was confronted by two
+hypotheses. Either I had exaggerated his condition then, or I
+exaggerated his condition now. So far as appearance went, it was
+incredible that this man could be that one.
+
+I confess that my feeling rapidly became one of admiration. I love
+the fighter. I quickly recognised that here we had him in
+perfection. There was no seeming about him then,--the man was to
+the manner born. To his finger-tips a fighting man. I had never
+realised it so clearly before. He was coolness itself. He had all
+his faculties under complete command. While never, for a moment,
+really exposing himself, he would be swift in perceiving the
+slightest weakness in his opponents' defence, and, so soon as he
+saw it, like lightning, he would slip in a telling blow. Though
+defeated, he would hardly be disgraced; and one might easily
+believe that their very victories would be so expensive to his
+assailants, that, in the end, they would actually conduce to his
+own triumph.
+
+'Hang me!' I told myself, 'if, after all, I am surprised if
+Marjorie does see something in him.' For I perceived how a clever
+and imaginative young woman, seeing him at his best, holding his
+own, like a gallant knight, against overwhelming odds, in the
+lists in which he was so much at home, might come to think of him
+as if he were always and only there, ignoring altogether the kind
+of man he was when the joust was finished.
+
+It did me good to hear him, I do know that,--and I could easily
+imagine the effect he had on one particular auditor who was in the
+Ladies' Cage. It was very far from being an 'oration' in the
+American sense; it had little or nothing of the fire and fury of
+the French Tribune; it was marked neither by the ponderosity nor
+the sentiment of the eloquent German; yet it was as satisfying as
+are the efforts of either of the three, producing, without doubt,
+precisely the effect which the speaker intended. His voice was
+clear and calm, not exactly musical, yet distinctly pleasant, and
+it was so managed that each word he uttered was as audible to
+every person present as if it had been addressed particularly to
+him. His sentences were short and crisp; the words which he used
+were not big ones, but they came from him with an agreeable ease;
+and he spoke just fast enough to keep one's interest alert without
+invoking a strain on the attention.
+
+He commenced by making, in the quietest and most courteous manner,
+sarcastic comments on the speeches and methods of Trumperton and
+his friends which tickled the House amazingly. But he did not make
+the mistake of pushing his personalities too far. To a speaker of
+a certain sort nothing is easier than to sting to madness. If he
+likes, his every word is barbed. Wounds so given fester; they are
+not easily forgiven;--it is essential to a politician that he
+should have his firmest friends among the fools; or his climbing
+days will soon be over. Soon his sarcasms were at an end. He began
+to exchange them for sweet-sounding phrases. He actually began to
+say pleasant things to his opponents; apparently to mean them. To
+put them in a good conceit with themselves. He pointed out how
+much truth there was in what they said; and then, as if by
+accident, with what ease and at how little cost, amendments might
+be made. He found their arguments, and took them for his own, and
+flattered them, whether they would or would not, by showing how
+firmly they were founded upon fact; and grafted other arguments
+upon them, which seemed their natural sequelae; and transformed
+them, and drove them hither and thither; and brought them--their
+own arguments!--to a round, irrefragable conclusion, which was
+diametrically the reverse of that to which they themselves had
+brought them. And he did it all with an aptness, a readiness, a
+grace, which was incontestable. So that, when he sat down, he had
+performed that most difficult of all feats, he had delivered what,
+in a House of Commons' sense, was a practical, statesmanlike
+speech, and yet one which left his hearers in an excellent humour.
+
+It was a great success,-an immense success. A parliamentary
+triumph of almost the highest order. Paul Lessingham had been
+coming on by leaps and bounds. When he resumed his seat, amidst
+applause which, this time, really was applause, there were,
+probably, few who doubted that he was destined to go still
+farther. How much farther it is true that time alone could tell;
+but, so far as appearances went, all the prizes, which are as the
+crown and climax of a statesman's career, were well within his
+reach.
+
+For my part, I was delighted. I had enjoyed an intellectual
+exercise,--a species of enjoyment not so common as it might be.
+The Apostle had almost persuaded me that the political game was
+one worth playing, and that its triumphs were things to be
+desired. It is something, after all, to be able to appeal
+successfully to the passions and aspirations of your peers; to
+gain their plaudits; to prove your skill at the game you yourself
+have chosen; to be looked up to and admired. And when a woman's
+eyes look down on you, and her ears drink in your every word, and
+her heart beats time with yours,--each man to his own temperament,
+but when that woman is the woman whom you love, to know that your
+triumph means her glory, and her gladness, to me that would be the
+best part of it all.
+
+In that hour,--the Apostle's hour!--I almost wished that I were a
+politician too!
+
+The division was over. The business of the night was practically
+done. I was back again in the lobby! The theme of conversation was
+the Apostle's speech,--on every side they talked of it.
+
+Suddenly Marjorie was at my side. Her face was glowing. I never
+saw her look more beautiful,--or happier. She seemed to be alone.
+
+'So you have come, after all!--Wasn't it splendid?--wasn't it
+magnificent? Isn't it grand to have such great gifts, and to use
+them to such good purpose?--Speak, Sydney! Don't feign a coolness
+which is foreign to your nature!'
+
+I saw that she was hungry for me to praise the man whom she
+delighted to honour. But, somehow, her enthusiasm cooled mine.
+
+'It was not a bad speech, of a kind.'
+
+'Of a kind!' How her eyes flashed fire! With what disdain she
+treated me! 'What do you mean by "of a kind?" My dear Sydney, are
+you not aware that it is an attribute of small minds to attempt to
+belittle those which are greater? Even if you are conscious of
+inferiority, it's unwise to show it. Mr Lessingham's was a great
+speech, of any kind; your incapacity to recognise the fact simply
+reveals your lack of the critical faculty.'
+
+'It is fortunate for Mr Lessingham that there is at least one
+person in whom the critical faculty is so bountifully developed.
+Apparently, in your judgment, he who discriminates is lost.'
+
+I thought she was going to burst into passion. But, instead,
+laughing, she placed her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+'Poor Sydney!--I understand!--It is so sad!--Do you know you are
+like a little boy who, when he is beaten, declares that the victor
+has cheated him. Never mind! as you grow older, you will learn
+better.'
+
+She stung me almost beyond bearing,--I cared not what I said.
+
+'You, unless I am mistaken, will learn better before you are
+older.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+Before I could have told her--if I had meant to tell; which I did
+not--Lessingham came up.
+
+'I hope I have not kept you waiting; I have been delayed longer
+than I expected.'
+
+'Not at all,--though I am quite ready to get away; it's a little
+tiresome waiting here.'
+
+This with a mischievous glance towards me,--a glance which
+compelled Lessingham to notice me.
+
+'You do not often favour us.'
+
+'I don't. I find better employment for my time.'
+
+'You are wrong. It's the cant of the day to underrate the House of
+Commons, and the work which it performs; don't you suffer yourself
+to join in the chorus of the simpletons. Your time cannot be
+better employed than in endeavouring to improve the body politic.'
+
+'I am obliged to you.--I hope you are feeling better than when I
+saw you last.'
+
+A gleam came into his eyes, fading as quickly as it came. He
+showed no other sign of comprehension, surprise, or resentment.
+
+'Thank you.--I am very well.'
+
+Marjorie perceived that I meant more than met the eye, and that
+what I meant was meant unpleasantly.
+
+'Come,--let us be off. It is Mr Atherton to-night who is not
+well.'
+
+She had just slipped her arm through Lessingham's when her father
+approached. Old Lindon stared at her on the Apostle's arm, as if
+he could hardly believe that it was she.
+
+'I thought that you were at the Duchess'?'
+
+'So I have been, papa; and now I'm here.'
+
+'Here!' Old Lindon began to stutter and stammer, and to grow red
+in the face, as is his wont when at all excited. 'W--what do you
+mean by here?--wh--where's the carriage?'
+
+'Where should it be, except waiting for me outside,--unless the
+horses have run away.'
+
+'I--I--I'll take you down to it. I--I don't approve of y--your w--
+w--waiting in a place like this.'
+
+'Thank you, papa, but Mr Lessingham is going to take me down.--I
+shall see you afterwards.--Good bye.'
+
+Anything cooler than the way in which she walked off I do not
+think I ever saw. This is the age of feminine advancement. Young
+women think nothing of twisting their mothers round their fingers,
+let alone their fathers; but the fashion in which that young woman
+walked off, on the Apostle's arm, and left her father standing
+there, was, in its way, a study.
+
+Lindon seemed scarcely able to realise that the pair of them had
+gone. Even after they had disappeared in the crowd he stood
+staring after them, growing redder and redder, till the veins
+stood out upon his face, and I thought that an apoplectic seizure
+threatened. Then, with a gasp, he turned to me.
+
+'Damned scoundrel!' I took it for granted that he alluded to the
+gentleman,--even though his following words hardly suggested it.
+'Only this morning I forbade her to have anything to do with him,
+and n--now he's w--walked off with her! C--confounded adventurer!
+That's what he is, an adventurer, and before many hours have
+passed I'll take the liberty to tell him so!'
+
+Jamming his fists into his pockets, and puffing like a grampus in
+distress, he took himself away,--and it was time he did, for his
+words were as audible as they were pointed, and already people
+were wondering what the matter was. Woodville came up as Lindon
+was going,--just as sorely distressed as ever.
+
+'She went away with Lessingham,--did you see her?'
+
+'Of course I saw her. When a man makes a speech like Lessingham's
+any girl would go away with him,--and be proud to. When you are
+endowed with such great powers as he is, and use them for such
+lofty purposes, she'll walk away with you,--but, till then,
+never.'
+
+He was at his old trick of polishing his eyeglass.
+
+'It's bitter hard. When I knew that she was there, I'd half a mind
+to make a speech myself, upon my word I had, only I didn't know
+what to speak about, and I can't speak anyhow,--how can a fellow
+speak when he's shoved into the gallery?'
+
+'As you say, how can he?--he can't stand on the railing and
+shout,--even with a friend holding him behind.'
+
+'I know I shall speak one day,--bound to; and then she won't be
+there.'
+
+'It'll be better for you if she isn't.'
+
+'Think so?--Perhaps you're right. I'd be safe to make a mess of
+it, and then, if she were to see me at it, it'd be the devil! 'Pon
+my word, I've been wishing, lately, I was clever.'
+
+He rubbed his nose with the rim of his eyeglass, looking the most
+comically disconsolate figure.
+
+'Put black care behind you, Percy!--buck up, my boy! The
+division's over--you are free--now we'll go "on the fly."'
+
+And we did 'go on the fly.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ATHERTON'S MAGIC VAPOUR
+
+
+I bore him off to supper at the Helicon. All the way in the cab he
+was trying to tell me the story of how he proposed to Marjorie,--
+and he was very far from being through with it when we reached the
+club. There was the usual crowd of supperites, but we got a little
+table to ourselves, in a corner of the room, and before anything
+was brought for us to eat he was at it again. A good many of the
+people were pretty near to shouting, and as they seemed to be all
+speaking at once, and the band was playing, and as the Helicon
+supper band is not piano, Percy did not have it quite all to
+himself, but, considering the delicacy of his subject, he talked
+as loudly as was decent,--getting more so as he went on. But Percy
+is peculiar.
+
+'I don't know how many times I've tried to tell her,--over and
+over again.'
+
+'Have you now?'
+
+'Yes, pretty near every time I met her,--but I never seemed to get
+quite to it, don't you know.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'Why, just as I was going to say, "Miss Lindon, may I offer you
+the gift of my affection---"'
+
+'Was that how you invariably intended to begin?'
+
+'Well, not always--one time like that, another time another way.
+Fact is, I got off a little speech by heart, but I never got a
+chance to reel it off, so I made up my mind to just say anything.'
+
+'And what did you say?'
+
+'Well, nothing,--you see, I never got there. Just as I was feeling
+my way, she'd ask me if I preferred big sleeves to little ones, or
+top hats to billycocks, or some nonsense of the kind.'
+
+'Would she now?'
+
+'Yes,--of course I had to answer, and by the time I'd answered the
+chance was lost.' Percy was polishing his eye-glass. 'I tried to
+get there so many times, and she choked me off so often, that I
+can't help thinking that she suspected what it was that I was
+after.'
+
+'You think she did?'
+
+'She must have done. Once I followed her down Piccadilly, and
+chivied her into a glove shop in the Burlington Arcade. I meant to
+propose to her in there,--I hadn't had a wink of sleep all night
+through dreaming of her, and I was just about desperate.'
+
+'And did you propose?'
+
+'The girl behind the counter made me buy a dozen pairs of gloves
+instead. They turned out to be three sizes too large for me when
+they came home. I believe she thought I'd gone to spoon the glove
+girl,--she went out and left me there. That girl loaded me with
+all sorts of things when she was gone,--I couldn't get away. She
+held me with her blessed eye. I believe it was a glass one.'
+
+'Miss Linden's?--or the glove girl's?'
+
+'The glove girl's. She sent me home a whole cartload of green
+ties, and declared I'd ordered them. I shall never forget that
+day. I've never been up the Arcade since, and never mean to.'
+
+'You gave Miss Lindon a wrong impression.'
+
+'I don't know. I was always giving her wrong impressions. Once she
+said that she knew I was not a marrying man, that I was the sort
+of chap who never would marry, because she saw it in my face.'
+
+'Under the circumstances, that was trying.'
+
+'Bitter hard.' Percy sighed again. 'I shouldn't mind if I wasn't
+so gone. I'm not a fellow who does get gone, but when I do get
+gone, I get so beastly gone.'
+
+'I tell you what, Percy,--have a drink!'
+
+'I'm a teetotaler,--you know I am.'
+
+'You talk of your heart being broken, and of your being a
+teetotaler in the same breath,--if your heart were really broken
+you'd throw teetotalism to the winds.'
+
+'Do you think so,--why?'
+
+'Because you would,--men whose hearts are broken always do,--you'd
+swallow a magnum at the least.'
+
+Percy groaned.
+
+'When I drink I'm always ill,--but I'll have a try.'
+
+He had a try,--making a good beginning by emptying at a draught
+the glass which the waiter had just now filled. Then he relapsed
+into melancholy.
+
+'Tell me, Percy,--honest Indian!--do you really love her?'
+
+'Love her?' His eyes grew round as saucers. 'Don't I tell you that
+I love her?'
+
+'I know you tell me, but that sort of thing is easy telling. What
+does it make you feel like, this love you talk so much about?'
+
+'Feel like?--Just anyhow,--and nohow. You should look inside me,
+and then you'd know.'
+
+'I see.--It's like that, is it?--Suppose she loved another man,
+what sort of feeling would you feel towards him?'
+
+'Does she love another man?'
+
+'I say, suppose.'
+
+'I dare say she does. I expect that's it.--What an idiot I am not
+to have thought of that before.' He sighed,--and refilled his
+glass. 'He's a lucky chap, whoever he is. I'd--I'd like to tell
+him so.'
+
+'You'd like to tell him so?'
+
+'He's such a jolly lucky chap, you know.'
+
+'Possibly,--but his jolly good luck is your jolly bad luck. Would
+you be willing to resign her to him without a word?'
+
+'If she loves him.'
+
+'But you say you love her.'
+
+'Of course I do.'
+
+'Well then?'
+
+'You don't suppose that, because I love her, I shouldn't like to
+see her happy?--I'm not such a beast!--I'd sooner see her happy
+than anything else in all the world.'
+
+'I see,--Even happy with another?--I'm afraid that my philosophy
+is not like yours. If I loved Miss Lindon, and she loved, say,
+Jones, I'm afraid I shouldn't feel like that towards Jones at
+all.'
+
+'What would you feel like?'
+
+'Murder.--Percy, you come home with me,--we've begun the night
+together, let's end it together,--and I'll show you one of the
+finest notions for committing murder on a scale of real
+magnificence you ever dreamed of. I should like to make use of it
+to show my feelings towards the supposititious Jones,--he'd know
+what I felt for him when once he had been introduced to it.'
+
+Percy went with me without a word. He had not had much to drink,
+but it had been too much for him, and he was in a condition of
+maundering sentimentality. I got him into a cab. We dashed along
+Piccadilly.
+
+He was silent, and sat looking in front of him with an air of
+vacuous sullenness which ill-became his cast of countenance. I
+bade the cabman pass though Lowndes Square. As we passed the
+Apostle's I pulled him up. I pointed out the place to Woodville.
+
+'You see, Percy, that's Lessingham's house!--that's the house of
+the man who went away with Marjorie!'
+
+'Yes.' Words came from him slowly, with a quite unnecessary stress
+on each. 'Because he made a speech.--I'd like to make a speech.--
+One day I'll make a speech.'
+
+'Because he made a speech,--only that, and nothing more! When a
+man speaks with an Apostle's tongue, he can witch any woman in the
+land.--Hallo, who's that?--Lessingham, is that you?'
+
+I saw, or thought I saw, someone, or something, glide up the
+steps, and withdraw into the shadow of the doorway, as if
+unwilling to be seen. When I hailed no one answered. I called
+again.
+
+'Don't be shy, my friend!'
+
+I sprang out of the cab, ran across the pavement, and up the
+steps. To my surprise, there was no one in the doorway. It seemed
+incredible, but the place was empty. I felt about me with my
+hands, as if I had been playing at blind man's buff, and grasped
+at vacancy. I came down a step or two.
+
+'Ostensibly, there's a vacuum,--which nature abhors.--I say,
+driver, didn't you see someone come up the steps?'
+
+'I thought I did, sir,--I could have sworn I did.'
+
+'So could I.--It's very odd.'
+
+'Perhaps whoever it was has gone into the 'ouse, sir.'
+
+'I don't see how. We should have heard the door open, if we hadn't
+seen it,--and we should have seen it, it's not so dark as that.--
+I've half a mind to ring the bell and inquire.'
+
+'I shouldn't do that if I was you, sir,--you jump in, and I'll get
+along. This is Mr Lessingham's,--the great Mr Lessingham's.'
+
+I believe the cabman thought that I was drunk,--and not
+respectable enough to claim acquaintance with the great Mr
+Lessingham.
+
+'Wake up, Woodville! Do you know I believe there's some mystery
+about this place,--I feel assured of it. I feel as if I were in
+the presence of something uncanny,--something which I can neither
+see, nor touch, nor hear.'
+
+The cabman bent down from his seat, wheedling me.
+
+'Jump in, sir, and we'll be getting along.'
+
+I jumped in, and we got along,--but not far. Before we had gone a
+dozen yards, I was out again, without troubling the driver to
+stop. He pulled up, aggrieved.
+
+'Well, sir, what's the matter now? You'll be damaging yourself
+before you've done, and then you'll be blaming me.'
+
+I had caught sight of a cat crouching in the shadow of the
+railings,--a black one. That cat was my quarry. Either the
+creature was unusually sleepy, or slow, or stupid, or it had lost
+its wits--which a cat seldom does lose!--anyhow, without making an
+attempt to escape it allowed me to grab it by the nape of the
+neck.
+
+So soon as we were inside my laboratory, I put the cat into my
+glass box. Percy stared.
+
+'What have you put it there for?'
+
+'That, my dear Percy, is what you are shortly about to see. You
+are about to be the witness of an experiment which, to a
+legislator--such as you are!--ought to be of the greatest possible
+interest. I am going to demonstrate, on a small scale, the action
+of the force which, on a large scale, I propose to employ on
+behalf of my native land.'
+
+He showed no signs of being interested. Sinking into a chair, he
+recommenced his wearisome reiteration.
+
+'I hate cats!--Do let it go!--I'm always miserable when there's a
+cat in the room.'
+
+'Nonsense,--that's your fancy! What you want's a taste of whisky--
+you'll be as chirpy as a cricket.'
+
+'I don't want anything more to drink!--I've had too much already!'
+
+I paid no heed to what he said. I poured two stiff doses into a
+couple of tumblers. Without seeming to be aware of what it was
+that he was doing he disposed of the better half of the one I gave
+him at a draught. Putting his glass upon the table, he dropped his
+head upon his hands, and groaned.
+
+'What would Marjorie think of me if she saw me now?'
+
+'Think?--nothing. Why should she think of a man like you, when she
+has so much better fish to fry?'
+
+'I'm feeling frightfully ill!--I'll be drunk before I've done!'
+
+'Then be drunk!--only, for gracious sake, be lively drunk, not
+deadly doleful.--Cheer up, Percy!' I clapped him on the shoulder,
+--almost knocking him off his seat on to the floor. 'I am now going
+to show you that little experiment of which I was speaking!--You
+see that cat?'
+
+'Of course I see it!--the beast!--I wish you'd let it go!'
+
+'Why should I let it go?--Do you know whose cat that is? That
+cat's Paul Lessingham's.'
+
+'Paul Lessingham's?'
+
+'Yes, Paul Lessingham's,--the man who made the speech,--the man
+whom Marjorie went away with.'
+
+'How do you know it's his?'
+
+'I don't know it is, but I believe it is,--I choose to believe it
+is!--I intend to believe it is!--It was outside his house,
+therefore it's his cat,--that's how I argue. I can't get
+Lessingham inside that box, so I get his cat instead.'
+
+'Whatever for?'
+
+'You shall see.--You observe how happy it is?'
+
+'It don't seem happy.'
+
+'We've all our ways of seeming happy,--that's its way,'
+
+The creature was behaving like a cat gone mad, dashing itself
+against the sides of its glass prison, leaping to and fro, and
+from side to side, squealing with rage, or with terror, or with
+both. Perhaps it foresaw what was coming,--there is no fathoming
+the intelligence of what we call the lower animals.
+
+'It's a funny way.'
+
+'We some of us have funny ways, beside cats. Now, attention!
+Observe this little toy,--you've seen something of its kind
+before. It's a spring gun; you pull the spring-drop the charge
+into the barrel--release the spring--and the charge is fired. I'll
+unlock this safe, which is built into the wall. It's a letter
+lock, the combination just now, is "whisky,"--you see, that's a
+hint to you. You'll notice the safe is strongly made,--it's air-
+tight, fire-proof, the outer casing is of triple-plated drill-
+proof steel,--the contents are valuable--to me!--and devilish
+dangerous,--I'd pity the thief who, in his innocent ignorance,
+broke in to steal. Look inside--you see it's full of balls,--glass
+balls, each in its own little separate nest; light as feathers;
+transparent,--you can see right through them. Here are a couple,
+like tiny pills. They contain neither dynamite, nor cordite, nor
+anything of the kind, yet, given a fair field and no favour,
+they'll work more mischief than all the explosives man has
+fashioned. Take hold of one--you say your heart is broken!--
+squeeze this under your nose--it wants but a gentle pressure--and
+in less time than no time you'll be in the land where they say
+there are no broken hearts.'
+
+He shrunk back.
+
+'I don't know what you're talking about.--I don't want the thing.
+--Take it away.'
+
+'Think twice,--the chance may not recur.'
+
+'I tell you I don't want it.'
+
+'Sure?--Consider!'
+
+'Of course I'm sure!'
+
+'Then the cat shall have it.'
+
+'Let the poor brute go!'
+
+'The poor brute's going,--to the land which is so near, and yet so
+far. Once more, if you please, attention. Notice what I do with
+this toy gun. I pull back the spring; I insert this small glass
+pellet; I thrust the muzzle of the gun through the opening in the
+glass box which contains the Apostle's cat,--you'll observe it
+fits quite close, which, on the whole, is perhaps as well for us.
+--I am about to release the spring.--Close attention, please.--
+Notice the effect.'
+
+'Atherton, let the brute go!'
+
+'The brute's gone! I've released the spring--the pellet has been
+discharged--it has struck against the roof of the glass box--it
+has been broken by the contact,--and, hey presto! the cat lies
+dead,--and that in face of its nine lives. You perceive how still
+it is,--how still! Let's hope that, now, it's really happy. The
+cat which I choose to believe is Paul Lessingham's has received
+its quietus; in the morning I'll send it back to him, with my
+respectful compliments. He'll miss it if I don't.--Reflect! think
+of a huge bomb, filled with what we'll call Atherton's Magic
+Vapour, fired, say, from a hundred and twenty ton gun, bursting at
+a given elevation over the heads of an opposing force. Properly
+managed, in less than an instant of time, a hundred thousand men,
+--quite possibly more!--would drop down dead, as if smitten by the
+lightning of the skies. Isn't that something like a weapon, sir?'
+
+'I'm not well!--I want to get away!--I wish I'd never come!'
+
+That was all Woodville had to say.
+
+'Rubbish!--You're adding to your stock of information every
+second, and, in these days, when a member of Parliament is
+supposed to know all about everything, information's the one thing
+wanted. Empty your glass, man,--that's the time of day for you!'
+
+I handed him his tumbler. He drained what was left of its
+contents, then, in a fit of tipsy, childish temper he flung the
+tumbler from him. I had placed--carelessly enough--the second
+pellet within a foot of the edge of the table. The shock of the
+heavy beaker striking the board close to it, set it rolling. I was
+at the other side. I started forward to stop its motion, but I was
+too late. Before I could reach the crystal globule, it had fallen
+off the edge of the table on to the floor at Woodville's feet, and
+smashed in falling. As it smashed, he was looking down, wondering,
+no doubt, in his stupidity, what the pother was about,--for I was
+shouting, and making something of a clatter in my efforts to
+prevent the catastrophe which I saw was coming. On the instant, as
+the vapour secreted in the broken pellet gained access to the air,
+he fell forward on to his face. Rushing to him, I snatched his
+senseless body from the ground, and dragged it, staggeringly,
+towards the door which opened on to the yard. Flinging the door
+open, I got him into the open air.
+
+As I did so, I found myself confronted by someone who stood
+outside. It was Lessingham's mysterious Egypto-Arabian friend,--my
+morning's visitor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAGIC?--OR MIRACLE?
+
+
+The passage into the yard from the electrically lit laboratory was
+a passage from brilliancy to gloom. The shrouded figure, standing
+in the shadow, was like some object in a dream. My own senses
+reeled. It was only because I had resolutely held my breath, and
+kept my face averted that I had not succumbed to the fate which
+had overtaken Woodville. Had I been a moment longer in gaining the
+open air, it would have been too late. As it was, in placing
+Woodville on the ground, I stumbled over him. My senses left me.
+Even as they went I was conscious of exclaiming,--remembering the
+saying about the engineer being hoist by his own petard,
+
+'Atherton's Magic Vapour!'
+
+My sensations on returning to consciousness were curious. I found
+myself being supported in someone's arms, a stranger's face was
+bending over me, and the most extraordinary pair of eyes I had
+ever seen were looking into mine.
+
+'Who the deuce are you?' I asked.
+
+Then, understanding that it was my uninvited visitor, with scant
+ceremony I drew myself away from him. By the light which was
+streaming through the laboratory door I saw that Woodville was
+lying close beside me,--stark and still.
+
+'Is he dead?' I cried. 'Percy.--speak, man!--it's not so bad with
+you as that!'
+
+But it was pretty bad,--so bad that, as I bent down and looked at
+him, my heart beat uncomfortably fast lest it was as bad as it
+could be. His heart seemed still,--the vapour took effect directly
+on the cardiac centres. To revive their action and that instantly,
+was indispensable. Yet my brain was in such a whirl that I could
+not even think of how to set about beginning. Had I been alone, it
+is more than probable Woodville would have died. As I stared at
+him, senselessly, aimlessly, the stranger, passing his arms
+beneath his body, extended himself at full length upon his
+motionless form. Putting his lips to Percy's, he seemed to be
+pumping life from his own body into the unconscious man's. As I
+gazed bewildered, surprised, presently there came a movement of
+Percy's body. His limbs twitched, as if he was in pain. By
+degrees, the motions became convulsive,--till on a sudden he
+bestirred himself to such effect that the stranger was rolled
+right off him. I bent down,--to find that the young gentleman's
+condition still seemed very far from satisfactory. There was a
+rigidity about the muscles of his face, a clamminess about his
+skin, a disagreeable suggestiveness about the way in which his
+teeth and the whites of his eyes were exposed, which was
+uncomfortable to contemplate.
+
+The stranger must have seen what was passing through my mind,--not
+a very difficult thing to see. Pointing to the recumbent Percy, he
+said, with that queer foreign twang of his, which, whatever it had
+seemed like in the morning, sounded musical enough just then.
+
+'All will be well with him.'
+
+'I am not so sure.'
+
+The stranger did not deign to answer. He was kneeling on one side
+of the victim of modern science, I on the other. Passing his hand
+to and fro in front of the unconscious countenance, as if by magic
+all semblance of discomfort vanished from Percy's features, and,
+to all appearances, he was placidly asleep.
+
+'Have you hypnotised him?'
+
+'What does it matter?'
+
+If it was a case of hypnotism, it was very neatly done. The
+conditions were both unusual and trying, the effect produced
+seemed all that could be desired,--the change brought about in
+half a dozen seconds was quite remarkable. I began to be aware of
+a feeling of quasi-respect for Paul Lessingham's friend. His
+morals might be peculiar, and manners he might have none, but in
+this case, at any rate, the end seemed to have justified the
+means. He went on.
+
+'He sleeps. When he awakes he will remember nothing that has been.
+Leave him,--the night is warm,--all will be well.'
+
+As he said, the night was warm,--and it was dry. Percy would come
+to little harm by being allowed to enjoy, for a while, the
+pleasant breezes. So I acted on the stranger's advice, and left
+him lying in the yard, while I had a little interview with the
+impromptu physician.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE BEETLE
+
+
+The laboratory door was closed. The stranger was standing a foot
+or two away from it. I was further within the room, and was
+subjecting him to as keen a scrutiny as circumstances permitted.
+Beyond doubt he was conscious of my observation, yet he bore
+himself with an air of indifference, which was suggestive of
+perfect unconcern. The fellow was oriental to the finger-tips,--
+that much was certain; yet in spite of a pretty wide personal
+knowledge of oriental people I could not make up my mind as to the
+exact part of the east from which he came. He was hardly an Arab,
+he was not a fellah,--he was not, unless I erred, a Mohammedan at
+all. There was something about him which was distinctly not
+Mussulmanic. So far as looks were concerned, he was not a
+flattering example of his race, whatever his race might be. The
+portentous size of his beak-like nose would have been, in itself,
+sufficient to damn him in any court of beauty. His lips were thick
+and shapeless,--and this, joined to another peculiarity in his
+appearance, seemed to suggest that, in his veins there ran more
+than a streak of negro blood. The peculiarity alluded to was his
+semblance of great age. As one eyed him one was reminded of the
+legends told of people who have been supposed to have retained
+something of their pristine vigour after having lived for
+centuries. As, however, one continued to gaze, one began to wonder
+if he really was so old as he seemed,--if, indeed, he was
+exceptionally old at all. Negroes, and especially negresses, are
+apt to age with extreme rapidity. Among coloured folk' one
+sometimes encounters women whose faces seem to have been lined by
+the passage of centuries, yet whose actual tale of years would
+entitle them to regard themselves, here in England, as in the
+prime of life. The senility of the fellow's countenance, besides,
+was contradicted by the juvenescence of his eyes. No really old
+man could have had eyes like that. They were curiously shaped,
+reminding me of the elongated, faceted eyes of some queer
+creature, with whose appearance I was familiar, although I could
+not, at the instant, recall its name. They glowed not only with
+the force and fire, but, also, with the frenzy of youth. More
+uncanny-looking eyes I had never encountered,--their possessor
+could not be, in any sense of the word, a clubable person. Owing,
+probably, to some peculiar formation of the optic-nerve one felt,
+as one met his gaze, that he was looking right through you. More
+obvious danger signals never yet were placed in a creature's head.
+The individual who, having once caught sight of him, still sought
+to cultivate their owner's acquaintance, had only himself to thank
+if the very worst results of frequenting evil company promptly
+ensued.
+
+It happens that I am myself endowed with an unusual tenacity of
+vision. I could, for instance, easily outstare any man I ever met.
+Yet, as I continued to stare at this man, I was conscious that it
+was only by an effort of will that I was able to resist a baleful
+something which seemed to be passing from his eyes to mine. It
+might have been imagination, but, in that sense, I am not an
+imaginative man; and, if it was, it was imagination of an
+unpleasantly vivid kind. I could understand how, in the case of a
+nervous, or a sensitive temperament, the fellow might exercise, by
+means of the peculiar quality of his glance alone, an influence of
+a most disastrous sort, which given an appropriate subject in the
+manifestation of its power might approach almost to the
+supernatural. If ever man was endowed with the traditional evil
+eye, in which Italians, among modern nations, are such profound
+believers, it was he.
+
+When we had stared at each other for, I daresay, quite five
+minutes, I began to think I had had about enough of it So, by way
+of breaking the ice, I put to him a question.
+
+'May I ask how you found your way into my back yard?'
+
+He did not reply in words, but, raising his hands he lowered them,
+palms downward, with a gesture which was peculiarly oriental.
+
+'Indeed?--Is that so?--Your meaning may be lucidity itself to you,
+but, for my benefit, perhaps you would not mind translating it
+into words. Once more I ask, how did you find your way into my
+back yard?'
+
+Again nothing but the gesture.
+
+'Possibly you are not sufficiently acquainted with English manners
+and customs to be aware that you have placed yourself within reach
+of the pains and penalties of the law. Were I to call in the
+police you would find yourself in an awkward situation,--and,
+unless you are presently more explanatory, called in they will
+be.'
+
+By way of answer he indulged in a distortion of the countenance
+which might have been meant for a smile,--and which seemed to
+suggest that he regarded the police with a contempt which was too
+great for words.
+
+'Why do you laugh--do you think that being threatened with the
+police is a joke? You are not likely to find it so.--Have you
+suddenly been bereft of the use of your tongue?'
+
+He proved that he had not by using it
+
+'I have still the use of my tongue.'
+
+'That, at least, is something. Perhaps, since the subject of how
+you got into my back yard seems to be a delicate one, you will
+tell me why you got there.'
+
+'You know why I have come.'
+
+'Pardon me if I appear to flatly contradict you, but that is
+precisely what I do not know.'
+
+'You do know.'
+
+'Do I?--Then, in that case, I presume that you are here for the
+reason which appears upon the surface,--to commit a felony.'
+
+'You call me thief?'
+
+'What else are you?'
+
+'I am no thief.--You know why I have come.'
+
+He raised his head a little. A look came into his eyes which I
+felt that I ought to understand, yet to the meaning of which I
+seemed, for the instant, to have mislaid the key. I shrugged my
+shoulders.
+
+'I have come because you wanted me.'
+
+'Because I wanted you!--On my word!--That's sublime!'
+
+'All night you have wanted me,--do I not know? When she talked to
+you of him, and the blood boiled in your veins; when he spoke, and
+all the people listened, and you hated him, because he had honour
+in her eyes.'
+
+I was startled. Either he meant what it appeared incredible that
+he could mean, or--there was confusion somewhere.
+
+'Take my advice, my friend, and don't try to come the bunco-
+steerer over me,--I'm a bit in that line myself, you know.'
+
+This time the score was mine,--he was puzzled.
+
+'I know not what you talk of.'
+
+'In that case, we're equal,--I know not what you talk of either.'
+
+His manner, for him, was childlike and bland.
+
+'What is it you do not know? This morning did I not say,--if you
+want me, then I come?'
+
+'I fancy I have some faint recollection of your being so good as
+to say something of the kind, but--where's the application?'
+
+'Do you not feel for him the same as I?'
+
+'Who's the him?'
+
+'Paul Lessingham.'
+
+It was spoken quietly, but with a degree of--to put it gently--
+spitefulness which showed that at least the will to do the Apostle
+harm would not be lacking.
+
+'And, pray, what is the common feeling which we have for him?'
+
+'Hate.'
+
+Plainly, with this gentleman, hate meant hate,--in the solid
+oriental sense. I should hardly have been surprised if the mere
+utterance of the words had seared his lips.
+
+'I am by no means prepared to admit that I have this feeling which
+you attribute to me, but, even granting that I have, what then?'
+
+'Those who hate are kin.'
+
+'That, also, I should be slow to admit; but--to go a step farther
+--what has all this to do with your presence on my premises at this
+hour of the night?'
+
+'You love her.' This time I did not ask him to supply the name,--
+being unwilling that it should be soiled by the traffic of his
+lips. 'She loves him,--that is not well. If you choose, she shall
+love you,--that will be well.'
+
+'Indeed.--And pray how is this consummation which is so devoutly
+to be desired to be brought about?'
+
+'Put your hand into mine. Say that you wish it. It shall be done.'
+
+Moving a step forward, he stretched out his hand towards me. I
+hesitated. There was that in the fellow's manner which, for the
+moment, had for me an unwholesome fascination. Memories flashed
+through my mind of stupid stories which have been told of compacts
+made with the devil. I almost felt as if I was standing in the
+actual presence of one of the powers of evil. I thought of my love
+for Marjorie,--which had revealed itself after all these years; of
+the delight of holding her in my arms, of feeling the pressure of
+her lips to mine. As my gaze met his, the lower side of what the
+conquest of this fair lady would mean, burned in my brain; fierce
+imaginings blazed before my eyes. To win her,--only to win her!
+
+What nonsense he was talking! What empty brag it was! Suppose,
+just for the sake of the joke, I did put my hand in his, and did
+wish, right out, what it was plain he knew. If I wished, what harm
+would it do! It would be the purest jest. Out of his own mouth he
+would be confounded, for it was certain that nothing would come of
+it. Why should I not do it then?
+
+I would act on his suggestion,--I would carry the thing right
+through. Already I was advancing towards him, when--I stopped. I
+don't know why. On the instant, my thoughts went off at a tangent.
+
+What sort of a blackguard did I call myself that I should take a
+woman's name in vain for the sake of playing fool's tricks with
+such scum of the earth as the hideous vagabond in front of me,--
+and that the name of the woman whom I loved? Rage took hold of me.
+
+'You hound!' I cried.
+
+In my sudden passage from one mood to another, I was filled with
+the desire to shake the life half out of him. But so soon as I
+moved a step in his direction, intending war instead of peace, he
+altered the position of his hand, holding it out towards me as if
+forbidding my approach. Directly he did so, quite involuntarily, I
+pulled up dead,--as if my progress had been stayed by bars of iron
+and walls of steel.
+
+For the moment, I was astonished to the verge of stupefaction. The
+sensation was peculiar. I was as incapable of advancing another
+inch in his direction as if I had lost the use of my limbs,--I was
+even incapable of attempting to attempt to advance. At first I
+could only stare and gape. Presently I began to have an inkling of
+what had happened.
+
+The scoundrel had almost succeeded in hypnotising me.
+
+That was a nice thing to happen to a man of my sort at my time of
+life. A shiver went down my back,--what might have occurred if I
+had not pulled up in time! What pranks might a creature of that
+character not have been disposed to play. It was the old story of
+the peril of playing with edged tools; I had made the dangerous
+mistake of underrating the enemy's strength. Evidently, in his own
+line, the fellow was altogether something out of the usual way.
+
+I believe that even as it was he thought he had me. As I turned
+away, and leaned against the table at my back, I fancy that he
+shivered,--as if this proof of my being still my own master was
+unexpected. I was silent,--it took some seconds to enable me to
+recover from the shock of the discovery of the peril in which I
+had been standing. Then I resolved that I would endeavour to do
+something which should make me equal to this gentleman of many
+talents.
+
+'Take my advice, my friend, and don't attempt to play that hankey
+pankey off on to me again.'
+
+'I don't know what you talk of.'
+
+'Don't lie to me,--or I'll burn you into ashes.'
+
+Behind me was an electrical machine, giving an eighteen inch
+spark. It was set in motion by a lever fitted into the table,
+which I could easily reach from where I sat. As I spoke the
+visitor was treated to a little exhibition of electricity. The
+change in his bearing was amusing. He shook with terror. He
+salaamed down to the ground.
+
+'My lord!--my lord!--have mercy, oh my lord!'
+
+'Then you be careful, that's all. You may suppose yourself to be
+something of a magician, but it happens, unfortunately for you,
+that I can do a bit in that line myself,--perhaps I'm a trifle
+better at the game than you are. Especially as you have ventured
+into my stronghold, which contains magic enough to make a show of
+a hundred thousand such as you.'
+
+Taking down a bottle from a shelf, I sprinkled a drop or two of
+its contents on the floor. Immediately flames arose, accompanied
+by a blinding vapour. It was a sufficiently simple illustration of
+one of the qualities of phosphorous-bromide, but its effect upon
+my visitor was as startling as it was unexpected. If I could
+believe the evidence of my own eyesight, in the very act of giving
+utterance to a scream of terror he disappeared, how, or why, or
+whither, there was nothing to show,--in his place, where he had
+been standing, there seemed to be a dim object of some sort in a
+state of frenzied agitation on the floor. The phosphorescent
+vapour was confusing; the lights appeared to be suddenly burning
+low; before I had sense enough to go and see if there was anything
+there, and, if so, what, the flames had vanished, the man himself
+had reappeared, and, prostrated on his knees, was salaaming in a
+condition of abject terror.
+
+'My lord! my lord!' he whined. 'I entreat you, my lord, to use me
+as your slave!'
+
+'I'll use you as my slave!' Whether he or I was the more agitated
+it would have been difficult to say,--but, at least, it would not
+have done to betray my feelings as he did his.
+
+'Stand up!'
+
+He stood up. I eyed him as he did with an interest which, so far
+as I was concerned, was of a distinctly new and original sort.
+Whether or not I had been the victim of an ocular delusion I could
+not be sure. It was incredible to suppose that he could have
+disappeared as he had seemed to disappear,--it was also incredible
+that I could have imagined his disappearance. If the thing had
+been a trick, I had not the faintest notion how it had been
+worked; and, if it was not a trick, then what was it? Was it
+something new in scientific marvels? Could he give me as much
+instruction in the qualities of unknown forces as I could him?
+
+In the meanwhile he stood in an attitude of complete submission,
+with downcast eyes, and hands crossed upon his breast. I started
+to cross-examine him.
+
+'I am going to ask you some questions. So long as you answer them
+promptly, truthfully, you will be safe. Otherwise you had best
+beware.'
+
+'Ask, oh my lord.'
+
+'What is the nature of your objection to Mr Lessingham?'
+
+'Revenge.'
+
+'What has he done to you that you should wish to be revenged on
+him?'
+
+'It is the feud of the innocent blood.'
+
+'What do you mean by that?'
+
+'On his hands is the blood of my kin. It cries aloud for
+vengeance.'
+
+'Who has he killed?'
+
+'That, my lord, is for me,--and for him.'
+
+'I see.--Am I to understand that you do not choose to answer me,
+and that I am again to use my--magic?'
+
+I saw that he quivered.
+
+'My lord, he has spilled the blood of her who has lain upon his
+breast.'
+
+I hesitated. What he meant appeared clear enough. Perhaps it would
+be as well not to press for further details. The words pointed to
+what it might be courteous to call an Eastern Romance,--though it
+was hard to conceive of the Apostle figuring as the hero of such a
+theme. It was the old tale retold, that to the life of every man
+there is a background,--that it is precisely in the unlikeliest
+cases that the background's darkest. What would that penny-plain-
+and-twopence-coloured bogey, the Nonconformist Conscience, make of
+such a story if it were blazoned through the land. Would Paul not
+come down with a run?
+
+'"Spilling blood" is a figure of speech; pretty, perhaps, but
+vague. If you mean that Mr Lessingham has been killing someone,
+your surest and most effectual revenge would be gained by an
+appeal to the law.'
+
+'What has the Englishman's law to do with me?'
+
+'If you can prove that he has been guilty of murder it would have
+a great deal to do with you. I assure you that at any rate, in
+that sense, the Englishman's law is no respecter of persons. Show
+him to be guilty, and it would hang Paul Lessingham as
+indifferently, and as cheerfully, as it would hang Bill Brown.'
+
+'Is that so?'
+
+'It is so, as, if you choose, you will be easily able to prove to
+your own entire satisfaction.'
+
+He had raised his head, and was looking at something which he
+seemed to see in front of him with a maleficent glare in his
+sensitive eyes which it was not nice to see.
+
+'He would be shamed?'
+
+'Indeed he would be shamed.'
+
+'Before all men?'
+
+'Before all men,--and, I take it, before all women too.'
+
+'And he would hang?'
+
+'If shown to have been guilty of wilful murder,--yes.'
+
+His hideous face was lighted up by a sort of diabolical exultation
+which made it, if that were possible, more hideous still. I had
+apparently given him a wrinkle which pleased him most
+consummately.
+
+'Perhaps I will do that in the end,--in the end!' He opened his
+eyes to their widest limits, then shut them tight,--as if to gloat
+on the picture which his fancy painted. Then reopened them. 'In
+the meantime I will have vengeance in my own fashion. He knows
+already that the avenger is upon him,--he has good reason to know
+it. And through the days and the nights the knowledge shall be
+with him still, and it shall be to him as the bitterness of
+death,--aye, of many deaths. For he will know that escape there is
+none, and that for him there shall be no more sun in the sky, and
+that the terror shall be with him by night and by day, at his
+rising up and at his lying down, wherever his eyes shall turn it
+shall be there,--yet, behold, the sap and the juice of my
+vengeance is in this, in that though he shall be very sure that
+the days that are, are as the days of his death, yet shall he know
+that THE DEATH, THE GREAT DEATH, is coming--coming--and shall be
+on him--when I will!'
+
+The fellow spoke like an inspired maniac. If he meant half what he
+said,--and if he did not then his looks and his tones belied him!
+--then a promising future bade fair to be in store for Mr
+Lessingham,--and, also, circumstances being as they were, for
+Marjorie. It was this latter reflection which gave me pause.
+Either this imprecatory fanatic would have to be disposed of, by
+Lessingham himself, or by someone acting on his behalf, and, so
+far as their power of doing mischief went, his big words proved
+empty windbags, or Marjorie would have to be warned that there was
+at least one passage in her suitor's life, into which, ere it was
+too late, it was advisable that inquiry should be made. To allow
+Marjorie to irrevocably link her fate with the Apostle's, without
+being first of all made aware that he was, to all intents and
+purposes, a haunted man--that was not to be thought of.
+
+'You employ large phrases.'
+
+My words cooled the other's heated blood. Once more his eyes were
+cast down, his hands crossed upon his breast
+
+'I crave my lord's pardon. My wound is ever new.'
+
+'By the way, what was the secret history, this morning, of that
+little incident of the cockroach?'
+
+He glanced up quickly.
+
+'Cockroach?--I know not what you say.'
+
+'Well,--was it beetle, then?'
+
+'Beetle!'
+
+He seemed, all at once, to have lost his voice,--the word was
+gasped.
+
+'After you went we found, upon a sheet of paper, a capitally
+executed drawing of a beetle, which, I fancy, you must have left
+behind you,--Scaraboeus sacer, wasn't it?'
+
+'I know not what you talk of.'
+
+'Its discovery seemed to have quite a singular effect on Mr
+Lessingham. Now, why was that?'
+
+'I know nothing.'
+
+'Oh yes you do,--and, before you go, I mean to know something
+too.'
+
+The man was trembling, looking this way and that, showing signs of
+marked discomfiture. That there was something about that ancient
+scarab, which figures so largely in the still unravelled tangles
+of the Egyptian mythologies, and the effect which the mere sight
+of its cartouch--for the drawing had resembled something of the
+kind--had had on such a seasoned vessel as Paul Lessingham, which
+might be well worth my finding out, I felt convinced,--the man's
+demeanour, on my recurring to the matter, told its own plain tale.
+I made up my mind, if possible, to probe the business to the
+bottom, then and there.
+
+'Listen to me, my friend. I am a plain man, and I use plain
+speech,--it's a kind of hobby I have. You will give me the
+information I require, and that at once, or I will pit my magic
+against yours,--in which case I think it extremely probable that
+you will come off worst from the encounter.'
+
+I reached out for the lever, and the exhibition of electricity
+recommenced. Immediately his tremors were redoubled.
+
+'My lord, I know not of what you talk.'
+
+'None of your lies for me.--Tell me why, at the sight of the thing
+on that sheet of paper, Paul Lessingham went green and yellow.'
+
+'Ask him, my lord.'
+
+'Probably, later on, that is what I shall do. In the meantime, I
+am asking you. Answer,--or look out for squalls.'
+
+The electrical exhibition was going on. He was glaring at it as if
+he wished that it would stop. As if ashamed of his cowardice,
+plainly, on a sudden, he made a desperate effort to get the better
+of his fears,--and succeeded better than I had expected or
+desired. He drew himself up with what, in him, amounted to an air
+of dignity.
+
+'I am a child of Isis!'
+
+It struck me that he made this remark, not so much to impress me,
+as with a view of elevating his own low spirits,
+
+'Are you?--Then, in that case, I regret that I am unable to
+congratulate the lady on her offspring.'
+
+When I said that, a ring came into his voice which I had not heard
+before.
+
+'Silence!--You know not of what you speak!--I warn you, as I
+warned Paul Lessingham, be careful not to go too far. Be not like
+him,--heed my warning.'
+
+'What is it I am being warned against,--the beetle?'
+
+'Yes,--the beetle!'
+
+Were I upon oath, and this statement being made, in the presence
+of witnesses, say, in a solicitor's office, I standing in fear of
+pains and penalties, I think that, at this point, I should leave
+the paper blank. No man likes to own himself a fool, or that he
+ever was a fool,--and ever since I have been wondering whether, on
+that occasion, that 'child of Isis' did, or did not, play the fool
+with me. His performance was realistic enough at the time, heaven
+knows. But, as it gets farther and farther away, I ask myself,
+more and more confidently, as time effluxes, whether, after all,
+it was not clever juggling,--superhumanly clever juggling, if you
+will; that, and nothing more. If it was something more, then, with
+a vengeance! there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of
+in our philosophy. The mere possibility opens vistas which the
+sane mind fears to contemplate.
+
+Since, then, I am not on oath, and, should I fall short of verbal
+accuracy, I do not need to fear the engines of the law, what
+seemed to happen was this.
+
+He was standing within about ten feet of where I leaned against
+the edge of the table. The light was full on, so that it was
+difficult to suppose that I could make a mistake as to what took
+place in front of me. As he replied to my mocking allusion to the
+beetle by echoing my own words, he vanished,--or, rather, I saw
+him taking a different shape before my eyes. His loose draperies
+all fell off him, and, as they were in the very act of falling,
+there issued, or there seemed to issue out of them, a monstrous
+creature of the beetle type,--the man himself was gone. On the
+point of size I wish to make myself clear. My impression, when I
+saw it first, was that it was as large as the man had been, and
+that it was, in some way, standing up on end, the legs towards me.
+But, the moment it came in view, it began to dwindle, and that so
+rapidly that, in a couple of seconds at most, a little heap of
+drapery was lying on the floor, on which was a truly astonishing
+example of the coleoptera. It appeared to be a beetle. It was,
+perhaps, six or seven inches high, and about a foot in length. Its
+scales were of a vivid golden green. I could distinctly see where
+the wings were sheathed along the back, and, as they seemed to be
+slightly agitated, I looked, every moment, to see them opened, and
+the thing take wing.
+
+I was so astonished,--as who would not have been?--that for an
+appreciable space of time I was practically in a state of
+stupefaction. I could do nothing but stare. I was acquainted with
+the legendary transmigrations of Isis, and with the story of the
+beetle which issues from the woman's womb through all eternity,
+and with the other pretty tales, but this, of which I was an
+actual spectator, was something new, even in legends, If the man,
+with whom I had just been speaking, was gone, where had he gone
+to? If this glittering creature was there, in his stead, whence
+had it come?
+
+I do protest this much, that, after the first shock of surprise
+had passed, I retained my presence of mind. I felt as an
+investigator might feel, who has stumbled, haphazard, on some
+astounding, some epoch-making, discovery. I was conscious that I
+should have to make the best use of my mental faculties if I was
+to take full advantage of so astonishing an accident. I kept my
+glance riveted on the creature, with the idea of photographing it
+on my brain. I believe that if it were possible to take a retinal
+print--which it someday will be--you would have a perfect picture
+of what it was I saw, Beyond doubt it was a lamellicorn, one of
+the copridae. With the one exception of its monstrous size, there
+were the characteristics in plain view;--the convex body, the
+large head, the projecting clypeus. More, its smooth head and
+throat seemed to suggest that it was a female. Equally beyond a
+doubt, apart from its size, there were unusual features present
+too. The eyes were not only unwontedly conspicuous, they gleamed
+as if they were lighted by internal flames,--in some indescribable
+fashion they reminded me of my vanished visitor. The colouring was
+superb, and the creature appeared to have the chameleon-like
+faculty of lightening and darkening the shades at will. Its not
+least curious feature was its restlessness. It was in a state of
+continual agitation; and, as if it resented my inspection, the
+more I looked at it the more its agitation grew. As I have said, I
+expected every moment to see it take wing and circle through the
+air.
+
+All the while I was casting about in my mind as to what means I
+could use to effect its capture. I did think of killing it, and,
+on the whole, I rather wish that I had at any rate attempted
+slaughter,--there were dozens of things, lying ready to my hand,
+any one of which would have severely tried its constitution;--but,
+on the spur of the moment, the only method of taking it alive
+which occurred to me, was to pop over it a big tin canister which
+had contained soda-lime. This canister was on the floor to my
+left. I moved towards it, as nonchalantly as I could, keeping an
+eye on that shining wonder all the time. Directly I moved, its
+agitation perceptibly increased,--it was, so to speak, all one
+whirr of tremblement; it scintillated, as if its coloured scales
+had been so many prisms; it began to unsheath its wings, as if it
+had finally decided that it would make use of them. Picking up the
+tin, disembarrassing it of its lid, I sprang towards my intended
+victim. Its wings opened wide; obviously it was about to rise; but
+it was too late. Before it had cleared the ground, the tin was
+over it.
+
+It remained over it, however, for an instant only. I had stumbled,
+in my haste, and, in my effort to save myself from falling face
+foremost on to the floor, I was compelled to remove my hands from
+the tin. Before I was able to replace them, the tin was sent
+flying, and, while I was still partially recumbent, within
+eighteen inches of me, that beetle swelled and swelled, until it
+had assumed its former portentous dimensions, when, as it seemed,
+it was enveloped by a human shape, and in less time than no time,
+there stood in front of me, naked from top to toe, my truly
+versatile oriental friend. One startling fact nudity revealed,--
+that I had been egregiously mistaken on the question of sex. My
+visitor was not a man, but a woman, and, judging from the brief
+glimpse which I had of her body, by no means old or ill-shaped
+either.
+
+If that transformation was not a bewildering one, then two and two
+make five. The most level-headed scientist would temporarily have
+lost his mental equipoise on witnessing such a quick change as
+that within a span or two of his own nose I was not only witless,
+I was breathless too,--I could only gape. And, while I gaped, the
+woman, stooping down, picking up her draperies, began to huddle
+them on her anyhow,--and, also, to skeddadle towards the door
+which led into the yard. When I observed this last manoeuvre, to
+some extent I did rise to the requirements of the situation.
+Leaping up, I rushed to stay her flight.
+
+'Stop!' I shouted.
+
+But she was too quick for me. Ere I could reach her, she had
+opened the door, and was through it,--and, what was more, she had
+slammed it in my face. In my excitement, I did some fumbling with
+the handle. When, in my turn, I was in the yard, she was out of
+sight. I did fancy I saw a dim form disappearing over the wall at
+the further side, and I made for it as fast as I knew how. I
+clambered on to the wall, looking this way and that, but there was
+nothing and no one to be seen. I listened for the sound of
+retreating footsteps, but all was still. Apparently I had the
+entire neighbourhood to my own sweet self. My visitor had
+vanished. Time devoted to pursuit I felt would be time ill-spent.
+
+As I returned across the yard, Woodville, who still was taking his
+rest under the open canopy of heaven, sat up. Seemingly my
+approach had roused him out of slumber. At sight of me he rubbed
+his eyes, and yawned, and blinked.
+
+'I say,' he remarked, not at all unreasonably, 'where am I?'
+
+'You're on holy--or on haunted ground,--hang me if I quite know
+which!--but that's where you are, my boy.'
+
+'By Jove!--I am feeling queer!--I have got a headache, don't you
+know.'
+
+'I shouldn't be in the least surprised at anything you have, or
+haven't,--I'm beyond surprise. It's a drop of whisky you are
+wanting,--and what I'm wanting too,--only, for goodness sake, drop
+me none of your drops! Mine is a case for a bottle at the least.'
+
+I put my arm through his, and went with him into the laboratory.
+And, when we were in, I shut, and locked, and barred the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LADY RAGES
+
+
+Dora Grayling stood in the doorway.
+
+'I told your servant he need not trouble to show me in,--and I've
+come without my aunt. I hope I'm not intruding.'
+
+She was--confoundedly; and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell
+her so. She came into the room, with twinkling eyes, looking
+radiantly happy,--that sort of look which makes even a plain young
+woman prepossessing.
+
+'Am I intruding?--I believe I am.'
+
+She held out her hand, while she was still a dozen feet away, and
+when I did not at once dash forward to make a clutch at it, she
+shook her head and made a little mouth at me.
+
+'What's the matter with you?--Aren't you well?'
+
+I was not well,--I was very far from well. I was as unwell as I
+could be without being positively ill, and any person of common
+discernment would have perceived it at a glance. At the same time
+I was not going to admit anything of the kind to her.
+
+'Thank you,--I am perfectly well.'
+
+'Then, if I were you, I would endeavour to become imperfectly
+well; a little imperfection in that direction might make you
+appear to more advantage.'
+
+'I am afraid that that I am not one of those persons who ever do
+appear to much advantage,--did I not tell you so last night?'
+
+'I believe you did say something of the kind,--it's very good of
+you to remember. Have you forgotten something else which you said
+to me last night?'
+
+'You can hardly expect me to keep fresh in my memory all the
+follies of which my tongue is guilty.'
+
+'Thank you.--That is quite enough.--Good-day.'
+
+She turned as if to go.
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'Mr Atherton?'
+
+'What's the matter?--What have I been saying now?'
+
+'Last night you invited me to come and see you this morning,--is
+that one of the follies of which your tongue was guilty?'
+
+The engagement had escaped my recollection--it is a fact--and my
+face betrayed me.
+
+'You had forgotten?' Her cheeks flamed; her eyes sparkled. 'You
+must pardon my stupidity for not having understood that the
+imitation was of that general kind which is never meant to be
+acted on.'
+
+She was half way to the door before I stopped her,--I had to take
+her by the shoulder to do it.
+
+'Miss Grayling!--You are hard on me.'
+
+'I suppose I am.--Is anything harder than to be intruded on by an
+undesired, and unexpected, guest?'
+
+'Now you are harder still.--If you knew what I have gone through
+since our conversation of last night, in your strength you would
+be merciful.'
+
+'Indeed?--What have you gone through?'
+
+I hesitated. What I actually had gone through I certainly did not
+propose to tell her. Other reasons apart I did not desire to seem
+madder than I admittedly am,--and I lacked sufficient plausibility
+to enable me to concoct, on the spur of the moment, a plain tale
+of the doings of my midnight visitor which would have suggested
+that the narrator was perfectly sane. So I fenced,--or tried to.
+
+'For one thing,--I have had no sleep.'
+
+I had not,--not one single wink. When I did get between the
+sheets, 'all night I lay in agony,' I suffered from that worst
+form of nightmare,--the nightmare of the man who is wide awake.
+There was continually before my fevered eyes the strange figure of
+that Nameless Thing. I had often smiled at tales of haunted folk,
+--here was I one of them. My feelings were not rendered more
+agreeable by a strengthening conviction that if I had only
+retained the normal attitude of a scientific observer I should, in
+all probability, have solved the mystery of my oriental friend,
+and that his example of the genus of copridae might have been
+pinned,--by a very large pin!--on a piece--a monstrous piece!--of
+cork. It was, galling to reflect that he and I had played together
+a game of bluff,--a game at which civilisation was once more
+proved to be a failure.
+
+She could not have seen all this in my face; but she saw
+something--because her own look softened.
+
+'You do look tired.' She seemed to be casting about in her own
+mind for a cause. 'You have been worrying.' She glanced round the
+big laboratory. 'Have you been spending the night in this--
+wizard's cave?'
+
+'Pretty well'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+The monosyllable, as she uttered it, was big with meaning.
+Uninvited, she seated herself in an arm-chair, a huge old thing,
+of shagreen leather, which would have held half a dozen of her.
+Demure in it she looked, like an agreeable reminiscence, alive,
+and a little up-to-date, of the women of long ago. Her dove grey
+eyes seemed to perceive so much more than they cared to show.
+
+'How is it that you have forgotten that you asked me to come?--
+didn't you mean it?'
+
+'Of course I meant it.'
+
+'Then how is it you've forgotten?'
+
+'I didn't forget.'
+
+'Don't tell fibs.--Something is the matter,--tell me what it is.--
+Is it that I am too early?'
+
+'Nothing of the sort,--you couldn't be too early.'
+
+'Thank you.--When you pay a compliment, even so neat an one as
+that, sometimes, you should look as if you meant it.--It is
+early,--I know it's early, but afterwards I want you to come to
+lunch. I told aunt that I would bring you back with me.'
+
+'You are much better to me than I deserve.'
+
+'Perhaps.' A tone came into her voice which was almost pathetic.
+'I think that to some men women are almost better than they
+deserve. I don't know why. I suppose it pleases them. It is odd.'
+There was a different intonation,--a dryness. 'Have you forgotten
+what I came for?'
+
+'Not a bit of it,--I am not quite the brute I seem. You came to
+see an illustration of that pleasant little fancy of mine for
+slaughtering my fellows. The fact is, I'm hardly in a mood for
+that just now,--I've been illustrating it too much already.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Well, for one thing it's been murdering Lessingham's cat.'
+
+'Mr Lessingham's cat?'
+
+'Then it almost murdered Percy Woodville.'
+
+'Mr Atherton!--I wish you wouldn't talk like that.'
+
+'It's a fact. It was a question of a little matter in a wrong
+place, and, if it hadn't been for something very like a miracle,
+he'd be dead.'
+
+'I wish you wouldn't have anything to do with such things--I hate
+them.'
+
+I stared.
+
+'Hate them?--I thought you'd come to see an illustration.'
+
+'And pray what was your notion of an illustration?'
+
+'Well, another cat would have had to be killed, at least.'
+
+'And do you suppose that I would have sat still while a cat was
+being killed for my--edification?'
+
+'It needn't necessarily have been a cat, but something would have
+had to be killed,--how are you going to illustrate the death-
+dealing propensities of a weapon of that sort without it?'
+
+'Is it possible that you imagine that I came here to see something
+killed?'
+
+'Then for what did you come?'
+
+I do not know what there was about the question which was
+startling, but as soon as it was out, she went a fiery red.
+
+'Because I was a fool.'
+
+I was bewildered. Either she had got out of the wrong side of bed,
+or I had,--or we both had. Here she was, assailing me, hammer and
+tongs, so far as I could see, for absolutely nothing.
+
+'You are pleased to be satirical at my expense.'
+
+'I should not dare. Your detection of me would be so painfully
+rapid.'
+
+I was in no mood for jangling. I turned a little away from her.
+Immediately she was at my elbow.
+
+'Mr Atherton?'
+
+'Miss Grayling.'
+
+'Are you cross with me?'
+
+'Why should I be? If it pleases you to laugh at my stupidity you
+are completely justified.'
+
+'But you are not stupid.'
+
+'No?--Nor you satirical.'
+
+'You are not stupid,--you know you are not stupid; it was only
+stupidity on my part to pretend that you were.'
+
+'It is very good of you to say so.--But I fear that I am an
+indifferent host. Although you would not care for an illustration,
+there may be other things which you might find amusing.'
+
+'Why do you keep on snubbing me?'
+
+'I keep on snubbing you!'
+
+'You are always snubbing me,--you know you are. Some times I feel
+as if I hated you.'
+
+'Miss Grayling!'
+
+'I do! I do! I do!'
+
+'After all, it is only natural.'
+
+'That is how you talk,--as if I were a child, and you were,--oh I
+don't know what.--Well, Mr Atherton, I am sorry to be obliged to
+leave you. I have enjoyed my visit very much. I only hope I have
+not seemed too intrusive.'
+
+She flounced--'flounce' was the only appropriate word!--out of the
+room before I could stop her. I caught her in the passage.
+
+'Miss Grayling, I entreat you--'
+
+'Pray do not entreat me, Mr Atherton.' Standing still she turned
+to me. 'I would rather show myself to the door as I showed myself
+in, but, if that is impossible, might I ask you not to speak to me
+between this and the street?'
+
+The hint was broad enough, even for me. I escorted her through the
+hall without a word,--in perfect silence she shook the dust of my
+abode from off her feet.
+
+I had made a pretty mess of things. I felt it as I stood on the
+top of the steps and watched her going,--she was walking off at
+four miles an hour; I had not even ventured to ask to be allowed
+to call a hansom.
+
+It was beginning to occur to me that this was a case in which
+another blow upon the river might be, to say the least of it,
+advisable--and I was just returning into the house with the
+intention of putting myself into my flannels, when a cab drew up,
+and old Lindon got out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A HEAVY FATHER
+
+
+Mr Lindon was excited,--there is no mistaking it when he is,
+because with him excitement means perspiration, and as soon as he
+was out of the cab he took off his hat and began to wipe the
+lining.
+
+'Atherton, I want to speak to you--most particularly--somewhere in
+private.'
+
+I took him into my laboratory. It is my rule to take no one there;
+it is a workshop, not a playroom,--the place is private; but,
+recently, my rules had become dead letters. Directly he was
+inside, Lindon began puffing and stewing, wiping his forehead,
+throwing out his chest, as if he were oppressed by a sense of his
+own importance. Then he started off talking at the top of his
+voice,--and it is not a low one either.
+
+'Atherton, I--I've always looked on you as a--a kind of a son.'
+
+'That's very kind of you.'
+
+'I've always regarded you as a--a level-headed fellow; a man from
+whom sound advice can be obtained when sound advice--is--is most
+to be desired.'
+
+'That also is very kind of you.'
+
+'And therefore I make no apology for coming to you at--at what may
+be regarded as a--a strictly domestic crisis; at a moment in the
+history of the Lindons when delicacy and common sense are--are
+essentially required.'
+
+This time I contented myself with nodding. Already I perceived
+what was coming; somehow, when I am with a man I feel so much more
+clear-headed than I do when I am with a woman,--realise so much
+better the nature of the ground on which I am standing.
+
+'What do you know of this man Lessingham?'
+
+I knew it was coming.
+
+'What all the world knows.'
+
+'And what does all the world know of him?--I ask you that! A
+flashy, plausible, shallow-pated, carpet-bagger,--that is what all
+the world knows of him. The man's a political adventurer,--he
+snatches a precarious, and criminal, notoriety, by trading on the
+follies of his fellow-countrymen. He is devoid of decency,
+destitute of principle, and impervious to all the feelings of a
+gentleman. What do you know of him besides this?'
+
+'I am not prepared to admit that I do know that.'
+
+'Oh yes you do!--don't talk nonsense!--you choose to screen the
+fellow! I say what I mean,--I always have said, and I always shall
+say.--What do you know of him outside politics,--of his family--of
+his private life?'
+
+'Well,--not very much.'
+
+'Of course you don't!--nor does anybody else! The man's a
+mushroom,--or a toadstool, rather!--sprung up in the course of a
+single night, apparently out of some dirty ditch.--Why, sir, not
+only is he without ordinary intelligence, he is even without a
+Brummagen substitute for manners.'
+
+He had worked himself into a state of heat in which his
+countenance presented a not too agreeable assortment of scarlets
+and purples. He flung himself into a chair, threw his coat wide
+open, and his arms too, and started off again.
+
+'The family of the Lindons is, at this moment, represented by a--a
+young woman,--by my daughter, sir. She represents me, and it's her
+duty to represent me adequately--adequately, sir! And what's more,
+between ourselves, sir, it's her duty to marry. My property's my
+own, and I wouldn't have it pass to either of my confounded
+brothers on any account. They're next door to fools, and--and they
+don't represent me in any possible sense of the word. My daughter,
+sir, can marry whom she pleases,--whom she pleases! There's no one
+in England, peer or commoner, who would not esteem it an honour to
+have her for his wife--I've told her so,--yes, sir, I've told her,
+though you--you'd think that she, of all people in the world,
+wouldn't require telling. Yet what do you think she does? She--she
+actually carries on what I--I can't help calling a--a compromising
+acquaintance with this man Lessingham!'
+
+'No!'
+
+'But I say yes!--and I wish to heaven I didn't. I--I've warned her
+against the scoundrel more than once; I--I've told her to cut him
+dead. And yet, as--as you saw yourself, last night, in--in the
+face of the assembled House of Commons, after that twaddling clap-
+trap speech of his, in which there was not one sound sentiment,
+nor an idea which--which would hold water, she positively went
+away with him, in--in the most ostentatious and--and disgraceful
+fashion, on--on his arm, and--and actually snubbed her father.--It
+is monstrous that a parent--a father!--should be subjected to such
+treatment by his child.'
+
+The poor old boy polished his brow with his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+'When I got home I--I told her what I thought of her, I promise
+you that,--and I told her what I thought of him,--I didn't mince
+my words with her. There are occasions when plain speaking is
+demanded,--and that was one. I positively forbade her to speak to
+the fellow again, or to recognise him if she met him in the
+street. I pointed out to her, with perfect candour, that the
+fellow was an infernal scoundrel,--that and nothing else!--and
+that he would bring disgrace on whoever came into contact with
+him, even with the end of a barge pole.--And what do you think she
+said?'
+
+'She promised to obey you, I make no doubt.'
+
+'Did she, sir!--By gad, did she!--That shows how much you know
+her!--She said, and, by gad, by her manner, and--and the way she
+went on, you'd--you'd have thought that she was the parent and I
+was the child--she said that I--I grieved her, that she was
+disappointed in me, that times have changed,--yes, sir, she said
+that times have changed!--that, nowadays, parents weren't Russian
+autocrats--no, sir, not Russian autocrats!--that--that she was
+sorry she couldn't oblige me,--yes, sir, that was how she put it,
+--she was sorry she couldn't oblige me, but it was altogether out
+of the question to suppose that she could put a period to a
+friendship which she valued, simply on account of-of my
+unreasonable prejudices,--and--and--and, in short, she--she told
+me to go the devil, sir!'
+
+'And did you--'
+
+I was on the point of asking him if he went,--but I checked myself
+in time.
+
+'Let us look at the matter as men of the world. What do you know
+against Lessingham, apart from his politics?'
+
+'That's just it,--I know nothing.'
+
+'In a sense, isn't that in his favour?'
+
+'I don't see how you make that out. I--I don't mind telling you
+that I--I've had inquiries made. He's not been in the House six
+years--this is his second Parliament--he's jumped up like a Jack-
+in-the-box. His first constituency was Harwich--they've got him
+still, and much good may he do 'em!--but how he came to stand for
+the place,--or who, or what, or where he was before he stood for
+the place, no one seems to have the faintest notion.'
+
+'Hasn't he been a great traveller?'
+
+'I never heard of it.'
+
+'Not in the East?'
+
+'Has he told you so?'
+
+'No,--I was only wondering, Well, it seems to me that to find out
+that nothing is known against him is something in his favour!'
+
+'My dear Sydney, don't talk nonsense. What it proves is simply,--
+that he's a nothing and a nobody. Had he been anything or anyone,
+something would have been known about him, either for or against.
+I don't want my daughter to marry a man who--who--who's shot up
+through a trap, simply because nothing is known against him. Ha-
+hang me, if I wouldn't ten times sooner she should marry you.'
+
+When he said that, my heart leaped in my bosom. I had to turn
+away.
+
+'I am afraid that is out of the question.'
+
+He stopped in his tramping, and looked at me askance.
+
+'Why?'
+
+I felt that, if I was not careful, I should be done for,--and,
+probably, in his present mood, Marjorie too.
+
+'My dear Lindon, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for
+your suggestion, but I can only repeat that--unfortunately,
+anything of the kind is out of the question.'
+
+'I don't see why.'
+
+'Perhaps not.'
+
+'You--you're a pretty lot, upon my word!'
+
+'I'm afraid we are.'
+
+'I--I want you to tell her that Lessingham is a damned scoundrel.'
+
+'I see.--But I would suggest that if I am to use the influence
+with which you credit me to the best advantage, or to preserve a
+shred of it, I had hardly better state the fact quite so bluntly
+as that.'
+
+'I don't care how you state it,--state it as you like. Only--only
+I want you to soak her mind with a loathing of the fellow; I--I--I
+want you to paint him in his true colours; in--in--in fact, I--I
+want you to choke him off.'
+
+While he still struggled with his words, and with the perspiration
+on his brow, Edwards entered. I turned to him.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Miss Lindon, sir, wishes to see you particularly, and at once.'
+
+At that moment I found the announcement a trifle perplexing,--it
+delighted Lindon. He began to stutter and to stammer.
+
+'T-the very thing!--c-couldn't have been better!--show her in
+here! H--hide me somewhere,--I don't care where,--behind that
+screen! Y-you use your influence with her;--g-give her a good
+talking to;--t-tell her what I've told you; and at--at the
+critical moment I'll come in, and then--then if we can't manage
+her between us, it'll be a wonder.'
+
+The proposition staggered me.
+
+'But, my dear Mr Lindon, I fear that I cannot--'
+
+He cut me short.
+
+'Here she comes!'
+
+Ere I could stop him he was behind the screen,--I had not seen him
+move with such agility before!--and before I could expostulate
+Marjorie was in the room. Something which was in her bearing, in
+her face, in her eyes, quickened the beating of my pulses,--she
+looked as if something had come into her life, and taken the joy
+clean out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE TERROR IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+'Sydney!' she cried, 'I'm so glad that I can see you!'
+
+She might be,--but, at that moment, I could scarcely assert that I
+was a sharer of her joy.
+
+'I told you that if trouble overtook me I should come to you, and
+--I'm in trouble now. Such strange trouble.'
+
+So was I,--and in perplexity as well. An idea occurred to me,--I
+would outwit her eavesdropping father.
+
+'Come with me into the house,--tell me all about it there.'
+
+She refused to budge.
+
+'No,--I will tell you all about it here.' She looked about her,--
+as it struck me queerly. 'This is just the sort of place in which
+to unfold a tale like mine. It looks uncanny.'
+
+'But--'
+
+'"But me no buts!" Sydney, don't torture me,--let me stop here
+where I am,--don't you see I'm haunted?'
+
+She had seated herself. Now she stood up, holding her hands out in
+front of her in a state of extraordinary agitation, her manner as
+wild as her words.
+
+'Why are you staring at me like that? Do you think I'm mad?--I
+wonder if I'm going mad.--Sydney, do people suddenly go mad?
+You're a bit of everything, you're a bit of a doctor too, feel my
+pulse,--there it is!--tell me if I'm ill!'
+
+I felt her pulse,--it did not need its swift beating to inform me
+that fever of some sort was in her veins. I gave her something in
+a glass. She held it up to the level of her eyes.
+
+'What's this?'
+
+'It's a decoction of my own. You might not think it, but my brain
+sometimes gets into a whirl. I use it as a sedative. It will do
+you good.'
+
+She drained the glass.
+
+'It's done me good already,--I believe it has; that's being
+something like a doctor.--Well, Sydney, the storm has almost
+burst. Last night papa forbade me to speak to Paul Lessingham--by
+way of a prelude.'
+
+'Exactly. Mr Lindon---'
+
+'Yes, Mr Lindon,--that's papa. I fancy we almost quarrelled. I
+know papa said some surprising things,--but it's a way he has,--
+he's apt to say surprising things. He's the best father in the
+world, but--it's not in his nature to like a really clever person;
+your good high dried old Tory never can;--I've always thought that
+that's why he's so fond of you.'
+
+'Thank you, I presume that is the reason, though it had not
+occurred to me before.'
+
+Since her entry, I had, to the best of my ability, been turning
+the position over in my mind. I came to the conclusion that, all
+things considered, her father had probably as much right to be a
+sharer of his daughter's confidence as I had, even from the
+vantage of the screen,--and that for him to hear a few home truths
+proceeding from her lips might serve to clear the air. From such a
+clearance the lady would not be likely to come off worst. I had
+not the faintest inkling of what was the actual purport of her
+visit.
+
+She started off, as it seemed to me, at a tangent.
+
+'Did I tell you last night about what took place yesterday
+morning,--about the adventure of my finding the man?'
+
+'Not a word.'
+
+'I believe I meant to,--I'm half disposed to think he's brought me
+trouble. Isn't there some superstition about evil befalling
+whoever shelters a homeless stranger?'
+
+'We'll hope not, for humanity's sake.'
+
+'I fancy there is,--I feel sure there is.--Anyhow, listen to my
+story. Yesterday morning, before breakfast,--to be accurate,
+between eight and nine, I looked out of the window, and I saw a
+crowd in the street. I sent Peter out to see what was the matter.
+He came back and said there was a man in a fit. I went out to look
+at the man in the fit. I found, lying on the ground, in the centre
+of the crowd, a man who, but for the tattered remnants of what had
+apparently once been a cloak, would have been stark naked. He was
+covered with dust, and dirt, and blood,--a dreadful sight. As you
+know, I have had my smattering of instruction in First Aid to the
+Injured, and that kind of thing, so, as no one else seemed to have
+any sense, and the man seemed as good as dead, I thought I would
+try my hand. Directly I knelt down beside him, what do you think
+he said?'
+
+'Thank you.'
+
+'Nonsense.--He said, in such a queer, hollow, croaking voice,
+"Paul Lessingham." I was dreadfully startled. To hear a perfect
+stranger, a man in his condition, utter that name in such a
+fashion--to me, of all people in the world!--took me aback. The
+policeman who was holding his head remarked, "That's the first
+time he's opened his mouth. I thought he was dead." He opened his
+mouth a second time. A convulsive movement went all over him, and
+he exclaimed, with the strangest earnestness, and so loudly that
+you might have heard him at the other end of the street, "Be
+warned, Paul Lessingham, be warned!" It was very silly of me,
+perhaps, but I cannot tell you how his words, and his manner--the
+two together--affected me.--Well, the long and the short of it
+was, that I had him taken into the house, and washed, and put to
+bed,--and I had the doctor sent for. The doctor could make nothing
+of it at all. He reported that the man seemed to be suffering from
+some sort of cataleptic seizure,--I could see that he thought it
+likely to turn out almost as interesting a case as I did.'
+
+'Did you acquaint your father with the addition to his household?'
+
+She looked at me, quizzically.
+
+'You see, when one has such a father as mine one cannot tell him
+everything, at once. There are occasions on which one requires
+time.'
+
+I felt that this would be wholesome hearing for old Lindon.
+
+'Last night, after papa and I had exchanged our little
+courtesies,--which, it is to be hoped, were to papa's
+satisfaction, since they were not to be mine--I went to see the
+patient. I was told that he had neither eaten nor drunk, moved nor
+spoken. But, so soon as I approached his bed, he showed signs of
+agitation. He half raised himself upon his pillow, and he called
+out, as if he had been addressing some large assembly--I can't
+describe to you the dreadful something which was in his voice, and
+on his face,--"Paul Lessingham!--Beware!--The Beetle!"'
+
+When she said that, I was startled.
+
+'Are you sure those were the words he used?'
+
+'Quite sure. Do you think I could mistake them,--especially after
+what has happened since? I hear them singing in my ears,--they
+haunt me all the time.'
+
+She put her hands up to her face, as if to veil something from her
+eyes. I was becoming more and more convinced that there was
+something about the Apostle's connection with his Oriental friend
+which needed probing to the bottom.
+
+'What sort of a man is he to look at, this patient of yours?'
+
+I had my doubts as to the gentleman's identity,--which her words
+dissolved; only, however, to increase my mystification in another
+direction.
+
+'He seems to be between thirty and forty. He has light hair, and
+straggling sandy whiskers. He is so thin as to be nothing but skin
+and bone,--the doctor says it's a case of starvation.'
+
+'You say he has light hair, and sandy whiskers. Are you sure the
+whiskers are real?'
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+'Of course they're real. Why shouldn't they be real?'
+
+'Does he strike you as being a--foreigner?'
+
+'Certainly not. He looks like an Englishman, and he speaks like
+one, and not, I should say, of the lowest class. It is true that
+there is a very curious, a weird, quality in his voice, what I
+have heard of it, but it is not un-English. If it is catalepsy he
+is suffering from, then it is a kind of catalepsy I never heard
+of. Have you ever seen a clairvoyant?' I nodded. 'He seems to me
+to be in a state of clairvoyance. Of course the doctor laughed
+when I told him so, but we know what doctors are, and I still
+believe that he is in some condition of the kind. When he said
+that last night he struck me as being under what those sort of
+people call 'influence,' and that whoever had him under influence
+was forcing him to speak against his will, for the words came from
+his lips as if they had been wrung from him in agony.'
+
+Knowing what I did know, that struck me as being rather a
+remarkable conclusion for her to have reached, by the exercise of
+her own unaided powers of intuition,--but I did not choose to let
+her know I thought so.
+
+'My dear Marjorie!--you who pride yourself on having your
+imagination so strictly under control!--on suffering it to take no
+errant flights!'
+
+'Is not the fact that I do so pride myself proof that I am not
+likely to make assertions wildly,--proof, at any rate, to you?
+Listen to me. When I left that unfortunate creature's room,--I had
+had a nurse sent for, I left him in her charge--and reached my own
+bedroom, I was possessed by a profound conviction that some
+appalling, intangible, but very real danger, was at that moment
+threatening Paul.'
+
+'Remember,--you had had an exciting evening; and a discussion with
+your father. Your patient's words came as a climax.'
+
+'That is what I told myself,--or, rather, that was what I tried to
+tell myself; because, in some extraordinary fashion, I had lost
+the command of my powers of reflection.'
+
+'Precisely.'
+
+'It was not precisely,--or, at least, it was not precisely in the
+sense you mean. You may laugh at me, Sydney, but I had an
+altogether indescribable feeling, a feeling which amounted to
+knowledge, that I was in the presence of the supernatural.'
+
+'Nonsense!'
+
+'It was not nonsense,--I wish it had been nonsense. As I have
+said, I was conscious, completely conscious, that some frightful
+peril was assailing Paul. I did not know what it was, but I did
+know that it was something altogether awful, of which merely to
+think was to shudder. I wanted to go to his assistance, I tried
+to, more than once; but I couldn't, and I knew that I couldn't,--I
+knew that I couldn't move as much as a finger to help him.--Stop,
+--let me finish!--I told myself that it was absurd, but it wouldn't
+do; absurd or not, there was the terror with me in the room. I
+knelt down, and I prayed, but the words wouldn't come. I tried to
+ask God to remove this burden from my brain, but my longings
+wouldn't shape themselves into words, and my tongue was palsied. I
+don't know how long I struggled, but, at last, I came to
+understand that, for some cause, God had chosen to leave me to
+fight the fight alone. So I got up, and undressed, and went to
+bed,--and that was the worst of all. I had sent my maid away in
+the first rush of my terror, afraid, and, I think, ashamed, to let
+her see my fear. Now I would have given anything to summon her
+back again, but I couldn't do it, I couldn't even ring the bell.
+So, as I say, I got into bed.'
+
+She paused, as if to collect her thoughts. To listen to her words,
+and to think of the suffering which they meant to her, was almost
+more than I could endure. I would have thrown away the world to
+have been able to take her in my arms, and soothe her fears. I
+knew her to be, in general, the least hysterical of young women;
+little wont to become the prey of mere delusions; and, incredible
+though it sounded, I had an innate conviction that, even in its
+wildest periods, her story had some sort of basis in solid fact.
+What that basis amounted to, it would be my business, at any and
+every cost, quickly to determine.
+
+'You know how you have always laughed at me because of my
+objection to--cockroaches, and how, in spring, the neighbourhood
+of May-bugs has always made me uneasy. As soon as I got into bed I
+felt that something of the kind was in the room.'
+
+'Something of what kind?'
+
+'Some kind of--beetle. I could hear the whirring of its wings; I
+could hear its droning in the air; I knew that it was hovering
+above my head; that it was coming lower and lower, nearer and
+nearer. I hid myself; I covered myself all over with the clothes,
+--then I felt it bumping against the coverlet. And, Sydney!' She
+drew closer. Her blanched cheeks and frightened eyes made my heart
+bleed. Her voice became but an echo of itself. 'It followed me.'
+
+'Marjorie!'
+
+'It got into the bed.'
+
+'You imagined it.'
+
+'I didn't imagine it. I heard it crawl along the sheets, till it
+found a way between them, and then it crawled towards me. And I
+felt it--against my face.--And it's there now.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+She raised the forefinger of her left hand.
+
+'There!--Can't you hear it droning?'
+
+She listened, intently. I listened too. Oddly enough, at that
+instant the droning of an insect did become audible.
+
+'It's only a bee, child, which has found its way through the open
+window.'
+
+'I wish it were only a bee, I wish it were.--Sydney, don't you
+feel as if you were in the presence of evil? Don't you want to get
+away from it, back into the presence of God?'
+
+'Marjorie!'
+
+'Pray, Sydney, pray!--I can't!--I don't know why, but I can't!
+
+She flung her arms about my neck, and pressed herself against me
+in paroxysmal agitation. The violence of her emotion bade fair to
+unman me too. It was so unlike Marjorie,--and I would have given
+my life to save her from a toothache. She kept repeating her own
+words,--as if she could not help it.
+
+'Pray, Sydney, pray!'
+
+At last I did as she wished me. At least, there is no harm in
+praying,--I never heard of its bringing hurt to anyone. I repeated
+aloud the Lord's Prayer,---the first time for I know not how long.
+As the divine sentences came from my lips, hesitatingly enough, I
+make no doubt, her tremors ceased. She became calmer. Until, as I
+reached the last great petition, 'Deliver us from evil,' she
+loosed her arms from about my neck, and dropped upon her knees,
+close to my feet. And she joined me in the closing words, as a
+sort of chorus.
+
+'For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever and
+ever. Amen.'
+
+When the prayer was ended, we both of us were still. She with her
+head bowed, and her hands clasped; and I with something tugging at
+my heart-strings which I had not felt there for many and many a
+year, almost as if it had been my mother's hand;--I daresay that
+sometimes she does stretch out her hand, from her place among the
+angels, to touch my heart-strings, and I know nothing of it all
+the while.
+
+As the silence still continued, I chanced to glance up, and there
+was old Lindon peeping at us from his hiding-place behind the
+screen. The look of amazed perplexity which was on his big red
+face struck me with such a keen sense of the incongruous that it
+was all I could do to keep from laughter Apparently the sight of
+us did nothing to lighten the fog which was in his brain, for he
+stammered out, in what was possibly intended for a whisper,
+
+'Is--is she m-mad?'
+
+The whisper,--if it was meant for a whisper--was more than
+sufficiently audible to catch his daughter's ears. She started--
+raised her head--sprang to her feet--turned--and saw her father.
+
+'Papa!'
+
+Immediately her sire was seized with an access of stuttering.
+
+'W-w-what the d-devil's the--the m-m-meaning of this?'
+
+Her utterance was clear enough,--I fancy her parent found it
+almost painfully clear.
+
+'Rather it is for me to ask, what is the meaning of this! Is it
+possible, that, all the time, you have actually been concealed
+behind that--screen?'
+
+Unless I am mistaken the old gentleman cowered before the
+directness of his daughter's gaze,--and endeavoured to conceal the
+fact by an explosion of passion.
+
+Do-don't you s-speak to me li-like that, you un-undutiful girl!
+I--I'm your father!'
+
+'You certainly are my father; though I was unaware until now that
+my father was capable of playing the part of eavesdropper.'
+
+Rage rendered him speechless,--or, at any rate, he chose to let us
+believe that that was the determining cause of his continuing
+silent. So Marjorie turned to me,--and, on the whole, I had rather
+she had not. Her manner was very different from what it had been
+just now,--it was more than civil, it was freezing.
+
+'Am I to understand, Mr Atherton, that this has been done with
+your cognisance? That while you suffered me to pour out my heart
+to you unchecked, you were aware, all the time, that there was a
+listener behind the screen?'
+
+I became keenly aware, on a sudden, that I had borne my share in
+playing her a very shabby trick,--I should have liked to throw old
+Lindon through the window.
+
+'The thing was not of my contriving. Had I had the opportunity I
+would have compelled Mr Lindon to face you when you came in. But
+your distress caused me to lose my balance. And you will do me the
+justice to remember that I endeavoured to induce you to come with
+me into another room.'
+
+'But I do not seem to remember your hinting at there being any
+particular reason why I should have gone.'
+
+'You never gave me a chance.'
+
+'Sydney!--I had not thought you would have played me such a
+trick!'
+
+When she said that--in such a tone!--the woman whom I loved!--I
+could have hammered my head against the wall. The hound I was to
+have treated her so scurvily!
+
+Perceiving I was crushed she turned again to face her father,
+cool, calm, stately;--she was, on a sudden, once more, the
+Marjorie with whom I was familiar. The demeanour of parent and
+child was in striking contrast. If appearances went for aught, the
+odds were heavy that in any encounter which might be coming the
+senior would suffer.
+
+'I hope, papa, that you are going to tell me that there has been
+some curious mistake, and that nothing was farther from your
+intention than to listen at a keyhole. What would you have
+thought--and said--if I had attempted to play the spy on you? And
+I have always understood that men were so particular on points of
+honour.'
+
+Old Lindon was still hardly fit to do much else than splutter,--
+certainly not qualified to chop phrases with this sharp-tongued
+maiden.
+
+'D-don't talk to me li-like that, girl!--I--I believe you're s-
+stark mad!' He turned to me. 'W-what was that tomfoolery she was
+talking to you about?'
+
+'To what do you allude?'
+
+'About a rub-rubbishing b-beetle, and g-goodness alone knows
+what,--d-diseased and m-morbid imagination,--r-reared on the
+literature of the gutter!--I never thought that a child of mine
+could have s-sunk to such a depth!--Now, Atherton, I ask you to t-
+tell me frankly,--what do you think of a child who behaves as she
+has done? who t-takes a nameless vagabond into the house and con-
+conceals his presence from her father? And m-mark the sequel! even
+the vagabond warns her against the r-rascal Lessingham!--Now,
+Atherton, tell me what you think of a girl who behaves like that?'
+I shrugged my shoulders. 'I--I know very well what you d-do think
+of her,--don't be afraid to say it out because she's present.'
+
+'No; Sydney, don't be afraid.'
+
+I saw that her eyes were dancing,--in a manner of speaking, her
+looks brightened under the sunshine of her father's displeasure.
+
+'Let's hear what you think of her as a--as a m-man of the world!'
+
+'Pray, Sydney, do!'
+
+'What you feel for her in your--your heart of hearts!'
+
+'Yes, Sydney, what do you feel for me in your heart of hearts?'
+
+The baggage beamed with heartless sweetness,--she was making a
+mock of me. Her father turned as if he would have rent her.
+
+'D-don't you speak until you're spoken to! Atherton, I--I hope I'm
+not deceived in you; I--I hope you're the man I--I took you for;
+that you're willing and--and ready to play the part of a-a-an
+honest friend to this mis-misguided simpleton. T-this is not the
+time for mincing words, it--it's the time for candid speech. Tell
+this--this weak minded young woman, right out, whether this man
+Lessingham is, or is not, a damned scoundrel.'
+
+'Papa!--Do you really think that Sydney's opinion, or your
+opinion, is likely to alter facts?'
+
+'Do you hear, Atherton, tell this wretched girl the truth!'
+
+'My dear Mr Lindon, I have already told you that I know nothing
+either for or against Mr Lessingham except what is known to all
+the world.'
+
+'Exactly,--and all the world knows him to be a miserable
+adventurer who is scheming to entrap my daughter.'
+
+'I am bound to say, since you press me, that your language appears
+to me to be unnecessarily strong.'
+
+'Atherton, I--I'm ashamed of you!'
+
+'You see, Sydney, even papa is ashamed of you; now you are outside
+the pale.--My dear papa, if you will allow me to speak, I will
+tell you what I know to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
+but the truth.--That Mr Lessingham is a man with great gifts goes
+without saying,--permit me, papa! He is a man of genius. He is a
+man of honour. He is a man of the loftiest ambitions, of the
+highest aims. He has dedicated his whole life to the improvement
+of the conditions amidst which the less fortunate of his fellow
+countrymen are at present compelled to exist. That seems to me to
+be an object well worth having. He has asked me to share his life-
+work, and I have told him that I will; when, and where, and how,
+he wants me to. And I will. I do not suppose his life has been
+free from peccadilloes. I have no delusion on the point. What
+man's life has? Who among men can claim to be without sin? Even
+the members of our highest families sometimes hide behind screens.
+But I know that he is, at least, as good a man as I ever met, I am
+persuaded that I shall never meet a better; and I thank God that I
+have found favour in his eyes.--Good-bye, Sydney.--I suppose I
+shall see you again, papa.'
+
+With the merest inclination of her head to both of us she
+straightway left the room. Lindon would have stopped her.
+
+'S-stay, y-y-y-you--' he stuttered.
+
+But I caught him by the arm.
+
+'If you will be advised by me, you will let her go. No good
+purpose will be served by a multiplication of words.'
+
+'Atherton, I--I'm disappointed in you. You--you haven't behaved as
+I expected. I--I haven't received from you the assistance which I
+looked for.'
+
+'My dear Lindon, it seems to me that your method of diverting the
+young lady from the path which she has set herself to tread is
+calculated to send her furiously along it.'
+
+'C-confound the women! c-confound the women! I don't mind telling
+you, in c-confidence, that at--at times, her mother was the devil,
+and I'll be--I'll be hanged if her daughter isn't worse.--What was
+the tomfoolery she was talking to you about? Is she mad?'
+
+'No,--I don't think she's mad.'
+
+'I never heard such stuff, it made my blood run cold to hear her.
+What's the matter with the girl?'
+
+'Well,--you must excuse my saying that I don't fancy you quite
+understand women.'
+
+'I--I don't,--and I--I--I don't want to either.'
+
+I hesitated; then resolved on a taradiddle,--in Marjorie's
+interest.
+
+'Marjorie is high-strung,--extremely sensitive. Her imagination is
+quickly aflame. Perhaps, last night, you drove her as far as was
+safe. You heard for yourself how, in consequence, she suffered.
+You don't want people to say you have driven her into a lunatic
+asylum.'
+
+'I--good heavens, no! I--I'll send for the doctor directly I get
+home,--I--I'll have the best opinion in town.'
+
+'You'll do nothing of the kind,--you'll only make her worse. What
+you have to do is to be patient with her, and let her have peace.
+--As for this affair of Lessingham's, I have a suspicion that it
+may not be all such plain sailing as she supposes.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'I mean nothing. I only wish you to understand that until you hear
+from me again you had better let matters slide. Give the girl her
+head.'
+
+'Give the girl her head! H-haven't I--I g-given the g-girl her h-
+head all her l-life!' He looked at his watch. 'Why, the day's half
+gone!' He began scurrying towards the front door, I following at
+his heels. 'I've got a committee meeting on at the club,--m-most
+important! For weeks they've been giving us the worst food you
+ever tasted in your life,--p-played havoc with my digestion, and
+I--I'm going to tell them if--things aren't changed, they--they'll
+have to pay my doctor's bills.--As for that man, Lessingham--'
+
+As he spoke, he himself opened the hall door, and there, standing
+on the step was 'that man Lessingham' himself. Lindon was a
+picture. The Apostle was as cool as a cucumber. He held out his
+hand.
+
+'Good morning, Mr Lindon. What delightful weather we are having.'
+
+Lindon put his hand behind his back,--and behaved as stupidly as
+he very well could have done.
+
+'You will understand, Mr Lessingham, that, in future, I don't know
+you, and that I shall decline to recognise you anywhere; and that
+what I say applies equally to any member of my family.'
+
+With his hat very much on the back of his head he went down the
+steps like an inflated turkeycock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE HAUNTED MAN
+
+
+To have received the cut discourteous from his future father-in-
+law might have been the most commonplace of incidents,--Lessingham
+evinced not a trace of discomposure. So far as I could judge, he
+took no notice of the episode whatever, behaving exactly as if
+nothing had happened. He merely waited till Mr Lindon was well off
+the steps; then, turning to me, he placidly observed,
+
+'Interrupting you again, you see.--May I?'
+
+The sight of him had set up such a turmoil in my veins, that, for
+the moment, I could not trust myself to speak. I felt, acutely,
+that an explanation with him was, of all things, the thing most to
+be desired,--and that quickly. Providence could not have thrown
+him more opportunely in the way. If, before he went away, we did
+not understand each other a good deal more clearly, upon certain
+points, the fault should not be mine. Without a responsive word,
+turning on my heels, I led the way into the laboratory.
+
+Whether he noticed anything peculiar in my demeanour, I could not
+tell. Within he looked about him with that purely facial smile,
+the sight of which had always engendered in me a certain distrust
+of him.
+
+'Do you always receive visitors in here?'
+
+'By no means.'
+
+'What is this?'
+
+Stooping down, he picked up something from the floor. It was a
+lady's purse,--a gorgeous affair, of crimson leather and gleaming
+gold. Whether it was Marjorie's or Miss Grayling's I could not
+tell. He watched me as I examined it.
+
+'Is it yours?'
+
+'No. It is not mine.'
+
+Placing his hat and umbrella on one chair, he placed himself upon
+another,--very leisurely. Crossing his legs, laying his folded
+hands upon his knees, he sat and looked at me. I was quite
+conscious of his observation; but endured it in silence, being a
+little wishful that he should begin.
+
+Presently he had, as I suppose, enough of looking at me, and
+spoke.
+
+'Atherton, what is the matter with you?--Have I done something to
+offend you too?'
+
+'Why do you ask?'
+
+'Your manner seems a little singular.'
+
+'You think so?'
+
+'I do.'
+
+'What have you come to see me about?'
+
+'Just now, nothing.--I like to know where I stand.'
+
+His manner was courteous, easy, even graceful. I was
+outmanoeuvred. I understood the man sufficiently well to be aware
+that when once he was on the defensive, the first blow would have
+to come from me. So I struck it.
+
+'I, also, like to know where I stand.--Lessingham, I am aware, and
+you know that I am aware, that you have made certain overtures to
+Miss Lindon. That is a fact in which I am keenly interested.'
+
+'As--how?'
+
+'The Lindons and the Athertons are not the acquaintances of one
+generation only. Marjorie Lindon and I have been friends since
+childhood. She looks upon me as a brother--'
+
+'As a brother?'
+
+'As a brother.'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Mr Lindon regains me as a son. He has given me his confidence; as
+I believe you are aware, Marjorie has given me hers; and now I
+want you to give me yours.'
+
+'What do you want to know?'
+
+'I wish to explain my position before I say what I have to say,
+because I want you to understand me clearly.--I believe, honestly,
+that the thing I most desire in this world is to see Marjorie
+Lindon happy. If I thought she would be happy with you, I should
+say, God speed you both! and I should congratulate you with all my
+heart, because I think that you would have won the best girl in
+the whole world to be your wife.'
+
+'I think so too.'
+
+'But, before I did that, I should have to see, at least, some
+reasonable probability that she would be happy with you.'
+
+'Why should she not?'
+
+'Will you answer a question?'
+
+'What is the question?'
+
+'What is the story in your life of which you stand in such hideous
+terror?'
+
+There was a perceptible pause before he answered.
+
+'Explain yourself.'
+
+'No explanation is needed,--you know perfectly well what I mean.'
+
+'You credit me with miraculous acumen.'
+
+'Don't juggle, Lessingham,--be frank!'
+
+'The frankness should not be all on one side.--There is that in
+your frankness, although you may be unconscious of it, which some
+men might not unreasonably resent.'
+
+'Do you resent it?'
+
+'That depends. If you are arrogating to yourself the right to
+place yourself between Miss Lindon and me, I do resent it,
+strongly.'
+
+'Answer my question!'
+
+'I answer no question which is addressed to me in such a tone.'
+
+He was as calm as you please. I recognised that already I was in
+peril of losing my temper,--which was not at all what I desired. I
+eyed him intently, he returning me look for look. His countenance
+betrayed no sign of a guilty conscience; I had not seen him more
+completely at his ease. He smiled,--facially, and also, as it
+seemed to me, a little derisively. I am bound to admit that his
+bearing showed not the faintest shadow of resentment, and that in
+his eyes there was a gentleness, a softness, which I had not
+observed in them before,--I could almost have suspected him of
+being sympathetic.
+
+'In this matter, you must know, I stand in the place of Mr
+Lindon.'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Surely you must understand that before anyone is allowed to think
+of marriage with Marjorie Lindon he will have to show that his
+past, as the advertisements have it, will bear the fullest
+investigation.'
+
+'Is that so?--Will your past bear the fullest investigation?'
+
+I winced.
+
+'At any rate, it is known to all the world.'
+
+'Is it?--Forgive me if I say, I doubt it. I doubt if, of any wise
+man, that can be said with truth. In all our lives there are
+episodes which we keep to ourselves.'
+
+I felt that that was so true that, for the instant, I hardly knew
+what to say.
+
+'But there are episodes and episodes, and when it comes to a man
+being haunted one draws the line.'
+
+'Haunted?'
+
+'As you are.'
+
+He got up.
+
+'Atherton, I think that I understand you, but I fear that you do
+not understand me.' He went to where a self-acting mercurial air-
+pump was standing on a shelf. 'What is this curious arrangement of
+glass tubes and bulbs?'
+
+'I do not think that you do understand me, or you would know that
+I am in no mood to be trifled with.'
+
+'Is it some kind of an exhauster?'
+
+'My dear Lessingham, I am entirely at your service. I intend to
+have an answer to my question before you leave this room, but, in
+the meanwhile, your convenience is mine. There are some very
+interesting things here which you might care to see.'
+
+'Marvellous, is it not, how the human intellect progresses,--from
+conquest unto conquest'
+
+'Among the ancients the progression had proceeded farther than
+with us.'
+
+'In what respect?'
+
+'For instance, in the affair of the Apotheosis of the Beetle;--I
+saw it take place last night.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'Here,--within a few feet of where you are standing.'
+
+'Are you serious?'
+
+'Perfectly.'
+
+'What did you see?'
+
+'I saw the legendary Apotheosis of the Beetle performed, last
+night, before my eyes, with a gaudy magnificence at which the
+legends never hinted.'
+
+'That is odd. I once thought that I saw something of the kind
+myself.'
+
+'So I understand.'
+
+'From whom?'
+
+'From a friend of yours.'
+
+'From a friend of mine?--Are you sure it was from a friend of
+mine?'
+
+The man's attempt at coolness did him credit,--but it did not
+deceive me. That he thought I was endeavouring to bluff him out of
+his secret I perceived quite clearly; that it was a secret which
+he would only render with his life I was beginning to suspect. Had
+it not been for Marjorie, I should have cared nothing,--his
+affairs were his affairs; though I realised perfectly well that
+there was something about the man which, from the scientific
+explorer's point of view, might be well worth finding out. Still,
+as I say, if it had not been for Marjorie, I should have let it
+go; but, since she was so intimately concerned in it, I wondered
+more and more what it could be.
+
+My attitude towards what is called the supernatural is an open
+one. That all things are possible I unhesitatingly believe,--I
+have, even in my short time, seen so many so-called
+impossibilities proved possible. That we know everything, I
+doubt;--that our great-great-great-great-grandsires, our forebears
+of thousands of years ago, of the extinct civilisations, knew more
+on some subjects than we do, I think is, at least, probable. All
+the legends can hardly be false.
+
+Because men claimed to be able to do things in those days which we
+cannot do, and which we do not know how they did we profess to
+think that their claims are finally dismissed by exclaiming--lies!
+But it is not so sure.
+
+For my part, what I had seen I had seen. I had seen some devil's
+trick played before my very eyes. Some trick of the same sort
+seemed to have been played upon my Marjorie,--I repeat that I
+write 'my Marjorie' because, to me, she will always be 'my'
+Marjorie! It had driven her half out of her senses. As I looked at
+Lessingham, I seemed to see her at his side, as I had seen her not
+long ago, with her white, drawn face, and staring eyes, dumb with
+an agony of fear. Her life was bidding fair to be knit with his,--
+what Upas tree of horror was rooted in his very bones? The thought
+that her sweet purity was likely to be engulfed in a devil's
+slough in which he was swallowing was not to be endured. As I
+realised that the man was more than my match at the game which I
+was playing--in which such vital interests were at stake!--my
+hands itched to clutch him by the throat, and try another way.
+
+Doubtless my face revealed my feelings, because, presently, he
+said,
+
+'Are you aware how strangely you are looking at me, Atherton? Were
+my countenance a mirror I think you would be surprised to see in
+it your own.'
+
+I drew back from him,--I daresay, sullenly.
+
+'Not so surprised as, yesterday morning, you would have been to
+have seen yours,--at the mere sight of a pictured scarab.'
+
+'How easily you quarrel.'
+
+'I do not quarrel.'
+
+'Then perhaps it's I. If that is so, then, at once, the quarrel's
+ended,--pouf! it's done. Mr Lindon, I fear, because, politically,
+we differ, regards me as anathema. Has he put some of his spirit
+into you?--You are a wiser man.'
+
+'I am aware that you are an adept with words. But this is a case
+in which words only will not serve.'
+
+'Then what will serve?'
+
+'I am myself beginning to wonder.'
+
+'And I.'
+
+'As you so courteously suggest, I believe I am wiser than Lindon.
+I do not care for your politics, or for what you call your
+politics, one fig. I do not care if you are as other men are, as I
+am,--not unspotted from the world! But I do care if you are
+leprous. And I believe you are.'
+
+'Atherton!'
+
+'Ever since I have known you I have been conscious of there being
+something about you which I found it difficult to diagnose;--in an
+unwholesome sense, something out of the common, non-natural; an
+atmosphere of your own. Events, so far as you are concerned, have,
+during the last few days moved quickly. They have thrown an
+uncomfortably lurid light on that peculiarity of yours which I
+have noticed. Unless you can explain them to my satisfaction, you
+will withdraw your pretensions to Miss Lindon's hand, or I shall
+place certain facts before that lady, and, if necessary, publish
+them to the world.'
+
+He grew visibly paler but he smiled--facially.
+
+'You have your own way of conducting a conversation, Mr Atherton.
+--What are the events to whose rapid transit you are alluding?'
+
+'Who was the individual, practically stark naked, who came out of
+your house, in such singular fashion, at dead of night?'
+
+'Is that one of the facts with which you propose to tickle the
+public ear?'
+
+'Is that the only explanation which you have to offer?'
+
+'Proceed, for the present, with your indictment.'
+
+'I am not so unobservant as you appear to imagine. There were
+features about the episode which struck me forcibly at the time,
+and which have struck me more forcibly since. To suggest, as you
+did yesterday morning, that it was an ordinary case of burglary,
+or that the man was a lunatic, is an absurdity.
+
+'Pardon me,--I did nothing of the kind.'
+
+'Then what do you suggest?'
+
+'I suggested, and do suggest, nothing. All the suggestions come
+from you.'
+
+'You went very much out of your way to beg me to keep the matter
+quiet. There is an appearance of suggestion about that.'
+
+'You take a jaundiced view of all my actions, Mr Atherton.
+Nothing, to me, could seem more natural.--However,--proceed.'
+
+He had his hands behind his back, and rested them on the edge of
+the table against which he was leaning. He was undoubtedly ill at
+ease; but so far I had not made the impression on him, either
+mentally or morally, which I desired.
+
+'Who is your Oriental friend?'
+
+'I do not follow you.'
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'I am certain. Repeat your question.'
+
+'Who is your Oriental friend?'
+
+'I was not aware that I had one.'
+
+'Do you swear that?'
+
+He laughed, a strange laugh.
+
+'Do you seek to catch me tripping? You conduct your case with too
+much animus. You must allow me to grasp the exact purport of your
+inquiry before I can undertake to reply to it on oath.'
+
+'Are you not aware that at present there is in London an
+individual who claims to have had a very close, and a very
+curious, acquaintance with you in the East?'
+
+'I am not.'
+
+'That you swear?'
+
+'That I do swear.'
+
+'That is singular.'
+
+'Why is it singular?'
+
+'Because I fancy that that individual haunts you.'
+
+'Haunts me?'
+
+'Haunts you.'
+
+'You jest.'
+
+'You think so?--You remember that picture of the scarabaeus which,
+yesterday morning, frightened you into a state of semi-idiocy.'
+
+'You use strong language.--I know what you allude to.'
+
+'Do you mean to say that you don't know that you were indebted for
+that to your Oriental friend?'
+
+'I don't understand you.'
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'Certainly I am sure.--It occurs to me, Mr Atherton, that an
+explanation is demanded from you rather than from me. Are you
+aware that the purport of my presence here is to ask you how that
+picture found its way into your room?'
+
+'It was projected by the Lord of the Beetle.'
+
+The words were chance ones,--but they struck a mark.
+
+'The Lord--' He faltered,--and stopped. He showed signs of
+discomposure. 'I will be frank with you,--since frankness is what
+you ask.' His smile, that time, was obviously forced. 'Recently I
+have been the victim of delusions;' there was a pause before the
+word, 'of a singular kind. I have feared that they were the result
+of mental overstrain. Is it possible that you can enlighten me as
+to their source?'
+
+I was silent. He was putting a great strain upon himself, but the
+twitching of his lips betrayed him. A little more, and I should
+reach the other side of Mr Lessingham,--the side which he kept
+hidden from the world.
+
+'Who is this--individual whom you speak of as my--Oriental
+friend?'
+
+'Being your friend, you should know better than I do.'
+
+'What sort of man is he to look at?'
+
+'I did not say it was a man.'
+
+'But I presume it is a man.'
+
+'I did not say so.'
+
+He seemed, for a moment, to hold his breath,--and he looked at me
+with eyes which were not friendly. Then, with a display of self-
+command which did him credit, he drew himself upright, with an air
+of dignity which well became him.
+
+'Atherton, consciously, or unconsciously, you are doing me a
+serious injustice. I do not know what conception it is which you
+have formed of me, or on what the conception is founded, but I
+protest that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am as
+reputable, as honest, and as clean a man as you are.'
+
+'But you're haunted.'
+
+'Haunted?' He held himself erect, looking me straight in the face.
+Then a shiver went all over him; the muscles of his mouth
+twitched; and, in an instant, he was livid. He staggered against
+the table. 'Yes, God knows it's true,--I'm haunted.'
+
+'So either you're mad, and therefore unfit to marry; or else
+you've done something which places you outside the tolerably
+generous boundaries of civilised society, and are therefore still
+more unfit to marry. You're on the horns of a dilemma.'
+
+'I--I'm the victim of a delusion.'
+
+'What is the nature of the delusion? Does it take the shape of a--
+beetle?'
+
+'Atherton!'
+
+Without the slightest warning, he collapsed,--was transformed; I
+can describe the change which took place in him in no other way.
+He sank in a heap on the floor; he held up his hands above his
+head; and he gibbered,--like some frenzied animal. A more
+uncomfortable spectacle than he presented it would be difficult to
+find. I have seen it matched in the padded rooms of lunatic
+asylums, but nowhere else. The sight of him set every nerve of my
+body on edge.
+
+'In Heaven's name, what is the matter with you, man? Are you
+stark, staring mad? Here,--drink this!'
+
+Filling a tumbler with brandy, I forced it between his quivering
+fingers. Then it was some moments before I could get him to
+understand what it was I wanted him to do. When he did get the
+glass to his lips, he swallowed its contents as if they were so
+much water. By degrees his senses returned to him. He stood up. He
+looked about him, with a smile which was positively ghastly.
+
+'It's--it's a delusion.'
+
+'It's a very queer kind of a delusion, if it is.'
+
+I eyed him, curiously. He was evidently making the most strenuous
+efforts to regain his self-control,--all the while with that
+horrible smile about his lips.
+
+'Atherton, you--you take me at an advantage.' I was still. 'Who--
+who's your Oriental friend?'
+
+'My Oriental friend?--you mean yours. I supposed, at first, that
+the individual in question was a man; but it appears that she's a
+woman.'
+
+'A woman?--Oh.--How do you mean?'
+
+'Well, the face is a man's--of an uncommonly disagreeable type, of
+which the powers forbid that there are many!--and the voice is a
+man's,--also of a kind!--but the body, as, last night, I chanced
+to discover, is a woman's.'
+
+'That sounds very odd.' He closed his eyes. I could see that his
+cheeks were clammy. 'Do you--do you believe in witchcraft?'
+
+'That depends.'
+
+'Have you heard of Obi?'
+
+'I have.'
+
+'I have been told that an Obeah man can put a spell upon a person
+which compels a person to see whatever he--the Obeah man--may
+please. Do you think that's possible?'
+
+'It is not a question to which I should be disposed to answer
+either yes or no.'
+
+He looked at me out of his half-closed eyes. It struck me that he
+was making conversation,--saying anything for the sake of gaining
+time.
+
+'I remember reading a book entitled "Obscure Diseases of the
+Brain." It contained some interesting data on the subject of
+hallucinations.'
+
+'Possibly.'
+
+'Now, candidly, would you recommend me to place myself in the
+hands of a mental pathologist?'
+
+'I don't think that you're insane, if that's what you mean.'
+
+'No?--That is good hearing. Of all diseases insanity is the most
+to be dreaded.--Well, Atherton, I'm keeping you. The truth is
+that, insane or not, I am very far from well. I think I must give
+myself a holiday.'
+
+He moved towards his hat and umbrella.
+
+'There is something else which you must do.'
+
+'What is that?'
+
+'You must resign your pretensions to Miss Lindon's hand.
+
+'My dear Atherton, if my health is really failing me, I shall
+resign everything,--everything!'
+
+He repeated his own word with a little movement of his hands which
+was pathetic.
+
+'Understand me, Lessingham. What else you do is no affair of mine.
+I am concerned only with Miss Lindon. You must give me your
+definite promise, before you leave this room, to terminate your
+engagement with her before to-night.'
+
+His back was towards me.
+
+'There will come a time when your conscience will prick you
+because of your treatment of me; when you will realise that I am
+the most unfortunate of men.'
+
+'I realise that now. It is because I realise it that I am so
+desirous that the shadow of your evil fortune shall not fall upon
+an innocent girl.'
+
+He turned.
+
+'Atherton, what is your actual position with reference to Marjorie
+Lindon?'
+
+'She regards me as a brother.'
+
+'And do you regard her as a sister? Are your sentiments towards
+her purely fraternal?'
+
+'You know that I love her.'
+
+'And do you suppose that my removal will clear the path for you?'
+
+'I suppose nothing of the kind. You may believe me or not, but my
+one desire is for her happiness, and surely, if you love her, that
+is your desire too.'
+
+'That is so.' He paused. An expression of sadness stole over his
+face of which I had not thought it capable. 'That is so to an
+extent of which you do not dream. No man likes to have his hand
+forced, especially by one whom he regards--may I say it?--as a
+possible rival. But I will tell you this much. If the blight which
+has fallen on my life is likely to continue, I would not wish,--
+God forbid that I should wish to join her fate with mine,--not for
+all that the world could offer me.'
+
+He stopped. And I was still. Presently he continued.
+
+'When I was younger I was subject to a--similar delusion. But it
+vanished,--I saw no trace of it for years,--I thought that I had
+done with it for good. Recently, however, it has returned,--as you
+have witnessed. I shall institute inquiries into the cause of its
+reappearance; if it seems likely to be irremovable, or even if it
+bids fair to be prolonged, I shall not only, as you phrase it,
+withdraw my pretensions to Miss Linden's hand, but to all my other
+ambitions. In the interim, as regards Miss Lindon I shall be
+careful to hold myself on the footing of a mere acquaintance.'
+
+'You promise me?'
+
+'I do.--And on your side, Atherton, in the meantime, deal with me
+more gently. Judgment in my case has still to be given. You will
+find that I am not the guilty wretch you apparently imagine. And
+there are few things more disagreeable to one's self-esteem than
+to learn, too late, that one has persisted in judging another man
+too harshly. Think of all that the world has, at this moment, to
+offer me, and what it will mean if I have to turn my back on it,--
+owing to a mischievous twist of fortune's wheel.'
+
+He turned, is if to go. Then stopped, and looked round, in an
+attitude of listening.
+
+'What's that?'
+
+There was a sound of droning,--I recalled what Marjorie had said
+of her experiences of the night before, it was like the droning of
+a beetle. The instant the Apostle heard it, the fashion of his
+countenance began to change,--it was pitiable to witness. I rushed
+to him.
+
+'Lessingham!--don't be a fool!--play the man!'
+
+He gripped my left arm with his right hand till it felt as if it
+were being compressed in a vice.
+
+'Then--I shall have to have some more brandy.'
+
+Fortunately the bottle was within reach from where I stood,
+otherwise I doubt if he would have released my arm to let me get
+at it. I gave him the decanter and the glass. He helped himself to
+a copious libation. By the time that he had swallowed it the
+droning sound had gone. He put down the empty tumbler.
+
+'When a man has to resort to alcohol to keep his nerves up to
+concert pitch, things are in a bad way with him, you may be sure
+of that,--but then you have never known what it is to stand in
+momentary expectation of a tete-a-tete with the devil.'
+
+Again he turned to leave the room,--and this time he actually
+went. I let him go alone. I heard his footsteps passing along the
+passage, and the hall-door close. Then I sat in an arm-chair,
+stretched my legs out in front of me, thrust my hands in my
+trouser pockets, and--I wondered.
+
+I had been there, perhaps, four or five minutes, when there was a
+slight noise at my side. Glancing round, I saw a sheet of paper
+come fluttering through the open window. It fell almost at my
+feet. I picked it up. It was a picture of a beetle,--a facsimile
+of the one which had had such an extraordinary effect on Mr
+Lessingham the day before.
+
+'If this was intended for St Paul, it's a trifle late;--unless--'
+
+I could hear that someone was approaching along the corridor. I
+looked up, expecting to see the Apostle reappear;--in which
+expectation I was agreeably disappointed. The newcomer was
+feminine. It was Miss Grayling. As she stood in the open doorway,
+I saw that her cheeks were red as roses.
+
+'I hope I am not interrupting you again, but--I left my purse
+here.' She stopped; then added, as if it were an afterthought,
+'And--I want you to come and lunch with me.'
+
+I locked the picture of the beetle in the drawer,--and I lunched
+with Dora Grayling.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+The Terror by Night and the Terror by Day
+
+
+Miss Marjorie Lindon tells the Tale
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE WAY HE TOLD HER
+
+
+I am the happiest woman in the world! I wonder how many women have
+said that of themselves in their time,--but I am. Paul has told me
+that he loves me. How long I have made inward confession of my
+love for him, I should be ashamed to say. It sounds prosaic, but I
+believe it is a fact that the first stirring of my pulses was
+caused by the report of a speech of his which I read in the Times.
+It was on the Eight Hours' Bill. Papa was most unflattering. He
+said that he was an oily spouter, an ignorant agitator, an
+irresponsible firebrand, and a good deal more to the same effect.
+I remember very well how papa fidgeted with the paper, declaring
+that it read even worse than it had sounded, and goodness knew
+that it had sounded bad enough. He was so very emphatic that when
+he had gone I thought I would see what all the pother was about,
+and read the speech for myself. So I read it. It affected me quite
+differently. The speaker's words showed such knowledge, charity,
+and sympathy that they went straight to my heart.
+
+After that I read everything of Paul Lessingham's which I came
+across. And the more I read the more I was impressed. But it was
+some time before we met. Considering what papa's opinions were, it
+was not likely that he would go out of his way to facilitate a
+meeting. To him, the mere mention of the name was like a red rag
+to a bull. But at last we did meet. And then I knew that he was
+stronger, greater, better even than his words. It is so often the
+other way; one finds that men, and women too, are so apt to put
+their best, as it were, into their shop windows, that the
+discovery was as novel as it was delightful.
+
+When the ice was once broken, we often met. I do not know how it
+was. We did not plan our meetings,--at first, at any rate. Yet we
+seemed always meeting. Seldom a day passed on which we did not
+meet,--sometimes twice or thrice. It was odd how we were always
+coming across each other in the most unlikely places. I believe we
+did not notice it at the time, but looking back I can see that we
+must have managed our engagements so that somewhere, somehow, we
+should be certain to have an opportunity of exchanging half a
+dozen words. Those constant encounters could not have all been
+chance ones.
+
+But I never supposed he loved me,--never. I am not even sure that,
+for some time, I was aware that I loved him. We were great on
+friendship, both of us.--I was quite aware that I was his friend,
+--that he regarded me as his friend; he told me so more than once.
+
+'I tell you this,' he would say, referring to this, that, or the
+other, 'because I know that, in speaking to you, I am speaking to
+a friend.'
+
+With him those were not empty words. All kinds of people talk to
+one like that,--especially men; it is a kind of formula which they
+use with every woman who shows herself disposed to listen. But
+Paul is not like that. He is chary of speech; not by any means a
+woman's man. I tell him that is his weakest point. If legend does
+not lie more even than is common, few politicians have achieved
+prosperity without the aid of women. He replies that he is not a
+politician; that he never means to be a politician. He simply
+wishes to work for his country; if his country does not need his
+services--well, let it be. Papa's political friends have always so
+many axes of their own to grind, that, at first, to hear a member
+of Parliament talk like that was almost disquieting. I had dreamed
+of men like that; but I never encountered one till I met Paul
+Lessingham.
+
+Our friendship was a pleasant one. It became pleasanter and
+pleasanter. Until there came a time when he told me everything;
+the dreams he dreamed; the plans which he had planned; the great
+purposes which, if health and strength were given him, he intended
+to carry to a great fulfilment. And, at last, he told me something
+else.
+
+It was after a meeting at a Working Women's Club in Westminster.
+He had spoken, and I had spoken too. I don't know what papa would
+have said, if he had known, but I had. A formal resolution had
+been proposed, and I had seconded it,--in perhaps a couple of
+hundred words; but that would have been quite enough for papa to
+have regarded me as an Abandoned Wretch,--papa always puts those
+sort of words into capitals. Papa regards a speechifying woman as
+a thing of horror,--I have known him look askance at a Primrose
+Dame.
+
+The night was fine. Paul proposed that I should walk with him down
+the Westminster Bridge Road, until we reached the House, and then
+he would see me into a cab. I did as he suggested. It was still
+early, not yet ten, and the streets were alive with people. Our
+conversation, as we went, was entirely political. The Agricultural
+Amendment Act was then before the Commons, and Paul felt very
+strongly that it was one of those measures which give with one
+hand, while taking with the other. The committee stage was at
+hand, and already several amendments were threatened, the effect
+of which would be to strengthen the landlord at the expense of the
+tenant. More than one of these, and they not the most moderate,
+were to be proposed by papa. Paul was pointing out how it would be
+his duty to oppose these tooth and nail, when, all at once, he
+stopped.
+
+'I sometimes wonder how you really feel upon this matter'
+
+'What matter?'
+
+'On the difference of opinion, in political matters, which exists
+between your father and myself. I am conscious that Mr Lindon
+regards my action as a personal question, and resents it so
+keenly, that I am sometimes moved to wonder if at least a portion
+of his resentment is not shared by you.'
+
+'I have explained; I consider papa the politician as one person,
+and papa the father as quite another.'
+
+'You are his daughter.'
+
+'Certainly I am;--but would you, on that account, wish me to share
+his political opinions, even though I believe them to be wrong?'
+
+'You love him.'
+
+'Of course I do,--he is the best of fathers.'
+
+'Your defection will be a grievous disappointment.'
+
+I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. I wondered what was
+passing through his mind. The subject of my relations with papa
+was one which, without saying anything at all about it, we had
+consented to taboo.
+
+'I am not so sure. I am permeated with a suspicion that papa has
+no politics.'
+
+'Miss Lindon!--I fancy that I can adduce proof to the contrary.'
+
+'I believe that if papa were to marry again, say, a Home Ruler,
+within three weeks his wife's politics would be his own.'
+
+Paul thought before he spoke; then he smiled.
+
+'I suppose that men sometimes do change their coats to please
+their wives,--even their political ones.'
+
+'Papa's opinions are the opinions of those with whom he mixes. The
+reason why he consorts with Tories of the crusted school is
+because he fears that if he associated with anybody else--with
+Radicals, say,--before he knew it, he would be a Radical too. With
+him, association is synonymus with logic.'
+
+Paul laughed outright. By this time we had reached Westminster
+Bridge. Standing, we looked down upon the river. A long line of
+lanterns was gliding mysteriously over the waters; it was a tug
+towing a string of barges. For some moments neither spoke. Then
+Paul recurred to what I had just been saying.
+
+'And you,--do you think marriage would colour your convictions?'
+
+'Would it yours?'
+
+'That depends.' He was silent. Then he said, in that tone which I
+had learned to look for when he was most in earnest, 'It depends
+on whether you would marry me.'
+
+I was still. His words were so unexpected that they took my breath
+away. I knew not what to make of them. My head was in a whirl.
+Then he addressed to me a monosyllabic interrogation.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'I found my voice,--or a part of it.
+
+'Well?--to what?'
+
+He came a little closer.
+
+'Will you be my wife?'
+
+The part of my voice which I had found, was lost again. Tears came
+into my eyes. I shivered. I had not thought that I could be so
+absurd. Just then the moon came from behind a cloud; the rippling
+waters were tipped with silver. He spoke again, so gently that his
+words just reached my ears.
+
+'You know that I love you.'
+
+Then I knew that I loved him too. That what I had fancied was a
+feeling of friendship was something very different. It was as if
+somebody, in tearing a veil from before my eyes, had revealed a
+spectacle which dazzled me. I was speechless. He misconstrued my
+silence.
+
+'Have I offended you?'
+
+'No.'
+
+I fancy that he noted the tremor which was in my voice, and read
+it rightly. For he too was still. Presently his hand stole along
+the parapet, and fastened upon mine, and held it tight.
+
+And that was how it came about. Other things were said; but they
+were hardly of the first importance. Though I believe we took some
+time in saying them. Of myself I can say with truth, that my heart
+was too full for copious speech; I was dumb with a great
+happiness. And, I believe, I can say the same of Paul He told me
+as much when we were parting.
+
+It seemed that we had only just come there when Paul started.
+Turning, he stared up at Big Ben.
+
+'Midnight!--The House up!--Impossible!'
+
+But it was more than possible, it was fact. We had actually been
+on the Bridge two hours, and it had not seemed ten minutes. Never
+had I supposed that the flight of time could have been so entirely
+unnoticed. Paul was considerably taken aback. His legislative
+conscience pricked him. He excused himself--in his own fashion.
+
+'Fortunately, for once in a way, my business in the House was not
+so important as my business out of it.'
+
+He had his arm through mine. We were standing face to face.
+
+'So you call this business!'
+
+He laughed.
+
+He not only saw me into a cab, but he saw me home in it. And in
+the cab he kissed me. I fancy I was a little out of sorts that
+night. My nervous system was, perhaps, demoralised. Because, when
+he kissed me, I did a thing which I never do,--I have my own
+standard of behaviour, and that sort of thing is quite outside of
+it; I behaved like a sentimental chit. I cried. And it took him
+all the way to my father's door to comfort me.
+
+I can only hope that, perceiving the singularity of the occasion,
+he consented to excuse me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A WOMAN'S VIEW
+
+
+Sydney Atherton has asked me to be his wife. It is not only
+annoying; worse, it is absurd.
+
+This is the result of Paul's wish that our engagement should not
+be announced. He is afraid of papa;--not really, but for the
+moment. The atmosphere of the House is charged with electricity.
+Party feeling runs high. They are at each other, hammer and tongs,
+about this Agricultural Amendment Act. The strain on Paul is
+tremendous. I am beginning to feel positively concerned. Little
+things which I have noticed about him lately convince me that he
+is being overwrought. I suspect him of having sleepless nights.
+The amount of work which he has been getting through lately has
+been too much for any single human being, I care not who he is. He
+himself admits that he shall be glad when the session is at an
+end. So shall I.
+
+In the meantime, it is his desire that nothing shall be said about
+our engagement until the House rises. It is reasonable enough.
+Papa is sure to be violent,--lately, the barest allusion to Paul's
+name has been enough to make him explode. When the discovery does
+come, he will be unmanageable,--I foresee it clearly. From little
+incidents which have happened recently I predict the worst. He
+will be capable of making a scene within the precincts of the
+House. And, as Paul says, there is some truth in the saying that
+the last straw breaks the camel's back. He will be better able to
+face papa's wild wrath when the House has risen.
+
+So the news is to bide a wee. Of course Paul is right. And what he
+wishes I wish too. Still, it is not all such plain sailing for me
+as he perhaps thinks. The domestic atmosphere is almost as
+electrical as that in the House. Papa is like the terrier who
+scents a rat,--he is always sniffing the air. He has not actually
+forbidden me to speak to Paul,--his courage is not quite at the
+sticking point; but he is constantly making uncomfortable
+allusions to persons who number among their acquaintance
+'political adventurers,' 'grasping carpet-baggers,' 'Radical riff-
+raff,' and that kind of thing. Sometimes I venture to call my soul
+my own; but such a tempest invariably follows that I become
+discreet again as soon as I possibly can. So, as a rule, I suffer
+in silence.
+
+Still, I would with all my heart that the concealment were at an
+end. No one need imagine that I am ashamed of being about to marry
+Paul,--papa least of all. On the contrary, I am as proud of it as
+a woman can be. Sometimes, when he has said or done something
+unusually wonderful, I fear that my pride will out,--I do feel it
+so strong within me. I should be delighted to have a trial of
+strength with papa; anywhere, at any time,--I should not be so
+rude to him as he would be to me. At the bottom of his heart papa
+knows that I am the more sensible of the two; after a pitched
+battle or so he would understand it better still. I know papa! I
+have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel
+like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the
+enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, and
+be shot at.
+
+One result is that Sydney has actually made a proposal of
+marriage,--he of all people! It is too comical. The best of it was
+that he took himself quite seriously. I do not know how many times
+he has confided to me the sufferings which he has endured for love
+of other women--some of them, I am sorry to say, decent married
+women too; but this is the first occasion on which the theme has
+been a personal one. He was so frantic, as he is wont to be, that,
+to calm him, I told him about Paul,--which, under the
+circumstances, to him I felt myself at liberty to do. In return,
+he was melodramatic; hinting darkly at I know not what, I was
+almost cross with him.
+
+He is a curious person, Sydney Atherton. I suppose it is because I
+have known him all my life, and have always looked upon him, in
+cases of necessity, as a capital substitute for a brother, that I
+criticise him with so much frankness. In some respects, he is a
+genius; in others--I will not write fool, for that he never is,
+though he has often done some extremely foolish things. The fame
+of his inventions is in the mouths of all men; though the half of
+them has never been told. He is the most extraordinary mixture.
+The things which most people would like to have proclaimed in the
+street, he keeps tightly locked in his own bosom; while those
+which the same persons would be only too glad to conceal, he
+shouts from the roofs. A very famous man once told me that if Mr
+Atherton chose to become a specialist, to take up one branch of
+inquiry, and devote his life to it, his fame, before he died,
+would bridge the spheres. But sticking to one thing is not in
+Sydney's line at all. He prefers, like the bee, to roam from
+flower to flower.
+
+As for his being in love with me; it is ridiculous. He is as much
+in love with the moon. I cannot think what has put the idea into
+his head. Some girl must have been ill-using him, or he imagines
+that she has. The girl whom he ought to marry, and whom he
+ultimately will marry, is Dora Grayling. She is young, charming,
+immensely rich, and over head and ears in love with him;--if she
+were not, then he would be over head and ears in love with her. I
+believe he is very near it as it is,--sometimes he is so very rude
+to her. It is a characteristic of Sydney's, that he is apt to be
+rude to a girl whom he really likes. As for Dora, I suspect she
+dreams of him. He is tall, straight, very handsome, with a big
+moustache, and the most extraordinary eyes;--I fancy that those
+eyes of his have as much to do with Dora's state as anything. I
+have heard it said that he possesses the hypnotic power to an
+unusual degree, and that, if he chose to exercise it, he might
+become a danger to society. I believe he has hypnotised Dora.
+
+He makes an excellent brother. I have gone to him, many and many a
+time, for help,--and some excellent advice I have received. I
+daresay I shall consult him still. There are matters of which one
+would hardly dare to talk to Paul. In all things he is the great
+man. He could hardly condescend to chiffons. Now Sydney can and
+does. When he is in the mood, on the vital subject of trimmings a
+woman could not appeal to a sounder authority. I tell him, if he
+had been a dressmaker, he would have been magnificent. I am sure
+he would.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+
+This morning I had an adventure.
+
+I was in the breakfast-room. Papa, as usual, was late for
+breakfast, and I was wondering whether I should begin without him,
+when, chancing to look round, something caught my eye in the
+street. I went to the window to see what it was. A small crowd of
+people was in the middle of the road, and they were all staring at
+something which, apparently, was lying on the ground. What it was
+I could not see.
+
+The butler happened to be in the room. I spoke to him.
+
+'Peter, what is the matter in the street? Go and see.'
+
+He went and saw; and, presently, he returned. Peter is an
+excellent servant; but the fashion of his speech, even when
+conveying the most trivial information, is slightly
+sesquipedalian. He would have made a capital cabinet minister at
+question time,--he wraps up the smallest petitions of meaning in
+the largest possible words.
+
+'An unfortunate individual appears to have been the victim of a
+catastrophe. I am informed that he is dead. The constable asserts
+that he is drunk.'
+
+'Drunk?--dead? Do you mean that he is dead drunk?--at this hour!'
+
+'He is either one or the other. I did not behold the individual
+myself. I derived my information from a bystander.'
+
+That was not sufficiently explicit for me. I gave way to a,
+seemingly, quite causeless impulse of curiosity, I went out into
+the street, just as I was, to see for myself. It was, perhaps, not
+the most sensible thing I could have done, and papa would have
+been shocked; but I am always shocking papa. It had been raining
+in the night, and the shoes which I had on were not so well suited
+as they might have been for an encounter with the mud.
+
+I made my way to the point of interest.
+
+'What's the matter?' I asked.
+
+A workman, with a bag of tools over his shoulder, answered me.
+
+'There's something wrong with someone. Policeman says he's drunk,
+but he looks to me as if he was something worse.'
+
+'Will you let me pass, please?'
+
+When they saw I was a woman, they permitted me to reach the centre
+of the crowd.
+
+A man was lying on his back, in the grease and dirt of the road.
+He was so plastered with mud, that it was difficult, at first, to
+be sure that he really was a man. His head and feet were bare. His
+body was partially covered by a long ragged cloak. It was obvious
+that that one wretched, dirt-stained, sopping wet rag was all the
+clothing he had on. A huge constable was holding his shoulders in
+his hands, and was regarding him as if he could not make him out
+at all. He seemed uncertain as to whether it was or was not a case
+of shamming.
+
+He spoke to him as if he had been some refractory child.
+
+'Come, my lad, this won't do!--Wake up!--What's the matter?'
+
+But he neither woke up, nor explained what was the matter. I took
+hold of his hand. It was icy cold. Apparently the wrist was
+pulseless. Clearly this was no ordinary case of drunkenness.
+
+'There is something seriously wrong, officer. Medical assistance
+ought to be had at once.'
+
+'Do you think he's in a fit, miss?'
+
+'That a doctor should be able to tell you better than I can. There
+seems to be no pulse. I should not be surprised to find that he
+was--'
+
+The word 'dead' was actually on my lips, when the stranger saved
+me from making a glaring exposure of my ignorance by snatching his
+wrist away from me, and sitting up in the mud. He held out his
+hands in front of him, opened his eyes, and exclaimed, in a loud,
+but painfully raucous tone of voice, as if he was suffering from a
+very bad cold,
+
+'Paul Lessingham!'
+
+I was so surprised that I all but sat down in the mud. To hear
+Paul--my Paul!--apostrophised by an individual of his appearance,
+in that fashion, was something which I had not expected. Directly
+the words were uttered, he closed his eyes again, sank backward,
+and seemingly relapsed into unconsciousness,--the constable
+gripping him by the shoulder just in time to prevent him banging
+the back of his head against the road.
+
+The officer shook him,--scarcely gently.
+
+'Now, my lad, it's plain that you're not dead!--What's the meaning
+of this?--Move yourself!'
+
+Looking round I found that Peter was close behind. Apparently he
+had been struck by the singularity of his mistress' behaviour, and
+had followed to see that it did not meet with the reward which it
+deserved. I spoke to him.
+
+'Peter, let someone go at once for Dr Cotes!'
+
+Dr Cotes lives just round the corner, and since it was evident
+that the man's lapse into consciousness had made the policeman
+sceptical as to his case being so serious as it seemed, I thought
+it might be advisable that a competent opinion should be obtained
+without delay.
+
+Peter was starting, when again the stranger returned to
+consciousness,--that is, if it really was consciousness, as to
+which I was more than a little in doubt. He repeated his previous
+pantomime; sat up in the mud, stretched out his arms, opened his
+eyes unnaturally wide,--and yet they appeared unseeing!--a sort of
+convulsion went all over him, and he shrieked--it really amounted
+to shrieking--as a man might shriek who was in mortal terror.
+
+'Be warned, Paul Lessingham--be warned!'
+
+For my part, that settled it. There was a mystery here which
+needed to be unravelled. Twice had he called upon Paul's name,--
+and in the strangest fashion! It was for me to learn the why and
+the wherefore; to ascertain what connection there was between this
+lifeless creature and Paul Lessingham. Providence might have cast
+him there before my door. I might be entertaining an angel
+unawares. My mind was made up on the instant.
+
+'Peter, hasten for Dr Cotes.' Peter passed the word, and
+immediately a footman started running as fast as his legs would
+carry him. 'Officer, I will have this man taken into my father's
+house.--Will some of you men help to carry him?'
+
+There were volunteers enough, and to spare. I spoke to Peter in
+the hall.
+
+'Is papa down yet?'
+
+'Mr Lindon has sent down to say that you will please not wait for
+him for breakfast. He has issued instructions to have his
+breakfast conveyed to him upstairs.'
+
+'That's all right.' I nodded towards the poor wretch who was being
+carried through the hall. 'You will say nothing to him about this
+unless he particularly asks. You understand?'
+
+Peter bowed. He is discretion itself. He knows I have my vagaries,
+and it is not his fault if the savour of them travels to papa.
+
+The doctor was in the house almost as soon as the stranger.
+
+'Wants washing,' he remarked, directly he saw him.
+
+And that certainly was true,--I never saw a man who stood more
+obviously in need of the good offices of soap and water. Then he
+went through the usual medical formula, I watching all the while.
+So far as I could see the man showed not the slightest sign of
+life.
+
+'Is he dead?'
+
+'He will be soon, if he doesn't have something to eat. The
+fellow's starving.'
+
+The doctor asked the policeman what he knew of him
+
+That sagacious officer's reply was vague. A boy had run up to him
+crying that a man was lying dead in the street. He had straightway
+followed the boy, and discovered the stranger. That was all he
+knew.
+
+'What is the matter with the man?' I inquired of the doctor, when
+the constable had gone.
+
+'Don't know.--It may be catalepsy, and it mayn't.--When I do know,
+you may ask again.'
+
+Dr Cotes' manner was a trifle brusque,--particularly, I believe,
+to me. I remember that once he threatened to box my ears. When I
+was a small child I used to think nothing of boxing his.
+
+Realising that no satisfaction was to be got out of a speechless
+man--particularly as regards his mysterious references to Paul--I
+went upstairs. I found that papa was under the impression that he
+was suffering from a severe attack of gout. But as he was eating a
+capital breakfast, and apparently enjoying it,--while I was still
+fasting--I ventured to hope that the matter was not so serious as
+he feared.
+
+I mentioned nothing to him about the person whom I had found in
+the street,--lest it should aggravate his gout. When he is like
+that, the slightest thing does.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A FATHER'S NO
+
+
+Paul has stormed the House of Commons with one of the greatest
+speeches which even he has delivered, and I have quarrelled with
+papa. And, also, I have very nearly quarrelled with Sydney.
+
+Sydney's little affair is nothing. He actually still persists in
+thinking himself in love with me,--as if, since last night, when
+he what he calls 'proposed' to me, he has not time to fall out of
+love, and in again, half a dozen times; and, on the strength of
+it, he seems to consider himself entitled to make himself as
+disagreeable as he can. That I should not mind,--for Sydney
+disagreeable is about as nice as Sydney any other way; but when it
+comes to his shooting poisoned shafts at Paul, I object. If he
+imagines that anything he can say, or hint, will lessen my
+estimation of Paul Lessingham by one hair's breadth, he has less
+wisdom even than I gave him credit for. By the way, Percy
+Woodville asked me to be his wife tonight,--which, also, is
+nothing; he has been trying to do it for the last three years,--
+though, under the circumstances, it is a little trying; but he
+would not spit venom merely because I preferred another man,--and
+he, I believe, does care for me.
+
+Papa's affair is serious. It is the first clashing of the foils,--
+and this time, I imagine, the buttons are really off. This morning
+he said a few words, not so much to, as at me. He informed me that
+Paul was expected to speak to-night,--as if I did not know it!--
+and availed himself of the opening to load him with the abuse
+which, in his case, he thinks is not unbecoming to a gentleman. I
+don't know--or, rather, I do know what he would think, if he heard
+another man use, in the presence of a woman, the kind of language
+which he habitually employs. However, I said nothing. I had a
+motive for allowing the chaff to fly before the wind.
+
+But, to-night, issue was joined.
+
+I, of course, went to hear Paul speak,--as I have done over and
+over again before. Afterwards, Paul came and fetched me from the
+cage. He had to leave me for a moment, while he gave somebody a
+message; and in the lobby, there was Sydney,--all sneers! I could
+have pinched him. Just as I was coming to the conclusion that I
+should have to stick a pin into his arm, Paul returned,--and,
+positively, Sydney was rude to him. I was ashamed, if Mr Atherton
+was not. As if it was not enough that he should be insulted by a
+mere popinjay, at the very moment when he had been adding another
+stone to the fabric of his country's glory,--papa came up. He
+actually wanted to take me away from Paul. I should have liked to
+see him do it. Of course I went down with Paul to the carriage,
+leaving papa to follow if he chose. He did not choose,--but, none
+the less, he managed to be home within three minutes after I had
+myself returned.
+
+Then the battle began.
+
+It is impossible for me to give an idea of papa in a rage. There
+may be men who look well when they lose their temper, but, if
+there are, papa is certainly not one. He is always talking about
+the magnificence, and the high breeding of the Lindons, but
+anything less high-bred than the head of the Lindons, in his
+moments of wrath, it would be hard to conceive. His language I
+will not attempt to portray,--but his observations consisted,
+mainly, of abuse of Paul, glorification of the Lindons, and orders
+to me.
+
+'I forbid you--I forbid you--' when papa wishes to be impressive
+he repeats his own words three or four times over; I don't know if
+he imagines that they are improved by repetition; if he does, he
+is wrong--'I forbid you ever again to speak to that--that--that--'
+
+Here followed language.
+
+I was silent.
+
+My cue was to keep cool. I believe that, with the exception,
+perhaps, of being a little white, and exceedingly sorry that papa
+should so forget himself, I was about the same as I generally am.
+
+'Do you hear me?--do you hear what I say?--do you hear me, miss?'
+
+'Yes, papa; I hear you.'
+
+'Then--then--then promise me!--promise that you will do as I tell
+you!--mark my words, my girl, you shall promise before you leave
+this room!'
+
+'My dear papa!--do you intend me to spend the remainder of my life
+in the drawing-room?'
+
+'Don't you be impertinent!--do-do-don't you speak to me like
+that!--I--I--I won't have it!'
+
+'I tell you what it is, papa, if you don't take care you'll have
+another attack of gout.'
+
+'Damn gout.'
+
+That was the most sensible thing he said; if such a tormentor as
+gout can be consigned to the nether regions by the mere utterance
+of a word, by all means let the word be uttered. Off he went
+again.
+
+'The man's a ruffianly, rascally,--' and so on. 'There's not such
+a villainous vagabond--' and all the rest of it. 'And I order
+you,--I'm a Lindon, and I order you! I'm your father, and I order
+you!--I order you never to speak to such a--such a'--various vain
+repetitions--'again, and--and--and I order you never to look at
+him!'
+
+'Listen to me, papa. I will promise you never to speak to Paul
+Lessingham again, if you will promise me never to speak to Lord
+Cantilever again,--or to recognise him if you meet him in the
+street.'
+
+'You should have seen how papa glared. Lord Cantilever is the head
+of his party. Its august, and, I presume, reverenced leader. He is
+papa's particular fetish. I am not sure that he does regard him as
+being any lower than the angels, but if he does it is certainly
+something in decimals. My suggestion seemed as outrageous to him
+as his suggestion seemed to me. But it is papa's misfortune that
+he can only see one side of a question,--and that's his own.'
+
+'You--you dare to compare Lord Cantilever to--to that--that--that--!'
+
+'I am not comparing them. I am not aware of there being anything
+in particular against Lord Cantilever,--that is against his
+character. But, of course, I should not dream of comparing a man
+of his calibre, with one of real ability, like Paul Lessingham. It
+would be to treat his lordship with too much severity.'
+
+I could not help it,--but that did it. The rest of papa's
+conversation was a jumble of explosions. It was all so sad.
+
+Papa poured all the vials of his wrath upon Paul,--to his own sore
+disfigurement. He threatened me with all the pains and penalties
+of the inquisition if I did not immediately promise to hold no
+further communication with Mr Lessingham,--of course I did nothing
+of the kind. He cursed me, in default, by bell, book, and candle,
+--and by ever so many other things beside. He called me the most
+dreadful names,--me! his only child. He warned me that I should
+find myself in prison before I had done,--I am not sure that he
+did not hint darkly at the gallows. Finally, he drove me from the
+room in a whirlwind of anathemas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE TERROR BY NIGHT
+
+
+When I left papa,--or, rather, when papa had driven me from him--I
+went straight to the man whom I had found in the street. It was
+late, and I was feeling both tired and worried, so that I only
+thought of seeing for myself how he was. In some way, he seemed to
+be a link between Paul and myself, and as, at that moment, links
+of that kind were precious, I could not have gone to bed without
+learning something of his condition.
+
+The nurse received me at the door.
+
+'Well, nurse, how's the patient?'
+
+Nurse was a plump, motherly woman, who had attended more than one
+odd protege of mine, and whom I kept pretty constantly at my beck
+and call. She held out her hands.
+
+'It's hard to tell. He hasn't moved since I came.'
+
+'Not moved?--Is he still insensible?'
+
+'He seems to me to be in some sort of trance. He does not appear
+to breathe, and I can detect no pulsation, but the doctor says
+he's still alive,--it's the queerest case I ever saw.'
+
+I went farther into the room. Directly I did so the man in the bed
+gave signs of life which were sufficiently unmistakable. Nurse
+hastened to him.
+
+'Why,' she exclaimed, 'he's moving!--he might have heard you
+enter!'
+
+He not only might have done, but it seemed possible that that was
+what he actually had done. As I approached the bed, he raised
+himself to a sitting posture, as, in the morning, he had done in
+the street, and he exclaimed, as if he addressed himself to
+someone whom he saw in front of him,--I cannot describe the almost
+more than human agony which was in his voice,
+
+'Paul Lessingham!--Beware!--The Beetle!'
+
+What he meant I had not the slightest notion. Probably that was
+why what seemed more like a pronouncement of delirium than
+anything else had such an extraordinary effect upon my nerves. No
+sooner had he spoken than a sort of blank horror seemed to settle
+down upon my mind. I actually found myself trembling at the knees.
+I felt, all at once, as if I was standing in the immediate
+presence of something awful yet unseen.
+
+As for the speaker, no sooner were the words out of his lips,
+than, as was the case in the morning, he relapsed into a condition
+of trance. Nurse, bending over him, announced the fact.
+
+'He's gone off again!--What an extraordinary thing!--I suppose it
+is real.' It was clear, from the tone of her voice, that she
+shared the doubt which had troubled the policeman, 'There's not a
+trace of a pulse. From the look of things he might be dead. Of one
+thing I'm sure, that there's something unnatural about the man. No
+natural illness I ever heard of, takes hold of a man like this.'
+
+Glancing up, she saw that there was something unusual in my face;
+an appearance which startled her.
+
+'Why, Miss Marjorie, what's the matter!--You look quite ill!'
+
+I felt ill, and worse than ill; but, at the same time, I was quite
+incapable of describing what I felt to nurse, For some inscrutable
+reason I had even lost the control of my tongue,--I stammered.
+
+'I--I--I'm not feeling very well, nurse; I--I--I think I'll be
+better in bed.'
+
+As I spoke, I staggered towards the door, conscious, all the
+while, that nurse was staring at me with eyes wide open, When I
+got out of the room, it seemed, in some incomprehensible fashion,
+as if something had left it with me, and that It and I were alone
+together in the corridor. So overcome was I by the consciousness
+of its immediate propinquity, that, all at once, I found myself
+cowering against the wall,--as if I expected something or someone
+to strike me.
+
+How I reached my bedroom I do not know. I found Fanchette awaiting
+me. For the moment her presence was a positive comfort,--until I
+realised the amazement with which she was regarding me.
+
+'Mademoiselle is not well?'
+
+'Thank you, Fanchette, I--I am rather tired. I will undress myself
+to-night--you can go to bed.'
+
+'But if mademoiselle is so tired, will she not permit me to assist
+her?'
+
+The suggestion was reasonable enough,--and kindly too; for, to say
+the least of it, she had as much cause for fatigue as I had. I
+hesitated. I should have liked to throw my arms about her neck,
+and beg her not to leave me; but, the plain truth is, I was
+ashamed. In my inner consciousness I was persuaded that the sense
+of terror which had suddenly come over me was so absolutely
+causeless, that I could not bear the notion of playing the craven
+in my maid's eyes. While I hesitated, something seemed to sweep
+past me through the air, and to brush against my cheek in passing.
+I caught at Fanchette's arm.
+
+'Fanchette!--Is there something with us in the room?'
+
+'Something with us in the room?--Mademoiselle?--What does
+mademoiselle mean?'
+
+She looked disturbed,--which was, on the whole, excusable.
+Fanchette is not exactly a strong-minded person, and not likely to
+be much of a support when a support was most required. If I was
+going to play the fool, I would be my own audience. So I sent her
+off.
+
+'Did you not hear me tell you that I will undress myself?--you are
+to go to bed.'
+
+She went to bed,--with quite sufficient willingness.
+
+The instant that she was out of the room I wished that she was
+back again. Such a paroxysm of fear came over me, that I was
+incapable of stirring from the spot on which I stood, and it was
+all I could do to prevent myself from collapsing in heap on the
+floor. I had never, till then, had reason to suppose that I was a
+coward. Nor to suspect myself of being the possessor of 'nerves.'
+I was as little likely as anyone to be frightened by shadows. I
+told myself that the whole thing was sheer absurdity, and that I
+should be thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct when the morning
+came. 'If you don't want to be self-branded as a contemptible
+idiot, Marjorie Lindon, you will call up your courage, and these
+foolish fears will fly.' But it would not do. Instead of flying,
+they grew worse. I became convinced,--and the process of
+conviction was terrible beyond words!--that there actually was
+something with me in the room, some invisible horror,--which, at
+any moment, might become visible. I seemed to understand--with a
+sense of agony which nothing can describe!--that this thing which
+was with me was with Paul. That we were linked together by the
+bond of a common, and a dreadful terror. That, at that moment,
+that same awful peril which was threatening me, was threatening
+him, and that I was powerless to move a finger in his aid. As with
+a sort of second sight, I saw out of the room in which I was, into
+another, in which Paul was crouching on the floor, covering his
+face with his hands, and shrieking. The vision came again and
+again with a degree of vividness of which I cannot give the least
+conception. At last the horror, and the reality of it, goaded me
+to frenzy. 'Paul! Paul!' I screamed. As soon as I found my voice,
+the vision faded. Once more I understood that, as a matter of
+simple fact, I was standing in my own bedroom; that the lights
+were burning brightly; that I had not yet commenced to remove a
+particle of dress. 'Am I going mad?' I wondered. I had heard of
+insanity taking extraordinary forms, but what could have caused
+softening of the brain in me I had not the faintest notion. Surely
+that sort of thing does not come on one--in such a wholly
+unmitigated form!--without the slightest notice,--and that my
+mental faculties were sound enough a few minutes back I was
+certain. The first premonition of anything of the kind had come
+upon me with the melodramatic utterance of the man I had found in
+the street.
+
+'Paul Lessingham!--Beware!--The Beetle!'
+
+The words were ringing in my ears.-What was that?--. There was a
+buzzing sound behind me. I turned to see what it was. It moved as
+I moved, so that it was still at my back. I swung, swiftly, right
+round on my heels. It still eluded me,--it was still behind.
+
+I stood and listened,--what was it that hovered so persistently at
+my back?
+
+The buzzing was distinctly audible. It was like the humming of a
+bee. Or--could it be a beetle?
+
+My whole life long I have had an antipathy to beetles,--of any
+sort or kind. I have objected neither to rats nor mice, nor cows,
+nor bulls, nor snakes, nor spiders, nor toads, nor lizards, nor
+any of the thousand and one other creatures, animate or otherwise,
+to which so many people have a rooted, and, apparently, illogical
+dislike. My pet--and only--horror has been beetles. The mere
+suspicion of a harmless, and, I am told, necessary cockroach,
+being within several feet has always made me seriously uneasy. The
+thought that a great, winged beetle--to me, a flying beetle is the
+horror of horrors!--was with me in my bedroom,--goodness alone
+knew how it had got there!--was unendurable. Anyone who had beheld
+me during the next few moments would certainly have supposed I was
+deranged. I turned and twisted, sprang from side to side, screwed
+myself into impossible positions, in order to obtain a glimpse of
+the detested visitant,--but in vain. I could hear it all the time;
+but see it--never! The buzzing sound was continually behind.
+
+The terror returned,--I began to think that my brain must be
+softening. I dashed to the bed. Flinging myself on my knees, I
+tried to pray. But I was speechless,--words would not come; my
+thoughts would not take shape. I all at once became conscious, as
+I struggled to ask help of God, that I was wrestling with
+something evil,--that if I only could ask kelp of Him, evil would
+flee. But I could not. I was helpless,--overmastered. I hid my
+face in the bedclothes, cramming my fingers into my ears. But the
+buzzing was behind me all the time.
+
+I sprang up, striking out, blindly, wildly, right and left,
+hitting nothing,--the buzzing always came from a point at which,
+at the moment, I was not aiming.
+
+I tore off my clothes. I had on a lovely frock which I had worn
+for the first time that night; I had had it specially made for the
+occasion of the Duchess' ball, and--more especially--in honour of
+Paul's great speech. I had said to myself, when I saw my image in
+a mirror, that it was the most exquisite gown I had ever had, that
+it suited me to perfection, and that it should continue in my
+wardrobe for many a day, if only as a souvenir of a memorable
+night. Now, in the madness of my terror, all reflections of that
+sort were forgotten. My only desire was to away with it. I tore it
+off anyhow, letting it fall in rags on the floor at my feet. All
+else that I had on I flung in the same way after it; it was a
+veritable holocaust of dainty garments,--I acting as relentless
+executioner who am, as a rule, so tender with my things. I leaped
+upon the bed, switched off the electric light, hurried into bed,
+burying myself, over head and all, deep down between the sheets.
+
+I had hoped that by shutting out the light, I might regain my
+senses. That in the darkness I might have opportunity for sane
+reflection. But I had made a grievous error. I had exchanged bad
+for worse. The darkness lent added terrors. The light had not been
+out five seconds before I would have given all that I was worth to
+be able to switch it on again.
+
+As I cowered beneath the bedclothes I heard the buzzing sound
+above my head,--the sudden silence of the darkness had rendered it
+more audible than it had been before. The thing, whatever it was,
+was hovering above the bed. It came nearer and nearer; it grew
+clearer and clearer. I felt it alight upon the coverlet;--shall I
+ever forget the sensations with which I did feel it? It weighed
+upon me like a ton of lead. How much of the seeming weight was
+real, and how much imaginary, I cannot pretend to say; but that it
+was much heavier than any beetle I have ever seen or heard of, I
+am sure.
+
+For a time it was still,--and during that time I doubt if I even
+drew my breath. Then I felt it begin to move, in wobbling fashion,
+with awkward, ungainly gait, stopping every now and then, as if
+for rest. I was conscious that it was progressing, slowly, yet
+surely, towards the head of the bed. The emotion of horror with
+which I realised what this progression might mean, will be, I
+fear, with me to the end of my life,--not only in dreams, but too
+often, also, in my waking hours. My heart, as the Psalmist has it,
+melted like wax within me, I was incapable of movement,--dominated
+by something as hideous as, and infinitely more powerful than, the
+fascination of the serpent.
+
+When it reached the head of the bed, what I feared--with what a
+fear!--would happen, did happen. It began to find its way inside,
+--to creep between the sheets; the wonder is I did not die! I felt
+it coming nearer and nearer, inch by inch; I knew that it was upon
+me, that escape there was none; I felt something touch my hair.
+
+And then oblivion did come to my aid. For the first time in my
+life I swooned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE STRANGE STORY OF THE MAN IN THE STREET
+
+
+I have been anticipating for some weeks past, that things would
+become exciting,--and they have. But hardly in the way which I
+foresaw. It is the old story of the unexpected happening. Suddenly
+events of the most extraordinary nature have come crowding on me
+from the most unlooked-for quarters.
+
+Let me try to take them in something like their proper order.
+
+To begin with, Sydney has behaved very badly. So badly that it
+seems likely that I shall have to re-cast my whole conception of
+his character. It was nearly nine o'clock this morning when I,--I
+cannot say woke up, because I do not believe that I had really
+been asleep--but when I returned to consciousness. I found myself
+sitting up in bed, trembling like some frightened child. What had
+actually happened to me I did not know,--could not guess. I was
+conscious of an overwhelming sense of nausea, and, generally, I
+was feeling very far from well. I endeavoured to arrange my
+thoughts, and to decide upon some plan of action. Finally, I
+decided to go for advice and help where I had so often gone
+before,--to Sydney Atherton.
+
+I went to him. I told him the whole gruesome story. He saw, he
+could not help but see what a deep impress the events of the night
+had made on me. He heard me to the end with every appearance of
+sympathy,--and then all at once I discovered that all the time
+papa had been concealed behind a large screen which was in the
+room, listening to every word I had been uttering. That I was
+dumfoundered, goes without saying. It was bad enough in papa, but
+in Sydney it seemed, and it was, such treachery. He and I have
+told each other secrets all our lives; it has never entered my
+imagination, as he very well knows, to play him false, in one jot
+or tittle; and I have always understood that, in this sort of
+matter, men pride themselves on their sense of honour being so
+much keener than women's. I told them some plain truths; and I
+fancy that I left them both feeling heartily ashamed of
+themselves.
+
+One result the experience had on me,--it wound me up. It had on me
+the revivifying effect of a cold douche. I realised that mine was
+a situation in which I should have to help myself.
+
+When I returned home I learned that the man whom I had found in
+the street was himself again, and was as conscious as he was ever
+likely to be. Burning with curiosity to learn the nature of the
+connection which existed between Paul and him, and what was the
+meaning of his oracular apostrophes, I merely paused to remove my
+hat before hastening into his apartment.
+
+When he saw me, and heard who I was, the expressions of his
+gratitude were painful in their intensity. The tears streamed down
+his cheeks. He looked to me like a man who had very little life
+left in him. He looked weak, and white, and worn to a shadow.
+Probably he never had been robust, and it was only too plain that
+privation had robbed him of what little strength he had ever had.
+He was nothing else but skin and bone. Physical and mental
+debility was written large all over him.
+
+He was not bad-looking,--in a milk and watery sort of way. He had
+pale blue eyes and very fair hair, and, I daresay, at one time,
+had been a spruce enough clerk. It was difficult to guess his age,
+one ages so rapidly under the stress of misfortune, but I should
+have set him down as being about forty. His voice, though faint
+enough at first, was that of an educated man, and as he went on,
+and gathered courage, and became more and more in earnest, he
+spoke with a simple directness which was close akin to eloquence.
+It was a curious story which he had to tell.
+
+So curious, so astounding indeed, that, by the time it was
+finished, I was in such a state of mind, that I could perceive no
+alternative but to forgive Sydney, and, in spite of his recent,
+and scandalous misbehaviour, again appeal to him for assistance.
+It seemed, if the story told by the man whom I had found in the
+street was true,--and incredible though it sounded, he spoke like
+a truthful man!--that Paul was threatened by some dreadful, and,
+to me, wholly incomprehensible danger; that it was a case in which
+even moments were precious; and I felt that, with the best will in
+the world, it was a position in which I could not move alone. The
+shadow of the terror of the night was with me still, and with that
+fresh in my recollection how could I hope, single-handed, to act
+effectually against the mysterious being of whom this amazing tale
+was told? No! I believed that Sydney did care for me, in his own
+peculiar way; I knew that he was quick, and cool, and fertile in
+resource, and that he showed to most advantage in a difficult
+situation; it was possible that he had a conscience, of a sort,
+and that, this time, I might not appeal to it in vain.
+
+So I sent a servant off to fetch him, helter skelter.
+
+As luck would have it, the servant returned with him within five
+minutes. It appeared that he had been lunching with Dora Grayling,
+who lives just at the end of the street, and the footman had met
+him coming down the steps. I had him shown into my own room.
+
+'I want you to go to the man whom I found in the street, and
+listen to what he has to say.'
+
+'With pleasure.'
+
+'Can I trust you?'
+
+'To listen to what he has to say?--I believe so.'
+
+'Can I trust you to respect my confidence?'
+
+He was not at all abashed,--I never saw Sydney Atherton when he
+was abashed. Whatever the offence of which he has been guilty, he
+always seems completely at his ease. His eyes twinkled.
+
+'You can,--I will not breathe a syllable even to papa.'
+
+'In that case, come! But, you understand, I am going to put to the
+test the affirmations which you have made during all these years,
+and to prove if you have any of the feeling for me which you
+pretend.'
+
+Directly we were in the stranger's room, Sydney marched straight
+up to the bed, stared at the man who was lying in it, crammed his
+hands into his trouser pockets, and whistled. I was amazed.
+
+'So!' he exclaimed. 'It's you!'
+
+'Do you know this man?' I asked.
+
+'I am hardly prepared to go so far as to say that I know him, but,
+I chance to have a memory for faces, and it happens that I have
+met this gentleman on at least one previous occasion. Perhaps he
+remembers me.--Do you?'
+
+The stranger seemed uneasy,--as if he found Sidney's tone and
+manner disconcerting.
+
+'I do. You are the man in the street.'
+
+'Precisely. I am that--individual. And you are the man who came
+through the window. And in a much more comfortable condition you
+appear to be than when first I saw you.' Sydney turned to me. 'It
+is just possible, Miss Lindon, that I may have a few remarks to
+make to this gentleman which would be better made in private,--if
+you don't mind.'
+
+'But I do mind,--I mind very much. What do you suppose I sent for
+you here for?'
+
+Sydney smiled that absurd, provoking smile of his,--as if the
+occasion were not sufficiently serious.
+
+'To show that you still repose in me a vestige of your
+confidence.'
+
+'Don't talk nonsense. This man has told me a most extraordinary
+story, and I have sent for you--as you may believe, not too
+willingly'--Sydney bowed--'in order that he may repeat it in your
+presence, and in mine.'
+
+'Is that so?--Well!-Permit me to offer you a chair,--this tale may
+turn out to be a trifle long.'
+
+To humour him I accepted the chair he offered, though I should
+have preferred to stand;--he seated himself on the side of the
+bed, fixing on the stranger those keen, quizzical, not too
+merciful, eyes of his.
+
+'Well, sir, we are at your service,--if you will be so good as to
+favour us with a second edition of that pleasant yarn you have
+been spinning. But--let us begin at the right end!--what's your
+name?'
+
+'My name is Robert Holt.'
+
+'That so?--Then, Mr Robert Holt,--let her go!'
+
+Thus encouraged, Mr Holt repeated the tale which he had told me,
+only in more connected fashion than before. I fancy that Sydney's
+glances exercised on him a sort of hypnotic effect, and this kept
+him to the point,--he scarcely needed a word of prompting from the
+first syllable to the last.
+
+He told how, tired, wet, hungry, desperate, despairing, he had
+been refused admittance to the casual ward,--that unfailing
+resource, as one would have supposed, of those who had abandoned
+even hope. How he had come upon an open window in an apparently
+empty house, and, thinking of nothing but shelter from the
+inclement night, he had clambered through it. How he had found
+himself in the presence of an extraordinary being, who, in his
+debilitated and nervous state, had seemed to him to be only half
+human. How this dreadful creature had given utterance to wild
+sentiments of hatred towards Paul Lessingham,--my Paul! How he had
+taken advantage of Holt's enfeebled state to gain over him the
+most complete, horrible, and, indeed, almost incredible
+ascendency. How he actually had sent Holt, practically naked, into
+the storm-driven streets, to commit burglary at Paul's house,--and
+how he,--Holt,--had actually gone without being able to offer even
+a shadow of opposition. How Paul, suddenly returning home, had
+come upon Holt engaged in the very act of committing burglary, and
+how, on his hearing Holt make a cabalistic reference to some
+mysterious beetle, the manhood had gone out of him, and he had
+suffered the intruder to make good his escape without an effort to
+detain him.
+
+The story had seemed sufficiently astonishing the first time, it
+seemed still more astonishing the second,--but, as I watched
+Sydney listening, what struck me chiefly was the conviction that
+he had heard it all before. I charged him with it directly Holt
+had finished.
+
+'This is not the first time you have been told this tale.'
+
+'Pardon me,--but it is. Do you suppose I live in an atmosphere of
+fairy tales?'
+
+Something in his manner made me feel sure he was deceiving me.
+
+'Sydney!--Don't tell me a story!--Paul has told you!'
+
+'I am not telling you a story,--at least, on this occasion; and Mr
+Lessingham has not told me. Suppose we postpone these details to a
+little later. And perhaps, in the interim, you will permit me to
+put a question or two to Mr Holt.'
+
+I let him have his way,--though I knew he was concealing something
+from me; that he had a more intimate acquaintance with Mr Holt's
+strange tale than he chose to confess. And, for some cause, his
+reticence annoyed me.
+
+He looked at Mr Holt in silence for a second or two.
+
+Then he said, with the quizzical little air of bland impertinence
+which is peculiarly his own,
+
+'I presume, Mr Holt, you have been entertaining us with a novelty
+in fables, and that we are not expected to believe this pleasant
+little yarn of yours.'
+
+'I expect nothing. But I have told you the truth. And you know
+it.'
+
+This seemed to take Sydney aback.
+
+'I protest that, like Miss Lindon, you credit me with a more
+extensive knowledge than I possess. However, we will let that
+pass.--I take it that you paid particular attention to this
+mysterious habitant of this mysterious dwelling.'
+
+I saw that Mr Holt shuddered.
+
+'I am not likely ever to forget him.'
+
+'Then, in that case, you will be able to describe him to us.'
+
+'To do so adequately would be beyond my powers. But I will do my
+best.'
+
+If the original was more remarkable than the description which he
+gave of him, then he must have been remarkable indeed. The
+impression conveyed to my mind was rather of a monster than a
+human being. I watched Sydney attentively as he followed Mr Holt's
+somewhat lurid language, and there was something in his demeanour
+which made me more and more persuaded that he was more behind the
+scenes in this strange business than he pretended, or than the
+speaker suspected. He put a question which seemed uncalled for by
+anything which Mr Holt had said.
+
+'You are sure this thing of beauty was a man?'
+
+'No, sir, that is exactly what I am not sure.'
+
+There was a note in Sydney's voice which suggested that he had
+received precisely the answer which he had expected.
+
+'Did you think it was a woman?'
+
+'I did think so, more than once. Though I can hardly explain what
+made me think so. There was certainly nothing womanly about the
+face.' He paused, as if to reflect. Then added, 'I suppose it was
+a question of instinct.'
+
+'I see.--Just so.--It occurs to me, Mr Holt, that you are rather
+strong on questions of instinct.' Sydney got off the bed. He
+stretched himself, as if fatigued,--which is a way he has. 'I will
+not do you the injustice to hint that I do not believe a word of
+your charming, and simple, narrative. On the contrary, I will
+demonstrate my perfect credence by remarking that I have not the
+slightest doubt that you will be able to point out to me, for my
+particular satisfaction, the delightful residence on which the
+whole is founded.'
+
+Mr Holt coloured,--Sydney's tone could scarcely have been more
+significant.
+
+'You must remember, sir, that it was a dark night, that I had
+never been in that neighbourhood before, and that I was not in a
+condition to pay much attention to locality.'
+
+'All of which is granted, but--how far was it from Hammersmith
+Workhouse?'
+
+'Possibly under half a mile.'
+
+'Then, in that case, surely you can remember which turning you
+took on leaving Hammersmith Workhouse,--I suppose there are not
+many turnings you could have taken.'
+
+'I think I could remember.'
+
+'Then you shall have an opportunity to try. It isn't a very far
+cry to Hammersmith,--don't you think you are well enough to drive
+there now, just you and I together in a cab?'
+
+'I should say so. I wished to get up this morning. It is by the
+doctor's orders I have stayed in bed.'
+
+'Then, for once in a while, the doctor's orders shall be ignored,
+--I prescribe fresh air.' Sydney turned to me. 'Since Mr Holt's
+wardrobe seems rather to seek, don't you think a suit of one of
+the men might fit him,--if Mr Holt wouldn't mind making shift for
+the moment?--Then, by the time you've finished dressing, Mr Holt,
+I shall be ready.'
+
+While they were ascertaining which suit of clothes would be best
+adapted to his figure, I went with Sydney to my room. So soon as
+we were in, I let him know that this was not a matter in which I
+intended to be trifled with.
+
+'Of course you understand, Sydney, that I am coming with you.'
+
+He pretended not to know what I meant.
+
+'Coming with me?--I am delighted to hear it,--but where?'
+
+'To the house of which Mr Holt has been speaking.'
+
+'Nothing could give me greater pleasure, but--might I point out?--
+Mr Holt has to find it yet?'
+
+'I will come to help you to help him find it.'
+
+Sydney laughed,--but I could see he did not altogether relish the
+suggestion.
+
+'Three in a hansom?'
+
+'There is such a thing as a four-wheeled cab,--or I could order a
+carriage if you'd like one.'
+
+Sydney looked at me out of the corners of his eyes; then began to
+walk up and down the room, with his hands in his trouser pockets.
+Presently he began to talk nonsense.
+
+'I need not say with what a sensation of joy I should anticipate
+the delights of a drive with you,--even in a four-wheeled cab;
+but, were I in your place, I fancy that I should allow Holt and
+your humble servant to go hunting out this house of his alone. It
+may prove a more tedious business than you imagine. I promise
+that, after the hunt is over, I will describe the proceedings to
+you with the most literal accuracy.'
+
+'I daresay.--Do you think I don't know you've been deceiving me
+all the time?'
+
+'Deceiving you?--I!'
+
+'Yes,--you! Do you think I'm quite an idiot?'
+
+'My dear Marjorie!'
+
+'Do you think I can't see that you know all about what Mr Holt has
+been telling us,--perhaps more about it than he knows himself?'
+
+'On my word!--With what an amount of knowledge you do credit me.'
+
+'Yes, I do,--or discredit you, rather. If I were to trust you, you
+would tell me just as much as you chose,--which would be nothing.
+I'm coming with you,--so there's an end.'
+
+'Very well.--Do you happen to know if there are any revolvers in
+the house?'
+
+'Revolvers?--whatever for?'
+
+'Because I should like to borrow one. I will not conceal from you
+--since you press me--that this is a case in which a revolver is
+quite likely to be required.'
+
+'You are trying to frighten me.'
+
+'I am doing nothing of the kind, only, under the circumstances, I
+am bound to point out to you what it is you may expect.'
+
+'Oh, you think that you're bound to point that out, do you,--then
+now your bounden duty's done. As for there being any revolvers in
+the house, papa has a perfect arsenal,--would you like to take
+them all?'
+
+'Thanks, but I daresay I shall be able to manage with one,--unless
+you would like one too. You may find yourself in need of it.'
+
+'I am obliged to you, but, on this occasion, I don't think I'll
+trouble. I'll run the risk.--Oh, Sydney, what a hypocrite you
+are!'
+
+'It's for your sake, if I seem to be. I tell you most seriously,
+that I earnestly advise you to allow Mr Holt and I to manage this
+affair alone. I don't mind going so far as to say that this is a
+matter with which, in days to come, you will wish that you had not
+allowed yourself to be associated.'
+
+'What do you mean by that? Do you dare to insinuate anything
+against--Paul?'
+
+'I insinuate nothing. What I mean, I say right out; and, my dear
+Marjorie, what I actually do mean is this,--that if, in spite of
+my urgent solicitations, you will persist in accompanying us, the
+expedition, so far as I am concerned, will be postponed.'
+
+'That is what you do mean, is it? Then that's settled.' I rang the
+bell. The servant came. 'Order a four-wheeled cab at once. And let
+me know the moment Mr Holt is ready.' The servant went. I turned
+to Sydney. 'If you will excuse me, I will go and put my hat on.
+You are, of course, at liberty to please yourself as to whether
+you will or will not go, but, if you don't, then I shall go with
+Mr Holt alone.'
+
+I moved to the door. He stopped me.
+
+'My dear Marjorie, why will you persist in treating me with such
+injustice? Believe me, you have no idea what sort of adventure
+this is which you are setting out upon,--or you would hear reason.
+I assure you that you are gratuitously proposing to thrust
+yourself into imminent peril.'
+
+'What sort of peril? Why do you beat about the bush,--why don't
+you speak right out?'
+
+'I can't speak right out, there are circumstances which render it
+practically impossible--and that's the plain truth,--but the
+danger is none the less real on that account. I am not jesting,--I
+am in earnest; won't you take my word for it?'
+
+'It is not a question of taking your word only,--it is a question
+of something else beside. I have not forgotten my adventures of
+last night,--and Mr Holt's story is mysterious enough in itself;
+but there is something more mysterious still at the back of it,--
+something which you appear to suggest points unpleasantly at Paul.
+My duty is clear, and nothing you can say will turn me from it.
+Paul, as you are very well aware, is already over-weighted with
+affairs of state, pretty nearly borne down by them,--or I would
+take the tale to him, and he would talk to you after a fashion of
+his own. Things being as they are, I propose to show you that,
+although I am not yet Paul's wife, I can make his interests my own
+as completely as though I were. I can, therefore, only repeat that
+it is for you to decide what you intend to do; but, if you prefer
+to stay, I shall go with Mr Holt,--alone.'
+
+'Understand that, when the time for regret comes--as it will
+come!--you are not to blame me for having done what I advised you
+not to do.'
+
+'My dear Mr Atherton, I will undertake to do my utmost to guard
+your spotless reputation; I should be sorry that anyone should
+hold you responsible for anything I either said or did.'
+
+'Very well!--Your blood be on your own head!'
+
+'My blood?'
+
+'Yes,--your blood. I shouldn't be surprised if it comes to blood
+before we're through.--Perhaps you'll oblige me with the loan of
+one of that arsenal of revolvers of which you spoke.'
+
+I let him have his old revolver,--or, rather, I let him have one
+of papa's new ones. He put it in the hip pocket in his trousers.
+And the expedition started,--in a four-wheeled car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE HOUSE ON THE ROAD FROM THE WORKHOUSE
+
+
+Mr Holt looked as if he was in somebody else's garments. He was so
+thin, and worn, and wasted, that the suit of clothes which one of
+the men had lent him hung upon him as on a scarecrow. I was almost
+ashamed of myself for having incurred a share of the
+responsibility of taking him out of bed. He seemed so weak and
+bloodless that I should not have been surprised if he had fainted
+on the road. I had taken care that he should eat as much as he
+could eat before we started--the suggestion of starvation which he
+had conveyed to one's mind was dreadful!--and I had brought a
+flask of brandy in case of accidents, but, in spite of everything,
+I could not conceal from myself that he would be more at home in a
+sick-bed than in a jolting cab.
+
+It was not a cheerful drive. There was in Sydney's manner towards
+me an air of protection which I instinctively resented,--he
+appeared to be regarding me as a careful, and anxious, nurse might
+regard a wrong-headed and disobedient child. Conversation
+distinctly languished. Since Sydney seemed disposed to patronise
+me, I was bent on snubbing him. The result was, that the majority
+of the remarks which were uttered were addressed to Mr Holt.
+
+The cab stopped,--after what had appeared to me to be an
+interminable journey. I was rejoiced at the prospect of its being
+at an end. Sydney put his head out of the window. A short parley
+with the driver ensued.
+
+'This is 'Ammersmith Workhouse, it's a large place, sir,--which
+part of it might you be wanting?'
+
+Sydney appealed to Mr Holt. He put his head out of the window in
+his turn,--he did not seem to recognise our surroundings at all.
+
+'We have come a different way,--this is not the way I went; I went
+through Hammersmith,--and to the casual ward; I don't see that
+here.'
+
+Sydney spoke to the cabman.
+
+'Driver, where's the casual ward?'
+
+'That's the other end, sir.'
+
+'Then take us there.'
+
+He took us there. Then Sydney appealed again to Mr Holt.
+
+'Shall I dismiss the cabman,--or don't you feel equal to walking?'
+
+'Thank you, I feel quite equal to walking,--I think the exercise
+will do me good.'
+
+So the cabman was dismissed,--a step which we--and I, in
+particular--had subsequent cause to regret. Mr Holt took his
+bearings. He pointed to a door which was just in front of us.
+
+'That's the entrance to the casual ward, and that, over it, is the
+window through which the other man threw a stone. I went to the
+right,--back the way I had come.' We went to the right. 'I reached
+this corner.' We had reached a corner. Mr Holt looked about him,
+endeavouring to recall the way he had gone. A good many roads
+appeared to converge at that point, so that he might have wandered
+in either of several directions.
+
+Presently he arrived at something like a decision.
+
+'I think this is the way I went,--I am nearly sure it is.'
+
+He led the way, with something of an air of dubitation, and we
+followed. The road he had chosen seemed to lead to nothing and
+nowhere. We had not gone many yards from the workhouse gates
+before we were confronted by something like chaos. In front and on
+either side of us were large spaces of waste land. At some more or
+less remote period attempts appeared to have been made at brick-
+making,--there were untidy stacks of bilious-looking bricks in
+evidence. Here and there enormous weather-stained boards announced
+that 'This Desirable Land was to be Let for Building Purposes.'
+The road itself was unfinished. There was no pavement, and we had
+the bare uneven ground for sidewalk. It seemed, so far as I could
+judge, to lose itself in space, and to be swallowed up by the
+wilderness of 'Desirable Land' which lay beyond. In the near
+distance there were houses enough, and to spare--of a kind. But
+they were in other roads. In the one in which we actually were, on
+the right, at the end, there was a row of unfurnished carcases,
+but only two buildings which were in anything like a fit state for
+occupation. One stood on either side, not facing each other,--
+there was a distance between them of perhaps fifty yards. The
+sight of them had a more exciting effect on Mr Holt than it had on
+me. He moved rapidly forward,--coming to a standstill in front of
+the one upon our left, which was the nearer of the pair.
+
+'This is the house!' he exclaimed.
+
+He seemed almost exhilarated,--I confess that I was depressed. A
+more dismal-looking habitation one could hardly imagine. It was
+one of those dreadful jerry-built houses which, while they are
+still new, look old. It had quite possibly only been built a year
+or two, and yet, owing to neglect, or to poverty of construction,
+or to a combination of the two, it was already threatening to
+tumble down. It was a small place, a couple of storeys high, and
+would have been dear--I should think!--at thirty pounds a year.
+The windows had surely never been washed since the house was
+built,--those on the upper floor seemed all either cracked or
+broken. The only sign of occupancy consisted in the fact that a
+blind was down behind the window of the room on the ground floor.
+Curtains there were none. A low wall ran in front, which had
+apparently at one time been surmounted by something in the shape
+of an iron railing,--a rusty piece of metal still remained on one
+end; but, since there was only about a foot between it and the
+building, which was practically built upon the road,--whether the
+wall was intended to ensure privacy, or was merely for ornament,
+was not clear.
+
+'This is the house!' repeated Mr Holt, showing more signs of life
+than I had hitherto seen in him.
+
+Sydney looked it up and down,--it apparently appealed to his
+aesthetic sense as little as it did to mine.
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'I am certain.'
+
+'It seems empty.'
+
+'It seemed empty to me that night,--that is why I got into it in
+search of shelter.'
+
+'Which is the window which served you as a door?'
+
+'This one.' Mr Holt pointed to the window on the ground floor,--
+the one which was screened by a blind. 'There was no sign of a
+blind when I first saw it, and the sash was up,--it was that which
+caught my eye.'
+
+Once more Sydney surveyed the place, in comprehensive fashion,
+from roof to basement,--then he scrutinisingly regarded Mr Holt.
+
+'You are quite sure this is the house? It might be awkward if you
+proved mistaken. I am going to knock at the door, and if it turns
+out that that mysterious acquaintance of yours does not, and never
+has lived here, we might find an explanation difficult.'
+
+'I am sure it is the house,--certain! I know it,--I feel it here,
+--and here.'
+
+Mr Holt touched his breast, and his forehead. His manner was
+distinctly odd. He was trembling, and a fevered expression had
+come into his eyes. Sydney glanced at him, for a moment, in
+silence. Then he bestowed his attention upon me.
+
+'May I ask if I may rely upon your preserving your presence of
+mind?'
+
+The mere question ruffled my plumes.
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What I say. I am going to knock at that door, and I am going to
+get through it, somehow. It is quite within the range of
+possibility that, when I am through, there will be some strange
+happenings,--as you have heard from Mr Holt. The house is
+commonplace enough without; you may not find it so commonplace
+within. You may find yourself in a position in which it will be in
+the highest degree essential that you should keep your wits about
+you.'
+
+'I am not likely to let them stray.'
+
+'Then that's all right.--Do I understand that you propose to come
+in with me?'
+
+'Of course I do,--what do you suppose I've come for? What nonsense
+you are talking.
+
+'I hope that you will still continue to consider it nonsense by
+the time this little adventure's done.'
+
+That I resented his impertinence goes without saying--to be talked
+to in such a strain by Sydney Atherton, whom I had kept in
+subjection ever since he was in knickerbockers, was a little
+trying,--but I am forced to admit that I was more impressed by his
+manner, or his words, or by Mr Holt's manner, or something, than I
+should have cared to own. I had not the least notion what was
+going to happen, or what horrors that woebegone-looking dwelling
+contained. But Mr Holt's story had been of the most astonishing
+sort, my experiences of the previous night were still fresh, and,
+altogether, now that I was in such close neighbourhood with the
+Unknown--with a capital U!--although it was broad daylight, it
+loomed before me in a shape for which,--candidly!--I was not
+prepared.
+
+A more disreputable-looking front door I have not seen,--it was in
+perfect harmony with the remainder of the establishment. The paint
+was off; the woodwork was scratched and dented; the knocker was
+red with rust. When Sydney took it in his hand I was conscious of
+quite a little thrill. As he brought it down with a sharp rat-tat,
+I half expected to see the door fly open, and disclose some
+gruesome object glaring out at us. Nothing of the kind took place;
+the door did not budge,--nothing happened. Sydney waited a second
+or two, then knocked again; another second or two, then another
+knock. There was still no sign of any notice being taken of our
+presence. Sydney turned to Mr Holt.
+
+'Seems as if the place was empty.'
+
+Mr Holt was in the most singular condition of agitation,--it made
+me uncomfortable to look at him.
+
+'You do not know,--you cannot tell; there may be someone there who
+hears and pays no heed.'
+
+'I'll give them another chance.'
+
+Sydney brought down the knocker with thundering reverberations.
+The din must have been audible half a mile away. But from within
+the house there was still no sign that any heard. Sydney came down
+the step.
+
+'I'll try another way,--I may have better fortune at the back.'
+
+He led the way round to the rear, Mr Holt and I following in
+single file. There the place seemed in worse case even than in the
+front. There were two empty rooms on the ground floor at the
+back,--there was no mistake about their being empty, without the
+slightest difficulty we could see right into them. One was
+apparently intended for a kitchen and wash-house combined, the
+other for a sitting-room. There was not a stick of furniture in
+either, nor the slightest sign of human habitation. Sydney
+commented on the fact.
+
+'Not only is it plain that no one lives in these charming
+apartments, but it looks to me uncommonly as if no one ever had
+lived in them.'
+
+To my thinking Mr Holt's agitation was increasing every moment.
+For some reason of his own, Sydney took no notice of it whatever,
+--possibly because he judged that to do so would only tend to make
+it worse. An odd change had even taken place in Mr Holt's voice,--
+he spoke in a sort of tremulous falsetto.
+
+'It was only the front room which I saw.'
+
+'Very good; then, before very long, you shall see that front room
+again.'
+
+Sydney rapped with his knuckles on the glass panels of the back
+door. He tried the handle; when it refused to yield he gave it a
+vigorous shaking. He saluted the dirty windows,--so far as
+succeeding in attracting attention was concerned, entirely in
+vain. Then he turned again to Mr Holt,--half mockingly.
+
+'I call you to witness that I have used every lawful means to gain
+the favourable notice of your mysterious friend. I must therefore
+beg to stand excused if I try something slightly unlawful for a
+change. It is true that you found the window already open; but, in
+my case, it soon will be.'
+
+He took a knife out of his pocket, and, with the open blade,
+forced back the catch,--as I am told that burglars do. Then he
+lifted the sash.
+
+'Behold!' he exclaimed. 'What did I tell you?--Now, my dear
+Marjorie, if I get in first and Mr Holt gets in after me, we shall
+be in a position to open the door for you.'
+
+I immediately saw through his design.
+
+'No, Mr Atherton; you will get in first, and I will get in after
+you, through the window,--before Mr Holt. I don't intend to wait
+for you to open the door.'
+
+Sydney raised his hands and opened his eyes, as if grieved at my
+want of confidence. But I did not mean to be left in the lurch, to
+wait their pleasure, while on pretence of opening the door, they
+searched the house. So Sydney climbed in first, and I second,--it
+was not a difficult operation, since the window-sill was under
+three feet from the ground--and Mr Holt last. Directly we were in,
+Sydney put his hand up to his mouth, and shouted.
+
+'Is there anybody in this house? If so, will he kindly step this
+way, as there is someone wishes to see him.'
+
+His words went echoing through the empty rooms in a way which was
+almost uncanny. I suddenly realised that if, after all, there did
+happen to be somebody in the house, and he was at all
+disagreeable, our presence on his premises might prove rather
+difficult to explain. However, no one answered. While I was
+waiting for Sydney to make the next move, he diverted my attention
+to Mr Holt.
+
+'Hollo, Holt, what's the matter with you? Man, don't play the fool
+like that!'
+
+Something was the matter with Mr Holt. He was trembling all over
+as if attacked by a shaking palsy. Every muscle in his body seemed
+twitching at once. A strained look had come on his face, which was
+not nice to see. He spoke as with an effort.
+
+'I'm all right.--It's nothing.'
+
+'Oh, is it nothing? Then perhaps you'll drop it. Where's that
+brandy?' I handed Sydney the flask. 'Here, swallow this.'
+
+Mr Holt swallowed the cupful of neat spirit which Sydney offered
+without an attempt at parley. Beyond bringing some remnants of
+colour to his ashen cheeks it seemed to have no effect on him
+whatever. Sydney eyed him with a meaning in his glance which I was
+at a loss to understand.
+
+'Listen to me, my lad. Don't think you can deceive me by playing
+any of your fool tricks, and don't delude yourself into supposing
+that I shall treat you as anything but dangerous if you do. I've
+got this.' He showed the revolver of papa's which I had lent him.
+'Don't imagine that Miss Lindon's presence will deter me from
+using it.'
+
+Why he addressed Mr Holt in such a strain surpassed my
+comprehension. Mr Holt, however, evinced not the faintest symptoms
+of resentment,--he had become, on a sudden, more like an automaton
+than a man. Sydney continued to gaze at him as if he would have
+liked his glance to penetrate to his inmost soul.
+
+'Keep in front of me, if you please, Mr Holt, and lead the way to
+this mysterious apartment in which you claim to have had such a
+remarkable experience.'
+
+Of me he asked in a whisper,
+
+'Did you bring a revolver?'
+
+I was startled.
+
+'A revolver?--The idea!--How absurd you are!'
+
+Sydney said something which was so rude--and so uncalled for!--
+that it was worthy of papa in his most violent moments.
+
+'I'd sooner be absurd than a fool in petticoats.' I was so angry
+that I did not know what to say,--and before I could say it he
+went on. 'Keep your eyes and ears well open; be surprised at
+nothing you see or hear. Stick close to me. And for goodness sake
+remain mistress of as many of your senses as you conveniently
+can.'
+
+I had not the least idea what was the meaning of it all. To me
+there seemed nothing to make such a pother about. And yet I was
+conscious of a fluttering of the heart as if there soon might be
+something, I knew Sydney sufficiently well to be aware that he was
+one of the last men in the world to make a fuss without reason,--
+and that he was as little likely to suppose that there was a
+reason when as a matter of fact there was none.
+
+Mr Holt led the way, as Sydney desired--or, rather, commanded, to
+the door of the room which was in front of the house. The door was
+closed. Sydney tapped on a panel. All was silence. He tapped
+again.
+
+'Anyone in there?' he demanded.
+
+As there was still no answer, he tried the handle. The door was
+locked.
+
+'The first sign of the presence of a human being we have had,--
+doors don't lock themselves. It's just possible that there may
+have been someone or something about the place, at some time or
+other, after all.'
+
+Grasping the handle firmly, he shook it with all his might,--as he
+had done with the door at the back. So flimsily was the place
+constructed that he made even the walls to tremble.
+
+'Within there!--if anyone is in there!--if you don't open this
+door, I shall.'
+
+There was no response.
+
+So be it!--I'm going to pursue my wild career of defiance of
+established law and order, and gain admission in one way, if I
+can't in another.'
+
+Putting his right shoulder against the door, he pushed with his
+whole force. Sydney is a big man, and very strong, and the door
+was weak. Shortly, the lock yielded before the continuous
+pressure, and the door flew open. Sydney whistled.
+
+'So!--It begins to occur to me, Mr Holt, that that story of yours
+may not have been such pure romance as it seemed.'
+
+It was plain enough that, at any rate, this room had been
+occupied, and that recently,--and, if his taste in furniture could
+be taken as a test, by an eccentric occupant to boot. My own first
+impression was that there was someone, or something, living in it
+still,--an uncomfortable odour greeted our nostrils, which was
+suggestive of some evil-smelling animal. Sydney seemed to share my
+thought.
+
+'A pretty perfume, on my word! Let's shed a little more light on
+the subject, and see what causes it. Marjorie, stop where you are
+until I tell you.'
+
+I had noticed nothing, from without, peculiar about the appearance
+of the blind which screened the window, but it must have been made
+of some unusually thick material, for, within, the room was
+strangely dark. Sydney entered, with the intention of drawing up
+the blind, but he had scarcely taken a couple of steps when he
+stopped.
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'It's it,' said Mr Holt, in a voice which was so unlike his own
+that it was scarcely recognisable.
+
+'It?--What do you mean by it?'
+
+'The Beetle!'
+
+Judging from the sound of his voice Sydney was all at once in a
+state of odd excitement.
+
+'Oh, is it!--Then, if this time I don't find out the how and the
+why and the wherefore of that charming conjuring trick, I'll give
+you leave to write me down an ass,--with a great, big A.'
+
+He rushed farther into the room,--apparently his efforts to
+lighten it did not meet with the immediate success which he
+desired.
+
+'What's the matter with this confounded blind? There's no cord!
+How do you pull it up?--What the--'
+
+In the middle of his sentence Sydney ceased speaking. Suddenly Mr
+Holt, who was standing by my side on the threshold of the door,
+was seized with such a fit of trembling, that, fearing he was
+going to fall, I caught him by the arm. A most extraordinary look
+was on his face. His eyes were distended to their fullest width,
+as if with horror at what they saw in front of them. Great beads
+of perspiration were on his forehead.
+
+'It's coming!' he screamed.
+
+Exactly what happened I do not know. But, as he spoke, I heard,
+proceeding from the room, the sound of the buzzing of wings.
+Instantly it recalled my experiences of the night before,--as it
+did so I was conscious of a most unpleasant qualm. Sydney swore a
+great oath, as if he were beside himself with rage.
+
+'If you won't go up, you shall come down.'
+
+I suppose, failing to find a cord, he seized the blind from below,
+and dragged it down,--it came, roller and all, clattering to the
+floor. The room was all in light. I hurried in. Sydney was
+standing by the window, with a look of perplexity upon his face
+which, under any other circumstances, would have been comical. He
+was holding papa's revolver in his hand, and was glaring round and
+round the room, as if wholly at a loss to understand how it was he
+did not see what he was looking for.
+
+'Marjorie!' he exclaimed. 'Did you hear anything?'
+
+'Of course I did. It was that which I heard last night,--which so
+frightened me.'
+
+'Oh, was it? Then, by--' in his excitement he must have been
+completely oblivious of my presence, for he used the most terrible
+language, 'when I find it there'll be a small discussion. It can't
+have got out of the room,--I know the creature's here; I not only
+heard it, I felt it brush against my face.--Holt, come inside and
+shut that door.'
+
+Mr Holt raised his arms, as if he were exerting himself to make a
+forward movement,--but he remained rooted to the spot on which he
+stood.
+
+'I can't!' he cried.
+
+'You can't.'--Why?'
+
+'It won't let me.'
+
+'What won't let you?'
+
+'The Beetle!'
+
+Sydney moved till he was close in front of him. He surveyed him
+with eager eyes. I was just at his back. I heard him murmur,--
+possibly to me.
+
+'By George!--It's just as I thought!--The beggar's hypnotised!'
+
+Then he said aloud,
+
+'Can you see it now?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'Behind you.'
+
+As Mr Holt spoke, I again heard, quite close to me, that buzzing
+sound. Sydney seemed to hear it too,--it caused him to swing round
+so quickly that he all but whirled me off my feet.
+
+'I beg your pardon, Marjorie, but this is of the nature of an
+unparalleled experience,--didn't you hear something then?'
+
+'I did,--distinctly; it was close to me,--within an inch or two of
+my face.'
+
+We stared about us, then back at each other,--there was nothing
+else to be seen. Sydney laughed, doubtfully.
+
+'It's uncommonly queer. I don't want to suggest that there are
+visions about, or I might suspect myself of softening of the
+brain. But--it's queer. There's a trick about it somewhere, I am
+convinced; and no doubt it's simple enough when you know how it's
+done,--but the difficulty is to find that out.--Do you think our
+friend over there is acting?'
+
+'He looks to me as if he were ill.'
+
+'He does look ill. He also looks as if he were hypnotised. If he
+is, it must be by suggestion,--and that's what makes me doubtful,
+because it will be the first plainly established case of hypnotism
+by suggestion I've encountered.--Holt!'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'That,' said Sydney in my ear, 'is the voice and that is the
+manner of a hypnotised man, but, on the other hand, a person under
+influence generally responds only to the hypnotist,--which is
+another feature about our peculiar friend which arouses my
+suspicions.' Then, aloud, 'Don't stand there like an idiot,--come
+inside.'
+
+Again Mr Holt made an apparently futile effort to do as he was
+bid. It was painful to look at him,--he was like a feeble,
+frightened, tottering child, who would come on, but cannot.
+
+'I can't.'
+
+'No nonsense, my man! Do you think that this is a performance in a
+booth, and that I am to be taken in by all the humbug of the
+professional mesmerist? Do as I tell you,--come into the room.'
+
+There was a repetition, on Mr Holt's part, of his previous pitiful
+struggle; this time it was longer sustained than before,--but the
+result was the same.
+
+'I can't!' he wailed.
+
+'Then I say you can,--and shall! If I pick you up, and carry you,
+perhaps you will not find yourself so helpless as you wish me to
+suppose.'
+
+Sydney moved forward to put his threat into execution. As he did
+so, a strange alteration took place in Mr Holt's demeanour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR HOLT
+
+
+I was standing in the middle of the room, Sydney was between the
+door and me; Mr Holt was in the hall, just outside the doorway, in
+which he, so to speak, was framed. As Sydney advanced towards him
+he was seized with a kind of convulsion,--he had to lean against
+the side of the door to save himself from falling. Sydney paused,
+and watched. The spasm went as suddenly as it came,--Mr Holt
+became as motionless as he had just now been the other way. He
+stood in an attitude of febrile expectancy,--his chin raised, his
+head thrown back, his eyes glancing upwards,--with the dreadful
+fixed glare which had come into them ever since we had entered the
+house. He looked to me as if his every faculty was strained in the
+act of listening,--not a muscle in his body seemed to move; he was
+as rigid as a figure carved in stone. Presently the rigidity gave
+place to what, to an onlooker, seemed causeless agitation.
+
+'I hear!' he exclaimed, in the most curious voice I had ever
+heard. 'I come!'
+
+It was as though he was speaking to someone who was far away.
+Turning, he walked down the passage to the front door.
+
+'Hollo!' cried Sydney. 'Where are you off to?'
+
+We both of us hastened to see. He was fumbling with the latch;
+before we could reach him, the door was open, and he was through
+it. Sydney, rushing after him, caught him on the step and held him
+by the arm.
+
+'What's the meaning of this little caper?--Where do you think
+you're going now?'
+
+Mr Holt did not condescend to turn and look at him. He said, in
+the same dreamy, faraway, unnatural tone of voice,--and he kept
+his unwavering gaze fixed on what was apparently some distant
+object which was visible only to himself.
+
+'I am going to him. He calls me.'
+
+'Who calls you?'
+
+'The Lord of the Beetle.'
+
+Whether Sydney released his arm or not I cannot say. As he spoke,
+he seemed to me to slip away from Sydney's grasp. Passing through
+the gateway, turning to the right, he commenced to retrace his
+steps in the direction we had come. Sydney stared after him in
+unequivocal amazement. Then he looked at me.
+
+'Well!--this is a pretty fix!--now what's to be done?'
+
+'What's the matter with him?' I inquired. 'Is he mad?'
+
+'There's method in his madness if he is. He's in the same
+condition in which he was that night I saw him come out of the
+Apostle's window.' Sydney has a horrible habit of calling Paul
+'the Apostle'; I have spoken to him about it over and over again,
+--but my words have not made much impression. 'He ought to be
+followed,--he may be sailing off to that mysterious friend of his
+this instant.--But, on the other hand, he mayn't, and it may be
+nothing but a trick of our friend the conjurer's to get us away
+from this elegant abode of his. He's done me twice already, I
+don't want to be done again,--and I distinctly do not want him to
+return and find me missing. He's quite capable of taking the hint,
+and removing himself into the Ewigkeit,--when the clue to as
+pretty a mystery as ever I came across will have vanished.'
+
+'I can stay,' I said.
+
+'You?--Alone?'
+
+He eyed me doubtingly,--evidently not altogether relishing the
+proposition.
+
+'Why not? You might send the first person you meet,--policeman,
+cabman, or whoever it is--to keep me company. It seems a pity now
+that we dismissed that cab.'
+
+'Yes, it does seem a pity.' Sydney was biting his lip. 'Confound
+that fellow! how fast he moves.'
+
+Mr Holt was already nearing the end of the road.
+
+'If you think it necessary, by all means follow to see where he
+goes,--you are sure to meet somebody whom you will be able to send
+before you have gone very far.'
+
+'I suppose I shall.--You won't mind being left alone?'
+
+'Why should I?--I'm not a child.'
+
+Mr Holt, reaching the corner, turned it, and vanished out of
+sight. Sydney gave an exclamation of impatience.
+
+'If I don't make haste I shall lose him. I'll do as you suggest--
+dispatch the first individual I come across to hold watch and ward
+with you.'
+
+'That'll be all right.'
+
+He started off at a run,--shouting to me as he went.
+
+'It won't be five minutes before somebody comes!'
+
+I waved my hand to him. I watched him till he reached the end of
+the road. Turning, he waved his hand to me. Then he vanished, as
+Mr Holt had done.
+
+And I was alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE TERROR BY DAY
+
+
+My first impulse, after Sydney's disappearance, was to laugh. Why
+should he display anxiety on my behalf merely because I was to be
+the sole occupant of an otherwise empty house for a few minutes
+more or less,--and in broad daylight too! To say the least, the
+anxiety seemed unwarranted.
+
+I lingered at the gate, for a moment or two, wondering what was at
+the bottom of Mr Holt's singular proceedings, and what Sydney
+really proposed to gain by acting as a spy upon his wanderings.
+Then I turned to re-enter the house. As I did so, another problem
+suggested itself to my mind,--what connection, of the slightest
+importance, could a man in Paul Lessingham's position have with
+the eccentric being who had established himself in such an
+unsatisfactory dwelling-place? Mr Holt's story I had only dimly
+understood,--it struck me that it would require a deal of
+understanding. It was more like a farrago of nonsense, an outcome
+of delirium, than a plain statement of solid facts. To tell the
+truth, Sydney had taken it more seriously than I expected. He
+seemed to see something in it which I emphatically did not. What
+was double Dutch to me, seemed clear as print to him. So far as I
+could judge, he actually had the presumption to imagine that Paul
+--my Paul!--Paul Lessingham!--the great Paul Lessingham!--was mixed
+up in the very mysterious adventures of poor, weak-minded,
+hysterical Mr Holt, in a manner which was hardly to his credit.
+
+Of course, any idea of the kind was purely and simply balderdash.
+Exactly what bee Sydney had got in his bonnet, I could not guess.
+But I did know Paul. Only let me find myself face to face with the
+fantastic author of Mr Holt's weird tribulations, and I, a woman,
+single-handed, would do my best to show him that whoever played
+pranks with Paul Lessingham trifled with edged tools.
+
+I had returned to that historical front room which, according to
+Mr Holt, had been the scene of his most disastrous burglarious
+entry. Whoever had furnished it had had original notions of the
+resources of modern upholstery. There was not a table in the
+place,--no chair or couch, nothing to sit down upon except the
+bed. On the floor there was a marvellous carpet which was
+apparently of eastern manufacture. It was so thick, and so pliant
+to the tread, that moving over it was like walking on thousand-
+year-old turf. It was woven in gorgeous colours, and covered with--
+
+When I discovered what it actually was covered with, I was
+conscious of a disagreeable sense of surprise.
+
+It was covered with beetles!
+
+All over it, with only a few inches of space between each, were
+representations of some peculiar kind of beetle,--it was the same
+beetle, over, and over, and over. The artist had woven his
+undesirable subject into the warp and woof of the material with
+such cunning skill that, as one continued to gaze, one began to
+wonder if by any possibility the creatures could be alive.
+
+In spite of the softness of the texture, and the art--of a kind!--
+which had been displayed in the workmanship, I rapidly arrived at
+the conclusion that it was the most uncomfortable carpet I had
+ever seen. I wagged my finger at the repeated portrayals of the--
+to me!--unspeakable insect.
+
+'If I had discovered that you were there before Sydney went, I
+think it just possible that I should have hesitated before I let
+him go.'
+
+Then there came a revulsion of feeling. I shook myself.
+
+'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Marjorie Lindon, to even
+think such nonsense. Are you all nerves and morbid imaginings,--
+you who have prided yourself on being so strong-minded! A pretty
+sort you are to do battle for anyone.--Why, they're only make-
+believes!'
+
+Half involuntarily, I drew my foot over one of the creatures. Of
+course, it was nothing but imagination; but I seemed to feel it
+squelch beneath my shoe. It was disgusting.
+
+'Come!' I cried. 'This won't do! As Sydney would phrase it,--am I
+going to make an idiot of myself?'
+
+I turned to the window,--looking at my watch.
+
+'It's more than five minutes ago since Sydney went. That companion
+of mine ought to be already on the way. I'll go and see if he is
+coming.'
+
+I went to the gate. There was not a soul in sight. It was with
+such a distinct sense of disappointment that I perceived this was
+so, that I was in two minds what to do. To remain where I was,
+looking, with gaping eyes, for the policeman, or the cabman, or
+whoever it was Sydney was dispatching to act as my temporary
+associate, was tantamount to acknowledging myself a simpleton,--
+while I was conscious of a most unmistakable reluctance to return
+within the house.
+
+Common sense, or what I took for common sense, however, triumphed,
+and, after loitering for another five minutes, I did go in again.
+
+This time, ignoring, to the best of my ability, the beetles on the
+floor, I proceeded to expend my curiosity--and occupy my thoughts
+--in an examination of the bed. It only needed a very cursory
+examination, however, to show that the seeming bed was, in
+reality, none at all,--or if it was a bed after the manner of the
+Easterns it certainly was not after the fashion of the Britons.
+There was no framework,--nothing to represent the bedstead. It was
+simply a heap of rugs piled apparently indiscriminately upon the
+floor. A huge mass of them there seemed to be; of all sorts, and
+shapes, and sizes,--and materials too.
+
+The top one was of white silk,--in quality, exquisite. It was of
+huge size, yet, with a little compression, one might almost have
+passed it through the proverbial wedding ring. So far as space
+admitted I spread it out in front of me. In the middle was a
+picture,--whether it was embroidered on the substance or woven in
+it, I could not quite make out. Nor, at first, could I gather what
+it was the artist had intended to depict,--there was a brilliancy
+about it which was rather dazzling. By degrees, I realised that
+the lurid hues were meant for flames,--and, when one had got so
+far, one perceived that they were by no means badly imitated
+either. Then the meaning of the thing dawned on me,--it was a
+representation of a human sacrifice. In its way, as ghastly a
+piece of realism as one could see.
+
+On the right was the majestic seated figure of a goddess. Her
+hands were crossed upon her knees, and she was naked from her
+waist upwards. I fancied it was meant for Isis. On her brow was
+perched a gaily-apparelled beetle--that ubiquitous beetle!--
+forming a bright spot of colour against her coppery skin,--it was
+an exact reproduction of the creatures which were imaged on the
+carpet. In front of the idol was an enormous fiery furnace. In the
+very heart of the flames was an altar. On the altar was a naked
+white woman being burned alive. There could be no doubt as to her
+being alive, for she was secured by chains in such a fashion that
+she was permitted a certain amount of freedom, of which she was
+availing herself to contort and twist her body into shapes which
+were horribly suggestive of the agony which she was enduring,--the
+artist, indeed, seemed to have exhausted his powers in his efforts
+to convey a vivid impression of the pains which were tormenting
+her.
+
+'A pretty picture, on my word! A pleasant taste in art the
+garnitures of this establishment suggest! The person who likes to
+live with this kind of thing, especially as a covering to his bed,
+must have his own notions as to what constitute agreeable
+surroundings.'
+
+As I continued staring at the thing, all at once it seemed as if
+the woman on the altar moved. It was preposterous, but she
+appeared to gather her limbs together, and turn half over.
+
+'What can be the matter with me? Am I going mad? She can't be
+moving!'
+
+If she wasn't, then certainly something was,--she was lifted right
+into the air. An idea occurred to me. I snatched the rug aside.
+
+The mystery was explained!
+
+A thin, yellow, wrinkled hand was protruding from amidst the heap
+of rugs,--it was its action which had caused the seeming movement
+of the figure on the altar. I stared, confounded. The hand was
+followed by an arm; the arm by a shoulder; the shoulder by a
+head,--and the most awful, hideous, wicked-looking face I had ever
+pictured even in my most dreadful dreams. A pair of baleful eyes
+were glaring up at mine.
+
+I understood the position in a flash of startled amazement.
+
+Sydney, in following Mr Holt, had started on a wild goose chase
+after all. I was alone with the occupant of that mysterious
+house,--the chief actor in Mr Holt's astounding tale. He had been
+hidden in the heap of rugs all the while.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+In Pursuit
+
+
+The Conclusion of the Matter is extracted from the Case-Book of
+the Hon. Augustus Champnell, Confidential Agent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A NEW CLIENT
+
+
+On the afternoon of Friday, June 2, 18--, I was entering in my
+case-book some memoranda having reference to the very curious
+matter of the Duchess of Datchet's Deed-box. It was about two
+o'clock. Andrews came in and laid a card upon my desk. On it was
+inscribed 'Mr Paul Lessingham.'
+
+'Show Mr Lessingham in.'
+
+Andrews showed him in. I was, of course, familiar with Mr
+Lessingham's appearance, but it was the first time I had had with
+him any personal communication. He held out his hand to me.
+
+'You are Mr Champnell?'
+
+'I am.'
+
+'I believe that I have not had the honour of meeting you before,
+Mr Champnell, but with your father, the Earl of Glenlivet, I have
+the pleasure of some acquaintance.'
+
+I bowed. He looked at me, fixedly, as if he were trying to make
+out what sort of man I was. 'You are very young, Mr Champnell.'
+
+'I have been told that an eminent offender in that respect once
+asserted that youth is not of necessity a crime.'
+
+'And you have chosen a singular profession,--one in which one
+hardly looks for juvenility.'
+
+'You yourself, Mr Lessingham, are not old. In a statesman one
+expects grey hairs.--I trust that I am sufficiently ancient to be
+able to do you service.'
+
+He smiled.
+
+'I think it possible. I have heard of you more than once, Mr
+Champnell, always to your advantage. My friend, Sir John Seymour,
+was telling me, only the other day, that you have recently
+conducted for him some business, of a very delicate nature, with
+much skill and tact; and he warmly advised me, if ever I found
+myself in a predicament, to come to you. I find myself in a
+predicament now.'
+
+Again I bowed.
+
+'A predicament, I fancy, of an altogether unparalleled sort. I
+take it that anything I may say to you will be as though it were
+said to a father confessor.'
+
+'You may rest assured of that.'
+
+'Good.--Then, to make the matter clear to you I must begin by
+telling you a story,--if I may trespass on your patience to that
+extent. I will endeavour not to be more verbose than the occasion
+requires.'
+
+I offered him a chair, placing it in such a position that the
+light from the window would have shone full upon his face. With
+the calmest possible air, as if unconscious of my design, he
+carried the chair to the other side of my desk, twisting it right
+round before he sat on it,--so that now the light was at his back
+and on my face. Crossing his legs, clasping his hands about his
+knee, he sat in silence for some moments, as if turning something
+over in his mind. He glanced round the room.
+
+'I suppose, Mr Champnell, that some singular tales have been told
+in here.'
+
+'Some very singular tales indeed. I am never appalled by
+singularity. It is my normal atmosphere.'
+
+'And yet I should be disposed to wager that you have never
+listened to so strange a story as that which I am about to tell
+you now. So astonishing, indeed, is the chapter in my life which I
+am about to open out to you, that I have more than once had to
+take myself to task, and fit the incidents together with
+mathematical accuracy in order to assure myself of its perfect
+truth.'
+
+He paused. There was about his demeanour that suggestion of
+reluctance which I not uncommonly discover in individuals who are
+about to take the skeletons from their cupboards and parade them
+before my eyes. His next remark seemed to point to the fact that
+he perceived what was passing through my thoughts.
+
+'My position is not rendered easier by the circumstance that I am
+not of a communicative nature. I am not in sympathy with the
+spirit of the age which craves for personal advertisement. I hold
+that the private life even of a public man should be held
+inviolate. I resent, with peculiar bitterness, the attempts of
+prying eyes to peer into matters which, as it seems to me, concern
+myself alone. You must, therefore, bear with me, Mr Champnell, if
+I seem awkward in disclosing to you certain incidents in my career
+which I had hoped would continue locked in the secret depository
+of my own bosom, at any rate till I was carried to the grave. I am
+sure you will suffer me to stand excused if I frankly admit that
+it is only an irresistible chain of incidents which has
+constrained me to make of you a confidant.'
+
+'My experience tells me, Mr Lessingham, that no one ever does come
+to me until they are compelled. In that respect I am regarded as
+something worse even than a medical man.'
+
+A wintry smile flitted across his features,--it was clear that he
+regarded me as a good deal worse than a medical man. Presently he
+began to tell me one of the most remarkable tales which even I had
+heard. As he proceeded I understood how strong, and how natural,
+had been his desire for reticence. On the mere score of
+credibility he must have greatly preferred to have kept his own
+counsel. For my part I own, unreservedly, that I should have
+deemed the tale incredible had it been told me by Tom, Dick, or
+Harry, instead of by Paul Lessingham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+WHAT CAME OF LOOKING THROUGH A LATTICE
+
+
+He began in accents which halted not a little. By degrees his
+voice grew firmer. Words came from him with greater fluency.
+
+'I am not yet forty. So when I tell you that twenty years ago I
+was a mere youth I am stating what is a sufficiently obvious
+truth. It is twenty years ago since the events of which I am going
+to speak transpired.
+
+'I lost both my parents when I was quite a lad, and by their death
+I was left in a position in which I was, to an unusual extent in
+one so young, my own master. I was ever of a rambling turn of
+mind, and when, at the mature age of eighteen, I left school, I
+decided that I should learn more from travel than from sojourn at
+a university. So, since there was no one to say me nay, instead of
+going either to Oxford or Cambridge, I went abroad. After a few
+months I found myself in Egypt,--I was down with fever at
+Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo. I had caught it by drinking polluted
+water during an excursion with some Bedouins to Palmyra.
+
+'When the fever had left me I went out one night into the town in
+search of amusement. I went, unaccompanied, into the native
+quarter, not a wise thing to do, especially at night, but at
+eighteen one is not always wise, and I was weary of the monotony
+of the sick-room, and eager for something which had in it a spice
+of adventure, I found myself in a street which I have reason to
+believe is no longer existing. It had a French name, and was
+called the Rue de Rabagas,--I saw the name on the corner as I
+turned into it, and it has left an impress on the tablets of my
+memory which is never likely to be obliterated.
+
+'It was a narrow street, and, of course, a dirty one, ill-lit,
+and, apparently, at the moment of my appearance, deserted. I had
+gone, perhaps, half-way down its tortuous length, blundering more
+than once into the kennel, wondering what fantastic whim had
+brought me into such unsavoury quarters, and what would happen to
+me if, as seemed extremely possible, I lost my way. On a sudden my
+ears were saluted by sounds which proceeded from a house which I
+was passing,--sounds of music and of singing.
+
+'I paused. I stood awhile to listen.
+
+'There was an open window on my right, which was screened by
+latticed blinds. From the room which was behind these blinds the
+sounds were coming. Someone was singing, accompanied by an
+instrument resembling a guitar,--singing uncommonly well.'
+
+Mr Lessingham stopped. A stream of recollection seemed to come
+flooding over him. A dreamy look came into his eyes.
+
+'I remember it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. How it all
+comes back,--the dirty street, the evil smells, the imperfect
+light, the girl's voice filling all at once the air. It was a
+girl's voice,--full, and round, and sweet; an organ seldom met
+with, especially in such a place as that. She sang a little
+chansonnette, which, just then, half Europe was humming,--it
+occurred in an opera which they were acting at one of the
+Boulevard theatres,--"La P'tite Voyageuse." The effect, coming so
+unexpectedly, was startling. I stood and heard her to an end.
+
+'Inspired by I know not what impulse of curiosity, when the song
+was finished, I moved one of the lattice blinds a little aside, so
+as to enable me to get a glimpse of the singer. I found myself
+looking into what seemed to be a sort of cafe,--one of those
+places which are found all over the Continent, in which women sing
+in order to attract custom. There was a low platform at one end of
+the room, and on it were seated three women. One of them had
+evidently just been accompanying her own song,--she still had an
+instrument of music in her hands, and was striking a few idle
+notes. The other two had been acting as audience. They were
+attired in the fantastic apparel which the women who are found in
+such places generally wear. An old woman was sitting knitting in a
+corner, whom I took to be the inevitable patronne. With the
+exception of these four the place was empty.
+
+'They must have heard me touch the lattice, or seen it moving, for
+no sooner did I glance within than the three pairs of eyes on the
+platform were raised and fixed on mine. The old woman in the
+corner alone showed no consciousness of my neighbourhood. We eyed
+one another in silence for a second or two. Then the girl with the
+harp,--the instrument she was manipulating proved to be fashioned
+more like a harp than a guitar--called out to me,
+
+'"Entrez, monsieur!--Soye le bienvenu!"
+
+'I was a little tired. Rather curious as to whereabouts I was,--
+the place struck me, even at that first momentary glimpse, as
+hardly in the ordinary line of that kind of thing. And not
+unwilling to listen to a repetition of the former song, or to
+another sung by the same singer.
+
+'"On condition," I replied, "that you sing me another song."
+
+'"Ah, monsieur, with the greatest pleasure in the world I will
+sing you twenty."
+
+'She was almost, if not quite, as good as her word. She
+entertained me with song after song. I may safely say that I have
+seldom if ever heard melody more enchanting. All languages seemed
+to be the same to her. She sang in French and Italian, German and
+English,--in tongues with which I was unfamiliar. It was in these
+Eastern harmonies that she was most successful. They were
+indescribably weird and thrilling, and she delivered them with a
+verve and sweetness which was amazing. I sat at one of the little
+tables with which the room was dotted, listening entranced.
+
+'Time passed more rapidly than I supposed. While she sang I sipped
+the liquor with which the old woman had supplied me. So enthralled
+was I by the display of the girl's astonishing gifts that I did
+not notice what it was I was drinking. Looking back I can only
+surmise that it was some poisonous concoction of the creature's
+own. That one small glass had on me the strangest effect. I was
+still weak from the fever which I had only just succeeded in
+shaking off, and that, no doubt, had something to do with the
+result. But, as I continued to sit, I was conscious that I was
+sinking into a lethargic condition, against which I was incapable
+of struggling.
+
+'After a while the original performer ceased her efforts, and, her
+companions taking her place, she came and joined me at the little
+table. Looking at my watch I was surprised to perceive the
+lateness of the hour. I rose to leave. She caught me by the wrist.
+
+'"Do not go," she said;--she spoke English of a sort, and with the
+queerest accent. "All is well with you. Rest awhile."
+
+'You will smile,--I should smile, perhaps, were I the listener
+instead of you, but it is the simple truth that her touch had on
+me what I can only describe as a magnetic influence. As her
+fingers closed upon my wrist, I felt as powerless in her grasp as
+if she held me with bands of steel. What seemed an invitation was
+virtually a command. I had to stay whether I would or wouldn't.
+She called for more liquor, and at what again was really her
+command I drank of it. I do not think that after she touched my
+wrist I uttered a word. She did all the talking. And, while she
+talked, she kept her eyes fixed on my face. Those eyes of hers!
+They were a devil's. I can positively affirm that they had on me a
+diabolical effect. They robbed me of my consciousness, of my power
+of volition, of my capacity to think,--they made me as wax in her
+hands. My last recollection of that fatal night is of her sitting
+in front of me, bending over the table, stroking my wrist with her
+extended fingers, staring at me with her awful eyes. After that, a
+curtain seems to descend. There comes a period of oblivion.'
+
+Mr Lessingham ceased. His manner was calm and self-contained
+enough; but, in spite of that I could see that the mere
+recollection of the things which he told me moved his nature to
+its foundations. There was eloquence in the drawn lines about his
+mouth, and in the strained expression of his eyes.
+
+So far his tale was sufficiently commonplace. Places such as the
+one which he described abound in the Cairo of to-day; and many are
+the Englishmen who have entered them to their exceeding bitter
+cost. With that keen intuition which has done him yeoman's service
+in the political arena, Mr Lessingham at once perceived the
+direction my thoughts were taking.
+
+'You have heard this tale before?--No doubt. And often. The traps
+are many, and the fools and the unwary are not a few. The
+singularity of my experience is still to come. You must forgive me
+if I seem to stumble in the telling. I am anxious to present my
+case as baldly, and with as little appearance of exaggeration as
+possible. I say with as little appearance, for some appearance of
+exaggeration I fear is unavoidable. My case is so unique, and so
+out of the common run of our every-day experience, that the
+plainest possible statement must smack of the sensational.
+
+'As, I fancy, you have guessed, when understanding returned to me,
+I found myself in an apartment with which I was unfamiliar. I was
+lying, undressed, on a heap of rugs in a corner of a low-pitched
+room which was furnished in a fashion which, when I grasped the
+details, filled me with amazement. By my side knelt the Woman of
+the Songs. Leaning over, she wooed my mouth with kisses. I cannot
+describe to you the sense of horror and of loathing with which the
+contact of her lips oppressed me. There was about her something so
+unnatural, so inhuman, that I believe even then I could have
+destroyed her with as little sense of moral turpitude as if she
+had been some noxious insect.
+
+'"Where am I?" I exclaimed.
+
+'"You are with the children of Isis," she replied. What she meant
+I did not know, and do not to this hour. "You are in the hands of
+the great goddess,--of the mother of men."
+
+'"How did I come here?"
+
+'"By the loving kindness of the great mother."
+
+'I do not, of course, pretend to give you the exact text of her
+words, but they were to that effect.
+
+'Half raising myself on the heap of rugs, I gazed about me,--and
+was astounded at what I saw.
+
+'The place in which I was, though the reverse of lofty, was of
+considerable size,--I could not conceive whereabouts it could be.
+The walls and roof were of bare stone,--as though the whole had
+been hewed out of the solid rock. It seemed to be some sort of
+temple, and was redolent with the most extraordinary odour. An
+altar stood about the centre, fashioned out of a single block of
+stone. On it a fire burned with a faint blue flame,--the fumes
+which rose from it were no doubt chiefly responsible for the
+prevailing perfumes. Behind it was a huge bronze figure, more than
+life size. It was in a sitting posture, and represented a woman.
+Although it resembled no portrayal of her I have seen either
+before or since, I came afterwards to understand that it was meant
+for Isis. On the idol's brow was poised a beetle. That the
+creature was alive seemed clear, for, as I looked at it, it opened
+and shut its wings.
+
+'If the one on the forehead of the goddess was the only live
+beetle which the place contained, it was not the only
+representation. It was modelled in the solid stone of the roof,
+and depicted in flaming colours on hangings which here and there
+were hung against the walls. Wherever the eye turned it rested on
+a scarab. The effect was bewildering. It was as though one saw
+things through the distorted glamour of a nightmare. I asked
+myself if I were not still dreaming; if my appearance of
+consciousness were not after all a mere delusion; if I had really
+regained my senses.
+
+'And, here, Mr Champnell, I wish to point out, and to emphasise
+the fact, that I am not prepared to positively affirm what portion
+of my adventures in that extraordinary, and horrible place, was
+actuality, and what the product of a feverish imagination. Had I
+been persuaded that all I thought I saw, I really did see, I
+should have opened my lips long ago, let the consequences to
+myself have been what they might. But there is the crux. The
+happenings were of such an incredible character, and my condition
+was such an abnormal one,--I was never really myself from the
+first moment to the last--that I have hesitated, and still do
+hesitate, to assert where, precisely, fiction ended and fact
+began.
+
+'With some misty notion of testing my actual condition I
+endeavoured to get off the heap of rugs on which I reclined. As I
+did so the woman at my side laid her hand against my chest,
+lightly. But, had her gentle pressure been the equivalent of a ton
+of iron, it could not have been more effectual. I collapsed, sank
+back upon the rugs, and lay there, panting for breath, wondering
+if I had crossed the border line which divides madness from
+sanity.
+
+'"Let me get up!--let me go!" I gasped.
+
+'"Nay," she murmured, "stay with me yet awhile, O my beloved."
+
+'And again she kissed me.'
+
+Once more Mr Lessingham paused. An involuntary shudder went all
+over him. In spite of the evidently great effort which he was
+making to retain his self-control his features were contorted by
+an anguished spasm. For some seconds he seemed at a loss to find
+words to enable him to continue.
+
+When he did go on, his voice was harsh and strained.
+
+'I am altogether incapable of even hinting to you the nauseous
+nature of that woman's kisses. They filled me with an
+indescribable repulsion. I look back at them with a feeling of
+physical, mental, and moral horror, across an interval of twenty
+years. The most dreadful part of it was that I was wholly
+incapable of offering even the faintest resistance to her
+caresses. I lay there like a log. She did with me as she would,
+and in dumb agony I endured.'
+
+He took his handkerchief from his pocket, and, although the day
+was cool, with it he wiped the perspiration from his brow.
+
+'To dwell in detail on what occurred during my involuntary sojourn
+in that fearful place is beyond my power. I cannot even venture to
+attempt it. The attempt, were it made, would be futile, and, to
+me, painful beyond measure. I seem to have seen all that happened
+as in a glass darkly,--with about it all an element of unreality.
+As I have already remarked, the things which revealed themselves,
+dimly, to my perception, seemed too bizarre, too hideous, to be
+true.
+
+'It was only afterwards, when I was in a position to compare
+dates, that I was enabled to determine what had been the length of
+my imprisonment. It appears that I was in that horrible den more
+than two months,--two unspeakable months. And the whole time there
+were comings and goings, a phantasmagoric array of eerie figures
+continually passed to and fro before my hazy eyes. What I judge to
+have been religious services took place; in which the altar, the
+bronze image, and the beetle on its brow, figure largely. Not only
+were they conducted with a bewildering confusion of mysterious
+rites, but, if my memory is in the least degree trustworthy, they
+were orgies of nameless horrors. I seem to have seen things take
+place at them at the mere thought of which the brain reels and
+trembles.
+
+'Indeed it is in connection with the cult of the obscene deity to
+whom these wretched creatures paid their scandalous vows that my
+most awful memories seem to have been associated. It may have
+been--I hope it was, a mirage born of my half delirious state, but
+it seemed to me that they offered human sacrifices.'
+
+When Mr Lessingham said this, I pricked up my ears. For reasons of
+my own, which will immediately transpire, I had been wondering if
+he would make any reference to a human sacrifice. He noted my
+display of interest,--but misapprehended the cause.
+
+'I see you start, I do not wonder. But I repeat that unless I was
+the victim of some extraordinary species of double sight--in which
+case the whole business would resolve itself into the fabric of a
+dream, and I should indeed thank God!--I saw, on more than one
+occasion, a human sacrifice offered on that stone altar,
+presumably to the grim image which looked down on it. And, unless
+I err, in each case the sacrificial object was a woman, stripped
+to the skin, as white as you or I,--and before they burned her
+they subjected her to every variety of outrage of which even the
+minds of demons could conceive. More than once since then I have
+seemed to hear the shrieks of the victims ringing through the air,
+mingled with the triumphant cries of her frenzied murderers, and
+the music of their harps.
+
+'It was the cumulative horrors of such a scene which gave me the
+strength, or the courage, or the madness, I know not which it was,
+to burst the bonds which bound me, and which, even in the
+bursting, made of me, even to this hour, a haunted man.
+
+'There had been a sacrifice,--unless, as I have repeatedly
+observed, the whole was nothing but a dream. A woman--a young and
+lovely Englishwoman, if I could believe the evidence of my own
+eyes, had been outraged, and burnt alive, while I lay there
+helpless, looking on. The business was concluded. The ashes of the
+victim had been consumed by the participants. The worshippers had
+departed. I was left alone with the woman of the songs, who
+apparently acted as the guardian of that worse than
+slaughterhouse. She was, as usual after such an orgie, rather a
+devil than a human being, drunk with an insensate frenzy,
+delirious with inhuman longings. As she approached to offer to me
+her loathed caresses, I was on a sudden conscious of something
+which I had not felt before when in her company. It was as though
+something had slipped away from me,--some weight which had
+oppressed me, some bond by which I had been bound. I was aroused,
+all at once, to a sense of freedom; to a knowledge that the blood
+which coursed through my veins was after all my own, that I was
+master of my own honour.
+
+'I can only suppose that through all those weeks she had kept me
+there in a state of mesmeric stupor. That, taking advantage of the
+weakness which the fever had left behind, by the exercise of her
+diabolical arts, she had not allowed me to pass out of a condition
+of hypnotic trance. Now, for some reason, the cord was loosed.
+Possibly her absorption in her religious duties had caused her to
+forget to tighten it. Anyhow, as she approached me, she approached
+a man, and one who, for the first time for many a day, was his own
+man. She herself seemed wholly unconscious of anything of the
+kind. As she drew nearer to me, and nearer, she appeared to be
+entirely oblivious of the fact that I was anything but the
+fibreless, emasculated creature which, up to that moment, she had
+made of me.
+
+'But she knew it when she touched me,--when she stooped to press
+her lips to mine. At that instant the accumulating rage which had
+been smouldering in my breast through all those leaden torturing
+hours, sprang into flame. Leaping off my couch of rugs, I flung my
+hands about her throat,--and then she knew I was awake. Then she
+strove to tighten the cord which she had suffered to become unduly
+loose. Her baleful eyes were fixed on mine. I knew that she was
+putting out her utmost force to trick me of my manhood. But I
+fought with her like one possessed, and I conquered--in a fashion.
+I compressed her throat with my two hands as with an iron vice. I
+knew that I was struggling for more than life, that the odds were
+all against me, that I was staking my all upon the casting of a
+die,--I stuck at nothing which could make me victor.
+
+'Tighter and tighter my pressure grew,--I did not stay to think if
+I was killing her--till on a sudden--'
+
+Mr Lessingham stopped. He stared with fixed, glassy eyes, as if
+the whole was being re-enacted in front of him. His voice
+faltered. I thought he would break down. But, with an effort, he
+continued.
+
+'On a sudden, I felt her slipping from between my fingers. Without
+the slightest warning, in an instant she had vanished, and where,
+not a moment before, she herself had been, I found myself
+confronting a monstrous beetle,--a huge, writhing creation of some
+wild nightmare.
+
+'At first the creature stood as high as I did. But, as I stared at
+it, in stupefied amazement,--as you may easily imagine,--the thing
+dwindled while I gazed. I did not stop to see how far the process
+of dwindling continued,--a stark raving madman for the nonce, I
+fled as if all the fiends in hell were at my heels.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+AFTER TWENTY YEARS
+
+
+'How I reached the open air I cannot tell you,--I do not know. I
+have a confused recollection of rushing through vaulted passages,
+through endless corridors, of trampling over people who tried to
+arrest my passage,--and the rest is blank.
+
+'When I again came to myself I was lying in the house of an
+American missionary named Clements. I had been found, at early
+dawn, stark naked, in a Cairo street, and picked up for dead.
+Judging from appearances I must have wandered for miles, all
+through the night. Whence I had come, or whither I was going, none
+could tell,--I could not tell myself. For weeks I hovered between
+life and death. The kindness of Mr and Mrs Clements was not to be
+measured by words. I was brought to their house a penniless,
+helpless, battered stranger, and they gave me all they had to
+offer, without money and without price,--with no expectation of an
+earthly reward. Let no one pretend that there is no Christian
+charity under the sun. The debt I owed that man and woman I was
+never able to repay. Before I was properly myself again, and in a
+position to offer some adequate testimony of the gratitude I felt,
+Mrs Clements was dead, drowned during an excursion on the Nile'
+and her husband had departed on a missionary expedition into
+Central Africa, from which he never returned.
+
+'Although, in a measure, my physical health returned, for months
+after I had left the roof of my hospitable hosts, I was in a state
+of semi-imbecility. I suffered from a species of aphasia. For days
+together I was speechless, and could remember nothing,--not even
+my own name. And, when that stage had passed, and I began to move
+more freely among my fellows, for years I was but a wreck of my
+former self. I was visited, at all hours of the day and night, by
+frightful--I know not whether to call them visions, they were real
+enough to me, but since they were visible to no one but myself,
+perhaps that is the word which best describes them. Their presence
+invariably plunged me into a state of abject terror, against which
+I was unable to even make a show of fighting. To such an extent
+did they embitter my existence, that I voluntarily placed myself
+under the treatment of an expert in mental pathology. For a
+considerable period of time I was under his constant supervision,
+but the visitations were as inexplicable to him as they were to
+me.
+
+'By degrees, however, they became rarer and rarer, until at last I
+flattered myself that I had once more become as other men. After
+an interval, to make sure, I devoted myself to politics.
+Thenceforward I have lived, as they phrase it, in the public eye.
+Private life, in any peculiar sense of the term, I have had none.'
+
+Mr Lessingham ceased. His tale was not uninteresting, and, to say
+the least of it, was curious. But I still was at a loss to
+understand what it had to do with me, or what was the purport of
+his presence in my room. Since he remained silent, as if the
+matter, so far as he was concerned, was at an end, I told him so.
+
+'I presume, Mr Lessingham, that all this is but a prelude to the
+play. At present I do not see where it is that I come in.'
+
+Still for some seconds he was silent. When he spoke his voice was
+grave and sombre, as if he were burdened by a weight of woe.
+
+'Unfortunately, as you put it, all this has been but a prelude to
+the play. Were it not so I should not now stand in such pressing
+want of the services of a confidential agent,--that is, of an
+experienced man of the world, who has been endowed by nature with
+phenomenal perceptive faculties, and in whose capacity and honour
+I can place the completest confidence.'
+
+I smiled,--the compliment was a pointed one.
+
+'I hope your estimate of me is not too high.'
+
+'I hope not,--for my sake, as well as for your own. I have heard
+great things of you. If ever man stood in need of all that human
+skill and acumen can do for him, I certainly am he.'
+
+His words aroused my curiosity. I was conscious of feeling more
+interested than heretofore.
+
+'I will do my best for you. Man can do no more. Only give my best
+a trial.'
+
+'I will. At once.'
+
+He looked at me long and earnestly. Then, leaning forward, he
+said, lowering his voice perhaps unconsciously,
+
+'The fact is, Mr Champnell, that quite recently events have
+happened which threaten to bridge the chasm of twenty years, and
+to place me face to face with that plague spot of the past. At
+this moment I stand in imminent peril of becoming again the
+wretched thing I was when I fled from that den of all the devils.
+It is to guard me against this that I have come to you. I want you
+to unravel the tangled thread which threatens to drag me to my
+doom,--and, when unravelled to sunder it--for ever, if God wills!
+--in twain.'
+
+'Explain.'
+
+To be frank, for the moment I thought him mad. He went on.
+
+'Three weeks ago, when I returned late one night from a sitting in
+the House of Commons, I found, on my study table, a sheet of paper
+on which there was a representation--marvellously like!--of the
+creature into which, as it seemed to me, the woman of the songs
+was transformed as I clutched her throat between my hands. The
+mere sight of it brought back one of those visitations of which I
+have told you, and which I thought I had done with for ever,--I
+was convulsed by an agony of fear, thrown into a state
+approximating to a paralysis both of mind and body.'
+
+'But why?'
+
+'I cannot tell you. I only know that I have never dared to allow
+my thoughts to recur to that last dread scene, lest the mere
+recurrence should drive me mad.'
+
+'What was this you found upon your study table,--merely a
+drawing?'
+
+'It was a representation, produced by what process I cannot say,
+which was so wonderfully, so diabolically, like the original, that
+for a moment I thought the thing itself was on my table.'
+
+'Who put it there?'
+
+'That is precisely what I wish you to find out,--what I wish you
+to make it your instant business to ascertain. I have found the
+thing, under similar circumstances, on three separate occasions,
+on my study table,--and each time it has had on me the same
+hideous effect.'
+
+'Each time after you have returned from a late sitting in the
+House of Commons?'
+
+'Exactly.'
+
+'Where are these--what shall I call them--delineations?'
+
+'That, again, I cannot tell you.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What I say. Each time, when I recovered, the thing had vanished.'
+
+'Sheet of paper and all?'
+
+'Apparently,--though on that point I could not be positive. You
+will understand that my study table is apt to be littered with
+sheets of paper, and I could not absolutely determine that the
+thing had not stared at me from one of those. The delineation
+itself, to use your word, certainly had vanished.'
+
+I began to suspect that this was a case rather for a doctor than
+for a man of my profession. And hinted as much.
+
+'Don't you think it is possible, Mr Lessingham, that you have been
+overworking yourself--that you have been driving your brain too
+hard, and that you have been the victim of an optical delusion?'
+
+'I thought so myself; I may say that I almost hoped so. But wait
+till I have finished. You will find that there is no loophole in
+that direction.'
+
+He appeared to be recalling events in their due order. His manner
+was studiously cold,--as if he were endeavouring, despite the
+strangeness of his story, to impress me with the literal accuracy
+of each syllable he uttered.
+
+'The night before last, on returning home, I found in my study a
+stranger.'
+
+'A stranger?'
+
+'Yes.--In other words, a burglar.'
+
+'A burglar?--I see.--Go on.'
+
+He had paused. His demeanour was becoming odder and odder.
+
+'On my entry he was engaged in forcing an entry into my bureau. I
+need hardly say that I advanced to seize him. But--I could not.'
+
+'You could not?--How do you mean you could not?'
+
+'I mean simply what I say. You must understand that this was no
+ordinary felon. Of what nationality he was I cannot tell you. He
+only uttered two words, and they were certainly in English, but
+apart from that he was dumb. He wore no covering on his head or
+feet. Indeed, his only garment was a long dark flowing cloak
+which, as it fluttered about him, revealed that his limbs were
+bare.'
+
+'An unique costume for a burglar.'
+
+'The instant I saw him I realised that he was in some way
+connected with that adventure in the Rue de Rabagas. What he said
+and did, proved it to the hilt.'
+
+'What did he say and do?'
+
+'As I approached to effect his capture, he pronounced aloud two
+words which recalled that awful scene the recollection of which
+always lingers in my brain, and of which I never dare to permit
+myself to think. Their very utterance threw me into a sort of
+convulsion.'
+
+'What were the words?'
+
+Mr Lessingham opened his mouth,--and shut it. A marked change took
+place in the expression of his countenance. His eyes became fixed
+and staring,--resembling the glassy orbs of the somnambulist. For
+a moment I feared that he was going to give me an object lesson in
+the 'visitations' of which I had heard so much. I rose, with a
+view of offering him assistance. He motioned me back.
+
+'Thank you.--It will pass away.'
+
+His voice was dry and husky,--unlike his usual silvern tones.
+After an uncomfortable interval he managed to continue.
+
+'You see for yourself, Mr Champnell, what a miserable weakling,
+when this subject is broached, I still remain. I cannot utter the
+words the stranger uttered, I cannot even write them down. For
+some inscrutable reason they have on me an effect similar to that
+which spells and incantations had on people in tales of
+witchcraft.'
+
+'I suppose, Mr Lessingham, that there is no doubt that this
+mysterious stranger was not himself an optical delusion?'
+
+'Scarcely. There is the evidence of my servants to prove the
+contrary.'
+
+'Did your servants see him?'
+
+'Some of them,--yes. Then there is the evidence of the bureau. The
+fellow had smashed the top right in two. When I came to examine
+the contents I learned that a packet of letters was missing. They
+were letters which I had received from Miss Lindon, a lady whom I
+hope to make my wife. This, also, I state to you in confidence.'
+
+'What use would he be likely to make of them?'
+
+'If matters stand as I fear they do, he might make a very serious
+misuse of them. If the object of these wretches, after all these
+years, is a wild revenge, they would be capable, having discovered
+what she is to me, of working Miss Lindon a fatal mischief,--or,
+at the very least, of poisoning her mind.'
+
+'I see.--How did the thief escape,--did he, like the delineation,
+vanish into air?'
+
+'He escaped by the much more prosaic method of dashing through the
+drawing-room window, and clambering down from the verandah into
+the street, where he ran right into someone's arms.'
+
+'Into whose arms,--a constable's?'
+
+'No; into Mr Atherton's,--Sydney Atherton's.'
+
+'The inventor?'
+
+'The same.--Do you know him?'
+
+'I do. Sydney Atherton and I are friends of a good many years'
+standing.--But Atherton must have seen where he came from;--and,
+anyhow, if he was in the state of undress which you have
+described, why didn't he stop him?'
+
+'Mr Atherton's reasons were his own. He did not stop him, and, so
+far as I can learn, he did not attempt to stop him. Instead, he
+knocked at my hall door to inform me that he had seen a man climb
+out of my window.'
+
+'I happen to know that, at certain seasons, Atherton is a queer
+fish,--but that sounds very queer indeed.'
+
+'The truth is, Mr Champnell, that, if it were not for Mr Atherton,
+I doubt if I should have troubled you even now. The accident of
+his being an acquaintance of yours makes my task easier.'
+
+He drew his chair closer to me with an air of briskness which had
+been foreign to him before. For some reason, which I was unable to
+fathom, the introduction of Atherton's name seemed to have
+enlivened him. However, I was not long to remain in darkness. In
+half a dozen sentences he threw more light on the real cause of
+his visit to me than he had done in all that had gone before. His
+bearing, too, was more businesslike and to the point. For the
+first time I had some glimmerings of the politician,--alert, keen,
+eager,--as he is known to all the world.
+
+'Mr Atherton, like myself, has been a postulant for Miss Lindon's
+hand. Because I have succeeded where he has failed, he has chosen
+to be angry. It seems that he has had dealings, either with my
+visitor of Tuesday night, or with some other his acquaintance, and
+he proposes to use what he has gleaned from him to the
+disadvantage of my character. I have just come from Mr Atherton.
+From hints he dropped I conclude that, probably during the last
+few hours, he has had an interview with someone who was connected
+in some way with that lurid patch in my career; that this person
+made so-called revelations, which were nothing but a series of
+monstrous lies; and these so-called revelations Mr Atherton has
+threatened, in so many words, to place before Miss Lindon, That is
+an eventuality which I wish to avoid. My own conviction is that
+there is at this moment in London an emissary from that den in the
+whilom Rue de Rabagas--for all I know it may be the Woman of the
+Songs herself. Whether the sole purport of this individual's
+presence is to do me injury, I am, as yet, in no position to say,
+but that it is proposed to work me mischief, at any rate, by the
+way, is plain. I believe that Mr Atherton knows more about this
+person's individuality and whereabouts than he has been willing,
+so far, to admit. I want you, therefore, to ascertain these things
+on my behalf; to find out what, and where, this person is, to drag
+her!--or him;--out into the light of day. In short, I want you to
+effectually protect me from the terrorism which threatens once
+more to overwhelm my mental and my physical powers,--which bids
+fair to destroy my intellect, my career, my life, my all.'
+
+'What reason have you for suspecting that Mr Atherton has seen
+this individual of whom you speak,--has he told you so?'
+
+'Practically,--yes.'
+
+'I know Atherton well. In his not infrequent moments of excitement
+he is apt to use strong language, but it goes no further. I
+believe him to be the last person in the world to do anyone an
+intentional injustice, under any circumstances whatever. If I go
+to him, armed with credentials from you, when he understands the
+real gravity of the situation,--which it will be my business to
+make him do, I believe that, spontaneously, of his own accord, he
+will tell me as much about this mysterious individual as he knows
+himself.'
+
+'Then go to him at once.'
+
+'Good. I will. The result I will communicate to you.'
+
+I rose from my seat. As I did so, someone rushed into the outer
+office with a din and a clatter. Andrews' voice, and another,
+became distinctly audible,--Andrews' apparently raised in vigorous
+expostulation. Raised, seemingly, in vain, for presently the door
+of my own particular sanctum was thrown open with a crash, and Mr
+Sydney Atherton himself came dashing in,--evidently conspicuously
+under the influence of one of those not infrequent 'moments of
+excitement' of which I had just been speaking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A BRINGER OF TIDINGS
+
+
+Atherton did not wait to see who might or might not be present,
+but, without even pausing to take breath, he broke into full cry
+on the instant,--as is occasionally his wont.
+
+'Champnell!--Thank goodness I've found you in!--I want you!--At
+once!--Don't stop to talk, but stick your hat on, and put your
+best foot forward,--I'll tell you all about it in the cab.'
+
+I endeavoured to call his attention to Mr Lessingham's presence,--
+but without success.
+
+'My dear fellow--'
+
+When I had got as far as that he cut me short.
+
+'Don't "dear fellow" me!--None of your jabber! And none of your
+excuses either! I don't care if you've got an engagement with the
+Queen, you'll have to chuck it. Where's that dashed hat of yours,
+--or are you going without it? Don't I tell you that every second
+cut to waste may mean the difference between life and death?--Do
+you want me to drag you down to the cab by the hair of your head?'
+
+'I will try not to constrain you to quite so drastic a resource,--
+and I was coming to you at once in any case. I only want to call
+your attention to the fact that I am not alone.--Here is Mr
+Lessingham.'
+
+In his harum-scarum haste Mr Lessingham had gone unnoticed. Now
+that his observation was particularly directed to him, Atherton
+started, turned, and glared at my latest client in a fashion which
+was scarcely flattering.
+
+'Oh!--It's you, is it?--What the deuce are you doing here?'
+
+Before Lessingham could reply to this most unceremonious query,
+Atherton, rushing forward, gripped him by the arm.
+
+'Have you seen her?'
+
+Lessingham, not unnaturally nonplussed by the other's curious
+conduct, stared at him in unmistakable amazement.
+
+'Have I seen whom?'
+
+'Marjorie Lindon!'
+
+'Marjorie Lindon?'
+
+Lessingham paused. He was evidently asking himself what the
+inquiry meant.
+
+'I have not seen Miss Lindon since last night. Why do you ask?'
+
+'Then Heaven help us!--As I'm a living man I believe he, she, or
+it has got her!'
+
+His words were incomprehensible enough to stand in copious need of
+explanation,--as Mr Lessingham plainly thought.
+
+'What is it that you mean, sir?'
+
+'What I say,--I believe that that Oriental friend of yours has got
+her in her clutches,--if it is a "her;" goodness alone knows what
+the infernal conjurer's real sex may be.'
+
+'Atherton!--Explain yourself!'
+
+On a sudden Lessingham's tones rang out like a trumpet call.
+
+'If damage comes to her I shall be fit to cut my throat,--and
+yours!'
+
+Mr Lessingham's next proceeding surprised me,--I imagine it
+surprised Atherton still more. Springing at Sydney like a tiger,
+he caught him by the throat.
+
+'You--you hound! Of what wretched folly have you been guilty? If
+so much as a hair of her head is injured you shall repay it me ten
+thousandfold!--You mischief-making, intermeddling, jealous fool!'
+
+He shook Sydney as if he had been a rat,--then flung him from him
+headlong on to the floor. It reminded me of nothing so much as
+Othello's treatment of Iago. Never had I seen a man so transformed
+by rage. Lessingham seemed to have positively increased in
+stature. As he stood glowering down at the prostrate Sydney, he
+might have stood for a materialistic conception of human
+retribution.
+
+Sydney, I take it, was rather surprised than hurt. For a moment or
+two he lay quite still. Then, lifting his head, he looked up his
+assailant. Then, raising himself to his feet, he shook himself,--
+as if with a view of learning if all his bones were whole. Putting
+his hands up to his neck, he rubbed it, gently. And he grinned.
+
+'By God, Lessingham, there's more in you than I thought. After
+all, you are a man. There's some holding power in those wrists of
+yours,--they've nearly broken my neck. When this business is
+finished, I should like to put on the gloves with you, and fight
+it out. You're clean wasted upon politics,--Damn it, man, give me
+your hand!'
+
+Mr Lessingham did not give him his hand. Atherton took it,--and
+gave it a hearty shake with both of his.
+
+If the first paroxysm of his passion had passed, Lessingham was
+still sufficiently stern.
+
+'Be so good as not to trifle, Mr Atherton. If what you say is
+correct, and the wretch to whom you allude really has Miss Lindon
+at her mercy, then the woman I love--and whom you also pretend to
+love!--stands in imminent peril not only of a ghastly death, but
+of what is infinitely worse than death.'
+
+'The deuce she does!' Atherton wheeled round towards me.
+'Champnell, haven't you got that dashed hat of yours yet? Don't
+stand there like a tailor's dummy, keeping me on tenter-hooks,--
+move yourself! I'll tell you all about it in the cab.--And,
+Lessingham, if you'll come with us I'll tell you too.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+WHAT THE TIDINGS WERE
+
+
+Three in a hansom cab is not, under all circumstances, the most
+comfortable method of conveyance,--when one of the trio happens to
+be Sydney Atherton in one of his 'moments of excitement' it is
+distinctly the opposite; as, on that occasion, Mr Lessingham and I
+both quickly found. Sometimes he sat on my knees, sometimes on
+Lessingham's, and frequently, when he unexpectedly stood up, and
+all but precipitated himself on to the horse's back, on nobody's.
+In the eagerness of his gesticulations, first he knocked off my
+hat, then he knocked off Lessingham's, then his own, then all
+three together,--once, his own hat rolling into the mud, he sprang
+into the road, without previously going through the empty form of
+advising the driver of his intention, to pick it up. When he
+turned to speak to Lessingham, he thrust his elbow into my eye;
+and when he turned to speak to me, he thrust it into Lessingham's.
+Never, for one solitary instant, was he at rest, or either of us
+at ease. The wonder is that the gymnastics in which he incessantly
+indulged did not sufficiently attract public notice to induce a
+policeman to put at least a momentary period to our progress. Had
+speed not been of primary importance I should have insisted on the
+transference of the expedition to the somewhat wider limits of a
+four-wheeler.
+
+His elucidation of the causes of his agitation was apparently more
+comprehensible to Lessingham than it was to me. I had to piece
+this and that together under considerable difficulties. By degrees
+I did arrive at something like a clear notion of what had actually
+taken place.
+
+He commenced by addressing Lessingham,--and thrusting his elbow
+into my eye.
+
+'Did Marjorie tell you about the fellow she found in the street?'
+Up went his arm to force the trap-door open overhead,--and off
+went my hat. 'Now then, William Henry!--let her go!--if you kill
+the horse I'll buy you another!'
+
+We were already going much faster than, legally, we ought to have
+done,--but that, seemingly to him was not a matter of the
+slightest consequence. Lessingham replied to his inquiry.
+
+'She did not.'
+
+'You know the fellow I saw coming out of your drawing-room
+window?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, Marjorie found him the morning after in front of her
+breakfast-room window--in the middle of the street. Seems he had
+been wandering about all night, unclothed,--in the rain and the
+mud, and all the rest of it,--in a condition of hypnotic trance.'
+
+'Who is the----gentleman you are alluding to?'
+
+'Says his name's Holt, Robert Holt.'
+
+'Holt?--Is he an Englishman?'
+
+'Very much so,--City quill-driver out of a shop,--stony broke
+absolutely! Got the chuck from the casual ward,--wouldn't let him
+in,--house full, and that sort of thing,--poor devil! Pretty
+passes you politicians bring men to!'
+
+'Are you sure?'
+
+'Of what?'
+
+'Are you sure that this man, Robert Holt, is the same person whom,
+as you put it, you saw coming out of my drawing-room window?'
+
+'Sure!--Of course I'm sure!--Think I didn't recognise him?--
+Besides, there was the man's own tale,--owned to it himself,--
+besides all the rest, which sent one rushing Fulham way.'
+
+'You must remember, Mr Atherton, that I am wholly in the dark as
+to what has happened. What has the man, Holt, to do with the
+errand on which we are bound?'
+
+'Am I not coming to it? If you would let me tell the tale in my
+own way I should get there in less than no time, but you will keep
+on cutting in,--how the deuce do you suppose Champnell is to make
+head or tail of the business if you will persist in interrupting?
+--Marjorie took the beggar in,--he told his tale to her,--she sent
+for me--that was just now; caught me on the steps after I had been
+lunching with Dora Grayling. Holt re-dished his yarn--I smelt a
+rat--saw that a connection possibly existed between the thief
+who'd been playing confounded conjuring tricks off on to me and
+this interesting party down Fulham way--'
+
+'What party down Fulham way?'
+
+'This friend of Holt's--am I not telling you? There you are, you
+see,--won't let me finish! When Holt slipped through the window--
+which is the most sensible thing he seems to have done; if I'd
+been in his shoes I'd have slipped through forty windows!--dusky
+coloured charmer caught him on the hop,--doctored him--sent him
+out to commit burglary by deputy. I said to Holt, "Show us this
+agreeable little crib, young man." Holt was game--then Marjorie
+chipped in--she wanted to go and see it too. I said, "You'll be
+sorry if you do,"--that settled it! After that she'd have gone if
+she'd died,--I never did have a persuasive way with women. So off
+we toddled, Marjorie, Holt, and I, in a growler,--spotted the crib
+in less than no time,--invited ourselves in by the kitchen window
+--house seemed empty. Presently Holt became hypnotised before my
+eyes,--the best established case of hypnotism by suggestion I ever
+yet encountered--started off on a pilgrimage of one. Like an idiot
+I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me--'
+
+'Alone?'
+
+'Alone!--Am I not telling you?--Great Scott, Lessingham, in the
+House of Commons they must be hazy to think you smart! I said,
+"I'll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company." As
+luck would have it, I never met one,--only kids, and a baker, who
+wouldn't leave his cart, or take it with him either. I'd covered
+pretty nearly two miles before I came across a peeler,--and when I
+did the man was cracked--and he thought me mad, or drunk, or both.
+By the time I'd got myself within nodding distance of being run in
+for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, without
+inducing him to move a single one of his twenty-four-inch feet,
+Holt was out of sight. So, since all my pains in his direction
+were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to
+scurry back to Marjorie,--so I scurried, and I found the house
+empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.'
+
+'But, I don't quite follow--'
+
+Atherton impetuously declined to allow Mr Lessingham to conclude.
+
+'Of course you don't quite follow, and you'll follow still less if
+you will keep getting in front. I went upstairs and downstairs,
+inside and out--shouted myself hoarse as a crow--nothing was to be
+seen of Marjorie,--or heard; until, as I was coming down the
+stairs for about the five-and-fiftieth time, I stepped on
+something hard which was lying in the passage. I picked it up,--it
+was a ring; this ring. Its shape is not just what it was,--I'm not
+as light as gossamer, especially when I come jumping downstairs
+six at a time,--but what's left of it is here.'
+
+Sydney held something in front of him. Mr Lessingham wriggled to
+one side to enable him to see. Then he made a snatch at it.
+
+'It's mine!'
+
+Sydney dodged it out of his reach.
+
+'What do you mean, it's yours?'
+
+'It's the ring I gave Marjorie for an engagement ring. Give it me,
+you hound!--unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab.'
+
+With complete disregard of the limitations of space,--or of my
+comfort,--Lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. Then gripping
+Sydney by the wrist, he seized the gaud,--Sydney yielding it just
+in time to save himself from being precipitated into the street.
+Ravished of his treasure, Sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher
+with something like a glance of admiration.
+
+'Hang me, Lessingham, if I don't believe there is some warm blood
+in those fishlike veins of yours. Please the piper, I'll live to
+fight you after all,--with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman
+should do.'
+
+Lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him whatever. He was
+surveying the ring, which Sydney had trampled out of shape, with
+looks of the deepest concern.
+
+'Marjorie's ring!--The one I gave her! Something serious must have
+happened to her before she would have dropped my ring, and left it
+lying where it fell.'
+
+Atherton went on.
+
+'That's it!--What has happened to her!--I'll be dashed if I know!
+--When it was clear that there she wasn't, I tore off to find out
+where she was. Came across old Lindon,--he knew nothing;--I rather
+fancy I startled him in the middle of Pall Mall, when I left he
+stared after me like one possessed, and his hat was lying in the
+gutter. Went home,--she wasn't there. Asked Dora Grayling,--she'd
+seen nothing of her. No one had seen anything of her,--she had
+vanished into air. Then I said to myself, "You're a first-class
+idiot, on my honour! While you're looking for her, like a lost
+sheep, the betting is that the girl's in Holt's friend's house the
+whole jolly time. When you were there, the chances are that she'd
+just stepped out for a stroll, and that now she's back again, and
+wondering where on earth you've gone!" So I made up my mind that
+I'd fly back and see,--because the idea of her standing on the
+front doorstep looking for me, while I was going off my nut
+looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense of
+humour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of
+wisdom to pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be
+backed to find a needle in any amount of hay-stacks it is the
+great Augustus.--That horse has moved itself after all, because
+here we are. Now, cabman, don't go driving further on,--you'll
+have to put a girdle round the earth if you do; because you'll
+have to reach this point again before you get your fare.--This is
+the magician's house!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+WHAT WAS HIDDEN UNDER THE FLOOR
+
+
+The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap 'villa' in an
+unfinished cheap neighbourhood,--the whole place a living monument
+of the defeat of the speculative builder.
+
+Atherton leaped out on to the grass-grown rubble which was meant
+for a footpath.
+
+'I don't see Marjorie looking for me on the doorstep.'
+
+Nor did I,--I saw nothing but what appeared to be an unoccupied
+ramshackle brick abomination. Suddenly Sydney gave an exclamation.
+
+'Hullo!--The front door's closed!'
+
+I was hard at his heels.
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Why, when I went I left the front door open. It looks as if I've
+made an idiot of myself after all, and Marjorie's returned,--let's
+hope to goodness that I have.'
+
+He knocked. While we waited for a response I questioned him.
+
+'Why did you leave the door open when you went?'
+
+'I hardly know,--I imagine that it was with some dim idea of
+Marjorie's being able to get in if she returned while I was
+absent,--but the truth is I was in such a condition of helter
+skelter that I am not prepared to swear that I had any reasonable
+reason.'
+
+'I suppose there is no doubt that you did leave it open?'
+
+'Absolutely none,--on that I'll stake my life.'
+
+'Was it open when you returned from your pursuit of Holt?'
+
+'Wide open,--I walked straight in expecting to find her waiting
+for me in the front room,--I was struck all of a heap when I found
+she wasn't there.'
+
+'Were there any signs of a struggle?'
+
+'None,--there were no signs of anything. Everything was just as I
+had left it, with the exception of the ring which I trod on in the
+passage, and which Lessingham has.'
+
+'If Miss Lindon has returned, it does not look as if she were in
+the house at present.'
+
+It did not,--unless silence had such meaning. Atherton had knocked
+loudly three times without succeeding in attracting the slightest
+notice from within.
+
+'It strikes me that this is another case of seeking admission
+through that hospitable window at the back.'
+
+Atherton led the way to the rear. Lessingham and I followed. There
+was not even an apology for a yard, still less a garden,--there
+was not even a fence of any sort, to serve as an enclosure, and to
+shut off the house from the wilderness of waste land. The kitchen
+window was open. I asked Sydney if he had left it so.
+
+'I don't know,--I dare say we did; I don't fancy that either of us
+stood on the order of his coming.'
+
+While he spoke, he scrambled over the sill. We followed. When he
+was in, he shouted at the top of his voice,
+
+'Marjorie! Marjorie! Speak to me, Marjorie,--it is I,--Sydney!'
+
+The words echoed through the house. Only silence answered. He led
+the way to the front room. Suddenly he stopped.
+
+'Hollo!' he cried. 'The blind's down!' I had noticed, when we were
+outside, that the blind was down at the front room window. 'It was
+up when I went, that I'll swear. That someone has been here is
+pretty plain,--let's hope it's Marjorie.'
+
+He had only taken a step forward into the room when he again
+stopped short to exclaim.
+
+'My stars!--here's a sudden clearance!--Why, the place is empty,--
+everything's clean gone!'
+
+'What do you mean?--was it furnished when you left?'
+
+The room was empty enough then.
+
+'Furnished?--I don't know that it was exactly what you'd call
+furnished,--the party who ran this establishment had a taste in
+upholstery which was all his own,--but there was a carpet, and a
+bed, and--and lots of things,--for the most part, I should have
+said, distinctly Eastern curiosities. They seem to have evaporated
+into smoke,--which may be a way which is common enough among
+Eastern curiosities, though it's queer to me.'
+
+Atherton was staring about him as if he found it difficult to
+credit the evidence of his own eyes.
+
+'How long ago is it since you left?'
+
+He referred to his watch.
+
+'Something over an hour,--possibly an hour and a half; I couldn't
+swear to the exact moment, but it certainly isn't more.'
+
+'Did you notice any signs of packing up?'
+
+'Not a sign.' Going to the window he drew up the blind,--speaking
+as he did so. 'The queer thing about this business is that when we
+first got in this blind wouldn't draw up a little bit, so, since
+it wouldn't go up I pulled it down, roller and all, now it draws
+up as easily and smoothly as if it had always been the best blind
+that ever lived.'
+
+Standing at Sydney's back I saw that the cabman on his box was
+signalling to us with his outstretched hand. Sydney perceived him
+too. He threw up the sash.
+
+'What's the matter with you?'
+
+'Excuse me, sir, but who's the old gent?'
+
+'What old gent?'
+
+'Why the old gent peeping through the window of the room
+upstairs?'
+
+The words were hardly out of the driver's mouth when Sydney was
+through the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather
+more soberly,--his methods were a little too flighty for me. When
+I reached the landing, dashing out of the front room he rushed
+into the one at the back,--then through a door at the side. He
+came out shouting.
+
+'What's the idiot mean!--with his old gent! I'd old gent him if I
+got him!--There's not a creature about the place!'
+
+He returned into the front room,--I at his heels. That certainly
+was empty,--and not only empty, but it showed no traces of recent
+occupation. The dust lay thick upon the floor,--there was that
+mouldy, earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments
+which have been long untenanted.
+
+'Are you sure, Atherton, that there is no one at the back?'
+
+'Of course I'm sure,--you can go and see for yourself if you like;
+do you think I'm blind? Jehu's drunk.' Throwing up the sash he
+addressed the driver. 'What do you mean with your old gent at the
+window?--what window?'
+
+'That window, sir.'
+
+'Go to!--you're dreaming, man!--there's no one here.'
+
+'Begging your pardon, sir, but there was someone there not a
+minute ago.'
+
+'Imagination, cabman,--the slant of the light on the glass,--or
+your eyesight's defective.'
+
+'Excuse me, sir, but it's not my imagination, and my eyesight's as
+good as any man's in England,--and as for the slant of the light
+on the glass, there ain't much glass for the light to slant on. I
+saw him peeping through that bottom broken pane on your left hand
+as plainly as I see you. He must be somewhere about,--he can't
+have got away,--he's at the back. Ain't there a cupboard nor
+nothing where he could hide?'
+
+The cabman's manner was so extremely earnest that I went myself to
+see. There was a cupboard on the landing, but the door of that
+stood wide open, and that obviously was bare. The room behind was
+small, and, despite the splintered glass in the window frame,
+stuffy. Fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the
+floor, together with a choice collection of stones, brickbats, and
+other missiles,--which not improbably were the cause of their
+being there. In the corner stood a cupboard,--but a momentary
+examination showed that that was as bare as the other. The door at
+the side, which Sydney had left wide open, opened on to a closet,
+and that was empty. I glanced up,--there was no trap door which
+led to the roof. No practicable nook or cranny, in which a living
+being could lie concealed, was anywhere at hand.
+
+I returned to Sydney's shoulder to tell the cabman so.
+
+'There is no place in which anyone could hide, and there is no one
+in either of the rooms,--you must have been mistaken, driver.'
+
+The man waxed wroth.
+
+'Don't tell me! How could I come to think I saw something when I
+didn't?'
+
+'One's eyes are apt to play us tricks;--how could you see what
+wasn't there?'
+
+'That's what I want to know. As I drove up, before you told me to
+stop, I saw him looking through the window,--the one at which you
+are. He'd got his nose glued to the broken pane, and was staring
+as hard as he could stare. When I pulled up, off he started,--I
+saw him get up off his knees, and go to the back of the room. When
+the gentleman took to knocking, back he came,--to the same old
+spot, and flopped down on his knees. I didn't know what caper you
+was up to,--you might be bum bailiffs for all I knew!--and I
+supposed that he wasn't so anxious to let you in as you might be
+to get inside, and that was why he didn't take no notice of your
+knocking, while all the while he kept a eye on what was going on.
+When you goes round to the back, up he gets again, and I reckoned
+that he was going to meet yer, and perhaps give yer a bit of his
+mind, and that presently I should hear a shindy, or that something
+would happen. But when you pulls up the blind downstairs, to my
+surprise back he come once more. He shoves his old nose right
+through the smash in the pane, and wags his old head at me like a
+chattering magpie. That didn't seem to me quite the civil thing to
+do,--I hadn't done no harm to him; so I gives you the office, and
+lets you know that he was there. But for you to say that he wasn't
+there, and never had been,--blimey! that cops the biscuit. If he
+wasn't there, all I can say is I ain't here, and my 'orse ain't
+here, and my cab ain't neither,--damn it!--the house ain't here,
+and nothing ain't!'
+
+He settled himself on his perch with an air of the most extreme
+ill usage,--he had been standing up to tell his tale. That the man
+was serious was unmistakable. As he himself suggested, what
+inducement could he have had to tell a lie like that? That he
+believed himself to have seen what he declared he saw was plain.
+But, on the other hand, what could have become--in the space of
+fifty seconds!--of his 'old gent'?
+
+Atherton put a question.
+
+'What did he look like,--this old gent of yours?'
+
+'Well, that I shouldn't hardly like to say. It wasn't much of his
+face I could see, only his face and his eyes,--and they wasn't
+pretty. He kept a thing over his head all the time, as if he
+didn't want too much to be seen.'
+
+'What sort of a thing?'
+
+'Why,--one of them cloak sort of things, like them Arab blokes
+used to wear what used to be at Earl's Court Exhibition,--you
+know!'
+
+This piece of information seemed to interest my companions more
+than anything he had said before.
+
+'A burnoose do you mean?'
+
+'How am I to know what the thing's called? I ain't up in foreign
+languages,--'tain't likely! All I know that them Arab blokes what
+was at Earl's Court used to walk about in them all over the
+place,--sometimes they wore them over their heads, and sometimes
+they didn't. In fact if you'd asked me, instead of trying to make
+out as I sees double, or things what was only inside my own
+noddle, or something or other, I should have said this here old
+gent what I've been telling you about was a Arab bloke,--when he
+gets off his knees to sneak away from the window, I could see that
+he had his cloak thing, what was over his head, wrapped all round
+him.'
+
+Mr Lessingham turned to me, all quivering with excitement.
+
+'I believe that what he says is true!'
+
+'Then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to,--can
+you suggest an explanation? It is strange, to say the least of it,
+that the cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything
+of him.'
+
+'Some devil's trick has been played,--I know it, I feel it!--my
+instinct tells me so!'
+
+I stared. In such a matter one hardly expects a man of Paul
+Lessingham's stamp to talk of 'instinct.' Atherton stared too.
+Then, on a sudden, he burst out,
+
+'By the Lord, I believe the Apostle's right,--the whole place
+reeks to me of hankey-pankey,--it did as soon as I put my nose
+inside. In matters of prestidigitation, Champnell, we Westerns are
+among the rudiments,--we've everything to learn,--Orientals leave
+us at the post. If their civilisation's what we're pleased to call
+extinct, their conjuring--when you get to know it!--is all alive
+oh!'
+
+He moved towards the door. As he went he slipped, or seemed to,
+all but stumbling on to his knees.
+
+'Something tripped me up,--what's this?' He was stamping on the
+floor with his foot. 'Here's a board loose. Come and lend me a
+hand, one of you fellows, to get it up. Who knows what mystery's
+beneath?'
+
+I went to his aid. As he said, a board in the floor was loose. His
+stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble. Together we prised
+it out of its place,--Lessingham standing by and watching us the
+while. Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed.
+
+There was something there.
+
+'Why,' cried Atherton 'it's a woman's clothing!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE REST OF THE FIND
+
+
+It was a woman's clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow,--
+as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate
+hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen,
+corsets, and all,--even to hat, gloves, and hairpins;--these
+latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange
+confusion. It seemed plain that whoever had worn those clothes had
+been stripped to the skin.
+
+Lessingham and Sydney stared at me in silence as I dragged them
+out and laid them on the floor. The dress was at the bottom,--it
+was an alpaca, of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and
+ribbons, as is the fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green
+silk. It had perhaps been a 'charming confection' once--and that a
+very recent one!--but now it was all soiled and creased and torn
+and tumbled. The two spectators made a simultaneous pounce at it
+as I brought it to the light.
+
+'My God!' cried Sydney, 'it's Marjorie's!--she was wearing it when
+I saw her last!'
+
+'It's Marjorie's!' gasped Lessingham,--he was clutching at the
+ruined costume, staring at it like a man who has just received
+sentence of death. 'She wore it when she was with me yesterday,--I
+told her how it suited her, and how pretty it was!'
+
+There was silence,--it was an eloquent find; it spoke for itself.
+The two men gazed at the heap of feminine glories,--it might have
+been the most wonderful sight they ever had seen. Lessingham was
+the first to speak,--his face had all at once grown grey and
+haggard.
+
+'What has happened to her?'
+
+I replied to his question with another.
+
+'Are you sure this is Miss Linden's dress?'
+
+'I am sure,--and were proof needed, here it is.'
+
+He had found the pocket, and was turning out the contents. There
+was a purse, which contained money and some visiting cards on
+which were her name and address; a small bunch of keys, with her
+nameplate attached; a handkerchief, with her initials in a corner.
+The question of ownership was placed beyond a doubt.
+
+'You see,' said Lessingham, exhibiting the money which was in the
+purse, 'it is not robbery which has been attempted. Here are two
+ten-pound notes, and one for five, besides gold and silver,--over
+thirty pounds in all.'
+
+Atherton, who had been turning over the accumulation of rubbish
+between the joists, proclaimed another find.
+
+'Here are her rings, and watch, and a bracelet,--no, it certainly
+does not look as if theft had been an object.'
+
+Lessingham was glowering at him with knitted brows.
+
+'I have to thank you for this.'
+
+Sydney was unwontedly meek.
+
+'You are hard on me, Lessingham, harder than I deserve,--I had
+rather have thrown away my own life than have suffered
+misadventure to have come to her.'
+
+'Yours are idle words. Had you not meddled this would not have
+happened. A fool works more mischief with his folly than of malice
+prepense. If hurt has befallen Marjorie Lindon you shall account
+for it to me with your life's blood.'
+
+'Let it be so,' said Sydney. 'I am content. If hurt has come to
+Marjorie, God knows that I am willing enough that death should
+come to me.'
+
+While they wrangled, I continued to search. A little to one side,
+under the flooring which was still intact, I saw something gleam.
+By stretching out my hand, I could just manage to reach it,--it
+was a long plait of woman's hair. It had been cut off at the
+roots,--so close to the head in one place that the scalp itself
+had been cut, so that the hair was clotted with blood.
+
+They were so occupied with each other that they took no notice of
+me. I had to call their attention to my discovery.
+
+'Gentlemen, I fear that I have here something which will distress
+you,--is not this Miss Lindon's hair?'
+
+They recognised it on the instant. Lessingham, snatching it from
+my hands, pressed it to his lips.
+
+'This is mine,--I shall at least have something.' He spoke with a
+grimness which was a little startling. He held the silken tresses
+at arm's length. 'This points to murder,--foul, cruel, causeless
+murder. As I live, I will devote my all,--money, time,
+reputation!--to gaining vengeance on the wretch who did this
+deed.'
+
+Atherton chimed in.
+
+'To that I say, Amen!' He lifted his hand. 'God is my witness!'
+
+'It seems to me, gentlemen, that we move too fast,--to my mind it
+does not by any means of necessity point to murder. On the
+contrary, I doubt if murder has been done. Indeed, I don't mind
+owning that I have a theory of my own which points all the other
+way.'
+
+Lessingham caught me by the sleeve.
+
+'Mr Champnell, tell me your theory.'
+
+'I will, a little later. Of course it may be altogether wrong;--
+though I fancy it is not; I will explain my reasons when we come
+to talk of it. But, at present, there are things which must be
+done.'
+
+'I vote for tearing up every board in the house!' cried Sydney.
+'And for pulling the whole infernal place to pieces. It's a
+conjurer's den.--I shouldn't be surprised if cabby's old gent is
+staring at us all the while from some peephole of his own.'
+
+We examined the entire house, methodically, so far as we were
+able, inch by inch. Not another board proved loose,--to lift those
+which were nailed down required tools, and those we were without.
+We sounded all the walls,--with the exception of the party walls
+they were the usual lath and plaster constructions, and showed no
+signs of having been tampered with. The ceilings were intact; if
+anything was concealed in them it must have been there some time,
+--the cement was old and dirty. We took the closet to pieces;
+examined the chimneys; peered into the kitchen oven and the
+copper;--in short, we pried into everything which, with the
+limited means at our disposal, could be pried into,--without
+result. At the end we found ourselves dusty, dirty, and
+discomfited. The cabman's 'old gent' remained as much a mystery as
+ever, and no further trace had been discovered of Miss Lindon.
+
+Atherton made no effort to disguise his chagrin.
+
+'Now what's to be done? There seems to be just nothing in the
+place at all, and yet that there is, and that it's the key to the
+whole confounded business I should be disposed to swear.'
+
+'In that case I would suggest that you should stay and look for
+it. The cabman can go and look for the requisite tools, or a
+workman to assist you, if you like. For my part it appears to me
+that evidence of another sort is, for the moment, of paramount
+importance; and I propose to commence my search for it by making a
+call at the house which is over the way.'
+
+I had observed, on our arrival, that the road only contained two
+houses which were in anything like a finished state,--that which
+we were in, and another, some fifty or sixty yards further down,
+on the opposite side. It was to this I referred. The twain
+immediately proffered their companionship.
+
+'I will come with you,' said Mr Lessingham.
+
+'And I,' echoed Sydney. 'We'll leave this sweet homestead in
+charge of the cabman,--I'll pull it to pieces afterwards.' He went
+out and spoke to the driver. 'Cabby, we're going to pay a visit to
+the little crib over there,--you keep an eye on this one. And if
+you see a sign of anyone being about the place,--living, or dead,
+or anyhow--you give me a yell. I shall be on the lookout, and I'll
+be with you before you can say Jack Robinson.'
+
+'You bet I'll yell,--I'll raise the hair right off you.' The
+fellow grinned. 'But I don't know if you gents are hiring me by
+the day,--I want to change my horse; he ought to have been in his
+stable a couple of hours ago.'
+
+'Never mind your horse,--let him rest a couple of hours extra to-
+morrow to make up for those he has lost to-day. I'll take care you
+don't lose anything by this little job,--or your horse either.--By
+the way, look here,--this will be better than yelling.'
+
+Taking a revolver out of his trousers' pocket he handed it up to
+the grinning driver.
+
+'If that old gent of yours does appear, you have a pop at him,--I
+shall hear that easier than a yell. You can put a bullet through
+him if you like,--I give you my word it won't be murder.'
+
+'I don't care if it is,' declared the cabman, handling the weapon
+like one who was familiar with arms of precision. 'I used to fancy
+my revolver shooting when I was with the colours, and if I do get
+a chance I'll put a shot through the old hunks, if only to prove
+to you that I'm no liar.'
+
+Whether the man was in earnest or not I could not tell,--nor
+whether Atherton meant what he said in answer.
+
+'If you shoot him I'll give you fifty pounds.'
+
+'All right!' The driver laughed. 'I'll do my best to earn that
+fifty!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+MISS LOUISA COLEMAN
+
+
+That the house over the way was tenanted was plain to all the
+world,--at least one occupant sat gazing through the window of the
+first floor front room. An old woman in a cap,--one of those large
+old-fashioned caps which our grandmothers used to wear, tied with
+strings under the chin. It was a bow window, and as she was seated
+in the bay looking right in our direction she could hardly have
+failed to see us as we advanced,--indeed she continued to stare at
+us all the while with placid calmness. Yet I knocked once, twice,
+and yet again without the slightest notice being taken of my
+summons.
+
+Sydney gave expression to his impatience in his own peculiar vein.
+
+'Knockers in this part of the world seem intended for ornament
+only,--nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they're
+used. The old lady upstairs must be either deaf or dotty.' He went
+out into the road to see if she still was there. 'She's looking at
+me as calmly as you please,--what does she think we're doing here,
+I wonder; playing a tune on her front door by way of a little
+amusement?--Madam!' He took off his hat and waved it to her.
+'Madam! might I observe that if you won't condescend to notice
+that we're here your front door will run the risk of being
+severely injured!--She don't care for me any more than if I was
+nothing at all,--sound another tattoo upon that knocker. Perhaps
+she's so deaf that nothing short of a cataclysmal uproar will
+reach her auditory nerves.'
+
+She immediately proved, however, that she was nothing of the sort.
+Hardly had the sounds of my further knocking died away than,
+throwing up the window, she thrust out her head and addressed me
+in a fashion which, under the circumstances, was as unexpected as
+it was uncalled for.
+
+'Now, young man, you needn't be in such a hurry!'
+
+Sydney explained.
+
+'Pardon me, madam, it's not so much a hurry we're in as pressed
+for time,--this is a matter of life and death.'
+
+She turned her attention to Sydney,--speaking with a frankness for
+which, I imagine, he was unprepared.
+
+'I don't want none of your imperence, young man. I've seen you
+before,--you've been hanging about here the whole day long!--and I
+don't like the looks of you, and so I'll let you know. That's my
+front door, and that's my knocker,--I'll come down and open when I
+like, but I'm not going to be hurried, and if the knocker's so
+much as touched again, I won't come down at all.'
+
+She closed the window with a bang. Sydney seemed divided between
+mirth and indignation.
+
+'That's a nice old lady, on my honour,--one of the good old crusty
+sort. Agreeable characters this neighbourhood seems to grow,--a
+sojourn hereabouts should do one good. Unfortunately I don't feel
+disposed just now to stand and kick my heels in the road.' Again
+saluting the old dame by raising his hat he shouted to her at the
+top of his voice. 'Madam, I beg ten thousand pardons for troubling
+you, but this is a matter in which every second is of vital
+importance,--would you allow me to ask you one or two questions?'
+
+Up went the window; out came the old lady's head.
+
+'Now, young man, you needn't put yourself out to holler at me,--I
+won't be hollered at! I'll come down and open that door in five
+minutes by the clock on my mantelpiece, and not a moment before.'
+
+The fiat delivered, down came the window. Sydney looked rueful,--
+he consulted his watch.
+
+'I don't know what you think, Champnell, but I really doubt if
+this comfortable creature can tell us anything worth waiting
+another five minutes to hear. We mustn't let the grass grow under
+our feet, and time is getting on.'
+
+I was of a different opinion,--and said so.
+
+'I'm afraid, Atherton, that I can't agree with you. She seems to
+have noticed you hanging about all day; and it is at least
+possible that she has noticed a good deal which would be well
+worth our hearing. What more promising witness are we likely to
+find?--her house is the only one which overlooks the one we have
+just quitted. I am of opinion that it may not only prove well
+worth our while to wait five minutes, but also that it would be as
+well, if possible, not to offend her by the way. She's not likely
+to afford us the information we require if you do.'
+
+'Good. If that's what you think I'm sure I'm willing to wait,--
+only it's to be hoped that that clock upon her mantelpiece moves
+quicker than its mistress.'
+
+Presently, when about a minute had gone, he called to the cabman.
+
+'Seen a sign of anything?'
+
+The cabman shouted back.
+
+'Ne'er a sign,--you'll hear a sound of popguns when I do.'
+
+Those five minutes did seem long ones. But at last Sydney, from
+his post of vantage in the road, informed us that the old lady was
+moving.
+
+'She's getting up;--she's leaving the window;--let's hope to
+goodness she's coming down to open the door. That's been the
+longest five minutes I've known.'
+
+I could hear uncertain footsteps descending the stairs. They came
+along the passage. The door was opened--'on the chain.' The old
+lady peered at us through an aperture of about six inches.
+
+'I don't know what you young men think you're after, but have all
+three of you in my house I won't. I'll have him and you'--a skinny
+finger was pointed to Lessingham and me; then it was directed
+towards Atherton--'but have him I won't. So if it's anything
+particular you want to say to me, you'll just tell him to go
+away.'
+
+On hearing this Sydney's humility was abject. His hat was in his
+hand,--he bent himself double.
+
+'Suffer me to make you a million apologies, madam, if I have in
+any way offended you; nothing, I assure you, could have been
+farther from my intention, or from my thoughts.'
+
+'I don't want none of your apologies, and I don't want none of you
+neither; I don't like the looks of you, and so I tell you. Before
+I let anybody into my house you'll have to sling your hook.'
+
+The door was banged in our faces. I turned to Sydney.
+
+'The sooner you go the better it will be for us. You can wait for
+us over the way.'
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and groaned,--half in jest, half in
+earnest.
+
+'If I must I suppose I must,--it's the first time I've been
+refused admittance to a lady's house in all my life! What have I
+done to deserve this thing?--If you keep me waiting long I'll tear
+that infernal den to pieces!'
+
+He sauntered across the road, viciously kicking the stones as he
+went. The door reopened.
+
+'Has that other young man gone?'
+
+'He has.'
+
+'Then now I'll let you in. Have him inside my house I won't.'
+
+The chain was removed. Lessingham and I entered. Then the door was
+refastened and the chain replaced. Our hostess showed us into the
+front room on the ground floor; it was sparsely furnished and not
+too clean,--but there were chairs enough for us to sit upon; which
+she insisted on our occupying.
+
+'Sit down, do,--I can't abide to see folks standing; it gives me
+the fidgets.'
+
+So soon as we were seated, without any overture on our parts she
+plunged in medias res.
+
+'I know what it is you've come about,--I know! You want me to tell
+you who it is as lives in the house over the road. Well, I can
+tell you,--and I dare bet a shilling that I'm about the only one
+who can.'
+
+I inclined my head.
+
+'Indeed. Is that so, madam?'
+
+She was huffed at once.
+
+'Don't madam me,--I can't bear none of your lip service. I'm a
+plain-spoken woman, that's what I am, and I like other people's
+tongues to be as plain as mine. My name's Miss Louisa Coleman; but
+I'm generally called Miss Coleman,--I'm only called Louisa by my
+relatives.'
+
+Since she was apparently between seventy and eighty--and looked
+every year of her apparent age--I deemed that possible. Miss
+Coleman was evidently a character. If one was desirous of getting
+information out of her it would be necessary to allow her to
+impart it in her own manner,--to endeavour to induce her to impart
+it in anybody else's would be time clean wasted. We had Sydney's
+fate before our eyes.
+
+She started with a sort of roundabout preamble.
+
+'This property is mine; it was left me by my uncle, the late
+George Henry Jobson,--he's buried in Hammersmith Cemetery just
+over the way,--he left me the whole of it. It's one of the finest
+building sites near London, and it increases in value every year,
+and I'm not going to let it for another twenty, by which time the
+value will have more than trebled,--so if that is what you've come
+about, as heaps of people do, you might have saved yourselves the
+trouble. I keep the boards standing, just to let people know that
+the ground is to let,--though, as I say, it won't be for another
+twenty years, when it'll be for the erection of high-class
+mansions only, same as there is in Grosvenor Square,--no shops or
+public houses, and none of your shanties. I live in this place
+just to keep an eye upon the property,--and as for the house over
+the way, I've never tried to let it, and it never has been let,
+not until a month ago, when, one morning, I had this letter. You
+can see it if you like.'
+
+She handed me a greasy envelope which she ferreted out of a
+capacious pocket which was suspended from her waist, and which she
+had to lift up her skirt to reach. The envelope was addressed, in
+unformed characters, 'Miss Louisa Coleman, The Rhododendrons,
+Convolvulus Avenue, High Oaks Park, West Kensington.'--I felt, if
+the writer had not been of a humorous turn of mind, and drawn on
+his imagination, and this really was the lady's correct address,
+then there must be something in a name.
+
+The letter within was written in the same straggling,
+characterless caligraphy,--I should have said, had I been asked
+offhand, that the whole thing was the composition of a servant
+girl. The composition was about on a par with the writing.
+
+'The undersigned would be oblidged if Miss Coleman would let her
+emptey house. I do not know the rent but send fifty pounds. If
+more will send. Please address, Mohamed el Kheir, Post Office,
+Sligo Street, London.'
+
+It struck me as being as singular an application for a tenancy as
+I remembered to have encountered. When I passed it on to
+Lessingham, he seemed to think so too.
+
+'This is a curious letter, Miss Coleman.'
+
+'So I thought,--and still more so when I found the fifty pounds
+inside. There were five ten-pound notes, all loose, and the letter
+not even registered. If I had been asked what was the rent of the
+house, I should have said, at the most, not more than twenty
+pounds,--because, between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing
+up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands.'
+
+I had had sufficient evidence of the truth of this altogether
+apart from the landlady's frank admission.
+
+'Why, for all he could have done to help himself I might have kept
+the money, and only sent him a receipt for a quarter. And some
+folks would have done,--but I'm not one of that sort myself, and
+shouldn't care to be. So I sent this here party,--I never could
+pronounce his name, and never shall--a receipt for a year.'
+
+Miss Coleman paused to smooth her apron, and consider.
+
+'Well, the receipt should have reached this here party on the
+Thursday morning, as it were,--I posted it on the Wednesday night,
+and on the Thursday, after breakfast, I thought I'd go over the
+way to see if there was any little thing I could do,--because
+there wasn't hardly a whole pane of glass in the place,--when I
+all but went all of a heap. When I looked across the road, blessed
+it the party wasn't in already,--at least as much as he ever was
+in, which, so far as I can make out, never has been anything
+particular,--though how he had got in, unless it was through a
+window in the middle of the night, is more than I should care to
+say,--there was nobody in the house when I went to bed, that I
+could pretty nearly take my Bible oath,--yet there was the blind
+up at the parlour, and, what's more, it was down, and it's been
+down pretty nearly ever since.
+
+'"Well," I says to myself, "for right down imperence this beats
+anything,--why he's in the place before he knows if I'll let him
+have it. Perhaps he thinks I haven't got a word to say in the
+matter,--fifty pounds or no fifty pounds, I'll soon show him." So
+I slips on my bonnet, and I walks over the road, and I hammers at
+the door.
+
+'Well, I have seen people hammering since then, many a one, and
+how they've kept it up has puzzled me,--for an hour, some of
+them,--but I was the first one as begun it. I hammers, and I
+hammers, and I kept on hammering, but it wasn't no more use than
+if I'd been hammering at a tombstone. So I starts rapping at the
+window, but that wasn't no use neither. So I goes round behind,
+and I hammers at the back door,--but there, I couldn't make anyone
+hear nohow. So I says to myself, "Perhaps the party as is in,
+ain't in, in a manner of speaking; but I'll keep an eye on the
+house, and when he is in I'll take care that he ain't out again
+before I've had a word to say."
+
+'So I come back home, and as I said I would, I kept an eye on the
+house the whole of that livelong day, but never a soul went either
+out or in. But the next day, which it was a Friday, I got out of
+bed about five o'clock, to see if it was raining, through my
+having an idea of taking a little excursion if the weather was
+fine, when I see a party coming down the road. He had on one of
+them dirty-coloured bed-cover sort of things, and it was wrapped
+all over his head and round his body, like, as I have been told,
+them there Arabs wear,--and, indeed, I've seen them in them myself
+at West Brompton, when they was in the exhibition there. It was
+quite fine, and broad day, and I see him as plainly as I see you,
+--he comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at the
+house over the way, opens the front door, and lets himself in.
+
+'"So," I says to myself, "there you are. Well, Mr Arab, or
+whatever, or whoever, you may be, I'll take good care that you
+don't go out again before you've had a word from me. I'll show you
+that landladies have their rights, like other Christians, in this
+country, however it may be in yours." So I kept an eye on the
+house, to see that he didn't go out again, and nobody never
+didn't, and between seven and eight I goes and I knocks at the
+door,--because I thought to myself that the earlier I was the
+better it might be.
+
+'If you'll believe me, no more notice was taken of me than if I
+was one of the dead. I hammers, and I hammers, till my wrist was
+aching, I daresay I hammered twenty times,--and then I went round
+to the back door, and I hammers at that,--but it wasn't the least
+good in the world. I was that provoked to think I should be
+treated as if I was nothing and nobody, by a dirty foreigner, who
+went about in a bed-gown through the public streets, that it was
+all I could do to hold myself.
+
+'I comes round to the front again, and I starts hammering at the
+window, with every knuckle on my hands, and I calls out, "I'm Miss
+Louisa Coleman, and I'm the owner of this house, and you can't
+deceive me,--I saw you come in, and you're in now, and if you
+don't come and speak to me this moment I'll have the police."
+
+'All of a sudden, when I was least expecting it, and was hammering
+my very hardest at the pane, up goes the blind, and up goes the
+window too, and the most awful-looking creature ever I heard of,
+not to mention seeing, puts his head right into my face,--he was
+more like a hideous baboon than anything else, let alone a man. I
+was struck all of a heap, and plumps down on the little wall, and
+all but tumbles head over heels backwards, And he starts
+shrieking, in a sort of a kind of English, and in such a voice as
+I'd never heard the like,--it was like a rusty steam engine.
+
+'"Go away! go away! I don't want you! I will not have you,--never!
+You have your fifty pounds,--you have your money,--that is the
+whole of you,--that is all you want! You come to me no more!--
+never!--never no more!--or you be sorry!--Go away!"
+
+'I did go away, and that as fast as ever my legs would carry me,--
+what with his looks, and what with his voice, and what with the
+way that he went on, I was nothing but a mass of trembling. As for
+answering him back, or giving him a piece of my mind, as I had
+meant to, I wouldn't have done it not for a thousand pounds. I
+don't mind confessing, between you and me, that I had to swallow
+four cups of tea, right straight away, before my nerves was
+steady.
+
+'"Well," I says to myself, when I did feel, as it might be, a
+little more easy, "you never have let that house before, and now
+you've let it with a vengeance,--so you have. If that there new
+tenant of yours isn't the greatest villain that ever went unhung
+it must be because he's got near relations what's as bad as
+himself,--because two families like his I'm sure there can't be. A
+nice sort of Arab party to have sleeping over the road he is!"
+
+'But after a time I cools down, as it were,--because I'm one of
+them sort as likes to see on both sides of a question. "After
+all," I says to myself, "he has paid his rent, and fifty pounds is
+fifty pounds,--I doubt if the whole house is worth much more, and
+he can't do much damage to it whatever he does."
+
+'I shouldn't have minded, so far as that went, if he'd set fire to
+the place, for, between ourselves, it's insured for a good bit
+over its value. So I decided that I'd let things be as they were,
+and see how they went on. But from that hour to this I've never
+spoken to the man, and never wanted to, and wouldn't, not of my
+own free will, not for a shilling a time,--that face of his will
+haunt me if I live till Noah, as the saying is. I've seen him
+going in and out at all hours of the day and night,--that Arab
+party's a mystery if ever there was one,--he always goes tearing
+along as if he's flying for his life. Lots of people have come to
+the house, all sorts and kinds, men and women--they've been mostly
+women, and even little children. I've seen them hammer and hammer
+at that front door, but never a one have I seen let in,--or yet
+seen taken any notice of, and I think I may say, and yet tell no
+lie, that I've scarcely took my eye off the house since he's been
+inside it, over and over again in the middle of the night have I
+got up to have a look, so that I've not missed much that has took
+place.
+
+'What's puzzled me is the noises that's come from the house.
+Sometimes for days together there's not been a sound, it might
+have been a house of the dead; and then, all through the night,
+there've been yells and screeches, squawks and screams,--I never
+heard nothing like it. I have thought, and more than once, that
+the devil himself must be in that front room, let alone all the
+rest of his demons. And as for cats!--where they've come from I
+can't think. I didn't use to notice hardly a cat in the
+neighbourhood till that there Arab party came,--there isn't much
+to attract them; but since he came there's been regiments.
+Sometimes at night there's been troops about the place, screeching
+like mad,--I've wished them farther, I can tell you. That Arab
+party must be fond of 'em. I've seen them inside the house, at the
+windows, upstairs and downstairs, as it seemed to me, a dozen at a
+time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+WHAT MISS COLEMAN SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW
+
+
+As Miss Coleman had paused, as if her narrative was approaching a
+conclusion, I judged it expedient to make an attempt to bring the
+record as quickly as possible up to date.
+
+'I take it, Miss Coleman, that you have observed what has occurred
+in the house to-day.'
+
+She tightened her nut-cracker jaws and glared at me disdainfully,
+--her dignity was ruffled.
+
+'I'm coming to it, aren't I?--if you'll let me. If you've got no
+manners I'll learn you some. One doesn't like to be hurried at my
+time of life, young man.'
+
+I was meekly silent;--plainly, if she was to talk, every one else
+must listen.
+
+'During the last few days there have been some queer goings on
+over the road,--out of the common queer, I mean, for goodness
+knows that they always have been queer enough. That Arab party has
+been flitting about like a creature possessed,--I've seen him
+going in and out twenty times a day. This morning--'
+
+She paused,--to fix her eyes on Lessingham. She apparently
+observed his growing interest as she approached the subject which
+had brought us there,--and resented it.
+
+'Don't look at me like that, young man, because I won't have it.
+And as for questions, I may answer questions when I'm done, but
+don't you dare to ask me one before, because I won't be
+interrupted.'
+
+Up to then Lessingham had not spoken a word,--but it seemed as if
+she was endowed with the faculty of perceiving the huge volume of
+the words which he had left unuttered.
+
+'This morning--as I've said already,--' she glanced at Lessingham
+as if she defied his contradiction--'when that Arab party came
+home it was just on the stroke of seven. I know what was the exact
+time because, when I went to the door to the milkman, my clock was
+striking the half hour, and I always keep it thirty minutes fast.
+As I was taking the milk, the man said to me, "Hollo, Miss
+Coleman, here's your friend coming along." "What friend?" I says,
+--for I ain't got no friends, as I know, round here, nor yet, I
+hope no enemies neither.
+
+'And I looks round, and there was the Arab party coming tearing
+down the road, his bedcover thing all flying in the wind, and his
+arms straight out in front of him,--I never did see anyone go at
+such a pace. "My goodness," I says, "I wonder he don't do himself
+an injury." "I wonder someone else don't do him an injury," says
+the milkman. "The very sight of him is enough to make my milk go
+sour." And he picked up his pail and went away quite grumpy,--
+though what that Arab party's done to him is more than I can say.
+--I have always noticed that milkman's temper's short like his
+measure. I wasn't best pleased with him for speaking of that Arab
+party as my friend, which he never has been, and never won't be,
+and never could be neither.
+
+'Five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone, and
+that there Arab party was safe inside,--three of them was
+commercials, that I know, because afterwards they came to me. But
+of course they none of them got no chance with that there Arab
+party except of hammering at his front door, which ain't what you
+might call a paying game, nor nice for the temper but for that I
+don't blame him, for if once those commercials do begin talking
+they'll talk for ever.
+
+'Now I'm coming to this afternoon.'
+
+I thought it was about time,--though for the life of me, I did not
+dare to hint as much.
+
+'Well, it might have been three, or it might have been half past,
+anyhow it was thereabouts, when up there comes two men and a
+woman, which one of the men was that young man what's a friend of
+yours. "Oh," I says to myself, "here's something new in callers, I
+wonder what it is they're wanting." That young man what was a
+friend of yours, he starts hammering, and hammering, as the custom
+was with every one who came, and, as usual, no more notice was
+taken of him than nothing,--though I knew that all the time the
+Arab party was indoors.'
+
+At this point I felt that at all hazards I must interpose a
+question.
+
+'You are sure he was indoors?'
+
+She took it better than I feared she might.
+
+'Of course I'm sure,--hadn't I seen him come in at seven, and he
+never hadn't gone out since, for I don't believe that I'd taken my
+eyes off the place not for two minutes together, and I'd never had
+a sight of him. If he wasn't indoors, where was he then?'
+
+For the moment, so far as I was concerned, the query was
+unanswerable. She triumphantly continued:
+
+'Instead of doing what most did, when they'd had enough of
+hammering, and going away, these three they went round to the
+back, and I'm blessed if they mustn't have got through the kitchen
+window, woman and all, for all of a sudden the blind in the front
+room was pulled not up, but down--dragged down it was, and there
+was that young man what's a friend of yours standing with it in
+his hand.
+
+'"Well," I says to myself, "if that ain't cool I should like to
+know what is. If, when you ain't let in, you can let yourself in,
+and that without so much as saying by your leave, or with your
+leave, things is coming to a pretty pass. Wherever can that Arab
+party be, and whatever can he be thinking of, to let them go on
+like that because that he's the sort to allow a liberty to be took
+with him, and say nothing, I don't believe."
+
+'Every moment I expects to hear a noise and see a row begin, but,
+so far as I could make out, all was quiet and there wasn't nothing
+of the kind. So I says to myself, "There's more in this than meets
+the eye, and them three parties must have right upon their side,
+or they wouldn't be doing what they are doing in the way they are,
+there'd be a shindy."
+
+'Presently, in about five minutes, the front door opens, and a
+young man--not the one what's your friend, but the other--comes
+sailing out, and through the gate, and down the road, as stiff and
+upright as a grenadier,--I never see anyone walk more upright, and
+few as fast. At his heels comes the young man what is your friend,
+and it seems to me that he couldn't make out what this other was
+a-doing of. I says to myself, "There's been a quarrel between them
+two, and him as has gone has hooked it." This young man what is
+your friend he stood at the gate, all of a fidget, staring after
+the other with all his eyes, as if he couldn't think what to make
+of him, and the young woman, she stood on the doorstep, staring
+after him too.
+
+'As the young man what had hooked it turned the corner, and was
+out of sight, all at once your friend he seemed to make up his
+mind, and he started off running as hard as he could pelt,--and
+the young woman was left alone. I expected, every minute, to see
+him come back with the other young man, and the young woman, by
+the way she hung about the gate, she seemed to expect it too. But
+no, nothing of the kind. So when, as I expect, she'd had enough of
+waiting, she went into the house again, and I see her pass the
+front room window. After a while, back she comes to the gate, and
+stands looking and looking, but nothing was to be seen of either
+of them young men. When she'd been at the gate, I daresay five
+minutes, back she goes into the house,--and I never saw nothing of
+her again.'
+
+'You never saw anything of her again?--Are you sure she went back
+into the house?'
+
+'As sure as I am that I see you.'
+
+'I suppose that you didn't keep a constant watch upon the
+premises?'
+
+'But that's just what I did do. I felt something queer was going
+on, and I made up my mind to see it through. And when I make up my
+mind to a thing like that I'm not easy to turn aside. I never
+moved off the chair at my bedroom window, and I never took my eyes
+off the house, not till you come knocking at my front door.'
+
+'But, since the young lady is certainly not in the house at
+present, she must have eluded your observation, and, in some
+manner, have left it without your seeing her.'
+
+'I don't believe she did, I don't see how she could have done,--
+there's something queer about that house, since that Arab party's
+been inside it. But though I didn't see her, I did see someone
+else.'
+
+'Who was that?'
+
+'A young man.'
+
+'A young man?'
+
+'Yes, a young man, and that's what puzzled me, and what's been
+puzzling me ever since, for see him go in I never did do.'
+
+'Can you describe him?'
+
+'Not as to the face, for he wore a dirty cloth cap pulled down
+right over it, and he walked so quickly that I never had a proper
+look. But I should know him anywhere if I saw him, if only because
+of his clothes and his walk.'
+
+'What was there peculiar about his clothes and his walk?'
+
+'Why, his clothes were that old, and torn, and dirty, that a
+ragman wouldn't have given a thank you for them,--and as for fit,
+--there wasn't none, they hung upon him like a scarecrow--he was a
+regular figure of fun; I should think the boys would call after
+him if they saw him in the street. As for his walk, he walked off
+just like the first young man had done, he strutted along with his
+shoulders back, and his head in the air, and that stiff and
+straight that my kitchen poker would have looked crooked beside of
+him.'
+
+'Did nothing happen to attract your attention between the young
+lady's going back into the house and the coming out of this young
+man?'
+
+Miss Coleman cogitated.
+
+'Now you mention it there did,--though I should have forgotten all
+about it if you hadn't asked me,--that comes of your not letting
+me tell the tale in my own way. About twenty minutes after the
+young woman had gone in someone put up the blind in the front
+room, which that young man had dragged right down, I couldn't see
+who it was for the blind was between us, and it was about ten
+minutes after that that young man came marching out.'
+
+'And then what followed?'
+
+'Why, in about another ten minutes that Arab party himself comes
+scooting through the door.'
+
+'The Arab party?'
+
+'Yes, the Arab party! The sight of him took me clean aback. Where
+he'd been, and what he'd been doing with himself while them there
+people played hi-spy-hi about his premises I'd have given a
+shilling out of my pocket to have known, but there he was, as
+large as life, and carrying a bundle.'
+
+'A bundle?'
+
+'A bundle, on his head, like a muffin-man carries his tray. It was
+a great thing, you never would have thought he could have carried
+it, and it was easy to see that it was as much as he could manage;
+it bent him nearly double, and he went crawling along like a
+snail,--it took him quite a time to get to the end of the road.'
+
+Mr Lessingham leaped up from his seat, crying, 'Marjorie was in
+that bundle!'
+
+'I doubt it,' I said.
+
+He moved about the room distractedly, wringing his hands.
+
+'She was! she must have been! God help us all!'
+
+'I repeat that I doubt it. If you will be advised by me you will
+wait awhile before you arrive at any such conclusion.'
+
+All at once there was a tapping at the window pane. Atherton was
+staring at us from without.
+
+He shouted through the glass, 'Come out of that, you fossils!--
+I've news for you!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE CONSTABLE,--HIS CLUE,--AND THE CAB
+
+
+Miss Coleman, getting up in a fluster, went hurrying to the door.
+
+'I won't have that young man in my house. I won't have him! Don't
+let him dare to put his nose across my doorstep.'
+
+I endeavoured to appease her perturbation.
+
+'I promise you that he shall not come in, Miss Coleman. My friend
+here, and I, will go and speak to him outside.'
+
+She held the front door open just wide enough to enable Lessingham
+and me to slip through, then she shut it after us with a bang. She
+evidently had a strong objection to any intrusion on Sydney's
+part.
+
+Standing just without the gate he saluted us with a characteristic
+vigour which was scarcely flattering to our late hostess. Behind
+him was a constable.
+
+'I hope you two have been mewed in with that old pussy long
+enough. While you've been tittle-tattling I've been doing,--listen
+to what this bobby's got to say.'
+
+The constable, his thumbs thrust inside his belt, wore an
+indulgent smile upon his countenance. He seemed to find Sydney
+amusing. He spoke in a deep bass voice,--as if it issued from his
+boots.
+
+'I don't know that I've got anything to say.
+
+It was plain that Sydney thought otherwise.
+
+'You wait till I've given this pretty pair of gossips a lead,
+officer, then I'll trot you out.' He turned to us.
+
+'After I'd poked my nose into every dashed hole in that infernal
+den, and been rewarded with nothing but a pain in the back for my
+trouble, I stood cooling my heels on the doorstep, wondering if I
+should fight the cabman, or get him to fight me, just to pass the
+time away,--for he says he can box, and he looks it,--when who
+should come strolling along but this magnificent example of the
+metropolitan constabulary.' He waved his hand towards the
+policeman, whose grin grew wider. 'I looked at him, and he looked
+at me, and then when we'd had enough of admiring each other's fine
+features and striking proportions, he said to me, "Has he gone?" I
+said, "Who?--Baxter?--or Bob Brown?" He said, "No, the Arab." I
+said, "What do you know about any Arab?" He said, "Well, I saw him
+in the Broadway about three-quarters of an hour ago, and then,
+seeing you here, and the house all open, I wondered if he had gone
+for good." With that I almost jumped out of my skin, though you
+can bet your life I never showed it. I said, "How do you know it
+was he?" He said, "It was him right enough, there's no doubt about
+that. If you've seen him once, you're not likely to forget him."
+"Where was he going?" "He was talking to a cabman,--four-wheeler.
+He'd got a great bundle on his head,--wanted to take it inside
+with him. Cabman didn't seem to see it." That was enough for me,--
+I picked this most deserving officer up in my arms, and carried
+him across the road to you two fellows like a flash of lightning.'
+
+Since the policeman was six feet three or four, and more than
+sufficiently broad in proportion, his scarcely seemed the kind of
+figure to be picked up in anybody's arms and carried like a 'flash
+of lightning,' which,--as his smile grew more indulgent, he
+himself appeared to think.
+
+Still, even allowing for Atherton's exaggeration, the news which
+he had brought was sufficiently important. I questioned the
+constable upon my own account.
+
+'There is my card, officer, probably, before the day is over, a
+charge of a very serious character will be preferred against the
+person who has been residing in the house over the way. In the
+meantime it is of the utmost importance that a watch should be
+kept upon his movements. I suppose you have no sort of doubt that
+the person you saw in the Broadway was the one in question?'
+
+'Not a morsel. I know him as well as I do my own brother,--we all
+do upon this beat. He's known amongst us as the Arab. I've had my
+eye on him ever since he came to the place. A queer fish he is. I
+always have said that he's up to some game or other. I never came
+across one like him for flying about in all sorts of weather, at
+all hours of the night, always tearing along as if for his life.
+As I was telling this gentleman I saw him in the Broadway,--well,
+now it's about an hour since, perhaps a little more. I was coming
+on duty when I saw a crowd in front of the District Railway
+Station,--and there was the Arab, having a sort of argument with
+the cabman. He had a great bundle on his head, five or six feet
+long, perhaps longer. He wanted to take this great bundle with him
+into the cab, and the cabman, he didn't see it.'
+
+'You didn't wait to see him drive off.'
+
+'No,--I hadn't time. I was due at the station,--I was cutting it
+pretty fine as it was.'
+
+'You didn't speak to him,--or to the cabman?'
+
+'No, it wasn't any business of mine you understand. The whole
+thing just caught my eye as I was passing.'
+
+'And you didn't take the cabman's number?'
+
+'No, well, as far as that goes it wasn't needful. I know the
+cabman, his name and all about him, his stable's in Bradmore.'
+
+I whipped out my note-book.
+
+'Give me his address.'
+
+'I don't know what his Christian name is, Tom, I believe, but I'm
+not sure. Anyhow his surname's Ellis and his address is Church
+Mews, St John's Road, Bradmore,--I don't know his number, but any
+one will tell you which is his place, if you ask for Four-Wheel
+Ellis,--that's the name he's known by among his pals because of
+his driving a four-wheeler.'
+
+'Thank you, officer. I am obliged to you.' Two half-crowns changed
+hands. 'If you will keep an eye on the house and advise me at the
+address which you will find on my card, of any thing which takes
+place there during the next few days, you will do me a service.'
+
+We had clambered back into the hansom, the driver was just about
+to start, when the constable was struck by a sudden thought.
+
+'One moment, sir,--blessed if I wasn't going to forget the most
+important bit of all. I did hear him tell Ellis where to drive him
+to,--he kept saying it over and over again, in that queer lingo of
+his. "Waterloo Railway Station, Waterloo Railway Station." "All
+right," said Ellis, "I'll drive you to Waterloo Railway Station
+right enough, only I'm not going to have that bundle of yours
+inside my cab. There isn't room for it, so you put it on the
+roof." "To Waterloo Railway Station," said the Arab, "I take my
+bundle with me to Waterloo Railway Station,--I take it with me."
+"Who says you don't take it with you?" said Ellis. "You can take
+it, and twenty more besides, for all I care, only you don't take
+it inside my cab,--put it on the roof." "I take it with me to
+Waterloo Railway Station," said the Arab, and there they were,
+wrangling and jangling, and neither seeming to be able to make out
+what the other was after, and the people all laughing.'
+
+'Waterloo Railway Station,--you are sure that was what he said?'
+
+'I'll take my oath to it, because I said to myself, when I heard
+it, "I wonder what you'll have to pay for that little lot, for the
+District Railway Station's outside the four-mile radius."' As we
+drove off I was inclined to ask myself, a little bitterly--and
+perhaps unjustly--if it were not characteristic of the average
+London policeman to almost forget the most important part of his
+information,--at any rate to leave it to the last and only to
+bring it to the front on having his palm crossed with silver.
+
+As the hansom bowled along we three had what occasionally
+approached a warm discussion.
+
+'Marjorie was in that bundle,' began Lessingham, in the most
+lugubrious of tones, and with the most woe-begone of faces.
+
+'I doubt it,' I observed.
+
+'She was,--I feel it,--I know it. She was either dead and
+mutilated, or gagged and drugged and helpless. All that remains is
+vengeance.'
+
+'I repeat that I doubt it.'
+
+Atherton struck in.
+
+'I am bound to say, with the best will in the world to think
+otherwise, that I agree with Lessingham.'
+
+'You are wrong.'
+
+'It's all very well for you to talk in that cock-sure way, but
+it's easier for you to say I'm wrong than to prove it. If I am
+wrong, and if Lessingham's wrong, how do you explain his
+extraordinary insistance on taking it inside the cab with him,
+which the bobby describes? If there wasn't something horrible,
+awful in that bundle of his, of which he feared the discovery, why
+was he so reluctant to have it placed upon the roof?'
+
+'There probably was something in it which he was particularly
+anxious should not be discovered, but I doubt if it was anything
+of the kind which you suggest.'
+
+'Here is Marjorie in a house alone--nothing has been seen of her
+since,--her clothing, her hair, is found hidden away under the
+floor. This scoundrel sallies forth with a huge bundle on his
+head,--the bobby speaks of it being five or six feet long, or
+longer,--a bundle which he regards with so much solicitude that he
+insists on never allowing it to go, for a single instant, out of
+his sight and reach. What is in the thing? don't all the facts
+most unfortunately point in one direction?'
+
+Mr Lessingham covered his face with his hands, and groaned.
+
+'I fear that Mr Atherton is right.'
+
+'I differ from you both.'
+
+Sydney at once became heated.
+
+'Then perhaps you can tell us what was in the bundle?'
+
+'I fancy I could make a guess at the contents.'
+
+'Oh you could, could you, then, perhaps, for our sakes, you'll
+make it,--and not play the oracular owl!--Lessingham and I are
+interested in this business, after all.'
+
+'It contained the bearer's personal property: that, and nothing
+more. Stay! before you jeer at me, suffer me to finish. If I am
+not mistaken as to the identity of the person whom the constable
+describes as the Arab, I apprehend that the contents of that
+bundle were of much more importance to him than if they had
+consisted of Miss Lindon, either dead or living. More. I am
+inclined to suspect that if the bundle was placed on the roof of
+the cab, and if the driver did meddle with it, and did find out
+the contents, and understand them, he would have been driven, out
+of hand, stark staring mad.'
+
+Sydney was silent, as if he reflected. I imagine he perceived
+there was something in what I said.
+
+'But what has become of Miss Lindon?'
+
+'I fancy that Miss Lindon, at this moment, is--somewhere; I don't,
+just now, know exactly where, but I hope very shortly to be able
+to give you a clearer notion,--attired in a rotten, dirty pair of
+boots; a filthy, tattered pair of trousers; a ragged, unwashed
+apology for a shirt; a greasy, ancient, shapeless coat; and a
+frowsy peaked cloth cap.'
+
+They stared at me, opened-eyed. Atherton was the first to speak.
+
+'What on earth do you mean?'
+
+'I mean that it seems to me that the facts point in the direction
+of my conclusions rather than yours--and that very strongly too.
+Miss Coleman asserts that she saw Miss London return into the
+house; that within a few minutes the blind was replaced at the
+front window; and that shortly after a young man, attired in the
+costume I have described, came walking out of the front door. I
+believe that young man was Miss Marjorie Lindon.'
+
+Lessingham and Atherton both broke out into interrogations, with
+Sydney, as usual, loudest.
+
+'But--man alive! what on earth should make her do a thing like
+that? Marjorie, the most retiring, modest girl on all God's earth,
+walk about in broad daylight, in such a costume, and for no reason
+at all! my dear Champnell, you are suggesting that she first of
+all went mad.'
+
+'She was in a state of trance.'
+
+'Good God!--Champnell!'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'Then you think that--juggling villain did get hold of her?'
+
+'Undoubtedly. Here is my view of the case, mind it is only a
+hypothesis and you must take it for what it is worth. It seems to
+me quite clear that the Arab, as we will call the person for the
+sake of identification, was somewhere about the premises when you
+thought he wasn't.'
+
+'But--where? We looked upstairs, and downstairs, and everywhere--
+where could he have been?'
+
+'That, as at present advised, I am not prepared to say, but I
+think you may take it for granted that he was there. He hypnotised
+the man Holt, and sent him away, intending you to go after him,
+and so being rid of you both--'
+
+'The deuce he did, Champnell! You write me down an ass!'
+
+'As soon as the coast was clear he discovered himself to Miss
+Lindon, who, I expect, was disagreeably surprised, and hypnotised
+her.'
+
+'The hound!'
+
+'The devil!'
+
+The first exclamation was Lessingham's, the second Sydney's.
+
+'He then constrained her to strip herself to the skin--'
+
+'The wretch!'
+
+'The fiend!'
+
+'He cut off her hair; he hid it and her clothes under the floor
+where we found them--where I think it probable that he had already
+some ancient masculine garments concealed--'
+
+'By Jove! I shouldn't be surprised if they were Holt's. I remember
+the man saying that that nice joker stripped him of his duds,--and
+certainly when I saw him,--and when Marjorie found him!--he had
+absolutely nothing on but a queer sort of cloak. Can it be
+possible that that humorous professor of hankey-pankey--may all
+the maledictions of the accursed alight upon his head!--can have
+sent Marjorie Lindon, the daintiest damsel in the land!--into the
+streets of London rigged out in Holt's old togs!'
+
+'As to that, I am not able to give an authoritative opinion, but,
+if I understand you aright, it at least is possible. Anyhow I am
+disposed to think that he sent Miss Lindon after the man Holt,
+taking it for granted that he had eluded you.--'
+
+'That's it. Write me down an ass again!'
+
+'That he did elude you, you have yourself admitted.'
+
+'That's because I stopped talking with that mutton-headed bobby,--
+I'd have followed the man to the ends of the earth if it hadn't
+been for that.'
+
+'Precisely; the reason is immaterial, it is the fact with which we
+are immediately concerned. He did elude you. And I think you will
+find that Miss Lindon and Mr Holt are together at this moment.'
+
+'In men's clothing?'
+
+'Both in men's clothing, or, rather, Miss Lindon is in a man's
+rags.'
+
+'Great Potiphar! To think of Marjorie like that!'
+
+'And where they are, the Arab is not very far off either.'
+
+Lessingham caught me by the arm.
+
+'And what diabolical mischief do you imagine that he proposes to
+do to her?'
+
+I shirked the question.
+
+'Whatever it is, it is our business to prevent his doing it.'
+
+'And where do you think they have been taken?'
+
+'That it will be our immediate business to endeavour to discover,
+--and here, at any rate, we are at Waterloo.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+THE QUARRY DOUBLES
+
+
+I turned towards the booking-office on the main departure
+platform. As I went, the chief platform inspector, George
+Bellingham, with whom I had some acquaintance, came out of his
+office. I stopped him.
+
+'Mr Bellingham, will you be so good as to step with me to the
+booking-office, and instruct the clerk in charge to answer one or
+two questions which I wish to put to him. I will explain to you
+afterwards what is their exact import, but you know me
+sufficiently to be able to believe me when I say that they refer
+to a matter in which every moment is of the first importance.'
+
+He turned and accompanied us into the interior of the booking-
+case.
+
+'To which of the clerks, Mr Champnell, do you wish to put your
+questions?'
+
+'To the one who issues third-class tickets to Southampton.'
+
+Bellingham beckoned to a man who was counting a heap of money, and
+apparently seeking to make it tally with the entries in a huge
+ledger which lay open before him,--he was a short, slightly-built
+young fellow, with a pleasant face and smiling eyes.
+
+'Mr Stone, this gentleman wishes to ask you one or two questions.'
+
+'I am at his service.'
+
+I put my questions.
+
+'I want to know, Mr Stone, if, in the course of the day, you have
+issued any tickets to a person dressed in Arab costume?'
+
+His reply was prompt.
+
+'I have--by the last train, the 7.25,--three singles.'
+
+Three singles! Then my instinct had told me rightly.
+
+'Can you describe the person?'
+
+Mr Stone's eyes twinkled.
+
+'I don't know that I can, except in a general way,--he was
+uncommonly old and uncommonly ugly, and he had a pair of the most
+extraordinary eyes I ever saw,--they gave me a sort of all-overish
+feeling when I saw them glaring at me through the pigeon hole. But
+I can tell you one thing about him, he had a great bundle on his
+head, which he steadied with one hand, and as it bulged out in all
+directions it's presence didn't make him popular with other people
+who wanted tickets too.'
+
+Undoubtedly this was our man.
+
+'You are sure he asked for three tickets?'
+
+'Certain. He said three tickets to Southampton; laid down the
+exact fare,--nineteen and six--and held up three fingers--like
+that. Three nasty looking fingers they were, with nails as long as
+talons.'
+
+'You didn't see who were his companions?'
+
+'I didn't,--I didn't try to look. I gave him his tickets and off
+he went,--with the people grumbling at him because that bundle of
+his kept getting in their way.'
+
+Bellingham touched me on the arm.
+
+'I can tell you about the Arab of whom Mr Stone speaks. My
+attention was called to him by his insisting on taking his bundle
+with him into the carriage,--it was an enormous thing, he could
+hardly squeeze it through the door; it occupied the entire seat.
+But as there weren't as many passengers as usual, and he wouldn't
+or couldn't be made to understand that his precious bundle would
+be safe in the luggage van along with the rest of the luggage, and
+as he wasn't the sort of person you could argue with to any
+advantage, I had him put into an empty compartment, bundle and
+all.'
+
+'Was he alone then?'
+
+'I thought so at the time, he said nothing about having more than
+one ticket, or any companions, but just before the train started
+two other men--English men--got into his compartment; and as I
+came down the platform, the ticket inspector at the barrier
+informed me that these two men were with him, because he held
+tickets for the three, which, as he was a foreigner, and they
+seemed English, struck the inspector as odd.'
+
+'Could you describe the two men?'
+
+'I couldn't, not particularly, but the man who had charge of the
+barrier might. I was at the other end of the train when they got
+in. All I noticed was that one seemed to be a commonplace looking
+individual and that the other was dressed like a tramp, all rags
+and tatters, a disreputable looking object he appeared to be.'
+
+'That,' I said to myself, 'was Miss Marjorie Lindon, the lovely
+daughter of a famous house; the wife-elect of a coming statesman.'
+
+To Bellingham I remarked aloud:
+
+'I want you to strain a point, Mr Bellingham, and to do me a
+service which I assure you you shall never have any cause to
+regret. I want you to wire instructions down the line to detain
+this Arab and his companions and to keep them in custody until the
+receipt of further instructions. They are not wanted by the police
+as yet, but they will be as soon as I am able to give certain
+information to the authorities at Scotland Yard,--and wanted very
+badly. But, as you will perceive for yourself, until I am able to
+give that information every moment is important.--Where's the
+Station Superintendent?'
+
+'He's gone. At present I'm in charge.'
+
+'Then will you do this for me? I repeat that you shall never have
+any reason to regret it.'
+
+'I will if you'll accept all responsibility.'
+
+'I'll do that with the greatest pleasure.'
+
+Bellingham looked at his watch.
+
+'It's about twenty minutes to nine. The train's scheduled for
+Basingstoke at 9.6. If we wire to Basingstoke at once they ought
+to be ready for them when they come.'
+
+'Good!'
+
+The wire was sent.
+
+We were shown into Bellingham's office to await results Lessingham
+paced agitatedly to and fro; he seemed to have reached the limits
+of his self-control, and to be in a condition in which movement of
+some sort was an absolute necessity. The mercurial Sydney, on the
+contrary, leaned back in a chair, his legs stretched out in front
+of him, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, and stared
+at Lessingham, as if he found relief to his feelings in watching
+his companion's restlessness. I, for my part, drew up as full a
+precis of the case as I deemed advisable, and as time permitted,
+which I despatched by one of the company's police to Scotland
+Yard.
+
+Then I turned to my associates.
+
+'Now, gentlemen, it's past dinner time. We may have a journey in
+front of us. If you take my advice you'll have something to eat.'
+
+Lessingham shook his head.
+
+'I want nothing.'
+
+'Nor I,' echoed Sydney.
+
+I started up.
+
+'You must pardon my saying nonsense, but surely you of all men, Mr
+Lessingham, should be aware that you will not improve the
+situation by rendering yourself incapable of seeing it through.
+Come and dine.'
+
+I haled them off with me, willy nilly, to the refreshment room, I
+dined,--after a fashion; Mr Lessingham swallowed with difficulty,
+a plate of soup; Sydney nibbled at a plate of the most unpromising
+looking 'chicken and ham,'--he proved, indeed, more intractable
+than Lessingham, and was not to be persuaded to tackle anything
+easier of digestion.
+
+I was just about to take cheese after chop when Bellingham came
+hastening in, in his hand an open telegram.
+
+'The birds have flown,' he cried.
+
+'Flown!--How?'
+
+In reply he gave me the telegram. I glanced at it. It ran:
+
+'Persons described not in the train. Guard says they got out at
+Vauxhall. Have wired Vauxhall to advise you.'
+
+'That's a level-headed chap,' said Bellingham. 'The man who sent
+that telegram. His wiring to Vauxhall should save us a lot of
+time,--we ought to hear from there directly. Hollo! what's this? I
+shouldn't be surprised if this is it.'
+
+As he spoke a porter entered,--he handed an envelope to
+Bellingham. We all three kept our eyes fixed on the inspector's
+face as he opened it. When he perceived the contents he gave an
+exclamation of surprise.
+
+'This Arab of yours, and his two friends, seem rather a curious
+lot, Mr Champnell.'
+
+He passed the paper on to me. It took the form of a report.
+Lessingham and Sydney, regardless of forms and ceremonies, leaned
+over my shoulder as I read it.
+
+'Passengers by 7.30 Southampton, on arrival of train, complained
+of noises coming from a compartment in coach 8964. Stated that
+there had been shrieks and yells ever since the train left
+Waterloo, as if someone was being murdered. An Arab and two
+Englishmen got out of the compartment in question, apparently the
+party referred to in wire just to hand from Basingstoke. All three
+declared that there was nothing the matter. That they had been
+shouting for fun. Arab gave up three third singles for
+Southampton, saying, in reply to questions, that they had changed
+their minds, and did not want to go any farther. As there were no
+signs of a struggle or of violence, nor, apparently, any definite
+cause for detention, they were allowed to pass. They took a four-
+wheeler, No. 09435. The Arab and one man went inside, and the
+other man on the box. They asked to be driven to Commercial Road,
+Limehouse. The cab has since returned. Driver says he put the
+three men down, at their request, in Commercial Road, at the
+corner of Sutcliffe Street, near the East India Docks. They walked
+up Sutcliffe Street, the Englishmen in front, and the Arab behind,
+took the first turning to the right, and after that he saw nothing
+of them. The driver further states that all the way the Englishman
+inside, who was so ragged and dirty that he was reluctant to carry
+him, kept up a sort of wailing noise which so attracted his
+attention that he twice got off his box to see what was the
+matter, and each time he said it was nothing. The cabman is of
+opinion that both the Englishmen were of weak intellect. We were
+of the same impression here. They said nothing, except at the
+seeming instigation of the Arab, but when spoken to stared and
+gaped like lunatics.
+
+'It may be mentioned that the Arab had with him an enormous
+bundle, which he persisted, in spite of all remonstrances, on
+taking with him inside the cab.'
+
+As soon as I had mastered the contents of the report, and
+perceived what I believed to be--unknown to the writer himself--
+its hideous inner meaning, I turned to Bellingham.
+
+'With your permission, Mr Bellingham, I will keep this
+communication,--it will be safe in my hands, you will be able to
+get a copy, and it may be necessary that I should have the
+original to show to the police. If any inquiries are made for me
+from Scotland Yard, tell them that I have gone to the Commercial
+Road, and that I will report my movements from Limehouse Police
+Station.'
+
+In another minute we were once more traversing the streets of
+London,--three in a hansom cab.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+THE MURDER AT MRS 'ENDERSON'S
+
+
+It is something of a drive from Waterloo to Limehouse,--it seems
+longer when all your nerves are tingling with anxiety to reach
+your journey's end; and the cab I had hit upon proved to be not
+the fastest I might have chosen. For some time after our start, we
+were silent. Each was occupied with his own thoughts.
+
+Then Lessingham, who was sitting at my side, said to me,
+
+'Mr Champnell, you have that report.'
+
+'I have.'
+
+'Will you let me see it once more?'
+
+I gave it to him. He read it once, twice,--and I fancy yet again.
+I purposely avoided looking at him as he did so. Yet all the while
+I was conscious of his pallid cheeks, the twitched muscles of his
+mouth, the feverish glitter of his eyes,--this Leader of Men,
+whose predominate characteristic in the House of Commons was
+immobility, was rapidly approximating to the condition of a
+hysterical woman. The mental strain which he had been recently
+undergoing was proving too much for his physical strength. This
+disappearance of the woman he loved bade fair to be the final
+straw. I felt convinced that unless something was done quickly to
+relieve the strain upon his mind he was nearer to a state of
+complete mental and moral collapse than he himself imagined. Had
+he been under my orders I should have commanded him to at once
+return home, and not to think; but conscious that, as things were,
+such a direction would be simply futile, I decided to do something
+else instead. Feeling that suspense was for him the worst possible
+form of suffering I resolved to explain, so far as I was able,
+precisely what it was I feared, and how I proposed to prevent it.
+
+Presently there came the question for which I had been waiting, in
+a harsh, broken voice which no one who had heard him speak on a
+public platform, or in the House of Commons, would have recognised
+as his.
+
+'Mr Champnell,--who do you think this person is of whom the report
+from Vauxhall Station speaks as being all in rags and tatters?'
+
+He knew perfectly well,--but I understood the mental attitude
+which induced him to prefer that the information should seem to
+come from me.
+
+'I hope that it will prove to be Miss Lindon.'
+
+'Hope!' He gave a sort of gasp.
+
+'Yes, hope,--because if it is I think it possible, nay probable,
+that within a few hours you will have her again enfolded in your
+arms.'
+
+'Pray God that it may be so! pray God!--pray the good God!'
+
+I did not dare to look round for, from the tremor which was in his
+tone, I was persuaded that in the speaker's eyes were tears.
+Atherton continued silent. He was leaning half out of the cab,
+staring straight ahead, as if he saw in front a young girl's face,
+from which he could not remove his glance, and which beckoned him
+on.
+
+After a while Lessingham spoke again, as if half to himself and
+half to me.
+
+'This mention of the shrieks on the railway, and of the wailing
+noise in the cab,--what must this wretch have done to her? How my
+darling must have suffered!'
+
+That was a theme on which I myself scarcely ventured to allow my
+thoughts to rest. The notion of a gently-nurtured girl being at
+the mercy of that fiend incarnate, possessed--as I believed that
+so-called Arab to be possessed--of all the paraphernalia of horror
+and of dread, was one which caused me tangible shrinkings of the
+body. Whence had come those shrieks and yells, of which the writer
+of the report spoke, which had caused the Arab's fellow-passengers
+to think that murder was being done? What unimaginable agony had
+caused them? what speechless torture? And the 'wailing noise,'
+which had induced the prosaic, indurated London cabman to get
+twice off his box to see what was the matter, what anguish had
+been provocative of that? The helpless girl who had already
+endured so much, endured, perhaps, that to which death would have
+been preferred!--shut up in that rattling, jolting box on wheels,
+alone with that diabolical Asiatic, with the enormous bundle,
+which was but the lurking place of nameless terrors,--what might
+she not, while being borne through the heart of civilised London,
+have been made to suffer? What had she not been made to suffer to
+have kept up that continued 'wailing noise'?
+
+It was not a theme on which it was wise to permit one's thoughts
+to linger,--and particularly was it clear that it was one from
+which Lessingham's thoughts should have been kept as far as
+possible away.
+
+'Come, Mr Lessingham, neither you nor I will do himself any good
+by permitting his reflections to flow in a morbid channel. Let us
+talk of something else. By the way, weren't you due to speak in
+the House to-night?'
+
+'Due!--Yes, I was due,--but what does it matter?'
+
+'But have you acquainted no one with the cause of your non-
+attendance?'
+
+'Acquaint!--whom should I acquaint?'
+
+'My good sir! Listen to me, Mr Lessingham. Let me entreat you very
+earnestly, to follow my advice. Call another cab,--or take this!
+and go at once to the House. It is not too late. Play the man,
+deliver the speech you have undertaken to deliver, perform your
+political duties. By coming with me you will be a hindrance rather
+than a help, and you may do your reputation an injury from which
+it never may recover. Do as I counsel you, and I will undertake to
+do my very utmost to let you have good news by the time your
+speech is finished.'
+
+He turned on me with a bitterness for which I was unprepared.
+
+'If I were to go down to the House, and try to speak in the state
+in which I am now, they would laugh at me, I should be ruined.'
+
+'Do you not run an equally great risk of being ruined by staying
+away?'
+
+He gripped me by the arm.
+
+'Mr Champnell, do you know that I am on the verge of madness? Do
+you know that as I am sitting here by your side I am living in a
+dual world? I am going on and on to catch that--that fiend, and I
+am back again in that Egyptian den, upon that couch of rugs, with
+the Woman of the Songs beside me, and Marjorie is being torn and
+tortured, and burnt before my eyes! God help me! Her shrieks are
+ringing in my ears!'
+
+He did not speak loudly, but his voice was none the less
+impressive on that account. I endeavoured my hardest to be stern.
+
+'I confess that you disappoint me, Mr Lessingham. I have always
+understood that you were a man of unusual strength; you appear
+instead, to be a man of extraordinary weakness; with an
+imagination so ill-governed that its ebullitions remind me of
+nothing so much as feminine hysterics, Your wild language is not
+warranted by circumstances. I repeat that I think it quite
+possible that by to-morrow morning she will be returned to you.'
+
+'Yes,--but how? as the Marjorie I have known, as I saw her last,--
+or how?'
+
+That was the question which I had already asked myself, in what
+condition would she be when we had succeeded in snatching her from
+her captor's grip? It was a question to which I had refused to
+supply an answer. To him I lied by implication.
+
+'Let us hope that, with the exception of being a trifle scared,
+she will be as sound and hale and hearty as even in her life.'
+
+'Do you yourself believe that she'll be like that,--untouched,
+unchanged, unstained?'
+
+Then I lied right out,--it seemed to me necessary to calm his
+growing excitement.
+
+'I do.'
+
+'You don't!'
+
+'Mr Lessingham!'
+
+'Do you think that I can't see your face and read in it the same
+thoughts which trouble me? As a man of honour do you care to deny
+that when Marjorie Lindon is restored to me,--if she ever is!--you
+fear she will be but the mere soiled husk of the Marjorie whom I
+knew and loved?'
+
+'Even supposing that there may be a modicum of truth in what you
+say,--which I am far from being disposed to admit--what good
+purpose do you propose to serve by talking in such a strain?'
+
+'None,--no good purpose,--unless it be the desire of looking the
+truth in the face. For, Mr Champnell, you must not seek to play
+with me the hypocrite, nor try to hide things from me as if I were
+a child. If my life is ruined--it is ruined,--let me know it, and
+look the knowledge in the face. That, to me, is to play the man.'
+
+I was silent.
+
+The wild tale he had told me of that Cairene inferno, oddly
+enough--yet why oddly, for the world is all coincidence!--had
+thrown a flood of light on certain events which had happened some
+three years previously and which ever since had remained shrouded
+in mystery. The conduct of the business afterwards came into my
+hands,--and briefly, what had occurred was this:
+
+Three persons,--two sisters and their brother, who was younger
+than themselves, members of a decent English family, were going on
+a trip round the world. They were young, adventurous, and--not to
+put too fine a point on it--foolhardy. The evening after their
+arrival in Cairo, by way of what is called 'a lark,' in spite of
+the protestations of people who were better informed than
+themselves, they insisted on going, alone, for a ramble through
+the native quarter.
+
+They went,--but they never returned. Or, rather the two girls
+never returned. After an interval the young man was found again,--
+what was left of him. A fuss was made when there were no signs of
+their re-appearance, but as there were no relations, nor even
+friends of theirs, but only casual acquaintances on board the ship
+by which they had travelled, perhaps not so great a fuss as might
+have been was made. Anyhow, nothing was discovered. Their widowed
+mother, alone in England, wondering bow it was that beyond the
+receipt of a brief wire, acquainting her with their arrival at
+Cairo, she had heard nothing further of their wanderings, placed
+herself in communication with the diplomatic people over there,--
+to learn that, to all appearances, her three children had vanished
+from off the face of the earth.
+
+Then a fuss was made,--with a vengeance. So far as one can judge
+the whole town and neighbourhood was turned pretty well upside
+down. But nothing came of it,--so far as any results were
+concerned, the authorities might just as well have left the
+mystery of their vanishment alone. It continued where it was in
+spite of them.
+
+However, some three months afterwards a youth was brought to the
+British Embassy by a party of friendly Arabs who asserted that
+they had found him naked and nearly dying in some remote spot in
+the Wady Haifa desert. It was the brother of the two lost girls.
+He was as nearly dying as he very well could be without being
+actually dead when they brought him to the Embassy,--and in a
+state of indescribable mutilation. He seemed to rally for a time
+under careful treatment, but he never again uttered a coherent
+word. It was only from his delirious ravings that any idea was
+formed of what had really occurred.
+
+Shorthand notes were taken of some of the utterances of his
+delirium. Afterwards they were submitted to me. I remembered the
+substance of them quite well, and when Mr Lessingham began to tell
+me of his own hideous experiences they came back to me more
+clearly still. Had I laid those notes before him I have little
+doubt but that he would have immediately perceived that seventeen
+years after the adventure which had left such an indelible scar
+upon his own life, this youth--he was little more than a boy--had
+seen the things which he had seen, and suffered the nameless
+agonies and degradations which he had suffered. The young man was
+perpetually raving about some indescribable den of horror which
+was own brother to Lessingham's temple and about some female
+monster, whom he regarded with such fear and horror that every
+allusion he made to her was followed by a convulsive paroxysm
+which taxed all the ingenuity of his medical attendants to bring
+him out of. He frequently called upon his sisters by name,
+speaking of them in a manner which inevitably suggested that he
+had been an unwilling and helpless witness of hideous tortures
+which they had undergone; and then he would rise in bed,
+screaming, 'They're burning them! they're burning them! Devils!
+devils!' And at those times it required all the strength of those
+who were in attendance to restrain his maddened frenzy.
+
+The youth died in one of these fits of great preternatural
+excitement, without, as I have previously written, having given
+utterance to one single coherent word, and by some of those who
+were best able to judge it was held to have been a mercy that he
+did die without having been restored to consciousness. And,
+presently, tales began to be whispered, about some idolatrous
+sect, which was stated to have its headquarters somewhere in the
+interior of the country--some located it in this neighbourhood,
+and some in that--which was stated to still practise, and to
+always have practised, in unbroken historical continuity, the
+debased, unclean, mystic, and bloody rites, of a form of idolatry
+which had had its birth in a period of the world's story which was
+so remote, that to all intents and purposes it might be described
+as pre-historic.
+
+While the ferment was still at its height, a man came to the
+British Embassy who said that he was a member of a tribe which had
+its habitat on the banks of the White Nile. He asserted that he
+was in association with this very idolatrous sect,--though he
+denied that he was one of the actual sectaries. He did admit,
+however, that he had assisted more than once at their orgies, and
+declared that it was their constant practice to offer young women
+as sacrifices--preferably white Christian women, with a special
+preference, if they could get them, to young English women. He
+vowed that he himself had seen with his own eyes, English girls
+burnt alive. The description which he gave of what preceded and
+followed these foul murders appalled those who listened. He
+finally wound up by offering, on payment of a stipulated sum of
+money, to guide a troop of soldiers to this den of demons, so that
+they should arrive there at a moment when it was filled with
+worshippers, who were preparing to participate in an orgie which
+was to take place during the next few days.
+
+His offer was conditionally accepted. He was confined in an
+apartment with one man on guard inside and another on guard
+outside the room. That night the sentinel without was startled by
+hearing a great noise and frightful screams issuing from the
+chamber in which the native was interned. He summoned assistance.
+The door was opened. The soldier on guard within was stark,
+staring mad,--he died within a few months, a gibbering maniac to
+the end. The native was dead. The window, which was a very small
+one, was securely fastened inside and strongly barred without.
+There was nothing to show by what means entry had been gained. Yet
+it was the general opinion of those who saw the corpse that the
+man had been destroyed by some wild beast. A photograph was taken
+of the body after death, a copy of which is still in my
+possession. In it are distinctly shown lacerations about the neck
+and the lower portion of the abdomen, as if they had been produced
+by the claws of some huge and ferocious animal. The skull is
+splintered in half-a-dozen places, and the face is torn to rags.
+
+That was more than three years ago. The whole business has
+remained as great a mystery as ever. But my attention has once or
+twice been caught by trifling incidents, which have caused me to
+more than suspect that the wild tale told by that murdered native
+had in it at least the elements of truth; and which have even led
+me to wonder if the trade in kidnapping was not being carried on
+to this very hour, and if women of my own flesh and blood were not
+still being offered up on that infernal altar. And now, here was
+Paul Lessingham, a man of world-wide reputation, of great
+intellect, of undoubted honour, who had come to me with a wholly
+unconscious verification of all my worst suspicions!
+
+That the creature spoken of as an Arab,--and who was probably no
+more an Arab than I was, and whose name was certainly not Mohamed
+el Kheir!--was an emissary from that den of demons, I had no
+doubt. What was the exact purport of the creature's presence in
+England was another question, Possibly part of the intention was
+the destruction of Paul Lessingham, body, soul and spirit;
+possibly another part was the procuration of fresh victims for
+that long-drawn-out holocaust. That this latter object explained
+the disappearance of Miss Lindon I felt persuaded. That she was
+designed by the personification of evil who was her captor, to
+suffer all the horrors at which the stories pointed, and then to
+be burned alive, amidst the triumphant yells of the attendant
+demons, I was certain. That the wretch, aware that the pursuit was
+in full cry, was tearing, twisting, doubling, and would stick at
+nothing which would facilitate the smuggling of the victim out of
+England, was clear.
+
+My interest in the quest was already far other than a merely
+professional one. The blood in my veins tingled at the thought of
+such a woman as Miss Lindon being in the power of such a monster.
+I may assuredly claim that throughout the whole business I was
+urged forward by no thought of fee or of reward. To have had a
+share in rescuing that unfortunate girl, and in the destruction of
+her noxious persecutor, would have been reward enough for me.
+
+One is not always, even in strictly professional matters,
+influenced by strictly professional instincts.
+
+The cab slowed. A voice descended through the trap door.
+
+'This is Commercial Road, sir,--what part of it do you want?'
+
+'Drive me to Limehouse Police Station.'
+
+We were driven there. I made my way to the usual inspector behind
+the usual pigeon-hole.
+
+'My name is Champnell. Have you received any communication from
+Scotland Yard to-night having reference to a matter in which I am
+interested?'
+
+'Do you mean about the Arab? We received a telephonic message
+about half an hour ago.'
+
+'Since communicating with Scotland Yard this has come to hand from
+the authorities at Vauxhall Station. Can you tell me if anything
+has been seen of the person in question by the men of your
+division?'
+
+I handed the Inspector the 'report.' His reply was laconic.
+
+'I will inquire.'
+
+He passed through a door into an inner room and the 'report' went
+with him.
+
+'Beg pardon, sir, but was that a Harab you was a-talking about to
+the Hinspector?'
+
+The speaker was a gentleman unmistakably of the gutter-snipe
+class. He was seated on a form. Close at hand hovered a policeman
+whose special duty it seemed to be to keep an eye upon his
+movements.
+
+'Why do you ask?'
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir, but I saw a Harab myself about a hour
+ago,--leastways he looked like as if he was a Harab.'
+
+'What sort of a looking person was he?'
+
+'I can't 'ardly tell you that, sir, because I didn't never have a
+proper look at him,--but I know he had a bloomin' great bundle on
+'is 'ead. ... It was like this, 'ere. I was comin' round the
+corner, as he was passin', I never see 'im till I was right atop
+of 'im, so that I haccidentally run agin 'im,--my heye! didn't 'e
+give me a downer! I was down on the back of my 'ead in the middle
+of the road before I knew where I was and 'e was at the other end
+of the street. If 'e 'adn't knocked me more'n 'arf silly I'd been
+after 'im, sharp,--I tell you! and hasked 'im what 'e thought 'e
+was a-doin' of, but afore my senses was back agin 'e was out o'
+sight,--clean!'
+
+'You are sure he had a bundle on his head?'
+
+'I noticed it most particular.'
+
+'How long ago do you say this was? and where?'
+
+'About a hour ago,--perhaps more, perhaps less.'
+
+'Was he alone?'
+
+'It seemed to me as if a cove was a follerin' 'im, leastways there
+was a bloke as was a-keepin' close at 'is 'eels,--though I don't
+know what 'is little game was, I'm sure. Ask the pleesman--he
+knows, he knows everything the pleesman do.'
+
+I turned to the 'pleesman.'
+
+'Who is this man?'
+
+The 'pleesman' put his hands behind his back, and threw out his
+chest. His manner was distinctly affable.
+
+'Well,--he's being detained upon suspicion. He's given us an
+address at which to make inquiries, and inquiries are being made.
+I shouldn't pay too much attention to what he says if I were you.
+I don't suppose he'd be particular about a lie or two.'
+
+This frank expression of opinion re-aroused the indignation of the
+gentleman on the form.
+
+'There you hare! at it again! That's just like you peelers,--
+you're all the same! What do you know about me?--Nuffink! This
+gen'leman ain't got no call to believe me, not as I knows on,--
+it's all the same to me if 'e do or don't, but it's trewth what
+I'm sayin', all the same.'
+
+At this point the Inspector re-appeared at the pigeon-hole. He cut
+short the flow of eloquence.
+
+'Now then, not so much noise outside there!' He addressed me.
+'None of our men have seen anything of the person you're inquiring
+for, so far as we're aware. But, if you like, I will place a man
+at your disposal, and he will go round with you, and you will be
+able to make your own inquiries.'
+
+A capless, wildly excited young ragamuffin came dashing in at the
+street door. He gasped out, as clearly as he could for the speed
+which he had made:
+
+'There's been murder done, Mr Pleesman,--a Harab's killed a
+bloke.'
+
+'Mr Pleesman' gripped him by the shoulder.
+
+'What's that?'
+
+The youngster put up his arm, and ducked his head, instinctively,
+as if to ward off a blow.
+
+'Leave me alone! I don't want none of your 'andling!--I ain't done
+nuffink to you! I tell you 'e 'as!'
+
+The Inspector spoke through the pigeon-hole.
+
+'He has what, my lad? What do you say has happened?'
+
+'There's been murder done--it's right enough!--there 'as!--up at
+Mrs 'Enderson's, in Paradise Place,--a Harab's been and killed a
+bloke!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+THE MAN WHO WAS MURDERED
+
+
+The Inspector spoke to me.
+
+'If what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom
+you are seeking may have had a finger in the pie.'
+
+I was of the same opinion, as, apparently, were Lessingham and
+Sidney. Atherton collared the youth by the shoulder which Mr
+Pleesman had left disengaged.
+
+'What sort of looking bloke is it who's been murdered?'
+
+'I dunno! I 'aven't seen 'im! Mrs 'Enderson, she says to me!
+"'Gustus Barley," she says, "a bloke's been murdered. That there
+Harab what I chucked out 'alf a hour ago been and murdered 'im,
+and left 'im behind up in my back room. You run as 'ard as you can
+tear and tell them there dratted pleese what's so fond of shovin'
+their dirty noses into respectable people's 'ouses." So I comes
+and tells yer. That's all I knows about it.'
+
+We went four in the hansom which had been waiting in the street to
+Mrs Henderson's in Paradise Place,--the Inspector and we three.
+'Mr Pleesman' and ''Gustus Barley' followed on foot. The Inspector
+was explanatory.
+
+'Mrs Henderson keeps a sort of lodging-house,--a "Sailors' Home"
+she calls it, but no one could call it sweet. It doesn't bear the
+best of characters, and if you asked me what I thought of it, I
+should say in plain English that it was a disorderly house.'
+
+Paradise Place proved to be within three or four hundred yards of
+the Station House. So far as could be seen in the dark it
+consisted of a row of houses of considerable dimensions,--and also
+of considerable antiquity. They opened on to two or three stone
+steps which led directly into the street. At one of the doors
+stood an old lady with a shawl drawn over her head. This was Mrs
+Henderson. She greeted us with garrulous volubility.
+
+'So you 'ave come, 'ave you? I thought you never was a-comin' that
+I did.' She recognised the Inspector. 'It's you, Mr Phillips, is
+it?' Perceiving us, she drew a little back 'Who's them 'ere
+parties? They ain't coppers?'
+
+Mr Phillips dismissed her inquiry, curtly.
+
+'Never you mind who they are. What's this about someone being
+murdered.'
+
+'Ssh!' The old lady glanced round. 'Don't you speak so loud, Mr
+Phillips. No one don't know nothing about it as yet. The parties
+what's in my 'ouse is most respectable,--most! and they couldn't
+abide the notion of there being police about the place.'
+
+'We quite believe that, Mrs Henderson.'
+
+The Inspector's tone was grim.
+
+Mrs Henderson led the way up a staircase which would have been
+distinctly the better for repairs. It was necessary to pick one's
+way as one went, and as the light was defective stumbles were not
+infrequent.
+
+Our guide paused outside a door on the topmost landing. From some
+mysterious recess in her apparel she produced a key.
+
+'It's in 'ere. I locked the door so that nothing mightn't be
+disturbed. I knows 'ow particular you pleesmen is.'
+
+She turned the key. We all went in--we, this time, in front, and
+she behind.
+
+A candle was guttering on a broken and dilapidated single washhand
+stand. A small iron bedstead stood by its side, the clothes on
+which were all tumbled and tossed. There was a rush-seated chair
+with a hole in the seat,--and that, with the exception of one or
+two chipped pieces of stoneware, and a small round mirror which
+was hung on a nail against the wall, seemed to be all that the
+room contained. I could see nothing in the shape of a murdered
+man. Nor, it appeared, could the Inspector either.
+
+'What's the meaning of this, Mrs Henderson? I don't see anything
+here.'
+
+'It's be'ind the bed, Mr Phillips. I left 'im just where I found
+'im, I wouldn't 'ave touched 'im not for nothing, nor yet 'ave let
+nobody else 'ave touched 'im neither, because, as I say, I know
+'ow particular you pleesmen is.'
+
+We all four went hastily forward. Atherton and I went to the head
+of the bed, Lessingham and the Inspector, leaning right across the
+bed, peeped over the side. There, on the floor in the space which
+was between the bed and the wall, lay the murdered man.
+
+At sight of him an exclamation burst from Sydney's lips.
+
+'It's Holt!'
+
+'Thank God!' cried Lessingham. 'It isn't Marjorie!'
+
+The relief in his tone was unmistakable. That the one was gone was
+plainly nothing to him in comparison with the fact that the other
+was left.
+
+Thrusting the bed more into the centre of the room I knelt down
+beside the man on the floor. A more deplorable spectacle than he
+presented I have seldom witnessed. He was decently clad in a grey
+tweed suit, white hat, collar and necktie, and it was perhaps that
+fact which made his extreme attenuation the more conspicuous. I
+doubt if there was an ounce of flesh on the whole of his body. His
+cheeks and the sockets of his eyes were hollow. The skin was drawn
+tightly over his cheek bones,--the bones themselves were staring
+through. Even his nose was wasted, so that nothing but a ridge of
+cartilage remained. I put my arm beneath his shoulder and raised
+him from the floor; no resistance was offered by the body's
+gravity,--he was as light as a little child.
+
+'I doubt,' I said, 'if this man has been murdered. It looks to me
+like a case of starvation, or exhaustion,--possibly a combination
+of both.'
+
+'What's that on his neck?' asked the Inspector,--he was kneeling
+at my side.
+
+He referred to two abrasions of the skin,--one on either side of
+the man's neck.
+
+'They look to me like scratches. They seem pretty deep, but I
+don't think they're sufficient in themselves to cause death.'
+
+'They might be, joined to an already weakened constitution. Is
+there anything in his pockets?--let's lift him on to the bed.'
+
+We lifted him on to the bed,--a featherweight he was to lift.
+While the Inspector was examining his pockets--to find them empty
+--a tall man with a big black beard came bustling in. He proved to
+be Dr Glossop, the local police surgeon, who had been sent for
+before our quitting the Station House.
+
+His first pronouncement, made as soon as he commenced his
+examination, was, under the circumstances, sufficiently startling.
+
+'I don't believe the man's dead. Why didn't you send for me
+directly you found him?'
+
+The question was put to Mrs Henderson.
+
+'Well, Dr Glossop, I wouldn't touch 'im myself, and I wouldn't
+'ave 'im touched by no one else, because, as I've said afore, I
+know 'ow particular them pleesmen is.'
+
+'Then in that case, if he does die you'll have had a hand in
+murdering him,--that's all'
+
+The lady sniggered. 'Of course Dr Glossop, we all knows that
+you'll always 'ave your joke.'
+
+'You'll find it a joke if you have to hang, as you ought to, you--'
+The doctor said what he did say to himself, under his breath.
+I doubt if it was flattering to Mrs Henderson. 'Have you got any
+brandy in the house?'
+
+'We've got everythink in the 'ouse for them as likes to pay for
+it,--everythink.' Then, suddenly remembering that the police were
+present, and that hers were not exactly licensed premises,
+'Leastways we can send out for it for them parties as gives us the
+money, being, as is well known, always willing to oblige.'
+
+'Then send for some,--to the tap downstairs, if that's the
+nearest! If this man dies before you've brought it I'll have you
+locked up as sure as you're a living woman.'
+
+The arrival of the brandy was not long delayed,--but the man on
+the bed had regained consciousness before it came. Opening his
+eyes he looked up at the doctor bending over him.
+
+'Hollo, my man! that's more like the time of day! How are you
+feeling?'
+
+The patient stared hazily up at the doctor, as if his sense of
+perception was not yet completely restored,--as if this big
+bearded man was something altogether strange. Atherton bent down
+beside the doctor.
+
+'I'm glad to see you looking better, Mr Holt. You know me don't
+you? I've been running about after you all day long.'
+
+'You are--you are--' The man's eyes closed, as if the effort at
+recollection exhausted him. He kept them closed as he continued to
+speak.
+
+'I know who you are. You are--the gentleman.'
+
+'Yes, that's it, I'm the gentleman,--name of Atherton.--Miss
+Lindon's friend. And I daresay you're feeling pretty well done up,
+and in want of something to eat and drink,--here's some brandy for
+you.'
+
+The doctor had some in a tumbler. He raised the patient's head,
+allowing it to trickle down his throat. The man swallowed it
+mechanically, motionless, as if unconscious what it was that he
+was doing. His cheeks flushed, the passing glow of colour caused
+their condition of extraordinary, and, indeed, extravagant
+attentuation, to be more prominent than ever. The doctor laid him
+back upon the bed, feeling his pulse with one hand, while he stood
+and regarded him in silence.
+
+Then, turning to the Inspector, he said to him in an undertone;
+
+'If you want him to make a statement he'll have to make it now,
+he's going fast. You won't be able to get much out of him,--he's
+too far gone, and I shouldn't bustle him, but get what you can.'
+
+The Inspector came to the front, a notebook in his hand.
+
+'I understand from this gentleman--' signifying Atherton--'that
+your name's Robert Holt. I'm an Inspector of police, and I want
+you to tell me what has brought you into this condition. Has
+anyone been assaulting you?'
+
+Holt, opening his eyes, glanced up at the speaker mistily, as if
+he could not see him clearly,--still less understand what it was
+that he was saying. Sydney, stooping over him, endeavoured to
+explain.
+
+'The Inspector wants to know how you got here, has anyone been
+doing anything to you? Has anyone been hurting you?'
+
+The man's eyelids were partially closed. Then they opened wider
+and wider. His mouth opened too. On his skeleton features there
+came a look of panic fear. He was evidently struggling to speak.
+At last words came.
+
+'The beetle!' He stopped. Then, after an effort, spoke again. 'The
+beetle!'
+
+'What's he mean?' asked the Inspector.
+
+'I think I understand,' Sydney answered; then turning again to the
+man in the bed. 'Yes, I hear what you say,--the beetle. Well, has
+the beetle done anything to you?'
+
+'It took me by the throat!'
+
+'Is that the meaning of the marks upon your neck?'
+
+'The beetle killed me.'
+
+The lids closed. The man relapsed into a state of lethargy. The
+Inspector was puzzled;--and said so.
+
+'What's he mean about a beetle?'
+
+Atherton replied.
+
+'I think I understand what he means,--and my friends do too. We'll
+explain afterwards. In the meantime I think I'd better get as much
+out of him as I can,--while there's time.'
+
+'Yes,' said the doctor, his hand upon the patient's pulse, 'while
+there's time. There isn't much--only seconds.'
+
+Sydney endeavoured to rouse the man from his stupor.
+
+'You've been with Miss Lindon all the afternoon and evening,
+haven't you, Mr Holt?'
+
+Atherton had reached a chord in the man's consciousness. His lips
+moved,--in painful articulation.
+
+'Yes--all the afternoon--and evening--God help me!'
+
+'I hope God will help you my poor fellow; you've been in need of
+His help if ever man was. Miss Lindon is disguised in your old
+clothes, isn't she?'
+
+'Yes,--in my old clothes. My God!'
+
+'And where is Miss Lindon now?'
+
+The man had been speaking with his eyes closed. Now he opened
+them, wide; there came into them the former staring horror. He
+became possessed by uncontrollable agitation,--half raising
+himself in bed. Words came from his quivering lips as if they were
+only drawn from him by the force of his anguish.
+
+'The beetle's going to kill Miss Lindon.'
+
+A momentary paroxysm seemed to shake the very foundations of his
+being. His whole frame quivered. He fell back on to the bed,--
+ominously. The doctor examined him in silence--while we too were
+still.
+
+'This time he's gone for good, there'll be no conjuring him back
+again.'
+
+I felt a sudden pressure on my arm, and found that Lessingham was
+clutching me with probably unconscious violence. The muscles of
+his face were twitching. He trembled. I turned to the doctor.
+
+'Doctor, if there is any of that brandy left will you let me have
+it for my friend?'
+
+Lessingham disposed of the remainder of the 'shillings worth.' I
+rather fancy it saved us from a scene.
+
+The Inspector was speaking to the woman of the house.
+
+'Now, Mrs Henderson, perhaps you'll tell us what all this means.
+Who is this man, and how did he come in here, and who came in with
+him, and what do you know about it altogether? If you've got
+anything to say, say it, only you'd better be careful, because
+it's my duty to warn you that anything you do say may be used
+against you.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+ALL THAT MRS 'ENDERSON KNEW
+
+
+Mrs Henderson put her hands under her apron and smirked.
+
+'Well, Mr Phillips, it do sound strange to 'ear you talkin' to me
+like that. Anybody'd think I'd done something as I didn't ought to
+'a' done to 'ear you going on. As for what's 'appened, I'll tell
+you all I know with the greatest willingness on earth. And as for
+bein' careful, there ain't no call for you to tell me to be that,
+for that I always am, as by now you ought to know.'
+
+'Yes,--I do know. Is that all you have to say?'
+
+'Rilly, Mr Phillips, what a man you are for catching people up,
+you rilly are. O' course that ain't all I've got to say,--ain't I
+just a-comin' to it?'
+
+'Then come.'
+
+'If you presses me so you'll muddle of me up, and then if I do
+'appen to make a herror, you'll say I'm a liar, when goodness
+knows there ain't no more truthful woman not in Limehouse.'
+
+Words plainly trembled on the Inspector's lips,--which he
+refrained from uttering. Mrs Henderson cast her eyes upwards, as
+if she sought for inspiration from the filthy ceiling.
+
+'So far as I can swear it might 'ave been a hour ago, or it might
+'ave been a hour and a quarter, or it might 'ave been a hour and
+twenty minutes--'
+
+'We're not particular as to the seconds.'
+
+'When I 'ears a knockin' at my front door, and when I comes to
+open it, there was a Harab party, with a great bundle on 'is 'ead,
+bigger nor 'isself, and two other parties along with him. This
+Harab party says, in that queer foreign way them Harab parties 'as
+of talkin', "A room for the night, a room." Now I don't much care
+for foreigners, and never did, especially them Harabs, which their
+'abits ain't my own,--so I as much 'ints the same. But this 'ere
+Harab party, he didn't seem to quite foller of my meaning, for all
+he done was to say as he said afore, "A room for the night, a
+room." And he shoves a couple of 'arf crowns into my 'and. Now
+it's always been a motter o' mine, that money is money, and one
+man's money is as good as another man's. So, not wishing to be
+disagreeable--which other people would have taken 'em if I 'adn't,
+I shows 'em up 'ere. I'd been downstairs it might 'ave been 'arf a
+hour, when I 'ears a shindy a-coming from this room--'
+
+'What sort of a shindy?'
+
+'Yelling and shrieking--oh my gracious, it was enough to set your
+blood all curdled,--for ear-piercingness I never did 'ear nothing
+like it. We do 'ave troublesome parties in 'ere, like they do
+elsewhere, but I never did 'ear nothing like that before. I stood
+it for about a minute, but it kep' on, and kep' on, and every
+moment I expected as the other parties as was in the 'ouse would
+be complainin', so up I comes and I thumps at the door, and it
+seemed that thump I might for all the notice that was took of me.'
+
+'Did the noise keep on?'
+
+'Keep on! I should think it did keep on! Lord love you! shriek
+after shriek, I expected to see the roof took off.'
+
+'Were there any other noises? For instance, were there any sounds
+of struggling, or of blows?'
+
+'There weren't no sounds except of the party hollering.'
+
+'One party only?'
+
+'One party only. As I says afore, shriek after shriek,--when you
+put your ear to the panel there was a noise like some other party
+blubbering, but that weren't nothing, as for the hollering you
+wouldn't have thought that nothing what you might call 'umin could
+'ave kep' up such a screechin'. I thumps and thumps and at last
+when I did think that I should 'ave to 'ave the door broke down,
+the Harab says to me from inside, "Go away! I pay for the room! go
+away!" I did think that pretty good, I tell you that. So I says,
+"Pay for the room or not pay for the room, you didn't pay to make
+that shindy!" And what's more I says, "If I 'ear it again," I
+says, "out you goes! And if you don't go quiet I'll 'ave somebody
+in as'll pretty quickly make you!"'
+
+'Then was there silence?'
+
+'So to speak there was,--only there was this sound as if some
+party was a-blubbering, and another sound as if a party was a-
+panting for his breath.'
+
+'Then what happened?'
+
+'Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet, down I went again. And
+in another quarter of a hour, or it might 'ave been twenty
+minutes, I went to the front door to get a mouthful of hair. And
+Mrs Barker, what lives over the road, at No. 24, she comes to me
+and says, "That there Arab party of yours didn't stop long." I
+looks at 'er, "I don't quite foller you," I says,--which I didn't.
+"I saw him come in," she says, "and then, a few minutes back, I
+see 'im go again, with a great bundle on 'is 'ead he couldn't
+'ardly stagger under!" "Oh," I says, "that's news to me, I didn't
+know 'e'd gone, nor see him neither---" which I didn't. So, up I
+comes again, and, sure enough, the door was open, and it seems to
+me that the room was empty, till I come upon this pore young man
+what was lying be'ind the bed,'
+
+There was a growl from the doctor.
+
+'If you'd had any sense, and sent for me at once, he might have
+been alive at this moment.'
+
+''Ow was I to know that, Dr Glossop? I couldn't tell. My finding
+'im there murdered was quite enough for me. So I runs downstairs,
+and I nips 'old of 'Gustus Barley, what was leaning against the
+wall, and I says to him, "'Gustus Barley, run to the station as
+fast as you can and tell 'em that a man's been murdered,--that
+Harab's been and killed a bloke." And that's all I know about it,
+and I couldn't tell you no more, Mr Phillips, not if you was to
+keep on asking me questions not for hours and hours'
+
+'Then you think it was this man'--with a motion towards the bed--
+'who was shrieking?'
+
+'To tell you the truth, Mr Phillips, about that I don't 'ardly
+know what to think. If you 'ad asked me I should 'ave said it was
+a woman. I ought to know a woman's holler when I 'ear it, if any
+one does, I've 'eard enough of 'em in my time, goodness knows. And
+I should 'ave said that only a woman could 'ave hollered like that
+and only 'er when she was raving mad. But there weren't no woman
+with him. There was only this man what's murdered, and the other
+man,--and as for the other man I will say this, that 'e 'adn't got
+twopennyworth of clothes to cover 'im. But, Mr Phillips,
+howsomever that may be, that's the last Harab I'll 'ave under my
+roof, no matter what they pays, and you may mark my words I'll
+'ave no more.'
+
+Mrs Henderson, once more glancing upward, as if she imagined
+herself to have made some declaration of a religious nature, shook
+her head with much solemnity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+THE SUDDEN STOPPING
+
+
+As we were leaving the house a constable gave the Inspector a
+note. Having read it he passed it to me. It was from the local
+office.
+
+'Message received that an Arab with a big bundle on his head has
+been noticed loitering about the neighbourhood of St Pancras
+Station. He seemed to be accompanied by a young man who had the
+appearance of a tramp. Young man seemed ill. They appeared to be
+waiting for a train, probably to the North. Shall I advise
+detention?'
+
+I scribbled on the flyleaf of the note.
+
+'Have them detained. If they have gone by train have a special in
+readiness.'
+
+In a minute we were again in the cab. I endeavoured to persuade
+Lessingham and Atherton to allow me to conduct the pursuit alone,
+--in vain. I had no fear of Atherton's succumbing, but I was afraid
+for Lessingham. What was more almost than the expectation of his
+collapse was the fact that his looks and manner, his whole
+bearing, so eloquent of the agony and agitation of his mind, was
+beginning to tell upon my nerves. A catastrophe of some sort I
+foresaw. Of the curtain's fall upon one tragedy we had just been
+witnesses. That there was worse--much worse, to follow I did not
+doubt. Optimistic anticipations were out of the question,--that
+the creature we were chasing would relinquish the prey uninjured,
+no one, after what we had seen and heard, could by any possibility
+suppose. Should a necessity suddenly arise for prompt and
+immediate action, that Lessingham would prove a hindrance rather
+than a help I felt persuaded.
+
+But since moments were precious, and Lessingham was not to be
+persuaded to allow the matter to proceed without him, all that
+remained was to make the best of his presence.
+
+The great arch of St Pancras was in darkness. An occasional light
+seemed to make the darkness still more visible. The station seemed
+deserted. I thought, at first, that there was not a soul about the
+place, that our errand was in vain, that the only thing for us to
+do was to drive to the police station and to pursue our inquiries
+there. But as we turned towards the booking-office, our footsteps
+ringing out clearly through the silence and the night, a door
+opened, a light shone out from the room within, and a voice
+inquired:
+
+'Who's that?'
+
+'My name's Champnell. Has a message been received from me from the
+Limehouse Police Station?'
+
+'Step this way.'
+
+We stepped that way,--into a snug enough office, of which one of
+the railway inspectors was apparently in charge. He was a big man,
+with a fair beard. He looked me up and down, as if doubtfully.
+Lessingham he recognised at once. He took off his cap to him.
+
+'Mr Lessingham, I believe?'
+
+'I am Mr Lessingham. Have you any news for me?
+
+I fancy, by his looks,--that the official was struck by the pallor
+of the speaker's face,--and by his tremulous voice.
+
+'I am instructed to give certain information to a Mr Augustus
+Champnell.'
+
+'I am Mr Champnell. What's your information?'
+
+'With reference to the Arab about whom you have been making
+inquiries. A foreigner, dressed like an Arab, with a great bundle
+on his head, took two single thirds for Hull by the midnight
+express.'
+
+'Was he alone?'
+
+'It is believed that he was accompanied by a young man of very
+disreputable appearance. They were not together at the booking-
+office, but they had been seen together previously. A minute or so
+after the Arab had entered the train this young man got into the
+same compartment--they were in the front waggon.'
+
+'Why were they not detained?'
+
+'We had no authority to detain them, nor any reason, until your
+message was received a few minutes ago we at this station were not
+aware that inquiries were being made for them.'
+
+'You say he booked to Hull,--does the train run through to Hull?'
+
+'No--it doesn't go to Hull at all. Part of it's the Liverpool and
+Manchester Express, and part of it's for Carlisle. It divides at
+Derby. The man you're looking for will change either at Sheffield
+or at Cudworth Junction and go on to Hull by the first train in
+the morning. There's a local service.'
+
+I looked at my watch.
+
+'You say the train left at midnight. It's now nearly five-and-
+twenty past. Where's it now?'
+
+'Nearing St Albans, it's due there 12.35.'
+
+'Would there be time for a wire to reach St Albans?'
+
+'Hardly,--and anyhow there'll only be enough railway officials
+about the place to receive and despatch the train. They'll be
+fully occupied with their ordinary duties. There won't be time to
+get the police there.'
+
+'You could wire to St Albans to inquire if they were still in the
+train?'
+
+'That could be done,--certainly. I'll have it done at once if you
+like.
+
+'Then where's the next stoppage?'
+
+'Well, they're at Luton at 12.51. But that's another case of St
+Albans. You see there won't be much more than twenty minutes by
+the time you've got your wire off, and I don't expect there'll be
+many people awake at Luton. At these country places sometimes
+there's a policeman hanging about the station to see the express
+go through, but, on the other hand, very often there isn't, and if
+there isn't, probably at this time of night it'll take a good bit
+of time to get the police on the premises. I tell you what I
+should advise.'
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'The train is due at Bedford at 1.29--send your wire there. There
+ought to be plenty of people about at Bedford, and anyhow there'll
+be time to get the police to the station.'
+
+'Very good. I instructed them to tell you to have a special
+ready,--have you got one?'
+
+'There's an engine with steam up in the shed,--we'll have all
+ready for you in less than ten minutes. And I tell you what,--
+you'll have about fifty minutes before the train is due at
+Bedford. It's a fifty mile run. With luck you ought to get there
+pretty nearly as soon as the express does.--Shall I tell them to
+get ready?'
+
+'At once.'
+
+While he issued directions through a telephone to what, I presume,
+was the engine shed, I drew up a couple of telegrams. Having
+completed his orders he turned to me.
+
+'They're coming out of the siding now--they'll be ready in less
+than ten minutes. I'll see that the line's kept clear. Have you got
+those wires?'
+
+'Here is one,--this is for Bedford.'
+
+It ran:
+
+'Arrest the Arab who is in train due at 1.29. When leaving St
+Pancras he was in a third-class compartment in front waggon. He
+has a large bundle, which detain. He took two third singles for
+Hull. Also detain his companion, who is dressed like a tramp. This
+is a young lady whom the Arab has disguised and kidnapped while in
+a condition of hypnotic trance. Let her have medical assistance
+and be taken to a hotel. All expenses will be paid on the arrival
+of the undersigned who is following by special train. As the Arab
+will probably be very violent a sufficient force of police should
+be in waiting.
+
+'AUGUSTUS CHAMPNELL.'
+
+'And this is the other. It is probably too late to be of any use
+at St Albans,--but send it there, and also to Luton.' 'Is Arab
+with companion in train which left St Pancras at 13.0? If so, do
+not let them get out till train reaches Bedford, where
+instructions are being wired for arrest.'
+
+The Inspector rapidly scanned them both.
+
+'They ought to do your business, I should think. Come along with
+me--I'll have them sent at once, and we'll see if your train's
+ready.'
+
+The train was not ready,--nor was it ready within the prescribed
+ten minutes. There was some hitch, I fancy, about a saloon.
+Finally we had to be content with an ordinary old-fashioned first-
+class carriage. The delay, however, was not altogether time lost.
+Just as the engine with its solitary coach was approaching the
+platform someone came running up with an envelope in his hand.
+
+'Telegram from St Albans.'
+
+I tore it open. It was brief and to the point.
+
+'Arab with companion was in train when it left here. Am wiring
+Luton.'
+
+'That's all right. Now unless something wholly unforeseen takes
+place, we ought to have them.'
+
+That unforeseen!
+
+I went forward with the Inspector and the guard of our train to
+exchange a few final words with the driver. The Inspector
+explained what instructions he had given.
+
+'I've told the driver not to spare his coal but to take you into
+Bedford within five minutes after the arrival of the express. He
+says he thinks that he can do it.'
+
+The driver leaned over his engine, rubbing his hands with the
+usual oily rag. He was a short, wiry man with grey hair and a
+grizzled moustache, with about him that bearing of semi-humorous,
+frank-faced resolution which one notes about engine-drivers as a
+class.
+
+'We ought to do it, the gradients are against us, but it's a clear
+night and there's no wind. The only thing that will stop us will
+be if there's any shunting on the road, or any luggage trains; of
+course, if we are blocked, we are blocked, but the Inspector says
+he'll clear the way for us.'
+
+'Yes,' said the Inspector, 'I'll clear the way. I've wired down
+the road already.'
+
+Atherton broke in.
+
+'Driver, if you get us into Bedford within five minutes of the
+arrival of the mail there'll be a five-pound note to divide
+between your mate and you.'
+
+The driver grinned.
+
+'We'll get you there in time, sir, if we have to go clear through
+the shunters. It isn't often we get a chance of a five-pound note
+for a run to Bedford, and we'll do our best to earn it.'
+
+The fireman waved his hand in the rear.
+
+'That's right, sir!' he cried. 'We'll have to trouble you for that
+five-pound note.'
+
+So soon as we were clear of the station it began to seem probable
+that, as the fireman put it, Atherton would be 'troubled.'
+Journeying in a train which consists of a single carriage attached
+to an engine which is flying at topmost speed is a very different
+business from being an occupant of an ordinary train which is
+travelling at ordinary express rates. I had discovered that for
+myself before. That night it was impressed on me more than ever. A
+tyro--or even a nervous 'season'--might have been excused for
+expecting at every moment we were going to be derailed. It was
+hard to believe that the carriage had any springs,--it rocked and
+swung, and jogged and jolted. Of smooth travelling had we none.
+Talking was out of the question;--and for that, I, personally, was
+grateful. Quite apart from the difficulty we experienced in
+keeping our seats--and when every moment our position was being
+altered and we were jerked backwards and forwards up and down,
+this way and that, that was a business which required care,--the
+noise was deafening. It was as though we were being pursued by a
+legion of shrieking, bellowing, raging demons.
+
+'George!' shrieked Atherton, 'he does mean to earn that fiver. I
+hope I'll be alive to pay it him!'
+
+He was only at the other end of the carriage, but though I could
+see by the distortion of his visage that he was shouting at the
+top of his voice,--and he has a voice,--I only caught here and
+there a word or two of what he was saying. I had to make sense of
+the whole.
+
+Lessingham's contortions were a study. Few of that large multitude
+of persons who are acquainted with him only by means of the
+portraits which have appeared in the illustrated papers, would
+then have recognised the rising statesman. Yet I believe that few
+things could have better fallen in with his mood than that wild
+travelling. He might have been almost shaken to pieces,--but the
+very severity of the shaking served to divert his thoughts from
+the one dread topic which threatened to absorb them to the
+exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence
+of the element of risk. The pick-me-up effect of a spice of peril.
+Actual danger there quite probably was none; but there very really
+seemed to be. And one thing was absolutely certain, that if we did
+come to smash while going at that speed we should come to as
+everlasting smash as the heart of man could by any possibility
+desire. It is probable that the knowledge that this was so warmed
+the blood in Lessingham's veins. At any rate as--to use what in
+this case, was simply a form of speech--I sat and watched him, it
+seemed to me that he was getting a firmer hold of the strength
+which had all but escaped him, and that with every jog and jolt he
+was becoming more and more of a man.
+
+On and on we went dashing, clashing, smashing, roaring, rumbling.
+Atherton, who had been endeavouring to peer through the window,
+strained his lungs again in the effort to make himself audible.
+
+'Where the devil are we?'
+
+Looking at my watch I screamed back at him.
+
+'It's nearly one, so I suppose we're somewhere in the
+neighbourhood of Luton.--Hollo! What's the matter?'
+
+That something was the matter seemed certain. There was a shrill
+whistle from the engine. In a second we were conscious--almost too
+conscious--of the application of the Westinghouse brake. Of all
+the jolting that was ever jolted! the mere reverberation of the
+carriage threatened to resolve our bodies into their component
+parts. Feeling what we felt then helped us to realise the
+retardatory force which that vacuum brake must be exerting,--it
+did not seem at all surprising that the train should have been
+brought to an almost instant stand-still.
+
+Simultaneously all three of us were on our feet. I let down my
+window and Atherton let down his,--he shouting out,
+
+'I should think that Inspector's wire hasn't had it's proper
+effect, looks as if we're blocked--or else we've stopped at Luton.
+It can't be Bedford.'
+
+It wasn't Bedford--so much seemed clear. Though at first from my
+window I could make out nothing. I was feeling more than a trifle
+dazed,--there was a singing in my ears,--the sudden darkness was
+impenetrable. Then I became conscious that the guard was opening
+the door of his compartment. He stood on the step for a moment,
+seeming to hesitate. Then, with a lamp in his hand, he descended
+on to the line.
+
+'What's the matter?' I asked.
+
+'Don't know, sir. Seems as if there was something on the road.
+What's up there?'
+
+This was to the man on the engine. The fireman replied:
+
+'Someone in front there's waving a red light like mad,--lucky I
+caught sight of him, we should have been clean on top of him in
+another moment. Looks as if there was something wrong. Here he
+comes.'
+
+As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I became aware
+that someone was making what haste he could along the six-foot
+way, swinging a red light as he came. Our guard advanced to meet
+him, shouting as he went:
+
+'What's the matter! Who's that?'
+
+A voice replied,
+
+'My God! Is that George Hewett. I thought you were coming right on
+top of us!'
+
+Our guard again.
+
+'What! Jim Branson! What the devil are you doing here, what's
+wrong? I thought you were on the twelve out, we're chasing you.'
+
+'Are you? Then you've caught us. Thank God for it!--We're a
+wreck.'
+
+I had already opened the carriage door. With that we all three
+clambered out on to the line.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+THE CONTENTS OF THE THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGE
+
+
+I moved to the stranger who was holding the lamp. He was in
+official uniform.
+
+'Are you the guard of the 12.0 out from St Pancras?'
+
+'I am.'
+
+'Where's your train? What's happened?'
+
+'As for where it is, there it is, right in front of you, what's
+left of it. As to what's happened, why, we're wrecked.'
+
+'What do you mean by you're wrecked?'
+
+'Some heavy loaded trucks broke loose from a goods in front and
+came running down the hill on top of us.'
+
+'How long ago was it?'
+
+'Not ten minutes. I was just starting off down the road to the
+signal box, it's a good two miles away, when I saw you coming. My
+God! I thought there was going to be another smash.'
+
+'Much damage done?'
+
+'Seems to me as if we're all smashed up. As far as I can make out
+they're matchboxed up in front. I feel as if I was all broken up
+inside of me. I've been in the service going on for thirty years,
+and this is the first accident I've been in.'
+
+It was too dark to see the man's face, but judging from his tone
+he was either crying or very near to it.
+
+Our guard turned and shouted back to our engine,
+
+'You'd better go back to the box and let 'em know!'
+
+'All right!' came echoing back.
+
+The special immediately commenced retreating, whistling
+continually as it went. All the country side must have heard the
+engine shrieking, and all who did hear must have understood that
+on the line something was seriously wrong.
+
+The smashed train was all in darkness, the force of the collision
+had put out all the carriage lamps. Here was a flickering candle,
+there the glimmer of a match, these were all the lights which
+shone upon the scene. People were piling up debris by the side of
+the line, for the purpose of making a fire,--more for illumination
+than for warmth.
+
+Many of the passengers had succeeded in freeing themselves, and
+were moving hither and thither about the line. But the majority
+appeared to be still imprisoned. The carriage doors were jammed.
+Without the necessary tools it was impossible to open them. Every
+step we took our ears were saluted by piteous cries. Men, women,
+children, appealed to us for help.
+
+'Open the door, sir!' 'In the name of God, sir, open the door!'
+
+Over and over again, in all sorts of tones, with all degrees of
+violence, the supplication was repeated.
+
+The guards vainly endeavoured to appease the, in many cases, half-
+frenzied creatures.
+
+'All right, sir! If you'll only wait a minute or two, madam! We
+can't get the doors open without tools, a special train's just
+started off to get them. If you'll only have patience there'll be
+plenty of help for everyone of you directly. You'll be quite safe
+in there, if you'll only keep still.'
+
+But that was just what they found it most difficult to do--keep
+still!
+
+In the front of the train all was chaos. The trucks which had done
+the mischief--there were afterwards shown to be six of them,
+together with two guards' vans--appeared to have been laden with
+bags of Portland cement. The bags had burst, and everything was
+covered with what seemed gritty dust. The air was full of the
+stuff, it got into our eyes, half blinding us. The engine of the
+express had turned a complete somersault. It vomited forth smoke,
+and steam, and flames,--every moment it seemed as if the woodwork
+of the carriages immediately behind and beneath would catch fire.
+
+The front coaches were, as the guard had put it, 'match-boxed.'
+They were nothing but a heap of debris,--telescoped into one
+another in a state of apparently inextricable confusion. It was
+broad daylight before access was gained to what had once been the
+interiors. The condition of the first third-class compartment
+revealed an extraordinary state of things.
+
+Scattered all over it were pieces of what looked like partially
+burnt rags, and fragments of silk and linen. I have those
+fragments now. Experts have assured me that they are actually
+neither of silk nor linen! but of some material--animal rather
+than vegetable--with which they are wholly unacquainted. On the
+cushions and woodwork--especially on the woodwork of the floor--
+were huge blotches,--stains of some sort. When first noticed they
+were damp, and gave out a most unpleasant smell. One of the pieces
+of woodwork is yet in my possession,--with the stain still on it.
+Experts have pronounced upon it too,--with the result that
+opinions are divided. Some maintain that the stain was produced by
+human blood, which had been subjected to a great heat, and, so to
+speak, parboiled. Others declare that it is the blood of some wild
+animal,--possibly of some creature of the cat species. Yet others
+affirm that it is not blood at all, but merely paint. While a
+fourth describes it as--I quote the written opinion which lies in
+front of me--'caused apparently by a deposit of some sort of
+viscid matter, probably the excretion of some variety of lizard.'
+
+In a corner of the carriage was the body of what seemed a young
+man costumed like a tramp. It was Marjorie Lindon.
+
+So far as a most careful search revealed, that was all the
+compartment contained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER
+
+
+It is several years since I bore my part in the events which I
+have rapidly sketched,--or I should not have felt justified in
+giving them publicity. Exactly how many years, for reasons which
+should be sufficiently obvious, I must decline to say.
+
+Marjorie Lindon still lives. The spark of life which was left in
+her, when she was extricated from among the debris of the wrecked
+express, was fanned again into flame. Her restoration was,
+however, not merely an affair of weeks or months, it was a matter
+of years. I believe that, even after her physical powers were
+completely restored--in itself a tedious task--she was for
+something like three years under medical supervision as a lunatic.
+But all that skill and money could do was done, and in course of
+time--the great healer--the results were entirely satisfactory.
+
+Her father is dead,--and has left her in possession of the family
+estates. She is married to the individual who, in these pages, has
+been known as Paul Lessingham. Were his real name divulged she
+would be recognised as the popular and universally reverenced wife
+of one of the greatest statesmen the age has seen.
+
+Nothing has been said to her about the fateful day on which she
+was--consciously or unconsciously--paraded through London in the
+tattered masculine habiliments of a vagabond. She herself has
+never once alluded to it. With the return of reason the affair
+seems to have passed from her memory as wholly as if it had never
+been, which, although she may not know it, is not the least cause
+she has for thankfulness. Therefore what actually transpired will
+never, in all human probability, be certainly known and
+particularly what precisely occurred in the railway carriage
+during that dreadful moment of sudden passing from life unto
+death. What became of the creature who all but did her to death;
+who he was--if it was a 'he,' which is extremely doubtful; whence
+he came; whither he went; what was the purport of his presence
+here,--to this hour these things are puzzles.
+
+Paul Lessingham has not since been troubled by his old tormentor.
+He has ceased to be a haunted man. None the less he continues to
+have what seems to be a constitutional disrelish for the subject
+of beetles, nor can he himself be induced to speak of them. Should
+they be mentioned in a general conversation, should he be unable
+to immediately bring about a change of theme, he will, if
+possible, get up and leave the room. More, on this point he and
+his wife are one.
+
+The fact may not be generally known, but it is so. Also I have
+reason to believe that there still are moments in which he harks
+back, with something like physical shrinking, to that awful
+nightmare of the past, and in which he prays God, that as it is
+distant from him now so may it be kept far off from him for ever.
+
+Before closing, one matter may be casually mentioned. The tale has
+never been told, but I have unimpeachable authority for its
+authenticity.
+
+During the recent expeditionary advance towards Dongola, a body of
+native troops which was encamped at a remote spot in the desert
+was aroused one night by what seemed to be the sound of a loud
+explosion. The next morning, at a distance of about a couple of
+miles from the camp, a huge hole was discovered in the ground,--as
+if blasting operations, on an enormous scale, had recently been
+carried on. In the hole itself, and round about it, were found
+fragments of what seemed bodies; credible witnesses have assured
+me that they were bodies neither of men nor women, but of
+creatures of some monstrous growth. I prefer to believe, since no
+scientific examination of the remains took place, that these
+witnesses ignorantly, though innocently, erred.
+
+One thing is sure. Numerous pieces, both of stone and of metal,
+were seen, which went far to suggest that some curious
+subterranean building had been blown up by the force of the
+explosion. Especially were there portions of moulded metal which
+seemed to belong to what must have been an immense bronze statue.
+There were picked up also, more than a dozen replicas in bronze of
+the whilom sacred scarabaeus.
+
+That the den of demons described by Paul Lessingham, had, that
+night, at last come to an end, and that these things which lay
+scattered, here and there, on that treeless plain, were the
+evidences of its final destruction, is not a hypothesis which I
+should care to advance with any degree of certainty. But, putting
+this and that together, the facts seem to point that way,--and it
+is a consummation devoutly to be desired.
+
+By-the-bye, Sydney Atherton has married Miss Dora Grayling. Her
+wealth has made him one of the richest men in England. She began,
+the story goes, by loving him immensely; I can answer for the fact
+that he has ended by loving her as much. Their devotion to each
+other contradicts the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that
+every marriage must be of necessity a failure. He continues his
+career of an inventor. His investigations into the subject of
+aerial flight, which have brought the flying machine within the
+range of practical politics, are on everybody's tongue.
+
+The best man at Atherton's wedding was Percy Woodville, now the
+Earl of Barnes. Within six months afterwards he married one of Mrs
+Atherton's bridesmaids.
+
+It was never certainly shown how Robert Holt came to his end. At
+the inquest the coroner's jury was content to return a verdict of
+'Died of exhaustion.' He lies buried in Kensal Green Cemetery,
+under a handsome tombstone, the cost of which, had he had it in
+his pockets, might have indefinitely prolonged his days.
+
+It should be mentioned that that portion of this strange history
+which purports to be The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt was
+compiled from the statements which Holt made to Atherton, and to
+Miss Lindon, as she then was, when, a mud-stained, shattered
+derelict he lay at the lady's father's house.
+
+Miss Linden's contribution towards the elucidation of the mystery
+was written with her own hand. After her physical strength had
+come back to her, and, while mentally, she still hovered between
+the darkness and the light, her one relaxation was writing.
+Although she would never speak of what she had written, it was
+found that her theme was always the same. She confided to pen and
+paper what she would not speak of with her lips. She told, and re-
+told, and re-told again, the story of her love, and of her
+tribulation so far as it is contained in the present volume. Her
+MSS. invariably began and ended at the same point. They have all
+of them been destroyed, with one exception. That exception is
+herein placed before the reader.
+
+On the subject of the Mystery of the Beetle I do not propose to
+pronounce a confident opinion. Atherton and I have talked it over
+many and many a time, and at the end we have got no 'forrarder.'
+So far as I am personally concerned, experience has taught me that
+there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed
+of in our philosophy, and I am quite prepared to believe that the
+so-called Beetle, which others saw, but I never, was--or is, for
+it cannot be certainly shown that the thing is not still existing
+--a creature born neither of God nor man.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beetle, by Richard Marsh
+
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