Indignation awoke in the mind of Pitman. “Those spectacles were to be mine,” he cried. “They are an essential part of my disguise.”
“I am going to wear them myself,” replied Michael; and he added, with some show of truth, “There would be a devil of a lot of suspicion aroused if we both wore spectacles.”
“O, well,” said the assenting Pitman, “I rather counted on them; but of course, if you insist. And at any rate, here is the cart at the door.”
While the men were at work, Michael concealed himself in the closet among the debris of the barrel and the wires of the piano; and as soon as the coast was clear the pair sallied forth by the lane, jumped into a hansom in the King’s Road, and were driven rapidly toward town. It was still cold and raw and boisterous; the rain beat strongly in their faces, but Michael refused to have the glass let down; he had now suddenly donned the character of cicerone, and pointed out and lucidly commented on the sights of London, as they drove. “My dear fellow,” he said, “you don’t seem to know anything of your native city. Suppose we visited the Tower? No? Well, perhaps it’s a trifle out of our way. But, anyway—Here, cabby, drive round by Trafalgar Square!” And on that historic battle-field he insisted on drawing up, while he criticised the statues and gave the artist many curious details (quite new to history) of the lives of the celebrated men they represented.
It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered in the cab: cold, wet, terror in the capital degree, a grounded distrust of the commander under whom he served, a sense of imprudency in the matter of the low-necked shirt, a bitter sense of the decline and fall involved in the deprivation of his beard, all these were among the ingredients of the bowl. To reach the restaurant, for which they were deviously steering, was the first relief. To hear Michael bespeak a private room was a second and a still greater. Nor, as they mounted the stair under the guidance of an unintelligible alien, did he fail to note with gratitude the fewness of the persons present, or the still more cheering fact that the greater part of these were exiles from the land of France. It was thus a blessed thought that none of them would be connected with the Seminary; for even the French professor, though admittedly a Papist, he could scarce imagine frequenting so rakish an establishment.
The alien introduced them into a small bare room with a single table, a sofa, and a dwarfish fire; and Michael called promptly for more coals and a couple of brandies and sodas.
“O, no,” said Pitman, “surely not—no more to drink.”
“I don’t know what you would be at,” said Michael plaintively. “It’s positively necessary to do something; and one shouldn’t smoke before meals—I thought that was understood. You seem to have no idea of hygiene.” And he compared his watch with the clock upon the chimney-piece.
Pitman fell into bitter musing; here he was, ridiculously shorn, absurdly disguised, in the company of a drunken man in spectacles, and waiting for a champagne luncheon in a restaurant painfully foreign. What would his principals think, if they could see him? What if they knew his tragic and deceitful errand?
From these reflections he was aroused by the entrance of the alien with the brandies and sodas. Michael took one and bade the waiter pass the other to his friend.
Pitman waved it from him with his hand. “Don’t let me lose all self-respect,” he said.
“Anything to oblige a friend,” returned Michael. “But I’m not going to drink alone. Here,” he added to the waiter, “you take it.” And, then, touching glasses, “The health of Mr. Gideon Forsyth,” said he.
“Meestare Gidden Borsye,” replied the waiter, and he tossed off the liquor in four gulps.
“Have another?” said Michael, with undisguised interest. “I never saw a man drink faster. It restores one’s confidence in the human race.”
But the waiter excused himself politely, and, assisted by some one from without, began to bring in lunch.
Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed down with a bottle of Heidsieck’s dry monopole. As for the artist, he was far too uneasy to eat, and his companion flatly refused to let him share in the champagne unless he did.
“One of us must stay sober,” remarked the lawyer, “and I won’t give you champagne on the strength of a leg of grouse. I have to be cautious,” he added confidentially. “One drunken man, excellent business—two drunken men, all my eye.”
On the production of coffee and departure of the waiter, Michael might have been observed to make portentous efforts after gravity of mien. He looked his friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and addressed him thickly but severely.
“Enough of this fooling,” was his not inappropriate exordium. “To business. Mark me closely. I am an Australian. My name is John Dickson, though you mightn’t think it from my unassuming appearance. You will be relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. You can’t go into this sort of thing too thoroughly, Pitman; the whole secret is preparation, and I can get up my biography from the beginning, and I could tell it you now, only I have forgotten it.”
“Perhaps I’m stupid——” began Pitman.
“That’s it!” cried Michael. “Very stupid; but rich too—richer than I am. I thought you would enjoy it, Pitman, so I’ve arranged that you were to be literally wallowing in wealth. But then, on the other hand, you’re only an American, and a maker of india-rubber overshoes at that. And the worst of it is—why should I conceal it from you?—the worst of it is that you’re called Ezra Thomas. Now,” said Michael, with a really appalling seriousness of manner, “tell me who we are.”
The unfortunate little man was cross-examined till he knew these facts by heart.
“There!” cried the lawyer. “Our plans are laid. Thoroughly consistent—that’s the great thing.”
“But I don’t understand,” objected Pitman.
“O, you’ll understand right enough when it comes to the point,” said Michael, rising.
“There doesn’t seem any story to it,” said the artist.
“We can invent one as we go along,” returned the lawyer.
“But I can’t invent,” protested Pitman. “I never could invent in all my life.”
“You’ll find you’ll have to, my boy,” was Michael’s easy comment, and he began calling for the waiter, with whom he at once resumed a sparkling conversation.
It was a downcast little man that followed him. “Of course he is very clever, but can I trust him in such a state?” he asked himself. And when they were once more in a hansom, he took heart of grace.
“Don’t you think,” he faltered, “it would be wiser, considering all things, to put this business off?”
“Put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day?” cried Michael, with indignation. “Never heard of such a thing! Cheer up, it’s all right, go in and win—there’s a lion-hearted Pitman!”
At Cannon Street they inquired for Mr. Brown’s piano, which had duly arrived, drove thence to a neighbouring mews, where they contracted for a cart, and while that was being got ready, took shelter in the harness-room beside the stove. Here the lawyer presently toppled against the wall and fell into a gentle slumber; so that Pitman found himself launched on his own resources in the midst of several staring loafers, such as love to spend unprofitable days about a stable.
“Rough day, sir,” observed one. “Do you go far?”
“Yes, it’s a—rather a rough day,” said the artist; and then, feeling that he must change the conversation, “My friend is an Australian; he is very impulsive,” he added.
“An Australian?” said another. “I’ve a brother myself in Melbourne. Does your friend come from that way at all?”
“No, not exactly,” replied the artist, whose ideas of the geography of New Holland were a little scattered. “He lives immensely far inland, and is very rich.”
The loafers gazed with great respect upon the slumbering colonist.
“Well,” remarked the second speaker, “it’s a mighty big place, is Australia. Do you come from thereaway too?”
“No, I do not,” said Pitman. “I do not, and I don’t want to,” he added irritably. And then, feeling some diversion needful, he fell upon Michael and shook him up.
“Hullo,” said the lawyer, “what’s wrong?”
“The cart is nearly ready,” said Pitman sternly. “I will not allow you to sleep.”
“All right—no offence, old man,” replied Michael, yawning. “A little sleep never did anybody any harm; I feel comparatively sober now. But what’s all the hurry?” he added, looking round him glassily. “I don’t see the cart, and I’ve forgotten where we left the piano.”
What more the lawyer might have said, in the confidence of the moment, is with Pitman a matter of tremulous conjecture to this day; but by the most blessed circumstance the cart was then announced, and Michael must bend the forces of his mind to the more difficult task of rising.
“Of course you’ll drive,” he remarked to his companion, as he clambered on the vehicle.
“I drive!” cried Pitman. “I never did such a thing in my life. I cannot drive.”
“Very well,” responded Michael with entire composure, “neither can I see. But just as you like. Anything to oblige a friend.”
A glimpse of the ostler’s darkening countenance decided Pitman. “All right,” he said desperately, “you drive. I’ll tell you where to go.”
On Michael in the character of charioteer (since this is not intended to be a novel of adventure) it would be superfluous to dwell at length. Pitman, as he sat holding on and gasping counsels, sole witness of this singular feat, knew not whether most to admire the driver’s valour or his undeserved good fortune. But the latter at least prevailed, the cart reached Cannon Street without disaster; and Mr. Brown’s piano was speedily and cleverly got on board.
“Well, sir,” said the leading porter, smiling as he mentally reckoned up a handful of loose silver, “that’s a mortal heavy piano.”
“It’s the richness of the tone,” returned Michael, as he drove away.
It was but a little distance in the rain, which now fell thick and quiet, to the neighbourhood of Mr. Gideon Forsyth’s chambers in the Temple. There, in a deserted by-street, Michael drew up the horses and gave them in charge to a blighted shoe-black; and the pair descending from the cart, whereon they had figured so incongruously, set forth on foot for the decisive scene of their adventure. For the first time Michael displayed a shadow of uneasiness.
“Are my whiskers right?” he asked. “It would be the devil and all if I was spotted.”
“They are perfectly in their place,” returned Pitman, with scant attention. “But is my disguise equally effective? There is nothing more likely than that I should meet some of my patrons.”
“O, nobody could tell you without your beard,” said Michael. “All you have to do is to remember to speak slow; you speak through your nose already.”
“I only hope the young man won’t be at home,” sighed Pitman.
“And I only hope he’ll be alone,” returned the lawyer. “It will save a precious sight of manœuvring.”
And sure enough, when they had knocked at the door, Gideon admitted them in person to a room, warmed by a moderate fire, framed nearly to the roof in works connected with the bench of British Themis, and offering, except in one particular, eloquent testimony to the legal zeal of the proprietor. The one particular was the chimney-piece, which displayed a varied assortment of pipes, tobacco, cigar-boxes, and yellow-backed French novels.
“Mr. Forsyth, I believe?” It was Michael who thus opened the engagement. “We have come to trouble you with a piece of business. I fear it’s scarcely professional——”
“I am afraid I ought to be instructed through a solicitor,” replied Gideon.
“Well, well, you shall name your own, and the whole affair can be put on a more regular footing to-morrow,” replied Michael, taking a chair and motioning Pitman to do the same. “But you see we didn’t know any solicitors; we did happen to know of you, and time presses.”
“May I inquire, gentlemen,” asked Gideon, “to whom it was I am indebted for a recommendation?”
“You may inquire,” returned the lawyer, with a foolish laugh; “but I was invited not to tell you—till the thing was done.”
“My uncle, no doubt,” was the barrister’s conclusion.
“My name is John Dickson,” continued Michael; “a pretty well-known name in Ballarat; and my friend here is Mr. Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, a wealthy manufacturer of india-rubber overshoes.”
“Stop one moment till I make a note of that,” said Gideon; any one might have supposed he was an old practitioner.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind my smoking a cigar?” asked Michael. He had pulled himself together for the entrance; now again there began to settle on his mind clouds of irresponsible humour and incipient slumber; and he hoped (as so many have hoped in the like case) that a cigar would clear him.
“Oh, certainly,” cried Gideon blandly. “Try one of mine; I can confidently recommend them.” And he handed the box to his client.
“In case I don’t make myself perfectly clear,” observed the Australian, “it’s perhaps best to tell you candidly that I’ve been lunching. It’s a thing that may happen to any one.”
“O, certainly,” replied the affable barrister. “But please be under no sense of hurry. I can give you,” he added, thoughtfully consulting his watch—“yes, I can give you the whole afternoon.”
“The business that brings me here,” resumed the Australian with gusto, “is devilish delicate, I can tell you. My friend Mr. Thomas, being an American of Portuguese extraction, unacquainted with our habits, and a wealthy manufacturer of Broadwood pianos—”
“Broadwood pianos?” cried Gideon, with some surprise. “Dear me, do I understand Mr. Thomas to be a member of the firm?”
“O, pirated Broadwoods,” returned Michael. “My friend’s the American Broadwood.”
“But I understood you to say,” objected Gideon, “I certainly have it so in my notes—that your friend was a manufacturer of india-rubber overshoes.”
“I know it’s confusing at first,” said the Australian, with a beaming smile. “But he—in short, he combines the two professions. And many others besides—many, many, many others,” repeated Mr. Dickson, with drunken solemnity. “Mr. Thomas’s cotton-mills are one of the sights of Tallahassee; Mr. Thomas’s tobacco-mills are the pride of Richmond, Va.; in short, he’s one of my oldest friends, Mr. Forsyth, and I lay his case before you with emotion.”
The barrister looked at Mr. Thomas and was agreeably prepossessed by his open although nervous countenance, and the simplicity and timidity of his manner. “What a people are these Americans!” he thought. “Look at this nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a low-necked shirt, and think of him wielding and directing interests so extended and seemingly incongruous! But had we not better,” he observed aloud, “had we not perhaps better approach the facts?”
“Man of business, I perceive, sir!” said the Australian. “Let’s approach the facts. It’s a breach of promise case.”
The unhappy artist was so unprepared for this view of his position that he could scarce suppress a cry.
“Dear me,” said Gideon, “they are apt to be very troublesome. Tell me everything about it,” he added kindly; “if you require my assistance, conceal nothing.”
“You tell him,” said Michael, feeling, apparently, that he had done his share. “My friend will tell you all about it,” he added to Gideon, with a yawn. “Excuse my closing my eyes a moment; I’ve been sitting up with a sick friend.”
Pitman gazed blankly about the room; rage and despair seethed in his innocent spirit; thoughts of flight, thoughts even of suicide, came and went before him; and still the barrister patiently waited, and still the artist groped in vain for any form of words, however insignificant.
“It’s a breach of promise case,” he said at last, in a low voice. “I—I am threatened with a breach of promise case.” Here, in desperate quest of inspiration, he made a clutch at his beard; his fingers closed upon the unfamiliar smoothness of a shaven chin; and with that, hope and courage (if such expressions could ever have been appropriate in the case of Pitman) conjointly fled. He shook Michael roughly. “Wake up!” he cried, with genuine irritation in his tones. “I cannot do it, and you know I can’t.”
“You must excuse my friend,” said Michael; “he’s no hand as a narrator of stirring incident. The case is simple,” he went on. “My friend is a man of very strong passions, and accustomed to a simple, patriarchal style of life. You see the thing from here: unfortunate visit to Europe, followed by unfortunate acquaintance with sham foreign count, who has a lovely daughter. Mr. Thomas was quite carried away; he proposed, he was accepted, and he wrote—wrote in a style which I am sure he must regret to-day. If these letters are produced in court, sir, Mr. Thomas’s character is gone.”
“Am I to understand——” began Gideon.
“My dear sir,” said the Australian emphatically, “it isn’t possible to understand unless you saw them.”
“That is a painful circumstance,” said Gideon; he glanced pityingly in the direction of the culprit, and, observing on his countenance every mark of confusion, pityingly withdrew his eyes.
“And that would be nothing,” continued Mr. Dickson sternly, “but I wish—I wish from my heart, sir, I could say that Mr. Thomas’s hands were clean. He has no excuse; for he was engaged at the time—and is still engaged—to the belle of Constantinople, Ga. My friend’s conduct was unworthy of the brutes that perish.”
“Ga.?” repeated Gideon inquiringly.
“A contraction in current use,” said Michael. “Ga. for Georgia, in the same way as Co. for Company.”
“I was aware it was sometimes so written,” returned the barrister, “but not that it was so pronounced.”
“Fact, I assure you,” said Michael. “You now see for yourself, sir, that if this unhappy person is to be saved, some devilish sharp practice will be needed. There’s money, and no desire to spare it. Mr. Thomas could write a cheque to-morrow for a hundred thousand. And, Mr. Forsyth, there’s better than money. The foreign count—Count Tarnow, he calls himself—was formerly a tobacconist in Bayswater, and passed under the humble but expressive name of Schmidt; his daughter—if she is his daughter—there’s another point—make a note of that, Mr. Forsyth—his daughter at that time actually served in the shop—and she now proposes to marry a man of the eminence of Mr. Thomas! Now do you see our game? We know they contemplate a move; and we wish to forestall ’em. Down you go to Hampton Court, where they live, and threaten, or bribe, or both, until you get the letters; if you can’t, God help us, we must go to court and Thomas must be exposed. I’ll be done with him for one,” added the unchivalrous friend.
“There seem some elements of success,” said Gideon. “Was Schmidt at all known to the police?”
“We hope so,” said Michael. “We have every ground to think so. Mark the neighbourhood—Bayswater! Doesn’t Bayswater occur to you as very suggestive?”
For perhaps the sixth time during this remarkable interview, Gideon wondered if he were not becoming light-headed. “I suppose it’s just because he has been lunching,” he thought; and then added aloud, “To what figure may I go?”
“Perhaps five thousand would be enough for to-day,” said Michael. “And now, sir, do not let me detain you any longer; the afternoon wears on; there are plenty of trains to Hampton Court; and I needn’t try to describe to you the impatience of my friend. Here is a five-pound note for current expenses; and here is the address.” And Michael began to write, paused, tore up the paper, and put the pieces in his pocket. “I will dictate,” he said, “my writing is so uncertain.”
Gideon took down the address, “Count Tarnow, Kurnaul Villa, Hampton Court.” Then he wrote something else on a sheet of paper. “You said you had not chosen a solicitor,” he said. “For a case of this sort, here is the best man in London.” And he handed the paper to Michael.
“God bless me!” ejaculated Michael, as he read his own address.
“O, I daresay you have seen his name connected with some rather painful cases,” said Gideon. “But he is himself a perfectly honest man, and his capacity is recognised. And now, gentlemen, it only remains for me to ask where I shall communicate with you.”
“The Langham, of course,” returned Michael. “Till to-night.”
“Till to-night,” replied Gideon, smiling. “I suppose I may knock you up at a late hour?”
“Any hour, any hour,” cried the vanishing solicitor.
“Now there’s a young fellow with a head upon his shoulders,” he said to Pitman, as soon as they were in the street.
Pitman was indistinctly heard to murmur, “Perfect fool.”
“Not a bit of him,” returned Michael. “He knows who’s the best solicitor in London, and it’s not every man can say the same. But, I say, didn’t I pitch it in hot?”
Pitman returned no answer.
“Hullo!” said the lawyer, pausing, “what’s wrong with the long-suffering Pitman?”
“You had no right to speak of me as you did,” the artist broke out; “your language was perfectly unjustifiable; you have wounded me deeply.”
“I never said a word about you,” replied Michael. “I spoke of Ezra Thomas; and do please remember that there’s no such party.”
“It’s just as hard to bear,” said the artist.
But by this time they had reached the corner of the by-street; and there was the faithful shoeblack, standing by the horses’ heads with a splendid assumption of dignity; and there was the piano, figuring forlorn upon the cart, while the rain beat upon its unprotected sides and trickled down its elegantly varnished legs.
The shoeblack was again put in requisition to bring five or six strong fellows from the neighbouring public-house; and the last battle of the campaign opened. It is probable that Mr. Gideon Forsyth had not yet taken his seat in the train for Hampton Court, before Michael opened the door of the chambers, and the grunting porters deposited the Broadwood grand in the middle of the floor.
“And now,” said the lawyer, after he had sent the men about their business, “one more precaution. We must leave him the key of the piano, and we must contrive that he shall find it. Let me see.” And he built a square tower of cigars upon the top of the instrument, and dropped the key into the middle.
“Poor young man,” said the artist, as they descended the stairs.
“He is in a devil of a position,” assented Michael drily. “It’ll brace him up.”
“And that reminds me,” observed the excellent Pitman, “that I fear I displayed a most ungrateful temper. I had no right, I see, to resent expressions, wounding as they were, which were in no sense directed.”
“That’s all right,” cried Michael, getting on the cart. “Not a word more, Pitman. Very proper feeling on your part; no man of self-respect can stand by and hear his alias insulted.”
The rain had now ceased, Michael was fairly sober, the body had been disposed of, and the friends were reconciled. The return to the mews was therefore (in comparison with previous stages of the day’s adventures) quite a holiday outing; and when they had returned the cart and walked forth again from the stable-yard, unchallenged, and even unsuspected, Pitman drew a deep breath of joy.
“And now,” he said, “we can go home.”
“Pitman,” said the lawyer, stopping short, “your recklessness fills me with concern. What! we have been wet through the greater part of the day, and you propose, in cold blood, to go home! No, sir—hot Scotch.”
And taking his friend’s arm he led him sternly towards the nearest public-house. Nor was Pitman (I regret to say) wholly unwilling. Now that peace was restored and the body gone, a certain innocent skittishness began to appear in the manners of the artist; and when he touched his steaming glass to Michael’s, he giggled aloud like a venturesome school-girl at a picnic.
I know Michael Finsbury personally; my business—I know the awkwardness of having such a man for a lawyer—still it’s an old story now, and there is such a thing as gratitude, and, in short, my legal business, although now (I am thankful to say) of quite a placid character, remains entirely in Michael’s hands. But the trouble is I have no natural talent for addresses; I learn one for every man—that is friendship’s offering; and the friend who subsequently changes his residence is dead to me, memory refusing to pursue him. Thus it comes about that, as I always write to Michael at his office, I cannot swear to his number in the King’s Road. Of course (like my neighbours), I have been to dinner there. Of late years, since his accession to wealth, neglect of business, and election to the club, these little festivals have become common. He picks up a few fellows in the smoking-room—all men of Attic wit—myself, for instance, if he has the luck to find me disengaged; a string of hansoms may be observed (by Her Majesty) bowling gaily through St. James’s Park; and in a quarter of an hour the party surrounds one of the best appointed boards in London.
But at the time of which we write the house in the King’s Road (let us still continue to call it No. 233) was kept very quiet; when Michael entertained guests it was at the halls of Nichol or Verrey that he would convene them, and the door of his private residence remained closed against his friends. The upper story, which was sunny, was set apart for his father; the drawing-room was never opened; the dining-room was the scene of Michael’s life. It is in this pleasant apartment, sheltered from the curiosity of King’s Road by wire blinds, and entirely surrounded by the lawyer’s unrivalled library of poetry and criminal trials, that we find him sitting down to his dinner after his holiday with Pitman. A spare old lady, with very bright eyes and a mouth humorously compressed, waited upon the lawyer’s needs; in every line of her countenance she betrayed the fact that she was an old retainer; in every word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious circumstance of a Scottish origin; and the fear with which this powerful combination fills the boldest was obviously no stranger to the bosom of our friend. The hot Scotch having somewhat warmed up the embers of the Heidsieck, it was touching to observe the master’s eagerness to pull himself together under the servant’s eye; and when he remarked, “I think, Teena, I’ll take a brandy and soda,” he spoke like a man doubtful of his elocution, and not half certain of obedience.
“No such a thing, Mr. Michael,” was the prompt return. “Clar’t and water.”
“Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best,” said the master. “Very fatiguing day at the office, though.”
“What?” said the retainer, “ye never were near the office!”
“O yes, I was though; I was repeatedly along Fleet Street,” returned Michael.
“Pretty pliskies ye’ve been at this day!” cried the old lady, with humorous alacrity; and then, “Take care—don’t break my crystal!” she cried, as the lawyer came within an ace of knocking the glasses off the table.
“And how is he keeping?” asked Michael.
“O, just the same, Mr. Michael, just the way he’ll be till the end, worthy man!” was the reply. “But ye’ll not be the first that’s asked me that the day.”
“No?” said the lawyer. “Who else?”
“Ay, that’s a joke, too,” said Teena grimly. “A friend of yours: Mr. Morris.”
“Morris! What was the little beggar wanting here?” inquired Michael.
“Wantin’? To see him,” replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb toward the upper story. “That’s by his way of it; but I’ve an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. Michael. Bribe—me!” she repeated, with inimitable scorn. “That’s no’ kind of a young gentleman.”
“Did he so?” said Michael. “I bet he didn’t offer much.”
“No more he did,” replied Teena; nor could any subsequent questioning elicit from her the sum with which the thrifty leather merchant had attempted to corrupt her. “But I sent him about his business,” she said gallantly. “He’ll not come here again in a hurry.”
“He mustn’t see my father, you know; mind that!” said Michael. “I’m not going to have any public exhibition to a little beast like him.”
“No fear of me lettin’ him,” replied the trusty one. “But the joke is this, Mr. Michael—see, ye’re upsettin’ the sauce, that’s a clean table-cloth—the best of the joke is that he thinks your father’s dead and you’re keepin’ it dark.”
Michael whistled. “Set a thief to catch a thief,” said he.
“Exac’ly what I told him!” cried the delighted dame.
“I’ll make him dance for that,” said Michael.
“Couldn’t ye get the law of him some way?” suggested Teena truculently.
“No, I don’t think I could, and I’m quite sure I don’t want to,” replied Michael. “But I say, Teena, I really don’t believe this claret’s wholesome; it’s not a sound, reliable wine. Give us a brandy and soda, there’s a good soul.” Teena’s face became like adamant. “Well, then,” said the lawyer fretfully, “I won’t eat any more dinner.”
“Ye can please yourself about that, Mr. Michael,” said Teena, and began composedly to take away.
“I do wish Teena wasn’t a faithful servant!” sighed the lawyer, as he issued into King’s Road.
The rain had ceased; the wind still blew, but only with a pleasant freshness; the town, in the clear darkness of the night, glittered with street-lamps and shone with glancing rain-pools. “Come, this is better,” thought the lawyer to himself, and he walked on eastward, lending a pleased ear to the wheels and the million footfalls of the city.
Near the end of the King’s Road he remembered his brandy and soda, and entered a flaunting public-house. A good many persons were present, a waterman from a cab-stand, half a dozen of the chronically unemployed, a gentleman (in one corner) trying to sell æsthetic photographs out of a leather case to another and very youthful gentleman with a yellow goatee, and a pair of lovers debating some fine shade (in the other). But the centrepiece and great attraction was a little old man, in a black, ready-made surtout, which was obviously a recent purchase. On the marble table in front of him, beside a sandwich and a glass of beer, there lay a battered forage-cap. His hand fluttered abroad with oratorical gestures; his voice, naturally shrill, was plainly tuned to the pitch of the lecture-room; and by arts, comparable to those of the Ancient Mariner, he was now holding spell-bound the barmaid, the waterman, and four of the unemployed.
“I have examined all the theatres in London,” he was saying; “and pacing the principal entrances, I have ascertained them to be ridiculously disproportionate to the requirements of their audiences. The doors opened the wrong way—I forget at this moment which it is, but have a note of it at home; they were frequently locked during the performance, and when the auditorium was literally thronged with English people. You have probably not had my opportunities of comparing distant lands; but I can assure you this has been long ago recognised as a mark of aristocratic government. Do you suppose, in a country really self-governed, such abuses could exist? Your own intelligence, however uncultivated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country even possibly more enslaved than England. I have myself conversed with one of the survivors of the Ring Theatre, and though his colloquial German was not very good, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his opinion of the case. But, what will perhaps interest you still more, here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will now read to you, translating as I go. You can see for yourselves; it is printed in the German character.” And he held the cutting out for verification, much as a conjurer passes a trick orange along the front bench.
“Hullo, old gentleman! Is this you?” said Michael, laying his hand upon the orator’s shoulder.
The figure turned with a convulsion of alarm, and showed the countenance of Mr. Joseph Finsbury.
“You, Michael!” he cried. “There’s no one with you, is there?”
“No,” replied Michael, ordering a brandy and soda, “there’s nobody with me; whom do you expect?”
“I thought of Morris or John,” said the old gentleman, evidently greatly relieved.
“What the devil would I be doing with Morris or John?” cried the nephew.
“There is something in that,” returned Joseph. “And I believe I can trust you. I believe you will stand by me.”
“I hardly know what you mean,” said the lawyer, “but if you are in need of money I am flush.”
“It’s not that, my dear boy,” said the uncle, shaking him by the hand. “I’ll tell you all about it afterwards.”
“All right,” responded the nephew. “I stand treat, Uncle Joseph; what will you have?”
“In that case,” replied the old gentleman, “I’ll take another sandwich. I daresay I surprise you,” he went on, “with my presence in a public-house; but the fact is, I act on a sound but little-known principle of my own—”
“O, it’s better known than you suppose,” said Michael sipping his brandy and soda. “I always act on it myself when I want a drink.”
The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a cheerless laugh. “You have such a flow of spirits,” said he, “I am sure I often find it quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which I was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one’s-self to the manners of any land (however humble) in which our lot may be cast. Now, in France, for instance, every one goes to a café for his meals; in America, to what is called a ’two-bit house’; in England the people resort to such an institution as the present for refreshment. With sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a man can live luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum.”
“Yes, I know,” returned Michael, “but that’s not including clothes, washing, or boots. The whole thing, with cigars and occasional sprees, costs me over seven hundred a year.”
But this was Michael’s last interruption. He listened in good-humoured silence to the remainder of his uncle’s lecture, which speedily branched to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and-dumb; and with that, the sandwich being then no more, explicuit valde feliciter. A moment later the pair issued forth on the King’s Road.
“Michael,” said his uncle, “the reason that I am here is because I cannot endure those nephews of mine. I find them intolerable.”
“I daresay you do,” assented Michael, “I never could stand them for a moment.”
“They wouldn’t let me speak,” continued the old gentleman bitterly; “I never was allowed to get a word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with some impertinent remark. They kept me on short allowance of pencils, when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing interest; the daily newspaper was guarded from me like a young baby from a gorilla. Now, you know me, Michael. I live for my calculations; I live for my manifold and ever-changing views of life; pens and paper and the productions of the popular press are to me as important as food and drink; and my life was growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion of that fortunate railway accident at Browndean, I made my escape. They must think me dead, and are trying to deceive the world for the chance of the tontine.”
“By the way, how do you stand for money?” asked Michael kindly.
“Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich,” returned the old man with cheerfulness. “I am living at present at the rate of one hundred a year, with unlimited pens and paper; the British Museum at which to get books; and all the newspapers I choose to read. But it’s extraordinary how little a man of intellectual interest requires to bother with books in a progressive age. The newspapers supply all the conclusions.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Michael, “come and stay with me.”
“Michael,” said the old gentleman, “it’s very kind of you, but you scarcely understand what a peculiar position I occupy. There are some little financial complications; as a guardian, my efforts were not altogether blessed; and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, I am absolutely in the power of that vile fellow, Morris.”
“You should be disguised,” cried Michael eagerly; “I will lend you a pair of window-glass spectacles and some red side-whiskers.”
“I had already canvassed that idea,” replied the old gentleman, “but feared to awaken remark in my unpretentious lodgings. The aristocracy, I am well aware——”
“But see here,” interrupted Michael, “how do you come to have any money at all? Don’t make a stranger of me, Uncle Joseph; I know all about the trust, and the hash you made of it, and the assignment you were forced to make to Morris.”
Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank.
“O, but I say, this won’t do,” cried the lawyer. “You’ve put your foot in it. You had no right to do what you did.”
“The whole thing is mine, Michael,” protested the old gentleman. “I founded and nursed that business on principles entirely of my own.”
“That’s all very fine,” said the lawyer; “but you made an assignment, you were forced to make it, too; even then your position was extremely shaky; but now, my dear sir, it means the dock.”
“It isn’t possible,” cried Joseph; “the law cannot be so unjust as that?”
“And the cream of the thing,” interrupted Michael, with a sudden shout of laughter, “the cream of the thing is this, that of course you’ve downed the leather business! I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour.”
“I see nothing to laugh at,” observed Mr. Finsbury tartly.
“And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for the firm?” asked Michael.
“No one but myself,” replied Joseph.
“Poor devil of a Morris! O, poor devil of a Morris!” cried the lawyer in delight. “And his keeping up the farce that you’re at home! O, Morris, the Lord has delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what do you suppose the leather business worth?”
“It was worth a hundred thousand,” said Joseph bitterly, “when it was in my hands. But then there came a Scotsman—it is supposed he had a certain talent—it was entirely directed to book-keeping—no accountant in London could understand a word of any of his books; and then there was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent. And now it is worth very little. Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram and Jarris offered only four thousand.”
“I shall turn my attention to leather,” said Michael with decision.
“You?” asked Joseph. “I advise you not. There is nothing in the whole field of commerce more surprising than the fluctuations of the leather market. Its sensitiveness may be described as morbid.”
“And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with all that money?” asked the lawyer.
“Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds,” answered Mr. Finsbury promptly. “Why?”
“Very well,” said Michael. “To-morrow I shall send down a clerk with a cheque for a hundred, and he’ll draw out the original sum and return it to the Anglo-Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as Morris can’t touch a penny of it without forgery, it will do no harm to my little scheme.”
“But what am I to do?” asked Joseph; “I cannot live upon nothing.”
“Don’t you hear?” returned Michael. “I send you a cheque for a hundred; which leaves you eighty to go along upon; and when that’s done, apply to me again.”
“I would rather not be beholden to your bounty all the same,” said Joseph, biting at his white moustache. “I would rather live on my own money, since I have it.”
Michael grasped his arm. “Will nothing make you believe,” he cried, “that I am trying to save you from Dartmoor?”
His earnestness staggered the old man. “I must turn my attention to law,” he said; “it will be a new field; for though, of course, I understand its general principles, I have never really applied my mind to the details, and this view of yours, for example, comes on me entirely by surprise. But you may be right, and of course at my time of life—for I am no longer young—any really long term of imprisonment would be highly prejudicial. But, my dear nephew, I have no claim on you; you have no call to support me.”
“That’s all right,” said Michael; “I’ll probably get it out of the leather business.”
And having taken down the old gentleman’s address, Michael left him at the corner of a street.
“What a wonderful old muddler!” he reflected, “and what a singular thing is life! I seem to be condemned to be the instrument of Providence. Let me see; what have I done to-day? Disposed of a dead body, saved Pitman, saved my Uncle Joseph, brightened up Forsyth, and drunk a devil of a lot of most indifferent liquor. Let’s top off with a visit to my cousins, and be the instrument of Providence in earnest. To-morrow I can turn my attention to leather; to-night I’ll just make it lively for ’em in a friendly spirit.”
About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were striking eleven, the instrument of Providence descended from a hansom, and, bidding the driver wait, rapped at the door of No. 16 John Street.
It was promptly opened by Morris.
“O, it’s you, Michael,” he said, carefully blocking up the narrow opening: “it’s very late.”
Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris warmly by the hand, and gave it so extreme a squeeze that the sullen householder fell back. Profiting by this movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at his heels.
“Where’s my Uncle Joseph?” demanded Michael, sitting down in the most comfortable chair.
“He’s not been very well lately,” replied Morris; “he’s staying at Browndean; John is nursing him; and I am alone, as you see.”
Michael smiled to himself. “I want to see him on particular business,” he said.
“You can’t expect to see my uncle when you won’t let me see your father,” returned Morris.
“Fiddlestick,” said Michael. “My father is my father; but Joseph is just as much my uncle as he’s yours; and you have no right to sequestrate his person.”
“I do no such thing,” said Morris doggedly. “He is not well, he is dangerously ill and nobody can see him.”
“I’ll tell you what, then,” said Michael. “I’ll make a clean breast of it. I have come down like the opossum, Morris; I have come to compromise.”
Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush of wrath against the injustice of man’s destiny dyed his very temples. “What do you mean?” he cried, “I don’t believe a word of it!” And when Michael had assured him of his seriousness, “Well, then,” he cried, with another deep flush, “I won’t; so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
“Oho!” said Michael queerly. “You say your uncle is dangerously ill, and you won’t compromise? There’s something very fishy about that.”
“What do you mean?” cried Morris hoarsely.
“I only say it’s fishy,” returned Michael, “that is, pertaining to the finny tribe.”
“Do you mean to insinuate anything?” cried Morris stormily, trying the high hand.
“Insinuate?” repeated Michael. “O, don’t let’s begin to use awkward expressions! Let us drown our differences in a bottle, like two affable kinsmen. The Two Affable Kinsmen, sometimes attributed to Shakespeare,” he added.
Morris’s mind was labouring like a mill. “Does he suspect? or is this chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap,” he concluded. “It gains time. Well,” said he aloud, and with rather a painful affectation of heartiness, “it’s long since we have had an evening together, Michael; and though my habits (as you know) are very temperate, I may as well make an exception. Excuse me one moment till I fetch a bottle of whisky from the cellar.”
“No whisky for me,” said Michael; “a little of the old still champagne or nothing.”
For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was very valuable: the next he had quitted the room without a word. His quick mind had perceived his advantage; in thus dunning him for the cream of the cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. “One bottle?” he thought. “By George, I’ll give him two! this is no moment for economy; and once the beast is drunk, it’s strange if I don’t wring his secret out of him.”
With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses were produced, and Morris filled them with hospitable grace.
“I drink to you, cousin!” he cried gaily. “Don’t spare the wine-cup in my house.”
Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the table; filled it again, and returned to his chair, carrying the bottle along with him.
“The spoils of war!” he said apologetically. “The weakest goes to the wall. Science, Morris, science.” Morris could think of no reply, and for an appreciable interval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still champagne produced a rapid change in Michael.
“There’s a want of vivacity about you, Morris,” he observed. “You may be deep; but I’ll be hanged if you’re vivacious!”
“What makes you think me deep?” asked Morris with an air of pleased simplicity.
“Because you won’t compromise,” said the lawyer. “You’re deep dog, Morris, very deep dog, not t’ compromise—remarkable deep dog. And a very good glass of wine; it’s the only respectable feature in the Finsbury family, this wine; rarer thing than a title—much rarer. Now a man with glass wine like this in cellar, I wonder why won’t compromise?”
“Well, you wouldn’t compromise before, you know,” said the smiling Morris. “Turn about is fair play.”
“I wonder why I wouldn’ compromise? I wonder why you wouldn’?” inquired Michael. “I wonder why we each think the other wouldn’? ’S quite a remarrable—remarkable problem,” he added, triumphing over oral obstacles, not without obvious pride. “Wonder what we each think—don’t you?”
“What do you suppose to have been my reason?” asked Morris adroitly.
Michael looked at him and winked. “That’s cool,” said he. “Next thing, you’ll ask me to help you out of the muddle. I know I’m emissary of Providence, but not that kind! You get out of it yourself, like Æsop and the other fellow. Must be dreadful muddle for young orphan o’ forty; leather business and all!”
“I am sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Morris.
“Not sure I know myself,” said Michael. “This is exc’lent vintage, sir—exc’lent vintage. Nothing against the tipple. Only thing: here’s a valuable uncle disappeared. Now, what I want to know: where’s valuable uncle?”
“I have told you: he is at Browndean,” answered Morris, furtively wiping his brow, for these repeated hints began to tell upon him cruelly.
“Very easy say Brown—Browndee—no’ so easy after all!” cried Michael. “Easy say; anything’s easy say, when you can say it. What I don’ like’s total disappearance of an uncle. Not business-like.” And he wagged his head.
“It is all perfectly simple,” returned Morris, with laborious calm. “There is no mystery. He stays at Browndean, where he got a shake in the accident.”
“Ah!” said Michael, “got devil of a shake!”
“Why do you say that?” cried Morris sharply.
“Best possible authority. Told me so yourself,” said the lawyer. “But if you tell me contrary now, of course I’m bound to believe either the one story or the other. Point is—I’ve upset this bottle, still champagne’s exc’lent thing carpet—point is, is valuable uncle dead—an’—bury?”
Morris sprang from his seat. “What’s that you say?” he gasped.
“I say it’s exc’lent thing carpet,” replied Michael, rising. “Exc’lent thing promote healthy action of the skin. Well, it’s all one, anyway. Give my love to Uncle Champagne.”
“You’re not going away?” said Morris.
“Awf’ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend,” said the wavering Michael.
“You shall not go till you have explained your hints,” returned Morris fiercely. “What do you mean? What brought you here?”
“No offence, I trust,” said the lawyer, turning round as he opened the door; “only doing my duty as shemishery of Providence.”
Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with some difficulty, and descended the steps to the hansom. The tired driver looked up as he approached, and asked where he was to go next.
Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the steps; a brilliant inspiration came to him. “Anything t’ give pain,” he reflected.... “Drive Shcotlan’ Yard,” he added aloud, holding to the wheel to steady himself; “there’s something devilish fishy, cabby, about those cousins. Mush’ be cleared up! Drive Shcotlan’ Yard.”
“You don’t mean that, sir,” said the man, with the ready sympathy of the lower orders for an intoxicated gentleman. “I had better take you home, sir; you can go to Scotland Yard to-morrow.”
“Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me not to go Shcotlan’ Yard t’night?” inquired Michael. “All righ’, never min’ Shcotlan’ Yard, drive Gaiety bar.”
“The Gaiety bar is closed,” said the man.
“Then home,” said Michael, with the same cheerfulness.
“Where to, sir?”
“I don’t remember, I’m sure,” said Michael, entering the vehicle, “drive Shcotlan’ Yard and ask.”
“But you’ll have a card,” said the man, through the little aperture in the top, “give me your card-case.”
“What imagi—imagination in a cabby!” cried the lawyer, producing his card-case, and handing it to the driver.
The man read it by the light of the lamp. “Mr. Michael Finsbury, 233 King’s Road, Chelsea. Is that it, sir?”
“Right you are,” cried Michael, “drive there if you can see way.”
The reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, “Who Put Back the Clock?” by E. H. B., which appeared for several days upon the railway bookstalls and then vanished entirely from the face of the earth. Whether eating Time makes the chief of his diet out of old editions; whether Providence has passed a special enactment on behalf of authors; or whether these last have taken the law into their own hand, bound themselves into a dark conspiracy with a password, which I would die rather than reveal, and night after night sally forth under some vigorous leader, such as Mr. James Payn or Mr. Walter Besant, on their task of secret spoliation—certain it is, at least, that the old editions pass, giving place to new. To the proof, it is believed there are now only three copies extant of “Who Put Back the Clock?” one in the British Museum, successfully concealed by a wrong entry in the catalogue; another in one of the cellars (the cellar where the music accumulates) of the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh; and a third, bound in morocco, in the possession of Gideon Forsyth. To account for the very different fate attending this third exemplar, the readiest theory is to suppose that Gideon admired the tale. How to explain that admiration might appear (to those who have perused the work) more difficult; but the weakness of a parent is extreme, and Gideon (and not his uncle, whose initials he had humorously borrowed) was the author of “Who Put Back the Clock?” He had never acknowledged it, or only to some intimate friends while it was still in proof; after its appearance and alarming failure, the modesty of the novelist had become more pressing, and the secret was now likely to be better kept than that of the authorship of “Waverley.”
A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already yesterday) still figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall at Waterloo; and Gideon, as he passed with his ticket for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously at the creature of his thoughts. What an idle ambition was the author’s! How far beneath him was the practice of that childish art! With his hand closing on his first brief, he felt himself a man at last; and the muse who presides over the police romance, a lady presumably of French extraction, fled his neighbourhood, and returned to join the dance round the springs of Helicon, among her Grecian sisters.
Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young barrister upon his journey. Again and again he selected the little country-house in its islet of great oaks, which he was to make his future home. Like a prudent householder, he projected improvements as he passed; to one he added a stable, to another a tennis-court, a third he supplied with a becoming rustic boat-house.
“How little a while ago,” he could not but reflect, “I was a careless young dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothing but boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned country-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would have made no inquiry as to the drains. How a man ripens with the years!”
The intelligent reader will perceive the ravages of Miss Hazeltine. Gideon had carried Julia straight to Mr. Bloomfleld’s house; and that gentleman, having been led to understand she was the victim of oppression, had noisily espoused her cause. He worked himself into a fine breathing heat; in which, to a man of his temperament, action became needful.
“I do not know which is the worse,” he cried, “the fraudulent old villain or the unmanly young cub. I will write to the Pall Mall and expose them. Nonsense, sir; they must be exposed! It’s a public duty. Did you not tell me the fellow was a Tory? O, the uncle is a Radical lecturer, is he? No doubt the uncle has been grossly wronged. But of course, as you say, that makes a change; it becomes scarce so much a public duty.”
And he sought and instantly found a fresh outlet for his alacrity. Miss Hazeltine (he now perceived) must be kept out of the way; his houseboat was lying ready—he had returned but a day or two before from his usual cruise; there was no place like a houseboat for concealment; and that very morning, in the teeth of the easterly gale, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield and Miss Julia Hazeltine had started forth on their untimely voyage. Gideon pled in vain to be allowed to join the party. “No, Gid,” said his uncle. “You will be watched; you must keep away from us.” Nor had the barrister ventured to contest this strange illusion; for he feared if he rubbed off any of the romance, that Mr. Bloomfield might weary of the whole affair. And his discretion was rewarded; for the Squirradical, laying a heavy hand upon his nephew’s shoulder, had added these notable expressions: “I see what you are after, Gid. But if you’re going to get the girl, you have to work, sir.”
These pleasing sounds had cheered the barrister all day, as he sat reading in chambers; they continued to form the ground-base of his manly musings as he was whirled to Hampton Court; even when he landed at the station, and began to pull himself together for his delicate interview, the voice of Uncle Ned and the eyes of Julia were not forgotten.
But now it began to rain surprises: in all Hampton Court there was no Kurnaul Villa, no Count Tarnow, and no count. This was strange; but, viewed in the light of the incoherency of his instructions, not perhaps inexplicable; Mr. Dickson had been lunching, and he might have made some fatal oversight in the address. What was the thoroughly prompt, manly, and business-like step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself at once: “A telegram, very laconic.” Speedily the wires were flashing the following very important missive: “Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self next train.—Forsyth.” And at the Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a brow expressive of despatch and intellectual effort, Gideon descended not long after from a smoking hansom.
I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel. No Count Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite another. How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; from every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruous messages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for his chambers. There was at least a cave of refuge; it was at least a place to think in; and he climbed the stair, put his key in the lock and opened the door, with some approach to hope.
It was all dark within, for the night had some time fallen; but Gideon knew his room, he knew where the matches stood on the end of the chimney-piece; and he advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himself against a heavy body; where (slightly altering the expressions of the song) no heavy body should have been. There had been nothing there when Gideon went out; he had locked the door behind him, he had found it locked on his return, no one could have entered, the furniture could not have changed its own position. And yet undeniably there was a something there. He thrust out his hands in the darkness. Yes, there was something, something large, something smooth, something cold.
“Heaven forgive me!” said Gideon, “it feels like a piano.”
And the next moment he remembered the vestas in his waistcoat-pocket and had struck a light.
It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze; a vast and costly instrument, stained with the rains of the afternoon and defaced with recent scratches. The light of the vesta was reflected from the varnished sides, like a star in quiet water; and in the farther end of the room the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and wavered on the wall.
Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the darkness closed once more on his bewilderment. Then with trembling hands he lit the lamp and drew near. Near or far, there was no doubt of the fact: the thing was a piano. There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossible that it should be—there the thing impudently stood. Gideon threw open the key-board and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the room. “Is there anything wrong with me?” he thought, with a pang; and drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravish silence, now with sparkling arpeggios, now with a sonata of Beethoven’s which (in happier days) he knew to be one of the loudest pieces of that powerful composer. Still not a sound. He gave the Broadwood two great bangs with his clenched first. All was still as the grave.
The young barrister started to his feet.
“I am stark-staring mad,” he cried aloud, “and no one knows it but myself. God’s worst curse has fallen on me.”
His fingers encountered his watch-chain; instantly he had plucked forth his watch and held it to his ear. He could hear it ticking.
“I am not deaf,” he said aloud. “I am only insane. My mind has quitted me for ever.”
He looked uneasily about the room, and gazed with lacklustre eyes at the chair in which Mr. Dickson had installed himself. The end of a cigar lay near on the fender.
“No,” he thought, “I don’t believe that was a dream; but God knows my mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be hungry, for instance; it’s probably another hallucination. Still I might try. I shall have one more good meal; I shall go to the Café Royal, and may possibly be removed from there direct to the asylum.”
He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended the stairs, how he would first betray his terrible condition—would he attack a waiter? or eat glass?—and when he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man drive to Nichol’s, with a lurking fear that there was no such place.
The flaring, gassy entrance of the café speedily set his mind at rest; he was cheered besides to recognise his favourite waiter; his orders appeared to be coherent; the dinner, when it came, was quite a sensible meal, and he ate it with enjoyment. “Upon my word,” he reflected, “I am about tempted to indulge a hope. Have I been hasty? Have I done what Robert Skill would have done?” Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention) was the name of the principal character in “Who Put Back the Clock?” It had occurred to the author as a brilliant and probable invention; to readers of a critical turn, Robert appeared scarce upon a level with his surname; but it is the difficulty of the police romance, that the reader is always a man of such vastly greater ingenuity than the writer. In the eyes of his creator, however, Robert Skill was a word to conjure with; the thought braced and spurred him; what that brilliant creature would have done Gideon would do also. This frame of mind is not uncommon; the distressed general, the baited divine, the hesitating author, decide severally to do what Napoleon, what St. Paul, what Shakespeare would have done; and there remains only the minor question, What is that? In Gideon’s case one thing was clear: Skill was a man of singular decision, he would have taken some step (whatever it was) at once; and the only step that Gideon could think of was to return to his chambers.
This being achieved, all further inspiration failed him, and he stood pitifully staring at the instrument of his confusion. To touch the keys again was more than he durst venture on; whether they had maintained their former silence, or responded with the tones of the last trump, it would have equally dethroned his resolution. “It may be a practical jest,” he reflected, “though it seems elaborate and costly. And yet what else can it be? It must be a practical jest.” And just then his eye fell upon a feature which seemed corroborative of that view: the pagoda of cigars which Michael had erected ere he left the chambers. “Why that?” reflected Gideon. “It seems entirely irresponsible.” And drawing near, he gingerly demolished it. “A key,” he thought. “Why that? And why so conspicuously placed?” He made the circuit of the instrument, and perceived the keyhole at the back. “Aha! this is what the key is for,” said he. “They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and stranger.” And with that he turned the key and raised the lid.
In what antics of agony, in what fits of flighty resolution, in what collapses of despair, Gideon consumed the night, it would be ungenerous to inquire too closely.
That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcome the approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly on blinded windows, an empty street, and the grey daylight dotted with the yellow lamps. There are mornings when the city seems to awake with a sick headache; this was one of them; and still the twittering reveillé of the sparrows stirred in Gideon’s spirit.
“Day here,” he thought, “and I still helpless! This must come to an end.” And he locked up the piano, put the key in his pocket; and set forth in quest of coffee. As he went, his mind trudged for the hundredth time a certain mill-road of terrors, misgivings, and regrets. To call in the police, to give up the body, to cover London with handbills describing John Dickson and Ezra Thomas, to fill the papers with paragraphs, Mysterious Occurrence in the Temple—Mr. Forsyth admitted to bail, this was one course, an easy course, a safe course; but not, the more he reflected on it, not a pleasant one. For, was it not to publish abroad a number of singular facts about himself? A child ought to have seen through the story of these adventurers, and he had gaped and swallowed it. A barrister of the least self-respect should have refused to listen to clients who came before him in a manner so irregular, and he had listened. And O, if he had only listened; but he had gone upon their errand—he, a barrister, uninstructed even by the shadow of a solicitor—upon an errand fit only for a private detective; and alas!—and for the hundredth time the blood surged to his brow—he had taken their money! “No,” said he, “the thing is as plain as St. Paul’s. I shall be dishonoured! I have smashed my career for a five-pound note.”