CHAPTER III
THE MAN IN THE BED
The illumination which instantly followed was unexpected. It startledme, causing a moment's check, from which I was just recovering when avoice said,
'Keep still!'
There was a quality in the voice which I cannot describe. Not only anaccent of command, but a something malicious, a something saturnine. Itwas a little guttural, though whether it was a man speaking I could nothave positively said; but I had no doubt it was a foreigner. It was themost disagreeable voice I had ever heard, and it had on me the mostdisagreeable effect; for when it said, 'Keep still!' I kept still. Itwas as though there was nothing else for me to do.
'Turn round!'
I turned round, mechanically, like an automaton. Such passivity wasworse than undignified, it was galling; I knew that well. I resented itwith secret rage. But in that room, in that presence, I wasinvertebrate.
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 whichgave the most brilliant light I had ever seen. It caught me full in theeyes, having on me such a blinding effect that for some seconds I couldsee nothing. Throughout the whole of that strange interview I cannotaffirm that I saw clearly; the dazzling glare caused dancing specks toobscure 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 decideif it was a man or a woman. Indeed at first I doubted if it wasanything human. But, afterwards, I knew it to be a man,--for thisreason, if for no other, that it was impossible such a creature couldbe feminine. The bedclothes were drawn up to his shoulders; only hishead was visible. He lay on his left side, his head resting on his lefthand; 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 hadbeen 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 therange of possibility that he was no older than myself,--there was avitality in his eyes which was startling. It might have been that hehad been afflicted by some terrible disease, and it was that which hadmade him so supernaturally ugly.
There was not a hair upon his face or head, but, to make up for it, theskin, which was a saffron yellow, was an amazing mass of wrinkles. Thecranium, and, indeed, the whole skull, was so small as to bedisagreeably suggestive of something animal. The nose, on the otherhand, was abnormally large; so extravagant were its dimensions, and sopeculiar its shape, it resembled the beak of some bird of prey. Acharacteristic of the face--and an uncomfortable one!--was that,practically, it stopped short at the mouth. The mouth, with its blubberlips, came immediately underneath the nose, and chin, to all intentsand purposes, there was none. This deformity--for the absence of chinamounted to that--it was which gave to the face the appearance ofsomething not human,--that, and the eyes. For so marked a feature ofthe man were his eyes, that, ere long, it seemed to me that he wasnothing but eyes.
His eyes ran, literally, across the whole of the upper portion of hisface,--remember, the face was unwontedly small, and the columna of thenose was razor-edged. They were long, and they looked out of narrowwindows, and they seemed to be lighted by some internal radiance, forthey shone out like lamps in a lighthouse tower. Escape them I couldnot, while, as I endeavoured to meet them, it was as if I shrivelledinto nothingness. Never before had I realised what was meant by thepower of the eye. They held me enchained, helpless, spell-bound. I feltthat they could do with me as they would; and they did. Their gaze wasunfaltering, having the bird-like trick of never blinking; this mancould 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.' Iobeyed. 'Turn round again.' I was still obedient. 'What is your name?'
Then I spoke,--to answer him. There was this odd thing about the wordsI 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; itwas he. What he willed that I should say, I said. Just that, andnothing more. For the time I was no longer a man; my manhood was mergedin 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 hisvoice 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 youthe 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 noconstraint 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, infact, 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 hadfollowed hard upon misfortune. The firm by whom I had been employed foryears suspended payment. I obtained a situation with one of theircreditors, at a lower salary. They reduced their staff, which entailedmy going. After an interval I obtained a temporary engagement; theoccasion which required my services passed, and I with it. Afteranother, and a longer interval, I again found temporary employment, thepay for which was but a pittance. When that was over I could findnothing. That was nine months ago, and since then I had not earned apenny. It is so easy to grow shabby, when you are on the everlastingtramp, and are living on your stock of clothes. I had trudged all overLondon in search of work,--work of any kind would have been welcome, solong as it would have enabled me to keep body and soul together. And Ihad trudged in vain. Now I had been refused admittance as acasual,--how easy is the descent! But I did not tell the man lying onthe bed all this. He did not wish to hear,--had he wished he would havemade me tell him.
It may be that he read my story, unspoken though it was,--it isconceivable. His eyes had powers of penetration which were peculiarlytheir own,--that I know.
'Undress!'
When he spoke again that was what he said, in those guttural tones ofhis in which there was a reminiscence of some foreign land. I obeyed,letting my sodden, shabby clothes fall anyhow upon the floor. A lookcame on his face, as I stood naked in front of him, which, if it wasmeant for a smile, was a satyr's smile, and which filled me with asensation of shuddering repulsion.
'What a white skin you have,--how white! What would I not give for askin as white as that,--ah yes!' He paused, devouring me with hisglances; 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 eyesfollowing me as I moved. It was full of clothing,--garments which mighthave formed the stock-in-trade of a costumier whose speciality wasproviding costumes for masquerades. A long dark cloak hung on a peg. Myhand moved towards it, apparently of its own volition. I put it on, itsample folds falling to my feet.
'In the other cupboard you will find meat, and bread, and wine. Eat anddrink.'
On the opposite side of the room, near the head of his bed, there was asecond cupboard. In this, upon a shelf, I found what looked likepressed beef, several round cakes of what tasted like rye bread, andsome thin, sour wine, in a straw-covered flask. But I was in no mood tocriticise; I crammed my
self, I believe, like some famished wolf, hewatching me, in silence, all the time. When I had done, which was whenI had eaten and drunk as much as I could hold, there returned to hisface that satyr's grin.
'I would that I could eat and drink like that,--ah yes!--Put back whatis left.' I put it back,--which seemed an unnecessary exertion, therewas so little to put. 'Look me in the face.'
I looked him in the face,--and immediately became conscious, as I didso, that something was going from me,--the capacity, as it were, to bemyself. His eyes grew larger and larger, till they seemed to fill allspace--till I became lost in their immensity. He moved his hand, doingsomething to me, I know not what, as it passed through the air--cuttingthe solid ground from underneath my feet, so that I fell headlong tothe ground. Where I fell, there I lay, like a log.
And the light went out.
The Beetle: A Mystery Page 3