CHAPTER XI
A MIDNIGHT EPISODE
The weather out of doors was in tune with my frame of mind,--I was in adeuce of a temper, and it was a deuce of a night. A keen north-eastwind, warranted to take the skin right off you, was playingcatch-who-catch-can with intermittent gusts of blinding rain. Since itwas not fit for a dog to walk, none of your cabs for me,--nothing wouldserve 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! Ifthere is anything in worse taste than to book a lady for a dance, andthen to leave her in the lurch, I should like to know what that thingis,--when found it ought to be made a note of. If any man of myacquaintance allowed himself to be guilty of such a felony in the firstdegree, I should cut him. I wished someone would try to cut me,--Ishould like to see him at it.
It was all Marjorie's fault,--everything! past, present, and to come. Ihad known that girl when she was in long frocks--I had, at that periodof our acquaintance, pretty recently got out of them; when she wasadvanced to short ones; and when, once more, she returned to long. Andall that time,--well, I was nearly persuaded that the whole of the timeI had loved her. If I had not mentioned it, it was because I hadsuffered my affection, 'like the worm, to lie hidden in the bud,'--orwhatever it is the fellow says.
At any rate, I was perfectly positive that if I had had the faintestnotion that she would ever seriously consider such a man as LessinghamI should have loved her long ago. Lessingham! Why, he was old enough tobe her father,--at least he was a good many years older than I was. Anda wretched Radical! It is true that on certain points I, also, am whatsome 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 heis a man of ability,--in his way! which is, emphatically, not mine. Butto think of him in connection with such a girl as MarjorieLindon,--preposterous! Why, the man's as dry as a stick,--drier! Andcold as an iceberg. Nothing but a politician, absolutely. He alover!--how I could fancy such a stroke of humour setting all thebenches in a roar. Both by education, and by nature, he was incapableof even playing such a part; as for being the thing,--absurd! If youwere to sink a shaft from the crown of his head to the soles of hisfeet, you would find inside him nothing but the dry bones of partiesand of politics.
What my Marjorie--if everyone had his own, she is mine, and, in thatsense, she always will be mine--what my Marjorie could see in such adry-as-dust out of which even to construct the rudiments of a husbandwas beyond my fathoming.
Suchlike agreeable reflections were fit company for the wind and thewet, so they bore me company all down the lane. I crossed at thecorner, going round the hospital towards the square. This brought me tothe abiding-place of Paul the Apostle. Like the idiot I was, I went outinto the middle of the street, and stood awhile in the mud to curse himand his house,--on the whole, when one considers that that is the kindof man I can be, it is, perhaps, not surprising that Marjorie disdainedme.
'May your following,' I cried,--it is an absolute fact that the wordswere shouted!--'both in the House and out of it, no longer regard youas a leader! May your party follow after other gods! May your politicalaspirations wither, and your speeches be listened to by empty benches!May the Speaker persistently and strenuously refuse to allow you tocatch his eye, and, at the next election, may your constituency rejectyou!--Jehoram!--what's that?'
I might well ask. Until that moment I had appeared to be the onlylunatic 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 windowwas crashed open from within,--the one over the front door, and someonecame plunging through it on to the top of the portico. That it was acase of intended suicide I made sure,--and I began to be in hopes thatI was about to witness the suicide of Paul. But I was not so assured ofthe intention when the individual in question began to scramble downthe pillar of the porch in the most extraordinary fashion I everwitnessed,--I was not even convinced of a suicidal purpose when he cametumbling down, and lay sprawling in the mud at my feet.
I fancy, if I had performed that portion of the act I should have lainquiet for a second or two, to consider whereabouts I was, and which endof me was uppermost. But there was no nonsense of that sort about thatsingularly agile stranger,--if he was not made of india-rubber he oughtto have been. So to speak, before he was down he was up,--it was all Icould 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 streetsof London. What he had done with the rest of his apparel I am not in aposition to say,--all that was left of it was a long, dark cloak whichhe strove to wrap round him. Save for that,--and mud!--he was bare asthe palm of my hand, Yet it was his face that held me. In my time Ihave seen strange expressions on men's faces, but never before one suchas I saw on his. He looked like a man might look who, after living alife of undiluted crime, at last finds himself face to face with thedevil. It was not the look of a madman,--far from it; it was somethingworse.
It was the expression on the man's countenance, as much as anythingelse, which made me behave as I did. I said something to him,--somenonsense, I know not what. He regarded me with a silence which wassupernatural. I spoke to him again;--not a word issued from those rigidlips; there was not a tremor of those awful eyes,--eyes which I wastolerably convinced saw something which I had never seen, or evershould. Then I took my hand from off his shoulder, and let him go. Iknow 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 wasout of sight before I could say, 'How do!'
It was only then,--when he had gone, and I had realised theextra-double-express-flash-of-lightning rate at which he had taken hisdeparture--that it occurred to me of what an extremely sensible act Ihad been guilty in letting him go at all. Here was an individual whohad been committing burglary, or something very like it, in the houseof 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 himquodded,--and all that I had done was something of a totally differentkind.
'You're a nice type of an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself, 'Afirst chop specimen of a low-down idiot,--to connive at the escape ofthe 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 howhe's feeling.'
I went to Lessingham's front door and knocked,--I knocked once, Iknocked twice, I knocked thrice, and the third time, I give you myword, I made the echoes ring,--but still there was not a soul thatanswered.
'If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the gentlemanin the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature thehouse contains, perhaps it's just as well I've chanced upon thescene,--still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answerthe door. If it is possible to make noise enough to waken the dead, youbet I'm on to it.'
And I was,--I punished that knocker! until I warrant the pounding Igave it was audible on the other side of Green Park. And, at last, Iwoke the dead,--or, rather, I roused Matthews to a consciousness thatsomething was going on. Opening the door about six inches, through theinterstice he protruded his ancient nose.
'Who's there?'
'Nothing, my dear sir, nothing and no one. It must have been yourvigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was,--youlet 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 mighthave 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 buddingcabinet minister. He glanced over his s
houlder,--I had suspected thepresence of a colleague at his back, now I was assured. He put his handup to his mouth,--and I thought how exceedingly discreet he looked, inhis 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 airwhich was flatteringly confidential.
'From Mr Lessingham, sir.'
'Possibly Mr Lessingham is not aware that a robbery has been committedon his premises, that the burglar has just come out of his drawing-roomwindow with a hop, skip, and a jump, bounded out of the window like atennis-ball, flashed round the corner like a rocket,'
Again Matthews glanced over his shoulder, as if not clear which waydiscretion lay, whether fore or aft.
'Thank you, sir. I believe that Mr Lessingham is aware of something ofthe kind.' He seemed to come to a sudden resolution, dropping his voiceto a whisper. 'The fact is, sir, that I fancy Mr Lessingham's a gooddeal upset.'
'Upset?' I stared at him. There was something in his manner I did notunderstand. 'What do you mean by upset? Has the scoundrel attemptedviolence?'
'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 curiouslypetulant. Pushing past Matthews, I stepped into the hall. A young man,I suppose a footman, in the same undress as Matthews, was holding acandle,--it seemed the only light about the place. By its glimmer Iperceived Lessingham standing half-way up the stairs. He was in fullwar paint,--as he is not the sort of man who dresses for the House, Itook it that he had been mixing pleasure with business.
'It's I, Lessingham,--Atherton. Do you know that a fellow has jumpedout of your drawing-room window?'
It was a second or two before he answered. When he did, his voice hadlost 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 noteof 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 intocontact with all the lunatics at large. Good night! I am much obligedto you for knocking us up. Matthews, shut the door.'
Tolerably cool, on my honour,--a man who brings news big with the fateof Rome does not expect to receive such treatment. He expects to belistened to with deference, and to hear all that there is to hear, andnot to be sent to the right-about before he has had a chance of reallyopening his lips. Before I knew it--almost!--the door was shut, and Iwas on the doorstep. Confound the Apostle's impudence! next time hemight have his house burnt down--and him in it!--before I took thetrouble to touch his dirty knocker.
What did he mean by his allusion to lunatics in politics,--did he thinkto fool me? There was more in the business than met the eye,--and agood deal more than he wished to meet mine,--hence his insolence. Thecreature.
What Marjorie Lindon could see in such an opusculum surpassed mycomprehension; especially when there was a man of my sort walkingabout, who adored the very ground she trod upon.
The Beetle: A Mystery Page 11