diff options
Diffstat (limited to '1696-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 1696-0.txt | 5412 |
1 files changed, 5412 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/1696-0.txt b/1696-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d82924 --- /dev/null +++ b/1696-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5412 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Club of Queer Trades, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: The Club of Queer Trades + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Posting Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #1696] +Release Date: April, 1999 +Last Updated: March 9, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLUB OF QUEER TRADES *** + + + + +Produced by Anonomous Project Gutenberg Volunteers + + + + + +THE CLUB OF QUEER TRADES + +by G. K. Chesterton + + + + +Chapter 1. The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown + +Rabelais, or his wild illustrator Gustave Dore, must have had something +to do with the designing of the things called flats in England +and America. There is something entirely Gargantuan in the idea of +economising space by piling houses on top of each other, front doors +and all. And in the chaos and complexity of those perpendicular streets +anything may dwell or happen, and it is in one of them, I believe, that +the inquirer may find the offices of the Club of Queer Trades. It may be +thought at the first glance that the name would attract and startle the +passer-by, but nothing attracts or startles in these dim immense hives. +The passer-by is only looking for his own melancholy destination, the +Montenegro Shipping Agency or the London office of the Rutland Sentinel, +and passes through the twilight passages as one passes through the +twilight corridors of a dream. If the Thugs set up a Strangers' +Assassination Company in one of the great buildings in Norfolk Street, +and sent in a mild man in spectacles to answer inquiries, no inquiries +would be made. And the Club of Queer Trades reigns in a great edifice +hidden like a fossil in a mighty cliff of fossils. + +The nature of this society, such as we afterwards discovered it to be, +is soon and simply told. It is an eccentric and Bohemian Club, of which +the absolute condition of membership lies in this, that the candidate +must have invented the method by which he earns his living. It must be +an entirely new trade. The exact definition of this requirement is given +in the two principal rules. First, it must not be a mere application or +variation of an existing trade. Thus, for instance, the Club would +not admit an insurance agent simply because instead of insuring men's +furniture against being burnt in a fire, he insured, let us say, their +trousers against being torn by a mad dog. The principle (as Sir Bradcock +Burnaby-Bradcock, in the extraordinarily eloquent and soaring speech +to the club on the occasion of the question being raised in the Stormby +Smith affair, said wittily and keenly) is the same. Secondly, the +trade must be a genuine commercial source of income, the support of its +inventor. Thus the Club would not receive a man simply because he chose +to pass his days collecting broken sardine tins, unless he could drive +a roaring trade in them. Professor Chick made that quite clear. And when +one remembers what Professor Chick's own new trade was, one doesn't know +whether to laugh or cry. + +The discovery of this strange society was a curiously refreshing thing; +to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was like looking +at the first ship or the first plough. It made a man feel what he should +feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. That I should +have come at last upon so singular a body was, I may say without vanity, +not altogether singular, for I have a mania for belonging to as many +societies as possible: I may be said to collect clubs, and I have +accumulated a vast and fantastic variety of specimens ever since, in my +audacious youth, I collected the Athenaeum. At some future day, perhaps, +I may tell tales of some of the other bodies to which I have belonged. +I will recount the doings of the Dead Man's Shoes Society (that +superficially immoral, but darkly justifiable communion); I will explain +the curious origin of the Cat and Christian, the name of which has been +so shamefully misinterpreted; and the world shall know at last why the +Institute of Typewriters coalesced with the Red Tulip League. Of the Ten +Teacups, of course I dare not say a word. The first of my revelations, +at any rate, shall be concerned with the Club of Queer Trades, which, as +I have said, was one of this class, one which I was almost bound to come +across sooner or later, because of my singular hobby. The wild youth of +the metropolis call me facetiously 'The King of Clubs'. They also call +me 'The Cherub', in allusion to the roseate and youthful appearance I +have presented in my declining years. I only hope the spirits in the +better world have as good dinners as I have. But the finding of the Club +of Queer Trades has one very curious thing about it. The most curious +thing about it is that it was not discovered by me; it was discovered +by my friend Basil Grant, a star-gazer, a mystic, and a man who scarcely +stirred out of his attic. + +Very few people knew anything of Basil; not because he was in the least +unsociable, for if a man out of the street had walked into his rooms he +would have kept him talking till morning. Few people knew him, because, +like all poets, he could do without them; he welcomed a human face as he +might welcome a sudden blend of colour in a sunset; but he no more felt +the need of going out to parties than he felt the need of altering the +sunset clouds. He lived in a queer and comfortable garret in the roofs +of Lambeth. He was surrounded by a chaos of things that were in +odd contrast to the slums around him; old fantastic books, swords, +armour--the whole dust-hole of romanticism. But his face, amid all these +quixotic relics, appeared curiously keen and modern--a powerful, legal +face. And no one but I knew who he was. + +Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque scene +that occurred in ------, when one of the most acute and forcible of the +English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. I had my own view of that +occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is no question at all. +For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected something +curious in the judge's conduct. He seemed to have lost interest in the +law, in which he had been beyond expression brilliant and terrible as +a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to the +people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very +outspoken one at that. The first thrill was probably given when he said +to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: “I sentence you to +three years imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given +conviction, that what you require is three months at the seaside.” He +accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal +crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a court of +justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity deliberately +encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated diamond case in +which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant patrician, had to come +forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give evidence against his valet. +After the detailed life of the household had been thoroughly exhibited, +the judge requested the Premier again to step forward, which he did with +quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: “Get a +new soul. That thing's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.” All this, of +course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that melancholy +and farcical day when his wits actually deserted him in open court. +It was a libel case between two very eminent and powerful financiers, +against both of whom charges of considerable defalcation were brought. +The case was long and complex; the advocates were long and eloquent; but +at last, after weeks of work and rhetoric, the time came for the great +judge to give a summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of +lucidity and pulverizing logic was eagerly looked for. He had spoken +very little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and lowering +at the end of it. He was silent for a few moments, and then burst into a +stentorian song. His remarks (as reported) were as follows: + +“O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty Highty-ighty +tiddly-ighty Tiddly-ighty ow.” + +He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth. + +I was sitting there one evening, about six o'clock, over a glass of that +gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of black-letter folios; he +was striding about the room, fingering, after a habit of his, one of the +great swords in his collection; the red glare of the strong fire struck +his square features and his fierce grey hair; his blue eyes were even +unusually full of dreams, and he had opened his mouth to speak dreamily, +when the door was flung open, and a pale, fiery man, with red hair and a +huge furred overcoat, swung himself panting into the room. + +“Sorry to bother you, Basil,” he gasped. “I took a liberty--made an +appointment here with a man--a client--in five minutes--I beg your +pardon, sir,” and he gave me a bow of apology. + +Basil smiled at me. “You didn't know,” he said, “that I had a practical +brother. This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is +to be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at +everything. I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist, +an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, a--what are you now, Rupert?” + +“I am and have been for some time,” said Rupert, with some dignity, “a +private detective, and there's my client.” + +A loud rap at the door had cut him short, and, on permission being +given, the door was thrown sharply open and a stout, dapper man walked +swiftly into the room, set his silk hat with a clap on the table, and +said, “Good evening, gentlemen,” with a stress on the last syllable that +somehow marked him out as a martinet, military, literary and social. +He had a large head streaked with black and grey, and an abrupt black +moustache, which gave him a look of fierceness which was contradicted by +his sad sea-blue eyes. + +Basil immediately said to me, “Let us come into the next room, Gully,” + and was moving towards the door, but the stranger said: + +“Not at all. Friends remain. Assistance possibly.” + +The moment I heard him speak I remembered who he was, a certain Major +Brown I had met years before in Basil's society. I had forgotten +altogether the black dandified figure and the large solemn head, but I +remembered the peculiar speech, which consisted of only saying about a +quarter of each sentence, and that sharply, like the crack of a gun. I +do not know, it may have come from giving orders to troops. + +Major Brown was a V.C., and an able and distinguished soldier, but he +was anything but a warlike person. Like many among the iron men who +recovered British India, he was a man with the natural beliefs and +tastes of an old maid. In his dress he was dapper and yet demure; in his +habits he was precise to the point of the exact adjustment of a tea-cup. +One enthusiasm he had, which was of the nature of a religion--the +cultivation of pansies. And when he talked about his collection, his +blue eyes glittered like a child's at a new toy, the eyes that had +remained untroubled when the troops were roaring victory round Roberts +at Candahar. + +“Well, Major,” said Rupert Grant, with a lordly heartiness, flinging +himself into a chair, “what is the matter with you?” + +“Yellow pansies. Coal-cellar. P. G. Northover,” said the Major, with +righteous indignation. + +We glanced at each other with inquisitiveness. Basil, who had his eyes +shut in his abstracted way, said simply: + +“I beg your pardon.” + +“Fact is. Street, you know, man, pansies. On wall. Death to me. +Something. Preposterous.” + +We shook our heads gently. Bit by bit, and mainly by the seemingly +sleepy assistance of Basil Grant, we pieced together the Major's +fragmentary, but excited narration. It would be infamous to submit the +reader to what we endured; therefore I will tell the story of Major +Brown in my own words. But the reader must imagine the scene. The eyes +of Basil closed as in a trance, after his habit, and the eyes of Rupert +and myself getting rounder and rounder as we listened to one of the +most astounding stories in the world, from the lips of the little man in +black, sitting bolt upright in his chair and talking like a telegram. + +Major Brown was, I have said, a successful soldier, but by no means an +enthusiastic one. So far from regretting his retirement on half-pay, +it was with delight that he took a small neat villa, very like a doll's +house, and devoted the rest of his life to pansies and weak tea. The +thought that battles were over when he had once hung up his sword in +the little front hall (along with two patent stew-pots and a bad +water-colour), and betaken himself instead to wielding the rake in his +little sunlit garden, was to him like having come into a harbour in +heaven. He was Dutch-like and precise in his taste in gardening, and +had, perhaps, some tendency to drill his flowers like soldiers. He was +one of those men who are capable of putting four umbrellas in the stand +rather than three, so that two may lean one way and two another; he saw +life like a pattern in a freehand drawing-book. And assuredly he would +not have believed, or even understood, any one who had told him that +within a few yards of his brick paradise he was destined to be caught +in a whirlpool of incredible adventure, such as he had never seen or +dreamed of in the horrible jungle, or the heat of battle. + +One certain bright and windy afternoon, the Major, attired in his usual +faultless manner, had set out for his usual constitutional. In crossing +from one great residential thoroughfare to another, he happened to pass +along one of those aimless-looking lanes which lie along the back-garden +walls of a row of mansions, and which in their empty and discoloured +appearance give one an odd sensation as of being behind the scenes of a +theatre. But mean and sulky as the scene might be in the eyes of most of +us, it was not altogether so in the Major's, for along the coarse +gravel footway was coming a thing which was to him what the passing of +a religious procession is to a devout person. A large, heavy man, with +fish-blue eyes and a ring of irradiating red beard, was pushing before +him a barrow, which was ablaze with incomparable flowers. There were +splendid specimens of almost every order, but the Major's own favourite +pansies predominated. The Major stopped and fell into conversation, and +then into bargaining. He treated the man after the manner of collectors +and other mad men, that is to say, he carefully and with a sort of +anguish selected the best roots from the less excellent, praised some, +disparaged others, made a subtle scale ranging from a thrilling worth +and rarity to a degraded insignificance, and then bought them all. The +man was just pushing off his barrow when he stopped and came close to +the Major. + +“I'll tell you what, sir,” he said. “If you're interested in them +things, you just get on to that wall.” + +“On the wall!” cried the scandalised Major, whose conventional soul +quailed within him at the thought of such fantastic trespass. + +“Finest show of yellow pansies in England in that there garden, sir,” + hissed the tempter. “I'll help you up, sir.” + +How it happened no one will ever know but that positive enthusiasm of +the Major's life triumphed over all its negative traditions, and with +an easy leap and swing that showed that he was in no need of physical +assistance, he stood on the wall at the end of the strange garden. The +second after, the flapping of the frock-coat at his knees made him feel +inexpressibly a fool. But the next instant all such trifling sentiments +were swallowed up by the most appalling shock of surprise the old +soldier had ever felt in all his bold and wandering existence. His eyes +fell upon the garden, and there across a large bed in the centre of the +lawn was a vast pattern of pansies; they were splendid flowers, but for +once it was not their horticultural aspects that Major Brown beheld, for +the pansies were arranged in gigantic capital letters so as to form the +sentence: + +DEATH TO MAJOR BROWN + +A kindly looking old man, with white whiskers, was watering them. Brown +looked sharply back at the road behind him; the man with the barrow had +suddenly vanished. Then he looked again at the lawn with its incredible +inscription. Another man might have thought he had gone mad, but Brown +did not. When romantic ladies gushed over his V.C. and his military +exploits, he sometimes felt himself to be a painfully prosaic person, +but by the same token he knew he was incurably sane. Another man, again, +might have thought himself a victim of a passing practical joke, +but Brown could not easily believe this. He knew from his own quaint +learning that the garden arrangement was an elaborate and expensive one; +he thought it extravagantly improbable that any one would pour out money +like water for a joke against him. Having no explanation whatever to +offer, he admitted the fact to himself, like a clear-headed man, and +waited as he would have done in the presence of a man with six legs. + +At this moment the stout old man with white whiskers looked up, and +the watering can fell from his hand, shooting a swirl of water down the +gravel path. + +“Who on earth are you?” he gasped, trembling violently. + +“I am Major Brown,” said that individual, who was always cool in the +hour of action. + +The old man gaped helplessly like some monstrous fish. At last he +stammered wildly, “Come down--come down here!” + +“At your service,” said the Major, and alighted at a bound on the grass +beside him, without disarranging his silk hat. + +The old man turned his broad back and set off at a sort of waddling run +towards the house, followed with swift steps by the Major. His guide +led him through the back passages of a gloomy, but gorgeously appointed +house, until they reached the door of the front room. Then the old man +turned with a face of apoplectic terror dimly showing in the twilight. + +“For heaven's sake,” he said, “don't mention jackals.” + +Then he threw open the door, releasing a burst of red lamplight, and ran +downstairs with a clatter. + +The Major stepped into a rich, glowing room, full of red copper, and +peacock and purple hangings, hat in hand. He had the finest manners in +the world, and, though mystified, was not in the least embarrassed to +see that the only occupant was a lady, sitting by the window, looking +out. + +“Madam,” he said, bowing simply, “I am Major Brown.” + +“Sit down,” said the lady; but she did not turn her head. + +She was a graceful, green-clad figure, with fiery red hair and a flavour +of Bedford Park. “You have come, I suppose,” she said mournfully, “to +tax me about the hateful title-deeds.” + +“I have come, madam,” he said, “to know what is the matter. To know why +my name is written across your garden. Not amicably either.” + +He spoke grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible to describe +the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny garden scene, +the frame for a stunning and brutal personality. The evening air was +still, and the grass was golden in the place where the little flowers he +studied cried to heaven for his blood. + +“You know I must not turn round,” said the lady; “every afternoon till +the stroke of six I must keep my face turned to the street.” + +Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier resolute to +accept these outrageous riddles without surprise. + +“It is almost six,” he said; and even as he spoke the barbaric copper +clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour. At the sixth +the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one of the queerest and +yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in his life; open, and yet +tantalising, the face of an elf. + +“That makes the third year I have waited,” she cried. “This is an +anniversary. The waiting almost makes one wish the frightful thing would +happen once and for all.” + +And even as she spoke, a sudden rending cry broke the stillness. From +low down on the pavement of the dim street (it was already twilight) a +voice cried out with a raucous and merciless distinctness: + +“Major Brown, Major Brown, where does the jackal dwell?” + +Brown was decisive and silent in action. He strode to the front door +and looked out. There was no sign of life in the blue gloaming of the +street, where one or two lamps were beginning to light their lemon +sparks. On returning, he found the lady in green trembling. + +“It is the end,” she cried, with shaking lips; “it may be death for both +of us. Whenever--” + +But even as she spoke her speech was cloven by another hoarse +proclamation from the dark street, again horribly articulate. + +“Major Brown, Major Brown, how did the jackal die?” + +Brown dashed out of the door and down the steps, but again he was +frustrated; there was no figure in sight, and the street was far too +long and empty for the shouter to have run away. Even the rational +Major was a little shaken as he returned in a certain time to the +drawing-room. Scarcely had he done so than the terrific voice came: + +“Major Brown, Major Brown, where did--” + +Brown was in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time--in +time to see something which at first glance froze the blood. The cries +appeared to come from a decapitated head resting on the pavement. + +The next moment the pale Major understood. It was the head of a man +thrust through the coal-hole in the street. The next moment, again, +it had vanished, and Major Brown turned to the lady. “Where's your +coal-cellar?” he said, and stepped out into the passage. + +She looked at him with wild grey eyes. “You will not go down,” she +cried, “alone, into the dark hole, with that beast?” + +“Is this the way?” replied Brown, and descended the kitchen stairs three +at a time. He flung open the door of a black cavity and stepped in, +feeling in his pocket for matches. As his right hand was thus occupied, +a pair of great slimy hands came out of the darkness, hands clearly +belonging to a man of gigantic stature, and seized him by the back of +the head. They forced him down, down in the suffocating darkness, a +brutal image of destiny. But the Major's head, though upside down, was +perfectly clear and intellectual. He gave quietly under the pressure +until he had slid down almost to his hands and knees. Then finding the +knees of the invisible monster within a foot of him, he simply put out +one of his long, bony, and skilful hands, and gripping the leg by a +muscle pulled it off the ground and laid the huge living man, with a +crash, along the floor. He strove to rise, but Brown was on top like a +cat. They rolled over and over. Big as the man was, he had evidently now +no desire but to escape; he made sprawls hither and thither to get past +the Major to the door, but that tenacious person had him hard by the +coat collar and hung with the other hand to a beam. At length there came +a strain in holding back this human bull, a strain under which Brown +expected his hand to rend and part from the arm. But something else +rent and parted; and the dim fat figure of the giant vanished out of the +cellar, leaving the torn coat in the Major's hand; the only fruit of his +adventure and the only clue to the mystery. For when he went up and out +at the front door, the lady, the rich hangings, and the whole equipment +of the house had disappeared. It had only bare boards and whitewashed +walls. + +“The lady was in the conspiracy, of course,” said Rupert, nodding. Major +Brown turned brick red. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “I think not.” + +Rupert raised his eyebrows and looked at him for a moment, but said +nothing. When next he spoke he asked: + +“Was there anything in the pockets of the coat?” + +“There was sevenpence halfpenny in coppers and a threepenny-bit,” said +the Major carefully; “there was a cigarette-holder, a piece of string, +and this letter,” and he laid it on the table. It ran as follows: + +Dear Mr Plover, + +I am annoyed to hear that some delay has occurred in the arrangements re +Major Brown. Please see that he is attacked as per arrangement tomorrow. +The coal-cellar, of course. + +Yours faithfully, P. G. Northover. + +Rupert Grant was leaning forward listening with hawk-like eyes. He cut +in: + +“Is it dated from anywhere?” + +“No--oh, yes!” replied Brown, glancing upon the paper; “14 Tanner's +Court, North--” + +Rupert sprang up and struck his hands together. + +“Then why are we hanging here? Let's get along. Basil, lend me your +revolver.” + +Basil was staring into the embers like a man in a trance; and it was +some time before he answered: + +“I don't think you'll need it.” + +“Perhaps not,” said Rupert, getting into his fur coat. “One never knows. +But going down a dark court to see criminals--” + +“Do you think they are criminals?” asked his brother. + +Rupert laughed stoutly. “Giving orders to a subordinate to strangle a +harmless stranger in a coal-cellar may strike you as a very blameless +experiment, but--” + +“Do you think they wanted to strangle the Major?” asked Basil, in the +same distant and monotonous voice. + +“My dear fellow, you've been asleep. Look at the letter.” + +“I am looking at the letter,” said the mad judge calmly; though, as a +matter of fact, he was looking at the fire. “I don't think it's the sort +of letter one criminal would write to another.” + +“My dear boy, you are glorious,” cried Rupert, turning round, with +laughter in his blue bright eyes. “Your methods amaze me. Why, there +is the letter. It is written, and it does give orders for a crime. You +might as well say that the Nelson Column was not at all the sort of +thing that was likely to be set up in Trafalgar Square.” + +Basil Grant shook all over with a sort of silent laughter, but did not +otherwise move. + +“That's rather good,” he said; “but, of course, logic like that's not +what is really wanted. It's a question of spiritual atmosphere. It's not +a criminal letter.” + +“It is. It's a matter of fact,” cried the other in an agony of +reasonableness. + +“Facts,” murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off +animals, “how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly--in fact, I'm +off my head--but I never could believe in that man--what's his name, +in those capital stories?--Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to +something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in +all directions, it seems to me, like the thousands of twigs on a tree. +It's only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up--only the +green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars.” + +“But what the deuce else can the letter be but criminal?” + +“We have eternity to stretch our legs in,” replied the mystic. “It can +be an infinity of things. I haven't seen any of them--I've only seen the +letter. I look at that, and say it's not criminal.” + +“Then what's the origin of it?” + +“I haven't the vaguest idea.” + +“Then why don't you accept the ordinary explanation?” + +Basil continued for a little to glare at the coals, and seemed +collecting his thoughts in a humble and even painful way. Then he said: + +“Suppose you went out into the moonlight. Suppose you passed through +silent, silvery streets and squares until you came into an open and +deserted space, set with a few monuments, and you beheld one dressed as +a ballet girl dancing in the argent glimmer. And suppose you looked, and +saw it was a man disguised. And suppose you looked again, and saw it was +Lord Kitchener. What would you think?” + +He paused a moment, and went on: + +“You could not adopt the ordinary explanation. The ordinary explanation +of putting on singular clothes is that you look nice in them; you would +not think that Lord Kitchener dressed up like a ballet girl out of +ordinary personal vanity. You would think it much more likely that +he inherited a dancing madness from a great grandmother; or had been +hypnotised at a seance; or threatened by a secret society with death if +he refused the ordeal. With Baden-Powell, say, it might be a bet--but +not with Kitchener. I should know all that, because in my public days +I knew him quite well. So I know that letter quite well, and criminals +quite well. It's not a criminal's letter. It's all atmospheres.” And he +closed his eyes and passed his hand over his forehead. + +Rupert and the Major were regarding him with a mixture of respect and +pity. The former said, + +“Well, I'm going, anyhow, and shall continue to think--until your +spiritual mystery turns up--that a man who sends a note recommending a +crime, that is, actually a crime that is actually carried out, at +least tentatively, is, in all probability, a little casual in his moral +tastes. Can I have that revolver?” + +“Certainly,” said Basil, getting up. “But I am coming with you.” And he +flung an old cape or cloak round him, and took a sword-stick from the +corner. + +“You!” said Rupert, with some surprise, “you scarcely ever leave your +hole to look at anything on the face of the earth.” + +Basil fitted on a formidable old white hat. + +“I scarcely ever,” he said, with an unconscious and colossal arrogance, +“hear of anything on the face of the earth that I do not understand at +once, without going to see it.” + +And he led the way out into the purple night. + +We four swung along the flaring Lambeth streets, across Westminster +Bridge, and along the Embankment in the direction of that part of Fleet +Street which contained Tanner's Court. The erect, black figure of Major +Brown, seen from behind, was a quaint contrast to the hound-like stoop +and flapping mantle of young Rupert Grant, who adopted, with childlike +delight, all the dramatic poses of the detective of fiction. The finest +among his many fine qualities was his boyish appetite for the colour and +poetry of London. Basil, who walked behind, with his face turned blindly +to the stars, had the look of a somnambulist. + +Rupert paused at the corner of Tanner's Court, with a quiver of delight +at danger, and gripped Basil's revolver in his great-coat pocket. + +“Shall we go in now?” he asked. + +“Not get police?” asked Major Brown, glancing sharply up and down the +street. + +“I am not sure,” answered Rupert, knitting his brows. “Of course, it's +quite clear, the thing's all crooked. But there are three of us, and--” + +“I shouldn't get the police,” said Basil in a queer voice. Rupert +glanced at him and stared hard. + +“Basil,” he cried, “you're trembling. What's the matter--are you +afraid?” + +“Cold, perhaps,” said the Major, eyeing him. There was no doubt that he +was shaking. + +At last, after a few moments' scrutiny, Rupert broke into a curse. + +“You're laughing,” he cried. “I know that confounded, silent, shaky +laugh of yours. What the deuce is the amusement, Basil? Here we are, all +three of us, within a yard of a den of ruffians--” + +“But I shouldn't call the police,” said Basil. “We four heroes are quite +equal to a host,” and he continued to quake with his mysterious mirth. + +Rupert turned with impatience and strode swiftly down the court, the +rest of us following. When he reached the door of No. 14 he turned +abruptly, the revolver glittering in his hand. + +“Stand close,” he said in the voice of a commander. “The scoundrel may +be attempting an escape at this moment. We must fling open the door and +rush in.” + +The four of us cowered instantly under the archway, rigid, except for +the old judge and his convulsion of merriment. + +“Now,” hissed Rupert Grant, turning his pale face and burning eyes +suddenly over his shoulder, “when I say 'Four', follow me with a rush. +If I say 'Hold him', pin the fellows down, whoever they are. If I say +'Stop', stop. I shall say that if there are more than three. If +they attack us I shall empty my revolver on them. Basil, have your +sword-stick ready. Now--one, two, three, four!” + +With the sound of the word the door burst open, and we fell into the +room like an invasion, only to stop dead. + +The room, which was an ordinary and neatly appointed office, appeared, +at the first glance, to be empty. But on a second and more careful +glance, we saw seated behind a very large desk with pigeonholes and +drawers of bewildering multiplicity, a small man with a black waxed +moustache, and the air of a very average clerk, writing hard. He looked +up as we came to a standstill. + +“Did you knock?” he asked pleasantly. “I am sorry if I did not hear. +What can I do for you?” + +There was a doubtful pause, and then, by general consent, the Major +himself, the victim of the outrage, stepped forward. + +The letter was in his hand, and he looked unusually grim. + +“Is your name P. G. Northover?” he asked. + +“That is my name,” replied the other, smiling. + +“I think,” said Major Brown, with an increase in the dark glow of his +face, “that this letter was written by you.” And with a loud clap he +struck open the letter on the desk with his clenched fist. The man +called Northover looked at it with unaffected interest and merely +nodded. + +“Well, sir,” said the Major, breathing hard, “what about that?” + +“What about it, precisely,” said the man with the moustache. + +“I am Major Brown,” said that gentleman sternly. + +Northover bowed. “Pleased to meet you, sir. What have you to say to me?” + +“Say!” cried the Major, loosing a sudden tempest; “why, I want this +confounded thing settled. I want--” + +“Certainly, sir,” said Northover, jumping up with a slight elevation of +the eyebrows. “Will you take a chair for a moment.” And he pressed +an electric bell just above him, which thrilled and tinkled in a room +beyond. The Major put his hand on the back of the chair offered him, but +stood chafing and beating the floor with his polished boot. + +The next moment an inner glass door was opened, and a fair, weedy, young +man, in a frock-coat, entered from within. + +“Mr Hopson,” said Northover, “this is Major Brown. Will you please +finish that thing for him I gave you this morning and bring it in?” + +“Yes, sir,” said Mr Hopson, and vanished like lightning. + +“You will excuse me, gentlemen,” said the egregious Northover, with his +radiant smile, “if I continue to work until Mr Hopson is ready. I have +some books that must be cleared up before I get away on my holiday +tomorrow. And we all like a whiff of the country, don't we? Ha! ha!” + +The criminal took up his pen with a childlike laugh, and a silence +ensued; a placid and busy silence on the part of Mr P. G. Northover; a +raging silence on the part of everybody else. + +At length the scratching of Northover's pen in the stillness was mingled +with a knock at the door, almost simultaneous with the turning of the +handle, and Mr Hopson came in again with the same silent rapidity, +placed a paper before his principal, and disappeared again. + +The man at the desk pulled and twisted his spiky moustache for a few +moments as he ran his eye up and down the paper presented to him. +He took up his pen, with a slight, instantaneous frown, and altered +something, muttering--“Careless.” Then he read it again with the same +impenetrable reflectiveness, and finally handed it to the frantic Brown, +whose hand was beating the devil's tattoo on the back of the chair. + +“I think you will find that all right, Major,” he said briefly. + +The Major looked at it; whether he found it all right or not will appear +later, but he found it like this: + + Major Brown to P. G. Northover. £ s. d. + January 1, to account rendered 5 6 0 + May 9, to potting and embedding of 200 pansies 2 0 0 + To cost of trolley with flowers 0 15 0 + To hiring of man with trolley 0 5 0 + To hire of house and garden for one day 1 0 0 + To furnishing of room in peacock curtains, copper ornaments, etc. 3 0 0 + To salary of Miss Jameson 1 0 0 + To salary of Mr Plover 1 0 0 + ---------- + Total L14 6 0 + A Remittance will oblige. + +“What,” said Brown, after a dead pause, and with eyes that seemed slowly +rising out of his head, “What in heaven's name is this?” + +“What is it?” repeated Northover, cocking his eyebrow with amusement. +“It's your account, of course.” + +“My account!” The Major's ideas appeared to be in a vague stampede. “My +account! And what have I got to do with it?” + +“Well,” said Northover, laughing outright, “naturally I prefer you to +pay it.” + +The Major's hand was still resting on the back of the chair as the words +came. He scarcely stirred otherwise, but he lifted the chair bodily into +the air with one hand and hurled it at Northover's head. + +The legs crashed against the desk, so that Northover only got a blow on +the elbow as he sprang up with clenched fists, only to be seized by the +united rush of the rest of us. The chair had fallen clattering on the +empty floor. + +“Let me go, you scamps,” he shouted. “Let me--” + +“Stand still,” cried Rupert authoritatively. “Major Brown's action is +excusable. The abominable crime you have attempted--” + +“A customer has a perfect right,” said Northover hotly, “to question an +alleged overcharge, but, confound it all, not to throw furniture.” + +“What, in God's name, do you mean by your customers and overcharges?” + shrieked Major Brown, whose keen feminine nature, steady in pain +or danger, became almost hysterical in the presence of a long and +exasperating mystery. “Who are you? I've never seen you or your insolent +tomfool bills. I know one of your cursed brutes tried to choke me--” + +“Mad,” said Northover, gazing blankly round; “all of them mad. I didn't +know they travelled in quartettes.” + +“Enough of this prevarication,” said Rupert; “your crimes are +discovered. A policeman is stationed at the corner of the court. Though +only a private detective myself, I will take the responsibility of +telling you that anything you say--” + +“Mad,” repeated Northover, with a weary air. + +And at this moment, for the first time, there struck in among them the +strange, sleepy voice of Basil Grant. + +“Major Brown,” he said, “may I ask you a question?” + +The Major turned his head with an increased bewilderment. + +“You?” he cried; “certainly, Mr Grant.” + +“Can you tell me,” said the mystic, with sunken head and lowering brow, +as he traced a pattern in the dust with his sword-stick, “can you tell +me what was the name of the man who lived in your house before you?” + +The unhappy Major was only faintly more disturbed by this last and +futile irrelevancy, and he answered vaguely: + +“Yes, I think so; a man named Gurney something--a name with a +hyphen--Gurney-Brown; that was it.” + +“And when did the house change hands?” said Basil, looking up sharply. +His strange eyes were burning brilliantly. + +“I came in last month,” said the Major. + +And at the mere word the criminal Northover suddenly fell into his great +office chair and shouted with a volleying laughter. + +“Oh! it's too perfect--it's too exquisite,” he gasped, beating the arms +with his fists. He was laughing deafeningly; Basil Grant was laughing +voicelessly; and the rest of us only felt that our heads were like +weathercocks in a whirlwind. + +“Confound it, Basil,” said Rupert, stamping. “If you don't want me to go +mad and blow your metaphysical brains out, tell me what all this means.” + +Northover rose. + +“Permit me, sir, to explain,” he said. “And, first of all, permit me to +apologize to you, Major Brown, for a most abominable and unpardonable +blunder, which has caused you menace and inconvenience, in which, if you +will allow me to say so, you have behaved with astonishing courage and +dignity. Of course you need not trouble about the bill. We will stand +the loss.” And, tearing the paper across, he flung the halves into the +waste-paper basket and bowed. + +Poor Brown's face was still a picture of distraction. “But I don't even +begin to understand,” he cried. “What bill? what blunder? what loss?” + +Mr P. G. Northover advanced in the centre of the room, thoughtfully, and +with a great deal of unconscious dignity. On closer consideration, +there were apparent about him other things beside a screwed moustache, +especially a lean, sallow face, hawk-like, and not without a careworn +intelligence. Then he looked up abruptly. + +“Do you know where you are, Major?” he said. + +“God knows I don't,” said the warrior, with fervour. + +“You are standing,” replied Northover, “in the office of the Adventure +and Romance Agency, Limited.” + +“And what's that?” blankly inquired Brown. + +The man of business leaned over the back of the chair, and fixed his +dark eyes on the other's face. + +“Major,” said he, “did you ever, as you walked along the empty street +upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for something to +happen--something, in the splendid words of Walt Whitman: 'Something +pernicious and dread; something far removed from a puny and pious life; +something unproved; something in a trance; something loosed from its +anchorage, and driving free.' Did you ever feel that?” + +“Certainly not,” said the Major shortly. + +“Then I must explain with more elaboration,” said Mr Northover, with a +sigh. “The Adventure and Romance Agency has been started to meet a great +modern desire. On every side, in conversation and in literature, we hear +of the desire for a larger theatre of events for something to waylay us +and lead us splendidly astray. Now the man who feels this desire for +a varied life pays a yearly or a quarterly sum to the Adventure and +Romance Agency; in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes +to surround him with startling and weird events. As a man is leaving his +front door, an excited sweep approaches him and assures him of a plot +against his life; he gets into a cab, and is driven to an opium den; he +receives a mysterious telegram or a dramatic visit, and is immediately +in a vortex of incidents. A very picturesque and moving story is first +written by one of the staff of distinguished novelists who are at +present hard at work in the adjoining room. Yours, Major Brown (designed +by our Mr Grigsby), I consider peculiarly forcible and pointed; it is +almost a pity you did not see the end of it. I need scarcely explain +further the monstrous mistake. Your predecessor in your present house, +Mr Gurney-Brown, was a subscriber to our agency, and our foolish clerks, +ignoring alike the dignity of the hyphen and the glory of military rank, +positively imagined that Major Brown and Mr Gurney-Brown were the same +person. Thus you were suddenly hurled into the middle of another man's +story.” + +“How on earth does the thing work?” asked Rupert Grant, with bright and +fascinated eyes. + +“We believe that we are doing a noble work,” said Northover warmly. “It +has continually struck us that there is no element in modern life that +is more lamentable than the fact that the modern man has to seek all +artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he wishes to float into +fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of +battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to soar into heaven, he reads a +book; if he wishes to slide down the banisters, he reads a book. We +give him these visions, but we give him exercise at the same time, the +necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, +of running down long streets from pursuers--all healthy and pleasant +exercises. We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin +Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under the +splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that godlike time when we +can act stories, be our own heroes, and at the same instant dance and +dream.” + +Basil gazed at him curiously. The most singular psychological discovery +had been reserved to the end, for as the little business man ceased +speaking he had the blazing eyes of a fanatic. + +Major Brown received the explanation with complete simplicity and good +humour. + +“Of course; awfully dense, sir,” he said. “No doubt at all, the scheme +excellent. But I don't think--” He paused a moment, and looked dreamily +out of the window. “I don't think you will find me in it. Somehow, when +one's seen--seen the thing itself, you know--blood and men screaming, +one feels about having a little house and a little hobby; in the Bible, +you know, 'There remaineth a rest'.” + +Northover bowed. Then after a pause he said: + +“Gentlemen, may I offer you my card. If any of the rest of you desire, +at any time, to communicate with me, despite Major Brown's view of the +matter--” + +“I should be obliged for your card, sir,” said the Major, in his abrupt +but courteous voice. “Pay for chair.” + +The agent of Romance and Adventure handed his card, laughing. + +It ran, “P. G. Northover, B.A., C.Q.T., Adventure and Romance Agency, 14 +Tanner's Court, Fleet Street.” + +“What on earth is 'C.Q.T.'?” asked Rupert Grant, looking over the Major's +shoulder. + +“Don't you know?” returned Northover. “Haven't you ever heard of the +Club of Queer Trades?” + +“There seems to be a confounded lot of funny things we haven't heard +of,” said the little Major reflectively. “What's this one?” + +“The Club of Queer Trades is a society consisting exclusively of people +who have invented some new and curious way of making money. I was one of +the earliest members.” + +“You deserve to be,” said Basil, taking up his great white hat, with a +smile, and speaking for the last time that evening. + +When they had passed out the Adventure and Romance agent wore a queer +smile, as he trod down the fire and locked up his desk. “A fine chap, +that Major; when one hasn't a touch of the poet one stands some chance +of being a poem. But to think of such a clockwork little creature of all +people getting into the nets of one of Grigsby's tales,” and he laughed +out aloud in the silence. + +Just as the laugh echoed away, there came a sharp knock at the door. An +owlish head, with dark moustaches, was thrust in, with deprecating and +somewhat absurd inquiry. + +“What! back again, Major?” cried Northover in surprise. “What can I do +for you?” + +The Major shuffled feverishly into the room. + +“It's horribly absurd,” he said. “Something must have got started in +me that I never knew before. But upon my soul I feel the most desperate +desire to know the end of it all.” + +“The end of it all?” + +“Yes,” said the Major. “'Jackals', and the title-deeds, and 'Death to +Major Brown'.” + +The agent's face grew grave, but his eyes were amused. + +“I am terribly sorry, Major,” said he, “but what you ask is impossible. +I don't know any one I would sooner oblige than you; but the rules +of the agency are strict. The Adventures are confidential; you are an +outsider; I am not allowed to let you know an inch more than I can help. +I do hope you understand--” + +“There is no one,” said Brown, “who understands discipline better than I +do. Thank you very much. Good night.” + +And the little man withdrew for the last time. + +He married Miss Jameson, the lady with the red hair and the green +garments. She was an actress, employed (with many others) by the Romance +Agency; and her marriage with the prim old veteran caused some stir in +her languid and intellectualized set. She always replied very quietly +that she had met scores of men who acted splendidly in the charades +provided for them by Northover, but that she had only met one man who +went down into a coal-cellar when he really thought it contained a +murderer. + +The Major and she are living as happily as birds, in an absurd villa, +and the former has taken to smoking. Otherwise he is unchanged--except, +perhaps, there are moments when, alert and full of feminine +unselfishness as the Major is by nature, he falls into a trance of +abstraction. Then his wife recognizes with a concealed smile, by +the blind look in his blue eyes, that he is wondering what were the +title-deeds, and why he was not allowed to mention jackals. But, like so +many old soldiers, Brown is religious, and believes that he will realize +the rest of those purple adventures in a better world. + + + +Chapter 2. The Painful Fall of a Great Reputation + +Basil Grant and I were talking one day in what is perhaps the most +perfect place for talking on earth--the top of a tolerably deserted +tramcar. To talk on the top of a hill is superb, but to talk on the top +of a flying hill is a fairy tale. + +The vast blank space of North London was flying by; the very pace gave +us a sense of its immensity and its meanness. It was, as it were, a base +infinitude, a squalid eternity, and we felt the real horror of the poor +parts of London, the horror that is so totally missed and misrepresented +by the sensational novelists who depict it as being a matter of narrow +streets, filthy houses, criminals and maniacs, and dens of vice. In a +narrow street, in a den of vice, you do not expect civilization, you +do not expect order. But the horror of this was the fact that there was +civilization, that there was order, but that civilisation only showed +its morbidity, and order only its monotony. No one would say, in going +through a criminal slum, “I see no statues. I notice no cathedrals.” But +here there were public buildings; only they were mostly lunatic asylums. +Here there were statues; only they were mostly statues of railway +engineers and philanthropists--two dingy classes of men united by their +common contempt for the people. Here there were churches; only they were +the churches of dim and erratic sects, Agapemonites or Irvingites. Here, +above all, there were broad roads and vast crossings and tramway lines +and hospitals and all the real marks of civilization. But though one +never knew, in one sense, what one would see next, there was one thing +we knew we should not see--anything really great, central, of the +first class, anything that humanity had adored. And with revulsion +indescribable our emotions returned, I think, to those really close and +crooked entries, to those really mean streets, to those genuine slums +which lie round the Thames and the City, in which nevertheless a real +possibility remains that at any chance corner the great cross of the +great cathedral of Wren may strike down the street like a thunderbolt. + +“But you must always remember also,” said Grant to me, in his heavy +abstracted way, when I had urged this view, “that the very vileness of +the life of these ordered plebeian places bears witness to the victory +of the human soul. I agree with you. I agree that they have to live +in something worse than barbarism. They have to live in a fourth-rate +civilization. But yet I am practically certain that the majority of +people here are good people. And being good is an adventure far more +violent and daring than sailing round the world. Besides--” + +“Go on,” I said. + +No answer came. + +“Go on,” I said, looking up. + +The big blue eyes of Basil Grant were standing out of his head and he +was paying no attention to me. He was staring over the side of the tram. + +“What is the matter?” I asked, peering over also. + +“It is very odd,” said Grant at last, grimly, “that I should have been +caught out like this at the very moment of my optimism. I said all these +people were good, and there is the wickedest man in England.” + +“Where?” I asked, leaning over further, “where?” + +“Oh, I was right enough,” he went on, in that strange continuous and +sleepy tone which always angered his hearers at acute moments, “I was +right enough when I said all these people were good. They are heroes; +they are saints. Now and then they may perhaps steal a spoon or two; +they may beat a wife or two with the poker. But they are saints all the +same; they are angels; they are robed in white; they are clad with wings +and haloes--at any rate compared to that man.” + +“Which man?” I cried again, and then my eye caught the figure at which +Basil's bull's eyes were glaring. + +He was a slim, smooth person, passing very quickly among the quickly +passing crowd, but though there was nothing about him sufficient to +attract a startled notice, there was quite enough to demand a curious +consideration when once that notice was attracted. He wore a black +top-hat, but there was enough in it of those strange curves whereby the +decadent artist of the eighties tried to turn the top-hat into something +as rhythmic as an Etruscan vase. His hair, which was largely grey, was +curled with the instinct of one who appreciated the gradual beauty of +grey and silver. The rest of his face was oval and, I thought, rather +Oriental; he had two black tufts of moustache. + +“What has he done?” I asked. + +“I am not sure of the details,” said Grant, “but his besetting sin is +a desire to intrigue to the disadvantage of others. Probably he has +adopted some imposture or other to effect his plan.” + +“What plan?” I asked. “If you know all about him, why don't you tell me +why he is the wickedest man in England? What is his name?” + +Basil Grant stared at me for some moments. + +“I think you've made a mistake in my meaning,” he said. “I don't know +his name. I never saw him before in my life.” + +“Never saw him before!” I cried, with a kind of anger; “then what in +heaven's name do you mean by saying that he is the wickedest man in +England?” + +“I meant what I said,” said Basil Grant calmly. “The moment I saw +that man, I saw all these people stricken with a sudden and splendid +innocence. I saw that while all ordinary poor men in the streets were +being themselves, he was not being himself. I saw that all the men in +these slums, cadgers, pickpockets, hooligans, are all, in the deepest +sense, trying to be good. And I saw that that man was trying to be +evil.” + +“But if you never saw him before--” I began. + +“In God's name, look at his face,” cried out Basil in a voice that +startled the driver. “Look at the eyebrows. They mean that infernal +pride which made Satan so proud that he sneered even at heaven when he +was one of the first angels in it. Look at his moustaches, they are so +grown as to insult humanity. In the name of the sacred heavens look at +his hair. In the name of God and the stars, look at his hat.” + +I stirred uncomfortably. + +“But, after all,” I said, “this is very fanciful--perfectly absurd. Look +at the mere facts. You have never seen the man before, you--” + +“Oh, the mere facts,” he cried out in a kind of despair. “The mere +facts! Do you really admit--are you still so sunk in superstitions, so +clinging to dim and prehistoric altars, that you believe in facts? Do +you not trust an immediate impression?” + +“Well, an immediate impression may be,” I said, “a little less practical +than facts.” + +“Bosh,” he said. “On what else is the whole world run but immediate +impressions? What is more practical? My friend, the philosophy of +this world may be founded on facts, its business is run on spiritual +impressions and atmospheres. Why do you refuse or accept a clerk? Do you +measure his skull? Do you read up his physiological state in a handbook? +Do you go upon facts at all? Not a scrap. You accept a clerk who may +save your business--you refuse a clerk that may rob your till, entirely +upon those immediate mystical impressions under the pressure of which +I pronounce, with a perfect sense of certainty and sincerity, that that +man walking in that street beside us is a humbug and a villain of some +kind.” + +“You always put things well,” I said, “but, of course, such things +cannot immediately be put to the test.” + +Basil sprang up straight and swayed with the swaying car. + +“Let us get off and follow him,” he said. “I bet you five pounds it will +turn out as I say.” + +And with a scuttle, a jump, and a run, we were off the car. + +The man with the curved silver hair and the curved Eastern face walked +along for some time, his long splendid frock-coat flying behind him. +Then he swung sharply out of the great glaring road and disappeared down +an ill-lit alley. We swung silently after him. + +“This is an odd turning for a man of that kind to take,” I said. + +“A man of what kind?” asked my friend. + +“Well,” I said, “a man with that kind of expression and those boots. I +thought it rather odd, to tell the truth, that he should be in this part +of the world at all.” + +“Ah, yes,” said Basil, and said no more. + +We tramped on, looking steadily in front of us. The elegant figure, like +the figure of a black swan, was silhouetted suddenly against the +glare of intermittent gaslight and then swallowed again in night. The +intervals between the lights were long, and a fog was thickening the +whole city. Our pace, therefore, had become swift and mechanical between +the lamp-posts; but Basil came to a standstill suddenly like a reined +horse; I stopped also. We had almost run into the man. A great part of +the solid darkness in front of us was the darkness of his body. + +At first I thought he had turned to face us. But though we were hardly a +yard off he did not realize that we were there. He tapped four times on +a very low and dirty door in the dark, crabbed street. A gleam of gas +cut the darkness as it opened slowly. We listened intently, but the +interview was short and simple and inexplicable as an interview could +be. Our exquisite friend handed in what looked like a paper or a card +and said: + +“At once. Take a cab.” + +A heavy, deep voice from inside said: + +“Right you are.” + +And with a click we were in the blackness again, and striding after the +striding stranger through a labyrinth of London lanes, the lights just +helping us. It was only five o'clock, but winter and the fog had made it +like midnight. + +“This is really an extraordinary walk for the patent-leather boots,” I +repeated. + +“I don't know,” said Basil humbly. “It leads to Berkeley Square.” + +As I tramped on I strained my eyes through the dusky atmosphere and +tried to make out the direction described. For some ten minutes I +wondered and doubted; at the end of that I saw that my friend was right. +We were coming to the great dreary spaces of fashionable London--more +dreary, one must admit, even than the dreary plebeian spaces. + +“This is very extraordinary!” said Basil Grant, as we turned into +Berkeley Square. + +“What is extraordinary?” I asked. “I thought you said it was quite +natural.” + +“I do not wonder,” answered Basil, “at his walking through nasty +streets; I do not wonder at his going to Berkeley Square. But I do +wonder at his going to the house of a very good man.” + +“What very good man?” I asked with exasperation. + +“The operation of time is a singular one,” he said with his +imperturbable irrelevancy. “It is not a true statement of the case to +say that I have forgotten my career when I was a judge and a public man. +I remember it all vividly, but it is like remembering some novel. But +fifteen years ago I knew this square as well as Lord Rosebery does, and +a confounded long sight better than that man who is going up the steps +of old Beaumont's house.” + +“Who is old Beaumont?” I asked irritably. + +“A perfectly good fellow. Lord Beaumont of Foxwood--don't you know his +name? He is a man of transparent sincerity, a nobleman who does more +work than a navvy, a socialist, an anarchist, I don't know what; +anyhow, he's a philosopher and philanthropist. I admit he has the slight +disadvantage of being, beyond all question, off his head. He has that +real disadvantage which has arisen out of the modern worship of progress +and novelty; and he thinks anything odd and new must be an advance. If +you went to him and proposed to eat your grandmother, he would agree +with you, so long as you put it on hygienic and public grounds, as a +cheap alternative to cremation. So long as you progress fast enough it +seems a matter of indifference to him whether you are progressing to the +stars or the devil. So his house is filled with an endless succession +of literary and political fashions; men who wear long hair because it is +romantic; men who wear short hair because it is medical; men who walk on +their feet only to exercise their hands; and men who walk on their hands +for fear of tiring their feet. But though the inhabitants of his salons +are generally fools, like himself, they are almost always, like himself, +good men. I am really surprised to see a criminal enter there.” + +“My good fellow,” I said firmly, striking my foot on the pavement, “the +truth of this affair is very simple. To use your own eloquent language, +you have the 'slight disadvantage' of being off your head. You see a +total stranger in a public street; you choose to start certain theories +about his eyebrows. You then treat him as a burglar because he enters an +honest man's door. The thing is too monstrous. Admit that it is, Basil, +and come home with me. Though these people are still having tea, yet +with the distance we have to go, we shall be late for dinner.” + +Basil's eyes were shining in the twilight like lamps. + +“I thought,” he said, “that I had outlived vanity.” + +“What do you want now?” I cried. + +“I want,” he cried out, “what a girl wants when she wears her new frock; +I want what a boy wants when he goes in for a clanging match with a +monitor--I want to show somebody what a fine fellow I am. I am as right +about that man as I am about your having a hat on your head. You say +it cannot be tested. I say it can. I will take you to see my old friend +Beaumont. He is a delightful man to know.” + +“Do you really mean--?” I began. + +“I will apologize,” he said calmly, “for our not being dressed for a +call,” and walking across the vast misty square, he walked up the dark +stone steps and rang at the bell. + +A severe servant in black and white opened the door to us: on receiving +my friend's name his manner passed in a flash from astonishment to +respect. We were ushered into the house very quickly, but not so quickly +but that our host, a white-haired man with a fiery face, came out +quickly to meet us. + +“My dear fellow,” he cried, shaking Basil's hand again and again, +“I have not seen you for years. Have you been--er--” he said, rather +wildly, “have you been in the country?” + +“Not for all that time,” answered Basil, smiling. “I have long given +up my official position, my dear Philip, and have been living in a +deliberate retirement. I hope I do not come at an inopportune moment.” + +“An inopportune moment,” cried the ardent gentleman. “You come at the +most opportune moment I could imagine. Do you know who is here?” + +“I do not,” answered Grant, with gravity. Even as he spoke a roar of +laughter came from the inner room. + +“Basil,” said Lord Beaumont solemnly, “I have Wimpole here.” + +“And who is Wimpole?” + +“Basil,” cried the other, “you must have been in the country. You must +have been in the antipodes. You must have been in the moon. Who is +Wimpole? Who was Shakespeare?” + +“As to who Shakespeare was,” answered my friend placidly, “my views go +no further than thinking that he was not Bacon. More probably he was +Mary Queen of Scots. But as to who Wimpole is--” and his speech also was +cloven with a roar of laughter from within. + +“Wimpole!” cried Lord Beaumont, in a sort of ecstasy. “Haven't you heard +of the great modern wit? My dear fellow, he has turned conversation, +I do not say into an art--for that, perhaps, it always was but into a +great art, like the statuary of Michael Angelo--an art of masterpieces. +His repartees, my good friend, startle one like a man shot dead. They +are final; they are--” + +Again there came the hilarious roar from the room, and almost with the +very noise of it, a big, panting apoplectic old gentleman came out of +the inner house into the hall where we were standing. + +“Now, my dear chap,” began Lord Beaumont hastily. + +“I tell you, Beaumont, I won't stand it,” exploded the large old +gentleman. “I won't be made game of by a twopenny literary adventurer +like that. I won't be made a guy. I won't--” + +“Come, come,” said Beaumont feverishly. “Let me introduce you. This is +Mr Justice Grant--that is, Mr Grant. Basil, I am sure you have heard of +Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh.” + +“Who has not?” asked Grant, and bowed to the worthy old baronet, eyeing +him with some curiosity. He was hot and heavy in his momentary anger, +but even that could not conceal the noble though opulent outline of his +face and body, the florid white hair, the Roman nose, the body stalwart +though corpulent, the chin aristocratic though double. He was a +magnificent courtly gentleman; so much of a gentleman that he could show +an unquestionable weakness of anger without altogether losing dignity; +so much of a gentleman that even his faux pas were well-bred. + +“I am distressed beyond expression, Beaumont,” he said gruffly, “to fail +in respect to these gentlemen, and even more especially to fail in it in +your house. But it is not you or they that are in any way concerned, but +that flashy half-caste jackanapes--” + +At this moment a young man with a twist of red moustache and a sombre +air came out of the inner room. He also did not seem to be greatly +enjoying the intellectual banquet within. + +“I think you remember my friend and secretary, Mr Drummond,” said +Lord Beaumont, turning to Grant, “even if you only remember him as a +schoolboy.” + +“Perfectly,” said the other. Mr Drummond shook hands pleasantly and +respectfully, but the cloud was still on his brow. Turning to Sir Walter +Cholmondeliegh, he said: + +“I was sent by Lady Beaumont to express her hope that you were not going +yet, Sir Walter. She says she has scarcely seen anything of you.” + +The old gentleman, still red in the face, had a temporary internal +struggle; then his good manners triumphed, and with a gesture of +obeisance and a vague utterance of, “If Lady Beaumont... a lady, of +course,” he followed the young man back into the salon. He had scarcely +been deposited there half a minute before another peal of laughter told +that he had (in all probability) been scored off again. + +“Of course, I can excuse dear old Cholmondeliegh,” said Beaumont, as he +helped us off with our coats. “He has not the modern mind.” + +“What is the modern mind?” asked Grant. + +“Oh, it's enlightened, you know, and progressive--and faces the facts +of life seriously.” At this moment another roar of laughter came from +within. + +“I only ask,” said Basil, “because of the last two friends of yours who +had the modern mind; one thought it wrong to eat fishes and the other +thought it right to eat men. I beg your pardon--this way, if I remember +right.” + +“Do you know,” said Lord Beaumont, with a sort of feverish +entertainment, as he trotted after us towards the interior, “I can never +quite make out which side you are on. Sometimes you seem so liberal and +sometimes so reactionary. Are you a modern, Basil?” + +“No,” said Basil, loudly and cheerfully, as he entered the crowded +drawing-room. + +This caused a slight diversion, and some eyes were turned away from our +slim friend with the Oriental face for the first time that afternoon. +Two people, however, still looked at him. One was the daughter of the +house, Muriel Beaumont, who gazed at him with great violet eyes and +with the intense and awful thirst of the female upper class for verbal +amusement and stimulus. The other was Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh, who +looked at him with a still and sullen but unmistakable desire to throw +him out of the window. + +He sat there, coiled rather than seated on the easy chair; everything +from the curves of his smooth limbs to the coils of his silvered hair +suggesting the circles of a serpent more than the straight limbs of a +man--the unmistakable, splendid serpentine gentleman we had seen walking +in North London, his eyes shining with repeated victory. + +“What I can't understand, Mr Wimpole,” said Muriel Beaumont eagerly, +“is how you contrive to treat all this so easily. You say things quite +philosophical and yet so wildly funny. If I thought of such things, I'm +sure I should laugh outright when the thought first came.” + +“I agree with Miss Beaumont,” said Sir Walter, suddenly exploding with +indignation. “If I had thought of anything so futile, I should find it +difficult to keep my countenance.” + +“Difficult to keep your countenance,” cried Mr Wimpole, with an air of +alarm; “oh, do keep your countenance! Keep it in the British Museum.” + +Every one laughed uproariously, as they always do at an already admitted +readiness, and Sir Walter, turning suddenly purple, shouted out: + +“Do you know who you are talking to, with your confounded tomfooleries?” + +“I never talk tomfooleries,” said the other, “without first knowing my +audience.” + +Grant walked across the room and tapped the red-moustached secretary on +the shoulder. That gentleman was leaning against the wall regarding +the whole scene with a great deal of gloom; but, I fancied, with very +particular gloom when his eyes fell on the young lady of the house +rapturously listening to Wimpole. + +“May I have a word with you outside, Drummond?” asked Grant. “It is +about business. Lady Beaumont will excuse us.” + +I followed my friend, at his own request, greatly wondering, to this +strange external interview. We passed abruptly into a kind of side room +out of the hall. + +“Drummond,” said Basil sharply, “there are a great many good people, and +a great many sane people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind +of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people +are wicked. You are the only person I know of here who is honest and has +also some common sense. What do you make of Wimpole?” + +Mr Secretary Drummond had a pale face and red hair; but at this his face +became suddenly as red as his moustache. + +“I am not a fair judge of him,” he said. + +“Why not?” asked Grant. + +“Because I hate him like hell,” said the other, after a long pause and +violently. + +Neither Grant nor I needed to ask the reason; his glances towards Miss +Beaumont and the stranger were sufficiently illuminating. Grant said +quietly: + +“But before--before you came to hate him, what did you really think of +him?” + +“I am in a terrible difficulty,” said the young man, and his voice told +us, like a clear bell, that he was an honest man. “If I spoke about him +as I feel about him now, I could not trust myself. And I should like to +be able to say that when I first saw him I thought he was charming. But +again, the fact is I didn't. I hate him, that is my private affair. But +I also disapprove of him--really I do believe I disapprove of him quite +apart from my private feelings. When first he came, I admit he was much +quieter, but I did not like, so to speak, the moral swell of him. Then +that jolly old Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh got introduced to us, and this +fellow, with his cheap-jack wit, began to score off the old man in the +way he does now. Then I felt that he must be a bad lot; it must be +bad to fight the old and the kindly. And he fights the poor old chap +savagely, unceasingly, as if he hated old age and kindliness. Take, if +you want it, the evidence of a prejudiced witness. I admit that I hate +the man because a certain person admires him. But I believe that apart +from that I should hate the man because old Sir Walter hates him.” + +This speech affected me with a genuine sense of esteem and pity for the +young man; that is, of pity for him because of his obviously hopeless +worship of Miss Beaumont, and of esteem for him because of the direct +realistic account of the history of Wimpole which he had given. Still, I +was sorry that he seemed so steadily set against the man, and could +not help referring it to an instinct of his personal relations, however +nobly disguised from himself. + +In the middle of these meditations, Grant whispered in my ear what was +perhaps the most startling of all interruptions. + +“In the name of God, let's get away.” + +I have never known exactly in how odd a way this odd old man affected +me. I only know that for some reason or other he so affected me that I +was, within a few minutes, in the street outside. + +“This,” he said, “is a beastly but amusing affair.” + +“What is?” I asked, baldly enough. + +“This affair. Listen to me, my old friend. Lord and Lady Beaumont have +just invited you and me to a grand dinner-party this very night, at +which Mr Wimpole will be in all his glory. Well, there is nothing very +extraordinary about that. The extraordinary thing is that we are not +going.” + +“Well, really,” I said, “it is already six o'clock and I doubt if we +could get home and dress. I see nothing extraordinary in the fact that +we are not going.” + +“Don't you?” said Grant. “I'll bet you'll see something extraordinary in +what we're doing instead.” + +I looked at him blankly. + +“Doing instead?” I asked. “What are we doing instead?” + +“Why,” said he, “we are waiting for one or two hours outside this house +on a winter evening. You must forgive me; it is all my vanity. It is +only to show you that I am right. Can you, with the assistance of this +cigar, wait until both Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh and the mystic Wimpole +have left this house?” + +“Certainly,” I said. “But I do not know which is likely to leave first. +Have you any notion?” + +“No,” he said. “Sir Walter may leave first in a glow of rage. Or again, +Mr Wimpole may leave first, feeling that his last epigram is a thing to +be flung behind him like a firework. And Sir Walter may remain some +time to analyse Mr Wimpole's character. But they will both have to leave +within reasonable time, for they will both have to get dressed and come +back to dinner here tonight.” + +As he spoke the shrill double whistle from the porch of the great house +drew a dark cab to the dark portal. And then a thing happened that we +really had not expected. Mr Wimpole and Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh came +out at the same moment. + +They paused for a second or two opposite each other in a natural doubt; +then a certain geniality, fundamental perhaps in both of them, made Sir +Walter smile and say: “The night is foggy. Pray take my cab.” + +Before I could count twenty the cab had gone rattling up the street with +both of them. And before I could count twenty-three Grant had hissed in +my ear: + +“Run after the cab; run as if you were running from a mad dog--run.” + +We pelted on steadily, keeping the cab in sight, through dark mazy +streets. God only, I thought, knows why we are running at all, but we +are running hard. Fortunately we did not run far. The cab pulled up at +the fork of two streets and Sir Walter paid the cabman, who drove away +rejoicing, having just come in contact with the more generous among the +rich. Then the two men talked together as men do talk together after +giving and receiving great insults, the talk which leads either to +forgiveness or a duel--at least so it seemed as we watched it from ten +yards off. Then the two men shook hands heartily, and one went down one +fork of the road and one down another. + +Basil, with one of his rare gestures, flung his arms forward. + +“Run after that scoundrel,” he cried; “let us catch him now.” + +We dashed across the open space and reached the juncture of two paths. + +“Stop!” I shouted wildly to Grant. “That's the wrong turning.” + +He ran on. + +“Idiot!” I howled. “Sir Walter's gone down there. Wimpole has slipped +us. He's half a mile down the other road. You're wrong... Are you deaf? +You're wrong!” + +“I don't think I am,” he panted, and ran on. + +“But I saw him!” I cried. “Look in front of you. Is that Wimpole? It's +the old man... What are you doing? What are we to do?” + +“Keep running,” said Grant. + +Running soon brought us up to the broad back of the pompous old baronet, +whose white whiskers shone silver in the fitful lamplight. My brain was +utterly bewildered. I grasped nothing. + +“Charlie,” said Basil hoarsely, “can you believe in my common sense for +four minutes?” + +“Of course,” I said, panting. + +“Then help me to catch that man in front and hold him down. Do it at +once when I say 'Now'. Now!” + +We sprang on Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh, and rolled that portly old +gentleman on his back. He fought with a commendable valour, but we got +him tight. I had not the remotest notion why. He had a splendid and +full-blooded vigour; when he could not box he kicked, and we bound him; +when he could not kick he shouted, and we gagged him. Then, by Basil's +arrangement, we dragged him into a small court by the street side and +waited. As I say, I had no notion why. + +“I am sorry to incommode you,” said Basil calmly out of the darkness; +“but I have made an appointment here.” + +“An appointment!” I said blankly. + +“Yes,” he said, glancing calmly at the apoplectic old aristocrat gagged +on the ground, whose eyes were starting impotently from his head. “I +have made an appointment here with a thoroughly nice young fellow. +An old friend. Jasper Drummond his name is--you may have met him +this afternoon at the Beaumonts. He can scarcely come though till the +Beaumonts' dinner is over.” + +For I do not know how many hours we stood there calmly in the darkness. +By the time those hours were over I had thoroughly made up my mind that +the same thing had happened which had happened long ago on the bench of +a British Court of Justice. Basil Grant had gone mad. I could imagine +no other explanation of the facts, with the portly, purple-faced old +country gentleman flung there strangled on the floor like a bundle of +wood. + +After about four hours a lean figure in evening dress rushed into the +court. A glimpse of gaslight showed the red moustache and white face of +Jasper Drummond. + +“Mr Grant,” he said blankly, “the thing is incredible. You were right; +but what did you mean? All through this dinner-party, where dukes and +duchesses and editors of Quarterlies had come especially to hear him, +that extraordinary Wimpole kept perfectly silent. He didn't say a funny +thing. He didn't say anything at all. What does it mean?” + +Grant pointed to the portly old gentleman on the ground. + +“That is what it means,” he said. + +Drummond, on observing a fat gentleman lying so calmly about the place, +jumped back, as from a mouse. + +“What?” he said weakly, “... what?” + +Basil bent suddenly down and tore a paper out of Sir Walter's +breastpocket, a paper which the baronet, even in his hampered state, +seemed to make some effort to retain. + +It was a large loose piece of white wrapping paper, which Mr Jasper +Drummond read with a vacant eye and undisguised astonishment. As far as +he could make out, it consisted of a series of questions and answers, or +at least of remarks and replies, arranged in the manner of a catechism. +The greater part of the document had been torn and obliterated in the +struggle, but the termination remained. It ran as follows: + +C. Says... Keep countenance. + +W. Keep... British Museum. + +C. Know whom talk... absurdities. + +W. Never talk absurdities without... + +“What is it?” cried Drummond, flinging the paper down in a sort of final +fury. + +“What is it?” replied Grant, his voice rising into a kind of splendid +chant. “What is it? It is a great new profession. A great new trade. A +trifle immoral, I admit, but still great, like piracy.” + +“A new profession!” said the young man with the red moustache vaguely; +“a new trade!” + +“A new trade,” repeated Grant, with a strange exultation, “a new +profession! What a pity it is immoral.” + +“But what the deuce is it?” cried Drummond and I in a breath of +blasphemy. + +“It is,” said Grant calmly, “the great new trade of the Organizer of +Repartee. This fat old gentleman lying on the ground strikes you, as I +have no doubt, as very stupid and very rich. Let me clear his character. +He is, like ourselves, very clever and very poor. He is also not really +at all fat; all that is stuffing. He is not particularly old, and +his name is not Cholmondeliegh. He is a swindler, and a swindler of +a perfectly delightful and novel kind. He hires himself out at +dinner-parties to lead up to other people's repartees. According to a +preconcerted scheme (which you may find on that piece of paper), he says +the stupid things he has arranged for himself, and his client says the +clever things arranged for him. In short, he allows himself to be scored +off for a guinea a night.” + +“And this fellow Wimpole--” began Drummond with indignation. + +“This fellow Wimpole,” said Basil Grant, smiling, “will not be an +intellectual rival in the future. He had some fine things, elegance and +silvered hair, and so on. But the intellect is with our friend on the +floor.” + +“That fellow,” cried Drummond furiously, “that fellow ought to be in +gaol.” + +“Not at all,” said Basil indulgently; “he ought to be in the Club of +Queer Trades.” + + + +Chapter 3. The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit + +The revolt of Matter against Man (which I believe to exist) has now been +reduced to a singular condition. It is the small things rather than +the large things which make war against us and, I may add, beat us. The +bones of the last mammoth have long ago decayed, a mighty wreck; the +tempests no longer devour our navies, nor the mountains with hearts +of fire heap hell over our cities. But we are engaged in a bitter and +eternal war with small things; chiefly with microbes and with collar +studs. The stud with which I was engaged (on fierce and equal terms) as +I made the above reflections, was one which I was trying to introduce +into my shirt collar when a loud knock came at the door. + +My first thought was as to whether Basil Grant had called to fetch me. +He and I were to turn up at the same dinner-party (for which I was in +the act of dressing), and it might be that he had taken it into his head +to come my way, though we had arranged to go separately. It was a +small and confidential affair at the table of a good but unconventional +political lady, an old friend of his. She had asked us both to meet a +third guest, a Captain Fraser, who had made something of a name and was +an authority on chimpanzees. As Basil was an old friend of the hostess +and I had never seen her, I felt that it was quite possible that he +(with his usual social sagacity) might have decided to take me along in +order to break the ice. The theory, like all my theories, was complete; +but as a fact it was not Basil. + +I was handed a visiting card inscribed: “Rev. Ellis Shorter”, and +underneath was written in pencil, but in a hand in which even hurry +could not conceal a depressing and gentlemanly excellence, “Asking the +favour of a few moments' conversation on a most urgent matter.” + +I had already subdued the stud, thereby proclaiming that the image of +God has supremacy over all matters (a valuable truth), and throwing on +my dress-coat and waistcoat, hurried into the drawing-room. He rose at +my entrance, flapping like a seal; I can use no other description. He +flapped a plaid shawl over his right arm; he flapped a pair of pathetic +black gloves; he flapped his clothes; I may say, without exaggeration, +that he flapped his eyelids, as he rose. He was a bald-browed, +white-haired, white-whiskered old clergyman, of a flappy and floppy +type. He said: + +“I am so sorry. I am so very sorry. I am so extremely sorry. I come--I +can only say--I can only say in my defence, that I come--upon an +important matter. Pray forgive me.” + +I told him I forgave perfectly and waited. + +“What I have to say,” he said brokenly, “is so dreadful--it is so +dreadful--I have lived a quiet life.” + +I was burning to get away, for it was already doubtful if I should be in +time for dinner. But there was something about the old man's honest air +of bitterness that seemed to open to me the possibilities of life larger +and more tragic than my own. + +I said gently: “Pray go on.” + +Nevertheless the old gentleman, being a gentleman as well as old, +noticed my secret impatience and seemed still more unmanned. + +“I'm so sorry,” he said meekly; “I wouldn't have come--but for--your +friend Major Brown recommended me to come here.” + +“Major Brown!” I said, with some interest. + +“Yes,” said the Reverend Mr Shorter, feverishly flapping his plaid +shawl about. “He told me you helped him in a great difficulty--and my +difficulty! Oh, my dear sir, it's a matter of life and death.” + +I rose abruptly, in an acute perplexity. “Will it take long, Mr +Shorter?” I asked. “I have to go out to dinner almost at once.” + +He rose also, trembling from head to foot, and yet somehow, with all his +moral palsy, he rose to the dignity of his age and his office. + +“I have no right, Mr Swinburne--I have no right at all,” he said. “If +you have to go out to dinner, you have of course--a perfect right--of +course a perfect right. But when you come back--a man will be dead.” + +And he sat down, quaking like a jelly. + +The triviality of the dinner had been in those two minutes dwarfed and +drowned in my mind. I did not want to go and see a political widow, and +a captain who collected apes; I wanted to hear what had brought this +dear, doddering old vicar into relation with immediate perils. + +“Will you have a cigar?” I said. + +“No, thank you,” he said, with indescribable embarrassment, as if not +smoking cigars was a social disgrace. + +“A glass of wine?” I said. + +“No, thank you, no, thank you; not just now,” he repeated with that +hysterical eagerness with which people who do not drink at all often +try to convey that on any other night of the week they would sit up all +night drinking rum-punch. “Not just now, thank you.” + +“Nothing else I can get for you?” I said, feeling genuinely sorry for +the well-mannered old donkey. “A cup of tea?” + +I saw a struggle in his eye and I conquered. When the cup of tea came he +drank it like a dipsomaniac gulping brandy. Then he fell back and said: + +“I have had such a time, Mr Swinburne. I am not used to these +excitements. As Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex”--he threw this in with +an indescribable airiness of vanity--“I have never known such things +happen.” + +“What things happen?” I asked. + +He straightened himself with sudden dignity. + +“As Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex,” he said, “I have never been forcibly +dressed up as an old woman and made to take part in a crime in the +character of an old woman. Never once. My experience may be small. It +may be insufficient. But it has never occurred to me before.” + +“I have never heard of it,” I said, “as among the duties of a clergyman. +But I am not well up in church matters. Excuse me if perhaps I failed to +follow you correctly. Dressed up--as what?” + +“As an old woman,” said the vicar solemnly, “as an old woman.” + +I thought in my heart that it required no great transformation to make +an old woman of him, but the thing was evidently more tragic than comic, +and I said respectfully: + +“May I ask how it occurred?” + +“I will begin at the beginning,” said Mr Shorter, “and I will tell my +story with the utmost possible precision. At seventeen minutes past +eleven this morning I left the vicarage to keep certain appointments and +pay certain visits in the village. My first visit was to Mr Jervis, the +treasurer of our League of Christian Amusements, with whom I concluded +some business touching the claim made by Parkes the gardener in the +matter of the rolling of our tennis lawn. I then visited Mrs Arnett, a +very earnest churchwoman, but permanently bedridden. She is the author +of several small works of devotion, and of a book of verse, entitled +(unless my memory misleads me) Eglantine.” + +He uttered all this not only with deliberation, but with something that +can only be called, by a contradictory phrase, eager deliberation. +He had, I think, a vague memory in his head of the detectives in the +detective stories, who always sternly require that nothing should be +kept back. + +“I then proceeded,” he went on, with the same maddening +conscientiousness of manner, “to Mr Carr (not Mr James Carr, of course; +Mr Robert Carr) who is temporarily assisting our organist, and having +consulted with him (on the subject of a choir boy who is accused, I +cannot as yet say whether justly or not, of cutting holes in the organ +pipes), I finally dropped in upon a Dorcas meeting at the house of Miss +Brett. The Dorcas meetings are usually held at the vicarage, but my wife +being unwell, Miss Brett, a newcomer in our village, but very active in +church work, had very kindly consented to hold them. The Dorcas society +is entirely under my wife's management as a rule, and except for Miss +Brett, who, as I say, is very active, I scarcely know any members of it. +I had, however, promised to drop in on them, and I did so. + +“When I arrived there were only four other maiden ladies with Miss +Brett, but they were sewing very busily. It is very difficult, of +course, for any person, however strongly impressed with the necessity in +these matters of full and exact exposition of the facts, to remember and +repeat the actual details of a conversation, particularly a conversation +which (though inspired with a most worthy and admirable zeal for good +work) was one which did not greatly impress the hearer's mind at the +time and was in fact--er--mostly about socks. I can, however, remember +distinctly that one of the spinster ladies (she was a thin person with +a woollen shawl, who appeared to feel the cold, and I am almost sure she +was introduced to me as Miss James) remarked that the weather was very +changeable. Miss Brett then offered me a cup of tea, which I accepted, +I cannot recall in what words. Miss Brett is a short and stout lady with +white hair. The only other figure in the group that caught my attention +was a Miss Mowbray, a small and neat lady of aristocratic manners, +silver hair, and a high voice and colour. She was the most emphatic +member of the party; and her views on the subject of pinafores, though +expressed with a natural deference to myself, were in themselves strong +and advanced. Beside her (although all five ladies were dressed simply +in black) it could not be denied that the others looked in some way what +you men of the world would call dowdy. + +“After about ten minutes' conversation I rose to go, and as I did so +I heard something which--I cannot describe it--something which seemed +to--but I really cannot describe it.” + +“What did you hear?” I asked, with some impatience. + +“I heard,” said the vicar solemnly, “I heard Miss Mowbray (the lady with +the silver hair) say to Miss James (the lady with the woollen shawl), +the following extraordinary words. I committed them to memory on the +spot, and as soon as circumstances set me free to do so, I noted them +down on a piece of paper. I believe I have it here.” He fumbled in +his breast-pocket, bringing out mild things, note-books, circulars and +programmes of village concerts. “I heard Miss Mowbray say to Miss James, +the following words: 'Now's your time, Bill.'” + +He gazed at me for a few moments after making this announcement, gravely +and unflinchingly, as if conscious that here he was unshaken about his +facts. Then he resumed, turning his bald head more towards the fire. + +“This appeared to me remarkable. I could not by any means understand +it. It seemed to me first of all peculiar that one maiden lady should +address another maiden lady as 'Bill'. My experience, as I have said, +may be incomplete; maiden ladies may have among themselves and in +exclusively spinster circles wilder customs than I am aware of. But +it seemed to me odd, and I could almost have sworn (if you will not +misunderstand the phrase), I should have been strongly impelled to +maintain at the time that the words, 'Now's your time, Bill', were by +no means pronounced with that upper-class intonation which, as I have +already said, had up to now characterized Miss Mowbray's conversation. +In fact, the words, 'Now's your time, Bill', would have been, I fancy, +unsuitable if pronounced with that upper-class intonation. + +“I was surprised, I repeat, then, at the remark. But I was still more +surprised when, looking round me in bewilderment, my hat and umbrella in +hand, I saw the lean lady with the woollen shawl leaning upright against +the door out of which I was just about to make my exit. She was still +knitting, and I supposed that this erect posture against the door was +only an eccentricity of spinsterhood and an oblivion of my intended +departure. + +“I said genially, 'I am so sorry to disturb you, Miss James, but I must +really be going. I have--er--' I stopped here, for the words she +had uttered in reply, though singularly brief and in tone extremely +business-like, were such as to render that arrest of my remarks, I +think, natural and excusable. I have these words also noted down. I have +not the least idea of their meaning; so I have only been able to render +them phonetically. But she said,” and Mr Shorter peered short-sightedly +at his papers, “she said: 'Chuck it, fat 'ead,' and she added something +that sounded like 'It's a kop', or (possibly) 'a kopt'. And then the +last cord, either of my sanity or the sanity of the universe, snapped +suddenly. My esteemed friend and helper, Miss Brett, standing by the +mantelpiece, said: 'Put 'is old 'ead in a bag, Sam, and tie 'im up +before you start jawin'. You'll be kopt yourselves some o' these days +with this way of doin' things, har lar theater.' + +“My head went round and round. Was it really true, as I had suddenly +fancied a moment before, that unmarried ladies had some dreadful riotous +society of their own from which all others were excluded? I remembered +dimly in my classical days (I was a scholar in a small way once, but +now, alas! rusty), I remembered the mysteries of the Bona Dea and their +strange female freemasonry. I remembered the witches' Sabbaths. I was +just, in my absurd lightheadedness, trying to remember a line of verse +about Diana's nymphs, when Miss Mowbray threw her arm round me from +behind. The moment it held me I knew it was not a woman's arm. + +“Miss Brett--or what I had called Miss Brett--was standing in front of +me with a big revolver in her hand and a broad grin on her face. +Miss James was still leaning against the door, but had fallen into an +attitude so totally new, and so totally unfeminine, that it gave one a +shock. She was kicking her heels, with her hands in her pockets and her +cap on one side. She was a man. I mean he was a wo--no, that is I saw +that instead of being a woman she--he, I mean--that is, it was a man.” + +Mr Shorter became indescribably flurried and flapping in endeavouring to +arrange these genders and his plaid shawl at the same time. He resumed +with a higher fever of nervousness: + +“As for Miss Mowbray, she--he, held me in a ring of iron. He had her +arm--that is she had his arm--round her neck--my neck I mean--and I +could not cry out. Miss Brett--that is, Mr Brett, at least Mr something +who was not Miss Brett--had the revolver pointed at me. The other two +ladies--or er--gentlemen, were rummaging in some bag in the background. +It was all clear at last: they were criminals dressed up as women, to +kidnap me! To kidnap the Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex. But why? Was it to +be Nonconformists? + +“The brute leaning against the door called out carelessly, ''Urry up, +'Arry. Show the old bloke what the game is, and let's get off.' + +“'Curse 'is eyes,' said Miss Brett--I mean the man with the +revolver--'why should we show 'im the game?' + +“'If you take my advice you bloomin' well will,' said the man at the +door, whom they called Bill. 'A man wot knows wot 'e's doin' is worth +ten wot don't, even if 'e's a potty old parson.' + +“'Bill's right enough,' said the coarse voice of the man who held me (it +had been Miss Mowbray's). 'Bring out the picture, 'Arry.' + +“The man with the revolver walked across the room to where the other +two women--I mean men--were turning over baggage, and asked them for +something which they gave him. He came back with it across the room +and held it out in front of me. And compared to the surprise of that +display, all the previous surprises of this awful day shrank suddenly. + +“It was a portrait of myself. That such a picture should be in the hands +of these scoundrels might in any case have caused a mild surprise; +but no more. It was no mild surprise that I felt. The likeness was +an extremely good one, worked up with all the accessories of the +conventional photographic studio. I was leaning my head on my hand and +was relieved against a painted landscape of woodland. It was obvious +that it was no snapshot; it was clear that I had sat for this +photograph. And the truth was that I had never sat for such a +photograph. It was a photograph that I had never had taken. + +“I stared at it again and again. It seemed to me to be touched up a good +deal; it was glazed as well as framed, and the glass blurred some of the +details. But there unmistakably was my face, my eyes, my nose and mouth, +my head and hand, posed for a professional photographer. And I had never +posed so for any photographer. + +“'Be'old the bloomin' miracle,' said the man with the revolver, with +ill-timed facetiousness. 'Parson, prepare to meet your God.' And with +this he slid the glass out of the frame. As the glass moved, I saw that +part of the picture was painted on it in Chinese white, notably a pair +of white whiskers and a clerical collar. And underneath was a portrait +of an old lady in a quiet black dress, leaning her head on her hand +against the woodland landscape. The old lady was as like me as one pin +is like another. It had required only the whiskers and the collar to +make it me in every hair. + +“'Entertainin', ain't it?' said the man described as 'Arry, as he shot +the glass back again. 'Remarkable resemblance, parson. Gratifyin' to the +lady. Gratifyin' to you. And hi may hadd, particlery gratifyin' to us, +as bein' the probable source of a very tolerable haul. You know Colonel +Hawker, the man who's come to live in these parts, don't you?' + +“I nodded. + +“'Well,' said the man 'Arry, pointing to the picture, 'that's 'is +mother. 'Oo ran to catch 'im when 'e fell? She did,' and he flung his +fingers in a general gesture towards the photograph of the old lady who +was exactly like me. + +“'Tell the old gent wot 'e's got to do and be done with it,' broke out +Bill from the door. 'Look 'ere, Reverend Shorter, we ain't goin' to do +you no 'arm. We'll give you a sov. for your trouble if you like. And as +for the old woman's clothes--why, you'll look lovely in 'em.' + +“'You ain't much of a 'and at a description, Bill,' said the man behind +me. 'Mr Shorter, it's like this. We've got to see this man Hawker +tonight. Maybe 'e'll kiss us all and 'ave up the champagne when 'e sees +us. Maybe on the other 'and--'e won't. Maybe 'e'll be dead when we goes +away. Maybe not. But we've got to see 'im. Now as you know, 'e shuts +'isself up and never opens the door to a soul; only you don't know why +and we does. The only one as can ever get at 'im is 'is mother. +Well, it's a confounded funny coincidence,' he said, accenting the +penultimate, 'it's a very unusual piece of good luck, but you're 'is +mother.' + +“'When first I saw 'er picture,' said the man Bill, shaking his head in +a ruminant manner, 'when I first saw it I said--old Shorter. Those were +my exact words--old Shorter.' + +“'What do you mean, you wild creatures?' I gasped. 'What am I to do?' + +“'That's easy said, your 'oldness,' said the man with the revolver, +good-humouredly; 'you've got to put on those clothes,' and he pointed to +a poke-bonnet and a heap of female clothes in the corner of the room. + +“I will not dwell, Mr Swinburne, upon the details of what followed. I +had no choice. I could not fight five men, to say nothing of a loaded +pistol. In five minutes, sir, the Vicar of Chuntsey was dressed as an +old woman--as somebody else's mother, if you please--and was dragged out +of the house to take part in a crime. + +“It was already late in the afternoon, and the nights of winter were +closing in fast. On a dark road, in a blowing wind, we set out towards +the lonely house of Colonel Hawker, perhaps the queerest cortege that +ever straggled up that or any other road. To every human eye, in every +external, we were six very respectable old ladies of small means, in +black dresses and refined but antiquated bonnets; and we were really +five criminals and a clergyman. + +“I will cut a long story short. My brain was whirling like a windmill as +I walked, trying to think of some manner of escape. To cry out, so long +as we were far from houses, would be suicidal, for it would be easy for +the ruffians to knife me or to gag me and fling me into a ditch. On the +other hand, to attempt to stop strangers and explain the situation was +impossible, because of the frantic folly of the situation itself. Long +before I had persuaded the chance postman or carrier of so absurd a +story, my companions would certainly have got off themselves, and in all +probability would have carried me off, as a friend of theirs who had +the misfortune to be mad or drunk. The last thought, however, was an +inspiration; though a very terrible one. Had it come to this, that the +Vicar of Chuntsey must pretend to be mad or drunk? It had come to this. + +“I walked along with the rest up the deserted road, imitating and +keeping pace, as far as I could, with their rapid and yet lady-like +step, until at length I saw a lamp-post and a policeman standing under +it. I had made up my mind. Until we reached them we were all equally +demure and silent and swift. When we reached them I suddenly flung +myself against the railings and roared out: 'Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! +Rule Britannia! Get your 'air cut. Hoop-la! Boo!' It was a condition of +no little novelty for a man in my position. + +“The constable instantly flashed his lantern on me, or the draggled, +drunken old woman that was my travesty. 'Now then, mum,' he began +gruffly. + +“'Come along quiet, or I'll eat your heart,' cried Sam in my ear +hoarsely. 'Stop, or I'll flay you.' It was frightful to hear the words +and see the neatly shawled old spinster who whispered them. + +“I yelled, and yelled--I was in for it now. I screamed comic refrains +that vulgar young men had sung, to my regret, at our village concerts; I +rolled to and fro like a ninepin about to fall. + +“'If you can't get your friend on quiet, ladies,' said the policeman, 'I +shall have to take 'er up. Drunk and disorderly she is right enough.' + +“I redoubled my efforts. I had not been brought up to this sort of +thing; but I believe I eclipsed myself. Words that I did not know I had +ever heard of seemed to come pouring out of my open mouth. + +“'When we get you past,' whispered Bill, 'you'll howl louder; you'll +howl louder when we're burning your feet off.' + +“I screamed in my terror those awful songs of joy. In all the nightmares +that men have ever dreamed, there has never been anything so blighting +and horrible as the faces of those five men, looking out of their +poke-bonnets; the figures of district visitors with the faces of devils. +I cannot think there is anything so heart-breaking in hell. + +“For a sickening instant I thought that the bustle of my companions +and the perfect respectability of all our dresses would overcome the +policeman and induce him to let us pass. He wavered, so far as one +can describe anything so solid as a policeman as wavering. I lurched +suddenly forward and ran my head into his chest, calling out (if I +remember correctly), 'Oh, crikey, blimey, Bill.' It was at that moment +that I remembered most dearly that I was the Vicar of Chuntsey, in +Essex. + +“My desperate coup saved me. The policeman had me hard by the back of +the neck. + +“'You come along with me,' he began, but Bill cut in with his perfect +imitation of a lady's finnicking voice. + +“'Oh, pray, constable, don't make a disturbance with our poor friend. We +will get her quietly home. She does drink too much, but she is quite a +lady--only eccentric.' + +“'She butted me in the stomach,' said the policeman briefly. + +“'Eccentricities of genius,' said Sam earnestly. + +“'Pray let me take her home,' reiterated Bill, in the resumed character +of Miss James, 'she wants looking after.' 'She does,' said the +policeman, 'but I'll look after her.' + +“'That's no good,' cried Bill feverishly. 'She wants her friends. She +wants a particular medicine we've got.' + +“'Yes,' assented Miss Mowbray, with excitement, 'no other medicine any +good, constable. Complaint quite unique.' + +“'I'm all righ'. Cutchy, cutchy, coo!' remarked, to his eternal shame, +the Vicar of Chuntsey. + +“'Look here, ladies,' said the constable sternly, 'I don't like the +eccentricity of your friend, and I don't like 'er songs, or 'er 'ead in +my stomach. And now I come to think of it, I don't like the looks of you. +I've seen many as quiet dressed as you as was wrong 'uns. Who are you?' + +“'We've not our cards with us,' said Miss Mowbray, with indescribable +dignity. 'Nor do we see why we should be insulted by any Jack-in-office +who chooses to be rude to ladies, when he is paid to protect them. If +you choose to take advantage of the weakness of our unfortunate friend, +no doubt you are legally entitled to take her. But if you fancy you have +any legal right to bully us, you will find yourself in the wrong box.' + +“The truth and dignity of this staggered the policeman for a moment. +Under cover of their advantage my five persecutors turned for an instant +on me faces like faces of the damned and then swished off into the +darkness. When the constable first turned his lantern and his suspicions +on to them, I had seen the telegraphic look flash from face to face +saying that only retreat was possible now. + +“By this time I was sinking slowly to the pavement, in a state of acute +reflection. So long as the ruffians were with me, I dared not quit the +role of drunkard. For if I had begun to talk reasonably and explain the +real case, the officer would merely have thought that I was slightly +recovered and would have put me in charge of my friends. Now, however, +if I liked I might safely undeceive him. + +“But I confess I did not like. The chances of life are many, and it may +doubtless sometimes lie in the narrow path of duty for a clergyman of +the Church of England to pretend to be a drunken old woman; but +such necessities are, I imagine, sufficiently rare to appear to many +improbable. Suppose the story got about that I had pretended to be +drunk. Suppose people did not all think it was pretence! + +“I lurched up, the policeman half-lifting me. I went along weakly and +quietly for about a hundred yards. The officer evidently thought that +I was too sleepy and feeble to effect an escape, and so held me lightly +and easily enough. Past one turning, two turnings, three turnings, four +turnings, he trailed me with him, a limp and slow and reluctant figure. +At the fourth turning, I suddenly broke from his hand and tore down the +street like a maddened stag. He was unprepared, he was heavy, and it was +dark. I ran and ran and ran, and in five minutes' running, found I was +gaining. In half an hour I was out in the fields under the holy and +blessed stars, where I tore off my accursed shawl and bonnet and buried +them in clean earth.” + +The old gentleman had finished his story and leant back in his chair. +Both the matter and the manner of his narration had, as time went on, +impressed me favourably. He was an old duffer and pedant, but behind +these things he was a country-bred man and gentleman, and had showed +courage and a sporting instinct in the hour of desperation. He had told +his story with many quaint formalities of diction, but also with a very +convincing realism. + +“And now--” I began. + +“And now,” said Shorter, leaning forward again with something like +servile energy, “and now, Mr Swinburne, what about that unhappy man +Hawker. I cannot tell what those men meant, or how far what they said +was real. But surely there is danger. I cannot go to the police, for +reasons that you perceive. Among other things, they wouldn't believe me. +What is to be done?” + +I took out my watch. It was already half past twelve. + +“My friend Basil Grant,” I said, “is the best man we can go to. He and I +were to have gone to the same dinner tonight; but he will just have come +back by now. Have you any objection to taking a cab?” + +“Not at all,” he replied, rising politely, and gathering up his absurd +plaid shawl. + +A rattle in a hansom brought us underneath the sombre pile of workmen's +flats in Lambeth which Grant inhabited; a climb up a wearisome wooden +staircase brought us to his garret. When I entered that wooden and +scrappy interior, the white gleam of Basil's shirt-front and the lustre +of his fur coat flung on the wooden settle, struck me as a contrast. He +was drinking a glass of wine before retiring. I was right; he had come +back from the dinner-party. + +He listened to the repetition of the story of the Rev. Ellis Shorter +with the genuine simplicity and respect which he never failed to exhibit +in dealing with any human being. When it was over he said simply: + +“Do you know a man named Captain Fraser?” + +I was so startled at this totally irrelevant reference to the worthy +collector of chimpanzees with whom I ought to have dined that evening, +that I glanced sharply at Grant. The result was that I did not look at +Mr Shorter. I only heard him answer, in his most nervous tone, “No.” + +Basil, however, seemed to find something very curious about his answer +or his demeanour generally, for he kept his big blue eyes fixed on the +old clergyman, and though the eyes were quite quiet they stood out more +and more from his head. + +“You are quite sure, Mr Shorter,” he repeated, “that you don't know +Captain Fraser?” + +“Quite,” answered the vicar, and I was certainly puzzled to find him +returning so much to the timidity, not to say the demoralization, of his +tone when he first entered my presence. + +Basil sprang smartly to his feet. + +“Then our course is clear,” he said. “You have not even begun your +investigation, my dear Mr Shorter; the first thing for us to do is to go +together to see Captain Fraser.” + +“When?” asked the clergyman, stammering. + +“Now,” said Basil, putting one arm in his fur coat. + +The old clergyman rose to his feet, quaking all over. + +“I really do not think that it is necessary,” he said. + +Basil took his arm out of the fur coat, threw it over the chair again, +and put his hands in his pockets. + +“Oh,” he said, with emphasis. “Oh--you don't think it necessary; then,” + and he added the words with great clearness and deliberation, “then, Mr +Ellis Shorter, I can only say that I would like to see you without your +whiskers.” + +And at these words I also rose to my feet, for the great tragedy of my +life had come. Splendid and exciting as life was in continual contact +with an intellect like Basil's, I had always the feeling that that +splendour and excitement were on the borderland of sanity. He lived +perpetually near the vision of the reason of things which makes men lose +their reason. And I felt of his insanity as men feel of the death of +friends with heart disease. It might come anywhere, in a field, in a +hansom cab, looking at a sunset, smoking a cigarette. It had come now. +At the very moment of delivering a judgement for the salvation of a +fellow creature, Basil Grant had gone mad. + +“Your whiskers,” he cried, advancing with blazing eyes. “Give me your +whiskers. And your bald head.” + +The old vicar naturally retreated a step or two. I stepped between. + +“Sit down, Basil,” I implored, “you're a little excited. Finish your +wine.” + +“Whiskers,” he answered sternly, “whiskers.” + +And with that he made a dash at the old gentleman, who made a dash for +the door, but was intercepted. And then, before I knew where I was +the quiet room was turned into something between a pantomime and a +pandemonium by those two. Chairs were flung over with a crash, tables +were vaulted with a noise like thunder, screens were smashed, crockery +scattered in smithereens, and still Basil Grant bounded and bellowed +after the Rev. Ellis Shorter. + +And now I began to perceive something else, which added the last +half-witted touch to my mystification. The Rev. Ellis Shorter, of +Chuntsey, in Essex, was by no means behaving as I had previously noticed +him to behave, or as, considering his age and station, I should have +expected him to behave. His power of dodging, leaping, and fighting +would have been amazing in a lad of seventeen, and in this doddering old +vicar looked like a sort of farcical fairy-tale. Moreover, he did not +seem to be so much astonished as I had thought. There was even a look of +something like enjoyment in his eyes; so there was in the eye of Basil. +In fact, the unintelligible truth must be told. They were both laughing. + +At length Shorter was cornered. + +“Come, come, Mr Grant,” he panted, “you can't do anything to me. It's +quite legal. And it doesn't do any one the least harm. It's only a +social fiction. A result of our complex society, Mr Grant.” + +“I don't blame you, my man,” said Basil coolly. “But I want your +whiskers. And your bald head. Do they belong to Captain Fraser?” + +“No, no,” said Mr Shorter, laughing, “we provide them ourselves. They +don't belong to Captain Fraser.” + +“What the deuce does all this mean?” I almost screamed. “Are you all +in an infernal nightmare? Why should Mr Shorter's bald head belong to +Captain Fraser? How could it? What the deuce has Captain Fraser to +do with the affair? What is the matter with him? You dined with him, +Basil.” + +“No,” said Grant, “I didn't.” + +“Didn't you go to Mrs Thornton's dinner-party?” I asked, staring. “Why +not?” + +“Well,” said Basil, with a slow and singular smile, “the fact is I was +detained by a visitor. I have him, as a point of fact, in my bedroom.” + +“In your bedroom?” I repeated; but my imagination had reached that point +when he might have said in his coal scuttle or his waistcoat pocket. + +Grant stepped to the door of an inner room, flung it open and walked in. +Then he came out again with the last of the bodily wonders of that wild +night. He introduced into the sitting-room, in an apologetic manner, +and by the nape of the neck, a limp clergyman with a bald head, white +whiskers and a plaid shawl. + +“Sit down, gentlemen,” cried Grant, striking his hands heartily. “Sit +down all of you and have a glass of wine. As you say, there is no harm +in it, and if Captain Fraser had simply dropped me a hint I could have +saved him from dropping a good sum of money. Not that you would have +liked that, eh?” + +The two duplicate clergymen, who were sipping their Burgundy with two +duplicate grins, laughed heartily at this, and one of them carelessly +pulled off his whiskers and laid them on the table. + +“Basil,” I said, “if you are my friend, save me. What is all this?” + +He laughed again. + +“Only another addition, Cherub, to your collection of Queer Trades. +These two gentlemen (whose health I have now the pleasure of drinking) +are Professional Detainers.” + +“And what on earth's that?” I asked. + +“It's really very simple, Mr Swinburne,” began he who had once been +the Rev. Ellis Shorter, of Chuntsey, in Essex; and it gave me a shock +indescribable to hear out of that pompous and familiar form come no +longer its own pompous and familiar voice, but the brisk sharp tones of +a young city man. “It is really nothing very important. We are paid by +our clients to detain in conversation, on some harmless pretext, people +whom they want out of the way for a few hours. And Captain Fraser--” and +with that he hesitated and smiled. + +Basil smiled also. He intervened. + +“The fact is that Captain Fraser, who is one of my best friends, wanted +us both out of the way very much. He is sailing tonight for East Africa, +and the lady with whom we were all to have dined is--er--what is I +believe described as 'the romance of his life'. He wanted that two hours +with her, and employed these two reverend gentlemen to detain us at our +houses so as to let him have the field to himself.” + +“And of course,” said the late Mr Shorter apologetically to me, “as I +had to keep a gentleman at home from keeping an appointment with a lady, +I had to come with something rather hot and strong--rather urgent. It +wouldn't have done to be tame.” + +“Oh,” I said, “I acquit you of tameness.” + +“Thank you, sir,” said the man respectfully, “always very grateful for +any recommendation, sir.” + +The other man idly pushed back his artificial bald head, revealing close +red hair, and spoke dreamily, perhaps under the influence of Basil's +admirable Burgundy. + +“It's wonderful how common it's getting, gentlemen. Our office is busy +from morning till night. I've no doubt you've often knocked up against +us before. You just take notice. When an old bachelor goes on boring you +with hunting stories, when you're burning to be introduced to somebody, +he's from our bureau. When a lady calls on parish work and stops hours, +just when you wanted to go to the Robinsons', she's from our bureau. The +Robinson hand, sir, may be darkly seen.” + +“There is one thing I don't understand,” I said. “Why you are both +vicars.” + +A shade crossed the brow of the temporary incumbent of Chuntsey, in +Essex. + +“That may have been a mistake, sir,” he said. “But it was not our fault. +It was all the munificence of Captain Fraser. He requested that the +highest price and talent on our tariff should be employed to detain +you gentlemen. Now the highest payment in our office goes to those who +impersonate vicars, as being the most respectable and more of a strain. +We are paid five guineas a visit. We have had the good fortune to +satisfy the firm with our work; and we are now permanently vicars. +Before that we had two years as colonels, the next in our scale. +Colonels are four guineas.” + + + +Chapter 4. The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent + +Lieutenant Drummond Keith was a man about whom conversation always burst +like a thunderstorm the moment he left the room. This arose from many +separate touches about him. He was a light, loose person, who wore +light, loose clothes, generally white, as if he were in the tropics; he +was lean and graceful, like a panther, and he had restless black eyes. + +He was very impecunious. He had one of the habits of the poor, in a +degree so exaggerated as immeasurably to eclipse the most miserable of +the unemployed; I mean the habit of continual change of lodgings. There +are inland tracts of London where, in the very heart of artificial +civilization, humanity has almost become nomadic once more. But in that +restless interior there was no ragged tramp so restless as the elegant +officer in the loose white clothes. He had shot a great many things in +his time, to judge from his conversation, from partridges to elephants, +but his slangier acquaintances were of opinion that “the moon” had been +not unfrequently amid the victims of his victorious rifle. The phrase is +a fine one, and suggests a mystic, elvish, nocturnal hunting. + +He carried from house to house and from parish to parish a kit which +consisted practically of five articles. Two odd-looking, large-bladed +spears, tied together, the weapons, I suppose, of some savage tribe, a +green umbrella, a huge and tattered copy of the Pickwick Papers, a big +game rifle, and a large sealed jar of some unholy Oriental wine. These +always went into every new lodging, even for one night; and they went in +quite undisguised, tied up in wisps of string or straw, to the delight +of the poetic gutter boys in the little grey streets. + +I had forgotten to mention that he always carried also his old +regimental sword. But this raised another odd question about him. Slim +and active as he was, he was no longer very young. His hair, indeed, was +quite grey, though his rather wild almost Italian moustache retained its +blackness, and his face was careworn under its almost Italian gaiety. +To find a middle-aged man who has left the Army at the primitive rank +of lieutenant is unusual and not necessarily encouraging. With the +more cautious and solid this fact, like his endless flitting, did the +mysterious gentleman no good. + +Lastly, he was a man who told the kind of adventures which win a man +admiration, but not respect. They came out of queer places, where a good +man would scarcely find himself, out of opium dens and gambling hells; +they had the heat of the thieves' kitchens or smelled of a strange +smoke from cannibal incantations. These are the kind of stories which +discredit a person almost equally whether they are believed or no. If +Keith's tales were false he was a liar; if they were true he had had, at +any rate, every opportunity of being a scamp. + +He had just left the room in which I sat with Basil Grant and his +brother Rupert, the voluble amateur detective. And as I say was +invariably the case, we were all talking about him. Rupert Grant was +a clever young fellow, but he had that tendency which youth and +cleverness, when sharply combined, so often produce, a somewhat +extravagant scepticism. He saw doubt and guilt everywhere, and it +was meat and drink to him. I had often got irritated with this boyish +incredulity of his, but on this particular occasion I am bound to say +that I thought him so obviously right that I was astounded at Basil's +opposing him, however banteringly. + +I could swallow a good deal, being naturally of a simple turn, but I +could not swallow Lieutenant Keith's autobiography. + +“You don't seriously mean, Basil,” I said, “that you think that that +fellow really did go as a stowaway with Nansen and pretend to be the Mad +Mullah and--” + +“He has one fault,” said Basil thoughtfully, “or virtue, as you may +happen to regard it. He tells the truth in too exact and bald a style; +he is too veracious.” + +“Oh! if you are going to be paradoxical,” said Rupert contemptuously, +“be a bit funnier than that. Say, for instance, that he has lived all +his life in one ancestral manor.” + +“No, he's extremely fond of change of scene,” replied Basil +dispassionately, “and of living in odd places. That doesn't prevent his +chief trait being verbal exactitude. What you people don't understand is +that telling a thing crudely and coarsely as it happened makes it sound +frightfully strange. The sort of things Keith recounts are not the sort +of things that a man would make up to cover himself with honour; they +are too absurd. But they are the sort of things that a man would do if +he were sufficiently filled with the soul of skylarking.” + +“So far from paradox,” said his brother, with something rather like a +sneer, “you seem to be going in for journalese proverbs. Do you believe +that truth is stranger than fiction?” + +“Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction,” said Basil placidly. +“For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is +congenial to it.” + +“Well, your lieutenant's truth is stranger, if it is truth, than +anything I ever heard of,” said Rupert, relapsing into flippancy. “Do +you, on your soul, believe in all that about the shark and the camera?” + +“I believe Keith's words,” answered the other. “He is an honest man.” + +“I should like to question a regiment of his landladies,” said Rupert +cynically. + +“I must say, I think you can hardly regard him as unimpeachable merely +in himself,” I said mildly; “his mode of life--” + +Before I could complete the sentence the door was flung open and +Drummond Keith appeared again on the threshold, his white Panama on his +head. + +“I say, Grant,” he said, knocking off his cigarette ash against the +door, “I've got no money in the world till next April. Could you lend me +a hundred pounds? There's a good chap.” + +Rupert and I looked at each other in an ironical silence. Basil, who was +sitting by his desk, swung the chair round idly on its screw and picked +up a quill-pen. + +“Shall I cross it?” he asked, opening a cheque-book. + +“Really,” began Rupert, with a rather nervous loudness, “since +Lieutenant Keith has seen fit to make this suggestion to Basil before +his family, I--” + +“Here you are, Ugly,” said Basil, fluttering a cheque in the direction +of the quite nonchalant officer. “Are you in a hurry?” + +“Yes,” replied Keith, in a rather abrupt way. “As a matter of fact I +want it now. I want to see my--er--business man.” + +Rupert was eyeing him sarcastically, and I could see that it was on +the tip of his tongue to say, inquiringly, “Receiver of stolen goods, +perhaps.” What he did say was: + +“A business man? That's rather a general description, Lieutenant Keith.” + +Keith looked at him sharply, and then said, with something rather like +ill-temper: + +“He's a thingum-my-bob, a house-agent, say. I'm going to see him.” + +“Oh, you're going to see a house-agent, are you?” said Rupert Grant +grimly. “Do you know, Mr Keith, I think I should very much like to go +with you?” + +Basil shook with his soundless laughter. Lieutenant Keith started a +little; his brow blackened sharply. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said. “What did you say?” + +Rupert's face had been growing from stage to stage of ferocious irony, +and he answered: + +“I was saying that I wondered whether you would mind our strolling along +with you to this house-agent's.” + +The visitor swung his stick with a sudden whirling violence. + +“Oh, in God's name, come to my house-agent's! Come to my bedroom. Look +under my bed. Examine my dust-bin. Come along!” And with a furious +energy which took away our breath he banged his way out of the room. + +Rupert Grant, his restless blue eyes dancing with his detective +excitement, soon shouldered alongside him, talking to him with that +transparent camaraderie which he imagined to be appropriate from the +disguised policeman to the disguised criminal. His interpretation +was certainly corroborated by one particular detail, the unmistakable +unrest, annoyance, and nervousness of the man with whom he walked. Basil +and I tramped behind, and it was not necessary for us to tell each other +that we had both noticed this. + +Lieutenant Drummond Keith led us through very extraordinary and +unpromising neighbourhoods in the search for his remarkable house-agent. +Neither of the brothers Grant failed to notice this fact. As the streets +grew closer and more crooked and the roofs lower and the gutters grosser +with mud, a darker curiosity deepened on the brows of Basil, and the +figure of Rupert seen from behind seemed to fill the street with a +gigantic swagger of success. At length, at the end of the fourth or +fifth lean grey street in that sterile district, we came suddenly to a +halt, the mysterious lieutenant looking once more about him with a +sort of sulky desperation. Above a row of shutters and a door, all +indescribably dingy in appearance and in size scarce sufficient even for +a penny toyshop, ran the inscription: “P. Montmorency, House-Agent.” + +“This is the office of which I spoke,” said Keith, in a cutting voice. +“Will you wait here a moment, or does your astonishing tenderness about +my welfare lead you to wish to overhear everything I have to say to my +business adviser?” + +Rupert's face was white and shaking with excitement; nothing on earth +would have induced him now to have abandoned his prey. + +“If you will excuse me,” he said, clenching his hands behind his back, +“I think I should feel myself justified in--” + +“Oh! Come along in,” exploded the lieutenant. He made the same gesture +of savage surrender. And he slammed into the office, the rest of us at +his heels. + +P. Montmorency, House-Agent, was a solitary old gentleman sitting behind +a bare brown counter. He had an egglike head, froglike jaws, and a grey +hairy fringe of aureole round the lower part of his face; the whole +combined with a reddish, aquiline nose. He wore a shabby black +frock-coat, a sort of semi-clerical tie worn at a very unclerical +angle, and looked, generally speaking, about as unlike a house-agent as +anything could look, short of something like a sandwich man or a Scotch +Highlander. + +We stood inside the room for fully forty seconds, and the odd old +gentleman did not look at us. Neither, to tell the truth, odd as he +was, did we look at him. Our eyes were fixed, where his were fixed, upon +something that was crawling about on the counter in front of him. It was +a ferret. + +The silence was broken by Rupert Grant. He spoke in that sweet and +steely voice which he reserved for great occasions and practised for +hours together in his bedroom. He said: + +“Mr Montmorency, I think?” + +The old gentleman started, lifted his eyes with a bland bewilderment, +picked up the ferret by the neck, stuffed it alive into his trousers +pocket, smiled apologetically, and said: + +“Sir.” + +“You are a house-agent, are you not?” asked Rupert. + +To the delight of that criminal investigator, Mr Montmorency's eyes +wandered unquietly towards Lieutenant Keith, the only man present that +he knew. + +“A house-agent,” cried Rupert again, bringing out the word as if it were +“burglar”. + +“Yes... oh, yes,” said the man, with a quavering and almost coquettish +smile. “I am a house-agent... oh, yes.” + +“Well, I think,” said Rupert, with a sardonic sleekness, “that +Lieutenant Keith wants to speak to you. We have come in by his request.” + +Lieutenant Keith was lowering gloomily, and now he spoke. + +“I have come, Mr Montmorency, about that house of mine.” + +“Yes, sir,” said Montmorency, spreading his fingers on the flat counter. +“It's all ready, sir. I've attended to all your suggestions er--about +the br--” + +“Right,” cried Keith, cutting the word short with the startling neatness +of a gunshot. “We needn't bother about all that. If you've done what I +told you, all right.” + +And he turned sharply towards the door. + +Mr Montmorency, House-Agent, presented a picture of pathos. After +stammering a moment he said: “Excuse me... Mr Keith... there was another +matter... about which I wasn't quite sure. I tried to get all the +heating apparatus possible under the circumstances ... but in winter... +at that elevation...” + +“Can't expect much, eh?” said the lieutenant, cutting in with the same +sudden skill. “No, of course not. That's all right, Montmorency. There +can't be any more difficulties,” and he put his hand on the handle of +the door. + +“I think,” said Rupert Grant, with a satanic suavity, “that Mr +Montmorency has something further to say to you, lieutenant.” + +“Only,” said the house-agent, in desperation, “what about the birds?” + +“I beg your pardon,” said Rupert, in a general blank. + +“What about the birds?” said the house-agent doggedly. + +Basil, who had remained throughout the proceedings in a state of +Napoleonic calm, which might be more accurately described as a state of +Napoleonic stupidity, suddenly lifted his leonine head. + +“Before you go, Lieutenant Keith,” he said. “Come now. Really, what +about the birds?” + +“I'll take care of them,” said Lieutenant Keith, still with his long +back turned to us; “they shan't suffer.” + +“Thank you, sir, thank you,” cried the incomprehensible house-agent, +with an air of ecstasy. “You'll excuse my concern, sir. You know I'm +wild on wild animals. I'm as wild as any of them on that. Thank you, +sir. But there's another thing...” + +The lieutenant, with his back turned to us, exploded with an +indescribable laugh and swung round to face us. It was a laugh, the +purport of which was direct and essential, and yet which one cannot +exactly express. As near as it said anything, verbally speaking, it +said: “Well, if you must spoil it, you must. But you don't know what +you're spoiling.” + +“There is another thing,” continued Mr Montmorency weakly. “Of course, +if you don't want to be visited you'll paint the house green, but--” + +“Green!” shouted Keith. “Green! Let it be green or nothing. I won't have +a house of another colour. Green!” and before we could realize anything +the door had banged between us and the street. + +Rupert Grant seemed to take a little time to collect himself; but he +spoke before the echoes of the door died away. + +“Your client, Lieutenant Keith, appears somewhat excited,” he said. +“What is the matter with him? Is he unwell?” + +“Oh, I should think not,” said Mr Montmorency, in some confusion. “The +negotiations have been somewhat difficult--the house is rather--” + +“Green,” said Rupert calmly. “That appears to be a very important point. +It must be rather green. May I ask you, Mr Montmorency, before I rejoin +my companion outside, whether, in your business, it is usual to ask for +houses by their colour? Do clients write to a house-agent asking for a +pink house or a blue house? Or, to take another instance, for a green +house?” + +“Only,” said Montmorency, trembling, “only to be inconspicuous.” + +Rupert had his ruthless smile. “Can you tell me any place on earth in +which a green house would be inconspicuous?” + +The house-agent was fidgeting nervously in his pocket. Slowly drawing +out a couple of lizards and leaving them to run on the counter, he said: + +“No; I can't.” + +“You can't suggest an explanation?” + +“No,” said Mr Montmorency, rising slowly and yet in such a way as to +suggest a sudden situation, “I can't. And may I, as a busy man, be +excused if I ask you, gentlemen, if you have any demand to make of me in +connection with my business. What kind of house would you desire me to +get for you, sir?” + +He opened his blank blue eyes on Rupert, who seemed for the second +staggered. Then he recovered himself with perfect common sense and +answered: + +“I am sorry, Mr Montmorency. The fascination of your remarks has unduly +delayed us from joining our friend outside. Pray excuse my apparent +impertinence.” + +“Not at all, sir,” said the house-agent, taking a South American spider +idly from his waistcoat pocket and letting it climb up the slope of his +desk. “Not at all, sir. I hope you will favour me again.” + +Rupert Grant dashed out of the office in a gust of anger, anxious +to face Lieutenant Keith. He was gone. The dull, starlit street was +deserted. + +“What do you say now?” cried Rupert to his brother. His brother said +nothing now. + +We all three strode down the street in silence, Rupert feverish, myself +dazed, Basil, to all appearance, merely dull. We walked through grey +street after grey street, turning corners, traversing squares, scarcely +meeting anyone, except occasional drunken knots of two or three. + +In one small street, however, the knots of two or three began abruptly +to thicken into knots of five or six and then into great groups and then +into a crowd. The crowd was stirring very slightly. But anyone with a +knowledge of the eternal populace knows that if the outside rim of a +crowd stirs ever so slightly it means that there is madness in the +heart and core of the mob. It soon became evident that something really +important had happened in the centre of this excitement. We wormed our +way to the front, with the cunning which is known only to cockneys, and +once there we soon learned the nature of the difficulty. There had been +a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead +on the stones of the street. Of the other four, all interesting matters +were, as far as we were concerned, swallowed up in one stupendous fact. +One of the four survivors of the brutal and perhaps fatal scuffle was +the immaculate Lieutenant Keith, his clothes torn to ribbons, his eyes +blazing, blood on his knuckles. One other thing, however, pointed at him +in a worse manner. A short sword, or very long knife, had been drawn out +of his elegant walking-stick, and lay in front of him upon the stones. +It did not, however, appear to be bloody. + +The police had already pushed into the centre with their ponderous +omnipotence, and even as they did so, Rupert Grant sprang forward with +his incontrollable and intolerable secret. + +“That is the man, constable,” he shouted, pointing at the battered +lieutenant. “He is a suspicious character. He did the murder.” + +“There's been no murder done, sir,” said the policeman, with his +automatic civility. “The poor man's only hurt. I shall only be able to +take the names and addresses of the men in the scuffle and have a good +eye kept on them.” + +“Have a good eye kept on that one,” said Rupert, pale to the lips, and +pointing to the ragged Keith. + +“All right, sir,” said the policeman unemotionally, and went the round +of the people present, collecting the addresses. When he had completed +his task the dusk had fallen and most of the people not immediately +connected with the examination had gone away. He still found, however, +one eager-faced stranger lingering on the outskirts of the affair. It +was Rupert Grant. + +“Constable,” he said, “I have a very particular reason for asking you +a question. Would you mind telling me whether that military fellow who +dropped his sword-stick in the row gave you an address or not?” + +“Yes, sir,” said the policeman, after a reflective pause; “yes, he gave +me his address.” + +“My name is Rupert Grant,” said that individual, with some pomp. “I +have assisted the police on more than one occasion. I wonder whether you +would tell me, as a special favour, what address?” + +The constable looked at him. + +“Yes,” he said slowly, “if you like. His address is: The Elms, Buxton +Common, near Purley, Surrey.” + +“Thank you,” said Rupert, and ran home through the gathering night as +fast as his legs could carry him, repeating the address to himself. + +Rupert Grant generally came down late in a rather lordly way to +breakfast; he contrived, I don't know how, to achieve always the +attitude of the indulged younger brother. Next morning, however, when +Basil and I came down we found him ready and restless. + +“Well,” he said sharply to his brother almost before we sat down to the +meal. “What do you think of your Drummond Keith now?” + +“What do I think of him?” inquired Basil slowly. “I don't think anything +of him.” + +“I'm glad to hear it,” said Rupert, buttering his toast with an energy +that was somewhat exultant. “I thought you'd come round to my view, but +I own I was startled at your not seeing it from the beginning. The man +is a translucent liar and knave.” + +“I think,” said Basil, in the same heavy monotone as before, “that I did +not make myself clear. When I said that I thought nothing of him I meant +grammatically what I said. I meant that I did not think about him; that +he did not occupy my mind. You, however, seem to me to think a lot of +him, since you think him a knave. I should say he was glaringly good +myself.” + +“I sometimes think you talk paradox for its own sake,” said Rupert, +breaking an egg with unnecessary sharpness. “What the deuce is the +sense of it? Here's a man whose original position was, by our common +agreement, dubious. He's a wanderer, a teller of tall tales, a man who +doesn't conceal his acquaintance with all the blackest and bloodiest +scenes on earth. We take the trouble to follow him to one of his +appointments, and if ever two human beings were plotting together and +lying to every one else, he and that impossible house-agent were doing +it. We followed him home, and the very same night he is in the thick +of a fatal, or nearly fatal, brawl, in which he is the only man armed. +Really, if this is being glaringly good, I must confess that the glare +does not dazzle me.” + +Basil was quite unmoved. “I admit his moral goodness is of a certain +kind, a quaint, perhaps a casual kind. He is very fond of change and +experiment. But all the points you so ingeniously make against him are +mere coincidence or special pleading. It's true he didn't want to talk +about his house business in front of us. No man would. It's true that he +carries a sword-stick. Any man might. It's true he drew it in the shock +of a street fight. Any man would. But there's nothing really dubious in +all this. There's nothing to confirm--” + +As he spoke a knock came at the door. + +“If you please, sir,” said the landlady, with an alarmed air, “there's a +policeman wants to see you.” + +“Show him in,” said Basil, amid the blank silence. + +The heavy, handsome constable who appeared at the door spoke almost as +soon as he appeared there. + +“I think one of you gentlemen,” he said, curtly but respectfully, “was +present at the affair in Copper Street last night, and drew my attention +very strongly to a particular man.” + +Rupert half rose from his chair, with eyes like diamonds, but the +constable went on calmly, referring to a paper. + +“A young man with grey hair. Had light grey clothes, very good, but torn +in the struggle. Gave his name as Drummond Keith.” + +“This is amusing,” said Basil, laughing. “I was in the very act of +clearing that poor officer's character of rather fanciful aspersions. +What about him?” + +“Well, sir,” said the constable, “I took all the men's addresses and had +them all watched. It wasn't serious enough to do more than that. All the +other addresses are all right. But this man Keith gave a false address. +The place doesn't exist.” + +The breakfast table was nearly flung over as Rupert sprang up, slapping +both his thighs. + +“Well, by all that's good,” he cried. “This is a sign from heaven.” + +“It's certainly very extraordinary,” said Basil quietly, with knitted +brows. “It's odd the fellow should have given a false address, +considering he was perfectly innocent in the--” + +“Oh, you jolly old early Christian duffer,” cried Rupert, in a sort of +rapture, “I don't wonder you couldn't be a judge. You think every one +as good as yourself. Isn't the thing plain enough now? A doubtful +acquaintance; rowdy stories, a most suspicious conversation, mean +streets, a concealed knife, a man nearly killed, and, finally, a false +address. That's what we call glaring goodness.” + +“It's certainly very extraordinary,” repeated Basil. And he strolled +moodily about the room. Then he said: “You are quite sure, constable, +that there's no mistake? You got the address right, and the police have +really gone to it and found it was a fraud?” + +“It was very simple, sir,” said the policeman, chuckling. “The place +he named was a well-known common quite near London, and our people were +down there this morning before any of you were awake. And there's no +such house. In fact, there are hardly any houses at all. Though it is +so near London, it's a blank moor with hardly five trees on it, to +say nothing of Christians. Oh, no, sir, the address was a fraud right +enough. He was a clever rascal, and chose one of those scraps of lost +England that people know nothing about. Nobody could say off-hand that +there was not a particular house dropped somewhere about the heath. But +as a fact, there isn't.” + +Basil's face during this sensible speech had been growing darker and +darker with a sort of desperate sagacity. He was cornered almost for +the first time since I had known him; and to tell the truth I rather +wondered at the almost childish obstinacy which kept him so close to his +original prejudice in favour of the wildly questionable lieutenant. At +length he said: + +“You really searched the common? And the address was really not known in +the district--by the way, what was the address?” + +The constable selected one of his slips of paper and consulted it, but +before he could speak Rupert Grant, who was leaning in the window in a +perfect posture of the quiet and triumphant detective, struck in with +the sharp and suave voice he loved so much to use. + +“Why, I can tell you that, Basil,” he said graciously as he idly plucked +leaves from a plant in the window. “I took the precaution to get this +man's address from the constable last night.” + +“And what was it?” asked his brother gruffly. + +“The constable will correct me if I am wrong,” said Rupert, looking +sweetly at the ceiling. “It was: The Elms, Buxton Common, near Purley, +Surrey.” + +“Right, sir,” said the policeman, laughing and folding up his papers. + +There was a silence, and the blue eyes of Basil looked blindly for a few +seconds into the void. Then his head fell back in his chair so suddenly +that I started up, thinking him ill. But before I could move further his +lips had flown apart (I can use no other phrase) and a peal of gigantic +laughter struck and shook the ceiling--laughter that shook the laughter, +laughter redoubled, laughter incurable, laughter that could not stop. + +Two whole minutes afterwards it was still unended; Basil was ill with +laughter; but still he laughed. The rest of us were by this time ill +almost with terror. + +“Excuse me,” said the insane creature, getting at last to his feet. +“I am awfully sorry. It is horribly rude. And stupid, too. And also +unpractical, because we have not much time to lose if we're to get down +to that place. The train service is confoundedly bad, as I happen to +know. It's quite out of proportion to the comparatively small distance.” + +“Get down to that place?” I repeated blankly. “Get down to what place?” + +“I have forgotten its name,” said Basil vaguely, putting his hands in +his pockets as he rose. “Something Common near Purley. Has any one got a +timetable?” + +“You don't seriously mean,” cried Rupert, who had been staring in a sort +of confusion of emotions. “You don't mean that you want to go to Buxton +Common, do you? You can't mean that!” + +“Why shouldn't I go to Buxton Common?” asked Basil, smiling. + +“Why should you?” said his brother, catching hold again restlessly of +the plant in the window and staring at the speaker. + +“To find our friend, the lieutenant, of course,” said Basil Grant. “I +thought you wanted to find him?” + +Rupert broke a branch brutally from the plant and flung it impatiently +on the floor. “And in order to find him,” he said, “you suggest the +admirable expedient of going to the only place on the habitable earth +where we know he can't be.” + +The constable and I could not avoid breaking into a kind of assenting +laugh, and Rupert, who had family eloquence, was encouraged to go on +with a reiterated gesture: + +“He may be in Buckingham Palace; he may be sitting astride the cross of +St Paul's; he may be in jail (which I think most likely); he may be +in the Great Wheel; he may be in my pantry; he may be in your store +cupboard; but out of all the innumerable points of space, there is only +one where he has just been systematically looked for and where we know +that he is not to be found--and that, if I understand you rightly, is +where you want us to go.” + +“Exactly,” said Basil calmly, getting into his great-coat; “I thought +you might care to accompany me. If not, of course, make yourselves jolly +here till I come back.” + +It is our nature always to follow vanishing things and value them if +they really show a resolution to depart. We all followed Basil, and I +cannot say why, except that he was a vanishing thing, that he vanished +decisively with his great-coat and his stick. Rupert ran after him with +a considerable flurry of rationality. + +“My dear chap,” he cried, “do you really mean that you see any good in +going down to this ridiculous scrub, where there is nothing but beaten +tracks and a few twisted trees, simply because it was the first place +that came into a rowdy lieutenant's head when he wanted to give a lying +reference in a scrape?” + +“Yes,” said Basil, taking out his watch, “and, what's worse, we've lost +the train.” + +He paused a moment and then added: “As a matter of fact, I think we may +just as well go down later in the day. I have some writing to do, and +I think you told me, Rupert, that you thought of going to the Dulwich +Gallery. I was rather too impetuous. Very likely he wouldn't be in. But +if we get down by the 5.15, which gets to Purley about 6, I expect we +shall just catch him.” + +“Catch him!” cried his brother, in a kind of final anger. “I wish we +could. Where the deuce shall we catch him now?” + +“I keep forgetting the name of the common,” said Basil, as he buttoned +up his coat. “The Elms--what is it? Buxton Common, near Purley. That's +where we shall find him.” + +“But there is no such place,” groaned Rupert; but he followed his +brother downstairs. + +We all followed him. We snatched our hats from the hat-stand and our +sticks from the umbrella-stand; and why we followed him we did not and +do not know. But we always followed him, whatever was the meaning of the +fact, whatever was the nature of his mastery. And the strange thing was +that we followed him the more completely the more nonsensical appeared +the thing which he said. At bottom, I believe, if he had risen from +our breakfast table and said: “I am going to find the Holy Pig with Ten +Tails,” we should have followed him to the end of the world. + +I don't know whether this mystical feeling of mine about Basil on this +occasion has got any of the dark and cloudy colour, so to speak, of the +strange journey that we made the same evening. It was already very dense +twilight when we struck southward from Purley. Suburbs and things on the +London border may be, in most cases, commonplace and comfortable. But if +ever by any chance they really are empty solitudes they are to the +human spirit more desolate and dehumanized than any Yorkshire moors or +Highland hills, because the suddenness with which the traveller drops +into that silence has something about it as of evil elf-land. It +seems to be one of the ragged suburbs of the cosmos half-forgotten by +God--such a place was Buxton Common, near Purley. + +There was certainly a sort of grey futility in the landscape itself. +But it was enormously increased by the sense of grey futility in our +expedition. The tracts of grey turf looked useless, the occasional +wind-stricken trees looked useless, but we, the human beings, more +useless than the hopeless turf or the idle trees. We were maniacs akin +to the foolish landscape, for we were come to chase the wild goose which +has led men and left men in bogs from the beginning. We were three dazed +men under the captaincy of a madman going to look for a man whom we knew +was not there in a house that had no existence. A livid sunset seemed to +look at us with a sort of sickly smile before it died. + +Basil went on in front with his coat collar turned up, looking in the +gloom rather like a grotesque Napoleon. We crossed swell after swell +of the windy common in increasing darkness and entire silence. Suddenly +Basil stopped and turned to us, his hands in his pockets. Through the +dusk I could just detect that he wore a broad grin as of comfortable +success. + +“Well,” he cried, taking his heavily gloved hands out of his pockets and +slapping them together, “here we are at last.” + +The wind swirled sadly over the homeless heath; two desolate elms rocked +above us in the sky like shapeless clouds of grey. There was not a sign +of man or beast to the sullen circle of the horizon, and in the midst of +that wilderness Basil Grant stood rubbing his hands with the air of an +innkeeper standing at an open door. + +“How jolly it is,” he cried, “to get back to civilization. That notion +that civilization isn't poetical is a civilised delusion. Wait till +you've really lost yourself in nature, among the devilish woodlands and +the cruel flowers. Then you'll know that there's no star like the red +star of man that he lights on his hearthstone; no river like the red +river of man, the good red wine, which you, Mr Rupert Grant, if I +have any knowledge of you, will be drinking in two or three minutes in +enormous quantities.” + +Rupert and I exchanged glances of fear. Basil went on heartily, as the +wind died in the dreary trees. + +“You'll find our host a much more simple kind of fellow in his own +house. I did when I visited him when he lived in the cabin at Yarmouth, +and again in the loft at the city warehouse. He's really a very good +fellow. But his greatest virtue remains what I said originally.” + +“What do you mean?” I asked, finding his speech straying towards a sort +of sanity. “What is his greatest virtue?” + +“His greatest virtue,” replied Basil, “is that he always tells the +literal truth.” + +“Well, really,” cried Rupert, stamping about between cold and anger, +and slapping himself like a cabman, “he doesn't seem to have been very +literal or truthful in this case, nor you either. Why the deuce, may I +ask, have you brought us out to this infernal place?” + +“He was too truthful, I confess,” said Basil, leaning against the tree; +“too hardly veracious, too severely accurate. He should have indulged in +a little more suggestiveness and legitimate romance. But come, it's time +we went in. We shall be late for dinner.” + +Rupert whispered to me with a white face: + +“Is it a hallucination, do you think? Does he really fancy he sees a +house?” + +“I suppose so,” I said. Then I added aloud, in what was meant to be +a cheery and sensible voice, but which sounded in my ears almost as +strange as the wind: + +“Come, come, Basil, my dear fellow. Where do you want us to go?” + +“Why, up here,” cried Basil, and with a bound and a swing he was above +our heads, swarming up the grey column of the colossal tree. + +“Come up, all of you,” he shouted out of the darkness, with the voice of +a schoolboy. “Come up. You'll be late for dinner.” + +The two great elms stood so close together that there was scarcely a +yard anywhere, and in some places not more than a foot, between them. +Thus occasional branches and even bosses and boles formed a series of +footholds that almost amounted to a rude natural ladder. They must, I +supposed, have been some sport of growth, Siamese twins of vegetation. + +Why we did it I cannot think; perhaps, as I have said, the mystery of +the waste and dark had brought out and made primary something wholly +mystical in Basil's supremacy. But we only felt that there was a giant's +staircase going somewhere, perhaps to the stars; and the victorious +voice above called to us out of heaven. We hoisted ourselves up after +him. + +Half-way up some cold tongue of the night air struck and sobered me +suddenly. The hypnotism of the madman above fell from me, and I saw the +whole map of our silly actions as clearly as if it were printed. I saw +three modern men in black coats who had begun with a perfectly sensible +suspicion of a doubtful adventurer and who had ended, God knows how, +half-way up a naked tree on a naked moorland, far from that adventurer +and all his works, that adventurer who was at that moment, in all +probability, laughing at us in some dirty Soho restaurant. He had plenty +to laugh at us about, and no doubt he was laughing his loudest; but when +I thought what his laughter would be if he knew where we were at that +moment, I nearly let go of the tree and fell. + +“Swinburne,” said Rupert suddenly, from above, “what are we doing? Let's +get down again,” and by the mere sound of his voice I knew that he too +felt the shock of wakening to reality. + +“We can't leave poor Basil,” I said. “Can't you call to him or get hold +of him by the leg?” + +“He's too far ahead,” answered Rupert; “he's nearly at the top of the +beastly thing. Looking for Lieutenant Keith in the rooks' nests, I +suppose.” + +We were ourselves by this time far on our frantic vertical journey. The +mighty trunks were beginning to sway and shake slightly in the wind. +Then I looked down and saw something which made me feel that we were far +from the world in a sense and to a degree that I cannot easily describe. +I saw that the almost straight lines of the tall elm trees diminished a +little in perspective as they fell. I was used to seeing parallel lines +taper towards the sky. But to see them taper towards the earth made me +feel lost in space, like a falling star. + +“Can nothing be done to stop Basil?” I called out. + +“No,” answered my fellow climber. “He's too far up. He must get to the +top, and when he finds nothing but wind and leaves he may go sane again. +Hark at him above there; you can just hear him talking to himself.” + +“Perhaps he's talking to us,” I said. + +“No,” said Rupert, “he'd shout if he was. I've never known him to talk +to himself before; I'm afraid he really is bad tonight; it's a known +sign of the brain going.” + +“Yes,” I said sadly, and listened. Basil's voice certainly was sounding +above us, and not by any means in the rich and riotous tones in which +he had hailed us before. He was speaking quietly, and laughing every now +and then, up there among the leaves and stars. + +After a silence mingled with this murmur, Rupert Grant suddenly said, +“My God!” with a violent voice. + +“What's the matter--are you hurt?” I cried, alarmed. + +“No. Listen to Basil,” said the other in a very strange voice. “He's not +talking to himself.” + +“Then he is talking to us,” I cried. + +“No,” said Rupert simply, “he's talking to somebody else.” + +Great branches of the elm loaded with leaves swung about us in a +sudden burst of wind, but when it died down I could still hear the +conversational voice above. I could hear two voices. + +Suddenly from aloft came Basil's boisterous hailing voice as before: +“Come up, you fellows. Here's Lieutenant Keith.” + +And a second afterwards came the half-American voice we had heard in our +chambers more than once. It called out: + +“Happy to see you, gentlemen; pray come in.” + +Out of a hole in an enormous dark egg-shaped thing, pendent in the +branches like a wasps' nest, was protruding the pale face and fierce +moustache of the lieutenant, his teeth shining with that slightly +Southern air that belonged to him. + +Somehow or other, stunned and speechless, we lifted ourselves heavily +into the opening. We fell into the full glow of a lamp-lit, cushioned, +tiny room, with a circular wall lined with books, a circular table, +and a circular seat around it. At this table sat three people. One was +Basil, who, in the instant after alighting there, had fallen into an +attitude of marmoreal ease as if he had been there from boyhood; he was +smoking a cigar with a slow pleasure. The second was Lieutenant Drummond +Keith, who looked happy also, but feverish and doubtful compared with +his granite guest. The third was the little bald-headed house-agent with +the wild whiskers, who called himself Montmorency. The spears, the +green umbrella, and the cavalry sword hung in parallels on the wall. The +sealed jar of strange wine was on the mantelpiece, the enormous rifle +in the corner. In the middle of the table was a magnum of champagne. +Glasses were already set for us. + +The wind of the night roared far below us, like an ocean at the foot +of a light-house. The room stirred slightly, as a cabin might in a mild +sea. + +Our glasses were filled, and we still sat there dazed and dumb. Then +Basil spoke. + +“You seem still a little doubtful, Rupert. Surely there is no further +question about the cold veracity of our injured host.” + +“I don't quite grasp it all,” said Rupert, blinking still in the sudden +glare. “Lieutenant Keith said his address was--” + +“It's really quite right, sir,” said Keith, with an open smile. “The +bobby asked me where I lived. And I said, quite truthfully, that I lived +in the elms on Buxton Common, near Purley. So I do. This gentleman, Mr +Montmorency, whom I think you have met before, is an agent for houses +of this kind. He has a special line in arboreal villas. It's being kept +rather quiet at present, because the people who want these houses don't +want them to get too common. But it's just the sort of thing a fellow +like myself, racketing about in all sorts of queer corners of London, +naturally knocks up against.” + +“Are you really an agent for arboreal villas?” asked Rupert eagerly, +recovering his ease with the romance of reality. + +Mr Montmorency, in his embarrassment, fingered one of his pockets and +nervously pulled out a snake, which crawled about the table. + +“W-well, yes, sir,” he said. “The fact was--er--my people wanted me very +much to go into the house-agency business. But I never cared myself for +anything but natural history and botany and things like that. My poor +parents have been dead some years now, but--naturally I like to respect +their wishes. And I thought somehow that an arboreal villa agency was +a sort of--of compromise between being a botanist and being a +house-agent.” + +Rupert could not help laughing. “Do you have much custom?” he asked. + +“N-not much,” replied Mr Montmorency, and then he glanced at Keith, who +was (I am convinced) his only client. “But what there is--very select.” + +“My dear friends,” said Basil, puffing his cigar, “always remember two +facts. The first is that though when you are guessing about any one +who is sane, the sanest thing is the most likely; when you are guessing +about any one who is, like our host, insane, the maddest thing is the +most likely. The second is to remember that very plain literal fact +always seems fantastic. If Keith had taken a little brick box of a house +in Clapham with nothing but railings in front of it and had written 'The +Elms' over it, you wouldn't have thought there was anything fantastic +about that. Simply because it was a great blaring, swaggering lie you +would have believed it.” + +“Drink your wine, gentlemen,” said Keith, laughing, “for this confounded +wind will upset it.” + +We drank, and as we did so, although the hanging house, by a cunning +mechanism, swung only slightly, we knew that the great head of the elm +tree swayed in the sky like a stricken thistle. + + + +Chapter 5. The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd + +Basil Grant had comparatively few friends besides myself; yet he was +the reverse of an unsociable man. He would talk to any one anywhere, and +talk not only well but with perfectly genuine concern and enthusiasm for +that person's affairs. He went through the world, as it were, as if he +were always on the top of an omnibus or waiting for a train. Most of +these chance acquaintances, of course, vanished into darkness out of his +life. A few here and there got hooked on to him, so to speak, and became +his lifelong intimates, but there was an accidental look about all of +them as if they were windfalls, samples taken at random, goods fallen +from a goods train or presents fished out of a bran-pie. One would +be, let us say, a veterinary surgeon with the appearance of a jockey; +another, a mild prebendary with a white beard and vague views; another, +a young captain in the Lancers, seemingly exactly like other captains +in the Lancers; another, a small dentist from Fulham, in all reasonable +certainty precisely like every other dentist from Fulham. Major +Brown, small, dry, and dapper, was one of these; Basil had made his +acquaintance over a discussion in a hotel cloak-room about the right +hat, a discussion which reduced the little major almost to a kind of +masculine hysterics, the compound of the selfishness of an old bachelor +and the scrupulosity of an old maid. They had gone home in a cab +together and then dined with each other twice a week until they died. I +myself was another. I had met Grant while he was still a judge, on the +balcony of the National Liberal Club, and exchanged a few words about +the weather. Then we had talked for about an hour about politics and +God; for men always talk about the most important things to total +strangers. It is because in the total stranger we perceive man himself; +the image of God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts +of the wisdom of a moustache. + +One of the most interesting of Basil's motley group of acquaintances was +Professor Chadd. He was known to the ethnological world (which is a very +interesting world, but a long way off this one) as the second greatest, +if not the greatest, authority on the relations of savages to language. +He was known to the neighbourhood of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, as a +bearded man with a bald head, spectacles, and a patient face, the face +of an unaccountable Nonconformist who had forgotten how to be angry. He +went to and fro between the British Museum and a selection of blameless +tea-shops, with an armful of books and a poor but honest umbrella. He +was never seen without the books and the umbrella, and was supposed (by +the lighter wits of the Persian MS. room) to go to bed with them in his +little brick villa in the neighbourhood of Shepherd's Bush. There +he lived with three sisters, ladies of solid goodness, but sinister +demeanour. His life was happy, as are almost all the lives of methodical +students, but one would not have called it exhilarating. His only hours +of exhilaration occurred when his friend, Basil Grant, came into the +house, late at night, a tornado of conversation. + +Basil, though close on sixty, had moods of boisterous babyishness, and +these seemed for some reason or other to descend upon him particularly +in the house of his studious and almost dingy friend. I can remember +vividly (for I was acquainted with both parties and often dined with +them) the gaiety of Grant on that particular evening when the strange +calamity fell upon the professor. Professor Chadd was, like most of +his particular class and type (the class that is at once academic and +middle-class), a Radical of a solemn and old-fashioned type. Grant was +a Radical himself, but he was that more discriminating and not uncommon +type of Radical who passes most of his time in abusing the Radical +party. Chadd had just contributed to a magazine an article called “Zulu +Interests and the New Makango Frontier”, in which a precise scientific +report of his study of the customs of the people of T'Chaka was +reinforced by a severe protest against certain interferences with these +customs both by the British and the Germans. He was sitting with the +magazine in front of him, the lamplight shining on his spectacles, a +wrinkle in his forehead, not of anger, but of perplexity, as Basil Grant +strode up and down the room, shaking it with his voice, with his high +spirits and his heavy tread. + +“It's not your opinions that I object to, my esteemed Chadd,” he was +saying, “it's you. You are quite right to champion the Zulus, but for +all that you do not sympathize with them. No doubt you know the Zulu way +of cooking tomatoes and the Zulu prayer before blowing one's nose; but +for all that you don't understand them as well as I do, who don't know +an assegai from an alligator. You are more learned, Chadd, but I am more +Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians of this earth are always +championed by people who are their antithesis? Why is it? You are +sagacious, you are benevolent, you are well informed, but, Chadd, you +are not savage. Live no longer under that rosy illusion. Look in the +glass. Ask your sisters. Consult the librarian of the British Museum. +Look at this umbrella.” And he held up that sad but still respectable +article. “Look at it. For ten mortal years to my certain knowledge you +have carried that object under your arm, and I have no sort of doubt +that you carried it at the age of eight months, and it never occurred to +you to give one wild yell and hurl it like a javelin--thus--” + +And he sent the umbrella whizzing past the professor's bald head, +so that it knocked over a pile of books with a crash and left a vase +rocking. + +Professor Chadd appeared totally unmoved, with his face still lifted to +the lamp and the wrinkle cut in his forehead. + +“Your mental processes,” he said, “always go a little too fast. And they +are stated without method. There is no kind of inconsistency”--and +no words can convey the time he took to get to the end of the +word--“between valuing the right of the aborigines to adhere to their +stage in the evolutionary process, so long as they find it congenial +and requisite to do so. There is, I say, no inconsistency between this +concession which I have just described to you and the view that the +evolutionary stage in question is, nevertheless, so far as we can form +any estimate of values in the variety of cosmic processes, definable in +some degree as an inferior evolutionary stage.” + +Nothing but his lips had moved as he spoke, and his glasses still shone +like two pallid moons. + +Grant was shaking with laughter as he watched him. + +“True,” he said, “there is no inconsistency, my son of the red spear. +But there is a great deal of incompatibility of temper. I am very far +from being certain that the Zulu is on an inferior evolutionary stage, +whatever the blazes that may mean. I do not think there is anything +stupid or ignorant about howling at the moon or being afraid of devils +in the dark. It seems to me perfectly philosophical. Why should a man +be thought a sort of idiot because he feels the mystery and peril of +existence itself? Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the +idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?” + +Professor Chadd slit open a page of the magazine with a bone paper-knife +and the intent reverence of the bibliophile. + +“Beyond all question,” he said, “it is a tenable hypothesis. I allude +to the hypothesis which I understand you to entertain, that our +civilization is not or may not be an advance upon, and indeed (if I +apprehend you), is or may be a retrogression from states identical with +or analogous to the state of the Zulus. Moreover, I shall be inclined +to concede that such a proposition is of the nature, in some degree at +least, of a primary proposition, and cannot adequately be argued, in the +same sense, I mean, that the primary proposition of pessimism, or the +primary proposition of the non-existence of matter, cannot adequately +be argued. But I do not conceive you to be under the impression that you +have demonstrated anything more concerning this proposition than that it +is tenable, which, after all, amounts to little more than the statement +that it is not a contradiction in terms.” + +Basil threw a book at his head and took out a cigar. + +“You don't understand,” he said, “but, on the other hand, as a +compensation, you don't mind smoking. Why you don't object to that +disgustingly barbaric rite I can't think. I can only say that I began it +when I began to be a Zulu, about the age of ten. What I maintained was +that although you knew more about Zulus in the sense that you are a +scientist, I know more about them in the sense that I am a savage. For +instance, your theory of the origin of language, something about its +having come from the formulated secret language of some individual +creature, though you knocked me silly with facts and scholarship in its +favour, still does not convince me, because I have a feeling that that +is not the way that things happen. If you ask me why I think so I can +only answer that I am a Zulu; and if you ask me (as you most certainly +will) what is my definition of a Zulu, I can answer that also. He is one +who has climbed a Sussex apple-tree at seven and been afraid of a ghost +in an English lane.” + +“Your process of thought--” began the immovable Chadd, but his speech +was interrupted. His sister, with that masculinity which always in such +families concentrates in sisters, flung open the door with a rigid arm +and said: + +“James, Mr Bingham of the British Museum wants to see you again.” + +The philosopher rose with a dazed look, which always indicates in +such men the fact that they regard philosophy as a familiar thing, but +practical life as a weird and unnerving vision, and walked dubiously out +of the room. + +“I hope you do not mind my being aware of it, Miss Chadd,” said Basil +Grant, “but I hear that the British Museum has recognized one of the +men who have deserved well of their commonwealth. It is true, is it +not, that Professor Chadd is likely to be made keeper of Asiatic +manuscripts?” + +The grim face of the spinster betrayed a great deal of pleasure and a +great deal of pathos also. “I believe it's true,” she said. “If it is, +it will not only be great glory which women, I assure you, feel a great +deal, but great relief, which they feel more; relief from worry from a +lot of things. James' health has never been good, and while we are as +poor as we are he had to do journalism and coaching, in addition to his +own dreadful grinding notions and discoveries, which he loves more than +man, woman, or child. I have often been afraid that unless something of +this kind occurred we should really have to be careful of his brain. But +I believe it is practically settled.” + +“I am delighted,” began Basil, but with a worried face, “but these +red-tape negotiations are so terribly chancy that I really can't advise +you to build on hope, only to be hurled down into bitterness. I've +known men, and good men like your brother, come nearer than this and be +disappointed. Of course, if it is true--” + +“If it is true,” said the woman fiercely, “it means that people who have +never lived may make an attempt at living.” + +Even as she spoke the professor came into the room still with the dazed +look in his eyes. + +“Is it true?” asked Basil, with burning eyes. + +“Not a bit true,” answered Chadd after a moment's bewilderment. “Your +argument was in three points fallacious.” + +“What do you mean?” demanded Grant. + +“Well,” said the professor slowly, “in saying that you could possess a +knowledge of the essence of Zulu life distinct from--” + +“Oh! confound Zulu life,” cried Grant, with a burst of laughter. “I +mean, have you got the post?” + +“You mean the post of keeper of the Asiatic manuscripts,” he said, +opening his eye with childlike wonder. “Oh, yes, I got that. But the +real objection to your argument, which has only, I admit, occurred to me +since I have been out of the room, is that it does not merely presuppose +a Zulu truth apart from the facts, but infers that the discovery of it +is absolutely impeded by the facts.” + +“I am crushed,” said Basil, and sat down to laugh, while the professor's +sister retired to her room, possibly to laugh, possibly not. + +It was extremely late when we left the Chadds, and it is an extremely +long and tiresome journey from Shepherd's Bush to Lambeth. This may +be our excuse for the fact that we (for I was stopping the night with +Grant) got down to breakfast next day at a time inexpressibly criminal, +a time, in point of fact, close upon noon. Even to that belated meal +we came in a very lounging and leisurely fashion. Grant, in particular, +seemed so dreamy at table that he scarcely saw the pile of letters by +his plate, and I doubt if he would have opened any of them if there +had not lain on the top that one thing which has succeeded amid modern +carelessness in being really urgent and coercive--a telegram. This he +opened with the same heavy distraction with which he broke his egg and +drank his tea. When he read it he did not stir a hair or say a word, but +something, I know not what, made me feel that the motionless figure +had been pulled together suddenly as strings are tightened on a slack +guitar. Though he said nothing and did not move, I knew that he had been +for an instant cleared and sharpened with a shock of cold water. It was +scarcely any surprise to me when a man who had drifted sullenly to his +seat and fallen into it, kicked it away like a cur from under him and +came round to me in two strides. + +“What do you make of that?” he said, and flattened out the wire in front +of me. + +It ran: “Please come at once. James' mental state dangerous. Chadd.” + +“What does the woman mean?” I said after a pause, irritably. “Those +women have been saying that the poor old professor was mad ever since he +was born.” + +“You are mistaken,” said Grant composedly. “It is true that all sensible +women think all studious men mad. It is true, for the matter of that, +all women of any kind think all men of any kind mad. But they don't put +it in telegrams, any more than they wire to you that grass is green or +God all-merciful. These things are truisms, and often private ones at +that. If Miss Chadd has written down under the eye of a strange woman +in a post-office that her brother is off his head you may be perfectly +certain that she did it because it was a matter of life and death, and +she can think of no other way of forcing us to come promptly.” + +“It will force us of course,” I said, smiling. + +“Oh, yes,” he replied; “there is a cab-rank near.” + +Basil scarcely said a word as we drove across Westminster Bridge, +through Trafalgar Square, along Piccadilly, and up the Uxbridge Road. +Only as he was opening the gate he spoke. + +“I think you will take my word for it, my friend,” he said; “this is +one of the most queer and complicated and astounding incidents that ever +happened in London or, for that matter, in any high civilization.” + +“I confess with the greatest sympathy and reverence that I don't quite +see it,” I said. “Is it so very extraordinary or complicated that a +dreamy somnambulant old invalid who has always walked on the borders of +the inconceivable should go mad under the shock of great joy? Is it so +very extraordinary that a man with a head like a turnip and a soul +like a spider's web should not find his strength equal to a confounding +change of fortunes? Is it, in short, so very extraordinary that James +Chadd should lose his wits from excitement?” + +“It would not be extraordinary in the least,” answered Basil, with +placidity. “It would not be extraordinary in the least,” he repeated, +“if the professor had gone mad. That was not the extraordinary +circumstance to which I referred.” + +“What,” I asked, stamping my foot, “was the extraordinary thing?” + +“The extraordinary thing,” said Basil, ringing the bell, “is that he has +not gone mad from excitement.” + +The tall and angular figure of the eldest Miss Chadd blocked the doorway +as the door opened. Two other Miss Chadds seemed in the same way to be +blocking the narrow passage and the little parlour. There was a general +sense of their keeping something from view. They seemed like three +black-clad ladies in some strange play of Maeterlinck, veiling the +catastrophe from the audience in the manner of the Greek chorus. + +“Sit down, won't you?” said one of them, in a voice that was somewhat +rigid with pain. “I think you had better be told first what has +happened.” + +Then, with her bleak face looking unmeaningly out of the window, she +continued, in an even and mechanical voice: + +“I had better state everything that occurred just as it occurred. This +morning I was clearing away the breakfast things, my sisters were both +somewhat unwell, and had not come down. My brother had just gone out +of the room, I believe, to fetch a book. He came back again, however, +without it, and stood for some time staring at the empty grate. I said, +'Were you looking for anything I could get?' He did not answer, but +this constantly happens, as he is often very abstracted. I repeated my +question, and still he did not answer. Sometimes he is so wrapped up +in his studies that nothing but a touch on the shoulder would make him +aware of one's presence, so I came round the table towards him. I really +do not know how to describe the sensation which I then had. It seems +simply silly, but at the moment it seemed something enormous, upsetting +one's brain. The fact is, James was standing on one leg.” + +Grant smiled slowly and rubbed his hands with a kind of care. + +“Standing on one leg?” I repeated. + +“Yes,” replied the dead voice of the woman without an inflection to +suggest that she felt the fantasticality of her statement. “He was +standing on the left leg and the right drawn up at a sharp angle, the +toe pointing downwards. I asked him if his leg hurt him. His only +answer was to shoot the leg straight at right angles to the other, as +if pointing to the other with his toe to the wall. He was still looking +quite gravely at the fireplace. + +“'James, what is the matter?' I cried, for I was thoroughly frightened. +James gave three kicks in the air with the right leg, flung up the +other, gave three kicks in the air with it also and spun round like a +teetotum the other way. 'Are you mad?' I cried. 'Why don't you answer +me?' He had come to a standstill facing me, and was looking at me as he +always does, with his lifted eyebrows and great spectacled eyes. When +I had spoken he remained a second or two motionless, and then his only +reply was to lift his left foot slowly from the floor and describe +circles with it in the air. I rushed to the door and shouted for +Christina. I will not dwell on the dreadful hours that followed. All +three of us talked to him, implored him to speak to us with appeals that +might have brought back the dead, but he has done nothing but hop +and dance and kick with a solemn silent face. It looks as if his legs +belonged to some one else or were possessed by devils. He has never +spoken to us from that time to this.” + +“Where is he now?” I said, getting up in some agitation. “We ought not +to leave him alone.” + +“Doctor Colman is with him,” said Miss Chadd calmly. “They are in the +garden. Doctor Colman thought the air would do him good. And he can +scarcely go into the street.” + +Basil and I walked rapidly to the window which looked out on the garden. +It was a small and somewhat smug suburban garden; the flower beds a +little too neat and like the pattern of a coloured carpet; but on this +shining and opulent summer day even they had the exuberance of something +natural, I had almost said tropical. In the middle of a bright and +verdant but painfully circular lawn stood two figures. One of them was a +small, sharp-looking man with black whiskers and a very polished hat (I +presume Dr Colman), who was talking very quietly and clearly, yet with +a nervous twitch, as it were, in his face. The other was our old friend, +listening with his old forbearing expression and owlish eyes, the strong +sunlight gleaming on his glasses as the lamplight had gleamed the +night before, when the boisterous Basil had rallied him on his studious +decorum. But for one thing the figure of this morning might have been +the identical figure of last night. That one thing was that while the +face listened reposefully the legs were industriously dancing like the +legs of a marionette. The neat flowers and the sunny glitter of +the garden lent an indescribable sharpness and incredibility to +the prodigy--the prodigy of the head of a hermit and the legs of a +harlequin. For miracles should always happen in broad daylight. The +night makes them credible and therefore commonplace. + +The second sister had by this time entered the room and came somewhat +drearily to the window. + +“You know, Adelaide,” she said, “that Mr Bingham from the Museum is +coming again at three.” + +“I know,” said Adelaide Chadd bitterly. “I suppose we shall have to tell +him about this. I thought that no good fortune would ever come easily to +us.” + +Grant suddenly turned round. “What do you mean?” he said. “What will you +have to tell Mr Bingham?” + +“You know what I shall have to tell him,” said the professor's sister, +almost fiercely. “I don't know that we need give it its wretched name. +Do you think that the keeper of Asiatic manuscripts will be allowed to +go on like that?” And she pointed for an instant at the figure in the +garden, the shining, listening face and the unresting feet. + +Basil Grant took out his watch with an abrupt movement. “When did you +say the British Museum man was coming?” he said. + +“Three o'clock,” said Miss Chadd briefly. + +“Then I have an hour before me,” said Grant, and without another word +threw up the window and jumped out into the garden. He did not walk +straight up to the doctor and lunatic, but strolling round the garden +path drew near them cautiously and yet apparently carelessly. He stood +a couple of feet off them, seemingly counting halfpence out of his +trousers pocket, but, as I could see, looking up steadily under the +broad brim of his hat. + +Suddenly he stepped up to Professor Chadd's elbow, and said, in a +loud familiar voice, “Well, my boy, do you still think the Zulus our +inferiors?” + +The doctor knitted his brows and looked anxious, seeming to be about to +speak. The professor turned his bald and placid head towards Grant in a +friendly manner, but made no answer, idly flinging his left leg about. + +“Have you converted Dr Colman to your views?” Basil continued, still in +the same loud and lucid tone. + +Chadd only shuffled his feet and kicked a little with the other leg, +his expression still benevolent and inquiring. The doctor cut in rather +sharply. “Shall we go inside, professor?” he said. “Now you have shown +me the garden. A beautiful garden. A most beautiful garden. Let us go +in,” and he tried to draw the kicking ethnologist by the elbow, at the +same time whispering to Grant: “I must ask you not to trouble him with +questions. Most risky. He must be soothed.” + +Basil answered in the same tone, with great coolness: + +“Of course your directions must be followed out, doctor. I will +endeavour to do so, but I hope it will not be inconsistent with them if +you will leave me alone with my poor friend in this garden for an hour. +I want to watch him. I assure you, Dr Colman, that I shall say very +little to him, and that little shall be as soothing as--as syrup.” + +The doctor wiped his eyeglass thoughtfully. + +“It is rather dangerous for him,” he said, “to be long in the strong sun +without his hat. With his bald head, too.” + +“That is soon settled,” said Basil composedly, and took off his own big +hat and clapped it on the egglike skull of the professor. The latter did +not turn round but danced away with his eyes on the horizon. + +The doctor put on his glasses again, looked severely at the two for +some seconds, with his head on one side like a bird's, and then saying, +shortly, “All right,” strutted away into the house, where the three +Misses Chadd were all looking out from the parlour window on to the +garden. They looked out on it with hungry eyes for a full hour without +moving, and they saw a sight which was more extraordinary than madness +itself. + +Basil Grant addressed a few questions to the madman, without succeeding +in making him do anything but continue to caper, and when he had done +this slowly took a red note-book out of one pocket and a large pencil +out of another. + +He began hurriedly to scribble notes. When the lunatic skipped away from +him he would walk a few yards in pursuit, stop, and make notes again. +Thus they followed each other round and round the foolish circle of +turf, the one writing in pencil with the face of a man working out a +problem, the other leaping and playing like a child. + +After about three-quarters of an hour of this imbecile scene, Grant put +the pencil in his pocket, but kept the note-book open in his hand, and +walking round the mad professor, planted himself directly in front of +him. + +Then occurred something that even those already used to that wild +morning had not anticipated or dreamed. The professor, on finding Basil +in front of him, stared with a blank benignity for a few seconds, and +then drew up his left leg and hung it bent in the attitude that his +sister had described as being the first of all his antics. And the +moment he had done it Basil Grant lifted his own leg and held it out +rigid before him, confronting Chadd with the flat sole of his boot. The +professor dropped his bent leg, and swinging his weight on to it kicked +out the other behind, like a man swimming. Basil crossed his feet like +a saltire cross, and then flung them apart again, giving a leap into +the air. Then before any of the spectators could say a word or even +entertain a thought about the matter, both of them were dancing a sort +of jig or hornpipe opposite each other; and the sun shone down on two +madmen instead of one. + +They were so stricken with the deafness and blindness of monomania that +they did not see the eldest Miss Chadd come out feverishly into the +garden with gestures of entreaty, a gentleman following her. Professor +Chadd was in the wildest posture of a pas-de-quatre, Basil Grant seemed +about to turn a cart-wheel, when they were frozen in their follies by +the steely voice of Adelaide Chadd saying, “Mr Bingham of the British +Museum.” + +Mr Bingham was a slim, well-clad gentleman with a pointed and slightly +effeminate grey beard, unimpeachable gloves, and formal but agreeable +manners. He was the type of the over-civilized, as Professor Chadd was +of the uncivilized pedant. His formality and agreeableness did him some +credit under the circumstances. He had a vast experience of books and a +considerable experience of the more dilettante fashionable salons. But +neither branch of knowledge had accustomed him to the spectacle of two +grey-haired middle-class gentlemen in modern costume throwing themselves +about like acrobats as a substitute for an after-dinner nap. + +The professor continued his antics with perfect placidity, but Grant +stopped abruptly. The doctor had reappeared on the scene, and his shiny +black eyes, under his shiny black hat, moved restlessly from one of them +to the other. + +“Dr Colman,” said Basil, turning to him, “will you entertain Professor +Chadd again for a little while? I am sure that he needs you. Mr Bingham, +might I have the pleasure of a few moments' private conversation? My +name is Grant.” + +Mr Bingham, of the British Museum, bowed in a manner that was respectful +but a trifle bewildered. + +“Miss Chadd will excuse me,” continued Basil easily, “if I know my way +about the house.” And he led the dazed librarian rapidly through the +back door into the parlour. + +“Mr Bingham,” said Basil, setting a chair for him, “I imagine that Miss +Chadd has told you of this distressing occurrence.” + +“She has, Mr Grant,” said Bingham, looking at the table with a sort +of compassionate nervousness. “I am more pained than I can say by this +dreadful calamity. It seems quite heart-rending that the thing should +have happened just as we have decided to give your eminent friend +a position which falls far short of his merits. As it is, of +course--really, I don't know what to say. Professor Chadd may, of +course, retain--I sincerely trust he will--his extraordinarily valuable +intellect. But I am afraid--I am really afraid--that it would not do to +have the curator of the Asiatic manuscripts--er--dancing about.” + +“I have a suggestion to make,” said Basil, and sat down abruptly in his +chair, drawing it up to the table. + +“I am delighted, of course,” said the gentleman from the British Museum, +coughing and drawing up his chair also. + +The clock on the mantelpiece ticked for just the moments required for +Basil to clear his throat and collect his words, and then he said: + +“My proposal is this. I do not know that in the strict use of words you +could altogether call it a compromise, still it has something of that +character. My proposal is that the Government (acting, as I presume, +through your Museum) should pay Professor Chadd £800 a year until he +stops dancing.” + +“Eight hundred a year!” said Mr Bingham, and for the first time lifted +his mild blue eyes to those of his interlocutor--and he raised them +with a mild blue stare. “I think I have not quite understood you. Did I +understand you to say that Professor Chadd ought to be employed, in his +present state, in the Asiatic manuscript department at eight hundred a +year?” + +Grant shook his head resolutely. + +“No,” he said firmly. “No. Chadd is a friend of mine, and I would say +anything for him I could. But I do not say, I cannot say, that he ought +to take on the Asiatic manuscripts. I do not go so far as that. I merely +say that until he stops dancing you ought to pay him £800 Surely you +have some general fund for the endowment of research.” + +Mr Bingham looked bewildered. + +“I really don't know,” he said, blinking his eyes, “what you are talking +about. Do you ask us to give this obvious lunatic nearly a thousand a +year for life?” + +“Not at all,” cried Basil, keenly and triumphantly. “I never said for +life. Not at all.” + +“What for, then?” asked the meek Bingham, suppressing an instinct meekly +to tear his hair. “How long is this endowment to run? Not till his +death? Till the Judgement day?” + +“No,” said Basil, beaming, “but just what I said. Till he has stopped +dancing.” And he lay back with satisfaction and his hands in his +pockets. + +Bingham had by this time fastened his eyes keenly on Basil Grant and +kept them there. + +“Come, Mr Grant,” he said. “Do I seriously understand you to suggest +that the Government pay Professor Chadd an extraordinarily high salary +simply on the ground that he has (pardon the phrase) gone mad? That he +should be paid more than four good clerks solely on the ground that he +is flinging his boots about in the back yard?” + +“Precisely,” said Grant composedly. + +“That this absurd payment is not only to run on with the absurd dancing, +but actually to stop with the absurd dancing?” + +“One must stop somewhere,” said Grant. “Of course.” + +Bingham rose and took up his perfect stick and gloves. + +“There is really nothing more to be said, Mr Grant,” he said coldly. +“What you are trying to explain to me may be a joke--a slightly +unfeeling joke. It may be your sincere view, in which case I ask your +pardon for the former suggestion. But, in any case, it appears quite +irrelevant to my duties. The mental morbidity, the mental downfall, of +Professor Chadd, is a thing so painful to me that I cannot easily endure +to speak of it. But it is clear there is a limit to everything. And if +the Archangel Gabriel went mad it would sever his connection, I am sorry +to say, with the British Museum Library.” + +He was stepping towards the door, but Grant's hand, flung out in +dramatic warning, arrested him. + +“Stop!” said Basil sternly. “Stop while there is yet time. Do you want +to take part in a great work, Mr Bingham? Do you want to help in the +glory of Europe--in the glory of science? Do you want to carry your head +in the air when it is bald or white because of the part that you bore in +a great discovery? Do you want--” + +Bingham cut in sharply: + +“And if I do want this, Mr Grant--” + +“Then,” said Basil lightly, “your task is easy. Get Chadd £800 a year +till he stops dancing.” + +With a fierce flap of his swinging gloves Bingham turned impatiently +to the door, but in passing out of it found it blocked. Dr Colman was +coming in. + +“Forgive me, gentlemen,” he said, in a nervous, confidential voice, “the +fact is, Mr Grant, I--er--have made a most disturbing discovery about Mr +Chadd.” + +Bingham looked at him with grave eyes. + +“I was afraid so,” he said. “Drink, I imagine.” + +“Drink!” echoed Colman, as if that were a much milder affair. “Oh, no, +it's not drink.” + +Mr Bingham became somewhat agitated, and his voice grew hurried and +vague. “Homicidal mania--” he began. + +“No, no,” said the medical man impatiently. + +“Thinks he's made of glass,” said Bingham feverishly, “or says he's +God--or--” + +“No,” said Dr Colman sharply; “the fact is, Mr Grant, my discovery is of +a different character. The awful thing about him is--” + +“Oh, go on, sir,” cried Bingham, in agony. + +“The awful thing about him is,” repeated Colman, with deliberation, +“that he isn't mad.” + +“Not mad!” + +“There are quite well-known physical tests of lunacy,” said the doctor +shortly; “he hasn't got any of them.” + +“But why does he dance?” cried the despairing Bingham. “Why doesn't he +answer us? Why hasn't he spoken to his family?” + +“The devil knows,” said Dr Colman coolly. “I'm paid to judge of +lunatics, but not of fools. The man's not mad.” + +“What on earth can it mean? Can't we make him listen?” said Mr Bingham. +“Can none get into any kind of communication with him?” + +Grant's voice struck in sudden and clear, like a steel bell: + +“I shall be very happy,” he said, “to give him any message you like to +send.” + +Both men stared at him. + +“Give him a message?” they cried simultaneously. “How will you give him +a message?” + +Basil smiled in his slow way. + +“If you really want to know how I shall give him your message,” he +began, but Bingham cried: + +“Of course, of course,” with a sort of frenzy. + +“Well,” said Basil, “like this.” And he suddenly sprang a foot into the +air, coming down with crashing boots, and then stood on one leg. + +His face was stern, though this effect was slightly spoiled by the fact +that one of his feet was making wild circles in the air. + +“You drive me to it,” he said. “You drive me to betray my friend. And I +will, for his own sake, betray him.” + +The sensitive face of Bingham took on an extra expression of distress as +of one anticipating some disgraceful disclosure. “Anything painful, of +course--” he began. + +Basil let his loose foot fall on the carpet with a crash that struck +them all rigid in their feeble attitudes. + +“Idiots!” he cried. “Have you seen the man? Have you looked at James +Chadd going dismally to and fro from his dingy house to your miserable +library, with his futile books and his confounded umbrella, and never +seen that he has the eyes of a fanatic? Have you never noticed, stuck +casually behind his spectacles and above his seedy old collar, the face +of a man who might have burned heretics, or died for the philosopher's +stone? It is all my fault, in a way: I lit the dynamite of his deadly +faith. I argued against him on the score of his famous theory about +language--the theory that language was complete in certain individuals +and was picked up by others simply by watching them. I also chaffed him +about not understanding things in rough and ready practice. What has +this glorious bigot done? He has answered me. He has worked out a system +of language of his own (it would take too long to explain); he has made +up, I say, a language of his own. And he has sworn that till people +understand it, till he can speak to us in this language, he will not +speak in any other. And he shall not. I have understood, by taking +careful notice; and, by heaven, so shall the others. This shall not be +blown upon. He shall finish his experiment. He shall have £800 a year +from somewhere till he has stopped dancing. To stop him now is an +infamous war on a great idea. It is religious persecution.” + +Mr Bingham held out his hand cordially. + +“I thank you, Mr Grant,” he said. “I hope I shall be able to answer for +the source of the £800 and I fancy that I shall. Will you come in my +cab?” + +“No, thank you very much, Mr Bingham,” said Grant heartily. “I think I +will go and have a chat with the professor in the garden.” + +The conversation between Chadd and Grant appeared to be personal and +friendly. They were still dancing when I left. + + + +Chapter 6. The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady + +The conversation of Rupert Grant had two great elements of +interest--first, the long fantasias of detective deduction in which he +was engaged, and, second, his genuine romantic interest in the life of +London. His brother Basil said of him: “His reasoning is particularly +cold and clear, and invariably leads him wrong. But his poetry comes +in abruptly and leads him right.” Whether this was true of Rupert as a +whole, or no, it was certainly curiously supported by one story about +him which I think worth telling. + +We were walking along a lonely terrace in Brompton together. The street +was full of that bright blue twilight which comes about half past eight +in summer, and which seems for the moment to be not so much a coming of +darkness as the turning on of a new azure illuminator, as if the earth +were lit suddenly by a sapphire sun. In the cool blue the lemon tint of +the lamps had already begun to flame, and as Rupert and I passed them, +Rupert talking excitedly, one after another the pale sparks sprang out +of the dusk. Rupert was talking excitedly because he was trying to +prove to me the nine hundred and ninety-ninth of his amateur detective +theories. He would go about London, with this mad logic in his brain, +seeing a conspiracy in a cab accident, and a special providence in a +falling fusee. His suspicions at the moment were fixed upon an unhappy +milkman who walked in front of us. So arresting were the incidents which +afterwards overtook us that I am really afraid that I have forgotten +what were the main outlines of the milkman's crime. I think it had +something to do with the fact that he had only one small can of milk to +carry, and that of that he had left the lid loose and walked so quickly +that he spilled milk on the pavement. This showed that he was not +thinking of his small burden, and this again showed that he anticipated +some other than lacteal business at the end of his walk, and this (taken +in conjunction with something about muddy boots) showed something else +that I have entirely forgotten. I am afraid that I derided this detailed +revelation unmercifully; and I am afraid that Rupert Grant, who, +though the best of fellows, had a good deal of the sensitiveness of the +artistic temperament, slightly resented my derision. He endeavoured to +take a whiff of his cigar, with the placidity which he associated with +his profession, but the cigar, I think, was nearly bitten through. + +“My dear fellow,” he said acidly, “I'll bet you half a crown that +wherever that milkman comes to a real stop I'll find out something +curious.” + +“My resources are equal to that risk,” I said, laughing. “Done.” + +We walked on for about a quarter of an hour in silence in the trail of +the mysterious milkman. He walked quicker and quicker, and we had some +ado to keep up with him; and every now and then he left a splash of +milk, silver in the lamplight. Suddenly, almost before we could note it, +he disappeared down the area steps of a house. I believe Rupert really +believed that the milkman was a fairy; for a second he seemed to accept +him as having vanished. Then calling something to me which somehow took +no hold on my mind, he darted after the mystic milkman, and disappeared +himself into the area. + +I waited for at least five minutes, leaning against a lamp-post in the +lonely street. Then the milkman came swinging up the steps without his +can and hurried off clattering down the road. Two or three minutes more +elapsed, and then Rupert came bounding up also, his face pale but yet +laughing; a not uncommon contradiction in him, denoting excitement. + +“My friend,” he said, rubbing his hands, “so much for all your +scepticism. So much for your philistine ignorance of the possibilities +of a romantic city. Two and sixpence, my boy, is the form in which your +prosaic good nature will have to express itself.” + +“What?” I said incredulously, “do you mean to say that you really did +find anything the matter with the poor milkman?” + +His face fell. + +“Oh, the milkman,” he said, with a miserable affectation at having +misunderstood me. “No, I--I--didn't exactly bring anything home to the +milkman himself, I--” + +“What did the milkman say and do?” I said, with inexorable sternness. + +“Well, to tell the truth,” said Rupert, shifting restlessly from +one foot to another, “the milkman himself, as far as merely physical +appearances went, just said, 'Milk, Miss,' and handed in the can. That +is not to say, of course, that he did not make some secret sign or +some--” + +I broke into a violent laugh. “You idiot,” I said, “why don't you own +yourself wrong and have done with it? Why should he have made a secret +sign any more than any one else? You own he said nothing and did nothing +worth mentioning. You own that, don't you?” + +His face grew grave. + +“Well, since you ask me, I must admit that I do. It is possible that +the milkman did not betray himself. It is even possible that I was wrong +about him.” + +“Then come along with you,” I said, with a certain amicable anger, “and +remember that you owe me half a crown.” + +“As to that, I differ from you,” said Rupert coolly. “The milkman's +remarks may have been quite innocent. Even the milkman may have been. +But I do not owe you half a crown. For the terms of the bet were, I +think, as follows, as I propounded them, that wherever that milkman came +to a real stop I should find out something curious.” + +“Well?” I said. + +“Well,” he answered, “I jolly well have. You just come with me,” and +before I could speak he had turned tail once more and whisked through +the blue dark into the moat or basement of the house. I followed almost +before I made any decision. + +When we got down into the area I felt indescribably foolish literally, +as the saying is, in a hole. There was nothing but a closed door, +shuttered windows, the steps down which we had come, the ridiculous +well in which I found myself, and the ridiculous man who had brought me +there, and who stood there with dancing eyes. I was just about to turn +back when Rupert caught me by the elbow. + +“Just listen to that,” he said, and keeping my coat gripped in his right +hand, he rapped with the knuckles of his left on the shutters of the +basement window. His air was so definite that I paused and even inclined +my head for a moment towards it. From inside was coming the murmur of an +unmistakable human voice. + +“Have you been talking to somebody inside?” I asked suddenly, turning to +Rupert. + +“No, I haven't,” he replied, with a grim smile, “but I should very much +like to. Do you know what somebody is saying in there?” + +“No, of course not,” I replied. + +“Then I recommend you to listen,” said Rupert sharply. + +In the dead silence of the aristocratic street at evening, I stood a +moment and listened. From behind the wooden partition, in which there +was a long lean crack, was coming a continuous and moaning sound which +took the form of the words: “When shall I get out? When shall I get out? +Will they ever let me out?” or words to that effect. + +“Do you know anything about this?” I said, turning upon Rupert very +abruptly. + +“Perhaps you think I am the criminal,” he said sardonically, “instead +of being in some small sense the detective. I came into this area two or +three minutes ago, having told you that I knew there was something funny +going on, and this woman behind the shutters (for it evidently is a +woman) was moaning like mad. No, my dear friend, beyond that I do +not know anything about her. She is not, startling as it may seem, my +disinherited daughter, or a member of my secret seraglio. But when +I hear a human being wailing that she can't get out, and talking to +herself like a mad woman and beating on the shutters with her fists, +as she was doing two or three minutes ago, I think it worth mentioning, +that is all.” + +“My dear fellow,” I said, “I apologize; this is no time for arguing. +What is to be done?” + +Rupert Grant had a long clasp-knife naked and brilliant in his hand. + +“First of all,” he said, “house-breaking.” And he forced the blade into +the crevice of the wood and broke away a huge splinter, leaving a gap +and glimpse of the dark window-pane inside. The room within was entirely +unlighted, so that for the first few seconds the window seemed a dead +and opaque surface, as dark as a strip of slate. Then came a realization +which, though in a sense gradual, made us step back and catch our +breath. Two large dim human eyes were so close to us that the window +itself seemed suddenly to be a mask. A pale human face was pressed +against the glass within, and with increased distinctness, with the +increase of the opening came the words: + +“When shall I get out?” + +“What can all this be?” I said. + +Rupert made no answer, but lifting his walking-stick and pointing the +ferrule like a fencing sword at the glass, punched a hole in it, smaller +and more accurate than I should have supposed possible. The moment he +had done so the voice spouted out of the hole, so to speak, piercing and +querulous and clear, making the same demand for liberty. + +“Can't you get out, madam?” I said, drawing near the hole in some +perturbation. + +“Get out? Of course I can't,” moaned the unknown female bitterly. “They +won't let me. I told them I would be let out. I told them I'd call the +police. But it's no good. Nobody knows, nobody comes. They could keep me +as long as they liked only--” + +I was in the very act of breaking the window finally with my stick, +incensed with this very sinister mystery, when Rupert held my arm hard, +held it with a curious, still, and secret rigidity as if he desired to +stop me, but did not desire to be observed to do so. I paused a moment, +and in the act swung slightly round, so that I was facing the supporting +wall of the front door steps. The act froze me into a sudden stillness +like that of Rupert, for a figure almost as motionless as the pillars of +the portico, but unmistakably human, had put his head out from between +the doorposts and was gazing down into the area. One of the lighted +lamps of the street was just behind his head, throwing it into abrupt +darkness. Consequently, nothing whatever could be seen of his face +beyond one fact, that he was unquestionably staring at us. I must say I +thought Rupert's calmness magnificent. He rang the area bell quite idly, +and went on talking to me with the easy end of a conversation which had +never had any beginning. The black glaring figure in the portico did +not stir. I almost thought it was really a statue. In another moment +the grey area was golden with gaslight as the basement door was opened +suddenly and a small and decorous housemaid stood in it. + +“Pray excuse me,” said Rupert, in a voice which he contrived to make +somehow or other at once affable and underbred, “but we thought perhaps +that you might do something for the Waifs and Strays. We don't expect--” + +“Not here,” said the small servant, with the incomparable severity of +the menial of the non-philanthropic, and slammed the door in our faces. + +“Very sad, very sad--the indifference of these people,” said the +philanthropist with gravity, as we went together up the steps. As we did +so the motionless figure in the portico suddenly disappeared. + +“Well, what do you make of that?” asked Rupert, slapping his gloves +together when we got into the street. + +I do not mind admitting that I was seriously upset. Under such +conditions I had but one thought. + +“Don't you think,” I said a trifle timidly, “that we had better tell +your brother?” + +“Oh, if you like,” said Rupert, in a lordly way. “He is quite near, as +I promised to meet him at Gloucester Road Station. Shall we take a cab? +Perhaps, as you say, it might amuse him.” + +Gloucester Road Station had, as if by accident, a somewhat deserted +look. After a little looking about we discovered Basil Grant with his +great head and his great white hat blocking the ticket-office window. I +thought at first that he was taking a ticket for somewhere and being an +astonishingly long time about it. As a matter of fact, he was discussing +religion with the booking-office clerk, and had almost got his head +through the hole in his excitement. When we dragged him away it was +some time before he would talk of anything but the growth of an Oriental +fatalism in modern thought, which had been well typified by some of the +official's ingenious but perverse fallacies. At last we managed to get +him to understand that we had made an astounding discovery. When he +did listen, he listened attentively, walking between us up and down +the lamp-lit street, while we told him in a rather feverish duet of the +great house in South Kensington, of the equivocal milkman, of the lady +imprisoned in the basement, and the man staring from the porch. At +length he said: + +“If you're thinking of going back to look the thing up, you must be +careful what you do. It's no good you two going there. To go twice on +the same pretext would look dubious. To go on a different pretext would +look worse. You may be quite certain that the inquisitive gentleman +who looked at you looked thoroughly, and will wear, so to speak, +your portraits next to his heart. If you want to find out if there +is anything in this without a police raid I fancy you had better wait +outside. I'll go in and see them.” + +His slow and reflective walk brought us at length within sight of the +house. It stood up ponderous and purple against the last pallor of +twilight. It looked like an ogre's castle. And so apparently it was. + +“Do you think it's safe, Basil,” said his brother, pausing, a little +pale, under the lamp, “to go into that place alone? Of course we +shall be near enough to hear if you yell, but these devils might do +something--something sudden--or odd. I can't feel it's safe.” + +“I know of nothing that is safe,” said Basil composedly, “except, +possibly--death,” and he went up the steps and rang at the bell. When +the massive respectable door opened for an instant, cutting a square of +gaslight in the gathering dark, and then closed with a bang, burying +our friend inside, we could not repress a shudder. It had been like +the heavy gaping and closing of the dim lips of some evil leviathan. A +freshening night breeze began to blow up the street, and we turned up +the collars of our coats. At the end of twenty minutes, in which we +had scarcely moved or spoken, we were as cold as icebergs, but more, I +think, from apprehension than the atmosphere. Suddenly Rupert made an +abrupt movement towards the house. + +“I can't stand this,” he began, but almost as he spoke sprang back into +the shadow, for the panel of gold was again cut out of the black house +front, and the burly figure of Basil was silhouetted against it coming +out. He was roaring with laughter and talking so loudly that you +could have heard every syllable across the street. Another voice, or, +possibly, two voices, were laughing and talking back at him from within. + +“No, no, no,” Basil was calling out, with a sort of hilarious hostility. +“That's quite wrong. That's the most ghastly heresy of all. It's the +soul, my dear chap, the soul that's the arbiter of cosmic forces. When +you see a cosmic force you don't like, trick it, my boy. But I must +really be off.” + +“Come and pitch into us again,” came the laughing voice from out of the +house. “We still have some bones unbroken.” + +“Thanks very much, I will--good night,” shouted Grant, who had by this +time reached the street. + +“Good night,” came the friendly call in reply, before the door closed. + +“Basil,” said Rupert Grant, in a hoarse whisper, “what are we to do?” + +The elder brother looked thoughtfully from one of us to the other. + +“What is to be done, Basil?” I repeated in uncontrollable excitement. + +“I'm not sure,” said Basil doubtfully. “What do you say to getting some +dinner somewhere and going to the Court Theatre tonight? I tried to get +those fellows to come, but they couldn't.” + +We stared blankly. + +“Go to the Court Theatre?” repeated Rupert. “What would be the good of +that?” + +“Good? What do you mean?” answered Basil, staring also. “Have you turned +Puritan or Passive Resister, or something? For fun, of course.” + +“But, great God in Heaven! What are we going to do, I mean!” cried +Rupert. “What about the poor woman locked up in that house? Shall I go +for the police?” + +Basil's face cleared with immediate comprehension, and he laughed. + +“Oh, that,” he said. “I'd forgotten that. That's all right. Some +mistake, possibly. Or some quite trifling private affair. But I'm sorry +those fellows couldn't come with us. Shall we take one of these green +omnibuses? There is a restaurant in Sloane Square.” + +“I sometimes think you play the fool to frighten us,” I said irritably. +“How can we leave that woman locked up? How can it be a mere private +affair? How can crime and kidnapping and murder, for all I know, be +private affairs? If you found a corpse in a man's drawing-room, would +you think it bad taste to talk about it just as if it was a confounded +dado or an infernal etching?” + +Basil laughed heartily. + +“That's very forcible,” he said. “As a matter of fact, though, I know +it's all right in this case. And there comes the green omnibus.” + +“How do you know it's all right in this ease?” persisted his brother +angrily. + +“My dear chap, the thing's obvious,” answered Basil, holding a return +ticket between his teeth while he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. +“Those two fellows never committed a crime in their lives. They're not +the kind. Have either of you chaps got a halfpenny? I want to get a +paper before the omnibus comes.” + +“Oh, curse the paper!” cried Rupert, in a fury. “Do you mean to tell +me, Basil Grant, that you are going to leave a fellow creature in pitch +darkness in a private dungeon, because you've had ten minutes' talk with +the keepers of it and thought them rather good men?” + +“Good men do commit crimes sometimes,” said Basil, taking the ticket +out of his mouth. “But this kind of good man doesn't commit that kind of +crime. Well, shall we get on this omnibus?” + +The great green vehicle was indeed plunging and lumbering along the +dim wide street towards us. Basil had stepped from the curb, and for an +instant it was touch and go whether we should all have leaped on to it +and been borne away to the restaurant and the theatre. + +“Basil,” I said, taking him firmly by the shoulder, “I simply won't +leave this street and this house.” + +“Nor will I,” said Rupert, glaring at it and biting his fingers. +“There's some black work going on there. If I left it I should never +sleep again.” + +Basil Grant looked at us both seriously. + +“Of course if you feel like that,” he said, “we'll investigate further. +You'll find it's all right, though. They're only two young Oxford +fellows. Extremely nice, too, though rather infected with this +pseudo-Darwinian business. Ethics of evolution and all that.” + +“I think,” said Rupert darkly, ringing the bell, “that we shall +enlighten you further about their ethics.” + +“And may I ask,” said Basil gloomily, “what it is that you propose to +do?” + +“I propose, first of all,” said Rupert, “to get into this house; +secondly, to have a look at these nice young Oxford men; thirdly, to +knock them down, bind them, gag them, and search the house.” + +Basil stared indignantly for a few minutes. Then he was shaken for an +instant with one of his sudden laughs. + +“Poor little boys,” he said. “But it almost serves them right for +holding such silly views, after all,” and he quaked again with amusement +“there's something confoundedly Darwinian about it.” + +“I suppose you mean to help us?” said Rupert. + +“Oh, yes, I'll be in it,” answered Basil, “if it's only to prevent your +doing the poor chaps any harm.” + +He was standing in the rear of our little procession, looking +indifferent and sometimes even sulky, but somehow the instant the door +opened he stepped first into the hall, glowing with urbanity. + +“So sorry to haunt you like this,” he said. “I met two friends outside +who very much want to know you. May I bring them in?” + +“Delighted, of course,” said a young voice, the unmistakable voice +of the Isis, and I realized that the door had been opened, not by the +decorous little servant girl, but by one of our hosts in person. He was +a short, but shapely young gentleman, with curly dark hair and a +square, snub-nosed face. He wore slippers and a sort of blazer of some +incredible college purple. + +“This way,” he said; “mind the steps by the staircase. This house is +more crooked and old-fashioned than you would think from its snobbish +exterior. There are quite a lot of odd corners in the place really.” + +“That,” said Rupert, with a savage smile, “I can quite believe.” + +We were by this time in the study or back parlour, used by the young +inhabitants as a sitting-room, an apartment littered with magazines +and books ranging from Dante to detective stories. The other youth, who +stood with his back to the fire smoking a corncob, was big and burly, +with dead brown hair brushed forward and a Norfolk jacket. He was that +particular type of man whose every feature and action is heavy and +clumsy, and yet who is, you would say, rather exceptionally a gentleman. + +“Any more arguments?” he said, when introductions had been effected. “I +must say, Mr Grant, you were rather severe upon eminent men of science +such as we. I've half a mind to chuck my D.Sc. and turn minor poet.” + +“Bosh,” answered Grant. “I never said a word against eminent men of +science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes +itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new +religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall +of man they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't +understand. Now that they talk about the survival of the fittest they +think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion, +they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean. The +Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, +instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk +unscientifically about science.” + +“That is all very well,” said the big young man, whose name appeared +to be Burrows. “Of course, in a sense, science, like mathematics or +the violin, can only be perfectly understood by specialists. Still, the +rudiments may be of public use. Greenwood here,” indicating the little +man in the blazer, “doesn't know one note of music from another. Still, +he knows something. He knows enough to take off his hat when they play +'God Save the King'. He doesn't take it off by mistake when they play +'Oh, Dem Golden Slippers'. Just in the same way science--” + +Here Mr Burrows stopped abruptly. He was interrupted by an argument +uncommon in philosophical controversy and perhaps not wholly legitimate. +Rupert Grant had bounded on him from behind, flung an arm round his +throat, and bent the giant backwards. + +“Knock the other fellow down, Swinburne,” he called out, and before I +knew where I was I was locked in a grapple with the man in the purple +blazer. He was a wiry fighter, who bent and sprang like a whalebone, but +I was heavier and had taken him utterly by surprise. I twitched one of +his feet from under him; he swung for a moment on the single foot, and +then we fell with a crash amid the litter of newspapers, myself on top. + +My attention for a moment released by victory, I could hear Basil's +voice finishing some long sentence of which I had not heard the +beginning. + +“... wholly, I must confess, unintelligible to me, my dear sir, and +I need not say unpleasant. Still one must side with one's old friends +against the most fascinating new ones. Permit me, therefore, in tying +you up in this antimacassar, to make it as commodious as handcuffs can +reasonably be while...” + +I had staggered to my feet. The gigantic Burrows was toiling in the +garotte of Rupert, while Basil was striving to master his mighty hands. +Rupert and Basil were both particularly strong, but so was Mr Burrows; +how strong, we knew a second afterwards. His head was held back by +Rupert's arm, but a convulsive heave went over his whole frame. An +instant after his head plunged forward like a bull's, and Rupert Grant +was slung head over heels, a catherine wheel of legs, on the floor in +front of him. Simultaneously the bull's head butted Basil in the chest, +bringing him also to the ground with a crash, and the monster, with a +Berserker roar, leaped at me and knocked me into the corner of the +room, smashing the waste-paper basket. The bewildered Greenwood sprang +furiously to his feet. Basil did the same. But they had the best of it +now. + +Greenwood dashed to the bell and pulled it violently, sending peals +through the great house. Before I could get panting to my feet, and +before Rupert, who had been literally stunned for a few moments, +could even lift his head from the floor, two footmen were in the room. +Defeated even when we were in a majority, we were now outnumbered. +Greenwood and one of the footmen flung themselves upon me, crushing me +back into the corner upon the wreck of the paper basket. The other two +flew at Basil, and pinned him against the wall. Rupert lifted himself on +his elbow, but he was still dazed. + +In the strained silence of our helplessness I heard the voice of Basil +come with a loud incongruous cheerfulness. + +“Now this,” he said, “is what I call enjoying oneself.” + +I caught a glimpse of his face, flushed and forced against the bookcase, +from between the swaying limbs of my captors and his. To my astonishment +his eyes were really brilliant with pleasure, like those of a child +heated by a favourite game. + +I made several apoplectic efforts to rise, but the servant was on top of +me so heavily that Greenwood could afford to leave me to him. He turned +quickly to come to reinforce the two who were mastering Basil. The +latter's head was already sinking lower and lower, like a leaking ship, +as his enemies pressed him down. He flung up one hand just as I thought +him falling and hung on to a huge tome in the bookcase, a volume, I +afterwards discovered, of St Chrysostom's theology. Just as Greenwood +bounded across the room towards the group, Basil plucked the ponderous +tome bodily out of the shelf, swung it, and sent it spinning through the +air, so that it struck Greenwood flat in the face and knocked him over +like a rolling ninepin. At the same instant Basil's stiffness broke, and +he sank, his enemies closing over him. + +Rupert's head was clear, but his body shaken; he was hanging as best he +could on to the half-prostrate Greenwood. They were rolling over each +other on the floor, both somewhat enfeebled by their falls, but Rupert +certainly the more so. I was still successfully held down. The floor +was a sea of torn and trampled papers and magazines, like an immense +waste-paper basket. Burrows and his companion were almost up to the +knees in them, as in a drift of dead leaves. And Greenwood had his leg +stuck right through a sheet of the Pall Mall Gazette, which clung to it +ludicrously, like some fantastic trouser frill. + +Basil, shut from me in a human prison, a prison of powerful bodies, +might be dead for all I knew. I fancied, however, that the broad back of +Mr Burrows, which was turned towards me, had a certain bend of effort in +it as if my friend still needed some holding down. Suddenly that broad +back swayed hither and thither. It was swaying on one leg; Basil, +somehow, had hold of the other. Burrows' huge fists and those of the +footman were battering Basil's sunken head like an anvil, but nothing +could get the giant's ankle out of his sudden and savage grip. While his +own head was forced slowly down in darkness and great pain, the right +leg of his captor was being forced in the air. Burrows swung to and +fro with a purple face. Then suddenly the floor and the walls and the +ceiling shook together, as the colossus fell, all his length seeming to +fill the floor. Basil sprang up with dancing eyes, and with three blows +like battering-rams knocked the footman into a cocked hat. Then he +sprang on top of Burrows, with one antimacassar in his hand and another +in his teeth, and bound him hand and foot almost before he knew clearly +that his head had struck the floor. Then Basil sprang at Greenwood, whom +Rupert was struggling to hold down, and between them they secured him +easily. The man who had hold of me let go and turned to his rescue, but +I leaped up like a spring released, and, to my infinite satisfaction, +knocked the fellow down. The other footman, bleeding at the mouth +and quite demoralized, was stumbling out of the room. My late captor, +without a word, slunk after him, seeing that the battle was won. +Rupert was sitting astride the pinioned Mr Greenwood, Basil astride the +pinioned Mr Burrows. + +To my surprise the latter gentleman, lying bound on his back, spoke in a +perfectly calm voice to the man who sat on top of him. + +“And now, gentlemen,” he said, “since you have got your own way, perhaps +you wouldn't mind telling us what the deuce all this is?” + +“This,” said Basil, with a radiant face, looking down at his captive, +“this is what we call the survival of the fittest.” + +Rupert, who had been steadily collecting himself throughout the latter +phases of the fight, was intellectually altogether himself again at the +end of it. Springing up from the prostrate Greenwood, and knotting a +handkerchief round his left hand, which was bleeding from a blow, he +sang out quite coolly: + +“Basil, will you mount guard over the captive of your bow and spear and +antimacassar? Swinburne and I will clear out the prison downstairs.” + +“All right,” said Basil, rising also and seating himself in a leisured +way in an armchair. “Don't hurry for us,” he said, glancing round at the +litter of the room, “we have all the illustrated papers.” + +Rupert lurched thoughtfully out of the room, and I followed him even +more slowly; in fact, I lingered long enough to hear, as I passed +through the room, the passages and the kitchen stairs, Basil's voice +continuing conversationally: + +“And now, Mr Burrows,” he said, settling himself sociably in the chair, +“there's no reason why we shouldn't go on with that amusing argument. +I'm sorry that you have to express yourself lying on your back on the +floor, and, as I told you before, I've no more notion why you are there +than the man in the moon. A conversationalist like yourself, however, +can scarcely be seriously handicapped by any bodily posture. You were +saying, if I remember right, when this incidental fracas occurred, that +the rudiments of science might with advantage be made public.” + +“Precisely,” said the large man on the floor in an easy tone. “I hold +that nothing more than a rough sketch of the universe as seen by science +can be...” + +And here the voices died away as we descended into the basement. I +noticed that Mr Greenwood did not join in the amicable controversy. +Strange as it may appear, I think he looked back upon our proceedings +with a slight degree of resentment. Mr Burrows, however, was all +philosophy and chattiness. We left them, as I say, together, and sank +deeper and deeper into the under-world of that mysterious house, which, +perhaps, appeared to us somewhat more Tartarean than it really was, +owing to our knowledge of its semi-criminal mystery and of the human +secret locked below. + +The basement floor had several doors, as is usual in such a house; doors +that would naturally lead to the kitchen, the scullery, the pantry, +the servants' hall, and so on. Rupert flung open all the doors with +indescribable rapidity. Four out of the five opened on entirely empty +apartments. The fifth was locked. Rupert broke the door in like a +bandbox, and we fell into the sudden blackness of the sealed, unlighted +room. + +Rupert stood on the threshold, and called out like a man calling into an +abyss: + +“Whoever you are, come out. You are free. The people who held you +captive are captives themselves. We heard you crying and we came to +deliver you. We have bound your enemies upstairs hand and foot. You are +free.” + +For some seconds after he had spoken into the darkness there was a dead +silence in it. Then there came a kind of muttering and moaning. We might +easily have taken it for the wind or rats if we had not happened to have +heard it before. It was unmistakably the voice of the imprisoned woman, +drearily demanding liberty, just as we had heard her demand it. + +“Has anybody got a match?” said Rupert grimly. “I fancy we have come +pretty near the end of this business.” + +I struck a match and held it up. It revealed a large, bare, +yellow-papered apartment with a dark-clad figure at the other end of +it near the window. An instant after it burned my fingers and dropped, +leaving darkness. It had, however, revealed something more practical--an +iron gas bracket just above my head. I struck another match and lit the +gas. And we found ourselves suddenly and seriously in the presence of +the captive. + +At a sort of workbox in the window of this subterranean breakfast-room +sat an elderly lady with a singularly high colour and almost startling +silver hair. She had, as if designedly to relieve these effects, a pair +of Mephistophelian black eyebrows and a very neat black dress. The glare +of the gas lit up her piquant hair and face perfectly against the brown +background of the shutters. The background was blue and not brown in one +place; at the place where Rupert's knife had torn a great opening in the +wood about an hour before. + +“Madam,” said he, advancing with a gesture of the hat, “permit me +to have the pleasure of announcing to you that you are free. Your +complaints happened to strike our ears as we passed down the street, and +we have therefore ventured to come to your rescue.” + +The old lady with the red face and the black eyebrows looked at us for +a moment with something of the apoplectic stare of a parrot. Then she +said, with a sudden gust or breathing of relief: + +“Rescue? Where is Mr Greenwood? Where is Mr Burrows? Did you say you had +rescued me?” + +“Yes, madam,” said Rupert, with a beaming condescension. “We have very +satisfactorily dealt with Mr Greenwood and Mr Burrows. We have settled +affairs with them very satisfactorily.” + +The old lady rose from her chair and came very quickly towards us. + +“What did you say to them? How did you persuade them?” she cried. + +“We persuaded them, my dear madam,” said Rupert, laughing, “by knocking +them down and tying them up. But what is the matter?” + +To the surprise of every one the old lady walked slowly back to her seat +by the window. + +“Do I understand,” she said, with the air of a person about to begin +knitting, “that you have knocked down Mr Burrows and tied him up?” + +“We have,” said Rupert proudly; “we have resisted their oppression and +conquered it.” + +“Oh, thanks,” answered the old lady, and sat down by the window. + +A considerable pause followed. + +“The road is quite clear for you, madam,” said Rupert pleasantly. + +The old lady rose, cocking her black eyebrows and her silver crest at us +for an instant. + +“But what about Greenwood and Burrows?” she said. “What did I understand +you to say had become of them?” + +“They are lying on the floor upstairs,” said Rupert, chuckling. “Tied +hand and foot.” + +“Well, that settles it,” said the old lady, coming with a kind of bang +into her seat again, “I must stop where I am.” + +Rupert looked bewildered. + +“Stop where you are?” he said. “Why should you stop any longer where you +are? What power can force you now to stop in this miserable cell?” + +“The question rather is,” said the old lady, with composure, “what power +can force me to go anywhere else?” + +We both stared wildly at her and she stared tranquilly at us both. + +At last I said, “Do you really mean to say that we are to leave you +here?” + +“I suppose you don't intend to tie me up,” she said, “and carry me off? +I certainly shall not go otherwise.” + +“But, my dear madam,” cried out Rupert, in a radiant exasperation, “we +heard you with our own ears crying because you could not get out.” + +“Eavesdroppers often hear rather misleading things,” replied the captive +grimly. “I suppose I did break down a bit and lose my temper and talk to +myself. But I have some sense of honour for all that.” + +“Some sense of honour?” repeated Rupert, and the last light of +intelligence died out of his face, leaving it the face of an idiot with +rolling eyes. + +He moved vaguely towards the door and I followed. But I turned yet once +more in the toils of my conscience and curiosity. “Can we do nothing for +you, madam?” I said forlornly. + +“Why,” said the lady, “if you are particularly anxious to do me a little +favour you might untie the gentlemen upstairs.” + +Rupert plunged heavily up the kitchen staircase, shaking it with his +vague violence. With mouth open to speak he stumbled to the door of the +sitting-room and scene of battle. + +“Theoretically speaking, that is no doubt true,” Mr Burrows was saying, +lying on his back and arguing easily with Basil; “but we must consider +the matter as it appears to our sense. The origin of morality...” + +“Basil,” cried Rupert, gasping, “she won't come out.” + +“Who won't come out?” asked Basil, a little cross at being interrupted +in an argument. + +“The lady downstairs,” replied Rupert. “The lady who was locked up. She +won't come out. And she says that all she wants is for us to let these +fellows loose.” + +“And a jolly sensible suggestion,” cried Basil, and with a bound he was +on top of the prostrate Burrows once more and was unknotting his bonds +with hands and teeth. + +“A brilliant idea. Swinburne, just undo Mr Greenwood.” + +In a dazed and automatic way I released the little gentleman in the +purple jacket, who did not seem to regard any of the proceedings as +particularly sensible or brilliant. The gigantic Burrows, on the other +hand, was heaving with herculean laughter. + +“Well,” said Basil, in his cheeriest way, “I think we must be getting +away. We've so much enjoyed our evening. Far too much regard for you to +stand on ceremony. If I may so express myself, we've made ourselves at +home. Good night. Thanks so much. Come along, Rupert.” + +“Basil,” said Rupert desperately, “for God's sake come and see what you +can make of the woman downstairs. I can't get the discomfort out of my +mind. I admit that things look as if we had made a mistake. But these +gentlemen won't mind perhaps...” + +“No, no,” cried Burrows, with a sort of Rabelaisian uproariousness. “No, +no, look in the pantry, gentlemen. Examine the coal-hole. Make a tour of +the chimneys. There are corpses all over the house, I assure you.” + +This adventure of ours was destined to differ in one respect from others +which I have narrated. I had been through many wild days with Basil +Grant, days for the first half of which the sun and the moon seemed to +have gone mad. But it had almost invariably happened that towards the +end of the day and its adventure things had cleared themselves like the +sky after rain, and a luminous and quiet meaning had gradually dawned +upon me. But this day's work was destined to end in confusion worse +confounded. Before we left that house, ten minutes afterwards, one +half-witted touch was added which rolled all our minds in cloud. If +Rupert's head had suddenly fallen off on the floor, if wings had begun +to sprout out of Greenwood's shoulders, we could scarcely have been more +suddenly stricken. And yet of this we had no explanation. We had to go +to bed that night with the prodigy and get up next morning with it and +let it stand in our memories for weeks and months. As will be seen, it +was not until months afterwards that by another accident and in another +way it was explained. For the present I only state what happened. + +When all five of us went down the kitchen stairs again, Rupert leading, +the two hosts bringing up the rear, we found the door of the prison +again closed. Throwing it open we found the place again as black as +pitch. The old lady, if she was still there, had turned out the gas: she +seemed to have a weird preference for sitting in the dark. + +Without another word Rupert lit the gas again. The little old lady +turned her bird-like head as we all stumbled forward in the strong +gaslight. Then, with a quickness that almost made me jump, she sprang up +and swept a sort of old-fashioned curtsey or reverence. I looked +quickly at Greenwood and Burrows, to whom it was natural to suppose this +subservience had been offered. I felt irritated at what was implied in +this subservience, and desired to see the faces of the tyrants as they +received it. To my surprise they did not seem to have seen it at all: +Burrows was paring his nails with a small penknife. Greenwood was at the +back of the group and had hardly entered the room. And then an amazing +fact became apparent. It was Basil Grant who stood foremost of the +group, the golden gaslight lighting up his strong face and figure. His +face wore an expression indescribably conscious, with the suspicion of +a very grave smile. His head was slightly bent with a restrained bow. It +was he who had acknowledged the lady's obeisance. And it was he, beyond +any shadow of reasonable doubt, to whom it had really been directed. + +“So I hear,” he said, in a kindly yet somehow formal voice, “I hear, +madam, that my friends have been trying to rescue you. But without +success.” + +“No one, naturally, knows my faults better than you,” answered the lady +with a high colour. “But you have not found me guilty of treachery.” + +“I willingly attest it, madam,” replied Basil, in the same level tones, +“and the fact is that I am so much gratified with your exhibition of +loyalty that I permit myself the pleasure of exercising some very large +discretionary powers. You would not leave this room at the request of +these gentlemen. But you know that you can safely leave it at mine.” + +The captive made another reverence. “I have never complained of +your injustice,” she said. “I need scarcely say what I think of your +generosity.” + +And before our staring eyes could blink she had passed out of the room, +Basil holding the door open for her. + +He turned to Greenwood with a relapse into joviality. “This will be a +relief to you,” he said. + +“Yes, it will,” replied that immovable young gentleman with a face like +a sphinx. + +We found ourselves outside in the dark blue night, shaken and dazed as +if we had fallen into it from some high tower. + +“Basil,” said Rupert at last, in a weak voice, “I always thought you +were my brother. But are you a man? I mean--are you only a man?” + +“At present,” replied Basil, “my mere humanity is proved by one of the +most unmistakable symbols--hunger. We are too late for the theatre in +Sloane Square. But we are not too late for the restaurant. Here comes +the green omnibus!” and he had leaped on it before we could speak. +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +As I said, it was months after that Rupert Grant suddenly entered my +room, swinging a satchel in his hand and with a general air of having +jumped over the garden wall, and implored me to go with him upon the +latest and wildest of his expeditions. He proposed to himself no less +a thing than the discovery of the actual origin, whereabouts, and +headquarters of the source of all our joys and sorrows--the Club of +Queer Trades. I should expand this story for ever if I explained how +ultimately we ran this strange entity to its lair. The process meant a +hundred interesting things. The tracking of a member, the bribing of +a cabman, the fighting of roughs, the lifting of a paving stone, the +finding of a cellar, the finding of a cellar below the cellar, the +finding of the subterranean passage, the finding of the Club of Queer +Trades. + +I have had many strange experiences in my life, but never a stranger +one than that I felt when I came out of those rambling, sightless, and +seemingly hopeless passages into the sudden splendour of a sumptuous and +hospitable dining-room, surrounded upon almost every side by faces +that I knew. There was Mr Montmorency, the Arboreal House-Agent, seated +between the two brisk young men who were occasionally vicars, and always +Professional Detainers. There was Mr P. G. Northover, founder of the +Adventure and Romance Agency. There was Professor Chadd, who invented +the Dancing Language. + +As we entered, all the members seemed to sink suddenly into their +chairs, and with the very action the vacancy of the presidential seat +gaped at us like a missing tooth. + +“The president's not here,” said Mr P. G. Northover, turning suddenly to +Professor Chadd. + +“N-no,” said the philosopher, with more than his ordinary vagueness. “I +can't imagine where he is.” + +“Good heavens,” said Mr Montmorency, jumping up, “I really feel a little +nervous. I'll go and see.” And he ran out of the room. + +An instant after he ran back again, twittering with a timid ecstasy. + +“He's there, gentlemen--he's there all right--he's coming in now,” + he cried, and sat down. Rupert and I could hardly help feeling the +beginnings of a sort of wonder as to who this person might be who +was the first member of this insane brotherhood. Who, we thought +indistinctly, could be maddest in this world of madmen: what fantastic +was it whose shadow filled all these fantastics with so loyal an +expectation? + +Suddenly we were answered. The door flew open and the room was filled +and shaken with a shout, in the midst of which Basil Grant, smiling and +in evening dress, took his seat at the head of the table. + +How we ate that dinner I have no idea. In the common way I am a person +particularly prone to enjoy the long luxuriance of the club dinner. But +on this occasion it seemed a hopeless and endless string of courses. +Hors-d'oeuvre sardines seemed as big as herrings, soup seemed a sort +of ocean, larks were ducks, ducks were ostriches until that dinner was +over. The cheese course was maddening. I had often heard of the moon +being made of green cheese. That night I thought the green cheese was +made of the moon. And all the time Basil Grant went on laughing and +eating and drinking, and never threw one glance at us to tell us why he +was there, the king of these capering idiots. + +At last came the moment which I knew must in some way enlighten us, the +time of the club speeches and the club toasts. Basil Grant rose to his +feet amid a surge of songs and cheers. + +“Gentlemen,” he said, “it is a custom in this society that the +president for the year opens the proceedings not by any general toast +of sentiment, but by calling upon each member to give a brief account of +his trade. We then drink to that calling and to all who follow it. It +is my business, as the senior member, to open by stating my claim to +membership of this club. Years ago, gentlemen, I was a judge; I did my +best in that capacity to do justice and to administer the law. But it +gradually dawned on me that in my work, as it was, I was not touching +even the fringe of justice. I was seated in the seat of the mighty, I +was robed in scarlet and ermine; nevertheless, I held a small and lowly +and futile post. I had to go by a mean rule as much as a postman, and +my red and gold was worth no more than his. Daily there passed before me +taut and passionate problems, the stringency of which I had to pretend +to relieve by silly imprisonments or silly damages, while I knew all the +time, by the light of my living common sense, that they would have +been far better relieved by a kiss or a thrashing, or a few words of +explanation, or a duel, or a tour in the West Highlands. Then, as this +grew on me, there grew on me continuously the sense of a mountainous +frivolity. Every word said in the court, a whisper or an oath, seemed +more connected with life than the words I had to say. Then came the time +when I publicly blasphemed the whole bosh, was classed as a madman and +melted from public life.” + +Something in the atmosphere told me that it was not only Rupert and I +who were listening with intensity to this statement. + +“Well, I discovered that I could be of no real use. I offered myself +privately as a purely moral judge to settle purely moral differences. +Before very long these unofficial courts of honour (kept strictly +secret) had spread over the whole of society. People were tried before +me not for the practical trifles for which nobody cares, such as +committing a murder, or keeping a dog without a licence. My criminals +were tried for the faults which really make social life impossible. They +were tried before me for selfishness, or for an impossible vanity, or +for scandalmongering, or for stinginess to guests or dependents. Of +course these courts had no sort of real coercive powers. The fulfilment +of their punishments rested entirely on the honour of the ladies and +gentlemen involved, including the honour of the culprits. But you would +be amazed to know how completely our orders were always obeyed. Only +lately I had a most pleasing example. A maiden lady in South Kensington +whom I had condemned to solitary confinement for being the means of +breaking off an engagement through backbiting, absolutely refused +to leave her prison, although some well-meaning persons had been +inopportune enough to rescue her.” + +Rupert Grant was staring at his brother, his mouth fallen agape. So, for +the matter of that, I expect, was I. This, then, was the explanation of +the old lady's strange discontent and her still stranger content with +her lot. She was one of the culprits of his Voluntary Criminal Court. +She was one of the clients of his Queer Trade. + +We were still dazed when we drank, amid a crash of glasses, the health +of Basil's new judiciary. We had only a confused sense of everything +having been put right, the sense men will have when they come into the +presence of God. We dimly heard Basil say: + +“Mr P. G. Northover will now explain the Adventure and Romance Agency.” + +And we heard equally dimly Northover beginning the statement he had made +long ago to Major Brown. Thus our epic ended where it had begun, like a +true cycle. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Club of Queer Trades, by G. K. Chesterton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLUB OF QUEER TRADES *** + +***** This file should be named 1696-0.txt or 1696-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/9/1696/ + +Produced by Anonomous Project Gutenberg Volunteers + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |