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diff --git a/old/tcoqt10.txt b/old/tcoqt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d91f3ce --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tcoqt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5598 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext The Club of Queer Trades, by Chesterton +#8 in our series by G. K. Chesterton + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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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. L s. d. + January 1, to account rendered 5 6 0 + May 9, to potting and embedding of zoo 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.QT."?" 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 coin' +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 wet '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 procedings 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, 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 L800 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 L800 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 L800 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 L800 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 L800 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 Etext The Club of Queer Trades, by Chesterton + |