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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Garotters, by William D. Howells


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Title: The Garotters


Author: William D. Howells



Release Date: September 24, 2014  [eBook #3237]
[This file was first posted on 5 February 2001]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GAROTTERS***


Transcribed from the 1897 David Douglas edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                          [Picture: Book cover]





                              THE GAROTTERS


                                    BY

                            WILLIAM D. HOWELLS

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                            _Author’s Edition_

                                * * * * *

                                EDINBURGH
                       DAVID DOUGLAS, CASTLE STREET
                                   1897

               _For leave to act_, _apply to the publisher_

                          _All rights reserved_

                                * * * * *

              EDINBURGH: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE for
                              DAVID DOUGLAS

                    LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO.




PART FIRST


I
MRS. ROBERTS; THEN MR. ROBERTS


AT the window of her apartment in Hotel Bellingham, Mrs. Roberts stands
looking out into the early nightfall.  A heavy snow is driving without,
and from time to time the rush of the wind and the sweep of the flakes
against the panes are heard.  At the sound of hurried steps in the
anteroom, Mrs. Roberts turns from the window, and runs to the _portière_,
through which she puts her head.

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Is that you, Edward?  So dark here!  We ought really to
keep the gas turned up all the time.’

MR. ROBERTS, in a muffled voice, from without: ‘Yes, it’s I.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Well, hurry in to the fire, do!  Ugh, what a storm!  Do
you suppose anybody will come?  You must be half frozen, you poor thing!
Come quick, or you’ll certainly perish!’  She flies from the _portière_
to the fire burning on the hearth, pokes it, flings on a log, jumps back,
brushes from her dress with a light shriek the sparks driven out upon it,
and continues talking incessantly in a voice lifted for her husband to
hear in the anteroom.  ‘If I’d dreamed it was any such storm as this, I
should never have let you go out in it in the world.  It wasn’t at all
necessary to have the flowers.  I could have got on perfectly well, and I
believe _now_ the table would look better without them.  The
chrysanthemums would have been quite enough; and I know you’ve taken more
cold.  I could tell it by your voice as soon as you spoke; and just as
quick as they’re gone to-night I’m going to have you bathe your feet in
mustard and hot water, and take eight of aconite, and go straight to bed.
And I don’t want you to eat very much at dinner, dear, and you must be
sure not to drink any coffee, or the aconite won’t be of the least use.’
She turns and encounters her husband, who enters through the _portière_,
his face pale, his eyes wild, his white necktie pulled out of knot, and
his shirt front rumpled.  ‘Why, Edward, what in the world is the matter?
What has happened?’

ROBERTS, sinking into a chair: ‘Get me a glass of water,
Agnes—wine—whisky—brandy—’

MRS. ROBERTS, bustling wildly about: ‘Yes, yes.  But what—Bella!
Bridget!  Maggy!—Oh, I’ll go for it myself, and I _won’t_ stop to listen!
Only—only don’t die!’  While Roberts remains with his eyes shut, and his
head sunk on his breast in token of extreme exhaustion, she disappears
and reappears through the door leading to her chamber, and then through
the _portière_ cutting off the dining-room.  She finally descends upon
her husband with a flagon of cologne in one hand, a small decanter of
brandy in the other, and a wineglass held in the hollow of her arm
against her breast.  She contrives to set the glass down on the mantel
and fill it from the flagon, then she turns with the decanter in her
hand, and while she presses the glass to her husband’s lips, begins to
pour the brandy on his head.  ‘Here! this will revive you, and it’ll
refresh you to have this cologne on your head.’

ROBERTS, rejecting a mouthful of the cologne with a furious sputter, and
springing to his feet: ‘Why, you’ve given me the cologne to _drink_,
Agnes!  What are you about?  Do you want to poison me?  Isn’t it enough
to be robbed at six o’clock on the Common, without having your head
soaked in brandy, and your whole system scented up like a barber’s shop,
when you get home?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Robbed?’  She drops the wineglass, puts the decanter down
on the hearth, and carefully bestowing the flagon of cologne in the
wood-box, abandons herself to justice: ‘Then let them come for me at
once, Edward!  If I could have the heart to send you out in such a night
as this for a few wretched rosebuds, I’m quite equal to poisoning you.
Oh, Edward, _who_ robbed you?’

ROBERTS: ‘That’s what I don’t know.’  He continues to wipe his head with
his handkerchief, and to sputter a little from time to time.  ‘All I know
is that when I got—phew!—to that dark spot by the Frog Pond, just
by—phew!—that little group of—phew!—evergreens, you know—phew!—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Yes, yes; go on!  I can bear it, Edward.’

ROBERTS: ‘—a man brushed heavily against me, and then hurried on in the
other direction.  I had unbuttoned my coat to look at my watch under the
lamp-post, and after he struck against me I clapped my hand to my
waistcoat, and—phew!—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Waistcoat!  Yes!’

ROBERTS: ‘—found my watch gone.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘What!  Your watch?  The watch Willis gave you?  Made out
of the gold that he mined himself when he first went out to California?
Don’t ask me to believe it, Edward!  But I’m only too glad that you
escaped with your life.  Let them have the watch and welcome.  Oh, nay
dear, dear husband!’  She approaches him with extended arms, and then
suddenly arrests herself.  ‘But you’ve got it on!’

ROBERTS, with as much returning dignity as can comport with his
dishevelled appearance: ‘Yes; I took it from him.’  At his wife’s
speechless astonishment: ‘I went after him and took it from him.’  He
sits down, and continues with resolute calm, while his wife remains
standing before him motionless: ‘Agnes, I don’t know how I came to do it.
I wouldn’t have believed I could do it.  I’ve never thought that I had
much courage—physical courage; but when I felt my watch was gone, a sort
of frenzy came over me.  I wasn’t hurt; and for the first time in my life
I realised what an abominable outrage theft was.  The thought that at six
o’clock in the evening, in the very heart of a great city like Boston, an
inoffensive citizen could be assaulted and robbed, made me furious.  I
didn’t call out.  I simply buttoned my coat tight round me and turned and
ran after the fellow.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Edward!’

ROBERTS: ‘Yes, I did.  He hadn’t got half-a-dozen rods away—it all took
place in a flash—and I could easily run him down.  He was considerably
larger than I—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh!’

ROBERTS: ‘—and he looked young and very athletic; but these things didn’t
seem to make any impression on me.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, I wonder that you live to tell the tale, Edward!’

ROBERTS: ‘Well, I wonder a little at myself.  I don’t set up for a great
deal of—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘But I always knew you had it!  Go on.  Oh, when I tell
Willis of this!  Had the robber any accomplices?  Were there many of
them?’

ROBERTS: ‘I only saw one.  And I saw that my only chance was to take him
at a disadvantage.  I sprang upon him, and pulled him over on his back.
I merely said, “I’ll trouble you for that watch of mine, if you please,”
jerked open his coat, snatched the watch from his pocket—I broke the
chain, I see—and then left him and ran again.  He didn’t make the
slightest resistance nor utter a word.  Of course it wouldn’t do for him
to make any noise about it, and I dare say he was glad to get off so
easily.’  With affected nonchalance: ‘I’m pretty badly rumpled, I see.
He fell against me, and a scuffle like that doesn’t improve one’s
appearance.’

MRS. ROBERTS, very solemnly: ‘Edward!  I don’t know what to say!  Of
course it makes my blood run cold to realise what you have been through,
and to think what might have happened; but I think you behaved
splendidly.  Why, I never heard of such perfect heroism!  You needn’t
tell _me_ that he made no resistance.  There was a deadly struggle—your
necktie and everything about you shows it.  And you needn’t think there
was only one of them—’

ROBERTS, modestly: ‘I don’t believe there was more.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Nonsense!  There are _always_ two!  I’ve read the accounts
of those garottings.  And to think you not only got out of their clutches
alive, but got your property back—Willis’s watch!  Oh, what _will_ Willis
say?  But I know how proud of you he’ll be.  Oh, I wish I could scream it
from the house-tops.  Why didn’t you call the police?’

ROBERTS: ‘I didn’t think—I hadn’t time to think.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘No matter.  I’m glad you have _all_ the glory of it.  I
don’t believe you half realise what you’ve been through now.  And perhaps
this was the robbers’ first attempt, and it will be a lesson to them.  Oh
yes!  I’m glad you let them escape, Edward.  They may have families.  If
every one behaved as you’ve done, there would soon be an end of
garotting.  But, oh!  I can’t bear to think of the danger you’ve run.
And I want you to promise me never, never to undertake such a thing
again!’

ROBERTS: ‘Well, I don’t know—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Yes, yes; you must!  Suppose you had got killed in that
awful struggle with those reckless wretches tugging to get away from you!
Think of the children!  Why, you might have burst a blood-vessel!  Will
you promise, Edward?  Promise this instant, on your bended knees, just as
if you were in a court of justice!’  Mrs. Roberts’s excitement mounts,
and she flings herself at her husband’s feet, and pulls his face down to
hers with the arm she has thrown about his neck.  ‘Will you promise?’



II
MRS. CRASHAW; MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS


MRS. CRASHAW, entering unobserved: ‘Promise you what, Agnes?  The man
doesn’t smoke _now_.  What more can you ask?’  She starts back from the
spectacle of Roberts’s disordered dress.  ‘Why, what’s happened to you,
Edward?’

MRS. ROBERTS, springing to her feet: ‘Oh, you may well ask that, Aunt
Mary!  Happened?  You ought to fall down and worship him!  And you _will_
when you know what he’s been through.  He’s been robbed!’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Robbed?  What nonsense!  Who robbed him?  _Where_ was he
robbed?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘He was attacked by two garotters—’

ROBERTS: ‘No, no—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Don’t speak, Edward!  I _know_ there were two.  On the
Common.  Not half an hour ago.  As he was going to get me some rosebuds.
In the midst of this terrible storm.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Is this true, Edward?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Don’t answer, Edward!  One of the band threw his arm round
Edward’s neck—so.’  She illustrates by garotting Mrs. Crashaw, who
disengages herself with difficulty.

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Mercy, child!  What _are_ you doing to my lace?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And the other one snatched his watch, and ran as fast as
he could.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis’s watch?  Why, he’s got it on.’

MRS. ROBERTS, with proud delight: ‘Exactly what I said when he told me.’
Then, very solemnly: ‘And do you know _why_ he’s got it on?—’Sh, Edward!
I _will_ tell!  Because he ran after them and took it back again.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Why, they might have killed him!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Of _course_ they might.  But _Edward_ didn’t care.  The
idea of being robbed at six o’clock on the Common made him so furious
that he scorned to cry out for help, or call the police, or anything; but
he just ran after them—’

ROBERTS: ‘Agnes!  Agnes!  There was only _one_.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Nonsense, Edward!  How could you tell, so excited as you
were?—And caught hold of the largest of the wretches—a perfect young
giant—’

ROBERTS: ‘No, no; not a _giant_, my dear.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Well, he was _young_, anyway!—And flung him on the
ground.’  She advances upon Mrs. Crashaw in her enthusiasm.

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Don’t you fling _me_ on the ground, Agnes!  I won’t have
it.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And tore his coat open, while all the rest were tugging at
him, and snatched his watch, and then—and then just walked coolly away.’

ROBERTS: ‘No, my dear; I ran as fast as I could.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Well, _ran_.  It’s quite the same thing, and I’m just as
proud of you as if you had walked.  Of course you were not going to throw
your life away.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I think he did a very silly thing in going after them at
all.’

ROBERTS: ‘Why, of course, if I’d thought twice about it, I shouldn’t have
done it.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Of course you wouldn’t, dear!  And that’s what I want him
to promise, Aunt Mary: never to do it again, no matter _how_ much he’s
provoked.  I want him to promise it right here in your presence, Aunt
Mary!’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I think it’s much more important he should put on another
collar and—shirt, if he’s going to see company.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Yes; go right off at once, Edward.  How you _do_ think of
things, Aunt Mary!  I really suppose I should have gone on all night and
never noticed his looks.  Run, Edward, and do it, dear.  But—kiss me
first!  Oh, it _don’t_ seem as if you could be alive and well after it
all!  Are you sure you’re not hurt?’

ROBERTS, embracing her: ‘No; I’m all right.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And you’re not injured internally?  Sometimes they’re
injured internally—aren’t they, Aunt Mary?—and it doesn’t show till
months afterwards.  Are you sure?’

ROBERTS, making a cursory examination of his ribs with his hands: ‘Yes, I
think so.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And you don’t feel any bad effects from the cologne _now_?
Just think, Aunt Mary, I gave him cologne to drink, and poured the brandy
on his head, when he came in!  But I was determined to keep calm,
whatever I did.  And if I’ve poisoned him I’m quite willing to die for
it—oh, quite!  I would gladly take the blame of it before the whole
world.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Well, for pity’s sake, let the man go and make himself
decent.  There’s your bell now.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Yes, do go, Edward.  But—kiss me—’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘He _did_ kiss you, Agnes.  Don’t be a simpleton!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Did he?  Well, kiss me again, then, Edward.  And now do
go, dear.  M-m-m-m.’  The inarticulate endearments represented by these
signs terminate in a wild embrace, protracted halfway across the room, in
the height of which Mr. Willis Campbell enters.



III
MR. CAMPBELL, MRS. CRASHAW, MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS


WILLIS, pausing in contemplation: ‘Hello!  What’s the matter?  What’s she
trying to get out of you, Roberts?  Don’t you do it, anyway, old fellow.’

MRS. ROBERTS, in an ecstasy of satisfaction: ‘Willis!  Oh, you’ve come in
time to see him just as he is.  Look at him, Willis!’  In the excess of
her emotion she twitches her husband about, and with his arm fast in her
clutch, presents him in the disadvantageous effect of having just been
taken into custody.  Under these circumstances Roberts’s attempt at an
expression of diffident heroism fails; he looks sneaking, he looks
guilty, and his eyes fall under the astonished regard of his
brother-in-law.

WILLIS: ‘What’s the matter with him?  What’s he been doing?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘’Sh, Edward!  What’s he been doing?  What does he look as
if he had been doing?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes—’

WILLIS: ‘He looks as if he had been signing the pledge.  And he—smells
like it.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘For shame, Willis!  I should think you’d sink through the
floor.  Edward, not a word!  I _am_ ashamed of him, if he _is_ my
brother.’

WILLIS: ‘Why, what in the world’s up, Agnes?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Up?  He’s been _robbed_!—robbed on the Common, not five
minutes ago!  A whole gang of garotters surrounded him under the Old
Elm—or just where it used to be—and took his watch away!  And he ran
after them, and knocked the largest of the gang down, and took it back
again.  He wasn’t hurt, but we’re afraid he’s been injured internally; he
may be bleeding internally _now_—Oh, do you think he is, Willis?  Don’t
you think we ought to send for a physician?—That, and the cologne I gave
him to drink.  It’s the brandy I poured on his head makes him smell so.
And he all so exhausted he couldn’t speak, and I didn’t know what I was
doing, either; but he’s promised—oh yes, he’s promised!—never, never to
do it again.’  She again flings her arms about her husband, and then
turns proudly to her brother.

WILLIS: ‘Do you know what it means, Aunt Mary?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Not in the least!  But I’ve no doubt that Edward can
explain, after he’s changed his linen—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh yes, do go, Edward!  Not but what I should be proud and
happy to have you appear just as you are before the whole world, if it
was only to put Willis down with his jokes about your absent-mindedness,
and his boasts about those California desperadoes of his.’

ROBERTS: ‘Come, come, Agnes!  I _must_ protest against your—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, I know it doesn’t become me to praise your courage,
darling!  But I should like to know what Willis would have done, with all
his California experience, if a garotter had taken his watch?’

WILLIS: ‘I should have let him keep it, and pay five dollars a quarter
himself for getting it cleaned and spoiled.  Anybody but a literary man
would.  How many of them were there, Roberts?’

ROBERTS: ‘I only saw one.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘But of course there were more.  How could he tell, in the
dark and excitement?  And the one he did see was a perfect giant; so you
can imagine what the rest must have been like.’

WILLIS: ‘Did you really knock him down?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Knock him down?  Of course he did.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes, _will_ you hold your tongue, and let the men
alone?’

MRS. ROBERTS, whimpering: ‘I can’t, Aunt Mary.  And you couldn’t, if it
was yours.’

ROBERTS: ‘I pulled him over backwards.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘There, Willis!’

WILLIS: ‘And grabbed your watch from him?’

ROBERTS: ‘I was in quite a frenzy; I really hardly knew what I was
doing—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And he didn’t call for the police, or anything—’

WILLIS: ‘Ah, that showed presence of mind!  He knew it wouldn’t have been
any use.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And when he had got his watch away from them, he just let
them go, because they had families dependent on them.’

WILLIS: ‘I should have let them go in the first place, but you behaved
handsomely in the end, Roberts; there’s no denying that.  And when you
came in she gave you cologne to drink, and poured brandy on your head.
It must have revived you.  I should think it would wake the dead.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘I was all excitement, Willis—’

WILLIS: ‘No, I should think from the fact that you had set the decanter
here on the hearth, and put your cologne into the wood-box, you were
perfectly calm, Agnes.’  He takes them up and hands them to her.  ‘Quite
as calm as usual.’  The door-bell rings.

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis, _will_ you let that ridiculous man go away and
make himself presentable before people begin to come?’  The bell rings
violently, peal upon peal.

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, my goodness, what’s that?  It’s the garotters—I know
it is; and we shall all be murdered in our beds!’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘What in the world can it—’

WILLIS: ‘Why don’t your girl answer the bell, Agnes?  Or I’ll go myself.’
The bell rings violently again.

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘_No_, Willis, you sha’n’t!  Don’t leave me, Edward!  Aunt
Mary!—Oh, if we _must_ die, let us all die together!  Oh, my poor
children!  Ugh!  What’s that?’  The servant-maid opens the outer door,
and uttering a shriek, rushes in through the drawing-room _portière_.

BELLA THE MAID: ‘Oh, my goodness!  Mrs. Roberts, it’s Mr. Bemis!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Which Mr. Bemis?’

ROBERTS: ‘What’s the matter with him?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Why doesn’t she show him in?’

WILLIS: ‘Has _he_ been garotting somebody too?’



SCENE IV: MR. BEMIS, MR. CAMPBELL, MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS


BEMIS, appearing through the _portière_: ‘I—I beg your pardon, Mrs.
Roberts.  I oughtn’t to present myself in this state—I—  But I thought
I’d better stop on my way home and report, so that my son needn’t be
alarmed at my absence when he comes.  I—’  He stops, exhausted, and
regards the others with a wild stare, while they stand taking note of his
disordered coat, his torn vest, and his tumbled hat.  ‘I’ve just been
robbed—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Robbed?  Why, _Edward_ has been robbed too.’

BEMIS: ‘—coming through the Common—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Yes, _Edward_ was coming through the Common.’

BEMIS: ‘—of my watch—’

MRS. ROBERTS, in rapturous admiration of the coincidence: ‘Oh, and it was
Edward’s _watch_ they took!’

WILLIS: ‘It’s a parallel case, Agnes.  Pour him out a glass of cologne to
drink, and rub his head with brandy.  And you might let him sit down and
rest while you’re enjoying the excitement.’

MRS. ROBERTS, in hospitable remorse: ‘Oh, what am I thinking of!  Here,
Edward—or no, you’re too weak, you mustn’t.  Willis, _you_ help me to
help him to the sofa.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I think you’d better help him off with his overcoat and
his arctics.’  To the maid: ‘Here, Bella, if you haven’t quite taken
leave of your wits, undo his shoes.’

ROBERTS: ‘_I’ll_ help him off with his coat—’

BEMIS: ‘Careful! careful!  I may be injured internally.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, if you only _were_, Mr. Bemis, perhaps I could
persuade Edward that he was too: I _know_ he is.  Edward, don’t exert
yourself!  Aunt Mary, will you _stop_ him, or do you all wish to see me
go distracted here before your eyes?’

WILLIS, examining the overcoat which Roberts has removed: ‘Well, you
won’t have much trouble buttoning and unbuttoning this coat for the
present.’

BEMIS: ‘They tore it open, and tore my watch from my vest pocket—’

WILLIS, looking at the vest: ‘I see.  Pretty lively work.  Were there
many of them?’

BEMIS: ‘There must have been two at least—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘There were half a dozen in the gang that attacked Edward.’

BEMIS: ‘One of them pulled me violently over on my back—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Edward’s put _his_ arm round his neck and choked him.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘I _know_ he did, Aunt Mary.’

BEMIS: ‘And the other tore my watch out of my pocket.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘_Edward’s_—’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes, I’m thoroughly ashamed of you.  _Will_ you stop
interrupting?’

BEMIS: ‘And left me lying in the snow.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And then he ran after them, and snatched his watch away
again in spite of them all; and he didn’t call for the police, or
anything, because it was their first offence, and he couldn’t bear to
think of their suffering families.’

BEMIS, with a stare of profound astonishment: ‘Who?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Edward.  Didn’t I _say_ Edward, all the time?’

BEMIS: ‘I thought you meant me.  I didn’t think of pursuing them; but you
may be very sure that if there had been a policeman within call—of course
there wasn’t one within cannon-shot—I should have handed the scoundrels
over without the slightest remorse.’

ROBERTS: ‘Oh!’  He sinks into a chair with a slight groan.

WILLIS: ‘What is it?’

ROBERTS: ‘’Sh!  Don’t say anything.  But—stay here.  I want to speak with
you, Willis.’

BEMIS, with mounting wrath: ‘I should not have hesitated an instant to
give the rascal in charge, no matter who was dependent upon him—no matter
if he were my dearest friend, my own brother.’

ROBERTS, under his breath: ‘Gracious powers!’

BEMIS: ‘And while I am very sorry to disagree with Mr. Roberts, I can’t
help feeling that he made a great mistake in allowing the ruffians to
escape.’

MRS. CRASHAW, with severity: ‘I think you are quite right, Mr. Bemis.’

BEMIS: ‘Probably it was the same gang attacked us both.  After escaping
from Mr. Roberts they fell upon me.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I haven’t a doubt of it.’

ROBERTS, _sotto voce_ to his brother-in-law: ‘I think I’ll ask you to go
with me to my room, Willis.  Don’t alarm Agnes, please.  I—I feel quite
faint.’

MRS. ROBERTS, crestfallen: ‘I can’t feel that Edward was to blame.
Ed—Oh, I suppose he’s gone off to make himself presentable.  But
Willis—Where’s Willis, Aunt Mary?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Probably gone with him to help him.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, he _saw_ how unstrung poor Edward was!  Mr. Bemis, I
think you’re quite prejudiced.  How could Edward help their escaping?  I
think it was quite enough for him, single-handed, to get his watch back.’
A ring at the door, and then a number of voices in the anteroom.  ‘I do
believe they’re all there!  I’ll just run out and prepare your son.  He
would be dreadfully shocked if he came right in upon you.’  She runs into
the anteroom, and is heard without: ‘Oh, Dr. Lawton!  Oh, Lou dear!
_Oh_, Mr. Bemis!  How can I ever tell you?  Your poor father!  No, no, I
_can’t_ tell you!  You mustn’t ask me!  It’s too hideous!  And you
wouldn’t believe me if I did.’

_Chorus of anguished voices_: ‘What? what? what?’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘They’ve been robbed!  Garotted on the Common!  And, _oh_,
Dr. Lawton, I’m so glad _you’ve_ come!  They’re both injured internally,
but I _wish_ you’d look at Edward first.’

BEMIS: ‘Good heavens!  Is that Mrs. Roberts’s idea of preparing my son?
And his poor young wife!’  He addresses his demand to Mrs. Crashaw, who
lifts the hands of impotent despair.




PART SECOND


MR. ROBERTS; MR. CAMPBELL


IN Mr. Roberts’s dressing-room, that gentleman is discovered tragically
confronting Mr. Willis Campbell, with a watch uplifted in either hand.

WILLIS: ‘Well?’

ROBERTS, gasping: ‘My—my watch!’

WILLIS: ‘Yes.  How comes there to be two of it?’

ROBERTS: ‘Don’t you understand?  When I went out I—didn’t take my
watch—with me.  I left it here on my bureau.’

WILLIS: ‘Well?’

ROBERTS: ‘Oh, merciful heavens! don’t you see?  Then I couldn’t have been
robbed!’

WILLIS: ‘Well, but whose watch did you take from the fellow that didn’t
rob you, then?’

ROBERTS: ‘His own!’  He abandons himself powerlessly upon a chair.  ‘Yes;
I left my own watch here, and when that person brushed against me in the
Common, I missed it for the first time.  I supposed he had robbed me, and
ran after him, and—’

WILLIS: ‘Robbed _him_!’

ROBERTS: ‘Yes.’

WILLIS: ‘Ah, ha, ha, ha!  I, hi, hi, hi!  O, ho, ho, ho!’  He yields to a
series of these gusts and paroxysms, bowing up and down, and stamping to
and fro, and finally sits down exhausted, and wipes the tears from his
cheeks.  ‘Really, this thing will kill me.  What are you going to do
about it, Roberts?’

ROBERTS, with profound dejection and abysmal solemnity: ‘I don’t know,
Willis.  Don’t you see that it must have been—that I must have robbed—Mr.
Bemis?’

WILLIS: ‘Bemis!’  After a moment for tasting the fact.  ‘Why, so it was!
Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!  And was poor old Bemis that burly ruffian? that
bloodthirsty gang of giants? that—that—oh, Lord! oh, Lord!’  He bows his
head upon his chair-back in complete exhaustion, demanding, feebly, as he
gets breath for the successive questions, ‘What are you going to d-o-o-o?
What shall you s-a-a-a-y?  How can you expla-a-ain it?’

ROBERTS: ‘I can do nothing.  I can say nothing.  I can never explain it.
I must go to Mr. Bemis and make a clean breast of it; but think of the
absurdity—the ridicule!’

WILLIS, after a thoughtful silence: ‘Oh, it isn’t _that_ you’ve got to
think of.  You’ve got to think of the old gentleman’s sense of injury and
outrage.  Didn’t you hear what he said—that he would have handed over his
dearest friend, his own brother, to the police?’

ROBERTS: ‘But that was in the supposition that his dearest friend, his
own brother, had intentionally robbed him.  You can’t imagine, Willis—’

WILLIS: ‘Oh, I can imagine a great many things.  It’s all well enough for
you to say that the robbery was a mistake; but it was a genuine case of
garotting as far as the assault and taking the watch go.  He’s a very
pudgicky old gentleman.’

ROBERTS: ‘He is.’

WILLIS: ‘And I don’t see how you’re going to satisfy him that it was all
a joke.  Joke?  It _wasn’t_ a joke!  It was a real assault and a _bona
fide_ robbery, and Bemis can prove it.’

ROBERTS: ‘But he would never insist—’

WILLIS: ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.  He’s pretty queer, Bemis is.  You
can’t say what an old gentleman like that will or won’t do.  If he should
choose to carry it into court—’

ROBERTS: ‘Court!’

WILLIS: ‘It might be embarrassing.  And anyway, it would have a very
strange look in the papers.’

ROBERTS: ‘The papers!  Good gracious!’

WILLIS: ‘Ten years from now a man that heard you mentioned would forget
all about the acquittal, and say: “Roberts?  Oh yes!  Wasn’t he the one
they sent to the House of Correction for garotting an old friend of his
on the Common!”  You see, it wouldn’t do to go and make a clean breast of
it to Bemis.’

ROBERTS: ‘I see.’

WILLIS: ‘What will you do?’

ROBERTS: ‘I must never say anything to him about it.  Just let it go.’

WILLIS: ‘And keep his watch?  I don’t see how you could manage that.
What would you do with the watch?  You might sell it, of course—’

ROBERTS: ‘Oh no, I _couldn’t_ do that.’

WILLIS: ‘You might give it away to some deserving person; but if it got
him into trouble—’

ROBERTS: ‘No, no; that wouldn’t do, either.’

WILLIS: ‘And you can’t have it lying around; Agnes would be sure to find
it, sooner or later.’

ROBERTS: ‘Yes.’

WILLIS: ‘Besides, there’s your conscience.  Your conscience wouldn’t
_let_ you keep Bemis’s watch away from him.  And if it would, what do you
suppose Agnes’s conscience would do when she came to find it out?  Agnes
hasn’t got much of a head—the want of it seems to grow upon her; but
she’s got a conscience as big as the side of a house.’

ROBERTS: ‘Oh, I see; I see.’

WILLIS, coming up and standing over him, with his hands in his pockets:
‘I tell you what, Roberts, you’re in a box.’

ROBERTS, abjectly: ‘I know it, Willis; I know it.  What do you suggest?
You _must_ know some way out of it.’

WILLIS: ‘It isn’t a simple matter like telling them to start the elevator
down when they couldn’t start her up.  I’ve got to think it over.’  He
walks to and fro, Roberts’s eyes helplessly following his movements.
‘How would it do to—No, that wouldn’t do, either.’

ROBERTS: ‘What wouldn’t?’

WILLIS: ‘Nothing.  I was just thinking—I say, you might—Or, no, you
couldn’t.’

ROBERTS: ‘Couldn’t what?’

WILLIS: ‘Nothing.  But if you were to—No; up a stump that way too.’

ROBERTS: ‘Which way?  For mercy’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t seem to get
a clew if you haven’t it.  It’s more than I can bear.’  He rises, and
desperately confronts Willis in his promenade.  ‘If you see any hope at
all—’

WILLIS, stopping: ‘Why, if you were a different sort of fellow, Roberts,
the thing would be perfectly easy.’

ROBERTS: ‘Very well, then.  What sort of fellow do you want me to be?
I’ll be any sort of fellow you like.’

WILLIS: ‘Oh, but you couldn’t!  With that face of yours, and that
confounded conscience of yours behind it, you would give away the whitest
lie that was ever told.’

ROBERTS: ‘Do you wish me to lie?  Very well, then, I will lie.  What is
the lie?’

WILLIS: ‘Ah, now you’re talking like a man!  I can soon think up a lie if
you’re game for it.  Suppose it wasn’t so very white—say a delicate
blonde!’

ROBERTS: ‘I shouldn’t care if it were as black as the ace of spades.’

WILLIS: ‘Roberts, I honour you!  It isn’t everybody who could steal an
old gentleman’s watch, and then be so ready to lie out of it.  Well, you
_have_ got courage—both kinds—moral and physical.’

ROBERTS: ‘Thank you, Willis.  Of course I don’t pretend that I should be
willing to lie under ordinary circumstances; but for the sake of Agnes
and the children—I don’t want any awkwardness about the matter; it would
be the death of me.  Well, what do you wish me to say?  Be quick; I don’t
believe I could hold out for a great while.  I don’t suppose but what Mr.
Bemis would be reasonable, even if I—’

WILLIS: ‘I’m afraid we couldn’t trust him.  The only way is for you to
take the bull by the horns.’

ROBERTS: ‘Yes?’

WILLIS: ‘You will not only have to lie, Roberts, but you will have to
wear an air of innocent candour at the same time.’

ROBERTS: ‘I—I’m afraid I couldn’t manage that.  What is your idea?’

WILLIS: ‘Oh, just come into the room with a laugh when we go back, and
say, in an offhand way, “By the way, Agnes, Willis and I made a
remarkable discovery in my dressing-room; we found my watch there on the
bureau.  Ha, ha, ha!”  Do you think you could do it?’

ROBERTS: ‘I—I don’t know.’

WILLIS: ‘Try the laugh now.’

ROBERTS: ‘I’d rather not—now.’

WILLIS: ‘Well, try it, anyway.’

ROBERTS: ‘Ha, ha, ha!’

WILLIS: ‘Once more.’

ROBERTS: ‘Ha, ha, ha!’

WILLIS: ‘Pretty ghastly; but I guess you can come it.’

ROBERTS: ‘I’ll try.  And then what?’

WILLIS: ‘And then you say, “I hadn’t put it on when I went out, and when
I got after that fellow and took it back, I was simply getting somebody
else’s watch!”  Then you hold out both watches to her, and laugh again.
Everybody laughs, and crowds round you to examine the watches, and you
make fun and crack jokes at your own expense all the time, and pretty
soon old Bemis says, “Why, this is _my_ watch, _now_!” and you laugh more
than ever—’

ROBERTS: ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t laugh when he said that.  I don’t believe
I could laugh.  It would make my blood run cold.’

WILLIS: ‘Oh no, it wouldn’t.  You’d be in the spirit of it by that time.’

ROBERTS: ‘Do you think so?  Well?’

WILLIS: ‘And then you say, “Well, this is the most remarkable coincidence
I ever heard of.  I didn’t get my own watch from the fellow, but I got
yours, Mr. Bemis;” and then you hand it over to him and say, “Sorry I had
to break the chain in getting it from him,” and then everybody laughs
again, and—and that ends it.’

ROBERTS, with a profound sigh: ‘Do you think that would end it?’

WILLIS: ‘Why, certainly.  It’ll put old Bemis in the wrong, don’t you
see?  It’ll show that instead of letting the fellow escape to go and rob
_him_, you attacked him and took Bemis’s property back from him yourself.
Bemis wouldn’t have a word to say.  All you’ve got to do is to keep up a
light, confident manner.’

ROBERTS: ‘But what if it shouldn’t put Bemis in the wrong?  What if he
shouldn’t say or do anything that we’ve counted upon, but something
altogether different?’

WILLIS: ‘Well, then, you must trust to inspiration, and adapt yourself to
circumstances.’

ROBERTS: ‘Wouldn’t it be rather more of a joke to come out with the facts
at once?’

WILLIS: ‘On you it would; and a year from now—say next Christmas—you
could get the laugh on Bemis that way.  But if you were to risk it now,
there’s no telling how he’d take it.  He’s so indignant he might insist
upon leaving the house.  But with this plan of mine—’

ROBERTS, in despair: ‘I couldn’t, Willis.  I don’t feel light, and I
don’t feel confident, and I couldn’t act it.  If it were a simple lie—’

WILLIS: ‘Oh, lies are never simple; they require the exercise of all your
ingenuity.  If you want something simple, you must stick to the truth,
and throw yourself on Bemis’s mercy.’

ROBERTS, walking up and down in great distress: ‘I can’t do it; I can’t
do it.  It’s very kind of you to think it all out for me, but’—struck by
a sudden idea—‘Willis, why shouldn’t _you_ do it?’

WILLIS: ‘I?’

ROBERTS: ‘You are good at those things.  You have so much _aplomb_, you
know.  _You_ could carry it off, you know, first-rate.’

WILLIS, as if finding a certain fascination in the idea: ‘Well, I don’t
know—’

ROBERTS: ‘And I could chime in on the laugh.  I think I could do that if
somebody else was doing the rest.’

WILLIS, after a moment of silent reflection: ‘I _should_ like to do it.
I should like to see how old Bemis would look when I played it on him.
Roberts, I _will_ do it.  Not a word!  I should _like_ to do it.  Now you
go on and hurry up your toilet, old fellow; you needn’t mind me here.
I’ll be rehearsing.’

MRS. ROBERTS, knocking at the door, outside: ‘Edward, are you _never_
coming?’

ROBERTS: ‘Yes, yes; I’ll be there in a minute, my dear.’

WILLIS: ‘Yes, he’ll be there.  Run along back, and keep it going till we
come.  Roberts, I wouldn’t take a thousand dollars for this chance.’

ROBERTS: ‘I’m glad you like it.’

WILLIS: ‘Like it?  Of course I do.  Or no!  Hold on!  Wait!  It won’t do!
No; you must take the leading part, and I’ll support you, and I’ll come
in strong if you break down.  That’s the way we have got to work it.  You
must make the start.’

ROBERTS: ‘Couldn’t you make it better, Willis?  It’s your idea.’

WILLIS: ‘No; they’d be sure to suspect me, and they can’t suspect you of
anything—you’re so innocent.  The illusion will be complete.’

ROBERTS, very doubtfully: ‘Do you think so?’

WILLIS: ‘Yes.  Hurry up.  Let me unbutton that collar for you.’




PART THIRD


I
MRS. ROBERTS, DR. LAWTON, MRS. CRASHAW, MR. BEMIS, YOUNG MR. AND MRS.
BEMIS


MRS. ROBERTS, surrounded by her guests, and confronting from her sofa Mr.
Bemis, who still remains sunken in his armchair, has apparently closed an
exhaustive recital of the events which have ended in his presence there.
She looks round with a mixed air of self-denial and self-satisfaction to
read the admiration of her listeners in their sympathetic countenances.

DR. LAWTON, with an ironical sigh of profound impression: ‘Well, Mrs.
Roberts, you are certainly the most lavishly hospitable of hostesses.
Every one knows what delightful dinners you give; but these little
dramatic episodes which you offer your guests, by way of appetizer, are
certainly unique.  Last year an elevator stuck in the shaft with half the
company in it, and this year a highway robbery, its daring punishment and
its reckless repetition—what the newspapers will call “A Triple Mystery”
when it gets to them—and both victims among our commensals!  Really, I
don’t know what more we could ask of you, unless it were the foot-padded
footpad himself as a commensal.  If this sort of thing should become _de
rigueur_ in society generally, I don’t know what’s to become of people
who haven’t your invention.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, it’s all very well to make fun now, Dr. Lawton; but if
you had been here when they first came in—’

YOUNG MRS. BEMIS: ‘Yes, indeed, I think so too, Mrs. Roberts.  If Mr.
Bemis—Alfred, I mean—and papa hadn’t been with me when you came out there
to prepare us, I don’t know what I should have done.  I should certainly
have died, or gone through the floor.’  She looks fondly up into the face
of her husband for approval, where he stands behind her chair, and
furtively gives him her hand for pressure.’

YOUNG MR. BEMIS: ‘Somebody ought to write to the Curwens—Mrs. Curwen,
that is—about it.’

MRS. BEMIS, taking away her hand: ‘Oh yes, papa, _do_ write!’

LAWTON: ‘I will, my dear.  Even Mrs. Curwen, dazzling away in another
sphere—hemisphere—and surrounded by cardinals and all the other celestial
lights there at Rome, will be proud to exploit this new evidence of
American enterprise.  I can fancy the effect she will produce with it.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And the Millers—what a shame they couldn’t come!  How
excited they would have been!—that is, Mrs. Miller.  Is their baby very
bad, Doctor?’

LAWTON: ‘Well, vaccination is always a very serious thing—with a first
child.  I should say, from the way Mrs. Miller feels about it, that
Miller wouldn’t be able to be out for a week to come yet.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, how ridiculous you are, Doctor!’

BEMIS, rising feebly from his chair: ‘Well, now that it’s all explained,
Mrs. Roberts, I think I’d better go home; and if you’ll kindly have them
telephone for a carriage—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘_No_, indeed, Mr. Bemis!  We shall not let you go.  Why,
the _idea_!  You must stay and take dinner with us, just the same.’

BEMIS: ‘But in this state—’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, never mind the _state_.  You look perfectly well; and
if you insist upon going, I shall know that you bear a grudge against
Edward for not arresting him.  Wait!  We can put you in perfect order in
just a second.’  She flies out of the room, and then comes swooping back
with a needle and thread, a fresh white necktie, a handkerchief, and a
hair-brush.  ‘There!  I can’t let you go to Edward’s dressing-room,
because he’s there himself, and the children are in mine, and we’ve had
to put the new maid in the guest-chamber—you _are_ rather cramped in
flats, that’s true; that’s the worst of them—but if you don’t mind having
your toilet made in public, like the King of France—’

BEMIS, entering into the spirit of it: ‘Not the least; but—’  He laughs,
and drops back into his chair.

MRS. ROBERTS, distributing the brush to young Mr. Bemis, and the tie to
his wife, and dropping upon her knees before Mr. Bemis: ‘Now, Mrs. Lou,
you just whip off that crumpled tie and whip on the fresh one, and,
_Mister_ Lou, you give his hair a touch, and I’ll have this torn
button-hole mended before you can think.’  She seizes it and begins to
sew vigorously upon it.

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes, you are the most ridiculously sensible woman in the
country.’

LAWTON, standing before the group, with his arms folded and his feet well
apart, in an attitude of easy admiration: ‘The Wounded Adonis, attended
by the Loves and Graces.  Familiar Pompeiian fresco.’

MRS. ROBERTS, looking around at him: ‘I don’t see a great many Loves.’

LAWTON: ‘She ignores us, Mrs. Crashaw.  And after what you’ve just said!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Then why don’t you do something?’

LAWTON: ‘The Loves _never_ do anything—in frescoes.  They stand round and
sympathise.  Besides, we are waiting to administer an anæsthetic.  But
what I admire in this subject even more than the activity of the Graces
is the serene dignity of the Adonis.  I have seen my old friend in many
trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering
absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which
his benign countenance was capable.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Don’t mind him a bit, Mr. Bemis; it’s nothing but—’

LAWTON: ‘Pure envy.  I own it.’

BEMIS: ‘All right, Lawton.  Wait till—’

MRS. ROBERTS, making a final stitch, snapping off the thread, and
springing to her feet, all in one: ‘There, have you finished, Mr. and
Mrs. Lou?  Well, then, take this lace handkerchief, and draw it down from
his neck and pin it in his waistcoat, and you have—’

LAWTON, as Mr. Bemis rises to his feet: ‘A Gentleman of the Old School.
Bemis, you look like a miniature of yourself by Malbone.  Rather
flattered, but—recognisable.’

BEMIS, with perfectly recovered gaiety: ‘Go on, go on, Lawton.  I can
understand your envy.  I can pity it.’

LAWTON: ‘Could you forgive Roberts for not capturing the garotter?’

BEMIS: ‘Yes, I could.  I could give the garotter his liberty, and present
him with an admission to the Provident Woodyard, where he could earn an
honest living for his family.’

LAWTON, compassionately: ‘You _are_ pretty far gone, Bemis.  Really, I
think somebody ought to go for Roberts.’

MRS. ROBERTS, innocently: ‘Yes, indeed!  Why, what in the world can be
keeping him?’  A nursemaid enters and beckons Mrs. Roberts to the door
with a glance.  She runs to her; they whisper; and then Mrs. Roberts,
over her shoulder: ‘That ridiculous great boy of mine says he can’t go to
sleep unless I come and kiss him good-night.’

LAWTON: ‘Which ridiculous great boy, I wonder?—Roberts, or Campbell?  But
I didn’t know they had gone to bed!’

MRS. BEMIS: ‘You are too bad, papa!  You know it’s little Neddy.’

MRS. ROBERTS, vanishing: ‘Oh, I don’t mind his nonsense, Lou.  I’ll fetch
them both back with me.’

LAWTON, after making a melodramatic search for concealed listeners at the
doors: ‘Now, friends, I have a revelation to make in Mrs. Roberts’s
absence.  I have found out the garotter—the assassin.’

ALL THE OTHERS: ‘What!’

LAWTON: ‘He has been secured—’

MRS. CRASHAW, severely: ‘Well, I’m very glad of it.’

YOUNG BEMIS: ‘By the police?’

MRS. BEMIS, incredulously: ‘Papa!’

BEMIS: ‘But there were several of them.  Have they all been arrested?’

LAWTON: ‘There was only one, and none of him has been arrested.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Where is he, then?’

LAWTON: ‘In this house.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Now, Dr. Lawton, you and I are old friends—I shouldn’t
like to say _how_ old—but if you don’t instantly be serious, I—I’ll carry
my rheumatism to somebody else.’

LAWTON: ‘My _dear_ Mrs. Crashaw, you know how much I prize that
rheumatism of yours!  I will be serious—I will be only too serious.  The
garotter is Mr. Roberts himself.’

ALL, horror-struck: ‘Oh!’

LAWTON: ‘He went out without his watch.  He thought he was robbed, but he
wasn’t.  He ran after the supposed thief, our poor friend Bemis here, and
took Bemis’s watch away, and brought it home for his own.’

YOUNG BEMIS: ‘Yes, but—’

MRS. BEMIS: ‘But, papa—’

BEMIS: ‘How do you know it?  I can see how such a thing might happen,
but—how do you know it _did_?’

LAWTON: ‘I divined it.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Nonsense!’

LAWTON: ‘Very well, then, I read of just such a ease in the _Advertiser_
a year ago.  It occurs annually—in the newspapers.  And I’ll tell you
what, Mrs. Crashaw—Roberts found out his mistake as soon as he went to
his dressing-room; and that ingenious nephew of yours, who’s closeted
with him there, has been trying to put him up to something—to some game.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis has too much sense.  He would know that Edward
couldn’t carry out any sort of game.’

LAWTON: ‘Well, then, he’s getting Roberts to let _him_ carry out the
game.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Edward couldn’t do that either.’

LAWTON: ‘Very well, then, just wait till they come back.  Will you leave
me to deal with Campbell?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘What are you going to do?’

YOUNG BEMIS: ‘You mustn’t forget that he got us out of the elevator,
sir.’

MRS. BEMIS: ‘We might have been there yet if it hadn’t been for him,
papa.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I shouldn’t want Willis mortified.’

BEMIS: ‘Nor Mr. Roberts annoyed.  We’re fellow-sufferers in this
business.’

LAWTON: ‘Oh, leave it to me, leave it to me!  I’ll spare their feelings.
Don’t be afraid.  Ah, there they come!  Now don’t say anything.  I’ll
just step into the anteroom here.’



II
MR. ROBERTS, MR. CAMPBELL, AND THE OTHERS


ROBERTS, entering the room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his
guests: ‘Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary!  You’ve heard of our
comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—’  He halts, confused,
and looks around for the moral support of Willis, who follows
hilariously.

WILLIS: ‘Greatest joke on record!  But I won’t spoil it for you, Roberts.
Go on!’  In a low voice to Roberts: ‘And don’t look so confoundedly down
in the mouth.  They won’t think it’s a joke at all.’

ROBERTS, with galvanic lightness: ‘Yes, yes—such a joke!  Well, you
see—you see—’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘See _what_, Edward?  _Do_ get it out!’

WILLIS, jollily: ‘Ah, ha, ha!’

ROBERTS, lugubriously: ‘Ah, ha, ha!’

MRS. BEMIS: ‘How funny!  Ha, ha, ha!’

YOUNG MR. BEMIS: ‘Capital! capital!’

BEMIS: ‘Excellent!’

WILLIS: ‘Go on, Roberts, do! or I shall die!  Ah, ha, ha!’

ROBERTS, in a low voice of consternation to Willis: ‘Where was I?  I
can’t go on unless I know where I was.’

WILLIS, _sotto voce_ to Roberts: ‘You weren’t anywhere!  For Heaven’s
sake, make a start!’

ROBERTS, to the others, convulsively: ‘Ha, ha, ha!  I supposed all the
time, you know, that I had been robbed, and—and—’

WILLIS: ‘Go on! _go_ on!’

ROBERTS, whispering: ‘I can’t do it—’

WILLIS, whispering: ‘You’ve _got_ to!  You’re the beaver that clomb the
tree.  Laugh naturally, now!’

ROBERTS, with a staccato groan, which he tries to make pass for a laugh:
‘And then I ran after the man—’ He stops, and regards Mr. Bemis with a
ghastly stare.

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘What is the matter with you, Edward?  Are you sick?’

WILLIS: ‘Sick?  No!  Can’t you see that he can’t get over the joke of the
thing?  It’s killing him.’  To Roberts: ‘Brace up, old man!  You’re doing
it splendidly.’

ROBERTS, hopelessly: ‘And then the other man—the man that had robbed
me—the man that I had pursued—ugh!’

WILLIS: ‘Well, it is too much for him.  I shall have to tell it myself, I
see.’

ROBERTS, making a wild effort to command himself: ‘And so—so—this
man—man—ma—’

WILLIS: ‘Oh, good Lord—’  Dr. Lawton suddenly appears from the anteroom
and confronts him.  ‘Oh, the devil!’

LAWTON, folding his arms, and fixing his eyes upon him: ‘Which means that
you forgot I was coming.’

WILLIS: ‘Doctor, you read a man’s symptoms at a glance.’

LAWTON: ‘Yes; and I can see that you are in a bad way, Mr. Campbell.’

WILLIS: ‘Why don’t you advertise, Doctor?  Patients need only enclose a
lock of their hair, and the colour of their eyes, with one dollar to pay
the cost of materials, which will be sent, with full directions for
treatment, by return mail.  Seventh son of a seventh son.’

LAWTON: ‘Ah, don’t try to jest it away, my poor friend.  This is one of
those obscure diseases of the heart—induration of the pericardium—which,
if not taken in time, result in deceitfulness above all things, and
desperate wickedness.’

WILLIS: ‘Look here, Dr. Lawton, what are you up to?’

LAWTON: ‘Look here, Mr. Campbell, what is your little game?’

WILLIS: ‘_I_ don’t know what you’re up to.’  He shrugs his shoulders and
walks up the room.

LAWTON, shrugging his shoulders and walking up the room abreast of
Campbell: ‘_I_ don’t know what your little game is.’  They return
together, and stop, confronting each other.

WILLIS: ‘But if you think I’m going to give myself away—’

LAWTON: ‘If you suppose I’m going to take you at your own figure—’  They
walk up the room together, and return as before.

WILLIS: ‘Mrs. Bemis, what is this unnatural parent of yours after?’

MRS. BEMIS, tittering: ‘Oh, I’m sure _I_ can’t tell.’

WILLIS: ‘Aunt Mary, you used to be a friend of mine.  Can’t you give me
some sort of clue?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I should be ashamed of you, Willis, if you accepted
anybody’s help.’

WILLIS, sighing: ‘Well, this is pretty hard on an orphan.  Here I come to
join a company of friends at the fireside of a burgled brother-in-law,
and I find myself in a nest of conspirators.’  Suddenly, after a moment:
‘Oh, I understand.  Why, I ought to have seen at once.  But no
matter—it’s just as well.  I’m sure that we shall hear Dr. Lawton
leniently, and make allowance for his well-known foible.  Roberts is
bound by the laws of hospitality, and Mr. Bemis is the father-in-law of
his daughter.’

MRS. BEMIS, in serious dismay: ‘Why, Mr. Campbell, what do you mean?’

WILLIS: ‘Simply that the mystery is solved—the double garotter is
discovered.  I’m sorry for you, Mrs. Bemis; and no one will wish to deal
harshly with your father when he confesses that it was he who robbed Mr.
Roberts and Mr. Bemis.  All that they ask is to have their watches back.
Go on, Doctor!  How will that do, Aunt Mary, for a little flyer?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis, I declare I never saw anybody like you!’  She
embraces him with joyous pride.

ROBERTS, coming forward anxiously: ‘But, my dear Willis—’

WILLIS, clapping his hand over his mouth, and leading him back to his
place: ‘We can’t let you talk now.  I’ve no doubt you’ll be considerate,
and all that, but Dr. Lawton has the floor.  Go on, Doctor!  Free your
mind!  Don’t be afraid of telling the whole truth!  It will be better for
you in the end.’  He rubs his hands gleefully, and then thrusting the
points of them into his waistcoat pockets, stands beaming triumphantly
upon Lawton.

LAWTON: ‘Do you think so?’  With well-affected trepidation ‘Well,
friends, if I must confess this—this—’

WILLIS: ‘High-handed outrage.  Go on.’

LAWTON: ‘I suppose I must.  I shall not expect mercy for myself; perhaps
you’ll say that, as an old and hardened offender, I don’t deserve it.
But I had an accomplice—a young man very respectably connected, and who,
whatever his previous life may have been, had managed to keep a good
reputation; a young man a little apt to be misled by overweening vanity
and the ill-advised flattery of his friends; but I hope that neither of
you gentlemen will be hard upon him, but will consider his youth, and
perhaps his congenital moral and intellectual deficiencies, even when you
find your watches—on Mr. Campbell’s person.’  He leans forward, rubbing
his hands, and smiling upon Campbell, ‘How will that do, Mr. Campbell,
for a flyer?’

WILLIS, turning to Mrs. Crashaw: ‘One ahead, Aunt Mary?’

LAWTON, clasping him by the hand: ‘No, generous youth—even!’  They shake
hands, clapping each other on the back with their lefts, and joining in
the general laugh.

BEMIS, coming forward jovially: ‘Well, now, I gladly forgive you both—or
whoever _did_ rob me—if you’ll only give me back my watch.’

WILLIS: ‘_I_ haven’t got your watch.’

LAWTON: ‘Nor I.’

ROBERTS, rather faintly, and coming reluctantly forward: ‘I—I have it,
Mr. Bemis.’  He produces it from one waistcoat pocket and hands it to
Bemis.  Then, visiting the other: ‘And what’s worse, I have my own.  I
don’t know how I can ever explain it, or atone to you for my
extraordinary behaviour.  Willis thought you might finally see it as a
joke, and I’ve done my best to pass it off lightly—’

WILLIS: ‘And you succeeded.  You had all the lightness of a sick
hippopotamus.’

ROBERTS: ‘I’m afraid so.  I’ll have the chain mended, of course.  But
when I went out this evening I left my watch on my dressing-table, and
when you struck against me in the Common I missed it, and supposed I had
been robbed, and I ran after you and took yours—’

WILLIS: ‘Being a man of the most violent temper and the most desperate
courage—’

ROBERTS: ‘But I hope, my dear sir, that I didn’t hurt you seriously?’

BEMIS: ‘Not at all—not the least.’  Shaking him cordially by both hands:
‘I’m all right.  Mrs. Roberts has healed all my wounds with her skilful
needle; I’ve got on one of your best neckties, and this lace handkerchief
of your wife’s, which I’m going to keep for a souvenir of the most
extraordinary adventure of my life—’

LAWTON: ‘Oh, it’s an old newspaper story, Bemis, I tell you.’

WILLIS: ‘Well, Aunt Mary, I wish Agnes were here now to see Roberts in
his character of _moral_ hero.  He ‘done’ it with his little hatchet, but
he waited to make sure that Bushrod was all right before he owned up.’

MRS. ROBERTS, appearing: ‘Who, Willis?’

WILLIS: ‘A very great and good man—George Washington.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘I thought you meant Edward.’

WILLIS: ‘Well, I don’t suppose there _is_ much difference.’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘The robber has been caught, Agnes.’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Caught?  Nonsense!  You don’t mean it!  How can you trifle
with such a subject?  I know you are joking!  Who is it?’

YOUNG BEMIS: ‘You never could guess—’

MRS. BEMIS: ‘Never in the world!’

MRS. ROBERTS: ‘I don’t wish to.  But oh, Mr. Bemis, I’ve just come from
my own children, and you must be merciful to his family!’

BEMIS: ‘For your sake, dear lady, I will.’

BELLA, between the _portières_: ‘Dinner is ready, Mrs. Roberts.’

MRS. ROBERTS, passing her hand through Mr. Bemis’s arm: ‘Oh, then you
must go in with me, and tell me all about it.’




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