A QUARTER PAST TWELVE.
Oscar Leigh sat in the dark on the last step but one of the stairs of
his house, awaiting the arrival of John Timmons. It was close to the
appointed hour. He had spent the interval in his workshop with the
clock. He had one of his knees drawn up close to his body, his elbow
rested on his knee, his long bearded chin in the palm of that hand. It
was pitch dark. Nothing could be seen, absolutely nothing. For all the
human eye could learn an inch from it might be a plate of iron or
blind space.
"My mother cannot live for ever," whispered the dwarf--like many
people who live much in the solitude of cities he had the habit of
communing with himself aloud--"and then all will be blank, all will be
dark as this place round me. Where shall I turn then? Whom shall I
speak my heart to? I designed my clock to be a companion, a friend, a
confidant, a solace, a triumph; it is becoming a tyrant and a scourge.
It is cruel that my mother should grow old. Why should not things stop
as they are now? But we are all on our way to death. We are all on our
way out of the world to make room for those who are coming in. No
sooner do we grow to full years and strive to form our hearts than we
discover we are only lodgers in this world and that those we like are
leaving our neighbourhood very soon, and that while we cannot go with
them we cannot remain either.
"A man must have something to think of besides himself; a deformed
dwarf must never think of himself at all, unless he thinks great
things of himself. I am depressed to-night. I have been living too
fast all day. What a long day it has been. I told that young whelp,
Hanbury, I should show him something more wonderful than Miracle Gold.
I took him with me to Grimsby Street, and the marvellous likeness
between those two girls took the sight out of his eyes and the speech
out of his mouth, and the little brains he has out of his head. Then I
go with him to see _her_ who is the other, only with glory added to
beauty. She is better and more wonderful than Miracle Gold, better and
more wonderful than the substance of the ruby flash in the flame of
the diamond. If the devil had but let me grow up as other men, she
might have made me try to carry myself and act like a god. I am of
Satan's crew now--it would hardly pay to apostatize. Here's Timmons."
The knock agreed upon sounded on the door and reverberated through the
hollow darkness. Leigh rose, and sliding his left foot and supporting
his body on the stick, held close in under his ribs, went to the door
and opened it.
"Twelve to the minute," said Timmons, holding up his hand and waving
it in the direction whence came the sound of a church clock striking
midnight.
"Let us go for a walk," said Leigh, turning west, away from Welbeck
Place and the Hanover, and shutting the door behind him.
"But I have the stuff with me," said Timmons, in a tone of annoyance
and protest.
"Let us go for a walk, I say," cried Leigh imperiously, striking his
thick twisted stick fiercely on the flags as he spoke.
The two men turned to the left, and went on a few paces in silence.
Timmons was sulky. A nice thing surely for a creature to ask a man to
call on business at his private residence with valuable property at
midnight and then slam the door in his face and coolly ask him to go
out for a walk! It was a downright insult, but a man couldn't resent
an insult from such a creature. That was the worst of it.
"I have been in telegraphic communication with Birmingham since I saw
you," said Leigh, stopping under a lamp-post, pouring out a few drops
of eau-de-cologne into his palm and inhaling the spirit noisily.
"Oh?" said Timmons interrogatively, as he looked contemptuously at the
dwarf.
"Hah! That's very refreshing. Most refreshing. May I offer you a
little eau-de-cologne, Mr. Timmons?" said the little man with
elaborate suavity.
"No, thanks," said Timmons gruffly. "I don't like it." Timmons's
private opinion was that a man who used perfume of any kind must be an
effeminate fool. It was not pleasant to think this man, with whom he
was about to have very important business transactions, should be an
effeminate fool. Perhaps it indicated that he was only a new kind of
villain; that would be much better.
"Hah!" said Leigh, as they re-commenced their walk, "I am sorry for
that, for it is refreshing, most refreshing. I was saying that since I
had the pleasure of visiting your emporium--I suppose it is an
emporium, Mr. Timmons?" he asked, with a pleasant smile.
"It may be, or it may be an alligator, or a bird-show, or anything
else you like to call it," said Timmons in exasperation. "But you were
saying you had a message from Birmingham since I saw you."
"I had not only a message, but several messages. I went straight from
your emporium to King's Cross, so as to be near Birmingham and save
delay in wiring. I know where I can usually get a clear wire there--a
great thing when one is in a hurry--the mere signalling of the message
is, as you know, instantaneous."
"Ay," said Timmons scornfully, with an impatient serpentine movement
running up his body and almost shaking his head off its long,
stalk-like neck. "Well, is the fool off the job?" asked he coarsely,
savagely, in slang, with a view to showing how cheap he held such
unprincipled circumlocution.
The dwarf stopped and looked up with blank amazement on his face and
an ugly flash in his eyes. "Is what fool off the job, Mr. Timmons? Am
I to understand that you are tired of these delays?"
Timmons snorted in disdainful rage. The implication that he was the
only fool connected with the matter lay in the tone rather than the
words, but it was unmistakable. The dwarf meant to insult him grossly,
and he could not strike him, for it would be unmanly to hit such a
creature, and he could not strangle him, for there were people about
the street. By a prodigious effort he swallowed down his rage, spread
his long thin legs out wide, as if to prevent the flight of Leigh, and
said in a hoarse, threatening, sepulchral voice: "Look here, Mr.
Leigh. I've come on business. What have you to say to me? I have
twenty-six ounces that will average fifteen carats. Are you going to
act square and stump up?"
"Hah! I see," said Leigh, smiling blandly, as though rejoicing on
dismissing the injurious suspicion that Timmons wanted to back out of
the bargain. "I own I am relieved. The fact, my dear sir, is, that on
leaving you I telegraphed to my correspondent in Birmingham for----"
"No more gammon," said the other, menacingly. They were in front of a
church, of the church whose clock they had heard strike midnight
before they left Leigh's doorstep. Here there was a quiet space suited
to their talk. The church and churchyard interrupted the line of
houses, and fewer people passed on that side of the way than on the
other. There were no shops in this street. Still it was lightsome, and
never quite free from the sound of footsteps or the presence of some
one at a distance. Stamer had hinted that Leigh might try to murder
Timmons for plunder, and now Timmons was almost in the humour to
murder Leigh for rage.
Leigh made a gesture of gracious deprecation with his left hand and
bowed. "This, Mr. Timmons, is a matter of business, and I never allow
anything so odious as fiction to touch even the robe of sacred
business." He lifted his hat, raised his eyes to the top of the spire
of the church and then bowed low his uncovered head. "For, Mr.
Timmons, business is the deity every one of our fellow-countrymen
worship."
"What are you going to do; that's what I want to know?" said the other
fiercely.
"Precisely. Well, sir, I shall tell you my position in two words. I
suspect my Birmingham correspondent." Leigh threw back his head and
smiled engagingly, as though he had ended an amusing anecdote.
"By ----, you don't say that?" cried Timmons, fairly startled and
drawing back a pace.
"I do."
"What does he know?"
"About what, my dear sir? What does he know about what? Are you
curious to learn his educational equipments? Surely you cannot be
curious on such a point?" He looked troubled because of Timmons's idle
curiosity.
"Don't let us have any more rot. You say you suspect this man?"
"I do."
"What does he know of the stuff?"
"Of the stuff, as you call it, he knows from me absolutely nothing."
"How can you suspect him if he doesn't know? How can he peach if you
haven't let him into the secret?"
"I didn't say I suspected him of betraying the secret of my
manufacture."
"Then what _do_ you suspect him of--speak plain?" Timmons's voice and
manner were heavy with threat.
"Of something much worse than treachery."
"There is nothing worse than treachery in our business."
"I suspect this man of something that is worse than treachery in any
business."
"It has no name?"
"It has a name. I suspect this man of not having much money."
"Ah!"
"Is not that bad? Is not that worse than treachery?"
Timmons did not heed these questions. They were too abstract for his
mind.
"And you think this villain might cheat, might swindle us after all
our trouble?"
"I think this villain capable of trying to get the best of us, in the
way of not paying promptly or the full price agreed upon, or perhaps
not being able to pay at all."
"And, Mr. Leigh, when did you begin to suspect this unprincipled
scoundrel?" Timmons's language was losing the horrible element of
slang as the virtuous side of his nature began to assert itself.
"Only to-day; only since I saw you in Tunbridge Street."
"Mr. Leigh, I hope, sir, you'll forgive my hot words of a while ago. I
know I have a bad temper. I humbly ask your pardon, Mr. Leigh."
Timmons was quite humble now.
"Certainly, freely. We are to work, as you suggested, on the
co-operative principle. If through my haste or inefficiency the money
had been lost, we should all be the poorer."
"I have advanced about twenty pounds of my own money on the bit I have
on me. My own money, without allowing anything for work and labour
done in the way of melting down, or for anxiety of mind, or for
profit. If that little bit of yellow stuff could keep me awake of
nights, I often wonder how the people that own the Bank of England can
sleep at all."
"They hire a guard of soldiers to sleep for them in the Bank every
night."
"Eh, sir?"
"Hah! Nothing. Now you understand why I did not ask you into my place
and take the alloy. We must wait a little yet. We must wait until I
can light upon an honest man to work up the result of our great
chemical discovery. I hope by this day week to be able to give you
good and final news. In the meantime the ore is safe with you."
"I'm sure I'm truly grateful to you, sir."
"What greater delight can a person have than helping an honest man to
protect himself against business wretches who are little better than
thieves?"
"Eh?"
"Hah! Nothing. Give me a week. This day week at the same hour and at
the same place."
"Very good. I shall be there."
An empty hansom was passing. Leigh whistled and held up his hand to
the driver.
Suddenly both he and Timmons started, a long clang came from the other
side of the railings.
"'Tisn't the last Trumpet for the tenants of these holdings," said
Leigh, pointing his long, skinny, yellow, hairy hand at the graves.
"It's the clock striking the quarter-past twelve. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Timmons, in a tone of reserve and suspicion. He was
far from clear as to what he thought of the little man now bowling
along down the road in the hansom.
Yes, this man was quite beyond him. Whether the whole thing was a
solemn farce or not he could not determine. This man talked fifty to
the dozen, at least fifty to the dozen.
Timmons touched his belt. Ay, the gold was there sure enough. That was
a consolation anyway, but----
He shook his head, and set out to walk the whole way back to the dim,
dingy street off the Borough Road, where he had a bed-room in which he
spent no part of his time but the hours of sleep.