THE WRONG MAN.
When Timmons led the almost unconscious Stamer from the threshold, and
left him a few yards from the door, the latter did not go far. He had
scarcely the strength to walk away, and he certainly had not the
desire to go. He had borne two extreme phases of terror within the
last twenty-four hours; he had suffered the breathless terror of
believing he had taken human life, and he had imagined the spirit of
the murdered man was pursuing him.
He had often, in thought, faced the contingency of having to fire on
some one who found him at his midnight depredations, but he had not,
until he formed the resolve of putting Leigh away, contemplated lying
in wait for an unsuspecting man and shooting him as if he were a bird
of prey.
Once it had entered his mind to kill Leigh, nothing seemed simpler
than to do it, and nothing easier than to bear the burden of the deed.
He had no hint of conscience, and there were only two articles in his
code--first, that prison was a punishment not to be borne if, at any
expense, it could be avoided; and, second, that no harm was to be
allowed near Timmons. Both articles were concerned, inextricably bound
up, in Leigh's life. He saw in the dwarf the agent, the ally of the
police--the police, absolutely, in a more malignant form than the
stalwart detective who, with handcuffs in his pockets, runs a man
down. This Leigh was a traitor and a policeman together. It seemed as
though it would be impossible for one human being to possess any
characteristic which could add to the hatefulness of him who exhibited
these two. And yet this Leigh was not only a traitor and a policeman
combined, but an enemy of Timmons--a beast who threatened Timmons as
well! Shooting was too merciful a death for such a miscreant. But
then, shooting was easy and sure, so he should be shot.
The act itself had been very easy. There had been no more difficulty
about it than about hitting the old hat in the shadow of the factory
wall. But when the silent shot was sped and the air-gun disposed of by
being carefully hung down the inside of a chimney and hooked to a
copper-wire tie of the slate chimney-top, and he was safely down the
water pipe and in the mews, the aspect of the whole deed changed, or
rather it became another thing altogether.
Before pulling the trigger of the air-gun, he was perfectly satisfied
that Leigh deserved, richly deserved death. That was as plain as the
dome of St. Paul's from London Bridge. It had been equally plain to
him that when Leigh was dead, and dead by his hand, he should never
because of any compunction be sorry for his act. No sooner was he at
the bottom of the water-pipe than he found he had no longer any
control over his thoughts, or more correctly that the thoughts in his
mind did not belong to him at all, but were, as it might be, thoughts
hired in the interest of the dead man, hostile, relentless
mercenaries, inside the very walls of the citadel within which he was
besieged, and from which there was no escape except by flinging his
naked bosom on the bayonets of the besiegers.
It made not the least difference now whether the man merited death a
thousand times or not, that man insisted on haunting him. It did not
now matter in the least how it pleased him to regard the provoker of
that shot, it was how the murdered man regarded him was the real
question. He had always told himself that a murdered man was only a
dead man after all. Now he had to learn that no man ever born of woman
is more awfully alive than a murdered man. He had yet to learn that
the blow of the murderer endows the victim with inextinguishable
vitality. He had yet to learn that all things which live die to the
mind of a murderer except the man who is dead. He had yet to learn
that in the mind of a murderer there is a gradually filling in and
crowding together of the images of the undamned dead that in the end
blind and block up the whole soul in stifling intimacies with the
dead, until the murderer in his despair flings himself at the feet of
the hangman shrieking for mercy, for mercy, for the mercy of violent
and disgraceful death in order to put an end to the fiendish gibes of
the dead who is not dead but living, who will not sink into hell, but
brings hell into the assassin's brain. The desire to kill is easy, and
the means of killing are easy, but the spirit of the murdered man
takes immortal form in the brain of the murderer and cleaves to him
for evermore.
So that when Stamer descended from the roof and found himself in the
yard of the mews, he was not alone. He had seen little of Leigh, but
now all he had seen came back upon the eye of his memory with
appalling distinctness. He saw each detail of the man's body as though
it were cast in rigid bronze and pressed forcibly, painfully,
unbearably, upon his perception. He could see, he could feel, the long
yellow fingers and the pointed chin hidden in the beard, and the hairs
on the neck growing thinner and thinner as the neck descended into the
collar. He could see the wrinkles about the eyes, and a peculiar
backward motion of the lips before the dwarf spoke. He could see the
forehead wrinkled upward in indulgent scorn, or the eyes flashing with
insolent self-esteem. He could see. He could see the swift, sharp
up-tilt of the chin when a deep respiration became necessary. There
was nothing about the dwarf that he could not see, that he did not
see, that he could avoid seeing, that was not pressed upon him as by a
cold, steel die, that was not pressed and pressed upon him until his
mind ached for the vividness, until he turned within himself
frantically to avoid the features or actions of the dwarf, and found
no space unoccupied, no loop-hole of escape, no resting-place for the
eye, no variety for the mind. He was possessed by a devil, and he had
made that devil into the likeness of Leigh with his own hands out of
the blood of Leigh.
He had run, he did not know how long, or whither, but all the time he
was running, he had some relief from the devil which possessed him,
for he heard footsteps behind him, the footsteps of the dwarf. But
what signified footsteps behind him, or the ordinary ghost one heard
of, which could not take shape in day-light, or linger after cockcrow,
compared with this internal spirit of the murdered man, this awful
presence, this agonizingly minute portraiture at the back of the
eye-balls where all the inside of the head could see it, when the eyes
were shut, when one was asleep?
At the time Leigh overtook him, he was sure Leigh was dead. But when
he found himself exhausted against the wall, and saw the dwarf go by,
it was with a feeling of relief. This was the vulgar ghost of which he
had heard so much, but which he had always held in contempt. But he
had never heard of the other ghost before, and his spirit was goaded
with terrors, and frantic with fears.
Then came that night of wandering, with inexpungeable features of the
dwarf sharp limned upon his smarting sight, and after that long night,
which was a repetition of the first few minutes after the deed, the
visit to Timmons, and the appearance of Leigh in the flesh!
No wonder Stamer was faint.
He was in no immediate fear now. He was merely worn out by the awful
night, and prostrated by the final shock. All he wanted was rest, and
to know how it came to be that the dwarf was about that morning,
seemingly uninjured. As Leigh was not dead, or hurt, he had nothing to
fear at present. He would rest somewhere from which he could watch
Timmons, and go back to his friend as soon as the clock-maker
disappeared. He sat down on the tail-board of an upreared cart to
wait.
At length he saw the hunchback issue hastily from the store, and
hasten, with pale face and hard-drawn breath, in the direction of
London Road. Stamer kept his eyes on the little man until he saw him
hail a cab and drive away. Then he rose, and, with weary steps and a
heart relieved, hastened to the marine store.
The murdered ghost which had haunted the secret chambers of his spirit
had been exorcised, by the sight of Leigh in the flesh, and he was at
rest.
He found Timmons pacing up and down the store gloomily. "That's a good
job, any way, Mr. Timmons," said the shorter man when he had got
behind the shutters. This time he did not stand up with his back
against the wall; he sat down on the old fire-grate. He was much
bolder. In fact, he sought cover more from habit than from a sense of
present insecurity.
"Good job," growled Timmons. "Worse job, you mean, you fool."
"Worse job? Worse job, Mr. Timmons? Worse, after all you said, to see
Mr. Leigh here, than to know he was lying on the floor under the
window with a broken neck?" cried Stamer, in blank and hopeless
amazement.
"Broken neck! Broken neck! It's you deserve the broken neck; and as
sure as you're alive, Tom Stamer, you'll get it, get it from Jack
Ketch, before long, and you deserve it."
"Deserve it for missing Leigh?" cried Stamer, in a tone of dismay.
Nothing could satisfy Timmons this morning. First he was furious
because he had killed Leigh, and now he was savage because the bullet
had missed him!
"No, you red-handed botch! Worse than even if you killed Leigh, who
hasn't been all straight. But you have killed an innocent man. A man
you never saw or heard of in all your life until last night. A man
that came into Leigh's place, privately, through a third door in the
mews, and wound up his clock for him, in the window, and nodded to the
Hanover bar people, as Leigh used to do, and who was so like Leigh
himself, hump and all, barring that he was taller, that their own
mothers would not know one from the other. Leigh hired him, so that he
might be able to go to Birmingham and places on _our_ business, and
seem to be in London and at his own place, if it became necessary to
prove he had not been in Birmingham, if it became necessary to prove
an alibi. And you, you blundering-headed fool, go and shoot the very
man Leigh had hired to help our business! You're a useful pal, you
are! You're a good working mate, you are! Are you proud of yourself?
Eh? You not only put your head into the halter of your own free will,
and out of the cleverness of your own brains, but you round on a chap
who was a pal after all. You go having snap shots, you do, and you bag
a comrade, a man who did no one any harm, a man who was in the swim!
Oh, you are a nice, useful, tidy working pal, you are! A useful,
careful mate! I wonder you didn't shoot me, and say you did it for the
good of my health, and out of kindness to me. Anyway, I'm heartily
sorry it wasn't yourself you shot, last night. No one would have been
sorry for that, and the country would have saved the ten pounds to
Jack Ketch for hanging you, and the cost of a new rope!"
"Eh?" cried Stamer, not that he did not hear and understand, but in
order that he might get the story re-told.
Timmons went over the principal points again.
The burglar listened quite unmoved.
"You take it coolly enough, anyhow?"
"Why not? It was an accident."
"An accident! An accident!" cried Timmons, drawing up in front of
Stamer and looking at him in perplexity.
"Well, what could be plainer, Mr. Timmons? Of course, it was an
accident. Why should I hurt a man who never hurt me?"
"But you did."
"They have to prove that. They _can't_ prove _I_ rounded on a pal. I
can get a hundred witnesses to character."
"Nice witnesses they would be."
"But the coppers _know_ I'm a straight man."
"They would hardly come to speak for you. It's someone from Portland
would give you a character. But you know you fired the shot."
"At a screech-owl, my lord, at a screech-owl, my lord, that was flying
across the street. You don't suppose, my lord, I'd go and round on a
pal of Mr. Timmons's and my own?"
Timmons glared at him. "But the man is dead, and someone shot him."
"Well, my lord, except Mr. Timmons--and to save him I risked my own
life, and would lay it down, and am ready to lay it down now or any
time it may please your lordship--unless Mr. Timmons goes into the box
and swears my life away, you can prove nothing against me, my lord."
"After all," said Timmons, looking through half-closed critical eyes
at Stamer, "after all, the man has some brains."
"And a straight man for a friend in Mr. John Timmons."
"Yes, Stamer, you have."
Stamer stood up and approached Timmons. "You'll shake hands on that,
Mr. Timmons?"
"I will." Timmons gave him his hand. "And now," he added, "I don't
think you know the good news."
"What?"
"Why, Forbes's bakery was burned out last night."
"Hurroo!" cried Stamer, with a yell of sudden relief and joy. "My
lord, you haven't a single bit of evidence against Tom Stamer. My
lord, good-bye. Mr. John Timmons and Tom Stamer against the world!"