JAMES MULLEN AND I MEET AT LAST
As the cab which I had chartered rattled up the approach to the Great
Eastern terminus at Liverpool Street, I had to admit to myself that the
probability of my falling in again with the red-bearded man scarcely
justified me in feeling so sanguine as I did.
I am not in the general way given to “presentiments,” but on this
occasion I felt almost childishly confident about the result of my
operations. Though I told myself, over and over again, that there is
nothing so hope-destroying to an active mind as compulsory inaction,
and that it was only because I had something definite with which to
occupy myself that I felt so hopeful, not all my philosophy could
persuade me that I should fail in bringing the enterprise to a
successful termination.
Curiously enough, presentiment was for once justified of her assurance,
and at the expense of philosophy, for as the clocks were chiming eight,
and evening was beginning to close in, whom should I see step out upon
the platform from a Romford train but my gentleman of the red beard and
brown bag.
He gave up his ticket and walked out of the station into Liverpool
Street, crossed the road and went up New Broad Street and so to the
Bank. Then he went into a tobacconist’s, whence he emerged puffing a
big cigar, and proceeded up Cheapside until he reached Foster Lane,
down which he turned. Here I had to be more cautious, for on Saturday
night the side streets of the City are deserted. Even in the great
thoroughfares, where during the five preceding days blows have rained
thick and fast, with scarce a moment’s interval, upon the ringing
anvils of traffic, there is a perceptible lull, but in the side streets
there is absolute silence.
When I saw the man with the red beard and brown bag turn down Foster
Lane, which, as every Londoner knows, is a narrow side street at the
back of the General Post Office, I felt that it was indeed a happy
thought which had prevented me from changing my shoes when I received
Grant’s summons in the morning. Had I been wearing my ordinary lace-ups
I should have been in a dilemma, for they are not easy to remove in a
hurry, and in that deserted place the echo of my following footsteps,
had I been thus shod, could not have failed to reach the ear of the
man I was shadowing. To have followed him boldly would have aroused
his suspicions, whereas if I remained far enough behind to avoid
running this risk, I incurred the greater risk of losing sight of him
altogether.
But for the purposes of shadowing, nothing could be better than the
gutta-percha-soled shoes which I was wearing; and by keeping well in
the shadow, and only flitting from doorway to doorway at such times as
I judged it safe to make a move, I hoped to keep an eye upon Redbeard
unseen.
The result justified my anticipations, for when he reached the back
of the General Post Office he stopped and looked hastily up and down
the street, as if to make sure that he was unobserved. Not a soul was
in sight, and I need scarcely say that I made of myself a very wafer,
and was clinging like a postage stamp to the door against which I had
squared myself.
Evidently reassured, he put down his bag, opened it, and lifted out
something that, from the stiff movement of his arms, appeared to
be heavy. This he placed upon the ground, and so gingerly that I
distinctly heard him sigh as he drew his hands away. Then he stood
erect, puffed fiercely at his cigar until it kindled and glowed like a
live coal, took it from his lips, turned the lighted end round to look
at it, and stooped with it in his hand over the thing upon the ground.
I saw an answering spark shine out, flicker for a moment and die away,
and heard Redbeard mutter “Damnation! Hell!” through his teeth. The
next instant I heard the spurt that told of the striking of a lucifer
match, and saw him stoop again over the thing on the ground. A little
point of light, which grew in size and brightness, shone out as I stood
looking on half paralysed with horror. That he had fired the fuse of an
infernal machine I had no doubt, and for one moment my limbs absolutely
refused to move. I tried to call out, but gave utterance only to a
silly inarticulate noise that was more like a bleat than a cry, and
was formed neither by my lips nor tongue, but seemed to come from the
back of my throat. The sound reached the ears of the man with the bag,
however, for he came to an erect posture in an instant, looked quickly
to right and to left, and then walked briskly away in the opposite
direction.
And then the night-stillness was broken by the most terrible cry I have
ever heard--a cry so terrible and unearthly that it seemed to make the
blood in my veins run cold, although I knew that it was from my own
lips and no other that the cry had fallen.
That cry broke the spell that bound me. Even while it was ringing in my
ears I leapt out like a tiger athirst for blood, and, heedless of the
hissing fuse, which burnt the faster and brighter for the wind which I
made as I rushed by it, I was after him, every drop of blood in my body
boiling with fury, every muscle and tendon of my fingers twitching to
grip the miscreant’s throat.
Had he been as fleet of foot as a greyhound he should not have escaped
me then; and though he had thrown the bag away, and was now running for
dear life, I was upon him before he was half-way down Noble Street.
When he heard my steps he stopped and faced round suddenly, and as he
did so I struck him with my clenched fist full under the jaw, and with
all my strength. Shall I ever feel such savage joy as thrilled me then
as I heard his teeth snap together like the snap of the teeth of an
iron rat-trap, and felt the warm rush of his blood upon my hand? He
went down like a pole-axed ox, but in the next second had staggered
to his knees and thence to his feet. His hand was fumbling at a
side-pocket, whence I saw the butt-end of a revolver protruding, but
before he could get at it I had him by the throat again, where my blow
had knocked the false red beard awry, and I promise you that my grip
was none of the gentlest. Nor, for the matter of that, was my language,
for--though I am by habit nice of speech and not given to oaths--words,
which I have never used before nor since, bubbled up in my throat and
would out, though a whole bench of listening bishops were by.
“You bloody monster!” I cried, and the words seemed to make iron of the
muscles of my arm, and granite of every bone in my fist as I struck him
again and again in the face with all my strength. “You hell miscreant
and devil. By God in heaven I’ll pound the damned life out of you!”
And then the solid ground seemed to stagger and sway beneath me, and
from the neighbourhood of the General Post Office came a sudden blaze
of light in which I saw a tall chimney crook inward at the middle, as a
leg is bent at the knee, and then snap in two like a sugar-stick. There
was a low rumble, a roar like the discharge of artillery, followed by
the strangest ripping, rending din as of the sudden tearing asunder of
innumerable sheets of metal. I was conscious of the falling of masonry,
of a choking limy dust, and then a red darkness closed in upon me with
a crash, and I remember no more.