opening that door. I shall lie down a little, too.'
"He flung himself down beside his comrade, but in a minute or two
started up, taking deep breaths. 'My God!' he exclaimed. 'I can't
breathe lying down. I feel as if I should choke. And you, too, Louis;
you are snorting like a pig. Get up, man.'
"He shook the prostrate man roughly, but eliciting only a few drowsy
curses, resumed his restless pacing of the room. But not for long. Yawn
after yawn told me that the gas was already in his blood; and the loud
snoring of the other man indicated plainly the state of the air in the
lower part of the room. Presently Boris halted in his walk and sat down
by the stove, muttering as before. Soon he began to nod; then he nearly
fell forward on the stove. Finally he rose heavily, staggered across to
the mattress and once more flung himself down.
"I breathed more freely, notwithstanding that the gas, having partially
diffused upwards to the level of the opening, now began to filter
through to my side. I waited a minute or two listening to the breathing
of the two murderers as it grew moment by moment more stertorous and
irregular, and then, having filled up the stove, went down to the first
floor and sat awhile by the open window to breathe the relatively fresh
air.
"All was now quiet in the street. No doubt the guard had been
strengthened, but I did not look out. It was as well not to be seen at
that hour in the morning. As I sat by the window, I thought about the
two men in that deadly room. It was a thousand pities that they should
be lost to science. Yet there was no help for it. Even if I had decided
to acquire them I could not have done so, for, by the very worst of
luck, I had used up my last barrel and had neglected to lay in a fresh
stock. Besides, of course, the police knew they were there.
"I rested for half an hour or so and then went upstairs to see how
matters were progressing. No light now came through the opening in the
wall, for the paraffin lamp had either burned out or been extinguished
by the accumulating gas. I listened attentively. The harsh, metallic
ticking of a cheap American clock was plainly, even intrusively,
audible; otherwise no sound came from that chamber of death.
"I drew the sliding panel right back, held aside the dangling garments,
and, climbing through into the cupboard, pushed open the doors. A faint
glimmer of light from the street made dimly visible the mattress on the
floor and two indistinct dark shapes stretched on it. I stepped quickly
across the room, breathing as little as possible of the unspeakably foul
air, and struck a wax match. It burned dimly and smokily, but showed me
the two murderers, lying in easy postures, their faces livid and ghastly
in hue but peaceful enough in expression. When I lowered the match, its
flame dwindled and turned blue, and at eighteen inches from the floor it
went out as if dipped in water. At that height the heavy gas must have
been nearly pure. The room was a veritable Grotto del Cane.
"I stooped quickly, holding my breath, and felt the wrists of the two
men. They were chilly to the touch and no vestige of pulse was
perceptible. I shook them both vigorously, but failed to elicit any
responsive movement. They were quite limp and inert and I had no doubt
that they were dead. My work was done. The policemen were now safe,
whatever follies they might commit; and it only remained for me to
remove the traces of the fairy godmother who had labored through the
night to save them from their own exuberant courage.
"Passing back through the opening, I drew away the now unnecessary pipe,
closed the two panels, and carried the little stove down to my bedroom.
I looked at the unruffled bed--mute but eloquent witness to the night's
activity--and deciding as a measure of prudence to give it the
appearance of having been slept in, took off my boots and crept in
between the sheets. But I was not in the least degree drowsy. Quite the
contrary. I was all agog to see the end of the comedy in which I had,
all unknown, taken the leading part; so that after tossing about for a
few minutes I sprang out of bed, resumed my boots and poured out a basin
full of water to refresh myself by a wash.
"And now once more observe the strangely indirect lines of causation.
The towels on the horse were damp and none too clean. I flung them into
the dirty-linen basket and dragged open the drawer in which the clean
ones were kept. It was the bottom drawer of a cheap pine chest that I
had bought in Whitechapel High Street. That chest of drawers was of
unusual size; it was four feet wide by nearly five feet high, and the
two bottom drawers were each fully eighteen inches deep, and were far
larger than was necessary for my modest stock of household linen.
"I pulled out the bottom drawer, then, and as its great cavity yawned
before me, it offered a not unnatural suggestion. The length of an
average man's head and trunk is under thirty-six inches. Allowing a few
inches more for his feet and ankles, a cavity forty-eight inches long is
amply sufficient for his accommodation. Flinging out the towels and
sheets that lay in the drawer, I got in and lay down with my knees drawn
up. Of course there was room and to spare.
"It was an interesting fact but not very applicable to present
circumstances. Still, it set me thinking. I went into the front room and
glanced out of the open window. A faint lightening of the murky sky
heralded the approach of dawn, and from afar came the murmur of
commencing traffic out in High Street. I was about to turn away when my
ear caught a new and unusual sound rising above that distant murmur; the
measured tread of feet mingling with the clatter of horses' hoofs and a
heavy, metallic rumbling. I looked out cautiously in the direction
whence the sounds came and was positively stupefied with amazement. At
the end of the street I saw, by the light of the lamps, a company of
soldiers appearing round the corner and taking up a position across the
road. I watched breathlessly. Soon, at a sign from the officer, the men
spread mats on the muddy ground and lay down on them, and then appeared
a train of horses, dragging a field-piece or quick-firing gun, which was
halted behind the infantry and unlimbered. A minute later the black
shapes of a number of soldiers appeared on the sky-line as they crept
along the parapets of the opposite houses where, save for their heads
and the barrels of their rifles, they presently disappeared.
"It seemed that I had misjudged the police in the matter of caution. It
almost seemed that my labors had been useless; for surely these
portentous preparations indicated some masterpiece of strategy. What an
anticlimax it would be when the defenders of the fort were found to be
dead! But what a still greater anticlimax if they were not there at all!
"At this moment a police sergeant strolled down the middle of the road
and, observing me, motioned to me with his hand to get inside out of
harm's way. I obeyed with grim amusement, thinking of that absurd
anticlimax; and somehow this idea began to connect itself with those two
bottom drawers. But the casks were the difficulty. The cooper from whom
I had obtained them sometimes kept me waiting nearly a week before
supplying them--for I was only a small customer; and that would never do
even at this time of year. Besides, the police would make a rigid
search; not that that would have mattered if I could have made proper
arrangements for the concealment and removal of the specimens. But
unfortunately I could not. The specimens would have to go; to be borne
out ingloriously in the face of the besieging force, limp and passive,
like a couple of those very helpless guys that are wont to be produced
by what Mrs. Kosminsky would call 'der chiltrens.' There would be a
certain grim appropriateness in the incident. For this was the fifth of
November.
"The generation of new ideas is chiefly a matter of association. The
ideas 'guys,' 'Mrs. Kosminsky' and 'the fifth of November' unconsciously
formed themselves into a group from which in an instant there was
evolved a new and startling train of thought. At first it seemed wild
enough; but when the two bottom drawers joined in the synthetic process,
a complete and consistent scheme began to appear. A flush of pleasurable
excitement swept over me, and as I raced upstairs fresh details added
themselves and fresh difficulties were propounded and disposed of. I
slid open the panels, stepped through and, holding my breath, strode
across the poisoned room with only one quick glance at the two still
forms on the mattress. Removing the barricading chair, I unlocked and
unbolted the door and passed out, closing it after me.
"Mrs. Kosminsky's room was at the back; a dreadful nest of dirt and
squalor, piled almost to the ceiling with unclassifiable rubbish. The
air was so stifling that I was tempted to raise the heavily-curtained
window a couple of inches; and thereby got a useful idea when, by
peeping over the curtain, I saw the flat leads of a projecting lower
story. The merchandise piled on all sides, and even under the bed,
included very secondhand wearing apparel, sheets, blankets, crockery and
toys. Among them were the fireworks, the masks and other appliances for
commemorating the never-to-be-forgotten 'Gunpowder treason,' and a
couple of large balls of a dark-colored cord sometimes used by costers
for securing their loads. That gave me an idea, too, as did the
frowsily-smart female garments. I appropriated four of the largest masks
and a quantity of oakum for wigs; some colored-paper streamers and
hat-frills; two huge and disreputable dresses--Mrs. Kosminsky's own, I
suspected--the skirts of which I crammed with straw from a hamper; two
large-sized and ragged suits of clothes, a woman's straw hat, four pairs
of men's gloves and the biggest top-hat that I could find. These I put
apart in a heap with one of the balls of cord. From the other ball I
cut off some eight fathoms of cord, and, poking it out through the
opening of the window, let it drop on the leads beneath. Then I conveyed
my spoil in one or two journeys across the murderers' room, passed it
through the opening, and closed the panel after me.
"Prudence suggested that I should dispose of these things first, and
accordingly I stowed two masks, two pairs of gloves, one suit of clothes
and one dress in the large chest of drawers. The rest I carried down to
the back yard, where already was a quantity of lumber belonging to a
neighboring green grocer. Returning upstairs, I called in at the bedroom
to transfer the scanty contents of the two large drawers into the upper
ones and then proceeded once more to the second floor front. Time was
passing and the glimmer of the gray dawn was beginning to struggle in
faintly through the dirty windows.
"As I drew back the slide I became aware of a sound which, soft as it
was, rang the knell of my newly-formed hopes. I had closed the door of
the murderers' room and locked it, but had not shot the bolt. Now I
could distinctly hear someone fumbling gently at the keyhole, apparently
with a picklock. It was most infuriating. At the very last moment, when
success was within my grasp, I was to be foiled and all my neatly-laid
plans defeated. And to make it a thousand times worse, I had not even
taken the precaution to examine the dead miscreants' hair!
"With an angry and foolish exclamation, I reached through the opening
and drew the cupboard doors to, leaving only a small chink. Then I shut
myself in my own cupboard, to exclude the dim light, and closing the
panel to within an inch, waited on events with my hand on the knob,
ready to shut it at a moment's notice. The great strategic move was
about to begin and I was curious to see what it would be.
"The bolt of the lock shot back; the door creaked softly. There was a
pause, and then a voice whispered:
"'Why, they seem to be asleep! Keep them covered, Smith, and shoot if
they move.'
"Soft footsteps advanced across the room. Someone gave a choking cough
and then a brassy voice fairly shouted, 'Why, man, they're dead! My
Lord! What a let-off!'
"An unsteady laugh told of the effort it had cost the worthy officer to
take this frightful risk.
"'Yes,' said another voice, 'they're dead enough. They've cheated us
after all. Not that I complain of that. But, my eye, sir; what a sell!
Think of all those Tommies and that machine gun. Ha! ha! Oh! Lord! I
suppose the beggars poisoned themselves when they saw the game was up.'
He laughed again and the laugh ended in a fit of coughing.
"'Not they, Sergeant,' said the other. 'It was that coke stove that gave
them their ticket. Can't you smell it? And, by Jove, it will give us our
ticket if we don't clear out. We'll just run down and report and send
for a couple of stretchers.'
"'Hadn't I better wait here, sir, while you're gone?' asked the
sergeant.
"'Lord, no, man. What for? We shall want three stretchers if you do.
Come along. Pooh! Leave the door open.'
"I listened incredulously to their retreating footsteps. It seemed
hardly possible that they should be so devoid of caution. And yet, why
not? The men were dead. And dead men are not addicted to sudden
disappearances.
"But this case was going to be an exception. I had given the specimens
up for lost when I heard the police enter; but now--
"I opened the slide, sprang through the opening, and strode over to the
mattress. One after the other, I picked up the prostrate ruffians,
carried them across and bundled them through the aperture. Then I came
through myself, shut the cupboard doors, closed both panels carefully,
shut up my own cupboard and carried the specimens down to my bedroom.
With their knees drawn up, they packed quite easily in the large
drawers. I shut them in, locked the drawers, pocketed the key, washed my
hands and went down to the parlor, where I rapidly laid the breakfast
table. At any moment now, the police might come to inspect, and
whenever they came, they would find me ready.
"I did not waste time on breakfast. That could wait. Meanwhile I fell to
work with the materials in the yard. In addition to the hand-cart, there
was now a coster's barrow, the property of a greengrocer, to whom also
belonged a quantity of lumber, including some bundles of stakes and
several hampers filled with straw. With these materials, and those that
I had borrowed from Mrs. Kosminsky, I began rapidly to build up a pair
of life-sized guys--one male and one female. I put them together very
roughly and sat them side by side in the barrow, leaning against the
wall; and to each I attached a large ticket on which I had scrawled the
name of the person it represented; one being the highly unpopular
minister, Mr. Todd-Leeks, and the other the notorious Mrs. Gamway.
"They were very sketchily built and would have dropped to pieces at a
touch. But that was of no consequence. The time factor was the important
one; and I had worked at such speed that I had huddled them into a
pretty plausible completeness when the inevitable peal at the house bell
disturbed my labors. I darted into the parlor, crammed a piece of bread
into my mouth and rushed out to the shop door, chewing frantically. As I
opened the door, an agitated police inspector burst in, followed by a
sergeant.
"'Good morning, gentlemen,' I said suavely. 'Hair-cutting or shaving?'
"I shall not record the inspector's reply. I was really shocked. I had
no idea that responsible officials used such language. In effect, they
wished to look over the premises. Of course I gave instant permission,
and followed them in their tour of inspection on the pretext of showing
them over the house.
"The inspector was in a very bad temper and the sergeant was obviously
depressed. They conversed in low tones as they stumped up the stairs and
I heard the sergeant say something about 'an awful suck in.'
"'Oh, don't talk of it,' snapped the inspector. 'It's enough to make a
cat sick. But what beats me is how those devils could have stuck the
air of that room. It would have settled my hash in five minutes.'
"'Yes,' agreed the sergeant; 'and how they could have let themselves
down from that window without being spotted. I wouldn't have believed it
if I hadn't seen the cord. The constables must have been asleep.'
"'Yes,' grunted the inspector; 'thickheaded louts. Let's have a look out
here.' He strode into the second floor back and threw up the window.
'Now you see,' he continued, 'what I mean. This house has no connection
with the next one. That projecting wing cuts it off. This back yard
opens into Bell's Alley; the yard next door opens into Kosher Court.
That's the way they went. They couldn't have got to this house excepting
by the roof, and we've seen that they went down, not up.' He stuck his
head out of the window and looked down sourly at the guys.
"'Those things yours?' he asked gruffly, pointing at the effigies.
"'No,' I answered. 'I think one of Piper's men is getting them ready to
take round.'
"The inspector grunted and moved away. He walked into the front room,
looked in the cupboard, glanced round and went downstairs. On the first
floor, he made a perfunctory inspection of the rooms, glancing in at my
bedroom, and then went down to the ground floor. From thence the two
officers descended to the cellar, which they examined more thoroughly,
even prodding the sawdust in the bin, and so up to the back yard. Here,
at the sight of the guys, the sergeant's woeful countenance brightened
somewhat.
"'Ha!' he exclaimed; 'Mrs. Gamway! I saw a good deal of her when I was
in the Westminster division. I've often thought I'd like to--and, by
Jimini! I will!' He squared up fiercely at the helpless-looking effigy
of the lady, and, with a vicious, round-arm punch, sent its unstable
head flying across the yard.
"The blow and its effect seemed to rouse his destructive instincts, for
he returned to the attack with such ferocity that in a few seconds he
had reduced, not only the factitious Mrs. Gamway, but the Right
Honorable Todd-Leeks also, to a heap of ruin.
"'Stop that foolery, Smith,' snarled the inspector; 'you'll give the
poor devil the trouble of building them up all over again. Come along.'
He unlocked the gate and stood for a moment looking back at me.
"'I suppose you've heard nothing in the night?' he said.
"'Not a sound,' I answered, adding, 'I shan't open the shop until the
evening, and I shall probably go out for the day. Would you like to have
the key?'
"The inspector shook his head. 'No, I don't want the key. I've seen all
I want to see. Good morning,' and he stumped out, followed by his
subordinate.
"I drew a deep breath as I re-locked the gate. I was glad he had refused
the key, though I had thought it prudent to make the offer. Now I was at
liberty to complete my arrangements at leisure.
"My first proceeding, after locking up the shop, was to rig up, with the
green grocer's stakes and Mrs. Kosminsky's cord, a firm pair of
standards to support the guys. Then I took a hearty breakfast, after
which I repaired to my bedroom with a hamper of straw, a bundle of
small stakes and a quantity of odd rags. The process of converting the
specimens into quite convincing guys was not difficult. Tying up the
heads in large pieces of rag, I fastened the big masks to the fronts of
the globular bundles and covered in the remainder with masses of oakum
to form appropriate wigs. Each figure was then clothed in the bulky
garments borrowed from Mrs. Kosminsky's stock and well stuffed with
straw, portions of which I allowed to protrude at all the apertures. A
suitable stiffness was imparted to the limbs by pieces of stick poked up
inside the clothing, and smaller sticks gave the correct, starfish-like
spread to the gloved hands. When they were finished, the illusion was
perfect. As the two effigies sat on the floor with their backs against
the wall, stiff, staring, bloated and grotesquely horrible, not a soul
would have suspected them.
"I carried the male guy down to the yard, sat him on the barrow and put
on his hat; and taking with me the remains of the ruined guys, which I
decided to put away in the drawers, I returned for the second effigy. I
lashed the two figures very securely to the standards, fixed on their
hats firmly, and attached their name-cards. Then I went into the shop to
attend to my own appearance.
"I had brought back from my Bloomsbury house the shabby overcoat and
battered hat that I had worn on the last few expeditions. These I now
assumed; and having fixed on my cheek a large cross of
sticking-plaster--which pulled down my eyebrow and pulled up the corner
of my mouth--begrimed my face, reddened my nose, and carefully tinted in
a not too emphatic black eye, I was sufficiently transmogrified to
deceive even my intimate friends. Now I was ready to start; and now was
the critical moment.
"I went out into the yard, unlocked the gate, trundled the barrow out
into the alley, and locked the gate behind me. At the moment there was
not a soul in sight, but from the street close by came the unmistakable
murmur of a large crowd. I must confess that I felt a little nervous.
The next few minutes would decide my fate.
"I grasped the handles of the barrow and started forward resolutely. As
I rounded the curve of the alley, a densely-packed throng appeared
ahead. Faces turned towards me and broke into grins; the murmur rose
into a dull roar, and, as the people drew aside to make way for me, I
plunged into the heart of the throng and raised my voice in a husky
chant:
"'Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot.'
"Through the interstices of the crowd I could see the soldiers still
drawn up by the curb and even the machine gun was yet in position.
Suddenly the inspector and the sergeant appeared bustling through the
crowd. The former caught sight of me and, waving his hand angrily,
shouted:
"'Take that thing away from here! Move him out of the crowd, Moloney;'
and a gigantic constable pounced on me with a broad grin, snatched the
barrow-handles out of my hands, and started off at a trot that made the
effigies rock in the most alarming manner.
"'Holler, bhoys!' shouted the grinning constable; and the 'bhoys'
complied with raucous enthusiasm.
"At the outskirts of the crowd Constable Moloney resigned in my favor,
and it was at this moment that I noticed a manifest plain-clothes
officer observing my exhibits with undue attention. But here fortune
favored me; for at the same instant I saw a man attempt to pick a pocket
under the officer's very nose. The pickpocket caught my eye and moved
off quickly. I pulled up, and, pointing at the thief, bawled out, 'Stop
that man! Stop him!' The pickpocket flung himself into the crowd and
made off. The startled loafers drew hastily away from him. Men shouted,
women screamed, and the plain-clothes officer started in pursuit; and in
the whirling confusion that followed, I trundled away briskly into
Middlesex Street and headed for Spitalfields.
"My progress through the squalid streets was quite triumphal. A large
juvenile crowd attended me, with appropriate vocal music, and adults
cheered from the pavements, though no one embarrassed me with gifts.
But, for all my outward gaiety, I was secretly anxious. It was barely
ten o'clock and many hours of the dreary November day had yet to run
before it would be safe for me to approach my destination. The prospect
of tramping the streets for some ten or twelve hours with this very
conspicuous appendage was far from agreeable, to say nothing of the
increasing risk of detection, and I looked forward to it with gloomy
forebodings. If a suspicion arose, I could be traced with the greatest
ease, and in any case I should be spent with fatigue before evening.
Reflecting on these difficulties, I had decided to seek some retired
spot where I could dismount the effigies, cover them with the tarpaulin
that was rolled up in the barrow and take a rest, when once more
circumstances befriended me.