BRUCE GRAHAM'S FIRST CLIENT
"I don't know," he began, "if Martyn has told you that by profession I
am a barrister."
"No," said Jack, as he shook his head, "I have told them nothing to
your credit."
Graham smiled; the smile lighting up his features, and correcting what
was apt to be their chief defect, a prevailing sombreness.
"I am a barrister--one of the briefless brigade. One morning, about
fourteen months ago, I left London for a spin on my bicycle. It was
the long vacation; every one was out of town except myself. I thought
I would steal a day with the rest. I came through Wandsworth, meaning
to go across Wimbledon Common, through Epsom, and on towards the
Shirley Hills. As I came down St. John's Hill my tyre caught up a
piece of broken glass off the road, and the result was a puncture, or
rather a clean cut, nearly an inch in length. I took it to a repairing
shop by the bridge. As I stood waiting for the job to be done, two
policemen came along with a man handcuffed between them, a small crowd
at their heels.
"I asked the fellow who was doing my cycle what was wrong. He told me
that there had been a burglary at a house on the Common the night
before, that the burglar had been caught in the act, had half-murdered
the policeman who had caught him, and was now on his way to the
magistrate's court.
"As it seemed likely that the mending of my tyre would take some time,
actuated by a more or less professional curiosity, I followed the
crowd to the court.
"The case was taken up without delay. The statement that the constable
who had detected what was taking place had been half-murdered was an
exaggeration, as the appearance of the officer himself in the
witness-box disclosed. But he had been roughly handled. His head was
bandaged, he carried his arm in a sling, and he bore himself generally
as one who had been in the wars. My experience, small as it is,
teaches that constables on such occasions are wont, perhaps not
unnaturally, to make the most of their injuries; and, to say the
least, the prisoner had not escaped scot free. His skull had been laid
open, two of his teeth had been knocked down his throat, his whole
body was black and blue with bruises. Indeed his battered appearance
so excited my sympathy that then and there I offered him my gratuitous
services in his defence. My offer was accepted. I did what I could.
"However, there was very little that could be done. The burglary, it
seemed, had occurred at a place called Clover Cottage."
"Why," cried Ella, "this is Clover Cottage!"
"Yes," said Jack, shaking his head with what he meant to be mysterious
significance, "as you correctly observe, this is Clover Cottage.
Didn't I tell you you'd see the hand of Providence? You just wait a
bit, you'll be dumbfounded."
Mr. Graham continued.
"Clover Cottage it appeared was unoccupied. There were in it neither
tenants nor goods. So far as the evidence showed, it contained nothing
at all. Being found in an absolutely empty house is not, as a rule, an
offence which meets with a severe punishment. I was at a loss,
therefore, to understand why my client should have made such a
desperate defence and thus have enormously increased the measure of
his guilt in the way he had done. Had it not been for what was termed,
and perhaps rightly, his assault on the police, the affair would have
been settled out of hand. As it was, the magistrate felt that he had
no option but to send the case to trial; which he did do there and
then.
"Before his trial I had more than one interview with my client in his
cell at Wandsworth Gaol. He told me, by way of explaining his conduct,
an extraordinary story; so extraordinary that, from that hour to this,
I have never been able to make up my mind as to its truth.
"Under ordinary circumstances I should have had no hesitation in
affirming his statement, or rather his series of statements, was a
more or less badly contrived set of lies. But there was something
about the fellow which assured me that at any rate he himself believed
what he said. He was by no means an ordinary criminal type, and there
seemed no reason to doubt his assertion that this was the first
felonious transaction he had ever had a hand in. He admitted he had
led an irregular life, and that he had come down the ladder of
respectability with a run, but he stoutly maintained that this was the
first time he had ever done anything deserving the attention of the
police.
"He was a man about forty years of age; he claimed to be only
thirty-six. If that was the fact, then the life he had been living,
and the injuries he had recently received, made him look considerably
older. His name, he said, was Charles Ballingall. By trade he
was a public-house broker; once, and that not so long ago, in a very
fair way of business. He had had a lifelong friend--I am telling
you the story, you understand, exactly as he told it me--named
Ossington--Thomas Ossington. Ballingall always spoke of him as Tom
Ossington."
Ellen looked at Madge.
"Madge!" she exclaimed, "how about Tom Ossington's Ghost?"
"I know."
Madge sat listening with compressed lips and flashing eyes; that was
all she vouchsafed to reply. Mr. Graham glanced in her direction as he
went on.
"According to Ballingall's story, Ossington must have been a man of
some eccentricity. He was possessed of considerable means--according
to Ballingall, of large fortune. But his whole existence had been
embittered by the fact that he suffered from some physical
malformation. For one thing, he had a lame foot----"
"I know that he was lame." This was Madge; all eyes stared at her.
"You knew? How did you know?"
"Because she told me."
Ella's eyes opened wider.
"She told you? Who?"
"The ghost's wife."
"The ghost's wife!"
"Yes, the ghost's wife. But never mind about that now. Mr. Graham will
perhaps go on."
And Mr. Graham went on.
"This had preyed upon his spirits his whole life long; and, as his
unwillingness to show himself among his fellows increased, it had made
of him almost a recluse. He was, however, as it seemed, a man of
strong affections, tender heart, and simple disposition. In these
respects Ballingall could not speak of him with sufficient warmth.
There never had been, he declared, a man like Tom. There was nothing
he would not do for a friend--self-abnegation was the passion of his
life. Ballingall owned that he owed everything to Ossington. Ossington
had set him up in business, had helped him in a hundred ways. In
return he (Ballingall) had rewarded him with the most hideous
ingratitude. This part of the story was accompanied by such a strong
exhibition of remorse that I, for one, found it difficult not to
believe in the fellow's genuineness.
"In spite of his mis-shapenness, Ossington had found a wife,
apparently a lovely one. The man loved her with the single-eyed
affection of which such natures as his are capable. She, on the other
hand, was as unworthy of his affection as she possibly could have
been. From Ballingall's account she was evil through and through; he
could find no epithet too evil to hurl at her. But then it was very
possible that he was prejudiced. According to him, this woman,
Ossington's wife, loathing her devoted husband, full to the lips with
scorn of him, had deliberately laid herself out to win his
(Ballingall's) love, and had succeeded so completely as to have caused
him to forget the mountain-load of gratitude under which he ought to
have stumbled, even to the extent of causing him to steal his friend's
wife--the wife who was the very light of that friend's eyes.
"I think there was some truth in the fellow's version of the
crime--for crime it was, and of the blackest dye. He declared to me
that as soon as the thing was done, he knew himself to be the
ineffable hound which he indeed was. The veil which the woman's
allurements and sophistries had spread before his eyes was torn into
shreds, and he saw the situation in all its horrible reality. She was
as false to him as she had been to her husband, and he had been to his
friend. In a few months she had left him, having ruined him before she
went. From that time his career was all downhill. Remorse pursued him
day and night. He felt that he was a pariah--an outcast among men;
that an ineffaceable brand was on his brow which would for ever
stamp him as accursed. It is possible that under the stress of
privation,--for he quickly began to suffer actual privation--his mind
became unhinged. But that he had suffered, and was still suffering,
acutely, for his crime, the sweat of agony which broke out upon his
brow as he told his tale was, to me, sufficient evidence.
"Two or three years passed. He sank to about the lowest depths to
which a man could sink. At last, ragged, penniless, hungry, he was
refused a job as a sandwich-man because of his incapacity to keep up
with his fellows. One night he was on the Surrey side of the
Embankment, near Westminster Bridge. It was after one o'clock in the
morning; shortly before, he had heard Big Ben striking the hour. He
was leaning over the parapet in front of Doulton's factory--you will
observe that I reproduce the attention to detail which characterised
this portion of his story, such an impression did it make upon my
mind. As he stood looking at the water, some one touched him on the
shoulder. Supposing it was a policeman who suspected his intentions,
he turned hastily round. To his astonishment it was Tom Ossington.
'Tom!' he gasped.
"'Charlie!' returned the other. 'Come the first thing to-morrow
morning to Clover Cottage.'
"Without another word he walked rapidly away in the direction of the
Wandsworth Road--Ballingall distinctly noticing, as he went, that his
limp had perceptibly diminished. Left once more alone, Ballingall was
at a loss what to make of the occurrence. Ossington's appearance at
that particular moment, so far away from home at that hour of the
night, was a problem which he found it difficult to solve. He at last
decided that the man's incurable tender-heartedness had caused him to
at least partially overlook the blackness of the offence, and to offer
his whilom friend succour in the depths of his distress. Anyhow, the
next morning found the broken-down wretch in front of Ossington's
house--of this house, as I understand."
As Mr. Graham said this, for some reason or other at least two of its
hearers shivered; Ella clasped her hands more tightly as they lay upon
her knee, and the expression of Madge's wide-open eyes grew more
intense. Even Jack Martyn seemed subdued.
"To his indescribable astonishment, the house was empty. A board in
the garden announced that it was to be let or sold. As he stood
staring, a policeman came along.
"'Excuse me!' he said, 'but doesn't Mr. Ossington live here?'
"'He did!' answered the policeman; 'but he doesn't now.'
"'Can you tell me where he is living? I want to know because he asked
me to call on him.'
"'Did he? Then if he asked you to call on him, I should if I was you.
You'll find him in Wandsworth Churchyard. That's where he is living
now!'
"The policeman's tone was jocular, Ballingall's appearance was against
him. Evidently the officer suspected him of some clumsy attempt at
invention. But as soon as the words were uttered Ballingall staggered
back against the wall, according to his own account, like one stricken
with death. He was speechless. The policeman, with a laugh, turned on
his heel and left him there. Impelled by some influence which he could
not resist, the conscience-haunted vagabond dragged his wearied feet
to the churchyard. There among the tombstones he found one which
purported to be erected to the memory of Thomas Ossington, who had
been interred there some two years previously. While he stared,
thunderstruck, at the inscription, Ballingall assured me that Tom
Ossington stood at his side, and pointed at it with his finger."
[Illustration: "Tom Ossington stood at his side, and pointed at it
with his finger." (_To face p_. 116)]
Graham paused. His listeners fidgeted in their seats. It was a second
or two before the narrator continued.
"You understand that I am telling you the story precisely as it was
told me, without accepting for it any responsibility whatever. I can
only assure you that whilst it was being told, I was so completely
held, by what I can best describe as the teller's frenzied
earnestness, that I accepted his facts precisely as he told them, and
it was only after I got away from the glamour of his intensity of
self-conviction that I perceived how entirely irreconcilable they were
with the teachings of our everyday experience.
"Thenceforward, Ballingall declared that he was never without a
feeling that Ossington was somewhere in the intermediate
neighbourhood--to use his own word, that he was shadowing him. For the
next week or two he lighted upon somewhat better times. He obtained a
job at road-cleaning, and in one way or another managed to preserve
himself from actual starvation. But, shortly, the luck ran out, and
one night he again found himself without a penny with which to buy
either food or lodging. He was struggling up Southampton Street, in
the Strand, intending to hang about the purlieus of Covent Garden with
the faint hope that he might be able to get some sort of job at the
dawn of day, when he saw, coming towards him from the market, Tom
Ossington. Ballingall shrank back into the doorway, and, while he
stood there shivering, Ossington came and planted himself in front of
him.
"'Charlie!' he said, 'why didn't you come to Clover Cottage when I
told you?'
"Ballingall protested that he looked and spoke just like a rational
being--with the little air of impatience which had always been his
characteristic; that there was nothing either in his manner or his
appearance in any way unusual, and that there was certainly nothing to
suggest an apparition. A conversation was carried on between them just
as it might have been between an ordinary Jones and Robinson.
"'I did come!' he replied.
"'Yes--but you stopped outside. Why didn't you come inside?'
"'Because the house was empty!'
"'That's all you know.'
"'Yes,' repeated Ballingall, 'that's all I do know.'
"'There's my fortune in that house!'
"'Your fortune?'
"'Yes my fortune; all of it. I brought it home, and hid it away--after
Lily went.'
"Lily was his wife's name. He spoke of her with a sort of gasp.
Ballingall felt as if he had been struck.
"'What's your fortune to do with me?'
"'Everything maybe--because it is yours, if you'll come and get it;
every farthing. It's anyone's who finds it, anyone's--I don't care who
it is. What does it matter to me who has it--now? Why shouldn't it be
yours? There's heaps and heaps of money, heaps! More than you suppose.
It'll make a rich man of you--set you up for life, buy you houses,
carriages and all. You have only got to come and get it, and it is
yours. Think of what a difference it'll make to you--of all that it
will do for you--of all that it will mean. It will pick you out of the
gutter, and place you in a mansion, with as many servants as you like
to pay for at your beck and call. And all yours for the fetching--or
anyone's for the matter of that. But why shouldn't you make it yours?
Don't be a fool, but come, man, come!'
"He continued urging and entreating Ballingall to come and take for
his own the treasures which he declared were hidden away in Clover
Cottage, until, turning round, without a farewell word, he walked down
the street and disappeared into the Strand.
"Ballingall assured me that he didn't know what to make of it; and if
he was speaking the truth, I quite understand his difficulty. He was
aware that, neither physically nor mentally, was he in the best of
health, and he knew also that Ossington was continually in his mind.
He might be the victim of hallucination; but if so, it was
hallucination of an extraordinary sort. He himself had not touched
Ossington, but Ossington had touched him. His touch had been solid
enough, he looked solid enough, but how came he to be in Southampton
Street if he was lying in Wandsworth Churchyard? On the other hand,
the story of the hidden fortune was quite in accordance with what he
knew of the man's character. He always had a trick of concealing
money, valuables, all sorts of things, in unusual places. And for
him to have secreted the bulk of his capital, or even the whole
of it, or what represented the whole of it, and then to have left the
hiding-place unrevealed, for some one to discover after he was dead
and gone, was just the sort of thing he might have been expected to
do.
"Anyhow, Ballingall did not go to Clover Cottage the following day. He
found a job when the market opened, and that probably had a good deal
to do with his staying away. The next night Ossington returned--if I
remember rightly, just as Ballingall was about to enter a common
lodging-house. And he came back not that night only, but over and over
again, so far as I could understand, for weeks together, and always
with the same urgent request, that he would come and fetch the fortune
which lay hidden in Clover Cottage.
"At last torn by conflicting doubts, driven more than half insane--as
he himself admitted--by the feeling that his life was haunted, he did
as his mysterious visitor desired--he went to Clover Cottage. He hung
about the house for an hour. At last, persuaded that it was empty, he
gained admission through the kitchen window. No sooner was he in than
a constable who, unconsciously to himself, had been observing his
movements with suspicious eyes, came and found him on the premises.
The feeling that, after all, he had allowed himself to be caught in
something that looked very like a trap, bereft Ballingall of his few
remaining senses, and he resisted the officer with a degree of
violence which he would not have shown had he retained his presence of
mind.
"The result was that instead of leaving Clover Cottage the possessor
of a fortune, he left it to be hauled ignominiously to the
stationhouse."