Suffocating? Yes; there could be no doubt about it!
Up to this, James O'Donnell had forgotten that the strong-room was
almost air-tight, and that the air required by him and the lamp was
about what should have been exhausted since he entered the room. For
years he had been familiar with the great safe, and it had never
before occurred to him that to shut any man up in it for a lengthened
period would be almost certainly death.
Was he to die of suffocation, and under the circumstances of his
present position?
Already his thoughts were becoming obscured. There was the revolver
gleaming at him from the drawer. But his thoughts had taken a
circuitous route; and although he knew that a short time ago the
revolver had formed the main portion of an important design, he now
could not connect it clearly or coherently with that intention. He was
altogether occupied with the thought of suffocation, and but partially
able to concern his mind with any other idea.
How would it be if he died here, and of the death that threatened him?
How would it be?
He could not answer. He did not know.
He felt a tightness across his forehead, an oppression upon his chest.
The tightness and the oppression were little more than uncomfortable.
He had scarcely a pain. In fact, he felt a pleasant languor out of
which it would be a decided inconvenience to raise himself.
Then for a moment it came forcibly home to him that he was dying, and
would die before succour of any kind could reach him.
The motives which had led him to come there at such an hour, and which
induced him to shut himself up and cut off all retreat, were now
obscure. By a great effort he could dimly perceive that something was
wrong with his business concerns.
What was that?
A noise without! A noise at the other side of the heavy iron door. Who
or what could make a noise outside there in the private office at such
an hour? It was within the duty of no one to be in his private office
at this hour. No one could now be there for any honest purpose.
The propinquity of the material sounds enabled them to appeal to his
reason more forcibly than the murmur of the mill or the river, or the
tumultuous, distracting echoes of disaster beating through his brain.
All at once the sounds, his physical and financial position, converged
and were focussed upon a single relic of memory. Long ago, in some
book he had read of a famous cave called "The Cave of Dogs," somewhere
in the south of Europe, where, when men and dogs entered together, the
dogs were suffocated by the exhalation lying close to the ground,
while the men, because of their greater stature, moved on unharmed. He
knew at this brief moment of active memory the same substance which
now threatened his life proved fatal to these dogs.
If he now raised himself higher in his suffocating chamber, was there
any likelihood of prolonging his life by seeking air as high up as
possible in the room? It is true he had no great desire to prolong his
life. He had by this time forgotten he had had any desire to destroy
it. Yes, he would see if any virtue of life lay in the air above his
head.
He mounted upon the deed-boxes and thrust his head up.
Now he had pains and a tingling sensation, but the dimness and dulness
of the intellect gradually diminished.
The noise was repeated without. What could it be? His mind had by this
time become comparatively clear. He now knew he had come to that place
for the purpose of destroying his life, with the intention of
obliterating the world from his perception simultaneously with the
destruction of his fortune.
But what were those noises which again broke in upon his ear?
Now he remembered. There was a considerable sum of money in cash in
the strong-room. Some thieves had got scent of this fact, and were now
in the outer place with designs upon the gold and notes lying in the
safe?
If these wretches broke in when he was dead and carried off the money,
and his dead body was found later there (his head was so stupid, that
he could not see exactly what the inference would be), would it not
seem in some way or other that he had applied the two thousand pounds
to his own purposes--given them to his wife or son, say--and then
destroyed himself?
Although he felt relieved from the suffocation he had endured in the
lower air, he knew now that this relief could not last long, and that
the air he now breathed would soon become as tainted as that which he
had lately left.
What should he do?
To die in the midst of his commercial troubles--to die, leaving behind
him an unblemished reputation, and to die the seeming thief of a
paltry two thousand pounds, were widely different things.
And yet he did not appear to have much room for choice, for should he
continue as he now was and make no sign, he would, beyond doubt, die
of suffocation; and if he made any sign and these men had the means to
break in, and did break in before assistance came, they would no doubt
sacrifice his life rather than forego their design of plunder.
He paused for a moment in thought. Then, holding his breath, he
stepped down, took the revolver out of the safe, and got up on the
deed-boxes once more.
"I shall sell my life dearly," he said to himself, "if they force that
door."
Standing bolt upright on the deed-boxes, he fixed his eyes steadily on
the only means of ingress to that room.
"It is not likely," he thought, "there are more than two or three of
these ruffians, and I have six shots here. But how long will this air
last? How long is it possible for a man to live on the eighteen inches
more air I have gained since I mounted these boxes? For a man and--a
lamp? I don't want the lamp. I have seen here all I desire to see. If
they break in I will have no difficulty in seeing them, for my eyes
will be accustomed to impenetrable darkness, while they must carry a
light of some kind, which will enable me to make them out. I and the
lamp. It is as though there was food in a ship for a certain time for
two people. If the one dies the other will have the double share. If
the lamp or I die now the survivor will have the double share. In this
case the choice is easily made."
He filled his lungs and blew down the chimney of the lamp.
The darkness of the strong-room was now so intense that it was
absolutely impossible to see any object, however large or however
near. For all the purposes of sight the space enclosed by the four
walls was an absolute void. The old man, of course, knew he was
standing on two deed-cases in the strong-room of his business place;
that he held a revolver in his hand; that there were burglars without
and money within, and that he was threatened with suffocation. The
question now was, whether they would succeed in bursting open that
door before the rising tide of poisonous gas reached his nostrils.
The lamp being now extinguished, and there being some ventilation to
the safe, the deadly gas, which would be sufficient to destroy life,
was rising at a greatly diminished rate. A little of the heavy
carbonic acid succeeded in exuding through the lower portion of the
slight spaces between the door, threshold, and jambs; a little of the
pure exterior air infiltrated through the upper portion of the slight
spaces between the door, lintel, and jambs.
James O'Donnell had no means of knowing at what rate the deadly gas
was now rising, or whether it had ceased to rise at all, or whether it
was declining. It was not impossible, nay, it was not improbable, that
the deadly vapour might rise no higher than it had stood when he put
out the lamp.
It would not do for him to make the least noise, for the gas might
still be rising, and in case he made a noise the burglars might be
scared away for a time, only to return when he had succumbed to the
deadly vapour, break open the room, and so blast his character for
ever.
It was now necessary for him to stand bolt upright in that ebon
darkness, with his eyes fixed on what he knew to be the position
occupied by the door. Then, as soon as anyone opened that door, it
would be his duty to fire, and to fire with as deadly an effect as
possible, for he was an old man, no longer strong or active, and could
not hope to succeed against even one man who would undertake such an
enterprise, and the chances were there would be more than one in this.
He had no means of computing time. In the disordered condition of his
mind it was impossible to tell how the minutes went by. Now for some
minutes the sounds in the outer room had ceased. Any moment they might
be renewed. There would, of course, be a sound of hammering, although
the sound would be very dull. He had once seen a burglar's hammer. It
was made of lead, the face of it being covered with leather soaked in
oil. The wedges used were always of wood. But no matter how muffled
the blow, or how little noise the progress of the wedge made, the
sound could not escape his ear.
He took out his watch and listened to it. He counted the ticks, but
found they conveyed no idea of time. The very sound of the watch
confused his senses, and threw him into new perplexities. Holding the
watch to his ear, and the revolver in his right hand down by his side,
he stood motionless for what seemed to him a very long time.
It was strange, but still he heard no sounds of hammering. Could it be
that the first effect of the poisonous gas upon him had been to
disturb his senses, and that the noises he fancied he heard had been
the offspring of imagination?
Ah! They were beginning at last. He caught the sound of their first
attempts. He knew it would take a considerable time to break in that
door, and mentally he groaned at the notion of delay in his present
perilous condition.
Suddenly he started as though he had been shot.
The door swung open rapidly on its hinges. The full light of the
office sprang with dazzling effect into the darkness where he stood.
He was paralysed.
"Seize him!" cried a voice from without.
Then all at once, and before he had time to raise the arm in which he
held the weapon, he was in the clutches of two men, who dragged him
out ruthlessly into the glare of the office, and then started back
from him.
"It is the master himself!"
James O'Donnell staggered for a moment, dazed by the gaslight and the
perception that the men who held him were no burglars, but the
watchmen of the place, and that behind the door, as it now stood fully
open with the day-key in it, was the manager of all his business,
Corcoran.
When the watchmen made up their minds what to do they sent for Mr.
Corcoran. He brought the key with him; and then all three, having
taken off their boots, stole into the private office, and finding no
clue there, the manager, with little hope of discovering anything, put
his day-key into the lock, turned the bolt swiftly, and, to his
astonishment, pulled open the door. His astonishment rose to perfect
amazement when he found a man inside, and when that man turned out to
be no less a person than James O'Donnell.
END OF VOL. I.
* * * * * * * * * *
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Last Call (Vol. 1 of 3), by Richard Dowling