It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and
predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant
watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of
an accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem
providential to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate
activity of a victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to
nought, and his most mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the
entomological world a solitary interview between fly and spider is
usually fatal to the one, and satisfactory to the other. But we of the
higher developments, who model ourselves, or are modelled, upon the
lines of myriads of remote ancestors, and far-away relatives, have
refined upon their primitive proceedings, and have made their simple
activities complex by development.
In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have
drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to
wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant
gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among
his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly
seeming for a while--for quite a considerable time in fact--lusty and
active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might
go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving
no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.
Not to run this striking and original simile out of breath, the Barter
fly endured for a round twelve months, without showing signs of anaemia
so pronounced as to look dangerous to his constitution. At the end of
that time, however, all the surplus blood had been drawn from his body,
and the spider had grown so keen by the habit of constant recurrence to
him that any prolonged connection between them began to look desperate.
In plain English, the eight thousand pounds which had once so lightly
passed from the hands of Mr. Brown to the hands of Mr. Bommaney had now
passed, with just as little profit to the man who parted with them, from
the hands of young Barter to the hands of Steinberg.
It was just about the time when this lingering but inevitable
transaction was completed that chance led young Barter to his encounter
with the son of the man whose belongings he had appropriated. Everybody
knows how apt newly-made acquaintances sometimes are to renew themselves
again and again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see
him just long enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know
generally who and what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and
again on the morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar
to your thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you
may have been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip
Bommaney and younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left
it together, or Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the
very act of leaving or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain
family resemblance which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather
uncommon name, and the curious frequency of these chance encounters,
Barter found it hard to avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance
had a rather careful eye upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and
he was by no means the man he had been. To the unobservant stranger the
frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had
never had much to do with Barter’s inward sensations. Perhaps he got the
laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have
had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to
look at as his successor was within. Philip rather took to the fellow
at first sight, and was slow to suspect him, even when James Hornett
had told his story. But the young Barter was not satisfied, as he
should have been, with playing the part of one insect at a time. It
was unwholesome enough, one might have thought, for him to play fly to
Steinberg’s spider, and yet he must needs take to playing moth to Philip
Bommaney’s candle, a light of danger to him, as he recognised almost
from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always stopped him for
a moment’s conversation at their chance encounters. Phil, having been
inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young man was
responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
whether his new-found acquaintance’s way of looking at him were habitual
or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter’s nerves
the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask--Did you steal
those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no made
but little difference to him. His mind rejected the idea of suspicion,
but his nerves accepted it with trembling. He knew perfectly well that
he could not endure the certainty of Phil Bommaney’s knowledge, but
none the less he found the uncertainty tantalising and painful. This is
perhaps one of the hardest things an undetected criminal has to endure,
that he lives in a world of suspicion of his own making, where every
imagination is real and as dreadful as the fact. In his own mind young
Barter credited himself with courage when he made overtures for Philip’s
companionship. In reality he made the overtures because he was a coward,
and a braver scoundrel would have disdained them.
Philip felt himself impelled to watch this young man, and was not
altogether displeased that he found the opportunity thrust upon him.
Almost facing the gateway of the old Inn there is an old-fashioned
restaurant, deserted from its hour of opening until noon, and from then
crowded inconveniently till two o’clock, deserted again till five, and
once more inconveniently crowded till seven. Philip, having the power to
choose his own time for meals, and frequenting this old house, sometimes
met Barter in the act of coming away from it with the dregs of the
stream of the late lunchers or diners. He fell into the habit of going
a little earlier, and Barter would signal him to the table at which he
sat, if by rare chance there happened to be a vacant seat at it. The
young rascal’s tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue
to be open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he
talked with much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The
question which Barter’s nerves were always finding in Philip’s eyes was,
as a matter of fact, not often absent from his mind. ‘Now, how did you
steal those notes?’ was the one active query of his intelligence as he
listened to Barter’s candid prattle.
It was in the course of these confidences that Philip learned of the
existence of that Pigeon Trap of which Mr. Barter was so proud to be an
inhabitant. It was at Barter’s solicitation that he visited the place,
and it was Barter who proposed him as a member.
Being a member it was not long before he discovered the fact of
Steinberg’s influence over the young solicitor. He noticed a terrified
deference in Barter’s manner towards the other, a frightened alacrity of
obedience to his suggestions. He noticed also that Steinberg and Barter
played a good deal by themselves, and that Barter always lost.
The men of Hawks’ Boost talked pretty freely about each other in the
absence of such of their fellow clubmen as were under discussion. Barter
was spoken of as Steinberg’s Mug, Berg’s Juggins, Stein’s Spoofmarker.
It was generally admitted that Stein made a good thing out of him, and
the wonder was where Barter got his money. There was a pretty general
apprehension that the young man, at no very far future date, would come
to grief. The contemplation of this probability affected the Boosters
but little in an emotional way, but it made them keen to see that
Mr. Barter paid up punctually, and though they were very shy of paper
acceptances from their comrades as a general thing, they were shyer of
his than of most men’s.
These things Philip Bommaney junior attentively noted. At first the
clubmen rather wondered at him. He was in their precincts often,
and would smoke his pipe and watch whatever game might be going with
tranquil interest, but he never played, and could not be induced to bet.
_Que diable faisant-il dans cette gaière?_ the clubmen wanted to know.
He never told them, and in a while they grew accustomed to him and
his ways. He continued his quiet watch upon Mr. Barter, and included
Steinberg in his field of observation. One evening, dining at the old
restaurant, he marked Barter, melancholy and alone. He was sitting in an
attitude of apparent dejection, tapping upon the table with a fork, and
deep sunk in what seemed to be an uncomfortable contemplation. But when
the moth saw his candle he brightened, and fluttered over to it.
‘You might come over,’ said Barter, when they had sat together until the
latest of the dining guests had gone away. ‘You might come over to my
chambers and smoke a cigar if you’ve nothing else to do. I don’t care
about going down to the club tonight.’
The Steinberg spider was supposed to be waiting there, coldly patient
and insatiable, and Barter dreaded him. Philip had never entered the
rooms, but they had an attraction for him. He accepted his companion’s
invitation, and they entered the chambers together. A fire lingered
in the grate, and Barter replenished it, and, having produced a box of
cigars and a bottle of cognac, proffered refreshment to his guest. The
honest man began somewhat to recoil from himself and from his companion.
What was he there for? The answer was pretty evident. There was nothing
between this loud-babbling youth and himself which could have drawn them
into even a momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion
his father’s story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he
suspected the man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found
the chance, he was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco
and drink his liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of
treachery. In a while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all
casuist pleadings, whether for or against the course he had adopted. He
would clear his father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of
doing it, he would watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would
go on doing it until both of them were gray.
‘By the way,’ said Barter innocently, ‘do you never take a hand at----’
His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.
‘That’s what I’m here for, is it?’ thought Philip in his own mind. ‘We
shall see.’ He said aloud, ‘Sometimes,’ in an indifferent tone.
‘There’s nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,’ said young Barter.
‘Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?’
Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
business safe.
They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can
afford to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had
secured a greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was
but eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had
found himself compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He
was, moreover, one of those men who like to know things, and those
quietly-observant eyes of his had taken note of the proceedings of a
hundred scoundrels in whose hands the redoubtable Steinberg himself
would have had but poor chances. The Greek had been Philip’s standing
joy, the dish best spiced to suit his intellectual palate. He had
delighted over him aboard ship, on the monstrous dreary railway journey
between Atlantic and Pacific, in the little towns which form the centre
of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at the Cape and in California, in
the free ports of China, and on the borders of the Bosphorus. In point
of fact he was by experience as little fitted to be played upon by a
gentleman of young Mr. Barter’s limited accomplishments as almost any
man alive.
Phil’s interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten
minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards,
of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of
leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity
for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable,
discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight
a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly.
The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery.
But Mr. Barter’s favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then
he smiled across at his opponent, breathed softly the words ‘six cards,’
and dropped the worthless hand on the top of the pack, calling for a new
deal All this Philip Bommaney watched with a complete seeming innocence
and good temper. He lost his sixpences handsomely, made no protest, and
looked unruffled.
‘You play false for sixpences, do you?’ he said inwardly. ‘I suppose a
scoundrel is a scoundrel all through, and that if you’ll sell your soul
for so little, you could hardly object to driving a bargain for a larger
sum.’
He was often tempted in the course of a quarter of an hour to try Mr.
Barter with a sudden challenge, and see what would come of it. Surveying
his companion with that placid inquiry which Barter felt to be so
excessively uncomfortable, he came to have but a poor opinion of his
courage. He was one of those men who, even without knowing it, take
profound observations of their fellow-creatures. The true observer of
human nature is by no means a personage who is always on the strain
after insight into character. He is, on the contrary, pretty generally
an inward-looking man, who seems to notice little, and takes in his
surroundings as the immortal Joey Ladle did his wine. Philip judged
Barter to be a nervous man, and supposed him, even when strung to
his bent, to have no great tenacity or continuance of courage. He had
learned more and more to believe his father’s story, though he had
perhaps too carefully guarded himself from his own eager desire to
accept it Barter’s every action with the cards offered confirmation
of the belief that he had taken possession of the lost notes. He
was certainly a petty rascal, and there was obviously nothing but
opportunity needed to make him bloom into a rascal on a larger scale. So
the temptation to drop the cards upon the table, to look his companion
in the face, and to ask simply, ‘How about that eight thousand pounds?’
grew more and more upon him, and had to be more and more strenuously
resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To begin with, if young
Barter should be innocent, the querist could evidently expect nothing
else than to be taken for a madman. To continue, if his name and the
likeness to his father had already set the thief upon his guard, and
had prepared him for accusation, the question would only reveal his own
suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.
Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed
a kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.
By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had
hitherto executed with a fair amateur dexterity.
‘Excuse me,’ said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. ‘You
should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.’
He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
through it swiftly.
‘That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,’ he said, with a
placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.
And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given
Steinberg so clear an insight into his young friend’s mind, fell once
more upon Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The
result of that frightened contortion of the features was nothing less
than ghastly. Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier
yet, and for the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.
‘So you’re a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?’ Philip
inquired suavely.
‘How dare you talk to me like that?’ the detected rascal stammered. ‘You
come into a gentleman’s rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two----’
When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
chair. The intention in Phil’s mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
the question to him quietly.
‘How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?’
It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but
he said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man’s jaw falls, and being
released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.
‘Now the best thing for you to do,’ said Phil, sternly regarding him,
‘will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since
the second day of our acquaintance.’
Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
answer.
‘How many of those notes are in Steinberg’s hands?’ Phil asked.
The rascal’s wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he
could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his
own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster
or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour,
and now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night
which thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was
one stroke to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the
consequences of his own misdeed.
Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to
Barter’s mind.
‘How many of those notes?’ he asked slowly, emphasising almost every
word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, ‘have passed into
Steinberg’s hands?’
‘All,’ gasped Barter; ‘every one of them!’
‘That will do for the present,’ said Philip, and at that instant there
came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started,
and clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of
justice there, his arrival accurately timed.
Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that
there was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person.
He had until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except
for his obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr.
Steinberg at the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden
dryness in his throat. He examined these phenomena afterwards, and
decided in his own mind that they were assignable to fear. He came to
the belief which he cherishes until now, that he had to screw up his
courage pretty tightly before he could face the idea of confronting the
partners in rascality together. But here it may be observed in passing
that this kind of self-depreciation is a favourite trick with men of
unusual nerve, and is rarely resorted to by any but the most courageous.
Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
‘Good-evening,’ he said, nodding. ‘Barter’s here, I suppose.’
‘Sir,’ said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour
dawning in his mind, ‘Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be
very happy to see you.’
Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed
the door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale
complexion fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the
arm-chair, staring white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared
back at him in sheer amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door,
turned the key in the lock and pocketed it.
‘Hillo!’ cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, ‘what’s
this mean?’ He measured Philip with his eye--a very evil and wicked eye
it was--and dropped back a step or two.
‘What’s this mean?’ Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from
one to the other.
‘It means, sir,’ said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, ‘that your
fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in
the act of making his confession.’
Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and
planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and
fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious
sort but for Phil’s intervention. The method of intervention was
less tranquil than Philip’s motion up to this time had been. He tore
Steinberg from his grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to
measure, and hurled him across the room. He staggered at the door,
and his head coming noisily in contact with it, he slipped down into a
sitting posture with an expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a
complete vacuity and indifference.
Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had
begun to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg’s chance in the
enemy’s hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the
last necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He
got up from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to
the helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
‘Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!’ gurgled Barter. ‘He’s been the ruin
of me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn’t been for
him. It’s him that led me into it, and he’s had every sixpence of the
money. I’ve been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney,
before he comes round again. I’ll hold him for you.’
One may get good advice from the most unexpected quarter, and
whencesoever good advice may come it is worth while to follow it. Phil
took a dandy scarf from Steinberg’s own neck, and tied him tightly,
wrist to wrist Then he helped him to his feet, and set him in a chair.
‘He came here to-night,’ Barter gurgled on, with tears of sincerest
penitence, ‘to bleed me again. He’s got my I.O.U. for £82 he cheated me
of last week. He’s had every penny of the money. I haven’t had so much
as a single farthing of it myself. I’ll swear I haven’t.’
‘That’s your lay, is it?’ said Steinberg, whose scattered wits were
coming back to him. ‘You shall answer for this violence in the proper
quarter, Bommaney.’
‘I will answer for it in the proper quarter,’ Phil replied. ‘I will
trouble you, Mr. Steinberg, to come to the proper quarter now.’
‘You won’t forget,’ said Barter, ‘that I helped to capture him. You’ll
speak a word for me, Mr. Bommaney?
‘I’ve been that villain’s victim all along. I should never have gone
wrong if it hadn’t been for him, and I’ve wanted to send the money back
over and over again, but he got it into his own hands and wouldn’t
listen to it, and after all I never took the money, Mr. Bommaney--I only
found it. It was Steinberg kept it. He said I should be a fool to let it
go.’
What sentiments of contempt and rage inspired Mr. Steinberg’s bosom
at this juncture must be imagined. He looked them all, but verbally
expressed none of them.
‘Get up,’ said Phil, addressing him. Steinberg obeyed. ‘Take a seat in
that corner.’ Steinberg obeyed again. ‘Now you--’ to Barter, ‘take a
place in that corner, behind the desk.’
‘With pleasure, Mr. Bommaney,’ said Barter, ‘with the very greatest
willingness. I desire to make no resistance to the law. I helped to
capture the criminal Please remember that, Mr. Bommaney. Pray remember
that.’
He took hold of a heavy ruler which happened to be lying on the desk,
and deeming that he and the other rascal were about to be left alone
together, he showed it shakily to Steinberg, as a hint that he was not
without means of protection against a man unarmed and bound.
Phil unlocked the door, inserted the key on the other side, disappeared,
and turned the lock anew. The two criminals heard his footstep sounding
elate, triumphant, and threatening to their ears as he went along the
boarded floor. They listened as the footstep crossed the square boulders
of the courtyard, and listened still until their sound melted into the
blended noises of the outer street. A minute later the step was heard
returning, accompanied by another, solid and terrible. They knew it, and
their hearts, low as they were already, sank at it. The door opened and
Phil reappeared, followed by a policeman.
‘I give these two in charge,’ the young man said, ‘the one as the thief,
the other as the receiver of a bundle of bank-notes of the value of
eight thousand pounds, the property of my father, Mr. Philip Bommaney of
Coalporter’s Alley.’
‘I’m quite willing to go without resistance,’ said Mr. Barter from
behind the table. ‘I assisted in the capture, and I am ready to say
anything.’
‘That’s the first true word you’ve spoken,’ Steinberg snarled. ‘You can
take this thing off,’ holding out his hands. ‘I’ll go quietly. I can get
bail in an hour.’
‘Don’t have it taken off, Mr. Bommaney, not if we’re to travel in the
same vehicle. He threatened me while you were away. He said if they
gave him fifty years he’d kill me when he came out again. He’ll do it,
because I made a clean breast of it, didn’t I, Mr. Bommaney? I made a
clean breast of it, officer. I’m ready to--tell everything. He’s ruined
me, and now he says he’ll kill me because I’m ready to make a clean
breast of it.’
‘I choose to be taken separately, if you please. I myself will pay the
fare. I won’t travel with that cackling idiot.’
‘I will go with Mr. Bommaney with pleasure,’ said the penitent. ‘I’ll go
with you with pleasure anywhere. I’d rather go with you a great deal.’
It was hardly to be expected that Philip should feel very warmly towards
either of his two companions, but of the two he misliked Steinberg the
less. And, since it seemed humane and reasonable to choose, he chose
Steinberg as his travelling companion. The officer set Steinberg’s hat
upon his head, and the quartet set out. The sight of a man with his
hands tightly bound with a scarlet muffler gathered a momentary little
crowd at the Inn gate; but, a pair of hansoms being summoned, captives
and captors were speedily relieved from vulgar observation. The station
reached, it turned out that the communicative Mr. Barter, in the
exuberance of his heart, had exposed to the officer _en route_ the
whereabouts of the lost notes. He declared that to his knowledge they
rested in a safe, the position of which he indicated, in Steinberg’s
Hatton Garden office. The Inspector before whom the charge was made
deemed this intelligence worthy of being acted on at once. The two
prisoners were searched, and Mr. Barter was so good as to point out,
among Steinberg’s keys, those which were necessary for the purposes of
investigation. He even went so far as to offer his assistance as guide;
but this was declined with a chilliness singularly at variance with the
solicitous warmth of the proposal.
‘I think, sir,’ said the Inspector, with an arctic disrespect which was
so frozen as to be almost respectful, ‘that we can manage this without
your assistance.’
The Divisional Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone,
arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him
with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a
constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip begged permission
to accompany him.
‘The notes, sir,’ he said, ‘were left in my father’s trust by a dear
old friend of his. My father himself was supposed to have made use of
them--a thing of which he was incapable. If I can take to him the news
that they are found, I can lift a load of undeserved disgrace from the
mind of an honourable man.’
‘I shall be pleased to have your company, Mr. Bommaney,’ the
Superintendent answered, touched a little by the young man’s
earnestness. So the three got into a four-wheeler, and bowled away to
Hatton Garden, and there made entry into the chambers lately occupied by
Mr. Steinberg. There was no gas here, but the constable’s dark lantern
showed the way. It revealed the safe in the position the communicative
criminal had assigned to it. It revealed the notes, snugly spread out in
one crisp little heap, and arranged with business-like precision in the
order of their numbers.
This golden spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a
hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by
the promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old
Brown’s daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and
halting in his speech. Patty threw her arms about him, and cried without
concealment or restraint. Old Brown blew his nose with a suspicious
frequency, and shook his adopted son-in-law by the hand at frequent
intervals.
‘Phil,’ he cried at last, ‘where’s your father? By God, sir, he never
had any need to run away from me, because he happened to lose a handful
of paltry money. What had he got to do but come and say, “Brown, it’s
gone!” He hadn’t trust enough in me to think I’d believe him. Let’s get
at him. Where is he?’
The old boy tugged furiously at the bell-pull.
‘Send Brenner round to the stable,’ he said to the servant. ‘Tell him
to get the horses to, and bring the carriage round at once. Where’s your
father, Phil?’
‘He’s down Poplar way,’ said Phil. ‘Hornett, his old clerk, is living in
the same house with him.’
‘We’ll go down, and rouse him up,’ the old boy said, with a moist eye
and trembling hand. ‘Phil, my lad,’ he went on, grasping the young
fellow’s hand in his own, ‘I’m getting to be an old ‘un. You wouldn’t
think it to look at me, because, thank God, I’ve always known how to
take my trouble lightly, but I’ve seen a lot of it in my time, and you
can take my word for this--there isn’t any trouble in the world that’s
hardly so bitter as for an honest man to have to take another for a
rogue.’
So it came to pass that Bommaney senior, who after all, perhaps, hardly
deserved to be made a hero of, was plenteously bedewed with the tears of
three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their
minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned
the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the
victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo
of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered
for the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not quite definitely
defined.
Odd things happen every day in the world, and pass by unregarded. The
worship of Bommaney senior’s sensibilities seems a trifle dull when all
things are considered, though one has to be glad that an honest son can
think of him with pity mixed with admiration. But perhaps the oddest
thing of all in connection with this story may be looked for in the
shorthand reporter’s notes of the Recorder’s speech at the Old Bailey,
when the accusation against Messrs. Barter and Steinberg came to be
heard.
‘You, Barter,’ said the learned Recorder, ‘appear to have been drawn
into this by the influence of an intelligence stronger and abler than
your own. You appear, in a moment of weakness, to have been led away
by that stronger intelligence from the paths of rectitude. But you have
displayed so clear a sense of the enormity of your conduct, and have,
by your complete disclosures of the crime committed by you and your
companion, and, by your evidence in Court to-day, shown so complete a
repentance for it, that I do not think that it would be politic or just
to lay a severe term of imprisonment upon you. Nevertheless, the law of
the land must be justified, and I feel a pleasure in believing that in
justifying the law I am affording you an opportunity for reflection, for
the formation of good resolutions for the future, and for a confirmation
of those better desires which I believe--in spite of your association
with this criminal enterprise--to animate your mind.’
Now, to my fancy, this has a distinct element of comedy in it; but the
learned Recorder resembled some of his unlearned brethren, in respect to
the fact that he could not be expected to know everything.
Mr. Barter thrives again, but he is even now awaiting, with the
uneasiest sensations, the liberation of the man who betrayed him into
crime.