_In which a Philosopher wrestles with the Problem
of Identity._
The Professor was in deeper water than ever. He had been called some
name or other at the beginning of this conversation. What name he could
not remember. What the friendlier of the two beasts meant by “a letter”
he could not conceive until Jimmy, continuing, partly enlightened him.
“You will have to sign the brief note we have drafted here to accompany
your payment. It’s obvious.”
Professor Higginson dimly guessed that he was wanted to safeguard them
in some way against the consequences of his kidnapping.
... Well, he had made up his mind, and he would not depart from it. He
nodded again cheerfully enough, and his eyes were as acquiescent as
ever.
Jimmy leaned forward, and in set tones of some gravity, said formally—
“We understand, this gentleman and I, that you acknowledge the payment
due to us, and if we take off the—er—the impediment which we were
compelled to put over your mouth, you will act up to your promise and
you will pay us?”
For the third time the Professor nodded vigorously.
“And you will sign the note?”
He nodded even more vigorously once again.
“Very well,” said Jimmy in the tone of a great arbitrator who has
managed to settle matters without unpleasantness. “Melba, be good
enough to untie your aunt’s shawl, which for the moment prevents this
gentleman from performing his promise by word of mouth.”
Melba did as he was bid, jerking—as Mr. Higginson thought—the knot in
the fabric rather ungently. He treasured it up against him.
The shawl was off, Melba was seated again, and Professor Higginson
breathed the night air untainted by the savour of an ancient human
garment, and an aunt’s at that.
“I need not repeat all I have just been saying,” said Jimmy, “but you
must confirm it before we go further.”
“I do,” said the Professor, with a curiously successful affectation of
cheerfulness for so untrained an actor. “Yes, certainly, gentlemen, I
confirm it.”
There was, if anything, a little precipitancy in his manner, as though
he were eager to pay, as he most certainly was to get rid of those
ropes round his arms and legs.
There was another thing bothering the Pragmatist. The Green Overcoat,
which still wrapped him all about, was being woefully delayed. If the
delay lasted much longer the owner might miss it ... and then, the
tight cords at its elbows were doing it no good. They might actually be
_marking_ it. The thought made Professor Higginson very uncomfortable
indeed. He had no idea whose it was, but it certainly belonged to
someone of importance.... He wished he had never seen it.
He was not to be the last to wish that, but Hell is a hard taskmaster
and the Professor was caught.
“We think,” said Jimmy a little pompously, “at least, I think——” (after
glancing at Melba).
“I don’t,” said Melba.
[Illustration: _The Professor was caught._]
“Well, _I_ think,” continued Jimmy, “and I think we ought to think,
that you are doing the right thing, and, well, I like to tell you so.”
The relations between Jimmy and his prisoner were getting almost
cordial. He pushed the table so that that prisoner, when he was untied,
should be able to write upon it. He put before him a type-written sheet
of note-paper, an envelope, an ink-bottle, and a pen, which, with the
exception of the benches on which he and his companion sat, the table
and the chair, were all the furniture the place contained.
“And now, sir,” added Jimmy, going behind the Psychologist and
releasing his elbows, “now, sir” (here he wound the rope round the
Professor’s waist, secured it, and left his legs still tied to the
chair rungs), “now, sir, perhaps we can come to business!”
Poor Mr. Higginson had never been so cramped in his life. He was far
from young. The circulation in his lower arms had almost stopped. He
brought them forward painfully and slowly and composed them upon the
table, then his right hand slowly sought his waistcoat pocket, where
reposed the sovereign and half-sovereign of his ransom.
“Of course,” he began, intending to explain the smallness of the
sum, for he could not but feel that it was very little gold for so
considerable a circumstance of paper formalities and violence, “of
course——” when Jimmy interrupted him.
“I need not tell you the sum,” said that youth rather coldly.
“Oh, no,” twittered Melba, “he knows _that_ well enough!” Then added,
“G-r-r-r!” as in anger at a dog.
“Well—er—gentlemen, I confess”—began Mr. Higginson, hesitating.
“To be frank,” said Jimmy rather sharply, “we all three know the sum
perfectly well, and you perhaps, sir, with your business habits and
your really peculiar ideas upon honour, best of all. It’s two thousand
pounds,” he concluded calmly.
“_Two thousand pounds?_” shrieked the Professor.
“What did you expect?” broke in Melba an octave higher. “A bonus and a
presentation gold watch?”
“Two thousand pounds!” repeated the bewildered Philosopher in a gasping
undertone.
“Yes,” rapped out Jimmy smartly, “two thousand pounds!... Really! After
all that has passed——”
“But,” shouted the Professor wildly, saying the first words that came
to him, “I haven’t got such a sum in the world. I—I don’t know what you
mean?”
Jimmy’s face took on a very severe and dreadful expression.
“Mr. Brassington,” he began in a slow and modulated tone.
“I’m not Mr. Brassington, whoever Mr. Brassington may be,” protested
the unhappy victim, half understanding the portentous error. “What on
earth do you take me for?”
Jimmy by this time was in a mood to stand no nonsense.
“Mr. Brassington,” he said, “you broke your word to us once this
evening when you kicked out at Melba, and that ought to have been a
lesson to me. I was foolish enough to believe you when you gave your
word a second time. I certainly believed it when you gave it a third
time after we released you.” (It was a very partial release, but no
matter.) “Now,” said he, setting his lips firmly, “if you try to
shuffle out of the main matter, I warn you it will be the worse for
you, very much the worse for you, indeed. You will be good enough to
sign us a cheque for two thousand pounds, and to sign the type-written
acknowledgment in front of you.”
Men in bewilderment do foolish things even when they are men of
judgment, and Professor Higginson certainly was not that. His next
words were fatal.
“Do you suppose I carry a cheque-book on me?” he roared.
“Melba,” said Jimmy quietly, in the tones of a general officer
commanding an orderly, “go through him.”
The Professor having said a foolish word, followed it by a still more
foolish action. He dived into the right-hand pocket of the Green
Overcoat with a gesture purely instinctive. Melba was upon him like a
fat hawk, almost wrenched his arm from its socket, and drew from that
right-hand pocket a noble great cheque-book of a brilliant red, with a
leather backing such as few cheque-books possess, and having printed on
it in bold plutocratic characters—
“JOHN BRASSINGTON, ESQR.,
‘LAUDERDALE,’
CRAMPTON PARK, ORMESTON.”
Melba conveyed the cheque-book solemnly to Jimmy, and the two young men
sat down again opposite their involuntary creditor, spreading it out
open before them in an impressive manner.
“Mr. Brassington,” said Jimmy, “what do I see here? Everything that
I should have expected from a man of your prominence in the business
world and of your known careful habits. I see neatly written upon the
fly-leaf, ‘_Private Account_,’ and the few counterfoils to the cheques
already drawn carefully noted. I perceive,” continued Jimmy, summing up
boldly, “the sum of £50 marked ‘self’ upon the second of this month.
The object of your munificence does not surprise me. Upon the next
counterfoil I see marked £173 10s. It is in settlement of a bill—a
garage bill. I am glad to see that you recognise and pay _some_ of your
debts. The third counterfoil,” he said, peering more closely, “relates
to a cheque made out only yesterday. It is for £5, and appears to have
been sent to your son, who, as you know, is our honoured friend.”
“I protest ...” interrupted Professor Higginson loudly.
“At your peril!” retorted Melba.
“You will do well, Mr. Brassington, to let me finish what I have to
say,” continued Jimmy. “I say your _son_, our honoured friend, as you
know well—only too well! These three cheques are your concern, not
ours. No further cheque has been drawn, and on the _fourth_ cheque
form, Mr. Brassington, you will be good enough to sign your name. You
will make it out to James McAuley—a small c and a big A, if you please;
an _e_y, not an a—in your letters you did not do me the courtesy to
spell my name as I sign it. You will then hand me the instrument, and I
will settle with my friend.”
At the words “my friend” he waved courteously to Melba, gave a
ridiculous little bow, which in his youthful folly he imagined to be
dignified.
The Professor sat stolidly and said nothing. His thoughts hurried
confusedly within him, and the one that ran fastest was, “I am in a
hole!”
“I do assure you, gentlemen,” he said at last, “that there is some
great mistake. I have no doubt that—that a Mr. Brassington owes you
the money, no doubt at all. And perhaps you were even justified in
the very strong steps you took to recover it. I should be the last to
blame you.” (The liar!) “_But as I am not Mr. Brassington_, but, if you
want to know, Professor Higginson, of the Guelph University, I cannot
oblige you.”
When the Professor had thus delivered himself there was a further
silence, only interrupted by Melba’s addressing to him a very offensive
epithet. “Swine!” he said.
“Are we to understand, Mr. Brassington,” said Jimmy, when he had
considered the matter, “that after all that you have said you refuse to
sign? Did you imagine” (this with rising anger in his voice) “that we
would compromise for a smaller sum?”
“I tell you I am not Mr. Brassington!” answered the Psychologist tartly.
“Oh!” returned Jimmy, now thoroughly aroused and as naturally as could
be, “and you aren’t wearing Mr. Brassington’s clothes, Brassington, are
you? And this isn’t Mr. Brassington’s cheque-book, is it, Brassington?
And you’re not a confounded old liar as well as a cursed puritanical
thief? Now, look here, if you don’t sign now, you’ll be kept here till
you _do_. You’ll be locked up without food, except just the bread
and water to keep you alive; and if you trust to your absence being
noticed, I can tell you it won’t be. We know all about that. You were
going to Belgium for a week, weren’t you, by the night train to
London? You were taking no luggage, because you were going to pick up a
bag at your London office, as you always do on these business journeys.
You were going on business, and I only hope the business will wait.
Oh, we know all about it, Brassington! We have a clear week ahead of
us, and you won’t _only_ get bread and water in that week; and I don’t
suppose anybody would bother if we made the week ten days.”
I have already mentioned in the course of this painful narrative the
name of the Infernal Power. My reader will be the less surprised to
follow the process of Professor Higginson’s mind in this terrible crux.
He sat there internally collapsed and externally nothing very grand.
His two masters, stern and immovable, watched him from beyond the table
with its one candle. It was deep night. There was no sound save the
lashing of the storm against the window-panes.
He first considered his dear home (which was a pair of rooms in a
lodging in Tugela Street, quite close to his work). Then there came
into his mind the prospect of sleepless nights in a bare room, of bread
and water, and _worse_....
What was “worse”?
His resolution sank and sank. The process of his thought continued. The
eyes of the two young men, hateful and determined, almost hypnotised
him.
If the money of this ridiculous John Brassington, whoever he might be,
was there in his pocket, he would stand firm. He hoped he would stand
firm. But after all, it was not money. It was only a bit of paper. He
would be able to make the thing right.... He was very ignorant of such
things, but he knew it took some little time to clear a cheque....
He remembered someone telling him that it took three days, and
incidentally he grotesquely remembered the same authority telling him
that every cheque cost the bank sevenpence.... The rope hurt damnably,
and he was a man who could not bear to miss his sleep, it made him
ill.... And he was feeling very ill already. He could carefully note
the number of the cheque, anyhow. Yes, he could do that. He had this
man Brassington’s address. He had the name of the bank. It was on the
cheques. He would have the courage to expose the whole business in the
morning. He would stop that cheque. He clearly remembered the Senate
of the University having made a mistake two years before and how the
cheque was stopped.... It was a perfectly easy business.... Of course,
the actual signing of another man’s name is an unpleasant thing for the
fingers to do, but that is only nervousness—next door to superstition.
One must be guided by reason. Ultimately it would do no harm at all,
for the cheque would never be cleared.
Professor Higginson leant lovingly upon that word “cleared.” It had a
technical, salutary sound. It was his haven of refuge. Cheques had to
go up to London, hadn’t they? and to go to a place called a Clearing
House? He knew that much, though economics were not his department
of learning. He knew that much, and he was rather proud of it—as
Professors are of knowing something outside their beat.
While the Mystery of Evil was thus pressing its frontal assault on
poor Professor Higginson’s soul, that soul was suddenly attacked in
flank by a brilliant thought: the cheque would enable him to trace his
tormentors!
Come, that really was a brilliant thought! He was prouder of himself
than ever. He would be actually _aiding_ justice if he signed!
The police could always track down someone where there was paper
concerned. No one could escape the hands of British Law if he had once
given himself away in a written document!
This flank attack of the Evil One determined the Philosopher. In a
subdued voice he broke the long silence. He said—
“Give me the pen!”
Jimmy solemnly dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to him, not
releasing the cheque-book, but tearing out the cheque form for him to
sign; and as he did so the unseen Serpent smiled. In a hand as bold as
he could assume Professor Higginson deliberately wrote at the bottom
right-hand corner the fatal words “JOHN BRASSINGTON.”
He was beginning to fill in the amount, when to his astonishment the
cheque was snatched from his hands, while Jimmy thundered out—
“Do you suppose, sir, that you can deceive us in such a childish way as
_that_? Does a man ever sign his cheque like a copybook?”
He glared at the signature.
“It’s faked! That’s no more your signature, Old Brassington, than it’s
mine!” he shouted. “That’s how you write.”
With the words he pulled a note from his pocket and tossed it to the
unhappy man.
Melba made himself pleasant by an interjection—
“What a vile old shuffler it is!” he said.
And Mr. Higginson saw written on the note, dated but a week before—
“James Macaulay, Esq.,
“Sir,
“I will have no further correspondence
with you upon the matter.
“I am,
“Your obedient Servant,
“J. BRASSINGTON.”
It was a strong, hard but rapid hand, the hand of a man who had done
much clerk’s work in his youth. It had certainly no resemblance to the
signature which the Psychologist had appended to the cheque form, and
that form now lay torn into twenty pieces by the angry Jimmy, who had
also torn up the counterfoil and presented him with another cheque.
“I can’t do it, gentlemen!” he said firmly—it was indeed too true—“I
can’t do it!”
Melba jumped up suddenly.
“I’m not going to waste any more time with the old blighter!” he said
shrilly. “Come on, Jimmy!” and Jimmy yielded.
They blew out the candle, left the room with a curse, turning the key
in the lock from the outside, and the unfortunate Mr. Higginson was
left bound tightly to his chair in complete darkness, and I am sorry to
say upon the verge of tears.
Nature had done what virtue could not do and the Professor was stumped.