voice under inadequate control.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said he, ‘but what is the meaning of your
extraordinary bill?’
‘I beg yours,’ returned Somerset hotly. ‘Its meaning is sufficiently
explicit.’ And being now, from dire experience, fearful of ridicule, he
was preparing to close the door, when the gentleman thrust his cane into
the aperture.
‘Not so fast, I beg of you,’ said he. ‘If you really let apartments,
here is a possible tenant at your door; and nothing would give me greater
pleasure than to see the accommodation and to learn your terms.’
His heart joyously beating, Somerset admitted the visitor, showed him
over the various apartments, and, with some return of his persuasive
eloquence, expounded their attractions. The gentleman was particularly
pleased by the elegant proportions of the drawing-room.
‘This,’ he said, ‘would suit me very well. What, may I ask, would be
your terms a week, for this floor and the one above it?’
‘I was thinking,’ returned Somerset, ‘of a hundred pounds.’
‘Surely not,’ exclaimed the gentleman.
‘Well, then,’ returned Somerset, ‘fifty.’
The gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement. ‘You seem to
be strangely elastic in your demands,’ said he. ‘What if I were to
proceed on your own principle of division, and offer twenty-five?’
‘Done!’ cried Somerset; and then, overcome by a sudden embarrassment,
‘You see,’ he added apologetically, ‘it is all found money for me.’
‘Really?’ said the stranger, looking at him all the while with growing
wonder. ‘Without extras, then?’
‘I—I suppose so,’ stammered the keeper of the lodging-house.
‘Service included?’ pursued the gentleman.
‘Service?’ cried Somerset. ‘Do you mean that you expect me to empty your
slops?’
The gentleman regarded him with a very friendly interest. ‘My dear
fellow,’ said he, ‘if you take my advice, you will give up this
business.’ And thereupon he resumed his hat and took himself away.
This smarting disappointment produced a strong effect on the artist of
the cartoons; and he began with shame to eat up his rosier illusions.
First one and then the other of his great works was condemned, withdrawn
from exhibition, and relegated, as a mere wall-picture, to the decoration
of the dining-room. Their place was taken by a replica of the original
wafered announcement, to which, in particularly large letters, he had
added the pithy rubric: ‘_No service_.’ Meanwhile he had fallen into
something as nearly bordering on low spirits as was consistent with his
disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the
laughable turn of his late interview, and the judicial blindness of the
public to the merit of the twin cartoons.
Perhaps a week had passed before he was again startled by the note of the
knocker. A gentleman of a somewhat foreign and somewhat military air,
yet closely shaven and wearing a soft hat, desired in the politest terms
to visit the apartments. He had (he explained) a friend, a gentleman in
tender health, desirous of a sedate and solitary life, apart from
interruptions and the noises of the common lodging-house. ‘The unusual
clause,’ he continued, ‘in your announcement, particularly struck me.
“This,” I said, “is the place for Mr. Jones.” You are yourself, sir, a
professional gentleman?’ concluded the visitor, looking keenly in
Somerset’s face.
‘I am an artist,’ replied the young man lightly.
‘And these,’ observed the other, taking a side glance through the open
door of the dining-room, which they were then passing, ‘these are some of
your works. Very remarkable.’ And he again and still more sharply
peered into the countenance of the young man.
Somerset, unable to suppress a blush, made the more haste to lead his
visitor upstairs and to display the apartments.
‘Excellent,’ observed the stranger, as he looked from one of the back
windows. ‘Is that a mews behind, sir? Very good. Well, sir: see here.
My friend will take your drawing-room floor; he will sleep in the back
drawing-room; his nurse, an excellent Irish widow, will attend on all his
wants and occupy a garret; he will pay you the round sum of ten dollars a
week; and you, on your part, will engage to receive no other lodger? I
think that fair.’
Somerset had scarcely words in which to clothe his gratitude and joy.
‘Agreed,’ said the other; ‘and to spare you trouble, my friend will bring
some men with him to make the changes. You will find him a retiring
inmate, sir; receives but few, and rarely leaves the house, except at
night.’
‘Since I have been in this house,’ returned Somerset, ‘I have myself,
unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone abroad except in the evening.
But a man,’ he added, ‘must have some amusement.’
An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset sat down
to compute in English money the value of the figure named. The result of
this investigation filled him with amazement and disgust; but it was now
too late; nothing remained but to endure; and he awaited the arrival of
his tenant, still trying, by various arithmetical expedients, to obtain a
more favourable quotation for the dollar. With the approach of dusk,
however, his impatience drove him once more to the front balcony. The
night fell, mild and airless; the lamps shone around the central darkness
of the garden; and through the tall grove of trees that intervened, many
warmly illuminated windows on the farther side of the square, told their
tale of white napery, choice wine, and genial hospitality. The stars
were already thickening overhead, when the young man’s eyes alighted on a
procession of three four-wheelers, coasting round the garden railing and
bound for the Superfluous Mansion. They were laden with formidable
boxes; moved in a military order, one following another; and, by the
extreme slowness of their advance, inspired Somerset with the most
serious ideas of his tenant’s malady.
By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the
pavement; and from the two first, there had alighted the military
gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters. These proceeded
instantly to take possession of the house; with their own hands, and
firmly rejecting Somerset’s assistance, they carried in the various
crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and transferred to the
back drawing-room the bed in which the tenant was to sleep; and it was
not until the bustle of arrival had subsided, and the arrangements were
complete, that there descended, from the third of the three vehicles, a
gentleman of great stature and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder
of a woman in a widow’s dress, and himself covered by a long cloak and
muffled in a coloured comforter.
Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into the
back drawing-room; the other men departed; silence redescended on the
house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before half-past ten, and,
with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent public-house in the
neighbourhood, Somerset might have still supposed himself to be alone in
the Superfluous Mansion.
Day followed day; and still the young man had never come by speech or
sight of his mysterious lodger. The doors of the drawing-room flat were
never open; and although Somerset could hear him moving to and fro, the
tall man had never quitted the privacy of his apartments. Visitors,
indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk, sometimes at intempestuous hours
of night or morning; men, for the most part; some meanly attired, some
decently; some loud, some cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset,
displeasing. A certain air of fear and secrecy was common to them all;
they were all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military
gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at all; and
as for the doctor who attended the sick man, his manners were not
suggestive of a university career. The nurse, again, was scarcely a
desirable house-fellow. Since her arrival, the fall of whisky in the
young man’s private bottle was much accelerated; and though never
communicative, she was at times unpleasantly familiar. When asked about
the patient’s health, she would dolorously shake her head, and declare
that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful condition.
Yet somehow Somerset had early begun to entertain the notion that his
complaint was other than bodily. The ill-looking birds that gathered to
the house, the strange noises that sounded from the drawing-room in the
dead hours of night, the careless attendance and intemperate habits of
the nurse, the entire absence of correspondence, the entire seclusion of
Mr. Jones himself, whose face, up to that hour, he could not have sworn
to in a court of justice—all weighed unpleasantly upon the young man’s
mind. A sense of something evil, irregular and underhand, haunted and
depressed him; and this uneasy sentiment was the more firmly rooted in
his mind, when, in the fulness of time, he had an opportunity of
observing the features of his tenant. It fell in this way. The young
landlord was awakened about four in the morning by a noise in the hall.
Leaping to his feet, and opening the door of the library, he saw the tall
man, candle in hand, in earnest conversation with the gentleman who had
taken the rooms. The faces of both were strongly illuminated; and in
that of his tenant, Somerset could perceive none of the marks of disease,
but every sign of health, energy, and resolution. While he was still
looking, the visitor took his departure; and the invalid, having
carefully fastened the front door, sprang upstairs without a trace of
lassitude.
That night upon his pillow, Somerset began to kindle once more into the
hot fit of the detective fever; and the next morning resumed the practice
of his art with careless hand and an abstracted mind. The day was
destined to be fertile in surprises; nor had he long been seated at the
easel ere the first of these occurred. A cab laden with baggage drew up
before the door; and Mrs. Luxmore in person rapidly mounted the steps and
began to pound upon the knocker. Somerset hastened to attend the
summons.
‘My dear fellow,’ she said, with the utmost gaiety, ‘here I come dropping
from the moon. I am delighted to find you faithful; and I have no doubt
you will be equally pleased to be restored to liberty.’
Somerset could find no words, whether of protest or welcome; and the
spirited old lady pushed briskly by him and paused on the threshold of
the dining-room. The sight that met her eyes was one well calculated to
inspire astonishment. The mantelpiece was arrayed with saucepans and
empty bottles; on the fire some chops were frying; the floor was littered
from end to end with books, clothes, walking-canes and the materials of
the painter’s craft; but what far outstripped the other wonders of the
place was the corner which had been arranged for the study of still-life.
This formed a sort of rockery; conspicuous upon which, according to the
principles of the art of composition, a cabbage was relieved against a
copper kettle, and both contrasted with the mail of a boiled lobster.
‘My gracious goodness!’ cried the lady of the house; and then, turning in
wrath on the young man, ‘From what rank in life are you sprung?’ she
demanded. ‘You have the exterior of a gentleman; but from the
astonishing evidences before me, I should say you can only be a
greengrocer’s man. Pray, gather up your vegetables, and let me see no
more of you.’
‘Madam,’ babbled Somerset, ‘you promised me a month’s warning.’
‘That was under a misapprehension,’ returned the old lady. ‘I now give
you warning to leave at once.’
‘Madam,’ said the young man, ‘I wish I could; and indeed, as far as I am
concerned, it might be done. But then, my lodger!’
‘Your lodger?’ echoed Mrs. Luxmore.
‘My lodger: why should I deny it?’ returned Somerset. ‘He is only by the
week.’
The old lady sat down upon a chair. ‘You have a lodger?—you?’ she cried.
‘And pray, how did you get him?’
‘By advertisement,’ replied the young man. ‘O madam, I have not lived
unobservantly. I adopted’—his eyes involuntarily shifted to the
cartoons—‘I adopted every method.’
Her eyes had followed his; for the first time in Somerset’s experience,
she produced a double eye-glass; and as soon as the full merit of the
works had flashed upon her, she gave way to peal after peal of her
trilling and soprano laughter.
‘Oh, I think you are perfectly delicious!’ she cried. ‘I do hope you had
them in the window. M’Pherson,’ she continued, crying to her maid, who
had been all this time grimly waiting in the hall, ‘I lunch with Mr.
Somerset. Take the cellar key and bring some wine.’
In this gay humour she continued throughout the luncheon; presented
Somerset with a couple of dozen of wine, which she made M’Pherson bring
up from the cellar—‘as a present, my dear,’ she said, with another burst
of tearful merriment, ‘for your charming pictures, which you must be sure
to leave me when you go;’ and finally, protesting that she dared not
spoil the absurdest houseful of madmen in the whole of London, departed
(as she vaguely phrased it) for the continent of Europe.
She was no sooner gone, than Somerset encountered in the corridor the
Irish nurse; sober, to all appearance, and yet a prey to singularly
strong emotion. It was made to appear, from her account, that Mr. Jones
had already suffered acutely in his health from Mrs. Luxmore’s visit, and
that nothing short of a full explanation could allay the invalid’s
uneasiness. Somerset, somewhat staring, told what he thought fit of the
affair.
‘Is that all?’ cried the woman. ‘As God sees you, is that all?’
‘My good woman,’ said the young man, ‘I have no idea what you can be
driving at. Suppose the lady were my friend’s wife, suppose she were my
fairy godmother, suppose she were the Queen of Portugal; and how should
that affect yourself or Mr. Jones?’
‘Blessed Mary!’ cried the nurse, ‘it’s he that will be glad to hear it!’
And immediately she fled upstairs.
Somerset, on his part, returned to the dining-room, and with a very
thoughtful brow and ruminating many theories, disposed of the remainder
of the bottle. It was port; and port is a wine, sole among its equals
and superiors, that can in some degree support the competition of
tobacco. Sipping, smoking, and theorising, Somerset moved on from
suspicion to suspicion, from resolve to resolve, still growing braver and
rosier as the bottle ebbed. He was a sceptic, none prouder of the name;
he had no horror at command, whether for crimes or vices, but beheld and
embraced the world, with an immoral approbation, the frequent consequence
of youth and health. At the same time, he felt convinced that he dwelt
under the same roof with secret malefactors; and the unregenerate
instinct of the chase impelled him to severity. The bottle had run low;
the summer sun had finally withdrawn; and at the same moment, night and
the pangs of hunger recalled him from his dreams.
He went forth, and dined in the Criterion: a dinner in consonance, not so
much with his purse, as with the admirable wine he had discussed. What
with one thing and another, it was long past midnight when he returned
home. A cab was at the door; and entering the hall, Somerset found
himself face to face with one of the most regular of the few who visited
Mr. Jones: a man of powerful figure, strong lineaments, and a chin-beard
in the American fashion. This person was carrying on one shoulder a
black portmanteau, seemingly of considerable weight. That he should find
a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night, recalled some odd
stories to the young man’s memory; he had heard of lodgers who thus
gradually drained away, not only their own effects, but the very
furniture and fittings of the house that sheltered them; and now, in a
mood between pleasantry and suspicion, and aping the manner of a
drunkard, he roughly bumped against the man with the chin-beard and
knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor. With a face
struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard called
lamentably on the name of his maker, and fell in a mere heap on the mat
at the foot of the stairs. At the same time, though only for a single
instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the Irish nurse popped out like
rabbits over the banisters of the first floor; and on both the same scare
and pallor were apparent.
The sight of this incredible emotion turned Somerset to stone, and he
continued speechless, while the man gathered himself together, and, with
the help of the handrail and audibly thanking God, scrambled once more
upon his feet.
‘What in Heaven’s name ails you?’ gasped the young man as soon as he
could find words and utterance.
‘Have you a drop of brandy?’ returned the other. ‘I am sick.’
Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man with the
chin-beard; who then, somewhat restored, began to confound himself in
apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness, the result, he
said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having taken leave with a hand
that still sweated and trembled, he gingerly resumed his burthen and
departed.
Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep. What, he asked himself, had
been the contents of the black portmanteau? Stolen goods? the carcase of
one murdered? or—and at the thought he sat upright in bed—an infernal
machine? He took a solemn vow that he would set these doubts at rest;
and with the next morning, installed himself beside the dining-room
window, vigilant with eye; and ear, to await and profit by the earliest
opportunity.
The hours went heavily by. Within the house there was no circumstance of
novelty; unless it might be that the nurse more frequently made little
journeys round the corner of the square, and before afternoon was
somewhat loose of speech and gait. A little after six, however, there
came round the corner of the gardens a very handsome and elegantly
dressed young woman, who paused a little way off, and for some time, and
with frequent sighs, contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion.
It was not the first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon
it, like our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had
already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage, and
had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye. He hailed her
coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little nearer to the
window to enjoy the sight. What was his surprise, however, when, as if
with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted the steps and tapped
discreetly at the door! He made haste to get before the Irish nurse, who
was not improbably asleep, and had the satisfaction to receive this
gracious visitor in person.
She inquired for Mr. Jones; and then, without transition, asked the young
man if he were the person of the house (and at the words, he thought he
could perceive her to be smiling), ‘because,’ she added, ‘if you are, I
should like to see some of the other rooms.’ Somerset told her he was
under an engagement to receive no other lodgers; but she assured him that
would be no matter, as these were friends of Mr. Jones’s. ‘And,’ she
continued, moving suddenly to the dining-room door, ‘let us begin here.’
Somerset was too late to prevent her entering, and perhaps he lacked the
courage to essay. ‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘how changed it is!’
‘Madam,’ cried the young man, ‘since your entrance, it is I who have the
right to say so.’
She received this inane compliment with a demure and conscious droop of
the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the mingled litter,
now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the wonders of the two
apartments. She gazed upon the cartoons with sparkling eyes, and a
heightened colour, and in a somewhat breathless voice, expressed a high
opinion of their merits. She praised the effective disposition of the
rockery, and in the bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to
defend the entry, she fairly broke forth in admiration. ‘How simple and
manly!’ she cried: ‘none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is so
detestable in a man!’ Hard upon this, telling him, before he had time to
reply, that she very well knew her way, and would trouble him no further,
she took her leave with an engaging smile, and ascended the staircase
alone.
For more than an hour the young lady remained closeted with Mr. Jones;
and at the end of that time, the night being now come completely, they
left the house in company. This was the first time since the arrival of
his lodger, that Somerset had found himself alone with the Irish widow;
and without the loss of any more time than was required by decency, he
stepped to the foot of the stairs and hailed her by her name. She came
instantly, wreathed in weak smiles and with a nodding head; and when the
young man politely offered to introduce her to the treasures of his art,
she swore that nothing could afford her greater pleasure, for, though she
had never crossed the threshold, she had frequently observed his
beautiful pictures through the door. On entering the dining-room, the
sight of a bottle and two glasses prepared her to be a gentle critic; and
as soon as the pictures had been viewed and praised, she was easily
persuaded to join the painter in a single glass. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘are
my respects; and a pleasure it is, in this horrible house, to see a
gentleman like yourself, so affable and free, and a very nice painter, I
am sure.’ One glass so agreeably prefaced, was sure to lead to the
acceptance of a second; at the third, Somerset was free to cease from the
affectation of keeping her company; and as for the fourth, she asked it
of her own accord. ‘For indeed,’ said she, ‘what with all these clocks
and chemicals, without a drop of the creature life would be impossible
entirely. And you seen yourself that even M’Guire was glad to beg for
it. And even himself, when he is downhearted with all these cruel
disappointments, though as temperate a man as any child, will be
sometimes crying for a glass of it. And I’ll thank you for a thimbleful
to settle what I got.’ Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the
deathbed dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband.
Then she declared she heard ‘the master’ calling her, rose to her feet,
made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her head
upon the lobster, fell into stertorous slumbers.
Somerset mounted at once to the first story, and opened the door of the
drawing-room, which was brilliantly lit by several lamps. It was a great
apartment; looking on the square with three tall windows, and joined by a
pair of ample folding-doors to the next room; elegant in proportion,
papered in sea-green, furnished in velvet of a delicate blue, and adorned
with a majestic mantelpiece of variously tinted marbles. Such was the
room that Somerset remembered; that which he now beheld was changed in
almost every feature: the furniture covered with a figured chintz; the
walls hung with a rhubarb-coloured paper, and diversified by the
curtained recesses for no less than seven windows. It seemed to himself
that he must have entered, without observing the transition, into the
adjoining house. Presently from these more specious changes, his eye
condescended to the many curious objects with which the floor was
littered. Here were the locks of dismounted pistols; clocks and
clockwork in every stage of demolition, some still busily ticking, some
reduced to their dainty elements; a great company of carboys, jars and
bottles; a carpenter’s bench and a laboratory-table.
The back drawing-room, to which Somerset proceeded, had likewise
undergone a change. It was transformed to the exact appearance of a
common lodging-house bedroom; a bed with green curtains occupied one
corner; and the window was blocked by the regulation table and mirror.
The door of a small closet here attracted the young man’s attention; and
striking a vesta, he opened it and entered. On a table several wigs and
beards were lying spread; about the walls hung an incongruous display of
suits and overcoats; and conspicuous among the last the young man
observed a large overall of the most costly sealskin. In a flash his
mind reverted to the advertisement in the _Standard_ newspaper. The
great height of his lodger, the disproportionate breadth of his
shoulders, and the strange particulars of his instalment, all pointed to
the same conclusion.
The vesta had now burned to his fingers; and taking the coat upon his
arm, Somerset hastily returned to the lighted drawing-room. There, with
a mixture of fear and admiration, he pored upon its goodly proportions
and the regularity and softness of the pile. The sight of a large
pier-glass put another fancy in his head. He donned the fur-coat; and
standing before the mirror in an attitude suggestive of a Russian prince,
he thrust his hands into the ample pockets. There his fingers
encountered a folded journal. He drew it out, and recognised the type
and paper of the _Standard_; and at the same instant, his eyes alighted
on the offer of two hundred pounds. Plainly then, his lodger, now no
longer mysterious, had laid aside his coat on the very day of the
appearance of the advertisement.
He was thus standing, the tell-tale coat upon his back, the incriminating
paper in his hand, when the door opened and the tall lodger, with a firm
but somewhat pallid face, stepped into the room and closed the door again
behind him. For some time, the two looked upon each other in perfect
silence; then Mr. Jones moved forward to the table, took a seat, and
still without once changing the direction of his eyes, addressed the
young man.
‘You are right,’ he said. ‘It is for me the blood money is offered. And
now what will you do?’
It was a question to which Somerset was far from being able to reply.
Taken as he was at unawares, masquerading in the man’s own coat, and
surrounded by a whole arsenal of diabolical explosives, the keeper of the
lodging-house was silenced.
‘Yes,’ resumed the other, ‘I am he. I am that man, whom with impotent
hate and fear, they still hunt from den to den, from disguise to
disguise. Yes, my landlord, you have it in your power, if you be poor,
to lay the basis of your fortune; if you be unknown, to capture honour at
one snatch. You have hocussed an innocent widow; and I find you here in
my apartment, for whose use I pay you in stamped money, searching my
wardrobe, and your hand—shame, sir!—your hand in my very pocket. You can
now complete the cycle of your ignominious acts, by what will be at once
the simplest, the safest, and the most remunerative.’ The speaker paused
as if to emphasise his words; and then, with a great change of tone and
manner, thus resumed: ‘And yet, sir, when I look upon your face, I feel
certain that I cannot be deceived: certain that in spite of all, I have
the honour and pleasure of speaking to a gentleman. Take off my coat,
sir—which but cumbers you. Divest yourself of this confusion: that which
is but thought upon, thank God, need be no burthen to the conscience; we
have all harboured guilty thoughts: and if it flashed into your mind to
sell my flesh and blood, my anguish in the dock, and the sweat of my
death agony—it was a thought, dear sir, you were as incapable of acting
on, as I of any further question of your honour.’ At these words, the
speaker, with a very open, smiling countenance, like a forgiving father,
offered Somerset his hand.
It was not in the young man’s nature to refuse forgiveness or dissect
generosity. He instantly, and almost without thought, accepted the
proffered grasp.
‘And now,’ resumed the lodger, ‘now that I hold in mine your loyal hand,
I lay by my apprehensions, I dismiss suspicion, I go further—by an effort
of will, I banish the memory of what is past. How you came here, I care
not: enough that you are here—as my guest. Sit ye down; and let us, with
your good permission, improve acquaintance over a glass of excellent
whisky.’
So speaking, he produced glasses and a bottle: and the pair pledged each
other in silence.
‘Confess,’ observed the smiling host, ‘you were surprised at the
appearance of the room.’
‘I was indeed,’ said Somerset; ‘nor can I imagine the purpose of these
changes.’
‘These,’ replied the conspirator, ‘are the devices by which I continue to
exist. Conceive me now, accused before one of your unjust tribunals;
conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the singular variety of
their reports! One will have visited me in this drawing-room as it
originally stood; a second finds it as it is to-night; and to-morrow or
next day, all may have been changed. If you love romance (as artists
do), few lives are more romantic than that of the obscure individual now
addressing you. Obscure yet famous. Mine is an anonymous, infernal
glory. By infamous means, I work towards my bright purpose. I found the
liberty and peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future
smiles upon that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the existence of a
hunted brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell’s
dexterities.’
Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before him, and
listened to his heated rhapsody, with indescribable bewilderment. He
looked him in the face with curious particularity; saw there the marks of
education; and wondered the more profoundly.
‘Sir,’ he said—‘for I know not whether I should still address you as Mr.
Jones—’
‘Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland, by all
or any of these you may address me,’ said the plotter; ‘for all I have at
some time borne. Yet that which I most prize, that which is most feared,
hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found in your directories; it is
not a name current in post-offices or banks; and, indeed, like the
celebrated clan M’Gregor, I may justly describe myself as being nameless
by day. But,’ he continued, rising to his feet, ‘by night, and among my
desperate followers, I am the redoubted Zero.’
Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed
surprise and gratification. ‘I am to understand,’ he continued, ‘that,
under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?’ {176}
The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘In this dark period of time, a star—the star of
dynamite—has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise its
use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such incredible
difficulties and disappointments, few have been more assiduous, and not
many—’ He paused, and a shade of embarrassment appeared upon his
face—‘not many have been more successful than myself.’
‘I can imagine,’ observed Somerset, ‘that, from the sweeping consequences
looked for, the career is not devoid of interest. You have, besides,
some of the entertainment of the game of hide and seek. But it would
still seem to me—I speak as a layman—that nothing could be simpler or
safer than to deposit an infernal machine and retire to an adjacent
county to await the painful consequences.’
‘You speak, indeed,’ returned the plotter, with some evidence of warmth,
‘you speak, indeed, most ignorantly. Do you make nothing, then, of such
a peril as we share this moment? Do you think it nothing to occupy a
house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a word, literally tottering
to its fall?’
‘Good God!’ ejaculated Somerset.
‘And when you speak of ease,’ pursued Zero, ‘in this age of scientific
studies, you fill me with surprise. Are you not aware that chemicals are
proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as capricious as the very
devil? Do you see upon my brow these furrows of anxiety? Do you observe
the silver threads that mingle with my hair? Clockwork, clockwork has
stamped them on my brow—chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks! No,
Mr. Somerset,’ he resumed, after a moment’s pause, his voice still
quivering with sensibility, ‘you must not suppose the dynamiter’s life to
be all gold. On the contrary, you cannot picture to yourself the
bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like mine.
I have toiled (let us say) for months, up early and down late; my bag is
ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried with white face to
deposit the instrument of ruin; we await the fall of England, the
massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and execration; and lo! a snap
like that of a child’s pistol, an offensive smell, and the entire loss of
so much time and plant! If,’ he concluded, musingly, ‘we had been merely
able to recover the lost bags, I believe with but a touch or two, I could
have remedied the peccant engine. But what with the loss of plant and
the almost insuperable scientific difficulties of the task, our friends
in France are almost ready to desert the chosen medium. They propose,
instead, to break up the drainage system of cities and sweep off whole
populations with the devastating typhoid pestilence: a tempting and a
scientific project: a process, indiscriminate indeed, but of idyllical
simplicity. I recognise its elegance; but, sir, I have something of the
poet in my nature; something, possibly, of the tribune. And, for my
small part, I shall remain devoted to that more emphatic, more striking,
and (if you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb. Yes,’ he
cried, with unshaken hope, ‘I will still continue, and, I feel it in my
bosom, I shall yet succeed.’
‘Two things I remark,’ said Somerset. ‘The first somewhat staggers me.
Have you, then—in all this course of life, which you have sketched so
vividly—have you not once succeeded?’
‘Pardon me,’ said Zero. ‘I have had one success. You behold in me the
author of the outrage of Red Lion Court.’
‘But if I remember right,’ objected Somerset, ‘the thing was a _fiasco_.
A scavenger’s barrow and some copies of the _Weekly Budget_—these were
the only victims.’
‘You will pardon me again,’ returned Zero with positive asperity: ‘a
child was injured.’
‘And that fitly brings me to my second point,’ said Somerset. ‘For I
observed you to employ the word “indiscriminate.” Now, surely, a
scavenger’s barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the very
acme and top pin-point of indiscriminate, and, pardon me, of ineffectual
reprisal.’
‘Did I employ the word?’ asked Zero. ‘Well, I will not defend it. But
for efficiency, you touch on graver matters; and before entering upon so
vast a subject, permit me once more to fill our glasses. Disputation is
dry work,’ he added, with a charming gaiety of manner.
Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a stalwart grog; and
Zero, leaning back with an air of some complacency, proceeded more
largely to develop his opinions.
‘The indiscriminate?’ he began. ‘War, my dear sir, is indiscriminate.
War spares not the child; it spares not the barrow of the harmless
scavenger. No more,’ he concluded, beaming, ‘no more do I. Whatever may
strike fear, whatever may confound or paralyse the activities of the
guilty nation, barrow or child, imperial Parliament or excursion steamer,
is welcome to my simple plans. You are not,’ he inquired, with a shade
of sympathetic interest, ‘you are not, I trust, a believer?’
‘Sir, I believe in nothing,’ said the young man.
‘You are then,’ replied Zero, ‘in a position to grasp my argument. We
agree that humanity is the object, the glorious triumph of humanity; and
being pledged to labour for that end, and face to face with the banded
opposition of kings, parliaments, churches, and the members of the force,
who am I—who are we, dear sir—to affect a nicety about the tools
employed? You might, perhaps, expect us to attack the Queen, the
sinister Gladstone, the rigid Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but
there you would be in error. Our appeal is to the body of the people; it
is these that we would touch and interest. Now, sir, have you observed
the English housemaid?’
‘I should think I had,’ cried Somerset.
‘From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,’ returned
the conspirator politely. ‘A type apart; a very charming figure; and
thoroughly adapted to our ends. The neat cap, the clean print, the
comely person, the engaging manner; her position between classes, parents
in one, employers in another; the probability that she will have at least
one sweet-heart, whose feelings we shall address:—yes, I have a
leaning—call it, if you will, a weakness—for the housemaid. Not that I
would be understood to despise the nurse. For the child is a very
interesting feature: I have long since marked out the child as the
sensitive point in society.’ He wagged his head, with a wise, pensive
smile. ‘And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of our trade,
let me now narrate to you a little incident of an explosive bomb, that
fell out some weeks ago under my own observation. It fell out thus.’
And Zero, leaning back in his chair, narrated the following simple tale.
_ZERO’S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB_. {182}
I dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a private
chamber at St. James’s Hall. You have seen the man: it was M’Guire, the
most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself expert in our contrivances.
Hence the necessity of our meeting; for I need not remind you what
enormous issues depend upon the nice adjustment of the engine. I set our
little petard for half an hour, the scene of action being hard by; and
the better to avert miscarriage, employed a device, a recent invention of
my own, by which the opening of the Gladstone bag in which the bomb was
carried, should instantly determine the explosion. M’Guire was somewhat
dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him: and pointed out, with
excellent, clear good sense, that should he be arrested, it would
probably involve him in the fall of our opponents. But I was not to be
moved, made a strong appeal to his patriotism, gave him a good glass of
whisky, and despatched him on his glorious errand.
Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square: a spot,
I think, admirably chosen; not only for the sake of the dramatist, still
very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English race, in spite of his
disgusting political opinions; but from the fact that the seats in the
immediate neighbourhood are often thronged by children, errand-boys,
unfortunate young ladies of the poorer class and infirm old men—all
classes making a direct appeal to public pity, and therefore suitable
with our designs. As M’Guire drew near his heart was inflamed by the
most noble sentiment of triumph. Never had he seen the garden so
crowded; children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and
fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old, sick pensioner sat
upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a stick with which he
walked (for he was disabled by wounds) reclining on his knee. Guilty
England would thus be stabbed in the most delicate quarters; the moment
had, indeed, been well selected; and M’Guire, with a radiant provision of
the event, drew merrily nearer. Suddenly his eye alighted on the burly
form of a policeman, standing hard by the effigy in an attitude of watch.
My bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and there, at
different points of the enclosure, other men stood or loitered, affecting
an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the shrubs, feigning to talk,
feigning to be weary and to rest upon the benches. M’Guire was no child
in these affairs; he instantly divined one of the plots of the
Machiavellian Gladstone.
A chief difficulty with which we have to deal, is a certain nervousness
in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of some design draws
near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to suffer some revulsion
of intent; and frequently despatch to the authorities, not indeed
specific denunciations, but vague anonymous warnings. But for this
purely accidental circumstance, England had long ago been an historical
expression. On the receipt of such a letter, the Government lay a trap
for their adversaries, and surround the threatened spot with hirelings.
My blood sometimes boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those
who sell themselves for money in such a cause. True, thanks to the
generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a very comfortable
stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts me quite beyond
the reach of any peddling, mercenary thoughts; M’Guire, again, ere he
joined our ranks, was on the brink of starving, and now, thank God!
receives a decent income. That is as it should be; the patriot must not
be diverted from his task by any base consideration; and the distinction
between our position and that of the police is too obvious to be stated.
Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged; the
Government had craftily filled the place with minions; even the pensioner
was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our emissary, without
other aid or protection than the simple apparatus in his bag, found
himself confronted by force; brutal force; that strong hand which was a
character of the ages of oppression. Should he venture to deposit the
machine, it was almost certain that he would be observed and arrested; a
cry would arise; and there was just a fear that the police might not be
present in sufficient force, to protect him from the savagery of the mob.
The scheme must be delayed. He stood with his bag on his arm, pretending
to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there flashed into his mind a
thought to appal the bravest. The machine was set; at the appointed
hour, it must explode; and how, in the interval, was he to be rid of it?
Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot. There he
was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life, for he is
not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him; and now
condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by dynamite!
The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope; he saw the
Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled against the
railing. It is probable he fainted.
When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.
‘My God!’ he cried.
‘You seem to be unwell, sir,’ said the hireling.
‘I feel better now,’ cried poor M’Guire: and with uneven steps, for the
pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his footing, he
fled from the scene of this disaster. Fled? Alas, from what was he
fleeing? Did he not carry that from which he fled along with him? and
had he the wings of the eagle, had he the swiftness of the ocean winds,
could he have been rapt into the uttermost quarters of the earth, how
should he escape the ruin that he carried? We have heard of living men
who have been fettered to the dead; the grievance, soberly considered, is
no more than sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him who
should be linked, like poor M’Guire, to an explosive bomb.
A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his liver:
suppose it were the hour already. He stopped as though he had been shot,
and plucked his watch out. There was a howling in his ears, as loud as a
winter tempest; his sight was now obscured as if by a cloud, now, as by a
lightning flash, would show him the very dust upon the street. But so
brief were these intervals of vision, and so violently did the watch
vibrate in his hands, that it was impossible to distinguish the numbers
on the dial. He covered his eyes for a few seconds; and in that space,
it seemed to him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety. When he
looked again, the watch-plate had grown legible: he had twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes, and no plan!
Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a little
girl of about six drawing near to him, and as she came, kicking in front
of her, as children will, a piece of wood. She sang, too; and something
in her accent recalling him to the past, produced a sudden clearness in
his mind. Here was a God-sent opportunity!
‘My dear,’ said he, ‘would you like a present of a pretty bag?’
The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it. She had
looked first at the bag, like a true child; but most unfortunately,
before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes fell directly on
M’Guire; and no sooner had she seen the poor gentleman’s face, than she
screamed out and leaped backward, as though she had seen the devil.
Almost at the same moment a woman appeared upon the threshold of a
neighbouring shop, and called upon the child in anger. ‘Come here,
colleen,’ she said, ‘and don’t be plaguing the poor old gentleman!’ With
that she re-entered the house, and the child followed her, sobbing aloud.
With the loss of this hope M’Guire’s reason swooned within him. When
next he awoke to consciousness, he was standing before St.
Martin’s-in-the-Fields, wavering like a drunken man; the passers-by
regarding him with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image of the
terror and horror that dwelt within his own.
‘I am afraid you are very ill, sir,’ observed a woman, stopping and
gazing hard in his face. ‘Can I do anything to help you?’
‘Ill?’ said M’Guire. ‘O God!’ And then, recovering some shadow of his
self-command, ‘Chronic, madam,’ said he: ‘a long course of the dumb ague.
But since you are so compassionate—an errand that I lack the strength to
carry out,’ he gasped—‘this bag to Portman Square. Oh, compassionate
woman, as you hope to be saved, as you are a mother, in the name of your
babes that wait to welcome you at home, oh, take this bag to Portman
Square! I have a mother, too,’ he added, with a broken voice. ‘Number
19, Portman Square.’
I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice; for the
woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him. ‘Poor gentleman!’
said she. ‘If I were you, I would go home.’ And she left him standing
there in his distress.
‘Home!’ thought M’Guire, ‘what a derision!’ What home was there for him,
the victim of philanthropy? He thought of his old mother, of his happy
youth; of the hideous, rending pang of the explosion; of the possibility
that he might not be killed, that he might be cruelly mangled, crippled
for life, condemned to lifelong pains, blinded perhaps, and almost surely
deafened. Ah, you spoke lightly of the dynamiter’s peril; but even
waiving death, have you realised what it is for a fine, brave young man
of forty, to be smitten suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the
music of life, and from the voice of friendship, and love? How little do
we realise the sufferings of others! Even your brutal Government, in the
heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the
patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman, and
to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so horrible a
doom: not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from philanthropy, but with
the fear before it of the withering scorn of the good.
But I wander from M’Guire. From this dread glance into the past and
future, his thoughts returned at a bound upon the present. How had he
wandered there? and how long—oh, heavens! how long had he been about it?
He pulled out his watch; and found that but three minutes had elapsed.
It seemed too bright a thing to be believed. He glanced at the church
clock; and sure enough, it marked an hour four minutes faster than the
watch.
Of all that he endured, M’Guire declares that pang was the most desolate.
Till then, he had had one friend, one counsellor, in whom he plenarily
trusted; by whose advertisement, he numbered the minutes that remained to
him of life; on whose sure testimony, he could tell when the time was
come to risk the last adventure, to cast the bag away from him, and take
to flight. And now in what was he to place reliance? His watch was
slow; it might be losing time; if so, in what degree? What limit could
he set to its derangement? and how much was it possible for a watch to
lose in thirty minutes? Five? ten? fifteen? It might be so; already, it
seemed years since he had left St. James’s Hall on this so promising
enterprise; at any moment, then, the blow was to be looked for.
In the face of this new distress, the wild disorder of his pulses settled
down; and a broken weariness succeeded, as though he had lived for
centuries and for centuries been dead. The buildings and the people in
the street became incredibly small, and far-away, and bright; London
sounded in his ears stilly, like a whisper; and the rattle of the cab
that nearly charged him down, was like a sound from Africa. Meanwhile,
he was conscious of a strange abstraction from himself; and heard and
felt his footfalls on the ground, as those of a very old, small, debile
and tragically fortuned man, whom he sincerely pitied.
As he was thus moving forward past the National Gallery, in a medium, it
seemed, of greater rarity and quiet than ordinary air, there slipped into
his mind the recollection of a certain entry in Whitcomb Street hard by,
where he might perhaps lay down his tragic cargo unremarked. Thither,
then, he bent his steps, seeming, as he went, to float above the
pavement; and there, in the mouth of the entry, he found a man in a
sleeved waistcoat, gravely chewing a straw. He passed him by, and twice
patrolled the entry, scouting for the barest chance; but the man had
faced about and continued to observe him curiously.
Another hope was gone. M’Guire reissued from the entry, still followed
by the wondering eyes of the man in the sleeved waistcoat. He once more
consulted his watch: there were but fourteen minutes left to him. At
that, it seemed as if a sudden, genial heat were spread about his brain;
for a second or two, he saw the world as red as blood; and thereafter
entered into a complete possession of himself, with an incredible
cheerfulness of spirits, prompting him to sing and chuckle as he walked.
And yet this mirth seemed to belong to things external; and within, like
a black and leaden-heavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his
soul.
I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me,
he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the passengers
stared upon him on the street. And still the warmth seemed to increase
and to become more genial. What was life? he considered, and what he,
M’Guire? What even Erin, our green Erin? All seemed so incalculably
little that he smiled as he looked down upon it. He would have given
years, had he possessed them, for a glass of spirits; but time failed,
and he must deny himself this last indulgence.
At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom cab;
jumped in; bade the fellow drive him to a part of the Embankment, which
he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in motion, concealed the bag as
completely as he could under the vantage of the apron, and once more drew
out his watch. So he rode for five interminable minutes, his heart in
his mouth at every jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing
to wake the attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and
willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget the Gladstone bag.
At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed; the
cab was stopped; and he alighted—with how glad a heart! He thrust his
hand into his pocket. All was now over; he had saved his life; nor that
alone, but he had engineered a striking act of dynamite; for what could
be more pictorial, what more effective, than the explosion of a hansom
cab, as it sped rapidly along the streets of London. He felt in one
pocket; then in another. The most crushing seizure of despair descended
on his soul; and struck into abject dumbness, he stared upon the driver.
He had not one penny.
‘Hillo,’ said the driver, ‘don’t seem well.’
‘Lost my money,’ said M’Guire, in tones so faint and strange that they
surprised his hearing.
The man looked through the trap. ‘I dessay,’ said he: ‘you’ve left your
bag.’
M’Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that black
continent at arm’s length, withered inwardly and felt his features
sharpen as with mortal sickness.
‘This is not mine,’ said he. ‘Your last fare must have left it. You had
better take it to the station.’
‘Now look here,’ returned the cabman: ‘are you off your chump? or am I?’
‘Well, then, I’ll tell you what,’ exclaimed M’Guire; ‘you take it for
your fare!’
‘Oh, I dessay,’ replied the driver. ‘Anything else? What’s _in_ your
bag? Open it, and let me see.’
‘No, no,’ returned M’Guire. ‘Oh no, not that. It’s a surprise; it’s
prepared expressly: a surprise for honest cabmen.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming very
close to the unhappy patriot. ‘You’re either going to pay my fare, or
get in again and drive to the office.’
It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M’Guire spied the stout
figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of Rupert Street, drawing near along
the Embankment. The man was not unknown to him; he had bought of his
wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of liberality; and such was now
the nearness of his peril, that even at such a straw of hope, he clutched
with gratitude.
‘Thank God!’ he cried. ‘Here comes a friend of mine. I’ll borrow.’ And
he dashed to meet the tradesman. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘Mr. Godall, I have
dealt with you—you doubtless know my face—calamities for which I cannot
blame myself have overwhelmed me. Oh, sir, for the love of innocence,
for the sake of the bonds of humanity, and as you hope for mercy at the
throne of grace, lend me two-and-six!’
‘I do not recognise your face,’ replied Mr. Godall; ‘but I remember the
cut of your beard, which I have the misfortune to dislike. Here, sir, is
a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you, on the single
condition that you shave your chin.’
M’Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman, calling
out to him to keep the change; bounded down the steps, flung the bag far
forth into the river, and fell headlong after it. He was plucked from a
watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of Mr. Godall. Even as he was
being hoisted dripping to the shore, a dull and choked explosion shook
the solid masonry of the Embankment, and far out in the river a momentary
fountain rose and disappeared.
_THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION_
(_Continued_)
Somerset in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words. He had, in
the meanwhile, applied himself assiduously to the flagon; the plotter
began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover on his seat; and
with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man rose unsteadily to his
feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third grog, insisted that the hour
was late and he must positively get to bed.
‘Dear me,’ observed Zero, ‘I find you very temperate. But I will not be
oppressive. Suffice it that we are now fast friends; and, my dear
landlord, _au revoir_!’
So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest
ceremonies, and some necessary guidance, conducted the bewildered young
gentleman to the top of the stair.
Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which Somerset remained in
utter darkness; but the next morning when, at a blow, he started broad
awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect hurricane of horror and wonder.
That he should have suffered himself to be led into the semblance of
intimacy with such a man as his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold
light of day, a mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a
situation that might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand. That was
perhaps a palliation; but it was no excuse. For so wholesale a
capitulation of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no
excuse indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at once from
the relation.
As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a rupture.
Zero hailed him with the warmth of an old friend.
‘Come in,’ he cried, ‘dear Mr. Somerset! Come in, sit down, and, without
ceremony, join me at my morning meal.’
‘Sir,’ said Somerset, ‘you must permit me first to disengage my honour.
Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of complicity; but
once for all, let me inform you that I regard you and your machinations
\with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no stone unturned to
crush your vile conspiracy.’
‘My dear fellow,’ replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, ‘I am
well accustomed to these human weaknesses. Disgust? I have felt it
myself; it speedily wears off. I think none the worse, I think the more
of you, for this engaging frankness. And in the meanwhile, what are you
to do? You find yourself, if I interpret rightly, in very much the same
situation as Charles the Second (possibly the least degraded of your
British sovereigns) when he was taken into the confidence of the thief.
To denounce me, is out of the question; and what else can you attempt?
No, dear Mr. Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself
condemned, under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming
and intellectual companion who delighted me last night.’
‘At least,’ cried Somerset, ‘I can, and do, order you to leave this
house.’
‘Ah!’ cried the plotter, ‘but there I fail to follow you. You may, if
you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as I suppose, you recoil
from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too intelligent to
leave these lodgings, in which I please myself exceedingly, and from
which you lack the power to drive me. No, no, dear sir; here I am, and
here I propose to stay.’
‘I repeat,’ cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own
weakness, ‘I repeat that I give you warning. I am the master of this
house; and I emphatically give you warning.’
‘A week’s warning?’ said the imperturbable conspirator. ‘Very well: we
will talk of it a week from now. That is arranged; and in the meanwhile,
I observe my breakfast growing cold. Do, dear Mr. Somerset, since you
find yourself condemned, for a week at least, to the society of a very
interesting character, display some of that open favour, some of that
interest in life’s obscurer sides, which stamp the character of the true
artist. Hang me, if you will, to-morrow; but to-day show yourself
divested of the scruples of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly to share
my meal.’
‘Man!’ cried Somerset, ‘do you understand my sentiments?’
‘Certainly,’ replied Zero; ‘and I respect them! Would you be outdone in
such a contest? will you alone be partial? and in this nineteenth
century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to differ on a point of
politics? Come, sir: all your hard words have left me smiling; judge
then, which of us is the philosopher!’
Somerset was a young man of a very tolerant disposition and by nature
easily amenable to sophistry. He threw up his hands with a gesture of
despair, and took the seat to which the conspirator invited him. The
meal was excellent; the host not only affable, but primed with curious
information. He seemed, indeed, like one who had too long endured the
torture of silence, to exult in the most wholesale disclosures. The
interest of what he had to tell was great; his character, besides,
developed step by step; and Somerset, as the time fled, not only outgrew
some of the discomfort of his false position, but began to regard the
conspirator with a familiarity that verged upon contempt. In any
circumstances, he had a singular inability to leave the society in which
he found himself; company, even if distasteful, held him captive like a
limed sparrow; and on this occasion, he suffered hour to follow hour, was
easily persuaded to sit down once more to table, and did not even attempt
to withdraw till, on the approach of evening, Zero, with many apologies,
dismissed his guest. His fellow-conspirators, the dynamiter handsomely
explained, as they were unacquainted with the sterling qualities of the
young man, would be alarmed at the sight of a strange face.
As soon as he was alone, Somerset fell back upon the humour of the
morning. He raged at the thought of his facility; he paced the
dining-room, forming the sternest resolutions for the future; he wrung
the hand which had been dishonoured by the touch of an assassin; and
among all these whirling thoughts, there flashed in from time to time,
and ever with a chill of fear, the thought of the confounded ingredients
with which the house was stored. A powder magazine seemed a secure
smoking-room alongside of the Superfluous Mansion.
He sought refuge in flight, in locomotion, in the flowing bowl. As long
as the bars were open, he travelled from one to another, seeking light,
safety, and the companionship of human faces; when these resources failed
him, he fell back on the belated baked-potato man; and at length, still
pacing the streets, he was goaded to fraternise with the police. Alas,
with what a sense of guilt he conversed with these guardians of the law;
how gladly had he wept upon their ample bosoms; and how the secret
fluttered to his lips and was still denied an exit! Fatigue began at
last to triumph over remorse; and about the hour of the first milkman, he
returned to the door of the mansion; looked at it with a horrid
expectation, as though it should have burst that instant into flames;
drew out his key, and when his foot already rested on the steps, once
more lost heart and fled for repose to the grisly shelter of a
coffee-shop.
It was on the stroke of noon when he awoke. Dismally searching in his
pockets, he found himself reduced to half-a-crown; and when he had paid
the price of his distasteful couch, saw himself obliged to return to the
Superfluous Mansion. He sneaked into the hall and stole on tiptoe to the
cupboard where he kept his money. Yet half a minute, he told himself,
and he would be free for days from his obseding lodger, and might decide
at leisure on the course he should pursue. But fate had otherwise
designed: there came a tap at the door and Zero entered.
‘Have I caught you?’ he cried, with innocent gaiety. ‘Dear fellow, I was
growing quite impatient.’ And on the speaker’s somewhat stolid face,
there came a glow of genuine affection. ‘I am so long unused to have a
friend,’ he continued, ‘that I begin to be afraid I may prove jealous.’
And he wrung the hand of his landlord.
Somerset was, of all men, least fit to deal with such a greeting. To
reject these kind advances was beyond his strength. That he could not
return cordiality for cordiality, was already almost more than he could
carry. That inequality between kind sentiments which, to generous
characters, will always seem to be a sort of guilt, oppressed him to the
ground; and he stammered vague and lying words.
‘That is all right,’ cried Zero—‘that is as it should be—say no more! I
had a vague alarm; I feared you had deserted me; but I now own that fear
to have been unworthy, and apologise. To doubt of your forgiveness were
to repeat my sin. Come, then; dinner waits; join me again and tell me
your adventures of the night.’
Kindness still sealed the lips of Somerset; and he suffered himself once
more to be set down to table with his innocent and criminal acquaintance.
Once more, the plotter plunged up to the neck in damaging disclosures:
now it would be the name and biography of an individual, now the address
of some important centre, that rose, as if by accident, upon his lips;
and each word was like another turn of the thumbscrew to his unhappy
guest. Finally, the course of Zero’s bland monologue led him to the
young lady of two days ago: that young lady, who had flashed on Somerset
for so brief a while but with so conquering a charm; and whose engaging
grace, communicative eyes, and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt,
remained imprinted on his memory.
‘You saw her?’ said Zero. ‘Beautiful, is she not? She, too, is one of
ours: a true enthusiast: nervous, perhaps, in presence of the chemicals;
but in matters of intrigue, the very soul of skill and daring. Lake,
Fonblanque, de Marly, Valdevia, such are some of the names that she
employs; her true name—but there, perhaps, I go too far. Suffice it,
that it is to her I owe my present lodging, and, dear Somerset, the
pleasure of your acquaintance. It appears she knew the house. You see
dear fellow, I make no concealment: all that you can care to hear, I tell
you openly.’
‘For God’s sake,’ cried the wretched Somerset, ‘hold your tongue! You
cannot imagine how you torture me!’
A shade of serious discomposure crossed the open countenance of Zero.
‘There are times,’ he said, ‘when I begin to fancy that you do not like
me. Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality? I am depressed;
the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail’—he gloomily
nodded—‘from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I fall, dear boy,
into contempt. These are grave thoughts, and you may judge my need of
your delightful company. Innocent prattler, you relieve the weight of my
concerns. And yet . . . and yet . . .’ The speaker pushed away his
plate, and rose from table. ‘Follow me,’ said he, ‘follow me. My mood
is on; I must have air, I must behold the plain of battle.’
So saying, he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion, and
thence, by ladder and trap, to a certain leaded platform, sheltered at
one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the actual summit of
the roof. On both sides, it bordered, without parapet or rail, on the
incline of slates; and, northward above all, commanded an extensive view
of housetops, and rising through the smoke, the distant spires of
churches.
‘Here,’ cried Zero, ‘you behold this field of city, rich, crowded,
laughing with the spoil of continents; but soon, how soon, to be laid
low! Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you shall perhaps
be startled by the detonation of the judgment gun—not sharp and empty
like the crack of cannon, but deep-mouthed and unctuously solemn.
Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the flames break forth. Ay,’ he
cried, stretching forth his hand, ‘ay, that will be a day of retribution.
Then shall the pallid constable flee side by side with the detected
thief. Blaze!’ he cried, ‘blaze, derided city! Fall, flatulent
monarchy, fall like Dagon!’
With these words his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for Somerset’s
quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into space. Pale as a
sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was dragged from the edge of
downfall by one arm; helped, or rather carried, down the ladder; and
deposited in safety on the attic landing. Here he began to come to
himself, wiped his brow, and at length, seizing Somerset’s hand in both
of his, began to utter his acknowledgments.
‘This seals it,’ said he. ‘Ours is a life and death connection. You
have plucked me from the jaws of death; and if I were before attracted by
your character, judge now of the ardour of my gratitude and love! But I
perceive I am still greatly shaken. Lend me, I beseech you, lend me your
arm as far as my apartment.’
A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his customary
self-possession; and he was standing, glass in hand and genially
convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection of the
unfortunate young man.
‘Good heavens, dear Somerset,’ he cried, ‘what ails you? Let me offer
you a touch of spirits.’
But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.
‘Let me be,’ he said. ‘I am lost; you have caught me in the toils. Up
to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless manner, and
done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect innocence. And
now—what am I? Are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the
loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible you can suppose me willing
to continue to exist upon such terms? To think,’ he cried, ‘that a young
man, guilty of no fault on earth but amiability, should find himself
involved in such a damned imbroglio!’ And placing his knuckles in his
eyes, Somerset rolled upon the sofa.
‘My God,’ said Zero, ‘is this possible? And I so filled with tenderness
and interest! Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are under the empire of
these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a patriot by the morality of
the religious tract? I thought you were a good agnostic.’
‘Mr. Jones,’ said Somerset, ‘it is in vain to argue. I boast myself a
total disbeliever, not only in revealed religion, but in the data,
method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics. Well! what matters it?
what signifies a form of words? I regard you as a reptile, whom I would
rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel. You would blow up others?
Well then, understand: I want, with every circumstance of infamy and
agony, to blow up you!’
‘Somerset, Somerset!’ said Zero, turning very pale, ‘this is wrong; this
is very wrong. You pain, you wound me, Somerset.’
‘Give me a match!’ cried Somerset wildly. ‘Let me set fire to this
incomparable monster! Let me perish with him in his fall!’
‘For God’s sake,’ cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, ‘for God’s
sake command yourself! We stand upon the brink; death yawns around us; a
man—a stranger in this foreign land—one whom you have called your
friend—’
‘Silence!’ cried Somerset, ‘you are no friend, no friend of mine. I look
on you with loathing, like a toad: my flesh creeps with physical
repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.’
Zero burst into tears. ‘Alas!’ he sobbed, ‘this snaps the last link that
bound me to humanity. My friend disowns—he insults me. I am indeed
accurst.’
Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of front.
The next moment, with a despairing gesture, he fled from the room and
from the house. The first dash of his escape carried him hard upon
half-way to the next police-office: but presently began to droop; and
before he reached the house of lawful intervention, he fell once more
among doubtful counsels. Was he an agnostic? had he a right to act?
Away with such nonsense, and let Zero perish! ran his thoughts. And then
again: had he not promised, had he not shaken hands and broken bread? and
that with open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit
honour? But honour? what was honour? A figment, which, in the hot
pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside. Ay, but crime? A figment,
too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded. All day, he wandered in
the parks, a prey to whirling thoughts; all night, patrolled the city;
and at the peep of day he sat down by the wayside in the neighbourhood of
Peckham and bitterly wept. His gods had fallen. He who had chosen the
broad, daylit, unencumbered paths of universal scepticism, found himself
still the bondslave of honour. He who had accepted life from a point of
view as lofty as the predatory eagle’s, though with no design to prey; he
who had clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial
competition, and of crime; he who was prepared to help the escaping
murderer or to embrace the impenitent thief, found, to the overthrow of
all his logic, that he objected to the use of dynamite. The dawn crept
among the sleeping villas and over the smokeless fields of city; and
still the unfortunate sceptic sobbed over his fall from consistency.
At length, he rose and took the rising sun to witness. ‘There is no
question as to fact,’ he cried; ‘right and wrong are but figments and the
shadow of a word; but for all that, there are certain things that I
cannot do, and there are certain others that I will not stand.’
Thereupon he decided to return to make one last effort of persuasion,
and, if he could not prevail on Zero to desist from his infernal trade,
throw delicacy to the winds, give the plotter an hour’s start, and
denounce him to the police. Fast as he went, being winged by this
resolution, it was already well on in the morning when he came in sight
of the Superfluous Mansion. Tripping down the steps, was the young lady
of the various aliases; and he was surprised to see upon her countenance
the marks of anger and concern.
‘Madam,’ he began, yielding to impulse and with no clear knowledge of
what he was to add.
But at the sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of fear or
horror; started back; lowered her veil with a sudden movement; and fled,
without turning, from the square.
Here then, we step aside a moment from following the fortunes of
Somerset, and proceed to relate the strange and romantic episode of THE
BROWN BOX.