BY AN OVERSIGHT OF SOCIETY'S.
François Gaspard was a pleasant and cheerful man, good company, and
genial to his neighbours and comrades, but it may be doubted whether
Society had not made a grave mistake in not hanging him at the earliest
opportunity. In his younger days he had lived in perpetual warfare
against Society, its institutions and constitutions--a warfare that he
carried on without scruple and without quarter: he would have had no
cause for complaint had he been dealt with on this basis of his own
choosing. Society, however, had chosen to fancy that it could reform
François, or, failing that, could keep him alive and yet harmless.
Thanks to this sanguine view, he found himself, at the age of
forty-five, a free man in New Lindsey; and, thinking that he and his
native country had had about enough of one another, he had enrolled
himself as a subject of her Majesty, and had plunged into the affairs of
his new home with his usual energy. François was not indeed quite the
man he had been in his palmy time, his nerve was not so good, and his
life was more comfortable, and therefore not so lightly to be risked;
but he had made no renunciations, and often regretted that New Lindsey
was a barren soil, wherein the seed he sowed bore little fruit. He could
not be happy without a secret society, and that he had established in
Kirton; but it was, he ruefully admitted, hardly more than a toy, a
mockery, the merest _simulacrum_. The members displayed no alacrity;
they were but five all told, besides himself: a bookseller's assistant,
a watchmaker (he was a German, but the larger cause harmonised all
differences), two artisans, and--what is either natural or strange,
according to one's estimation of parliamentary government--a doorkeeper
in the Houses of Parliament. They used to meet at Gaspard's lodgings,
regret, in tones as loud as prudence permitted, the abuses of the
_status quo_, spend a social evening, and return to the outer world with
a tickling sense of mystery and potential destructiveness. Gaspard held
the very lowest opinion of them; he acknowledged that the "propaganda by
action" took small root in New Lindsey, and when it came into his head
that Mr. Benham was worse than superfluous, he admitted with a shrug the
great difficulties that lay in the way of removing his acquaintance. A
man could not do everything by himself, the matter was after all not
very pressing, and he almost made up his mind to let Mr. Benham live.
Such was the chain of his reflections, and if Society had clearly
realised the way he looked at such things, it can hardly be supposed
that Gaspard would have been left unhanged.
Nevertheless, almost academic as the question was, Gaspard indulged his
humour by hinting to his associates that, in certain contingencies,
there might be work for their hands. He would not be more explicit, for
he was distrustful of them; but this vague hint was quite enough to
cause some perturbation. The bookseller's assistant turned rather pale,
and expressed a preference for waiting till one final, decisive, and
overwhelming blow could be struck. He was understood to favour a
wholesale massacre at Government House, but reminded his hearers of the
dangers of hasty action. The watchmaker was strong on the division of
functions: one man was valuable in counsel, another in the field; he
belonged, he said, to the former category. The artisans smiled broadly
over their drink, and openly declared that the President must "give 'em
a lead." The doorkeeper reinforced this suggestion by reminding them
that he was a husband and father, whereas Gaspard was a bachelor. All
united in asking for further information, and were annoyed when Gaspard
referred them to the rule governing such associations as theirs, namely,
that the member to carry out the deed, if resolved upon, should be
designated before the nature of the deed was discussed, or its
desirability finally decided. If this were not so, he pointed out, a
member's opinion on the merits of the scheme might be biased by the
knowledge that he would, if fate so willed, have to carry it out.
According to his rule, the designated member had no vote.
"Not know who it is?" exclaimed the doorkeeper. "Why, a man might be
asked to take off his own brother!"
"Perfectly," smiled Gaspard. "It is to avoid any painful conflict of
duties that the rule exists." He looked round the table with a broader
smile, and added--"Shall it be the lot?"
The feeling of the meeting was against the lot. They preferred to choose
their man.
"Let's vote by ballot," suggested the watchmaker.
"Agreed!" cried Gaspard, and they flung folded scraps of paper into a
hat.
There was one vote for the doorkeeper: it came out first, and the
doorkeeper wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. But soon he smiled
again; the other four were all for Gaspard, who returned thanks for the
honour in a few words.
"As soon as the information is complete, I will summon you again," he
said, dismissing them, and lighting his cigarette with a chuckle of
mockery. Really, it seemed impossible to do anything with these
creatures, and Gaspard did not feel quite so eager as he used to be to
put his own neck in the noose. If he acted, he must, probably, fly from
New Lindsey, and he was very comfortable and doing very well there. No;
on second thoughts he doubted if the duty of removing Mr. Benham was
absolutely imperative.
Meanwhile Benham would have been much surprised to hear that his latter
end was a subject of dispassionate contemplation to the little
Frenchman. No subject was more remote from his own thoughts. He was in
high feather, the hour was fast approaching which was to witness his
triumph and his revenge; the gag would soon be taken from his mouth, and
his deadly disclosure would smite Medland like a sword. His sentiment
was satisfied with the prospect, and Kilshaw took care that his pocket
should have nothing to complain of. He refused indeed to provide for
Benham in his own employ for obvious reasons; but he promised him a
strong, though private, recommendation to an important house, in
addition to the agreed price of his information, which was a thousand
pounds, half to be paid in advance. The first five hundred pounds was
paid on the day before the Premier's great meeting, for, if the Ministry
weathered Monday's storm, the last weapon in the arsenal was to be
brought into use. So said Mr. Kilshaw, still hoping to avoid the
necessity, still resolute to face it if he must. Benham took his money
and went his way, with one of those familiar, confidential looks and
jocular speeches which filled Kilshaw's cup of disgust to the brim.
Whenever the man did that sort of thing, Kilshaw was within an ace of
kicking him down-stairs and throwing away the poisoned weapon; but he
never did.
Mere chance willed that as Gaspard on Saturday evening was going home,
having done a hard day's work at organising a trade procession for the
next day, he should fall in with Benham. He stopped to speak, feeling an
interest in all that concerned the man; and Benham, radiant and effusive
from the process of "moistening his luck," would not be satisfied till
Gaspard had agreed to sup with him and at his charges.
"Oh, if you like to do a good deed to an enemy," laughed the Frenchman,
letting the other seize him by the arm and lead him off; and he thought
to himself that he might as well spare so liberal a host. Might there
not be other suppers in the future? Dead men, if they told no tales,
paid for no suppers either.
After the meal they had another bottle of wine, and Benham called for a
pack of cards. François won, and politely apologised.
"It is too bad of me," he said, "after your hospitality, _mon cher_."
"Oh, five pound won't hurt me, or ten either," cried Benham, draining
his glass.
"No? Happy man!"
"I know where money comes from," continued Benham, with a wink.
"Ah, a man who knows what you do!" retorted Gaspard. "Have you forgotten
telling me--you know--about our good Medland?"
"Did I tell you? Well, I had forgotten. Who cares! It's true--every
word."
"Oh, I don't say it isn't," laughed Gaspard incredulously.
"But you don't believe it is?"
"We can't help our thoughts, but----" and another laugh ended his
sentence.
Benham looked round. They were alone. Cautiously he drew a bag of money
and a roll of notes from his pocket. For a moment he opened the bag and
showed the gleam inside; wetting his forefinger, he parted the notes for
a second.
"Some one believes it," he said, "up to five hundred pound."
"That's the sort of belief I'd like to inspire," laughed Gaspard,
watching the money back into its pocket with a curious eye.
"Come, you're not drinking," urged the hospitable Benham.
"You don't show me the way," untruthfully answered the guest, as Benham
complacently buttoned up his coat, little imagining that his neighbour
was weighing a question, very momentous to him, in the light of fresh
information.
Five hundred pounds! The duty of removing Benham began to look rather
imperative again, but from a different point of view. François had of
late worked for his living, a mode of existence which seemed to him
anomalous, and ill suited to his genius. Five hundred pounds meant, to a
man of his frugal habits and tact in eliciting hospitality three years'
comfortable idleness. It was no doubt apparent now that Benham had
already parted with his secret, and that, if anything happened to him,
the secret would still remain to vex the good Medland. Gaspard regretted
this; he would have liked to combine public and private advantage in the
job. But a man must not ask everything, or he may end by having to take
nothing. Here sat a drunken fool with five hundred pounds; opposite to
him sat a sober sharp-wit with only five. The situation was full of
suggestion. If the five hundred could be got from the fool without
violence, well and good; but really, thought Mr. Gaspard, their
transference to the sharp-wit must be effected somehow, or that
sharp-wit had no title to the name.
"Care to play any more?" asked Benham.
"Not I, my friend, I have robbed you enough."
"And about time for the luck to turn, isn't it? Well, I don't care! What
shall we do?"
"What you will," answered the Frenchman absently.
Benham pulled his beard, then leant forward and put a question with an
intoxicated leer. A laugh of feigned reproof burst from Gaspard. Benham
seemed to urge him, and at last he said,
"Oh, if you're bent on it, I can be your guide."
The two men left the house arm-in-arm, went down the street, and crossed
Digby Square. It was late, and few people were about, but Gaspard saw
one acquaintance. The doorkeeper was strolling along on his way home,
and Gaspard bade him good-night in a cheery voice as they passed him.
The doorkeeper stood and watched the pair for a minute as they left the
Square and turned down a narrow street which led to the poorer part of
the town, and thence to the quays. He heard Gaspard's high-pitched voice
and shrill laughter, and, in answer, Benham's thick tones and heavy
shout of drunken mirth. Once or twice these sounds repeated themselves,
then they ceased; the footsteps of the Frenchman and his companion died
away in the distance. The doorkeeper went on his way, thinking with
relief that Mr. Gaspard, for all his tall talk, was more at home with a
bottle than with a knife or a bomb.
Notwithstanding his dissipation, Gaspard was afoot very early in the
morning. It was hardly light, and the deep scratch of finger-nails on
his face--it is so awkward when drunken fools wake at the wrong
minute--attracted no attention from the few people he encountered. He
did not give them long to look at him, for he hurried swiftly through
the streets, towards the quays where the ships lay loading their
cargoes. He seemed to have urgent business to transact down there,
business that would brook no delay, and that was, if one might guess
from his uneasy glances over his shoulder, of a private nature. With one
hand he held tight hold of something in his trousers pocket, the other
rested on his belt, hard by a little revolver. In his business it is
necessary to be ready for everything.
Meanwhile Mr. Benham, having no affairs to trouble him, and no more
business to transact, stayed where he was.