Chapter 8
"Of course it would. Now, you listen to me. I'm going to commit that so-called crime. One week after you publish the story, I'm going down to that country house, Channor Chase. It is my house, if there was justice and right in England, and I'm going to slaughter every one in it. I will leave a letter, saying the story in the _Sponge_ is the true story of what led to the tragedy. Your paper in a week will be the most-talked-of journal in England--in the world. It will leap instantaneously into a circulation such as no weekly on earth ever before attained. Look here, Shorely, that story is worth L50,000 rather than L50, and if you don't buy it at once, some one else will. Now, what do you say?"
"I say you are joking, or else, as I said just now, you are as mad as a hatter."
"Admitting I am mad, will you take the story?"
"No, but I'll prevent you committing the crime."
"How?"
"By giving you in charge. By informing on you."
"You can't do it. Until such a crime is committed, no one would believe it could be committed. You have no witnesses to our conversation here, and I will deny every assertion you make. My word, at present, is as good as yours. All you can do is to ruin your chance of fortune, which knocks at every man's door. When I came in, you were wondering what you could do to put the _Sponge_ on its feet. I saw it in your attitude. Now, what do you say?"
"I'll give you L25 for the story on its own merits, although it is a big price, and you need not commit the crime."
"Done! That is the sum I wanted, but I knew if I asked it, you would offer me L12 10_s_. Will you publish it within the month?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Write out the cheque. Don't cross it. I've no bank account."
When the cheque was handed to him, Gibberts thrust it into the ticket- pocket of his ulster, turned abruptly, and unlocked the door. "Good- bye," he said.
As he disappeared, Shorely noticed how long his ulster was, and how it flapped about his heels. The next time he saw the novelist was under circumstances that could never be effaced from his memory.
The _Sponge_ was a sixteen-page paper, with a blue cover, and the week Gibberts' story appeared, it occupied the first seven pages. As Shorely ran it over in the paper, it impressed him more than it had done in manuscript. A story always seems more convincing in type.
Shorely met several men at the Club, who spoke highly of the story, and at last he began to believe it was a good one himself. Johnson was particularly enthusiastic, and every one in the Club knew Johnson's opinion was infallible.
"How did _you_ come to get hold of it?" he said to Shorely, with unnecessary emphasis on the personal pronoun.
"Don't you think I know a good story when I see it?" asked the editor, indignantly.
"It isn't the general belief of the Club," replied Johnson, airily; "but then, all the members have sent you contributions, so perhaps that accounts for it. By the way, have you seen Gibberts lately?"
"No; why do you ask?"
"Well, it strikes me he is acting rather queerly. If you asked me, I don't think he is quite sane. He has something on his mind."
"He told me," said the new member, with some hesitation--"but really I don't think I'm justified in mentioning it, although he did not tell it in confidence--that he was the rightful heir to a property in----"
"Oh, we all know that story!" cried the Club, unanimously.
"I think it's the Club whiskey," said one of the oldest members. "I say, it's the worst in London."
"Verbal complaints not received. Write to the Committee," put in Johnson. "If Gibberts has a friend in the Club, which I doubt, that friend should look after him. I believe he will commit suicide yet."
These sayings troubled Shorely as he walked back to his office. He sat down to write a note, asking Gibberts to call. As he was writing, McCabe, the business manager of the _Sponge_, came in.
"What's the matter with the old sheet this week?" he asked.
"Matter? I don't understand you."
"Well, I have just sent an order to the printer to run off an extra ten thousand, and here comes a demand from Smith's for the whole lot. The extra ten thousand were to go to different newsagents all over the country who have sent repeat orders, so I have told the printer now to run off at least twenty-five thousand, and to keep the plates on the press. I never read the _Sponge_ myself, so I thought I would drop in and ask you what the attraction was. This rush is unnatural.
"Better read the paper and find out," said Shorely.
"I would, if there wasn't so much of your stuff in it," retorted McCabe.
Next day McCabe reported an almost bewildering increase in orders. He had a jubilant "we've-done-it-at-last" air that exasperated Shorely, who felt that he alone should have the credit. There had come no answer to the note he had sent Gibberts, so he went to the Club, in the hope of meeting him. He found Johnson, whom he asked if Gibberts were there.
"He's not been here to-day," said Johnson; "but I saw him yesterday, and what do you think he was doing? He was in a gun-shop in the Strand, buying cartridges for that villainous-looking seven-shooter of his. I asked him what he was going to do with a revolver in London, and he told me, shortly, that it was none of my business, which struck me as so accurate a summing-up of the situation, that I came away without making further remark. If you want any more stories by Gibberts, you should look after him."
Shorely found himself rapidly verging into a state of nervousness regarding Gibberts. He was actually beginning to believe the novelist meditated some wild action, which might involve others in a disagreeable complication. Shorely had no desire to be accessory either before or after the fact. He hurried back to the office, and there found Gibberts' belated reply to his note. He hastily tore it open, and the reading of it completely banished what little self-control he had left.
"Dear Shorely,--I know why you want to see me, but I have so many affairs to settle, that it is impossible for me to call upon you. However, have no fears; I shall stand to my bargain, without any goading from you. Only a few days have elapsed since the publication of the story, and I did not promise the tragedy before the week was out. I leave for Channor Chase this afternoon. You shall have your pound of flesh, and more.--Yours,
"BROMLEY GIBBERTS."
Shorely was somewhat pale about the lips when he had finished this scrawl. He flung on his coat, and rushed into the street. Calling a hansom, he said--
"Drive to Kidner's Inn as quickly as you can. No. 15."
Once there, he sprang up the steps two at a time, and knocked at Gibberts' door. The novelist allowed himself the luxury of a "man," and it was the "man" who answered Shorely's imperious knock.
"Where's Gibberts?"
"He's just gone, sir."
"Gone where?"
"To Euston Station, I believe, sir; and he took a hansom. He's going into the country for a week, sir, and I wasn't to forward his letters, so I haven't his address."
"Have you an 'ABC'?"
"Yes, sir; step inside, sir. Mr. Gibberts was just looking up trains in it, sir, before he left."
Shorely saw it was open at C, and, looking down the column to Channor, he found that a train left in about twenty minutes. Without a word, he dashed down the stairs again. The "man" did not seem astonished. Queer fish sometimes came to see his master.
"Can you get me to Euston Station in twenty minutes?"
The cabman shook his head, as he said--
"I'll do my best, sir, but we ought to have a good half-hour."
The driver did his best, and landed Shorely on the departure platform two minutes after the train had gone.
"When is the next train to Channor?" demanded Shorely of a porter.
"Just left, sir."
"The next train hasn't just left, you fool. Answer my question."
"Two hours and twenty minutes, sir," replied the porter, in a huff.
Shorely thought of engaging a special, but realised he hadn't money enough. Perhaps he could telegraph and warn the people of Channor Chase, but he did not know to whom to telegraph. Or, again, he thought he might have Gibberts arrested on some charge or other at Channor Station. That, he concluded, was the way out--dangerous, but feasible.
By this time, however, the porter had recovered his equanimity. Porters cannot afford to cherish resentment, and this particular porter saw half a crown in the air.
"Did you wish to reach Channor before the train that's just gone, sir?"
"Yes. Can it be done?"
"It might be done, sir," said the porter, hesitatingly, as if he were on the verge of divulging a State secret which would cost him his situation. He wanted the half-crown to become visible before he committed himself further.
"Here's half a sovereign, if you tell me how it can be done, short of hiring a special."
"Well, sir, you could take the express that leaves at the half-hour. It will carry you fifteen miles beyond Channor, to Buley Junction, then in seventeen minutes you can get a local back to Channor, which is due three minutes before the down train reaches there--if the local is in time," he added, when the gold piece was safe stowed in his pocket.
While waiting for the express, Shorely bought a copy of the _Sponge_, and once more he read Gibberts' story on the way down. The third reading appalled him. He was amazed he had not noticed before the deadly earnestness of its tone. We are apt to underrate or overrate the work of a man with whom we are personally familiar.
Now, for the first time, Shorely seemed to get the proper perspective. The reading left him in a state of nervous collapse. He tried to remember whether or not he had burned Gibberts' letter. If he had left it on his table, anything might happen. It was incriminating evidence.
The local was five minutes late at the Junction, and it crawled over the fifteen miles back to Channor in the most exasperating way, losing time with every mile. At Channor he found the London train had come and gone.
"Did a man in a long ulster get off, and----"
"For Channor Chase, sir?"
"Yes. Has he gone?"
"Oh yes, sir! The dog-cart from the Chase was here to meet him, sir."
"How far is it?"
"About five miles by road, if you mean the Chase, sir."
"Can I get a conveyance?"
"I don't think so, sir. They didn't know you were coming, I suppose, or they would have waited; but if you take the road down by the church, you can get there before the cart, sir. It isn't more than two miles from the church. You'll find the path a bit dirty, I'm afraid, sir, but not worse than the road. You can't miss the way, and you can send for your luggage."
It had been raining, and was still drizzling. A strange path is sometimes difficult to follow, even in broad daylight, but a wet, dark evening adds tremendously to the problem. Shorely was a city man, and quite unused to the eccentricities of country lanes and paths.
He first mistook the gleaming surface of a ditch for the footpath, and only found his mistake when he was up to his waist in water. The rain came on heavily again, and added to his troubles. After wandering through muddy fields for some time, he came to a cottage, where he succeeded in securing a guide to Channor Chase.
The time he had lost wandering in the fields would, Shorely thought, allow the dog-cart to arrive before him, and such he found to be the case. The man who answered Shorely's imperious summons to the door was surprised to find a wild-eyed, unkempt, bedraggled individual, who looked like a lunatic or a tramp.
"Has Mr. Bromley Gibberts arrived yet?" he asked, without preliminary talk.
"Yes, sir," answered the man.
"Is he in his room?"
"No, sir. He has just come down, after dressing, and is in the drawing- room.
"I must see him at once," gasped Shorely. "It is a matter of life and death. Take me to the drawing-room."
The man, in some bewilderment, led him to the door of the drawing-room, and Shorely heard the sound of laughter from within. Thus ever are comedy and tragedy mingled. The man threw the door open, and Shorely entered. The sight he beheld at first dazzled him, for the room was brilliantly lighted. He saw a number of people, ladies and gentlemen, all in evening dress, and all looking towards the door, with astonishment in their eyes. Several of them, he noticed, had copies of the _Sponge_ in their hands. Bromley Gibberts stood before the fire, and was very evidently interrupted in the middle of a narration.
"I assure you," he was saying, "that is the only way by which a story of the highest class can be sold to a London editor."
He stopped as he said this, and turned to look at the intruder. It was a moment or two before he recognised the dapper editor in the bedraggled individual who stood, abashed, at the door.
"By the gods!" he exclaimed, waving his hands. "Speak of the editor, and he appears. In the name of all that's wonderful, Shorely, how did you come here? Have your deeds at last found you out? Have they ducked you in a horse-pond? I have just been telling my friends here how I sold you that story, which is making the fortune of the _Sponge_. Come forward, and show yourself, Shorely, my boy."
"I would like a word with you," stammered Shorely.
"Then, have it here," said the novelist. "They all understand the circumstances. Come and tell them your side of the story."
"I warn you," said Shorely, pulling himself together, and addressing the company, "that this man contemplates a dreadful crime, and I have come here to prevent it."
Gibberts threw back his head, and laughed loudly.
"Search me," he cried. "I am entirely unarmed, and, as every one here knows, among my best friends."
"Goodness!" said one old lady. "You don't mean to say that Channor Chase is the scene of your story, and where the tragedy was to take place?"
"Of course it is," cried Gibberts, gleefully. "Didn't you recognise the local colour? I thought I described Channor Chase down to the ground, and did I not tell you you were all my victims? I always forget some important detail when telling a story. Don't go yet," he said, as Shorely turned away; "but tell your story, then we will have each man's narrative, after the style of Wilkie Collins."
But Shorely had had enough, and, in spite of pressing invitations to remain, he departed out into the night, cursing the eccentricities of literary men.
NOT ACCORDING TO THE CODE.
Even a stranger to the big town walking for the first time through London, sees on the sides of the houses many names with which he has long been familiar. His precognition has cost the firms those names represent much money in advertising. The stranger has had the names before him for years in newspapers and magazines, on the hoardings and boards by the railway side, paying little heed to them at the time; yet they have been indelibly impressed on his brain, and when he wishes soap or pills his lips almost automatically frame the words most familiar to them. Thus are the lavish sums spent in advertising justified, and thus are many excellent publications made possible.
When you come to ponder over the matter, it seems strange that there should ever be any real man behind the names so lavishly advertised; that there should be a genuine Smith or Jones whose justly celebrated medicines work such wonders, or whose soap will clean even a guilty conscience. Granting the actual existence of these persons and probing still further into the mystery, can any one imagine that the excellent Smith to whom thousands of former sufferers send entirely unsolicited testimonials, or the admirable Jones whom _prima donnas_ love because his soap preserves their dainty complexions--can any one credit the fact that Smith and Jones have passions like other men, have hatreds, likes and dislikes?
Such a condition of things, incredible as it may appear, exists in London. There are men in the metropolis, utterly unknown personally, whose names are more widely spread over the earth than the names of the greatest novelists, living or dead, and these men have feeling and form like unto ourselves.
There was the firm of Danby and Strong for instance. The name may mean nothing to any reader of these pages, but there was a time when it was well-known and widely advertised, not only in England but over the greater part of the world as well. They did a great business, as every firm that spends a fortune every year in advertising is bound to do. It was in the old paper-collar days. There actually was a time when the majority of men wore paper collars, and, when you come to think of it, the wonder is that the paper-collar trade ever fell away as it did, when you consider with what vile laundries London is and always has been cursed. Take the Danby and Strong collars for instance, advertised as being so similar to linen that only an expert could tell the difference. That was Strong's invention. Before he invented the Piccadilly collar so-called, paper collars had a brilliant glaze that would not have deceived the most recent arrival from the most remote shire in the country. Strong devised some method by which a slight linen film was put on the paper, adding strength to the collar and giving it the appearance of the genuine article. You bought a pasteboard box containing a dozen of these collars for something like the price you paid for the washing of half a dozen linen ones. The Danby and Strong Piccadilly collar jumped at once into great popularity, and the wonder is that the linen collar ever recovered from the blow dealt it by this ingenious invention.
Curiously enough, during the time the firm was struggling to establish itself, the two members of it were the best of friends, but when prosperity came to them, causes of difference arose, and their relations, as the papers say of warlike nations, became strained. Whether the fault lay with John Danby or with William Strong no one has ever been able to find out. They had mutual friends who claimed that each one of them was a good fellow, but those friends always added that Strong and Danby did not "hit it off."
Strong was a bitter man when aroused, and could generally be counted upon to use harsh language. Danby was quieter, but there was a sullen streak of stubbornness in him that did not tend to the making up of a quarrel. They had been past the speaking point for more than a year, when there came a crisis in their relations with each other, that ended in disaster to the business carried on under the title of Danby and Strong. Neither man would budge, and between them the business sunk to ruin. Where competition is fierce no firm can stand against it if there is internal dissension. Danby held his ground quietly but firmly, Strong raged and cursed, but was equally steadfast in not yielding a point. Each hated the other so bitterly that each was willing to lose his own share in a profitable business, if by doing so he could bring ruin on his partner.
We are all rather prone to be misled by appearances. As one walks down Piccadilly, or the Strand, or Fleet Street and meets numerous irreproachably dressed men with glossy tall hats and polished boots, with affable manners and a courteous way of deporting themselves toward their fellows, we are apt to fall into the fallacy of believing that these gentlemen are civilised. We fail to realise that if you probe in the right direction you will come upon possibilities of savagery that would draw forth the warmest commendation from a Pawnee Indian. There are reputable business men in London who would, if they dared, tie an enemy to a stake and roast him over a slow fire, and these men have succeeded so well, not only in deceiving their neighbours, but also themselves, that they would actually be offended if you told them so. If law were suspended in London for one day, during which time none of us would be held answerable for any deed then done, how many of us would be alive next morning? Most of us would go out to pot some favourite enemy, and would doubtless be potted ourselves before we got safely home again.
The law, however, is a great restrainer, and helps to keep the death- rate from reaching excessive proportions. One department of the law crushed out the remnant of the business of Messrs. Danby and Strong, leaving the firm bankrupt, while another department of the law prevented either of the partners taking the life of the other.
When Strong found himself penniless, he cursed, as was his habit, and wrote to a friend in Texas asking if he could get anything to do over there. He was tired of a country of law and order, he said, which was not as complimentary to Texas as it might have been. But his remark only goes to show what extraordinary ideas Englishmen have of foreign parts. The friend's answer was not very encouraging, but, nevertheless, Strong got himself out there somehow, and in course of time became a cowboy. He grew reasonably expert with his revolver and rode a mustang as well as could be expected, considering that he had never seen such an animal in London, even at the Zoo. The life of a cowboy on a Texas ranch leads to the forgetting of such things as linen shirts and paper collars.
Strong's hatred of Danby never ceased, but he began to think of him less often.
One day, when he least expected it, the subject was brought to his mind in a manner that startled him. He was in Galveston ordering supplies for the ranch, when in passing a shop which he would have called a draper's, but which was there designated as dealing in dry goods, he was amazed to see the name "Danby and Strong" in big letters at the bottom of a huge pile of small cardboard boxes that filled the whole window. At first the name merely struck him as familiar, and he came near asking himself "Where have I seen that before?" It was some moments before he realised that the Strong stood for the man gazing stupidly in at the plate-glass window. Then he noticed that the boxes were all guaranteed to contain the famous Piccadilly collar. He read in a dazed manner a large printed bill which stood beside the pile of boxes. These collars it seemed, were warranted to be the genuine Danby and Strong collar, and the public was warned against imitations. They were asserted to be London made and linen faced, and the gratifying information was added that once a person wore the D. and S. collar he never afterwards relapsed into wearing any inferior brand. The price of each box was fifteen cents, or two boxes for a quarter. Strong found himself making a mental calculation which resulted in turning this notation into English money.
As he stood there a new interest began to fill his mind. Was the firm being carried on under the old name by some one else, or did this lot of collars represent part of the old stock? He had had no news from home since he left, and the bitter thought occurred to him that perhaps Danby had got somebody with capital to aid him in resuscitating the business. He resolved to go inside and get some information.
"You seem to have a very large stock of those collars on hand," he said to the man who was evidently the proprietor.
"Yes," was the answer. "You see, we are the State agents for this make. We supply the country dealers."
"Oh, do you? Is the firm of Danby and Strong still in existence? I understood it had suspended."
"I guess not," said the man. "They supply us all right enough. Still, I really know nothing about the firm, except that they turn out a first- class article. We're not in any way responsible for Danby and Strong; we're merely agents for the State of Texas, you know," the man added, with sudden caution.
"I have nothing against the firm," said Strong. "I asked because I once knew some members of it, and was wondering how it was getting along."