Chapter 7

He was a tall, big man, with a hard, square face, and deep-set, glittering eyes, and his chin fringed with a round, shaggy beard, while he was attired in a rough pilot coat, and on his head he wore a broad-brimmed felt hat. He looked like a seafaring man, and was not a prepossessing person.

I asked him to take a seat, and seated myself in my round-backed writing chair beside my desk.

He had taken off his hat, and held it on his knee with his left hand, while the other he buried in his capacious side pocket. I thought he was going to produce something, but he did not.

He merely opened a conversation, and I may say that the tone of his voice throughout was always as quiet, as calm, as subdued, as when he addressed me at the door.

"You are Mr. Samuel Chillip?" he asked, or remarked, again.

I bowed in reply.

"The author of 'The Poisoned Waterbottle' and other stories?"

"Yes."

"Tales of crime?"

"You may call them so."

"What do you know of crime?"

The question startled me. In the first place, it was an extraordinary one to ask under the circumstances, and in the next, it was not an easy one to answer.

"May I inquire," I said, "why you put this question?"

"Because I wish to know."

"For what purpose?"

"That you will discover presently."

The man had evidently an object in view, so I thought I would humour him.

"I have taken great interest in the subject," I said, "and have studied it in books and newspapers and in the courts of justice, and have also derived a good deal of information from persons who have come in contact with criminals."

"Ah! you know nothing of it from personal experience?"

"How do you mean?"

"You never, for instance, saw a murderer?"

"Only in the dock."

"Would you _like_ to see a murderer?"

"Well," I replied, with a nervous laugh, "'like' is hardly the word. If I happened to come across such an individual, I should feel interested, no doubt."

"No doubt," this strangest of strangers echoed, adding, after a pause, "and you never saw a murder done?"

"Never."

"Would you _like_ to see a murder done?"

This gruesome question almost startled me out of my chair.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, "certainly not."

"And yet you write about such things."

"That is quite a different matter. But you must excuse me for saying that I do not understand the object of these questions. May I ask who you are?"

"I am a murderer."

My visitor said this in the calmest way, as though he were only calling himself a clerk or a carpenter.

"A murderer?" I gasped rather than asked.

"A murderer in intention only at present. I am going to do a murder, and I want you to witness it."

Good heavens! I looked at the stranger; I met his terrible wild eyes, and in a moment it flashed upon me that I was in the presence of a madman.

I started from my chair, and was about to rush to the bell and call for help, but the stranger put his left hand on my shoulder and kept me in my seat, while he drew his right hand from his coat pocket, and something glittered in the lamplight. Oh, horror! a bright, new, large, six-chambered revolver!

"Be still, be silent," he said, almost in a whisper, "or you are a dead man."

I need hardly say that I was quiet enough after this, and sat grasping my chair arms with both hands, and staring at the stranger, perhaps with my hair standing on end.

"I don't want to hurt you," the dreadful man went on, "unless I can get nobody better to kill. But I mean to kill someone to-night, and I want you to see me do it. You must come with me out into the streets, and go about with me until we find somebody worth killing. You must keep very quiet, utter no cry, give no alarm, excite no suspicion. Otherwise I shall shoot you dead on the spot. I would not mind killing you, the author of so many stories of crime, but I would rather slay someone of higher social position, and leave you to live and record the deed."

I reflected that I should prefer this arrangement myself, but, still better, I would rather get out of the whole horrible business altogether. But the madman, as I regarded him, was imperative.

"Put on your hat and coat and come with me quietly," he said. "Make no noise or I fire."

It was a frightful situation, such as I had never conceived even in my wildest dreams, but what was I to do? In silence I attired myself for this terrible expedition. My companion made me precede him to the street door, opened it himself, and closed it quietly behind us.

Side by side in silence we walked, the maniac keeping half a step in my rear, and I knew all the while that he had his right hand in his side pocket. Now and then he indicated the way we should go, and then he led me across the Regent's Park, and so through street after street till we reached Hyde Park Corner. We passed several policemen by the way, but, unfortunately, none of them suspected or even particularly noticed us. I dared not give an alarm or attract attention, for did I not know that that dreadful hand was still in that dreadful side pocket?

Presently my companion paused, and said, as though speaking to himself:

"A member of the Royal Family would be best."

I was rather glad to hear this, because if he intended that an illustrious personage should be his victim he was likely to be disappointed. Royal Highnesses are not usually found walking about in the neighbourhood of their palaces at two o'clock in the morning.

Thus we rambled to and fro near Buckingham and St. James's Palaces and Marlborough House, need I say with no result? Not a single Prince was to be seen anywhere, and my companion seemed slightly disgusted.

"Hum!" he muttered. "They are hiding. Let us go now to Downing Street."

He evidently thought that, failing Royalty, his next best course would be to slay a Cabinet Minister. But neither the Premier nor any of the Secretaries of State happened to be abroad at that hour.

Our walk down Whitehall proving uneventful, the madman next suggested that we should "try the Houses of Parliament." Here the position seemed more dangerous. The House of Commons could not have long adjourned--it was in the days of late sittings--and it was quite possible that some belated M.P. might be on his way home.

Presently, indeed, my companion made a remark that filled me with horror.

"That looks like one," he said. "Now steady."

An elderly, respectable-looking gentleman was approaching us, walking alone from the direction of the House, and my terrible associate was standing under a lamp-post still with his hand in his pocket.

My presence of mind together with my faculty of invention, here happily came to my aid.

"Stay," I whispered; "mind what you are about, or you will make a mistake. That is not a member of Parliament. I know him by sight but not to speak to. He is a retail grocer who keeps a shop in Oxford Street."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Quite."

And so the elderly stranger passed us, little guessing what a narrow escape he had had.

The position was truly appalling. Now we neared the Royal Academy, at that time still situated in Trafalgar Square, and my would-be murderer muttered something about "picking off" an R.A. or an Associate. The wretched creature seemed well up in honorary titles. Next we wandered along the Strand, and he thought of destroying a distinguished actor, but the theatrical profession had doubtless long since gone to bed. Thank goodness he had not gone far into the heart of Clubland, or he might have found there a victim worthy of his murderous weapon.

On, on he led me, past Temple Bar, not without an eye for wandering Judges and Queen's Counsel. Fortunately, at that hour, it was now about four a.m., the newspapers had all gone to press, and there were no eminent journalists about. Then he came to St. Paul's, and talked about archbishops, bishops and canons, and I almost laughed at the idea of our meeting a Church dignitary abroad at such a time.

Finally, we got into the heart of the City, and here I felt safe if he had any designs on the Directors of the Bank of England or members of the Stock Exchange.

It was in the middle of the deserted road opposite the Mansion House that he stopped at last, and cast a fond look at the residence of the Lord Mayor.

"He won't come out," he murmured; "none of them will, the cowards. Not even an alderman."

Then, after looking about him for a time--why, oh! why, were not the suspicions of some policeman excited by our strange proceedings?--he suddenly exclaimed, to my great joy:

"I am afraid it is no good. We shall have to give it up for to-night; they are all in hiding, every one of them. To be sure, I might pick off some stranger, and take my chance, but it is hardly good enough. I should waste myself."

This was the pleasantest speech he had yet made, but his next was not so agreeable.

"After all," he said, turning to me, "I don't think I could get anybody better than you. You are a rather distinguished novelist, and the fact that you write stories of crime would make it sound remarkable. What do you say?"

I was almost too frightened to say anything. I was trembling all over, for in a moment that dreadful hand might leap out of that dreadful pocket, and my fate would be sealed. But, happily, my imagination once more came to my aid.

"It is not a bad idea," I replied; "but I think you could do better. Don't be in a hurry--there are plenty of distinguished people about, but not at so late an hour as when you called on me last night. Come a little earlier to-night, say at ten o'clock, and we'll see if we can't find a Prince. I know them all by sight, and will point one out to you, a good one. Of course, if you can't get anybody better, you can shoot me."

"Thank you," he said, and for the first time he drew his hand out of that horrible pocket of his, and grasped my own. "It is a good idea. To-night then it shall be, at ten o'clock. Good morning."

I could hardly believe my senses when I saw the dreadful creature slowly making his way towards Cheapside. But, indeed, my senses were failing me. I turned giddy, and staggered against a lamp-post, where presently I was found by a wandering policeman.

I put my hand to my throat, for I felt choking.

"Stop him, stop him!" I cried. "He has got a revolver--he is a murderer--he----"

But the miserable constable took no notice of my warning. He only took me by the arm, and, turning his bull's eye and a suspicious glance upon my countenance, said:

"Here, you had better go home quietly, sir. I suppose you have been dining out rather late. Hi, hansom!"

And he bundled me into a cab, and took my name and address, and the next moment I was bowling along on my road to St. John's Wood.

It was nearly six in the morning when I arrived, and, fortunately, no one heard me when I let myself in with my latch-key.

My wife thought I had only been sitting up extra late at my work, and I told her nothing of my night's adventure. But I summoned two able-bodied detectives to my aid, and they agreed to await with me the lunatic's second visit. My family supposed that the detectives had come to assist me in getting up a tale of crime, and I did not undeceive them. So I despatched them to bed at an earlier hour than usual, on the plea that I did not wish to be disturbed, and sat with my companions in the study watching for the madman.

Precisely at ten o'clock there was heard a heavy footstep on the gravel path without, and once more a knock--a single knock.

"He has come," we whispered.

We had duly arranged our "plan of campaign," and now proceeded to carry it out. The most stalwart of the detectives was to open the front door, and the other to hide behind it. My post was on the threshold of my study, where I was to stand as a "reserve."

The men were wonderfully prompt in executing their operations. The street door had hardly been opened when there was a scuffle and a heavy fall, accompanied by much growling and cursing, and then the unmistakable sound of the snapping of a pair of handcuffs.

"It's all right," said the detective who had been behind the door, "we have got him and his six-shooter too."

Whereupon he produced the very weapon with which the maniac had threatened me--the large, bright, new revolver. I identified it at once.

"I got it out of his side pocket quick as thought," said the man.

Good! And now I retired into my study while the other detective brought the stranger forward.

"What the devil are you fools about?" I heard him cry, as he entered, handcuffed, at the door.

The sound of his voice startled me. It was _not_ that of my visitor the night before. A single glance showed me that it was quite a different sort of person.

"Halloa!" I cried, "there is some mistake here. That's not the lunatic."

"Lunatic!" exclaimed the captured man, "I should think not indeed. It is you who are the lunatics. I am a policeman!"

And a policeman he was--in plain clothes. He had come to tell me that the maniac was dead. He had shot himself almost immediately after leaving me, and the constable who had put me into a hansom remembered my words and my name and address. Hence I was now summoned to give evidence at the inquest.

Of course the policeman was easily pacified, and, indeed, regarded his rough treatment by two of his own colleagues as a joke rather than otherwise.

I duly gave evidence at the inquest, but I am sorry to say that when I told my story it was not listened to quite so gravely as I thought it ought to have been.

So altogether this adventure rather disgusted me with the occupation I had hitherto been following, and now, for some time past, instead of composing tales of crime, I have gone in for writing moral stories for boys.

[Sidenote: Miss Fanny Brough thinks that it is indispensable.]

Of course, there will be the usual outcry that we don't want an Academy of British Dramatic Art because we have not had one hitherto; but there are many things wanted now-a-days which our forefathers had to do without. I don't say for a moment that the heads of the profession in England are not equal to those of France or other countries; it is the rank and file of whom I complain. They never get a chance of learning how to walk or talk properly on the stage, and, consequently, minor parts are frequently very badly played in English theatres. For instance, I went on the stage--in the provinces--just when the old system of stock companies was dying out. A few years before then it would have been possible to receive an admirable training in the provinces. But when I went on the stage, touring companies took possession of the land, and I had only two parts in eighteen months. What possible chance was there of learning to act under such a system? None at all. The result was that when I came to London, and had a comparatively good part offered me, I did not feel satisfied with the way I played it, and returned to the provinces. The difficulty, of course, is how to exist whilst qualifying for the stage. I maintain that a Dramatic Academy would do away with this difficulty, and tend to the improvement of British Dramatic Art in numberless ways. There are hundreds of inefficient teachers who profess to train people for the stage, although they themselves know nothing of the art of acting. As long as there are wealthy tyros mad to go on the stage at any cost, so long will inefficient teachers continue to flourish.

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[Sidenote: The Dramatic Academy must be subsidised.]

Of course, the Dramatic Academy would have to be subsidised, either by the Government or private individuals. The experiment is not a new one. It has been tried at the Paris Conservatoire, the National Dramatic Academy at Buda-Pesth, the theatrical school at Berlin, and the Dramatic Conservatoires in Vienna and Amsterdam. Surely it would be possible to collate the experiences of these various institutions and arrive at a basis on which to work. A committee of our leading actors and managers might be appointed to report on the matter. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the heaven-born genius plunging into the first ranks of the profession at a bound, but, as a rule, the heaven-born genius requires a great deal of preparatory work to fit him for his profession. Mr. Grein, of the Independent Theatre, puts forward a very comprehensive plan for the working of such an academy. He proposes--(1.) The school should be open to children at thirteen. (2.) That they should pass a competitive examination. (3.) That the school should be divided into five classes, the three lower ones to be entirely preparatory. (4.) That the tuition for acting should not begin until these three classes are passed, or, in other words, that the pupil should spend four years in merely preparatory work. (5.) That if the pupil then shows no special aptitude, he should be recommended to give up all idea of the stage. (6.) That six hours a week should be bestowed on diction and acting. (7.) That at the end of the course the pupils should submit to a semi-public examination, and receive a diploma if proficient. (8.) That the co-operation of managers should be invited, and that the conduct of the school should be entrusted to one man (not an actor) under the supervision of three eminent actors or actor-managers. (9.) That the school must be endowed amply enough to tide it over the first five years of its existence, and that the fees to pupils should be made as low as possible. If a certain amount of energy and determination are brought to bear on the subject, I see no reason why it should not speedily be brought within the range of practical politics.

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[Sidenote: Mr. John Hare thinks not.]

I am loath to say anything to discourage any scheme framed for the purpose of benefiting our art, but I cannot honestly say that, in my opinion, the establishment of a Dramatic Academy would, in any way, serve that purpose. The question was fully gone into by a most influential committee called together to consider the subject some ten years ago. It consisted of Mr. Irving, Mr. Boucicault, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Vezin, Mr. Kendal, Mr. Neville, Mr. H. J. Byrne, myself, and many others. After a full discussion we found, amongst many other difficulties, it was quite impossible to find enough competent teachers who would undertake the work of instruction, so the matter fell through, and, as I do not believe in the "blind leading the blind," I am convinced that any attempt to establish an English Dramatic Academy will prove abortive.

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[Sidenote: Mr. J. L. Toole is not quite prepared to express a decided opinion.]

I am not quite prepared to express a decided opinion on the matter. I am, however, more inclined to the view that a sound provincial training will always be found the more beneficial course.

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[Sidenote: Mr. Edward Terry's experience.]

I think it desirable, but scarcely practicable. Some years ago I was concerned in a scheme to promote the same object, my desire being that we should start by renting a small theatre, and playing a _répertoire_ of pieces--that established actors should give their services for a minimum fee as professors, and when out of engagements should undertake to appear and act, taking less than their regular salaries. If the theatre or academy succeeded, and held its own for a year, I would then have asked for a Government subsidy. A great deal of good work was done some few years ago by the "Dramatic Students," and I regret exceedingly the society has ceased to exist.

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[Sidenote: Sir Augustus Harris looks upon the idea as a myth.]

What can I say? Of course, a Dramatic Academy would be a splendid institution, with all the best actors as masters teaching the young idea how to shoot--shoot straight, of course; and what a saving it would be to poor managers, who then could refer the thousands of aspirants for dramatic glory to it to become pupils and get prizes before asking for engagements. But alas! and alas!! where are the actors who will give their time and trouble to such a noble cause? I think our rough and ready way the only one suited to our peculiarities, and, therefore, look upon the idea as a myth.

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[Sidenote: Miss Rose Norreys thinks it would be a difficult project.]

An Academy of Dramatic Art, where each student must first win a diploma before being eligible for the stage, would be an inestimable advantage; but, unless this academy were founded and endowed by the "State," it would again prove to be impracticable. Moreover, as there is an universally accepted theory that the British public does _not want Art_, but merely demands to be amused, or to have its attention attracted (by some means or other), I fear it would be a somewhat difficult affair to induce the "State" to regard the proposition as anything but a trivial one.

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[Sidenote: Mr. William Terriss thinks there is no necessity.]

I do not think the profession to which I have the honour to belong has any necessity for a Dramatic Academy. Actors and actresses have come, and are constantly coming, to the front who have learnt their business at the best of schools--the stage, which is always self-instructing. It is not so much a lack of ability (which is the cause of a seeming lack of artists) as opportunity.

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[Sidenote: Cyril Maude thinks it necessary.]

It seems to me that under the existing state of affairs, actors and actresses have to spend the best and most useful years of their life in a struggle to acquire a bare knowledge of the principles of their art. Could not the acquisition of this knowledge be aided and accelerated by a school in which, for reasonable terms, the beginner could learn the adjuncts of the art he has chosen, such as ease of carriage, how to speak properly (let us drop that misused word _elocution_, which only suggests the schoolgirl's recitation), fencing, production of voice, dancing, etc., not forgetting how to make up? _Then_ let the tyro go into the provinces, where he must gain a certain amount of experience with constant change of theatres and of audience week by week. Who will say that this preliminary training would not be of enormous advantage to the beginner? _But_ surely this school should not profess to teach _acting_, but the different arts and accomplishments which go to help to make the actor.

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[Sidenote: Mr. Murray Carson is of opinion that the actor's own discretion should be his tutor.]