Part 12

This question and command, shouted by the shorter of the two, a sandy-haired young ruffian, with a voice like a brass trumpet, seemed, under the circumstances, to be singularly out of place. The observations of his companion were more to the point.

"All right, guv'nor, you wait a bit! you wait till I get a 'old on yer! If I don't play a toon on yer, I'll give yer leave to call me names!"

The lady comforted me.

"Don't you mind what they say."

"I don't."

But presently someone came upon the scene whose remarks I decided to mind, in a way. An unwieldy tub bore down upon us, containing perhaps twelve or fourteen people. A stalwart young fellow, standing up in the bow, addressed himself to me.

"Excuse me, guv'nor, but might I ask what you're doin' along of that young lady?"

"Pardon me, sir, in my turn, but might I inquire what business that is of yours?"

"I don't want none of your sauce! Just you tell me what's your little game."

This struck me as being tolerably cool, sauce being evidently at least as much in his line as in mine.

"My little game, sir, is a saunter on the stream. Good-bye."

And with that I pulled away. The stranger became almost inarticulate with rage.

"Set me alongside of 'im! put me aboard of 'im! I'll knock 'is somethinged 'ead off 'is somethinged shoulders!"

His friends yelled in chorus. One shouted question caught my ear.

"What are you doing along of the bloke's wife?"

I looked at my companion.

"Is it possible that the gentleman is your husband?"

"Course 'e is. You put me into the boat 'long with 'im right away! Tom and Joe, they're friends of 'is, but you ain't no friend of 'is, nor yet of mine. I don't want to get into no trouble along o' you! Do you 'ear what I tell you, put me into 'is boat!"

"With the greatest possible pleasure."

But the thing was not so easy. The whole dozen were screaming at once, and, judging by the threats they used, it seemed tolerably plain that if I brought my craft within reach of theirs an attempt would be made to board me, and there would be every probability of an awkward spill. So, deeming discretion to be the better part of valour, I made for the Surrey shore, intending to there land my passenger and restore her to a--I trusted--fond, though excited, husband's arms. My intentions, however, were misconstrued; they supposed I was running away, proposing to save my skin from a drubbing instead of the lady's from a ducking, so they started hotly in pursuit, their shouts redoubling. What was worse, the lady thought so too, and commenced to give me a side of her tongue which I trust, for his sake, it was her wont to spare her husband.

I never was better abused; the bawling crew behind were good at the game, but the ungrateful virago I had snipped was easily first. I grew a trifle warm. If I was to be slanged I would be slanged for something. I decided to give the husband a chase and the wife a little excursion. It would have been easy enough to have shown a lead to the pursuing tub until the end of time. I bent to the oars and let her have it. You should have heard the hubbub. They saw that if I played that trick they would never catch me, and how they raved! The joke was that my lady passenger raved with the best of them--and her adjectives!

"Something, something, something you! If you don't put me into my husband's somethinged boat, I'll spill the somethinged show!"

"Spill it."

For a moment I thought she would. Then she hesitated, reflected that she not improbably might be left to drown, and didn't.

"I'll mark your face for you!" she screamed.

"If you move from your seat, my dear madam, I'll upset the show."

"Do!" she yelled. Then, as an afterthought, "'Elp! murder! police! 'E's a-goin' to drown me!"

It seemed absurd to exhaust oneself for the sake of giving a pleasant trip to a lady who would persist in shouting for the police in a voice loud enough to be heard a mile away, especially as people on the Twickenham shore evinced signs of misconstruing the situation. I resolved, by way of vengeance, to concede what she wanted, and let the pursuers catch us.

"My dear madam, as I have already informed you, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to put you on board your husband's boat--I will prove it."

Precisely what I expected happened. The lumbering tub came up. The husband, with half a dozen of his friends, tried to board us. The frail skiff careened. There was the crowd of us, including, thank goodness! the lady passenger, in the stream. I had taken the precaution to draw close into shore before staying my wild career, foreseeing the inevitable catastrophe, so that it was only an affair of wading, yet I do believe that I was the only one who really enjoyed the thing. I doubt if the lady did. She swooned, or pretended to, directly she reached dry land. As for her friends, the whole gallant gang would have set on to me at once. But I will do her husband the justice to admit that he was a man. He claimed the affair as his own, and he insisted on taking it on as his own, and he took me on with it.

I had wanted a row royal and I had got it. Beanfeasting had not knocked the fighting qualities out of him. If he was not a professional pugilist he was a near relation. I can use them a bit, but he gave me as good as I sent, and a trifle better. It was the difference between the amateur and the professional; at his own game the tradesman always wins. If we had fought to a finish I should have had enough, but we didn't. A policeman came across the stream and stopped us. I had escaped a black eye, but that was about all I had escaped. I had landed a few, but they had been returned with interest. Twice had I been fairly grassed, once with a tingler under the chin. I felt for a moment as if I had swallowed every tooth in my head. I had the devout satisfaction of knowing that my nervous system had received just that fillip which it stood in need of.

"I'll have a lesson or two," I told myself, "from someone who can kill me at sight, and the next time I meet my lady passenger's husband I will do the grassing."

There's nothing like argument _a priori_ for clearing the air or cobwebs from the brain. Do not talk to me of arbitration. I am a physical force man. I returned to town feeling twice the man I left it.

A MEMBER OF THE ANTI-TOBACCO LEAGUE

I THE SIX CIGARS

Sunday morning. A cold wind blowing, slush in the streets, sleet drizzling steadily down. For the moment the market was deserted. Not because of the weather, wretched though the weather was, but because of the excitement which was in the air.

A crowd buzzed about the entrance to the court. A crowd which grew every second larger. A crowd which overflowed from the street itself, so that its tributaries streamed into the network of lanes and of alleys. An excited, a noisy, a shouting crowd. An angry crowd. A crowd which gave utterance to its opinions at the top of its voice, in language which was plain-spoken to a fault.

Jim Slater caught sight of a friend. He twisted himself round to shout at him.

"Wot yer, Bill! That's another one he's done for--that makes seven!"

"It is true then? He 'as done it."

"Done it! I should think he 'as done it! Found the pore gal just as he left 'er, lying up agin the wall, with 'er clothes over 'er 'ead, and 'er inside, wot 'e'd cut out, lying alongside--a 'orrid sight!"

"I'd like to 'ave the 'andlin'? of 'im!"

"'Andling of 'im! My Gawd!" A volley of expletives from Jim. "If I 'ad the 'andling of 'im once I wouldn't want it twice. I'd cut the ---- up for cat's meat!"

There was a chorus of approval from those who had heard. A woman's voice rose above the hubbub; she shook her fist at the police who guarded the entrance to the court.

"What's the good of you p'lice? You lets a chap carve us women up as if we was cattle, and you never don't trouble yourselves to move a finger! I'd be ashamed."

She was supported by a lady friend, a woman with a shawl over her head, her hair streaming down her back; a woman who, evidently, had risen hastily from bed.

"You're right, Polly! If a pore bloke steals a 'aporth o' fried fish, they takes jolly good care, them slops, they runs him in, but a ---- can do for as many of us gals as he ---- well chooses, and they don't even trouble themselves to ketch 'im. Yah-h! I'd like to see him do for some of them, I would--straight!"

From the crowd another loud-voiced chorus of approval. Jim Slater formed a speaking-trumpet with his hands, and yelled,--

"Why don't yer ketch 'im?"

A hoarse, husky murmur from the throng, rapidly rising to a roar,--

"Yes, why don't yer?"

The inquiry was repeated over and over again, each time more angrily. The people began to surge forward, pressing towards the entrance of the court, where the police were standing. A sergeant was heard shouting, in staccato tones,--

"Now then! Stand back there! No pushing!"

Policeman YZ 001 spoke to the comrade at his side.

"We shall have to call some more of our chaps out. They look to me like meaning mischief."

"Now then, stand back there! What do you want to shove like that for?"

Then came back question for question.

"Why don't yer ketch 'im?"

But none of these things troubled the Rev. Simon Chasuble. His house was within a few minutes' walk of the scene of all the hubbub. It was a new house, newer, even, than the church which it adjoined. Both church and house stood in a side street, within a stone's throw of the great thoroughfare in which something like a riot seemed to be threatening.

As yet no whisper of the growing excitement seemed to have penetrated the sacred precincts of the clergyman's home. The Rev. Simon was in his study. A man of medium height, with iron-grey hair, shaven cheeks, and light blue eyes.

He appeared to have been engaged in what, considering all things, was a somewhat singular pursuit. He seemed to have been manufacturing cigars. On a table in front of him was tobacco, both in roll and in leaf, and some of the implements which are used, when pursuing their trade, by the makers of cigars. It seemed clear that some of these implements had been in recent use, for actually with his own fingers the Rev. Simon was putting finishing touches to six cigars.

For many reasons the thing seemed strange. It was Sunday morning. The Rev. Simon had, not very long since, returned from officiating at early celebration. The bell would soon be rung to announce the commencement of another of the multifarious services in which the soul of the reverend gentleman delighted. His surplice, his bands, his hood, his biretta were lying ready on a chair, so that, without loss of time, he might slip them on, hurry across the courtyard which divided the house from the church, and plunge at once _in medias res_.

It seemed an odd moment for a clergyman to select to engage in the manufacture of cigars! Especially bearing in mind the Rev. Simon's well-known and peculiar tenets. He was the leader, through all that district, of the Anti-Everythingites. "Down with every sort of Reasonable Enjoyment!" was the motto which, metaphorically, he had nailed to his banner. And, among the other varieties of reasonable enjoyment, especially "Down with Tobacco!" He was a member of the Anti-Tobacco League. He had spoken, preached, and written against the use of tobacco in any and all of its forms. Indeed, at that very moment, cheek by jowl with the tobacco itself, was a heap of anti-tobacco literature. That curious tract, in the form of a leaflet, "Is Tobacco Smoked in Heaven?" lay on the top of the pile.

There must have been some curious cause which had impelled the Rev. Simon Chasuble to engage, even on a small scale, in the manufacture of cigars. And, in fact, there was, and curious cigars they were which he was making.

As he covered, with a really credible dexterity, each cigar with an outer wrapper, he left the bottom of it open. After covering the six cigars he did some rather funny things. Unlocking a drawer in a cabinet, which stood against a wall, he took out an unusually large pair of plain glass goggles. He put them on. He stuffed two small corks, which seemed to have been shaped for the purpose, up his nostrils, as far as they would go. He tied an enormous, and peculiarly shaped, respirator over his mouth. After completing these preparations he produced, from a corner of the same drawer, a small metal box and a little instrument, fashioned something like the tiny spoon with which we serve ourselves to cayenne pepper. As very carefully he unscrewed the lid, it was seen that the interior of the box was of ingenious construction. It was divided into two halves. In one division was a colourless liquid, in the other a powder of a vivid violet hue. In the centre of each of the pieces of glass was a hole which was just large enough to allow of his inserting the delicate instrument which, at one extremity, was shaped something like a tiny spoon. With this he took out first a spoonful of the violet powder, which he dropped into the end of one of the cigars which he had purposely left open, the thin end; then a spoonful of the colourless liquid, which he dropped on to the powder. Without an instant's loss of time he re-screwed the lid on to the box and, with an almost simultaneous movement, completed the manufacture of the cigar, closing and shaping the end in a manner which, if it was his first attempt in that direction, was not a little to his credit.

He repeated the operation with each cigar, reopening and re-closing the box each time, and that with a degree of celerity which was not the least singular part of the whole performance. When he had finished his proceedings he removed the goggles, the plugs from his nostrils, the respirator from his mouth, and, together with the metal box, and the spoon-shaped instrument, he replaced them in the drawer.

With a smile of beaming satisfaction he turned to the result of his handiwork. There they lay, six very fair-looking cigars, not too pointed and not too stubby, all in a row in front of him upon the table.

"An old secret adapted to a new purpose. These cigars are likely to be more efficacious in repressing the nicotine habit than all the sermons that were ever preached, and all the books that were ever written."

The Rev. Simon chuckled, a startling chuckle it was. It distorted his whole countenance; made another man of him; turned a not ill-looking gentleman into a hideous thing. It was the chuckle of a lunatic. It came and went in, as it were, a twinkling of the eye; but the Rev. Simon Chasuble had only to indulge in that sinister chuckle in public once, and the incumbency of St Ursula's Church would there and then be vacant.

"I'll put them in the case."

He placed the cigars carefully, one by one, in a handsome case, which had been lying beside them on the table.

"How fortunate that the secret should have been in my possession; that it should have been given to me to adapt it to so rare an end! What a power for good the adaptation places in my hands! Given the opportunity it may be mine to remove the nicotine habit for ever from the world. One whiff and the slave is gone. And none shall know from whence the blow has come. It will seem as though it has fallen from on high."

Again that dreadful chuckle, coming and going in a second, as the Rev. Simon was in the act of making the sign of the cross.

Someone tried the handle of the door; then, finding it locked, rapped upon the panel.

"Papa! papa!"

The Rev. Simon turned towards the door, a sudden look of keen suspicion in his light blue eyes. But his voice was smooth and soft. "Helena?"

"Oh, papa, another of those poor women has been murdered!"

The Rev. Simon seemed to hesitate. The fashion of his countenance was changed. It became unrelenting, pitiless. His voice became harsh and measured.

"Do you mean that another of the inhabitants of Sodom has met with the reward of her misdeeds? Well? God has judged!"

"Oh, papa, don't talk like that! The poor creature has been almost cut to pieces, it is dreadful! The whole place is in excitement, we are afraid there'll be a riot. Do open the door!"

"Have you yet to learn that, under no circumstances, do I allow secular matters to interfere with the due performance of my spiritual duties on the Lord's own day? If the woman is dead, she is dead. I am no trafficker in horrors. To-morrow I shall hear all that I need to hear. Go. I am engaged."

The girl went. The Rev. Simon listened to her retreating footsteps. And, as she went, there was heard a sound which was very like the sound of a woman's sobbing.

The Incumbent of St Ursula's stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes turned upwards. He quoted scripture.

"'The adulterers shall surely be put to death!' 'It is the day of the Lord's vengeance!' 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!' And am I not thy minister, O God, that Thou hast appointed to work Thy will?' The harlot's house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death!' Yea, O God, yea! 'So let the wicked perish!'"

The Rev. Simon took a crucifix, which dangled from the cord of his cassock, and held it in front of him. He crossed himself. He pressed the crucifix to his lips. He seemed, for some seconds, to be engaged in silent prayer. Then, very methodically, he removed the evidences of his having been engaged so recently in the manufacture of cigars. The cigars themselves, oddly enough, he slipped, case and all, into an inner pocket of his cassock.

All at once there was borne on some current of the air the distant murmur of a crowd. He stood and listened. The sound grew louder; it seemed to be coming nearer. The light faded from the Rev. Simon's eyes; every faculty was absorbed in the act of listening. The sound was approaching; it rose and fell; now dying away in a sullen murmur, now rising to a startling yell. His hand stole into his bosom. When it reappeared it held a knife, shaped something like a surgeon's scalpel.

"'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.'"

Again that chuckle, the revelation of the lunatic.

Momentarily the noise increased. One began to individualise voices; to realise that the tumult was the product of a thousand different throats.

"Some riot, I suppose. One of their periodical differences with the police. What's that?"

II THE CIGAR WHICH WAS SMOKED

"That" was the sound of heavy footsteps hastening towards the study door. The handle was turned; a fist was banged against the panel.

"Who's here?"

"I am here! Let me in!"

The voice was quick, sharp, abrupt, distinctly threatening. The Rev. Simon looked round the room with shifty, inquiring eyes. He whispered to himself.

"Philip Avalon? My sister's son? What does he want with me?" He felt, with his fingers, the edge of the knife which he was holding. He asked aloud, in a voice which was more than sufficiently stern, "What do you want with me, sir?"

"I want to speak to you. Do you hear? Be quick and let me in!"

The speaker's tone was even more threatening than before; it was as if he defied disobedience. The shifty look in the Rev. Simon's eyes increased. Again he whispered to himself.

"It is nothing, only some fresh insolence, some new bee he has in his bonnet."

Then aloud, "You speak with sufficient arrogance, sir, as if the house were your own."

For response there came a storm of blows upon the panels of the door.

"By ----, if you don't open the door I'll break it in!"

Wheeling right round with a swift, crouching movement, the Rev. Simon ran towards the window. It seemed, for the moment, as if he meditated flight. He already had his hand upon the sash, to throw it open, when he changed his mind. He drew himself up, he thrust the knife back into his bosom; he strode towards the door with resolute, unflinching steps. With unfaltering hand, turning the key in the lock, he flung the door wide open. His voice rang out in tones of authority.

"Philip Avalon, how dare you conduct yourself in such a fashion? Do you forget what day this is, and that I suffer no bawling intrusion to divert my thoughts from my ministrations at the altar?"

The rejoinder which came from the young man who, regardless of the Rev. Simon's attempt to prevent his ingress, thrust his way into the room, was more forcible than civil.

"You villain! You damned villain!"

The Rev. Simon drew himself still straighter. His bearing, while it suggested horror and amazement, commanded reverence.

"Philip Avalon! I am the priest of God!"

"The priest of God!" In a fit of seemingly uncontrollable passion, the young man struck the elder to the ground. "Lie there, you hound!"

For some seconds the Rev. Simon lay where he had fallen.

The young man who had used him with such scant ceremony was tall and broad. He had a fair beard, and was about thirty years of age. His dress was careless. He stood glaring down upon the clergyman with gleaming eyes. He seemed mastered by irresistible excitement.

The Incumbent of St Ursula's raised himself sufficiently from the floor to enable him to glance up at his assailant.

"You have laid the hands of violence not only upon a much older man than yourself, and one who is your own flesh and blood, but also upon a priest of God. It completes the measure of your crimes. Coward! as well as sinner!"

For a moment the young man remained speechless. When he did speak the words came rushing from him in a torrent.

"If you continue to play the hypocrite and to adopt that tone with me I'll go and I'll stand upon your doorstep, and I'll shout to the people--you hear them? They are already beside themselves with rage!" As he spoke yells and execrations were borne from the street without into the room. "I'll shout to them, 'You want Tom the Tiger, the fiend in human shape who has butchered seven helpless women in your midst? He's in here! He's my uncle, Simon Chasuble, the Incumbent of St Ursula's! I deliver him into your hands! Come in and use him as you will!' And they'll come in, come swarming, yelling, rushing in--men, women, children--and they'll tear you limb from limb, and will mete out on your vile body the punishment which, after all, will be less than it deserves!"

As he paused the young man stood with clenched fists and flaming looks, as if it was as much as he could do to keep himself from a repetition, in a much more emphatic form, of his previous assault.

The Rev. Simon rose to his feet gingerly. He withdrew himself, with commendable prudence, further from where Philip Avalon was standing. The shifty look came back into his eyes. But his voice was firm.

"What wild words are these?"

"The words may be wild, but they are true ones. Since these hideous butcheries have been taking place in the surrounding slums and alleys a Vigilance Committee has been formed, with a view of assisting the police. I am a member. This morning I was out on my appointed beat. I saw someone coming down Rainbow Court. I drew back into the shadow, and I stood and I watched. It was you. You had on a rough black overcoat and a cloth cap, and though you were laughing to yourself you seemed desirous of avoiding observation. I wondered what you were doing there at that hour in such a guise. I hesitated a moment whether to follow you. Then I plunged into the court. Just where I had seen you standing I found a woman lying on the ground, dead--murdered--disembowelled; unmistakeably the handiwork of Tom the Tiger. I was so amazed, so horrified, so actually frightened, that for the life of me I could not think what I ought to do. I've been walking about London all night trying to make up my mind. And now I have come to ask you if there is in you sufficient of the man to give you courage to go at once and yield yourself to the police; if there isn't, I shall drag you."

"It's a lie!"

"What is a lie?"

"All that you have said is a lie. You always were a liar, Philip Avalon."