Part 13

The nephew stared at his uncle. It seemed that he found it hard to believe that a man could be so shapen in iniquity.

"You can still speak to me like that, knowing that I know you. You certainly are, to me, a revelation of infinite possibilities in human nature. But I am not here to palter. Do you intend to surrender yourself, or am I to drag you to the police, or am I to call in the assistance of the people in the street? I give you a minute in which to decide."

The young man took out his watch. Layman and cleric eyed each other. As they did so the Rev. Simon's countenance was transfigured in a fashion which startled his nephew not a little. Before Philip Avalon had guessed his intention, the Incumbent of St Ursula's, hurrying past him, had locked the study door and pocketed the key. As he did so he broke into chuckling laughter. As his nephew surveyed him a glimmer of new light began to find its way into his brain.

"Man! what is the matter with you? What have you done?"

The Rev. Simon continued chuckling. Indeed, it seemed as if he would never stop. And there was something so unpleasant about his laughter that, considerably to his own surprise, Philip Avalon found himself giving way to shudder after shudder.

"Mad! stark mad!" he told himself. "And to think that none of us ever guessed it!"

Now that the fact was actually revealed he perceived, too late, what a lurid light it threw upon the puzzles of the past. As to the man's madness there could be no shred of doubt. He stood gibbering in front of him. And though Philip was very far from being, in any sense, an expert in mental pathology, he was acute enough to realise that an element of something horrible, of something altogether dangerous, differentiated this man's madness from that of the ordinary lunatic. As by the stroke of a magician's wand the clergyman had been transformed into a fiend. He held out his hand toward Philip, never ceasing to chuckle. Even his voice was changed; it had become an almost childish treble.

"Yes, I did it. I! I! Seven, Philip--seven harlots slain by my single hand! All England rings with it, yet no one guesses it was I!"

In the sudden horror of the situation the young man found it difficult to preserve his presence of mind. He endeavoured to collect his thoughts. He resolved to continue to speak with the voice of authority. With some recollection of stories which he had read, or heard, of the power of the sane man's eye, he did his best to unflinchingly meet the madman's glance.

"Give me the key of the door, at once!"

"The key? Of the door? Oh, yes! Here is the key of the door."

The Rev. Simon produced from the bosom of his cassock what looked to Philip Avalon very like a surgeon's scalpel. The weapon gleamed ominously in the madman's hand. Involuntarily the young man shrank back. His uncle noticed the gesture. His chuckling increased. He held out the knife.

"Yes, Philip, this is the key of the door. It is with this key that I unlocked the gates of the chambers of death for the seven harlots." The madman's voice sank to a whisper, a whisper of a peculiarly penetrating kind. "Philip, the Lord came to me in a dream one night, and bade me go out among the armies of the wicked and kill! kill! kill! And I arose and cried, O Lord, I will do as thou biddest me! And I have begun. The tares are ripe unto the harvest, and I have my hand upon the sickle, and I'll not stay until the whole of the harvest is reaped and cast into the fire which never shall be quenched!"

Philip Avalon found that his uncle's manner and conversation was beginning to have on him an effect which he had often heard described, but which he had never before experienced, the effect of making his blood run cold. What was he to do? It seemed to him that to attempt to grapple with a homicidal madman, while he was in the possession of such a weapon, was not an adventure to be recommended. A thought occurred to him. He moved across the room. The madman immediately moved after him.

"What are you going to do? Stand still!"

Philip turned.

"I was merely about to ring for a glass of water."

The madman's suspicions were at once on the alert.

"A glass of water? What do you want with a glass of water? No! You sha'n't ring! you sha'n't!"

He brandished his weapon in a fashion which induced his nephew to take temporary refuge behind an arm-chair.

"Take care, sir! You will do yourself a mischief."

The Rev. Simon proved that he was, at least, in certain directions, sufficiently keen of apprehension.

"No, Philip, it is not myself I shall do a mischief to, it is you. You would prevent a servant of the Lord from doing his master's will; it is meet, therefore, you should die."

Philip braced himself for the struggle which seemed to him to be inevitably impending. But, as he paused, a sudden idea seemed to come into the Rev. Simon's disordered brain. His chuckling redoubled.

"No! no! no!--a better way!--a better way! Philip, you're a smoker; smoke one of my cigars."

The Rev. Simon took a cigar case from an inner pocket in his cassock. Opening it, he held it out towards Philip Avalon. It contained six cigars. The young man's bewilderment grew more and more. That the Rev. Simon Chasuble, whose fulminations against what he was wont to speak of as the "nicotine habit," had always made him seem, to his nephew, to be more or less insane, should actually produce a case of cigars from a pocket in his cassock, and offer him one to smoke, to Philip Avalon the action seemed to paint the disorder of his uncle's brain in still more vivid hues.

In his bewilderment the young man refused his uncle's offer.

"Thank you, I do not care to smoke just now."

But the Rev. Simon was insistent.

"But I say you shall, you shall! You never smoked a cigar like mine before, and you never will again!"

Again that accentuation of the chuckle. Thinking that by humouring his uncle's whim he would at least be afforded breathing space, Philip took, from the proffered case, one of the six cigars. The Rev. Simon watched him with eager eyes.

"Cut off the tip! Quick, Philip, quick!"

"What does he think he's up to now?" inquired Philip of himself. He cut off, with his penknife, the point of the cigar, and as he did so an idea came also to him. "I'll strike a match and light up; then I'll drop the match into the fireplace, and that'll give me a chance to ring the bell."

Only the first part of this programme, however, was carried into effect. He struck a match, smiling in spite of himself at the eagerness with which he perceived that his uncle watched him. He applied the lighted match to his cigar. And as the slender whiff of smoke came from between his lips, as if struck by lightning, he fell to the floor stone dead.

The Rev. Simon Chasuble's experimental essay with his ingenious contrivance for the conversion of smokers had been a complete success. He knelt beside the silent figure. He kissed his crucifix; he crossed himself.

"I thought that it would be a better way. So shall all the enemies of the Lord perish from off the face of the earth! Shall I?"

He made, with his knife, a dreadful significant gesture over the region of the dead man's abdomen. As he did so the bell of the adjoining church was heard summoning the worshippers to service. On the Rev. Simon the sound had a marvellous effect. He rose to his feet. Every appearance of madness passed away from him. He seemed clothed again in his right mind. He glanced at the clock upon the mantelshelf. His manner became clerically stern.

"It is time for service to begin. I must suffer nothing to interfere with my ministrations at the altar." Going to the door, he unlocked it, and threw it open. He called, "Helena!"

A girl's voice replied, she thought he was calling her to church.

"Yes, papa, I'm coming! I am almost ready."

"Come here at once. Something has happened to Philip."

The girl came hurrying in, buttoning her gloves as she entered. She exclaimed at the sight of her cousin lying so still upon the floor.

"Oh, papa, what is the matter with him? Is he in a fit?"

Her father was rapidly donning his surplice, his stole, and his hood, surveying himself, as he did so, in a mirror.

"He is in something of the kind. As I was talking to him he fell suddenly to the ground. See that he receives every necessary attention. It is time for service to commence. I cannot stay."

The Incumbent of St Ursula's left the room. Directly afterwards he was seen, in his clerical vestments, hurrying across the courtyard towards the church.

THAT FOURSOME

"Come with me," said Hollis, "down to Littlestone."

Littlestone? Never heard of it. Didn't know there was such a place. Told him so.

"I cannot help your ignorance, my dear Short. I can only tell you that it is the spot for you." He looked me up and down. "For a man of your build the very spot." What he meant I hadn't the faintest notion. "If you do there what you ought to do, and what everyone does, it'll get seven pounds off you inside a week." I began to guess. "Such air, such breezes, and the finest links in England!"

"Links?" I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, commencing to perceive that there was something at the back of this man's mind.

"Links, Short, which are links. Better than Sandwich. St Andrews are not to be compared with them. And as for Wimbledon, bah! You come down with me to Littlestone and I'll teach you how to play golf--golf, sir! The Royal and Ancient! The king of games! You'll feel yourself a different man from the moment your fingers close about a club."

I knew it was all nonsense. Was perfectly aware of it. Entirely conscious that it was mere flummery to talk about my being a different man from the moment my fingers closed about a club. But I'm one of the best-natured souls alive. If a man wanted me to go tobogganing with him down the icebergs round the North Pole--wanted me strongly enough--I do believe I should have to go. I should be positively unhappy if I let him go alone, though I should be a good deal unhappier if I didn't. There is nothing I dislike so much as cold. Unless it is tobogganing. I once tobogganed down a hill in Derbyshire. I wish to say no more except to mention that I am still alive. Though when part of me reached the bottom of the hill that was all there was to it. To this hour, when I touch certain portions of my frame I remember.

But I wish to harrow no one's feelings.

I went down to Littlestone. Found it was in a remote corner of Kent. Travelled by the South Eastern. Dismal, dirty, draughty carriage. Cold wind blowing. Tried every means of escaping it short of hiding underneath the seat. Stopped once at each station and twice between most of them. Changed whenever it occurred to the officials that they'd like a sort of game of "general post." Arrived at a shed which did duty as a station, chilled to the bone and feeling as if I had had the longest journey of my life. Was bumped along in a thing which I imagine was called an omnibus to Littlestone. Found Hollis awaiting me.

"Welcome to Littlestone, Short! You look another man already." I felt it. "I'd have come to the station only no one ever knows when those trains will get in." Mine had been about an hour and three-quarters late, at least, according to the time-table. "Did one of the best rounds of my life this afternoon; sixteenth hole in four; stroke under bogey."

A person who could talk of "rounds" and "bogey" when I felt as I felt then, I had no use for. I stood before the fire trying to get warm.

Had a pretty bad dinner. Heard more golf in half an hour than during the preceding ten years. Then more golf afterwards. In ordinary society one is not supposed to talk of one's own achievements, good, bad or indifferent. Unless my experience was singular, the people in that place talked of nothing else. Went to bed as early as possible to escape it. Dropped off to sleep wondering if the wind would leave anything of the house standing by the morning.

Forgot to lock the door. Roused by Hollis entering my bedroom. It was broad day. But it seemed to me that I had only just closed my eyes.

"Come out and have a swim. The water's like ice, brace you up. Strong current. Man drowned here last week."

"Thank you. I've no intention of being the man who's drowned here this week. I prefer a tub."

Had a tub. Went down to survey the scene. Never more surprised in my life. Road. Strip of rusty grass in front. Vast quantities of stones beyond. Then sea. Confronted by perhaps twenty houses. Cheap stuccoed structures of the doll's-house type of architecture. Beyond, on either side, desolation. A flat, rank, depressing, stony wilderness. Whether Nature or man was most to blame for making things as bad as they seemed under those leaden, before-breakfast skies, it would have needed an expert to determine.

No one was in sight. Until Hollis appeared I was the only idiot about. His teeth were chattering.

"Not a pretty place," I observed.

"No, it isn't."

"Neither the place nor its surroundings seem to have many claims in the direction of the picturesque."

"It's a beastly hole. That's what we want."

"You want it to be a--beastly hole?"

I looked at him askance. Wondering, for the moment, if he was joking. But he wasn't.

"Rather. Crowds of people would come if we made it attractive. Place'd be ruined."

"Ruined?"

"For golf. As it is the place is packed in summer. People come from all over the place. Can't play on our own links. Regular mob. Confound 'em, I say. Why, this last summer a man brought his wife with him. She rowed him like anything when she found out what sort of place it was. Had brought a lot of pretty dresses with her, and that sort of thing. Didn't see being left alone all day with nothing to do except sit on the beach and throw stones in the sea. That wasn't her idea of a holiday. We should have a lot of women of that sort about if we didn't take care."

Unreasonable some women are who do not golf. Especially when they are attached to men who do. So selfish on their part to even hint that they have ideas, or tastes, of their own.

At breakfast the great theme was broached. Hollis regarded me with what I was dimly conscious was a cold and a scornful eye. I had had no idea that he was the kind of man he really appeared to be. Or I should certainly never have come. In a manner of speaking our acquaintance, of some fifteen or sixteen years' standing, had been merely superficial. I was beginning to wish that it had continued on those lines.

"I believe you've never played."

"I've handled a club."

So I had. I had once been round some fields with six balls and a club. I brought the club back--that is, most of it; the man from whom I had borrowed it seemed to be tolerably satisfied, on the whole; though I had, as it were, scattered the balls about me as I went. Amazing the capacity those six golf balls had for losing themselves. I was without a caddie. Grass was long. Even when I managed to hit one, I seldom saw where it went. That is, with sufficient precision to be able to lay my hand upon it afterwards. With balls at a shilling apiece I concluded that golf might prove expensive.

Hollis read more meaning into my words than I actually intended.

"That's all right. I didn't know you'd gone as far as that." I did not propose to correct him; though without an adequate understanding of what it was that he might mean. "What's your handicap?"

"I can't say that I have one."

"I suppose you belong to a club."

"Well, not exactly."

"Not exactly? What do you mean? Either you do or you don't. Speak up, man, and say what you mean."

His manner was positively warm. I endeavoured to explain. It was not the last explanation I did endeavour to make.

"You see, it was this way. I thought of putting up for a club--"

"What club?"

"Oh, a little local one; nothing of any account; a sort of place where people in the neighbourhood go and mess about."

"Mess about?"

"I fancy the word adequately describes what takes place. They've knocked up a course of a kind on some local common-land, it's quite rudimentary. I don't think that any serious play takes place. It was that, in a measure, which actuated me."

"Weren't you elected?"

"Elected? I never put up. I'd no doubt that they'd have been delighted to have me, only I didn't go so far. I only thought of doing so." Something in the expression of his face induced me to hasten on. "My dear Hollis, you may take it for granted that in everything which concerns golf I'm a novice."

"There are novices and novices. I call a man with a handicap of eighteen a novice."

"You may certainly credit me with a handicap of eighteen. I would remind you that you asked me to come to Littlestone in order that you might teach me golf."

"I'll teach you, if the thing's to be done." He regarded me in a manner which I did not altogether like. I do not know why people are apt to look at me in a peculiar way when I propose to make myself proficient in some branch of athletics. "I have arranged a foursome with old Pickard. He has a friend who ought to be about your mark. I'm told that he's a perfect ass." I imagine that Mr Hollis perceived that there was something on my countenance which made it desirable to throw light upon words which distinctly needed it. "I mean, of course, in a golfing sense only. I daresay that in any other sense he's all that could be desired, as you are, old man."

Almost immediately after breakfast, Hollis and I started for the links, where we were to meet our antagonists. As we had but a short distance to go we walked, each of us carrying a bag full of clubs. After we had gone a few steps I became conscious that Hollis was regarding my bag with what I could not but feel was a considerable amount of interest.

"You seem to have a newish lot of clubs."

"They're brand new, all of them. I bought them on purpose to come down here."

During the interval of silence which followed, Hollis stroked his moustache. I had an idea that he was smiling; though I did not know what at. I was not aware that I had said anything humorous.

"You seem to have a goodish few."

"I told the assistant at the shop to let me have everything that was requisite. I must admit that he seems to have interpreted my intentions in a generous spirit. I appear to have more clubs than you do. I don't know if that's an advantage or not."

Rather to my surprise Hollis stood still and turned to me.

"I say, you know, that friend of Pickard's has played."

"So I gathered."

"He's not a regular idiot."

"I thought you said he was."

"Well, there are degrees even in idiots. And Pickard himself is a bit short-tempered."

"If he has a wife, if that is the case, I am sorry for her. Otherwise I don't see how the fact of his good or bad temper can concern me."

"No? Perhaps not. He can control himself. After all, a foursome has to give way for a twosome. I think I ought to tell you that we're lunching at two."

"At two? That's all right. Why, it's only just past ten."

There was that in Hollis's words and manner which I could not but regard as cryptic; though I did not feel disposed, at the moment, to point this out to him. Presently he asked a question.

"By the way, what club do you use for your tee-shot?"

"The tee-shot?" I had heard the expression. I have no doubt that, if I had had a little time for reflection, I should have recalled in what connection. As it was, feeling a trifle flustered, I--if I may put it in that way--hedged. "It depends upon the--eh--position of the ball and--so on. What club do you use?"

"I always use a putter."

"A putter? Do you? Indeed. I can't say that I invariably use--ah--a putter, not for a tee-shot. What are you laughing at?"

Hollis had burst into a loud, and so far as I could perceive, wholly unprovoked guffaw. The man was developing a keenness of scent for what was funny with which I had not credited him. I wondered if I had said anything which was unintentionally amusing. In my pocket was a little manual of terms used at golf. I was disposed to refer to it with a view of ascertaining exactly what a putter was; but I refrained.

"Short," continued Hollis, "I'll get you the smartest caddie obtainable. If you'll take my strong advice, you'll act on any hint he may happen to drop; and, in particular, you'll use each club as he hands it you without a word."

Again there was that something in Hollis's words and manner which I can only once more describe as cryptic. Indeed, I will go further and say that I found it a little disconcerting. We had but another hundred and fifty yards to go. While we were traversing that short distance I was almost moved to suggest that I was not feeling altogether inclined to play that morning; and that, therefore, if a substitute could be found to fill my place he had better find him. I wish I had suggested it. It was merely the desire not to spoil Hollis's game which stayed my hand. And a lamentable lack of gratitude, to speak of nothing else, he displayed. I have seldom had a more uncomfortable experience. To think that I had gone to that wretched place, out of the purest good-nature, simply and solely to allow myself to be subjected to such treatment. Nothing could have been more unexpected. To say not a word about the money which I had expended on that bagful of clubs. Quite a sum.

We came to a spot where three or four men were hanging about, and where one man was hitting at a ball.

"Is this where we start?" I asked.

"This is the first tee."

"The first tee? Oh! Indeed."

I wish to state here, before going further, that that was the first time I had ever been on a golf course in my life. The desire was borne in upon me very strongly to mention this to Hollis before any misunderstanding could possibly arise; because I foresaw, even then, that misunderstandings might arise, in consequence of which I might find myself in a false position. But, for one thing, I felt that Hollis might possibly think that the moment was ill-chosen to make such a communication; and then, striding up to the other men, he began talking to them as if he had known them all their lives; and so, since I could hardly interrupt him, the opportunity was lost. Which I have ever since regretted.

Presently I was aware that Hollis was calling the attention of one of the strangers to me.

"This is my friend Short. Short, this is Pickard. Pickard, Short's a dark horse; one of those unattached men who have no handicaps."

"I take it that you're a plus man, Mr Short."

I perceived at once that Mr Pickard was a Scotchman. I do not desire, in any illiberal spirit, to say that I object to Scotchmen as a nation; but I do not hesitate to affirm that I realised, on the instant, that this was the type of Scotchman with whom I was not likely to find myself in sympathy. He was six feet high and grey-bearded, and had a dry way of speaking which made it difficult to determine, especially for a stranger, what it was he really did mean, and a trick of looking at you from under his beetle brows, which was actually threatening. I did not know what a plus man was, but I supposed that he was endeavouring to perpetrate something in the way of a joke, so I made an effort to fall in with what I imagined to be his humour.

"Oh, yes, Mr Pickard, I'm a plus man." Directly I said it Mr Pickard looked at me a little oddly, and as the other men who were within hearing turned towards me as if I had said something surprising, not knowing what it was I really had said, I tried to pass it off, as it were, with a little joke of my own. "That's to say, I'm a surplus man."

Nobody laughed except myself, and I only did it with difficulty.