It is an old, old story—everybody knows the slum: people go to gaze upon it; it is one of the chief sights of Victorian London, just as a hundred and fifty years ago it was one of the sights to see the women flogged at Bridewell. Not such a very great advance in civilisation, perhaps, after all.
'It is a hive—the place is swarming with life,' said the girl, who had never before seen such a street.
'Life means Humanity. All these people are so like you, my Scholar, that you would be surprised. You would not be like them if you were dressed in these things, but they are like you. They want the same things as you—they have the same desires—they suffer the same pains. What makes your happiness? Food—warmth, sufficiency, not too much work. These are the elements for you as well as for them. In my system they will have all these—and then perhaps they will build up, as you have done, an edifice of Knowledge, Art, and Sweet Thoughts. But they are all like you. And most in one thing. For all women of all classes, there is one thing needful. These girls, like you, want love. They all want love. Oh, child! they are so like you, so very like you—these poor women of the lowest class. So very like their proud sisters.' He paused for a moment. Elsie made no reply. 'You see,' he continued, 'they are so hard at work that they cannot even lift their eyes to look at you—not even at you, though they seldom see a girl among them so lovely and so well dressed. One would have thought—butthere is the Whip that drives—that dreadful Whip—it hangs over them and drives them all day long without rest or pause. Their work pays their rent and keeps them alive. It just keeps them alive, and that is all. No more. It must be hard to work all day long for another person—if you come to think of it. Happily, they do not think. And all this grinding poverty—this terrible work, that one family may be able to live in a great house and to do nothing.'
'They are working,' said the other Voice, 'because one man has had the wit to create a market for their work. His thrift, his enterprise, his clearness of sight, have made it possible for these girls to find the work that keeps them. If they would have the sense not to marry recklessly, there would be fewer working girls, and wages would go up. If their employer raised their wages only a penny a day, he would benefit them but little and would ruin himself. They must learn—if they can—the lesson of forethought by their own sufferings. No one can help them.'
As Mr. Edmund Gray walked into the houses and out again Elsie went with him, or she waited outside while he went in. Sometimes she heard the chink of coin: sometimes she heard words of thanks. The Socialist, whatever he taught, practised the elementary form of charity possible only for those who have money. Elsie remarked this little point, but said nothing.
'What you see here,' said the Master, 'is the lowest class of all—if one ever gets to the lowest level. For my own part, I have seen men and women so wretched that you would have called themmiserrimi—of all created beings the most wretched. Yet have I afterwards found others more wretched still. In this street are those who make the lowest things: those who can make nothing, and have no trade, and live on odd jobs: and those who can neither make nor work, but thieve and lie about.'
'I see all that; but, dear Master, what will your new order do for such people? Will it make those who will not work industrious?'
'It will give every producer the fruits of his own labour: it will teach a trade to every man, and find men work. And those who cannot work, it will kill, or lock up until they die. They shall have no children. Perhaps it will kill them all. It might be better. We will have no human failures in ourmidst. That street is full of lessons, all calling aloud for the destruction of Property.'
Then the other Voice spoke: 'The presence of the human failure is a lesson always before us—a warning and a lesson to rich and poor alike. As he is, so all may be. None are so rich but they may be brought to poverty: none so poor but they may be poorer. So far from hiding away the wreckage, it is always in our sight. It prowls about the streets: we can never escape it. And it fills all hearts with terror: it spurs all men to industry and invention and perseverance. The human failure inspires a never-ending hymn in praise of Property.'
Elsie's guide stopped to greet a woman whom he knew. She had the usual baby on her arm. She was a sad-faced woman, with some refinement in her looks: she was wretchedly dressed, thin, pale, and dejected.
'The same story?'
'Yes, sir. It's always the same,' she sighed hopelessly. 'But he would work if he could get anything to do. Nobody will employ a man who's had a misfortune. It's hard—because such a thing may happen to anybody. It's like measles, my husband says. He can't get drunk because there's no money. That's my only comfort.'
He gave her some money, and she passed on her way.
'Her husband was a clerk,' Mr. Gray explained, 'who took to drink and robbed his employer. His father was a barrister, who died young. His grandfather was a well-known—almost a great lawyer. I know the whole family history. I learned it——' He stopped for a moment, as if his memory suddenly failed him—'somehow—a long time ago. It is a story which shows how our sins and follies fall upon our own children. This family sprang from the gutter. First, the working man: then his son the shopkeeper: then his grandson, who became a great lawyer: then his great-grandson, not so great a lawyer. He, you see, is the first of the family who begins life as a gentleman and is brought up among gentlemen: he inherited money: he had a practice: he married in the class called gentle, and had children. But he lost all his money, and in despair he killed himself. Cousinly affection is a cold thing at best. It helped the widow to a pittance, and sent her boys to a cheap school. At fifteen they had to take whatever employment they could get.Observe that this branch of the family was now going downhill very fast. The future of a boy who has been taught no trade and has entered no profession is black indeed. One of the boys went out to New Zealand, which has little to give a friendless boy: another enlisted, served three years, and has never got any work since. I believe he carries boards about the street. Another became a tenth-rate actor, and now starves on fifteen shillings a week, paid irregularly. Another—the youngest—was put into a merchant's office. He rose to a hundred and twenty pounds a year: he married a girl of the clerkly class—that woman you saw: he took to drink: he embezzled his master's money: he went to prison: he is now hopelessly ruined. He cannot get any lower in the social scale. What will his children do? They have no friends. They will grow up like the children around them: they will join the hopeless casuals: they will be hewers of wood. Property, my child, Property—has done this. He stole. In our society nobody will be tempted to steal. He drank—with us he would be kept judiciously under control until he could be trusted again. That would be the care of the State. He is another victim of Property. When his grandfather was framing Acts of Parliament for the protection of Property, he did not dream that he was making another engine for the oppression of his grandchildren.'
Said the other Voice: 'We rise by our virtues. We sink by our vices. Let these people suffer. Their sufferings should make the rest of us wiser. Teach the children to rise again as their great-grandfather rose. Do not contend against the great Law which metes out suffering in return for vice.'
'Those,' continued the Socialist Professor, 'who do most to make a few men rich are the real enemies of what they suppose themselves to be defending. Given a thousand women sweated for one man, and there presently arises indignation either among the women or among the bystanders. From indignation we get revolution, because the employer never gives way. He cannot. He would lose, if he did, his wealth, which is his Heaven. If you divide the thousand women into companies of ten, each company under its own sweater, and all the sweaters under other sweaters, you make a hierarchy of sweaters, culminating in one at the top. That was the old state of things. The man at the top was a Chief, aPatriarch: he knew his people: he sweated them, but kindly: he tossed them crumbs: he looked after the sick and the old. Now all this is changing. The old family tie—such as it was—is dissolved. The man at the top has disappeared: a Board of Directors has taken his place: there is nothing left but the Board and its employees. The men who work are no longer interested in the business of the firm, except so far as their pay is concerned. Their pay will go up and the dividends will go down. And with every increase of wages so much Property is destroyed. Let every thing—everything—be turned into Companies to help the destruction of Property.'
Said the other Voice: 'Property is strengthened by being diffused. Companies organise labour: they give capital its proper power: they are not easily intimidated: they interest all who can save anything. Let us turn into Companies every industrial and distributive business in the country.'
'All times of change,' the Master went on, 'are times of interest. We are living at a time when great changes are impending—the greatest changes possible. Before great changes there is always a period of unconscious preparation. The minds of people are being trained. Without any perception of the fact, old ideas are dying out and new ones are coming into existence. When the Revolution actually arrives, everybody is ready for it and nobody is surprised. It was so with the Reformation. For a hundred years and more the idea of the Great Revolt had been slowly growing in men's minds. When it came at last, there was no surprise and there were few regrets. For a hundred years and more the ideas of the French Revolution had been talked about by philosophers: these ideas sank down among the people. Nobody was surprised, not even the nobles themselves, when the end came. So with our Revolution. It is coming—it is coming—its ideas are no longer timidly advanced—here and there—by a fanatic here or a philosopher there: they are lying in the hearts of the people ready to spur them into action: they are helping on the cause by successive steps, every one of which means nothing less than the abolition of Property. These things are new to you, child. You were only born yesterday or the day before. I was born a hundred years ago or thereabouts. Consider again'—he leaned against a lamp-post for greater ease, and discoursed as one addressing an audience—'Consider, I say, this great question of Companiesand their results. Formerly, one man made things which he took to market—sold or exchanged, and went home again. He, by himself, did everything. Then one man made and another man sold. The next improvement was for twenty men to work, for one to receive and to collect their work, and for another to sell it. In this way the twenty remained poor, and the two became rich. So they went on, and trade flourished, and the twenty producers more and more fell into the power of the two, who were now very rich and strong. Now the merchants are forming themselves into companies, and the companies are amalgamating with each other, and the small people may contemplate ruin. For these—now merchants, shopkeepers, manufacturers, workmen—there will be nothing but service in the companies; no possibility of acquiring Property, nothing but service all their lives. Now do you see how that helps the cause? They will become accustomed to work, but not for themselves: they will grow accustomed to work for a bare living and no more: they won't like either: but they will ask why the second should go with the first: the two great obstacles to Socialism will be removed. Then—either the step I spoke of just now—the abolition of the dividends—or, which is just as likely, a revolution, when the servants of the companies shall make the State take over all and work them for the good of all. Some there are who think that the workman will have hope and power for union crushed out of him. I think not; but if so—woe to the rich! The Jacquerie and the French Revolution will be spoken of as mild ebullitions of popular feeling compared with what will happen then. But I think not. I do not believe that the working man will sink again. He has got up so far. But he needs must climb higher.
'You think it would be impossible'—by this time a small crowd had got round them, but the speaker still addressed his disciple as if no one else at all was listening—'for the State to take over the great producing and distributing companies. But it has been done already. The State has the Post and the Telegraph Services. They will deal with railways, steamers, coaches, cabs, omnibuses, trams, canals, water, gas, electric light, breweries, bakeries, factories, shops, just as they have dealt with these two. The State can take it all. The State will take the management of all. But, you say, the shares of the company will become Funds. They will, and the Fundswill pay interest—but the interest will become rapidly lower and lower, so that what was once five per cent. is now but two and a half, and before long shall be two—one and a half—one—and nothing at all. There will be no cry of spoliation, because the holders of stock will be forced gradually into looking more and more to their own efforts, and because widows and sick people and old people, to whom the stocks were once so useful, will be all provided for by the State as a matter of right, and without any of the old humiliation of pauperdom. Pauper! Oh, heavenly word! Child, in the world of the future—the world which you will help to mould, we shall all be paupers,—every one.'
He spoke with fine enthusiasm, his face lit up, his eyes bright. The girl was almost carried away, until the other Voice began coldly and judicially:
'Nothing is so good for man as to be ruled and kept in discipline, service, and subjection. It is a foolish and a mischievous dream which supposes all men eager for advance. The mass of mankind asks for no advancement. It loves nothing and desires nothing but the gratification of the animal. Give it plenty of animalism and it is satisfied. That condition of society which keeps the mass down and provides for the rise of the ambitious few is the only condition which is reasonable and stable. Base your social order on the inertness of the mass. Make the workman do a good day's work: pay him enough, so that he shall have some of the comforts he desires: educate the clever boy and make him foreman, headman, manager, or artist, journalist, dramatist, novelist. Give him the taste for wealth. Let him have some. Then he, too, will be ready to fight if necessary in the army of order.'
While the other Voice was speaking, there came slouching around the corner into the street where he held the fifth—perhaps the tenth part of a room, a really excellent specimen of the common or London thief, the habitual criminal. He was a young man—the habitual criminal is generally young, because in middle and elderly life he is doing long sentences—he had a furtive look, such as that with which the jackal sallies forth on nocturnal adventures: he had a short slight figure, a stooping and slouching gait, and narrow shoulders. His eyes were bright, but too close together: his mouth was too large and his jowl too heavy: his face was pale, his hair was still short, though growing rapidly: his hands were pendulous:his round hat was too big for his little head: he wore a long loose overcoat. His face, his figure, his look proclaimed aloud what he was.
He stopped at the corner and looked at the little crowd. Everybody, for different reasons, is attracted by a crowd. Professionals sometimes find in crowds golden opportunities. This crowd, however, was already dispersing. The speaker had stopped. Perhaps they had heard other and more fervid orators on the Socialist side. Perhaps they were not in the least interested in the subject. You see, it is very difficult to get the hand-to-mouth class interested in anything except those two organs.
'This street,' said the Master, observing him with professional interest, 'is full—really full—of wealth for the observer. Here is a case now—an instructive though a common case.' The fellow was turning away disappointed, perhaps, at the melting of the crowd and any little hope he might have based upon their pockets. 'My friend'—he heard himself called, and looked round suspiciously—'you would like, perhaps, to earn a shilling honestly, for once.'
He turned slowly: at the sight of the coin held up before him, his sharp eyes darted right and left to see what chance there might be of a grab and a bolt. Apparently, he decided against this method of earning the shilling. 'What for?' he asked.
'By answering a few questions. Where were you born?'
'I dunno.'
'Where were you brought up? Here?—In this street? Very well. You went to school with the other children: you were taught certain subjects up to a certain standard. What trade were you taught?'
'I wasn't taught no trade.'
'Your father was, I believe, a thief?'—The lad nodded—'And your mother, too?'—He nodded again, and grinned.—'And you yourself and your brothers and sisters are all in the same line, I suppose?'—He nodded and grinned again.—'Here is your shilling.' The fellow took it, and shambled away.
'Father—mother—the whole family, live by stealing. Where there is no Property there can be no theft. In our world, such a creature would be impossible. He could not be born: such parents as his could not exist with us: he couldnot be developed: there would be no surroundings that would make such a development possible. He would be what, I believe, men of science call a Sport: he would be a deformity. We should put him in a hospital and keep him there until he died.'
'In that world,' said the other Voice, 'there would be deformities of even a worse kind than this—the deformities of hypocrisy and shams. By a thousand shifts and lies and dishonesties the work of the world would be shifted on the shoulders of the weak. The strong man has always used his strength to make the weak man work for him, and he always will. The destruction of Property would be followed by the birth of Property on the very self-same day. There is the power of creation—of invention—which is also a kind of Property. Laws cannot destroy that power. Laws cannot make men industrious. Laws cannot make the strong man work for the weak. Laws cannot prevent the clever man from taking advantage of the stupid man. When all the failures—all the deformities—have been killed off, the able man will still prey upon the dull-witted. Better let the poor wretch live out his miserable life, driven from prison to prison, an example for all the world to see.'
It was at this point that Elsie discovered the loss of her purse. Her pocket had been picked by one of the intelligent listeners in the crowd. She cried out on finding what had happened, in the unphilosophic surprise and indignation with which this quite common accident is always received.
'Child,' said the Master, 'when there is no longer any Property, money will vanish: there will be no purses; even the pocket will disappear, because there will no longer be any use for a pocket.—Did the purse contain much? Suppose you had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Think of the lightness of heart, the sunshine on all faces, which would follow. I fear you are rich, child. I have observed little signs about you which denote riches. Your gloves are neat and good; your dress seems costly. Better far if you had nothing.'
'Master, if I were like that girl on the other side, would you like me better? Could I be more useful to the cause if I dressed like her?'
The girl was of the common type—they really do seem, at first, all alike—who had on an ulster and a hat with a feather and broken boots.
'If I were like her,' Elsie went on, 'I should be ignorant—and obliged to give the whole day to work, so that I should be useless to you—and my manners would be rough and my language coarse. It is because I am not poor that I am what I am. The day for poverty is not come yet, dear Master.'
'In the future, dear child, there shall be no poverty and no riches. To have nothing will be the common lot. To have all will be the common inheritance. Oh! there will be differences: men shall be as unlike then as now: we shall not all desire the same things. You and such as you will desire Art of every kind. You shall have what you desire. In our world, as in this, like will to like. You shall have the use for yourselves of pictures, of musical instruments, of everything that you want. The rest of the world will not want these things. If they do, more can be made. You shall have dainty food—the rest of the world will always like coarse and common fare. Think not that we shall level up or level down. All will be left to rise or to sink. Only they shall not starve, they shall not thieve, they shall not be sweated. Oh! I know they paint our society as attempts to make all equal. And they think that we expect men no longer to desire the good things in the world. They will desire them—they will hunger after them—but there will be enough for all. The man who is contented with a dinner of herbs may go to a Carthusian convent, which is his place, for we shall have no place for him in a world which recognises all good gifts and assigns to every man his share.'
Then spoke the other Voice, but sadly: 'Dreams! Dreams! There are not enough of the good things to go round—good things would become less instead of more. Without the spur there is no work. Without the desire of creating Property, all that is worth anything in life will perish—all but the things that are lowest and the meanest and the commonest. Men will not work unless they must. By necessity alone can the finest work be ordered and executed. As men have been, so will men always be. The thing that hath been, that shall be again.'
'You have learned some of the lessons of Poverty Lane, Scholar,' said the Master.—'Let us now go home.'
'Another evening of mystery, Elsie?' said Athelstan.
'Yes. Another, and perhaps another. But we are getting to an end. I shall be able to tell you all to-day or to-morrow. The thing is becoming too great for me alone.'
'You shall tell us when you please. Meantime, nothing new has been found out, I believe. Checkley still glares, George tells me. But the opinion of the clerks seems on the whole more favourable, he believes, than it was. Of that, however, he is not perhaps a good judge.'
'They shall all be turned out,' cried Elsie. 'How dare they so much as to discuss——'
'My sister, it is a very remarkable thing, and a thing little understood, but it is a true thing. People, people—clerks andle Servicegenerally—are distinctly a branch of the great human tribe. They are anthropoid. Therefore, they are curious and prying and suspicious. They have our own faults, my dear.'
All day Elsie felt drawn as with ropes to Mr. Dering's office. Was it possible that after that long evening among the lessons of Poverty Lane he should remember nothing? How was she to get at him—how was she to make him understand or believe what he had done? Could she make the sane man remember the actions and words of the insane man? Could she make the insane man do something which would absolutely identify him with the sane man? She could always array her witnesses: but she wanted more: she wanted to bring Mr. Dering himself to understand that he was Mr. Edmund Gray.
She made an excuse for calling upon him. It was in the afternoon, about four, that she called. She found him looking aged, his face lined, his cheek pale, his eyes anxious.
'This business worries me,' he said. 'Day and night it is with me. I am persecuted and haunted with this Edmund Gray. His tracts are put into my pockets; his papers into my safe: he laughs at me: he defies me to find him. Andthey do nothing. They only accuse each other. They find nothing.'
'Patience,' said Elsie softly. 'Only a few days—a day or two—then—with your help—we will unravel all this trouble. You shall lose nothing.'
'Shall I escape this mocking devil—this Edmund Gray?'
'I cannot promise. Perhaps.—Now, my dear guardian, I am to be married next Wednesday. I want you to be present at my wedding.'
'Why not?'
'Because things have been said about George: and because your presence will effectually prove that you do not believe them.'
'Oh! Believe them? I believe nothing. It is, however, my experience that there is no act, however base, that any man may not be tempted to do.'
'Happily, it is my experience,' said the girl of twenty-one, 'that there is no act of baseness, however small, that certain men could possibly commit. You will come to my wedding, then. Athelstan will give me away.'
'Athelstan? Yes; I remember. We found those notes, didn't we? I wonder who put them into the safe? Athelstan! Yes. He has been living in low company, I heard—Camberwell.—Rags and tatters.'
'Oh!' Elsie stamped impatiently. 'You will believe anything—anything, and you a lawyer! Athelstan is in the service of a great American journal.—Rags and tatters!'
'American? Oh! yes.' Mr. Dering sat up and looked interested. 'Why, of course. How could I forget it? Had it been yesterday evening, I should have forgot. But it is four years ago. He wrote to me from somewhere in America. Where was it? I've got the letter. It is in the safe. Bring me the bottom right-hand drawer. It is there, I know.' He took the drawer which Elsie brought him, and turned over the papers. 'Here it is among the papers of that forgery. Here is the letter.' He gave it to Elsie. 'Read it. He writes from America, you see. He was in the States four years ago—and—and——What is it?'
'Oh!' cried Elsie, suddenly springing from her chair—'Oh! Do you know what you have given me? Oh! do you know what you have told me? It is the secret—the secret—ofmy fortune. Oh! Athelstan gave it to me—Athelstan—my brother!'
Mr. Dering took the letter from her and glanced at the contents. 'I ought not to have shown you the letter,' he said. 'I have violated confidence. I forgot. I was thinking of the trouble—I forgot. I forget everything now—the things of yesterday as well as the things of to-day. Yes; it is true, child: your little fortune came to you from your brother. But it was a secret that he alone had the right to reveal.'
'And now I know it— I know it. Oh! what shall I say to him?' The tears came in her eyes. 'He gave me all he had—all he had—because—oh! for such a simple thing—because I would not believe him to be a villain. Oh! my brother—my poor brother! He went back into poverty again. He gave me all because—oh! for such a little thing!—Mr. Dering!' She turned almost fiercely upon him. 'After such a letter,couldyou believe that man to be a villain? Could you? Tell me! After such a deed and such a letter!'
'I believe nothing. My experience, however, tells me that any man, whoever he is, may be led to commit——'
'NO! I won't have it said again.—Now, listen, Mr. Dering. These suspicions must cease. There must be an end. Athelstan returned six weeks ago—or thereabouts. That can be proved. Before that time, he was working in San Francisco on the journal. That can be proved. While these forgeries, with which he is now so freely charged, were carried on here, he was abroad. I don't ask you to believe or to disbelieve or to bring up your experience—oh! such experience—one would think you had been a police magistrate all your life.'
'No, Elsie.' Mr. Dering smiled grimly. 'There was no need to sit upon the bench; the police magistrate does not hear so much as the family solicitor. My dear, prove your brother's innocence by finding out who did the thing. That is, after all, the only thing. It matters nothing what I believe—he is not proved innocent—all the world may be suspected of it—until the criminal is found. Remove the suspicions which have gathered about your lover by finding the criminal. There is no other way.'
'Very well, then. I will find the criminal, since no one else can.'
Mr. Dering went on without heeding her words.
'They want to get out a warrant against Edmund Gray. I think, for my own part, that the man Edmund Gray has nothing to do with the business. He is said to be an elderly man and a respectable man—a gentleman—who has held his Chambers for ten years.'
'They need not worry about a warrant,' Elsie replied. 'Tell your brother, Mr. Dering, that it will be perfectly useless. Meantime—I doubt if it is any good asking you—but—if we want your help, will you give me all the help you can?'
'Assuredly. All the help I can. Why not? I am the principal person concerned.'
'You are, indeed,' said Elsie gravely—'the principal person concerned. Very well, Mr. Dering—now I will tell you more. I know the—the criminal. I can put my hand upon him at any moment. It is one man who has done the whole, beginning with the cheque for which Athelstan was suspected—one man alone.'
'Why, child, what can you know about it? What can you do?'
'You were never in love, Mr. Dering—else you would understand that a girl will do a great deal—oh! a great deal more than you would think—for her lover. It is not much to think for him and to watch for him—and for her brother—the brother who has stripped himself of everything to give his sister!' She was fain to pause, for the tears which rose again and choked her voice.
'But, Elsie—what does this mean? How can you know what no one else has been able to find out?'
'That is my affair, Mr. Dering. Perhaps I dreamed it.'
'Do you mean that you will get back all the papers—all the transfers—the dividends that have been diverted—everything?'
'Everything is safe. Everything shall be restored.—My dear guardian, it is a long and a sad story. I cannot tell you now. Presently, perhaps. Or to-morrow. I do not know how I shall be able to tell you. But for your property, rest easy. Everything will come back to you—everything—except that which cannot be stored in the vaults of the Bank.'
The last words he heard not, or understood not.
'I shall get back everything!' The eyes of the Individualist lit up and his pale cheek glowed—old age has still some pleasures. 'It is not until one loses Property that onefinds out how precious it has become. Elsie, you remember what I told you, a day or two ago. Ah! I don't forget quite everything—a man is not the shivering naked soul only, but the complete figure, equipped and clothed, armed and decorated, bearing with him his skill, his wit, his ingenuity, his learning, his past, and his present, his memories and his rejoicings, his sorrows and his trials, his successes and his failures, and his Property—yes—his Property. Take away from him any of these things, and he is mutilated: he is not the perfect soul. Why, you tell me that my Property is coming back— I awake again. I feel stronger already; the shadows are flying before me: even the terror of that strange forgetfulness recedes: and the haunting of Edmund Gray. I can bear all, if I get my Property back again. As for this forger—this miscreant—this criminal—you will hale him before the judge———'
'Yes—yes. We will see about the miscreant afterwards. The first thing is to find the man and recover your Property, and to dispel the suspicions resting on innocent persons. If I do the former, you must aid me in the latter.'
'Assuredly. I shall not shrink from that duty.'
'Very well.—Now tell me about yourself. Sometimes it does good to talk about our own troubles. Tell me more about these forgetful fits. Do they trouble you still?' Her eyes and her voice were soft and winning. One must be of granite to resist such a voice and such eyes.
'My dear'—Mr. Dering softened. 'You are good to interest yourself in an old man's ailments. It is Anno Domini that is the matter with me. The forgetful fits are only symptoms—and the disease is incurable. Ask the oak why the leaves are yellow.—It is the hand of winter. That is my complaint. First the hand of winter, then the hand of Death. Meantime, the voice of the grasshopper sings loud and shrill.' In presence of the simple things of age and death, even a hard old lawyer grows poetic.
'Tell me the symptoms, then. Do you still forget things?'
'Constantly. More and more. I forget everything.'
'Where were you yesterday evening, for instance?'
'I don't know. I cannot remember. I have left off even trying to remember. At one time I racked my brain for hours, to find out, and failed. Now I remember nothing. I never know when this forgetfulness may fall upon me. At any hour.—For instance—you ask me about yesterday evening.I ordered dinner at home. My housekeeper this morning reminded me that I did not get home last night till eleven. Where was I? Where did I spend the evening?'
'At the Club?'
'No— I took a cab this morning and drove there under pretence of asking for letters. I asked if I was there last night. The hall porter stared. But I was not there. I thought that I might have fallen asleep there. I have done so before. Checkley tells me that I went away before him. Where was I?— Child!'—he leaned forward and whispered, with white cheeks—'I have read of men going about with disordered brains doing what they afterwards forget. Am I one of these unfortunates? Do I go about with my wits wandering? Oh! horrible! I picture to myself an old man—such as myself—of unblemished reputation and blameless life—wandering about the streets demented—without conscience—without dignity—without self-respect—committing follies—things disgraceful—even things which bring men before the law——' He shuddered. He turned pale.
'No—no,' murmured Elsie. 'You could not. You could never——'
'Such things are on record. They have happened. They may happen again. I have read of such cases. There was a man once—he was like myself—a Solicitor—who would go out and do things, not knowing what he did. They found him out at last doing something so incredibly foolish that there was but one explanation. In another man and a younger man it would have been worse than foolish, it would have been criminal. Then they gave him a companion, and he discovered what he had done. The shame and the shock of it killed him. I have thought of that man of late. Good Heavens! Think, if you can, of any worse disaster. Let me die—let me die, I say, rather than suffer such a fate—such an affliction. I see myself brought before the magistrate—me—myself—at my age, charged with this and with that. What defence? None, save that I did not remember.'
'That could never be,' said Elsie confidently, because she knew the facts. 'If such a thing were to befall, your character would never be changed. You might talk and think differently, but you could never be otherwise than a good man. You to haunt low company? Oh! you could not even in a waking dream. People who dream, I am sure, always remainthemselves, however strangely they may act. How could you—you—after such a life as yours, become a haunter of low company? One might perhaps suppose that Athelstan had been living among profligates because he is young and untried—but you?—you? Oh! no. If you had these waking dreams—perhaps you have them—you would become—you would become—I really think you would become'—she watched his face—'such—such a man as—as—Mr. Edmund Gray, who is so like yourself, and yet so different.'
He started. 'Edmund Gray again? Good Heavens! It is always Edmund Gray!'
'He is now a friend of mine. I have only known him for a week or two. He does not think quite as you do. But he is a good man. Since, in dreams, we do strange things, you might act and speak and think as Edmund Gray.'
'I speak and think as—— But—am I dreaming? Am I forgetting again? Am I awake? Edmund Gray is the man whom we want to find.'
'I have found him,' said Elsie quietly.
'The forger—if he is the forger——'
'No—no. Do not make more mistakes. You shall have the truth in a day or two. Would you like to see Edmund Gray? Will you come with me to his Chambers? Whenever you call, you—you, I say—will find him at home.'
'No—no. I know his doctrines—futile doctrines—mischievous doctrines. I do not wish to meet him. What do you mean by mistakes? There are the letters—there are the forgeries. Are there two Edmund Grays?'
'No—only one. He is the man they cannot find. I will show you, if you like, what manner of man he is.'
'No. I do not want to see a Socialist. I should insult him.—You are mysterious, Elsie. You know this man, this mischievous doctrinaire—this leveller—this spoliator. You tell me that he is a good man—you want me to see him. What, I ask, do these things mean?'
'They mean many things, my dear guardian. Chiefly they mean that you shall get back your Property, and that suspicion shall be removed from innocent persons—and all this, I hope, before next Wednesday, when I am to be married. We must all be happy on my wedding day.'
'Will—will Mr. Edmund Gray be there as well?'
'He has promised.—And now, my dear guardian, if youwill come round to Gray's Inn with me, I will show you the Chambers of Mr. Edmund Gray.'
'No—no. Thank you, Elsie— I do not wish to make the personal acquaintance of a Socialist.'
'He has Chambers on the second floor. The principal room is large and well furnished. It is a wainscoted room with two windows looking on the Square. It is not a very pretty Square, because they have not made a garden or laid down grass in the middle—and the houses are rather dingy. He sits there in the evening. He writes and meditates. Sometimes he teaches me, but that is a new thing. In the morning he is sometimes there between nine o'clock and twelve. He has an old laundress, who pretends to keep his rooms clean.'
She murmured these words softly, thinking to turn his memory back and make him understand what had happened.
'They are pleasant rooms, are they not?' He made no reply—his eyes betrayed trouble. She thought it was the trouble of struggling memory.—'He sits here alone and works. He thinks he is working for the advancement of the world. There is no one so good, I think, as Edmund Gray.'
He suddenly pushed back the chair and sprang to his feet.
'My Scholar! You speak of me?'
It was so sudden that Elsie cried out and fell backwards in her chair. She had brought on the thing by her own words, by conjuring up a vision of the Chambers. But—the trouble was not the struggle of the memory getting hold of evasive facts.
'Why, child,' he remonstrated, 'you look pale. Is it the heat? Come, it is cooler outside. Let us go to the Chambers in Gray's Inn. This old fellow—this Dering—here he sits all day long. It is Tom Tiddler's ground. It is paved with gold, which he picks up. The place—let us whisper—because he must be in the outer office—it reeks of Property—reeks of Property.'
He took his hat and gloves. 'My Scholar, let us go.' By force of habit, he shut and locked the safe and dropped the bunch of keys in his pocket.
On the evening of that same day the same discovery was made by another of the persons chiefly concerned.
You have seen that Athelstan on his return made haste to find out the commissionaire who had presented the forged cheque. Happily, the man remembered not only the circumstance itself but also his employer on that occasion. A generosity far above what is commonly found among those who employ the services of that corps endeared and preserved the memory of the day. He had received, in fact, half a sovereign for an eighteenpenny job; and the commissionaire is not like the cabby, to whom such windfalls are common. Not at all. With the former we observe the letter of the law.
After eight years this man's memory was rewarded. This thrice blessed job produced yet more golden fruit. Heard one ever of a more prolific job?
After breakfast, Athelstan was informed that a commissionaire desired to speak with him. It was his one-armed friend.
'Beg your pardon, sir,' he said, saluting after the military manner—'you said I was to come and tell you, first thing, if I found your man for you.'
'Certainly. I told you also that I would give you a five-pound reward for finding my man, as you call him. Well—I will be as good as my word if you have found him.'
'I saw him yesterday. The very same old gentleman that sent me to the Bank that day. He's older, and he doesn't look so jolly, and he walks slower; but I knew him at once.'
'Oh! are you quite sure? Because a resemblance, you know——'
'Well, sir, I can swear to him. I remember him as well as I remember anybody. He sat in the chair, and he laughed, and he said: "You've been quick over the job, my man. There's something extra, because you might have dropped the money down a grating, or run away with it, or something," he says. "Here's half a sovereign for you, my man," says he; "and I daresay you can do with it." "I can so, sir," I says,"and with as many more like them as I can pick up." Then he laughed, and I laughed, and we both laughed.—And that's the same man that I saw yesterday evening.'
'Oh! this is very curious. Are you quite sure?'
'I'd swear to him anywhere. A man can't say fairer.'
'No—as you say—a man can hardly say fairer, can he? Now, then, when did you see him?'
'It was between six and seven. I'd been doing a message for a gentleman in the Strand—a gentleman in the dining-room line to a gentleman in Holborn in the sausage and tripe line—and I was going back with a letter, and going through Lincoln's Inn for a short cut. Just as I was getting near the gate to the Fields, I saw coming out of the door at No. 12 the very man you want to find. I wasn't thinking about him, not a bit— I was thinking of nothing at all, when he come out of the door and walked down the steps. Then I knew him. Lord! I knew him at once. "You're the man," I says to myself, "as give me the half-sov. instead of eighteenpence." Well, I stood at the corner and waited to see if he would remember me. Not a bit of it. He stared at me hard, but he never recollected me a bit—I could see that. Why should he? Nobody remembers the servant any more than they remember the private in the ranks. The very same old gentleman; but he's grown older, and he didn't look jolly any more. P'raps he's lost his money.'
'Came out of No. 12, did he? Why, Dering & Son's office is there. What does this mean?'
'I thought I'd like to find out something more about him; and I thought that a five-pound note was better worth looking after than eighteenpence—so I let the letter from the tripe and sausage man lay a bit, and I followed my old gentleman at a good distance.'
'Oh! you followed him. Very good. Did you find out where he lived? I can tell you that. He went to No. 22 South Square, Gray's Inn.'
'No; he didn't, sir.—But you are not very far wrong. He went through Great Turnstile; then he crossed Holborn and turned into Featherstone Buildings, which is all lodging-houses. But he doesn't live there. He walked through the Buildings, and so into Bedford Row, and he stopped at a house there——'
'What! In Bedford Row?'
'Yes; in Bedford Row—and he pulls out a latch-key and lets himself in. That's where he lives. No. 49 Bedford Row, on the west side, very near the bottom. He lives in Bedford Row.—Well, sir, I like to do things proper, and so, to make the job complete, I went to theSalutation, Holborn, where they keep a Directory, and I looked out his name. The gentleman that lives at No. 49 Bedford Row is named Edward Dering—and among the names of No. 12 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, is the name of Dering & Son.—So, sir, I don't think it is too much to say that your man is Mr. Dering, who belongs both to Bedford Row and Lincoln's Inn. He's the man who sent me to the Bank eight years ago.'
Athelstan stared at him. 'He the man?' he cried. 'You are talking impossibilities. He can't be the man.'
'Nobody else, sir. If that was Mr. Dering that I saw yesterday walking home from New Square to Bedford Row—he's the man who sent me for the money.'
To this statement the man stuck firm. Nor could he be moved by any assertion that his position was impossible. 'For, my friend,' said Athelstan, 'the man who sent you with the cheque was the man who robbed Mr. Dering.'
'Can't help that, sir. If the gentleman I saw yesterday walking from Lincoln's Inn to Bedford Row was Mr. Dering—then he robbed hisself.'
'That's foolishness. Oh! there must be some explanation. Look here! Mr. Edward Dering leaves his office every evening between six and seven. I will be in New Square on the west side this evening at six. You be there, as well. Try not to seem as if you were watching for anybody. Stand about at your ease.'
'I'll make it sentry-go, sir,' said the old soldier. 'I'll walk up and down in front of the door same as some of our chaps got to do in front of shops. You trust me, sir, and I won't take no notice of you.'
This little plot, in fact, was faithfully carried out. At six o'clock Athelstan began to walk up and down outside the gate which opens upon Lincoln's Inn Fields—the commissionaire at the same time was doing sentry-go in front of No. 12 in New Square. When the clock struck six there was a rush and a tramp of hurrying feet; these were the clerks set free for the day. There are not many solicitors' offices in New Square, and these once gone, the place becomes perfectlyquiet. At half-past six there was the footfall as of one man on the stairs, and he descended slowly. He came out of the door presently, an old bent figure with white hair and shrivelled face. Paying no heed to the sentry, he walked away with feeble step in the direction of Chancery Lane. Checkley this was, on his way to look after his tenants and his property.
Athelstan looked after him, through the gate. Then he called his old soldier. 'See that man?' he asked. 'That's the man who sent you to the Bank.'
'No—he isn't.' The man was stout on that point. 'Not a bit like him. That old man's a servant, not a gentleman. See the way he holds his hands. Never a gentleman yet carried his hands that way. You can always tell 'em by their hands. The other day I met an old pal—seemed to forget me, he did. Wanted to make out that he'd never been in the army at all. So I lay by for a bit. Then I gets up—and he gets up too. "'Tention," says I, and he stood to 'tention like a good old Tommy Atkins. You watch their hands whatever they say. Always tell 'em by their hands. That old man he's a servant. He isn't a gentleman. He can't sit among the swells and order about the waiters. He hasn't learned that way. He'd get up himself, if you asked him, and put the napkin under his arm and bring you a glass of sherry wine. He's not my man. You wait a bit.'
At a quarter to seven another footstep was heard echoing up and down the empty building. Then an old man, erect, thin, tightly buttoned, wearing neat gloves and carrying an umbrella, came out of the door. His face was hard, even austere. His walk was firm. The Sentry, as this person walked out of the gate, followed at a distance. When he was beside Athelstan, he whispered: 'That's the man. I'd swear to him anywhere. That's the man that sent me to the Bank.'
Athelstan heard in unbounded astonishment. That the man? Why—it was Mr. Dering himself!
'Let us follow him,' he whispered. 'Not together. On opposite sides of the road. Good Heavens! This is most wonderful. Do not lose sight of him.'
To follow him was perfectly easy, because Mr. Dering turned neither to the right nor to the left, but marched straight on through Great Turnstile, across Holborn, through Featherstone Buildings, and into Bedford Row. At No. 49, his own house. Where else should he stop?
Athelstan took out his purse and gave the man the five pounds. 'I don't know what it means,' he said. 'I can't understand a word. But I suppose you have told me the truth. I don't know why you should make up a lie——'
'It's Gauspel Truth,' said the man.
'And therefore again—I don't understand it. Well—I've got your name and your number. If I want you again I will send for you.'
The man saluted and walked away. Half a sovereign for an eighteenpenny job, and eight years afterwards five pounds on account of the same job. Robbery, was it? Robbery—and the old man pretending to rob himself. Now what did that mean? Laying it on to some poor harmless innocent cove, the soldier guessed: laying it on to some one as he had a spite against—the old villain—very likely this young governor—most likely— Donation on account of that same job, very likely—the old villain!
As for Athelstan, he returned to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, the evening being fine and the sun warm and the place quiet except for the children at play, he walked up and down the east or sunny side for half an hour turning the thing over in his mind.
For, you see, if Mr. Dering went through the form of robbing himself and finding out the robbery and coldly suffering the blame to fall upon himself—then Mr. Dering must be one of the most phenomenally wicked of living men. Or, if Mr. Dering robbed himself, and did not know it—then Mr. Dering must be mad.
Again, if such a thing could be done on a small scale, it might be done on a larger scale with the same result—namely, suspicion to fall upon a blameless person; obloquy to gather round his name—for in some cases simply to be charged is almost as fatal as to be convicted: and perfect impunity for himself. 'This is not my own writing, but a forgery,' said the man who had been robbed. Then, who is the forger? You—you. None but you. The bare suspicion becomes a certainty in the minds of those who were once that man's friends.—And his life is cankered at the outset. He thought of his own life; the bitterness of alienation and exile. Never any time for eight years when he could explain the reasons of his exile. Debt, the cultivation of wild oats, failure to pass examinations—anything would do for such a reason exceptsuspicion of forgery. Athelstan was a cheerful young man. He seldom allowed himself to be cast down by the blows of fate. Nevertheless, during his whole time of exile, the drop of bitterness that poisoned his cup was that he could not tell the whole story because the world would believe no more than half—that half, namely, which contained the accusation. When one walks about thinking, there comes a time when it seems no good to think any longer. The mind can only get a certain amount out of a case at one sitting. That amount absorbed, the best thing is to go on to something else. Athelstan went on to dinner. He left his sister to the care of her young man, and dined by himself. He took a steak at a Holborn restaurant with an evening paper, which he considered professionally. After dinner he returned to his subject. Perhaps he should get a step farther. No—perhaps on account of the sweet influence of dinner he got no farther at all. Here was an astonishing fact. How to account for it? You have seen—by one of two ways—malignity unspeakable: or madness—madness of a very curious kind—the madness of a man whose calm cold judgment had made him appear to his friends as one with an intellect far above any ordinary weaknesses of humanity. Mr. Dering mad? Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the President of the Royal Society, the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, the Cambridge Professors of Mathematics—all these men might be mad as well. And nobody to know it or to suspect it. Mr. Dering mad! and yet, if not, what was he?
There was one way. He had tried it already once. He left the restaurant and turned eastwards. He was going to try South Square, Gray's Inn, again. Perhaps Mr. Edmund Gray would be in his rooms.
He was not. The door was shut. But the opposite door stood open, that of Freddy Carstone. Athelstan knocked, and was admitted with eloquence almost tumultuous.
'Just in time,' said the coach. 'I've got a new brand of whisky, straight from Glasgow. You shall sample it. Have you had dinner yet? So have I. Sit down. Let us talk and smoke tobacco and drink whisky and soda.'
'I will do the talking and the tobacco at any rate.'
'I love Virtue,' said Freddy. 'She is a lovely goddess—for "if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her."She has only one fault. There is reproach in her voice, reproach in her eye, and reproach in her attitude. She is an uncomfortable goddess. Fortunately, she dwells not in this venerable foundation. Do not imitate Virtue, old boy. Let me—— That's right. We shall then start fair upon the primrose path—the broad and flowery way—though I may get farther down than you. Athelstan the Wanderer—Melmoth the Wanderer—Childe Harold the Pilgrim—drink and be human.' He set the example. 'Good whisky—very good whisky. Athelstan, there's a poor devil up-stairs, starving for the most part—let's have him down. It's a charity.' He ran up-stairs, and immediately returned with the decayed Advocate, who looked less hungry than usual, and a shade less shabby—you have seen how he borrowed of Mr. Edmund Gray through Elsie.
'Now,' said the host, 'I call this comfortable; a warm August evening; the window open; a suspicion of fresh air from the gardens; soda and whisky; and two men for talk. Most evenings one has to sit alone. Then there's a temptation to—to close the evening too quickly.'
'Freddy, I want to hear more about your neighbour. You told me something, if you remember, a week or two ago.'
'Very odd thing. Old Checkley at theSalutationis always pestering about Mr. Edmund Gray. What has he to do with Mr. Edmund Gray? Wanted me to answer his questions.'
'And me,' said Mr. Langhorne. 'I did answer them.'
'Well—Mr. Edmund Gray is—— What is he? An old gentleman of cheerful aspect, who is apparently a Socialist. We must all be allowed our little weaknesses. All I ask for is——' He reached his hand for the whisky. 'This old gentleman carries his hobbies so far as to believe in them seriously. I've talked to him about them.'
'I have heard him lecture at Camden Town,' said the Barrister. 'I go there sometimes on Sunday evening. They have a tea-feast with him and cake and toast. It is a pleasant gathering. It reminds one of the Early Church.'
'Well, Athelstan, what else can I tell you? Hark!' There was a step heard ascending the stairs. 'I believe that is the old man himself. If it is, you shall see him. I will bring him in.'
He went out to meet the unknown footstep on the landing.He greeted the owner of that footstep: he stopped him: he persuaded him to step into the opposite room. 'You must be lonely, Mr. Gray, sitting by yourself. Come in and have an hour's talk. Come in. This way. The room is rather dark. Here is Mr. Langhorne, your overhead neighbour, whom you know; and here is Mr. Athelstan Arundel, whom you don't know. Those who do know him like him, except for his Virtue, which is ostentatious in one so young.'
It was now nearly nine o'clock. The lamp was not lit, and the room lay in twilight. It is the favourite shade for ghosts. A ghost stood before Athelstan, and shook hands with him—the ghost of Mr. Dering.
'I am happy'—the ghost held out his hand—'to make your acquaintance, Mr. Arundel. An old man, like myself, makes acquaintances, but not friends. His time for new friendships is gone. Still, the world may be full of pleasant acquaintances.'
He sat down, taking a chair in the window: the shade of the curtain fell upon his face so that nothing could be seen but a white circle.
'Let us have candles, Freddy,' said Athelstan.
'By all means.' Freddy lit a lamp on the table and two candles on the mantel-shelf. By their light the lineaments and figure of the ghost came out more distinctly. Athelstan gazed on it with bewilderment; his head went round; he closed his eyes: he tried to pull himself together.
He sat up: he drank half a glass of whisky and soda, he stared steadily at the figure he had not seen for eight years, since—— Good Heavens! and this man had done it himself! And he was as mad as a hatter.
Mr. Edmund Gray looked serenely cheerful. He lay back in the long chair, his feet extended and crossed: his elbows on the arms of the chair, his finger-tips touching; his face was wreathed with smiles; he looked as if he had always found the world the best of all possible worlds.
Athelstan heard nothing of what was said. His old friend Freddy Carstone was talking in his light and airy way, as if nothing at all mattered. He was not expected to say anything. Freddy liked to do all the talking for himself—therefore he sat watching a man under an illusion so extraordinary that it made him another man. Nothing was changed in him—neither features nor voice nor dress—yet he was anotherman. 'Why,' asked Athelstan, 'why did he write that cheque for seven hundred and twenty pounds?'
Presently Freddy stopped talking, and Mr. Edmund Gray took up the conversation. What he said—the doctrines which he advanced, we know already. 'And these things,' said Athelstan to himself, 'from those lips! Is it possible?'
At ten o'clock Mr. Edmund Gray rose. He had to write a letter; he prayed to be excused. He offered his hand again to Athelstan. 'Good-night, sir,' he said. 'To the pleasure of seeing you again.'
'Have we never met before, Mr. Gray?' Athelstan asked.
'I think not. I should remember you, Mr. Arundel, I am sure,' Mr. Gray replied politely. 'Besides, I never forget a face. And yours is new to me.—Good-night, sir.'
To Checkley, watching every evening, though not always at the same time, sooner or later the same discovery was certain to come. It happened, in fact, on Friday evening, the day after Athelstan shook hands with Mr. Edmund Gray. On that night he left the office between six and seven, walked to his lodgings in Clerkenwell, made himself a cup of tea, and hurried back to Gray's Inn. Here he planted himself, as usual, close to the passage in the north-east corner of South Square, so that he could slip in on occasion and be effaced. Like many of the detective tribe, or like the ostrich, fount of many fables, he imagined himself by reason of this retreat entirely hidden from the observation of all. Of course the exact contrary was the result. The Policeman regarded him with the liveliest curiosity: the laundresses watched him daily: the newspaper vendor came every evening from the gateway to see what this ancient spy was doing, and why he lurked stealthily in the passage and looked out furtively. He was one of the little incidents or episodes which vary the daily routine of life in the Inn. Many of these occur every year: the people who come to their offices at ten and go away at five know nothing about them: the residents who leave at ten andreturn at six or seven or twelve know nothing about them. But the Service know: and they talk and conjecture. Here was an elderly man—nay, an old, old man, apparently eighty years of age. What did he want, coming night after night to hide himself in a passage and peer out into the Square? What, indeed? The Policeman, who had done duty in Hyde Park, could tell instructive stories from his own experience about frisky age: the laundresses remembered gentlemen for whom they had 'done,' and pranks with which those gentlemen amused themselves; but no one knew a case parallel to this. Why should an old man stand in the corner and secretly look out into the Square? He generally arrived at half-past seven, and he left his post at nine, when it was too dark to see across the Square. Then he went to theSalutationand enjoyed society, conversation, and a cheerful glass, as you have seen.
The time he chose was unfortunate, because Mr. Edmund Gray, when he called at his Chambers, generally did so at half-past six or seven, on his way to the Hall of Science, Kentish Town. Therefore, Checkley might have gone on watching for a long time—say an æon—watching and waiting in vain. But an accident happened which rewarded him richly for all his trouble. It was on Friday. Elsie, provided by this time with a latch-key to the Chambers, arrived at Gray's Inn at six. She was going to spend the evening with the Master. She walked in, ascended the staircase—Mr. Gray had not yet arrived—opened the door, shut it behind her, and entered the room.
The hand of woman was now visible in the general improvement of the room. The windows were clean and bright: the wainscoted walls had been cleaned: the ceiling whitewashed: the carpet had been swept and the furniture dusted: there were flowers on the table: there was an easel, on which stood Elsie's fancy portrait of Mr. Dering, so wonderfully like Mr. Gray—a speaking likeness: books lay about the table—they were all books on the Labour Question: on the Social Question: on the Problems of the Day: all the books on all the questions with which men now torture themselves, and think thereby to advance the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. There were new curtains, dainty curtains, of lace, hanging before the windows: and the window-blinds themselves were clean and new. Elsie looked about her with acertain satisfaction: it was her own doing, the work of her own hand, because the old laundress was satisfied to sit down and look on. 'At the least,' she said, 'the poor dear man has a clean room.' Then she remembered that in a day or two she would leave him to his old solitude, and she sighed, thinking how he clung to her and leaned upon her, and already looked upon her as his successor—'a clean room,' she said, 'when I have left him. Perhaps he will leave the room, too, and be all day long what he used to be.—Sane or mad? I love him best when he is mad.'
The table was covered with manuscripts. These were part of the great work which he was about to give to the world.
Elsie had never seen the room behind this. A guilty curiosity seized her. She felt like the youngest of Bluebeard's wives. She felt the impulse: she resisted: she gave way: she opened the door and looked in.
She found a room nearly as large as the sitting-room. The windows were black with dust and soot. She opened one, and looked out upon a small green area outside, littered with paper and bottles and all kind of jetsam. The floor of the room was a couple of inches deep with dust: the chairs and the dressing-table were deep in dust. The bed was laid, but the blankets were devoured by moths: there was not a square inch left whole. It looked as if it had been brought in new and covered with sheets and blankets and so left, the room unopened, the bed untouched, for the ten years of Mr. Edmund Gray's tenancy.
Between the bedroom and the sitting-room was a small dark room, containing a bath, a table for washing-up, knives and forks in a basket, teacups and saucers.
'The pantry,' said Elsie, 'and the scullery, and the house-maid's closet, all together. Oh! beautiful! And to think that men live in such dens—and sleep there contentedly night after night in this lonely, ghostly old place. Horrible! 'A rattling behind the wainscoting warned her that ghosts can show themselves even in the daytime. She shuddered, and retreated to the sitting-room. Here she took a book and sat by the open window, heedless of the fact that she could be seen by anyone from the Square.
It was seven o'clock before Mr. Edmund Gray arrived. 'Ah! child,' he cried tenderly, 'you are here before me. I was delayed—some business. What was it? Pshaw! I forgeteverything. Never mind—I am here; and before we take a cab, I want you once more to go through with me the points of my new Catechism. Now, if you are ready.'
'Quite ready, Master.'
At half-past seven Checkley arrived at his corner and took a preliminary survey of the Square. 'There he is,' said the Policeman. 'There he is again,' said two laundresses conversing on a doorstep. 'There he is as usual,' said the newspaper man. 'Now,' asked all in chorus, 'what's he want there?'
Mr. Checkley looked out from his corner, saw no one in the Square, and retreated into his passage. Then he looked out again, and retreated again. If anyone passed through the passage, Checkley was always walking off with great resolution in the opposite direction.
Presently, in one of his stealthy peerings, he happened to look up. Then he started—he shaded his eyes: he looked his hardest. Yes, at the open window, freely displayed, without the least attempt at concealment, he saw the head and face of Miss Elsie Arundel. There! There! What more was necessary? Edmund Gray was Athelstan Arundel, or George Austin, or both—and Elsie Arundel was an accomplice after the act. There! There! He retreated to the seclusion of the passage and rubbed his hands. This would please Sir Samuel. He should hear it that very night. This ought to please him very much, because it made things so clear at last. There she was—up-stairs, in the Chambers of Mr. Edmund Gray—in the very room! There! There! There!
Perhaps he was mistaken. But his sight was very good—for distant things. In reading a newspaper he might make mistakes, because he was one of those elderly persons who enjoy their newspaper most when they can nail it upon the wall and sit down to read it from the other side of a large room. He looked up again. The setting sun shining on the window of the side where he stood—the eastern side was reflected upon the windows of No. 22—Elsie's shapely head—she had taken off her hat—was bathed in the reflected sunshine. No doubt about her at all. There she was. There! There! There! The old man was fain to take a walk up Verulam Buildings and back again, to disguise his delight at this discovery. He walked chuckling and cracking hisfingers, so that those who saw him—but there are not many in Raymond's Buildings on an August evening—thought that he must be either a little mad or a little drunk or a little foolish. But nobody much regards the actions of an ancient man. It is only the respect of his grandchildren or the thought of his possessions that gives him importance. Only the strong are regarded, and an old man who looks poor gets no credit even for foolishness and silly chuckles. Then Checkley went back to his corner. Oh! what was that? He rubbed his eyes again. He turned pale: he staggered: he caught at the door-posts. What was that? He shaded his eyes and looked again—bent and trembling and shaking all over. Said the Policeman: 'Looks as if he's going to get 'em again.' Said the laundresses: 'He looks as if he'd seen a ghost.' The newspaper boy stepped half-way across the Square. 'He's looking at Mr. Edmund Gray and the young lady. Jealous—p'raps—knows the young lady—wouldn't have believed it prob'ly.'
Yes—Checkley was looking at that window. No doubt of that at all. He was not able to disguise his astonishment: he no longer pretended to hide himself. For he saw, sitting in the window, the young lady whom he believed to be an accomplice in the crime; and standing over her, with an expression of fatherly affection, was none other than Mr. Dering himself.
Yes— Mr. Dering. Most wonderful! What did it mean? Had Mr. Dering resolved to clear up the mystery of Edmund Gray? Had he penetrated the Chambers and found there—not Edmund Gray—but Elsie Arundel?
'My friend,' said the Policeman, standing before him so that the view of the window was intercepted, 'you seem interested over the way.'
'I am. I am. Oh! yes. Much interested.'
'Well—don't you think you've looked at that old gentleman long enough? Perhaps he wouldn't like so much looking at. There's a young lady, too. It isn't manners to be staring at a young lady like a stuck pig.'
'No—no, Policeman— I've seen enough—thank you.'
'And, still talking in a friendly way, do you think Mr. Edmund Gray over there would like it if he knew there was a detective or a spy watching every evening on the other side of the Square? What's the little game, guv'nor? Anything inour line? Not with that most respectable old gentleman, I do hope—though sometimes—— Well—what is it? Because we can't have you goin' on as you have a been goin' on, you know.'