At that moment appeared on the long slope leading down to the esplanade the figure of a man running. He looked like a policeman—a sea-side policeman.
Jones did not pause to verify. He propped the bicycle against the rails of a verandahed house and ran.
The esplanade at this, the eastern end, ascends to the town by a zig-zag road. As he took this ascent the mind of Jones, far from being clouded or dulled, was acutely active. It saw that now the railway station of Northbourne was out of count, flight by train was impossible, for the station was the very first place that would be watched. The coast line, to judge by present results, was impossible, for it seemed that tokeep to it he might go on for ever being chased till he reached John o’ Groats.
Northbourne is the twin image of Sandbourne-on-Sea, the same long high street, the same shops with blinds selling the same wares, the same trippers, children with spades, and invalids.
The two towns are rivals, each claiming the biggest brass band, the longest esplanade, the fewer deaths from drowning, the best drains, the most sunlight, and the swiftest trains from London. Needless to say that one of them is not speaking the truth, a fact that does not seem to disturb either of them in the least.
Jones, walking swiftly, passed a sea-side boot shop, a butcher’s, greengrocer’s, and Italian warehouse—the same, to judge by the name over the door—that had sent forth the messenger boy on the bicycle. Then came a cinema palace, with huge pictures splashed across with yellow bands announcing:
“TO-NIGHT”
Then a milliner’s, then a post office, and lastly a livery stable.
In front of the latter stood a char-a-banc nearly full. A blackboard announced in white chalk: “Two hours drive two shillings,” and the congregation in the char-a-banc had that stamp. Stout women, children, a weedy man or two, and a honeymoon couple.
Jones, without the slightest hesitation, climbed into the char-a-banc. It seemed sent by Heaven. It wasa seat, it went somewhere, and it was a hiding place. Seated amongst these people he felt intuitively that a viewless barrier lay between him and his pursuers, that it was the very last place a man in search of a runaway would glance at.
He was right. Whilst the char-a-banc still lingered on the chance of a last customer, the running policeman—he was walking now, appeared at the sea end of the street. He was a young man with a face like an apple, he wore a straw helmet—Northbourne serves out straw helmets for its police and straw hats for its horses on the first of June each year—and he seemed blown. He was looking about him from right to left, but he never looked once at the char-a-banc and its contents. He went on, and round the corner of the street he vanished, still looking about him.
A few moments later the vehicle started. The contents were cheerful and communicative one with the other, conversing freely on all sorts of matters, and Jones, listening despite himself, gathered all sorts of information on subjects ranging from the pictures then exhibiting at the cinema palace, to the price of butter.
He discovered that the contents consisted of three family parties—exclusive of the honeymoon couple—and that the appearance of universal fraternity was deceptive, that the parties were exclusive, the conversation of each being confined to its own members.
So occupied was his mind by these facts that they were a mile and a half away from Northbourne andin the depths of the country before a great doubt seized him.
He called across the heads of the others to the driver asking where they were going to.
“Sandbourne-on-Sea,” said the driver.
Now, though the Sandbournites hate the Northbournites as the Guelphs the Ghibellines, though the two towns are at advertisemental war, the favourite pleasure drive of the char-a-bancs of Sandbourne is to Northbourne, and vice versa. It is chosen simply because the road is the best thereabouts, and the gradients the easiest for the horses.
“Sandbourne-on-Sea?” cried Jones.
“Yes,” said the driver.
The vision of himself being carted back to Sandbourne-on-Sea with that crowd and then back again to Northbourne—if he were not caught—appeared to Jones for the moment as the last possible grimace of Fate. He struggled to get out, calling to the driver that he did not want to go to Sandbourne. The vehicle stopped, and the driver demanded the full fare—two shillings. Jones produced one of his sovereigns but the man could not make change, neither could any of the passengers.
“I’ll call at the livery stables as I go back,” said Jones, “and pay them there.”
“Where are you stayin’ in the town?” asked the driver.
“Belinda Villa,” said Jones.
It was the name of the villa against whose rails hehad left the bicycle. The idiocy of the title had struck him vaguely at the moment and the impression had remained.
“Mrs. Cass?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Cass’s empty.”
This unfortunate condition of Mrs. Cass did not floor Jones.
“She was yesterday,” said he, “but I have taken the front parlour and a bed-room this afternoon.”
“That’s true,” said a fat woman, “I saw the gentleman go in with his luggage.”
In any congregation of people you will always find a liar ready to lie for fun, or the excitement of having a part in the business on hand; failing that, a person equipped with an imagination that sees what it pleases.
This amazing statement of the fat woman almost took Jones’ breath away. But there are other people in a crowd beside liars.
“Why can’t the gentleman leave the sovereign with the driver and get the change in the morning?” asked one of the weedy looking men. This scarecrow had not said a word to anyone during the drive. He seemed born of mischance to live for that supreme moment, diminish an honest man’s ways of escape, and wither.
Jones withered him:
“You shut up,” said he. “It’s no affair of yours—cheek.” Then to the driver: “You know my address,if you don’t trust me you can come back with me and get change.”
Then he turned and walked off whilst the vehicle drove on.
He waited till a bend of the road hid it from view, and then he took to the fields on the left.
He had still the remains of the packet of cigarettes he had bought at Sandbourne, and, having crossed four or five gates, he took his seat under a hedge and lit a cigarette.
He was hungry. He had done a lot of work on four Banbury cakes and an apple.
CHAPTER XXVIITHE ONLY MAN IN THE WORLD WHO WOULD BELIEVE HIM
The tobacco took the edge from his desire for food, increased his blood pressure, and gave rest to his mind.
He sat thinking. The story of “Moths” rose up before his mind and he fell to wondering how it ended and what became of the beautiful heroine with whom he had linked Teresa Countess of Rochester, of Zouroff with whom he had linked Maniloff, of Corréze with whom he had linked himself.
The colour of that story had tinctured all his sea-side experiences. Then Mrs. Henshaw rose up before his mind. What was she thinking of the lodger who had flashed through her life and vanished over the back garden wall? And the interview between her and Hoover—that would have been well worth seeing. Then the boy on the bicycle and the screaming invalid rose before him, and that mad rush down the slope to the esplanade; if those children with spades and buckets had not parted as they did, if a dog had got in his way, if the slope had ended in a curve! He amused himself with picturing these possibilities and their results; and then all at once adrowsiness more delightful than any dream closed on him and he fell asleep.
It was after dark when he awoke with the remnant of a moon lighting the field before him. From far away and borne on the wind from the sea came a faint sound as of a delirious donkey with brass lungs braying at the moon. It was the sound of a band. The Northbourne brass band playing in the Cliff Gardens above the moonlit sea. Jones felt to see that his cigarettes and matches were safe in his pocket, then he started, taking a line across country, trusting in Providence as a guide.
Sometimes he paused and rested on a gate, listening to the faint and indeterminate sounds of the night, through which came occasionally the barking of a distant dog like the beating of a trip hammer.
It was a perfect summer’s night, one of those rare nights that England alone can produce; there were glow worms in the hedges and a scent of new mown hay in the air. Though the music of the band had been blotted out by distance, listening intently he caught the faintest suspicion of a whisper, continuous, and evidently the sound of the sea.
An hour later, that is to say towards eleven o’clock, weary with finding his way out of fields into fields, into grassy lanes and around farm house buildings, desperate, and faint from hunger, Jones found a road and by the road a bungalow with a light in one of the windows.
A dauntingly respectable-looking bungalow in the midst of a well laid-out garden.
Jones opened the gate and came up the path. He was going to demand food, offer to pay for it if necessary, and produce gold as an evidence of good faith.
He came into the verandah, found the front door which was closed, struck a match, found the bell, pulled and pulled it. There was no response. He waited a little and then rang again, with a like result. Then he came to the lighted window.
It was a French window, only half closed, and a half turned lamp showed a comfortably furnished room and a table laid out for supper.
Two places were set. A cold fowl intact on a dish garnished with parsley stood side by side with a York ham the worse for wear, a salad, a roll of cowslip coloured butter, a loaf of home-made bread and a cheese tucked around with a snow-white napkin made up the rest of the eatables whilst a decanter of claret shone invitingly by the seat of the carver. There was nothing wanting, or only the invitation.
The fowl supplied that.
Jones pushed the window open and entered. Half closing it again, he took his seat at the table placing his hat on the floor beside him. Taking a sovereign from his pocket, he placed it on the white cloth. Then he fell to.
You can generally tell a man by his claret, and judging from this claret the unknown who had supplied the feast must have been a most estimable man.
A man of understanding and parts, a man not tobe deluded by specious wine lists, a generous warmhearted and full-blooded soul—and here he was.
A step sounded on the verandah, the window was pushed open and a man of forty years or so, well-dressed, tall, thin, dark and saturnine stood before the feaster.
He showed no surprise. Removing his hat he bowed.
Jones half rose.
“Hello,” said he confusedly, with his mouth full—then he subsided into his chair.
“I must apologise for being late,” said the tall man, placing his hat on a chair, rubbing his long hands together and moving to the vacant seat. “I was unavoidably detained. But I’m glad you did not wait supper.”
He took his seat, spread his napkin on his knees, and poured himself out a glass of claret. His eyes were fixed on the sovereign lying upon the cloth. He had noted it from the first. Jones picked it up and put it in his pocket.
“That’s right,” said the unknown. Then as if in reply to a question: “I will have a wing, please.”
Jones cut a wing of the fowl, placed it in the extra plate which he had placed on one side of the table and presented it. The other cut himself some bread, helped himself to salad, salt and pepper and started eating, absolutely as though nothing unusual had occurred or was occurring.
For half a minute or so neither spoke. Then Jones said:
“Look here,” said he, “I want to make some explanations.”
“Explanations,” said the long man, “what about?”
Jones laughed.
“That sovereign which I put on the table and which I have put back in my pocket. I must apologise. Had I gone away before you returned that would have been left behind to show that your room had been entered neither by a hobo nor a burglar, nor by some cad who had committed an impertinence—perhaps you will believe that.”
The long man bowed.
“But,” went on Jones, “by a man who was driven by circumstances to seek hospitality without an invitation.”
The other had suddenly remembered the ham and had risen and was helping himself, his pince-nez which he wore on a ribbon and evidently only for reading purposes, dangling against his waistcoat-buttons.
“By circumstance,” said he, “that is interesting. Circumstance is the master dramatist—are you interested in the Drama?”
“Interested!” said Jones. “Why, Iama drama. I reckon I’m the biggest drama ever written, and that’s why I am here to-night.”
“Ah,” said the other, “this is becoming more interesting still or promising to become, for I warn you, plainly, that what may appear of intense interest to the individual is generally of little interest to the general. Now a man may, let’s say, commit some littleact that the thing we call Justice disapproves of, and eluding Justice finds himself pressed by Circumstance into queer and dramatic positions, those positions though of momentary and intense interest to the man in question would be of the vaguest interest to the man in the stalls or the girls eating buns in the gallery, unless they were connected by that thread of—what shall we call it—that is the backbone of the thing we call Story.”
“Oh, Justice isn’t bothering after me,” said Jones—Then vague recollections began to stir in his mind, that long glabrous face, the set of that jaw, that forehead, that hair, brushed back.
“Why, you’re Mr. Kellerman, aren’t you?” said he.
The other bowed.
“Good heavens,” said Jones, “I ought to have known you. I’ve seen your picture often enough in the States, and your cinema plays—haven’t read your books, for I’m not a reading man—but I’ve been fair crazy over your cinema plays.”
Kellerman bowed.
“Help yourself to some cheese,” said he, “it’s good. I get it from Fortnum and Masons. When I stepped into this room and saw you here, for the first moment I was going to kick you out, then I thought I’d have some fun with you and freeze you out. So you’re American? You are welcome. But just tell me this. Why did you come in, and how?”
“I came in because I am being chased,” said Jones. “It’s not the law, I reckon I’m an honest citizen—inpurpose, anyhow, and as to how I came in I wanted a crust of bread and rang at your hall door.”
“Servants don’t sleep here,” said Kellerman. “Cook snores, bungalow like a fiddle for conveying sounds, come here for sleep and rest. They sleep at a cottage down the road.”
“So?” said Jones. “Well, getting no reply I looked in at the window, saw the supper, and came in.”
“That’s just the sort of thing that might occur in a photo play,” said Kellerman. “When I saw you, as I stepped in, sitting quietly at supper the situation struck me at once.”
“You call that a situation,” said Jones. “It’s bald to some of the situations I have been in for the last God knows how long.”
“You interest me,” said Kellerman, helping himself to cheese. “You talk with such entire conviction of the value of your goods.”
“How do you mean the value of my goods?”
“Your situations, if you like the term better. Don’t you know that good situations are rarer than diamonds and more valuable? Have you ever read Pickwick?”
“Yep.”
“Then you can guess what I mean. Situations don’t occur in real life, they have to be dug for in the diamond fields of the mind and—”
“Situations don’t occur in real life!” said Jones. “Don’t they—now, see here, I’ve had supper with you and in return for your hospitality I’ll tell you every thing that’s happened to me if you’ll hear it. I guessI’ll shatter your illusions. I’ll give you a sample: I belong to the London Senior Conservative Club and yet I don’t. I have the swellest house in London yet it doesn’t belong to me. I’m worth one million and eight thousand pounds, yet the other day I had to steal a few sovereigns, but the law could not touch me for stealing them. I have an uncle who is a duke yet I am no relation to him. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it, all the same it’s fact. I don’t mind telling you the whole thing if you care to hear it. I won’t give you the right names because there’s a woman in the case, but I bet I’ll lift your hair.”
Kellerman did not seem elated.
“I don’t mind listening to your story,” said he, “on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That you will not be offended if I switch you off if the thing palls and hand you your hat, for I must tell you that though I came down here to get sleep, I do most of my sleeping between two in the morning and noon. I work at night and I had intended working to-night.”
“Oh, you can switch me off when you like,” said Jones.
Supper being finished, Kellerman fastened the window, and, carrying the lamp, led the way to a comfortably furnished study. Here he produced cigars and put a little kettle on a spirit stove to make tea.
Then, sitting opposite to his host, in a comfortable armchair, Jones began his story.
He had told his infernal story so often that one might have fancied it a painful effort, even to begin. It was not. He had now an audience in touch with him. He suppressed names, or rather altered them, substituting Manchester for Rochester and Birdwood for Birdbrook. The audience did not care, it recked nothing of titles, it wanted Story—and it got it.
At about one o’clock the recital was interrupted whilst tea was made, at two o’clock or a little after the tale finished.
“Well?” said Jones.
Kellerman was leaning back in his chair with eyes half closed, he seemed calculating something in his head.
“D’ you believe me?”
Kellerman opened his eyes.
“Of course I believe you. If you had invented all that you would be clever enough to know what your invention is worth and not hand it out to a stranger. But I doubt whether anyone else will believe you—however, that is your affair—you have given me five reels of the finest stuff, or at least the material for it, and if I ever care to use it I will fix you up a contract giving you twenty-five per cent royalties. But there’s one thing you haven’t given me—the dénouement. I’m more than interested in that. I’m not thinking of money, I’m a film actor at heart and I want to help in the play. Say, may I help?”
“How?”
“Come along with you to the end, give all the assistance in my power—or even without that just watchthe show. I want to see the last act for I’m blessed if I can imagine it.”
“I’d rather not,” said Jones. “You might get to know the real names of the people I’m dealing with, and as there is a woman in the business I don’t feel I ought to give her name away even to you. No. I reckon I’ll pull through alone, but if you’d give me a sofa to sleep on to-night I’d be grateful. Then I can get away in the morning.”
Kellerman did not press the point.
“I’ll give you better than a sofa,” he said. “There’s a spare bed, and you’d better not start in the morning; give them time to cool down. Then towards evening you can make a dash. The servants here are all right, they’ll think you are a friend run down from town to see me. I’ll arrange all that.”
CHAPTER XXVIIIPEBBLEMARSH
At five o’clock next day, Jones, re-dressed by Kellerman in a morning coat rather the worse for wear—a coat that had been left behind at the bungalow by one of Kellerman’s friends—and a dark cloth cap, took his departure from the bungalow. His appearance was frankly abominable, but quite distinct from the appearance of a man dressed in a grey flannel tennis coat and wearing a Panama—and that was the main point.
Kellerman had also worked up a history and personality for the newly attired one.
“You are Mr. Isaacson,” said he.
“Here’s the card of a Mr. Isaacson who called some time ago, put it in your pocket. I will write you a couple of fake letters to back the card, you are in the watch trade. Pebblemarsh is the nearest town, only five miles down the road; there’s a station there, but you’d better avoid that. There’s a garage. You could get a car to London. If they nail you, scream like an excited Jew, produce your credentials, and if the worst comes to the worst refer to me and come back here. I would love that interview. Country policeman, lunatic asylum man, Mr. Isaacson highly excited, and myself.”
He sat down to write the fake letters addressed to Mr. Isaacson by his uncle Julius Goldberg and his partner Marcus Cohen. As he wrote he talked over his shoulder on the subject of disguises, alleging that the only really impenetrable disguise was that of a nigger minstrel.
“You see, all black faces are pretty much the same,” said he. “Their predominant expression is black, but I haven’t got the fixings nor the coloured pants and things, to say nothing of a banjo, so I reckon you’ll just have to be Mr. Isaacson, and you may thank the God of the Hebrews I haven’t made you an old clothes man—watches are respectable. Here are your letters, they are short but credible. Have you enough money?”
“Lots,” said Jones, “and I don’t know in the least how to thank you for what you have done. I’d have been had, sure, wearing that hat and coat—well, maybe we’ll meet again.”
They parted at the gate, the hunted one taking the white, dusty road in the direction of Pebblemarsh, Kellerman watching till a bend hid him from view.
Kellerman had in some mysterious way added a touch of the footlights to this business. This confounded Kellerman who thought in terms of reels and situations, had managed to inspire Jones with the feeling that he was moving on the screen, and that any moment the hedgerows might give up an army of pursuers to the delight of a hidden audience.
However, the hedgerows of the Pebblemarsh road gave up nothing but the odours of briar and woodbine,nothing pursued him but the twitter of birds and the songs of larks above the summer-drowsy fields.
There is nothing much better to live in the memory than a real old English country road on a perfect summer afternoon, no pleasanter companion.
Pebblemarsh is a town of some four thousand souls. It possesses a dye factory. It once possessed the only really good trout stream in this part of the country, with the inevitable result, for in England when a really good trout stream is discovered a dye factory is always erected upon its banks. Pebblemarsh now only possesses a dye factory.
The main street runs north and south, and as Jones passed up it he might have fancied himself in Sandbourne or Northbourne, so much alike are these three towns.
Half way up and opposite the post office, an archway disclosed itself with, above it, the magic word,
“GARAGE”
He entered the place. There were no signs of cars, nothing of a movable description in that yard, with the exception of a stout man in leggings and shirtsleeves, who, seeing the stranger, came forward to receive him.
“Have you a car?” asked Jones.
“They’re all out except a Ford,” said the stout man. “Did you want to go for a drive?”
“No. I want to run up to London in a hurry—what’s the mileage from here?”
“We reckon it sixty three miles from here to London—that is to say the Old Kent Road.”
“That’s near enough,” said Jones. “What’s the price?”
“A shilling a mile to take you, and a sixpence a mile for the car coming back.”
“What’s the total?”
The proprietor figured in his head for a moment. “Four, fifteen and six,” said he.
“I’ll take the car,” said Jones, “and I’ll pay you now. Can I have it at once?”
The proprietor went to a door and opened it. “Jim,” cried he, “are you there? Gentleman wants the Ford taken to London, get her out and get yourself ready.”
He turned to Jones.
“She’ll be ready inside ten minutes if that will do?”
“That’ll do,” said Jones, “and here’s the money.” He produced the chamois leather bag, paid the five sovereigns, and received five and sixpence change—and also a receipt which he put in his pocket. Then Jim appeared, an inconspicuous looking man, wriggling into a driving coat that had seen better days, the Ford was taken from its den, the tyres examined, and the petrol tank filled.
“Haven’t you an overcoat?” asked the proprietor. “It’ll be chilly after sundown.”
“No,” said Jones. “I came down without one, the weather was so fine—It won’t hurt.”
“Better have a coat,” said the proprietor. “I’lllend you one. Jim will fetch it back.” He went off, and returned with a heavy coat on his arm.
“That’s good of you,” said Jones. “Thanks—I’ll put it on now to save trouble.” Then a bright idea struck him. “What I’m afraid of most is my eyes, the wind tries them. Have you any goggles?”
“I believe there’s an old pair in the office,” said the proprietor, “hold on a minute.” He went off and returned with the goggles. Jones thanked him, put them on, and got into the car.
“Pleasant journey to you,” said the proprietor.
Then they started.
They turned up the street and along the road by which Jones had come. Then they struck into the road where the “Lucknows” and “Cawnpores” hinted of old Indian Colonels.
They passed the gates of the Hoover establishment. It was open, and an attendant was gazing up and down the street. He looked at the car but he did not recognize the occupant, then several more residential roads were left behind, a highly respectable cemetery, a tin chapel, and the car, taking a hill as Fords know how, dropped Sandbourne-on-Sea to invisibility and surrounded itself with vast stretches of green and sun warmed country, June scented, and hazy with the warmth of summer.
They passed hop gardens and hamlets, broad meadows and grazing cattle, bosky woods and park lands.
Jones, though he had taken the goggles off, sawlittle of the beauty around him. He was recognising facts, and asking questions of himself.
If Hoover or the police were to call at the garage, what would happen? Knowing the route of the car could they telegraph to towns on the way and have him arrested? How did the English law stand as regards escaped gentlemen with hallucinations? Could they be arrested like criminals? Surely not—and yet as regards the law, who could be sure of anything? Jim, the speechless driver, could tell him nothing on these points.
Towards dusk they reached a fairly big town, and in the very centre of the main street, Jim stopped the car to light the headlamps. A policeman, passing on his beat, paused to inspect the operation and then moved on, and the car resumed its way, driving into a world of twilight and scented hedges, where the glowworms were lighting up, and over which the sky was showing a silvery sprinkle of stars.
Two more towns they passed unhindered, and then came the fringe of London, a maze of lights and ways and houses, tram lines, and then an endless road, half road, half street, lines of shops, lines of old houses and semi gardens.
Jim turned in his seat. “This here’s the Kent Road,” said he. “We’re about the middle of it, which part did you want?”
“This will do,” said Jones, “pull her up.”
He got out, took the four and sixpence from his pocket, and gave Jim two shillings for a tip.
“Going all the way back to-night?” asked he, as he wriggled out of the coat, and handed it over with the goggles.
“No,” said Jim. “I’ll stop at the last pub we passed for the night. There ain’t no use over taxin’ a car.”
“Well, good night to you,” said Jones. He watched the car turning and vanishing, then, with a feeling of freedom he had never before experienced, he pushed on London-wards.
With only two and sixpence in his pocket, he would have to wander about all night, or sit on the embankment. He had several times seen the outcasts on the embankment seats at night, and pitied them; he did not pity them now. They were free men and women.
The wind had died away and the night was sultry, much pleasanter out of doors than in, a general term that did not apply to the Old Kent Road.
The old road leading down to Kent was once, no doubt, a pleasant enough place, but pleasure had long forsaken it, and cleanliness. It was here that David Copperfield sold his jacket, and the old clothiers’ shops are so antiquated that any of them might have been the scene of the purchase. To-night the old Kent Road was swarming, and the further Jones advanced towards the river the thicker seemed the throng.
At a flaring public house, and for the price of a shilling, he obtained enough food in the way of sausages and mashed potatoes, to satisfy his hunger, a half pint tankard of beer completed the satisfaction of his inner man, and having bought a couple ofpackets of navy cut cigarettes and a box of matches, he left the place and pursued his way towards the river.
He had exactly tenpence in his pocket, and he fell to thinking as he walked, of the extraordinary monetary fluctuations he had experienced in this city of London. At the Savoy that fatal day he had less than ten pounds, next morning, though robed as a Lord, he had only a penny, the penny had been reduced to a halfpenny by the purchase of a newspaper, the halfpenny swelled to five pounds by Rochester’s gift, the five pounds sprang in five minutes to eight thousand, owing to Voles, the eight thousand to a million eight thousand, owing to Mulhausen, Simms and Cavendish had stripped him of his last cent, the Smithers affair had given him five pounds, now he had only ten pence, and to-morrow at nine o’clock he would have eight thousand.
It will be noted that he did not consider that eight thousand his, till it was safe in his pocket in the form of notes—he had learned by bitter experience to put his trust in nothing but the tangible. He reached the river and the great bridge that spans it here, and on the bridge he paused, leaning his elbow on the parapet, and looking down stream.
The waning moon had risen, painting the water with silver; barge lights and the lights of tugs and police boats shewed points of orange and dribbles of ruffled gold, whilst away down stream to the right, the airy fairy tracery of the Houses of Parliament fretted the sky.
It was a nocturne after the heart of Whistler, and Jones, as he gazed at it, felt for the first time the magic of this wonderful half revealed city with its million yellow eyes. He passed on, crossing to the right bank, and found the Strand. Here in a bar, and for the price of half a pint of beer, he sat for some twenty minutes watching the customers and killing Time, then, with his worldly wealth reduced to eightpence, he wandered off westward, passing the Savoy, and pausing for a moment to peep down the great archway at the gaily lit hotel.
At midnight he had gravitated to the embankment, and found a seat not overcrowded.
Here he fell in with a gentleman, derelict like himself, a free spoken individual, whose conversation wiled away an hour.
CHAPTER XXIXTHE BLIGHTED CITY
Said the person after a request for a match: “Warm night, but there’s a change in the weather coming on, or I’m greatly mistaken. I’ve lost nearly everything in the chops and changes of life, but there’s one thing I haven’t lost—my barometer—that’s to say my rheumatism. It tells me when rain is coming as sure as an aneroid. London is pretty full for the time of year, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” said Jones, “I reckon it is.”
They talked, the gentleman with the barometer passing from the weather to politics, from politics to high finance, from high finance to himself. He had been a solicitor.
“Disbarred, as you see, for nothing, but what a hundred men are doing at the present moment. There’s no justice in the world, except maybe in the Law Courts. I’m not one of those who think the Law is an ass, no, there’s a great deal of common sense in the Law of England. I’m not talking of the Incorporated Law Society that shut me out from a living, for a slip any man might make. I’m talking of the old Laws of England as administered by his Majesty’s Judges; study them, and you will be astonished attheir straight common-sense and justice. I’m not holding any brief for lawyers—I’m frank, you see—the business of lawyers is to wriggle round and circumvent the truth, to muddy evidence, confuse witnesses and undo justice. I’m just talking of the laws.”
“Do you know anything of the laws of lunacy?” asked Jones.
“Something.”
“I had a friend who was supposed to be suffering from mind trouble, two doctors doped him and put him away in an asylum—he was quite harmless.”
“What do you mean by doped him?” asked the other.
“Gave him a drug to quiet him, and then took him off in an automobile.”
“Was there money involved?”
“You may say there was. He was worth a million.”
“Anyone to benefit by his being put away?”
“Well, I expect one might make out a case of that; the family would have the handling of the million, wouldn’t they?”
“It all depends—but there’s one thing certain, there’d be a thundering law case for any clever solicitor to handle if the plaintiff were not too far gone in his mind to plead. Anyhow, the drugging is out of order—whole thing sounds fishy.”
“Suppose he escaped,” said Jones. “Could they take him back by force?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer. If he werecutting up shines it would be easy, but if he were clever enough to pretend to be sane it might be difficult. You see, he would have to be arrested, no man can go up and seize another man in the street and say: You’re mad, come along with me, simply because, even if he holds a certificate of lunacy against the other man the other man might say you’ve made a mistake, I’m not the person you want. Then it would be a question of swearing before a magistrate. The good old Laws of England are very strict about the freedom of the body, and the rights of the individual man to be heard in his own defence. If your lunatic were not too insane, and were to take refuge in a friend’s house, and the friend were to back him, that would make things more difficult still.”
“If he were to take refuge in his own house?”
“Oh, that would make the thing still more difficult, very much more so. If, of course, he were not conducting himself in a manner detrimental to the public peace, firing guns out of windows and so forth. The laws of England are very strict about entering a man’s house. Of course, were the pursuers to go before a magistrate and swear that the pursued were a dangerous lunatic, then a right of search and entry might be obtained, but on the pursuers would lie the onus of proof. Now pauper lunatics are very easily dealt with: the Relieving Officer, on the strength of a certificate of lunacy, can go to the poor man’s cottage or tenement, and take him away, for, you see, the man possessing no property it is supposed that no man is interested in his internment, but once introducethe property element and there is the very devil to pay, especially in cases where the lunatic is only eccentric and does not come into court with straws in his hair, so to speak.”
“I get you,” said Jones. He offered cigarettes, and presently the communicative one departed, having borrowed fourpence on the strength of his professional advice.
The rest of that night was a very good imitation of a nightmare. Jones tried several different seats in succession, and managed to do a good deal of walking. Dawn found him on London Bridge, watching the birth of another perfect day, but without enthusiasm.
He was cheerful but tired. The thought that at nine o’clock or thereabouts, he would be able to place his hands on eight thousand pounds, gave him the material for his cheerfulness. He had often read of the joy of open air life, and the freedom of the hobo; but open air life in London, on looking back upon it, did not appeal to him. He had been twice moved on by policemen, and his next door neighbours, after the departure of the barometer man, were of a type that inspired neither liking nor trust.
He heard Big Ben booming six o’clock. He had three hours still before him, and he determined to take it out in walking. He would go citywards, and then come back with an appetite for breakfast.
Having made this resolve, he started, passing through the deserted streets till he reached the Bank,and then onwards till he reached the Mile End Road.
As he walked he made plans. When he had drawn his money he would breakfast at a restaurant, he fixed upon Romanos’, eggs and bacon and sausages, coffee and hot rolls would be themenu. Then he fell to wondering whether Romanos’ would be open for breakfast, or whether it was of the type of restaurant that only serves luncheons and dinners. If it were, then he could breakfast at the Charing Cross Hotel.
These considerations led him a good distance on his way. Then the Mile End Road beguiled him, lying straight and foreign looking, and empty in the sunlight. The Barometer man’s weather apparatus must have been at fault, for in all the sky there was not a cloud, nor the symptom of the coming of a cloud.
Away down near the docks, a clock over a public house pointed to half past seven, and he judged it time to return.
He came back. The Mile End Road was still deserted, the city round the bank was destitute of life, Fleet Street empty.
Pompeii lay not more utterly dead than this weird city of vast business palaces, and the Strand shewed nothing of life or almost nothing, every shop was shuttered though now it was close upon nine o’clock.
Something had happened to London, some blight had fallen on the inhabitants, death seemed everywhere, not seen but hinted at. Stray recollections of weird stories by H. G. Wells passed through themind of Jones. He recalled the city of London when the Martians had done with it, that city of death, and horror, and sunlight and silence.
Then of a sudden, as he neared the Law Courts, the appalling truth suddenly suggested itself to him.
He walked up to a policeman on point of duty at a corner, a policeman who seemed under the mesmerism of the general gloom and blight, a policeman who might have been the blue concrete core of negation.
“Say, officer,” said Jones, “what day’s to-day?”
“Sunday,” said the policeman.