A large, bare, barn-like room. The walls were colour-washed; as seen by gaslight, an uncertain shade of grey. The floor was bare. At one end was a wooden daïs. This, and a large skylight overhead, suggested that the apartment had been intended for a studio. Artistic properties there were none. The furniture was scanty. In one corner was a camp bedstead, the bedclothes in disorder. It had evidently not been made since it was slept in. There were two small tables, one at the side against the wall, the other in the centre of the room. Bottles and glasses were on both. Bottles, indeed, were everywhere; designed, too, to contain all sorts of liquids—wines, spirits, beers. Champagne appeared to have been drunk by the gallon. On the floor, in the corner, opposite the bedstead, were at least seven or eight dozen unopened bottles, of all sizes, sorts, and shapes. Three or four chairs, of incongruous design, completed the equipment of the room; with the exception, that is, of a tall screen covered with crimson silk which stood upon the daïs. This screen was the first object which caught the eye on entering. One wondered if an artist’s model were concealed behind.
Lawrence placed his finger against his lips as he held the door open for us to enter.
“Ssh! She’s there, behind the screen! Listen! Can’t you hear her laughing?”
This time I, for one, heard nothing. There was not a sound. And, since every sense was at the acutest tension, had there been, it would scarcely have escaped my notice. Scarcely were we all in, than a door on the opposite side of the room was opened, gingerly, and seemingly with hesitation, as if the opener was by no means sure of his welcome. Through it came the pertinacious Mr. Bernstein, and, of all persons, young Tom Moore. At the sight of her brother the lady shrank closer to my side. The inspector appeared to regard the advent of the newcomers with suspicion, as though doubtful lest there were more to follow.
“Who are these men? Where do they come from?”
Lawrence explained.
“Inspector Symonds, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Isaac Bernstein—dealer in forged bills and patron of penmen. Surely you have heard of Bernstein.”
“Oh yes, I’ve heard of Bernstein. So you are Mr. Isaac Bernstein. Who’s the other man?”
“The other man is”—this with a glance towards the lady—“merely a thief.”
“I’m no thief! I’ll let you know I’m not to be called thief—especially by you!”
Young Moore’s disclaimer was half whine, half snarl. Bernstein took up his tale.
“Mr. Symonds, I’m glad to meet you, sir. Our—our friend here is fond of his joke. You mustn’t take him seriously. It—it’s his way to say things which he doesn’t mean. I just stepped in to say a word to him in private—just one word; so I hope you’ll forgive me if I seem to be intruding. Lawrence, I—I came with our young friend here along the little back passage, which the models used to use, because I—I wanted to speak one word to you in private. Would you mind stepping on one side just—just for half a moment.”
“No, Bernstein, I won’t. Anything you have to say to me, you’ll say in public; at the top of your voice; out loud. I’m going to say my say so that every one may hear me—she and they.”
“Now, Lawrence, be reasonable, I do beg of you. Let me make to you just this one remark.”
Drawing closer, Mr. Bernstein dropped his voice to a whisper. Taking him by both shoulders, Lawrence began to shake him to and fro.
“Speak up, Bernstein, speak up! Shout, man, shout!”
“Don’t Lawrence, you’ll hurt me!”
“Hurt you! Hurt you! If I could only hurt you as you’ve hurt me, you pretty fellow! Why didn’t you save your skin by taking to your heels? For me there’s no salvation, because of her, and the face, and the words. But for you there was a chance. Now there’s none! Now there’s none!”
He flung the Jew away from him, so that he went reeling half across the room. Mr. Bernstein addressed himself, with stammering lips, to the inspector.
“Mr. Symonds, he’s—he’s not right in his head; he’s excited—he’s been drinking; look at those bottles!”
Lawrence threw out his arms with a laugh.
“Look at those bottles! Evidences of a giant’s thirst! I’ll have another!”
Taking a bottle of champagne out of the collection in the corner, with what looked like a palette knife he struck the neck off with a cleanness and dexterity which denoted practice. The wine foamed up. He filled a soda-water tumbler, emptying it at a draught.
“That’s the stuff! It’s got a sting in it! I like my drink to have a sting!”
Bernstein drew the inspector’s attention to his proceedings.
“You see. That’s how he goes on—drink! drink! drink! He does nothing else but drink. You wouldn’t pay any attention to his ravings when they reflect upon a respectable man?”
“Respectable man! Isaac Bernstein, respectable man?”
He tossed the bottle he was holding towards the Jew. If the other had not ducked, it would have struck him.
“He’s a liar, that’s what he is; a liar to his finger-tips. No one who knows him would believe him on his oath.”
This was young Moore. Lawrence pointed at him with his tumbler.
“A Solomon risen to judgment! See truth’s imaged superscription on his brow.”
The lady stepped forward before I had guessed her intention.
“What he is he in great part owes to you—and to him!”—pointing to the Jew. “You are an older man than he, with a wider knowledge of the world. You have used him as a tool with which to save yourselves. You found him in a ditch—in the same ditch in which you were yourselves. Instead of helping him out you dragged him farther in, pressing him down in the mire, so that, by dint of standing on his body, you might yourselves reach the bank, at the cost of his entire destruction. Though he is guilty, your guilt is a thousand times as great.”
“There speaks the actress. Your sentiments, Miss Moore, do you credit; though, being of the stage, they’re stagey. They suppose that you can make a good man bad. I doubt it, be he old or young. All that you can do, is to bring to a head the badness which is in a bad one. Bernstein, your brother, and I, were born with a twist in us; a moral malformation; a trend in the grain which, as we got our growth, gave a natural inclination in a particular direction. I doubt if we could have gone straight if we had tried. You may take it for granted that we did not weary ourselves with vain efforts. I know that I did not. The things I liked had to be, like ginger, hot in the mouth; my pleasures had all to be well peppered. Your insipidities I never relished; nor was the fact that they happened to be virtuous a sufficient sauce.
“As it happens, in this best of all possible worlds, spice costs money. And there’s the rub. For I had none—or as good as none. But I’d a brother who had. An all-seeing Providence and an indiscriminating parent, had caused him to be amply dowered with worldly goods. I made several efforts with my own hands and brains to supply myself with money. Sometimes they’d succeed; oftener they would fail. When they failed, in the most natural possible manner, I looked to my brother—my only brother—to make good the deficiency. To do this he now and then objected; which was odd. Until, one day, I came upon a man named Bernstein.”
The Jew, who had been listening with parted lips and watchful, troubled eyes, to what the other had been saying, now went forward to him, cringingly.
“Lawrence, good old friend, remember all I’ve done for you, and—and be careful what you say.”
“I’ll remember, and so shall you; you never will be able to accuse me of forgetting. This man, Bernstein, was a Jew—an usurer.”
“I lend money to gentlemen who are in need of it, that’s all; there’s no harm in it. If I didn’t some one else would.”
“He negotiated loans on terms which varied—as I quickly learned. I had had some experience of usurers; but this was a new type.”
“How new? Circumstances compel one to alter one’s terms—it’s only business.”
“He lent me a little money on what he considered reasonable terms.”
“And so they were—most reasonable. You know yourself they were.”
“‘When you want more,’ he said, ‘you must bring me another name upon the bill.’ I asked, ‘Whose name?’ He said, ‘Your brother’s.’ ‘Do you think my brother would back a bill of mine? He’d see me farther first!’ ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a pity.’ And so it was a pity. Brothers should be friendly; they should help each other; it’s only right.
“‘Come,’ he said, ‘and dine with me.’ I dined. After dinner he began again about the bill. ‘I’ll give you £700 for a three months’ bill for a thousand with your brother’s name on it.’ ‘I tell you that nothing would induce my brother to back a bill of mine.’ ‘If you were to bring me such a bill I shouldn’t ask how it got there.’ Then he looked at me, and I saw what he meant. ‘That’s it, is it? I’ve sailed pretty close to the wind, but I’ve never got quite so far as that.’ He filled himself another glass of wine. ‘You say you want the money badly. The sooner you let me have the bill, the sooner your wants will be relieved.’ I let him have the bill in the morning. At the end of three months there was a storm in the air.”
“I knew nothing of it—he invents it all. The bill was duly met when it was presented.”
“After my brother and I had come pretty near to murder, I was still, as ever, in want of money. But this time it was Bernstein who came to me.
“‘I hear you’re pressed.’ I complimented him on the correctness of his information. ‘It’s no good,’ said he, ‘peddling with hundreds. It’s a good round sum you want to set you clear.’ I admitted it; and wondered where the good round sum was coming from. ‘I tell you what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘You bring me five bills for a thousand each, with your brother’s name on them, and I’ll give you two thousand five hundred for the lot.’ I told him that it couldn’t be done. I’d promised my brother that I wouldn’t play any more tricks with his name, and I meant to keep my word. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s a pity.’”
“I said nothing of the kind. It is not to be believed; those who know me will tell you it is not to be believed. It is against my nature.”
“‘I think,’ he continued, ‘I know how it can be managed. I know a young fellow whom I’ll introduce to you. You may find him of use. He’s a first-rate penman.’ ‘Do you mean that he’s an expert forger?’ ‘Lawrence,’ cried Mr. Bernstein, ‘you shouldn’t use such words—you really shouldn’t.’”
“You hear him admit it? I said, ‘You should not use such words.’ I have always said it—always.”
“He made me known to this expert penman, getting up a three-cornered dinner for that especial purpose. The expert penman was our young friend here—Tom Moore.”
“I never wanted to know you—never. I told him that I didn’t.”
Mr. Bernstein contradicted the young gentleman’s disclaimer.
“Now, Moore, that is not so. You were always willing to make his acquaintance; why not? He was a gentleman of family, of fortune. Why should you not have been willing to know such an one?
“He didn’t turn out like that, did he? Look how he served me!”
“Ah, that is another matter. We could not have foreseen how he was to turn out. We supposed him to be a gentleman of reputation—of character.”
“Innocent-minded Bernstein! Ingenuous Tom Moore! After dinner Moore returned with me to my rooms.”
“You invited me.”
“I did—that’s true; and you came. I said to him, ‘I hear you’re a bit of a penman.’”
“I didn’t know what you meant.”
“You wouldn’t. I laid five bill-stamps in front of him.”
“There was nothing on them.”
“True again; there wasn’t. I showed him my brother’s signature at the bottom of a letter, and I asked him if he thought that he could make a nice clean copy of it in the corner of each stamp.”
“You never said what you were going to do with it.”
“Still correct—I didn’t. But you said, ‘How much are you going to give me?’”
“Well, you were a stranger to me; you didn’t expect I was going to do you a favour for nothing?”
“Hardly. I said I’d give you a hundred pounds, which I thought was pretty fair pay for a little copying. But you said, ‘I want five hundred.’”
“You didn’t give me five hundred pounds, not you! You know you didn’t! Or anything like!”
“Accurate as ever. I couldn’t see my way to quite as much as that. I said you should have two hundred.”
“That night you never gave me any money at all.”
“No. But in the morning I carried to Mr. Isaac Bernstein five bills for a thousand pounds apiece, with, on each, my brother’s endorsement in the corner. In exchange, Mr. Bernstein presented me with two thousand five hundred pounds, and out of that you had two hundred.”
“I took it as a friendly present.”
“Precisely—from a perfect stranger. Time went on. The three months slipped by. I began to fidget. Luck was most consummately against me. Two thousand five hundred pounds went no way at all; I had lost it, pretty nearly every penny, before I really realised that I had ever had it. When it was gone, I knew that breakers were ahead; a pretty nasty lot of rocks. As I say, I began to fidget. I knew my brother, and was well aware that, since last time it had been nearly murder, this time it would come as near as possible to quite. Philip’s temper, my friends, Philip’s temper was distinctly bad. We had had a few fights together, he and I, and out of them it had not been my general custom to come out best. Now I foresaw that the biggest fight of all our fights was drawing comfortably close; and when I asked myself in what condition I should probably emerge from it, I was not able to supply my question with an answer which gave me entire satisfaction.
“I began to hate my brother. As the days stole by, I began to hate him more and more—to fear him. The two things together, the hatred and the fear, took such a hold of me that I began to cast about in my mind how I could get the best of him, when the game was blown upon and the fight began. And at last I thought of something which I had chanced upon in India.
“It was one night when I lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. I had been drinking. The drink had been bad. Among the goblins which it brought to my bedside were thoughts of my brother. I thought of how the luck had all been his; of what a grip he had; of his bone and muscle; of how, in our quarrels, it always had gone hard with me; of how, in the next one, which was close at hand, it would go harder still. He was more than a match for me all round. In peace or war he was the stronger man. How could I get even with him? How?
“Then I thought of the Goddess. It was from herself that the first inspiration came; she precipitated herself, as the occultists have it, into my mind. I suspected it then; I know it now. She had remained, till then, in the packing-case in which I brought her home. She had never been out of it, not once. I had never taken the trouble to unpack her. She might have feared she was forgotten; felt herself slighted. No; that’s not her way. She knows she’ll never be forgotten; and as for slights, she never will be slighted when there’s need of her. She had been waiting; that was all—waiting for her time. Now her time had come. She knew it. So she reminded me that she was there.
“It struck me, at first, as a humorous idea—The Goddess. It always is her humorous side which appeals to one at first. Indeed, it is that side of her which continues to the front; only—the character of the humour changes. I laughed to think that her existence should occur to me at such a moment. And, as I laughed, she laughed too. It was the first time I had heard her laughter. The sound of it had an odd effect on the marrow in my bones. Even then I asked myself if by any possibility I could be going mad. She was in the cupboard on the other side of my dressing-room. All other considerations apart, it was an odd thing that I should hear her so plainly from where I lay.
“‘I’ll go and look at her,’ I said. I went. As I opened the cupboard door she laughed again—a little, soft, musical laugh, suggestive of exquisite enjoyment. It drew me on. ‘Why,’ I cried, ‘I didn’t know that you could laugh. Where are you? Let’s free you from your prison. If you’re as pretty as your laughter, you should be well worth looking at.’
“There was the packing-case, all nailed and corded, exactly as it had been when placed on shipboard. As I touched it, she laughed again. Now that I had become more used to it, I found that there was something in the sound which braced me up; a quality which was suited to my mood. I drew the case into my dressing-room. I unpacked it. There she was inside, in the best possible condition; as ready, as willing, as happy, as on the day when I first saw her, in the place where she was born. She had borne her voyage and subsequent confinement surprisingly well; neither in her bearing nor appearance was there anything which even hinted at a trace of resentment for the treatment which she had received. As she showed me what she could do, laughing all the time, I said to myself, ‘With her aid I shall be more than a match for my brother.’
“I had got her out, but, like the genie the fisherman released in the Arabian story, she was not easy to put back again. Without her consent it was impossible to replace her in the packing-case. Her consent she refused to give. When I persisted in my attempts to do without it, she brought me nearer to a sudden end than I had ever been before. Whereupon I desisted. I left her where she was. That display of her powers, and of her readiness to use them, compelled me to the reflection that in her I had found not only a collaborator, but possibly something else as well. One thing I certainly had found—an inseparable companion.
“From that hour, when, in the silence of the night, and because I could not sleep, being troubled by thoughts of my brother, I took her from her packing-case, she has never left me for one moment alone. She has become part and parcel of my life; grown into the very web of my being; into the very heart of me; until now she holds me, body, soul, and spirit, with chains which never shall be broken. And to her it’s such an exquisite jest. Listen! She is laughing now.”
I hadbeen wondering, while Lawrence had been speaking, where, exactly, in what he said, was the dividing line between truth and falsehood; between sanity and madness. I could not satisfy myself upon the point; either then or afterwards. That the wildness of his speech and manner was an indication of the disorder of his mind was obvious; that in his brain there were the fires of delirium was sure; that the tale which he told was not all raving was as certain. It is probable that the life of dissipation which he had led had told upon his physical health; and that, as usual, the body had reacted on the mind.
Yet there was such an air of conviction in his bearing, and so much method in his madness, that even in his most amazing statements one could not but suspect, at least, a basis of fact. And it was because this was so that we listened, fascinated, to assertions which savoured of a world of dreams; and hung, with breathless interest, on words which told, as if they were everyday occurrences, of things of which it is not good to even think as coming within the sweep of possibility.
He held up his finger, repeating his last words in the form of an inquiry.
“Hark! don’t you hear her laughing now?”
I know not what we heard; I know not. We had been following, one by one, the steps which marked the progress of disorder in this man’s brain, until our own minds had become unbalanced too. But I thought that I heard the sound of a woman’s laughter, and it was because it appeared to come from behind the screen that I stepped forward to move the barrier, so that we might learn what it concealed. Lawrence sprang in front of me.
“Don’t!” he cried. “She’s there! You shall see her; I’ll show you her at the proper time.”
I could have thrust him aside, but there was that about him which dissuaded me. And when the lady, laying her hand upon my arm, drew me away from him, I let him tell his tale in his own fashion. He passed his fingers across his brow, as if in an effort to collect his thoughts.
“Well, the time went, forgetting to bring me ease of mind, until Bernstein wrote to ask my brother where it would best meet his convenience to have the bills presented, which were on the point of falling due.”
“It was the usual custom,” struck in the Jew.
“It’s the usual custom, Bernstein says, and I’m not denying it. When Philip got the letter, he came red-hot to me, asking what it meant. I had had a bad day or two, and some unpleasant nights, and was feeling hipped just when he came. Besides, his coming took me unawares; I was not expecting him—for the present. When I perceived what was in his voice, and in his eyes, and in the twitchings of his hands, I was afraid. I lied to him; pretending that I had no notion of what it was that Bernstein wrote; protesting that any bills which he might hold had nothing at all to do with me. I could see he doubted, but having no proof positive that what I said was false, he went, warning me what I might expect if it turned out that I had lied. It was good hearing, to know what I might expect—from him—if it turned out that I had lied.
“I went to Bernstein, to implore him to have mercy; though I knew that in him mercy was less frequent than water in a rock.”
“I am a man of business! You had had my money! I am a business man!”
“He would have none. I found young Moore. I told him that certain bills had been discounted which bore my brother’s name, and since he had put it there I should be compelled, in self-defence, to tell the simple truth.”
“When I put it there there was nothing on the bills—not a word; I declare it. They were nothing but five blank slips of paper, on my sacred word of honour, I will swear to it. He filled them up himself; then he wanted to put it on to me.”
“Yes, it was odd how I wanted to put it upon every one except myself; very odd indeed. That night I was not happy. I had some conversation with The Goddess; from which I derived comfort, of a kind, though it was not much, either for quantity or quality. The next day I had brought myself closer to the sticking point; as, I fancy, men are apt to do when they know that the music really is about to play. In the evening I had a game of cards with Ferguson. You remember?”
“I do. You cheated me.”
“I did. Which, again, was odd. For it was the first time I ever had cheated at cards, and it was the last. You went out of the room believing that you would have to pay me £1880, and with, at the bottom of your heart, the knowledge that the man whom you had supposed to be your friend was, after all, a rogue. The consciousness that you had this knowledge was, for me, the top brick. I had chosen to carry myself well in your eyes, and believed I had succeeded; yet, after all, I’d failed. When you had gone I turned for consolation to The Goddess.
“Bringing her from my bedroom, I placed her on her own particular stand. I was just about to request her to go through one of her unrivalled performances when, turning, I saw in the open doorway of my room a lady. Here is that lady now.”
He waved his hand towards Miss Moore. She gave what seemed to be a start of recollection.
“I remember. I had knocked at the door again and then again; no one answered. I tried the handle; the door opened; you were there.”
“Which was most fortunate for me. It was an entrancing figure which I saw, in a cloak all glory; with a face—a face which would haunt the dreams of a happier man than I. It was a late hour for so enchanting a vision to pay a first call upon a single gentleman, but, when I learned that this was the sister of the ingenuous Tom, I understood; I understood still more when the lady’s tongue was once set wagging, for sometimes even charming visions do have tongues. Dear Tom had told his tale on his own lines.”
“It was gospel truth, every word I said to her. I’ll take my oath it was.”
“There’s not a doubt you will. But as the tale came from the lady’s lips to me, it seemed surprising. I’d no idea, until she told me, that I was so old in sin and dear Tom so young. It seemed that I had corrupted the boy’s fresh innocence; that I had even taught him how to write—especially other people’s names. To me it sounded odd. I had met young Tom; I was beginning to wonder if his sister ever had. I knew something of his history; one could scarcely credit that she knew anything at all. However, one was glad to learn that so fair a lady had so excellent a brother, though it seemed unfortunate that he should have such curious associates. Of one of them she was giving her opinion, to the extent of several volumes, when once more the door was opened, this time, I really think, without any preliminary knocking; for I am incapable of suggesting that the lady’s voice could by any possibility have drowned even a rapping of the knuckles. My brother was the interrupter—the uninvited, unwelcome interrupter, of ourtête-à-tête.
“Then I knew that the end had come; that the game was blown upon; that the music would have to be faced. I knew this in an instant. It was written large all over him. He had a trick, when he was in a rage, of seeming to swell; as if the wind of his passion had distended him. I had never seen him look so large before. He was trembling—not with fear. His fingers were opening and closing—as they were apt to do when the muscles which controlled them reached the point of working by themselves. His lips were parted; he drew great breaths; his eyes had moved forward in his head. It did not need more than a single glance at him to enable me to understand that he had learned that I had lied, and that now had come the tug of war.
“I cannot say if he noticed that I was with a lady. He did not acknowledge her presence if he did, not even by so much as the removal of his hat. So soon as he saw me he began to edge his way into the room, with little, awkward, jerky movements, which experience had taught me were the invariable preliminaries to an outburst of insensate fury. ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!’ He repeated the three words, as if he were speaking half to himself and half to me, in a husky voice, which was not nice to hear.
“My first thought was of The Goddess!”
As if he had had, from the beginning, an eye to what would be the proper dramatic effect, when he got so far, Lawrence, with a hasty movement towards the daïs, struck the crimson screen, so that it came clattering forward on to the floor. Extending his arms on either side of him, he cried: “Behold! The Goddess!”
I do not know what the others were prepared to find revealed, nor even what it was which I had myself expected. There had been in my mind a vague anticipation of some incredible horror; something neither human nor inhuman, neither alive nor dead. What I actually did see occasioned me, at first sight, a shock of surprise. A moment’s reflection, however, disclosed my own stupidity. Much that had gone before should have prepared me for exactly this. Only my mental opaqueness could have prevented my seeing to what Lawrence’s words directly pointed. And yet, after all, this that I saw did not provide an adequate explanation; did not, for instance, shed light on what I had seen in my dream.
The downfall of the screen had revealed an idol; apparently a Hindoo goddess. She was squatted on what looked like an ebony pedestal, perhaps a foot or eighteen inches from the floor. The figure was nearly four feet high. It represented a woman squatting on her haunches. Her arms were crossed upon her breast, her fingers interlaced. Two things struck me as peculiar. One, that the whole figure was of a brilliant scarlet; the other, that its maker had managed to impart to it a curious suggestion of life. To this fact Lawrence himself drew our attention.
“You see how alive she is? She only needs a touch to fill her with impassioned frenzy. It is for that touch that she waits and watches.”
It was exactly what I had myself observed. The figure needed only some little thing to give it at least the semblance of actual life. I could not make out of what substance it was compounded; certainly neither of wood nor stone.
“As Philip came at me across the room I moved towards The Goddess. ‘Take care,’ I said. ‘Don’t be a fool! Don’t you see that there’s a lady here?’ He did not; or if he did he showed no signs of doing so. I doubt even if he saw The Goddess. It was his way. In his fits of passion he was like some maddened bull; he had eyes only for the object of his rage. ‘I’ll kill you!’ he kept on muttering, in a voice which fury had made husky. ‘Don’t be an ass!’ I cried. But he was an ass. Presently there came the rush which I was looking for. He went for me as the bull goes for the toreador. And instead of me he met The Goddess. It had to be, or I should not have lived to tell the tale.
“As it chanced The Goddess was between us. I had in my fingers this little cord—you see I have it here. My scarlet beauty was an obstacle of which he took no account at all. He made as if he would dash her into splinters and scatter them about the room. But The Goddess is not so easily to be brushed aside. As he rushed at her she leaped at him—like this.”
Suddenly throwing out his arms he cried, in a loud voice, “Take me, for I am yours, O thou Goddess of the Scarlet Hands.”
How exactly it all happened, even now I find it hard to say. As Lawrence sprang forward, the figure rose to its feet, and in an instant was alive. It opened its arms; from its finger-tips came knives. Stepping forward it gripped Lawrence with its steel-clad hands, with a grip from which there was no escaping. From every part of its frame gleaming blades had sprung; against thischeval-de-friseit pressed him again and again, twirling him round and round, moving him up and down, so that the weapons pierced and hacked back and front. Even from its eyes, mouth, and nostrils had sprung knives. It kept jerking its head backwards and forwards, so that it could stab with them at his face and head. And, all the while, from somewhere came the sound of a woman’s laughter—that dreadful sound which I had heard in my dream.
Wecould do nothing for him. The shock of the surprise, for a moment, held us motionless. But so soon as we realised that the man was being hacked to death before our eyes, we rushed to his assistance. It was of no avail. Death had, probably, been instantaneous, so much mercy the creature showed. A sharp-pointed blade, more than eighteen inches long, which proceeded from its stomach, had pierced him through and through. The writhing, gibbering puppet held him skewered in a dozen places. To have released him we should have had to tear him into pieces. When I tried to drag him free, I only succeeded in bringing the whole thing over. Down he came, with his assailant sticking to him like a limpet. Pinning him on to the floor, it continued its extraordinary contortions, lacerating its victim with every movement in a hundred different places. It was difficult to believe that it was not alive. Perceiving that it was not to be persuaded by any other means to loosen its embrace, I struck it on the back, again and again, with a heavy wooden chair.
Presently it was still; its movements ceased; it became again inanimate. As if its lust for blood was glutted, it rolled over, lethargically, upon its side, leaving its handiwork exposed—a horrible spectacle. A grin—as it were a smile, born of repletion—was on the creature’s face.
Later, the thing was torn to pieces; its anatomy laid bare. Examination showed that its construction had been diabolically ingenious. It was simply a light steel frame, shaped to resemble a human body, to which was attached a number of strong springs, which were set in motion by clockwork machinery. The whole had been encased in scarlet leather, so that, when completed, it resembled nothing so much as an artist’s lay figure. In the leather were innumerable eyelet-holes. Through each of these holes the point of a blade was always peeping. So soon as the clockwork was set in motion each of these blades leaped from its appointed place, and continued leaping, ceaselessly, to and fro, till the machinery ran down. In the head was an arrangement somewhat on the lines of a phonograph; it was from this proceeded the sound resembling a woman’s gentle laughter, which was not the least eerie part of its horrible performance.
Inquiries seemed to show that the creature had originally been intended for sacrificial purposes. Lawrence had apparently purchased it at Allahabad; probably from the workshop of a native who was suspected of the manufacture of contrivances, whose ingenuity was almost too conspicuous, which were used in the temples. On certain days such a puppet would be produced by the priests, with a flourish of trumpets. One could easily believe that miraculous power would be claimed for it; it was even likely that, as a proof of the substantiality of these claims, it would go through its gruesome performance in the presence of the assembled congregations. Of what might have been the objects on which it exhibited its powers one did not care to think. Some queer things still take place in India.
Edwin Lawrence could hardly have been perfectly sane when he purchased such a plaything. It was not a possession which a perfectly healthy-minded man would have cared to have had at any price; and Lawrence must have paid an enormous sum for it, or that wily native would never have allowed such a curio to leave his hands. It was shown that the brothers had been in the habit of quarrelling their whole lives long. Edwin would do something to arouse Philip’s passion, whereon Philip would attack him with unreasoning violence. The fit of fury past, and the mischief done, repentance came. In these moods Philip must have expended thousands of pounds in his attempts to soothe the feelings of the brother whom he had just been battering. One of these scenes had taken place just before Edwin’s departure for India; it was the usual plaster which had enabled him to start upon his travels. That his brother’s treatment of him rankled, there was scarcely room for doubt; the purchase of the scarlet puppet was, probably a firstfruit of his morbid brooding.
At the very last, possibly, the crime had been the result of a moment’s impulse—as he himself had said. But that it had been prepared for, as likely to happen some time, was clear. He had obtained a suit of clothes, which was exactly like those which his brother was in the habit of wearing. These he secreted in his bedroom. So soon as his “goddess” had done her work, he stripped what was left of his brother bare—an awful task it must have been. He arrayed the body in a suit of his own clothes, oblivious of the fact that they showed no signs of the cutting and the hacking, and the suit which he had prepared he himself put on.
Whether or not he saw me—or even if I was actually there to see—is not clear to this day. But either he did not notice the departure of his lady visitor, or he was indifferent to what it might portend; under the circumstances, after the tragedy had actually taken place, his movements were marked by curious deliberation. The probability is that the catastrophe finally overturned the brain whose equilibrium was already tottering. No other hypothesis can adequately explain the manner in which he retained his self-possession, expecting every moment that the alarm would be raised, and that he would be caught red-handed.
Not only did he make himself up to resemble as much as possible his brother, but, rolling the “goddess” up in a cloth, he bore the blood-stained puppet out with him into the street. It was that which Turner had seen him carrying, under the impression that he was himself the man who was, at that moment, lying on the floor of his room, a mutilated corpse. As, by sight, Turner knew both men well, the fact that he mistook one man for the other shows that the imitation must have been well and carefully done.
No action was taken against Mr. Isaac Bernstein. Except the dead man’s words, there was no evidence against him in that particular. But that the tale told of him by Edwin Lawrence was true, and that he had some sort of a conscience, after all, was suggested by the fact that a few days afterwards he disappeared from his London premises and from his usual haunts. So far as I know, nothing has been seen or heard of him since. Whether he was afraid that other shady transactions, in which he had had a hand, would be brought home to him, or whether he was haunted by memories of the dual tragedy for which he had been, at any rate in part, responsible, I cannot say. The fact remains, that so far as the police can learn, large sums of money, which at the time of his disappearance were due to him, he has never made the slightest attempt to claim.
As the two brothers were the last of their race, and no one has laid claim to Philip’s estate, in due course it reverted to the Crown. It is among the large number of those for which heirs-at-law are still wanting. Old Morley and his wife had not been in a good service for so many years for nothing; they would have retired from it long before had it not been for antiquated notions of fidelity. Their master’s death found them comfortably off, and in the possession, as it turned out, of a little property among the Surrey hills. On that property they are residing to this day. When it first came into their hands the neighbourhood was wild and rural; others, since, have discovered that it was beautiful. Building is taking place on every side; quite a town is springing up. Though this materially adds to the monetary value of their property, the old couple are a little restless amidst their new surroundings.
Hume is still unmarried. He becomes less and less engaged in the active practice of his profession. But he remains an authority on the obscure diseases of the brain. He has written more than one book upon this special subject. I have not read them—I am no reader, and such works would, in any case, be hardly in my way—but I understand that he seeks to show that we are, all of us, more or less mad, and that he goes far towards the proof of this thesis. He has not materially altered his estimate of my mental equipment. Indeed, he once assured me that he was becoming more and more convinced that men whose physical and muscular development went beyond a certain limit were,ipso facto, mad; and,ergo, I must be insane. However, we are tolerable friends, and he seems not unwilling to allow that I am as well out of an asylum as in.
It has been rumoured that Miss Adair intends, shortly, to retire from the stage; and the whisper is that Hume, who for some time has been her constant attendant, has something to do with her intention. In that case, they will make a well-matched pair, for in my opinion they both have tongues.
Bessie—I think that at this point in these pages I am entitled to call her Bessie—Bessie never acted again. After that hideous night brain fever supervened. For weeks she lay between life and death. More than once the doctors gave her up. Fortunately, doctors are not omniscient. After all, God was merciful—to me.
Almost her first words, when the darkest hour had given place to the first glimmerings of dawn, took the shape of a question: “Where is Tom?” Her scamp of a brother! After all she had suffered for him, he was foremost in her thoughts.
“I hope that he is on the road to fortune.”
Looking up at me with her big eyes, which had grown bigger, and sunk farther in her head, she asked me what I meant. I explained. I had supplied Young Hopeful with the wherewithal which would enable him to seek for gold in what was then the new El Dorado—the Klondyke region. He had started on his quest. But he never found what, at least nominally, he had gone to look for. Some months afterwards I learnt that he had died; fallen at night into the waters of the Yukon river and been drowned. My correspondent went on to explain that he was dead drunk at the time; which explanation I kept from his sister. I did not wish her to think that his end had been unbecoming to a man.
Bessie and I have been married just long enough to enable me to begin to realise my happiness. I am ever slow, so I will not say what is the tale of the years which that statement implies; though the sight of our youngsters is apt to give away the secret of their father’s dulness. There was no question between us of courtship. I knew, as I watched by her bedside, that if she came back to life she was mine; and that in any case I was hers. And so it was. So soon as she was strong enough we were married. And we have been lovers ever since. As I sit, with her hand clasped tightly, watching her children and mine, I am sometimes disposed to suspect that our courtship is beginning. I know it will never cease.
The goodness of God has been very great in giving me my wife. By what seemed accident, but was indeed the act of Providence, I have come to have for my very own the woman of my dreams. Sleeping and waking she is mine. So true is it that some men’s good fortune is out of all proportion to their deserts.
THE END
Alterations to the text:
[Chapter XIX] Change “to serve by going togoal” togaol, and delete an unnecessary quotation mark from the last paragraph of this chapter.
[Chapter XXI] Change “the world was talking of JohnFurguson” toFerguson.
Minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies have been left as is.