The Beetle (17 page)

This time the score was mine,—he was puzzled.

'I know not what you talk of.'

'In that case, we're equal,—I know not what you talk of either.'

His manner, for him, was childlike and bland.

'What is it you do not know? This morning did I not say,—if you
want me, then I come?'

'I fancy I have some faint recollection of your being so good as
to say something of the kind, but—where's the application?'

'Do you not feel for him the same as I?'

'Who's the him?'

'Paul Lessingham.'

It was spoken quietly, but with a degree of—to put it gently—
spitefulness which showed that at least the will to do the Apostle
harm would not be lacking.

'And, pray, what is the common feeling which we have for him?'

'Hate.'

Plainly, with this gentleman, hate meant hate,—in the solid
oriental sense. I should hardly have been surprised if the mere
utterance of the words had seared his lips.

'I am by no means prepared to admit that I have this feeling which
you attribute to me, but, even granting that I have, what then?'

'Those who hate are kin.'

'That, also, I should be slow to admit; but—to go a step farther
—what has all this to do with your presence on my premises at this
hour of the night?'

'You love her.' This time I did not ask him to supply the name,—
being unwilling that it should be soiled by the traffic of his
lips. 'She loves him,—that is not well. If you choose, she shall
love you,—that will be well.'

'Indeed.—And pray how is this consummation which is so devoutly
to be desired to be brought about?'

'Put your hand into mine. Say that you wish it. It shall be done.'

Moving a step forward, he stretched out his hand towards me. I
hesitated. There was that in the fellow's manner which, for the
moment, had for me an unwholesome fascination. Memories flashed
through my mind of stupid stories which have been told of compacts
made with the devil. I almost felt as if I was standing in the
actual presence of one of the powers of evil. I thought of my love
for Marjorie,—which had revealed itself after all these years; of
the delight of holding her in my arms, of feeling the pressure of
her lips to mine. As my gaze met his, the lower side of what the
conquest of this fair lady would mean, burned in my brain; fierce
imaginings blazed before my eyes. To win her,—only to win her!

What nonsense he was talking! What empty brag it was! Suppose,
just for the sake of the joke, I did put my hand in his, and did
wish, right out, what it was plain he knew. If I wished, what harm
would it do! It would be the purest jest. Out of his own mouth he
would be confounded, for it was certain that nothing would come of
it. Why should I not do it then?

I would act on his suggestion,—I would carry the thing right
through. Already I was advancing towards him, when—I stopped. I
don't know why. On the instant, my thoughts went off at a tangent.

What sort of a blackguard did I call myself that I should take a
woman's name in vain for the sake of playing fool's tricks with
such scum of the earth as the hideous vagabond in front of me,—
and that the name of the woman whom I loved? Rage took hold of me.

'You hound!' I cried.

In my sudden passage from one mood to another, I was filled with
the desire to shake the life half out of him. But so soon as I
moved a step in his direction, intending war instead of peace, he
altered the position of his hand, holding it out towards me as if
forbidding my approach. Directly he did so, quite involuntarily, I
pulled up dead,—as if my progress had been stayed by bars of iron
and walls of steel.

For the moment, I was astonished to the verge of stupefaction. The
sensation was peculiar. I was as incapable of advancing another
inch in his direction as if I had lost the use of my limbs,—I was
even incapable of attempting to attempt to advance. At first I
could only stare and gape. Presently I began to have an inkling of
what had happened.

The scoundrel had almost succeeded in hypnotising me.

That was a nice thing to happen to a man of my sort at my time of
life. A shiver went down my back,—what might have occurred if I
had not pulled up in time! What pranks might a creature of that
character not have been disposed to play. It was the old story of
the peril of playing with edged tools; I had made the dangerous
mistake of underrating the enemy's strength. Evidently, in his own
line, the fellow was altogether something out of the usual way.

I believe that even as it was he thought he had me. As I turned
away, and leaned against the table at my back, I fancy that he
shivered,—as if this proof of my being still my own master was
unexpected. I was silent,—it took some seconds to enable me to
recover from the shock of the discovery of the peril in which I
had been standing. Then I resolved that I would endeavour to do
something which should make me equal to this gentleman of many
talents.

'Take my advice, my friend, and don't attempt to play that hankey
pankey off on to me again.'

'I don't know what you talk of.'

'Don't lie to me,—or I'll burn you into ashes.'

Behind me was an electrical machine, giving an eighteen inch
spark. It was set in motion by a lever fitted into the table,
which I could easily reach from where I sat. As I spoke the
visitor was treated to a little exhibition of electricity. The
change in his bearing was amusing. He shook with terror. He
salaamed down to the ground.

'My lord!—my lord!—have mercy, oh my lord!'

'Then you be careful, that's all. You may suppose yourself to be
something of a magician, but it happens, unfortunately for you,
that I can do a bit in that line myself,—perhaps I'm a trifle
better at the game than you are. Especially as you have ventured
into my stronghold, which contains magic enough to make a show of
a hundred thousand such as you.'

Taking down a bottle from a shelf, I sprinkled a drop or two of
its contents on the floor. Immediately flames arose, accompanied
by a blinding vapour. It was a sufficiently simple illustration of
one of the qualities of phosphorous-bromide, but its effect upon
my visitor was as startling as it was unexpected. If I could
believe the evidence of my own eyesight, in the very act of giving
utterance to a scream of terror he disappeared, how, or why, or
whither, there was nothing to show,—in his place, where he had
been standing, there seemed to be a dim object of some sort in a
state of frenzied agitation on the floor. The phosphorescent
vapour was confusing; the lights appeared to be suddenly burning
low; before I had sense enough to go and see if there was anything
there, and, if so, what, the flames had vanished, the man himself
had reappeared, and, prostrated on his knees, was salaaming in a
condition of abject terror.

'My lord! my lord!' he whined. 'I entreat you, my lord, to use me
as your slave!'

'I'll use you as my slave!' Whether he or I was the more agitated
it would have been difficult to say,—but, at least, it would not
have done to betray my feelings as he did his.

'Stand up!'

He stood up. I eyed him as he did with an interest which, so far
as I was concerned, was of a distinctly new and original sort.
Whether or not I had been the victim of an ocular delusion I could
not be sure. It was incredible to suppose that he could have
disappeared as he had seemed to disappear,—it was also incredible
that I could have imagined his disappearance. If the thing had
been a trick, I had not the faintest notion how it had been
worked; and, if it was not a trick, then what was it? Was it
something new in scientific marvels? Could he give me as much
instruction in the qualities of unknown forces as I could him?

In the meanwhile he stood in an attitude of complete submission,
with downcast eyes, and hands crossed upon his breast. I started
to cross-examine him.

'I am going to ask you some questions. So long as you answer them
promptly, truthfully, you will be safe. Otherwise you had best
beware.'

'Ask, oh my lord.'

'What is the nature of your objection to Mr Lessingham?'

'Revenge.'

'What has he done to you that you should wish to be revenged on
him?'

'It is the feud of the innocent blood.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'On his hands is the blood of my kin. It cries aloud for
vengeance.'

'Who has he killed?'

'That, my lord, is for me,—and for him.'

'I see.—Am I to understand that you do not choose to answer me,
and that I am again to use my—magic?'

I saw that he quivered.

'My lord, he has spilled the blood of her who has lain upon his
breast.'

I hesitated. What he meant appeared clear enough. Perhaps it would
be as well not to press for further details. The words pointed to
what it might be courteous to call an Eastern Romance,—though it
was hard to conceive of the Apostle figuring as the hero of such a
theme. It was the old tale retold, that to the life of every man
there is a background,—that it is precisely in the unlikeliest
cases that the background's darkest. What would that penny-plain-
and-twopence-coloured bogey, the Nonconformist Conscience, make of
such a story if it were blazoned through the land. Would Paul not
come down with a run?

'"Spilling blood" is a figure of speech; pretty, perhaps, but
vague. If you mean that Mr Lessingham has been killing someone,
your surest and most effectual revenge would be gained by an
appeal to the law.'

'What has the Englishman's law to do with me?'

'If you can prove that he has been guilty of murder it would have
a great deal to do with you. I assure you that at any rate, in
that sense, the Englishman's law is no respecter of persons. Show
him to be guilty, and it would hang Paul Lessingham as
indifferently, and as cheerfully, as it would hang Bill Brown.'

'Is that so?'

'It is so, as, if you choose, you will be easily able to prove to
your own entire satisfaction.'

He had raised his head, and was looking at something which he
seemed to see in front of him with a maleficent glare in his
sensitive eyes which it was not nice to see.

'He would be shamed?'

'Indeed he would be shamed.'

'Before all men?'

'Before all men,—and, I take it, before all women too.'

'And he would hang?'

'If shown to have been guilty of wilful murder,—yes.'

His hideous face was lighted up by a sort of diabolical exultation
which made it, if that were possible, more hideous still. I had
apparently given him a wrinkle which pleased him most
consummately.

'Perhaps I will do that in the end,—in the end!' He opened his
eyes to their widest limits, then shut them tight,—as if to gloat
on the picture which his fancy painted. Then reopened them. 'In
the meantime I will have vengeance in my own fashion. He knows
already that the avenger is upon him,—he has good reason to know
it. And through the days and the nights the knowledge shall be
with him still, and it shall be to him as the bitterness of
death,—aye, of many deaths. For he will know that escape there is
none, and that for him there shall be no more sun in the sky, and
that the terror shall be with him by night and by day, at his
rising up and at his lying down, wherever his eyes shall turn it
shall be there,—yet, behold, the sap and the juice of my
vengeance is in this, in that though he shall be very sure that
the days that are, are as the days of his death, yet shall he know
that THE DEATH, THE GREAT DEATH, is coming—coming—and shall be
on him—when I will!'

The fellow spoke like an inspired maniac. If he meant half what he
said,—and if he did not then his looks and his tones belied him!
—then a promising future bade fair to be in store for Mr
Lessingham,—and, also, circumstances being as they were, for
Marjorie. It was this latter reflection which gave me pause.
Either this imprecatory fanatic would have to be disposed of, by
Lessingham himself, or by someone acting on his behalf, and, so
far as their power of doing mischief went, his big words proved
empty windbags, or Marjorie would have to be warned that there was
at least one passage in her suitor's life, into which, ere it was
too late, it was advisable that inquiry should be made. To allow
Marjorie to irrevocably link her fate with the Apostle's, without
being first of all made aware that he was, to all intents and
purposes, a haunted man—that was not to be thought of.

'You employ large phrases.'

My words cooled the other's heated blood. Once more his eyes were
cast down, his hands crossed upon his breast

'I crave my lord's pardon. My wound is ever new.'

'By the way, what was the secret history, this morning, of that
little incident of the cockroach?'

He glanced up quickly.

'Cockroach?—I know not what you say.'

'Well,—was it beetle, then?'

'Beetle!'

He seemed, all at once, to have lost his voice,—the word was
gasped.

'After you went we found, upon a sheet of paper, a capitally
executed drawing of a beetle, which, I fancy, you must have left
behind you,—Scaraboeus sacer, wasn't it?'

'I know not what you talk of.'

'Its discovery seemed to have quite a singular effect on Mr
Lessingham. Now, why was that?'

'I know nothing.'

'Oh yes you do,—and, before you go, I mean to know something
too.'

The man was trembling, looking this way and that, showing signs of
marked discomfiture. That there was something about that ancient
scarab, which figures so largely in the still unravelled tangles
of the Egyptian mythologies, and the effect which the mere sight
of its cartouch—for the drawing had resembled something of the
kind—had had on such a seasoned vessel as Paul Lessingham, which
might be well worth my finding out, I felt convinced,—the man's
demeanour, on my recurring to the matter, told its own plain tale.
I made up my mind, if possible, to probe the business to the
bottom, then and there.