The Beetle (22 page)

'Why do you ask?'

'Your manner seems a little singular.'

'You think so?'

'I do.'

'What have you come to see me about?'

'Just now, nothing.—I like to know where I stand.'

His manner was courteous, easy, even graceful. I was
outmanoeuvred. I understood the man sufficiently well to be aware
that when once he was on the defensive, the first blow would have
to come from me. So I struck it.

'I, also, like to know where I stand.—Lessingham, I am aware, and
you know that I am aware, that you have made certain overtures to
Miss Lindon. That is a fact in which I am keenly interested.'

'As—how?'

'The Lindons and the Athertons are not the acquaintances of one
generation only. Marjorie Lindon and I have been friends since
childhood. She looks upon me as a brother—'

'As a brother?'

'As a brother.'

'Yes.'

'Mr Lindon regains me as a son. He has given me his confidence; as
I believe you are aware, Marjorie has given me hers; and now I
want you to give me yours.'

'What do you want to know?'

'I wish to explain my position before I say what I have to say,
because I want you to understand me clearly.—I believe, honestly,
that the thing I most desire in this world is to see Marjorie
Lindon happy. If I thought she would be happy with you, I should
say, God speed you both! and I should congratulate you with all my
heart, because I think that you would have won the best girl in
the whole world to be your wife.'

'I think so too.'

'But, before I did that, I should have to see, at least, some
reasonable probability that she would be happy with you.'

'Why should she not?'

'Will you answer a question?'

'What is the question?'

'What is the story in your life of which you stand in such hideous
terror?'

There was a perceptible pause before he answered.

'Explain yourself.'

'No explanation is needed,—you know perfectly well what I mean.'

'You credit me with miraculous acumen.'

'Don't juggle, Lessingham,—be frank!'

'The frankness should not be all on one side.—There is that in
your frankness, although you may be unconscious of it, which some
men might not unreasonably resent.'

'Do you resent it?'

'That depends. If you are arrogating to yourself the right to
place yourself between Miss Lindon and me, I do resent it,
strongly.'

'Answer my question!'

'I answer no question which is addressed to me in such a tone.'

He was as calm as you please. I recognised that already I was in
peril of losing my temper,—which was not at all what I desired. I
eyed him intently, he returning me look for look. His countenance
betrayed no sign of a guilty conscience; I had not seen him more
completely at his ease. He smiled,—facially, and also, as it
seemed to me, a little derisively. I am bound to admit that his
bearing showed not the faintest shadow of resentment, and that in
his eyes there was a gentleness, a softness, which I had not
observed in them before,—I could almost have suspected him of
being sympathetic.

'In this matter, you must know, I stand in the place of Mr
Lindon.'

'Well?'

'Surely you must understand that before anyone is allowed to think
of marriage with Marjorie Lindon he will have to show that his
past, as the advertisements have it, will bear the fullest
investigation.'

'Is that so?—Will your past bear the fullest investigation?'

I winced.

'At any rate, it is known to all the world.'

'Is it?—Forgive me if I say, I doubt it. I doubt if, of any wise
man, that can be said with truth. In all our lives there are
episodes which we keep to ourselves.'

I felt that that was so true that, for the instant, I hardly knew
what to say.

'But there are episodes and episodes, and when it comes to a man
being haunted one draws the line.'

'Haunted?'

'As you are.'

He got up.

'Atherton, I think that I understand you, but I fear that you do
not understand me.' He went to where a self-acting mercurial air-
pump was standing on a shelf. 'What is this curious arrangement of
glass tubes and bulbs?'

'I do not think that you do understand me, or you would know that
I am in no mood to be trifled with.'

'Is it some kind of an exhauster?'

'My dear Lessingham, I am entirely at your service. I intend to
have an answer to my question before you leave this room, but, in
the meanwhile, your convenience is mine. There are some very
interesting things here which you might care to see.'

'Marvellous, is it not, how the human intellect progresses,—from
conquest unto conquest'

'Among the ancients the progression had proceeded farther than
with us.'

'In what respect?'

'For instance, in the affair of the Apotheosis of the Beetle;—I
saw it take place last night.'

'Where?'

'Here,—within a few feet of where you are standing.'

'Are you serious?'

'Perfectly.'

'What did you see?'

'I saw the legendary Apotheosis of the Beetle performed, last
night, before my eyes, with a gaudy magnificence at which the
legends never hinted.'

'That is odd. I once thought that I saw something of the kind
myself.'

'So I understand.'

'From whom?'

'From a friend of yours.'

'From a friend of mine?—Are you sure it was from a friend of
mine?'

The man's attempt at coolness did him credit,—but it did not
deceive me. That he thought I was endeavouring to bluff him out of
his secret I perceived quite clearly; that it was a secret which
he would only render with his life I was beginning to suspect. Had
it not been for Marjorie, I should have cared nothing,—his
affairs were his affairs; though I realised perfectly well that
there was something about the man which, from the scientific
explorer's point of view, might be well worth finding out. Still,
as I say, if it had not been for Marjorie, I should have let it
go; but, since she was so intimately concerned in it, I wondered
more and more what it could be.

My attitude towards what is called the supernatural is an open
one. That all things are possible I unhesitatingly believe,—I
have, even in my short time, seen so many so-called
impossibilities proved possible. That we know everything, I
doubt;—that our great-great-great-great-grandsires, our forebears
of thousands of years ago, of the extinct civilisations, knew more
on some subjects than we do, I think is, at least, probable. All
the legends can hardly be false.

Because men claimed to be able to do things in those days which we
cannot do, and which we do not know how they did we profess to
think that their claims are finally dismissed by exclaiming—lies!
But it is not so sure.

For my part, what I had seen I had seen. I had seen some devil's
trick played before my very eyes. Some trick of the same sort
seemed to have been played upon my Marjorie,—I repeat that I
write 'my Marjorie' because, to me, she will always be 'my'
Marjorie! It had driven her half out of her senses. As I looked at
Lessingham, I seemed to see her at his side, as I had seen her not
long ago, with her white, drawn face, and staring eyes, dumb with
an agony of fear. Her life was bidding fair to be knit with his,—
what Upas tree of horror was rooted in his very bones? The thought
that her sweet purity was likely to be engulfed in a devil's
slough in which he was swallowing was not to be endured. As I
realised that the man was more than my match at the game which I
was playing—in which such vital interests were at stake!—my
hands itched to clutch him by the throat, and try another way.

Doubtless my face revealed my feelings, because, presently, he
said,

'Are you aware how strangely you are looking at me, Atherton? Were
my countenance a mirror I think you would be surprised to see in
it your own.'

I drew back from him,—I daresay, sullenly.

'Not so surprised as, yesterday morning, you would have been to
have seen yours,—at the mere sight of a pictured scarab.'

'How easily you quarrel.'

'I do not quarrel.'

'Then perhaps it's I. If that is so, then, at once, the quarrel's
ended,—pouf! it's done. Mr Lindon, I fear, because, politically,
we differ, regards me as anathema. Has he put some of his spirit
into you?—You are a wiser man.'

'I am aware that you are an adept with words. But this is a case
in which words only will not serve.'

'Then what will serve?'

'I am myself beginning to wonder.'

'And I.'

'As you so courteously suggest, I believe I am wiser than Lindon.
I do not care for your politics, or for what you call your
politics, one fig. I do not care if you are as other men are, as I
am,—not unspotted from the world! But I do care if you are
leprous. And I believe you are.'

'Atherton!'

'Ever since I have known you I have been conscious of there being
something about you which I found it difficult to diagnose;—in an
unwholesome sense, something out of the common, non-natural; an
atmosphere of your own. Events, so far as you are concerned, have,
during the last few days moved quickly. They have thrown an
uncomfortably lurid light on that peculiarity of yours which I
have noticed. Unless you can explain them to my satisfaction, you
will withdraw your pretensions to Miss Lindon's hand, or I shall
place certain facts before that lady, and, if necessary, publish
them to the world.'

He grew visibly paler but he smiled—facially.

'You have your own way of conducting a conversation, Mr Atherton.
—What are the events to whose rapid transit you are alluding?'

'Who was the individual, practically stark naked, who came out of
your house, in such singular fashion, at dead of night?'

'Is that one of the facts with which you propose to tickle the
public ear?'

'Is that the only explanation which you have to offer?'

'Proceed, for the present, with your indictment.'

'I am not so unobservant as you appear to imagine. There were
features about the episode which struck me forcibly at the time,
and which have struck me more forcibly since. To suggest, as you
did yesterday morning, that it was an ordinary case of burglary,
or that the man was a lunatic, is an absurdity.

'Pardon me,—I did nothing of the kind.'

'Then what do you suggest?'

'I suggested, and do suggest, nothing. All the suggestions come
from you.'

'You went very much out of your way to beg me to keep the matter
quiet. There is an appearance of suggestion about that.'

'You take a jaundiced view of all my actions, Mr Atherton.
Nothing, to me, could seem more natural.—However,—proceed.'

He had his hands behind his back, and rested them on the edge of
the table against which he was leaning. He was undoubtedly ill at
ease; but so far I had not made the impression on him, either
mentally or morally, which I desired.

'Who is your Oriental friend?'

'I do not follow you.'

'Are you sure?'

'I am certain. Repeat your question.'

'Who is your Oriental friend?'

'I was not aware that I had one.'

'Do you swear that?'

He laughed, a strange laugh.

'Do you seek to catch me tripping? You conduct your case with too
much animus. You must allow me to grasp the exact purport of your
inquiry before I can undertake to reply to it on oath.'

'Are you not aware that at present there is in London an
individual who claims to have had a very close, and a very
curious, acquaintance with you in the East?'

'I am not.'

'That you swear?'

'That I do swear.'

'That is singular.'

'Why is it singular?'

'Because I fancy that that individual haunts you.'

'Haunts me?'

'Haunts you.'

'You jest.'

'You think so?—You remember that picture of the scarabaeus which,
yesterday morning, frightened you into a state of semi-idiocy.'

'You use strong language.—I know what you allude to.'

'Do you mean to say that you don't know that you were indebted for
that to your Oriental friend?'

'I don't understand you.'

'Are you sure?'

'Certainly I am sure.—It occurs to me, Mr Atherton, that an
explanation is demanded from you rather than from me. Are you
aware that the purport of my presence here is to ask you how that
picture found its way into your room?'

'It was projected by the Lord of the Beetle.'

The words were chance ones,—but they struck a mark.

'The Lord—' He faltered,—and stopped. He showed signs of
discomposure. 'I will be frank with you,—since frankness is what
you ask.' His smile, that time, was obviously forced. 'Recently I
have been the victim of delusions;' there was a pause before the
word, 'of a singular kind. I have feared that they were the result
of mental overstrain. Is it possible that you can enlighten me as
to their source?'

I was silent. He was putting a great strain upon himself, but the
twitching of his lips betrayed him. A little more, and I should
reach the other side of Mr Lessingham,—the side which he kept
hidden from the world.

'Who is this—individual whom you speak of as my—Oriental
friend?'

'Being your friend, you should know better than I do.'

'What sort of man is he to look at?'

'I did not say it was a man.'

'But I presume it is a man.'

'I did not say so.'

He seemed, for a moment, to hold his breath,—and he looked at me
with eyes which were not friendly. Then, with a display of self-
command which did him credit, he drew himself upright, with an air
of dignity which well became him.

'Atherton, consciously, or unconsciously, you are doing me a
serious injustice. I do not know what conception it is which you
have formed of me, or on what the conception is founded, but I
protest that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am as
reputable, as honest, and as clean a man as you are.'