The Beetle (34 page)

Sydney, I take it, was rather surprised than hurt. For a moment or
two he lay quite still. Then, lifting his head, he looked up his
assailant. Then, raising himself to his feet, he shook himself,—
as if with a view of learning if all his bones were whole. Putting
his hands up to his neck, he rubbed it, gently. And he grinned.

'By God, Lessingham, there's more in you than I thought. After
all, you are a man. There's some holding power in those wrists of
yours,—they've nearly broken my neck. When this business is
finished, I should like to put on the gloves with you, and fight
it out. You're clean wasted upon politics,—Damn it, man, give me
your hand!'

Mr Lessingham did not give him his hand. Atherton took it,—and
gave it a hearty shake with both of his.

If the first paroxysm of his passion had passed, Lessingham was
still sufficiently stern.

'Be so good as not to trifle, Mr Atherton. If what you say is
correct, and the wretch to whom you allude really has Miss Lindon
at her mercy, then the woman I love—and whom you also pretend to
love!—stands in imminent peril not only of a ghastly death, but
of what is infinitely worse than death.'

'The deuce she does!' Atherton wheeled round towards me.
'Champnell, haven't you got that dashed hat of yours yet? Don't
stand there like a tailor's dummy, keeping me on tenter-hooks,—
move yourself! I'll tell you all about it in the cab.—And,
Lessingham, if you'll come with us I'll tell you too.'

Three in a hansom cab is not, under all circumstances, the most
comfortable method of conveyance,—when one of the trio happens to
be Sydney Atherton in one of his 'moments of excitement' it is
distinctly the opposite; as, on that occasion, Mr Lessingham and I
both quickly found. Sometimes he sat on my knees, sometimes on
Lessingham's, and frequently, when he unexpectedly stood up, and
all but precipitated himself on to the horse's back, on nobody's.
In the eagerness of his gesticulations, first he knocked off my
hat, then he knocked off Lessingham's, then his own, then all
three together,—once, his own hat rolling into the mud, he sprang
into the road, without previously going through the empty form of
advising the driver of his intention, to pick it up. When he
turned to speak to Lessingham, he thrust his elbow into my eye;
and when he turned to speak to me, he thrust it into Lessingham's.
Never, for one solitary instant, was he at rest, or either of us
at ease. The wonder is that the gymnastics in which he incessantly
indulged did not sufficiently attract public notice to induce a
policeman to put at least a momentary period to our progress. Had
speed not been of primary importance I should have insisted on the
transference of the expedition to the somewhat wider limits of a
four-wheeler.

His elucidation of the causes of his agitation was apparently more
comprehensible to Lessingham than it was to me. I had to piece
this and that together under considerable difficulties. By degrees
I did arrive at something like a clear notion of what had actually
taken place.

He commenced by addressing Lessingham,—and thrusting his elbow
into my eye.

'Did Marjorie tell you about the fellow she found in the street?'
Up went his arm to force the trap-door open overhead,—and off
went my hat. 'Now then, William Henry!—let her go!—if you kill
the horse I'll buy you another!'

We were already going much faster than, legally, we ought to have
done,—but that, seemingly to him was not a matter of the
slightest consequence. Lessingham replied to his inquiry.

'She did not.'

'You know the fellow I saw coming out of your drawing-room
window?'

'Yes.'

'Well, Marjorie found him the morning after in front of her
breakfast-room window—in the middle of the street. Seems he had
been wandering about all night, unclothed,—in the rain and the
mud, and all the rest of it,—in a condition of hypnotic trance.'

'Who is the—gentleman you are alluding to?'

'Says his name's Holt, Robert Holt.'

'Holt?—Is he an Englishman?'

'Very much so,—City quill-driver out of a shop,—stony broke
absolutely! Got the chuck from the casual ward,—wouldn't let him
in,—house full, and that sort of thing,—poor devil! Pretty
passes you politicians bring men to!'

'Are you sure?'

'Of what?'

'Are you sure that this man, Robert Holt, is the same person whom,
as you put it, you saw coming out of my drawing-room window?'

'Sure!—Of course I'm sure!—Think I didn't recognise him?—
Besides, there was the man's own tale,—owned to it himself,—
besides all the rest, which sent one rushing Fulham way.'

'You must remember, Mr Atherton, that I am wholly in the dark as
to what has happened. What has the man, Holt, to do with the
errand on which we are bound?'

'Am I not coming to it? If you would let me tell the tale in my
own way I should get there in less than no time, but you will keep
on cutting in,—how the deuce do you suppose Champnell is to make
head or tail of the business if you will persist in interrupting?
—Marjorie took the beggar in,—he told his tale to her,—she sent
for me—that was just now; caught me on the steps after I had been
lunching with Dora Grayling. Holt re-dished his yarn—I smelt a
rat—saw that a connection possibly existed between the thief
who'd been playing confounded conjuring tricks off on to me and
this interesting party down Fulham way—'

'What party down Fulham way?'

'This friend of Holt's—am I not telling you? There you are, you
see,—won't let me finish! When Holt slipped through the window—
which is the most sensible thing he seems to have done; if I'd
been in his shoes I'd have slipped through forty windows!—dusky
coloured charmer caught him on the hop,—doctored him—sent him
out to commit burglary by deputy. I said to Holt, "Show us this
agreeable little crib, young man." Holt was game—then Marjorie
chipped in—she wanted to go and see it too. I said, "You'll be
sorry if you do,"—that settled it! After that she'd have gone if
she'd died,—I never did have a persuasive way with women. So off
we toddled, Marjorie, Holt, and I, in a growler,—spotted the crib
in less than no time,—invited ourselves in by the kitchen window
—house seemed empty. Presently Holt became hypnotised before my
eyes,—the best established case of hypnotism by suggestion I ever
yet encountered—started off on a pilgrimage of one. Like an idiot
I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me—'

'Alone?'

'Alone!—Am I not telling you?—Great Scott, Lessingham, in the
House of Commons they must be hazy to think you smart! I said,
"I'll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company." As
luck would have it, I never met one,—only kids, and a baker, who
wouldn't leave his cart, or take it with him either. I'd covered
pretty nearly two miles before I came across a peeler,—and when I
did the man was cracked—and he thought me mad, or drunk, or both.
By the time I'd got myself within nodding distance of being run in
for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, without
inducing him to move a single one of his twenty-four-inch feet,
Holt was out of sight. So, since all my pains in his direction
were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to
scurry back to Marjorie,—so I scurried, and I found the house
empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.'

'But, I don't quite follow—'

Atherton impetuously declined to allow Mr Lessingham to conclude.

'Of course you don't quite follow, and you'll follow still less if
you will keep getting in front. I went upstairs and downstairs,
inside and out—shouted myself hoarse as a crow—nothing was to be
seen of Marjorie,—or heard; until, as I was coming down the
stairs for about the five-and-fiftieth time, I stepped on
something hard which was lying in the passage. I picked it up,—it
was a ring; this ring. Its shape is not just what it was,—I'm not
as light as gossamer, especially when I come jumping downstairs
six at a time,—but what's left of it is here.'

Sydney held something in front of him. Mr Lessingham wriggled to
one side to enable him to see. Then he made a snatch at it.

'It's mine!'

Sydney dodged it out of his reach.

'What do you mean, it's yours?'

'It's the ring I gave Marjorie for an engagement ring. Give it me,
you hound!—unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab.'

With complete disregard of the limitations of space,—or of my
comfort,—Lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. Then gripping
Sydney by the wrist, he seized the gaud,—Sydney yielding it just
in time to save himself from being precipitated into the street.
Ravished of his treasure, Sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher
with something like a glance of admiration.

'Hang me, Lessingham, if I don't believe there is some warm blood
in those fishlike veins of yours. Please the piper, I'll live to
fight you after all,—with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman
should do.'

Lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him whatever. He was
surveying the ring, which Sydney had trampled out of shape, with
looks of the deepest concern.

'Marjorie's ring!—The one I gave her! Something serious must have
happened to her before she would have dropped my ring, and left it
lying where it fell.'

Atherton went on.

'That's it!—What has happened to her!—I'll be dashed if I know!
—When it was clear that there she wasn't, I tore off to find out
where she was. Came across old Lindon,—he knew nothing;—I rather
fancy I startled him in the middle of Pall Mall, when I left he
stared after me like one possessed, and his hat was lying in the
gutter. Went home,—she wasn't there. Asked Dora Grayling,—she'd
seen nothing of her. No one had seen anything of her,—she had
vanished into air. Then I said to myself, "You're a first-class
idiot, on my honour! While you're looking for her, like a lost
sheep, the betting is that the girl's in Holt's friend's house the
whole jolly time. When you were there, the chances are that she'd
just stepped out for a stroll, and that now she's back again, and
wondering where on earth you've gone!" So I made up my mind that
I'd fly back and see,—because the idea of her standing on the
front doorstep looking for me, while I was going off my nut
looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense of
humour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of
wisdom to pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be
backed to find a needle in any amount of hay-stacks it is the
great Augustus.—That horse has moved itself after all, because
here we are. Now, cabman, don't go driving further on,—you'll
have to put a girdle round the earth if you do; because you'll
have to reach this point again before you get your fare.—This is
the magician's house!'

The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap 'villa' in an
unfinished cheap neighbourhood,—the whole place a living monument
of the defeat of the speculative builder.

Atherton leaped out on to the grass-grown rubble which was meant
for a footpath.

'I don't see Marjorie looking for me on the doorstep.'

Nor did I,—I saw nothing but what appeared to be an unoccupied
ramshackle brick abomination. Suddenly Sydney gave an exclamation.

'Hullo!—The front door's closed!'

I was hard at his heels.

'What do you mean?'

'Why, when I went I left the front door open. It looks as if I've
made an idiot of myself after all, and Marjorie's returned,—let's
hope to goodness that I have.'

He knocked. While we waited for a response I questioned him.

'Why did you leave the door open when you went?'

'I hardly know,—I imagine that it was with some dim idea of
Marjorie's being able to get in if she returned while I was
absent,—but the truth is I was in such a condition of helter
skelter that I am not prepared to swear that I had any reasonable
reason.'

'I suppose there is no doubt that you did leave it open?'

'Absolutely none,—on that I'll stake my life.'

'Was it open when you returned from your pursuit of Holt?'

'Wide open,—I walked straight in expecting to find her waiting
for me in the front room,—I was struck all of a heap when I found
she wasn't there.'

'Were there any signs of a struggle?'

'None,—there were no signs of anything. Everything was just as I
had left it, with the exception of the ring which I trod on in the
passage, and which Lessingham has.'

'If Miss Lindon has returned, it does not look as if she were in
the house at present.'

It did not,—unless silence had such meaning. Atherton had knocked
loudly three times without succeeding in attracting the slightest
notice from within.

'It strikes me that this is another case of seeking admission
through that hospitable window at the back.'

Atherton led the way to the rear. Lessingham and I followed. There
was not even an apology for a yard, still less a garden,—there
was not even a fence of any sort, to serve as an enclosure, and to
shut off the house from the wilderness of waste land. The kitchen
window was open. I asked Sydney if he had left it so.

'I don't know,—I dare say we did; I don't fancy that either of us
stood on the order of his coming.'

While he spoke, he scrambled over the sill. We followed. When he
was in, he shouted at the top of his voice,

'Marjorie! Marjorie! Speak to me, Marjorie,—it is I,—Sydney!'

The words echoed through the house. Only silence answered. He led
the way to the front room. Suddenly he stopped.

'Hollo!' he cried. 'The blind's down!' I had noticed, when we were
outside, that the blind was down at the front room window. 'It was
up when I went, that I'll swear. That someone has been here is
pretty plain,—let's hope it's Marjorie.'