H G Wells Omnibus, page 692
The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In a flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood for a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. “My goodness! What a fool I have been!” he whispered, and then darted swiftly across the shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he had just come. He stood listening—quivering. The footsteps reached the first-floor landing.
Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer’s room! Not a moment was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven for a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds too soon. He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing candle-light appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the shadows ran wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down.
“Lord, what a day!” said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed he deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging by the feet, decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went to the door and locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows carefully and pulled down the blinds, and returning sat down upon the bed with startling ponderosity.
“WHAT a day!” he said. “Good Lord!” and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots were good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance suggested a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed some upper garments—a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred— and casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less noisily, and as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. At intervals he muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And Mr. Ledbetter muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. “Of all the foolish things,” said Mr. Ledbetter. “What on earth am I to do now?”
His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between the stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened until the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was a luxurious one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors and so forth of the furniture, well equipped.
What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until this person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, to creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony seemed the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump from the balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances against him, Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his head beside the gentleman’s legs, coughing if necessary to attract his attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences hard to choose. “No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar,” or, “I trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from beneath you,” was about as much as he could get.
Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose they did not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his unblemished high character count for nothing? Technically he was a burglar, beyond dispute. Following out this train of thought, he was composing a lucid apology for “this technical crime I have committed,” to be delivered before sentence in the dock, when the stout gentleman got up and began walking about the room. He locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. Ledbetter had a transient hope that he might be undressing. But, no! He seated himself at the writing-table, and began to write and then tear up documents. Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with the odour of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter’s nostrils.
“The position I had assumed,” said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of these things, “was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse bar beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a disproportionate share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I experienced what is called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The pressure of my hands on the coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became painful. My knees, too, were painful, my trousers being drawn tightly over them. At that time I wore rather higher collars than I do now—two and a half inches, in fact—and I discovered what I had not remarked before, that the edge of the one I wore was frayed slightly under the chin. But much worse than these things was an itching of my face, which I could only relieve by violent grimacing—I tried to raise my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve alarmed me. After a time I had to desist from this relief also, because—happily in time— I discovered that my facial contortions were shifting my glasses down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have exposed me, and as it was they came to rest in an oblique position of by no means stable equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an intermittent desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In fact, quite apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical discomfort became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to stay there motionless, nevertheless.”
After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This deepened into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink—twenty-five chinks— a rap on the writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout legs. It dawned upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking of gold. He became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity grew. Already, if that was the case, this extraordinary man must have counted some hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could resist it no longer, and he began very cautiously to fold his arms and lower his head to the level of the floor, in the hope of peeping under the valance. He moved his feet, and one made a slight scraping on the floor. Suddenly the chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became rigid. After a while the chinking was resumed. Then it ceased again, and everything was still, except Mr. Ledbetter’s heart—that organ seemed to him to be beating like a drum.
The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter’s head was now on the floor, and he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were quite still. The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, as it seemed, under the chair of the owner. Everything was quite still, everything continued still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter that the unknown was in a fit or suddenly dead, with his head upon the writing-table… .
The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep became irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand forward, projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance immediately next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now the stranger’s knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then— he was staring at the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over the writing-table at his head.
“Come out of that, you scoundrel!” said the voice of the stout gentleman in a tone of quiet concentration. “Come out. This side, and now. None of your hanky-panky—come right out, now.”
Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but without any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told.
“Kneel,” said the stout gentleman. “and hold up your hands.”
The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from all-fours and held up his hands. “Dressed like a parson,” said the stout gentleman. “I’m blest if he isn’t! A little chap, too! You scoundrel! What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night? What the deuce possessed you to get under my bed?”
He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to several very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter’s personal appearance. He was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. Ledbetter: he was as stout as his legs had promised, he had rather delicately-chiselled small features distributed over a considerable area of whitish face, and quite a number of chins. And the note of his voice had a sort of whispering undertone.
“What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?”
Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He coughed. “I can quite understand—” he said.
“Why! What on earth? It’s soap! No!—you scoundrel. Don’t you move that hand.”
“It’s soap,” said Mr. Ledbetter. “From your washstand. No doubt it—”
“Don’t talk,” said the stout man. “I see it’s soap. Of all incredible things.”
“If I might explain—”
“Don’t explain. It’s sure to be a lie, and there’s no time for explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?”
“In a few minutes, if you—”
“Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver I’ll shoot. Have you any mates?”
“No,” said Mr. Ledbetter.
“I suppose it’s a lie,” said the stout man. “But you’ll pay for it if it is. Why the deuce didn’t you floor me when I came upstairs? You won’t get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! I reckon it’s a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned.”
“I don’t see how I could prove an alibi,” remarked Mr. Ledbetter, trying to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. There was a pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside his captor was a large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, and that there were torn and burnt papers on the table. And in front of these, and arranged methodically along the edge were rows and rows of little yellow rouleaux—a hundred times more gold than Mr. Ledbetter had seen in all his life before. The light of two candles, in silver candlesticks, fell upon these. The pause continued. “It is rather fatiguing holding up my hands like this,” said Mr. Ledbetter, with a deprecatory smile.
“That’s all right,” said the fat man. “But what to do with you I don’t exactly know.”
“I know my position is ambiguous.”
“Lord!” said the fat man, “ambiguous! And goes about with his own soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You are a blooming burglar, you are—if ever there was one!”
“To be strictly accurate,” said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his glasses slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons.
The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution crossed his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put his other hand to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, and his eye went down to the dropped pince-nez.
“Full-cock now, anyhow,” said the fat man, after a pause, and his breath seemed to catch. “But I’ll tell you, you’ve never been so near death before. Lord! I’m almost glad. If it hadn’t been that the revolver wasn’t cocked you’d be lying dead there now.”
Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying.
“A miss is as good as a mile. It’s lucky for both of us it wasn’t. Lord!” He blew noisily. “There’s no need for you to go pale-green for a little thing like that.”
“If I can assure you, sir—” said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort.
“There’s only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I’m bust— a little game I’ve got on is bust. That won’t do. If I tie you up and leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and Monday’s Bank Holiday—I’ve counted on three clear days. Shooting you’s murder—and hanging; and besides, it will bust the whole blooming kernooze. I’m hanged if I can think what to do— I’m hanged if I can.”
“Will you permit me—”
“You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I’m blessed if you don’t. Of all the burglars you are the—Well! No!—I won’t permit you. There isn’t time. If you start off jawing again, I’ll shoot right in your stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we’re going to do first, my man, is an examination for concealed arms— an examination for concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you to do a thing, don’t start off at a gabble—do it brisk.”
And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol at Mr. Ledbetter’s head, the stout man stood him up and searched him for weapons. “Why, you ARE a burglar!” he said “You’re a perfect amateur. You haven’t even a pistol-pocket in the back of your breeches. No, you don’t! Shut up, now.”
So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter take off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver at one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted. From the stout man’s point of view that was evidently the only possible arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had to put down the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was handled by Mr. Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar. The stout man’s idea was evidently to distribute the weight of the gold as unostentatiously as possible through his luggage. It was by no means an inconsiderable weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says, altogether nearly L18,000 in gold in the black bag and on the table. There were also many little rolls of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter in paper. These rouleaux were then put neatly in cigar boxes and distributed between a travelling trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. About L600 went in a tobacco tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a number of L5 notes the stout man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated Mr. Ledbetter’s clumsiness, and urged him to hurry, and several times he appealed to Mr. Ledbetter’s watch for information.
Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man the keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of midnight the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat at a reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver handy and waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood, and having watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few remarks.
“From your accent I judge you are a man of some education,” he said, lighting a cigar. “No—don’t begin that explanation of yours. I know it will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar to be interested in other men’s lying. You are, I say, a person of education. You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated people you might pass as a curate.”
“I am a curate,” said Mr. Ledbetter, “or, at least—”
“You are trying to be. I know. But you didn’t ought to burgle. You are not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it—the thing will have been pointed out to you before—a coward.”
“Do you know,” said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening, “it was that very question—”
The stout man waved him into silence.
“You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two things. Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my own part, I embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man could be doing with all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight! … Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There is something very impressive to me in that slow beating of the hours. Time—space; what mysteries they are! What mysteries… . It’s time for us to be moving. Stand up!”
And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder the trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone bag in his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled perilously downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat, the hatbox, and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr. Ledbetter’s strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs.
“The back door,” he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through a conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him. “Never mind the crockery,” said the stout man; “it’s good for trade. We wait here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You have!”
Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. “Last night,” he gasped, “I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt—”
“There’s no need for you to incriminate yourself,” said the stout gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. Mr. Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it.
There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was taken to the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man in yachting costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started violently and clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout man. “Bingham!” he cried, “who’s this?”
“Only a little philanthropic do of mine—burglar I’m trying to reform. Caught him under my bed just now. He’s all right. He’s a frightful ass. He’ll be useful to carry some of our things.”
The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter’s presence at first, but the stout man reassured him.
“He’s quite alone. There’s not a gang in the world would own him. No!—don’t start talking, for goodness’ sake.”
They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still bowing Mr. Ledbetter’s shoulders. The man in the yachting costume walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box, coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach. Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face stood beside it. “A few moments’ explanation,” said Mr. Ledbetter; “I can assure you—” Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.
They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better name than “scoundrel” and “burglar” all that night. But they spoke in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange, unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to remain many days—how many he does not know, because he lost count among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him, night and day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch— but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or six times the five Lascars—if they were Lascars—and the Chinaman and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three- anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an interested manner.
