Clutterbuck's Treasure

I sprang out of bed and rushed to the wash-hand stand, and, whether by kicking, or falling over upon them, or pushing with bound hands or with elbow, I contrived, somehow, before Strong realised my intention, to send the jug and basin crashing upon the floor with a noise, I suppose, that would have awakened an army of men a mile away. At the same moment I lost consciousness, and therefore for the events of the next few minutes I am indebted to second-hand information.

This is, I understand, what happened.

Jack is a lightish sleeper. He was dreaming, he says, of a cricket match in which he once took part at "Lords," playing for his school against the M.C.C. in the great annual function held, as a rule, on the first two days of the holidays. Jack was batting, it appears, to Strong's bowling. Dream-bowling is sometimes very difficult to play by dream-batsmen. It depends very much upon whether the batsman has dined judiciously or the reverse. Jack had assisted at a banquet, as has been shown; and Strong's bowling was giving him a lot of trouble. Strong had sent down four balls, of which the slowest, Jack declared, could have given points to a flash of buttered lightning. One of them killed the wicket-keeper; and another, being a wide, lamed short-slip for life; no one knew what became of the other two balls, they were never caught sight of at all. Then Strong sent down the fifth, and Jack—though he saw nothing of it—slogged at it for all he was worth. The wicket-keeper, it seems, just before he died, had assured Jack that Clutterbuck's treasure would be lost to us for ever, and that Strong was to be declared the legitimate proprietor of the same, by special rule just passed by the committee of the M.C.C., unless he contrived to make four runs in this over. So that it was absolutely necessary, Jack explained, to hit this fifth ball to the boundary.

By some fluke Jack caught the ball full; he did not see it; he admits having shut his eyes; Strong's face was more than he could stand up to. He lashed out at it blindly, and sent it flying, at the rate of a million miles an hour, over Strong's head, straight for the pavilion seats.

That marvellous fellow, Strong—the dream-Strong—rushed after it, and careered so fast (at the rate, in fact, of a million and one miles per hour) that he was just able to leap into the air at the very pavilion rail and touch the ball.

He could not hold it, however, and, losing his balance—owing to the great pace at which he had travelled—he flew head over heels clean through the glass windows of the pavilion, and alighted upon the luncheon-table, which fell with a frightful crash.

This crash was my little contribution to Jack's dream; it was the overthrow of my jug and basin, and the tumult of it roused Jack in an instant. He sprang from his bed, wide awake, and seeing that a light burned in my room, and hearing—as he thought—some sound there, pushed the door open and entered, full of wonder and some alarm.

He was just in time to see a figure disappearing out of the door, and without stopping to help me—indeed, he declares that he didn't notice me lying there in the corner!—sprang away after the man at the door, believing that it was I, and that I had gone suddenly and mysteriously mad.

Things went propitiously. Several people rushed into my room, wakened and startled by the crash of china and the sound of feet scudding down the passage; and one of them speedily removed the bandage from my mouth and the cord from my wrists. I think this saved my life. Indeed, I was already half dead, and even when released I did not for some minutes recover consciousness.

Meanwhile, Jack had scudded after Strong without knowing whom he pursued.

Strong made for the outer hall, intending to escape from the hotel; but delay at the front door, which he found locked, enabled Jack to run him to earth.

Strong fished out a revolver and pointed it at Jack's head, but Jack luckily dashed it aside, and it fell upon the marble floor of the entrance hall, exploding as it did so, with a startlingly loud report, which effectually roused those few people sleeping in the hotel whose slumbers had survived the upsetting of my jug and basin.

Then Jack, recognising Strong at last, fell upon the scoundrel and administered the grandest possible thrashing and kicking that you can imagine. That thrashing of Strong, Jack always says, did him a heap of good, and made a new and self-respecting man of him again; for he had lost of late some of his self-respect by reason of Strong's indisputable cleverness in Copenhagen and Bremen, where he had scored heavily against us.

When, however, he had "scarcely begun," as he says, the process of kicking and punching the wretched man, the performance was interrupted by an inrush of frightened people, who had heard a pistol-shot and were rushing downstairs to see what was the matter.

So that there was no difficulty about securing Strong; and that arch scoundrel was presently led upstairs to my room, bound tightly at the wrists, in order that I might testify to his identity as set forth by Jack.

Well, there was little doubt about that, and as little trouble in getting the midnight burglar transferred from the hotel to the police cell. He had been caught red-handed. My money and my letter-case, with my own cards in one of the pockets, were found in his possession, two hundred pounds in notes, the bulk of Clutterbuck's cheque had of course been deposited by me in the bank. It was as clear a case of burglary as ever delighted policeman's ears, and the constable, summoned to remove Strong, looked as pleased as one who has come, unexpectedly, into a good thing.

We found that Strong had—under an assumed name, of course—actually slept for three nights within a room or two of us! He had taken care to remain invisible at all such times as we spent within the hotel, however; but had kept a watch upon our actions, and had even—as he declared—watched me find the treasure,—peeping over the wall at a spot where his face was well hidden by the branch of a spreading tree. He probably concluded that I should have the entire proceeds of the cheque with me in the hotel. It was just as well that I took the precaution to bank the money, however; for had he found it, he would have got clear away without awaking me. As it was, he deliberately awoke me in order to compel me, by the torture of suffocation, to point out where I had hidden my property.

There is not much more to tell. The magistrate committed our rascal for trial at the Croydon sessions, and in due time he was sentenced by the court to a term of hard labour. Jack and I consulted earnestly as to whether we ought to reveal the miscreant's criminal acts in Bechuana and in Narva; but we decided that it would be useless to attempt to prove the major offence of murder; we were without evidence of any kind; and, after all, so long as the fellow was safe within stone walls and under many locks and keys at Millbank or Portland or at Dartmoor, or wherever it might be, it would be out of his power to commit further mischief.

Did he intend to murder me in the hotel, I wonder? Jack says he thinks not; but then Jack did not feel the torture of that gag, and the horror of imminent suffocation as I did; and I am certain that, whether Strong intended it or not, I should have died then and there, if my good friend had not rushed in and released me in the nick of time.

I suppose there are not many, even among the convicts in Dartmoor, so utterly evil and cruel in disposition as this man James Strong, and I am glad that I may here take leave of him—in these pages at least—for good and all. I daresay the reader is as glad to be rid of him as I am. I humbly hope and pray that I may never meet him again in this world.

And now at length I was able to enter into peaceful possession of my hard-earned inheritance of Clutterbuck's treasure. I had worked and suffered much for it, and I think on the whole that I deserved it. Of course, money earned by regular daily toil is, in a way, more worthily obtained; but since destiny placed in my way the opportunity to make my fortune, as it were, by a single sustained effort, the only condition being that I should possess the necessary pluck and perseverance to continue that effort right up to the goal, Success, why, I am not troubled with any compunctions as to the comparative shortness of the road which, in my case, led to wealth and prosperity. Nevertheless, feeling that I should better enjoy my prosperity if I were assured of the well-being of those (always excepting James Strong) whom my own success had, in a manner, disappointed of expected benefit, I sought out, through Steggins, the relatives of the murdered Clutterbuck, who—I found—had been a widower. He had left two children in poor circumstances, and the future of these youngsters I shall make it my business to secure. They are living in comfort with a sister of their dead father, and will never know, I hope, but that their parent perished through an accidental fall into an African nullah.

Ellis, the cousin, a meek person, who refused from the first to take part in the treasure hunt, though one of the five potential heirs of the old man, was, I found, fairly well-to-do, and declined with thanks my offer to make him a small allowance.

As for myself—well, you have probably had enough of me by this time. But I will just mention this much: that the little affair down in Gloucestershire to which I have once or twice made slight allusion ended in accordance with my dearest hopes; and that Jack and I are now even more than school and college chums, being united by a tie whose name is Gladys, and who is certainly one of the sweetest— But no! I will not go into that. She suits me excellently, and that, after all, is the main thing!

We live in Gloucestershire, near Henderson Court, in a house that was once a farmhouse but which has been glorified for our benefit by Jack, who is its owner.

Jack and I have not many elephants and lions, or even ibex and elands, about the premises; in fact, I do not remember to have shot a single one. But we have plenty of rabbits and not a few partridges, and occasionally a pheasant or two. As for our ".500 Expresses," they are hanging ready on the wall in case any of the above-mentioned types of the larger animals should come down into Gloucestershire; so that we are all right.

Ginger came to the wedding. He would come into church with the rest of us, and he sat between two school children and behaved shockingly; for he nosed all the hymn-books off the pew in about half a minute, and howled aloud when I told Gladys that with all my worldly goods I her endowed.

Jack said afterwards that there spoke the spirit of old Clutterbuck, who was doubtless present in the form of Ginger, and who hated to hear me make over his property in this way without forcing Gladys to do a single day's work for it.