The Crime and the Criminal

CHAPTER VIII

MORE THAN HIS MATCH

Yes, unannounced. I am sure that if I had had the least suspicion of his approaching presence I should have kept him out by the simple expedient of turning the key in the door. As it was, there he stood, as bold as brass, holding in one hand the handle of the door which he had closed behind him, and in the other his hat, the brim of which he was pressing to his breast.

A striking change had been effected in his appearance since I had seen him last. He had expended a portion of my hundred pounds to advantage in a tailor's shop. He was newly clad from top to toe. The overcoat which he had on was new, and so also was the astrachan which made it glorious. Thrown wide open, it revealed the fact that the gloss of newness was still upon the garments which it covered. A gold watch-chain ran from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat. Beautiful kid gloves encased his hands. Spats adorned his brand-new polished boots. His silk hat shone like a mirror. Even the dye upon his hair and whiskers had been renewed; it gleamed a beautiful blue-black. In his new splendour his resemblance to Mr. Townsend was more pronounced than ever. Even in the state of agitation which, ill as I was, his sudden appearance caused me, I could not but be struck by that.

He showed not the slightest sign of discomposure at the manner in which I greeted him. He stood grinning like a mountebank, not only as if he was sure of a hearty welcome, but as if the whole house belonged to him.

"Sorry, Mr. Tennant, to hear you are unwell-really grieved. I can only hope that it is nothing serious."

His impudence was a little more than even I could stand. I let him see it.

"What the dickens do you mean, sir, by entering my bedroom?"

In reply, he only smiled the more.

"My dear sir, I am here out of pure consideration for you. When I heard of your ill-health, I could not bear the thought of subjecting you to the inconvenience of coming down to me. So, instead, I came to you."

"Then, having come, perhaps you would be so good as, at once, to go again."

He turned towards me with a movement of his eyebrows, as if to express surprise.

"Gently, sir! Surely you presume upon the presence of a lady. Is that the way in which you should speak to me? I have no desire to keep you. My business with you ought not to detain me more than half a minute."

He seated himself on a chair, which he drew up towards the fire. Placing his hat upon his knee, he began to smooth the nap with his gloved hand. Unbearable though I felt his insolence to be, I saw that, unless I employed actual violence, I should not be able to induce him to budge. I looked at my wife. I should not have minded so much if she had not been there. I had borne with the fellow's insolence before; I might have borne with it again. But I was conscious that Lucy's eye was upon me, and that, unreasonably enough, she was expecting me to show the sort of stuff of which I was made. I say that this attitude of hers was an unreasonable attitude, because, what could she expect of a man who was recovering from a severe attack of illness, and whose nervous system was a shattered wreck. I temporised.

"What do you want with me?"

I fixed my gaze upon him. Avoiding it, he flicked his gloved fingers in the direction of my wife.

"At your service! Pray do not let me inconvenience the lady."

"You do inconvenience the lady greatly."

Both my tone and my manner were severe-as severe, that is, as they could be-considering that I was in my night-shirt sitting up in bed.

"I trust not. I would not wish her to leave the room one moment sooner on our account."

Then I saw what he was at. He wanted to get me alone and without the aid of my wife's moral support to back me. I looked at Lucy. She was standing very straight, looking alternately at both of us, as if she were making up her mind which she ought to admire most-or least. I caught a gleam from the corner of her eye. It was the one I sought.

"I have no secrets from my wife. What you wish to say to me you may say in her presence, and be so good as to say it quickly, sir."

Leaning back in his chair, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, the fellow looked at Lucy with a smile upon his impudent face for which I could have struck him-and no doubt I should have struck him, had my health permitted it.

"No secrets from your wife? What a model husband you must be! Permit me, madam, to tender you my most sincere congratulations-you have secured a prize."

My wife said nothing. But I saw her lips curl.

"Do not address yourself to my wife, sir; address yourself to me."

Still lolling back in the chair, the fellow turned, with the same impudent smile, to me.

"To you? Certainly I will address myself to you. I am here to address myself to you, though my address will not occupy more than half a dozen words. I want from you a hundred pounds. That is the only remark which I wish to address to you."

"What!"

I was reduced to gasping.

"Surely what I say is plain enough. And don't I say it plainly? I want from you a hundred pounds."

"This is Friday, and you only had a hundred pounds from me on Monday."

"Yes, and this, as you say, is Friday. A hundred pounds are but a hundred pounds. In the hands of a gentleman they fly. Especially when he has to provide for what may be called preliminary expenses of a certain kind, which, in themselves, make a hole in a century."

I knew to what he referred. He meant that he had replenished his wardrobe. As though that had anything to do with me.

"Do you imagine that I am a bank at which you have a large current account on which you can draw at sight."

He laughed-or pretended to.

"That is precisely what I not only imagine, but fervently believe."

"Then your belief is a very foolish one. I assure you that you were never more in error in your life."

He glanced at a gold watch which he took out of his waistcoat pocket.

"Why should we waste time over these small quibbles? Are we children, you and I? I have an engagement shortly. If you have not the sum in the house in gold I will take what you have in cash, and the balance in an open cheque to bearer."

"You will have neither cash nor cheque from me. I will not give you one single penny."

"Do you mean it?"

He replaced his watch in his pocket. He rose from his chair. There was, in his bearing a return to the manner of "the Villain at the Vic." The fellow was theatrical all through. All his moods were equally unreal. At the same time there was something about the change which I did not altogether relish.

"Of course I mean it. You don't suppose that I am going to be robbed and plundered with impunity by you."

"You prefer to hang?"

"You know that I am as innocent of crime as you are, and probably much more so."

"Don't lie to me, you hound!" He turned with a sweeping gesture towards my wife. "You must excuse me, madam, but you will do me the justice to remember that I suggested your departure from the room. I cannot allow your presence to debar me from plain speaking." Directing his attention again towards me, he began to button up his brand-new overcoat, with a deliberation which was, doubtless, intended to impress me. "As you have been lying in your bed, like a cur hiding in its kennel-because pray don't suppose that you can make me believe that you have been sick with anything else but terror-I don't know, my man, if you are aware that all England is on tiptoe, watching for your capture. If I were to point you out, at this moment, in any street in England, the people would tear you limb from limb. The whole country is thirsting, righteously thirsting, for your blood."

"It is false!"

"Is it? Refuse to give me what I ask, and I will prove to you if it is false."

"I won't be robbed by you."

"Then you'll be hung by me instead." He raised his hat, as if he was about to put it on his head. "Once more, and for the last time, which is it to be-the gallows or the hundred pounds?"

"You'll get no hundred pounds from me. I swear it."

"Then it will be the gallows. In ten minutes the news will be flashing through the land that justice has its hands about the murderer's neck."

He clapped his hat upon his head. He moved towards the door. I went all hot and cold-anybody would have gone all hot and cold with such a prospect as the scoundrel pictured in front of him. Whether, with a view of appealing to his better self-if he had one, which I doubt-I should have prevented his leaving the room, is more than I can say. I might have done. After all, self-preservation is nature's first and greatest law. I had, and always should have, an incurable objection to being hanged by such a rascal. As it was, it was my wife that interposed.

"One moment, sir, before you go."

He removed his hat-with a flourish which, as usual, was reminiscent of the transpontine drama.

"Madam, ten thousand, if you wish it."

"Are you the person who travelled in the next compartment to my husband's from Brighton?"

"Madam, I am."

"You look it."

The fellow might be excused for looking a little startled-which he certainly did do. I have found that particular tone of Lucy's, now and then, a little startling myself. The man did not seem as if he quite knew what to make of it.

"I look it, madam-how do you mean?"

"You look the sort of character."

"To what sort of character, madam, do you refer?"

"You look like the sort of person who would wear another man's clothes."

He drew himself bolt upright, as if his backbone had suddenly been straightened by a spring.

"Madam! I would have you to know that I wear no one's clothes but my own."

"You are wearing my husband's clothes at this present moment."

"Your husband's clothes?"

"Were they not purchased with his money?"

"Madam! you have a very extraordinary way of putting things. Is it possible that you intend to be offensive?"

"Is it possible to be offensive to such as you?"

"I, madam, am a gentleman, born and bred."

"That you are a gentleman of a certain kind I have no doubt whatever."

The man began to look badgered, as if he were growing conscious of a feeling of tightness about the region of the chest. He commenced to smooth the nap of his hat, violently, with his gloved hand.

"I take it, Mrs. Tennant, that you don't quite realise the position in which your husband stands."

"And I take it that you don't at all realise the position in which you stand."

The fellow ceased brushing his hat, the better to enable him to stare.

"I stand?"

"Yes, you."

"And pray, madam, how do I stand?"

"Have you ever heard of such a thing as an accessory after the fact?"

"An accessory after the fact?"

"Because that is the position in which you stand-in the position of an accessory after the fact."

The man looked unmistakably uneasy. He continued to suspend the operation of smoothing his hat.

"You are pleased to be facetious."

"You will find that that view will not be taken by a judge and jury."

It was with a distinct effort that the fellow returned to an attitude of defiance-squaring his shoulders and tugging at his moustache.

"I have no wish, and no intention, to chop phrases with a lady. I imagined, madam, that you desired to say something pertinent to your husband's terrible position-with the gallows already shadowing him. Since it appears to be otherwise I can but proceed to do my duty."

"By all means do your duty. But you understand that when my husband is arrested you will be arrested too."

"Pooh, madam-you cannot frighten me!"

"But I can, and will, get you penal servitude for life."

"Can you, indeed, madam? May I ask how you propose to do it?"

"By telling the plain and simple story of your connection with my husband. That will be sufficient, as you know."

"I know nothing of the sort; tell your story, and be hanged!"

Thrusting his hat upon his head, the fellow marched out of the room in a couple of strides. His exit, whether consciously to himself or not, was marked rather by haste than by dignity. When he had gone I looked at my wife. Lucy, on her part, looked at the door through which he had vanished.

"Now you've done it," I observed.

Lucy turned to me with a smile hovering about her lips, which, under the circumstances, I thought was a little out of place.

"I have done it, as you say."

"You don't seem to be aware of what you've done. What's the good of talking to him like that? Do you suppose that you can frighten him-that you can take him in? He knows very well that whatever happens to me he'll go scatheless. He's the one witness whom the prosecution will not be able to do without."

"I think you are mistaken. With a man of that type the high horse is the only horse you ought to ride. He desires nothing less than to get into the witness-box, or I misjudge the man. I suspect that his own record is not of a kind which he would care to have exposed to the cross-examining light of day."

Hardly were the words out of her mouth than there came a tap at the panel of the door. Lucy shot a glance towards me.

"Who's there?" she asked.

Whom should it be but our friend the scoundrel. He came in with quite a dove-like air of mildness, mincing, like a dancing-master, on his toes.

"Excuse me, but even on the front door steps my heart got the upper hand of me. I could not do what seemed even to approximate to cruelty. I could not hang anybody-I judge not, so that I may not be judged. My one aspiration is, and always has been, to be a friend in need. I cannot help it, but so I am."

Producing a parti-coloured silk handkerchief-brand new-he manipulated it in such a manner as to diffuse an odour of perfume through the room. My wife looked him up and down. Her tone was dry.

"Your sentiments do you credit."

"They do, I know it; but, such as they are, they are mine own." He coughed. "So far as I am personally concerned, financial considerations are as nothing. It is circumstances which weigh me down. Instead of one hundred pounds, suppose we say seventy-five-in a cheque and cash."

Lucy took upon herself to answer him-

"I am afraid we cannot say seventy-five."

"Merely as a temporary advance, till Monday. I expect remittances on Monday, very large remittances, from my agents."

Lucy's tone was even drier than before. "I am glad to hear it."

"Yes, quite so." The fellow glanced towards me. He came sneaking towards my bed. He spoke to me under cover of his hat. "I think, Mr. Tennant, if you were to ask your good lady to withdraw, and were to allow me to have one word with you, between ourselves, in private-just one-I know we should understand each other; I am sure we should."

I looked at Lucy. She also looked at me. I am bound to admit that what I saw in her eyes supplied me, to a certain extent, with the moral stamina in which, owing to the severe illness from which I had recently been suffering, I was temporarily deficient. I spoke to the fellow plainly-

"No, sir. As I have already told you, I have no secrets from my wife, and whatever you wish to say to me must be said while she is present."

"You are-you are" – I suspect that he was going to say something the reverse of complimentary, only Lucy's presence and attitude induced him to change his mind-"a husband in a million. Now, Mr. Tennant, allow me, as one gentleman speaking to another, to ask you if, considering all things, you are not disposed to advance me, on unimpeachable surety-that of my word-the sum of seventy-five pounds."

"I am not, sir."

"You are not? Strange! I confess I had not thought it possible. However, I will not utter what may seem a word of reproach. We will make it fifty pounds, then."

"We will not. At least, I won't."

"Then, since fifty pounds is insufficient to supply even my most pressing needs, it is useless for me to attempt to carry the discussion further. You are compelling me, Mr. Tennant, to take a step which, when it is taken, we shall both of us regret. But, remember, whatever comes of it-and ill will come-the act is yours, not mine. I wish you good-day, sir; a last good-day! Also, madam, I wish good-day to you." He marched to the door in a fashion which, this time, made up in dignity what it lost in haste. With the handle of the open door in his hand, he turned to me again, "I will concede still one more point. We will make it forty-five."

"We won't."

"Then nothing remains." He vanished, to immediately reappear; his head and shoulders were inserted through the partly open door. "Shall we make it forty?"

"Nor forty."

Instead of taking the rebuff as final, he brought his legs and body into the room after his head and shoulders. He addressed himself to Lucy.

"I am conscious, madam, that in this matter yours is the controlling voice. May I ask if you quite realise the responsibilities of your position? Your husband's life hangs in the balance. My necessities urge me on. Were it otherwise, I shall be only too happy to give that assistance of which, at present, I stand in need. Even as it is, you shall find in me no huckster. In proof of it, I need only state that I am willing to accept the loan of a paltry five-and-twenty pounds."

"You won't get it."

"Then what shall I get? I find it hard to believe that a man can be reduced to the position of a mendicant! I ask again-what shall I get?"

"Nothing."

"That is not only foolish, madam, it is cruel. Shall we speak of such a bagatelle as fifteen pounds?"

"No."

The fellow made a grimace as if he ground his teeth.

"Ten?"

"No."

He threw out his arms as if appealing to the gods of the gallery.

"Confound it; is a gentleman to be reduced to ask for the loan of a trumpery five-pound note!"

"Though he asks, he will not get it."

He looked at Lucy, as if he could not believe she was in earnest. Then he sighed, or groaned. His hat, which he had been holding in his hand, he replaced upon his head. Throwing his overcoat wide open, he began to examine his pockets, methodically, one by one, as if he searched for something. He did not find it, whatever it was.

"Bare, absolutely bare! This is awful. 'To err is human, to forgive divine!'" He raised his hat about an inch from his head, possibly under the impression that it was a text which he was quoting. "I came into this house with my heart beating high with hope, filled with the milk of human kindness, and it ends in this. It seems absurd to pawn a watch within four-and-twenty hours of buying it, though I certainly never should have bought it had I foreseen that I should receive such treatment. Might I ask you to oblige me with the loan of a sovereign to keep me going till I receive my remittances on Monday?"

"Better not. Your request would only meet with a refusal."

"Would it? That does finish it, that does. I'm off." I thought that this time he was off finally, but scarcely was he off than he was back again. He came hurrying towards me across the room. "I say, Tennant, I'm actually without a cab fare. Lend me five shillings, there's a trump."