The Wrong Box Read online

  CHAPTER X. Gideon Forsyth and the Broadwood Grand

  The reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, Who Put Back theClock? by E. H. B., which appeared for several days upon the railwaybookstalls and then vanished entirely from the face of the earth.Whether eating Time makes the chief of his diet out of old editions;whether Providence has passed a special enactment on behalf of authors;or whether these last have taken the law into their own hand, boundthemselves into a dark conspiracy with a password, which I woulddie rather than reveal, and night after night sally forth under somevigorous leader, such as Mr James Payn or Mr Walter Besant, on theirtask of secret spoliation--certain it is, at least, that the oldeditions pass, giving place to new. To the proof, it is believed thereare now only three copies extant of Who Put Back the Clock? one inthe British Museum, successfully concealed by a wrong entry in thecatalogue; another in one of the cellars (the cellar where the musicaccumulates) of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh; and a third, boundin morocco, in the possession of Gideon Forsyth. To account for the verydifferent fate attending this third exemplar, the readiest theory isto suppose that Gideon admired the tale. How to explain that admirationmight appear (to those who have perused the work) more difficult; butthe weakness of a parent is extreme, and Gideon (and not his uncle,whose initials he had humorously borrowed) was the author of Who PutBack the Clock? He had never acknowledged it, or only to some intimatefriends while it was still in proof; after its appearance and alarmingfailure, the modesty of the novelist had become more pressing, and thesecret was now likely to be better kept than that of the authorship ofWaverley.

  A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already yesterday) stillfigured in dusty solitude in the bookstall at Waterloo; and Gideon, ashe passed with his ticket for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously atthe creature of his thoughts. What an idle ambition was the author's!How far beneath him was the practice of that childish art! With his handclosing on his first brief, he felt himself a man at last; and themuse who presides over the police romance, a lady presumably of Frenchextraction, fled his neighbourhood, and returned to join the dance roundthe springs of Helicon, among her Grecian sisters.

  Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young barrister upon hisjourney. Again and again he selected the little country-house in itsislet of great oaks, which he was to make his future home. Like aprudent householder, he projected improvements as he passed; to one headded a stable, to another a tennis-court, a third he supplied with abecoming rustic boat-house.

  'How little a while ago,' he could not but reflect, 'I was a carelessyoung dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothingbut boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashionedcountry-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, andspacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would havemade no enquiry as to the drains. How a man ripens with the years!'

  The intelligent reader will perceive the ravages of Miss Hazeltine.Gideon had carried Julia straight to Mr Bloomfield's house; andthat gentleman, having been led to understand she was the victim ofoppression, had noisily espoused her cause. He worked himself intoa fine breathing heat; in which, to a man of his temperament, actionbecame needful.

  'I do not know which is the worse,' he cried, 'the fraudulent oldvillain or the unmanly young cub. I will write to the Pall Mall andexpose them. Nonsense, sir; they must be exposed! It's a public duty.Did you not tell me the fellow was a Tory? O, the uncle is a Radicallecturer, is he? No doubt the uncle has been grossly wronged. But ofcourse, as you say, that makes a change; it becomes scarce so much apublic duty.'

  And he sought and instantly found a fresh outlet for his alacrity. MissHazeltine (he now perceived) must be kept out of the way; his houseboatwas lying ready--he had returned but a day or two before from his usualcruise; there was no place like a houseboat for concealment; and thatvery morning, in the teeth of the easterly gale, Mr and Mrs Bloomfieldand Miss Julia Hazeltine had started forth on their untimely voyage.Gideon pled in vain to be allowed to join the party. 'No, Gid,' said hisuncle. 'You will be watched; you must keep away from us.' Nor had thebarrister ventured to contest this strange illusion; for he feared ifhe rubbed off any of the romance, that Mr Bloomfield might weary of thewhole affair. And his discretion was rewarded; for the Squirradical,laying a heavy hand upon his nephew's shoulder, had added these notableexpressions: 'I see what you are after, Gid. But if you're going to getthe girl, you have to work, sir.'

  These pleasing sounds had cheered the barrister all day, as he satreading in chambers; they continued to form the ground-base of his manlymusings as he was whirled to Hampton Court; even when he landed at thestation, and began to pull himself together for his delicate interview,the voice of Uncle Ned and the eyes of Julia were not forgotten.

  But now it began to rain surprises: in all Hampton Court there was noKurnaul Villa, no Count Tarnow, and no count. This was strange; but,viewed in the light of the incoherency of his instructions, not perhapsinexplicable; Mr Dickson had been lunching, and he might have made somefatal oversight in the address. What was the thoroughly prompt, manly,and businesslike step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself atonce: 'A telegram, very laconic.' Speedily the wires were flashing thefollowing very important missive: 'Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa andpersons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self nexttrain.--Forsyth.' And at the Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a browexpressive of dispatch and intellectual effort, Gideon descended notlong after from a smoking hansom.

  I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel. NoCount Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quiteanother. How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; fromevery centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruousmessages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quitesubsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for hischambers. There was at least a cave of refuge; it was at least a placeto think in; and he climbed the stair, put his key in the lock andopened the door, with some approach to hope.

  It was all dark within, for the night had some time fallen; but Gideonknew his room, he knew where the matches stood on the end of thechimney-piece; and he advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himselfagainst a heavy body; where (slightly altering the expressions of thesong) no heavy body should have been. There had been nothing there whenGideon went out; he had locked the door behind him, he had found itlocked on his return, no one could have entered, the furniture could nothave changed its own position. And yet undeniably there was a somethingthere. He thrust out his hands in the darkness. Yes, there wassomething, something large, something smooth, something cold.

  'Heaven forgive me!' said Gideon, 'it feels like a piano.'

  And the next moment he remembered the vestas in his waistcoat pocket andhad struck a light.

  It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze; a vast and costlyinstrument, stained with the rains of the afternoon and defacedwith recent scratches. The light of the vesta was reflected from thevarnished sides, like a staice in quiet water; and in the farther end ofthe room the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and waveredon the wall.

  Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the darkness closed oncemore on his bewilderment. Then with trembling hands he lit the lamp anddrew near. Near or far, there was no doubt of the fact: the thing wasa piano. There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossiblethat it should be--there the thing impudently stood. Gideon threw openthe keyboard and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of theroom. 'Is there anything wrong with me?' he thought, with a pang; anddrawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravishsilence, now with sparkling arpeggios, now with a sonata of Beethoven'swhich (in happier days) he knew to be one of the loudest pieces of thatpowerful composer. Still not a sound. He gave the Broadwood two greatbangs with his clenched first. All was still as the grave. The youngbarrister started to his feet.

  'I am stark-staring mad,' he cried alo
ud, 'and no one knows it butmyself. God's worst curse has fallen on me.'

  His fingers encountered his watch-chain; instantly he had plucked forthhis watch and held it to his ear. He could hear it ticking.

  'I am not deaf,' he said aloud. 'I am only insane. My mind has quittedme for ever.'

  He looked uneasily about the room, and--gazed with lacklustre eyes atthe chair in which Mr Dickson had installed himself. The end of a cigarlay near on the fender.

  'No,' he thought, 'I don't believe that was a dream; but God knowsmy mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be hungry, for instance; it'sprobably another hallucination. Still I might try. I shall have one moregood meal; I shall go to the Cafe Royal, and may possibly be removedfrom there direct to the asylum.'

  He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended the stairs, how hewould first betray his terrible condition--would he attack a waiter? oreat glass?--and when he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man drive toNichol's, with a lurking fear that there was no such place.

  The flaring, gassy entrance of the cafe speedily set his mind at rest;he was cheered besides to recognize his favourite waiter; his ordersappeared to be coherent; the dinner, when it came, was quite a sensiblemeal, and he ate it with enjoyment. 'Upon my word,' he reflected, 'Iam about tempted to indulge a hope. Have I been hasty? Have I done whatRobert Skill would have done?' Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention)was the name of the principal character in Who Put Back the Clock? Ithad occurred to the author as a brilliant and probable invention; toreaders of a critical turn, Robert appeared scarce upon a level with hissurname; but it is the difficulty of the police romance, that the readeris always a man of such vastly greater ingenuity than the writer. In theeyes of his creator, however, Robert Skill was a word to conjure with;the thought braced and spurred him; what that brilliant creature wouldhave done Gideon would do also. This frame of mind is not uncommon; thedistressed general, the baited divine, the hesitating author, decideseverally to do what Napoleon, what St Paul, what Shakespeare wouldhave done; and there remains only the minor question, What is that? InGideon's case one thing was clear: Skill was a man of singular decision,he would have taken some step (whatever it was) at once; and the onlystep that Gideon could think of was to return to his chambers.

  This being achieved, all further inspiration failed him, and he stoodpitifully staring at the instrument of his confusion. To touch the keysagain was more than he durst venture on; whether they had maintainedtheir former silence, or responded with the tones of the last trump,it would have equally dethroned his resolution. 'It may be a practicaljest,' he reflected, 'though it seems elaborate and costly. And yet whatelse can it be? It MUST be a practical jest.' And just then his eye fellupon a feature which seemed corroborative of that view: the pagoda ofcigars which Michael had erected ere he left the chambers. 'Why that?'reflected Gideon. 'It seems entirely irresponsible.' And drawing near,he gingerly demolished it. 'A key,' he thought. 'Why that? And whyso conspicuously placed?' He made the circuit of the instrument, andperceived the keyhole at the back. 'Aha! this is what the key is for,'said he. 'They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and stranger.' Andwith that he turned the key and raised the lid.

  In what antics of agony, in what fits of flighty resolution, in whatcollapses of despair, Gideon consumed the night, it would be ungenerousto enquire too closely.

  That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcomethe approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with amind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly onblinded windows, an empty street, and the grey daylight dotted with theyellow lamps. There are mornings when the city seems to awake with asick headache; this was one of them; and still the twittering reveilleof the sparrows stirred in Gideon's spirit.

  'Day here,' he thought, 'and I still helpless! This must come to anend.' And he locked up the piano, put the key in his pocket, and setforth in quest of coffee. As he went, his mind trudged for the hundredthtime a certain mill-road of terrors, misgivings, and regrets. To callin the police, to give up the body, to cover London with handbillsdescribing John Dickson and Ezra Thomas, to fill the papers withparagraphs, Mysterious Occurrence in the Temple--Mr Forsyth admitted tobail, this was one course, an easy course, a safe course; but not, themore he reflected on it, not a pleasant one. For, was it not to publishabroad a number of singular facts about himself? A child ought tohave seen through the story of these adventurers, and he had gaped andswallowed it. A barrister of the least self-respect should have refusedto listen to clients who came before him in a manner so irregular, andhe had listened. And O, if he had only listened; but he had gone upontheir errand--he, a barrister, uninstructed even by the shadow ofa solicitor--upon an errand fit only for a private detective; andalas!--and for the hundredth time the blood surged to his brow--he hadtaken their money! 'No,' said he, 'the thing is as plain as St Paul's. Ishall be dishonoured! I have smashed my career for a five-pound note.'

  Between the possibility of being hanged in all innocence, and thecertainty of a public and merited disgrace, no gentleman of spiritcould long hesitate. After three gulps of that hot, snuffy, and muddybeverage, that passes on the streets of London for a decoction of thecoffee berry, Gideon's mind was made up. He would do without the police.He must face the other side of the dilemma, and be Robert Skill inearnest. What would Robert Skill have done? How does a gentleman disposeof a dead body, honestly come by? He remembered the inimitable storyof the hunchback; reviewed its course, and dismissed it for a worthlessguide. It was impossible to prop a corpse on the corner of TottenhamCourt Road without arousing fatal curiosity in the bosoms of thepassers-by; as for lowering it down a London chimney, the physicalobstacles were insurmountable. To get it on board a train and drop itout, or on the top of an omnibus and drop it off, were equally outof the question. To get it on a yacht and drop it overboard, was moreconceivable; but for a man of moderate means it seemed extravagant. Thehire of the yacht was in itself a consideration; the subsequent supportof the whole crew (which seemed a necessary consequence) was simplynot to be thought of. His uncle and the houseboat here occurred in veryluminous colours to his mind. A musical composer (say, of the name ofJimson) might very well suffer, like Hogarth's musician before him, fromthe disturbances of London. He might very well be pressed for time tofinish an opera--say the comic opera Orange Pekoe--Orange Pekoe, musicby Jimson--'this young maestro, one of the most promising of ourrecent English school'--vigorous entrance of the drums, etc.--the wholecharacter of Jimson and his music arose in bulk before the mind ofGideon. What more likely than Jimson's arrival with a grand piano (say,at Padwick), and his residence in a houseboat alone with the unfinishedscore of Orange Pekoe? His subsequent disappearance, leaving nothingbehind but an empty piano case, it might be more difficult to accountfor. And yet even that was susceptible of explanation. For, supposeJimson had gone mad over a fugal passage, and had thereupon destroyedthe accomplice of his infamy, and plunged into the welcome river? Whatend, on the whole, more probable for a modern musician?

  'By Jove, I'll do it,' cried Gideon. 'Jimson is the boy!'