The Wrong Box Read online

  CHAPTER II. In Which Morris takes Action

  Some days later, accordingly, the three males of this depressing familymight have been observed (by a reader of G. P. R. James) taking theirdeparture from the East Station of Bournemouth. The weather was rawand changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence according to theprinciples of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no less strict (as is well known)on costume than on diet. There are few polite invalids who have notlived, or tried to live, by that punctilious physician's orders. 'Avoidtea, madam,' the reader has doubtless heard him say, 'avoid tea, friedliver, antimonial wine, and bakers' bread. Retire nightly at 10.45;and clothe yourself (if you please) throughout in hygienic flannel.Externally, the fur of the marten is indicated. Do not forget toprocure a pair of health boots at Messrs Dail and Crumbie's.' And he hasprobably called you back, even after you have paid your fee, to addwith stentorian emphasis: 'I had forgotten one caution: avoid kipperedsturgeon as you would the very devil.' The unfortunate Joseph was cut tothe pattern of Sir Faraday in every button; he was shod with the healthboot; his suit was of genuine ventilating cloth; his shirt of hygienicflannel, a somewhat dingy fabric; and he was draped to the knees inthe inevitable greatcoat of marten's fur. The very railway porters atBournemouth (which was a favourite station of the doctor's) marked theold gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidenceof personal taste, a vizarded forage cap; from this form of headpiece,since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, andweathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing could divorce our traveller.

  The three Finsburys mounted into their compartment, and fell immediatelyto quarrelling, a step unseemly in itself and (in this case) highlyunfortunate for Morris. Had he lingered a moment longer by the window,this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed(as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a second passenger inthe uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand, whichhe judged (God knows how erroneously) to be more important.

  'I never heard of such a thing,' he cried, resuming a discussion whichhad scarcely ceased all morning. 'The bill is not yours; it is mine.'

  'It is payable to me,' returned the old gentleman, with an air of bitterobstinacy. 'I will do what I please with my own property.'

  The bill was one for eight hundred pounds, which had been given him atbreakfast to endorse, and which he had simply pocketed.

  'Hear him, Johnny!' cried Morris. 'His property! the very clothes uponhis back belong to me.'

  'Let him alone,' said John. 'I am sick of both of you.'

  'That is no way to speak of your uncle, sir,' cried Joseph. 'I will notendure this disrespect. You are a pair of exceedingly forward, impudent,and ignorant young men, and I have quite made up my mind to put an endto the whole business.'.

  'O skittles!' said the graceful John.

  But Morris was not so easy in his mind. This unusual act ofinsubordination had already troubled him; and these mutinous words nowsounded ominously in his ears. He looked at the old gentleman uneasily.Upon one occasion, many years before, when Joseph was delivering alecture, the audience had revolted in a body; finding their entertainersomewhat dry, they had taken the question of amusement into their ownhands; and the lecturer (along with the board schoolmaster, the Baptistclergyman, and a working-man's candidate, who made up his bodyguard) wasultimately driven from the scene. Morris had not been present on thatfatal day; if he had, he would have recognized a certain fightingglitter in his uncle's eye, and a certain chewing movement of his lips,as old acquaintances. But even to the inexpert these symptoms breathedof something dangerous.

  'Well, well,' said Morris. 'I have no wish to bother you further till weget to London.'

  Joseph did not so much as look at him in answer; with tremulous handshe produced a copy of the British Mechanic, and ostentatiously buriedhimself in its perusal.

  'I wonder what can make him so cantankerous?' reflected the nephew. 'Idon't like the look of it at all.' And he dubiously scratched his nose.

  The train travelled forth into the world, bearing along with it thecustomary freight of obliterated voyagers, and along with these oldJoseph, affecting immersion in his paper, and John slumbering overthe columns of the Pink Un, and Morris revolving in his mind a dozengrudges, and suspicions, and alarms. It passed Christchurch by the sea,Herne with its pinewoods, Ringwood on its mazy river. A little behindtime, but not much for the South-Western, it drew up at the platform ofa station, in the midst of the New Forest, the real name of which (incase the railway company 'might have the law of me') I shall veil underthe alias of Browndean.

  Many passengers put their heads to the window, and among the rest an oldgentleman on whom I willingly dwell, for I am nearly done with him now,and (in the whole course of the present narrative) I am not in the leastlikely to meet another character so decent. His name is immaterial, notso his habits. He had passed his life wandering in a tweed suit on thecontinent of Europe; and years of Galignani's Messenger having at lengthundermined his eyesight, he suddenly remembered the rivers of Assyriaand came to London to consult an oculist. From the oculist to thedentist, and from both to the physician, the step appears inevitable;presently he was in the hands of Sir Faraday, robed in ventilating clothand sent to Bournemouth; and to that domineering baronet (who was hisonly friend upon his native soil) he was now returning to report. Thecase of these tweedsuited wanderers is unique. We have all seen thementering the table d'hote (at Spezzia, or Grdtz, or Venice) with agenteel melancholy and a faint appearance of having been to India andnot succeeded. In the offices of many hundred hotels they are known byname; and yet, if the whole of this wandering cohort were to disappeartomorrow, their absence would be wholly unremarked. How much more, ifonly one--say this one in the ventilating cloth--should vanish! He hadpaid his bills at Bournemouth; his worldly effects were all in the vanin two portmanteaux, and these after the proper interval would besold as unclaimed baggage to a Jew; Sir Faraday's butler would be ahalf-crown poorer at the year's end, and the hotelkeepers of Europeabout the same date would be mourning a small but quite observabledecline in profits. And that would be literally all. Perhaps the oldgentleman thought something of the sort, for he looked melancholy enoughas he pulled his bare, grey head back into the carriage, and the trainsmoked under the bridge, and forth, with ever quickening speed, acrossthe mingled heaths and woods of the New Forest.

  Not many hundred yards beyond Browndean, however, a sudden jarring ofbrakes set everybody's teeth on edge, and there was a brutal stoppage.Morris Finsbury was aware of a confused uproar of voices, and sprang tothe window. Women were screaming, men were tumbling from the windows onthe track, the guard was crying to them to stay where they were; at thesame time the train began to gather way and move very slowly backwardtoward Browndean; and the next moment--, all these various sounds wereblotted out in the apocalyptic whistle and the thundering onslaught ofthe down express.

  The actual collision Morris did not hear. Perhaps he fainted. He had awild dream of having seen the carriage double up and fall to pieceslike a pantomime trick; and sure enough, when he came to himself, he waslying on the bare earth and under the open sky. His head ached savagely;he carried his hand to his brow, and was not surprised to see it redwith blood. The air was filled with an intolerable, throbbing roar,which he expected to find die away with the return of consciousness; andinstead of that it seemed but to swell the louder and to pierce the morecruelly through his ears. It was a raging, bellowing thunder, like aboiler-riveting factory.

  And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and looked about him. Thetrack at this point ran in a sharp curve about a wooded hillock; allof the near side was heaped with the wreckage of the Bournemouth train;that of the express was mostly hidden by the trees; and just at theturn, under clouds of vomiting steam and piled about with cairns ofliving coal, lay what remained of the two engines, one upon the other.On the heathy margin of the line were many people running to and fro,and crying aloud as they ran, and many other
s lying motionless likesleeping tramps.

  Morris suddenly drew an inference. 'There has been an accident' thoughthe, and was elated at his perspicacity. Almost at the same time his eyelighted on John, who lay close by as white as paper. 'Poor old John!poor old cove!' he thought, the schoolboy expression popping forth fromsome forgotten treasury, and he took his brother's hand in his withchildish tenderness. It was perhaps the touch that recalled him;at least John opened his eyes, sat suddenly up, and after severalineffectual movements of his lips, 'What's the row?' said he, in aphantom voice.

  The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their ears. 'Let usget away from that,' Morris cried, and pointed to the vomit of steamthat still spouted from the broken engines. And the pair helped eachother up, and stood and quaked and wavered and stared about them at thescene of death.

  Just then they were approached by a party of men who had alreadyorganized themselves for the purposes of rescue.

  'Are you hurt?' cried one of these, a young fellow with the sweatstreaming down his pallid face, and who, by the way he was treated, wasevidently the doctor.

  Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding grimly, handed him abottle of some spirit.

  'Take a drink of that,' he said; 'your friend looks as if he needed itbadly. We want every man we can get,' he added; 'there's terrible workbefore us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you can carrya stretcher.'

  The doctor was hardly gone before Morris, under the spur of the dram,awoke to the full possession of his wits.

  'My God!' he cried. 'Uncle Joseph!'

  'Yes,' said John, 'where can he be? He can't be far off. I hope the oldparty isn't damaged.'

  'Come and help me to look,' said Morris, with a snap of savagedetermination strangely foreign to his ordinary bearing; and then, forone moment, he broke forth. 'If he's dead!' he cried, and shook his fistat heaven.

  To and fro the brothers hurried, staring in the faces of the wounded,or turning the dead upon their backs. They must have thus examined fortypeople, and still there was no word of Uncle Joseph. But now the courseof their search brought them near the centre of the collision, where theboilers were still blowing off steam with a deafening clamour. It wasa part of the field not yet gleaned by the rescuing party. The ground,especially on the margin of the wood, was full of inequalities--herea pit, there a hillock surmounted with a bush of furze. It was a placewhere many bodies might lie concealed, and they beat it like pointersafter game. Suddenly Morris, who was leading, paused and reached forthhis index with a tragic gesture. John followed the direction of hisbrother's hand.

  In the bottom of a sandy hole lay something that had once been human.The face had suffered severely, and it was unrecognizable; but that wasnot required. The snowy hair, the coat of marten, the ventilating cloth,the hygienic flannel--everything down to the health boots from MessrsDail and Crumbie's, identified the body as that of Uncle Joseph. Onlythe forage cap must have been lost in the convulsion, for the dead manwas bareheaded.

  'The poor old beggar!' said John, with a touch of natural feeling; 'Iwould give ten pounds if we hadn't chivvied him in the train!'

  But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he gazed upon thedead. Gnawing his nails, with introverted eyes, his brow marked withthe stamp of tragic indignation and tragic intellectual effort, he stoodthere silent. Here was a last injustice; he had been robbed while he wasan orphan at school, he had been lashed to a decadent leather business,he had been saddled with Miss Hazeltine, his cousin had been defraudinghim of the tontine, and he had borne all this, we might almost say, withdignity, and now they had gone and killed his uncle!

  'Here!' he said suddenly, 'take his heels, we must get him into thewoods. I'm not going to have anybody find this.'

  'O, fudge!' said John, 'where's the use?'

  'Do what I tell you,' spirted Morris, as he took the corpse by theshoulders. 'Am I to carry him myself?'

  They were close upon the borders of the wood; in ten or twelve pacesthey were under cover; and a little further back, in a sandy clearing ofthe trees, they laid their burthen down, and stood and looked at it withloathing.

  'What do you mean to do?' whispered John.

  'Bury him, to be sure,' responded Morris, and he opened his pocket-knifeand began feverishly to dig.

  'You'll never make a hand of it with that,' objected the other.

  'If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk,' screamed Morris, 'you can goto the devil!'

  'It's the childishest folly,' said John; 'but no man shall call me acoward,' and he began to help his brother grudgingly.

  The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the roots of thesurrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands; and as they baled the sandfrom the grave, it was often discoloured with their blood. An hourpassed of unremitting energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm helpon that of John; and still the trench was barely nine inches in depth.Into this the body was rudely flung: sand was piled upon it, and thenmore sand must be dug, and gorse had to be cut to pile on that; andstill from one end of the sordid mound a pair of feet projected andcaught the light upon their patent-leather toes. But by this time thenerves of both were shaken; even Morris had enough of his grisly task;and they skulked off like animals into the thickest of the neighbouringcovert.

  'It's the best that we can do,' said Morris, sitting down.

  'And now,' said John, 'perhaps you'll have the politeness to tell mewhat it's all about.'

  'Upon my word,' cried Morris, 'if you do not understand for yourself, Ialmost despair of telling you.'

  'O, of course it's some rot about the tontine,' returned the other. 'Butit's the merest nonsense. We've lost it, and there's an end.'

  'I tell you,' said Morris, 'Uncle Masterman is dead. I know it, there'sa voice that tells me so.'

  'Well, and so is Uncle Joseph,' said John.

  'He's not dead, unless I choose,' returned Morris.

  'And come to that,' cried John, 'if you're right, and Uncle Masterman'sbeen dead ever so long, all we have to do is to tell the truth andexpose Michael.'

  'You seem to think Michael is a fool,' sneered Morris. 'Can't youunderstand he's been preparing this fraud for years? He has the wholething ready: the nurse, the doctor, the undertaker, all bought, thecertificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business,and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and beburied in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do.If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live forever, by God, so shall my uncle!'

  'It's illegal, ain't it?' said John.

  'A man must have SOME moral courage,' replied Morris with dignity.

  'And then suppose you're wrong? Suppose Uncle Masterman's alive andkicking?'

  'Well, even then,' responded the plotter, 'we are no worse off than wewere before; in fact, we're better. Uncle Masterman must die some day;as long as Uncle Joseph was alive, he might have died any day; but we'reout of all that trouble now: there's no sort of limit to the game that Ipropose--it can be kept up till Kingdom Come.'

  'If I could only see how you meant to set about it' sighed John. 'Butyou know, Morris, you always were such a bungler.'

  'I'd like to know what I ever bungled,' cried Morris; 'I have the bestcollection of signet rings in London.'

  'Well, you know, there's the leather business,' suggested the other.'That's considered rather a hash.'

  It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris that he suffered thisto pass unchallenged, and even unresented.

  'About the business in hand,' said he, 'once we can get him up toBloomsbury, there's no sort of trouble. We bury him in the cellar, whichseems made for it; and then all I have to do is to start out and find avenal doctor.'

  'Why can't we leave him where he is?' asked John.

  'Because we know nothing about the country,' retorted Morris. 'This woodmay be a regular lovers' walk. Turn your mind to the real difficulty.How are we to get him up to Bloomsbury?'

  V
arious schemes were mooted and rejected. The railway station atBrowndean was, of course, out of the question, for it would now be acentre of curiosity and gossip, and (of all things) they would beleast able to dispatch a dead body without remark. John feebly proposedgetting an ale-cask and sending it as beer, but the objections to thiscourse were so overwhelming that Morris scorned to answer. The purchaseof a packing-case seemed equally hopeless, for why should two gentlemenwithout baggage of any kind require a packing-case? They would be morelikely to require clean linen.

  'We are working on wrong lines,' cried Morris at last. 'The thing mustbe gone about more carefully. Suppose now,' he added excitedly, speakingby fits and starts, as if he were thinking aloud, 'suppose we renta cottage by the month. A householder can buy a packing-case withoutremark. Then suppose we clear the people out today, get the packing-casetonight, and tomorrow I hire a carriage or a cart that we coulddrive ourselves--and take the box, or whatever we get, to Ringwood orLyndhurst or somewhere; we could label it "specimens", don't you see?Johnny, I believe I've hit the nail at last.'

  'Well, it sounds more feasible,' admitted John.

  'Of course we must take assumed names,' continued Morris. 'It wouldnever do to keep our own. What do you say to "Masterman" itself? Itsounds quiet and dignified.'

  'I will NOT take the name of Masterman,' returned his brother; 'you may,if you like. I shall call myself Vance--the Great Vance; positively thelast six nights. There's some go in a name like that.'

  'Vance?' cried Morris. 'Do you think we are playing a pantomime for ouramusement? There was never anybody named Vance who wasn't a music-hallsinger.'

  'That's the beauty of it,' returned John; 'it gives you some standing atonce. You may call yourself Fortescue till all's blue, and nobody cares;but to be Vance gives a man a natural nobility.'

  'But there's lots of other theatrical names,' cried Morris. 'Leybourne,Irving, Brough, Toole--'

  'Devil a one will I take!' returned his brother. 'I am going to have mylittle lark out of this as well as you.'

  'Very well,' said Morris, who perceived that John was determined tocarry his point, 'I shall be Robert Vance.'

  'And I shall be George Vance,' cried John, 'the only original GeorgeVance! Rally round the only original!'

  Repairing as well as they were able the disorder of their clothes, theFinsbury brothers returned to Browndean by a circuitous route in questof luncheon and a suitable cottage. It is not always easy to drop ata moment's notice on a furnished residence in a retired locality; butfortune presently introduced our adventurers to a deaf carpenter, a manrich in cottages of the required description, and unaffectedly eager tosupply their wants. The second place they visited, standing, as it did,about a mile and a half from any neighbours, caused them to exchange aglance of hope. On a nearer view, the place was not without depressingfeatures. It stood in a marshy-looking hollow of a heath; tall treesobscured its windows; the thatch visibly rotted on the rafters; and thewalls were stained with splashes of unwholesome green. The rooms weresmall, the ceilings low, the furniture merely nominal; a strange chilland a haunting smell of damp pervaded the kitchen; and the bedroomboasted only of one bed.

  Morris, with a view to cheapening the place, remarked on this defect.

  'Well,' returned the man; 'if you can't sleep two abed, you'd bettertake a villa residence.'

  'And then,' pursued Morris, 'there's no water. How do you get yourwater?'

  'We fill THAT from the spring,' replied the carpenter, pointing to a bigbarrel that stood beside the door. 'The spring ain't so VERY far off,after all, and it's easy brought in buckets. There's a bucket there.'

  Morris nudged his brother as they examined the water-butt. It wasnew, and very solidly constructed for its office. If anything had beenwanting to decide them, this eminently practical barrel would haveturned the scale. A bargain was promptly struck, the month's rent waspaid upon the nail, and about an hour later the Finsbury brothers mighthave been observed returning to the blighted cottage, having along withthem the key, which was the symbol of their tenancy, a spirit-lamp, withwhich they fondly told themselves they would be able to cook, a pork pieof suitable dimensions, and a quart of the worst whisky in Hampshire.Nor was this all they had effected; already (under the plea that theywere landscape-painters) they had hired for dawn on the morrow a lightbut solid two-wheeled cart; so that when they entered in their newcharacter, they were able to tell themselves that the back of thebusiness was already broken.

  John proceeded to get tea; while Morris, foraging about the house, waspresently delighted by discovering the lid of the water-butt upon thekitchen shelf. Here, then, was the packing-case complete; in the absenceof straw, the blankets (which he himself, at least, had not the smallestintention of using for their present purpose) would exactly take theplace of packing; and Morris, as the difficulties began to vanish fromhis path, rose almost to the brink of exultation. There was, however,one difficulty not yet faced, one upon which his whole scheme depended.Would John consent to remain alone in the cottage? He had not yet daredto put the question.

  It was with high good-humour that the pair sat down to the deal table,and proceeded to fall-to on the pork pie. Morris retailed the discoveryof the lid, and the Great Vance was pleased to applaud by beating on thetable with his fork in true music-hall style.

  'That's the dodge,' he cried. 'I always said a water-butt was what youwanted for this business.'

  'Of course,' said Morris, thinking this a favourable opportunity toprepare his brother, 'of course you must stay on in this place till Igive the word; I'll give out that uncle is resting in the New Forest. Itwould not do for both of us to appear in London; we could never concealthe absence of the old man.'

  John's jaw dropped.

  'O, come!' he cried. 'You can stay in this hole yourself. I won't.'

  The colour came into Morris's cheeks. He saw that he must win hisbrother at any cost.

  'You must please remember, Johnny,' he said, 'the amount of the tontine.If I succeed, we shall have each fifty thousand to place to our bankaccount; ay, and nearer sixty.'

  'But if you fail,' returned John, 'what then? What'll be the colour ofour bank account in that case?'

  'I will pay all expenses,' said Morris, with an inward struggle; 'youshall lose nothing.'

  'Well,' said John, with a laugh, 'if the ex-s are yours, andhalf-profits mine, I don't mind remaining here for a couple of days.'

  'A couple of days!' cried Morris, who was beginning to get angry andcontrolled himself with difficulty; 'why, you would do more to win fivepounds on a horse-race!'

  'Perhaps I would,' returned the Great Vance; 'it's the artistictemperament.'

  'This is monstrous!' burst out Morris. 'I take all risks; I pay allexpenses; I divide profits; and you won't take the slightest pains tohelp me. It's not decent; it's not honest; it's not even kind.'

  'But suppose,' objected John, who was considerably impressed by hisbrother's vehemence, 'suppose that Uncle Masterman is alive after all,and lives ten years longer; must I rot here all that time?'

  'Of course not,' responded Morris, in a more conciliatory tone; 'I onlyask a month at the outside; and if Uncle Masterman is not dead by thattime you can go abroad.'

  'Go abroad?' repeated John eagerly. 'Why shouldn't I go at once? Tell'em that Joseph and I are seeing life in Paris.'

  'Nonsense,' said Morris.

  'Well, but look here,' said John; 'it's this house, it's such a pig-sty,it's so dreary and damp. You said yourself that it was damp.'

  'Only to the carpenter,' Morris distinguished, 'and that was to reducethe rent. But really, you know, now we're in it, I've seen worse.'

  'And what am I to do?' complained the victim. 'How can I entertain afriend?'

  'My dear Johnny, if you don't think the tontine worth a little trouble,say so, and I'll give the business up.'

  'You're dead certain of the figures, I suppose?' asked John.'Well'--with a deep sigh--'send me the Pink Un and all the comic papersregularly. I'
ll face the music.'

  As afternoon drew on, the cottage breathed more thrillingly of itsnative marsh; a creeping chill inhabited its chambers; the fire smoked,and a shower of rain, coming up from the channel on a slant of wind,tingled on the window-panes. At intervals, when the gloom deepenedtoward despair, Morris would produce the whisky-bottle, and at firstJohn welcomed the diversion--not for long. It has been said this spiritwas the worst in Hampshire; only those acquainted with the county canappreciate the force of that superlative; and at length even the GreatVance (who was no connoisseur) waved the decoction from his lips. Theapproach of dusk, feebly combated with a single tallow candle, addeda touch of tragedy; and John suddenly stopped whistling through hisfingers--an art to the practice of which he had been reduced--andbitterly lamented his concessions.

  'I can't stay here a month,' he cried. 'No one could. The thing'snonsense, Morris. The parties that lived in the Bastille would riseagainst a place like this.'

  With an admirable affectation of indifference, Morris proposed a gameof pitch-and-toss. To what will not the diplomatist condescend! It wasJohn's favourite game; indeed his only game--he had found all the resttoo intellectual--and he played it with equal skill and good fortune. ToMorris himself, on the other hand, the whole business was detestable;he was a bad pitcher, he had no luck in tossing, and he was one whosuffered torments when he lost. But John was in a dangerous humour, andhis brother was prepared for any sacrifice.

  By seven o'clock, Morris, with incredible agony, had lost a couple ofhalf-crowns. Even with the tontine before his eyes, this was as much ashe could bear; and, remarking that he would take his revenge some othertime, he proposed a bit of supper and a grog.

  Before they had made an end of this refreshment it was time to be atwork. A bucket of water for present necessities was withdrawn from thewater-butt, which was then emptied and rolled before the kitchen fire todry; and the two brothers set forth on their adventure under a starlessheaven.