CHAPTER IV.
BLACKMAIL.
Again I was struck by the man's resemblance to Mr. Townsend. It wasobvious even in the way in which he advanced towards me across theroom. It was almost as if Townsend had slipped on some costume of amasquerade, and reappeared in it to play tricks with me. The fellow,going to the centre of the room, crossed his arms, in theatricalfashion, across his chest, and stood and stared at me--glared at mewould be the more correct expression. Not caring to meet his glances,and to return him glare for glare, as if we were two madmen trying tooutstare each other, I fumbled with the papers on my table.
"You have called for that handkerchief of yours? I am obliged to youfor the loan of it; but I had to leave home for town so early thismorning that my wife was not able to get it ready in time for me tobring it with me. If you will give me your address I will see that itis sent to you through the post."
There was a considerable interval before he answered me--an intervalduring which he continued to glare, and I to fumble with my papers.When he did speak, it was in one of those portentous and assumed bassvoices, which one inevitably connects with the proverbial "Villain atthe Vic."
"I have not called for my handkerchief."
"Then, may I ask to what I am indebted for the pleasure of yourpresence here. I have only just come in, and I have some ratherpressing business which I must do."
"Your business has nothing to do with me."
"Probably not; but it has with me."
He came a step nearer, still keeping his arms crossed upon his chest.This time he spoke in a sort of a hiss. It seemed obvious that at someperiod of his career he must have had something to do with the stage.
"Do you not know what has brought me here. Does your own conscience nottell you, man?"
I began to suspect that he had been drinking. I looked up at him. Hewas eyeing me with a scowl which, to say the least of it, was scarcelycivil.
"How should I know what has brought you here, if it is not a desire toregain possession of your property? I take it that you hardly intend tosuggest a further deposit."
I do not think that he altogether relished the allusion. His scowlbecame less theatrical, and a good deal more natural. He seemed, for amoment, to be at a loss as to what to say. Then a word came frombetween his lips which startled me.
"Murderer!"
That was rather more than I could stand. I sprang to my feet.
"What do you mean, sir, by addressing me like that? Are you mad?"
My assumption of indignation did not seem to impress him in the least.He returned to the basso profundo.
"Have you seen the evening papers?"
At the question something began to swim before my eyes. I had to leanagainst the edge of the table.
"No; what is there in the evening papers to interest me?"
"I will show you."
He began to unfold a paper which he took from his pocket. Laying theopen sheet before me on the table, he pointed to a column of leadedtype.
"Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest that, if you can."
The heading of the column was enough for me. It was headed, "Tragedy onthe Brighton Line." I could read no farther. I dropped down into mychair again. The stranger continued to regard me with accusatory eyes.
"What's the matter with you? You don't seem well."
"I've not been feeling well all day."
"So I should imagine. Else you had been more or less than human. Sinceyou are not able to read the paper yourself, at which I am notsurprised, I will read it for you. The paper says that the body of awoman has been found on the up side of the Brighton line, just beforeThree Bridges Station."
"Dead?"
"Dead--murdered."
I was speechless, tongue-tied. The whole hideous folly of which I hadbeen guilty rose in front of me, and paralysed my brain. I saw, tooclearly, and too late, the dreadful nature of the error I had made. Irealised the awful something which, owing to my own cowardice, nowstared me in the face. It might have been bad enough if I had playedthe man; but it would have been better than this.
The stranger kept his eyes fixed on my countenance. I have no doubtthat on it was seen some of the horror which racked me. His voicesounded to me like an echo from far away.
"That explains how it was that I saw a woman get into your carriage atBrighton, and that she was not there when we reached Victoria. You hadleft her on the line."
I made an effort to shake off the stupor which oppressed me. It was outof the question that I should continue to sit there passively, andallow this fellow to jump, in his own fashion, at his own conclusions.Better late than never! There might still be time for me to play theman. I took out my handkerchief to wipe away the moisture from my brow.I looked at the man in front of me.
"May I ask you for your name, sir?"
"My name is immaterial."
"Excuse me, but it is not immaterial. You thrust yourself upon me lastnight, you thrust yourself upon me again to-day. If I am to haveanything to say to you, I must know with whom I am dealing."
"You are dealing with the witness of your crime."
"That is not the case. I have been guilty of no crime."
"Why do you lie to me? Don't you know that I could go straight fromthis room and hang you?" He raised his voice in a manner which toldupon my nerves. I looked furtively about the room. I had to wipe themoisture from my brow again.
"Is it necessary that you should speak so loudly, sir! Do you wish tobe overheard? There are clerks in the adjoining room."
"Then send them away; or don't try to hoodwink me--me!" He struck hishand against his chest, accentuating the second "me," as if he were anindividual altogether separate and apart. "If I were to follow thepromptings of my bosom, I should go at once to the police, and leaveyou to dangle on the gallows."
"You are under a misapprehension, sir. I give you my word of honourthat you are. I may have been guilty--I have been guilty--of an errorof judgment, but not of a crime."
"Do you call murder an error of judgment?"
"There has been no murder--I swear it!"
He held up his hand to check me. "Let me tell you how much I know aboutthe business before you go out of your way to lie to me." Seatinghimself on the edge of my writing-table, he brought his right hand downupon it now and then to emphasise his words. "Directly the trainstarted I heard two voices in the compartment next to mine--in yourcompartment. The voices were raised in quarrelling. I had, by thepurest accident, seen a woman get into your compartment just as we wereleaving Brighton, and I knew that the voices were yours and hers. Thequarrelling got worse and worse. I feared every moment that somethingdreadful would happen. I was just going to sound the alarm, when therewas silence. Immediately after a door banged--the door of yourcarriage. I was afraid that something dreadful had happened. And yet, Itold myself, if nothing had happened I should look foolish if I stoppedthe train. Unable to make up my mind what to do, I did nothing. When onreaching Victoria I made a bolt for your carriage and found that thewoman was not there, I saw that my worst fears were realised. Then Iunderstood the sudden silence, and the banging of the door."
"She had fallen out."
"Fallen out?"
"Yes."
"Who opened the door for her to fall?"
"I did." Seeing the slip I had made I endeavoured to correct myself."That is, I opened the door with the intention of leaving the carriage,in order to escape her violence. In trying to prevent my leaving sheherself fell out."
"If, as you say, the whole thing was an accident, why did you not soundthe alarm?"
"I ought to have done; I know I ought to have done. I can only say thatit was all so sudden and so unexpected that I lost my head."
"To whom have you mentioned a word about the--accident, until thismoment I have charged you with your crime?"
"To no one. My reticence, unfortunately, is the error of judgment towhich I referred."
"You call
that an error of judgment! Then, let me tell you, it was anerror of judgment of a somewhat peculiar kind. A mere outsider wouldsay that reticence was the best course you could possibly pursue."
The fellow's way of looking at the matter made things look blacker andblacker. The moisture accumulated upon my brow so fast that I couldscarcely keep it from trickling down my cheeks.
"It might have been the best course to pursue had I been guilty, but Iam not guilty; I swear it. I am as innocent as you are. It was mymisfortune that there were peculiar circumstances connected with thematter which I wished to keep private. I feared to be misunderstood."
"You were not misunderstood by me, I do assure you. I understood, andunderstand you only too well. The point is that you still seem unableto understand me. You still appear to be unable to realise that I wasin the next compartment to yours, that the divisions between thecompartments are thin, and that you shouted at the top of your voice. Idistinctly heard you threaten to kill the woman--yes, and more thanonce, and in a tone of voice which sounded very much as if you meantit."
He was wrong, and he was right. That was the worst of it. Undoubtedly,there had been strong language used on either side, uncommonly stronglanguage. A listener who was not acquainted with all the circumstancesmight have supposed that some of it was meant. I can only protest that,so far as I was concerned, I had never meant what I had said half somuch as she had meant what she said. No, nor a quarter as much. Nor,for the matter of that, an eighth. She had aggravated me to such anextent that I undoubtedly had said something--and perhaps in rather aloud tone of voice--to the effect that I should like to kill her. But Isaid it metaphorically. Every one who knows me knows that in practice Iam the least bloodthirsty man alive. I never could kill a cat. Evenwhen there are kittens to drown I have to leave them to my wife.Instead of the woman having killed herself I would infinitely rathershe had killed me.
But it was no use trying to explain these things to the man in front ofme. I saw that plainly. So far as he was concerned, my guilt was as ifit were written in the skies. Taking up a position in front of thefire, he assumed what he possibly intended to be a judicial air, butwhich struck me as being a mixture of truculence with impudence.
"When a man threatens to kill a woman, and she is killed immediatelyafterwards, one asks who killed her. I do not ask, simply because Iknow. My impulse is to let the world know too. When I do get into thewitness-box my evidence will hang you."
I thought it possible, nay, I thought it probable. If I had only made aclean breast of it when the scoundrel had first accosted me the nightbefore!
"The thing now is, what am I to do?"
"I should have thought," I gasped, "that the thing now is what am I todo."
"Nothing of the sort. You have placed yourself outside the pale ofconsideration. It is myself I must consider." He said this with alordly wave of the hand.
Crushed though I was, I found his manner a little trying.
"It is my misfortune that my ears are ever open to the promptings ofmercy."
"I had not previously supposed that a characteristic of that kind was amisfortune."
"It is a misfortune, and one of the gravest kind. It is one, moreover,against which I have had to battle my whole life long. The trulyfortunate man is he who can always mete out justice. But the still,small voice of mercy I have ever heard. It is a weakness, but it ismine own. My obvious duty to society would be to take prompt steps torid it of such a man as you."
That was a pleasant sort of observation to have addressed to one.
"It strikes me that you take rather a strained view of your duty, sir."
"That would strike you. It doesn't me. But I will be frank with you.Why should I not be frank--although you are not frank with me. Thoughperhaps I can afford to be frank better than you can."
He threw his ancient overcoat, faced with ancient mock astrachan, wideopen. He tilted his ancient silk hat on to the back of his head. Hethrust his hands into the pockets of his ancient trousers.
"The plain fact is, Mr. Tennant, that I am a victim of the presentcommercial depression."
He looked it, every inch of him. Though, at the moment, I scarcelycared to tell him so.
"The depreciation in landed property, and in various securities, hashit me hard."
"To what securities do you allude?"
I fancy he made an effort at recollection, and that the effort failed.
"To South American securities, and others. But I need notparticularise." He repeated the former lordly gesture with his hand."The truth is that my income is not only seriously crippled, but that Iam, at this present moment, actually in want of ready cash." I believedhim, without his protestations. I judged from his looks. "Now, if I dosomething for you, will you do something for me?"
"What will you do for me?"
"Keep silence. I am not compelled to blurt out all I know. If I showmercy to you, what return will you make me for my kindness?"
I did not quite like his way of putting it. But that I had to stomach.
"What return will you require?"
He looked at me; then round the room; then back again to me. He wasevidently making up his mind as to what it would be advisable for himto say.
"I should require you to make me an immediate, and, of course,temporary advance of L100--in gold."
"A hundred pounds? I am not exactly a poor man; on the other hand, I amemphatically not a rich one. To me a hundred pounds are a hundredpounds. Say ten."
"Say ten! I'll be hanged if I say ten! And you'll be hanged if you tryto make me."
"Twenty."
"Nor twenty."
"I'm afraid I could not go beyond thirty."
"Then the discussion is at an end."
"Suppose--I only say suppose, mind--that I was able to find fifty."
"I won't take a penny less than a hundred pounds--not one centime."
"Would you undertake to go abroad?"
"Go abroad! I'll be shot if I would. You might go abroad. I have mybusiness to attend to. You forget that I am a private detective in avery extensive way."
"For how long will you keep silence?"
"A month."
"Then, in that case, I must decline to advance you even so much as ahundred pence."
"Two months."
"No--nor in that case either."
"Three months."
"If you will undertake to keep silence until you are compelled tospeak, I will give your suggestion my most careful consideration."
"Give it your most careful consideration! Oh, will you? It strikes me,Mr. Tennant, that you are as far from understanding me as ever. If youdon't put the money down upon that table at once I go to the police."
He straightened his hat. He began to button up his overcoat. He looked,and, it struck me, sounded as though he meant it. I hesitated. If thewoman who hesitates is lost, so also is the man. I was lost before; Iwas lost again, because I hesitated. I was conscious that still thebold part was the better part; that I should be wise to go to theauthorities and tell them the whole plain truth, although so tardily. Iknew that this man was a mean bloodsucker; that he would spend mymoney, and then come to me for more and more, and, after all, wouldhang me if he could. But I dared not face the prospect of being handed,there and then, to the police; of being delivered by him into theirclutches, with his evidence to hang me. I wanted to see my wife, mychild, again. I wanted, if I could, to prepare them for the cloud whichwas about to burst in storm upon their heads. I wanted breathing space;time to look about me; to make ready. I wanted to postpone the fallingof the hammer. So I gave him the hundred pounds which he demanded,bitterly conscious all the while of what a fool I was for giving it.
He would not take my cheque. Nothing would do for him but gold. I hadto send a clerk to the bank to get it. He thrust the washleather bag inwhich it came, as it was, into his pocket. He was good enough to saythat he would not insult me by counting it; he would treat me as onegentleman should always treat another. Then, with a triumphan
t grin,and an airy raising of his hat, he left me to enjoy my reflections--ifI could.