Tinman. Gallon Tom
he said at last, "I'm going to London by a train which leaves in half an hour; you can come with me. We'll talk over this matter in the train, and I'll see if I can't bring you to a more sensible frame of mind."
To that I agreed, and we presently started together for the station. During our journey I urged two things upon him: that I must have sufficient money to pay my debt to this man, and that I must have this man's address. He flatly refused to let me have the address; the money he said he would forward to Hockley himself.
"You promise that?" I asked eagerly.
"I'll send him a cheque directly I reach the office," he replied earnestly.
I urged him again to let me know where the man lived, but he would not. Finally, however, he said he would think the matter over; if I would call at his office in the City that evening, he would let me know his decision. With that I had to be content; and I left him at the station, and after taking my luggage to my rooms, set off to kill the day as best I could.
I reached Jervis Fanshawe's office in the late afternoon, to find that he was gone. But he had left a note for me; I tore it open, and read it there.
"I have sent a cheque to Gavin Hockley to cover the full amount you are indebted to him. I enclose his address, because I think that you are the best judge of what you should do.
I tore the note up, having got that address clearly in my mind, and set out to find Hockley. I remember now that a curious calm had come over me – a curious feeling of deadly certainty as to what I wanted, and what I meant to have. I was no longer in his debt; I could stand face to face with him on absolutely equal terms. And I would have you bear in mind that I did not mean to kill him.
No – I did not mean to kill him. There was a thought in my mind that I might beat him to his knees, and force him to say the truth; that I might compel him, in fact, to write it down: nothing more than that. But my rage and my abhorrence had grown into a deadly thing, more dangerous than the passion of the night before; I did not know then what I have recognized since, that I had no real control of myself, and that I had sprung as it were, in one single instant, above any law that might be made by man. And I was in that condition when, in the coming gloom of the evening, I turned into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and looked for the place where Gavin Hockley lived.
It was a curious old house, with a great flagged courtyard in front of it; it had once been the house of some great man, before Lincoln's Inn had been invaded by lawyers and others in search of chambers and offices. I read his name on a plate at the door; I climbed the stairs, and as I climbed I slowly unbuttoned my gloves, and took them off. I had no weapon of any sort, save a light walking cane that would have snapped at a touch.
I came to the door of his rooms, and read his name there again.
My heart was beating a little more rapidly than usual, but I was outwardly calm. I saw that the door was open an inch or two; without knocking, I thrust it open, and went in. The place was empty. Judging at first that he had seen me coming, and had bolted I made a quick movement towards the door of the room in which I stood, with the intention of setting out in pursuit; and at that moment heard the outer door bang, and heard him come in, whistling. I stood still, just within the door of his sitting-room, and waited for him.
He came straight into the room, looking neither to right nor left; it was only as he swung about at the table that he saw me. I stood quite still, watching him, and for a moment I saw flash up in his eyes the look of a hunted creature at bay. He had stopped, with his hands resting on the table; he seemed to crouch there, waiting. I made a rapid movement, and got between him and the door.
"What do you want?" he asked at last, straightening himself, and putting his hand for a moment to his collar. I thought then that perhaps he had a difficulty in breathing, or perhaps he remembered my hands there on the previous night.
"You ran away from me this morning, because you were afraid of what I might do to you," I said steadily. "You can't run now; you've got to face me, and answer me, and do as I tell you."
"Oh, indeed!" He was getting a little of his courage back by this time, and some of his old air of bravado sat awkwardly enough upon him. "And may I ask what the devil you mean by forcing your way into a gentleman's rooms like this?"
"I had to meet you, and I chose the only way that was open to me," I replied. "I went to look for you this morning, but you had by that time decided that it was wiser to get out of my way. I want you to take back the lie you told last night."
I saw him look quickly round the room; I glanced for a moment round myself. I knew that his eyes sought a weapon; I knew that if he could frighten me out of the place, or overawe me in any way, he would laugh at anything I might threaten, and that my chance would be gone. He made a movement as if to get past me; I stood still, looking at him. The momentary glance round the walls had shown me that the place was very beautifully furnished, and that weapons of various sorts were fastened about, for the mere purpose of ornamentation. I saw that it would become a question as to which of us secured a weapon first; but even then, as I did not mean to kill him, I did not make the first move. That I will swear.
When he moved, it was to snatch a weapon that seemed characteristic of his clumsy brutality; he suddenly swooped and caught up a heavy poker from the fireplace. "It was no lie, and you know it," he blurted out. "Every one knows it, if it comes to that. Get out of my place, you cub, until you can pay your debts."
"Stay where you are!" I commanded him. "My debt is paid; a cheque has been sent you to-day. For the last time, will you take back what you have said, or shall I kill you?"
He suddenly made an ugly rush at me, swinging the poker above his head. He was blind with fury and fear; he did not seem to know where he struck. I sprang aside, and on the instant wrenched from its place on the wall a short old-fashioned heavy-bladed sword. I waited until he should turn to come at me again; and when he did his lips were spluttering out words and oaths so frightful, with her sweet name mixed horribly with them, that I felt I had no option. I struck down his weapon, and I drove straight at his head with my own. I struck him twice with all my force, and saw him drop to his knees, and then on to his side. And so lay, as in my dream, with blood upon him at my feet.
I turned round, and walked out of the place. Somehow it did not seem surprising that on the staircase I should meet my guardian, Jervis Fanshawe. He was trembling from head to foot; he took hold of my arm, and asked me in a shaking voice to tell him for the love of God what I had done.
"I've killed Gavin Hockley – and his lie," I said. Then I went quietly down the stairs, and out into the summer twilight of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
CHAPTER V
Alas! for Poor Prince Charlie!
In a great crisis of one's life perhaps the things that strike one most are those most commonplace. I remember on that summer evening, when I came out into the streets, that I was able to think first of the extreme beauty of the night, and of how quaint and wonderful the old buildings looked in the softened light of the dying day. I saw a pair of lovers strolling on before me, looking into each other's eyes; I remember thinking then, with a little strange feeling of pride, that I had killed a man that Love and Truth might live. I had come out into Holborn, and was making my way towards my rooms, when my guardian, who had hovered a little behind me, and had followed me wonderingly, touched me on the arm. I had forgotten all about him until that moment.
"Better come home with me," he whispered; "they'll look for you at your place first."
"It won't make much difference," I said; "they'll have to find me some time." Nevertheless I went home with him, walking the short distance to his place in Bloomsbury.
He watched me as we went along, and I saw that he watched me with an increasing sense of wonder. I was something detached – apart from all the world – something he had not looked upon before. He was afraid of me, and yet attracted to me in a fearful way; he spoke to me, when he spoke at all, with a strange deference. I wondered about it, as I might have wondered about anything that was happening to some other person, until at last it struck me, and that with no sense of fear, that he looked upon me as one already dead. And so we came to the house in which he lived, and went up in silence to his rooms.
He