The Club of Queer Trades. Гилберт Кит Честертон
the lady in green trembling.
"It is the end," she cried, with shaking lips; "it may be death for both of us. Whenever—"
But even as she spoke her speech was cloven by another hoarse proclamation from the dark street, again horribly articulate.
"Major Brown, Major Brown, how did the jackal die?"
Brown dashed out of the door and down the steps, but again he was frustrated; there was no figure in sight, and the street was far too long and empty for the shouter to have run away. Even the rational major was a little shaken as he returned at a certain time to the drawing-room. Scarcely had he done so than the terrific voice came:
"Major Brown, Major Brown, where did—"
Brown was in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time—in time to see some thing which at first glance froze the blood. The cries appeared to come from a decapitated head resting on the pavement.
The next moment the pale major understood. It was the head of a man thrust through the coal-hole in the street. The next moment, again, it had vanished, and Major Brown turned to the lady. "Where's your coal-cellar?" he said, and stepped out into the passage.
She looked at him with wild, gray eyes. "You will not go down," she cried, "alone, into the dark hole with that beast?"
"Is this the way?" replied Brown, and descended the kitchen stairs three at a time. He flung open the door of a black cavity and stepped in, feeling in his pocket for matches. As his right hand was thus occupied, a pair of great, slimy hands came out of the darkness, hands clearly belonging to a man of gigantic stature, and seized him by the back of the head. They forced him down, down in the suffocating darkness, a brutal image of destiny. But the major's head, though upside-down, was perfectly clear and intellectual. He gave quietly under the pressure until he had slid down almost to his hands and knees. Then, finding the knees of the invisible monster within a foot of him, he simply put out one of his long, bony, and skilful hands, and, gripping the leg by a muscle, pulled it off the ground, and laid the huge, living man with a crash along the floor. He strove to rise, but Brown was on top like a cat. They rolled over and over. Big as the man was, he had evidently now no desire but to escape; he made sprawls hither and thither to get past the major to the door, but that tenacious person had him hard by the coat-collar, and hung with the other hand to a beam. At length there came a strain in holding back this human bull, a strain under which Brown expected his hand to rend and part from the arm. But something else rent and parted—and the dim, fat figure of the giant vanished out of the cellar, leaving the torn coat in the major's hand, the only fruit of his adventure and the only clew to the mystery. For when he went up and out at the front door the lady, the rich hangings, and the whole equipment of the house had disappeared. It had only bare boards and whitewashed walls.
"The lady was in the conspiracy, of course," said Rupert, nodding.
Major Brown turned brick-red. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I think not."
Rupert raised his eyebrows and looked at him for a moment, but said nothing. When next he spoke he asked:
"Was there anything in the pockets of the coat?"
"There was sevenpence halfpenny in coppers and a threepenny-bit," said the major, carefully; there was a cigarette-holder, a piece of string, and this letter," and he laid it on the table. It ran as follows:
"Dear Mr. Plover—I am annoyed to hear that some delay has occurred in the arrangements re Major Brown. Please see that he is attacked as per arrangement to-morrow. The coal-cellar, of course.
Yours faithfully,
"P. G. Northover."
Rupert Grant was leaning forward listening with hawklike eyes. He cut in:
"Is it dated from anywhere?"
"No—oh yes!" replied Brown, glancing upon the paper—"14 Tanner's Court, North—"
Rupert sprang up and struck his hands together.
"Then why are we hanging here? Let's get along. Basil, lend me your revolver."
Basil was staring into the embers like a man in a trance; and it was some time before he answered:
"I don't think you'll need it."
"Perhaps not," said Rupert, getting into his fur coat. "One never knows. But going down a dark court to see criminals—"
"Do you think they are criminals?" asked his brother.
Rupert laughed stoutly. "Giving orders to a subordinate to strangle a harmless stranger in a coal-cellar may strike you as a very blameless experiment, but—"
"Do you think they wanted to strangle the major?" asked Basil, in the same distant and monotonous voice.
"My dear fellow, you've been asleep. Look at the letter."
"I am looking at the letter," said the mad judge, calmly; though, as a matter of fact, he was looking at the fire. "I don't think it's the sort of letter one criminal would write to another."
"My dear boy, you are glorious!" cried Rupert, turning round, with laughter in his bright blue eyes. "Your methods amaze me. Why, there is the letter. It is written, and it does give orders for a crime. You might as well say that the Nelson Column was not at all the sort of thing that was likely to be set up in Trafalgar Square."
Basil Grant shook all over with a sort of silent laughter, but did not otherwise move.
"That's rather good," he said; "but, of course, logic like that's not what is really wanted. It's a question of spiritual atmosphere. It's not a criminal letter."
"It is. It's a matter of fact," cried the other, in an agony of reasonableness.
"Facts," murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off animals—"how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly—in fact, I'm off my head—but I never could believe in that man—what's his name, in those capital stories?—Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like the thousands of twigs on a tree. It's only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up—only the green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars."
"But what the deuce else can the letter be but criminal?"
"We have eternity to stretch our legs in," replied the mystic. "It can be an infinity of things. I haven't seen any of them—I've only seen the letter. I look at that, and say it's not criminal."
"Then what's the origin of it?"
"I haven't the vaguest idea."
"Then why don't you accept the ordinary explanation?"
Basil continued for a little to glare at the coals, and seemed collecting his thoughts in a humble and even painful way. Then he said:
"Suppose you went out into the moonlight. Suppose you passed through silent, silvery streets and squares until you came into an open and deserted space set with a few monuments, and you beheld one dressed as a ballet-girl dancing in the argent glimmer. And suppose you looked and saw it was a man disguised. And suppose you looked again and saw it was Lord Kitchener. What would you think?"
He paused a moment and went on:
"You could not adopt the ordinary explanation. The ordinary explanation of putting on singular clothes is that you look nice in them; you would not think that Lord Kitchener dressed up like a ballet-girl out of ordinary personal vanity. You would think it much more likely that he inherited a dancing madness from a great-grandmother, or had been hypnotized at a séance, or threatened by a secret society with death if he refused the ordeal. With Baden-Powell, say, it might be a bet—but not with Kitchener. I should know all that, because in my public days I knew him quite well. So I know that letter quite well, and criminals quite well. It's not a criminal's letter. It's all atmospheres." And he closed his eyes and passed his hand over his