The Beetle (8 page)

Matthews did as he was told, he left the room,—with, I fancy,
more rapidity than he had entered it. Mr Lessingham returned to
me, his manner distinctly more determined, as if he found his
resolution reinforced by the near neighbourhood of his retainers,

'Now, my man, you see how the case stands, at a word from me you
will be overpowered and doomed to undergo a long period of
imprisonment. Yet I am still willing to listen to the dictates of
mercy. Put down that revolver, give me those letters,—you will
not find me disposed to treat you hardly.'

For all the attention I paid him, I might have been a graven
image. He misunderstood, or pretended to misunderstand, the cause
of my silence.

'Come, I see that you suppose my intentions to be harsher than
they really are,—do not let us have a scandal, and a scene,—be
sensible!—give me those letters!'

Again he moved in my direction; again, after he had taken a step
or two, to stumble and stop, and look about him with frightened
eyes; again to begin to mumble to himself aloud.

'It's a conjurer's trick!—Of course!—Nothing more,—What else
could it be?—I'm not to be fooled.—I'm older than I was. I've
been overdoing it,—that's all.'

Suddenly he broke into cries.

'Matthews! Matthews!—Help! help!'

Matthews entered the room, followed by three other men, younger
than himself. Evidently all had slipped into the first articles of
clothing they could lay their hands upon, and each carried a
stick, or some similar rudimentary weapon.

Their master spurred them on.

'Strike the revolver out of his hand, Matthews!—knock him down!—
take the letters from him!—don't be afraid!—I'm not afraid!'

In proof of it, he rushed at me, as it seemed half blindly. As he
did so I was constrained to shout out, in tones which I should not
have recognised as mine,

'THE BEETLE!'

And that moment the room was all in darkness, and there were
screams as of someone in an agony of terror or of pain. I felt
that something had come into the room, I knew not whence nor how,
—something of horror. And the next action of which I was conscious
was, that under cover of the darkness, I was flying from the room,
propelled by I knew not what.

Whether anyone pursued I cannot say. I have some dim recollection,
as I came out of the room, of women being huddled against the wall
upon the landing, and of their screaming as I went past. But
whether any effort was made to arrest my progress I cannot tell.
My own impression is that not the slightest attempt to impede my
headlong flight was made by anyone.

In what direction I was going I did not know. I was like a man
flying through the phantasmagoric happenings of a dream, knowing
neither how nor whither. I tore along what I suppose was a broad
passage, through a door at the end into what, I fancy, was a
drawing-room. Across this room I dashed, helter-skelter, bringing
down, in the gloom, unseen articles of furniture, with myself
sometimes on top, and sometimes under them. In a trice, each time
I fell, I was on my feet again,—until I went crashing against a
window which was concealed by curtains. It would not have been
strange had I crashed through it,—but I was spared that.
Thrusting aside the curtains, I fumbled for the fastening of the
window. It was a tall French casement, extending, so far as I
could judge, from floor to ceiling. When I had it open I stepped
through it on to the verandah without,—to find that I was on the
top of the portico which I had vainly essayed to ascend from
below.

I tried the road down which I had tried up,—proceeding with a
breakneck recklessness of which now I shudder to think. It was,
probably, some thirty feet above the pavement, yet I rushed at the
descent with as much disregard for the safety of life and limb as
if it had been only three. Over the edge of the parapet I went,
obtaining, with my naked feet, a precarious foothold on the
latticework,—then down I commenced to scramble. I never did get a
proper hold, and when I had descended, perhaps, rather more than
half the distance—scraping, as it seemed to me, every scrap of
skin off my body in the process—I lost what little hold I had.
Down to the bottom I went tumbling, rolling right across the
pavement into the muddy road. It was a miracle I was not seriously
injured,—but in that sense, certainly, that night the miracles
were on my side. Hardly was I down, than I was up again,—mud and
all.

Just as I was getting on to my feet I felt a firm hand grip me by
the shoulder. Turning I found myself confronted by a tall,
slenderly built man, with a long, drooping moustache, and an
overcoat buttoned up to the chin, who held me with a grasp of
steel. He looked at me,—and I looked back at him.

'After the ball,—eh?'

Even then I was struck by something pleasant in his voice, and
some quality as of sunshine in his handsome face.

Seeing that I said nothing he went on,—with a curious, half
mocking smile.

'Is that the way to come slithering down the Apostle's pillar?—Is
it simple burglary, or simpler murder?—Tell me the glad tidings
that you've killed St Paul, and I'll let you go.'

Whether he was mad or not I cannot say,—there was some excuse for
thinking so. He did not look mad, though his words and actions
alike were strange.

'Although you have confined yourself to gentle felony, shall I not
shower blessings on the head of him who has been robbing Paul?—
Away with you!'

He removed his grip, giving me a gentle push as he did so,—and I
was away. I neither stayed nor paused.

I knew little of records, but if anyone has made a better record
than I did that night between Lowndes Square and Walham Green I
should like to know just what it was,—I should, too, like to have
seen it done.

In an incredibly short space of time I was once more in front of
the house with the open window,—the packet of letters—which were
like to have cost me so dear!—gripped tightly in my hand.

I pulled up sharply,—as if a brake had been suddenly, and even
mercilessly, applied to bring me to a standstill. In front of the
window I stood shivering. A shower had recently commenced,—the
falling rain was being blown before the breeze. I was in a
terrible sweat,—yet tremulous as with cold; covered with mud;
bruised, and cut, and bleeding,—as piteous an object as you would
care to see. Every limb in my body ached; every muscle was
exhausted; mentally and physically I was done; had I not been held
up, willy nilly, by the spell which was upon me, I should have
sunk down, then and there, in a hopeless, helpless, hapless heap.

But my tormentor was not yet at an end with me.

As I stood there, like some broken and beaten hack, waiting for
the word of command, it came. It was as if some strong magnetic
current had been switched on to me through the window to draw me
into the room. Over the low wall I went, over the sill,—once more
I stood in that chamber of my humiliation and my shame. And once
again I was conscious of that awful sense of the presence of an
evil thing. How much of it was fact, and how much of it was the
product of imagination I cannot say; but, looking back, it seems
to me that it was as if I had been taken out of the corporeal body
to be plunged into the inner chambers of all nameless sin. There
was the sound of something flopping from off the bed on to the
ground, and I knew that the thing was coming at me across the
floor. My stomach quaked, my heart melted within me,—the very
anguish of my terror gave me strength to scream,—and scream!
Sometimes, even now, I seem to hear those screams of mine ringing
through the night, and I bury my face in the pillow, and it is as
though I was passing through the very Valley of the Shadow.

The thing went back,—I could hear it slipping and sliding across
the floor. There was silence. And, presently, the lamp was lit,
and the room was all in brightness. There, on the bed, in the
familiar attitude between the sheets, his head resting on his
hand, his eyes blazing like living coals, was the dreadful cause
of all my agonies. He looked at me with his unpitying, unblinking
glance.

'So!—Through the window again!—like a thief!—Is it always
through that door that you come into a house?'

He paused,—as if to give me time to digest his gibe.

'You saw Paul Lessingham,—well?—the great Paul Lessingham!—Was
he, then, so great?'

His rasping voice, with its queer foreign twang, reminded me, in
some uncomfortable way, of a rusty saw,—the things he said, and
the manner in which he said them, were alike intended to add to my
discomfort. It was solely because the feat was barely possible
that he only partially succeeded.

'Like a thief you went into his house,—did I not tell you that
you would? Like a thief he found you,—were you not ashamed?
Since, like a thief he found you, how comes it that you have
escaped,—by what robber's artifice have you saved yourself from
gaol?'

His manner changed,—so that, all at once, he seemed to snarl at
me.

'Is he great?—well!—is he great,—Paul Lessingham? You are
small, but he is smaller,—your great Paul Lessingham!—Was there
ever a man so less than nothing?'

With the recollection fresh upon me of Mr Lessingham as I had so
lately seen him I could not but feel that there might be a modicum
of truth in what, with such an intensity of bitterness, the
speaker suggested. The picture which, in my mental gallery, I had
hung in the place of honour, seemed, to say the least, to have
become a trifle smudged.

As usual, the man in the bed seemed to experience not the
slightest difficulty in deciphering what was passing through my
mind.

'That is so,—you and he, you are a pair,—the great Paul
Lessingham is as great a thief as you,—and greater!—for, at
least, than you he has more courage.'

For some moments he was still; then exclaimed, with sudden
fierceness,

'Give me what you have stolen!'

I moved towards the bed—most unwillingly—and held out to him the
packet of letters which I had abstracted from the little drawer.
Perceiving my disinclination to his near neighbourhood, he set
himself to play with it. Ignoring my outstretched hand, he stared
me straight in the face.

'What ails you? Are you not well? Is it not sweet to stand close
at my side? You, with your white skin, if I were a woman, would
you not take me for a wife?'

There was something about the manner in which this was said which
was so essentially feminine that once more I wondered if I could
possibly be mistaken in the creature's sex. I would have given
much to have been able to strike him across the face,—or, better,
to have taken him by the neck, and thrown him through the window,
and rolled him in the mud.

He condescended to notice what I was holding out to him.

'So!—that is what you have stolen!—That is what you have taken
from the drawer in the bureau—the drawer which was locked—and
which you used the arts in which a thief is skilled to enter. Give
it to me,—thief!'

He snatched the packet from me, scratching the back of my hand as
he did so, as if his nails had been talons. He turned the packet
over and over, glaring at it as he did so,—it was strange what a
relief it was to have his glance removed from off my face.

'You kept it in your inner drawer, Paul Lessingham, where none but
you could see it,—did you? You hid it as one hides treasure.
There should be something here worth having, worth seeing, worth
knowing,—yes, worth knowing!—since you found it worth your while
to hide it up so closely.'

As I have said, the packet was bound about by a string of pink
ribbon,—a fact on which he presently began to comment.

'With what a pretty string you have encircled it,—and how neatly
it is tied! Surely only a woman's hand could tie a knot like
that,—who would have guessed yours were such agile fingers?—So!
An endorsement on the cover! What's this?—let's see what's
written!—"The letters of my dear love, Marjorie Lindon."'

As he read these words, which, as he said, were endorsed upon the
outer sheet of paper which served as a cover for the letters which
were enclosed within, his face became transfigured. Never did I
suppose that rage could have so possessed a human countenance. His
jaw dropped open so that his yellow fangs gleamed though his
parted lips,—he held his breath so long that each moment I looked
to see him fall down in a fit; the veins stood out all over his
face and head like seams of blood. I know not how long he
continued speechless. When his breath returned, it was with
chokings and gaspings, in the midst of which he hissed out his
words, as if their mere passage through his throat brought him
near to strangulation.

'The letters of his dear love!—of his dear love!—his!—Paul
Lessingham's!—So!—It is as I guessed,—as I knew,—as I saw!—
Marjorie Lindon!—Sweet Marjorie!—His dear love!—Paul
Lessingham's dear love!—She with the lily face, the corn-hued
hair!—What is it his dear love has found in her fond heart to
write Paul Lessingham?'

Sitting up in bed he tore the packet open. It contained, perhaps,
eight or nine letters,—some mere notes, some long epistles. But,
short or long, he devoured them with equal appetite, each one over
and over again, till I thought he never would have done re-reading
them. They were on thick white paper, of a peculiar shade of
whiteness, with untrimmed edges, On each sheet a crest and an
address were stamped in gold, and all the sheets were of the same
shape and size. I told myself that if anywhere, at any time, I saw
writing paper like that again, I should not fail to know it. The
caligraphy was, like the paper, unusual, bold, decided, and, I
should have guessed, produced by a J pen.