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I rubbed my eyes. ‘And what news?’ I asked. ‘How have you succeeded?’
‘Better than I expected,’ he said, ‘and I think,’ he added, tapping his note-book, ‘I owe much to YOU.’
Deeply gratified, I awaited more. But in vain. I ought to have remembered that in his moods Hemlock Jones was reticence itself. I told him simply of the strange intrusion, but he only laughed.
Later, when I arose to go, he looked at me playfully. ‘If you were a married man,’ he said, ‘I would advise you not to go home until you had brushed your sleeve. There are a few short brown sealskin hairs on the inner side of your forearm, just where they would have adhered if your arm had encircled a seal-skin coat with some pressure!’
‘For once you are at fault,’ I said triumphantly; ‘the hair is my own, as you will perceive; I have just had it cut at the hairdresser’s, and no doubt this arm projected beyond the apron.’
He frowned slightly, yet, nevertheless, on my turning to go he embraced me warmly – a rare exhibition in that man of ice. He even helped me on with my overcoat and pulled out and smoothed down the flaps of my pockets. He was particular, too, in fitting my arm in my overcoat sleeve, shaking the sleeve down from the armhole to the cuff with his deft fingers. ‘Come again soon!’ he said, clapping me on the back.
‘At any and all times,’ I said enthusiastically; ‘I only ask ten minutes twice a day to eat a crust at my office, and four hours’ sleep at night, and the rest of my time is devoted to you always, as you know.’
‘It is indeed,’ he said, with his impenetrable smile.
Nevertheless, I did not find him at home when I next called. One afternoon, when nearing my own home, I met him in one of his favorite disguises, – a long blue swallow-tailed coat, striped cotton trousers, large turn-over collar, blacked face, and white hat, carrying a tambourine. Of course to others the disguise was perfect, although it was known to myself, and I passed him – according to an old understanding between us – without the slightest recognition, trusting to a later explanation. At another time, as I was making a professional visit to the wife of a publican at the East End, I saw him, in the disguise of a broken-down artisan, looking into the window of an adjacent pawnshop. I was delighted to see that he was evidently following my suggestions, and in my joy I ventured to tip him a wink; it was abstractedly returned.
Two days later I received a note appointing a meeting at his lodgings that night. That meeting, alas! was the one memorable occurrence of my life, and the last meeting I ever had with Hemlock Jones! I will try to set it down calmly, though my pulses still throb with the recollection of it.
I found him standing before the fire, with that look upon his face which I had seen only once or twice in our acquaintance – a look which I may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and deductive ratiocination – from which all that was human, tender, or sympathetic was absolutely discharged. He was simply an icy algebraic symbol! Indeed, his whole being was concentrated to that extent that his clothes fitted loosely, and his head was absolutely so much reduced in size by his mental compression that his hat tipped back from his forehead and literally hung on his massive ears.
After I had entered he locked the doors, fastened the windows, and even placed a chair before the chimney. As I watched these significant precautions with absorbing interest, he suddenly drew a revolver and, presenting it to my temple, said in low, icy tones:
‘Hand over that cigar case!’
Even in my bewilderment my reply was truthful, spontaneous, and involuntary. ‘I haven’t got it,’ I said.
He smiled bitterly, and threw down his revolver. ‘I expected that reply! Then let me now confront you with something more awful, more deadly, more relentless and convincing than that mere lethal weapon, – the damning inductive and deductive proofs of your guilt!’ He drew from his pocket a roll of paper and a note-book.
‘But surely,’ I gasped, ‘you are joking! You could not for a moment believe’ —
‘Silence! Sit down!’ I obeyed.
‘You have condemned yourself,’ he went on pitilessly. ‘Condemned yourself on my processes, – processes familiar to you, applauded by you, accepted by you for years! We will go back to the time when you first saw the cigar case. Your expressions,’ he said in cold, deliberate tones, consulting his paper, ‘were, “How beautiful! I wish it were mine.” This was your first step in crime – and my first indication. From “I WISH it were mine” to “I WILL have it mine,” and the mere detail, “HOW CAN I make it mine?” the advance was obvious. Silence! But as in my methods it was necessary that there should be an overwhelming inducement to the crime, that unholy admiration of yours for the mere trinket itself was not enough. You are a smoker of cigars.’
‘But,’ I burst out passionately, ‘I told you I had given up smoking cigars.’
‘Fool!’ he said coldly, ‘that is the SECOND time you have committed yourself. Of course you told me! What more natural than for you to blazon forth that prepared and unsolicited statement to PREVENT accusation. Yet, as I said before, even that wretched attempt to cover up your tracks was not enough. I still had to find that overwhelming, impelling motive necessary to affect a man like you. That motive I found in the strongest of all impulses – Love, I suppose you would call it,’ he added bitterly, ‘that night you called! You had brought the most conclusive proofs of it on your sleeve.’
‘But —’ I almost screamed.
‘Silence!’ he thundered. ‘I know what you would say. You would say that even if you had embraced some Young Person in a sealskin coat, what had that to do with the robbery? Let me tell you, then, that that sealskin coat represented the quality and character of your fatal entanglement! You bartered your honor for it – that stolen cigar case was the purchaser of the sealskin coat!
‘Silence! Having thoroughly established your motive, I now proceed to the commission of the crime itself. Ordinary people would have begun with that – with an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the missing object. These are not MY methods.’
So overpowering was his penetration that, although I knew myself innocent, I licked my lips with avidity to hear the further details of this lucid exposition of my crime.
‘You committed that theft the night I showed you the cigar case, and after I had carelessly thrown it in that drawer. You were sitting in that chair, and I had arisen to take something from that shelf. In that instant you secured your booty without rising. Silence! Do you remember when I helped you on with your overcoat the other night? I was particular about fitting your arm in. While doing so I measured your arm with a spring tape measure, from the shoulder to the cuff. A later visit to your tailor confirmed that measurement. It proved to be THE EXACT DISTANCE BETWEEN YOUR CHAIR AND THAT DRAWER!’
I sat stunned.
‘The rest are mere corroborative details! You were again tampering with the drawer when I discovered you doing so! Do not start! The stranger that blundered into the room with a muffler on – was myself! More, I had placed a little soap on the drawer handles when I purposely left you alone. The soap was on your hand when I shook it at parting. I softly felt your pockets, when you were asleep, for further developments. I embraced you when you left – that I might feel if you had the cigar case or any other articles hidden on your body. This confirmed me in the belief that you had already disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where you pledged your booty.’
‘But,’ I burst out, ‘if you had asked the pawnbroker, you would have seen how unjust’ —
‘Fool!’ he hissed, ‘that was one of YOUR suggestions – to search the pawnshops! Do you suppose I followed any of your suggestions, the suggestions of the thief? On the contrary, they told me what to avoid.’
‘And I suppose,’ I said bitterly, ‘you have not even searched your drawer?’
‘No,’ he said calmly.
I was for the first time really vexed. I went to the nearest drawer and pulled it out sharply. It stuck as it had before, leaving a part of the drawer unopened. By working it, however, I discovered that it was impeded by some obstacle that had slipped to the upper part of the drawer, and held it firmly fast. Inserting my hand, I pulled out the impeding object. It was the missing cigar case! I turned to him with a cry of joy.
But I was appalled at his expression. A look of contempt was now added to his acute, penetrating gaze. ‘I have been mistaken,’ he said slowly; ‘I had not allowed for your weakness and cowardice! I thought too highly of you even in your guilt! But I see now why you tampered with that drawer the other night. By some inexplicable means – possibly another theft – you took the cigar case out of pawn and, like a whipped hound, restored it to me in this feeble, clumsy fashion. You thought to deceive me, Hemlock Jones! More, you thought to destroy my infallibility. Go! I give you your liberty. I shall not summon the three policemen who wait in the adjoining room – but out of my sight forever!’
As I stood once more dazed and petrified, he took me firmly by the ear and led me into the hall, closing the door behind him. This reopened presently, wide enough to permit him to thrust out my hat, overcoat, umbrella, and overshoes, and then closed against me forever!
I never saw him again. I am bound to say, however, that thereafter my business increased, I recovered much of my old practice, and a few of my patients recovered also. I became rich. I had a brougham and a house in the West End. But I often wondered, pondering on that wonderful man’s penetration and insight, if, in some lapse of consciousness, I had not really stolen his cigar case!
Miss Mix
BY CH – L – TTE BR – NTE.
Chapter I
My earliest impressions are of a huge, misshapen rock, against which the hoarse waves beat unceasingly. On this rock three pelicans are standing in a defiant attitude. A dark sky lowers in the background, while two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant eye with extreme disfavor the floating corpse of a drowned woman in the foreground. A few bracelets, coral necklaces, and other articles of jewelry, scattered around loosely, complete this remarkable picture.
It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way, symbolizes, to my fancy, the character of a man. I have never been able to explain exactly why. I think I must have seen the picture in some illustrated volume, when a baby, or my mother may have dreamed it before I was born.
As a child I was not handsome. When I consulted the triangular bit of looking-glass which I always carried with me, it showed a pale, sandy, and freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of seaweed when the sun strikes it in deep water. My eyes were said to be indistinctive; they were a faint, ashen gray; but above them rose – my only beauty – a high, massive, domelike forehead, with polished temples, like door-knobs of the purest porcelain.
Our family was a family of governesses. My mother had been one, and my sisters had the same occupation. Consequently, when, at the age of thirteen, my eldest sister handed me the advertisement of Mr. Rawjester, clipped from that day’s ‘Times,’ I accepted it as my destiny. Nevertheless, a mysterious presentiment of an indefinite future haunted me in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little snow-white bed. The next morning, with two bandboxes tied up in silk handkerchiefs, and a hair trunk, I turned my back upon Minerva Cottage forever.
Chapter II
Blunderbore Hall, the seat of James Rawjester, Esq., was encompassed by dark pines and funereal hemlocks on all sides. The wind sang weirdly in the turrets and moaned through the long-drawn avenues of the park. As I approached the house I saw several mysterious figures flit before the windows, and a yell of demoniac laughter answered my summons at the
bell. While I strove to repress my gloomy forebodings, the housekeeper, a timid, scared-looking old woman, showed me into the library.
I entered, overcome with conflicting emotions. I was dressed in a narrow gown of dark serge, trimmed with black bugles. A thick green shawl was pinned across my breast. My hands were encased with black half-mittens worked with steel beads; on my feet were large pattens, originally the property of my deceased grandmother. I carried a blue cotton umbrella. As I passed before a mirror, I could not help glancing at it, nor could I disguise from myself the fact that I was not handsome.
Drawing a chair into a recess, I sat down with folded hands, calmly awaiting the arrival of my master. Once or twice a fearful yell rang through the house, or the rattling of chains, and curses uttered in a deep, manly voice, broke upon the oppressive stillness. I began to feel my soul rising with the emergency of the moment.
‘You look alarmed, miss. You don’t hear anything, my dear, do you?’ asked the housekeeper nervously.
‘Nothing whatever,’ I remarked calmly, as a terrific scream, followed by the dragging of chairs and tables in the room above, drowned for a moment my reply. It is the silence, on the contrary, which has made me foolishly nervous.’
The housekeeper looked at me approvingly, and instantly made some tea for me.
I drank seven cups; as I was beginning the eighth, I heard a crash, and the next moment a man leaped into the room through the broken window.
Chapter III
The crash startled me from my self-control. The housekeeper bent toward me and whispered: —
‘Don’t be excited. It’s Mr. Rawjester, – he prefers to come in sometimes in this way. It’s his playfulness, ha! ha! ha!’
‘I perceive,’ I said calmly. ‘It’s the unfettered impulse of a lofty soul breaking the tyrannizing bonds of custom.’ And I turned toward him.
He had never once looked at me. He stood with his back to the fire, which set off the herculean breadth of his shoulders. His face was dark and expressive; his under jaw squarely formed, and remarkably heavy. was struck with his remarkable likeness to a Gorilla.
As he absently tied the poker into hard knots with his nervous fingers, I watched him with some interest. Suddenly he turned toward me: —
‘Do you think I’m handsome, young woman?’
‘Not classically beautiful,’ I returned calmly; ‘but you have, if I may so express myself, an abstract manliness, – a sincere and wholesome barbarity which, involving as it does the naturalness —’ But I stopped, for he yawned at that moment, – an action which singularly developed the immense breadth of his lower jaw, – and I saw he had forgotten me. Presently he turned to the housekeeper: —
‘Leave us.’
The old woman withdrew with a courtesy.
Mr. Rawjester deliberately turned his back upon me and remained silent for twenty minutes. I drew my shawl the more closely around my shoulders and closed my eyes.
‘You are the governess?’ at length he said.
‘I am, sir.’
‘A creature who teaches geography, arithmetic, and the use of the globes – ha! – a wretched remnant of femininity, – a skimp pattern of girlhood with a premature flavor of tea-leaves and morality. Ugh!’
I bowed my head silently.
‘Listen to me, girl!’ he said sternly; ‘this child you have come to teach – my ward – is not legitimate. She is the offspring of my mistress, – a common harlot. Ah! Miss Mix, what do you think of me now?’
‘I admire,’ I replied calmly, ‘your sincerity. A mawkish regard for delicacy might have kept this disclosure to yourself. I only recognize in your frankness that perfect community of thought and sentiment which should exist between original natures.’
I looked up; he had already forgotten my presence, and was engaged in pulling off his boots and coat. This done, he sank down in an arm-chair before the fire, and ran the poker wearily through his hair.
I could not help pitying him.
The wind howled dismally without, and the rain beat furiously against the windows. I crept toward him and seated myself on a low stool beside his chair.
Presently he turned, without seeing me, and placed his foot absently in my lap. I affected not to notice it. But he started and looked down.
‘You here yet – Carrothead? Ah, I forgot. Do you speak French?’
‘Oui, Monsieur.’
‘Taisez-vous!’ he said sharply, with singular purity of accent. I complied. The wind moaned fearfully in the chimney, and the light burned dimly. I shuddered in spite of myself. ‘Ah, you tremble, girl!’
‘It is a fearful night.’
‘Fearful! Call you this fearful, ha! ha! ha! Look! you wretched little atom, look!’ and he dashed forward, and, leaping out of the window, stood like a statue in the pelting storm, with folded arms. He did not stay long, but in a few minutes returned by way of the hall chimney. I saw from the way that he wiped his feet on my dress that he had again forgotten my presence.
‘You are a governess. What can you teach?’ he asked, suddenly and fiercely thrusting his face in mine.
‘Manners!’ I replied, calmly.
‘Ha! teach ME!’
‘You mistake yourself,’ I said, adjusting my mittens. ‘Your manners require not the artificial restraint of society. You are radically polite; this impetuosity and ferociousness is simply the sincerity which is the basis of a proper deportment. Your instincts are moral; your better nature, I see, is religious. As St. Paul justly remarks – see chap. 6, 8, 9, and 10 —’
He seized a heavy candlestick, and threw it at me. I dodged it submissively but firmly.
‘Excuse me,’ he remarked, as his under jaw slowly relaxed. ‘Excuse me, Miss Mix – but I can’t stand St. Paul! Enough – you are engaged.’
Chapter IV
I followed the housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. As we passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was closed by an iron gate with a grating. Three of the doors on the corridor were likewise grated. A strange noise, as of shuffling feet and the howling of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. Bidding the housekeeper good night, and taking the candle, I entered my bedchamber.
I took off my dress, and, putting on a yellow flannel nightgown, which I could not help feeling did not agree with my complexion, I composed myself to rest by reading Blair’s Rhetoric and Paley’s Moral Philosophy. I had just put out the light, when I heard voices in the corridor. I listened attentively. I recognized Mr. Rawjester’s stern tones.
‘Have you fed No. 1?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ said a gruff voice, apparently belonging to a domestic.
‘How’s No. 2?’
‘She’s a little off her feed, just now, but will pick up in a day or two!’
‘And No. 3?’
‘Perfectly furious, sir. Her tantrums are ungovernable.’
‘Hush!’
The voices died away, and I sank into a fitful slumber.
I dreamed that I was wandering through a tropical forest. Suddenly I saw the figure of a gorilla approaching me. As it neared me, I recognized the features of Mr. Rawjester. He held his hand to his side as if in pain. I saw that he had been wounded. He recognized me and called me by name, but at the same moment the vision changed to an Ashantee village, where, around the fire, a group of negroes were dancing and participating in some wild Obi festival. I awoke with the strain still ringing in my ears.
‘Hokee-pokee wokee fum!’
Good Heavens! could I be dreaming? I heard the voice distinctly on the floor below, and smelt something burning. I arose, with an indistinct presentiment of evil, and hastily putting some cotton in my ears and tying a towel about my head, I wrapped myself in a shawl and rushed down stairs. The door of Mr. Rawjester’s room was open. I entered.
Mr. Rawjester lay apparently in a deep slumber, from which even the clouds of smoke that came from the burning curtains of his bed could not rouse him. Around the room a large and powerful negress, scantily attired, with her head adorned with feathers, was dancing wildly, accompanying herself with bone castanets. It looked like some terrible fetich.
I did not lose my calmness. After firmly emptying the pitcher, basin, and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to the garden, and, returning with the garden-engine, I directed a small stream at Mr. Rawjester.
At my entrance the gigantic negress fled. Mr. Rawjester yawned and woke. I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the reason of my presence. He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or discomposed. He gazed at me curiously.
