The Twickenham Peerage

'James!'

The rest is silence … What does that writing fellow say about 'Sweet music, long drawn out'? Is there any music like the silent pressure of a woman's lips?

After all, there's something in being in love with your wife.

CHAPTER XXV

A REVERSION FROM THE IDYLLIC

Mr. Gayer met me in the hall. 'A gentleman, my lord, wishes to see you.' He spoke in a half-whisper, as if he was afraid of being overheard. There was something in his face I didn't understand.

'A gentleman? What gentleman?' Gayer came closer.

'Mr. Acrodato. We told him your lordship wasn't at home, and tried to keep him out, but he made so much disturbance we thought we'd better let him in. He's been walking all over the house, and behaving very badly.'

As Gayer imparted his information, with an air half of deprecation, half of mystery, there came through the dining-room door a gentleman. He was big. His huge beard and mop of hair were tinged with grey; his top hat was on the back of his head; his hands were in the pockets of his unbuttoned overcoat. He surveyed me with a look which did not suggest respect, speaking in accents which were not exactly gentle.

'So you've come. – Well?'

A feeling of resentment had been growing up within me with every yard which I had been placing between Mary and myself. I had been telling myself that this Marquis of Twickenham game was hardly worth the candle, and that if I had to choose between Mary and the marquisate, the dignity might go hang. Only let his lordship withdraw from his banking account thirty or forty thousand pounds in cash, and it was not improbable that he might disappear for another fifteen years. In which case Mr. and Mrs. James Merrett would take a trip abroad.

This loud-voiced, blustering bully had caught me in a dangerous mood. What he might want with the Marquis of Twickenham I had no notion. But the contrast he presented to the sweet saint in Little Olive Street offered me just the opportunity I needed to take it out of some one. I walked past him into the dining-room. He followed, leaving the door wide open.

'Have the goodness to shut the door.'

His response was the soul of courtesy.

'Shut it yourself! I'm not your servant.'

Directly he said that, I remembered where I had seen him last, and the name by which he had been known to me; the recollection gave me the most genuine sensation of pleasure. The Marquis of Twickenham should be avenged.

'Mr. Fraser, shut that door!'

When I called him by that name he started.

'Who are you speaking to?'

'To Andrew Fraser-who lately carried on one of the branches of his usurer's business at 14 Colmore Road, Birmingham. I have a statement referring to you, which was made to me by Isabel Kingham, also of Birmingham, half an hour before she died. That statement will supply the police with some information they are very anxious to receive. If you would like me to provide any one who may be listening outside with spicy details of your connection with the lady, I am willing.'

It's not often you are able to bag a man with the first barrel, especially a man of the type who was then in front of me. But when you do succeed, the sensation is delicious, as I experienced on that occasion.

That he had come to crush the Marquis of Twickenham was obvious; having good reasons for believing that that fortunate peer was his to crush. That he was the kind of individual who enjoyed crushing any one or anything was as plain as the fact that he was likely to resent with the utmost bitterness any attempt which might be made at crushing him. Nothing, probably, had been further from his mind than the idea that his intended victim would essay so hazardous a feat. He thought, possibly, knowing his man, that all he had to anticipate was his more or less abject humiliation. That first shot of mine was not only unexpected, but hitting him even before he was fairly on the wing, it bowled him completely over. The look of amazement which was on his hirsute countenance was distinctly comical. He shut the door with almost acrobatic rapidity.

'What the devil are you talking about?'

'So Andrew Fraser and Morris Acrodato are the same persons. With what gratification the press, the public, and the police will receive the news. We all know that Morris Acrodato carries on his business of blood-sucking under various aliases, but it is not generally known that Andrew Fraser is one of them. Every hand is against the most extortionate usurer in England, and at last one of them-the hangman's hand-will get it right home.'

He was so used to bully others, that the idea of being effectually bullied himself was beyond his comprehension.

'Don't-don't you try to bluff me.'

'Not at all. On the contrary, Mr. Fraser, I propose to have you hanged.'

He glanced round the room as if he feared that the walls had ears.

'What nonsense are you talking?'

'Nothing will give me greater pleasure. I once had an acquaintance who called herself Isabel Kingham. She died in great agony. At the inquest the medical examination showed that the immediate cause of death had been the administration of certain illegal drugs; but by whom they had been administered it was admitted, in the Coroner's Court, that there was not sufficient evidence to show. More than sufficient evidence is, however, in my possession that they were administered by Mr. Andrew Fraser.'

'It's all a lie.'

'At that time I had not sufficient leisure to justify me in seeing the business through. Although there was no moral doubt as to the person from whom the medicine came, you had so managed affairs as to leave me without actual proof. It is only within the last few weeks that I have had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman named Matthew Parker.'

'When did you see him?'

'It appears that Mr. Parker was once a clerk in the employ of Mr. Andrew Fraser. He distinctly remembers being instructed by his master to purchase a bottle of a certain mixture, and to forward it to a certain lady.'

'I'll wring his neck.'

'The missing link in the chain of evidence being thus supplied, I still had to learn what had become of Mr. Fraser. Now that I have had the pleasure of this fortunate encounter all that remains is to place the entire matter in the hands of the police.'

As I observed the looks with which Mr. Acrodato favoured me, I was conscious that he was struck, as others had been, by some development in the Marquis of Twickenham's character which he found himself unable to explain. And I realised, not for the first time, that there were, as was after all only inevitable, marked points of difference between the Two Dromios. His conduct was evidently actuated by reminiscences of what his lordship used to be, and he endeavoured to buoy himself up by the pleasant delusion that any alteration which might have taken place in an inconvenient direction could only be superficial after all.

'Look here, my lord. You bolted fifteen years ago because you'd got twenty-five thousand pounds out of me by forging your father's signature. And it seems that you've only come back now because you hope to beat me again by chucking this cock and bull story in my face. Don't you make any mistake. I'm going to have my money-with interest; proper interest, mind; and no silly nonsense-or I'll have you!'

So that was how I came to meet my double in San Francisco. He had made a little mistake with a pen. Well, his lordship might esteem himself lucky that at least that piece of business had fallen into my hands. I would do him a service right away.

'I have one remark to make, Mr. Fraser-'

'My name's Acrodato. Don't you call me out of my name!'

He positively shouted. I, also, can raise my voice. It was undignified, but I shouted back again.

'I say that I have one remark to make, Mr. Fraser!'

He gave a startled look round; he didn't seem to relish the notion that I might be audible on the other side of the square.

'Don't speak so loud.'

'I make it a rule to reply in the tone in which I am addressed; the pitch, therefore, depends on you. I was about to observe, when you interrupted me, that I have only one remark to make, Mr. Fraser, with reference to the matter on which you have touched. You have been completely misinformed with regard to the authenticity of the signature which is attached to the document in question.'

'Well! You always were a bit of a liar, but that takes the biscuit! Do you mean to say your father's name on that bill isn't a forgery?'

'I do.'

'When you ran for it because he said it was?'

'I had no wish to create a scandal by impugning my father's veracity.'

'You used to have a face before you went; but I never saw anything like the one you seem to have come back with. I don't want to be hard on you, although you treated me so bad. You've got the money now, and I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. Hand over my capital and decent interest and I'll say no more about it.'

'I don't intend to give you a penny.'

'What's that you say?'

'I intend to hang you-unless a spirit of mollycoddleism commutes the sentence to one of penal servitude for life. Look here, my lad. Lord or no lord, don't you take me for a fool. If you don't satisfy me inside five minutes I'll have a warrant for you in an hour.' I rang the bell.

'What's that for?'

A servant came.

'Fetch a constable at once.'

Mr. Acrodato seemed unhappy.

'Don't you-don't you be a fool!'

He turned to the man at the door.

'Don't you do anything of the kind.'

'You heard what I said?'

The servant was withdrawing when Mr. Acrodato became excited.

'Stop! Look here, my lord, don't you do anything in a hurry. You first of all listen to me!'

'See that some one is ready to fetch a constable the moment I ring; two of you remain within call.'

The man withdrew. Mr. Acrodato evidently did not relish my parting injunction.

'We don't want to have any confounded servants listening to what we have to say.'

'Corroboration, Mr. Fraser-'

'Don't call me out of my name.'

'Corroboration, Mr. Fraser, is sometimes useful-you will have to be quick if you wish to say anything before I ring the bell.'

'Look here. Of course I know you're only bluffing me, but I don't wish to make myself disagreeable. You give me those papers you've been talking about and my capital, and five per cent, interest, and you shall have the bill.'

'Mr. Fraser-'

'I wish you wouldn't call me by that name. What's the good of it?'

'I'll tell you what I might be persuaded to do. You give me that bill, and your word of honour that you will contradict any libellous stories you may hear reflecting on the genuineness of my father's signature, and so long as you refrain your own tongue from indiscretion I may keep still.'

'And I'm to lose my money?'

'And save your life.'

'Don't talk silly nonsense. I'm not going to let you rob me with my eyes open. Now I'll tell you what I'll do. You give me thirty thousand pounds.'

'Mr. Fraser, if you don't hand over that bill in sixty seconds I ring the bell. If I ring again, you pass into the hands of the police and the law must take its course.'

'Give you the bill? You don't suppose I've got it on me?'

I stood with my watch in hand. 'Fifteen seconds.'

'My lord, you've had my money-you can't deny you've had my money! And you've had it all these years! A great gentleman like you don't want to rob a man like me!

'Thirty seconds.'

'My lord, listen to reason! I'm a poor man! I really am! I've had the most frightful losses! I've had to do with a lot of thieves!'

'Forty-five seconds.'

'Have mercy, my lord, have mercy! Make it half the money! Say ten thousand! Call it five! You don't want to leave me without a penny, my lord!'

'Sixty seconds. What they call the Birmingham Mystery will now be solved.'

'My lord, don't ring that bell.'

He caught me by the arm.

'Remove your arm.'

'You shall have the bill.'

'Give it me.'

He began to fumble with a pocket-book. 'My lord, I do ask you to listen to reason! I'm sure you don't want-'

'If you say another word I ring.'

He handed me a slip of blue paper. It was a bill, dated some sixteen years back, promising to pay thirty thousand pounds three months after date. It was signed 'Sherrington.' An endorsement was scrawled across it-'Twickenham.' That endorsement was the little accident which had sent my double to San Francisco.

When I had gathered the purport of the document I looked at Mr. Acrodato. Murder was in his eyes.

'What are you going to give me for it?'

'Your life.'

'You cursed thief?'

I didn't like the words, nor the way in which he said them. There are occasions on which the devil enters into me. That was one.

I was a much smaller man than he, but I have physical strength altogether beyond what the average stranger suspects, and a curious mastery of what we will call certain tricks.

On a sudden I took him by the throat, beneath his beard, and with a twist which I have reason to know almost broke his neck, I jerked him back upon a chair. Driving his head against the back of it, I all but choked the life right out of him. It was only when I felt it slipping through my fingers that I thought it time to stop.

'Mr. Fraser, I'm afraid that one day I shall have to kill you. I've a mind to do it now; only it would be difficult to explain your corpse.'

I never saw a man cut a more ludicrous figure. The pain he had had to bear was no small thing. I shouldn't be surprised if for days his neck was conscious of the twist I had given it. But his amazement eclipsed his suffering. Not until that moment had he realised what a change had taken place in his lordship's character, and in his lordship's methods. For some seconds he gasped for breath-as was only natural. When he shambled to his feet he shrank from me like some panic-stricken, half-witted fool. While he was still staring at me, as if I had been some uncanny thing, the door opened and Mr. Smith came in.

'Surely it is Douglas Howarth! My dear Douglas, I am very glad to see you. This is Mr. Acrodato. He tells me that some injurious reports have been current with reference to a bill which my father backed at my request. Here is the bill. He has undertaken, in future, to give any such reports which may reach his ears the fullest contradiction. Mr. Acrodato, you may go.'

He went-and, I believe, was glad to go, even though he left both his bill and his money behind him.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE

I turned to Mr. John Smith-I should say to my old friend Douglas Howarth; who had been staring from me to Mr. Acrodato, and from Mr. Acrodato back to me, apparently wholly at a loss to understand the situation. Funny how opaque some men can be.

'Conscience,' says the bard, 'makes cowards of us all.' The Prince of Denmark wasn't quite so right as he supposed; but it had certainly succeeded in making, in a marvellously short space of time, a wreck of my dear old friend. Even the inexperienced eye could not fail to perceive that he had aged both morally and mentally. I was willing to bet a trifle that instead of scoring off the little game he had tried to play, he had passed from the prime of life to old age in the course of a single deal. He wasn't half the man who had called himself John Smith. He had acquired a new stoop; and that stoop was typical of all he had acquired. As he stared at me with astonished eyes it was clear that he had not so much control over his nerves as he would have liked to have had.

'As I just observed, I am glad to see you, my dear Douglas. My relatives and friends have not flocked round me as I had hoped they would. Am I to take it that this is a case of better late than never?'

'How did you get out?'

'How did I get out? Of what?'

'How did you get out of the coffin?'

'Out of-? My dear Douglas, aren't you well? Is that the explanation of your laggard step?'

'You are Babbacombe!'

I shrugged my shoulders.

'So that bee's in your bonnet. Very well, I am Babbacombe. I've been told it before; but no one has told me who Babbacombe is.'

'Don't-don't play any more tricks with me. Can't you see I've been nearly driven mad? Tell me; aren't you that-that devil?'

'Douglas, I have learned, to my pain, that you have lately not cut a very pretty figure. I am willing to excuse you on the charitable supposition that, as you say, you have been nearly driven mad. But do not let your madness go too far. Show some method in it, Douglas. Is it money you're in want of? If so, I've plenty, and am quite content that there should be some of it for you. What's the figure, man.'

'The figure?'

He looked as if his wits were wool-gathering. Going to a sideboard I poured out some brandy into a glass.

'Come, Douglas, swallow this. A pick-me-up may do you good. It strikes me that you ought to be in bed rather than abroad.'

He took the glass of brandy with a hand which trembled.

'It's a day of miracles.'

'Have you only just found that out? Surely you and I have reached an age at which we ought to know that wherever we turn, a miracle stares us in the face. What's the matter with you, my dear old chap?'

'Are you-are you Babbacombe?'

'My dear Douglas, I'm any one you please. Come, drink your brandy.' He took a sip; then put the glass on the table? 'Now tell me, what's the trouble? Is it money? If so, consider that I'm your banker and draw on me.'

Although I fancy that the sip he had taken had done him good, it still was sufficiently clear that the situation was beyond his comprehension; at which, on the whole, I wasn't surprised.

'Either, Leonard, you're a very remarkable actor, or you're a very remarkable man.'

'If you like we'll grant both hypotheses. And now may I ask you what you mean?'

'Should you desire it, I am quite willing to ignore the fact that I ever knew you as-anybody else, but I shouldn't like you to suppose that I'm an utter fool.'

'Howarth, you oblige me to adopt a tone with you for which I have no relish. Your words and manner convey an insinuation which I must ask you to explain. What am I to understand by what you have just now said?'

'Tell me, honestly. Have you not been masquerading as Montagu Babbacombe?'

'I have not. Nor, until I returned to the bosom of my family, was I aware that there was such a person in existence. Now tell me, in your turn, why are you so anxious to confound me with the gentleman in question?'

'If you never have assumed the name of Montagu Babbacombe, I beg your pardon.'

'In what dirty waters have you been paddling together? I was a pretty warm member when I was younger; I didn't expect to find you had become, with advancing years, the sort of man you apparently are. You have been attempting to do me out of my birthright; and now, as far as I understand, you are trying to do me out of my identity, too.'

He put both hands up to his head, as if it ached.

'I'm doing nothing of the kind; I only repeat that this is an age of miracles. When you meet Mr. Babbacombe-if you ever have so much good fortune'-his words had an ironical intonation which I couldn't but notice-'you'll understand the sense in which I use the words.'

'Douglas, what was there between this man and you?'

'I'll tell you. It will be at any rate a comfort to tell some one.'

He did tell me-the story with which I was even better acquainted than he was. The course of action which I should have to pursue loomed clearer and clearer as his tale proceeded. If I wished to stifle any remaining doubts which he might have, I should have to make an example of Mr. Howarth. Which I promptly proceeded to do.

I waited till he had reached the end of his pleasant little narrative, and then I let him have it. I fancy that the confession, which was good for his soul, was not received quite in the way he anticipated. In matters of this kind the world is full of disappointments. When it comes to confessing our sins, so few of us receive just the treatment we consider ourselves entitled to expect.

'Howarth, your attitude presents a curious psychological study. You tell your-I will flatter you by calling it amazing-story to me, as if you had been the sufferer. On the same line of reasoning the man who, having cut his father's throat, finds himself deserted by the wretched creature whom he has incited to assist him in his crime may pose as an injured martyr. Shall I inform you what I think? That you are a skulking thief and a cowardly scoundrel-that most pestilent type of blackguard whose one end and aim is to shift the onus of his own filthy deeds on to another's shoulders.'

He started; as if plain speaking was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. But I was only just beginning.

'According to your own statement you bribe a miserable mountebank to play a part in so hideous a fraud that I am conscious of a sensation of nausea when I think of it; and when with horrible fidelity the wretch has played his part, what do you do? Do you play your part? Lord, no! You're not that kind of man. Your one anxiety is to save your own leprous skin-double-dyed cur and coward that you are. He at least has trusted you; so you reward his faith by subjecting him to the most terrible death the mind can contemplate-you bury him alive. You have not even the courage of the common murderer. You crucify yourself for your own crime. See what a pallid, shrinking, stammering wretch you have become! Out! out! out! before I soil my hands by taking you by the throat, and throwing you into the street.'

Mr. Smith didn't seem as if he was enjoying himself. As I came towards him he seemed to shrink into a smaller and smaller compass, as if I were an avenging spirit before whose anger he had perforce to dwindle into nothing. I was wondering if I should play the farce right through, and really deposit him in the gutter, when the advent of two new-comers created a diversion. They were my affectionate brother, Lord Reginald Sherrington, and a rather incongruous companion, in the shape of Mr. Augustus FitzHoward. Fitz kept a little in the rear-as if not altogether at his ease as to the sort of reception he might receive; but the mere fact of his presence was proof enough that if I wished to keep myself free from such intrusions in the future, mercy was a quality against which, for the present at any rate, my heart must be steeled. This was a case when the downfall of vice must be carried to its legitimate conclusion.

So I gave Reggie the benefit of some candid criticisms on Mr. Smith.

'Reggie, you come at a convenient moment. You afford me an opportunity of closing, once for all, an incident of which I never wish to hear again. You see this nameless thing-this libel on our common manhood, whom, I am ashamed to reflect, I once regarded as my friend? With what sort of tale do you suppose he has been regaling me? He tells me that by the promise of a payment of one thousand pounds, he suborned some hard-driven wretch, who bore some real or imagined resemblance to myself, and induced him to feign death. Think of it! He persuaded the creature to simulate the greatest of all the mysteries, and to pretend to pass into the valley of the shadows. And when he lay in a coffin-actually in a coffin-think of it, ye gods! – waiting for this-this thing, to fulfil his part of the bargain, and release him, Mr. Howarth, deeming discretion to be the better part of honour, caused him to be fastened in his prison house and buried alive. What judgment would you pronounce upon so unique a gentleman?'

'Is this true?'

'Ask him. I tell you the story as I had it just now from his own lips.'

'Douglas, is this true?'

Mr. Smith put his fingers inside his shirt collar, as if its tightness worried him. It was some seconds before he spoke. Then it was in tones which were curiously unlike his own.

'Yes, it's true-all true.'

'And you are not Montagu Babbacombe?'

This was Reggie to me.

'You ask me that, knowing that Babbacombe was the name of the wretch who was his accomplice in the fraud of which you have just now heard-is that so?'

'It's a question of resemblance.'

'Are you asking me if I'm the wretch in question? Answer!'

'When you put it that way it seems impossible; I recognise that. But if you had seen his photograph-'