There was a faint murmur of approval at this statement. It was most elevating to know that you were acquainted with a man who smoked cigars he bought in Bond Street, and that he did not buy them by the dozen or the box even, but by the case! If a man bought cigars by the case from a friend in Bond Street at the rate of sixpence each, what would be the retail price of them across the counter? It was impossible to say exactly and dangerous to guess, but it was certain you could not buy one for less than a shilling or eighteen-pence, that is, if a man like Mr. Jacobs' friend Mr. Isaacs would bemean himself by selling a single one at any price to a chance comer.
"Still working at your wonderful clock, Mr. Leigh?" said the greengrocer from Sloane Street, with the intention of sharing his conversation fairly between the landlord and the dwarf, the only men present who were sitting above the salt.
"Well, sir, literally speaking, I cannot be said to be working at it now. But I am daily engaged upon it, and before a quarter of an hour I shall be busy winding it up."
"Have you to wind it every day?"
"Yes. St. Paul's clock takes three quarters of an hour's winding every day with something like a winch handle. My clock takes half an hour every night. It must be wound between twelve and one, and I have made it a rule to wind it in the first half hour. My one does not want nearly so much power as St. Paul's. It is wound by a lever and not a winch handle. By-and-by, when it is finished and placed in a proper position in a proper tower, and I can increase the power, once a week will be sufficient."
"It is, I have heard, the most wonderful clock in London?"
"In London! In London! In the worlds sir. It is the most wonderful clock ever conceived by man."
"And now suppose you forgot to wind it up, what would happen?"
"There is no fear of that."
"It must be a great care on your mind."
"Immense. I have put up a curtain today, so that I may be able to keep the window open and get a breath of air this hot weather."
"Are you not afraid of fire up there and so near a bakehouse?"
"I never thought of fire. There is little or no danger of fire. Mr. Forbes is quite solvent."
"But suppose anything were to happen, it is so high up, it could not be got down?"
"Got down! Got down! Why, my dear sir, it is twelve feet by nine, and parts of it are so delicate that a rude shake would ruin them. Got down! Why it is shafted to the wall. All my power comes through the wall, from the chimney. When it is shifted no one will be able to stir bolt or nut but me. _I_ must do it, sir. No other man living knows anything about it. No other man could understand it. Fancy anyone but myself touching it! Why he might do more harm in an hour than I could put right in a year, ay, in three years. Well, my time is up. Good night, gentlemen."
He scrambled off his high stool and was quickly out of the bar. It was now five minutes to twelve o'clock right time.
He crossed Welbeck Street and opening the private door of Forbes's in Chetwynd Street went in, closing the door after him.
As he came out John Timmons emerged from the public bar of the Hanover, and turned into Welbeck Place. He went on until he came opposite the window of the clock-room. Here he stood still, thrust his hands deep down in his trousers' pockets, and leaning his back against the wall, prepared to watch with his own eyes the winding of the clock.
In less than five minutes the window of the top room, which had been dark, gradually grew illumined until the light came full through the transparent oiled muslin curtain. Timmons could see for all practical purposes as plainly as through glass.
"There Leigh is, anyway," thought Timmons, "working away at his lever. Can it be he was doing the same thing at this hour last night? Nonsense. He was walking away from this place with me at this hour last night as sure as I am here now. But what did he say himself to-day? I shouldn't mind Stamer, for he is a fool. But the landlord and Stamer say the same thing, and Leigh himself said it too this day. I must be going mad.
"There, he is turning round now and nodding to the men in the bar. They said he did the same last night, and, as I live, there's the clock we were under striking the quarter past again! I must be going mad. I begin to think last night must have been all a dream with me. I don't think he's all right. I don't believe in witchcraft, but I do believe in devilry, and there's something wrong here. I'll watch this out anyway. I must bring him to book over it. I'll tell him straight what I know-that is if I know anything and am not going mad-"
Whurr-whizz!
"Why what's that over head?"
Timmons looked up, but saw nothing.
"It's some young fellows larking."
He glanced back at the window.
"What a funny way he's nodding his head now. And there's a hole in the curtain and there seems to be a noise in the room. There goes the gas out. I suppose the clock is wound up now. Well, it's more than I can understand and a great deal more than I like, and I'll have it out of him. It would be too bad if that fool Stamer were right after all, and-but the whole thing is nonsense.
"Strange I didn't hear the clock strike the hour and yet Leigh's light is out. I suppose his half hour winding was only another piece of his bragging.
"Is the light quite out? Looks now as if it wasn't. He must have put it out by mistake or accident, for surely it hasn't struck half-past twelve yet.
"Ah, what's that? He is lighting a match or something. No, my eyes deceive me. There is no light. Everything here seems to deceive me. I'll go home.
"Ah, there's the half-hour at last!"
And John Timmons walked out of Welbeck Place, and took his way eastward.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE MORNING AFTER
Mr. John Timmons was not a hard-working man in the sense of one devoted ardently to physical labour. His domain was thought. He was a merchant, a negotiator, not an artisan. He kept his hands in his pockets mostly, in order that his brain might not be distracted by having to look after them. He had a theory that it is wasteful to burn the candle at both ends. If you employ your brain and your hands it will very soon be all over with you. Still, he held that the appearance of indulgence or luxury was most unbecoming in any place of business, and particularly in a marine store, where transactions were concerned with so stern and stubborn things as junk and old metal. He dealt in junk, but out of regard for the feelings of gentlemen who might have had bitter and long acquaintance with it while adorning another sphere, Timmons kept the junk away from sight in the cellar, to which mere callers were never admitted. Timmons had an opinion that the mere look of junk had a tendency to damp the professional ardour of men who had ever spent the days of their captivity in converting it into oakum.
On the ground floor of Timmons's premises there was no such thing as a chair. He looked on a chair in a marine store as a token of dangerous softening of manners. If a man allowed himself a chair in his place of business why not also a smoking-cap and slippers?
But Timmons had a high office stool, which was a thing differing altogether from a chair. It was of Spartan simplicity and uncomfortableness, and besides, it gave the solvent air of a counting house to the place. It had also another advantage, it enabled you to sit down without placing your eyes lower than the level of a man of your own height standing.
On Saturday morning about nine o'clock Timmons was reposing on the high stool at his doorway, if any part of this establishment may be called a doorway, where one side was all door and there was no other means of exit. He had bought a morning paper on his way to business, and he now sat with the advertising sheet of the paper spread out before him on his knees. Sometimes articles in which he dealt were offered for sale in that sheet, and once in a way he bought a paper to have a look at this sheet, and afterwards, if he had time, scan the news. He made it a point never to look at the reports of the police courts or criminal trials. Every man has his own feelings, and Timmons was not an exception. If an inquiry or trial in which he took interest was going on in London he was certain to know more of it than the newspapers told. He avoided the accounts of trials that did not interest him. They had as damping effect on him as the sight of junk had on some of his customers.
Beyond the improvement of his mind gathered from reading the advertisement columns of things for sale, he got no benefit out of the advertising sheet. None of the articles offered at a sacrifice was at all in his way. When he had finished the perusal of the marvellous miscellany he took his eyes off the paper and stared straight at the brick wall before him.
He turned his mind back for the twentieth time on the events of yesterday.
There was not in the whole list of what had occurred a single incident that pleased him. He was a clear-headed man, and prided himself on his brains. He had neither the education nor the insolence to call his brains intellect. But he was very proud of his brains, and his brains were completely at a loss. As with all undisciplined minds, his had not the power of consecutive abstract thought. But it had the power of reviewing in panoramic completeness events which had come within the reach of its senses.
The result of his review was that he did not like the situation at all. There was a great deal about this scheme he did not understand, and with such minds not to understand is to suspect and fear.
It was perfectly clear that for some purpose or other, Leigh hung back from entering upon the matter of their agreement, and now it seemed as though there might be a great deal in what Stamer feared, namely, that Leigh might have the intention of betraying them all into the hands of the police. Stamer had told him that in the talk at the Hanover, the night before, the landlord had informed the company under the seal of secrecy that Leigh on one occasion entrusted the winding up of the clock to a deputy who was deaf and dumb, and not able to write. That, no doubt, was the person they had seen in the clock-room the evening before, and not the dwarf. Leigh had not taken him into confidence respecting this clock, or this man who wound it up for him in his absence, but Leigh had taken him into confidence very little. It was a good thing that Leigh had not taken the gold from him. Of course, he was not such a fool as to part with the buttons unless he got gold coins to the full value of them, but still they might, if once in the possession of the little man, be used in evidence against him. The great thing to guard against was giving Leigh any kind of hold at all upon him.
He did not know whether to believe or not Leigh's account of the man in Birmingham. It looked more than doubtful. His talk about telegraphing and all that was only bunkum. The whole thing looked shaky and dangerous, and perhaps it would be as well for him to get out of it.
At all events he was pretty sure not to hear any more of the matter for a week or so. He should put it out of his head for the present.
He took up the newspaper this time with a view to amusement not business.
He glanced over it casually for a time, reading a few lines here and there. He passed by columns of parliamentary reports in which he took no interest whatever. Then came the law courts which he shunned. Finally he came upon the place where local London news was given. His eye caught a large heading, "Fire And Loss Of Life In Chelsea." The paragraph was, owing to the late hour at which the event took place, brief, considering its importance. It ran as follows: -
"Last night, between half-past twelve and one o'clock, a disastrous and fatal fire broke out in the bakery establishment of Mr. Forbes at the corner of Chetwynd Street and Welbeck Place, Chelsea. It appears from the information we have been able to gather, that the ground floor of the establishment is used as a baker's shop and the floor above as a store house by Mr. Forbes. The top floor, where the fire originated was occupied by Mr. Oscar Leigh, who has lost his life in the burning. The top floor is divided into three rooms, a sitting-room, a bed-room, and a workshop. In the last, looking into Welbeck Place, the late Mr. Leigh was engaged in the manufacture of a very wonderful clock, which occupied fully half the room, and which Mr. Leigh invariably wound up every night between twelve and half-past twelve.
"Last night, at a little before twelve, Mr. Leigh left the Hanover public house, at the opposite corner of Welbeck Place, and went into the bakery by the private entrance beside the shop door in Chetwynd Street. In the act of letting himself in with his latchkey he spoke to a neighbour, who tried to engage him in conversation, but the unfortunate gentleman excused himself, saying he hadn't a minute to spare, as the clock required his immediate attention. After this, deceased was seen by several people working the winding lever of the clock in the window. At half-past twelve he was observed to make some unusual motions of his head, so as to give the notion that he was in pain or distress of some kind. Then the light in the clock-room was extinguished and, as Mr. Leigh made no call or cry (the window at which he sat was open), it was supposed all was right. Shortly afterwards, dense smoke and flames were observed bursting through the window of the room, and before help could arrive all hope of reaching the unfortunate gentleman was at an end.
"The building is an old one. The flames spread rapidly, and before an hour had elapsed the whole was burnt out and the roof had fallen in.
"At the rear of the house proper is an off building abutting on Welbeck Mews. In this slept the shopman and his wife. This bakehouse also took fire and is burned out, but fortunately the two occupants were saved by the fire escape which had been on the spot ten minutes after the first alarm.
"It is generally supposed that the eccentric movements of Mr. Leigh were the result of a fit or sudden seizure of some other kind, and that in his struggles some inflammable substance was brought into contact with the gas before it was turned out."
Timmons flung down the paper with a shout, crying "Dead! Dead! Leigh is dead!"
At that moment the figure of a man appeared at the threshold of the store, and Stamer, with a scowl and a stare, stepped in hastily and looked furtively, fearfully, around.
"What are you shoutin' about?" cried Stamer, in a tone of dangerous menace. "What are you shoutin' about?" he said again, as he passed Timmons and slunk behind the pile of shutters and flattened himself up against the wall in the shadow of them.
"Leigh is dead!" cried Timmons in excitement, and taking no notice of Stamer's strange manner and threatening tone.
"_I_ know all about _that_, I suppose," said Stamer from his place of concealment. He was standing between the shutters and the old fire-grate, and quite invisible to anyone in the street. His voice was hollow, his eyes bloodshot and starting out of his head. Notwithstanding the warmth of the morning, his teeth were chattering in his head. His bloodshot eyes were in constant motion, new exploring the gloomy depths of the store, now glancing savagely at Timmons, now looking, in the alarm of a hunted beast, at the opening into the street.
Timmons took little or no notice of the other man beyond addressing him. He was in a state of wild excitement, not exactly of joy, but triumph. It was a hideous sight to see this lank, grizzled, repulsive-looking man capering around the store, and exulting in the news he had just read, of a man on whom he had fawned a day before. "He's dead! The dwarf is dead, Stamer!" he cried again. In his wild gyrations his hat had fallen off, disclosing a tall, narrow head, perfectly bald on the top.
"Shut up!" whispered Stamer, savagely, "if you don't want to follow him. I'm in no humour for your noise and antics. Do you want to have the coppers down on us? – do you, you fool?" He flattened himself still more against the wall, as though he were striving to imbed himself in it.
Timmons paused. Stamer's words and manner were so unusual and threatening that they attracted his attention at last. "What's the matter?" he asked, in irritated surprise. "What's the matter?" he repeated, with lowering look.
"Why, you've said what's the matter," said Stamer, viciously. "And you're shouting and capering as if you wanted to tell the whole world the news. This is no time for laughing and antics, you fool!"
"Who are you calling a fool?" cried Timmons, catching up an iron bar and taking a few steps towards the burglar.
"You, if you want to know. Put that down. Put that bar down, I say. Do it at once, and if you have any regard for your health, for your life, don't come a foot nearer, or I'll send you after him! By – , I will!"
Timmons let the bar fall, more in astonishment than fear. "What do you mean, you crazy thief? Have they just let you out of Bedlam, or are you on your way there? Anyway, it's lucky the place is handy, you knock-kneed jail-bird! Why he's shaking as if he saw a ghost!"
"Let me alone and I'll do you no harm. I don't want to have _two_ on me."
"What does the fool mean? I tell you Leigh is dead."
"Can you tell me who killed him? If you can't, _I_ can." He pointed to himself.
"What!" cried Timmons, starting back, and not quite understanding the other's gesture.
"Now are you satisfied? I thought you guessed. I wouldn't have told you if I didn't think you knew or guessed. Curse me, but I am a fool for opening my mouth! I thought you knew, and that, instead of saying a good word to me, you were going to down me and give me up."
Timmons stepped slowly back in horror. "You!" he whispered, bending his head forward and beginning to tremble in every limb. "You! You did it! You did this! You, Stamer!"
Stamer merely nodded, and looked like a hunted wild beast at the opening. He wore the clothes of last night, but was without the whiskers or beard. All the time he cowered in the shelter of the shutters, he kept his right hand behind his back.
Timmons retreated to the other wall, and leaned his back against it, and glared at the trembling man opposite.
"For God's sake don't look at me like that. You are the only one that knows," whined Stamer, now quite unmanned. "I should not have told you anything about it, only I thought you knew, when I heard you say he was dead. You took me unawares. Don't stare at me like that, for God's sake. Say a word to me. Call me a fool, or anything you like, but don't stand there staring at me like that. If 'twas you that did it, you couldn't be more scared. Say a word to me, or I'll blow my brains out! I haven't been home. I am afraid to go home. I am not used to this-yet. I thought I had the nerve for anything, and I find I haven't the nerve of a child. I am afraid to go home. I am afraid to look at my wife. I thought I shouldn't be afraid of you, and now you scare me worse than anything. For the love of God, speak to me, and don't look at me like that. I can't stand it."
"You infernal scoundrel, to kill the poor foolish dwarf!" whispered Timmons. His mouth was parched and open. The sweat was rolling down off his forehead. He was trembling no longer. He was rigid now. He was basilisked by the awful apparition of a man who had confessed to murder.
Stamer looked towards the opening, and then his round, blood-shot eyes went back to the rigid figure of Timmons. "I don't mind what you say, if you'll only speak to me, only not too loud. No one can hear us. I know that, and no one can listen at the door, without our seeing him. You don't know what I have gone through. I have not been home. I am afraid to go home. I am afraid of everything. You don't know all. It's worse than you think. It's enough to drive one mad-"
"You murderous villain!'
"It's enough to drive any man mad. I've been wandering about all night. I am more afraid of my wife than of anyone else. I don't know why, but I tremble when I think of her, more than of the police, or-or-or-"
"The hangman?"
"Yes. You don't know all. When you do, you'll pity me-"
"The poor foolish dwarf!"
"Yes. I was afraid he'd betray us-you-"
"Oh, villain!"
"And I got on a roof opposite the window, and when he was working at the lever, I fired, and his head went so-and then so-and then so-"
"Stop it, you murderer!"
"Yes. And I knew it was done. The neck! Yes, I knew the neck was broken, and it was all right."
"Oh! Oh! Oh, that I should live to hear you!"
"Yes. I thought it was all right, and it was in one way. For he tumbled down on his side, so-"
"If you don't stop it, I'll brain you!"
"Yes. And I got down off the roof and ran. I couldn't help running, and all the time I was running I heard him running after me. I heard him running after me, and I saw his head wagging so-so-so, as he ran. Every step he took, his head wagged, so-and so-and so-"
"If you don't stop that-"
"Yes. I will. I'll stop it. But I could not stop _him_ last night. All the time I ran I couldn't stop him. His head kept wagging and his lame feet kept running after me, and I couldn't stop the feet or the head. I don't know how long I ran, or where I ran, but I could run no more, and I fell up against a wall, and then it overtook me! I saw _it_ as plainly as I see you-plainer, I saw it-"
The man paused a moment to wipe his forehead.
"Do you hear?" he yelled, suddenly flinging his arms up in the air. "Do you hear? Will you believe me now? The steps again! The lame steps again. Do you hear them, you fool?"
"Mad!"
"Mad, you fool! I told you. Look!"
The figure of a low-sized, deformed dwarf came into the opening and crossed the threshold of the store.
With a groan Stamer fell forward insensible.