It was no great coincidence that we should have been speaking of Edgar Nettleton that night. Uvo Delavoye was full of him just then, and I had the man on my mind for other reasons. Besides, I had to talk to Uvo about something, since he was down with a quinsy caught from the perfect sanitation2 in advertised vogue3 on the Estate, and could hardly open his own mouth. And perhaps I had to talk to somebody about the unpleasant duty hanging over me in connection with this fellow Nettleton, who had taken his house about the same time as Colonel Cheffins and his gang, had made up to Delavoye over that affair, and was himself almost as undesirable4 a tenant5 from my point of view.
"I know he's a friend of yours, and I haven't come to curse him to your face," I had been saying. "But if you would just tell Nettleton, when you see him again, that we're in dead earnest this time, you might be doing both him and us a service. I sent him a final demand yesterday; if he doesn't pay up within the week, my orders are to distrain7 without further notice. Muskett's furious about the whole thing. He blames me for ever having truck with such a fellow in the first instance. But when a man has been science beak8 in a public school—and such a school—it sounds good enough for Witching Hill, doesn't it? Who would have thought he'd had the sack? Public-school masters don't often get it."
"They've got to do something pretty desperate first, I fancy," whispered Uvo, with a gleam in his sunken eyes. He had not denied the fact. I felt encouraged to elaborate my grievance9 against Edgar Nettleton.
"Besides, I had his banker's reference. That was all right; yet we had trouble to get our very first rent, more trouble over the second, and this time there's going to be a devil of a row. I shouldn't wonder if Nettleton had a bill of sale over every stick. I know he's owing all the tradesmen. He may be a very clever chap, and all that, but I can't help saying that he strikes me as a bit of a wrong 'un, Uvo."
Of course I had not started with the intention of saying quite so much. But the brunt of the unpleasantness was falling on my shoulders; and the fellow had made friends with my friend, whose shoes he was not fit to black. Uvo, moreover, was still according me a patient, interested hearing, as he lay like a bright-eyed log in his bed at the top of No. 7. Altogether it was not in my allowance of human nature to lose such an opportunity of showing him his new friend in his true colours.
"He is clever," whispered Uvo, as though that was the bond between them. "He knows something about everything, and he's a wonderful carpenter and mechanic. You must really see the burglar-trap that he concocted10 after the scare. If another Cheffins paid him a visit, he'd put his foot in it with a vengeance11."
"It would be six of one and very nearly half a dozen of the other," said I with hardihood. "Set a Nettleton to catch a Cheffins, as you might say, Uvo!"
But he only smiled, as though he would not have hesitated to say it in fun. "Of course you're only joking, Gilly, but I could quite understand it if you weren't. There's no vice6 in old Nettleton, let alone crime; but there's a chuckle-headed irresponsibility that might almost let him in for either before he knew it. He never does seem to know what he's doing, and I'm sure he never worries about anything he's once done. If he did, he'd have gone further afield from the scene of his downfall, or else taken rooms in town instead of a red elephant of a house that he evidently can't afford. As a tenant, I quite agree that he is hopeless."
"If only he hadn't come here!" I grumbled12. "What on earth can have brought him to Witching Hill, of all places?"
Uvo's eyes were dancing in the light of the reading gas-lamp, with the smelly tube, which had been connected up with his bedroom bracket.
"Of course," he whispered, "you wouldn't admit for a moment that it might be the call of the soil, and all there's in it, Gilly?"
"No, I wouldn't; but I'll tell you one thing," I exclaimed, as it struck me for the first time: "the man you describe is not the man to trust with all those morbid13 superstitions14 of yours! I know he enters into them, because you told me he did, and I know how much you wanted to find some one who would. But so much the worse for you both, if he's the kind you say he is. An idle man, too, and apparently15 alone in the world! I don't envy you if Nettleton really does come under the influence of your old man of the soil, and plays down to him!"
"My dear Gilly, this is a great concession," whispered Uvo, on his elbow with surprise.
"I don't mean it for one," said I sturdily. "I only mean the influence of your own conception of your old man and his powers. I disbelieve in him and them as much as ever, but I don't disbelieve in your ability to make both exist in some weaker mind than your own. And where they do catch on, remember, those wild ideas of yours may always get the upper hand. It isn't everybody who can think the things you do, Uvo, and never look like doing 'em!"
"I don't agree with you a bit, Gilly. I never believe those blithering blighters who attribute their crimes to the bad example of some criminal hero of the magazines or of the stage. Villain16-worship doesn't carry you to that length unless you're a bit of a villain in the first instance."
"But suppose you are?" I argued, almost before I saw the point that I was making. "Suppose you have as few scruples17, principles, 'pangs18 and fears'—call them what you like—as this fellow Nettleton. Suppose you're full of fire of sorts, but also as irresponsible and chuckle-headed as you yourself say he is. Well, then, I say, it's taking responsibility for two to go pumping your theories into as sensitive an engine as all that!"
Uvo clapped his thin hands softly as there came a knock at the door. "Well, he's a practical man, Gilly, I must admit, so let's leave it at that. Come in! What is it, Jane?"
"The servant from Mr. Nettleton's, sir, wants to see Mr. Gillon," said the maid.
I began by explaining why this scarcely comes into the category of Witching Hill coincidences. Yet it was rather startling at the time, and Uvo Delavoye looked as though his evil ancestor had materialised at the foot of the bed.
"All right, Jane! Mr. Gillon will be down directly."
It was the first time his voice had risen to more than a whisper, and it was shaky. The maid seemed to catch some echo of an alarm already communicated to herself, and faintly sounded in her own announcement.
"Sarah seems very anxious to see you, sir," she ventured, turning to me, and then withdrew in some embarrassment19.
I rose to follow. Sarah was almost as great a character as her master, and I for one liked her the better of the two. She was a simple, faithful, incompetent20 old body, who once told me that she had known Mr. Nettleton, man and boy, most of his life, but without betraying a page of his past. She had come with him to Witching Hill Road as cook-general. There had been a succession of auxiliary21 servants who had never in any instance outstayed their month. The last of them had left precipitately22, threatening a summons, to the scandal of the neighbours; but beyond that fact the matter had been hushed up, and even I only knew that Sarah was now practically single-handed through her coming to me about a charwoman. I thought I ought to see her at once, but Uvo detained me with an almost piteous face.
"Do wait a moment! Of course it's probably nothing at all; but you've given me an idea that certainly never crossed my mind before. I won't say you've put the fear of God on me, Gilly, but you have put me in rather a funk about old Nettleton! He is a rum 'un—I must admit it. If he should have done anything that could possibly be traced to ... all that.... I'll never open my mouth about it again."
"Oh, bless your life, it's only more servant troubles," I reassured23 him. "I shouldn't wonder if old Sarah herself finds him more than she can stick. They do say he assaulted that last girl, so that she could hardly limp into her cab!"
Uvo rolled his head on the pillow.
"It wasn't an assault, Gilly. I know what happened to her. But I must know what's happened to old Sarah, or to Nettleton himself. Will you promise to come back and tell me?"
"Certainly."
"Then off you go, my dear fellow, and I'll hang on to my soul till you get back. You may have to go along with her, if he's been doing anything very mad. Take my key, and tell them downstairs not to lock you out."
Sarah was waiting for me on the front-door mat, but she refused to make any communication before we left the house. She really was what she herself would have described as an elderly party, though it is doubtful whether even Sarah would have considered the epithet24 appropriate to her years. She certainly wore a rather jaunty25 bonnet26 on her walks abroad. It had a garish27 plume28 that nodded violently with her funny old head, and simply danced with mystery as she signified the utter impossibility of speech within reach of other ears.
"I'm very sorry to trouble you, sir, very," said the old lady, as she trotted29 beside me up Mulcaster Park. "But I never did know such a thing to 'appen before, and I don't like it, sir, not at all I don't, I'm sure."
"But what has happened, Sarah?"
As a witness Sarah would not have been a success; she believed in beginning her story very far back, in following it into every by-way and blind alley31 of immaterial fact, in reporting every scrap32 of dialogue that she could remember or improvise33, and in eschewing34 the oblique35 oration36 as an unworthy economy of time and breath. If interrupted, she would invariably answer a question that had not been asked, and on getting up to any real point she would shy at it like a fractious old steed. It was then impossible to spur her on, and we had to retrace37 much ground at her pleasure. The ípsíssíma verba of this innocent creature are therefore frankly38 unprintable. But towards the top of Mulcaster Park I did make out that a number of pointless speeches, delivered by Mr. Nettleton at his lunch, had culminated39 in the announcement that he was going to the theatre that night.
"The theatre!" I cried. "I thought he never even went up to town?"
I had gathered that from Delavoye, and Sarah confirmed it with much embroidery40. I was also told his reasons for making such a sudden exception, and as given by Sarah they were certainly not convincing.
"Then he's in the theatre now, or ought to be?" I suggested; for it was then just after nine o'clock.
"Ah, that's where it is, sir!" said Sarah, weightily. "He ought to be, as you say, sir. But he's locked his lib'ry, and there's a light under the door, and I can't get no answer, not though I knock, knock, knock, till I'm tired of knocking!"
I now ascertained41 that Sarah also had been given money to make a night of it, in her case at the Parish Hall, where one of the church entertainments was going on. Sarah made mention of every item on the programme, as far as she had heard it out. But then it seemed she had become anxious about her kitchen fire, which she had been ordered to keep up for elaborate reasons connected with the master's bath. There had been no fire in the lib'ry that day; it was late in February, but exceptionally mild for the time of year. She knew her master sometimes left his lib'ry locked, after that what happened the last house-parlourmaid, and serve people right for going where they had no business. She could not say that he had left it locked on this occasion; she only knew it was so now, and a light under the door, though he had gone away in broad daylight.
This room, in which Nettleton certainly kept his books, but also his carpenter's bench, test-tubes and retorts, and a rack of stoppered bottles, was the one at the back leading into the garden. It was meant for the drawing-room in this particular type of house, was of considerable size, but only divided from the kitchen by a jerry-built wall. Sarah could not say that she had heard a sound in the lib'ry—though she often did hear master, as she was setting there of a evening—since he went away without his tea. Of course she had not noticed the light under the door till after dark; not, in fact, till she came back from her entertainment. No; she had not thought of going into the room to draw the curtains. The less she went in there, without orders, the better, Sarah always thought. And yet, when she trotted in front of me through her kitchen and scullery, and so round to the French windows of the sealed chamber42, we found them closely shuttered, as they must have been left early in the afternoon, unless Nettleton had returned from his theatre and locked himself in.
It was with rather too vivid a recollection of the finding of Abercromby Royle, in a corresponding room in Mulcaster Park, that I went on to my office for an assortment43 of keys.
"Now, Sarah, you stand sentinel at the gate," I said on my return. "If Mr. Nettleton should come back while I'm busy, keep him in conversation while I slip out through your kitchen. I don't much like my job, Sarah, but neither do I think for a moment that there's anything wrong."
Yet there was a really bright layer of light under the door in which I now tried key after key, while the old body relieved me of her presence in order to keep a rather unwilling44 eye up the road.
At last a key fitted, turned, and the door was open for me to enter if I dared; and never shall I forget the scene that presented itself when I did.
The room was unoccupied. That was one thing. Neither the quick nor the dead lay in wait for me this time. A mere45 glance explored every corner; the scanty46 furniture was that of a joiner's shop and a laboratory in one; all the library to be seen was a couple of standing47 bookcases, not nearly full. But my eyes were rooted in horror to the floor. It also was bare, in the sense that there was no carpet, though a rug or two had been roughly folded and piled on the carpenter's bench. In their place, from skirting-board to skirting-board, the floor was ankle-deep in shavings. And among the shavings, like so many lighthouses in a yellow sea, burnt four or five fat ecclesiastical candles. They were not in candlesticks; at first I thought that they were mounted merely in their own grease. But Nettleton had run no such risk of one toppling before its time. Their innocent little flames were within an inch or so of the shavings—one was nearer still—but before I could probe the simple secret of the vile48 device, there was a rustle49 at my elbow, and there stood Sarah with her nodding plume.
"Well, I never did!" she exclaimed in a scandalised whisper. "Trying to set fire to the 'ouse—oh, fie!"
The grotesque50 inadequacy51 of these comments, taken in conjunction with her comparative composure, made me suspect for one wild moment that Sarah herself was an accomplice52 in the horrible design. She grasped it at a glance, much quicker than I had done, and it seemed to shock her very much less. I snatched up one of the candles—they were pinned in place with black-headed toilet pins—and I lit the gas with it before stalking through the shavings and setting a careful foot upon the rest in turn.
When I had extinguished the last of them, I turned to find my innocent old suspect snivelling on the threshold, and nodding her gay plume more emphatically than ever.
"'Ow awful!" she ejaculated in hushed tones. "Madness, I call it. Setting fire to a nice 'ouse like this! But there, he's been getting queer for a long time. I've often said so—to myself, you know, sir—I wouldn't say it to nobody else. That burgular business was the beginning."
"Well, Sarah," I said, "he's got so queer that we must think what's to be done, and think quickly, and do it double-quick! But I shall be obliged if you'll stick to your excellent rule of not talking to outsiders. We've had scenes enough at Witching Hill, without this getting about."
"Oh! I shan't say a word, sir," said Sarah, solemnly. "Even pore Mr. Nettleton, he shall never know from me how I found him out!"
I could hardly believe my ears. "Good God, woman! Do you dream of spending another night under this maniac's roof?"
"Why, of course I do, sir," cried old Sarah, bridling53. "Who's to look after him, if I go away and leave him, I should like to know? The very idea!"
"I'll see that he's looked after," said I, grimly, and went and bolted the front door, lest he should return before I had decided54 on my tactics.
In the few seconds that my back was turned, Sarah seemed to have acquired yet another new and novel point of view. I found the old heroine almost gloating over her master's dreadful handiwork.
"Well, there, I never did see anything so artful! Him at his theatre, to come home and look on at the fire, and me at my concert, safe and sound as if I was at church! Oh, he'd see to that, sir; he wouldn't've done it if he 'adn't've arranged to put me out of 'arm's way. That's Mr. Nettleton, every inch. Not that I say it was a right thing to do, sir, even with the 'ouse empty as it is. But what can you expect when a pore gentleman goes out of 'is 'ead? There's not many would care what 'appened to nobody else! But the artfulness of 'im: in another minute the whole 'ouse might've been blazing like a bonfire! Well, there, you do 'ear of such things, and now we know 'ow they 'appen."
To this extraordinary tune56, with many such variations, I was meanwhile making up my mind. The first necessity was to place the intrepid57 old fool really out of harm's way, and the next was to save the house if possible, but also and at all costs the good name of the Witching Hill Estate. We had had one suicide, and it had not been hushed up quite as successfully as some of us flattered ourselves at the time; one case of gross intemperance58, most scandalous while it lasted, and one gang of burglars actually established on the Estate. People were beginning to talk about us as it was; a case of attempted arson59, even if the incendiary were proved a criminal lunatic, might be the end of us as a flourishing concern. It is true that I had no stake in the Company whose servant I was; but one does not follow the dullest avocation60 for three years without taking a certain interest of another kind. At any rate I intended the secret of this locked room to remain as much a secret as I could keep it, and this gave me an immediate61 leverage62 over Sarah. Unless she took herself off before her master returned, I assured her I would have him sent, not to an asylum63, but to the felon's cell which I described as the proper place for him. I was not so sure in my own mind that I meant him to go to one or the other. But this was the bargain that I proposed to Sarah.
It came out that she had friends, in the shape of a labouring brother and his wife and family, whom I strongly suspected of having migrated on purpose to keep in touch with Sarah's kitchen, no further away than the Village. I succeeded in packing the old thing off in that direction, after making her lock her door at the top of the house. Previously64 I had removed the marks of my boot from the extinguished candles, and had left the locked room locked once more and in total darkness. Sarah and I quitted the house together before ten o'clock.
"I'll see that your master doesn't do himself any damage to-night," were my last words to her. "He'll think the candles have been blown out by a draught65 under the door—which really wouldn't catch them till they burnt quite low—and that you are asleep in your bed at the top of the house. You've left everything as though you were; and that alone, as you yourself have pointed66 out, is enough to guarantee his not trying it on again to-night. You see, the fire was timed to break out before you left your entertainment, as it would have done if you'd seen the programme through. Tell your people that Mr. Nettleton's away for the night, and you've gone and locked yourself out by mistake. Above all, don't come back, unless you want to give the whole show away; he'd know at once that you'd discovered everything, and even your life wouldn't be safe for another minute. Unless you promise, Sarah, I'll just wait for him myself—with a policeman!"
My reasoning was cogent67 enough for that simple mind; on the other hand, the word of such an obviously faithful soul was better than the bond of most; and altogether it was with considerable satisfaction that I heard old Sarah trot30 off into the night, and then myself ran every yard of the way back to the Delavoyes' house.
Up to this point, as I still think, I had done better than many might have done in my place. But for my promise to Uvo, and the fact that he was even then lying waiting for me to redeem68 it, I would not have rushed to a sick man with my tale. Yet I must say that I was thankful I had no other choice, as matters stood. And I will even own that I had formed no definite plans beyond the point at which Uvo, having heard all, was to give me the benefit of his sound judgment69 in any definite dilemma70.
To my sorrow he took the whole thing in an absolutely different way from any that I had anticipated. He took it terribly to heart. I had entirely71 forgotten the gist72 of our conversation before I left him; he had been thinking of nothing else. The thing that I had expected to thrill him to the marrow73, that would have done nothing else at any other time, simply harrowed him after what it seemed that I had said three-quarters of an hour before. Whatever I had said was overlaid in my mind, for the moment, by all that I had since seen and heard. But Uvo Delavoye might have been brooding over every syllable74.
"You said you wouldn't envy me," he cried, huskily, "if poor old Nettleton fell under the influence in his turn. You spoke75 as if it was my influence; it isn't, but it may be that I'm a sort of medium for its transmission! Sole agent, eh, Gilly? My God, that's an awful thought, but you gave it me just now and I sha'n't get shot of it in a hurry! None of these beastly things happened before I came here—I, the legitimate76 son of this infernal soil! I'm the lightning-conductor, I'm the middleman in every deal!"
"My dear Uvo, we've no time for all that," I said. He had started up in bed, painfully excited and distressed77, and I began to fear that I might have my work cut out to keep him there. "We agreed to differ about that long ago," I reminded him.
"It's only another way of putting what you said just now," he answered. "You said you did believe in my power of infecting another fellow with my ideas; you spoke of my responsibility if the other fellow put them into practice; and now he's done this hideous78 thing, had done it even when we were talking!"
"He hasn't done it yet, and I mean to know the reason if he ever does," said I, perhaps with rather more confidence than I really felt. I went on to outline my various notions of prevention. Uvo found no comfort in any of them.
"You can't trust him alone there for the night, after this, Gilly! He'll pull it off, Sarah or no Sarah, if you do. And if you send him either to prison or an asylum—but you won't be sending him! That's just it, Gilly. He'll have been sent by me!"
It was a case of the devil quoting scripture79, but I was obliged to tell Uvo, as though I had found it out for myself, that criminals and criminal lunatics were not made that way. Villain-worshippers did not go to such lengths unless they had the seeds of madness or of crime already in them. Uvo could not repudiate80 his own thesis, but he said that if that were so he had watered those seeds in a way that made him the worst of the two. There was no arguing with him, no taking his part against this ruthless self-criticism. He owned that in Nettleton he had found a sympathetic listener at last, that he had poured the whole virus of his ideas into those willing ears, and now here was the result. He threatened to get up and dress, and to stagger into the breach81 with me or instead of me. No need to recount our contest on that point. I prevailed by undertaking82 to do any mortal thing he liked, as long as he lay where he was with that quinsy.
"Then save the fellow somehow, Gilly," he cried, "only don't you go near Nettleton to-night! He obviously isn't safe; take the other risk instead. Since the old soul's out of the house, let him set fire to it if he likes; that's better than his murdering you on the spot. Then we must get him quietly examined, without letting him know that we know anything at all; and if a private attendant's all he wants, I swear I'm his man. It's about the least I can do for him, and it would give me a job in life at last!"
I did not smile at my dear old lad. I gave him the assurance his generosity83 required, and I meant to carry it out, subject to a plan of my own for watching Nettleton's house all night. But all my proposals suffered a proverbial fate within ten minutes, when I was about to pass the still dark house, and was suddenly confronted by Nettleton himself, leaning over the gate as though in wait for me.
And here I feel an almost apologetic sense of the inadequacy of Nettleton's personality to the part that he was playing that night; for there was nothing terrifying about him, nothing sinister84 or grotesque. The outward man was flabbily restless and ineffective, distinguished85 from the herd86 by no stronger features than a goatee beard and the light, quick, instantaneously responsive eye of an uncannily intelligent child. And no more than a child did I fear him; man to man, I could have twisted his arm out of its socket87, or felled him like an ox with one blow from mine. So I thought to myself, the very moment I stopped to speak to him; and perhaps, by so thinking, recognised some subtler quality, and confessed a subtle fear.
"I was looking for my old servant," said Nettleton, after a civil greeting. "She's not come in yet."
"Oh! hasn't she?" I answered, and I liked the ring of my own voice even less than his.
"Anyhow I can't make her hear, and the old fool's left her door locked," said Nettleton.
"That's a bad plan," said I, not to score a silly point, but simply because I had to say something with conviction. It was a mistake. Nettleton peered at me by the light from the nearest lamp-post.
"Have you seen anything of her?" he asked suspiciously.
"Well?" he cried.
"Well, she seemed nervous about something, and I believe she has gone to her own people for the night."
We stood without speaking for nearly a minute. A soft step came marching round the asphalt curve, throwing a bright beam now upon its indigo90 surface, and now over the fussy91 fronts of the red houses, as a child plays with a bit of looking-glass in the sun. "Good-night, officer," said Nettleton as the step and the light passed on. And I caught myself thinking what an improvement the asphalt was in Witching Hill Road, and how we did want it in Mulcaster Park.
"We can't talk out here, and I wish to explain about this wretched rent," said Nettleton. "Come in—or are you nervous too?"
I gave the gate a push, and he had to lead the way. I should not have been so anxious to see a real child in front of me. But Nettleton turned his back with an absence of hesitation92 that reassured me as to his own suspicions, and indeed none were to be gleaned93 from his unthoughtful countenance94 when he had lit up his hall without waiting for me to shut the front door. At that I did shut it, and accepted his invitation to smoke a pipe in his den1; for I thought I could see exactly how it was.
Nettleton, having found his candles out and his servant flown, having even guessed that I knew something and perhaps suspected more, was about to show me my mistake by taking me into the very room where the conflagration95 had been laid for lighting96. Of course I should see no signs of it, and would presently depart at peace with a tenant whose worst crime was his unpunctuality over the rent. Nothing could suit me better. It would show that the house really was safe for the night, while it would give time for due consideration, and for any amount of conferences with Uvo Delavoye.
So I congratulated myself as I followed Nettleton into the room that had been locked; of course it was unlocked now that he was at home, but it was still in perfect darkness as I myself had left it. The shavings rustled97 about our ankles; but no doubt he would think there was nothing suspicious about the shavings in themselves. Yet there was one difference, perceptible at once and in the dark. There was a smell that I thought might have been there before, but unnoticed by Sarah and me in our excitement. It was a strong smell, however, and it reminded me of toy steamers and of picnic teas.
"One moment, and I'll light the gas. We're getting in each other's way," said Nettleton. I moved instinctively98, in obedience to a light touch on the arm, and I heard him fumbling99 in the dark behind me. Then I let out the yell of a lifetime. I am not ashamed of it to this day. I had received a lifetime's dose of agony and amazement100.
My right foot had gone through the floor, gone into the jaws101 of some frightful102 monster that bit it to the bone above the ankle!
"Why, what's the matter?" cried Nettleton, but not from the part of the room where I had heard him fumbling, neither had he yet struck a light.
"You know, you blackguard!" I roared, with a few worse words than that. "I'll sort you for this, you see if I don't! Strike a light and let me loose this instant! It's taking my foot off, I tell you!"
"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed, striking a match at once. "Why, if you haven't gone and got into my best burglar-trap!"
He stood regarding me from a safe distance, with a sly pale smile, and the wax vesta held on high. I dropped my eyes to my tortured leg: a couple of boards had opened downward on hinges, and I could see the rusty103 teeth of an ancient man-trap embedded104 in my trousers, and my trousers already darkening as though with ink, where the pierced cloth pressed into quivering flesh and bone.
"It's the very same thing that happened to that last maid of mine," continued Nettleton. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd never seen a trap like that before. There aren't so many of 'em, even in museums. I picked this one up in Wardour Street; but it was my own idea to set it like that, and I went and quite forgot I'd left it ready for the night!"
That was the most obvious lie. He had set the thing somehow when he had pretended to be going to light the gas. But I did not tell him so. I did not open my mouth—in speech. I heard him out in a dumb horror; for he had stooped, and was lighting the candles one by one.
They were all where they had always been, except one that I must have kicked over on entering. Nettleton looked at that candle wistfully, and then at me, with a maniacally106 sly shake of the head; for it lay within my reach, but out of his; and it lay in a pool, beneath glistening107 shavings, for the whole room was swimming in the stuff that stank108.
The lighting of the candles—in my brain as well as on the floor—had one interesting effect. It stopped my excruciating pain for several moments. We stood looking at each other across the little low lights, like Gullivers towering over Lilliputian lamp-posts; that is, he stood, well out of arm's-length, while I leant with all my weight on one bent109 knee. Suddenly he gleamed and slapped his thigh110.
"Why, I do believe you thought I was going to set fire to the house!" he cried.
"I knew you were."
"No—but now?"
"Yes—now—I see it in your damned face!"
"Really, Mr. Gillon!" exclaimed Nettleton, with a shake of his cracked head. "I hadn't thought of such a thing. But I am in a difficulty. The gas is on your side of the room, just out of your reach. So is the control of the very unpleasant arrangement that's got you by the heel. Is it the ankle? Oh! I'm sorry; but it's no use your looking round. I only meant the trap-door control; the trap itself has to be taken out before you can set it again, and it's a job even with the proper lever. After what's happened and the language you've been using, Mr. Gillon, I'm afraid I don't care to trust myself within reach of your very powerful arms, either to light the gas or to meddle111 with my little monster."
"See here," I said through the teeth that I had set against my pain. "You're as mad as a hatter; that's the only excuse for you——"
"Thank you!" he snapped in. "Then it won't be the worse for me if I do give you a taste of hell before your death and—cremation!"
"I'm sorry for you," I went on, partly because I did not know that the insane call for more tact55 than the sane112, and partly because I was far from sure which this man was, but had resolved in any case to appeal with all my might to his self-interest. "I'm sorry for anybody who loses his wits, but sorriest for those who get them back again and have to pay for what they did when they weren't themselves. You go mad and commit a murder, but you're dead sane when they hang you! That seems to me about the toughest luck a man could have, but it looks very like being your own."
"Which of these four candles do you back to win?" inquired Nettleton, looking at them and not at me. "I put my money on the one nearest you, and I back this one here for a place."
"Two people know all about this, I may tell you," said I with more effect. Nettleton looked up. "Uvo Delavoye's one, and your old Sarah's the other."
"That be blowed for a yarn113!" he answered, after a singularly lucid114 interval115, if he was not lucid all the time. "I think I see you walking into a trap like this if you knew it was here!"
"All right! Then you deserve all you get for coming into another man's house——"
"When your servant came for me, and when we found out together that you were trying to burn it down?"
I was doing my best to reason with him now, but he was my master, sane or crazy. His cleverness was diabolical117. He took the new point out of my mouth. "Yes—for going away and standing by to see me do it!" he cried. "But that's not the only crow I've got to pluck with you, young fellow, and the other jacks-in-office behind you. Must pay your dirty extortionate rent, must I? Very last absolutely final application, was it? Going to put a man in possession, are you? Very nice—very good! You're in possession yourself, my lad, and I wish you joy of your job!"
He made for the door, hugging the wall with unnecessary caution, leaving a bookcase tottering118 as an emblem119 of his respect. But at the door he recovered both his courage and his humour.
"I always meant to give him a warm reception," he cried—"and by God you're going to get one!"
He opened the door—made me a grotesque salute—and it was all that I could do to keep a horrified120 face till he was gone. Never had I thought him mad enough to leave me before he was obliged. Yet the front door closed softly in its turn; now I was alone in the house, and could have clapped my hands with joy. I plunged121 them into my pockets instead, took out the small shot of my possessions, and fired them at the candles, even to my watch. But my hand had shaken. I was balanced on one leg and suffering torments122 from the other. The four flames burnt undimmed. Then I stripped to the waist, made four bundles of coat and waistcoat, shirt and vest. It was impossible to miss with these. As I flung the fourth, darkness descended123 like a kiss from heaven—and a loud laugh broke through the door.
Nettleton came creeping in along the wall, lit the candles one by one, and said he was indebted to me for doing exactly what he thought I would, and throwing away my own last means of meddling124 with his arrangements!
I went mad myself. I turned for an appreciable125 time into the madder man of the two; the railing and the raving126 were all on my side. They are not the least horrible thing that I remember. But I got through that stage, thank God! I like to think that one always must if there is time. There was time, and to spare, in my case. And there were those four calm candles waiting for me to behave myself, burning away as though they had never been out, one almost down to the shavings now, all four in their last half-inch, yet without another flicker127 between them of irresolution128 or remorse129, true ecclesiastical candles to the end!
I had spat130 at them till my mouth was like an ash-pit; but there they burnt, corpse131 candles for the living who was worse than dead, mocking me with their four charmed flames. But mockery was nothing to me now. Nettleton had killed the nerve that mockery touches. When I shouted he gave me leave to go on till I was black in the face; nobody would hear me through the front of the house, and perhaps I remembered the heavy shutters132 he had made for the French windows at the time of the burglar scare? He went round to see if he could hear me through them, and he came back rubbing his hands. But now I took no more notice of his taunts133. The last and cruellest was at the very flecks134 of blood on floor and shavings, flung far as froth in my demented efforts to tear either my foot from the trap or myself limb from limb.... And I had only sworn at him in my terrible preoccupation.
"No, that's where you're going, old cock!" he had answered. "And by the way, Gillon, when you get there I wish you'd ask for your friend Delavoye's old man of the soil; tell him his mantle's descended on good shoulders, will you? Tell him he's not the only pebble135 on the shores of Styx!"
That gave me something else to think about towards the end; but I had no longer any doubt about the man's inveterate136 insanity137. His pale eyes had rolled and lightened with unstable138 fires. There had been something inconsecutive even in his taunts. Consistent only in keeping out of my way, he had explained himself once when I was trying to picture the wrath139 to come upon him, in the felon's dock, in the condemned140 cell, on the drop itself. It was only fools who looked forward or back, said Edgar Nettleton.
And I, who have done a little of both all my life, like most ordinary mortals, as I look back to the hour which I had every reason to recognise as my last on earth, the one redeeming141 memory is that of the complete calm which did ultimately oust142 my undignified despair. It may have been in answer to the prayers I uttered in the end instead of curses; that is more than man can say. I only know that I was not merely calm at the last, but immensely interested in what Nettleton would have called the winning candle. It burnt down to the last thin disk of grease, shining like a worn florin in the jungle of shavings that seemed to lean upon the flame and yet did not catch. Then the wick fell over, the last quarter-inch of it, and I thought that candle had done its worst. Head and heart almost burst with hope. No! the agony was not to be prolonged to the next candle, or the next but one. The very end of the first wick had done the business in falling over. I had forgotten that strong smell and the pools now drying on the floor.
It began in a thin blue spoonful of flame, that scooped143 up the worn grease coin, grew into a saucerful of violet edged with orange, and in ten or twenty seconds had the whole jungle of shavings in a blaze. But it was a violet blaze. It was not like ordinary fire. It was more like the thin blue waves that washed over the rocks of white asbestos in so many of our tenants144' grates. And like a wave it passed over the surface of the floor, without eating into the wood.
There were no hangings in the room. The incendiary had relied entirely on his woodwork, and within a minute the floor was a sea of violet flames with red crests145. There was one island. I had stooped after Nettleton left me for the last time, and swept the shavings clear of me on all sides, garnering146 as many as possible into the hole in the floor where the trap had been set, and drying the floor within reach as well as I could with the bare hand. There was this island, perhaps the size of a hearth-rug; and I cannot say that I was ever any hotter than I should have been on such a rug before a roaring fire.
But this fire did not roar, though it surged over the rest of the floor in its blue billows and its red-hot crests, flowing under the carpenter's bench as the sea flows under a pier105. And the floor was not on fire; the fire was on the floor; and it was dying down! It was dying down before my starting eyes. Where the violet wave receded147, it left little more mark than the waves of the sea leave on the sands. It was only the fiery148 crests that lingered, and crackled, and turned black and my senses left me before I saw the reason, or more than the first blinding ray of hope!
It was not Uvo Delavoye, and it was not Sarah, who was standing over me when I awoke to the physical agony on which that of the mind had acted lately as a perfect anodyne149. It was the Delavoyes' doctor. Uvo had sent for him in the middle of the night, telling his poor people he felt much worse—having indeed a higher temperature—but being in reality only unbearably150 anxious about Nettleton and me. He wanted to know what Nettleton was doing. He wanted to be sure that I was safe in my bed. If his sister had not been nursing him, he would have made a third madman by crawling out to satisfy himself; as it was, he had sent for the doctor and told him all. And the doctor had not only come himself, but had knocked up his partner on the way, as they were both tenants on the Estate.
They might have been utter strangers to me that night, and for a little time after. Nor was it in accordance with their orders that I got to know things as soon as I did. That was where Uvo Delavoye did come in, and with him his mother's new cook, Sarah, in the bonnet with the nodding plume—just as she had been to see her pore old master.
"It's a beautiful mad-'ouse," said Sarah, with a moist twinkle in her funny old eye. "I only 'ope he won't want to burn it down!"
"I only hope you're keeping his effort to yourselves," said I. "It'll do the Estate no good, if it gets out, after all the other things that have been happening here."
"Trust us and the doctors!" said Uvo. "We're all in the same boat, Gilly, and your old Muskett's the only other soul who knows. By the way"—his glance had deepened—"both they and Sarah think it must have been coming on for a long time."
"I'm quite sure it 'as," said Sarah, earnestly. "I never did 'ear such things as Mr. Nettleton used to say to me, or to hisself, it didn't seem to matter who it was. But of course it wasn't for me to go about repeating them."
I saw Uvo's mouth twitching151, for some reason, and I changed the subject to the miraculous152 preservation153 of the house in Witching Hill Road. The doctors had assured me that the very floor, which my own eyes had beheld154 a sea of blazing spirit, was scarcely so much as charred155. And Uvo Delavoye confirmed the statement.
"It wasn't such a deep sea as you thought, Gilly. But it was the spirit that saved the show, and that's just where our poor friend overshot the mark. Spirit burns itself, not the thing you put it on. It's like the brandy and the Christmas pudding. Those shavings would have been far more dangerous by themselves, but drenched156 in methylated spirit they burnt like a wick, which of course hardly burns at all."
"My methylated!" Sarah chimed in. "He must have found it when he was looking for me all over my kitchens, pore gentleman, and me at my brother's all the time! I'd just took a gallon from Draytons' Stores, because you get it ever so much cheaper by the gallon, Mr. Hugo. I must remember to tell your ma."
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1
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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sanitation
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| n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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4
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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distrain
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| n.为抵债而扣押 | |
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beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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concocted
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| v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 )；调制；编造；捏造 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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12
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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13
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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auxiliary
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| adj.辅助的，备用的 | |
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precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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improvise
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| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
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eschewing
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的现在分词 ) | |
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oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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oration
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| n.演说，致辞，叙述法 | |
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retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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41
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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43
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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45
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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47
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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48
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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49
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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50
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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51
inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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52
accomplice
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| n.从犯，帮凶，同谋 | |
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53
bridling
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的现在分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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54
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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55
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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56
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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57
intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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intemperance
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| n.放纵 | |
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arson
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| n.纵火，放火 | |
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avocation
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| n.副业，业余爱好 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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leverage
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| n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量 | |
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63
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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66
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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68
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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69
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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71
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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74
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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75
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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76
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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77
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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78
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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80
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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81
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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82
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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83
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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84
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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85
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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86
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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87
socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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88
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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89
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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90
indigo
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| n.靛青，靛蓝 | |
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91
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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92
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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93
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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94
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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95
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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96
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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97
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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98
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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99
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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100
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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101
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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102
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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103
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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104
embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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105
pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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106
maniacally
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107
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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108
stank
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| n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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109
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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110
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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111
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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112
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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113
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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114
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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115
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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116
blustered
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| v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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117
diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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118
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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119
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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120
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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121
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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122
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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123
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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124
meddling
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 ) | |
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125
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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126
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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127
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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128
irresolution
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| n.不决断，优柔寡断，犹豫不定 | |
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129
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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130
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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131
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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132
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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133
taunts
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| 嘲弄的言语，嘲笑，奚落( taunt的名词复数 ) | |
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134
flecks
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| n.斑点，小点( fleck的名词复数 )；癍 | |
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135
pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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136
inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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137
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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138
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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139
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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140
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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141
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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142
oust
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| vt.剥夺，取代，驱逐 | |
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143
scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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144
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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145
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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146
garnering
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| v.收集并（通常）贮藏（某物），取得，获得( garner的现在分词 ) | |
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147
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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148
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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149
anodyne
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| n.解除痛苦的东西，止痛剂 | |
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150
unbearably
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| adv.不能忍受地，无法容忍地；慌 | |
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151
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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152
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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153
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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154
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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155
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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156
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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