The stakes offered in this affair consisted chiefly of diamonds and other personal bric-`-brac belonging to the newly married Lady Aveling. Lady Aveling, as the reader will remember, was the only daughter of Mrs Montague Pangs6, the well-known hostess. Her marriage to Lord Aveling was extensively advertised in the papers, the quantity and quality of her wedding presents, and the fact that the honeymoon7 was to be spent at Hammerpond. The announcement of these valuable prizes created a considerable sensation in the small circle in which Mr Teddy Watkins was the undisputed leader, and it was decided8 that, accompanied by a duly qualified9 assistant, he should visit the village of Hammerpond in his professional capacity.
Being a man of naturally retiring and modest disposition10, Mr Watkins determined11 to make this visit incog., and after due consideration of the conditions of his enterprise, he selected the role of a landscape artist and the unassuming surname of Smith. He preceded his assistant, who, it was decided, should join him only on the last afternoon of his stay at Hammerpond. Now the village of Hammerpond is perhaps one of the prettiest little corners in Sussex; many thatched houses still survive, the flint-built church with its tall spire12 nestling under the down is one of the finest and least restored in the county, and the beech-woods and bracken jungles through which the road runs to the great house are singularly rich in what the vulgar artist and photographer call “bits.” So that Mr Watkins, on his arrival with two virgin13 canvases, a brand-new easel, a paint-box, portmanteau, an ingenious little ladder made in sections (after the pattern of the late lamented14 master Charles Peace), crowbar, and wire coils, found himself welcomed with effusion and some curiosity by half-a-dozen other brethren of the brush. It rendered the disguise he had chosen unexpectedly plausible16, but it inflicted17 upon him a considerable amount of aesthetic18 conversation for which he was very imperfectly prepared.
“Have you exhibited very much?” said Young Porson in the bar-parlour of the “Coach and Horses,” where Mr Watkins was skilfully19 accumulating local information on the night of his arrival.
“Very little,” said Mr Watkins, “just a snack here and there.”
“Academy?”
“In course. And the Crystal Palace.”
“Did they hang you well?” said Porson.
“Don’t rot,” said Mr Watkins; “I don’t like it.”
“I mean did they put you in a good place?”
“Whadyer mean?” said Mr Watkins suspiciously. “One ‘ud think you were trying to make out I’d been put away.”
Porson had been brought up by aunts, and was a gentlemanly young man even for an artist; he did not know what being “put away” meant, but he thought it best to explain that he intended nothing of the sort. As the question of hanging seemed a sore point with Mr Watkins, he tried to divert the conversation a little.
“Do you do figure-work at all?”
“No, never had a head for figures,” said Mr Watkins, “my miss—Mrs Smith, I mean, does all that.”
“She paints too!” said Porson. “That’s rather jolly.”
“Very,” said Mr Watkins, though he really did not think so, and, feeling the conversation was drifting a little beyond his grasp, added, “I came down here to paint Hammerpond House by moonlight.”
“Really!” said Porson. “That’s rather a novel idea.”
“Yes,” said Mr Watkins, “I thought it rather a good notion when it occurred to me. I expect to begin to-morrow night.”
“What! You don’t mean to paint in the open, by night?”
“I do, though.”
“But how will you see your canvas?”
“Have a bloomin’ cop’s—” began Mr Watkins, rising too quickly to the question, and then realising this, bawled20 to Miss Durgan for another glass of beer. “I’m goin’ to have a thing called a dark lantern,” he said to Porson.
“But it’s about new moon now,” objected Porson. “There won’t be any moon.”
“There’ll be the house,” said Watkins, “at any rate. I’m goin’, you see, to paint the house first and the moon afterwards.”
“Oh!” said Porson, too staggered to continue the conversation.
“They doo say,” said old Durgan, the landlord, who had maintained a respectful silence during the technical conversation, “as there’s no less than three p’licemen from ‘Azelworth on dewty every night in the house—‘count of this Lady Aveling ‘n her jewellery. One’m won fower-and-six last night, off second footman—tossin’.”
Towards sunset next day Mr Watkins, virgin canvas, easel, and a very considerable case of other appliances in hand, strolled up the pleasant pathway through the beech-woods to Hammerpond Park, and pitched his apparatus21 in a strategic position commanding the house. Here he was observed by Mr Raphael Sant, who was returning across the park from a study of the chalk-pits. His curiosity having been fired by Porson’s account of the new arrival, he turned aside with the idea of discussing nocturnal art.
Mr Watkins was apparently22 unaware23 of his approach. A friendly conversation with Lady Hammerpond’s butler had just terminated, and that individual, surrounded by the three pet dogs which it was his duty to take for an airing after dinner had been served, was receding24 in the distance. Mr Watkins was mixing colour with an air of great industry. Sant, approaching more nearly, was surprised to see the colour in question was as harsh and brilliant an emerald green as it is possible to imagine. Having cultivated an extreme sensibility to colour from his earliest years, he drew the air in sharply between his teeth at the very first glimpse of this brew25. Mr Watkins turned round. He looked annoyed.
“What on earth are you going to do with that beastly green?” said Sant.
Mr Watkins realised that his zeal26 to appear busy in the eyes of the butler had evidently betrayed him into some technical error. He looked at Sant and hesitated.
“Pardon my rudeness,” said Sant; “but really, that green is altogether too amazing. It came as a shock. What do you mean to do with it?”
Mr Watkins was collecting his resources. Nothing could save the situation but decision. “If you come here interrupting my work,” he said, “I’m a-goin’ to paint your face with it.”
Sant retired27, for he was a humourist and a peaceful man. Going down the hill he met Porson and Wainwright. “Either that man is a genius or he is a dangerous lunatic,” said he. “Just go up and look at his green.” And he continued his way, his countenance28 brightened by a pleasant anticipation29 of a cheerful affray round an easel in the gloaming, and the shedding of much green paint.
But to Porson and Wainwright Mr Watkins was less aggressive, and explained that the green was intended to be the first coating of his picture. It was, he admitted in response to a remark, an absolutely new method, invented by himself. But subsequently he became more reticent30; he explained he was not going to tell every passer-by the secret of his own particular style, and added some scathing31 remarks upon the meanness of people “hanging about” to pick up such tricks of the masters as they could, which immediately relieved him of their company.
Twilight32 deepened, first one then another star appeared. The rooks amid the tall trees to the left of the house had long since lapsed33 into slumbrous silence, the house itself lost all the details of its architecture and became a dark grey outline, and then the windows of the salon34 shone out brilliantly, the conservatory35 was lighted up, and here and there a bedroom window burnt yellow. Had anyone approached the easel in the park it would have been found deserted36. One brief uncivil word in brilliant green sullied the purity of its canvas. Mr Watkins was busy in the shrubbery with his assistant, who had discreetly37 joined him from the carriage-drive.
Mr Watkins was inclined to be self-congratulatory upon the ingenious device by which he had carried all his apparatus boldly, and in the sight of all men, right up to the scene of operations. “That’s the dressing-room,” he said to his assistant, “and, as soon as the maid takes the candle away and goes down to supper, we’ll call in. My! how nice the house do look, to be sure, against the starlight, and with all its windows and lights! Swopme, Jim, I almost wish I was a painter-chap. Have you fixed38 that there wire across the path from the laundry?”
He cautiously approached the house until he stood below the dressing-room window, and began to put together his folding ladder. He was much too experienced a practitioner39 to feel any unusual excitement. Jim was reconnoitring the smoking-room. Suddenly, close beside Mr Watkins in the bushes, there was a violent crash and a stifled40 curse. Someone had tumbled over the wire which his assistant had just arranged. He heard feet running on the gravel41 pathway beyond. Mr Watkins, like all true artists, was a singularly shy man, and he incontinently dropped his folding ladder and began running circumspectly42 through the shrubbery. He was indistinctly aware of two people hot upon his heels, and he fancied that he distinguished43 the outline of his assistant in front of him. In another moment he had vaulted44 the low stone wall bounding the shrubbery, and was in the open park. Two thuds on the turf followed his own leap.
It was a close chase in the darkness through the trees. Mr Watkins was a loosely-built man and in good training, and he gained hand-over-hand upon the hoarsely45 panting figure in front. Neither spoke46, but, as Mr Watkins pulled up alongside, a qualm of awful doubt came over him. The other man turned his head at the same moment and gave an exclamation47 of surprise. “It’s not Jim,” thought Mr Watkins, and simultaneously48 the stranger flung himself, as it were, at Watkin’s knees, and they were forthwith grappling on the ground together. “Lend a hand, Bill,” cried the stranger as the third man came up. And Bill did—two hands in fact, and some accentuated49 feet. The fourth man, presumably Jim, had apparently turned aside and made off in a different direction. At any rate, he did not join the trio.
Mr Watkins’ memory of the incidents of the next two minutes is extremely vague. He has a dim recollection of having his thumb in the corner of the mouth of the first man, and feeling anxious about its safety, and for some seconds at least he held the head of the gentleman answering to the name of Bill, to the ground by the hair. He was also kicked in a great number of different places, apparently by a vast multitude of people. Then the gentleman who was not Bill got his knee below Mr Watkins’ diaphragm, and tried to curl him up upon it.
When his sensations became less entangled50 he was sitting upon the turf, and eight or ten men—the night was dark, and he was rather too confused to count—standing round him, apparently waiting for him to recover. He mournfully assumed that he was captured, and would probably have made some philosophical51 reflections on the fickleness52 of fortune, had not his internal sensations disinclined him for speech.
He noticed very quickly that his wrists were not handcuffed, and then a flask53 of brandy was put in his hands. This touched him a little—it was such unexpected kindness.
“He’s a-comin’ round,” said a voice which he fancied he recognised as belonging to the Hammerpond second footman.
“We’ve got ’em, sir, both of ’em,” said the Hammerpond butler, the man who had handed him the flask. “Thanks to you.”
Mr Teddy Watkins decided to remain fair dazed until he had a better grasp of the situation. He perceived that two of the black figures round him stood side-by-side with a dejected air, and there was something in the carriage of their shoulders that suggested to his experienced eye hands that were bound together. Two! In a flash he rose to his position. He emptied the little flask and staggered—obsequious hands assisting him—to his feet. There was a sympathetic murmur56.
“Shake hands, sir, shake hands,” said one of the figures near him. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am very greatly indebted to you. It was the jewels of my wife, Lady Aveling, which attracted these scoundrels to the house.”
“Very glad to make your lordship’s acquaintance,” said Teddy Watkins.
“That’s exactly how it happened,” said Mr Watkins.
“You should have waited till they got in at the window,” said Lord Aveling; “they would get it hotter if they had actually committed the burglary. And it was lucky for you two of the policemen were out by the gates, and followed up the three of you. I doubt if you could have secured the two of them—though it was confoundedly plucky58 of you, all the same.”
“Yes, I ought to have thought of all that,” said Mr Watkins; “but one can’t think of everythink.”
“Certainly not,” said Lord Aveling. “I am afraid they have mauled you a little,” he added. The party was now moving towards the house. “You walk rather lame15. May I offer you my arm?”
And instead of entering Hammerpond House by the dressing-room window, Mr Watkins entered it—slightly intoxicated59, and inclined now to cheerfulness again—on the arm of a real live peer, and by the front door. “This,” thought Mr Watkins, “is burgling in style!” The “scoundrels,” seen by the gaslight, proved to be mere60 local amateurs unknown to Mr Watkins, and they were taken down into the pantry and there watched over by the three policemen, two gamekeepers with loaded guns, the butler, an ostler, and a carman, until the dawn allowed of their removal to Hazelhurst police-station. Mr Watkins was made much of in the saloon. They devoted61 a sofa to him, and would not hear of a return to the village that night. Lady Aveling was sure he was brilliantly original, and said her idea of Turner was just such another rough, half-inebriated, deep-eyed, brave, and clever man. Some one brought up a remarkable62 little folding-ladder that had been picked up in the shrubbery, and showed him how it was put together. They also described how wires had been found in the shrubbery, evidently placed there to trip-up unwary pursuers. It was lucky he had escaped these snares63. And they showed him the jewels.
Mr Watkins had the sense not to talk too much, and in any conversational64 difficulty fell back on his internal pains. At last he was seized with stiffness in the back, and yawning. Everyone suddenly awoke to the fact that it was a shame to keep him talking after his affray, so he retired early to his room, the little red room next to Lord Aveling’s suite65.
The dawn found a deserted easel bearing a canvas with a green inscription66, in the Hammerpond Park, and it found Hammerpond House in commotion67. But if the dawn found Mr Teddy Watkins and the Aveling diamonds, it did not communicate the information to the police.
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1
moot
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| v.提出；adj.未决议的；n.大会；辩论会 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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14
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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16
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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20
bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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21
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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22
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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23
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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24
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；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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25
brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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30
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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31
scathing
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| adj.（言词、文章）严厉的，尖刻的；不留情的adv.严厉地，尖刻地v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的现在分词) | |
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32
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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33
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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practitioner
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| n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者 | |
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40
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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41
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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42
circumspectly
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| adv.慎重地，留心地 | |
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43
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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44
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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46
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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47
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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48
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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49
accentuated
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| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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50
entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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52
fickleness
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| n.易变；无常；浮躁；变化无常 | |
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53
flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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54
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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55
villains
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| n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼 | |
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56
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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57
rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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58
plucky
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| adj.勇敢的 | |
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59
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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60
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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61
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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62
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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63
snares
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| n.陷阱( snare的名词复数 )；圈套；诱人遭受失败（丢脸、损失等）的东西；诱惑物v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的第三人称单数 ) | |
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64
conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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65
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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66
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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67
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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