The Beetle: A Mystery

by Richard Marsh

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  WHAT THE TIDINGS WERE

  Three in a hansom cab is not, under all circumstances, the mostcomfortable method of conveyance,--when one of the trio happens to beSydney Atherton in one of his 'moments of excitement' it is distinctlythe opposite; as, on that occasion, Mr Lessingham and I both quicklyfound. Sometimes he sat on my knees, sometimes on Lessingham's, andfrequently, when he unexpectedly stood up, and all but precipitatedhimself on to the horse's back, on nobody's. In the eagerness of hisgesticulations, first he knocked off my hat, then he knocked offLessingham's, then his own, then all three together,--once, his own hatrolling into the mud, he sprang into the road, without previously goingthrough the empty form of advising the driver of his intention, to pickit up. When he turned to speak to Lessingham, he thrust his elbow intomy eye; and when he turned to speak to me, he thrust it intoLessingham's. Never, for one solitary instant, was he at rest, oreither of us at ease. The wonder is that the gymnastics in which heincessantly indulged did not sufficiently attract public notice toinduce a policeman to put at least a momentary period to our progress.Had speed not been of primary importance I should have insisted on thetransference of the expedition to the somewhat wider limits of afour-wheeler.

  His elucidation of the causes of his agitation was apparently morecomprehensible to Lessingham than it was to me. I had to piece this andthat together under considerable difficulties. By degrees I did arriveat something like a clear notion of what had actually taken place.

  He commenced by addressing Lessingham,--and thrusting his elbow into myeye.

  'Did Marjorie tell you about the fellow she found in the street?' Upwent his arm to force the trap-door open overhead,--and off went myhat. 'Now then, William Henry!--let her go!--if you kill the horse I'llbuy you another!'

  We were already going much faster than, legally, we ought to havedone,--but that, seemingly to him was not a matter of the slightestconsequence. Lessingham replied to his inquiry.

  'She did not.'

  'You know the fellow I saw coming out of your drawing-room window?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, Marjorie found him the morning after in front of herbreakfast-room window--in the middle of the street. Seems he had beenwandering about all night, unclothed,--in the rain and the mud, and allthe rest of it,--in a condition of hypnotic trance.'

  'Who is the----gentleman you are alluding to?'

  'Says his name's Holt, Robert Holt.'

  'Holt?--Is he an Englishman?'

  'Very much so,--City quill-driver out of a shop,--stony brokeabsolutely! Got the chuck from the casual ward,--wouldn't let himin,--house full, and that sort of thing,--poor devil! Pretty passes youpoliticians bring men to!'

  'Are you sure?'

  'Of what?'

  'Are you sure that this man, Robert Holt, is the same person whom, asyou put it, you saw coming out of my drawing-room window?'

  'Sure!--Of course I'm sure!--Think I didn't recognise him?--Besides,there was the man's own tale,--owned to it himself,--besides all therest, which sent one rushing Fulham way.'

  'You must remember, Mr Atherton, that I am wholly in the dark as towhat has happened. What has the man, Holt, to do with the errand onwhich we are bound?'

  'Am I not coming to it? If you would let me tell the tale in my own wayI should get there in less than no time, but you will keep on cuttingin,--how the deuce do you suppose Champnell is to make head or tail ofthe business if you will persist in interrupting?--Marjorie took thebeggar in,--he told his tale to her,--she sent for me--that was justnow; caught me on the steps after I had been lunching with DoraGrayling. Holt re-dished his yarn--I smelt a rat--saw that a connectionpossibly existed between the thief who'd been playing confoundedconjuring tricks off on to me and this interesting party down Fulhamway--'

  'What party down Fulham way?'

  'This friend of Holt's--am I not telling you? There you are, yousee,--won't let me finish! When Holt slipped through the window--whichis the most sensible thing he seems to have done; if I'd been in hisshoes I'd have slipped through forty windows!--dusky coloured charmercaught him on the hop,--doctored him--sent him out to commit burglaryby deputy. I said to Holt, "Show us this agreeable little crib, youngman." Holt was game--then Marjorie chipped in--she wanted to go and seeit too. I said, "You'll be sorry if you do,"--that settled it! Afterthat she'd have gone if she'd died,--I never did have a persuasive waywith women. So off we toddled, Marjorie, Holt, and I, in agrowler,--spotted the crib in less than no time,--invited ourselves inby the kitchen window--house seemed empty. Presently Holt becamehypnotised before my eyes,--the best established case of hypnotism bysuggestion I ever yet encountered--started off on a pilgrimage of one.Like an idiot I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me--'

  'Alone?'

  'Alone!--Am I not telling you?--Great Scott, Lessingham, in the Houseof Commons they must be hazy to think you smart! I said, "I'll send thefirst sane soul I meet to keep you company." As luck would have it, Inever met one,--only kids, and a baker, who wouldn't leave his cart, ortake it with him either. I'd covered pretty nearly two miles before Icame across a peeler,--and when I did the man was cracked--and hethought me mad, or drunk, or both. By the time I'd got myself withinnodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police in theexecution of their duty, without inducing him to move a single one ofhis twenty-four-inch feet, Holt was out of sight. So, since all mypains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing leftfor me but to scurry back to Marjorie,--so I scurried, and I found thehouse empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.'

  'But, I don't quite follow--'

  Atherton impetuously declined to allow Mr Lessingham to conclude.

  'Of course you don't quite follow, and you'll follow still less if youwill keep getting in front. I went upstairs and downstairs, inside andout--shouted myself hoarse as a crow--nothing was to be seen ofMarjorie,--or heard; until, as I was coming down the stairs for aboutthe five-and-fiftieth time, I stepped on something hard which was lyingin the passage. I picked it up,--it was a ring; this ring. Its shape isnot just what it was,--I'm not as light as gossamer, especially when Icome jumping downstairs six at a time,--but what's left of it is here.'

  Sydney held something in front of him. Mr Lessingham wriggled to oneside to enable him to see. Then he made a snatch at it.

  'It's mine!'

  Sydney dodged it out of his reach.

  'What do you mean, it's yours?'

  'It's the ring I gave Marjorie for an engagement ring. Give it me, youhound!--unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab.'

  With complete disregard of the limitations of space,--or of mycomfort,--Lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. Then gripping Sydneyby the wrist, he seized the gaud,--Sydney yielding it just in time tosave himself from being precipitated into the street. Ravished of histreasure, Sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher with something like aglance of admiration.

  'Hang me, Lessingham, if I don't believe there is some warm blood inthose fishlike veins of yours. Please the piper, I'll live to fight youafter all,--with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman should do.'

  Lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him whatever. He was surveyingthe ring, which Sydney had trampled out of shape, with looks of thedeepest concern.

  'Marjorie's ring!--The one I gave her! Something serious must havehappened to her before she would have dropped my ring, and left itlying where it fell.'

  Atherton went on.

  'That's it!--What has happened to her!--I'll be dashed if I know!--Whenit was clear that there she wasn't, I tore off to find out where shewas. Came across old Lindon,--he knew nothing;--I rather fancy Istartled him in the middle of Pall Mall, when I left he stared after melike one possessed, and his hat was lying in the gutter. Wenthome,--she wasn't there. Asked Dora Grayling,--she'd seen nothing ofher. No one had seen anything of her,--she had vanished into air. ThenI said to myself, "You're a first-class idiot, on my honour! Whileyou're looking for her, like a lost sheep, the bett
ing is that thegirl's in Holt's friend's house the whole jolly time. When you werethere, the chances are that she'd just stepped out for a stroll, andthat now she's back again, and wondering where on earth you've gone!"So I made up my mind that I'd fly back and see,--because the idea ofher standing on the front doorstep looking for me, while I was goingoff my nut looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense ofhumour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of wisdomto pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be backed tofind a needle in any amount of hay-stacks it is the greatAugustus.--That horse has moved itself after all, because here we are.Now, cabman, don't go driving further on,--you'll have to put a girdleround the earth if you do; because you'll have to reach this pointagain before you get your fare.--This is the magician's house!'