THE TRAVELER'S STORY OF A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED.
Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to bestaying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then,and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city ofour sojourn. One night we were idling about the neighborhood ofthe Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betakeourselves. My friend proposed a visit to Frascati's; but his suggestionwas not to my taste. I knew Frascati's, as the French saying is, byheart; had lost and won plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely foramusement's sake, until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughlytired, in fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a socialanomaly as a respectable gambling-house. "For Heaven's sake," said Ito my friend, "let us go somewhere where we can see a little genuine,blackguard, poverty-stricken gaming with no false gingerbread glitterthrown over it all. Let us get away from fashionable Frascati's, to ahouse where they don't mind letting in a man with a ragged coat, or aman with no coat, ragged or otherwise." "Very well," said my friend, "weneedn't go out of the Palais Royal to find the sort of company you want.Here's the place just before us; as blackguard a place, by all report,as you could possibly wish to see." In another minute we arrived at thedoor, and entered the house, the back of which you have drawn in yoursketch.
When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with thedoorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did notfind many people assembled there. But, few as the men were who lookedup at us on our entrance, they were all types--lamentably true types--oftheir respective classes.
We had come to see blackguards; but these men were somethingworse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in allblackguardism--here there was nothing but tragedy--mute, weird tragedy.The quiet in the room was horrible. The thin, haggard, long-haired youngman, whose sunken eyes fiercely watched the turning up of the cards,never spoke; the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, who pricked his pieceof pasteboard perseveringly, to register how often black won, and howoften red--never spoke; the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vultureeyes and the darned great-coat, who had lost his last _sou,_ and stilllooked on desperately, after he could play no longer--never spoke. Eventhe voice of the croupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled andthickened in the atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place tolaugh, but the spectacle before me was something to weep over. I soonfound it necessary to take refuge in excitement from the depressionof spirits which was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately I sought thenearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play. Stillmore unfortunately, as the event will show, I won--won prodigiously;won incredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the tablecrowded round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitiouseyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going tobreak the bank.
The game was _Rouge et Noir_. I had played at it in every city inEurope, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory ofChances--that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in thestrict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-whole from thecorroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idle amusement. I neverresorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was to wantmoney. I never practiced it so incessantly as to lose more than I couldafford, or to gain more than I could coolly pocket without being thrownoff my balance by my good luck. In short, I had hithertofrequented gambling-tables--just as I frequented ball-rooms andopera-houses--because they amused me, and because I had nothing betterto do with my leisure hours.
But on this occasion it was very different--now, for the first time inmy life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My successfirst bewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning of the word,intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is nevertheless true,that I only lost when I attempted to estimate chances, and playedaccording to previous calculation. If I left everything to luck, andstaked without any care or consideration, I was sure to win--to win inthe face of every recognized probability in favor of the bank. At firstsome of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my color;but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk.One after another they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on atmy game.
Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. Theexcitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interruptedby a deep-muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in differentlanguages, every time the gold was shoveled across to my side of thetable--even the imperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor ina (French) fury of astonishment at my success. But one man presentpreserved his self-possession, and that man was my friend. He came to myside, and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place, satisfiedwith what I had already gained. I must do him the justice to say that herepeated his warnings and entreaties several times, and only left meand went away after I had rejected his advice (I was to all intents andpurposes gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for himto address me again that night.
Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried: "Permit me,my dear sir--permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleonswhich you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir! I pledge you my word ofhonor, as an old soldier, in the course of my long experience in thissort of thing, I never saw such luck as yours--never! Go on, sir--_Sacremille bombes!_ Go on boldly, and break the bank!"
I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveteratecivility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout.
If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, personally, asbeing rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling,bloodshot eyes, mangy mustaches, and a broken nose. His voice betrayed abarrack-room intonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiest pairof hands I ever saw--even in France. These little personal peculiaritiesexercised, however, no repelling influence on me. In the mad excitement,the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to "fraternize" withanybody who encouraged me in my game. I accepted the old soldier'soffered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and swore he was thehonestest fellow in the world--the most glorious relic of the Grand Armythat I had ever met with. "Go on!" cried my military friend, snappinghis fingers in ecstasy--"Go on, and win! Break the bank--_Milletonnerres!_ my gallant English comrade, break the bank!"
And I _did_ go on--went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of anhour the croupier called out, "Gentlemen, the bank has discontinued forto-night." All the notes, and all the gold in that "bank," now lay ina heap under my hands; the whole floating capital of the gambling-housewas waiting to pour into my pockets!
"Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir," said theold soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. "Tieit up, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; yourwinnings are too heavy for any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed.There! that's it--shovel them in, notes and all! _Credie!_ what luck!Stop! another napoleon on the floor! _Ah! sacre petit polisson deNapoleon!_ have I found thee at last? Now then, sir--two tight doubleknots each way with your honorable permission, and the money's safe.Feel it! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon-ball--_Ah,bah!_ if they had only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz--_nomd'une pipe!_ if they only had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, asan ex-brave of the French army, what remains for me to do? I ask what?Simply this: to entreat my valued English friend to drink a bottle ofChampagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune in foaming gobletsbefore we part!"
Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by all means!An English cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! Another Englishcheer for the goddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
"Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veinscirculates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? _Ah, bah!_--thebottle is empty! Never mind! _Vive le vin!_ I, the old soldier, orderanother bottle, and half a pound of bonbons with it!"
"No,
no, ex-brave; never--ancient grenadier! _Your_ bottle last time;_my_ bottle this. Behold it! Toast away! The French Army! the greatNapoleon! the present company! the croupier! the honest croupier's wifeand daughters--if he has any! the Ladies generally! everybody in theworld!"
By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as if Ihad been drinking liquid fire--my brain seemed all aflame. No excess inwine had ever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the resultof a stimulant acting upon my system when I was in a highly excitedstate? Was my stomach in a particularly disordered condition? Or was theChampagne amazingly strong?
"Ex-brave of the French Army!" cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration,"_I_ am on fire! how are _you?_ You have set me on fire! Do you hear, myhero of Austerlitz? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne to put theflame out!"
The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until Iexpected to see them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirtyforefinger by the side of his broken nose; solemnly ejaculated "Coffee!"and immediately ran off into an inner room.
The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a magicaleffect on the rest of the company present. With one accord they all roseto depart. Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication; butfinding that my new friend was benevolently bent on preventing me fromgetting dead drunk, had now abandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly onmy winnings. Whatever their motive might be, at any rate they went awayin a body. When the old soldier returned, and sat down again opposite tome at the table, we had the room to ourselves. I could see the croupier,in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eating his supper insolitude. The silence was now deeper than ever.
A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex-brave." He assumed aportentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech wasornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by noapostrophes or exclamations.
"Listen, my dear sir," said he, in mysteriously confidentialtones--"listen to an old soldier's advice. I have been to the mistressof the house (a very charming woman, with a genius for cookery!) toimpress on her the necessity of making us some particularly strong andgood coffee. You must drink this coffee in order to get rid of yourlittle amiable exaltation of spirits before you think of going home--you_must,_ my good and gracious friend! With all that money to take hometo-night, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits about you.You are known to be a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemenpresent to-night, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy andexcellent fellows; but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they havetheir amiable weaknesses. Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you understandme! Now, this is what you must do--send for a cabriolet when you feelquite well again--draw up all the windows when you get into it--andtell the driver to take you home only through the large and well-lightedthoroughfares. Do this; and you and your money will be safe. Do this;and to-morrow you will thank an old soldier for giving you a word ofhonest advice."
Just as the ex-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones, thecoffee came in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive friend handedme one of the cups with a bow. I was parched with thirst, and drank itoff at a draught. Almost instantly afterwards, I was seized with a fitof giddiness, and felt more completely intoxicated than ever. Theroom whirled round and round furiously; the old soldier seemed tobe regularly bobbing up and down before me like the piston of asteam-engine. I was half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; afeeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rosefrom my chair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammeredout that I felt dreadfully unwell--so unwell that I did not know how Iwas to get home.
"My dear friend," answered the old soldier--and even his voice seemed tobe bobbing up and down as he spoke--"my dear friend, it would be madnessto go home in _your_ state; you would be sure to lose your money; youmight be robbed and murdered with the greatest ease. _I_ am going tosleep here; do _you_ sleep here, too--they make up capital beds in thishouse--take one; sleep off the effects of the wine, and go home safelywith your winnings to-morrow--to-morrow, in broad daylight."
I had but two ideas left: one, that I must never let go hold of myhandkerchief full of money; the other, that I must lie down somewhereimmediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So I agreed to theproposal about the bed, and took the offered arm of the old soldier,carrying my money with my disengaged hand. Preceded by the croupier, wepassed along some passages and up a flight of stairs into the bedroomwhich I was to occupy. The ex-brave shook me warmly by the hand,proposed that we should breakfast together, and then, followed by thecroupier, left me for the night.
I ran to the wash-hand stand; drank some of the water in my jug; pouredthe rest out, and plunged my face into it; then sat down in a chair andtried to compose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs,from the fetid atmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of theapartment I now occupied, the almost equally refreshing change formy eyes, from the glaring gaslights of the "salon" to the dim, quietflicker of one bedroom-candle, aided wonderfully the restorative effectsof cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little likea reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk of sleepingall night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still greater risk oftrying to get out after the house was closed, and of going home alone atnight through the streets of Paris with a large sum of money about me.I had slept in worse places than this on my travels; so I determinedto lock, bolt, and barricade my door, and take my chance till the nextmorning.
Accordingly, I secured myself against all intrusion; looked under thebed, and into the cupboard; tried the fastening of the window; and then,satisfied that I had taken every proper precaution, pulled off my upperclothing, put my light, which was a dim one, on the hearth among afeathery litter of wood-ashes, and got into bed, with the handkerchieffull of money under my pillow.
I soon felt not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could noteven close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nervein my body trembled--every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturallysharpened. I tossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, andperseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to nopurpose. Now I thrust my arms over the clothes; now I poked them underthe clothes; now I violently shot my legs straight out down to thebottom of the bed; now I convulsively coiled them up as near my chinas they would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changed it tothe cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; nowI fiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against theboard of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain;I groaned with vexation as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night.
What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out somemethod of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was in the conditionto imagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my brain with forebodings ofevery possible and impossible danger; in short, to pass the night insuffering all conceivable varieties of nervous terror.
I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room--which wasbrightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window--tosee if it contained any pictures or ornaments that I could at allclearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, aremembrance of Le Maistre's delightful little book, "Voyage autour de maChambre," occurred to me. I resolved to imitate the French author,and find occupation and amusement enough to relieve the tedium of mywakefulness, by making a mental inventory of every article of furnitureI could see, and by following up to their sources the multitude ofassociations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand may bemade to call forth.
In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I foundit much easier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, andthereupon soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's fancifultrack--or, indeed, of thinking at all. I looked about the room at thedifferent articles of furniture, and did nothing more.
There wa
s, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all thingsin the world to meet with in Paris--yes, a thorough clumsy Britishfour-poster, with the regular top lined with chintz--the regular fringedvalance all round--the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, whichI remembered having mechanically drawn back against the posts withoutparticularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Thenthere was the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I hadspilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly andmore slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs, with my coat,waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair coveredwith dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over theback. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and atawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for thetop. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass,and a very large pincushion. Then the window--an unusually large window.Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. Itwas a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume oftowering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shadinghis eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward--it might be at sometall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had theappearance of thoroughly deserving it.
This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward too--atthe top of the bed. It was a gloomy and not an interesting object, andI looked back at the picture. I counted the feathers in the man'shat--they stood out in relief--three white, two green. I observed thecrown of his hat, which was of conical shape, according to the fashionsupposed to have been favored by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he waslooking up at. It couldn't be at the stars; such a desperado was neitherastrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the high gallows, and he wasgoing to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into possessionof his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted the feathersagain--three white, two green.
While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectualemployment, my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlightshining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlight night inEngland--the night after a picnic party in a Welsh valley. Everyincident of the drive homeward, through lovely scenery, which themoonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to my remembrance, though Ihad never given the picnic a thought for years; though, if I had _tried_to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothing ofthat scene long past. Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tellus we are immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently thanmemory? Here was I, in a strange house of the most suspicious character,in a situation of uncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem tomake the cool exercise of my recollection almost out of the question;nevertheless, remembering, quite involuntarily, places, people,conversations, minute circumstances of every kind, which I had thoughtforgotten forever; which I could not possibly have recalled at will,even under the most favorable auspices. And what cause had produced ina moment the whole of this strange, complicated, mysterious effect?Nothing but some rays of moonlight shining in at my bedroom window.
I was still thinking of the picnic--of our merriment on the drivehome--of the sentimental young lady who _would_ quote "Childe Harold"because it was moonlight. I was absorbed by these past scenes and pastamusements, when, in an instant, the thread on which my memories hungsnapped asunder; my attention immediately came back to present thingsmore vividly than ever, and I found myself, I neither knew why norwherefore, looking hard at the picture again.
Looking for what?
Good God! the man had pulled his hat down on his brows! No! the hatitself was gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the feathers--threewhite, two green? Not there! In place of the hat and feathers, whatdusky object was it that now hid his forehead, his eyes, his shadinghand?
Was the bed moving?
I turned on my back and looked up. Was I mad? drunk? dreaming? giddyagain? or was the top of the bed really moving down--sinking slowly,regularly, silently, horribly, right down throughout the whole of itslength and breadth--right down upon me, as I lay underneath?
My blood seemed to stand still. A deadly paralysing coldness stole allover me as I turned my head round on the pillow and determined to testwhether the bed-top was really moving or not, by keeping my eye on theman in the picture.
The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black, frowzyoutline of the valance above me was within an inch of being parallelwith his waist. I still looked breathlessly. And steadily andslowly--very slowly--I saw the figure, and the line of frame below thefigure, vanish, as the valance moved down before it.
I am, constitutionally, anything but timid. I have been on more than oneoccasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession foran instant; but when the conviction first settled on my mind that thebed-top was really moving, was steadily and continuously sinking downupon me, I looked up shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath thehideous machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer tosuffocate me where I lay.
I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless. The candle, fullyspent, went out; but the moonlight still brightened the room. Down anddown, without pausing and without sounding, came the bed-top, and stillmy panic-terror seemed to bind me faster and faster to the mattress onwhich I lay--down and down it sank, till the dusty odor from the liningof the canopy came stealing into my nostrils.
At that final moment the instinct of self-preservation startled me outof my trance, and I moved at last. There was just room for me to rollmyself sidewise off the bed. As I dropped noiselessly to the floor, theedge of the murderous canopy touched me on the shoulder.
Without stopping to draw my breath, without wiping the cold sweatfrom my face, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bed-top. I wasliterally spellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, Icould not have turned round; if a means of escape had been miraculouslyprovided for me, I could not have moved to take advantage of it. Thewhole life in me was, at that moment, concentrated in my eyes.
It descended--the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, camedown--down--close down; so close that there was not room now to squeezemy finger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at the sides, anddiscovered that what had appeared to me from beneath to be the ordinarylight canopy of a four-post bed was in reality a thick, broad mattress,the substance of which was concealed by the valance and its fringe. Ilooked up and saw the four posts rising hideously bare. In the middleof the bed-top was a huge wooden screw that had evidently worked it downthrough a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinary presses are worked downon the substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus movedwithout making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as it camedown; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid adead and awful silence I beheld before me--in the nineteenth century,and in the civilized capital of France--such a machine for secretmurder by suffocation as might have existed in the worst days of theInquisition, in the lonely inns among the Hartz Mountains, in themysterious tribunals of Westphalia! Still, as I looked on it, I couldnot move, I could hardly breathe, but I began to recover the power ofthinking, and in a moment I discovered the murderous conspiracy framedagainst me in all its horror.
My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had beensaved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic.How I had chafed and fretted at the fever fit which had preserved mylife by keeping me awake! How recklessly I had confided myself to thetwo wretches who had led me into this room, determined, for the sakeof my winnings, to kill me in my sleep by the surest and most horriblecontrivance for secretly accomplishing my destruction! How many men,winners like me, had slept, as I had proposed to sleep, in that bed, andhad never been seen or heard of more! I shuddered at the bare idea ofit.
But, ere long, all thought was again suspended by the sight of themurderous canopy moving once more. After it had remained on the bed--asnearly as I could guess--about ten minut
es, it began to move up again.The villains who worked it from above evidently believed that theirpurpose was now accomplished. Slowly and silently, as it had descended,that horrible bed-top rose towards its former place. When it reachedthe upper extremities of the four posts, it reached the ceiling, too.Neither hole nor screw could be seen; the bed became in appearance anordinary bed again--the canopy an ordinary canopy--even to the mostsuspicious eyes.
Now, for the first time, I was able to move--to rise from my knees--todress myself in my upper clothing--and to consider of how I shouldescape. If I betrayed by the smallest noise that the attempt tosuffocate me had failed, I was certain to be murdered. Had I made anynoise already? I listened intently, looking towards the door.
No! no footsteps in the passage outside--no sound of a tread, light orheavy, in the room above--absolute silence everywhere. Besides lockingand bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden chest against it, whichI had found under the bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran cold asI thought of what its contents _might_ be!) without making somedisturbance was impossible; and, moreover, to think of escaping throughthe house, now barred up for the night, was sheer insanity. Only onechance was left me--the window. I stole to it on tiptoe.
My bedroom was on the first floor, above an _entresol,_ and looked intoa back street, which you have sketched in your view. I raised my handto open the window, knowing that on that action hung, by the meresthair-breadth, my chance of safety. They keep vigilant watch in a Houseof Murder. If any part of the frame cracked, if the hinge creaked, I wasa lost man! It must have occupied me at least five minutes, reckoningby time--five _hours,_ reckoning by suspense--to open that window. Isucceeded in doing it silently--in doing it with all the dexterity ofa house-breaker--and then looked down into the street. To leap thedistance beneath me would be almost certain destruction! Next, Ilooked round at the sides of the house. Down the left side ran a thickwater-pipe which you have drawn--it passed close by the outer edge ofthe window. The moment I saw the pipe I knew I was saved. My breath cameand went freely for the first time since I had seen the canopy of thebed moving down upon me!
To some men the means of escape which I had discovered might have seemeddifficult and dangerous enough--to _me_ the prospect of slipping downthe pipe into the street did not suggest even a thought of peril. I hadalways been accustomed, by the practice of gymnastics, to keep up myschool-boy powers as a daring and expert climber; and knew that my head,hands, and feet would serve me faithfully in any hazards of ascentor descent. I had already got one leg over the window-sill, when Iremembered the handkerchief filled with money under my pillow. Icould well have afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefullydetermined that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss theirplunder as well as their victim. So I went back to the bed and tied theheavy handkerchief at my back by my cravat.
Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place, Ithought I heard a sound of breathing outside the door. The chill feelingof horror ran through me again as I listened. No! dead silence stillin the passage--I had only heard the night air blowing softly into theroom. The next moment I was on the window-sill--and the next I had afirm grip on the water-pipe with my hands and knees.
I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should,and immediately set off at the top of my speed to a branch "Prefecture"of Police, which I knew was situated in the immediate neighborhood. A"Sub-prefect," and several picked men among his subordinates, happenedto be up, maturing, I believe, some scheme for discovering theperpetrator of a mysterious murder which all Paris was talking of justthen. When I began my story, in a breathless hurry and in very badFrench, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me of being a drunkenEnglishman who had robbed somebody; but he soon altered his opinion asI went on, and before I had anything like concluded, he shoved allthe papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me withanother (for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers, desired hisexpert followers to get ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doorsand ripping up brick flooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly andfamiliar manner possible, to lead me with him out of the house. I willventure to say that when the Sub-prefect was a little boy, and was takenfor the first time to the play, he was not half as much pleased as hewas now at the job in prospect for him at the gambling-house!
Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining andcongratulating me in the same breath as we marched at the head of ourformidable _posse comitatus._ Sentinels were placed at the back andfront of the house the moment we got to it; a tremendous battery ofknocks was directed against the door; a light appeared at a window; Iwas told to conceal myself behind the police--then came more knocks anda cry of "Open in the name of the law!" At that terrible summons boltsand locks gave way before an invisible hand, and the moment after theSub-prefect was in the passage, confronting a waiter half-dressed andghastly pale. This was the short dialogue which immediately took place:
"We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house?"
"He went away hours ago."
"He did no such thing. His friend went away; _he_ remained. Show us tohis bedroom!"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! he--"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Garcon, he is. He slept here--he didn'tfind your bed comfortable--he came to us to complain of it--here heis among my men--and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in hisbedstead. Renaudin! (calling to one of the subordinates, and pointingto the waiter) collar that man and tie his hands behind him. Now, then,gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!"
Every man and woman in the house was secured--the "Old Soldier" thefirst. Then I identified the bed in which I had slept, and then we wentinto the room above.
No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of it. TheSub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody to be silent,stamped twice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentivelyat the spot he had stamped on, and ordered the flooring there to becarefully taken up. This was done in no time. Lights were produced, andwe saw a deep raftered cavity between the floor of this room andthe ceiling of the room beneath. Through this cavity there ranperpendicularly a sort of case of iron thickly greased; and inside thecase appeared the screw, which communicated with the bed-top below.Extra lengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; allthe complete upper works of a heavy press--constructed with infernalingenuity so as to join the fixtures below, and when taken to piecesagain, to go into the smallest possible compass--were next discoveredand pulled out on the floor. After some little difficulty theSub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery together, and, leavinghis men to work it, descended with me to the bedroom. The smotheringcanopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen itlowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simpleas it was, had a terrible significance. "My men," said he, "are workingdown the bed-top for the first time--the men whose money you won were inbetter practice."
We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents--everyone of the inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect,after taking down my _"proces verbal"_ in his office, returned with meto my hotel to get my passport. "Do you think," I asked, as I gave it tohim, "that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they triedto smother _me?_"
"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue," answered theSub-prefect, "in whose pocket-books were found letters stating that theyhad committed suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everythingat the gaming table. Do I know how many of those men entered the samegambling-house that _you_ entered? won as _you_ won? took that bed as_you_ took it? slept in it? were smothered in it? and were privatelythrown into the river, with a letter of explanation written by themurderers and placed in their pocket-books? No man can say how many orhow few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The peopleof the gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret from_us_--even from the police! The dead
kept the rest of the secret forthem. Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at myoffice again at nine o'clock--in the meantime, _au revoir!_"
The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and re-examined; thegambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; theprisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty amongthem made a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the masterof the gambling-house--_justice_ discovered that he had been drummedout of the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of allsorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of stolen property,which the owners identified; and that he, the croupier, anotheraccomplice, and the woman who had made my cup of coffee, were all in thesecret of the bedstead. There appeared some reason to doubt whether theinferior persons attached to the house knew anything of the suffocatingmachinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt, by being treatedsimply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two headmyrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffeewas imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular attendantsat the gambling-house were considered "suspicious" and placed under"surveillance"; and I became, for one whole week (which is a long time)the head "lion" in Parisian society. My adventure was dramatized bythree illustrious play-makers, but never saw theatrical daylight; forthe censorship forbade the introduction on the stage of a correct copyof the gambling-house bedstead.
One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship musthave approved: it cured me of ever again trying _"Rouge et Noir"_ as anamusement. The sight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps ofmoney on it, will henceforth be forever associated in my mind with thesight of a bed canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence anddarkness of the night.
After Dark Page 3
