The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

hadpractically taken entire possession of this huge and rambling mart, andtheir eager, polyglot conversation recalled nothing less than the Towerof Babel as they chattered, twisted, turned, elbowed, and gesticulatedwith as much animation as though they had met to devour the effects of aRothschild instead of the books and goods of a poor, unnamed, deadrefugee priest.

  Indeed, it was just as much as I could do to elbow my way into the placeat all. The crowd didn't actively impede my progress, but they showedno desire to move out of my path; but finally I did, with a free use ofmy shoulders and knees, squeeze myself into a good position on a packingcase, which lifted me high above the crowd, and yet which also gave me asplendid view of the rostrum upon which, as it happened, the auctioneerhad just taken his seat.

  Even he seemed rather stupefied by this vast, unexpected, and quiteunusual assemblage, for no sooner had he called silence with a touch ofhis mallet on the table than he cleared his throat and said:

  "I hope, gentlemen, that you have not been drawn here this afternoonunder any misapprehension. This is not really one of the days of ourbig sales; all we have to dispose of are some two hundred books, a fewvestments, and some quaint, old manuscripts belonging to a priest--afather--"

  He turned despairingly to his clerk, who consulted his ledger, andsupplied the name needed.

  "I mean a Father Alphonse Calasanctius, who, I am told, arrived quitemysteriously in Southampton late last week by the royal mail steamer_Tartar_, and was, unfortunately, found dead in the room he took in aprivate hotel in the Adelphi only the night afterwards.

  "My idea, to-day, is to get things over as quickly as possible, and so Iwill put up the manuscripts first. I confess I don't know myselfwhether certain of them are of any value, or whether they are some meremonkish jests of some centuries ago when men had more leisure topenetrate long legal-looking hoaxes. I ought to tell you, though, thatI took several of them myself to an expert at the British Museumyesterday afternoon, and he was inclined to think they might beexceedingly precious, for he found that they related to someextraordinary secret which certain Jesuit monks in Mexico had taken thatmeans of putting on record. All the same, he said quite frankly, hecould not pledge himself on the point, for, as it happened, he couldmake nothing out of the greater part of the writing on them, whichseemed to him, read in the ordinary fashion, mere gibberish, which mighttake years of patient study and research to unravel, and then be worthnothing in the end."

  The sale commenced, and the prices realised by some of the codices thatcomprised the first lots were ridiculously low. Whoever bought themmade magnificent investments. For instance, a fourteenth-centuryEnglish manuscript of Sower's "Confessio Amantes" on vellum, witheighty-five miniatures--a perfect gem, worth at least the fifteenhundred pounds which the Fountaine copy realised--went for eighteenpounds ten. A French manuscript of the Bible of the same period with anumber of ornamental initials and miniatures fetched only sixteenpounds, although, as a collector, I knew it to be worth three hundred atleast; while a thirteenth-century manuscript, "De Regimen Principium" ofEgidius, written on vellum in double columns, with a beautifullyilluminated border on the front page, and bearing the stencil mark ofthe well-known collector, Sir Thomas Phillips, fetched only twenty-onepounds ten; while a twelfth-century "Decretales Gregorii," aneleventh-century Latin Bible, and a "Biblia Versificata" of the twelfthcentury, once the property of the Jesuits' College at Heidelberg,fetched equally low prices.

  Presently the three manuscripts comprising lot eighty-two were held upfor inspection. Each was about a foot square, and was intolerably dirtyand stained by damp and time.

  "Now, gentlemen, what offers?" cried the auctioneer, and again hebrought his hammer down on the table with a sharp knock.

  "I'll give ten pounds for them," instantly shouted a voice in the crowd,and all at once I caught sight of the face of the owner thereof, which,to my intense astonishment, proved to be no other than my friend PeterZouche, that odd-shaped, deformed person who is familiarly known to therich and learned everywhere as "The Hunchback of Westminster."

  Now, how had Peter Zouche, who was reputed to spend his life betweenSotheby's, Quaritch's, Dobell's, and Maggs's, and that mysterious den inwhich he lived, under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, got windof these treasures.

  Instinctively I felt there was something more in these documents thaneven Don Jose had hinted, and so with a quick turn I caught the eye ofthe auctioneer and nodded briskly again.

  "Twenty pounds offered," he said, and he pointed his hammer straight atme, whereat all the crowd appeared to turn and stare suddenly and openlyat me with fierce and malevolent looks.

  Then, almost in a flash as it were, the real excitement of the gatheringbroke out.

  Before I quite knew what had happened bids had poured in from a hundredeager voices, and the figures had miraculously climbed up, up, up withthe rapidity of lightning, so that before I had interposed five times Ibelieve they were actually all trembling on the brink of a thousandpounds!

  And this for three dirty, crisp rolls of parchment!

  All the same, I must admit that my determination to get possession ofthose records seemed to have been carefully noted by my rivals. Infact, I was continually made conscious of those looks of veiledhostility which continued to be shot at me from every direction as timeafter time I topped the bids. Meanwhile, too, a steady hubbub began toarise around me, above which I found it was increasingly difficult tomake oneself heard or noted. Also, during a lull in the contest, thecrowd appeared to sway and part, and all at once, to my astonishment, Ifound that the Hunchback of Westminster himself was standing beside me,and with him the dearest friend and fellow-collector I had ever had, theEarl of Fotheringay, and when I came to examine them I was stupefied tofind that both men's faces were deadly white.

  "For God's sake, for your own sake, Glynn," whispered Lord Fotheringayin my ear impressively, "end this mad rivalry with us; you have no ideawhat terrible havoc you are making of things by your wild bids at thismomentous juncture. Stand down, man, stand down, or you'll ruin all."

  But, with my teeth set hard, I glared at him defiantly. "What was mybusiness to him?" Indeed, my blood was up--I knew I was bound inhonour--and I nodded again to the auctioneer, who saw me instantly, andrepeated aloud: "Mr Glynn says twelve hundred and fifty pounds. Isthere any advance?"

  The hunchback now turned on me with a snarling expression like atiger's.

  "Fool," he hissed, "you won't be warned," and, raising his arm, he madea sign with his hand.

  Almost instantly the crowd appeared to rise up _en masse_ and to rollright over us, but as I stumbled backward, headlong from my foothold, Iwas astonished to see a man, got up to resemble me exactly in everyfeature, scramble on to my place on the upturned case, and in a voicethat seemed my very own, to cry out to the auctioneer: "That, sir, isthe most I can do. I now retire." And as a cheer broke out from thecrowd he too skipped down instantly out of sight.

  "Ah, this is indeed treachery," I told myself. And, gripping my teethhard, I let my fists go; next, with a mighty effort, I sprang forward toroll the surging human mob out of my path--to make my voice heard, toregain my old position, to take command of the situation again, for Iheard the bids still mounting higher, higher, higher.

  In vain.

  Lord Fotheringay, who, I thought, loved me as a brother, was on me witha bound like a lion's, and catching me by the throat exerted all hisforce and hurled me backwards.

  Next second I found myself caught up in other and even stronger arms,and, before I could utter aught save a muffled curse, I was flung headfirst into an empty piano case, the heavy lid of which was instantlyclosed on me--but not before I heard the hammer fall and the auctioneercall: "The deeds are Mr Peter Zouche's. The price is eighteen hundredpounds." I had been tricked!

  CHAPTER THREE.

  I DETERMINE TO GO FORWARD.

  How long I remained imprisoned in that box whilst the sale of the deadpriest's effects went steadily onward I
have no knowledge. Certainly,for a time, rage deprived me of all power of reason, and I know I foughtand struggled like a madman in those stout wooden walls before Irecognised that I was, in truth, fairly beaten, and that the best thingI could do, in such futile circumstances as these, was to wait with whatfortitude I could summon for that dramatic moment when it would pleasemy so-called "friends," the Earl of Fotheringay and the hunchback, toarrange my release.

  As to their extraordinary conduct, I could not, I admit frankly, bringmyself to think. It was, it appeared to me, so brutal, so unfair, soabsolutely diabolical. Don Jose Casteno, as he called himself, hadwarned me, of course, to expect treachery, and also to be cautious aboutsome mysterious, far-reaching, and sensational intrigue--but not even I,in my wildest moods, could have expected that I