‘George!’ shrieked Atherton, ‘he does mean to earn that fiver. I hope I’ll be alive to pay it him!’
He was only at the other end of the carriage, but though I could see by the distortion of his visage that he was shouting at the top of his voice,—and he has a voice,—I only caught here and there a word or two of what he was saying. I had to make sense of the whole.
Lessingham’s contortions were a study. Few of that large multitude of persons who are acquainted with him only by means of the portraits which have appeared in the illustrated papers, would then have recognised the rising statesman. Yet I believe that few things could have better fallen in with his mood than that wild travelling. He might have been almost shaken to pieces,—but the very severity of the shaking served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic which threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence of the element of risk. The pick-me-up effect of a spice of peril. Actual danger there quite probably was none; but there very really seemed to be. And one thing was absolutely certain, that if we did come to smash while going at that speed we should come to as everlasting smash as the heart of man could by any possibility desire. It is probable that the knowledge that this was so warmed the blood in Lessingham’s veins. At any rate as—to use what in this case, was simply a form of speech—I sat and watched him, it seemed to me that he was getting a firmer hold of the strength which had all but escaped him, and that with every jog and jolt he was becoming more and more of a man.
On and on we went dashing, clashing, smashing, roaring, rumbling. Atherton, who had been endeavouring to peer through the window, strained his lungs again in the effort to make himself audible.
‘Where the devil are we?’
Looking at my watch I screamed back at him.
‘It’s nearly one, so I suppose we’re somewhere in the neighbourhood of Luton.—Hollo! What’s the matter?’
That something was the matter seemed certain. There was a shrill whistle from the engine. In a second we were conscious—almost too conscious—of the application of the Westinghouse brake. Of all the jolting that was ever jolted! the mere reverberation of the carriage threatened to resolve our bodies into their component parts. Feeling what we felt then helped us to realise the retardatory force which that vacuum brake must be exerting,—it did not seem at all surprising that the train should have been brought to an almost instant stand-still.
Simultaneously all three of us were on our feet. I let down my window and Atherton let down his,—he shouting out, ‘I should think that Inspector’s wire hasn’t had it’s proper effect, looks as if we’re blocked—or else we’ve stopped at Luton. It can’t be Bedford.’
It wasn’t Bedford—so much seemed clear. Though at first from my window I could make out nothing. I was feeling more than a trifle dazed,—there was a singing in my ears,—the sudden darkness was impenetrable. Then I became conscious that the guard was opening the door of his compartment. He stood on the step for a moment, seeming to hesitate. Then, with a lamp in his hand, he descended on to the line.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know, sir. Seems as if there was something on the road. What’s up there?’
This was to the man on the engine. The fireman replied:
‘Someone in front there’s waving a red light like mad,—lucky I caught sight of him, we should have been clean on top of him in another moment. Looks as if there was something wrong. Here he comes.’
As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I became aware that someone was making what haste he could along the six-foot way, swinging a red light as he came. Our guard advanced to meet him, shouting as he went:
‘What’s the matter! Who’s that?’
A voice replied, ‘My God! Is that George Hewett. I thought you were coming right on top of us!’
Our guard again.
‘What! Jim Branson! What the devil are you doing here, what’s wrong? I thought you were on the twelve out, we’re chasing you.’
‘Are you? Then you’ve caught us. Thank God for it!—We’re a wreck.’
I had already opened the carriage door. With that we all three clambered out on to the line.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE CONTENTS OF THE THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGE
I MOVED TO THE STRANGER who was holding the lamp. He was in official uniform.
‘Are you the guard of the 12.0 out from St Pancras?’
‘I am.’
‘Where’s your train? What’s happened?’
‘As for where it is, there it is, right in front of you, what’s left of it. As to what’s happened, why, we’re wrecked.’
‘What do you mean by you’re wrecked?’
‘Some heavy loaded trucks broke loose from a goods in front and came running down the hill on top of us.’
‘How long ago was it?’
‘Not ten minutes. I was just starting off down the road to the signal box, it’s a good two miles away, when I saw you coming. My God! I thought there was going to be another smash.’
‘Much damage done?’
‘Seems to me as if we’re all smashed up. As far as I can make out they’re matchboxed up in front. I feel as if I was all broken up inside of me. I’ve been in the service going on for thirty years, and this is the first accident I’ve been in.’
It was too dark to see the man’s face, but judging from his tone he was either crying or very near to it.
Our guard turned and shouted back to our engine, ‘You’d better go back to the box and let ’em know!’
‘All right!’ came echoing back.
The special immediately commenced retreating, whistling continually as it went. All the country side must have heard the engine shrieking, and all who did hear must have understood that on the line something was seriously wrong.
The smashed train was all in darkness, the force of the collision had put out all the carriage lamps. Here was a flickering candle, there the glimmer of a match, these were all the lights which shone upon the scene. People were piling up debris by the side of the line, for the purpose of making a fire,—more for illumination than for warmth.
Many of the passengers had succeeded in freeing themselves, and were moving hither and thither about the line. But the majority appeared to be still imprisoned. The carriage doors were jammed. Without the necessary tools it was impossible to open them. Every step we took our ears were saluted by piteous cries. Men, women, children, appealed to us for help.
‘Open the door, sir!’
‘In the name of God, sir, open the door!’
Over and over again, in all sorts of tones, with all degrees of violence, the supplication was repeated.
The guards vainly endeavoured to appease the, in many cases, half-frenzied creatures.
‘All right, sir! If you’ll only wait a minute or two, madam! We can’t get the doors open without tools, a special train’s just started off to get them. If you’ll only have patience there’ll be plenty of help for everyone of you directly. You’ll be quite safe in there, if you’ll only keep still.’
But that was just what they found it most difficult to do—keep still!
In the front of the train all was chaos. The trucks which had done the mischief—there were afterwards shown to be six of them, together with two guards’ vans—appeared to have been laden with bags of Portland cement. The bags had burst, and everything was covered with what seemed gritty dust. The air was full of the stuff, it got into our eyes, half blinding us. The engine of the express had turned a complete somersault. It vomited forth smoke, and steam, and flames,—every moment it seemed as if the woodwork of the carriages immediately behind and beneath would catch fire.
The front coaches were, as the guard had put it, ‘match-boxed.’ They were nothing but a heap of debris,—telescoped into one another in a state
of apparently inextricable confusion. It was broad daylight before access was gained to what had once been the interiors. The condition of the first third-class compartment revealed an extraordinary state of things.
Scattered all over it were pieces of what looked like partially burnt rags, and fragments of silk and linen. I have those fragments now. Experts have assured me that they are actually neither of silk nor linen! but of some material—animal rather than vegetable—with which they are wholly unacquainted. On the cushions and woodwork—especially on the woodwork of the floor—were huge blotches,—stains of some sort. When first noticed they were damp, and gave out a most unpleasant smell. One of the pieces of woodwork is yet in my possession,—with the stain still on it. Experts have pronounced upon it too,—with the result that opinions are divided. Some maintain that the stain was produced by human blood, which had been subjected to a great heat, and, so to speak, parboiled. Others declare that it is the blood of some wild animal,—possibly of some creature of the cat species. Yet others affirm that it is not blood at all, but merely paint. While a fourth describes it as—I quote the written opinion which lies in front of me—‘caused apparently by a deposit of some sort of viscid matter, probably the excretion of some variety of lizard.’
In a corner of the carriage was the body of what seemed a young man costumed like a tramp. It was Marjorie Lindon.
So far as a most careful search revealed, that was all the compartment contained.
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER
IT IS SEVERAL YEARS SINCE I bore my part in the events which I have rapidly sketched,—or I should not have felt justified in giving them publicity. Exactly how many years, for reasons which should be sufficiently obvious, I must decline to say.
Marjorie Lindon still lives. The spark of life which was left in her, when she was extricated from among the debris of the wrecked express, was fanned again into flame. Her restoration was, however, not merely an affair of weeks or months, it was a matter of years. I believe that, even after her physical powers were completely restored—in itself a tedious task—she was for something like three years under medical supervision as a lunatic. But all that skill and money could do was done, and in course of time—the great healer—the results were entirely satisfactory.
Her father is dead,—and has left her in possession of the family estates. She is married to the individual who, in these pages, has been known as Paul Lessingham. Were his real name divulged she would be recognised as the popular and universally reverenced wife of one of the greatest statesmen the age has seen.
Nothing has been said to her about the fateful day on which she was—consciously or unconsciously—paraded through London in the tattered masculine habiliments of a vagabond. She herself has never once alluded to it. With the return of reason the affair seems to have passed from her memory as wholly as if it had never been, which, although she may not know it, is not the least cause she has for thankfulness. Therefore what actually transpired will never, in all human probability, be certainly known and particularly what precisely occurred in the railway carriage during that dreadful moment of sudden passing from life unto death. What became of the creature who all but did her to death; who he was—if it was a ‘he,’ which is extremely doubtful; whence he came; whither he went; what was the purport of his presence here,—to this hour these things are puzzles.
Paul Lessingham has not since been troubled by his old tormentor. He has ceased to be a haunted man. None the less he continues to have what seems to be a constitutional disrelish for the subject of beetles, nor can he himself be induced to speak of them. Should they be mentioned in a general conversation, should he be unable to immediately bring about a change of theme, he will, if possible, get up and leave the room. More, on this point he and his wife are one.
The fact may not be generally known, but it is so. Also I have reason to believe that there still are moments in which he harks back, with something like physical shrinking, to that awful nightmare of the past, and in which he prays God, that as it is distant from him now so may it be kept far off from him for ever.
Before closing, one matter may be casually mentioned. The tale has never been told, but I have unimpeachable authority for its authenticity.
During the recent expeditionary advance towards Dongola, a body of native troops which was encamped at a remote spot in the desert was aroused one night by what seemed to be the sound of a loud explosion. The next morning, at a distance of about a couple of miles from the camp, a huge hole was discovered in the ground,—as if blasting operations, on an enormous scale, had recently been carried on. In the hole itself, and round about it, were found fragments of what seemed bodies; credible witnesses have assured me that they were bodies neither of men nor women, but of creatures of some monstrous growth. I prefer to believe, since no scientific examination of the remains took place, that these witnesses ignorantly, though innocently, erred.
One thing is sure. Numerous pieces, both of stone and of metal, were seen, which went far to suggest that some curious subterranean building had been blown up by the force of the explosion. Especially were there portions of moulded metal which seemed to belong to what must have been an immense bronze statue. There were picked up also, more than a dozen replicas in bronze of the whilom sacred scarabaeus.
That the den of demons described by Paul Lessingham, had, that night, at last come to an end, and that these things which lay scattered, here and there, on that treeless plain, were the evidences of its final destruction, is not a hypothesis which I should care to advance with any degree of certainty. But, putting this and that together, the facts seem to point that way,—and it is a consummation devoutly to be desired.
By-the-bye, Sydney Atherton has married Miss Dora Grayling. Her wealth has made him one of the richest men in England. She began, the story goes, by loving him immensely; I can answer for the fact that he has ended by loving her as much. Their devotion to each other contradicts the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that every marriage must be of necessity a failure. He continues his career of an inventor. His investigations into the subject of aerial flight, which have brought the flying machine within the range of practical politics, are on everybody’s tongue.
The best man at Atherton’s wedding was Percy Woodville, now the Earl of Barnes. Within six months afterwards he married one of Mrs Atherton’s bridesmaids.
It was never certainly shown how Robert Holt came to his end. At the inquest the coroner’s jury was content to return a verdict of ‘Died of exhaustion.’ He lies buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, under a handsome tombstone, the cost of which, had he had it in his pockets, might have indefinitely prolonged his days.
It should be mentioned that that portion of this strange history which purports to be The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt was compiled from the statements which Holt made to Atherton, and to Miss Lindon, as she then was, when, a mud-stained, shattered derelict he lay at the lady’s father’s house.
Miss Linden’s contribution towards the elucidation of the mystery was written with her own hand. After her physical strength had come back to her, and, while mentally, she still hovered between the darkness and the light, her one relaxation was writing. Although she would never speak of what she had written, it was found that her theme was always the same. She confided to pen and paper what she would not speak of with her lips. She told, and re-told, and re-told again, the story of her love, and of her tribulation so far as it is contained in the present volume. Her MSS. invariably began and ended at the same point. They have all of them been destroyed, with one exception. That exception is herein placed before the reader.
On the subject of the Mystery of the Beetle I do not propose to pronounce a confident opinion. Atherton and I have talked it over many and many a time, and at the end we have got no ‘forrarder.’ So far as I am personally concerned, experience has taught me that there are indeed more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy, and I am quite prepared to believe that the so-called Beetle, which others saw, but I never, was—or is, for it cannot be certainly shown that the thing is not still existing—a creature born neither of God nor man.
Originally published in 1897
Cover design by Andy Ross
978-1-4976-7886-6
This 2015 edition published by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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The Beetle Page 34
