First Person Paramount Part 18

I closed the window, and sitting down beside the coffin, laughed until my sides ached. Once again I had crossed swords with Sir Charles Venner, and once again the victory was mine. I did not respect him the less, but I admit that I glorified myself the more. I could not, however, afford much time for self-gratulation. I had a great deal to do, and it was already two o'clock. Stepping into the pa.s.sage, I shouted for the landlady, and made that astonished woman a present of my coffin. It is evident that she thought me a lunatic, but what cared I for that? In another moment I was hasting down the road, looking on all sides for a cab. An empty fourwheeler overtook me at last, and I drove like mad to London Bridge, where I took a hansom to Bruton Street. I was very hungry by then, but I could not spare a minute for a meal, and I comforted myself with the reflection that, granted a little luck, I might dine that evening in absolute security on the fat of the land, a rich man in veritable deed.

I had once known rather intimately a Polish Jew named Kutnewsky, who had been my fellow lodger in a boarding-house at Leeds. Him I resolved to personate. He was a fat, podgy person, with a hook nose, and a long, thick black beard, and his voice was oily, his foreign accent hideous.

All the while I dressed, I practised his voice and accent. I had it at last to a T. The wonderful development of my facial muscles enabled me to raise or depress the tip of my nose at will, so as to lend it either a pug, or a Judaic cast, as I preferred. A false wig and beard with clothes in keeping completed my disguise. I was very soon a Jew--in fact, the double of Kutnewsky. I then packed a small valise with a complete suit of fas.h.i.+onable clothes, which had been originally made for a man of my size, by a Bond Street tailor, and which were still almost brand new, although I had bought them at a rag shop for a song.

I included also in my bag, a travelling cap, a white s.h.i.+rt, a doubled linen collar, a smart tie, and a pair of light patent leather boots.

The boots I wore were heavy hand-sewn bluchers, two sizes too large for me. I slipped into my pocket a black moustache and a pair of large black eyebrows. Finally, I exchanged my ordinary set of false teeth for a plate planted with hideous yellow fangs, some of which protruded from my lip. At a quarter to four, I was ready to face the world. A glance at the window showed me that a fine rain was falling; I therefore put on a mackintosh, and cramming a glossy silk hat upon my head, I set out armed with my valise and an umbrella. A fourwheeler took me to Oxford Circus, whence a hansom brought me back to Piccadilly and the Bolingbroke Hotel. I presented myself to the clerk, whom I informed in execrable broken English, that I was the famous German Court Surgeon, Herr Dr. Garschagen, just arrived from Berlin, to confer with my equally eminent colleague, Sir Charles Venner, upon a case of great moment, in which my advice had been urgently demanded. I declared that I had telegraphed from Berlin to secure apartments on the first floor, and I became very angry when the clerk protested that my message had not been received, and that there was not a single vacant apartment on the first floor. He, however, very deferentially led me himself to a room on the third floor, which I reluctantly engaged. I told him to send Sir Charles up immediately he arrived, and with a foreign boorishness I slammed the door in his face. My first act was to empty my valise and conceal its contents in a wardrobe. That effected, I arranged the dressing-table just as I had done on the previous day in my room at the Colonnade Hotel, and I set my empty valise thereon. I then removed my waterproof, and putting on a pair of goggles, I sat down to await my victim. As before he was prompt to the fraction of a minute. A small thin-featured waiter ushered him in. As before Sir Charles gave his attendant a s.h.i.+lling and entered the room; I, grinding out the while, a string of guttural, yet oily greetings in broken English. Sir Charles Venner's face was pale, but icily composed. He eyed me for a full minute with a look of piercing hate, then, taking off his hat, he quietly sat down upon the chair I had provided. I followed his example.

"Is Dr. Rudolf Garschagen identical with Mr. Seth Halford?" he asked quietly.

"Undoubtedly, Sir Charles."

"I stood in need of your a.s.surance!" he muttered frowning. "But I confess I should like you to explain the meaning of your present mummery. You were excellently well disguised before!"

I bowed profoundly. "Thank you for the compliment, Sir Charles. I shall explain with pleasure. It is my custom to change my appearance as often as my clothes. The wisdom of this course will be apparent to you, when you consider that you have already confessed to a confused impression of me in your mind!"

His frown grew more black. "You appear to be a confoundedly clever fellow!" he exclaimed in irritated tones.

"I entertain such a lively respect for my opponent that I have tried to show you my best!" I replied, laying a gloved hand on my heart.

"I did not come here to exchange compliments with you," he retorted coldly. "Kindly get to business."

"Have you the money?" I demanded.

"Yes. But I shall not give you a solitary farthing until I am furnished with a substantial guarantee that this will be your last impertinence.

My--er--friends and I do not propose to let you hold our souls in p.a.w.n."

"What guarantee do you require?"

He took a paper from his packet and tossed it carelessly upon the table. "Read!" said he.

The paper contained a confession that I--a blank was left for my name--on a certain night, stole from Sir Charles Venner, by means of impersonation and fraud, the sum of three hundred pounds.

"I suppose you wish me to sign this?" I asked.

"Certainly, and to disclose your ident.i.ty besides!"

I smiled grimly and tore the paper into shreds.

"You must be satisfied with my oath, which I give you freely, that you will never hear from me again, Sir Charles. Now, please, the money."

"I am sorry," he said softly. "But we cannot do business on those terms!"

I bowed and got at once to my feet. "Then our interview is at an end!"

I moved towards the bell, but I had not advanced two paces when he cried out, "Stop!"

I turned to look into the muzzle of a revolver. Sir Charles Venner's right eye gleamed behind the sights, and his expression was diabolically wicked. I hate fire-arms. They make me nervous, especially when pointed in the direction of my vital organs, by a presumably desperate man. A cold s.h.i.+vering thrill quivered up my spine, and I felt my knee joints loosen. My eyes, however, did not cease to serve me, and with a gasp of reviving hope I noted that the pistol was not c.o.c.ked.

It, however, takes more than a second to recover from such a shock as I had received, and Sir Charles had only perceived my first sharp gush of fear.

"Remove your gla.s.ses and your wig!" he commanded in a low but terrible voice.

My impulse was to obey unhesitatingly, but with an iron effort I subdued it.

"Be quick!" he cried.

I smiled. It was a miserable grimace, I dare admit, nevertheless I smiled.

"By the G.o.d above us you will die in your tracks, unless you are unmasked before I count six!"

I said to myself--"Oh, no, I shall not. Sir Charles Venner is a consumptive, with at most a year of life before him. Men cling to life most dearly when their days are numbered. Moreover, well he knows, this surgeon, that if he kills me he must hang! and speedily."

"One!" said he.

I smiled again.

"Two!"

"You are a great mathematician!" I sneered, and bowed to him.

"Three!"

"Murder me some other time, Sir Charles!" I muttered, "when you may do so with some hope of giving the penalty leg bail!"

"Four!" he cried, in a voice that froze my blood. And with his thumb he raised the hammer of the pistol.

"You will hang!" I gasped. "You will hang, and we shall meet in h.e.l.l!"

"Five!" he hissed.

"Fire!" I cried. It was the most courageous act of my life!

Sir Charles Venner let his hand fall, and his eyes. I heard a click, and I watched him restore the pistol to his pocket. In one second he had aged ten years. He was now an old man, haggard faced and trembling.

I strode to the bell and pressed the b.u.t.ton. I had won the battle well--woe to the vanquished! I stalked over to the door and threw it wide. "Get out of this!" I grated. "Get out of this and go--hang yourself if you want to cheat the hangman. You've had your fun, and now by heaven! I'll have my pound of fles.h.!.+"

He raised to me the face of a panic-stricken craven. "For Christ's sake!" he cried, and even pleaded with his hands. He was beaten indeed.

Not only his courage, but his pride was shattered into fragments. I surveyed the wreck I had occasioned, and relented.

"Well, then!" I said, "the money!"

With feverish hands he tore from his coat a small bundle of notes and forced them upon me.

"Count them, count them!" he mumbled.

"Go!" I ordered sternly.

"But, but--your oath!"

"I'll keep it--go!"