Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 3 of 3)
"Last night, at a little before twelve, Mr. Leigh left the Hanover public house, at the opposite corner of Welbeck Place, and went into the bakery by the private entrance beside the shop door in Chetwynd Street. In the act of letting himself in with his latchkey he spoke to a neighbour, who tried to engage him in conversation, but the unfortunate gentleman excused himself, saying he hadn't a minute to spare, as the clock required his immediate attention. After this, deceased was seen by several people working the winding lever of the clock in the window. At half-past twelve he was observed to make some unusual motions of his head, so as to give the notion that he was in pain or distress of some kind. Then the light in the clock-room was extinguished and, as Mr. Leigh made no call or cry (the window at which he sat was open), it was supposed all was right. Shortly afterwards, dense smoke and flames were observed bursting through the window of the room, and before help could arrive all hope of reaching the unfortunate gentleman was at an end.
"The building is an old one. The flames spread rapidly, and before an hour had elapsed the whole was burnt out and the roof had fallen in.
"At the rear of the house proper is an off building abutting on Welbeck Mews. In this slept the shopman and his wife. This bakehouse also took fire and is burned out, but fortunately the two occupants were saved by the fire escape which had been on the spot ten minutes after the first alarm.
"It is generally supposed that the eccentric movements of Mr. Leigh were the result of a fit or sudden seizure of some other kind, and that in his struggles some inflammable substance was brought into contact with the gas before it was turned out."
Timmons flung down the paper with a shout, crying "Dead! Dead! Leigh is dead!"
At that moment the figure of a man appeared at the threshold of the store, and Stamer, with a scowl and a stare, stepped in hastily and looked furtively, fearfully, around.
"What are you shoutin' about?" cried Stamer, in a tone of dangerous menace. "What are you shoutin' about?" he said again, as he passed Timmons and slunk behind the pile of shutters and flattened himself up against the wall in the shadow of them.
"Leigh is dead!" cried Timmons in excitement, and taking no notice of Stamer's strange manner and threatening tone.
"_I_ know all about _that_, I suppose," said Stamer from his place of concealment. He was standing between the shutters and the old fire-grate, and quite invisible to anyone in the street. His voice was hollow, his eyes bloodshot and starting out of his head. Notwithstanding the warmth of the morning, his teeth were chattering in his head. His bloodshot eyes were in constant motion, new exploring the gloomy depths of the store, now glancing savagely at Timmons, now looking, in the alarm of a hunted beast, at the opening into the street.
Timmons took little or no notice of the other man beyond addressing him. He was in a state of wild excitement, not exactly of joy, but triumph. It was a hideous sight to see this lank, grizzled, repulsive-looking man capering around the store, and exulting in the news he had just read, of a man on whom he had fawned a day before. "He's dead! The dwarf is dead, Stamer!" he cried again. In his wild gyrations his hat had fallen off, disclosing a tall, narrow head, perfectly bald on the top.
"Shut up!" whispered Stamer, savagely, "if you don't want to follow him. I'm in no humour for your noise and antics. Do you want to have the coppers down on us? – do you, you fool?" He flattened himself still more against the wall, as though he were striving to imbed himself in it.
Timmons paused. Stamer's words and manner were so unusual and threatening that they attracted his attention at last. "What's the matter?" he asked, in irritated surprise. "What's the matter?" he repeated, with lowering look.
"Why, you've said what's the matter," said Stamer, viciously. "And you're shouting and capering as if you wanted to tell the whole world the news. This is no time for laughing and antics, you fool!"
"Who are you calling a fool?" cried Timmons, catching up an iron bar and taking a few steps towards the burglar.
"You, if you want to know. Put that down. Put that bar down, I say. Do it at once, and if you have any regard for your health, for your life, don't come a foot nearer, or I'll send you after him! By – , I will!"
Timmons let the bar fall, more in astonishment than fear. "What do you mean, you crazy thief? Have they just let you out of Bedlam, or are you on your way there? Anyway, it's lucky the place is handy, you knock-kneed jail-bird! Why he's shaking as if he saw a ghost!"
"Let me alone and I'll do you no harm. I don't want to have _two_ on me."
"What does the fool mean? I tell you Leigh is dead."
"Can you tell me who killed him? If you can't, _I_ can." He pointed to himself.
"What!" cried Timmons, starting back, and not quite understanding the other's gesture.
"Now are you satisfied? I thought you guessed. I wouldn't have told you if I didn't think you knew or guessed. Curse me, but I am a fool for opening my mouth! I thought you knew, and that, instead of saying a good word to me, you were going to down me and give me up."
Timmons stepped slowly back in horror. "You!" he whispered, bending his head forward and beginning to tremble in every limb. "You! You did it! You did this! You, Stamer!"
Stamer merely nodded, and looked like a hunted wild beast at the opening. He wore the clothes of last night, but was without the whiskers or beard. All the time he cowered in the shelter of the shutters, he kept his right hand behind his back.
Timmons retreated to the other wall, and leaned his back against it, and glared at the trembling man opposite.
"For God's sake don't look at me like that. You are the only one that knows," whined Stamer, now quite unmanned. "I should not have told you anything about it, only I thought you knew, when I heard you say he was dead. You took me unawares. Don't stare at me like that, for God's sake. Say a word to me. Call me a fool, or anything you like, but don't stand there staring at me like that. If 'twas you that did it, you couldn't be more scared. Say a word to me, or I'll blow my brains out! I haven't been home. I am afraid to go home. I am not used to this-yet. I thought I had the nerve for anything, and I find I haven't the nerve of a child. I am afraid to go home. I am afraid to look at my wife. I thought I shouldn't be afraid of you, and now you scare me worse than anything. For the love of God, speak to me, and don't look at me like that. I can't stand it."
"You infernal scoundrel, to kill the poor foolish dwarf!" whispered Timmons. His mouth was parched and open. The sweat was rolling down off his forehead. He was trembling no longer. He was rigid now. He was basilisked by the awful apparition of a man who had confessed to murder.
Stamer looked towards the opening, and then his round, blood-shot eyes went back to the rigid figure of Timmons. "I don't mind what you say, if you'll only speak to me, only not too loud. No one can hear us. I know that, and no one can listen at the door, without our seeing him. You don't know what I have gone through. I have not been home. I am afraid to go home. I am afraid of everything. You don't know all. It's worse than you think. It's enough to drive one mad-"
"You murderous villain!'
"It's enough to drive any man mad. I've been wandering about all night. I am more afraid of my wife than of anyone else. I don't know why, but I tremble when I think of her, more than of the police, or-or-or-"
"The hangman?"
"Yes. You don't know all. When you do, you'll pity me-"
"The poor foolish dwarf!"
"Yes. I was afraid he'd betray us-you-"
"Oh, villain!"
"And I got on a roof opposite the window, and when he was working at the lever, I fired, and his head went so-and then so-and then so-"
"Stop it, you murderer!"
"Yes. And I knew it was done. The neck! Yes, I knew the neck was broken, and it was all right."
"Oh! Oh! Oh, that I should live to hear you!"
"Yes. I thought it was all right, and it was in one way. For he tumbled down on his side, so-"
"If you don't stop it, I'll brain you!"
"Yes. And I got down off the roof and ran. I couldn't help running, and all the time I was running I heard him running after me. I heard him running after me, and I saw his head wagging so-so-so, as he ran. Every step he took, his head wagged, so-and so-and so-"
"If you don't stop that-"
"Yes. I will. I'll stop it. But I could not stop _him_ last night. All the time I ran I couldn't stop him. His head kept wagging and his lame feet kept running after me, and I couldn't stop the feet or the head. I don't know how long I ran, or where I ran, but I could run no more, and I fell up against a wall, and then it overtook me! I saw _it_ as plainly as I see you-plainer, I saw it-"
The man paused a moment to wipe his forehead.
"Do you hear?" he yelled, suddenly flinging his arms up in the air. "Do you hear? Will you believe me now? The steps again! The lame steps again. Do you hear them, you fool?"
"Mad!"
"Mad, you fool! I told you. Look!"
The figure of a low-sized, deformed dwarf came into the opening and crossed the threshold of the store.
With a groan Stamer fell forward insensible.
CHAPTER XXXIII
LEIGH CONFIDES IN TIMMONS
Timmons uttered a wild yell, and springing away from the wall fled to the extreme end of the store, and then faced round panting and livid.
"Hah!" said the shrill voice of the man on the threshold. "Private theatricals, I see. I did not know, Mr. Timmons, that you went in for such entertainments. They are very amusing I have been told; very diverting. But I did not imagine that business people indulged in them in their business premises at such an early hour of the day. I am disposed to think that, though the idea is original, the frequent practice of such scenes would not tend to increase the confidence of the public in the disabled anchors, or shower-baths, or invalid coffee-mills, or chain shot, or rusty fire-grates, it is your privilege to offer to the consideration of customers. Hah! I may be wrong, but such is my opinion. Don't you think, Mr. Timmons, that you ought to ring down the curtain, and that this gentleman, who no doubt represents the villain of the piece confronted with his intended victim, had better get up and look after his breakfast?" He pointed to the prostrate Stamer, who lay motionless upon the sandy floor.
Timmons did not move or speak. The shock had, for the moment, completely bereft him of his senses.
"I have just come back from the country," said the dwarf, "and I thought I'd call on you at once. I should like to have a few moments' conversation with you, if your friend and very able supporter would have the kindness to consider himself alive and fully pardoned by his intended victim."
"Hush!" cried Timmons, uttering the first sound. The words of the hunchback, although uttered in jest, had an awful significance for the dazed owner of the place.
"Hah! I see your friend is not fabled to be in heart an assassin, but the poor and hard-working father of a family, who is just now indulging in that repose which is to refresh him for tackling anew the one difficulty of providing board and lodging and raiment for his wife and little ones. But, Mr. Timmons, in all conscience, don't you think you ought to put an end to this farce? When I came in I judged by his falling down and some incoherent utterance of yours that you two were rehearsing a frightful tragedy. Will you oblige us by getting up, sir? The play is over for the present, and my excellent friend Timmons here is willing to make the ghost walk."
The prostrate man did not move.
Timmons shuddered. He made a prodigious effort and tried to move forward, but had to put his hand against the wall to steady himself.
Leigh approached Stamer and touched him with his stick. Stamer did not stir.
"Is there anything the matter with the man? I think there must be, Timmons. What do you mean by running away to the other end of the place? Why this man is unconscious. I seem to be fated to meet fainting men."
Timmons now summoned all his powers and staggered forward. Leigh bent over Stamer, but, although he tried, failed to move him.
Timmons regained his voice and some of his faculties. "He has only fainted," said he, raising Stamer into a sitting posture.
Stamer did not speak, but struggled slowly to his feet, and assisted by Timmons walked to the opening and was helped a few yards down the street. There the two parted without a word. By the time Timmons got back he was comparatively composed. He felt heavy and dull, like a man who has been days and nights without sleep, but he had no longer any doubt that Oscar Leigh was present in the flesh.
"Are we alone?" asked Leigh impatiently on Timmons's return.
"We are."
"Hah! I am glad we are. If your friend were connected with racing I should call him a stayer. I came to tell you that I have just got back from Birmingham. I thought it best to go there and see again the man I had been in treaty with. I not only saw him but heard a great deal about him, and I am sorry to say I heard nothing good. He is, it appears, a very poor man, and he deliberately misled me as to his position and his ability to pay. I am now quite certain that if I had opened business with him I should have lost anything I entrusted to him, or, if not all, a good part. Hah!"
"Then I am not to meet you _at the same place_, next Thursday night?" asked Timmons, with emphasis on the tryst. He had not at this moment any interest in the mere business about which they had been negotiating. He was curious about other matters. His mind was now tolerably clear, but flabby and inactive still.
"No. There is no use in your giving me the alloy until I see my way to doing something with it, and I feel bound to say that after this disappointment in Birmingham, I feel greatly discouraged altogether. Hah! You do not, I think you told me, ever use eau-de-cologne?"
"I do not."
"Then you are distinctly wrong, for it is refreshing, most refreshing." He sniffed up noisily some he had poured into the palm of one hand and then rubbed together between the two. "Most refreshing."
"Then, Mr. Leigh, I suppose we are at a standstill?"
"Precisely."
"What you mean, I suppose, Mr. Leigh, is that you do not see your way to going any further?"
"Well, yes. At present I do not see my way to going any further."
Timmons felt relieved, but every moment his curiosity was increasing. There was no longer any need for caution with this goblin, or man, or devil, or magician. If Leigh had meant to betray him, the course he was now pursuing was the very last he would adopt.
"You went to Birmingham yesterday. May I ask you by what train you went down?"
"Two-thirty in the afternoon."
"And you came back this morning?"
"Yes. Just arrived. I drove straight here, as I told you."
"And you were away from half-past two yesterday until now. You were out of London yesterday from two-thirty until early this morning?"
"Yes; until six this morning. Why are you so curious? You do not, I hope, suspect me of saying anything that is not strictly true?" said Leigh, throwing his head back and striking the sandy floor fiercely with his stick.
"No. I don't _suspect_ you of saying anything that is not strictly true."
The emphasis on the word _suspect_ caught Leigh's attention. He drew himself up haughtily and said, "What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean, sir," said Timmons, shaking his minatory finger at him, and frowning heavily, "not that I suspect you of lying, but that I am sure you are lying. I was at the Hanover last night, you were there too."
Leigh started and drew back. He looked down and said nothing. He could not tell how much this man knew. Timmons went on:
"I was in the public bar, against the partition that separates it from the private bar, when you came in. You called for rum hot, and you went away at close to twelve o'clock to wind up your clock. I went out then and saw you at the window winding up the clock. I was there when the light went out just at half past twelve. Now, sir, are you lying or am I?"
Leigh burst into a loud, long, harsh roar of laughter that made Timmons start, it was so weird and unexpected. Then the dwarf cried, "Why you, sir, you are lying, of course. The man you saw and heard is my deputy."
"You lie. I heard about your deputy. He is a deaf and dumb man, who can't write, and is as tall as I am, a man with fair hair and beard."
"My dear sir, your language is so offensive I do not know whether you deserve an explanation or not. Anyway, I'll give you this much of an explanation. I have two deputies. One of the kind you describe, and one who could not possibly be known by sight from myself."
"But I have more than sight, even if the two of you were matched like two peas. I heard your voice, and all your friends in the bar knew you and spoke to you, and called you Mr. Leigh. It was you then and there, as sure as it is you here and now." Timmons thought, "Stamer when he fired must have missed Leigh, and Leigh must have gone away, after, for some purpose of his own, setting fire to the place. He is going on just as if the place had not been burned down last night, why, I am sure I do not know. I can't make it out, but anyway, Stamer did not shoot him, and he is pretending he was not there, and that he was in Birmingham. He's too deep for me, but I am not sure it would not be a good thing if Stamer did not miss him after all."
The clockmaker paused awhile in thought. It was not often he was posed, but evidently he was for a moment at a nonplus. Suddenly he looked up, and with a smile and a gesture of his hands and shoulders, indicating that he gave in:
"Mr. Timmons," he said suavely, "you have a just right to be angry with me for mismanaging our joint affair, and I own I have not told you quite the truth. I did _not_ go to Birmingham by the two-thirty yesterday. I was at the Hanover last night just before twelve, and I did go into Forbes's bakery as you say. But I swear to you I left London last night by the twelve-fifteen, and I swear to you I did not wind up my clock last night. It was this morning between four and five o'clock I found out in Birmingham that the man was not to be trusted. You will wonder where I made inquiries at such an hour."
"I do, indeed," said Timmons scornfully.
"I told you, and I think you know, that I am not an ordinary man. My powers, both in my art and among men, are great and exceptional. When I got to Birmingham this morning, I went to-where do you think?"
"The devil!"
"Well, not exactly, but very near it. I went to a police-station. It so happens that one of the inspectors of the district in which this man lives is a great friend of mine. He was not on duty, but his name procured for me, my dear Mr. Timmons, all the information I desired. I was able to learn all I needed, and catch the first train back to town. You see now how faithfully I have attended to our little business. I left the Hanover at five minutes to twelve, and at two minutes to twelve I was bowling along to Paddington to catch the last train, the twelve-fifteen."
"That, sir, is another lie, and one that does you no good. At twelve-fifteen I saw you as plain as I see you now-for although there was a thin curtain, the curtain was oiled, and I could see as if there was no curtain, and the gas was up and shining on you-I say _at fifteen minutes after twelve I saw you turn around and nod to your friends in the bar_. It's nothing to me now, as the business is off, but I stick to what I say, Mr. Leigh."
"And I stick to what I say."
"Which of the says?" asked Timmons contemptuously. "You have owned to a lie already."
"Lie is hardly a fair word to use. I merely said one hour instead of another, and that does not affect the substance of my explanation about Birmingham. I told you two-thirty, for I did not want you to be troubled with my friend the inspector."
This reference to a police-station and inspector would have filled Timmons with alarm early in the interview, but now he was in no fear. If this man intended to betray him, why had he not done so already? and why had he not taken the gold for evidence?
"But if you left Forbes's, how did you get away? Through the front-door in Chetwynd Street, or through the side-door in Welbeck Place?"
"Through neither. Through the door of the bakehouse into the mews."
Timmons started. This might account for Stamer's story of the ghost.
"But who wound the clock? I saw you do it, Mr. Leigh-I saw you do it, sir, and all this Birmingham tale is gammon."
"Again you are wrong. And now, to show you how far you are wrong, I will tell you a secret. I have two deputies. One I told that fool Williams about, and requested him as a great favour not to let a soul know. By this, of course, I intended that every one who enjoyed the privilege of Mr. Williams's acquaintance should know. But of my second deputy I never spoke to a soul until now, until I told you this moment. The other deputy is a man extremely like me from the waist up. He is ill-formed as I am, and so like me when we sit that you would not know the difference across your own store. But our voices are different, very different, and he is more than a foot taller than I. You did not see the winder last night standing up. He always takes his seat before raising the gas."
A light broke in on Timmons. This would explain all. This would make Stamer's story consist with his own experience of the night before. This would account for this man, whom Stamer said he had shot, being here now, uninjured. This would make the later version of the tale about Birmingham possible, credible. But-awful but! – it would mean that the unfortunate, afflicted deputy had been sacrificed! Yes, most of what this man had said was true.
"What's the unfortunate deputy's name?" he asked, with a shudder.
"That I will not tell."
"But it must come out on the inquest, to-day or to-morrow, or whenever they find the remains."
"Remains of what?" asked Leigh, frowning heavily.
"Of your deputy. They say in the paper it was you that lost your life in the fire."
"Fire! Fire! Fire where?" thundered the dwarf, in a voice which shook the unceiled joists above their heads and made the thinner plates of metal vibrate.
"Don't you know? Haven't you seen a paper? Why Forbes's bakery was burnt out last night, and the papers say you lost your life in the fire."
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE WRONG MAN
When Timmons led the almost unconscious Stamer from the threshold, and left him a few yards from the door, the latter did not go far. He had scarcely the strength to walk away, and he certainly had not the desire to go. He had borne two extreme phases of terror within the last twenty-four hours; he had suffered the breathless terror of believing he had taken human life, and he had imagined the spirit of the murdered man was pursuing him.
He had often, in thought, faced the contingency of having to fire on some one who found him at his midnight depredations, but he had not, until he formed the resolve of putting Leigh away, contemplated lying in wait for an unsuspecting man and shooting him as if he were a bird of prey.
Once it had entered his mind to kill Leigh, nothing seemed simpler than to do it, and nothing easier than to bear the burden of the deed. He had no hint of conscience, and there were only two articles in his code-first, that prison was a punishment not to be borne if, at any expense, it could be avoided; and, second, that no harm was to be allowed near Timmons. Both articles were concerned, inextricably bound up, in Leigh's life. He saw in the dwarf the agent, the ally of the police-the police, absolutely, in a more malignant form than the stalwart detective who, with handcuffs in his pockets, runs a man down. This Leigh was a traitor and a policeman together. It seemed as though it would be impossible for one human being to possess any characteristic which could add to the hatefulness of him who exhibited these two. And yet this Leigh was not only a traitor and a policeman combined, but an enemy of Timmons-a beast who threatened Timmons as well! Shooting was too merciful a death for such a miscreant. But then, shooting was easy and sure, so he should be shot.
