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Half a Hero: A Novel, a novel by Anthony Hope |
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Chapter 20. The Law Versus Rule 3 |
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_ CHAPTER XX. THE LAW VERSUS RULE 3 Among the many tired but satisfied lovers of liberty who sought their houses that night, while an enthusiastic remnant was still parading the streets, illuminations yet shining from windows, and weary police treading their unending beats, was the doorkeeper, who had borne a banner in Company A of Procession 1. His friend the watchmaker came with him, to have a bit of supper and exchange congratulations and fulminations. Hardly, however, had the doorkeeper pledged the cause in a first draught when his wife broke in on his oration by handing him a letter, which she said a boy in a blue jersey had left for him about ten o'clock in the morning, just after he had started to join his company. The envelope was cheap and coarse; there was no direction outside. The doorkeeper opened it. It was addressed to no named person and it bore no signature. It was very brief, being confined to these simple words--"You did not see me last night. Remember Rule 3." The doorkeeper laid the letter down, with a hurried glance at his friend, whose face was buried in a mug. He knew the handwriting; he knew who it was that he had not seen; he remembered Rule 3, the rule that said--"The only and inevitable penalty of treachery is death." He turned white and took a hasty gulp at his liquor. "Who brought this?" he asked. "I told you," answered his wife; "a lad in a blue jersey; he looked as if he might be from the harbour." She put food before them, adding as she did so--"I suppose you've been too full of your politics to hear much about the murder?" "The murder?" exclaimed the watchmaker. The doorkeeper crumpled up his letter and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, while his wife read to them the story of the discovery. The watchmaker listened with interest. "Benham!" he remarked. "I never heard the name, did you?" "You know him, Ned," said the doorkeeper's wife; "him as Mr. Gaspard used to go about with." By a sudden common impulse, the eyes of the two men met; the woman went off to brew them a pot of tea, and left them fearfully gazing at one another. "What stuff!" said the watchmaker uneasily. "It was only his blow. What reason had he--?" He paused and added, "Seen him to-day, Ned?" "No," answered Ned, fingering his note. "Wasn't he in the procession?" "I didn't see him." "When did you see him last?" The doorkeeper hesitated. "Night of our last committee," he whispered finally. "Oh, there's nothing in it," said the watchmaker reassuringly. He had not a letter in his pocket. The doorkeeper opened his mouth to speak, but seeing his wife approaching, he shut it again and busied himself with his meal. "What was the letter, Ned?" "Oh, about the procession," he answered. "Then you got it too late. Who was it from?" "If you'd give us the tea," he broke out roughly, "and let the damned letter alone, it 'ud be a deal better." "La, you needn't fly out at a woman so," said Mrs. Evans. "It ain't the way to treat his wife, is it, mister?" "Mister" gallantly reproved his friend, but pleaded that they were both weary, and weary legs made short tempers. Giving them the tea, she left them to themselves; her work was not finished till three small children were safely in bed. The sensation of having one's neck for the first time within measurable distance of a rope must needs be somewhat disquieting. The doorkeeper, in spite of his secret society doings, was a timid man, with a vastly respectful fear of the law. To talk about things, to vapour idly about them over the cups, is very different from being actually, even though remotely, mixed up in them. Ned Evans was a man of some education: he read the papers, accounts of crimes and reports of trials; he had heard of accessories after and before the fact. Was he not an accessory after the fact? He fancied they did not hang such; but if they caught him, and all that about Gaspard and the society came out, would they not call him an accessory before the fact? The noose seemed really rather near, and in his frightened fancy, as he lay sleepless beside his snoring wife, the rope dangled over his head. The poor wretch was between the devil and the deep sea--between stern law and cruel Rule 3. He dared not toss about, his wife would ask him what ailed him; he lay as still as he could, bitterly cursing his folly for mingling in such affairs, bitterly cursing the Frenchman who led him on into the trap and left him fast there. How could he save his neck? And he restlessly rent the band of his coarse night-shirt, that pressed on his throat with a horrible suggestion of what might be. Where was that Gaspard? Had he fled over the sea? Ah, if he could be sure of that, and sure that the dreaded man would not return! Or was he lurking in some secret hole, ready to steal out and avenge a violation of Rule 3? The doorkeeper had always feared the man; in the lurid light of this deed, Gaspard's image grew into a monster of horror, threatening sudden and swift revenge for disobedience or treachery. No; he must stand firm. But what of the police? Well, men sleep somehow, and at last he fell asleep, holding the band of the night-shirt away from his throat: if he fell asleep with that pressing on him, God knew what he might dream. "It's very lucky," remarked the Superintendent of Police, who had a happy habit of looking at the bright side of things, to one of his subordinates, "that this Benham seems to have had no relations and precious few friends." "No widows coming crying about," observed the subordinate, with an assenting nod. "Nothing known of him except that he came to Kirton a few months back, did nothing, seemed to have plenty of money, took his liquor, played a hand at cards, hurt nobody, seemingly knew nobody." "Why, I saw him with Mr. Puttock." "Yes; but Mr. Puttock knows nothing of him, except that he said he came from Shepherdstown. That's why Puttock was civil to him. The place is in his constituency." "Got any idea, sir?" the subordinate ventured to ask. The Superintendent was about to answer in the negative, when a detective entered the room. "Well, I've found one missing man for you," he said, in a satisfied tone. "One missing man!" echoed his superior, scornfully. "In a place o' this size I'd always find you twenty." The sergeant went on, unperturbed, "Francois Gaspard, known as politician and agitator, didn't go home to his lodgings in Kettle Street last night, was to have acted as Marshal in Company B of Procession 3 to-day, didn't turn up, hasn't turned up to-night, don't owe any rent, hasn't taken any clothes." "Oh!" said the Superintendent morosely. "Left an address?" "Left no address, sir." "How did he go, and where?" "Not known, sir." "Good Lord!" moaned the Superintendent, "and what's your salary?" The sergeant's good-humour was impregnable. "Give me time," he said, and the sentence was almost drowned in a loud knock at the door. An instant later Kilshaw rushed in. "What's this, Dawson?" he cried to the Superintendent; "what's this about the murder?" "You haven't heard, sir?" "I went out of town to avoid this infernal row to-day, and am only just back." Dawson smiled discreetly. He could understand that the proceedings of the day would not attract Mr. Kilshaw. "But is it true," Kilshaw went on eagerly, "that Mr. Benham has been murdered?" "Well, it looks like it, sir," and Dawson gave a full account of the circumstances. "And the motive?" asked Kilshaw. "Robbery, I suppose. His pockets were empty, and according to our information he was generally flush of money; where he got it, I don't know." "Ah!" said Kilshaw meditatively; "his pockets empty! And have you no clue?" "Not what you'd call a clue. Did you know the gentleman, sir?" Kilshaw replied by saying that Mr. Puttock had introduced Benham to him and the acquaintance had continued--it was a political acquaintance purely. "You don't know anything about him before he came here?" Kilshaw suddenly perceived that he was being questioned, whereas his object had been to question. "You say," he observed, "that you haven't got what you'd call a clue. What do you mean?" "You can tell Mr. Kilshaw, if you like," said the Superintendent to the sergeant, who repeated his information. "Gaspard! why that's the fellow the Premier--" and Mr. Kilshaw stopped short. After a moment, he asked abruptly, "Were there any papers on the body?" "None, sir." "I suppose there's nothing really to connect this man Gaspard with it?" "Oh, nothing at present, sir. Did you say you'd known the deceased before he--?" "If I'm called at the inquest, I shall tell all I know," said Kilshaw, rising. "It's not much." "Happen to know if he had any relations, sir?" "H'm. He was a widower, I believe." "Children?" "Really," said Mr. Kilshaw, with a faint smile, "I don't know." And he escaped from pertinacious Mr. Dawson with some alacrity. When he was outside, he stopped suddenly. "Shall I tell 'em to apply to Medland?" he asked himself, with a malicious chuckle. "No, I'll wait a bit yet," and he walked on, wondering whether by any chance Mr. Benham had been done to death to save the Premier. This fanciful idea he soon dismissed with a laugh; it never entered his head, prejudiced as he was, to think that Medland himself had any hand in the matter. After all, he was a man of common sense, and he quickly arrived at a conclusion which he expressed by exclaiming, "The poor fool's been showing his money. Who's got my five hundred now, I wonder?" His wonderings would have been satisfied, had Aladdin's carpet or other magical contrivance transported him to where the steamship _Pride of the South_ was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A thick-set, short man, shipped at the last moment as cook's mate, in substitution for a truant, was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette, looking up at the bright stars, and ever and again gently pressing his hand on a little lump inside his shirt. He seemed at peace with all the world, though he was ready to be at war, if need be, and his knife, burnished and clean, lay handy to his fingers. He turned on his side and composed himself to sleep, his chest rising and falling with regular, uninterrupted breathing. Once he smiled: he was thinking of Ned Evans, the doorkeeper; then he gave himself a little shake, closed his eyes, and forgot all the troubles of this weary world. So sleep children, so--we are told--the just: so slept M. Francois Gaspard, on his way to seek fresh woods and pastures new. _ |
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