menu_book Chapter 16

CHAPTER III. THE MOVING FINGER WRITS, AND HAVING WRIT MOVES ON. NOR ALL YOUR PIETY NOR WIT SHALL LUR IT BACK TO CANCEL HALF A LINE, NOR ALL YOUR TEARS WASH OUT A WORD OF IT. OMAR KAYAM.

What thou doest, do quickly. It has been a vice which, in its melancholy sarcasm, has been followed for eighteen hundred years when any special evil has been afoot in the dark. And yet surely the words apply still more urgently when the doing that is premeditated is good.

What thou doest, do quickly. For even while we speak, those to whom we feel tenderly grow old and grey, and slip beyond the reach of human comfort, even while we dream of love, those whom we love are parted from us in an early hour when we think not, without so much as a rose to take with them, out of the garden of roses that were planted and fostered for them alone. And even while

we tardily forgive our friends, lo, the page is turned, and we see that there was no injury, as now there is no compensation for our lack of trust. Colonel Tempest acted with promptitude, but though he was as expeditious as he knew how to be, that was not saying much. His continual dread was that others might be beforehand with him. He had at this time a dream that recurred, or seemed to recur, over and over

again, that he was running blindly at night, and that unknown adversaries were coming swiftly up behind him, were breathing close, and passing him in the darkness unseen but felt. It haunted him in the daytime like a reality. Superstition would not be superstition if it were amenable to reason. Punishment hung over him like a sword in mid-air, might fall at any moment. What form of punishment, it would be hard to say, something evil to himself.

If he struck down another, might not the Almighty strike him down? It seemed to him that God's hand was raised. Sin no more. Wipe it out. Obliterate it.

Expiate it. Quick, quick. He set to work in feverish haste to find out Larkin. But although he had a certain knowledge of how to approach a gentleman of Swain's class, he could not at first unearth Larkin.

The habitation of the Wren is not more secluded than that of some of our fellow creatures. Colonel Tempest went very quietly to work. He never went near the address given him. He wrote anonymous letters repeatedly, suggesting a personal interview which would be found greatly to Mr. Larkin's advantage. Mr. Larkin, however, appeared to take a different view of his own advantage. It was in vain that Colonel Tempest said he should be walking on the Thames embankment

the following evening, and we found at a given point at a certain hour. No one found him there, or at any of the other places he mentioned. He took a great deal of unnecessary exercise, or what appeared to be at the time. Still he persisted. While the quarry remained in London, the hunter would probably remain there also. John had not gone yet. Colonel Tempest went on every few days, making appointments for meeting, and keeping them rigorously himself.

A fortnight passed. Larkin made no sign. At last Colonel Tempest heard that John was leaving town. He went to see him, and came away heavy at heart. John was out, and the servant informed him that Mr. Tempest was going to overlay the following morning. Colonel Tempest had a presentiment that a stone would be dropped between the points of the great northern.

The train would come to grief somehow. If it all happened in a moment, there would be one fierce thrust in the dark which he should not be able to parry. And if John got safe to Overley he would be followed there. The shooting season was coming on, and someone would loathe for him, and there would be an accident. Colonel Tempest went back to his rooms in Brook Street and stared at the carpet.

He did not know how long it was before he caught sight of a batch of letters on the table. He looked carelessly at them. The uppermost was from his tailor. The address of the next was written in printed letters. He knew in an instant that it was from Larkin without the further confirmation of the heavy

seal with its shilling impression. His hands shook so much that he opened it with difficulty. The sheet contained a somewhat guarded communication, also written in laboriously printed capitals. "'Yours of the Fourteenth to hand. All right. Place and time, you say. L.' The writer had been so very desirous to avoid publicity that he had even taken the trouble

to tear off the left inner side of the envelope on which the Maker's name is printed. That significant precaution gave Colonel Tempest a sickening qualm. It suggested networks of other precautions in the background, snares which he might not perceive till too late, subtleties for which he was no match. He began to feel that it was physically impossible for him to meet this man, that he must get out of the interview at any cost. The maddening sense of

being lured into a trap came upon him, and he flung in the opposite direction. But the facts came and looked him in the face. He seldom allowed them to do so, but they did it now in spite of him. Eyes that have been once avoided are ever after difficult to meet. Nevertheless he had to meet them. The cold, inexorable eyes of facts come up to the surface of his mind to have justice done them, grimy but redoubtable, like miners on strike. Cost what it might, he saw that he must capitulate,

that he must take this, his one, his last chance, or, hateful alternative, take instead the consequences of neglecting it. He went over the old, well-worn ground once again. Detection was impossible. That nightmare of a murder, and of a voice that cried aloud while all the world stood still to hear, Thou art the man, was only a nightmare after all. And this was the best way, the only way to get rid of it. He tried to recall the time and place of meeting,

but it was gone from him. There had been so many. No, he had scrawled it down on the fly-leaf of his pocket-book. Six o'clock. It was nearly five now. He had the money in readiness for the last fortnight. He had drawn one thousand of the ten which John had placed to his credit. He got out the ten crisp hundred-pound notes and put them carefully into his breast-pocket. Then he sat down and waited. When the half-hour chimed, he went out.

There is a straight and quiet path behind Kensington Palace, which the lovers and nursery-maids of Kensington Gardens frequent but little. A line of low-growing knotted trees separates it from the broad walk at a little distance. A hedge and fence on the other side divides the gardens from a strip of meadow not yet covered by buildings. The public esteem this particular walk, but lightly. Invalides in bath chairs toil down it sometimes. Nurses with grown-up

children, who are children still, go there occasionally, where the uncouth gambols and vacant bearded laugh of forty-five will not attract attention. But as a rule it is deserted. Colonel Tempest had it almost to himself for the first ten minutes, except for a covey of little boys who fought and clambered and jumped on some stacked timber at one end. He had not chosen the place without forethought, it would be presumed that he would have a large sum of money with him,

and he had taken care on each occasion to select a rendezvous where foul play would not be possible. He was within reach of numbers of persons merely by raising his voice. An old man on the arm of a young one passed him slowly, absorbed in earnest conversation. A girl in mourning sat down on one of the benches. There was privacy enough for business, and not too much for safety.

Colonel Tempest paced up and down, giving each face that passed a furtive glance. He did not know what to expect. The three-quarters struck. The girl got up and turned away.

A stout, shabby-looking man, whose approach Colonel Tempest had not noticed, was sitting on one of the benches under a gnarled yew, staring vacantly in front of him. The old man and the young one were coming down the walk again.

A check suit with six depressed amber-eyed dachshunds in a leash passed among the trees. A few more turns. The clock began to strike six. Colonel Tempest's pulse quickened. As he turned once more at the end of the walk, he could see that the hunched-up figure with

the hat over the eyes was still sitting under the yew at the further end. He walked slowly towards it. How should they recognise each other? Who would speak first? A quietly dressed man, walking rapidly in the opposite direction, touched his hat respectfully

as he passed him. Colonel Tempest recognised John's valet, and slackened his pace, for he was approaching the bench under the yew-tree, and he did not care to be addressed while anyone was within airshot. He was opposite now, and he looked hard at the occupant. The latter stared vacantly, if not sleepily, back at him, and made no sign. He's shamming, said Colonel Tempest to himself, or else he's not sure of me.

and he took yet another turn. The man had moved a little when he came towards him. He was leaning back in the corner of the bench with his head on his chest, and his legs stretched out. An elderly lady with curls and an umbrella clutched like a defensive weapon was passing him with evident distrust, calling to her side a fleecy little toy dog, which seemed to have left its stand and wheels at home, and to be rather at a loss without them.

Colonel Tempest looked hard a second time at the figure on the bench when he came opposite him, and then stopped short. The man was sleeping the sleep of the just, or, to speak more correctly, of the just inebriated. His underlip was thrust out.

He breathed stertoriously. If it was a sham, it was very well done. Colonel Tempest stood a moment in perplexity, looking fixedly at him. Should he wake him?

Was he perhaps waiting to be waked? Was he really asleep? He half put out his hand. I think so, said a respectful voice behind him. "'Beging your pardon, sir, the party is very intoxicated. Sometimes it's woke suddenly they're

vicious.' Colonel Tempest wheeled round. It was Marshall, John's valet, who had spoken to him, and who was now regarding the slumbering rough with the resigned melancholy of an undertaker. The quarter struck. "'Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir,' said Marshall, after a pause, in which Colonel Tempest wondered why he did not go. And then at last Colonel Tempest understood. He put his hand feebly to his head.

Oh, my God! he said below his breath, and was silent. Martial cleared his throat. There are situations in which, as Johnson has observed respecting the routine of married life, little can be said, but much must be done. The slumbering backslider slid a little further back in his seat, and gurgled something very

low down about Johnny Goodfellows, until his voice suddenly going upstairs in the middle, he added in a high quaver, Do you like it does appear? The musical outburst recalled Colonel Tempest somewhat to himself. He turned his eyes carefully away from Marshall after that first long look of mutual understanding.

The man's apparent respectability, his smooth shaved face and quiet dress, from his well-brushed hat and black silk cravat, to the dark dog-skinned glove that held his irreproachable umbrella, set Colonel Tempest's teeth on edge. He had not known what to expect.

But this! In a flash of memory he recalled the several occasions on which he had seen Marshall in attendance on John, his attentive manner and noiseless tread. Once, before John could move, he had seen Marshall lift him carefully into a more upright position. The remembrance of that helpless figure in Marshall's arms came back to him with a shudder that could not be repressed. Marshall, whose expressionless face had undergone no change whatever, cleared his throat again and looked at his watch.

"'Begging your pardon, sir,' he said. "'It's nearly half-past six, and Mr. Tempest dines early to-night.' "'Did you receive my other letters?' "'Said Colonel Tempest, pulling himself together, "'and beginning to walk slowly down the path.

"'Yes, sir. I'm sorry to have put you to the inconvenience "'of going to so many places, "'especially as I thought for myself how regularly you turned up at them. "'But I wanted to make sure you were in earnest before I showed. "'My character is my livelihood, sir.

"'There was a time when I was in trouble, and got into Mr. Johnson's hands. But before that I had been in service in our families. Very high, sir. Mr. Tempest took me on the recommendation of the Earl of Carmion.

I was with him, too, here. Mr. Johnson, said Colonel Tempest, stopping short and turning a shade whiter than he had been before. By God, I didn't know anything about a Mr. Johnson. What do you mean?

The two men eyed each other as if each suspected treachery. Did you write this? said Marshall, producing Colonel Tempest's last letter. "'Yes.' "'And then it's all right,' said Marshall, who had forgotten the sir.

"'He had a sight of names. Johnson he was, when he found I took up your—your bet. "'But I wrote to him I remember at one place as Crosby.' "'Carnal Tempest recalled the curate's mention of Swain under the name of Crosby. "'Swain, or Crosby, or Johnson, it's all one,' he said hastily. "'I want a certain bit of paper you have in your position, and I have ten Bank of England notes of a hundred each in my pocket now to give you an exchange.

I suppose we understand each other. Have you got it on you?' "'Yes.' "'Produce it. Show up the notes, then.' Unnoticed by either, the manner of both as between gentleman and servant emerged into that of perfect equality. Love is not the only leveller of disparities of rank and position.

They were walking together side by side. There was not a soul in sight. Each cautiously showed what he had brought. the dirty half-sheet of common note-paper with colonel tempest's signature seemed hardly worth the crisp notes each one of which colonel tempest turned slowly over ten said marshall all right stop said colonel tempest hoarsely the date on the ragged sheet he had just seen suggesting a new idea you're too young you're not five-and-thirty by god it's nearly sixteen years ago you weren't in it you couldn't have been in it how did you come by that whom did you have it from from one who'll tell no tales returned marshall he was sick of it he'd tried twice and he was near his end and i took it off him just before he died did he die said colonel tempest i'm not so sure of that i am said the man i never had nothing to do with the business

"'How long have you been with Mr. Tempest?' "'Matter of three months. "'He gave me when he came back from Russia in the spring. "'He will leave at once. "'That, of course, is understood.

"'Yes. "'I will give morning to night if—' And the man glanced at the packet in Colonel Tempest's hand. Without another word, they exchanged papers. Colonel Tempest did not tear the document that had cost him so much into a thousand pieces.

He looked at it, recognized that it was genuine, put it in his pocket, and buttoned his coat over it. Then he got out a notebook and pencil. And now, he said, the others. How am I going to get at them?

The man stared. The others? he repeated. What others? You were one, said Colonel Tempest. Now about the rest?

I mean to pay them all off. There were ten in it. Where are the nine? Marshall stood stock still, as if he were realising something unperceived till now.

Then he shook his fist. Let Johnson lie to me. I might have known. "'He took me in from first to last. "'I never thought that I was the—the only one.

"'After all I've spent and the work I've been put to, "'when I might just as well have let one of the others risk it. "'He never acted square, damn him!' "'Colonel Tempest looked at him horror-struck. "'The man's anger was genuine.

"'Do you mean to say you don't know?' "'He said in a harsh whisper, all that was left of his voice. "'Swain? Johnson? Said you did?' "'On his deathbed he said so.' "'No,' I thought of the man, his expressionless face having some meaning in it at last.

"'Do you suppose if I'd known, I'd have—' "'That's been the line he has gone from the firsts, you may depend on it. "'He has let each one think he was alone at the job to bring it round quicker. "'Double-tongued, double-dealing devil! "'Each of them others is working for himself now, single-handed.

"'I wonder if they haven't brought it off before. "'Why, that fire! "'We was both nearly done for that night. I slept just above him, and it was precious near. If he not run up himself and woke me, that fire—

Marshall stopped short. His mouth fell ajar. His mind was gradually putting two and two together. There was no horror in his face, only a malignant sense of having been duped.

By God, he said fiercely, I see it all. A cold hand seemed to be laid on Colonel Tempest's heart, to press closer and closer. The sweat burst from his brow. Swain had been an economiser of truce to the last.

He had deliberately lied, even on his deathbed, in order to thrust away the distasteful subject to which Colonel Tempest had so pertinaciously nailed him. The two men stood staring at each other. A governess, and three little girls, evidently out for a stroll after tea, were coming towards them. The sight of the four advancing figures seemed to shake the two men back in a moment,

with a gasp, to their former relations. Marshall drew himself up and touched his hat. "'Ought to be going, sir,' he said, almost in his usual ordered tones. "'Mr. Tempest dines early to-night.' Colonel Tempest nodded.

He'd forgotten for the moment how to speak. "'And it's all right, sir, about—about me?' Rather anxiously. Colonel Tempest perceived that Marshal had not realised the possible hold he might obtain over him by the mere fact of his knowledge of this last revelation.

He'd been obtuse before. He was obtuse now. "'As long as you are silent and leave at once,' said Colonel Tempest, commanding his tongue to articulate, "'I will be silent too. Not a moment longer.'

Marshall touched his hat again, and went. Colonel Tempest walked unsteadily to a bench under a twisted yew a little way from the path, and sat down heavily upon it. How cold it was! How bitterly cold!

He shivered and drew his hand across his damp forehead. The tinkling of voices reached him at intervals. Foolish birds were making choruses of small jokes in the branches above his head. Someone laughed at a little distance. He alone was wretched beyond endurance.

Perhaps he did not know what endurance meant. Panic shook him like a leaf, and there was no refuge. He did not know how to live. Dare he die? Die and struggle up the other side only to find an angry judge waiting on the brink to strike him down to hell,

even while he put up supplicating hands? but his hands were red with John's blood, so that even his prayers convicted him of sin, were turned into sin, and feeling as near despair as his nature could approach to, overwhelmed him. One of the most fatal results of evil is that in the same measure that it exists in ourselves, we imply it in others, and not less in God himself. Poor Colonel Tempest saw

in his creator only an omniscient detective, an avenger, an executioner who had mocked at his endeavours to propitiate him, to escape out of his hand, who hold him as in a pillory, and will presently break him upon the wheel. Superstition has its uses, but like most imitations it does not wear well. Not much better, perhaps, than the brown paper boots in which the English soldier goes forth to war. A cheap faith is an expensive experience. I believe Colonel

Chep is suffered horribly as he sat alone under that yew tree. Underwent all the throws which self-centred people do undergo, who, in saving their life, sees slipping through their fingers, who, in clutching at their own interest and pleasure, find themselves sliding into a gulf, who, in sacrificing the happiness and welfare of those that love them to their whim, their caprice, their shifting temper of the moment, find themselves at last

alone, unloved. Are there many sorrows like this sorrow? There is perhaps only one worse. Namely, to realise what onlookers have seen from the first, what has brought it about. This is hard.

But Colonel Tempest was spared this pain. Those for whom others can feel least compassion are, as a rule, fortunately able to bestow most upon themselves. Colonel Tempest belonged to the self-pitying class, and with him to suffer was to begin at once to be sorry for himself.

The tears ran slowly down his cheeks, and his lip quivered. but there is nothing quite so heart-breaking as the tears of middle age for itself he saw himself sitting there so lonely so miserable without a creature in the world to turn to for comfort entrapped into evil as all are at times for he was but human he never set up to be better than his fellows but to have striven so hard against evil, to have tried, as not many would have done, to repair what had been wrong, and the greatest wrong had not been with him, and yet to have been repulsed by God himself. Everybody had turned against him,

and now God had turned against him too. His last hope was gone. He should never find those other men, never buy back those other bets. John would be killed sooner or later, and he himself would suffer. That was the refrain, the keynote to which he always returned. He should suffer. Natures like Colonel Tempest go through the same paroxysms of blind and despairing grief as do those of children. They see only the present. The maturer mind is sustained in its

deeper anguish by the power of looking beyond its pain. It has bought, perhaps dear, that you'll experience that all things pass, that sorrow endures but for a night, even as the joy that comes in the morning endures but for a morning. But as a child weeps in his disconsolate and dries its eyes and forgets, so Colonel Tempest would presently forget again, for a time. Indeed, he soon took the best means within his reach of doing so. He felt that he was too wretched

to remain in England, but therefore imperative that he should go abroad. Persons of his temperament have a delightful confidence in the benign influences of the continent. He wrote to John, returning him £8,500 of the £10,000, saying that the object for which it had been given had become so altered as to prevent the application of the money. He did not mention that he had found a useful £1,000, and that pressing personal expenses had obliged him to retain another £500,

but he was vaguely conscious of doing an honourable action in returning the remainder. John wrote back at once, saying that he had given him the money, and that as his uncle did not wish to keep it, he should invest it in his name and settle it on his daughter, while the interest at four per cent would be paid to Colonel Tempest during his lifetime. Well, said Colonel Tempest to himself after reading this letter, beggars can't be choosers, but if I had been in John's

place, I hope I should not have shown such a grudging spirit. Eight thousand five hundred. and of all his wealth he might have made it ten thousand for my poor penniless girl. No wonder he does not wish her to know about it. And, having a little ready money about him, Colonel Tempest took his penniless girl, much to her surprise, a lapis lazuli necklace when he went to say good-bye to her.

On the last evening before he left England he got out the paper Marshall had given him, and, having locked the door, spread it on the table before him. He had done this secretly many times a day since he had obtained possession of it. There it was, unmistakable in black and grime that had once been white. The one thing of all others in this world that Colonel Tempest loathed was to be obliged

to face anything. Like Peer Gynt he went round, or if like Balaam he came to a narrow place where there was no turning-room, he struck furiously at the nearest sentient body. But a widower has no beast of burden at hand to strike, and there was no power of going no power of backing either, from before that sheet of crumpled paper. When he first looked

at it he had a kind of recollection that was no recollection of having seen it before. The words were as distinct as a death warrant. Perhaps they were one. Colonel Tempest read them over once again. I, Edward Tempest, lay one thousand pounds to one sovereign, that I do never inherit the property of Overly in Yorkshire. There was his own undeniable scrawling signature

beneath Swain's crab-like characters. There below his own was the signature of that obscure speculator, since dead, who had taken up the bet. If anything is forced upon the notice, which yet it is distasteful to contemplate, the only remedy for avoiding present discomfort is to close the eyes. Colonel Tempest struck a match, lit the paper, and dropped it into the black July grate. It would not burn at first, but after a moment it flared up and turned over.

He watched it writhe under the little chuckling flame. The word overly came out distinctly for a second, and then the flame went out, leaving it charred, curled nothing behind. One solitary spark flew swiftly up

like a little soul released from an evil body. Colonel Tempest rubbed the ashes with his foot, and once again closed his eyes. End of Volume 2, Chapter 3