Twelve Stories and a Dream (17 page)

A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came into
his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles," he
whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected—this
adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom burglary
was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And he was acting in
the bravest manner!

And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare
do that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or
passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about
it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility
of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then raised
his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on a pedestal,
and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size gesticulating
bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered again. Beyond was a
broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric of bead curtain, very
black and sharp, against a further window; a broad staircase, plunging
into a gulf of darkness below; and another ascending to the second
floor. He glanced behind him, but the stillness of the night was
unbroken. "Crime," he whispered, "crime," and scrambled softly and
swiftly over the sill into the house. His feet fell noiselessly on a mat
of skin. He was a burglar indeed!

He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was a
scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his enterprise.
A short "miaow," a spitting, and a rush into silence, spoke reassuringly
of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every one was abed, it seemed.
So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one is so minded. He was glad he
had put it to the test. He determined to take some petty trophy, just to
prove his freedom from any abject fear of the law, and depart the way he
had come.

He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again.
Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this: they
went into rooms, they forced safes. Well—he was not afraid. He could
not force safes, because that would be a stupid want of consideration
for his hosts. But he would go into rooms—he would go upstairs. More:
he told himself that he was perfectly secure; an empty house could not
be more reassuringly still. He had to clench his hands, nevertheless,
and summon all his resolution before he began very softly to ascend the
dim staircase, pausing for several seconds between each step. Above was
a square landing with one open and several closed doors; and all the
house was still. For a moment he stood wondering what would happen if
some sleeper woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit
bedroom, the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in
three interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder—his
trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had ascended. It
was as easy as—

Hist!...

Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house—and then the noise of a
latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match in
the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden discovery
of the folly upon which he had come. "How on earth am I to get out of
this?" said Mr. Ledbetter.

The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped
against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In a
flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood for
a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. "My goodness! What
a FOOL I have been!" he whispered, and then darted swiftly across the
shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he had just come.
He stood listening—quivering. The footsteps reached the first-floor
landing.

Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment
was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven for
a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds too soon.
He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing candle-light
appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the shadows ran
wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down.

"Lord, what a day!" said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed he
deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging by the feet,
decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went to the door and
locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows carefully and pulled
down the blinds, and returning sat down upon the bed with startling
ponderosity.

"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter
inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots were
good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance suggested
a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed some upper
garments—a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred—and casting
them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less noisily, and as it
seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. At intervals he muttered
to himself, and once he laughed softly. And Mr. Ledbetter muttered to
himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the foolish things," said Mr.
Ledbetter. "What on earth am I to do now?"

His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between the
stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of
light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save
for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled
confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the
edge of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously
depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened until
the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was a luxurious
one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors and so forth of the
furniture, well equipped.

What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until this
person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, to
creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony seemed
the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump from the
balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances against him,
Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his
head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary to attract his
attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate
intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences
hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar," or, "I
trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from
beneath you," was about as much as he could get.

Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose they did
not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his unblemished
high character count for nothing? Technically he was a burglar, beyond
dispute. Following out this train of thought, he was composing a lucid
apology for "this technical crime I have committed," to be delivered
before sentence in the dock, when the stout gentleman got up and
began walking about the room. He locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr.
Ledbetter had a transient hope that he might be undressing. But, no! He
seated himself at the writing-table, and began to write and then tear up
documents. Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with
the odour of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils.

"The position I had assumed," said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of
these things, "was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse bar
beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a disproportionate
share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I experienced what is
called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The pressure of my hands on the
coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became painful. My knees, too, were
painful, my trousers being drawn tightly over them. At that time I wore
rather higher collars than I do now—two and a half inches, in fact—and
I discovered what I had not remarked before, that the edge of the one
I wore was frayed slightly under the chin. But much worse than these
things was an itching of my face, which I could only relieve by violent
grimacing—I tried to raise my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve
alarmed me. After a time I had to desist from this relief also,
because—happily in time—I discovered that my facial contortions were
shifting my glasses down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have
exposed me, and as it was they came to rest in an oblique position of
by no means stable equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an
intermittent desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In
fact, quite apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical
discomfort became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to
stay there motionless, nevertheless."

After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This deepened
into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink—twenty-five chinks—a rap on the
writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout legs. It dawned
upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking of gold. He
became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity grew. Already,
if that was the case, this extraordinary man must have counted some
hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could resist it no longer,
and he began very cautiously to fold his arms and lower his head to the
level of the floor, in the hope of peeping under the valance. He moved
his feet, and one made a slight scraping on the floor. Suddenly the
chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became rigid. After a while the chinking
was resumed. Then it ceased again, and everything was still, except Mr.
Ledbetter's heart—that organ seemed to him to be beating like a drum.

The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor, and
he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were quite still.
The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, as it seemed, under
the chair of the owner. Everything was quite still, everything continued
still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter that the unknown was in a fit
or suddenly dead, with his head upon the writing-table....

The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep became
irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand forward,
projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance immediately
next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now the stranger's
knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then—he was staring at
the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over the writing-table at his
head.

"Come out of that, you scoundrel!" said the voice of the stout gentleman
in a tone of quiet concentration. "Come out. This side, and now. None of
your hanky-panky—come right out, now."

Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but without
any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told.

"Kneel," said the stout gentleman, "and hold up your hands."

The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from
all-fours and held up his hands. "Dressed like a parson," said the stout
gentleman. "I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too! You SCOUNDREL!
What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night? What the deuce
possessed you to get under my bed?"

He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to several
very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal appearance. He
was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. Ledbetter: he was as
stout as his legs had promised, he had rather delicately-chiselled small
features distributed over a considerable area of whitish face, and quite
a number of chins. And the note of his voice had a sort of whispering
undertone.

"What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?"

Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He
coughed. "I can quite understand—" he said.

"Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!—you scoundrel. Don't you move that
hand."

"It's soap," said Mr. Ledbetter. "From your washstand. No doubt it—"

"Don't talk," said the stout man. "I see it's soap. Of all incredible
things."

"If I might explain—"

"Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for
explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?"

"In a few minutes, if you—"

"Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver I'll
shoot. Have you any mates?"

"No," said Mr. Ledbetter.

"I suppose it's a lie," said the stout man. "But you'll pay for it if
it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs? You won't
get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! I reckon it's
a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned."

"I don't see how I could prove an alibi," remarked Mr. Ledbetter, trying
to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. There was a
pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside his captor was a
large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, and that there were torn
and burnt papers on the table. And in front of these, and arranged
methodically along the edge were rows and rows of little yellow
rouleaux—a hundred times more gold than Mr. Ledbetter had seen in all
his life before. The light of two candles, in silver candlesticks, fell
upon these. The pause continued. "It is rather fatiguing holding up my
hands like this," said Mr. Ledbetter, with a deprecatory smile.

"That's all right," said the fat man. "But what to do with you I don't
exactly know."

"I know my position is ambiguous."

"Lord!" said the fat man, "ambiguous! And goes about with his own
soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming
burglar, you are—if ever there was one!"

"To be strictly accurate," said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his glasses
slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons.

The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution crossed
his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put his other hand
to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, and his eye went
down to the dropped pince-nez.