Part 19 (2/2)

Enough of this! I know what business is, and I have many things to attend to. You are a small man, Mr. Brown, and it will take little to remove your difficulties. See! Here are a thousand pounds. They will free you from your present troubles,” and De Bac tossed a pocket-book on the table before Brown. ”I do not want a receipt,” he went on. ”I will call to-morrow for your final answer, and to settle details. If you need it I will give you more money. This hour--twelve--will suit me. _Adieu!_” He was gone like a flash, and Brown looked around in blank amazement. He was as if suddenly aroused from a dream. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses, although he could see the black packet, and the neat leather pocket-book with the initials ”L.

De B.” let in in silver on the outside. He rang his bell violently, and Simmonds appeared.

”Has M. De Bac gone?”

”I don't know, sir. He didn't pa.s.s out through the door.”

”There is no other way. You must have been asleep.”

”Indeed I was not, sir.”

Brown felt a chill as of cold fingers running down his backbone, but pulled himself together with an effort. ”It does not matter, Simmonds.

You may go.”

Simmonds went out scratching his head. ”How the demon did he get out?”

he asked himself. ”Must have been sleeping after all. The guv'nor seems a bit dotty to-day. It's the smash coming--sure.”

He wrote a letter or two, and then taking his hat, sallied forth to an aerated bread-shop for his cheap and wholesome lunch, for Simmonds was a saving young man, engaged to a young lady living out Camden Town way. Simmonds perfectly understood the state of affairs, and was not a little anxious about matters, for the mother of his _fiancee_, a widow who let lodgings, had only agreed to his engagement after much persuasion; and if he had to announce the fact that, instead of ”thirty bob a week,” as he put it, his income was nothing at all, there would be an end of everything.

”M'ria's all right,” he said to his friend Wilkes, in trustful confidence as they sat over their lunch; ”but that old torpedo”--by which name he designated his mother-in-law-elect--”she'll raise Cain if there's a smash-up.”

In the meantime, John Brown tore open the pocketbook with shaking hands, and, with a crisp rustling, a number of new bank-notes fell out, and lay in a heap before him. He counted them one by one. They totalled to a thousand pounds exactly. He was a small man. M. De Bac had said so truly, if a little rudely, and the money was more than enough to stave off ruin. De Bac had said, too, that if needed he would give him more, and then Brown fell to trembling all over. He was like a man s.n.a.t.c.hed from the very jaws of death. At Battersea he wore a blue ribbon; but now he went to a cabinet, filled a gla.s.s with raw brandy, and drained it at a gulp. In a minute or so the generous cordial warmed his chilled blood, and picking up the notes, he counted them again, and thrust them into his breast-pocket. After this he paced the room up and down in a feverish manner, longing for the morrow when he could settle up the most urgent demands against him.

Then, on a sudden, a thought struck him. It was almost as if it had been whispered in his ear. Why trouble at all about matters? He had a clear thousand with him, and in an hour he could be out of the country! He hesitated, but prudence prevailed. Extradition laws stretched everywhere; and there was another thing--that extraordinary madman, De Bac, had promised more money on the morrow. After all, it was better to stay.

As he made this resolve his eyes fell on the black packet on the table. The peculiar colour of the seals attracted his attention. He bent over them, and saw that the wax bore an impress of a V-shaped s.h.i.+eld, within which was set a trident. He noticed also that the packet was tied with a silver thread. His curiosity was excited. He sat down, snipped the threads with a penknife, tore off the black paper covering, flung it into the fire, and saw before him a bulky ma.n.u.script exquisitely written on very fine paper. A closer examination showed that they were a number of short stories. Now Brown was in no mood to read; but the t.i.tle of the first tale caught his eye, and the writing was so legible that he had glanced over half a dozen lines before he was aware of the fact. Those first half-dozen lines were sufficient to make him read the page, and when he had read the page the publisher felt he was before the work of a genius.

He was unable to stop now; and, with his head resting between his hands, he read on tirelessly. Simmonds came in once or twice and left papers on the table, but his master took no notice of him. Brown forgot all about his lunch, and turning over page after page read as if spellbound. He was a business man, and was certain the book would sell in thousands. He read as one inspired to look into the author's thoughts and see his design. Short as the stories were, they were t.i.tanic fragments, and every one of them taught a hideous lesson of corruption. Some of them cloaked in a religious garb, breathed a spirit of pitiless ferocity; others were rich with the sensuous odours of an Eastern garden; others, again, were as the tender green of moss hiding the treacherous deeps of a quicksand; and all of them bore the hall-mark of genius. They moved the man sitting there to tears, they shook him with laughter, they seemed to rock his very soul asleep; but through it all he saw, as the mariner views the beacon fire on a rocky coast, the deadly plan of the writer. There was money in them--thousands--and all was to be his. Brown's sluggish blood was running to flame, a strange strength glowed in his face, and an uncontrollable admiration for De Bac's evil power filled him. The book, when published, might corrupt generations yet unborn; but that was nothing to Brown. It meant thousands for him, and an eternal fame to De Bac. He did not grudge the writer the fame as long as he kept the thousands.

”By Heaven!” and he brought his fist down on the table with a crash, ”the man may be a lunatic; but he is the greatest genius the world ever saw--or he is the devil incarnate.”

And somebody laughed softly in the room.

The publisher looked up with a start, and saw Simmonds standing before him.

”Did you laugh, Simmonds?”

”No, sir!” replied the clerk with a surprised look.

”Who laughed then?”

”There is no one here but ourselves, sir--and I didn't laugh.”

”Did you hear nothing?”

”Nothing, sir.”

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