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Hugo: A Fantasia on Modern Themes, a fiction by Arnold Bennett |
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Part 2. The Phonograph - Chapter 16. Burglars |
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_ PART II. THE PHONOGRAPH CHAPTER XVI. BURGLARS When at eleven o'clock that same winter night Hugo stood hesitating, with certain tools and a hooded electric lamp in his hand, on the balcony in front of the drawing-room window of Francis Tudor's sealed flat, he thought what a strange, illogical, and capricious thing is the human heart. He knew that Camilla was dead. He had had the very best and most convincing evidence of the fact. He knew that Ravengar's suspicions were without foundation, utterly wrong-headed; and yet those statements of his enemy had unsettled him. They had not unsettled the belief of his intelligence, but they had unsettled his soul's peace. And that curiosity to learn the whole truth about the history of the relations between Francis Tudor and Camilla, that curiosity which had slumbered for months, and which had been so suddenly awakened by Ravengar's lure of the morning, was now urged into a violent activity. Nor was this all. Camilla was surely dead. But supposing that by some incredible chance she was not dead (lo! the human heart), could he kill Ravengar? This question had presented itself to him as he sat in the dome listening to Ravengar's asseverations that Camilla lived. And the mere ridiculous, groundless suspicion that she lived, the mere fanciful dream that she lived, had quite changed and softened Hugo's mood. He had struggled hard to keep his resolution to kill Ravengar, but it had melted away; he had fanned the fire of his mortal hatred, but it had cooled, and at length he had admitted to himself, angrily, reluctantly, that Ravengar had escaped the ordeal of the vault. And this being decided, what could he do with Ravengar? Retain him under lock and key? Why? To what end? Such illegal captivities were not practicable for long in London. Besides, they were absurd, melodramatic, and futile. As the moments passed and the fumes of a murderous intoxication gradually cleared away, Hugo had regained his natural, sagacious perspective, and he had perceived that there was only one thing to do with Ravengar. He let Ravengar go. He showed him politely out. It was an anti-climax, but the incalculable and peremptory processes of the heart often result in an anti-climax. The night was cold and damp, as the morning had been, and Hugo shivered, but not with cold. He shivered in the mere exciting eagerness of anticipation. He had chosen the drawing-room window because the panes were very large. He found it perfectly simple, by means of the treacled cardboard which he carried, to force in the pane noiselessly. He pushed aside the blind, and crept within the room. So simple was it to violate the will of a dead man, and the solemnly affixed seals of his executor! He had arranged that the pane should be replaced before dawn, and the new putty darkened to match the rest. Thus, no trace would remain of the burglarious entry. No seal on door or window would have been broken. He stood upright in the drawing-room, restored the blind and the heavy curtains to their positions, and then ventured to press the button of his lamp. He saw once more the vast outlines of the room which he had last seen under such circumstances of woe. The great pieces of furniture were enveloped in holland covers, and resembled formless ghosts in the pale illumination of the lamp. He shivered again. He was afraid now, with the fear of the unknown, the forbidden, and the withheld. Why was he there? What could he hope to discover? In answer to these questions, he replied: 'Why did Francis Tudor order that the flat should be closed? He must have had some reason. I will find it out. It is essential to my peace of mind to know. I meant to commit murder to-day; I have only committed burglary. I ought to congratulate myself and sing for joy, instead of feeling afraid.' So he reassured his spirit as he stepped carefully into the midst of the holland-covered and moveless ghosts. On the mantelpiece to the left there still stood the electric table-light, and by its side still lay the screwdriver.... He determined to pass straight through the drawing-room. At the further edge of the carpet, on the parquet flooring between the carpet and the portiere leading to the inner hall, he noticed under the ray of his lamp footprints in the dust--footprints of a man, and smaller footprints, either of a woman or a child. He remained motionless, staring at them. Then it occurred to him that during the days between the death of its tenant and the sealing-up the flat would probably not have been cleaned, and that these footprints must have been made months ago by the last persons to leave the flat. Little dust would fall after the closing of the flat. He was glad that he had thought of that explanation. It was a convincing explanation. Nevertheless he dared not proceed. For on the other mantelpiece to the right there was a clock, and while staring in the ghostly silence at the footprints, he had fancied that his ear caught the ticking of the clock. Imagination, doubtless! But he dared not proceed until he had satisfied himself that his ears had deluded him; and, equally, he dared not approach the clock to satisfy himself. He could only gaze at the reflection of the clock in the opposite mirror. In the opposite mirror the hands indicated half a minute past nine; hence the clock was really at half a minute to three, and if it was actually going, it might be expected to strike immediately. He waited. He heard a preliminary grinding noise familiar to students of symptoms in clocks, and in the fraction of a second he was bathed from head to foot in a cold perspiration. The clock struck three. The next instant he walked boldly up to the clock and bent his ear to it. No, he could hear nothing. It had stopped. He glared steadily at the hands for two minutes by his own watch; they did not move. In the back of his head, in the small of his back, in his legs, little tracts of his epidermis tickled momentarily. He wiped his face, and walked boldly away from the clock to the portiere, which he lifted with one arm. Then he threw the light of his lamp direct on the dial, and glared at it again, fearful lest it should have taken advantage of his departure to resume its measuring of eternity. Could a clock go for four months? A clock could be made that would go for four months. But this was not a freak-clock. It was a large Louis Seize pendule, and he knew it to be genuine of his own knowledge; he had bought it. He dropped the portiere between himself and the clock, and stood in the inner hall. He had had as much of the drawing-room as was good for his nerves. The inner hall was oblong in shape, and measured about twelve feet at its greatest width. In front of him, as he stood with his back to the drawing-room, was a closed door, which he knew led into the principal bedroom of the flat. To his right another heavy portiere divided the inner from the outer hall. This portiere hung in straight perpendicular folds. He wondered why the portieres had not been taken down and folded away. He decided to penetrate first into the bedroom, partly because he deemed the bedroom might contain the solution of the enigma, and partly because his eye had fancied it saw a slight tremor in the portiere leading to the outer hall. So he stepped stoutly across the space which separated him from the bedroom door. But he had not reached the door before there was a loud, sharp explosion, and a panel of the door splintered and showed a hole, and he thought he heard a faint cry. A revolver shot! He did not believe in anything so far-fetched as man-traps and spring-guns. Hence there must be some person or persons in the flat. Some unseen intelligence was following him. Some mysterious will had ordained that he should not enter that bedroom. The shot was a warning. He guessed from the flight of the splinters and the appearance of the hole that the mysterious will must be on the other side of the portiere, but the portiere gave no sign. What was he to do? He had brought with him no weapon. He had not anticipated that revolvers would be needed in the exploration of an empty and forbidden flat. The very definite terrors of the inner hall seemed to him to surpass the vaguer terrors of the drawing-room, and he decided to return thither in order to consider quietly what his tactics should be; if necessary, he could return to the dome for arms and assistance. But no sooner did he move a foot towards the drawing-room than another shot sounded. The drawing-room portiere trembled, and something crashed within the apartment. The mysterious will had ardently decided that he should go neither back nor forward. 'Who's there? Who's that shooting?' he muttered thickly, and extinguished his lamp. He had meant to cry out loud, but, to his intense surprise, his throat was dried up. There was no answer, no stir, no noise. The silence that exists between the stars seemed to close in upon him. Then he really knew what fear was. He admitted to himself that he was unmistakably and horribly afraid. He admitted that life was inconceivably precious, and the instinct to preserve it the greatest of all instincts. And gradually he came to see that the safest course was the most desperate course, and gradually his courage triumphed over his fear. He dropped gently to his hands and knees, and began, with a thousand precautions, to crawl like a serpent towards the outer hall. The darkened lamp he held between his teeth. If the mysterious will fired again, the mysterious will would almost to a certainty fire harmlessly over his head. At last his hands touched the portiere. He hesitated, listened, and put one hand under the portiere. Then, relighting the lamp, he sprang up with a yell on the other side of the portiere, and clutched for the unseen intelligence. But there was nothing. He stood alone in the outer hall. To his right lay the side-passage between the drawing-room and the _cabinet de toilette_, which Camilla had used on the night of her engagement. In front of him was a door, slightly ajar, which led to the servants' quarters. He gazed around, breathing heavily. _ |
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