Part 2. The Phonograph - Chapter 17. Polycarp And Hawke's Man

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_ PART II. THE PHONOGRAPH
CHAPTER XVII. POLYCARP AND HAWKE'S MAN

Then it was that he heard a noise, something between scratching and fumbling, on the further side of the front-door, in the main corridor of the flats. He could see through the ground glass over the door that the corridor was lighted as usual.

He thought: 'Someone is breaking the seal on that door!' And his next idea was: 'Since the seal is being broken in the full light of the public corridor, it is being broken by someone who has the right to break it. Only one man has the right, and that man is Francis Tudor's executor, Senior Polycarp.'

The noise of scratching and fumbling ceased, and a key was placed in the lock.

Hugo hastily extinguished his lamp, and hid behind the portiere. Immediately the lamp was extinguished he observed, what he had not observed before, that a faint light came through the aperture of the door leading to the servants' quarters.

The front-door opened, and he heard footsteps in the hall. Then ensued a pause. Then the footsteps advanced, and the newcomer evidently went into the room where the faint light was.

'Come out of that!'

Yes; it was Polycarp's quiet, mincing, imperious voice.

'Come out of it yourself!'

The answering tones were gruff, heavy, full, the speech of a strong coarse-fibred man.

Hugo peeped cautiously through the portiere. Polycarp was backing slowly out of the room into the hall, followed by a tall, dark, scowling man, who bore an ordinary kitchen candle. Polycarp halted in the middle of the floor. The man also halted; he seemed to be towering over Polycarp in an attitude of menace.

'Let me pass,' said the man. 'I've had enough of this.'

Polycarp smiled scornfully.

'You're caught,' said he. 'You're one of Hawke's men, aren't you?'

'Go to h---!' was the man's ferocious reply.

'Answer my question, sir.'

'What if I am?' the man grumbled.

'In five minutes you'll be in the hands of the police. I got wind yesterday of what your rascally agency was up to. You needn't deny anything. You're working on behalf of Mr. Ravengar. You know me! Mr. Ravengar happens to be a client of mine, but after to-night he will be so no longer. What he wants done in this flat I cannot guess, but it's an absolute certainty that you're in for three years' penal, my friend.'

'Let me pass,' the man repeated, lifting his jaw, 'or I'll blow your brains out!'

He produced his revolver.

'Oh no, you won't,' said Polycarp coldly. 'You daren't. You aren't on the stage, and you aren't in Texas. And you aren't a bold Bret Harte villain. You're simply the creature of a private inquiry agency, as it's called, the most miserable of trades! Usually you spend your time in manufacturing divorces, but just now you're doing something more dangerous even than that, something that needed more pluck than you've got. I should advise you to come with me quietly.'

Polycarp was in evening dress, and carried a pair of white gloves. Hugo decidedly admired the old dandy as he stood there gazing up so condescendingly at the man with the candle.

'Look here!' said the man with the candle. 'Let me pass. I don't want any fuss. I want to go. There's more in this flat than I bargained for. Let me pass.'

'Give me that revolver,' Polycarp smoothly demanded.

'Curse it!' cried the man. 'I'll give it you! Hands up, you old fool! Do you think I'm here for fun?'

And he raised the revolver.

'I shall not put my hands up.'

'I'll count five,' said the man grimly, 'and if you don't--'

'Count.'

'One!... two!... three! Can't you see I mean it?'

Hugo perceived plainly the murderous, wild look on the man's face. He knew what it was to feel murderous. He knew that in a fit of homicide all considerations of prudence, all care for the future, vanish away, that the mind is utterly monopolized by the obsession of the one single desire.

Polycarp disdainfully sneered:

'Four!'

Hugo could withstand the strain no more. He bounded out from his concealment, and snatched the revolver from the man's hand.

'I forgot you,' growled the man, glancing at him, disgusted.

And so saying he dashed the candle in Polycarp's face and knocked him violently against Hugo. Both Hugo and Polycarp fell to the ground. The man made a leap for the door, and in a second had fled, banging it after him. Hugo and Polycarp rose with stiff movements. Hugo picked up his lamp, and the two confronted each other. It was a highly delicate situation.

'Your life is, at any rate, saved,' said Hugo at length.

'You think it was in danger?'

Polycarp's lip curled.

'I think so.'

'Possibly you foresaw the danger I ran,' Polycarp remarked with frigid irony, 'and came into the flat with the intention of protecting me. May I ask _how_ you came in?'

'I came in through the drawing-room window,' said Hugo. 'I did not interfere with your seals, however,' he added.

'You know you are guilty of a criminal offence?'

'I know it.'

'And that I, as executor of the late Francis Tudor, have a duty which I must perform, no matter how unpleasant both for you and for me?'

'Just so.'

'What are you doing here? Do you think your conduct is worthy of a gentleman?'

Hugo put the candle down on a table, and dug his hands into his pockets.

'At this moment,' said he, 'I am not a gentleman. I am just a man. Nothing else. I will appeal to you as another man. I need hardly say that I have no connection with the opposition firm; I was entirely ignorant of the presence of Hawke's mission here when I broke into the flat. I had no notion that Ravengar was pursuing investigations similar to mine. Mr. Polycarp, Ravengar is, or was, a client of yours--'

'Was.'

'Yes, I heard what you said a few moments ago. Was a client of yours. I am sure, therefore, that no one knows better than you that Ravengar is not an honest man. On the other hand, I am equally sure that on the few occasions when you and I have met I must have impressed you as a comparatively honest man. Is it not so? I speak without false modesty. Is it not so?'

Polycarp nodded.

'Well, then,' proceeded Hugo, walking slowly about, 'you will probably need no convincing that in any difficulty between me and Ravengar I am in the right. Now, there have been, and are, matters between Ravengar and me in which others had best not interfere, even indirectly. I shall end those matters in my own way, because I am the strongest, and because my hands are clean. I can give you no details. But let me tell you that once the whole of my life's dream was in this flat, this flat which you have legally closed, and I have illegally opened. Let me tell you that my life, the only part of my life for which I cared, came to an end in this flat some months ago: and that a mystery hangs over that event which has lately made intolerable even the dead-alive existence which Fate had left to me. Let me tell you that circumstances have arisen this very day which rendered it impossible for me to keep myself out of this flat, be the penalty what it might. And, finally, let me make my appeal to you.'

'What do you want?' asked Polycarp quietly. The sincerity of Hugo's emotion had touched him. 'Don't ask me to act contrary to my duty.'

'But that is just what I shall ask!' Hugo exclaimed. 'Leave me. Leave me till to-morrow: that is my sole wish. What is your duty, after all? Tudor is dead. He is beyond the reach of harm. He requires the protection of no lawyer. Trust me, and leave me. I am an honest man. Forget your law, forget your parchments, forget the conventions of society, forget everything except that you are human, and can do a service to a fellow-creature. Exercise some imagination, and see how artificial and absurd is the world of ideas in which you live. Listen to your heart, and help me. I am worth it. Can't you see how I suffer? To-day I have been through as much as I can stand. I am at the end of my forces, and I must have sympathy. You will be guilty of deliberate neglect of duty in leaving me here, but I implore you to leave me. And I give no specific reason why you should. Will you?'

There was a silence.

'Yes,' said Polycarp.

'I thank you.'

'I don't know why I should consent,' Polycarp continued, 'but I do. I am quite in the dark. Legally, I am a disgrace to my profession. I forfeit my professional honour. But I will consent. Do what you like. Go out as you came in and leave no trace. If, however--'

'Don't trouble to say that,' Hugo interrupted him. 'I shall take no unfair advantage of your generosity. The flat and all its contents are absolutely safe in my hands. And if you should decide, in the future, that I must accept the consequences of to-night's work, I shall not shuffle. All I want is to be left alone _now_.'

Polycarp opened the door.

'Good-night,' he said. 'Perhaps you did save my life. But if you had appealed on that account to my gratitude I should have been obliged to refuse your request.'

'I know it,' said Hugo. 'I knew whom I was talking to. Good-night, and thanks.'

'I shall lock this door,' Polycarp called out, departing.

'Yes, do; and, I say, you'll lay hands on that man of Hawke's easily enough in a day or two.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Polycarp. 'I have not forgotten him. But I was compelled to deal with you first.'

Twisting his white moustache, and buttoning his overcoat across the vast acreage of his shirt-front, Polycarp disappeared from Hugo's view into the corridor. _

Read next: Part 2. The Phonograph: Chapter 18. Husband And Wife

Read previous: Part 2. The Phonograph: Chapter 16. Burglars

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