The Lust of Hate, Guy Newell Boothby [essential books to read .txt] 📗

little shudder as I thought how nearly

his subject coincided with the idea in my own head.

 

“I do,” he answered. “The facts of the case are as follows:—At

eleven o’clock this morning the peer in question, who, you must

remember, was for many years Governor of one of our Australian

capitals, walked down the Strand in company with the Duke of Garth

and Sir Charles Mandervan. Beaching Norfolk Street he bade his

friends ‘good-bye,’ and loft them. From that time until a quarter

past one o’clock, when some children went in to play in Dahlia Court,

Camden Town, and found the body of an elderly gentleman lying upon

the ground in a peculiar position, he was not seen again. Frightened

at their discovery, the youngsters ran out and informed the policeman

on the beat, who returned with them to the spot indicated. When he

got there he discovered that life had been extinct for some

time.”

 

“But what reason have the authorities for connecting this case

with that of Major-General Braekington?”

 

“Well, in the first place, on account of the similarity in the

victims’ ranks; and in the second, because the same extraordinary

anaesthetic seems to have been the agent in both cases; and thirdly,

for the reason that the same peculiar mutilation was practised. When

Lord Beryworth was found, his left eyebrow had been cut completely

away. Strange, is it not?”

 

“Horrible, I call it,” I answered with a shudder. “It is to be

hoped the police will soon run the murderer to earth.”

 

If I had only known what I do now I wonder if I should have

uttered that sentiment with so much fervour? I very much doubt

it.

 

The following evening, for some reason or another, certainly not

any desire for enjoyment, I visited a theatre. The name or nature of

the piece performed I cannot now remember. I only know that I sat in

the pit, in the front row, somewhere about the middle, and that I was

so hemmed in by the tune the curtain went up, that I could not move

hand or foot. After the little introductory piece was finished the

more expensive parts of the house began to fill, and I watched with a

bitter sort of envy the gaiety and enjoyment of those before me. My

own life seemed one perpetually unpleasant dream, in which I had to

watch the happiness of the world and yet take no share in it myself.

But unhappy as I thought myself then, my cup of sorrow was as yet far

from being full. Fate had arranged that it should be filled to

overflowing, and that I should drink it to the very dregs.

 

Five minutes before the curtain rose on the play of the evening,

there was a stir in one of the principal boxes on the prompt side of

the side of the house, and a moment later two ladies and three

gentlemen entered. Who the ladies, and two of the gentlemen were I

had no notion; the third man, however, I had no difficulty in

recognising, he was Bartrand. As I saw him a tremour ran through me,

and every inch of my body quivered under the intensity of my emotion.

For the rest of the evening I paid no attention to the play, but sat

watching my enemy, and writhing with fury every time he stooped to

speak to those with whom he sat, or to glance superciliously round

the house. On his shirt front he wore an enormous diamond, which

sparkled and glittered like an evil eye. So much did it fascinate me

that I could not withdraw my eyes from it, and as I watched I felt my

hands twitching to be about its owner’s throat.

 

When the play came to an end, and the audience began to file out

of the theatre into the street, I hastened to the front to see my

enemy emerge. He was standing on the steps, with his friends, putting

on his gloves, while he waited for his carriage to come up. I

remained in the crowd, and watched him as a cat watches a bird.

Presently a magnificent landau, drawn by the same beautiful pair of

thoroughbred horses I had seen in the morning, drew up before the

portico. The footman opened the door, and the man I hated with such a

deadly fervour escorted his friends across the pavement and, having

placed them inside, got in himself. As the vehicle rolled away the

bitterest curse my brain could frame followed it. Oh, if only I could

have found some way of revenging myself upon him, how gladly I would

have seized upon it.

 

Leaving the theatre I strolled down the street, not caring very

much where I went. A little snow was falling, and the air was

bitterly cold. I passed along the Strand, and not feeling at all like

bed, turned off to my left hand, and made my way towards Oxford

Street. I was still thinking of Bartrand, and it seemed to me that,

as I thought, my hatred became more and more intense. The very idea

of living in the same city with him, of breathing the same air, of

seeing the same sights and meeting the same people was hideously

repulsive to me. I wanted him out of the world, but I wanted

to do the deed myself, to punish him with my own hand; I wanted to

see him lying before me with his sightless eyes turned up to the

skies, and his blood crimsoning the snow, and to be able to assure

myself that at last he was dead, and that I, the man he had wronged,

had killed him. What would it matter? Supposing I were hung for his

murder! To have punished him would surely have been worth that. At

any rate I should have been content.

 

When I reached Oxford Street I again turned to my left hand, and

walked along the pavement as far as the Tottenham Court Road, thence

down the Charing Cross Road into Shaftesbury Avenue. By this time the

snow was falling thick and fast. Poor homeless wretches were crouched

in every sheltered corner, and once a tall man, thin and ragged as a

scarecrow, rose from a doorway, where he had been huddled up beside a

woman, and hurried after me.

 

“Kind gentleman,” he said in a voice that at any other time could

not have failed to touch my heart, “for the love of God, I implore

you to help me. I am starving, and so is my wife in the doorway

yonder. We are dying of cold and hunger. We have not touched bite or

sup for nearly forty-eight hours, and unless you can spare us the

price of a night’s lodging and a little food I assure you she will

not see morning.”

 

I stopped and faced him.

 

“What will you do for it?” I asked, with a note in my voice that

frightened even myself. “I must have a bargain. If I give you money,

what will you do for it?”

 

“Anything,” the poor wretch replied. “Give me money, and I swear I

will do anything you may like to ask me.”

 

“Anything?” I cried. “That is a large word. Will you commit

murder?”

 

I looked fixedly at him, and under the intensity of my gaze he

half shrunk away from me.

 

“Murder?” he echoed faintly.

 

“Murder? Yes, murder,” I cried, hysterically. “I want murder done.

Nothing else will satisfy me. Kill me the man I’ll show you, and you

shall have all you want. Are you prepared to do so much to save your

life?”

 

He wrung his hands and moaned. Then he pulled himself

together.

 

“Yes, I’ll do anything,” he answered hoarsely. “Give

me the money; let me have food first.”

 

As he spoke his wife rose from the doorstep, and came swiftly

across the snow towards us. She must have been a fine-looking woman

in her day; now her face, with its ghastly, lead-coloured complexion

and dark, staring eyes was indescribably horrible. On her head she

wore the ruins of a fashionable bonnet.

 

“Come away!” she cried, seizing the man fiercely by the arm.

“Can’t you see that you are talking to the Devil, and that he’s

luring your soul to hell? Come away, my husband, I say, and leave

him! If we are to die, let us do it here in the clean snow like

honest folk, not on the scaffold with ropes round our necks. There is

your answer, Devil!”

 

As she said this she raised her right hand and struck me a blow

full and fair upon the mouth. I felt the blood trickle down my

lip.

 

“Take that, Devil,” she shouted; “and now take your temptations

elsewhere, for you’ve met your match here.”

 

As if I were really the person she alluded to, I picked up my

heels and ran down the street as hard as I could go, not heeding

where I went, but only conscious that at last I had spoken my evil

thoughts aloud. Was I awake, or was I dreaming? It all seemed like

some horrible nightmare, and yet I could feel the hard pavement under

my feet, and my face was cold as ice under the cutting wind.

 

Just as I reached Piccadilly Circus a clock somewhere in the

neighbourhood struck one. Then it dawned upon me that I had

been walking for two hours. I stood for a moment by the big fountain,

and then crossed the road, and was about to make my way down the

continuation of Regent Street into Waterloo Place, when I heard the

shrill sound of a policeman’s whistle. Almost immediately I saw an

officer on the other side of the road dash down the pavement. I

followed him, intent upon finding out what had occasioned the call

for assistance. Bound into Jermyn Street sped the man ahead of me,

and close at his heels I followed. For something like three minutes

we continued our headlong career, and it was not until we had reached

Bury Street that we sounded a halt. Here we discovered a group of men

standing on the pavement watching another man, who was kneeling

beside a body upon the ground. He was examining it with the

assistance of his lantern.

 

“What’s the matter, mate?” inquired the officer whom I had

followed from Piccadilly. “What have you got there?”

 

“A chap I found lying in the road yonder,” replied the policeman

upon his knees. “Have a look at him, and then be off for a stretcher.

I fancy he’s dead; but, anyway, we’d best get him to the hospital as

soon as maybe.”

 

My guide knelt down, and turned his light full upon the victim’s

face. I peered over his shoulder in company with the other

bystanders. The face we saw before us was the countenance of a

gentleman, and also of a well-to-do member of society. He was clothed

in evening dress, over which he wore a heavy and expensive fur coat.

An opera hat lay in the gutter, where it had probably been blown by

the wind, and an umbrella marked the spot where the body had been

found in the centre of the street. As far as could be gathered

without examining it, there was no sign of blood about the corpse;

one thing, however, was painfully evident—the left eyebrow had

been severed from the face in toto. From the cleanness of the cut

the operation must have been performed with an exceedingly sharp

instrument.

 

A more weird and ghastly sight than that snow-covered pavement,

with the flakes falling thick and fast upon it, the greasy road, the

oilskinned policemen, the curious bystanders, and the silent