The Beetle, Richard Marsh [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

had been only three. Over the edge of the parapet I went, obtaining, with my naked feet, a precarious foothold on the latticework⁠—then down I commenced to scramble. I never did get a proper hold, and when I had descended, perhaps, rather more than half the distance⁠—scraping, as it seemed to me, every scrap of skin off my body in the process⁠—I lost what little hold I had. Down to the bottom I went tumbling, rolling right across the pavement into the muddy road. It was a miracle I was not seriously injured⁠—but in that sense, certainly, that night the miracles were on my side. Hardly was I down, than I was up again⁠—mud and all.

Just as I was getting on to my feet I felt a firm hand grip me by the shoulder. Turning I found myself confronted by a tall, slenderly built man, with a long, drooping moustache, and an overcoat buttoned up to the chin, who held me with a grasp of steel. He looked at me⁠—and I looked back at him.

“After the ball⁠—eh?”

Even then I was struck by something pleasant in his voice, and some quality as of sunshine in his handsome face.

Seeing that I said nothing he went on⁠—with a curious, half mocking smile.

“Is that the way to come slithering down the Apostle’s pillar?⁠—Is it simple burglary, or simpler murder?⁠—Tell me the glad tidings that you’ve killed St. Paul, and I’ll let you go.”

Whether he was mad or not I cannot say⁠—there was some excuse for thinking so. He did not look mad, though his words and actions alike were strange.

“Although you have confined yourself to gentle felony, shall I not shower blessings on the head of him who has been robbing Paul?⁠—Away with you!”

He removed his grip, giving me a gentle push as he did so⁠—and I was away. I neither stayed nor paused.

I knew little of records, but if anyone has made a better record than I did that night between Lowndes Square and Walham Green I should like to know just what it was⁠—I should, too, like to have seen it done.

In an incredibly short space of time I was once more in front of the house with the open window⁠—the packet of letters⁠—which were like to have cost me so dear!⁠—gripped tightly in my hand.

IX The Contents of the Packet

I pulled up sharply⁠—as if a brake had been suddenly, and even mercilessly, applied to bring me to a standstill. In front of the window I stood shivering. A shower had recently commenced⁠—the falling rain was being blown before the breeze. I was in a terrible sweat⁠—yet tremulous as with cold; covered with mud; bruised, and cut, and bleeding⁠—as piteous an object as you would care to see. Every limb in my body ached; every muscle was exhausted; mentally and physically I was done; had I not been held up, willy nilly, by the spell which was upon me, I should have sunk down, then and there, in a hopeless, helpless, hapless heap.

But my tormentor was not yet at an end with me.

As I stood there, like some broken and beaten hack, waiting for the word of command, it came. It was as if some strong magnetic current had been switched on to me through the window to draw me into the room. Over the low wall I went, over the sill⁠—once more I stood in that chamber of my humiliation and my shame. And once again I was conscious of that awful sense of the presence of an evil thing. How much of it was fact, and how much of it was the product of imagination I cannot say; but, looking back, it seems to me that it was as if I had been taken out of the corporeal body to be plunged into the inner chambers of all nameless sin. There was the sound of something flopping from off the bed on to the ground, and I knew that the thing was coming at me across the floor. My stomach quaked, my heart melted within me⁠—the very anguish of my terror gave me strength to scream⁠—and scream! Sometimes, even now, I seem to hear those screams of mine ringing through the night, and I bury my face in the pillow, and it is as though I was passing through the very Valley of the Shadow.

The thing went back⁠—I could hear it slipping and sliding across the floor. There was silence. And, presently, the lamp was lit, and the room was all in brightness. There, on the bed, in the familiar attitude between the sheets, his head resting on his hand, his eyes blazing like living coals, was the dreadful cause of all my agonies. He looked at me with his unpitying, unblinking glance.

“So!⁠—Through the window again!⁠—like a thief!⁠—Is it always through that door that you come into a house?”

He paused⁠—as if to give me time to digest his gibe.

“You saw Paul Lessingham⁠—well?⁠—the great Paul Lessingham!⁠—Was he, then, so great?”

His rasping voice, with its queer foreign twang, reminded me, in some uncomfortable way, of a rusty saw⁠—the things he said, and the manner in which he said them, were alike intended to add to my discomfort. It was solely because the feat was barely possible that he only partially succeeded.

“Like a thief you went into his house⁠—did I not tell you that you would? Like a thief he found you⁠—were you not ashamed? Since, like a thief he found you, how comes it that you have escaped⁠—by what robber’s artifice have you saved yourself from gaol?”

His manner changed⁠—so that, all at once, he seemed to snarl at me.

“Is he great?⁠—well!⁠—is he great⁠—Paul Lessingham? You are small, but he is smaller⁠—your great Paul Lessingham!⁠—Was there ever a man so less than nothing?”

With the recollection fresh upon me of Mr. Lessingham as I had so lately seen him I could not but feel that there might be a modicum of truth in what, with such an intensity of bitterness, the speaker