Read the book: «Pharos, The Egyptian: A Romance», page 18
At two o'clock Valerie was tired, and we accordingly decided to leave. But I soon found that it was not to return home. Having placed my darling in her carriage, Pharos directed the coachman to drive to Park Lane, declaring that we preferred to walk.
It was a beautiful night, cool and fresh, with a few clouds in the southwest, but brilliant starlight overhead. Leaving Carlton House Terrace, we passed into Waterloo Place, ascended it as far as Piccadilly, and then hailed a cab.
"Our evening is not completed yet," said Pharos. "I have still some places to show you. It is necessary that you should see them, in order that you may appreciate what is to follow. The first will be a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden, where yet another side of London life is to be found."
If such a thing could possibly have had any effect, I should have objected; but so completely did his will dominate mine, that I had no option but to consent to anything he proposed. We accordingly stepped into the cab and were driven off to the place indicated. From the sounds which issued from the great building as we entered it, it was plain that the ball was proceeding with its accustomed vigour, a surmise on our part which proved to be correct when we reached the box Pharos had bespoken. A floor had been laid over the stalls and pit, and upon this upwards of fifteen hundred dancers, in every style of fancy dress the ingenuity of man could contrive, were slowly revolving to the music of a military band. It was a curious sight, and at any other time would have caused me considerable amusement. Now, however, with the fiendish face of Pharos continually at my elbow, and his carping criticisms sounding without ceasing in my ear, mocking at the people below us, finding evil in everything, and hinting always at the doom which was hanging over London, it reminded me more of Dante's Inferno than anything else to which I could liken it. For upwards of an hour we remained spectators of it. Then, with a final sneer, Pharos gave the signal for departure.
"We have seen the finest club in Europe," he said, as we emerged into the cool air of Bow Street, "the most fashionable social event of the season, and a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden. We must now descend a grade lower, and, if you have no objection, we will go in search of it on foot?"
I had nothing to urge against this suggestion, so, turning into Long Acre, we passed through a number of squalid streets, with all of which Pharos seemed to be as intimately acquainted as he was in the West-end, and finally approached the region of Seven Dials – that delectable neighbourhood bordered on the one side by Shaftesbury Avenue, and on the other by Drury Lane. Here, though it was by this time close upon three o'clock, no one seemed to have begun to think of bed. In one narrow alley through which we were compelled to pass at least thirty people were assembled, more than half of which number were intoxicated. A woman was screaming for assistance from a house across the way, and a couple of men were fighting at the further end of an adjoining court. In this particular locality the police seemed as extinct as the dodo. At any other time, and in any other company, I should have felt some doubt as to the wisdom of being in such a place at such an hour. But with my present companion beside me I felt no fear.
We had walked some distance before we reached the house Pharos desired to visit. From its outward appearance it might have been a small drinking-shop in the daytime; now, however, every window was closely shuttered, and not a ray of light showed through chink or cranny. Approaching the door he knocked four times upon it, whereupon it was opened on a chain for a few inches. A face looked through the aperture thus created, and Pharos, moving a little closer, said something in a whisper to it.
"Beg pardon, sir," said the woman, for a woman I soon discovered it was. "I didn't know as it was you. I'll undo the chain. Is the gentleman with you safe?"
"Quite safe," Pharos replied. "You need have no fear of him. He is my friend."
"In you come, then," said the woman to me, my character being thus vouched for, and accordingly in I stepped.
Dirty as were the streets outside, the house in which we now stood more than equalled them. The home of Captain Wisemann in Hamburg, which I had up to that time thought the filthiest I had ever seen, was nothing to it. Taking the candle in her hand, the old woman led us along the passage toward another door. Before this she paused and rang a bell, the handle of which was cleverly concealed in the woodwork. Almost instantly it was opened, and we entered a room the like of which I had never seen or dreamt of before. Its length was fully thirty feet, its width possibly fifteen. On the wall above the fireplace was a gas bracket, from the burner of which a large flame was issuing with a hissing noise. In the center of the room was a table, and seated round it were at least twenty men and women, who, at the moment of our entering, were engaged upon a game the elements of which I did not understand. On seeing us the players sprang to their feet with one accord, and a scramble ensued for the money upon the table. A scene of general excitement followed, which might very well have ended in the gas being turned out and our finding ourselves upon the floor with knives between our ribs, had not the old woman who had introduced us called out that there was no need for alarm, and added, with an oath – what might in Pharos's case possibly have been true, but in mine was certainly not – that we had been there hundreds of times before, and were proper sort o' gents. Thereupon Pharos contributed a sovereign to be spent in liquid refreshment, and when our healths had been drunk with a variety of toasts intended to be complimentary, our presence was forgotten, and the game once more proceeded. One thing was self-evident: there was no lack of money among those present, and when a member of the company had not the wherewithal to continue the gamble, he in most cases produced a gold watch, a ring, or some other valuable from his pocket, and handed it to a burly ruffian at the head of the table, who advanced him an amount upon it which nine times out of ten failed to meet with his approval.
"Seeing you have not been here before," said Pharos, "I might explain that this is the most typical thieves' gambling hell in London. There is not a man or woman in this room at the present moment who is not a hardened criminal in every sense of the word. The fellow at the end narrowly escaped the gallows, the man on his right has but lately emerged from seven years' penal servitude for burglary. The three sitting together next the banker are at the present moment badly wanted by the police, while the old woman who admitted us, and who was once not only a celebrated variety actress, but an exceedingly beautiful woman, is the mother of that sickly youth drinking gin beside the fireplace, who assisted in the murder of an old man in Shaftesbury Avenue a fortnight or so ago, and will certainly be captured and brought within measurable distance of the gallows before many more weeks have passed over his head. Have you seen enough of this to satisfy you?"
"More than enough," I answered truthfully.
"Then let us leave. It will soon be daylight, and there are still many places for us to visit before we return home."
We accordingly bade the occupants of the room good-night, and, when we had been escorted to the door by the old woman who had admitted us, left the house.
From the neighbourhood of Seven Dials Pharos carried me off to other equally sad and disreputable quarters of the city. We visited Salvation Army Shelters, the cheapest of cheap lodging-houses, doss-houses in comparison to which a workhouse would be a palace; dark railway arches, where we found homeless men, women, and children endeavouring to snatch intervals of rest between the visits of patrolling policemen; the public parks, where the grass was dotted with recumbent forms, and every seat was occupied; and then, turning homewards, reached Park Lane just as the clocks were striking seven, as far as I was concerned sick to the heart, not only of the sorrow and the sin of London, but of the callous indifference to it displayed by Pharos.
CHAPTER XX
When I woke next morning the feeling I had had in my heart the evening before, that something terrible was about to happen, had not left me. With a shudder of intense disgust I recalled the events of the previous night. Never, since I had known him, with the exception of that one occasion on the Embankment, had Pharos appeared so loathsome to me. I remembered the mocking voice in which he had pointed out to me the follies and frailties of our great city, the cruel look in his eyes as he watched those about him in the different places we had visited. For the life of me I could not comprehend what his object had been in taking me to them. While I dressed I debated the subject with myself, but though I had a very shrewd suspicion that the vengeance to which he alluded, and which he had declared to be so imminent, was the plague, yet I could not see how he was able to speak with such authority upon the subject. On the other hand, I had to remember that I had never yet known him fail, either in what he had predicted, or anything he had set himself to do. Having got so far in my calculations I stopped, as another thought occurred to me, and with my brushes still in either hand stared at the wall before me. From the fact that he had informed me of the existence of the plague in London it was certain that he knew of it, though the authorities did not. Could it be possible, therefore, that he had simply crossed from the Continent to London in order to be able to gloat over the misery that was to come?
The diabolical nature of the man, and his love of witnessing the sufferings of others, tallied exactly with the conclusion I had arrived at; and if my reasoning were correct, this would account for the expression of triumph I had seen upon his face. When I descended to the breakfast-room I found Valerie awaiting me there. She was looking quite her own self again by this time, and greeted me with a pretty exhibition of shyness upon her face, which I could understand when she handed me a number of letters she had received, congratulating her upon our engagement.
"You were late last night," she said. "Hour after hour I lay awake listening for your step, and it was broad daylight when I heard you ascend the stairs. I cannot tell you how frightened I was while you were away. I knew you were with him, and I imagined you exposed to a hundred dangers."
I told her where and with whom I had been.
"But why did he take you with him?" she inquired, when I had finished. "I cannot understand that."
"I must confess that it has puzzled me also," I replied.
"The whole thing is very strange," she continued, "and I do not like the look of it. We have reason to know that he does nothing without a motive. But what can the motive have been in this particular instance?"
"That is more than I can say," I answered, and with that we changed the subject, and interested ourselves in our own and more particular concerns. So engrossing were they, and so pleasant were the thoughts they conjured up, that when breakfast was finished I remained in the dining-room, and did not open any of the morning papers which were lying in a heap upon the library table. At half-past ten I said good-bye to Valerie, who was practising in the drawing-room – Pharos I had not yet seen – and, putting on my hat, left the house. It was the first opportunity I had had since my return to London of visiting my studio, and I was exceedingly anxious to discover how things had been progressing there during my absence. It was a lovely morning for walking, the sky being without a cloud, and the streets in consequence filled with sunshine. In the Row a considerable number of men and women were enjoying their morning canter, and nurse-maids in white dresses were to be counted by the dozen in the streets leading to the Park. At the corner of Hamilton Place a voice I recognised called to me to stop, and on turning round I found my old friend, Sir George Legrath, hastening after me.
"My dear Cyril," he said, as he shook hands with me, "I am indeed glad to see you. I had no idea you had returned."
"I reached London yesterday morning," I answered, but in such a constrained voice that he must have been dense indeed if he did not see that something was amiss. "How did you know I had been away?"
"Why, my dear fellow," he answered, "have you forgotten that I sent you a certain address in Naples? and then I called at your studio the following morning, when your man told me you were abroad. But somehow you don't look well. I hope nothing is the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing," I replied, almost sharply, and for the first time in my life his presence was almost distasteful to me, though if I had been asked the reason I should have found it difficult to say why. "Sir George, when I called on you at the Museum that morning, you told me you would rather see me in my grave than connected in any way with Pharos."
"Well?" he inquired, looking up at me with a face that had suddenly lost its usual ruddy hue. "What makes you remind me of that now?"
"Because," I answered, "if it were not for one person's sake I could wish that that opportunity had been vouchsafed you. I have been two months with Pharos."
"Well?" he said again.
"What more do you expect me to say?" I continued. Then, sinking my voice a little, as if I were afraid Pharos might be within hearing distance, I added, "Sir George, if I were to tell you all I know about that man – "
"You must tell me nothing," he cried hastily. "I know too much already."
We walked for some distance in silence, and it was not until we were opposite Devonshire House that we spoke again.
Then Sir George said abruptly, and with a desire to change the subject that could not be disguised, "Of course you have heard the terrible news this morning?"
Following the direction of his eyes I saw what had put the notion into his head. A news-seller was standing in the gutter on the other side of the street, holding in his hand the usual placard setting forth the contents of the papers he had for sale. On this was printed in large letters —
TERRIBLE OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON
"You refer to the plague, I presume?" I said, with an assumed calmness I was far from feeling. "From that headline it would seem to have made its appearance in London after all."
"It has, indeed," said Sir George, with a gloominess that was far from usual with him. "Can it be possible you have not seen the papers?"
"I have scarcely seen a paper since I left London," I replied. "I have been far too busy. Tell me about it. Is it so very bad?"
"It has come upon us like a thunderclap," he answered. "Two days ago it was not known. Yesterday there was but one case, and that in the country. This morning there are no less than three hundred and seventy-five, and among them some of our most intimate friends. God help us if it gets worse! The authorities assure us they can stamp it out with ease, but it is my opinion this is destined to prove a grave crisis in England's history. However, it does not do to look on the black side of things, so I'll not turn prophet. Our ways part here, do they not? In that case, good-bye. I am very glad to have seen you. If you should be passing the Museum I hope you will drop in. You know my hours, I think?"
"I shall be very glad to do so," I answered, and thereupon we parted with the first shadow of a cloud between us that our lives had seen. On reviewing our conversation afterward I could recall nothing that should have occasioned it; nevertheless, there it was, "that little rift within the lute," as Tennyson says, "which by and by would make the music mute."
After we had parted, I crossed the road and walked by way of Dover Street to my studio. Scarcely two months had elapsed since that fatal day when I had left it to go in search of Pharos, and yet those eight weeks seemed like years. So long did I seem to have been away that I almost expected to find a change in the houses of the street, and when I passed the curiosity shop at the corner where the murder had taken place – that terrible tragedy which had been the primary cause of my falling into Pharos's power – it was with a sensible feeling of surprise I found the windows still decorated with the same specimens of china, and the shop still carrying on its trade under the name of Clausand. I turned the corner and crossed the road. Instinctively my hand went into my pocket and produced the latchkey. I tapped it twice against the right-hand pillar of the door, just as I had been in the habit of doing for years, and inserted it in the lock. A few seconds later I had let myself in and was standing amongst my own lares and penates once more. Everything was just as I had left it; the clock was ticking on the mantelpiece, not a speck of dirt or dust was upon chair or china; indeed, the only thing that served to remind me that I had been away at all was the pile of letters which had been neatly arranged upon my writing-table. These I opened, destroyed what were of no importance, and placed the rest in my pocket to be answered at a more convenient opportunity. Then, leaving a note upon my table to inform my servant that I had returned, and would call again on the following morning, I let myself out, locked the door, and returned to Piccadilly en route to Park Lane.
A great writer has mentioned somewhere that the gravest issues are often determined by the most insignificant trifles. As I have just remarked, I had, in this instance, made up my mind to return to Park Lane, in the hope that I might be able to induce Valerie to take a stroll with me in the Park, and had left Bond Street in order to turn westward, when, emerging from a shop on the other side of the road, I espied the writer of one of the most important of the many letters I had found awaiting me at the studio. He was a member of my own club, and thinking I had better apologise to him while I had the chance for not having answered his letter sooner, I hastened after him. He, however, seemed to be in a hurry, and as soon as it came to a race between us it was evident that he had the advantage of me on a point of speed. I chased him until I saw that he was bound for the club, whereupon, knowing I should be certain to catch him there, I slackened my pace and strolled leisurely along. In other days I had often been twitted in a jocular fashion by my friends about my membership of this particular club. The reputation it possessed was excellent in every way, but it certainly must be confessed that what it gained in respectability it lacked in liveliness. For the most part the men who made use of it were middle-aged – in point of fact, I believe there were but two younger than myself; consequently the atmosphere of the house, while being always dignified, was sometimes cold almost to the borders of iciness.
On this particular day there was an additional air of gloom about it that rather puzzled me. When, however, I had finished my conversation with the man I had been following, and sought the smoking-room, the reason of it soon became apparent. That terrible fear which was destined within a few hours to paralyse all London was already beginning to make its presence felt, and as a result the room, usually so crowded, now contained but four men. These greeted me civilly enough, but without any show of interest. They were gathered round one of their number who was seated at a table with a pencil in his hand and a map of Europe spread out before him. From the way in which he was laying down the law, I gathered that he was demonstrating some theory upon which he pinned considerable faith.
"I have worked the whole thing out," he was saying as I entered, "and you can see it here for yourselves. On this sheet of paper I have pasted every telegram that has reached London from the time the disease first made its appearance in Constantinople. As each country became affected I coloured it upon the map in red, while these spots of a darker shade represent the towns from which the first cases were notified. At a glance, therefore, you can see the way in which the malady has travelled across Europe."
On hearing this, you may be sure I drew closer to the table, and looked over the shoulders of the men at the map below.
"As you see," said the lecturer, with renewed interest as he observed this addition to his audience, "it started in Constantinople, made its appearance next in Southern Russia and the Balkan States. Two days later a case was notified from Vienna and another in Prague. Berlin was the next city visited, then Wittenberg, then Hamburg. France did not become infected until some days later, and then the individual who brought it was proved to have arrived the day before from Berlin. Yesterday, according to the official returns, there were twelve hundred cases in France, eighteen thousand in Austria, sixteen thousand in Germany – of which Hamburg alone contributes five thousand three hundred and fifty – while in Italy there have been three thousand four hundred, in Spain and Portugal only two hundred and thirty, while Turkey and Russia have forty-five thousand, and thirty-seven thousand three hundred and eighty, respectively. Greece returns seventeen thousand six hundred and twenty, Holland seven thousand two hundred and sixty-four, Belgium nine thousand five hundred and twenty-three, while Denmark completes the total of Europe with four thousand two hundred and twenty-one. The inferences to be drawn from these figures are apparent. The total number of deaths upon the Continent up to midnight last night was one hundred and fifty-nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight. The nations most seriously affected are Turkey and the countries immediately surrounding her, namely, Greece, Russia, and Austria. Germany follows next, though why Hamburg should contribute such a large proportion as five thousand three hundred and fifty I must admit it is difficult to see. England hitherto has stood aloof; now, however, it has broken out in London, and three hundred and seventy-five cases have been notified up to eight o'clock this morning."
On hearing this, the men standing round him turned pale and shuffled uneasily upon their feet. As for myself, I might have been changed to stone, so cold and so incapable of moving was I. It was as if a bandage had suddenly been removed from my eyes, enabling me to see everything plainly and in its proper light.
"The returns for our own country," continued this indefatigable statistician, without noticing my condition, "are as interesting as those from the Continent. I have filed everything already published, and have applied the result to this map of London. The two cases that occurred in Norfolk, the porter in Norwich, and the stationmaster at Tebworth Junction, I omit, for the reason that they tell us nothing. Of the cases notified in this city, careful inquiries on the part of the authorities have elicited the information that twenty-five spent the evening at the Antiquarian Club last night, seventy-one at the Fancy Dress Ball at Covent Garden, while, strangely enough, no less than thirty-seven can be proved to have been among the guests of the Duchess of Amersham at her ball in Carlton House Terrace. The others are more difficult to account for, being made up of costermongers, homeless vagrants, street hawkers, and others of the same class."
I could bear no more, but stumbled from the room like a drunken man out into the hall beyond. A servant, thinking I was ill, hastened to inquire if he could be of any assistance to me.
"Get me a cab," I faltered huskily.
The man ran into the street and blew his whistle. A hansom drove up, and I made my way into the street and scrambled into it, scarcely knowing how I managed it, and then fell back upon the cushions as if I were in a fit. The cab sped along the streets, threaded its way in and out of the traffic with a dexterity and a solicitude for my safety that was a more biting sarcasm than any lips could utter. What was my safety to me now? Knowing what I knew, I had better, far better, be dead.
The dreadful secret was out. In less than five minutes the mystery of two months had been solved. Now I knew the meaning of the spot I had discovered upon my arm on the morning following my terrible adventure in the Pyramid; now I could understand my illness in the desert, and the sudden death of the poor Arab who had nursed me. In the light of this terrible truth, everything was as clear as daylight, and all I wanted was to get back to Park Lane and find myself face to face with Pharos, in order that I might tax him with it, and afterwards go forth and publish his infamy to the world. Fast as the man was driving, he could not make his horse go fast enough for me. Though at first my blood had been as cold as ice, it now raced through my veins like liquid fire. A feverish nervousness had seized me, and for the time being I was little better than a madman. Regardless of the passers-by, conscious only of the vile part I had been induced to play – unwittingly, it is true – in his unbelievable wickedness, I urged the driver to greater speed. At last, after what seemed an eternity, we reached our destination. I alighted, and, as I had done in Hamburg, paid the cabman with the first money I took from my pocket, and then went up the steps and entered the house. By this time the all-consuming fire of impatience which had succeeded the icy coldness of the first discovery had left me, and was succeeded by a strange, unnatural calm, in which I seemed to be myself, and yet to be standing at a distance, watching myself. In a voice that I scarcely recognised, I inquired from the butler where I could find his master. He informed me that he was in the drawing-room, and I accordingly went thither in search of him. I had not the least notion of what I was going to say to him when I found him, or how I should say it, but I had to relieve my mind of the weight it was carrying, and then – Why, after that, nothing would matter. I opened the door and entered the room. The sunshine was streaming in through the windows at the further end, falling upon the elegant furniture, the embroideries and draperies, the china, and the hundred-and-one knick-knacks that go to make up a fashionable drawing-room. Of Pharos, however, there was no sign. In place of him Valerie rose from a chair by the window and greeted me with a little exclamation of delight. Then, seeing the look upon my face, and the deadly pallor of my complexion, she must have realised that something serious had happened to me, for she ran forward and took my hands in hers.
"My darling!" she cried, with a look of terror upon her face, "what has happened? Tell me, for pity's sake, for your face terrifies me!"
The pressure of her hands and the sight of those beautiful frightened eyes gazing up into mine cut me to the heart. Overwhelmed with sorrow as I was, she alone of all the world could soothe me and alleviate the agony I was suffering. It was not possible, however, that I could avail myself of her sympathy. I was dishonoured enough already, without seeking to dishonour her. Here our love must end. For the future I should be an outcast, a social leper, carrying with me to my grave the knowledge of the curse I had brought upon my fellow men. I tried to put her from me, but she would not be denied.
"Oh, what can have happened that you treat me like this?" she cried. "Your silence breaks my heart."
"You must not come near me, Valerie," I muttered hoarsely. "Leave me. You have no notion what I am."
"You are the man I love," she answered. "That is enough for me. Whatever it may be, I have the right to share your sorrow with you."
"No, no!" I cried. "You must have no more to do with me. Drive me away from you. I tell you I am viler than you can believe, lower than the common murderer, for he kills but one, while, God help me, I have killed thousands."
She must have thought me mad, for she uttered a little choking sob and sank down upon the floor, the very picture and embodiment of despair. Then the door opened and Pharos entered.
Seeing me standing in the centre of the room with a wild look upon my face, and Valerie crouching at my feet, he paused and gazed from one to the other of us in surprise.
"I am afraid I am de trop," he said, with the old nasty sneer upon his face. "If it is not putting you to too much trouble, perhaps one of you will be good enough to tell me what it means."
Neither of us answered for upward of a minute; then I broke the spell that bound us and turned to Pharos. How feeble the words seemed when compared with the violence of my emotions and the unbelievable nature of the charge I was bringing against him I must leave you to imagine.
"It means, Monsieur Pharos," I said, "that I have discovered everything."
I could say no more, for a lump was rising in my throat which threatened to choke me. It soon appeared, however, that I had said enough, for Pharos must either have read my thoughts and have understood that denial would be useless, or, since I was no longer necessary to him, he did not care whether he confessed to me or not. At any rate, he advanced into the room, his cruel eyes watching me intently the while.
"So you have discovered everything, have you, my friend?" he said. "And pray what is this knowledge that you have accumulated?"
"How can I tell you?" I cried, scarcely knowing how to enter upon my terrible indictment. "How can I make you understand your wickedness? I have discovered that it is you who are responsible for the misery from which Europe is now suffering. I know that it was I, through you, who introduced the plague and carried it from Constantinople to London. Inhuman monster!" I continued, having by this time worked myself to a white heat. "I was in your power and you made me your tool. But you shall not escape. It is not too late even now to punish you. Within an hour the world shall know everything, and you will be dead, if devils can die. I have been your tool, but, since I know your wickedness, I will not be your accomplice. Oh, my God! is it possible that a man breathing the pure air of heaven can be so vile?"
