three in a hansom cab is not, under all circumstances, the most comfortable method of conveyance,—when one of the trio happens to be sydney atherton in one of his ‘moments of excitement’ it is distinctly the opposite; as, on that occasion, mr lessingham and i both quickly found. sometimes he sat on my knees, sometimes on lessingham’s, and frequently, when he unexpectedly stood up, and all but precipitated himself on to the horse’s back, on nobody’s. in the eagerness of his gesticulations, first he knocked off my hat, then he knocked off lessingham’s, then his own, then all three together,—once, his own hat rolling into the mud, he sprang into the road, without previously going through the empty form of advising the driver of his intention, to pick it up. when he turned to speak to lessingham, he thrust his elbow into my eye; and when he turned to speak to me, he thrust it into lessingham’s. never, for one solitary instant, was he at rest, or either of us at ease. the wonder is that the gymnastics in which he incessantly indulged did not sufficiently attract public notice to induce a policeman to put at least a momentary period to our progress. had speed not been of primary importance i should have insisted on the transference of the expedition to the somewhat wider limits of a four-wheeler.
his elucidation of the causes of his agitation was apparently more comprehensible to lessingham than it was to me. i had to piece this and that together under considerable difficulties. by degrees i did arrive at something like a clear notion of what had actually taken place.
he commenced by addressing lessingham,—and thrusting his elbow into my eye.
‘did marjorie tell you about the fellow she found in the street?’ up went his arm to force the trap-door open overhead,—and off went my hat. ‘now then, william henry!—let her go!—if you kill the horse i’ll buy you another!’
we were already going much faster than, legally, we ought to have done,—but that, seemingly to him was not a matter of the slightest consequence. lessingham replied to his inquiry.
‘she did not.’
‘you know the fellow i saw coming out of your drawing-room window?’
‘yes.’
‘well, marjorie found him the morning after in front of her breakfast-room window—in the middle of the street. seems he had been wandering about all night, unclothed,—in the rain and the mud, and all the rest of it,—in a condition of hypnotic trance.’
‘who is the——gentleman you are alluding to?’
‘says his name’s holt, robert holt.’
‘holt?—is he an englishman?’
‘very much so,—city quilldriver out of a shop,—stony broke absolutely! got the chuck from the casual ward,—wouldn’t let him in,—house full, and that sort of thing,—poor devil! pretty passes you politicians bring men to!’
‘are you sure?’
‘of what?’
‘are you sure that this man, robert holt, is the same person whom, as you put it, you saw coming out of my drawing-room window?’
‘sure!—of course i’m sure!—think i didn’t recognise him?—besides, there was the man’s own tale,—owned to it himself,—besides all the rest, which sent one rushing fulham way.’
‘you must remember, mr atherton, that i am wholly in the dark as to what has happened. what has the man, holt, to do with the errand on which we are bound?’
‘am i not coming to it? if you would let me tell the tale in my own way i should get there in less than no time, but you will keep on cutting in,—how the deuce do you suppose champnell is to make head or tail of the business if you will persist in interrupting?—marjorie took the beggar in,—he told his tale to her,—she sent for me—that was just now; caught me on the steps after i had been lunching with dora grayling. holt re-dished his yarn—i smelt a rat—saw that a connection possibly existed between the thief who’d been playing confounded conjuring tricks off on to me and this interesting party down fulham way—’
‘what party down fulham way?’
‘this friend of holt’s—am i not telling you? there you are, you see,—won’t let me finish! when holt slipped through the window—which is the most sensible thing he seems to have done; if i’d been in his shoes i’d have slipped through forty windows!—dusky coloured charmer caught him on the hop,—doctored him—sent him out to commit burglary by deputy. i said to holt, “show us this agreeable little crib, young man.” holt was game—then marjorie chipped in—she wanted to go and see it too. i said, “you’ll be sorry if you do,”—that settled it! after that she’d have gone if she’d died,—i never did have a persuasive way with women. so off we toddled, marjorie, holt, and i, in a growler,—spotted the crib in less than no time,—invited ourselves in by the kitchen window—house seemed empty. presently holt became hypnotised before my eyes,—the best established case of hypnotism by suggestion i ever yet encountered—started off on a pilgrimage of one. like an idiot i followed, leaving marjorie to wait for me—’
‘alone?’
‘alone!—am i not telling you?—great scott, lessingham, in the house of commons they must be hazy to think you smart! i said, “i’ll send the first sane soul i meet to keep you company.” as luck would have it, i never met one,—only kids, and a baker, who wouldn’t leave his cart, or take it with him either. i’d covered pretty nearly two miles before i came across a peeler,—and when i did the man was cracked—and he thought me mad, or drunk, or both. by the time i’d got myself within nodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, without inducing him to move a single one of his twenty-four-inch feet, holt was out of sight. so, since all my pains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to scurry back to marjorie,—so i scurried, and i found the house empty, no one there, and marjorie gone.’
‘but, i don’t quite follow—’
atherton impetuously declined to allow mr lessingham to conclude.
‘of course you don’t quite follow, and you’ll follow still less if you will keep getting in front. i went upstairs and downstairs, inside and out—shouted myself hoarse as a crow—nothing was to be seen of marjorie,—or heard; until, as i was coming down the stairs for about the five-and-fiftieth time, i stepped on something hard which was lying in the passage. i picked it up,—it was a ring; this ring. its shape is not just what it was,—i’m not as light as gossamer, especially when i come jumping downstairs six at a time,—but what’s left of it is here.’
sydney held something in front of him. mr lessingham wriggled to one side to enable him to see. then he made a snatch at it.
‘it’s mine!’
sydney dodged it out of his reach.
‘what do you mean, it’s yours?’
‘it’s the ring i gave marjorie for an engagement ring. give it me, you hound!—unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab.’
with complete disregard of the limitations of space,—or of my comfort,—lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. then gripping sydney by the wrist, he seized the gaud,—sydney yielding it just in time to save himself from being precipitated into the street. ravished of his treasure, sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher with something like a glance of admiration.
‘hang me, lessingham, if i don’t believe there is some warm blood in those fishlike veins of yours. please the piper, i’ll live to fight you after all,—with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman should do.’
lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him whatever. he was surveying the ring, which sydney had trampled out of shape, with looks of the deepest concern.
‘marjorie’s ring!—the one i gave her! something serious must have happened to her before she would have dropped my ring, and left it lying where it fell.’
atherton went on.
‘that’s it!—what has happened to her!—i’ll be dashed if i know!—when it was clear that there she wasn’t, i tore off to find out where she was. came across old lindon,—he knew nothing;—i rather fancy i startled him in the middle of pall mall, when i left he stared after me like one possessed, and his hat was lying in the gutter. went home,—she wasn’t there. asked dora grayling,—she’d seen nothing of her. no one had seen anything of her,—she had vanished into air. then i said to myself, “you’re a first-class idiot, on my honour! while you’re looking for her, like a lost sheep, the betting is that the girl’s in holt’s friend’s house the whole jolly time. when you were there, the chances are that she’d just stepped out for a stroll, and that now she’s back again, and wondering where on earth you’ve gone!” so i made up my mind that i’d fly back and see,—because the idea of her standing on the front doorstep looking for me, while i was going off my nut looking for her, commended itself to what i call my sense of humour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of wisdom to pick up champnell, because if there is a man who can be backed to find a needle in any amount of haystacks it is the great augustus.—that horse has moved itself after all, because here we are. now, cabman, don’t go driving further on,—you’ll have to put a girdle round the earth if you do; because you’ll have to reach this point again before you get your fare.—this is the magician’s house!’
