Arnold Bennett

“ Jetsam, thinking obscurely and slangily that to be a bank-clerk was not all jam.
“And you, too!” ordered Jetsam, raising a finger to Mr. Gloucester.
Mr. Gloucester was not in love with a charming young thing at Weybridge. He never had been in love; he had never lived with anyone except himself and a bull-terrier; but he was fond of playing chess at night at Simpson’s; and he suddenly saw Simpson’s and the chess-boards, and the foamy quart, and the bull-terrier lying under the table. Life and Simpson’s seemed infinitely precious to him in those instants. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII—Disappearance of Juliette People may read about crimes in newspapers all their lives, and yet never properly realize that crime exists. To appreciate what crime is, one must be brought to close quarters with crime, as Carpentaria was. Twelve hours ago murder to him had been nothing but a name. Now he knew the horror that murder inspires. And with the corpse of the cat Beppo lying at his feet, he felt that horror far more keenly even than in the night as he unearthed the corpse of the mysterious drunken man. ”

“ They crossed the gardens, with difficulty, in the direction of the terrace. And around were the light and laughter of the City—the brilliant illuminated cafés and the sombre trees for a background, and thousands of pretty toilettes and thousands of men gazing at the pretty toilettes, so attractive in the gloom under the starry sky. A burst of minor music would come now and then from some little café-orchestra, or the sound of the popping of guns from a distant shooting-gallery or the roar of a lion, forced unwillingly to go through its performance in the menagerie. ”

“ Yes! me! me—thinking a thing like that! But I did; and yesterday I was in that big crush, during the shower, in the Court of the Exposition Palace, and he, too, was in the crowd. I saw him; I touched him; he didn’t see me, thank Heaven! Then I knew that what I had buried was not a corpse.”
“Who is this man?” asked Juliette calmly.
“My angel!” said Ilam, driven to poetry by the stress of his emotion, “you mustn’t inquire; there are some things I can’t tell you—at least, not yet. When we are married, when matters are settled a bit, I will tell you everything, but not now.” ”

“ Carpentaria murmured.
Mr. Jetsam covered his face with his hands.
“Ah!” he sighed, evidently speaking to himself. “I had done with all that, and now I must begin again. My instincts will inevitably drive me to begin again. My dear people”—he surveyed his two companions with an acid and distant stare—“instead of saving life, you have only set in motion a chain of circumstances that will lead to the loss of it. Murder and the scaffold will probably be the net result of your officious zeal.” ”

“ The theatre, the music-hall, the circus, the menagerie, the concerts, and the rest of the entertainments, were filling up. In the Amusements Park people shot down railways into water, slid down smooth slopes into mattresses, circled in great wheels, floated in the latest novelties of merry-go-rounds, ascended in the balloon, and practised all the other devices for frittering away eternity, just as though night had not fallen. ”

“ Jetsam sneered.
The two men, the son and the stepson, were now opposite to one another, on either side of the bed, while Carpentaria, intently listening, stood at the foot.
“I did not try to kill you,” answered Ilam.
“You pretty nearly succeeded,” said Jetsam.
“I thought I had killed you,” Ilam said gravely. “But I had no intention of doing so. You said something very scathing about my mother——”
“I said nothing that was not justified.”
“You insulted my mother. I lost my temper. I hated you. We always hate those whom we have wronged. I struck you. ”

“ At length Carpentaria laughed. He was conscious of a certain liking for Mr. Jetsam.
“I can but offer you my humble apologies,” he said. “They are of no avail; they will not undo what is done. But none the less I offer them to you. You see, when I last saw you alive, you were so drunk, so very drunk——”
“I was not drunk at all,” said Mr. Jetsam. “And your inability to perceive the fact proves that, though you may be able to wear a very stylish uniform and to make a great deal of noise with a band, you are an infant as a detective. ”

“ Ilam coughed, “you say there have been attempts on your life. Suppose they are continued? What then? I should like to save you. And perhaps I can only save you by persuading you to vanish.”
“Awfully good of you,” Carpentaria sneered. “But I assure you that these attempts on my life interest me enormously. I wouldn’t miss them for a fortune. I’m beginning rather to like them. One gets used to an atmosphere of mystery. No, Mr. President, I shall not go; but Juliette will go. I shall send Juliette away to-morrow.”
Ilam bit his lip. ”

“ In common with very many English and other girls, Rosie and Pauline were capable of displaying brazenly, for a man they had scarcely seen, an affection the tenth part of which certain males with whom they were intimately acquainted would have been delighted to receive. Their virgin hearts had never been touched, not even by the Apollos of the house of Shooter; they prided themselves on their unapproachableness; yet they could rave about Carpentaria, and openly profess that they were his slaves. In Carpentaria’s presence they would doubtless have behaved, even if they did not feel, differently. ”

“ So all trace of the crime—would you call it a crime, or only a pleasing manifestation of a mother’s love?—all trace of the crime was lost, for the French peasant died; the English wife of the French peasant had expired a long time before.”
And Jetsam paused again.
“I am accepting all that you say as gospel,” said Carpentaria. “Because somehow it impresses me vividly as being true.” Here he looked at Josephus Ilam, who avoided his glance. “But how does this matter concern yourself, and in what way did you come upon the traces of the crime?” ”

“ The faces of pretty women could be observed obscurely in the delicious gloom, and the glowing scarlet of cigars bobbed mysteriously about like aspecies of restless glow-worm.
And everybody was conscious of the sensation of the extraordinary and amazing success of the great show. The evening papers had carried the news of the wonderful thing to each suburb of London. These papers gave from hour to hour the number of the persons who had passed the turnstiles, and calculated the number of tons of shillings that Ilam and Carpentaria would have to bank on Monday morning. ”

“ Jetsam agreed after a moment. “Leave us; we have to speak to each other.”
“You will not go without seeing me?” asked Rosie.
“I will not,” replied Jetsam, and the next instant the two men were alone together in the room, save for the unconscious form of Mrs. Ilam.
The door had been locked again, this time by Ilam.
“She is in love with you,” Ilam shouted fiercely. “You have imposed on her; you have taken advantage of her ignorance of life, and she is in love with you! It is infamous. I am stronger than you, and unless you promise me——”
“Idiot!” Jetsam stopped him. ”

“ If you have not had anything to do with the disappearance of Cousin Ilam, who has?”
“He may have disappeared voluntarily,” said Carpentaria.
“Impossible!” she replied.
“I think so too.” Carpentaria agreed. “At first I was capable of believing that he had played an enormous comedy in order to disappear in the most effective manner. But really the comedy grows too enormous to be any longer a comedy. It may be a tragedy by this time.”
“And whom do you suspect?” queried Pauline impatiently.
“If I were you,” was Carpentaria’s strange response, “I should ask your sister, Miss Rosie.” ”

“ He was close to Carpentaria, and his glance was vicious.
“My friend,” murmured Carpentaria, dropping the glasses. “What’s the matter with you is that you aren’t an artist, not a bit of one. You are an excellent fellow, with a splendid head for figures, and I respect you enormously, but you haven’t the artistic sense. If you had you would share the thrill which I feel as I survey our creation and that London over there. You would appreciate why I brought you up here.”
“I’m a business man—a plain business man, that’s what I am,” said Ilam. ”

“ Ilam did not look like a wealthy man. He did not talk like a wealthy man, and both girls began to perceive, dimly, that wealth is useless to those who have not sufficient imagination to employ it. Certainly the City of Pleasure was an expression of the Ilam riches, but they knew, as all the world knew, that the imagination which had brought into being the City of Pleasure was Carpentaria’s. ”

“ The sign was slightly askew, and the approaching figure tapped it into position, and then entered the enclosure.
“Good afternoon,” it said. “Everything ready?”
“’d afternoon, Mr. Carpentaria,” said the head balloonist respectfully. “Yes, sir.”
The three men with considerable ostentation busied themselves among ropes, while a young man in gold-rimmed spectacles gazed with sudden self-consciousness into the far distance, just as if he had that very instant discovered something there that demanded the whole of his attention. ”

“ Ilam, tramping slowly with clumsy footsteps, had reached the arch leading to the Central Way.
CHAPTER VII—The Cut Carpentaria dogged him with all the precautions of silence as he turned to the right down the Central Way. The great thoroughfare of the City of Pleasure was, of course, absolutely deserted. Its fountains were stilled; its pretty cable-cars had disappeared; its flags had been hauled down. The meagre trees rustled chilly in the night-wind. Its vast and floriated white architecture seemed under the sombre sky to be the architecture of a dream. ”

“ Jetsam turned to Mrs. Ilam.
“Listen, murderess,” he said, and Ilam shuddered at that word: “if you do not answer my questions I will kill your son before your eyes. Does Ilam know where the photograph is?”
Once again the old woman obstinately shut her eyes and refused to give any indication.
Ilam, who seemed mentally to be quickly regaining his normal state, stood up and moved to the fireplace.
“Stand!” said Jetsam angrily, and he drew his revolver from his pocket. “I will know where that photograph is or I will hang for you. I shall not be the first man who has died in a good cause. ”

“ The patient reclined, alive, conscious, capable of movement and speech, but otherwise a prodigious enigma, in an arm-chair in Carpentaria’s bedroom. His existence was a profound secret from all except the doctor and the musician.
And now these two, who had brought him back to earthly life, wanted him to talk, to explain himself, to unravel the mysteries of Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. And Carpentaria, dressed in his uniform, waited, watch in hand; for in half an hour the daily concert must commence in the Oriental Gardens. ”

“ Ilam had been indulging him with some impromptu lying, invented, and clumsily invented, to put him off the scent, were it only for a few hours.
“She may be clumsy in her lying,” he thought as he descended the stairs in Juliette’s wake, “but she can act, the old woman can!”
He remembered that her acting had been perfect, and if Juliette had not happened to disclose the fact of her presence, the lying of Mrs. Ilam, clumsy as it was, might have succeeded. It is so easy to poison a dog, and to arrange the remains of poisoned milk. ”

“ But at length, they stood once again by the doorstep of Josephus Ilam.
“What am I to do?” Pauline demanded sadly. “What do you think will be the best thing to do?”
“We have not seen your sister in the gardens,” said Carpentaria. “She has most probably returned. She would not be likely to leave Mrs. Ilam for very long, would she? Go and see if she has returned, if she is in Mrs. Ham’s room. And if she is, question her.”
“But how? What am I to say? Am I to ask her if she has been out?”
“By no means!” said Carpentaria promptly. “You are to pretend that you know nothing. ”

“ The outhouse was not more than eleven feet square, and the barrow with its burden was stretched across it diagonally, so that when the two men were inside, the place was full and the door would scarcely close. A small window gave light.
Rivers gently pulled the black cloth aside.
“This is just such black cloth as photographers use,” he remarked.
“So it is,” said Carpentaria.
The eyes of the corpse were closed; he might have been a man asleep, this strange relic from which a soul had flown and which would soon resolve itself into its original dust.
“Poor fellow,” thought Carpentaria. ”

“ She sleeps very heavily sometimes. Will you not put the bed back in its place? I do not like to see it here. It is painful, very painful, in spite of all you have told me about her, to see this. She is very old and very helpless.” During the conversation Ilam had remained in a sort of stupor. It was as though the effort of putting the photograph in the fire, and then the shock of Rosie’s sudden appearance, had exhausted the energies which he had managed with difficulty to collect as the results of the narcotic passed away; it was as though the narcotic had resumed its sway over him for a time. ”

“ The drunken man must exist somewhere. Is he in Ilam’s house? And, if so, why is he in Ilam’s house? Neither Josephus nor his mother is precisely a type of the Good Samaritan. And if he is not in Ilam’s house, has he suddenly recovered and walked away on his legs unaided? Impossible! I was once drunk, and I say, impossible. Then, has Josephus carried him somewhere? And where has he carried him, and why?”
Carpentaria unlocked his front-door and entered the hall of his dwelling, and then locked and bolted the door. ”