 DEDICATION OF THE GREEN OVERCOAT DEDICATED TO MARIEZ BEARING My dear Maurice, you wrote something called the Green Elephant, and I have written something called the Green Overcoat. It is on this account that I dedicate to you my work, the Green Overcoat, although, and I take this opportunity of reproaching you for the same, you did not dedicate to me your work, the Green Elephant. An overcoat and an elephant have much in common, and also alas much in which they differ. An elephant can be taken off, and so can an overcoat, but on the other hand an overcoat can be put on, and an elephant cannot. I understand that your elephant was not a real elephant, similarly my overcoat is not a real overcoat, but only an overcoat in a book. An overcoat is the largest kind of garment and an elephant is the largest kind of beast, unless we admit the whale, which is larger than the elephant, just as a dressing gown is larger than an overcoat, but this would lead me far. Then again the elephant does not eat meat or bite, nor does an overcoat. He is most serviceable to man, so is an overcoat. There are, however, rogue elephants which are worse than useless, and give less profit to their owner than if he had no elephant at all. The same is true of overcoats, notably of those which have got torn in the lining of the left arm pit, so that the citizen, on shoving his left arm therein, gets it into a sort of cul-de-sac, which is French for blind alley. The elephant is expensive, so is the overcoat. The elephant is of a grave and settled expression, so is an overcoat. An overcoat hanging by itself upon a peg is a grave insensible object, which, in the words of the philosopher, neither laughs nor is the cause of laughter, so is an elephant incaged. Again man in conjunction with the elephant is ennobled by that conjunction, whether he ride upon its back or upon its neck, or walk by its side, as does the keeper at the zoo. The same is true of overcoats, which, whether we have them upon our backs or carry them over our arms, adds something to our appearance. I could suggest many other points in common were this part of my work lucrative, and, as it were, in the business, but it is not, and I must end. I might remind you that elephants probably grow old, though no man has lived to see it, that overcoats certainly do. That elephants are of diverse sex, and this is true also of the overcoat. On the other hand an overcoat has no feet, and it has two tails or none, whereas the elephant has four feet, and but one tail, and that a very little one. I must wind up by telling you why I have written of an overcoat and not a great coat. Great coat is the more vernacular, overcoat I think the more imperial. But that was not my reason. I wrote overcoat because it was a word similar in scansion and almost equivalent in stress scheme, wow, to the word elephant. Of course, if I had considered length of syllable and vowel value, it would have been another matter for elephant consists in three shorts, overcoat in a long, short, and long. The first is a what you may call them, and the second a thing-gumbob. But I did not consider vowel sounds, and I was indifferent to longs and shorts. My mind ever was to copy you, and to have a title which would get people mixed up, so that the great hordes of cultivated men and women desiring to see your play should talk, by mistake, of the green overcoat. And then their aunts, or perhaps a prig visitor, would say, oh no, that is the book. In this way the book would be boomed. That was my game. If people had done this sort of thing before, it would not work now. But they haven't. Now, Maurice, I end this preface, for I cannot think of anything more to write. H. Bellach. End of Dedication, Chapter 1 of The Green Overcoat by H. Bellach. Professor Higginson, to give him his true name, was a psychologist celebrated throughout Europe, and recently attached to the modern and increasingly important university called the Guelph University in the large manufacturing town of Ormiston. His stipend was eight hundred pounds a year. He was a tall, thin man, exceedingly shy and nervous, with weary, print-worn eyes which nearly always looked a little pained, and were generally turned uneasily towards the ground. He did not dress carefully. He was not young. He had a trick of keeping both hands in his trouser pockets. He stooped somewhat at the shoulders, and wore a long grey beard. He was a bachelor, naturally affectionate by disposition, but capable of savagery when provoked by terror. His feet were exceedingly large, and his mind was nearly always occupied by the subject which he professed. This excellent man, in his ill-fitting evening suit, had just said good-bye after an agonized party, upon Monday the second of May, at the house of Sir John Perkin, a local merchant of ample but ill-merited fortune. It was as yet but midnight. The rooms were full, and he hoped to slip out early and almost unobserved. Mr. Higginson sidled aimlessly into the study that was doing duty as a cloakroom, sidled out again on remembering that he had not left his things there, and next turned to gaze almost as aimlessly at a series of pegs on which he hoped to find a familiar slouch hat, rather greasy, and an equally familiar grey, inverness, which was like his skin to him. The slouch hat was there. The inverness was gone. Was it gone? The professor of psychology was a learned man, and his sense of reality was not always exact. Had he come in that inverness after all? The more he thought about it, the less certain he was. He remembered that the main night, though very cold, had been fine as he came. He had no precise memory of taking off that inverness or of hanging it up. He walked slowly, ruminating upon the great problem, towards the door of the hall. He inwardly congratulated himself that there was no servant present, and that he could go through the dreadful ordeal of leaving the house without suffering the scrutiny of a human being. No carriage had yet drawn up. He opened the door, and was appalled to be met by a violent gust and a bitter cold driving rain. Now the professor of psychology was, like the domestic cat, of simple taste, but he hated rain even more than does that animal. It bitterly disagreed with him, and worse still the oddity of walking through the streets in evening clothes, through a raging downpour, with a large expanse of white shirt all drenched, was more than his nerves could bear. He was turning round irresolutely to seek once again for that inverness which he was now more confident than ever was not there. When the devil, who has great power in these affairs, presented to his eyes, cast negligently over a chair, a green overcoat of singular magnificence. The green of it was a subdued, a warm, and a lovely green. His cloth was soft and thick, pliable and smooth. The rich fur at the collar and cuffs was a promise of luxury in the lining. Now the devil, during all Professor Higginson's life, had had but trifling fun with him until that memorable moment. The opportunity, as the reader will soon discover, was, from the devil's point of view, remarkable and rare. Or far more than Professor Higginson's somewhat sterile soul was involved in the issue. The green overcoat appeared for a few seconds seductive, then violently alluring, next and in a very few seconds irresistible. Professor Higginson shot a sin laden and frightened glance towards the light and the noise and the music within. No one was in sight. Through the open door of the rooms, whence the sound of the party came loud and fairly drunken, he saw no face turned his way. The hall itself was deserted. Then he heard a hurl of wind, a dash of rain on the hall window. With a rapidity worthy of a greater game, and to him most unusual, he whisked the garment from the chair, slipped into the shadow of the door, struggled into the green overcoat with a wriggle that seemed to him to last five weeks. It was, as a fact, a conjurer's trick for smartness, and it was on. The devil saw to it that it fitted. It was all right. He would pretend some mistake, and send it back the very first thing next morning. Nay he would be an honest man, and send it back at once, by a messenger the moment he found out his mistake on getting to his logins. So wealthy an overcoat could only belong to a great man, a man who would stay late, very late. Come, the green overcoat would be back again in the house before its owner had elected to move. He would be no wiser. There was no harm done, and he could not walk as he was through the rain. Alas, these plausible arguments proceeded, had the Professor but known it, from the enemy of souls. He, the fallen archangel, foresaw that coming ruin to which his lanky and introspective victim was unhappily blind. Dons are cheap meat for devils. The door shut upon the learned man. He went striding out into the drenching storm, down the drive towards the public road. And as he went he carried a sense of wealth about him that was very pleasurable in spite of the weather. He had never known such raiment. His way down the road to his logins would be a matter of a mile or more. The rain was intolerable. He was wondering as he reached the gate whether there was any chance of a cab at such an hour when he was overjoyed to hear the purring of a taxi coming slowly up behind him. He turned at once and hailed it, the taxi halted, and drew up a little in front of a street light so that the driver's face was in shadow. He gave his address, opened the door, and stooped to fold up his considerable stature into the vehicle. He had hardly shut the door, and as he was doing so, felt or thought he felt some obstacle before him when the engine was let out at full speed. The cab whirled suddenly round in the opposite direction from that which he had ordered, and as Professor Higginson was jolted back by the jerk into his seat, his left arm clutched at what was certainly a human form. At the same moment his struggling right arm clutched another, crouched apparently in the corner of the cab. He had just time to begin, I beg your—when he felt each wrist held in a pair of strong hands and a shawl or cloth tightening about his mouth. All that he next attempted to say was lost to himself and to the world. He gave one vigorous kick with his long legs, before he could give a second. His feet were held as firmly as his hands, and he felt what must have been a handkerchief being tied uncomfortably tightly round his ankles, while his wrists were still held in a grasp that suggested something professional. Professor Higginson's thoughts were drawn out of their daily groove. His brain raced and pulsed, then halted and projected one clear decision, which was to sit quite quiet and do nothing. The driver's back showed a black square against the lamplit rain. He heard or would hear nothing. He paid no heed to the motions within, but steered furiously through the storm. For ten good minutes nothing changed. The beating rain outside blurred the windowpains, and the pace at which they drove forbade the philosopher any but the vaguest guesses at the road and the whereabouts. The public lights of the town had long since been left behind. Rapid turns had begun to suggest country lanes. When after a sharper jolt than usual, the machine curved warily through a gate into a narrow way. The brakes were put on sharply. The clutch was thrown out, and the cab stopped dead. It was halted, and its machine was panting down in some garden, the poverty and neglect of which glared under the acetylene lamps. The disordered, weedy gravel of the place, and its ragged laurel stood out unnaturally framed in the thick darkness. The edge of the light just caught the faded brick corner of an old house. Professor Higginson had barely a second in which to note a flight of four dirty stone steps leading to a door in the shadow when his captor spoke for the first time. "'Would you go quietly?' said the one crouching before him. He that had tied his ankles. The professor assented through his gag with a voice like the distant loin of a cow. The strong grip that held his wrist pulled his arms behind him. The taxi-door was opened and he was thrust out, still held by the hands. He poised himself upon his bound feet, and whoever it was that had spoken, he had a strong young voice, and looked broad and powerful in the half-light behind the lamps, began unfastening the handkerchief at his ankles. Professor Higginson was not a soldier. He was of the academies. He broke his parole. The moment his feet were free he launched a vigorous kick at his releaser, who hardly dodged it, emitted through his gag a dull sound full of fury, and at the same instant found himself bumped violently upon the ground with his legs threshing the air in all directions. It was the gentleman who held his wrist behind him that was the author of this manoeuvre, and even as he achieved it he piped out in a curious high voice that contrasted strangely with the strength he had just proved. Hit him, Jimmy! Hit him in the face! Not yet, said Jimmy ominously. Jerk him up, Malba. At some expense to the professor's nerves Malba obeyed, and the learned pragmatist found himself once more upon his feet. He kicked out vigorously behind, but only met the air. It was as he had dreaded. He had to deal with professionals. All right, Jimmy? Came in a young well-englished and rather tired drawl from the driver? The engine was still panting slightly. Yes, Charlie, said Jimmy cheerfully, off you go. Good night, said the young well-englished and rather tired drawl again. The clutch caught, the engine throbbed faster, the untidy gravel crunched under the motor as it turned a half-circle to find the gate, and in doing so cast a moment of fear slight upon the stained and dirty door of the house. The gagged victim noted that the door was open, there had been preparation, and the signs of it did not reassure him. His captor thrust him against that door into the dark hall within. The other one, the one he had heard called Jimmy, followed, shut the door and struck a match. There was revealed in the flair a passage between perfectly bare walls, dusty, uncarpeted floorboards, still bearing the faint marks of staining at their edges, a flight of stairs with flimsy banisters many of them broken, for the rest, nothingness. Malba, if I may call that gentleman by the name his associate had given him, was busy at the professor's wrist with something more businesslike than a handkerchief. He was tying them up scientifically enough, and very tight, with a piece of box cord. Jimmy, opening the door of a room on the ground floor that gave into this deserted passage, lit a candle within. Mr. Higginson found himself pushed through that door, onto a chair in the room beyond. A moment later he was bound to that chair, corded up in a matter uncomfortably secure to its rungs and back by his ankles, elbows, and knees. It was Malba that did the deed. Jimmy, coming in after, turned the key in the door and joined his companion. Then the pair of them stood gazing at their victim for a moment, and the professor had his first opportunity in all that bewildering night of discovering what kind of beings he had to deal with. Malba was a stout rather pasty-faced young man, with fat cheeks and blue protuberant eyes not ill-natured. Jimmy had very light straight hair, and his face in repose seemed to clothe itself with a half-smile which was permanent. It was surprising that such a figure should have the strength of forearm which the professor had unfortunately experienced. But there is no telling a man till he strips, and Malba, who might very well have been a young lounger of the French boulevards, was as a matter of fact an oarsman of an English university. He rode. It was his chief recreation. He also read French novels, and was a fair hand at writing mechanical verse. But that is by the way, nor could the professor as yet guess anything of this. He glared at the youth over his gag and took him in. Jimmy was quite another pair of shoes. He was tall also, but clean-cut and very dark, with the black eyes and hair and fresh coloring of a gale. No trace of his native accent remained with him. Indeed he had been born south of the border, but his supple strength and the balance of his body were those of the mountains. He had race. Unlike his colleague, he looked as strong as he was. Jimmy, if you care to know it, did not row. He swam and dived. He swam and dived with remarkable excellence, and was the champion, or whatever it is called, of some district or other of considerable size. He was also of the university that had nourished Melba, Cambridge. These two young men, a little blown, and perhaps a little excited, but manfully concealing their emotions under a gentlemanly indifference, seated themselves on either side of a table with the professor gagged and bound upon the chair before them. No seated, they watched their prey. Melba slowly filled an enormous pipe from an enormous pouch, keeping his round blue eyes fixed and ready for any movement upon the professor's part. Jimmy lit a black cigarette with some affectation, blew a cloud of thin blue smoke, and addressed the prisoner. Before we come to business, Brassington, he said, How will you behave if we un-gag you? An appreciative and pacifist lowing proceeded from the gag. That's all very well, broke-end Melba, and his falsetto, last time you said that you broke your word. Hmm! replied the professor, shaking his head in emphatic negation. Yes, but you did, continued Melba shrilly. You tried to kick Jimmy, and you tried to kick me, too, after I dumped you. Jimmy waved his hand at Melba commanding silence. Look here, sir, he said. We had to do it. We don't like it, and in a way we're sorry, but we had to. The professor recalled all that he had read of lunacy in its various forms, and that was a great deal more than was good for him. But he could see no trace of insanity in either of the two faces before him. If anything, the innocence of youth which they betrayed, coupled with an obviously strained and unnatural determination, was quite the other way. Melba chimed in with his high voice again. And, luckily, you didn't get something worse. Don't, Melba, said Jimmy authoritatively. He was evidently the moderate man of the two, the man of judgment, and instinctively the learned victim determined to lean upon him in whatever incongruous adventures might threaten. We had to do it, continued Jimmy, because there wasn't any law. Mind you we haven't done this without asking. But when there isn't any law you have to take the law into your own hands, haven't you, Melba? He said, turning to his accomplice. Yes, piped Melba, civil and criminal, he ought to have a lathering. His blue prominent eyes had a glare of ferocity in them, and Professor Higginson hated him in his heart. Jimmy again assumed control. If there had been a law, sir, we'd have sued you. We're sorry—this repetition a little pompously—and we do not want to expose you. Only, he added, flicking the ash from his cigarette and putting on the man of the world, I find it an ungrateful thing to constrain an older man, but it will all be over soon, and what is more, we will do it decently if you pay like a gentleman. At the word pay, Professor Higginson's inexperience of the world convinced him that he was in the hands of criminals. He had read in certain detective stories how criminals were not, as some imagined, men universally deprived of collars, clad in woollen caps and armed with bludgeons, nor without exception of the uncultivated classes. He could remember many cases, in fiction, of the gentleman criminal, nay of the precocious gentleman criminal, and apparently these were of the tribe. For the second time that evening he came to a rapid decision and determined to pay. He had upon him thirty shillings in gold, it was a sovereign and a half sovereign, in the right hand waistcoat pocket of his evening clothes, and he thought he also had, in the right hand trousers pocket, a few loose shillings and coppers. It was a great deal to sacrifice. For all he knew it was compound in a felony, but he would risk that. He would think of it as a rather high hotel-bill, and he would be free. He nodded his gagged head, mood cheerfully, and looked acquiescent with his eyes. "'That's right,' said Jimmy greatly relieved, for in his heart he had never dared hope for so easy a solution. "'That's right,' and he sighed contentedly. "'That's right,' he repeated for the third time. "'We are really very sorry, sir. But it'll seem all right afterwards. When you have kept your side of the bargain, we shall certainly keep ours.' He said it courteously. "'All we want is the money. And when we have the money and you are free, why, sir, I hope you will not grudge us what we have done. So it was all going to end happily after all. The Professor almost felt himself at liberty again, hurrying home through the night, hurrying anywhere at his free will, loosed from that accursed place, when Jimmy added. Of course, you will have to sign the letter.' CHAPTER II CHAPTER II. In which a philosopher wrestles with the problem of identity. The Professor was in deeper water than ever. He had been called some name or other at the beginning of this conversation. What name he could not remember. With the friendlier of the two beasts meant by a letter, he could not conceive until Jimmy continuing partly enlightened him. "'You will have to sign the brief note we have drafted here to accompany your payment. It's obvious.' Professor Higginson dimly guessed that he was wanted to safeguard them in some way against the consequences of his kidnapping. While he had made up his mind, and he would not depart from it, he nodded again cheerfully enough, and his eyes were as acquiescent as ever. Jimmy leaned forward, and in set tones of some gravity, said formally, "'We understand, this gentleman and I, that you acknowledge the payment due to us, and if we take off the impediment which we were compelled to put over your mouth, you will act up to your promise and you will pay us.' For the third time the professor nodded vigorously. "'And you will sign the note?' He nodded even more vigorously once again. "'Very well,' said Jimmy, in the tone of a great arbitrator who has managed to settle matters without unpleasantness. "'Malba, be good enough to untie your aunt's shawl, which for the moment prevents this gentleman from performing his promise by word of mouth. Malba did as he was bid, jerking, as Mr. Higginson thought, the knot in the fabric rather un-gently. He treasured it up against him. The shawl was off, Malba was seated again, and Professor Higginson breathed the night air, untainted by the savor of an ancient human garment, and an aunt's at that. "'I need not repeat all that I have just been saying,' said Jimmy, but you must confirm it before we go further. "'I do,' said the professor, with a curiously successful affectation of cheerfulness, for so untrained an actor. "'Yes, certainly, gentlemen, I confirm it.' There was, if anything, a little precipitancy in his manner, as though he were eager to pay, as he most certainly was to get rid of those ropes round his arms and legs. There was another thing bothering the pragmatist. The green overcoat, which still wrapped him all about, was being woefully delayed. If the delay lasted much longer, the owner might miss it. And then the tight cords at his elbows were doing it no good. They might actually be marking it. The thought made Professor Higginson very uncomfortable indeed. He had no idea whose it was, but it certainly belonged to someone of importance. He wished he had never seen it. He was not to be the last to wish that, but hell is a hard taskmaster, and the professor was caught. "'We think,' said Jimmy a little pompously. "'At least I think,' after glancing at Malba. "'I don't,' said Malba. "'Well, I think,' continued Jimmy. "'And I think we ought to think that you are doing the right thing. And, well, I like to tell you so.' The relations between Jimmy and his prisoner were getting almost cordial. He pushed the table so that the prisoner, when he was untied, should be able to write upon it. He put before him a typewritten sheet of note paper, an envelope, an ink-bottle, and a pin, which, with the exception of the benches on which he and his companion sat, the table and the chair, were all the furniture the place contained. "'And now, sir,' added Jimmy, going behind the psychologist, and releasing his elbows, "'Now, sir!' Here he wound the rope round the professor's waist, secured it, and left his legs still tied to the chair-rongs. "'Now, sir, perhaps we can come to business.' Poor Mr. Higginson had never been so cramped in his life. He was far from young. The circulation in his lower arms had almost stopped. He brought them forward painfully and slowly and composed them up on the table, then his right hand slowly sought his waistcoat pocket, where he posed the sovereign and half-sovereign of his ransom. Of course he began intending to explain the smallness of the sum, for he could not but feel that it was very little gold for so considerable a circumstance of paper formalities and violence. Of course, when Jimmy interrupted him, "'I need not tell you the sum,' said the youth rather coldly. "'Oh, no,' twitted Melba. "'He knows that well enough,' he added, rrrr, as in anger at a dog. "'Well, rrrr, gentlemen, I confess,' began Mr. Higginson, hesitating. "'To be frank,' said Jimmy, rather sharply, "'we all three know the sum perfectly well, and you perhaps, sir, with your business habits and your really peculiar ideas upon honor, best of all. It's two thousand pounds,' he concluded calmly. "'Two thousand pounds,' shrieked the professor. "'What did you expect?' broke in Melba an octave higher. "'A bonus and a presentation gold watch?' "'Two thousand pounds,' repeated the bewildered philosopher, in a gasping undertone. "'Yes,' wrapped out Jimmy smartly, "'two thousand pounds, really, after all that has passed. "'But,' shouted the professor wildly, saying the first words that came to him, "'I haven't got such a sum in the world. I—I don't know what you mean!' Jimmy's face took on a very severe and dreadful expression. "'Mr. Bassinton,' he began, in a slow and modulated tone, "'I'm not Mr. Bassinton, whoever Mr. Bassinton may be,' protested the unhappy victim, half understanding the pretentious error. "'What on earth do you take me for?' Jimmy, by this time, was in a mood to stand no nonsense. "'Mr. Bassinton,' he said, "'You broke your word to us once this evening when you kicked out at Melba, and that ought to have been a lesson to me. I was foolish enough to believe you when you gave your word a second time. I certainly believed it when you gave it a third time after we released you.' "'It was a very partial release, but no matter.' "'Now,' said he, setting his lips firmly, "'if you try to shuffle out of the main matter, I warn you, it will be the worst for you—very much the worst for you indeed. You will be good enough to sign us a check for two thousand pounds, and to sign the typewritten acknowledgement in front of you. Men in bewilderment do foolish things, even when they are men of judgment, and Professor Higginson certainly was not that. His next words were fatal. "'Do you suppose I carry a checkbook on me?' he roared. "'Melba,' said Jimmy quietly, in the tones of a general officer, commanding and orderly, go through him. The Professor, having said a foolish word, followed it by a still more foolish action. He dived into the right-hand pocket of the green overcoat with a gesture purely instinctive. Melba was upon him like a fat hawk, almost wrenched his arm from its socket, and drew from that right-hand pocket a noble great checkbook of a brilliant red, with a leather backing such as few checkbooks possess, and having printed on it in bold plutocratic characters John Brassington Esquire, Lauderdale, Crampton Park, Ormiston. Melba conveyed the checkbook solemnly to Jimmy, and the two young men sat down again opposite their involuntary creditor, spreading it out open before them in an impressive manner. "'Mr. Brassington,' said Jimmy, "'what do I see here? Everything that I should have expected from a man of your prominence in the business world and of your known careful habits I see neatly written upon the fly-leaf private account, and the few counter-foils to the checks already drawn carefully noted. I perceive,' continued Jimmy, summing up boldly, the sum of fifty pounds marked self upon the second of this month. The object of your unificence does not surprise me. Upon the next counter-foil I see marked one hundred and seventy-three pounds tin shillings. It is in settlement of a bill, a garage bill. I am glad to see that you recognize and pay some of your debts. The third counter-foil, he said, hearing more closely, relates to a check made out only yesterday. It is for five pounds and appears to have been sent to your son, who, as you know, is our honoured friend. "'I protest,' interrupted Professor Higginson loudly. "'At your peril,' retorted Melba. "'You will do well, Mr. Brassington, to let me finish what I have to say,' continued Jimmy. "'I say your son, our honoured friend, as you well know, only too well. These three checks are your concern, not ours. No further check has been drawn, and on the fourth check form, Mr. Brassington, you will be good enough to sign your name. You will make it out to James Macaulay, a small C and a big A, if you please, an EY, not an A. In your letters you did not do me the courtesy to spell my name as I sign it. You will then hand me the instrument, and I will settle with my friend.' At the words, my friend, he waved courteously to Melba, gave a ridiculous little bow, which in his youthful folly he imagined to be dignified. The professor sat stolidly, and said nothing. His thoughts hurried confusedly within him, and the one that ran fastest was, I am in a hole. "'I do assure you, gentlemen,' he said, at last, that there is some great mistake. I have no doubt that a Mr. Brassington owes you the money, no doubt at all, and perhaps you were even justified in the very strong steps you took to recover it. I should be the last to blame you, the liar. But I am not, Mr. Brassington. But if you want to know, Professor Higginson, of the Guelph University, I cannot oblige you.' When the professor had thus delivered himself, there was a further silence, only interrupted by Melba's addressing to him a very offensive epithet. "'Swine,' he said. "'Are we to understand, Mr. Brassington,' said Jimmy, when he had considered the matter, that after all that you have said you refused to sign? Did you imagine, this with rising anger in his voice, that we would compromise for a smaller sum?' "'I tell you, I am not, Mr. Brassington,' answered the psychologist tartly. "'Oh,' returned Jimmy, now thoroughly aroused and as naturally as could be. "'And you aren't wearing Mr. Brassington's clothes, Brassington, are you? And this isn't Mr. Brassington's checkbook, is it, Brassington? And you're not a confounded old liar as well as a cursed puritanical thief. Now look here. If you don't sign now, you'll be kept here till you do.' You'll be locked up without food, except just the bread and water to keep you alive. And if you trust to your absence being noticed, I can tell you it won't be. We know all about that. You were going to Belgium for a week, weren't you, by the night trained to London? You were taking no luggage because you were going to pick up a bag at your London office as you always do on these business journeys. You were going on business, and I only hoped the business will wait. Oh, we know all about it, Brassington. We have a clear week ahead of us, and you won't only get bread and water in that week, and I don't suppose anybody would bother if we made the week ten days.' I have already mentioned in the course of this painful narrative the name of the Infernal Power. My reader will be the less surprised to follow the process of Professor Higginson's mind in this terrible crux. He sat there internally collapsed, and externally nothing very grand. His two masters, stern and immovable, watched him from beyond the table with its one candle. It was deep night. There was no sound to save the lashing of the storm against the window-pains. He first considered his dear home, which was a pair of rooms in a lodging in Tequila Street, quite close to his work. Then there came to his mind the prospect of sleepless nights in a bare room, of bread and water, and worse. What was worse? His resolution sank and sank. The process of his thought continued. The eyes of the two young men, hateful and determined, almost hypnotized him. If the money of this ridiculous John Bresenton, whoever he might be, was there in his pocket, he would stand firm. He hoped he would stand firm. But after all, it was not money. It was only a bit of paper. He would be able to make the thing right. He was very ignorant of such things, but he knew it took some little time to clear a check. He remembered someone telling him that it took three days and, incidentally, he grotesquely remembered the same authority telling him that every check cost the bank seven pence. The rope hurt damnably, and he was a man who could not bear to miss his sleep. It made him ill. And he was feeling very ill already. He could carefully note the number of the check anyhow. Yes, he could do that. He had this man Bresenton's address. He had the name of the bank. It was on the checks. He would have the courage to expose the whole business in the morning. He would stop that check. He clearly remembered the Senate of the University, having made a mistake two years before on how the check was stopped. It was a perfectly easy business. Of course, the actual signing of another man's name is an unpleasant thing, for the fingers to do, but that is only nervousness. Next door to superstition. One must be guided by reason. Ultimately, it would do no harm at all, for the check would never be cleared. Professor Higginson lent loveliness upon the word cleared. It had a technical, solitary sound. It was his haven of refuge. Checks had to go up to London, hadn't they, and to go to a place called a clearing-house. He knew that much, though economics were not his department of learning. He knew that much, and he was rather proud of it, as professors are of knowing something outside their beat. While the mystery of evil was thus pressing its frontal assault on poor Professor Higginson's soul, that soul was suddenly attacked in flank by a brilliant thought. The check would enable him to trace his tormentors. Come, that really was a brilliant thought. He was prouder of himself than ever. He would be actually aiding justice if he signed. The police could always track down someone where there was paper concerned. No one could escape the hands of British law if he had once given himself away in a written document. This flank attack of the evil one determined the philosopher. In a subdued voice he broke the long silence. He said, Give me the pin. Jimmy solemnly dipped the pin in the ink and handed it to him, not releasing the checkbook, but tearing out the check form for him to sign. And as he did so, the unseen serpent smiled. In a hand as bold as he could assume, Professor Higginson deliberately wrote at the bottom right hand corner the fatal words John Brassington. He was beginning to fill in the amount when, to his astonishment, the check was snatched from his hands while Jimmy thundered out, Do you suppose, sir, that you can deceive us in such a childish way as that? Does a man ever sign his check like a copybook? He glared at the signature. It's faked. That's no more your signature, old Brassington, than its mine, he shouted. That's how you write. With the words he pulled a note from his pocket and tossed it to the unhappy man. Melba made himself pleasant by an interjection. What a vile old shuffler it is, he said. And Mr. Higginson saw written on the note dated but a week before. James Macaulay Esquire Sir, I will have no further correspondence with you upon the matter. I am your obedient servant J. Brassington. It was a strong, hard but rapid hand, the hand of a man who had done much clerk's work in his youth. It had certainly no resemblance to the signature which the psychologist had appended to the check form, and that form now lay torn into twenty pieces by the angry Jimmy, who had also torn up the counter-foil and presented him with another check. I can't do it, gentlemen, he said firmly. It was indeed too true. I can't do it. Melba jumped up suddenly. I'm not going to waste any more time with the old blighter, he said shrilly. Come on, Jimmy. And Jimmy yielded. They blew out the candle, left the room with a curse turning the key in the lock from the outside, and the unfortunate Mr. Hickinson was left bound tightly to his chair in complete darkness, and I am sorry to say, upon the verge of tears. Nature had done what virtue could not do, and the Professor was stumped. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Green Overcoat by J. Bellach This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 In which the green overcoat appears as a point of religion by not being there. In the smoking-room of Sir John Perkins' house upon the same evening of Monday, the second of May, sat together in conversation a merchant, and a friend of his, no younger, a man whose name was Charles Kirby, whose profession was that of a solicitor. The name of the merchant who had retired apart to enjoy with his friend a reasonable and useful conversation was Mr. John Bresenton. He was wealthy, he dealt in leather, he was a pillar of the town of Ormiston, he had been its mayor, he was an honest man to which is no less than to say the noblest work of God. Mr. John Bresenton was, in this month of May, sixty years of age, he was tall, but broad in shoulder though not stout. He carried the square-grey whiskers of a forgotten period in social history. He had inherited from his father also a mayor of Ormiston that good business in the leather trade. It was a business he had vastly increased. He had not been guilty in the whole of his life of any act of meanness or treachery, where a competitor was concerned, nor of any act of harshness in the relations between himself and any of his subordinates. His expression was, in one way determined, in another rather troubled and uncertain, by which I mean that there were strong lines around the mouth which displayed a habit of decision in business affairs, some power of self-control, and the well-ordered life, but his lips were mobile and betrayed not a little experience of suffering, to which we must attribute certain extremes which his friends thought amiable, but which his critics, for he had no enemies, detested. Mr. Bresenton had married at thirty-one years of age a woman, quiet and demeanor, and in no way remarkable for any special talent or charm. She was the daughter of a clergyman in the town. She brought him a complete happiness lasting for four years. She bore him one child, and shortly after the birth of that child, a son, she died. Now Mr. Bresenton, like most of his kind, was a man of strong and secret emotions. He loved his country. He was attached to the pictures which the public press afforded him of his political leader, and he adored his wife. Her death was so sudden, the habit of his married life, though short had struck so deep a route in him, that from the moment of losing her he changed inwardly, and there began to appear in him those little exaggerations of which I have spoken. The best of these was too anxious an attachment to the son who must inherit his wealth. The next best a habit of giving rather too large and unexpected sums of money to objects which rather too suddenly struck him as worthy. To these habits of mind he had added excursions into particular fields of morals. In one phase he had been a teetotaler. He escaped from this only to fall into the anti-foreign atrocities fever. He read Tolstoy for one year, and then passed from that emotion into a curious fit of land nationalization. Finally he settled down for good into the anti-gambling groove. By the time this last spiritual adventure had befallen Mr. Bresenton he was nearer fifty than forty years of age, and the detestation of games of hazard was to provide him for the rest of his life, with such moral occupation as his temperament demanded. Certain insignificant but marked idiosyncrasies in his dress accompanied this violence of moral emotion. For some reason, best known to himself, he never carried an umbrella or a walking stick. He wore driving-gloves upon every possible occasion, suitable and unsuitable, and he affected in particular, in all weathers, not intolerably warm, a remarkable type of green overcoat with which the reader is already sufficiently acquainted. The irreverent youth of his acquaintance had given it a number of nicknames, and had established a series in the lineage of this garment, for as each overcoat grew old it was regularly replaced by a new one of precisely the same cloth and dye, and lined with the same expensive fur. He told not a soul, only his chief friend, and of course his servants had divined it, but Mr. Bresenton lint to that green overcoat such private worship as the benighted give their gods. It was a secret and strange foieble. He gave to it, in its recurrent and successive births, power of fortune and misfortune. Without it he would have dreaded bankruptcy or disease. In the hands of others he thought it capable of carrying a curse. The son to whom his affections were so deeply devoted bore the three names of Algernon, Sauby, Leonidas. Sauby had been his mother's family name, and was now grown up to manhood. He had been at Cambridge, had taken his degree the year before, but had lingered off and on for his rowing, and kept his fifth year. He divided his time between London Lodgins and the last requirements of his college. On that day in May, with which I am dealing, it was to consult upon this son of his that Mr. Bresenton had left the crowd at Sir John Perkins, and had shut himself with Charles Kirby into the smoking-room. Mr. Kirby was listening, for the fifteenth or twentieth time, to his friend's views upon Algernon, Sauby, Leonidas, which, lad, in distant Cambridge, was at that moment doing precisely what his father and his father's lawyer were about, drinking port, but with no such long and honest life behind him as theirs. It was Mr. Kirby's way to listen to anything his friends might have to say. It relieved them, and did not hurt him. In the ordinary way he cared nothing whether he was hearing a friend's tale for the first or for the hundredth time. He had no nerves where friendship was concerned, and friendship was his hobby. But in this late evening he did feel a movement of irritation, adhering, once again, in full detail, the plans for Algernon's life spun out in their regular order, as though they were matter for novel advice. Mr. Bresenton was at it again the old familiar story. How, properly speaking, the Queen should have knighted him when she came to Ormiston during his mayoralty. How anyhow King Edward might have given him a baronetcy, considering all he had done during the war. How he didn't want it for himself, but he thought it would steady his son. How he would have nothing to do with pain for such things. How he had heard that the usual price was twenty-five thousand pounds. How that was robbing his son. Robbing his son, sir. Robbing his son of a thousand pounds a year, sir. How Mr. Bresenton would have that baronetcy given him, for the sake of his son, of hearty good will, or not at all. Mr. Kirby listened more and more, bored. I've told you, Bresenton, twenty times. They came to me about it, and you lost your temper. They came to me about it again the other day, and it's yours for the asking. Only, hang it all, you must do something public again. They must have a peg to hang it on. Where at Mr. Kirby's closest and oldest friend went at him again, recited the baronetcy grievance at full length once more, and concluded once more with his views about Algernon's Solby Leonitis. When Mr. Bresenton had come to the end of a sentence and made something of a pause, Mr. Kirby said, I thought you were going to Belgium. Mr. Bresenton was a little pained. I have arranged to take the night mail, he said gravely. I shall walk down. Will you come to the station with me? Oh, yes, said Mr. Kirby briskly. You're to give me a nice walk back again through all the rain. If you think all that about Algernon, you shouldn't have sent him to Cambridge. I sent him to Cambridge by your advice, Kirby, said Mr. Bresenton with dignity. I would give it again, said Mr. Kirby, crossing his legs. It's an extraordinary thing that a rich man like Perkin has good port one day, and bad port another. He ought to go to Cambridge. I have a theory that everyone should go to Cambridge, who can afford it, southeast of a line drawn from— Don't, Charles, don't, said Mr. Bresenton a little pained. It's very serious. Mr. Kirby looked more chirpy than ever. I didn't say your ideas were right. I don't think they are. I said that if you had those ideas it was nonsense to send him to Cambridge. Why shouldn't he drink? Why shouldn't he gamble? What's the harm? What's the—? began Mr. Bresenton with a flash in his eyes. Well, well, said Kirby soothe me. I don't say it's the best thing in the world. What I mean is you emphasize too much. You know you do. Anyhow, John, it doesn't much matter. It'll all come right. He stared at the fire, then added. Now, why can't I get coals to burn like that? Nothing but pure white ash. He lent forward with a grunt, stirred the fire deliberately, and watched the ash with admiration as it fell. Kirby, said John Bresenton, it will break my heart. No, it won't, said Mr. Kirby cheerfully. I tell you it will, replied the other with irritation, as though the breaking of the heart were an exasperating matter. And one thing I am determined on, determined, the merchant hesitated, and then broke out abruptly in a loud voice. Do you know that I have paid his gambling debts four times regularly? Regularly, with every summer term. It does you honour, John, said Mr. Kirby. Ah, then, said Mr. Bresenton, with a sudden curious mixture of cunning and firmness in his voice, I haven't paid the last, though. Oh, you haven't, said Mr. Kirby, looking up. He smelt complications. No, I haven't. I gave him fair warning, said the elderly merchant, setting his mouth as squarely as possible, but almost sobbing in his heart. Besides which, it ruin us. I wonder if he gave the young bloods fair warning, mused Mr. Kirby. Last Grand National. Oh, Lord Charles, burst out Mr. Bresenton uncontrollable. Do you know what, what that cub shot me for? Cursing all, Kirby, two thousand pounds. The devil, said Charles Kirby. It is the devil, said John Bresenton emphatically. And it was, though he little knew it, for it was in that very moment that the enemy of mankind was at work outside in the hall upon the easy material of Professor Higginson. It was in that very moment that the green overcoat was enclosing the body of the philosopher, and was setting out on its adventures from Mr. John Perkins' roof. Even as Mr. Bresenton spoke these words the outer door slammed. Kirby, looking up, suddenly said, I say, they're going. What about your train? There's plenty of time, said Bresenton warily. It's only twelve. Do listen to what I'm saying. I'm listening, said Kirby respectfully. Well, went on Mr. Bresenton. There's the long in the short of it. I won't pay. Mr. Kirby poked the fire. The thing to do, he said at last in a meditative sort of tone, is to go down and give the young cubs hell. I don't understand you, Charles, said Mr. Bresenton quietly. I simply don't understand you. I was written to, and I hope I've applied with dignity. I was written to again, and I answered in a final manner. I will not pay. I have no doubt you did, said Mr. Kirby. It's a curious thing how eagerly a young man will take to expectations. You simply don't know what you're saying, Charles, answered Mr. Bresenton, and if I didn't know you as well as I do I'd walk out of the room. I know what I am saying exactly, reposted Mr. Kirby with as much heat as his quizzical countenance would allow. I was going to follow it up if you hadn't interrupted me. I say it's a curious thing how a young man will be moved by expectations. That's why they gamble. Thank God I never married. They like to see something and work for it. That's why they gamble. You won't understand me, John, he said, putting up a hand to save an interruption. But that's why when I was a boy my father put me into the office, and said that if I worked hard something or other would happen, something general and vague, esteem and good conscience, or some footling thing called success. I wish you wouldn't say footling, interjected John Bresenton gravely. I didn't, answered Mr. Kirby without change in a muscle. It's a horrible word. Anyhow, if my dad had said to me, Charles, my boy, there's a hundred pounds for you in March if you keep hours, but if you're late once, not a farthing. By God, John, I'd have worked like a nigger. Mr. Bresenton looked at the fire and thought without much result. I can't pay it, Charles, and I won't, he said at last. I've said I wouldn't and that's enough. I've written and said I wouldn't and that's more. But even if I had said nothing and had written nothing I wouldn't pay, he must learn his lesson. Oh, he'll learn that all right, said Mr. Kirby carelessly. He's learning it now like the devil. It's an abominable shame, mind you, and I don't mind telling you so. I have a good mind to send him the money myself. If you do, Charles, said John Bresenton with one of his fierce looks, I'll... I'll... Yes, that's what I was afraid of, said Mr. Kirby thoughtfully. You're an exceedingly difficult man to deal with. I shouldn't have charged him more than five percent. You'll lose your train, John. John Bresenton looked at his watch again. You haven't been much used to me, Charles. He said, sighing as he rose. Yes, I have, John, said Mr. Kirby, rising in his turn. What do you do with your evening clothes when you run up to town by the night train like this? I change at my rooms in town when I get in, Charles, said Mr. Bresenton severely. You know that as well as I do, and I wear my coat up to town. They say you wear it in bed, was Mr. Kirby's genial answer. I'll come out and help you on with it, and we'll start. The two men came out from the smoking-room into the hall. They found a number of guests crowding for their cloaks and hats. They heard the noise of wheels upon the drive outside. I told you how it would be, John, said Mr. Kirby. You won't be able to get through that crush. You won't get your coat in time, and you'll miss your train. That's where you're wrong, Charles, said Mr. Bresenton with a look of infinite organizing power. I always leave my coat in the same one place in every house I know. He made directly for the door, where a large and sleepy servant was mounting guard, stumbled to a peg that stood in the entry and discovered that the coat was gone. There followed a very curious scene. The entry was somewhat dark. It was only lit from the hall beyond. Mr. Kirby, looking at his friend, as that friend turned round from nodding his loss, was astonished to see his face white. So white that it seemed too clearly visible in that dark corner, and it was filled with a mixture of sudden fear and sudden anger. From that face came a low cry, rather than a phrase, It's gone, Charles! The louty servant started. Luckily, none of the guests heard. Mr. Kirby moved up quickly and put his hand on Bresenton's arm. Now, do manage yourself, John, he said. What's gone? My green overcoat gasped Mr. Bresenton in the same low tone, passionately. Well? Well, you say, well, you don't understand. Yes, I do, John, said Mr. Kirby, with a sort of tenderness in his voice. I understand perfectly. Come back here with me. Be sensible. I won't stir, said Mr. Bresenton, irresolutely. Mr. Kirby put a hand affectionately upon his old friend's shoulder, and pushed him to the door of the smoking-room they had just left. He shut that door behind him. None of the guests had noticed. It was so much to the good. It's gone. It's gone, said John Bresenton twice. He had his hands together and was interlacing the fingers of them nervously. Mr. Kirby was paying no attention. He was squatting on his hands at a sideboard and saying, It's lucky that I do John Perkins' business for him. I'm being damned familiar. He brought out a decanter of brandy, chucked the heel of Mr. Bresenton's port into the fire, and poured out a glass full of the spirit. I always forget your last craze, John, he said, but if I was a doctor I would tell you to drink that. John Bresenton drank a little of the brandy, and Mr. Kirby went on. Don't bother about Belgium tonight, my boy. In the first place, take my overcoat. I am cleverer than you in these crushes. I don't even hangin' on a peg. I leave it. And here he reached behind the curtain. I leave it here, and he pulled it out. It was no more than an easy macintosh without arms. He put it on his unresisting friend, who simply said, What are you going to do, Charles? I'm going to take orders, said Charles Kirby, suddenly pulling out from his pocket a square of fine black silk and neatly adjusting it over his shirt front. I haven't got a parson's dog collar on, but a man can walk the streets in this. After all, some of the clergy still wear the old-fashioned collars and white tie, don't they? John Bresenton smiled painfully. Oh, it's in the house, he said. It's sure to be in the house somewhere. Now, John, said Charles Kirby firmly, don't make a fool of yourself. Don't ask for that coat. It's the one way not to get it. Stay where you are, and I'll bring you news. He went out, and in five minutes he came back with news. Fifty people went up before we got up, John. No one knows who they were. The idiot at the door can only remember the Quaker lot, and my lord, and Perkins, so fussed that he can do nothing but swear, and that's no use. You've simply got to come along with me, and we'll walk home through the rain. Take Belgium at your leisure. It isn't Belgium that's worrying me, said poor Mr. Bresenton. No, I know, said Charles Kirby, soothing me. I understand. The two men went out into the night, and the storm. Charles Kirby enjoyed bad weather. It was part of his manifold perversity. He tried to whistle in the teeth of the wind as they went along the main road towards the Crampton Park suburb of the town. Bresenton strode at his side. You didn't order a carriage, said Kirby after a little while. You didn't know it was going to rain. I suppose that green overcoat of yours has got luck in the lining. It has a checkbook of mine in the pocket, said John Bresenton. Yes, but that's not what you're bothering about, said Mr. Kirby. You're bothering about the luck, for a man who hates cards, John, you're superstitious. For some paces Bresenton said nothing, then he said, Long habit affects men. Of course it does, said Mr. Kirby, with the fullest sympathy. That is why so many people are afraid of death. They're afraid of the change of habit. And after that nothing more was said until they came to the lodge gates of that very large, ugly, convenient and modern house which John Bresenton had built and for no reason at all had called Lauderdale. Shall I come up to the door with you, John? said Mr. Kirby. If you don't mind, answered Bresenton doubtfully. Not a bit, said Mr. Kirby, cheerfully. If I had grounds as big as yours I shouldn't go through them alone. The two men walked up the short way to the main door. When it was open for them the first thing Mr. Bresenton said to his servant was, Has anyone brought back my overcoat? The servant had seen nothing of it. It's not here, said Mr. Bresenton, turning round to Mr. Kirby. Come in. No, I won't, John, said Mr. Kirby. I'll ring you up in the morning. I'll do better than come in. I'll try and find it for you. You're a good friend, Charles, said John Bresenton, with meaning and simplicity. He had got a blow. Meanwhile John, said Kirby, standing outside and dripping in the rain. Remember, it's doing some other fellow heaps of good. Heaps and heaps and heaps. I should like a drink. Come in, said Bresenton again. Very well, said Kirby as he came in, but I won't take off my hat. Mr. Bresenton had wine sent for, and Charles Kirby drank. It's too light to drink wine, he said, when he had taken three or four glasses. It's a good thing that I don't care about the office, isn't it? Good night. The servant held the door open for him, and Bresenton walked off. But when the master of the house was out of sight and hearing, Mr. Kirby stopped abruptly on the steps, and turning to the servant just before the door was shut upon him, said, Who did you speak to today about your master's overcoat? The man was so startled that he blurted out. Lord, sir, I never said a word. It was the coachman who spoke to the young gentleman when the young gentleman saw it. He didn't borrow it, sir. He was a friend of Mr. Algernon's. Was he? said Mr. Kirby. Well, all right. And he turned to go down the drive. He reflected that it was a mile and a half to his own home, and then there was the storm still raging, and he liked it. And thank heaven he never got up earlier than he could help. He therefore proceeded to whistle, and as he whistled to consider curiously the soul of that old friend of thirty years whom he loved with all his heart. Next he made a picture of a young gentleman, a friend of his friend's son, coming and asking to see the green overcoat and learning it by heart. Why? Mr. Kirby didn't know. He stacked the fact up on a shelf and left it there. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of the green overcoat by Hilaer Belak This Librivax recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4, in which it is seen that university training fits one for a business career. The dawn in the month of May comes much earlier than most well-to-do people imagine. It comes earlier than most people of the class which buys and reads novels know, and as by this time I can be quite certain that the reader has either bought, hired, borrowed, or stolen this enchanting tale, I feel safe in twitting him or her or it upon their ignorance. The dawn in May comes so incredibly early that the man who makes anything of a night of it is not sleepy until broad daylight. Now even those who have formed but a superficial acquaintance with the adventurers of Professor Higginson will admit that he had made a night of it. Such a night as even the sacred height of Montmartre and the great transplantine world of London hardly know. Providence had not left him long to curse and despair in darkness bound to his chair. He was already exhausted, but he could still think and act when he perceived that a sickly light was filling the room. So dawned upon him Tuesday, the third of May, a date of dreadful import for his soul. It was then that the psychologist remembered that his arms were free. In that wide reading of his to which I have several times alluded, and which replaced for him the coarser experiences of life, Professor Higginson had learned of empire builders and strong men who with no instrument but their good sacks and teeth had severed the most dreadful fetters. How then should he fail, whose two hands were at liberty, to divest himself of his mere hempen bonds? He cursed himself for a fool in modulated internal language for not having thought of the thing before. He first surveyed all that his eyes could gather. The boxcord surrounded the green overcoat with a seven-fold stricture. It was continuous. It curled around the rungs and the legs of the chair. It tightly grasped his ankles and his knees. Somewhere or other it was nodded, and he must find that not. Heaven, or, as the Professor preferred to believe, development, has given to the human arm and hand an astonishing latitude and choice of movement. Since the knot wasn't in sight, it must be behind him. He felt gingerly along the cord with either hand, so far as either hand would reach, but found it not. He next decided that the knot must be beneath him. The chair had wide arms, to which his body was strictly bound. He bent as far as he could first to one side and then to the other, but he could discover no knot upon the seat beneath. Once more he linked backwards at some considerable expense of pain, and with the extreme tip of his right middle finger just managed to touch a lower rung at the back of the chair. There, at last, he found the accursed tangle. There he could tickle the outer edge of the damnable nexus of rope. There was the knot, just out of reach. In one strenuous and manly attempt to add one inch to his reach in that direction, he toppled the chair backwards and fell, striking the back of his head heavily against the floor. The Professor was not pleased. He was horribly hurt, and for a moment he lay believing that all things had come to an end. But human instinct, fertile in resource, awoke in him. He swung his head and shoulders upward spasmodically, in a desperate effort to redress himself. Finding that useless, he deliberately turned over on his side, from this onto his knees, and so upon all fours, with the chair still tightly bound to him and riding him like a castle. Having attained that honorable position, which is by all the dogmas of all the universities the original attitude of our remote ancestors, he made a discovery. In this native posture he was capable of progression—of progression—with the chair burdening his back like the shell of a tortoise, and with his legs dragged numbly after him, but still of progression, for he could put one hand before the other after the fashion of a wounded bear, and so dragged the remainder of his person in their wake. In this fashion, as the light gradually broadened on the filthy and deserted apartment, Professor Higginson began in odyssey, painful and slow, over all the floor of his prison. He inspected its utmost corners in search of something sharp wherewith to cut the cord, but nothing sharp was to be found. It was broad daylight by the time he had completed his circumnavigation and detailed survey. In the half-light he had hoped that the window might give upon the garden. Now that everything was fully revealed by the dawn he was disappointed. The one window, as he cricked his neck to look up at it, gave upon nothing better than the brick wall of a narrow, dirty backyard. He slowly retraced his steps, or rather, spore, to the position he had originally occupied, and then with infinite labour, grabbing at the edge and legs of the table, tilted the chair right side uppermost and resumed the position of man enthroned. He was exhausted. He was exhausted, but the new day always brings some kind of vigor in its train, and the Professor began once more to think and to determine, though the soul within him was a wet rag and his morale wholly gone. He was angry, so far as a man can be properly angry when weakened by such extremes of ill. He hated now not only those two young men, but all men. He would be free. He had a right to freedom. He would recover his own freedom by whatever means, and when he had recovered it, then he would do dreadful deeds. There was no sound in the great lonely house. The rain outside had ceased. The ridiculous birds, grossly ignorant of his sorrows, were screedling for dear life like ungreased cartwheels. It was a moment when wickedness has power, and O Professor Higginson, with firmer face than ever he had yet set, made up his mind to be free. Once free he would undo all ill, and wreak his vengeance. He first took up, from the table, that note signed John Brassington in strong, swift English writing. He scanned it long and well. He next took up the check form that had been left him. He lifted it with a gesture of purpose too deliberate for such a character as his, and one that nothing but the most severe fortune could have bred in it. He felt in a pocket for a bit of pencil, and then, this time not on all fours, but dragging himself round the edges of the table and the burden of the chair along with him, he made for the window. The angels and demons saw Professor Higginson do this dreadful thing. He put against the lowest pain, which he could well reach, the signed note of John Brassington, the pure light of Heaven's Day shown through it clear. He held firmly above it, with one of his free hands, the bottom left-hand corner of the check form, and he traced. Professor Higginson traced. He traced lightly and carefully with the pen. He traced with cunning, with care, and with skill, the J, and the O, and the H, and the N, and the capital B, and the R, and the A, and the S, and all the rest of the business. The good angels flew in despair to their own abode, leaving for the moment the luckless race of men. The bad ones, as I believe, crowded the room to suffocation. But to use mere mortal terms, Professor Higginson was alone with his wicked deed. It was too late to retrace his steps. He had hardened his heart. With a series of ungainly hops aided by the edge of the table, he regained the inkpot and the pen, and covered with a perfection surely unnatural the pencil tracing he had made. Professor Higginson had forged. It would all come right. There was the clearing, and the thing called stopping the check. And anyhow, damn it, or rather dash it, a man was of no use for a good cause until he was free. Yes, he had done right. He must be free first. Free, in spite of the bonds which cut him as he lent half-forward, half-sideways, with his eyes closed in his hands dropping on the arms of the chair. Free to take good deep breaths, regular breaths, rather louder ones, he thought. Then, as men on active service go to sleep in the saddle, and sailors stand sleeping at the helm from fatigue. So bound and cramped, the Professor of Psychology and Specialist in Subliminal Consciousness in the Guelph University of Ormiston, England, slapped. When Professor Higginson awoke, the birds had ceased their song, and had gone off stealing food. The air was warm. A bright sun was shining upon the wall of the dirty courtyard. He pulled out his watch. It was a quarter to nine. He felt at once reposed and more acutely uncomfortable, fresher and yet more in pain from the bonds round his legs in middle, and less friendly with the hard chair that had been his shell, and was now his unwanted seat. As he looked at the watch, he remembered having broken the glass of it some time ago. He remembered a splinter of that glass running into his hand, and marvelous creative influence of necessity even in the academic soul. He remembered that glass could cut. He felt like a Columbus. He wished he could patent such things. He began gingerly to lift the glass from the case of his watch. It broke. And I'm sorry to say it did what it had done before it ran into his finger. He sucked the wound, but was willing to forget it in his newfound key to delivery. With a small fragment of the splintered thing, he began very painfully sawing at a section of the rope that bound him. He might as well have tried to cut down a fifteen-year oak with a pin knife. All things can be accomplished with labor at last, but the life of man is a flash. He looked desperately at the window, and another dazzling conception struck him. Surely his brain was burgeoning under the heat of nourishing adversity. It occurred to him to break a window-pane. He did so. The glass fell outward and crashed on the courtyard below. With desperate courage, but infinite precautions, he pulled at a jagged piece that remained. Here was something more like a knife. Triumphantly he began to saw away at the cords, and to his infinite relief the instrument made a rapid and increasing impression. A few seconds more at the most, and he would have severed the section. He would have two ends, and then, as his newborn cunning told him, he had but to follow up and unroll them, and he would be free. But just as the last strand was ready to give, as the biceps muscle of his arm was only just beginning to ache from the steady back and forth of his hand, he heard hateful voices upon the stairs, the loud trampling of four young and hearty booted feet upon the uncarapeted wood. The key turned in the lock, and Jimmy and Melba, if I may still so call them, occupied the entry. With nervous and desperate fingers, Professor Higginson was loosening, as best he might, the tangle of his now severed bonds, when they were upon him. And I greatly regret to say that the higher voice of the two young men was guilty of a commonplace phrase. Ah, you would, would you? Accompanied by a sudden forced locking of the elbows behind, which bitterly offensive as it was had come to be almost as stale as it was offensive to the pragmatist of Guelph University. Even to Melba the Professor seemed a different man from the victim of a few hours before. He turned round savagely, he positively bit. In his wrath he said, Let me go, you young devil! Mr. James Macaulay, in that same scurried moment, had seen and picked up the check. He echoed engraver tone. Let him go, Melba. Don't be a fool. Mr. Brassington, he added, You would really have been wiser to have done this last night. We had no intention to put any indignity upon you, but you know we had a right to our money. After all, we warned you. Then see in the typewritten cheat unsigned, he said. It's no good to us without this, Mr. Brassington. Mr. Higginson, lowering and furtive like a caged cheetah, snarled and pulled the paper towards him. It was stamped with the business heading of the Brassington firm. It was brief and to the point. James Macaulay, Esquire, dear sir. After consultation with those best fitted to advise me, I have decided, though I still regard the necessity placed upon me as a grievous injustice, to liquidate my son's foolish debt. I enclose my check for two thousand pounds, for which you will be good enough to send me of a seat in due form, and I am your obedient servant. Then came the blank for signature. Professor Higginson, with a very ugly face, uglier for his hours of torture, turned on the young men. I am to sign that, am I? If you please, Mr. Brassington, said Jimmy, unperturbed. Well then I'll thank you to leave the room, you young fool, and your friend with you. Melba and Jimmy had looked at each other doubtfully. I cannot, will not do it, barked the wretched scientist, if you stay here. After all, Mr. Brassington, we had all this out last night. Yes, and I wouldn't do it until you were gone, would I? said Professor Higginson, scoring a point. After all, he can't do anything through that window, Melba, can he? Let's come out and wait. But I warn you, sir, he added, turning to the fallen man. We shall hear all that you do, and we shall stop immediately outside the door. Go to hell! said Professor Higginson, using the phrase for the second time in his life and after an interval of not less than twenty-three years, whereupon the young men retired, and the now hardened soul proceeded once again to trace to pencil and to sign. It's ready, he shouted to the door, as his pin left the paper. His tormentors re-entered and possessed themselves of the document, and then, though Melba remained an enemy, Jimmy's demeanor changed. Mr. Brassington, he said, we are very much obliged to you, very much obliged indeed. So you ought to be, said Professor Higginson, suddenly. Henceforward I beg you, will regard these premises as your own, said Jimmy. With these words he suddenly caught the Professor down upon the chair, took that chair upon one side, Melba took it upon the other, and they held and carried the unfortunate man rapidly through the open door, up three flights of uncarpeded stairs, until, assuring him of the honesty of their intentions, they deposited him upon a landing opposite a comfortable-looking Green Bay's door. Then they stood to recover their breath, still holding him tightly upon either side, while Jimmy, as spokesman, repeatedly assured him that they meant him no ill. It's nothing but a necessary precaution, Mr. Brassington, we do assure you, he puffed. You see the check must be cleared. Not that we doubt your honor for a moment. You'll find all you want in there. You can untie yourself now that you've got the rope, you know, and there's everything a man can possibly want. It's a solemn matter of honor between us, Mr. Brassington, that will let you out the moment the check's cleared. And there's plenty of food and good wine, Mr. Brassington, really good wine. And ginger ale, if you like the slops, added Malba, a man like you would. We are very sorry, said Jimmy, by way of palliating the insult, but you must see, as well as we do, that it has to be done. Not that we doubt your honor, not for a moment. With these words he gave some mysterious signal to Malba. The bay's door was swung open, and a large oaken door within it was unbolted. The chair and the wretched man upon it were run rapidly through, the bolt shot, and Jimmy standing outside asked, as in duty bound. You're not hurt, you all right? A hearty oath assured him that all was well. He tramped with his companion down the stairs, and Mr. Higginson was again a prisoner and alone. End of chapter 4