 CHAPTER 1 OF THE BEETLE RECORDING BY ICY JUMBO THE BEETLE by Richard Marsh BOOK 1 THE HOUSE WITH THE OPEN WINDOW THE SURPRISING NERATION OF ROBOT HALT CHAPTER 1 OUTSIDE No room, full up! He banged the door in my face. That was the final blow. To have tramped about all day looking for work. To have begged even, for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food. And to have tramped and to have begged in vain, that was bad. But, sick at heart, depressed in mind and in body, exhausted by hunger and fatigue. To have been compelled to pocket any little pride I might have left, and solicit, as the penniless, homeless tramp, which indeed I was, a knight's lodging in the casual ward. And to solicit it in vain, that was worse, much worse, about as bad as bad could be. I stared, stupidly, at the door which had just been banged in my face. I could scarcely believe that the thing was possible. I had hardly expected to figure as a tramp, but, supposing it conceivable that I could become a tramp, that I should be refused admission to that abode of all ignominy, the tramp's ward, was to have attained a depth of misery of which never even in nightmares I had dreamed. As I stood wondering what I should do, a man slouched towards me out of the shadow of the wall. Won't he let you in? He says it's full. Says it's full, does he? That's the lay-up, Fulham. They always says it's full. They want to keep the number down. I looked at the man, a sconce. His head hung forward. His hands were in his trouser pockets. His clothes were rags. His tone was husky. Do you mean that they say it's full and it isn't? That they won't let me in, although there's room? That's it. Blokes a kid in you. But if there's room, aren't they bound to let me in? Of course they are, and, blimey, if I was you, I'd make them. Blimey, I would. He broke into a volley of execrations. But what am I to do? Why? I'm another rouser. Let him know as you won't be kidded. I hesitated, then, acting on his suggestion, for the second time I rang the bell. The door was flung wide open, and the grizzled pauper who had previously responded to my summons stood in the open doorway. Had he been the chairman of the Board of Guardians himself, he could not have addressed me with greater scorn. What? Here again? What's your little game? Think I have nothing better to do than to wait on the likes of you? I want to be admitted. Then you won't be admitted. I want to see someone in authority. Ain't you seeing someone in authority? I want to see someone besides you. I want to see the master. Then you won't see the master. He moved the door swiftly, too, but, prepared for such a manoeuvre, I thrust my foot sufficiently inside to prevent his shutting it. I continued to address him. Are you sure that the ward is full? Full two hours ago. But what am I to do? I don't know what you're to do. Which is the nearest work-house? Kensington. Really opening the door, as he answered me, putting out his arm, he thrust me backwards. Before I could recover, the door was closed. The man in rags had continued a grim spectator of the scene. Now he spoke. Nice bloke, ain't he? He's only one of the paupers. Has he any right to act as one of the officials? I tell you, some of them paupers is worse than the officers. A long sight worse. They think they own the house, he's blimey, they do. Oh, it's a fine world this is. He paused. I hesitated. For some time there had been a suspicion of rain in the air. Now it was commencing to fall in a fine but soaking drizzle. It only needed that to fill my cup to overflowing. My companion was regarding me with a sort of sullen curiosity. Ain't you got no money? Not a farthing. Done much of this sort of thing? It's the first time I've been to a casual ward, and it doesn't seem as if I'm going to get in now. I thought you looked as if you was a bit fresh. What are you going to do? How far is it to Kensington? Work us. About three miles, but if I was you, I'd try St George's. Where's that? In the Fulham Road. Kensington's only a small place. They do you well there, and it's always full as soon as the doors opened. You'd have more chance at St George's. He was silent. I turned his words over in my mind, feeling as little disposed to try the one place as the other. Presently, he began again. I've travelled from red in this day I have, tramped every foot, and all the way as I come along I'll have a shakedown at Amersmith's, I says, and now I'm as far off it as ever. This is a fine country this is. I wish every soul in it was swept into the sea, blimey I do, but I ain't going to go no further, I'll have a bed in Amersmith or I'll know the reason why. How are you going to manage it? Have you got any money? Got any money? My crikey, I look as though I had, I sound as though I had too. I ain't had no brad set, now and then a brown, this last six months. How are you going to get a bed then? How am I going to? Why, like this way? He picked up two stones, one in either hand. The one in his left he flung at the glass which was over the door of the casual ward. It crashed through it, and through the lamp beyond. That's how I'm going to get a bed. The door was hastily opened. The grizzled pauper reappeared. He shouted as he peered at us in the darkness. Who done that? Ah, I done it, Governor, and if you like, you can see me do the other. It might do your eyesight good. Before the grizzled pauper could interfere, he had hurled the stone in his right hand through another pane. I felt that it was time for me to go. He was earning a night's rest at a price which, even in my extremity, I was not disposed to pay. When I left two or three other persons had appeared upon the scene, and the man in rags was addressing them with a degree of frankness which, in that direction, left little to be desired. I slunk away, unnoticed. But had not gone far before I had almost decided that I might as well have thrown in my fortune with the bolder wretch, and smashed a window too. Indeed, more than once my feet faltered, as I all but returned to do the feet which I had left undone. A more miserable night for an out-of-door excursion I could hardly have chosen. The rain was like a mist, and was not only drenching me to the skin, but it was rendering it difficult to see more than a little distance in any direction. The neighbourhood was badly lighted. It was one in which I was a stranger. I had come to Hammersmith as a last resource. It had seemed to me that I had tried to find some occupation which would enable me to keep body and soul together in every other part of London, and that now only Hammersmith was left. And at Hammersmith even the workhouse would have none of me. Retreating from the inhospitable portal of the casual ward, I had taken the first turning to the left, and, at the moment, had been glad to take it. In the darkness and the rain, the locality which I was entering appeared unfinished. I seemed to be leaving civilisation behind me. The path was unpaved, the road rough and uneven, as if it had never been properly made. Houses were few and far between. Those which I did encounter seemed, in the imperfect light, amid the general desolation, to be cottages which were crumbling to decay. Only where I was I could not tell. I had a faint notion that, if only I kept on long enough, I should strike some part of wall and green. How long I should have to keep on I could only guess. Not a creature seemed to be about of whom I could make inquiries. It was as if I was in a land of desolation. I suppose it was between eleven o'clock and midnight. I had not given up my quest for work till all the shops were closed, and in Hammersmith, that night at any rate, they were not early closers. Then I had lounged about dispiritedly, wondering what was the next thing I could do. It was only because I feared that if I attempted to spend the night in the open air, without food, when the morning came I should be broken up and fit for nothing, that I sought a night's freeboard and lodging. It was really hunker drove me to the work-house-store. That was Wednesday. Since the Sunday night preceding nothing had passed my lips save water from the public fountains, with the exception of a crust of bread which a man had given me whom I had found crouching at the root of a tree in Holland Park. For three days I had been fasting, practically all the time upon my feet. It seemed to me that if I had to go hungry till the morning I should collapse, there would be an end. Yet in that strange and inhospitable place where was I to get food at that time of night, and how? I do not know how far I went. Every yard I covered my feet dragged more. I was dead beat, inside and out. I had neither strength nor courage left, and within there was that frightful craving which was as though it shrieked aloud. I lent against some palings, dazed and giddy. If only death had come upon me quickly, painlessly, how true a friend I should have thought it. It was the agony of dying inch by inch which was so hard to bear. It was some minutes before I could collect myself sufficiently to withdraw from the support of the railings and to start afresh. I stumbled blindly over the uneven road. Once like a drunken man I lurched forward and fell upon my knees. Such was my backboneless state that for some seconds I remained where I was, half-disposed to let things slide, except the good the gods had sent me and make a night of it just there. A long night I fancy it would have been stretching from time unto eternity. Having regained my feet I had gone perhaps another couple of hundred yards along the road. Heaven knows that it seemed to me just then a couple of miles. When there came over me again that overpowering giddiness which I take it was born of my agony of hunger. I staggered helplessly against a low wall which, just there, was at the side of the path. Without it I should have fallen in a heap. The attack appeared to last for hours. I suppose it was only seconds, and when I came to myself it was as though I had been aroused from a swoon of sleep, aroused to an extremity of pain. I exclaimed aloud, for a loaf of bread what wouldn't I do? I looked about me in a kind of frenzy. As I did so I for the first time became conscious that behind me was a house. It was not a large one. It was one of those so-called villas which are springing up in multitudes all round London, and which are let at rentals of from twenty-five to forty pounds a year. It was detached. So far as I could see in the imperfect light there was not another building within twenty or thirty yards of either side of it. It was in two stories. There were three windows in the upper story. Behind each the blinds were closely drawn. The hall door was on my right. It was approached by a little wooden gate. The house itself was so close to the public road that by leaning over the wall I could have touched either of the windows on the lower floor. There were two of them. One of them was a bow window. The bow window was open. The bottom centre sash was raised about six inches. End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Beetle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Icy Jumbo. The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Chapter two Inside. I realised, and so to speak, mentally photographed all the little details of the house in front of which I was standing with what almost amounted to a gleam of preternatural perception. An instant before the world swam before my eyes. I saw nothing. Now I saw everything with a clearness which, as it were, was shocking. Of all, I saw the open window. I stared at it, conscious as I did so, of a curious catching of the breath. It was so near to me, so very near. I had but to stretch out my hand to thrust it through the aperture. Once inside my hand would at least be dry. How it rained out there. My scanty clothing was soaked. I was wet to the skin. I was shivering. And each second it seemed to rain still faster. My teeth were chattering. The damp was liquefying the very marrow in my bones. And inside that open window it was, it must be so warm, so dry. There was not a soul in sight, not a human being anywhere near. I listened. There was not a sound. I alone was at the mercy of the sodden night. Of all God's creatures the only one unsheltered from the fountains of heaven which he had opened. There was not one to see what I might do, not one to care. I need fear, no spy. Perhaps the house was empty. Nay, probably. It was my plain duty to knock at the door, rouse the inmates, and call attention to their oversight, the open window. The least they could do would be to reward me for my pains. But suppose the place was empty, what would be the use of knocking? It would be to make a useless clatter, possibly to disturb the neighbourhood for nothing. And even if people were at home I might go unrewarded. I had learned in a hard school the world's ingratitude. To have caused the window to be closed, the inviting window, the tempting window, the convenient window, and then to be no better for it after all, but still to be penniless, hopeless, hungry, out in the cold and the rain, better anything than that. In such a situation, too late, I should say to myself, that mine had been the conduct of a fool. And I should say it justly, too, to be sure. Weaning over the low wall, I found that I could very easily put my hand inside the room. How warm it was in there! I could feel the difference of temperature in my fingertips. Very quietly I stepped right over the wall. There was just room to stand in comfort between the window and the wall. The ground felt to the foot as it were cemented. Stooping down, I peered through the opening. I could see nothing. It was black as pitch inside. The blind was drawn right up. It seemed incredible that anyone could be at home, and have gone to bed, leaving the blind up and the window open. I placed my ear to the crevice. How still it was! Beyond doubt the place was empty. I decided to push the window up another inch or two, so as to enable me to reconnoitre. If anyone caught me in the act, then there would be an opportunity to describe the circumstances, and to explain how I was just on the point of giving the alarm. Only I must go carefully. In such damp weather it was probable that the sash would creak. Not a bit of it. It moved as readily and as noiselessly as if it had been oiled. This silence of the sash so emboldened me that I raised it more than I intended. In fact, as far as it would go. Not by a sound did it betray me. Bending over the sill I put my head and half my body into the room. But I was no forwarder. I could see nothing. Not a thing. For all I could tell the room might be unfurnished. Indeed, the likelihood of such an explanation began to occur to me. I might have chanced upon an empty house. In the darkness there was nothing to suggest the contrary. What was I to do? Well, if the house was empty, in such a plight as mine I might be said to have a moral, if not a legal, right to its bare shelter. Who, with a heart in his bosom, would deny it to me? Hardly the most punctilious landlord. Raising myself by means of the sill I slipped my legs into the room. The moment I did so, I became conscious that, at any rate, the room was not entirely unfurnished. The floor was carpeted. I have had my feet on some good carpets in my time. I know what carpets are, but never did I stand upon a softer one than that. It reminded me somehow, even then, of the turf in Richmond Park. It caressed my instep and sprang beneath my tread. To my poor, travel-worn feet it was luxury after the puddley, uneven road. Should I, now that I had ascertained that the room was at least partially furnished, beat a retreat? Or should I push my researches further? It would have been rapture to have thrown off my clothes, and to have sunk down on the carpet, then and there, to sleep. But I was so hungry, so famingoded, what would I not have given to have lighted on something good to eat? I moved a step or two forward, gingerly, reaching out with my hands, lest I struck unawares against some unseen thing. When I had taken three or four such steps, without encountering an obstacle, or indeed anything at all, I began, all at once, to wish I had not seen the house, that I had passed it by, that I had not come through the window, that I was safely out of it again. I became, on a sudden, aware that something was with me in the room. There was nothing ostensible to lead me to such a conviction. It may be that my faculties were unnaturally keen, but all at once I knew that there was something there. What was more, I had a horrible persuasion that, though unseen, I was seen, that my every movement was being watched. What it was that was with me I could not tell. I could not even guess. It was as though something in my mental organization had been stricken by a sudden paralysis. It may seem childish to use such language, but I was overwrought, played out, physically speaking, at my last counter, and, in an instant, without the slightest warning, I was conscious of a very curious sensation, the like of which I had never felt before, and the like of which I pray I may never feel again, a sensation of panic-fear. I remained rooted to the spot on which I stood, not daring to move, fearing to draw my breath. I felt that the presence with me in the room was something strange, something evil. I do not know how long I stood there, spellbound, but certainly for some considerable space of time. By degrees, as nothing moved, nothing was seen, nothing was heard, and nothing happened, I made an effort to better play the man. I knew that at the moment I played the cur, and endeavoured to ask myself of what it was I was afraid. I was shivering at my own imaginings. What could be in the room to have suffered me to open the window and to enter unopposed? Whatever it was, was surely to the full as greater coward as I was, or why permit unchecked my burglarious entry? Since I had been allowed to enter, the probability was that I should be at liberty to retreat, and I was sensible of a much keener desire to retreat than I had ever had to enter. I had to put the greatest amount of pressure upon myself before I could summon up sufficient courage to enable me even to turn my head upon my shoulders, and the moment I did so I turned it back again. What constrained me? To save my soul I could not have said, but it was constrained. My heart was palpitating in my bosom. I could hear it beat. I was trembling so that I could scarcely stand. I was overwhelmed by a fresh flood of terror. I stared in front of me, with eyes in which, had it been light, could have been seen the frenzy of unreasoning fear. My ears were strained so that I listened with an acuteness of tension which was painful. Something moved, slightly, with so slight a sound, that it would have scarcely been audible to other ears save mine. But I heard. I was looking in the direction from which the movement came, and, as I looked, I saw in front of me two specks of light. They had not been there a moment before, that I would swear. They were there now. They were eyes. I told myself they were eyes. I had heard how cat's eyes gleam in the dark, though I had never seen them, and I said to myself that these were cat's eyes. That the thing in front of me was nothing but a cat. But I knew I lied. I knew that these were eyes, and I knew they were not cat's eyes. Not eyes they were, I did not know, nor dead to think. They moved towards me. The creature to which the eyes belonged was coming closer. So intense was my desire to fly that I would much rather have died than stood there still. Yet I could not control a limb. My limbs were as if they were not mine. The eyes came on, noiselessly. At first they were between two and three feet from the ground, but on a sudden there was a squelching sound as if some yielding body had been squashed upon the floor. The eyes vanished, to reappear a moment afterwards at what I judged to be a distance of some six inches from the floor, and they again came on. So it seemed that the creature, whatever it was to which the eyes belonged, was after all but small. Why I did not obey the frantic longing which I had to freeflom it, I cannot tell. I only know I could not. I take it that the stress and privations which I had lately undergone, and which I was, even then, still undergoing, had much to do with my conduct at that moment, and with the part I played in all that followed. Ordinarily I believe that I have as high a spirit as the average man, and a solid a resolution. But when one has been dragged through the valley of humiliation, and plunged again and again into the waters of bitterness and privation, a man can be constrained to a course of action of which, in his happier moments, he would have deemed himself incapable. I know this of my own knowledge. Slowly the eyes came on. Neither strange slowness. And as they came they moved from side to side, as if their owner walked unevenly. Nothing could have exceeded the horror with which I awaited their approach, except my incapacity to escape them. Not for an instant did my glance pass from them. I could not have shut my eyes for all the gold the world contains, so that as they came closer I had to look right down to what seemed to be almost the level of my feet. And at last they reached my feet. They never paused. On a sudden I felt something on my boot, and with a sense of shrinking, horror, nausea, rendering me momentarily more helpless, I realised that the creature was beginning to ascend my legs. To climb my body. And then what it was I could not tell. It mounted me, apparently, with as much ease as if I had been horizontal instead of perpendicular. It was as though it were some gigantic spider, a spider of the nightmares, a monstrous conception of some dreadful vision. It pressed lightly against my clothing with what might, for all the world, have been spider's legs. There was an amazing host of them. I felt the pressure of each separate one. They embraced me softly, stickily, as if the creature glued and unglued them each time it moved. Higher and higher. It had gained my loins. It was moving towards the pit of my stomach. The helplessness with which I suffered its invasion was not the least part of my agony. It was that helplessness which we know in dreadful dreams. I understood, quite well, that if I did but give myself a hearty shake, the creature would fall off. But I had not a muscle at my command. As the creature mounted, its eyes began to play the part of two small lamps. They positively emitted rays of light. By their rays I began to perceive faint outlines of its body. It seemed larger than I had supposed. Either the body itself was slightly phosphorescent, or it was of a peculiar yellow hue. It gleamed in the darkness. What it was, there was still nothing to positively show. But the impression grew upon me that it was some member of the spider family, some monstrous member of the like of which I had never heard or read. It was heavy, so heavy indeed, that I wondered how, with so slight a pressure, it managed to retain its hold. That it did so by the aid of some adhesive substance at the end of its legs I was sure I could feel it stick. Its weight increased as it ascended, and it smelt. I had been for some time aware that it emitted an unpleasant, fetid odour, as it neared my face it became so intense as to be unbearable. It was at my chest. I became more and more conscious of an uncomfortable wobbling motion, as if each time it breathed its body heaved. Its forelegs touched the bare skin about the base of my neck. They stuck to it. Shall I ever forget the feeling? I have it often in my dreams. While it hung on with those in front, it seemed to draw its other legs up after it. It crawled up my neck, with hideous slowness, a quarter of an inch at a time, its weight compelling me to brace the muscles of my back. It reached my chin. It touched my lips, and I stood still and bore it all, while it enveloped my face with its huge, slimy, evil smelling body, and embraced me with its myriad legs. The horror of it made me mad. I shook myself like one stricken by the shaking egg you. I shook the creature off. It squashed upon the floor, shrieking like some lost spirit, turning I dashed towards the window. As I went, my foot catching in some obstacle, I fell head long to the floor. Picking myself up as quickly as I could, I resumed my flight. Rain or no rain, oh, to get out of that room. I already had my hand upon the sill. In another instant I should have been over it. Then, despite my hunger, my fatigues, let anyone have stopped me if they could. When someone behind me struck a light. CHAPTER III. THE MAN IN THE BED. The illumination which instantly followed was unexpected. It startled me, causing a moment's check, from which I was just recovering when a voice said, Keep still! There was a quality in the voice which I cannot describe. Not only an accent of command, but a something malicious, a something satanine. It was a little guttural, though whether it was a man speaking I could not have positively said. But I had no doubt it was a foreigner. It was the most disagreeable voice I had ever heard, and it had on me the most disagreeable effect. For when it said Keep still, I kept still. It was as though there was nothing else for me to do. TURN AROUND. I turned round mechanically, like an automaton. Such passivity was worse than undignified. It was galling. I knew that well. I resented it with secret rage. But in that room, in that presence, I was invertebrate. When I turned, I found myself confronting someone who was lying in a bed. At the head of the bed was a shelf. On the shelf was a small lamp which gave the most brilliant light I had ever seen. It caught me full in the eyes, having on me such a blinding effect that for some seconds I could see nothing. Throughout the whole of that strange interview I cannot affirm that I saw clearly that Dazzling glare caused dancing specks to obscure my vision. Yet after an interval of time I did see something, and what I did see I had rather have left unseen. I saw someone in front of me lying in a bed. I could not at once decide if it was a man or a woman. Indeed, at first I doubted if it was anything human. But afterwards I knew it to be a man. For this reason, if for no other, that it was impossible such a creature could be feminine. The bedclothes were drawn up to his shoulders. Only his head was visible. He lay on his left side, his head resting on his left hand, motionless, eyeing me as if he sought to read my inmost soul. And in very truth I believe he read it. His age I could not guess. Such a look of age I had never imagined. Had he asserted that he had been living through the ages I should have been forced to admit that at least he looked it. And yet I felt that it was quite within the range of possibility that he was no older than myself. There was a vitality in his eyes which was startling. It might have been that he had been afflicted by some terrible disease and it was that which had made him so supernaturally ugly. There was not a hair upon his face or head, but to make up for it the skin, which was of saffron yellow, was an amazing mass of wrinkles. The cranium and indeed the whole skull was so small as to be disagreeably suggestive of something animal. The nose on the other hand was abnormally large, so extravagant were its dimensions and so peculiar its shape it resembled the beak of some bird of prey. A characteristic of the face, and an uncomfortable one, was that practically it stopped short at the mouth. The mouth, with its blubber lips, came immediately under the nose, and chin to all extents and purposes there was none. This deformity, for the absence of chin amounted to that, it was which gave to the face the appearance of something not human, that and the eyes. For so marked a feature of the man were his eyes, that, ere long, it seemed to me that he was nothing but eyes. His eyes ran, literally, across the whole upper portion of his face. Remember, the face was unwontedly small, and the columnar of the nose was razor edged. They were long, and they looked out of narrow windows, and they seemed to be lighted by some internal radiance, for they shone out like lamps in a lighthouse-tower. Escape them I could not, while, as I endeavoured to meet them, it was as if I shriveled into nothingness. Never before had I realized what was meant by the power of the eye. They held me in chained, helpless, spellbound. I felt that they could do with me as they would, and they did. Their gaze was unfaltering, having the bird-like trick of never blinking. This man could have glared at me for hours, and never moved an eyelid. It was he who broke the silence. I was speechless. Shut the window! I did, as he bade me. Pull down the blind! I obeyed. Turn round again! I was still obedient. What is your name? Then I spoke, to answer him. There was this odd thing about the words I uttered, that they came from me, not in response to my will-power, but in response to his. It was not I who willed that I should speak. It was he. What he willed that I should say, I said. Just that, and nothing more. For the time I was no longer a man. My manhood was merged in his. I was, in the extremist sense, an example of passive obedience. Robert Holt. What are you? A clerk. You look as if you were a clerk. There was a flame of scorn in his voice, which scorched me, even then. What sort of a clerk are you? I am out of a situation. You look as if you were out of a situation. Again the scorn. Are you the sort of clerk who is always out of a situation? You are a thief. I am not a thief. Do clerks come through the window? I was still. He was putting no constraint on me to speak. Why did you come through the window? Because it was open. So do you always come through a window which is open? No. Then why through this? Because I was wet, and cold, and hungry, and tired. The words came from me as if he had dragged them one by one, which in fact he did. Have you no hope? No. Money? No. Friends? No. Then what sort of a clerk are you? I did not answer him. I did not know what it was he wished me to say. I was the victim of bad luck, nothing else, I swear it. Miss Fortune had followed hard upon Miss Fortune, the firm by whom I had been employed for years suspended payment. I obtained a situation with one of their creditors at a lower salary. They reduced their staff, which entailed my going. After an interval I obtained a temporary engagement, the occasion which required my services passed and I with it. After another and a longer interval I again found temporary employment, the pay for which was but a pittance. When that was over I could find nothing. That was nine months ago, and since then I had not earned a penny. It is so easy to grow shabby when you are on the everlasting tramp and are living on your stock of clothes. I had trudged all over London in search of work. Work of any kind would have been welcome, so long as it would have enabled me to keep body and soul together. And I had trudged in vain. Now I had been refused admittance as a casual. How easy is the dissent! But I did not tell the man lying on the bed all this. He did not wish to hear. Had he wished he would have made me tell him. It may be that he read my story, unspoken though it was. It is conceivable. His eyes had powers of penetration which were peculiarly their own, that I know. Andrest! When he spoke again that was what he said, in those guttural tones of his in which there was a reminiscence of some foreign land. I obeyed, letting my sodden, shabby clothes fall anyhow upon the floor. A look came on his face as I stood naked in front of him, which, if it was meant for a smile, was a satter's smile, and which filled me with a sensation of shuddering repulsion. What a white skin you have! How white! What would I not give for a skin as white as that? Ah, yes! He paused, devouring me with his glances, then continued, Go to the cupboard. You will find a cloak. Put it on. I went to a cupboard which was in a corner of the room, his eyes following me as I moved. It was full of clothing, garments which might have formed the stock-in-trade of a costumier whose specialty was providing costumes for masquerades. A long, dark cloak hung on a peg. My hand moved towards it, apparently of its own volition. I put it on, its ample folds falling to my feet. In the other cupboard you will find meat and bread and wine, eat and drink. On the opposite side of the room, near the head of his bed, there was a second cupboard. In this, upon a shelf, I found what looked like pressed beef, several round cakes of what tasted like rye bread, and some thin, sour wine in a straw-covered flask. But I was in no mood to criticise. I crammed myself, I believe, like some famished wolf, he watching me in silence all the time. When I had done, which was when I had eaten and drunk as much as I could hold, there returned to his face that satyr's grin. I would that I could eat and drink like that, ah, yes, put back what is left. I put it back, which seemed an unnecessary exertion there was so little to put. Look me in the face! I looked him in the face, and immediately became conscious, as I did so, that something was going from me, the capacity as it were to be myself. His eyes grew larger and larger, till they seemed to fill all space, till I became lost in their immensity. He moved his hand, doing something to me. I know not what, as it passed through the air, cutting the solid ground from underneath my feet, so that I fell headlong to the ground. Where I fell, there I lay, like a log, and the light went out. The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 4 A Lonely Vigil I knew that the light went out, for not the least singular, nor indeed the least distressing part of my condition, was the fact that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I never once lost consciousness during the long hours which followed. I was aware of the extinction of the lamp, and of the black darkness which ensued. I heard a rustling sound, as if the man in the bed was settling himself between the sheets. Then all was still. And throughout that interminable night I remained, my brain awake, my body dead, waiting, watching for the day. What had happened to me I could not guess. That I probably wore some of the external evidences of death my instinct told me. I knew I did. Paradoxical though it may sound, I felt as a man might feel who had actually died, as, in moments of speculation in the days gone by, I had imagined it as quite possible that he would feel. It is very far from certain that feeling necessarily expires with what we call life. I continually asked myself if I could be dead. The inquiry pressed itself on me with awful iteration. Does the body die, and the brain, the eye, the ego still live on? God only knows, but then the agony of the thought. The hours passed. By slow degrees the silence was eclipsed. Sounds of traffic, of hurrying footsteps, life were ushers of the morn. Outside the window sparrows twittered. A cat mewed, a dog barked. There was the clatter of a milk-can. Shafts of light stole past the blind, increasing in intensity. It still reigned, now and again it patted against the pain. The wind must have shifted, because for the first time there came on a sudden the clang of a distant clock striking the hour. Seven. Then with the interval of a lifetime between each chiming, eight, nine, ten. So far in the room itself there had not been a sound. When the clock had struck ten, as it seemed to me years ago, there came a rustling noise from the direction of the bed. Feet stepped upon the floor, moving towards where I was lying. It was, of course, now broad day, and I presently perceived that a figure clad in some queer-coloured garment was standing at my side looking down at me. It stooped, then knelt. My only covering was unceremoniously thrown from off me, so that I lay there in my nakedness. Fingers prodded me then and there as if I had been some beast ready for the butcher's stall. A face looked into mine, and in front of me were those dreadful eyes. Then, whether I was dead or living, I said to myself that this could be nothing human. Nothing fashioned in God's image could wear such a shape as that. Fingers were pressed into my cheeks. They were thrust into my mouth. They touched my staring eyes, shut my eyelids, then opened them again. And horror of horrors the blubber lips were pressed to mine. The soul of something evil entered into me in the guise of a kiss. Then this travesty of manhood re-ascended to his feet and said, whether speaking to me or to himself I could not tell, dead, dead, as good as dead and better, will have not buried. He moved away from me. I heard a door open and shut, and knew that he was gone. And he continued gone throughout the day. I had no actual knowledge of his issuing out into the street, but he must have done so because the house appeared deserted. What had become of the dreadful creature of the night before I could not guess. My first fear was that he had left it behind him in the room with me. It might be as a sort of watchdog. But as the minutes and the hours passed, and there was still no sign or sound of anything living, I concluded that, if the thing was there, it was possibly as helpless as myself, and that during its owner's absence, at any rate, I had nothing to fear from its too pressing attentions. That, with the exception of myself, the house held nothing human, I had strong presumptive proof more than once in the course of the day. Several times, both in the morning and the afternoon, people without endeavoured to attract the attention of whoever was within. Vehicles, probably tradesmen's carts, drew up in front, their stopping being followed by more or less assiduous assaults upon the knocker and the bell. But in every case their appeals remained unheeded. Whatever it was they wanted, they had to go unsatisfied away. Lying there, torpid, with nothing to do but listen, I was, possibly, struck by very little, but it did occur to me that one among the callers was more persistent than the rest. The distant clock had just struck noon when I heard the gate open, and someone approached the front door. Since nothing but silence followed, I supposed that the occupant of the place had returned and had chosen to do so as silently as he had gone. Presently, however, there came from the doorstep a slight but peculiar call, as if a rat was squeaking. It was repeated three times, and then there was the sound of footsteps quietly retreating and the gate re-closing. Between one and two the caller came again. There was a repetition of the same signal. But it was a signal I did not doubt, followed by the same retreat. About three the mysterious visitant returned. The signal was repeated, and, when there was no response, fingers tapped softly against the panels of the front door. When there was still no answer, footsteps stole softly round the side of the house, and there came the signal from the rear, and then again tapping of the fingers against what was, apparently, the back door. No notice being taken of these various proceedings. The footsteps returned the way they went, and, as before, the gate was closed. Shortly after darkness had fallen, this assiduous caller returned to make a fourth and more resolute attempt to call attention to his presence. From the peculiar character of his maneuvers, it seemed that he suspected that whoever was within had particular reasons for ignoring him without. He went through the familiar pantomime of the three squeaky calls, both at the front door and the back, followed by the tapping of the fingers on the panels. This time, however, he also tried the window panes. I could hear, quite distinctly, the clear yet distinct noise of what seemed like knuckles wrapping against the windows behind. And there he renewed his efforts at the front. The curiously quiet footsteps came round the house to pause before the window of the room in which I lay, and then something singular occurred. While I waited for the tapping, there came instead the sound of someone or something scrambling onto the window sill, as if some creature unable to reach the window from the ground was endeavouring to gain the vantage of the sill. Some ungainly creature, unskilled in surmounting such an obstacle as a perpendicular brick wall. There was the noise of what seemed to be the scratching of claws, as if it experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining a hold on the unyielding surface. What kind of a creature it was, I could not think. I was astonished to find that it was a creature at all. I had taken it for granted that the persevering visitor was either a woman or a man. If, however, as now seemed likely, it was some sort of animal, the fact explained the squeaking sounds, though what except a rat did squeak like that was more than I could say, and the absence of any knocking or ringing. Whatever it was, it had gained the summit of its desires, the window sill. It panted as if its efforts at climbing had made it short of breath. Then began the tapping. In the light of my new discovery I perceived, clearly enough, that the tapping was hardly that which was likely to be the product of human fingers. It was sharp and definite, rather resembling the striking of the point of a nail against the glass. It was not loud, but in time it continued with much persistency. It became plainly vicious. It was accompanied by what I can only describe as the most extraordinary noises. There were squeaks growing angrier and shriller as the minutes passed, what seemed like gaspings for breath, and a peculiar buzzing sound, like, yet unlike, the purring of a cat. The creature's resentment at its want of success in attracting attention was unmistakable. The tapping became like the clattering of hailstones. It kept up a continuous noise with its cries and pantings. There was the sound as of some large body being rubbed against the glass, as if it were extending itself against the window and endeavouring, by force of pressure, to gain an entrance through the pain. So violent did its contortions become that I momentarily anticipated the yielding of the glass, and the excited assailant coming crashing through. To my relief, the window proved more impregnable than seemed at one time likely. The stolid resistance proved, in the end, to be too much either for its endurance or its patience. Just as I was looking for some fresh manifestation of fury, it seemed rather to tumble than to spring off the sill. Then came, once more, the same sound of quietly retreating footsteps, and what, under the circumstances, seemed odder still, the same closing of the gate. During the two or three hours which immediately ensued, nothing happened at all out of the way, and then took place the most surprising incident of all. The clock had struck ten some time before. Since before the striking of the hour, nothing and no one had passed along what was evidently the little frequented road in front of that uncanny house. On a sudden two sounds broke the stillness without, of someone running, and of cries. Judging from his hurrying steps, someone seemed to be flying for his life, to the accompaniment of curious cries. It was only when the runner reached the front of the house that, in the cries, I recognized the squeaks of the persistent caller. I imagined that he had returned, as before, alone, to renew his attacks upon the window, until it was made plain, as it quickly was, that with him was some sort of a companion. Immediately there arose from without the noise of battle. Two creatures whose cries were, to me, of so unusual a character that I found it impossible to even guess at their identity, seemed to be waging war to the knife upon the doorstep. After a minute or two of furious contention, victory seemed to rest with one of the combatants, for the other fled squeaking as with pain. While I listened, with strained attention for the next episode in this queer drama, expecting that now would come another assault upon the window, to my unbounded surprise I heard a key thrust in the keyhole, the lock turned, and the front door thrown open with a furious bang. It was closed as loudly as it was opened. Then the door of the room in which I was was dashed open with the same display of excitement and of clamour. Footsteps came hurrying in. The door was slammed too with a force which shook the house to its foundations. There was a rustling as of bed clothes, the brilliant illumination of the night before, and a voice which I had only two good reason to remember said, Stand up! I stood up automatically at the word of command facing towards the bed. There between the sheets, with his head resting on his hand, in the attitude in which I had seen him last, was the being I had made acquaintance with under the circumstances which I was never likely to forget. The same. Yet not the same. CHAPTER 5 An instruction to commit burglary That the man on the bed was the one whom, to my cost, I had suffered myself to stumble on the night before, there could of course not be the faintest doubt. And yet, directly I saw him, I recognised that some astonishing alteration had taken place in his appearance. To begin with, he seemed younger. The decrepitude of age had given place to something very like the fire of youth. His features had undergone some subtle change. His nose, for instance, was not by any means so grotesque. Its beak-like quality was less conspicuous. The most part of his wrinkles had disappeared, as if by magic. And though his skin was still as yellow as saffron, his contours had rounded. He had even come into possession of a modest allowance of chin. But the most astounding novelty was that about the face there was something which was essentially feminine. So feminine, indeed, that I wondered if I could by any possibility have blundered and mistaken a woman for a man. Some ghoulish example of her sex, who had so yielded to her depraved instincts as to have become nothing but a ghastly reminiscence of womanhood. The effect of the changes which had come about in his appearance, for, after all, I told myself that it was impossible that I could have been such a simpleton as to have been mistaken on such a question as gender, was heightened by the self-evident fact that, very recently, he had been engaged in some pitched battle, some hand to hand, and probably discreditable encounter, from which he had borne away uncomfortable proofs of his opponent's prowess. His antagonist could hardly have been a chivalrous fighter, for his countenance was marked by a dozen different scratches which seemed to suggest that the weapons used had been someone's fingernails. It was, perhaps, because the heat of the battle was still in his veins that he was in such a state of excitement. He seemed to be almost overwhelmed by the strength of his own feelings. His eyes seemed literally to flame with fire. The muscles of his face were working as if they were wholly beyond his own control. When he spoke, his accent was markedly foreign. The words rushed from his lips in an inarticulate torrent. He kept repeating the same thing over and over again in a fashion which was not a little suggestive of insanity. So, you're not dead. You're not dead. You're alive. You're alive. Well, how does it feel to be dead? I ask you, is it not good to be dead? To keep dead is better. It is the best of all. To have made an end of all things. To cease to strive and to cease to weep, to cease to want and to cease to have, to cease to annoy and to cease to long. To no more care, no, not for anything. To put from you the curse of life, for ever. Is that not the best? Oh, yes, I tell you. Do I not know? But for you such knowledge is not yet. For you there is no return to life, the coming out of death. You shall live on. For me, live on. He made a movement with his hand, and, directly he did so, it happened as on the previous evening, that a metamorphosis took place in the very abysses of my being. I woke from my torpor. As he put it, I came out of death, and was alive again. I was far yet from being my own man. I realized that he exercised on me a degree of mesmeric force, which I had never dreamed that one creature could exercise on another. But at least I was no longer in doubt as to whether I was or was not dead. I knew I was alive. He lay, watching me, as if he was reading the thoughts which occupied my brain. And for all I know he was. Robert Holt, you are a thief. I am not. My voice, as I heard it, startled me. It was so long since it had sounded in my ears. You are a thief. Only thieves come through windows. Did you not come through the window? I was still. What would my contradiction have availed me? But it is well that you came through the window. Well, you are a thief. Well for me. For me. It is you that I am wanting. At the happy moment you have dropped yourself into my hands, in the nick of time, for you are my slave, at my beck and call, my familiar spirit, to do with, as I avail. You know this, eh? I did know it. And the knowledge of my impotence was terrible. I felt that if I could only get away from him, only release myself from the bonds with which he had bound me about. Only remove myself from the horrible glamour of his near neighbourhood. Only get one or two square meals, and have an opportunity of recovering from the innovating stress of mental and bodily fatigue. I felt that then I might be something like his match, and that a second time he would endeavour in vain to bring me within the compass of his magic. But as it was, I was conscious that I was helpless, and the consciousness was agony. He persisted in reiterating his former falsehood. I say you are a thief, a thief, Robert Holt, a thief. You came through a window for your own pleasure. Now you will go through a window for mine. Not this window, but another. Where the jest lay I did not perceive, but it tickled him, for a grating sound came from his throat which was meant for laughter. This time it is as a thief that you will go. Oh yes, to be sure. He paused, as it seemed, to transfix me with his gaze. His unblinking eyes never for an instant quitted my face. With what a frightful fascination they constrained me, and how I loathed them. When he spoke again there was a new intonation in his speech, being bitter, cruel, unrelenting. Do you know Paul Lessingham? He pronounced the name as if he hated it, and yet as if he loved to have it on his tongue. What Paul Lessingham? There is only one Paul Lessingham, the Paul Lessingham, the great Paul Lessingham. He shrieked rather than said this, with an outburst of rage so frenzied that I thought for the moment that he was going to spring on me and rend me. I shook all over. I do not doubt that, as I replied, my voice was sufficiently tremulous. All the world knows Paul Lessingham, the politician, the statesman. As he glared at me his eyes dilated. I still stood in expectation of a physical assault. But for the present he contented himself with words. Tonight you are going through his window like a thief. I had no inkling of his meaning, and, apparently judging from his next words, I looked something of the bewilderment I felt. You do not understand? No, it is simple. What could be simpler? I say that tonight, tonight, you are going through his window like a thief. You came through my window? Why not go through a window of Paul Lessingham, the politician, the statesman? He repeated my words as if in mockery. I am, I make it my boast, of that great multitude which regards Paul Lessingham as the greatest living force in practical politics, and which looks to him with confidence to carry through that great work of constitutional and social reform which he has set himself to do. I dare say that my tone, in speaking of him, savored of lordation, which plainly the man in the bed resented. What he meant by his wild words about my going through Paul Lessingham's window like a thief, I still had not the faintest notion. They sounded like the ravings of a madman. As I continued silent, and he yet stared, there came into his tone another note, a note of tenderness, a note of which I had not deemed him capable. He is good to look at, Paul Lessingham? Is he not good to look at? I was aware that, physically, Mr. Lessingham was a fine specimen of manhood, but I was not prepared for the assertion of the fact in such a quarter, nor for the manner in which the temporary master of my fate continued to harp and enlarge upon the theme. He is straight, straight as the mast of a ship. He is tall. His skin is white. He is strong. Do I not know that he is strong? How strong! Oh, yes! Is there a better thing than to be his wife? His well-beloved, the light of his eyes! Is there for a woman a happier chance? Oh, no, not one! His wife, Paul Lessingham! As with soft cadences he gave vent to these unlooked-for sentiments, the fashion of his countenance was changed. A look of longing came into his face. Of savage, frantic longing, which, unalluring though it was, for the moment transfigured him. But the mood was transient. To be his wife, oh, yes, the wife of his scorn, the despised and rejected! The return to the venom of his former bitterness was rapid. I could not but feel that this was the natural man. So why a creature such as he should go out of his way to apostrophise in such a manner a publicist of Mr. Lessingham's eminence surpassed my comprehension? Yet he stuck to his subject like a leech, as if it had been one in which he had an engrossing personal interest. He is a devil, hard as the granite rock, cold as the snows of Ararat. In him there is none of life's warm blood. He is a cursed. He is false. I, false as the fables of those who lie for love of lies. He is all treachery. Her, whom he has taken to his bosom, he would put away from him as if she had never been. He would steal from her like a thief in the night. He would forget she ever falls. But the avenger follows after, lurking in the shadows, hiding among the rocks, waiting, watching, till his time shall come. And it shall come, the day of the avenger, I, the day! Raising himself to a sitting posture, he threw his arms above his head and shrieked with a demonic fury. Presently he became a trifle calmer. Reverting to his recumbent position, resting his head upon his hand, he eyed me steadily, then asked me a question which struck me as being, under the circumstances, more than a little singular. You know his house? The house of the great Paul Lessinger? The politician? The statesman? I do not. You lie! You do! The words came from him with a sort of snarl as if he would have lashed me across the face with them. I do not. Men in my position are not acquainted with the residences of men in his. I may, at some time, have seen his address in print, but if so, I have forgotten it. He looked at me intently, for some moments, as if to learn if I spoke the truth, and apparently at last was satisfied that I did. You do not know it? Well, I will show it to you. I will show you the house of the great Paul Lessingham. What he meant I did not know, but I was soon to learn, an astounding revelation it proved to be. It was about his manner something hardly human, something which, for want of a better phrase, I would call vulpine. In his tone there was a mixture of mockery and bitterness, as if he wished his words to have the effect of corrosive sublimity, and to sear me as he uttered them. Listened with all your ears, give me your whole attention, harken to my bidding, so that you may do as I bid you, but that I fear your obedience, or know. He paused, as if to enable me to fully realise the picture of my helplessness conjured up by his jibes. You came through my window, like a thief. You will go through my window, like a fool. You will go to the house of the great Paul Lessingham. You say that you do not know it? Well, I will show it to you. I will be your guide, and seen in the darkness and the night, I will stalk beside you, and I will lead you to where I would have you go. You will go just as you are, with bare feet and head uncovered, and with but a single garment to hide your nakedness. You will be cold, your feet will be cut and bleeding, but what better does a thief deserve? If any see you, at the least they will take you for a madman, there will be trouble. But have no fear, bear a bold heart, none shall see you while I stalk at your side. I will cover you with a cloak of invisibility, so that you may come in safety to the house of the great Paul Lessingham. He paused again. What he said, wild and wanton, though it was, was beginning to fill me with a sense of the most extreme discomfort. His sentences, in some strange, indescribable way, seemed as they came from his lips to warp my limbs, to enwrap themselves about me, to confine me, tighter and tighter, within, as it were, swaddling clothes, to make me more and more helpless. I was already conscious that whatever mad freak he chose to set me on, I should have no option but to carry it through. When you come to the house, you will stand and look and seek for a window convenient for entry. It may be that you will find one open, as you did mine. If not, you will open one. How? That is your affair, not mine. You will practice the arts of a thief to steal into his house. The monstrosity of his suggestion fought against the spell which he again was casting upon me, and forced me into speech, endowed me with the power to show that there was still in me something of a man. So every second the strands of my manhood, as it seemed, were slipping faster through the fingers which were strained to clutch them. I will not. He was silent. He looked at me. The pupils of his eyes dilated, until they seemed all pupil. You will. Do you hear? I say you will. I am not a thief. I am an honest man. Why should I do this thing? Because I bid you. Have mercy. On whom? On you or on Paul Lessingham? Who at any time has shown mercy unto me that I should show mercy unto any? He stopped and then again went on, reiterating his former incredible suggestion with an emphasis which seemed to eat its way into my brain. You will practice the arts of a thief to steal into his house, and being in will listen. If all be still, you will make your way to the room he calls his study. How shall I find it? I know nothing of his house. The question was rung from me. I felt that the sweat was standing in great drops upon my brow. I will show it to you. Shall you go with me? I shall go with you. All the time I shall be with you. You will not see me, but I shall be there. Be not afraid. His claim to supernatural powers, for what he said amounted to nothing less, was on the face of it preposterous. But then I was in no condition to even hint at its absurdity. He continued, When you have gained the study you will go to a certain drawer which is in a certain bureau in a corner of the room. I see it now. When you are there you shall see it too, and you will open it. Should it be locked? You still of it open it. But how shall I open it, if it is locked? By those arts in which a thief is skilled, I say to you again that that is your affair, not mine. I made no attempt to answer him. Even supposing that he forced me, by the wicked and unconscionable exercise of what, I presumed, were the hypnotic powers with which nature had to such a dangerous degree endowed him, to carry the adventure to a certain stage, since he could hardly, at an instant's notice, endow me with a knack of picking locks, should the drawer he alluded to be locked, which might providence permit. Nothing serious might issue from it after all. He read my thoughts. You will open it, though it be doubly and trebly locked. I say that you will open it. In it you will find? He hesitated, as if to reflect. Some letters. It may be two or three. I know not just how many. They are bound about by a silken ribbon. You will take them out of the drawer, and having taken them, you will make the best of your way out of the house, and bear them back to me. And should anyone come upon me while engaged in these nefarious proceedings, for instance, should I encounter Mr. Lessingham himself? What then? Paul Lessingham? You'd need have no fear of him. I need have no fear? If he finds me in his own house at dead of night, committing burglary? You'd need have no fear of him. On your account, or on my own. At least he will have me hailed to jail. I say you need have no fear of him. I say what I mean. How then shall I escape his righteous vengeance? He is not the man to suffer a midnight robber to escape him scatheless. Shall I have to kill him? You will not touch him with a finger, nor will he touch you. By what spell shall I prevent him? By the spell of two birds. What words are they? Should Paul Lessingham chance to come upon you, and find you in his house, a thief, and should seek to stay you from whatever it is you may be at, you will not flinch nor flee from him, but you will stand still, and you will say something in the crescendo accents of his voice, Something weird and ominous caused my heart to press against my ribs, so that when he stopped, in my eagerness, I cried out, What? The beetle! As the words came from him in a kind of screech, the lamp went out, and the place was all in darkness, and I knew, so that the knowledge filled me with a sense of loathing, that with me in the room was the evil presence of the night before. Two bright specks gleamed in front of me. Something flopped from off the bed onto the ground. The thing was coming towards me across the floor. It came slowly on, and on, and on. I stood still, speechless in the sickness of my horror, until, on my bare feet, it touched me with slimy feelers, and my terror, lest it should creep up my naked body, lent me voice, and I fell shrieking like a soul in agony. It may be that my shrieking drove it from me. At least it went. I knew it went, and all was still, until, on a sudden, the lamp flamed out again, and there, lying as before, in bed, glaring at me with his baleful eyes, was the being whom, in my folly, or in my wisdom, whichever it was, I was beginning to credit with the possession of unhallowed, unlawful powers. You will say to him those two words. They only, no more. And you will see what you will see. But Paul Lessingham is a man of resolution. Should he still persist in interference, or seek to hinder you, you will say those two words again. You need to know more. Twice will suffice, I promise you. Now go, draw up the blind, open the window, climb through it, hasten to do what I have bitten you. I wait here for your return, and all the way I shall be with you. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of the Beetle This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Icy Jumbo The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 6 A Singular Felony I went to the window. I drew up the blind, unlatching the sash I threw it open, and clad, or rather unclad as I was, I clambered through it into the open air. I was not only incapable of resistance, I was incapable of distinctly formulating the desire to offer resistance. Some compelling influence moved me hither and hither, with completest disregard of whether I would or would not. And yet, when I found myself without, I was conscious of a sense of exaltation at having escaped from the miasmic atmosphere of that room of unholy memories. And a faint hope began to dawn within my bosom that, as I increased the distance between myself and it, I might shake off something of the nightmare helplessness which numbed and tortured me. I lingered for a moment by the window, then stepped over the short dividing wall into the street, and then again I lingered. My condition was one of dual personality. While physically I was bound, mentally, to a considerable extent, I was free. But this measure of freedom on my mental side made my plight no better. For, among other things, I realised what a ridiculous figure I must be cutting, bare-footed and bare-headed, abroad at such an hour of the night, in such a boisterous breeze. Where I quickly discovered that the wind amounted to something like a gale. Apart from all other considerations, the notion of parading the streets in such a condition filled me with profound disgust. And I do believe that if my tyrannical oppressor had only permitted me to attire myself in my own garments, I should have started with a comparatively light heart on the felonious mission on which he apparently was sending me. I believe, too, that the consciousness of the incongruity of my attire increased my sense of helplessness, and that, had I been dressed as Englishmen I won't to be, who take their walks abroad, he would not have found in me, on that occasion, the facile instrument which, in fact, he did. There was a moment in which the graveled pathway first made itself known to my naked feet, and the cutting wind to my naked flesh. When I think it possible that, had I gritted my teeth and strained my every nerve, I might have shaken myself free from the bonds which shackled me, and bad defiance to the ancient sinner who, for all I knew, was peeping at me through the window. But so depressed was I by the knowledge of the ridiculous appearance I presented, that before I could take advantage of it, the moment passed, not to return again that night. I did catch, as it were, at its fringe, as it was flying past me, making a hurried movement to one side, the first I had made of my own initiative for hours, but it was too late. My tormentor, as if, though unseen, he saw, tightened his grip. I was whirled around, and sped hastily onwards in a direction in which I certainly had no desire of travelling. All the way, I never met a soul. I have since wondered whether, in that respect, my experience was not a normal one. Whether it might not have happened to any. If so, there are streets in London, long lines of streets, which, at a certain period of the night, in a certain sort of weather, probably the weather had something to do with it, are clean deserted, in which there is neither foot-passenger nor vehicle, not even a policeman. The greater part of the route along which I was driven, I know no juster word, was one with which I had some sort of acquaintance. It led, at first, through what I take it, was some part of Wallam Green, then along the Lily Road, through Brompton, across the Fulham Road, through the network of streets leading to Sloan Street, across Sloan Street, into Lound Square. Who goes that way, goes some distance, and goes through some important thoroughfares. Yet not a creature did I see, nor, I imagine, was there a creature who saw me. As I crossed Sloan Street, I fancied that I heard the distant rumbling of a vehicle along the Night's Bridge Road, but that was the only sound I heard. It is painful even to recollect the plight in which I was when I was stopped. For stopped I was, as shortly and as sharply as the beast of burden, with a bridle in its mouth whose driver puts a period to his career. I was wet, intermittent gusts of rain were born on the scurrying wind. In spite of the pace at which I had been brought, I was chilled to the bone. And worst of all, my mud-stained feet, all cut and bleeding, were so painful, for unfortunately I was still susceptible enough to pain, that it was agony to have them come in contact with the cold and the slime of the hard, unyielding pavement. I had been stopped on the opposite side of the Square, that nearest to the hospital, in front of a house which struck me as being somewhat smaller than the rest. It was a house with a portico. About the pillars of this portico was trellis-work, and on the trellis-work was trained some climbing-plant. As I stood, shivering, wondering what would happen next, some strange impulse mastered me, and immediately, to my own unbounded amazement, I found myself scrambling up the trellis towards the veranda above. I am no gymnast, either by nature or by education. I doubt whether, previously, I had ever attempted to climb anything more difficult than a step-ladder. The result was that, though the impulse might be given me, the skill could not, and I had only ascended a yard or so when, losing my footing, I came slithering down upon my back. Distant shaken, though I was, I was not allowed to inquire into my injuries. In a moment I was on my feet again, and again I was impelled to climb, only, however, again to come to grief. This time the demon, or whatever it was, that had entered into me, seeming to appreciate the impossibility of getting me to the top of that veranda, directed me to try another way. I mounted the steps leading to the front door, got onto the low parapet which was at one side, thence onto the sill of the adjacent window. Had I slipped then, I should have fallen a sheer descent of at least twenty feet to the bottom of the deep area down below. But the sill was broad, and, if it is proper to use such language in connection with a transaction of the sort in which I was engaged, fortune favoured me. I did not fall. In my clenched fist I had a stone. With this I struck the pane of glass, as with a hammer. Through the hole which resulted I could just insert my hand, and reach the latch within. In another minute the sash was raised, and I was in the house. I had committed burglary. As I look back and reflect upon the audacity of the whole proceeding, even now I tremble. I am still a slave of another's will, although in very truth I was. I cannot repeat too often that I realised to the full just what it was that I was being compelled to do, a fact which was very far from rendering my situation less distressful, and every detail of my involuntary actions was projected upon my brain in a series of pictures whose clear-cut outlines, so long as memory endures, will never fade. Certainly no professional burglar, nor indeed any creature in his senses, would have ventured to emulate my surprising rashness. The process of smashing the pane of glass, it was plate glass, was anything but a noiseless one. There was first the blow itself, then the shivering of the glass, then the clattering of the fragments into the area beneath. One would have thought that the whole thing would have made din enough to have roused the seven sleepers. But here again the weather was on my side. About that time the wind was howling wildly, it came shrieking across the square. It is possible that the tumult which it made deafened all other sounds. Anyhow, as I stood within the room which I had violated, listening for signs of someone being on the alert, I could hear nothing. Within the house there seemed to be the silence of the grave. I drew down the window and made for the door. It proved by no means easy to find. The windows were obscured by heavy curtains, so that the room inside was dark as pitch. It appeared to be unusually full of furniture, an appearance due, perhaps, to my being a stranger in the midst of such simmerian blackness. I had to feel my way, very gingerly indeed, among the various impedimenta. As it was, I seemed to come in contact with most of the obstacles there were to come in contact with, stumbling more than once over footstools and over what seemed to be dwarf chairs. It was a miracle that my movement still continued to be unheard. But I believed that the explanation was that the house was well built, that the servants were the only persons in it at the time, that their bedrooms were on the top floor, that they were fast asleep, and that they were little likely to be disturbed by anything that might occur in the room which I had entered. Reaching the door at last, I opened it, listening for any promise of being interrupted and, to adapt a hackneyed phrase, directed by the power which shaped my end, I went across the hall and up the stairs. I passed up the first landing, and on the second, moved to do a door upon the right. I turned the handle. It yielded, the door opened. I entered, closing it behind me. I went to the wall just inside the door, found a handle, jerked it, and switched on the electric light. Doing, I make no doubt, all these things from a spectator's point of view, so naturally that a judge and jury would have been with difficulty persuaded that they were not the product of my own volition. In the brilliant glow of the electric light, I took a leisurely survey of the contents of the room. It was, as the man in the bed had said it would be, a study, a fine, spacious apartment, evidently intended rather for work than for show. There were three separate writing tables, one very large and two smaller ones, all covered with an orderly array of manuscripts and papers. A typewriter stood at the side of one. On the floor, under and about them, were piles of books, portfolios, and official looking documents. The only available foot of all-space on three sides of the room was lined with shelves, full as they could hold with books. On the fourth side, facing the door, was a large, lock-up, oak bookcase, and, in the further corner, a quaint old bureau. So soon as I saw this bureau, I went for it, straight as an arrow from a bow. Indeed, it would be no abusive metaphor to say that I was propelled towards it like an arrow from a bow. It had drawers below, glass doors above, and between the drawers and the doors was a flap to let down. It was to this flap my attention was directed. I put out my hand to open it. It was locked at the top. I pulled at it with both hands. It refused to budge. So this was the lock I was, if necessary, to practice the arts of a thief to open. I was no picklock. I had flattered myself that nothing and no one could make me such a thing. Yet now that I found myself confronted by that unyielding flap, I found that pressure, irresistible pressure, was being put upon me to gain, by any and every means, access to its interior. I had no option but to yield. I looked about me in search of some convenient tool with which to apply the felon's trade. I found it close beside me. Leaning against the wall, within a yard of where I stood, were examples of various kinds of weapons, among them spearheads. Taking one of these spearheads, with much difficulty I forced the point between the flap and the bureau. Using the leverage thus obtained, I attempted to prize it open. The flap held fast. The spearhead snapped in two. I tried another, with the same result. A third, to fail again. There were no more. The most convenient thing remaining was a queer, heavy-headed, sharp-edged hatchet. This I took, brought the sharp edge down with all my force upon the refractory flap. The hatchet went through. Before I had done with it, it was open with a vengeance. But I was destined on the occasion of my first, and I trust last, experience of the burglar's calling, to carry the part completely through. I had gained access to the flap itself, only to find that at the back were several small drawers, on one of which my observation was brought to bear in a fashion which it was quite impossible to disregard. As a matter of course, it was locked, and once more I had to search for something which would serve as a rough and ready substitute for the missing key. There was nothing at all suitable among the weapons. I could hardly, for such a purpose, use the hatchet. The drawing question was such a little one that to have done so would have been to shiver it to splinters. On the mantle-shelf, in an open leather case, were a pair of revolvers. Statesmen nowadays sometimes stand in actual peril of their lives. It is possible that Mr. Lessingham, conscious of continually threatened danger, carried them about with him as a necessary protection. They were serviceable weapons, large and somewhat weighty, of the type with which I believe, upon occasion, the police armed. Not only were all the barrels loaded, but in the case itself there was a supply of cartridges more than sufficient to charge them all again. I was handling the weapons, wondering, if in my condition the word was applicable, what use I would make of them to enable me to gain admission to that draw, when there came, on a sudden, from the street without the sound of approaching wheels. There was a whirring within my brain, as if someone was endeavouring to explain to me to what service to apply the revolvers, and I, perforce, strained every nerve to grasp the meaning of my invisible mentor. While I did so, the wheels drew rapidly nearer, and, just as I was expecting them to go whirling by, stopped in front of the house. My heart leapt in my bosom. In a convulsion of frantic terror, again, during the passage of one frenzied moment, I all but burst the bonds that held me, and fled haphazard from the imminent peril. But the bonds were stronger than I. It was as if I had been rooted to the ground. A key was inserted in the keyhole of the front door. The lock was turned, the door thrown open, firm footsteps entered the house. If I could, I would not have stood upon the order of my going, but gone at once, anywhere, anyhow. But at that moment my comings and goings were not matters in which I was consulted. Big fear raging within, outwardly I was as calm as possible, and stood, turning the revolvers over and over, asking myself what it could be that I was intended to do with them. All at once it came to me in an illuminating flash. I was to fire at the lock of the drawer, and blow it open. A madder scheme it would have been impossible to hit upon. The servants had slept through a good deal, but they would hardly sleep through the discharge of a revolver in a room below them, not to speak of the person who had just entered the premises and whose footsteps were already audible as he came up the stairs. I struggled to make a dumb protest against the insensate folly which was hurrying me to infallible destruction, without success. For me there was only obedience. With a revolver in either hand I marched towards the bureau as unconcernedly as if I would not have given my life to have escaped the day no more, which I needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was close at hand. I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger. The lock was shattered. The contents of the drawer were at my mercy. I snatched up a bundle of letters about which a pink ribbon was wrapped. Startled by a noise behind me, immediately following the report of the pistol, I glanced over my shoulder. The room door was open, and Mr. Lessingham was standing with the handle in his hand. End of Chapter 6