Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (173 page)

‘A Jew,’ Morris reflected, when his visitor was gone. And what could a Jew want with a claim of — he verified the amount in the books — a claim of three five eight, nineteen, ten, against the house of Finsbury? And why should he pay cent. for cent.? The figure proved the loyalty of Rodgerson — even Morris admitted that. But it proved unfortunately something else — the eagerness of Moss. The claim must have been wanted instantly, for that day, for that morning even. Why? The mystery of Moss promised to be a fit pendant to the mystery of Pitman. ‘And just when all was looking well too!’ cried Morris, smiting his hand upon the desk. And almost at the same moment Mr Moss was announced.

Mr Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome, and offensively polite. He was acting, it appeared, for a third party; he understood nothing of the circumstances; his client desired to have his position regularized; but he would accept an antedated cheque — antedated by two months, if Mr Finsbury chose.

‘But I don’t understand this,’ said Morris. ‘What made you pay cent. per cent. for it today?’

Mr Moss had no idea; only his orders.

‘The whole thing is thoroughly irregular,’ said Morris. ‘It is not the custom of the trade to settle at this time of the year. What are your instructions if I refuse?’

‘I am to see Mr Joseph Finsbury, the head of the firm,’ said Mr Moss. ‘I was directed to insist on that; it was implied you had no status here — the expressions are not mine.’

‘You cannot see Mr Joseph; he is unwell,’ said Morris.

‘In that case I was to place the matter in the hands of a lawyer. Let me see,’ said Mr Moss, opening a pocket-book with, perhaps, suspicious care, at the right place — ’Yes — of Mr Michael Finsbury. A relation, perhaps? In that case, I presume, the matter will be pleasantly arranged.’

To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for Morris. He struck his colours. A cheque at two months was nothing, after all. In two months he would probably be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the manager give Mr Moss a chair and the paper. ‘I’m going over to get a cheque signed by Mr Finsbury,’ said he, ‘who is lying ill at John Street.’

A cab there and a cab back; here were inroads on his wretched capital! He counted the cost; when he was done with Mr Moss he would be left with twelvepence-halfpenny in the world. What was even worse, he had now been forced to bring his uncle up to Bloomsbury. ‘No use for poor Johnny in Hampshire now,’ he reflected. ‘And how the farce is to be kept up completely passes me. At Browndean it was just possible; in Bloomsbury it seems beyond human ingenuity — though I suppose it’s what Michael does. But then he has accomplices — that Scotsman and the whole gang. Ah, if I had accomplices!’

Necessity is the mother of the arts. Under a spur so immediate, Morris surprised himself by the neatness and dispatch of his new forgery, and within three-fourths of an hour had handed it to Mr Moss.

‘That is very satisfactory,’ observed that gentleman, rising. ‘I was to tell you it will not be presented, but you had better take care.’

The room swam round Morris. ‘What — what’s that?’ he cried, grasping the table. He was miserably conscious the next moment of his shrill tongue and ashen face. ‘What do you mean — it will not be presented? Why am I to take care? What is all this mummery?’

‘I have no idea, Mr Finsbury,’ replied the smiling Hebrew. ‘It was a message I was to deliver. The expressions were put into my mouth.’

‘What is your client’s name?’ asked Morris.

‘That is a secret for the moment,’ answered Mr Moss. Morris bent toward him. ‘It’s not the bank?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘I have no authority to say more, Mr Finsbury,’ returned Mr Moss. ‘I will wish you a good morning, if you please.’

‘Wish me a good morning!’ thought Morris; and the next moment, seizing his hat, he fled from his place of business like a madman. Three streets away he stopped and groaned. ‘Lord! I should have borrowed from the manager!’ he cried. ‘But it’s too late now; it would look dicky to go back; I’m penniless — simply penniless — like the unemployed.’

He went home and sat in the dismantled dining-room with his head in his hands. Newton never thought harder than this victim of circumstances, and yet no clearness came. ‘It may be a defect in my intelligence,’ he cried, rising to his feet, ‘but I cannot see that I am fairly used. The bad luck I’ve had is a thing to write to The Times about; it’s enough to breed a revolution. And the plain English of the whole thing is that I must have money at once. I’m done with all morality now; I’m long past that stage; money I must have, and the only chance I see is Bent Pitman. Bent Pitman is a criminal, and therefore his position’s weak. He must have some of that eight hundred left; if he has I’ll force him to go shares; and even if he hasn’t, I’ll tell him the tontine affair, and with a desperate man like Pitman at my back, it’ll be strange if I don’t succeed.’

Well and good. But how to lay hands upon Bent Pitman, except by advertisement, was not so clear. And even so, in what terms to ask a meeting? on what grounds? and where? Not at John Street, for it would never do to let a man like Bent Pitman know your real address; nor yet at Pitman’s house, some dreadful place in Holloway, with a trapdoor in the back kitchen; a house which you might enter in a light summer overcoat and varnished boots, to come forth again piecemeal in a market-basket. That was the drawback of a really efficient accomplice, Morris felt, not without a shudder. ‘I never dreamed I should come to actually covet such society,’ he thought. And then a brilliant idea struck him. Waterloo Station, a public place, yet at certain hours of the day a solitary; a place, besides, the very name of which must knock upon the heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of the latest of his guilty secrets. Morris took a piece of paper and sketched his advertisement.

WILLIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE on the far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M., Sunday next.

Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. ‘Terse,’ he reflected. ‘Something to his advantage is not strictly true; but it’s taking and original, and a man is not on oath in an advertisement. All that I require now is the ready cash for my own meals and for the advertisement, and — no, I can’t lavish money upon John, but I’ll give him some more papers. How to raise the wind?’

He approached his cabinet of signets, and the collector suddenly revolted in his blood. ‘I will not!’ he cried; ‘nothing shall induce me to massacre my collection — rather theft!’ And dashing upstairs to the drawing-room, he helped himself to a few of his uncle’s curiosities: a pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a water-cooler, a musket guaranteed to have been seized from an Ephesian bandit, and a pocketful of curious but incomplete seashells.

CHAPTER XIV. William Bent Pitman Hears of Something to his Advantage

On the morning of Sunday, William Dent Pitman rose at his usual hour, although with something more than the usual reluctance. The day before (it should be explained) an addition had been made to his family in the person of a lodger. Michael Finsbury had acted sponsor in the business, and guaranteed the weekly bill; on the other hand, no doubt with a spice of his prevailing jocularity, he had drawn a depressing portrait of the lodger’s character. Mr Pitman had been led to understand his guest was not good company; he had approached the gentleman with fear, and had rejoiced to find himself the entertainer of an angel. At tea he had been vastly pleased; till hard on one in the morning he had sat entranced by eloquence and progressively fortified with information in the studio; and now, as he reviewed over his toilet the harmless pleasures of the evening, the future smiled upon him with revived attractions. ‘Mr Finsbury is indeed an acquisition,’ he remarked to himself; and as he entered the little parlour, where the table was already laid for breakfast, the cordiality of his greeting would have befitted an acquaintanceship already old.

‘I am delighted to see you, sir’ — these were his expressions — ’and I trust you have slept well.’

‘Accustomed as I have been for so long to a life of almost perpetual change,’ replied the guest, ‘the disturbance so often complained of by the more sedentary, as attending their first night in (what is called) a new bed, is a complaint from which I am entirely free.’

‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said the drawing-master warmly. ‘But I see I have interrupted you over the paper.’

‘The Sunday paper is one of the features of the age,’ said Mr Finsbury. ‘In America, I am told, it supersedes all other literature, the bone and sinew of the nation finding their requirements catered for; hundreds of columns will be occupied with interesting details of the world’s doings, such as water-spouts, elopements, conflagrations, and public entertainments; there is a corner for politics, ladies’ work, chess, religion, and even literature; and a few spicy editorials serve to direct the course of public thought. It is difficult to estimate the part played by such enormous and miscellaneous repositories in the education of the people. But this (though interesting in itself) partakes of the nature of a digression; and what I was about to ask you was this: Are you yourself a student of the daily press?’

‘There is not much in the papers to interest an artist,’ returned Pitman.

‘In that case,’ resumed Joseph, ‘an advertisement which has appeared the last two days in various journals, and reappears this morning, may possibly have failed to catch your eye. The name, with a trifling variation, bears a strong resemblance to your own. Ah, here it is. If you please, I will read it to you:

WILIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE at the far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M. today.

‘Is that in print?’ cried Pitman. ‘Let me see it! Bent? It must be Dent! SOMETHING TO MY ADVANTAGE? Mr Finsbury, excuse me offering a word of caution; I am aware how strangely this must sound in your ears, but there are domestic reasons why this little circumstance might perhaps be better kept between ourselves. Mrs Pitman — my dear Sir, I assure you there is nothing dishonourable in my secrecy; the reasons are domestic, merely domestic; and I may set your conscience at rest when I assure you all the circumstances are known to our common friend, your excellent nephew, Mr Michael, who has not withdrawn from me his esteem.’

‘A word is enough, Mr Pitman,’ said Joseph, with one of his Oriental reverences.

Half an hour later, the drawing-master found Michael in bed and reading a book, the picture of good-humour and repose.

‘Hillo, Pitman,’ he said, laying down his book, ‘what brings you here at this inclement hour? Ought to be in church, my boy!’

‘I have little thought of church today, Mr Finsbury,’ said the drawing-master. ‘I am on the brink of something new, Sir.’ And he presented the advertisement.

‘Why, what is this?’ cried Michael, sitting suddenly up. He studied it for half a minute with a frown. ‘Pitman, I don’t care about this document a particle,’ said he.

‘It will have to be attended to, however,’ said Pitman.

‘I thought you’d had enough of Waterloo,’ returned the lawyer. ‘Have you started a morbid craving? You’ve never been yourself anyway since you lost that beard. I believe now it was where you kept your senses.’

‘Mr Finsbury,’ said the drawing-master, ‘I have tried to reason this matter out, and, with your permission, I should like to lay before you the results.’

‘Fire away,’ said Michael; ‘but please, Pitman, remember it’s Sunday, and let’s have no bad language.’

‘There are three views open to us,’ began Pitman. ‘First this may be connected with the barrel; second, it may be connected with Mr Semitopolis’s statue; and third, it may be from my wife’s brother, who went to Australia. In the first case, which is of course possible, I confess the matter would be best allowed to drop.’

‘The court is with you there, Brother Pitman,’ said Michael.

‘In the second,’ continued the other, ‘it is plainly my duty to leave no stone unturned for the recovery of the lost antique.’

‘My dear fellow, Semitopolis has come down like a trump; he has pocketed the loss and left you the profit. What more would you have?’ enquired the lawyer.

‘I conceive, sir, under correction, that Mr Semitopolis’s generosity binds me to even greater exertion,’ said the drawing-master. ‘The whole business was unfortunate; it was — I need not disguise it from you — it was illegal from the first: the more reason that I should try to behave like a gentleman,’ concluded Pitman, flushing.

‘I have nothing to say to that,’ returned the lawyer. ‘I have sometimes thought I should like to try to behave like a gentleman myself; only it’s such a one-sided business, with the world and the legal profession as they are.’

‘Then, in the third,’ resumed the drawing-master, ‘if it’s Uncle Tim, of course, our fortune’s made.’

‘It’s not Uncle Tim, though,’ said the lawyer.

‘Have you observed that very remarkable expression: SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE?’ enquired Pitman shrewdly.

‘You innocent mutton,’ said Michael, ‘it’s the seediest commonplace in the English language, and only proves the advertiser is an ass. Let me demolish your house of cards for you at once. Would Uncle Tim make that blunder in your name? — in itself, the blunder is delicious, a huge improvement on the gross reality, and I mean to adopt it in the future; but is it like Uncle Tim?’

‘No, it’s not like him,’ Pitman admitted. ‘But his mind may have become unhinged at Ballarat.’

‘If you come to that, Pitman,’ said Michael, ‘the advertiser may be Queen Victoria, fired with the desire to make a duke of you. I put it to yourself if that’s probable; and yet it’s not against the laws of nature. But we sit here to consider probabilities; and with your genteel permission, I eliminate her Majesty and Uncle Tim on the threshold. To proceed, we have your second idea, that this has some connection with the statue. Possible; but in that case who is the advertiser? Not Ricardi, for he knows your address; not the person who got the box, for he doesn’t know your name. The vanman, I hear you suggest, in a lucid interval. He might have got your name, and got it incorrectly, at the station; and he might have failed to get your address. I grant the vanman. But a question: Do you really wish to meet the vanman?’