HOW NUTH WOULD HAVE PRACTISED HIS ART UPON THE GNOLES
Despite the advertisements of rival firms, it is probable that everytradesman knows that nobody in business at the present time has aposition equal to that of Mr. Nuth. To those outside the magic circleof business, his name is scarcely known; he does not need toadvertise, he is consummate. He is superior even to moderncompetition, and, whatever claims they boast, his rivals know it. Histerms are moderate, so much cash down when the goods aredelivered, so much in blackmail afterwards. He consults yourconvenience. His skill may be counted upon; I have seen a shadow on awindy night move more noisily than Nuth, for Nuth is a burglar bytrade. Men have been known to stay in country houses and to send adealer afterwards to bargain for a piece of tapestry that they sawthere--some article of furniture, some picture. This is bad taste: butthose whose culture is more elegant invariably send Nuth a night ortwo after their visit. He has a way with tapestry; you would scarcelynotice that the edges had been cut. And often when I see some huge,new house full of old furniture and portraits from other ages, I sayto myself, "These mouldering chairs, these full-length ancestors andcarved mahogany are the produce of the incomparable Nuth."
It may be urged against my use of the word incomparable that in theburglary business the name of Slith stands paramount and alone; and ofthis I am not ignorant; but Slith is a classic, and lived long ago,and knew nothing at all of modern competition; besides which thesurprising nature of his doom has possibly cast a glamour upon Sliththat exaggerates in our eyes his undoubted merits.
It must not be thought that I am a friend of Nuth's; on the contrarysuch politics as I have are on the side of Property; and he needs nowords from me, for his position is almost unique in trade, being amongthe very few that do not need to advertise.
At the time that my story begins Nuth lived in a roomy house inBelgrave Square: in his inimitable way he had made friends with thecaretaker. The place suited Nuth, and, whenever anyone came to inspectit before purchase, the caretaker used to praise the house in thewords that Nuth had suggested. "If it wasn't for the drains," shewould say, "it's the finest house in London," and when they pounced onthis remark and asked questions about the drains, she would answerthem that the drains also were good, but not so good as the house.They did not see Nuth when they went over the rooms, but Nuth wasthere.
Here in a neat black dress on one spring morning came an old womanwhose bonnet was lined with red, asking for Mr. Nuth; and with hercame her large and awkward son. Mrs. Eggins, the caretaker, glanced upthe street, and then she let them in, and left them to wait in thedrawing-room amongst furniture all mysterious with sheets. For a longwhile they waited, and then there was a smell of pipe-tobacco, andthere was Nuth standing quite close to them.
"Lord," said the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red, "you didmake me start." And then she saw by his eyes that that was not the wayto speak to Mr. Nuth.
And at last Nuth spoke, and very nervously the old woman explainedthat her son was a likely lad, and had been in business already butwanted to better himself, and she wanted Mr. Nuth to teach him alivelihood.
First of all Nuth wanted to see a business reference, and when he wasshown one from a jeweller with whom he happened to be hand-in-glovethe upshot of it was that he agreed to take young Tonker (for this wasthe surname of the likely lad) and to make him his apprentice. And theold woman whose bonnet was lined with red went back to her littlecottage in the country, and every evening said to her old man,"Tonker, we must fasten the shutters of a night-time, for Tommy's aburglar now."
The details of the likely lad's apprenticeship I do not propose togive; for those that are in the business know those details already,and those that are in other businesses care only for their own, whilemen of leisure who have no trade at all would fail to appreciate thegradual degrees by which Tommy Tonker came first to cross bare boards,covered with little obstacles in the dark, without making any sound,and then to go silently up creaky stairs, and then to open doors, andlastly to climb.
Let it suffice that the business prospered greatly, while glowingreports of Tommy Tonker's progress were sent from time to time to theold woman whose bonnet was lined with red in the labourioushandwriting of Nuth. Nuth had given up lessons in writing very early,for he seemed to have some prejudice against forgery, and thereforeconsidered writing a waste of time. And then there came thetransaction with Lord Castlenorman at his Surrey residence. Nuthselected a Saturday night, for it chanced that Saturday was observedas Sabbath in the family of Lord Castlenorman, and by eleven o'clockthe whole house was quiet. Five minutes before midnight Tommy Tonker,instructed by Mr. Nuth, who waited outside, came away with onepocketful of rings and shirt-studs. It was quite a light pocketful,but the jewellers in Paris could not match it without sendingspecially to Africa, so that Lord Castlenorman had to borrow boneshirt-studs.
Not even rumour whispered the name of Nuth. Were I to say that thisturned his head, there are those to whom the assertion would givepain, for his associates hold that his astute judgment was unaffectedby circumstance. I will say, therefore, that it spurred his genius toplan what no burglar had ever planned before. It was nothing less thanto burgle the house of the gnoles. And this that abstemious manunfolded to Tonker over a cup of tea. Had Tonker not been nearlyinsane with pride over their recent transaction, and had he not beenblinded by a veneration for Nuth, he would have--but I cry over spiltmilk. He expostulated respectfully; he said he would rather not go; hesaid it was not fair; he allowed himself to argue; and in the end, onewindy October morning with a menace in the air found him and Nuthdrawing near to the dreadful wood.
Nuth, by weighing little emeralds against pieces of common rock, hadascertained the probable weight of those house-ornaments that thegnoles are believed to possess in the narrow, lofty house wherein theyhave dwelt from of old. They decided to steal two emeralds and tocarry them between them on a cloak; but if they should be too heavyone must be dropped at once. Nuth warned young Tonker against greed,and explained that the emeralds were worth less than cheese until theywere safe away from the dreadful wood.
Everything had been planned, and they walked now in silence.
No track led up to the sinister gloom of the trees, either of men orcattle; not even a poacher had been there snaring elves for over ahundred years. You did not trespass twice in the dells of the gnoles.And, apart from the things that were done there, the trees themselveswere a warning, and did not wear the wholesome look of those that weplant ourselves.
The nearest village was some miles away with the backs of all itshouses turned to the wood, and without one window at all facing inthat direction. They did not speak of it there, and elsewhere it isunheard of.
Into this wood stepped Nuth and Tommy Tonker. They had no firearms.Tonker had asked for a pistol, but Nuth replied that the sound of ashot "would bring everything down on us," and no more was said aboutit.
Into the wood they went all day, deeper and deeper. They saw theskeleton of some early Georgian poacher nailed to a door in an oaktree; sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them; once Tonkerstepped heavily on a hard, dry stick, after which they both lay stillfor twenty minutes. And the sunset flared full of omens through thetree trunks, and night fell, and they came by fitful starlight, asNuth had foreseen, to that lean, high house where the gnoles sosecretly dwelt.
All was so silent by that unvalued house that the faded courage ofTonker flickered up, but to Nuth's experienced sense it seemed toosilent; and all the while there was that look in the sky that wasworse than a spoken doom, so that Nuth, as is often the case when menare in doubt, had leisure to fear the worst. Nevertheless he did notabandon the business, but sent the likely lad with the instruments ofhis trade by means of the ladder to the old green casement. And themoment that Tonker touched the withered boards, the silence that,though ominous, was earthly, became unearthly like the touch of aghoul. And Tonker heard his breath offending against that silence, andhis heart was like mad drums in a night atta
ck, and a string of one ofhis sandals went tap on a rung of a ladder, and the leaves of theforest were mute, and the breeze of the night was still; and Tonkerprayed that a mouse or a mole might make any noise at all, but not acreature stirred, even Nuth was still. And then and there, while yethe was undiscovered, the likely lad made up his mind, as he shouldhave done long before, to leave those colossal emeralds where theywere and have nothing further to do with the lean, high house of thegnoles, but to quit this sinister wood in the nick of time and retirefrom business at once and buy a place in the country. Then hedescended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched himthrough knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and theunearthly silence gave way, as it were with a grace, to the rapidscreams of Tonker as they picked him up from behind--screams that camefaster and faster until they were incoherent. And where they took himit is not good to ask, and what they did with him I shall not say.
Nuth looked on for a while from the corner of the house with a mildsurprise on his face as he rubbed his chin, for the trick of the holesin the trees was new to him; then he stole nimbly away through thedreadful wood.
"And did they catch Nuth?" you ask me, gentle reader.
"Oh, no, my child" (for such a question is childish). "Nobody evercatches Nuth."