III
THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS
"Herbert! Good God! Is it possible?"
"Yes, my name's Herbert. I think I know your face, too, but I don'tremember your name. My memory is very queer."
"Don't you recollect Villiers of Wadham?"
"So it is, so it is. I beg your pardon, Villiers, I didn't think I wasbegging of an old college friend. Good-night."
"My dear fellow, this haste is unnecessary. My rooms are close by, butwe won't go there just yet. Suppose we walk up Shaftesbury Avenue alittle way? But how in heaven's name have you come to this pass,Herbert?"
"It's a long story, Villiers, and a strange one too, but you can hearit if you like."
"Come on, then. Take my arm, you don't seem very strong."
The ill-assorted pair moved slowly up Rupert Street; the one in dirty,evil-looking rags, and the other attired in the regulation uniform of aman about town, trim, glossy, and eminently well-to-do. Villiers hademerged from his restaurant after an excellent dinner of many courses,assisted by an ingratiating little flask of Chianti, and, in that frameof mind which was with him almost chronic, had delayed a moment by thedoor, peering round in the dimly-lighted street in search of thosemysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London teemin every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided himself as apractised explorer of such obscure mazes and byways of London life, andin this unprofitable pursuit he displayed an assiduity which was worthyof more serious employment. Thus he stood by the lamp-post surveyingthe passers-by with undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity knownonly to the systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind theformula: "London has been called the city of encounters; it is morethan that, it is the city of Resurrections," when these reflectionswere suddenly interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and adeplorable appeal for alms. He looked around in some irritation, andwith a sudden shock found himself confronted with the embodied proof ofhis somewhat stilted fancies. There, close beside him, his facealtered and disfigured by poverty and disgrace, his body barely coveredby greasy ill-fitting rags, stood his old friend Charles Herbert, whohad matriculated on the same day as himself, with whom he had beenmerry and wise for twelve revolving terms. Different occupations andvarying interests had interrupted the friendship, and it was six yearssince Villiers had seen Herbert; and now he looked upon this wreck of aman with grief and dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as towhat dreary chain of circumstances had dragged him down to such adoleful pass. Villiers felt together with compassion all the relish ofthe amateur in mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurelyspeculations outside the restaurant.
They walked on in silence for some time, and more than one passer-bystared in astonishment at the unaccustomed spectacle of a well-dressedman with an unmistakable beggar hanging on to his arm, and, observingthis, Villiers led the way to an obscure street in Soho. Here herepeated his question.
"How on earth has it happened, Herbert? I always understood you wouldsucceed to an excellent position in Dorsetshire. Did your fatherdisinherit you? Surely not?"
"No, Villiers; I came into all the property at my poor father's death;he died a year after I left Oxford. He was a very good father to me,and I mourned his death sincerely enough. But you know what young menare; a few months later I came up to town and went a good deal intosociety. Of course I had excellent introductions, and I managed toenjoy myself very much in a harmless sort of way. I played a little,certainly, but never for heavy stakes, and the few bets I made on racesbrought me in money--only a few pounds, you know, but enough to pay forcigars and such petty pleasures. It was in my second season that thetide turned. Of course you have heard of my marriage?"
"No, I never heard anything about it."
"Yes, I married, Villiers. I met a girl, a girl of the most wonderfuland most strange beauty, at the house of some people whom I knew. Icannot tell you her age; I never knew it, but, so far as I can guess, Ishould think she must have been about nineteen when I made heracquaintance. My friends had come to know her at Florence; she toldthem she was an orphan, the child of an English father and an Italianmother, and she charmed them as she charmed me. The first time I sawher was at an evening party. I was standing by the door talking to afriend, when suddenly above the hum and babble of conversation I hearda voice which seemed to thrill to my heart. She was singing an Italiansong. I was introduced to her that evening, and in three months Imarried Helen. Villiers, that woman, if I can call her woman,corrupted my soul. The night of the wedding I found myself sitting inher bedroom in the hotel, listening to her talk. She was sitting up inbed, and I listened to her as she spoke in her beautiful voice, spokeof things which even now I would not dare whisper in the blackestnight, though I stood in the midst of a wilderness. You, Villiers,you may think you know life, and London, and what goes on day and nightin this dreadful city; for all I can say you may have heard the talk ofthe vilest, but I tell you you can have no conception of what I know,not in your most fantastic, hideous dreams can you have imaged forththe faintest shadow of what I have heard--and seen. Yes, seen. I haveseen the incredible, such horrors that even I myself sometimes stop inthe middle of the street and ask whether it is possible for a man tobehold such things and live. In a year, Villiers, I was a ruined man,in body and soul--in body and soul."
"But your property, Herbert? You had land in Dorset."
"I sold it all; the fields and woods, the dear old house--everything."
"And the money?"
"She took it all from me."
"And then left you?"
"Yes; she disappeared one night. I don't know where she went, but I amsure if I saw her again it would kill me. The rest of my story is of nointerest; sordid misery, that is all. You may think, Villiers, that Ihave exaggerated and talked for effect; but I have not told you half.I could tell you certain things which would convince you, but you wouldnever know a happy day again. You would pass the rest of your life, asI pass mine, a haunted man, a man who has seen hell."
Villiers took the unfortunate man to his rooms, and gave him a meal.Herbert could eat little, and scarcely touched the glass of wine setbefore him. He sat moody and silent by the fire, and seemed relievedwhen Villiers sent him away with a small present of money.
"By the way, Herbert," said Villiers, as they parted at the door, "whatwas your wife's name? You said Helen, I think? Helen what?"
"The name she passed under when I met her was Helen Vaughan, but whather real name was I can't say. I don't think she had a name. No, no,not in that sense. Only human beings have names, Villiers; I can't sayanymore. Good-bye; yes, I will not fail to call if I see any way inwhich you can help me. Good-night."
The man went out into the bitter night, and Villiers returned to hisfireside. There was something about Herbert which shocked himinexpressibly; not his poor rags nor the marks which poverty had setupon his face, but rather an indefinite terror which hung about himlike a mist. He had acknowledged that he himself was not devoid ofblame; the woman, he had avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, andVilliers felt that this man, once his friend, had been an actor inscenes evil beyond the power of words. His story needed noconfirmation: he himself was the embodied proof of it. Villiers musedcuriously over the story he had heard, and wondered whether he hadheard both the first and the last of it. "No," he thought, "certainlynot the last, probably only the beginning. A case like this is like anest of Chinese boxes; you open one after the other and find a quainterworkmanship in every box. Most likely poor Herbert is merely one ofthe outside boxes; there are stranger ones to follow."
Villiers could not take his mind away from Herbert and his story, whichseemed to grow wilder as the night wore on. The fire seemed to burnlow, and the chilly air of the morning crept into the room; Villiersgot up with a glance over his shoulder, and, shivering slightly, wentto bed.
A few days later he saw at his club a gentleman of his acquaintance,named Austin, who was famous for
his intimate knowledge of London life,both in its tenebrous and luminous phases. Villiers, still full of hisencounter in Soho and its consequences, thought Austin might possiblybe able to shed some light on Herbert's history, and so after somecasual talk he suddenly put the question:
"Do you happen to know anything of a man named Herbert--CharlesHerbert?"
Austin turned round sharply and stared at Villiers with someastonishment.
"Charles Herbert? Weren't you in town three years ago? No; then youhave not heard of the Paul Street case? It caused a good deal ofsensation at the time."
"What was the case?"
"Well, a gentleman, a man of very good position, was found dead, starkdead, in the area of a certain house in Paul Street, off TottenhamCourt Road. Of course the police did not make the discovery; if youhappen to be sitting up all night and have a light in your window, theconstable will ring the bell, but if you happen to be lying dead insomebody's area, you will be left alone. In this instance, as in manyothers, the alarm was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don't mean acommon tramp, or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose businessor pleasure, or both, made him a spectator of the London streets atfive o'clock in the morning. This individual was, as he said, 'goinghome,' it did not appear whence or whither, and had occasion to passthrough Paul Street between four and five a.m. Something or othercaught his eye at Number 20; he said, absurdly enough, that the househad the most unpleasant physiognomy he had ever observed, but, at anyrate, he glanced down the area and was a good deal astonished to see aman lying on the stones, his limbs all huddled together, and his faceturned up. Our gentleman thought his face looked peculiarly ghastly,and so set off at a run in search of the nearest policeman. Theconstable was at first inclined to treat the matter lightly, suspectingcommon drunkenness; however, he came, and after looking at the man'sface, changed his tone, quickly enough. The early bird, who had pickedup this fine worm, was sent off for a doctor, and the policeman rangand knocked at the door till a slatternly servant girl came downlooking more than half asleep. The constable pointed out the contentsof the area to the maid, who screamed loudly enough to wake up thestreet, but she knew nothing of the man; had never seen him at thehouse, and so forth. Meanwhile, the original discoverer had come backwith a medical man, and the next thing was to get into the area. Thegate was open, so the whole quartet stumped down the steps. The doctorhardly needed a moment's examination; he said the poor fellow had beendead for several hours, and it was then the case began to getinteresting. The dead man had not been robbed, and in one of hispockets were papers identifying him as--well, as a man of good familyand means, a favourite in society, and nobody's enemy, as far as couldbe known. I don't give his name, Villiers, because it has nothing todo with the story, and because it's no good raking up these affairsabout the dead when there are no relations living. The next curiouspoint was that the medical men couldn't agree as to how he met hisdeath. There were some slight bruises on his shoulders, but they wereso slight that it looked as if he had been pushed roughly out of thekitchen door, and not thrown over the railings from the street or evendragged down the steps. But there were positively no other marks ofviolence about him, certainly none that would account for his death;and when they came to the autopsy there wasn't a trace of poison of anykind. Of course the police wanted to know all about the people atNumber 20, and here again, so I have heard from private sources, one ortwo other very curious points came out. It appears that the occupantsof the house were a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert; he was said to be alanded proprietor, though it struck most people that Paul Street wasnot exactly the place to look for country gentry. As for Mrs. Herbert,nobody seemed to know who or what she was, and, between ourselves, Ifancy the divers after her history found themselves in rather strangewaters. Of course they both denied knowing anything about thedeceased, and in default of any evidence against them they weredischarged. But some very odd things came out about them. Though itwas between five and six in the morning when the dead man was removed,a large crowd had collected, and several of the neighbours ran to seewhat was going on. They were pretty free with their comments, by allaccounts, and from these it appeared that Number 20 was in very badodour in Paul Street. The detectives tried to trace down these rumoursto some solid foundation of fact, but could not get hold of anything.People shook their heads and raised their eyebrows and thought theHerberts rather 'queer,' 'would rather not be seen going into theirhouse,' and so on, but there was nothing tangible. The authoritieswere morally certain the man met his death in some way or another inthe house and was thrown out by the kitchen door, but they couldn'tprove it, and the absence of any indications of violence or poisoningleft them helpless. An odd case, wasn't it? But curiously enough,there's something more that I haven't told you. I happened to know oneof the doctors who was consulted as to the cause of death, and sometime after the inquest I met him, and asked him about it. 'Do youreally mean to tell me,' I said, 'that you were baffled by the case,that you actually don't know what the man died of?' 'Pardon me,' hereplied, 'I know perfectly well what caused death. Blank died offright, of sheer, awful terror; I never saw features so hideouslycontorted in the entire course of my practice, and I have seen thefaces of a whole host of dead.' The doctor was usually a cool customerenough, and a certain vehemence in his manner struck me, but I couldn'tget anything more out of him. I suppose the Treasury didn't see theirway to prosecuting the Herberts for frightening a man to death; at anyrate, nothing was done, and the case dropped out of men's minds. Doyou happen to know anything of Herbert?"
"Well," replied Villiers, "he was an old college friend of mine."
"You don't say so? Have you ever seen his wife?"
"No, I haven't. I have lost sight of Herbert for many years."
"It's queer, isn't it, parting with a man at the college gate or atPaddington, seeing nothing of him for years, and then finding him popup his head in such an odd place. But I should like to have seen Mrs.Herbert; people said extraordinary things about her."
"What sort of things?"
"Well, I hardly know how to tell you. Everyone who saw her at thepolice court said she was at once the most beautiful woman and the mostrepulsive they had ever set eyes on. I have spoken to a man who sawher, and I assure you he positively shuddered as he tried to describethe woman, but he couldn't tell why. She seems to have been a sort ofenigma; and I expect if that one dead man could have told tales, hewould have told some uncommonly queer ones. And there you are again inanother puzzle; what could a respectable country gentleman like Mr.Blank (we'll call him that if you don't mind) want in such a very queerhouse as Number 20? It's altogether a very odd case, isn't it?"
"It is indeed, Austin; an extraordinary case. I didn't think, when Iasked you about my old friend, I should strike on such strange metal.Well, I must be off; good-day."
Villiers went away, thinking of his own conceit of the Chinese boxes;here was quaint workmanship indeed.