Chapter 3. The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit
The revolt of Matter against Man (which I believe to exist) has now beenreduced to a singular condition. It is the small things rather thanthe large things which make war against us and, I may add, beat us. Thebones of the last mammoth have long ago decayed, a mighty wreck; thetempests no longer devour our navies, nor the mountains with heartsof fire heap hell over our cities. But we are engaged in a bitter andeternal war with small things; chiefly with microbes and with collarstuds. The stud with which I was engaged (on fierce and equal terms) asI made the above reflections, was one which I was trying to introduceinto my shirt collar when a loud knock came at the door.
My first thought was as to whether Basil Grant had called to fetch me.He and I were to turn up at the same dinner-party (for which I was inthe act of dressing), and it might be that he had taken it into his headto come my way, though we had arranged to go separately. It was asmall and confidential affair at the table of a good but unconventionalpolitical lady, an old friend of his. She had asked us both to meet athird guest, a Captain Fraser, who had made something of a name and wasan authority on chimpanzees. As Basil was an old friend of the hostessand I had never seen her, I felt that it was quite possible that he(with his usual social sagacity) might have decided to take me along inorder to break the ice. The theory, like all my theories, was complete;but as a fact it was not Basil.
I was handed a visiting card inscribed: "Rev. Ellis Shorter", andunderneath was written in pencil, but in a hand in which even hurrycould not conceal a depressing and gentlemanly excellence, "Asking thefavour of a few moments' conversation on a most urgent matter."!
I had already subdued the stud, thereby proclaiming that the image ofGod has supremacy over all matters (a valuable truth), and throwing onmy dress-coat and waistcoat, hurried into the drawing-room. He rose atmy entrance, flapping like a seal; I can use no other description. Heflapped a plaid shawl over his right arm; he flapped a pair of patheticblack gloves; he flapped his clothes; I may say, without exaggeration,that he flapped his eyelids, as he rose. He was a bald-browed,white-haired, white-whiskered old clergyman, of a flappy and floppytype. He said:
"I am so sorry. I am so very sorry. I am so extremely sorry. I come--Ican only say--I can only say in my defence, that I come--upon animportant matter. Pray forgive me."
I told him I forgave perfectly and waited.
"What I have to say," he said brokenly, "is so dreadful--it is sodreadful--I have lived a quiet life."
I was burning to get away, for it was already doubtful if I should be intime for dinner. But there was something about the old man's honest airof bitterness that seemed to open to me the possibilities of life largerand more tragic than my own.
I said gently: "Pray go on."
Nevertheless the old gentleman, being a gentleman as well as old,noticed my secret impatience and seemed still more unmanned.
"I'm so sorry," he said meekly; "I wouldn't have come--but for--yourfriend Major Brown recommended me to come here."
"Major Brown!" I said, with some interest.
"Yes," said the Reverend Mr Shorter, feverishly flapping his plaidshawl about. "He told me you helped him in a great difficulty--and mydifficulty! Oh, my dear sir, it's a matter of life and death."
I rose abruptly, in an acute perplexity. "Will it take long, MrShorter?" I asked. "I have to go out to dinner almost at once."
He rose also, trembling from head to foot, and yet somehow, with all hismoral palsy, he rose to the dignity of his age and his office.
"I have no right, Mr Swinburne--I have no right at all," he said. "Ifyou have to go out to dinner, you have of course--a perfect right--ofcourse a perfect right. But when you come back--a man will be dead."
And he sat down, quaking like a jelly.
The triviality of the dinner had been in those two minutes dwarfed anddrowned in my mind. I did not want to go and see a political widow, anda captain who collected apes; I wanted to hear what had brought thisdear, doddering old vicar into relation with immediate perils.
"Will you have a cigar?" I said.
"No, thank you," he said, with indescribable embarrassment, as if notsmoking cigars was a social disgrace.
"A glass of wine?" I said.
"No, thank you, no, thank you; not just now," he repeated with thathysterical eagerness with which people who do not drink at all oftentry to convey that on any other night of the week they would sit up allnight drinking rum-punch. "Not just now, thank you."
"Nothing else I can get for you?" I said, feeling genuinely sorry forthe well-mannered old donkey. "A cup of tea?"
I saw a struggle in his eye and I conquered. When the cup of tea came hedrank it like a dipsomaniac gulping brandy. Then he fell back and said:
"I have had such a time, Mr Swinburne. I am not used to theseexcitements. As Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex'--he threw this in withan indescribable airiness of vanity--'I have never known such thingshappen."
"What things happen?" I asked.
He straightened himself with sudden dignity.
"As Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex," he said, "I have never been forciblydressed up as an old woman and made to take part in a crime in thecharacter of an old woman. Never once. My experience may be small. Itmay be insufficient. But it has never occurred to me before."
"I have never heard of it," I said, "as among the duties of a clergyman.But I am not well up in church matters. Excuse me if perhaps I failed tofollow you correctly. Dressed up--as what?"
"As an old woman," said the vicar solemnly, "as an old woman."
I thought in my heart that it required no great transformation to makean old woman of him, but the thing was evidently more tragic than comic,and I said respectfully:
"May I ask how it occurred?"
"I will begin at the beginning," said Mr Shorter, "and I will tell mystory with the utmost possible precision. At seventeen minutes pasteleven this morning I left the vicarage to keep certain appointments andpay certain visits in the village. My first visit was to Mr Jervis, thetreasurer of our League of Christian Amusements, with whom I concludedsome business touching the claim made by Parkes the gardener in thematter of the rolling of our tennis lawn. I then visited Mrs Arnett, avery earnest churchwoman, but permanently bedridden. She is the authorof several small works of devotion, and of a book of verse, entitled(unless my memory misleads me) Eglantine."
He uttered all this not only with deliberation, but with something thatcan only be called, by a contradictory phrase, eager deliberation.He had, I think, a vague memory in his head of the detectives in thedetective stories, who always sternly require that nothing should bekept back.
"I then proceeded," he went on, with the same maddeningconscientiousness of manner, "to Mr Carr (not Mr James Carr, of course;Mr Robert Carr) who is temporarily assisting our organist, and havingconsulted with him (on the subject of a choir boy who is accused, Icannot as yet say whether justly or not, of cutting holes in the organpipes), I finally dropped in upon a Dorcas meeting at the house of MissBrett. The Dorcas meetings are usually held at the vicarage, but my wifebeing unwell, Miss Brett, a newcomer in our village, but very active inchurch work, had very kindly consented to hold them. The Dorcas societyis entirely under my wife's management as a rule, and except for MissBrett, who, as I say, is very active, I scarcely know any members of it.I had, however, promised to drop in on them, and I did so.
"When I arrived there were only four other maiden ladies with MissBrett, but they were sewing very busily. It is very difficult, ofcourse, for any person, however strongly impressed with the necessity inthese matters of full and exact exposition of the facts, to remember andrepeat the actual details of a conversation, particularly a conversationwhich (though inspired with a most worthy and admirable zeal for goodwork) was one which did not greatly impress the hearer's mind at thetime and was in fact--er--mostly about socks. I can, however, rememberdistinctly that one of the spinster ladies (she was a thin person witha woollen shawl
, who appeared to feel the cold, and I am almost sure shewas introduced to me as Miss James) remarked that the weather was verychangeable. Miss Brett then offered me a cup of tea, which I accepted,I cannot recall in what words. Miss Brett is a short and stout lady withwhite hair. The only other figure in the group that caught my attentionwas a Miss Mowbray, a small and neat lady of aristocratic manners,silver hair, and a high voice and colour. She was the most emphaticmember of the party; and her views on the subject of pinafores, thoughexpressed with a natural deference to myself, were in themselves strongand advanced. Beside her (although all five ladies were dressed simplyin black) it could not be denied that the others looked in some way whatyou men of the world would call dowdy.
"After about ten minutes' conversation I rose to go, and as I did soI heard something which--I cannot describe it--something which seemedto--but I really cannot describe it."
"What did you hear?" I asked, with some impatience.
"I heard," said the vicar solemnly, "I heard Miss Mowbray (the lady withthe silver hair) say to Miss James (the lady with the woollen shawl),the following extraordinary words. I committed them to memory on thespot, and as soon as circumstances set me free to do so, I noted themdown on a piece of paper. I believe I have it here." He fumbled inhis breast-pocket, bringing out mild things, note-books, circulars andprogrammes of village concerts. "I heard Miss Mowbray say to Miss James,the following words: 'Now's your time, Bill.'"
He gazed at me for a few moments after making this announcement, gravelyand unflinchingly, as if conscious that here he was unshaken about hisfacts. Then he resumed, turning his bald head more towards the fire.
"This appeared to me remarkable. I could not by any means understandit. It seemed to me first of all peculiar that one maiden lady shouldaddress another maiden lady as 'Bill'. My experience, as I have said,may be incomplete; maiden ladies may have among themselves and inexclusively spinster circles wilder customs than I am aware of. Butit seemed to me odd, and I could almost have sworn (if you will notmisunderstand the phrase), I should have been strongly impelled tomaintain at the time that the words, 'Now's your time, Bill', were byno means pronounced with that upper-class intonation which, as I havealready said, had up to now characterized Miss Mowbray's conversation.In fact, the words, 'Now's your time, Bill', would have been, I fancy,unsuitable if pronounced with that upper-class intonation.
"I was surprised, I repeat, then, at the remark. But I was still moresurprised when, looking round me in bewilderment, my hat and umbrella inhand, I saw the lean lady with the woollen shawl leaning upright againstthe door out of which I was just about to make my exit. She was stillknitting, and I supposed that this erect posture against the door wasonly an eccentricity of spinsterhood and an oblivion of my intendeddeparture.
"I said genially, 'I am so sorry to disturb you, Miss James, but I mustreally be going. I have--er--' I stopped here, for the words shehad uttered in reply, though singularly brief and in tone extremelybusiness-like, were such as to render that arrest of my remarks, Ithink, natural and excusable. I have these words also noted down. I havenot the least idea of their meaning; so I have only been able to renderthem phonetically. But she said," and Mr Shorter peered short-sightedlyat his papers, "she said: 'Chuck it, fat 'ead,' and she added somethingthat sounded like 'It's a kop', or (possibly) 'a kopt'. And then thelast cord, either of my sanity or the sanity of the universe, snappedsuddenly. My esteemed friend and helper, Miss Brett, standing by themantelpiece, said: 'Put 'is old 'ead in a bag, Sam, and tie 'im upbefore you start jawin'. You'll be kopt yourselves some o' these dayswith this way of coin' things, har lar theater.'
"My head went round and round. Was it really true, as I had suddenlyfancied a moment before, that unmarried ladies had some dreadful riotoussociety of their own from which all others were excluded? I remembereddimly in my classical days (I was a scholar in a small way once, butnow, alas! rusty), I remembered the mysteries of the Bona Dea and theirstrange female freemasonry. I remembered the witches' Sabbaths. I wasjust, in my absurd lightheadedness, trying to remember a line of verseabout Diana's nymphs, when Miss Mowbray threw her arm round me frombehind. The moment it held me I knew it was not a woman's arm.
"Miss Brett--or what I had called Miss Brett--was standing in front ofme with a big revolver in her hand and a broad grin on her face.Miss James was still leaning against the door, but had fallen into anattitude so totally new, and so totally unfeminine, that it gave one ashock. She was kicking her heels, with her hands in her pockets and hercap on one side. She was a man. I mean he was a wo--no, that is I sawthat instead of being a woman she--he, I mean--that is, it was a man."
Mr Shorter became indescribably flurried and flapping in endeavouring toarrange these genders and his plaid shawl at the same time. He resumedwith a higher fever of nervousness:
"As for Miss Mowbray, she--he, held me in a ring of iron. He had herarm--that is she had his arm--round her neck--my neck I mean--and Icould not cry out. Miss Brett--that is, Mr Brett, at least Mr somethingwho was not Miss Brett--had the revolver pointed at me. The other twoladies--or er--gentlemen, were rummaging in some bag in the background.It was all clear at last: they were criminals dressed up as women, tokidnap me! To kidnap the Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex. But why? Was it tobe Nonconformists?
"The brute leaning against the door called out carelessly, ''Urry up,'Arry. Show the old bloke what the game is, and let's get off.'
"'Curse 'is eyes,' said Miss Brett--I mean the man with therevolver--'why should we show 'im the game?'
"'If you take my advice you bloomin' well will,' said the man at thedoor, whom they called Bill. 'A man wot knows wet 'e's doin' is worthten wot don't, even if 'e's a potty old parson.'
"'Bill's right enough,' said the coarse voice of the man who held me (ithad been Miss Mowbray's). 'Bring out the picture, 'Arry.'
"The man with the revolver walked across the room to where the othertwo women--I mean men--were turning over baggage, and asked them forsomething which they gave him. He came back with it across the roomand held it out in front of me. And compared to the surprise of thatdisplay, all the previous surprises of this awful day shrank suddenly.
"It was a portrait of myself. That such a picture should be in the handsof these scoundrels might in any case have caused a mild surprise;but no more. It was no mild surprise that I felt. The likeness wasan extremely good one, worked up with all the accessories of theconventional photographic studio. I was leaning my head on my hand andwas relieved against a painted landscape of woodland. It was obviousthat it was no snapshot; it was clear that I had sat for thisphotograph. And the truth was that I had never sat for such aphotograph. It was a photograph that I had never had taken.
"I stared at it again and again. It seemed to me to be touched up a gooddeal; it was glazed as well as framed, and the glass blurred some of thedetails. But there unmistakably was my face, my eyes, my nose and mouth,my head and hand, posed for a professional photographer. And I had neverposed so for any photographer.
"'Be'old the bloomin' miracle,' said the man with the revolver, withill-timed facetiousness. 'Parson, prepare to meet your God.' And withthis he slid the glass out of the frame. As the glass moved, I saw thatpart of the picture was painted on it in Chinese white, notably a pairof white whiskers and a clerical collar. And underneath was a portraitof an old lady in a quiet black dress, leaning her head on her handagainst the woodland landscape. The old lady was as like me as one pinis like another. It had required only the whiskers and the collar tomake it me in every hair.
"'Entertainin', ain't it?' said the man described as 'Arry, as he shotthe glass back again. 'Remarkable resemblance, parson. Gratifyin' to thelady. Gratifyin' to you. And hi may hadd, particlery gratifyin' to us,as bein' the probable source of a very tolerable haul. You know ColonelHawker, the man who's come to live in these parts, don't you?'
"I nodded.
"'Well,' said the man 'Arry, pointing to the picture, 'that's 'ismother. 'Oo ran to catch 'im when 'e fell? She d
id,' and he flung hisfingers in a general gesture towards the photograph of the old lady whowas exactly like me.
"'Tell the old gent wot 'e's got to do and be done with it,' broke outBill from the door. 'Look 'ere, Reverend Shorter, we ain't goin' to doyou no 'arm. We'll give you a sov. for your trouble if you like. And asfor the old woman's clothes--why, you'll look lovely in 'em.'
"'You ain't much of a 'and at a description, Bill,' said the man behindme. 'Mr Shorter, it's like this. We've got to see this man Hawkertonight. Maybe 'e'll kiss us all and 'ave up the champagne when 'e seesus. Maybe on the other 'and--'e won't. Maybe 'e'll be dead when we goesaway. Maybe not. But we've got to see 'im. Now as you know, 'e shuts'isself up and never opens the door to a soul; only you don't know whyand we does. The only one as can ever get at 'im is 'is mother.Well, it's a confounded funny coincidence,' he said, accenting thepenultimate, 'it's a very unusual piece of good luck, but you're 'ismother.'
"'When first I saw 'er picture,' said the man Bill, shaking his head ina ruminant manner, 'when I first saw it I said--old Shorter. Those weremy exact words--old Shorter.'
"'What do you mean, you wild creatures?' I gasped. 'What am I to do?'
"'That's easy said, your 'oldness,' said the man with the revolver,good-humouredly; 'you've got to put on those clothes,' and he pointed toa poke-bonnet and a heap of female clothes in the corner of the room.
"I will not dwell, Mr Swinburne, upon the details of what followed. Ihad no choice. I could not fight five men, to say nothing of a loadedpistol. In five minutes, sir, the Vicar of Chuntsey was dressed as anold woman--as somebody else's mother, if you please--and was dragged outof the house to take part in a crime.
"It was already late in the afternoon, and the nights of winter wereclosing in fast. On a dark road, in a blowing wind, we set out towardsthe lonely house of Colonel Hawker, perhaps the queerest cortege thatever straggled up that or any other road. To every human eye, in everyexternal, we were six very respectable old ladies of small means, inblack dresses and refined but antiquated bonnets; and we were reallyfive criminals and a clergyman.
"I will cut a long story short. My brain was whirling like a windmill asI walked, trying to think of some manner of escape. To cry out, so longas we were far from houses, would be suicidal, for it would be easy forthe ruffians to knife me or to gag me and fling me into a ditch. On theother hand, to attempt to stop strangers and explain the situation wasimpossible, because of the frantic folly of the situation itself. Longbefore I had persuaded the chance postman or carrier of so absurd astory, my companions would certainly have got off themselves, and in allprobability would have carried me off, as a friend of theirs who hadthe misfortune to be mad or drunk. The last thought, however, was aninspiration; though a very terrible one. Had it come to this, that theVicar of Chuntsey must pretend to be mad or drunk? It had come to this.
"I walked along with the rest up the deserted road, imitating andkeeping pace, as far as I could, with their rapid and yet lady-likestep, until at length I saw a lamp-post and a policeman standing underit. I had made up my mind. Until we reached them we were all equallydemure and silent and swift. When we reached them I suddenly flungmyself against the railings and roared out: 'Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!Rule Britannia! Get your 'air cut. Hoop-la! Boo!' It was a condition ofno little novelty for a man in my position.
"The constable instantly flashed his lantern on me, or the draggled,drunken old woman that was my travesty. 'Now then, mum,' he begangruffly.
"'Come along quiet, or I'll eat your heart,' cried Sam in my earhoarsely. 'Stop, or I'll flay you.' It was frightful to hear the wordsand see the neatly shawled old spinster who whispered them.
"I yelled, and yelled--I was in for it now. I screamed comic refrainsthat vulgar young men had sung, to my regret, at our village concerts; Irolled to and fro like a ninepin about to fall.
"'If you can't get your friend on quiet, ladies,' said the policeman, 'Ishall have to take 'er up. Drunk and disorderly she is right enough.'
"I redoubled my efforts. I had not been brought up to this sort ofthing; but I believe I eclipsed myself. Words that I did not know I hadever heard of seemed to come pouring out of my open mouth.
"'When we get you past,' whispered Bill, 'you'll howl louder; you'llhowl louder when we're burning your feet off.'
"I screamed in my terror those awful songs of joy. In all the nightmaresthat men have ever dreamed, there has never been anything so blightingand horrible as the faces of those five men, looking out of theirpoke-bonnets; the figures of district visitors with the faces of devils.I cannot think there is anything so heart-breaking in hell.
"For a sickening instant I thought that the bustle of my companionsand the perfect respectability of all our dresses would overcome thepoliceman and induce him to let us pass. He wavered, so far as onecan describe anything so solid as a policeman as wavering. I lurchedsuddenly forward and ran my head into his chest, calling out (if Iremember correctly), 'Oh, crikey, blimey, Bill.' It was at that momentthat I remembered most dearly that I was the Vicar of Chuntsey, inEssex.
"My desperate coup saved me. The policeman had me hard by the back ofthe neck.
"'You come along with me,' he began, but Bill cut in with his perfectimitation of a lady's finnicking voice.
"'Oh, pray, constable, don't make a disturbance with our poor friend. Wewill get her quietly home. She does drink too much, but she is quite alady--only eccentric.'
"'She butted me in the stomach,' said the policeman briefly.
"'Eccentricities of genius,' said Sam earnestly.
"'Pray let me take her home,' reiterated Bill, in the resumed characterof Miss James, 'she wants looking after.' 'She does,' said thepoliceman, 'but I'll look after her.'
"'That's no good,' cried Bill feverishly. 'She wants her friends. Shewants a particular medicine we've got.'
"'Yes,' assented Miss Mowbray, with excitement, 'no other medicine anygood, constable. Complaint quite unique.'
"'I'm all righ'. Cutchy, cutchy, coo!' remarked, to his eternal shame,the Vicar of Chuntsey.
"'Look here, ladies,' said the constable sternly, 'I don't like theeccentricity of your friend, and I don't like 'er songs, or 'er 'ead inmy stomach. And now I come to think of it, I don't like the looks of youI've seen many as quiet dressed as you as was wrong 'uns. Who are you?'
"'We've not our cards with us,' said Miss Mowbray, with indescribabledignity. 'Nor do we see why we should be insulted by any Jack-in-officewho chooses to be rude to ladies, when he is paid to protect them. Ifyou choose to take advantage of the weakness of our unfortunate friend,no doubt you are legally entitled to take her. But if you fancy you haveany legal right to bully us, you will find yourself in the wrong box.'
"The truth and dignity of this staggered the policeman for a moment.Under cover of their advantage my five persecutors turned for an instanton me faces like faces of the damned and then swished off into thedarkness. When the constable first turned his lantern and his suspicionson to them, I had seen the telegraphic look flash from face to facesaying that only retreat was possible now.
"By this time I was sinking slowly to the pavement, in a state of acutereflection. So long as the ruffians were with me, I dared not quit therole of drunkard. For if I had begun to talk reasonably and explain thereal case, the officer would merely have thought that I was slightlyrecovered and would have put me in charge of my friends. Now, however,if I liked I might safely undeceive him.
"But I confess I did not like. The chances of life are many, and it maydoubtless sometimes lie in the narrow path of duty for a clergyman ofthe Church of England to pretend to be a drunken old woman; butsuch necessities are, I imagine, sufficiently rare to appear to manyimprobable. Suppose the story got about that I had pretended to bedrunk. Suppose people did not all think it was pretence!
"I lurched up, the policeman half-lifting me. I went along weakly andquietly for about a hundred yards. The officer evidently thought thatI was too sleepy and feeble to effect an escape, an
d so held me lightlyand easily enough. Past one turning, two turnings, three turnings, fourturnings, he trailed me with him, a limp and slow and reluctant figure.At the fourth turning, I suddenly broke from his hand and tore down thestreet like a maddened stag. He was unprepared, he was heavy, and it wasdark. I ran and ran and ran, and in five minutes' running, found I wasgaining. In half an hour I was out in the fields under the holy andblessed stars, where I tore off my accursed shawl and bonnet and buriedthem in clean earth."
The old gentleman had finished his story and leant back in his chair.Both the matter and the manner of his narration had, as time went on,impressed me favourably. He was an old duffer and pedant, but behindthese things he was a country-bred man and gentleman, and had showedcourage and a sporting instinct in the hour of desperation. He had toldhis story with many quaint formalities of diction, but also with a veryconvincing realism.
"And now--" I began.
"And now," said Shorter, leaning forward again with something likeservile energy, "and now, Mr Swinburne, what about that unhappy manHawker. I cannot tell what those men meant, or how far what they saidwas real. But surely there is danger. I cannot go to the police, forreasons that you perceive. Among other things, they wouldn't believe me.What is to be done?"
I took out my watch. It was already half past twelve.
"My friend Basil Grant," I said, "is the best man we can go to. He and Iwere to have gone to the same dinner tonight; but he will just have comeback by now. Have you any objection to taking a cab?"
"Not at all," he replied, rising politely, and gathering up his absurdplaid shawl.
A rattle in a hansom brought us underneath the sombre pile of workmen'sflats in Lambeth which Grant inhabited; a climb up a wearisome woodenstaircase brought us to his garret. When I entered that wooden andscrappy interior, the white gleam of Basil's shirt-front and the lustreof his fur coat flung on the wooden settle, struck me as a contrast. Hewas drinking a glass of wine before retiring. I was right; he had comeback from the dinner-party.
He listened to the repetition of the story of the Rev. Ellis Shorterwith the genuine simplicity and respect which he never failed to exhibitin dealing with any human being. When it was over he said simply:
"Do you know a man named Captain Fraser?"
I was so startled at this totally irrelevant reference to the worthycollector of chimpanzees with whom I ought to have dined that evening,that I glanced sharply at Grant. The result was that I did not look atMr Shorter. I only heard him answer, in his most nervous tone, "No."
Basil, however, seemed to find something very curious about his answeror his demeanour generally, for he kept his big blue eyes fixed on theold clergyman, and though the eyes were quite quiet they stood out moreand more from his head.
"You are quite sure, Mr Shorter," he repeated, "that you don't knowCaptain Fraser?"
"Quite," answered the vicar, and I was certainly puzzled to find himreturning so much to the timidity, not to say the demoralization, of histone when he first entered my presence.
Basil sprang smartly to his feet.
"Then our course is clear," he said. "You have not even begun yourinvestigation, my dear Mr Shorter; the first thing for us to do is to gotogether to see Captain Fraser."
"When?" asked the clergyman, stammering.
"Now," said Basil, putting one arm in his fur coat.
The old clergyman rose to his feet, quaking all over.
"I really do not think that it is necessary," he said.
Basil took his arm out of the fur coat, threw it over the chair again,and put his hands in his pockets.
"Oh," he said, with emphasis. "Oh--you don't think it necessary; then,"and he added the words with great clearness and deliberation, "then, MrEllis Shorter, I can only say that I would like to see you without yourwhiskers."
And at these words I also rose to my feet, for the great tragedy of mylife had come. Splendid and exciting as life was in continual contactwith an intellect like Basil's, I had always the feeling that thatsplendour and excitement were on the borderland of sanity. He livedperpetually near the vision of the reason of things which makes men losetheir reason. And I felt of his insanity as men feel of the death offriends with heart disease. It might come anywhere, in a field, in ahansom cab, looking at a sunset, smoking a cigarette. It had come now.At the very moment of delivering a judgement for the salvation of afellow creature, Basil Grant had gone mad.
"Your whiskers," he cried, advancing with blazing eyes. "Give me yourwhiskers. And your bald head."
The old vicar naturally retreated a step or two. I stepped between.
"Sit down, Basil," I implored, "you're a little excited. Finish yourwine."
"Whiskers," he answered sternly, "whiskers."
And with that he made a dash at the old gentleman, who made a dash forthe door, but was intercepted. And then, before I knew where I wasthe quiet room was turned into something between a pantomime and apandemonium by those two. Chairs were flung over with a crash, tableswere vaulted with a noise like thunder, screens were smashed, crockeryscattered in smithereens, and still Basil Grant bounded and bellowedafter the Rev. Ellis Shorter.
And now I began to perceive something else, which added the lasthalf-witted touch to my mystification. The Rev. Ellis Shorter, ofChuntsey, in Essex, was by no means behaving as I had previously noticedhim to behave, or as, considering his age and station, I should haveexpected him to behave. His power of dodging, leaping, and fightingwould have been amazing in a lad of seventeen, and in this doddering oldvicar looked like a sort of farcical fairy-tale. Moreover, he did notseem to be so much astonished as I had thought. There was even a look ofsomething like enjoyment in his eyes; so there was in the eye of Basil.In fact, the unintelligible truth must be told. They were both laughing.
At length Shorter was cornered.
"Come, come, Mr Grant," he panted, "you can't do anything to me. It'squite legal. And it doesn't do any one the least harm. It's only asocial fiction. A result of our complex society, Mr Grant."
"I don't blame you, my man," said Basil coolly. "But I want yourwhiskers. And your bald head. Do they belong to Captain Fraser?"
"No, no," said Mr Shorter, laughing, "we provide them ourselves. Theydon't belong to Captain Fraser."
"What the deuce does all this mean?" I almost screamed. "Are you allin an infernal nightmare? Why should Mr Shorter's bald head belong toCaptain Fraser? How could it? What the deuce has Captain Fraser todo with the affair? What is the matter with him? You dined with him,Basil."
"No," said Grant, "I didn't."
"Didn't you go to Mrs Thornton's dinner-party?" I asked, staring. "Whynot?"
"Well," said Basil, with a slow and singular smile, "the fact is I wasdetained by a visitor. I have him, as a point of fact, in my bedroom."
"In your bedroom?" I repeated; but my imagination had reached that pointwhen he might have said in his coal scuttle or his waistcoat pocket.
Grant stepped to the door of an inner room, flung it open and walked in.Then he came out again with the last of the bodily wonders of that wildnight. He introduced into the sitting-room, in an apologetic manner,and by the nape of the neck, a limp clergyman with a bald head, whitewhiskers and a plaid shawl.
"Sit down, gentlemen," cried Grant, striking his hands heartily. "Sitdown all of you and have a glass of wine. As you say, there is no harmin it, and if Captain Fraser had simply dropped me a hint I could havesaved him from dropping a good sum of money. Not that you would haveliked that, eh?"
The two duplicate clergymen, who were sipping their Burgundy with twoduplicate grins, laughed heartily at this, and one of them carelesslypulled off his whiskers and laid them on the table.
"Basil," I said, "if you are my friend, save me. What is all this?"
He laughed again.
"Only another addition, Cherub, to your collection of Queer Trades.These two gentlemen (whose health I have now the pleasure of drinking)are Professional Detainers."
"And what on earth's
that?" I asked.
"It's really very simple, Mr Swinburne," began he who had once beenthe Rev. Ellis Shorter, of Chuntsey, in Essex; and it gave me a shockindescribable to hear out of that pompous and familiar form come nolonger its own pompous and familiar voice, but the brisk sharp tones ofa young city man. "It is really nothing very important. We are paid byour clients to detain in conversation, on some harmless pretext, peoplewhom they want out of the way for a few hours. And Captain Fraser--" andwith that he hesitated and smiled.
Basil smiled also. He intervened.
"The fact is that Captain Fraser, who is one of my best friends, wantedus both out of the way very much. He is sailing tonight for East Africa,and the lady with whom we were all to have dined is--er--what is Ibelieve described as 'the romance of his life'. He wanted that two hourswith her, and employed these two reverend gentlemen to detain us at ourhouses so as to let him have the field to himself."
"And of course," said the late Mr Shorter apologetically to me, "as Ihad to keep a gentleman at home from keeping an appointment with a lady,I had to come with something rather hot and strong--rather urgent. Itwouldn't have done to be tame."
"Oh," I said, "I acquit you of tameness."
"Thank you, sir," said the man respectfully, "always very grateful forany recommendation, sir."
The other man idly pushed back his artificial bald head, revealing closered hair, and spoke dreamily, perhaps under the influence of Basil'sadmirable Burgundy.
"It's wonderful how common it's getting, gentlemen. Our office is busyfrom morning till night. I've no doubt you've often knocked up againstus before. You just take notice. When an old bachelor goes on boring youwith hunting stories, when you're burning to be introduced to somebody,he's from our bureau. When a lady calls on parish work and stops hours,just when you wanted to go to the Robinsons', she's from our bureau. TheRobinson hand, sir, may be darkly seen."
"There is one thing I don't understand," I said. "Why you are bothvicars."
A shade crossed the brow of the temporary incumbent of Chuntsey, inEssex.
"That may have been a mistake, sir," he said. "But it was not our fault.It was all the munificence of Captain Fraser. He requested that thehighest price and talent on our tariff should be employed to detainyou gentlemen. Now the highest payment in our office goes to those whoimpersonate vicars, as being the most respectable and more of a strain.We are paid five guineas a visit. We have had the good fortune tosatisfy the firm with our work; and we are now permanently vicars.Before that we had two years as colonels, the next in our scale.Colonels are four guineas."