CHAPTER XV.
THE CLUB.
The club held its meetings in Horseferry Road. I had never been therein the daytime, but by night the approaches, the surroundings, theplace itself did not strike one as being particularly savoury. Onewondered what the deuce one was doing in that galley.
We were instructed to tell cabmen to pull up at the Gas Light and CokeCompany's Offices. Since it was not deemed expedient to let evenjarveys know exactly where in that salubrious locality men with theprice of a cab-fare in their pockets happened to be going, the rest ofthe distance was to be walked.
I fancy that in the daytime the lower part of the house was used asoffices. When I reached it the street door was closed, the place seemeddeserted, not a light was to be seen. Each of us had been provided witha pass-key. Letting myself in, I found myself in a pitch-dark passage.Striking a match, I used it to light me up two flights of stairs. Atthe top of the second flight I was confronted by another door. On theleft-hand side, against the wall, was an electric button. I pressed ittwice, then counted three; pressed it once, counted another three, thenpressed it twice again. Almost immediately afterwards a gong was struckwithin. While the sound was still vibrating in the air, I sang out--
"Reginald!"
As I uttered my Christian name the door was opened and Pendarvonreceived me on the threshold within.
"Welcome, Reginald! You are the first-comer," he said.
We turned into a room on the right. The room was plainly furnished, thewalls were painted red, a red carpet was on the floor. In the centrestood a good-sized oval-shaped mahogany table. Thirteen chairs wereplaced round it. In front of each was a decanter of brandy and a glass.In front of one was a manuscript book, bound in crimson morocco, pens,ink, a crimson velvet bag, and a small heap of red cards, of the sizeand shape of ordinary playing-cards.
As Pendarvon had said, he and I, up to the present, had the place toourselves. Cecil Pendarvon was fairly tall and fairly broad--the floridtype of man. He had fair hair, fair beard, and light blue eyes. Yourfirst impression of the man was that he was always laughing. When youcame to study him a little closer you began to doubt if his laughsuggested merriment. I knew him well. I had come to understand that themore he laughed the worse it would be for some one.
He stood, stroking his long fair beard, laughing at me now.
"Pendarvon, I don't quite see what's the use of the counting, and theornamental ringing, and all the rest of it outside the door."
"You mayn't see it now. One of these days you may. There may come atime when it will be advisable that we should know that the person atthe door is not a member of the club."
"If you mean that one of these days we are likely to receive a visitfrom the police, you don't suppose that we should be able to keep themout, if they had made up their minds to enter. We should be trappedlike rabbits in a warren."
"I think not. That door is of sheet iron. It is held in position byfour steel bolts which run into a wall made of solid Portland cement.By the time the police got through it we should be miles away."
I looked round the apartment.
"Is this room then not what it seems? Is there a hidden door?"
"There is not. But there is something quite as good. There is afireplace."
"A fireplace?"
"And likewise a chimney, which is a chimney. When I took this place Ihad an eye to all the possibilities. Look here."
He went to the fireplace, a huge old-fashioned one, probably over sixfeet wide. The stove occupied not one-third of it. He stepped inside, Ifollowing. There was ample room for both of us. He pointed upwards.
"Stanchions, which will make excellent steps."
I saw that there were stanchions, rising one above the other, set inthe side of the chimney.
"Where do they lead to?"
"Climb up twelve, put your hand out to the right, you will find a bolt.Draw it, push, a door will open. Go through it, you will find yourselfupon the roof."
"The roof, at night--I thank you!"
"The chimney-stack will be on your left, between you and a fall intothe street. Keep it on your left, go straight forward--you will findyourself upon the edge."
"The edge! Of the roof? Pendarvon, my thanks increase!"
"If you feel for it on your right you will find a rail. This is therail of a bridge which crosses from this house to one in the streetbehind. When I took this room I took that house. It will remain empty.Cross the bridge. Close to your hand, on your left, you will find aniron ladder set straight against the wall. Descend it, you will landyourself on the flat roof of an outhouse. Within a foot of you, stillto your left, there is a window. It will be always left unlatched. Youhave only to raise it, enter the empty house, strike a light, and walkdownstairs into the street. To reach that particular house, in thatparticular street, by road, a policeman will have to walk two miles."
"How long is this bridge of yours?"
"Under twenty feet."
"And how wide?"
"Perhaps ten inches--it is a single plank. The rail by which you holdis firmly fixed and bolted at either end. What the whole arrangementwas intended for originally is a puzzle I have not attempted to solve.I heard of it. I thought it might suit us."
"Don't you think we ought to do what the firemen do--have a full dressrehearsal? I, for one, should hardly care to seek that path to safetywithout having had some practical experience of the peculiarities andperils of the way."
Pendarvon laughed.
"You fellows can have a rehearsal to-night, if you like--only you willget yourselves into a deuce of a mess. I don't guarantee that you willbe able to keep yourselves clean. I only guarantee that that way, at apinch, you will be able to save your necks."
As he finished speaking, the electric bell rang twice; there was apause; then a single ring; another pause; then twice more. Pendarvonwent to a gong which was suspended from the ceiling outside the room.He struck it, not too loudly. A voice on the other side of the otherdoor exclaimed--
"Gustave!"
As Pendarvon opened the door, he turned to me.
"Gustave Rudini."
It was Rudini--an undersized, ill-dressed little fellow, more like awaiter out of work than anything else I know. Pendarvon had had somedifficulty in completing the tail of his thirteen. He had insisted thatthere must be thirteen members. In order to make up the number he hadhad to bring in three fellows who, to say the least of it, were not insociety. Of these three Rudini was one. According to Pendarvon, he wasa Swiss anarchist. Since he killed on principle, he was not likely tohesitate to kill for fun. His was not a pleasant personality. Headdressed every one as "Citizen "--as he did me now.
"Well, citizen, the good work begins." I asked him what he meant. "Haveyou not seen about the bombs at Saragosa--that is what I call goodreading."
I shuddered. I felt more than half disposed to knock the creature down.Some demons had thrown bombs among a crowded audience at a theatre. Noend of people had been killed and injured. The brute called the accountof the affair good reading.
I suppose he read my feelings in my face. He stretched out his hands infront of him--with a snarl which was perhaps meant for a grin.
"Do you not agree with me, citizen, that it is good reading? If itcomes to killing, why kill units instead of tens? It is only a littlematter of arithmetical progression."
The next comer was a madman out and out. He was a religionist of a sectof which, I suspect, he was the first member and the last. He believed,it seemed, that death meant annihilation. Annihilation, to use aparadox, was all he lived for. But it had been revealed to him--I neverheard by whom, or how--that he himself never could attain annihilationuntil he had killed some one, as it were, to clear the way. So he hadjoined the club, in order that his destiny might the sooner befulfilled. His name was Shepherd--Henry Shepherd. He was a lanky,loosely-built man, with long iron grey hair, and sailors' eyes--eyes,that is, which were calm and deep. As he
entered, he seated himself attable without uttering a word. He was the second of Pendarvon'sgathered and garnered three.
The fellows now came hard upon each others' heels. Unless I wasmistaken, they had for the most part, been quenching their thirst.Their eyes shone; their speech was inclined to be erratic; about someof them there was a joviality which they had found in their glasses.Teddy Hibbard, for one, was distinctly drunk. He came with EugeneSilvester, who was not much better. The pair staggered up to me.
Teddy tried to steady himself by a somewhat close attachment toSilvester's arm.
"I say, Reggie, old fellow, Eugene and I have been making up our mindswhom we'll slaughter. Whom do you think we've decided on?"
"My dear Teddy, I haven't the faintest notion. Don't you think you'dbetter take a chair?"
"Thank you, old boy, I think I will." He took one just in time."We've decided on slaughtering the first chap we meet of the name ofJones--there are such a lot of them about, you know."
Archie Beaupre came across to me. He was among the last to arrive. Healso had been drinking. But liquor did not affect him as it did TeddyHibbard. He never lost his equilibrium. There never came a stammer intohis speech. Nor, in Iago's sense, did it steal away his brains. Whendrink entered into Archie, the devil went with it. When he had drunkenough to stupefy an ordinary man, he was very near to genius. In thatcondition I have known him write lines which no poet need be ashamed toown; and I have known him do things which must have set all the imps ofSatan chuckling.
As he advanced to me, a casual acquaintance might not have supposedthat he had been exceeding in the slightest degree. But I knew better.I knew it by something that was in his face, and in his eyes; by thering that was in his voice, when he spoke; by the very way in which heclasped me by the hand.
"Here's luck!" he said--"I'm with you all the way."