The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
street, so that when the riders alighted at his door they could once
more see the solid green ridge of the hill, with the white road across
it, standing up above all the roofs of the town. They breathed again to
see that the road as yet was clear, and they rang the bell.
Dr. Renard was a beaming, brown-bearded man, a good example of that
silent but very busy professional class which France has preserved even
more perfectly than England. When the matter was explained to him he
pooh-poohed the panic of the ex-Marquis altogether; he said, with the
solid French scepticism, that there was no conceivable probability of a
general anarchist rising. “Anarchy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders,
“it is childishness!”
“_Et ça_,” cried out the Colonel suddenly, pointing over the other’s
shoulder, “and that is childishness, isn’t it?”
They all looked round, and saw a curve of black cavalry come sweeping
over the top of the hill with all the energy of Attila. Swiftly as they
rode, however, the whole rank still kept well together, and they could
see the black vizards of the first line as level as a line of uniforms.
But although the main black square was the same, though travelling
faster, there was now one sensational difference which they could see
clearly upon the slope of the hill, as if upon a slanted map. The bulk
of the riders were in one block; but one rider flew far ahead of the
column, and with frantic movements of hand and heel urged his horse
faster and faster, so that one might have fancied that he was not the
pursuer but the pursued. But even at that great distance they could see
something so fanatical, so unquestionable in his figure, that they knew
it was the Secretary himself. “I am sorry to cut short a cultured
discussion,” said the Colonel, “but can you lend me your motor-car now,
in two minutes?”
“I have a suspicion that you are all mad,” said Dr. Renard, smiling
sociably; “but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt
friendship. Let us go round to the garage.”
Dr. Renard was a mild man with monstrous wealth; his rooms were like
the Musée de Cluny, and he had three motor-cars. These, however, he
seemed to use very sparingly, having the simple tastes of the French
middle class, and when his impatient friends came to examine them, it
took them some time to assure themselves that one of them even could be
made to work. This with some difficulty they brought round into the
street before the Doctor’s house. When they came out of the dim garage
they were startled to find that twilight had already fallen with the
abruptness of night in the tropics. Either they had been longer in the
place than they imagined, or some unusual canopy of cloud had gathered
over the town. They looked down the steep streets, and seemed to see a
slight mist coming up from the sea.
“It is now or never,” said Dr. Bull. “I hear horses.”
“No,” corrected the Professor, “a horse.”
And as they listened, it was evident that the noise, rapidly coming
nearer on the rattling stones, was not the noise of the whole cavalcade
but that of the one horseman, who had left it far behind—the insane
Secretary.
Syme’s family, like most of those who end in the simple life, had once
owned a motor, and he knew all about them. He had leapt at once into
the chauffeur’s seat, and with flushed face was wrenching and tugging
at the disused machinery. He bent his strength upon one handle, and
then said quite quietly—
“I am afraid it’s no go.”
As he spoke, there swept round the corner a man rigid on his rushing
horse, with the rush and rigidity of an arrow. He had a smile that
thrust out his chin as if it were dislocated. He swept alongside of the
stationary car, into which its company had crowded, and laid his hand
on the front. It was the Secretary, and his mouth went quite straight
in the solemnity of triumph.
Syme was leaning hard upon the steering wheel, and there was no sound
but the rumble of the other pursuers riding into the town. Then there
came quite suddenly a scream of scraping iron, and the car leapt
forward. It plucked the Secretary clean out of his saddle, as a knife
is whipped out of its sheath, trailed him kicking terribly for twenty
yards, and left him flung flat upon the road far in front of his
frightened horse. As the car took the corner of the street with a
splendid curve, they could just see the other anarchists filling the
street and raising their fallen leader.
“I can’t understand why it has grown so dark,” said the Professor at
last in a low voice.
“Going to be a storm, I think,” said Dr. Bull. “I say, it’s a pity we
haven’t got a light on this car, if only to see by.”
“We have,” said the Colonel, and from the floor of the car he fished up
a heavy, old-fashioned, carved iron lantern with a light inside it. It
was obviously an antique, and it would seem as if its original use had
been in some way semi-religious, for there was a rude moulding of a
cross upon one of its sides.
“Where on earth did you get that?” asked the Professor.
“I got it where I got the car,” answered the Colonel, chuckling, “from
my best friend. While our friend here was fighting with the steering
wheel, I ran up the front steps of the house and spoke to Renard, who
was standing in his own porch, you will remember. ‘I suppose,’ I said,
‘there’s no time to get a lamp.’ He looked up, blinking amiably at the
beautiful arched ceiling of his own front hall. From this was
suspended, by chains of exquisite ironwork, this lantern, one of the
hundred treasures of his treasure house. By sheer force he tore the
lamp out of his own ceiling, shattering the painted panels, and
bringing down two blue vases with his violence. Then he handed me the
iron lantern, and I put it in the car. Was I not right when I said that
Dr. Renard was worth knowing?”
“You were,” said Syme seriously, and hung the heavy lantern over the
front. There was a certain allegory of their whole position in the
contrast between the modern automobile and its strange ecclesiastical
lamp. Hitherto they had passed through the quietest part of the town,
meeting at most one or two pedestrians, who could give them no hint of
the peace or the hostility of the place. Now, however, the windows in
the houses began one by one to be lit up, giving a greater sense of
habitation and humanity. Dr. Bull turned to the new detective who had
led their flight, and permitted himself one of his natural and friendly
smiles.
“These lights make one feel more cheerful.”
Inspector Ratcliffe drew his brows together.
“There is only one set of lights that make me more cheerful,” he said,
“and they are those lights of the police station which I can see beyond
the town. Please God we may be there in ten minutes.”
Then all Bull’s boiling good sense and optimism broke suddenly out of
him.
“Oh, this is all raving nonsense!” he cried. “If you really think that
ordinary people in ordinary houses are anarchists, you must be madder
than an anarchist yourself. If we turned and fought these fellows, the
whole town would fight for us.”
“No,” said the other with an immovable simplicity, “the whole town
would fight for them. We shall see.”
While they were speaking the Professor had leant forward with sudden
excitement.
“What is that noise?” he said.
“Oh, the horses behind us, I suppose,” said the Colonel. “I thought we
had got clear of them.”
“The horses behind us! No,” said the Professor, “it is not horses, and
it is not behind us.”
Almost as he spoke, across the end of the street before them two
shining and rattling shapes shot past. They were gone almost in a
flash, but everyone could see that they were motor-cars, and the
Professor stood up with a pale face and swore that they were the other
two motor-cars from Dr. Renard’s garage.
“I tell you they were his,” he repeated, with wild eyes, “and they were
full of men in masks!”
“Absurd!” said the Colonel angrily. “Dr. Renard would never give them
his cars.”
“He may have been forced,” said Ratcliffe quietly. “The whole town is
on their side.”
“You still believe that,” asked the Colonel incredulously.
“You will all believe it soon,” said the other with a hopeless calm.
There was a puzzled pause for some little time, and then the Colonel
began again abruptly—
“No, I can’t believe it. The thing is nonsense. The plain people of a
peaceable French town—”
He was cut short by a bang and a blaze of light, which seemed close to
his eyes. As the car sped on it left a floating patch of white smoke
behind it, and Syme had heard a shot shriek past his ear.
“My God!” said the Colonel, “someone has shot at us.”
“It need not interrupt conversation,” said the gloomy Ratcliffe. “Pray
resume your remarks, Colonel. You were talking, I think, about the
plain people of a peaceable French town.”
The staring Colonel was long past minding satire. He rolled his eyes
all round the street.
“It is extraordinary,” he said, “most extraordinary.”
“A fastidious person,” said Syme, “might even call it unpleasant.
However, I suppose those lights out in the field beyond this street are
the Gendarmerie. We shall soon get there.”
“No,” said Inspector Ratcliffe, “we shall never get there.”
He had been standing up and looking keenly ahead of him. Now he sat
down and smoothed his sleek hair with a weary gesture.
“What do you mean?” asked Bull sharply.
“I mean that we shall never get there,” said the pessimist placidly.
“They have two rows of armed men across the road already; I can see
them from here. The town is in arms, as I said it was. I can only
wallow in the exquisite comfort of my own exactitude.”
And Ratcliffe sat down comfortably in the car and lit a cigarette, but
the others rose excitedly and stared down the road. Syme had slowed
down the car as their plans became doubtful, and he brought it finally
to a standstill just at the corner of a side street that ran down very
steeply to the sea.
The town was mostly in shadow, but the sun had not sunk; wherever its
level light could break through, it painted everything a burning gold.
Up this side street the last sunset light shone as sharp and narrow as
the shaft of artificial light at the theatre. It struck the car of the
five friends, and lit it like a burning chariot. But the rest of the
street, especially the two ends of it, was in the deepest twilight, and
for some seconds they could see nothing. Then Syme, whose eyes were the
keenest, broke into a little bitter whistle, and said,
“It is quite true. There is a crowd or an army or some such thing
across the end of that street.”
“Well, if there is,” said Bull impatiently, “it must be something
else—a sham fight or the mayor’s birthday or something. I cannot and
will not believe that plain, jolly people in a place like this walk
about with dynamite in their pockets. Get on a bit, Syme, and let us
look at them.”
The car crawled about a hundred yards farther, and then they were all
startled by Dr. Bull breaking into a high crow of laughter.
“Why, you silly mugs!” he cried, “what did I tell you. That crowd’s as
law-abiding as a cow, and if it weren’t, it’s on our side.”
“How do you know?” asked the professor, staring.
“You blind bat,” cried Bull, “don’t you see who is leading them?”
They peered again, and then the Colonel, with a catch in his voice,
cried out—
“Why, it’s Renard!”
There was, indeed, a rank of dim figures running across the road, and
they could not be clearly seen; but far enough in front to catch the
accident of the evening light was stalking up and down the unmistakable
Dr. Renard, in a white hat, stroking his long brown beard, and holding
a revolver in his left hand.
“What a fool I’ve been!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Of course, the dear
old boy has turned out to help us.”