The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
perambulators.”
Syme sat watching him with some respect in his large, blue eyes.
“You took me in,” he said. “It is really a smart dodge.”
Then after a pause he added—
“What do you call this tremendous President of yours?”
“We generally call him Sunday,” replied Gregory with simplicity. “You
see, there are seven members of the Central Anarchist Council, and they
are named after days of the week. He is called Sunday, by some of his
admirers Bloody Sunday. It is curious you should mention the matter,
because the very night you have dropped in (if I may so express it) is
the night on which our London branch, which assembles in this room, has
to elect its own deputy to fill a vacancy in the Council. The gentleman
who has for some time past played, with propriety and general applause,
the difficult part of Thursday, has died quite suddenly. Consequently,
we have called a meeting this very evening to elect a successor.”
He got to his feet and strolled across the room with a sort of smiling
embarrassment.
“I feel somehow as if you were my mother, Syme,” he continued casually.
“I feel that I can confide anything to you, as you have promised to
tell nobody. In fact, I will confide to you something that I would not
say in so many words to the anarchists who will be coming to the room
in about ten minutes. We shall, of course, go through a form of
election; but I don’t mind telling you that it is practically certain
what the result will be.” He looked down for a moment modestly. “It is
almost a settled thing that I am to be Thursday.”
“My dear fellow.” said Syme heartily, “I congratulate you. A great
career!”
Gregory smiled in deprecation, and walked across the room, talking
rapidly.
“As a matter of fact, everything is ready for me on this table,” he
said, “and the ceremony will probably be the shortest possible.”
Syme also strolled across to the table, and found lying across it a
walking-stick, which turned out on examination to be a sword-stick, a
large Colt’s revolver, a sandwich case, and a formidable flask of
brandy. Over the chair, beside the table, was thrown a heavy-looking
cape or cloak.
“I have only to get the form of election finished,” continued Gregory
with animation, “then I snatch up this cloak and stick, stuff these
other things into my pocket, step out of a door in this cavern, which
opens on the river, where there is a steam-tug already waiting for me,
and then—then—oh, the wild joy of being Thursday!” And he clasped his
hands.
Syme, who had sat down once more with his usual insolent languor, got
to his feet with an unusual air of hesitation.
“Why is it,” he asked vaguely, “that I think you are quite a decent
fellow? Why do I positively like you, Gregory?” He paused a moment, and
then added with a sort of fresh curiosity, “Is it because you are such
an ass?”
There was a thoughtful silence again, and then he cried out—
“Well, damn it all! this is the funniest situation I have ever been in
in my life, and I am going to act accordingly. Gregory, I gave you a
promise before I came into this place. That promise I would keep under
red-hot pincers. Would you give me, for my own safety, a little promise
of the same kind?”
“A promise?” asked Gregory, wondering.
“Yes,” said Syme very seriously, “a promise. I swore before God that I
would not tell your secret to the police. Will you swear by Humanity,
or whatever beastly thing you believe in, that you will not tell my
secret to the anarchists?”
“Your secret?” asked the staring Gregory. “Have you got a secret?”
“Yes,” said Syme, “I have a secret.” Then after a pause, “Will you
swear?”
Gregory glared at him gravely for a few moments, and then said
abruptly—
“You must have bewitched me, but I feel a furious curiosity about you.
Yes, I will swear not to tell the anarchists anything you tell me. But
look sharp, for they will be here in a couple of minutes.”
Syme rose slowly to his feet and thrust his long, white hands into his
long, grey trousers’ pockets. Almost as he did so there came five
knocks on the outer grating, proclaiming the arrival of the first of
the conspirators.
“Well,” said Syme slowly, “I don’t know how to tell you the truth more
shortly than by saying that your expedient of dressing up as an aimless
poet is not confined to you or your President. We have known the dodge
for some time at Scotland Yard.”
Gregory tried to spring up straight, but he swayed thrice.
“What do you say?” he asked in an inhuman voice.
“Yes,” said Syme simply, “I am a police detective. But I think I hear
your friends coming.”
From the doorway there came a murmur of “Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.” It
was repeated twice and thrice, and then thirty times, and the crowd of
Joseph Chamberlains (a solemn thought) could be heard trampling down
the corridor.
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY
Before one of the fresh faces could appear at the doorway, Gregory’s
stunned surprise had fallen from him. He was beside the table with a
bound, and a noise in his throat like a wild beast. He caught up the
Colt’s revolver and took aim at Syme. Syme did not flinch, but he put
up a pale and polite hand.
“Don’t be such a silly man,” he said, with the effeminate dignity of a
curate. “Don’t you see it’s not necessary? Don’t you see that we’re
both in the same boat? Yes, and jolly sea-sick.”
Gregory could not speak, but he could not fire either, and he looked
his question.
“Don’t you see we’ve checkmated each other?” cried Syme. “I can’t tell
the police you are an anarchist. You can’t tell the anarchists I’m a
policeman. I can only watch you, knowing what you are; you can only
watch me, knowing what I am. In short, it’s a lonely, intellectual
duel, my head against yours. I’m a policeman deprived of the help of
the police. You, my poor fellow, are an anarchist deprived of the help
of that law and organisation which is so essential to anarchy. The one
solitary difference is in your favour. You are not surrounded by
inquisitive policemen; I am surrounded by inquisitive anarchists. I
cannot betray you, but I might betray myself. Come, come! wait and see
me betray myself. I shall do it so nicely.”
Gregory put the pistol slowly down, still staring at Syme as if he were
a sea-monster.
“I don’t believe in immortality,” he said at last, “but if, after all
this, you were to break your word, God would make a hell only for you,
to howl in for ever.”
“I shall not break my word,” said Syme sternly, “nor will you break
yours. Here are your friends.”
The mass of the anarchists entered the room heavily, with a slouching
and somewhat weary gait; but one little man, with a black beard and
glasses—a man somewhat of the type of Mr. Tim Healy—detached himself,
and bustled forward with some papers in his hand.
“Comrade Gregory,” he said, “I suppose this man is a delegate?”
Gregory, taken by surprise, looked down and muttered the name of Syme;
but Syme replied almost pertly—
“I am glad to see that your gate is well enough guarded to make it hard
for anyone to be here who was not a delegate.”
The brow of the little man with the black beard was, however, still
contracted with something like suspicion.
“What branch do you represent?” he asked sharply.
“I should hardly call it a branch,” said Syme, laughing; “I should call
it at the very least a root.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fact is,” said Syme serenely, “the truth is I am a Sabbatarian. I
have been specially sent here to see that you show a due observance of
Sunday.”
The little man dropped one of his papers, and a flicker of fear went
over all the faces of the group. Evidently the awful President, whose
name was Sunday, did sometimes send down such irregular ambassadors to
such branch meetings.
“Well, comrade,” said the man with the papers after a pause, “I suppose
we’d better give you a seat in the meeting?”
“If you ask my advice as a friend,” said Syme with severe benevolence,
“I think you’d better.”
When Gregory heard the dangerous dialogue end, with a sudden safety for
his rival, he rose abruptly and paced the floor in painful thought. He
was, indeed, in an agony of diplomacy. It was clear that Syme’s
inspired impudence was likely to bring him out of all merely accidental
dilemmas. Little was to be hoped from them. He could not himself betray
Syme, partly from honour, but partly also because, if he betrayed him
and for some reason failed to destroy him, the Syme who escaped would
be a Syme freed from all obligation of secrecy, a Syme who would simply
walk to the nearest police station. After all, it was only one night’s
discussion, and only one detective who would know of it. He would let
out as little as possible of their plans that night, and then let Syme
go, and chance it.
He strode across to the group of anarchists, which was already
distributing itself along the benches.
“I think it is time we began,” he said; “the steam-tug is waiting on
the river already. I move that Comrade Buttons takes the chair.”
This being approved by a show of hands, the little man with the papers
slipped into the presidential seat.
“Comrades,” he began, as sharp as a pistol-shot, “our meeting tonight
is important, though it need not be long. This branch has always had
the honour of electing Thursdays for the Central European Council. We
have elected many and splendid Thursdays. We all lament the sad decease
of the heroic worker who occupied the post until last week. As you
know, his services to the cause were considerable. He organised the
great dynamite coup of Brighton which, under happier circumstances,
ought to have killed everybody on the pier. As you also know, his death
was as self-denying as his life, for he died through his faith in a
hygienic mixture of chalk and water as a substitute for milk, which
beverage he regarded as barbaric, and as involving cruelty to the cow.
Cruelty, or anything approaching to cruelty, revolted him always. But
it is not to acclaim his virtues that we are met, but for a harder
task. It is difficult properly to praise his qualities, but it is more
difficult to replace them. Upon you, comrades, it devolves this evening
to choose out of the company present the man who shall be Thursday. If
any comrade suggests a name I will put it to the vote. If no comrade
suggests a name, I can only tell myself that that dear dynamiter, who
is gone from us, has carried into the unknowable abysses the last
secret of his virtue and his innocence.”
There was a stir of almost inaudible applause, such as is sometimes
heard in church. Then a large old man, with a long and venerable white
beard, perhaps the only real working-man present, rose lumberingly and
said—
“I move that Comrade Gregory be elected Thursday,” and sat lumberingly
down again.
“Does anyone second?” asked the chairman.
A little man with a velvet coat and pointed beard seconded.
“Before I put the matter to the vote,” said the chairman, “I will call
on Comrade Gregory to make a statement.”
Gregory rose amid a great rumble of applause. His face was deadly pale,
so that by contrast his queer red hair looked almost scarlet. But he
was smiling and altogether at ease. He had made up his mind, and he saw
his best policy quite plain in front of him like a white road. His best
chance was to make a softened and ambiguous speech, such as would leave
on the detective’s mind the impression that the anarchist brotherhood
was a very mild affair after all. He believed in his own literary
power, his capacity for suggesting fine shades and picking perfect
words. He thought that with care he could succeed, in spite of all the
people around him, in conveying an impression of the institution,
subtly and delicately false. Syme had once thought that anarchists,