The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents
The official was still staring at the body. He was a man of slow
apprehension.
There was a pause.
The scientific manager got up on his feet rather awkwardly. He ran his
fingers along his collar thoughtfully, and moved his head to and fro
several times.
"Poor Holroyd! I see now." Then almost mechanically he went towards
the switch in the shadow and turned the current into the railway
circuit again. As he did so the singed body loosened its grip upon the
machine and fell forward on its face. The core of the dynamo roared
out loud and clear, and the armature beat the air.
So ended prematurely the Worship of the Dynamo Deity, perhaps the most
short-lived of all religions. Yet withal it could at least boast a
Martyrdom and a Human Sacrifice.
THE HAMMERPOND PARK BURGLARY
It is a moot point whether burglary is to be considered as a sport, a
trade, or an art. For a trade, the technique is scarcely rigid enough,
and its claims to be considered an art are vitiated by the mercenary
element that qualifies its triumphs. On the whole it seems to be most
justly ranked as sport, a sport for which no rules are at present
formulated, and of which the prizes are distributed in an extremely
informal manner. It was this informality of burglary that led to the
regrettable extinction of two promising beginners at Hammerpond Park.
The stakes offered in this affair consisted chiefly of diamonds and
other personal _bric-à-brac_ belonging to the newly married Lady
Aveling. Lady Aveling, as the reader will remember, was the only
daughter of Mrs Montague Pangs, the well-known hostess. Her marriage
to Lord Aveling was extensively advertised in the papers, the quantity
and quality of her wedding presents, and the fact that the honeymoon
was to be spent at Hammerpond. The announcement of these valuable
prizes created a considerable sensation in the small circle in which
Mr Teddy Watkins was the undisputed leader, and it was decided that,
accompanied by a duly qualified assistant, he should visit the village
of Hammerpond in his professional capacity.
Being a man of naturally retiring and modest disposition, Mr Watkins
determined to make this visit _incog_., and after due consideration of
the conditions of his enterprise, he selected the rôle of a landscape
artist and the unassuming surname of Smith. He preceded his assistant,
who, it was decided, should join him only on the last afternoon of his
stay at Hammerpond. Now the village of Hammerpond is perhaps one of
the prettiest little corners in Sussex; many thatched houses still
survive, the flint-built church with its tall spire nestling under the
down is one of the finest and least restored in the county, and the
beech-woods and bracken jungles through which the road runs to
the great house are singularly rich in what the vulgar artist and
photographer call "bits." So that Mr Watkins, on his arrival with
two virgin canvases, a brand-new easel, a paint-box, portmanteau, an
ingenious little ladder made in sections (after the pattern of the
late lamented master Charles Peace), crowbar, and wire coils, found
himself welcomed with effusion and some curiosity by half-a-dozen
other brethren of the brush. It rendered the disguise he had chosen
unexpectedly plausible, but it inflicted upon him a considerable
amount of aesthetic conversation for which he was very imperfectly
prepared.
"Have you exhibited very much?" said Young Porson in the bar-parlour
of the "Coach and Horses," where Mr Watkins was skilfully accumulating
local information on the night of his arrival.
"Very little," said Mr Watkins, "just a snack here and there."
"Academy?"
"In course. _And_ the Crystal Palace."
"Did they hang you well?" said Porson.
"Don't rot," said Mr Watkins; "I don't like it."
"I mean did they put you in a good place?"
"Whadyer mean?" said Mr Watkins suspiciously. "One 'ud think you were
trying to make out I'd been put away."
Porson had been brought up by aunts, and was a gentlemanly young man
even for an artist; he did not know what being "put away" meant, but
he thought it best to explain that he intended nothing of the sort. As
the question of hanging seemed a sore point with Mr Watkins, he tried
to divert the conversation a little.
"Do you do figure-work at all?"
"No, never had a head for figures," said Mr Watkins, "my miss--Mrs
Smith, I mean, does all that."
"She paints too!" said Porson. "That's rather jolly."
"Very," said Mr Watkins, though he really did not think so, and,
feeling the conversation was drifting a little beyond his grasp,
added, "I came down here to paint Hammerpond House by moonlight."
"Really!" said Porson. "That's rather a novel idea."
"Yes," said Mr Watkins, "I thought it rather a good notion when it
occurred to me. I expect to begin to-morrow night."
"What! You don't mean to paint in the open, by night?"
"I do, though."
"But how will you see your canvas?"
"Have a bloomin' cop's--" began Mr Watkins, rising too quickly to the
question, and then realising this, bawled to Miss Durgan for another
glass of beer. "I'm goin' to have a thing called a dark lantern," he
said to Porson.
"But it's about new moon now," objected Porson. "There won't be any
moon."
"There'll be the house," said Watkins, "at any rate. I'm goin', you
see, to paint the house first and the moon afterwards."
"Oh!" said Porson, too staggered to continue the conversation.
"They doo say," said old Durgan, the landlord, who had maintained a
respectful silence during the technical conversation, "as there's no
less than three p'licemen from 'Azelworth on dewty every night in
the house--'count of this Lady Aveling 'n her jewellery. One'm won
fower-and-six last night, off second footman--tossin'."
Towards sunset next day Mr Watkins, virgin canvas, easel, and a
very considerable case of other appliances in hand, strolled up the
pleasant pathway through the beech-woods to Hammerpond Park, and
pitched his apparatus in a strategic position commanding the house.
Here he was observed by Mr Raphael Sant, who was returning across the
park from a study of the chalk-pits. His curiosity having been fired
by Porson's account of the new arrival, he turned aside with the idea
of discussing nocturnal art.
Mr Watkins was apparently unaware of his approach. A friendly
conversation with Lady Hammerpond's butler had just terminated, and
that individual, surrounded by the three pet dogs which it was his
duty to take for an airing after dinner had been served, was receding
in the distance. Mr Watkins was mixing colour with an air of great
industry. Sant, approaching more nearly, was surprised to see the
colour in question was as harsh and brilliant an emerald green as it
is possible to imagine. Having cultivated an extreme sensibility to
colour from his earliest years, he drew the air in sharply between his
teeth at the very first glimpse of this brew. Mr Watkins turned round.
He looked annoyed.
"What on earth are you going to do with that _beastly_ green?" said
Sant.
Mr Watkins realised that his zeal to appear busy in the eyes of the
butler had evidently betrayed him into some technical error. He looked
at Sant and hesitated.
"Pardon my rudeness," said Sant; "but really, that green is altogether
too amazing. It came as a shock. What _do_ you mean to do with it?"
Mr Watkins was collecting his resources. Nothing could save the
situation but decision. "If you come here interrupting my work," he
said, "I'm a-goin' to paint your face with it."
Sant retired, for he was a humourist and a peaceful man. Going down
the hill he met Porson and Wainwright. "Either that man is a genius
or he is a dangerous lunatic," said he. "Just go up and look at his
green." And he continued his way, his countenance brightened by a
pleasant anticipation of a cheerful affray round an easel in the
gloaming, and the shedding of much green paint.
But to Porson and Wainwright Mr Watkins was less aggressive, and
explained that the green was intended to be the first coating of his
picture. It was, he admitted in response to a remark, an absolutely
new method, invented by himself. But subsequently he became more
reticent; he explained he was not going to tell every passer-by the
secret of his own particular style, and added some scathing remarks
upon the meanness of people "hanging about" to pick up such tricks of
the masters as they could, which immediately relieved him of their
company.
Twilight deepened, first one then another star appeared. The rooks
amid the tall trees to the left of the house had long since lapsed
into slumbrous silence, the house itself lost all the details of its
architecture and became a dark grey outline, and then the windows of
the salon shone out brilliantly, the conservatory was lighted up, and
here and there a bedroom window burnt yellow. Had anyone approached
the easel in the park it would have been found deserted. One brief
uncivil word in brilliant green sullied the purity of its canvas.
Mr Watkins was busy in the shrubbery with his assistant, who had
discreetly joined him from the carriage-drive.
Mr Watkins was inclined to be self-congratulatory upon the ingenious
device by which he had carried all his apparatus boldly, and in the
sight of all men, right up to the scene of operations. "That's the
dressing-room," he said to his assistant, "and, as soon as the maid
takes the candle away and goes down to supper, we'll call in. My! how
nice the house do look, to be sure, against the starlight, and with
all its windows and lights! Swopme, Jim, I almost wish I _was_ a
painter-chap. Have you fixed that there wire across the path from the
laundry?"
He cautiously approached the house until he stood below the
dressing-room window, and began to put together his folding ladder.
He was much too experienced a practitioner to feel any unusual
excitement. Jim was reconnoitring the smoking-room. Suddenly, close
beside Mr Watkins in the bushes, there was a violent crash and a
stifled curse. Someone had tumbled over the wire which his assistant
had just arranged. He heard feet running on the gravel pathway beyond.
Mr Watkins, like all true artists, was a singularly shy man, and
he incontinently dropped his folding ladder and began running
circumspectly through the shrubbery. He was indistinctly aware of two
people hot upon his heels, and he fancied that he distinguished the
outline of his assistant in front of him. In another moment he had
vaulted the low stone wall bounding the shrubbery, and was in the open
park. Two thuds on the turf followed his own leap.
It was a close chase in the darkness through the trees. Mr Watkins was
a loosely-built man and in good training, and he gained hand-over-hand
upon the hoarsely panting figure in front. Neither spoke, but, as Mr
Watkins pulled up alongside, a qualm of awful doubt came over him. The
other man turned his head at the same moment and gave an exclamation
of surprise. "It's not Jim," thought Mr Watkins, and simultaneously
the stranger flung himself, as it were, at Watkin's knees, and they
were forthwith grappling on the ground together. "Lend a hand, Bill,"
cried the stranger as the third man came up. And Bill did--two hands
in fact, and some accentuated feet. The fourth man, presumably Jim,
had apparently turned aside and made off in a different direction. At
any rate, he did not join the trio.
Mr Watkins' memory of the incidents of the next two minutes is
extremely vague. He has a dim recollection of having his thumb in the
corner of the mouth of the first man, and feeling anxious about
its safety, and for some seconds at least he held the head of the
gentleman answering to the name of Bill, to the ground by the hair. He
was also kicked in a great number of different places, apparently by a