The Garotters Part 4

ROBERTS: 'He is.'

WILLIS: 'And I don't see how you're going to satisfy him that it was all a joke. Joke? It WASN'T a joke! It was a real a.s.sault and a bona fide robbery, and Bemis can prove it.'

ROBERTS: 'But he would never insist--'

WILLIS: 'Oh, I don't know about that. He's pretty queer, Bemis is.

You can't say what an old gentleman like that will or won't do. If he should choose to carry it into court--'

ROBERTS: 'Court!'

WILLIS: 'It might be embarra.s.sing. And anyway, it would have a very strange look in the papers.'

ROBERTS: 'The papers! Good gracious!'

WILLIS: 'Ten years from now a man that heard you mentioned would forget all about the acquittal, and say: "Roberts? Oh yes! Wasn't he the one they sent to the House of Correction for garotting an old friend of his on the Common!" You see, it wouldn't do to go and make a clean breast of it to Bemis.'

ROBERTS: 'I see.'

WILLIS: 'What will you do?'

ROBERTS: 'I must never say anything to him about it. Just let it go.'

WILLIS: 'And keep his watch? I don't see how you could manage that. What would you do with the watch? You might sell it, of course--'

ROBERTS: 'Oh no, I COULDN'T do that.'

WILLIS: 'You might give it away to some deserving person; but if it got him into trouble--'

ROBERTS: 'No, no; that wouldn't do, either.'

WILLIS: 'And you can't have it lying around; Agnes would be sure to find it, sooner or later.'

ROBERTS: 'Yes.'

WILLIS: 'Besides, there's your conscience. Your conscience wouldn't LET you keep Bemis's watch away from him. And if it would, what do you suppose Agnes's conscience would do when she came to find it out? Agnes hasn't got much of a head--the want of it seems to grow upon her; but she's got a conscience as big as the side of a house.'

ROBERTS: 'Oh, I see; I see.'

WILLIS, coming up and standing over him, with his hands in his pockets: 'I tell you what, Roberts, you're in a box.'

ROBERTS, abjectly: 'I know it, Willis; I know it. What do you suggest? You MUST know some way out of it.'

WILLIS: 'It isn't a simple matter like telling them to start the elevator down when they couldn't start her up. I've got to think it over.' He walks to and fro, Roberts's eyes helplessly following his movements. 'How would it do to--No, that wouldn't do, either.'

ROBERTS: 'What wouldn't?'

WILLIS: 'Nothing. I was just thinking--I say, you might--Or, no, you couldn't.'

ROBERTS: 'Couldn't what?'

WILLIS: 'Nothing. But if you were to--No; up a stump that way too.'

ROBERTS: 'Which way? For mercy's sake, my dear fellow, don't seem to get a clew if you haven't it. It's more than I can bear.' He rises, and desperately confronts Willis in his promenade. 'If you see any hope at all--'

WILLIS, stopping: 'Why, if you were a different sort of fellow, Roberts, the thing would be perfectly easy.'

ROBERTS: 'Very well, then. What sort of fellow do you want me to be? I'll be any sort of fellow you like.'

WILLIS: 'Oh, but you couldn't! With that face of yours, and that confounded conscience of yours behind it, you would give away the whitest lie that was ever told.'

ROBERTS: 'Do you wish me to lie? Very well, then, I will lie.

What is the lie?'

WILLIS: 'Ah, now you're talking like a man! I can soon think up a lie if you're game for it. Suppose it wasn't so very white--say a delicate blonde!'

ROBERTS: 'I shouldn't care if it were as black as the ace of spades.'

WILLIS: 'Roberts, I honour you! It isn't everybody who could steal an old gentleman's watch, and then be so ready to lie out of it.

Well, you HAVE got courage--both kinds--moral and physical.'

ROBERTS: 'Thank you, Willis. Of course I don't pretend that I should be willing to lie under ordinary circ.u.mstances; but for the sake of Agnes and the children--I don't want any awkwardness about the matter; it would be the death of me. Well, what do you wish me to say? Be quick; I don't believe I could hold out for a great while. I don't suppose but what Mr. Bemis would be reasonable, even if I--'

WILLIS: 'I'm afraid we couldn't trust him. The only way is for you to take the bull by the horns.'

ROBERTS: 'Yes?'

WILLIS: 'You will not only have to lie, Roberts, but you will have to wear an air of innocent candour at the same time.'

ROBERTS: 'I--I'm afraid I couldn't manage that. What is your idea?'

WILLIS: 'Oh, just come into the room with a laugh when we go back, and say, in an offhand way, "By the way, Agnes, Willis and I made a remarkable discovery in my dressing-room; we found my watch there on the bureau. Ha, ha, ha!" Do you think you could do it?'

ROBERTS: 'I--I don't know.'

WILLIS: 'Try the laugh now.'

ROBERTS: 'I'd rather not--now.'

WILLIS: 'Well, try it, anyway.'

ROBERTS: 'Ha, ha, ha!'

WILLIS: 'Once more.'

ROBERTS: 'Ha, ha, ha!'

WILLIS: 'Pretty ghastly; but I guess you can come it.'

ROBERTS: 'I'll try. And then what?'