World's End Part 38

He hesitated. Prudence told him to go away; but talk of prudence to a man who has just escaped into liberty! He walked in; the performance was nearly over, but he paid and went into the pit. "After all," he tried to persuade himself, "there's more safety in a crowd. When I go out, I can take a cab and drive to an hotel and say I've lost my train through the theatre; that will account for my having no luggage."

As he struggled in among the crowd, he glanced up at the boxes; his pushing caused a little movement, and people in the boxes looked down.

He caught an eye watching him--he turned pale. It was Theodore, who rose at once and left his box. Poor Fulk gasped for breath; he pushed to get out. The audience was annoyed at the movement and disturbance-- some gentlemen held him down--the notes of the singer's voice floated over, musically sweet. Poor Fulk!

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Science, as ill.u.s.trated by the printing press, the telegraph, the railway, is a double-edged sword. At the same moment that it puts an enormous power in the hands of the good man, it also offers an equal advantage to the evil disposed.

Theodore Marese was a man of science; and he was a typical man of science--hard, clear, bright, pitiless as the dissecting knife.

Unfortunately, he applied his knowledge and his undoubted ability to the worst of uses. One pursuit to which he had devoted special effort, and over which he had spent many thoughtful hours, was the problem how to dispose of a dead human body. There was an old superst.i.tious saying that the earth will not hide blood--it will out. Theodore was of a different opinion. Science had conquered everything: science could conquer this. Yet it certainly was a difficult task. Did you ever contemplate the difficulty? Suppose you slay your enemy--slay him secretly, effectually: now, what next? Try to bury it: the loose earth speaks for itself. Exhalations will rise. Quicklime it, and hasten its decomposition: there will remain, perhaps, only a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton, or some coin left in the pocket. Throw it into the water: it will rise to the surface. Burn it, and all the city will know from the odour. The more you think over it, the more difficult it will appear. But Theodore had found the solution.

In that laboratory of his which Fulk wished to explore, and which was a harmless-looking room--without so much as a phial or a microscope in view, there was at one corner, not very far from the fireplace, a long upright cupboard, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Or, rather, the cupboard rose about halfway, and a bookcase reached the remainder.

It was a shallow cupboard. There were no locks to the doors. Any one could pull them open, and see a few trifles within--such trifles as might be found in any bachelor's room. The bookcase was also shallow, but there was depth enough back for some rows of books. The books were harmless enough--mostly medical works, just such works as any one can purchase who cares to. Nothing certainly here to excite suspicion. Yet behind that cupboard and bookcase was concealed the most deadly, insidious, awful engine ever constructed by man--an engine about which no secrecy exists either, and which living men have seen in operation; which has been described in the papers; and which the legislature must put down, or strictly regulate.

Upon removing one of the books, Theodore had merely to push aside a small bra.s.s plate, which looked like part of a hinge, and there was a keyhole; turn the key, and the whole cupboard swung bodily out into the room. It was, in fact, a blind, placed in front of a narrow inner door, which rose to the ceiling. When the door was open, there stood revealed an iron box, not unlike an extremely long coffin, placed on end. There was a keyhole--two key-holes--to this iron box. Open the first, and there was a large cavity, tall enough for a man to sit on a bar which went across it, without his head touching the iron roof. In this iron roof there was an opening, not unlike a small grating. Put the key in the second keyhole, above the first, and there was the apparatus, greatly improved by Theodore, but in substance the same as used in other places--the apparatus for absorbing the smell of the gases which arise from a human body when consumed by heat. Every one knows that if the smoke of a pipe be pa.s.sed through water in a peculiar way, it loses its pungency, and you can inhale it with more comfort: this is the hookah.

Everybody also knows that manufacturers in great towns are compelled to consume their own smoke, and all have seen a lump of loaf sugar suck up a spoonful of tea. A combination of these principles formed Theodore's deadly engine, which was nothing more or less than a private cremation stove. The ordinary fire in the harmless-looking fireplace produced sufficient heat, when a draught was caused by turning a winch with a multiplying wheel placed at the lower part of the cupboard, just beneath the cavity which was to receive the body. This body, made thoroughly insensible and unconscious by being saturated with chloroform or strong drugs--or, if you like, still more insensible with a trifle of a.r.s.enic-- had merely to be lifted into its iron coffin, the door closed, the blast applied, and in a couple of hours or so there would remain a little heap of ashes, and a little melted metal, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, coins, and such like, things easily dropped into a ca.n.a.l, dust easily mixed with the ashes under the grate. Now, where was all that superst.i.tious nonsense about the difficulty of getting rid of a dead body?

Whether Theodore had ever used this awful engine was never known; but it existed, and it may exist at this present hour in other equally unsuspected places. What I say is, that the legislature should take cremation in hand. If any one had been shut up in that iron box alive-- only stupefied for a few minutes with a drug, put in asleep; if they had been awakened by the red-hot iron, of what use would their screams have been--deadened by the confinement, deadened by thick walls?

"I am extremely sorry," said Theodore Marese, meeting Violet at the railway station, and handing her to a carriage; "I regret very much that Mr Malet could not come. He has, in fact, gone upon a special mission.

A gentleman in the Isle of Man, who owed us a large sum, died suddenly; his affairs are in confusion, and Mr Malet was obliged to start this afternoon to see to our debt. I am the bearer of his regrets. At all events, he will not be absent more than a week."

Violet was naturally much disappointed, but after all, it was only a week or ten days, and they treated her with great courtesy at the residence at the asylum. A matron was always ready to afford her companionship; no intrusion was made upon her privacy. Theodore occasionally called upon her in the most respectful way. Books, papers, anything she seemed to wish for came at once. The matron, a lady-like person, took her into the town to do some shopping. Everything but a letter from Aymer. However, that was easily explained--the sea-post was always uncertain. Theodore took her over a great part of the asylum; she was astonished at its size, and the number of its inmates. It saddened her, and she still more longed for Aymer to return.

Why it was that she was not confined like Aymer was never wholly explained, but there is some reason to think that Marese Baskette had a faint idea of marrying her himself. He was, as we have seen, nervous about his marriage with Lady Lechester: lest anything should happen to prevent or delay it. This girl, Violet, he well knew, had a good claim to the estate; suppose he married her? She was a second string to his bow. As to the rumour of his being her father's murderer, he would trust to his own wit and handsome face to overcome that. He never questioned his power to have her if he chose--but Lady Lechester first.

Theodore had therefore his instructions to treat her well, and give her seeming liberty, and above all to keep her in good temper. Theodore did as he was bid. This seems the natural solution of the problem. If she had known that Aymer was so near!

It happened at this time that, on the seventh day after Violet's arrival, the famous singer, Mademoiselle F--o, of whom all the world was talking, was to sing for one night only in the Sternhold Hall.

Theodore, finding that she was getting restless and thoughtful, seized upon this opportunity to while away her gloom. He proposed that she should accompany him to the theatre or hall, and Violet, who had never heard an opera in her life, was naturally enough delighted to go. They went, and as it chanced it was the very night that Aymer and poor Fulk chose to make their escape. Thus it was that Theodore's eye caught sight of Fulk, the moment the commotion caused by his late entrance attracted his attention. Violet was extremely pleased; the notes of the music and song filled her with an exquisite enjoyment. She was very beautiful, leaning over the front of her box, and scores of gla.s.ses were directed at her. Had she known that at that very moment Aymer was risking his life to escape!

The difficulty in this history-writing is to describe two or three events at the same moment. The eye can only read one line at a time, how then are you to bring two scenes at once before it? Some allowance must be made for the infirmities of the pen. There were two scenes proceeding at the moment that Theodore's eye fell upon Fulk--three scenes, if you reckon the opera on the stage. First, poor Fulk shivering with terror, struggling to escape, the crowd round execrating him, his mind in a whirl, reproaching himself with his folly, and the tall figure of Theodore, who had come down from the box, pointing him out to an attendant and pushing forward to seize him. On the stage, La Sonnambula was uttering her sweetest trill; Marese Baskette's mistress in the full height of her glory, with hundreds upon hundreds of the elite of that great city intent upon her every accent--hundreds upon hundreds of well-dressed, fashionable, wealthy ladies and gentlemen, most of whom knew her connection with Marese, the popular M.P., were there. This very knowledge attracted them in shoals. This was scene two.

The third scene was underneath. There in the darkness and gloom of the cellars, amid the slimy pools of water, the hideous fungi, the loathsome toads and creeping things, the grey sewer-rats were at work. You have seen a ship launched--she stands firm as a rock till the last wedge is knocked away, then glides into the water. Something of the same kind was going on here beneath the feet of several hundred human beings.

These musty cellars and vaults under the Sternhold Hall, with their awkward approach, had been let at last. A London firm had given a small sum for them, and established a store of whisky casks. A dozen or so of whisky casks had been rolled down, a name put upon the door, and an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the newspaper. n.o.body could do business with this firm, their terms were too high. The whisky casks, in truth, contained pure spring water. It was an excuse, however, for men in rough jackets, who had evidently been at work, to go in and out of these vaults, and to take with them saws and chisels, hammers, and other harmless tools. The firm was, in fact, composed of a dozen or more of the sharpest sewer-rats in Stirmingham. Their little game was so delightfully simple--only a little gnawing to be done! When Theodore and Baskette went down into this place, they found the floor supported by timber pillars. Their idea was to blow it up. The sewer-rats were much cleverer--their idea was to saw through the wooden pillars, and let the roof or floor down, and with it many hundred shrieking, maimed, and mutilated human beings. How simple great ideas appear when once they are described! There is nothing novel in the idea either: the holy Saint Dunstan tried it at Calne, and found it answer admirably.

Some say odd accidents have happened to grand stands at race meetings, through iron bolts being inadvertently removed. When hundreds of well-dressed, fashionable people, ladies and gentlemen, with gold rings and diamonds, earrings and bracelets, watches, money, bank-notes, and similar valuables about them, not to mention rich cloaks and perhaps furs, were shrieking, struggling, groaning, maimed, mutilated, and broken to pieces, with jagged ends and splinters of deal sticking into their bodies, how nice and benevolent it would be to go in among and a.s.sist them; to lift up the broken arm, and lighten it of the ma.s.sive gold bracelet; to pull the horrid splinter out of the leg, and extract the well-filled purse; to alleviate the agony of the bruised shoulder or the broken back, and remove the choice fur or necklace of diamonds!

Thoughtful of the sewer-rats to provide this banquet of Christian charity!

The one difficulty had been to get the several hundred people there.

They had all in readiness for months, watching. They had it ready while the family council sat, and had deliberated about knocking the last wedge out at that time, but on reflection it was doubtful whether the Americans had much coin about them. Finally, one shrewd sewer-rat hit upon the idea of engaging Mademoiselle F--o to come down and sing. They paid her one hundred pounds in advance, with travelling expenses to come afterwards; and it would have been a good speculation in itself, for they took three hundred and fifty pounds, including the boxes. These boxes were a worry. They could not be let down, they were not built on wooden pillars; however, it was easy to shut one of the folding-doors at the entrance, and let the bolt drop into the stone--easy to raise a cry of "Fire!"--easy to imagine the crush at the door.

Easy also for me to enter into a catalogue of broken limbs, ribs, fractures, contusions, gashes, etc, etc--I shall leave it to the surgical imagination. But when hundreds of people, closely packed, are suddenly precipitated eighteen feet, amid splintering planks and crushing beams, it is probable that the hospitals will be full. This was the third scene preparing underneath.

Just as Fulk felt Theodore close to him--just as F--o uttered her sweetest trill--just as Violet was in the height of her enjoyment--the grey rat gave his last nibble--the last wedge was knocked away; and the floor went down. Poor Violet saw it all. She saw fourteen hundred hands suddenly thrown up into the air; she heard one awful cry, she felt the box tremble and vibrate, and the whole audience sank--sank as into one great pit. She turned deadly pale; she clung with both hands to the bal.u.s.trade; but she did not faint. It was all too quick.

Fulk was in a stooping position, struggling to escape. That saved him.

He fell with his body across a joist, which with a few others had not been sawn--some few had to be left to keep the floor apparently safe.

His arms flew out in front, his legs struggling behind; he was poised on the centre of his body. At any other time one might have laughed. In that terrible moment the instinctive love of life endowed him with unusual strength. He knew not how he did it, but he got astride of the joist; he worked himself along it; he reached one of the slender iron columns or shafts which supported the boxes and gallery. He who mistrusted his power to climb a rope, in that hour of horrors went up that shaft with ease, a.s.sisted by the scroll-work on it. He got into the very box where Violet sat, with straining eyes gazing into that bottomless pit. Exhausted, he fell on his knees beside her. Exhausted, he heard the cry of "Fire!"--heard the rush to the doors. He remained on his knees, gazing, like her, down into the pit.

The cry that rose up--the shouts, the groans, the shrieks--will ring in Fulk's ears till his death. Violet never heard a sound; her whole faculties were concentrated in her eyes. Heaps of human beings striving, heaving; fragments of dresses, opera cloaks fluttering from joists in mid-air; splinters with pieces of torn coats--Ah! I cannot write it; and she dares not tell me. One dares not dwell on this scene.

One more word only. Fulk glanced at the stage: still the lights burnt there; the painted scene was untouched; the singer, F--o, had fled by the stage staircase.

It is odd, but the idea since came to me--she was the cheese; the hall, the trap. The simile will hardly bear close investigation.

It was those few minutes that Fulk and Violet spent in motionless horror that saved them. They thereby escaped the crush at the door; that is to say, they escaped being in it; it was impossible to go out without seeing it. Fulk recovered himself a little: his first instinct was that of a gentleman--the lady beside him. He caught her arm, and dragged her up from her seat; and she came with him unresistingly out of the box into the corridor: he could feel her whole frame tremble. Perhaps, reasoning after the event, they might as well have sat still; but remember the awful cry of fire, the instinctive desire to escape, and that Fulk was still fearful of being re-captured! They reached the staircase--descended it to within a few feet of the pa.s.sage. There they saw a black ma.s.s, writhing, heaving: it was a ma.s.s of men and women who had fallen, and been trodden down. It extended along the whole pa.s.sage to the open air. Then Violet fainted, and hung in his arms inert, helpless. Poor girl! it was enough to unnerve the boldest man. Fulk grasped her round the waist--he was short remember--he struggled with her; got his feet on that awful floor of moving bodies; he stumbled, and staggered towards the air, gasping for breath, dragging, half-trailing her behind him. He cried for help--his arms failed him; his poor, weak leg--the one that had been broken--slipped down into a crevice between two fallen men, and strive how he would he could not get it out. A mist swam before his eyes; but he did not let go--gallant little Fulk!

Strong arms seized him. Cabmen, police, coachmen, grooms--idlers who had rushed to the doors--seized him, and pulled him out, and set him on his legs, and pushed the brandy flask between his teeth. And still Fulk instinctively held tight to his burden.

"Where shall I drive you, sir?" said one cabman.

"To--I don't know. Where is a good hotel?"

"The 'Dragon,' sir."

"Help to lift her in."

Fifteen minutes afterwards they were at the "Dragon." Fortunate, indeed; for all the city--the great city--was pouring in vast crowds to that horrible doorway; and those who were extricated found it difficult to get away.

Fulk and Violet were well cared for at the "Dragon," as, indeed, they would be after so terrible a catastrophe had brought out all the sympathy there was latent in that city. Besides, they were well-dressed, and Fulk was found to have money in his pocket-money, to do them justice, not one farthing of which was touched while he and Violet lay in adjoining rooms helpless--for they were helpless, utterly exhausted for six whole days. When Fulk, conscious that he must be stirring, did pull himself together and got out of bed, and into the sitting apartment, the first thing he saw was a newspaper on the table, the _Stirmingham Daily News_, which had come out with a deep line of black round every page, and in which was a list of the dead and wounded; the killed were very few in proportion to the injured. Fulk looked for Theodore Marese; he found his name among the dead. Theodore was gone to his account; he had been found on the floor of the vault face downwards, quite dead. There was a deep wound in his forehead, and it was thought that, in falling, his head had struck the iron-bound edge of one of the supposed whisky casks.

Violet, when she heard that Fulk was up, came out of her room and held out her hand. She was still dreadfully pale; but Fulk thought he had never seen a more beautiful face. She thanked him with tears in her eyes; and Fulk in vain tried to make her think that he had done nothing.

"I was up yesterday," she said, "but I could not go till you were better. Now, will you please take me back to the asylum?"

"The asylum?" said Fulk, in amazement.

"Yes; Mr Theodore will be anxious about me. I sent a message yesterday to him, but I have had no reply."

"Theodore Marese is dead," said Fulk, quietly. "I trust you have had nothing to do with him?"

"Dead!" Violet shuddered. "But I must go to the asylum; perhaps Aymer has returned."

"Aymer--what Aymer?"

An explanation followed, which will be readily understood. It was long before Violet could believe him; till at last his reiterated statements, and the little incidents he related, shook her incredulity. Even then she was partially doubtful, till Fulk chanced to look at the paper on the table. There was an advertis.e.m.e.nt in large type--"Escaped from the Asylum, Fulk Lechester and Aymer Malet." She could no longer doubt.

"How miserably I have been deceived," she said, and burst into tears.

Fulk was greatly shocked.

"You see now that I must hasten away," he said. "Doubtless this great catastrophe has occupied men's minds, and interfered to prevent a strict search; but now I have found you it is a folly to remain here. My rendezvous with Aymer is at The Place, World's End. We will go to World's End at once."

"Aymer will be there?" said Violet, brightening a little.

"Yes, Aymer will be there," said Fulk.

That evening they paid the bill--to the honour of the "Dragon," it was a very small one--and reached the station in a fly. The same train that had taken Aymer to London took them also. They stayed that night at an hotel, and next afternoon travelled down to the little station nearest to World's End. Another fly took them to the outskirts of Bury Wick village; and from thence they walked to The Place. Violet's heart sank; it was dark, not a light in the window, not a sign of life; the doors were fast. They broke a pane of gla.s.s, and Fulk opened the window, got in, and unbolted one of the back doors. Fulk had taken the precaution to bring with him a few provisions, and had also bought the local paper--_The Barnham Chronicle_--and stuffed it in with the ham in the basket, for he was anxious to read about his cousin Lady Agnes'

marriage. Violet made a fire, and got some tea: she had provided that.

Where was Aymer?