CHAPTER II.
In which a Philosopher wrestles with the Problem of Identity.
The Professor was in deeper water than ever. He had been called some name or other at the beginning of this conversation. What name he could not remember. What the friendlier of the two beasts meant by "a letter" he could not conceive until Jimmy, continuing, partly enlightened him.
"You will have to sign the brief note we have drafted here to accompany your payment. It 's obvious."
Professor Higginson dimly guessed that he was wanted to safeguard them in some way against the consequences of his kidnapping. … Well, he had made up his mind, and he would not depart from it. He nodded again cheerfully enough, and his eyes were as acquiescent as ever.
Jimmy leaned forward, and in set tones of some gravity, said formally—
We understand, this gentleman and I, that you acknowledge the payment due to us, and if we take off the—er—the impediment which we were compelled to put over your mouth, you will act up to your promise and you will pay us?"
For the third time the Professor nodded vigorously.
"And you will sign the note?"
He nodded even more vigorously once again.
"Very well," said Jimmy in the tone of a great arbitrator who has managed to settle matters without unpleasantness. "Melba, be good enough to untie your aunt's shawl, which for the moment prevents this gentleman from performing his promise by word of mouth."
Melba did as he was bid, jerking—as Mr. Higginson thought—the knot in the fabric rather ungently. He treasured it up against him.
The shawl was off, Melba was seated again, and Professor Higginson breathed the night air untainted by the savour of an ancient human garment, and an aunt's at that.
"I need not repeat all I have just been saying," said Jimmy, "but you must confirm it before we go further."
"I do," said the Professor, with a curiously successful affectation of cheerfulness for so untrained an actor. "Yes, certainly, gentlemen, I confirm it."
There was, if anything, a little precipitancy in his manner, as though he were eager to pay, as he most certainly was to get rid of those ropes round his arms and legs.
There was another thing bothering the Pragmatist. The Green Overcoat, which still wrapped him all about, was being woefully delayed. If the delay lasted much longer the owner might miss it … and then, the tight cords at its elbows were doing it no good. They might actually be marking it. The thought made Professor Higginson very uncomfortable indeed. He had no idea whose it was, but it certainly belonged to someone of importance. … He wished he had never seen it.
He was not to be the last to wish that, but Hell is a hard taskmaster and the Professor was caught.
"We think," said Jimmy a little pompously, "at least, I think" (after glancing at Melba).
"I don't," said Melba.
The Professor was caught
"Well, I think," continued Jimmy, "and I think we ought to think, that you are doing the right thing, and, well, I like to tell you so."
The relations between Jimmy and his prisoner were getting almost cordial. He pushed the table so that that prisoner, when he was untied, should be able to write upon it. He put before him a type-written sheet of note-paper, an envelope, an ink-bottle, and a pen, which, with the exception of the benches on which he and his companion sat, the table and the chair, were all the furniture the place contained.
"And now, sir," added Jimmy, going behind the Psychologist and releasing his elbows, "now, sir" (here he wound the rope round the Professor's waist, secured it, and left his legs still tied to the chair rungs), "now, sir, perhaps we can come to business!"
Poor Mr. Higginson had never been so cramped in his life. He was far from young. The circulation in his lower arms had almost stopped. He brought them forward painfully and slowly and composed them upon the table, then his right hand slowly sought his waistcoat pocket, where reposed the sovereign and half-sovereign of his ransom.
"Of course," he began, intending to explain the smallness of the sum, for he could not but feel that it was very little gold for so considerable a circumstance of paper formalities and violence, "of course" when Jimmy interrupted him.
"I need not tell you the sum," said that youth rather coldly.
"Oh, no," twittered Melba, "he knows that well enough!" Then added, "G-r-r-r!" as in anger at a dog.
"Well—er—gentlemen, I confess"—began Mr. Higginson, hesitating.
"To be frank," said Jimmy rather sharply, "we all three know the sum perfectly well, and you perhaps, sir, with your business habits and your really peculiar ideas upon honour, best of all. It 's two thousand pounds," he concluded calmly.
"Two thousand pounds?" shrieked the Professor.
"What did you expect?" broke in Melba an octave higher. "A bonus and a presentation gold watch?"
"Two thousand pounds!" repeated the bewildered Philosopher in a gasping undertone.
"Yes," rapped out Jimmy smartly, "two thousand pounds! … Really! After all that has passed"
"But," shouted the Professor wildly, saying the first words that came to him, "I haven't got such a sum in the world. I—I don't know what you mean?"
Jimmy's face took on a very severe and dreadful expression.
"Mr. Brassington," he began in a slow and modulated tone.
"I 'm not Mr. Brassington, whoever Mr. Brassington may be," protested the unhappy victim, half understanding the portentous error. "What on earth do you take me for?"
Jimmy by this time was in a mood to stand no nonsense.
"Mr. Brassington," he said, "you broke your word to us once this evening when you kicked out at Melba, and that ought to have been a lesson to me. I was foolish enough to believe you when you gave your word a second time. I certainly believed it when you gave it a third time after we released you." (It was a very partial release, but no matter.) "Now," said he, setting his lips firmly, "if you try to shuffle out of the main matter, I warn you it will be the worse for you, very much the worse for you, indeed. You will be good enough to sign us a cheque for two thousand pounds, and to sign the type-written acknowledgment in front of you."
Men in bewilderment do foolish things even when they are men of judgment, and Professor Higginson certainly was not that. His next words were fatal.
"Do you suppose I carry a cheque-book on me?" he roared.
"Melba," said Jimmy quietly, in the tones of a general officer commanding an orderly, "go through him."
The Professor having said a foolish word, followed it by a still more foolish action. He dived into the right-hand pocket of the Green Overcoat with a gesture purely instinctive. Melba was upon him like a fat hawk, almost wrenched his arm from its socket, and drew from that right-hand pocket a noble great cheque-book of a brilliant red, with a leather backing such as few cheque-books possess, and having printed on it in bold plutocratic characters—
"John Brassington, Esqr.,
'Lauderdale,'
Crampton Park, Ormeston."
Melba conveyed the cheque-book solemnly to Jimmy, and the two young men sat down again opposite their involuntary creditor, spreading it out open before them in an impressive manner.
"Mr. Brassington," said Jimmy, "what do I see here? Everything that I should have expected from a man of your prominence in the business world and of your known careful habits. I see neatly written upon the fly-leaf, ‘Private Account,' and the few counterfoils to the cheques already drawn carefully noted. I perceive," continued Jimmy, summing up boldly, "the sum of £50 marked 'self' upon the second of this month. The object of your munificence does not surprise me. Upon the next counterfoil I see marked £173 10s. It is in settlement of a bill—a garage bill. I am glad to see that you recognise and pay some of your debts. The third counterfoil," he said, peering more closely, "relates to a cheque made out only yesterday. It is for £5, and appears to have been sent to your son, who, as you know, is our honoured friend."
"I protest …" interrupted Professor Higginson loudly.
"At your peril!" retorted Melba.
"You will do well, Mr. Brassington, to let me finish what I have to say," continued Jimmy. "I say your son, our honoured friend, as you know well—only too well! These three cheques are your concern, not ours. No further cheque has been drawn, and on the fourth cheque form, Mr. Brassington, you will be good enough to sign your name. You will make it out to James McAuley—a small c and a big A, if you please; an ey, not an a—in your letters you did not do me the courtesy to spell my name as I sign it. You will then hand me the instrument, and I will settle with my friend."
At the words "my friend" he waved courteously to Melba, gave a ridiculous little bow, which in his youthful folly he imagined to be dignified.
The Professor sat stolidly and said nothing. His thoughts hurried confusedly within him, and the one that ran fastest was, "I am in a hole!"
"I do assure you, gentlemen," he said at last, "that there is some great mistake. I have no doubt that—that a Mr. Brassington owes you the money, no doubt at all. And perhaps you were even justified in the very strong steps you took to recover it. I should be the last to blame you." (The liar!) "But as I am not Mr. Brassington, but, if you want to know, Professor Higginson, of the Guelph University, I cannot oblige you."
When the Professor had thus delivered himself there was a further silence, only interrupted by Melba's addressing to him a very offensive epithet. "Swine!" he said.
"Are we to understand, Mr. Brassington," said Jimmy, when he had considered the matter, "that after all that you have said you refuse to sign? Did you imagine" (this with rising anger in his voice) "that we would compromise for a smaller sum?"
"I tell you I am not Mr. Brassington!" answered the Psychologist tartly.
"Oh!" returned Jimmy, now thoroughly aroused and as naturally as could be, "and you aren't wearing Mr. Brassington's clothes, Brassington, are you? And this isn't Mr. Brassington's cheque-book, is it, Brassington? And you 're not a confounded old liar as well as a cursed puritanical thief? Now, look here, if you don't sign now, you 'll be kept here till you do. You 'll be locked up without food, except just the bread and water to keep you alive; and if you trust to your absence being noticed, I can tell you it won't be. We know all about that. You were going to Belgium for a week, weren't you, by the night train to London? You were taking no luggage, because you were going to pick up a bag at your London office, as you always do on these business journeys. You were going on business, and I only hope the business will wait. Oh, we know all about it, Brassington! We have a clear week ahead of us, and you won't only get bread and water in that week; and I don't suppose anybody would bother if we made the week ten days."
I have already mentioned in the course of this painful narrative the name of the Infernal Power. My reader will be the less surprised to follow the process of Professor Higginson's mind in this terrible crux. He sat there internally collapsed and externally nothing very grand. His two masters, stern and immovable, watched him from beyond the table with its one candle. It was deep night. There was no sound save the lashing of the storm against the window-panes.
He first considered his dear home (which was a pair of rooms in a lodging in Tugela Street, quite close to his work). Then there came into his mind the prospect of sleepless nights in a bare room, of bread and water, and worse. …
What was "worse"?
His resolution sank and sank. The process of his thought continued. The eyes of the two young men, hateful and determined, almost hypnotised him.
If the money of this ridiculous John Brassington, whoever he might be, was there in his pocket, he would stand firm. He hoped he would stand firm. But after all, it was not money. It was only a bit of paper. He would be able to make the thing right. … He was very ignorant of such things, but he knew it took some little time to clear a cheque. … He remembered someone telling him that it took three days, and incidentally he grotesquely remembered the same authority telling him that every cheque cost the bank sevenpence. … The rope hurt damnably, and he was a man who could not bear to miss his sleep, it made him ill. … And he was feeling very ill already. He could carefully note the number of the cheque, anyhow. Yes, he could do that. He had this man Brassington's address. He had the name of the bank. It was on the cheques. He would have the courage to expose the whole business in the morning. He would stop that cheque. He clearly remembered the Senate of the University having made a mistake two years before and how the cheque was stopped. … It was a perfectly easy business. … Of course, the actual signing of another man's name is an unpleasant thing for the fingers to do, but that is only nervousness—next door to superstition. One must be guided by reason. Ultimately it would do no harm at all, for the cheque would never be cleared.
Professor Higginson leant lovingly upon that word "cleared." It had a technical, salutary sound. It was his haven of refuge. Cheques had to go up to London, hadn't they? and to go to a place called a Clearing House? He knew that much, though economics were not his department of learning. He knew that much, and he was rather proud of it—as Professors are of knowing something outside their beat.
While the Mystery of Evil was thus pressing its frontal assault on poor Professor Higginson's soul, that soul was suddenly attacked in flank by a brilliant thought: the cheque would enable him to trace his tormentors!
Come, that really was a brilliant thought! He was prouder of himself than ever. He would be actually aiding justice if he signed! The police could always track down someone where there was paper concerned. No one could escape the hands of British Law if he had once given himself away in a written document!
This flank attack of the Evil One determined the Philosopher. In a subdued voice he broke the long silence. He said—
"Give me the pen!"
Jimmy solemnly dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to him, not releasing the chequebook, but tearing out the cheque form for him to sign; and as he did so the unseen Serpent smiled. In a hand as bold as he could assume Professor Higginson deliberately wrote at the bottom right hand-corner the fatal words "John Brassington."
He was beginning to fill in the amount, when to his astonishment the cheque was snatched from his hands, while Jimmy thundered out—
"Do you suppose, sir, that you can deceive us in such a childish way as that? Does a man ever sign his cheque like a copybook?"
He glared at the signature.
"It 's faked! That 's no more your signature, Old Brassington, than it 's mine!" he shouted. "That 's how you write."
With the words he pulled a note from his pocket and tossed it to the unhappy man.
Melba made himself pleasant by an interjection—
"What a vile old shuffler it is!" he said.
And Mr. Higginson saw written on the note, dated but a week before—
James Macaulay, Esq.,
"Sir,
"I will have no further correspondence with you upon the matter.
"I am,
"J. Brassington."
"Your obedient Servant,
It was a strong, hard but rapid hand, the hand of a man who had done much clerk's work in his youth. It had certainly no resemblance to the signature which the Psychologist had appended to the cheque form, and that form now lay torn into twenty pieces by the angry Jimmy, who had also torn up the counterfoil and presented him with another cheque.
"I can't do it, gentlemen!" he said firmly—it was indeed too true—"I can't do it!"
Melba jumped up suddenly.
"I 'm not going to waste any more time with the old blighter!" he said shrilly. "Come on, Jimmy!" and Jimmy yielded.
They blew out the candle, left the room with a curse, turning the key in the lock from the outside, and the unfortunate Mr. Higginson was left bound tightly to his chair in complete darkness, and I am sorry to say upon the verge of tears.
Nature had done what virtue could not do and the Professor was stumped.