The Twickenham Peerage. Marsh Richard

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      Now that he was physically absent, the original impression recurred with its former force. I told myself, over and over again, that the man was really and truly Twickenham. His denial of the fact I accounted nothing. He always had been fond, with or without apparent cause, of denying his own identity. That game was old. When detected in an invidious position, as he was apt to be, he would swear, using all manner of oaths and with a face of brass, that he was somebody altogether different. He had been known to do it repeatedly. The thing was notorious.

      If he was Twickenham, nothing was more probable than that he should assert the contrary. It was part of his crack-brainedness. I ought to have taken that for granted from the first. His voice and manner were the two chief points on which he differed from my recollections of Leonard. They could be simulated. The man had always been an actor. Still, I could scarcely force the man to claim his peerage. Little would be gained by my proclaiming, 'Behold, the Marquis of Twickenham!' if he himself declared that he was nothing of the kind. The onus of proof would rest on me. The cost of it! And what profit would accrue even from success?

      However, I was not altogether at the end of my resources. I was too near drowning not to clutch at every straw which offered. I believed I saw something very like a plank. If the man was not available in one way he might be in another. Even if he was Twickenham, I fancied that I had hit upon just the sort of devil's trick which would appeal to his madman's sense of humour. If he would only keep his appointment in the morning. There was the rub. That night I blamed myself a hundred times for allowing him to pass out of my sight. It was long odds against my seeing him again.

      Yet if there had been a taker, and I had laid the odds, I should have lost. The man was on the spot to time.

      It was before the appointed time when I alighted from a hansom outside the York Hotel. The place seemed more of a tavern than an hotel, but there was an hotel entrance. Into this I walked. Behind the swing doors stood a person apparently in authority.

      'Can I see Mr. Montagu Babbacombe?'

      I expected him to say that no such person was known in that establishment. Instead of that he answered my question with another.

      'What name?'

      'John Smith?'

      He addressed a waiter.

      'Show this gentleman in to Mr. Babbacombe.'

      I was shown in to Mr. Babbacombe. The 'Sleeping Man' was taking his ease in what I took to be a private sitting-room. That is, he reclined on a couch. On a small table at his side was a bottle of whisky and a tumbler. On a larger table, where it was well out of his reach, was a bottle of water-full. He was smoking what I knew by its perfume to be a good cigar. He was dressed in a suit of dark grey, which not only seemed to be a good fit, but to be well cut. He wore a high collar, and a white Jarvey tie, in which was thrust a diamond pin. He looked as if he had something to do with horses. He also looked as if he was Twickenham. If he was not-then, as the phrase goes, I was prepared to eat my hat.

      He paid not the slightest heed to my entrance, but, without even a movement of his head, continued in the enjoyment of his cigar. I was angered by his air of perfect calmness. The impudence of the thing!

      'May I ask what you mean by your extraordinary behaviour-extraordinary even for you? Do you take me for an utter fool?'

      'Name of Smith?'

      'Name be hanged! Do you suppose that I don't know you? – that I couldn't bring a hundred persons into this room who'd know you on the instant?'

      'Bring two.'

      'What do you propose to gain?'

      'That's it.'

      'Why do you conceal your identity?'

      'I'm wondering.'

      'If I bring the landlord into this room and tell him who you are, will you venture to deny it?'

      'Depends on who I am.'

      'I believe you're a criminal lunatic.'

      'The same to you. And many of 'em.'

      He sipped at his glass. He filled me with such rage-which was, after all, unreasonable rage-that I was unwilling to trust myself to speak. My impulse was to seize him by the scuff of his neck and drag him home with me, and show him to them all; when the question of his identity would be settled on the spot. However, I remembered in time that that was not the purpose which had brought me there. My intention was a very different one; and I proposed to carry it out. That is, if his humour fitted mine.

      'Have you ever heard of the Marquis of Twickenham?'

      'The Marquis of Twickenham?' Leaning back, he stroked his chin with a gesture which so vividly recalled a favourite trick of Leonard's that I could have struck him for thinking that I could be fooled so easily. 'Might.'

      'Are you aware that in appearance you resemble him?'

      'Good-looking chap.'

      'He was a poor devil last night.'

      'Extremes meet.'

      'I am actuated in what I am going to say by your own eccentric behaviour. I need not tell you that I should not say anything of the kind were you to act like a reasonable being. But since, beyond the shadow of a doubt, you are partly mad, I am going to take it for granted that you are wholly mad. I make this preliminary observation because I want us to understand each other.'

      'You take some understanding.'

      'So do you. Are we private here?'

      'You might look under the couch. I don't know that there's a cupboard.'

      'I won't ask if I can trust you, because I know I can't.'

      'Let's begin as we mean to go on.'

      'Therefore, I will tell you at once that you can make what use you like of what I am about to say to you. Things have reached a point which finds me indifferent. Besides, talking's a game at which two can play.'

      'That's so.'

      'I said to you last night that I wished to see you this morning on a matter of importance.'

      'Doesn't it strike you, Mr. – Smith, that you take some time in getting there?'

      'I take my own time.'

      'You do. And mine. Perhaps you're engaging a room in this hotel.'

      'You've done some curious things, Mr. – Babbacombe.'

      'That's my name. The same as yours is Smith.'

      'Perhaps you're willing to do another.'

      'For money.'

      'Are you willing to die?'

      'My hair?'

      'I'll put the question in another way.'

      'I would. It might sound better.'

      'From what I have seen of you during the last few days I believe that you are capable of feigning death.'

      'I'm capable of feigning a good many things?'

      'I СКАЧАТЬ