The Twickenham Peerage. Marsh Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ go?' I went with him outside the bedroom door. 'Are you a relative of his?'

      'I am not.'

      'If he has any relatives they should be sent for at once, if they wish to see him alive. It is quite possible that he will not live over to-day.'

      'What is the matter with him?'

      'It's a case of general collapse; all the vital organs are weak. He seems to have lived a hard and irregular life on top of an originally poor constitution. I hope you don't mind my speaking frankly.'

      'Not at all. I believe you are right. I have not seen him myself for fifteen years. We all thought he was dead.'

      'He will be soon. He's consumed by fever; his lungs are affected; there's practically no pulse, and scarcely any motion of the heart. The whole machine's run down. As you see for yourself, he's nothing but skin and bone. But it's from the heart we have most to fear. If you allow him to excite himself there may be an instant stoppage.'

      'Do you think we'd better have further advice?'

      'That's as you please. I myself should welcome it. And it might be more satisfactory to every one concerned. But I don't think you'll find that anything can be done. Here's my card.' He handed me one; from which it appeared that he was Mr. Robert White, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., of 93 Craven Street, W.C. 'I'll look in again as soon as I can; and then, perhaps, a consultation may be arranged. But if any of his relatives wish to see him, if I were you I should lose no time in letting them know the state that he is in.'

      He went. As I examined his card I said to myself.

      'There seems no doubt that it will not be difficult to obtain a certificate of the Marquis of Twickenham's death from him. I wonder if Mr. Robert White is a friend of Mr. Montagu Babbacombe.'

      Opening the door, I re-entered the room.

      CHAPTER VII

      MR. FOSTER INTERRUPTS

      All was still. The figure in the bed continued motionless. I walked up to the bed. Whether conscious or not of my presence, he gave no sign of movement.

      'Mr. Babbacombe,' I spoke a little louder. 'Mr. Babbacombe.' No answer. 'Don't you think this acting is a little overdone? Your friend Dr. White has gone. I'm all alone.'

      Still not an indication to show that the man yet lived. Against my better judgment I began to feel uneasy. He lay so very motionless.

      'Mr. Babbacombe! – Twickenham! – What are you afraid of? Don't you hear me, man?'

      I touched him with my hand. He made no movement in response. For a second I was in danger of making an ass of myself. Could the man have carried the farce too far, and was he really dead? I all but rushed from the room, or to the bell, or somewhere, to give the alarm. Then I felt him shiver beneath my touch. I do not think that I was ever more conscious of relief than when I felt his quivering flesh. For the moment I actually imagined that I had murdered him.

      The movement was but a quiver, dying away as soon as it came. I expected him, at the very least, to turn and open his eyes. But he did nothing of the kind. My impatience returned.

      'Twickenham!' I thought it safer to address him by that name. Walls have ears; especially, I fancy, in hotels. 'Twickenham! Confound it, man, are you playing the fool with me again?'

      No response. Concluding that this was a game which the gentleman before me intended to play in his own fashion, I awaited the issue of events. If he thought it necessary to keep up his character of dying man, and practise the lights and shadows of the rôle with me as audience, it was out of my power to prevent him. Yet as I watched how, bit by bit, he seemed to return to life; how long the process lasted; and how small the amount of vitality which he returned to seemed to be; I found myself in the curious position of being unable to decide where the sham began and the reality ended. Turning on to his back, apparently with difficulty, he gazed up with what was an astonishingly good imitation of an unseeing gaze.

      'Well? As the street boys have it, I hope you'll know me when you see me again. You do it uncommonly well. The only comment I have to make, if you'll excuse my making it, is that you do it too well.'

      What seemed a glimmer of consciousness stole over his skeleton countenance. It lighted up.

      'Doug!' he said.

      Mr. Babbacombe had not struck me as being corpulent, but it mystified me to think what he had done with the balance of his flesh within the twenty-four hours since I had seen him last. He looked as if he had lost stones; suggesting the possession of a secret for which certain jockeys of my acquaintance would give him all they possess. The voice was excellent: cracked and broken, like that of a man whose physical force is nearly spent.

      'Would you mind calling me Mr. Howarth when we are alone?'

      'Call you-what? See you-. Might as well ask you-call me-Marquis of Twickenham.'

      'I am quite willing, when we are in private, to call you Mr. Babbacombe.'

      'Call me-what? Mr. – Doug, you're drunk.'

      'As usual, you credit me with a condition of mental imbecility for which no degree of drunkenness of which I ever heard could adequately account.'

      'What-you talking about? Doug, I'm pretty bad.'

      'You seem to be. I've brought the five hundred pounds which you stipulated I should bring if you were not to recover.'

      'Five hundred pounds? Doug, I haven't seen that amount of money-Lord knows when.'

      'No? Then you shall see it now. Here it is-fifty tens. I thought you would prefer to have the notes all small.'

      I placed them between the wasted fingers, which still remained outside the coverlet. They just closed on them, but that was all. His eyes closed too.

      'Too late.'

      'Too late? What do you mean?'

      'What's the use-money to me now.'

      'You can have it buried with you.'

      'Yes-I can. Doug, why do you speak like that?'

      'Mr. Babbacombe, might I ask you not to be so thorough?'

      An expression of surprise lighted up his features.

      'He's wandering.'

      'I did not gather, from our conversation yesterday, that it was part of your scheme to pretend to be dying even when we were alone.'

      The expression of surprise had grown in intensity.

      'Doug!'

      'My good man, please don't look at me like that. And do not call me "Doug." Even if you were the person, and in the condition, you pretend to be, I should resent hearing the word come from your lips each second.'

      'He's mad!'

      It was said with a little gasp, in the most natural way in the world. Reclosing his eyes, if I could believe the evidence of my senses-which, in his case, I doubted if I was entitled to-he dozed.

      I began to understand that Mr. Montagu Babbacombe was even more of an artist than I had given him credit for. As I stood watching, with curious СКАЧАТЬ