Checkmate. Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan

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      “Distinguished by the special attention of the police, some of them,” said Longcluse.

      “Hé! that is very true,” said Monsieur Lebas – “very true, I am sure of it. See you that man there, Monsieur? Regard him for a moment. The tall man, who leans with his shoulder to the metal pillar of the gallery. My faith! he has observed my steps and followed me. I thought he was a spy. But my friend he says ‘No, that is a man of bad character, dismissed for bad practices from the police.’ Aha! he has watched me sideways, with the corner of his eye. I will watch him with the corner of mine – ha, ha!”

      “It proves, at all events, Lebas, that there are people here other than gentlemen and men of honest lives,” said Longcluse.

      “But,” said Lebas, brightening a little, “I have this weapon,” producing a dagger from the same pocket.

      “Put it back this instant. Worse and worse, my good friend. Don't you know that just now there is a police activity respecting foreigners, and that two have been arrested only yesterday on no charge but that of having weapons about their persons? I don't know what the devil you had best do.”

      “I can return to the Hill of Ludgate – eh?”

      “Pity to lose the game; they won't let you back again,” said Longcluse.

      “What shall I do?” said Lebas, keeping his hand now in his pocket on his treasure.

      Longcluse rubbed the tip of his finger a little over his eyebrow, thinking.

      “Listen to me,” said Longcluse, suddenly. “Is your brother-in-law here?”

      “No, Monsieur.”

      “Well, you have some London friend in the room, haven't you?”

      “One – yes.”

      “Only be sure he is one whom you can trust, and who has a safe pocket.”

      “Oh, yes, Monsieur, entirely! and I saw him place his purse so,” he said, touching his coat, over his heart, with his fingers.

      “Well, now, you can't manage it here, under the gaze of the people; but —where is best? Yes – you see those two doors at opposite sides in the wall, at the far end of the room? They open into two parallel corridors leading to the hall, and a little way down there is a cross passage, in the middle of which is a door opening into a smoking-room. That room will be deserted now, and there, unseen, you can place your money and dagger in his charge.”

      “Ah, thank you a hundred thousand times, Monsieur!” answered Lebas. “I shall be writing to the Baron van Boeren to-morrow, and I will tell him I have met Monsieur.”

      “Don't mind; how is the baron?” asked Longcluse.

      “Very well. Beginning to be not so young, you know, and thinking of retiring. I will tell him his work has succeeded. If he demolishes, he also secures. If he sometimes sheds blood – ”

      “Hush!” whispered Longcluse, sternly.

      “There is no one,” murmured little Lebas, looking round, but dropping his voice to a whisper. “He also saves a neck sometimes from the blade of the guillotine.”

      Longcluse frowned, a little embarrassed. Lebas smiled archly. In a moment Longcluse's impatient frown broke into a mysterious smile that responded.

      “May I say one word more, and make one request of Monsieur, which I hope he will not think very impertinent?” asked Monsieur Lebas, who had just been on the point of taking his leave.

      “It mayn't be in my power to grant it; but you can't be what you say – I am too much obliged to you – so speak quite freely,” said Longcluse.

      So they talked a little more and parted, and Monsieur Lebas went on his way.

      CHAPTER V

      A CATASTROPHE

      The play has commenced. Longcluse, who likes and understands the game, sitting beside Richard Arden, is all eye. He is intensely eager and delighted. He joins modestly in the clapping that now and then follows a stroke of extraordinary brilliancy. Now and then he whispers a criticism in Arden's ear. There are many vicissitudes in the game. The players have entered on the third hundred, and still “doubtful it stood.” The excitement is extraordinary. The assembly is as hushed as if it were listening to a sermon, and, I am afraid, more attentive. Now, on a sudden, Hood scores a hundred and sixty-eight points in a single break. A burst of prolonged applause follows, and, during the clapping, in which he had at first joined, Longcluse says to Arden, —

      “I can't tell you how that run of Hood's delights me. I saw a poor little friend of mine here before the play began – I had not seen him since I was little more than a boy – a Frenchman, a good-natured little soul, and I advised him to back Hood, and I have been trembling up to this moment. But I think he's safe now to win. Markham can't score this time. If he's in ‘Queer Street,’ as they whisper round the room, you'll find he'll either give a simple miss, or put himself into the pocket.”

      “Well, I'm sure I hope your friend will win, because it will put three hundred and eighty pounds into my pocket,” said Richard Arden.

      And now silence was called, and the building became, in a moment, hushed as a cathedral before the anthem; and Markham knocked his own ball into the pocket as Longcluse had predicted.

      On sped the game, and at last Hood scored a thousand, and won the match, greeted by an uproar of applause that, now being no longer restrained, lasted for nearly five minutes. The assemblage had, by this time, descended from the benches, and crowded the floor in clusters, discussing the play or settling bets. The people in the gallery were pouring down by the four staircases, and adding to the crowd and buzz.

      Suddenly there is a sort of excitement perceptible of a new kind – a gathering and pressure of men about one of the doors at the far corner of the room. Men are looking back and beckoning to their companions; others are shouldering forward as strenuously as they can. What is it – any dispute about the score? – a pair of men boxing in the passage?

      “No suspicion of fire?” the men at this near end exclaim, and sniff over their shoulders, and look about them, and move toward the point where the crowd is thickening, not knowing what to make of the matter. But soon there runs a rumour about the room – “a man has just been found murdered in a room outside,” and the crowd now press forward more energetically to the point of attraction.

      In the cross-passage which connects the two corridors, as Mr. Longcluse described, there is an awful crush, and next to no light. A single jet of gas burns in the smoking room, where the pressure of the crowd is not quite so much felt. There are two policemen in that chamber, in the ordinary uniform of the force, and three detectives in plain clothes, one supporting a corpse already stiffening, in a sitting posture, as it was found, in a far angle of the room, on the bench to your left as you look in. All the people are looking up the room. You can see nothing but hats, and backs of heads, and shoulders. There is a ceaseless buzz and clack of talk and conjecture. Even the policemen are looking, as the rest do, at the body. The man who has mounted on the chair near the door, with the other beside him, who has one foot on the rung and another on the seat, and an arm round the first gentleman's neck, although he has not the honour of his acquaintance, to support himself, can see, over the others' heads, the one silent face which looks back towards the door, upon so many gaping, and staring, and gabbling ones. The light СКАЧАТЬ