Cheating the gallows. They say that a union of opposites make the happiest marriage.
And perhaps it is on the same principle that men who jump together are
always so oddly assorted. You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with
an auctioneer, and a medical student pigging a stockbroker's clerk. Perhaps each thus
escapes the temptation to talk shop in his hours of leisure, while he supplements
his own experiences of life by his companions. There could not be an odd
order couple than Tom Peters and Everett G. Rockstill. The contrast began with
their names and ran through the entire chapter. They had a bedroom and a
sitting room in common, but it would not be easy to find what else
to his landlady worthy missus seekin. Tom Peters's profession was little wig, But
everybody knew that Rockstille was the manager of the City and Suburban bank, and
it puzzled her to think why a bank manager should live with such a seedy
looking person who smoked clay pipes and sipped whisky and water all evening when he
was at home. For Rockstill was as spruce and erect as his fellow Lodger
was round shouldered and shabby. He never smoked, and he confined himself to
a small class of claret at dinner. It is possible to live with a
man and see very little of him. Where each of the partners lives his
own life in his own way, with his own circle of friends and external
amusements, days may go by without the men having five minutes together. Perhaps
this explains why these partnerships jog along so much more peacefully than marriages, where
the chain is drawn so much tighter and galls the partners rather than links them
diverse. However, as were the hours and habits of the chums, they
often breakfasted together, and they agreed in one thing. They never stayed out
at night for the rest. Peters sought his diversions in the company of journalists
and frequented debating rooms, where he propounded the more iconoclastic views, while rockstill
had highly respectable houses open to him in the suburbs, and was in fact
engaged to be married to Clara Nowell, the charming daughter of a retired corn
merchant. A widower with no other child, Clara naturally took up a good
deal of Roxtelle's time, and he often dressed to go to the play with
her, while Peters stayed at home in a faded dressing gown and loose slippers.
Missus Seekin liked to see gentlemen about the house and evening dress, and
made comparisons not favorable to Peters, and this in spite of the fact that
he gave her infinitely less trouble than the younger man. It was Peters who
first took the apartments, and it was characteristic of his easy going temperament that
he was so openly and naively delighted with a view of the Thames obtainable from
the bedroom window that Missus Seekin was emboldened to ask twenty five cent more than
she had intended. She soon returned to her normal terms. However, when
his friend Rockstoe called the next day to inspect the rooms and overwhelmed her with
a demonstration of their numerous shortcomings. He pointed out that their being on the
ground floor was not an advantage but a disadvantage, since they were nearer to
the noises of the street. In fact, the house being a corner one
the noises of two streets. Rockstal continued to exhibit the same finicking temperament in
the petty details of the minaj His shirt fronts was never sufficiently starched, nor
his boots sufficiently polished. Tom Peters, having no regard for rigid linen,
was always good tempered and satisfied, and never acquired the respect of his landlady.
He wore blue check shirts and loose ties. Even on Sundays. It
is true he did not go to church, but slept on till Rockstal returning
from the morning service, and even then it was difficult to get him out
of bed or to make him hurry up his toilet operations. Often the midday
meal would be smoking on the table while Peters would smoke in the bed,
and rockstill with his head thrust through the fold doors that separated the bedroom from
the sitting room, would be adjuring the sluggard to our eyes and shake off
his slumbers, and threatening to sit down without him lest the dinner be spoilt.
In revenge, Tom was usually up first on week days, sometimes at
such unearthly hours that Polly had not yet removed the boots from the outside the
bedroom door, and would bawl down to the kitchen for a shaving water for
Tom. Lazy and indolent, as he was shaved with an unfailing regularity of
a man to whom shaving had become an instinct. If he had not kept
fairly regular hours, Missus Seekin would have set him down as an actor.
So clean shaven was he, Rockstill did not shave. He wore a full
beard, and, being a fine figure of a man to boot, no
uneasy investor could look upon him without being reassured as to the stability of the
bank he managed so successfully, and thus the two men lived in an economical
comradeship, all the firmer, perhaps for their mutual incongruities. It was on
a Sunday afternoon in the middle of October, ten days after Rockstill had settled
in his new rooms, that Clara Nowell paid her first visit to him.
There, she enjoyed a good deal of liberty and did not mind accepting his
invitation to tea. The corn merchant, himself indifferently educated, had an exaggerated
sense of the value of culture, and so Clara, who had artistic tastes,
thought much actual talent had gone in for painting and might be seen in
pretty toilettes copying pictures in the museum. At one time it looked as if
she might be reduced to working seriously at her art. For Satan, who
finds mischief still for idle hands to do, had persuaded her father to embark
the fruits of years of toil in bubble companies. However, things turned out
not so bad as they might have been. A little was saved from the
wreck, and the appearance of a suitor in the person of Everett J.
Rockstall, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she
had been entitled to expect. She had a good deal of affection for Everett,
who was unmistakably a clever man as well as a good looking one.
The prospect seemed fair and cloudless. Nothing presaged the terrible storm that was about
to break over these two lives. Nothing had ever, for a moment come
to vex their mutual contentment till this Sunday afternoon. The October sky, blue
and sunny with an Indian summer sultriness, seemed an exact image of a life
with its aftermath, of a happiness that had once seemed blighted. Everard had
always been so attentive, so solicious that she was much surprised as chagrined to
find that he had apparently forgotten the appointment. Hearing her astonished interrogation of Pollyine
the passage, Tom shambled from the sitting room in his loose slippers and his
blue check shirt, with his eternal clay pipe in his mouth, and informed
her that Rockstall had gone out suddenly earlier in the afternoon. Gone out,
stammered poor Clara, all confused. But he asked me to come to tea.
Oh you, miss Noel, I suppose, said Tom. Yes,
I am Miss Noell. He has told me a great deal about you.
But I wasn't able honestly to congratulate him on his choice till now. Clara
blushed uneasily under the compliment and under the ardor of his admiring gaze. Instinctively
she distrusted the man. The very first tone of his deep bass voice gave
her a peculiar shudder, and then his impoliteness in smoking that wild clay was
so gratuous. Oh then you must be mister Peters, she said. In
return. He has often spoken to me of you, ah, said Tom,
laughingly. I suppose he told you all my wisest her had accounts for.
You are not being surprised at my Sunday attire. She smiled a little,
showing a row of pearly teeth. Everett ascribes to you all the virtues,
she said. Now that's what I call a friend. He cried ecstatically.
But won't you come He must be back in a moment. He surely
would not break an appointment with you. The admiration latent in the accentuation of
the last pronoun was almost offensive. She shook her head. She had a
just grievance against Everard and would punish him by going away indignantly. Do let
me give you a cup of tea, Tom pleaded. You must be awfully
thirsty this sultry weather. There. I'll make a bargain with you if you
will come in now. I promise to clear out the moment Everard returns,
and not spoil your tete a tete. But Clara was obstinate. She did
not at all relish this man's society, and besides, she was not going
to throw away her grievance against Everard. I know Everard will slang me dreadfully
when he comes in. If I let you go, Tom urged, tell
me at least where he can find you. I'm going to take the bus
at Charing Cross and I'm going straight home, Clara announced determinedly. She put
up a parasol in a pet and went up the street into the strand.
A cold shadow seemed to have fallen over all things. But just as she
was getting into the bus, a handsome dashed down Trafalgar Square, and a
well known voice hailed her. The hansom stopped, and Everett got out and
held out his hand. I'm so glad you're a bit late, he said,
I was called out unexpectedly, and having been trying to rush back in
time. You wouldn't have found me if you had been punctual. But I
thought, he added, laughingly, now I could rely on you as a
woman. I was punctual, Clara said angrily. I was not getting out
of this puss, as you seemed to imagine, but into it, and
was going home, my darling, He cried remorsefully a thousand apologies. The
regret on his handsome face soothed her. He took the rose he was wearing
in the buttonhole of his fashionably cut coat and gave it to her. Why
were you so cruel? He murmured, as she nestled against him in the
hansom, Think of my despair. If I had come home to hear you
had come and gone, Why didn't you wait? A moment a shudder traversed
her fame. Not with that man Peters, she murmured, Not with that
man Peters, he echoed, sharply, What is the matter with Peters?
I don't know, she said. I don't like him, Clara, he
said, half sternly, half cajolingly. I thought you were above these feminine
weaknesses. You are punctual, strive also to be reasonable. Tom is my
best friend from boyhood. We have been always together. There is nothing Tom
would not do for me or I for Tom. You must like him,
Clara, You must, if only for my sake, I'll try, Clara
promised, and then he kissed her in gratitude and broad daylight. You'll be
very nice to him at tea, won't you? He said, anxiously.
I shouldn't like you two to be bad friends. I don't want to be
bad friends, Clara protested. Only the moment I saw him, a strange
repulsion and mistrust came over me. You're quite wrong about him, quite wrong,
he shut her. When you know him better, you'll find him the
best of fellows. Oh I know, he said suddenly, I suppose he
was very untidy A you women goes so much by appearances, not at all,
Clara retorted, it's you men who go by appearances. Yes, you
do. That's why you care for me, he said, smiling. She
assured him it wasn't, and she didn't care for him so much as he
plumed himself. But he smiled on his smile died away. However, when
he entered his rooms and found Tom nowhere, I dare say you've made him
run about hunting for me, he grumbled. Perhaps he knew I'd come back
and went away to leave us together, she answered, He said he would
when you came. And yet you say you don't like him, She smiled
reassuringly. Inwardly, however, she felt pleased at the men's man's absence.
If Clara Novell could have seen Tom Peters carrying on with Polly in the passage,
she might have felt justified in her prejudice against him. It must be
confessed, though, that Everard also carried on with Polly. Alas it is
to be feared that men are much of a muchness where women are concerned shabby
men and smart men, bank managers and journalists, bachelors and semi detached to
bachelors. Perhaps it was a mistake, after all to say that the chums
had nothing patently in common. Everard, I'm afraid, kissed Polly rather more
often than Clara, and although it was because he respected her less, the
reason would perhaps not have been sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife. For Polly
was pretty, especially on alternate Sunday afternoons, and when at ten pm she
returned from her routings, she was generally met in the passage by one or
other of the men. Polly liked to receive homage of real gentlemen, and
said a white cap at all indifferently. Thus, just before Clara knocked on
the memorable Sunday afternoon, Polly, was being confined to the house by unwritten
code regulating the lives of servants, was amusing herself by flirting with Peters.
You are fond of me a little bit, the graceless Tom whispered, aren't
you you know I am? Sir? Polly replied, you don't care for
anyone else in the house, Oh no, sir, and never let anyone
kiss me but you. I wonder how it is, sir, Polly replied,
ingenuously, Give me another. Tom answered, She gave him another,
and tripped to the door to answer Clara's knock, And that very evening,
when Clara was gone and Tom still out, Polly turned, without the faintest
atom of scrupulosity or even jealousy, to the more fascinating rock star and accepted
his amorous advances. If it would seem at first sight that Everett had less
excuse for such frivility than his friend, perhaps the seriousness he showed in this
interview may throw a different light upon the complex character of the man. You're
quite sure you don't care for anyone but me, he asked, earnestly.
Of course not, sir, Polly replied, indignantly. How could I but
you care for that soldier I saw you out with last Sunday. Oh no,
sir, he's only my young man, she said, apologetically. Would
you give him up? He hearsed. Suddenly, Polly's pretty face took a
look of terror. I couldn't, sir, He'll kill me. He's such
a jealous brute, you've no idea. Yes, but suppose I took you
away from here, he whispered, eagerly, somewhere he couldn't find you.
South America, Africa, somewhere thousands of miles across the sea. Oh,
sir, you've frightened me, whispered Polly, cowering before his ardent eyes,
which shone in the dimly lit passage. Would you come with me, he
hissed. She did not answer. She shook herself free and ran into the
kitchen, trembling with a vague fear. One morning earlier than his earliest hour
of demanding a shaving water, Tom rang the bell violently and asked the alarmed
Polly what had become of mister Rockstill, how should I know, sir?
She gasped. Ain't he been in? Sir? Apparently not? Tom answered
anxiously, He never remains out. We have been here for three weeks now,
and I can't recall a single night. He hadn't been home before twelve.
I can't make it out. All inquiries proved futile. Missus Seekin reminded
him of the thick fog that had come on suddenly the night before. What
fog asked Tom, lord, didn't you notice it, sir? No.
I came in early, smout read and went to bed about eleven. I
never thought of looking out the window. It began about ten, said missus,
seekin and got thicker and thicker. I couldn't see the lights of the
river from my bedroom. The poor gentleman has been and gone and walked into
the water. She began to whimper. Nonsense, nonsense, said Tom,
though his expression bellied his words. At the worst, I should think he
couldn't find his way home and couldn't get a cab, so put up for
the night at some hotel. I dare say it'll be all right. He
began to whistle, as if in restored cheerfulness. At eight o'clock there came
a letter from rockstill marked immediate, But as he did not turn up for
breakfast, Tom went round personally to the City in Suburban Bank. He waited
half an hour there, but the manager did not make his appearance. Then
he left the letter with the cashier and went away with anxious countenance. That
afternoon it was all over London that the manager of the City in Suburban had
disappeared, and that many thousands pounds of gold and notes had disappeared with him.
Scotland. Gayard opened the letter marked immediate, and noted that there had
been a delay in its delivery, for the address had been obscure and an
official alteration had been made. It was written in feminine hand and said,
on second thoughts, I cannot accompany you. Do not try to see me
again, forget me. I shall never forget you. There was no signature.
Clara Novelle distracted, disclaimed all knowledge of this letter. Polly deposed,
and the fugitive had proposed a flight to her, and the routes to Africa
and South America were especially watched. Some months passed without result. Tom Peters
went about, overwhelmed with grief and astonishment. The police took possession of all
the missing man's effects. Gradually the hue and cry dwindled, died. At
last, we meet, cried Tom Peters, with his face lit up in
joy. How are you, dear Miss novel Clara greeted him coldly. Her
face had an abiding pallor. Now her lover's flight and the shame had prostrated
her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts, alone of
all the world. She still believed in Everett's innocence, felt that there was
something more than met the eye divined, some devilish mystery behind it all.
And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then,
too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peter's voice accosting
her, all her old repugnance researched. It flashed upon her that this man
Roxstall's boon companion must know far more than he had told to the police.
She remembered, however, it had spoken of him with what affection and confidence?
Was it likely he was utterly ignorant of Everett's movements. Mastering her repugnance,
she held out her hand. It might be well to keep in touch
with him. He was possibly the clue to the mystery. She noticed that
he was dressed a shade more trimly and was smoking a meercham. He walked
alongside her and made no offer to put his pipe out. Have you not
heard from Everard, he asked? She flushed. Do you think I am
an accessory? After the fact, she cried no, No, he said,
soothingly, pardon me. I was thinking he might have written, giving
no exact address. Of course men do sometimes dare to write to touch to
woman. But of course he knows you too well. You would have put
the police on his tracks, certainly, she exclaimed indignantly. Even if he
is innocent, he must face the charge. Do you still entertain the possibility
of his innocence? I do, she said boldly, and looked him full
in the face. His eyelids drooped with a quiver. Don't you I have
hoped against hope, he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion, poor
old Everard. But I'm afraid there is no room for doubt. Oh,
this wicked curse of money tempting the noblest and the best of us. The
weeks rolled on, Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of Tom Peter's
and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive from the talks they
had together. She began to see there was really no reason to put faith
in Everard. His criminality, his faithlessness were too flagrant. Gradually she grew
ashamed of her early mistrust of Peter's remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened
into feelings so warm that Tom gave Frere went to the love that had been
visible to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him. It is
only in books that love lives for ever. Clara, so her father thought,
showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy affection and casting it
from her heart. He invited the new lover to his house and took to
him at once. Rockstill's somewhat supercilous manner had always charged jarred upon the unsophisticated
corn merchant. With Tom, the old man got on much better. While
evidently quite as well informed and cultured as his Wilhelm friend, Tom knew how
to impart his superior knowledge, with the accent on the knowledge rather than on
the superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return,
those who were most conscious of defects of earn early education are most resentful of
other people sharing their consciousness. Moreover, Tom's bonhamy was far more to the
old fellow's liking than the studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the
whole Tom met more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter.
Nevertheless, Clara was by no means unresponsive to Tom's affection and when after one
of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke
of the happy turn of things had taken, and how for the second time
in their lives things had mended when they seemed at their blackest. Her heart
swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she felt sobbing
into her father's arms. Tom calculated that he had made a clear five hundred
a year by occasional journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had inherited
from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the marriage.
It was fixed for May day, and the honeymoon was to be spent in
Italy. But Clara was not destined to happiness. For the moment she had
promised herself, her first love's old memories began to rise up and reproach her.
Strange thoughts stirred in the depths of her soul, and in the silent
watches of the night she seemed to hear Evrett's accents, charred with grief and
upbraiding. Her uneasiness increased as her wedding day drew nearer. One night,
after a pleasant afternoon spent in being rowed by Tom among the upper reaches of
the Thames. She retired to rest, full of vague forebodings, and she
dreamt a terrible drain. The dripping form of Everard stood by her bedside,
staring at her with ghastly eyes. Had he been drowned on the passage to
his land of exile? Frozen with horror, she put the question, I
have never left England. The vision answered her, tongue clove to the roof
of her mouth. Never left England, she repeated, in tones which did
not seem to be hers. The great, stony eyes stared on her,
but there was silence. Where have you been? Then, she asked in
her dream? Very near you came the answer, there has been foul play.
Then she shrieked. The phantom shook its head in doleful ascent. I
knew it, she shrieked, Tom Peters, Tom Peters had done away with
you? Is it not he speak? Yes, it is he Tom Peters,
whom I loved more than all the world. Even in the terrible oppression
of the dream, she could not resist saying, woman like, did I
not warn you against him? The phantom stared on silently and made no reply.
But what was his motive? She asked at length, love of gold
and you and you are giving yourself to him? It said sternly, No,
no, Everett, I will not, I will not. I swear
it, forgive me. The spirit shook its head skeptically. You love him?
Women are false as false as men. She trove, strove to protest
again, but her tongue refused its office. If you marry him, I
shall always be with you. Where the dripping figure vanished as suddenly as it
came, and Clara awoke in cold perspiration. Oh, it was horrible.
The man she had learnt to do love, the murderer of the man she
had learned to forget. How her original prejudice had been justified. Distracted shaken
to her debts, she would not take counsel, even of her father,
but informed the police of her suspicion. A raid was made on Tom's rooms
and lo the stolen notes were discovered in a huge bundle. It was found
that he had several banking accounts, with a large recently paid amount in each
bank. Tom was arrested. Attention was now concentrated on the corpses washed up
by the river. It was not long before the body of Rockstill came to
shore, the face distorted almost beyond recognition by long immersion by the clothes patently
his and a pocket book in the breast pocket, removing the last doubt.
Missus Seekin and Polly and Clara Novell all identified the body. Both juries returned
a verdict of murder against Tom Peters, the recital of Clara's dream producing a
unique impression in the court and throughout the country. The theory of the prosecution
was that Rockstall had brought home money, whether to fly alone or to divide
it, or whether even for some innocent purpose, as Clara believed was immaterial,
that Peters determined to have it all, and that he had gone out
for a walk with the deceased, and, taking advantage of the fog,
had pushed him into the river, and that he was further impelled to the
crime by love for Clara Novelle, as was evident from his subsequent relations with
her. The judge put on the black cap. Tom Peters was duly hung
by the neck till he was dead. Brief resume of the culprit's confession.
When you all read this, I shall be dead and laughing at you.
I have been hung for my own murder. I am evere G Rockstill I
am also Tom Peters. We two were one. When I was a young
man. My mustache and beard wouldn't come. I bought false ones to improve
my appearance. One day, after I had become manager of the city in
the suburban Bank, I took off my beard in mustache at home, and
then the thought crossed my mind that nobody would know me without them, I
was another man. Instantly it flashed upon me that if I ran away from
the bank, that the other man could be left in London while the police
were scoring the world for a non existent fugitive. But this was only the
crude germ of the idea. Slowly I matured my plan. The man who
was going to be left in London must be known to a circle of acquaintance
beforehand. It would be easy enough to masquerade in the evenings in my beardless
condition, with the other disguise of dress and voice. But this was not
brilliant enough. I conceived the idea of living with him. It was box
and Cox reversed. We shared the rooms at missus Seekin's. It was a
great strain, but it was only for a few weeks. I had trick
clothes in my bedroom, like those of quick change artists. In a moment,
I could pass from Rockstill to Peters, and from Peter's to Rockstill.
Polly had to clean two pairs of boots a morning, cook two dinners,
et cetera, et cetera. She and missus Seekin saw one or other of
us every moment. It never dawned upon them. They never saw us both
together. At meals, I would not be interrupted, ate off two plates
and conversed with my friends in loud tones. At other times we dined at
different hours. On Sundays, he was supposed to be asleep when I was
in church. There is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would
have occurred that one man was troubling himself to be two and to pay for
two, including washing. I worked up the idea of Rockstall's flight, asked
Polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that arrived in the morning
of my disappearance. As Tom Peters, I mixed with the journalistic set.
I had another room where I kept the golden notes till I mistakenly thought the
thing had blown over. Unfortunately, returning from here on the night of my
disappearance with Rockstill's clothes in a bundle, I intended to drop into the river.
It was stolen from me in the fog, and the man into whose
possession it ultimately came appears to have committed suicide. What perhaps ruined me was
my desire to keep Clara's love and to transfer it to the survivor. Everett
told her I was the best of fellows. Once married to her, I
would not have had much fear even if she had discovered the trick. Our
wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and often does not want to.
I made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a
girl's nightmare. After a day up the river and a supper at the Star
and Garter, I might have told the judge he was an ass but then
I should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than
death. The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law
has committed murder or I suicide. The end of cheating the gallows