1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,839 Speaker 1: The face in the target. Harold March, the rising reviewer 2 00:00:03,879 --> 00:00:06,679 and social critic, was walking vigorously across a great table 3 00:00:06,759 --> 00:00:09,400 land of moors and commons, the horizon of which was 4 00:00:09,439 --> 00:00:11,599 fringed with the far off woods of the famous estate 5 00:00:11,599 --> 00:00:14,080 of Torwood Park. He was a good looking young man 6 00:00:14,119 --> 00:00:16,719 in tweeds, with very pale, curly hair and pale clear eyes, 7 00:00:17,199 --> 00:00:19,679 walking in wind and sun in the very landscape of liberty. 8 00:00:19,679 --> 00:00:21,679 He was still young enough to remember his politics and 9 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:24,640 not merely try to forget them. For his errand at 10 00:00:24,679 --> 00:00:27,160 Torwood Park was a political one. It was the place 11 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:29,199 of appointment, named by no less a person than the 12 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,799 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Howard Horn, then introducing his 13 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:35,880 so called socialist budget, and prepared to expound it in 14 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:38,960 an interview with so promising a penman. Harold March was 15 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:41,119 the sort of man who knows everything about politics and 16 00:00:41,159 --> 00:00:44,960 nothing about politicians. He also knew a great deal about art, letters, 17 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,320 philosophy and general culture, about almost everything, indeed, except the 18 00:00:48,359 --> 00:00:50,960 world he was living in. Abruptly, in the middle of 19 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,079 those sunny and windy flats, he came upon a sort 20 00:00:53,079 --> 00:00:55,119 of cleft, almost narrow enough to be called a crack 21 00:00:55,159 --> 00:00:57,359 in the land. It was just large enough to be 22 00:00:57,399 --> 00:00:59,560 the water course for a small stream, which vanished at 23 00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:02,359 intervals under green tunnels of undergrowth, as if in a 24 00:01:02,399 --> 00:01:05,319 doorfish forest. Indeed, he had an odd feeling, as if 25 00:01:05,359 --> 00:01:07,480 he were a giant looking over the valley of the Pygmies. 26 00:01:08,079 --> 00:01:10,680 When he dropped into the hollow, however, the impression was lost. 27 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:13,680 The rocky banks, though hardly above the height of a cottage, 28 00:01:13,879 --> 00:01:16,840 hung over and had the profile of a precipice. As 29 00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:18,640 he began to wander down the course of the stream 30 00:01:18,719 --> 00:01:21,519 in idle but romantic curiosity, and saw the water shining 31 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:24,280 in short strips between the great gray boulders and bushes 32 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,079 as soft as great green mosses, he fell into quite 33 00:01:27,079 --> 00:01:29,920 an opposite vein of fantasy. It was rather as if 34 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:31,760 the earth had opened and swallowed him into a sort 35 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:34,480 of underworld of dreams. And when he became conscious of 36 00:01:34,519 --> 00:01:37,000 a human figure dark against the silver stream, sitting on 37 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,280 a large boulder and looking rather like a large bird, 38 00:01:39,719 --> 00:01:42,000 it was perhaps with some of the premonitions proper to 39 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:44,400 a man who meets the strangest friendship of his life. 40 00:01:45,719 --> 00:01:47,959 The man was apparently fishing or at least, was fixed 41 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,840 in a fisherman's attitude. With more than a fisherman's immobility, 42 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:53,560 March was able to examine the man almost as if 43 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:55,480 he had been a statue for some minutes before the 44 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:58,840 statue spoke. He was a tall, fair man, cadaverous and 45 00:01:58,879 --> 00:02:02,000 a little laxidaisical, with heavy eyelids and a high bridged nose. 46 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:04,840 When a space was shaded with his white, wide hat, 47 00:02:04,879 --> 00:02:07,280 his light mustache and lithe figure gave him a look 48 00:02:07,319 --> 00:02:10,080 of youth. But the panama lay on the moss beside him, 49 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:13,280 and the spectator could see that his brow was prematurely bald, 50 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:16,280 and this, combined with a certain hollowness about the eyes, 51 00:02:16,319 --> 00:02:18,800 had an air of headwork and even headache. But the 52 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:21,439 most curious thing about him, realized after a short scrutiny, 53 00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:23,639 was that though he looked like a fisherman, he was 54 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:26,759 not fishing. He was holding, instead of a rod, something 55 00:02:26,759 --> 00:02:29,360 that might have been a landing net, which some fishermen use, 56 00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,080 but which was more like the ordinary toy net which 57 00:02:32,159 --> 00:02:35,000 children carry and which they generally use indifferently for shrimps 58 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:38,199 or butterflies. He was dipping this into the water at intervals, 59 00:02:38,319 --> 00:02:41,080 gravely regarding its harvest of weed or mud, and emptying 60 00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:44,080 it out again. No, I haven't caught anything, he remarked, calmly, 61 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:46,879 as if answering an unspoken query. When I do, I 62 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:49,159 have to throw it back again, especially the big fish. 63 00:02:49,199 --> 00:02:50,840 But some of the little beasts interest me when I 64 00:02:50,879 --> 00:02:54,599 get them a scientific interest, I suppose, observed March of 65 00:02:54,639 --> 00:02:59,039 a rather amateurist. Sort of a rather amateurish sort, I fear, 66 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:01,199 answered the strange fig shman. I have a sort of 67 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:04,560 hobby about what they call phenomena of phosphorescence. But it 68 00:03:04,599 --> 00:03:06,919 would be rather awkward to go about in society carrying 69 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:10,000 stinking fish, I suppose it would, said March with a smile. 70 00:03:10,479 --> 00:03:13,400 Rather odds inner a drawing room carrying a large luminous cod, 71 00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:16,000 continued the stranger in his listless way. How quaint it 72 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:17,919 would be if one could carry it about like a lantern, 73 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:20,439 or have little sprats for candles. Some of the sea 74 00:03:20,439 --> 00:03:22,719 beasts would really be very pretty, like lamp shades, the 75 00:03:22,719 --> 00:03:25,360 blue sea snail that glitters all over like starlight. And 76 00:03:25,439 --> 00:03:27,759 some of the red starfish really shine like red stars. 77 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:31,039 But naturally I'm not looking for them here. March thought 78 00:03:31,039 --> 00:03:33,520 of asking him what he was looking for, but, feeling 79 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:36,080 unequal to a technical discussion at least as deep as 80 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:38,800 the deep sea fishes, he returned to more ordinary topics. 81 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:41,919 Delightful sort of hole this is, he said, this little 82 00:03:41,919 --> 00:03:44,759 dell and river here. It's like those places Stevenson talks 83 00:03:44,759 --> 00:03:47,960 about where something ought to happen. I know, answered the other. 84 00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:50,599 I think it's because the place itself, so to speak, 85 00:03:50,639 --> 00:03:53,599 seems to happen and not merely to exist. Perhaps that's 86 00:03:53,639 --> 00:03:55,680 what old Picasso and some of the Cubists are trying 87 00:03:55,719 --> 00:03:58,599 to express by angles and jagged lines. Look at that 88 00:03:58,639 --> 00:04:01,360 wall like low cliffs that juts forward just at right 89 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:03,599 angles to the slope of turf sweeping up to it. 90 00:04:03,960 --> 00:04:06,319 That's like a silent collision. It's like a breaker and 91 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:08,879 the backwash of a wave. March looked at the low 92 00:04:08,919 --> 00:04:11,719 browed crag overhanging the green slope and nodded. He was 93 00:04:11,759 --> 00:04:13,759 interested in a man who turned so easily from the 94 00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:16,720 technicalities of science to those of art, and asked him 95 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:19,800 if he admired the new angular artists as I feel it. 96 00:04:19,879 --> 00:04:22,839 The Cubists are not cubist enough, replied the stranger. I 97 00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:25,439 mean they're not thick enough. By making things mathematical, they 98 00:04:25,519 --> 00:04:28,560 make them thin. Take the living lines out of that landscape, 99 00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:30,600 simplify it to a right angle, and you flatten it 100 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:33,480 out to a mere diagram on paper. Diagrams have their 101 00:04:33,519 --> 00:04:35,959 own beauty, but it is of just the other sort. 102 00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:39,800 They stand for the unalterable things, the calm, eternal, mathematical 103 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:42,399 sort of truths, what somebody calls the white radiance of 104 00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:45,839 He stopped, and before the next word came, something had happened, 105 00:04:45,839 --> 00:04:49,040 almost too quickly and completely to be realized. From behind 106 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:51,120 the overhanging rock came a noise and rush like that 107 00:04:51,199 --> 00:04:53,839 of a railway train, and a great motor car appeared. 108 00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:56,360 It topped the crest of cliff, black against the sun, 109 00:04:56,439 --> 00:04:59,279 like a battle chariot rushing to destruction in some wild epic. 110 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,279 March automatically put out his hand in one futile gesture, 111 00:05:02,279 --> 00:05:03,920 as if to catch a falling tea cup in a 112 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,560 drawing room. For the fraction of a flash, it seemed 113 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:08,600 to leave the ledge of rock like a flying ship. 114 00:05:08,959 --> 00:05:11,040 Then the very sky seemed to turn over like a wheel, 115 00:05:11,079 --> 00:05:13,360 and it lay a ruin amid the tall grasses below 116 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:15,879 a line of gray smoke, going up slowly from it 117 00:05:15,879 --> 00:05:18,519 into the silent air. A little lower, the figure of 118 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:20,560 a man with gray hair lay tumbled down the steep 119 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:22,879 green slope, his limbs lying all at random, and his 120 00:05:22,959 --> 00:05:25,879 face turned away. The eccentric fisherman dropped his net and 121 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:28,720 walked swiftly toward the spot, his new acquaintance following him 122 00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:31,160 as they drew near. There seemed a sort of monstrous 123 00:05:31,160 --> 00:05:33,120 irony in the fact that the dead machine was still 124 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:35,519 throbbing and thundering as busily as a factory, while the 125 00:05:35,560 --> 00:05:39,360 man lay so still he was unquestionably dead. The blood 126 00:05:39,399 --> 00:05:41,800 flowed in the grass from a hopelessly fatal fracture at 127 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:43,720 the back of the skull, but the face, which was 128 00:05:43,759 --> 00:05:46,920 turned to the sun, was uninjured and strangely arresting in itself. 129 00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:49,040 It was one of those cases of a strange face 130 00:05:49,079 --> 00:05:52,240 so unmistakable as to feel familiar. We feel somehow that 131 00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:54,079 we ought to recognize that, even though we do not. 132 00:05:54,639 --> 00:05:57,120 It was of the broad, square sort, with great jaws, 133 00:05:57,160 --> 00:05:59,639 almost like that of a highly intellectual ape, the wide 134 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:01,560 mouth shut so tight as to be traced by a 135 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:04,079 mere line, the nose short, with the sort of nostrils 136 00:06:04,120 --> 00:06:06,040 that seemed to gape with an appetite for the air. 137 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:08,120 The oddest thing about the face was that one of 138 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:10,319 the eyebrows was cocked up at a much sharper angle 139 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:12,560 than the other. March thought he had never seen a 140 00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:15,160 face so naturally alive as that dead one, and its 141 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:17,439 ugly energy seemed all the stranger for its halo of 142 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:20,560 hoary hair. Some papers lay half fallen out of the pocket, 143 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:23,040 and from among them March extracted a card case. He 144 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:26,000 read the name on the card aloud, Sir Humphrey Turnbull. 145 00:06:26,319 --> 00:06:29,399 I'm sure I've heard that name somewhere. His companion only 146 00:06:29,439 --> 00:06:31,120 gave a sort of a little sigh and was silent 147 00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:33,439 for a moment, as if ruminating. Then he merely said, 148 00:06:33,920 --> 00:06:36,800 the poor fellow is quite gone, and added some scientific terms, 149 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:38,839 in which his auditor once more found himself out of 150 00:06:38,839 --> 00:06:41,839 his depth. As things are continued, the same curiously well 151 00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:43,959 informed person, It will be more legal for us to 152 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:46,240 leave the body as it is until the police are informed. 153 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:48,360 In fact, I think it will be well if nobody 154 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:51,160 except the police is informed. Don't be surprised if I 155 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:52,720 seemed to be keeping it dark from some of our 156 00:06:52,759 --> 00:06:56,000 neighbors round here. Then, as if prompted to regularize his 157 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:58,600 rather abrupt confidence, he said, I've come down to see 158 00:06:58,600 --> 00:07:01,480 my cousin at Torwood. My name is Horn Fisher. Might 159 00:07:01,519 --> 00:07:03,839 be upon all my pottering about here, mightn't it is, 160 00:07:03,879 --> 00:07:06,279 Sir Howard Horn, your cousin, asked March, I'm going to 161 00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:09,000 Torwood Park to see him myself, only about his public work, 162 00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:10,920 of course, in the wonderful stand he is making for 163 00:07:10,959 --> 00:07:13,800 his principles. I think this budget is the greatest thing 164 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,160 in English history. If it fails, it will be the 165 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:19,079 most heroic failure in English history. Are you an admirer 166 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:22,560 of your great kinsman, mister Fisher? Rather, said mister Fisher, 167 00:07:22,639 --> 00:07:25,360 He's the best shot I know. Then, as if sincerely 168 00:07:25,399 --> 00:07:29,000 repentant of his nonchalance, he added, with this sort of enthusiasm, No, 169 00:07:29,279 --> 00:07:32,439 but really he's a beautiful shot. As if fired by 170 00:07:32,439 --> 00:07:34,000 his own words, he took a sort of leap at 171 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,279 the head ledges of the rock above him, and scaled them 172 00:07:36,279 --> 00:07:39,600 with a sudden agility and startling contrast to his general lassitude. 173 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:42,120 He had stood for some seconds on the headland above, 174 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:45,160 with his aquiline profile under the panama that relieved against 175 00:07:45,199 --> 00:07:47,800 the sky and peering over the countryside before his companion 176 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:50,800 had collected himself sufficiently to scramble up after him. The 177 00:07:50,879 --> 00:07:53,160 level above was a stretch of common turf on which 178 00:07:53,199 --> 00:07:55,519 the tracks of the faded car were plowed plainly enough, 179 00:07:55,639 --> 00:07:58,000 but the brink of it was broken, as with rocky teeth. 180 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:01,600 Broken boulders of all shapes and sizes lay near the edge. 181 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,399 It was almost incredible that any one could have deliberately 182 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,160 driven into such a death trap, especially in broad daylight. 183 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:09,360 I can't make head or tail of it, said March. 184 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:12,639 Was he blind or blind drunk? Neither by the look 185 00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:15,519 of him, replied the other. Then it was suicide. It 186 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:17,600 doesn't seem a cozy way of doing it, remarked the 187 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:20,800 man called Fisher. Besides, I don't fancy poor old Puggy 188 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:25,079 would commit suicide somehow, poor old who inquired the wondering journalist, 189 00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:28,600 Did you know this unfortunate man? Nobody knew him exactly, 190 00:08:28,639 --> 00:08:32,039 replied Fisher, with some vagueness. But one knew him, of course. 191 00:08:32,519 --> 00:08:34,639 He'd been a terror in his time in Parliament, in 192 00:08:34,679 --> 00:08:37,480 the courts and so on, especially in that row about 193 00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:40,679 the aliens who were deported as undesirables. When he wanted 194 00:08:40,679 --> 00:08:43,159 one of em hanged for murder. He was so sick 195 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:45,759 about it that he retired from the bench. Since then 196 00:08:45,759 --> 00:08:48,120 he mostly motored about by himself. But he was coming 197 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:49,960 to Torwood too for the week end, and I don't 198 00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:52,320 see why he should deliberately break his neck almost at 199 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:55,399 the very door. I believe, Hoggs. I mean my cousin 200 00:08:55,440 --> 00:08:58,720 Howard was coming down specially to meet him. Torwood Park 201 00:08:58,759 --> 00:09:01,840 doesn't belong to your cousin, acquired March. No used to 202 00:09:01,879 --> 00:09:04,240 belong to the Winthrops, you know, replied the other. Now 203 00:09:04,240 --> 00:09:07,000 a new man's got it. A man from Montreal named Jenkins. 204 00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:09,720 Hoggs comes for the shooting. I told you he was 205 00:09:09,759 --> 00:09:12,960 a lovely shot. This repeated eulogy on the great social 206 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:16,000 statesman affected Harold March as if somebody had defined Napoleon 207 00:09:16,039 --> 00:09:18,639 as a distinguished player of nap But he had another 208 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:21,639 half formed impression, struggling in this flood of unfamiliar things, 209 00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:24,840 and he brought it to the surface before it could vanish. Jenkins, 210 00:09:24,840 --> 00:09:28,559 he repeated, Surely you don't mean Jefferson Jenkins, the social reformer. 211 00:09:28,799 --> 00:09:30,720 I mean the man who's fighting for the new cottage 212 00:09:30,799 --> 00:09:33,320 estate scheme. It would be as interesting to meet him 213 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:35,559 as any cabinet minister in the world, if you'll excuse 214 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:38,120 my saying so. Yes, Hoggs told him it would have 215 00:09:38,159 --> 00:09:40,679 to be cottages, said Fisher. He said, the breed of 216 00:09:40,679 --> 00:09:43,480 cattle had improved too often, and people were beginning to laugh, 217 00:09:43,559 --> 00:09:45,799 And of course you must hang a peerage on to something, 218 00:09:45,879 --> 00:09:48,759 though the poor chap hasn't got it yet. Hello, here's 219 00:09:48,759 --> 00:09:51,600 somebody else. They had started walking in the tracks of 220 00:09:51,639 --> 00:09:53,919 the car, leaving it behind them in the hollow, still 221 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:56,480 humming horribly, like a huge insect that had killed a man. 222 00:09:57,120 --> 00:09:59,000 The tracks took them to the corner of the road, 223 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,080 one arm of which when on in the same line 224 00:10:01,080 --> 00:10:03,600 toward the distant gates of the park. It was clear 225 00:10:03,639 --> 00:10:05,679 that the car had been driven down the long straight road, 226 00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:07,759 and then, instead of turning with the road to the left, 227 00:10:07,799 --> 00:10:09,840 had gone straight on over the turf to its doom. 228 00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:12,919 But it was not this discovery that had riveted Fisher's eye, 229 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:15,639 but something even more solid. At the angle of the 230 00:10:15,639 --> 00:10:18,360 white road, a dark and solitary figure was standing almost 231 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:20,639 as still as a finger post. It was that of 232 00:10:20,679 --> 00:10:23,159 a big man in rough shooting clothes, bare headed, and 233 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:25,960 with tussled, curly hair that gave him a rather wild look. 234 00:10:26,519 --> 00:10:29,799 On a nearer approach, this first more fantastic impression faded. 235 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:33,120 In a full light, the figure took on more conventional colors, 236 00:10:33,159 --> 00:10:35,320 as of an ordinary gentleman who happened to have come 237 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:38,120 out without a hat and without very studiously brushing his hair. 238 00:10:38,399 --> 00:10:41,000 But the massive stature remained, and something deep and even 239 00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:43,799 cavernous about the setting of the eyes redeemed his animal 240 00:10:43,799 --> 00:10:46,759 good looks from the commonplace. But March had no time 241 00:10:46,759 --> 00:10:49,440 to study the man more closely, for, much to his astonishment, 242 00:10:49,480 --> 00:10:52,720 his guide merely observed Hello, Jack, and walked past him 243 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:54,559 as if he had indeed been a sign post, and 244 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:57,399 without attempting to inform him of the catastrophe beyond the rocks. 245 00:10:58,159 --> 00:10:59,919 It was relatively a small thing, but it was all 246 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,000 only the first and a string of singular antics on 247 00:11:02,039 --> 00:11:04,679 which his new and eccentric friend was leading him. The 248 00:11:04,679 --> 00:11:06,600 man they had passed looked after them in rather a 249 00:11:06,639 --> 00:11:09,600 suspicious fashion, but Fisher continued serenely on his way along 250 00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:11,360 the straight road that ran past the gates of the 251 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:15,279 great estate. That's John Burke, the traveler, he condescended to explain. 252 00:11:15,679 --> 00:11:17,720 I expect you've heard of him, shoots big game and 253 00:11:17,759 --> 00:11:20,200 all that. Sorry, I couldn't stop to introduce you, but 254 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:22,720 I dare say you'll meet him later on. I know 255 00:11:22,799 --> 00:11:25,120 his book, of course, said March, with renewed interest. That 256 00:11:25,279 --> 00:11:27,480 is certainly a fine piece of description about their being 257 00:11:27,519 --> 00:11:29,720 only conscious of the closeness of the elephant when the 258 00:11:29,759 --> 00:11:33,360 colossal head blocked out the moon. Yes, young Halkit writes, 259 00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:35,960 jolly well, I think, what didn't you know? Halkit wrote 260 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:39,360 Burke's book for him. Burke can't use anything except a gun, 261 00:11:39,399 --> 00:11:42,000 and you can't write with that. Oh, he's genuine enough 262 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:44,039 in his way, you know, as brave as a lion, 263 00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:47,000 or a good deal braver. By all accounts, you seem 264 00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:48,840 to know all about him, observed mart with a rather 265 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:52,240 bewildered laugh, and about a good many other people. Fisher's 266 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:55,159 bald brow became abruptly corrugated, and a curious expression came 267 00:11:55,159 --> 00:11:58,039 into his eyes. I know too much, he said. That's 268 00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:00,360 what's the matter with me. That's what's the matter with 269 00:12:00,399 --> 00:12:02,879 all of us and the whole show. We know too much, 270 00:12:03,399 --> 00:12:06,600 too much about one another, too much about ourselves. That's 271 00:12:06,600 --> 00:12:09,240 why I'm really interested just now about one thing that 272 00:12:09,279 --> 00:12:12,639 I don't know, and that is inquired the other why 273 00:12:12,679 --> 00:12:15,120 that poor fellow is dead. They had walked along the 274 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:17,720 straight road for nearly a mile, conversing at intervals in 275 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:20,360 this fashion, and March had a singular sense of the 276 00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:23,519 whole world being turned inside out. Mister Hornfisher did not 277 00:12:23,639 --> 00:12:27,279 especially abuse his friends and relatives in fashionable society. Of 278 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:29,840 some of them he spoke with affection, but they seemed 279 00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:31,759 to be an entirely new set of men and women 280 00:12:31,799 --> 00:12:33,679 who happen to have the same nerves as the men 281 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:37,039 and women mentioned most often in the newspapers. Yet no 282 00:12:37,120 --> 00:12:39,320 fury of revolt could have seemed to him more utterly 283 00:12:39,399 --> 00:12:42,879 revolutionary than this cold familiarity. It was like daylight on 284 00:12:42,919 --> 00:12:45,559 the other side of stage scenery. They reached the great 285 00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:48,440 lodge gates of the park, and to March's surprise, passed 286 00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:52,200 them and continued along the interminable white straight road. But 287 00:12:52,279 --> 00:12:54,919 he was himself too early for his appointment with Sir Howard, 288 00:12:54,919 --> 00:12:56,679 and was not disinclined to see the end of his 289 00:12:56,759 --> 00:12:59,759 new friend's experiment, whatever it might be. They had long 290 00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:02,120 left the moorland behind them, and half the white road 291 00:13:02,159 --> 00:13:04,320 was gray, and the great shadow of the Torwood pine 292 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:07,519 forests themselves, like gray bars, shuddered against the sunshine and 293 00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:12,720 within amid that clear noon, manufacturing their own midnight. Soon, however, 294 00:13:12,799 --> 00:13:15,600 rifts began to appear in them, like gleams of colored windows. 295 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:18,360 The trees thinned and fell away as the road went forward, 296 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:21,720 showing the wild, irregular copses in which, as Fisher said, 297 00:13:22,039 --> 00:13:24,639 the house party had been blazing away all day. And 298 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:26,879 about two hundred yards farther on they came to the 299 00:13:26,879 --> 00:13:29,399 first turn of the road. At the corner stood a 300 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:32,080 sort of decayed in with the dingy sign of the grapes. 301 00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:35,159 The signboard was dark and indecipherable by now, and hung 302 00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:37,919 black against the sky and the gray moorland beyond, about 303 00:13:37,919 --> 00:13:40,919 as inviting as the gallows. March remarked that it looked 304 00:13:40,919 --> 00:13:44,159 like a tavern for vinegar instead of wine. A good phrase, 305 00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:45,840 said Fisher, And so it would be if you were 306 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:48,080 silly enough to drink wine in it. But the beer 307 00:13:48,159 --> 00:13:50,879 is very good, and so is the brandy. March followed 308 00:13:50,919 --> 00:13:52,960 him to the bar parlor with some wonder and his 309 00:13:53,039 --> 00:13:55,519 dim sense of repugnance was not dismissed by the first 310 00:13:55,519 --> 00:13:57,879 sight of the innkeeper, who was widely different from the 311 00:13:57,919 --> 00:14:02,120 genial innkeepers of Romance, A bony man, very silent behind 312 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:05,720 a black mustache, but with black, restless eyes, taciturn as 313 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,440 he was. The investigator succeeded at last in extracting a 314 00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:11,440 scrap of information from him by dint of ordering beer 315 00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:14,000 and talking to him persistently and minutely on the subject 316 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,399 of motor cars. He evidently regarded the innkeeper as in 317 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,120 some singular way and authority on motor cars, as being 318 00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:23,480 deep in the secrets of the mechanism, management, and mismanagement 319 00:14:23,519 --> 00:14:25,559 of motor cars, holding the man all the time with 320 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:28,320 a glittering eye like the ancient mariner. Out of all 321 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:31,200 this rather mysterious conversation there did emerge at last a 322 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:33,919 sort of admission that one particular motor car of a 323 00:14:33,919 --> 00:14:36,720 given description had stopped before the inn about an hour before, 324 00:14:36,799 --> 00:14:40,639 and that an elderly man had alighted, requiring some mechanical assistance. 325 00:14:41,279 --> 00:14:44,159 Asked if the visitor required any other assistance, the innkeeper 326 00:14:44,159 --> 00:14:46,320 said shortly that the old gentleman had filled his flask 327 00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:49,159 and taken a packet of sandwiches. And with these words, 328 00:14:49,159 --> 00:14:51,919 the somewhat inhospitable host had walked hastily out of the bar, 329 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,159 and they heard him banging doors in the dark interior. 330 00:14:54,799 --> 00:14:57,559 Fisher's weary eye wandered round the dusty and dreary inn 331 00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:00,159 parlor and rested dreamily on a glass case contained eating 332 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:02,399 a stuffed bird with a gun hung on hooks above it, 333 00:15:02,799 --> 00:15:06,279 which seemed to be its only ornament. Puggy was a humorist, 334 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:08,840 he observed, at least in his own rather grim style. 335 00:15:09,399 --> 00:15:11,120 But it seems rather too grim a joke for a 336 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:12,919 man to buy a packet of sandwiches when he is 337 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:15,519 just going to commit suicide, if you come to that, 338 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:17,720 answered March, it isn't very usual for a man to 339 00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:19,639 buy a packet of sandwiches when he is just outside 340 00:15:19,639 --> 00:15:21,279 the door of a grand house. He's going to stop 341 00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:25,919 at no. No, repeated Fisher, almost mechanically, and then suddenly 342 00:15:25,919 --> 00:15:28,039 cocked his eye at his inner locutor with a much 343 00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:31,879 livelier expression. By jove, that's an idea, You're perfectly right, 344 00:15:31,919 --> 00:15:34,600 and that suggests a very queer idea, doesn't it. There 345 00:15:34,639 --> 00:15:37,519 was a silence, and then March started with irrational nervousness. 346 00:15:37,519 --> 00:15:39,200 As the door of the inn was flung open and 347 00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:42,080 another man walked rapidly to the counter. He had struck 348 00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:44,000 it with a coin and called out for brandy before 349 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:45,799 he saw the other two guests, who were sitting at 350 00:15:45,799 --> 00:15:48,720 a bare wooden table under the window. When he turned 351 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:50,919 about with a rather wild stare, March had yet another 352 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:54,159 unexpected emotion, for his guide hailed the man as Hogs 353 00:15:54,159 --> 00:15:57,039 and introduced him as Sir Howard Horn. He looked rather 354 00:15:57,080 --> 00:16:00,159 older than his boyish portraits in the illustrated papers, as 355 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,440 is the way of politicians. His flat fair hair was 356 00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:05,960 touched with gray, but his face was almost comically round, 357 00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:08,840 with a Roman nose, which, when combined with his quick 358 00:16:08,919 --> 00:16:12,039 bright eyes, raised a vague reminiscence of a parrot. He 359 00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:13,840 had a cap rather at the back of his head 360 00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:16,639 and a gun under his arm. Harold March had imagined 361 00:16:16,679 --> 00:16:19,279 many things about his meeting with the great political reformer, 362 00:16:19,639 --> 00:16:21,279 but he had never pictured him with a gun under 363 00:16:21,279 --> 00:16:24,480 his arm drinking brandy in a public house. So you're 364 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:27,360 stopping at Jinks, too, said Fisher. Everybody seems to be 365 00:16:27,399 --> 00:16:31,000 at Jinks, Yes, replied the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Jolly 366 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,919 good shooting, at least all of it. That isn't jink shooting. 367 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:36,279 I never knew a chap with such good shooting. That 368 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:38,480 was such a bad shot, mind you. He's a jolly 369 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:40,399 good fellow in all that. I don't say a word 370 00:16:40,399 --> 00:16:42,399 against him. But he never learned to hold a gun 371 00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:45,159 when he was packing pork or whatever he did. They 372 00:16:45,159 --> 00:16:47,559 say he shot the cockade off his own servant's hat, 373 00:16:48,039 --> 00:16:50,639 just like him to have cockades. Of course, he shot 374 00:16:50,639 --> 00:16:54,000 the weathercock off his own ridiculous gilded summer house. It's 375 00:16:54,039 --> 00:16:56,200 the only cock he'll ever kill. I should think, Are 376 00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,159 you coming up there now? Fisher said, rather vaguely that 377 00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:01,559 he was following soon. When he had fixed something up 378 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,720 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer left the inn, March 379 00:17:04,799 --> 00:17:07,000 fancied he had been a little upset or impatient when 380 00:17:07,039 --> 00:17:08,920 he called for the brandy, but he had talked himself 381 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,839 back into a satisfactory estate. If the talk had not 382 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:15,119 been quite what his literary visitor had expected, Fisher, a 383 00:17:15,119 --> 00:17:17,160 few minutes afterwards, slowly led the way out of the 384 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:19,039 tavern and stood in the middle of the road, looking 385 00:17:19,079 --> 00:17:21,519 down in the direction from which they had traveled. Then 386 00:17:21,559 --> 00:17:23,720 he walked back about two hundred yards in that direction 387 00:17:23,799 --> 00:17:26,039 and stood still again. I should think this is about 388 00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:29,440 the place, he said. What place, asked his companion, The 389 00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:31,839 place where the poor fellow was killed, said Fisher. Sadly, 390 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:34,720 what's ye mean, demanded March. He was smashed up on 391 00:17:34,759 --> 00:17:37,000 the rocks a mile and a half from here. No 392 00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:39,680 he wasn't, replied Fisher. He didn't fall on the rocks 393 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:41,359 at all. Didn't you notice that? He only fell on 394 00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:43,759 the slope of soft grass underneath. But I saw that 395 00:17:43,799 --> 00:17:46,559 he had a bullet in him already. Then, after a pause, 396 00:17:46,599 --> 00:17:48,480 he added, he was alive at the end, but he 397 00:17:48,559 --> 00:17:50,920 was dead long before he came to the rocks. So 398 00:17:51,039 --> 00:17:52,640 he was shot as he drove his car down this 399 00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:55,400 strip of straight road, and I should think somewhere about 400 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:58,119 here after that, of course, the car went straight on, 401 00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:00,440 with nobody to stop or turn it. It's really a 402 00:18:00,559 --> 00:18:02,720 very cunning dodge in its way, for the body would 403 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:04,880 be found far away, and most people would say, as 404 00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:06,960 you do, that it was an accident to a motorist. 405 00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:09,519 The murderer must have been a clever brute. But wouldn't 406 00:18:09,519 --> 00:18:11,720 the shot be heard at the inn or somewhere, asked March. 407 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:14,279 It would be heard, but it would not be noticed 408 00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:17,079 that continued the investigator is where he was? Clever again. 409 00:18:17,599 --> 00:18:19,720 Shooting was going on all over the place all day. 410 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:22,000 Very likely he timed his shot so as to drown 411 00:18:22,079 --> 00:18:24,480 in a number of others. Certainly he was a first 412 00:18:24,519 --> 00:18:26,839 class criminal, and he was something else as well. What 413 00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:29,160 do you mean, asked his companion, with a creepy premonition 414 00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:31,720 of something coming. He knew not why he was a 415 00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:34,200 first class shot, said Fisher. He had turned his back 416 00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:36,759 abruptly and was walking down a narrow, grassy lane, little 417 00:18:36,799 --> 00:18:38,799 more than a cart track, which lay opposite the inn 418 00:18:38,799 --> 00:18:40,480 and marked the end of the great estate in the 419 00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:43,240 beginning of the open moors. March plotted after him with 420 00:18:43,279 --> 00:18:45,640 the same idle perseverance, and found him staring through a 421 00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:48,000 gap in giant weeds and thorns at the flat face 422 00:18:48,039 --> 00:18:50,960 of a painted paling. From behind the paling rose the 423 00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,480 great gray columns of a row of poplars, which filled 424 00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:55,680 the heavens above them with dark green shadow, and shook 425 00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:58,200 faintly in a wind which had sunk slowly into a breeze. 426 00:18:58,799 --> 00:19:00,839 The afternoon was already deep in into evening, and the 427 00:19:00,839 --> 00:19:03,559 titanic shadows of the poplars lengthened over a third of 428 00:19:03,559 --> 00:19:06,279 the landscape. Are you a first class criminal? Asked Fisher 429 00:19:06,279 --> 00:19:08,880 in a friendly tone. I'm afraid I'm not, but I 430 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:10,640 think I can manage to be a sort of fourth 431 00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:13,680 rate burglar. And before his companion could reply, he had 432 00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:16,559 managed to swing himself up and over the fence. March 433 00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:19,960 followed without much bodily effort, but with considerable mental disturbance. 434 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:22,359 The poplars grew so close against the fence that they 435 00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:24,920 had some difficulty in slipping past them. And beyond the 436 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:27,160 poplars they could see only a high hedge of Laurel 437 00:19:27,359 --> 00:19:30,160 green and lustrous in the level sun. Something in this 438 00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:32,880 limitation by a series of living walls made him feel 439 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:35,119 as if he were really entering a shattered house instead 440 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:37,559 of an open field. It was as if he came 441 00:19:37,599 --> 00:19:39,559 in by a disused door or window and found the 442 00:19:39,559 --> 00:19:42,759 way blocked by furniture. When they had circumvented the Laurel hedge, 443 00:19:42,759 --> 00:19:44,599 they came out on a sort of terrace of turf, 444 00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:47,119 which fell by one green step to an oblong lawn 445 00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:49,960 like a bowling green. Beyond this was the only building 446 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,039 in sight, a low conservatory, which seemed far away from anywhere, 447 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:55,599 like a glass cottage standing in its own fields in 448 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:59,079 a fairyland. Fisher knew that lonely look of the outlying 449 00:19:59,079 --> 00:20:01,799 parts of a great house swell enough he realized that 450 00:20:01,839 --> 00:20:03,960 it is more of a satire on aristocracy than if 451 00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,480 it were choked with weeds and littered with ruins. For 452 00:20:06,599 --> 00:20:09,119 it is not neglected, and yet it is deserted at 453 00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:11,559 any rate. It is disused. It is regularly swept and 454 00:20:11,559 --> 00:20:15,039 garnished for a master who never comes. Looking over the lawn, however, 455 00:20:15,119 --> 00:20:17,799 he saw one object which he had not apparently expected. 456 00:20:18,319 --> 00:20:20,599 It was a sort of tripods supporting a large disk 457 00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:22,880 like the round top of a table, tipped sideways. And 458 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:24,640 it was not until they had dropped onto the lawn 459 00:20:24,680 --> 00:20:27,319 and walked across to look at it that March realized 460 00:20:27,319 --> 00:20:29,920 that it was a target. It was worn and weather stained, 461 00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:33,200 the gay colors of its concentric rings were faded. Possibly 462 00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:35,079 it had been set up in those far off Victorian 463 00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:37,839 days when there was a fashion of archery. March had 464 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:40,440 one of his vague visions of ladies in cloudy crinolines 465 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:43,519 and gentlemen in outlandish hats and whiskers, revisiting that lost 466 00:20:43,559 --> 00:20:46,319 garden like ghosts. Fisher, who was peering more closely at 467 00:20:46,319 --> 00:20:49,599 the target, startled him by an exclamation. Hello, he said, 468 00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:51,759 somebody has been peppering. The sing was shot, after all, 469 00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:55,160 and quite lately too. Why I believe old Jink's been 470 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:57,759 trying to improve his bad shooting here, Yes, and it 471 00:20:57,799 --> 00:21:00,880 looks as if it still wanted improving, answer March, laughing. 472 00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:03,680 Not one of these shots is anywhere near the bull's eye. 473 00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:06,960 They seemed just scattered about in the wildest way. In 474 00:21:07,039 --> 00:21:10,200 the wildest way, repeated Fisher, still peering intently at the target. 475 00:21:10,599 --> 00:21:13,119 He seemed merely two ascent, but March fancied his eye 476 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,480 was shining under its sleepy lid, and that he straightened 477 00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:18,559 his stooping figure with a strange effort. Excuse me a moment, 478 00:21:18,599 --> 00:21:20,920 he said, feeling in his pockets, I think I've got 479 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:23,119 some of my chemicals. And after that will go up 480 00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:25,920 to the house. And he stooped again over the target, 481 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:28,480 putting something with his finger over each of the shotthles, 482 00:21:28,839 --> 00:21:31,440 so far as March could see, merely a dull gray smear. 483 00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,079 Then they went through the gathering twilight up the long 484 00:21:34,079 --> 00:21:36,960 green avenues to the Great House. Here again, however, the 485 00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:39,920 eccentric investigator did not enter by the front door. He 486 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:42,160 walked around the house until he found a window open, and, 487 00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:44,680 leaping into it, introduced his friend to what appeared to 488 00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:47,200 be the gun room. Rows of the regular instruments for 489 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,039 bringing down birds stood against the walls, but across the 490 00:21:50,079 --> 00:21:51,920 table in the window lay one or two weapons of 491 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:55,559 a heavier and more formidable pattern. Hello, these are Burke's 492 00:21:55,559 --> 00:21:58,480 big game rifles, said Fisher. I never knew he kept 493 00:21:58,519 --> 00:22:01,359 them here. He lifted one of them, examined it briefly, 494 00:22:01,559 --> 00:22:04,359 and put it down again, frowning heavily. Almost as he 495 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:06,960 did so, a strange young man came hurriedly into the room. 496 00:22:07,559 --> 00:22:09,480 He was dark and sturdy, with a bumpy forehead and 497 00:22:09,519 --> 00:22:11,960 a bulldog jaw, and he spoke with a kurt apology. 498 00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:14,599 I left Major Burke's guns here, he said, and he 499 00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:17,799 wants them packed up. He's going away tonight. And he 500 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,200 carried off the two rifles without casting a glance at 501 00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:22,559 the stranger. Through the open window, they could see his short, 502 00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:26,039 dark figure walking away across the glimmering garden. Fisher got 503 00:22:26,039 --> 00:22:28,039 out of the window again and stood looking after him. 504 00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:30,720 That's Halcott whom I told you about. He said, I 505 00:22:30,799 --> 00:22:32,720 knew he was the sort of secretary and had to 506 00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:34,839 do with Burke's papers, but I never knew he had 507 00:22:34,839 --> 00:22:37,240 anything to do with his guns. But he's just the 508 00:22:37,279 --> 00:22:39,640 sort of silent, sensible little devil who might be very 509 00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:41,839 good at anything, the sort of man you know for 510 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,519 years before you find he's a chess champion. He had 511 00:22:44,559 --> 00:22:47,000 begun to walk in the direction of the disappearing secretary, 512 00:22:47,039 --> 00:22:48,799 and they soon came within sight of the rest of 513 00:22:48,839 --> 00:22:51,480 the house party, talking and laughing on the lawn. They 514 00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:53,359 could see the tall figure and loose mane of the 515 00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:56,759 lion hunter dominating the little group. By the way, observed Fisher. 516 00:22:57,240 --> 00:22:59,279 When we were talking about Burke and Halcott, I said 517 00:22:59,279 --> 00:23:02,000 that a man couldn't very well right with a gun. Well, 518 00:23:02,039 --> 00:23:03,799 I'm not so sure. Now. Did you ever hear of 519 00:23:03,839 --> 00:23:05,880 an artist so clever that he could draw with a gun? 520 00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:09,440 There's a wonderful chap loose about here, Sir Howard hailed 521 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,720 Fisher and his friend the journalist, with almost boisterous amiability. 522 00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,599 The latter was presented to Major Burke and mister Halcott, 523 00:23:15,599 --> 00:23:18,200 and also, by way of a parenthesis, to his host, 524 00:23:18,319 --> 00:23:21,720 mister Jenkins, a commonplace little man in loud tweeds, whom 525 00:23:21,759 --> 00:23:23,680 everybody else seemed to treat with a sort of affection, 526 00:23:23,799 --> 00:23:26,519 as if he were a baby. The irrepressible Chancellor of 527 00:23:26,519 --> 00:23:28,799 the Exchequer was still talking about the birds he had 528 00:23:28,799 --> 00:23:31,839 brought down, the birds that Burke and Halcott had brought down, 529 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,119 and the birds that Jenkins, their host, had failed to 530 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,319 bring down. It seemed to be a sort of sociable monomania. 531 00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:40,759 You and your big game, he ejaculated aggressively to Burke. 532 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:43,519 Why anybody could shoot big game? You want to be 533 00:23:43,559 --> 00:23:47,880 a shot to shoot small game? Quite so, interposed Hornfisher. Now, 534 00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:49,960 if only a hippopotamus could fly up in the air 535 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,640 out of that bush, or you preserved flying elephants on 536 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,720 the estate, Why then, why even Jink might hit that 537 00:23:55,759 --> 00:23:58,559 sort of bird, cried Sir Howard, hilariously slapping his host 538 00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:01,000 on the back. Even he might hit a haystack or 539 00:24:01,039 --> 00:24:04,640 a hippopotamus. Look here, you fellows, said Fisher. I want 540 00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:05,960 you to come along with me for a minute and 541 00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:09,319 shoot at something else, not a hippopotamus, another kind of 542 00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,200 queer animal I found on the estate. It's an animal 543 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:13,880 with three legs in one eye, and it's all the 544 00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,480 colors of the rainbow. What the deuce are you talking about, 545 00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,440 asked Burke. You come along and see, replied Fisher cheerfully. 546 00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,920 Such people seldom reject anything nonsensical, for they are always 547 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,200 seeking for something new. They gravely rearmed themselves from the 548 00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,519 gun room and trooped along with the tail of their guide, 549 00:24:28,559 --> 00:24:31,079 Sir Howard, only pausing in a sort of ecstasy to 550 00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:33,359 point out the celebrated guilt summer house on which the 551 00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,599 gilt weather cock still stood crooked. It was dusk turning 552 00:24:36,599 --> 00:24:38,400 to dark by the time they reached the remote green 553 00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,599 by the poplars and accepted the new and aimless game 554 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,920 of shooting at the old mark. The last light seemed 555 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,559 to fade from the lawn, and the poplars against the sunset, 556 00:24:45,559 --> 00:24:47,720 were like great plumes upon a purple hearse. When the 557 00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:50,880 futile procession finally curved round and came out in front 558 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,440 of the target, Sir Howard again slapped his host on 559 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:56,039 the shoulder, shoving him playfully forward to take the first shot. 560 00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,160 The shoulder and arm he touched seemed unnaturally stiff and angular, 561 00:24:59,319 --> 00:25:02,000 Mister Jenkins holding his gun in an attitude more awkward 562 00:25:02,039 --> 00:25:04,799 than any that his satiric friends had seen or expected. 563 00:25:05,279 --> 00:25:07,640 At the same instant, a horrible scream seemed to come 564 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:10,799 from nowhere. It was so unnatural and so unsuited to 565 00:25:10,839 --> 00:25:12,519 the scene that it might have been made by some 566 00:25:12,599 --> 00:25:16,000 inhuman thing flying on wings above them, or eavesdropping in 567 00:25:16,039 --> 00:25:18,680 the dark woods beyond. But Fisher knew that it had 568 00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,480 started and stopped on the pale lips of Jefferson Jenkins 569 00:25:21,519 --> 00:25:24,359 of Montreal, and no one at that moment catching sight 570 00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,440 of Jefferson Jenkins's face would have complained that it was commonplace. 571 00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,359 The next moment, a torrent of guttural but good humored 572 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,480 oaths came from Major Burke as he and the two 573 00:25:32,519 --> 00:25:34,279 other men saw what it was in front of them. 574 00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:36,720 The target stood up in the dim grass like a 575 00:25:36,799 --> 00:25:39,799 dark goblin, grinning at them, and it was literally grinning. 576 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,720 It had two eyes like stars, and in similar livid 577 00:25:42,799 --> 00:25:45,240 points of light were picked out the two upturned and 578 00:25:45,279 --> 00:25:47,519 open nostrils, and the two ends of the wide and 579 00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:50,640 tight mouth. A few white dots above each eye indicated 580 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,599 the hoary eyebrows, and one of them ran upward almost 581 00:25:53,599 --> 00:25:57,039 direct It was a brilliant caricature done in bright dotted lines, 582 00:25:57,079 --> 00:25:59,440 and March knew of whom it shone in the shadowy 583 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,079 grass with sea fire, as if one of the submarine 584 00:26:02,079 --> 00:26:04,960 monsters had crawled into the twilight garden. But it had 585 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,000 the head of a dead man. It's only luminous paint, 586 00:26:08,039 --> 00:26:10,240 said Burke. Old Fisher's been having a joke with that 587 00:26:10,279 --> 00:26:13,559 phosphorescent stuff of his. Seems to be meant for old Puggy, 588 00:26:13,559 --> 00:26:16,559 observed Sir Howard hits him off very well with that. 589 00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,480 They all laughed, except Jenkins. When they had all done, 590 00:26:19,519 --> 00:26:21,279 he made a noise like the first effort of an 591 00:26:21,279 --> 00:26:23,799 animal to laugh and horn. Fisher suddenly strode across to 592 00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,160 him and said, mister Jenkins, I must speak to you 593 00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:28,480 at once in private. It was by the little water 594 00:26:28,559 --> 00:26:31,000 course in the moors, on the slope under the hanging rock, 595 00:26:31,319 --> 00:26:33,960 that March met his new friend Fisher by appointment, shortly 596 00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,400 after the ugly and almost grotesque scene that had broken 597 00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:38,640 up the group in the garden. It was a monkey 598 00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,400 trick of mine, observed Fisher, gloomily, putting phosphorus on the target. 599 00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:44,119 But the only chance to make him jump was to 600 00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,559 give him the horrors. Suddenly, and when he saw the 601 00:26:46,599 --> 00:26:48,519 face he had shot out shining on the target, he 602 00:26:48,559 --> 00:26:50,799 practiced on all lit up with an infernal light. He 603 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,839 did jump quite enough for my own intellectual satisfaction. I'm 604 00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,480 afraid I don't quite understand even now, said March, exactly 605 00:26:57,559 --> 00:26:59,799 what he did or why he did it. You ought to, 606 00:27:00,039 --> 00:27:02,680 replied Fisher, with his rather jeery smile. For you gave 607 00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,119 me the first suggestion yourself. Oh yes you did, and 608 00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,079 it was a very shrewd one. You said a man 609 00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,519 wouldn't take sandwiches with him to dine in a great house. 610 00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,039 It was quite true, and the inference was that though 611 00:27:12,039 --> 00:27:14,079 he was going there, he didn't mean to dine there, 612 00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,680 or at any rate, that he might not be dining there. 613 00:27:16,759 --> 00:27:19,000 It occurred to me at once that he probably expected 614 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,119 the visit to be unpleasant, or the reception doubtful, or 615 00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,559 something that would prevent his accepting hospitality. Then it struck 616 00:27:25,599 --> 00:27:28,039 me that Turnbull was a terror to certain shady characters 617 00:27:28,039 --> 00:27:29,559 in the past, and that he had come down to 618 00:27:29,599 --> 00:27:32,319 identify and denounce one of them. The chances at the 619 00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,759 start pointed to the host, that is Jenkins. I'm morally 620 00:27:35,759 --> 00:27:38,839 certain now that Jenkins was the undesirable alien. Turnbull wanted 621 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,480 to convict in another shooting affair. But you see, the 622 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,279 shooting gentleman had another shot in his locker. But you 623 00:27:44,319 --> 00:27:45,799 said he would have to be a very good shot, 624 00:27:45,839 --> 00:27:49,160 protested March. Jenkins is a very good shot, said Fisher, 625 00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:50,880 A very good shot who can pretend to be a 626 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,400 very bad shot? Shall I tell you the second hint 627 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,200 I hit on after yours to make me think it 628 00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,279 was Jenkins. It was my cousin's account of his bad shooting. 629 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,720 He'd shot a cockade off a hat and a weathercock 630 00:28:00,759 --> 00:28:03,599 off a building. Now, in fact, a man must shoot 631 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,160 very well, indeed to shoot so badly as that he 632 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,359 must shoot very neatly to hit the cockade and not 633 00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:10,960 the head or even the hat. If the shots had 634 00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,079 really gone at random, the chances are a thousand to 635 00:28:13,079 --> 00:28:14,960 one that they would not have hit such prominent and 636 00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,240 picturesque objects. They were chosen because they were prominent in 637 00:28:18,279 --> 00:28:21,240 picturesque objects. They make a story to go the round 638 00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,119 of society. He keeps the crooked weathercock in the summer 639 00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,720 House to perpetuate the story of a legend. And then 640 00:28:26,759 --> 00:28:28,799 he lay in wait with his evil eye and wicked guns, 641 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,519 safely ambushed behind the legend of his own incompetence. But 642 00:28:32,599 --> 00:28:35,039 there is more than that. There is the Summer House itself. 643 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,319 I mean, there is the whole thing. There's all the 644 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,680 Jenkins gets chafed about the gilding and the gaudy colors 645 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:42,680 and all the vulgarity that's supposed to stamp him as 646 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,759 an upstart. Now, as a matter of fact, upstarts generally 647 00:28:45,839 --> 00:28:48,839 don't do this. God knows. There's enough of them in society, 648 00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,160 and one knows them well enough, and this is the 649 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:54,119 very last thing they do. They're generally only too keen 650 00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:55,960 to know the right thing and do it, And they 651 00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,359 instantly put themselves, body and soul into the hands of 652 00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,039 art decorators and art experts who the whole thing for them. 653 00:29:01,759 --> 00:29:04,440 There's hardly another millionaire alive who has the moral courage 654 00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,240 to have a gilt monogram on a chair like that 655 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,839 one in the gun room. For that matter, there's the 656 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,759 name as well as the monogram. Names like Tompkins and 657 00:29:11,839 --> 00:29:15,000 Jenkins and Jinks are funny without being vulgar. I mean 658 00:29:15,039 --> 00:29:17,519 they are vulgar without being common, if you prefer it. 659 00:29:17,519 --> 00:29:20,319 They are a commonplace without being common. They are just 660 00:29:20,359 --> 00:29:22,720 the names to be chosen to look ordinary, but they're 661 00:29:22,759 --> 00:29:26,200 really rather extraordinary. Do you know many people called Tompkins. 662 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:28,880 It's a good deal rarer than Talbot. It's pretty much 663 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,839 the same with the comic clothes of the parvenu. Jenkins 664 00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,680 dresses like a character in the Punch. But that's because 665 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,680 he is a character in Punch. I mean he's a 666 00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,480 fictitious character. He's a fabulous animal. He doesn't exist. Have 667 00:29:40,599 --> 00:29:42,359 you ever considered what it must be like to be 668 00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,720 a man who doesn't exist? I mean, to be a 669 00:29:44,759 --> 00:29:47,000 man with a fictitious character that he has to keep 670 00:29:47,079 --> 00:29:49,880 up at the expense, not merely of personal talents, to 671 00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:52,160 be a new kind of hypocrite hiding a talent and 672 00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,839 a new kind of napkin. This man has chosen his 673 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,480 hypocrisy very ingeniously. It was really a new one. A 674 00:29:58,519 --> 00:30:00,960 subtle villain has dressed up as a dashing gentleman and 675 00:30:01,039 --> 00:30:03,920 a worthy business man, and a philanthropist and a saint. 676 00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:06,519 But the loud checks of a comical little cad were 677 00:30:06,559 --> 00:30:09,359 really rather a new disguise. But the disguise must be 678 00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:11,680 very irksome to a man who can really do things. 679 00:30:12,319 --> 00:30:15,559 This is a dexterous little cosmopolitan gutters knipe who can 680 00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,519 do scores of things, not only shoot, but draw and 681 00:30:18,559 --> 00:30:21,279 paint and probably play the fiddle. Now, a man like 682 00:30:21,319 --> 00:30:24,240 that may find the hiding of his talents useful, but 683 00:30:24,279 --> 00:30:26,240 he could never help wanting to use them where they 684 00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,839 were useless. If he can draw, he will draw absent 685 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,359 mindedly on blotting paper. I suspect this rascal has often 686 00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,599 drawn poor old Puggy's face on blotting paper. Probably he 687 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,960 began doing it in blots, as he afterward did it 688 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,839 in dots, or rather shots. It was the same sort 689 00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,240 of thing. He found a disused target in a deserted 690 00:30:43,279 --> 00:30:45,880 yard and couldn't resist indulging in a little secret shooting, 691 00:30:46,079 --> 00:30:48,680 like secret drinking. You thought the shots all scattered in 692 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,799 irregular and so they were, but not accidental. No two 693 00:30:51,839 --> 00:30:54,440 distances were alike, but the different points were exactly where 694 00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,519 he wanted to put them. There's nothing needs such mathematical 695 00:30:57,559 --> 00:31:00,759 precision as a wild caricature. I dabbled a little in 696 00:31:00,839 --> 00:31:03,000 drawing myself, and I assure you that to put one 697 00:31:03,039 --> 00:31:04,720 dot where you want it is of marvel with a 698 00:31:04,759 --> 00:31:07,079 pen close to a piece of paper. It was a 699 00:31:07,119 --> 00:31:09,079 miracle to do it across a garden with a gun. 700 00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:11,519 But a man who can work those miracles will always 701 00:31:11,519 --> 00:31:13,759 itch to work them, if it's only in the dark. 702 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,799 After a pause, March observed thoughtfully, but he couldn't have 703 00:31:16,799 --> 00:31:18,440 brought him down like a bird with one of those 704 00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,039 little guns. No, that was why I went into the 705 00:31:21,039 --> 00:31:23,319 gun room, replied Fisher. He did it with one of 706 00:31:23,319 --> 00:31:25,640 Burke's rifles, and Burke thought he knew the sound of it. 707 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,440 That's why he rushed out without a hat, looking so wild. 708 00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,079 He saw nothing but a car passing quickly, which he 709 00:31:31,119 --> 00:31:33,160 followed for a little way, and then concluded he'd made 710 00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,640 a mistake. There was another silence, during which Fisher sat 711 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,000 on a great stone, as motionless as on their first meeting, 712 00:31:39,079 --> 00:31:41,440 and watched the gray and silver river eddying pass under 713 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,880 the bushes. Then March said, abruptly, of course he knows 714 00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,519 the truth. Now, nobody knows the truth but you and I, 715 00:31:47,559 --> 00:31:49,799 answered Fisher, with a certain softening in his voice. And 716 00:31:49,839 --> 00:31:52,319 I don't think you and I will ever quarrel. What 717 00:31:52,359 --> 00:31:54,799 do you mean, asked March in an altered accent. What 718 00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,440 have you done about it? Horn Fisher continued to gaze 719 00:31:57,440 --> 00:31:59,920 steadily at the eddying stream. At last, he said, the 720 00:32:00,079 --> 00:32:02,640 police have proved it was a motor accident, but you 721 00:32:02,759 --> 00:32:04,759 know it was not. I told you that. I know 722 00:32:04,839 --> 00:32:06,799 too much, replied Fisher, with his eye on the river. 723 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,960 I know that, and I know a great many other things. 724 00:32:10,079 --> 00:32:12,359 I know the atmosphere and the way the whole thing works. 725 00:32:12,799 --> 00:32:15,240 I know this fellow has succeeded in making himself something 726 00:32:15,279 --> 00:32:18,480 incurably commonplace in comic. I know you can't get up 727 00:32:18,519 --> 00:32:21,359 a persecution of old Tool or little Titch. If I 728 00:32:21,359 --> 00:32:23,319 were to tell Hogs or halk It that Old Jink 729 00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:25,880 was an assassin, they would almost die of laughter before 730 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,839 my eyes. Oh, I don't say their laughter's quite innocent, 731 00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,680 though it's genuine in its way. They want old Jink 732 00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:33,880 and they couldn't do without him. I don't say I'm 733 00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,559 quite innocent. I like Hogs. I don't want him to 734 00:32:36,599 --> 00:32:38,119 be down and out, and he'd be done for if 735 00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,079 Jink can't pay for his coronet. They were devilish near 736 00:32:41,119 --> 00:32:43,240 the line at the last election, but the only real 737 00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:47,400 objection to it is that it's impossible. Nobody would believe it. It's 738 00:32:47,279 --> 00:32:50,119 not in the picture. The crooked weathercock would always turn 739 00:32:50,119 --> 00:32:52,839 it into a joke. Don't you think this is infamous, 740 00:32:52,839 --> 00:32:56,400 asked March quietly. I think a good many things, replied 741 00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:58,319 the other. If you people ever happen to blow the 742 00:32:58,319 --> 00:33:01,079 whole tangle of society to hell with dynam I don't 743 00:33:01,119 --> 00:33:02,880 know that the human race will be much the worse. 744 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,000 But don't be too hard on me, merely because I 745 00:33:05,039 --> 00:33:07,839 know what society is. That's why I moon away my time. 746 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,000 Everything's like stinking fish. There was a pause as he 747 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,559 settled himself down again by the stream, and then he added, 748 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:15,720 I told you before I had to throw back the 749 00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,720 big fish. End of the face and the target by G. K. 750 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:20,559 Chesterton