"It"s a lie, it"s a lie, an" you all know it! It"s a plot! I"m-I"m--" He became inarticulate, sobs of impotent rage shaking his whole body, and the tears streaming down his face.
At that moment Professor Sylva.n.u.s Conti entered the court, smiling and alert. He looked quickly towards the dock to see if his case had come on, and was relieved to find that his last night"s visitor was not there. He had feared being late.
The magistrate cleared his throat and addressed the prisoner:
"You are harming your case by this exhibition. If a mistake has been made you have nothing to fear; but if you continue these interruptions I shall have to send you back to the cells whilst your case is heard."
Turning to the officer in charge of the case, he enquired:
"Is the prosecutor present?"
The sergeant looked round, and, seeing Professor Conti, replied that he was.
"Let him be sworn," ordered the magistrate.
To his astonishment, Professor Conti heard his name called. Thoroughly bewildered, he walked in the direction in which people seemed to expect him to walk. He took the oath, with his eyes fixed, as if he were fascinated, upon the pathetic figure in the dock. Suddenly he became aware that the man was addressing him.
"Did I do it?-did I?" he asked brokenly.
"Silence in the court!" called the clerk.
Suddenly the full horror of the situation dawned upon the Professor. He broke out into a cold sweat as he stood petrified in the witness-box. Somehow or other his plan had miscarried. He looked round him. Instinctively he thought of flight. He felt that he was the culprit, the pa.s.sionate, eager creature in the dock his accuser.
"Am I the man?" he heard the prisoner persisting. "Am I?"
"N-no," he faltered in a voice he could have sworn was not his own.
"You say that the prisoner is not the man who entered your flat during the early hours of this morning?" questioned the magistrate.
"No, sir, he"s not," replied Conti wearily, miserably. What had happened? Was he a failure?
"Please explain what happened," ordered the magistrate.
Conti did so. He told how he had been awakened, and how he conceived the idea of hypnotising the burglar and making him give himself up to the police.
The prisoner was then sworn and related how he had been commanded in the name of the law to deliver the note at the police-station; how he had done so, and had been promptly arrested; how he had protested his innocence, but without result.
The Professor listened to the story in amazement, and to the subsequent remarks of the magistrate upon quack practices and police methods with dull resignation.
He did not, however, realise the full horror of the catastrophe that had befallen him until five minutes after leaving the court, when he encountered a newsvendor displaying a placard of The Evening Mail bearing the words:
PROFESSOR CONTI"S GREAT HYPNOTIC FEAT
CAPTURE OF AN ALLEGED BURGLAR
He then saw that he had lost his reputation, his belief in his own powers, his living, and about fifty pounds" worth of property.
When he reached his flat late in the afternoon, he was astonished to find awaiting him a small packet that had come by post, which contained the whole of the missing property, even down to the small change, also the two duplicate keys that Bindle had caused to be fashioned.
"I"m a bloomin" poor burglar," Bindle had a.s.sured himself cheerfully as he dropped the parcel containing the proceeds of his "burglary" into a pillar-box, "a-returnin" the swag by post. I got to be careful wot sort o" little jokes I goes in for in future."
IV
That evening Joseph Bindle sat at home in his favourite chair reading with great relish The Evening Post"s account of THE GREAT HYPNOTIC FIASCO. Being at bitter enmity with The Evening Mail, the Post had given full rein to its sense of the ludicrous.
Puffing contentedly at a twopenny cigar, Bindle enjoyed to the full the story so ably presented; but nothing gave him so much pleasure as the magistrate"s closing words. He read them for the fourth time:
"Professor Conti sought advertis.e.m.e.nt; he has got it. Unfortunately for him, he met a man cleverer than himself, one who is something of a humorist." Bindle smiled appreciatively. "The conduct of the police in this case is reprehensible to a degree, and they owe it to the public to bring the real culprit to justice."
With great deliberation Bindle removed his cigar from his mouth, placed the forefinger of his right hand to the side of his nose, and winked.
"Seem to be pleased with yourself," commented Mrs. Bindle acidly, as she banged a plate upon the table. To her, emphasis was the essence of existence.
"You"ve "it it, Mrs. B., I am pleased wi" meself," Bindle replied. He felt impervious to any negative influence.
"What"s happened, may I ask?"
"A lot o" things "ave "appened, an" a lot of things will go on "appenin" as long as your ole man can take an "int. You"re a wonderful woman, Mrs. B., more wonderful than yer know; but yer must give "em some nasty jars in "eaven now and then."
Bindle rose, produced from his pocket the tin of salmon that inevitably accompanied any endeavour on his part to stand up to Mrs. Bindle, then picking up a jug from the dresser he went out to fetch the supper beer, striving at one and the same time to do justice to "Gospel Bells" and his cigar.
CHAPTER IV
THE HEARTYS AT HOME
The atmosphere of the Hearty menage was one of religious gloom. To Mr. Hearty laughter and a smiling face were the attributes of the unG.o.dly. He never laughed himself, and his smile was merely the baring of a handful of irregular yellow teeth, an action that commenced and ended with such suddenness as to cast some doubt upon its spontaneity.
He possessed only two interests in life-business and the chapel, and one dread-his wife"s brother-in-law, Joseph Bindle. As business was not a thing he cared to discuss with his wife or eighteen-year-old daughter, Millie, the one topic of conversation left was the chapel.
Mr. Hearty was a spare man of medium height, with a heavy moustache, iron-grey mutton-chop whiskers, and a woolly voice.
"I never see a chap wi" whiskers like that wot wasn"t as "oly as oil," was Bindle"s opinion.
Mr. Hearty was negative in everything save piety. His ideal in life was to temporise and placate, and thus avoid anything in the nature of a dispute or altercation.
"If "Earty"s goin" to be a favourite in "eaven," Bindle had once said to Mrs. Bindle, "I don"t think much of "eaven"s taste in men. "E can"t "it nothink, either with "is fist or "is tongue."
"If you was more like him," Mrs. Bindle had retorted, "you might wear a top hat on Sundays, same as he does."
"Me in a top "at!" Bindle had cried. ""Oly Moses! I can see it! Why, my ears ain"t big enough to "old it up. Wot "ud I do if there was an "igh wind blowin"? I"d spend all Sunday a-chasin" it up and down the street, like an ole woman after a black "en."
Bindle himself was far from being pugnacious; but his conception of manhood was that it should be ready to hit any head that wanted hitting. He had been known to fight men much bigger than himself, not because he personally had any dispute to settle with them, but rather from an abstract sense of the fitness of things. Once when a man was mercilessly beating a horse Bindle intervened, and a fight had ensued, which had ended only when both parties were too exhausted to continue.
"Blimey, but you ain"t "arf a fool, Joe," remarked Ginger, to whom a fight was the one joy in life, regarding with interest Bindle"s bruised and bleeding face as he stood sobbing for breath. "Wot jer do it for? "E wasn"t "urtin" you; it was the "orse."