"If you want to put yourself right with the public."
"Yes, yes--"from The Retreat, East Hoe, the residence of E. Basket, Esq., on the night of May 2nd, between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m., a Gentleman--""
Mr. Basket paused.
"We must describe him," said the Doctor.
"I am coming to that. "A Gentleman, answering to the name of Hymen--""
"Why "answering"?"
Mr. Basket ran his pen through the word. "The fact is," he explained, "I"ve only written out a thing of this sort once before in my life; and that was when Mrs. Basket missed a black-and-tan terrier. H"m, let me see. . . . Between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m., Solomon Hymen, Esquire, and Justice of the Peace, Major of the Troy Volunteer Artillery. The missing gentleman was of imposing exterior--"
"Height five feet, three inches," said the Doctor.
"Eh? Are you sure?"
"As medical officer of the Troy Artillery, I keep account of every man in the corps; height, chest measurement, waist measurement, any peculiarity of structure, any mole, cicatrix, birth-mark and so on.
I began to take these notes at the Major"s own instance, for purposes of identification on the field of battle. Little did I dream, as I pa.s.sed the tape around my admired friend, that _his_ proportions would ever be the subject of this melancholy curiosity!"
"It reminds me," said Mr. Basket, "of a group in my garden ent.i.tled _Finding the body of Harold_. Five feet three, you say? I had better scratch out "imposing exterior"; or, stay!--we"ll alter it to "carriage.""
"Chest, thirty-six inches; waist, forty-three inches; complexion-- does that come next?" Doctor Hansombody appealed to the Chief Constable, who nodded.
"Complexion, features, colour of hair, of eyes . . . any order you please."
"We must leave out all allusion to his hair, I think," said Mr.
Basket; "and, by the way, I suppose the--er--authorities will desire to take possession of any other little odds-and-ends our friend left behind him? Complexion, clear and sanguine; strongly marked features. His eye, sir, was like Mars, to threaten and command; but I forget the precise colour at this moment. We might, perhaps, content ourselves with "piercing." If I allow myself to be betrayed into a description of his moral qualities--"
"Unnecessary," put in the Chief Constable.
"And yet, sir, it was by his moral qualities that my friend ever impressed himself most distinctly on all who met him. Alas! that I should be speaking of him in the past tense! He was a man, sir, as Shakespeare puts it:
"Take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again."
"A most happy description, Mr. Basket," the Doctor agreed.
"Would you mind saying it over again, that I may commit it to memory?"
Mr. Basket obligingly repeated it.
"Most happy! Shakespeare, you say? Thank you." The Doctor copied it into his pocket-book among the prescriptions.
"One might add, perhaps," Mr. Basket submitted respectfully, "that a mere physical description, however animated, cannot do justice to my friend"s moral grandeur, which, indeed, would require the brush of a Michael Angelo."
The Chief Constable inquired what reward they proposed to offer.
"Ah, yes; to be sure!" Taken somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Basket and the Doctor exchanged glances.
"On behalf of the relatives, now--" began Mr. Basket.
"So far as I know, Miss Martha was the one relative he had in the world," answered the Doctor.
"So much the better, my friend, seeing that you have (as I understand) her entire confidence."
"I was about to suggest that--circ.u.mstances having forced you into prominence--to take the lead, so to speak, in this unhappy affair--"
"But why do we talk of price?" interposed Mr. Basket briskly, "seeing that the loss, if loss it be, is nothing short of irreparable? To my mind there is something--er--"
"Desecrating," suggested the Doctor.
"Quite so--desecrating--in this reduction of our poor friend to pounds, shillings, and pence."
"Nevertheless it is usual to name a sum," the Chief Constable a.s.sured them. "Shall we say fifty pounds?" Mr. Basket took off his spectacles and wiped them with a trembling hand. Dr. Hansombody stood considering, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip.
"I think I can undertake," he suggested, "that the Town Council will contribute a moiety of that sum. Something can be done by private subscription."
Mr. Basket brightened visibly. "Put it at fifty pounds, then," he commanded, with a wave of the hand. "Should Providence see fit to restore him to us, our friend, as a reasonable man, will doubtless discharge some part of the expenses."
Accordingly the bill was drafted, and the Chief Constable, after running his blue pencil through some of its more monumental periods, engaged to have it printed and distributed.
"Do you know," confessed Mr. Basket, as he and the Doctor walked homewards, "I felt all the while as if we were composing our friend"s epitaph. I have a presentimen--"
"Do not utter it, my dear sir!" the Doctor entreated.
"He was a man--"
"Yes, yes; "taking one thing with another, it is more than likely we shall never see him again." The words, sir, struck upon my spirit like the tolling of a bell. But for Heaven"s sake let us not despair!"
"Life is precarious, Dr. Hansombody; as your profession, if any, should teach. We are here to-day; we are gone--in the more sudden cases--to-morrow. What do you say, sir, to a gla.s.s of wine at the "Benbow"? To my thinking, we should both be the better for it."
CHAPTER XVIII.
APOTHEOSIS.
At this point my pen falters. The order of events would require us now to travel back to Troy with Miss Marty and the Doctor and break the news to the town. But have you the heart for it? Not I.
I tell you that I never now pa.s.s the Ferry Slip on the sh.o.r.e facing Troy, on a summer"s evening when the sun slants over the hill and the smoke of the town rises through shadow into the bright air through which the rooks are winging homeward--I never rest on my oars to watch the horse-boat unmooring, the women up the street filling their pitchers at the water-shute, the strawberry-gatherers at work in their cliff gardens; but I see again Boutigo"s van descend the hill and two pa.s.sengers in black alight from it upon the sh.o.r.e--Miss Marty and the Doctor, charged with their terrible message. I see them stand on the slip and shade their eyes as they look across to the town gla.s.sed in the evening tide, I see beneath the shade of her palm Miss Marty"s lips tremble with the words that are to shatter that happy picture of repose, brutally, violently, as a stone crashing into a mirror. In the ferry-boat she trembles from head to foot, between fear and a fever to speak and have it over. . . .
But the town would not believe. Nay, even when Town Crier Bonaday, dropping tears into his paste-pot, affixed the placard to the door of the Town Hall, the town would not believe. Men and women gathered at his back, read the words stupidly, looked into each other"s faces and shook their heads. Two or three gazed skyward.
"The Major gone? No, no . . . there must be some mistake. He would come back--to-morrow, perhaps--and bring light and laughter back with him. It was long since the town had enjoyed a good laugh, and here were all the makings of a rare one."
But the days pa.s.sed and brought no tidings.
Miss Marty had drawn down the blinds in the Major"s house, in token of mourning and to shut out prying eyes: for during the first day or two small crowds had collected in front and hung about the garden gate to stare pathetically up at the windows. They meant no harm: always when Cai Tamblyn or Scipio stepped out to remonstrate, they moved away quietly.