"Eh?" he said. "Why not? Of course I have. One of the first things I did think of. I"ve been pretty near it, and if I find I can"t write that book I shall be near it again. And"--he bent the grey-blue eyes solemnly on mine--"shall I tell you what _would_ completely settle it? If anybody should see that ghost and scream!... I"ve got a most fearful power, George. A man who can make people scream as I could oughtn"t to be at large. Ghosts ought to get where they belong--off the map altogether. My G.o.d, if it slipped out one day when I didn"t mean it--just these three words--"I"m Derwent Rose"----"
Then suddenly his voice shook pitiably. He spread out his hands.
"George, old fellow, you can"t imagine what a joy it was to see you at that place to-night! You haven"t realised it yet--you don"t know what I went through before I plucked up courage to speak to you. You"re the only living creature I used to know that I _can_ know now--the only one--the only one on earth. I know them, but I daren"t--daren"t--let them know me. It gets very, very, very lonely sometimes----"
Lonely sometimes! My heart ached for him. It seemed to me that that loneliness was a gulf that all the pity in the universe could not fill.
No, I had not realised. I had thought I had, but I hadn"t. It now came quite home to me that, while he was free to make a new acquaintance at any moment he pleased, that acquaintance could hardly last longer than the moment in which it was made. For say it lasted for three weeks. At the end of those three weeks the hand he had taken would be three weeks older, but his own hand might be a hundred weeks younger. And so it must go on: hail--and farewell. He, beyond measure gifted, was denied this gift. He could not stop by the way to make a single friend. For others the calm and gentle progress to age, the greetings among themselves, the accosting by the loved familiar name; but Derwent Rose had no name.
Without a name Daphne Ba.s.sett had set a dog on him; what would she have set on him had he said "I"m Derwent Rose"? Lightning was safer to handle than that name of his. It might miss--but it might hit, make mad, kill.
Sooner or later, I supposed, I should have to tell him that Julia Oliphant knew as much about his state as I knew myself. I had had no shadow of right to betray him to her thus. But in the meantime he was resolved that he would not turn that voltage of his ident.i.ty either on to her or anybody else.
III
In its way, one of the most singular portions of our conversation occurred when I asked him how he was placed as regards money. After all he must have money. Even a man who lives his life backwards must eat and have his boots soled, and pay twenty-five shillings a week for a loft over a garage. At first he seemed reluctant to answer me.
"I"m afraid I ran through rather a lot just at first," he said hesitatingly--his first admission that he had not inhabited Trenchard"s garret for the whole of the time since I had last seen him. "But that will be all right. I can make lots of money."
"How?" ("Not by that book of yours," I said emphatically to myself.)
"Oh, you needn"t worry about that. I a.s.sure you I can. I"ve thought it all out most carefully."
"I wish you"d tell me."
Then, eagerly, jerkily, he unfolded his maddest idea yet.
"I told you you hadn"t grasped it. n.o.body grasps it till they"ve got to live it. You see, it"s all a question of time. Now look at it carefully.... I"m not fixed. I"m a constantly moving quant.i.ty. For that reason I can"t take an ordinary job like anybody else. Oh, I could get one all right. It would be the simplest thing in the world for me to walk into one of these Sandow places, Ince"s or Jones"s or any of "em, and say, "Just pa.s.s me a few of those two hundred pound weights," and scare "em alive with what I could do. In fact that"s the whole situation--I _should_ scare "em alive. You can"t show pupils one man one day and perhaps a different one altogether the next; it isn"t decent.
Here"s a nut for you to crack, George: I"m dead, a ghost. But my appearance is one of the most conspicuous things you ever saw. A man like me can"t hide himself. The King or the Prince of Wales might walk down Piccadilly unrecognised, but not an athletic phenomenon like me. So as well as being the loneliest, I"m also one of the most public men living."
"So you propose to make money out of athletics?"
"Steady; let"s take it as it comes. I"ve thought it all out, and I don"t see a single flaw in it. Here"s the problem: I want a large sum of money, I want to make it honestly, and if possible instantaneously, that is to say while I"m still stationary. Now how am I to do it?"
"You can"t do it."
"Well, I say I can."
"How?"
You wouldn"t guess in a hundred years what it was he proposed to do.
He intended to fight Carpentier.
"All in the fraction of a second, George," he said, appealing for my approval. "Knock-out punch for one of these mammoth purses, fix yourself up for life, and then disappear. It"s absolutely sound reasoning."
"It"s the craziest thing I ever heard."
"Why?" he asked, his eyes innocently on mine. "It"s perfectly feasible."
"How would you get the match? Do you suppose any promoter would look at you? Would any champion? Would his manager let him? Remember that championship"s a business. Champions make money as long as they"re champions and no longer. They take no risks. And part of their business is to sidestep dangerous matches."
But he had an answer to that that evidently seemed to him conclusive.
His eyes sparkled.
"Exactly! That"s the very reason I picked Carpentier. Carpentier, man, Georges Carpentier! _He_ isn"t a sidestepper! He"s the most thoroughgoing sportsman alive! Look at the way he gave that Yorkshire lad his match! Sidestep, that Frenchman? Look here. You know I speak French like a native. Well, I shouldn"t in the least mind going straight up to him and putting the whole proposition before him."
"That you were out after his championship and incidentally his living?"
"Yes, and I jolly well know what he"d do."
"So do I. He"d turn you over to Descamps and the negotiations would last a couple of years. That isn"t instantaneous."
"He"d do nothing of the sort. _That_ great fellow?... Kiss me. He"d kiss me on both cheeks, shout "_C"est ca!_" and tell Descamps to fix it up straight away. Of course I wouldn"t hurt him."
I stared. "_Could_ you put Carpentier out?"
He laughed. A laugh was his reply.
"But suppose--an accident can always happen--suppose he put _you_ out?"
This time I had not even a laugh for a reply.
He was fast asleep.
Asleep, dead off, and in that moment of time! The instant before his eyes had kindled at the thought of what a lark it would be to take on that peerless Frenchman and put him out; now, between a question and an answer, those eyes were closed and he slept profoundly.
With immense profundity. I bent over him and spoke his name in his ear.
I shook him by the shoulder. He was unconscious of either action. His colour was blooming, his breathing deep and easy; else his sleep seemed to have the immensity of death itself. Under the glaring incandescent mantle he was theatrical in his beauty, superb in the relaxation of his strength. I could not take my eyes off him. It was almost frightening to see that complete annihilation of so much physical and mental power.
To write that book--and to fight Carpentier! He had worked it coolly and impudently out. The a.n.a.lytical faculties he would have brought to the one task he had merely applied to the other, and he had arrived at the perfectly logical answer that the way to make the maximum of money as nearly instantaneously as possible was to knock out Carpentier.
I could only gaze spellbound at him as he slept.
What to do now?
I was aware that this question had been waiting for an answer ever since we had left that picture-house in Shaftesbury Avenue. I had now found him, or he me; but what next? Let him go again? But apparently he did not want to go; he clung to me pathetically, as to the single companion he had in the world. Take him away somewhere? But he had refused to come, had urged that monstrous book. Was I to stay here with him, to stay all night, to stay till Trenchard"s return? That was, to say the least, inconvenient. Should I put him to bed? Somehow I hesitated to disturb that vast unconsciousness. Poor fellow, he richly earned all the rest he got.
I went into the bedroom, brought out Trenchard"s quilt, and spread it over him. I moved his head gently to the padded portion of the wicker chair. I made him as comfortable as I could. Then once more I stood irresolute.
It was now after one o"clock, and that powerful sleep had cut us clean off in the middle of things. I had much, much more to ask him. I wanted to know his intentions about his rooms in Cambridge Circus, whether he thought of returning there, whether he wanted his furniture stored or sold. If to myself and Trenchard and possibly a few others he was still known as Derwent Rose, I wanted to know what his name was to the rest of mankind. Merely as a means of communication with people he did not wish to meet face to face, I wanted to know whether his handwriting had changed, whether he used a typewriter, what his signature was like.
And above all I wanted to know what steps I must now take with regard to Julia Oliphant.
Of course I intended to tell her everything, and to tell him that I had done so. The worst I should risk would be his momentary anger that I had betrayed him. He had wished to spare her a meeting with himself, but he had not known that she was unsparable. More than that, she was indissuadable. I should not be able to keep her from him. And, if he clung so touchingly to me, found me so "magnificently steady," what comfort would he not find in that unvarying constancy of hers? He might break out on me for the moment, but he would bless me for it by and by.
I sat down in the other chair. I was very tired. I dozed.
In perhaps a quarter of an hour I opened my eyes again. He had not moved. It was a mild night, the deep chair was not uncomfortable, and I dozed again and again woke. Still he slept. I muttered a "Good night, poor old chap." I was too drowsy even to get up and turn down the incandescent light.