'Come, come, Morris, keep your temper,' said Mr Appleby.
'Michael!' cried Morris, 'Michael here too!'
'Here too,' echoed the lawyer; 'here and everywhere, my good fellow; every step you take is counted; trained detectives follow you like your shadow; they report to me every three-quarters of an hour; no expense is spared.'
Morris's face took on a hue of dirty grey. 'Well, I don't care; I have the less reserve to keep,' he cried. 'That man cashed my bill; it's a theft, and I want the money back.'
'Do you think I would lie to you, Morris?' asked Michael.
'I don't know,' said his cousin. 'I want my money.'
'It was I alone who touched the body,' began Michael.
'You? Michael!' cried Morris, starting back. 'Then why haven't you declared the death?' 'What the devil do you mean?' asked Michael.
'Am I mad? or are you?' cried Morris.
'I think it must be Pitman,' said Michael.
The three men stared at each other, wild-eyed.
'This is dreadful,' said Morris, 'dreadful. I do not understand one word that is addressed to me.'
'I give you my word of honour, no more do I,' said Michael.
'And in God's name, why whiskers?' cried Morris, pointing in a ghastly manner at his cousin. 'Does my brain reel? How whiskers?'
'O, that's a matter of detail,' said Michael.
There was another silence, during which Morris appeared to himself to be shot in a trapeze as high as St Paul's, and as low as Baker Street Station.
'Let us recapitulate,' said Michael, 'unless it's really a dream, in which case I wish Teena would call me for breakfast. My friend Pitman, here, received a barrel which, it now appears, was meant for you. The barrel contained the body of a man. How or why you killed him...'
'I never laid a hand on him,' protested Morris. 'This is what I have dreaded all along. But think, Michael! I'm not that kind of man; with all my faults, I wouldn't touch a hair of anybody's head, and it was all dead loss to me. He got killed in that vile accident.'
Suddenly Michael was seized by mirth so prolonged and excessive that his companions supposed beyond a doubt his reason had deserted him. Again and again he struggled to compose himself, and again and again laughter overwhelmed him like a tide. In all this maddening interview there had been no more spectral feature than this of Michael's merriment; and Pitman and Morris, drawn together by the common fear, exchanged glances of anxiety.
'Morris,' gasped the lawyer, when he was at last able to articulate, 'hold on, I see it all now. I can make it clear in one word. Here's the key: I NEVER GUESSED IT WAS UNCLE JOSEPH TILL THIS MOMENT.'
This remark produced an instant lightening of the tension for Morris. For Pitman it quenched the last ray of hope and daylight. Uncle Joseph, whom he had left an hour ago in Norfolk Street, pasting newspaper cuttings?--it?--the dead body?--then who was he, Pitman? and was this Waterloo Station or Colney Hatch?
'To be sure!' cried Morris; 'it was badly smashed, I know. How stupid not to think of that! Why, then, all's clear; and, my dear Michael, I'll tell you what--we're saved, both saved. You get the tontine--I don't grudge it you the least--and I get the leather business, which is really beginning to look up. Declare the death at once, don't mind me in the smallest, don't consider me; declare the death, and we're all right.'
'Ah, but I can't declare it,' said Michael.
'Why not?' cried Morris.
'I can't produce the corpus, Morris. I've lost it,' said the lawyer.
'Stop a bit,' ejaculated the leather merchant. 'How is this? It's not possible. I lost it.'
'Well, I've lost it too, my son,' said Michael, with extreme serenity. 'Not recognizing it, you see, and suspecting something irregular in its origin, I got rid of--what shall we say?--got rid of the proceeds at once.'
'You got rid of the body? What made you do that?' walled Morris. 'But you can get it again? You know where it is?'
'I wish I did, Morris, and you may believe me there, for it would be a small sum in my pocket; but the fact is, I don't,' said Michael.
'Good Lord,' said Morris, addressing heaven and earth, 'good Lord, I've lost the leather business!'
Michael was once more shaken with laughter.
'Why do you laugh, you fool?' cried his cousin, 'you lose more than I. You've bungled it worse than even I did. If you had a spark of feeling, you would be shaking in your boots with vexation. But I'll tell you one thing--I'll have that eight hundred pound--I'll have that and go to Swan River--that's mine, anyway, and your friend must have forged to cash it. Give me the eight hundred, here, upon this platform, or I go straight to Scotland Yard and turn the whole disreputable story inside out.'
'Morris,' said Michael, laying his hand upon his shoulder, 'hear reason. It wasn't us, it was the other man. We never even searched the body.'
'The other man?' repeated Morris.
'Yes, the other man. We palmed Uncle Joseph off upon another man,' said Michael.
'You what? You palmed him off? That's surely a singular expression,' said Morris.
'Yes, palmed him off for a piano,' said Michael with perfect simplicity. 'Remarkably full, rich tone,' he added.
Morris carried his hand to his brow and looked at it; it was wet with sweat. 'Fever,' said he.
'No, it was a Broadwood grand,' said Michael. 'Pitman here will tell you if it was genuine or not.'
'Eh? O! O yes, I believe it was a genuine Broadwood; I have played upon it several times myself,' said Pitman. 'The three-letter E was broken.'
'Don't say anything more about pianos,' said Morris, with a strong shudder; 'I'm not the man I used to be! This--this other man--let's come to him, if I can only manage to follow. Who is he? Where can I get hold of him?'
'Ah, that's the rub,' said Michael. 'He's been in possession of the desired article, let me see--since Wednesday, about four o'clock, and is now, I should imagine, on his way to the isles of Javan and Gadire.'
'Michael,' said Morris pleadingly, 'I am in a very weak state, and I beg your consideration for a kinsman. Say it slowly again, and be sure you are correct. When did he get it?'
Michael repeated his statement.
'Yes, that's the worst thing yet,' said Morris, drawing in his breath.
'What is?' asked the lawyer.
'Even the dates are sheer nonsense,' said the leather merchant.
'The bill was cashed on Tuesday. There's not a gleam of reason in the whole transaction.'
A young gentleman, who had passed the trio and suddenly started and turned back, at this moment laid a heavy hand on Michael's shoulder.
'Aha! so this is Mr Dickson?' said he.
The trump of judgement could scarce have rung with a more dreadful note in the ears of Pitman and the lawyer. To Morris this erroneous name seemed a legitimate enough continuation of the nightmare in which he had so long been wandering. And when Michael, with his brand-new bushy whiskers, broke from the grasp of the stranger and turned to run, and the weird little shaven creature in the low-necked shirt followed his example with a bird-like screech, and the stranger (finding the rest of his prey escape him) pounced with a rude grasp on Morris himself, that gentleman's frame of mind might be very nearly expressed in the colloquial phrase: 'I told you so!'
'I have one of the gang,' said Gideon Forsyth.
'I do not understand,' said Morris dully.
'O, I will make you understand,' returned Gideon grimly.
'You will be a good friend to me if you can make me understand anything,' cried Morris, with a sudden energy of conviction.
'I don't know you personally, do I?' continued Gideon, examining his unresisting prisoner. 'Never mind, I know your friends. They are your friends, are they not?'