As it happened, Chester was musing
as he went down the steps.
“They treat me as if I were
mad. Have I got some strange notion in my head?
No woman could possibly meet one with such a Ah!
good-day!” he cried quickly, for, as he was
passing the next door, the grey, dreamy-looking old
occupant was in the act of inserting the latch-key.
He turned slowly, pushed back his
rather broad-brimmed hat, and blinked at the speaker
through his spectacles.
“I beg your pardon,” he
said, rather wonderingly; “I can’t
see; yes, to be sure, I remember now;” and the
old man’s face lit up. “I remember
now. My young friend who was making inquiries.
Will you step in, sir? I do not have many visitors.”
He threw open the door and stood smiling
holding it back, giving Chester a smile of invitation
which made him enter that, in combination
with the sudden thought that he might perhaps learn
something about the next-door neighbours.
“Really,” he said frankly,
“as a perfect stranger, this is somewhat of
an intrusion.”
“Not at all, my dear young friend,
not at all. Glad to see you. I lead such
an old-world, lost kind of life. I am very glad
to have a caller. Come in, my dear young friend,
come in. No, no; don’t set your hat down
there; it will be covered with dust. Let me put
it here. Now, then, come in.”
He led the way into the room on their
left, and took a couple of very old folios off a chair.
“A dusty place a
very dusty place; but I dare not trust servants.
They have no idea of the value of books, my dear
sir. I found one had torn out some pages from
a very rare specimen of Wynkyn de Worde to burn under
some damp fire-wood. Can’t trust them can’t
trust them. I’ve just had a very serious
disappointment. Been down to an auction.”
“Indeed?” said Chester,
looking at the old man curiously and wondering where
he had seen a face something like his before.
“Yes. One of the big sales.
There was a priceless copy of one of Marie de Medici’s
books in the list, and I fancy it was with a Grolier
binding just his style; but two other people
wanted it. I bid up to four hundred and then
stopped. A bit of a bibliomaniac, my dear sir,
but not book-mad enough to go higher; couldn’t
afford it, even for a unique, tall copy. Knocked
down for se- ven hun-dred and forty-nine
pounds, sir. A fact. Well, did you find
your friends whom you were looking for?”
“Yes no,” said Chester.
“Dear me; but is not that rather
contradictory, my dear sir?” said the old man,
smiling.
“Perhaps so, but there is a
little mystery about the matter, sir,” replied
Chester. “By the way, though, can you tell
me anything about your next-door neighbours?”
“My next-door neighbours, my
dear sir,” said the old man, smiling and rubbing
his thin hands together softly; “well, not much,
I am so unsociable a body; and here in London one
can be so isolated. Let me see, he is something
in the House of Commons a clerk, or master-at-arms,
or usher, or something.”
“Mr Clareborough is?” cried Chester, sharply.
“No no! That
is on the other side. Quite a large family party.
Very gay people who have plenty of fashionable callers,
and carriages, and parties. I fancy they go
a great deal to operas and theatres. The confectioner’s
people come sometimes, and musicians, and rout seats.
Not in my way, my young friend not in my
way,” continued the old gentleman in his quiet,
amiable manner, as he took down the great bulky London
Directory. “Yes, yes, yes; here we are Highcombe
Street, Clareborough. There’s the name.
Very wealthy, gay family, I believe. Clareborough.
That’s it, and I think I’ve heard somehow I
don’t quite know how it was, unless one of the
tradespeople told me that they have a fine
place somewhere in Kent The Towers, I think
they call it, and they are often down there, and this
place is shut up. I like it to be, because it
is so much more quiet for a man busy with his books.”
“Have you have you
noticed anything peculiar about the family?”
said Chester in a hesitating way.
The old man beamed upon him through
his glasses, then took them off deliberately, and
wiped each carefully with an old silk handkerchief,
gazing at his questioner with his face wrinkled up
as if he were puzzled.
“Anything peculiar?” he
said at last. “Well, no, I think not, unless
it is that they seem to spend a great deal of money
in ephemeral pleasures. Yes, I remember now thinking
that they must waste a great deal, and that with so
much at their command they might accumulate a grand
collection of books.”
“Anything more?” said Chester.
“N-no, my dear sir. I
think, now you mention it, that I have taken more
notice of my neighbour on the other side. Yes,
I am sure I have. I remember thinking how bad
it must be for his health.”
“Indeed?” said Chester,
inquiringly, but with the intention of leading the
old man back into talking about his other neighbours.
“Oh yes. You see, I often
hear him coming home extremely late in the night.
Twelve, one, and two o’clock, sometimes even
by broad daylight. Not that I was watching him,
but I often lie awake for hours, musing about some
particular book that I have not obtained. I’m
afraid I shall not sleep to-night for thinking of
that book I missed at the sale to-day. But I
put it to you, my dear sir; it was too much to give,
was it not?”
“Certainly,” said Chester,
smiling, as he seized the opportunity to turn back
the conversation to the other side; “but I suppose,
according to your showing, the sum named would have
been a trifle to your other neighbours.”
“Hah! Yes, I suppose it
would yes, I suppose it would. But
are you a collector?”
“I? Oh no,” said
Chester, smiling, “only a very ignorant body.”
“No, no, no, no,” said
the old man, smiling pleasantly. “I know
better than that. One gets to know what a person
is more or less by his conversation, my dear sir,
and I could vouch for it that you are a student.”
“Well, I must own to that, more
or less, as to medicine and surgery.”
“I thought so, I thought so,”
said the old man, bending down to clasp his hands
about one knee and sit as if thinking deeply over something,
while Chester gladly availed himself of the silence
to give free rein to his own thoughts.
For an idea had suddenly occurred
to him which lit up his troubled brain like a flash
of light.
He was in the next house the
old man leading his solitary life seemed pleased to
have found someone ready to converse with him.
Why should he not try and cultivate the old fellow’s
acquaintance, and take advantage of the opportunities
it would afford him of watching his neighbours?
He had hardly thought this when the
old man looked up, smiling at him in a child-like,
pleasant way.
“How strange how
very strange it all is, my dear sir. Now, you
will hardly credit me when I tell you that for some
time past I have been suffering from little symptoms
which at their frequent and more frequent recurrence
suggest to me that I ought to consult a medical man.”
“Indeed?” said Chester.
“Yes, my dear sir, indeed; but
you see, I am a very old man now, and I fear that
I have grown weak and vacillating; I may add cowardly
too. I have shrunk from going to a doctor for
fear that he should tell me that I must give up my
studies that I am failing and coming very
near to the end of my span.”
“Oh, surely not,” said
Chester. “You look a very healthy subject,
sir.”
“I I don’t
know, my dear sir, but I have been afraid to go; and
here, all at once, in the most casual way, I suddenly
make the acquaintance of a medical man, and find him
seated opposite to me, talking in a friendly way which
quite invites my confidence. It is strange, is
it not?”
“Very strange, indeed,”
said Chester, gazing hard in the pleasant, bland old
countenance before him. “But really, my
dear sir, I do not think you require medical advice.”
The old man returned the fixed gaze
and then said appealingly
“I hope, my dear sir, you are speaking sincerely.”
“Of course,” replied Chester.
“Not as doctors sometimes do, to encourage their
patients?”
“Certainly not,” cried
Chester. “There is every sign of a vigorous,
green old age about you.”
“That is very pleasant to hear,
my dear sir,” said the old man, “very
pleasant. I don’t think I am one ready
to repine, or one who would seek to live for selfish
considerations love of pleasure or the like but
I have so much to do. I want years yet to complete
my collection, and I may have to go over to Leyden,
Leipsic, Nuremberg, Florence, and several of the other
Continental towns which were the birthplaces of many
of these old tomes which you see upon my shelves.”
“I see no reason why you should
not live for years yet, sir,” said Chester,
encouragingly.
“But my head my brain.
I find I grow forgetful, my dear sir. I put
away books and forget their places. All little
symptoms, are they not, of failing powers?”
“To be perfectly candid, certainly
they are,” said Chester; “but in a healthy
old age these failings come very, very gradually, and
nature suggests so many ways of palliating them.
For instance, a clever young secretary with a methodical
turn of mind would relieve you of a trouble like this.
Really I do not think that you have any occasion to
trouble yourself about such a symptom as that, any
more than you have about the failing powers of sight
which compelled you to take to glasses.”
“My dear young friend!”
cried the old man, leaning forward to catch at his
visitor’s hand, “I cannot find words to
express my gratitude. You do not know what a
relief your words have been to me. It is wonderful,
and upon such a casual acquaintanceship. But
I sincerely hope that you will let me see more of
you er that is, if I am not troublesome
to you; such a wearisome old bookworm as I fear I
must be. But the mouse helped the lion, you
know, and who knows but what I may be able to help
you with some information about your friends next door let
me see, I think you said it was the people next door
whom you had been trying to find.”
“I did not say so,” said Chester, quietly.
“I beg your pardon; but you do wish to know
something about them.”
“Well, frankly, yes, I do,” said Chester.
“Hah! And who knows but
what I may be able to help you? I may remember
something that does not occur to me now a
trifle or two perhaps, but which may be of importance
from your point of view. Come and see me sometimes.
Let me show you my library. I think you might
be interested in some of my books.”
“I have no doubt but that I should be.”
“To be sure, yes. I have
an old copy of Hippocrates on surgery and medicine,
and I daresay many others which do not occur to me
now. Yes, of course, I have Boerhaave.
You will come?”
“I shall be very glad to,”
said Chester, warmly, though his conscience smote
him for what he felt to be a false pretence.
“I am very, very glad,”
said the old man, rising, going to an old cabinet
and pulling out a drawer, from which he took a key
and at the same time something short and black which
he cleverly thrust into the breast of his loosely-made,
old-fashioned tail-coat. “Now I am about
to ask a favour of you, doctor,” he said, turning
with a pleasant, genial smile upon his countenance.
“I have other treasures here down below, besides
books. Stored up and rarely brought out, bin
after bin of very fine old wine. I am going
to ask you to drink a glass of exceedingly old port
with me.”
“No, no,” said Chester,
“you must excuse me. I never drink wine
at this time of day. Let me dine with you some
time or other, and then ”
“Yes, of course, my dear young
friend; I hope many times; but just one glass now.
Don’t say no. I feel to need it a little
myself, for don’t think me a feeble
old dotard the fact of telling you of my
weakness, of confessing to a doctor my fears of coming
to an end, have upset my nerves a little, and I can’t
help fancying that a glass of good old wine would
do me good.”
“I am sure it would, sir,”
said Chester, warmly. “Well, there!
I will break a rule, and join you in one glass.”
“Hah!” cried the old man,
brightening up; “that is very good of you, doctor very
good. I feel better already in anticipation.
Now, let me see let me see.”
He opened the library table drawer
and took out a box of matches and an old-fashioned,
curled-up twist of wax taper, such as was the accompaniment
of a writing-table in sealing-wax days, fifty years
or so ago. This latter he lit, and then hung
a large old key upon his little finger.
“The library next time you come,
doctor; the cellar this time. A very fine cellar
of wines, my dear sir, but wasted upon me. Just
a glass now and then as a medicine. This way.
I hope you will not mind the dust and cobwebs.
An old-fashioned notion, but books seem to need the
dust of ages, and it is precious upon them, just as
old port ought to have its cobwebs and its crust.
You will come with me to get a bottle?”
“Oh yes,” said Chester,
and he followed the old man out of the room into the
book-encumbered hall, and along to the back, past chest
and shelf, to where there was the glass door opening
on the stone flight leading down into the basement.
“This way, my dear sir.
One moment; there should be a basket here. Yes,
here we are; would you mind lighting me? Thank
you.”
Chester took the wax taper and lighted
the old man, while he took down from behind the glass
door, where it hung upon a hook, one of those cradle-like
baskets in which a bottle of rich old wine can recline
without destroying its fineness.
“You see,” said the old
man, “I am a bit of a connoisseur. I like
to keep my wine as it has lain in the bin. No
decanting for me. Straight on down, my dear
sir.”
Chester did not hesitate, but led
on down the stone stairs, holding the light on high,
the tiny taper shining back upon a pair of flashing
eyes and the wrinkles of a now wonderfully wrinkled
face, while in the shadows behind a thin, claw-like
hand glided to the breast-pocket of the old-fashioned
coat, to draw out one of those misnamed weapons formed
of twisted whalebone, ending in a weighty leaden knob.
Chester bore the light; behind him
seemed to hover upon the dingy walls the Shadow of
Death.