I thought perhaps that would clear the air a bit, and it did.
“Neither-that is-let me explain-”
“I should be glad if you would.”
He got it out this time.
“My client has been unfortunate enough to become liable to a term of imprisonment-”
“Yes?” I said, and I tried to make my voice as encouraging as possible.
“He doesn’t wish to go to prison.”
“Naturally.”
“He is willing to pay five hundred pounds for a substitute.”
So that was it. I had thought of several things, but I wasn’t expecting that. There was a nasty drab, penal sound about it. A feeling that even the Embankment was preferable as a place of residence to the shelter of one of His Majesty’s prisons came over me pretty strongly. Besides, I didn’t see how they were going to work a thing like that. I hoped I wasn’t going to be told I was the double of a criminal who hadn’t even the courage of his crimes.
“Well, Mr. Fairfax?”
“What has your man done?” said I.
He hummed and hawed a bit, as I thought he would, and I felt my temper getting up. It always riles me when people won’t come to the point. If a man doesn’t mind doing a dirty job, he oughtn’t to mind talking about it. The fellow turned my stomach with his humming and hawing.
“What is it?” I said sharply. “Murder?”
That rattled him. He drew back.
“Murder? No! What are you thinking of?”
I laughed.
“You’re not very communicative, you know. If I’m to have committed a crime, I shall want to know what it is. It seems to me that that is only reasonable. You see, there are some crimes that aren’t just in my line.”
I suppose it was stupid of me to be sarcastic-it always puts a man’s back up worse than anything. He got back on me all right when he said,
“You can afford to be particular?” And then after a moment, “You were Lymington’s secretary, weren’t you?”
I nodded. That beastly candle shone full in my face, and I was afraid I had flushed.
He leaned forward with a change of manner.
“Look here, Fairfax, are you in a position to refuse five hundred pounds? You could get away abroad and start fresh.”
“After I came out of prison?”
He waved that away. There was something familiar in the gesture. I was sure he was the man I had seen in the tobacconist’s, and I was sure that that wasn’t the first time I had seen him, but I couldn’t place him yet. He wasn’t any one I knew, but I had certainly seen him and heard his voice. He talked about his “client,” but he seemed too blundering to be a lawyer.
“You’d get off with three years if you’d any luck.”
That got my goat. Three years! I could have driven my fist into his fat face.
“I’ve not had much luck so far,” I said, “so I don’t think I’ll count on it now.”
Then it came over me that they were offering me under two hundred a year to go to prison, and it made me mad to be reckoned so cheap. I suppose he saw something in my face, for he pushed back the bench and stood up. I think his feet were cold, and seeing him afraid like that made me think that the driver was out of earshot. And then next minute I thought I was mistaken, for I heard the door behind me open softly. I looked over my shoulder and saw about an inch of black night showing between the door and the jamb. I couldn’t see anything else. The door didn’t move; but I thought that some one was standing there listening.
I turned back again. It didn’t matter to me who listened.
“Well?” I said. “What’s my crime? You haven’t told me yet.”
“You agree?” said he with a show of eagerness.
“I don’t agree or disagree till I know where I am.”
He sat down again.
“Well, just suppose a case. Let us suppose that a person- who we needn’t name-has anticipated a sum of money which would in all probability have passed to him legally within a year or two.”
“All right,” I said, “he anticipated some money. In other words he pinched it.”
He waved again. I thought the door moved behind me.
“Do you mind telling me how?” I proceeded.
“There was a matter of a check,” said he.
“Forgery runs to more than three years,” said I-and I thought the door moved again.
I looked back, but it was still just ajar. The smell of violets came in out of the dark outside. There are no violets in a Surrey wood in September; but there had been a scent of violets in the car. I did not think that it was the driver who had opened the door. I thought that there was a woman standing there listening, and I wondered who she was.
The fat man spread out his hands.
“A first offense-it would be that, I suppose.”
“I really don’t know. You haven’t told me who your forger is.”
“That,” he said, “is not necessary.”
“Or how you propose to persuade a jury to accept your-substitute.”
He had an answer ready for that. I suppose he had prepared it.
“Let us put it this way. Money has been withdrawn from a certain account-let us call it Mr. A’s account, and Mr. A’s suspicions have become aroused. He knows that a check has been forged. He is determined to find out who forged it and to prosecute. His suspicions will inevitably lead him to the right person unless they are diverted to a substitute-”
He talked like a man who has learnt a thing by heart. Every now and then he slid a paper into the light and looked at it.
“And how do you propose they should be diverted?”
“If a second check were presented-a second forgery-in circumstances which plainly indicated the-substitute, Mr. A would naturally conclude that his suspicions had been groundless, and that the two checks were the work of the same hand.”
I put my fist on the table and looked at it.
“My hand?”
He nodded and sat back with the air of having got the thing off his chest.
“Thanks,” I said. “I think not.” And I got up to go.
“Five hundred pounds,” he said, and rapped the table.
Like an echo I heard Fay say, “Five hundred pounds-I must have five hundred pounds.”
It was a relief to get the light out of my eyes. Standing, it didn’t worry me. I looked over the top of the lantern, but I couldn’t see his face. He had both hands on the table and was leaning over them. I saw his hat, his bulky shoulders, and his stubby hands, and I stood there, pulled this way and that. He said five hundred pounds, and Fay said five hundred pounds. He was offering it, and she was going to everlasting smash if she didn’t get it. Then prison-three years of it-a perfectly damnable thought. And then… Not much use being free to starve. I was pulled this way and that.
I opened my mouth to speak. The thing I was going to say never got said. All at once I knew I couldn’t do it.
I said “No,” and turned on my heel and went out.
IX
The blood was pounding in my ears, and I felt as if I had just pulled myself back on the edge of something frightful. I don’t know what made me feel like that. I couldn’t see or hear for a moment. I went blundering along the path and barged into a tree. At the same moment I heard my name called:
“ Fairfax!”
It was the man I had been talking to, and he called a second time.
“ Fairfax!”
I turned round. I had really only gone a pace or two. He was standing in the doorway holding up the lantern in front of him. As I turned, some one made a sound, a queer inarticulate sound of pain or distress. It seemed to come from the darkness behind him.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re in too much of a hurry. Come back and talk things out.”
“No use,” I said. “I’ve made up my mind.”
He turned half round and set the lamp on the table so that the dark side was between the light and the door. I saw all the left-hand side of the bare room in a yellow glow. He left the hut and came forward.