THE TRAVELLER'S STORY OFA TERRIBLY STRANGE BED by Wilkie Collins
Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to bestaying atParis
When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the doorkeeper,we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did not find many peopleassembled there. But, few as the men were who looked up at us on our entrance,they were all types--lamentably true types--of their respective classes.
We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism--here there wasnothing but tragedy--mute, weird tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible.The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whose sunken eyes fiercely watched theturning up of the cards, never spoke; the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, whopricked his piece of pasteboard perseveringly, to register how often black won,and how often red--never spoke; the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vultureeyes and the darned great-coat, who had lost his last sou, and still looked ondesperately, after he could play no longer--never spoke. Even the voice of thecroupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled and thickened in the atmosphereof the room. I had entered the place to laugh, but the spectacle before me wassomething to weep over. I soon found it necessary to take refuge in excitementfrom the depression of spirits which was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately Isought the nearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play.Still more unfortunately, as the event will show, I won--won prodigiously; wonincredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table crowdedround me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered toone another that the English stranger was going to break the bank.
The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city inEurope ,without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances--thatphilosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of theword, I had never been. I was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play.My gaming was a mere idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity,because I never knew what it was to want money. I never practiced it soincessantly as to lose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I couldcoolly pocket without being thrown off my balance by my good luck. In short, Ihad hitherto frequented gambling-tables--just as I frequented ball-rooms andopera-houses--because they amused me, and because I had nothing better to dowith my leisure hours.
But on this occasion it was very different--now, for the first time in mylife, I felt what the passion for play really was. My success first bewildered,and then, in the most literal meaning of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible asit may appear, it is nevertheless true, that I only lost when I attempted toestimate chances, and played according to previous calculation. If I lefteverything to luck, and staked without any care or consideration, I was sure towin--to win in the face of every recognized probability in favor of the bank. Atfirst some of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my color;but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk. One afteranother they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on at my game.
Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. Theexcitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interrupted by adeep-muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in different languages, everytime the gold was shoveled across to my side of the table--even theimperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a (French) fury ofastonishment at my success. But one man present preserved his self-possession,and that man was my friend. He came to my side, and whispering in English,begged me to leave the place, satisfied with what I had already gained. I mustdo him the justice to say that he repeated his warnings and entreaties severaltimes, and only left me and went away after I had rejected his advice (I was toall intents and purposes gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossiblefor him to address me again that night.
Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried: "Permit me, mydear sir--permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleons which youhave dropped. Wonderful luck, sir! I pledge you my word of honor, as an oldsoldier, in the course of my long experience in this sort of thing, I never sawsuch luck as yours--never! Go on, sir--SacrŽ mille bombes! Go on boldly, andbreak the bank!"
I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveterate civility,a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout.
If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, personally, asbeing rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling, bloodshoteyes, mangy mustaches, and a broken nose. His voice betrayed a barrack-roomintonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiest pair of hands I eversaw--even inFrance
And I did go on--went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of an hourthe croupier called out, "Gentlemen, the bank has discontinued for to-night."All the notes, and all the gold in that "bank," now lay in a heap under myhands; the whole floating capital of the gambling-house was waiting to pour intomy pockets!
"Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir," said the oldsoldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. "Tie it up, as weused to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; your winnings are too heavyfor any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed. There! that's it--shovel them in,notes and all! CrediŽ! what luck! Stop! another napoleon on the floor! Ah! sacrŽpetit polisson de Napoleon! have I found thee at last? Now then, sir--two tightdouble knots each way with your honorable permission, and the money's safe. Feelit! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon-ball--Ah, bah! if theyhad only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz--nom d'une pipe! if theyonly had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as an ex-brave of the French army,what remains for me to do? I ask what? Simply this: to entreat my valued Englishfriend to drink a bottle of Champagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune infoaming goblets before we part!"
Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by all means! AnEnglish cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! Another English cheer for thegoddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
"Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veinscirculates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? Ah, bah!--the bottle isempty! Never mind! Vive le vin! I, the old soldier, order another bottle, andhalf a pound of bonbons with it!"
"No, no, ex-brave; never--ancient grenadier! Your bottle last time; mybottle this. Behold it! Toast away! The French Army! the great Napoleon! thepresent company! the croupier! the honest croupier's wife and daughters--if hehas any! the Ladies generally! everybody in the world!"
By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as if I hadbeen drinking liquid fire--my brain seemed all aflame. No excess in wine hadever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the result of a stimulantacting upon my system when I was in a highly excited state? Was my stomach in aparticularly disordered condition? Or was the Champagne amazingly strong?
"Ex-brave of the French Army!" cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration, "Iam on fire! how are you? You have set me on fire! Do you hear, my hero ofAusterlitz? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne to put the flame out!"
The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until I expected tosee them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirty forefinger by the side ofhis broken nose; solemnly ejaculated "Coffee!" and immediately ran off into aninner room.
The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a magical effecton the rest of the company present. With one accord they all rose to depart.Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication; but finding that my newfriend was benevolently bent on preventing me from getting dead drunk, had nowabandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings. Whatever their motivemight be, at any rate they went away in a body. When the old soldier returned,and sat down again opposite to me at the table, we had the room to ourselves. Icould see the croupier, in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eatinghis supper in solitude. The silence was now deeper than ever.
A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex-brave." He assumed aportentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech wasornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by noapostrophes or exclamations.
"Listen, my dear sir," said he, in mysteriously confidential tones--"listento an old soldier's advice. I have been to the mistress of the house (a verycharming woman, with a genius for cookery!) to impress on her the necessity ofmaking us some particularly strong and good coffee. You must drink this coffeein order to get rid of your little amiable exaltation of spirits before youthink of going home--you must, my good and gracious friend! With all that moneyto take home to-night, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits aboutyou. You are known to be a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemenpresent to-night, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy and excellentfellows; but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they have their amiableweaknesses. Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you understand me! Now, this is whatyou must do--send for a cabriolet when you feel quite well again--draw up allthe windows when you get into it--and tell the driver to take you home onlythrough the large and well-lighted thoroughfares. Do this; and you and yourmoney will be safe. Do this; and to-morrow you will thank an old soldier forgiving you a word of honest advice."
Just as the ex-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones, the coffeecame in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive friend handed me one of thecups with a bow. I was parched with thirst, and drank it off at a draught.Almost instantly afterwards, I was seized with a fit of giddiness, and felt morecompletely intoxicated than ever. The room whirled round and round furiously;the old soldier seemed to be regularly bobbing up and down before me like thepiston of a steam-engine. I was half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; afeeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rose from mychair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammered out that I feltdreadfully unwell--so unwell that I did not know how I was to get home.
"My dear friend," answered the old soldier--and even his voice seemed to bebobbing up and down as he spoke--"my dear friend, it would be madness to go homein your state; you would be sure to lose your money; you might be robbed andmurdered with the greatest ease. I am going to sleep here; do you sleep here,too--they make up capital beds in this house--take one; sleep off the effects ofthe wine, and go home safely with your winnings to-morrow--to-morrow, in broaddaylight."
I had but two ideas left: one, that I must never let go hold of myhandkerchief full of money; the other, that I must lie down somewhereimmediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So I agreed to the proposalabout the bed, and took the offered arm of the old soldier, carrying my moneywith my disengaged hand. Preceded by the croupier, we passed along some passagesand up a flight of stairs into the bedroom which I was to occupy. The ex-braveshook me warmly by the hand, proposed that we should breakfast together, andthen, followed by the croupier, left me for the night.
I ran to the wash-hand stand; drank some of the water in my jug; poured therest out, and plunged my face into it; then sat down in a chair and tried tocompose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs, from the fetidatmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of the apartment I now occupied,the almost equally refreshing change for my eyes, from the glaring gaslights ofthe "salon" to the dim, quiet flicker of one bedroom-candle, aided wonderfullythe restorative effects of cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began tofeel a little like a reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk ofsleeping all night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still greater risk oftrying to get out after the house was closed, and of going home alone at nightthrough the streets of Paris with a large sum of money about me. I had slept inworse places than this on my travels; so I determined to lock, bolt, andbarricade my door, and take my chance till the next morning.
Accordingly, I secured myself against all intrusion; looked under the bed,and into the cupboard; tried the fastening of the window; and then, satisfiedthat I had taken every proper precaution, pulled off my upper clothing, put mylight, which was a dim one, on the hearth among a feathery litter of wood-ashes,and got into bed, with the handkerchief full of money under my pillow.
I soon felt not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could not evenclose my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nerve in my bodytrembled--every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. Itossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly soughtout the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now I thrust my armsover the clothes; now I poked them under the clothes; now I violently shot mylegs straight out down to the bottom of the bed; now I convulsively coiled themup as near my chin as they would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changedit to the cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now Ifiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against the board of thebed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain; I groaned withvexation as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night.
What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out somemethod of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was in the condition toimagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my brain with forebodings of everypossible and impossible danger; in short, to pass the night in suffering allconceivable varieties of nervous terror.
I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room--which was brightenedby a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window--to see if itcontained any pictures or ornaments that I could at all clearly distinguish.While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre'sdelightful little book, "Voyage autour de ma Chambre," occurred to me. Iresolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enoughto relieve the tedium of my wakefulness, by making a mental inventory of everyarticle of furniture I could see, and by following up to their sources themultitude of associations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand maybe made to call forth.
In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found it mucheasier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, and thereupon soon gaveup all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's fanciful track--or, indeed, of thinkingat all. I looked about the room at the different articles of furniture, and didnothing more.
There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all things inthe world to meet with in Paris--yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poster,with the regular top lined with chintz--the regular fringed valance allround--the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I remembered havingmechanically drawn back against the posts without particularly noticing the bedwhen I first got into the room. Then there was the marble-topped wash-handstand, from which the water I had spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was stilldripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs,with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chaircovered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over theback. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry,broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then thedressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very largepincushion. Then the window--an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture,which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a highSpanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinisterruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intentlyupward--it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. Atany rate, he had the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.
This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward too--at the topof the bed. It was a gloomy and not an interesting object, and I looked back atthe picture. I counted the feathers in the man's hat--they stood out inrelief--three white, two green. I observed the crown of his hat, which was ofconical shape, according to the fashion supposed to have been favored by GuidoFawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It couldn't be at the stars; sucha desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the highgallows, and he was going to be hanged presently. Would the executioner comeinto possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted thefeathers again--three white, two green.
While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectual employment,my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlight shining into the roomreminded me of a certain moonlight night in England--the night after a picnicparty in a Welsh valley. Every incident of the drive homeward, through lovelyscenery, which the moonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to myremembrance, though I had never given the picnic a thought for years; though, ifI had tried to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothingof that scene long past. Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tell us weare immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently than memory? Herewas I, in a strange house of the most suspicious character, in a situation ofuncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem to make the cool exercise of myrecollection almost out of the question; nevertheless, remembering, quiteinvoluntarily, places, people, conversations, minute circumstances of everykind, which I had thought forgotten forever; which I could not possibly haverecalled at will, even under the most favorable auspices. And what cause hadproduced in a moment the whole of this strange, complicated, mysterious effect?Nothing but some rays of moonlight shining in at my bedroom window.
I was still thinking of the picnic--of our merriment on the drive home--ofthe sentimental young lady who would quote "Childe Harold" because it wasmoonlight. I was absorbed by these past scenes and past amusements, when, in aninstant, the thread on which my memories hung snapped asunder; my attentionimmediately came back to present things more vividly than ever, and I foundmyself, I neither knew why nor wherefore, looking hard at the picture again.
Looking for what?
Good God! the man had pulled his hat down on his brows! No! the hat itselfwas gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the feathers--three white, twogreen? Not there! In place of the hat and feathers, what dusky object was itthat now hid his forehead, his eyes, his shading hand?
Was the bed moving?
I turned on my back and looked up. Was I mad? drunk? dreaming? giddy again?or was the top of the bed really moving down--sinking slowly, regularly,silently, horribly, right down throughout the whole of its length andbreadth--right down upon me, as I lay underneath?
My blood seemed to stand still. A deadly paralysing coldness stole all overme as I turned my head round on the pillow and determined to test whether thebed-top was really moving or not, by keeping my eye on the man in the picture.
The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black, frowzy outlineof the valance above me was within an inch of being parallel with his waist. Istill looked breathlessly. And steadily and slowly--very slowly--I saw thefigure, and the line of frame below the figure, vanish, as the valance moveddown before it.
I am, constitutionally, anything but timid. I have been on more than oneoccasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession for aninstant; but when the conviction first settled on my mind that the bed-top wasreally moving, was steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked upshuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous machinery for murder,which was advancing closer and closer to suffocate me where I lay.
I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless. The candle, fully spent,went out; but the moonlight still brightened the room. Down and down, withoutpausing and without sounding, came the bed-top, and still my panic-terror seemedto bind me faster and faster to the mattress on which I lay--down and down itsank, till the dusty odor from the lining of the canopy came stealing into mynostrils.
At that final moment the instinct of self-preservation startled me out of mytrance, and I moved at last. There was just room for me to roll myself sidewiseoff the bed. As I dropped noiselessly to the floor, the edge of the murderouscanopy touched me on the shoulder.
Without stopping to draw my breath, without wiping the cold sweat from myface, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bed-top. I was literallyspellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turnedround; if a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could nothave moved to take advantage of it. The whole life in me was, at that moment,concentrated in my eyes.
It descended--the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, camedown--down--close down; so close that there was not room now to squeeze myfinger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at the sides, and discovered thatwhat had appeared to me from beneath to be the ordinary light canopy of afour-post bed was in reality a thick, broad mattress, the substance of which wasconcealed by the valance and its fringe. I looked up and saw the four postsrising hideously bare. In the middle of the bed-top was a huge wooden screw thathad evidently worked it down through a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinarypresses are worked down on the substance selected for compression. The frightfulapparatus moved without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking asit came down; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid adead and awful silence I beheld before me--in the nineteenth century, and in thecivilized capital of France--such a machine for secret murder by suffocation asmight have existed in the worst days of the Inquisition, in the lonely innsamong the Hartz Mountains, in the mysterious tribunals of Westphalia! Still, asI looked on it, I could not move, I could hardly breathe, but I began to recoverthe power of thinking, and in a moment I discovered the murderous conspiracyframed against me in all its horror.
My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had beensaved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic. How Ihad chafed and fretted at the fever fit which had preserved my life by keepingme awake! How recklessly I had confided myself to the two wretches who had ledme into this room, determined, for the sake of my winnings, to kill me in mysleep by the surest and most horrible contrivance for secretly accomplishing mydestruction! How many men, winners like me, had slept, as I had proposed tosleep, in that bed, and had never been seen or heard of more! I shuddered at thebare idea of it.
But, ere long, all thought was again suspended by the sight of the murderouscanopy moving once more. After it had remained on the bed--as nearly as I couldguess--about ten minutes, it began to move up again. The villains who worked itfrom above evidently believed that their purpose was now accomplished. Slowlyand silently, as it had descended, that horrible bed-top rose towards its formerplace. When it reached the upper extremities of the four posts, it reached theceiling, too. Neither hole nor screw could be seen; the bed became in appearancean ordinary bed again--the canopy an ordinary canopy--even to the mostsuspicious eyes.
Now, for the first time, I was able to move--to rise from my knees--to dressmyself in my upper clothing--and to consider of how I should escape. If Ibetrayed by the smallest noise that the attempt to suffocate me had failed, Iwas certain to be murdered. Had I made any noise already? I listened intently,looking towards the door.
No! no footsteps in the passage outside--no sound of a tread, light orheavy, in the room above--absolute silence everywhere. Besides locking andbolting my door, I had moved an old wooden chest against it, which I had foundunder the bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran cold as I thought of what itscontents might be!) without making some disturbance was impossible; and,moreover, to think of escaping through the house, now barred up for the night,was sheer insanity. Only one chance was left me--the window. I stole to it ontiptoe.
My bedroom was on the first floor, above an entresol, and looked into a backstreet, which you have sketched in your view. I raised my hand to open thewindow, knowing that on that action hung, by the merest hair-breadth, my chanceof safety. They keep vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part of theframe cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have occupied meat least five minutes, reckoning by time--five hours, reckoning by suspense--toopen that window. I succeeded in doing it silently--in doing it with all thedexterity of a house-breaker--and then looked down into the street. To leap thedistance beneath me would be almost certain destruction! Next, I looked round atthe sides of the house. Down the left side ran a thick water-pipe which you havedrawn--it passed close by the outer edge of the window. The moment I saw thepipe I knew I was saved. My breath came and went freely for the first time sinceI had seen the canopy of the bed moving down upon me!
To some men the means of escape which I had discovered might have seemeddifficult and dangerous enough--to me the prospect of slipping down the pipeinto the street did not suggest even a thought of peril. I had always beenaccustomed, by the practice of gymnastics, to keep up my school-boy powers as adaring and expert climber; and knew that my head, hands, and feet would serve mefaithfully in any hazards of ascent or descent. I had already got one leg overthe window-sill, when I remembered the handkerchief filled with money under mypillow. I could well have afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefullydetermined that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss their plunderas well as their victim. So I went back to the bed and tied the heavyhandkerchief at my back by my cravat.
Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place, I thought Iheard a sound of breathing outside the door. The chill feeling of horror ranthrough me again as I listened. No! dead silence still in the passage--I hadonly heard the night air blowing softly into the room. The next moment I was onthe window-sill--and the next I had a firm grip on the water-pipe with my handsand knees.
I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should, andimmediately set off at the top of my speed to a branch "Prefecture" of Police,which I knew was situated in the immediate neighbourhood. A "Sub-prefect," andseveral picked men among his subordinates, happened to be up, maturing, Ibelieve, some scheme for discovering the perpetrator of a mysterious murderwhich all Paris was talking of just then. When I began my story, in a breathlesshurry and in very bad French, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me ofbeing a drunken Englishman who had robbed somebody; but he soon altered hisopinion as I went on, and before I had anything like concluded, he shoved allthe papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me with another(for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers, desired his expert followersto get ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doors and ripping up brickflooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly and familiar manner possible, tolead me with him out of the house. I will venture to say that when theSub-prefect was a little boy, and was taken for the first time to the play, hewas not half as much pleased as he was now at the job in prospect for him at thegambling-house!
Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining andcongratulating me in the same breath as we marched at the head of our formidableposse comitatus. Sentinels were placed at the back and front of the house themoment we got to it; a tremendous battery of knocks was directed against thedoor; a light appeared at a window; I was told to conceal myself behind thepolice--then came more knocks and a cry of "Open in the name of the law!" Atthat terrible summons bolts and locks gave way before an invisible hand, and themoment after the Sub-prefect was in the passage, confronting a waiterhalf-dressed and ghastly pale. This was the short dialogue which immediatelytook place:
"We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house?"
"He went away hours ago."
"He did no such thing. His friend went away; he remained. Show us to hisbedroom!"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! he--"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Garon, he is. He slept here--he didn't findyour bed comfortable--he came to us to complain of it--here he is among mymen--and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin!(calling to one of the subordinates, and pointing to the waiter) collar that manand tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!"
Every man and woman in the house was secured--the "Old Soldier" the first.Then I identified the bed in which I had slept, and then we went into the roomabove.
No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of it. TheSub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody to be silent, stampedtwice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentively at the spot he hadstamped on, and ordered the flooring there to be carefully taken up. This wasdone in no time. Lights were produced, and we saw a deep raftered cavity betweenthe floor of this room and the ceiling of the room beneath. Through this cavitythere ran perpendicularly a sort of case of iron thickly greased; and inside thecase appeared the screw, which communicated with the bed-top below. Extralengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; all the completeupper works of a heavy press--constructed with infernal ingenuity so as to jointhe fixtures below, and when taken to pieces again, to go into the smallestpossible compass--were next discovered and pulled out on the floor. After somelittle difficulty the Sub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery together,and, leaving his men to work it, descended with me to the bedroom. Thesmothering canopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen itlowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was,had a terrible significance. "My men," said he, "are working down the bed-topfor the first time--the men whose money you won were in better practice."
We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents--every one ofthe inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect, after takingdown my "procŽs verbal" in his office, returned with me to my hotel to get mypassport. "Do you think," I asked, as I gave it to him, "that any men havereally been smothered in that bed, as they tried to smother me?"
"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue," answered theSub-prefect, "in whose pocketbooks were found letters stating that they hadcommitted suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything at the gamingtable. Do I know how many of those men entered the same gambling-house that youentered? won as you won? took that bed as you took it? slept in it? weresmothered in it? and were privately thrown into the river, with a letter ofexplanation written by the murderers and placed in their pocket-books? No mancan say how many or how few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped.The people of the gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret fromus--even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret for them.Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at my office again atnine o'clock--in the meantime, au revoir!"
The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and re-examined; thegambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; theprisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty among themmade a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the master of thegambling-house--justice discovered that he had been drummed out of the army as avagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all sorts of villainies since;that he was in possession of stolen property, which the owners identified; andthat he, the croupier, another accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup ofcoffee, were all in the secret of the bedstead. There appeared some reason todoubt whether the inferior persons attached to the house knew anything of thesuffocating machinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt, by beingtreated simply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two headmyrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffee wasimprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular attendants at thegambling-house were considered "suspicious" and placed under "surveillance"; andI became, for one whole week (which is a long time) the head "lion" in Parisiansociety. My adventure was dramatized by three illustrious play-makers, but neversaw theatrical daylight; for the censorship forbade the introduction on thestage of a correct copy of the gambling-house bedstead.
One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship must haveapproved: it cured me of ever again trying "Rouge et Noir" as an amusement. Thesight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps of money on it, willhenceforth be forever associated in my mind with the sight of a bed canopydescending to suffocate me in the silence and darkness of the night.
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Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to bestaying at
When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the doorkeeper,we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did not find many peopleassembled there. But, few as the men were who looked up at us on our entrance,they were all types--lamentably true types--of their respective classes.
We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism--here there wasnothing but tragedy--mute, weird tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible.The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whose sunken eyes fiercely watched theturning up of the cards, never spoke; the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, whopricked his piece of pasteboard perseveringly, to register how often black won,and how often red--never spoke; the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vultureeyes and the darned great-coat, who had lost his last sou, and still looked ondesperately, after he could play no longer--never spoke. Even the voice of thecroupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled and thickened in the atmosphereof the room. I had entered the place to laugh, but the spectacle before me wassomething to weep over. I soon found it necessary to take refuge in excitementfrom the depression of spirits which was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately Isought the nearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play.Still more unfortunately, as the event will show, I won--won prodigiously; wonincredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table crowdedround me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered toone another that the English stranger was going to break the bank.
The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city in
But on this occasion it was very different--now, for the first time in mylife, I felt what the passion for play really was. My success first bewildered,and then, in the most literal meaning of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible asit may appear, it is nevertheless true, that I only lost when I attempted toestimate chances, and played according to previous calculation. If I lefteverything to luck, and staked without any care or consideration, I was sure towin--to win in the face of every recognized probability in favor of the bank. Atfirst some of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my color;but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk. One afteranother they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on at my game.
Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. Theexcitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interrupted by adeep-muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in different languages, everytime the gold was shoveled across to my side of the table--even theimperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a (French) fury ofastonishment at my success. But one man present preserved his self-possession,and that man was my friend. He came to my side, and whispering in English,begged me to leave the place, satisfied with what I had already gained. I mustdo him the justice to say that he repeated his warnings and entreaties severaltimes, and only left me and went away after I had rejected his advice (I was toall intents and purposes gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossiblefor him to address me again that night.
Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried: "Permit me, mydear sir--permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleons which youhave dropped. Wonderful luck, sir! I pledge you my word of honor, as an oldsoldier, in the course of my long experience in this sort of thing, I never sawsuch luck as yours--never! Go on, sir--SacrŽ mille bombes! Go on boldly, andbreak the bank!"
I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveterate civility,a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout.
If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, personally, asbeing rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling, bloodshoteyes, mangy mustaches, and a broken nose. His voice betrayed a barrack-roomintonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiest pair of hands I eversaw--even in
And I did go on--went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of an hourthe croupier called out, "Gentlemen, the bank has discontinued for to-night."All the notes, and all the gold in that "bank," now lay in a heap under myhands; the whole floating capital of the gambling-house was waiting to pour intomy pockets!
"Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir," said the oldsoldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. "Tie it up, as weused to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; your winnings are too heavyfor any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed. There! that's it--shovel them in,notes and all! CrediŽ! what luck! Stop! another napoleon on the floor! Ah! sacrŽpetit polisson de Napoleon! have I found thee at last? Now then, sir--two tightdouble knots each way with your honorable permission, and the money's safe. Feelit! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon-ball--Ah, bah! if theyhad only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz--nom d'une pipe! if theyonly had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as an ex-brave of the French army,what remains for me to do? I ask what? Simply this: to entreat my valued Englishfriend to drink a bottle of Champagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune infoaming goblets before we part!"
Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by all means! AnEnglish cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! Another English cheer for thegoddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
"Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veinscirculates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? Ah, bah!--the bottle isempty! Never mind! Vive le vin! I, the old soldier, order another bottle, andhalf a pound of bonbons with it!"
"No, no, ex-brave; never--ancient grenadier! Your bottle last time; mybottle this. Behold it! Toast away! The French Army! the great Napoleon! thepresent company! the croupier! the honest croupier's wife and daughters--if hehas any! the Ladies generally! everybody in the world!"
By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as if I hadbeen drinking liquid fire--my brain seemed all aflame. No excess in wine hadever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the result of a stimulantacting upon my system when I was in a highly excited state? Was my stomach in aparticularly disordered condition? Or was the Champagne amazingly strong?
"Ex-brave of the French Army!" cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration, "Iam on fire! how are you? You have set me on fire! Do you hear, my hero ofAusterlitz? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne to put the flame out!"
The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until I expected tosee them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirty forefinger by the side ofhis broken nose; solemnly ejaculated "Coffee!" and immediately ran off into aninner room.
The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a magical effecton the rest of the company present. With one accord they all rose to depart.Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication; but finding that my newfriend was benevolently bent on preventing me from getting dead drunk, had nowabandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings. Whatever their motivemight be, at any rate they went away in a body. When the old soldier returned,and sat down again opposite to me at the table, we had the room to ourselves. Icould see the croupier, in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eatinghis supper in solitude. The silence was now deeper than ever.
A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex-brave." He assumed aportentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech wasornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by noapostrophes or exclamations.
"Listen, my dear sir," said he, in mysteriously confidential tones--"listento an old soldier's advice. I have been to the mistress of the house (a verycharming woman, with a genius for cookery!) to impress on her the necessity ofmaking us some particularly strong and good coffee. You must drink this coffeein order to get rid of your little amiable exaltation of spirits before youthink of going home--you must, my good and gracious friend! With all that moneyto take home to-night, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits aboutyou. You are known to be a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemenpresent to-night, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy and excellentfellows; but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they have their amiableweaknesses. Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you understand me! Now, this is whatyou must do--send for a cabriolet when you feel quite well again--draw up allthe windows when you get into it--and tell the driver to take you home onlythrough the large and well-lighted thoroughfares. Do this; and you and yourmoney will be safe. Do this; and to-morrow you will thank an old soldier forgiving you a word of honest advice."
Just as the ex-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones, the coffeecame in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive friend handed me one of thecups with a bow. I was parched with thirst, and drank it off at a draught.Almost instantly afterwards, I was seized with a fit of giddiness, and felt morecompletely intoxicated than ever. The room whirled round and round furiously;the old soldier seemed to be regularly bobbing up and down before me like thepiston of a steam-engine. I was half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; afeeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rose from mychair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammered out that I feltdreadfully unwell--so unwell that I did not know how I was to get home.
"My dear friend," answered the old soldier--and even his voice seemed to bebobbing up and down as he spoke--"my dear friend, it would be madness to go homein your state; you would be sure to lose your money; you might be robbed andmurdered with the greatest ease. I am going to sleep here; do you sleep here,too--they make up capital beds in this house--take one; sleep off the effects ofthe wine, and go home safely with your winnings to-morrow--to-morrow, in broaddaylight."
I had but two ideas left: one, that I must never let go hold of myhandkerchief full of money; the other, that I must lie down somewhereimmediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So I agreed to the proposalabout the bed, and took the offered arm of the old soldier, carrying my moneywith my disengaged hand. Preceded by the croupier, we passed along some passagesand up a flight of stairs into the bedroom which I was to occupy. The ex-braveshook me warmly by the hand, proposed that we should breakfast together, andthen, followed by the croupier, left me for the night.
I ran to the wash-hand stand; drank some of the water in my jug; poured therest out, and plunged my face into it; then sat down in a chair and tried tocompose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs, from the fetidatmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of the apartment I now occupied,the almost equally refreshing change for my eyes, from the glaring gaslights ofthe "salon" to the dim, quiet flicker of one bedroom-candle, aided wonderfullythe restorative effects of cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began tofeel a little like a reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk ofsleeping all night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still greater risk oftrying to get out after the house was closed, and of going home alone at nightthrough the streets of Paris with a large sum of money about me. I had slept inworse places than this on my travels; so I determined to lock, bolt, andbarricade my door, and take my chance till the next morning.
Accordingly, I secured myself against all intrusion; looked under the bed,and into the cupboard; tried the fastening of the window; and then, satisfiedthat I had taken every proper precaution, pulled off my upper clothing, put mylight, which was a dim one, on the hearth among a feathery litter of wood-ashes,and got into bed, with the handkerchief full of money under my pillow.
I soon felt not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could not evenclose my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nerve in my bodytrembled--every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. Itossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly soughtout the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now I thrust my armsover the clothes; now I poked them under the clothes; now I violently shot mylegs straight out down to the bottom of the bed; now I convulsively coiled themup as near my chin as they would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changedit to the cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now Ifiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against the board of thebed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain; I groaned withvexation as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night.
What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out somemethod of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was in the condition toimagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my brain with forebodings of everypossible and impossible danger; in short, to pass the night in suffering allconceivable varieties of nervous terror.
I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room--which was brightenedby a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window--to see if itcontained any pictures or ornaments that I could at all clearly distinguish.While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre'sdelightful little book, "Voyage autour de ma Chambre," occurred to me. Iresolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enoughto relieve the tedium of my wakefulness, by making a mental inventory of everyarticle of furniture I could see, and by following up to their sources themultitude of associations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand maybe made to call forth.
In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found it mucheasier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, and thereupon soon gaveup all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's fanciful track--or, indeed, of thinkingat all. I looked about the room at the different articles of furniture, and didnothing more.
There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all things inthe world to meet with in Paris--yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poster,with the regular top lined with chintz--the regular fringed valance allround--the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I remembered havingmechanically drawn back against the posts without particularly noticing the bedwhen I first got into the room. Then there was the marble-topped wash-handstand, from which the water I had spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was stilldripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs,with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chaircovered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over theback. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry,broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then thedressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very largepincushion. Then the window--an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture,which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a highSpanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinisterruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intentlyupward--it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. Atany rate, he had the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.
This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward too--at the topof the bed. It was a gloomy and not an interesting object, and I looked back atthe picture. I counted the feathers in the man's hat--they stood out inrelief--three white, two green. I observed the crown of his hat, which was ofconical shape, according to the fashion supposed to have been favored by GuidoFawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It couldn't be at the stars; sucha desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the highgallows, and he was going to be hanged presently. Would the executioner comeinto possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted thefeathers again--three white, two green.
While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectual employment,my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlight shining into the roomreminded me of a certain moonlight night in England--the night after a picnicparty in a Welsh valley. Every incident of the drive homeward, through lovelyscenery, which the moonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to myremembrance, though I had never given the picnic a thought for years; though, ifI had tried to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothingof that scene long past. Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tell us weare immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently than memory? Herewas I, in a strange house of the most suspicious character, in a situation ofuncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem to make the cool exercise of myrecollection almost out of the question; nevertheless, remembering, quiteinvoluntarily, places, people, conversations, minute circumstances of everykind, which I had thought forgotten forever; which I could not possibly haverecalled at will, even under the most favorable auspices. And what cause hadproduced in a moment the whole of this strange, complicated, mysterious effect?Nothing but some rays of moonlight shining in at my bedroom window.
I was still thinking of the picnic--of our merriment on the drive home--ofthe sentimental young lady who would quote "Childe Harold" because it wasmoonlight. I was absorbed by these past scenes and past amusements, when, in aninstant, the thread on which my memories hung snapped asunder; my attentionimmediately came back to present things more vividly than ever, and I foundmyself, I neither knew why nor wherefore, looking hard at the picture again.
Looking for what?
Good God! the man had pulled his hat down on his brows! No! the hat itselfwas gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the feathers--three white, twogreen? Not there! In place of the hat and feathers, what dusky object was itthat now hid his forehead, his eyes, his shading hand?
Was the bed moving?
I turned on my back and looked up. Was I mad? drunk? dreaming? giddy again?or was the top of the bed really moving down--sinking slowly, regularly,silently, horribly, right down throughout the whole of its length andbreadth--right down upon me, as I lay underneath?
My blood seemed to stand still. A deadly paralysing coldness stole all overme as I turned my head round on the pillow and determined to test whether thebed-top was really moving or not, by keeping my eye on the man in the picture.
The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black, frowzy outlineof the valance above me was within an inch of being parallel with his waist. Istill looked breathlessly. And steadily and slowly--very slowly--I saw thefigure, and the line of frame below the figure, vanish, as the valance moveddown before it.
I am, constitutionally, anything but timid. I have been on more than oneoccasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession for aninstant; but when the conviction first settled on my mind that the bed-top wasreally moving, was steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked upshuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous machinery for murder,which was advancing closer and closer to suffocate me where I lay.
I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless. The candle, fully spent,went out; but the moonlight still brightened the room. Down and down, withoutpausing and without sounding, came the bed-top, and still my panic-terror seemedto bind me faster and faster to the mattress on which I lay--down and down itsank, till the dusty odor from the lining of the canopy came stealing into mynostrils.
At that final moment the instinct of self-preservation startled me out of mytrance, and I moved at last. There was just room for me to roll myself sidewiseoff the bed. As I dropped noiselessly to the floor, the edge of the murderouscanopy touched me on the shoulder.
Without stopping to draw my breath, without wiping the cold sweat from myface, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bed-top. I was literallyspellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turnedround; if a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could nothave moved to take advantage of it. The whole life in me was, at that moment,concentrated in my eyes.
It descended--the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, camedown--down--close down; so close that there was not room now to squeeze myfinger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at the sides, and discovered thatwhat had appeared to me from beneath to be the ordinary light canopy of afour-post bed was in reality a thick, broad mattress, the substance of which wasconcealed by the valance and its fringe. I looked up and saw the four postsrising hideously bare. In the middle of the bed-top was a huge wooden screw thathad evidently worked it down through a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinarypresses are worked down on the substance selected for compression. The frightfulapparatus moved without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking asit came down; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid adead and awful silence I beheld before me--in the nineteenth century, and in thecivilized capital of France--such a machine for secret murder by suffocation asmight have existed in the worst days of the Inquisition, in the lonely innsamong the Hartz Mountains, in the mysterious tribunals of Westphalia! Still, asI looked on it, I could not move, I could hardly breathe, but I began to recoverthe power of thinking, and in a moment I discovered the murderous conspiracyframed against me in all its horror.
My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had beensaved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic. How Ihad chafed and fretted at the fever fit which had preserved my life by keepingme awake! How recklessly I had confided myself to the two wretches who had ledme into this room, determined, for the sake of my winnings, to kill me in mysleep by the surest and most horrible contrivance for secretly accomplishing mydestruction! How many men, winners like me, had slept, as I had proposed tosleep, in that bed, and had never been seen or heard of more! I shuddered at thebare idea of it.
But, ere long, all thought was again suspended by the sight of the murderouscanopy moving once more. After it had remained on the bed--as nearly as I couldguess--about ten minutes, it began to move up again. The villains who worked itfrom above evidently believed that their purpose was now accomplished. Slowlyand silently, as it had descended, that horrible bed-top rose towards its formerplace. When it reached the upper extremities of the four posts, it reached theceiling, too. Neither hole nor screw could be seen; the bed became in appearancean ordinary bed again--the canopy an ordinary canopy--even to the mostsuspicious eyes.
Now, for the first time, I was able to move--to rise from my knees--to dressmyself in my upper clothing--and to consider of how I should escape. If Ibetrayed by the smallest noise that the attempt to suffocate me had failed, Iwas certain to be murdered. Had I made any noise already? I listened intently,looking towards the door.
No! no footsteps in the passage outside--no sound of a tread, light orheavy, in the room above--absolute silence everywhere. Besides locking andbolting my door, I had moved an old wooden chest against it, which I had foundunder the bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran cold as I thought of what itscontents might be!) without making some disturbance was impossible; and,moreover, to think of escaping through the house, now barred up for the night,was sheer insanity. Only one chance was left me--the window. I stole to it ontiptoe.
My bedroom was on the first floor, above an entresol, and looked into a backstreet, which you have sketched in your view. I raised my hand to open thewindow, knowing that on that action hung, by the merest hair-breadth, my chanceof safety. They keep vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part of theframe cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have occupied meat least five minutes, reckoning by time--five hours, reckoning by suspense--toopen that window. I succeeded in doing it silently--in doing it with all thedexterity of a house-breaker--and then looked down into the street. To leap thedistance beneath me would be almost certain destruction! Next, I looked round atthe sides of the house. Down the left side ran a thick water-pipe which you havedrawn--it passed close by the outer edge of the window. The moment I saw thepipe I knew I was saved. My breath came and went freely for the first time sinceI had seen the canopy of the bed moving down upon me!
To some men the means of escape which I had discovered might have seemeddifficult and dangerous enough--to me the prospect of slipping down the pipeinto the street did not suggest even a thought of peril. I had always beenaccustomed, by the practice of gymnastics, to keep up my school-boy powers as adaring and expert climber; and knew that my head, hands, and feet would serve mefaithfully in any hazards of ascent or descent. I had already got one leg overthe window-sill, when I remembered the handkerchief filled with money under mypillow. I could well have afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefullydetermined that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss their plunderas well as their victim. So I went back to the bed and tied the heavyhandkerchief at my back by my cravat.
Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place, I thought Iheard a sound of breathing outside the door. The chill feeling of horror ranthrough me again as I listened. No! dead silence still in the passage--I hadonly heard the night air blowing softly into the room. The next moment I was onthe window-sill--and the next I had a firm grip on the water-pipe with my handsand knees.
I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should, andimmediately set off at the top of my speed to a branch "Prefecture" of Police,which I knew was situated in the immediate neighbourhood. A "Sub-prefect," andseveral picked men among his subordinates, happened to be up, maturing, Ibelieve, some scheme for discovering the perpetrator of a mysterious murderwhich all Paris was talking of just then. When I began my story, in a breathlesshurry and in very bad French, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me ofbeing a drunken Englishman who had robbed somebody; but he soon altered hisopinion as I went on, and before I had anything like concluded, he shoved allthe papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me with another(for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers, desired his expert followersto get ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doors and ripping up brickflooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly and familiar manner possible, tolead me with him out of the house. I will venture to say that when theSub-prefect was a little boy, and was taken for the first time to the play, hewas not half as much pleased as he was now at the job in prospect for him at thegambling-house!
Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining andcongratulating me in the same breath as we marched at the head of our formidableposse comitatus. Sentinels were placed at the back and front of the house themoment we got to it; a tremendous battery of knocks was directed against thedoor; a light appeared at a window; I was told to conceal myself behind thepolice--then came more knocks and a cry of "Open in the name of the law!" Atthat terrible summons bolts and locks gave way before an invisible hand, and themoment after the Sub-prefect was in the passage, confronting a waiterhalf-dressed and ghastly pale. This was the short dialogue which immediatelytook place:
"We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house?"
"He went away hours ago."
"He did no such thing. His friend went away; he remained. Show us to hisbedroom!"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! he--"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Garon, he is. He slept here--he didn't findyour bed comfortable--he came to us to complain of it--here he is among mymen--and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin!(calling to one of the subordinates, and pointing to the waiter) collar that manand tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!"
Every man and woman in the house was secured--the "Old Soldier" the first.Then I identified the bed in which I had slept, and then we went into the roomabove.
No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of it. TheSub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody to be silent, stampedtwice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentively at the spot he hadstamped on, and ordered the flooring there to be carefully taken up. This wasdone in no time. Lights were produced, and we saw a deep raftered cavity betweenthe floor of this room and the ceiling of the room beneath. Through this cavitythere ran perpendicularly a sort of case of iron thickly greased; and inside thecase appeared the screw, which communicated with the bed-top below. Extralengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; all the completeupper works of a heavy press--constructed with infernal ingenuity so as to jointhe fixtures below, and when taken to pieces again, to go into the smallestpossible compass--were next discovered and pulled out on the floor. After somelittle difficulty the Sub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery together,and, leaving his men to work it, descended with me to the bedroom. Thesmothering canopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen itlowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was,had a terrible significance. "My men," said he, "are working down the bed-topfor the first time--the men whose money you won were in better practice."
We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents--every one ofthe inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect, after takingdown my "procŽs verbal" in his office, returned with me to my hotel to get mypassport. "Do you think," I asked, as I gave it to him, "that any men havereally been smothered in that bed, as they tried to smother me?"
"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue," answered theSub-prefect, "in whose pocketbooks were found letters stating that they hadcommitted suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything at the gamingtable. Do I know how many of those men entered the same gambling-house that youentered? won as you won? took that bed as you took it? slept in it? weresmothered in it? and were privately thrown into the river, with a letter ofexplanation written by the murderers and placed in their pocket-books? No mancan say how many or how few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped.The people of the gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret fromus--even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret for them.Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at my office again atnine o'clock--in the meantime, au revoir!"
The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and re-examined; thegambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; theprisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty among themmade a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the master of thegambling-house--justice discovered that he had been drummed out of the army as avagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all sorts of villainies since;that he was in possession of stolen property, which the owners identified; andthat he, the croupier, another accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup ofcoffee, were all in the secret of the bedstead. There appeared some reason todoubt whether the inferior persons attached to the house knew anything of thesuffocating machinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt, by beingtreated simply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two headmyrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffee wasimprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular attendants at thegambling-house were considered "suspicious" and placed under "surveillance"; andI became, for one whole week (which is a long time) the head "lion" in Parisiansociety. My adventure was dramatized by three illustrious play-makers, but neversaw theatrical daylight; for the censorship forbade the introduction on thestage of a correct copy of the gambling-house bedstead.
One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship must haveapproved: it cured me of ever again trying "Rouge et Noir" as an amusement. Thesight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps of money on it, willhenceforth be forever associated in my mind with the sight of a bed canopydescending to suffocate me in the silence and darkness of the night.
