The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare Read online

  CHAPTER II. THE SECRET OF GABRIEL SYME

  THE cab pulled up before a particularly dreary and greasy beershop, intowhich Gregory rapidly conducted his companion. They seated themselves ina close and dim sort of bar-parlour, at a stained wooden table with onewooden leg. The room was so small and dark, that very little couldbe seen of the attendant who was summoned, beyond a vague and darkimpression of something bulky and bearded.

  "Will you take a little supper?" asked Gregory politely. "The pate defoie gras is not good here, but I can recommend the game."

  Syme received the remark with stolidity, imagining it to be a joke.Accepting the vein of humour, he said, with a well-bred indifference--

  "Oh, bring me some lobster mayonnaise."

  To his indescribable astonishment, the man only said "Certainly, sir!"and went away apparently to get it.

  "What will you drink?" resumed Gregory, with the same careless yetapologetic air. "I shall only have a creme de menthe myself; I havedined. But the champagne can really be trusted. Do let me start you witha half-bottle of Pommery at least?"

  "Thank you!" said the motionless Syme. "You are very good."

  His further attempts at conversation, somewhat disorganised inthemselves, were cut short finally as by a thunderbolt by the actualappearance of the lobster. Syme tasted it, and found it particularlygood. Then he suddenly began to eat with great rapidity and appetite.

  "Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously!" he said to Gregory,smiling. "I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It isnew to me for a nightmare to lead to a lobster. It is commonly the otherway."

  "You are not asleep, I assure you," said Gregory. "You are, on thecontrary, close to the most actual and rousing moment of your existence.Ah, here comes your champagne! I admit that there may be a slightdisproportion, let us say, between the inner arrangements of thisexcellent hotel and its simple and unpretentious exterior. But that isall our modesty. We are the most modest men that ever lived on earth."

  "And who are we?" asked Syme, emptying his champagne glass.

  "It is quite simple," replied Gregory. "We are the serious anarchists,in whom you do not believe."

  "Oh!" said Syme shortly. "You do yourselves well in drinks."

  "Yes, we are serious about everything," answered Gregory.

  Then after a pause he added--

  "If in a few moments this table begins to turn round a little, don'tput it down to your inroads into the champagne. I don't wish you to doyourself an injustice."

  "Well, if I am not drunk, I am mad," replied Syme with perfect calm;"but I trust I can behave like a gentleman in either condition. May Ismoke?"

  "Certainly!" said Gregory, producing a cigar-case. "Try one of mine."

  Syme took the cigar, clipped the end off with a cigar-cutter out of hiswaistcoat pocket, put it in his mouth, lit it slowly, and let out a longcloud of smoke. It is not a little to his credit that he performed theserites with so much composure, for almost before he had begun them thetable at which he sat had begun to revolve, first slowly, and thenrapidly, as if at an insane seance.

  "You must not mind it," said Gregory; "it's a kind of screw."

  "Quite so," said Syme placidly, "a kind of screw. How simple that is!"

  The next moment the smoke of his cigar, which had been wavering acrossthe room in snaky twists, went straight up as if from a factory chimney,and the two, with their chairs and table, shot down through the flooras if the earth had swallowed them. They went rattling down a kind ofroaring chimney as rapidly as a lift cut loose, and they came with anabrupt bump to the bottom. But when Gregory threw open a pair of doorsand let in a red subterranean light, Syme was still smoking with one legthrown over the other, and had not turned a yellow hair.

  Gregory led him down a low, vaulted passage, at the end of which wasthe red light. It was an enormous crimson lantern, nearly as big as afireplace, fixed over a small but heavy iron door. In the door there wasa sort of hatchway or grating, and on this Gregory struck five times. Aheavy voice with a foreign accent asked him who he was. To this he gavethe more or less unexpected reply, "Mr. Joseph Chamberlain." The heavyhinges began to move; it was obviously some kind of password.

  Inside the doorway the passage gleamed as if it were lined with anetwork of steel. On a second glance, Syme saw that the glitteringpattern was really made up of ranks and ranks of rifles and revolvers,closely packed or interlocked.

  "I must ask you to forgive me all these formalities," said Gregory; "wehave to be very strict here."

  "Oh, don't apologise," said Syme. "I know your passion for law andorder," and he stepped into the passage lined with the steel weapons.With his long, fair hair and rather foppish frock-coat, he looked asingularly frail and fanciful figure as he walked down that shiningavenue of death.

  They passed through several such passages, and came out at last into aqueer steel chamber with curved walls, almost spherical in shape, butpresenting, with its tiers of benches, something of the appearance ofa scientific lecture-theatre. There were no rifles or pistols in thisapartment, but round the walls of it were hung more dubious and dreadfulshapes, things that looked like the bulbs of iron plants, or the eggsof iron birds. They were bombs, and the very room itself seemed like theinside of a bomb. Syme knocked his cigar ash off against the wall, andwent in.

  "And now, my dear Mr. Syme," said Gregory, throwing himself in anexpansive manner on the bench under the largest bomb, "now we are quitecosy, so let us talk properly. Now no human words can give you anynotion of why I brought you here. It was one of those quite arbitraryemotions, like jumping off a cliff or falling in love. Suffice it tosay that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do youjustice, you are still. I would break twenty oaths of secrecy for thepleasure of taking you down a peg. That way you have of lighting a cigarwould make a priest break the seal of confession. Well, you said thatyou were quite certain I was not a serious anarchist. Does this placestrike you as being serious?"

  "It does seem to have a moral under all its gaiety," assented Syme; "butmay I ask you two questions? You need not fear to give me information,because, as you remember, you very wisely extorted from me a promise notto tell the police, a promise I shall certainly keep. So it is in merecuriosity that I make my queries. First of all, what is it really allabout? What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?"

  "To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We donot only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations;that sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of theNonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish todeny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honourand treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The sillysentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! Wehate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong."

  "And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I hope youwill abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me."

  "You spoke of a second question," snapped Gregory.

  "With pleasure," resumed Syme. "In all your present acts andsurroundings there is a scientific attempt at secrecy. I have an auntwho lived over a shop, but this is the first time I have found peopleliving from preference under a public-house. You have a heavy iron door.You cannot pass it without submitting to the humiliation of callingyourself Mr. Chamberlain. You surround yourself with steel instrumentswhich make the place, if I may say so, more impressive than homelike.May I ask why, after taking all this trouble to barricade yourselves inthe bowels of the earth, you then parade your whole secret by talkingabout anarchism to every silly woman in Saffron Park?"

  Gregory smiled.

  "The answer is simple," he said. "I told you I was a serious anarchist,and you did not believe me. Nor do they believe me. Unless I took theminto this infernal room they would not believe me."

  Syme smoked thoughtfully, and looked at him with interest. Gregory wenton.

  "The history of the t
hing might amuse you," he said. "When first Ibecame one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectabledisguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in ouranarchist pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. Icertainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible oldmen keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on myfirst appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out ina voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they foundout in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once.Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so muchintelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I triedbeing a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope,enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who,like Nietzsche, admire violence--the proud, mad war of Nature and allthat, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and wavedit constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man callingfor wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well,well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I wentin despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is thegreatest man in Europe."

  "What is his name?" asked Syme.

  "You would not know it," answered Gregory. "That is his greatness.Caesar and Napoleon put all their genius into being heard of, and theywere heard of. He puts all his genius into not being heard of, and heis not heard of. But you cannot be for five minutes in the room with himwithout feeling that Caesar and Napoleon would have been children in hishands."

  He was silent and even pale for a moment, and then resumed--

  "But whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling asan epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England. I said tohim, 'What disguise will hide me from the world? What can I find morerespectable than bishops and majors?' He looked at me with his large butindecipherable face. 'You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dresswhich will guarantee you harmless; a dress in which no one would everlook for a bomb?' I nodded. He suddenly lifted his lion's voice. 'Why,then, dress up as an anarchist, you fool!' he roared so that the roomshook. 'Nobody will ever expect you to do anything dangerous then.' Andhe turned his broad back on me without another word. I took his advice,and have never regretted it. I preached blood and murder to thosewomen day and night, and--by God!--they would let me wheel theirperambulators."

  Syme sat watching him with some respect in his large, blue eyes.

  "You took me in," he said. "It is really a smart dodge."

  Then after a pause he added--

  "What do you call this tremendous President of yours?"

  "We generally call him Sunday," replied Gregory with simplicity. "Yousee, there are seven members of the Central Anarchist Council, and theyare named after days of the week. He is called Sunday, by some of hisadmirers Bloody Sunday. It is curious you should mention the matter,because the very night you have dropped in (if I may so express it) isthe night on which our London branch, which assembles in this room, hasto elect its own deputy to fill a vacancy in the Council. The gentlemanwho has for some time past played, with propriety and general applause,the difficult part of Thursday, has died quite suddenly. Consequently,we have called a meeting this very evening to elect a successor."

  He got to his feet and strolled across the room with a sort of smilingembarrassment.

  "I feel somehow as if you were my mother, Syme," he continued casually."I feel that I can confide anything to you, as you have promised to tellnobody. In fact, I will confide to you something that I would not say inso many words to the anarchists who will be coming to the room in aboutten minutes. We shall, of course, go through a form of election; but Idon't mind telling you that it is practically certain what the resultwill be." He looked down for a moment modestly. "It is almost a settledthing that I am to be Thursday."

  "My dear fellow." said Syme heartily, "I congratulate you. A greatcareer!"

  Gregory smiled in deprecation, and walked across the room, talkingrapidly.

  "As a matter of fact, everything is ready for me on this table," hesaid, "and the ceremony will probably be the shortest possible."

  Syme also strolled across to the table, and found lying across it awalking-stick, which turned out on examination to be a sword-stick,a large Colt's revolver, a sandwich case, and a formidable flask ofbrandy. Over the chair, beside the table, was thrown a heavy-lookingcape or cloak.

  "I have only to get the form of election finished," continued Gregorywith animation, "then I snatch up this cloak and stick, stuff theseother things into my pocket, step out of a door in this cavern, whichopens on the river, where there is a steam-tug already waiting for me,and then--then--oh, the wild joy of being Thursday!" And he clasped hishands.

  Syme, who had sat down once more with his usual insolent languor, got tohis feet with an unusual air of hesitation.

  "Why is it," he asked vaguely, "that I think you are quite a decentfellow? Why do I positively like you, Gregory?" He paused a moment, andthen added with a sort of fresh curiosity, "Is it because you are suchan ass?"

  There was a thoughtful silence again, and then he cried out--

  "Well, damn it all! this is the funniest situation I have ever been inin my life, and I am going to act accordingly. Gregory, I gave you apromise before I came into this place. That promise I would keep underred-hot pincers. Would you give me, for my own safety, a little promiseof the same kind?"

  "A promise?" asked Gregory, wondering.

  "Yes," said Syme very seriously, "a promise. I swore before God that Iwould not tell your secret to the police. Will you swear by Humanity, orwhatever beastly thing you believe in, that you will not tell my secretto the anarchists?"

  "Your secret?" asked the staring Gregory. "Have you got a secret?"

  "Yes," said Syme, "I have a secret." Then after a pause, "Will youswear?"

  Gregory glared at him gravely for a few moments, and then saidabruptly--

  "You must have bewitched me, but I feel a furious curiosity about you.Yes, I will swear not to tell the anarchists anything you tell me. Butlook sharp, for they will be here in a couple of minutes."

  Syme rose slowly to his feet and thrust his long, white hands into hislong, grey trousers' pockets. Almost as he did so there came fiveknocks on the outer grating, proclaiming the arrival of the first of theconspirators.

  "Well," said Syme slowly, "I don't know how to tell you the truth moreshortly than by saying that your expedient of dressing up as an aimlesspoet is not confined to you or your President. We have known the dodgefor some time at Scotland Yard."

  Gregory tried to spring up straight, but he swayed thrice.

  "What do you say?" he asked in an inhuman voice.

  "Yes," said Syme simply, "I am a police detective. But I think I hearyour friends coming."

  From the doorway there came a murmur of "Mr. Joseph Chamberlain." Itwas repeated twice and thrice, and then thirty times, and the crowd ofJoseph Chamberlains (a solemn thought) could be heard trampling down thecorridor.