Rabelais, or his wild illustrator Gustave Dore, must have had something to do with the designing of the things called flats in England and America. There is something entirely1 Gargantuan2 in the idea of economising space by piling houses on top of each other, front doors and all. And in the chaos3 and complexity4 of those perpendicular5 streets anything may dwell or happen, and it is in one of them, I believe, that the inquirer may find the offices of the Club of Queer Trades. It may be thought at the first glance that the name would attract and startle the passer-by, but nothing attracts or startles in these dim immense hives. The passer-by is only looking for his own melancholy6 destination, the Montenegro Shipping7 Agency or the London office of the Rutland Sentinel, and passes through the twilight8 passages as one passes through the twilight corridors of a dream. If the Thugs set up a Strangers' Assassination9 Company in one of the great buildings in Norfolk Street, and sent in a mild man in spectacles to answer inquiries10, no inquiries would be made. And the Club of Queer Trades reigns11 in a great edifice12 hidden like a fossil in a mighty14 cliff of fossils.
The nature of this society, such as we afterwards discovered it to be, is soon and simply told. It is an eccentric and Bohemian Club, of which the absolute condition of membership lies in this, that the candidate must have invented the method by which he earns his living. It must be an entirely new trade. The exact definition of this requirement is given in the two principal rules. First, it must not be a mere15 application or variation of an existing trade. Thus, for instance, the Club would not admit an insurance agent simply because instead of insuring men's furniture against being burnt in a fire, he insured, let us say, their trousers against being torn by a mad dog. The principle (as Sir Bradcock Burnaby-Bradcock, in the extraordinarily16 eloquent17 and soaring speech to the club on the occasion of the question being raised in the Stormby Smith affair, said wittily18 and keenly) is the same. Secondly19, the trade must be a genuine commercial source of income, the support of its inventor. Thus the Club would not receive a man simply because he chose to pass his days collecting broken sardine20 tins, unless he could drive a roaring trade in them. Professor Chick made that quite clear. And when one remembers what Professor Chick's own new trade was, one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The discovery of this strange society was a curiously21 refreshing22 thing; to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was like looking at the first ship or the first plough. It made a man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. That I should have come at last upon so singular a body was, I may say without vanity, not altogether singular, for I have a mania24 for belonging to as many societies as possible: I may be said to collect clubs, and I have accumulated a vast and fantastic variety of specimens25 ever since, in my audacious youth, I collected the Athenaeum. At some future day, perhaps, I may tell tales of some of the other bodies to which I have belonged. I will recount the doings of the Dead Man's Shoes Society (that superficially immoral26, but darkly justifiable27 communion); I will explain the curious origin of the Cat and Christian28, the name of which has been so shamefully29 misinterpreted; and the world shall know at last why the Institute of Typewriters coalesced30 with the Red Tulip League. Of the Ten Teacups, of course I dare not say a word. The first of my revelations, at any rate, shall be concerned with the Club of Queer Trades, which, as I have said, was one of this class, one which I was almost bound to come across sooner or later, because of my singular hobby. The wild youth of the metropolis31 call me facetiously32 'The King of Clubs'. They also call me 'The Cherub33', in allusion34 to the roseate and youthful appearance I have presented in my declining years. I only hope the spirits in the better world have as good dinners as I have. But the finding of the Club of Queer Trades has one very curious thing about it. The most curious thing about it is that it was not discovered by me; it was discovered by my friend Basil Grant, a star-gazer, a mystic, and a man who scarcely stirred out of his attic35.
Very few people knew anything of Basil; not because he was in the least unsociable, for if a man out of the street had walked into his rooms he would have kept him talking till morning. Few people knew him, because, like all poets, he could do without them; he welcomed a human face as he might welcome a sudden blend of colour in a sunset; but he no more felt the need of going out to parties than he felt the need of altering the sunset clouds. He lived in a queer and comfortable garret in the roofs of Lambeth. He was surrounded by a chaos of things that were in odd contrast to the slums around him; old fantastic books, swords, armour—the whole dust-hole of romanticism. But his face, amid all these quixotic relics36, appeared curiously keen and modern—a powerful, legal face. And no one but I knew who he was.
Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque37 scene that occurred in———, when one of the most acute and forcible of the English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. I had my own view of that occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is no question at all. For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected something curious in the judge's conduct. He seemed to have lost interest in the law, in which he had been beyond expression brilliant and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to the people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very outspoken38 one at that. The first thrill was probably given when he said to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: “I sentence you to three years imprisonment40, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given conviction, that what you require is three months at the seaside.” He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a court of justice, monstrous41 egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity42 deliberately43 encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated44 diamond case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant patrician46, had to come forward, gracefully47 and reluctantly, to give evidence against his valet. After the detailed49 life of the household had been thoroughly50 exhibited, the judge requested the Premier51 again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: “Get a new soul. That thing's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.” All this, of course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that melancholy and farcical day when his wits actually deserted52 him in open court. It was a libel case between two very eminent53 and powerful financiers, against both of whom charges of considerable defalcation54 were brought. The case was long and complex; the advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of work and rhetoric55, the time came for the great judge to give a summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity56 and pulverizing57 logic58 was eagerly looked for. He had spoken very little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and lowering at the end of it. He was silent for a few moments, and then burst into a stentorian59 song. His remarks (as reported) were as follows:
“O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty Highty-ighty tiddly-ighty Tiddly-ighty ow.”
He then retired60 from public life and took the garret in Lambeth.
I was sitting there one evening, about six o'clock, over a glass of that gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of black-letter folios; he was striding about the room, fingering, after a habit of his, one of the great swords in his collection; the red glare of the strong fire struck his square features and his fierce grey hair; his blue eyes were even unusually full of dreams, and he had opened his mouth to speak dreamily, when the door was flung open, and a pale, fiery61 man, with red hair and a huge furred overcoat, swung himself panting into the room.
“Sorry to bother you, Basil,” he gasped62. “I took a liberty—made an appointment here with a man—a client—in five minutes—I beg your pardon, sir,” and he gave me a bow of apology.
Basil smiled at me. “You didn't know,” he said, “that I had a practical brother. This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is to be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at everything. I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist63, an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, a—what are you now, Rupert?”
“I am and have been for some time,” said Rupert, with some dignity, “a private detective, and there's my client.”
A loud rap at the door had cut him short, and, on permission being given, the door was thrown sharply open and a stout64, dapper man walked swiftly into the room, set his silk hat with a clap on the table, and said, “Good evening, gentlemen,” with a stress on the last syllable65 that somehow marked him out as a martinet66, military, literary and social. He had a large head streaked67 with black and grey, and an abrupt68 black moustache, which gave him a look of fierceness which was contradicted by his sad sea-blue eyes.
Basil immediately said to me, “Let us come into the next room, Gully,” and was moving towards the door, but the stranger said:
“Not at all. Friends remain. Assistance possibly.”
The moment I heard him speak I remembered who he was, a certain Major Brown I had met years before in Basil's society. I had forgotten altogether the black dandified figure and the large solemn head, but I remembered the peculiar69 speech, which consisted of only saying about a quarter of each sentence, and that sharply, like the crack of a gun. I do not know, it may have come from giving orders to troops.
Major Brown was a V.C., and an able and distinguished70 soldier, but he was anything but a warlike person. Like many among the iron men who recovered British India, he was a man with the natural beliefs and tastes of an old maid. In his dress he was dapper and yet demure71; in his habits he was precise to the point of the exact adjustment of a tea-cup. One enthusiasm he had, which was of the nature of a religion—the cultivation72 of pansies. And when he talked about his collection, his blue eyes glittered like a child's at a new toy, the eyes that had remained untroubled when the troops were roaring victory round Roberts at Candahar.
“Well, Major,” said Rupert Grant, with a lordly heartiness73, flinging himself into a chair, “what is the matter with you?”
“Yellow pansies. Coal-cellar. P. G. Northover,” said the Major, with righteous indignation.
We glanced at each other with inquisitiveness74. Basil, who had his eyes shut in his abstracted way, said simply:
“I beg your pardon.”
“Fact is. Street, you know, man, pansies. On wall. Death to me. Something. Preposterous75.”
We shook our heads gently. Bit by bit, and mainly by the seemingly sleepy assistance of Basil Grant, we pieced together the Major's fragmentary, but excited narration76. It would be infamous77 to submit the reader to what we endured; therefore I will tell the story of Major Brown in my own words. But the reader must imagine the scene. The eyes of Basil closed as in a trance, after his habit, and the eyes of Rupert and myself getting rounder and rounder as we listened to one of the most astounding78 stories in the world, from the lips of the little man in black, sitting bolt upright in his chair and talking like a telegram.
Major Brown was, I have said, a successful soldier, but by no means an enthusiastic one. So far from regretting his retirement79 on half-pay, it was with delight that he took a small neat villa80, very like a doll's house, and devoted81 the rest of his life to pansies and weak tea. The thought that battles were over when he had once hung up his sword in the little front hall (along with two patent stew-pots and a bad water-colour), and betaken himself instead to wielding82 the rake in his little sunlit garden, was to him like having come into a harbour in heaven. He was Dutch-like and precise in his taste in gardening, and had, perhaps, some tendency to drill his flowers like soldiers. He was one of those men who are capable of putting four umbrellas in the stand rather than three, so that two may lean one way and two another; he saw life like a pattern in a freehand drawing-book. And assuredly he would not have believed, or even understood, any one who had told him that within a few yards of his brick paradise he was destined83 to be caught in a whirlpool of incredible adventure, such as he had never seen or dreamed of in the horrible jungle, or the heat of battle.
One certain bright and windy afternoon, the Major, attired84 in his usual faultless manner, had set out for his usual constitutional. In crossing from one great residential85 thoroughfare to another, he happened to pass along one of those aimless-looking lanes which lie along the back-garden walls of a row of mansions86, and which in their empty and discoloured appearance give one an odd sensation as of being behind the scenes of a theatre. But mean and sulky as the scene might be in the eyes of most of us, it was not altogether so in the Major's, for along the coarse gravel87 footway was coming a thing which was to him what the passing of a religious procession is to a devout88 person. A large, heavy man, with fish-blue eyes and a ring of irradiating red beard, was pushing before him a barrow, which was ablaze89 with incomparable flowers. There were splendid specimens of almost every order, but the Major's own favourite pansies predominated. The Major stopped and fell into conversation, and then into bargaining. He treated the man after the manner of collectors and other mad men, that is to say, he carefully and with a sort of anguish90 selected the best roots from the less excellent, praised some, disparaged91 others, made a subtle scale ranging from a thrilling worth and rarity to a degraded insignificance92, and then bought them all. The man was just pushing off his barrow when he stopped and came close to the Major.
“I'll tell you what, sir,” he said. “If you're interested in them things, you just get on to that wall.”
“On the wall!” cried the scandalised Major, whose conventional soul quailed93 within him at the thought of such fantastic trespass94.
“Finest show of yellow pansies in England in that there garden, sir,” hissed95 the tempter. “I'll help you up, sir.”
How it happened no one will ever know but that positive enthusiasm of the Major's life triumphed over all its negative traditions, and with an easy leap and swing that showed that he was in no need of physical assistance, he stood on the wall at the end of the strange garden. The second after, the flapping of the frock-coat at his knees made him feel inexpressibly a fool. But the next instant all such trifling96 sentiments were swallowed up by the most appalling97 shock of surprise the old soldier had ever felt in all his bold and wandering existence. His eyes fell upon the garden, and there across a large bed in the centre of the lawn was a vast pattern of pansies; they were splendid flowers, but for once it was not their horticultural aspects that Major Brown beheld98, for the pansies were arranged in gigantic capital letters so as to form the sentence:
DEATH TO MAJOR BROWN
A kindly99 looking old man, with white whiskers, was watering them. Brown looked sharply back at the road behind him; the man with the barrow had suddenly vanished. Then he looked again at the lawn with its incredible inscription100. Another man might have thought he had gone mad, but Brown did not. When romantic ladies gushed101 over his V.C. and his military exploits, he sometimes felt himself to be a painfully prosaic102 person, but by the same token he knew he was incurably103 sane104. Another man, again, might have thought himself a victim of a passing practical joke, but Brown could not easily believe this. He knew from his own quaint105 learning that the garden arrangement was an elaborate and expensive one; he thought it extravagantly106 improbable that any one would pour out money like water for a joke against him. Having no explanation whatever to offer, he admitted the fact to himself, like a clear-headed man, and waited as he would have done in the presence of a man with six legs.
At this moment the stout old man with white whiskers looked up, and the watering can fell from his hand, shooting a swirl107 of water down the gravel path.
“Who on earth are you?” he gasped, trembling violently.
“I am Major Brown,” said that individual, who was always cool in the hour of action.
The old man gaped108 helplessly like some monstrous fish. At last he stammered109 wildly, “Come down—come down here!”
“At your service,” said the Major, and alighted at a bound on the grass beside him, without disarranging his silk hat.
The old man turned his broad back and set off at a sort of waddling110 run towards the house, followed with swift steps by the Major. His guide led him through the back passages of a gloomy, but gorgeously appointed house, until they reached the door of the front room. Then the old man turned with a face of apoplectic112 terror dimly showing in the twilight.
“For heaven's sake,” he said, “don't mention jackals.”
Then he threw open the door, releasing a burst of red lamplight, and ran downstairs with a clatter113.
The Major stepped into a rich, glowing room, full of red copper114, and peacock and purple hangings, hat in hand. He had the finest manners in the world, and, though mystified, was not in the least embarrassed to see that the only occupant was a lady, sitting by the window, looking out.
“Madam,” he said, bowing simply, “I am Major Brown.”
“Sit down,” said the lady; but she did not turn her head.
She was a graceful48, green-clad figure, with fiery red hair and a flavour of Bedford Park. “You have come, I suppose,” she said mournfully, “to tax me about the hateful title-deeds.”
“I have come, madam,” he said, “to know what is the matter. To know why my name is written across your garden. Not amicably115 either.”
He spoke39 grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible to describe the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny garden scene, the frame for a stunning116 and brutal117 personality. The evening air was still, and the grass was golden in the place where the little flowers he studied cried to heaven for his blood.
“You know I must not turn round,” said the lady; “every afternoon till the stroke of six I must keep my face turned to the street.”
Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier resolute118 to accept these outrageous119 riddles121 without surprise.
“It is almost six,” he said; and even as he spoke the barbaric copper clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour. At the sixth the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one of the queerest and yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in his life; open, and yet tantalising, the face of an elf.
“That makes the third year I have waited,” she cried. “This is an anniversary. The waiting almost makes one wish the frightful122 thing would happen once and for all.”
And even as she spoke, a sudden rending124 cry broke the stillness. From low down on the pavement of the dim street (it was already twilight) a voice cried out with a raucous125 and merciless distinctness:
“Major Brown, Major Brown, where does the jackal dwell?”
Brown was decisive and silent in action. He strode to the front door and looked out. There was no sign of life in the blue gloaming of the street, where one or two lamps were beginning to light their lemon sparks. On returning, he found the lady in green trembling.
“It is the end,” she cried, with shaking lips; “it may be death for both of us. Whenever—”
But even as she spoke her speech was cloven by another hoarse126 proclamation from the dark street, again horribly articulate.
“Major Brown, Major Brown, how did the jackal die?”
Brown dashed out of the door and down the steps, but again he was frustrated127; there was no figure in sight, and the street was far too long and empty for the shouter to have run away. Even the rational Major was a little shaken as he returned in a certain time to the drawing-room. Scarcely had he done so than the terrific voice came:
“Major Brown, Major Brown, where did—”
Brown was in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time—in time to see something which at first glance froze the blood. The cries appeared to come from a decapitated head resting on the pavement.
The next moment the pale Major understood. It was the head of a man thrust through the coal-hole in the street. The next moment, again, it had vanished, and Major Brown turned to the lady. “Where's your coal-cellar?” he said, and stepped out into the passage.
She looked at him with wild grey eyes. “You will not go down,” she cried, “alone, into the dark hole, with that beast?”
“Is this the way?” replied Brown, and descended128 the kitchen stairs three at a time. He flung open the door of a black cavity and stepped in, feeling in his pocket for matches. As his right hand was thus occupied, a pair of great slimy hands came out of the darkness, hands clearly belonging to a man of gigantic stature129, and seized him by the back of the head. They forced him down, down in the suffocating130 darkness, a brutal image of destiny. But the Major's head, though upside down, was perfectly131 clear and intellectual. He gave quietly under the pressure until he had slid down almost to his hands and knees. Then finding the knees of the invisible monster within a foot of him, he simply put out one of his long, bony, and skilful132 hands, and gripping the leg by a muscle pulled it off the ground and laid the huge living man, with a crash, along the floor. He strove to rise, but Brown was on top like a cat. They rolled over and over. Big as the man was, he had evidently now no desire but to escape; he made sprawls134 hither and thither135 to get past the Major to the door, but that tenacious136 person had him hard by the coat collar and hung with the other hand to a beam. At length there came a strain in holding back this human bull, a strain under which Brown expected his hand to rend123 and part from the arm. But something else rent and parted; and the dim fat figure of the giant vanished out of the cellar, leaving the torn coat in the Major's hand; the only fruit of his adventure and the only clue to the mystery. For when he went up and out at the front door, the lady, the rich hangings, and the whole equipment of the house had disappeared. It had only bare boards and whitewashed137 walls.
“The lady was in the conspiracy1............