Revenge! by Robert Barr (popular books of all time .TXT) 📕

advertiser, I don't mind admitting to you that the paper is going down. You see it comes to the same thing. We haven't the money as you say, so what's the use of talking?"

Gibberts hitched his chair closer to the editor, and placed his hand on the other's knee. He went on earnestly--

"Now is the time to talk, Shorely. In a little while it will be too late. You will have thrown up the _Sponge_. Your great mistake is trying to ride two horses, each facing a different direction. It can't be done, my boy. Make up your mind whether you are going to be a thief or an honest man. That's the first step."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Go in for a paper that will be entirely stolen property, or for one made up of purely original matter."

"We have a great deal of original matter in the _Sponge_."

"Yes, and that's what I object to. Have it all original, or have it all stolen. Be fish or fowl. At least one hundred men a week see a stolen article in the _Sponge_ which they have read elsewhere. They then believe it is all stolen, and you lose them. That isn't business, so I want to sell you one original tale, which will prove to be the most remarkable story written in England this year."

"Oh, they all are," said Shorely, wearily. "Every story sent to me is a most remarkable story, in the author's opinion."

"Look here, Shorely," cried Gibberts, angrily, "you mustn't talk to me like that. I'm no unknown author, a fact of which you are very well aware. I don't need to peddle my goods."

"Then why do you come here lecturing me?"

"For your own good, Shorely, my boy," said Gibberts, calming down as rapidly as he had flared up. He was a most uncertain man. "For your own good, and if you don't take this story, some one else will. It will make the fortune of the paper that secures it. Now, you read it while I wait. Here it is, typewritten, at one-and-three a thousand words, all to save your blessed eyesight."

Shorely took the manuscript and lit the gas, for it was getting dark. Gibberts sat down awhile, but soon began to pace the room, much to Shorely's manifest annoyance. Not content with this, he picked up the poker and noisily stirred the fire. "For Heaven's sake, sit down, Gibberts, and be quiet!" cried Shorely, at last.

Gibberts seized the poker as if it had been a weapon, and glared at the editor.

"I won't sit down, and I will make just as much noise as I want to," he roared. As he stood there defiantly, Shorely saw a gleam of insanity in his eyes.

"Oh, very well, then," said Shorely, continuing to read the story.

For a moment Gibberts stood grasping the poker by the middle, then he flung it with a clatter on the fender, and, sitting down, gazed moodily into the fire, without moving, until Shorely had turned the last page.

"Well," said Gibberts, rousing from his reverie, "what do you think of it?"

"It's a good story, Gibberts. All your stories are good," said the editor, carelessly.

Gibberts started to his feet, and swore.

"Do you mean to say," he thundered, "that you see nothing in that story different from any I or any one else ever wrote? Hang it, Shorely, you wouldn't know a good story if you met it coming up Fleet Street! Can't you see that story is written with a man's heart's blood?"

Shorely stretched out his legs and thrust his hands far down in his trousers' pockets.

"It may have been written as you say, although I thought you called my attention a moment ago to its type-written character."

"Don't be flippant, Shorely," said Gibberts, relapsing again into melancholy. "You don't like the story, then? You didn't see anything unusual in it--purpose, force, passion, life, death, nothing?"

"There is death enough at the end. My objection is that there is too much blood and thunder in it. Such a tragedy could never happen. No man could go to a country house and slaughter every one in it. It's absurd."

Gibberts sprang from his seat and began to pace the room excitedly. Suddenly he stopped before his friend, towering over him, his long ulster making him look taller than he really was.

"Did I ever tell you the tragedy of my life? How the property that would have kept me from want has----"

"Of course you have, Gibberts. Sit down. You've told it to everybody. To me several times."

"How my cousin cheated me out of----"

"Certainly. Out of land and the woman you loved."

"Oh! I told you that, did I?" said Gibberts, apparently abashed at the other's familiarity with the circumstances. He sat down, and rested his head in his hands. There was a long silence between the two, which was finally broken by Gibberts saying--

"So you don't care about the story?"

"Oh, I don't say that. I can see it is the story of your own life, with an imaginary and sanguinary ending."

"Oh, you saw that, did you?"

"Yes. How much do you want for it?"

"L50."

"What?"

"L50, I tell you. Are you deaf? And I want the money now."

"Bless your innocent heart, I can buy a longer story than that from the greatest author living for less than L50. Gibberts, you're crazy."

Gibberts looked up suddenly and inquiringly, as if that thought had never occurred to him before. He seemed rather taken with the idea. It would explain many things which had puzzled both himself and his friends. He meditated upon the matter for a few moments, but at last shook his head.

"No, Shorely," he said, with a sigh. "I'm not insane, though, goodness knows, I've had enough to drive me mad. I don't seem to have the luck of some people. I haven't the talent for going crazy. But to return to the story. You think L50 too much for it. It will make the fortune of the paper that publishes it. Let me see. I had it a moment ago, but the point has escaped my memory. What was it you objected to as unnatural?"

"The tragedy. There is too much wholesale murder at the end."

"Ah! now I have it! Now I recollect!"

Gibberts began energetically to pace the room again, smiting his hands together. His face was in a glow of excitement.

"Yes, I have it now. The tragedy. Granting a murder like that, one man a dead shot, killing all the people in a country house; imagine it actually taking place. Wouldn't all England ring with it?"

"Naturally."

"Of course it would. Now, you listen to me. I'm going to commit that so-called crime. One week after you publish the story, I'm going down to that country house, Channor Chase. It is my house, if there was justice and right in England, and I'm going to slaughter every one in it. I will leave a letter, saying the story in the _Sponge_ is the true story of what led to the tragedy. Your paper in a week will be the most-talked-of journal in England--in the world. It will leap instantaneously into a circulation such as no weekly on earth ever before attained. Look here, Shorely, that story is worth L50,000 rather than L50, and if you don't buy it at once, some one else will. Now, what do you say?"

"I say you are joking, or else, as I said just now, you are as mad as a hatter."

"Admitting I am mad, will you take the story?"

"No, but I'll prevent you committing the crime."

"How?"

"By giving you in charge. By informing on you."

"You can't do it. Until such a crime is committed, no one would believe it could be committed. You have no witnesses to our conversation here, and I will deny every assertion you make. My word, at present, is as good as yours. All you can do is to ruin your chance of fortune, which knocks at every man's door. When I came in, you were wondering what you could do to put the _Sponge_ on its feet. I saw it in your attitude. Now, what do you say?"

"I'll give you L25 for the story on its own merits, although it is a big price, and you need not commit the crime."

"Done! That is the sum I wanted, but I knew if I asked it, you would offer me L12 10_s_. Will you publish it within the month?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Write out the cheque. Don't cross it. I've no bank account."

When the cheque was handed to him, Gibberts thrust it into the ticket- pocket of his ulster, turned abruptly, and unlocked the door. "Good- bye," he said.

As he disappeared, Shorely noticed how long his ulster was, and how it flapped about his heels. The next time he saw the novelist was under circumstances that could never be effaced from his memory.

The _Sponge_ was a sixteen-page paper, with a blue cover, and the week Gibberts' story appeared, it occupied the first seven pages. As Shorely ran it over in the paper, it impressed him more than it had done in manuscript. A story always seems more convincing in type.

Shorely met several men at the Club, who spoke highly of the story, and at last he began to believe it was a good one himself. Johnson was particularly enthusiastic, and every one in the Club knew Johnson's opinion was infallible.

"How did _you_ come to get hold of it?" he said to Shorely, with unnecessary emphasis on the personal pronoun.

"Don't you think I know a good story when I see it?" asked the editor, indignantly.

"It isn't the general belief of the Club," replied Johnson, airily; "but then, all the members have sent you contributions, so perhaps that accounts for it. By the way, have you seen Gibberts lately?"

"No; why do you ask?"

"Well, it strikes me he is acting rather queerly. If you asked me, I don't think he is quite sane. He has something on his mind."

"He told me," said the new member, with some hesitation--"but really I don't think I'm justified in mentioning it, although he did not tell it in confidence--that he was the rightful heir to a property in----"

"Oh, we all know that story!" cried the Club, unanimously.

"I think it's the Club whiskey," said one of the oldest members. "I say, it's the worst in London."

"Verbal complaints not received. Write to the Committee," put in Johnson. "If Gibberts has a friend in the Club, which I doubt, that friend should look after him. I believe he will commit suicide yet."

These sayings troubled Shorely as he walked back to his office. He sat down to write a note, asking Gibberts to call. As he was writing, McCabe, the business manager of the _Sponge_, came in.

"What's the matter with the old sheet this week?" he asked.

"Matter? I don't understand you."

"Well, I have just sent an order to the printer to run off an extra ten thousand, and here comes a demand from Smith's for the whole lot. The extra ten thousand were to go to different newsagents all over the country who have sent repeat orders, so I have told the printer now to run off