The Beetle by Richard Marsh (read e books online free txt) 📕

best established case of hypnotism by suggestion I ever yet encountered⁠—started off on a pilgrimage of one. Like an idiot I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me⁠—”

“Alone?”

“Alone!⁠—Am I not telling you?⁠—Great Scott, Lessingham, in the House of Commons they must be hazy to think you smart! I said, ‘I’ll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company.’ As luck would have it, I never met one⁠—only kids, and a baker, who wouldn’t leave his cart, or take it with him either. I’d covered pretty nearly two miles before I came across a peeler⁠—and when I did the man was cracked⁠—and he thought me mad, or drunk, or both. By the time I’d got myself within nodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, without inducing him to move a single one of his twenty-four-inch feet, Holt was out of sight. So, since all my pains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to scurry back to Marjorie⁠—so I scurried, and I found the house empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.”

“But, I don’t quite follow⁠—”

Atherton impetuously declined to allow Mr. Lessingham to conclude.

“Of course you don’t quite follow, and you’ll follow still less if you will keep getting in front. I went upstairs and downstairs, inside and out⁠—shouted myself hoarse as a crow⁠—nothing was to be seen of Marjorie⁠—or heard; until, as I was coming down the stairs for about the five-and-fiftieth time, I stepped on something hard which was lying in the passage. I picked it up⁠—it was a ring; this ring. Its shape is not just what it was⁠—I’m not as light as gossamer, especially when I come jumping down stairs six at a time⁠—but what’s left of it is here.”

Sydney held something in front of him. Mr. Lessingham wriggled to one side to enable him to see. Then he made a snatch at it.

“It’s mine!”

Sydney dodged it out of his reach.

“What do you mean, it’s yours?”

“It’s the ring I gave Marjorie for an engagement ring. Give it me, you hound!⁠—unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab.”

With complete disregard of the limitations of space⁠—or of my comfort⁠—Lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. Then gripping Sydney by the wrist, he seized the gaud⁠—Sydney yielding it just in time to save himself from being precipitated into the street. Ravished of his treasure, Sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher with something like a glance of admiration.

“Hang me, Lessingham, if I don’t believe there is some warm blood in those fishlike veins of yours. Please the piper, I’ll live to fight you after all⁠—with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman should do.”

Lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him whatever. He was surveying the ring, which Sydney had trampled out of shape, with looks of the deepest concern.

“Marjorie’s ring!⁠—The one I gave her! Something serious must have happened to her before she would have dropped my ring, and left it lying where it fell.”

Atherton went on.

“That’s it!⁠—What has happened to her!⁠—I’ll be dashed if I know!⁠—When it was clear that there she wasn’t, I tore off to find out where she was. Came across old Lindon⁠—he knew nothing;⁠—I rather fancy I startled him in the middle of Pall Mall, when I left he stared after me like one possessed, and his hat was lying in the gutter. Went home⁠—she wasn’t there. Asked Dora Grayling⁠—she’d seen nothing of her. No one had seen anything of her⁠—she had vanished into air. Then I said to myself, ‘You’re a first-class idiot, on my honour! While you’re looking for her, like a lost sheep, the betting is that the girl’s in Holt’s friend’s house the whole jolly time. When you were there, the chances are that she’d just stepped out for a stroll, and that now she’s back again, and wondering where on earth you’ve gone!’ So I made up my mind that I’d fly back and see⁠—because the idea of her standing on the front doorstep looking for me, while I was going off my nut looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense of humour; and on my way it struck me that it would be the part of wisdom to pick up Champnell, because if there is a man who can be backed to find a needle in any amount of haystacks it is the great Augustus.⁠—That horse has moved itself after all, because here we are. Now, cabman, don’t go driving further on⁠—you’ll have to put a girdle round the earth if you do; because you’ll have to reach this point again before you get your fare.⁠—This is the magician’s house!”

XXXVII What Was Hidden Under the Floor

The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap “villa” in an unfinished cheap neighbourhood⁠—the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder.

Atherton leaped out on to the grass-grown rubble which was meant for a footpath.

“I don’t see Marjorie looking for me on the doorstep.”

Nor did I⁠—I saw nothing but what appeared to be an unoccupied ramshackle brick abomination. Suddenly Sydney gave an exclamation.

“Hullo!⁠—The front door’s closed!”

I was hard at his heels.

“What do you mean?”

“Why, when I went I left the front door open. It looks as if I’ve made an idiot of myself after all, and Marjorie’s returned⁠—let’s hope to goodness that I have.”

He knocked. While we waited for a response I questioned him.

“Why did you leave the door open when you went?”

“I hardly know⁠—I imagine that it was with some dim idea of Marjorie’s being able to get in if she returned while I was absent⁠—but the truth is I was in such a condition of helter skelter that I am not prepared to swear that I had any reasonable reason.”

“I suppose there is no doubt that you did leave it open?”

“Absolutely none⁠—on that I’ll stake my life.”

“Was it open when you returned from your pursuit of Holt?”

“Wide open⁠—I walked straight