Collected works of j s f.., p.894
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 894
“You don’t have it about you?” he asked in an avaricious whisper.
“This minute,” responded Issy with alacrity. He drew out his pocket-book and carefully selected a ten-pound note, then he plunged his hand into the secret receptacle within his horsey waistcoat, wherein he had deposited the five sovereigns which Melky had withdrawn from their hiding-place inside the doll. He pulled two of the sovereigns out, laid them on the £10 note, and handed the lot over. “There you are, Uncle Solly,” he said magnanimously. “Twelve quid till next quarter-day. And I don’t take no interest from you.”
Uncle Solly took the note and the sovereigns in dead silence. He held the note up to the light, he fingered it, he smelt it, he did everything but eat it. Then he examined the sovereigns, first with his fingers, then with his eyes. And then he got up out of his chair, and laid aside his ear-trumpet.
“I stand you a nice drink, Issy,” he said. “What you like to drink, eh? Port wine, eh? I stand you a nice drink of port wine. You sit quiet a minute while I send for it. Very good port wine at the corner. I send for a nice bottle.”
Uncle Solly shuffled out of the room and away down the stairs, and Issy sat back in his chair and laughed. Oh, what a clever fellow he was! What a stroke of good business! He had lifted himself miles high in Uncle Solly’s estimation and good graces, and all by that little stroke of genius. What was twelve quid in comparison to all that property which Uncle Solly would be certain to leave him! He rubbed his hands and chuckled for sheer delight. And being alone, he fell into a day-dream as to what he would do when the property was indeed his.
Uncle Solly was away quite ten minutes. When his shuffling steps sounded at last on the stairs, they were accompanied by other steps. The sound of those steps made Issy jump; he knew that those steps belonged to policemen.
The door was pushed open, Uncle Solly appeared, the banknote and the two sovereigns still in his hands. And close upon his old heels came two very big policemen. Before those enquiring eyes, Isidore felt himself turning white and green, like Gorgonzola cheese. He rose from his chair, and his jaw began to drop.
“That’s him!” screamed Uncle Solly, pointing a quivering and vindictive finger at Issy. “Take him! Handcuff him! Lock him up till the judge puts him away! Take him at once, hold him fast. Mind he doesn’t jump through the window! Ah, the dirty sneak thief! Do you know what?” he went on, as the policemen lined up about Issy. “He come in here and offer to lend me £2 — two of the very quids he pinched from me last night! These quids — look at them! Marked, I tell you, them quids are marked! Mr. Waters, one of my tenants, him what keeps the greengrocery store round the corner, he pay me them quids in his quarter’s rent. They’ve marks on ’em both. I pointed ’em out to Mr. Waters. Mr. Waters, he laugh about ’em. ‘You’ll know ’em all the better, Mr. Rosenbaum,’ he says — just so. Don’t I know ’em — don’t I know my own moneys? And he pulled one out of his pocket, the young thief, just now. Oh, shameless one! But you shall go before the judge. Take him away, misters; put the irons on him.”
Issy backed away as one of the policemen beckoned him. But already he saw himself on the brink of the abyss into which the arm of the law was going to push him headlong. It was all up. Melky would naturally deny everything, and Issy knew that he couldn’t prove anything against Melky. And he couldn’t prove an alibi, either, for, as cruel luck would have it, he himself had been in Uncle Solly’s neighbourhood the night before, ere proceeding to the restaurant. No, his luck was down and out.
“It’s — it’s a dreadful mistake!” he panted. “Them two quids—”
“Come on now,” said one of the constables. He laid a hand on Issy, and turned him to his uncle. “You’ll have to come and charge him, Mr. Rosenbaum,” he said.
And at that, Uncle Solly picked up his hat, with alacrity, and, with Issy in its centre, the tragic procession set forth.
Patent No. 33
CHAPTER I. A Dead Man’s Library
ALFRED PENNY, SECOND-HAND bookseller, was one of those people who somehow or other drift into the occupations for which they are naturally fitted. He had begun life as a grocer’s apprentice, simply because his father and mother considered that to be a highly respectable trade. He had continued it as a grocer’s assistant because that seemed the inevitable result. But during his apprenticeship and his assistantship, he had spent all his spare time in hanging round and about the old bookshops, of which there were many in Wolborough, and before he was twenty-five, he knew more of the book trade — in its second-hand branches — than he did of his own. Grimes, proprietor of the shop which Penny most affected, said as much to him, and hinted that he would be much better and more fittingly employed in buying and selling books than in wrapping up packets of cheap tea. Penny thought as much himself, but he had been securely planted in his particular hole, and he saw no way of getting out of it. Old Grimes made a way for him — by departing this life. Grimes’ one daughter had no mind to carry on her father’s business; she had other views, which included leaving Wolborough altogether. So she offered Alfred Penny the entire business, stock, goodwill, on the easiest terms. Alfred had managed to save a certain amount of money; he borrowed more from a sympathetic and believing friend; the combined results went into Miss Grimes’ pocket, and Penny had a new sign painted to go over the shop front and the twopenny boxes. “Penny, late Grimes,” became a new feature of Turnstile Passage, Wolborough.
Alfred Penny revelled in his new business. All his thoughts were devoted to it. The better sort of book-buyers in the town soon recognised him as a man who really had an interest in the books which he bought and sold. He became an expert on rare editions, scarce pamphlets, odds and ends of antiquarian literature; at the close of the first year of business he had completely forgotten all about the various sorts of rice and the difference between tea from China and tea from Ceylon. No adventurer sailing into unknown seas, or plunging into hitherto unexplored forests, ever set out with more zest for his enterprises than Alfred Penny felt when he attended the sale of some ancient country house library or opened a parcel of books offered him in his shop. There was always the chance, even in a parcel of what looked like rubbish, of finding a first edition or a scarce tract. Consequently, Penny lived in an atmosphere of discovery, and — when his time permitted it, which was seldom — he wondered how he had lived through the ten years during which he wore a grocer’s apron.
One winter morning, as Penny sat in his shop, busily engaged in turning over a number of catalogues just received from brother booksellers of distant towns, a soft and somewhat timid voice sounded close behind him.
“If you please, do you buy books?”
This seemed a superfluous question, for there was a sign outside the shop door which informed passers-by that books were bought within. But Penny was used to such inquiries, and he turned with alacrity — to find himself confronting a young, pretty, and shy girl, who he saw at once was dressed in mourning garments. He jumped to his feet.
“Yes, Miss!” he answered promptly. “In any quantity — from entire libraries to the smallest parcels. You have some books to sell?”
“My mother wants to sell some books that my father left,” replied the girl. “Perhaps you would come and look at them?”
“With pleasure, Miss,” answered Penny. “What sort of books might they be, now? And how many of them? Anything local?”
“I think they’re chiefly technical books — engineering and mechanics,” said the girl. “But there are some others — a good many. Two hundred, perhaps, altogether. If you could come to No. 12, Mayfield Terrace? Would it be to-day? We should be glad if you would, because we’re going to remove the day after to-morrow.”
“Three o’clock this afternoon, miss,” responded Penny, jotting down the address. “What name, please?”
“Mrs. Burland,” replied the girl.
“Be there at three sharp,” said Penny.
The girl went away quickly, and Penny, watching her slim figure as she passed through the door, was suddenly conscious of having seen her before. Of course — he remembered her now — she had been a customer at the grocer’s shop; he had often seen her there with her mother — a comfortable, well-to-do woman of the superior artisan class, who always had plenty of money to spend. And just as suddenly he remembered something else.
“Burland — Burland!” he repeated. “Ah, of course, that’ll be the daughter of that John Burland who was killed last year in the explosion at Ramsdale’s. Of course, he was an engineer — that’s why they’ll be mostly technical books. Not much in my line — but there’s always a chance of a find anywhere.”
The house at which Penny presented himself that afternoon at three o’clock was one of a row of cottage-like dwellings which stood under the shadow of Ramsdale’s Machine Works — one of the biggest of the many big industrial concerns of Wolborough. It was the sort of house in which the better-class workmen lived, with a living-room and a parlour on the ground floor, but in this case the parlour, instead of being devoted to genteel uses, had obviously been used as a workroom by John Burland. There was a bench and a lathe on one side of it, a table with instruments and tools, all neatly laid out in the centre, a home-made bookcase in a recess. The widow, who obviously remembered Penny in his grocer days, waved her hand round the room as she led him in.
“Just as my husband left it,” she said. “We’ve never touched a thing — except to put ’em straight. And shouldn’t ha’ touched ’em, very like, for it gives one a thought of him to come in here and see his things. But, you see, I can’t afford to keep up this house any longer — we must go into a smaller one, me and my daughter — so I shall have to part with all that’s in it here. There’s a man coming to buy these tools and things to-night. And how much do you think you can afford me for the books now, mister?”
Penny was used to these appeals. Since he had succeeded old Grimes he had often been fetched to small houses to buy books which he knew at first glance to have no other proper designation than that of his twopenny-box placard. It was always distasteful to him, a soft-hearted young man, to have to explain to the sellers that their goods were of no great value. He knew by experience that his protestations were invariably taken as business, and that the people from whom he bought believed that he would presently get five shillings for what he had laid out fivepence upon. And he turned to Burland’s collection hoping that he would find something commercially valuable in it, for he already had an idea that the widow and daughter wanted money.
“He spent a deal of good brass on them books, did my husband, one time or another,” observed the mother as she and her daughter watched Penny go through shelf after shelf with practiced eye and hand. “He’d give as much as ten shillings for some of ’em. Said he couldn’t do without ’em for the things he made. He was always inventing something or other in the way of machinery. Mr. Ramsdale, of course, he made most of the things my husband invented. He’d been inventing for more years nor I can remember, had Burland, when that explosion killed him.”
“I hope you’ve profited by it,” said Penny. “Inventions bring in a lot of money, don’t they?”
“They haven’t brought so much here, anyway,” replied the widow, a little bitterly. “Taken more out o’ this house than ever they brought in, I should say. Now and then there’d be an extra ten-pound note, or happen a bit more, from one or other thing; but naught bigger nor better. Of course, my husband always did talk of some grand machine that he was working his brains at — something that was going to make all our fortunes — but naught had come of it when he was taken. I’m afraid they’re all alike, is these inventors — always living on hope.”
“But you know, mother, that father told us his big work was just about finished only the week before his death,” said the girl. “If he’d only lived—”
Penny, who thought he saw something like tears in the girl’s eyes, hastened to plunge into the matter-of-fact realms of business.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said, “I’ll make you a lump offer for the lot, and I couldn’t offer it if this wasn’t a town where such books as these are likely to be bought. A lot of ’em are out of date, some of ’em aren’t worth anything to me. Twenty pounds for the lot, ma’am, and that’s a good offer.”
He saw that the girl was agreeably surprised; she evidently had some idea of the value of the goods, sold at second-hand. But the mother hesitated.
“Eh! Why, as I say, he’d give as much as half a sovereign for one book, sometimes,” she said. “Of course, I’m sure you’d do right by us, young man. I used to see you when you were in the grocery line. You couldn’t say more now?”
“It’ll be a long time before I get my money back at that figure,” replied Penny. “Folks don’t buy these technical books every day, you know. Shall I give you the money in notes, ma’am? I have them here.”
“Well, twenty pounds is twenty pounds,” said Mrs. Burland. “And I’m sure me and my daughter can do with it, for Burland he hadn’t saved a deal, and though he’d worked at Ramsdale’s all them years, Mr. Ramsdale he only allows us a pound a week, for a pension — like. And, of course, a pound a week and the bit o’ money we have, it isn’t enough to keep a house this size, so we’re going to a smaller. Very well, then mister, twenty pounds.”
Penny counted out four five-pound notes and went to charter a handcart. He had a little conversation with the girl as he packed the books, and he thought of her a good deal as he walked back to his shop later on. A very nice young lady, decided Penny in his simplicity, and he felt very sorry for her. For it was evident to him that the father must have been a highly skilled workman, and perhaps if he had lived that big idea of his might have come off, and then — who knows? Like all men who have lived in the big industrial towns, Penny had been bred up on the stories and legends of what great good fortune may come to lucky inventors; and there were half a dozen instances of it in Wolborough itself. Why, at that very moment, wasn’t half England — the manufacturing England, at any rate — talking about Ramsdale’s Multiplex? A most wonderful machine which Ramsdale himself had lately invented, patented, and could not manufacture in sufficient quantity to supply the world demand for it. Oh, of course, a lucky inventor was a millionaire in embryo, no doubt of that. And if Burland hadn’t been killed by that explosion —
But Burland had been killed, and his widow and daughter were obliged to sell his small belongings. And that evening, Penny, after his custom, spread the books out on the big table in the shop, and began to sort them, separating the better sort from the inferior sort. A few of these books were really expensive books on machinery. These Penny carefully selected and set aside, hoping that he might find a speedy customer for them.
He opened one or two of the larger volumes, to look at the diagrams and folding plates, and suddenly, from one of them dropped a paper, on the back of which was an endorsement, in a stiff, rather laboured handwriting, the writing of a man who was obviously not greatly used to holding a pen. Penny glanced at that endorsement, and he started at what he read, for his thoughts of the afternoon, about the possible profits of inventors, were still with him. For there, on the back of the folded paper, were three lines, plainly written: “Memorandum about the invention of my machine, to be known as Burland’s Multiplex, October 6th, 1901. John Burland.”
Penny stared at this endorsement during the whole of a moment’s wondering silence. Then, glancing at the clock, he shut and fastened his shop door, turned down the lights, and, carrying the paper and book from which he had taken it with him, he went upstairs to the rooms in which he lived all by himself.
CHAPTER II. The Voice from the Dead
PENNY, CREEPING UP his dark stairs to his little sitting-room, felt like a conspirator who has unexpectedly come into possession of a weighty secret. He was sure there was a secret, a mystery, in that paper which he so carefully grasped — there must be. Burland’s Multiplex? — was it likely there could be two multiplex machines? Could it be that — But the mere notion of a possibility which came into his mind filled him with a queer sort of moral sickness, and he made haste to light up his lamp.
It was very still in that little room; the silence seemed to Penny the fitting environment for what he was about to do — which was to read a message from a dead man, a message which, as fortune would have it, had come to none but him. He saw how things were — John Burland had written this paper and put it away in one of the folding plates of a book which he doubtless used constantly. And before he could take it out again his own death had come, by accident. And no one had ever seen that paper until he, Alfred Penny, had chanced upon it.
He sat down at his table and opened the paper — a half-sheet of foolscap — before him. This is what he read, with wondering eyes and speculative brain:
“Mem. abt. my machine, to be called ‘Burland Multiplex.’
First notion of this machine about seven years ago — probably in winter of 1894.
Worked at idea more or less regularly ever since.
Never mentioned it to a soul — not even to Mr. Ramsdale.
Began drawings in ‘98.
Finished drawings in 1900.
Made first model in 1900.
Broke it up 1900.
Began second model same year.
Broke that up as soon as finished.
Began third and final model, April, 1901.
Finished it September 29th, 1901.
Perfect. One of the most wonderful machines ever invented.
Lodged drawings and model with Mr. Ramsdale for his inspection and advice as to getting patents and putting machine on market this day, October 6th, 1901.
This will be my thirty-third patent. It will produce a fortune such as I scarce dare dream of.
John Burland.”
The discoverer of this document let it fall from his hands upon the table and gasped. He was a simple, honest soul, Penny, but he had imagination and penetration amongst his mental equipment, and it seemed to him that he was gazing into a vista, however. Surely, the whole affair was plain. Burland had given his drawings and his model to Ramsdale, his employer. Then Burland had been killed. Then Ramsdale, who probably knew that no one, not even Burland’s wife and daughter, were aware of the existence of model and plans, had taken out this patent in his own name, had begun manufacturing the machine, had put it on the market; and was now reaping a colossal fortune out of it. Everybody in Wolborough knew of the success of Ramsdale’s Multiplex. It could not be turned out fast enough. It had completely revolutionised the spinning industry. The wildest rumours were afloat concerning the enormous sums which Ramsdale had received from foreign manufacturers for the right to make it. It was said that Ramsdale, always a rich man, was now a multi-millionaire. Only recently, Penny, walking near Ramsdale’s house one Sunday with a friend, had been told by that friend that it was said that Ramsdale was making thousands a week out of the multiplex.
