Short Fiction · The Facts In The Curious Case Of H Hyrtl Esq (7/8)

VII

A day or two later, when Hugh awoke in his room in Tompkins Square it was with that sense of satisfaction which comes to a man who has done his duty. He had left orders in Richmond that a suitable monument be placed on his mother’s grave, and he had contracted to have the cottage refurnished and rebuilt, for it was there the coming honeymoon was to be passed.

The party essential to the proper passing of that honeymoon was indeed intangible and remote, but what difficulties shall impede a lover armed with courage and mailed in hope? He had absolutely nothing at all to do but to unearth John Anderson, and that accomplished, to find Jenny, and behold!⁠—happiness, lifelong and uninterruptable, would crouch, a spaniel, at his feet.

The unearthing of such a person as John Anderson seemed to Hugh the easiest thing in the world. In the Stock Exchange and its purlieus an individual of such marked peculiarities must by this time have become well known. With Jenny it was different; but though that ruffian of a father of hers had hid her in the depths of a Japanese jungle or immured her behind convent walls, he would find and recover her yet. She should be his; she had promised it, and what shall separate those that love?

These anticipations were interrupted by a rap at the door. At the moment Hugh, in preparation of a visit to Wall Street, was meditatively brushing his hat, but at the rap he put the hat down and went to the door and opened it. There in the corridor’s dim penumbra was John Anderson in person.

Speechless with astonishment, Hugh started back.

“You!”

“Yes, dear boy,” the little man answered. “Whom did you expect? May I come in?”

With that he seized Hugh’s unresisting hand, and entering the room, straddled a chair.

“You’re well, I hope. So much the better. Thundering guns! but I am delighted to hear it.”

“How kind of you!”

“But I am delighted,” the little man insisted, for there was an irony in Hugh’s voice that would hardly have escaped a deaf-mute. “I am delighted, I assure you. Between ourselves, I was a trifle uneasy this morning when I set out for Tompkins Square.”

“And why so?”

“In the first place, because I have neglected you; it must be four months since I was here. Then, too, I have something on my conscience.”

“Ah?”

“Yes, my conscience may be elastic, but it is not gangrened. Hugh, dear boy, I haven’t acted right; no, thundering guns! I’ll be hanged if I have.”

Hugh nodded encouragingly. If he is going to own up, he reflected, I haven’t the heart to be angry.

“Go on,” he said, gently.

The little man pulled at his beard and tormented an ear.

“It’s hard work; if I had my choice I’d rather run for election, I give you my word I would.”

“Don’t, then.” And Hugh smiled benignly. “I know all.”

The little man jumped from his seat.

“Thundering guns!”

“It is about my eighty-seven thousand dollars, isn’t it?”

“ ‘Your’ eighty-seven⁠—Fire and brimstone! You do know all. But how? Who on earth could have told you a thing that no one knew about save myself.”

“It was the one person who knew that told. It was you, Mr. Anderson, that told me. It was you yourself.”

“Torpedoes and dynamite! You’re a mind-reader, chiromancer and telepathist rolled into one.”

“No, nothing of that sort. Look at this.”

And Hugh displayed the letter which he had found in his Virginia home. The little man glanced at it and blushed.

“But four months ago, when I took that money⁠—”

“My money.”

“Yes, your money, I admit. When I took it I can swear you hadn’t seen this letter then.”

“No, I had not,” Hugh answered, and thereupon related the circumstances connected with the finding of the key.

“This is fatality,” said the little man, with a solemn air. “In the long run everything comes out. And to think what a figure I should have cut if I had not been the first to speak!”

“There! It is not the money I regretted the most.”

“I know⁠—I know, and that’s the worst of it. I made inquiries and learned what happened. If it were not for me you would have been married long since.”

“Oh, as to that,” said Hugh, gayly, “everything will go right enough now.”

“What a philosopher you are!” the little man, in manifest surprise, exclaimed. “A fellow annexes your property, prevents your marriage, and, instead of sand bagging him, you treat him as pleasantly as though he had done you a favor.”

At this speech Hugh laughed triumphantly. “I can promise you,” he said, “that if this morning I had run across you unexpectedly I might have taken the law into my own hands. But since of your own free will you come to make restitution. I⁠—”

“Restitution! Thundering guns! we don’t understand each other at all.”

“We don’t?” cried Hugh, whom the wantonness of this reply had roused to sudden fury; “we don’t, eh? And do you mean to tell me⁠—”

“Mean? I mean nothing. Thundering guns! haven’t you taken a look at me yet? Have I the air of a man who has come to restore eighty-seven thousand dollars, let alone ten cents? Why I haven’t a penny in the world. Look at these rags, look at my shoes; did you ever see such shoes? As for my shirt⁠—”

The little man opened his tattered coat. His breast was bare.

Hugh sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. The blow was too cruel.

“I don’t know,” the little man continued, when he saw that the pantomime had had its effect. “I don’t know how it all happened. For everyone this has been a bad year. It began on Friday, do you remember? and what it would have been if it begun on a thirteenth God only knows, and when I say God only I exaggerate. I started by making loads of money; I had enough to burn⁠—it was a nuisance to me. Thundering guns! how I did bellow with the bulls, and suddenly it was the bears that caught me. Everything went, everything, everything. They didn’t even leave me my shirt.”

“My poor Jenny,” moaned Hugh. “My poor, dear Jenny.”

“Yes, indeed,” muttered the little man, with a vicious tug at his beard. “It’s that I should have foreseen. With the money I annexed you could have been happy and prosperous and made yourself a name, whereas now, oh, hang it all! it’s too tough. Why was I ever born? Why don’t you kick me? Why don’t you shoot me? Why don’t you send for the police?”

Hugh raised his eyes; there was a pathos in them, a sorrow for his lost love so great, so manifest, so abiding that John Anderson lowered his own.

“See here,” he added, after a moment, “see here; there’s no use taking on like that. I am down on my luck today, I admit, but tomorrow! Why, you have no idea of the inscrutable possibilities that the future contains. I’ll be on my feet again, I’ll be a millionaire yet. We’ll all be millionaires. Say the word and I’ll draw you a note, at sixty days, for a hundred thousand dollars.”

“It is enough that you have robbed me,” gnashed Hugh, re-overtaken by fury. “There is no need to insult me as well.”

“Insult you!” protested the little man. “Insult you, dear boy! Why I give you my word of honor⁠—”

“Honor!” cried Hugh, a phrase from Dickens returning to him. “Honor, indeed! Bah! Give me something to take the taste out of my mouth.”

“I’ll swear by what you like, then,” the little man, in no wise disconcerted, replied. “I’ll swear that my dearest wish is to see you famous and happy.”

“And you have gone about it the right way, haven’t you?”

“No, you are right there, I haven’t. But just consider the circumstances. Before I knew of your existence the banknotes were in my pocket. Besides, if it hadn’t been for me your father never would have had them; as it was they kept crying to me⁠—‘Carry us off, double us, triple us, quintuple us, repay later, but carry us off now.’ That’s what they kept crying to me, and, thundering guns! I was weak enough to obey. But as I said before, send for the police. State’s prison is too good for me; I ought to be hanged and have my ghost kicked.”

Hugh gave him a look that enveloped him from head to heel.

“I have but one request to make,” he said, measuredly; “and that is that you will go.”

At this, the little man got up and hobbled to the door. There, for a moment, he halted and tormented his beard; then, looking over his shoulder at Hugh, who had turned to the window where he had caught the first glimpse of Jenny’s face, he coughed. Hugh affected not to hear him.

“Mr. Hyrtl!”

Hugh still kept his back turned. The little man made a step toward him.

“Mr. Hyrtl, before I go let me tell you this; it may be a consolation to you. I am in more desperate straits than the day I met you. I had hope then; I have none left now. I am starving, and, as I cannot beg, I am going to throw myself into the river. Goodbye.”

Hugh fumbled in his pocket, and, turning from the window, crossed the room. “Here, take that,” he said. “I give it to you because of the one good action of your life⁠—in memory of my mother, whom you tried to aid.”

With that, he went back to the window, and the little man, his eyes very red and wet, opened the door and disappeared.