The Dynamiter
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Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson >> The Dynamiter
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17 Transcribed from the 1903 Longmans, Green And Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
THE DYNAMITER
TO MESSRS. COLE AND COX, POLICE OFFICERS
Gentlemen,--In the volume now in your hands, the authors have
touched upon that ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory
to have contended. It were a waste of ink to do so in a serious
spirit. Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled
strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and where
reason and humanity can still relish the temptation. Horror, in
this case, is due to Mr. Parnell: he sits before posterity silent,
Mr. Forster's appeal echoing down the ages. Horror is due to
ourselves, in that we have so long coquetted with political crime;
not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to
consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like
the schoolboy with the penny tale, applauding what was specious.
When it touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false
to the imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less
cruel and no less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our
false deities.
But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our
defenders. Whoever be in the right in this great and confused war
of politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the
bully, dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest;--your side,
your part, is at least pure of doubt. Yours is the side of the
child, of the breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust.
If our society were the mere kingdom of the devil (as indeed it
wears some of his colours) it yet embraces many precious elements
and many innocent persons whom it is a glory to defend. Courage
and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little
recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their
commemoration in an historical act. History, which will represent
Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and
Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget
Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr.
Cox coming coolly to his aid.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson
A NOTE FOR THE READER
It is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this
volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor: the first
series of NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS. The loss is yours--and mine; or to
be more exact, my publishers'. But if you are thus unlucky, the
least I can do is to pass you a hint. When you shall find a
reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the
Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, you must be prepared
to recognise, under his features, no less a person than Prince
Florizel of Bohemia, formerly one of the magnates of Europe, now
dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in the tobacco trade.
R. L. S.
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
A SECOND SERIES
THE DYNAMITER
PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN
In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more
precise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two
young men of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation.
The first, who was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best
fashion, hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his
companion.
'What!' he cried, 'Paul Somerset!'
'I am indeed Paul Somerset,' returned the other, 'or what remains
of him after a well-deserved experience of poverty and law. But in
you, Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said,
without hyperbole, to write no wrinkle on your azure brow.'
'All,' replied Challoner, 'is not gold that glitters. But we are
here in an ill posture for confidences, and interrupt the movement
of these ladies. Let us, if you please, find a more private
corner.'
'If you will allow me to guide you,' replied Somerset, 'I will
offer you the best cigar in London.'
And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a
brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in Rupert Street,
Soho. The entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic
Highlanders of wood which have almost risen to the standing of
antiquities; and across the window-glass, which sheltered the usual
display of pipes, tobacco, and cigars, there ran the gilded legend:
'Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T. Godall.' The interior of the shop was
small, but commodious and ornate; the salesman grave, smiling, and
urbane; and the two young men, each puffing a select regalia, had
soon taken their places on a sofa of mouse-coloured plush and
proceeded to exchange their stories.
'I am now,' said Somerset, 'a barrister; but Providence and the
attorneys have hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine. A
select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my
afternoons, as Mr. Godall could testify, have been generally passed
in this divan; and my mornings, I have taken the precaution to
abbreviate by not rising before twelve. At this rate, my little
patrimony was very rapidly, and I am proud to remember, most
agreeably expended. Since then a gentleman, who has really nothing
else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my maternal uncle,
deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if you behold
me once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in my
favourite quarter, you will readily divine that I have come into a
fortune.'
'I should not have supposed so,' replied Challoner. 'But doubtless
I met you on the way to your tailors.'
'It is a visit that I purpose to delay,' returned Somerset, with a
smile. 'My fortune has definite limits. It consists, or rather
this morning it consisted, of one hundred pounds.'
'That is certainly odd,' said Challoner; 'yes, certainly the
coincidence is strange. I am myself reduced to the same margin.'
'You!' cried Somerset. 'And yet Solomon in all his glory--'
'Such is the fact. I am, dear boy, on my last legs,' said
Challoner. 'Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have
scarcely a decent trouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I
would this instant set about some sort of work or commerce. With a
hundred pounds for capital, a man should push his way.'
'It may be,' returned Somerset; 'but what to do with mine is more
than I can fancy. Mr. Godall,' he added, addressing the salesman,
'you are a man who knows the world: what can a young fellow of
reasonable education do with a hundred pounds?'
'It depends,' replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot. 'The
power of money is an article of faith in which I profess myself a
sceptic. A hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a
year; with somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night;
and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes
on the Stock Exchange. If you are of that stamp of man that rises,
a penny would be as useful; if you belong to those that fall, a
penny would be no more useless. When I was myself thrown
unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to possess an art:
I knew a good cigar. Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?'
'Not even law,' was the reply.
'The answer is worthy of a sage,' returned Mr. Godall. 'And you,
sir,' he continued, turning to Challoner, 'as the friend of Mr.
Somerset, may I be allowed to address you the same question?'
'Well,' replied Challoner, 'I play a fair hand at whist.'
'How many persons are there in London,' returned the salesman, 'who
have two-and-thirty teeth? Believe me, young gentleman, there are
more still who play a fair hand at whist. Whist, sir, is wide as
the world; 'tis an accomplishment like breathing. I once knew a
youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor of
England; the design was certainly ambitious; but I find it less
excessive than that of the man who aspires to make a livelihood by
whist.'
'Dear me,' said Challoner, 'I am afraid I shall have to fall to be
a working man.'
'Fall to be a working man?' echoed Mr. Godall. 'Suppose a rural
dean to be unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain
were cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge? The ignorance
of your middle class surprises me. Outside itself, it thinks the
world to lie quite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common
degradation; but to the eye of the observer, all ranks are seen to
stand in ordered hierarchies, and each adorned with its particular
aptitudes and knowledge. By the defects of your education you are
more disqualified to be a working man than to be the ruler of an
empire. The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learned arts--those
which alone are safe from the competition of insurgent laymen--are
those which give his title to the artisan.'
'This is a very pompous fellow,' said Challoner, in the ear of his
companion.
'He is immense,' said Somerset.
Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young
fellow made his appearance, and rather bashfully requested some
tobacco. He was younger than the others; and, in a somewhat
meaningless and altogether English way, he was a handsome lad.
When he had been served, and had lighted his pipe and taken his
place upon the sofa, he recalled himself to Challoner by the name
of Desborough.
'Desborough, to be sure,' cried Challoner. 'Well, Desborough, and
what do you do?'
'The fact is,' said Desborough, 'that I am doing nothing.'
'A private fortune possibly?' inquired the other.
'Well, no,' replied Desborough, rather sulkily. 'The fact is that
I am waiting for something to turn up.'
'All in the same boat!' cried Somerset. 'And have you, too, one
hundred pounds?'
'Worse luck,' said Mr. Desborough.
'This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall,' said Somerset: 'Three
futiles.'
'A character of this crowded age,' returned the salesman.
'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit
one fact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile,
and that we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I
have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography,
smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial
astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's
end, as impotent as any baby. I have a prodigious contempt for my
maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle to deny it, I should
simply resolve into my elements like an unstable mixture. I begin
to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the
bottom--were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man of the
world is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an
extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at
home; he has seen life in all its phases; and it is impossible but
that this great habit of existence should bear fruit. I count
myself a man of the world, accomplished, CAP-A-PIE. So do you,
Challoner. And you, Mr. Desborough?'
'Oh yes,' returned the young man.
'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world,
without a trade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of
the universe (for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in
the midst of the chief mass of people, and within ear-shot of the
most continuous chink of money on the surface of the globe. Sir,
as civilised men, what do we do? I will show you. You take in a
paper?'
'I take,' said Mr. Godall solemnly, 'the best paper in the world,
the Standard.'
'Good,' resumed Somerset. 'I now hold it in my hand, the voice of
the world, a telephone repeating all men's wants. I open it, and
where my eye first falls--well, no, not Morrison's Pills--but here,
sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was
seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a
want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude: "TWO HUNDRED
POUNDS REWARD.--The above reward will be paid to any person giving
information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed
yesterday in the neighbourhood of the Green Park. He was over six
feet in height, with shoulders disproportionately broad, close
shaved, with black moustaches, and wearing a sealskin great-coat."
There, gentlemen, our fortune, if not made, is founded.'
'Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?'
inquired Challoner.
'Do I propose it? No, sir,' cried Somerset. 'It is reason,
destiny, the plain face of the world, that commands and imposes it.
Here all our merits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers
of conversation, vast stores of unconnected knowledge, all that we
are and have builds up the character of the complete detective. It
is, in short, the only profession for a gentleman.'
'The proposition is perhaps excessive,' replied Challoner; 'for
hitherto I own I have regarded it as of all dirty, sneaking, and
ungentlemanly trades, the least and lowest.'
'To defend society?' asked Somerset; 'to stake one's life for
others? to deracinate occult and powerful evil? I appeal to Mr.
Godall. He, at least, as a philosophic looker-on at life, will
spit upon such philistine opinions. He knows that the policeman,
as he is called upon continually to face greater odds, and that
both worse equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence
a more noble hero than the soldier. Do you, by any chance, deceive
yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect,
from the best army ever marshalled, and on the most momentous
battle-field, the conduct of a common constable at Peckham Rye?'
{1}
'I did not understand we were to join the force,' said Challoner.
'Nor shall we. These are the hands; but here--here, sir, is the
head,' cried Somerset. 'Enough; it is decreed. We shall hunt down
this miscreant in the sealskin coat.'
'Suppose that we agreed,' retorted Challoner, 'you have no plan, no
knowledge; you know not where to seek for a beginning.'
'Challoner!' cried Somerset, 'is it possible that you hold the
doctrine of Free Will? And are you devoid of any tincture of
philosophy, that you should harp on such exploded fallacies?
Chance, the blind Madonna of the Pagan, rules this terrestrial
bustle; and in Chance I place my sole reliance. Chance has brought
us three together; when we next separate and go forth our several
ways, Chance will continually drag before our careless eyes a
thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but to the
countless mysteries by which we live surrounded. Then comes the
part of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred. This
clue, which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as
a cat, he leaps upon it, makes it his, follows it with craft and
passion, and from one trifling circumstance divines a world.'
'Just so,' said Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you should
recognise these virtues in yourself. But in the meanwhile, dear
boy, I own myself incapable of joining. I was neither born nor
bred as a detective, but as a placable and very thirsty gentleman;
and, for my part, I begin to weary for a drink. As for clues and
adventures, the only adventure that is ever likely to occur to me
will be an adventure with a bailiff.'
'Now there is the fallacy,' cried Somerset. 'There I catch the
secret of your futility in life. The world teems and bubbles with
adventure; it besieges you along the street: hands waving out of
windows, swindlers coming up and swearing they knew you when you
were abroad, affable and doubtful people of all sorts and
conditions begging and truckling for your notice. But not you:
you turn away, you walk your seedy mill round, you must go the
dullest way. Now here, I beg of you, the next adventure that
offers itself, embrace it in with both your arms; whatever it
looks, grimy or romantic, grasp it. I will do the like; the devil
is in it, but at least we shall have fun; and each in turn we shall
narrate the story of our fortunes to my philosophic friend of the
divan, the great Godall, now hearing me with inward joy. Come, is
it a bargain? Will you, indeed, both promise to welcome every
chance that offers, to plunge boldly into every opening, and,
keeping the eye wary and the head composed, to study and piece
together all that happens? Come, promise: let me open to you the
doors of the great profession of intrigue.'
'It is not much in my way,' said Challoner, 'but, since you make a
point of it, amen.'
'I don't mind promising,' said Desborough, 'but nothing will happen
to me.'
'O faithless ones!' cried Somerset. 'But at least I have your
promises; and Godall, I perceive, is transported with delight.'
'I promise myself at least much pleasure from your various
narratives,' said the salesman, with the customary calm polish of
his manner.
'And now, gentlemen,' concluded Somerset, 'let us separate. I
hasten to put myself in fortune's way. Hark how, in this quiet
corner, London roars like the noise of battle; four million
destinies are here concentred; and in the strong panoply of one
hundred pounds, payable to the bearer, I am about to plunge into
that web.'
CHALLONER'S ADVENTURE: THE SQUIRE OF DAMES
Mr. Edward Challoner had set up lodgings in the suburb of Putney,
where he enjoyed a parlour and bedroom and the sincere esteem of
the people of the house. To this remote home he found himself, at
a very early hour in the morning of the next day, condemned to set
forth on foot. He was a young man of a portly habit; no lover of
the exercises of the body; bland, sedentary, patient of delay, a
prop of omnibuses. In happier days he would have chartered a cab;
but these luxuries were now denied him; and with what courage he
could muster he addressed himself to walk.
It was then the height of the season and the summer; the weather
was serene and cloudless; and as he paced under the blinded houses
and along the vacant streets, the chill of the dawn had fled, and
some of the warmth and all the brightness of the July day already
shone upon the city. He walked at first in a profound abstraction,
bitterly reviewing and repenting his performances at whist; but as
he advanced into the labyrinth of the south-west, his ear was
gradually mastered by the silence. Street after street looked down
upon his solitary figure, house after house echoed upon his passage
with a ghostly jar, shop after shop displayed its shuttered front
and its commercial legend; and meanwhile he steered his course,
under day's effulgent dome and through this encampment of diurnal
sleepers, lonely as a ship.
'Here,' he reflected, 'if I were like my scatter-brained companion,
here were indeed the scene where I might look for an adventure.
Here, in broad day, the streets are secret as in the blackest night
of January, and in the midst of some four million sleepers,
solitary as the woods of Yucatan. If I but raise my voice I could
summon up the number of an army, and yet the grave is not more
silent than this city of sleep.'
He was still following these quaint and serious musings when he
came into a street of more mingled ingredients than was common in
the quarter. Here, on the one hand, framed in walls and the green
tops of trees, were several of those discreet, bijou residences on
which propriety is apt to look askance. Here, too, were many of
the brick-fronted barracks of the poor; a plaster cow, perhaps,
serving as ensign to a dairy, or a ticket announcing the business
of the mangler. Before one such house, that stood a little
separate among walled gardens, a cat was playing with a straw, and
Challoner paused a moment, looking on this sleek and solitary
creature, who seemed an emblem of the neighbouring peace. With the
cessation of the sound of his own steps the silence fell dead; the
house stood smokeless: the blinds down, the whole machinery of
life arrested; and it seemed to Challoner that he should hear the
breathing of the sleepers.
As he so stood, he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation
from within. This was followed by a monstrous hissing and
simmering as from a kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the
same time from every chink of door and window spirted an ill-
smelling vapour. The cat disappeared with a cry. Within the
lodging-house feet pounded on the stairs; the door flew back,
emitting clouds of smoke; and two men and an elegantly dressed
young lady tumbled forth into the street and fled without a word.
The hissing had already ceased, the smoke was melting in the air,
the whole event had come and gone as in a dream, and still
Challoner was rooted to the spot. At last his reason and his fear
awoke together, and with the most unwonted energy he fell to
running.
Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had
resumed his sober gait and begun to piece together, out of the
confused report of his senses, some theory of the occurrence. But
the occasion of the sounds and stench that had so suddenly assailed
him, and the strange conjunction of fugitives whom he had seen to
issue from the house, were mysteries beyond his plummet. With an
obscure awe he considered them in his mind, continuing, meanwhile,
to thread the web of streets, and once more alone in morning
sunshine.
In his first retreat he had entirely wandered; and now, steering
vaguely west, it was his luck to light upon an unpretending street,
which presently widened so as to admit a strip of gardens in the
midst. Here was quite a stir of birds; even at that hour, the
shadow of the leaves was grateful; instead of the burnt atmosphere
of cities, there was something brisk and rural in the air; and
Challoner paced forward, his eyes upon the pavement and his mind
running upon distant scenes, till he was recalled, upon a sudden,
by a wall that blocked his further progress. This street, whose
name I have forgotten, is no thoroughfare.
He was not the first who had wandered there that morning; for as he
raised his eyes with an agreeable deliberation, they alighted on
the figure of a girl, in whom he was struck to recognise the third
of the incongruous fugitives. She had run there, seemingly,
blindfold; the wall had checked her career: and being entirely
wearied, she had sunk upon the ground beside the garden railings,
soiling her dress among the summer dust. Each saw the other in the
same instant of time; and she, with one wild look, sprang to her
feet and began to hurry from the scene.
Challoner was doubly startled to meet once more the heroine of his
adventure, and to observe the fear with which she shunned him.
Pity and alarm, in nearly equal forces, contested the possession of
his mind; and yet, in spite of both, he saw himself condemned to
follow in the lady's wake. He did so gingerly, as fearing to
increase her terrors; but, tread as lightly as he might, his
footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty street. Their sound
appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for scarce had he
begun to follow ere she paused. A second time she addressed
herself to flight; and a second time she paused. Then she turned
about, and with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance
of timidity, drew near to the young man. He on his side continued
to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness. At
length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim
over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.
'Are you an English gentleman?' she cried.
The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation. He was the
spirit of fine courtesy, and would have blushed to fail in his
devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse
from amorous adventures. He looked east and west; but the houses
that looked down upon this interview remained inexorably shut; and
he saw himself, though in the full glare of the day's eye, cut off
from any human intervention. His looks returned at last upon the
suppliant. He remarked with irritation that she was charming both
in face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady
undeniable; the picture of distress and innocence; weeping and lost
in the city of diurnal sleep.
'Madam,' he said, 'I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion;
and if I have appeared to follow you, the fault is in this street,
which has deceived us both.' An unmistakable relief appeared upon
the lady's face. 'I might have guessed it!' she exclaimed. 'Thank
you a thousand times! But at this hour, in this appalling silence,
and among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors--oh, lost
in them!' she cried, her face blanching at the words. 'I beg you
to lend me your arm,' she added with the loveliest, suppliant
inflection. 'I dare not go alone; my nerve is gone--I had a shock,
oh, what a shock! I beg of you to be my escort.'
'My dear madam,' responded Challoner heavily, 'my arm is at your
service.'
'She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her
sobs; and the next, with feverish hurry, began to lead him in the
direction of the city. One thing was plain, among so much that was
obscure: it was plain her fears were genuine. Still, as she went,
she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a
person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers. To Challoner
her terror was at once repugnant and infectious; it gained and
mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and
longed for release.
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