Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 3 of 3)

Timmons was more than three hours gone, and when he re-entered Tunbridge Street Mrs. Stamer came in great excitement to meet him, saying she had no notion he would be so long and that if Tom came back during her absence he would be furious, as she had left no word where she was to be found. To this Timmons replied shortly that he didn't suppose Stamer would have come back, and parted from her almost rudely, which showed he was in a mind far from ordinary, for he was always jocular and polite after his fashion to the woman.

When he was alone in his own place he began walking up and down in a state of great perturbation.

"I don't know what to make of it-I don't know what to make of it," he thought. "Stamer is no fool, and I know he would not lie to me. He says he saw Leigh wind up the clock at the time Leigh was standing with me under the church tower. The landlord of that public-house says he saw him, and Leigh himself says he nodded to the landlord at a quarter past twelve! I'm not mad, and I wasn't drunk. What can it mean? I can make nothing of it.

"There may be something in what Stamer says after all. This miserable, hump-backed creature may be only laying a trap for us. If I thought I was to be caught after my years of care and caution by a mannikin like that, I'd slit his wizand for him. I did not like his way last night, and the more I think of it the less I like it. I think I had better be off this job. I don't like it, but I don't care to fail, particularly after telling Stamer all about it.

"What business had that fool Stamer to walk straight into the lion's mouth? What did he want in Chetwynd Street? No doubt he went there on the same errand as I, to try to find out something more about last night. Well, a nice thing he did find out. What infernal stuff did the dwarf give Stamer to smell? It was a mercy it did not kill the man. If it had killed Stamer, and there had been an inquest, it would have made a nice mess. No one could tell what might have come out about Stamer, about the whole lot, about myself!

"It is plain no one ought to have further dealings with that little man. Anyone who could give stuff like that to a man to smell in broad daylight, and in the presence of witnesses, would not stick at a trifle in the dark and when no one was by. Yes, I must cut the dwarf. Fortunately, there is nothing in Leigh's possession he can use against me. I took good care of that.

"How will Stamer take the affair? Will he cherish anger? Will he want revenge?

"Well, if he will let him."

These were not the words in which Timmons thought, but they represent the substance of his cogitations.

Meanwhile, Oscar Leigh had left Chetwynd Street, and gone back to the clock-room to fix the new blind Binns, the potman, had bought for him. He had not intended returning that day, but he had nothing special to do, and the blind was a new idea and new ideas interested him.

He let himself in by the private door, and went straight to the clock-room. He had a bottle of sweet oil, and the roll of muslin. He oiled the muslin, and having stretched and nailed it in position, raised the lower sash of the window about two feet from the sill. The muslin was double, and the two sheets were kept half an inch apart by two rods, so that any dust getting through the outer fold might be caught by the inner one. Having settled this screen to his satisfaction, he left the room and descended once more.

"My clock," he thought, "will be enough for fame. I will not meddle with this Miracle Gold. I am committed to nothing, and anything Timmons may say will be only slander, even if he did dare to speak."

He reached the street, and wandered on aimlessly.

"My clock when it is finished will be the most perfect piece of mechanism ever designed and executed by one man. It will be classed among the wonders of the world, and be spoken of with admiration as long as civilization lasts.

"But I must take care it does not get the upper hand of me. Already the multiplicity of the movements confuse my head at times when I am not near it. I must be careful of my head, or my great work will suffer. Sometimes I see those figure of time all modelled and fashioned and in their proper dispositions executing their assigned evolutions. At times I am in doubt about them. They grow faint, and cobwebby, and misty, as though they were huddled together in some dim room, to which one ray of light was suddenly admitted. I must be careful of my head.

"Long ago, and also until not very long ago, when I added a new effect or movement it fell into its proper place and troubled me no more. Now, when I am away from my clock, when I cannot see and touch it, I often forget a movement, or give it a wrong direction, draw from it a false result.

"I am too much a man of one idea. I have imagination enough for a score of hands and ten stout bodies, and I have only a pair of hands and THIS!"

He paused and looked down at his protuberant chest and twisted trunk, and shrunken, bent legs, and enormous feet.

"I am a bad specimen of the work of Nature's journeyman, to put it as some one does, and I am abominably made-all except the head!"

He threw up his head and glanced around with scornful challenge in his eye.

"Hey!" cried a man's voice in alarm.

He looked up.

The chest of a horse was within a hand's breadth of his shoulder. The horse's head was flung aloft. The horse snorting and quivering, and bearing back upon his haunches.

Leigh sprang aside and looked around. He was in the middle of Piccadilly at Hyde Park Corner. He had almost been ridden over by a group of equestrians.

The gentleman whose horse had nearly touched him, took off his hat and apologised.

"You stopped suddenly right under the horse's head," said the gentleman. "I am extremely sorry."

Leigh raised his stick to strike the head of the horse.

The rider pulled his horse sharply away and muttered something under his breath.

"Oh, Sir Julius," cried a voice in terror, "it's Mr. Leigh!"

The dwarf's stick fell from his hand. "God's mercy in Heaven!" he cried in a whisper, as he took off his hat slowly, "Miss Ashton!"

Then, bareheaded and without his stick, he went up to the side of her horse, and said in a hoarse whisper, "I will have nothing to do with that Miracle Gold!"

A groom who had dismounted handed him his stick, and putting on his hat, he hastened away through the crowd which had begun to gather, leaving Dora in a state of mingled alarm and pity.

"Is he mad?" said Sir Julius Whinfield as the dwarf disappeared and the equestrians moved on.

"I'm sure I don't know. I think not. For a moment he terrified me, and now he breaks my heart!"

"Breaks your heart?"

"Oh, he ought not to be human! There surely can be no woe like his!"

CHAPTER XXX

DORA ASHTON ALONE

Dora Ashton was greatly shocked and distressed by the peril of Oscar Leigh and his subsequent behaviour.

"I am sure, Miss Ashton, I hope you will not imagine for a moment either that I was riding carelessly or that I recognised Mr. Leigh until you spoke. I saw him plainly enough as he was crossing the road. He was not minding in the least where he was going. He would have got across us in good time if he had only kept on; but he pulled up suddenly right under my horse's nose. I am sure I was more frightened than he. By Jove! how he glared at me. I think he would have killed me there and then if he could. He was going to strike my horse with that dreadful bludgeon of his. I am sure I was much more frightened than he was," said Sir Julius, in a penitential tone of voice, as the two rode on side by side.

The other members of the party, including Mr. Ashton, had fallen behind and were also discussing the incident among themselves.

"You were quite blameless," said the girl, who was still pale and trembling. "I don't suppose the poor man was much afraid. Of what should he be afraid?"

"Well," said the baronet, stroking the arching neck of his bay, "he was within an ace of being ridden over, you know."

"And suppose he had been knocked down and ridden over, what has he to fear, poor man?" she said. Her eyes were fixed, and she was speaking as if unconscious she uttered her words. The group had turned out of the noise of Piccadilly and were riding close together.

"He might have been hurt, I mean seriously hurt. Particularly he?"

"Hurt! How could he be hurt? You might be hurt, or I might be hurt, but how could he be hurt. Particularly he! You fancy because he is maimed and misshapen he is more likely to be hurt than a sound man?"

"Assuredly."

"I cannot see that. When people say a man was hurt, they do not mean merely or mostly that he endured pain. They mean that he was injured or disabled in some way. How can you injure or disable him? He is as much injured and disabled as a man can be and live."

"That is very true; but he might have been killed. Miss Ashton, you do not mean to say you think it would be better he had been killed?" cried Sir Julius in a tone of one shocked and surprised.

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