TALES & SKETCHES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 772, 17 December 1886, Page 6

TALES & SKETCHES.

[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.] John Needham’s Double

A STORY FOUNDED ON FACT.

BY JOSEPH HATTON.

Authorof ‘Cuytie,' ‘ Gruel London,’ ‘Three Recruits,’ &c. CHAPTER IV.

A Diabolical Fate Plays into Diaboli-

cal Hands.

«No, he must not come to dinner,’ said Needham to himself on Saturday morning; ‘ no, that might compromise the situation. Supper? If the Housesat on Saturday night, yes; but hardly without ; the servants must not see him.’ _ , Needham was in his bedroom. He had had a cop of tea and dry toast sent up—a very unusual thing with him. He was walking softly to and fro in his dressinggown and slippers. There was something tigerish in his walk, and something stealthy, cat-like. . «He has no position to maintain, he went on, sometimes uttering his thoughts in a whisper, sometimes pausing to bite them, as it were, into his mind and purpose, as the modern engraver bites his lines into the zinc with a burning acid ; 4 a widower and unhappy, no future, no public life, no lost reputation to rehabilitate, no father or mother alive, a sister who is engaged to be married, and he simply goes to New York for change, the excuse being a possible windfall of property; fearless of death, evidently, and possiblv caring little for life. Yesterday I cared for*neither ; to-day, with this new possibility, I long for it ; but let me be no hypocrite at this moment. The old people in Ireland—can my life, under the circumstances, be anything to them ? No. Whatever happens I shall he dead to them, dead to the world ; and if the devil at my elbow, the friend who has kept me awake all night, have his will, I shall be a murderer—alive, safe with money, free from debt, but with the blackest of all crimes to top .the rest of my iniquities.’ He sat now, cross-legged, on a chair opposite the looking-glass on his toilet-table ; sat and looked at his pale face, his bloodshot eyes, his compressed lips, with now and then his left canine tooth showing. _ i jg no back in crime, he said, addressing himself. ‘ You know there is not. When yon think you have come to the finish, a new road opens up to you, a new way to hell 5 You would confess and hope would you ? When there was no hope —only then—when the gulf was at your feet, when the pit were there and the devil with his hand upon your throat to hurl you in. But now he brings you a substitute, and you are ready to continue your wicked march, even to wade in blood. And there are people who do not believe in the devil !’ The son shone into the room, and darting upon a pair of razors that were lying before him, made mocking reflection upon the wall. He got up from the chair and watched lfc ‘Better cut my throat and save my soul. Is that the ’ suggestion ?’ he said. ‘No; it is murder either way. If I kill myself it is murder, if I kill him it is murder. One sin is as black as the other. But the hint is worth taking in another direction. I will carry you in my pocket, a friend in need. He placed one of the razors in its case, and taking up his frock coat (which was laid ready brushed with his other clothes near the table) put it into his breast pocket. ‘ The poison might not work,’ he said. 4 I must make no mistake. The same initials, too—J.N. It would be like flying in the face of prov—no, the devil—to refuse such an opportunity. J.N. is on my linen, J*.N. on his, J.N. on his trunks —’ He was interupted by a knock at the door. 4 Yes.’

‘ Mr Nolan, sir,’ said the servant. ‘ls it so late ? Needham remarked looking at his watch before answering his servant. * Ask him to wait.’ « Yes, sir ; and a letter by hand, sir.’ 4 Oh, leave it on the table.’

4 Yes, sir,’

4 No, bring it in.’ 4 Yes, sir.’ The servant entered and gave him the letter.

4 Mr Nolan will breakfast.’ Yes, sir.’ He opened the letter and looked at the signature. 4 Joseph Norbury !’ he exclaimed. Then he went in a stealthy way to the door and locked it.

4 Dear Mr Needham,’ he read, 4 Pray accept my best thanks for the two letters of introduction. I very much appreciate your kindness. This morning I have a letter from my lawyer in Derbyshire, stating that he will be in town to day at six. He has invited himself to dine with me and talk over business. This is very unfortunate ’

Here Nsedham looked up from the letter, and remarked to himself, 4 1 don’t know—perhaps it is—perhaps not. At all events I am equal to either fortune.’ Then turning to the letter again he read, ‘ but my visitor leaves for Richmond at nine or ten, and if in begging your indulgence toexcuse me from withdrawing my acceptance of your kind invitation to dinner, I may be allowed to come round to you and smoke a cigar after my friend has left for Richmond, I shall be very glad to do so, and to receive your further letters and advice in respect of my journey to New York. Do not trouble to answer this. I shall take my chance of finding you, and as I shall have nothing else to do it will not inconvenience me at all if it should be inconvenient for you to remain at home. —Yours very truly, 4 Joseph Norbury.’

4 Providence or the devil has a hand in this !' Needham exclaimed. 4 lt cannot be providence, for providence has written it down hard and strong, and engraven it on the mountain stone, 4 Thow shalt do no murder.” Satan then ? Or Fate ? Or Destiny ? Two lives hang in the balance. Fate or destiny or providence, or the devil knows it. They claim the right to elect which is to be the victim. He is picked out from millions, and under marvellous circumstances, and brought to Loudon in the nick of time. The circumstances which will attend his removal, his substitution for another, are made to fit into the occasion. Every detail of the affair is moulded for me. It is as if, like the Patriarch of old, I had found a ram caught in the thicket, ready totake the place of this other sacrifice ; or the dagger that pointed the way to Duncan’s chamber j or like the omen that encouraged Tarquin. But what is to be the end ? Will not the unseen ministers claim me and damn me at last ? There’s the rub. But sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. I will go on—Fate continuing propitious—if I swing for it.’

His face was livid now, his lips fixed and cruel, and he paced his chamber as he hacl. done before, tigOrishly, pausing now and then to mutter and talk. Presently he took the razor from his coat pocket and put it into the pocket of his dressing gown, ‘ I will dress later,’ he said ; 4 Nolan will be tired of waiting.’ Then he Jthrust Norhury’a letter into his. pocket witn the razor, washed his hands, brushed his thin hair, and tightening the waistband of his dressing gown, glided catlike iuto the dining-room, where he found his confidential solicitor walking about impatiently, one hand in his pocket, the other swinging his eye-glasses about. ‘ I have kept you too long—pray excuse me,’ said Mr Needham, 4 1 did not go to bed uutil very late.’ * I should judge so, for of all the years I have known you 1 have never seen you in a dressing gown before,’ said Nolan. 4 And you shall never see me again in one if my appearance so offends you. I suppose you are thinking at this' moment what could have induced my constituents to call me a fop ?’ 4 No, my friend, I was not thinking of anything so frivolous. I have received by this morning’s post a very strange letter impugning the reality of the Broadwood trust and mortgage deeds. I have accepted service of writs for fifty thousand pounds, and the city this morning talks of nothing hut your financial ruin. They say that you cannot last twenty-four hours. What is to be done ? Can Ido anything ? lam only here to ask these two questions.’ 4 Thank you, Nolan ; your sympathy touches me,’ said Needham. 4 1 feel as if I had lost my hold on things and on life, that is a fact,’ 4 You look it,’ said Nolan.

4 1 am ill ; but I shall pull through.’ 4 You never lacked courage. Look the difficulty straight in the face; your honor is intact ; you have only been unfortunate.’

4 1 hope you may always think so. Perhaps that strange letter, you speak of may undeceive you, who knows ? But my dear Nolan, wait. Monday morning may do wonders for us. I think it will. You will take breakfast ?’ 4 No, thank you, I cannot stay.’ 4 Yes you can, you must, dear friend. I have business of the last importance to speak about.’

Mr Nolan did stay to breakfast, and remained until late in the afternoon. He did not return to the city, but was driven home in Needham’s carriage. On its return Needham said to the driver :

4 John, I want you to catch the next train to Leighton Buzzard. I don’t mean to drive to the station. Put your horses up and go yourself. I have a message for you to Dick and some medicine for the horses. And James—'

4 Yes, sir,’ said the footman. 4 1 wish you to go with John.’ 4 Yes, sir.’ 4 1 shall not want you here. lam going out to-morrow.’

‘ Yes, sir.’ 4 You will stay all night at Leighton Buzzard, and meet me, both of you, with the dog-cart, at the Leighton station, at the first train on Monday. ’ ‘ Yes, sir.’

Mr Needham looked at his watch. 4 You have two hours to put up your horses and go to the station. When you are ready I have a bottle for you.’ 4 Yes, sir,’ said the two servants together.

They took a bottle down to Leighton, with .-a note from the master ; but it was not the bottle which had been delivered at Portland Place with so much ceremony the day before. John, however, was instructed not 'to open the parcel until Monday morning, when Mr Needham would instruct him in the use of it , ~ When the two men-servant 3 had gone, Mr Needham (having asked John to leave the stable key on the study table) went into the yard and smoked a cigar there, a very unusual thing for him to do. He went mto the stables, and patted the cob which he used for city work in his single brougham. Then he examined the harness and the brougham, strolling in and out of the stables, the harness-room, and the coach-house. _ After a "while he carried the cob s harness into the stable ard put it on. He peeped out into the yard to see it he was noticed. No, all was quiet. He then examined the brougham, came back and looked at the traces; went back to the coach-house, returned to the stable, unharnessed the cob, patted its neck, replaced the harness ; then picked up the cigar he had laid on a window ledge and went back to his room. ‘ I might do it some other way,’ he said to himself, ‘ did not fate and circumstance point to one way—my way—the way I was going myself. My own plans are laid—they are simple and natural, and I see them in • detail from first to lasti On the eve of. their fulfilment there comes to me this substitute, this second-self, to take my place. If I accept him I should put him into my place, detail for detail, and the only way is to drive him to the spot where the body of John Needham is to be discovered. There is no •other way ; but the doing of it, the successful carrying out of such a substitution of me for another—what au undertaking! It must be done quickly and with a firm hand. What if I bungle as I have done so often of late ? What if I bungle and am detected in the midst of my work ? Well, there will be poison enough fo v both of us. . I feel as if I had already taken some noxious stuff into my veins. IMen who commit murder must first be mad. It is insanity. My will is moved by some other power than my own. It is as if I were creeping and crouching for my prey; and I grow hot and cold.’ He paced tberoom in that cat-like tigerish way which had previously characterised his movements, and he paused to catch sight of his pale face in a mirror—pale face and bloodless lips. Presently he sat down again, sat at his desk and sorted papers.. Then he made some memoranda in his diary, took ■a bundle of bank notes from the safe and placed them in a pocket book. Presently he rang the bell. * Send the cook to me,’ he said to the parlor maid, who answered the bell. ‘ Yes, sir.’ * And, Mary ?’ * Yes, sir.’ * Were you ever at the opera ?’ ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir.’ ‘ It is a great night at the opera to-night. Would you like to go?' * Thank you, sir.’ ‘You shall, then, and Jane as well ; there is only Jane besides the cook, eh ?’ ‘ And Sarah, sir.’ ‘ Well, I shall not be home until very late to-night, and you can all go. I will get seats for you in the upper circle ; I shall be there, so shall expect to see you in your places.’ ‘Thank you, sir.’ ‘And let me see, I suppose Rogers would not mind taking charge of you, eh V

‘Don’t know, I’m sure, sir.’ * Ah, well, I will speak to him—that will

do.’ ‘ Thank you, sir,’ she said, and bowed herself out of the room. ‘ Master’s gone mad !’ she exclaimed. ‘ Clean mad—mad as a hatter. Where’s Rogers ?’ ‘ln the butler’s pantry.’ • I want to speak to him ; if ever there was a hatter as was mad, master’s him !’

Mary flew to the butler, who received her request with some incredulity and considerable loss of dignity, ‘Me take charge of a lot of kitchen wenches at the hopera ; Mary, it’s you as is mad !’ said the butler.

His bell rang out as he spoke. * ’Owever, we ll see about it now, there’s the governor’s bell,’ and Mr Rogers went pompously forth to the study. After speaking with the master, he visited the housekeeper’s room, and not finding Mrs Short went back into the kitchen. ‘ Where’s Mrs Short ?’ he asked.

‘ Gone to Leighton Buzzard; maater expects company th°re on Monday,’ said the cook. * Well !’ exclaimed Mary, ‘ is it true ? ‘ Not as he’s mad, no; but peculiar; it’s his birthday, and he says he feels that he’d like us to keep it; that is you and me and Mary and Jane and Sarah, and he have ordered a supper for us after the opera, and, he says, as it’s the fust treat as he’s given 113 he’d like it to be special ypu see, and he’s asked me as a favor to take 'charge of it, and cook is not to go to the opera, but she’s to go to the Crovn, where he’s ordered the supper at ten o’clock, and help the Crown to do the thing proper, and he prefers it to having it here and thinks it will be more jolly like ; and he won’t want nobody at home, as him and lawyer Nolan is agoing to do some work together, because master's going to Leighton Buzzard on Monday and then’to Ireland for a week.’ Mary, nevertheless, contended that the master was * mad and looked it, and she was dead sure of it ’ when the butler being re-called by Mr Needham returned to say they could each invite a friend to the supper at the Crown. On the other hand the cook contended that he was getting to be a lonely man, and consequently beginning to ‘ think of others a little,’ and for her part she always felt he was ‘ a good sort,’ and now he was ‘ a-beginning to show it.’ In the meantime, Mr Needham called at the Opera Booking Office, aud paid a visit to the Crown Tavern (a coachman’s resort near Brunswick Place), at which latter place he arranged for the supper, and was voted ‘ a regular brick ’ by the landlord and his wife. Then he strolled into Oxford-street and purchased a strong narcotic. He walked and felt (and he thought so, communing with himself in his strange way), as if he were in a dream, but knew he was awake—as if he was led on—as if he was destined to do a

cruel thing, and could not resist it. Some of his forgeries, his desperate attempts to keep his head above the eddies of financial trouble, had been done under the influence of a similar instinct—a kind of impulse —as if his evil nature was altogether beyond the control of his moral faculties. ‘ls a man responsible for what he does when he is fighting for life io a. whirlpool ? Needham was muttering to himself as he walked back to Portland Place. ‘A. drowning man snatches at straws ; and if another man comes along he clutches at him, even though they both sink together. In his blind despair he will clutch at the swimmer who comes to his rescue, and cling to him madly without reasoning, until the rescuer s smothered, and perhaps the drowning man floats safely to shore clinging to the dead. It must be that it is intended I should live ; but Loudon asks a sacrifice, the banks ask a sacrifice ; financial honor calls for a victim, the widows and the orphans cry aloud for vengeance ; and lo ! and behold, late sends the sacrifice in lieu of the one that was prepared. Who knows that I may not be destined to atone to all these people,. to re-pay them, to re-endow their institutions and their homes ?’ It was & ghastly smilo that nicksrGd on Ins lips at this latter thought, as if the fiend within him rejoiced at his hypocrisy. As the solemn clock on his library mantelpiece pointed to a quarter to eight he stood within the shadow of the silk curtains and saw the last of his little crowd of attendants trooping out into Portland-place towards Oxford Circus on their way to the opera. , , , The sun had set in lowering clouds, and there was promise in the changing vvind of a wet, dark night. He noted these signs, and said to himself : ‘ Everything in earth and heaven, if 1 may use that word, favors my escape, and points the road to freedom.’

CHAPTER VIII.

In Which a Silent Passenger is Driven

into the Darkness,

Oddly enough, at half-past nine, just as Mr Joseph Norbury was walking up to the door of Mr Needham’s house, the door was open, and the owner himself was taking off his coat in the hall. , «Ah !’ he said, * this is lucky. I left word if you came in my absence that there was coffee, and cigars, and wine, and soda, and brandy, in the library, and that I hoped you would make yourself at home. I felt sure I should be back in time, there or thereabouts. I have been walking as far as the Bath Hotel with an old friend from Dublin who is so eccentric that he will never trust himself in a cab or carriage in London, and I just let myself in with my latch-key—bachelor fashion. Come in, I am very glad to see you.’ , , He shook Norbury’s hand warmly, and then speaking a 3 if addressing a servant whom he professed to hear approaching, he said ‘ It is only I, Rogers, and Mr Norbury ; we can find our own way to the library, and don’t let us be disturbed.’ The truth was he and Norbury were alone in the house. ' ‘ I live very simply,’ he, said, leading the way to the library, * an old bachelor, and I dislike giving trouble.' ‘ I hope your servants appreciate your consideration,’said Norbury. ‘ Oh, yes, I think they do,’ he answered. * Now sit in this chair ; pray believe I am sorry cot to have had the pleasure of your company at dinner. As you could not come I simply had a chop, and cleared up a little business with my secretary. I hope you will liko these cigars.’ * Thank you,’ said the guest, taking a Cabana from the box which his host pushed towards him. ‘ Ycu are very kind. _ The disappointment is mine. My lawyer is an old friend, and I could not well, on the eve of leaving the country, obstruct hi 3 arrangements, seeing that they were chiefly in my interest.’ ‘ Will you take coffee ? I have it here you see. No trouble.’ He pointed to a silver coffee urn, under which was curling a thin blue flame. 1 My butler had just placed it ready as we came in—a little caffi noir.’ ‘ Thank you,’ said Norbury. The host assisted guest and himself to coffee, but Needham took no brandy. * And what is your hotel in New York ?’

‘ “ The New York,’’ it is called.’ * You have written to them advising them of your coming, of course V * Yes, I wrote about ten days since.’ ‘Always so much pleasanter to be expected,’ said Needham. * I have written the letters I mentioned ; I think they will be of service to you. You spoke of your sister last evening, is she likely to join you ?' ‘ Oh, no, I do not expect to stay long ; moreover, she is engaged to be married, and lam rather a selfish fellow, I fear. She has been my housekeeper ever since the death of my wife, and I hate parting with her. Just as a conjuror * forces ’ a card upon you, so Needham by example seemed to force the caffi noir on Norbury _by himself drinking in a somewhat ostentatious way. Then he led his guest into talking of his illness, and the reasons why his doctor advised change, professing to sympathise with him, and at the same time telling him of the sudden death of a friend who had developed similar symptoms. Norbury was thus brought into a frame of mind that might possibly prepare him to experience without surprise a sudden symptom of illness.’

* As for death,’ he said, * there was a time when I had a horror of it, but all that passed away when 1 lost my wife. I am no longer afraid of death—l have often wished for it. Don t you think our education upon this matter is altogether, wrong ?’ * In respect of the preparation for death ?’ asked Needham in reply, weighing his words and pressing his feet upon the floor as if to steady his nerves. * Ye 3. Many of the Oriental races have no fear of death. The Chinese regard it as nothing, the Japanese will commit * the happy despatch ’ smilingly. A Chinamen doomed to the headsman finds a substitute on payment of a sum of money to his family. Death being the only certain thing in life, the penalty of life, we ought to accept it as a matter of course and not make a horror of it. Children should be brought up with these views.’ «Indeed, I think you are right,’ said Need-

ham, 1 but I have never reflected much upon death, and I can hardly realise the condition of a man who could voluntarily take the place of a condemned criminal. * Some poor devil whose life was a failure, and who really loved his family and saw in his osvn death their relief from poverty and persecution, and an Oriental —• could you not realise the idea of a man courting death under such conditions ?’ ‘Oh yes. I think I could,’ said Needham, * but I could better understand his fighting to the last and then committing suicide.’ _ ‘ There lam not with you. Suicide is a coward’s act. We are here for weal or woe to run our course ’ ‘But would not your Oriental friend who gives himself up as a substitute for another be practically guilty of his own death ?’ ‘ Ah, to discuss that,’ replied Norbury. ‘ would be to chop logic after the manner of the grave-diggers in Hamlet. After all, Mr Needham, the one great thing is to be prepared. As Hamlet himself said, on his way to that fatal fencing bout, ‘ Toe readiness is all.” ’ As he spoke Norbury sank slowly back in his chair. ‘ Dear, dear !’ exclaimed Needham ; ‘ you are ill, —a little brandy, the room is close, there is thunder in the air.’ Taking from the mantle shelf a silver cup (which contained a carefully-measured and deadly dose of oil of almonds) he poured a little brandy into it, shook it together, and pressimg the cup to the lips of his stupefied guest forced the contents down his throat. And then oue hand clutching the back of a chair for support, he watched, his victim; watched him with staring eyes, and halfparted lips, and with his guilty heart thumping at his rib 3, as if it wo dd pound its way through them ; he pressed his left hand over it as if to hold it bask, while his right hand dragged the chair, as he fell back a pace or two contemplating the dying man. Then with a sudden effort he tore off his coat and flung it over the terribly upbraiding eyes of his murdered guest. This done he stood again apart, away from the dread thing now half covered up in the chair, stood and waited and trembled, waited aud waited, it seemed hours, though the time in which so much evil had been accomplished was very short. . Presently he thought he heard a footstep in the house; then he thought there was a. listener at the door. It required a tremendous effort to move; but at last he crept to the door opened it and listened. The hall clock was beating out the time in its usual way : but to Needham the sound was ominous ; it had a deathly sound, a warning sound, and it seemed to threaten him. He went into the hall. It was dark. He had purposely allowed the gas to remain unlighted. A flicker of the street lamp came in over the glass above the door. There was a lantern on the hall table. He crept to it and took it up, and returned to the library. All still, deadly _ still. He heard for the first time the ticking of the clock on the mantel-shelf. He lowered the gas in the chandelier, as if he feared to see too much when he should remove the coat from the silent figure in the chair. He went behind it, and lifted the covering gently, bit by bit, until the face was exposed. Then he recoiled from it, then approached it afresh, touched it, listened to it. raised one of its hands, felt its pulse, listened at its heart. All still, no sound only the two clocks and a distant roll of thunder. ‘Pull yourself together ?’ hissed between his teeth the living man, who now almost envied the dead. ‘ Everything works for you — heaven and hell, even the night, darkness and storm. The hall clock struck ten. He listened and counted every stroke as the hammer feU. . . ‘ No more ?’ he said, taking out his watch, looking at it, and then placing it to his ear. ‘No more ! The Fates are with me. Now to business ! What is there to fear ? A dead man is nothing—dust, clay, a clod, nothing. Come, John Needham, to business !’

He reached over to the spirit decanters, and pouring into a glass a large quantity of whisky drank it off. Then stretching himself up to his full height, he turned up his sleeves, apostrophising the corpse as he did so.

‘You are John Needham—poor Needham, member of Parliament, banker, the ruined financier, and you must not be found dressed in Joseph Norbury's clothes —come! It will not matter to you how you are dressed, it will to me. Joseph Norbury must not go about in John Needham’s coat, nor wear John Needham’s watch, nor carry John Needham’s purse, nor anything else that is his ! Come !’ It seemed as if the situation, the whisky and the gift of life with a new name, made physically a new man of the villain. He worked at his ghastly business with the energy of a giant and the vigor of a looter on a battlefield. Once or twice he refreshed himself from the spirit decanter, and wiped the perpiration from his face. v When the changes had been made between the living and the dead, which the living considered sufficient, then came the no les3 difficult work of removing the body ; but the murderer was equal to the occasion. He carried it out into the yard, and thrust it into the brougham, which he had already dragged out of the carriage-house for the purpose. There was not a single detail that he had not thought out on the lines of his own proposed suicide. He had not permitted himself, so far, to change a single item of his original plan except this incident of driving to Hampstead ; for he had argued that if his scheme was simple and had no hitch in it, all he had to do was to fib his substitute into the plan. The only change was the brougham. His own idea had been to walk to the scene of his own death, .a favorite resort in life, and there take his fatal dose. The introduction of the brougham had necessitated the absence of the servants. These supplementary incidents had worked out so far to his satisfaction, the most tremendous of all of them, the discovery of the substitute, having in Needham's opinion little less than miraculous. Having deposited his ghastly load m the brougham, ha leaned gasping, against the coach-house ; for though he had carried hi 3 load with something like the grip of an expert at such work, balancing the weight of the difficult and awkward burden so as to

make it bearable, he could hardly stand erect for some minutes. Presently, however, he went back into the house, straightened his room, washed and laid aside the extra coffee cup, placed in his pocket the phial of poison, carefully removed all traces of his visitor ; then going into the hall and putting on Norbury’s light overcoat, taking his own on his arm, and his crush-hat in his hand he returned to the stables and harnessed the cob to the brougham. Opening the gates stealthily he looked out. No one stirring, the night dark, a steady rain falling ; everything still favored the criminal and his work. He led the horse through the gateway, put out the lantern, placed it inside the doors which he carefully closed ; and then mounting the box-seat, drove quitely through the Mews, and out into Mary-le-bone-road. The rain fell in a steady downpour. The perfume of roses and stocks from adjacent gardens filled the dripping atmosphere; but in the imagination of the solitary driver of the silent passenger the gas-lamps pointed their short arms at him. The long glaring reflections of the lights on the wet pavements seemed to follow him. He drove on nevertheless, and to his troubled fancy the wheels of the brougham made an awful noise. His horse clattered over the stones as if with the design of calling attention to that awful thing he was dragging. * That is why they walk the horse in a hearse, and the mourning coaches that follow creep along,’ the driver thought, * the noise is so great !' He pulled the cob into a walk. ‘ Yes,’ he thought, ‘ that must be it; there is more noise attending the removal of the dead than the living—a kind of sympathy, as if the stones spoke, as somebody has, I think, suggested. But now that his horse only walked through the rain, he noticed that as cabmen rattled by they turned to look at him. He had not lighted the lamps of his brougham, so that the light of passing vehicles seemed to flash upon him and try to unnerve him. He therefore urged the horse once more into a trot, and rattled over the stones with the rest of the traffic. He turned into the Allsopp Mews, and would have gone through Clarence Gate into the Park, but he dared not risk having to pull up for gates to be opened and shut ; so he kept to the road, turning into Upper Gloucester Place, now at a walking pace, now at a trot, the gas-lamps pointing at him as before, and the blood-red glare of a druggist’s lamp that fell sheer across his path making him shudder. But on he went round Park-road, past Primrose Hill, and now skirting its western side, and so into Haverstock Hill, finally climbing the steep ascent to Hampstead. Passing the last lights of house or lamp, the dri.er plunged with his silent passenger into the darkness, made visible at intervals by sharp flashes of lightning, the impressive stillness of the night being heightened by thunder that rolled over the hill and into the distant valleys, leaving behind it long listening pauses of silence. (To be continued.)