The Twickenham Peerage

'Twickenham!' He continued to stare. 'You are Twickenham?'

'I am. If there's money in it, you bet I am. Is it a place, or a thing? Sounds like a sort of password.'

'Leonard!'

'Am I him, too? I've been lots of people in my time, Lord knows. What's one more?'

'Why should you think it necessary to play this farce with me?'

'I'm asking. Excuse me, but are you-?' He touched his forehead with his forefinger. 'I am.'

I am generally tolerably clear-headed. Never before had I been conscious of such mental confusion. It was a peculiar sensation. As he made that gesture with his forefinger it was all at once borne in on me that, after all, I had made a common or garden fool of myself, and that this was actually not the man. As I observed him, closely a dozen minute points of difference forced themselves upon my notice. I so clearly realised my own asininity that, for the instant, I was speechless. Then I stammered out-

'You must excuse, sir, what probably appears to you my very singular behaviour, but, the fact is, you have the most amazing resemblance to a person with whom I was once very intimate.'

'Poor devil!'

'He was a poor devil.'

'You lay on it. If he was like me.'

A shadow of doubt returned.

'May I ask you to be serious, sir, and tell me, on your word of honour, if you have ever seen me before?'

'I have. As a child. Many a time we've played together in my mother's backyard. Let me see, your name's- Smith? – Ah. – Mine's Brown. I mean Babbacombe. It's all the same. See small bills.'

I hesitated. On a sudden an idea came to me, as it were, on a flash of lightning. The language seems exaggerated, yet I doubt if any other would adequately portray the fact. It did come to me in a single illuminating second. Not in embryo, but wholly formed. I saw the whole thing in its entirety. There, on the instant, was the complete scheme ready to my hand.

The suddenness of the thing unhinged me. I was not that night in the finest fettle. I scarcely saw how, then and there, to broach to him the subject. Attacked brusquely, it might be ruined. He was, probably, in worse condition even than myself; he might be affected even more disagreeably than I had been. Procrastination would probably be best, though in procrastination there was risk. Still-I saw no other way.

I moistened my lips. They had all at once gone dry.

'Mr. Babbacombe, where can I see you, to-morrow, on a matter of importance?'

'What's the matter?'

'It is one which will probably result in my being able to place a considerable sum of money at your disposal.'

'You're seeing me now.'

'This is a matter on which I can hardly enter, here, and now. I should prefer, with your permission, to see you again to-morrow.

'To-morrow's Sunday.'

'That makes no difference to me.'

'Oh! you don't honour the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.' He emptied his glass. 'Give me some more.' A bottle of whisky was standing at his elbow. I poured some out. When I was proceeding to dilute it with water, he stopped me. 'None of that. Neat.' He swallowed what I had given him. 'Thank God for alcohol. There's nothing like it, when you've got where I am. – What's that you were saying about wanting to see me to-morrow?'

'Where can I see you-and when?'

'Where? In the grave; if I keep on feeling like I'm feeling now. I've slept too much. – Give me some more.'

He tilted his glass.

'You've had enough.'

'D-n you, man, what the devil do you mean by telling me I've had enough? I never have enough. If I had all that's in the world I wouldn't have enough. It's my stuff, not yours. Give me some more.' I poured him out a little. 'Don't stint, you're not paying.' Again he swallowed at a gulp what I had given him. It seemed, instead of stupefying, to clear his head. 'That's more like it. Now I'm feeling better. After half a bottle I'm pretty well, and after a bottle I'm nearly right. Listen to me. I'll see you tomorrow, Sunday morning, at the York Hotel, in Stamford Street. After twelve o'clock. Say half-past. Make a note of it.'

'I will.'

'And mind you're there.'

'I will be there. Mind you also are there.'

'If I'm alive I'll be there. You ask for Mr. Montagu Babbacombe-that's me. Let me see, your name's-'

'Smith.'

'Smith. Oh, yes, Smith. You look a Smith. I knew a Smith once who was just like you; one of the nicest fellows that ever breathed. Only an awful thief! And such a liar! Perhaps you knew him too. Might have been a brother. Did you ever have a brother who was hung? He was. What's the other name?'

'My name's John Smith, sir, to you.'

'Very well, Mr. John Smith to me, I shall expect to see you to-morrow, Sunday morning, at the York Hotel in Stamford Street, at half-past twelve. And you be there! If you're not there, I hope that you'll be hung; like your brother. You understand?

'Perfectly.'

There was a noise at the back. Turning, I perceived that it was caused by the entrance of Mr. Augustus FitzHoward. I understood that it was time for me to take my leave. I thought it possible that the newcomer might find it difficult to induce Mr. Babbacombe to leave the chair on which he was seated, before finishing the bottle of whisky-which was still half full. I had no wish to witness any discussion of the kind.

CHAPTER V

AT THE YORK HOTEL

I cannot recall spending a more cheerful night than that one. I hasten to add, as a professional humorist might do, that that remark is meant to be satirical. All night-I cannot say 'I lay in agony'-but I wrestled with various problems. Mr. Montagu Babbacombe was with me all the time. Had he been there in the actual flesh his presence could not have been more obvious.

Now that he was physically absent, the original impression recurred with its former force. I told myself, over and over again, that the man was really and truly Twickenham. His denial of the fact I accounted nothing. He always had been fond, with or without apparent cause, of denying his own identity. That game was old. When detected in an invidious position, as he was apt to be, he would swear, using all manner of oaths and with a face of brass, that he was somebody altogether different. He had been known to do it repeatedly. The thing was notorious.

If he was Twickenham, nothing was more probable than that he should assert the contrary. It was part of his crack-brainedness. I ought to have taken that for granted from the first. His voice and manner were the two chief points on which he differed from my recollections of Leonard. They could be simulated. The man had always been an actor. Still, I could scarcely force the man to claim his peerage. Little would be gained by my proclaiming, 'Behold, the Marquis of Twickenham!' if he himself declared that he was nothing of the kind. The onus of proof would rest on me. The cost of it! And what profit would accrue even from success?

However, I was not altogether at the end of my resources. I was too near drowning not to clutch at every straw which offered. I believed I saw something very like a plank. If the man was not available in one way he might be in another. Even if he was Twickenham, I fancied that I had hit upon just the sort of devil's trick which would appeal to his madman's sense of humour. If he would only keep his appointment in the morning. There was the rub. That night I blamed myself a hundred times for allowing him to pass out of my sight. It was long odds against my seeing him again.

Yet if there had been a taker, and I had laid the odds, I should have lost. The man was on the spot to time.

It was before the appointed time when I alighted from a hansom outside the York Hotel. The place seemed more of a tavern than an hotel, but there was an hotel entrance. Into this I walked. Behind the swing doors stood a person apparently in authority.

'Can I see Mr. Montagu Babbacombe?'

I expected him to say that no such person was known in that establishment. Instead of that he answered my question with another.