CHAPTER VI.
[OSCAR LEIGH'S CAVE OF MAGIC.]
When Mr. Oscar Leigh emerged from the door of the public house, he crossed to the other side of Welbeck Place and moved rapidly along the front of Forbes's bakery until he reached the private entrance to that house. Then he opened the door with a latch-key and entered. In the hall there was nothing but a small hand-truck standing up against the wall. He ascended four flights of stairs, found himself opposite the door of his flat, opened that door with another latch-key, and went in.
The door at the head of the stairs rose up from the edge of the topmost step so that there was no landing outside it. The whole depth of the landing was enclosed by the door and belonged to the tenant. The little man slammed the door behind him and went down a passage leading east. He came to the sitting-room, passed through it, then through the sleeping chamber beyond and thence into a completely dark passage, out of which opened two doors, one into the sleeping chamber from which he had come, and one into the workshop or clock-room. The latter door he unlocked with a small patent key. He pushed the door open very cautiously. Before the space between the edge and the jamb was an inch wide, some small object placed on the inside against the door, fell with a slight noise. He now pushed boldly, entered, and closed the door behind him. It shut with a snap and he was locked in.
The noise of some object falling had been caused by the over-turning of a small metal egg-cup on the floor. It had been so placed that the door could not be pushed open from the passage without upsetting it, for a strip of wood two inches wide was fixed on the door an inch and a half from the ground and this ledge touched the egg-cup while the door was shut and pressed against the upper rim of the cup the moment the door began to move inward. Around the spot on which the vessel had fallen spread a little pool of liquid on the floor.
Leigh stooped, dipped the tip of his long thin left forefinger in the liquid and then touched the top of his tongue with the wet tip of his finger. A gleam of satisfaction and triumph shone on his face. "Sweet," he whispered, as he straightened his crooked figure. "Sweet as sugar! Any fool who wanted to find if his sanctuary had been defiled by strange feet during his absence might think of placing a vessel of water against the inside of his door There is nothing easier than to draw it up close to the door from the outside. All you have to do is to place the vessel on a long slip of paper in the line of the door, and then, having shut the door, draw the paper carefully under the door and away from beneath the vessel. The ground must be level and the paper smooth, and you must have a nice ear and a steady hand. Any fool could manage that.
"Then if defiling hands opened the door and overturned the vessel and spilt the water, and the hands belonged to a head that wasn't that quite of a fool, the hands could replace the vessel full of water against the shut door as it had first been placed there. But the sugar was a stroke of genius, of ray genius! Who that did not know the secret would think of putting sugar in the water?" Leigh touched his tongue again with the tip of his finger. "Sweet as honey. Here is conclusive proof that my sanctuary has been inviolate while I have been from home. Poor Williams! A useful man in his way; very. One of those men you turn to account and then fling on a dung-hill to rot. A worthy soul. I have succeeded in my first great experiment. I wonder how it goes with my dumb deputy of last night? Ha-ha-ha!"
He turned away from the door and confronted a thicket of shafts and rods and struts and girders and pipes and pulleys and wheels and drums and chains and levers and cranks and weights and springs and cones and cubes and hammers and cords and bands and bells and bellows and gongs and reeds, through all of which moved a strange weird tremulousness and plaintive perpetual low sounds, and little whispers of air and motion, as though some being, hitherto uncreate, were about to take visible life out of inertia, and move in the form of a vast harmonious entity in which all this distracting detail of movement would emerge into homogeneous life.
From where Oscar Leigh stood, contemplating his machine, it would be absolutely impossible for anything stouter than a wand to reach the one window through the interminable complicacies of the clock.
Again a look of satisfaction and triumph came into his narrow swarthy face as he muttered, "Even if anyone had got as far as where I stand, he could stir no further without unintentionally blazing his way as plainly as ever woodman did with axe in Canadian forest."
The framework of the clock consisted of four upright polished steel pillars, one at each angle of a parallelogram. The pillars touched the ceiling of the room about nine feet from the floor. One side of the parallelogram measured twelve feet, the other ten. The sole window in the room was in the middle of one of the larger sides of the parallelogram, and could be approached only through the body of the clock itself. The body of the clock close by the window was not fully filled up with mechanism, and this free space, combined with the embrasure of the window, made a small interior chamber, in which were a stout high-backed easy Windsor chair, and an oak watchmaker's bench. The framework of the clock was secured to the floor by screws.
From the outside, where Leigh now stood leaning his back against the wall, it was impossible to approach the window except through the body of the clock; for the mechanism filled all the space from floor to ceiling, and with the exception of the bay around the window, all the space from the outer pillars to the wall.
The main body of the mechanism within the four polished steel pillars filled about half the room. In the remainder, which took the form of a narrow passage running round three sides of the clock, were small pieces of mechanism, some detached from the main body, some connected by slender shafts or tiny bands. This passage contained a single chair, a small oak table, and a narrow stretcher bed.
After a long and searching look through the metallic network of the machine, Oscar Leigh sat down on the one chair, and resting his elbow on the table, gave himself up to thought.
The ticking, and clicking, and clanking, and whizzing, and buzzing of the machinery made altogether no louder sound than the noise of a busy thoroughfare in London, and there was no perceptible vibration. In that room Leigh was completely unconscious of sound. While all the machinery went as designed, he heard nothing of it unless he bent his attention upon hearing. If any movement became irregular, or any movement that ought to go on suddenly stopped, he would have been as much startled as though a pistol had been exploded at his ear. So long as all went well he heard nothing of it. When he began to work at the clock he indulged in the habit of telling himself aloud what he was meaning to achieve with the mechanism; later he altered his method, and told the clock what it was going to do, speaking to it as if it were a docile child of enormous potentialities. Later still, he spoke much aloud to himself on many subjects when in the loneliness of his isolated lodging; he knew that distance from people secured him from being overheard, and the sound of his own voice mitigated his solitude. Here in this place, the sound of his own voice was often the only way he had of assuring himself that he had still power independent of the machine, that all his movements were not because of some weight or spring involved in the bewildering intricacies of the clock.
"Ay," he said, this Thursday afternoon, crossing one of his short legs over the other. "I have succeeded so far in my labours here. I began my clock as an excuse, as a cloak to cover"--he waved his hand as if to waft aside smoke before his eyes, although he was not smoking--"to cover any other matter that might come my way. It has grown on me from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, until it has swelled in size and efficacy altogether beyond my original designs or desires. I wished to have a slave that might be used as an excuse for solitariness and eccentricity in dealing quietly in precious metals and precious stones, and now I find myself face to face with a master. Whither will this master lead me? I do not know. I do not care. I first intended this room as a chamber of mystery; it has become a cave of magic. My heart ought to be drunk with joy. My heart would be drunk with joy only for----"
He paused and waved his hand once more before his eyes as if to clear the air before him. "Only for that girl. This mere girl, this mere Edith Grace, this mere Edith Grace whom I have seen but----"
He paused and rose. An unusual sound in the street, aroused him.
"What noise is that in the street? Something out of the common in Welbeck Place."
He caught hold of one of the polished steel pillars that formed the framework of the breathing machine and dropped his chin on his misshapen chest. "With care I could now become rich--no matter how. A fortnight ago I brought all my arrangements to perfection. I have hit upon a plan for transcending the wonders of mystery gold with its tin and platinum and copper imposture. I have hit upon the plan of making miracle gold! Ay! miracle gold, the secret of which will die with me when it has served my purpose. I can be rich and give my poor old mother every luxury and pleasure riches may secure for one so old and so afflicted. A fortnight ago I had made up my mind to go on with the manufacture of miracle gold. I am but a weak, fickle creature, I who had been so firm and strong, and whole hearted! I who had been as whole hearted as I am marred bodied! I advertise for a companion for my poor old mother and I see this girl, this Edith Grace, with her airs and graces and high notions.
"I took that sight of her as a sign, as a bid for my soul, for my better self. I said to myself, 'Will you forego the miracle gold and cleave to her instead?' I would have given all the fair gold and foul gold in the world for her, with her airs and graces and high notions. A man must fill his heart with something, no matter in what kind of a body that heart may be lodged. I had made up my mind to fill it with the god of wealth. I had made up my mind to erect the throne of Plutus in my soul. I would make gold, some way, and I had lighted upon an ingenious method, an original method, an old alchemy under a new name, and then I saw her, and my resolve was shaken, it crumbled down with Plutus and his throne.
"And now she will not have me, she will not rest under the roof to which I am free, she flees from me as from vile contagion, and I am driven back upon this miracle gold. Timmons will be here with some of it tonight. That is the first step on the way Down----
"There's that noise again below. Let me see what it is."