Mr. Gooch led me to a door at the right of the fireplace, between two bookcases. He opened the door, turned on the lights, and we entered a small room. I exclaimed with astonishment, for we stood in an arsenal—or, rather, an armory.
The walls were lined with weapons. Stands of arms were in the corners, and a number of flags and banners hung from the ceiling. The weapons were of every variety and period. Old spears and battleaxes, stone hatchets, bows and sheaves of arrows—these were mingled with modern rifles, automatic pistols, and bowie knives. Daggers of a dozen patterns hung on the walls or lay on the tables. One or two ancient pieces of artillery—culverins and drakes, I fancy—were in a corner, together with a quick-firing gun from some modern man-of-war.
"These," said Mr. Gooch, looking me in the eye, very seriously, "are absolutely genuine—every one of them. And not one but has figured in some scene in literature. I have spent fifteen years in assembling this collection, and—well, I prize it highly. That is one of the reasons why it disgusts me to have my brother Percival waste his time over that ridiculous aggregation of animals, so many of which are sheer frauds. It tends to bring my collection of weapons under suspicion, and I do not need to say that I cannot bear to have anyone doubt the absolute authenticity of my treasures. If you feel any doubt about them I wish you would say so now, and we will go back to the library."
But I told Mr. Gooch that suspicion was a trait foreign to my nature.
"Long ago," I said, "I took the advice of the White Queen in 'Through the Looking-Glass,' and practised believing impossible things for half an hour every day. Like her, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
"Then I have no hesitation in showing you my collection," remarked Mr. Gooch. "Look at this sword—it is the envenomed rapier of Laertes, dipped in an unction which he bought of a mountebank. Be careful not to touch the point—I think some of the poison lingers on it now, and it has already been responsible for two—no, three deaths. You remember that Hamlet used it to kill the king, after it had wounded both him and Laertes in the fencing bout."
I put down the rapier gingerly, and inquired about a flint-lock pistol which lay on the table near at hand. Mr. Gooch told me that it was the weapon owned by Madame Defarge, through which she came to her death.
"And what was probably worse, from her point of view," added the collector, "she was thus unavoidably detained from her front seat at the guillotine, on that day of days, when she hoped to see the Marquis of Evremond lose his life. Someone has said that the whole French Revolution seemed to have been brought about so Madame Defarge might have her revenge—so, of course, the blow was a severe one to her. This pistol exploded while she was struggling with Miss Pross in the empty house, and the explosion killed her and deafened Miss Pross. Even then the tumbril was carrying Sydney Carton to the guillotine."
"Your relics are rather gruesome," I observed.