Mr Blackford began to be puzzled. His new acquaintance continued to regard him with the same eager and helpless look, and wiped his forehead with a tremulous hand.
‘But—but—bless me,’ said the lawyer, ‘if they come and annoy you in your lodgings, why don’t you give them in charge?—How many are there of them?’
Willoughby shook his head gloomily. ‘They are too cunning for that,’ he answered. ‘They are careful to keep out of my sight. I never set eyes on them; I only hear their voices. And they are in hundreds—in thousands, for all I can tell.’
Mr Blackford of course at once understood the true state of the case, and the discovery was not a pleasant one. He was by no means a nervous man, yet he experienced an electrical sensation in the scalp of his head at the idea that he was sitting within a yard of an athletic madman. Clearly, it would not do to contradict so opinionated a person as this was likely to be; he must be humoured, and induced, if possible, to go away quietly.
‘That’s awkward—very awkward,’ said the solicitor in a reflective tone. ‘If we can’t see them, you know, how can we get at them so as to set the law in motion?’
‘I can’t tell what to do,’ said the other despondently; ‘that is why I have come to consult you. All I know is that they continue to denounce and threaten me night and day, and that it cannot go on without being noticed. In that case, my character will be materially injured, and they will have attained their object. Besides, they are killing me, Mr Blackford. A man can’t exist without sleep, and I have had but little for weeks past. And now I learn that they are contriving a plan to relieve one another at night, so as to keep me awake.’
There was something inexpressibly grim in the earnest yet matter-of-fact way in which these impossibilities were related; with agitation, indeed, but with nothing in the nature of abnormal excitement or maniacal frenzy. He spoke as a man who found great matter for trouble, but none for astonishment, in the nightly irruption into his lodgings of hundreds or thousands of abusive persons, whose numbers were no hindrance to their remaining effectually concealed in the space of two small rooms. But he surveyed the walls and floor at more frequent intervals in his dazed manner, as though he suddenly found himself in a strange place, while his moist and shaking hands nervously and convulsively worked his handkerchief into a compact ball.
Actuated at first by the best motives, Mr Blackford began to question him cautiously as to his connections and private affairs. It seemed that, with the exception of some distant relatives at the Cape, he was alone in the world; nor did he appear to have any friends in England upon whom he could rely. Having elicited the further fact that he had an income of five hundred pounds a year, derived from funded property, the solicitor ceased his questions and delivered himself up to reflection, while his client anxiously awaited the voice of the oracle.
There are many members of the junior branch of the legal profession who are of unbending uprightness and fastidious honour; there are a few downright knaves; and there are others who stand neither on the upper nor on the lower rungs of the moral ladder, but occupy a position somewhere about the middle. These last are equally prepared to be honest should honesty be made easy for them, or rogues in the face of difficulty or temptation; and among their number was Mr Blackford. He was not altogether favourably known to his brother practitioners; but neither could any definite charge be brought against him. He had done things which were certainly worthy of condemnation; but he had hitherto kept clear of any offence which would endanger his position on the rolls. He dressed neatly, he had a good manner and a correct accent, and he did not drink. His business was small, and not of a high class, lying mostly among the smaller sort of tradesmen; yet he had a certain connection, and even a few clients of means and fair position; and he was said to understand his work. He was quite without capital, and lived a hand-to-mouth life; and he had certain extravagant tastes of the lower kind. Money was always scarce with him, and he was prepared to acquire it in any way which offered, so that it was unattended with risk; for he was quite unburdened with scruples, considering all profit fair which could be safely gained. And he thought that in this case he saw a chance of such profit. Willoughby had answered all his questions, some of them bordering on impertinence, in the most open and unreserved fashion; he was evidently disposed to place the fullest confidence in his legal adviser, looking to him for sympathy and deliverance. Mr Blackford felt more at his ease in thus parleying with a probably dangerous lunatic, than a few minutes before he would have thought possible.
The upshot of his meditations was that he concluded to abandon, at all events for the present, his first very proper and humane purpose of communicating with the police, and trying to induce them to deal with the case as that of a lunatic at large, so that the poor fellow might be properly cared for until his friends could be communicated with. For this he substituted a different plan of action with admirable readiness, and with an entire absence of pity or compunction. It was clear that there was money to be made out of the man by judicious handling; and Mr Blackford was of opinion that no one could be better qualified to make it, or more deserving of it when made, than himself.