Best Horror Stories - [18]

‘Kindly sign this as a witness,’ he said.

‘A witness? Of what?’

‘Of my signature, and of the date. The date is the most important. Why, Peterson, my life might hang upon it.’

‘My dear Smith, you are talking wildly. Let me beg you to go to bed.’

‘On the contrary, I never spoke so deliberately in my life. And I will promise to go to bed the moment you have signed it.’

‘But what is it?’

‘It is a statement of all that I have been telling you to-night. I wish you to witness it.’

‘Certainly,’ said Peterson, signing his name under that of his companion. ‘There you are! But what is the idea?’

‘You will kindly retain it, and produce it in case I am arrested.’

‘Arrested? For what?’

‘For murder. It is quite on the cards. I wish to be ready for every event. There is only one course open to me, and I am determined to take it.’

‘For Heaven’s sake, don’t do anything rash!’

‘Believe me, it would be far more rash to adopt any other course. I hope that we won’t need to bother you, but it will ease my mind to know that you have this statement of my motives. And now I am ready to take your advice and go to roost, for I want to be at my best in the morning.’

Next day Smith stopped at Clifford’s, the gunmaker’s, and bought a heavy revolver, with a box of central-fire cartridges. Six of them he slipped into the chambers, and half-cocking the weapon, placed it in the pocket of his coat. He then made his way to Hastie’s rooms, where the big oarsman was lounging over his breakfast, with the Sporting Times propped up against the coffeepot.

‘Hullo! What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Have some coffee?’

‘No, thank you. I want you to come with me, Hastie, and do what I ask you.’

‘Certainly, my boy.’

‘And bring a heavy stick with you.’

‘Hullo!’ Hastie stared. ‘Here’s a hunting-crop that would fell an ox.’

‘One other thing. You have a box of amputating knives. Give me the longest of them.’

‘There you are. You seem to be fairly on the war trail. Anything else?’

‘No; that will do.’ Smith placed the knife inside his coat, and led the way to the quadrangle. ‘We are neither of us chickens, Hastie,’ he said ‘I think I can do this job alone, but I take you as a precaution. I am going to have a little talk with Bellingham. If I have only him to deal with, I won’t, of course, need you. If I shout, however, up you come, and lam out with your whip as hard as you can lick. Do you understand?’

‘All right. I’ll come if I hear you bellow.’

‘Stay here, then. It may be a little time, but don’t budge until I come down.’

‘I’m a fixture.’

Smith ascended the stairs, opened Bellingham’s door and stepped in. Bellingham was seated behind his table, writing. Beside him, among his litter of strange possessions, towered the mummy case, with its sale number 249 still stuck upon its front, and its hideous occupant stiff and stark within it. Smith looked very deliberately round him, closed the door and then stepping across to the fireplace, struck a match and set the fire alight. Bellingham sat staring, with amazement and rage upon his bloated face.

‘Well, really now, you make yourself at home,’ he gasped.

Smith sat himself deliberately down, placing his watch upon the table, drew out his pistol, cocked it, and laid it in his lap. Then he took the long amputating knife from his bosom, and threw it down in front of Bellingham.

‘Now, then,’ said he, ‘just get to work and cut up that mummy.’

‘Oh, is that it?’ said Bellingham with a sneer.

‘Yes, that is it. They tell me that the law can’t touch you. But I have a law that will set matters straight. If in five minutes you have not set to work, I swear by the God who made me that I will put a bullet through your brain!’

‘You would murder me?’

Bellingham had half risen, and his face was the colour of putty.

‘Yes.’

‘And for what?’

‘To stop your mischief. One minute has gone.’

‘But what have I done?’

‘I know and you know.’

‘This is mere bullying.’

‘Two minutes are gone.’

‘But you must give reasons. You are a madman – a dangerous madman. Why should I destroy my own property? It is a valuable mummy.’

‘You must cut it up, and you must burn it.’

‘I will do no such thing.’

‘Four minutes are gone.’

Smith took up the pistol and he looked towards Bellingham with an inexorable face. As the second-hand stole round, he raised his hand, and the finger twitched upon the trigger.

‘There! there! I’ll do it!’ screamed Bellingham.

In frantic haste he caught up the knife and hacked at the figure of the mummy, ever glancing round to see the eye and the weapon of his terrible visitor bent upon him. The creature crackled and snapped under every stab of the keen blade. A thick yellow dust rose up from it. Spices and dried essences rained down upon the floor. Suddenly, with a rending crack, its backbone snapped asunder, and it fell, in a brown heap of sprawling limbs, upon the floor.

‘Now into the fire!’ said Smith.

The flames leaped and roared as the dried and tinder-like débris was piled upon it. The little room was like the stoke-hole of a steamer and the sweat ran down the faces of the two men; but still the one stooped and worked, while the other sat watching him with a set face. A thick, fat smoke oozed out from the fire, and a heavy smell of burned rosin and singed hair filled the air. In a quarter of an hour a few charred and brittle sticks were all that was left of Lot No. 249.