CHAPTER XIII
THE PURSUIT OF THE PRESIDENT
NEXT morning five bewildered but hilarious people took the boat for
Dover. The poor old Colonel might have had some cause to complain,
having been first forced to fight for two factions that didn't
exist, and then knocked down with an iron lantern. But he was a
magnanimous old gentleman, and being much relieved that neither
party had anything to do with dynamite, he saw them off on the pier
with great geniality.
The five reconciled detectives had a hundred details to explain to
each other. The Secretary had to tell Syme how they had come to
wear masks originally in order to approach the supposed enemy as
fellow-conspirators;
Syme had to explain how they had fled with such swiftness through
a civilised country. But above all these matters of detail which
could be explained, rose the central mountain of the matter that
they could not explain. What did it all mean? If they were all
harmless officers, what was Sunday? If he had not seized the world,
what on earth had he been up to? Inspector Ratcliffe was still
gloomy about this.
"I can't make head or tail of old Sunday's little game any more
than you can," he said. "But whatever else Sunday is, he isn't
a blameless citizen. Damn it! do you remember his face?"
"I grant you," answered Syme, "that I have never been able to
forget it."
"Well," said the Secretary, "I suppose we can find out soon, for
tomorrow we have our next general meeting. You will excuse me,"
he said, with a rather ghastly smile, "for being well acquainted
with my secretarial duties."
"I suppose you are right," said the Professor reflectively. "I
suppose we might find it out from him; but I confess that I should
feel a bit afraid of asking Sunday who he really is."
"Why," asked the Secretary, "for fear of bombs?"
"No," said the Professor, "for fear he might tell me."
"Let us have some drinks," said Dr. Bull, after a silence.
Throughout their whole journey by boat and train they were highly
convivial, but they instinctively kept together. Dr. Bull, who had
always been the optimist of the party, endeavoured to persuade the
other four that the whole company could take the same hansom cab
from Victoria; but this was over-ruled, and they went in a
four-wheeler, with Dr. Bull on the box, singing. They finished
their journey at an hotel in Piccadilly Circus, so as to be close
to the early breakfast next morning in Leicester Square. Yet even
then the adventures of the day were not entirely over. Dr. Bull,
discontented with the general proposal to go to bed, had strolled
out of the hotel at about eleven to see and taste some of the
beauties of London. Twenty minutes afterwards, however, he came
back and made quite a clamour in the hall. Syme, who tried at
first to soothe him, was forced at last to listen to his
communication with quite new attention.
"I tell you I've seen him!" said Dr. Bull, with thick emphasis.
"Whom?" asked Syme quickly. "Not the President?"
"Not so bad as that," said Dr. Bull, with unnecessary laughter,
"not so bad as that. I've got him here."
"Got whom here?" asked Syme impatiently.
"Hairy man," said the other lucidly, "man that used to be hairy
man--Gogol. Here he is," and he pulled forward by a reluctant
elbow the identical young man who five days before had marched
out of the Council with thin red hair and a pale face, the first
of all the sham anarchists who had been exposed.
"Why do you worry with me?" he cried. "You have expelled me as a
spy."
"We are all spies!" whispered Syme.
"We're all spies!" shouted Dr. Bull. "Come and have a drink."
Next morning the battalion of the reunited six marched stolidly
towards the hotel in Leicester Square.
"This is more cheerful," said Dr. Bull; "we are six men going to
ask one man what he means."
"I think it is a bit queerer than that," said Syme. "I think it
is six men going to ask one man what they mean."
They turned in silence into the Square, and though the hotel was
in the opposite corner, they saw at once the little balcony and a
figure that looked too big for it. He was sitting alone with bent
head, poring over a newspaper. But all his councillors, who had
come to vote him down, crossed that Square as if they were watched
out of heaven by a hundred eyes.
They had disputed much upon their policy, about whether they
should leave the unmasked Gogol without and begin diplomatically,
or whether they should bring him in and blow up the gunpowder at
once. The influence of Syme and Bull prevailed for the latter
course, though the Secretary to the last asked them why they
attacked Sunday so rashly.
"My reason is quite simple," said Syme. "I attack him rashly
because I am afraid of him."
They followed Syme up the dark stair in silence, and they all came
out simultaneously into the broad sunlight of the morning and the
broad sunlight of Sunday's smile.
"Delightful!" he said. "So pleased to see you all. What an
exquisite day it is. Is the Czar dead?"
The Secretary, who happened to be foremost, drew himself together
for a dignified outburst.
"No, sir," he said sternly "there has been no massacre. I bring you
news of no such disgusting spectacles."
"Disgusting spectacles?" repeated the President, with a bright,
inquiring smile. "You mean Dr. Bull's spectacles?"
The Secretary choked for a moment, and the President went on with
a sort of smooth appeal--
"Of course, we all have our opinions and even our eyes, but really
to call them disgusting before the man himself--"
Dr. Bull tore off his spectacles and broke them on the table.
"My spectacles are blackguardly," he said, "but I'm not. Look at
my face."
"I dare say it's the sort of face that grows on one," said the
President, "in fact, it grows on you; and who am I to quarrel
with the wild fruits upon the Tree of Life? I dare say it will
grow on me some day."
"We have no time for tomfoolery," said the Secretary, breaking in
savagely. "We have come to know what all this means. Who are you?
What are you? Why did you get us all here? Do you know who and
what we are? Are you a half-witted man playing the conspirator,
or are you a clever man playing the fool? Answer me, I tell you."
"Candidates," murmured Sunday, "are only required to answer eight
out of the seventeen questions on the paper. As far as I can make
out, you want me to tell you what I am, and what you are, and what
this table is, and what this Council is, and what this world is
for all I know. Well, I will go so far as to rend the veil of one
mystery. If you want to know what you are, you are a set of
highly well-intentioned young jackasses."
"And you," said Syme, leaning forward, "what are you?"
"I? What am I?" roared the President, and he rose slowly to an
incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above
them and break. "You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you
are a man of science. Grub in the roots of those trees and find
out the truth about them. Syme, you are a poet. Stare at those
morning clouds. But I tell you this, that you will have found
out the truth of the last tree and the top-most cloud before the
truth about me. You will understand the sea, and I shall be still
a riddle; you shall know what the stars are, and not know what I
am. Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like
a wolf--kings and sages, and poets and lawgivers, all the
churches, and all the philosophies. But I have never been caught
yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have
given them a good run for their money, and I will now."
Before one of them could move, the monstrous man had swung himself
like some huge ourang-outang over the balustrade of the balcony.
Yet before he dropped he pulled himself up again as on a horizontal
bar, and thrusting his great chin over the edge of the balcony,
said solemnly--
"There's one thing I'll tell you though about who I am. I am the
man in the dark room, who made you all policemen."
With that he fell from the balcony, bouncing on the stones below
like a great ball of india-rubber, and went bounding off towards
the corner of the Alhambra, where he hailed a hansom-cab and sprang
inside it. The six detectives had been standing thunderstruck and
livid in the light of his last assertion; but when he disappeared
into the cab, Syme's practical senses returned to him, and leaping
over the balcony so recklessly as almost to break his legs, he
called another cab.
He and Bull sprang into the cab together, the Professor and the
Inspector into another, while the Secretary and the late Gogol
scrambled into a third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who
was pursuing the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase
towards the north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence
of more than common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck
speed. But Syme was in no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in
his own cab shouting, "Stop thief!" until crowds ran along beside
his cab, and policemen began to stop and ask questions. All this
had its influence upon the President's cabman, who began to look
dubious, and to slow down to a trot. He opened the trap to talk
reasonably to his fare, and in so doing let the long whip droop
over the front of the cab. Sunday leant forward, seized it, and
jerked it violently out of the man's hand. Then standing up in
front of the cab himself, he lashed the horse and roared aloud,
so that they went down the streets like a flying storm. Through
street after street and square after square went whirling this
preposterous vehicle, in which the fare was urging the horse and
the driver trying desperately to stop it. The other three cabs
came after it (if the phrase be permissible of a cab) like panting
hounds. Shops and streets shot by like rattling arrows.
At the highest ecstacy of speed, Sunday turned round on the
splashboard where he stood, and sticking his great grinning head
out of the cab, with white hair whistling in the wind, he made a
horrible face at his pursuers, like some colossal urchin. Then
raising his right hand swiftly, he flung a ball of paper in Syme's
face and vanished. Syme caught the thing while instinctively
warding it off, and discovered that it consisted of two crumpled
papers. One was addressed to himself, and the other to Dr. Bull,
with a very long, and it is to be feared partly ironical, string
of letters after his name. Dr. Bull's address was, at any rate,
considerably longer than his communication, for the communication
consisted entirely of the words:--
"What about Martin Tupper now?"
"What does the old maniac mean?" asked Bull, staring at the words.
"What does yours say, Syme?"
Syme's message was, at any rate, longer, and ran as follows:--
"No one would regret anything in the nature of an interference by
the Archdeacon more than I. I trust it will not come to that. But,
for the last time, where are your goloshes? The thing is too bad,
especially after what uncle said."
The President's cabman seemed to be regaining some control over
his horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they swept round
into the Edgware Road. And here there occurred what seemed to the
allies a providential stoppage. Traffic of every kind was swerving
to right or left or stopping, for down the long road was coming
the unmistakable roar announcing the fire-engine, which in a few
seconds went by like a brazen thunderbolt. But quick as it went
by, Sunday had bounded out of his cab, sprung at the fire-engine,
caught it, slung himself on to it, and was seen as he disappeared
in the noisy distance talking to the astonished fireman with
explanatory gestures.
"After him!" howled Syme. "He can't go astray now. There's no
mistaking a fire-engine."
The three cabmen, who had been stunned for a moment, whipped
up their horses and slightly decreased the distance between
themselves and their disappearing prey. The President
acknowledged this proximity by coming to the back of the car,
bowing repeatedly, kissing his hand, and finally flinging a
neatly-folded note into the bosom of Inspector Ratcliffe. When
that gentleman opened it, not without impatience, he found it
contained the words:--
"Fly at once. The truth about your trouser-stretchers is known.
--A FRIEND."
The fire-engine had struck still farther to the north, into a
region that they did not recognise; and as it ran by a line of high
railings shadowed with trees, the six friends were startled, but
somewhat relieved, to see the President leap from the fire-engine,
though whether through another whim or the increasing protest of
his entertainers they could not see. Before the three cabs,
however, could reach up to the spot, he had gone up the high
railings like a huge grey cat, tossed himself over, and vanished
in a darkness of leaves.
Syme with a furious gesture stopped his cab, jumped out, and
sprang also to the escalade. When he had one leg over the fence
and his friends were following, he turned a face on them which
shone quite pale in the shadow.
"What place can this be?" he asked. "Can it be the old devil's
house? I've heard he has a house in North London."
"All the better," said the Secretary grimly, planting a foot in
a foothold, "we shall find him at home."
"No, but it isn't that," said Syme, knitting his brows. "I hear
the most horrible noises, like devils laughing and sneezing and
blowing their devilish noses!"
"His dogs barking, of course," said the Secretary.
"Why not say his black-beetles barking!" said Syme furiously,
"snails barking! geraniums barking! Did you ever hear a dog bark
like that?"
He held up his hand, and there came out of the thicket a long
growling roar that seemed to get under the skin and freeze the
flesh--a low thrilling roar that made a throbbing in the air
all about them.
"The dogs of Sunday would be no ordinary dogs," said Gogol, and
shuddered.
Syme had jumped down on the other side, but he still stood
listening impatiently.
"Well, listen to that," he said, "is that a dog--anybody's dog?"
There broke upon their ear a hoarse screaming as of things
protesting and clamouring in sudden pain; and then, far off
like an echo, what sounded like a long nasal trumpet.
"Well, his house ought to be hell!" said the Secretary; "and if
it is hell, I'm going in!" and he sprang over the tall railings
almost with one swing.
The others followed. They broke through a tangle of plants and
shrubs, and came out on an open path. Nothing was in sight, but
Dr. Bull suddenly struck his hands together.
"Why, you asses," he cried, "it's the Zoo!"
As they were looking round wildly for any trace of their wild
quarry, a keeper in uniform came running along the path with a
man in plain clothes.
"Has it come this way?" gasped the keeper.
"Has what?" asked Syme.
"The elephant!" cried the keeper. "An elephant has gone mad and
run away!"
"He has run away with an old gentleman," said the other stranger
breathlessly, "a poor old gentleman with white hair!"
"What sort of old gentleman?" asked Syme, with great curiosity.
"A very large and fat old gentleman in light grey clothes," said
the keeper eagerly.
"Well," said Syme, "if he's that particular kind of old gentleman,
if you're quite sure that he's a large and fat old gentleman in
grey clothes, you may take my word for it that the elephant has
not run away with him. He has run away with the elephant. The
elephant is not made by God that could run away with him if he
did not consent to the elopement. And, by thunder, there he is!"
There was no doubt about it this time. Clean across the space of
grass, about two hundred yards away, with a crowd screaming and
scampering vainly at his heels, went a huge grey elephant at an
awful stride, with his trunk thrown out as rigid as a ship's
bowsprit, and trumpeting like the trumpet of doom. On the back of
the bellowing and plunging animal sat President Sunday with all
the placidity of a sultan, but goading the animal to a furious
speed with some sharp object in his hand.
"Stop him!" screamed the populace. "He'll be out of the gate!"
"Stop a landslide!" said the keeper. "He is out of the gate!"
And even as he spoke, a final crash and roar of terror announced
that the great grey elephant had broken out of the gates of the
Zoological Gardens, and was careening down Albany Street like a
new and swift sort of omnibus.
"Great Lord!" cried Bull, "I never knew an elephant could go so
fast. Well, it must be hansom-cabs again if we are to keep him in
sight."
As they raced along to the gate out of which the elephant had
vanished, Syme felt a glaring panorama of the strange animals in
the cages which they passed. Afterwards he thought it queer that
he should have seen them so clearly. He remembered especially
seeing pelicans, with their preposterous, pendant throats. He
wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was
that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican. He
remembered a hornbill, which was simply a huge yellow beak with a
small bird tied on behind it. The whole gave him a sensation, the
vividness of which he could not explain, that Nature was always
making quite mysterious jokes. Sunday had told them that they
would understand him when they had understood the stars. He
wondered whether even the archangels understood the hornbill.
The six unhappy detectives flung themselves into cabs and followed
the elephant sharing the terror which he spread through the long
stretch of the streets. This time Sunday did not turn round, but
offered them the solid stretch of his unconscious back, which
maddened them, if possible, more than his previous mockeries. Just
before they came to Baker Street, however, he was seen to throw
something far up into the air, as a boy does a ball meaning to
catch it again. But at their rate of racing it fell far behind,
just by the cab containing Gogol; and in faint hope of a clue or
for some impulse unexplainable, he stopped his cab so as to pick it
up. It was addressed to himself, and was quite a bulky parcel. On
examination, however, its bulk was found to consist of thirty-three
pieces of paper of no value wrapped one round the other. When the
last covering was torn away it reduced itself to a small slip of
paper, on which was written:--
"The word, I fancy, should be 'pink'."
The man once known as Gogol said nothing, but the movements of his
hands and feet were like those of a man urging a horse to renewed
efforts.
Through street after street, through district after district, went
the prodigy of the flying elephant, calling crowds to every window,
and driving the traffic left and right. And still through all this
insane publicity the three cabs toiled after it, until they came to
be regarded as part of a procession, and perhaps the advertisement
of a circus. They went at such a rate that distances were shortened
beyond belief, and Syme saw the Albert Hall in Kensington when he
thought that he was still in Paddington. The animal's pace was even
more fast and free through the empty, aristocratic streets of South
Kensington, and he finally headed towards that part of the sky-line
where the enormous Wheel of Earl's Court stood up in the sky. The
wheel grew larger and larger, till it filled heaven like the wheel
of stars.
The beast outstripped the cabs. They lost him round several
corners, and when they came to one of the gates of the Earl's Court
Exhibition they found themselves finally blocked. In front of them
was an enormous crowd; in the midst of it was an enormous elephant,
heaving and shuddering as such shapeless creatures do. But the
President had disappeared.
"Where has he gone to?" asked Syme, slipping to the ground.
"Gentleman rushed into the Exhibition, sir!" said an official in a
dazed manner. Then he added in an injured voice: "Funny gentleman,
sir. Asked me to hold his horse, and gave me this."
He held out with distaste a piece of folded paper, addressed: "To
the Secretary of the Central Anarchist Council."
The Secretary, raging, rent it open, and found written inside it:--
"When the herring runs a mile,
Let the Secretary smile;
When the herring tries to fly,
Let the Secretary die.
Rustic Proverb."
"Why the eternal crikey," began the Secretary, "did you let the
man in? Do people commonly come to you Exhibition riding on mad
elephants? Do--"
"Look!" shouted Syme suddenly. "Look over there!"
"Look at what?" asked the Secretary savagely.
"Look at the captive balloon!" said Syme, and pointed in a frenzy.
"Why the blazes should I look at a captive balloon?" demanded the
Secretary. "What is there queer about a captive balloon?"
"Nothing," said Syme, "except that it isn't captive!"
They all turned their eyes to where the balloon swung and swelled
above the Exhibition on a string, like a child's balloon. A second
afterwards the string came in two just under the car, and the
balloon, broken loose, floated away with the freedom of a soap
bubble.
"Ten thousand devils!" shrieked the Secretary. "He's got into it!"
and he shook his fists at the sky.
The balloon, borne by some chance wind, came right above them, and
they could see the great white head of the President peering over
the side and looking benevolently down on them.
"God bless my soul!" said the Professor with the elderly manner
that he could never disconnect from his bleached beard and
parchment face. "God bless my soul! I seemed to fancy that
something fell on the top of my hat!"
He put up a trembling hand and took from that shelf a piece of
twisted paper, which he opened absently only to find it inscribed
with a true lover's knot and, the words:--
"Your beauty has not left me indifferent.--From LITTLE SNOWDROP."
There was a short silence, and then Syme said, biting his beard--
"I'm not beaten yet. The blasted thing must come down somewhere.
Let's follow it!"
