Books: The Doings Of Raffles Haw
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle >> The Doings Of Raffles Haw
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"This flooring is all disconnected at night," he remarked. "I have no
doubt that there is a good deal of gossip in the servants'-hall about
this sealed chamber, so I have to guard myself against some
inquisitive ostler or too adventurous butler."
The inner door admitted them into the laboratory, a high, bare,
whitewashed room with a glass roof. At one end was the furnace and
boiler, the iron mouth of which was closed, though the fierce red
light beat through the cracks, and a dull roar sounded through the
building. On either side innumerable huge Leyden jars stood ranged in
rows, tier topping tier, while above them were columns of Voltaic
cells. Robert's eyes, as he glanced around, lit on vast wheels,
complicated networks of wire, stands, test-tubes, coloured bottles,
graduated glasses, Bunsen burners, porcelain insulators, and all the
varied _debris_ of a chemical and electrical workshop.
"Come across here," said Raffles Haw, picking his way among the heaps of
metal, the coke, the packing-cases, and the carboys of acid. "Yours is
the first foot except my own which has ever penetrated to this room
since the workmen left it. My servants carry the lead into the
ante-room, but come no further. The furnace can be cleaned and stoked
from without. I employ a fellow to do nothing else. Now take a look in
here."
He threw open a door on the further side, and motioned to the young
artist to enter. The latter stood silent with one foot over the
threshold, staring in amazement around him. The room, which may have
been some thirty feet square, was paved and walled with gold. Great
brick-shaped ingots, closely packed, covered the whole floor, while on
every side they were reared up in compact barriers to the very
ceiling. The single electric lamp which lighted the windowless chamber
struck a dull, murky, yellow light from the vast piles of precious
metal, and gleamed ruddily upon the golden floor.
"This is my treasure house," remarked the owner. "You see that I have
rather an accumulation just now. My imports have been exceeding my
exports. You can understand that I have other and more important duties
even than the making of gold, just now. This is where I store my output
until I am ready to send it off. Every night almost I am in the habit
of sending a case of it to London. I employ seventeen brokers in its
sale. Each thinks that he is the only one, and each is dying to know
where I can get such large quantities of virgin gold. They say that it
is the purest which comes into the market. The popular theory is, I
believe, that I am a middleman acting on behalf of some new South
African mine, which wishes to keep its whereabouts a secret. What value
would you put upon the gold in this chamber? It ought to be worth
something, for it represents nearly a week's work."
"Something fabulous, I have no doubt," said Robert, glancing round at
the yellow barriers. "Shall I say a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?"
"Oh dear me, it is surely worth very much more than that," cried Raffles
Haw, laughing. "Let me see. Suppose that we put it at three ten an
ounce, which is nearly ten shillings under the mark. That makes,
roughly, fifty-six pounds for a pound in weight. Now each of these
ingots weighs thirty-six pounds, which brings their value to two
thousand and a few odd pounds. There are five hundred ingots on each of
these three sides of the room, but on the fourth there are only three
hundred, on account of the door, but there cannot be less than two
hundred on the floor, which gives us a rough total of two thousand
ingots. So you see, my dear boy, that any broker who could get the
contents of this chamber for four million pounds would be doing a nice
little stroke of business."
"And a week's work!" gasped Robert. "It makes my head swim."
"You will follow me now when I repeat that none of the great schemes
which I intend to simultaneously set in motion are at all likely to
languish for want of funds. Now come into the laboratory with me and
see how it is done."
In the centre of the workroom was an instrument like a huge vice, with
two large brass-coloured plates, and a great steel screw for bringing
them together. Numerous wires ran into these metal plates, and were
attached at the other end to the rows of dynamic machines. Beneath was
a glass stand, which was hollowed out in the centre into a succession
of troughs.
"You will soon understand all about it," said Raffles Haw, throwing off
his coat, and pulling on a smoke-stained and dirty linen jacket.
"We must first stoke up a little." He put his weight on a pair of great
bellows, and an answering roar came from the furnace. "That will do.
The more heat the more electric force, and the quicker our task. Now
for the lead! Just give me a hand in carrying it."
They lifted a dozen of the pigs of lead from the floor on to the glass
stand, and having adjusted the plates on either side, Haw screwed up the
handle so as to hold them in position.
"It used in the early days to be a slow process," he remarked; "but now
that I have immense facilities for my work it takes a very short time.
I have now only to complete the connection in order to begin."
He took hold of a long glass lever which projected from among the wires,
and drew it downwards. A sharp click was heard, followed by a loud,
sparkling, crackling noise. Great spurts of flame sprang from the two
electrodes, and the mass of lead was surrounded by an aureole of golden
sparks, which hissed and snapped like pistol-shots. The air was filled
with the peculiar acid smell of ozone.
"The power there is immense," said Raffles Haw, superintending the
process, with his watch upon the palm of his hand. "It would reduce an
organic substance to protyle instantly. It is well to understand the
mechanism thoroughly, for any mistake might be a grave matter for the
operator. You are dealing with gigantic forces. But you perceive that
the lead is already beginning to turn."
Silvery dew-like drops had indeed begun to form upon the dull-coloured
mass, and to drop with a tinkle and splash into the glass troughs.
Slowly the lead melted away, like an icicle in the sun, the electrodes
ever closing upon it as it contracted, until they came together in the
centre, and a row of pools of quicksilver had taken the place of the
solid metal. Two smaller electrodes were plunged into the mercury,
which gradually curdled and solidified, until it had resumed the solid
form, with a yellowish brassy shimmer.
"What lies in the moulds now is platinum," remarked Raffles Haw.
"We must take it from the troughs and refix it in the large electrodes.
So! Now we turn on the current again. You see that it gradually takes
a darker and richer tint. Now I think that it is perfect." He drew
up the lever, removed the electrodes, and there lay a dozen bricks of
ruddy sparkling gold.
"You see, according to our calculations, our morning's work has been
worth twenty-four thousand pounds, and it has not taken us more than
twenty minutes," remarked the alchemist, as he picked up the newly-made
ingots, and threw them down among the others.
"We will devote one of them to experiment," said he, leaving the last
standing upon the glass insulator. "To the world it would seem an
expensive demonstration which cost two thousand pounds, but our
standard, you see, is a different one. Now you will see me run through
the whole gamut of metallic nature."
First of all men after the discoverer, Robert saw the gold mass, when
the electrodes were again applied to it, change swiftly and successively
to barium, to tin, to silver, to copper, to iron. He saw the
long white electric sparks change to crimson with the strontium, to
purple with the potassium, to yellow with the manganese. Then, finally,
after a hundred transformations, it disintegrated before his eyes, and
lay as a little mound of fluffy grey dust upon the glass table.
"And this is protyle," said Haw, passing his fingers through it.
"The chemist of the future may resolve it into further constituents, but
to me it is the Ultima Thule."
"And now, Robert," he continued, after a pause, "I have shown you enough
to enable you to understand something of my system. This is the great
secret. It is the secret which endows the man who knows it with such a
universal power as no man has ever enjoyed since the world was made.
This secret it is the dearest wish of my heart to use for good, and I
swear to you, Robert McIntyre, that if I thought it would tend to
anything but good I would have done with it for ever. No, I would
neither use it myself nor would any other man learn it from my lips.
I swear it by all that is holy and solemn!"
His eyes flashed as he spoke, and his voice quivered with emotion.
Standing, pale and lanky, amid his electrodes and his retorts, there was
still something majestic about this man, who, amid all his stupendous
good fortune, could still keep his moral sense undazzled by the glitter
of his gold. Robert's weak nature had never before realised the
strength which lay in those thin, firm lips and earnest eyes.
"Surely in your hands, Mr. Haw, nothing but good can come of it," he
said.
"I hope not--I pray not--most earnestly do I pray not. I have done for
you, Robert, what I might not have done for my own brother had I one,
and I have done it because I believe and hope that you are a man who
would not use this power, should you inherit it, for selfish ends.
But even now I have not told you all. There is one link which I have
withheld from you, and which shall be withheld from you while I live.
But look at this chest, Robert."
He led him to a great iron-clamped chest which stood in the corner, and,
throwing it open, he took from it a small case of carved ivory.
"Inside this," he said, "I have left a paper which makes clear anything
which is still hidden from you. Should anything happen to me you will
always be able to inherit my powers, and to continue my plans by
following the directions which are there expressed. And now," he
continued, throwing his casket back again into the box, "I shall
frequently require your help, but I do not think it will be necessary
this morning. I have already taken up too much of your time. If you
are going back to Elmdene I wish that you would tell Laura that I shall
be with her in the afternoon."
CHAPTER XII.
A FAMILY JAR.
And so the great secret was out, and Robert walked home with his head in
a whirl, and the blood tingling in his veins. He had shivered as he
came up at the damp cold of the wind and the sight of the mist-mottled
landscape. That was all gone now. His own thoughts tinged everything
with sunshine, and he felt inclined to sing and dance as he walked down
the muddy, deeply-rutted country lane. Wonderful had been the fate
allotted to Raffles Haw, but surely hardly less important that which had
come upon himself. He was the sharer of the alchemist's secret, and the
heir to an inheritance which combined a wealth greater than that of
monarchs, to a freedom such as monarchs cannot enjoy. This was a
destiny indeed! A thousand gold-tinted visions of his future life rose
up before him, and in fancy he already sat high above the human race,
with prostrate thousands imploring his aid, or thanking him for his
benevolence.
How sordid seemed the untidy garden, with its scrappy bushes and gaunt
elm trees! How mean the plain brick front, with the green wooden porch!
It had always offended his artistic sense, but now it was obtrusive in
its ugliness. The plain room, too, with the American leather chairs,
the dull-coloured carpet, and the patchwork rug, he felt a loathing for
it all. The only pretty thing in it, upon which his eyes could rest
with satisfaction, was his sister, as she leaned back in her chair by
the fire with her white, clear beautiful face outlined against the dark
background.
"Do you know, Robert," she said, glancing up at him from under her long
black lashes, "Papa grows unendurable. I have had to speak very plainly
to him, and to make him understand that I am marrying for my own benefit
and not for his."
"Where is he, then?"
"I don't know. At the Three Pigeons, no doubt. He spends most of his
time there now. He flew off in a passion, and talked such nonsense
about marriage settlements, and forbidding the banns, and so on. His
notion of a marriage settlement appears to be a settlement upon the
bride's father. He should wait quietly, and see what can be done for
him."
"I think, Laura, that we must make a good deal of allowance for him,"
said Robert earnestly. "I have noticed a great change in him lately.
I don't think he is himself at all. I must get some medical advice.
But I have been up at the Hall this morning."
"Have you? Have you seen Raffles? Did he send anything for me?"
"He said that he would come down when he had finished his work."
"But what is the matter, Robert?" cried Laura, with the swift perception
of womanhood. "You are flushed, and your eyes are shining, and really
you look quite handsome. Raffles has been telling you something!
What was it? Oh, I know! He has been telling you how he made his
money. Hasn't he, now?"
"Well, yes. He took me partly into his confidence. I congratulate you,
Laura, with all my heart, for you will be a very wealthy woman."
"How strange it seems that he should have come to us in our poverty.
It is all owing to you, you dear old Robert; for if he had not taken a
fancy to you, he would never have come down to Elmdene and taken a fancy
to some one else."
"Not at all," Robert answered, sitting down by his sister, and patting
her hand affectionately. "It was a clear case of love at first sight.
He was in love with you before he ever knew your name. He asked me
about you the very first time I saw him."
"But tell me about his money, Bob," said his sister. "He has not told
me yet, and I am so curious. How did he make it? It was not from his
father; he told me that himself. His father was just a country doctor.
How did he do it?"
"I am bound over to secrecy. He will tell you himself."
"Oh, but only tell me if I guess right. He had it left him by an uncle,
eh? Well, by a friend? Or he took out some wonderful patent? Or he
discovered a mine? Or oil? Do tell me, Robert!"
"I mustn't, really," cried her brother laughing. "And I must not talk
to you any more. You are much too sharp. I feel a responsibility about
it; and, besides, I must really do some work."
"It Is very unkind of you," said Laura, pouting. "But I must put my
things on, for I go into Birmingham by the 1.20."
"To Birmingham?"
"Yes, I have a hundred things to order. There is everything to be got.
You men forget about these details. Raffles wishes to have the wedding
in little more than a fortnight. Of course it will be very quiet, but
still one needs something."
"So early as that!" said Robert, thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps it is
better so."
"Much better, Robert. Would it not be dreadful if Hector came back
first and there was a scene? If I were once married I should not mind.
Why should I? But of course Raffles knows nothing about him, and it
would be terrible if they came together."
"That must be avoided at any cost."
"Oh, I cannot bear even to think of it. Poor Hector! And yet what
could I do, Robert? You know that it was only a boy and girl affair.
And how could I refuse such an offer as this? It was a duty to my
family, was it not?"
"You were placed in a difficult position--very difficult," her brother
answered. "But all will be right, and I have no doubt Hector will see
it as you do. But does Mr. Spurling know of your engagement?"
"Not a word. He was here yesterday, and talked of Hector, but indeed I
did not know how to tell him. We are to be married by special licence
in Birmingham, so really there is no reason why he should know. But now
I must hurry or I shall miss my train."
When his sister was gone Robert went up to his studio, and having ground
some colours upon his palette he stood for some time, brush and
mahlstick in hand, in front of his big bare canvas. But how profitless
all his work seemed to him now! What object had he in doing it? Was it
to earn money? Money could be had for the asking, or, for that matter,
without the asking. Or was it to produce a thing of beauty? But he had
artistic faults. Raffles Haw had said so, and he knew that he was
right. After all his pains the thing might not please; and with money
he could at all times buy pictures which would please, and which would
be things of beauty. What, then, was the object of his working?
He could see none. He threw down his brush, and, lighting his pipe, he
strolled downstairs once more.
His father was standing in front of the fire, and in no very good
humour, as his red face and puckered eyes sufficed to show.
"Well, Robert," he began, "I suppose that, as usual, you have spent your
morning plotting against your father?"
"What do you mean, father?"
"I mean what I say. What is it but plotting when three folk--you and
she and this Raffles Haw--whisper and arrange and have meetings without
a word to me about it? What do I know of your plans?"
"I cannot tell you secrets which are not my own, father."
"But I'll have a voice in the matter, for all that. Secrets or no
secrets, you will find that Laura has a father, and that he is not a man
to be set aside. I may have had my ups and downs in trade, but I have
not quite fallen so low that I am nothing in my own family. What am I
to get out of this precious marriage?"
"What should you get? Surely Laura's happiness and welfare are enough
for you?"
"If this man were really fond of Laura he would show proper
consideration for Laura's father. It was only yesterday that I asked
him for a loan-condescended actually to ask for it--I, who have been
within an ace of being Mayor of Birmingham! And he refused me point
blank."
"Oh, father! How could you expose yourself to such humiliation?"
"Refused me point blank!" cried the old man excitedly. "It was against
his principles, if you please. But I'll be even with him--you see if I
am not. I know one or two things about him. What is it they call him
at the Three Pigeons? A 'smasher'--that's the word-a coiner of false
money. Why else should he have this metal sent him, and that great
smoky chimney of his going all day?"
"Why can you not leave him alone, father?" expostulated Robert. "You
seem to think of nothing but his money. If he had not a penny he would
still be a very kind-hearted, pleasant gentleman."
Old McIntyre burst into a hoarse laugh.
"I like to hear you preach," said he. "Without a penny, indeed! Do you
think that you would dance attendance upon him if he were a poor man?
Do you think that Laura would ever have looked twice at him? You know
as well as I do that she is marrying him only for his money."
Robert gave a cry of dismay. There was the alchemist standing in the
doorway, pale and silent, looking from one to the other of them with his
searching eyes.
"I must apologise," he said coldly. "I did not mean to listen to your
words. I could not help it. But I have heard them. As to you, Mr.
McIntyre, I believe that you speak from your own bad heart. I will not
let myself be moved by your words. In Robert I have a true friend.
Laura also loves me for my own sake. You cannot shake my faith in them.
But with you, Mr. McIntyre, I have nothing in common; and it is as well,
perhaps, that we should both recognise the fact."
He bowed, and was gone ere either of the McIntyres could say a word.
"You see!" said Robert at last. "You have done now what you cannot
undo!"
"I will be even with him!" cried the old man furiously, shaking his fist
through the window at the dark slow-pacing figure. "You just wait,
Robert, and see if your old dad is a man to be played with."
CHAPTER XIII.
A MIDNIGHT VENTURE.
Not a word was said to Laura when she returned as to the scene which had
occurred in her absence. She was in the gayest of spirits, and prattled
merrily about her purchases and her arrangements, wondering from time to
time when Raffles Haw would come. As night fell, however, without any
word from him, she became uneasy.
"What can be the matter that he does not come?" she said. "It is the
first day since our engagement that I have not seen him."
Robert looked out through the window.
"It is a gusty night, and raining hard," he remarked. "I do not at all
expect him."
"Poor Hector used to come, rain, snow, or fine. But, then, of course,
he was a sailor. It was nothing to him. I hope that Raffles is not
ill."
"He was quite well when I saw him this morning," answered her brother,
and they relapsed into silence, while the rain pattered against the
windows, and the wind screamed amid the branches of the elms outside.
Old McIntyre had sat in the corner most of the day biting his nails and
glowering into the fire, with a brooding, malignant expression upon his
wrinkled features. Contrary to his usual habits, he did not go to the
village inn, but shuffled off early to bed without a word to his
children. Laura and Robert remained chatting for some time by the fire,
she talking of the thousand and one wonderful things which were to be
done when she was mistress of the New Hall. There was less philanthropy
in her talk when her future husband was absent, and Robert could not but
remark that her carriages, her dresses, her receptions, and her travels
in distant countries were the topics into which she threw all the
enthusiasm which he had formerly heard her bestow upon refuge homes and
labour organisations.
"I think that greys are the nicest horses," she said. "Bays are nice
too, but greys are more showy. We could manage with a brougham and a
landau, and perhaps a high dog-cart for Raffles. He has the coach-house
full at present, but he never uses them, and I am sure that those fifty
horses would all die for want of exercise, or get livers like Strasburg
geese, if they waited for him to ride or drive them."
"I suppose that you will still live here?" said her brother.
"We must have a house in London as well, and run up for the season.
I don't, of course, like to make suggestions now, but it will be
different afterwards. I am sure that Raffles will do it if I ask him.
It is all very well for him to say that he does not want any thanks or
honours, but I should like to know what is the use of being a public
benefactor if you are to have no return for it. I am sure that if he
does only half what he talks of doing, they will make him a peer--Lord
Tamfield, perhaps--and then, of course, I shall be my Lady Tamfield, and
what would you think of that, Bob?" She dropped him a stately curtsey,
and tossed her head in the air, as one who was born to wear a coronet.
"Father must be pensioned off," she remarked presently. "He shall have
so much a year on condition that he keeps away. As to you, Bob, I don't
know what we shall do for you. We shall make you President of the Royal
Academy if money can do it."
It was late before they ceased building their air-castles and retired to
their rooms. But Robert's brain was excited, and he could not sleep.
The events of the day had been enough to shake a stronger man. There
had been the revelation of the morning, the strange sights which he had
witnessed in the laboratory, and the immense secret which had been
confided to his keeping. Then there had been his conversation with his
father in the afternoon, their disagreement, and the sudden intrusion of
Raffles Haw. Finally the talk with his sister had excited his
imagination, and driven sleep from his eyelids. In vain he turned and
twisted in his bed, or paced the floor of his chamber. He was not
only awake, but abnormally awake, with every nerve highly strung, and
every sense at the keenest. What was he to do to gain a little sleep?
It flashed across him that there was brandy in the decanter downstairs,
and that a glass might act as a sedative.
He had opened the door of his room, when suddenly his ear caught the
sound of slow and stealthy footsteps upon the stairs. His own lamp was
unlit, but a dim glimmer came from a moving taper, and a long black
shadow travelled down the wall. He stood motionless, listening
intently. The steps were in the hall now, and he heard a gentle
creaking as the key was cautiously turned in the door. The next instant
there came a gust of cold air, the taper was extinguished, and a sharp
snap announced that the door had been closed from without.
Robert stood astonished. Who could this night wanderer be? It must be
his father. But what errand could take him out at three in the morning?
And such a morning, too! With every blast of the wind the rain beat up
against his chamber-window as though it would drive it in. The glass
rattled in the frames, and the tree outside creaked and groaned as its
great branches were tossed about by the gale. What could draw any man
forth upon such a night?
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