• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 226 0

Mr. Dryden, in the fear that they might make it a business to see to the closing of all doors, began to fumble his way out of the theatre. Providentially the door of the gallery entrance was still open, and when he had gained the street, he hid in a doorway a few yards distant from the stage entrance. The men were talking as they came out, and he recognized Murray’s voice at once. “That will be all right, Greet,” it was saying; “you had better come and see me in the morning. I am staying in Bedminster — 42, Leigh Road; it’s across the river, you must take the ferry.”

They passed down the road, and when they had gone out of sight, Mr. Dryden began his journey back to the rooms in the Hot-wells. Though nothing had been revealed to him that he had not been already cognizant of, the fact of having been with his own eyes privy to the secret of the trickery, made him greatly excited. He was conscious of a distinct hatred for Mr. Murray that he had not before experienced. There was something of jealousy in his anger. He bitterly grudged the old librarian his invention of the Automaton and the money that was coming to him from its exhibition. If he could only beat it, he thought, and then the dreadful feeling of hopelessness, that had left him during the varied excitements of the last few hours, came back and beset him with redoubled force. The much-needed repose of sleep was denied him, for all through that night the nightmare figure of the Automaton was with him in his dreams, and when, late next morning, he left his bed, his face was drawn and haggard and his mind a maelstrom of hatred and despair.

The day was very wild for the season, and continual thunderstorms gathered and broke their fury about the crags of the Avon Gorge. Mr. Dryden did not leave the house, but watched from his window the thunderclouds drive through the funnel made by the cliffs, and scatter over the houses and fields beyond. He felt a companionship in the ill humor of the elements, and the shrieking of the wind played a fantastic accompaniment to the bitter theme of his thoughts. Hatred of Murray was echoed in every scream of the gale, in every splash of the driven rain against the windowpanes, while the roaring menace of the thunder fashioned his anger into an ever-growing self-confidence. All through the afternoon, as the rage of the storm grew stronger his spirits rose higher, and at dinner a brilliant idea came to him. He would surprise Mr. Murray in some quiet place on his way to the theatre, and make known to him his discovery of the trick. The knowledge that the secret was out, coming to him at so critical a moment in the career of the Automaton must, he felt sure, have a deterrent effect on Mr. Murray’s play, while his own knowledge that within the painted figure his invisible rival was uneasily fearful, would lend a confident strength to himself.

The prospect of meeting the spirit of the Automaton in the flesh awoke other possibilities in his mind, and at first he cursed himself for not having conceived a plot for the kidnapping of his antagonist. However, it was now too late, and he dismissed the idea with the reflection that even had he thought of it before he could have with difficulty found trustworthy accomplices. About half-past seven he set out for the meeting that he promised himself. The gloom of the day had in no way abated and it was already quite dark. What he had overheard of Mr. Murray’s conversation with Greet suggested the river ferry to him as an advisable place, and there, about eight o’clock, he commenced to wait. The match was to be played at 9:30, and the doors were not open to the public till half-an-hour before that time, so he judged it quite certain that Mr. Murray would start for the theatre some time between eight and nine. The loneliness of the place lent horror to the storm, but Mr. Dryden cared little for the drenching rain or the flaming lightning as he staggered against the wind to keep his post by the ferry. Some twenty minutes had gone when a vivid flash lit the surrounding scene into half-a-minute’s uncanny