Catmur's Caves; or, the Quality of Mercy

Front matter

OR THE QUALITY OF MERCY BY RICHARD DOWLING — — y^ AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD," " THE WEIRD SISTERS." "AN ISLE OF SURREY," UA BAFFLING QUEST," ETC. LONDON AND EDINBURGH ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK The present Story has already appeared in serial form under the title, The Quality of Mercy CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. catmur's mammoth CAVES I II, CATMUR PREPARES FOR A VsSITOR 13 III. TWO VERSIONS OF THE ACCIDENT 22 IV. THE TIGER'S KNIFE 34 V. MILLIE'S SUITORS 43 VI. AT THE THRESHOLD OF MILLIE'S HOME .... 56 VII. THE SPOKE IN THE WHEEL OF MEMORY . . . .66 VIII. CATMUR'S PROPOSAL TO LUXMORE 78 IX. IN THE CAVES 88 X. JEFF MONDAY AND THE TIGER 98 XI. AT LANCASTER GATE 109 XII. THE TIGER AT LARGE 120 XIII. THE BEAST'S FRIEND 131 XIV. CATMUR IN THE CAVE OF MAGIC 140 XV. MILLIE STARR 151 XVT. WHY JEFF MONDAY FIRED 161 XVII.

IN THE SICK ROOM 170 XVIII. LUXMORE'S NEW SCHEME CONTENTS VIII CHAP. PAGE XIX. WHAT MILLIE TOOK 195 XX. THE FLIGHT OF THE LAME DUCKS 206 XXI. THE DESERTED HOUSE 216 XXII. THE WHEEL OF MEMORY GOES ROUND .... 226 XXIII. CATMUR AT BAY 237 XXIV. JOHN GREYBORNE'S WILL 247 XXV. MRS. CATMUR'S DECLARATION 258 XXVI. THE LAST

Chapter I Catmur's Mammoth Caves

Catmur's Mammoth Caves of Art ; of Lions and Tigers, and other Wild Beasts ; of Giants and Dwarfs, and other Human Wonders ; of African and Asian Magic ! Mammoth Art ! Mammoth Beast ! Mammoth Man ! Magic from the Nile and the Ganges ! Catmur's Caves of Mammoth Marvels ! The Greatest Show UNDER The Earth ! ! Catmur's Show ! Brookfield Junction. Entrance, Six Pence ! ! ! Two Shows a Day, 2.30 and 7.30 ! Marvellous Works of Art, One Shilling Each ! ! Entrance, Six Pence ! ! ! Brookfield is the great railway junction on the south side of the Thames. It is situated in a densely peopled neighbourhood. It owns a population greater than to-day crowns and sur rounds all the hills of Rome. The district is unoppressed by the magnificence of the West End, uncorroded by the squalor of the East. Now and then it produces crimes striking enough to set Philosophy wagging her head.

But its tragedies lack the sheer ferocity that makes passwords to fame. It is heavy, dull, sodden, uninteresting. No agitation has ever been set going to raise its moral head. It has no tone, no voice even. In the concrete it is unknown. Hundreds of thousands of people live around Brookfield Junction more hidden from society than the aboriginal pigmies of Africa. No judge of the high courts of law, no peer of Parliament, has ever seen it from its own pavements. It has neither hangman nor poet. It is an urban land of Hodge. It has no hope of promotion, no dream of ambition, no thought of the future beyond to-morrow. In the main it is well fed, comfortable, solvent. Its virtues are humble and kindly ; its vices commonplace, uninteresting, shocking. Its normal attitude placid. Nothing soul-stirring ever occurs within its bounds.

As far as it is concerned, culture, whether of the mind or of the fields, is not even the echo of a rumour, and questions that trouble the spirits of men in universities — nay, the uni versities themselves — are no more to it than the sped light of a dead sun. It is easily amused, and Catmur's Mammoth Caves were there. More than a thousand trains pass through the Junction every day. They come by high level, by low level, by ground level. No one man can tell how many sets of rails here converge and cross. The engineer of each company knows his own metals. When changes are contemplated he makes himself acquainted with the metals of other companies. No man can tell how many trains may be seen from the high level at a given time. Day and night the turmoil of ponderous traffic shakes the innumerable brick archways that hold the mighty viaducts aloft.

Day and night the solid ground on which the arches rest trembles beneath the thunder of count less iron wheels. At a point where two low-level viaducts con verge, and where the outer row of archways forms one side of Railway Avenue, was the entrance to Catmur's Mammoth Caves. These caves consisted of three chambers made up of one of the deep archways in Railway Avenue, of the space between the back of this archway and the other converging line, and of another archway under the viaduct at the back. The middle chamber was divided at both ends from the others by substantial sliding wooden doors, over which hung thick heavy curtains opening in the middle. The " cave " between the two arches was en closed by upright planks, and roofed with corru gated iron. At the back of the third chamber formed of the second archway lay Brookfield Flat, a piece of desolate waste ground.

In the first of Catmur's Caves colossal plaster statues and casts of fragments of still more colossal figures were to be seen. Here plaster busts of the Royal Family might be bought. Along the sides of the middle cave (the one of wood and iron) were ranged cages of savage beasts. Here Geoffrey Monday, the lion-tamer, performed with lions and leopards, and entered the den of the ferocious tiger, Bengal, which had, abroad, it was said, killed one keeper, and which would let no human being near him but the swarthy, silent lion-tamer, Geoffrey Monday. In the third cave formed of the second railway arch, monsters in human form were exhibited ; the giant and the dwarf, the fat woman, the umbrella-haired man, the armless lady who with her feet knitted stockings for her feet, the legless man who lived in a bowl and strolled about on his hands, the human shadow, the spotted boy, together with other freaks in human form.

Here, twice daily, Mildred Starr, clairvoyante, wrought in magic arts stolen from sorcerers on the banks of the sacred Ganges, and of the more sacred, the mysterious, the eternal Nile. Bartholomew Catmur, whose wife was dead and who had no child, owned all these wonders, and claimed for them that they, together with other attractions not enumerated, formed the greatest show under the earth. Thousands came weekly to visit Catmur's Show. All who saw it agreed that it was a marvellous sixpennyworth. In the first hall, or Cave of Sculptures, the most extraordinary thing was that such large and ex cellent busts of the Royal Family could be sold at a shilling each. In the second hall, or Cave of Beasts, the most extraordinary thing was the gentleness and love shown by the ferocious tiger, Bengal, towards the silent, swarthy tamer, Geoffrey Monday.

In the third hall, or Cave of Monsters and of Magic, the most extraordinary thing was the beauty of Mildred Starr, the young clairvoyante, niece of Bartholomew Catmur. Twice a day Mildred Starr performed in the Cave of Monsters and Magic, and neither the audience nor the neighbours saw her more. She was Catmur's niece. It was rumoured she had a living mother, afflicted in some awful manner which would make it better for the poor mother if she were dead. No neighbour in Railway Avenue could tell where Mildred Starr lived. Geoffrey Monday never spoke to a soul, and Bart Catmur would answer no question. All that could be said for certain was, that Bart Catmur allowed no man to look with eyes of bold admiration upon his niece. Not a harmless pleasantry must pass between one of the audience and the sibyl.

Bart Catmur had the reputation of being rich. As there was mystery about Mildred Starr, so also was there mystery about Catmur's wealth. How he made money out of the show no one could tell. Taking into account the capital in vested, rent, food for the beasts, and the hire of monsters, nothing would seem to be left for the owner out of the receipts at the door. When people said admiringly to the showman : " It is wonderful, Mr. Catmur, how you can make it pay ! " " It's the numbers that do it — the numbers," Catmur would respond. And he being a man who never spoke when he wished to keep his mouth shut, nothing more could be got out of him. Then people took into account several con tradictory and conflicting and abnormal and unascertainable items of expense, and found themselves in greater perplexity than ever.

Any one could find out the wages of an umbrella haired man at Westminster. A quotation for giants and dwarfs, to suit customers, could be got by telephone from Whitechapel. The legless phenomenon was an odd lot, and might be a drug in the market or might rule at a fancy rate, according to the demand. A fat woman was expensive, but orders could always be executed at Putney, if time were given. A human shadow and a spotted boy could be made up cheap in the New Cut out of any damaged lot ; the armless lady, even if she were not " general utility," doing a turn in her present line, might be obtained by any one on the look-out for such an article. A lion tamer was no doubt a costly item, and Jeff Monday was not an ordinary lion-tamer. No other man in his business would dare to enter Ben's cage.

Jeff's tricks with the other beasts were the everyday work of ordinary men of his craft. But no other living master of wild animals would dare to face the savage and forbidding tiger Ben, which was more gentle and submissive than a lamb and more affectionate than a dog in the hands of Jeff. The plaster busts sold freely, and were an element of attraction to the Caves. The performance of Jeff Monday with the tiger was a daily cause of wonder and dread, and it gathered more people than the privilege of pur chasing the royal images. The beauty and necromancy of Mildred Starr drew larger numbers than all else put together. Although her appearance and performance did not evoke applause as loud as followed Jeff Monday's safe exit from the tiger's den, they dwelt long in the mind, and were the con siderations which induced people to renew their visits.

The fact that the busts came from abroad might enable Catmur to squeeze a profit out of the shilling charged for each. A wide difference between the pay Jeff Monday got and his worth to the show would explain some of Catmur's wealth. Mildred Starr was his niece, and perhaps had only a small salary. But even with these three grants in aid, people could not figure out Bart Catmur's prosperity. " On the boards " no one could be more genial than Catmur. In intercourse with his neighbours he was gruff, ungracious, taciturn. He had not been known to use violence, but people felt that he was a dangerous man, and said he would be fittingly matched with Ben in the tiger's most savage mood. Whatever may have been the truth about the plaster busts, it was fortunate for a ravenously greedy man like Bart Catmur that two members of his troupe, the two principal members, made little or no inroad on the treasury.

" What do you want ? " said Catmur to Jeff when engaging him, after buying Bengal. " You've been with the tiger a year. I allow he would not be of much use to me if you did not go with him. You may speak up. You may open your mouth fairly wide." " I want food," said the dark, silent lion-tamer. " You shall have four meals of ortolans a day, if you wish," said Catmur. " Clothes." " I'll buy the left-off coronation robes of a king for you," said Catmur. "Tobacco." " A stone a month if you can smoke it," said Catmur. " Straw to sleep on near the tiger. ' " You shall have a four-poster of state. What else ? " said Catmur. " And the tiger." " Whew ! But he is mine ; I have bought him. You can't have him. What money do you want?" " I want no money. I have neither kith nor kin. I have nothing on earth but the tiger.

If you let me be with him I shall only need what I said ; I only want to be with him always. We understand one another, the tiger and I. I have nothing else to care for, and he will have no one but me. We love one another. If you take him away from me I will kill myself. I have no people. I have not even a name. They call me Monday because I was found in a ditch on a Monday. I love the tiger, and he loves me. I love nothing else, and he would kill any one else who went near him. Look at him ! He would die for me now ! Give me what I ask, and leave me with him always. I need no more. Some day he will forget I love him, and turn on me and kill me. I do not care. What good will money be to me then ? When he turns on me it will be time for me to die. Do you agree ? " " Ay," said Bart, somewhat awed by the swarthy man, whose eyes now burned and blazed like glowing coals when he talked of separation from the beast, now grew large and soft and liquid when he spoke of his love for it.

Bart Catmur kept his agreement with Jeff Monday, and never interfered with man or beast. The showman was greedy and grasping, and wanted everything; his lion-tamer wanted nothing but food to eat, straw to lie on, tobacco to smoke, and the company of a beast that would be value less without him, and with him would help to make a fortune. When, after the first success of Mildred Starr in her performance, Bart Catmur discussed terms with her, she said : " Money ! What do I want of money, uncle ? How could / take money from you ? Have you not done everything for my mother since her terrible accident ? All my life is yours, and all my love and life are hers. I can never repay you. I have everything I want. I have my mother ; I have everything I care for in the world when I have her. All else I am worth is yours — yours — yours, a thousand times, my good, kind, generous Uncle Bart."

Bart Catmur was lucky when arranging with the lovely clairvoyante of his show, the exquisite, dark-eyed, dreamy young girl whose image haunted visitors like a revelation in a dream, and drew them back again and again to lose their wonder at her second sight in musings over the sweet, dark magic of her beauty. " I have the busts," Catmur thought, " and the Royal Family are profitable patrons. I have the tiger, and the tiger is Jeff, and Jeff is cheaper to keep than the tiger. I have my idiot sister Ellen Starr, and the girl will stay with me for love of her until The girl is a good income now. She will one day soon, when I am ready, be a fortune — a gold-mine."

Chapter II Catmur Prepares For

A VISITOR Notwithstanding his wealth and the advan tageous terms on which he had engaged the two principal members of his company, and the profit derived from the royal busts, and the un failing patronage of the people, the owner of the Mammoth Caves had not a quiet mind. If things only went on as they were now going he should even out of the show alone make a respectable fortune. The takings at the door were satisfactory, and, whatever the neighbours might think, Catmur realised a substantial profit out of the busts. True, no one else could sell such busts at the price he took for them. There was a mystery about them, but mystery is an excellent article in the stock-in-trade of a showman. Money was the god of Catmur's idolatry. He worshipped no other, and he would do anything for his god.

He wanted everything he saw. He had a greedy mouth, a predatory eye. He wanted everything, but money most of all. How for tunate for him that Mildred Starr wanted only to be with her afflicted mother, and that Jeff Monday wanted only food and clothing, tobacco, straw to sleep on, and the right to be with the one creature that understood and loved him — Ben, the savage tiger. To Catmur's mind all this was good — for the present : any person menacing the existing con dition he would look on as a foe. Any one who deliberately threatened it he would regard as a venomous serpent. It had only lately oc curred to him to consider how he should feel or act towards a person who dared to interfere with the great stroke for future fortune he had in his mind, the great stroke to which he might be able to give efficacy soon ; for Catmur's present wealth was only earnest of what he hoped to obtain.

He did not wear his heart upon his sleeve, or give his confidence to any man. There were secrets in his life which if disclosed would ruin him in the present, and render grotesquely im possible all hope of realising his scheme of ambition in the future. He looked on his trade in the busts with grave anxiety. He regarded the seclusion of Millie as absolutely essential to his great game. If Ben did turn on Jeff some day, and kill the lion tamer, why, it would be no more than the fortune of war. But should anything go wrong with the busts, or should Millie be drawn out of her seclusion, he would consider himself the victim of malignant fate, if he could not trace the disaster to malignant man. Should the disaster befall, and he trace its origin to malignant man — well, it would be bad for malignant man.

Very bad. As bad as could be. And now Bart Catmur was troubled in his mind. He suspected danger in the air. A little while before Christmas he became aware that a tall handsome young man, whose beard and moustaches were raven black, and whose forehead was very white, and whose eyes were very dark and close together, and sharp and bright, and who always wore very white collars and cuffs and a blue necktie, visited the Caves three or four times, then ceased to appear for a while, and after Christmas turned up once more, and then for a few weeks came every other day. During the year that Millie had been before the public, scores of young men, and many men who could no longer be called young, had testified in one way or another to the extraordinary beauty of the girl. With these every-day admirers Bart had no serious difficulty.

He gave them plainly and emphatically to understand that the sibyl did not come down from the dais either literally or figuratively, and that no words beyond words necessary to the performance were to be addressed to her. In the Cave of Sculpture and the Cave of Beasts Catmur posed as the humorous man of the world, who could bandy pleasantries and give and take. In the Cave of Monsters and Magic he became collected and reserved. As soon as the clairvoyante stepped upon the dais his face grew forbidding, and he changed into the stern and inflexible guardian of secret arts, and of the name and person of his niece. But with this tall, dark young man of the white shirt-collar and cuffs and forehead, and the bright, sharp, dark eyes, matters were different. It was plain that, unlike the others, this young man was not merely a fool, and from a letter which Bart Catmur received towards the end of January it was plain this young man knew something which Catmur would have given a good deal to conceal from him.

What that something was which the young man knew Catmur could not fully determine. At eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the last Monday in January, the proprietor was in the Caves alone. He expected a visit from this young frequenter of the show so much in his thoughts of late. On the previous Friday, during the per formance, the young man had approached the owner in the Cave of Sculpture, and said : " Mr. Catmur, permit me to offer you my card, I wish to speak to you one day soon on an im portant private matter. I shall write asking the favour of an appointment. I give you my card so that you may recognise my name when you get my letter. Good evening." Before Catmur could say a word the other was gone. Catmur read on the card, " Mr. Hugh Luxmore." " It looks like the name of a professional," thought the showman ; " and yet he isn't a pro fessional ; he's too deep for a pro.

I don't like his looks ; I don't like him ; I don't like his wanting to see me ; I don't like the whole thing." Saturday morning brought a note from Mr. Hugh Luxmore. It said that he had lately been on the Continent, that he had conceived a plan whereby he was sure money could be made out of the importation of works of art, and that he was in possession of many facts and ideas which he had not the smallest doubt would greatly interest Mr. Catmur. Would that gentleman grant him the favour of a private meeting ? Catmur answered appointing to see Mr. Lux more in the Caves on Monday at a quarter-past eleven. He was now awaiting that gentleman. Until one o'clock he did not expect any members of his company. One of the great conveniences of the Caves was the piece of waste ground, Brookfield Flat, at the back.

This afforded private approach to the door at the rear of the Cave of Monsters. At night no one slept in the Caves but Jeff Monday. The lion-tamer went every forenoon to Catmur's private house to do a gracious act for one of his kind and for a breath of air. He and Catmur carried the only keys of the outer doors of the show. Bartholomew Catmur was slightly under the middle height, thick-set without stoutness, and strong and active for a man approaching sixty. His face was round, and red, and close-shaven. He had small grey eyes and a straight, hard, lipless mouth. His rough, grizzled hair was cut close to a round bullet head, set on a short, thick neck. The face was capable of an expression of rugged good-humour, and that expression it usually wore to the public. Now, as he walked up and down between the cages, all of which were on wheels and shuttered, the face was set, determined, savage.

As he plodded heavily up and down on the thick sawdust he thought : " What this young gentleman knows will make more difference to him than to me. What he had to say he can say here." He paused in his walk and looked around him at the closed cages with an evil smile. " No one can overhear us," casting his eyes aloft. " The trains make noise enough to drown our voices if we come to words." Suddenly he approached a cage in the middle of the right-hand row looking towards the entrance, drew out a pin, and let the heavy swing-shutter fall with a loud clang. From the floor of the cage a scarred, battered, huge, terrifying head was raised over a long, lean, lank, striped flank, and turned with blinking eyes upon the light. With a yawn and a loud thump the head fell back again upon the wooden flooring.

" And if we come to blows," muttered Catmur, " why, the open door of Ben's cage would account for anything that might happen, and " — kicking the ground at his feet — " there's plenty of sawdust if anything does happen before Ben gets his chance of killing his man number two." Catmur stood with eyes fixed on the ground, lost in thought. All at once he moved to a small square table in the middle of the floor, and took from the drawer the long, sharp, heavy knife used in cutting up meat for the beasts. He flung the knife on the table, muttering : " It's too big to carry. 'Twill be as handy there." At the sound of opening the drawer the tiger sprang up, and recognising the knife as the one with which the flesh was cut for him, uttered a savage growl, followed by a roar that shook the roof with horrible reverberations.

Then with lowered head and frenzied eyes and lashing tail the tiger moved up and down inside the bars sawing the air with grating snarls ; ravenous, mad for food. In Catmur's house at the rear of the Caves Jeff heard that roar and threw up his head, listening. " Not yet, Ben," said Catmur, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand ; " not yet." The tiger lashed his tail and ran up and down the cage, rolling back his lips from his hideous yellow fangs. A bell tinkled in the outer cave. " Patience, Ben," said Catmur. " Patience, Ben. 'Tisn't often your breakfast rings the bell to get in. Here's Mr. Luxmore." And having swung up the huge shutter and secured the hasp of the tiger's den, Catmur has tened to the front door and admitted the young man.

Chapter III Two Versions Of The Accident

Brookfield Flat, the waste land at the back of the Caves, owed its neglected condition to various causes. No highway ran through it or near it ; the ground-level railways cut it up into unprofit able lots. On one edge lay worked-out sand pits, and on another stood a gas-house. The outline of the waste was torn and jagged ; rudely triangular. Its surface was scarred, broken, seamed ; with here and there a strip of scrubby grass, and here and there bald patches, and here and there mounds of engine-ashes, and here and there hillocks of gas-house refuse. Years ago the land had been a dairy-farm, and in the middle of it the farmhouse still stood, sole relic of its pastoral times. In this house, amid this desert of man's making, lived the showman with his widowed sister, Ellen Starr, and Millie, clairvoyante of Catmur's Caves.

The real name of Catmur's sister was Taylor, but long before the girl in her dark young beauty stood in front of the audience at the Caves, Catmur decreed that mother and daughter should be known by the name of Starr. Mrs. Starr was a tall, slender, gentle-mannered woman of forty-five. Already her black hair was turning grey. Seventeen years before a terrible accident had befallen her, and from that day to this her mind as to everything occurring before that accident was dim and uncertain ; for all prac tical purposes a blank. She knew that her name had originally been Catmur, that she had been married and left a widow with a young child, that something appalling had happened to her, that in the calamity she had been to blame, and that Millie was her child, now grown up into womanhood. She was submissive and gentle, the gentlest creature on earth.

She did as she was asked with a smile, and never complained or repined. She had no whims or oddities. Her reason was weak. She depended wholly upon those around her. She was incapable of originating thought or action. Millie, or Catmur, or Susan the dull stupid servant had to suggest to her the most ordinary actions. She could make a fire, or cook the dinner, or wash up the tea-things if set going. But unless some one told her, she would never think of beginning, though she always seemed pleased to be at work. She was in no way capricious or fretful, she gave no trouble, and was free from delusions, except one. Nothing could get it out of her head that there was something wrong with Millie's right ankle, " You don't notice it until you set her on her feet ; then you can't but see it." A thousand times she had been assured Millie's ankle was normal.

A hundred times the girl had taken off shoe and stocking to show there was no deformity or defect or weakness. In vain. Mrs. Starr would say, with a smile of confident assur ance : " You notice it at once when you put her standing up by a chair. The right ankle then gives way, turns out." " But, mother, I am long past being put stand ing at a chair, and my ankle is quite straight and firm." " Yes, dear, no doubt you think so. It may seem so to you, but a mother cannot be mis taken." Years ago this persistency of his sister about Millie's ankle used to make Catmur furious ; but of late he had given up taking notice of it, beyond shrugging his shoulders. The newspaper accounts of that accident seventeen years before may be summarised as follows : " Ellen Taylor, widow, nurse to Mr. John Greyborne, the well-known contractor, went out on Friday morning, taking Mr. Greyborne's only child — a little daughter of a year old — in the perambulator.