The Twickenham Peerage Part 11

'I dare say you get near enough. Who'll I be when I'm dying--and dead?'

'Don't you know?'

'I'm asking.'

I hesitated.

'The Marquis of Twickenham.'

I kept my eyes upon his face; as, indeed, I had done since I came into the room. He did not change countenance in the least.

'It's a bold game you're playing.'

'Your part of it'll require courage.'

'But the risk'll be yours. Suppose, in the middle of the show I quit dying, and make a little remark to the effect that my name's Babbacombe; that I'm no Marquis, and that I was put up to this by a man named Smith. You'd look funny.'

'We should both of us be in rather an amusing situation.'

'You've--face.'

'You also.'

'Will I be supposed to make any remark when I'm dying--any last farewells, or any of that kind of thing?'

'You might express contrition for a wasted life.'

'Yours?--or mine? A bit of yours has been wasted; especially lately--eh? A lot of time seems to waste when you're waiting for dead men's shoes.'

'It's for you to see that I don't have to wait much longer.'

He was silent again. Again he regarded his cigar. A curious smile parted his thin, colourless lips. 'I'm to be the Marquis of Twickenham?'

'You are.'

'Because I'm so like him?'

'Exactly.'

'As the Marquis of Twickenham I'm to die?'

'That's the idea.'

'And be buried?'

'Doesn't that follow?'

'I'm to be buried?'

'Can you see any way out of it?'

'Several.'

'For instance?'

'Sitting up while they're settling me in the coffin, and remarking that I think I'd like a larger size. That would be one way.'

'Which would render the whole thing null and void.'

'Then are you suggesting that I should be buried--regular, downright buried?--nailed up, put in a hole, and all?'

'You would not be put in a hole, but in the family vault.'

'And how long would I stay there?'

I smiled. He perceived my amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Mr. Smith, you're the kind of man I admire.'

'I hope to continue to merit your admiration.'

'That dying's off.'

'Why? What I said about the family vault was but a jest.'

'A sepulchral one.'

'It might be necessary, perhaps, to put you in a coffin, but, before the arrival of the undertaker's men, I would come; you would get out, and between us we'd fasten down the lid upon the empty box.'

'A kind of sort of game of cut it fine. And what do you suppose I'd be thinking of, while I was waiting inside that handsome piece of funeral furniture for you to come?'

'Of the thousand pounds which would so soon be yours.'

He seemed to reflect once more; the smile returning to the attenuated, cruel, s.h.i.+fty lips which had always been one of Twickenham's most unpleasant features.

'That dying will come off. As you observed, a thousand pounds is not a trifle. I've given a show for less. I suppose the money's safe?'

'It is. When will you--die?'

'That's it. I'm engaged almost right along. It'll have to be soon.

What do you say to to-morrow?'

'To-morrow?'

The imminence of the thing startled me. I had not expected to be taken up so readily. Nor had I been prepared for the appointment of so early a date. And yet, why not? It was just one of those things of which one might truly say that ''twere well done if 'twere done quickly.'

He put my thoughts into words.

'What's wrong with to-morrow? Haven't you about done wasting time enough? Why not then as soon as next week?'