The Mayor of Troy Part 33

They were stunned. They could not believe.

On the third day the Town Council met and elected Dr. Hansombody Deputy-Mayor, "during the temporary absence of one whose permanent loss this Council for the present declines to contemplate."

That same evening the Doctor called a public meeting, and in a careful speech, interrupted here and there by emotion, told the burgesses all there was to tell. "My friends," he concluded, "With a sad and sorry heart I lay these few facts, these poor shreds of evidence, before you. Oppressed as I am by the shadow of calamity, I refuse to consider it as more than a shadow, soon under Providence to be lifted from us. You, the witnesses of our daily intimacy, will understand with what emotion I take up the sceptre which has fallen from my friend's hand, with what diffidence I shall wield it, with what impatience I shall expect the hour which restores it to his strong grasp. In the words of Shakespeare"--here the Doctor consulted his note-book--"he was indeed a man:"

"'Take him for all in all We shall not look upon his like again.'"

"Of my own instance, ladies and gentlemen, I made bold to bid fifty pounds for his recovery, feeling confident that Troy would endorse the offer. Nor did I mistake. This morning the Corporation by unanimous vote has guaranteed the sum. I have now the melancholy privilege of proposing from this chair that a house-to-house canva.s.s be made throughout the town with the object of doubling this guarantee." (Murmurs of approval from all parts of the hall.)

The Vicar seconded. He would remind his audience that in the thirteenth century Richard, Earl of Cornwall, afterwards King of the Romans, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Saracens who held him at ransom: and that by the promptness with which the Cornishmen of those days, rich and poor together, made voluntary contribution and discharged the price, they earned their coat-of-arms of fifteen gold coins upon a sable ground, as well as their proud motto "One and All." It had been said (I forget if in my hearing), that the days of chivalry were past. Here was an opportunity to disprove it and declare that the spirit of their ancestors survived and animated the Cornishmen of to-day. (A Voice--"How about the Millennium?") He would pa.s.s over that interruption with the contempt it deserved. They were not met to bandy personalities, but as citizens united in the face of calamity by affection for their common borough. As stars upon the night, as the gold coins on their Duchy's sable s.h.i.+eld, so might their free-will offerings spell hope upon the dark ground of present desolation. He, for his part, was ready to subscribe one guinea--yes, and more if necessary.

Although the Chairman had deprecated cheering, the audience broke into loud applause as the Vicar resumed his seat. The town had taken fire. Resolving itself into Committee, the meeting then and there nominated fifty collectors, all volunteers. Nor did the movement end here. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Miss Pescod the ladies of Troy devoted each a favourite article of personal adornment to be coined at need into money for the Major's redemption. (I myself possess a brooch which, left by my great-grandmother to her daughter upon this condition, to this day is known in the family as the Major's Cameo.) In six days the guarantee fund ran up to eleven hundred pounds, of which at least one-third might be accounted good money. In Troy we allow, by habit, some margin for enthusiasm.

A new placard was issued at once, and the reward increased to one hundred and fifty pounds.

For ten days this handsome offer evoked no more response than the previous one. For ten days yet all trace of the Major vanished at the edge of Mr. Basket's fish-pond.

"It would almost seem," said Miss Sally Tregentil, discussing the mystery for the hundredth time with Miss Pescod, "as if from that fatal brink he had soared into the regions of the unknown and scaled, as the expression goes, the empyrean."

"If that's the case," remarked Miss Pescod practically, "twice the money won't bring him back."

On the 2nd of July the Chief Constable wrote to Dr. Hansombody that he had discovered a clue. A doorkeeper of the Theatre Royal reported (and was corroborated by the man in charge of the ticket-office) that on the night of May 2nd, at about 10.30, a rough-looking fellow had presented himself, dripping-wet, at the doors and demanded, in a state of agitation, apparently the result of drink, to see Mr.

Basket, who occupied a reserved seat in the house; further, that falling in with two sailors, who bought a ticket for him, the man had mounted the gallery stairs in their company, and this was the last seen of him by either of the deponents.

The Doctor posted to Plymouth, carrying with him the only extant portrait of the Major--a miniature taken at the age of twenty-five; called on Mr. Basket, haled him off to the Chief Constable's office, and there by appointment examined the two witnesses. The men stuck to their story, but swore positively that the fellow they had seen bore no resemblance to the portrait.

"If you ask _me_," added the doorkeeper with conviction, "he was a dam sight more likely to have been his murderer. He looked it, anyhow."

The Doctor and Mr. Basket returned to the latter's house in deeper perplexity than ever.

"The evidence," began Mr. Basket, lighting his pipe after dinner, "vague as it is, points more decidedly than before to foul play.

We have been a.s.suming that our poor friend, whether by accident or design, found himself in my fish-pond."

"He would hardly have walked into it on purpose," said the Doctor.

"It is at least highly improbable. Well, here we have another man who comes running to the theatre wet through--also, we will a.s.sume, from an immersion in the fish-pond. We will suppose that he plunged into it to the rescue and having brought his burden safe to sh.o.r.e, ran to the theatre to inform me of the accident. At once we are confronted with half a dozen serious difficulties. To begin with, why, having asked for me, did he disappear?"

"Press-gang," the Doctor suggested.

"Granted. But why, having an urgent message to deliver, did he proceed to take a ticket for the gallery in company with two sailors, apparently strangers to him? Again, this explanation does not even touch the crucial question, which is--How came our friend to disappear?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"On the other hand," Mr. Basket continued, "if we take the darker view, that this man had entered the fish-pond not for purposes of rescue, but--dreadful thought--to hold the victim under water, why should he have exposed himself to detection by coming to the theatre?

Why, in fine, should he desire to communicate at all with me?"

"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Basket, who had been listening while she knitted, "his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him."

"My dear Maria!" began her husband testily. But at this moment the house rang with an alarm upon the front-door bell.

The poor lady stood up fluttering, white in the face.

"You must answer it, Elihu! I couldn't, not if you was to offer me twice the reward at this moment--and him standing there, perhaps, or his ghost, like Peter out of prison!"

But their visitor proved to be the Chief Constable himself. He, too, was pale with excitement, and he held in his hand a copy of the Sherborne _Mercury_.

"Your friend--" he began.

"Well?"

"He is dead. The mystery is not, indeed, explained, but the issue of it appears too certain. I was walking along old Town Street when the Sherborne Rider came along. He gave me my copy, and see here!"--The Chief Constable spread the paper under the lamp and pointed to this paragraph:

"_Operations off Boulogne_. By advices received from Admiral Lord Keith, the first experiment made with the new engines of destruction (of which so much was hoped) against the vessels moored off Boulogne pier, has not resulted in an unqualified success. On the 15th ult. one of these catamarans, as they are called, was launched against the foe from the _Vesuvius_ bomb.

The machinery had been set in motion, and the bomb's boat, having towed it into range, was preparing to return to the s.h.i.+p, when a shot from the sh.o.r.e batteries, falling close, precipitated our gallant fellows into the water. We are happy to add that they were all picked up by the boats of the squadron with the exception of one seaman, recently s.h.i.+pped at Plymouth.

His name is given as Hymen; and the Captain of the _Vesuvius_ reports that he joined as a volunteer.

"We need hardly remind our readers that the name of Hymen has figured prominently for a fortnight past in our advertis.e.m.e.nt columns. If this gallant but unfortunate man should prove to be none other than Solomon Hymen, Esquire, Chief Magistrate of Troy, Cornwall, whose recent mysterious disappearance has cast a gloom over the small borough, we commiserate our friends in the West while envying them this exemplar of an unselfish patriotism. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_."

Troy required no further evidence. To those of us indeed who had known the man--who, to borrow the words of a later poet, had lived in his mild and magnificent eye--the news carried its own verification.

Precisely how--in what circ.u.mstances--he had volunteered, we might never elucidate: but the act itself, when we came to consider it, was of a piece with his character. He had left us in chagrin, betrayed by our unworthiness, nursing a wound deeper than any personal spite.

Summarily, by a stroke, in the simplicity of his greatness, he had at once rebuked us and restored our pride. Peris.h.i.+ng, he had left us an imperishable boast; an example to which, though our own conscience might accuse us, we could point, and saying "This was a Son of Troy,"

silence detraction for ever. Need I add that we made the most of it?

Mayor-choosing Day came round, and Dr. Hansombody, elected by the unanimous vote of his fellow-councillors, attained to one of the twin summits of his ambition and was indued as Chief Magistrate with robe and chain. Six weeks later the town heard, at first incredulously, that he and Miss Marty were betrothed. The nuptials, it was announced, would be celebrated next June, on the decent expiry of a year of mourning.

Miss Sally Tregentil, on hearing the news, opined the Doctor's conduct to be quixotic--a self-immolation, almost, upon the altar of friends.h.i.+p.

Miss Pescod, for her part, believed that he was after the woman's money. This unworthy suspicion the Doctor was fortunately able to rebut, and in the most public manner. After the wedding (a quiet one) he and his bride spent a short honeymoon at Sidmouth and returned but to announce their departure on a more distant journey.

The Major's death being by this time, in legal phrase, "presumed,"

the Court of Canterbury had allowed Miss Marty to take out letters of administration. It behoved her now to travel up to London, interview proctors, and prove the will, executed (as the reader will remember) on the eve of that fatal First of May and confided to Lawyer Chinn's keeping. The town having subscribed for and purchased a pair of silver candelabra as a homecoming gift, the Mayor and Mayoress had no sooner returned and been welcomed with firing off cannon and pealing of bells than a day was fixed and a public meeting called for the presentation--a ceremony performed by the Vicar in brief but felicitous terms. The Doctor made a suitable speech of acknowledgment, and then, after waiting until the applause had subsided, lifted a hand.

"My friends," he said, "before we disperse I am charged to tell you that my wife and I contemplate another journey, and almost immediately. You may think how sad that errand is for us when I tell you that we go to prove the late Major Hymen's will. But I dare to hope you will understand that our feelings are not wholly tinged with gloom when you hear the provisions of that doc.u.ment, which I will now ask my friend Mr. Chinn to read aloud to you."

And this is the substance of what Lawyer Chinn read:

To his kinswoman Miss Martha Hymen, the Major left a life interest in the sum of five thousand pounds, invested in Government stock.

To his faithful servant Scipio Johnston the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. To his servant Caius Tamblyn, fifty pounds.

To each member of the Corporation of the Borough of Troy holding office at the time of his death, five pounds to buy a mourning ring.

To the Town Clerk the same, and to Mr. Jago, Town Constable, the same.

To the Honourable and Gallant Corps of the Troy Volunteer Artillery, nineteen guineas, to purchase two standards, to be borne by them on all occasions of ceremony.

To the Vicar and Churchwardens, two hundred pounds, the interest to be distributed annually among the poor of the Parish, on Easter Day.

To the Feoffees and Governors of the Free Grammar School, a like sum to be spent in renovating the building, and a further sum of one thousand pounds to be invested for the maintenance, clothing and education of ten poor boys of the Borough.