Timmons did not move or speak. The shock had, for the moment, completely bereft him of his senses.
"I
have just come back from the country," said the dwarf, "and I thought I'd call on you at once. I should like to have a few moments' conversation with you, if your friend and very able supporter would have the kindness to consider himself alive and fully pardoned by his intended victim."
"Hush!" cried Timmons, uttering the first sound. The words of the hunchback, although uttered in jest, had an awful significance for the dazed owner of the place.
"Hah! I see your friend is not fabled to be in heart an assassin, but the poor and hard-working father of a family, who is just now indulging in that repose which is to refresh him for tackling anew the one difficulty of providing board and lodging and raiment for his wife and little ones. But, Mr. Timmons, in all conscience, don't you think you ought to put an end to this farce? When I came in I judged by his falling down and some incoherent utterance of yours that you two were rehearsing a frightful tragedy. Will you oblige us by getting up, sir? The play is over for the present, and my excellent friend Timmons here is willing to make the ghost walk."
The prostrate man did not move.
Timmons shuddered. He made a prodigious effort and tried to move forward, but had to put his hand against the wall to steady himself.
Leigh approached Stamer and touched him with his stick. Stamer did not stir.
"Is there anything the matter with the man? I think there must be, Timmons. What do you mean by running away to the other end of the place? Why this man is unconscious. I seem to be fated to meet fainting men."
Timmons now summoned all his powers and staggered forward. Leigh bent over Stamer, but, although he tried, failed to move him.
Timmons regained his voice and some of his faculties. "He has only fainted," said he, raising Stamer into a sitting posture.
Stamer did not speak, but struggled slowly to his feet, and assisted by Timmons walked to the opening and was helped a few yards down the street. There the two parted without a word. By the time Timmons got back he was comparatively composed. He felt heavy and dull, like a man who has been days and nights without sleep, but he had no longer any doubt that Oscar Leigh was present in the flesh.
"Are we alone?" asked Leigh impatiently on Timmons's return.
"We are."
"Hah! I am glad we are. If your friend were connected with racing I should call him a stayer. I came to tell you that I have just got back from Birmingham. I thought it best to go there and see again the man I had been in treaty with. I not only saw him but heard a great deal about him, and I am sorry to say I heard nothing good. He is, it appears, a very poor man, and he deliberately misled me as to his position and his ability to pay. I am now quite certain that if I had opened business with him I should have lost anything I entrusted to him, or, if not all, a good part. Hah!"
"Then I am not to meet you _at the same place_, next Thursday night?" asked Timmons, with emphasis on the tryst. He had not at this moment any interest in the mere business about which they had been negotiating. He was curious about other matters. His mind was now tolerably clear, but flabby and inactive still.
"No. There is no use in your giving me the alloy until I see my way to doing something with it, and I feel bound to say that after this disappointment in Birmingham, I feel greatly discouraged altogether. Hah! You do not, I think you told me, ever use eau-de-cologne?"
"I do not."
"Then you are distinctly wrong, for it is refreshing, most refreshing." He sniffed up noisily some he had poured into the palm of one hand and then rubbed together between the two. "Most refreshing."
"Then, Mr. Leigh, I suppose we are at a standstill?"
"Precisely."
"What you mean, I suppose, Mr. Leigh, is that you do not see your way to going any further?"
"Well, yes. At present I do not see my way to going any further."
Timmons felt relieved, but every moment his curiosity was increasing. There was no longer any need for caution with this goblin, or man, or devil, or magician. If Leigh had meant to betray him, the course he was now pursuing was the very last he would adopt.
"You went to Birmingham yesterday. May I ask you by what train you went down?"
"Two-thirty in the afternoon."
"And you came back this morning?"
"Yes. Just arrived. I drove straight here, as I told you."
"And you were away from half-past two yesterday until now. You were out of London yesterday from two-thirty until early this morning?"
"Yes; until six this morning. Why are you so curious? You do not, I hope, suspect me of saying anything that is not strictly true?" said Leigh, throwing his head back and striking the sandy floor fiercely with his stick.
"No.
I don't _suspect_ you of saying anything that is not strictly true."
The emphasis on the word _suspect_ caught Leigh's attention. He drew himself up haughtily and said, "What do you mean, sir?"