The Garotters | Page 9

get his
watch back.' A ring at the door, and then a number of voices in the
anteroom. 'I do believe they're all there! I'll just run out and prepare
your son. He would be dreadfully shocked if he came right in upon
you.' She runs into the anteroom, and is heard without: 'Oh, Dr. Lawton!
Oh, Lou dear! OH, Mr. Bemis! How can I ever tell you? Your poor
father! No, no, I CAN'T tell you! You mustn't ask me! It's too hideous!
And you wouldn't believe me if I did.'
Chorus of anguished voices: 'What? what? what?'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'They've been robbed! Garotted on the Common!
And, OH, Dr. Lawton, I'm so glad YOU'VE come! They're both injured
internally, but I WISH you'd look at Edward first.'
BEMIS: 'Good heavens! Is that Mrs. Roberts's idea of preparing my
son? And his poor young wife!' He addresses his demand to Mrs.
Crashaw, who lifts the hands of impotent despair.

PART SECOND

SCENE I: MR. ROBERTS; MR. CAMPBELL

In Mr Roberts's dressing-room, that gentleman is discovered tragically
confronting Mr. Willis Campbell, with a watch uplifted in either hand.
WILLIS: 'Well?'
ROBERTS, gasping: 'My--my watch!'
WILLIS: 'Yes. How comes there to be two of it?'
ROBERTS: 'Don't you understand? When I went out I--didn't take my
watch--with me. I left it here on my bureau.'

WILLIS: 'Well?'
ROBERTS: 'Oh, merciful heavens! don't you see? Then I couldn't have
been robbed!'
WILLIS: 'Well, but whose watch did you take from the fellow that
didn't rob you, then?'
ROBERTS: 'His own!' He abandons himself powerlessly upon a chair.
'Yes; I left my own watch here, and when that person brushed against
me in the Common, I missed it for the first time. I supposed he had
robbed me, and ran after him, and--'
WILLIS: 'Robbed HIM!'
ROBERTS: 'Yes.'
WILLIS: 'Ah, ha, ha, ha! I, hi, hi, hi! O, ho, ho, ho!' He yields to a
series of these gusts and paroxysms, bowing up and down, and
stamping to and fro, and finally sits down exhausted, and wipes the
tears from his cheeks. 'Really, this thing will kill me. What are you
going to do about it, Roberts?'
ROBERTS, with profound dejection and abysmal solemnity: 'I don't
know, Willis. Don't you see that it must have been--that I must have
robbed--Mr. Bemis?'
WILLIS: 'Bemis!' After a moment for tasting the fact. 'Why, so it was!
Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! And was poor old Bemis that burly ruffian? that
bloodthirsty gang of giants? that--that--oh, Lord! oh, Lord!' He bows
his head upon his chair-back in complete exhaustion, demanding,
feebly, as he gets breath for the successive questions, 'What are you
going to d-o-o-o? What shall you s-a-a-a-y? How can you expla-a-ain
it?'
ROBERTS: 'I can do nothing. I can say nothing. I can never explain it.
I must go to Mr. Bemis and make a clean breast of it; but think of the
absurdity--the ridicule!'
WILLIS, after a thoughtful silence: 'Oh, it isn't THAT you've got to
think of. You've got to think of the old gentleman's sense of injury and
outrage. Didn't you hear what he said--that he would have handed over
his dearest friend, his own brother, to the police?'
ROBERTS: 'But that was in the supposition that his dearest friend, his
own brother, had intentionally robbed him. You can't imagine, Willis--'
WILLIS: 'Oh, I can imagine a great many things. It's all well enough
for you to say that the robbery was a mistake; but it was a genuine case

of garotting as far as the assault and taking the watch go. He's a very
pudgicky old gentleman.'
ROBERTS: 'He is.'
WILLIS: 'And I don't see how you're going to satisfy him that it was all
a joke. Joke? It WASN'T a joke! It was a real assault and a bona fide
robbery, and Bemis can prove it.'
ROBERTS: 'But he would never insist--'
WILLIS: 'Oh, I don't know about that. He's pretty queer, Bemis is. You
can't say what an old gentleman like that will or won't do. If he should
choose to carry it into court--'
ROBERTS: 'Court!'
WILLIS: 'It might be embarrassing. And anyway, it would have a very
strange look in the papers.'
ROBERTS: 'The papers! Good gracious!'
WILLIS: 'Ten years from now a man that heard you mentioned would
forget all about the acquittal, and say: "Roberts? Oh yes! Wasn't he the
one they sent to the House of Correction for garotting an old friend of
his on the Common!" You see, it wouldn't do to go and make a clean
breast of it to Bemis.'
ROBERTS: 'I see.'
WILLIS: 'What will you do?'
ROBERTS: 'I must never say anything to him about it. Just let it go.'
WILLIS: 'And keep his watch? I don't see