How mad and monstrous it all seemed! Could it be that written on his hand, in characters that he could not read himself, but that another could decipher, was some fearful secret of sin, some blood-red sign of crime? Was there no escape possible? Were we no better than chessmen, moved by an unseen power, vessels the potter fashions at his fancy, for honour or for shame? His reason revolted against it, and yet he felt that some tragedy was hanging over him, and that he had been suddenly called upon to bear an intolerable burden. Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
Suddenly Mr. Podgers entered the room. When he saw Lord Arthur he started, and his coarse, fat face became a sort of greenish-yellow colour. The two men’s eyes met, and for a moment there was silence.
“The Duchess has left one of her gloves here, Lord Arthur, and has asked me to bring it to her,” said Mr. Podgers finally. “Ah, I see it on the sofa! Good evening.”
“Mr. Podgers, I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer to a question I am going to put to you.”
“Another time, Lord Arthur, but the Duchess is anxious. I am afraid I must go.”
“You shall not go. The Duchess is in no hurry.”
“Ladies should not be kept waiting, Lord Arthur,” said Mr. Podgers, with his sickly smile. “The fair sex is apt to be impatient.”
Lord Arthur’s finely-chiselled lips curled in petulant disdain. The poor Duchess seemed to him of very little importance at that moment. He walked across the room to where Mr. Podgers was standing, and held his hand out.
“Tell me what you saw there,” he said. “Tell me the truth. I must know it. I am not a child.”
Mr. Podgers’s eyes blinked behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and he moved uneasily from one foot to the other, while his fingers played nervously with a flash watch-chain.
“What makes you think that I saw anything in your hand, Lord Arthur, more than I told you?”
“I know you did, and I insist on your telling me what it was. I will pay you. I will give you a cheque for a hundred pounds.”
The green eyes flashed for a moment, and then became dull again.
“Guineas?” said Mr. Podgers at last, in a low voice.
“Certainly. I will send you a cheque tomorrow. What is your club?”
“I have no club. That is to say, not just at present. My address is—, but allow me to give you my card,” and producing a bit of gilt-edge pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket, Mr. Podgers handed it, with a low bow, to Lord Arthur, who read on it,
Mr. Septimus R. Podgers
Professional Cheiromantist
103a West Moon Street
“My hours are from ten to four,” murmured Mr. Podgers mechanically, “and I make a reduction for families.”
“Be quick,” cried Lord Arthur, looking very pale, and holding his hand out.
Mr. Podgers glanced nervously round, and drew the heavy portière across the door.
“It will take a little time, Lord Arthur, you had better sit down.”
“Be quick, sir,” cried Lord Arthur again, stamping his foot angrily on the polished floor.
Mr. Podgers smiled, drew from his breast-pocket a small magnifying glass, and wiped it carefully with his handkerchief.
“I am quite ready,” he said.
II
Ten minutes later, with face blanched by terror, and eyes wild with grief, Lord Arthur Savile rushed from Bentinck House, crushing his way through the crowd of fur-coated footmen that stood round the large striped awning, and seeming not to see or hear anything. The night was bitter cold, and the gas-lamps round the square flared and flickered in the keen wind; but his hands were hot with fever, and his forehead burned like fire. On and on he went, almost with the gait of a drunken man. A policeman looked curiously at him as he passed, and a beggar, who slouched from an archway to ask for alms, grew frightened, seeing misery greater than his own. Once he stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands. He thought he could detect the stain of blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke from his trembling lips.
Murder! that is what the cheiromantist had seen there. Murder! The very night seemed to know it, and the desolate wind to howl it in his ear. The dark corners of the streets were full of it. It grinned at him from the roofs of the houses.
First he came to the Park, whose sombre woodland seemed to fascinate him. He leaned wearily up against the railings, cooling his brow against the wet metal, and listening to the tremulous silence of the trees. “Murder! murder!” he kept repeating, as though iteration could dim the horror of the word. The sound of his own voice made him shudder, yet he almost hoped that Echo might hear him, and wake the slumbering city from its dreams. He felt a mad desire to stop the casual passerby, and tell him everything.
Then he wandered across Oxford Street into narrow, shameful alleys. Two women with painted faces mocked at him as he went by. From a dark courtyard came a sound of oaths and blows, followed by shrill screams, and, huddled upon a damp doorstep, he saw the crook-backed forms of poverty and eld. A strange pity came over him. Were these children of sin and misery predestined to their end, as he to his? Were they, like him, merely the puppets of a monstrous show?
And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed!
