Transformation Page #3

"Transformation" by Robert Barr is a thought-provoking novel that delves into themes of identity, change, and the human experience. The story follows characters as they navigate personal and societal transformations, exploring the complexities of relationships and self-discovery. Through Barr’s rich prose and compelling narrative, the book invites readers to reflect on the nature of transformation in their own lives, challenging them to consider what it means to truly evolve. With a blend of emotional depth and philosophical insight, "Transformation" is both a captivating read and a profound meditation on the journey of life.

• Short story

								

tools. I have tramped from Lyons, but there is nothing doing in my
trade."

Picard looked at him suspiciously for a few moments.

"Why did you accost me?" he asked at last.

"I saw you were a fellow-countryman; Frenchmen have helped me from time
to time."

"Let us sit down on this bench. What is your name, and how long have
you been in England?"

"My name is Adolph Carrier, and I have been in London three months."

"So long as that? How have you lived all that time?"

"Very poorly, as you may see. I sometimes get scraps from the French
restaurants, and I sleep where I can."

"Well, I think I can do better than that for you. Come with me."

Picard took Delore to his house, letting himself in with a latchkey.
Nobody seemed to occupy the place but himself and Lamoine. He led the
way to the top story, and opened a door that communicated with a room
entirely bare of furniture. Leaving Adolph there, Picard went
downstairs again and came up shortly after with a lighted candle in his
hand, followed by Lamoine, who carried a mattress.

"This will do for you for tonight," said Picard, "and tomorrow we will
see if we can get you any work. Can you make clocks?"

"Oh yes, and good ones."

"Very well. Give me a list of the tools and materials you need and I
will get them for you."

Picard wrote in a note-book the items Adolph recited to him, Lamoine
watching their new employee closely, but saying nothing. Next day a
table and a chair were put into the room, and in the afternoon Picard
brought in the tools and some sheets of brass.

Picard and Lamoine were somewhat suspicious of their recruit at first,
but he went on industriously with his task, and made no attempt to
communicate with anybody. They soon saw that he was an expert workman,
and a quiet, innocent, half-daft, harmless creature, so he was given
other things to do, such as cleaning up their rooms and going errands
for beer and other necessities of life.

When Adolph finished his first machine, he took it down to them and
exhibited it with pardonable pride. There was a dial on it exactly like
a clock, although it had but one hand.

"Let us see it work," said Picard; "set it so that the bell will ring
in three minutes."

Adolph did as requested, and stood back when the machine began to work
with a scarcely audible tick-tick. Picard pulled out his watch,
and exactly at the third minute the hammer fell on the bell.
"That is very satisfactory," said Picard; "now, can you make the
next one slightly concave, so that a man may strap it under his coat
without attracting attention? Such a shape is useful when passing the
Customs."

"I can make it any shape you like, and thinner than this one if you
wish it."

"Very well. Go out and get us a quart of beer, and we will drink to
your success. Here is the money."

Adolph obeyed with his usual docility, staying out, however, somewhat
longer than usual. Picard, impatient at the delay, spoke roughly to him
when he returned, and ordered him to go upstairs to his work. Adolph
departed meekly, leaving them to their beer.

"See that you understand that machine, Lamoine," said Picard. "Set it
at half an hour."

Lamoine, turning the hand to the figure VI on the dial, set the works
in motion, and to the accompaniment of its quiet tick-tick they drank
their beer.

"He seems to understand his business," said Lamoine.

"Yes," answered Picard. "What heady stuff this English beer is. I wish
we had some good French bock; this makes me drowsy."

Lamoine did not answer; he was nodding in his chair. Picard threw
himself down on his mattress in one corner of the room; Lamoine, when
he slipped from his chair, muttered an oath, and lay where he fell.

Twenty minutes later the door stealthily opened, and Adolph's head
cautiously reconnoitred the situation, coming into the silent apartment
inch by inch, his crafty eyes rapidly searching the room and filling
with malicious glee when he saw that everything was as he had planned.
He entered quietly and closed the door softly behind him. He had a
great coil of thin strong cord in his hand. Approaching the sleeping
men on tiptoe, he looked down on them for a moment, wondering whether
the drug had done its work sufficiently well for him to proceed. The
question was settled for him with a suddenness that nearly unnerved
him. An appalling clang of the bell, a startling sound that seemed loud
enough to wake the dead, made him spring nearly to the ceiling. He
dropped his rope and clung to the door in a panic of dread, his
palpitating heart nearly suffocating him with its wild beating, staring
with affrighted eyes at the machine which had given such an unexpected
alarm. Slowly recovering command over himself, he turned his gaze on
the sleepers: neither had moved; both were breathing as heavily as
ever.

Pulling himself together, he turned his attention first to Picard, as
the more dangerous man of the two, should an awakening come before he
was ready for it. He bound Picard's wrists tightly together; then his
ankles, his knees, and his elbows. He next did the same for Lamoine.
With great effort he got Picard in a seated position on his chair,
tying him there with coil after coil of the cord. So anxious was he to
make everything secure, that he somewhat overdid the business, making
the two seem like seated mummies swathed in cord. The chairs he
fastened immovably to the floor, then he stood back and gazed with a
sigh at the two grim seated figures, with their heads drooping
helplessly forward on their corded breasts, looking like silent
effigies of the dead.

Mopping his perspiring brow, Adolph now turned his attention to the
machine that had startled him so when he first came in. He examined
minutely its mechanism to see that everything was right. Going to the
cupboard, he took up a false bottom and lifted carefully out a number
of dynamite cartridges that the two sleepers had stolen from a French
mine. These he arranged in a battery, tying them together. He raised
the hammer of the machine, and set the hand so that the blow would fall
in sixty minutes after the machinery was set in motion. The whole
deadly combination he placed on a small table, which he shoved close in
front of the two sleeping men. This done, he sat down on a chair
patiently to await the awakening. The room was situated at the back of
the house, and was almost painfully still, not a sound from the street
penetrating to it. The candle burnt low, guttered and went out, but
Adolph sat there and did not light another. The room was still only
half in darkness, for the moon shone brightly in at the window,
reminding Adolph that it was just a month since he had looked out on a
moonlit street in Paris, while his brother lay murdered in the room
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