Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

Mr Twistleton's Typewriter - Anonymous

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Duration:: 25m
Broadcast on:: 06 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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We invite you to try Saul Good Media Free for one month. Explore our extensive collection and find the perfect audio content that resonates with you. Join our community of passionate listeners and unlock a world of knowledge, relaxation, and inspiration. Visit www.soulwoodmedia.com today and start your free trial. It's S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A.com. Mr. Twisleton's Typewriter Several strange things have happened to me in my life that my friends could never account for. They could never understand how I got an introduction to Twisleton, QC, nor why that learned a gentleman after allowing me to devil his work for him for ten years without putting anything in my way. Suddenly use every effort and influence he was capable of to put an important and valuable junior practice in my hands. Twisleton QC was a hard, selfish man. In person, he was like a badly-dried moth whose long, old-fashioned whiskers resembled the remains of wings. It was of him that it was originally said that he was the living representative of a tenant in tail after possibility of issue extinct, and there is consequently great surprise when Twisleton married Lucy Travers, who, as you will remember, was the bell of her season. But the Travers were not so well-off as they pretended to be, and Twisleton, as we all know, made his fifteen thousand a year, and had, if anything, an ever-increasing practice in the Chancery Division. Twisleton was undoubtedly a great lawyer, and a man of strong common sense, but he had two fads. He was a believer in ghosts, and he wrote everything in his chambers upon a Remington typewriter. Twisleton and his wife were staying one June in Norfolk at Lady Barndoors. Twisleton was due in town to argue the great patent case concerning sewing machines of Buncombe and another versus Badger in the Court of Appeal on Wednesday morning. I expected him back in chambers on the Monday evening, understanding that he intended rejoining his wife at the end of the week. For this case would last at least three days, and Twisleton was in several other cases on the list. About eight o'clock on Monday evening, I had dined early at my club, and was engaged noting up Twisleton's papers. When he came in, with his gladstone bag and rug, looking, as I thought, tired and out of spirits. When Twisleton was in town by himself, he always slept at his own chambers, as in the old days before he was married, and his breakfast, a chop and two eggs, was sent in from the cock. Twisleton, having heard what fought his clerk, had to say on the subject of retainers, dismissed him. Then he slammed down the windows, which I had opened to let in what fresher there was in Old Square. Carefully closed the door, let himself into the hard chair in front of his writing table, and idly leaned over the papers which were before him. At length the outer door was heard to close. Fos had departed, and Twisleton broke silence. Penrose, my dear fellow, I am uncomfortable. Twisleton, I may hear remark, was always on the best of terms with me, and treated me as a friend, for I believe I was useful to him. I had made great way in his affections by solemnly advising him to marry Miss Travers when I saw I was bent on doing so. But since his marriage, I am not sure that this course of conduct of mine had been altogether to my advantage. I looked to him for a further explanation which I saw was coming. Penrose, my dear fellow, who do you think is at Lady Barn doors? I shook my head, being entirely in ignorance. "Charlie Colston," replied Twisleton, trying to carve his whiskers with a paper knife. "Charlie Colston." Poor Charlie Colston. It was well known that he had paid his addresses to pretty Miss's Twisleton in former days, and reports said she had encouraged them. No wonder Twisleton was excited, I knew him to be of an extremely jealous nature. "Now mark me, Penrose," said Twisleton, shaking his forefinger at me as he would at Lord Usher in the appeal court. What took place yesterday when I was playing tennis? The whole time, sir, he and she were talking and chatting together, and laughing, "Yes, laughing." Perhaps at my play, for I played abominably, I know it. I could not bear to see them. Twisleton's tennis was never first-rate. He had begun to play too late in life. He was an annoying partner, as he always insisted on leading, taking all the difficult strokes and failing at them. He was a still more objectionable opponent, as he was always taking technical objections on points of practice. Still, however badly one plays, it is not pleasant to be laughed at, even by one's wife. I tried to soothe Twisleton, but he interrupted me. "Now there is another point I desire to urge." Twisleton always spoke as though he was addressing the court of appeal. When I asked my wife to come back today, she point blank refused. "What do you think of that?" "Nothing, whatever," I answered. She had arranged to stay, and you are going down on Saturday again. I think you are making mountains out of Mole Hills. "I hope I am, Penrose. I hope I am," replied Twisleton mournfully, "but you didn't see them. I did." And Twisleton sighed deeply. Then the subject dropped, and we got to work on a small case. Soon, Twisleton, with a self-complacent smile on his countenance, was playing an opinion on his typewriter. It was to him, I believe, as though each note he struck produced a deep melatonin and not a capital or small Roman. I can remember when Twisleton first had his typewriter. In those days, he used to sit at it for hours practicing, hitting first one note, and then the other, at intervals varying between ten seconds and two or three minutes. Every now and then using the most horrible language, as you put a capital for a small Roman or missed a space. Then, his efforts looked as though they were the productions of six drunken printers who had each taken an absent comrade's work for the day, and they were always copied before they went to clients. Now, the machine went click, click, click, even Lee and Mary Lee. Twisleton was a perfect master of it. I had seen him work it with his eyes shut. I have no doubt that if he could have stood on his head, and, if it had been constant with the dignity of a queen's counsel to do so, he could have played his instrument in that posture. The opinion finished, Twisleton, who was a very methodical man, put a fresh sheet of papering readiness to commence again, folded in sign what he had written, and bade me good night. His last words to me were, "I hope you are right about Charlie Colston." "I am sure of it," I said, "I wish I were." Tomorrow we were to have a long day at Buncombe v. Badger. When I arrived in the morning, Twisleton was at breakfast. I no longer entered, then he sat down his ex-boon, and rushing at me with a piece of paper, thrust it into my hands. "Read that," he cried excitedly. "Read that!" I noticed that Twisleton seemed unwell. There was a wild look in his eyes. His chop was untouched, a reversal of Twisleton's procedure at breakfast, which was more extraordinary to me than his strange appearance. The egg he was eating was, to anyone with a sense of smell, manifestly a bad one, a most pretentious fact to me, who remember hearing Twisleton, who never knew any criminal law, seriously tell the boy from the cock that he believed the bill of a tainer would lie against him for bringing him a bad egg. What did it all mean? I looked at the paper in my hands. On it were two words neatly printed, "Charlie Colston." I stared blankly at Twisleton, "What did it mean?" Twisleton was shaking visibly. "Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked anxiously. "Certainly not," I replied. "Ah!" sighed Twisleton, and added sententiously, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy." This was the only quotation I ever heard in Mutter that did not come from the law reports. I believe he fancied it, it was afraid he had invented in his early youth when he first began to believe in ghosts. If you don't believe in ghosts, who wrote that message on my typewriter? Twisleton's manum is very impressive. I felt like a witness committing perjury. I tell you, I found it this morning when I went to write a letter just before breakfast. Who wrote it? He shouted. Who wrote it? I will know. Perhaps Phos, I suggested. He has not been here and can't use the typewriter. I had heard him say so, but did not believe it. Phos was afraid of overworking himself, and so did not choose to learn it. But any fool could use it if he liked to learn. My opinion was that Phos could use it. He was like the monkeys, who as the negro said, could talk if they would, but knew if they did, they would be made to work. How about the laundress, I suggested? Ah, the laundress, repeated Twisleton thoughtfully, the laundress. So Mrs. Butrick, the laundress, was sent for when Phos came in, but she denied all knowledge of the typewriter or the writing, making a new suggestion which did not, to our thinking, much advanced the solution of the mystery, and that was that the culprit was the cat. "It is a message," said Twisleton mysteriously. "Our message." "Nonsense," I said, "some fellow has strolled in and written the name for fun." "Fun," cried Twisleton, indignantly, "fun!" And then, more quietly, "No, I am sure of it. It is a message." Very little of Buncombe versus Badrick, could I get into Twisleton's head that day? Plans and specifications he seemed not to understand. The seductive literary style of the affidavit had no charm for him. He could only gaze at the paper in his hand, and murmur ever and anon, a message. I saw it was best to humor him, and at my suggestion the typewriter was locked up that night, and he took the key with him into his bedroom. We had had a rattling good dinner together, and when I left Twisleton he was in much better spirits. If the ghost comes tonight, he won't be able to get at the typewriter anyhow, I said, laughing. "Hush, I don't know," replied Twisleton solemnly. "It is no adjusting subject." I went my way, wondering how a man with Twisleton's practice could believe in ghosts, and who the deuce had written Charlie Colston's name on the typewriter. The next morning I walked down the Twisleton's directly after breakfast. I found him in the wildest imaginable condition. He had taken every precaution, locking up the typewriter, placing the key under his pillow, and yet here was the message, as he called it, printed in clear, faultless style. "Charlie Colston, he is with your wife, Charlie Colston." "I must go, I must go, oh, Penrose, what shall I do?" He cried in agony as I entered the room. "Go," I said, "and who is to lead in Buncombe versus Badger?" He was silent and buried all of his face, except his whiskers in his hands. Even his hands, large and uncouth as they were, could not contain his whiskers. "Think of Ritzen and claim, what will they say?" I urged, saying the effect that my words had on him. They rely on you on this case. The name of this eminent firm seemed to call Twisleton to some extent. "My dear Penrose," he said at a trembling voice, "this is a message, I am sure of it. But I will do my duty. I will stay by my clients." "Twisleton, you speak like a queen's counsel and a man of honor," I said, seizing him by the hand, proud to shake it. "If it is a message I added to humor him, it will come again tonight. I will tell you what we will do. You will watch the typewriter all night." Twisleton wrung my hand with gratitude at this suggestion of mine and calmed himself. I made him eat some of his cold chop, and sent for some brandy and water for him instead of the tea, which had already stood in the teapot for more than an hour. Then I endeavored to coach him in Buncombe versus Badger, but with small success. Then we went over to the appeal court, in which I took my seat. For though I was not briefed in the case, I had nothing else to do, and was interested in seeing how Twisleton got on with it. He was very able at picking up a case as he went along, and the court of appeals stood greatly in awe of him. I had never seen him as nervous as he was today, not even on his wedding day, and I was quite frightened for him. George Escher, M.R., supported by Smug, L.J., and Summer Bosch, L.J., formed the court. Twisleton came in late. He had been at a consultation. As he entered, I heard two solicitors clerk say to each other, "Who is that with the whiskers?" Twisleton keeps see. He has the biggest practice at the bar. "It looks like a boiled owl," suggested his companion. "Drinks, I believe," was the reply. This was horrible, for Twisleton was a follower of Probendary Foluten, the great tea-totler. But certainly Twisleton had a dissipated look this morning. His eyes were red, and the lines under his eyes were very dark and hollow. His cheeks were pale and yellow. Something of this kind, I fancy, the master of the rolls remarked to Lord Justice Smug, who nodded a cent. Twisleton rose to open the case, which was a very intricate one, and Lord Escher, according to his constant practice, interrupted him with the regularity of a piece of clockwork every two and a half minutes, and then wondered why he did not understand the case and shook himself impatiently. Much to Lord Escher's astonishment, Twisleton did not deliver any of those stinging retorts by which he was wont to keep the Court of Appeal in order, and frightened their lordships into deciding in his favor. On noticing this, the Lord Escher began to chaff and rally Twisleton in a manner that was the admiration of the junior bar, the two Lord's justices, and not least of all, of the master of the rolls himself. At length Twisleton, in expatiating on the merits of Buncombe's sewing machine, alluded to it as a typewriter. Whereupon Lord Escher said, with a humorous lyric, that if it had been a question of typewriters, no doubt Mr. Twisleton would have been called as a specialist to give evidence, and would not have been arguing the case before them, at which those in the Court who knew Twisleton's fad tittered, and his lordship's namesake's, who stand about the Court, put their hands before their faces and shook visibly for a moment or two, and then called out, "Hush!" and looked angry. But Twisleton lost his temper over this, and asked his lordship if his lordship meant to him that the Court did not want to hear him, and intimated his intention if such was a case of sitting down. And then the whole Court was really quite silent for a minute or two, in anticipation of a row, and everyone ceased to fidget, and paid close attention to Lord Escher, to hear him with his blandest and most urbino smiles, explaining how it was the great privilege of that Court to listen to Mr. Twisleton, and what a high value they set upon that privilege, and how it was quite inconceivable to him, Lord Escher, that he, Mr. Twisleton, could imagine for a moment that this Court or any other Court should wish him to sit down. Whereupon Twisleton murmured that his lordship was very good, meaning thereby that he should like to be with his lordship in a small room where he could give him a bit of his mind. Then the case proceeded quite regularly, until Twisleton handed Lord Escher a lot of papers to explain his case, and Lord Escher, coming to one, said, with a knowing aside glance at smug L.J. that, from the handwriting, it must be a note of Mr. Twisleton's in another case, as he did not know that any one of the name of Charles Colston was a party to this case. And what would have happened then, I don't know, only the Court rose for lunch. I heard two or three people say that day that Twisleton, poor fellow, was doing more work than he ought to, that Twisleton was a clever fellow, but he could not afford to burn the kennel at both ends. Indeed, Twisleton's strange conduct in Buncombe v. Badger was a general topic of conversation in the robing room. When Twisleton came out of Court, I had the greatest difficulty to prevent him from rushing down to Norfolk by the night train. He was sure it was true; he believed in the message. I calmed him down, and we had dinner together at my club. He had to continue his speech in the morning. I tried to coach him in Buncombe v. Badger, but it was of no avail, and do not think he even knew for which side he was appearing. We agreed that we would sit up in watches and so keep our eye on the typewriter all night. There was a sofa in the recess of the window, and Twisleton sent me to bed and placed himself on this. I bet him good night, and took his bed for the first half of the night. About two o'clock in the morning, I awoke and went to Twisleton. He was wide awake, reading some papers on the sofa. "Have you seen anything?" I asked. "Nothing, whatever," he replied, "nor heard anything. Not a sound." We took the lamp to the typewriter and opened it. There was the sheet of papers he always left it untouched. Twisleton locked it up again and took the key. "Put it under your pillow." "I will," he replied, "it's very good of you to sit up like this." "It's nothing at all, I assure you," I answered. Keep strict watched, won't you? "I promise you," I said. Twisleton shook me by the hand with emotion, and went out. He looked very ill and wretched, I thought, and was sorry for him. Was it a ghost's message, or what, that was making his life a burden to him? Should I solve the mystery tonight? I waited about an hour and a half. The dawn came peeping through the painted shutters and made the lamp look dim. I was almost dosing. In fact, I had shut my eyes and lost consciousness for perhaps a minute, perhaps more. A sharp-clicking sound awoke me. It was a typewriter. There, seated on the chair in front of it, playing nimbly on the crew instrument, was a white, misty figure. It had finished. It closed the cover down and turned the key. It wheeled round to the door, and I saw the face and whiskers I knew so well. It was Twisleton himself. My first impulse was to wake him, but I had heard that it was dangerous to wake persons walking in their sleep. He wanted all the sleep he could get, so I decided to let him alone, walk down to my own chambers, and get some rest myself. When I got out into Old Square, I could not help roaring with laughter. It was too funny. The idea of Old Twisleton writing messages to himself on the typewriter, and being frightened out of his wits by them. What a story to tell against him. No one would believe it. It was too good to be true. I awoke a little late the next morning, but went straight down to Old Square before breakfast. Alas, I was too late. There was Phos in misery over a hasty scrawl of Twisleton's. He had gone to barn-door by the early train. Phos was to make any excuse he thought fit to ritzen and claim. There was a typewriter shattered into a thousand pieces. Its intricate machinery, a shapeless chaos. I shattered to think what would happen if there was anything between Charlie Colston and Mrs. Twisleton. In town, everyone was asking what had become of Twisleton. The rumor went round the lock-horse that he was insane. I maintained a discreet silence. Mr. Claim was almost crying. A slow coach, remembering something about bad news and his learned leader, rose to continue Twisleton's opening. Lord Escher, unrestrained by the presence of Twisleton, made the court of appeal a place of fiery torment to that eminent elderly junior, Mr. Slow Coach. "Bustle, QC for Badger, was not even called upon to reply. Buncombe and another were dismissed with costs." The early train stopped, as I knew, at every station, forty in number. I could imagine poor Twisleton's state of mind as he pouted along in a slow train to barn-door. He arrived at the house I bought breakfast time. I had the story from Grimbleton, who was there. He came into the breakfast-room, and his appearance elicited a shout of surprise. "What has become a Buncombe versus Badger?" cried Lord Barndoor, said all day. "Not that I know of," muttered Twisleton, sulcally, and then looking round fiercely asked, "Where's my wife?" "Not down yet," replied Lord Barndoor. Twisleton looked hastily round, as though in search of someone else, and then tore upstairs to his wife's room. The whole company looked at each other in silence. There was some explanation about bad news, but the Twisleton's never went into mourning, and Mrs. Twisleton seemed very merry all that day. It was true that Twisleton was moody and shut himself up a good deal. Grimbleton told me that he never understood the whole business in the least. In fact, in Twisleton's circle, it was a nine-days wonder. By the by, I almost forgot to mention that Charlie Colston left Barndoor to be married in Scotland the day after Twisleton came to town. When Twisleton returned to Old Square, he was a sadder and wiser man. He gave up believing in ghosts, and did not buy another typewriter. I told Twisleton that I would not let the matter go any farther, and I mentioned at the time that he might get me the junior brief in Buncombe versus Badger, which went to the House of Lords, where, through Twisleton's clear arguments, Lord's justices smug and summer Bosch were overruled. That year, mostly through Twisleton's influence, my feedback credited me with two thousand pounds. I have kept my secret well, but since Twisleton succeeded Lord Usher as master of the roles, Lady Twisleton has not called on Mrs. Penrose, and, although my wife assures me that she's rather glad of it, she is always telling me now that she does not think so good a story should be lost to the world as that of Tousalton's typewriter.