CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE NEW TENANT TAKES POSSESSION OF NO. 119 GREAT PORTER SQUARE
AN hour before midnight of the day on which No. 119 Great Porter Square was let to a new tenant, a man dressed in plain clothes walked leisurely round the Square in a quiet and secretly-watchful manner. Rain was falling, and there were but few persons about, but, although the man spoke to none, he appeared to take an interest in all, scrutinising them closely with keen, observant eyes. Between him and the policemen he met in his circuitous wanderings a kind of freemasonry evidently existed. Once or twice he asked, under his breath, without stopping:
“All right?”
And received in answer the same words, spoken rapidly and in a low tone:
“All right!”
No other words were exchanged.
As the church bells chimed eleven, Richard Manx entered Mrs. Preedy’s house, No. 118, letting himself in with his latch-key. He passed the man who was walking round the Square, but took no notice of him. As he stood at the street door, searching in his pocket for his latch-key, the man passed the house, and did not even raise his eyes to Richard Manx’s face. The presumption was that they were utterly indifferent to each other; but presumptive evidence is as often wrong as right, and between the actions of these two men, strangers to each other, existed a strong link which boded ill to one of them. At a quarter past eleven Mrs. Preedy, somewhat later than her wont, bustled out of her house for her nightly gossip with Mrs. Beale. By this time the rain was coming down faster, and when Mrs. Preedy disappeared, Great Porter Square may be said to have been deserted, with the exception of the one man who had been walking there for an hour, and the policeman sauntering at the corner. The man now paused before Mrs. Preedy’s house, and knocked softly at the door. Becky’s sharp ears caught the sound, soft as it was, and she ascended from the basement, and inquired who was there. The answer was:
“A friend.”
Becky opened the door, and peered out, but it was too dark for her to recognise the man’s face.
“It’s all right, Miss,” said the man, “I’ve been here before. I brought a packet and a letter to you from Mr. Frederick. He sent me here now.”
“How am I to know that?” asked Becky.
The man smiled in approval, and handed Becky an envelope addressed to herself. She retreated into the passage, and while the man remained upon the doorstep, she opened the envelope and stooped down. There was a candle on the floor which she had brought up from the kitchen, and by its light she read the few words written on the note paper.
“The man who gives you this is the detective I mentioned in my letter this morning. Trust him and attend to his instructions. – Frederick.”
Becky returned to the detective and said:
“I know you now. What do you want me to do?”
“Is there any chance of Richard Manx hearing us?” asked the detective.
Becky, placing her fingers to her lips went to the basement stairs and called:
“Fanny!”
The child appeared immediately, and Becky whispered in her ear for a few moments. Fanny nodded, and crept softly upstairs in the direction of the garret occupied by Richard Manx.
“We are safe,” said Becky to the detective. “Richard Manx cannot hear what we say. Fanny is keeping watch on him.”
“Fanny’s a clever little thing,” said the detective admiringly; “I’d like a daughter with her wits. Now, Miss, keep in your mind what I am going to tell you – not that there’s any need for me to say that. You are working for Mr. Frederick, as I am, and others with me. A watch is going to be set outside this house – and if it’s done as well as the watch you’ve kept inside the house, we shan’t have any reason to grumble. In what room does the old bedridden lady, Mrs. Bailey sleep?”
“In the first floor back,” replied Becky.
“Is the first floor front open? Can you get into the room?”
“Yes, I have the key.”
“That’s the room, isn’t it?” said the detective, stepping back and looking up. “There’s a balcony before the window.”
“Yes.”
“Does the window open easily?”
“I don’t know; I have never tried.”
“Would you oblige me by stepping upstairs and trying now? And it will save trouble if you leave the window open. Be as quiet as you can, so as not to alarm Richard Manx. I’ll keep outside the street door while you’re gone.”
Becky went softly into the kitchen for the key of the first floor front, and then went upstairs and opened the door. She might have been a shadow, she glided about so noiselessly. The window was not easy to open, but she succeeded in raising the sash almost without a sound.
“It is done,” she said, as she stood before the detective once more.
“I’d like to have another daughter,” said he, in a tone of approval, “with wits as sharp as yours. I believe Mr. Frederick was right when he told me there was not your equal. Now, something’s going to be done that will take about a quarter-of-an-hour to do, and we want to be sure during that quarter-of-an-hour that Richard Manx is not up to any of his little games. You understand me – we want to be sure that he is in his garret, smoking his pipe, or saying his prayers, or reading a good book. You and Fanny between you can do that part of the business for us – I leave you to manage how. I wouldn’t presume to dictate to you. If ever you’ve a mind to give lessons in my way of business, you may count on me as a pupil.”
“We can do what you ask,” said Becky; “but how are we to let you know?”
“There’s the window of the first floor front open. If Richard Manx is safe in his room, let fly a bit of newspaper out of the window – I shall see it, and know what it means. If there’s danger – if at any time within a quarter-of-an-hour of the newspaper flying out of the window, Richard Manx is up to any of his games, such as going out of his room through the ceiling instead of through the door, or prowling about the roof when he ought to be in bed – throw one of these little balls of red worsted out of the window. That will be a danger signal, and we shall know what to do.”
“May I ask you one question?”
“A dozen if you like – but I won’t promise to answer them.”
“I think you may answer this one. Is the gentleman who employs you taking an active part in what is going to be done?”
“He is, Miss.”
“Then he is near here!” exclaimed Becky. She could not restrain herself from looking this way and that through the darkness, but she saw nothing but shadows. Not a human being except the man beside her was visible to her sight. “O, if I could see him only for a moment!” she murmured softly, but not so softly that the detective did not hear the words.
“Best not, Miss,” he said; “I’ve known the finest schemes upset just in the same way. There’s only one thing to be thought of – when that’s done, the time is all before you.”
“You are right, I feel,” said Becky, with a sigh. “I’ll go in now, and do what you want.”
The detective stepped on to the pavement, and when the street door was closed, stationed himself by the railings of the parody of a garden which occupied the centre of the Square. He kept his eyes fixed on the first floor window until he saw fluttering from it a piece of newspaper. His professional instinct caused him to pick this piece of paper from the ground, so that it should not fall into the hands of an enemy; then he took from his pocket a pocket-handkerchief and waved it in the air. During his conversation with Becky, and up to this moment, his movements had not been disturbed, and no man or woman had appeared in the Square; but now, in answer to his signal, a man made his way towards him.
“All’s well,” said the detective; “get in as quickly as you can.”
The man did not reply; accompanied by the detective, he walked up to the house in which the murder had been committed, and inserted the key in the street door. The lock was rusty, and he could not turn the key.
“I thought of that,” said the detective; “take the key out, sir.”
Producing a small bottle of oil and a feather, he oiled the wards of the lock, without allowing his attention to be distracted from his observation of the first floor windows of Mrs. Preedy’s house; he then rubbed a little oil into the wards of the key, and putting it in, turned the lock. The door of No. 119 was open to receive the new tenant.
“A word, sir,” said the detective; “there’s no danger at present. Nothing can come within fifty yards of us without my being warned of it. Are you quite determined to pass these two nights in the house alone?”
“I am quite determined – this night and to-morrow night, and as many more as may be necessary.”
“I’ve got a man handy – a man you can trust, sir.”
“I require no one.”
“Very good, sir. Don’t forget the whistle if you require help. There’ll be no danger in the day; it’s the night you’ll have to be careful of. At one o’clock in the morning you’ll find the basket lowered into the area.”
“That is well; but you had best remain on the spot for a few moments till I see if I can get into the area.”
He went into the deserted house, and shut himself in. Before he took a step inwards he sat on the floor, and pulled off his boots, and with these in his hands rose, and groped towards the basement stairs. Downstairs he crept in his stocking feet, and, after listening for a moment or two, obtained a light from a noiseless match, and lighted the lamp in a policeman’s lantern. By its aid he found his way through a small door, which he opened with difficulty, into the area. He looked up, and was instantly accosted by the detective.
“There is no difficulty in the way,” he said. “Good night.”
“Good night, sir.”
Thus it was that Frederick Holdfast, the new tenant, took possession of the house in which his father had been foully murdered.
Silently he re-entered the kitchen, closing behind him the door which led into the area. The place was damp and cold, but his agitation was so intense that he was oblivious of personal discomfort. Even when the rats ran over his stocking feet he was not startled. He had brought a bundle in with him, which he placed upon the table and unpacked. It contained food and wine, but not sufficient for the time he intended to remain in the house. This was to be supplied to him in the basket which the detective promised to lower into the area in a couple of hours. In his breast pocket was a revolver, which he examined carefully. So cautious was he in his proceedings that, before he unpacked his food and examined his revolver, he blocked the stairs which led from the kitchen to the ground floor by chairs, the removing or scattering of which would have warned him that he was not the only person in the house.
Presently he nerved himself to undertake a task which sent thrills of horror through his veins, which brought tears of anguish to his eyes, and sighs of pity and grief to his lips. He opened the door of the servant’s bedroom, a cupboard as small as that which Becky occupied in the next house; he tracked with his eyes the direction which a mortally-wounded man would take from the kitchen door to the door of this miserable bedroom. He followed the track, examining it with agonised care, and knelt down before the stains of blood which marked the spot upon which his murdered father had fallen in his death agony. Time had not worn away the stains, and Frederick’s suffering and sympathy made them clearer to his sight than they could possibly have been to the sight of any other living being. For a long time he remained kneeling by this fatal, palpable, indelible shadow – remained as if in prayer, and overpowering self-communing. And, indeed, during the time he so knelt, with this shadow of his father’s body in his eyes, and weighing as an actual weight upon his heart, causing him to breathe thickly and in short hurried gasps, dim pictures of his childhood passed before him, in every one of which his father appeared in an affectionate and loving guise. And all the while these sweeter presentments were visible to his inner sight, his father dead, with the blood oozing from his fatal wounds, lay before him with horrible distinctness. When he rose, and moved a few paces off, not only the shadow but the very outlines of a physical form seemed to be lying at his feet. The dying face was raised to his, the dim eyes looked into his, the limbs trembled, the overcharged breast heaved; and when, after closing his eyes and opening them again, he compelled himself, because of the actual duty before him, to believe that it was but the trick of a sympathetic imagination, he could not rid himself of the fancy that his father’s spirit was hovering over him, and would never leave him until his task was accomplished.
He tracked the fatal stains out of the kitchen, and up the stairs to the passage to the street door, and noted the stains upon the balustrade, to which his father had clung as he staggered to his death. As he stood in the passage he fancied he heard a stifled movement in one of the rooms above. Hastily he shut out the light of his lamp, and stood in deep darkness, listening for a repetition of the sound. It did not reach him, but as he leant forward, with his head inclined, and his hand upon his revolver, the church clock proclaimed the hour of midnight. Clear, strong and deep, and fraught with unspeakable solemnity, the bell tolled the hour which marks the tragedy and the sorrow of life. Shadows and pictures of sad experiences, and of pathetic and tragic events, which were not in any way connected with him, crowded upon his mind. It appeared as if the records of years were brought before him in every fresh tolling of the bell, and when the echo of the last peal died away, a weight which had grown well nigh intolerable was lifted from his soul. Then, his thoughts recurring to the sound which he had fancied he heard in the room above, he mentally asked himself whether the murderer had paused to listen to the tolling of the midnight hour, and whether any premonition of the fate in store for him had dawned upon his guilty mind?
For awhile nothing further disturbed him. Lying upon the stairs for fully five minutes, he convinced himself that as yet no other human being but himself was in the house. Turning the light of his lantern on again, he continued his examination of his father’s last movements up the stairs to the first floor. No need for him to doubt which was the room his father had occupied. The stains of blood led him to the very door, and here again he shut out the light of his lamp, and listened and looked before he ventured to place his hand upon the handle. Silence reigned; no glimmer of light was observable through the chinks and crevices of the door. Still in darkness, he turned the handle and entered the room. He had disturbed no one; he was alone.
Cautiously he let in the light, but not to its full capacity. An amazing sight greeted him.
None of the furniture in the house had been removed, and everything his father had used during his fatal tenancy was in the room. The piano, the table at which he sat and wrote, the chairs, the bed, were there – but not in the condition in which they had been left. A demon of destruction appeared to have been at work. The bed was ripped open, the paper had been stripped from the walls, the coverings of the chairs were torn off, and the chairs themselves broken to pieces, the table was turned on end, the interior of the piano had been ransacked, the very keys were wrenched away – in the desperate attempt to discover some hidden thing, some hidden document upon which life and death might hang. More than this. The carpet had been taken up, and a few of the boards of the floor had been wrenched away, and the dust beneath searched amongst. But this was recent work; the greater part of the room was still boarded over.
Frederick Holdfast had no intention himself of immediately commencing a search; he knew that it would be dangerous. For a certainty Richard Manx intended to continue it without delay, and was only waiting for a favourable opportunity to leave his attic. This thought induced Frederick to consider in what way he could best watch the villain’s movements, without being himself detected. To do this in the room itself was impossible. There was no chance by the window; it could be done only from the ceiling or from the adjoining room. To effect an opening in the ceiling in so short a time as he had at his disposal was impracticable, and even could it be done, there were dangerous chances of detection. After a little reflection, he decided that it could be best done from the adjoining room, and the moment this was decided upon he saw that Richard Manx had to some extent assisted him. The laths which separated the rooms were fragile, the plaster was thinly spread; many of the laths in the dividing wall had been laid bare by the stripping of the paper. He stood up on the bed, and without an appreciable effort, thrust his finger between the laths, and through the wall paper of the adjoining apartment, choosing that part of the wall which would afford him a favourable point of espionage. Alighting from the bed, he carefully obliterated the marks of footsteps on the clothes, and then left the room for the one adjoining. The door was unlocked, and the key was in the inside. More from the locality than from the aperture, so securely small had he made it, he saw at once that it was practicable, and he ascertained by moving the table close to the wall, that a safe footing was afforded for his watch. This contented him, and for a time he rested.
There were still no signs of Richard Manx. One o’clock had struck, and remembering that at that hour the basket of food was to be lowered into the area, he hastened downstairs, and arrived just in time to receive it.
“Everything is quiet here,” said the detective, in a hoarse whisper. “Is our friend at work?” meaning by “our friend,” Richard Manx.
“No,” replied Frederick.
“Ah, he will be presently,” said the detective; “he doesn’t commence till he thinks everybody’s asleep, and Mrs. Preedy has only been home for about ten minutes. She’s as fond of a gossip as a cat is of mice. She’s had an extra glass, I think. Are you quite comfortable, sir?”
“Quite,” said Frederick, and put an end to the conversation by wishing the detective good night.
“He’s a plucky one,” mused the detective, as he resumed his watch; “but he’s working for a prize worth winning.”
The food in the basket was sufficient for one man’s wants for nearly a week, and Frederick, partaking of a little, went softly upstairs to the drawing room. He took the precaution of locking the door, and, mounting the table, waited for events.
He had not long to wait. At half-past one Richard Manx entered the room in which Mr. Holdfast had been murdered.
Frederick did not instantly recognise him, his disguise was so perfect, but when he removed his wig, the watcher saw his enemy, Pelham, before him.
The wronged and persecuted man had schooled himself well. Though his heart beat furiously and his blood grew hot, he suffered no sound to escape him. He had fully made up his mind, in the event of Richard Manx discovering a document, to steal upon him unaware, and wrest it from him. He did not doubt his power to do as much; in physical strength he was the match of three such men as Pelham. His chief anxiety, in the event of anything being discovered, was that it should not be destroyed.
Richard Manx used no precaution in the method of entering the room, except that he placed his candle upon the floor in such a way that its reflection could not reach the window, which opened at the back of the house. This lack of precaution was in itself a sufficient proof that his search had been long continued, and was a proof also that he considered himself safe in the deserted house.
He was evidently in a discontented mood; he looked around the room sullenly and savagely, but in this expression Frederick detected a certain helplessness and fear which denoted that he was ill at ease. That he was growing tired of his task was clear, for he resumed it with an impatience and a want of system which might have prevented its successful accomplishment, even if he were on the threshold of discovery. Frederick, from his point of observation, had an uninterrupted view of his proceedings. He had brought with him a quantity of tools, and by the aid of these he set to work removing the flooring boards, with but little noise, one after another, searching eagerly in the rubbish beneath. With no success, however. Every now and then, as though tired of this part of his search, he rose, and examined the furniture in the room, suspicious that some hiding place might have escaped him. He muttered as he worked, but for a time his mutterings did not reach Frederick’s ears. After more than an hour’s labour, he took from a cupboard a bottle of spirits and a glass, and helped himself liberally. Then, dirty and begrimed as he was, and with beads of perspiration on his face, he sat down and consulted a pocket book, in which he added up a number of figures. “Five hundred,” he said in a low tone, “seven-fifty, eight hundred, a thousand, twelve hundred, fourteen hundred and twenty.” He came to the end of his reckoning, and glared at the figures as at a mortal enemy. Then from the same pocket-book he took out a packet of bank notes, and counted them over till he reached the total, fourteen hundred and twenty. Frederick held the true key to these proceedings. The sum of fourteen hundred and twenty pounds represented the whole of Mr. Pelham’s wealth, the payment and reward of a life of villainy, and perhaps of blood.
“It must be somewhere,” muttered the man, replacing the book in his pocket; “he wrote every day he was here. It was proved at the inquest. What has he done with his infernal scribble? If it is found by a stranger, and we are in the country, it will be death to us. Devil! devil! devil!” and he struck at the table in his passion, and then, alarmed at the sound, glared round with a terror-stricken face, with the air of a criminal overtaken by justice.
His fears allayed, he worked on again at the boards of the floor, making but slow progress. Three o’clock struck, and still he continued his work, and still was watched by the son of the murdered man. Half-past three – four – half-past four; and Richard Manx rose from his knees, and gave up his task for the night. Many times during his search had he drank from the bottle of spirits, but what he drank appeared to affect him only through his tongue, which became more loquacious and less guarded. Once more he counted his bank-notes, grudgingly, greedily, and muttered:
“She shall give me five hundred to-day – this very morning; that will make nineteen hundred and twenty – say eighteen hundred clear, to break the bank at Monaco. If she likes to come with me, she can. I am sick of this game; there’s too much to lose. To-morrow night shall be my last night here. I have searched every inch of this cursed room, and I throw it up. It is a slave’s work, not a gentleman’s.” He certainly looked as little like a gentleman as any human being could, and his words proclaimed the utter villainy of his nature. “There’s too much danger in it,” he continued. “If the police were to take it in their heads to make another examination of this house, or if that weak idiot, Frederick Holdfast, were to turn up, I should find myself in the hole. And she should, too; I’d make her suffer with me. A nice reward for all my scheming in America! Well, it kept them apart – I can count that to my credit. But for me, the old dotard and Frederick must have met. I owed him one for the part he played in the Sydney Campbell affair in Oxford – I owed him one, and I have paid it. And if I had him here, I’d serve him as I served – ” He did not conclude his sentence; a sudden terror seized him, and he shook like a man in an ague. “I could have sworn I heard a voice,” he muttered. “Hush!” For a few moments he did not move; his feet were transfixed to the ground. By a strong effort he recovered himself, and a ghastly smile disfigured his face. “To-morrow night shall be the last,” he said! “I swear it! I’ll commence to enjoy my life again. This is not the only country in the world.” And, shading the light of his candle with his hand, he left the room.
Frederick Holdfast did not move from his post till he had given Richard Manx ample time to reach his garret in the next house. Then he descended with difficulty, for his limbs were cramped. As he stepped from the table to the ground his foot slipped, and the table overbalanced, fell with a crash on its side. He congratulated himself upon his forethought in waiting till Richard Manx was out of hearing, but not knowing what might be the consequences of the noise – for it might have disturbed the inmates of either, or of both, the adjoining houses – he unlocked the door, and made his way as quickly as he could, consistent with necessary caution, to the basement, where in the course of another hour he sought a little rest, with his revolver firmly clenched in his hand.