I turned towards the booking-office on the main departure platform. As I went, the chief platform inspector, George Bellingham, with whom I had some acquaintance, came out of his office. I stopped him.
‘Mr Bellingham, will you be so good as to step with me to the booking-office, and instruct the clerk in charge to answer one or two questions which I wish to put to him. I will explain to you afterwards what is their exact import, but you know me sufficiently to be able to believe me when I say that they refer to a matter in which every moment is of the first importance.’
He turned and accompanied us into the interior of the booking-case.
‘To which of the clerks, Mr Champnell, do you wish to put your questions?’
‘To the one who issues third-class tickets to Southampton.’
Bellingham beckoned to a man who was counting a heap of money, and apparently seeking to make it tally with the entries in a huge ledger which lay open before him,—he was a short, slightly-built young fellow, with a pleasant face and smiling eyes.
‘Mr Stone, this gentleman wishes to ask you one or two questions.’
‘I am at his service.’
I put my questions.
‘I want to know, Mr Stone, if, in the course of the day, you have issued any tickets to a person dressed in Arab costume?’
His reply was prompt.
‘I have—by the last train, the 7.25,—three singles.’
Three singles! Then my instinct had told me rightly.
‘Can you describe the person?’
Mr Stone’s eyes twinkled.
‘I don’t know that I can, except in a general way,—he was uncommonly old and uncommonly ugly, and he had a pair of the most extraordinary eyes I ever saw,—they gave me a sort of all-overish feeling when I saw them glaring at me through the pigeon hole. But I can tell you one thing about him, he had a great bundle on his head, which he steadied with one hand, and as it bulged out in all directions it’s presence didn’t make him popular with other people who wanted tickets too.’
Undoubtedly this was our man.
‘You are sure he asked for three tickets?’
‘Certain. He said three tickets to Southampton; laid down the exact fare,—nineteen and six—and held up three fingers—like that. Three nasty looking fingers they were, with nails as long as talons.’
‘You didn’t see who were his companions?’
‘I didn’t,—I didn’t try to look. I gave him his tickets and off he went,—with the people grumbling at him because that bundle of his kept getting in their way.’
Bellingham touched me on the arm.
‘I can tell you about the Arab of whom Mr Stone speaks. My attention was called to him by his insisting on taking his bundle with him into the carriage,—it was an enormous thing, he could hardly squeeze it through the door; it occupied the entire seat. But as there weren’t as many passengers as usual, and he wouldn’t or couldn’t be made to understand that his precious bundle would be safe in the luggage van along with the rest of the luggage, and as he wasn’t the sort of person you could argue with to any advantage, I had him put into an empty compartment, bundle and all.’
‘Was he alone then?’
‘I thought so at the time, he said nothing about having more than one ticket, or any companions, but just before the train started two other men—English men—got into his compartment; and as I came down the platform, the ticket inspector at the barrier informed me that these two men were with him, because he held tickets for the three, which, as he was a foreigner, and they seemed English, struck the inspector as odd.’
‘Could you describe the two men?’
‘I couldn’t, not particularly, but the man who had charge of the barrier might. I was at the other end of the train when they got in. All I noticed was that one seemed to be a commonplace looking individual and that the other was dressed like a tramp, all rags and tatters, a disreputable looking object he appeared to be.’
‘That,’ I said to myself, ‘was Miss Marjorie Lindon, the lovely daughter of a famous house; the wife-elect of a coming statesman.’
To Bellingham I remarked aloud:
‘I want you to strain a point, Mr Bellingham, and to do me a service which I assure you you shall never have any cause to regret. I want you to wire instructions down the line to detain this Arab and his companions and to keep them in custody until the receipt of further instructions. They are not wanted by the police as yet, but they will be as soon as I am able to give certain information to the authorities at Scotland Yard,—and wanted very badly. But, as you will perceive for yourself, until I am able to give that information every moment is important.—Where’s the Station Superintendent?’
‘He’s gone. At present I’m in charge.’
‘Then will you do this for me? I repeat that you shall never have any reason to regret it.’
‘I will if you’ll accept all responsibility.’
‘I’ll do that with the greatest pleasure.’
Bellingham looked at his watch.
‘It’s about twenty minutes to nine. The train’s scheduled for Basingstoke at 9.6. If we wire to Basingstoke at once they ought to be ready for them when they come.’
‘Good!’
The wire was sent.
We were shown into Bellingham’s office to await results Lessingham paced agitatedly to and fro; he seemed to have reached the limits of his self-control, and to be in a condition in which movement of some sort was an absolute necessity. The mercurial Sydney, on the contrary, leaned back in a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, and stared at Lessingham, as if he found relief to his feelings in watching his companion’s restlessness. I, for my part, drew up as full a précis of the case as I deemed advisable, and as time permitted, which I despatched by one of the company’s police to Scotland Yard.
Then I turned to my associates.
‘Now, gentlemen, it’s past dinner time. We may have a journey in front of us. If you take my advice you’ll have something to eat.’
Lessingham shook his head.
‘I want nothing.’
‘Nor I,’ echoed Sydney.
I started up.
‘You must pardon my saying nonsense, but surely you of all men, Mr Lessingham, should be aware that you will not improve the situation by rendering yourself incapable of seeing it through. Come and dine.’
I haled them off with me, willy nilly, to the refreshment room. I dined,—after a fashion; Mr Lessingham swallowed with difficulty, a plate of soup; Sydney nibbled at a plate of the most unpromising looking ‘chicken and ham,’—he proved, indeed, more intractable than Lessingham, and was not to be persuaded to tackle anything easier of digestion.
I was just about to take cheese after chop when Bellingham came hastening in, in his hand an open telegram.
‘The birds have flown,’ he cried.
‘Flown!—How?’
In reply he gave me the telegram. I glanced at it. It ran:
‘Persons described not in the train. Guard says they got out at Vauxhall. Have wired Vauxhall to advise you.’
‘That’s a level-headed chap,’ said Bellingham. ‘The man who sent that telegram. His wiring to Vauxhall should save us a lot of time,—we ought to hear from there directly. Hollo! what’s this? I shouldn’t be surprised if this is it.’
As he spoke a porter entered,—he handed an envelope to Bellingham. We all three kept our eyes fixed on the inspector’s face as he opened it. When he perceived the contents he gave an exclamation of surprise.
‘This Arab of yours, and his two friends, seem rather a curious lot, Mr Champnell.’
He passed the paper on to me. It took the form of a report. Lessingham and Sydney, regardless of forms and ceremonies, leaned over my shoulder as I read it.
‘Passengers by 7.30 Southampton, on arrival of train, complained of noises coming from a compartment in coach 8964. Stated that there had been shrieks and yells ever since the train left Waterloo, as if someone was being murdered. An Arab and two Englishmen got out of the compartment in question, apparently the party referred to in wire just to hand from Basingstoke. All three declared that there was nothing the matter. That they had been shouting for fun. Arab gave up three third singles for Southampton, saying, in reply to questions, that they had changed their minds, and did not want to go any farther. As there were no signs of a struggle or of violence, nor, apparently, any definite cause for detention, they were allowed to pass. They took a four-wheeler, No. 09435. The Arab and one man went inside, and the other man on the box. They asked to be driven to Commercial Road, Limehouse. The cab has since returned. Driver says he put the three men down, at their request, in Commercial Road, at the corner of Sutcliffe Street, near the East India Docks. They walked up Sutcliffe Street, the Englishmen in front, and the Arab behind, took the first turning to the right, and after that he saw nothing of them. The driver further states that all the way the Englishman inside, who was so ragged and dirty that he was reluctant to carry him, kept up a sort of wailing noise which so attracted his attention that he twice got off his box to see what was the matter, and each time he said it was nothing. The cabman is of opinion that both the Englishmen were of weak intellect. We were of the same impression here. They said nothing, except at the seeming instigation of the Arab, but when spoken to stared and gaped like lunatics.
‘It may be mentioned that the Arab had with him an enormous bundle, which he persisted, in spite of all remonstrances, on taking with him inside the cab.’
As soon as I had mastered the contents of the report, and perceived what I believed to be—unknown to the writer himself—its hideous inner meaning, I turned to Bellingham.
‘With your permission, Mr Bellingham, I will keep this communication,—it will be safe in my hands, you will be able to get a copy, and it may be necessary that I should have the original to show to the police. If any inquiries are made for me from Scotland Yard, tell them that I have gone to the Commercial Road, and that I will report my movements from Limehouse Police Station.’
In another minute we were once more traversing the streets of London,—three in a hansom cab.
It is something of a drive from Waterloo to Limehouse,—it seems longer when all your nerves are tingling with anxiety to reach your journey’s end; and the cab I had hit upon proved to be not the fastest I might have chosen. For some time after our start, we were silent. Each was occupied with his own thoughts.
Then Lessingham, who was sitting at my side, said to me,
‘Mr Champnell, you have that report.’
‘I have.’
‘Will you let me see it once more?’
I gave it to him. He read it once, twice,—and I fancy yet again. I purposely avoided looking at him as he did so. Yet all the while I was conscious of his pallid cheeks, the twitched muscles of his mouth, the feverish glitter of his eyes,—this Leader of Men, whose predominate characteristic in the House of Commons was immobility, was rapidly approximating to the condition of a hysterical woman. The mental strain which he had been recently undergoing was proving too much for his physical strength. This disappearance of the woman he loved bade fair to be the final straw. I felt convinced that unless something was done quickly to relieve the strain upon his mind he was nearer to a state of complete mental and moral collapse than he himself imagined. Had he been under my orders I should have commanded him to at once return home, and not to think; but conscious that, as things were, such a direction would be simply futile, I decided to do something else instead. Feeling that suspense was for him the worst possible form of suffering I resolved to explain, so far as I was able, precisely what it was I feared, and how I proposed to prevent it.
Presently there came the question for which I had been waiting, in a harsh, broken voice which no one who had heard him speak on a public platform, or in the House of Commons, would have recognised as his.
‘Mr Champnell,—who do you think this person is of whom the report from Vauxhall Station speaks as being all in rags and tatters?’
He knew perfectly well,—but I understood the mental attitude which induced him to prefer that the information should seem to come from me.
‘I hope that it will prove to be Miss Lindon.’
‘Hope!’ He gave a sort of gasp.
‘Yes, hope,—because if it is I think it possible, nay probable, that within a few hours you will have her again enfolded in your arms.’
‘Pray God that it may be so! pray God!—pray the good God!’
I did not dare to look round for, from the tremor which was in his tone, I was persuaded that in the speaker’s eyes were tears. Atherton continued silent. He was leaning half out of the cab, staring straight ahead, as if he saw in front a young girl’s face, from which he could not remove his glance, and which beckoned him on.
After a while Lessingham spoke again, as if half to himself and half to me.
‘This mention of the shrieks on the railway, and of the wailing noise in the cab,—what must this wretch have done to her? How my darling must have suffered!’
That was a theme on which I myself scarcely ventured to allow my thoughts to rest. The notion of a gently-nurtured girl being at the mercy of that fiend incarnate, possessed—as I believed that so-called Arab to be possessed—of all the paraphernalia of horror and of dread, was one which caused me tangible shrinkings of the body. Whence had come those shrieks and yells, of which the writer of the report spoke, which had caused the Arab’s fellow-passengers to think that murder was being done? What unimaginable agony had caused them? what speechless torture? And the ‘wailing noise,’ which had induced the prosaic, indurated London cabman to get twice off his box to see what was the matter, what anguish had been provocative of that? The helpless girl who had already endured so much, endured, perhaps, that to which death would have been preferred!—shut up in that rattling, jolting box on wheels, alone with that diabolical Asiatic, with the enormous bundle, which was but the lurking place of nameless terrors,—what might she not, while being borne through the heart of civilised London, have been made to suffer? What had she not been made to suffer to have kept up that continued ‘wailing noise’?
It was not a theme on which it was wise to permit one’s thoughts to linger,—and particularly was it clear that it was one from which Lessingham’s thoughts should have been kept as far as possible away.
‘Come, Mr Lessingham, neither you nor I will do himself any good by permitting his reflections to flow in a morbid channel. Let us talk of something else. By the way, weren’t you due to speak in the House to-night?’
‘Due!—Yes, I was due,—but what does it matter?’
‘But have you acquainted no one with the cause of your non-attendance?’
‘Acquaint!—whom should I acquaint?’
‘My good sir! Listen to me, Mr Lessingham. Let me entreat you very earnestly, to follow my advice. Call another cab,—or take this! and go at once to the House. It is not too late. Play the man, deliver the speech you have undertaken to deliver, perform your political duties. By coming with me you will be a hindrance rather than a help, and you may do your reputation an injury from which it never may recover. Do as I counsel you, and I will undertake to do my very utmost to let you have good news by the time your speech is finished.’
He turned on me with a bitterness for which I was unprepared.
‘If I were to go down to the House, and try to speak in the state in which I am now, they would laugh at me, I should be ruined.’
‘Do you not run an equally great risk of being ruined by staying away?’
He gripped me by the arm.
‘Mr Champnell, do you know that I am on the verge of madness? Do you know that as I am sitting here by your side I am living in a dual world? I am going on and on to catch that—that fiend, and I am back again in that Egyptian den, upon that couch of rugs, with the Woman of the Songs beside me, and Marjorie is being torn and tortured, and burnt before my eyes! God help me! Her shrieks are ringing in my ears!’
He did not speak loudly, but his voice was none the less impressive on that account. I endeavoured my hardest to be stern.
‘I confess that you disappoint me, Mr Lessingham. I have always understood that you were a man of unusual strength; you appear instead, to be a man of extraordinary weakness; with an imagination so ill-governed that its ebullitions remind me of nothing so much as feminine hysterics. Your wild language is not warranted by circumstances. I repeat that I think it quite possible that by to-morrow morning she will be returned to you.’
‘Yes,—but how? as the Marjorie I have known, as I saw her last,—or how?’
That was the question which I had already asked myself, in what condition would she be when we had succeeded in snatching her from her captor’s grip? It was a question to which I had refused to supply an answer. To him I lied by implication.
‘Let us hope that, with the exception of being a trifle scared, she will be as sound and hale and hearty as even in her life.’
‘Do you yourself believe that she’ll be like that,—untouched, unchanged, unstained?’
Then I lied right out,—it seemed to me necessary to calm his growing excitement.
‘I do.’
‘You don’t!’
‘Mr Lessingham!’
‘Do you think that I can’t see your face and read in it the same thoughts which trouble me? As a man of honour do you care to deny that when Marjorie Lindon is restored to me,—if she ever is!—you fear she will be but the mere soiled husk of the Marjorie whom I knew and loved?’
‘Even supposing that there may be a modicum of truth in what you say,—which I am far from being disposed to admit—what good purpose do you propose to serve by talking in such a strain?’
‘None,—no good purpose,—unless it be the desire of looking the truth in the face. For, Mr Champnell, you must not seek to play with me the hypocrite, nor try to hide things from me as if I were a child. If my life is ruined—it is ruined,—let me know it, and look the knowledge in the face. That, to me, is to play the man.’
I was silent.
The wild tale he had told me of that Cairene inferno, oddly enough—yet why oddly, for the world is all coincidence!—had thrown a flood of light on certain events which had happened some three years previously and which ever since had remained shrouded in mystery. The conduct of the business afterwards came into my hands,—and briefly, what had occurred was this:
Three persons,—two sisters and their brother, who was younger than themselves, members of a decent English family, were going on a trip round the world. They were young, adventurous, and—not to put too fine a point on it—foolhardy. The evening after their arrival in Cairo, by way of what is called ‘a lark,’ in spite of the protestations of people who were better informed than themselves, they insisted on going, alone, for a ramble through the native quarter.
They went,—but they never returned. Or, rather the two girls never returned. After an interval the young man was found again,—what was left of him. A fuss was made when there were no signs of their re-appearance, but as there were no relations, nor even friends of theirs, but only casual acquaintances on board the ship by which they had travelled, perhaps not so great a fuss as might have been was made. Anyhow, nothing was discovered. Their widowed mother, alone in England, wondering how it was that beyond the receipt of a brief wire, acquainting her with their arrival at Cairo, she had heard nothing further of their wanderings, placed herself in communication with the diplomatic people over there,—to learn that, to all appearances, her three children had vanished from off the face of the earth.
Then a fuss was made,—with a vengeance. So far as one can judge the whole town and neighbourhood was turned pretty well upside down. But nothing came of it,—so far as any results were concerned, the authorities might just as well have left the mystery of their vanishment alone. It continued where it was in spite of them.
However, some three months afterwards a youth was brought to the British Embassy by a party of friendly Arabs who asserted that they had found him naked and nearly dying in some remote spot in the Wady Haifa desert. It was the brother of the two lost girls. He was as nearly dying as he very well could be without being actually dead when they brought him to the Embassy,—and in a state of indescribable mutilation. He seemed to rally for a time under careful treatment, but he never again uttered a coherent word. It was only from his delirious ravings that any idea was formed of what had really occurred.
Shorthand notes were taken of some of the utterances of his delirium. Afterwards they were submitted to me. I remembered the substance of them quite well, and when Mr Lessingham began to tell me of his own hideous experiences they came back to me more clearly still. Had I laid those notes before him I have little doubt but that he would have immediately perceived that seventeen years after the adventure which had left such an indelible scar upon his own life, this youth—he was little more than a boy—had seen the things which he had seen, and suffered the nameless agonies and degradations which he had suffered. The young man was perpetually raving about some indescribable den of horror which was own brother to Lessingham’s temple and about some female monster, whom he regarded with such fear and horror that every allusion he made to her was followed by a convulsive paroxysm which taxed all the ingenuity of his medical attendants to bring him out of. He frequently called upon his sisters by name, speaking of them in a manner which inevitably suggested that he had been an unwilling and helpless witness of hideous tortures which they had undergone; and then he would rise in bed, screaming, ‘They’re burning them! they’re burning them! Devils! devils!’ And at those times it required all the strength of those who were in attendance to restrain his maddened frenzy.
The youth died in one of these fits of great preternatural excitement, without, as I have previously written, having given utterance to one single coherent word, and by some of those who were best able to judge it was held to have been a mercy that he did die without having been restored to consciousness. And, presently, tales began to be whispered, about some idolatrous sect, which was stated to have its headquarters somewhere in the interior of the country—some located it in this neighbourhood, and some in that—which was stated to still practise, and to always have practised, in unbroken historical continuity, the debased, unclean, mystic, and bloody rites, of a form of idolatry which had had its birth in a period of the world’s story which was so remote, that to all intents and purposes it might be described as pre-historic.
While the ferment was still at its height, a man came to the British Embassy who said that he was a member of a tribe which had its habitat on the banks of the White Nile. He asserted that he was in association with this very idolatrous sect,—though he denied that he was one of the actual sectaries. He did admit, however, that he had assisted more than once at their orgies, and declared that it was their constant practice to offer young women as sacrifices—preferably white Christian women, with a special preference, if they could get them, to young English women. He vowed that he himself had seen with his own eyes, English girls burnt alive. The description which he gave of what preceded and followed these foul murders appalled those who listened. He finally wound up by offering, on payment of a stipulated sum of money, to guide a troop of soldiers to this den of demons, so that they should arrive there at a moment when it was filled with worshippers, who were preparing to participate in an orgie which was to take place during the next few days.
His offer was conditionally accepted. He was confined in an apartment with one man on guard inside and another on guard outside the room. That night the sentinel without was startled by hearing a great noise and frightful screams issuing from the chamber in which the native was interned. He summoned assistance. The door was opened. The soldier on guard within was stark, staring mad,—he died within a few months, a gibbering maniac to the end. The native was dead. The window, which was a very small one, was securely fastened inside and strongly barred without. There was nothing to show by what means entry had been gained. Yet it was the general opinion of those who saw the corpse that the man had been destroyed by some wild beast. A photograph was taken of the body after death, a copy of which is still in my possession. In it are distinctly shown lacerations about the neck and the lower portion of the abdomen, as if they had been produced by the claws of some huge and ferocious animal. The skull is splintered in half-a-dozen places, and the face is torn to rags.
That was more than three years ago. The whole business has remained as great a mystery as ever. But my attention has once or twice been caught by trifling incidents, which have caused me to more than suspect that the wild tale told by that murdered native had in it at least the elements of truth; and which have even led me to wonder if the trade in kidnapping was not being carried on to this very hour, and if women of my own flesh and blood were not still being offered up on that infernal altar. And now, here was Paul Lessingham, a man of world-wide reputation, of great intellect, of undoubted honour, who had come to me with a wholly unconscious verification of all my worst suspicions!
That the creature spoken of as an Arab,—and who was probably no more an Arab than I was, and whose name was certainly not Mohamed el Kheir!—was an emissary from that den of demons, I had no doubt. What was the exact purport of the creature’s presence in England was another question. Possibly part of the intention was the destruction of Paul Lessingham, body, soul and spirit; possibly another part was the procuration of fresh victims for that long-drawn-out holocaust. That this latter object explained the disappearance of Miss Lindon I felt persuaded. That she was designed by the personification of evil who was her captor, to suffer all the horrors at which the stories pointed, and then to be burned alive, amidst the triumphant yells of the attendant demons, I was certain. That the wretch, aware that the pursuit was in full cry, was tearing, twisting, doubling, and would stick at nothing which would facilitate the smuggling of the victim out of England, was clear.
My interest in the quest was already far other than a merely professional one. The blood in my veins tingled at the thought of such a woman as Miss Lindon being in the power of such a monster. I may assuredly claim that throughout the whole business I was urged forward by no thought of fee or of reward. To have had a share in rescuing that unfortunate girl, and in the destruction of her noxious persecutor, would have been reward enough for me.
One is not always, even in strictly professional matters, influenced by strictly professional instincts.
The cab slowed. A voice descended through the trap door.
‘This is Commercial Road, sir,—what part of it do you want?’
‘Drive me to Limehouse Police Station.’
We were driven there. I made my way to the usual inspector behind the usual pigeon-hole.
‘My name is Champnell. Have you received any communication from Scotland Yard to-night having reference to a matter in which I am interested?’
‘Do you mean about the Arab? We received a telephonic message about half an hour ago.’
‘Since communicating with Scotland Yard this has come to hand from the authorities at Vauxhall Station. Can you tell me if anything has been seen of the person in question by the men of your division?’
I handed the Inspector the ‘report.’ His reply was laconic.
‘I will inquire.’
He passed through a door into an inner room and the ‘report’ went with him.
‘Beg pardon, sir, but was that a Harab you was a-talking about to the Hinspector?’
The speaker was a gentleman unmistakably of the guttersnipe class. He was seated on a form. Close at hand hovered a policeman whose special duty it seemed to be to keep an eye upon his movements.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I saw a Harab myself about a hour ago,—leastways he looked like as if he was a Harab.’
‘What sort of a looking person was he?’
‘I can’t ’ardly tell you that, sir, because I didn’t never have a proper look at him,—but I know he had a bloomin’ great bundle on ’is ’ead.… It was like this, ’ere. I was comin’ round the corner, as he was passin’, I never see ’im till I was right atop of ’im, so that I haccidentally run agin ’im,—my heye! didn’t ’e give me a downer! I was down on the back of my ’ead in the middle of the road before I knew where I was and ’e was at the other end of the street. If ’e ’adn’t knocked me more’n ’arf silly I’d been after ’im, sharp,—I tell you! and hasked ’im what ’e thought ’e was a-doin’ of, but afore my senses was back agin ’e was out o’ sight,—clean!’
‘You are sure he had a bundle on his head?’
‘I noticed it most particular.’
‘How long ago do you say this was? and where?’
‘About a hour ago,—perhaps more, perhaps less.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘It seemed to me as if a cove was a follerin’ ’im, leastways there was a bloke as was a-keepin’ close at ’is ’eels,—though I don’t know what ’is little game was, I’m sure. Ask the pleesman—he knows, he knows everythink, the pleesman do.’
I turned to the ‘pleesman.’
‘Who is this man?’
The ‘pleesman’ put his hands behind his back, and threw out his chest. His manner was distinctly affable.
‘Well,—he’s being detained upon suspicion. He’s given us an address at which to make inquiries, and inquiries are being made. I shouldn’t pay too much attention to what he says if I were you. I don’t suppose he’d be particular about a lie or two.’
This frank expression of opinion re-aroused the indignation of the gentleman on the form.
‘There you hare! at it again! That’s just like you peelers,—you’re all the same! What do you know about me?—Nuffink! This gen’leman ain’t got no call to believe me, not as I knows on,—it’s all the same to me if ’e do or don’t, but it’s trewth what I’m sayin’, all the same.’
At this point the Inspector re-appeared at the pigeon-hole. He cut short the flow of eloquence.
‘Now then, not so much noise outside there!’ He addressed me. ‘None of our men have seen anything of the person you’re inquiring for, so far as we’re aware. But, if you like, I will place a man at your disposal, and he will go round with you, and you will be able to make your own inquiries.’
A capless, wildly excited young ragamuffin came dashing in at the street door. He gasped out, as clearly as he could for the speed which he had made:
‘There’s been murder done, Mr Pleesman,—a Harab’s killed a bloke.’
‘Mr Pleesman’ gripped him by the shoulder.
‘What’s that?’
The youngster put up his arm, and ducked his head, instinctively, as if to ward off a blow.
‘Leave me alone! I don’t want none of your ’andling!—I ain’t done nuffink to you! I tell you ’e ’as!’
The Inspector spoke through the pigeon-hole.
‘He has what, my lad? What do you say has happened?’
‘There’s been murder done—it’s right enough!—there ’as!—up at Mrs ’Enderson’s, in Paradise Place,—a Harab’s been and killed a bloke!’
The Inspector spoke to me.
‘If what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom you are seeking may have had a finger in the pie.’
I was of the same opinion, as, apparently, were Lessingham and Sydney. Atherton collared the youth by the shoulder which Mr Pleesman had left disengaged.
‘What sort of looking bloke is it who’s been murdered?’
‘I dunno! I ’aven’t seen ’im! Mrs ’Enderson, she says to me! “’Gustus Barley,” she says, “a bloke’s been murdered. That there Harab what I chucked out ’alf a hour ago been and murdered ’im, and left ’im behind up in my back room. You run as ’ard as you can tear and tell them there dratted pleese what’s so fond of shovin’ their dirty noses into respectable people’s ’ouses.” So I comes and tells yer. That’s all I knows about it.’
We went four in the hansom which had been waiting in the street to Mrs Henderson’s in Paradise Place,—the Inspector and we three. ‘Mr Pleesman’ and ‘’Gustus Barley’ followed on foot. The Inspector was explanatory.
‘Mrs Henderson keeps a sort of lodging-house,—a “Sailors’ Home” she calls it, but no one could call it sweet. It doesn’t bear the best of characters, and if you asked me what I thought of it, I should say in plain English that it was a disorderly house.’
Paradise Place proved to be within three or four hundred yards of the Station House. So far as could be seen in the dark it consisted of a row of houses of considerable dimensions,—and also of considerable antiquity. They opened on to two or three stone steps which led directly into the street. At one of the doors stood an old lady with a shawl drawn over her head. This was Mrs Henderson. She greeted us with garrulous volubility.
‘So you ’ave come, ’ave you? I thought you never was a-comin’ that I did.’ She recognised the Inspector. ‘It’s you, Mr Phillips, is it?’ Perceiving us, she drew a little back. ‘Who’s them ’ere parties? They ain’t coppers?’
Mr Phillips dismissed her inquiry, curtly.
‘Never you mind who they are. What’s this about someone being murdered.’
‘Ssh!’ The old lady glanced round. ‘Don’t you speak so loud, Mr Phillips. No one don’t know nothing about it as yet. The parties what’s in my ’ouse is most respectable,—most! and they couldn’t abide the notion of there being police about the place.’
‘We quite believe that, Mrs Henderson.’
The Inspector’s tone was grim.
Mrs Henderson led the way up a staircase which would have been distinctly the better for repairs. It was necessary to pick one’s way as one went, and as the light was defective stumbles were not infrequent.
Our guide paused outside a door on the topmost landing. From some mysterious recess in her apparel she produced a key.
‘It’s in ’ere. I locked the door so that nothing mightn’t be disturbed. I knows ’ow particular you pleesmen is.’
She turned the key. We all went in—we, this time, in front, and she behind.
A candle was guttering on a broken and dilapidated single washhand stand. A small iron bedstead stood by its side, the clothes on which were all tumbled and tossed. There was a rush-seated chair with a hole in the seat,—and that, with the exception of one or two chipped pieces of stoneware, and a small round mirror which was hung on a nail against the wall, seemed to be all that the room contained. I could see nothing in the shape of a murdered man. Nor, it appeared, could the Inspector either.
‘What’s the meaning of this, Mrs Henderson? I don’t see anything here.’
‘It’s be’ind the bed, Mr Phillips. I left ’im just where I found ’im, I wouldn’t ’ave touched ’im not for nothing, nor yet ’ave let nobody else ’ave touched ’im neither, because, as I say, I know ’ow particular you pleesmen is.’
We all four went hastily forward. Atherton and I went to the head of the bed, Lessingham and the Inspector, leaning right across the bed, peeped over the side. There, on the floor in the space which was between the bed and the wall, lay the murdered man.
At sight of him an exclamation burst from Sydney’s lips.
‘It’s Holt!’
‘Thank God!’ cried Lessingham. ‘It isn’t Marjorie!’
The relief in his tone was unmistakable. That the one was gone was plainly nothing to him in comparison with the fact that the other was left.
Thrusting the bed more into the centre of the room I knelt down beside the man on the floor. A more deplorable spectacle than he presented I have seldom witnessed. He was decently clad in a grey tweed suit, white hat, collar and necktie, and it was perhaps that fact which made his extreme attenuation the more conspicuous. I doubt if there was an ounce of flesh on the whole of his body. His cheeks and the sockets of his eyes were hollow. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheek bones,—the bones themselves were staring through. Even his nose was wasted, so that nothing but a ridge of cartilage remained. I put my arm beneath his shoulder and raised him from the floor; no resistance was offered by the body’s gravity,—he was as light as a little child.
‘I doubt,’ I said, ‘if this man has been murdered. It looks to me like a case of starvation, or exhaustion,—possibly a combination of both.’
‘What’s that on his neck?’ asked the Inspector,—he was kneeling at my side.
He referred to two abrasions of the skin,—one on either side of the man’s neck.
‘They look to me like scratches. They seem pretty deep, but I don’t think they’re sufficient in themselves to cause death.’
‘They might be, joined to an already weakened constitution. Is there anything in his pockets?—let’s lift him on to the bed.’
We lifted him on to the bed,—a featherweight he was to lift. While the Inspector was examining his pockets—to find them empty—a tall man with a big black beard came bustling in. He proved to be Dr Glossop, the local police surgeon, who had been sent for before our quitting the Station House.
His first pronouncement, made as soon as he commenced his examination, was, under the circumstances, sufficiently startling.
‘I don’t believe the man’s dead. Why didn’t you send for me directly you found him?’
The question was put to Mrs Henderson.
‘Well, Dr Glossop, I wouldn’t touch ’im myself, and I wouldn’t ’ave ’im touched by no one else, because, as I’ve said afore, I know ’ow particular them pleesmen is.’
‘Then in that case, if he does die you’ll have had a hand in murdering him,—that’s all.’
The lady sniggered. ‘Of course Dr Glossop, we all knows that you’ll always ’ave your joke.’
‘You’ll find it a joke if you have to hang, as you ought to, you—’ The doctor said what he did say to himself, under his breath. I doubt if it was flattering to Mrs Henderson. ‘Have you got any brandy in the house?’
‘We’ve got everythink in the ’ouse for them as likes to pay for it,—everythink.’ Then, suddenly remembering that the police were present, and that hers were not exactly licensed premises, ‘Leastways we can send out for it for them parties as gives us the money, being, as is well known, always willing to oblige.’
‘Then send for some,—to the tap downstairs, if that’s the nearest! If this man dies before you’ve brought it I’ll have you locked up as sure as you’re a living woman.’
The arrival of the brandy was not long delayed,—but the man on the bed had regained consciousness before it came. Opening his eyes he looked up at the doctor bending over him.
‘Hollo, my man! that’s more like the time of day! How are you feeling?’
The patient stared hazily up at the doctor, as if his sense of perception was not yet completely restored,—as if this big bearded man was something altogether strange. Atherton bent down beside the doctor.
‘I’m glad to see you looking better, Mr Holt. You know me don’t you? I’ve been running about after you all day long.’
‘You are—you are—’ The man’s eyes closed, as if the effort at recollection exhausted him. He kept them closed as he continued to speak.
‘I know who you are. You are—the gentleman.’
‘Yes, that’s it, I’m the gentleman,—name of Atherton.—Miss Lindon’s friend. And I daresay you’re feeling pretty well done up, and in want of something to eat and drink,—here’s some brandy for you.’
The doctor had some in a tumbler. He raised the patient’s head, allowing it to trickle down his throat. The man swallowed it mechanically, motionless, as if unconscious what it was that he was doing. His cheeks flushed, the passing glow of colour caused their condition of extraordinary, and, indeed, extravagant attenuation, to be more prominent than ever. The doctor laid him back upon the bed, feeling his pulse with one hand, while he stood and regarded him in silence.
Then, turning to the Inspector, he said to him in an undertone;
‘If you want him to make a statement he’ll have to make it now, he’s going fast. You won’t be able to get much out of him,—he’s too far gone, and I shouldn’t bustle him, but get what you can.’
The Inspector came to the front, a notebook in his hand.
‘I understand from this gentleman—’ signifying Atherton—‘that your name’s Robert Holt. I’m an Inspector of police, and I want you to tell me what has brought you into this condition. Has anyone been assaulting you?’
Holt, opening his eyes, glanced up at the speaker mistily, as if he could not see him clearly,—still less understand what it was that he was saying. Sydney, stooping over him, endeavoured to explain.
‘The Inspector wants to know how you got here, has anyone been doing anything to you? Has anyone been hurting you?’
The man’s eyelids were partially closed. Then they opened wider and wider. His mouth opened too. On his skeleton features there came a look of panic fear. He was evidently struggling to speak. At last words came.
‘The beetle!’ He stopped. Then, after an effort, spoke again. ‘The beetle!’
‘What’s he mean?’ asked the Inspector.
‘I think I understand,’ Sydney answered; then turning again to the man in the bed. ‘Yes, I hear what you say,—the beetle. Well, has the beetle done anything to you?’
‘It took me by the throat!’
‘Is that the meaning of the marks upon your neck?’
‘The beetle killed me.’
The lids closed. The man relapsed into a state of lethargy. The Inspector was puzzled;—and said so.
‘What’s he mean about a beetle?’
Atherton replied.
‘I think I understand what he means,—and my friends do too. We’ll explain afterwards. In the meantime I think I’d better get as much out of him as I can,—while there’s time.’
‘Yes,’ said the doctor, his hand upon the patient’s pulse, ‘while there’s time. There isn’t much—only seconds.’
Sydney endeavoured to rouse the man from his stupor.
‘You’ve been with Miss Lindon all the afternoon and evening, haven’t you, Mr Holt?’
Atherton had reached a chord in the man’s consciousness. His lips moved,—in painful articulation.
‘Yes—all the afternoon—and evening—God help me!’
‘I hope God will help you my poor fellow; you’ve been in need of His help if ever man was. Miss Lindon is disguised in your old clothes, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,—in my old clothes. My God!’
‘And where is Miss Lindon now?’
The man had been speaking with his eyes closed. Now he opened them, wide; there came into them the former staring horror. He became possessed by uncontrollable agitation,—half raising himself in bed. Words came from his quivering lips as if they were only drawn from him by the force of his anguish.
‘The beetle’s going to kill Miss Lindon.’
A momentary paroxysm seemed to shake the very foundations of his being. His whole frame quivered. He fell back on to the bed,—ominously. The doctor examined him in silence—while we too were still.
‘This time he’s gone for good, there’ll be no conjuring him back again.’
I felt a sudden pressure on my arm, and found that Lessingham was clutching me with probably unconscious violence. The muscles of his face were twitching. He trembled. I turned to the doctor.
‘Doctor, if there is any of that brandy left will you let me have it for my friend?’
Lessingham disposed of the remainder of the ‘shillings worth.’ I rather fancy it saved us from a scene.
The Inspector was speaking to the woman of the house.
‘Now, Mrs Henderson, perhaps you’ll tell us what all this means. Who is this man, and how did he come in here, and who came in with him, and what do you know about it altogether? If you’ve got anything to say, say it, only you’d better be careful, because it’s my duty to warn you that anything you do say may be used against you.’
Mrs Henderson put her hands under her apron and smirked.
‘Well, Mr Phillips, it do sound strange to ’ear you talkin’ to me like that. Anybody’d think I’d done something as I didn’t ought to ’a’ done to ’ear you going on. As for what’s ’appened, I’ll tell you all I know with the greatest willingness on earth. And as for bein’ careful, there ain’t no call for you to tell me to be that, for that I always am, as by now you ought to know.’
‘Yes,—I do know. Is that all you have to say?’
‘Rilly, Mr Phillips, what a man you are for catching people up, you rilly are. O’ course that ain’t all I’ve got to say,—ain’t I just a-comin’ to it?’
‘Then come.’
‘If you presses me so you’ll muddle of me up, and then if I do ’appen to make a herror, you’ll say I’m a liar, when goodness knows there ain’t no more truthful woman not in Limehouse.’
Words plainly trembled on the Inspector’s lips,—which he refrained from uttering. Mrs Henderson cast her eyes upwards, as if she sought for inspiration from the filthy ceiling.
‘So far as I can swear it might ’ave been a hour ago, or it might ’ave been a hour and a quarter, or it might ’ave been a hour and twenty minutes—’
‘We’re not particular as to the seconds.’
‘When I ’ears a knockin’ at my front door, and when I comes to open it, there was a Harab party, with a great bundle on ’is ’ead, bigger nor ’isself, and two other parties along with him. This Harab party says, in that queer foreign way them Harab parties ’as of talkin’, “A room for the night, a room.” Now I don’t much care for foreigners, and never did, especially them Harabs, which their ’abits ain’t my own,—so I as much ’ints the same. But this ’ere Harab party, he didn’t seem to quite foller of my meaning, for all he done was to say as he said afore, “A room for the night, a room.” And he shoves a couple of ’arf crowns into my ’and. Now it’s always been a motter o’ mine, that money is money, and one man’s money is as good as another man’s. So, not wishing to be disagreeable—which other people would have taken ’em if I ’adn’t, I shows ’em up ’ere. I’d been downstairs it might ’ave been ’arf a hour, when I ’ears a shindy a-coming from this room—’
‘What sort of a shindy?’
‘Yelling and shrieking—oh my gracious, it was enough to set your blood all curdled,—for ear-piercingness I never did ’ear nothing like it. We do ’ave troublesome parties in ’ere, like they do elsewhere, but I never did ’ear nothing like that before. I stood it for about a minute, but it kep’ on, and kep’ on, and every moment I expected as the other parties as was in the ’ouse would be complainin’, so up I comes and I thumps at the door, and it seemed that thump I might for all the notice that was took of me.’
‘Did the noise keep on?’
‘Keep on! I should think it did keep on! Lord love you! shriek after shriek, I expected to see the roof took off.’
‘Were there any other noises? For instance, were there any sounds of struggling, or of blows?’
‘There weren’t no sounds except of the party hollering.’
‘One party only?’
‘One party only. As I says afore, shriek after shriek,—when you put your ear to the panel there was a noise like some other party blubbering, but that weren’t nothing, as for the hollering you wouldn’t have thought that nothing what you might call ’umin could ’ave kep’ up such a screechin’. I thumps and thumps and at last when I did think that I should ’ave to ’ave the door broke down, the Harab says to me from inside, “Go away! I pay for the room! go away!” I did think that pretty good, I tell you that. So I says, “Pay for the room or not pay for the room, you didn’t pay to make that shindy!” And what’s more I says, “If I ’ear it again,” I says, “out you goes! And if you don’t go quiet I’ll ’ave somebody in as’ll pretty quickly make you!”’
‘Then was there silence?’
‘So to speak there was,—only there was this sound as if some party was a-blubbering, and another sound as if a party was a-panting for his breath.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet, down I went again. And in another quarter of a hour, or it might ’ave been twenty minutes, I went to the front door to get a mouthful of hair. And Mrs Barker, what lives over the road, at No. 24, she comes to me and says, “That there Arab party of yours didn’t stop long.” I looks at ’er, “I don’t quite foller you,” I says,—which I didn’t. “I saw him come in,” she says, “and then, a few minutes back, I see ’im go again, with a great bundle on ’is ’ead he couldn’t ’ardly stagger under!” “Oh,” I says, “that’s news to me, I didn’t know ’e’d gone, nor see him neither—” which I didn’t. So, up I comes again, and, sure enough, the door was open, and it seems to me that the room was empty, till I come upon this pore young man what was lying be’ind the bed.’
There was a growl from the doctor.
‘If you’d had any sense, and sent for me at once, he might have been alive at this moment.’
‘’Ow was I to know that, Dr Glossop? I couldn’t tell. My finding ’im there murdered was quite enough for me. So I runs downstairs, and I nips ’old of ’Gustus Barley, what was leaning against the wall, and I says to him, “’Gustus Barley, run to the station as fast as you can and tell ’em that a man’s been murdered,—that Harab’s been and killed a bloke.” And that’s all I know about it, and I couldn’t tell you no more, Mr Phillips, not if you was to keep on asking me questions not for hours and hours.’
‘Then you think it was this man’—with a motion towards the bed—‘who was shrieking?’
‘To tell you the truth, Mr Phillips, about that I don’t ’ardly know what to think. If you ’ad asked me I should ’ave said it was a woman. I ought to know a woman’s holler when I ’ear it, if any one does, I’ve ’eard enough of ’em in my time, goodness knows. And I should ’ave said that only a woman could ’ave hollered like that and only ’er when she was raving mad. But there weren’t no woman with him. There was only this man what’s murdered, and the other man,—and as for the other man I will say this, that ’e ’adn’t got twopennyworth of clothes to cover ’im. But, Mr Phillips, howsomever that may be, that’s the last Harab I’ll ’ave under my roof, no matter what they pays, and you may mark my words I’ll ’ave no more.’
Mrs Henderson, once more glancing upward, as if she imagined herself to have made some declaration of a religious nature, shook her head with much solemnity.
As we were leaving the house a constable gave the Inspector a note. Having read it he passed it to me. It was from the local office.
‘Message received that an Arab with a big bundle on his head has been noticed loitering about the neighbourhood of St Pancras Station. He seemed to be accompanied by a young man who had the appearance of a tramp. Young man seemed ill. They appeared to be waiting for a train, probably to the North. Shall I advise detention?’
I scribbled on the flyleaf of the note.
‘Have them detained. If they have gone by train have a special in readiness.’
In a minute we were again in the cab. I endeavoured to persuade Lessingham and Atherton to allow me to conduct the pursuit alone,—in vain. I had no fear of Atherton’s succumbing, but I was afraid for Lessingham. What was more almost than the expectation of his collapse was the fact that his looks and manner, his whole bearing, so eloquent of the agony and agitation of his mind, was beginning to tell upon my nerves. A catastrophe of some sort I foresaw. Of the curtain’s fall upon one tragedy we had just been witnesses. That there was worse—much worse, to follow I did not doubt. Optimistic anticipations were out of the question,—that the creature we were chasing would relinquish the prey uninjured, no one, after what we had seen and heard, could by any possibility suppose. Should a necessity suddenly arise for prompt and immediate action, that Lessingham would prove a hindrance rather than a help I felt persuaded.
But since moments were precious, and Lessingham was not to be persuaded to allow the matter to proceed without him, all that remained was to make the best of his presence.
The great arch of St Pancras was in darkness. An occasional light seemed to make the darkness still more visible. The station seemed deserted. I thought, at first, that there was not a soul about the place, that our errand was in vain, that the only thing for us to do was to drive to the police station and to pursue our inquiries there. But as we turned towards the booking-office, our footsteps ringing out clearly through the silence and the night, a door opened, a light shone out from the room within, and a voice inquired:
‘Who’s that?’
‘My name’s Champnell. Has a message been received from me from the Limehouse Police Station?’
‘Step this way.’
We stepped that way,—into a snug enough office, of which one of the railway inspectors was apparently in charge. He was a big man, with a fair beard. He looked me up and down, as if doubtfully. Lessingham he recognised at once. He took off his cap to him.
‘Mr Lessingham, I believe?’
‘I am Mr Lessingham. Have you any news for me?’
I fancy, by his looks,—that the official was struck by the pallor of the speaker’s face,—and by his tremulous voice.
‘I am instructed to give certain information to a Mr Augustus Champnell.’
‘I am Mr Champnell. What’s your information?’
‘With reference to the Arab about whom you have been making inquiries. A foreigner, dressed like an Arab, with a great bundle on his head, took two single thirds for Hull by the midnight express.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘It is believed that he was accompanied by a young man of very disreputable appearance. They were not together at the booking-office, but they had been seen together previously. A minute or so after the Arab had entered the train this young man got into the same compartment—they were in the front waggon.’
‘Why were they not detained?’
‘We had no authority to detain them, nor any reason. Until your message was received a few minutes ago we at this station were not aware that inquiries were being made for them.’
‘You say he booked to Hull,—does the train run through to Hull?’
‘No—it doesn’t go to Hull at all. Part of it’s the Liverpool and Manchester Express, and part of it’s for Carlisle. It divides at Derby. The man you’re looking for will change either at Sheffield or at Cudworth Junction and go on to Hull by the first train in the morning. There’s a local service.’
I looked at my watch.
‘You say the train left at midnight. It’s now nearly five-and-twenty past. Where’s it now?’
‘Nearing St Albans, it’s due there 12.35.’
‘Would there be time for a wire to reach St Albans?’
‘Hardly,—and anyhow there’ll only be enough railway officials about the place to receive and despatch the train. They’ll be fully occupied with their ordinary duties. There won’t be time to get the police there.’
‘You could wire to St Albans to inquire if they were still in the train?’
‘That could be done,—certainly. I’ll have it done at once if you like.
‘Then where’s the next stoppage?’
‘Well, they’re at Luton at 12.51. But that’s another case of St Albans. You see there won’t be much more than twenty minutes by the time you’ve got your wire off, and I don’t expect there’ll be many people awake at Luton. At these country places sometimes there’s a policeman hanging about the station to see the express go through, but, on the other hand, very often there isn’t, and if there isn’t, probably at this time of night it’ll take a good bit of time to get the police on the premises. I tell you what I should advise.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The train is due at Bedford at 1.29—send your wire there. There ought to be plenty of people about at Bedford, and anyhow there’ll be time to get the police to the station.’
‘Very good. I instructed them to tell you to have a special ready,—have you got one?’
‘There’s an engine with steam up in the shed,—we’ll have all ready for you in less than ten minutes. And I tell you what,—you’ll have about fifty minutes before the train is due at Bedford. It’s a fifty mile run. With luck you ought to get there pretty nearly as soon as the express does.—Shall I tell them to get ready?’
‘At once.’
While he issued directions through a telephone to what, I presume, was the engine shed, I drew up a couple of telegrams. Having completed his orders he turned to me.
‘They’re coming out of the siding now—they’ll be ready in less than ten minutes. I’ll see that the line’s kept clear. Have you got those wires?’
‘Here is one,—this is for Bedford.’
It ran:
‘Arrest the Arab who is in train due at 1.29. When leaving St Pancras he was in a third-class compartment in front waggon. He has a large bundle, which detain. He took two third singles for Hull. Also detain his companion, who is dressed like a tramp. This is a young lady whom the Arab has disguised and kidnapped while in a condition of hypnotic trance. Let her have medical assistance and be taken to a hotel. All expenses will be paid on the arrival of the undersigned who is following by special train. As the Arab will probably be very violent a sufficient force of police should be in waiting.
‘Augustus Champnell.’
‘And this is the other. It is probably too late to be of any use at St Albans,—but send it there, and also to Luton.’
‘Is Arab with companion in train which left St Pancras at 12.0? If so, do not let them get out till train reaches Bedford, where instructions are being wired for arrest.’
The Inspector rapidly scanned them both.
‘They ought to do your business, I should think. Come along with me—I’ll have them sent at once, and we’ll see if your train’s ready.’
The train was not ready,—nor was it ready within the prescribed ten minutes. There was some hitch, I fancy, about a saloon. Finally we had to be content with an ordinary old-fashioned first-class carriage. The delay, however, was not altogether time lost. Just as the engine with its solitary coach was approaching the platform someone came running up with an envelope in his hand.
‘Telegram from St Albans.’
I tore it open. It was brief and to the point.
‘Arab with companion was in train when it left here. Am wiring Luton.’
‘That’s all right. Now unless something wholly unforeseen takes place, we ought to have them.’
That unforeseen!
I went forward with the Inspector and the guard of our train to exchange a few final words with the driver. The Inspector explained what instructions he had given.
‘I’ve told the driver not to spare his coal but to take you into Bedford within five minutes after the arrival of the express. He says he thinks that he can do it.’
The driver leaned over his engine, rubbing his hands with the usual oily rag. He was a short, wiry man with grey hair and a grizzled moustache, with about him that bearing of semi-humorous, frank-faced resolution which one notes about engine-drivers as a class.
‘We ought to do it, the gradients are against us, but it’s a clear night and there’s no wind. The only thing that will stop us will be if there’s any shunting on the road, or any luggage trains; of course, if we are blocked, we are blocked, but the Inspector says he’ll clear the way for us.’
‘Yes,’ said the Inspector, ‘I’ll clear the way. I’ve wired down the road already.’
Atherton broke in.
‘Driver, if you get us into Bedford within five minutes of the arrival of the mail there’ll be a five-pound note to divide between your mate and you.’
The driver grinned.
‘We’ll get you there in time, sir, if we have to go clear through the shunters. It isn’t often we get a chance of a five-pound note for a run to Bedford, and we’ll do our best to earn it.’
The fireman waved his hand in the rear.
‘That’s right, sir!’ he cried. ‘We’ll have to trouble you for that five-pound note.’
So soon as we were clear of the station it began to seem probable that, as the fireman put it, Atherton would be ‘troubled.’ Journeying in a train which consists of a single carriage attached to an engine which is flying at topmost speed is a very different business from being an occupant of an ordinary train which is travelling at ordinary express rates. I had discovered that for myself before. That night it was impressed on me more than ever. A tyro—or even a nervous ‘season’—might have been excused for expecting at every moment we were going to be derailed. It was hard to believe that the carriage had any springs,—it rocked and swung, and jogged and jolted. Of smooth travelling had we none. Talking was out of the question;—and for that, I, personally, was grateful. Quite apart from the difficulty we experienced in keeping our seats—and when every moment our position was being altered and we were jerked backwards and forwards up and down, this way and that, that was a business which required care,—the noise was deafening. It was as though we were being pursued by a legion of shrieking, bellowing, raging demons.
‘George!’ shrieked Atherton, ‘he does mean to earn that fiver. I hope I’ll be alive to pay it him!’
He was only at the other end of the carriage, but though I could see by the distortion of his visage that he was shouting at the top of his voice,—and he has a voice,—I only caught here and there a word or two of what he was saying. I had to make sense of the whole.
Lessingham’s contortions were a study. Few of that large multitude of persons who are acquainted with him only by means of the portraits which have appeared in the illustrated papers, would then have recognised the rising statesman. Yet I believe that few things could have better fallen in with his mood than that wild travelling. He might have been almost shaken to pieces,—but the very severity of the shaking served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic which threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence of the element of risk. The pick-me-up effect of a spice of peril. Actual danger there quite probably was none; but there very really seemed to be. And one thing was absolutely certain, that if we did come to smash while going at that speed we should come to as everlasting smash as the heart of man could by any possibility desire. It is probable that the knowledge that this was so warmed the blood in Lessingham’s veins. At any rate as—to use what in this case, was simply a form of speech—I sat and watched him, it seemed to me that he was getting a firmer hold of the strength which had all but escaped him, and that with every jog and jolt he was becoming more and more of a man.
On and on we went dashing, clashing, smashing, roaring, rumbling. Atherton, who had been endeavouring to peer through the window, strained his lungs again in the effort to make himself audible.
‘Where the devil are we?’
Looking at my watch I screamed back at him.
‘It’s nearly one, so I suppose we’re somewhere in the neighbourhood of Luton.—Hollo! What’s the matter?’
That something was the matter seemed certain. There was a shrill whistle from the engine. In a second we were conscious—almost too conscious—of the application of the Westinghouse brake. Of all the jolting that was ever jolted! the mere reverberation of the carriage threatened to resolve our bodies into their component parts. Feeling what we felt then helped us to realise the retardatory force which that vacuum brake must be exerting,—it did not seem at all surprising that the train should have been brought to an almost instant stand-still.
Simultaneously all three of us were on our feet. I let down my window and Atherton let down his,—he shouting out,
‘I should think that Inspector’s wire hasn’t had it’s proper effect, looks as if we’re blocked—or else we’ve stopped at Luton. It can’t be Bedford.’
It wasn’t Bedford—so much seemed clear. Though at first from my window I could make out nothing. I was feeling more than a trifle dazed,—there was a singing in my ears,—the sudden darkness was impenetrable. Then I became conscious that the guard was opening the door of his compartment. He stood on the step for a moment, seeming to hesitate. Then, with a lamp in his hand, he descended on to the line.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know, sir. Seems as if there was something on the road. What’s up there?’
This was to the man on the engine. The fireman replied:
‘Someone in front there’s waving a red light like mad,—lucky I caught sight of him, we should have been clean on top of him in another moment. Looks as if there was something wrong. Here he comes.’
As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I became aware that someone was making what haste he could along the six-foot way, swinging a red light as he came. Our guard advanced to meet him, shouting as he went:
‘What’s the matter! Who’s that?’
A voice replied,
‘My God! Is that George Hewett. I thought you were coming right on top of us!’
Our guard again.
‘What! Jim Branson! What the devil are you doing here, what’s wrong? I thought you were on the twelve out, we’re chasing you.’
‘Are you? Then you’ve caught us. Thank God for it!—We’re a wreck.’
I had already opened the carriage door. With that we all three clambered out on to the line.
I moved to the stranger who was holding the lamp. He was in official uniform.
‘Are you the guard of the 12.0 out from St Pancras?’
‘I am.’
‘Where’s your train? What’s happened?’
‘As for where it is, there it is, right in front of you, what’s left of it. As to what’s happened, why, we’re wrecked.’
‘What do you mean by you’re wrecked?’
‘Some heavy loaded trucks broke loose from a goods in front and came running down the hill on top of us.’
‘How long ago was it?’
‘Not ten minutes. I was just starting off down the road to the signal box, it’s a good two miles away, when I saw you coming. My God! I thought there was going to be another smash.’
‘Much damage done?’
‘Seems to me as if we’re all smashed up. As far as I can make out they’re matchboxed up in front. I feel as if I was all broken up inside of me. I’ve been in the service going on for thirty years, and this is the first accident I’ve been in.’
It was too dark to see the man’s face, but judging from his tone he was either crying or very near to it.
Our guard turned and shouted back to our engine,
‘You’d better go back to the box and let ’em know!’
‘All right!’ came echoing back.
The special immediately commenced retreating, whistling continually as it went. All the country side must have heard the engine shrieking, and all who did hear must have understood that on the line something was seriously wrong.
The smashed train was all in darkness, the force of the collision had put out all the carriage lamps. Here was a flickering candle, there the glimmer of a match, these were all the lights which shone upon the scene. People were piling up débris by the side of the line, for the purpose of making a fire,—more for illumination than for warmth.
Many of the passengers had succeeded in freeing themselves, and were moving hither and thither about the line. But the majority appeared to be still imprisoned. The carriage doors were jammed. Without the necessary tools it was impossible to open them. Every step we took our ears were saluted by piteous cries. Men, women, children, appealed to us for help.
‘Open the door, sir!’ ‘In the name of God, sir, open the door!’
Over and over again, in all sorts of tones, with all degrees of violence, the supplication was repeated.
The guards vainly endeavoured to appease the, in many cases, half-frenzied creatures.
‘All right, sir! If you’ll only wait a minute or two, madam! We can’t get the doors open without tools, a special train’s just started off to get them. If you’ll only have patience there’ll be plenty of help for everyone of you directly. You’ll be quite safe in there, if you’ll only keep still.’
But that was just what they found it most difficult to do—keep still!
In the front of the train all was chaos. The trucks which had done the mischief—there were afterwards shown to be six of them, together with two guards’ vans—appeared to have been laden with bags of Portland cement. The bags had burst, and everything was covered with what seemed gritty dust. The air was full of the stuff, it got into our eyes, half blinding us. The engine of the express had turned a complete somersault. It vomited forth smoke, and steam, and flames,—every moment it seemed as if the woodwork of the carriages immediately behind and beneath would catch fire.
The front coaches were, as the guard had put it, ‘match-boxed.’ They were nothing but a heap of débris,—telescoped into one another in a state of apparently inextricable confusion. It was broad daylight before access was gained to what had once been the interiors. The condition of the first third-class compartment revealed an extraordinary state of things.
Scattered all over it were pieces of what looked like partially burnt rags, and fragments of silk and linen. I have those fragments now. Experts have assured me that they are actually neither of silk nor linen! but of some material—animal rather than vegetable—with which they are wholly unacquainted. On the cushions and woodwork—especially on the woodwork of the floor—were huge blotches,—stains of some sort. When first noticed they were damp, and gave out a most unpleasant smell. One of the pieces of woodwork is yet in my possession,—with the stain still on it. Experts have pronounced upon it too,—with the result that opinions are divided. Some maintain that the stain was produced by human blood, which had been subjected to a great heat, and, so to speak, parboiled. Others declare that it is the blood of some wild animal,—possibly of some creature of the cat species. Yet others affirm that it is not blood at all, but merely paint. While a fourth describes it as—I quote the written opinion which lies in front of me—‘caused apparently by a deposit of some sort of viscid matter, probably the excretion of some variety of lizard.’
In a corner of the carriage was the body of what seemed a young man costumed like a tramp. It was Marjorie Lindon.
So far as a most careful search revealed, that was all the compartment contained.
It is several years since I bore my part in the events which I have rapidly sketched,—or I should not have felt justified in giving them publicity. Exactly how many years, for reasons which should be sufficiently obvious, I must decline to say.
Marjorie Lindon still lives. The spark of life which was left in her, when she was extricated from among the débris of the wrecked express, was fanned again into flame. Her restoration was, however, not merely an affair of weeks or months, it was a matter of years. I believe that, even after her physical powers were completely restored—in itself a tedious task—she was for something like three years under medical supervision as a lunatic. But all that skill and money could do was done, and in course of time—the great healer—the results were entirely satisfactory.
Her father is dead,—and has left her in possession of the family estates. She is married to the individual who, in these pages, has been known as Paul Lessingham. Were his real name divulged she would be recognised as the popular and universally reverenced wife of one of the greatest statesmen the age has seen.
Nothing has been said to her about the fateful day on which she was—consciously or unconsciously—paraded through London in the tattered masculine habiliments of a vagabond. She herself has never once alluded to it. With the return of reason the affair seems to have passed from her memory as wholly as if it had never been, which, although she may not know it, is not the least cause she has for thankfulness. Therefore what actually transpired will never, in all human probability, be certainly known and particularly what precisely occurred in the railway carriage during that dreadful moment of sudden passing from life unto death. What became of the creature who all but did her to death; who he was—if it was a ‘he,’ which is extremely doubtful; whence he came; whither he went; what was the purport of his presence here,—to this hour these things are puzzles.
Paul Lessingham has not since been troubled by his old tormentor. He has ceased to be a haunted man. None the less he continues to have what seems to be a constitutional disrelish for the subject of beetles, nor can he himself be induced to speak of them. Should they be mentioned in a general conversation, should he be unable to immediately bring about a change of theme, he will, if possible, get up and leave the room. More, on this point he and his wife are one.
The fact may not be generally known, but it is so. Also I have reason to believe that there still are moments in which he harks back, with something like physical shrinking, to that awful nightmare of the past, and in which he prays God, that as it is distant from him now so may it be kept far off from him for ever.
Before closing, one matter may be casually mentioned. The tale has never been told, but I have unimpeachable authority for its authenticity.
During the recent expeditionary advance towards Dongola, a body of native troops which was encamped at a remote spot in the desert was aroused one night by what seemed to be the sound of a loud explosion. The next morning, at a distance of about a couple of miles from the camp, a huge hole was discovered in the ground,—as if blasting operations, on an enormous scale, had recently been carried on. In the hole itself, and round about it, were found fragments of what seemed bodies; credible witnesses have assured me that they were bodies neither of men nor women, but of creatures of some monstrous growth. I prefer to believe, since no scientific examination of the remains took place, that these witnesses ignorantly, though innocently, erred.
One thing is sure. Numerous pieces, both of stone and of metal, were seen, which went far to suggest that some curious subterranean building had been blown up by the force of the explosion. Especially were there portions of moulded metal which seemed to belong to what must have been an immense bronze statue. There were picked up also, more than a dozen replicas in bronze of the whilom sacred scarabaeus.
That the den of demons described by Paul Lessingham, had, that night, at last come to an end, and that these things which lay scattered, here and there, on that treeless plain, were the evidences of its final destruction, is not a hypothesis which I should care to advance with any degree of certainty. But, putting this and that together, the facts seem to point that way,—and it is a consummation devoutly to be desired.
By-the-bye, Sydney Atherton has married Miss Dora Grayling. Her wealth has made him one of the richest men in England. She began, the story goes, by loving him immensely; I can answer for the fact that he has ended by loving her as much. Their devotion to each other contradicts the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that every marriage must be of necessity a failure. He continues his career of an inventor. His investigations into the subject of aërial flight, which have brought the flying machine within the range of practical politics, are on everybody’s tongue.
The best man at Atherton’s wedding was Percy Woodville, now the Earl of Barnes. Within six months afterwards he married one of Mrs Atherton’s bridesmaids.
It was never certainly shown how Robert Holt came to his end. At the inquest the coroner’s jury was content to return a verdict of ‘Died of exhaustion.’ He lies buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, under a handsome tombstone, the cost of which, had he had it in his pockets, might have indefinitely prolonged his days.
It should be mentioned that that portion of this strange history which purports to be The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt was compiled from the statements which Holt made to Atherton, and to Miss Lindon, as she then was, when, a mud-stained, shattered derelict he lay at the lady’s father’s house.
Miss Linden’s contribution towards the elucidation of the mystery was written with her own hand. After her physical strength had come back to her, and, while mentally, she still hovered between the darkness and the light, her one relaxation was writing. Although she would never speak of what she had written, it was found that her theme was always the same. She confided to pen and paper what she would not speak of with her lips. She told, and re-told, and re-told again, the story of her love, and of her tribulation so far as it is contained in the present volume. Her MSS. invariably began and ended at the same point. They have all of them been destroyed, with one exception. That exception is herein placed before the reader.
On the subject of the Mystery of the Beetle I do not propose to pronounce a confident opinion. Atherton and I have talked it over many and many a time, and at the end we have got no ‘forrarder.’ So far as I am personally concerned, experience has taught me that there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy, and I am quite prepared to believe that the so-called Beetle, which others saw, but I never, was—or is, for it cannot be certainly shown that the Thing is not still existing—a creature born neither of God nor man.