CHAPTER XLI
THE CONSTABLE,--HIS CLUE,--AND THE CAB
Miss Coleman, getting up in a fluster, went hurrying to the door.
'I won't have that young man in my house. I won't have him! Don't lethim dare to put his nose across my doorstep.'
I endeavoured to appease her perturbation.
'I promise you that he shall not come in, Miss Coleman. My friend here,and I, will go and speak to him outside.'
She held the front door open just wide enough to enable Lessingham andme to slip through, then she shut it after us with a bang. Sheevidently had a strong objection to any intrusion on Sydney's part.
Standing just without the gate he saluted us with a characteristicvigour which was scarcely flattering to our late hostess. Behind himwas a constable.
'I hope you two have been mewed in with that old pussy long enough.While you've been tittle-tattling I've been doing,--listen to what thisbobby's got to say.'
The constable, his thumbs thrust inside his belt, wore an indulgentsmile upon his countenance. He seemed to find Sydney amusing. He spokein a deep bass voice,--as if it issued from his boots.
'I don't know that I've got anything to say.
It was plain that Sydney thought otherwise.
'You wait till I've given this pretty pair of gossips a lead, officer,then I'll trot you out.' He turned to us.
'After I'd poked my nose into every dashed hole in that infernal den,and been rewarded with nothing but a pain in the back for my trouble, Istood cooling my heels on the doorstep, wondering if I should fight thecabman, or get him to fight me, just to pass the time away,--for hesays he can box, and he looks it,--when who should come strolling alongbut this magnificent example of the metropolitan constabulary.' Hewaved his hand towards the policeman, whose grin grew wider. 'I lookedat him, and he looked at me, and then when we'd had enough of admiringeach other's fine features and striking proportions, he said to me,"Has he gone?" I said, "Who?--Baxter?--or Bob Brown?" He said, "No, theArab." I said, "What do you know about any Arab?" He said, "Well, I sawhim in the Broadway about three-quarters of an hour ago, and then,seeing you here, and the house all open, I wondered if he had gone forgood." With that I almost jumped out of my skin, though you can betyour life I never showed it. I said, "How do you know it was he?" Hesaid, "It was him right enough, there's no doubt about that. If you'veseen him once, you're not likely to forget him." "Where was he going?""He was talking to a cabman,--four-wheeler. He'd got a great bundle onhis head,--wanted to take it inside with him. Cabman didn't seem to seeit." That was enough for me,--I picked this most deserving officer upin my arms, and carried him across the road to you two fellows like aflash of lightning.'
Since the policeman was six feet three or four, and more thansufficiently broad in proportion, his scarcely seemed the kind offigure to be picked up in anybody's arms and carried like a 'flash oflightning,' which,--as his smile grew more indulgent, he himselfappeared to think.
Still, even allowing for Atherton's exaggeration, the news which he hadbrought was sufficiently important. I questioned the constable upon myown account.
'There is my card, officer, probably, before the day is over, a chargeof a very serious character will be preferred against the person whohas been residing in the house over the way. In the meantime it is ofthe utmost importance that a watch should be kept upon his movements. Isuppose you have no sort of doubt that the person you saw in theBroadway was the one in question?'
'Not a morsel. I know him as well as I do my own brother,--we all doupon this beat. He's known amongst us as the Arab. I've had my eye onhim ever since he came to the place. A queer fish he is. I always havesaid that he's up to some game or other. I never came across one likehim for flying about in all sorts of weather, at all hours of thenight, always tearing along as if for his life. As I was telling thisgentleman I saw him in the Broadway,--well, now it's about an hoursince, perhaps a little more. I was coming on duty when I saw a crowdin front of the District Railway Station,--and there was the Arab,having a sort of argument with the cabman. He had a great bundle on hishead, five or six feet long, perhaps longer. He wanted to take thisgreat bundle with him into the cab, and the cabman, he didn't see it.'
'You didn't wait to see him drive off.'
'No,--I hadn't time. I was due at the station,--I was cutting it prettyfine as it was.'
'You didn't speak to him,--or to the cabman?'
'No, it wasn't any business of mine you understand. The whole thingjust caught my eye as I was passing.'
'And you didn't take the cabman's number?'
'No, well, as far as that goes it wasn't needful. I know the cabman,his name and all about him, his stable's in Bradmore.'
I whipped out my note-book.
'Give me his address.'
'I don't know what his Christian name is, Tom, I believe, but I'm notsure. Anyhow his surname's Ellis and his address is Church Mews, StJohn's Road, Bradmore,--I don't know his number, but any one will tellyou which is his place, if you ask for Four-Wheel Ellis,--that's thename he's known by among his pals because of his driving afour-wheeler.'
'Thank you, officer. I am obliged to you.' Two half-crowns changedhands. 'If you will keep an eye on the house and advise me at theaddress which you will find on my card, of any thing which takes placethere during the next few days, you will do me a service.'
We had clambered back into the hansom, the driver was just about tostart, when the constable was struck by a sudden thought.
'One moment, sir,--blessed if I wasn't going to forget the mostimportant bit of all. I did hear him tell Ellis where to drive himto,--he kept saying it over and over again, in that queer lingo of his."Waterloo Railway Station, Waterloo Railway Station." "All right," saidEllis, "I'll drive you to Waterloo Railway Station right enough, onlyI'm not going to have that bundle of yours inside my cab. There isn'troom for it, so you put it on the roof." "To Waterloo Railway Station,"said the Arab, "I take my bundle with me to Waterloo RailwayStation,--I take it with me." "Who says you don't take it with you?"said Ellis. "You can take it, and twenty more besides, for all I care,only you don't take it inside my cab,--put it on the roof." "I take itwith me to Waterloo Railway Station," said the Arab, and there theywere, wrangling and jangling, and neither seeming to be able to makeout what the other was after, and the people all laughing.'
'Waterloo Railway Station,--you are sure that was what he said?'
'I'll take my oath to it, because I said to myself, when I heard it, "Iwonder what you'll have to pay for that little lot, for the DistrictRailway Station's outside the four-mile radius."' As we drove off I wasinclined to ask myself, a little bitterly--and perhaps unjustly--if itwere not characteristic of the average London policeman to almostforget the most important part of his information,--at any rate toleave it to the last and only to bring it to the front on having hispalm crossed with silver.
As the hansom bowled along we three had what occasionally approached awarm discussion.
'Marjorie was in that bundle,' began Lessingham, in the most lugubriousof tones, and with the most woe-begone of faces.
'I doubt it,' I observed.
'She was,--I feel it,--I know it. She was either dead and mutilated, orgagged and drugged and helpless. All that remains is vengeance.'
'I repeat that I doubt it.'
Atherton struck in.
'I am bound to say, with the best will in the world to think otherwise,that I agree with Lessingham.'
'You are wrong.'
'It's all very well for you to talk in that cock-sure way, but it'seasier for you to say I'm wrong than to prove it. If I am wrong, and ifLessingham's wrong, how do you explain his extraordinary insistance ontaking it inside the cab with him, which the bobby describes? If therewasn't something horrible, awful in that bundle of his, of which hefeared the discovery, why was he so reluctant to have it placed uponthe roof?'
'There probably was something in it which he was particularly anxiousshould not be discovered, but I doub
t if it was anything of the kindwhich you suggest.'
'Here is Marjorie in a house alone--nothing has been seen of hersince,--her clothing, her hair, is found hidden away under the floor.This scoundrel sallies forth with a huge bundle on his head,--the bobbyspeaks of it being five or six feet long, or longer,--a bundle which heregards with so much solicitude that he insists on never allowing it togo, for a single instant, out of his sight and reach. What is in thething? don't all the facts most unfortunately point in one direction?'
Mr Lessingham covered his face with his hands, and groaned.
'I fear that Mr Atherton is right.'
'I differ from you both.'
Sydney at once became heated.
'Then perhaps you can tell us what was in the bundle?'
'I fancy I could make a guess at the contents.'
'Oh you could, could you, then, perhaps, for our sakes, you'll makeit,--and not play the oracular owl!--Lessingham and I are interested inthis business, after all.'
'It contained the bearer's personal property: that, and nothing more.Stay! before you jeer at me, suffer me to finish. If I am not mistakenas to the identity of the person whom the constable describes as theArab, I apprehend that the contents of that bundle were of much moreimportance to him than if they had consisted of Miss Lindon, eitherdead or living. More. I am inclined to suspect that if the bundle wasplaced on the roof of the cab, and if the driver did meddle with it,and did find out the contents, and understand them, he would have beendriven, out of hand, stark staring mad.'
Sydney was silent, as if he reflected. I imagine he perceived there wassomething in what I said.
'But what has become of Miss Lindon?'
'I fancy that Miss Lindon, at this moment, is--somewhere; I don't, justnow, know exactly where, but I hope very shortly to be able to give youa clearer notion,--attired in a rotten, dirty pair of boots; a filthy,tattered pair of trousers; a ragged, unwashed apology for a shirt; agreasy, ancient, shapeless coat; and a frowsy peaked cloth cap.'
They stared at me, opened-eyed. Atherton was the first to speak.
'What on earth do you mean?'
'I mean that it seems to me that the facts point in the direction of myconclusions rather than yours--and that very strongly too. Miss Colemanasserts that she saw Miss London return into the house; that within afew minutes the blind was replaced at the front window; and thatshortly after a young man, attired in the costume I have described,came walking out of the front door. I believe that young man was MissMarjorie Lindon.'
Lessingham and Atherton both broke out into interrogations, withSydney, as usual, loudest.
'But--man alive! what on earth should make her do a thing like that?Marjorie, the most retiring, modest girl on all God's earth, walk aboutin broad daylight, in such a costume, and for no reason at all! my dearChampnell, you are suggesting that she first of all went mad.'
'She was in a state of trance.'
'Good God!--Champnell!'
'Well?'
'Then you think that--juggling villain did get hold of her?'
'Undoubtedly. Here is my view of the case, mind it is only a hypothesisand you must take it for what it is worth. It seems to me quite clearthat the Arab, as we will call the person for the sake ofidentification, was somewhere about the premises when you thought hewasn't.'
'But--where? We looked upstairs, and downstairs, and everywhere--wherecould he have been?'
'That, as at present advised, I am not prepared to say, but I think youmay take it for granted that he was there. He hypnotised the man Holt,and sent him away, intending you to go after him, and so being rid ofyou both--'
'The deuce he did, Champnell! You write me down an ass!'
'As soon as the coast was clear he discovered himself to Miss Lindon,who, I expect, was disagreeably surprised, and hypnotised her.'
'The hound!'
'The devil!'
The first exclamation was Lessingham's, the second Sydney's.
'He then constrained her to strip herself to the skin--'
'The wretch!'
'The fiend!'
'He cut off her hair; he hid it and her clothes under the floor wherewe found them--where I think it probable that he had already someancient masculine garments concealed--'
'By Jove! I shouldn't be surprised if they were Holt's. I remember theman saying that that nice joker stripped him of his duds,--andcertainly when I saw him,--and when Marjorie found him!--he hadabsolutely nothing on but a queer sort of cloak. Can it be possiblethat that humorous professor of hankey-pankey--may all the maledictionsof the accursed alight upon his head!--can have sent Marjorie Lindon,the daintiest damsel in the land!--into the streets of London riggedout in Holt's old togs!'
'As to that, I am not able to give an authoritative opinion, but, if Iunderstand you aright, it at least is possible. Anyhow I am disposed tothink that he sent Miss Lindon after the man Holt, taking it forgranted that he had eluded you.--'
'That's it. Write me down an ass again!'
'That he did elude you, you have yourself admitted.'
'That's because I stopped talking with that mutton-headed bobby,--I'dhave followed the man to the ends of the earth if it hadn't been forthat.'
'Precisely; the reason is immaterial, it is the fact with which we areimmediately concerned. He did elude you. And I think you will find thatMiss Lindon and Mr Holt are together at this moment.'
'In men's clothing?'
'Both in men's clothing, or, rather, Miss Lindon is in a man's rags.'
'Great Potiphar! To think of Marjorie like that!'
'And where they are, the Arab is not very far off either.'
Lessingham caught me by the arm.
'And what diabolical mischief do you imagine that he proposes to do toher?'
I shirked the question.
'Whatever it is, it is our business to prevent his doing it.'
'And where do you think they have been taken?'
'That it will be our immediate business to endeavour to discover,--andhere, at any rate, we are at Waterloo.'
The Beetle: A Mystery Page 41