The shutters were all up, though the door was open, and the only person visible was a very smudgy boy who was in the act of wheeling out a sack of coals. To the smudgy boy Hewitt applied himself. “I don’t see Mr. Penner about,” he said; “will he be back soon?”
The boy stared hard at Hewitt. “No,” he said, “he won’t. ’E’s guv’ up the shop. ’E paid ’is next week’s rent this mornin’ and retired.”
“Oh!” Hewitt answered sharply. “Retired, has he? And what’s become of the stock, eh! Where are the cabbages and potatoes?”
“’E told me to give ’em to the pore, an’ I did. There’s lots o’ pore lives round ’ere. My mother’s one, an’ these ’ere coals is for ’er, an’ I’m goin’ to ’ave the trolley for myself.”
“Dear me!” Hewitt answered, regarding the boy with amused interest. “You’re a very business-like almoner. And what will the Tabernacle do without Mr. Penner?”
“I dunno,” the boy answered, closing the door behind him. “I dunno nothin’ about the Tabernacle—only where it is.”
“Ah, and where is it? I might find him there, perhaps.”
“Ward Lane—fust on left, second on right. It’s a shop wot’s bin shut up; next door to a stable-yard.” And the smudgy boy started off with his trolley.
The Tabernacle was soon found. At some very remote period it had been an unlucky small shop, but now it was permanently shuttered, and the interior was lighted by holes cut in the upper panels of the shutters. Hewitt took a good look at the shuttered window and the door beside it and then entered the stable-yard at the side. To the left of the passage giving entrance to the yard there was a door, which plainly was another entrance to the house, and a still damp mud-mark on the step proved it to have been lately used. Hewitt rapped sharply at the door with his knuckles.
Presently a female voice from within could be heard speaking through the keyhole in a very loud whisper. “Who is it?” asked the voice.
Hewitt stooped to the keyhole and whispered back, “Is Mr. Penner here now?”
“No.”
“Then I must come in and wait for him. Open the door.” A bolt was pulled back and the door cautiously opened a few inches. Hewitt’s foot was instantly in the jamb, and he forced the door back and entered. “Come,” he said in a loud voice, “I’ve come to find out where Mr. Penner is, and to see whoever is in here.” Immediately there was an assault of fists on the inside of a door at the end of the passage, and a loud voice said, “Do you hear? Whoever you are I’ll give you five pounds if you’ll bring Mr. Martin Hewitt here. His office is 25 Portsmouth Street, Strand. Or the same if you’ll bring the police.” And the voice was that of Mrs. Mallett.
Hewitt turned to the woman who had opened the door, and who now stood, much frightened, in the corner beside him. “Come,” he said, “your keys, quick, and don’t offer to stir, or I’ll have you brought back and taken to the station.” The woman gave him a bunch of keys without a word. Hewitt opened the door at the end of the passage, and once more Mrs. Mallett stood before him, prim and rigid as ever, except that her bonnet was sadly out of shape and her mantle was torn.
“Thank you, Mr. Hewitt,” she said. “I thought you’d come, though where I am I know no more than Adam. Somebody shall smart severely for this. Why, and that woman—that woman,” she pointed contemptuously at the woman in the corner, who was about two-thirds her height, “was going to search me—me! Why—” Mrs. Mallett, blazing with suddenly revived indignation, took a step forward and the woman vanished through the outer door.
“Come,” Hewitt said, “no doubt you’ve been shamefully treated; but we must be quiet for a little. First I will make quite sure that nobody else is here, and then we’ll get to your house.” Nobody was there. The rooms were dreary and mostly empty. The front room, which was lighted by the holes in the shutters, had a rough reading-desk and a table, with half a dozen wooden chairs. “This,” said Hewitt, “is no doubt the Tabernacle proper, and there is very little to see in it. Come back now, Mrs. Mallett, to your house, and we’ll see if some explanation of these things is not possible. I hope your snuff-box is quite safe?”
Mrs. Mallett drew it from her pocket and exhibited it triumphantly. “I told them they should never get it,” she said, “and they saw I meant it, and left off trying.” As they emerged in the street she said: “The first thing, of course, is to bring the police into this place.”
“No, I think we won’t do that yet,” Hewitt said. “In the first place the case is one of assault and detention, and your remedy is by summons or action; and then there are other things to speak of. We shall get a cab in the High Street, and you shall tell me what has happened to you.”
Mrs. Mallett’s story was simple. The cab in which she left Hewitt’s office had travelled west, and was apparently making for the locality of her sister’s house; but the evening was dark, the fog increased greatly, and she shut the windows and took no particular notice of the streets through which she was passing. Indeed with such a fog that would have been impossible. She had a sort of undefined notion that some of the streets were rather narrow and dirty, but she thought nothing of it, since all cabmen are given to selecting unexpected routes. After a time, however, the cab slowed, made a sharp turn, and pulled up. The door was opened, and “Here you are mum,” said the cabby. She did not understand the sharp turn, and had a general feeling that the place could not be her sister’s, but as she alighted she found she had stepped directly upon the threshold of a narrow door into which she was immediately pulled by two persons inside. This, she was sure, must have been the side-door in the stable-yard, through which Hewitt himself had lately obtained entrance to the Tabernacle.
Before she had recovered from her surprise the door was shut behind her. She struggled stoutly and screamed, but the place she was in was absolutely dark; she was taken by surprise, and she found resistance useless. They were men who held her, and the voice of the only one who spoke she did not know. He demanded in firm and distinct tones that the “sacred thing” should be given up, and that Mrs. Mallett should sign a paper agreeing to prosecute nobody before she was allowed to go. She however, as she asserted with her customary emphasis, was not the sort of woman to give in to that. She resolutely declined to do anything of the sort, and promised her captors, whoever they were, a full and legal return for their behaviour. Then she became conscious that a woman was somewhere present, and the man threatened that this woman should search her. This threat Mrs. Mallett met as boldly as the others. She should like to meet the woman who would dare attempt to search her, she said. She defied anybody to attempt it. As for her uncle Joseph’s snuff-box, no matter where it was, it was where they would not be able to get it. That they should never have, but sooner or later they should have something very unpleasant for their attempts to steal it. This declaration had an immediate effect. They importuned her no more, and she was left in an inner room and the key was turned on her. There she sat, dozing occasionally, the whole night, her indomitable spirit remaining proof through all those doubtful hours of darkness. Once or twice she heard people enter and move about, and each time she called aloud to offer, as Hewitt had heard, a reward to anybody who should bring the police or communicate her situation to Hewitt. Day broke and still she waited, sleepless and unfed, till Hewitt at last arrived and released her.
On Mrs. Mallett’s arrival at her house Mrs. Rudd’s servant was at once despatched with reassuring news and Hewitt once more addressed himself to the question of the burglars. “First, Mrs. Mallett,” he said, “did you ever conceal anything—anything at all mind—in the frame of an engraving?”
“No, never.”
“Were any of your engravings framed before you had them?”
“Not one that I can remember. They were mostly uncle Joseph’s, and he kept them with a lot of others in drawers. He was rather a collector, you know.”
“Very well. Now come up to
the attic. Something has been opened there that was not touched at the first attempt.”
“See now,” said Hewitt, when the attic was reached, “here is a box full of papers. Do you know everything that was in it?”
“No, I don’t,” Mrs. Mallett replied. “There were a lot of my uncle’s manuscript plays. Here you see ‘The Dead Bridegroom, or the Drum of Fortune,’ and so on; and there were a lot of autographs. I took no interest in them, although some were rather valuable, I believe.”
“Now bring your recollection to bear as strongly as you can,” Hewitt said. “Do you ever remember seeing in this box a paper bearing nothing whatever upon it but a wax seal?”
“Oh yes, I remember that well enough. I’ve noticed it each time I’ve turned the box over—which is very seldom. It was a plain slip of vellum paper with a red seal, cracked and rather worn—some celebrated person’s seal, I suppose. What about it?” Hewitt was turning the papers over one at a time. “It doesn’t seem to be here now,” he said. “Do you see it?”
“No,” Mrs. Mallett returned, examining the papers herself, “it isn’t. It appears to be the only thing missing. But why should they take it?”
“I think we are at the bottom of all this mystery now,” Hewitt answered quietly. “It is the Seal of the Woman.”
“The what? I don’t understand. The fact is, Mrs. Mallett, that these people have never wanted your uncle Joseph’s snuff-box at all, but that seal.”
“Not wanted the snuff-box? Nonsense! Why, didn’t I tell you Penner asked for it—wanted to buy it?”
“Yes, you did, but so far as I can remember you never spoke of a single instance of Penner mentioning the snuff-box by name. He spoke of a sacred relic, and you, of course, very naturally assumed he spoke of the box. None of the anonymous letters mentioned the box, you know, and once or twice they actually did mention a seal, though usually the thing was spoken of in a roundabout and figurative way. All along, these people—Reuben Penner and the others—have been after the seal, and you have been defending the snuff-box.”
“But why the seal?”
“Did you never hear of Joanna Southcott?”
“Oh yes, of course; she was an ignorant visionary who set up as prophetess eighty or ninety years ago or more.”
“Joanna Southcott gave herself out as a prophetess in 1790. She was to be the mother of the Messiah, she said, and she was the woman driven into the wilderness, as foretold in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation. She died at the end of 1814, when her followers numbered more than 100,000, all fanatic believers. She had made rather a good thing in her lifetime by the sale of seals, each of which was to secure the eternal salvation of the holder. At her death, of course, many of the believers fell away, but others held on as faithfully as ever, asserting that ‘the holy Joanna’ would rise again and fulfil all the prophecies. These poor people dwindled in numbers gradually, and although they attempted to bring up their children in their own faith, the whole belief has been practically extinct for years now. You will remember that you told me of Penner’s mother being a superstitious fanatic of some sort, and that your uncle Joseph possessed her extravagances. The thing seems pretty plain now. Your uncle Joseph possessed himself of Joanna Southcott’s seal by way of removing from poor old Mrs. Penner an object of a sort of idolatry, and kept it as a curiosity. Reuben Penner grew up strong in his mother’s delusions, and to him and the few believers he had gathered round him at his Tabernacle, the seal was an object worth risking anything to get.
“First he tried to convert you to his belief. Then he tried to buy it; after that, he and his friends tried anonymous letters, and at last, grown desperate, they resorted to watching you, burglary and kidnapping. Their first night’s raid was unsuccessful, so last night they tried kidnapping you by the aid of a cabman. When they had got you, and you had at last given them to understand that it was your uncle Joseph’s snuff-box you were defending, they tried the house again, and this time were successful. I guessed they had succeeded then, from a simple circumstance. They had begun to cut out the backs of framed engravings for purposes of search, but only some of the engravings were so treated. That meant either that the article wanted was found behind one of them, or that the intruders broke off in their picture-examination to search somewhere else, and were then successful, and so under no necessity of opening the other engravings. You assured me that nothing could have been concealed in any of the engravings, so I at once assumed that they had found what they were after in the only place wherein they had not searched the night before—the attic—and probably among the papers in the trunk.”
“But then if they found it there why didn’t they return and let me go?”
“Because you would have found where they had brought you. They probably intended to keep you there till the dark of the next evening, and then take you away in a cab again and leave you some distance off. To prevent my following and possibly finding you they left here on your looking-glass this note” (Hewitt produced it) “threatening all sorts of vague consequences if you were not left to them. They knew you had come to me, of course, having followed you to my office. And now Penner feels himself anything but safe. He has relinquished his greengrocery and dispensed his stock in charity, and probably, having got the seal he has taken himself off. Not so much perhaps from fear of punishment as for fear the seal may be taken from him, and with it the salvation his odd belief teaches him it will confer.”
Mrs. Mallett sat silently for a little while and then said in a rather softened voice, “Mr. Hewitt, I am not what is called a woman of sentiment, as you may have observed, and I have been most shamefully treated over this wretched seal. But if all you tell me has been actually what has happened I have a sort of perverse inclination to forgive the man in spite of myself. The thing probably had been his mother’s—or at any rate he believed so—and his giving up his little all to attain the object of his ridiculous faith, and distributing his goods among the poor people and all that—really it’s worthy of an old martyr, if only it were done in the cause of a faith a little less stupid—though of course he thinks his is the only religion, as others do of theirs. But then”—Mrs. Mallett stiffened again—“there’s not much to prove your theories, is there?”
Hewitt smiled. “Perhaps not,” he said, “except that, to my mind at any rate, everything points to my explanation being the only possible one. The thing presented itself to you, from the beginning, as an attempt on the snuff-box you value so highly, and the possibility of the seal being the object aimed at never entered your mind. I saw it whole from the outside, and on thinking the thing over after our first interview I remembered Joanna Southcott. I think I am right.”
“Well, if you are, as I said, I half believe I shall forgive the man. We will advertise if you like, telling him he has nothing to fear if he can give an explanation of his conduct consistent with what he calls his religious belief, absurd as it may be.”
* * * *
That night fell darker and foggier than the last. The advertisement went into the daily papers, but Reuben Penner nevers saw it. Late the next day a bargeman passing Old Swan Pier struck some large object with his boat-hook and brought it to the surface. It was the body of a drowned man, and it was afterwards identified as that of Reuben Penner, late greengrocer, of Hammersmith. How he came into the water there was nothing to show. There was no money nor any valuables found on the body, and there was a story of a large, heavy-faced man who had given a poor woman—a perfect stranger—a watch and chain and a handful of money down near Tower Hill on that foggy evening. But this again was only a story, not definitely authenticated. What was certain was that, tied securely round the dead man’s neck with a cord, and gripped and crumpled tightly in his right hand, was a soddened piece of vellum paper, blank, but carrying an old red seal, of which the device was almost entirely rubbed and cracked away. Nobody at the inquest quite understood this.
THE RED
TRIANGLE
BEING SOME FURTHER CHRONICLES OF MARTIN HEWITT, INVESTIGATOR
THE AFFAIR OF SAMUEL’S DIAMONDS
I
I have already recorded many of the adventures of my friend Martin Hewitt, but among them there have been more of a certain few which were discovered to be related together in a very extraordinary manner; and it is to these that I am now at liberty to address myself. There may have been others—cases which gave no indication of their connection with these; some of them indeed I may have told without a suspicion of their connection with the Red Triangle; but the first in which that singular accompaniment became apparent was the matter of Samuel’s diamonds. The case exhibited many interesting features, and I was very anxious to report it, with perhaps even less delay than I had thought judicious in other cases; but Hewitt restrained me.
“No, Brett,” he said, “there is more to come of this. This particular case is over, it is true, but there is much behind. I’ve an idea that I shall see that Red Triangle again. I may, or, of course, I may not; but there is deep work going on—very deep work, and whether we see more of it or not, I must keep prepared. I can’t afford to throw a single card upon the table. So, as many notes as you please, Brett, for future reference; but no publication yet—none of your journalism!”
Hewitt was right. It was not so long before we heard more of the Red Triangle, and after that more, though the true connection of some of the cases with the mysterious symbol and the meaning of the symbol itself remained for a time undiscovered. But at last Hewitt was able to unmask the hideous secret, and for ever put an end to the evil influence that gathered about the sign; and now there remains no reason why the full story should not be told.
I have told elsewhere of my first acquaintance with Martin Hewitt, of his pleasant and companionable nature, his ordinary height, his stoutness, his round, smiling face—those characteristics that aided him so well in his business of investigator, so unlike was his appearance and manner to that of the private detective of the ordinary person’s imagination. Therefore I need only remind my readers that my bachelor chambers were, during most of my acquaintance with Hewitt, in the old building near the Strand, in which Hewitt’s office stood at the top of the first flight of stairs; where the plain ground-glass of the door bore as inscription the single word “Hewitt,” and the sharp lad, Kerrett, first received visitors in the outer office.
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 72