‘Fanny, don’t!’ cried John Groman, dropping into a chair. ‘I’ve seen him to night. He came back to me on my birthday. I was to have brought him home to you, and we were to be so happy together.’
Here John Groman broke down. He laid his head against his wife’s honest heart, and sobbed aloud.
John, dear John, why should you be so frightened about him? He’ll be here presently, I daresay. Tell me all about it, how it happened, and where you saw him, and everything. You’ll feel happier after you’ve told me,” concluded the little woman, with as patronising an air as if she had been the goddess of wisdom.
John Groman told his tale briefly, and in a tone that was almost despairing.
His wife thought the circumstances were queer, but pretended to make light of them.
‘Perhaps he intended to play you a trick, dear,’ she said, soothingly.’ You know he was always wild. I’ve heard you says so. Or, perhaps some of his old companions got hold of him, and would not let him keep his appointment with you.’
‘That’s what I fear most of all, Fanny. My brother’s old companions were a bad lot. I have bitter reason to know that. And to-night he carried property about him worth a thousand pounds. Heaven help him if he has got among his old companions! Something bad will come of it.’
‘Why, John, what a raven you are. Come, cheer up, dear. I’ve got you such a nice little supper, a regular birthday supper — a boiled fowl and oyster sauce.’
John Groman was not in a mood to be consoled by fowl and oyster sauce. He made a pretence of eating his supper to please the ‘little woman.’ Then he sent her to bed with a kiss and a cheery word, and when she had gone he opened the shutters, drew up the blind, and let the light of fire and candle shine out upon the dark windy road. There was only a long strip of garden between the footpath and the parlour window.
‘If he comes he shall see the light, and know that I’m waiting up for him,’ said John Groman.
He waited till his candles took a sickly hue in the grey March daylight; waited till the shrill cry of ‘milk below’ sounded in the cold morning street, and the industrious little maid-of-all-work came down and opened the house-door, and shook out her dusty mats, and set vigorously to work with a clattering pail and a lump of hearth-stone. Mrs. Groman was a housekeeper who required extreme neatness and precision in all her domestic arrangements; and the clown was wont to brag of Rose Cottage as a model dwelling, where you might have hunted all day long for a spider or a cockroach, and where a cobweb would have been more astonishing than a ghost.
CHAPTER III. ‘THERE’S A WOMAN IN IT.’
BEFORE the table had been laid for the eight o’clock breakfast, John Groman was in Bow Street, asking the advice of the police about his missing brother.
The constable to whom he told his story was an old hand — a man of few words and decided opinions.
‘Don’t you think your brother’s larking with you?’ he asked.
‘He is not capable of such a thing. Think how cruel it would be to come back to me after fifteen years, and to trifle with my love for him. No, it isn’t in Ted Groman to do it.’
‘On the drink, perhaps?’ suggested the constable.
‘He was never a drinking man.’
‘His habits may have changed in fifteen years. Plenty of time for a man to go to the bad. If he’s not on the drink, and not larking, the case looks dark. A man on the loose in London with a thousand pound’s-worth of diamonds in his pockets! It looks bad. You’d better advertise in the Hue and Cry.
‘Yes. But is there nothing I can do myself?’
‘Not much, I’m afraid. You may hunt among his old pals. I daresay there’s a woman at the bottom of it.’
John Groman remembered the diamond bracelet, and ininclined to agree with the constable.
‘Do you know of any woman he was sweet on before he left England? Fifteen years, though! He may have been sweet on a dozen women in that time.’
‘I think he’s more likely to have been constant to the memory of one,’ said John Groman, who knew just enough about that fatal attachment of his brother’s to know that the wound had been deep.
‘Do you? Well, rely upon it, there’s a woman at the bottom of it. Do you want to offer a reward?’
‘Yes,’ answered Groman. ‘A hundred pounds to the man who brings me my brother safe and sound; fifty to the man who brings me tidings of him!’
‘That’s liberal,’ said the constable. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, I have the honour of talking to Signor Grumani.’
‘You are not mistaken.’
‘Sir, allow me to shake hands with you, exclaimed the constable, with deep respect. ‘This is the proudest moment of my life. My name is James Wormald, and I’ve been a playgoer from my boyhood. That trick of yours with the old woman and the umbrella is the finest thing that has ever been done in the British drama. There’s nothing in Shakespeare to beat it, Keep your heart up, Signor Grumani. You’re a popular man. Whatever the constabulary of this city are capable of doing will be done for you. And now, perhaps, you can give me a little information that may put me on the right track as to your brother’s old acquaintance, and so on. The lady to whom he was attached, for instance.’
‘It was an unfortunate affair,” said Groman. ‘She was the daughter of a neighbour of ours, a lawyer’s clerk — —’
‘That sounds artful,’ observed the constable. ‘I don’t like he law in its subordinate branches.’
‘Ted and she were sweethearts as children. She was a lovely creature. I don’t think I ever saw a more beautiful face, but she was very small and slight, and there was something wrong about her figure. It wasn’t much: a stranger would hardly have noticed it; but I used to think sometimes that there was an ugly twist in her mind just as there was in her body. Something crooked somewhere.’
‘Was she fond of your brother?’
‘Passionately, as he was of her. Yet she would quarrel with him about the veriest trifle, and sulk for a fortnight at a stretch. Then they would make it up, and she would be all sunshine. One day they had a quarrel that was more desperate than any they had ever had before. My brother came home looking white and agitated. ‘I’ve done with that little wild cat for ever,’ he told me. ‘What do you think, Jack, she took the locket I gave her off her neck, the locket I made myself — and you know how hard I pinched to buy the pearls I set round it — and chucked it out of the window into the muddy road, just under a brewer’s dray that was passing. ‘Very good, my lady,’ says I, ‘you’ve thrown away your locket, and you’ve thrown away your lover. You’ve seen the last of us both.’
‘Serve her right,’ said Wormald. ‘I hope he stuck to his word.’
‘He did,’ answered Groman, ‘for a fortnight, and then he got a letter, signed Clara Valaority, to tell him that she’d married Mr. Valaority, the Greek picture-dealer of Rupert Street, who could afford to keep her like a lady, and she wrote those few lines to bid him good-by, and to give him her best wishes. Ted was like a madman after he got that letter. He raved and raged, swore he would murder Clara and her husband. ‘False, abominable girl!’ he cried; ‘if I cannot be happy with her I’ll be hung for her.’
But, of course he didn’t do it,’ said the constable.
‘No. He bore the loss of her somehow, as we all bear our troubles, because we must. He had just taken a situation at a West-end jeweller’s, and he was working very hard, and getting on very fast. His employers had a wonderful opinion of him. But I know he never left off grieving for Clara. She used to pass our shop sometimes of a fine afternoon, on her way to her father’s lodgings, dressed like a duchess; but I didn’t think she looked happy. Things went on like this for more than two years. Ted’s salary had been raised from seventy pounds a year to a hundred and fifty. He dressed like a gentleman, and helped the dear old father and mother with many a five-pound note. I don’t believe he had a particle of vice in his composition. One day I met Mrs. Valaority’s father. He was in great distress, and told me
his troubles. The Greek had gone all wrong. The place in Rupert Street had been sold up, and Valaority and his wife were in a wretched lodging at the back of Clara Market. Valaority was a gambler and a profligate, according to the old man’s account, and his young wife was miserable. I was foolish enough to tell my brother what I had heard.’
‘And he went to the lodging behind Clare Market to com fort his old love, I suppose,’ suggested the constable.
‘How did you know that?’
‘I know human nature.’
‘I heard nothing more directly of Mrs. Valaority; but indirectly I heard that my brother had been seen with her. His old steady habits were given up; he began to stay out late at night. He had his latch-key, and was his own master as to coming in and going out. I used to hear him come in far on in the small hours. He was always short of money now, poor fellow, and, instead of helping the old people with a five-pound note, was glad to come and borrow one of me. Sometimes he seemed unnaturally lively; at other times he looked miserable. We all felt at home that there was something wrong. I had many a talk with him, and tried my hardest to get him to trust me with his troubles, but it was no use. And one day there came — well, there came a crash, and Ted left England.’
‘Bolted with the lady?’ inquired Mr. Wormald,
‘No. She stayed behind.’
‘Do you know what kind of life he led abroad?’
‘No. But I’ll be sworn it was an honest one. I could see that in his face last night.’
‘And he told you that he had been hunting up old friends?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he is a confiding fellow, easily influenced, openhearted, open-handed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I wouldn’t mind laying a wager that those Valaoritys have got him. A Greek picture-dealer, sold up fifteen years ago, living by his wits ever since. That’s a man to stick at nothing. And your brother would be proud of having made his fortune, and would show his bags of diamonds!, Of course. Yes, the Valaoritys have got him.’
‘But, remember, there can be no friendship between my brother and Mr. Valaority.’
‘Perhaps not; but there’s a strong friendship between him and Mr. Valaority’s wife. She’ll have got pretty well toned down to match the colour of her husband by this time. When once a woman takes the downward turn, she goes very fast, pretty dear. I wouldn’t give much for Mrs. Valaority’s respect for the laws of property. Take my word for it, Signor Grumani, she and her husband have got those diamonds.’
John Groman remembered the bracelet, and his heart sank within him.
‘Do you think they have murdered my brother?’ he gasped.
‘I haven’t come to that yet awhile — I think they’ve got the diamonds.’
‘But if my brother were alive, plundered, duped even, surely he would come to me? Who else would be so ready to pity and help him?’
‘He might not care to let you know he had been fooled. What we’ve got to do is to find the Valaoritys.’
‘And the diamonds.’
‘Find them? You might just as well go and look for so many drops of water in the sea. They’re on their way back to Amsterdam by this time, I daresay, or snugly reposing in paper at a respectable house in Hatton Garden. You needn’t hope to see that stuff again. But if you want to find your brother we had better hunt up the Valaoritys.’
‘Is it not as likely that a stranger may have robbed him?’
‘No. He might be weak enough to display his property to an old acquaintance; but he would hardly be such a simpleton as to brag of it to a stranger. Now you go home, Signer Grumani, and make your mind easy. We’ll find the Valaoritys.’
‘Let me help you. I’m a free man. I couldn’t rest at home. Your reward shall be just the same, but let me help — let me look for my brother.’
‘With all my heart,’ answered the constable. ‘You’re too great an artist not to know how to keep a silent tongue. I shall be proud of your company.’
The constable retired to arrange his affairs with the head of his department, and John Groman sat down in the dingy office to write a letter to his wife — a loving, honest letter — telling her what he was going to do, and begging her not to be uneasy about him should he be obliged to remain absent from home for a night or two. He did not know whither his quest might lead him, or how long it might detain him.
‘Now.’ said the constable, coining back, after an of a little more than an hour, dressed in plain clothes, and looking like a country gentleman or a well-to-do grazier, ‘first thing to be done is to find out where these Valaoritys live. You’ve no idea, I suppose.
‘Not the slightest.’
‘Do you know any one connected with them?’
‘There’s Clara’s father. He was an old man fifteen years ago, but he’s one of that class of people who never die. They are old, and shrivelled, and dirty when yon first know them; and they never get a day older, or a shade dirtier, in the course of your lifetime.’
‘I know the breed,’ answered the constable. ‘They come to their oldest and ugliest early in life, and leave no margin for deterioration.
‘I passed the old man in Holborn the other day. We shall just get to his lodgings by one o’clock. He used always to dine at home, and I don’t suppose he has changed his habits.’
‘Not he, sir, no more than a snail. Life is a fixture with that breed.
Things fell out as John Groman hail anticipated. They got to the dull side-street out of Holborn at the stroke of one, and found the old clerk ruminating over a plate of beef sausages and a pint of porter, a dirty newspaper propped up in front of him against a rickety cruet-stand, much the Worse for mustard.
He received John Groman expansively, and was gracious to John’s companion, who was introduced as a friend from Essex; but he reproached the clown for not having sent him an order for Harlequin Humpty Dumpty.
‘There was a time when you used to remember an old acquaintance,’ he said.
‘I’m very sorry I forgot you, Mr. Clews, especially as I want you to dome a service,’ replied John Groman. ‘I’ve a notion that there’s been a kind of occasional correspondence carried on between your daughter and ray brother Ted, and that Mrs. Valaority could tell me something about him if she liked. Now, I’d give a great deal to know where he is and what he’s doing, and I should take it as a favour if you would tell me where to find your daughter.’
The old clerk sighed, and wiped away a dirty tear with the corner of a blue bird’s-eye handkerchief.’
‘My daughter has not behaved well, Jack. Pardon the familiarity, but in happier days you were always Jack. Valaority has treated her infamously. But that isn’t the worst. He has perverted her mind. She’s never been a daughter to me since her marriage. I hardly see her once in a year unless I happen to run against her in the street. As to telling you where she lives, I can’t take upon myself to do it. They’re always on the move.’
‘Have they prospered of late years?’ asked the constable. ‘I’m an intimate friend of Jack, sir. You may speak freely before me.’
‘I don’t know. Sometimes Clara seems flush of money — I can see it in her dress, She was always a slave to dress, poor foolish girl. I believe it was for the sake of fine clothes she married Valaority, who was twenty years her senior, and as ugly as sin. Sometimes she looks poor; but whether she’s rich or poor I never see the colour of her money.’
There was a good deal more talk, Mr. Clews being garrulous, and glad to air his wrongs. Finally, he told John Groman of three different lodgings at which he knew his daughter to have been living within the last two years.
CHAPTER IV. THE DARK HOUSE BY THE RIVER.
THE clown, and the constable spent the next six hours hunting for the Valaoritys. They went from lodging getting their information as best they could, sometimes from landladies, sometimes at post-offices. It was hard work, and needed all the constable’s professional tact, and all the clown’s natural ability. Six o’clock found them in sce
ne so dreary that its aspect froze John Groman’s heart. Could he hope that his brother, having once entered this den of sordid vice, could ever leave it alive? Burke’s house, in the Tanner’s Close, that one lonely dwelling at the end of a blind alley, was hardly a fitter temple for the genius of murder, It was a narrow street on the Surrey shore, between the bridges of Waterloo and Blackfriars, a street leading down to the river. On one side it was overshadowed by a huge bulk of buildings, devoted to some loathsome raid unsavory trade, bone-burning, or some industry of an equally repulsive nature; on the other, it was darkened by the high wall of a neighbouring mews. There were only three dwelling-houses in the street, two at the entrance, and one at the extreme end, backing on to the river, a tall dark house, whose chief windows had been bricked up to save the window-tax.
This was the house to which Mr. Groman and his companion had been last directed, the end of their quest, for they had been told that here Mr. and Mrs. Valaority were now living.
An elderly woman, dark as a gipsy, wearing a tawdry cap and gown, and a pair of long French earrings, opened the door at the constable’s repeated knock.
‘Mr. Valaority at home?’ asked Wormald, pushing his way into the passage.
Within all looked dark and dirty in the dim light of a tallow candle, guttering out its brief existence in large brass candlestick.
‘Mr. Valaority started for the Continent last night,’ answered the woman, looking suspiciously at the intruders.
‘You mean this morning,’ said the constable. couldn’t have gone last night, for a friend of mine was to sup with him after the play.’
‘Your friend didn’t come, then,’ said the woman;’Mr. Valaority left last night — indeed, early in the evening-’
‘Do you know what part of the Continent he is going to?’
‘No. He is not a man to tell his business.’
‘No, I suppose not. Yet, I should have thought he would hardly have kept you in the dark. You look like a relation.’
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