Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “So far your account is quite clear, Mr. Potswood,” Hewitt said. “You have done your best, now I must do mine. You wish me to see Mason at once, no doubt?”

  “I arranged to bring you to his house, if you were willing and your engagements permitted, at three this afternoon. Will that do? I have been keeping you, I see — it is past one already. Will you lunch with me at my club?”

  “With great pleasure — more especially as I have a few questions to ask as we go along. Is it far?”

  “Just at this end of Pall Mall — we will walk, if you like.”

  “Tell me now,” said Hewitt as they went, “anything you know about Mr. Mason’s habits, family connections, and so forth, as fully and as minutely as you please. Has he any friends connected with China, for instance?”

  “China? Why, no, I think not; except — but I’ll tell you all I know. Mr. Mason has no family connections, so far as I am aware — at any rate, in London — except his niece, Miss Creswick. She is within a few months of twenty-one, a charming girl, but horribly shut in, for Mason has almost no visitors. Miss Creswick was his sister’s daughter; she lost her mother first and then her father, and was left to the guardianship of her uncle. He was also trustee under the will, and he has, I believe, discretion to keep charge of her property, if he thinks fit, till she reaches the age of twenty-five; though in case of his death she is to inherit in the ordinary way, on coming of age. She is a very dutiful and, indeed, an affectionate niece; though I must say he is scarcely fair to her, keeping her, as he does, so completely secluded from the society of young people of her own age. Mere thoughtlessness, I think; he has had no children of his own, his mind is wholly occupied with his science and his fads, and he makes himself a recluse without a thought of the girl. And that brings me to what I was about to say at first, when you asked me if Mr. Mason had any friends connected with China. There is a young doctor — Lawson is his name — some very distant connection of the family, I think, who had a professional appointment of some sort in Shanghai for a year or two, but who is now in London trying to work up a small practice of his own. If you hadn’t mentioned China I shouldn’t have thought of him, since he never goes to the house now — or, at any rate, is supposed not to go.”

  “Doesn’t go to the house? And why is that?”

  “Well, there was a disagreement. What it was I don’t quite know, but in the first place it had some connection with some of Mason’s experiments — something which Lawson declined to help him with for professional reasons, or else something he declined to do for Lawson, I don’t know which. But the thing went further, for, as a matter of fact, there was something between the young people — Lawson is only twenty-eight — and Mason put an end to that. It had been something like a formal engagement, I think, but in the quarrel — Mason was always quarrelling with somebody when he had friends, and that’s why he has so few now — in the quarrel things were said that ended in a rupture. Whether young Lawson was fortune-hunting or not I cannot say, but Mason certainly accused him of it, and promised to keep back the girl’s money as long as he could. In the meantime Mason declared an end to the engagement, and poor Helen was broken-hearted; for as I have said, she is an affectionate girl, and she hadn’t a friend to confide in. But I’m boring you — you don’t want to know all these things, surely?”

  “On the contrary, I can’t possibly know too much, and the particulars can’t possibly be too minute. Nine cases out of ten I bring to an issue by means of a triviality. You were saying a little while back that there were almost no visitors at Mr. Mason’s house; but you said ‘almost,’ and that means there are some. Who are they?”

  “Very occasionally — rarely, in fact — there are one or two members of learned societies with whom he had been in correspondence, or who are old friends. There is a Professor Hutton and a Dr. Burge, I believe; but they don’t appear once in six months; and there is Mr. Everard Myatt, who is more frequent. He does not profess to be a great man of science, but he is interested in chemistry as an amateur, and is, I fancy, a sort of disciple of Mason’s. He has noticed a sad difference in Mason just lately, and he even called on me yesterday, though I hardly knew him by sight, in the hope that I would back up his urgent suggestion that Mason should go off for a change and a rest. Beyond these I don’t think I know of a single visitor. But here we are at the Megatherium.”

  II

  Mr. Jacob Mason’s house stood in its own grounds in a quiet suburban road. It was not a very large house, but it straggled about comfortably in the manner of detached houses built in the suburbs at a time when space was less valuable than now, and it consisted of two floors only. The front door was not far from the road, and was clearly visible to passengers who might chance to look through either of the two iron gates that opened one on each end of the semi-circular drive.

  All these things Martin Hewitt noticed as the Rev. Mr. Potswood pushed open one of these gates, and the two walked up the drive. The front door stood in a portico, and a French window gave access to the roof of this portico from a bedroom or dressing-room. As Hewitt and his companion approached the house the French window was pushed open, and a man appeared — a middle-aged, slightly stoutish man with a short, grey beard; commonplace enough in himself, but now convulsed with noisy anger, shaking his fists and stamping on the portico-roof.

  “Get out!” he shouted. “Don’t come near my house again, or I’ll have you flung out! Go away and take your friends with you! D’you hear? Go away, sir, and don’t come here annoying me! Go! Go at once!”

  Mr. Potswood absolutely staggered with amazement. “Why,” he gasped, “it’s Mason! He’s mad — clean mad! Why, Mason, my poor friend, don’t you know me?”

  “Get out, I say!” cried Mason. “Give me no more of your talk! I won’t have you here!” And now Hewitt caught a glimpse of a girl’s face at the window behind the man — a pale and handsome face, drawn with anxiety and fear.

  Hewitt seized the clergyman quickly by the arm. “Come,” he whispered hurriedly, “come away at once. There is a reason for this. Get away at once. If you can answer back angrily, do so, but at any rate, come away.”

  He hurried back to the gate, half dragging the astounded rector, who was all too honest a soul to be able to counterfeit an anger he did not feel, even if his amazement had not made him speechless. Hewitt closed the gate behind him and said as he walked, “Where is the rectory? We will go there. He may have sent a message while you were out.”

  Mechanically the rector took the first turning. “But he’s mad!” he protested. “Mad, poor fellow! Merciful heavens, Mr. Hewitt, his whole tale must have been a delusion! A mere madman’s fancy! Poor fellow! We must go back, Mr. Hewitt — we really must! We can’t leave that poor girl there alone with a raving maniac!”

  “No,” Hewitt insisted, “come to the rectory. That is no madness, Mr. Potswood. Couldn’t you see the colour of the man under the eyes, and the shaking of his beard? That was not anger and it was not madness. It was terror, Mr. Potswood — sheer, sick terror! Terror, or some emotion very much like it.”

  “But, if terror, why that outburst? What does it mean? If it were terror, why not rather welcome our company and help?”

  “Don’t you see, Mr. Potswood?” answered Hewitt. “Don’t you guess? Mason is watched, and he knows it! He was acting his anger before unseen eyes — and he knew they were on him!”

  “God be merciful to us all,” ejaculated the clergyman. “Poor man — poor sinner! What is this unspeakable thing which has him in its clutches? What had he done to give himself over to such a power?”

  “We can tell nothing, and guess nothing, as yet,” Hewitt answered. “Let us see if he has sent you a message. It seems likely. If he has it may help us. If not — then I think we must do something decisive at once. But don’t hurry so! It is hard to restrain one’s self, I know, but there may be eyes on us, Mr. Potswood, and we must not seem to be persisting in our errand.”

  So they went through the quiet
streets for the two or three furlongs that seemed so many miles to the good parson. Arrived at the rectory, Mr. Potswood pushed impatiently through the gate, and was hurrying toward the house, when he perceived a bent little old man standing among some shrubs with his own gardener, who was digging.

  “There’s Mason’s gardener!” the rector exclaimed, and went to meet him.

  The old man touched his hat, looked sharply towards Hewitt, who was waiting near the rectory door, and then disappeared round a corner of the house, the rector following. In a few seconds Mr. Potswood reappeared, with a slip of paper in his hand. “Here,” he said, “see this! The old man was told to give it to nobody but me, and in nobody else’s presence. He’s been waiting since one o’clock.”

  Scrawled on the paper, in trembling and straggling letters, were these words: —

  “You must not bring Mr. Martin Hewitt to my house this afternoon. I am watched. It is hopeless. Do not desert me. Bring him to-night after dark at eight. I shall want his best skill, and you shall know all. After dark. Come to the back gate in the lane, which will be ajar, and through the conservatory at the side, where my niece will be waiting at eight, after dark. Burn this and do not let it out of your sight first. Send a line by this man to say you will do as I ask, but do not say what it is, for fear of accidents. Send at once. Do come at eight, with Mr. Hewitt.”

  “We must do as he says,” remarked Hewitt. “We know nothing of this matter, and we must be guided till we do. Just write an unsigned note— ‘All shall be as you request,’ or words to that effect, and be sure the man gives it to him. Let him out behind through the churchyard, if possible, and tell him not to go straight from one house to the other. Is he an intelligent man?”

  “Yes — uncommonly shrewd, I believe. He says he can’t have been followed. He knows several gardeners hereabout, and he seems to have called on each of them on his way — in at the front of the garden and out at the back each time, after a few minutes’ conversation. Gipps is rather a cunning old fellow.”

  “Ah,” said Hewitt admiringly, “that’s the sort of messenger I often want. I’ll give him half a crown for himself and the money to pay for a telegram on his way. He knows nothing essential, of course?”

  “No — only that his master is in some sort of trouble, and warned him that he might be followed.”

  “That is good. I shall telegraph to Detective-Inspector Plummer, of Scotland Yard. All right — I quite understand that all I have heard is confidential. I shall tell Plummer nothing till I may — indeed, as yet I have very little to tell that would help him. But I think it will be well to have the police within call — we may want them at a moment’s notice; I have no police powers, you see, and Plummer has the Denson case in hand. I will ask him to be here, at this house, before a quarter to eight, if you will allow me.”

  And so the telegram went to Plummer, and Hewitt, accepting the rector’s invitation to an early dinner before starting on their visit, resigned himself to wait. He did not like the waste of time, as he frankly told Mr. Potswood. He would have preferred to see Mason at once, at any risk, and to take what means he thought necessary without delay. But as it seemed that the risk was to be chiefly Mason’s, and as Mason knew all of which both he and the rector were ignorant, Mason must be allowed to choose his own time.

  The excellent Mr. Potswood endured agonies of suspense, though he also insisted that Mason’s wishes must be observed exactly. “What is it all — what can it be?” he ejaculated again and again. “What dreadful influence can thus compass a man about, here in London, in these times?”

  It was autumn, and night fell early. Dinner was over at last, and they had scarcely left the table when Plummer arrived, anxious and eager.

  “You’ll have to trust me a little, Plummer,” Hewitt said, when he had made him known to the rector. “I can tell you nothing now — know nothing, in fact, or very little more than nothing. The fact is, I’m going to see a man who promises information to me alone, in confidence, as his client, and I don’t know how long I may have to keep you in the dark. But this is where the trail lies hot, and I know that’s where you want to be. More, if you’re wanted suddenly you’ll be at hand. You have a man or two with you, I suppose, as I suggested?”

  “Three of the best of them. They will follow us up. Is it far?”

  “No, close enough. It is a house in a walled garden — not a high wall. We go in at a gate from the lane behind, and I think you should wait at that gate, and put your men at hand. We mustn’t go in as a crowd. The rector had better go first, and you and I will follow on the opposite side of the road.”

  So the procession was formed, and it was still some three minutes short of eight o’clock when Hewitt and Plummer joined the clergyman at the door in the garden wall behind Mason’s house. The door was ajar as had been promised in Mason’s note. Leaving Plummer on guard without, Martin Hewitt and the rector stepped as silently as possible through the little kitchen garden and across a strip of lawn toward where a dull light illuminated the conservatory, at the right-hand end of the house. The door of the conservatory was ajar also, and this the rector pushed open.

  “Miss Creswick!” the rector called, in a loud whisper. “Miss Creswick!” And with that a girl appeared within.

  “Oh, Mr. Potswood,” she said, “I’m so glad you’ve come! I can’t think what’s wrong with poor uncle! I’m afraid he must be going mad! He is terrified at something, and he has been getting worse, till he could hardly speak or walk. Dr. Lawson has been — about an hour ago, and since then uncle has been much quieter, in his study.”

  They were entering the dimly-lighted drawing-room now. “Dr. Lawson?” queried the rector. “Rather an unusual visitor, isn’t he? How long has he been gone?”

  Miss Creswick flushed slightly through all her paleness and grief. “I don’t know,” she said. “He let himself out, I fancy. He said he could not stay long when he came, but I didn’t hear him go; I have been upstairs, and the servants are in the kitchen — they say uncle’s mad, and I’m really afraid he is!”

  They left the drawing-room, and walked along the corridor and the hall to the opposite side of the house, where the study lay. Miss Creswick tapped gently at the door, but there was no answer. She tapped again, louder, and then came the faint sound of a quick step on the carpet, and then a slight scraping noise, as when a door is closed over a carpet it will scarcely pass. “That’s the window into the garden,” said Miss Creswick. “Why is he going out? Uncle! Uncle Jacob!”

  But now the silence was wholly unbroken. Hewitt snatched quickly at the door-handle. “Locked!” he said. “Come — the quickest way into the garden!”

  They ran out at the front door, and round toward the study window. It was a French window, exactly at the opposite end of the house to the conservatory, and now the gas-light streamed out through one half of it, which stood curtainless and ajar, while the curtain was drawn across the other half. Hewitt was the least familiar with the place, but he was quickest on his legs, and more seriously alarmed than the others. He reached the window first — and instantly turned and thrust the rector back against Miss Creswick. “Quick! take her away,” he said; “we are too late!” and in the same moment, even as Hewitt dashed over the threshold, he snatched a whistle from his pocket, and blew his hardest.

  There on the floor lay Mason, his face dreadful and staring and black; tight in his neck was the band of a tourniquet, and fresh and wet on his forehead was the Red Triangle.

  Hewitt snatched at the screw of the tourniquet behind the neck, and loosened it as quickly as hands could turn. But it was too late. Too late, the examining surgeon afterwards said, by a quarter of an hour.

  Plummer was at the window with his men at his heels even before the tourniquet was half unscrewed.

  “Round the wall of the garden,” shouted Hewitt, “and whistle up the police! He’s only this moment out!”

  The house was alive with shouts and screams. The rector came running back, and Hewi
tt, busy with his useless attempt at restoration, called now for a doctor. People were scampering in the street, and Hewitt left the victim to the care of the rector, and himself joined Plummer, all in fewer seconds than it may be told in.

  But Plummer and his men were beaten, for nothing — not so much as a moving shadow — was seen in the garden or about the walls. Worse, the general trampling would obliterate possible tracks. Plummer set a guard of police about the wall, and came in for consultation with Hewitt.

  The body was carried into another room, and Hewitt and Plummer began an examination of the study.

  “No signs of a struggle,” commented Plummer, “and there was no noise, they say. That’s very odd.”

  “From what I have seen and heard to-day,” said Hewitt, “it is as I should have expected. I believe the man was almost killed by terror before he was strangled — dazed, stricken dumb, paralysed, deafened by it — everything but blinded, poor wretch. And to have been blinded would have been a mercy.”