by Ruskin Bond
But Mr Sleuth frowned and shuffled away. Daisy, leaving her stepmother’s side, joined him.
Mrs Bunting put down three sixpences.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Hopkins; ‘you can’t go into the Chamber of Horrors just yet. But you won’t have to wait more than four or five minutes, Mrs Bunting. It’s this way, you see; our boss is in there, showing a party round.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s Sir John Burney—I suppose you know who Sir John Burney is?’
‘No,’ she answered indifferently; ‘I don’t know that I ever heard of him.’ She felt slightly—oh, very slightly—uneasy about Daisy. She would like her stepdaughter to keep well within sight and sound. Mr Sleuth was taking the girl to the other end of the room.
‘Well, I hope you never will know him—not in any personal sense, Mrs Bunting.’ The man chuckled. ‘He’s the Head Commissioner of Police—that’s what Sir John Burney is. One of the gentlemen he’s showing round our place is the Paris Prefect of Police, whose job is on all fours, so to speak, with Sir John’s. The Frenchy has brought his daughter with him, and there are several other ladies. Ladies always like ’orrors, Mrs Bunting; that’s our experience here. “Oh, take me to the Chamber of ’Orrors!”—that’s what they say the minute they get into the building.’
A group of people, all talking and laughing together, were advancing from within toward the turnstile.
Mrs Bunting stared at them nervously. She wondered which of them was the gentleman with whom Mr Hopkins had hoped she would never be brought into personal contact. She quickly picked him out. He was a tall, powerful, nice-looking gentleman with a commanding manner. Just now he was smiling down into the face of a young lady. ‘Monsieur Barberoux is quite right,’ he was saying; ‘the English law is too kind to the criminal, especially to the murderer. If we conducted our trials in the French fashion, the place we have just left would be very much fuller than it is today! A man of whose guilt we are absolutely assured is oftener than not acquitted, and then the public taunt us with “another undiscovered crime”!’
‘D’you mean, Sir John, that murderers sometimes escape scot-free? Take the man who has been committing all those awful murders this last month. Of course, I don’t know much about it, for father won’t let me read about it, but I can’t help being interested!’ Her girlish voice rang out, and Mrs Bunting heard every word distinctly.
The party gathered round, listening eagerly to hear what the Head Commissioner would say next.
‘Yes.’ He spoke very deliberately. ‘I think we may say—now, don’t give me away to a newspaper fellow, Miss Rose—that we do know perfectly well who the murderer in question is—’
Several of those standing nearby uttered expressions of surprise and incredulity.
‘Then why don’t you catch him?’ cried the girl indignantly.
‘I didn’t say we know where he is; I only said we know who he is; or, rather, perhaps I ought to say that we have a very strong suspicion of his identity.’
Sir John’s French colleague looked up quickly. ‘The Hamburg and Liverpool man?’ he said interrogatively.
The other nodded. ‘Yes; I suppose you’ve had the case turned up?’
Then, speaking very quickly, as if he wished to dismiss the subject from his own mind and from that of his auditors, he went on:
‘Two murders of the kind were committed eight years ago—one in Hamburg, the other just afterward in Liverpool, and there were certain peculiarities connected with the crimes which made it clear they were committed by the same hand. The perpetrator was caught, fortunately for us red-handed, just as he was leaving the house of his victim, for in Liverpool the murder was committed in a house. I myself saw the unhappy man—I say unhappy, for there is no doubt at all that he was mad,’—he hesitated, and added in a lower tone—‘suffering from an acute form of religious mania. I myself saw him, at some length. But now comes the really interesting point. Just a month ago this criminal, lunatic as we must regard him, made his escape from the asylum where he was confined. He arranged the whole thing with extraordinary cunning and intelligence, and we should probably have caught him long ago were it not that he managed, when on his way out of the place, to annex a considerable sum of money in gold with which the wages of the staff were about to be paid.’
The Frenchman again spoke. ‘Why have you not circulated a description?’ he asked.
‘We did that at once,’ Sir John Burney smiled a little grimly,’ but only among our own people. We dare not circulate the man’s description among the general public. You see, we may be mistaken, after all.’
‘That is not very probable!’ The Frenchman smiled a satirical little smile.
A moment later the party were walking in Indian file through the turnstile, Sir John Burney leading the way.
Mrs Bunting looked straight before her. Even had she wished to do so, she had neither time nor power to warn her lodger of his danger.
Daisy and her companion were now coming down the room, bearing straight for the Head Commissioner of Police. In another moment Mr Sleuth and Sir John Burney would be face to face.
Suddenly Mr Sleuth swerved to one side. A terrible change came over his pale, narrow face; it became discomposed, livid with rage and terror.
But, to Mrs Bunting’s relief—yes, to her inexpressible relief—Sir John Burney and his friends swept on. They passed by Mr Sleuth unconcernedly, unaware, or so it seemed to her, that there was anyone else in the room but themselves.
‘Hurry up, Mrs Bunting,’ said the turnstile-keeper; ‘you and your friends will have the place all to yourselves.’ From an official he had become a man, and it was the man in Mr Hopkins that gallantly addressed pretty Daisy Bunting. ‘It seems strange that a young lady like you should want to go in and see those ’orrible frights,’ he said jestingly.
‘Mrs Bunting, may I trouble you to come over here for a moment?’ The words were hissed rather than spoken by Mr Sleuth’s lips.
His landlady took a doubtful step forward.
‘A last word with you, Mrs Bunting.’ The lodger’s face was still distorted with fear and passion. ‘Do you think you’d escape the consequences of your hideous treachery? I trusted you, Mrs Bunting, and you betrayed me! But I am protected by a higher power, for I still have work to do. Your end will be bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword. Your feet shall go down to death, and your steps take hold on hell.’ Even while Mr Sleuth was uttering these strange, dreadful words, he was looking around, his eyes glancing this way and that, seeking a way of escape.
At last his eyes became fixed on a small placard placed above a curtain. ‘Emergency Exit’ was written there. Leaving his landlady’s side, he walked over to the turnstile. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment, and then touched the man on the arm. ‘I feel ill,’ he said, speaking very rapidly; ‘very ill indeed! It’s the atmosphere of this place. I want you to let me out by the quickest way. It would be a pity for me to faint here—especially with ladies about.’ His left hand shot out and placed what he had been fumbling for in his pocket on the other’s bare palm. ‘I see there’s an emergency exit over there. Would it be possible for me to get out that way?’
‘Well, yes, sir; I think so.’ The man hesitated; he felt a slight, a very slight, feeling of misgiving. He looked at Daisy, flushed and smiling, happy and unconcerned, and then at Mrs Bunting. She was very pale; but surely her lodger’s sudden seizure was enough to make her feel worried. Hopkins felt the half-sovereign pleasantly tickling his paten. The Prefect of Police had given him only half a crown—mean, shabby foreigner!
‘Yes, I can let you out that way,’ he said at last, ‘and perhaps when you’re standing out in the air on the iron balcony you’ll feel better. But then you know, sir, you’ll have to come round to the front if you want to come in again, for those emergency doors only open outward.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr Sleuth hurriedly; ‘I quite understand! If I feel better I’ll come in by the front way, and pay another shilling—that’s
only fair.’
‘You needn’t do that if you’ll just explain what happened here.’
The man went and pulled the curtain aside, and put his shoulder against the door. It burst open, and the light for a moment blinded Mr Sleuth. He passed his hand over his eyes.
‘Thank you,’ he said; ‘thank you. I shall get all right here.’
Five days later Bunting identified the body of a man found drowned in the Regent’s Canal as that of his late lodger; and, the morning following, a gardener working in the Regent’s Park found a newspaper in which were wrapped, together with a half-worn pair of rubber-soled shoes, two surgical knives. This fact was not chronicled in any newspaper; but a very pretty and picturesque paragraph went the round of the press, about the same time, concerning a small box filled with sovereigns which had been forwarded anonymously to the Governor of the Foundling Hospital.
Mr and Mrs Bunting are now in the service of an old lady, by whom they are feared as well as respected, and whom they make very comfortable.
THE DUEL
Wilkie Collins
The doctors could do no more for the dowager Lady Berrick. When the medical advisers of a lady who has reached seventy years of age recommend the mild climate of the South of France, they mean in plain language that they have arrived at the end of their resources. Her ladyship gave the mild climate a fair trial, and then decided (as she herself expressed it) to ‘die at home’. Travelling slowly, she had reached Paris at the date when I last heard of her. It was then the beginning of November. A week later, I met with her nephew, Lewis Romayne, at the club.
‘What brings you to London at this time of the year?’ I asked.
‘The fatality that pursues me,’ he answered grimly. ‘I am one of the unluckiest men living.’
He was thirty years old; he was not married; he was the enviable possessor of the tiny old country seat, called Vange Abbey; he had no poor relations; and he was one of the handsomest men in England. When I add that I am, myself, a retired army officer, with a wretched income, a disagreeable wife, four ugly children, and a burden of fifty years on my back, no one will be surprised to hear that I answered Romayne, with bitter sincerity, in these words:
‘I wish to Heaven I could change places with you!’
‘I wish to Heaven you could!’ he burst out, with equal sincerity on his side. ‘Read that.’
He handed me a letter addressed to him by the travelling medical attendant of Lady Berrick. After resting in Paris, the patient had continued her homeward journey as far as Boulogne. In her suffering condition, she was liable to sudden fits of caprice. An insurmountable horror of the Channel passage had got possession of her: she positively refused to be taken on board the steamboat. In this difficulty, the lady who held the post of her ‘companion’ had ventured on a suggestion. Would Lady Berrick consent to make the Channel passage if her nephew came to Boulogne expressly to accompany her on the voyage? The reply had been so immediately favourable, that the doctor lost no time in communicating with Mr Lewis Romayne. This was the substance of the letter.
It was needless to ask any more questions—Romayne was plainly on his way to Boulogne. I gave him some useful information. ‘Try the oysters,’ I said, ‘at the restaurant on the pier.’
He never even thanked me. He was thinking entirely of himself.
‘Just look at my position,’ he said. ‘I detest Boulogne; I cordially share my aunt’s horror of the Channel passage; I had looked forward to some months of happy retirement in the country among my books—and what happens to me? I am brought to London in this season of fogs, to travel by the tidal train at seven tomorrow morning—and all for a woman with whom I have no sympathies in common. If I am not an unlucky man—who is?’
He spoke in a tone of vehement irritation which seemed to me, under the circumstances, to be simply absurd. But my nervous system is not the irritable system—sorely tried by night study and strong tea—of my friend Romayne. ‘It’s only a matter of two days,’ I remarked, by way of reconciling him to his situation.
‘How do I know that?’ he retorted. ‘In two days the weather may be stormy. In two days she may be too ill to be moved. Unfortunately, I am her heir; and I am told I must submit to any whim that seizes her. I’m rich enough already; I don’t want her money. Besides, I dislike all travelling—and especially travelling alone. You are an idle man. If you were a good friend, you would offer to go with me.’ He added, with the delicacy which was one of the redeeming points in his wayward character, ‘Of course as my guest.’
I had known him long enough not to take offence at his reminding me, in this considerate way, that I was a poor man. The proposed change of scene tempted me. What did I care for the Channel passage? Besides, there was the irresistible attraction of getting away from home.
The end of it was that I accepted Romayne’s invitation.
II
Shortly after noon, on the next day, we were established at Boulogne—near Lady Berrick, but not at her hotel. ‘If we live in the same house,’ Romayne reminded me, ‘we shall be bored by the companion and the doctor. Meetings on the stairs, you know, and exchanging bows and small talk.’ He hated those trivial conventionalities of society, in which other people delight. When somebody once asked him in what company he felt most at ease? He made a shocking answer—he said, ‘In the company of dogs.’
I waited for him on the pier while he went to see her ladyship. He joined me again with his bitterest smile. ‘What did I tell you? She is not well enough to see me today. The doctor looks grave, and the companion puts her handkerchief to her eyes. We may be kept in this place for weeks to come.’
The afternoon proved to be rainy. Our early dinner was a bad one. This last circumstance tried his temper sorely. He was no gourmand; the question of cookery was (with him) purely a matter of digestion. Those late hours of study and that abuse of tea to which I have already alluded, had sadly injured his stomach. The doctors warned him of serious consequences to his nervous system, unless he altered his habits. He had little faith in medical science, and he greatly overrated the restorative capacity of his constitution. So far as I know, he had always neglected the doctors’ advice.
The weather cleared towards evening, and we went out for a walk. We passed a church—a Roman Catholic church, of course—the doors of which were still open. Some poor women were kneeling at their prayers in the dim light. ‘Wait a minute,’ said Romayne. ‘I am in a vile temper. Let me try to put myself into a better frame of mind.’
I followed him into the church. He knelt down in a dark corner by himself. I confess I was surprised. He had been baptized in the Church of England; but, so far as outward practice was concerned, he belonged to no religious community. I had often heard him speak with sincere reverence and admiration of the spirit of Christianity—but he never, to my knowledge, attended any place of public worship. When we met again outside the church, I asked if he had been converted to the Roman Catholic faith.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I hate the inveterate striving of that priesthood after social influence and political power as cordially as the fiercest Protestant living. But let us not forget that the Church of Rome has great merits to set against great faults. Its system is administered with an admirable knowledge of the higher needs of human nature. Take as one example what you have just seen. The solemn tranquillity of that church, the poor people praying near me, the few words of prayer by which I silently united myself to my fellow creatures have calmed me, and done me good. In our country I should have found the church closed, out-of-service hours.’ He took my arm, and abruptly changed the subject. ‘How will you occupy yourself,’ he asked, ‘if my aunt receives me tomorrow?’
I assured him that I should easily find ways and means of getting through the time. The next morning a message came from Lady Berrick, to say that she would see her nephew after breakfast. Left by myself, I walked towards the pier, and met with a man who asked me to hire his boat. He had lines and bait, at my service. Most unfor
tunately, as the event proved, I decided on occupying an hour or two by sea fishing.
The wind shifted while we were out, and before we could get back to the harbour, the tide had turned against us. It was six o’clock when I arrived at the hotel. A little open carriage was waiting at the door. I found Romayne impatiently expecting me, and no signs of dinner on the table. He informed me that he had accepted an invitation, in which I was included, and promised to explain everything in the carriage.
Our driver took the road that led towards the High Town. I subordinated my curiosity to my sense of politeness, and asked for news of his aunt’s health.
‘She is seriously ill, poor soul,’ he said. ‘I am sorry I spoke so petulantly and so unfairly when we met at the club. The near prospect of death has developed qualities in her nature which I ought to have seen before this. No matter how it may be delayed, I will patiently wait her time for the crossing to England.’
So long as he believed himself to be in the right, he was, as to his actions and opinions, one of the most obstinate men I ever met with. But once let him be convinced that he was wrong, and he rushed into the other extreme—became needlessly distrustful of himself, and needlessly eager in seizing his opportunity of making atonement. In this latter mood he was capable (with the best intentions) of committing acts of the most childish imprudence. With some misgivings, I asked how he had amused himself in my absence.
‘I waited for you,’ he said, ‘till I lost all patience, and went out for a walk. First, I thought of going to the beach, but the smell of the harbour drove me back into the town; and there, oddly enough, I met with a man, a certain Captain Peterkin, who had been a friend of mine at college.’
‘A visitor to Boulogne?’ I inquired.
‘Not exactly.’
‘A resident?’
‘Yes. The fact is, I lost sight of Peterkin when I left Oxford—and since that time he seems to have drifted into difficulties. We had a long talk. He is living here, he tells me, until his affairs are settled.’