“The daring of that!” cried Bunting.
“Yes, and when the ladder was opened out it could reach from the ground to the second storey of any old house. And, oh! how clever he was! Just open one section, and you see the other sections open automatically; so Peace could stand on the ground and force the thing quietly up to any window he wished to reach. Then he’d go away again, having done his job, with a mere bundle of old wood under his arm! My word, he was artful! I wonder if you’ve heard the tale of how Peace once lost a finger. Well, he guessed the constables were instructed to look out for a man missing a finger; so what did he do?”
“Put on a false finger,” suggested Bunting.
“No, indeed! Peace made up his mind just to do without a hand altogether. Here’s his false stump; you see, it’s made of wood—wood and black felt? Well, that just held his hand nicely. Why, we considers that one of the most ingenious contrivances in the whole museum.”
Meanwhile, Daisy had let go her hold of her father. With Chandler in delighted attendance, she had moved away to the farther end of the great room, and now she was bending over yet another glass case. “Whatever are those little bottles for?” she asked wonderingly.
There were five small phials, filled with varying quantities of cloudy liquids.
“They’re full of poison, Miss Daisy, that’s what they are. There’s enough arsenic in that little whack o’ brandy to do for you and me—aye, and for your father as well, I should say.”
“Then chemists shouldn’t sell such stuff,” said Daisy, smiling. Poison was so remote from herself, that the sight of these little bottles only brought a pleasant thrill.
“No more they don’t. That was sneaked out of a flypaper, that was. Lady said she wanted a cosmetic for her complexion, but what she was really going for was flypapers for to do away with her husband. She’d got a bit tired of him, I suspect.”
“Perhaps he was a horrid man, and deserved to be done away with,” said Daisy. The idea struck them both as so very comic that they began to laugh aloud in unison.
“Did you ever hear what a certain Mrs. Pearce did?” asked Chandler, becoming suddenly serious.
“Oh, yes,” said Daisy, and she shuddered a little. “That was the wicked, wicked woman what killed a pretty little baby and its mother. They’ve got her in Madame Tussaud’s. But Ellen, she won’t let me go to the Chamber of Horrors. She wouldn’t let father take me there last time I was in London. Cruel of her, I called it. But somehow I don’t feel as if I wanted to go there now, after having been here!”
“Well,” said Chandler slowly, “we’ve a case full of relics of Mrs. Pearce. But the pram the bodies were found in, that’s at Madame Tussaud’s—at least so they claim, I can’t say. Now here’s something just as curious, and not near so dreadful. See that man’s jacket there?”
“Yes,” said Daisy falteringly. She was beginning to feel oppressed, frightened. She no longer wondered that the Indian gentleman had been taken queer.
“A burglar shot a man dead who’d disturbed him, and by mistake he went and left that jacket behind him. Our people noticed that one of the buttons was broken in two. Well, that don’t seem much of a clue, does it, Miss Daisy? Will you believe me when I tells you that that other bit of button was discovered, and that it hanged the fellow? And ’twas the more wonderful because all three buttons was different!”
Daisy stared wonderingly down at the little broken button which had hung a man. “And whatever’s that?” she asked, pointing to a piece of dirty-looking stuff.
“Well,” said Chandler reluctantly, “that’s rather a horrible thing—that is. That’s a bit o’ shirt that was buried with a woman—buried in the ground, I mean—after her husband had cut her up and tried to burn her. ’Twas that bit o’ shirt that brought him to the gallows.”
“I considers your museum’s a very horrid place!” said Daisy pettishly, turning away.
She longed to be out in the passage again, away from this brightly lighted, cheerful-looking, sinister room.
But her father was now absorbed in the case containing various types of infernal machines. “Beautiful little works of art some of them are,” said his guide eagerly, and Bunting could not but agree.
“Come along—do, father!” said Daisy quickly. “I’ve seen about enough now. If I was to stay in here much longer it ’ud give me the horrors. I don’t want to have no nightmares to-night. It’s dreadful to think there are so many wicked people in the world. Why, we might knock up against some murderer any minute without knowing it, mightn’t we?”
“Not you, Miss Daisy,” said Chandler smilingly. “I don’t suppose you’ll ever come across even a common swindler, let alone anyone who’s committed a murder—not one in a million does that. Why, even I have never had anything to do with a proper murder case!”
But Bunting was in no hurry. He was thoroughly enjoying every moment of the time. Just now he was studying intently the various photographs which hung on the walls of the Black Museum; especially was he pleased to see those connected with a famous and still mysterious case which had taken place not long before in Scotland, and in which the servant of the man who died had played a considerable part—not in elucidating, but in obscuring, the mystery.
“I suppose a good many murderers get off?” he said musingly.
And Joe Chandler’s friend nodded. “I should think they did!” he exclaimed. “There’s no such thing as justice here in England. ’Tis odds on the murderer every time. ’Tisn’t one in ten that come to the end he should do—to the gallows, that is.”
“And what d’you think about what’s going on now—I mean about those Avenger murders?”
Bunting lowered his voice, but Daisy and Chandler were already moving towards the door.
“I don’t believe he’ll ever be caught,” said the other confidentially. “In some ways ’tis a lot more of a job to catch a madman than ’tis to run down just an ordinary criminal. And, of course—leastways to my thinking—The Avenger is a madman—one of the cunning, quiet sort. Have you heard about the letter?” his voice dropped lower.
“No,” said Bunting, staring eagerly at him. “What letter d’you mean?”
“Well, there’s a letter—it’ll be in this museum some day—which came just before that last double event. ’Twas signed ‘The Avenger,’ in just the same printed characters as on that bit of paper he always leaves behind him. Mind you, it don’t follow that it actually was The Avenger what sent that letter here, but it looks uncommonly like it, and I know that the Boss attaches quite a lot of importance to it.”
“And where was it posted?” asked Bunting. “That might be a bit of a clue, you know.”
“Oh, no,” said the other. “They always goes a very long way to post anything—criminals do. It stands to reason they would. But this particular one was put in at the Edgware Road Post Office.”
“What? Close to us?” said Bunting. “Goodness! How dreadful!”
“Any of us might knock up against him any minute. I don’t suppose The Avenger’s in any way peculiar-looking—in fact, we know he ain’t.”
“Then you think that woman as says she saw him did meet him?” asked Bunting hesitatingly.
“Our description was made up from what she said,” answered the other cautiously. “But, there, you can’t tell! In a case like that it’s groping—groping in the dark all the time—and it’s just a lucky accident if it comes out right in the end. Of course, it’s upsetting us all very much here. You can’t wonder at that!”
“No, indeed,” said Bunting quickly. “I give you my word, I’ve hardly thought of anything else for the last month.”
Daisy had disappeared, and when her father joined her in the passage she was listening, with downcast eyes, to what Joe Chandler was saying.
He was telling her about his real home, of the place where his mother lived, at Richmond—that it was a nice little house, close to the park. He was asking her whether she could manage to come out there one afterno
on, explaining that his mother would give them both tea, and how nice it would be.
“I don’t see why Ellen shouldn’t let me,” the girl said rebelliously. “But she’s that old-fashioned and pernickety is Ellen—a regular old maid! And, you see, Mr. Chandler, when I’m staying with them, father don’t like for me to do anything that Ellen don’t approve of. But she’s got quite fond of you, so perhaps if you ask her——?” She looked at him, and he nodded sagely.
“Don’t you be afraid,” he said confidently. “I’ll get round Mrs. Bunting. But, Miss Daisy”—he grew very red—“I’d just like to ask you a question—no offence meant——”
“Yes?” said Daisy a little breathlessly. “There’s father close to us, Mr. Chandler. Tell me quick; what is it?”
“Well, I take it, by what you said just now, that you’ve never walked out with any young fellow?”
Daisy hesitated a moment, then a very pretty dimple came into her cheek. “No,” she said sadly. “No, Mr. Chandler, that I have not.” In a burst of candour she added, “You see, I never had the chance!”
And Joe Chandler smiled, well pleased.
CHAPTER X
By what she regarded as a fortunate chance, Mrs. Bunting found herself for close on an hour quite alone in the house during her husband’s and Daisy’s jaunt with young Chandler.
Mr. Sleuth did not often go out in the daytime, but on this particular afternoon, after he had finished his tea, when dusk was falling, he suddenly observed that he wanted a new suit of clothes, and his landlady eagerly acquiesced in his going out to purchase it.
As soon as he had left the house, she went quickly up to the drawing-room floor. Now had come her opportunity of giving the two rooms a good dusting; but Mrs. Bunting knew well, deep in her heart, that it was not so much the dusting of Mr. Sleuth’s sitting-room she wanted to do—as to engage in a vague search for—she hardly knew for what.
During the years she had been in service Mrs. Bunting had always had a deep, wordless contempt for those of her fellow-servants who read their employers’ private letters, and who furtively peeped into desks and cupboards in the hope, more vague than positive, of discovering family skeletons.
But now, with regard to Mr. Sleuth, she was ready, aye, eager, to do herself what she had once so scorned others for doing.
Beginning with the bedroom, she started on a methodical search. He was a very tidy gentleman was the lodger, and his few things, under-garments, and so on, were in apple-pie order. She had early undertaken, much to his satisfaction, to do the very little bit of washing he required done, with her own and Bunting’s. Luckily he wore soft shirts.
At one time Mrs. Bunting had always had a woman in to help her with this tiresome weekly job, but lately she had grown quite clever at it herself. The only things she had to send out were Bunting’s shirts. Everything else she managed to do herself.
From the chest of drawers she now turned her attention to the dressing-table.
Mr. Sleuth did not take his money with him when he went out, he generally left it in one of the drawers below the old-fashioned looking-glass. And now, in a perfunctory way, his landlady pulled out the little drawer, but she did not touch what was lying there; she only glanced at the heap of sovereigns and a few bits of silver. The lodger had taken just enough money with him to buy the clothes he required. He had consulted her as to how much they would cost, making no secret of why he was going out, and the fact had vaguely comforted Mrs. Bunting.
Now she lifted the toilet-cover, and even rolled up the carpet a little way, but no, there was nothing there, not so much as a scrap of paper. And at last, when more or less giving up the search, as she came and went between the two rooms, leaving the connecting door wide open, her mind became full of uneasy speculation and wonder as to the lodger’s past life.
Odd Mr. Sleuth must surely always have been, but odd in a sensible sort of way, having on the whole the same moral ideals of conduct as have other people of his class. He was queer about the drink—one might say almost crazy on the subject—but there, as to that, he wasn’t the only one! She, Ellen Bunting, had once lived with a lady who was just like that, who was quite crazed, that is, on the question of drink and drunkards——
She looked round the neat drawing-room with vague dissatisfaction. There was only one place where anything could be kept concealed—that place was the substantial if small mahogany chiffonnier. And then an idea suddenly came to Mrs. Bunting, one she had never thought of before.
After listening intently for a moment, lest something should suddenly bring Mr. Sleuth home earlier than she expected, she went to the corner where the chiffonnier stood, and, exerting the whole of her not very great physical strength, she tipped forward the heavy piece of furniture.
As she did so, she heard a queer rumbling sound,—something rolling about on the second shelf, something which had not been there before Mr. Sleuth’s arrival. Slowly, laboriously, she tipped the chiffonnier backwards and forwards—once, twice, thrice—satisfied, yet strangely troubled in her mind, for she now felt sure that the bag of which the disappearance had so surprised her was there, safely locked away by its owner.
Suddenly a very uncomfortable thought came to Mrs. Bunting’s mind. She hoped Mr. Sleuth would not notice that his bag had shifted inside the cupboard. A moment later, with sharp dismay, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady realised that the fact that she had moved the chiffonnier must become known to her lodger, for a thin trickle of some dark-coloured liquid was oozing out through the bottom of the little cupboard door.
She stooped down and touched the stuff. It showed red, bright red, on her finger.
Mrs. Bunting grew chalky white, then recovered herself quickly. In fact the colour rushed into her face, and she grew hot all over.
It was only a bottle of red ink she had upset—that was all! How could she have thought it was anything else?
It was the more silly of her—so she told herself in scornful condemnation—because she knew that the lodger used red ink. Certain pages of Cruden’s Concordance were covered with notes written in Mr. Sleuth’s peculiar upright handwriting. In fact, in some places you couldn’t see the margin, so closely covered was it with remarks and notes of interrogation.
Mr. Sleuth had foolishly placed his bottle of red ink in the chiffonnier—that was what her poor, foolish gentleman had done, and it was owing to her inquisitiveness, her restless wish to know things she would be none the better, none the happier, for knowing, that this accident had taken place….
She mopped up with her duster the few drops of ink which had fallen on the green carpet and then, still feeling, as she angrily told herself, foolishly upset, she went once more into the back room.
It was curious that Mr. Sleuth possessed no notepaper. She would have expected him to have made that one of his first purchases—the more so that paper is so very cheap, especially that rather dirty-looking grey Silurian paper. Mrs. Bunting had once lived with a lady who always used two kinds of notepaper, white for her friends and equals, grey for those whom she called “common people.” She, Ellen Green, as she then was, had always resented the fact. Strange she should remember it now, stranger in a way because that employer of hers had not been a real lady, and Mr. Sleuth, whatever his peculiarities, was, in every sense of the word, a real gentleman. Somehow Mrs. Bunting felt sure that if he had bought any notepaper it would have been white—white and probably cream-laid—not grey and cheap.
Again she opened the drawer of the old-fashioned wardrobe and lifted up the few pieces of underclothing Mr. Sleuth now possessed.
But there was nothing there—nothing, that is, hidden away. When one came to think of it, there seemed something strange in the notion of leaving all one’s money where anyone could take it, and in locking up such a valueless thing as a cheap sham leather bag, to say nothing of a bottle of ink.
Mrs. Bunting once more opened out each of the tiny drawers below the looking-glass, each delicately fashioned of fine old mahogany. Mr. Sleuth k
ept his money in the centre drawer.
The glass had only cost seven-and-sixpence, and, after the auction, a dealer had come and offered her first fifteen shillings, and then a guinea for it. Not long ago, in Baker Street, she had seen a looking-glass which was the very spit of this one, labelled “Chippendale, Antique, £2 15s. 0d.”
There lay Mr. Sleuth’s money—the sovereigns, as the landlady well knew, would each and all gradually pass into her and Bunting’s possession, honestly earned by them no doubt, but unattainable—in fact unearnable—excepting in connection with the present owner of those dully shining gold sovereigns.
At last she went downstairs to await Mr. Sleuth’s return.
When she heard the key turn in the door, she came out into the passage.
“I’m sorry to say I’ve had an accident, sir,” she said a little breathlessly. “Taking advantage of your being out, I went up to dust the drawing-room, and while I was trying to get behind the chiffonnier it tilted. I’m afraid, sir, that a bottle of ink that was inside may have got broken, for just a few drops oozed out, sir. But I hope there’s no harm done. I wiped it up as well as I could, seeing that the doors of the chiffonnier are locked.”
Mr. Sleuth stared at her with a wild, almost a terrified, glance. But Mrs. Bunting stood her ground. She felt far less afraid now than she had felt before he came in. Then she had been so frightened that she had nearly gone out of the house, on to the pavement, for company.
“Of course I had no idea, sir, that you kept any ink in there.”
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper Page 73