The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

by Израэль Зангвилл

  After dinner Denzil usually indulged in poetic reverie. But to-day he did not take his nap. He went out at once to "raise the wind." But there was a dead calm everywhere. In vain he asked for an advance at the office of the Mile End Mirror, to which he contributed scathing leaderettes about vestrymen. In vain he trudged to the City and offered to write the Ham and Eggs Gazette an essay on the modern methods of bacon-curing. Denzil knew a great deal about the breeding and slaughtering of pigs, smoke-lofts and drying processes, having for years dictated the policy of the New Pork Herald in these momentous matters. Denzil also knew a great deal about many other esoteric matters, including weaving machines, the manufacture of cabbage leaves and snuff, and the inner economy of drain-pipes. He had written for the trade papers since boyhood. But there is great competition on these papers. So many men of literary gifts know all about the intricate technicalities of manufactures and markets, and are eager to set the trade right. Grodman perhaps hardly allowed sufficiently for the step backwards that Denzil made when he devoted his whole time for months to Criminals I have Caught. It was as damaging as a debauch. For when your rivals are pushing forwards, to stand still is to go back.

  In despair Denzil shambled toilsomely to Bethnal Green. He paused before the window of a little tobacconist's shop, wherein was displayed a placard announcing

  "PLOTS FOR SALE."

  The announcement went on to state that a large stock of plots was to be obtained on the premises-embracing sensational plots, humorous plots, love plots, religious plots, and poetic plots; also complete manuscripts, original novels, poems, and tales. Apply within.

  It was a very dirty-looking shop, with begrimed bricks and blackened woodwork. The window contained some musty old books, an assortment of pipes and tobacco, and a large number of the vilest daubs unhung, painted in oil on Academy boards, and unframed. These were intended for landscapes, as you could tell from the titles. The most expensive was "Chingford Church," and it was marked IS. 9d. The others ran from 6d. to IS. 3d., and were mostly representations of Scottish scenery-a loch with mountains in the background, with solid reflections in the water and a tree in the foreground. Sometimes the tree would be in the background. Then the loch would be in the foreground. Sky and water were intensely blue in all. The name of the collection was "Original oil-paintings done by hand." Dust lay thick upon everything, as if carefully shovelled on; and the proprietor looked as if he slept in his shop-window at night without taking his clothes off. He was a gaunt man with a red nose, long but scanty black locks covered by a smoking-cap, and a luxuriant black moustache. He smoked a long clay pipe, and had the air of a broken-down operatic villain.

  "Ah, good afternoon, Mr. Cantercot," he said, rubbing his hands, half from cold, half from usage; "what have you brought me?"

  "Nothing," said Denzil, "but if you will lend me a sovereign I'll do you a stunner."

  The operatic villain shook his locks, his eyes full of pawky cunning. "If you did it after that, it would be a stunner."

  What the operatic villain did with these plots, and who bought them, Cantercot never knew nor cared to know. Brains are cheap to-day, and Denzil was glad enough to find a customer.

  "Surely you've known me long enough to trust me," he cried.

  "Trust is dead," said the operatic villain, puffing away.

  "So is Queen Anne," cried the irritated poet. His eyes took a dangerous hunted look. Money he must have. But the operatic villain was inflexible. No plot, no supper.

  Poor Denzil went out flaming. He knew not where to turn. Temporarily he turned on his heel again and stared despairingly at the shop-window. Again he read the legend

  "PLOTS FOR SALE."

  He stared so long at this that it lost its meaning. When the sense of the words suddenly flashed upon him again, they bore a new significance. He went in meekly, and borrowed fourpence of the operatic villain. Then he took the 'bus for Scotland Yard. There was a not ill-looking servant girl in the 'bus. The rhythm of the vehicle shaped itself into rhymes in his brain. He forgot all about his situation and his object. He had never really written an epic-except "Paradise Lost"-but he composed lyrics about wine and women and often wept to think how miserable he was. But nobody ever bought anything of him, except articles on bacon-curing or attacks on vestrymen. He was a strange, wild creature, and the wench felt quite pretty under his ardent gaze. It almost hypnotised her, though, and she looked down at her new French kid boots to escape it.

  At Scotland Yard Denzil asked for Edward Wimp. Edward Wimp was not on view. Like kings and editors, detectives are difficult of approach-unless you are a criminal, when you cannot see anything of them at all. Denzil knew of Edward Wimp, principally because of Grodman's contempt for his successor. Wimp was a man of taste and culture. Grodman's interests were entirely concentrated on the problems of logic and evidence. Books about these formed his sole reading; for belles lettres he cared not a straw. Wimp, with his flexible intellect, had a great contempt for Grodman and his slow, laborious, ponderous, almost Teutonic methods. Worse, he almost threatened to eclipse the radiant tradition of Grodman by some wonderfully ingenious bits of workmanship. Wimp was at his greatest in collecting circumstantial evidence; in putting two and two together to make five. He would collect together a number of dark and disconnected data and flash across them the electric light of some unifying hypothesis in a way which would have done credit to a Darwin or a Faraday. An intellect which might have served to unveil the secret workings of nature was subverted to the protection of a capitalistic civilisation.

  By the assistance of a friendly policeman, whom the poet magnetised into the belief that his business was a matter of life and death, Denzil obtained the great detective's private address. It was near King's Cross. By a miracle Wimp was at home in the afternoon. He was writing when Denzil was ushered up three pairs of stairs into his presence, but he got up and flashed the bull's-eye of his glance upon the visitor.

  "Mr. Denzil Cantercot, I believe," said Wimp.

  Denzil started. He had not sent up his name, merely describing himself as a gentleman.

  "That is my name," he murmured.

  "You were one of the witnesses at the inquest on the body of the late Arthur Constant. I have your evidence there." He pointed to a file. "Why have you come to give fresh evidence?"

  Again Denzil started, flushing in addition this time. "I want money," he said, almost involuntarily.

  "Sit down." Denzil sat. Wimp stood.

  Wimp was young and fresh-coloured. He had a Roman nose, and was smartly dressed. He had beaten Grodman by discovering the wife Heaven meant for him. He had a bouncing boy, who stole jam out of the pantry without any one being the wiser. Wimp did what work he could do at home in a secluded study at the top of the house. Outside his chamber of horrors he was the ordinary husband of commerce. He adored his wife, who thought poorly of his intellect but highly of his heart. In domestic difficulties Wimp was helpless. He could not tell even whether the servant's "character" was forged or genuine. Probably he could not level himself to such petty problems. He was like the senior wrangler who has forgotten how to do quadratics, and has to solve equations of the second degree by the calculus.

  "How much money do you want?" he asked.

  "I do not make bargains," Denzil replied, his calm come back by this time. "I came here to tender you a suggestion. It struck me that you might offer me a fiver for my trouble. Should you do so, I shall not refuse it."

  "You shall not refuse it-if you deserve it."

  "Good. I will come to the point at once. My suggestion concerns-Tom Mortlake."

  Denzil threw out the name as if it were a torpedo. Wimp did not move.

  "Tom Mortlake," went on Denzil, looking disappointed, "had a sweetheart." He paused impressively.

  Wimp said, "Yes?"

  "Where is that sweetheart now?"

  "Where, indeed?"

  "You know about her disappearance?"

  "You have just informed me of it."

 
; "Yes, she is gone-without a trace. She went about a fortnight before Mr. Constant's murder."

  "Murder? How do you know it was murder?"

  "Mr. Grodman says so," said Denzil, startled again.

  "H'm! Isn't that rather a proof that it was suicide? Well, go on."

  "About a fortnight before the suicide, Jessie Dymond disappeared. So they tell me in Stepney Green, where she lodged and worked."

  "What was she?"

  "She was a dressmaker. She had a wonderful talent. Quite fashionable ladies got to know of it. One of her dresses was presented at Court. I think the lady forgot to pay for it; so Jessie's landlady said."

  "Did she live alone?"

  "She had no parents, but the house was respectable."

  "Good-looking, I suppose?"

  "As a poet's dream."

  "As yours, for instance?"

  "I am a poet; I dream."

  "You dream you are a poet. Well, well! She was engaged to Mortlake?"

  "Oh, yes! They made no secret of it. The engagement was an old one. When he was earning 36s. a week as a compositor, they were saving up to buy a home. He worked at Railton and Hockes who print the New Pork Herald. I used to take my 'copy' into the comps' room, and one day the Father of the Chapel told me all about 'Mortlake and his young woman.' Ye gods! How times are changed! Two years ago Mortlake had to struggle with my calligraphy-now he is in with all the nobs, and goes to the 'At Homes' of the aristocracy."

  "Radical M.P.'s," murmured Wimp, smiling.

  "While I am still barred from the dazzling drawing-rooms, where beauty and intellect foregather. A mere artisan! A manual labourer!" Denzil's eyes flashed angrily. He rose with excitement. "They say he always was a jabberer in the composing-room, and he has jabbered himself right out of it and into a pretty good thing. He didn't have much to say about the crimes of capital when he was set up to second the toast of 'Railton and Hockes' at the beanfeast."

  "Toast and butter, toast and butter," said Wimp, genially. "I shouldn't blame a man for serving the two together, Mr. Cantercot."

  Denzil forced a laugh. "Yes; but consistency's my motto. I like to see the royal soul immaculate, unchanging, immovable by fortune. Anyhow, when better times came for Mortlake the engagement still dragged on. He did not visit her so much. This last autumn he saw very little of her."

  "How do you know?"

  "I-I was often in Stepney Green. My business took me past the house of an evening. Sometimes there was no light in her room. That meant she was downstairs gossiping with the landlady."

  "She might have been out with Tom?"

  "No, sir; I knew Tom was on the platform somewhere or other. He was working up to all hours organising the eight hours' working movement."

  "A very good reason for relaxing his sweethearting."

  "It was. He never went to Stepney Green on a week night."

  "But you always did."

  "No-not every night."

  "You didn't go in?"

  "Never. She wouldn't permit my visits. She was a girl of strong character. She always reminded me of Flora Macdonald."

  "Another lady of your acquaintance?"

  "A lady I know better than the shadows who surround me, who is more real to me than the women who pester me for the price of apartments. Jessie Dymond, too, was of the race of heroines. Her eyes were clear blue, two wells with Truth at the bottom of each. When I looked into those eyes my own were dazzled. They were the only eyes I could never make dreamy." He waved his hand as if making a pass with it. "It was she who had the influence over me."

  "You knew her, then?"

  "Oh, yes. I knew Tom from the old New Pork Herald days, and when I first met him with Jessie hanging on his arm he was quite proud to introduce her to a poet. When he got on he tried to shake me off."

  "You should have repaid him what you borrowed."

  "It-it-was only a trifle," stammered Denzil.

  "Yes, but the world turns on trifles," said the wise Wimp.

  "The world is itself a trifle," said the pensive poet. "The Beautiful alone is deserving of our regard."

  "And when the Beautiful was not gossiping with her landlady, did she gossip with you as you passed the door?"

  "Alas, no! She sat in her room reading, and cast a shadow-"

  "On your life?"

  "No; on the blind."

  "Always one shadow?"

  "No, sir. Once or twice, two."

  "Ah, you had been drinking."

  "On my life, not. I have sworn off the treacherous wine-cup."

  "That's right. Beer is bad for poets. It makes their feet shaky. Whose was the second shadow?"

  "A man's."

  "Naturally. Mortlake's, perhaps."

  "Impossible. He was still striking eight hours."

  "You found out whose shadow? You didn't leave a shadow of doubt?"

  "No; I waited till the substance came out."

  "It was Arthur Constant."

  "You are a magician! You-you terrify me. Yes, it was he."

  "Only once or twice, you say?"

  "I didn't keep watch over them."

  "No, no, of course not. You only passed casually. I understand you thoroughly."

  Denzil did not feel comfortable at the assertion.

  "What did he go there for?" Wimp went on.

  "I don't know. I'd stake my soul on Jessie's honour."

  "You might double your stake without risk."

  "Yes, I might! I would! You see her with my eyes."

  "For the moment they are the only ones available. When was the last time you saw the two together?"

  "About the middle of November."

  "Mortlake knew nothing of the meetings?"

  "I don't know. Perhaps he did. Mr. Constant had probably enlisted her in his social mission work. I knew she was one of the attendants at the big children's tea in the Great Assembly Hall early in November. He treated her quite like a lady. She was the only attendant who worked with her hands."

  "The others carried the cups on their feet, I suppose."

  "No; how could that be? My meaning is that all the other attendants were real ladies, and Jessie was only an amateur, so to speak. There was no novelty for her in handing kids cups of tea. I dare say she had helped her landlady often enough at that-there's quite a bushel of brats below stairs. It's almost as bad as at friend Crowl's. Jessie was a real brick. But perhaps Tom didn't know her value. Perhaps he didn't like Constant to call on her, and it led to a quarrel. Anyhow, she's disappeared, like the snowfall on the river. There's not a trace. The landlady, who was such a friend of hers that Jessie used to make up her stuff into dresses for nothing, tells me that she's dreadfully annoyed at not having been left the slightest clue to her late tenant's whereabouts."

  "You have been making inquiries on your own account apparently?"

  "Only of the landlady. Jessie never even gave her the week's notice, but paid her in lieu of it, and left immediately. The landlady told me I could have knocked her down with a feather. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to do it, or I should certainly have knocked her down for not keeping her eyes open better. She says if she had only had the least suspicion beforehand that the minx (she dared to call Jessie a minx) was going, she'd have known where, or her name would have been somebody else's. And yet she admits that Jessie was looking ill and worried. Stupid old hag!"

  "A woman of character," murmured the detective.

  "Didn't I tell you so?" cried Denzil, eagerly. "Another girl would have let out that she was going. But no, not a word. She plumped down the money and walked out. The landlady ran upstairs. None of Jessie's things were there. She must have quietly sold them off, or transferred them to the new place. I never in my life met a girl who so thoroughly knew her own mind or had a mind so worth knowing. She always reminded me of the Maid of Saragossa."

  "Indeed! And when did she leave?"

  "On the l9th of November."

  "Mortlake of course knows where she is?"

  "I can't say. L
ast time I was at the house to inquire-it was at the end of November-he hadn't been seen there for six weeks. He wrote to her, of course, sometimes-the landlady knew his writing."

  Wimp looked Denzil straight in the eyes, and said, "You mean, of course, to accuse Mortlake of the murder of Mr. Constant?"

  "N-n-no, not at all," stammered Denzil, "only you know what Mr. Grodman wrote to the Pell Mell. The more we know about Mr. Constant's life the more we shall know about the manner of his death. I thought my information would be valuable to you, and I brought it."

  "And why didn't you take it to Mr. Grodman?"

  "Because I thought it wouldn't be valuable to me."

  "You wrote Criminals I have Caught?"

  "How-how do you know that?" Wimp was startling him to-day with a vengeance.

  "Your style, my dear Mr. Cantercot. The unique, noble style."

  "Yes, I was afraid it would betray me," said Denzil. "And since you know, I may tell you that Grodman's a mean curmudgeon. What does he want with all that money and those houses-a man with no sense of the Beautiful? He'd have taken my information, and given me more kicks than ha'pence for it, so to speak."

  "Yes, he is a shrewd man after all. I don't see anything valuable in your evidence against Mortlake."

  "No!" said Denzil in a disappointed tone, and fearing he was going to be robbed. "Not when Mortlake was already jealous of Mr. Constant, who was a sort of rival organiser, unpaid! A kind of blackleg doing the work cheaper-nay, for nothing."

  "Did Mortlake tell you he was jealous?" said Wimp, a shade of sarcastic contempt piercing through his tones.

  "Oh, yes! He said to me, 'That man will work mischief. I don't like your kid-glove philanthropists meddling in matters they don't understand.'"

  "Those were his very words?"

  "His ipsissima verba."

  "Very well. I have your address in my files. Here is a sovereign for you."