by Annie Haynes
The K.C. gave her arm a kindly pat.
“Don’t blame yourself for that, my child. You could not be expected to recognize her after five years. Besides, you did not see the face, I gather. What was the man like?” he asked quickly.
Joan was taken off her guard.
“Oh—he—I—I don’t know, Uncle Septimus! I only had a glance at him, you see!”
“It was not Gregory, I suppose, your father’s stableman?”
The question was so unlike anything Joan had expected that for a second she could only stare at her questioner in stupefaction.
“No, no, of course it was not!” she said at last. “What could make you think of such a thing, Uncle Septimus?”
“You are sure it was not Gregory?”
Septimus Lockyer drew a notebook from his pocket and consulted it for a moment. Then there came one of those quiet thrusts of his that had made him one of the most dreaded cross-examiners at the Bar.
“Have you ever seen this man—the one who put this pistol in the dead girl’s hand—since?”
But with a woman’s quick wit Joan had decided upon her plan of action now. She would not, by an unguarded answer, place in jeopardy the liberty, perhaps the life, of the man she loved. She was not looking up; one hand was gently touching the great bunch of Parma violets tucked in front of her coat.
“No,” she said quietly. “No, I have not seen him, Uncle Septimus. I should scarcely be likely to, should I? And I could scarcely recognize him now if I did. He—I do not think there was anything remarkable about him in any way.”
Her grand-uncle’s keen eyes took in every detail—the fair face, a little pale perhaps, but otherwise unmoved, the slender hands that did not tremble as she readjusted her flowers. To him, as a student of human nature in all its phases, there was something suspicious in her very calm, in the absence of all excitement.
The door at the other end of the room opened, and the manservant looked in.
“Mr. Hewlett, sir, would be glad if you could speak to him for a minute. I was to say that his business is important. I have shown him into the study.”
“Quite right, Blake! Tell Mr. Hewlett that I will be with him in a minute.”
As the man withdrew Septimus Lockyer looked across at his niece.
“And that is all, Joan? You cannot help us further? Remember perfect frankness is always the best course, child.”
“Of course it is,” Joan assented. She stood up and glanced out of the window. “Ah, my cab is there, I see! I must not keep you from your visitor, Uncle Septimus. I only wish I had known my evidence would have been of any importance earlier. But, you see, my father forbade me to mention what I had seen, and when you told me the other day what had really taken place I was too utterly horrified even to remember the past. Then when I did recall it it seemed too indefinite to be of any use. However, you will let me know if anything turns up?”
“Certainly!” Septimus Lockyer assented. “I want to help you, you know, Joan.”
Lady Warchester moved to the door.
“You have always been very kind to me, Uncle Septimus; I wonder what made you ask me about Gregory?”
“We have to think of everybody in a case like this,” Mr. Lockyer replied evasively. “Do you remember whether Gregory was in the loft when you got on the roof, Joan?”
“No, he would have stopped me if he had been there!” Joan’s laugh sounded forced. “But Gregory would not have hurt Evie, Uncle Septimus; he was always devoted to her.”
“I see.”
The K.C.’s face was very thoughtful as he escorted his niece down to her cab. He handed her in and waited until the cab had turned into Piccadilly, then he went back into his flat.
The study door was half open. Hewlett sat on a chair near the door; he rose as Mr. Lockyer entered.
“Good afternoon, sir! I took the liberty of calling, for I felt I should like to consult you at once. I have just been calling at Scotland Yard, and while I was there some news came.”
“Scotland Yard! Ah!” Septimus Lockyer’s face did not alter, but in some way the detective divined that he was prepared for what was coming. “What was it, Hewlett?”
Hewlett fidgeted with some papers he held in his hand.
“You know that they have been making inquiries from registrars and others with a view to discovering whether Miss Evelyn Spencer was married, and to whom?” he said at last.
Mr. Lockyer nodded.
“I know. A very sensible proceeding too.”
“Well, sir, the entry of the marriage has been discovered in the register of the church of St. Gudule in the little town of Larnac in Guernsey. A special messenger arrived with a copy while I was with Inspector Hudger just now.”
“Yes?” Septimus Lockyer questioned quietly. “What was the husband’s name, Hewlett?”
The detective looked away from him and studied a paper in his hand with apparent interest.
“Wilton, sir!”
Septimus Lockyer made no rejoinder for a minute; he went over to his spirit-stand and, pouring out two tiny glasses of green Chartreuse, drank one.
“Let me see it,” he said then, holding out his hand.
Without a word Hewlett handed it to him. It was an ordinary copy of a certificate of a marriage solemnized on January 16th, 1895, between Evelyn Cecil Mary, daughter of John Spencer and Mary Evelyn, his wife, and—
Septimus Lockyer rubbed his eyes and stared at the bride-groom’s name again. His expression lightened.
“Why, Hewlett, Hewlett, don’t you realize that this is not Lord Warchester? It is his cousin Basil! What a fright you gave me, man! Don’t you see that this is Herbert Basil Paul Stavordale Wilton, eldest son of Herbert Basil Wilton, clerk in Holy Orders, and Margaret Stavordale Wilton, his wife! This—this alters everything!”
“What?” Hewlett stared at him, for once astonished out of his stolid calm. “You don’t mean that this is the cousin that owns the Marsh, sir—the one that has been having the operation?”
“The very same,” Septimus Lockyer assented. “This explains a good deal.”
The detective pulled his fair moustache and looked blank. To his mind, instead of clearing up matters this complicated them very considerably.
“Then was it this one or Lord Warchester that wrote the letters we found in the trunk, sir? They were signed Paul Wilton. But it seems this one was christened Paul too.”
“Quite natural that he should be,” Septimus Lockyer assented. “Old Warchester, the grandfather of both of them, was Paul. But the clergyman’s son was always called Basil. As for the letters”—his face clouding as he remembered that terrible sentence, “You must introduce me as Mr. Wingrove”—“I don’t know. The writing was like his lordship’s. We shall have to think it over again, Hewlett—we shall have to think it over again.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE TRAIN from Worcester steamed into Paddington Station.
Jim Gregory stepped out, looking clumsy and ungainly in the ill-fitting black suit that had been made for the funeral of the landlord of the Bell. He held a handbag, which he shifted from one arm to the other uneasily. After looking about him for a minute or two to collect his bearings, he started off briskly; turning to the right and walking quickly up Praed Street for some little distance until he neared Edgware Road. A short, thick-set man with an unkempt brown beard, who had left Willersfield by the same train as Gregory, and, like him, had changed into the express at Worcester, walked up Praed Street on the opposite side, loitered along, stopping now and then to look in the shop windows, never overtaking, but keeping close in sight Gregory’s ungainly figure.
Gregory stopped in a side street before a little shop bearing the inscription, “George Dickinson, General Dealer.” A few jars of sweetmeats, a quantity of slate pencils, a large tray of miscellaneous goods occupied the window, and a slatternly young woman with a baby in her arms stood at the door.
She looked at Gregory for a moment in amazement; the man wit
h the brown beard, contriving to drop something as he passed, caught her words distinctly.
“Why, Jim, it is ever you? Who would have thought of seeing you?”
“Ay, it is me sure enough, Eliza!” Gregory answered in his gruff tones. “You will have to give me a bed for a night or two. Oh, I am going to pay you, though you are my sister!” jingling the money in his trouser pockets. “How is George?
The man with the brown beard heard no more. He strolled on in the same leisurely way until he reached the end of the street, where he stopped to speak to a ragged-looking urchin who had been hanging about at his heels ever since he left Paddington; then, quickening his steps, he hailed a passing taxi-cab and gave the driver the address of Messrs Hewlett and Cowham’s offices.
Half an hour afterwards, when Gregory came out of the shop, there was more than one group of ragged children playing in the street. He did not so much as glance at them—certainly he did not observe that one of the biggest boys quietly detached himself from the rest and, keeping well behind him, followed him as he crossed over Praed Street and Oxford and Cambridge Terrace and straight on through Devonport Street to Hinton Square and thence to Grove Street. There Gregory seemed for a while disposed to linger. He walked up and down, gazing at the houses, glanced down the Mews, stood for a second or two at the top; then, as if he had come to a sudden determination, he walked sharply up to No. 18 and rang the bell.
Gregory’s follower seated himself now by the railings close at hand and began to lace up his old boots.
Mrs. Perks appeared in the doorway, looking much as she had done when interviewed by Joan. At sight of Gregory, she stared, started; her face turned chalky-white; she came forward quickly.
“What do you want here, Jim Gregory? I ha’ told you—”
“I want a word with you, Maria Perks, first, and then I want my rights!” Gregory said heavily. “I mean to have ’em too. You won’t do me out of ‘em this time, neither you nor nobody else, so I tell you!”
Mrs. Perks began to shake all over.
“I don’t know what you mean by your rights, Jim Gregory, I have had naught to do with you—”
Gregory took a step forward.
“Don’t you know what I mean by my rights neither?” he asked truculently. “Well, maybe you don’t. That is neither here nor there. What you have got to do is to pass the word to them that does. Do you hear?”
Mrs. Perks emitted a slight scream. Seen thus at close quarters, there was something particularly unattractive about Mr. Gregory. His small eyes were bloodshot; he was not a believer in overmuch shaving, opining that twice a week was enough for any man; as a consequence his chin and lower part of his face presented a chronically rough blue appearance; a couple of his front teeth were missing, and his linen would have been much improved by a visit to the wash-tub.
“I wish I were dead, I do!” the woman cried, throwing her apron over her face.
“That won’t do you any good, Maria Perks!” Gregory returned, with a malevolent laugh. “I’ll come into your parlour and have a talk with you. Then if you don’t see reason maybe others will—”
“You would never go for to speak now?” Mrs. Perks sobbed.
Gregory’s answer was to take her contemptuously by the shoulder and walk her back to her room.
It was a lengthy interview; the watcher outside got tired of waiting. Once he went to the end of the street and spoke a few words to a gentleman who had passed by and tossed him a copper as he went on his way. Meanwhile it was easy to see that it was perfectly simple for any number of people to enter No. 18 without attracting attention, provided they had the means of obtaining access to the different flats. People came in and out, appearing for the most part to prefer making their own inquiries upstairs to interrogating Mrs. Perks on the ground floor.
At last a tall, well-dressed young man with a keen, clean-shaven face appeared and rang the bell. The boy in the road looked after him with interest.
“Ah, he is a cute one, he is!” the boy said to himself.
Mrs. Perks appeared in the doorway with a flurried expression.
“I hear you have some furnished rooms to let,” the stranger observed in a pleasant, musical voice. “I should like to look over them, if you please.”
“Certainly, sir!” Mrs. Perks hesitated a moment, “They are not one of our best sets, sir. They are up at the top of the house.”
“Now it is very nice of you to mention that”—the man smiled at her pleasantly—“but as a matter of fact, it will be rather a convenience to me than otherwise. I have a young brother living with me, and I always think the air at the top is purer, and we are both young enough not to mind a few extra steps.”
Mrs. Perks stepped back and took a key from a rail over the dresser; then she looked at Gregory. The newcomer was near enough to catch her words.
“I shall be back just now. You will be careful, Jim!”
“Ay, if I get what I want, I will be careful enough!” Gregory promised roughly.
Mrs. Perks panted a little as she walked up the stairs. The stranger looked round curiously.
“So all these rooms are taken, Mrs. Perks? Ah, well, it shows you make everybody comfortable! And a nice, quiet house. Mr. Godson told me I should find it so, and that is most necessary for me, for I have a good deal of writing to do wherever I am. Do all the tradespeople have to use these stairs, or have you a lift somewhere in the back premises?”
“Not a lift, sir,” Mrs. Perks smiled mirthlessly, her respect for the would-be lodger greatly increased by his mention of Mr. Godson, the trustee in charge of the Grove Street property. “There is a back staircase here”—opening a door at her left—“it comes out just by my room, and it is handy sometimes for coals or such-like, but most folk use the front. These are the rooms, sir. There are three.”
“And very pleasant they look!” the man said as he glanced into the big room in the centre and the smaller one on each side in turn. They were plainly but comfortably furnished. “And the rent is three guineas a week, Mr. Godson told me. I think I shall close with them on the spot. Now, Mrs. Perks,” turning to her confidentially, “tell me, would it not be possible for me to move in this afternoon? That is my name”—handing her a card on which she read, “Mr. Edward Wallace, 32 Buckingham Street, Strand”—“and I am anxious to get away from my present quarters as early as possible. They are dark, they are noisy, they are damp from the river; in fact, they are everything that is objectionable.”
Mrs. Perks looked rather staggered.
“To-day! Well, that don’t leave much time for anything; but, there, I always keep the rooms clean!”
“I am sure you do!” Mr. Wallace slipped something in her hand. “You will do for us then, Mrs. Perks, and give an eye to my brother sometimes. He is studying for an exam, so he is a good deal at home just now.”
“I shall do my best, sir,” Mrs. Perks promised, much gratified.
“And that will be very good, I know,” Mr. Wallace concluded. “Oh, it isn’t flattery, Mrs. Perks! I may be from the country but I know what it is when I see it. You are not a Londoner yourself, I think, Mrs. Perks?”
Mrs. Perks wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.
“No, sir, I come from Leicestershire, and many is the time I have wished myself back in Saxelby when the noise and bustle of London gets on my nerves.”
“We all of us do,” Mr. Wallace said sympathetically. “But we have our living to get. Well, I shall bring my brother in a couple of hours’ time and as much luggage as we can manage. The rest may be sent after us. Good-bye, for the present, Mrs. Perks!”
He ran lightly down the stairs. Mrs. Perks followed more slowly, thinking that he would certainly prove an acquisition. Gregory was standing’ up in her room when she entered.
“Well, Maria Perks, be you going to do what I asked you?”
“Haven’t I told you I can’t?” Mrs. Perks returned irritably. “You won’t get bread out of a stone, Jim Gregory!”
&
nbsp; “No! But maybe I shall get words from them that don’t mean to speak,” Gregory returned significantly. “You have had your chance, Maria Perks.”
“What do you mean, Jim Gregory?” Mrs. Perks gasped.
Gregory drew out a fold of shining sequin gauze from beneath a heap of coarse, black stuff.
“Be this yours—or hers?” he asked, with an evil grin.
Mrs. Perks fell back against the door with a cry.
“Save us, Jim Gregory! Where did you get this?”
Mr. Wallace arrived before the stipulated two hours had elapsed. He arrived with a couple of portmanteaux and a boy in an Eton suit, with a broad white collar, who bore, to a close observer, a strong likeness to the unwashed youth who had taken so strong an interest in Gregory’s movements outside.
Mrs. Perks accompanied them to their rooms, and Mr. Edward Wallace expressed himself as delighted with everything. His brother, he explained, was older than he looked, being nearly sixteen; he had been compelled to leave school owing to an illness and was now studying for the Civil Service exam.
“He is terribly mischievous, Mrs. Perks,” he complained. “But if he annoys you in any way, let me know, and I will soon put an end to it.”
“Oh, he won’t do that, sir!” Mrs. Perks assured him confidently. “Young gentlemen will be young gentlemen, and I shan’t mind that!” as she backed out of the room.
As soon as Mr. Wallace heard her footsteps to the end of the flight of stairs he closed the door.
“You know what you have to do, Archer?” His tone and manner had altered singularly.
The boy looked up.
“Yes, I think so, sir.”
“You are to remain at the window until you get the signal from below,” Mr, Wallace pursued. “Then you will steal as softly as possible down the back stairs and hear all you can of what is going on in Mrs. Perks’s room. Hear and remember, you understand, Archer. If Mrs. Perks should catch you—well, you are hiding to give her a fright. You are a very mischievous boy, you know, Archer!”