Adventures of Martin Hewitt (8 page)

The pedestal table put in order again, Hewitt took the poker and raked in
the fireplace. It was summer, and behind the bars was a sort of screen of
cartridge paper with a frilled edge, and behind this various odds and ends
had been thrown—spent matches, trade-circulars crumpled up, and torn
paper. There were also the remains of several cigars, some only half smoked,
and one almost whole. The torn paper Hewitt examined piece by piece, and
finally sorted out a number of pieces which he set to work to arrange on the
blotting pad. They formed a complete note, written in the same hand as were
the envelopes already found by Mrs. Geldard—that of the girl Emma
Trennatt. It corresponded also with the solitary fragment of another letter
which had accompanied them, by way of having a number of crosses below the
signature, and it ran thus:—

Tuesday Night.

Dear Sam,—To-morrow, to carry. Not late because
people are coming for flowers. What you did was no good. The smoke leaks
worse than ever, and F. thinks you must light a new pipe or else stop smoking
altogether for a bit. Uncle is anxious. —
Emma
.

Then followed the crosses, filling one line and nearly half the next;
seventeen in all.

Hewitt gazed at the fragments thoughtfully. “This is a find,” he
said—“most decidedly a find. It looks so much like nonsense that it
must mean something of importance. The date, you see, is Tuesday night. It
would be received here on Wednesday—yesterday—morning. So that it
was immediately after the receipt of this note that Geldard left. It’s pretty
plain the crosses don’t mean kisses. The note isn’t quite of the sort that
usually carries such symbols, and moreover, when a lady fills the end of a
sheet of notepaper with kisses she doesn’t stop less than half way across the
last line—she fills it to the end. These crosses mean something very
different. I should like, too, to know what ‘smoke’ means. Anyway this letter
would probably astonish Mrs. Geldard if she saw it. We’ll say nothing about
it for the present.” He swept the fragments into an envelope, and put away
the envelope in his breast pocket. There was nothing more to be found of the
least value in the fireplace, and a careful examination of the office in
other parts revealed nothing that I had not noticed before, so far as I could
see, except Geldard’s boots standing on the floor of the cupboard wherein his
clothes lay. The whole place was singularly bare of what one commonly finds
in an office in the way of papers, handbooks, and general business
material.

Mrs. Geldard was not long away. At the bank she found that the manager was
absent and his deputy had been very reluctant to say anything definite
without his sanction. He gave Mrs. Geldard to understand, however, that there
was a balance still remaining to her husband’s credit; also that Mr. Geldard
had drawn a cheque the previous morning, Wednesday, for an amount “rather
larger than usual.” And that was all.

“By the way, Mrs. Geldard,” Hewitt observed, with an air of recollecting
something, “there
was
a Mr. Cookson I believe, if I remember, who knew
a Mr. Geldard. You don’t happen to know, do you, whether or not Mr. Geldard
had a client or an acquaintance of that name?”

“No, I know nobody of the name.”

“Ah, it doesn’t matter. I suppose it isn’t necessary for your husband to
keep horses or vehicles of any description in his business?”

“No, certainly not.” Mrs. Geldard looked surprised at the question.

“Of course—I should have known that. He does not drive to business,
I suppose?”

“No, he goes by omnibus.”

“But as to Emma Trennatt now. This photograph is most welcome, and will be
of great assistance, I make no doubt. But is there anything individual by
which I might identify her if I saw her—anything beyond what I see in
the photograph? A peculiarity of step, for instance, or a scar, or what
not.”

“Yes, there is a large mole—more than a quarter of an inch across I
should think—on her left cheek, an inch below the outer corner of her
eye. The photograph only shows the other side of the face.”

“That will be useful to know. Now has she a relative living at Crouch End,
or thereabout?”

“Yes, her uncle; she’s living with him now—or she was at any rate
till lately. But how did you know that?”

“The Crouch End postmark was on those envelopes you found. Do you know
anything of her uncle?”

“Nothing, except that he’s a nurseryman, I believe.”

“Not his full address?”

“No.”

“And Trennatt is his name?”

“Thank you. I think, Mrs. Geldard,” Hewitt said, taking his hat, “that I
will set out after your husband at once. You, I think, can do no better than
stay at home till I have news for you. I have your address. If anything comes
to your knowledge please telegraph it to my office at once.”

The office door was locked, the keys were left with the caretaker, and we
saw Mrs. Geldard into a cab at the door. “Come,” said Hewitt, “we’ll go
somewhere and look at a directory, and after that to Dragon Yard. I think I
know a man in Moorgate Street who’ll let me see his directory.”

We started to walk down Finsbury Pavement. Suddenly Hewitt caught my arm
and directed my eyes toward a woman who had passed hurriedly in the opposite
direction. I had not seen her face, but Hewitt had. “If that isn’t Miss Emma
Trennatt,” he said, “it’s uncommonly like the notion I’ve formed of her.
We’ll see if she goes to Geldard’s office.”

We hurried after the woman, who, sure enough, turned into the large door
of the building we had just left. As it was impossible that she should know
us we followed her boldly up the stairs and saw her stop before the door of
Geldard’s office and knock. We passed her as she stood there—a handsome
young woman enough—and well back on her left cheek, in the place Mrs.
Geldard had indicated, there was plain to see a very large mole. We pursued
our way to the landing above and there we stopped in a position that
commanded a view of Geldard’s door. The young woman knocked again and
waited.

“This doesn’t look like an elopement yesterday morning, does it?” Hewitt
whispered. “Unless Geldard’s left both this one and his wife in the
lurch.”

The young woman below knocked once or twice more, walked irresolutely
across the corridor and back, and in the end, after a parting knock, started
slowly back downstairs.

“Brett,” Hewitt exclaimed with suddenness, “will you do me a favour? That
woman understands Geldard’s secret comings and goings, as is plain from the
letter. But she would appear to know nothing of where he is now, since she
seems to have come here to find him. Perhaps this last absence of his has
nothing to do with the others. In any case will you follow this woman? She
must be watched; but I want to see to the matter in other places. Will you do
it?”

Of course I assented at once. We had been descending the stairs as Hewitt
spoke, keeping distance behind the girl we were following. “Thank you,”
Hewitt now said. “Do it. If you find anything urgent to communicate wire to
me in care of the inspector at Crouch End Police Station. He knows me, and I
will call there in case you may have sent. But if it’s after five this
afternoon, wire also to my office. If you keep with her to Crouch End, where
she lives, we shall probably meet.”

We parted at the door of the office we were at first bound for, and I
followed the girl southward.

This new turn of affairs increased the puzzlement I already laboured
under. Here was the girl Trennatt—who by all evidence appeared to be
well acquainted with Geldard’s mysterious proceedings, and in consequence of
whose letter, whatever it might mean, he would seem to have absented
himself—herself apparently ignorant of his whereabouts and even
unconscious that he had left his office. I had at first begun to speculate on
Geldard’s probable secret employment; I had heard of men keeping good
establishments who, unknown to even their own wives, procured the wherewithal
by begging or crossing-sweeping in London streets; I had heard
also—knew in fact from Hewitt’s experience—of well-to-do suburban
residents whose actual profession was burglary or coining. I had speculated
on the possibility of Geldard’s secret being one of that kind. My mind had
even reverted to the case, which I have related elsewhere, in which Hewitt
frustrated a dynamite explosion by his timely discovery of a baker’s cart and
a number of loaves, and I wondered whether or not Geldard was a member of
some secret brotherhood of Anarchists or Fenians. But here, it would seem,
were two distinct mysteries, one of Geldard’s generally unaccountable
movements, and another of his disappearance, each mystery complicating the
other. Again, what did that extraordinary note mean, with its crosses and its
odd references to smoking? Had the dirty clay pipes anything to do with it?
Or the half-smoked cigars? Perhaps the whole thing was merely ridiculously
trivial after all. I could make nothing of it, however, and applied myself to
my pursuit of Emma Trennatt, who mounted an omnibus at the Bank, on the roof
of which I myself secured a seat.

Here I must leave my own proceedings to put in their proper place those of
Martin Hewitt as I subsequently learnt them.

Benton Street, he found by the directory, turned out of the City Road
south of Old Street, so was quite near. He was there in less than ten
minutes, and had discovered Dragon Yard. Dragon Yard was as small a
stable-yard as one could easily find. Only the right-hand side was occupied
by stables, and there were only three of these. On the left was a high dead
wall bounding a great warehouse or some such building. Across the first and
second of the stables stretched a long board with the legend, “W. Gask, Corn,
Hay and Straw Dealer,” and underneath a shop address in Old Street. The third
stable stood blank and uninscribed, and all three were shut fast. Nobody was
in the yard, and Hewitt at once proceeded to examine the end stable. The
doors were unusually well finished and close-fitting, and the lock was a good
one, of the lever variety, and very difficult to pick. Hewitt examined the
front of the building very carefully, and then, after a visit to the entrance
of the yard, to guard against early interruption, returned and scrambled by
projections and fastenings to the roof. This was a roof in contrast to those
of the other stables. They were of tiles, seemed old, and carried nothing in
the way of a skylight; evidently it was the habit of Mr. Gask and his helpers
to do their horse and van business with gates wide open to admit light. But
the roof of this third stable was newer and better made, and carried a
good-sized skylight of thick fluted glass. Hewitt took a good look at such
few windows as happened to be in sight, and straight away began, with the
strongest blade of his pocket-knife, to cut away the putty from round one
pane. It was a rather long job, for the putty had hardened thoroughly in the
sun, but it was accomplished at length, and Hewitt, with a final glance at
the windows in view, prized up the pane from the end and lifted it out.

The interior of the stable was apparently empty. Neither stall nor rack
was to be seen; and the place was plainly used as a coach or van house
simply. Hewitt took one more look about him and dropped quietly through the
hole in the skylight. The floor was thickly laid with straw. There were a few
odd pieces of harness, a rope or two, a lantern, and a few sacks lying here
and there, and at the darkest end there was, an obscure heap covered with
straw and sacking. This heap Hewitt proceeded to unmask, and having cleared
away a few sacks left revealed about half-a-dozen rolls of linoleum. One of
these he dragged to the light, where it became evident that it had remained
thus rolled and tied with cord in two places for a long period. There were
cracks in the surface, and when the cords were loosened the linoleum showed
no disposition to open out or to become unrolled. Others of the rolls on
inspection exhibited the same peculiarities. Moreover, each roll appeared to
consist of no more than a couple of yards of material at most, though all
were of the same pattern. Every roll in fact was of the same length,
thickness and shape as the others, containing somewhere near two yards of
linoleum in a roll of some half dozen thicknesses, leaving an open diameter
of some four inches in the centre. Hewitt looked at each in turn and then
replaced the heap as he had found it. After this to regain the skylight was
not difficult by the aid of a trestle. The pane was replaced as well as the
absence of fresh putty permitted, and five minutes later Hewitt was in a
hansom bound for Crouch End.

He dismissed his cab at the police station. Within he had no difficulty in
procuring a direction to Trennatt, the nurseryman, and a short walk brought
him to the place. A fairly high wall topped with broken glass bounded the
nursery garden next the road and in the wall were two gates, one a wide
double one for the admission of vehicles, and the other a smaller one of open
pales, for ordinary visitors. The garden stood sheltered by higher ground
behind, whereon stood a good-sized house, just visible among the trees that
surrounded it. Hewitt walked along by the side of the wall. Soon he came to
where the ground of the nursery garden appeared to be divided from that of
the house by a most extraordinarily high hedge extending a couple of feet
above the top of the wall itself. Stepping back, the better to note this
hedge, Hewitt became conscious of two large boards, directly facing each
other, with scarcely four feet space between them, one erected on a post in
the ground of the house and the other similarly elevated from that of the
nursery, each being inscribed in large letters,
“Trespassers will be prosecuted.
”