The Beetle (35 page)

He had only taken a step forward into the room when he again
stopped short to exclaim.

'My stars!—here's a sudden clearance!—Why, the place is empty,—
everything's clean gone!'

'What do you mean?—was it furnished when you left?'

The room was empty enough then.

'Furnished?—I don't know that it was exactly what you'd call
furnished,—the party who ran this establishment had a taste in
upholstery which was all his own,—but there was a carpet, and a
bed, and—and lots of things,—for the most part, I should have
said, distinctly Eastern curiosities. They seem to have evaporated
into smoke,—which may be a way which is common enough among
Eastern curiosities, though it's queer to me.'

Atherton was staring about him as if he found it difficult to
credit the evidence of his own eyes.

'How long ago is it since you left?'

He referred to his watch.

'Something over an hour,—possibly an hour and a half; I couldn't
swear to the exact moment, but it certainly isn't more.'

'Did you notice any signs of packing up?'

'Not a sign.' Going to the window he drew up the blind,—speaking
as he did so. 'The queer thing about this business is that when we
first got in this blind wouldn't draw up a little bit, so, since
it wouldn't go up I pulled it down, roller and all, now it draws
up as easily and smoothly as if it had always been the best blind
that ever lived.'

Standing at Sydney's back I saw that the cabman on his box was
signalling to us with his outstretched hand. Sydney perceived him
too. He threw up the sash.

'What's the matter with you?'

'Excuse me, sir, but who's the old gent?'

'What old gent?'

'Why the old gent peeping through the window of the room
upstairs?'

The words were hardly out of the driver's mouth when Sydney was
through the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather
more soberly,—his methods were a little too flighty for me. When
I reached the landing, dashing out of the front room he rushed
into the one at the back,—then through a door at the side. He
came out shouting.

'What's the idiot mean!—with his old gent! I'd old gent him if I
got him!—There's not a creature about the place!'

He returned into the front room,—I at his heels. That certainly
was empty,—and not only empty, but it showed no traces of recent
occupation. The dust lay thick upon the floor,—there was that
mouldy, earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments
which have been long untenanted.

'Are you sure, Atherton, that there is no one at the back?'

'Of course I'm sure,—you can go and see for yourself if you like;
do you think I'm blind? Jehu's drunk.' Throwing up the sash he
addressed the driver. 'What do you mean with your old gent at the
window?—what window?'

'That window, sir.'

'Go to!—you're dreaming, man!—there's no one here.'

'Begging your pardon, sir, but there was someone there not a
minute ago.'

'Imagination, cabman,—the slant of the light on the glass,—or
your eyesight's defective.'

'Excuse me, sir, but it's not my imagination, and my eyesight's as
good as any man's in England,—and as for the slant of the light
on the glass, there ain't much glass for the light to slant on. I
saw him peeping through that bottom broken pane on your left hand
as plainly as I see you. He must be somewhere about,—he can't
have got away,—he's at the back. Ain't there a cupboard nor
nothing where he could hide?'

The cabman's manner was so extremely earnest that I went myself to
see. There was a cupboard on the landing, but the door of that
stood wide open, and that obviously was bare. The room behind was
small, and, despite the splintered glass in the window frame,
stuffy. Fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the
floor, together with a choice collection of stones, brickbats, and
other missiles,—which not improbably were the cause of their
being there. In the corner stood a cupboard,—but a momentary
examination showed that that was as bare as the other. The door at
the side, which Sydney had left wide open, opened on to a closet,
and that was empty. I glanced up,—there was no trap door which
led to the roof. No practicable nook or cranny, in which a living
being could lie concealed, was anywhere at hand.

I returned to Sydney's shoulder to tell the cabman so.

'There is no place in which anyone could hide, and there is no one
in either of the rooms,—you must have been mistaken, driver.'

The man waxed wroth.

'Don't tell me! How could I come to think I saw something when I
didn't?'

'One's eyes are apt to play us tricks;—how could you see what
wasn't there?'

'That's what I want to know. As I drove up, before you told me to
stop, I saw him looking through the window,—the one at which you
are. He'd got his nose glued to the broken pane, and was staring
as hard as he could stare. When I pulled up, off he started,—I
saw him get up off his knees, and go to the back of the room. When
the gentleman took to knocking, back he came,—to the same old
spot, and flopped down on his knees. I didn't know what caper you
was up to,—you might be bum bailiffs for all I knew!—and I
supposed that he wasn't so anxious to let you in as you might be
to get inside, and that was why he didn't take no notice of your
knocking, while all the while he kept a eye on what was going on.
When you goes round to the back, up he gets again, and I reckoned
that he was going to meet yer, and perhaps give yer a bit of his
mind, and that presently I should hear a shindy, or that something
would happen. But when you pulls up the blind downstairs, to my
surprise back he come once more. He shoves his old nose right
through the smash in the pane, and wags his old head at me like a
chattering magpie. That didn't seem to me quite the civil thing to
do,—I hadn't done no harm to him; so I gives you the office, and
lets you know that he was there. But for you to say that he wasn't
there, and never had been,—blimey! that cops the biscuit. If he
wasn't there, all I can say is I ain't here, and my 'orse ain't
here, and my cab ain't neither,—damn it!—the house ain't here,
and nothing ain't!'

He settled himself on his perch with an air of the most extreme
ill usage,—he had been standing up to tell his tale. That the man
was serious was unmistakable. As he himself suggested, what
inducement could he have had to tell a lie like that? That he
believed himself to have seen what he declared he saw was plain.
But, on the other hand, what could have become—in the space of
fifty seconds!—of his 'old gent'?

Atherton put a question.

'What did he look like,—this old gent of yours?'

'Well, that I shouldn't hardly like to say. It wasn't much of his
face I could see, only his face and his eyes,—and they wasn't
pretty. He kept a thing over his head all the time, as if he
didn't want too much to be seen.'

'What sort of a thing?'

'Why,—one of them cloak sort of things, like them Arab blokes
used to wear what used to be at Earl's Court Exhibition,—you
know!'

This piece of information seemed to interest my companions more
than anything he had said before.

'A burnoose do you mean?'

'How am I to know what the thing's called? I ain't up in foreign
languages,—'tain't likely! All I know that them Arab blokes what
was at Earl's Court used to walk about in them all over the
place,—sometimes they wore them over their heads, and sometimes
they didn't. In fact if you'd asked me, instead of trying to make
out as I sees double, or things what was only inside my own
noddle, or something or other, I should have said this here old
gent what I've been telling you about was a Arab bloke,—when he
gets off his knees to sneak away from the window, I could see that
he had his cloak thing, what was over his head, wrapped all round
him.'

Mr Lessingham turned to me, all quivering with excitement.

'I believe that what he says is true!'

'Then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to,—can
you suggest an explanation? It is strange, to say the least of it,
that the cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything
of him.'

'Some devil's trick has been played,—I know it, I feel it!—my
instinct tells me so!'

I stared. In such a matter one hardly expects a man of Paul
Lessingham's stamp to talk of 'instinct.' Atherton stared too.
Then, on a sudden, he burst out,

'By the Lord, I believe the Apostle's right,—the whole place
reeks to me of hankey-pankey,—it did as soon as I put my nose
inside. In matters of prestidigitation, Champnell, we Westerns are
among the rudiments,—we've everything to learn,—Orientals leave
us at the post. If their civilisation's what we're pleased to call
extinct, their conjuring—when you get to know it!—is all alive
oh!'

He moved towards the door. As he went he slipped, or seemed to,
all but stumbling on to his knees.

'Something tripped me up,—what's this?' He was stamping on the
floor with his foot. 'Here's a board loose. Come and lend me a
hand, one of you fellows, to get it up. Who knows what mystery's
beneath?'

I went to his aid. As he said, a board in the floor was loose. His
stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble. Together we prised
it out of its place,—Lessingham standing by and watching us the
while. Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed.

There was something there.

'Why,' cried Atherton 'it's a woman's clothing!'

It was a woman's clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow,—
as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate
hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen,
corsets, and all,—even to hat, gloves, and hairpins;—these
latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange
confusion. It seemed plain that whoever had worn those clothes had
been stripped to the skin.

Lessingham and Sydney stared at me in silence as I dragged them
out and laid them on the floor. The dress was at the bottom,—it
was an alpaca, of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and
ribbons, as is the fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green
silk. It had perhaps been a 'charming confection' once—and that a
very recent one!—but now it was all soiled and creased and torn
and tumbled. The two spectators made a simultaneous pounce at it
as I brought it to the light.

'My God!' cried Sydney, 'it's Marjorie's!—she was wearing it when
I saw her last!'

'It's Marjorie's!' gasped Lessingham,—he was clutching at the
ruined costume, staring at it like a man who has just received
sentence of death. 'She wore it when she was with me yesterday,—I
told her how it suited her, and how pretty it was!'

There was silence,—it was an eloquent find; it spoke for itself.
The two men gazed at the heap of feminine glories,—it might have
been the most wonderful sight they ever had seen. Lessingham was
the first to speak,—his face had all at once grown grey and
haggard.

'What has happened to her?'

I replied to his question with another.

'Are you sure this is Miss Linden's dress?'

'I am sure,—and were proof needed, here it is.'

He had found the pocket, and was turning out the contents. There
was a purse, which contained money and some visiting cards on
which were her name and address; a small bunch of keys, with her
nameplate attached; a handkerchief, with her initials in a corner.
The question of ownership was placed beyond a doubt.

'You see,' said Lessingham, exhibiting the money which was in the
purse, 'it is not robbery which has been attempted. Here are two
ten-pound notes, and one for five, besides gold and silver,—over
thirty pounds in all.'

Atherton, who had been turning over the accumulation of rubbish
between the joists, proclaimed another find.

'Here are her rings, and watch, and a bracelet,—no, it certainly
does not look as if theft had been an object.'

Lessingham was glowering at him with knitted brows.

'I have to thank you for this.'

Sydney was unwontedly meek.

'You are hard on me, Lessingham, harder than I deserve,—I had
rather have thrown away my own life than have suffered
misadventure to have come to her.'

'Yours are idle words. Had you not meddled this would not have
happened. A fool works more mischief with his folly than of malice
prepense. If hurt has befallen Marjorie Lindon you shall account
for it to me with your life's blood.'

'Let it be so,' said Sydney. 'I am content. If hurt has come to
Marjorie, God knows that I am willing enough that death should
come to me.'

While they wrangled, I continued to search. A little to one side,
under the flooring which was still intact, I saw something gleam.
By stretching out my hand, I could just manage to reach it,—it
was a long plait of woman's hair. It had been cut off at the
roots,—so close to the head in one place that the scalp itself
had been cut, so that the hair was clotted with blood.

They were so occupied with each other that they took no notice of
me. I had to call their attention to my discovery.

'Gentlemen, I fear that I have here something which will distress
you,—is not this Miss Lindon's hair?'

They recognised it on the instant. Lessingham, snatching it from
my hands, pressed it to his lips.

'This is mine,—I shall at least have something.' He spoke with a
grimness which was a little startling. He held the silken tresses
at arm's length. 'This points to murder,—foul, cruel, causeless
murder. As I live, I will devote my all,—money, time,
reputation!—to gaining vengeance on the wretch who did this
deed.'

Atherton chimed in.

'To that I say, Amen!' He lifted his hand. 'God is my witness!'

'It seems to me, gentlemen, that we move too fast,—to my mind it
does not by any means of necessity point to murder. On the
contrary, I doubt if murder has been done. Indeed, I don't mind
owning that I have a theory of my own which points all the other
way.'