The Beetle (37 page)

'The undersigned would be oblidged if Miss Coleman would let her
emptey house. I do not know the rent but send fifty pounds. If
more will send. Please address, Mohamed el Kheir, Post Office,
Sligo Street, London.'

It struck me as being as singular an application for a tenancy as
I remembered to have encountered. When I passed it on to
Lessingham, he seemed to think so too.

'This is a curious letter, Miss Coleman.'

'So I thought,—and still more so when I found the fifty pounds
inside. There were five ten-pound notes, all loose, and the letter
not even registered. If I had been asked what was the rent of the
house, I should have said, at the most, not more than twenty
pounds,—because, between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing
up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands.'

I had had sufficient evidence of the truth of this altogether
apart from the landlady's frank admission.

'Why, for all he could have done to help himself I might have kept
the money, and only sent him a receipt for a quarter. And some
folks would have done,—but I'm not one of that sort myself, and
shouldn't care to be. So I sent this here party,—I never could
pronounce his name, and never shall—a receipt for a year.'

Miss Coleman paused to smooth her apron, and consider.

'Well, the receipt should have reached this here party on the
Thursday morning, as it were,—I posted it on the Wednesday night,
and on the Thursday, after breakfast, I thought I'd go over the
way to see if there was any little thing I could do,—because
there wasn't hardly a whole pane of glass in the place,—when I
all but went all of a heap. When I looked across the road, blessed
it the party wasn't in already,—at least as much as he ever was
in, which, so far as I can make out, never has been anything
particular,—though how he had got in, unless it was through a
window in the middle of the night, is more than I should care to
say,—there was nobody in the house when I went to bed, that I
could pretty nearly take my Bible oath,—yet there was the blind
up at the parlour, and, what's more, it was down, and it's been
down pretty nearly ever since.

'"Well," I says to myself, "for right down imperence this beats
anything,—why he's in the place before he knows if I'll let him
have it. Perhaps he thinks I haven't got a word to say in the
matter,—fifty pounds or no fifty pounds, I'll soon show him." So
I slips on my bonnet, and I walks over the road, and I hammers at
the door.

'Well, I have seen people hammering since then, many a one, and
how they've kept it up has puzzled me,—for an hour, some of
them,—but I was the first one as begun it. I hammers, and I
hammers, and I kept on hammering, but it wasn't no more use than
if I'd been hammering at a tombstone. So I starts rapping at the
window, but that wasn't no use neither. So I goes round behind,
and I hammers at the back door,—but there, I couldn't make anyone
hear nohow. So I says to myself, "Perhaps the party as is in,
ain't in, in a manner of speaking; but I'll keep an eye on the
house, and when he is in I'll take care that he ain't out again
before I've had a word to say."

'So I come back home, and as I said I would, I kept an eye on the
house the whole of that livelong day, but never a soul went either
out or in. But the next day, which it was a Friday, I got out of
bed about five o'clock, to see if it was raining, through my
having an idea of taking a little excursion if the weather was
fine, when I see a party coming down the road. He had on one of
them dirty-coloured bed-cover sort of things, and it was wrapped
all over his head and round his body, like, as I have been told,
them there Arabs wear,—and, indeed, I've seen them in them myself
at West Brompton, when they was in the exhibition there. It was
quite fine, and broad day, and I see him as plainly as I see you,
—he comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at the
house over the way, opens the front door, and lets himself in.

'"So," I says to myself, "there you are. Well, Mr Arab, or
whatever, or whoever, you may be, I'll take good care that you
don't go out again before you've had a word from me. I'll show you
that landladies have their rights, like other Christians, in this
country, however it may be in yours." So I kept an eye on the
house, to see that he didn't go out again, and nobody never
didn't, and between seven and eight I goes and I knocks at the
door,—because I thought to myself that the earlier I was the
better it might be.

'If you'll believe me, no more notice was taken of me than if I
was one of the dead. I hammers, and I hammers, till my wrist was
aching, I daresay I hammered twenty times,—and then I went round
to the back door, and I hammers at that,—but it wasn't the least
good in the world. I was that provoked to think I should be
treated as if I was nothing and nobody, by a dirty foreigner, who
went about in a bed-gown through the public streets, that it was
all I could do to hold myself.

'I comes round to the front again, and I starts hammering at the
window, with every knuckle on my hands, and I calls out, "I'm Miss
Louisa Coleman, and I'm the owner of this house, and you can't
deceive me,—I saw you come in, and you're in now, and if you
don't come and speak to me this moment I'll have the police."

'All of a sudden, when I was least expecting it, and was hammering
my very hardest at the pane, up goes the blind, and up goes the
window too, and the most awful-looking creature ever I heard of,
not to mention seeing, puts his head right into my face,—he was
more like a hideous baboon than anything else, let alone a man. I
was struck all of a heap, and plumps down on the little wall, and
all but tumbles head over heels backwards, And he starts
shrieking, in a sort of a kind of English, and in such a voice as
I'd never heard the like,—it was like a rusty steam engine.

'"Go away! go away! I don't want you! I will not have you,—never!
You have your fifty pounds,—you have your money,—that is the
whole of you,—that is all you want! You come to me no more!—
never!—never no more!—or you be sorry!—Go away!"

'I did go away, and that as fast as ever my legs would carry me,—
what with his looks, and what with his voice, and what with the
way that he went on, I was nothing but a mass of trembling. As for
answering him back, or giving him a piece of my mind, as I had
meant to, I wouldn't have done it not for a thousand pounds. I
don't mind confessing, between you and me, that I had to swallow
four cups of tea, right straight away, before my nerves was
steady.

'"Well," I says to myself, when I did feel, as it might be, a
little more easy, "you never have let that house before, and now
you've let it with a vengeance,—so you have. If that there new
tenant of yours isn't the greatest villain that ever went unhung
it must be because he's got near relations what's as bad as
himself,—because two families like his I'm sure there can't be. A
nice sort of Arab party to have sleeping over the road he is!"

'But after a time I cools down, as it were,—because I'm one of
them sort as likes to see on both sides of a question. "After
all," I says to myself, "he has paid his rent, and fifty pounds is
fifty pounds,—I doubt if the whole house is worth much more, and
he can't do much damage to it whatever he does."

'I shouldn't have minded, so far as that went, if he'd set fire to
the place, for, between ourselves, it's insured for a good bit
over its value. So I decided that I'd let things be as they were,
and see how they went on. But from that hour to this I've never
spoken to the man, and never wanted to, and wouldn't, not of my
own free will, not for a shilling a time,—that face of his will
haunt me if I live till Noah, as the saying is. I've seen him
going in and out at all hours of the day and night,—that Arab
party's a mystery if ever there was one,—he always goes tearing
along as if he's flying for his life. Lots of people have come to
the house, all sorts and kinds, men and women—they've been mostly
women, and even little children. I've seen them hammer and hammer
at that front door, but never a one have I seen let in,—or yet
seen taken any notice of, and I think I may say, and yet tell no
lie, that I've scarcely took my eye off the house since he's been
inside it, over and over again in the middle of the night have I
got up to have a look, so that I've not missed much that has took
place.

'What's puzzled me is the noises that's come from the house.
Sometimes for days together there's not been a sound, it might
have been a house of the dead; and then, all through the night,
there've been yells and screeches, squawks and screams,—I never
heard nothing like it. I have thought, and more than once, that
the devil himself must be in that front room, let alone all the
rest of his demons. And as for cats!—where they've come from I
can't think. I didn't use to notice hardly a cat in the
neighbourhood till that there Arab party came,—there isn't much
to attract them; but since he came there's been regiments.
Sometimes at night there's been troops about the place, screeching
like mad,—I've wished them farther, I can tell you. That Arab
party must be fond of 'em. I've seen them inside the house, at the
windows, upstairs and downstairs, as it seemed to me, a dozen at a
time.

As Miss Coleman had paused, as if her narrative was approaching a
conclusion, I judged it expedient to make an attempt to bring the
record as quickly as possible up to date.

'I take it, Miss Coleman, that you have observed what has occurred
in the house to-day.'

She tightened her nut-cracker jaws and glared at me disdainfully,
—her dignity was ruffled.

'I'm coming to it, aren't I?—if you'll let me. If you've got no
manners I'll learn you some. One doesn't like to be hurried at my
time of life, young man.'

I was meekly silent;—plainly, if she was to talk, every one else
must listen.

'During the last few days there have been some queer goings on
over the road,—out of the common queer, I mean, for goodness
knows that they always have been queer enough. That Arab party has
been flitting about like a creature possessed,—I've seen him
going in and out twenty times a day. This morning—'

She paused,—to fix her eyes on Lessingham. She apparently
observed his growing interest as she approached the subject which
had brought us there,—and resented it.

'Don't look at me like that, young man, because I won't have it.
And as for questions, I may answer questions when I'm done, but
don't you dare to ask me one before, because I won't be
interrupted.'

Up to then Lessingham had not spoken a word,—but it seemed as if
she was endowed with the faculty of perceiving the huge volume of
the words which he had left unuttered.

'This morning—as I've said already,—' she glanced at Lessingham
as if she defied his contradiction—'when that Arab party came
home it was just on the stroke of seven. I know what was the exact
time because, when I went to the door to the milkman, my clock was
striking the half hour, and I always keep it thirty minutes fast.
As I was taking the milk, the man said to me, "Hollo, Miss
Coleman, here's your friend coming along." "What friend?" I says,
—for I ain't got no friends, as I know, round here, nor yet, I
hope no enemies neither.

'And I looks round, and there was the Arab party coming tearing
down the road, his bedcover thing all flying in the wind, and his
arms straight out in front of him,—I never did see anyone go at
such a pace. "My goodness," I says, "I wonder he don't do himself
an injury." "I wonder someone else don't do him an injury," says
the milkman. "The very sight of him is enough to make my milk go
sour." And he picked up his pail and went away quite grumpy,—
though what that Arab party's done to him is more than I can say.
—I have always noticed that milkman's temper's short like his
measure. I wasn't best pleased with him for speaking of that Arab
party as my friend, which he never has been, and never won't be,
and never could be neither.

'Five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone, and
that there Arab party was safe inside,—three of them was
commercials, that I know, because afterwards they came to me. But
of course they none of them got no chance with that there Arab
party except of hammering at his front door, which ain't what you
might call a paying game, nor nice for the temper but for that I
don't blame him, for if once those commercials do begin talking
they'll talk for ever.

'Now I'm coming to this afternoon.'

I thought it was about time,—though for the life of me, I did not
dare to hint as much.

'Well, it might have been three, or it might have been half past,
anyhow it was thereabouts, when up there comes two men and a
woman, which one of the men was that young man what's a friend of
yours. "Oh," I says to myself, "here's something new in callers, I
wonder what it is they're wanting." That young man what was a
friend of yours, he starts hammering, and hammering, as the custom
was with every one who came, and, as usual, no more notice was
taken of him than nothing,—though I knew that all the time the
Arab party was indoors.'

At this point I felt that at all hazards I must interpose a
question.

'You are sure he was indoors?'

She took it better than I feared she might.

'Of course I'm sure,—hadn't I seen him come in at seven, and he
never hadn't gone out since, for I don't believe that I'd taken my
eyes off the place not for two minutes together, and I'd never had
a sight of him. If he wasn't indoors, where was he then?'

For the moment, so far as I was concerned, the query was
unanswerable. She triumphantly continued:

'Instead of doing what most did, when they'd had enough of
hammering, and going away, these three they went round to the
back, and I'm blessed if they mustn't have got through the kitchen
window, woman and all, for all of a sudden the blind in the front
room was pulled not up, but down—dragged down it was, and there
was that young man what's a friend of yours standing with it in
his hand.