The Beetle (38 page)

'"Well," I says to myself, "if that ain't cool I should like to
know what is. If, when you ain't let in, you can let yourself in,
and that without so much as saying by your leave, or with your
leave, things is coming to a pretty pass. Wherever can that Arab
party be, and whatever can he be thinking of, to let them go on
like that because that he's the sort to allow a liberty to be took
with him, and say nothing, I don't believe."

'Every moment I expects to hear a noise and see a row begin, but,
so far as I could make out, all was quiet and there wasn't nothing
of the kind. So I says to myself, "There's more in this than meets
the eye, and them three parties must have right upon their side,
or they wouldn't be doing what they are doing in the way they are,
there'd be a shindy."

'Presently, in about five minutes, the front door opens, and a
young man—not the one what's your friend, but the other—comes
sailing out, and through the gate, and down the road, as stiff and
upright as a grenadier,—I never see anyone walk more upright, and
few as fast. At his heels comes the young man what is your friend,
and it seems to me that he couldn't make out what this other was
a-doing of. I says to myself, "There's been a quarrel between them
two, and him as has gone has hooked it." This young man what is
your friend he stood at the gate, all of a fidget, staring after
the other with all his eyes, as if he couldn't think what to make
of him, and the young woman, she stood on the doorstep, staring
after him too.

'As the young man what had hooked it turned the corner, and was
out of sight, all at once your friend he seemed to make up his
mind, and he started off running as hard as he could pelt,—and
the young woman was left alone. I expected, every minute, to see
him come back with the other young man, and the young woman, by
the way she hung about the gate, she seemed to expect it too. But
no, nothing of the kind. So when, as I expect, she'd had enough of
waiting, she went into the house again, and I see her pass the
front room window. After a while, back she comes to the gate, and
stands looking and looking, but nothing was to be seen of either
of them young men. When she'd been at the gate, I daresay five
minutes, back she goes into the house,—and I never saw nothing of
her again.'

'You never saw anything of her again?—Are you sure she went back
into the house?'

'As sure as I am that I see you.'

'I suppose that you didn't keep a constant watch upon the
premises?'

'But that's just what I did do. I felt something queer was going
on, and I made up my mind to see it through. And when I make up my
mind to a thing like that I'm not easy to turn aside. I never
moved off the chair at my bedroom window, and I never took my eyes
off the house, not till you come knocking at my front door.'

'But, since the young lady is certainly not in the house at
present, she must have eluded your observation, and, in some
manner, have left it without your seeing her.'

'I don't believe she did, I don't see how she could have done,—
there's something queer about that house, since that Arab party's
been inside it. But though I didn't see her, I did see someone
else.'

'Who was that?'

'A young man.'

'A young man?'

'Yes, a young man, and that's what puzzled me, and what's been
puzzling me ever since, for see him go in I never did do.'

'Can you describe him?'

'Not as to the face, for he wore a dirty cloth cap pulled down
right over it, and he walked so quickly that I never had a proper
look. But I should know him anywhere if I saw him, if only because
of his clothes and his walk.'

'What was there peculiar about his clothes and his walk?'

'Why, his clothes were that old, and torn, and dirty, that a
ragman wouldn't have given a thank you for them,—and as for fit,
—there wasn't none, they hung upon him like a scarecrow—he was a
regular figure of fun; I should think the boys would call after
him if they saw him in the street. As for his walk, he walked off
just like the first young man had done, he strutted along with his
shoulders back, and his head in the air, and that stiff and
straight that my kitchen poker would have looked crooked beside of
him.'

'Did nothing happen to attract your attention between the young
lady's going back into the house and the coming out of this young
man?'

Miss Coleman cogitated.

'Now you mention it there did,—though I should have forgotten all
about it if you hadn't asked me,—that comes of your not letting
me tell the tale in my own way. About twenty minutes after the
young woman had gone in someone put up the blind in the front
room, which that young man had dragged right down, I couldn't see
who it was for the blind was between us, and it was about ten
minutes after that that young man came marching out.'

'And then what followed?'

'Why, in about another ten minutes that Arab party himself comes
scooting through the door.'

'The Arab party?'

'Yes, the Arab party! The sight of him took me clean aback. Where
he'd been, and what he'd been doing with himself while them there
people played hi-spy-hi about his premises I'd have given a
shilling out of my pocket to have known, but there he was, as
large as life, and carrying a bundle.'

'A bundle?'

'A bundle, on his head, like a muffin-man carries his tray. It was
a great thing, you never would have thought he could have carried
it, and it was easy to see that it was as much as he could manage;
it bent him nearly double, and he went crawling along like a
snail,—it took him quite a time to get to the end of the road.'

Mr Lessingham leaped up from his seat, crying, 'Marjorie was in
that bundle!'

'I doubt it,' I said.

He moved about the room distractedly, wringing his hands.

'She was! she must have been! God help us all!'

'I repeat that I doubt it. If you will be advised by me you will
wait awhile before you arrive at any such conclusion.'

All at once there was a tapping at the window pane. Atherton was
staring at us from without.

He shouted through the glass, 'Come out of that, you fossils!—
I've news for you!'

Miss Coleman, getting up in a fluster, went hurrying to the door.

'I won't have that young man in my house. I won't have him! Don't
let him dare to put his nose across my doorstep.'

I endeavoured to appease her perturbation.

'I promise you that he shall not come in, Miss Coleman. My friend
here, and I, will go and speak to him outside.'

She held the front door open just wide enough to enable Lessingham
and me to slip through, then she shut it after us with a bang. She
evidently had a strong objection to any intrusion on Sydney's
part.

Standing just without the gate he saluted us with a characteristic
vigour which was scarcely flattering to our late hostess. Behind
him was a constable.

'I hope you two have been mewed in with that old pussy long
enough. While you've been tittle-tattling I've been doing,—listen
to what this bobby's got to say.'

The constable, his thumbs thrust inside his belt, wore an
indulgent smile upon his countenance. He seemed to find Sydney
amusing. He spoke in a deep bass voice,—as if it issued from his
boots.

'I don't know that I've got anything to say.

It was plain that Sydney thought otherwise.

'You wait till I've given this pretty pair of gossips a lead,
officer, then I'll trot you out.' He turned to us.

'After I'd poked my nose into every dashed hole in that infernal
den, and been rewarded with nothing but a pain in the back for my
trouble, I stood cooling my heels on the doorstep, wondering if I
should fight the cabman, or get him to fight me, just to pass the
time away,—for he says he can box, and he looks it,—when who
should come strolling along but this magnificent example of the
metropolitan constabulary.' He waved his hand towards the
policeman, whose grin grew wider. 'I looked at him, and he looked
at me, and then when we'd had enough of admiring each other's fine
features and striking proportions, he said to me, "Has he gone?" I
said, "Who?—Baxter?—or Bob Brown?" He said, "No, the Arab." I
said, "What do you know about any Arab?" He said, "Well, I saw him
in the Broadway about three-quarters of an hour ago, and then,
seeing you here, and the house all open, I wondered if he had gone
for good." With that I almost jumped out of my skin, though you
can bet your life I never showed it. I said, "How do you know it
was he?" He said, "It was him right enough, there's no doubt about
that. If you've seen him once, you're not likely to forget him."
"Where was he going?" "He was talking to a cabman,—four-wheeler.
He'd got a great bundle on his head,—wanted to take it inside
with him. Cabman didn't seem to see it." That was enough for me,—
I picked this most deserving officer up in my arms, and carried
him across the road to you two fellows like a flash of lightning.'

Since the policeman was six feet three or four, and more than
sufficiently broad in proportion, his scarcely seemed the kind of
figure to be picked up in anybody's arms and carried like a 'flash
of lightning,' which,—as his smile grew more indulgent, he
himself appeared to think.

Still, even allowing for Atherton's exaggeration, the news which
he had brought was sufficiently important. I questioned the
constable upon my own account.

'There is my card, officer, probably, before the day is over, a
charge of a very serious character will be preferred against the
person who has been residing in the house over the way. In the
meantime it is of the utmost importance that a watch should be
kept upon his movements. I suppose you have no sort of doubt that
the person you saw in the Broadway was the one in question?'

'Not a morsel. I know him as well as I do my own brother,—we all
do upon this beat. He's known amongst us as the Arab. I've had my
eye on him ever since he came to the place. A queer fish he is. I
always have said that he's up to some game or other. I never came
across one like him for flying about in all sorts of weather, at
all hours of the night, always tearing along as if for his life.
As I was telling this gentleman I saw him in the Broadway,—well,
now it's about an hour since, perhaps a little more. I was coming
on duty when I saw a crowd in front of the District Railway
Station,—and there was the Arab, having a sort of argument with
the cabman. He had a great bundle on his head, five or six feet
long, perhaps longer. He wanted to take this great bundle with him
into the cab, and the cabman, he didn't see it.'

'You didn't wait to see him drive off.'

'No,—I hadn't time. I was due at the station,—I was cutting it
pretty fine as it was.'

'You didn't speak to him,—or to the cabman?'

'No, it wasn't any business of mine you understand. The whole
thing just caught my eye as I was passing.'

'And you didn't take the cabman's number?'

'No, well, as far as that goes it wasn't needful. I know the
cabman, his name and all about him, his stable's in Bradmore.'

I whipped out my note-book.

'Give me his address.'

'I don't know what his Christian name is, Tom, I believe, but I'm
not sure. Anyhow his surname's Ellis and his address is Church
Mews, St John's Road, Bradmore,—I don't know his number, but any
one will tell you which is his place, if you ask for Four-Wheel
Ellis,—that's the name he's known by among his pals because of
his driving a four-wheeler.'

'Thank you, officer. I am obliged to you.' Two half-crowns changed
hands. 'If you will keep an eye on the house and advise me at the
address which you will find on my card, of any thing which takes
place there during the next few days, you will do me a service.'

We had clambered back into the hansom, the driver was just about
to start, when the constable was struck by a sudden thought.

'One moment, sir,—blessed if I wasn't going to forget the most
important bit of all. I did hear him tell Ellis where to drive him
to,—he kept saying it over and over again, in that queer lingo of
his. "Waterloo Railway Station, Waterloo Railway Station." "All
right," said Ellis, "I'll drive you to Waterloo Railway Station
right enough, only I'm not going to have that bundle of yours
inside my cab. There isn't room for it, so you put it on the
roof." "To Waterloo Railway Station," said the Arab, "I take my
bundle with me to Waterloo Railway Station,—I take it with me."
"Who says you don't take it with you?" said Ellis. "You can take
it, and twenty more besides, for all I care, only you don't take
it inside my cab,—put it on the roof." "I take it with me to
Waterloo Railway Station," said the Arab, and there they were,
wrangling and jangling, and neither seeming to be able to make out
what the other was after, and the people all laughing.'

'Waterloo Railway Station,—you are sure that was what he said?'

'I'll take my oath to it, because I said to myself, when I heard
it, "I wonder what you'll have to pay for that little lot, for the
District Railway Station's outside the four-mile radius."' As we
drove off I was inclined to ask myself, a little bitterly—and
perhaps unjustly—if it were not characteristic of the average
London policeman to almost forget the most important part of his
information,—at any rate to leave it to the last and only to
bring it to the front on having his palm crossed with silver.

As the hansom bowled along we three had what occasionally
approached a warm discussion.

'Marjorie was in that bundle,' began Lessingham, in the most
lugubrious of tones, and with the most woe-begone of faces.

'I doubt it,' I observed.

'She was,—I feel it,—I know it. She was either dead and
mutilated, or gagged and drugged and helpless. All that remains is
vengeance.'