“Then may I ask you to inquire from your assistants if any were sold on Monday, and to whom?”
“Certainly.” Then there were consultations behind counters and desks, and examinations of carbon-papered books. In the end the proprietress came to Hewitt, followed by a young lady of rather pert and self-confident aspect. “We find,” she said, “that two pairs of these shoes were sold on Monday. But one pair was afterwards brought back and exchanged for others less expensive. This young lady sold both.”
“Ah, then possibly she may remember something of the person who bought the pair which was not exchanged.”
“Yes,” the assistant answered at once, addressing herself to the lady, “it was Mrs. Butcher’s servant.”
The proprietress frowned slightly. “Oh, indeed,” she said, “Mrs. Butcher’s servant, was it? There have been inquiries about Mrs. Butcher before, I believe, though not here. Mrs. Butcher is a woman who takes babies to mind, and is said to make a trade of adopting them, or finding people anxious to adopt them. I know nothing of her, nor do I want to. She lives somewhere not far off, and you can get her address, I believe, from the greengrocer’s round the corner.”
“Does she keep more than one servant?”
“Oh, I think not; but no doubt the greengrocer can say.” The lady seemed to feel it an affront that she should be supposed to know anything of Mrs. Butcher, and Hewitt consequently started for the greengrocer’s. Now this was just one of those cases in which dependence on information given by other people put Hewitt on the wrong scent. He spent that day in a fatiguing pursuit of Mrs. Butcher’s servant, with adventures rather amusing in themselves, but quite irrelevant to the Seton case. In the end, when he had captured her, and proceeded to open a cunning battery of inquiries, under plea of a bet with a friend that the shoes could not be matched, he soon found that she had been the purchaser who, after buying just such a pair of shoes, had returned and exchanged them for something cheaper. And the only outcome of his visit to the baby-linen shop was the waste of a day. It was indeed just one of those checks which, while they may hamper the progress of a narrative for popular reading, are nevertheless inseparable from the matter-of-fact experience of Hewitt’s profession.
With a very natural rage in his heart, but with as polite an exterior as possible, Hewitt returned to the baby-linen shop in the evening. The whole case seemed barren of useful evidence, and at each turn as yet he had found himself helpless. At the shop the self-confident young lady calmly admitted that soon after he had left something had caused her to remember that it was the other customer who had kept the white shoes, and not Mrs. Butcher’s servant.
“And do you know the other customer?” he asked.
“No; she was quite a stranger. She brought in a little boy from a cab and bought a lot of things for him—a suit of outdoor clothes as well as the shoes.”
“Ah! now probably this is what I want. Can you remember anything of the child?”
“Yes; he was a pretty little fellow, about two years old or so, with curls. She called him Charley.”
“Did she put the things on him in the shop?”
“Not the frock; but she put on the outer coat, the hat and the shoes. I can remember it all now quite well—now I have had time to think.”
“Then what shoes did the child wear when he came in?”
“Rather old tan-coloured ones.”
“Then I think this is the person I am after. You say you never saw her at any other time before or since. Try to describe her.”
“Well, she was a lady well dressed, in black. She had a very high collar to hide a scar on her neck, like the scars people have sometimes after abscesses, I think. I could see it from the side when she stooped down.”
“And are you sure she had nothing sent home? Did she take everything with her?”
“Yes; nothing was sent, else we should know her address, you know.”
“She didn’t happen to pay with a banknote, did she?”
“No; in cash.”
Hewitt left with little more ceremony, and made the best of his way to his friend the inspector at the police station. Here was the woman with the scarred neck again—Charley’s deliverer once, now his kidnapper. If only something else could be ascertained of her—some small clue that might bring her identity into view—the thing would be done.
At the station, however, there was something new. A man had just come in, very drunk, and had given himself into custody for kidnapping the child Charles Seton, whose description was set forth on the bill which still appeared on the notice-board outside the station. When Hewitt arrived, the man was lolling, wretched and maudlin, against the rail, and, oblivious of most of the questions addressed to him, was ranting and snivelling by turns. His dress was good, though splashed with mud, and his bloated face, bleared eyes and loose, tremulous mouth proclaimed the habitual drunkard.
“I shay I’ll gimmeself up,” he proclaimed, with a desperate attempt at dignity; “I’ll gimmeself up takin’ away lil boy; I’ll shacrifishe m’self. Solemn duty shacrifishe m’self f’elpless woman, ain’t it? Ver’ well then; gimmeself up takin’ ’way lil boy, buyin’ ’m pair shoes. No harm in that, issher? Hope not. Ver’ well then.” And he subsided into tears.
“What’s your name?” asked the inspector.
“Whash name? Thash my bishnesh. Warrer wan’ know name for? Grapertnence ask gellumshname. I’m gellum, thash wha’ I am. Besht of shisters too, besht shis’ers”—snivelling again—“an’ I’m ungra’ful beasht. But I shacrifishe ’self; she shan’ get ’n trouble. D’y’ear? Gimmeself up shtealin’ lil boy. Who says I ain’ gellum?”
Nothing more intelligible than this could be got out of him, and presently he was taken off to the cells. Then Hewitt asked the inspector, “What will happen to him now?”
The inspector laughed.
“Oh he’ll get very sober and sick and sorry by the morning,” he said; “and then he’ll have to send home for some money, that’s all.”
“And as to the child?”
“Oh, he’ll forget all about that; that’s only a drunken freak. The child has been recovered. You know that, I suppose?”
“Yes; but I am still after the person who took it away. It was a woman. Indeed, I’ve more than a suspicion that it was the woman who brought the child here when he was lost before—the one with the scar on the neck, you know.”
“Is that so?” said the inspector. “Well, that’s a rum go, ain’t it? What did she bring him back here for if she wanted him again?”
“That I want to find out,” Hewitt answered. “And now I want you to do me a favour. You say you expect that man below will want to send home in the morning for money. Well, I want to be the messenger.”
The inspector opened his eyes.
“Want to be the messenger? Well, that’s easily done; if you’re here at the time I’ll leave word. But why?”
“Well, I’ve a sort of notion I know something about his family, and I want to make sure. Shall I be here at eight in the morning, or shall we say nine?”
“Which you like; I expect he’ll be shouting for bail before eight.”
“Very well, we will say eight. Good-night.”
And so Hewitt had to let yet another night go without an explanation of the mystery; but he felt that his hand was on the key at last, though it had only fallen there by chance. Prompt to his time at eight in the morning he was at the police station, where another inspector was now on duty, who, however, had been told of Hewitt’s wish.
“Ah,” he said, “you’re well to time, Mr. Hewitt. That prisoner’s as limp as rags now; he’s begging of us to send to his sister.”
“Does he say anything about that child?”
“Says he don’t know anything about it; all a drunken freak. His name’s Oliver Neale, and he lives at 10, Morton Terrace, Hampstead, with his sister. Her name’s Mrs. Isitt; and you’re to take this note and bring her back with you, or at any rate some money; and you’re to say he’s truly repentant,” the inspector concluded with a grin.
The distance was short, and Hewitt walked it. Morton Terrace was a short row of pleasant, old-fashioned villas, ivy-grown and neat, and No. 10 was as neat as any. To the servant who answered his ring Hewitt announced himself as a gentleman with a message from Mrs. Isitt’s brother. This did not seem to prepossess the girl in Hewitt’s favour, and she backed to the end of the hall and communicated with somebody on the stairs before finally showing Hewitt into a room, where he was quickly followed by Mrs. Isitt.
She was a rather tall woman of perhaps thirty-eight, and had probably been attractive, though now her face bore lines of sad grief. Hewitt noticed that she wore a very high black collar.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Isitt,” he said. “I’m afraid my errand is not altogether pleasant. The fact is, your brother, Mr. Neale, was not altogether sober last night, and he is now at the police station, where he wrote this note.”
Mrs. Isitt did not appear surprised, and took the note with no more than a sigh.
“Yes,” she said, “it can’t be concealed. This is not the first time by many, as you probably know, if you are a friend of his.”
She read the note, and as she looked up Hewitt said—
“No, I have not known him long. I happened to be at the station last night, and he rather attracted my attention by insisting, in his intoxicated state, on giving himself up for kidnapping a child, Charles Seton.”
Mrs. Isitt started as though shot. Pale of cheek, she glanced fearfully in Hewitt’s face and there met a keen gaze that seemed to read her brain. She saw that her secret was known, but for a moment she struggled, and her lips worked convulsively—
“Charles Seton—Charles Seton?” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Isitt, that is the name. The child, as a matter of fact, was stolen by the person who bought these shoes for it. Do you recognise them?”
He produced the shoes and held them before her. The woman sank on the sofa behind her, terrified, but unable to take her eyes from Hewitt’s.
“Come, Mrs. Isitt,” he said, “you have been recognised. Here is my card. I am commissioned by the parents of the child to find who removed him, and I think I have succeeded.”
She took the card and glanced at it dazedly; then she sank with a groaning sob with her face on the head of the sofa, and as she did so Hewitt could see a scar on the side of her neck peeping above her high collar.
“Oh, my God!” the woman moaned. “Then it has come to this. He will die! he will die!”
The woman’s anguish was piteous to see. Hewitt had gained his point, and was willing to spare her. He placed his hand on her heaving shoulder and begged her not to distress herself.
“The matter is rather difficult to understand, Mrs. Isitt,” he said. “If you will compose yourself, perhaps you can explain. I can assure you that there is no desire to be vindictive. I’m afraid my manner upset you. Pray reassure yourself. May I sit down?”
Nobody could by his manner more easily restore confidence and trust than Hewitt when it pleased him. Mrs. Isitt lifted her head and gazed at him once more with a troubled though quieter expression.
“I think you wrote Mrs. Seton an anonymous letter,” Hewitt said, producing the first of those which Mrs. Seton had brought him. “It was kind of you to reassure the poor woman.”
“Oh, tell me,” Mrs. Isitt asked, “was she much upset at missing the little boy? Did it make her ill?”
“She was upset, of course; but perhaps the joy of recovering him compensated for all.”
“Yes; I took him back as soon as I possibly could, really I did, Mr. Hewitt. And, oh! I was so tempted! My life has been so unhappy! If you only knew!” She buried her face in her hands.
“Will you tell me?” Hewitt suggested gently. “You see, whatever happens, an explanation of some sort is the first thing.”
“Yes, yes—of course. Oh, I am a wretched woman.” She paused for some little while, and then went on: “Mr. Hewitt, my husband is a lunatic.” She paused again. “There was never a man, Mr. Hewitt, so devoted to his wife and children as my husband. He bore even with the continual annoyance of my brother, whom you saw, because he was my brother. But a little more than a year ago, as the result of an accident, a tumour formed on his brain. The thing is incurable except, as a remote possibility, by a most dangerous operation, which the doctors fear to attempt except under most favourable conditions. Without that he must die, sooner or later. Meantime he is insane, though with many and sometimes long intervals of perfect lucidity. When the disease attacked him there was little warning, except from pains in the head, till one dreadful night. Then he rose from bed a maniac and killed our child, a little girl of six, whom he was devotedly attached to. He also cut my own throat with his razor, but I recovered. I would rather say nothing more of that—it is too dreadful, though indeed I think about little else. There was another child, a baby boy, about a year old when his sister died, and he—he died of scarlet fever scarcely four months ago.
“My husband was taken to a private asylum at Willesden, where he now is. I visited him frequently, and took the baby, and it was almost terrible to see—a part of his insanity, no doubt—how his fondness for that child grew. When it died, I never dared to tell him. Indeed, the doctors forbade it. In his state he would have died raving. But he asked for it, sometimes earnestly, sometimes angrily, till I almost feared to visit him. Then he began to demand it of the doctors and attendants, and his excitement increased day by day. I was told to prepare for the worst. When I visited him he sometimes failed to recognise me, and at others demanded the child fiercely. I should tell you that it was only just about this time that it was found that the tumour existed, and the idea of the operation was suggested; but of course it was impossible in his disturbed condition. I scarcely dared to go to see him, and yet I did so long to! Dr. Bailey did indeed suggest that possibly we might find he would be quieted by being shown another child; but I myself felt that to be very unlikely.
“It was while things were in this state, and about six or seven weeks ago, that, walking toward Cricklewood one morning, I saw a little fellow trotting along all alone, who actually startled me—startled me very much—by his resemblance to our poor little one. The likeness was one of those extraordinary ones that one only finds among young children. This child was a little bigger and stronger than ours was when he died, but then it was older—probably very nearly the age and size our own would have been had it lived. Nobody else was in sight, and I fancied the child looked about to cry, so I went to it and spoke. Plainly it had strayed, and could not tell me where it lived, only that its name was Charley. I took it in my arms and it grew quite friendly. As I talked to it suddenly Dr. Bailey’s suggestion came in my mind. If any child could deceive my poor husband, surely this was the one. Of course I should have to find its parents—probably through the police; but why not at any rate take it to Willesden in the meantime for an hour or so? I could not resist the temptation—I took the first available cab.
“The result of the experiment almost frightened me. My poor husband received the child with transports of delight, kissed it, and laughed and wept over it like a mother rather than a father, and refused to give it up for hours. The child of course would not answer to its strange name at first, but he seemed an adaptable little thing, and presently began calling my poor husband ‘daddy.’ I had not been so happy myself for months as I was as I watched them. I had told Dr. Bailey—what I fear was not strictly true—that I had borrowed the child from a friend. At length I felt I must go and take the boy to the police, and with great difficulty I managed to get it away, my poor husband crying like a child. Well, I took the little fellow to the station I judged nearest to where I found him, and gave him up to the care of the inspector. But I was a little frightened at having kept him so long, and gave a false name and address. Still, I learned from the inspector that the child had been inquired after, and by whom.
“My husband was quiet for some days after this, but then he began to ask for his boy with more vehemence than ever. He grew worse and worse, and soon his ravings were terrible. Dr. Bailey urged me to bring the child again, but what could I do? I formed a desperate idea of going to Mrs. Seton, telling her the whole thing, and imploring her to let me take the child again. But then would that be likely? Would she allow her child to be placed in the arms of a lunatic—one indeed who had already killed a child of his own? I felt that the thing was impossible. Still, I went to the house, and walked about it again and again, I scarcely knew why. And my poor husband in his confinement screamed for his child till I dared not go near him. So it was when one morning—last Monday morning—I had passed the front of the Setons’ house and turned up the lane at the side. I could see over the low fence and hedge, and as I came to the French window with the steps I saw that the window was open at one side and little Charley was standing on the top step. He recognised me, smiled and called just as my own child would have done; indeed, as I stood there I almost fell into the delusion of my poor mad husband. I took the gate in my hands, shaking it impatiently, and in attempting to open it from the wrong end, found the hinges lift out. I could see that nobody else was in the room behind the French window. There was the temptation—the overwhelming temptation—and I was distracted. I took the little fellow hurriedly in my arms and pulled the window to, so that the bottom bolt fell into the floor socket; then I replaced the gate as I found it, and ran to where I knew there was a cab-stand. Oh! Mr. Hewitt, was it so very sinful? And I meant to bring him back that same afternoon, I really did.
“The child was in indoor clothes, and had no hat. I called at a baby-linen shop and bought hat, cloak, frock and a new pair of shoes. Then I hurried to Willesden. Again the effect was magical. My husband was happy once more; but when at last I attempted to take the child away he would not let it go. It was terrible. Oh, I can’t describe the scene. Dr. Bailey told me that, come what might, I must stay that night in a room his wife would provide for me and keep the child, or perhaps I must sit up with my husband and let the child sleep on my knee. In the end it was the latter that I did.
“By the morning my senses were blunted, and I scarcely cared what happened. I determined that as I had gone so far I would keep the child that day at least; indeed, as I say, whether by the influence of my husband I know not, but I almost felt myself falling into his delusion that the child was ours. I went home for an hour at midday, taking the child, and then my wretched brother saw it and got the whole story from me. He told me that reward bills were out about the child, and then I dimly realised that its mother must be suffering pain, and I wrote the note you spoke of. Perhaps I had some little idea of delaying pursuit—I don’t know. At any rate I wrote it, and posted it at Willesden as I went back. My husband had been asleep when I left, but now he was awake again and asking for the child once more. There is little more to say. I stayed that night and the next day, and by that time my husband had become tranquil and rational as he had not been for months. If only the improvement can be sustained, they think of operating to-morrow or the next day.
“I carried Charley back in the dusk, intending to put him inside one of the gates, ring, and watch him safely in from a little way off, but as I passed down the side lane I saw the French window open again and nobody near. I had been that way before and felt bolder there. I took his hat and cloak (I had already changed his frock) and, after kissing him, put him hastily through the window and came away. But I had forgotten the new shoes. I remembered them, however, when I got home, and immediately conceived a fear that the child’s parents might trace me by their means. I mentioned this fear to my brother, and it appeared to frighten him. He borrowed some money of me yesterday, and, it seems, got intoxicated. In that state he is always anxious to do some noble action, though he is capable, I am grieved to say, of almost any meanness when sober. He lives here at my expense, indeed, and borrows money from his friends for drink. These may seem hard things for a sister to say, but everybody knows it. He has wearied me, and I have lost all shame of him. I suppose in his muddled state he got the notion that he would accuse himself of what I had done and so shield me. I expect he repented of his self-sacrifice this morning, though.”
Hewitt knew that he had, but said nothing. Also he said nothing of the anonymous letter he had in his pocket, wherein Mr. Oliver Neale had covertly demanded a hundred pounds for the restoration of Charley Seton. He guessed, however, that that gentleman had feared making the appointment that the advertisement answering his letter had suggested.
To Mr. and Mrs. Seton Hewitt told the whole story, omitting at first names and addresses. “I saw plainly,” he said in course of his talk, “that the child might easily have been taken from the French window. I did not say so, for Mrs. Seton was already sufficiently distressed, and the notion that the child was kidnapped, and not simply lost, might have made her worse just then. The toys—the cart with the string on it in particular—had been dragged in the direction of the window, and then nothing would be easier than for the child to open the window itself. There was nothing but a drop bolt, working very easily, which the child must often have seen lifted, and you will remember that the catch did not act. Once the child had opened the window and got outside, the whole thing was simple. The gate could be lifted, the child taken, and the window pulled to, so that the bolt would fall into its place and leave all as before.
“As to the previous occasion, I thought it curious at first that the child should stray before lunch and yet not be heard of again till the evening, and then apparently not be over-fatigued. But beyond these little things, and what I inferred from the letter, I had very little to help me indeed. Nothing, in fact, till I got the shoes, and they didn’t carry me very far. The drunken rant of the man in the police station attracted me because he spoke not only of taking away the child, but of buying it shoes. Now nobody could know of the buying of the shoes who did not know something more. But I knew it was a woman who had taken Charley, as you know, from the heel-mark and the evidence of the shop people, so that when the bemused fool talked of his sister, and sacrificing himself for her, and keeping her out of trouble, and so on, I ranged the case up in my mind, and, so far as I ventured, I guessed it aright. The police inspector knew nothing of the matter of the shoes, nor of the fact of the person I was after being a woman, so thought the thing no more than a drunken freak.
“And now,” Hewitt said, “before I tell you this woman’s name, don’t you think the poor creature has suffered enough?”
Both Mrs. Seton and her husband agreed that she had, and that, so far as they were concerned, no further steps should be taken. And when she was told where to go, Mrs. Seton went off at once to offer Mrs. Isitt her forgiveness and sympathy. But Mrs. Isitt’s punishment came in twenty-four hours, when her husband died in the surgeon’s hands.
AMONG the few personal friendships that Martin Hewitt has allowed himself to make there is one for an eccentric but very excellent old lady named Mrs. Mallett. She must be more than seventy now, but she is of robust and active, not to say masculine, habit, and her relations with Hewitt are irregular and curious. He may not see her for many weeks, perhaps for months, until one day she will appear in the office, push directly past Kerrett (who knows better than to attempt to stop her) into the inner room, and salute Hewitt with a shake of the hand and a savage glare of the eye which would appall a stranger, but which is quite amiably meant. As for myself, it was long ere I could find any resource but instant retreat before her gaze, though we are on terms of moderate toleration now.
After her first glare she sits in the chair by the window and directs her glance at Hewitt’s small gas grill and kettle in the fireplace—a glance which Hewitt, with all expedition, translates into tea. Slightly mollified by the tea, Mrs. Mallett condescends to remark, in tones of tragic truculence, on passing matters of conventional interest—the weather, the influenza, her own health, Hewitt’s health, and so forth, any reply of Hewitt’s being commonly received with either disregard or contempt. In half an hour’s time or so she leaves the office with a stern command to Hewitt to attend at her house and drink tea on a day and at a time named—a command which Hewitt obediently fulfils, when he passes through a similarly exhilarating experience in Mrs. Mallett’s back drawing-room at her little freehold house in Fulham. Altogether Mrs. Mallett, to a stranger, is a singularly uninviting personality, and indeed, except Hewitt, who has learnt to appreciate her hidden good qualities, I doubt if she has a friend in the world. Her studiously concealed charities are a matter of as much amusement as gratification to Hewitt, who naturally, in the course of his peculiar profession, comes across many sad examples of poverty and suffering, commonly among the decent sort, who hide their troubles from strangers’ eyes, and suffer in secret. When such a case is in his mind it is Hewitt’s practice to inform Mrs. Mallett of it at one of the tea ceremonies. Mrs. Mallett receives the story with snorts of incredulity and scorn, but takes care, while expressing the most callous disregard and contempt of the troubles of the sufferers, to ascertain casually their names and addresses; twenty-four hours after which Hewitt need only make a visit to find their difficulties in some mysterious way alleviated.
Mrs. Mallett never had any children, and was early left a widow. Her appearance, for some reason or another, commonly leads strangers to believe her an old maid. She lives in her little detached house with its square piece of ground, attended by a housekeeper, older than herself, and one maid-servant. She lost her only sister by death soon after the events I am about to set down, and now has, I believe, no relations in the world. It was also soon after these events that her present housekeeper first came to her, in place of an older and very deaf woman, quite useless, who had been with her before. I believe she is moderately rich, and that one or two charities will benefit considerably at her death; also I should be far from astonished to find Hewitt’s own name in her will, though this is no more than idle conjecture. The one possession to which she clings with all her soul—her one pride and treasure—is her great-uncle Joseph’s snuff-box, the lid of which she steadfastly believes to be made of a piece of Noah’s original ark, discovered on the top of Mount Ararat by some intrepid explorer of vague identity about a hundred years ago. This is her one weakness, and woe to the unhappy creature who dares hint a suggestion that possibly the wood of the ark rotted away to nothing a few thousand years before her great-uncle Joseph ever took snuff. I believe he would be bodily assaulted. The box is brought out for Hewitt’s admiration at every tea ceremony at Fulham, when Hewitt handles it reverently, and expresses as much astonishment and interest as if he had never seen or heard of it before. It is on these occasions only that Mrs. Mallett’s customary stiffness relaxes. The sides of the box are of cedar of Lebanon, she explains (which very possibly they are), and the gold mountings were worked up from spade guineas (which one can believe without undue strain on the reason). And it is usually these times, when the old lady softens under the combined influence of tea and Uncle Joseph’s snuff-box, that Hewitt seizes to lead up to his hint of some starving governess or distressed clerk, with the full confidence that the more savagely the story is received the better will the poor people be treated as soon as he turns his back.
It was her jealous care of Uncle Joseph’s snuff-box that first brought Mrs. Mallett into contact with Martin Hewitt, and the occasion, though not perhaps testing his acuteness to the extent that some did, was nevertheless one of the most curious and fantastic on which he has ever been engaged. She was then some ten or twelve years younger than she is now, but Hewitt assures me she looked exactly the same; that is to say, she was harsh, angular, and seemed little more than fifty years of age. It was before the time of Kerrett, and another youth occupied the outer office. Hewitt sat late one afternoon with his door ajar when he heard a stranger enter the outer office, and a voice, which he afterwards knew well as Mrs. Mallett’s, ask “Is Mr. Martin Hewitt in?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think so. If you will write your name and——”
“Is he in there?” And with three strides Mrs. Mallett was at the inner door and stood before Hewitt himself, while the routed office-lad stared helplessly in the rear.
“Mr. Hewitt,” Mrs. Mallet said, “I have come to put an affair into your hands, which I shall require to be attended to at once.”
Hewitt was surprised, but he bowed politely, and said, with some suspicion of a hint in his tone, “Yes—I rather supposed you were in a hurry.”
She glanced quickly in Hewitt’s face and went on: “I am not accustomed to needless ceremony, Mr. Hewitt. My name is Mallett—Mrs. Mallett—and here is my card. I have come to consult you on a matter of great annoyance and some danger to myself. The fact is I am being watched and followed by a number of persons.”
Hewitt’s gaze was steadfast, but he reflected that possibly this curious woman was a lunatic, the delusion of being watched and followed by unknown people being perhaps the most common of all; also it was no unusual thing to have a lunatic visit the office with just such a complaint. So he only said soothingly, “Indeed? That must be very annoying.”
“Yes, yes; the annoyance is bad enough, perhaps,” she answered shortly; “but I am chiefly concerned about my great-uncle Joseph’s snuff-box.”
This utterance sounded a trifle more insane than the other, so Hewitt answered, a little more soothingly still: “Ah, of course. A very important thing, the snuff-box, no doubt.”
“It is, Mr. Hewitt—it is important, as I think you will admit when you have seen it. Here it is,” and she produced from a small handbag the article that Hewitt was destined so often again to see and affect an interest in. “You may be incredulous, Mr. Hewitt, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that the lid of this snuff-box is made of the wood of the original ark that rested on Mount Ararat.”
She handed the box to Hewitt, who murmured, “Indeed! Very interesting—very wonderful, really,” and returned it to the lady immediately.
“That, Mr. Hewitt, was the property of my great-uncle, Joseph Simpson, who once had the honour of shaking hands with his late Majesty King George the Fourth. The box was presented to my uncle by——,” and then Mrs. Mallett plunged into the whole history and adventures of the box, in the formula wherewith Hewitt subsequently became so well acquainted, and which need not be here set out in detail. When the box had been properly honoured Mrs. Mallett proceeded with her business.
“I am convinced, Mr. Hewitt,” she said, “that systematic attempts are being made to rob me of this snuff-box. I am not a nervous or weak-minded woman, or perhaps I might have sought your assistance before. The watching and following of myself I might have disregarded, but when it comes to burglary I think it is time to do something.”
“Certainly,” Hewitt agreed.
“Well, I have been pestered with demands for the box for some time past. I have here some of the letters which I have received, and I am sure I know at whose instigation they were sent.” She placed on the table a handful of papers of various sizes, which Hewitt examined one after another. They were mostly in the same handwriting, and all were unsigned. Every one was couched in a fanatically-toned imitation of scriptural diction, and all sorts of threats were expressed with many emphatic underlinings. The spelling was not of the best, the writing was mostly uncouth, and the grammar was in ill shape in many places, the “thous” and “thees” and their accompanying verbs falling over each other disastrously. The purport of the messages was rather vaguely expressed, but all seemed to make a demand for the restoration of some article held in extreme veneration. This was alluded to in many figurative ways as the “token of life,” the “seal of the woman,” and so forth, and sometimes Mrs. Mallett was requested to restore it to the “ark of the covenant.” One of the least vague of these singular documents ran thus:—
“Thou of no faith put the bond of the woman clothed with the sun on the stoan sete in thy back garden this night or thy blood beest on your own hed. Give it back to us the five righteous only in this citty, give us that what saves the faithful when the erth is swalloed up.”
Hewitt read over these fantastic missives one by one till he began to suspect that his client, mad or not, certainly corresponded with mad Quakers. Then he said, “Yes, Mrs. Mallett, these are most extraordinary letters. Are there any more of them?”
“Bless the man, yes, there were a lot that I burnt. All the same crack-brained sort of thing.”
“They are mostly in one handwriting,” Hewitt said, “though some are in another. But I confess I don’t see any very direct reference to the snuff-box.”
“Oh, but it’s the only thing they can mean,” Mrs. Mallett replied with great positiveness. “Why, he wanted me to sell it him; and last night my house was broken into in my absence and everything ransacked and turned over, but not a thing was taken. Why? Because I had the box with me at my sister’s. And this is the only sacred relic in my possession. And what saved the faithful when the world was swallowed up? Why, the ark, of course.”
The old lady’s manner was odd, but notwithstanding the bizarre and disjointed character of her complaint, Hewitt had now had time to observe that she had none of the unmistakable signs of the lunatic. Her eye was steady and clear, and she had none of the restless habits of the mentally deranged. Even at that time Hewitt had met with curious adventures enough to teach him not to be astonished at a new one, and now he set himself seriously to get at his client’s case in full order and completeness.
“Come, Mrs. Mallett,” he said, “I am a stranger, and I can never understand your case till I have it, not as it presents itself to your mind, in the order of importance of events, but in the exact order in which they happened. You had a great-uncle, I understand, living in the early part of the century, who left you at his death the snuff-box which you value so highly. Now you suspect that somebody is attempting to extort or steal it from you. Tell me as clearly and simply as you can whom you suspect, and the whole story of the attempts.”
“That’s just what I’m coming to,” the old lady answered, rather pettishly. “My uncle Joseph had an old housekeeper, who, of course, knew all about the snuff-box, and it is her son Reuben Penner who is trying to get it from me. The old woman was half crazy with one extraordinary religious superstition and another, and her son seems to be just the same. My great-uncle was a man of strong common sense and a Churchman (though he did think he could write plays), and if it hadn’t been for his restraint I believe—that is, I have been told—Mrs. Penner would have gone clean demented with religious mania. Well, she died in course of time, and my great-uncle died some time after, leaving me the most important thing in his possession (I allude to the snuff-box of course), a good bit of property, and a tin box full of his worthless manuscripts. I became a widow at twenty-six, and since then I have lived very quietly in my present house in Fulham.
“A couple of years ago I received a visit from Reuben Penner. I didn’t recognise him, which wasn’t wonderful, since I hadn’t seen him for thirty years or more. He is well over fifty now, a large, heavy-faced man with uncommonly wild eyes for a greengrocer—which is what he is, though he dresses very well, considering. He was quite respectful at first, and very awkward in his manner. He took a little time to get his courage, and then he began questioning me about my religious feelings. Well, Mr. Hewitt, I am not the sort of person to stand a lecture from a junior and an inferior, whatever my religious opinions may be, and I pretty soon made him realise it. But somehow he persevered. He wanted to know if I would go to some place of worship that he called his ‘Tabernacle.’ I asked him who was the pastor. He said himself. I asked him how many members of the congregation there were, and (the man was as solemn as an owl. I assure you, Mr. Hewitt) he actually said five! I kept my countenance and asked why such a small number couldn’t attend church, or, at any rate, attach itself to some decent Dissenting chapel. And then the man burst out; mad—mad as a hatter. He was as incoherent as such people usually are, but as far as I could make out he talked, among a lot of other things, of some imaginary woman—a woman standing on the moon and driven into a wilderness on the wings of an eagle. The man was so madly possessed of his fancies that I assure you for a while he almost ceased to look ridiculous. He was so earnest in his rant. But I soon cut him short. It’s best to be severe with these people—it’s the only chance of bringing them to their senses. ‘Reuben Penner,’ I said, ‘shut up. Your mother was a very decent person in her way, I believe, but she was half a lunatic with her superstitious notions, and you’re a bigger fool than she was. Imagine a grown man, and of your age, coming and asking me, of all people in the world, to leave my church and make another fool in a congregation of five, with you to rave at me about women in the moon! Go away and look after your greengrocery, and go to church or chapel like a sensible man. Go away and don’t play the fool any longer; I won’t hear another word!’
“When I talk like this I am usually attended to, and in this case Penner went away with scarcely another word. I saw nothing of him for about a month or six weeks, and then he came and spoke to me as I was cutting roses in my front garden. This time he talked—to begin with, at least—more sensibly. ‘Mrs. Mallett,’ he said, ‘you have in your keeping a very sacred relic.’
“‘I have,’ I said, ‘left me by my great-uncle Joseph. And what then?’
“‘Well’—he hummed and hawed a little—‘I wanted to ask if you might be disposed to part with it.’
“‘What?’ I said, dropping my scissors—‘sell it?’
“‘Well, yes,’ he answered, putting on as bold a face as he could.
“The notion of selling my uncle Joseph’s snuff-box in any possible circumstances almost made me speechless. ‘What!’ I repeated. ‘Sell it?—sell it? It would be a sinful sacrilege!’
“His face quite brightened when I said this, and he replied, ‘Yes, of course it would; I think so myself, ma’am; but I fancied you thought otherwise. In that case, ma’am, not being a believer yourself, I’m sure you would consider it a graceful and a pious act to present it to my little Tabernacle, where it would be properly valued. And it having been my mother’s property——’
“He got no further. I am not a woman to be trifled with, Mr. Hewitt, and I believe I beat him out of the garden with my basket. I was so infuriated I can scarcely remember what I did. The suggestion that I should sell my uncle Joseph’s snuff-box to a greengrocer was bad enough; the request that I should actually give it to his ‘Tabernacle’ was infinitely worse. But to claim that it had belonged to his mother—well I don’t know how it strikes you, Mr. Hewitt, but to me it seemed the last insult possible.”
“Shocking! shocking! of course,” Hewitt said, since she seemed to expect a reply. “And he called you an unbeliever, too. But what happened after that?”
“After that he took care not to bother me personally again; but these wretched anonymous demands came in, with all sorts of darkly hinted threats as to the sin I was committing in keeping my own property. They didn’t trouble me much. I put ’em in the fire as fast as they came, until I began to find I was being watched and followed, and then I kept them.”
“Very sensible,” Hewitt observed, “very sensible indeed to do that. But tell me as to these papers. Those you have here are nearly all in one handwriting, but some, as I have already said, are in another. Now before all this business did you ever see Reuben Penner’s handwriting?”
“No, never.”
“Then you are not by any means sure that he has written any of these things?”
“But then who else could?”
“That, of course, is a thing to be found out. At present, at any rate, we know this: that if Penner has anything to do with these letters he is not alone, because of the second handwriting. Also we must not bind ourselves past other conviction that he wrote any one of them. By the way, I am assuming that they all arrived by post?”
“Yes, they did.”
“But the envelopes are not here. Have you kept any of them?”
“I hardly know; there may be some at home. Is it important?”
“It may be; but those I can see at another time. Please go on.”
“These things continued to arrive, as I have said, and I continued to burn them till I began to find myself watched and followed, and then I kept them. That was two or three months ago. It is a most unpleasant sensation, that of feeling that some unknown person is dogging your footsteps from corner to corner and observing all your movements for a purpose you are doubtful of. Once or twice I turned suddenly back, but I never could catch the creatures, of whom I am sure Penner was one.”
“You saw these people, of course?”
“Well, yes, in a way—with the corner of my eye, you know. But it was mostly in the evening. It was a woman once, but several times I feel certain it was Penner. And once I saw a man come into my garden at the back in the night, and I feel quite sure that was Penner.”
“Was that after you had this request to put the article demanded on the stone seat in the garden?”
“The same night. I sat up and watched from the bath-room window, expecting someone would come. It was a dark night, and the trees made it darker, but I could plainly see someone come quietly over the wall and go up to the seat.”
“Could you distinguish his face?”
“No; it was too dark. But I feel sure it was Penner.”
“Has Penner any decided peculiarity of form or gait?”
“No; he’s just a big, common sort of man. But I tell you I feel certain it was Penner.”
“For any particular reason?”
“No, perhaps not. But who else could it have been? No, I’m very sure it must have been Penner.”
Hewitt repressed a smile and went on. “Just so,” he said. “And what happened then?”
“He went up to the seat, as I said, and looked at it, passing his hand over the top. Then I called out to him. I said if I found him on my premises again by day or night I’d give him in charge of the police. I assure you he got over the wall the second time a good deal quicker than the first. And then I went to bed, though I got a shocking cold in the head sitting at that open bath-room window. Nobody came about the place after that till last night. A few days ago my only sister was taken ill. I saw her each day, and she got worse. Yesterday she was so bad that I wouldn’t leave her. I sent home for some things and stopped in her house for the night. To-day I got an urgent message to come home, and when I went I found that an entrance had been made by a kitchen window, and the whole house had been ransacked, but not a thing was missing.”
“Were drawers and boxes opened?”
“Everywhere. Most seemed to have been opened with keys, but some were broken. The place was turned upside down, but, as I said before, not a thing was missing. A very old woman, very deaf, who used to be my housekeeper, but who does nothing now, was in the house, and so was my general servant. They slept in rooms at the top, and were not disturbed. Of course the old woman is too deaf to have heard anything, and the maid is a very heavy sleeper. The girl was very frightened, but I pacified her before I came away. As it happened, I took the snuff-box with me. I had got very suspicious of late, of course, and something seemed to suggest that I had better make sure of it, so I took it. It’s pretty strong evidence that they have been watching me closely, isn’t it, that they should break in the very first night I left the place?”
“And are you quite sure that nothing has been taken?”
“Quite certain. I have spent a long time in a very careful search.”
“And you want me, I presume, to find out definitely who these people are, and get such evidence as may ensure their being punished?”
“That is the case. Of course I know Reuben Penner is the moving spirit—I’m quite certain of that. But still I can see plainly enough that as yet there’s no legal evidence of it. Mind, I’m not afraid of him—not a bit. That is not my character. I’m not afraid of all the madmen in England; but I’m not going to have them steal my property—this snuff-box especially.”
“Precisely. I hope you have left the disturbance in your house exactly as you found it?”
“Oh, of course, and I have given strict orders that nothing is to be touched. To-morrow morning I should like you to come and look at it.”
“I must look at it, certainly,” Hewitt said, “but I would rather go at once.”
“Pooh—nonsense!” Mrs. Mallett answered, with the airy obstinacy that Hewitt afterwards knew so well. “I’m not going home again now to spend an hour or two more. My sister will want to know what has become of me, and she mustn’t suspect that anything is wrong, or it may do all sorts of harm. The place will keep till the morning, and I have the snuff-box safe with me. You have my card, Mr. Hewitt, haven’t you? Very well. Can you be at my house to-morrow morning at half-past ten? I will be there, and you can see all you want by daylight. We’ll consider that settled. Good-day.”
Hewitt saw her to his office door, and waited till she had half descended the stairs. Then he made for a staircase window which gave a view of the street. The evening was coming on murky and foggy, and the street lights were blotchy and vague. Outside a four-wheeled cab stood, and the driver eagerly watched the front door. When Mrs. Mallett emerged he instantly began to descend from the box with the quick invitation, “Cab, mum, cab?” He seemed very eager for his fare, and though Mrs. Mallett hesitated a second she eventually entered the cab. He drove off, and Hewitt tried in vain to catch a glimpse of the number of the cab behind. It was always a habit of his to note all such identifying marks throughout a case, whether they seemed important at the time or not, and he has often had occasion to be pleased with the outcome. Now, however, the light was too bad. No sooner had the cab started than a man emerged from a narrow passage opposite, and followed. He was a large, rather awkward, heavy-faced man of middle age, and had the appearance of a respectable artisan or small tradesman in his best clothes. Hewitt hurried downstairs and followed the direction the cab and the man had taken, toward the Strand. But the cab by this time was swallowed up in the Strand traffic, and the heavy-faced man had also disappeared. Hewitt returned to his office a little disappointed, for the man seemed rather closely to answer Mrs. Mallett’s description of Reuben Penner.