Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

"Why, Polly, Polly!" he exclaimed, passing his arm around her. "My senses don't deceive me, do they?"

"I hope they don't," said Polly, drawing his arm tighter. "You wouldn't do this to another woman, I'm sure of that."

"You may be, Polly, you may be. Not to Queen Victoria herself with her gold crown on. Well, this is a surprise! Such a surprise, Polly, as makes up for all."

He gave her a great hug. He did not consider the regulations-not he!

"I'm afraid it's cold," said Polly, putting the bottle of coffee into his hand, and paying good interest for the hug. "It was boiling hot when I started."

"What a brick you are!" said Constable Pond, extracting the cork with his teeth, and applying himself to the refreshment. "It's ever so much better than three-star. Here, take a pull yourself." She did. "Polly, you're a angel!"

She laughed, but did not dispute it, and they remained a short time in fond dalliance. A strange hour for Cupid's pranks, but that urchin has no conscience. Polly proposed to walk the beat with her husband all through the night, but this was such an alarming infringement of the regulations that he would not listen to it. So he escorted her to the end of his beat, and would have escorted her farther, but she would not listen to that.

"Can you find your way home?" he asked, in doubt.

"Blindfold," she answered promptly.

"You may as well have the empty bottle," he said. "Hold it by the neck, and if anybody comes up to you give him a crack on the head with it. Another kiss, Polly!"

As she walked away she blew on her bird-call every few yards, to which her husband did not fail to respond; and if desolation did not fall upon him when he could hear it no longer it was because of the impression which Polly's thoughtful love had produced upon him. "Good little woman," he said. "A regular trump, that's what she is." But a couple of hours' loneliness sent his spirits down again, and now he was seeking his brother-constable Applebee to cheer him up with the friendly word. With the advance of the night the fog continued to deepen, and he got into a state of muddle as to his whereabouts. His progress was painfully slow. The white mist blinded and deceived him; his footsteps were noiseless; and but for the striking of the hour from a neighbouring church he might reasonably have fancied that he was traversing a city of the dead.

"Saint Michael's Church," he soliloquised, with a feeling of relief. "I didn't hear it when it struck last. Where could I have been-and where am I now? It can't be fur off, though whether it's to the right of me or the left of me, or before me or behind me, I'll be hanged if I can tell. What street am I in-Riley Street or Silver Street? If it's Riley Street I ought to come upon Applebee in a minute or two, unless he's at the other end of the beat. If it's Silver Street I'll have to tack."

That he should be puzzled was not to be wondered at, for the streets he named were so precisely alike in every detail and feature that they might have been turned out of one mould. Their frontage was the same, their height was the same, their depth was the same, and each had the same number of rooms of exactly the same shape and dimensions, and the same number of chimney pots placed in exactly the same positions. When this mathematical demon of architecture receives its death-blow a joy will be added to existence.

While Constable Pond stood debating whether to tack or creep straight on he saw in the distance what might be likened to a dead star-the misty glimmering of a despondent light; and on the chance of its indicating the presence of Constable Applebee he boldly challenged it.

"Hallo, there!" he cried.

"Hallo, there!" came the echoing answer.

There was little life in their voices; they seemed to linger, as though they had not sufficient power to effectually pierce the thick air.

"Is that you, Applebee?"

"Yes, it's me. Is it Pond?"

"Yes."

"Your voice sounds strange. Come slow."

Each advancing with caution, a friendly grasp of hands presently united them.

CHAPTER VI

IT WAS GONE! THROUGH DEADMAN'S COURT

"What a night!" then exclaimed Constable Pond.

"The worst I ever saw," responded Constable Applebee. "It's a record, that's what it is. We had a bad spell in December-lasted two days-you remember it, Pond?

"Should think I did."

"It was nothing compared to this. I'd sooner walk through a foot and a half of snow than through such a fog. It gets into the eyes, and into the chest, and into the head; you can squeeze it through your fingers. When it's snow you know where you are; there it is, at your feet; it don't mount. It gives a man fair play; this don't. I've been looking for you everywhere. Where did you get to?"

"Hard to say. As fur as I know I haven't been off my beat."

"Same here. Anything to report?"

"No. Have you?"

Constable Applebee gave no direct reply, but branched off into what, apparently, was another subject. "Look here, Pond. Are you a nervous man?"

"Not particularly," answered Constable Pond, with a timid look around.

"But you don't like this sort of thing?"

"Who would?"

"Ah, you may say that. If fog was fog, and nothing else, I'd put up with it. And why? Because we've got to."

"A true bill," said Constable Pond, assenting.

"But it brings something else along with it. That's what I complain of-and what I mostly complain of is shadders."

"What do you mean?" inquired Constable Pond.

"What I say. Shadders. I don't call myself a nervous man, but when you see something stealing along a yard or two ahead of you, and you go to lay hold of it and it vanishes-yes, Pond, vanishes-it's enough to give a man the creeps."

"It'd give me the creeps."

"Very well, then," said Constable Applebee, as though a matter which had been in dispute was now settled. "Put a substantial body in my way and I'll tackle it. But how can you tackle it when it melts and disappears? You call out, 'Now, then, what are you up to?' and you don't get a whisper in reply. Ain't that enough to aggravate a man?"

"More than enough; I know how I should feel over it. But look here, Applebee, it ain't imagination, is it?"

"Imagination!" exclaimed Constable Applebee, in a voice of scorn. "What! Me! Why, I don't suppose, from the day I was born to this blessed night of white fog, that if it was all reckoned up I've had imagination enough to fill a two-ounce bottle."

This new view of the quality of imagination in relation to quantity seemed to impress Constable Pond, who turned it over in his mind without feeling himself equal to offer an opinion on it.

"A fog like this always serves me the same way," said Constable Applebee. "There was a black fog when I was born I've heard my mother often say. That's why, perhaps."

"But what happened?" asked Constable Pond. "You haven't told me that."

"This happened. I see a shadder creeping along the wall. I foller it till I'm within half-a-dozen yards. Then I stop and hail it. The minute it hears my voice it gives a start, and when I run forward to lay hands on it, it vanishes."

"You've got," said Constable Pond, admiringly, "the heart of a lion. I don't bring to mind that there's any orders about taking up shadders. Bodies, yes. Shadders, no."

"I ain't exactly a mouse," said Constable Applebee, stiffening himself. "It happened a second time. There it was, creeping ahead of me. This time I don't give it a chance. I run after it and call out, 'Stand up like a man!'" —

"It might have been a female shadder," suggested Constable Pond.

"Perhaps you know more about it than I do," said Constable Applebee, testily.

"No, Applebee, no. Go on."

"'Stand up like a man!' I call out. What's the consequence? It vanishes again, and there I stand, dumbfoundered."

"Does it come a third time, Applebee?"

"No, it don't come a third time. When I was a little boy my mother took me to the Polytechnic to see 'Pepper's Ghost.' You saw it, and it wasn't there. You run a sword through it, and it grinned in your face. I was that scared I couldn't sleep for a week afterwards. It's my belief, if I'd got close enough to run a knife into the shadder, it'd have served me just the same. Step up, we're in the gutter."

"It's singular, that's what it is. It's singular. Shall you report it?"

"I'm doubtful of it. They might think I was off my head. Let it be between us, Pond."

"It don't pass my lips, Applebee."

They entered a hooded court, and halted there.

"Where are we?" asked Constable Pond.

"In Deadman's Court." Constable Pond shivered. "Leading to Catchpole Square, and leading nowhere else. You wouldn't catch me living in a cooldersack."

"What may be the meaning of that, Applebee?" asked Constable Pond.

"You couldn't have been much of a dab at school to ask that question. Now, me! – but I won't boast. Cooldersack is French for blind thoroughfare. A man that sleeps as sound as I do 'd find himself in a trap, with a entrance like this. Suppose you live in the end house where Mr. Samuel Boyd lives, and there's a fire in the middle of the night. How's the fire engines to get to you? You wouldn't have half a chance. A man might as well be shut up in a bottle. Do you know the Square at all, Pond?"

"No. Never been in it to my knowledge."

"Couldn't have been in it without," said Constable Applebee, chuckling at his wit. "It's the rummiest built place you ever saw. Just step in a minute. Not that you can see much of it with this fog on, but I could describe it blindfold. Six houses with the street doors in front of us-we're standing facing 'em now-and only one of 'em let, the one at the end corner, Mr. Samuel Boyd's. The others have been empty I don't know how long. Now right about face, and what do you see?"

"As fur as I can make out," said Constable Pond, peering before him, "it's a blank wall."

"It is a blank wall, the backs of six houses, without any back entrance to 'em."

"Where's the front entrance?"

"In Shore Street. If we had Samuel Boyd's money we'd do better with it, wouldn't we, Pond? We'd have a house with a bit of garden in front and a bit of garden at the back, with a rose tree or two, and flowers in the winder-because what's the use of money if you don't enjoy it?"

"That's what I say. Life's short. Only tempery."

"Temporarily, Pond, temporarily," said Constable Applebee, in correction. "You must have made a mess of it at school. My missis'd go wild with delight if she had a house like that. She's as fond of flowers as bees of honey."

"So's mine," said Constable Pond, standing up for his own like a man.

"They all are. And if I had my wish I'd never leave the house in the morning without one in my buttonhole. It mellers a man, Pond, that's what it does, it mellers him, and whether you're rough or whether you're smooth it shows you've got a good heart. I never saw Samuel Boyd with a flower in his buttonhole, and if I lived to a hundred I never should. And I never had a civil word from him."

"Nor anything in the way of a tip, I'll bet," remarked Constable Pond.

"You'd win it. It was a different pair of shoes with his son, Mr. Reginald. There he was, as handsome and free a young chap as you'd set eyes on in a day's march, with a flower in his coat and a smile or a cheery word to brighten you up. 'A wild night, constable,' he'd say, 'have a cigar?' And he'd slip one in my hand, and sometimes the price of a pint. It's nigh upon two years since I set eyes on him-wus luck!" These reminiscences came to a sudden stop. Constable Applebee clutched his comrade's arm, and whispered hoarsely, "Look there! The shadder!"

A figure was creeping along the wall, as though in the endeavour to escape observation. They darted forward, and Constable Applebee laid his hand upon it, crying, "Now, then, give an account of yourself!" It was not a shadow, for shadows have no substance. It was not a shadow, for shadows have no voice. The sound of a sob escaped from the figure. Constable Applebee's grasp was nerveless rather than vigorous, and a less powerful effort than it made would have enabled it to escape. It was gone! Through Deadman's Court!

"Quick, Pond, quick!" cried Constable Applebee. In a state of confusion they scrambled out of Catchpole Square, and came into violent collision. Ruefully rubbing their heads they looked about them, and saw nothing but the thick white fog.

"Vanished!" exclaimed Constable Applebee. The collision had knocked Constable Pond's helmet off. Stooping to recover it he saw something white beneath it-a lady's handkerchief, trimmed with lace. With a sly glance at Constable Applebee he put it into his pocket.

"It'll do for the missis," he thought. "She's fond of a bit of lace."

CHAPTER VII

IN BISHOP STREET POLICE STATION

Availing itself of the privilege to creep through every chink and crevice, to steal up backstairs and take advantage of every keyhole, and to make its dismal presence felt equally within the habitations of man as without, the white fog had insinuated itself into the Bishop Street Police Station, where it lay in the form of a semi-transparent shroud, and where Inspector Robson looked more like the ghost of a man than the man himself. In the brightest of weather the office was not a cheerful apartment; under the thrall of the white fog, an hour after midnight, it assumed a funereal aspect inexpressibly depressing.

Busily employed in making out the charge sheet for the following day, Inspector Robson still found time to cast an occasional eye upon another ghostly form who, with one foot resting on the end of a wooden bench, was leaning against the wall in a negligent attitude, engaged in the insubstantial occupation of chewing a ghostly straw. The Inspector wrote a fine copperplate hand, and his steel pen neither scratched nor spluttered. On the present occasion he was taking extraordinary care over his task, as though more than usually important issues hung upon the perfect outlines of his pothooks and hangers. The absence of sound within the office and the shroud which lay upon it, rendering objects within a few yards of him indistinct, imparted so strong an air of unreality to the scene, that his slow and measured movements bore some resemblance to the movements of an automaton. The other ghostly person in the office chewed his straw and moved his lips with so regular and unintelligent a motion that his movements, also, bore some resemblance to the movements of an automaton. But for the difference in their ages these two men might have been posing to an invisible artist for a picture of the Industrious and the Idle Apprentices.

That there was something in the negligent figure that discomposed the Inspector was evident from the expression on his face when he raised his head from the charge sheet and glanced in that direction, and it was quite as evident that his discomposure was powerless to arouse the cause of it from his apparent insensibility to all external objects and impressions. He was young and good-looking, his age probably twenty-four or five; Inspector Robson was old enough to be his father, and on his features were stamped the effects of long years of official responsibilities and steady application to duty. In this relation of the Idle and the Industrious Apprentices the marked contrast they presented was capable of a dramatic interpretation.

"Do you intend to remain much longer?" inquired the Inspector, goaded at length into breaking the oppressive silence. "Because I'd like you to know I'm pretty well tired of you."

"I'm pretty well tired of myself," replied the young man, in a listless tone. "As to remaining much longer I can't exactly say."

"You have no right to be in this place, you know, unless you are here upon business. Now, the question is, are you here upon business? If you are, I'm ready to take it down."

The young man turned the straw in his mouth, and appeared to reflect. Coming to a conclusion he languidly said, "I can't think of any particular business."

"That's a pity," said the Inspector.

"That's a pity," echoed the young man, with distinct indifference.

"Well, then," said the Inspector, bracing himself up for a great effort, "as you have no business to be here unless you have business to be here-" This was so involved that it brought him to a full stop; scratching his head with whimsical perplexity he extricated himself from the difficulty by adding, "The best thing you can do is to clear out."

The young man, deciding that he had sufficiently rested one foot, lowered it, and lifted the other upon the bench. This was the only movement he made.

The Inspector resumed his writing with the manner of a man driven to a helpless pass. A peculiar feature of the defeat he had met with was that it did not seem to anger him. Presently he spoke again.

"I don't often get into a temper, Dick."

"Not often."

"But when I do," said the Inspector, with an anticipatory chuckle, "it's a thing to remember."

"When you do, uncle, I'll remember it."

The Inspector finished the charge sheet, tidied up his papers, and looking over his shoulder at Dick, suddenly burst out laughing.

Dick's face cleared; a light stole into his eyes; his lips quivered. These tokens of serious emotion were like the passing of a cloud. The next moment he joined the Inspector in the laugh, and the storm was at an end.

"Where are you going to sleep, Dick?"

"Let me see," Dick answered. "Buckingham Palace sounds tempting; there must be several beds unoccupied there. Could a fellow get between the sheets of one? Do you think it might be managed? I hope they keep a fire in the rooms and the sheets well aired."

"Don't be a fool."

"Can I help it?"

"No, Dick, no," said the inspector, advancing and laying his hand kindly upon Dick's shoulder. "Upon my soul I don't believe you can."

Dick lifted his eyes, with an implied suggestion that the Inspector, by the barest possibility, might be mistaken; but he did not put this into words.

"I can't take you home with me," said the Inspector. "Aunt Rob won't have it. She's put her foot down, and when she puts her foot down, why, there it is."

The comic helplessness expressed in this obvious statement seemed to amuse Dick, but he said, gravely enough, "Yes, there it is."

"And there's Florence."

At the introduction of this name a look of sad tenderness stole into Dick's eyes, but he said calmly, "Ah, and there's Florence."

"Now, Dick, let us have this out, once and for all."

"I'm agreeable."

"It's altogether too bad," exclaimed the Inspector. "What with you and Florence, bless her! and Aunt Rob, I haven't a moment's peace of my life. What Aunt Rob says is this. 'Here's Dick Remington,' she says, 'that you've behaved as a father to, and that I've behaved as a mother to. Ever since he was left an orphan, having lost his father, then his mother-you were three years old when my poor sister died-he's lived with us as one of our own, and so we've treated him. He had a claim upon us, and that claim we've met.' And she says-her foot being down-'It's time Dick looked after himself.' She gave you a hint, which you took pretty quick. I'll say that of you; you took it almost too quick."

"What else could I do?"

"It was a mistake, Dick, to get into a huff as you did. The minute she began to speak you took her up sharp-and if there's one thing more than another that puts her back up it is to be took up sharp. You see, Dick, it's a delicate matter. Aunt Rob says, 'We must think of Florence. She comes first.' And she's right, Dick."

"She is, uncle. Florence comes first-always first!"

"'Here's Dick,' says Aunt Rob, 'that I'm as fond of as if he was my own son, what is he good for? What prospects has he got? He's been in one situation and another, and never keeps to one thing for more than a few weeks at a time. Here he is, a grown man, and here is Florence, almost a grown woman.' To think of it!" said Inspector Robson, pensively, breaking off. "It was only yesterday that she was in short frocks, going backward and forward to school, and climbing up on my knee to pull my whiskers, and cuddling up in my arms, and singing her little songs in a voice as sweet as music. And now! a grown woman! To think of it-to think of it!"

"Loving you no less as a woman, uncle, than she did as a child."

"I know it, my lad, I know it, but it sets a man on the think."

And Inspector Robson fell forthwith into a brown study which lasted quite five minutes, during which the image of his only child, most tenderly and dearly beloved, presented itself to him in its sweetest and most engaging aspects.

CHAPTER VIII

AUNT ROB THINKS FLORENCE OUGHT TO MARRY A MARQUIS OR A PRINCE

Dick Remington waited patiently to hear the full sum of the reproaches which Aunt Rob brought against him. He, too, saw with his mind's eye the image of the young girl for whom he would have laid down his life, and if his thoughts of her brought a pang to his heart they were at the same time charged with exceeding tenderness.

Inspector Robson shook himself free from dreams, and returned to his subject.

"That is what Aunt Rob says. 'Here is Dick a grown man, and here is Florence almost a grown woman. When Dick comes down in the morning he kisses Florence and she kisses him; and when he bids her good night he kisses her again. And,' says Aunt Rob, 'I don't know that this is a thing that ought to be allowed to go on.' I dare say it's puzzled other people as well as us when kissing ought to be left off. So long as you were little it was as natural as natural could be. You were playmates and chums, and you rolled on the floor together and played coach and horses and London Bridge is Falling Down, and you'd carry her on your shoulder and lift her as high as the ceiling, and throw her up and catch her, she screaming with delight and crying, 'Again, Dick, again!' You grew up, Dick, and when you were eighteen Florence was only twelve, and the kissing went on, and there was nothing to object to. But you got to be twenty and Florence fourteen, and the kissing went on. Then her frocks were lengthened, and the pair of you continued to grow up till she was nineteen and you twenty-five-and all this time the kissing went on. Now, Dick, there must come a time when, even between cousins, kissing must stop. Sometimes it's done gradual, sometimes all of a sudden, which makes things a bit awkward-but one way or the other it's got to be done. You must see that yourself, Dick."

"Yes, I suppose so, uncle."

"And Aunt Rob has got an eye to the future. Pretty girls like Florence don't grow on every gooseberry bush. Show me the girl that can compare with her. Do you know of one, Dick?"

"Not one in all the wide world," replied the young man. "God bless her, and make her happy!"

"She's been brought up sensible," said Inspector Robson. "She can make a beef steak pudding and play the piano; there's nothing she can't turn her hand to, and the man that gets her will be a lucky chap. Aunt Rob thinks a gentleman born would not be too good for her. 'Why not say a marquis, or a prince?' says I to her, speaking sarcastic like. And she bridles up and answers, 'Why not? He might do worse; he couldn't do better.'"

"No gentleman in the land," said Dick, with a tremor in his voice, "could be too good for Florence. She's equal to the best, and could hold her own among the best, even if they were born in a palace."

"That's what Aunt Rob thinks," said Inspector Robson, his eyes glowing with loving pride, "and that's what we all think, and who that knows Florence could think differently? But let's come back to you, Dick, for that's the main point. Why don't you stick to one thing, my lad?"

"Perhaps because it won't stick to me," Dick replied.

"Nonsense, nonsense, lad, it's the other way about. Do you recollect the morning you went to your first situation, and how we all stood at the street door to see you off? There was Florence and Aunt Rob waving their handkerchiefs and kissing their hands to you till you were out of sight. You kept that situation seven months, and then you threw it up. You didn't like the place, you said. All right. You got another situation, as traveller on commission in the sewing machine line. You commenced well, and was earning your fifteen shillings a week. What was our surprise when you came home one night and told us you'd left because it wouldn't suit you? The next thing you took to was the stage, and you gave us tickets to come and see you act. We rehearsed at home, and Florence gave you the cues. As for your make-up as you call it, you did it so cleverly that we didn't know you when you come on the stage. 'That's what he's cut out for,' I said. 'One of these days he'll have a theatre of his own.' But Aunt Rob shook her head. You wrote a little piece in one act, and got it played-actually got it played. We thought it beautiful, and the way Florence laughed and cried over it-well! But it wasn't a success for all that. Still, you know, Dick, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. You didn't try again. You gave up the stage-"