Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

"Have you seen him lately?"

"Let me think, now. It was Friday night when I saw him last. I noticed him particularly, because he staggered a bit, walked zig-zag like, as if he'd had a glass too much. That was what I thought at first, but I altered my opinion when I caught sight of his face. It wasn't so much like a man who'd been drinking, but like one who was fairly demented. Any special reason for asking about him, sir?"

"No special reason," replied Dick, not feeling himself justified in revealing what had passed in the police station, "You would call Mr. Death a respectable person, I suppose?"

"When there's nothing against a man," said Constable Applebee, "you're bound in common fairness to call him respectable. From the little I know of him I should say, poor, but respectable. If we come to that, there's plenty of poor devils in the same boat."

"Too many, Applebee. I can't help thinking of that woman you caught by the arm. It was a curious little adventure."

"It was, sir, and I don't know that I was ever more nonplussed. There's nothing curious in her being in Catchpole Square. She might have slipped in there to sleep the night out, not having money enough to pay for a bed. Pond and me happened to meet on the boundary of our beats, and we strolled into the Square. I could have swore that she was creeping along the wall; perhaps she was scared at the sight of us, and had a reason for not wanting to fall in the hands of the law."

"That will hardly hold water," said Dick. "She could have had no clearer a sight of you than you had of her. There have been too many bad deeds committed in dark places in the dead of the night, and seeing something moving that she couldn't account for, she was frightened and ran away. Did you call out to her?"

"I did. 'Now, then,' I cried, 'what are you up to?' Not a word did she answer. Then I caught hold of her; then she vanished. Which goes to prove," said Constable Applebee, contemplatively, "that she wasn't one of the regular ones. If she'd been a regular one she'd have cheeked us. Not being a regular one, what business did she have there? Anyway Catchpole Square ain't exactly the place I would choose for a night's lodging."

"Beggars can't be choosers," remarked Dick.

"Right you are, sir. They can't."

The conversation slackened, and the men walked slowly along Shore Street, the constable, like a zealous officer, trying the doors and looking up at the windows.

"The people inside," he said, "are better off than we are. They're snugly tucked up between the sheets, dreaming of pleasanter things than tramping a thick fog."

"There's somebody there," said Dick, pointing to a first floor window, where, through the mist, a light could be dimly seen, "who isn't between the sheets. See how the light shifts, like a will-o'-the-wisp."

"That's Dr. Pye's house, where the midnight oil is always burning. Yes, he's awake, the doctor; it's my belief he never sleeps. A clever gentleman, Dr. Pye, as chockful of science as an egg is of meat. Do you happen to be acquainted with him, sir?"

"No."

"A strange character, sir. The things they tell of him is beyond belief. I've heard say that he's discovered the secret of prolonging life, and of making an old man young."

"But you haven't heard that he has ever done it."

"No, or I might have asked him what his charge was for taking ten or twenty years off. Perhaps it's as well, though, to fight shy of that sort of thing. What they say of Dr. Pye may be true, or it mayn't, but you may make sure that he's always at his experiments. Pass his house at any hour of the night you like, and you may depend upon seeing that light burning in his window."

"Those are the men who make the wonderful discoveries we hear of from time to time. Think of what the world was and what it is. How did people do without reading? How did people do without gas? How did they do without steam? How did they do without electricity? That little light burning in Dr. Pye's window may mean greater wonders than ever was found in Aladdin's cave. As Shakespeare says, Applebee, 'What a piece of work is man!'"

"Ah," observed Constable Applebee, with a profound shake of his head, "he might well say that, sir."

"Putting a supposititious case," said Dick, and as Constable Applebee remarked to his wife next day when he gave her an account of this conversation, "the way he went on and the words he used fairly flabbergasted me" – "Putting a supposititious case, let us suppose that you and I fell asleep as we are standing here, and woke up in fifty years, what astounding things we should see!"

"It won't bear thinking of, sir."

"Then we won't think of it. Applebee, I am surprised that you have not asked me why I am wandering through the streets on such a night and at such an hour, when I ought to be snug in bed, dreaming of-angels."

"Who am I, sir, that I should be putting a parcel of questions to you?"

"You exhibit a delicacy for which you deserve great credit. I will make a clean breast of it, Applebee. The fact is, I am looking for a lodging."

"You always was a bit of a wag, sir," said Constable Applebee, with twinkling eyes.

"Was I? But I assure you I am not wagging now. Do you know of a room to let in a decent house in the neighbourhood, where they would give their young man lodger a latchkey?"

"Now, are you serious, sir?"

"As a judge."

"Well, then, there's Constable Pond, sir. He's taken a house in Paradise Row, and there's a room to let in it; he mentioned it to me only to-night. If you're really in earnest he'd jump at you."

"From which metaphor," said Dick, with mock seriousness, "I judge that he would consider me an eminently fit person to be entrusted with a latchkey."

"That's the ticket, sir," said Constable Applebee, bursting with laughter. "Upon my word, you're the merriest gentleman I've ever known. It's as good as a play, it is."

"Better than many I've seen, I hope," said Dick, still with his mock serious air, which confirmed Constable Applebee in his belief that the young fellow was having a joke with him. "Am I mistaken in supposing that there is a Mrs. Pond?"

"To be sure there is, and as nice a woman as ever breathed. No family at present, but my missis tells me" – here he dropped his voice, as though he were communicating a secret of a sacred nature-"that Mrs. Pond has expectations."

"May they be realised in a happy hour! I'll pay a visit to the Ponds to-morrow, and if the room is not snapped up in the meantime by another person you will hear of me as their young man lodger. Good night, Applebee."

"Good night, sir."

Constable Applebee looked after him till he was swallowed up in the prevailing gloom, and then resumed his duties.

"What a chap that is!" he ruminated. "You can't mention a subject he ain't up in. That notion of his of falling asleep and waking up in fifty years ain't half a bad one. He does put ideas into a man's head. It's an education to talk to him."

Dick did not hesitate as to his route. Turning the corner of Shore Street he walked to Deadman's Court, and through it into Catchpole Square, where he paused before the house of Samuel Boyd.

"No midnight oil burning there," he mused, his eyes searching the windows for some sign of life. "The place is as still as death itself. I'll try Mrs. Death's dodge. If Mr. Boyd comes down I'll ask him if he has a room to let."

He smiled at the notion, and applied himself to the knocker. But though he knocked, and knocked vigorously again and again, and threw stones at the upper panes of glass, and listened at the door, he heard no movement within the house.

"There's a mystery inside these walls," said Dick, "and I'll pluck out its heart, or know the reason why. But how to obtain an entrance? The adjoining houses are empty. Is there a door loose in one of them?"

There was no door loose; even if there had been, Dick, upon reflection, did not see how it would have been of assistance to him. There was a dead wall at the back of the house.

"That way, perhaps," said Dick.

He left the Square, and groped in the direction of the dead wall. It was about ten feet in height-a smooth expanse of cement, with not a foothold in it by which he could mount to the top. A rope with a grapnel at the end would meet the case, and Dick determined to procure one, and pay another visit to the place the following night.

He lingered in the neighbourhood, sitting down on a doorstep now and again, and closing his eyes for a few minutes' doze. During these intervals of insensibility the strangest fancies presented themselves. He was with Mrs. Death and Gracie in the police station, listening to the story she had told, which now was exaggerated and distorted in a thousand different ways. "My husband, my husband!" she moaned "What shall I do without him? What will the children do without him?" The police station was instantly crowded with a great number of ragged little elfs, who, with misery in their faces, wailed, "What shall we do without him? What shall we do without him?" And then, in the midst of a sudden silence, Gracie's hoarse voice, saying, "You will find father, won't you?" An appeal immediately taken up by the horde of children, "You will find father, won't you? You will find father! You will find father!" The vision faded, and he saw Abel Death staggering through a deserted street in which only one sickly yellow light was burning. He was talking to himself, and his face was convulsed with passion. Behind him slunk the figure of Samuel Boyd-and behind him, Mr. Reginald and Florence. Good God! What brought them into the tragic mystery? What possible or impossible part had they played in it? The torture of the dreamer's mind was momentarily arrested by the ringing out of one dread word, clear and shrill as from the mouth of a clarion!

"MURDER!"

Dick started to his feet, his forehead bathed in perspiration. Had the word really been uttered, and by whom? He stood in the midst of silence and darkness.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LADY'S HANDKERCHIEF WHICH CONSTABLE POND PICKED UP IN CATCHPOLE SQUARE

"The Little Busy Bee" was an afternoon newspaper with a great circulation, which took for its motto the familiar lines: -

"How doth the Little Busy BeeImprove each shining hour,And gather honey all the dayFrom ev'ry opening flow'r."

To this journal Dick had been an occasional contributor, and he was responsible for a paragraph which appeared in its columns on the day following Mrs. Death's visit to the police station:

"BISHOP STREET POLICE COURT. – A respectable woman, in great distress of mind, accompanied by her little daughter, begged permission to make a statement to the magistrate. It appears that her husband, Mr. Abel Death, residing at 7, Draper's Mews, and employed as a clerk in the office of Mr. Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square, quite suddenly received his discharge last Friday night, and came home greatly distressed by the dismissal, as well as by pecuniary difficulties and by sickness in his family. Later in the night, at about ten o'clock, he went out, with the intention, as he stated, of making an appeal to his employer to reinstate him. He did not return home, and from that night his wife has heard nothing of him. Mrs. Death has been several times to Catchpole Square, in the hope of obtaining some information from Mr. Boyd, but as her knocking at the door has met with no response the presumption is that that gentleman is out of town. The magistrate said he was sure the press would give publicity to her husband's disappearance, and there was no doubt, if the paragraphs in the papers came to Mr. Boyd's notice, that he would write and tell her what he knows of the movements of his late clerk. Compassion was aroused by the evident ill health of the child, who appears to be suffering from bronchial trouble, and whose efforts to restrain herself from coughing, in order that the court should not be disturbed, were very pitiable. The magistrate awarded the poor woman ten shillings from the poor box, and she left the court in the deepest distress, her little girl clinging to her gown."

Dick was surprised not to see his uncle in court. Inspector Robson had promised to be present, and it was seldom that he broke a promise. Ascribing his absence to official duties elsewhere, Dick parted with Mrs. Death at the police court door, and promising to call and see her next day, he wrote his paragraph for "The Little Busy Bee," and leaving it at the office, went to Paradise Row to secure the room which Mrs. Pond had to let.

It was that little woman's washing day, and, like the maid in the nursery rhyme, she was hanging up clothes in her back yard. Hearing the knock she hurried to the door, with her sleeves tucked up to her shoulder, and wiping her hands on a towel. She wore an apron with a bib, and tucked in the bib was the lady's handkerchief which Constable Pond had picked up the previous night. She had been about to plunge it into the washtub when she heard the knock, and she had hastily slipped it in there as she hurried to the door.

"Constable Applebee tells me you have a room to let," said Dick.

"Yes, we have, sir," replied Mrs. Pond, her rosy face, which was of the apple-dumpling order, glowing with delight, "and very good it is of him to recommend us. I hope you won't mind the state I'm in. I'm doing the washing." She said this very simply; there was no false pride about Mrs. Pond.

"I shall ask you to do mine," said Dick, "if the room suits me."

"I shouldn't mind, sir. I'll show you the room if you'll be good enough to follow me."

She preceded him up the narrow flight of stairs, and opened the door. It was a small room, but it was clean and tidy, and sufficiently furnished for Dick's requirements.

"The rent?" asked Dick.

"Would three-and-six a week be too much, sir?" she asked anxiously.

"Not a bit," replied Dick, "if you'll give me a latchkey."

"We can do that, sir. Pond had an extra one made on purpose. 'If it's a gentleman,' he said, 'let him have it. If it's a lady she can't have a latchkey, no, not if she begged for it on her bended knees."

"I'll take the room, Mrs. Pond," said Dick, with a genial smile, "and I'll give you a week's rent in advance, if it's only for the confidence you place in me."

Nervously plucking at her bib as she received the money, she displaced the handkerchief, which fluttered to the ground. Dick stooped to pick it up, and his face grew white as he saw, written in marking ink in a corner, the name of "Florence." He recognised Florence's writing; at that moment he had one at his breast, bearing the same inscription.

CHAPTER XV

DICK COMES TO AN ARRANGEMENT WITH CONSTABLE POND

"Dear me, sir!" said Mrs. Pond, who had noticed that he had turned pale. "Are you taken ill?"

"It is nothing, nothing," replied Dick, hurriedly, and contradicted himself by adding, "It must be the perfume on this handkerchief. There are perfumes that make me feel faint."

"I don't think there's any scent on it, sir," said Mrs. Pond, "leastways, I didn't notice any. Some scents do have that effect upon people. There's a cousin of mine who faints dead away at the smell of a hot boiled egg. There's no accounting for things, is there, sir?"

"No, there's not. May I ask if you got this handkerchief from the lady whose name is marked on it?"

"Oh, no, sir. Pond gave it me."

"Did he obtain it from the lady?"

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Pond. "That's just what I said to him. We had a regular scene. 'You're jealous, Polly,' he said, laughing, and he worked me up so that I as good as threw it in the fire. Then he told me that he knew no more about the lady than I did, and that he picked it up in the street."

"Whereabouts, Mrs. Pond?"

"He didn't say, sir. It's pretty, ain't it? Quite a lady's. I shouldn't have minded if he'd picked up a dozen of 'em. I've got an aunt who is always picking up things. It commenced when she was a little girl. She found a farthing that had been sanded over, and thinking it was a golden sovereign she went into a milk-shop and asked for change. She cried her eyes out when they told her what it was, There's hardly a week she don't find something. Some people are made that way, sir."

"Yes, yes," said Dick, rather impatiently, "is your husband in the house? I should like to see him."

"I expect him home every minute, sir. Why, there he is, opening the street door just as we're talking of him. If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll run down to him."

"Do. And ask him to be kind enough to come up and speak to me."

She nodded, and ran from the room with a light step, leaving the handkerchief behind her in her haste to tell her husband that she had got a lodger; and presently Constable Pond's heavier step was heard on the stairs. His face beamed with satisfaction when Dick, stepping into the passage, invited him into the room.

"Can I believe my eyes, sir!" he exclaimed. "This is what I call a downright piece of good luck. Well, I am glad to see you here, sir!" His eyes fell upon the handkerchief in Dick's hand. "If I don't mistake, that's the handkerchief my missis left behind her. She asked me to fetch it down to her."

"It is about this handkerchief I wish to speak to you," said Dick; "and for the sake of all parties, Constable Pond, it is as well that our conversation should be private and confidential."

"Certainly, sir," said Constable Pond, his countenance falling at the unusual gravity of Dick's voice and manner.

"She told me you picked it up in the street."

"She told you true, sir."

Now did Constable Pond feel the sting of conscience; now did it whisper that he had been guilty of a breach of duty in not depositing the handkerchief at the police station, with an account of how he came by it; now did the thought of certain penalties afflict him. Here was Dick Remington, Inspector Robson's own nephew, opening up a case with the unuttered words, "From information received."

"I have a particular reason for wishing to know where, and when, and under what circumstances, you found it," said Dick.

"It won't go beyond this room, I hope, sir. You won't use the information against me?"

"I give you my word I will not."

"I ought to have handed it in and made my report," said Constable Pond, with a rueful air, "but I didn't think there was any harm in my giving it to the missis. Applebee and me were in Catchpole Square last night, and he was talking of shadders when he thought he saw one. He run across and caught hold of it, but it slipped from him and was gone like a flash. He called to me and we ran after it through Deadman's Court; we couldn't see which way we were going, so we knocked our heads together, and my helmet fell off. I stooped to pick it up, and there was the handkerchief underneath it. If I had considered a moment I shouldn't have put it in my pocket, but we don't always do the thing we ought."

"You did not tell Applebee that you had found anything?"

"No, sir, I did not, and sorry enough I am for it now. It sha'n't occur again, I promise you."

"As the matter has gone so far without anybody knowing anything about it but ourselves, I don't see the necessity of mentioning it to anyone."

"If such is your wish, sir," said Constable Pond, gaining confidence, "it sha'n't be."

"And tell your wife not to speak about it."

"I'll tell her, sir."

"Because you see, Mr. Pond, as it is too late to undo what's done, it might get you into trouble."

"I see that, sir," said Constable Pond, ruefully.

"So there's an end of the matter. As for the handkerchief I'll take possession of it, and if it should happen that any question is raised concerning it-of which there is not the least probability-I will say that I found it. That will clear you entirely."

"I'm ever so much obliged to you for getting me out of the mess," said Constable Pond.

Shaking hands with him, Dick accompanied him downstairs, and after receiving the latchkey and exchanging a few pleasant words with Mrs. Pond, he left the house greatly troubled in his mind.

"There's more in this than meets the eye, Polly," said Constable Pond, when he had explained to her what had passed between him and Dick. "That young fellow spoke fair and square, but he's got something up his sleeve, for all that."

"Oh, you silly!" answered Mrs. Pond. "I know what he's got up his sleeve."

"Do you, now?" said Constable Pond, refreshing himself with a kiss. "Well, if that don't beat everything! Give it a name, old girl."

"Why, a sweetheart, you goose, and her name's Florence. He's going straight to her this minute."

"Is he? Then I hope she'll be able to satisfy him why she was in Catchpole Square last night-always supposing that it was her as dropped the handkerchief there."

Mrs. Pond was not far wrong, for Dick was now on his way to Aunt Rob's house, in the hope of seeing Florence, over whom some trouble seemed to be hanging. He tried in vain to rid himself of the belief that it was Florence whom Constable Applebee had surprised in Catchpole Square; all the probabilities pointed that way. In heaven's name what took her there at that hour of the night? Search his mind as he might, he could find no answer to the question. The handkerchief was hers, but there were a hundred ways of accounting for its being in the possession of another woman. Still, the longer he thought the heavier seemed to grow the weight of circumstantial evidence. Fearing he knew not what he accelerated his steps, as if swiftness of motion would ward off the mysterious danger which threatened the woman he adored, the woman who could never be his, but for whose dear sake he would have shed his heart's blood.

CHAPTER XVI

LETTERS FROM FLORENCE

Aunt Rob, a healthy, homely woman of forty-five, was standing at the door of her house, looking up and down the street for the form of one she loved, looking up to heaven for a message to ease her bruised heart. A terrible blow had fallen upon her home, and the grief, the fear, the tortured love in her eyes, were pitiable to see. Before Dick was near enough to observe these signs of distress she had caught sight of him and was running towards him, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh, Dick, Dick!" she cried. "You have come to tell us about Florence! Where is she? What message has she sent? Is she safe, is she well? Why don't you speak? Can't you see that I'm heartbroken, heartbroken? For God's sake, speak!"

In truth he could not. The overwhelming terror and surprise that fell upon him deprived him for a time of the power of speech; he could do nothing but stare at her in dismay and alarm. When speech was restored to him he said, in a voice as agitated as her own.

"I don't know what you mean, Aunt Rob. I have brought no message from Florence. I came to see her." Involuntarily his hand wandered to his breast, where Florence's handkerchief lay.

"You are deceiving me," she said, her limbs trembling, her face convulsed; "you are punishing me because I said it was time you looked after yourself! Perhaps I was as unhappy as you were when you left the house. If you had been a little more patient with me you would never have gone away." She turned from him, her body shaking with grief.

"Dear Aunt Rob," he said, passing his arm around her, "indeed, indeed there is no thought in my mind that is not charged with love for you and Uncle Rob and Florence. I would lay down my life for you. I see that something terrible has occurred. What is it-where is Florence? But, no, don't answer me in the street. Come inside-come, come!"

His heart beat fast and loud as he led the sobbing woman into the house.

"Don't shut the door, Dick," she sobbed. "It shall never be said that I shut my door against my child. Day and night it shall be open to her if she comes back as she went away, a good and innocent girl. But if she comes back with the loss of her good name- Oh, my God! What am I saying-what am I saying?"

"Ah," said Dick, in a tone of stern reproof, "what are you saying, indeed, Aunt Rob, when you couple Florence's name with thoughts like those? You, her mother, who have had daily proofs of her purity and goodness! My life upon her innocence-my life, my life! Though all the world were against her I would stand by her side, and strike down those who dared defame her. For shame, Aunt Rob, for shame!"