 The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 34 After twenty years How I reached the open air I cannot tell you. I do not know. I have a confused recollection of rushing through vaulted passages, through endless corridors, of trampling over people who tried to arrest my passage, and the rest is blank. When I again came to myself, I was lying in the house of an American missionary named Clements. I had been found at early dawn, stark naked in a Cairo street, and picked up for dead. Judging from appearances, I must have wandered for miles, all through the night. Once I had come, or whether I was going, no one could tell. I could not tell myself. For weeks I hovered between life and death. The kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Clements was not to be measured by words. I was brought to their house a penniless, helpless, battered stranger, and they gave me all they had to offer, without money and without price, with no expectation of an earthly reward. Let no one pretend that there is no Christian charity under the sun. The dead I owed that man and woman I was never able to repay. Before I was properly myself again, and in a position to offer some adequate testimony of the gratitude I felt, Mrs. Clements was dead, drowned during an excursion on the Nile, and her husband had departed on a missionary expedition into Central Africa, from which he never returned. Although, in a measure, my physical health returned, for months after I had left the roof of my hospitable hosts, I was in a state of semi-imbicility. I suffered from a species of aphasia. For days together I was speechless, and could remember nothing, not even my own name. And when the stage had passed and I began to move more freely among my fellows, for years I was but a wreck of my former self. I was visited at all hours of the day and night by frightful, I know not whether to call them visions, they were real enough to me, but since they were visible to no one but myself, perhaps that is the word which best describes them. Their presence invariably plunged me into a state of abject terror, against which I was unable to even make a show of fighting. To such an extent did they embitter my existence that I voluntarily placed myself under the treatment of an expert in mental pathology. For a considerable period of time I was under his constant supervision, but the visitations were as inexplicable to him as they were to me. By degrees, however, they became rarer and rarer, until at last I flattered myself that I had once more become as other men. After an interval to make sure, I devoted myself to politics. Once forward I have lived, as they phrase it in the public eye. Private life in the peculiar sense of the term I have had none. Mr. Lessingham ceased. His tale was not uninteresting and to say the least of it was curious, but I still was at a loss to understand what it had to do with me or what was the purport of his presence in my room. Since he remained silent as if the matter, so far as he was concerned, was at an end, I told him so. I presume, Mr. Lessingham, that all this is but a prelude to the play. At present I do not see where it is that I come in. Still, for some seconds, he was silent. When he spoke, his voice was grave and somber as if he were burdened by a weight of woe. Unfortunately, as you put it, all this has been but a prelude to the play. Where not so, I should not now stand in such pressing want of the services of a confidential agent, that it is of an experienced man of the world who has been endowed by nature with phenomenal perceptive faculties and in whose capacity and honor I can place the completest confidence. I smiled. The compliment was a pointed one. I hope your estimate of me is not too high. I hope not, for my sake as well as for your own. I have heard great things of you. If ever man stood in need of all that human skill and acumen can do for him, I certainly am he. His words aroused my curiosity. I was conscious of feeling more interested than here to for. I will do my best for you. Man can do no more. Only give my best the trial. I will at once. He looked me long and earnestly. Then, leaning forward, he said, lowering his voice perhaps unconsciously, the fact is, Mr. Champ, now, that quite recently events have happened which threaten to bridge the chasm of twenty years and to place me face to face with that plague's spot of the past. At this moment I stand in imminent peril of becoming again the wretched thing I was when I fled from that den of all the devils. It is to guard me against this that I have come to you. I want you to unravel the tangle thread which threatens to drag me to my doom, and, when unraveled, to sunder it, forever if God wills, in twain. Explain. To be frank, for the moment I thought I'm mad. He went on. Three weeks ago when I returned late one night from a sitting in the house of commons, I found on my study table a sheet of paper on which there was a representation, marvelously like, of the creature into which, as it seemed to me, the woman of the songs was transformed as I clutched her throat between my hands. The mere sight of it brought back one of those visitations of which I have told you and which I thought I had done with forever. I was convulsed by an agony of fear thrown into a state approximating to a paralysis both of mind and body. But why? I cannot tell you. I only know that I have never dared to allow my thoughts to recurred to the last dread seen, lest the mere recurrence should drive me mad. What was this you found upon your study table, merely a drawing? It was a representation produced by what process I cannot say, which was so wonderfully, so diabolically like the original, that for a moment I thought the thing itself was on my table. Who put it there? That is precisely what I wish to find out, would I wish you to make it your instant business to ascertain. I have found the thing, under similar circumstances, on three separate occasions on my study table, and each time it has had on me the same hideous effect. Each time after you have returned from a late sitting in the House of Commons? Exactly. Where are these, what should I call them, delineations? That again I cannot tell you. What do you mean? What I say, each time when I recovered the thing had vanished. She'd a paper and all. Apparently, though on that point I could not be positive. You will understand that my study table is apt to be littered with sheets of paper and I could not absolutely determine that the thing had not stared at me from one of those. The delineation itself, to use your word, certainly had vanished. I began to suspect that this was a case rather for a doctor than for a man of my profession, and hinted as much. Don't you think it is possible, Mr. Lessingham, that you have been overworking yourself? That you have been driving your brain too hard and that you have been the victim of an optical delusion? I thought so myself. I may say that I almost hope so, but wait till I have finished. You will find that there is no loophole in that direction. He appeared to be recalling events in their due order. His manner was studiously cold, as if he were endeavoring, despite the strangeness of his story, to impress me with the literal accuracy of each syllable he uttered. The night before last, on returning home, I found in my study a stranger. A stranger? Yes, in other words, a burglar. A burglar? I see. Go on. He had paused. His demeanor was becoming odder and odder. On my entry he was engaged in forcing an entry into my bureau. I need hardly say that I advanced to seize him, but I could not. You could not? How do you mean you could not? I mean simply what I say. You must understand that this was no ordinary felon. Of what nationality he was, I cannot tell you. He only uttered two words, and they were certainly in English, but apart from that he was dumb. He wore no covering on his head or feet. Indeed, his only garment was a long dark flowing cloak, which, as it fluttered about him, revealed that his limbs were bare. A unique costume for a burglar? The instant I saw him I realized that he was in some way connected with that adventure in the root of Rambagus. What he said and did proved it to the hilt. What did he say and do? As I approached to affect his capture, he pronounced aloud two words which recalled that awful scene, the recollection of which always lingers in my brain, and of which I never dared to permit myself to think. Their very utterance threw me into a sort of convulsion. What were the words? Mr. Lessingham opened his mouth and shut it. A marked change took place in the expression of his countenance. His eyes became fixed and staring, resembling the glassy orbs of the Somnambulist. For a moment I feared that he was going to give me an object lesson in the visitations of which I had heard so much. I rose with a view of offering him assistance. He motioned me back. Thank you, it will pass away. His voice was dry and husky, unlike his usual, silvered tones. After an uncomfortable interval he managed to continue. You see for yourself, Mr. Champanel. What a miserable weakling, when this subject is brooch I still remain. I cannot utter the words the stranger uttered. I cannot even write them down. For some inscrutable reason they have on me an effect similar to that which spells and incantations had on people in tales of witchcraft. I suppose, Mr. Lessingham, that there is no doubt that this mysterious stranger was not himself an optical delusion? Scarcely. There is the evidence of my servants to prove the contrary. Did your servants see him? Some of them, yes. Then there is the evidence of the bureau. The fellow had smashed the top right in two. When I came to examine the contents I learned that a packet of letters was missing. They were letters which I had received from Miss Linden, a lady whom I hoped to make my wife. This also I state to you in confidence. What use would he be likely to make of them? If matters stand as I fear they do, he might make a very serious misuse of them. If the object of these wretches after all these years is a wild revenge, they would be capable, having discovered what she is to me, of working Miss Linden a fatal mischief, or at the very least of poisoning her mind. I see. How did the thief escape? Did he, like the delineation, vanish into air? He escaped by the much more prosaic method of dashing through the drawing-room window and clambering down from the veranda into the street, where he ran right into someone's arms. Into whose arms? Constables? No. Into Mr. Atherton's. Sydney Atherton's. The inventor? The same. Do you know him? I do. Sydney Atherton and I are friends of a good many years standing. But Atherton must have seen where he came from, and anyhow if he was in the state of undress which you have described, why didn't he stop him? Mr. Atherton's reasons were his own. He did not stop him, and so far as I can learn, he did not attempt to stop him. Instead he knocked at my hall door to inform me that he had seen a man climb out of my window. I happen to know that, at certain seasons, Atherton is a queer fish, but that sounds very queer indeed. The truth is, Mr. Trapnell, that if it were not for Mr. Atherton, I doubt I should have troubled you even now. The accident of his being in the quaintance of yours makes my task easier. He drew his chair closer to me with an air of briskness which had been far into him before. For some reason, which I was unable to fathom, the introduction of Atherton's name seemed to have enlivened him. However, I was not long to remain in darkness. In half a dozen sentences he threw more light on the real cause of his visits me than he had done in all that had gone before. His bearing too was more businesslike and to the point. For the first time I had some glimmerings of the politician, alert, keen, eager, as he is known to all the world. Mr. Atherton, like myself, has been a postulant for Miss Linden's hand. Because I have succeeded where he has failed, he has chosen to be angry. It seems that he has had dealings either with my visitor of Tuesday night or with some other his acquaintance and he proposes to use what he has gleaned from him to the disadvantage of my character. I have just come from Mr. Atherton. From hence he dropped I conclude that probably during the last few hours he has had an interview with someone who was connected in some way with that lurid patch in my career. That this person made so-called revelations, which were nothing but a series of monstrous lies and these so-called revelations Mr. Atherton has threatened, in so many words, to place before Miss Linden. That is an eventuality which I wish to avoid. My own conviction is that there is, at this moment in Linden, an emissary from that den in the will-oam Ruda Rabagas. For all I know it may be the woman of the songs herself. Whether the sole purport of this individual's presence is to do me injury, I am, as yet, in no position to say. But that it is proposed to work me mischief, at any rate, by the way, is plain. I believe that Mr. Atherton knows more about this person's individuality and whereabouts than he has been willing so far to admit. I want you, therefore, to ascertain these things on my behalf, to find out what and where this person is, to drag her, or him, out into the light of day. In short, I want you to effectually protect me from the terrorism which threatens once more to overwhelm my mental and physical powers, which bids fair to destroy my intellect, my career, my life, my all. What reasons have you for suspecting that Mr. Atherton has seen this individual of whom you speak, as he told you so? Practically, yes. I know Atherton well. In his not infrequent moments of excitement he is apt to use strong language, but it goes no further. I believe him to be the last person in the world to do anyone an intentional injustice, under any circumstances whatever. If I go to him, armed with credentials from you, when he understands the real gravity of the situation, which it will be my business to make him do, I believe that spontaneously, of his own accord, he will tell me as much about this mysterious individual as he knows himself. Then go to him at once. Good, I will. The result I will communicate to you. I rose to my seat. As I did so, someone rushed into the outer office with a din and a clatter. Andrew's voice and another became distinctly audible. Andrew is apparently raised in vigorous expostulation, raised seemingly in vain, for presently the door of my own particular sanctum was thrown open with a crash. And Mr. Sidney Atherton himself came dashing in, evidently conspicuously under the influence of one of those not infrequent moments of excitement, of which I had just been speaking. End of Chapter 34 The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 35 A Bringer of Tidings Atherton did not wait to see whom Iter might not be present, but without even pausing to take breath, he broke into full cry on the instant, as is occasionally his want. Champ Nell, thank goodness I found you in. I want you, at once. Don't stop the talk, but stick your hat on and put your best foot forward. I'll tell you all about it in the cab. I endeavored to call his attention to Mr. Lessingham's presence, but without success. My dear fellow, when I had got as far as that, he cut me short. Don't, dear fellow me, none of your jabber. And none of your excuses, either. I don't care if you've got an engagement with the Queen. You'll have to chuck it. Where's that dashed hat of yours? Or are you going without it? Don't I tell you that every second cut to waste may mean the difference between life and death? Do you want me to drag you down to the cab by the hair of your head? I will try not to constrain you to quite so drastic a resource. And I was coming to you at once in any case. I only want to call your attention to the fact that I am not alone. Here is Mr. Lessingham. In his harem scarum haste, Mr. Lessingham had gone unnoticed. Now that his observation was particularly directed to him, Atherton started, turned, and glared at my latest client in a fashion which was scarcely flattering. Oh, it's you, is it? What the deuce are you doing here? Before Lessingham could reply to this most unceremonious query, Atherton, rushing forward, gripped him by the arm. Have you seen her? Lessingham, not unnaturally nonplussed by the other's curious conduct, stared at him in unmistakable amazement. Have I seen whom? Marjorie Linden. Marjorie Linden. Lessingham paused. He was evidently asking himself what the inquiry meant. I have not seen Miss Linden since last night. Why do you ask? Then heaven help us! As I am a living man, I believe he, she, or id, has got her. His words were incomprehensible enough to stand in copious need of explanation, as Mr. Lessingham plainly thought. What is it that you mean, sir? What I say, I believe that that oriental friend of yours has got her in her clutches. If it is a her, goodness alone knows what the infernal conjure's real sex may be. Atherton, explain yourself! On a sudden, Lessingham's tone rang out like a trumpet call. If damage comes to her, I shall be fit to cut my throat, and yours. Mr. Lessingham's next proceeding surprised me. I imagine it surprised Atherton still more. Springing at Sidney like a tiger, he caught him by the throat. You, you hound! Of what wretched folly have you been guilty? If so much as a hair of her head is injured, you shall repay it me ten thousandfold. You mischief-making, intermeddling, jealous fool! He shook Sidney as if he had been a rat, then flung him from him headlong onto the floor. It reminded me of nothing so much as a thelus treatment of Yago. Never had I seen a man so transformed by rage. Lessingham seemed to have positively increased in stature. As he stood glowering down at the prostrate Sidney, he might have stood for a materialistic conception of human retribution. Sidney, I take it, was rather surprised than hurt. For a moment or two he lay quite still. Then, lifting his head, he looked up his assailant. Then, raising himself to his feet, he shook himself, as if with a view of learning all his bones were whole. Putting his hands up to his neck he rubbed it gently. And he grinned. By God, Lessingham, there is more in you than I thought. After all, you are a man. There's some holding power in those wrists of yours. They've nearly broken my neck. When this business is finished, I should like to put on the gloves with you and fight it out. Your clean wasted upon politics. Damn it, man, give me your hand. Mr. Lessingham did not give him his hand. Atherton took it and gave it a hearty shake with both of his. If the first paroxysm of his passion had passed, Lessingham was still sufficiently stern. Be so good as not to trifle, Mr. Atherton. If what you say is correct and the wretch to whom you allude really has Miss Linden at her mercy, then the woman I love and whom you also pretend to love stands in imminent peril not only of a ghastly death, but of what is infinitely worse than death. The do she does, Atherton wheeled round towards me. Champ, now haven't you got that dashed out of yours yet? Don't stand there like a tailor's dummy keeping me on tenterhooks. Move yourself. I'll tell you all about it in the cab, and Lessingham, if you'll come with us, I'll tell you too. End of Chapter 35 The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 36 What the tidings were Three in a handsome cab is not, under all circumstances, the most comfortable method of conveyance. When one of the trio happens to be Sidney Atherton, in one of his moments of excitement, it is distinctly the opposite. As, on that occasion, Mr. Lessingham and I both quickly found. Sometimes he sat on my knees, sometimes on Lessingham's, and frequently when he unexpectedly stood up, and all but precipitated himself onto the horse's back, on nobody's. In the eagerness of his gesticulations, first he knocked off my hat, then he knocked off Lessingham's, then his own, then all three together. Once his own had rolling into the mud, he sprang into the road without previously going through the empty form of advising the driver of his intention to pick it up. When he turned to speak to Lessingham, he thrust his elbow into my eye, and when he turned to speak to me, he thrust it into Lessingham's. Never for one solitary instant was he at rest, or either of us at ease. The wonder is that the gymnastics in which he incessantly indulged did not sufficiently attract public notice to induce a policeman to put at least a momentary period to our progress. Had speed not been of primary importance, I should have insisted on the transference of the expedition to the somewhat wider limits of a four-wheeler. His elucidation of the causes of his agitation was apparently more comprehensible to Lessingham than it was to me. I had to piece this and that together under considerable difficulties. By degrees I did arrive at something like a clear notion of what had actually taken place. He commenced by addressing Lessingham and thrusting his elbow into my eye. Did Marjory tell you about the fellow she found in the street? Up went his arm to force the trapdoor open overhead, and off went my hat. Now then, William Henry, let her go. If you kill the horse, I'll buy you another. We were already going much faster than legally we ought to have done, but that seemingly to him was not a matter of the slightest consequence. Lessingham replied to his inquiry. She did not. You know the fellow I saw coming out of your drawing-room window. Yes. Well, Marjory found him the morning after in front of her breakfast-room window, in the middle of the street. Seems he had been wandering about all night and clothed, in the rain and the mud, and all the rest of it, in a condition of hypnotic trance. Who is the gentleman you are alluding to? Says his name Holt, Robert Holt. Holt? Is he an Englishman? Very much so. City quill driver out of a shop. Stony broke absolutely. Got the chuck from the casual ward, wouldn't let him in. Houseful and that sort of thing. Poor devil. Pretty passes you politicians bring men to. Are you sure? Of what? Are you sure that this man, Robert Holt, is the same person whom, as you put it, you saw coming out of my drawing-room window? Sure. Of course I'm sure. Think I didn't recognize him? Besides, there was the man's own tale, own to it himself, besides all the rest, which sent one rushing full'em way. You must remember, Mr. Heatherton, that I am wholly in the dark as to what happened. What has the man, Holt, to do with the errand on which we are bound? Am I not coming to it? If you would let me tell the tale in my own way, I should get there in less than no time, but you will keep on cutting in. How deduced do you suppose champ nose to make head or tail of the business if you were persistent interrupting? Marjorie took the beggar in. He told his tale to her. She sent for me. That was just now. Caught me on the steps after I'd been lunching with Dora Grayling. Holt redished his yarn. I smelt a rat, saw that a connection possibly existed between the thief who'd been playing confounded conjuring tricks off onto me and this interesting party down full'em way. What party down full'em way? This friend of Holt's. Am I not telling you? There you are, you see. Won't let me finish. When Holt slipped through the window, which is the most sensible thing he seems to have done, if I'd been in his shoes I'd have slipped through forty windows. Dusky-colored charmer caught him on the hop, doctored him, sent him out to commit burglary by deputy. I said to Holt, show us this agreeable little crib, young man. Holt was game. Then Marjorie chipped in. She wanted to go and see it too. I said, you'll be sorry if you do. That settled it. After that she'd have gone if she'd died. I never did have a persuasive way with women. So off we toddled Marjorie, Holt, and I in a growler. Spotted the crib in less than no time, invited ourselves in by the kitchen window. How seemed empty? Presently, Holt became hypnotized before my eyes. The best established case of hypnotism by suggestion I ever yet encountered. Started off on a pilgrimage of one. Like an idiot I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me. Alone? Alone. Am I not telling you? Great Scott, Lessingham, in the House of Commons, they must be hazy to think you're smart. I said, I'll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company. As luck would have it, I never met one. Only kids and a baker who wouldn't leave his cart, or take it with him either. I'd cover pretty nearly two miles before I came across a peeler, and when I did, the man was cracked, and he thought me mad or drunk, or both. By the time I'd got myself within nodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police and the execution of their duty, without inducing him to move a single one of his twenty-four inch feet, Holt was out of sight. So, since all my pains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to scurry back to Marjorie. So I scurried, and I found the house empty. No one there, and Marjorie gone. But I don't quite follow. Atherton impetuously declined to allow Mr. Lessingham to conclude. Of course you don't quite follow, and you'll follow still less if you will keep getting in front. I went upstairs and downstairs, inside and out, shouted myself hoarse as a crow, nothing was to be seen of Marjorie, or heard, until I was coming down the stairs for about the five and fiftieth time. I stepped on something hard which was lying in the passage. I picked it up, it was a ring, this ring. Its shape is not just what it was. I'm not as light as Gossamer, especially when I come jumping downstairs six at a time. But what's left of it is here. Sydney held something in front of him. Mr. Lessingham wriggled it to one side to enable him to see. Then he made a snatch at it. It's mine. Sydney dodged it out of his reach. What do you mean it's yours? It's the ring I gave Marjorie for an engagement ring. Give it me, you hound, unless you wish me to do you violence in the cab. With complete disregard of the limitations of space, or of my comfort, Lessingham thrust him vigorously aside. Then, gripping Sydney by the wrist, he seized the god, Sydney yielding it just in time to save himself from being precipitated into the street. Ravished of his treasure, Sydney turned and surveyed the ravisher with something like a glance of admiration. Hang me, Lessingham, if I don't believe there is some warm blood in those fish-like veins of yours. Please, the piper, I'll live to fight you after all, with the bare ones, sir, as a gentleman should do. Lessingham seemed to pay no attention to him, whatever. He was surveying the ring which Sydney had trampled out of shape, with looks of the deepest concern. Marjorie's ring, the one I gave her. Something serious must have happened to her before she would have dropped my ring and left it lying where it fell. Atherton went on. That's it. What has happened to her? I'll be dashed if I know. When it was clear that there she wasn't, I tore off to find out where she was. Came across old Linden, he knew nothing. I rather fancy I startled him in the middle of Paul Mall. When I left, he stared after me like one possessed and his hat was lying in the gutter. Went home, she wasn't there. Asked Dora Grayling, she'd seen nothing of her. No one had seen anything of her. She had vanished into air. Then I said to myself, you're a first-class idiot on my honor. While you're looking for her like a lost sheep, the bedding is that the girls in Holt's friend's house the whole jolly time. When you were there, the chances are that she'd just stepped out for a stroll and that now she's back again, and wondering where on earth you've gone. So I made up my mind that I'd fly back and see, because the idea of her standing on the front doorstep looking for me, while I was going off my nut looking for her, commended itself to what I call my sense of humor. And on my way, it struck me that it would be the part of wisdom to pick up champnel, because if there is a man who can be back to find a needle in any amount of haystacks, it is the great Augustus. That horse has moved itself after all, because here we are. Now, cab man, don't go driving further on. You'll have to put a girdle round the earth if you do, because you'll have to reach this point again before you get your fare. This is the magician's house. End of Chapter 36 The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 37 What was Hidden Under the Floor The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap villa in an unfinished cheap neighborhood, the whole place at living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder. Atherton leaped out on to the grass-grown rubble, which was meant for a footpath. I don't see Marjorie looking for me on the doorstep. Nor did I. I saw nothing but what appeared to be an unoccupied ramshackle brick abomination. Suddenly, Sidney gave an exclamation. Hello? The front door is closed. I was hearted his heels. What do you mean? Why, when I left, I left the front door open. It looks as if I've made an idiot of myself after all, and Marjorie's returned. Let's hope to goodness that I have. He knocked. While we waited for a response, I questioned him. Why did you leave the door open when you went? I hardly know. I imagine that it was with some dim idea of Marjorie's being able to get in if she returned while I was absent. But the truth is I was in such a condition of held her skelter that I am not prepared to swear that I had any reasonable reason. I suppose there is no doubt that you did leave it open? Absolutely none. On that I'll stake my life. Was it open when you returned from your pursuit of Holt? Wide open. I walked straight in expecting to find her waiting for me in the front room. I was struck all of a heap when I found she wasn't there. Were there any signs of a struggle? None. There were no signs of anything. Everything was just as I had left it, with the exception of the ring which I tried on in the passage, and which Lessingham has. If Miss Linden has returned, it does not look as if she were in the house at present. It did not, unless silence had such meaning. Atherton had knocked loudly three times without succeeding in attracting the slightest notice from within. It strikes me that this is another case of seeking admission through that hospitable window at the back. Atherton led the way to the rear. Lessingham and I followed. There was not even an apology for a yard, and still less a garden. There was not even a fence of any sort to serve as an enclosure, and to shut off the house from the wilderness of Wasteland. The kitchen window was open. I asked Sidney if they had left it so. I don't know. I daresay we did. I don't fancy that either of us stood on the order of his coming. While he spoke, he scrambled over the sill. We followed. When he was in, he shouted at the top of his voice. Marjorie, Marjorie, speak to me, Marjorie, it is I, Sidney. The words echoed through the house, only silence answered. He led the way to the front room. Suddenly he stopped. Hello, he cried. The blind's down. I had noticed when we were outside that the blind was down at the front room window. It was up when I went. That I'll swear. That someone has been here is pretty plain. Let's hope it's Marjorie. He'd only taken a step forward into the room when he again stopped short to exclaim. My stars, here's a sudden clearance. Why, the place is empty. Everything's clean gone. What do you mean? Was it furnished when you left? The room was empty enough then. Furnished? I don't know that it was exactly what you'd call furnished. The party who ran this establishment had a taste in upholstery which was all his own. But there was a carpet, and a bed, and lots of things. For the most part I should have said distinctly Eastern curiosities. They seem to have evaporated into smoke, which may be a way which is common enough among Eastern curiosities, though it's queer to me. Atherton was staring about him as if he found it difficult to credit the evidence of his own eyes. How long ago is it since you left? He referred to his watch. Something over an hour, possibly an hour and a half. I couldn't swear to the exact moment, but it certainly isn't more. Did you notice any signs of packing up? Not a sign. Going to the window he drew up the blind. Speaking as he did so. The queer thing about this business is that when we first got in, this blind wouldn't draw up a little bit. So, since it wouldn't go up, I pulled it down, roller and all. Now it draws up as easily and smoothly as if it had always been the best blind that ever lived. Standing at Sidney's back, I saw that the cab man on his box was signalling to us with his outstretched hand. Sidney perceived him too. He threw up the sash. What's the matter with you? Excuse me, sir, but who's the old gent? What old gent? Why, the old gent peeping through the window of the room upstairs. The words were hardly out of the driver's mouth when Sidney was through the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather more soberly. His methods were a little too flighty for me. When I reached the landing, dashing out of the front room, he rushed into the one at the back, then through a door at the side. He came out shouting. What's the idiot mean with his old gent? I'd old gent him if I got him. There's not a creature about the place. He returned into the front room, eye at his heels. That certainly was empty, and not only empty, but it showed no traces of recent occupation. The dust lay thick upon the floor. There was that moldy earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments which had been long untenanted. Are you sure, Atherton, that there is no one at the back? Of course, I'm sure. You can go see for yourself if you'd like. You think I'm blind? Jay was drunk. Throwing up the sash, he addressed the driver. What do you mean with your old gent at the window? What window? That window, sir. Go to! You're dreaming, man. There's no one here. Begging your pardon, sir, but there was someone there not a minute ago. Imagination, cab man. The slant of the light on the glass? Or your eyesight's defective? Excuse me, sir, but it's not my imagination, and my eyesight's as good as any man's in England. And as for the slant of the light on the glass, there ain't much glass for the light to slant on. I saw him peeping through that bottom broken pane on your left hand as plainly as I see you. He must be somewhere about. He can't have got away. He's at the back. Ain't there a cupboard nor nothing where he could hide? The cab man's manner was so extremely earnest that I went myself to see. There was a cupboard on the landing, but the door of that stood wide open, and that, obviously, was bare. The room behind was small and, despite the splintered glass in the window frame, stuffy. Fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the floor, together with a choice collection of stones, brickbats, and other missiles, which not improbably were the cause of their being there. In the corners stood a cupboard, but a momentary examination showed that that was as bare as the other. The door at the side, which Sydney had left wide open, opened onto a closet, and that was empty. I glanced up. There was no trap door, which led to the roof. No practicable nook or cranny in which a living being could lie concealed was anywhere at hand. I returned to Sydney's shoulder to tell the cab man so. There is no place in which anyone could hide, and there is no one in either of the rooms. You must have been mistaken, driver. The man waxed throught. Don't tell me how could I come to think I saw something when I didn't. One's eyes are apt to play us tricks. How could you see what wasn't there? That's what I want to know. As I drove up, before you told me to stop, I saw him looking through the window. The one at which you are. He'd got his nose glued to the broken pane and was staring as hard as he could stare. When I pulled off, off he started. I saw him get up off his knees and go to the back of the room. When the gentleman took to knocking, back he came, to the same old spot and flopped down on his knees. I didn't know what caper you was up to. You might be bum bailiffs for all I knew, and I suppose that he wasn't so anxious to let you in as you might be to get inside. And that was why he didn't take no notice of your knocking, while all the while he kept an eye on what was going on. When you goes round to the back, up he gets again. And I reckon that he was going to meet you and perhaps give you a bit of his mind, and that presently I should hear a shindy, or that something would have it. But when you pull up the blind downstairs, to my surprise, back he comes once more. He shoves his old nose right through the smash in the pane, and wags his old head at me like a chattering magpie. That didn't seem to me quite the civil thing to do. I hadn't done no harm to him, so I gives you the office. And lets you know that he was there. But for you to say that he wasn't there and never had been, fly me. That cops the biscuit. If he wasn't there, all I can say is I ain't here, and my ors ain't here, and my cab ain't neither, damn it. The house ain't here, and nothing ain't. He settled himself on his perch with an air of the most extreme ill usage. He'd been standing up to tell his tale. That the man was serious was unmistakable, as he himself suggested. What inducement could he have had to tell a lie like that? That he believed himself to have seen what he declared he saw was plain. But on the other hand, what could have become in the space of fifty seconds of his old gent? Atherton put a question. What did he look like, this old gent of yours? Well, that I shouldn't hardly like to say. It wasn't much of his face I could see, only his face and his eyes. And they wasn't pretty. He kept a thing over his head all the time as if he didn't want too much to be seen. What sort of thing? Why, one of them cloaks sort of things, like them Arab blokes used to wear what used to be at Earl's court exhibition. You know. This piece of information seemed to interest my companions more than anything he had said before. A bernouce, do you mean? How might I know what the thing is called? I ain't up in foreign languages? Taint likely. All I know that them Arab blokes, what was at Earl's court, used to walk about in them all over the place. Sometimes they wore them over their heads, and sometimes they didn't. In fact, if you'd asked me, instead of trying to make out as I see's double or things what was only inside my own noodle or something or other, I should have said this here, old gent, what I've been telling you about was an Arab bloke. When he gets off his knees to sneak away from the window, I could see that he had his cloak thing, what was over his head, wrapped all around him. Mr. Lessingham turned to me, all quivering with excitement. I believe that what he says is true. Then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to? He suggests an explanation. It is strange, to say the least of it, that the cab man should be the only person to see or hear anything of him. Some devil's trick has been played. I know it, I feel it. My instinct tells me so. I stared. In such a matter, one hardly expects a man of Paul Lessingham's stand to talk of instinct. Atherton stared too. Then, on a sudden, he burst out. By the Lord I believe the Apostles' right. The whole place reeks to me of hanky-panky. It did as soon as I put my nose inside. In matters of prestigidation, champnel, we westerns are among the rudiments. We have everything to learn. Orientals leave us at the post. If their civilizations, what we are pleased to call extinct, their conjuring, when you get to know it, is all alive, oh! He moved towards the door. As he went, he slipped, or seemed to, all but stumbling to his knees. Something tripped me up. What's this? He was stamping on the floor with his foot. Here's a board loose. Come and lend me a hand, one of you fellows, to get it up. Who knows what mystery is beneath? I went to his aid. As he said, a board in the floor was loose. His stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble. Together we prized it out of its place, Lessingham standing by and watching us at the while. Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed. There was something there. Why, cried Atherton, it's a woman's clothing! End of Chapter 37 The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 38 The Rest of the Find It was a woman's clothing beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow, as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corsets and all, even to hat, gloves and hairpins. These latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange confusion. It seemed plain that whoever had worn those clothes had been stripped to the skin. Lessingham and Sidney stared at me in silence as I dragged them out and laid them on the floor. The dress was at the bottom. It was an alpaca, of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and ribbons, as is the fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green silk. It had perhaps been a charming confection once, and that a very recent one, but now it was all soiled and creased and torn and tumbled. The two spectators made a simultaneous pounce at it as I brought it into the light. My God! cried Sidney, it's margaries! She was wearing it when I saw her last. It's margaries! gasped Lessingham. He was clutching at the ruined costume, staring at it like a man who has just received a sentence of death. She wore it when she was with me yesterday. I told her how it suited her and how pretty she was. There was silence. It was an eloquent find. It spoke for itself. The two men gazed at the heap of feminine glories. It might have been the most wonderful sight they ever had seen. Lessingham was the first to speak. His face had all at once grown gray and haggard. What has happened to her? I replied to his question with another. Are you sure this is Miss Linden's dress? I am sure. And we're proof needed, here it is. He had found the pocket and was turning out the contents. There was a purse which contained money and some visiting cards on which were her name and address, a small bunch of keys with her name plate attached, a handkerchief with her initials in a corner. The question of ownership was placed beyond a doubt. You see, said Lessingham, exhibiting the money, which was in the purse, it is not robbery which has been attempted. Here are two ten-pound notes and one for five, besides gold and silver, over thirty pounds in all. Atherton, who had been turning over the accumulation of rubbish between the joists, proclaimed another find. Here are her rings and watch and a bracelet. No, it certainly does not look as if theft had been an object. Lessingham was glowering at him with knitted brows. I have to thank you for this. Sidney was unwontedly meek. You are hard on me, Lessingham, harder than I deserve. I had rather have thrown away my own life than have suffered misadventure to have come to her. Yours are idle words. Had you not meddled, this would not have happened. A fool works more mischief with his folly than of malice prepence. If hurt has befallen, Marjorie Linden, you shall account for it to me with your life's blood. Let it be so, said Sidney. I am content. If hurt has come to Marjorie, God knows that I am willing enough that death should come to me. While they wrangled, I continued to search. A little to one side, under the flooring, which was still intact, I saw something gleam. By stretching out my hand, I could just manage to reach it. It was a long plate of women's hair. It had been cut off at the roots, so close to the head in one place that the scalp itself had been cut, so the hair was clotted with blood. They were so occupied with each other that they took no notice of me. I had to call their attention to my discovery. Gentlemen, I fear that I have here something which will distress you. Is not this Miss Linden's hair? They recognized it on the instant, lessing him snatching it from my hands, pressed it to his lips. This is mine. I shall at least have something. He spoke with a grimness which was a little startling. He held the silk and tresses at arm's length. This points to murder, foul, cruel, causeless murder. As I live, I will devote my all, money, time, reputation, to gaining vengeance on the wretch who did this deed. Atherton chimed in. To that I say, Amen. He lifted his hand. God is my witness. It seems to me, gentlemen, that we move too fast. To my mind it does not by any means of necessity point to murder. On the contrary, I doubt if murder has been done. Indeed, I don't mind owning that I have a theory of my own which points all the other way. Lessing him caught me by the sleeve. Mr. Champ now tell me your theory. I will a little later. Of course it may be altogether wrong, though I fancy it is not. I will explain my reasons when we come to talk of it. But at present there are things which must be done. I vote for tearing up every board in the house, cried Sidney, and for pulling the whole infernal place to pieces. It's a conjurer's then. I shouldn't be surprised if Cabby's old gent is staring at us all the while from some people of his own. We examined the entire house, methodically, so far as we were able inch by inch. Not another board proved loose. To lift those which were nailed down required tools and those we were without. We sounded all the walls. With the exception of the party walls they were the usual lathe and plaster constructions and showed no signs of having been tampered with. The ceilings were intact. If anything was concealed in them it must have been there some time. The cement was old and dirty. We took the closet to pieces, examined the chimneys, peered into the kitchen oven and the copper. In short we pried into everything which, with the limited means at our disposal, could be pried into. Without result. At the end we found ourselves dusty, dirty, and discomfited. The cabin's old gent remained as much a mystery as ever, and no further trace had been discovered of Miss Linden. Atherton made no effort to disguise his chagrin. Now what's to be done? There seems to be nothing in the place at all, and yet that there is, and that it's the key to the whole confounded business I should be disposed to swear. In that case I would suggest that you should stay and look for it. A cadman can go and look for the requisite tools or a workman to assist you, if you like. For my part it appears to me that evidence of another sort is, for the moment, of paramount importance. And I propose to commence my search for it by making a call at the house which is over the way. I had observed, on our arrival, that the road only contained two houses which were in anything like a finished state. That which we were in, and another, some 50 or 60 yards further down on the opposite side. It was to this I referred. The twain immediately proffered their companionship. I will come with you, said Mr. Lessingham. And I echoed Sidney. We'll leave this sweet homestead in charge of the cadman. I'll pull it to pieces afterwards. He went out and spoke to the driver. Cabby, we're going to pay a visit to the little crib over there. You keep an eye on this one, and if you see a sign of anyone being about the place, living or dead or anyhow, you give me a yell. I shall be on the lookout and I'll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson. You bet I'll yell. I'll raise the hair right off you. The fellow grinned. But I don't know if you gents are hiring me by the day. I want to change my horse. He ought to have been in his stable a couple of hours ago. Never mind your horse, let him rest a couple of hours extra tomorrow and to make up for those he has lost today. I'll take care you don't lose anything by this little job or your horse either. Either way, look here. This will be better than yelling. Taking a revolver out of his trousers pocket, he handed it up to the grinning driver. If that old gent of yours does appear, you have a pop at him. I shall hear that easier than a yell. You can put a bullet through him if you like. I give you my word it won't be murder. I don't care if it is, declared the cab man, and to link the weapon like one who is familiar with arms of precision. I used to fancy my revolver shooting when I was with the colors, and if I do get a chance I'll put a shot through the old hunks, if only to prove to you that I am no liar. Whether the man was in earnest or not I could not tell, nor whether Atherton meant what he said in answer. If you shoot him I'll give you fifty pounds. All right. The driver laughed. I'll do my best to earn that fifty. It was a bow window, and as she was seated in the bay looking right in our direction she could hardly have failed to see us as we advanced. Indeed she continued to stare at us all the while with placid calmness. Yet I knocked once, twice, and yet again without the slightest notice of being taken of my summons. Sydney gave expression to his impatience in his own peculiar vein. Knockers in this part of the world seem intended for ornament only. Nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they're used. The old lady upstairs must be either deaf or dotty. He went out into the road to see if she was still there. She's looking at me as calmly as you please. What does she think we're doing here I wonder. Playing a tune on her front door by way of a little amusement? Madame. He took off his hat and waved it to her. Madame, might I observe that if you won't condescend to notice that we're here, your front door will run the risk of being severely injured. She don't care for me any more than if I was nothing at all. Sound another tattoo upon that knocker. Perhaps she's so deaf that nothing short of a cataclysmal uproar will reach her auditory nerves. She immediately proved, however, that she was nothing of the sort. Hardly had the sounds of my further knocking died away than throwing up the window. She thrust out her head and addressed me in a fashion which, under the circumstances, was as unexpected as it was uncalled for. Now, young man, you needn't be in such a hurry. Sydney explained. Pardon me, Madame. It's not so much a hurry we're in as pressed for time. This is a matter of life and death. She turned her attention to Sydney, speaking with a frankness for which I imagine he was unprepared. I don't want none of your imprints, young man. I've seen you before. You've been hanging about here the whole day long, and I don't like the looks of you, and so I'll let you know. That's my front door and that's my knocker. I'll come down and open when I like, but I'm not going to be hurried, and if the knocker's so much as touched again, I won't come down at all. She closed the window with a bang. Sydney seemed divided between mirth and indignation. That's a nice old lady, on my honor, one of the good old crusty sort. Agreeable characters this neighborhood seems to grow. The sojourn hereabouts should do one good. Unfortunately, I don't feel disposed just now to stand and kick my heels in the road. Again, saluting the old dame by raising his head, he shouted to her at the top of his voice. Madame, I beg ten thousand pardons for troubling you, but this is a matter in which every second is of vital importance. Would you allow me to ask you one or two questions? Up went the window, alchain the old lady's head. Now, young man, you needn't put yourself out to holler at me. I won't be hollered at. I'll come down and open that door in five minutes by the clock of my mantelpiece, and not a moment before. The fiat delivered, down came the window. Sydney looked rueful. He consulted his watch. I don't know what you think, champ, now, but I really doubt if this comfortable creature can tell us anything worth waiting another five minutes to hear. We mustn't let the grass grow under our feet, and time is getting on. I was of different opinion, and said so. I'm afraid, Atherton, that I can't agree with you. She seems to have noticed you hanging about all day, and it is at least possible that she has noticed a good deal which would be well worth our hearing. What more promising witness are we likely to find? Her house is the only one which overlooks the one we have just quitted. I am of opinion that it may not only prove well worth our while to wait five minutes, but also that it would be as well, if possible, not to offend her, by the way. She's not likely to afford us the information we require if you do. Good. If that's what you think, I'm sure I'm willing to wait. Only it's to be hoped that that clock upon her mantelpiece moves quicker than its mistress. Presently, when about a minute had gone, he called to the cab man. Seeing a sign of anything? The cab man shouted back, Nair sign! You'll hear a sound of popcorns when I do. Those five minutes did seem long ones, but at last Sydney, from his post-avantage in the road, informed us that the old lady was moving. She's getting up. She's leaving the window. Let's hope to goodness she's coming down to open the door. That's been the longest five minutes I've known. I could hear on certain footsteps descending the stairs. They came along the passage. The door was opened, on the chain. The old lady peered at us through an aperture of about six inches. I don't know what you young men think you're after, but have all three of you in my house, I won't. I'll have him in you. A skinny finger was pointed to Lushingham and me. Then it was directed towards Atherton. But have him, I won't. So if it's anything particular you want to say to me, you'll just tell him to go away. On hearing this, Sydney's humility was abject. His hat was in his hand, he bent himself double. Suffer me to make you a million apologies, madame. If I have in any way offended you, nothing I assure you could have been farther from my intention or from my thoughts. I don't want none of your apologies, and I don't want none of you neither. I don't like the looks of you, and so I tell you. Before I let anybody into my house, you'll have to sling your hook. The door was banged in our faces. I turned to Sydney. The sooner you go, the better it will be for us. You can wait for us over the way. He shrugged his shoulders and groaned, half in jest, half in earnest. If I must, I suppose I must. It's the first time I've been refused admittance to a lady's house in all my life. What have I done to deserve this thing? If you keep me waiting long, I'll tear that infernal den to pieces. He sauntered across the road, viciously kicking the stones as he went. The door reopened. Has that other young man gone? He has. Then now I'll let you in. Have him inside my house, I won't. The chain was removed. Blessing him and I entered. Then the door was refastened and the chain replaced. Our hostess showed us into the front room of the ground floor. It was sparsely furnished and not too clean. But there were chairs enough for us to sit upon, which she insisted on our occupying. Sit down, do. I can't abide to see folks standing. It gives me the fidgets. So as soon as we were seated, without any overture on our parts, she plunged in media's res. I know what it is you've come about. I know. You want me to tell you who it is as it lives in the house over the road? Well, I can tell you, and I dare bet a shilling that I'm about the only one who can. I inclined my head. Indeed. Is that so, madam? She was huffed at once. Don't madam me. I can't bear none of your lip service. I'm a plain-spoken woman, that's what I am, and I like other people's tongues to be as plain as mine. My name's Miss Louisa Coleman, but I'm generally called Miss Coleman. I'm only called Louisa by my relatives. Since she was apparently between seventy and eighty, and looked every year of her apparent age, I deemed that possible. Miss Coleman was evidently a character. If one was desirous of getting information out of her, it would be necessary to allow her to impart in it her own manner. To endeavor to induce her to impart it in anybody else's would be time-clean wasted. We had Sidney's fate before our eyes. She started with a sort of roundabout preamble. This property is mine. It was left me by my uncle, the late George Henry Jobson. He's buried in Hammersmith Cemetery just over the way. He left me the whole of it. It's one of the finest building sites near London, and it increases in value every year. And I'm not going to let it for another twenty, by which time the value will have more than troubled. So if that is what you've come about, as heaps of people do, you might have saved yourselves the trouble. I keep the board standing just to let people know that the ground is to let. Though, as I say it, it won't be for another twenty years when it'll be for the erection of high-class mansions only. Same as there in Grosvenor Square. No shops or public houses and none of your shanties. I live in this place just to keep an eye on the property. And as for the house over the way, I've never tried to let it. And it never has been let, not until a month ago, when one morning I had this letter. You can see it if you like. She handed me a greasy envelope which she fettered out of a capacious pocket, which was suspended from her waist, and which she had to lift up her skirt to reach. The envelope was addressed in unformed characters, Ms. Louisa Coleman, that wrote a dendrons, Convavolas Avenue, High Oaks Park, West Kensington. I felt if the writer had not been of a humorous turn of mind, and drawn on his imagination, and this really was the lady's correct address, and there must be something in a name. The letter within was written in the same straggling characterless calligraphy. I should have said, had I been asked offhand, that the whole thing was the composition of a servant girl. The composition was about Anapara with the writing. The undersigned would be obliged if Ms. Coleman would let her empty house. I do not know the rent but send fifty pounds, if more will send. Please address Muhammad El-Kir Post Office, Slego Street, London. It struck me as being a singular in application for a tenancy, as I remembered to have encountered. When I passed it on to Lessingham, he seemed to think so, too. This is a curious letter, Ms. Coleman. So I thought, and still more so when I found the fifty pounds inside. There were five ten pound notes, all loose, and the letter not even registered. If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, I should have said at the most not more than twenty pounds, because between you and me it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands. I had had sufficient evidence of the truth of this altogether, apart from the landlady's frank admission. Why, for all he could have done to help himself, I might have kept the money, and only sent him a receipt for a quarter. And some folks would have done, but I'm not one of that sort myself, and shouldn't care to be. So I sent this here party, I never could pronounce his name, and never shall, a receipt for a year. Ms. Coleman paused to smooth her apron and consider. Well, the receipt should have reached this here party on the Thursday morning, as it were. I posted it on the Wednesday night, and on the Thursday after breakfast, I thought I'd go over the way to see if there were any little thing I could do, because there wasn't hardly a whole pan of glass in the place, when I all but went all of a heap. When I looked across the road, blessed that the party wasn't in already, at least as much as he ever was in, which so far as I can make out, never as being anything particular, though how he got in, unless it was through a window in the middle of the night, is more than I should care to say. It was nobody in the house when I went to bed, that I could pretty nearly take my Bible oath. Yet there was the blind up at the parlor, and what's more, it was down. And it's been down pretty nearly ever since. Well, I says to myself, for right down imperence, this beats anything. Why, he's in the place before, he knows if I'll let him have it. Perhaps he thinks I haven't got a word to say in the matter, fifty pounds, or no fifty pounds. I'll soon show him. So I slips on my bonnet, and I walks over the road, and I hammers at the door. Well, I've seen people hammering since then, many a one, and how they've kept it up has puzzled me. For an hour some of them. But I was the first one as begun it. I hammers and I hammers and I kept on hammering, but it wasn't no more use than if I'd been hammering at a tombstone. So I start to wrap it at the window, but that wasn't no use neither. So I goes round behind and I hammers at the back door. But there I couldn't make anyone here know how. So I says to myself, perhaps the party as is in ain't in, in a manner of speaking. But I'll keep an eye on the house. And when he is in, I'll take care that he ain't out again before I've had a word to say. So I come back home, and as I said I would, I kept an eye on the house the whole of that live long day. But never a soul went either out or in. But the next day, which it was a Friday, I got out of bed, about five o'clock, to see if it was raining, through my having an idea of taking a little excursion if the weather was fine, when I see a party coming down the road. He had on one of them dirty colored bed cover sort of things, and it was wrapped all over his head and round his body like, as I'd been told, than their Arabs wear, and indeed I've seen them in them myself at West Brompton, when they was in that exhibition there. It was quite fine and broad day, and I see him as plainly as I see you. He comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at the house over the way, opens the front door and lets himself in. So I says to myself, there you are. Well, Mr. Arab, or whatever, or whoever you may be, I'll take good care that you don't go out again before you've had a word for me. I'll show you that landlady's had their rights, like other Christians in this country, however it may be in yours. So I kept an eye on the house to see that he didn't go out again, and nobody never didn't, and between seven and eight I goes and I knocks at the door, because I thought to myself that the earlier I was the better it might be. If you'll believe me, no more notice was taken of me than if I was one of the dead. I hammers and I hammers till my wrist was aching. I daresay I hammer twenty times, and then I went round to the back door and I hammers at that. But it wasn't the least good in the world. I was that provoked to think I should be treated as if I was nothing and nobody by a dirty foreigner who went about in a bedgown through the public streets, that it was all I could do to hold myself. I comes round to the front again and I starts hammering at the window, with every knuckle on my hands and I calls out, I miss Louisa Coleman and I'm the owner of this house and you can't deceive me. I saw you come in and you're in now, and if you don't come and speak to me at this moment I'll have the police. All of a sudden when I was least expecting it and was hammering my very heartest at the pain, up goes the blind and up goes the window too. And the most awful looking creature ever I heard of, not to mention seeing, puts his head right into my face. It was more like a hideous baboon than anything else, let alone a man. I was struck all of a heap and plumped down on the little wall and all but tumbles head over heels backwards. And he starts shrieking in a sort of kind of English and in such a voice as I'd never heard the like. It was like a rusty steam engine. Go away, go away, I don't want you. I will not have you, never. You have your 50 pounds, you have your money. That is the whole of you. That is all you want, you come to me no more, never, never no more, or you be sorry, go away. I did go away and that as fast as ever my legs would carry me. What with his looks and what with his voice and what with the way that he went on I was nothing but a mass of trembling. As for answering him back or giving him a piece of my mind as I had meant to, I wouldn't have done it not for a thousand pounds. I don't mind confessing between you and me that I had to swallow four cups of tea right straight away before my nerves were steady. Well, I says to myself when I did feel as it might be a little more easy. You never have let that house before and now you've let it with a vengeance, so you have. If that there new tenant of yours isn't the greatest villain that ever went unhung it must be because he's got near relations, what's as bad as himself. Because two families like his I'm sure they're campy. A nice sort of Arab party to have sleeping over the road he is. But after a time I cools down as it were because I'm one of them sort as likes to see on both sides of a question. After all I says to myself he has paid his rent and fifty pounds is fifty pounds. I doubt if the whole house is worth much more and he can't do much damage to it whatever he does. I shouldn't have minded so far as that went if he'd set fire to the place for between ourselves it's insured for a good bid over its value. So I decided that I'd let things be as they were and see how they went on. But from that hour to this I've never spoken to the man and never wanted to and wouldn't out of my own free will not for a shilling of time. That face of his will haunt me if I lived till Noah as the saying is. I've seen him going in and out at all hours of the day and night. That Arab party's a mystery if ever there was one. He always goes tearing along as if he's flying for his life. Lots of people have come to the house all sorts of kinds men and women. They've been mostly women and even little children. I've seen them hammer and hammer at the front door but never one have I seen let in or yet seen taken any notice of and I think I may say and yet tell no lie that I've scarcely took my eye off the house since he's been inside it over and over again in the middle of the night have I got up to have a look so that I've not missed much that has took place. What's puzzled me is the noises that's come from the house sometimes for days together there's been not a sound it might have been a house of the dead and then all through the night there have been yells and screeches squawks and screams never heard nothing like it I've thought and more than once that the devil himself must be in that front room let alone all the rest of his demons and ask for cats where they've come from I can't think I didn't use to notice hardly a cat in the neighborhood till that their Arab party came and there isn't much to attract them but since he came here there's been regiments sometimes at night there's been troops about the place screeching like mad I've wished them farther I can tell you that Arab party must be fond of them I've seen them inside the house at the windows upstairs and downstairs as it seems to me it doesn't at a time end of chapter 39 the beetle by Richard Marsh chapter 40 what miss Coleman saw through the window as miss Coleman had paused as if her narrative was approaching a conclusion I judged it expedient to make an attempt to bring the record as quickly as possible up to date I take it miss Coleman that you have observed what has occurred in the house today she tightened her nutcracker jaws and glared at me disdainfully her dignity was ruffled I'm coming to it aren't I if you'll let me if you've got no manners I'll learn you some one doesn't like to be hurried at my time of life young man I was meekly silent plainly if she was to talk everyone else must listen during the last few days there have been some queer goings on over the road out of the common queer I mean for goodness knows that they always have been queer enough that Arab party has been footing about like a creature possessed I've seen him going in and out 20 times a day this morning she paused to fix her eyes on lessing him she apparently observed his growing interest as she approached the subject which had brought us there and resented it don't look at me like that young man because I won't have it and as for questions I may answer questions when I'm done but don't you dare to ask me one before because I won't be interrupted up to then lessing him had not spoken a word but it seemed as if she was endowed with the faculty of perceiving the huge volume of the words which he had left unuttered this morning as I've said already she glanced at lessing him as if she defied his contradiction when that Arab party came home it was just on the stroke of seven I know what was the exact time because when I went to the door to the milkman my clock was striking the half hour and I always keep it 30 minutes fast as I was taking the milk the man said to me hello miss Coleman here's your friend coming along what friend I says for I ain't got no friends as I know round here nor yet I hope no enemies neither and I looks round and there was the Arab party come and tearing down the road his bed cover thing all flying in the wind and his arms straight out in front of him I never did see anyone go at such a pace my goodness I says I wonder he don't do himself an injury I wonder someone else don't do him an injury says the milkman the very side of him is enough to make my milk go sour and he picked up his pale and went away quite grumpy though what the Arab party's done to him is more than I can say I have always noticed that milkman's tempers short like his measure I wasn't best pleased with him for speaking of that Arab party as my friend which he never has been and never won't be and never could be neither five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone and that their Arab party was safe inside three of them was commercials that I know because afterwards they came to me but of course they none of them got no chance with that their Arab party except of hammering at his front door which ain't what you might call a paying game nor nice for the temper but for that I don't blame him for if once those commercials do begin talking they'll talk forever now I'm coming to this afternoon I thought it was about time though for the life of me I did not dare to hint as much well it might have been three or it might have been half past anyhow it was there abouts when up there comes two men and a woman which one of the men was that young man what's a friend of yours oh I says to myself here's something new and collars I wonder what it is they're wanting that young man what was a friend of yours he starts hammering and hammering as the custom was with everyone who came and as usual no more notice was taken of him than nothing though I knew at the time the Arab party was indoors at this point I felt that at all hazards I must interpose a question you are sure he was indoors she took it better than I feared she might of course I'm sure hadn't I seen him come in at seven and he never hadn't gone out since for I don't believe that I'd taken my eyes off the place now for two minutes together and I'd never had a sight of him if he wasn't indoors where was he then for the moment so far as I was concerned the query was unanswerable she triumphantly continued instead of doing what most did when they'd had enough of hammering and going away these three went round to the bag and I'm blessed if they mustn't have got through the kitchen window woman and all for all of a sudden the blind in the front room was pulled not up but down dragged down it was and there was that young man what's a friend of yours standing with it in his hand well I says to myself if that ain't cool I should like to know what is if when you ain't let in you can let yourself in and that without so much a saying by your leave or with your leave things is coming to a pretty pass wherever can that Arab party be and whatever can he be thinking of to let them go on like that because that he's the sort to allow liberty to be took with him and say nothing I don't believe every moment I expect to hear a noise and see a row begin but so far as I could make out all was quiet and there wasn't nothing of the kind so I says to myself there's more in this than meets the eye and then three parties must have right upon their side or they wouldn't be doing what they're doing in the way they are there'd be a shindy presently in about five minutes the front door opens and a young man not the one what's your friend but the other comes sailing out and through the gate and down the road a stiffened upright as a grand a deer and never seen anyone walk more upright and few as fast at his heels comes the young man what is your friend and it seems to me that he could make out what this other was a doing of I says to myself there's been a quarrel between them two and him as has gone has hooked it this young man what is your friend he stood at the gate all of a fidget staring after the other with all his eyes as if he couldn't think what to make of him and the young woman she stood on the doorstep staring after him too as the young man what had hooked it turned the corner and was out of sight all at once your friend he seemed to make up his mind and he started off running as hard as he could pelt and the young woman was left alone I expected every minute to see him come back with the other young man and the young woman by the way she hung about the gate she seemed to expect it to but no nothing of the kind so when as I expect she had enough of waiting she went into the house again and I see her past the front room window after a while back she comes to the gate and stands looking and looking but nothing was to be seen of either of them young men when she'd been at the gate I dare say five minutes back she goes into the house and I never saw nothing of her again you never saw anything of her again are you sure she went back into the house as sure as I am that I see you I suppose that you didn't keep a constant watch upon the premises but that's just what I do I felt something queer was going on and I made up my mind to see it through and when I make up my mind to do a thing like that I'm not easy to turn aside I never moved off the chair at my bedroom window and I never took my eyes off the house not till you come knocking at my front door but since the young lady certainly not in the house at present she must have alluded your observation and in some manner have left it without you seeing her I don't believe she did I don't see how she could have done there's something queer about that house since the arrow party's been inside it but though I didn't see her I did see someone else who was that a young man a young man yes a young man and that's what puzzled me and what's been puzzling me ever since foresee him go in I never did do can you describe him not as to the face for he wore dirty cloth cab pulled down right over it and he walked so quickly that I never had a proper look but I should know him anywhere if I saw him if only because of his clothes and his walk what was there peculiar about his clothes and his walk why his clothes were that old and torn and dirty that a ragman wouldn't have given a thank you for them and as for fit there wasn't none they hung upon him like a scarecrow he was a regular figure of fun I should think the boys would call after him if they saw him in the street as for his walk he walked off just like the first young man had done he strutted along with his shoulders back and his head in the air and that stiff and straight that my kitchen poker would have looked crooked beside of him did nothing happen to attract your attention between the young ladies going back into the house and the coming of this young man miss Coleman cogitated now you mention it there did though I should have forgotten all about it if you hadn't asked me that comes if you're not letting me to tell you the tale my own way about 20 minutes after the young woman had gone in someone put up the blind in the front room which that young man had dragged right down I couldn't see who it was for the blind was between us and it was about 10 minutes after that young man came marching out and then what followed why in about another 10 minutes that our party himself comes scooting through the door the Arab party yes the Arab party aside of him took me clean it back where he'd been and what he'd been doing with himself why them their people played high spy high about his premises I'd have given a shilling out of my pocket to have known but there he was as large as life and carrying a bundle a bundle a bundle on his head like a muffin man carries his tray it was a great thing you never would have thought he could have carried it and it was easy to see that it was as much as he could manage it bent him nearly double and he went crawling along like a snail it took him quite a time to get to the end of the road Mr. Lessingham leaped up from his seat crying Marjorie was in that bundle I doubted I said he moved about the room distractedly wringing his hands she was she must have been God help us all I repeat that I doubt it if you will be advised by me you will wait a while before you arrive at any such conclusion all at once there was a tapping at the window pane atherton was staring at us from without he shouted through the glass come out of that you fossils I've news for you end of chapter 40 the beetle by Richard Marsh chapter 41 the constable his clue and the cab miss Coleman got up in a fluster went hovering to the door I won't have that young man in my house I won't have him don't let him dare to put his nose across my doorstep I endeavored to appease her perturbation I promise you that he shall not come in miss Coleman my friend here and I will go and speak to him outside she held the front door open just wide enough to enable Lessingham and me to slip through then she shut it after us with a bang she evidently had a strong objection to any intrusion on Sydney's part standing without the gate he saluted us with a characteristic vigor which was scarcely flattering to our late hostess behind him was a constable I hope you two have been muted in with that old pussy long enough while you've been tittle tattling I've been doing listen to what this Bobby's got to say the constable his thumbs thrust inside his belt wore an indulgent smile upon his countenance he seemed to find Sydney amusing he spoke in a deep bass voice as if it issued from his boots I don't know that I've got anything to say it was plain that Sydney thought otherwise you wait till I've given this pretty pair of gossips a lead officer then I'll trot you out he turned to us after I'd poked my nose into every dashed hole in that infernal then and been rewarded with nothing but a pain in the back from my trouble I stood cooling my heels on the doorstep wondering if I shouldn't fight the cab man or get him to fight me just to pass the time away for he says he can box and he looks it when who should come strolling along but this magnificent example of the metropolitan constabulary he waved his hand towards the policeman whose grin grew wider I looked at him and he looked at me and then we'd had enough of admiring each other's fine features and striking proportions he said to me has he gone I said who Baxter or Bob Brown he said no the Arab I said what do you know about any Arab he said well I saw him in the Broadway about three quarters of an hour ago and then seeing you here and the house all open I wonder if he had gone for good with that I almost jumped out of my skin though you can bet your life I never showed it I said how do you know it was he he said it was him right enough there's no doubt about that if you've seen him once you're not likely to forget him where was he going he was talking to a cab man four-wheeler he'd got a great bundle on his head wanted to take it inside with him cab man didn't seem to see it that was enough for me I picked this most deserving officer up in my arms and carried him across the road to you two fellows like a flash of lightning since the policeman was six feet three or four and more than sufficiently broad in proportion his scarcely seemed the kind of figure to be picked up in anybody's arms and carried like a flash of lightning which as his smile grew more indulgent he himself appeared to think still even allowing for atherton's exaggeration the news which he had brought was sufficiently important I questioned the constable upon my own account this is my card officer probably before the day is over a charge of very serious character will be preferred against the person who has been residing in the house over the way in the meantime it is of the utmost importance that a watch should be kept upon his movements I suppose you have no sort of doubt that the person you saw on the Broadway was the one in question not a morsel I know him as well as I do my own brother we all do upon this beat he's known amongst us as the Arab I've had my eye on him ever since he came to the place a queer fish he is I always have said that he's up to some game or other I never came across one like him for flying about in all sorts of weather at all hours of the night always tearing along as if for his life as I was telling this gentleman I saw him in the Broadway well now it's about an hour since perhaps a little more I was coming on duty when I saw a crowd in front of the district railway station and there was the Arab having a sort of argument with the cab man he had a great bundle on his head five or six feet long perhaps longer he wanted to take this great bundle with him into the cab and the cab man he didn't see it you didn't wait to see him drive off no I had in time I was due at the station I was cutting it pretty fine as it was you didn't speak to him or to the cab man no it wasn't any business of mine you understand the whole thing just caught my eye as I was passing and you didn't take the cab man's number no well as far as that goes it wasn't needful I know the cab man his name and all about him his stables in Bradmore I whipped out my notebook give me his address I don't know what his Christian name is Tom I believe but I'm not sure anyhow his surname's Ellis and his address is church muse street St. John's Road Bradmore I don't know his number but anyone will tell you which is his place if you ask for four wheel Ellis that's the name he's known by among his pals because of his driving a four-wheeler thank you officer I'm obliged to you to have crowns changed hands if you will keep an eye on the house and advise me at the address which you will find at my card of anything which takes place there during the next few days you will do me a service we had clambered back into the handsome the driver was just about to start when the constable was struck by a sudden thought one moment sir blessed if I wasn't going to forget the most important bit of all I did hear him tell Ellis where to drive him to he kept saying it over and over again in that queer lingo of his Waterloo Railway Station Waterloo Railway Station all right said Ellis I'll drive you to Waterloo Railway Station right enough only I'm not going to have that bundle of yours inside my cab there isn't room for it so you put it on the roof to Waterloo Railway Station said the Arab I take my bundle with me to Waterloo Railway Station I take it with me who says you don't take it with you said Ellis you can take it and 20 more besides for all I care only you don't take it inside my cab put it on the roof I take it with me to Waterloo Railway Station said the Arab and there they were wrangling and jangling and neither seeming to be able to make out what the other was after and the people all laughing Waterloo Railway Station you are sure that was what he said I'll take my oath to it because I said to myself when I heard it I wonder what you'll have to pay for that little lot for the district railway stations outside the four mile radius as we drove off I was inclined to ask myself a little bitterly and perhaps unjustly if it were not characteristic of the average London policeman to almost forget the most important part of his information at any rate to leave it to the last then only to bring it to the front on having his palm crossed with silver as the handsome bold along we three had what occasionally approached the warm discussion Marjorie was in that bundle began lessing him in the most lugubrious of tones and with the most woe be gone of faces I doubted I observed she was I feel it I know it she was either dead and mutilated or gagging drug then helpless all that remains is vengeance I repeat that I doubted Atherton struck in I'm bound to say with the best will in the world to think otherwise that I agree with lessing him you were wrong it's all very well for you to talk in that cock sure way but it's easier for you to say I'm wrong than to prove it if I am wrong and if lessing him's wrong how do you explain his extraordinary insistence on taking it inside the cab with him which the Bobby describes if there wasn't something horrible awful and that bundle of his of which he feared the discovery why was he so reluctant to have it placed upon the roof there probably was something inside which he was particularly anxious should not be discovered but I doubt if it was anything of the kind which you suggest here is Marjorie in a house alone nothing has been said of her since her clothing her hair is found hidden away under the floor this scoundrel sallies forth with a huge bundle on his head the Bobby speaks of it being five or six feet long or longer a bundle which he regards with so much solicitude that he insists on never allowing it to go for a single instant out of his sight and reach what is in the thing don't all the facts most unfortunately point in one direction Mr. Lessingham covered his face with his hands and groaned I fear that Mr. Atherton is right I differ from you both Sidney at once became heated then perhaps you can tell us what was in the bundle I fancy I could make a guess at the contents or you could could you then perhaps for our sakes you'll make it and not play the oracular owl Lessingham and I are interested in this business after all it contained the bearer's personal property that and nothing more stay before you jerk me suffer me to finish if I am not mistaken as to the identity of the person whom the Constable describes as the Arab I apprehend that the contents of that bundle were of much more importance to him than if they had consisted of Miss Lyndon either dead or living more I am inclined to suspect that if the bundle was placed on the roof of the cab and if the driver did meddle with it and he did find out the contents and understand them he would have been driven out of hand stark staring mad Sidney was silent as if he reflected I imagine he perceived that there was something in what I said but what has become of Miss Lyndon I fancied that Miss Lyndon at this moment is somewhere I don't just now know exactly where but I hope very shortly to be able to give you a clear notion attired in a rotten dirty pair of boots a filthy tattered pair of trousers a ragged unwashed apology for a shirt a greasy ancient shapeless coat and a frowsy peaked cloth cap they stared at me open-eyed Atherton was the first to speak what on earth do you mean I mean that it seems to me that the facts point in the direction of my conclusions rather than yours and that very strongly too miss Coleman asserts that she saw Miss London return into the house that within a few minutes the blind was replaced at the front window and that shortly after a young man attired in the costume I have described came walking out of the front door I believe that young man was Miss Marjorie Lyndon Lessingham and Atherton both broke out into interrogations with Sydney as usual loudest but man alive what on earth should make her do a thing like that Marjorie the most retiring modest girl on all God's earth walk about in broad daylight in such a costume and for no reason at all my dear champ now you're suggesting that she first of all went mad she was in a state of trance good god champ no well then you think that juggling villain did get hold of her undoubtedly here is my view of the case mine it's only a hypothesis and you must take it for what it's worth it seems to me quite clear that the Arab as we will call the person for the sake of identification was somewhere about the premises when you thought he wasn't but where we looked upstairs and downstairs and everywhere where could he have been that as at present advised I am not prepared to say but I think you may take it for granted that he was there he hypnotized the man Holt and sent him away intending you to go after him and so being rid of you both the deuce he did champ know you write me down an ass as soon as the coast was clear he discovered himself to miss linden who I expect was disagreeably surprised and hypnotized her the hound the devil the first exclamation was leslie hams the second sydney's he then constrained her to strip herself to the skin the wretch the fiend he cut off her hair he hid in and her clothes under the floor where we found them where I think it probable that he had already some ancient masculine garments concealed by jove I shouldn't be surprised if they were halts I remember the man saying that the nice joker stripped him of his duds and certainly when I saw him and when marjorie found him he had absolutely nothing on but a queer sort of cloak can it be possible that the humorous professor of hanky-panky may all the maledictions of the accursed alight upon his head can have sent marjorie linden the daintiest damsel in the land into the streets of london rigged out in holt's old togs as to that I am not able to give an authoritative opinion but if I understand you are right it at least is possible anyhow I am disposed to think that he sent miss london after the man holt taking it for granted that he had eluded you that's it write me down an ass again then he did elude you you have yourself admitted that's because I stopped talking without mutton-headed bobby I'd have followed the man to the ends of the earth if it hadn't been for that precisely the reason is immaterial it is the fact with which we are immediately concerned he did elude you and I think you will find that miss linden and mr holt are together at this moment in men's clothing both in men's clothing or rather miss linden in a man's rags great potifer to think of marjorie like that and where are they and where they are the arab is not very far off either lessing him caught me by the arm and what diabolical mischief do you imagine that he proposes to do to her I shirk the question whatever it is it is our business to prevent his doing it and where do you think they have been taken that it will be our immediate business to endeavor to discover and here at any rate we are at waterloo end of chapter 41 the beetle by richard marsh chapter 42 the quarry doubles I turned towards the booking office on the main departure platform as I went the chief platform inspector george bellingham with whom I had some acquaintance came out of his office I stopped him mr bellingham will you be so good as to step with me to the booking office and instruct the clerk in charge to answer one or two questions which I wish to put to him I will explain to you afterwards what is their exact import but you know me sufficiently to be able to believe me when I say that they refer to a matter in which every moment is of the first importance he turned and accompanied us into the interior of the booking case to which of the clerks mr champ now do you wish to put your questions to the one who issues third class tickets to southampton bellingham back into a man who is counting a heap of money and apparently seeking to make it tally with the entries in a huge ledger which lay open before him he was a short slightly built young fellow with a pleasant face and smiling eyes mr stone this gentleman wishes to ask you one or two questions I am at his service I put my questions I want to know mr stone if in the course of the day you have issued any tickets to a person dressed in arab costume his reply was prompt I have by the last train the 725 three singles three singles and my instinct had told me rightly can you describe the person mr stone's eyes twinkled I don't know that I can except in a general way he was uncommonly old and uncommonly ugly and he had a pair of the most extraordinary eyes I ever saw they gave me a sort of all-overish feeling when I saw them glaring at me through the pigeon hole but I can tell you one thing about him he had a great bundle on his head which he steadied with one hand and as it balls out in all directions its presence didn't make him popular with other people who wanted tickets to undoubtedly this was our man you were sure he asked for three tickets certain he set three tickets to south hanthan lay down the exact fare 19 and 6 and held up three fingers like that three nasty looking fingers they were with nails as long as talons you didn't see who were his companions I didn't I didn't try to look I gave him his tickets and off he went with the people grumbling at him because that bundle of his kept getting in their way belling him touched me on the arm I can tell you all about the Arab of whom mr stone speaks my attention was called to him by his insisting on taking his bundle with him into the carriage it was an enormous thing he could hardly squeeze it through the door it occupied the entire seat but as there weren't as many passengers as usual and he wouldn't or couldn't be made to understand that his precious bundle would be safe in the luggage van along with the rest of the luggage and as he wasn't the sort of person you could argue with to any advantage I had him put into an empty compartment bundle and all was he alone then I thought so at the time he said nothing about having more than one ticket or any companions but just before the train started two other men Englishmen got into his compartment and as I came down the platform the ticket inspector at the barrier informed me that these two men were with him because he held tickets for the three which as he was a foreigner and they seemed English struck the inspector as odd could you describe the two men I couldn't not particularly but the men who had charge of the barrier might I was at the other end of the train when they got in all I noticed was that one seemed to be a commonplace looking individual and the other was dressed like a tramp all rags and tatters a disreputable looking object he appeared to be that I said to myself was Miss Marjorie Linden the lovely daughter of a famous house the wife elect of a coming statesman to Bellingham I remarked aloud I want you to strain a point Mr. Bellingham and to do me a service which I assure you you shall never have any cause to regret I want you to wire instructions down the line to detain this Arab and his companions and to keep them in custody until the receipt of further instructions they are not wanted by the police as yet but they will be as soon as I'm able to give certain information to the authorities at Scotland Yard and wanted very badly but as you will proceed for yourself until I'm able to give that information every moment is important where's the station superintendent he's gone present I'm in charge then will you do this for me I repeat that you shall never have any reason to regret it I will if you'll accept all responsibility I'll do that with the greatest pleasure Bellingham looked at his watch it's about 20 minutes to nine the train scheduled for a bashing stoke at nine six if we wire to bashing stoke at once they ought to be ready for them when they come good the wire was sent we were shown into Bellingham's office to await results Lessingham paced agitatedly to and fro he seemed to have reached the limits of his self-control and to be in a condition in which movement of some sort was an absolute necessity the mercurial Sydney on the contrary leaned back in a chair his legs stretched out in front of him his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets and stared at Lessingham as if he found relief to his feelings in watching his companion's rushlessness I for my part drew up as full of presses of the case as I deemed advisable and as time permitted which I dispatched by one of the company's police to Scotland Yard then I turned to my associates now gentlemen it's past dinnertime we may have a journey in front of us if you take my advice you'll have something to eat Lessingham shook his head I want nothing nor I echoed Sydney I started up you must pardon my saying nonsense but surely you have all men Mr. Lessingham should be aware that you will not improve the situation by rendering yourself incapable of seeing it through come and dine I hailed them off with me willy nilly to the refreshment room I dined after a fashion Mr. Lessingham swallowed with difficulty a plate of soup Sydney nibbled at a plate of the most unpromising looking chicken and ham he proved indeed more intractable than Lessingham and was not to be persuaded to tackle anything easier of digestion I was just about to take cheese after chop when Bellingham came hastening in in his hand an open telegram the birds are flown he cried flown how in reply he gave me the telegram I glanced at it it ran persons describe not in the train guard says they got out at Vauxhall have wired Vauxhall to advise you that's a level headed chap said Bellingham the man who sent that telegram his wiring to Vauxhall should save us a lot of time we ought to hear from them directly hello what's this I shouldn't be surprised if this is it as he spoke a porter entered he handed an envelope to Bellingham we all three kept our eyes fixed on the inspector's face as he opened it when he perceived the contents he gave an exclamation of surprise this Arab of yours and his two friends seem rather a curious lot Mr. Champnell he passed the paper on to me it took the form of a report Lessingham and Sydney regardless of forms and ceremonies leaned over my shoulder as I read it passengers by 730 Southampton on a rival of train complained of noises coming from a compartment in coach 8964 stated that there had been shrieks and yells ever since the train left Waterloo as if someone was being murdered an Arab and two Englishmen got out of the compartment in question apparently the party referred to in wire just a hand from bashing stoke all three declared that there was nothing the matter that they had been shouting for fun Arab gave up three third singles for Southampton saying in reply to questions that they had changed their minds and did not want to go any farther as there were no signs of a struggle or a violence nor apparently any definite cause for detention they were allowed to pass they took a four-wheeler number 09435 the Arab and one man went inside and the other man on the box they asked to be driven to commercial road Limehouse the cab has since returned driver says he put the three men down at their request in commercial road at the corner of Sutcliffe Street near the East India docks they walked up Sutcliffe Street the Englishmen in front and the Arab behind took the first turning to the right and after that he saw nothing of them the driver further states that all the way the Englishman inside who was so ragged and dirty that he was reluctant to carry him kept up a sort of wailing noise which so attracted his attention that he twice got off his box to see what was the matter and each time he said it was nothing the cab man is of opinion that both the Englishmen were of weak intellect we are of the same impression here they said nothing except that the seeming instigation of the Arab but when spoken to stared in gape like lunatics it may be mentioned that the Arab had with him an enormous bundle which he persisted in spite of all remonstrances on taking with him inside the cab as soon as I had mastered the contents of the report and perceived what I believe to be unknown to the writer himself its hideous inner meaning I turn to Bellingham with your permission mr Bellingham I will keep this communication it will be safe in my hands you will be able to get a copy and it may be necessary that I should have the original to show to the police if any inquiries are made for me from Scotland Yard tell them I have gone to commercial road and that I will report my movements from Limehouse police station in another minute we were once more traversing the streets of London three in a handsome cab end of chapter 42