CHAPTER XI
DICK REMINGTON REVIEWS THE PAST
Dick Remington also mused as he made his way through the white mist. His thoughts, put into words, ran in this wise:
"Come, old man, let us review the past, and see how we stand. If I'm not mistaken Aunt Rob has hit the nail straight on the head, and Uncle Rob made a clumsy blow at it. But my secret is mine, and I will guard it jealously.
"Dear little Florence! My chum, my comrade, almost from the day of her birth. Boys aren't generally fond of babies, but I was of her from the first; and when as a child she promised to be my wife when she grew up I did not think of it as a thistledown promise that time would lightly blow away. At that age we do not think; our hearts, our souls, are like a prism which leaps into light and colour when light and colour shine upon it. Had I been wiser I might have believed that a more enduring flower than thistledown would grow up in its place, a flower that would bloom and shed its sweetness and fragrance upon me through all the years to come. Thank God I was not wiser, for we were very happy then. It was only when graver responsibilities forced themselves upon me that I knew, as I know now, that she and she alone could bring happiness into my life. Fate willed it otherwise. It can never be.
"Would it have been otherwise had I myself been different from what I am, been firmer of purpose, had won respect and esteem for sterling qualities that are not in my nature? Who can tell? We are the sport of circumstance, and drift, and drift, and drift-as I have drifted. You are quite right, Aunt Rob. Your nephew, Dick Remington, has no stability-but he can keep his secret.
"Does Florence suspect it? Sometimes I have thought she has a fear that the love I bear for her is not the love a brother bears for his sister; sometimes I have thought there was a dumb pity in her eyes as she looked at me. And when, with this impression upon me, I have launched into light speech and manner, as though I were incapable of deeper feeling, I have noticed the relief it gave her to learn that she was mistaken. Of one thing she may be sure. That there is no sacrifice I would hesitate to make to secure her happiness-that she may rely upon me and trust me with implicit confidence-that I am her faithful watchdog, ready to die in her service without hope of reward. Yes, dear Florence-so dear that my heart aches when I think of her-be sure of that.
"She grew into beauty incomparable, and to observe this was a daily delight to me. But I love her chiefly for her gentleness, her purity, her dear womanly ways which find their best expression in her kindness and sweetness to all around her. We lived our quiet life, disturbed only by my harum-scarum habits, and then Mr. Reginald stepped into the picture-Mr. Reginald Boyd, son of Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square. That was before I took service with the old hunks, and it was because of the son that I sought and obtained a situation in the father's office. For I said to myself, 'Here is this young gentleman introducing himself simply as Mr. Reginald, when I, from my previous knowledge of him (of which he was not aware) know him to be the son of that man. What reason has he for the suppression?' There was no acquaintance between us. Happening to be in conversation one day with a constable in the neighbourhood of Catchpole Square a young gentleman passed with a flower in his coat. There was something in him that struck me as bearing a resemblance to myself, the advantage being on his side. A free and easy manner, a certain carelessness of gesture, an apparent disregard of conventionality, a bright smile (which I have not), a grace (which I have not). He gave the constable a friendly word and walked on without looking at me. 'Who is that gentleman?' I inquired. 'Mr. Reginald,' the constable answered, 'son of Samuel Boyd, though you would hardly believe it if you knew the pair of them.' I thought no more of the matter, and saw no more of Mr. Reginald, till he made his appearance one evening in Aunt Rob's house. He did not recognise me, but I knew him immediately.
"We were introduced by Florence. 'My cousin, Dick Remington,' she said, 'Mr. Reginald.' There was a blush on her cheek, a shy look in her eyes. I waited for his other name. Why did it not come? Because the name of Samuel Boyd was held in general detestation? It was a fair inference that that was his reason for concealing it.
"He became a regular visitor to the house, and I perceived that his visits were eagerly looked forward to by Florence. Have I delayed too long? I thought. Have I been foolishly silent as to the real feelings I entertain for the dear girl, and given another man the chance of occupying the place in her heart which it was my dearest wish to fill? The thought was torture; I seemed to awake from a dream. For had I spoken in time my love for her might have awakened a responsive echo in her breast. I cannot speak with certainty as to this, but it might have been. One day I saw Florence and Mr. Reginald walking out together, he speaking with animation, she listening modestly with head cast down. I was careful that they should not see me. They passed from my sight through the garden of hope and love, I pursued my way through an arid waste."
Some spiritual resemblance between the arid waste of his hopes and the arid waste of white mist through which he was walking seemed to strike him here. It brought a sudden chill to his heart. Love that was hopeless could have found no more emphatic illustration than the silence and desolation by which he was surrounded. The light of heaven had died out of the world. No star shone, no moon shed its peaceful rays upon the earth, and for a few moments he allowed the deathlike lethargy of nature to overpower him. Through the silence stole a muffled voice:
"Lost, lost for ever is the love you hoped to gain. Not for you the tender look and word, the sweet embrace, love's kiss upon your going and returning, the prattle of children's voices, the patter of little feet, the clinging of little arms. Not for you the joys of Home!"
So powerfully was he affected by these melancholy thoughts that he involuntarily raised his hand, as if to avoid a blow.
CHAPTER XII
DICK CONFESSES HOW HE BEHAVED HIMSELF IN THE SERVICE OF SAMUEL BOYD
But Dick's nature was too elastic for morbid reflections such as these to hold possession of him for any length of time.
"Come, come, old man," ran again the tenor of his musings, "this sort of thing won't do, you know. What's the use of crying for the moon? Leave that to children. Now where did I leave off? Ah-where Mr. Reginald was a regular visitor at Aunt Rob's house. All that time the name of Boyd was not mentioned by Florence or her parents. Nor did it pass my lips.
"I took service with Mr. Samuel Boyd in order to obtain a clue to his son's suppression of his name. Before I had been with him a week I gauged his character. Devoid of the least sign of generous sentiment, crafty, tricky, mean, overbearing to those in his power, fawning to those above his station from whom he hoped to obtain some advantage-such is the character of this odious man, whose son was then winning, or had won, his way into Florence's heart. If there is any truth in the adage, 'Like father, like son,' what a fate is in store for her! Fervently do I trust that this is not so, though there are tricks of inheritance from which it is impossible to escape.
"Not once did I see Mr. Reginald in his father's house, nor did Mr. Boyd make the slightest reference to him. Had Mr. Boyd any other residence in which he and his son were in the habit of meeting? No-he lived in Catchpole Square, had his meals there, slept there, transacted his business there. Yet his son was in London, within easy distance of him. It was obvious that they were not on friendly terms. I set my wits to work to ascertain the cause, but cautious as I was, I found myself baffled at every turn. Convinced that Mr. Boyd would turn me out of the house the moment his suspicions were aroused, the task I had undertaken proved more difficult than I had anticipated. If I kept secret watch upon him he kept secret watch upon me. That he had no confidence in me is not strange, for he has no confidence in any man. And the cunning tricks he played! He would leave me alone and go downstairs and slam the street door, to make me believe that he had left the house. Then, though not another sound had reached my ears, he would suddenly enter the room, treading like a cat, and with a sly smile on his lips, and his cunning eyes would wander around to assure himself that not an article had been shifted or removed.
"I remained with him three months, and discovered-nothing. During the first two months I did not tell them at home where I was employed, and they teazed me about making a secret of it. A week or so before I left Mr. Boyd's service I fired a shot straight at Mr. Reginald. It was on a Sunday, and we were sitting together, chatting as usual, when I said suddenly, 'I don't see, Aunt Rob, why I should continue to make a mystery of the work I am doing. I am clerk to Mr. Samuel Boyd, of Catchpole Square.' Mr. Reginald flushed up, but I took no notice, and went on to say that I had resolved not to stay much longer in the place-that the pay was miserable, that the kind of business done there was disreputable and execrable, and that Samuel Boyd was one of the trickiest and cunningest fellows in all London; in fact, I gave him the worst of characters, and my only excuse is that he thoroughly deserved it. 'That's another situation thrown up,' said Aunt Rob. 'Oh, Dick, Dick, a rolling stone gathers no moss.' 'Would you advise me to stop with such a man, and gather dirt?' I asked. 'No, I would not,' she answered emphatically. 'That Samuel Boyd must be an out-and-out rascal.' 'He is,' I said. 'You would hardly believe the things I've seen in his office, the pitiless ruin he brings upon people.' Mr. Reginald said never a word; the flush died out of his face, and it turned white. I looked at Florence-no sign upon her face that she knew anything of the man we were speaking of. Here was proof positive that Mr. Reginald had introduced himself under false colours.
"As all Mr. Boyd's other clerks had done, I left at a moment's notice, but I did not give him the opportunity of discharging me. I discharged him. He had played me one of his usual tricks, pretending to leave the house and sneaking in noiselessly behind my back and looking over my shoulder. It happened that, with my thoughts on Florence and Mr. Reginald, I had idly scribbled his name on a piece of paper, Mr. Reginald Boyd. Before I could put the paper away he had seen it. 'Ah,' he said, without any show of passion, 'I have found you out at last, you scoundrel!' 'Scoundrel yourself,' I cried. 'Mr. Samuel Boyd, I discharge you. I've had about enough of you.' 'I've had more than enough of you,' he snarled. 'You came here to spy upon me, did you? You and your Mr. Reginald are confederates, are you, and you wormed yourself into my service in pursuance of some plot against me. I'll prosecute the pair of you for conspiracy.' 'You are a fool as well as a knave, Mr. Samuel Boyd,' I said, laughing in his face. 'As for prosecuting me, shall I fetch a policeman, or will you go for one? I shall have something to tell him that will get into the papers. It will make fine reading.' He turned white at this. 'Go,' he said, throwing open the door. And I went, without asking for the five days' pay due to me, to which, perhaps, I was not entitled as I left him without giving him notice.
"Now, Dick, old man, what is to be done? The straight thing is to speak first to Mr. Reginald himself, and that I'll do before I'm many days older."
Here Dick's meditations came to an end. There were no indications that the fog was clearing, but his service with Samuel Boyd had made him familiar with the neighbourhood, and he threaded his way towards Catchpole Square without much difficulty. He had not met a soul on the road; the streets were quite deserted. "A man could almost fancy," he thought, "that he was walking through the vaults of death." In Shore Street-the backs of the houses in which faced the fronts of the houses in Catchpole Square-he stumbled against a human being who caught him by the arm.
"Who are you when you're at home?" demanded the man. "Here-let's have a look at you. I've had a large dose of shadders to-night; it's a relief to get hold of bone and muscle."
He pulled out his bull's-eye lamp and held it up to Dick's face, who laughingly said, "Well, what do you make of my face? You're cleverer than I am, Applebee, if you can distinguish features on such a night as this."
"Why, if it ain't Mr. Dick Remington!" cried Constable Applebee. "Beg your pardon, sir, but I've been that put out to-night that I can't be sure of anything. If anybody was to say to me, 'Applebee, that head on your shoulders don't belong to you,' I'd half believe him, I would indeed, sir. What with shadders that wouldn't give you a civil answer when you spoke to 'em, and that you could walk right through, and taking hold of flesh and blood that slipped through your fingers like a ghost, to say nothing of the fog, which is a pretty large order-well, if all that ain't enough to worry a night policeman, I'd like to know what is."
CHAPTER XIII
A LIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF DR. PYE
"Worry enough, in all conscience," said Dick, "and you've got a level head, too, if any member of the force has. You're the last man I should have expected to be scared by shadows."
"Not what you might call scared," replied Constable Applebee, unwilling to admit as much to a layman; "put out, sir, put out-that's the right word. A man may be put out in so many ways. His wife may put him out-and she often does-an underdone chop may put him out-a fractious child may put him out-likewise buttons. It's what we're born to."
"Well, say put out," said Dick with a hearty laugh. "And by shadows, too, of all things in the world! Still, one might be excused on such a night as this. The mist floats, shadows rise, and there you are. All sorts of fancies crept into my head as I walked along, and if I'd been employed on duty as monotonous as yours I have no doubt I should have heard sounds and seen shapes that have no existence."
"You talk like a book, sir."
"What was the nature of the flesh and blood that slipped through your fingers like a ghost, Applebee?"
"Human nature, sir. I'll take my oath it was a woman. I had her by the arm, and presto! she was gone!"
"A woman," said Dick, thinking of Mrs. Death. "Did she have a child with her, a poor little mite with a churchyard cough?"
"I don't call to mind a child. It was in Catchpole Square it happened. I shall report it."
"Of course you will," said Dick, convinced that it was Mrs. Death, but wondering why she should have been so anxious to escape. "Talking of Catchpole Square, have you seen anything this last day or two of Mr. Samuel Boyd?"
"Haven't set eyes on him for a week past. To make sure, now-is it a week? No, it was Friday night that I saw him last. I can fix the time because a carriage pulled up at Deadman's Court, and a lady got out. She went through the court, followed by the footman."
"Did she stop long, do you know?"
"Couldn't have stopped very long. I hung about a bit, and when I come round again the carriage was driving away. All sorts of people deal with Samuel Boyd, poor and rich, high and low. That house of his could tell tales."
"So could most houses, Applebee."
"True enough, sir. There's no city in the world so full of mystery as London. We're a strange lot, sir. I read in a book once that every house contains a skeleton. The human mind, sir," said Constable Applebee, philosophically, "the human mind is a box, and no one but the man who owns that mind knows what is shut up in it."
It was a pregnant opening for discussion, but Dick did not pursue it. He returned to the subject that was engrossing his thoughts.
"Samuel Boyd kept a clerk, – "
"And I pity the poor devil," interjected the constable.
"So do I. The name of his last clerk is Abel Death. You've noticed him, I dare say."
"Oh, yes, I've noticed him. A weedy sort of chap-looks as it he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders. I didn't know his name, though. Abel Death! If it was mine, I'd change it."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"Let me think, now. It was Friday night when I saw him last. I noticed him particularly, because he staggered a bit, walked zig-zag like, as if he'd had a glass too much. That was what I thought at first, but I altered my opinion when I caught sight of his face. It wasn't so much like a man who'd been drinking, but like one who was fairly demented. Any special reason for asking about him, sir?"
"No special reason," replied Dick, not feeling himself justified in revealing what had passed in the police station, "You would call Mr. Death a respectable person, I suppose?"
"When there's nothing against a man," said Constable Applebee, "you're bound in common fairness to call him respectable. From the little I know of him I should say, poor, but respectable. If we come to that, there's plenty of poor devils in the same boat."
"Too many, Applebee. I can't help thinking of that woman you caught by the arm. It was a curious little adventure."
"It was, sir, and I don't know that I was ever more nonplussed. There's nothing curious in her being in Catchpole Square. She might have slipped in there to sleep the night out, not having money enough to pay for a bed. Pond and me happened to meet on the boundary of our beats, and we strolled into the Square. I could have swore that she was creeping along the wall; perhaps she was scared at the sight of us, and had a reason for not wanting to fall in the hands of the law."
"That will hardly hold water," said Dick. "She could have had no clearer a sight of you than you had of her. There have been too many bad deeds committed in dark places in the dead of the night, and seeing something moving that she couldn't account for, she was frightened and ran away. Did you call out to her?"
"I did. 'Now, then,' I cried, 'what are you up to?' Not a word did she answer. Then I caught hold of her; then she vanished. Which goes to prove," said Constable Applebee, contemplatively, "that she wasn't one of the regular ones. If she'd been a regular one she'd have cheeked us. Not being a regular one, what business did she have there? Anyway Catchpole Square ain't exactly the place I would choose for a night's lodging."
"Beggars can't be choosers," remarked Dick.
"Right you are, sir. They can't."
The conversation slackened, and the men walked slowly along Shore Street, the constable, like a zealous officer, trying the doors and looking up at the windows.
"The people inside," he said, "are better off than we are. They're snugly tucked up between the sheets, dreaming of pleasanter things than tramping a thick fog."
"There's somebody there," said Dick, pointing to a first floor window, where, through the mist, a light could be dimly seen, "who isn't between the sheets. See how the light shifts, like a will-o'-the-wisp."
"That's Dr. Pye's house, where the midnight oil is always burning. Yes, he's awake, the doctor; it's my belief he never sleeps. A clever gentleman, Dr. Pye, as chockful of science as an egg is of meat. Do you happen to be acquainted with him, sir?"
"No."
"A strange character, sir. The things they tell of him is beyond belief. I've heard say that he's discovered the secret of prolonging life, and of making an old man young."
"But you haven't heard that he has ever done it."
"No, or I might have asked him what his charge was for taking ten or twenty years off. Perhaps it's as well, though, to fight shy of that sort of thing. What they say of Dr. Pye may be true, or it mayn't, but you may make sure that he's always at his experiments. Pass his house at any hour of the night you like, and you may depend upon seeing that light burning in his window."
"Those are the men who make the wonderful discoveries we hear of from time to time. Think of what the world was and what it is. How did people do without reading? How did people do without gas? How did they do without steam? How did they do without electricity? That little light burning in Dr. Pye's window may mean greater wonders than ever was found in Aladdin's cave. As Shakespeare says, Applebee, 'What a piece of work is man!'"
"Ah," observed Constable Applebee, with a profound shake of his head, "he might well say that, sir."
"Putting a supposititious case," said Dick, and as Constable Applebee remarked to his wife next day when he gave her an account of this conversation, "the way he went on and the words he used fairly flabbergasted me" – "Putting a supposititious case, let us suppose that you and I fell asleep as we are standing here, and woke up in fifty years, what astounding things we should see!"
"It won't bear thinking of, sir."
"Then we won't think of it. Applebee, I am surprised that you have not asked me why I am wandering through the streets on such a night and at such an hour, when I ought to be snug in bed, dreaming of-angels."
"Who am I, sir, that I should be putting a parcel of questions to you?"
"You exhibit a delicacy for which you deserve great credit. I will make a clean breast of it, Applebee. The fact is, I am looking for a lodging."
"You always was a bit of a wag, sir," said Constable Applebee, with twinkling eyes.
"Was I? But I assure you I am not wagging now. Do you know of a room to let in a decent house in the neighbourhood, where they would give their young man lodger a latchkey?"
"Now, are you serious, sir?"
"As a judge."
"Well, then, there's Constable Pond, sir. He's taken a house in Paradise Row, and there's a room to let in it; he mentioned it to me only to-night. If you're really in earnest he'd jump at you."
"From which metaphor," said Dick, with mock seriousness, "I judge that he would consider me an eminently fit person to be entrusted with a latchkey."
"That's the ticket, sir," said Constable Applebee, bursting with laughter. "Upon my word, you're the merriest gentleman I've ever known. It's as good as a play, it is."
"Better than many I've seen, I hope," said Dick, still with his mock serious air, which confirmed Constable Applebee in his belief that the young fellow was having a joke with him. "Am I mistaken in supposing that there is a Mrs. Pond?"
"To be sure there is, and as nice a woman as ever breathed. No family at present, but my missis tells me" – here he dropped his voice, as though he were communicating a secret of a sacred nature-"that Mrs. Pond has expectations."
"May they be realised in a happy hour! I'll pay a visit to the Ponds to-morrow, and if the room is not snapped up in the meantime by another person you will hear of me as their young man lodger. Good night, Applebee."
"Good night, sir."
Constable Applebee looked after him till he was swallowed up in the prevailing gloom, and then resumed his duties.
"What a chap that is!" he ruminated. "You can't mention a subject he ain't up in. That notion of his of falling asleep and waking up in fifty years ain't half a bad one. He does put ideas into a man's head. It's an education to talk to him."
Dick did not hesitate as to his route. Turning the corner of Shore Street he walked to Deadman's Court, and through it into Catchpole Square, where he paused before the house of Samuel Boyd.
"No midnight oil burning there," he mused, his eyes searching the windows for some sign of life. "The place is as still as death itself. I'll try Mrs. Death's dodge. If Mr. Boyd comes down I'll ask him if he has a room to let."
He smiled at the notion, and applied himself to the knocker. But though he knocked, and knocked vigorously again and again, and threw stones at the upper panes of glass, and listened at the door, he heard no movement within the house.
"There's a mystery inside these walls," said Dick, "and I'll pluck out its heart, or know the reason why. But how to obtain an entrance? The adjoining houses are empty. Is there a door loose in one of them?"
There was no door loose; even if there had been, Dick, upon reflection, did not see how it would have been of assistance to him. There was a dead wall at the back of the house.
"That way, perhaps," said Dick.
He left the Square, and groped in the direction of the dead wall. It was about ten feet in height-a smooth expanse of cement, with not a foothold in it by which he could mount to the top. A rope with a grapnel at the end would meet the case, and Dick determined to procure one, and pay another visit to the place the following night.
He lingered in the neighbourhood, sitting down on a doorstep now and again, and closing his eyes for a few minutes' doze. During these intervals of insensibility the strangest fancies presented themselves. He was with Mrs. Death and Gracie in the police station, listening to the story she had told, which now was exaggerated and distorted in a thousand different ways. "My husband, my husband!" she moaned "What shall I do without him? What will the children do without him?" The police station was instantly crowded with a great number of ragged little elfs, who, with misery in their faces, wailed, "What shall we do without him? What shall we do without him?" And then, in the midst of a sudden silence, Gracie's hoarse voice, saying, "You will find father, won't you?" An appeal immediately taken up by the horde of children, "You will find father, won't you? You will find father! You will find father!" The vision faded, and he saw Abel Death staggering through a deserted street in which only one sickly yellow light was burning. He was talking to himself, and his face was convulsed with passion. Behind him slunk the figure of Samuel Boyd-and behind him, Mr. Reginald and Florence. Good God! What brought them into the tragic mystery? What possible or impossible part had they played in it? The torture of the dreamer's mind was momentarily arrested by the ringing out of one dread word, clear and shrill as from the mouth of a clarion!
"MURDER!"
Dick started to his feet, his forehead bathed in perspiration. Had the word really been uttered, and by whom? He stood in the midst of silence and darkness.