INSPECTOR KENLY'S LODGER
One day at the beginning of July Detective Inspector Kenly's face as
he left the railway station and stepped out briskly homewards wore a
particularly injured air. It was not entirely owing to the sultry state
of the atmosphere, though that may have had something to do with his
frame of mind. He considered himself to be a greatly aggrieved man. In
the first place his investigations into the Flurscheim burglary had
been an abject and total failure. He had spent day and night following
up illusory clues without the slightest result. On top of this he had
been entrusted with the investigation of the stolen despatch affair,
and after three days' laborious enquiry found himself no nearer any
accurate result than he had been when he commenced, save that certain
names on the list of members of the Stock Exchange had been ticked off
as unable to afford any information. These failures he might have borne
with equanimity had they been his sole grievance. But he had another,
and being a purely personal, private, domestic grievance, it rankled
far more than any of the others.
Detective Inspector Kenly was a married man, and when Mrs. Detective
Inspector determined to have her own way, Mr. Detective Inspector,
however clever he was at circumventing the wiliest of criminals,
invariably succumbed to the wiles of the smiling lady who ruled
over his household. Happily any difference between them
was rare, but there was one subject upon which they never could agree.
The Inspector liked to keep his home to himself. He thought that his
good lady had quite enough to do to look after himself and the two
little Kenlys. But that was not Mrs. Kenly's opinion at all. She
thought that no home was complete without a lodger. To her such a thing
as a spare bedroom in her house was an abomination. She looked upon it
as so much capital lying idle, instead of being put out at interest
with some eligible young man or young woman. When he had taken Woodbine
Cottage, Melpomene Road, Wimbledon, Kenly had thought that he should
have circumvented Mrs. Kenly's little idiosyncrasy. But there were two
attics in the cottage which had not entered into his calculations. It
did not occur to him that they could be utilised for any other purpose
than as box-rooms. But Mrs. Kenly thought differently. In her eyes they
would make quite adequate, if small, bedrooms, so before he had been
settled in the house for a month, all the Inspector's arrangements were
recast, the youthful Kenlys were relegated to the attics, while the
largest bedroom on the first floor was furnished as a bed sitting-room
and a card placed in the window announced to all and sundry that
"furnished apartments" were to be secured at Woodbine Cottage.
The card did not remain there very long. Woodbine Cottage looked
so spick and span; the bright windows, the white curtains, the
spotless doorstep, and shining brass knocker were such attractive
testimonials to the quality of the accommodation to be found within,
that the eligible lodger was speedily secured. For six years
Inspector Kenly entertained a single lady of mature years and a
small income. He did not repine overmuch, for she had few friends, gave
little trouble, and was more or less of a companion to Mrs. Kenly when
his business, as it often did, took him away from home.
But, when she left, Inspector Kenly made another effort to persuade
his wife to do without "the lodger." In vain he argued that his income
was ample for the wants of the household. Mrs. Kenly would not listen.
Once again the card appeared in the window, and in due course Cornelius
Jessel, passing by, saw it there, and, being at the time in want of
a quiet retreat in a really respectable neighbourhood, thought that
the apartments, if not too expensive, would suit him. He saw the bed
sitting-room. He liked its appearance so well that he paid a week's
rent there and then in advance, and thus, when Inspector Kenly returned
home one evening, he found that he was once more possessed of a lodger.
Possibly, if Cornelius Jessel had been acquainted with the position
and occupation of the head of the household into which he had entered,
he might not have been so ready to take possession of the comfortable
bed sitting-room. But Inspector Kenly did not think it desirable to
blazon abroad his connection with Scotland Yard. He had particularly
insisted upon any lodger who entered his house remaining unacquainted
with his profession. So Cornelius Jessel had not the slightest idea
that he was living under the roof of one of the men whom he had long
ago learned to look upon as an enemy. Indeed, he had real reasons to
fear the emissaries of law and order. Not that he was by any means a
person of importance in the criminal world. He was merely one of those
backboneless creatures who have the will but lack the courage to do
any daring deed which would make them famous in the annals of crime;
one of those poor shrinking, cringing creatures who are content to
play the part of jackal to more venturesome spirits, a petty thief
sometimes, an astute writer of begging letters at others, a deviser
of petty frauds for robbing poor people of a few stamps on every
convenient occasion.
[Illustration: As she bent over him a sudden mad impulse to clasp her
in his arms seized him.]
When he had timidly asked to be shown the vacant apartments in Woodbine
Cottage, Mrs. Kenly had decided at once that he would prove amenable
to any rules and regulations she might like to impose upon him. He
agreed with such a deprecating air to every suggestion she made as
to the points which seemed desirable in a well-conducted lodger that
her heart quite warmed to him. He thought sixpence a scuttle for
coals "most reasonable." He agreed that the room was certainly worth
more than the seven and sixpence weekly paid in advance, which Mrs.
Kenly demanded for rent and attendance. He exhibited the liveliest
satisfaction when Mrs. Kenly informed him that beyond a shilling a week
for "gas" she charged "no extras," and came to a most satisfactory
arrangement regarding the meals he proposed to take at home, and the
price he was to pay for them. Mrs. Kenly thought in her own mind that
a bachelor was much more profitable than a maiden of mature years,
and congratulated herself on her luck. When she further learned from
Cornelius Jessel that he was engaged in "literary pursuits," and would
not be disturbed by many callers, though his work might sometimes keep
him in the house all day, she thought she was indeed in luck's way, and
was fully prepared to defend her action when called upon.
She found it necessary to do so from the first. Inspector Kenly
objected most strenuously to the presence of a male lodger in the
house. He objected still more when he had made the acquaintance of
his new tenant. He disliked Jessel's appearance. The pale hair, pale
complexion, pale watery eyes roused his antipathy. He disliked Jessel's
manner still more. The lodger did not walk as an ordinary man, he
glided from place to place. He glided down the stairs and out of the
front door, and he glided in again and up the stairs so that no one
ever knew whether he was in or out of the house. His apologetic manner,
his dislike of going abroad by day, his abstemiousness, his apparent
lack of acquaintances, the very decorum of his habits were to Inspector
Kenly reasons for suspicion. The Inspector was no mean judge of men,
and he dubbed Jessel thief at sight. "Some day we shall find him and
the spoons missing," he said to his wife. She laughed at the idea.
"Well, if that should happen, I shall depend upon you to recover them
for me," she replied.
She did not believe that there was any harm in the man. But the
Inspector was so certain in his own mind that he spent some hours
searching the records at Scotland Yard, after having secured some of
his tenant's finger prints by a trick. The search was quite useless.
There was no record against him. Hitherto he had always managed to
evade the law.
It was the fact that he had been unable to secure the proof he desired
that constituted Inspector Kenly's third and greatest grievance.
Everything seemed to be going wrong with him. He had been so certain
that he would be able to provide good and sufficient reasons to his
wife for getting rid of the detested lodger that, when he found that
he was unable to do so, he began to doubt whether his instincts were
playing him false.
Thus brooding he turned into Melpomene Road. Several yards before
him was an elderly man wearing a clerical collar with an overcoat
threadbare at the seams, a little black bag in his hand, and a Bible
under his arm, and slightly dragging one foot after him as he walked.
"Non-conformist parson," commented the Inspector to himself. The
stranger was looking each side of him as he passed up the street, but,
on reaching Woodbine Cottage he paused, lifted the latch of the gate
and, entering, made his way to the front door.
"A visitor for the lodger," commented the Inspector, and he passed
by his own door to the end of the road. When he returned, the
non-conformist parson had disappeared. The Inspector let himself
quietly into the house with his latchkey. An opportunity was afforded
him of learning something concerning the lodger which he determined
not to neglect. He said nothing to Mrs. Kenly as to his intention, for
his suspicion that the tenant of the first floor front was, to use
his own expressive phrase, "on the crook," might not prove capable of
demonstration. He merely said that he had business that evening, and
could only remain in the house a few minutes. So Mrs. Kenly popped
the tea in the teapot forthwith, dished up the haddock, which had
been simmering over the pan on the kitchen fire, and directed all her
attention to supplying her husband's requirements. While thus engaged
the lodger's bell rang, but she paid no heed to the summons until she
had seen that the Inspector's needs were all provided for.
"I expect Mr. Jessel wants a cup of tea for his visitor," she remarked,
when the bell tinkled a second time.
"So he has begun to have callers at last, has he?" remarked the
Inspector.
"It's the first time since he come to live with us, a month ago last
Tuesday," replied Mrs. Kenly, "and a nice-spoken old clergyman, too.
I always thought as he was a most respectable young man, and now I'm
sure of it." She bustled off to answer the bell, in the absence of the
youthful maid of all work, who had been sent out with the two young
Kenlys to picnic on the Common.
Inspector Kenly said nothing. When Mrs. Kenly returned and prepared
a tray with two cups on it, he chatted about indifferent things. He
finished his tea leisurely. "I'll just have a rinse before I go out
again," he remarked to his wife. He closed the door of the little
sitting-room behind him, and mounted the stairs. When occasion
required, Inspector Kenly, in spite of his six feet of muscular
manhood, could be as light-footed as any cat, and not a stair creaked
as he mounted them to his own bedroom, the door of which was opposite
that of the room in which the lodger was entertaining his guest. In
his own doorway he paused and listened. He could hear a murmur of
voices, that was all. Stay! His trained ear caught the sound of a name
twice repeated, "Guy Hora." It meant nothing to him, but he noted it
instinctively. The voices dropped to a murmur again, and the Inspector
returned downstairs, and, after lighting his pipe and telling his wife
that he did not expect to be very late home, he slipped out of the back
door and made his way leisurely to the end of the street.
His meal had put him in a much more contented frame of
mind, and, as he puffed away at his pipe, he smiled at the thought
that he should be engaged in keeping observation on his own house.
It reminded him of his early days in the detective force, and he
remembered how often he had waited hours without anything rewarding his
patience. This time his patience was not severely tried. He had not
finished his first pipeful of tobacco when his lodger's visitor made
his appearance, and passing along the street took a turning which led
to the nearest railway station.
Inspector Kenly walked briskly in the same direction, but by another
route. It was slightly longer than the one Lynton Hora had taken, but
Kenly was there first. He was on the platform before Hora, and was in
the guard's brake almost as soon as the train came into the platform.
He observed that his lodger's visitor carefully scanned the carriages
as they passed him and entered an empty first-class compartment. "Hard
up parsons don't usually travel first-class," commented Inspector Kenly
to himself.
He kept his eyes fixed on the door of that compartment all the
way to the terminus, but it remained unopened until Waterloo was
reached. There, watching more keenly than ever, he chuckled at his
own acumen when his observation was rewarded by the sight of a very
differently attired person to the shabbily clad old clergyman, who had
entered the compartment, stepping from the train. The clerical hat
and collar and the spectacles had disappeared. The shabby overcoat
carried on Hora's arm revealed only a new silk lining which was not
out of keeping with the smartly cut lounge suit Hora was wearing
beneath. His stoop abandoned, he seemed three or four inches
taller, but he still carried his bag, and Kenly could not have mistaken
the limp.
The detective walked briskly along the platform to the exit of the
station, giving one glance at Hora's face as he passed him. Hora was
signalling a cab and paid no attention. At the exit the detective
paused. The cab which contained the man he was following drove through
the gate, and he heard the address which the cabman shouted to the
clerk in the cab registry office. He gained the street, and, hailing an
empty cab passing at the moment, gave the driver an address two doors
distant from that which had reached his ears. A block in the traffic at
a street corner enabled him to catch up with the cab he pursued. Nor
did he again lose sight of it until Hora, alighting, paid the man, and
entered his own residence.
The detective looked at his watch. Seven o'clock! There was plenty
of time before him. He also dismissed his cabman, and strolled
along to the building which Hora had entered. Unless his memory
was at fault he guessed that he would have very little difficulty
in obtaining all the information he desired. He knew the block of
mansions, and he knew that a year or two previously an old comrade
of his was employed there in the capacity of hall porter. His memory
had not deceived him. As he reached the door his old comrade opened
it to allow a lady to pass. Recognition was mutual. Inspector
Kenly entered. When he left he was acquainted with all that the
servants in Westminster Mansions knew of Lynton Hora's household,
but the information he had gleaned afforded him no sort of a hint
as to the nature of the connection which existed between him and
Cornelius Jessel, the detective's literary lodger.