THE MAN WHO WAS MURDERED
The Inspector spoke to me.
‘If what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom you
are seeking may have had a finger in the pie.’
I was of the same opinion, as, apparently, were Lessingham and Sydney.
Atherton collared the youth by the shoulder which Mr Pleesman had left
disengaged.
‘What sort of looking bloke is it who’s been murdered?’
‘I dunno! I ’aven’t seen ’im! Mrs ’Enderson, she says to me! “’Gustus
Barley,” she says, “a bloke’s been murdered. That there Harab what I
chucked out ’alf a hour ago been and murdered ’im, and left ’im behind
up in my back room. You run as ’ard as you can tear and tell them there
dratted pleese what’s so fond of shovin’ their dirty noses into
respectable people’s ’ouses.” So I comes and tells yer. That’s all I
knows about it.’
We went four in the hansom which had been waiting in the street to Mrs
Henderson’s in Paradise Place,--the Inspector and we three. ‘Mr
Pleesman’ and ‘’Gustus Barley’ followed on foot. The Inspector was
explanatory.
‘Mrs Henderson keeps a sort of lodging-house,--a “Sailors’ Home” she
calls it, but no one could call it sweet. It doesn’t bear the best of
characters, and if you asked me what I thought of it, I should say in
plain English that it was a disorderly house.’
Paradise Place proved to be within three or four hundred yards of the
Station House. So far as could be seen in the dark it consisted of a
row of houses of considerable dimensions,--and also of considerable
antiquity. They opened on to two or three stone steps which led
directly into the street. At one of the doors stood an old lady with a
shawl drawn over her head. This was Mrs Henderson. She greeted us with
garrulous volubility.
‘So you ’ave come, ’ave you? I thought you never was a-comin’ that I
did.’ She recognised the Inspector. ‘It’s you, Mr Phillips, is it?’
Perceiving us, she drew a little back. ‘Who’s them ’ere parties? They
ain’t coppers?’
Mr Phillips dismissed her inquiry, curtly.
‘Never you mind who they are. What’s this about someone being murdered.’
‘Ssh!’ The old lady glanced round. ‘Don’t you speak so loud, Mr
Phillips. No one don’t know nothing about it as yet. The parties what’s
in my ’ouse is most respectable,--most! and they couldn’t abide the
notion of there being police about the place.’
‘We quite believe that, Mrs Henderson.’
The Inspector’s tone was grim.
Mrs Henderson led the way up a staircase which would have been
distinctly the better for repairs. It was necessary to pick one’s way
as one went, and as the light was defective stumbles were not
infrequent.
Our guide paused outside a door on the topmost landing. From some
mysterious recess in her apparel she produced a key.
‘It’s in ’ere. I locked the door so that nothing mightn’t be disturbed.
I knows ’ow particular you pleesmen is.’
She turned the key. We all went in--we, this time, in front, and she
behind.
A candle was guttering on a broken and dilapidated single washhand
stand. A small iron bedstead stood by its side, the clothes on which
were all tumbled and tossed. There was a rush-seated chair with a hole
in the seat,--and that, with the exception of one or two chipped pieces
of stoneware, and a small round mirror which was hung on a nail against
the wall, seemed to be all that the room contained. I could see nothing
in the shape of a murdered man. Nor, it appeared, could the Inspector
either.
‘What’s the meaning of this, Mrs Henderson? I don’t see anything here.’
‘It’s be’ind the bed, Mr Phillips. I left ’im just where I found ’im, I
wouldn’t ’ave touched ’im not for nothing, nor yet ’ave let nobody else
’ave touched ’im neither, because, as I say, I know ’ow particular you
pleesmen is.’
We all four went hastily forward. Atherton and I went to the head of
the bed, Lessingham and the Inspector, leaning right across the bed,
peeped over the side. There, on the floor in the space which was
between the bed and the wall, lay the murdered man.
At sight of him an exclamation burst from Sydney’s lips.
‘It’s Holt!’
‘Thank God!’ cried Lessingham. ‘It isn’t Marjorie!’
The relief in his tone was unmistakable. That the one was gone was
plainly nothing to him in comparison with the fact that the other was
left.
Thrusting the bed more into the centre of the room I knelt down beside
the man on the floor. A more deplorable spectacle than he presented I
have seldom witnessed. He was decently clad in a grey tweed suit, white
hat, collar and necktie, and it was perhaps that fact which made his
extreme attenuation the more conspicuous. I doubt if there was an ounce
of flesh on the whole of his body. His cheeks and the sockets of his
eyes were hollow. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheek bones,--the
bones themselves were staring through. Even his nose was wasted, so
that nothing but a ridge of cartilage remained. I put my arm beneath
his shoulder and raised him from the floor; no resistance was offered
by the body’s gravity,--he was as light as a little child.
‘I doubt,’ I said, ‘if this man has been murdered. It looks to me like
a case of starvation, or exhaustion,--possibly a combination of both.’
‘What’s that on his neck?’ asked the Inspector,--he was kneeling at my
side.
He referred to two abrasions of the skin,--one on either side of the
man’s neck.
‘They look to me like scratches. They seem pretty deep, but I don’t
think they’re sufficient in themselves to cause death.’
‘They might be, joined to an already weakened constitution. Is there
anything in his pockets?--let’s lift him on to the bed.’
We lifted him on to the bed,--a featherweight he was to lift. While the
Inspector was examining his pockets--to find them empty--a tall man
with a big black beard came bustling in. He proved to be Dr Glossop,
the local police surgeon, who had been sent for before our quitting the
Station House.
His first pronouncement, made as soon as he commenced his examination,
was, under the circumstances, sufficiently startling.
‘I don’t believe the man’s dead. Why didn’t you send for me directly
you found him?’
The question was put to Mrs Henderson.
‘Well, Dr Glossop, I wouldn’t touch ’im myself, and I wouldn’t ’ave ’im
touched by no one else, because, as I’ve said afore, I know ’ow
particular them pleesmen is.’
‘Then in that case, if he does die you’ll have had a hand in murdering
him,--that’s all.’
The lady sniggered. ‘Of course Dr Glossop, we all knows that you’ll
always ’ave your joke.’
‘You’ll find it a joke if you have to hang, as you ought to, you----’
The doctor said what he did say to himself, under his breath. I doubt
if it was flattering to Mrs Henderson. ‘Have you got any brandy in the
house?’
‘We’ve got everythink in the ’ouse for them as likes to pay for
it,--everythink.’ Then, suddenly remembering that the police were
present, and that hers were not exactly licensed premises, ‘Leastways
we can send out for it for them parties as gives us the money, being,
as is well known, always willing to oblige.’
‘Then send for some,--to the tap downstairs, if that’s the nearest! If
this man dies before you’ve brought it I’ll have you locked up as sure
as you’re a living woman.’
The arrival of the brandy was not long delayed,--but the man on the bed
had regained consciousness before it came. Opening his eyes he looked
up at the doctor bending over him.
‘Hollo, my man! that’s more like the time of day! How are you feeling?’
The patient stared hazily up at the doctor, as if his sense of
perception was not yet completely restored,--as if this big bearded man
was something altogether strange. Atherton bent down beside the doctor.
‘I’m glad to see you looking better, Mr Holt. You know me don’t you?
I’ve been running about after you all day long.’
‘You are--you are--’ The man’s eyes closed, as if the effort at
recollection exhausted him. He kept them closed as he continued to
speak.
‘I know who you are. You are--the gentleman.’
‘Yes, that’s it, I’m the gentleman,--name of Atherton.--Miss Lindon’s
friend. And I daresay you’re feeling pretty well done up, and in want
of something to eat and drink,--here’s some brandy for you.’
The doctor had some in a tumbler. He raised the patient’s head,
allowing it to trickle down his throat. The man swallowed it
mechanically, motionless, as if unconscious what it was that he was
doing. His cheeks flushed, the passing glow of colour caused their
condition of extraordinary, and, indeed, extravagant attenuation, to
be more prominent than ever. The doctor laid him back upon the bed,
feeling his pulse with one hand, while he stood and regarded him in
silence.
Then, turning to the Inspector, he said to him in an undertone:
‘If you want him to make a statement he’ll have to make it now, he’s
going fast. You won’t be able to get much out of him,--he’s too far
gone, and I shouldn’t bustle him, but get what you can.’
The Inspector came to the front, a notebook in his hand.
‘I understand from this gentleman--’ signifying Atherton--‘that your
name’s Robert Holt. I’m an Inspector of police, and I want you to tell
me what has brought you into this condition. Has anyone been assaulting
you?’
Holt, opening his eyes, glanced up at the speaker mistily, as if he
could not see him clearly,--still less understand what it was that he
was saying. Sydney, stooping over him, endeavoured to explain.
‘The Inspector wants to know how you got here, has anyone been doing
anything to you? Has anyone been hurting you?’
The man’s eyelids were partially closed. Then they opened wider and
wider. His mouth opened too. On his skeleton features there came a look
of panic fear. He was evidently struggling to speak. At last words came.
‘The beetle!’ He stopped. Then, after an effort, spoke again. ‘The
beetle!’
‘What’s he mean?’ asked the Inspector.
‘I think I understand,’ Sydney answered; then turning again to the man
in the bed. ‘Yes, I hear what you say,--the beetle. Well, has the
beetle done anything to you?’
‘It took me by the throat!’
‘Is that the meaning of the marks upon your neck?’
‘The beetle killed me.’
The lids closed. The man relapsed into a state of lethargy. The
Inspector was puzzled;--and said so.
‘What’s he mean about a beetle?’
Atherton replied.
‘I think I understand what he means,--and my friends do too. We’ll
explain afterwards. In the meantime I think I’d better get as much out
of him as I can,--while there’s time.’
‘Yes,’ said the doctor, his hand upon the patient’s pulse, ‘while
there’s time. There isn’t much--only seconds.’
Sydney endeavoured to rouse the man from his stupor.
‘You’ve been with Miss Lindon all the afternoon and evening, haven’t
you, Mr Holt?’
Atherton had reached a chord in the man’s consciousness. His lips
moved,--in painful articulation.
‘Yes--all the afternoon--and evening--God help me!’
‘I hope God will help you my poor fellow; you’ve been in need of His
help if ever man was. Miss Lindon is disguised in your old clothes,
isn’t she?’
‘Yes,--in my old clothes. My God!’
‘And where is Miss Lindon now?’
The man had been speaking with his eyes closed. Now he opened them,
wide; there came into them the former staring horror. He became
possessed by uncontrollable agitation,--half raising himself in bed.
Words came from his quivering lips as if they were only drawn from him
by the force of his anguish.
‘The beetle’s going to kill Miss Lindon.’
A momentary paroxysm seemed to shake the very foundations of his being.
His whole frame quivered. He fell back on to the bed,--ominously. The
doctor examined him in silence--while we too were still.
‘This time he’s gone for good, there’ll be no conjuring him back again.’
I felt a sudden pressure on my arm, and found that Lessingham was
clutching me with probably unconscious violence. The muscles of his
face were twitching. He trembled. I turned to the doctor.
‘Doctor, if there is any of that brandy left will you let me have it
for my friend?’
Lessingham disposed of the remainder of the ‘shillings worth.’ I rather
fancy it saved us from a scene.
The Inspector was speaking to the woman of the house.
‘Now, Mrs Henderson, perhaps you’ll tell us what all this means. Who is
this man, and how did he come in here, and who came in with him, and
what do you know about it altogether? If you’ve got anything to say,
say it, only you’d better be careful, because it’s my duty to warn you
that anything you do say may be used against you.’