MISS BRACEGIRDLE
AND OTHERS
_Books by Stacy Aumonier_
FRIENDS AND OTHER STORIES
HEARTBEAT
JUST OUTSIDE
MISS BRACEGIRDLE AND OTHERS
OLGA BARDEL
ONE AFTER ANOTHER
QUERRILS
THE GOLDEN WINDMILL AND OTHER STORIES
MISS BRACEGIRDLE
AND OTHERS
BY
STACY AUMONIER
[Illustration: colophon]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1916, 1921, 1922, 1923, BY
STACY AUMONIER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
_First Edition_
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks are due to _The Pictorial Review Company_, _The Century
Company_, and _The Curtis Publishing Company_, for permission to
reprint the stories in this volume.
CONTENTS
PAGE
MISS BRACEGIRDLE DOES HER DUTY 1
WHERE WAS WYCH STREET? 27
THE OCTAVE OF JEALOUSY 52
THE FUNNY MAN’S DAY 82
THE BEAUTIFUL, MERCILESS LADY 108
THE ACCIDENT OF CRIME 128
“OLD FAGS” 158
THE ANGEL OF ACCOMPLISHMENT 194
THE MATCH 221
MRS. BEELBROW’S LIONS 238
A MAN OF LETTERS 251
“FACE” 269
THE BROWN WALLET 304
MISS BRACEGIRDLE
AND OTHERS
Miss Bracegirdle and Others
MISS BRACEGIRDLE DOES HER DUTY
“This is the room, madame.”
“Ah, thank you ... thank you.”
“Does it appear satisfactory to madame?”
“Oh, yes, thank you ... quite.”
“Does madame require anything further?”
“Er--if not too late, may I have a hot bath?”
“_Parfaitement_, madame. The bathroom is at the end of the passage on
the left. I will go and prepare it for madame.”
“There is one thing more.... I have had a very long journey. I am
very tired. Will you please see that I am not disturbed in the
morning until I ring.”
“Certainly, madame.”
Millicent Bracegirdle was speaking the truth--she _was_ tired. In
the sleepy cathedral town of Easingstoke, from which she came, it
was customary for everyone to speak the truth. It was customary,
moreover, for everyone to lead simple, self-denying lives--to give
up their time to good works and elevating thoughts. One had only to
glance at little Miss Bracegirdle to see that in her was epitomized
all the virtues and ideals of Easingstoke. Indeed, it was the
pursuit of duty which had brought her to the Hotel de l’Oest at
Bordeaux on this summer’s night. She had travelled from Easingstoke
to London, then without a break to Dover, crossed that horrid stretch
of sea to Calais, entrained for Paris, where she of necessity had to
spend four hours--a terrifying experience--and then had come on to
Bordeaux, arriving at midnight. The reason of this journey being that
some one had to come to Bordeaux to meet her young sister-in-law,
who was arriving the next day from South America. The sister-in-law
was married to a missionary in Paraguay, but the climate not
agreeing with her, she was returning to England. Her dear brother,
the dean, would have come himself, but the claims on his time were
so extensive, the parishioners would miss him so ... it was clearly
Millicent’s duty to go.
She had never been out of England before, and she had a horror of
travel, and an ingrained distrust of foreigners. She spoke a little
French--sufficient for the purposes of travel and for obtaining any
modest necessities, but not sufficient for carrying on any kind of
conversation. She did not deplore this latter fact, for she was of
opinion that French people were not the kind of people that one would
naturally want to have conversation with; broadly speaking, they were
not quite “nice,” in spite of their ingratiating manners.
The dear dean had given her endless advice, warning her earnestly not
to enter into conversation with strangers, to obtain all information
from the police, railway officials--in fact, any one in an official
uniform. He deeply regretted to say that he was afraid that France
was not a country for a woman to travel about in _alone_. There
were loose, bad people about, always on the lookout.... He really
thought perhaps he ought not to let her go. It was only by the
utmost persuasion, in which she rather exaggerated her knowledge of
the French language and character, her courage, and indifference to
discomfort, that she managed to carry the day.
She unpacked her valise, placed her things about the room, tried to
thrust back the little stabs of homesickness as she visualized her
darling room at the deanery. How strange and hard and unfriendly
seemed these foreign hotel bedrooms--heavy and depressing, no chintz
and lavender and photographs of ... all the dear family, the dean,
the nephews and nieces, the interior of the cathedral during harvest
festival, no samplers and needlework or coloured reproductions of the
paintings by Marcus Stone. Oh dear, how foolish she was! What did she
expect?
She disrobed and donned a dressing-gown; then, armed with a
sponge-bag and towel, she crept timidly down the passage to the
bathroom, after closing her bedroom door and turning out the light.
The gay bathroom cheered her. She wallowed luxuriously in the hot
water, regarding her slim legs with quiet satisfaction. And for the
first time since leaving home there came to her a pleasant moment--a
sense of enjoyment in her adventure. After all, it _was_ rather an
adventure, and her life had been peculiarly devoid of it. What queer
lives some people must live, travelling about, having experiences!
How old was she? Not really old--not by any means. Forty-two?
Forty-three? She had shut herself up so. She hardly ever regarded the
potentialities of age. As the world went, she was a well-preserved
woman for her age. A life of self-abnegation, simple living, healthy
walking and fresh air, had kept her younger than these hurrying,
pampered city people.
Love? yes, once when she was a young girl ... he was a schoolmaster,
a most estimable kind gentleman. They were never engaged--not
actually, but it was a kind of understood thing. For three years
it went on, this pleasant understanding and friendship. He was so
gentle, so distinguished and considerate. She would have been happy
to have continued in this strain for ever. But there was something
lacking. Stephen had curious restless lapses. From the physical
aspect of marriage she shrunk--yea, even with Stephen, who was
gentleness and kindness itself. And then one day ... one day he went
away--vanished, and never returned. They told her he had married
one of the country girls--a girl who used to work in Mrs. Forbes’s
dairy--not a very nice girl, she feared, one of these fast, pretty,
foolish women. Heigho! well, she had lived that down, destructive as
the blow appeared at the time. One lives everything down in time.
There is always work, living for others, faith, duty.... At the same
time she could sympathize with people who found satisfaction in
unusual experiences.
There would be lots to tell the dear dean when she wrote to him on
the morrow--nearly losing her spectacles on the restaurant car; the
amusing remarks of an American child on the train to Paris; the
curious food everywhere, nothing simple and plain; the two English
ladies at the hotel in Paris who told her about the death of their
uncle--the poor man being taken ill on Friday and dying on Sunday
afternoon, just before tea-time; the kindness of the hotel proprietor
who had sat up for her; the prettiness of the chambermaid. Oh, yes,
everyone was really very kind. The French people, after all, were
very nice. She had seen nothing--nothing but was quite nice and
decorous. There would be lots to tell the dean to-morrow.
Her body glowed with the friction of the towel. She again donned her
night attire and her thick, woollen dressing-gown. She tidied up
the bathroom carefully in exactly the same way she was accustomed
to do at home, then once more gripping her sponge-bag and towel,
and turning out the light, she crept down the passage to her room.
Entering the room she switched on the light and shut the door
quickly. Then one of those ridiculous things happened--just the kind
of thing you would expect to happen in a foreign hotel. The handle
of the door came off in her hand.
She ejaculated a quiet “Bother!” and sought to replace it with one
hand, the other being occupied with the towel and sponge-bag. In
doing this she behaved foolishly, for thrusting the knob carelessly
against the steel pin--without properly securing it--she only
succeeded in pushing the pin farther into the door and the knob
was not adjusted. She uttered another little “Bother” and put her
sponge-bag and towel down on the floor. She then tried to recover the
pin with her left hand but it had gone in too far.
“How very foolish!” she thought, “I shall have to ring for the
chambermaid--and perhaps the poor girl has gone to bed.”
She turned and faced the room, and suddenly the awful horror was upon
her. _There was a man asleep in her bed!_
The sight of that swarthy face on the pillow, with its black tousled
hair and heavy moustache, produced in her the most terrible moment
of her life. Her heart nearly stopped. For some seconds she could
neither think nor scream, and her first thought was: “I mustn’t
scream!”
She stood there like one paralyzed, staring at the man’s head and the
great curved hunch of his body under the clothes. When she began to
think she thought very quickly, and all her thoughts worked together.
The first vivid realization was that it wasn’t the man’s fault; it
was _her_ fault. _She was in the wrong room._ It was the Man’s room.
The rooms were identical, but there were all his things about, his
clothes thrown carelessly over chairs, his collar and tie on the
wardrobe, his great heavy boots and the strange yellow trunk. She
must get out somehow, anyhow.
She clutched once more at the door, feverishly driving her
finger-nails into the hole where the elusive pin had vanished. She
tried to force her fingers in the crack and open the door that way,
but it was of no avail. She was to all intents and purposes locked
in--locked in a bedroom in a strange hotel alone with a man ... a
foreigner ... _a Frenchman_! She must think. She must think.... She
switched off the light. If the light was off he might not wake up.
It might give her time to think how to act. It was surprising that
he had not awakened. If he _did_ wake up what would he do? How could
she explain herself? He wouldn’t believe her. No one would believe
her. In an English hotel it would be difficult enough, but here where
she wasn’t known, where they were all foreigners and consequently
antagonistic ... merciful heavens!
She _must_ get out. Should she wake the man? No, she couldn’t do
that. He might murder her. He might.... Oh, it was too awful to
contemplate! Should she scream? ring for the chambermaid? But no, it
would be the same thing. People would come rushing. They would find
her there in the strange man’s bedroom after midnight--she, Millicent
Bracegirdle, sister of the Dean of Easingstoke! Easingstoke!
Visions of Easingstoke flashed through her alarmed mind. Visions
of the news arriving, women whispering around tea-tables: “Have
you heard, my dear?... Really no one would have imagined! Her poor
brother! He will of course have to resign, you know, my dear. Have a
little more cream, my love.”
Would they put her in prison? She might be in the room for the
purpose of stealing or.... She might be in the room for the
purpose of breaking every one of the ten commandments. There
was no explaining it away. She was a ruined woman, suddenly and
irretrievably, unless she could open the door. The chimney? Should
she climb up the chimney? But where would that lead to? And then she
visualized the man pulling her down by her legs when she was already
smothered in soot. Any moment he might wake up....
She thought she heard the chambermaid going along the passage. If
she had wanted to scream, she ought to have screamed before. The
maid would know she had left the bathroom some minutes ago. Was she
going to her room? Suddenly she remembered that she had told the
chambermaid that she was not to be disturbed until she rang the next
morning. That was something. Nobody would be going to her room to
find out that she was not there.
An abrupt and desperate plan formed in her mind. It was already
getting on for one o’clock. The man was probably a quite harmless
commercial traveller or business man. He would probably get up about
seven or eight o’clock, dress quickly and go out. She would hide
under his bed until he went. Only a matter of a few hours. Men don’t
look under their beds, although she made a religious practice of
doing so herself. When he went he would be sure to open the door
all right. The handle would be lying on the floor as though it had
dropped off in the night. He would probably ring for the chambermaid
or open it with a penknife. Men were so clever at those things. When
he had gone she would creep out and steal back to her room, and then
there would be no necessity to give any explanation to any one. But
heavens! What an experience! Once under the white frill of that bed
she would be safe till the morning. In daylight nothing seemed so
terrifying.
With feline precaution she went down on her hands and knees and crept
toward the bed. What a lucky thing there was that broad white frill!
She lifted it at the foot of the bed and crept under. There was just
sufficient depth to take her slim body. The floor was fortunately
carpeted all over, but it seemed very close and dusty. Suppose she
coughed or sneezed! Anything might happen. Of course ... it would
be much more difficult to explain her presence under the bed than
to explain her presence just inside the door. She held her breath
in suspense. No sound came from above, but under this frill it
was difficult to hear anything. It was almost more nerve-racking
than hearing everything ... listening for signs and portents. This
temporary escape in any case would give her time to regard the
predicament detachedly. Up to the present she had not been able to
visualize the full significance of her action. She had in truth lost
her head. She had been like a wild animal, consumed with the sole
idea of escape ... a mouse or a cat would do this kind of thing--take
cover and lie low. If only it hadn’t all happened _abroad_! She tried
to frame sentences of explanation in French, but French escaped her.
And then--they talked so rapidly, these people. They didn’t listen.
The situation was intolerable. Would she be able to endure a night of
it?
At present she was not altogether uncomfortable, only stuffy and ...
very, very frightened. But she had to face six or seven or eight
hours of it--perhaps even then discovery in the end! The minutes
flashed by as she turned the matter over and over in her head. There
was no solution. She began to wish she had screamed or awakened
the man. She saw now that that would have been the wisest and most
politic thing to do; but she had allowed ten minutes or a quarter of
an hour to elapse from the moment when the chambermaid would know
that she had left the bathroom. They would want an explanation of
what she had been doing in the man’s bedroom all that time. Why
hadn’t she screamed before?
She lifted the frill an inch or two and listened. She thought she
heard the man breathing but she couldn’t be sure. In any case it gave
her more air. She became a little bolder, and thrust her face partly
through the frill so that she could breathe freely. She tried to
steady her nerves by concentrating on the fact that--well, there it
was. She had done it. She must make the best of it. Perhaps it would
be all right after all.
“Of course I shan’t sleep,” she kept on thinking, “I shan’t be able
to. In any case it will be safer not to sleep. I must be on the
watch.”
She set her teeth and waited grimly. Now that she had made up her
mind to see the thing through in this manner she felt a little
calmer. She almost smiled as she reflected that there would certainly
be something to tell the dear Dean when she wrote to him to-morrow.
How would he take it? Of course he would believe it--he had never
doubted a single word that she had uttered in her life, but the
story would sound so ... preposterous. In Easingstoke it would be
almost impossible to envisage such an experience. She, Millicent
Bracegirdle, spending a night under a strange man’s bed in a foreign
hotel! What would those women think? Fanny Shields and that garrulous
old Mrs. Rusbridger? Perhaps ... yes, perhaps it would be advisable
to tell the dear Dean to let the story go no further. One could
hardly expect Mrs. Rushbridger to ... not make implications ...
exaggerate.
Oh dear! What were they all doing now? They would all be asleep,
everyone in Easingstoke. Her dear brother always retired at
ten-fifteen. He would be sleeping calmly and placidly, the sleep of
the just ... breathing the clear sweet air of Sussex, not this--Oh,
it _was_ stuffy! She felt a great desire to cough. She mustn’t do
that. Yes, at nine-thirty all the servants summoned to the library--a
short service--never more than fifteen minutes, her brother didn’t
believe in a great deal of ritual--then at ten o’clock cocoa for
everyone. At ten-fifteen bed for everyone. The dear sweet bedroom
with the narrow white bed, by the side of which she had knelt every
night as long as she could remember--even in her dear mother’s
day--and said her prayers.
Prayers! Yes, that was a curious thing. This was the first night in
her life’s experience that she had not said her prayers on retiring.
The situation was certainly very peculiar ... exceptional, one might
call it. God would understand and forgive such a lapse. And yet after
all, why ... what was to prevent her saying her prayers? Of course
she couldn’t kneel in the proper devotional attitude, that would be
a physical impossibility, nevertheless, perhaps her prayers might
be just as efficacious ... if they came from the heart. So little
Miss Bracegirdle curved her body and placed her hands in a devout
attitude in front of her face and quite inaudibly murmured her
prayers under the strange man’s bed.
“Our Father which art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom
come; Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven; Give us this
day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses....”
Trespasses! Yes, surely she was trespassing on this occasion, but
God would understand. She had not wanted to trespass. She was an
unwitting sinner. Without uttering a sound she went through her usual
prayers in her heart. At the end she added fervently:
“Please God protect me from the dangers and perils of this night.”
Then she lay silent and inert, strangely soothed by the effort of
praying. “After all,” she thought, “it isn’t the attitude which
matters--it is that which occurs deep down in us.”
For the first time she began to meditate--almost to question--church
forms and dogma. If an attitude was not indispensable why--a
building, a ritual, a church at all? Of course her dear brother
couldn’t be wrong, the church was so old, so very old, its root deep
buried in the story of human life, it was only that ... well, outward
forms _could_ be misleading. Her own present position for instance.
In the eyes of the world she had, by one silly careless little
action, convicted herself of being the breaker of every single one
of the ten commandments.
She tried to think of one of which she could not be accused. But
no--even to dishonouring her father and mother, bearing false
witness, stealing, coveting her neighbour’s ... husband! That was the
worst thing of all. Poor man! He might be a very pleasant honourable
married gentleman with children and she--she was in a position to
compromise him! Why hadn’t she screamed! Too late! Too late!
It began to get very uncomfortable, stuffy, but at the same time
draughty, and the floor was getting harder every minute. She changed
her position stealthily and controlled her desire to cough. Her
heart was beating rapidly. Over and over again recurred the vivid
impression of every little incident and argument that had occurred to
her from the moment she left the bathroom. This must, of course, be
the room next to her own. So confusing with perhaps twenty bedrooms
all exactly alike on one side of a passage--how was one to remember
whether one’s number was 115 or 116?
Her mind began to wander idly off into her schooldays. She was always
very bad at figures. She disliked Euclid and all those subjects
about angles and equations--so unimportant, not leading anywhere.
History she liked, and botany, and reading about strange foreign
lands, although she had always been too timid to visit them. And the
lives of great people, _most_ fascinating--Oliver Cromwell, Lord
Beaconsfield, Lincoln, Grace Darling--_there_ was a heroine for
you--General Booth, a great good man, even if a little vulgar. She
remembered dear old Miss Trimming talking about him one afternoon at
the vicar of St. Bride’s garden party. She was _so_ amusing. She....
_Good heavens!_
_Almost unwittingly, Millicent Bracegirdle had emitted a violent
sneeze!_
It was finished! For the second time that night she was conscious of
her heart nearly stopping. For the second time that night she was
so paralyzed with fear that her mentality went to pieces. Now she
would hear the man get out of bed. He would walk across to the door,
switch on the light, and then lift up the frill. She could almost see
that fierce moustached face glaring at her and growling something in
French. Then he would thrust out an arm and drag her out. And then? O
God in heaven! What then?...
“I shall scream before he does it. Perhaps I had better scream now.
If he drags me out he will clap his hand over my mouth. Perhaps
chloroform....”
But somehow she could not scream. She was too frightened even for
that. She lifted the frill and listened. Was he moving stealthily
across the carpet? She thought--no, she couldn’t be sure. Anything
might be happening. He might strike her from above--with one of those
heavy boots perhaps. Nothing seemed to be happening, but the suspense
was intolerable. She realized now that she hadn’t the power to
endure a night of it. Anything would be better than this--disgrace,
imprisonment, even death. She would crawl out, wake the man, and try
and explain as best she could.
She would switch on the light, cough, and say: “_Monsieur!_”
Then he would start up and stare at her.
Then she would say--what should she say?
“_Pardon, monsieur, mais je_----” What on earth was the French for “I
have made a mistake”?
“_J’ai tort. C’est la chambre_--er--incorrect. _Voulezvous_--er----”
What was the French for “door-knob,” “let me go”?
It didn’t matter. She would turn on the light, cough and trust to
luck. If he got out of bed, and came toward her, she would scream the
hotel down....
The resolution formed, she crawled deliberately out at the foot of
the bed. She scrambled hastily toward the door--a perilous journey.
In a few seconds the room was flooded with light. She turned toward
the bed, coughed, and cried out boldly:
“_Monsieur!_”
Then, for the third time that night, little Miss Bracegirdle’s
heart all but stopped. In this case the climax of the horror took
longer to develop, but when it was reached, it clouded the other two
experiences into insignificance.
_The man on the bed was dead!_
She had never beheld death before, but one does not mistake death.
She stared at him bewildered, and repeated almost in a whisper:
“_Monsieur!... Monsieur!_”
Then she tip-toed toward the bed. The hair and moustache looked
extraordinarily black in that gray wax-like setting. The mouth was
slightly open, and the face, which in life might have been vicious
and sensual, looked incredibly peaceful and far away.
It was as though she were regarding the features of a man across some
vast passage of time, a being who had always been completely remote
from mundane preoccupations.
When the full truth came home to her, little Miss Bracegirdle buried
her face in her hands and murmured:
“Poor fellow ... poor fellow!”
For the moment her own position seemed an affair of small
consequence. She was in the presence of something greater and more
all-pervading. Almost instinctively she knelt by the bed and prayed.
For a few moments she seemed to be possessed by an extraordinary
calmness and detachment. The burden of her hotel predicament was a
gossamer trouble--a silly, trivial, almost comic episode, something
that could be explained away.
But this man--he had lived his life, whatever it was like, and now he
was in the presence of his Maker. What kind of man had he been?
Her meditations were broken by an abrupt sound. It was that of a pair
of heavy boots being thrown down by the door outside. She started,
thinking at first it was someone knocking or trying to get in. She
heard the “boots,” however, stamping away down the corridor, and
the realization stabbed her with the truth of her own position. She
mustn’t stop there. The necessity to get out was even more urgent.
To be found in a strange man’s bedroom in the night is bad enough,
but to be found in a dead man’s bedroom was even worse. They would
accuse her of murder, perhaps. Yes, that would be it--how could she
possibly explain to these foreigners? Good God! they would hang
her. No, guillotine her, that’s what they do in France. They would
chop her head off with a great steel knife. Merciful heavens! She
envisaged herself standing blindfold by a priest and an executioner
in a red cap, like that man in the Dickens’s story--what was his
name?... Sydney Carton, that was it, and before he went on the
scaffold he said:
“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.”
But no, she couldn’t say that. It would be a far, far worse thing
that she did. What about the dear Dean? Her sister-in-law arriving
alone from Paraguay to-morrow? All her dear people and friends in
Easingstoke? Her darling Tony, the large gray tabby cat? It was
her duty not to have her head chopped off if it could possibly be
avoided. She could do no good in the room. She could not recall the
dead to life. Her only mission was to escape. Any minute people might
arrive. The chambermaid, the boots, the manager, the gendarmes....
Visions of gendarmes arriving armed with swords and note-books
vitalized her almost exhausted energies. She was a desperate woman.
Fortunately now she had not to worry about the light. She sprang once
more at the door and tried to force it open with her fingers. The
result hurt her and gave her pause. If she was to escape she must
_think_, and think intensely. She mustn’t do anything rash and silly,
she must just think and plan calmly.
She examined the lock carefully. There was no keyhole, but there
was a slip-bolt, so that the hotel guest could lock the door on the
inside, but it couldn’t be locked on the outside. Oh, why didn’t this
poor dear dead man lock his door last night? Then this trouble could
not have happened. She could see the end of the steel pin. It was
about half an inch down the hole. If any one was passing they must
surely notice the handle sticking out too far the other side! She
drew a hairpin out of her hair and tried to coax the pin back, but
she only succeeded in pushing it a little farther in. She felt the
colour leaving her face, and a strange feeling of faintness come over
her.
She was fighting for her life; she mustn’t give way. She darted round
the room like an animal in a trap, her mind alert for the slightest
crevice of escape. The window had no balcony and there was a drop
of five stories to the street below. Dawn was breaking. Soon the
activities of the hotel and the city would begin. The thing must be
accomplished before then.
She went back once more and stared at the lock. She stared at the
dead man’s property, his razors, and brushes, and writing materials.
He appeared to have a lot of writing materials, pens and pencils and
rubber and sealing-wax.... Sealing-wax!
Necessity is truly the mother of invention. It is in any case quite
certain that Millicent Bracegirdle, who had never invented a thing in
her life, would never have evolved the ingenious little device she
did, had she not believed that her position was utterly desperate.
For in the end this is what she did. She got together a box of
matches, a candle, a bar of sealing-wax, and a hairpin. She made a
little pool of hot sealing-wax, into which she dipped the end of
the hairpin. Collecting a small blob on the end of it she thrust it
into the hole, and let it adhere to the end of the steel pin. At the
seventh attempt she got the thing to move. It took her just an hour
and ten minutes to get that steel pin back into the room, and when
at length it came far enough through for her to grip it with her
finger-nails, she burst into tears through the sheer physical tension
of the strain. Very, very carefully she pulled it through and holding
it firmly with her left hand she fixed the knob with her right, then
slowly turned it. The door opened!
The temptation to dash out into the corridor and scream with relief
was almost irresistible, but she forbore. She listened; she peeped
out. No one was about. With beating heart, she went out, closing the
door inaudibly. She crept like a little mouse to the room next door,
stole in and flung herself on her bed. Immediately she did so it
flashed through her mind that _she had left her sponge-bag and towel
in the dead man’s room_!
In looking back upon her experience she always considered that that
second expedition was the worst of all. She might have left the
sponge-bag and towel there, only that the towel--she never used hotel
towels--had neatly inscribed in the corner “M.B.”
With furtive caution she managed to retrace her steps. She reëntered
the dead man’s room, reclaimed her property and returned to her own.
When this mission was accomplished she was indeed well-nigh spent.
She lay on her bed and groaned feebly. At last she fell into a
fevered sleep....
It was eleven o’clock when she awoke and no one had been to disturb
her. The sun was shining, and the experiences of the night appeared a
dubious nightmare. Surely she had dreamt it all?
With dread still burning in her heart she rang the bell. After a
short interval of time the chambermaid appeared. The girl’s eyes were
bright with some uncontrollable excitement. No, she had not been
dreaming. This girl had heard something.
“Will you bring me some tea, please?”
“Certainly, madame.”
The maid drew back the curtains and fussed about the room. She was
under a pledge of secrecy but she could contain herself no longer.
Suddenly she approached the bed and whispered excitedly:
“Oh, madame, I have promised not to tell ... but a terrible thing
has happened. A man, a dead man, has been found in room 117--a
guest. Please not to say I tell you. But they have all been here,
the gendarmes, the doctors, the inspectors. Oh, it is terrible ...
terrible.”
The little lady in the bed said nothing. There was indeed nothing to
say. But Marie Louise Laucrat was too full of emotional excitement to
spare her.
“But the terrible thing is.... Do you know who he was, madame? They
say it is Boldhu, the man wanted for the murder of Jean Carreton
in the barn at Vincennes. They say he strangled her, and then cut
her up in pieces and hid her in two barrels which he threw into the
river.... Oh, but he was a bad man, madame, a terrible bad man ...
and he died in the room next door ... suicide they think or was it an
attack of the heart?... Remorse, some shock perhaps.... Did you say a
_café complêt_, madame?”
“No, thank you, my dear ... just a cup of tea ... strong tea....”
“_Parfaitement_, madame.”
The girl retired, and a little later a waiter entered the room with
a tray of tea. She could never get over her surprise in this. It
seemed so--well, indecorous for a man--although only a waiter--to
enter a lady’s bedroom. There was no doubt a great deal in what the
dear Dean said. They were certainly very peculiar, these French
people--they had most peculiar notions. It was not the way they
behaved at Easingstoke. She got farther under the sheets, but the
waiter appeared quite indifferent to the situation. He put the tray
down and retired.
When he had gone she sat up and sipped her tea, which gradually
warmed her. She was glad the sun was shining. She would have to get
up soon. They said that her sister-in-law’s boat was due to berth at
one o’clock. That would give her time to dress comfortably, write
to her brother, and then go down to the docks. Poor man! So he had
been a murderer, a man who cut up the bodies of his victims ...
and she had spent the night in his bedroom! They were certainly a
most--how could she describe it?--people. Nevertheless she felt a
little glad that at the end she had been there to kneel and pray by
his bedside. Probably nobody else had ever done that. It was very
difficult to judge people.... Something at some time might have gone
wrong. He might not have murdered the woman after all. People were
often wrongly convicted. She herself.... If the police had found her
in that room at three o’clock that morning.... It is that which takes
place in the heart which counts. One learns and learns. Had she not
learnt that one can pray just as effectively lying under a bed as
kneeling beside it?... Poor man!
She washed and dressed herself and walked calmly down to the
writing-room. There was no evidence of excitement among the other
hotel guests. Probably none of them knew about the tragedy except
herself. She went to a writing table, and after profound meditation
wrote as follows:
MY DEAR BROTHER,--
I arrived late last night after a very pleasant journey.
Everyone was very kind and attentive, the manager was sitting
up for me. I nearly lost my spectacle case in the restaurant
car! But a kind old gentleman found it and returned it to me.
There was a most amusing American child on the train. I will
tell you about her on my return. The people are very pleasant,
but the food is peculiar, nothing _plain and wholesome_. I am
going down to meet Annie at one o’clock. How have you been
keeping, my dear? I hope you have not had any further return
of the bronchial attacks.
Please tell Lizzie that I remembered in the train on the
way here that that large stone jar of marmalade that Mrs.
Hunt made is behind those empty tins in the top shelf of the
cupboard next to the coach house. I wonder whether Mrs. Butler
was able to come to evensong after all? This is a nice hotel,
but I think Annie and I will stay at the “Grand” to-night, as
the bedrooms here are rather noisy. Well, my dear, nothing
more till I return. Do take care of yourself.--Your loving
sister,
MILLICENT.
Yes, she couldn’t tell Peter about it, neither in the letter nor
when she went back to him. It was her duty not to tell him. It
would only distress him; she felt convinced of it. In this curious
foreign atmosphere the thing appeared possible, but in Easingstoke
the mere recounting of the fantastic situations would be positively
... indelicate. There was no escaping that broad general fact--she
had spent a night in a strange man’s bedroom. Whether he was a
gentleman or a criminal, even whether he was dead or alive, did not
seem to mitigate the jar upon her sensibilities, or rather it would
not mitigate the jar upon the peculiarly sensitive relationship
between her brother and herself. To say that she had been to the
bathroom, the knob of the door-handle came off in her hand, she
was too frightened to awaken the sleeper or scream, she got under
the bed--well, it was all perfectly true. Peter would believe her,
but--one simply could not conceive such a situation in Easingstoke
deanery. It would create a curious little barrier between them,
as though she had been dipped in some mysterious solution which
alienated her. It was her duty not to tell.
She put on her hat, and went out to post the letter. She distrusted
an hotel letter-box. One never knew who handled these letters. It was
not a proper official way of treating them. She walked to the head
post office in Bordeaux.
The sun was shining. It was very pleasant walking about amongst
these queer excitable people, so foreign and different-looking--and
the cafés already crowded with chattering men and women, and the
flower stalls, and the strange odour of--what was it? Salt? Brine?
Charcoal?... A military band was playing in the square ... very gay
and moving. It was all life, and movement, and bustle ... thrilling
rather.
“I spent a night in a strange man’s bedroom.”
Little Miss Bracegirdle hunched her shoulders, murmured to herself
and walked faster. She reached the post office and found the large
metal plate with the slot for letters and “R.F.” stamped above it.
Something official at last! Her face was a little flushed--was it
the warmth of the day or the contact of movement and life?--as she
put her letter into the slot. After posting it she put her hand into
the slot and flicked it round to see that there were no foreign
contraptions to impede its safe delivery. No, the letter had dropped
safely in. She sighed contentedly and walked off in the direction of
the docks to meet her sister-in-law from Paraguay.
WHERE WAS WYCH STREET?
In the public bar of the “Wagtail,” in Wapping, four men and a woman
were drinking beer and discussing diseases. It was not a pretty
subject, and the company was certainly not a handsome one. It was a
dark November evening, and the dingy lighting of the bar seemed but
to emphasize the bleak exterior. Drifts of fog and damp from without
mingled with the smoke of shag. The sanded floor was kicked into a
muddy morass not unlike the surface of the pavement. An old lady down
the street had died from pneumonia the previous evening, and the
event supplied a fruitful topic of conversation. The things that one
could get! Everywhere were germs eager to destroy one. At any minute
the symptoms might break out. And so--one foregathered in a cheerful
spot amidst friends and drank forgetfulness.
Prominent in this little group was Baldwin Meadows, a sallow-faced
villain with battered features and prominent cheek-bones, his
face cut and scarred by a hundred fights. Ex-seaman, ex-boxer,
ex-fish-porter--indeed, to everyone’s knowledge, ex-everything. No
one knew how he lived. By his side lurched an enormous coloured man
who went by the name of Harry Jones. Grinning above a tankard sat
a pimply faced young man who was known as “the Agent.” Silver rings
adorned his fingers. He had no other name, and most emphatically no
address, but he “arranged things” for people, and appeared to thrive
upon it in a scrambling, fugitive manner. The other two people were
Mr. and Mrs. Dawes. Mr. Dawes was an entirely negative person, but
Mrs. Dawes shone by virtue of a high, whining, insistent voice, keyed
to within half a note of hysteria.
Then, at one point, the conversation suddenly took a peculiar turn.
It came about through Mrs. Dawes mentioning that her aunt, who died
from eating tinned lobster, used to work in a corset shop in Wych
Street. When she said that, “the Agent,” whose right eye appeared to
survey the ceiling, whilst his left eye looked over the other side of
his tankard, remarked:
“Where was Wych Street, ma?”
“Lord!” exclaimed Mrs. Dawes. “Don’t you know, dearie? You must be a
young ’un, you must. Why, when I was a gal everyone knew Wych Street.
It was just down there where they built the Kingsway, like.”
Baldwin Meadows cleared his throat and said:
“Wych Street used to be a turnin’ runnin’ from Long Acre into
Wellington Street.”
“Oh, no, old boy,” chipped in Mr. Dawes, who always treated the
ex-man with great deference. “If you’ll excuse me, Wych Street was a
narrow lane at the back of the old Globe Theatre, that used to pass
by the church.”
“I know what I’m talkin’ about,” growled Meadows.
Mrs. Dawes’s high nasal whine broke in:
“Hi, Mr. Booth, you used ter know yer wye abaht. Where was Wych
Street?”
Mr. Booth, the proprietor, was polishing a tap. He looked up. “Wych
Street? Yus, of course I knoo Wych Street. Used to go there with some
of the boys when I was Covent Garden way. It was at right angles to
the Strand, just east of Wellington Street.”
“No, it warn’t. It were alongside the Strand, before yer come to
Wellington Street.”
The coloured man took no part in the discussion, one street and
one city being alike to him, provided he could obtain the material
comforts dear to his heart; but the others carried it on with a
certain amount of acerbity.
Before any agreement had been arrived at three other men entered
the bar. The quick eye of Meadows recognized them at once as three
of what was known at that time as “The Gallows Ring.” Every member
of “The Gallows Ring” had done time, but they still carried on a
lucrative industry devoted to blackmail, intimidation, shop-lifting,
and some of the clumsier recreations. Their leader, Ben Orming, had
served seven years for bashing a Chinaman down at Rotherhithe.
“The Gallows Ring” was not popular in Wapping, for the reason that
many of their depredations had been inflicted upon their own class.
When Meadows and Harry Jones took it into their heads to do a little
wild prancing they took the trouble to go up into the West End. They
considered “The Gallows Ring” an ungentlemanly set; nevertheless,
they always treated them with a certain external deference--an
unpleasant crowd to quarrel with.
Ben Orming ordered beer for the three of them, and they leant against
the bar and whispered in sullen accents. Something had evidently
miscarried with the Ring. Mrs. Dawes continued to whine above the
general drone of the bar. Suddenly she said:
“Ben, you’re a hot old devil, you are. We was just ’aving a
discussion like. Where was Wych Street?”
Ben scowled at her, and she continued:
“Some sez it was one place, some sez it was another. I _know_ where
it was, ’cors my aunt what died from blood p’ison, after eatin’
tinned lobster, used to work at a corset shop....”
“Yus,” barked Ben, emphatically. “I know where Wych Street was--it
was just sarth of the river, afore yer come to Waterloo Station.”
It was then that the coloured man, who up to that point had taken no
part in the discussion, thought fit to intervene.
“Nope. You’s all wrong, cap’n. Wych Street were alongside de church,
way over where de Strand takes a side line up west.”
Ben turned on him fiercely.
“What the blazes does a blanketty nigger know abaht it? I’ve told yer
where Wych Street was.”
“Yus, and I know where it was,” interposed Meadows. “Yer both wrong.
Wych Street was a turning running from Long Acre into Wellington
Street.”
“I didn’t ask yer what _you_ thought,” growled Ben.
“Well, I suppose I’ve a right to an opinion?”
“You always think you know everything, you do.”
“You can just keep yer mouth shut.”
“It ’ud take more’n you to shut it.”
Mr. Booth thought it advisable at this juncture to bawl across the
bar:
“Now, gentlemen, no quarrelling--please.”
The affair might have subsided at that point, but for Mrs. Dawes. Her
emotions over the death of the old lady in the street had been so
stirred that she had been, almost unconsciously, drinking too much
gin. She suddenly screamed out:
“Don’t you take no lip from ’im, Mr. Medders. The dirty, thieving
devil, ’e always thinks ’e’s goin’ to come it over everyone.”
She stood up threateningly, and one of Ben’s supporters gave her a
gentle push backward. In three minutes the bar was in a complete
state of pandemonium. The three members of “The Gallows Ring” fought
two men and a woman, for Mr. Dawes merely stood in a corner and
screamed out:
“Don’t! Don’t!”
Mrs. Dawes stabbed the man, who had pushed her, through the wrist
with a hatpin. Meadows and Ben Orming closed on each other and fought
savagely with the naked fists. A lucky blow early in the encounter
sent Meadows reeling against the wall, with blood streaming down his
temple. Then the coloured man hurled a pewter tankard straight at Ben
and it hit him on the knuckles. The pain maddened him to a frenzy.
His other supporter had immediately got to grips with Harry Jones,
and picked up one of the high stools and, seizing an opportunity,
brought it down crash on to the coloured man’s skull.
The whole affair was a matter of minutes. Mr. Booth was bawling
out in the street. A whistle sounded. People were running in all
directions.
“Beat it! Beat it, for God’s sake!” called the man who had been
stabbed through the wrist. His face was very white, and he was
obviously about to faint.
Ben and the other man, whose name was Toller, dashed to the door.
On the pavement there was a confused scramble. Blows were struck
indiscriminately. Two policemen appeared. One was laid _hors de
combat_ by a kick on the knee-cap from Toller. The two men fled
into the darkness, followed by a hue-and-cry. Born and bred in the
locality, they took every advantage of their knowledge. They tacked
through alleys and raced down dark mews, and clambered over walls.
Fortunately for them, the people they passed, who might have tripped
them up or aided in the pursuit, merely fled indoors. The people in
Wapping are not always on the side of the pursuer. But the police
held on. At last Ben and Toller slipped through the door of a house
in Aztec Street barely ten yards ahead of their nearest pursuer.
Blows rained on the door, but they slipped the bolts, and then fell
panting to the floor. When Ben could speak, he said:
“If they cop us, it means swinging.”
“Was the nigger done in?”
“I think so. But even if ’e wasn’t, there was that other affair the
night before last. The game’s up.”
The ground floor rooms were shuttered and bolted, but they knew that
the police would probably force the front door. At the back there was
no escape, only a narrow stable yard, where lanterns were already
flashing. The roof only extended thirty yards either way, and the
police would probably take possession of it. They made a round of
the house, which was sketchily furnished. There was a loaf, a small
piece of mutton, and a bottle of pickles, and--the most precious
possession--three bottles of whisky. Each man drank half a glass of
neat whisky, then Ben said: “We’ll be able to keep ’em quiet for a
bit, anyway,” and he went and fetched an old twelve-bore gun and a
case of cartridges. Toller was opposed to this last desperate resort,
but Ben continued to murmur: “It means swinging, anyway.”
* * * * *
And thus began the notorious siege of Aztec Street. It lasted three
days and four nights. You may remember that, on forcing a panel of
the front door Sub-Inspector Wraithe, of the V Division, was shot
through the chest. The police then tried other methods. A hose was
brought into play, without effect. Two policemen were killed and four
wounded. The military was requisitioned. The street was picketed.
Snipers occupied windows of the houses opposite. A distinguished
member of the Cabinet drove down in a motor-car, and directed
operations in a top-hat. It was the introduction of poison gas which
was the ultimate cause of the downfall of the citadel. The body of
Ben Orming was never found, but that of Toller was discovered near
the front door, with a bullet through his heart.
The medical officer to the court pronounced that the man had been
dead three days, but whether killed by a chance bullet from a sniper
or whether killed deliberately by his fellow-criminal was never
revealed. For when the end came Orming had apparently planned a
final act of venom. It was known that in the basement a considerable
quantity of petrol had been stored. The contents had probably been
carefully distributed over the most inflammable materials in the top
rooms. The fire broke out, as one witness described it, “almost like
an explosion.” Orming must have perished in this. The roof blazed up,
and the sparks carried across the yard and started a stack of light
timber in the annex of Messrs. Morrel’s piano factory. The factory
and two blocks of tenement buildings were burnt to the ground. The
estimated cost of the destruction was one hundred and eighty thousand
pounds. The casualties amounted to seven killed and fifteen wounded.
* * * * *
At the inquiry held under Justice Pengammon, various odd, interesting
facts were revealed. Mr. Lowes-Parlby, the brilliant young K.C.,
distinguished himself by his searching cross-examination of many
witnesses. At one point a certain Mrs. Dawes was put in the box.
“Now,” said Mr. Lowes-Parlby, “I understand that on the evening in
question, Mrs. Dawes, you, and the victims, and these other people
who have been mentioned, were all seated in the public bar of the
‘Wagtail,’ enjoying its no doubt excellent hospitality and indulging
in a friendly discussion. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir.”