CONCERNS THE HOLE IN THE WALL
Not until the two friends were rumbling along in a first-class
carriage on the underground railway, bound for South Kensington
station, did Paul Renishaw say a word about his experiences at
Peterboro’ in search of the truth about the certificate of that sham
marriage, which was destined to prove that five years ago, Arthur
Hudson had been something worse than a bigamist. Then his accents were
so low, so grave, so full of sympathetic affection, that poor Arthur
realised instinctively, that little good had resulted from the day’s
efforts. And so indeed, it proved.
“I turned up at the Registry Office all right,” said Paul, pretending
to busy himself with the shape and colour of the cigarette he was
smoking, the more readily to hide his mortification. “But I confess I
was very quickly nonplussed. You see, the Registrar, who it was
alleged to have performed the ceremony, died about a year after. The
marriage is entered in the proper books safe enough, and no doubt,
some ceremony of the kind indicated, did actually take place.
Unfortunately, the only person I could strike, who pretended at all to
have any knowledge of the actual marriage, was an old woman who used
to clean the office of the Registrar of Marriages, and who declares
that she was present at the time your so-called wedding was
solemnized. Naturally, I did not want to give her any clue as to what
I was after, and so I merely contented myself by asking her to
describe the kind of man the so-called ‘Arthur Hudson’ was. Confound
it, the crazy old soul gave me a magnificent description of your
personal appearance five years ago. Why, she even described that
old-pepper-and-salt suit you were so fond of wearing about that
period--and, when I produced the actual photograph, she took a solemn
oath to me that you were the man who married Aimée Lucille Fausta
Burgoyne on the date given.”
“But surely,” gasped Arthur, “that was enough to shake your faith in
me!”
“No! it was not enough, nothing could do that, old chap,” responded
Paul, very gently, although the lines on his features betrayed the
deep anxiety he had passed through. “As a matter of fact, I had a
small satisfaction of my own, at the Registry Office, before I saw
this old beldame. You must know that during the discussion, the
present Registrar produced the actual certificate of your marriage for
my inspection, and I had a good look at the signature that purported
to be written by yourself. Now, of course, old man, I know your
writing quite as well as I know my own, and although this particular
signature was amazingly like the one you are accustomed to use, I know
enough of your characteristics to know that the thing was a clever but
not a convincing forgery.”
“Thank heaven for that,” muttered Arthur fervently. “In truth, I had
just begun to wonder, if, after all, I am not the villain these people
have made out--whether after all, I had not fallen into some
extraordinary trance five years ago, like those people you read of in
the newspaper, and had completely lost all knowledge of my own
identity for a few weeks during which, of course, I might have met
this poor, ill-fated Aimée Burgoyne, and married her quite unknown to
myself and my own companions; and then after a spell of married
happiness, suddenly recovered my sanity and returned to my own self
and my old way of life,” and checking the depression that was stealing
over him, he broke into a low and mirthless laugh.
“Not a bit of it,” responded Paul cheerily. “The whole circumstances
of the marriage are too shady, too suggestive to admit of any remote
contingency like that. I soon found out when I came to enquire for
Meissonier Studios, which I found to be a kind of greenhouse fixed at
the end of an old garden, and formerly used by travelling
photographers, what a base use had been made of a high sounding
address, so as to gull the authorities! Indeed, the landlady of the
place told me, that within the last six years, no fewer than thirty
different people had tried to make a living in that shanty, and had
failed, but as she kept no books, and only charged half-a-crown a week
rent, ‘payment in advance, and leave at the end of seven days if you
are not satisfied,’ I quickly saw that it was useless for me to
attempt to pursue any enquiries in that direction.”
“But the witnesses,” queried Arthur, anxiously, “how about those?” And
he suddenly recollected the facts of his encounter with the drunken
caretaker, Charlton.
“Oh,” said Paul lightly, “I could make nothing out of those. I
consulted a lot of old local directories--I stood a lot of free drinks
to a lot of intelligent loafers--and, finally, I went to the police
station, where I happened to meet a friend in the Chief Constable; and
he worked like a nigger to help me. Nothing was known about ‘Israel
Sawdry’ or ‘Rebecca Charlton’--not a word, so I concluded that they,
like the bride and bridegroom, were all imported for the occasion, for
the particular purpose of the fraud.”
“Well, luckily, old chap, I do know something about one of them.” And
in a few quick and concise sentences, Arthur told Paul not only how,
in this beer-sodden care-taker, George Charlton, he had discovered the
husband of the very woman they were after, Rebecca Charlton, and had
put detectives on the track of them both, but also how he had gone
himself to that extraordinary garret Ventris Blake had taken at 375
Queen Victoria Street, and what he had seen there, including the
strange device of The Three Glass Eyes.
Paul listened very quietly while all these facts were recounted to
him, his brow growing every moment more and more cloudy. For fully ten
minutes he sat back in the carriage, as they clattered through station
after station on the Inner Circle, and he spoke not a word.
Indeed, it was only when they sat in Arthur’s own sitting-room in
Kensington Gore, that he made any attempt to gauge the value of
Arthur’s new and suggestive experiences. Then he tossed the end of his
cigarette viciously into the fire, and throwing himself into an
armchair, told Arthur to listen very carefully to him.
“It is like this, old man,” he declared. “You did exactly the right
thing in putting the detectives on the track of those two wretches,
the Charltons. You mark my words, we shall get some most valuable
discovery from that source.
“In my opinion, however, you did quite wrong in walking out of that
room Ventris Blake has taken so easily, when you had once obtained
admission to it. If that huge black shield, bearing The Three Glass
Eyes, gave you such an ugly turn as you tell me it did, why on earth
didn’t you go up to it, and find out what it was made of!
“Personally, I am a peaceable man, with a great respect for the laws
of property, but I could tell you, that if I had seen that
beastly-looking object, I should have seized the first chair that came
to my hand, and smashed the whole contrivance to atoms. If you had, I
am sure you would have learned a great deal more than you did.
“As it is, however,” he went on very firmly, “there is only one thing
for us both to do. We must both go at once to Queen Victoria Street
ourselves, and, taking yet another advantage of that dear sainted
Ventris Blake’s absence, we must go over his garret in a more
systematic fashion than you ever attempted to do.”
“But how the dickens are we to get in? I didn’t wait to get the keys
from the caretaker. All the doors on that top floor are sure to be
locked as tight as a drum.”
“Oh, fiddle-de-dee,” muttered Paul, irritably. “Have you so soon
forgotten the lessons that old burglar gave me in Seven Dials, by
which he swore there wasn’t a common door lock in Christendom that
could defy the tricks in picking he had put me up to? Why, those must
be only common or garden locks you’ve got on those doors, mustn’t
they? Well, well, don’t say another word about them. Come along with
me now--and I’ll take my chance.”
Overborne by his friend’s persuasion, Arthur quickly yielded to this
new suggestion, and, snatching a hurried dinner, they again went to an
underground station--to Mansion House Station--and before eight
o’clock had struck, they found themselves walking down Queen Victoria
Street, stealing like burglars up the staircase of No. 375. Luckily,
somebody had left a light burning on the topmost floor, and, taking a
hint from Arthur, who never to this day can tell why he gave it,
although it proved singularly providential, Paul undertook his first
essay in house-breaking on the door of the caretaker’s room.
Well indeed it was that he did so, for no sooner had they got this
lock properly picked and the door pushed wide open, than they were
startled by the sound of voices--the voices, too, of Ventris Blake and
of Russell Langford.
“What the deuce are those two men doing, coming here at this unearthly
hour?” whispered Arthur excitedly to Paul; but the next moment he
found himself gripped tightly by the arm by his companion, who dragged
him inside the care-taker’s apartments, and noiselessly closed the
door upon them both.
“Hush! If you value your life,” he muttered thickly. “Quick! Take my
hand and lead me in the direction in which you fancy Blake’s room to
be. We have only a second to spare. Act at once, for they are coming
up the stairs now, yet, if we can only get a few slits made in the
wall, we may very possibly discover more than we shall ever find out
again, about a pair of men who I regard as equal in rascality and
wickedness.”
Stirred to the uttermost, Arthur dragged Paul through the empty rooms,
now lit only by feeble reflections from the huge electric lights in
the silent street beneath. Fortunately, he had a good brain for
locality, and almost in a flash, he was able to indicate the partition
that divided Blake’s garret from the care-taker’s.
“Now for it,” gasped Paul, hoarse with excitement, and tapping the
wall gently, he was overjoyed to find, as he had expected, that it was
made of the flimsiest lath and plaster.
With the cunning of the skilled burglar he attacked this partition,
and almost in a second, he had managed to dissect two or three inches
towards two or three places which commanded a complete view of the
interior of the apartment.
As it happened, no time was wasted by the millionaire or by the lawyer
when they had once got the door of the apartment open. In response to
a rather florid bow from Blake, Russell Langford was the first to
enter, and this was a set contrivance, for no sooner had the barrister
put his foot across the threshold than the financier stepped quickly
after him, and turned and locked the door upon them both. The next
instant he struck a light, and before Langford had time to recover the
use of his eyes, he had lit three or four of the burners in the
gas-chandelier that depended from the centre of the ceiling. Then, as
the light streamed over the apartment, a curious thing happened.
All at once, Russell Langford seemed to take in the entire sense of
that quaintly arranged apartment--to realise that this was no ordinary
office or warehouse to which he had been invited by this friend, for
which he entertained such peculiar dread--but was, on the contrary, a
diabolically arranged trap to frighten and to conquer him.
With what exceeding bitterness did he remember every aspect, every
turn, every corner of that room, in the counterfeit presentiment of
which, he now found himself! With what marvellous cunning that fiend,
Ventris Blake, had managed to reproduce every detail of the original
place that was fraught with a thousand heartbreaking recollections for
him! Why, there, even at his feet, the carpet had been tampered
with--and yes, just where the light fell from the chandelier in a
vivid circle in front of him, just like it had happened to do in the
old days, was that dark vengeful-looking stain of blood.
“My God! this is awful!” he gasped; and more like a man in a trance
than a creature possessed of all his senses, he felt his way towards
the mantelpiece, from the huge black shield above which there glowered
down upon him the Three Glass Eyes!!
Oddly enough though, this symbol did not excite half the terror within
him that his unseen watchers, Paul Renishaw and Arthur Hudson, had
expected. Long he gazed at it as though he would drink to the full the
cup of bitterness that had been prepared for him with such fiendish
ingenuity and precision--but only by the ghastly pallor of his cheeks,
by the twitching of his nerves about the temples, and by that drawn
grey look we see sometimes in the faces of people doomed to early
death, did he show any signs of the awful anguish that had now taken
possession of his soul and heart.
All the time Ventris Blake’s eyes were fixed upon him, with that
hungry, strained, compelling look, that seemed to read right through
the lawyer’s pale, thin, envelope of flesh to the black shrivelled up
heart he so successfully concealed from the world.
At last, even he, the arch-fiend that had so cunningly devised this
staggering lesson for his companion, could bear the tense, drawn
silence no longer.
“Well,” said he eagerly, “are you satisfied?” and with a swift gesture
he pointed to those three brilliant but immoveable eyes above him. And
there was a moment’s pause, and then across the room came ringing the
answer: “I am satisfied.”
With a long sighing sound, Russell Langford turned away at length from
the hideous object that confronted him, but like a man who has
suddenly grown old, in an hour of the most frightful anguish, he threw
out his hands helplessly, and tottered rather than walked towards the
door.
“Your price, man,” he quavered irritably, seizing Blake by the lappet
of his coat. “You fiend in human shape, you have done this with some
object--now then, tell me your price.”
Ventris Blake broke into a laugh that was hard as the mask he always
wore over his features. “You’re a funny chap, Langford,” said he, “and
I don’t half like being dragged about as though I were a marionette,
but you shall have your answer all the same. ‘My price,’ as you call
it, won’t hurt you a scrap; it doesn’t even affect you, for all I ask
is that you should just link up your forces with mine and help me to
compel your niece, Winifred Pontifex, to be mine.”
“And if I refuse,” snarled the old man, swaying around fiercely, and
glaring balefully at his tormentor. “What then? Have you not done
enough injury to me and mine without putting this extra load of
iniquity upon my shoulders? What, Ventris Blake, are you--man, fiend
or devil--that you should so torture me and rend me, that I have felt
for years past, were I not such a pitiably poor kind of coward I would
take the only refuge that is left for me, and blow out my brains.”
“Oh, but you mustn’t talk like that,” said Ventris Blake soothingly,
realising that he had pressed this feeble will as far as it was
politic, and that it might be better to go easy for a time if he
wished to gain his ultimate purpose. “After all, it is not a very
difficult task I put before you. Really, as a price of my silence, it
is ridiculously small. Why, even your daughter Vera has promised to
aid me--”
“Vera!” exclaimed the old man passionately, “I have no daughter Vera,
for I have discovered she has played me false, and that in a few days
she proposes to marry that wretched creature of an actor, Jules
Prendergast.”
“Never mind about that,” persisted Blake, “I can soon stop any folly
of that description. I have got that precious mummer under my thumb,
and if I tell him to give Vera up, he will be precious glad to do so,
careless whether he breaks her heart or not, for all he cares for is
that he should get her cash. But who told you about Prendergast at
all?” he added with a sudden access of suspicion, fearful lest some
servant of his own had tried to blackmail the barrister.
“Oh, a scoundrel named Judson, a footman of mine, that I intended to
discharge, but who seems to have got to know a great deal too much of
what is bad for me, to enable me to part with him, and I have had to
pension him off with an annuity of fifty pounds a year, just to keep
his mouth shut.”
“Well, you have got out of it cheaply,” retorted his cynical
companion, beginning to turn out the lights in the chandelier. “Still,
whilst you are here, you had better give me an answer to my
question--Do you intend to go in with me, heart and soul, and to help
me to win Winifred Pontifex for myself?”
Russell Langford affected to think for a moment, but the two watchers
in the next room could see that he was already beaten. Now that the
first shock of the mystery of the Three Glass Eyes had passed over his
head, it was easy to see that his old craven fear for his own safety
and well-being had re-asserted itself; and almost before Blake could
turn and give him one of those searching, compelling glances of his,
he had mumbled forth the required promise.
Another moment, and all the lights in the grim looking garret were
extinguished. Taking Langford firmly by the arm, the millionaire
conducted him to the top of the staircase, and after locking the door
carefully behind them, led the way for them both down the stairs into
the street.
Meanwhile, Paul and Arthur were left to themselves, staring at each
other in blank amazement. It was quite true they had witnessed the
entire interview between Langford and Blake, and had heard every word
that was exchanged between them, but somehow they seemed to be no
nearer solving the mystery of the Three Glass Eyes than they had been
at the time previous.
Of course, they had discovered that the millionaire had some curious,
far-reaching hold over the lawyer,--but that Russell Langford had
himself practically admitted when they first mentioned Ventris Blake’s
name to him, and now they were no nearer to the discovery of its
character than was represented by a knowledge of the two prime
factors--a shield, bearing Three Glass Eyes, and an early Victorian
carpet, stained with blood.
Could Russell Langford have been guilty of any crime of violence of
which Ventris Blake alone knew the secret? Could some tragedy in the
early life of the lawyer have been hushed up without exposure, and
could disgrace hang upon any disclosures that the millionaire might
choose to make at any critical moment?
These, and a hundred such like questions, flashed like lightning
through the minds of the two comrades as they felt their way out of
the darkened rooms hitherto occupied by the drunken caretaker,
Charlton, and made once again for the open street.
Swinging off to the right in the direction of New Bridge Street, they
soon found themselves near the Bridewell Police Station, from under
the shadow of which two men, who had been standing in eager
conversation, suddenly started forward.
By the light of a lamp, Paul and Arthur saw that one man was attired
in the uniform of the ordinary police inspector; the other, although
he wore plain clothes, was obviously a detective.
“By the way,” said the former, pretending to treat the matter as a
light one, “do you mind telling me which of you two gentlemen is Mr.
Arthur Hudson?”
“I am,” replied Arthur promptly.
“Then,” broke in the detective, suddenly gripping him by the arm, “it
is my duty to arrest you, sir, on a charge of the wilful murder of
your wife at Scarborough some two days ago.”
“My wife!” gasped Arthur, dumbfounded. “Why, I have no wife!”
“Oh yes, you have,” repeated the detective confidently. “You can’t
fool me, for your wife’s name was Aimée Lucille Fausta Hudson.”
Now almost any other man but Paul Renishaw would have broken into a
storm of fury when he saw his friend seized by a police inspector and
detective and bundled off to the police station without a word of
explanation.
As it turned out, however, Paul Renishaw knew the police-methods
almost as well as did the police themselves: and in an instant, he
recognised the melancholy truth that any demonstration at that point
which might be made against this sudden attack, was bound to tell
against Arthur himself, even though he might be, (as indeed he was,)
perfectly innocent of the charge preferred against him. Therefore,
summoning all his powers of persuasion, he begged Arthur very
earnestly to allow himself to be taken quite quietly into custody, and
also to say no more than was absolutely necessary about the
extravagant charge of wife-murder that had been preferred against him.
“Don’t make a fuss, old chap,” he pleaded, taking up a position
alongside the detective. “Remember, it is not these men’s fault that
you are seized and arrested. Understand, they are simply doing their
duty, even though everybody will admit in time that they are grossly
mistaken. Recollect also that if you treat them with consideration,
they, when they get their chance, will not only be considerate, but
also fair and obliging to yourself.”
For a moment, but only for a moment, Arthur was sorely tempted to
resist this advice, There is something peculiarly obnoxious to an
Englishman to find that he has been laid violent hands upon: and
terrible though the confession may seem, we’re bound to record that
Arthur’s first impulse was to knock down the man that had touched him,
and to tell the inspector that he must be nothing less than mad to
prefer so outrageous a charge against him.
Paul, however, had, when he chose to exert it, a curiously soothing
effect upon the mind of his highly-strung friend: and almost before
Arthur quite understood what had happened, the entire quartette found
themselves in the police-station--in front of a long counter, at which
an inspector was seated, busily writing in a huge ledger, every page
of which was adorned by the photograph of some more or less
illustrious criminal.
For at least a couple of minutes, this official went on steadily
writing, while the party awaited in a kind of breathless silence. Then
he looked up, and, turning to the inspector, he gruffly enquired what
had happened.
“Oh!” replied the chief officer, whose name turned out to be Lawton,
“we have just arrested the man for whom the Scarborough police
telegraphed that long description--Mr. Arthur Hudson, the house-agent,
of Cheapside. He has made no statement to us except one he made
immediately we took charge of him: and then he denied that the
murdered woman was his wife.”
The station inspector smiled cynically, and then turned and looked at
the fourth member of the party, Paul Renishaw, whom he recognised.
“Hullo, Mr. Renishaw,” he said, in tones that were meant to be very
severe, “what are you doing here at a moment like this? You know you
have no right to enter the police station when we are charging
prisoners, particularly in an important matter like that of wilful
murder. Would you please leave, as we don’t wish any particulars of
this arrest to leak out at present.”
“I don’t quite see how I can do that,” said Paul slowly, feeling that
his position was a difficult and dangerous one. “You see, Mr. Arthur
Hudson is my most intimate friend, and he was arrested while we were
walking along New Bridge Street together, intent on paying a visit to
my chief, the Editor of _The Moon_. Naturally, I could not see him
bundled off to the police-station without coming with him, and I am
only waiting now to hear the charge, so that I may go about and tell
his friends what a terrible blunder you have made.”
The station inspector looked very severe. “Your presence here is quite
against the regulations,” he reiterated; and he pointed significantly
in the direction of the open door.
“No, it isn’t,” snapped Inspector Lawton, who much appreciated the
tact which Paul had shown in the difficult business of the arrest.
“Then you call me a liar!” exclaimed the other officer fiercely; and
for a moment the two men glared fiercely at each other, all the hatred
of years of bitter and broken rivalry, flaming forth from the eyes of
them both.
For once the detective acted as peacemaker. “I don’t think,” he said
slowly, “that scenes like this, rebound to the credit of the police
force, particularly in the presence of so distinguished a journalist
as Mr. Paul Renishaw, who has every opportunity of showing us up in an
exceedingly unpleasant light in the columns of _The Moon_. In the
circumstances, don’t you think it would be better to waive any
difference as to any question of official rule, and to treat the
matter as one between gentlemen, and not as between potent police
officials and potential criminals. Thus, why should we not tell Mr.
Renishaw and Mr. Hudson quite frankly what our instructions are--and
leave to the one his honour not to make use of his newspaper for the
publication of any facts of this arrest, that might prejudice the
police investigations, and to the other his good sense to understand
that in arresting him, we have simply obeyed our instructions, and the
whole gravity of the situation falls upon the North-East Riding
Police.”
By this time both inspectors’ anger had considerably cooled; and, with
something approaching a sigh of relief, the station inspector now
turned and picked up some telegrams that lay on the desk at the far
end of the counter.
“I think that is a very good suggestion,” he said with a certain air
of pomposity, “and so, if Inspector Lawton is willing, I will tell Mr.
Hudson, or rather the prisoner, as we must now call him, that
half-an-hour ago we received a long message from Scarborough, in
common with all the other Metropolitan police-stations which said that
information had come to hand that the murderer of that poor woman on
the Filey Road, answered the description of himself, and that evidence
had been forthcoming that he had married her five years ago at
Peterborough, and would we please use every diligence in arresting
him.
“It is now therefore, my duty,” he went on in a tone of increasing
earnestness, “to formally charge you with the wilful murder of your
wife, Aimée Lucille Fausta Hudson, and to warn you that any reply you
may make to this charge will be taken down in writing against you, and
may be used against you at the trial, notwithstanding any pretext that
may have been holden out to you to now make any confession or
admission of your guilt.”
Paul drew in a deep breath of anxiety, fearful lest his friend should
make some remark that might mean mischief to him in the future--but,
luckily, Arthur was not the kind of man to lose his self-possession in
a critical juncture like that, and he answered quite boldly:--“My
reply to this is, the Scarborough police have made some preposterous
mistake. I am not guilty. The woman you mentioned was not my wife. I
have never been married. I have never been to Scarborough in my life.”
These answers were duly recorded by all the three police officers
present; and then came the bitterest blow of all--Arthur was told that
he would have to surrender his liberty; that no bail was allowed in
the case of a murder charge; and that the best thing that he could do
was to go quietly to a cell in the police-station with all the
fortitude he could command, and await the morning, when he would no
doubt be brought before a magistrate and formally remanded until the
police at Scarborough would be in a position to send some officer to
take him to that far distant part of Yorkshire.
Very sad, and in a sense, tragic, was the parting between these two
old friends. Once or twice indeed, Paul Renishaw was on the point of
breaking down altogether, but the sight of Arthur’s brave and honest
look steadied him like nothing else; and finally, he prevailed upon
the officials to let him see Arthur safely ensconced in his cell, and
then, with a heart over-full with anxiety, he set off to Emperor’s
Gate to see Russell Langford, in the hope he might discover from the
lawyer, who had been present at the inquest, and had no doubt had long
consultations with the Scarborough police, why this extraordinary
action had been resolved upon.
When, however, he actually arrived at the door of the lawyer’s flat,
he was surprised to see that apparently every light was extinguished,
and realising that something untoward must have happened he went
reluctantly home.