under. Here was the girl Trennatt--who by all evidence appeared to be
well acquainted with Geldard’s mysterious proceedings, and in
consequence of whose letter, whatever it might mean, he would seem to
have absented himself--herself apparently ignorant of his
whereabouts, and even unconscious that he had left his office. I had
at first begun to speculate on Geldard’s probable secret employment;
I had heard of men keeping good establishments who, unknown to even
their own wives, procured the wherewithal by begging or
crossing-sweeping in London streets; I had heard also--knew, in fact,
from Hewitt’s experience--of well-to-do suburban residents whose
actual profession was burglary or coining. I had speculated on the
possibility of Geldard’s secret being one of that kind. My mind had
even reverted to the case, which I have related elsewhere, in which
Hewitt frustrated a dynamite explosion by his timely discovery of a
baker’s cart and a number of loaves, and I wondered whether or not
Geldard was a member of some secret brotherhood of Anarchists or
Fenians. But here, it would seem, were two distinct mysteries, one of
Geldard’s generally unaccountable movements, and another of his
disappearance, each mystery complicating the other. Again, what did
that extraordinary note mean, with its crosses and its odd references
to smoking? Had the dirty clay pipes anything to do with it? Or the
half-smoked cigars? Perhaps the whole thing was merely ridiculously
trivial after all. I could make nothing of it, however, and applied
myself to my pursuit of Emma Trennatt, who mounted an omnibus at the
Bank, on the roof of which I myself secured a seat.
II
Here I must leave my own proceedings to put in their proper place
those of Martin Hewitt as I subsequently learnt them.
Benton Street, he found by the directory, turned out of the City
Road south of Old Street, so was quite near. He was there in less
than ten minutes, and had discovered Dragon Yard. Dragon Yard was as
small a stable-yard as one could easily find. Only the right-hand
side was occupied by stables, and there were only three of these. On
the left was a high dead wall bounding a great warehouse or some such
building. Across the first and second of the stables stretched a long
board with the legend, “W. Gask, Corn, Hay, and Straw Dealer,” and
underneath a shop address in Old Street. The third stable stood blank
and uninscribed, and all three were shut fast. Nobody was in the
yard, and Hewitt at once proceeded to examine the end stable. The
doors were unusually well finished and close-fitting, and the lock
was a good one, of the lever variety, and very difficult to pick.
Hewitt examined the front of the building very carefully, and then,
after a visit to the entrance of the yard, to guard against early
interruption, returned and scrambled by projections and fastenings to
the roof. This was a roof in contrast to those of the other stables.
They were of tiles, seemed old, and carried nothing in the way of a
skylight; evidently it was the habit of Mr. Gask and his helpers to
do their horse and van business with gates wide open to admit light.
But the roof of this third stable was newer and better made, and
carried a good-sized skylight of thick fluted glass. Hewitt took a
good look at such few windows as happened to be in sight, and
straightaway began, with the strongest blade of his pocket-knife, to
cut away the putty from round one pane. It was a rather long job, for
the putty had hardened thoroughly in the sun, but it was accomplished
at length, and Hewitt, with a final glance at the windows in view,
prised up the pane from the end and lifted it out.
The interior of the stable was apparently empty. Neither stall nor
rack was to be seen, and the place was plainly used as a coach or van
house simply. Hewitt took one more look about him, and dropped
quietly through the hole in the skylight. The floor was thickly laid
with straw. There were a few odd pieces of harness, a rope or two, a
lantern, and a few sacks lying here and there, and at the darkest end
there was an obscure heap covered with straw and sacking. This heap
Hewitt proceeded to unmask, and having cleared away a few sacks, left
revealed about half a dozen rolls of linoleum. One of these he
dragged to the light, where it became evident that it had remained
thus rolled and tied with cord in two places for a long period. There
were cracks in the surface, and when the cords were loosened the
linoleum showed no disposition to open out or to become unrolled.
Others of the rolls on inspection exhibited the same peculiarities.
Moreover, each roll appeared to consist of no more than a couple of
yards of material at most, though all were of the same pattern. Every
roll, in fact, was of the same length, thickness, and shape as the
others, containing somewhere near two yards of linoleum in a roll of
some half-dozen thicknesses, leaving an open diameter of some four
inches in the centre. Hewitt looked at each in turn, and then
replaced the heap as he had found it. After this, to regain the
skylight was not difficult by the aid of a trestle. The pane was
replaced as well as the absence of fresh putty permitted, and five
minutes later Hewitt was in a hansom bound for Crouch End.
[Illustration: “HALF A DOZEN ROLLS OF LINOLEUM”]
He dismissed his cab at the police station. Within he had no
difficulty in procuring a direction to Trennatt, the nurseryman, and
a short walk brought him to the place. A fairly high wall, topped
with broken glass, bounded the nursery garden next the road, and in
the wall were two gates, one a wide double one for the admission of
vehicles, and the other a smaller one of open pales, for ordinary
visitors. The garden stood sheltered by higher ground behind, whereon
stood a good-sized house, just visible among the trees that
surrounded it. Hewitt walked along by the side of the wall. Soon he
came to where the ground of the nursery garden appeared to be divided
from that of the house by a most extraordinarily high hedge extending
a couple of feet above the top of the wall itself. Stepping back, the
better to note this hedge, Hewitt became conscious of two large
boards, directly facing each other, with scarcely four feet space
between them, one erected on a post in the ground of the house, and
the other similarly elevated from that of the nursery, each being
inscribed in large letters, “Trespassers will be prosecuted. Hewitt
smiled and passed on; here plainly was a neighbour’s quarrel of long
standing, for neither board was by any means new. The wall continued,
and keeping by it Hewitt made the entire circuit of the large house
and its grounds, and arrived once more at that part of the wall that
enclosed the nursery garden. Just here, and near the wider gate, the
upper part of a cottage was visible, standing within the wall, and
evidently the residence of the nurseryman. It carried a conspicuous
board with the legend, “H. M. Trennatt, Nurseryman.” The large house
and the nursery stood entirely apart from other houses or enclosures,
and it would seem that the nursery ground had at some time been cut
off from the grounds attached to the house.
Hewitt stood for a moment thoughtfully, and then walked back to the
outer gate of the house on the rise. It was a high iron gate, and as
Hewitt perceived, it was bolted at the bottom. Within the garden
showed a neglected and weed-choked appearance, such as one associates
with the garden of a house that has stood long empty.
A little way off a policeman walked. Hewitt accosted him and spoke
of the house. “I was wondering if it might happen to be to let,” he
said. “Do you know?”
“No, sir,” the policeman replied, “it ain’t; though anyone might
almost think it, to look at the garden. That’s a Mr. Fuller as lives
there--and a rum ’un too.”
“Oh, he’s a rum ’un, is he? Keeps himself shut up, perhaps?”
“Yes, sir. On’y ’as one old woman, deaf as a post, for servant, and
never lets nobody into the place. It’s a rare game sometimes with the
milkman. The milkman, he comes and rings that there bell, but the old
gal’s so deaf she never ’ears it. Then the milkman, he just slips ’is
’and through the gate rails, lifts the bolt and goes and bangs at the
door. Old Fuller runs out and swears a good ’un. The old gal comes
out, and old Fuller swears at ’er, and she turns round and swears
back like anything. She don’t care for ’im--not a bit. Then when he
ain’t ’avin’ a row with the milkman and the old gal he goes down the
garden and rows with the old nurseryman there down the ’ill. He jores
the nurseryman from ’is side o’ the hedge, and the nurseryman he
jores back at the top of ’is voice. I’ve stood out there ten minutes
together and nearly bust myself a-laughin’ at them gray-’eaded old
fellers a-callin’ each other everythink they can think of; you can
’ear ’em ’alf over the parish. Why, each of ’em’s ’ad a board
painted, ‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted,’ and stuck ’em up facin’
each other, so as to keep up the row.”
“Very funny, no doubt.”
“Funny? I believe you, sir. Why, it’s quite a treat sometimes on a
dull beat like this. Why, what’s that? Blowed if I don’t think
they’re beginning again now. Yes, they are. Well, my beat’s the other
way.”
There was a sound of angry voices in the direction of the nursery
ground, and Hewitt made toward it. Just where the hedge peeped over
the wall the altercation was plain to hear.
“You’re an old vagabond, and I’ll indict you for a nuisance.”
“You’re an old thief, and you’d like to turn me out of house and
home, wouldn’t you? Indict away, you greedy old scoundrel!”
These and similar endearments, punctuated by growls and snorts, came
distinctly from over the wall, accompanied by a certain scraping,
brushing sound, as though each neighbour were madly attempting to
scale the hedge and personally bang the other.
Hewitt hastened round to the front of the nursery garden and quietly
tried first the wide gate and next the small one. Both were fastened
securely. But in the manner of the milkman at the gate of the house
above, Hewitt slipped his hand between the open slats of the small
gate and slid the night-latch that held it. Within the quarrel ran
high as Hewitt stepped quietly into the garden. He trod on the narrow
grass borders of the beds for quietness’ sake, till presently only a
line of shrubs divided him from the clamorous nurseryman. Stooping
and looking through an opening which gave him a back view, Hewitt
observed that the brushing and scraping noise proceeded, not from
angry scramblings, but from the forcing through an inadequate opening
in the hedge of some piece of machinery which the nurseryman was most
amicably passing to his neighbour at the same time as he assailed him
with savage abuse, and received a full return in kind. It appeared to
consist of a number of coils of metal pipe, not unlike those
sometimes used in heating apparatus, and was as yet only a very
little way through. Something else, of bright copper, lay on the
garden-bed at the foot of the hedge, but intervening plants concealed
its shape.
[Illustration: “FORCING THROUGH THE HEDGE SOME PIECE OF MACHINERY.”]
Hewitt turned quickly away and made towards the greenhouses, keeping
tall shrubs as much as possible between himself and the cottage, and
looking sharply about him. Here and there about the garden were
stand-pipes, each carrying a tap at its upper end and placed
conveniently for irrigation. These in particular Hewitt scrutinised,
and presently, as he neared a large wooden outhouse close by the
large gate, turned his attention to one backed by a thick shrub. When
the thick undergrowth of the shrub was pushed aside a small stone
slab, black and dirty, was disclosed, and this Hewitt lifted,
uncovering a square hole six or eight inches across, from the
foreside of which the stand-pipe rose.
[Illustration: THE STAND-PIPE IN THE NURSERY GARDEN.]
The row went cheerily on over by the hedge, and neither Trennatt nor
his neighbour saw Hewitt, feeling with his hand, discover two
stop-cocks and a branch pipe in the hole, nor saw him try them both.
Hewitt, however, was satisfied, and saw his case plain. He rose and
made his way back toward the small gate. He was scarce half-way there
when the straining of the hedge ceased, and before he reached it the
last insult had been hurled, the quarrel ceased, and Trennatt
approached. Hewitt immediately turned his back to the gate, and
looking about him inquiringly hemmed aloud as though to attract
attention. The nurseryman promptly burst round a corner crying,
“Who’s that? who’s that, eh? What d’ye want, eh?”
“Why,” answered Hewitt in a tone of mild surprise, “is it so
uncommon to have a customer drop in?”
“I’d ha’ sworn that gate was fastened,” the old man said, looking
about him suspiciously.
“That would have been rash; I had no difficulty in opening it. Come,
can’t you sell me a button-hole?”
The old man led the way to a greenhouse, but as he went he growled
again, “I’d ha’ sworn I shut that gate.”
“Perhaps you forgot,” Hewitt suggested. “You have had a little
excitement with your neighbour, haven’t you?”
Trennatt stopped and turned round, darting a keen glance into
Hewitt’s face. “Yes,” he answered angrily, “I have. He’s an old
villain. He’d like to turn me out of here, after being here all my
life-and a lot o’ good the ground ’ud be to him if he kep’ it like he
keeps his own! And look there!” He dragged Hewitt toward the
“Trespassers” boards. “Goes and sticks up a board like that looking
over my hedge! As though I wanted to go over among his weeds! So I
stuck up another in front of it, and now they can stare each other
out o’ countenance. Buttonhole, you said, sir, eh?”
The old man saw Hewitt off the premises with great care, and the
latter, flower in coat, made straight for the nearest post-office and
despatched a telegram. Then he stood for some little while outside
the post-office deep in thought, and in the end returned to the gate
of the house above the nursery.
With much circumspection he opened the gate and entered the grounds.
But instead of approaching the house he turned immediately to the
left, behind trees and shrubs, making for the side nearest the
nursery. Soon he reached a long, low wooden shed. The door was only
secured by a button, and turning this he gazed into the dark
interior. Now he had not noticed that close after him a woman had
entered the gate, and that that woman was Mrs. Geldard. She would
have made for the house, but catching sight of Hewitt, followed him
swiftly and quietly over the long grass. Thus it came to pass that
his first apprisal of the lady’s presence was a sharp drive in the
back, which pitched him down the step to the low floor of what he had
just perceived to be merely a tool-house, after which the door was
shut and buttoned behind him.
[Illustration: “HIS FIRST APPRISAL OF THE LADY’S PRESENCE WAS A SHARP
DRIVE IN THE BACK.”]
“Perhaps you’ll be more careful in future,” came Mrs. Geldard’s
angry voice from without, “how you go making mischief between husband
and wife and poking your nose into people’s affairs. Such fellows as
you ought to be well punished.”
Hewitt laughed softly. Mrs. Geldard had evidently changed her mind.
The door presented no difficulty; a fairly vigorous push dislodged
the button entirely, and he walked back to the outer gate chuckling
quietly. In the distance he heard Mrs. Geldard in shrill altercation
with the deaf old woman. “It’s no good you a-talking,” the old woman
was saying. “I can’t hear. Nobody ain’t allowed in this here place,
so you must get out. Out you go, now!” Outside the gate Hewitt met me.
III
My own adventures had been simple. I had secured a back seat on the
roof of the omnibus whereon Emma Trennatt travelled south from the
Bank, from which I could easily observe where she alighted. When she
did so I followed, and found to my astonishment that her destination
was no other than the Geldards’ private house at Camberwell--as I
remembered from the address on the visitor’s slip which Mrs. Geldard
had handed in at Hewitt’s office a couple of days before. She handed
a letter to the maid who opened the door, and soon after, in response
to a message by the same maid, entered the house. Presently the maid
reappeared, bonneted, and hurried off, to return in a few minutes in
a cab with another following behind. Almost immediately Mrs. Geldard
emerged in company with Emma Trennatt. She hurried the girl into one
of the cabs, and I heard her repeat loudly twice the address of
Hewitt’s office, once to the girl and once to the cabman. Now it
seemed plain to me that to follow Emma Trennatt farther would be
waste of time, for she was off to Hewitt’s office, where Kerrett
would learn her message. And knowing where a message would find
Hewitt sooner than at his office, I judged it well to tell Mrs.
Geldard of the fact. I approached, therefore, as she was entering the
other cab, and began to explain, when she cut me short. “You go and
tell your master to attend to his own business as soon as he pleases,
for not a shilling does he get from me. He ought to be ashamed of
himself, sowing dissension between man and wife for the sake of what
he can make out of it, and so ought you.”
I bowed with what grace I might, and retired. The other cab had
gone, so I set forth to find one for myself at the nearest rank. I
could think of nothing better to do than to make for Crouch End
Police Station and endeavour to find Hewitt. Soon after my cab
emerged north of the city I became conscious of another cab, whose
driver I fancied I recognised, and which kept ahead all along the
route. In fact it was Mrs. Geldard’s cab, and presently it dawned
upon me that we must both be bound for the same place. When it became
quite clear that Crouch End was the destination of the lady I
instructed my driver to disregard the police-station and follow the
cab in front. Thus I arrived at Mr. Fuller’s house just behind Mrs.
Geldard, and thus, waiting at the gate, I met Hewitt as he emerged.
“Hullo, Brett!” he said. “Condole with me. Mrs. Geldard has changed
her mind, and considers me a pernicious creature anxious to make
mischief between her and her husband; I’m very much afraid I shan’t
get my fee.”
“No,” I answered, “she told me you wouldn’t.”
We compared notes, and Hewitt laughed heartily. “The appearance of
Emma Trennatt at Geldard’s office this morning is explained,” he
said. “She went first with a message from Geldard to Mrs. Geldard at
Camberwell, explaining his absence and imploring her not to talk of
it or make a disturbance. Mrs. Geldard had gone off to town, and Emma
Trennatt was told that she had gone to Geldard’s office. There she
went, and then we first saw her. She found nobody at the office, and
after a minute or two of irresolution returned to Camberwell, and
then succeeded in delivering her message, as you saw. Mrs. Geldard is
apparently satisfied with her husband’s explanation. But I’m afraid
the revenue officers won’t approve of it.”
“The revenue officers?”
“Yes. It’s a case of illicit distilling--and a big case, I fancy.
I’ve wired to Somerset House, and no doubt men are on their way here
now. But Mrs. Geldard’s up at the house, so we’d better hurry up to
the police station and have a few sent from there. Come along. The
whole thing’s very clever, and a most uncommonly big thing. If I know
all about it--and I think I do--Geldard and his partners have been
turning out untaxed spirit by the hundred gallons for a long time
past. Geldard is the practical man, the engineer, and probably
erected the whole apparatus himself in that house on the hill. The
spirit is brought down by a pipe laid a very little way under the
garden surface, and carried into one of the irrigation stand-pipes in
the nursery ground. There’s a quiet little hole behind the pipe with
a couple of stop-cocks--one to shut off the water when necessary, the
other to do the same with the spirit. When the stopcocks are right
you just turn the tap at the top of the pipe and you get water or
whisky, as the case may be. Fuller, the man up at the house, attends
to the still, with such assistance as the deaf old woman can give
him. Trennatt, down below, draws off the liquor ready to be carried
away. These two keep up an ostentatious appearance of being at
unending feud to blind suspicion. Our as yet ungreeted friend
Geldard, guiding spirit of the whole thing, comes disguised as a
carter with an apparent cart-load of linoleum, and carries away the
manufactured stuff. In the pleasing language of Geldard and Co.,
‘smoke,’ as alluded to in the note you saw, means whisky. Something
has been wrong with the apparatus lately, and it has been leaking
badly. Geldard has been at work on it, patching, but ineffectually.
‘What you did was no good’ said the charming Emma in the note, as you
will remember. ‘Uncle was anxious.’ And justifiably so, because not
only does a leak of spirit mean a waste, but it means a smell, which
some sharp revenue man might sniff. Moreover, if there is a leak, the
liquid runs somewhere at random, and with any sudden increase in
volume attention might easily be attracted. It was so bad that ‘F.’
(Fuller) thought Geldard must light another pipe (start another
still) or give up smoking (distilling) for a bit. There is the
explanation of the note. ‘To-morrow, to carry’ probably means that he
is to call with his cart--the cart in whose society Geldard becomes
Cookson--to remove a quantity of spirit. He is not to come late
because people are expected on floral business. The crosses, I
_think,_ will be found to indicate the amount of liquid to be moved.
But that we shall see. Anyhow, Geldard got there yesterday and had a
busy day loading up, and then set to repairing. The damage was worse
than supposed, and an urgent thing. Result, Geldard works into early
morning, has a sleep in the place, where he may be called at any
moment, and starts again early this morning. New parts have to be
ordered, and these are delivered at Trennatt’s to-day and passed
through the hedge. Meantime Geldard sends a message to his wife
explaining things, and the result you’ve seen.”
At the police station a telegram had already been received from
Somerset House. That was enough for Hewitt, who had discharged his
duty as a citizen and now dropped the case. We left the police and
the revenue officers to deal with the matter and travelled back to
town.
“Yes,” said Hewitt on the way, after each had fully described his
day’s experiences, “it seemed pretty plain that Geldard left his
office by the back way in disguise, and there were things that hinted
what that disguise was. The pipes were noticeable. They were quite
unnecessarily dirty, and partly from dirty fingers. Pipes smoked by a
man in his office would never look like that. They had been smoked
out of doors by a man with dirty hands, and hands and pipes would be
in keeping with the rest of the man’s appearance. It was noticeable
that he had left not only his clothes and hat, but his boots behind
him. They were quite plain though good boots, and would be quite in
keeping with any dress but that of a labourer or some such man in his
working clothes. Moreover, the partly-smoked cigars were probably
thrown aside because they would appear inconsistent with Geldard’s
changed dress. The contents of the pockets in the clothes left
behind, too, told the same tale. The cheap watch and the necessary
keys, pocketbook and pocket-knife were taken, but the articles of
luxury, the russia leather card-case, the sovereign purse and so on,
were left. Then we came on the receipts for stable-rent.
Suggestion--perhaps the disguise was that of a carter.