directs her glance at Hewitt’s small gas grill and kettle in the
fireplace--a glance which Hewitt, with all expedition, translates
into tea. Slightly mollified by the tea, Mrs. Mallett condescends to
remark, in tones of tragic truculence, on passing matters of
conventional interest--the weather, the influenza, her own health,
Hewitt’s health, and so forth, any reply of Hewitt’s being commonly
received with either disregard or contempt. In half an hour’s time or
so she leaves the office with a stern command to Hewitt to attend at
her house and drink tea on a day and at a time named--a command which
Hewitt obediently fulfils, when he passes through a similarly
exhilarating experience in Mrs. Mallett’s back drawing-room at her
little freehold house in Fulham. Altogether Mrs. Mallett, to a
stranger, is a singularly uninviting personality, and indeed, except
Hewitt, who has learnt to appreciate her hidden good qualities, I
doubt if she has a friend in the world. Her studiously concealed
charities are a matter of as much amusement as gratification to
Hewitt, who naturally, in the course of his peculiar profession,
comes across many sad examples of poverty and suffering, commonly
among the decent sort, who hide their troubles from strangers’ eyes,
and suffer in secret. When such a case is in his mind it is Hewitt’s
practice to inform Mrs. Mallett of it at one of the tea ceremonies.
Mrs. Mallett receives the story with snorts of incredulity and scorn,
but takes care, while expressing the most callous disregard and
contempt of the troubles of the sufferers, to ascertain casually
their names and addresses; twenty-four hours after which Hewitt need
only make a visit to find their difficulties in some mysterious way
alleviated.
[Illustration: “SLIGHTLY MOLLIFIED BY THE TEA.”]
Mrs. Mallett never had any children, and was early left a widow. Her
appearance, for some reason or another, commonly leads strangers to
believe her an old maid. She lives in her little detached house with
its square piece of ground, attended by a housekeeper, older than
herself, and one maid-servant. She lost her only sister by death soon
after the events I am about to set down, and now has, I believe, no
relations in the world. It was also soon after these events that her
present housekeeper first came to her, in place of an older and very
deaf woman, quite useless, who had been with her before. I believe
she is moderately rich, and that one or two charities will benefit
considerably at her death; also I should be far from astonished to
find Hewitt’s own name in her will, though this is no more than idle
conjecture. The one possession to which she clings with all her
soul--her one pride and treasure--is her great-uncle Joseph’s
snuff-box, the lid of which she steadfastly believes to be made of a
piece of Noah’s original ark, discovered on the top of Mount Ararat
by some intrepid explorer of vague identity about a hundred years
ago. This is her one weakness, and woe to the unhappy creature who
dares hint a suggestion that possibly the wood of the ark rotted away
to nothing a few thousand years before her great-uncle Joseph ever
took snuff. I believe he would be bodily assaulted. The box is
brought out for Hewitt’s admiration at every tea ceremony at Fulham,
when Hewitt handles it reverently, and expresses as much astonishment
and interest as if he had never seen or heard of it before. It is on
these occasions only that Mrs. Mallett’s customary stiffness relaxes.
The sides of the box are of cedar of Lebanon, she explains (which
very possibly they are), and the gold mountings were worked up from
spade guineas (which one can believe without undue strain on the
reason). And it is usually these times, when the old lady softens
under the combined influence of tea and Uncle Joseph’s snuff-box,
that Hewitt seizes to lead up to his hint of some starving governess
or distressed clerk, with the full confidence that the more savagely
the story is received the better will the poor people be treated as
soon as he turns his back.
It was her jealous care of Uncle Joseph’s snuff-box that first
brought Mrs. Mallett into contact with Martin Hewitt, and the
occasion, though not perhaps testing his acuteness to the extent that
some did, was nevertheless one of the most curious and fantastic on
which he has ever been engaged. She was then some ten or twelve years
younger than she is now, but Hewitt assures me she looked exactly the
same; that is to say, she was harsh, angular, and seemed little more
than fifty years of age. It was before the time of Kerrett, and
another youth occupied the outer office. Hewitt sat late one
afternoon with his door ajar when he heard a stranger enter the outer
office, and a voice, which he afterwards knew well as Mrs. Mallett’s,
ask “Is Mr. Martin Hewitt in?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think so. If you will write your name and----”
“Is he in _there_?” And with three strides Mrs. Mallett was at the
inner door and stood before Hewitt himself, while the routed
office-lad stared helplessly in the rear.
“Mr. Hewitt,” Mrs. Mallet said, “I have come to put an affair into
your hands, which I shall require to be attended to at once.”
Hewitt was surprised, but he bowed politely, and said, with some
suspicion of a hint in his tone, “Yes--I rather supposed you were in
a hurry.”
She glanced quickly in Hewitt’s face and went on: “I am not
accustomed to needless ceremony, Mr. Hewitt. My name is Mallett--Mrs.
Mallett--and here is my card. I have come to consult you on a matter
of great annoyance and some danger to myself. The fact is I am being
watched and followed by a number of persons.”
Hewitt’s gaze was steadfast, but he reflected that possibly this
curious woman was a lunatic, the delusion of being watched and
followed by unknown people being perhaps the most common of all; also
it was no unusual thing to have a lunatic visit the office with just
such a complaint. So he only said soothingly, “Indeed? That must be
very annoying.”
“Yes, yes; the annoyance is bad enough, perhaps,” she answered
shortly; “but I am chiefly concerned about my great-uncle Joseph’s
snuff-box.”
This utterance sounded a trifle more insane than the other, so
Hewitt answered, a little more soothingly still: “Ah, of course. A
very important thing, the snuff-box, no doubt.”
“It is, Mr. Hewitt--it is important, as I think you will admit when
you have seen it. Here it is,” and she produced from a small handbag
the article that Hewitt was destined so often again to see and affect
an interest in. “You may be incredulous, Mr. Hewitt, but it is,
nevertheless, a fact that the lid of this snuff-box is made of the
wood of the original ark that rested on Mount Ararat.”
She handed the box to Hewitt, who murmured, “Indeed! Very
interesting--very wonderful, really,” and returned it to the lady
immediately.
“That, Mr. Hewitt, was the property of my great-uncle, Joseph
Simpson, who once had the honour of shaking hands with his late
Majesty King George the Fourth. The box was presented to my uncle
by----,” and then Mrs. Mallett plunged into the whole history and
adventures of the box, in the formula wherewith Hewitt subsequently
became so well acquainted, and which need not be here set out in
detail. When the box had been properly honoured Mrs. Mallett
proceeded with her business.
“I am convinced, Mr. Hewitt,” she said, “that systematic attempts
are being made to rob me of this snuff-box. I am not a nervous or
weak-minded woman, or perhaps I might have sought your assistance
before. The watching and following of myself I might have
disregarded, but when it comes to burglary I think it is time to do
something.”
“Certainly,” Hewitt agreed.
“Well, I have been pestered with demands for the box for some time
past. I have here some of the letters which I have received, and I am
sure I know at whose instigation they were sent.” She placed on the
table a handful of papers of various sizes, which Hewitt examined one
after another. They were mostly in the same handwriting, and all were
unsigned. Every one was couched in a fanatically-toned imitation of
scriptural diction, and all sorts of threats were expressed with many
emphatic underlinings. The spelling was not of the best, the writing
was mostly uncouth, and the grammar was in ill shape in many places,
the “thous” and “thees” and their accompanying verbs falling over
each other disastrously. The purport of the messages was rather
vaguely expressed, but all seemed to make a demand for the
restoration of some article held in extreme veneration. This was
alluded to in many figurative ways as the “token of life,” the “seal
of the woman,” and so forth, and sometimes Mrs. Mallett was requested
to restore it to the “ark of the covenant.” One of the least vague of
these singular documents ran thus:--
“Thou of no faith put the bond of the woman clothed with the sun on
the stoan sete in thy back garden this night or thy blood beest on
your own hed. Give it back to us the five righteous only in this
citty, give us that what saves the faithful when the erth is swalloed
up.”
Hewitt read over these fantastic missives one by one till he began
to suspect that his client, mad or not, certainly corresponded with
mad Quakers. Then he said, “Yes, Mrs. Mallett, these are most
extraordinary letters. Are there any more of them?”
“Bless the man, yes, there were a lot that I burnt. All the same
crack-brained sort of thing.”
“They are mostly in one handwriting,” Hewitt said, “though some are
in another. But I confess I don’t see any very direct reference to
the snuff-box.”
“Oh, but it’s the only thing they _can_ mean,” Mrs. Mallett replied
with great positiveness. “Why, he wanted me to sell it him; and last
night my house was broken into in my absence and everything ransacked
and turned over, but not a thing was taken. Why? Because I had the
box with me at my sister’s. And this is the only sacred relic in my
possession. And what saved the faithful when the world was swallowed
up? Why, the ark, of course.”
The old lady’s manner was odd, but notwithstanding the bizarre and
disjointed character of her complaint, Hewitt had now had time to
observe that she had none of the unmistakable signs of the lunatic.
Her eye was steady and clear, and she had none of the restless habits
of the mentally deranged. Even at that time Hewitt had met with
curious adventures enough to teach him not to be astonished at a new
one, and now he set himself seriously to get at his client’s case in
full order and completeness.
“Come, Mrs. Mallett,” he said, “I am a stranger, and I can never
understand your case till I have it, not as it presents itself to
your mind, in the order of importance of events, but in the exact
order in which they happened. You had a great-uncle, I understand,
living in the early part of the century, who left you at his death
the snuff-box which you value so highly. Now you suspect that
somebody is attempting to extort or steal it from you. Tell me as
clearly and simply as you can whom you suspect, and the whole story
of the attempts.”
“That’s just what I’m coming to,” the old lady answered, rather
pettishly. “My uncle Joseph had an old housekeeper, who, of course,
knew all about the snuff-box, and it is her son Reuben Penner who is
trying to get it from me. The old woman was half crazy with one
extraordinary religious superstition and another, and her son seems
to be just the same. My great-uncle was a man of strong common sense
and a Churchman (though he _did_ think he could write plays), and if
it hadn’t been for his restraint I believe--that is, I have been
told--Mrs. Penner would have gone clean demented with religious
mania. Well, she died in course of time, and my great-uncle died some
time after, leaving me the most important thing in his possession (I
allude to the snuff-box of course), a good bit of property, and a tin
box full of his worthless manuscripts. I became a widow at
twenty-six, and since then I have lived very quietly in my present
house in Fulham.
“A couple of years ago I received a visit from Reuben Penner. I
didn’t recognise him, which wasn’t wonderful, since I hadn’t seen him
for thirty years or more. He is well over fifty now, a large,
heavy-faced man with uncommonly wild eyes for a greengrocer--which is
what he is, though he dresses very well, considering. He was quite
respectful at first, and very awkward in his manner. He took a little
time to get his courage, and then he began questioning me about my
religious feelings. Well, Mr. Hewitt, I am not the sort of person to
stand a lecture from a junior and an inferior, whatever my religious
opinions may be, and I pretty soon made him realise it. But somehow
he persevered. He wanted to know if I would go to some place of
worship that he called his ‘Tabernacle.’ I asked him who was the
pastor. He said himself. I asked him how many members of the
congregation there were, and (the man was as solemn as an owl. I
assure you, Mr. Hewitt) he actually said five! I kept my countenance
and asked why such a small number couldn’t attend church, or, at any
rate, attach itself to some decent Dissenting chapel. And then the
man burst out; mad--mad as a hatter. He was as incoherent as such
people usually are, but as far as I could make out he talked, among a
lot of other things, of some imaginary woman--a woman standing on the
moon and driven into a wilderness on the wings of an eagle. The man
was so madly possessed of his fancies that I assure you for a while
he almost ceased to look ridiculous. He was so earnest in his rant.
But I soon cut him short. It’s best to be severe with these
people--it’s the only chance of bringing them to their senses.
‘Reuben Penner,’ I said, ‘shut up. Your mother was a very decent
person in her way, I believe, but she was half a lunatic with her
superstitious notions, and you’re a bigger fool than she was. Imagine
a grown man, and of your age, coming and asking me, of all people in
the world, to leave my church and make another fool in a congregation
of five, with _you_ to rave at me about women in the moon! Go away
and look after your greengrocery, and go to church or chapel like a
sensible man. Go away and don’t play the fool any longer; I won’t
hear another word!’
[Illustration: “‘REUBEN PENNER,’ I SAID, ‘SHUT UP!’”]
“When I talk like this I am usually attended to, and in this case
Penner went away with scarcely another word. I saw nothing of him for
about a month or six weeks, and then he came and spoke to me as I was
cutting roses in my front garden. This time he talked--to begin with,
at least--more sensibly. ‘Mrs. Mallett,’ he said, ‘you have in your
keeping a very sacred relic.’
“‘I have,’ I said, ‘left me by my great-uncle Joseph. And what then?’
“‘Well’--he hummed and hawed a little--‘I wanted to ask if you might
be disposed to part with it.’
“‘What?’ I said, dropping my scissors--‘sell it?’
“‘Well, yes,’ he answered, putting on as bold a face as he could.
“The notion of selling my uncle Joseph’s snuff-box in any possible
circumstances almost made me speechless. ‘What!’ I repeated. ‘Sell
it?--_sell_ it? It would be a sinful sacrilege!’
“His face quite brightened when I said this, and he replied, ‘Yes,
of course it would; I think so myself, ma’am; but I fancied you
thought otherwise. In that case, ma’am, not being a believer
yourself, I’m sure you would consider it a graceful and a pious act
to present it to my little Tabernacle, where it would be properly
valued. And it having been my mother’s property----’
“He got no further. I am not a woman to be trifled with, Mr. Hewitt,
and I believe I beat him out of the garden with my basket. I was so
infuriated I can scarcely remember what I did. The suggestion that I
should sell my uncle Joseph’s snuff-box to a greengrocer was bad
enough; the request that I should actually _give_ it to his
‘Tabernacle’ was infinitely worse. But to claim that it had belonged
to his mother--well I don’t know how it strikes you, Mr. Hewitt, but
to me it seemed the last insult possible.”
[Illustration: “‘I AM NOT A WOMAN TO BE TRIFLED WITH.’”]
“Shocking! shocking! of course,” Hewitt said, since she seemed to
expect a reply. “And he called you an unbeliever, too. But what
happened after that?”
“After that he took care not to bother me personally again; but
these wretched anonymous demands came in, with all sorts of darkly
hinted threats as to the sin I was committing in keeping my own
property. They didn’t trouble me much. I put ’em in the fire as fast
as they came, until I began to find I was being watched and followed,
and then I kept them.”
“Very sensible,” Hewitt observed, “very sensible indeed to do that.
But tell me as to these papers. Those you have here are nearly all in
one handwriting, but some, as I have already said, are in another.
Now before all this business did you ever see Reuben Penner’s
handwriting?”
“No, never.”
“Then you are not by any means sure that he has written any of these
things?”
“But then who else could?”
“That, of course, is a thing to be found out. At present, at any
rate, we know this: that if Penner has anything to do with these
letters he is not alone, because of the second handwriting. Also we
must not bind ourselves past other conviction that he wrote any one
of them. By the way, I am assuming that they all arrived by post?”
“Yes, they did.”
“But the envelopes are not here. Have you kept any of them?”
“I hardly know; there may be some at home. Is it important?”
“It may be; but those I can see at another time. Please go on.”
“These things continued to arrive, as I have said, and I continued
to burn them till I began to find myself watched and followed, and
then I kept them. That was two or three months ago. It is a most
unpleasant sensation, that of feeling that some unknown person is
dogging your footsteps from corner to corner and observing all your
movements for a purpose you are doubtful of. Once or twice I turned
suddenly back, but I never could catch the creatures, of whom I am
sure Penner was one.”
“You saw these people, of course?”
“Well, yes, in a way--with the corner of my eye, you know. But it
was mostly in the evening. It was a woman once, but several times I
feel certain it was Penner. And once I saw a man come into my garden
at the back in the night, and I feel quite sure that was Penner.”
“Was that after you had this request to put the article demanded on
the stone seat in the garden?”
“The same night. I sat up and watched from the bath-room window,
expecting someone would come. It was a dark night, and the trees made
it darker, but I could plainly see someone come quietly over the wall
and go up to the seat.”
“Could you distinguish his face?”
“No; it was too dark. But I feel sure it was Penner.”
“Has Penner any decided peculiarity of form or gait?”
“No; he’s just a big, common sort of man. But I tell you I feel
certain it was Penner.”
“For any particular reason?”
“No, perhaps not. But who else could it have been? No, I’m very sure
it must have been Penner.”
Hewitt repressed a smile and went on. “Just so,” he said. “And what
happened then?”
“He went up to the seat, as I said, and looked at it, passing his
hand over the top. Then I called out to him. I said if I found him on
my premises again by day or night I’d give him in charge of the
police. I assure you he got over the wall the second time a good deal
quicker than the first. And then I went to bed, though I got a
shocking cold in the head sitting at that open bath-room window.
Nobody came about the place after that till last night. A few days
ago my only sister was taken ill. I saw her each day, and she got
worse. Yesterday she was so bad that I wouldn’t leave her. I sent
home for some things and stopped in her house for the night. To-day I
got an urgent message to come home, and when I went I found that an
entrance had been made by a kitchen window, and the whole house had
been ransacked, but not a thing was missing.”
“Were drawers and boxes opened?”
“Everywhere. Most seemed to have been opened with keys, but some
were broken. The place was turned upside down, but, as I said before,
not a thing was missing. A very old woman, very deaf, who used to be
my housekeeper, but who does nothing now, was in the house, and so
was my general servant. They slept in rooms at the top, and were not
disturbed. Of course the old woman is too deaf to have heard
anything, and the maid is a very heavy sleeper. The girl was very
frightened, but I pacified her before I came away. As it happened, I
took the snuff-box with me. I had got very suspicious of late, of
course, and something seemed to suggest that I had better make sure
of it, so I took it. It’s pretty strong evidence that they have been
watching me closely, isn’t it, that they should break in the very
first night I left the place?”
“And are you quite sure that nothing has been taken?”
“Quite certain. I have spent a long time in a very careful search.”
“And you want me, I presume, to find out definitely who these people
are, and get such evidence as may ensure their being punished?”
“That is the case. Of course I know Reuben Penner is the moving
spirit--I’m quite certain of that. But still I can see plainly enough
that as yet there’s no legal evidence of it. Mind, I’m not afraid of
him--not a bit. That is not my character. I’m not afraid of all the
madmen in England; but I’m not going to have them steal my
property--this snuff-box especially.”
“Precisely. I hope you have left the disturbance in your house
exactly as you found it?”
“Oh, of course, and I have given strict orders that nothing is to be
touched. To-morrow morning I should like you to come and look at it.”
“I must look at it, certainly,” Hewitt said, “but I would rather go
at once.”
“Pooh--nonsense!” Mrs. Mallett answered, with the airy obstinacy
that Hewitt afterwards knew so well. “I’m not going home again now to
spend an hour or two more. My sister will want to know what has
become of me, and she mustn’t suspect that anything is wrong, or it
may do all sorts of harm. The place will keep till the morning, and I
have the snuff-box safe with me. You have my card, Mr. Hewitt,
haven’t you? Very well. Can you be at my house to-morrow morning at
half-past ten? I will be there, and you can see all you want by
daylight. We’ll consider that settled. Good-day.”
Hewitt saw her to his office door, and waited till she had half
descended the stairs. Then he made for a staircase window which gave
a view of the street. The evening was coming on murky and foggy, and
the street lights were blotchy and vague. Outside a four-wheeled cab
stood, and the driver eagerly watched the front door. When Mrs.
Mallett emerged he instantly began to descend from the box with the
quick invitation, “Cab, mum, cab?” He seemed very eager for his fare,
and though Mrs. Mallett hesitated a second she eventually entered the
cab. He drove off, and Hewitt tried in vain to catch a glimpse of the
number of the cab behind. It was always a habit of his to note all
such identifying marks throughout a case, whether they seemed
important at the time or not, and he has often had occasion to be
pleased with the outcome. Now, however, the light was too bad. No
sooner had the cab started than a man emerged from a narrow passage
opposite, and followed. He was a large, rather awkward, heavy-faced
man of middle age, and had the appearance of a respectable artisan or
small tradesman in his best clothes. Hewitt hurried downstairs and
followed the direction the cab and the man had taken, toward the
Strand. But the cab by this time was swallowed up in the Strand
traffic, and the heavy-faced man had also disappeared. Hewitt
returned to his office a little disappointed, for the man seemed
rather closely to answer Mrs. Mallett’s description of Reuben Penner.
[Illustration: “‘CAB, MUM?’”]
II
Punctually at half-past ten the next morning Hewitt was at Mrs.
Mallett’s house at Fulham. It was a pretty little house, standing
back from the road in a generous patch of garden, and had evidently
stood there when Fulham was an outlying village. Hewitt entered the
gate, and made his way to the front door, where two young females,
evidently servants, stood. They were in a very disturbed state, and
when he asked for Mrs. Mallett assured him that nobody knew where she
was, and that she had not been seen since the previous afternoon.
“But,” said Hewitt, “she was to stay at her sister’s last night, I
believe.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the more distressed of the two girls--she in a
cap--“but she hasn’t been seen there. This is her sister’s servant,
and she’s been sent over to know where she is, and why she hasn’t
been there.”
This the other girl--in bonnet and shawl--corroborated. Nothing had
been seen of Mrs. Mallett at her sister’s since she had received the
message the day before to the effect that the house had been broken
into.
“And I’m so frightened,” the other girl said, whimperingly. “They’ve
been in the place again last night.”
“Who have?”
“The robbers. When I came in this morning----”
“But didn’t you sleep here?”
“I--I ought to ha’ done, sir, but--but after Mrs. Mallett went
yesterday I got so frightened I went home at ten.” And the girl
showed signs of tears, which she had apparently been already
indulging in.
“And what about the old woman--the deaf woman; where was she?”
“She was in the house, sir. There was nowhere else for her to go,
and she was deaf and didn’t know anything about what happened the
night before, and confined to her room, and--and so I didn’t tell
her.”
“I see,” Hewitt said with a slight smile. “You left her here. She
didn’t see or hear anything, did she?”
“No sir; she can’t hear, and she didn’t see nothing.”