THE HOUSE IN THE YARD
The Jew silently and promptly set out in the wake of the hurrying
woman; presently she and her pursuer disappeared round a corner.
"That's the result of our call, Mapperley!" said Hetherwick. "She's
gone somewhere--to tell somebody!"
"Likely!" assented Mapperley. "But wherever she's gone, Issy
Goldmark'll spot her. He's the eyes of a lynx."
"He let Baseverie slip him, the other night, though," remarked
Hetherwick.
"Well, there was some excuse for that," said Mapperley, "to begin with,
he was only instructed to find out where Baseverie went, and to end
with he had found out! He'll not let this woman slip him. She's good
to follow--plenty of her."
"I wish we knew what she'd left in that house," said Hetherwick.
"We'll have to find out, somehow!"
"That's a police job," replied Mapperley. "Can't walk into people's
houses without a warrant. And you say Matherfield's on the other
track? However, I should say that this woman's gone off now to find
somebody who's principally concerned--she looked afraid, in my opinion,
when she saw me."
"She's in it, somehow," muttered Hetherwick.
"That house looks mysterious enough for anything. We'll keep a close
watch on it, anyway, until Goldmark comes back, however long that may
be."
But the Jew was back within twenty minutes. So was the woman. She
came first, hurrying up the street quicker than when she had left it.
As far as the watchers could make out from their vantage point, twenty
yards away from her door, she looked flustered, distressed, upset.
After her, on the opposite pavement, came Mr. Issy Goldmark, his hands
in his pockets.
The woman re-entered the house; they heard the door bang. A moment
later the Jew turned into the entry in which Hetherwick and Mapperley
stood, half hidden from the street. He smiled, inscrutably.
"Thee her go back to her houth?" he asked. "Well, I followed. I thaw
where thee'th been, too."
"Where, then?" demanded Hetherwick, impatiently.
Goldmark jerked his head in the direction from whence he had come.
"Round that corner," he said, "you get into a regular thlum. Little
thtreeth, alleyth, pathageth, and tho on. In one of 'em, a narrow
plathe, where there'th a thort of open-air market, there'th a good
thithed pieth of blank wall, with an iron-fathen'd door in it. Well,
the woman went in there--let herthelf in with a key that thee took from
her pocket. Ath thoon ath thee'd gone in, I took a clother look. The
door'th fathen'd with iron, or thteel, ath I thaid--jolly thtrong.
There ain't no name on it, and no keyhole that you can look through.
The wall'th a good nine or ten feet high, and it'th covered with broken
glath at the top. Not a nithe plathe to get into, nohow!"
"Well?" inquired Hetherwick. "She went in?"
"Went in, ath I thay, mithter, and the door clothed on her. After I'd
taken a glimpth at the door I got a potht behind one of the thtalls in
the thtreet and watched. She came out again in about ten
minitth--looked to me, too, ath if thee hadn't had a very plethant time
inthide. Upthet! And thee thet off back here, fathter than vhat thee
came. Now thee'th gone into her houth again--ath you no doubt thaw.
And that'th all. But if I wath you, mithter," concluded Issy, "I
should jutht find out vhat there ith behind that door and the wall
it'th thet in--I thhould tho!"
"That's a police job," said Mapperley once more. "If we'd only got
Matherfield with us, we could----" Hetherwick paused--thinking. "Look
here, Mapperley," he continued, with a sudden inspiration. "I know
what we'll do! You get a taxi-cab, as quickly as possible. Drive to
the police station where I usually meet Matherfield. There's another
man there whom I know, and who's pretty well up in this
business--Detective-Sergeant Robmore. Ask for him. Tell him what
we've discovered, and ask him to come back with you and to bring
another man if he thinks it necessary. Now then, Goldmark! Tell
Mapperley exactly where this place is."
The Jew pointed along the street to its first corner.
"Round that corner," he said. "Firtht turning to the right; then
firtht to the left; then firtht to the right--that'th the thpot.
Lot'th o' little thtallth in it--a bithy, crowded plathe."
"Didn't ye notice the name?" demanded Mapperley, half scoldingly.
"To be thure I did!" grinned Goldmark. "Pencove Thtreet. But it'th
better to dethcribe it than to name it. And don't you go tellin' no
tackthy-driver to drive you in there!--cauth' there ain't room!"
Mapperley gave no answer to this piece of advice; he shot off in the
direction of Victoria Street, and Hetherwick turned to the Jew.
"We'll go and have another look at this place, Goldmark," he said.
"But we'll go separately--as long as we're in this street, anyway. You
stroll off to that first corner, and I'll join you."
He crossed the street when the Jew had lounged away, and once more took
a narrow look at the house into which the big woman had vanished. It
was as close barred and curtained as ever; a veritable place of
mystery. For a moment Hetherwick doubted whether he ought to leave it
unwatched. But the descriptions of the wall and door in Pencove Street
had excited his imagination, and he went on, turned the corner, and
rejoined Goldmark. Goldmark at once went in front, piloting him into a
maze of unusually dirty and crowded streets, and finally into one,
narrower than the rest, on each side of which were tent-like stalls
whereon all manner of cheap wares were being offered for sale by
raucous-voiced vendors. He saw at once that this was one of those
open-air markets of which there are many in the poorer neighbourhoods
of London, and wherein you can buy a sixpenny frying-pan as readily as
a paper of fried fish, and a gay neckerchief alongside a damaged orange.
Threading his way behind Issy, and between the thronged stalls and the
miserable shops that lined the pavement, Hetherwick presently came to
the piece of blank wall of which the Jew had told him. The houses and
shops round about were old and dilapidated, but the wall was either
modern or had been rebuilt and strengthened. It stretched between two
low houses, one used as a grocer's, the other as a hardware shop. In
length, it was some thirty feet; in height, quite ten; its coping, as
Goldmark had said, was liberally embattled with broken glass. The
door, set flush with the adjoining masonry, was a solid affair, faced
with metal, newly painted, and the lock was evidently a patent one. A
significant fact struck Hetherwick at once--there was no sign of a bell
and none of a knocker.
"You say the woman let herself in here?" he asked, as he and Issy
paused.
"That'th it, mithter Hetherwick--let herthelf in," replied Issy. "I
thee her take the key from her pocket."
Hetherwick glanced at the top of the wall.
"I wonder what's behind?" he muttered. "Building of some sort, of
course." He turned to a man whose stall stood just in front of the
mysterious door, and who at that moment had no trade. "Do you know
anything about this place?" he asked. "Do you know what's behind this
wall? What building it is?"
The stall-keeper eyed Hetherwick over, silently and carefully.
Deciding that he was an innocent person and not a policeman in plain
clothes, he found his tongue.
"I don't, guv'nor!" he answered. "'Aint a bloomin' notion! I been
comin' here, or hereabouts, this three year or more, but I 'aint never
seen behind that wall, nor in at that there doorway. S'elp me!"
"But I suppose you've seen people go in and come out of the door?"
suggested Hetherwick. "It must be used for something!"
"I reckon it is, guv'nor, but I don't call nobody to mind, though, to
be sure, I see a woman come out of it a while ago--big, heavy-jawed
woman, she was. But queer as it may seem, I don't call to mind ever
seeing anybody else. You see, guv'nor, I comes here at about ten
o'clock of a morning, and I packs up and 'ops it at five--if there's
folks comes in and out o' that spot, it must be early in a morning and
late at night, and so I shouldn't see 'em. But it's my belief this
here wall and door is back premises to something--the front o' the
place'll be on the other side."
"That's a good idea," said Hetherwick, with a glance at Goldmark.
"Let's go round."
But there was no going round. Although they tried various alleys and
passages and streets that ought to have been parallel to Pencove
Street, they failed to find any place that could be a frontage to the
mysterious wall and its close-set door. But the Jew's alert faculties
asserted themselves.
"We can thee vhat'th behind that vail, mithter, eathy enough if we get
one o' them thop-keeperth oppothit to let uth go upthtairth to hith
firtht floor," he said. "Look right acroth the thtreet there, thtallth
and all, into vhatever there ith. Try that one," he went on, pointing
to a greengrocer's establishment which faced the close-set door. "Tell
him we're doin' a bit o' land thurveyin'--which ith thtrue!"
Hetherwick made his request--the greengrocer's lady showed him and
Goldmark upstairs into a bow-windowed parlour, one of those dismal
apartments which are only used on Sundays, for the purpose of adding
more gloom to a gloomy day. She observed that there was a nice view
both ways of the street, but Hetherwick confined his inspection to the
front. He saw across the wall easily enough, now. There was little to
see. The wall bounded a yard, bounded on its left and right sides by
the walls of the adjoining houses, and at its further extremity by a
low, squat building of red brick, erected against the rear of a high,
windowless wall beyond. From its mere aspect, it was impossible to
tell what this squat, flat-roofed structure was used for. Its
door--closed--was visible; visible, too, were the windows on either
side. But it was easy to see that they were obscured, as to their
lower halves, by coats of dark paint. There was no sign over the
building; no outward indication of its purpose. In the yard, however,
were crates, boxes, and carboys in wicker cases; a curiously-shaped
chimney, projecting from the roof above, suggested the presence of a
furnace or forge beneath. And Hetherwick, after another look, felt no
doubt that he was gazing at the place to which Hannaford had been
taken, and where he had been skilfully poisoned.
Goldmark suddenly nudged his arm, and nodded at the crowded street
below.
"Mapperley!" he whispered. "And two men with him!"
Hetherwick, glancing in the direction indicated, saw Robmore and
another man, both in plain clothes, making their way down the street,
between the stalls and the shops. With them, and in close
conversation, was a uniformed constable. He turned to leave the room,
but Goldmark again touched his elbow.
"Before we go, mithter," he said, "jutht take another glanth at that
plathe oppothite, and it'ths thurroundin'th. I thee where we can get
in! D'ye thee, mithter Hetherwick, the wall between that yard and the
next houth--the right-hand thide one--'ith fairly low at the far end.
Now, if the man in that houth would let uth go through to hith
back-yard--vhat?"
"I see!" agreed Hetherwick. "We'll try it. But Robmore first--come
along."
He slipped some silver into the hand of the green-grocer's lady, and
went down to the street. A few brief explanations to the two
detectives supplemented the information already given them by
Mapperley, and then Robmore nodded at the constable who stood by,
eagerly interested.
"We've been talking to him, Mr. Hetherwick," he said. "He's sometimes
on day duty here, and sometimes he's on night. He says he's often
wondered about this place, and it's a very queer thing that though he's
known this district more than a year, he's never seen a soul go in or
out of that door, and hasn't the least notion of what business, if it
is a business, is carried on there!"
"Never seen anything or anybody!" corroborated the constable. "At any
time--day or night. When I first came on this beat, maybe fifteen
months ago, that door had been newly set and painted, and the glass had
just been stuck a-top of the wall. But it's a fact--I've never seen
anybody go in or come out!"
"I propose to go in," said Hetherwick. "I think we've abundant cause,
knowing what we do. It may be that the two missing ladies are there.
I've been having a look into the yard, and we could get into it easily
by going through the grocer's shop there, on the right, and climbing
the wall from his back premises. What do you say, Robmore?"
"Oh, I think so!" agreed Robmore. "Now we're on the job, we'll carry
it through. Better let me tackle the grocer, Mr. Hetherwick--I'll see
him first and then call you in."
The other waited while Robmore entered the shop and spoke with its
owner. They saw him engaged in conversation for several minutes; then
he came to the door and beckoned the rest to approach.
"That's all right," he said in an aside to Hetherwick. "We can go
through to his back-yard, and he'll lend us a step-ladder to get over
the wall. But he's told me a bit--he knows the two men who have this
place in the next yard, and there's no doubt at all, from his
description of them, that one's Ambrose and the other Baseverie. He
says they've had the place almost eighteen months, and he thinks they
use it as a laboratory--chemicals, or something of that sort. But he
says they're rarely seen--sometimes he's never seen them for days and
even weeks together. Usually they're there of a night--he's seen
lights in the place at all hours of the night. Well--come on!"
The posse of investigators filed through the dark little shop to a yard
at its rear, the grocer's apprentice going in front with a step-ladder,
which he planted against the intervening wall at its lowest point. One
by one, the uniformed constable going first, the six men climbed and
dropped over. But for their own presence, the place seemed deserted
and lifeless. As Hetherwick had observed from the greengrocer's
parlour the windows were obscured by thick coats of paint;
nevertheless, two or three of the men approached and tried to find
places from which the paint had been scratched, in an effort to see
what lay inside. But the constable, bolder and more direct, went
straight to the entrance.
"Door's open!" he exclaimed. "Not even shut!" He pushed the door
wide, and went into the building, the rest crowding after him.
"Hullo!" he shouted. "Hullo!"
No answer came to the summons. The constable crossed the lobby in
which they were all standing, and opened an inner door. And Hetherwick
saw at once that the grocer's surmise as to the purpose to which the
place was put had been correct--this was a chemical laboratory, well
equipped, too, with modern apparatus. But there was not a sign of life
in it.
"Nobody here, apparently," murmured one of the men. "Flown!"
Robmore went forward to another door, and opening it, revealed a room
furnished as an office. There was a roll-top desk in it, and papers
and documents lying there; he and Hetherwick began to finger and
examine them. And Hetherwick suddenly saw something that made a link
between this mysterious place and the house he had called at earlier in
the afternoon. There, before his eyes, lay some of the azure-tinted
notepaper which Mapperley had traced with the embossed address on it of
which the stationer had told.
"There's no doubt we've hit on the place at last, Robmore," he said.
"I wish we'd had Matherfield here. But----"
Before he could say more, a sudden shout came from Goldmark, who, while
the others were investigating the lower regions, had courageously, and
alone, gone up the low staircase to the upper rooms.
"Mithter!" he called. "Mithter Hetherwick! come up here--come up, all
of you. Here'th a man here, a-thittin' in a chair--and th'elp me if I
don't believe he'th a thtiff 'un--dead!"