FOUR IMPORTANT CHARACTERS
The writer pauses here to say that the story of "The Man Who Knew" is an
unusual one. It is reconstructed partly from the reports of a certain
trial, partly from the confidential matter which has come into the
writer's hands from Saul Arthur Mann and his extraordinary bureau, and
partly from the private diary which May Nuttall put at the writer's
disposal.
Those practiced readers who begin this narrative with the weary
conviction that they are merely to see the workings out of a
conventional record of crime, of love, and of mystery may be urged to
pursue their investigations to the end. Truth is stranger than fiction,
and has need to be, since most fiction is founded on truth. There is a
strangeness in the story of "The Man Who Knew" which brings it into the
category of veracious history. It cannot be said in truth that any story
begins at the beginning of the first chapter, since all stories began
with the creation of the world, but this present story may be said to
begin when we cut into the lives of some of the characters concerned,
upon the seventeenth day of July, 19--.
There was a little group of people about the prostrate figure of a man
who lay upon the sidewalk in Gray Square, Bloomsbury.
The hour was eight o'clock on a warm summer evening, and that the
unusual spectacle attracted only a small crowd may be explained by the
fact that Gray Square is a professional quarter given up to the offices
of lawyers, surveyors, and corporation offices which at eight o'clock on
a summer's day are empty of occupants. The unprofessional classes who
inhabit the shabby streets impinging upon the Euston Road do not include
Gray Square in their itinerary when they take their evening
constitutionals abroad, and even the loud children find a less
depressing environment for their games.
The gray-faced youth sprawled upon the pavement was decently dressed and
was obviously of the superior servant type.
He was as obviously dead.
Death, which beautifies and softens the plainest, had failed entirely to
dissipate the impression of meanness in the face of the stricken man.
The lips were set in a little sneer, the half-closed eyes were small,
the clean-shaven jaw was long and underhung, the ears were large and
grotesquely prominent.
A constable stood by the body, waiting for the arrival of the ambulance,
answering in monosyllables the questions of the curious. Ten minutes
before the ambulance arrived there joined the group a man of middle age.
He wore the pepper-and-salt suit which distinguishes the country
excursionist taking the day off in London. He had little side whiskers
and a heavy brown mustache. His golf cap was new and set at a somewhat
rakish angle on his head. Across his waistcoat was a large and heavy
chain hung at intervals with small silver medals. For all his provincial
appearance his movements were decisive and suggested authority. He
elbowed his way through the little crowd, and met the constable's
disapproving stare without faltering.
"Can I be of any help, mate?" he said, and introduced himself as Police
Constable Wiseman, of the Sussex constabulary.
The London constable thawed.
"Thanks," he said; "you can help me get him into the ambulance when it
comes."
"Fit?" asked the newcomer.
The policeman shook his head.
"He was seen to stagger and fall, and by the time I arrived he'd snuffed
out. Heart disease, I suppose."
"Ah!" said Constable Wiseman, regarding the body with a proprietorial
and professional eye, and retailed his own experiences of similar
tragedies, not without pride, as though he had to some extent the
responsibility for their occurrence.
On the far side of the square a young man and a girl were walking
slowly. A tall, fair, good-looking youth he was, who might have
attracted attention even in a crowd. But more likely would that
attention have been focused, had he been accompanied by the girl at his
side, for she was by every standard beautiful. They reached the corner
of Tabor Street, and it was the fixed and eager stare of a little man
who stood on the corner of the street and the intensity of his gaze
which first directed their attention to the tragedy on the opposite side
of the square.
The little man who watched was dressed in an ill-fitting frock coat,
trousers which seemed too long, since they concertinaed over his boots,
and a glossy silk hat set at the back of his head.
"What a funny old thing!" said Frank Merrill under his breath, and the
girl smiled.
The object of their amusement turned sharply as they came abreast of
him. His freckled, clean-shaven face looked strangely old, and the big,
gold-rimmed spectacles bridged halfway down his nose added to his
ludicrous appearance. He raised his eyebrows and surveyed the two young
people.
"There's an accident over there," he said briefly and without any
preliminary.
"Indeed," said the young man politely.
"There have been several accidents in Gray Square," said the strange old
man meditatively. "There was one in 1875, when the corner house--you can
see the end of it from here--collapsed and buried fourteen people, seven
of whom were killed, four of whom were injured for life, and three of
whom escaped with minor injuries."
He said this calmly and apparently without any sense that he was acting
at all unconventionally in volunteering the information, and went on:
"There was another accident in 1881, on the seventeenth of October, a
collision between two hansom cabs which resulted in the death of a
driver whose name was Samuel Green. He lived at 14 Portington Mews, and
had a wife and nine children."
The girl looked at the old man with a little apprehension, and Frank
Merrill laughed.
"You have a very good memory for this kind of thing. Do you live here?"
he asked.
"Oh, no!" The little man shook his head vigorously.
He was silent for a moment, and then:
"I think we had better go over and see what it is all about," he said
with a certain gravity.
His assumption of leadership was a little staggering, and Frank turned
to the girl.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
She shook her head, and the three passed over the road to the little
group just as the ambulance came jangling into the square. To Merrill's
surprise, the policeman greeted the little man respectfully, touching
his helmet.
"I'm afraid nothing can be done, sir. He is--gone."
"Oh, yes, he's gone!" said the other quite calmly.
He stooped down, turned back the man's coat, and slipped his hand into
the inside pocket, but drew blank; the pocket was empty. With an
extraordinary rapidity of movement, he continued his search, and to the
astonishment of Frank Merrill the policeman did not deny his right. In
the top left-hand pocket of the waistcoat he pulled out a crumpled slip
which proved to be a newspaper clipping.
"Ah!" said the little man. "An advertisement for a manservant cut out of
this morning's _Daily Telegraph_; I saw it myself. Evidently a
manservant who was on his way to interview a new employer. You see:
'Call at eight-thirty at Holborn Viaduct Hotel.' He was taking a short
cut when his illness overcame him. I know who is advertising for the
valet," he added gratuitously; "he is a Mr. T. Burton, who is a rubber
factor from Penang. Mr. T. Burton married the daughter of the Reverend
George Smith, of Scarborough, in 1889, and has four children, one of
whom is at Winchester. Hum!"
He pursed his lips and looked down again at the body; then suddenly he
turned to Frank Merrill.
"Do you know this man?" he demanded.
Frank looked at him in astonishment.
"No. Why do you ask?"
"You were looking at him as though you did," said the little man. "That
is to say, you were not looking at his face. People who do not look at
other people's faces under these circumstances know them."
"Curiously enough," said Frank, with a little smile, "there is some one
here I know," and he caught the eye of Constable Wiseman.
That ornament of the Sussex constabulary touched his cap.
"I thought I recognized you, sir. I have often seen you at Weald Lodge,"
he said.
Further conversation was cut short as they lifted the body on to a
stretcher and put it into the interior of the ambulance. The little
group watched the white car disappear, and the crowd of idlers began to
melt away.
Constable Wiseman took a professional leave of his comrade, and came
back to Frank a little shyly.
"You are Mr. Minute's nephew, aren't you, sir?" he asked.
"Quite right," said Frank.
"I used to see you at your uncle's place."
"Uncle's name?"
It was the little man's pert but wholly inoffensive inquiry. He seemed
to ask it as a matter of course and as one who had the right to be
answered without equivocation.
Frank Merrill laughed.
"My uncle is Mr. John Minute," he said, and added, with a faint touch of
sarcasm: "You probably know him."
"Oh, yes," said the other readily. "One of the original Rhodesian
pioneers who received a concession from Lo Bengula and amassed a large
fortune by the sale of gold-mining properties which proved to be of no
especial value. He was tried at Salisbury in 1897 with the murder of
two Mashona chiefs, and was acquitted. He amassed another fortune in
Johannesburg in the boom of '97, and came to this country in 1901,
settling on a small estate between Polegate and Eastbourne. He has one
nephew, his heir, Frank Merrill, the son of the late Doctor Henry
Merrill, who is an accountant in the London and Western Counties Bank.
He--"
Frank looked at him in undisguised amazement.
"You know my uncle?"
"Never met him in my life," said the little man brusquely. He took off
his silk hat with a sweep.
"I wish you good afternoon," he said, and strode rapidly away.
The uniformed policeman turned a solemn face upon the group.
"Do you know that gentleman?" asked Frank.
The constable smiled.
"Oh, yes, sir; that is Mr. Mann. At the yard we call him 'The Man Who
Knows!'"
"Is he a detective?"
The constable shook his head.
"From what I understand, sir, he does a lot of work for the commissioner
and for the government. We have orders never to interfere with him or
refuse him any information that we can give."
"The Man Who Knows?" repeated Frank, with a puzzled frown. "What an
extraordinary person! What does he know?" he asked suddenly.
"Everything," said the constable comprehensively.
A few minutes later Frank was walking slowly toward Holborn.
"You seem to be rather depressed," smiled the girl.
"Confound that fellow!" said Frank, breaking his silence. "I wonder how
he comes to know all about uncle?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Well,
dear, this is not a very cheery evening for you. I did not bring you
out to see accidents."
"Frank," the girl said suddenly, "I seem to know that man's face--the
man who was on the pavement, I mean--"
She stopped with a shudder.
"It seemed a little familiar to me," said Frank thoughtfully.
"Didn't he pass us about twenty minutes ago?"
"He may have done," said Frank, "but I have no particular recollection
of it. My impression of him goes much farther back than this evening.
Now where could I have seen him?"
"Let's talk about something else," she said quickly. "I haven't a very
long time. What am I to do about your uncle?"
He laughed.
"I hardly know what to suggest," he said. "I am very fond of Uncle John,
and I hate to run counter to his wishes, but I am certainly not going to
allow him to take my love affairs into his hands. I wish to Heaven you
had never met him!"
She gave a little gesture of despair.
"It is no use wishing things like that, Frank. You see, I knew your
uncle before I knew you. If it had not been for your uncle I should not
have met you."
"Tell me what happened," he asked. He looked at his watch. "You had
better come on to Victoria," he said, "or I shall lose my train."
He hailed a taxicab, and on the way to the station she told him of all
that had happened.
"He was very nice, as he always is, and he said nothing really which was
very horrid about you. He merely said he did not want me to marry you
because he did not think you'd make a suitable husband. He said that
Jasper had all the qualities and most of the virtues."
Frank frowned.
"Jasper is a sleek brute," he said viciously.
She laid her hand on his arm.
"Please be patient," she said. "Jasper has said nothing whatever to me
and has never been anything but most polite and kind."
"I know that variety of kindness," growled the young man. "He is one of
those sly, soft-footed sneaks you can never get to the bottom of. He is
worming his way into my uncle's confidence to an extraordinary extent.
Why, he is more like a son to Uncle John than a beastly secretary."
"He has made himself necessary," said the girl, "and that is halfway to
making yourself wealthy."
The little frown vanished from Frank's brow, and he chuckled.
"That is almost an epigram," he said. "What did you tell uncle?"
"I told him that I did not think that his suggestion was possible and
that I did not care for Mr. Cole, nor he for me. You see, Frank, I owe
your Uncle John so much. I am the daughter of one of his best friends,
and since dear daddy died Uncle John has looked after me. He has given
me my education--my income--my everything; he has been a second father
to me."
Frank nodded.
"I recognize all the difficulties," he said, "and here we are at
Victoria."
She stood on the platform and watched the train pull out and waved her
hand in farewell, and then returned to the pretty flat in which John
Minute had installed her. As she said, her life had been made very
smooth for her. There was no need for her to worry about money, and she
was able to devote her days to the work she loved best. The East End
Provident Society, of which she was president, was wholly financed by
the Rhodesian millionaire.
May had a natural aptitude for charity work. She was an indefatigable
worker, and there was no better known figure in the poor streets
adjoining the West Indian Docks than Sister Nuttall. Frank was
interested in the work without being enthusiastic. He had all the man's
apprehension of infectious disease and of the inadvisability of a
beautiful girl slumming without attendance, but the one visit he had
made to the East End in her company had convinced him that there was no
fear as to her personal safety.
He was wont to grumble that she was more interested in her work than she
was in him, which was probably true, because her development had been a
slow one, and it could not be said that she was greatly in love with
anything in the world save her self-imposed mission.
She ate her frugal dinner, and drove down to the mission headquarters
off the Albert Dock Road. Three nights a week were devoted by the
mission to visitation work. Many women and girls living in this area
spend their days at factories in the neighborhood, and they have only
the evenings for the treatment of ailments which, in people better
circumstanced, would produce the attendance of specialists. For the
night work the nurses were accompanied by a volunteer male escort. May
Nuttall's duties carried her that evening to Silvertown and to a
network of mean streets to the east of the railway. Her work began at
dusk, and was not ended until night had fallen and the stars were
quivering in a hot sky.
The heat was stifling, and as she came out of the last foul dwelling she
welcomed as a relief even the vitiated air of the hot night. She went
back into the passageway of the house, and by the light of a paraffin
lamp made her last entry in the little diary she carried.
"That makes eight we have seen, Thompson," she said to her escort. "Is
there anybody else on the list?"
"Nobody else to-night, miss," said the young man, concealing a yawn.
"I'm afraid it is not very interesting for you, Thompson," said the girl
sympathetically; "you haven't even the excitement of work. It must be
awfully dull standing outside waiting for me."
"Bless you, miss," said the man. "I don't mind at all. If it is good
enough for you to come into these streets, it is good enough for me to
go round with you."
They stood in a little courtyard, a cul-de-sac cut off at one end by a
sheer wall, and as the girl put back her diary into her little net bag a
man came swiftly down from the street entrance of the court and passed
her. As he did so the dim light of the lamp showed for a second his
face, and her mouth formed an "O" of astonishment. She watched him until
he disappeared into one of the dark doorways at the farther end of the
court, and stood staring at the door as though unable to believe her
eyes.
There was no mistaking the pale face and the straight figure of Jasper
Cole, John Minute's secretary.