MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER
Both Pamela and Millie Stretton walked with Warrisden through the hall
to the front door. Upon the hall-table letters were lying. Pamela
glanced at them as she passed, and caught one up rather suddenly. Then
she looked at Warrisden, and there was something of appeal in her
look. It was as though she turned to a confederate on whom she could
surely rely. But she said nothing, since Millie Stretton was at her
side. For the letter was in the handwriting of Mr. Mudge, who wrote
but rarely, and never without a reason. She read the letter in the
garden as soon as Warrisden had ridden off, and the news which it
contained was bad news. Callon had lived frugally in South America--by
Christmas he would have discharged his debts; and he had announced to
Mudge that he intended at that date to resign his appointment. There
were still four months, Pamela reflected--nay, counting the journey
home, five months; and within that time Tony Stretton might reappear.
If he did not, why, she could summon Warrisden to her aid. She looked
at Millie, who was reading a book in a garden-chair close by. Did she
know, Pamela wondered? But Millie gave no sign.
Meanwhile, Warrisden travelled to London upon that particular business
which made a visit there in August so imperative. It had come upon him
while he had been talking with Pamela that it would be as well for him
to know the whereabouts of Tony Stretton at once; so that if the need
came he should be ready to set out upon the instant. On the following
evening, accordingly, he drove down to Stepney. It was very likely
that Chase would be away upon a holiday. But there was a chance that
he might find him clinging to his work through this hot August, a
chance worth the trouble of his journey. He drove to the house where
Chase lodged, thinking to catch him before he set out for his
evening's work at the mission. The door of the house stood open to the
street. Warrisden dismissed his cab, and walked up the steps into the
narrow hall. A door upon his right hand was opened, and a young man
politely asked Warrisden to step in. He was a fair-haired youth, with
glasses upon his nose, and he carried a napkin in his hand. He had
evidently been interrupted at his dinner by Warrisden's arrival. He
was not dining alone, for a youth of the same standing, but of a more
athletic mould, sat at the table. There was a third place laid, but
not occupied.
Warrisden looked at the third chair.
"I came to see Mr. Chase," he said. "I suppose that he has gone early
to the mission?"
"No," said the youth who had opened the door. "He has not been well of
late. The hot weather in these close streets is trying. But he
certainly should have something to eat by now, even if he does not
intend to get up."
He spoke in a pedantic, self-satisfied voice, and introduced himself
as Mr. Raphael Princkley, and his companion as Mr. Jonas Stiles, both
undergraduates of Queen's College, Oxford.
"We are helping Chase in his work," continued Mr. Princkley. "It is
little we can do, but you are no doubt acquainted with the poetry of
Robert Browning: 'The little more, and how much it is'? In that line
we find our justification."
The fair-haired youth rang the bell for the housekeeper. She was an
old woman, fat and slow, and she took her time in answering the
summons.
"Mrs. Wither, have you called Mr. Chase?" he asked when the old lady
appeared at the door.
"No, Mr. Princkley, sir," she replied. "You told me yesterday evening
not to disturb him on any account until he rang."
Mr. Princkley turned to Warrisden.
"Mr. Chase was unwell all yesterday," he said, "and at dinner-time he
told us that he felt unequal to his duties. He was sitting in that
empty place, and we both advised him not to overtax his strength."
He appealed with a look to Mr. Stiles for corroboration.
"Yes; we both advised him," said Stiles, between two mouthfuls; "and,
very wisely, he took our advice."
"He rose from his chair," continued Princkley. "There was some fruit
upon the table. He took an apple from the dish. I think, Stiles, that
it was an apple which he took?"
Mr. Stiles agreed, and went on with his dinner.
"It was certainly an apple which he took. He took it in his hand."
"You hardly expected him to take it with his foot!" rejoined
Warrisden, politely. Warrisden was growing a little restive under this
detailed account of Chase's indisposition.
"No," replied Princkley, with gravity. "He took it in quite a natural
way, and went upstairs to his sitting-room. I gave orders to Mrs.
Wither that he must not be disturbed until he rang. That is so, Mrs.
Wither, is it not? Yes. I thank you."
"That was yesterday evening!" cried Warrisden.
"Yesterday evening," replied Mr. Princkley.
"And no one has been near him since?"
Then Mrs. Wither intervened.
"Oh yes. I went into Mr. Chase's room an hour afterwards. He was
sitting in his armchair before the grate----"
"Holding the apple in his hand. I think. Mrs. Wither, you said?"
continued Stiles.
"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Wither. "He had his arm out resting on the arm
of the chair, and the apple was in his hand."
"Well, well!" exclaimed Warrisden.
"I told him that I would not call him in the morning until he rang, as
he wanted a good rest."
"What did he say?" asked Warrisden.
"Nothing, sir. As often as not he does not answer when he is spoken
to."
A sudden fear seized upon Warrisden. He ran out of the room and up the
stairs to Chase's sitting-room. He knocked on the door; there was no
answer. He turned the handle and entered. Chase had not gone to bed
last night. He was still sitting in his armchair before the grate. One
arm was extended along the arm of the chair, with the palm turned
upwards, and in the palm lay an apple. Chase was sitting huddled up,
with his head fallen forward upon his breast like a man asleep.
Warrisden crossed the room and touched the hand which held the apple.
It was quite cold. The apple rolled on to the floor. Warrisden turned
to the housekeeper. She was standing in the doorway, and staring over
her shoulder were the two undergraduates.
"He was dead," said Warrisden, "when you looked into the room an hour
afterwards!"
The three people in the doorway stood stupidly aghast. Warrisden
pushed them out, locked the door on the outside, and removed the key.
"Mr. Princkley, will you run for a doctor?" he asked.
Princkley nodded his head, and went off upon his errand.
Warrisden and Stiles descended the stairs into the dining-room.
"I think you had better take the news to the mission," said Warrisden;
and Stiles in his turn went off without a word. Mrs. Wither for her
part had run out of the house as quickly as she could. She hardly knew
what she was doing. She had served as housekeeper to Mr. Chase ever
since he had come to Stepney, and she was dazed by the sudden
calamity. She was aware of a need to talk, to find the neighbours and
talk.
Warrisden was thus left alone in the house. It had come about without
any premeditation upon his part. He was the oldest man of the three
who had been present, and the only one who had kept his wits clear.
Both Princkley and Stiles had looked to him to decide what must be
done. They regarded him as Chase's friend, whereas they were mere
acquaintances. It did not even occur to Warrisden at first that he was
alone in the house, that he held in his hand the key to Chase's room.
He was thinking of the strange perplexing life which had now so
strangely ended. He thought of his first meeting with Chase in the
mission, and of the distaste which he had felt; he remembered the
array of liqueur bottles on the table, and the half-hour during which
Chase had talked. A man of morbid pleasures, that had been Warrisden's
impression. Yet there were the years of work, here, amongst these
squalid streets. Even August had seen him clinging to--nay, dying
at--his work. As Warrisden looked out of the window he saw a group of
men and women and children gather outside the house. There was not a
face but wore a look of consternation. If they spoke, they spoke in
whispers, like people overawed. A very strange life! Warrisden knew
many--as who does not?--who saw the high-road distinctly, and could
not for the life of them but walk upon the low one. But to use both
deliberately, as it seemed Chase had done; to dip from the high-road
on to the low, and then painfully to scramble up again, and again
willingly to drop, as though the air of those stern heights were too
rigorous for continuous walking; to live the double life because he
could not entirely live the one, and would not entirely live the
other. Thus Warrisden solved the problem of the _dilettante_ curate
and his devotion to his work, and his solution was correct.
But he held the key of Chase's room in his hand; and there was no one
but himself in the house. His thoughts came back to Pamela and the
object of his journey up to town. He was sorely tempted to use the
key, since now the means by which he had hoped to discover in what
quarter of the world Stretton wandered and was hid were tragically
closed to him. Chase could no longer speak, even if he would. Very
likely there were letters upstairs lying on the table. There might be
one from Tony Stretton. Warrisden did not want to read it--a mere
glance at the postmark, and at the foreign stamp upon the envelope.
Was that so great a crime? Warrisden was sorely tempted. If only he
could be sure that Chase would a second time have revealed what he was
bidden to keep hid, why, then, would it not be just the same thing as
if Chase were actually speaking with his lips? Warrisden played with
the key. He went to the door and listened. There was not a sound in
the house except the ticking of a clock. The front door still stood
open. He must be quick if he meant to act. Warrisden turned to the
stairs. The thought of the dead man huddled in the chair, a silent
guardian of the secret, weighted his steps. Slowly he mounted. Such
serious issues hung upon his gaining this one piece of knowledge. The
fortunes of four people--Pamela and himself, Tony Stretton and his
wife--might all be straightened out if he only did this one thing,
which he had no right to do. He would not pry amongst Chase's papers;
he would merely glance at the table, that was all. He heard voices in
the hall while he was still upon the stairs. He turned back with a
feeling of relief.
At the foot of the stairs stood Mr. Princkley and the doctor.
Warrisden handed the key of the room to the latter, and the three men
went up. The doctor opened the door and crossed to the armchair. Then
he looked about the room.
"Nothing has been touched, of course?"
"Nothing," replied Warrisden.
The doctor looked again at the dead man. Then he turned to Warrisden,
mistaking him, as the others had done, for some relation or near
friend.
"I can give no certificate," said he.
"There must be an inquest?"
"Yes."
Then the doctor moved suddenly to the table, which stood a few feet
from the armchair. There was a decanter upon it half filled with a
liquid like brown sherry, only a little darker. The doctor removed the
stopper and raised the decanter to his nose.
"Ah!" said he, in a voice of comprehension. He turned again to
Warrisden.
"Did you know?" he asked.
"No."
The doctor held the decanter towards Warrisden. Warrisden took it,
moistened the tip of a finger with the liquid, and tasted it. It had a
bitter flavour.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Laudanum," said the doctor. "An overdose of it."
"Where is the glass, then, in which it was taken?"
A tumbler stood upon the table close to the decanter-stopper. The
doctor took it up.
"Yes, I noticed that," said Warrisden; "I noticed that it is clean."
The doctor took the glass to the window, turned it upside down, and
held it to the light. It was quite dry, quite clean.
"Surely it's evident what happened," said Warrisden. "Chase came into
the room, opened that cupboard door in the corner there. His keys are
still dangling in the lock, he took the decanter and the tumbler out,
placed them on the table at his side, sat down in his chair with the
apple in his hand, leaned back and quietly died."
"Yes, no doubt," said the doctor. "But I think here will be found the
reason why he leaned back and quietly died," and he touched the
decanter. "Opium poisoning. It may not have been an overdose, but a
regular practice." He went to the door and called for Mrs. Wither.
Mrs. Wither had now returned to the house. When she came upstairs into
the room, he pointed to the decanter.
"Did you ever see this before?"
"No, sir," she answered.
"Or that cupboard open?"
"No, it was always locked."
"Quite so," said the doctor. "You had better get some women to help
you here," he went on; and, with Warrisden's assistance, he lifted
Chase from the chair and carried him into his bedroom.
"I must give notice to the police," he went on, and again he appealed
to Warrisden. "Do you mind staying in the house till I come back?"
"Not at all."
The doctor locked the door of the room and took the key away with him.
Warrisden waited with Princkley in the dining-room. The doctor had
taken away the key. It seemed that his chance of discovering the
secret which was of so much importance to Pamela and Millie Stretton
and himself had vanished. If only he had come yesterday, or the day
before! He sat down by the window and gazed out upon the street. A
group of men and women were gathered in the roadway, looking up at the
windows and talking quietly together. Then Princkley from behind
said--
"Some letters came for Chase this morning. They were not taken up to
his room. You had better look at them."
Every one took him for a close friend. Princkley brought him the
letters, and he glanced at the superscriptions lest any one should
wear a look of immediate importance. He held the letters in his hand
and turned them over one by one, and half-way through the file he
stopped. He had come to a letter written upon thin paper, in a man's
handwriting, with a foreign stamp upon the envelope. The stamp was a
French one, and there was printed upon it: "Poste d'Algerie."
Warrisden examined the post-mark. The letter came from Ain-Sefra.
Warrisden went on with his examination without a word. But his heart
quickened. He wondered whether he had found the clue. Ain-Sefra in
Algeria. Warrisden had never heard of the place before. It might be a
health resort, a wintering place. But this was the month of August.
There would be no visitors at this time to a health resort in Algeria.
He handed the letters back to Princkley.
"I cannot tell whether they are important or not," he said. "I knew
Chase very slightly. His relations must be informed. I suppose Mrs.
Wither knows where they live."
He took his departure as soon as the doctor had returned with the
police, and drove back to his rooms. A search through the Encyclopaedia
told him nothing of Ain-Sefra; but, on the other hand, he could not
look at the article on Algeria without the Foreign Legion leaping to
his eyes at once--so great and magnificent a part it played in the
modern history of that colony. The Foreign Legion! Warrisden jumped to
the conviction that there was the secret of Tony Stretton's
disappearance. Every reason he could imagine came to his aid. Let a
man wish to disappear, as, from whatsoever reason, Tony Stretton did,
where else could he so completely bury himself and yet live?
Hardships? Dangers? Yes. But Tony Stretton had braved hardships and
dangers in the North Sea, and had made light of them. A detachment of
the Foreign Legion might well be stationed at this oasis of Ain-Sefra,
of which his Encyclopaedia knew nothing. He had no doubt there was a
trooper there, serving under some false name, who would start if the
name of "Stretton" were suddenly shouted to him behind his back.
Warrisden wrote no word of his conjecture to Pamela; he wished to
raise no hopes which he could not fulfil. Convinced as he was, he
wished for certain proof. But in fulfilment of his promise he wrote to
Pamela that night. Just a few lines--nothing more, as she had asked.
But in those few lines he wrote that he would like her to procure for
him a scrap of Tony Stretton's handwriting. Could she do it? In a week
the scrap of handwriting arrived. Warrisden, looking at it, knew that
the same hand had addressed the envelope at Ain-Sefra to Mr. Chase.
Warrisden was ready now, if the summons to service should come once
more from Pamela.