"W'y, if there ain't somethink queer inside of the old pump," said the
labourer, going down on both knees in order to look more earnestly into
it. "I do b'lieve it's letters. Some double-extra stoopids 'ave bin
an' posted 'em in the pump."
He pulled out handfuls of letters as he spoke, some of which, from their
appearance, must have lain there for years, while others were quite
fresh!
A passing letter-carrier took charge of these letters, and conveyed them
to the Post-Office, where the machinery of the department was set in
motion on them. They were examined, faced, sorted, and distributed.
Among them was the letter which George Aspel had committed to the care
of Tottie Bones at the time of his first arrival in London, and thus it
came to pass that the energies of Sir James Clubley, Baronet, were
roused into action.
"Dear me! how strange!" said Sir James to himself, on reading the
letter. "This unaccountable silence is explained at last. Poor fellow,
I have judged him hastily. Come! I'll go find him out."
But this resolve was more easily made than carried into effect. At the
hotel from which the letter had been dated nothing was known of the
missing youth except that he had departed long long ago, leaving as his
future address the name of a bird-stuffer, which name had unfortunately
been mislaid--not lost. Oh no--only mislaid! On further inquiry,
however, there was a certain undersized, plain-looking, and rather
despised chamber-maid who retained a lively and grateful recollection of
Mr Aspel, in consequence of his having given her an unexpectedly large
tip at parting, coupled with a few slight but kindly made inquiries as
to her welfare, which seemed to imply that he regarded her as a human
being. She remembered distinctly his telling her one evening that if
any one should call for him in his absence he was to be found at the
residence of a lady in Cat Street, Pimlico, but for the life of her she
couldn't remember the number, though she thought it must have been
number nine, for she remembered having connected it in her mind with the
well-known lives of a cat.
"Cat Street! Strange name--very!" said Sir James. "Are you sure it was
Cat Street?"
"Well, I ain't quite sure, sir," replied the little plain one, with an
inquiring frown at the chandelier, "but I know it 'ad somethink to do
with cats. P'r'aps it was Mew Street; but I'm _quite_ sure it was
Pimlico."
"And the lady's name?"
"Well, sir, I ain't sure of that neither. It was somethink queer, I
know, but then there's a-many queer names in London--ain't, there, sir?"
Sir James admitted that there were, and advised her to reflect on a few
of them.
The little plain one did reflect--with the aid of the chandelier--and
came to the sudden conviction that the lady's name had to do with
flowers. "Not roses--no, nor yet violets," she said, with an air of
intense mental application, for the maiden's memory was largely
dependent on association of ideas; "it might 'ave been marigolds, though
it don't seem likely. Stay, was it water--?--Oh! it was lilies! Yes, I
'ave it now: Miss Lilies-somethink."
"Think again, now," said the Baronet, "everything depends on the
`something,' for Miss Lilies is not so extravagantly queer as you seem
to think her name was."
"That's true, sir," said the perplexed maid, with a last appealing gaze
at the chandelier, and beginning with the first letter of the alphabet--
Miss Lilies A-- Lilies B-- Lilies C--, etcetera, until she came to K.
"That's it now. I 'ave it _almost_. It 'ad to do with lots of lilies,
I'm quite sure--quantities, it must 'ave been."
On Sir James suggesting that quantities did not begin with a K the
little plain one's feelings were slightly hurt, and she declined to go
any further into the question. Sir James was therefore obliged to rest
content with what he had learned, and continued his search in Pimlico.
There he spent several hours in playing, with small shopkeepers and
policemen, a game somewhat analogous to that which is usually commenced
with the words "Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?" The result was
that eventually he reached Number 9 Purr Street, and found himself in
the presence of Miss Lillycrop.
That lady, however, damped his rising hopes by saying that she did not
know where George Aspel was to be found, and that he had suddenly
disappeared--to her intense regret--from the bird-warehouse in which he
had held a situation. It belonged to the brothers Blurt, whose address
she gave to her visitor.
Little Tottie Bones, who had heard the conversation through the open
parlour door, could have told where Aspel was to be found, but the
promise made to her father sealed her lips; besides, particular
inquiries after any one were so suggestive to her of policemen, and
being "took," that she had a double motive to silence.
Mr Enoch Blurt could throw no light on the subject, but he could, and
did, add to Sir James's increasing knowledge of the youth's reported
dissipation, and sympathised with him strongly in his desire to find out
Aspel's whereabouts. Moreover, he directed him to the General
Post-Office, where a youth named Maylands, a letter-sorter--who had
formerly been a telegraph message-boy,--and an intimate friend of Aspel,
was to be found, and might be able to give some information about him,
though he (Mr Blurt) feared not.
Phil Maylands could only say that he had never ceased to make inquiries
after his friend, but hitherto without success, and that he meant to
continue his inquiries until he should find him.
Sir James Clubley therefore returned in a state of dejection to the
sympathetic Miss Lillycrop, who gave him a note of introduction to a
detective--the grave man in grey,--a particular friend and ally of her
own, with whom she had scraped acquaintance during one of her many
pilgrimages of love and mercy among the poor.
To the man in grey Sir James committed his case, and left him to work it
out.
Now, the way of a detective is a mysterious way. Far be it from us to
presume to point it out, or elucidate or expound it in any degree. We
can only give a vague, incomplete, it may be even incorrect, view of
what the man in grey did and achieved, nevertheless we are bound to
record what we know as to this officer's proceedings, inasmuch as they
have to do with the thread of our narrative.
It may be that other motives, besides those connected with George Aspel,
induced the man in grey to visit the General Post-Office, but we do not
certainly know. It is quite possible that a whole host of subsidiary
and incidental cases on hand might have induced him to take up the
Post-Office like a huge stone, wherewith to knock down innumerable birds
at one and the same throw; we cannot tell. The brain of a detective
must be essentially different from the brains of ordinary men. His
powers of perception--we might add, of conception, reception, deception,
and particularly of interception--are marvellous. They are altogether
too high for us. How then can we be expected to explain why it was
that, on arriving at the Post-Office, the man in grey, instead of asking
eagerly for George Aspel at the Inquiry Office, or the Returned Letter
Office, or the _poste restante_, as any sane man would have done, began
to put careless and apparently unmeaning questions about little dogs,
and to manifest a desire to be shown the chief points of interest in the
basement of St. Martin's-le-Grand?
In the gratifying of his desires the man in grey experienced no
difficulty. The staff of the Post-Office is unvaryingly polite and
obliging to the public. An order was procured, and he soon found
himself with a guide traversing the mysterious regions underneath the
splendid new building where the great work of postal telegraphy is
carried on.
While his conductor led him through the labyrinthine passages in which a
stranger would infallibly have lost his way, he explained the various
objects of interest--especially pointing out the racks where thousands
on thousands of old telegrams are kept, for a short time, for reference
in case of dispute, and then destroyed. He found the man in grey so
intelligent and sympathetic that he quite took a fancy to him.
"Do you happen to remember," asked the detective, in a quiet way, during
a pause in his companion's remarks, "anything about a mad dog taking
refuge in this basement some time ago--a small poodle I think it was--
which disappeared in some mysterious way?"
The conductor had heard a rumour of such an event, but had been ill and
off duty at the time, and could give him no details.
"This," said he, opening a door, "is the Battery Room, where the
electricity is generated for the instruments above.--Allow me to
introduce you to the Battery Inspector."
The man in grey bowed to the Inspector, who was a tall, powerful man,
quite fit, apparently, to take charge of a battery of horse artillery if
need were.
"A singular place," remarked the detective, looking sharply round the
large room, whose dimensions were partially concealed, however, by the
rows of shelving which completely filled it from floor to ceiling.
"Somewhat curious," assented the Inspector; "you see our batteries
require a good deal of shelving. All put together, there is in this
room about three miles of shelving, completely filled, as you see, with
about 22,000 cells or jars. The electricity is generated in these jars.
They contain carbon and zinc plates in a solution of bichromate of
potash and sulphuric acid and water. We fill them up once every two
weeks, and renew the plates occasionally. There is a deal of sulphate
of copper used up here, sir, in creating electricity--about six tons in
the year. Pure copper accumulates on the plates in the operation, but
the zinc wears away."
The detective expressed real astonishment and interest in all this, and
much more that the Inspector told him.
"Poisonous stuff in your jars, I should fancy?" he inquired.
"Rather," replied the Inspector.
"Does your door ever stand open?" asked the detective.
"Sometimes," said the other, with a look of slight surprise.
"You never received a visit down here from a mad dog, did you?" asked
the man in grey.
"Never!"
"I only ask the question," continued the other, in a careless tone,
"because I once read in the newspapers of a poodle being chased into the
Post-Office and never heard of again. It occurred to me that poison
might account for it.--A curious-looking thing here; what is it?"
He had come to a part of the Battery Room where there was a large frame
or case of dark wood, the surface of which was covered with innumerable
brass knobs or buttons, which were coupled together by wires.
"That is our Battery Test-Box," explained the Inspector. "There are
four thousand wires connected with it--two thousand going to the
instruments up-stairs, and two thousand connected with the battery-jars.
When I complete the circuit by connecting any couple of these buttons,
the influence of the current is at once perceived."
He took a piece of charcoal, as he spoke, and brought it into contact
with two of the knobs. The result was to convert the coal instantly
into an intense electric light of dazzling beauty. The point of an
ordinary lead pencil applied in the same way became equally brilliant.
"That must be a powerful battery," remarked the detective.
The Inspector smilingly took two handles from a neighbouring shelf and
held them out to his visitor.
"Lay hold of these," he said, "and you will feel its powers."
The detective did as directed, and received a shock which caused him to
fling down the handles with great promptitude and violence. He was too
self-possessed a man, however, to seem put out.
"Strong!" he said, with a short laugh; "remarkably strong and
effective."
"Yes," assented the Inspector, "it _is_ pretty powerful, and it requires
to be so, for it does heavy work and travels a considerable distance.
The greater the distance, you know, the greater the power required to do
the work and transmit the messages. This is the battery that fires two
signal-guns every day at one o'clock--one at Newcastle, the other at
South Shields, and supplies Greenwich time to all our principal stations
over a radius of three hundred miles.--I sent the contents of one
hundred and twenty jars through you just now!"
"That's curious and interesting; I may even say it is suggestive,"
returned the detective, in a meditative tone. "Double that number of
jars, now, applied to the locks of street doors at night and the
fastenings of windows would give a powerful surprise to burglars."
"Ah, no doubt, and also to belated friends," said the Inspector, "not to
mention the effect on servant-maids in the morning when people forgot to
disconnect the wires."
The man in grey admitted the truth of the observation, and, thanking the
Battery Inspector for his kind attentions, bade him a cordial adieu.
Continuing his investigation of the basement, he came to the three huge
fifty-horse-power engines, whose duty it is to suck the air from the
pneumatic telegraph tubes in the great hall above. Here the detective
became quite an engineer, asked with much interest and intelligence
about governors, pistons, escape-valves, actions, etcetera, and wound up
with a proposition.
"Suppose, now," he said, "that a little dog were to come suddenly into
this room and dash about in a miscellaneous sort of way, could it by any
means manage to become entangled in your machinery and get so demolished
as never more to be seen or heard of?"
The engineer looked at his questioner with a somewhat amused expression.
"No, sir, I don't think it could. No doubt it might kill itself with
much facility in various ways, for fifty horsepower, properly applied,
would do for an elephant, much more a dog. But I don't believe that
power to be sufficient to produce annihilation. There would have been
remains of some sort."
From the engine-room our detective proceeded to the boiler-room and the
various kitchens, and thence to the basement of the old building on the
opposite side of the street, where he found a similarly perplexing
labyrinth. He was taken in hand here by Mr Bright, who chanced to be
on duty, and led him first to the Stamp Department. There was much to
draw him off his "canine" mania here. First he was introduced to the
chief of the department, who gave him much interesting information about
stamps in general.
Then he was conducted to another room, and shown the tables at which men
were busy counting sheets of postage-stamps and putting them up in
envelopes for all parts of the United Kingdom. The officer in charge
told him that the weight of stamps sent out from that room averaged a
little over three tons daily, and that the average value of the weekly
issue was 150,000 pounds. Then he was led into a fireproof safe--a
solid stone apartment--which was piled from floor to ceiling with sheets
of postage-stamps of different values. Those for letters ranged from
one halfpenny to one pound, but those used for telegrams ran up to as
much as five pounds sterling for a single stamp. Taking down from a
shelf a packet of these high-priced stamps, which was about the size of
a thick octavo book, the official stated that it was worth 35,000
pounds.
"Yes, sir," he added, "this strong box of ours holds a deal of money.
You are at this moment in the presence of nearly two millions sterling!"
"A tidy little sum to retire upon. Would build two thousand Board
Schools at a thousand pounds each," said the detective, who was an adept
at figures,--as at everything else.
Feeling that it would be ridiculous to inquire about mad dogs in the
presence of two millions sterling, the man in grey suffered himself to
be led through long passages and vaulted chambers, some of which latter
were kitchens, where the men on duty had splendid fires, oceans of hot
water, benches and tables, and liberty to cook the food either brought
by themselves for the day or procured from a caterer on the premises--
for Post-Office officials when on duty may not leave the premises for
any purpose whatever, _except_ duty, and must sign books specifying to
the minute when, where, and why, they come and go. In this basement
also, as in the other, were long rows of numbered cupboards or large
pigeon-holes with lockable doors, one of which was appropriated to each
man for the safe depositing of his victuals and other private property.
Here, too, were whitewashed lavatories conveniently and plentifully
distributed, with every appliance for cleanliness and comfort, including
a large supply of fresh and good water. Of this, 49,000 gallons a day
is supplied by an artesian well, and 39,000 gallons a day by the New
River Company, in the new building. In the old building the 27,000
gallons consumed daily is supplied by the New River Company. It is,
however, due to the 5900 human beings who labour in both buildings to
state that at least 55,000 of these gallons are swallowed by
steam-engines on the premises.
To all these things Mr Bright directed attention with professional
zeal, and the man in grey observed with much interest all that he saw
and heard, until he came to the letter-carriers' kitchen, where several
of the men were cooking food at the fire, while others were eating or
chatting at the tables.
Happening to mention the dog here, he found that Mr Bright was
partially acquainted with the incident.
"It was down these stairs it ran," he said, "and was knocked on the head
in this very room by the policeman. No one knows where he took the body
to, but he went out at that door, in the direction, it is supposed, of
the boiler-house."
The detective had at last got hold of a clew. He was what is styled, in
a well-known game, "getting warm."
"Let us visit the boiler-house," he said.
Again, for the nonce, he became an engineer. Like Paul, he was all
things to all men. He was very affable to the genial stoker, who was
quite communicative about the boilers. After a time the detective
referred to the dog, and the peculiar glance of the stoker at once
showed him that his object was gained.
"A policeman brought it?" he asked quietly.
"Yes, a policeman brought it," said the stoker suspiciously.
The man in grey soon, however, removed his suspicions and induced him to
become confidential. When he had obtained all the information that the
stoker could give--in addition to poor Floppart's collar, which had no
name on it, but was stamped with three stars on its inside--the
detective ceased to make any further inquiries after mad dogs, and, with
a disengaged mind, accompanied Mr Bright through the remainder of the
basement, where he commented on the wise arrangement of having the
mail-bags made by convicts, and on the free library, which he pronounced
a magnificent institution, and which contained about 2000 volumes, that
were said by the courteous librarian to be largely used by the
officials, as well as the various newspapers and magazines, furnished
gratuitously by their proprietors. He was also shown the "lifts," which
raised people--to say nothing of mails, etcetera--from the bottom to the
top of the building, or _vice versa_; the small steam-engine which
worked the same, and the engineer of which--an old servant--was
particularly impressive on the peculiar "governor" by which his engine
was regulated; the array of letter stampers, which were kept by their
special guardian in immaculate order and readiness; the fire-hose, which
was also ready for instant service, and the firemen, who were in
constant attendance with a telegraphic instrument at their special
disposal, connecting them with other parts of the building. All this,
and a great deal more which we have not space to mention, the man in
grey saw, admired, and commented on, as well as on the general evidence
of order, method, regularity, neatness, and system which pervaded the
whole place.
"You manage things well here," he said to his conductor at parting.
"We do," responded Mr Bright, with an approving nod; "and we had need
to, for the daily despatch of Her Majesty's mails to all parts of the
world is no child's play. Our motto is--or ought to be--`Security,
Celerity, Punctuality, and Regularity.' We couldn't carry that out,
sir, without good management.--Good-bye."
"Good-bye, and thank you," said the detective, leaving St.
Martin's-le-Grand with his busy brain ruminating on a variety of
subjects in a manner that no one but a detective could by any
possibility understand.