liberty except under great compulsion. If you will permit me to
remain here for a few minutes you will be doing me a very important
service. I assure you of my good intentions, and of my reluctance to
annoy you in this way. Only,” he paused and shrugged his shoulders,
“one is reluctant to die also. Permit me to hand you your latch-key.”
I suppose I ought to have thought the man was mad, or worse. But it
never occurred to me. He had not the manner of it.
“Thanks,” I said, as I took the key. “You may wait a few moments if
you like, and if you will tell me what is the matter. Won’t you come
into the sitting-room?”
“You are too kind, mademoiselle. I will explain myself fully. But
may I ask, in your sitting-room should I be seen from the street?”
“Not if you stand at the back of the room.”
“That is very good. I shall stand at the back of the room. If you
would do me one more favour, you would stand at the window and tell
me who comes past.”
I went to the window without a word, and turned back to him. “There
is a policeman,” I said.
“Ah, the London policeman. He is a charming man. I love him. And
next?”
“A lady in black.”
“Possibly bereaved. Poor lady. But I know nothing of her. But do
you not see a man of much the same appearance as myself?”
“No. I mean, yes. He has just come into view. He is remarkably
like you. He walks very fast.”
At this the man in my room sat down and looked very white and shaky.
His back-bone seemed to have been taken out and he was all huddled up.
“You can’t faint in here, you know,” I said sharply.
“Has he gone?” he asked hoarsely.
“Gone? Of course he’s gone. He’s at the other end of the street by
this time.” As I spoke I poured out a glass of water and handed it
to him. He thanked me, protested that he was not in the least faint,
and took a sip of the water. Then he turned to me.
“Now, mademoiselle, I must really explain myself.”
“Well?” I said. I rather liked the idea of having helped him to
escape. Any woman would help anyone to escape from anything. And
after all, this was more romantic than talking about corkscrews to a
shopman who did not want to listen.
“I have been hunted,” he said. “I have been hunted all the morning.
Three years ago I left France to get away from this man who, by the
way, is my brother. For those three years I have been in England.
You see I speak the English very nicely--is it not so?”
“Yes, you speak it well enough. Go on.”
“During the whole of that time I never met my brother. This morning
I came upon him, face to face, at Charing Cross Station. I walked
away, and he came after me. I went down the steps to the underground
station and booked to Wimbledon. He followed and did the same. I
got out at Gloucester Road, and he stepped out of the next
compartment after me. I took a hansom back to Charing Cross. He
followed in another. Then I tried to tire him out with walking. I
have walked all the way here, and have not come directly, but by the
most circuitous routes. Always he was a little way behind me. As we
drew near to this street I quickened my pace very much. He was
tired, and I saw there was no cab. I got round the corner, nearly a
hundred yards ahead of him, and saw your door open. What a chance!”
“It sounds queer enough to be true.”
“Mademoiselle,” he said in a pained voice, “I would not repay your
kindness by deceiving you.”
“But I don’t understand. What did your brother say when you met?”
“Nothing. Nor I. We shall not speak again, except perhaps at the
very last.”
“But why? Why do you run away from him? What does he want?”
“He wants,” said the man dreamily, “and I think that it is the only
thing in the world that he does want, to kill me. He has wanted that
for just a little more than three years. He does not wish for any
publicity or, if possible, any scandal. He would have liked this
morning to have found out where I lived and then made his
opportunity.”
“But this is perfectly absurd. The law does not permit anything of
the kind. If you thought your brother was following you with the
intention of injuring you in any way, you had only to speak to the
nearest policeman.”
“Ah, mademoiselle,” he said, with an indulgent smile, “there are just
a few matters on which one does not speak to the nearest policeman,
and this is one of them. It is a private matter--a family matter.
The honour of three women is involved in it. Our family name is
involved in it. We do not want talk in the newspapers.”
“What a cold-blooded brute your brother must be!”
“Really, I do not think so. I can quite understand his desire to
kill me. If he succeeded it would be but just. All the same I do
not wish to die. I have escaped him for three years, and I propose
to go on escaping. But here I babble of my own affairs and do not
even thank you for having saved my life. You have done me a great
service, mademoiselle--a very great service. I shall not forget it.”
At this I laughed. “It is not a very great matter. Indeed, it is
hardly worth thanks.”
“You shall not find me ungrateful. But I must not inflict myself
upon you longer than is necessary. If the coast is clear now, I can
get away with safety. Might I ask you to inspect from the window
once more?”
I went to the window and turned back to him. “It is no good,” I
said, “your brother has come back again. He is standing on the
opposite side of the road.”
“He saw you?”
“Yes, I think so. Indeed, I am sure of it.”
“Then he saw, as I did, that you gave a little start. Possibly he
also saw you watching at the window when he passed the first time.
He is rather a clever man, and he can make deductions. I fear,
mademoiselle, that in a few moments you will be troubled with a visit
from my brother.”
“But you,” I said, “what about you?”
“If I got through the window of the room at the back of this flat
where should I be?”
“You would drop into the little yard of the flat below this. It is
at present untenanted, and you might make your way into it, or else
climb the wall and get----”
My electric bell purred loudly. A shower of light taps came from the
knocker of the door.
“Keep him back for a minute or two, if you can!” said my guest in a
whisper.
I waited until the kitchen door had closed on him, and then opened
the front door to his brother.
Seeing him now close at hand, I found that he differed in many ways
from the man that he was pursuing. He was much older and his hair
was beginning to go grey. He gave me the impression of being a
better man altogether than his brother. I do not know and shall
never know what the quarrel between them was, but I feel sure it was
his brother who was in the wrong.
He told me with a pleasant smile that he had come from the house
agents who had the letting of these fiats. He could not remember
their names; he was a foreigner and these English names easily
escaped him. But he believed that there was a flat to be let in that
block.
“Yes,” I said, “the basement flat is to let. You understand--the
basement flat? You go down the area steps to get to it. Why ring
here in order to tell me that?”
He was desolated. “Because, mademoiselle, I have had the very great
misfortune to lose the key of that basement flat. Possibly your own
latch-key would fit it.”
“No, it would not. But you need not mind, for you would not have
taken the flat in any case. They are not intended for rich people.”
He laughed. “Appearances are so deceptive,” he said. Then quite
suddenly and rather adroitly he stepped past me into the passage.
“Ah,” he said, looking round, “if I could have a little place like
this, furnished and arranged with the exquisite taste that is shown
here, I should be perfectly content.”
“Will you please go away?” I said.
“Certainly, mademoiselle, in one moment. Your kindness will permit
me just to see the arrangement of the rooms, so that I may determine
whether a flat here would be suitable for me. You have made me a
little nervous by casting doubt upon it.”
“You cannot see any of the rooms,” I said. “You must go at once.”
“And if not?” He smiled.
“If not, I shall fetch a policeman and hand you over to him.”
He still smiled. “Believe me,” he said, “I am sorry indeed to give
you this extra trouble, but I am afraid I must ask you to fetch that
policeman. In your absence I can inspect the rooms at my leisure. I
can at least promise you that I will take the greatest care not to
injure them in any way.”
Quickly and adroitly he slipped past me again and went straight into
the kitchen. I held my breath and listened, and did not fetch the
policeman. In a moment he came out of the kitchen again.
“No policeman yet?” he said. “You are kind to me, and I will repay
it by leaving at once. I see,” he added meaningly, “that you keep
your kitchen window wide open. The English love fresh air, do they
not? Good morning.”
So that was all right. The man behind the door had escaped.
* * * * * *
Two days later I received two surprises. The van of a West-End
florist degraded itself by stopping at my flat and delivered a hamper
of exquisite flowers and fruit. I had ordered nothing, and could not
at first believe that they were intended for me. But a short note
was enclosed.
“Permit me, dear mademoiselle, with these few flowers to make my
apologies look prettier than my rudeness the other day. I shall not
take the basement flat after all.”
The evening post brought me another letter, registered, containing
five Bank of England twenty-pound notes, and another letter.
“You seemed, mademoiselle, to think so little of your great kindness
to me on Tuesday, that I think you should have some souvenir of it.
It would be idle of me to match my taste against yours, and with
renewed gratitude I leave the choice to you.”
Neither letter bore any address or any signature. At first I was a
little puzzled to make out how they had got my name. But there were
many ways in which that might have been managed. A simple inquiry at
the house agents would have been one of them. It was impossible to
return their presents, and, to be quite honest, I doubt if I should
have returned them if it had been possible. For the next few days I
fed on peaches and bought things and lived gloriously.
* * * * * *
About a year later I read in a newspaper a curious story. A man had
jumped overboard in mid-Channel and another had immediately gone over
after him. It was supposed to be a gallant attempt at rescue, and
the statement of a passenger that he saw the rescuer grip the other
man by the throat as if to choke him was not credited. The men bore
different names, but in personal appearance were remarkably like one
another. The phrase used was, “They might have been brothers.” A
description of the appearance left little doubt in my mind, and I
could fully believe that passenger’s story.
V
THE SPIRITS OF HANFORD GARDENS
The windfall which came to me from my adventure with “The Man behind
the Door” tempted me to engage some help in the domestic work of my
little flat. I cooked admirably, but I did other things less well
and they bored me; so I talked to my baker, a man of genial and
mature wisdom, and he said that I couldn’t do better than take Minnie
Saxe if I could get her. So I set out to engage Minnie Saxe; and in
the end Minnie Saxe engaged me.
She was a girl of sixteen, as flat as a board, with a small bun of
sand-coloured hair, a mouth like a steel vice, and an eye like a
gimlet.
Given the sex and the opportunities she would have been Napoleon. As
it was, she was a manager, given up to managing everything and
everybody, including her own weak-kneed father. To see her was to
know that she was capable, but I thought I ought to put the usual
questions as to previous experience and character. She waived them
aside.
“You don’t want to trouble about that, miss. I’m all right. If I
say I’ll do for you, I will, and you won’t ’ave no fault to find.
Now then, what do you do for yerself--I mean, for a livin’?”
“Well,” I said, “I have some independent means.”
“I see--money of yer own.”
“Yes, though not much. Then I had thoughts of some business. Lately
I’ve been writing a little--stories for a magazine.”
“I see, miss. Unsettled. Well, church or chapel?”
I fenced with that question discreetly, and she came off it at once
to tell me, almost threateningly, that I couldn’t have my breakfast
before eight. I said that even so late an hour as nine would suit me.
“And what time should I ’ave finished doin’ of you up if you didn’t
breakfast afore nine? That wouldn’t do neither. Well, I shall be
there soon after seven. You’ll ’ave your breakfast at eight and I
shall go as soon as I’m through with what’s wanted. I may look in in
the evening again, but that ’ull be accordin’. And my money will be
four shillin’ a week. I can but try it.”
So I was engaged as mistress to Minnie Saxe, and I am glad to say
that I gave satisfaction. On the first morning, just before she
went, she asked candidly if there was anything I “wanted done
different,” and the few suggestions which I made were never
forgotten. “And there’s just one thing,” she said at the door. “If
my fawther comes round ’ere subbin’--I mean wanting a shillin’ or two
o’ my money what’s comin’--’e ain’t to ’ave nutthink. If ’e says I
sent ’im, jest tell ’im ’e’s a liar.”
“Do you have trouble with your father?”
“Should do, if I took my eye off of ’im. ’E’s afride of me.”
I could understand that. I tried to say something delicate and
sympathetic about the wide spread evils of intemperance, Minnie Saxe
looked puzzled.
“Watcher mean, miss? Drink? Why, ’e’s a life-long teetotal. No,
it’s sweets as ’e can’t keep awye from--sugar an’ choclit, an’
pyestry, and ice-creams from the Italyuns. ’E’s no better nor a
child--mikin’ ’isself a laughin’-stock an’ wyestin’ ’is money. And
if I ’ont give ’im none for such truck ’e’s as cunnin’ as a cart-load
of monkeys about gettin’ it. That’s why I dropped you that word o’
warnin’.”
The word of warning was wanted. Her father called a few days later
to say that Minnie had asked him to look in on his way back from work
to ask the kindness of sixpence in advance as they had friends to
supper. He was a fat little man with a round innocent face, and
really looked much younger than his daughter. I lectured him
severely and he made no defence. “I did think that sixpence was a
cert,” he said sadly. “But there--she don’t leave one no chawnst.”
I consoled him with a large slice of cake. But unfortunately Minnie
found him in the street in the act of devouring it. “And,” she told
me, “of course I knowed that kike by sight. And a pretty
dressin’-down I give ’im fur ’is cadgin’ wyes.” He worked for a
book-binder when he could get a job, and was also intermittently a
house-painter and a night-watchman.
I got on very well with Minnie. She shopped admirably and got things
cheaper and better than I had ever done. Owing to her fine
independence of character she was occasionally rude, but there was
always a penitential reaction; she did not apologise or even allude
to the past, but for a few days she would call me “m’lady,” give me
more hot water than usual in the morning, and bring every bit of
brass in the place to a state of brilliant polish that seemed almost
ostentatious. She respected my cooking and despised my
story-writing, and I am inclined to think she was right. “You can
cook my ’ead off,” she said in a complimentary moment; but I never
attempted that delicacy. The trouble with my stories was that I had
not got my poor dear papa’s style and could not get it. The children
in my stories were just as consumptive and just as misunderstood as
in his; they forgave their mother and saved the kitten from drowning
and died young. And the excessively domestic magazine that always
accepted him almost always refused me.
I began to get rather nervous. I had given up the notion of
capturing some big business by the sheer brilliance of my ideas. I
had no business training and no familiarity with the ways of it. I
was unproved, and firms would not let me begin at the top to prove
me. Perhaps it was not unnatural, though I still feel sure that some
of the ideas had lots of money in them, if only I could have found
any backing. I did not make anything like enough by story-writing to
pay my expenses, and in consequence I was eating up my capital.
“Wilhelmina Castel,” I said to myself severely, “this cannot go on.”
I could not hope for a continual supply of windfalls. My hatred of
the usual feminine professions, with thirty shillings a week as the
top-note and a gradual diminuendo into the workhouse, was as strong
as ever. Yet I questioned whether it would not be better for me to
spend capital in learning shorthand and typewriting, worm my way into
a good business house as a clerk, and then trust to my intelligence
to find or make the opportunities that would ultimately lead to a
partnership. I wished I had someone with whom I could talk it over.
But what Minnie Saxe said was perfectly true.
“You ain’t got no friends seemingly,” said Minnie Saxe.
“Yes, I have, Minnie, but not here. In London I’m playing a lone
hand, as they say.”
“Well, it ain’t right. And I shan’t be lookin’ in We’n’sday night,
’cos I’ve promised to do up Mrs. Saunders.” She always spoke of her
employers as if they were parcels.
It is easy enough for a girl who is alone in London to make friends,
but in nine cases out of ten they are not friends. The friend is not
made but arrives in the usual formal channels. And when these usual
channels are closed it is perhaps better to do without friends. Yet
I had made one or two acquaintances.
One of them was a neat little woman in a brown coat and skirt. We
had come across one another while shopping in the North End Road.
One day when we were both in the grocer’s shop her string-bag
collapsed and I assisted at a rescue of the parcels. She thanked me;
she had a musical voice and spoke well--with a slight American
accent. After that, we always spoke when we met; it was mostly about
the weather, but gradually she told me one or two things about
herself. She was married and had no children and wanted none. She
liked old houses, and lived in one. “There are plenty of them in
Fulham, if you know where to look,” she added.
On the night that Minnie was “doing up” Mrs. Saunders, I dined at a
little confectioner’s near Walham Green. That is to say, I had a
mutton chop, a jam tartlet, and a glass of lemonade there. One took
this weird meal in a little place at the back of the shop, just big
enough to hold two small tables and the chairs thereof, and decently
veiled by a bead curtain from the eye of the curious. I sat waiting
for my chop and reading the evening paper when a rattle of the
curtain made me look up. In came the little woman in brown. She
seemed rather bewildered at seeing me, said “Good evening,” and
modestly took her place at the other table. But she had clearly
hesitated about it, and I could not seem too unsociable.
“Won’t you come and sit here?” I said. “Unless, of course, you are
expecting anybody.”
“Thanks so much, I’m quite alone. I didn’t know--I thought you might
be waiting for a friend.”
I laughed. “No, I have no friends--in London at any rate.”
“I am sure you have no enemies,” she said with conviction.
“I don’t think I have. I’m all alone, you see. Do you often come
here? It’s a quaint little place.”
“Not very often. But to-night my husband is out--professionally
engaged--he is a spiritualist, you know. So I let my maid go out
too, and locked up the house and came here.”
“So your husband is a spiritualist. That sounds interesting. Does
he see visions and make tables jump, and do automatic writing, and
all those things?”
“Oh, no! He has been for years a student of spiritualism. And, of
course, he is, as I am, a profound believer in it. He understands
the best ways to conduct a _séance_, and mediums like to work with
him for that reason, but he is not a medium himself. I am a
medium--at least, I was.” She fiddled with a little pepper-pot on
the table, turning it round and round. “Oh, I wish I were you!” she
said suddenly.
I was astonished. “But why?” I asked.
“Well, the story is no secret if it won’t bore you. It’s known to
many people already. Have you ever heard of Mr. Wentworth Holding?”
“Of course. You mean the financier and millionaire.”
“Yes. Well, he heard of my husband and of his medium, Una. I was
always known as Una. I have heard it said that these hard men of
business are often superstitious. I should put it that they are
shrewd enough to see that there is something beyond them. Mr.
Holding wrote to my husband to ask him to find out the future of a
certain stock. Now that money-making kind of question is one which
the spirits always dislike. As a rule they refuse to answer, or
answer ambiguously. My husband did not expect much, but he gave me
the question, and as soon as it was controlled my hand wrote, ‘Heavy
fall in three days.’ My husband telegraphed this at once to Holding.
The financier could not quite believe or quite disbelieve. He did
not bear the stock, but also he did not buy it--as in his own
judgment he had intended to do. The fall took place, and he sent my
husband the biggest fee we have ever received, and said we should
hear from him again.”
“But why does all this make you wish you were I?”
“That’s soon told. Holding has written again and wishes to engage
the services of my husband and his medium exclusively. My husband
has warned him that the spirits will not continue to interest
themselves in his business, but he says that he does not mind that
and that there are other things that interest him as much as
business. The terms he offers are princely. The work would delight
us both. And here comes the trouble: from the moment that I answered
that question about the stock--perhaps because I answered it--I have
lost power. My husband has searched London for a medium to take my
place and can find none. Some of them drink, and very many of them
cheat, and those who are decent and honest very often fail to get the
results. And that is why I wish I were you; for I feel just as sure
that you are an excellent medium as I am that you are good and above
any kind of trickery. You won’t think me impertinent? I’ve always
studied faces, you know.”
“But how can I be a medium? I have never done anything of the kind
in my life.”
“But that does not matter--not in the very least. I am quite sure of
what I say. I only wish you had some spare evenings, and wanted to
make money, and could help us.”
“All my evenings are spare evenings, and I do want to make money.
But I fear my help would be worth nothing.”
“Come and see at least.” She glanced at her watch. “My husband will
be back in a few minutes. We live at 32 Hanford Gardens--quite near
here.” Perhaps she noticed the look of cautious hesitation on my
face. “Or would you rather come later? You might prefer to----”
“No,” I said, “I’ll come now.” I confess that I felt rather curious.
I was not in the least a believer in spiritualism, but I did
believe--and do still believe--that things happen for which no known
law supplies the explanation.
No. 32 Hanford Gardens was a little box of a place with a small
walled garden. It was an old house, and the tiny room into which my
new friend brought me was panelled. The panels had been painted a
dark green, and the thick noiseless carpet was of the same colour.
It struck me, I remember, that they must have given a good price for
that carpet. It was scantily furnished with a square table, a few
solid mahogany chairs, and a couch in the recess by the fireplace. A
man sat by the table, and in front of him was what looked like a
glass ball, the size of a cricket-ball, resting on a strip of black
velvet. He rose as we came in. The light was dim--for the room was
lit only by one small shaded lamp in a sconce on the wall--but I
could see that he was a gaunt man of forty, hollow-eyed, with a
strong blue chin, looking like a tired actor.
I had already given my new acquaintance my name and learned that she
was Mrs. Dentry. She presented her husband, and in a few words
explained the situation. He had a pleasant voice and rather a
dreamy, abstracted manner.
“It is very kind of you,” he said hesitatingly. “I do not know, of
course, if you have a spiritual power, and one meets with many
disappointments--as I have already done this evening. Still, one can
try.”
“My husband,” said Mrs. Dentry, in explanation, “has been to-night to
see a medium who professed to get most wonderful results. So he was
no good, Hector?”
“Worse than that. Conjuring tricks--and not even new conjuring
tricks.”
Then he turned to me with a host of rapid questions, and seemed
satisfied with my answers. “We may have no results, but at any rate
there will be no trickery.” He glanced at his watch. “Unfortunately, I
have to go out for half an hour to see a client of mine. But my wife
knows what to do--you will be able to make your first experiments
without me.”