Mr. Ennidge was a short, middle-aged man, with grey hair, and a
mild, benignant eye, which gazed at you vaguely through gold-rimmed
spectacles. Mr. Pring, his partner, tall, thin, nervous and excitable,
was the very antithesis of him, and that is possibly why they got on so
well together. While Mr. Pring was always able to display enthusiasm in
regard to the properties he had to dispose of, to the people who were
inquiring for houses, and was never at a loss when it was necessary to
explain that what the intending client took for geese were really swans,
he was apt to relapse into gloom when called upon to deal with would-be
sellers, or those who had houses to let and were disappointed with the
rent obtainable, or the failure of Ennidge and Pring to procure them a
tenant at any price. He was then only too likely, if left to himself, to
disclose his plain and truthful opinion as to their property. This was
seldom productive of good results, for, as a rule, the transference of
the property in question to the books of another agent followed these
outbursts; and, Ennidge and Pring's business being a small one, they
could not afford to lose customers.
It was in such cases, however, that Mr. Ennidge was seen at his best. It
was he who, with friendly smile and hopeful, encouraging word, cheered
the downhearted householder and sent him away with confidence restored,
convinced once more that a tenant would shortly be forthcoming to whom
the absence of a bath-room, of a back door, of gas or hot water laid on,
and the presence of blackened ceilings, wallpaper hanging in strips, and
dirt-encrusted paint, would if anything prove a veritable inducement to
clinch a bargain most satisfactory to the landlord.
Mr. Pring had already left the office when Gimblet arrived on the
scene, and in another quarter of an hour he would have found it wholly
deserted. He gave his card to the only clerk of the establishment, who
took it in to the little inner room, where he was immediately received
by the smiling Mr. Ennidge; and to him he quickly stated his business.
"There can be no possible objection to my giving you all the information
in my power with regard to the gentleman who has taken 13 Scholefield
Avenue," said the house agent, "and since you cannot get an answer at
the house I will send down my clerk with the key to let you in and
assist, if necessary, in explaining matters to the tenant, if he should
be discovered to be there after all. A very eccentric gentleman, I
fancy, and something of a recluse. I could not, of course, take it on
myself to use the spare key, which the owner happens to have left with
us, at the request of a less well-known and responsible person than
yourself, if I may say so, Mr. Gimblet; but since the capture of the
forgers at the Great Continental last year, your name, sir, has been
in every one's mouth; and you will allow me to add that I am, although
hitherto unknown, one of your most fervent admirers."
Thus was it ever Mr. Ennidge's pleasant way to oil the wheels of
intercourse with his fellows.
"The name of the tenant of No. 13," he continued, "is Mr. West, Mr.
Henry West. He has taken the house for a month with the option of
taking it on for a year or longer; and I fancy he must be a man of
means, as the offer which he made appears to be an unusually high
one--unnecessarily so, I may say, between you and me, Mr. Gimblet; but
in the interests of our client, the owner of the lease, I need hardly
tell you we did not quarrel with him on that account!"
"What aged man is he?" inquired Gimblet.
"I really can hardly tell you," replied Mr. Ennidge. "The fact is that I
myself have not yet seen him. Both I and my partner happened to be out
when Mr. West came to the office, and he made all the arrangements with
our clerk. Perhaps you would like him to come in?"
"I should be glad to ask him a few questions," said Gimblet.
Mr. Ennidge put his head into the outer office.
"Tremmels," he called, with his hand on the door. "Just come in here a
moment."
The clerk appeared, a white-faced young Londoner, showing very plainly
the effects of an indoor life and long, hot hours spent upon an office
stool; he moved languidly, as if every step were an exertion almost too
great to repeat, and stood before Gimblet in a drooping attitude of
fatigue.
"Mr. Gimblet wants to hear about the tenant of No. 13 Scholefield
Avenue," Mr. Ennidge told him.
The clerk straightened himself with a perceptible effort, and stared
fixedly at Gimblet, who had long since become accustomed to the interest
the mention of his name commonly aroused. No doubt this youth knew the
detective by repute; but he had an expression of such wooden stupidity,
and withal looked so terribly ill and exhausted, that Gimblet wondered
if he would be able to extract much sense from him.
"It was you," he said, "who let the house to Mr. West?"
"Yes," said the clerk. "He came in one day last week."
"Friday," interposed Mr. Ennidge.
"Yes, he came in here last Friday morning, and said he'd been over No.
13 Scholefield Avenue, having seen the board 'To Let' in front of the
house," replied the clerk. "The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Mill, had only
gone away that morning, and Mr. West was shown over by a servant who
had been left behind to clear up and follow by a later train. He told
me he required a furnished house for a year. He said he was very fond
of solitude; that he had lived in India all his life and didn't care
to meet strangers, but wanted a house with a garden, where he could
be private, so to speak. He said he thought Scholefield Avenue would
suit him admirably, but that he wished to take it for a month first
to see how he liked it, and to have the option of taking it on. I was
uncertain whether Mr. Mill would be agreeable to such an arrangement,
and suggested waiting till we could communicate with the owner, but he
wouldn't hear of that; said he wished to go in immediately, and would
take some other house he'd seen unless he could clinch the matter then
and there. He made an offer of fifteen guineas a week for the first
month, and eight for the rest of the year if he should decide to take
it on. This is such a very high price for this part of London that I
felt sure Mr. Ennidge or Mr. Pring, if they had been here, would not
have let it escape, but would have hit the iron while it was hot, if you
take my meaning; and as I was aware that Mr. Mill had left an absolute
discretion to the firm with regard to letting the house, and that he
was very anxious to do so as quickly as possible, I didn't hesitate any
longer, but agreed to Mr. West's conditions.
"He said that he wished to have possession of the house from midday of
Monday last; told me to get a charwoman in on Monday morning, in case
any cleaning up remained to be done, and that he wished me to meet him
at the house on Monday for the purpose of going over the inventory.
Then he took out a pocket book, which seemed to be stuffed full of bank
notes, paid me thirty guineas, the rent for half the first month, and
asked me to get the agreement for him to sign. I got him two agreement
forms such as we use, as a rule, when letting furnished houses, and he
signed them both and put one in his pocket."
"Perhaps Mr. Gimblet would like to glance at our copy," said Mr.
Ennidge, diving into a drawer. "Here it is," and he handed a paper to
the detective, who turned it over thoughtfully. There was nothing on
it beyond the ordinary printed clauses setting forth the terms of the
contract. At the end the tenant had signed his name, "Henry West,"
in large, sprawling characters, the strokes of which seemed a trifle
uncertain, as if the hand that held the pen had not been absolutely
steady. Below, in a neat business-like writing, was the clerk's
signature: "A. W. Tremmels, for Messrs. Ennidge and Pring."
Gimblet put it in his pocket. "I may keep it for the present, I
suppose?" he asked Mr. Ennidge, who looked rather as if he would have
liked to object, but on the whole decided not to.
"Can you describe what Mr. West looked like?" Gimblet asked the clerk.
"But perhaps you had better tell me that on the way to the house. Mr.
Ennidge has promised to send you down with me. One thing, however,
before we start: I should like to see the inventory, if I may."
"By all means," Mr. Ennidge replied. "Just get it, Tremmels, and the key
too. You know where they are kept," and as the clerk went into the outer
office he turned again to Gimblet.
"If you would like me to come myself?" he suggested.
"Oh no, thanks," Gimblet answered, "do not trouble to come. As the clerk
is the only one who met Mr. West, I think he will really be more useful
to me. I suppose he can stand a walk down to Scholefield Avenue? He
looks dreadfully ill, poor chap; what's wrong with him? Consumptive?"
"He is ill, I'm afraid," said Mr. Ennidge regretfully, "but it will do
him good to get a walk and a breath of fresh air. The hot weather we had
last week was very trying; Tremmels certainly looks very bad since the
heat. I have told him to take a holiday to-morrow," he added kindly,
"a day in the country will be the best thing for him, and there is not
very much to be done in the office at this time of the year. Business is
very slack, Mr. Gimblet. I daresay, now, yours keeps your nose to the
grindstone, at one season as much as another?"
"Well, yes," said Gimblet. "I'm afraid the criminal classes aren't very
regular in their holiday-making. It's very inconsiderate of them, but
I'm afraid they're a selfish lot."
The house agent's ever-present smile broadened, and at that moment
young Tremmels made his reappearance with the inventory. In an instant
Gimblet's keen nose had told him that with the clerk there now entered
the room a pervading smell of brandy, and his quick eye noted a tinge of
colour in the pale cheek of the young man, which had previously not been
visible there. "O-ho," he said to himself, "so that's the trouble, is
it?" Then, with a word of thanks to Mr. Ennidge, Gimblet led the way out
into the street, and turned his steps towards Scholefield Avenue.
"Now then," he said to his companion as they hurried along, "about this
Mr. West. What is he like?"
"He's an elderly, rather horsey-looking gentleman, and odd in his
manner," said the clerk. "What I mean to say is, he has a very pleasant
way of talking, and yet somehow he doesn't talk like an ordinary
gentleman might. Seems rather fond of what I may term the habit of using
bad language."
"What does he look like?"
"He isn't what you'd call a tall man; not that I should call him short
either; and thin, very thin. Don't know if I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly," said Gimblet patiently, "would you know him again?"
"Oh yes. He's a very uncommon sort to meet about. I'd know him anywhere.
He's got a leather coloured face, which looks as if he'd been out in the
sun more than a few weeks, and a funny little bit of a pointed beard on
his chin. Tell you what he looks like," said Tremmels, with more show of
animation than he had so far exhibited, "he looks more like an American
than he does an Indian; and, come to think of it, he's got a nasty sort
of voice, same as they have, but not very strong."
"Anything else you can remember about him?" Gimblet asked. He was
listening with intense interest.
"Well, he has got a way of standing with his legs apart, and getting
up on his tiptoes; and then down he lets himself go with a jerk, if
I make myself plain. His wool is a bit grey and is commencing to get
baldish on the top. He seems to dislike seeing strangers or making new
acquaintances, as you may say. He gave me to understand that he's a
scholar, and going in for reading and what not when he's settled in
Scholefield Avenue; says his health's bad too, but I shouldn't wonder
if it was more likely something else. More this sort of thing." The
clerk made an upward movement with his right arm and hand, of which, as
Gimblet was walking on his other side, the significance was lost on him.
"I beg your pardon?" he inquired doubtfully.
"Granted," said Tremmels; "what I mean is, if you understand me, I
shouldn't be surprised if anyone was to tell me that he takes a drop too
much. Rather rosy about the beak, I thought, and when he left the office
I watched him go down the street till he was nearly out of sight, when
what should he do but nip across into the private bar of the _Lion and
Crown_."
"Ah," said Gimblet, "I observed a certain shakiness in the signature
of the lease." In his own mind he was thinking that it was more than
probable that the clerk had accompanied Mr. West to the _Lion and
Crown_. "Did you notice anything else?"
"I don't know that I did," said Tremmels thoughtfully. "He wore ordinary
sort of clothes. Gent's lounge suit with a large check pattern, brown
boots, and a very genteel diamond pin in the centre of his tie.
Altogether quite the gentleman, and very civil-spoken and pleasant when
not swearing. He told me that he wouldn't want any coals ordered in,
as his cooking would be done chiefly on the gas stove with which the
kitchen of No. 13 is fitted. There is every convenience, as you may
say," concluded the clerk.
As Gimblet pondered over what he had heard, and reflected that the
powers of observation that his companion showed were greater than he had
given him credit for, they drew near to Scholefield Avenue and passed
beneath its lines of branching plane trees to the gate of Mr. Mill's
house. Higgs was at his post before it and reported that nothing had
stirred during the detective's absence. Sir Gregory came from the back
of the house in the company of Mr. Brampton, who had joined him there.
The artist was plainly excited.
"Your friend tells me," he said, as he came up to Gimblet's side, "that
you think that the two ladies of whose disappearance the papers are so
full--Mrs. Vanderstein and her companion--came to this house on the
night that they vanished. It will be the greatest favour if you will
allow me to witness your methods of investigating this affair."
"By all means," said Gimblet ungraciously, "why shouldn't the whole
street come? I think it is very probable that it will do so, since Sir
Gregory Aberhyn Jones appears to be perfectly incapable of keeping his
own counsel, no matter whether the safety of his friends is endangered
or not." So saying he turned and held out his hand for the key of the
house to the clerk, who, panting and gasping after his walk, now leant
against the door as if no longer able to support himself unaided.
Sir Gregory and the artist, off whom Gimblet's right and left shots
had glanced with a sting but produced no permanent wounds, fell back
silenced for the moment, though unflinchingly determined to see anything
there was to be seen. The quick, searching eyes of Brampton rested on
the clerk, and he took in his woeful condition with the rapidity of his
trade.
"That young fellow ought to be in bed," he said, in a low voice, in Sir
Gregory's ear, "but I suppose, like the rest of us, he won't be able to
tear himself away from this exciting spot."
They followed Gimblet, who had opened the door and passed through it
into the hall. He looked round him in despair.
"Really, gentleman," he cried, "you must stay at the door for the
present. If this house has anything to tell, it will never do so after
you have trampled all traces from the very floors with your innumerable
feet. I will just see if there is anyone here; and, if not, you can
come in after I have begun my thorough examination, as long as you keep
out of my way and do as I tell you. Otherwise I warn you, Sir Gregory,
that you will ruin every chance of success."
"He talks as if we were centipedes," murmured Brampton.
Sir Gregory motioned him to silence, and they remained obediently in
the doorway while the detective and Higgs ran over the house, opening
all the doors and glancing into the rooms to see if there were anyone
in them. Whatever secret might lurk beneath that roof, for the moment
at least there was no visible human occupant to divulge it; and, if he
was to arrive at any answer to the problem of what had taken place on
Monday night after the arrival of the ladies, it was clear to Gimblet
that he must do so with no help other than the dumb aid he might receive
from the inanimate objects still within the walls, or even from the very
walls themselves.
As soon as he had completed the first hurried general survey, the
detective began a systematic examination of the house, starting with the
hall and passage of the ground floor. The other men had to move away
from the steps while he was here, as their figures crowding in the open
doorway blocked the light, and he wanted all he could get. There was no
electric light. In Scholefield Avenue, Brampton told Sir Gregory, all
the houses were dependent on gas for their illumination. Gimblet knelt
down and examined the carpet of the hall on his hands and knees. He
took a small magnifying lens from his pocket, and applied it to certain
spots, which he lingered over longer than the rest of the floor; at the
foot of the stairs he picked up a small object from under the corner of
the mat; he held it to the light for a moment between finger and thumb,
and then put it carefully away in a little box like a pill-box, which
he also produced from his pocket. Then he stood up, and examined the
furniture with the same patient deliberation. Presently he spoke to the
clerk, who was standing before the door, a little apart from the others.
"Have you got that inventory?" he asked. "Just read out the contents of
the hall."
Tremmels came up the steps and opened the book he carried.
"Two oak chairs, one oak table, one mirror, one mat," he read. "One
umbrella stand; two chairs on landing, eight engravings in frames."
"Wait a bit," interposed the detective, "we haven't got there yet."
He went to the door, and called to Sir Gregory and Brampton.
"I've finished the hall," he said. "If you want to come in, you can, as
long as you stay behind me and don't bother me with talking."
Then he turned back to his search, and began to subject each tread of
the staircase to the same minute examination as the hall had received.
From time to time he added another tiny object to the one he had already
placed in the pill-box; four or five were deposited there before they
reached the first floor.
In this way the party ascended, a step at a time, till Brampton's
curiosity began to succumb to the boredom of such ineffably slow,
crawling, snail-like progress.
"I think I'll not inflict my presence any longer, Mr. Gimblet," said he,
"it is time I dressed for dinner, or my wife will have to wait for me."
Receiving no answer from Gimblet, who was now absolutely absorbed in his
work, he whispered to Sir Gregory that he would come back after dinner,
and retired from the scene, escorted to the door by Higgs, who let him
out and shut it behind him before he returned to his post at the foot of
the staircase.
At the top of the house Gimblet straightened himself and turned to Sir
Gregory and the clerk, who were on the stairs a few steps below him.
Sir Gregory, who was nearly choking with pent-up questions, seized the
opportunity.
"Have you found anything?" he cried, and Tremmels, though he said
nothing, was a living echo of the words, as he strained forward behind
Sir Gregory to catch the reply.
"Nothing definite as yet," said Gimblet, "but I may say it appears to
me probable that, if Mrs. Vanderstein did come here on Monday night,
she did not stay in the house long. I should say she went no higher,
at all events, than the drawing-room floor." And he proceeded to the
examination of the rooms working his way downwards.
The bedrooms yielded no harvest; they wore the dismal look of unoccupied
rooms and had apparently not been entered since, having been swept and
cleaned with great thoroughness, they had been left ready for the use of
the tenant. None of the beds were made, there was no water in the jugs,
there was absolutely no indication of so much as one of them having been
used since the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Mill. Gimblet did not spend
so long over them as he had over the staircase, but it was past eight
o'clock when at length he came out of the last one and descended to the
first floor.
"I can always try upstairs again if there is nothing conclusive here,"
he said to Sir Gregory, as they went down.
With his hand on the knob of the drawing-room door he paused an instant,
looking with more sympathy than he had lately shown at the anxious face
of the old soldier. A feeling crept over him that it would not be good
for Sir Gregory to enter this room; it was a vague impalpable feeling,
which he could not explain; and in a moment it had passed. He opened the
door and went into the drawing-room, leaving the baronet, in obedience
to instructions received, faithfully standing on the landing, the white
face of the clerk showing over his shoulder, framed in the square of the
doorway against the dusky shadows beyond.