To push up the iron was impossible, for I saw that it was locked.
A woman passed close by, and I shouted to her. She turned and looked in
an opposite direction, surprised to see no one. She never suspected
anyone being beneath the roadway.
An omnibus rumbled over me, and I saw that it was a green "Bayswater,"
from which I concluded that I must be beneath Oxford Street.
Again and again I shouted for help, but could attract no notice. My
position was far from secure, compelled to cling on to those iron
footholds in the brickwork.
At last I saw a newsboy close to me. My shout startled him, but when he
discerned my face beneath the bars he came closer, and asked,--
"'Alloa, guv'nor! What's up?"
"I'm a prisoner here," I explained. "Go and fetch a policeman."
"My gum!" exclaimed the urchin in his surprise. "It's the first time
I've ever 'eard of a bloke gettin' locked down the sewer." And he went
off at once to call a constable.
The officer came quickly, and after a brief explanation he sent the lad
somewhere to the house of one of the sewermen, I think, for the key.
Meanwhile, a small crowd quickly collected around the grating, and I was
subjected to a good deal of good-humoured banter until the man came with
the key, and I once again found myself at the surface, a dirty,
dishevelled, pitiable-looking object in evening dress. I was in Oxford
Street, at the corner of Hart Street, Bloomsbury.
Both constable and sewer-man were curious to know how I got in,
whereupon I explained that I had been the victim of a plot in some
house, of the exact situation of which I was unaware.
The two men exchanged glances--meaning glances I saw them to be.
"Was it anywhere near Portland Place?" asked the big fellow in blue
jersey and sea-boots.
"I don't know. I saw Poland Street written up. Why?"
"Well, because there's something mysterious goes on in a house somewhere
near here. Only a month ago we found the body of a young woman drowned
in the main sewer at the corner of Charing Cross Road, and the affair is
a mystery. The police 'ave kept it out of the papers while they make
inquiries. We're trying to find out what house has direct communication
with the sewer, but up to the present we've not been successful. It's a
good job," he added, "that you weren't caught by the flush, for it must
just be going down at this time."
I explained how narrowly I had escaped death, and then in reply to the
constable described the dastardly plot of which I had been the victim.
"Of course, sir, you won't mind making a full statement at the police
station, will you?" the officer said. "The discovery of the poor woman
in the sewer the other day has shown that there is some house in which
people mysteriously disappear. It is evidently to that house you were
invited. You will be able to assist us to identify it."
I shook my head, saying: "I fear that I'll never be able to recognise it
again, for I really took no notice of its exterior. It lies somewhere
east of Regent Street, that is all I know."
"Depend upon it that more than one person has been swept down by the
flush," declared the sewer-man. "A man's body was found down at the
outfall at Beckton about three months ago. He was in evening dress, and
evidently a gentleman, our foreman said, but where he came from was a
complete mystery. My own idea is that the house has no direct
communication with the sewer, for if it had, we should have discovered
it. You say, sir, that you fell through a hole in the stairs?"