PECULIAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR. SETH PREENE.
Mr. Seth Preene, the amateur detective, hurrying along on his mission
of love and mercy, chuckled to himself at the ease with which he had
accomplished his purpose.
‘He is a green un,’ he said to himself; ‘grass ain’t in it with him. I
wonder where old Brooks picked him up. He’s a gentleman, though—genuine
goods—hall marked. Nothing o’ the Brummagem nine-carat there.’
Mr. Seth Preene had had a good deal of experience among ‘swells,’ both
of the nine-carat Brummagem and of the eighteen-carat hall-marked, in
the course of his adventurous career, and it hadn’t taken him long to
sum up George Heritage’s character. ‘Swell out o’ luck, I should
fancy,’ he said, as he walked along.
Bess was sitting in the window, sewing, when a hansom cab rattled up to
the door, and a tall dark gentleman, with a hook nose, ran up the steps
and knocked.
‘How awkward!’ she exclaimed. ‘Here’s a visitor and Miss Duck’s out. I
shall have to open the door.’
Bess had all a country girl’s fear of opening the door to London
strangers. She had heard such tales and read such things in the
newspapers about robberies and murders, that she saw a possible
petty-larcenist in every tax-collector and a would-be assassin in every
well-dressed person who came to inquire if Mr. Jones or Mr. Brown was
an inmate of the house.
But not having heard or read of robbers and murderers dashing up in
hansom cabs, with a ready-made witness in the driver, Bess summoned up
courage to answer the door to this visitor.
Is Mrs. Smith within?’ asked the gentleman politely.
Bess turned pale. Something had happened to George at the office,
perhaps. Had he overworked himself and brought on a paralytic stroke?
‘I am Mrs. Smith,’ she stammered. ‘Is it anything about my husband?’
‘Don’t alarm yourself, my dear madam,’ answered the gentleman politely;
‘I’ve only brought a message from him.’
Mr. Preene handed Mrs. Smith her husband’s hastily scribbled note.
She read it with a vague feeling of alarm.
‘What does it mean?’ she stammered. ‘Oh, you are not keeping anything
from me? He is not ill?’
‘You alarm yourself needlessly, I assure you. It is only a matter of
business. If you will put on your things at once and keep the
appointment, you will find it is all right.’
‘Are you in his office, sir?’ asked Bess, wondering what she should do
with no one in the house.
Here was the opportunity Preene was waiting for.
‘No,’ he answered; ‘I come from Grigg and Limpet’s—Mr. Duck’s
employers. Smith and Co. have business with our firm, and that is where
I met your husband. I was coming on to see Miss Duck, and he asked me
to bring this note at the same time.’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Bess, with a sigh of relief. ‘Then perhaps you’ll wait
till Miss Duck comes home? I don’t like to leave the house with no one
in it,’ she added apologetically.
‘I must wait,’ said Mr. Preene, ‘so you are not putting me to any
inconvenience.’
Bess was glad to hear it.
As the gentleman had come to see Miss Duck, and knew all about Grigg
and Limpet, of course she could ask him in.
Mr. Preene stepped in, leaving his hansom waiting. He urged Mrs. Smith
not to think about him, but to keep the appointment at once.
Bess needed no encouragement. She ran upstairs, put on her mantle and
bonnet, gathered a few things together, just what George’s
travelling-bag would hold, and, reading her husband’s letter over
again, she hurried out. On the doorstep she turned, and once again
begged the stranger to assure her that her husband was not ill, and
that his hasty summons was not worded so as to conceal the worst from
her.
Mr. Preene gave the required assurance, bowed her out, and closed the
door behind her.
At another time Bess might have hesitated at leaving a stranger alone
in the house, even though he professed such intimacy with the family.
But, do what she would, she could not banish the idea that the message
from George implied something unpleasant—something which might prove
the first trouble of their short and hitherto unclouded married life.
This thought was uppermost in her mind, and banished all other
considerations. So she hurried away to Waterloo Station, thinking only
of George, and not troubling herself to consider how the unknown
visitor might amuse himself in Mr. Duck’s deserted residence.
If she could have witnessed Mr. Preene’s behaviour it would have
surprised her.
That estimable gentleman had no sooner closed the door carefully than
he rushed upstairs and into all the rooms, in order to discover which
were the apartments lately occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
A cursory inspection of the first floor satisfied him that he need go
no further.
He had little time to lose, for Miss Duck might be back in a few
minutes, Mrs. Smith had informed him, and Mr. Preene particularly
wished to conclude his business, and retire without any tiresome
explanations.
He looked about the room, then pulled a small parcel from his pocket,
undid it, and proceeded to secrete the contents about the room.
Under the squab of the sofa he placed three of the blank cheques from
the book so mysteriously lost by Limpet, junior. In a box in the
bed-room, under some clothes, he hid a roll of sham bank-notes. In an
old waistcoat of George’s, hanging behind the door, he placed a rouleau
of spurious sovereigns; and in the cupboard, hidden away behind some
boots, he left a small brown-paper parcel containing a portion of the
stock-in-trade of a professional forger.
Having paid the absent tenants these delicate attentions, he left a few
more souvenirs of his visit and then hurried downstairs, and, pulling
the front door gently to, walked rapidly away.
A quarter of an hour later, when Miss Duck returned and let herself in
with the latchkey, the house was empty.
Miss Georgina had purchased a bargain at the linendraper’s, and, Mrs.
Smith being an authority on bargains, Georgina ran upstairs to display
her purchase and ask Mrs. Smith’s opinion.
She knocked at the door, and, receiving no answer, opened it, and
stepped in.
The rooms were empty.
‘Dear me!’ said Miss Georgina; ‘how strange! She never said anything
about going out.’
The afternoon wore away, and Mrs. Smith did not return. Evening came
and brought Jabez home to his tea, but it brought no Mrs. Smith, and,
stranger still, it brought no Mr. Smith either.
‘Whatever can have become of the Smiths, Jabez?’ said Miss Georgina,
when tea was cleared away, and the first floor was still empty.
‘I don’t know, my dear,’ answered Mr. Dick. ‘Perhaps they’ve bolted
with the lead off the roof, or the washing out of the back garden.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Jabez. Can’t you talk seriously for a moment?’
‘What a fidget you are, Georgina! Let the Smiths alone, and they’ll
come home, and bring their tails behind them.’
‘Keep your poetry for those who appreciate it,’ exclaimed Miss
Georgina, tossing her head. ‘All I know is, if the Smiths don’t come
home soon I shall think something’s wrong.’
There was something wrong indeed—how wrong, Miss Duck discovered later
on, when a detective arrived from Scotland Yard ‘in consequence of
information received, ’and in Miss Dick’s presence searched the rooms
and found quite enough to prove that the late occupants were
professional forgers and in league with a gang of robbers.
Miss Duck rushed off there and then and brought in Miss Jackson to stay
with her till Jabez returned, declaring that she wasn’t going to be
murdered in her bed for anyone, and picturing in vivid colours what
might have happened to a poor unprotected female left alone as she
often had been with these monsters of iniquity.
At the idea of her friend being murdered in her bed, Miss Jackson
raised a dismal howl, and wept on Georgina’s bosom to such an extent
that the latter must have been in imminent danger of rheumatics in the
chest.
‘I always said they were no good,’ hissed Miss Dick, as she counted the
cheap electro spoons and forks. ‘If Jabez had been a man he wouldn’t
have allowed me to be mixed up with a pack of thieves. Why didn’t he
let his apartments himself? I’ll never take another lodger as long as I
live.’
‘I wouldn’t, dear,’ said Miss Jackson; ‘it isn’t genteel.’
‘What!’ shrieked Georgina, turning on Miss Jackson, ‘not genteel!
Hoity-toity! I wonder you demean yourself by honouring us with your
presence! Genteel, indeed! My brother is a professional man, madam, if
he is a fool. Your family made their money in dust-carts and
refuse-heaps. Genteel, indeed!’
Miss Jackson shrieked and gasped for mercy. She held her arms out and
struck attitudes of despair. She would have torn her hair but that she
knew it would come off directly.
‘Oh, Georgina!’ she cried, ‘don’t, don’t! If you spurn me I shall die!
I didn’t mean it; indeed I didn’t!’
Here Miss Jackson went off into strong hysterics and shrieked so loudly
that Georgina, fearing a crowd outside and further scandal, slapped her
hands viciously and promised to forgive her. Whereupon Miss Jackson
left off her hysterics, wiped away her tears, and, clasping Georgina to
her heart, declared she was the best of women and the dearest of
friends.
Then, locking up the house, and taking Miss Jackson with her, Miss Duck
marched off at once to Grigg and Limpet’s, to inform Jabez of the
affair and to give him a bit of her mind.
Mr. Jabez being engaged with the governors, they were shown into a
little waiting-room, in which there was already an elderly-looking
female deeply veiled.
Presently Jabez came in, and all three ladies rose to meet him.
He gave a sharp cry of mingled astonishment and horror, then turned
deadly pale, and seemed as though he would fly.
The elderly female had thrown her veil up. Georgina and Miss Jackson
had advanced towards him.
The unhappy Jabez was alone with Georgina, Miss Jackson, and Mrs.
Turvey.