Produced by Aaron Cannon
THE LOST HOUSE
by Richard Harding Davis
I
It was a dull day at the chancellery. His Excellency the American
Ambassador was absent in Scotland, unveiling a bust to Bobby Burns,
paid for by the numerous lovers of that poet in Pittsburg; the First
Secretary was absent at Aldershot, observing a sham battle; the Military
Attache was absent at the Crystal Palace, watching a foot-ball match;
the Naval Attache was absent at the Duke of Deptford's, shooting
pheasants; and at the Embassy, the Second Secretary, having lunched
leisurely at the Artz, was now alone, but prepared with his life to
protect American interests. Accordingly, on the condition that the story
should not be traced back to him, he had just confided a State secret to
his young friend, Austin Ford, the London correspondent of the New York
REPUBLIC.
“I will cable it,” Ford reassured him, “as coming from a Hungarian
diplomat, temporarily residing in Bloomsbury, while en route to his post
in Patagonia. In that shape, not even your astute chief will suspect its
real source. And further from the truth than that I refuse to go.”
“What I dropped in to ask,” he continued, “is whether the English are
going to send over a polo team next summer to try to bring back the
cup?”
“I've several other items of interest,” suggested the Secretary.
“The week-end parties to which you have been invited,” Ford objected,
“can wait. Tell me first what chance there is for an international polo
match.”
“Polo,” sententiously began the Second Secretary, who himself was a
crackerjack at the game, “is a proposition of ponies! Men can be trained
for polo. But polo ponies must be born. Without good ponies----”
James, the page who guarded the outer walls, of the chancellery,
appeared in the doorway.
“Please, Sir, a person,” he announced, “with a note for the Ambassador,
he says it's important.”
“Tell him to leave it,” said the Secretary. “Polo ponies----”
“Yes, Sir,” interrupted the page. “But 'e won't leave it, not unless he
keeps the 'arf-crown.”
“For Heaven's sake!” protested the Second Secretary, “then let him keep
the half-crown. When I say polo ponies, I don't mean----”
James, although alarmed at his own temerity, refused to accept the
dismissal. “But, please, Sir,” he begged; “I think the 'arf-crown is for
the Ambassador.”
The astonished diplomat gazed with open eyes.
“You think--WHAT!” he exclaimed.
James, upon the defensive, explained breathlessly.
“Because, Sir,” he stammered, “it was INSIDE the note when it was thrown
out of the window.”
Ford had been sprawling in a soft leather chair in front of the open
fire. With the privilege of an old school-fellow and college classmate,
he had been jabbing the soft coal with his walking-stick, causing it to
burst into tiny flames. His cigarette drooped from his lips, his hat
was cocked over one eye; he was a picture of indifference, merging upon
boredom. But at the words of the boy his attitude both of mind and body
underwent an instant change. It was as though he were an actor, and the
words “thrown from the window” were his cue. It was as though he were
a dozing fox-terrier, and the voice of his master had whispered in his
ear: “Sick'em!”
For a moment, with benign reproach, the Second Secretary regarded the
unhappy page, and then addressed him with laborious sarcasm.
“James,” he said, “people do not communicate with ambassadors in notes
wrapped around half-crowns and hurled from windows. That is the way one
corresponds with an organ-grinder.” Ford sprang to his feet.
“And meanwhile,” he exclaimed angrily, “the man will get away.”
Without seeking permission, he ran past James, and through the empty
outer offices. In two minutes he returned, herding before him an
individual, seedy and soiled. In appearance the man suggested that
in life his place was to support a sandwich-board. Ford reluctantly
relinquished his hold upon a folded paper which he laid in front of the
Secretary.
“This man,” he explained, “picked that out of the gutter in Sowell
Street, It's not addressed to any one, so you read it!”
“I thought it was for the Ambassador!” said the Secretary.
The soiled person coughed deprecatingly, and pointed a dirty digit at
the paper. “On the inside,” he suggested. The paper was wrapped around
a half-crown and folded in at each end. The diplomat opened it
hesitatingly, but having read what was written, laughed.
“There's nothing in THAT,” he exclaimed. He passed the note to Ford. The
reporter fell upon it eagerly.
The note was written in pencil on an unruled piece of white paper. The
handwriting was that of a woman. What Ford read was:
“I am a prisoner in the street on which this paper is found. The house
faces east. I think I am on the top story. I was brought here three
weeks ago. They are trying to kill me. My uncle, Charles Ralph Pearsall,
is doing this to get my money. He is at Gerridge's Hotel in Craven
Street, Strand. He will tell you I am insane. My name is Dosia Pearsall
Dale. My home is at Dalesville, Kentucky, U. S. A. Everybody knows me
there, and knows I am not insane. If you would save a life take this at
once to the American Embassy, or to Scotland Yard. For God's sake, help
me.”
When he had read the note, Ford continue to study it. Until he was quite
sure his voice would not betray his interest, he did not raise his eyes.
“Why,” he asked, “did you say that there's nothing in this?”
“Because,” returned the diplomat conclusively, “we got a note like that,
or nearly like it, a week ago, and----”
Ford could not restrain a groan. “And you never told me!”
“There wasn't anything to tell,” protested the diplomat. “We handed
it over to the police, and they reported there was nothing in it. They
couldn't find the man at that hotel, and, of course, they couldn't find
the house with no more to go on than----”
“And so,” exclaimed Ford rudely, “they decided there was no man, and no
house!”
“Their theory,” continued the Secretary patiently, “is that the girl is
confined in one of the numerous private sanatoriums in Sowell Street,
that she is insane, that because she's under restraint she IMAGINES
the nurses are trying to kill her and that her relatives are after
her money. Insane people are always thinking that. It's a very common
delusion.”
Ford's eyes were shining with a wicked joy. “So,” he asked
indifferently, “you don't intend to do anything further?”
“What do you want us to do?” cried his friend. “Ring every door-bell in
Sowell Street and ask the parlor-maid if they're murdering a lady on the
top story?”
“Can I keep the paper?” demanded Ford. “You can keep a copy of it,”
consented the Secretary. “But if you think you're on the track of a big
newspaper sensation, I can tell you now you're not. That's the work of a
crazy woman, or it's a hoax. You amateur detectives----”
Ford was already seated at the table, scribbling a copy of the message,
and making marginal notes.
“Who brought the FIRST paper?” he interrupted.
“A hansom-cab driver.”
“What became of HIM?” snapped the amateur detective.
The Secretary looked inquiringly at James. “He drove away,” said James.
“He drove away, did he?”' roared Ford. “And that was a week ago! Ye
gods! What about Dalesville, Kentucky? Did you cable any one there?”
The dignity of the diplomat was becoming ruffled.
“We did not!” he answered. “If it wasn't true that her uncle was at that
hotel, it was probably equally untrue that she had friends in America.”
“But,” retorted his friend, “you didn't forget to cable the State
Department that you all went in your evening clothes to bow to the new
King? You didn't neglect to cable that, did you?”
“The State Department,” returned the Secretary, with withering reproof,
“does not expect us to crawl over the roofs of houses and spy down
chimneys to see if by any chance an American citizen is being murdered.”
“Well,” exclaimed Ford, leaping to his feet and placing his notes in
his pocket, “fortunately, my paper expects me to do just that, and if it
didn't, I'd do it anyway. And that is exactly what I am going to do now!
Don't tell the others in the Embassy, and, for Heaven's sake, don't tell
the police. Jimmy, get me a taxi. And you,” he commanded, pointing at
the one who had brought the note, “are coming with me to Sowell Street,
to show me where you picked up that paper.”
On the way to Sowell Street Ford stopped at a newspaper agency, and
paid for the insertion that afternoon of the same advertisement in three
newspapers. It read: “If hansom-cab driver who last week carried note,
found in street, to American Embassy will mail his address to X. X. X.,
care of GLOBE, he will be rewarded.”
From the nearest post-office he sent to his paper the following cable:
“Query our local correspondent, Dalesville, Kentucky, concerning Dosia
Pearsall Dale. Is she of sound mind, is she heiress. Who controls
her money, what her business relations with her uncle Charles Ralph
Pearsall, what her present address. If any questions, say inquiries come
from solicitors of Englishman who wants to marry her. Rush answer.”
Sowell Street is a dark, dirty little thoroughfare, running for only
one block, parallel to Harley Street. Like it, it is decorated with the
brass plates of physicians and the red lamps of surgeons, but, just as
the medical men in Harley Street, in keeping with that thoroughfare,
are broad, open, and with nothing to conceal, so those of Sowell Street,
like their hiding-place, shrink from observation, and their lives are as
sombre, secret, and dark as the street itself.
Within two turns of it Ford dismissed the taxicab. Giving the soiled
person a half-smoked cigarette, he told him to walk through Sowell
Street, and when he reached the place where he had picked up the paper,
to drop the cigarette as near that spot as possible. He then was to turn
into Weymouth Street and wait until Ford joined him. At a distance of
fifty feet Ford followed the man, and saw him, when in the middle of
the block, without apparent hesitation, drop the cigarette. The house in
front of which it fell was marked, like many others, by the brass
plate of a doctor. As Ford passed it he hit the cigarette with his
walking-stick, and drove it into an area. When he overtook the man, Ford
handed him another cigarette. “To make sure,” he said, “C4 go back
and drop this in the place you found the paper.” For a moment the man
hesitated.
“I might as well tell you,” Ford continued, “that I knocked that last
cigarette so far from where you dropped it that you won't be able to use
it as a guide. So, if you don't really know where you found the paper,
you'll save my time by saying so.” Instead of being confused by the
test, the man was amused by it. He laughed appreciatively admitted.
“You've caught me out fair, governor,” “I want the 'arf-crown, and I
dropped the cigarette as near the place as I could. But I can't do it
again. It was this way,” he explained. “I wasn't taking notice of the
houses. I was walking along looking into the gutter for stumps. I see
this paper wrapped about something round. 'It's a copper,' I thinks,
'jucked out of a winder to a organ-grinder.' I snatches it, and runs.
I didn't take no time to look at the houses. But it wasn't so far from
where I showed you; about the middle house in the street and on the left
'and side.”
Ford had never considered the man as a serious element in the problem.
He believed him to know as little of the matter as he professed to know.
But it was essential he should keep that little to himself.
“No one will pay you for talking,” Ford pointed out, “and I'll pay you
to keep quiet. So, if you say nothing concerning that note, at the end
of two weeks, I'll leave two pounds for you with James, at the Embassy.”
The man, who believed Ford to be an agent of the police, was only too
happy to escape on such easy terms. After Ford had given him a pound on
account, they parted.
From Wimpole Street the amateur detective went to the nearest public
telephone and called up Gerridge's Hotel. He considered his first step
should be to discover if Mr. Pearsall was at that hotel, or had ever
stopped there. When the 'phone was answered, he requested that a message
be delivered to Mr. Pearsall.
“Please tell him,” he asked, “that the clothes he ordered are ready to
try on.”
He was informed that no one by that name was at the hotel. In a voice of
concern Ford begged to know when Mr. Pearsall had gone away, and had he
left any address.
“He was with you three weeks ago,” Ford insisted. “He's an American
gentleman, and there was a lady with him. She ordered a riding-habit of
us: the same time he was measured for his clothes.”
After a short delay, the voice from the hotel replied that no one of the
name of Pearsall had been at the hotel that winter.
In apparent great disgust Ford rang off, and took a taxicab to his rooms
in Jermyn Street. There he packed a suit-case and drove to Gerridge's.
It was a quiet, respectable, “old-established” house in Craven Street,
a thoroughfare almost entirely given over to small family hotels much
frequented by Americans.
After he had registered and had left his bag in his room, Ford returned
to the office, and in an assured manner asked that a card on which he
had written “Henry W. Page, Dalesville, Kentucky,” should be taken to
Mr. Pearsall.
In a tone of obvious annoyance the proprietor returned the card, saying
that there was no one of that name in the hotel, and added that no such
person had ever stopped there. Ford expressed the liveliest distress.
“He TOLD me I'd find him here,” he protested., “he and his niece.” With
the garrulousness of the American abroad, he confided his troubles to
the entire staff of the hotel. “We're from the same town,” he explained.
“That's why I must see him. He's the only man in London I know, and I've
spent all my money. He said he'd give me some he owes me, as soon as I
reached London. If I can't get it, I'll have to go home by Wednesday's
steamer.” And, complained bitterly, “I haven't seen the Tower,
nor Westminster Abbey.”
In a moment, Ford's anxiety to meet Mr. Pearsall was apparently lost
in a wave of self-pity. In his disappointment he appealing, pathetic
figure.
Real detectives and rival newspaper men, even while they admitted Ford
obtained facts that were denied them, claimed that they were given him
from charity. Where they bullied, browbeat, and administered a third
degree, Ford was embarrassed, deprecatory, an earnest, ingenuous,
wide-eyed child. What he called his “working” smile begged of you not
to be cross with him. His simplicity was apparently so hopeless, his
confidence in whomever he addressed so complete, that often even the
man he was pursuing felt for him a pitying contempt. Now as he stood
uncertainly in the hall of the hotel, his helplessness moved the proud
lady clerk to shake her cylinders of false hair sympathetically,
the German waiters to regard his predicament with respect; even the
proprietor, Mr. Gerridge himself, was ill at ease. Ford returned to his
room, on the second floor of the hotel, and sat down on the edge of the
bed.
In connecting Pearsall with Gerridge's, both the police and himself had
failed. Of this there were three possible explanations: that the girl
who wrote the letter was in error, that the letter was a hoax, that the
proprietor of the hotel, for some reason, was protecting Pearsall, and
had deceived both Ford and Scotland Yard. On the other hand, without
knowing why the girl believed Pearsall would be found at Gerridge's,
it was reasonable to assume that in so thinking she had been purposely
misled. The question was, should he or not dismiss Gerridge's as a
possible clew, and at once devote himself to finding the house in Sowell
Street? He decided for the moment at least, to leave Gerridge's out of
his calculations, but, as an excuse for returning there, to still retain
his room. He at once started toward Sowell Street, and in order to find
out if any one from the hotel were following him, he set forth on foot.
As soon as he made sure he was not spied upon, he covered the remainder
of the distance in a cab.
He was acting on the supposition that the letter was no practical joke,
but a genuine cry for help. Sowell Street was a scene set for such
an adventure. It was narrow, mean-looking, the stucco house-fronts,
soot-stained, cracked, and uncared-for, the steps broken and unwashed.
As he entered it a cold rain was falling, and a yellow fog that rolled
between the houses added to its dreariness. It was now late in the
afternoon, and so overcast the sky that in many rooms the gas was lit
and the curtains drawn.
The girl, apparently from observing the daily progress of the sun, had
written she was on the west side of the street and, she believed, in
an upper story. The man who picked up the note had said he had found
it opposite the houses in the middle of the block. Accordingly, Ford
proceeded on the supposition that the entire east side of the street,
the lower stories of the west side, and the houses at each end were
eliminated. The three houses in the centre of the row were outwardly
alike. They were of four stories. Each was the residence of a physician,
and in each, in the upper stories, the blinds were drawn. From the front
there was nothing to be learned, and in the hope that the rear might
furnish some clew, Ford hastened to Wimpole Street, in which the houses
to the east backed upon those to the west in Sowell Street. These houses
were given over to furnished lodgings, and under the pretext of renting
chambers, it was easy for Ford to enter them, and from the apartments
in the rear to obtain several hasty glimpses of the backs of the three
houses in Sowell Street. But neither from this view-point did he gather
any fact of interest. In one of the three houses in Sowell Street
iron bars were fastened across the windows of the fourth floor, but in
private sanatoriums this was neither unusual nor suspicious. The bars
might cover the windows of a nursery to prevent children from falling
out, or the room of some timid householder with a lively fear of
burglars.
In a quarter of an hour Ford was again back in Sowell Street no wiser
than when he had entered it. From the outside, at least, the three
houses under suspicion gave no sign. In the problem before him there was
one point that Ford found difficult to explain. It was the only one that
caused him to question if the letter was genuine. What puzzled him was
this: Why, if the girl were free to throw two notes from the window, did
she not throw them out by the dozen? If she were able to reach a window,
opening on the street, why did she not call for help? Why did she not,
by hurling out every small article the room contained, by screams, by
breaking the window-panes, attract a crowd, and, through it, the police?
That she had not done so seemed to show that only at rare intervals
was she free from restraint, or at liberty to enter the front room that
opened on the street. Would it be equally difficult, Ford asked himself,
for one in the street to communicate with her? What signal could he give
that would draw an answering signal from the girl?
Standing at the corner, hidden by the pillars of a portico, the water
dripping from his rain-coat, Ford gazed long and anxiously at the blank
windows of the three houses. Like blind eyes staring into his, they told
no tales, betrayed no secret. Around him the commonplace life of the
neighborhood proceeded undisturbed. Somewhere concealed in the single
row of houses a girl was imprisoned, her life threatened; perhaps even
at that moment she was facing her death. While, on either side, shut
from her by the thickness only of a brick wall, people were talking,
reading, making tea, preparing the evening meal, or, in the street
below, hurrying by, intent on trivial errands. Hansom cabs, prowling
in search of a fare, passed through the street where a woman was being
robbed of a fortune, the drivers occupied only with thoughts of a
possible shilling; a housemaid with a jug in her hand and a shawl over
her bare head, hastened to the near-by public-house; the postman made
his rounds, and delivered comic postal-cards; a policeman, shedding
water from his shining cape, halted, gazed severely at the sky, and,
unconscious of the crime that was going forward within the sound of his
own footsteps, continued stolidly into Wimpole Street.
A hundred plans raced through Ford's brain; he would arouse the street
with a false alarm of fire and lead the firemen, with the tale of a
smoking chimney, to one of the three houses; he would feign illness,
and, taking refuge in one of them, at night would explore the premises;
he would impersonate a detective, and insist upon his right to search
for stolen property. As he rejected these and a dozen schemes as
fantastic, his brain and eyes were still alert for any chance advantage
that the street might offer. But the minutes passed into an hour, and
no one had entered any of the three houses, no one had left them. In the
lower stories, from behind the edges of the blinds, lights appeared,
but of the life within there was no sign. Until he hit upon a plan of
action, Ford felt there was no longer anything to be gained by remaining
in Sowell Street. Already the answer to his cable might have arrived at
his rooms; at Gerridge's he might still learn something of Pearsall.
He decided to revisit both these places, and, while so engaged, to send
from his office one of his assistants to cover the Sowell Street houses.
He cast a last, reluctant look at the closed blinds, and moved away. As
he did so, two itinerant musicians dragging behind them a small street
piano on wheels turned the corner, and, as the rain had now ceased, one
of them pulled the oil-cloth covering from the instrument and,
seating himself on a camp-stool at the curb, opened the piano. After
a discouraged glance at the darkened windows, the other, in a hoarse,
strident tenor, to the accompaniment of the piano, began to sing. The
voice of the man was raucous, penetrating. It would have reached the
recesses of a tomb.
“She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore,” the vocalist wailed. “The
shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure.”
The effect was instantaneous. A window was flung open, and an indignant
householder with one hand frantically waved the musicians away, and with
the other threw them a copper coin.
At the same moment Ford walked quickly to the piano and laid a
half-crown on top of it.
“Follow me to Harley Street,” he commanded. “Don't hurry. Take your
time. I want you to help me in a sort of practical joke. It's worth a
sovereign to you.”
He passed on quickly. When he glanced behind him, he saw the two men,
fearful lest the promised fortune might escape them, pursuing him at a
trot. At Harley Street they halted, breathless.
“How long,” Ford demanded of the one who played the piano, “will it take
you to learn the accompaniment to a new song?”
“While you're whistling it,” answered the man eagerly.
“And I'm as quick at a tune as him,” assured the other anxiously. “I can
sing----”
“You cannot,” interrupted Ford. “I'm going to do the singing myself.
Where is there a public-house near here where we can hire a back room,
and rehearse?”
Half an hour later, Ford and the piano-player entered Sowell Street
dragging the piano behind them. The amateur detective still wore his
rain-coat, but his hat he had exchanged for a cap, and, instead of a
collar, he had knotted around his bare neck a dirty kerchief. At the
end of the street they halted, and in some embarrassment Ford raised his
voice in the chorus of a song well known in the music-halls. It was a
very good voice, much too good for “open-air work,” as his companion
had already assured him, but, what was of chief importance to Ford, it
carried as far as he wished it to go. Already in Wimpole Street four
coins of the realm, flung to him from the highest windows, had testified
to its power. From the end of Sowell Street Ford moved slowly from house
to house until he was directly opposite the three in one of which he
believed the girl to be. “We will try the NEW songs here,” he said.
Night had fallen, and, except for the gas-lamps, the street was empty,
and in such darkness that even without his disguise Ford ran no risk of
recognition. His plan was not new. It dated from the days of Richard
the Lion-hearted. But if the prisoner were alert and intelligent, even
though she could make no answer, Ford believed through his effort she
would gain courage, would grasp that from the outside a friend was
working toward her. All he knew of the prisoner was that she came from
Kentucky. Ford fixed his eyes on the houses opposite, and cleared his
throat. The man struck the opening chords, and in a high barytone, and
in a cockney accent that made even the accompanist grin, Ford lifted his
voice.
“The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,” he sang; “'tis summer,
and the darkies are gay.”
He finished the song, but there was no sign. For all the impression he
had made upon Sowell Street, he might have been singing in his chambers.
“And now the other,” commanded Ford.
The house-fronts echoed back the cheering notes of “Dixie.” Again Ford
was silent, and again The silence answered him. The accompanist glared
disgustedly at the darkened windows.
“They don't know them songs,” he explained professionally. “Give 'em,
'Mollie Married the Marquis.'”
“I'll sing the first one again,” said Ford. Once more he broke into the
pathetic cadences of the “Old Kentucky Home.” But there was no response.
He was beginning to feel angry, absurd. He believed he had wasted
precious moments, and, even as he sang, his mind was already working
upon a new plan. The song ceased, unfinished.
“It's no use!” he exclaimed. Remembering himself, he added: “We'll try
the next street.”
But even as he spoke he leaped forward. Coming apparently from nowhere,
something white sank through the semi-darkness and fell at his feet.
It struck the pavement directly in front of the middle one of the
three houses. Ford fell upon it and clutched it in both hands. It was a
woman's glove. Ford raced back to the piano.
“Once more,” he cried, “play 'Dixie'!”
He shouted out the chorus exultantly, triumphantly. Had he spoken it in
words, the message could not have carried more clearly.
Ford now believed he had found the house, found the woman, and was
eager only to get rid of his companion and, in his own person, return to
Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions
something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing
the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of
his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant,
tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that
Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there.
Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed that one of
his assistants, an English lad named Cuthbert, should at once join him
at that hotel. Cuthbert was but just out of Oxford. He wished to become
a writer of fiction, and, as a means of seeing many kinds of life at
first hand, was in training as a “Pressman.” His admiration for Ford
amounted to almost hero-worship; and he regarded an “assignment” with
his chief as a joy and an honor. Full of enthusiasm, and as soon as a
taxicab could bring him, he arrived at Gerridge's, where, in a corner of
the deserted coffee-room, Ford explained the situation. Until he could
devise a way to enter the Sowell Street house. Cuthbert was to watch
over it.
“The number of the house is forty,” Ford told him; “the name on the
door-plate, Dr. Prothero. Find out everything you can about him without
letting any one catch you at it. Better begin at the nearest chemist's.
Say you are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and ask the man to mix
you a sedative, and recommend a physician. Show him Prothero's name and
address on a piece of paper, and say Prothero has been recommended to
you as a specialist on nervous troubles. Ask what he thinks of him. Get
him to talk. Then visit the trades-people and the public-houses in the
neighborhood, and say you are from some West End shop where Prothero,
wants to open an account. They may talk, especially if his credit is
bad. And, if you find out enough about him to give me a working basis,
I'll try to get into the house to-night. Meanwhile, I'm going to make
another quick search of this hotel for Pearsall. I'm not satisfied he
has not been here. For why should Miss Dale, with all the hotels in
London to choose from, have named this particular one, unless she had
good reason for it? Now, go, and meet me in an hour in Sowell Street.”
Cuthbert was at the door when he remembered he had brought with him from
the office Ford's mail and cablegrams. Among the latter was the one for
which Ford had asked.
“Wait,” he commanded. “This is about the girl. You had better know what
it says.” The cable read:
“Girl orphan, Dalesville named after her family, for three generations
mill-owners, father died four years ago, Pearsall brother-in-law until
she is twenty-one, which will be in three months. Girl well known,
extremely popular, lived Dalesville until last year, when went abroad
with uncle, since then reports of melancholia and nervous prostration,
before that health excellent--no signs insanity--none in family. Be
careful how handle Pearsall, was doctor, gave up practice to look
after estate, is prominent in local business and church circles, best
reputation, beware libel.”
For the benefit of Cuthbert, Ford had been reading the cable aloud. The
last paragraph seemed especially to interest him, and he read it twice,
the second time slowly, and emphasizing the word “doctor.”
“A doctor!” he repeated. “Do you see where that leads us? It may explain
several things. The girl was in good health until went abroad with her
uncle, and he is a medical man.”
The eyes of Cuthbert grew wide with excitement.
“You mean poison!” he whispered. “Slow poison!”
“Beware libel,” laughed Ford nervously, his own eyes lit with
excitement. “Suppose,” he exclaimed, “he has been using arsenic? He
would have many opportunities, and it's colorless, tasteless; and
arsenic would account for her depression and melancholia. The time when
he must turn over her money is very near, and, suppose he has spent
the money, speculated with it, and lost it, or that he still has it and
wants to keep it? In three months she will be of age, and he must make
an accounting. The arsenic does not work fast enough. So what does he
do? To save himself from exposure, or to keep the money, he throws her
into this private sanatorium, to make away with her.”
Ford had been talking in an eager whisper. While he spoke his cigar had
ceased to burn, and to light it, from a vase on the mantel he took a
spill, one of those spirals of paper that in English hotels, where the
proprietor is of a frugal mind, are still used to prevent extravagance
in matches. Ford lit the spill at the coal fire, and with his
cigar puffed at the flame. As he did so the paper unrolled. To the
astonishment of Cuthbert, Ford clasped it in both hands, blotted out
the tiny flame, and, turning quickly to a table, spread out the charred
paper flat. After one quick glance, Ford ran to the fireplace, and,
seizing a handfull of the spills, began rapidly to unroll them. Then he
turned to Cuthbert and, without speaking, showed him the charred
spill. It was a scrap torn from the front page of a newspaper. The
half-obliterated words at which Ford pointed were DALESVILLE COUR ----
“His torn paper!” said Ford. “The DALESVILLE COURIER. Pearsall HAS been
in this hotel!” He handed another spill to Cuthbert.
“From that one,” said Ford, “we get the date, December 3. Allowing three
weeks for the newspaper to reach London, Pearsall must have seen it
just three weeks ago, just when Miss Dale says he was in the hotel. The
landlord has lied to me.”
Ford rang for a waiter, and told him to ask Mr. Gerridge to come to the
smoking-room.
As Cuthbert was leaving it, Gerridge was entering it, and Ford was
saying:
“It seems you've been lying to the police and to me. Unless you desire
to be an accessory to a murder, You had better talk quick!”
An hour later Ford passed slowly through Sowell Street in a taxicab,
and, finding Cuthbert on guard, signalled him to follow. In Wimpole
Street the cab drew up to the curb, and Cuthbert entered it.
“I have found Pearsall,” said Ford. “He is in No. 40 with Prothero.”
He then related to Cuthbert what had happened. Gerridge had explained
that when the Police called, his first thought was to protect the good
name of his hotel. He had denied any knowledge of Pearsall only because
he no longer was a guest, and, as he supposed Pearsall had passed out
of his life, he saw no reason, why, through an arrest and a scandal, his
hotel should be involved. Believing Ford to be in the secret service of
the police, he was now only too anxious to clear himself of suspicion by
telling all he knew. It was but little. Pearsall and his niece had been
at the hotel for three days. During that time the niece, who appeared
to be an invalid, remained in her room. On the evening of the third
day, while Pearsall was absent, a call from him had come for her by
telephone, on receiving which Miss Dale had at once left the hotel,
apparently in great agitation. That night she did not return, but in the
morning Pearsall came to collect his and her luggage and to settle his
account. He explained that a woman relative living at the Langham Hotel
had been taken suddenly ill, and had sent for him and his niece. Her
condition had been so serious that they had remained with her all night,
and his niece still was at her bedside. The driver of a four-wheeler,
who for years had stood on the cab-rank in front of Gerridge's, had
driven Pearsall to the Langham. This man was at the moment on the rank,
and from him Ford learned what he most wished to know.
The cabman remembered Pearsall, and having driven him to the Langham,
for the reason that immediately after setting him down there, and while
“crawling” for a fare in Portland Place, a whistle from the Langham had
recalled him, and the same luggage that had just been taken from the top
of his cab was Put back on it, and he was directed by the porter of the
hotel to take it to a house in Sowell Street. There a man-servant had
helped him unload the trunks and had paid him his fare. The cabman did
not remember the number of the house, but knew it was on the west side
of the street and in the middle of the block.
Having finished with Gerridge and the cab-man, Ford had at once gone
to the Langham Hotel, where, as he anticipated, nothing was known of
Pearsall or his niece, or of any invalid lady. But the hall-porter
remembered the American gentleman who had driven up with many pieces of
luggage, and who, although it was out of season, and many suites in the
hotel were vacant, had found none to suit him. He had then set forth on
foot, having left word that his trunks be sent after him. The address he
gave was a house in Sowell Street.
The porter recalled the incident because he and the cabman had grumbled
over the fact that in five minutes they had twice to handle the same
boxes.
“It is pretty evident,” said Ford, what Pearsall had in mind, but chance
was against him. He thought when he had unloaded his trunks at the
Langham and dismissed the cabman he had destroyed the link connecting
him with Gerridge's. He could not foresee that the same cabman would be
loitering in the neighborhood. He should have known that four-wheelers
are not as plentiful as they once were; and he should have given that
particular one more time to get away. His idea in walking to the Sowell
Street house was obviously to prevent the new cabman from seeing him
enter it. But, just where he thought he was clever, was just where he
tripped. If he had remained with his trunks he would have seen that the
cabman was the same one who had brought them and him from Craven Street,
and he would have given any other address in London than the one he did.
“And now,” said Ford, “that we have Pearsall where we want him, tell me
what you have learned about Prothero?”
Cuthbert smiled importantly, and produced a piece of paper scribbled
over with notes.
“Prothero,” he said, “seems to be THIS sort of man. If he made your
coffee for you, before you tasted it, you'd like him to drink a cup of
it first.”
II
“Prothero,” said Cuthbert, “is a man of mystery. As soon as I began
asking his neighbors questions, I saw he was of interest and that I was
of interest. I saw they did not believe I was an agent of a West End
shop, but a detective. So they wouldn't talk at all, or else they talked
freely. And from one of them, a chemist named Needham, I got all I
wanted. He's had a lawsuit against Prothero, and hates him. Prothero got
him to invest in a medicine to cure the cocaine habit. Needham found
the cure was no cure, but cocaine disguised. He sued for his money, and
during the trial the police brought in Prothero's record. Needham let me
copy it, and it seems to embrace every crime except treason. The man is
a Russian Jew. He was arrested and prosecuted in Warsaw, Vienna,
Berlin, Belgrade; all over Europe, until finally the police drove him to
America. There he was an editor of an anarchist paper, a blackmailer, a
'doctor' of hypnotism, a clairvoyant, and a professional bigamist. His
game was to open rooms as a clairvoyant, and advise silly women how to
invest their money. When he found out which of them had the most money,
he would marry her, take over her fortune, and skip. In Chicago, he was
tried for poisoning one wife, and the trial brought out the fact that
two others had died under suspicious circumstances, and that there
were three more unpoisoned but anxious to get back their money. He was
sentenced to ten years for bigamy, but pardoned because he was supposed
to be insane, and dying. Instead of dying, he opened a sanatorium in
New York to cure victims of the drug habit. In reality, it was a sort of
high-priced opium-den. The place was raided, and he jumped his bail and
came to this country. Now he is running this private hospital in Sowell
Street. Needham says it's a secret rendezvous for dope fiends. But they
are very high-class dope fiends, who are willing to pay for seclusion,
and the police can't get at him. I may add that he's tall and muscular,
with a big black beard, and hands that could strangle a bull. In
Chicago, during the poison trial, the newspapers called him 'the Modern
Bluebeard.”'
For a short time Ford was silent. But, in the dark corner of the cab,
Cuthbert could see that his cigar was burning briskly.
“Your friend seems a nice chap,” said Ford at last. “Calling on him will
be a real pleasure. I especially like what you say about his hands.”
“I have a plan,” began the assistant timidly, “a plan to get you into
the house-if you don't mind my making suggestions?”
“Not at all!” exclaimed his chief heartily.
“Get me into the house by all means; that's what we're here for. The
fact that I'm to be poisoned or strangled after I get there mustn't
discourage us.'”
“I thought,” said Cuthbert, “I might stand guard outside, while you got
in as a dope fiend.”
Ford snorted indignantly. “Do I LOOK like a dope fiend?” he protested.
The voice of the assistant was one of discouragement.
“You certainly do not,” he exclaimed regretfully. “But it's the only
plan I could think of.”
“It seems to me,” said his chief testily, “that you are not so very
healthy-looking yourself. What's the matter with YOUR getting inside as
a dope fiend and MY standing guard?”
“But I wouldn't know what to do after I got inside,” complained the
assistant, “and you would. You are so clever.”
The expression of confidence seemed to flatter Ford.
“I might do this,” he said. “I might pretend I was recovering from a
heavy spree, and ask to be taken care of until I am sober. Or I could
be a very good imitation of a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
I haven't been five years in the newspaper business without knowing all
there is to know about nerves. That's it!” he cried. “I will do that!
And if Mr. Bluebeard Svengali, the Strangler of Paris person, won't take
me in as a patient, we'll come back with a couple of axes and BREAK in.
But we'll try the nervous breakdown first, and we'll try it now. I will
be a naval officer,” declared Ford. “I made the round-the-world cruise
with our fleet as a correspondent, and I know enough sea slang to fool
a medical man. I am a naval officer whose nerves have gone wrong. I have
heard of his sanatorium through----” “How,” asked Ford sharply, “have I
heard of his sanatorium?”
“You saw his advertisement in the DAILY WORLD,” prompted Cuthbert.
“'Home of convalescents; mental and nervous troubles cured.'”
“And,” continued Ford, “I have come to him for rest and treatment. My
name is Lieutenant Henry Grant. I arrived in London two weeks ago on the
MAURETANIA. But my name was not on the passenger-list, because I did not
want the Navy Department to know I was taking my leave abroad. I have
been stopping at my own address in Jermyn Street, and my references are
yourself, the Embassy, and my landlord. You will telephone him at once
that, if any one asks after Henry Grant, he is to say what you tell him
to say. And if any one sends for Henry Grant's clothes, he is to send MY
clothes.”
“But you don't expect to be in there as long as that?” exclaimed
Cuthbert.
“I do not,” said Ford. “But, if he takes me in, I must make a bluff of
sending for my things. No; either I will be turned out in five minutes,
or if he accepts me as a patient I will be there until midnight. If I
cannot get the girl out of the house by midnight, it will mean that
I can't get out myself, and you had better bring the police and the
coroner.”
“Do you mean it?” asked Cuthbert.
“I most certainly do!” exclaimed Ford.
“Until twelve I want a chance to get this story exclusively for our
paper. If she is not free by then it means I have fallen down on it, and
you and the police are to begin to batter in the doors.”
The two young men left the cab, and at some distance from each other
walked to Sowell Street. At the house of Dr. Prothero, Ford stopped and
rang the bell. From across the street Cuthbert saw the door open and
the figure of a man of almost gigantic stature block the doorway. For a
moment he stood there, and then Cuthbert saw him step to one side, saw
Ford enter the house and the door close upon him. Cuthbert at once ran
to a telephone, and, having instructed Ford's landlord as to the part
he was to play, returned to Sowell Street. There, in a state nearly
approaching a genuine nervous breakdown, he continued his vigil.
Even without his criminal record to cast a glamour over him, Ford would
have found Dr. Prothero, a disturbing person. His size was enormous, his
eyes piercing, sinister, unblinking, and the hands that could strangle a
bull, and with which as though to control himself, he continually pulled
at his black beard, were gigantic, of a deadly white, with fingers long
and prehensile. In his manner he had all the suave insolence of the
Oriental and the suspicious alertness of one constantly on guard, but
also, as Ford at once noted, of one wholly without fear. He had not
been over a moment in his presence before the reporter felt that to
successfully lie to such a man might be counted as a triumph.
Prothero opened the door into a little office leading off the hall, and
switched on the electric lights. For some short time, without any effort
to conceal his suspicion, he stared at Ford in silence.
“Well?” he said, at last. His tone was a challenge.
Ford had already given his assumed name and profession, and he now ran
glibly into the story he had planned. He opened his card-case and looked
into it doubtfully. “I find I have no card with me,” he said; “but I am,
as I told you, Lieutenant Grant, of the United States Navy. I am all
right physically, except for my nerves. They've played me a queer trick.
If the facts get out at home, it might cost me my commission. So I've
come over here for treatment.”
“Why to ME?” asked Prothero.
“I saw by your advertisement,” said the reporter, “that you treated
for nervous mental troubles. Mine is an illusion,” he went on. “I see
things, or, rather, always one thing-a battle-ship coming at us head on.
For the last year I've been executive officer of the KEARSARGE, and the
responsibility has been too much for me.”
“You see a battle-ship?” inquired the Jew.
“A phantom battle-ship,” Ford explained, “a sort OF FLYING DUTCHMAN.
The time I saw it I was on the bridge, and I yelled and telegraphed the
engine-room. I brought the ship to a full stop, and backed her. But it
was dirty weather, and the error was passed over. After that, when I saw
the thing coming I did nothing. But each time I think it is real.” Ford
shivered slightly and glanced about him. “Some day,” he added fatefully,
“it WILL be real, and I will NOT signal, and the ship will sink!”
In silence, Prothero observed his visitor closely. The young man seemed
sincere, genuine. His manner was direct and frank. He looked the part he
had assumed, as one used to authority.
“My fees are large,” said the Russian.
At this point, had Ford, regardless of terms, exhibited a hopeful
eagerness to at once close with him, the Jew would have shown him the
door. But Ford was on guard, and well aware that a lieutenant in the
navy had but few guineas to throw away on medicines. He made a movement
as though to withdraw.
“Then I am afraid,” he said, “I must go somewhere else.”
His reluctance apparently only partially satisfied the Jew.
Ford adopted opposite tactics. He was never without ready money. His
paper saw to it that in its interests he was always able at any moment
to pay for a special train across Europe, or to bribe the entire working
staff of a cable office. From his breast-pocket he took a blue
linen envelope, and allowed the Jew to see that it was filled with
twenty-pound notes. “I have means outside my pay,” said Ford.
“I would give almost any price to the man who can cure me.” The eyes of
the Russian flashed avariciously.
“I will arrange the terms to suit you,” he exclaimed. “Your case
interests me. Do you See this mirage only at sea?”
“In any open place,” Ford assured him. “In a park or public square, but
of course most frequently at sea.”
The quack waved his great hands as though brushing aside a curtain.
“I will remove the illusion,” he said, “and give you others more
pretty.” He smiled meaningfully--an evil, leering smile. “When will you
come?” he asked. Ford glanced about him nervously.
“I shall stay now,” he said. “I confess, in the streets and in my
lodgings I am frightened. You give me confidence. I want to stay near
you. I feel safe with you. If you will give me writing-paper, I will
send for my things.”
For a moment the Jew hesitated, and then motioned to a desk. As Ford
wrote, Prothero stood near him, and the reporter knew that over his
shoulder the Jew was reading what he wrote. Ford gave him the note,
unsealed, and asked that it be forwarded at once to his lodgings.
“To-morrow,” he said, “I will call up our Embassy, and give my address
to our Naval Attache.
“I will attend to that,” said Prothero.
“From now you are in my hands, and you can communicate with the outside
only through me. You are to have absolute rest--no books, no letters,
no papers. And you will be fed from a spoon. I will explain my treatment
later. You will now go to your room, and you will remain there until you
are a well man.”
Ford had no wish to be at once shut off from the rest of the house. The
odor of cooking came through the hall, and seemed to offer an excuse for
delay.
“I smell food,” he laughed. “And I'm terrifically hungry. Can't I have a
farewell dinner before you begin feeding me from a spoon?”
The Jew was about to refuse, but, with his guilty knowledge of what was
going forward in the house, he could not be too sure of those he allowed
to enter it. He wanted more time to spend in studying this new patient,
and the dinner-table seemed to offer a place where he could do so
without the other suspecting he was under observation.
“My associate and I were just about to dine,” he said. “You will wait
here until I have another place laid, and you can join us.”