Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page Scan Source:
https://ia600201.us.archive.org/10/items/devlinbarber00farjrich/devlin
barber00farjrich.pdf
(University of California Libraries)
2 The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
DEVLIN THE BARBER
BY
B. L. FARJEON,
AUTHOR OF "THE NINE OF HEARTS," "GREAT PORTER SQUARE,"
ETC. ETC.
_FOURTH EDITION_.
LONDON:
WARD AND DOWNEY,
12 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
[_All rights reserved._]
1888.
CONTENTS.
Introduction.--In which reference is made to a strange, unfathomable
being, through whose instrumentality an awful mystery was
solved.
Chap. I. In which an account is given of the good fortune which
befell Mr. Melladew.
II. I am the recipient of terrible news.
III. A shoal of visitors--followed by another mystery.
IV. Mr. Richard Portland makes a singular proposition to me.
V. I pay a visit to Mrs. Lemon.
VI. I am haunted by three evil-looking objects in Mrs. Lemon's
room.
VII. Devlin's first introduction into the mystery.
VIII. I make the acquaintance of George Carton's guardian, Mr.
Kenneth Dowsett.
IX. Fanny Lemon relates under what circumstances she resolved
to let her second floor front.
X. Devlin the Barber takes Fanny's first floor front.
XI. Devlin performs some wonderful tricks, fascinates Mr. Lemon,
and strikes terror to the soul of Fanny Lemon.
XII. Fanny Lemon relates how her husband, after becoming better
acquainted with Devlin the Barber, seemed to be haunted
by shadows and spirits.
XIII. In which Fanny narrates how her husband had a fit, and what
the doctor thought of it.
XIV. Devlin appears suddenly, and holds a conversation with Fanny
about the murder.
XV. Fanny describes how she made up her mind what to do with
Lemon.
XVI. Mr. Lemon wakes up.
XVII. Lemon's vision in the "Twisted Cow."
XVIII. Fanny's story being concluded, I pay a visit to Mr. Lemon,
and resolve to interview Devlin the Barber.
XIX. Face to face with Devlin, I demand an explanation of him.
XX. Devlin astonishes me.
XXI. Devlin and I make a compact.
XXII. I send Devlin's desk to my wife, and smoke fragrant cigar.
XXIII. I pass a morning in Devlin's place of business.
XXIV. Mr. Kenneth Dowsett gives me the slip.
XXV. We follow in pursuit.
XXVI. Another strange and unexpected discovery.
XXVII. We track Mr. Kenneth Dowsett to Boulogne.
XXVIII. The trance and the revelation.
XXIX. The rescue.
XXX. Devlin's last scheme.
DEVLIN THE BARBER
INTRODUCTION.
IN WHICH REFERENCE IS MADE TO A STRANGE, UNFATHOMABLE BEING THROUGH
WHOSE INSTRUMENTALITY AN AWFUL MYSTERY WAS SOLVED.
The manner in which I became intimately associated with a fearful
mystery with which not only all London but all England was ringing,
and the strange, inexplicable Being whom the course of events brought
to my knowledge, are so startling and wonderful, that I have grown to
believe that by no effort of the imagination, however wild and
bewildering the labyrinths into which it may lead a man, can the
actual realism of our everyday life be outrivalled. What I am about to
narrate is absolutely true--somewhat of an unnecessary statement, for
the reason that human fancy could never have invented it. To a person
unfamiliar with the wondrous life of a great city like London the
story may appear impossible, but there are thousands of men and women
who will immediately recognise in it features with which they became
acquainted through the columns of the newspapers. I venture to
say that the leading incident by which one morning--it was but
yesterday--the great city was thrilled and horrified can never be
entirely effaced from their memories. Dark crimes and deeds of
heroism, in which the incidents are pathetic or pitiful, draw even
strangers into sympathetic relation with each other. These events come
home to us, as it were. What happened to one whose face we have never
seen, whose hand we have never grasped, may happen to us who move in
the same familiar grooves of humanity. Our hopes and fears, our joys
and sorrows, our duties and temptations, are the same, because we are
human; and it is this common tie of kinship that will cause the story
of Devlin the Barber to be received with more than ordinary interest.
Now, for the first time is revealed, in these pages, the strange
manner in which the fearful mystery in which it was enshrouded was
unravelled. The facts are as I shall relate them, and whatever the
impression they may create, a shuddering curiosity must inevitably be
aroused as to the nature and movements of the inscrutable Being
through whose instrumentality I was made the agent in revealing what
would otherwise have remained for ever hidden from human knowledge. By
a few incredulous persons--I refer to those to whom nothing spiritual
is demonstrable--the existence of this Being may be doubted; but none
the less does he live and move among us this very day, pursuing his
mission with a purpose and to an end which it is not in the power of
mortal insight to fathom. It is not unlikely that some of my readers
may have come unconsciously in contact with him within the last few
hours.
CHAPTER I.
IN WHICH AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH BEFELL MR.
MELLADEW.
I am a struggling man--the phrase will be well understood, for the
class to which I belong is a large one--and I reside in a
neighbourhood which is neither very poor nor very fashionable. I have,
of course, my friends and acquaintances, and among the most intimate
of the former is a family of the name of Melladew.
Mr. Melladew is a reader in a printing-office in which a weekly
newspaper is printed. Mrs. Melladew, with the assistance of one small
servant, manages the home. They had two daughters, twins, eighteen
years of age, named respectively Mary and Elizabeth. These girls were
very beautiful, and were so much alike that they were frequently
mistaken for one another. Mrs. Melladew has told me that when they
were very young she was compelled to make some distinguishing mark in
their dress to avoid confusion in her recognition of them, such as
differently coloured socks or pieces of ribbon. The home of the
Melladews was a happy one, and the sisters loved each other sincerely.
They were both in outdoor employment, in the establishments of a
general linendraper and a fashionable dressmaker. Mary was in the
employment of the linendraper--Limbird's, in Regent Street. It is a
firm of wide repute, and employs a great number of hands, some of whom
sleep in the house. This was the case with Mary Melladew, who went to
her work on Monday morning and did not return home until Saturday
night. Elizabeth, or Lizzie as she was always called, was employed by
Madame Michel, in Baker Street. She went to her work at half-past
eight every morning and returned home at half-past seven every night.
The printing-office in which Mr. Melladew is engaged employs two
readers, a night reader and a day reader. Mr. Melladew is the day
reader, his hours being from nine in the morning till seven in the
evening. But on Saturdays he has a much longer spell; he is due in the
office at eight in the morning, and he remains until two or three
hours past midnight--a stretch of eighteen or nineteen hours. By that
time all the work for the Sunday edition of the weekly newspaper is
done, and the outside pages are being worked off on the steam presses.
Now, upon the Saturday morning on which, so far as I am concerned, the
enthralling interest of my story commences, certain important events
had occurred in my career and in that of Mr. Melladew. Exactly one
month previous to that day, the firm in which I had been employed for
a great many years had given me a month's notice to leave. My
dismissal was not caused by any lapse of duty on my part; it was
simply that business had been for some time in a bad state, and that
my employers found it necessary to reduce their staff. Among those who
received notice to quit, I, unfortunately, was included. Therefore,
when I rose on Saturday morning I was in the dismal position of a man
out of work, my time having expired on the day before. This was of
serious importance to me. With Mr. Melladew the case was different. In
what unexpectedly occurred to him there was bright sunshine, to be
succeeded by black darkness.
He had visited me on the Friday night, and I perceived at once that he
was in a state of intense and pleasurable excitement.
"I have come to tell you some good news," he said.
For a moment I thought that this good news might affect myself, and
might bring about a favourable turn in my affairs, but Mr. Melladew's
next words dispelled the hope.
"I am the happiest man in London," he said.
I reflected gravely, but not enviously, upon my own position, and
waited for Mr. Melladew to explain himself.
"Did I ever mention to you," he asked, "that I had a brother-in-law in
Australia?"
"Yes," I replied, "you have spoken of him lately two or three times."
"So many years had passed," said Mr. Melladew, "since my wife heard
from him that I had almost forgotten him. He is her brother, you know,
and his name is Portland--Richard Portland. That was my wife's name
before we were married---not Richard, of course, but Portland." He
laughed, and rubbed his leg with his right hand; in his left hand was
a letter. "It was about eight months ago that we received a letter
from him, asking us to give him information about our family and
circumstances. He did not say anything about his own, so we were left
quite in the dark as to whether he was rich or poor, or a married man
or a bachelor. However, my wife answered his letter, and sent him the
pictures of our two girls, and in her letter she asked whether he was
married and had a family, and said also that she would like him to
send us their pictures. Well, we heard nothing further from him till
to-day. Another letter came from him while I was at the office. You
may read it; there is nothing private in it. It isn't from Australia;
it is written from Southampton, you see. But that is not the only
surprise in it."
I took the letter and read it. It was, indeed, a letter to give
pleasurable surprise to the receiver. Without any announcement to Mr.
Melladew of his intention, Mr. Portland had left Australia, and was
now in Southampton. He intended to start by an early train on Saturday
morning for London, and would come straight to his brother-in-law's
house. In the letter he replied to the questions put by Mrs. Melladew.
He was a bachelor, without family ties of any kind in Australia.
Moreover, he had made his fortune, and it was the portraits of his two
nieces which were the main cause of his return to England. Their
beauty had evidently made a deep impression upon him. He spoke of them
and of Mrs. Melladew in the most affectionate terms, and said it was a
great pleasure to him to think that he was coming to a home which he
hoped he might look upon as partly his own. He sent his warmest love
to them all, and in pleasantly tender words, the meaning of which
could scarcely be mistaken, he desired a message to be given to his
"dear nieces," to the effect that "their ship had come home." I handed
the letter back to Mr. Melladew, and expressed my gratification at the
good news.
"It is good news," he said gleefully, "the best of news. I knew you
would be pleased. I am wondering whether it is a large or a small
fortune he has made. My wife says a large one."
"And _I_ say a large one," I remarked.
"What makes you of that opinion?" inquired Mr. Melladew.
"Well, in the first place there are so many large fortunes made in
Australia."
"That is true."
"Then, money being so much more plentiful there than here, a man gets
to think less of a little than we do. His ideas become larger, I mean.
At any time these last dozen years a hundred pounds would have been a
God-send to me, and I should have thought of it so----"
"So would I," interposed Mr. Melladew.
"But if you and I were in a land of gold, we should, I daresay, think
much more lightly of a hundred pounds. I wish I had emigrated when I
was first married; I had the chance, and let it slip. But it's no use
crying over spilt milk."
"Not a bit of use," said Mr. Melladew; "life's a perpetual grind here,
and I am truly grateful for the light this letter has let in upon us.
You've given me two reasons for thinking my brother-in-law's fortune a
large one. Have you any others?"
"Well, he speaks of your daughters' ship having come home. That looks
as if he meant to provide for them."
"It _does_ look like it," said Mr. Melladew; and I saw that my
arguments had given him pleasure. "My wife has a reason, also, for
thinking so. She says, when Dick--that is her brother, you know--went
away he declared he would never come back to England unless he could
come back a very rich man. 'And,' says my wife, 'what Dick said, he'd
stick to.' She is sure of that. It's wonderful, isn't it? He didn't
have a sovereign to bless himself with when he left England, and
now--but it's no use speculating. We shall know everything soon. You
will understand my feelings; you have children of your own."
I had indeed, and it made me rueful to think of them. Getting another
situation in such hard times was no easy matter.
"It isn't for myself," resumed Mr. Melladew, "that I am overjoyed at
the better prospect before us: it is for my girls. Perhaps it means
that they will not have to go out to work any longer. They are good
girls, but they are so pretty, and have such engaging ways, that I
have often been disturbed by the circumstance of their not being so
much under my own and their mother's eyes as we would wish them to be.
It could not be helped hitherto. There's the question of dress, now.
You can manage tolerably well when they're little girls; a clever
woman like my wife can turn and twist, and cut up old things in a way
to make the little ones look quite nice; but when they become young
women, with all sorts of new ideas in their pretty heads, it is
another pair of shoes. It's natural, too, that they should want a
little pocket money to spend upon innocent pleasures and harmless
vanities. We were young ourselves once, weren't we? We found we
couldn't afford to give the girls what they wanted. They saw it, too,
so they made up their minds, without saying a word to us, to look out
for situations for themselves, and for months they haven't been a
farthing's expense to us. They even give their mother a trifle a week
towards the home. Good girls, the best of girls; I should be a
miserable man without them. Still, as I said, I have been uneasy about
them: there are so many scoundrels in the world ready with honeyed
words to turn a girl's head; and it hurts me to think that they have
their little secrets which they don't ask us to share. Now, thank God,
it will be all right. My brother-in-law will be here to-morrow, and
when he sees Lizzie and Mary he will be confirmed in his kind
intentions towards them. They can leave their situations; and if any
man wishes to pay them attentions he can do so in a straightforward
manner in the home in which they were brought up."
He was in the blithest of spirits, and I cordially renewed my
congratulations on his good fortune. In return, he condoled with
me on the unpromising change in my own prospects. I was not very
cheerful--no man could be in such a position--but I am not in the
habit of magnifying my misfortunes to my friends, and I plucked up my
spirits.
"You will soon get another situation," said Mr. Melladew.
"I hope so," I replied; "I cannot afford to keep long out of one."
"It may be in my power to give you a lift," he said kindly. "Who knows
what may turn up in the course of the next few hours?"
I attached no signification to this not uncommon remark at the time it
was uttered, but it recurred to me afterwards, charged with sad and
terrible import. We fell to again discussing the matter of which he
was full.
"I am almost ashamed of my good luck," said Mr. Melladew, "when I
think what has happened to you."
"A man must accept the ups and downs of life with courage," I said,
"and must put the best face he can upon them."
We were true friends, and I had a sincere respect for him as a worthy
fellow who had faithfully performed his duties to his family and
employers. He was passionately fond of his two daughters, and
frequently spoke of them as the greatest blessing in his life. It was,
indeed, delightful to witness the affection he bestowed upon them in
the happy home of which he was the head. They were girls of which any
man might have been proud, being not only beautiful, but bright and
witty, and full of animation.
Mr. Melladew and I chatted together for another half-hour, and then he
wished me good-night.
"It is fortunate," he said, "that I got away from the office an hour
earlier than usual. I shall be at home when Lizzie returns from her
work, and I want to be the first to tell her the good news. How
excited she will be! There was a friend at the house last night, who
told us our fortunes. Lizzie is very fond of having her fortune told.
'There, father,' she says, 'didn't my fortune say that I was to
receive a letter? And I've got one.' As if there was anything out of
the way in receiving a letter! Last night she was told that a great
and wonderful surprise was in store for her. Well, there is, but I am
certain the fortune-teller knew as much about its nature as the man in
the moon."
"And Mary?" I said. "Will you tell her to-night?"
"No," replied Mr. Melladew, "we will wait till she comes home
to-morrow. When she sees her uncle from Australia sitting in my
arm-chair, she won't know what to think of it. Happy girls, happy
girls!"
"And happy father and mother, too," I said.
"Yes, yes," he said, with great feeling, "and happy father and mother
too."
It was in no envious spirit that I contrasted his good luck with my
bad, but had I suspected what the next few hours had in store for him,
I should have thanked God for my lot. We have reason to be profoundly
grateful for the ills we escape.