DEVLIN'S FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO THE MYSTERY.
She had found the key she had been searching for, and now she opened a
mahogany desk, from which she took a penny memorandum-book. She handed
it to me in silence, and I turned over the leaves. Most of the pages
were filled with weekly accounts of her lodgers, in which "ham and
eggs, 8_d_.;" "a rasher, 5_d_.;" "chop, 8_d_.;" "two boyled eggs,
3_d_.;" "bloater, 2_d_.;" "crewet, 4_d_.;" and other such-like items
appeared again and again. There was also, at the foot of pages,
receipts for payment, "Paid, Fanny Lemon." And this, in the midst of
the presumably tragic business upon which we were engaged, brought to
my mind an anomaly which had often occurred to me, namely, that
landladies should present their accounts to their lodgers in penny
memorandum-books, should receive the money, should sign a receipt, and
then take away the books containing their acknowledgment of payment.
In view of the grave issues impending, it is a trivial matter to
comment upon, but it was really a relief to me to dwell for a moment
or two upon it. At the end of the memorandum-book which I was looking
through were five or six leaves which had not been utilised for
lodgers' accounts, and these Mrs. Lemon had pressed into service for
her diary. She was a bad writer and an indifferent speller, and the
entries were brief, and, to me, at that point, incomprehensible.
"I see, Fanny," I said "that your first entry is made on a Thursday, a
good many weeks ago."
"Yes, sir."
"I must confess I can make nothing of it. It states that Lemon rose at
eight o'clock on that morning, that he had breakfast at half-past
eight, that he ate four slices of bread and butter, two rashers of
bacon, and two eggs----"
"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Lemon, interrupting me. "He had his appetite then,
had Lemon! He ain't got none now to speak of."
"And," I continued, "that he went out of the house at nine o'clock
with a person whose name is unintelligible. It commences, I think,
with a D."
"D-e-v-l-i-n," said Mrs. Lemon, her eyes almost starting out of her
head as she spelt the name, letter by letter.
"I can make it out now. That is it, Devlin. A peculiar name, Fanny."
"Everything about him is that, sir, and worse."
"Had it been a common name, I daresay I should have made it out at
once. Now, Fanny, who is this Devlin?"
"You called him a man, sir," said Mrs. Lemon, striving unsuccessfully
to keep her eyes from the portrait of her husband, from the
evil-beaked bird, and from the image of the stone monster on the
mantelshelf.
The magnetism was not in her, it was in the objects, and as she turned
from one to the other I also turned--as though I were a piece of
machinery and she was setting me in motion. But it is likely that my
eyes would have wandered in those directions without her silent
prompting. One peculiarity of the fascination--growing more horrible
every moment--exercised by the three objects, was that I could not
look upon the one without being compelled to complete the triangle
formed by the positions in which they were placed--the wall, the
window, the mantelshelf.
"It was Devlin, then," I said, "who painted the portraits and stuffed
the bird and gave you the stone monster?"
"You've guessed it, sir. It was him."
Referring to the entry in the memorandum-book, I asked, "Did this
Devlin call for your husband on the Thursday morning that they went
out together?"
"No, sir, he lodged here."
"Does he lodge here now?"
"Yes, sir, I am sorry to say. If I could only see the last of him I'd
give thanks on my bended knees morning, noon, and night."
"Why don't you get rid of him, then?"
"I can't, sir."
I accepted this as part of the mystery, and did not press her on the
point, but I asked why she would feel so grateful if he were gone from
the house.
"Because," she replied, "it's all through him that Lemon is as he is."
"Am I to see this man before I leave?"
"It ain't for me to say, sir."
"Is he in the house now?"
"No, sir."
I inwardly resolved if he came into the house before I left it, that I
would see the man of whom Mrs. Lemon so evidently stood in dread.
"I suppose, Fanny, you will tell me something more of him."
"That is why I asked you to come, sir. If you're to do any good in
this dreadful affair, you must know as much as I do about him."
"Very well, Fanny." I referred again to the first entry in the diary.
"After stating that your husband went out with Devlin at nine o'clock
in the morning, you say that he returned alone at six o'clock in the
evening, and that he did not stir out of the house again on that
night."
"Yes, sir."
"I see that you have made a record of the time Lemon went to bed and
the time he rose next morning."
"To which, sir, I am ready to take my gospel oath."
"Supposing your gospel oath to be necessary."
"It might be. God only knows!"
I stared at her, beginning to doubt whether she was sane; but there
was nothing in her face to justify my suspicion. The expression I saw
on it was one of solemn, painful, intense earnestness.
"Go on, sir," she said, "if you please."
I turned again to the concluding words of the first entry, and read
them aloud:
"Devlin did not come home all night. I locked the street-door myself,
and put up the chain. I went down at seven in the morning, when Lemon
was asleep, and the chain was up. I went to Devlin's room, the second
floor front, and Devlin was not there!"
"That's true, sir. I can take my gospel oath of that."
"Fanny," I said, with the little book in my hand, closed, but keeping
my forefinger between the leaves upon which the first entry was made,
"I cannot go any farther until you tell me what all this means."
"After you've finished what I wrote, sir," was her reply, "I'll make a
clean breast of it, and tell you everything, or as much of it as I can
remember, from the time you saw me last--a good many years ago, wasn't
it, sir?--up to this very day."
I thought it best to humour her, and I looked through the remaining
entries. They were all of the same kind. Mr. Lemon rose in the morning
at such a time; he had breakfast at such a time; he went out at such a
time, with or without Devlin; he came home at such a time, with or
without Devlin; and so on, and so on. It was a peculiar feature in
these entries that Lemon never went out or came home without Devlin's
name being mentioned.
I handed the book back to her; she took it irresolutely, and asked,
"Did you read what I last wrote, sir?"
"Yes, Fanny, the usual thing."
"Perhaps, sir, but the time I wrote it; that is what I mean."
"No, Fanny, I don't think I noticed that."
"It was wrote yesterday, sir, and it fixes the time that Lemon came
home on Friday, and that he didn't stir out of the house all the
night. If I can swear to anything, sir, I can swear to that. Lemon
never crossed the street-door from the minute he came in on Friday to
the minute he went out agin yesterday. If it was the last word I
spoke, I'd swear to it, and it's the truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help me God!"
I was about to inquire why she laid such particular stress upon these
recent movements of her husband, when there flashed into her eyes an
expression of such absolute terror and horror that my first thought
was that a spectre had entered the room noiselessly, and was standing
at my back. Before I had time to turn and look, Mrs. Lemon clutched my
arm, and gasped,
"Do you hear that? Do you hear that?"