CHAPTER XXXIX
MISS LOUISA COLEMAN
That the house over the way was tenanted was plain to all theworld,--at least one occupant sat gazing through the window of thefirst floor front room. An old woman in a cap,--one of those largeold-fashioned caps which our grandmothers used to wear, tied withstrings under the chin. It was a bow window, and as she was seated inthe bay looking right in our direction she could hardly have failed tosee us as we advanced,--indeed she continued to stare at us all thewhile with placid calmness. Yet I knocked once, twice, and yet againwithout the slightest notice being taken of my summons.
Sydney gave expression to his impatience in his own peculiar vein.
'Knockers in this part of the world seem intended for ornamentonly,--nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they're used. Theold lady upstairs must be either deaf or dotty.' He went out into theroad to see if she still was there. 'She's looking at me as calmly asyou please,--what does she think we're doing here, I wonder; playing atune on her front door by way of a little amusement?--Madam!' He tookoff his hat and waved it to her. 'Madam! might I observe that if youwon't condescend to notice that we're here your front door will run therisk of being severely injured!--She don't care for me any more than ifI was nothing at all,--sound another tattoo upon that knocker. Perhapsshe's so deaf that nothing short of a cataclysmal uproar will reach herauditory nerves.'
She immediately proved, however, that she was nothing of the sort.Hardly had the sounds of my further knocking died away than, throwingup the window, she thrust out her head and addressed me in a fashionwhich, under the circumstances, was as unexpected as it was uncalledfor.
'Now, young man, you needn't be in such a hurry!'
Sydney explained.
'Pardon me, madam, it's not so much a hurry we're in as pressed fortime,--this is a matter of life and death.'
She turned her attention to Sydney,--speaking with a frankness forwhich, I imagine, he was unprepared.
'I don't want none of your imperence, young man. I've seen youbefore,--you've been hanging about here the whole day long!--and Idon't like the looks of you, and so I'll let you know. That's my frontdoor, and that's my knocker,--I'll come down and open when I like, butI'm not going to be hurried, and if the knocker's so much as touchedagain, I won't come down at all.'
She closed the window with a bang. Sydney seemed divided between mirthand indignation.
'That's a nice old lady, on my honour,--one of the good old crustysort. Agreeable characters this neighbourhood seems to grow,--a sojournhereabouts should do one good. Unfortunately I don't feel disposed justnow to stand and kick my heels in the road.' Again saluting the olddame by raising his hat he shouted to her at the top of his voice.'Madam, I beg ten thousand pardons for troubling you, but this is amatter in which every second is of vital importance,--would you allowme to ask you one or two questions?'
Up went the window; out came the old lady's head.
'Now, young man, you needn't put yourself out to holler at me,--I won'tbe hollered at! I'll come down and open that door in five minutes bythe clock on my mantelpiece, and not a moment before.'
The fiat delivered, down came the window. Sydney looked rueful,--heconsulted his watch.
'I don't know what you think, Champnell, but I really doubt if thiscomfortable creature can tell us anything worth waiting another fiveminutes to hear. We mustn't let the grass grow under our feet, and timeis getting on.'
I was of a different opinion,--and said so.
'I'm afraid, Atherton, that I can't agree with you. She seems to havenoticed you hanging about all day; and it is at least possible that shehas noticed a good deal which would be well worth our hearing. Whatmore promising witness are we likely to find?--her house is the onlyone which overlooks the one we have just quitted. I am of opinion thatit may not only prove well worth our while to wait five minutes, butalso that it would be as well, if possible, not to offend her by theway. She's not likely to afford us the information we require if youdo.'
'Good. If that's what you think I'm sure I'm willing to wait,--onlyit's to be hoped that that clock upon her mantelpiece moves quickerthan its mistress.'
Presently, when about a minute had gone, he called to the cabman.
'Seen a sign of anything?'
The cabman shouted back.
'Ne'er a sign,--you'll hear a sound of popguns when I do.'
Those five minutes did seem long ones. But at last Sydney, from hispost of vantage in the road, informed us that the old lady was moving.
'She's getting up;--she's leaving the window;--let's hope to goodnessshe's coming down to open the door. That's been the longest fiveminutes I've known.'
I could hear uncertain footsteps descending the stairs. They came alongthe passage. The door was opened--'on the chain.' The old lady peeredat us through an aperture of about six inches.
'I don't know what you young men think you're after, but have all threeof you in my house I won't. I'll have him and you'--a skinny finger waspointed to Lessingham and me; then it was directed towardsAtherton--'but have him I won't. So if it's anything particular youwant to say to me, you'll just tell him to go away.'
On hearing this Sydney's humility was abject. His hat was in hishand,--he bent himself double.
'Suffer me to make you a million apologies, madam, if I have in any wayoffended you; nothing, I assure you, could have been farther from myintention, or from my thoughts.'
'I don't want none of your apologies, and I don't want none of youneither; I don't like the looks of you, and so I tell you. Before I letanybody into my house you'll have to sling your hook.'
The door was banged in our faces. I turned to Sydney.
'The sooner you go the better it will be for us. You can wait for usover the way.'
He shrugged his shoulders, and groaned,--half in jest, half in earnest.
'If I must I suppose I must,--it's the first time I've been refusedadmittance to a lady's house in all my life! What have I done todeserve this thing?--If you keep me waiting long I'll tear thatinfernal den to pieces!'
He sauntered across the road, viciously kicking the stones as he went.The door reopened.
'Has that other young man gone?'
'He has.'
'Then now I'll let you in. Have him inside my house I won't.'
The chain was removed. Lessingham and I entered. Then the door wasrefastened and the chain replaced. Our hostess showed us into the frontroom on the ground floor; it was sparsely furnished and not tooclean,--but there were chairs enough for us to sit upon; which sheinsisted on our occupying.
'Sit down, do,--I can't abide to see folks standing; it gives me thefidgets.'
So soon as we were seated, without any overture on our parts sheplunged in medias res.
'I know what it is you've come about,--I know! You want me to tell youwho it is as lives in the house over the road. Well, I can tellyou,--and I dare bet a shilling that I'm about the only one who can.'
I inclined my head.
'Indeed. Is that so, madam?'
She was huffed at once.
'Don't madam me,--I can't bear none of your lip service. I'm aplain-spoken woman, that's what I am, and I like other people's tonguesto be as plain as mine. My name's Miss Louisa Coleman; but I'mgenerally called Miss Coleman,--I'm only called Louisa by my relatives.'
Since she was apparently between seventy and eighty--and looked everyyear of her apparent age--I deemed that possible. Miss Coleman wasevidently a character. If one was desirous of getting information outof her it would be necessary to allow her to impart it in her ownmanner,--to endeavour to induce her to impart it in anybody else'swould be time clean wasted. We had Sydney's fate before our eyes.
She started with a sort of roundabout preamble.
'This property is mine; it was left me by my uncle, the late GeorgeHenry Jobson,--he's buried in Hammersmith Cemetery just over theway,--he left me the whole of it. It's one of the finest building sitesnear London, and it increases in val
ue every year, and I'm not going tolet it for another twenty, by which time the value will have more thantrebled,--so if that is what you've come about, as heaps of people do,you might have saved yourselves the trouble. I keep the boardsstanding, just to let people know that the ground is to let,--though,as I say, it won't be for another twenty years, when it'll be for theerection of high-class mansions only, same as there is in GrosvenorSquare,--no shops or public houses, and none of your shanties. I livein this place just to keep an eye upon the property,--and as for thehouse over the way, I've never tried to let it, and it never has beenlet, not until a month ago, when, one morning, I had this letter. Youcan see it if you like.'
She handed me a greasy envelope which she ferreted out of a capaciouspocket which was suspended from her waist, and which she had to lift upher skirt to reach. The envelope was addressed, in unformed characters,'Miss Louisa Coleman, The Rhododendrons, Convolvulus Avenue, High OaksPark, West Kensington.'--I felt, if the writer had not been of ahumorous turn of mind, and drawn on his imagination, and this reallywas the lady's correct address, then there must be something in a name.
The letter within was written in the same straggling, characterlesscaligraphy,--I should have said, had I been asked offhand, that thewhole thing was the composition of a servant girl. The composition wasabout on a par with the writing.
'The undersigned would be oblidged if Miss Coleman would let her empteyhouse. I do not know the rent but send fifty pounds. If more will send.Please address, Mohamed el Kheir, Post Office, Sligo Street, London.'
It struck me as being as singular an application for a tenancy as Iremembered to have encountered. When I passed it on to Lessingham, heseemed to think so too.
'This is a curious letter, Miss Coleman.'
'So I thought,--and still more so when I found the fifty pounds inside.There were five ten-pound notes, all loose, and the letter not evenregistered. If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, Ishould have said, at the most, not more than twenty pounds,--because,between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fitto live in as it stands.'
I had had sufficient evidence of the truth of this altogether apartfrom the landlady's frank admission.
'Why, for all he could have done to help himself I might have kept themoney, and only sent him a receipt for a quarter. And some folks wouldhave done,--but I'm not one of that sort myself, and shouldn't care tobe. So I sent this here party,--I never could pronounce his name, andnever shall--a receipt for a year.'
Miss Coleman paused to smooth her apron, and consider.
'Well, the receipt should have reached this here party on the Thursdaymorning, as it were,--I posted it on the Wednesday night, and on theThursday, after breakfast, I thought I'd go over the way to see ifthere was any little thing I could do,--because there wasn't hardly awhole pane of glass in the place,--when I all but went all of a heap.When I looked across the road, blessed it the party wasn't inalready,--at least as much as he ever was in, which, so far as I canmake out, never has been anything particular,--though how he had gotin, unless it was through a window in the middle of the night, is morethan I should care to say,--there was nobody in the house when I wentto bed, that I could pretty nearly take my Bible oath,--yet there wasthe blind up at the parlour, and, what's more, it was down, and it'sbeen down pretty nearly ever since.
'"Well," I says to myself, "for right down imperence this beatsanything,--why he's in the place before he knows if I'll let him haveit. Perhaps he thinks I haven't got a word to say in the matter,--fiftypounds or no fifty pounds, I'll soon show him." So I slips on mybonnet, and I walks over the road, and I hammers at the door.
'Well, I have seen people hammering since then, many a one, and howthey've kept it up has puzzled me,--for an hour, some of them,--but Iwas the first one as begun it. I hammers, and I hammers, and I kept onhammering, but it wasn't no more use than if I'd been hammering at atombstone. So I starts rapping at the window, but that wasn't no useneither. So I goes round behind, and I hammers at the back door,--butthere, I couldn't make anyone hear nohow. So I says to myself, "Perhapsthe party as is in, ain't in, in a manner of speaking; but I'll keep aneye on the house, and when he is in I'll take care that he ain't outagain before I've had a word to say."
'So I come back home, and as I said I would, I kept an eye on the housethe whole of that livelong day, but never a soul went either out or in.But the next day, which it was a Friday, I got out of bed about fiveo'clock, to see if it was raining, through my having an idea of takinga little excursion if the weather was fine, when I see a party comingdown the road. He had on one of them dirty-coloured bed-cover sort ofthings, and it was wrapped all over his head and round his body, like,as I have been told, them there Arabs wear,--and, indeed, I've seenthem in them myself at West Brompton, when they was in the exhibitionthere. It was quite fine, and broad day, and I see him as plainly as Isee you,--he comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at thehouse over the way, opens the front door, and lets himself in.
'"So," I says to myself, "there you are. Well, Mr Arab, or whatever, orwhoever, you may be, I'll take good care that you don't go out againbefore you've had a word from me. I'll show you that landladies havetheir rights, like other Christians, in this country, however it may bein yours." So I kept an eye on the house, to see that he didn't go outagain, and nobody never didn't, and between seven and eight I goes andI knocks at the door,--because I thought to myself that the earlier Iwas the better it might be.
'If you'll believe me, no more notice was taken of me than if I was oneof the dead. I hammers, and I hammers, till my wrist was aching, Idaresay I hammered twenty times,--and then I went round to the backdoor, and I hammers at that,--but it wasn't the least good in theworld. I was that provoked to think I should be treated as if I wasnothing and nobody, by a dirty foreigner, who went about in a bed-gownthrough the public streets, that it was all I could do to hold myself.
'I comes round to the front again, and I starts hammering at thewindow, with every knuckle on my hands, and I calls out, "I'm MissLouisa Coleman, and I'm the owner of this house, and you can't deceiveme,--I saw you come in, and you're in now, and if you don't come andspeak to me this moment I'll have the police."
'All of a sudden, when I was least expecting it, and was hammering myvery hardest at the pane, up goes the blind, and up goes the windowtoo, and the most awful-looking creature ever I heard of, not tomention seeing, puts his head right into my face,--he was more like ahideous baboon than anything else, let alone a man. I was struck all ofa heap, and plumps down on the little wall, and all but tumbles headover heels backwards, And he starts shrieking, in a sort of a kind ofEnglish, and in such a voice as I'd never heard the like,--it was likea rusty steam engine.
'"Go away! go away! I don't want you! I will not have you,--never! Youhave your fifty pounds,--you have your money,--that is the whole ofyou,--that is all you want! You come to me no more!--never!--never nomore!--or you be sorry!--Go away!"
'I did go away, and that as fast as ever my legs would carry me,--whatwith his looks, and what with his voice, and what with the way that hewent on, I was nothing but a mass of trembling. As for answering himback, or giving him a piece of my mind, as I had meant to, I wouldn'thave done it not for a thousand pounds. I don't mind confessing,between you and me, that I had to swallow four cups of tea, rightstraight away, before my nerves was steady.
'"Well," I says to myself, when I did feel, as it might be, a littlemore easy, "you never have let that house before, and now you've let itwith a vengeance,--so you have. If that there new tenant of yours isn'tthe greatest villain that ever went unhung it must be because he's gotnear relations what's as bad as himself,--because two families like hisI'm sure there can't be. A nice sort of Arab party to have sleepingover the road he is!"
'But after a time I cools down, as it were,--because I'm one of themsort as likes to see on both sides of a question. "After all," I saysto myself, "he has paid his rent, and fifty pounds is fifty pounds,--Id
oubt if the whole house is worth much more, and he can't do muchdamage to it whatever he does."
'I shouldn't have minded, so far as that went, if he'd set fire to theplace, for, between ourselves, it's insured for a good bit over itsvalue. So I decided that I'd let things be as they were, and see howthey went on. But from that hour to this I've never spoken to the man,and never wanted to, and wouldn't, not of my own free will, not for ashilling a time,--that face of his will haunt me if I live till Noah,as the saying is. I've seen him going in and out at all hours of theday and night,--that Arab party's a mystery if ever there was one,--healways goes tearing along as if he's flying for his life. Lots ofpeople have come to the house, all sorts and kinds, men andwomen--they've been mostly women, and even little children. I've seenthem hammer and hammer at that front door, but never a one have I seenlet in,--or yet seen taken any notice of, and I think I may say, andyet tell no lie, that I've scarcely took my eye off the house sincehe's been inside it, over and over again in the middle of the nighthave I got up to have a look, so that I've not missed much that hastook place.
'What's puzzled me is the noises that's come from the house. Sometimesfor days together there's not been a sound, it might have been a houseof the dead; and then, all through the night, there've been yells andscreeches, squawks and screams,--I never heard nothing like it. I havethought, and more than once, that the devil himself must be in thatfront room, let alone all the rest of his demons. And as forcats!--where they've come from I can't think. I didn't use to noticehardly a cat in the neighbourhood till that there Arab partycame,--there isn't much to attract them; but since he came there's beenregiments. Sometimes at night there's been troops about the place,screeching like mad,--I've wished them farther, I can tell you. ThatArab party must be fond of 'em. I've seen them inside the house, at thewindows, upstairs and downstairs, as it seemed to me, a dozen at a time.
The Beetle: A Mystery Page 39
