by John Buchan
He shook his head. ‘Not that I remember. What part of London?’
‘I fancy it would be somewhere north of Oxford Street.’
He considered. ‘No. What is your idea? A name of some private gardens or place of amusement?’
‘Yes. Just like Cremorne or Vauxhall.’
‘I don’t think so, but we’ll look it up. I’ve a good collection of old maps and plans, and some antique directories.’
So after luncheon we repaired to his library and set to work. The maps showed nothing, nor did the books at first. We were searching too far back, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when you went fox-hunting in what is now Regent’s Park and Tyburn gallows stood near the Marble Arch. Then, by sheer luck, I tried a cast nearer our own time, and found a ribald work belonging to about the date of the American War, which purported to be a countryman’s guide to the amusements of town. There was all sorts of information about ‘Cider Cellars’ and ‘Groves of Harmony’, which must have been pretty low pubs, and places in the suburbs for cock-fighting and dog-fighting. I turned up the index, and there to my joy I saw the word ‘Eden’.
I read the passage aloud, and I believe my hands were shaking. The place was, as I hoped, north of Oxford Street in what we now call Marylebone. ‘The Fields of Eden’, said the book, ‘were opened by Mr Askew as a summer resort for the gentlemen and sportsmen of the capital. There of a fine afternoon may be seen Lord A— and the Duke of B— roving among the shady, if miniature, groves, not unaccompanied by the fair nymphs of the garden, while from adjacent arbours comes the cheerful tinkle of glasses and the merry clatter of dice, and the harmonious strains of Signora F—’s Italian choir.’ There was a good deal more of it, but I stopped reading. There was a plan of London in the book, and from it I was able to plot out the boundaries of that doubtful paradise.
Then I got a modern map, and fixed the location on it. The place had been quite small, only a few acres, and today it was covered by the block defined by Wellesley Street, Apwith Lane, Little Fardell Street, and the mews behind Royston Square. I wrote this down in my note-book and took my leave.
‘You look pleased, Dick. Have you found what you want? Curious that I never heard the name, but it seems to have belonged to the dullest part of London at the dullest period of its history.’ Lord Artinswell, I could see, was a little nettled, for your antiquary hates to be caught out in his own subject.
I spent the rest of the afternoon making a very thorough examination of a not very interesting neighbourhood. What I wanted was a curiosity shop, and at first I thought I was going to fail. Apwith Lane was a kind of slum, with no shops but a disreputable foreign chemist’s and a small dirty confectioner’s, round the door of which dirty little children played. The inhabitants seemed to be chiefly foreigners. The mews at the back of Royston Square were of course useless; it was long since any dweller in that square had kept a carriage, and they seemed to be occupied chiefly with the motor vans of a steam laundry and the lorries of a coal merchant. Wellesley Street, at least the part of it in my area, was entirely occupied with the show-rooms of various American automobile companies. Little Fardell Street was a curious place. It had one odd building which may have been there when the Fields of Eden flourished, and which now seemed to be a furniture repository of a sort, with most of the windows shuttered. The other houses were perhaps forty years old, most of them the offices of small wholesale businesses, such as you find in back streets in the City. There was one big French baker’s shop at the corner, a picture-framer’s, a watchmaker’s, and a small and obviously decaying optician’s. I walked down the place twice, and my heart sank, for I could see nothing in the least resembling an antique-shop.
I patrolled the street once more, and then I observed that the old dwelling, which looked like a furniture depository, was also some kind of shop. Through a dirty lower window I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be Persian rugs and the bland face of a soap-stone idol. The door had the air of never having been used, but I tried it and it opened, tinkling a bell far in the back premises. I found myself in a small dusty place, littered up like a lumber room with boxes and carpets and rugs and bric-à-brac. Most of the things were clearly antiques, though to my inexpert eye they didn’t look worth much. The Turcoman rugs, especially, were the kind of thing you can buy anywhere in the Levant by the dozen.
A dishevelled Jewess confronted me, wearing sham diamond earrings.
‘I’m interested in antiques,’ I said pleasantly, taking off my hat to her. ‘May I look round?’
‘We do not sell to private customers,’ she said. ‘Only to the trade.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. But may I look round? If I fancied something, I dare say I could get some dealer I know to offer for it.’
She made no answer, but fingered her earrings with her plump grubby hands.
I turned over some of the rugs and carpets, and my first impression was confirmed. They were mostly trash, and a lacquer cabinet I uncovered was a shameless fake.
‘I like that,’ I said, pointing to a piece of Persian embroidery. ‘Can’t you put a price on it for me?’
‘We only sell to the trade,’ she repeated, as if it were a litany. Her beady eyes, which never left my face, were entirely without expression.
‘I expect you have a lot of things upstairs,’ I said. ‘Do you think I might have a look at them? I’m only in London for the day, and I might see something I badly wanted. I quite understand that you are wholesale people, but I can arrange any purchase through a dealer. You see, I’m furnishing a country house.’
For the first time her face showed a certain life. She shook her head vigorously. ‘We have no more stock at present. We do not keep a large stock. Things come in and go out every day. We only sell to the trade.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to have taken up your time. Good afternoon.’ As I left the shop, I felt that I had made an important discovery. The business was bogus. There was very little that any dealer would touch, and the profits from all the trade done would not keep the proprietor in Virginian cigarettes.
I paid another visit to the neighbourhood after dinner. The only sign of life was in the slums of Apwith Lane, where frowsy women were chattering on the kerb. Wellesley Street was shuttered and silent from end to end. So was Little Fardell Street. Not a soul was about in it, not a ray of light was seen at any window, in the midst of the din of London it made a little enclave like a graveyard. I stopped at the curiosity shop, and saw that the windows were heavily shuttered and that the flimsy old door was secured by a strong outer frame of iron which fitted into a groove at the edge of the pavement and carried a stout lock. The shutters on the ground-floor windows were substantial things, preposterously substantial for so worthless a show. As I looked at them I had a strong feeling that the house behind that palisade was not as dead as it looked, that somewhere inside it there was life, and that in the night things happened there which it concerned me tremendously to know.
Next morning I went to see Macgillivray.
‘Can you lend me a first-class burglar?’ I asked. ‘Only for one night. Some fellow who won’t ask any questions and will hold his tongue.’
‘I’ve given up being surprised when you’re about,’ he said. ‘No. We don’t keep tame burglars here, but I can find you a man who knows rather more about the art than any professional. Why?’
‘Simply because I want to get inside a certain house tonight, and I see no chance of doing it except by breaking my way in. I suppose you could so arrange it that the neighbouring policemen would not interfere. In fact I want them to help to keep the coast clear.’
I went into details with him, and showed him the lie of the land. He suggested trying the back of the house, but I had reconnoitred that side and seen that it was impossible, for the building seemed to join on with the houses in the street behind. In fact there was no back door. The whole architecture was extremely odd, and I had a notion that the entrance in Little Fardell Street might itself be
a back door. I told Macgillivray that I wanted an expert who could let me in by one of the ground-floor windows, and replace everything so that there should be no trace next morning. He rang a bell and asked for Mr Abel to be sent for. Mr Abel was summoned, and presently appeared, a small wizened man, like a country tradesman. Macgillivray explained what was required of him, and Mr Abel nodded. It was a job which offered no difficulties, he said, to an experienced man. He would suggest that he investigated the place immediately after closing time, and began work about ten o’clock. If I arrived at ten-thirty, he promised to have a means of entrance prepared. He inquired as to who were the constables at the nearest points, and asked that certain special ones should be put on duty, with whom he could arrange matters. I never saw anyone approach what seemed to me to be a delicate job with such businesslike assurance.
‘Do you want anyone to accompany you inside?’ Macgillivray asked.
I said no. I thought I had better explore the place alone, but I wanted somebody within call in case there was trouble, and of course if I didn’t come back, say within two hours, he had better come and look for me.
‘We may have to arrest you as a housebreaker,’ he said. ‘How are you going to explain your presence if there’s nothing wrong indoors and you disturb the sleep of a respectable caretaker?’
‘I must take my chance,’ I said. I didn’t feel nervous about that point. The place would either be empty, or occupied by those who would not invite the aid of the police.
*
After dinner I changed into an old tweed suit and rubber-soled shoes, and as I sat in the taxi I began to think that I had entered too lightly on the evening’s business. How was that little man Abel to prepare an entrance without alarming the neighbourhood, even with the connivance of the police; and if I found anybody inside, what on earth was I to say? There was no possible story to account for a clandestine entry into somebody else’s house, and I had suddenly a vision of the earringed Jewess screeching in the night and my departure for the cells in the midst of a crowd of hooligans from Apwith Lane. Even if I found something very shady indoors it would only be shady in my own mind in connection with my own problem, and would be all right in the eyes of the law. I was not likely to hit on anything patently criminal, and, even if I did, how was I to explain my presence there? I suffered from a bad attack of cold feet, and would have chucked the business there and then but for that queer feeling at the back of my head that it was my duty to risk it – that if I turned back I should be missing something of tremendous importance. But I can tell you I was feeling far from happy when I dismissed the taxi at the corner of Royston Square, and turned into Little Fardell Street.
It was a dark cloudy evening, threatening rain, and the place was none too brilliantly lit. But to my disgust I saw opposite the door of the curiosity shop a brazier of hot coals and the absurd little shelter which means that part of the street is up. There was the usual roped-in enclosure, decorated with red lamps, a heap of debris, and a hole where some of the setts had been lifted. Here was bad luck with a vengeance, that the Borough Council should have chosen this place and moment of all others for investigating the drains. And yet I had a kind of shamefaced feeling of relief, for this put the lid on my enterprise. I wondered why Macgillivray had not contrived the thing better.
I found I had done him an injustice. It was the decorous face of Mr Abel which regarded me out of the dingy penthouse.
‘This seemed to be the best plan, sir,’ he said respectfully. ‘It enables me to wait for you here without exciting curiosity. I’ve seen the men on point duty, and it is all right in that quarter. This street is quiet enough, and taxis don’t use it as a short cut. You’ll find the door open. The windows might have been difficult, but I had a look at the door first, and that big iron frame is a piece of bluff. The bolt of the lock runs into the side-bar of the frame, but the frame itself is secured to the wall by another much smaller lock which you can only detect by looking closely. I have opened that for you – quite easily done.’
‘But the other door – the shop door – that rings a bell inside.’
‘I found it unlocked,’ he said, with the ghost of a grin. ‘Whoever uses this place after closing hours doesn’t want to make much noise. The bell is disconnected. You have only to push it open and walk in.’
Events were forcing me against all my inclination to go forward.
‘If anyone enters when I am inside…?’ I began.
‘You will hear the sound and must take measures accordingly. On the whole, sir, I am inclined to think that there’s something wrong with the place. You are armed? No. That is as well. Your position is unauthorized, as one would say, and arms might be compromising.’
‘If you hear me cry?’
‘I will come to your help. If you do not return within – shall we say? – two hours, I will make an entrance along with the nearest constable. The unlocked door will give us a pretext.’
‘And if I come out in a hurry?’
‘I have thought of that. If you have a fair start there is room for you to hide here,’ and he jerked his thumb towards the penthouse. ‘If you are hard-pressed I will manage to impede the pursuit.’
The little man’s calm matter-of-factness put me on my mettle. I made sure that the street was empty, opened the iron frame, and pushed through the shop-door, closing it softly behind me.
The shop was as dark as the inside of a nut, not a crack of light coming through the closely-shuttered windows. It felt very eerie, as I tiptoed cautiously among the rugs and tables. I listened, but there was no sound of any kind either from within or without, so I switched on my electric torch and waited breathlessly. Still no sound or movement. The conviction grew upon me that the house was uninhabited, and with a little more confidence I started out to explore.
The place did not extend far to the back, as I had believed. Very soon I came upon a dead wall against which every kind of litter was stacked, and that way progress was stopped. The door by which the Jewess had entered lay to the right, and that led me into a little place like a kitchen, with a sink, a cupboard or two, a gas-fire, and in the corner a bed – the kind of lair which a caretaker occupies in a house to let. I made out a window rather high up in the wall, but I could discover no other entrance save that by which I had come. So I returned to the shop and tried the passage to the left.
Here at first I found nothing but locked doors, obviously cupboards. But there was one open, and my torch showed me that it contained a very steep flight of stairs – the kind of thing that in old houses leads to the attics. I tried the boards, for I feared that they would creak, and I discovered that all the treads had been renewed. I can’t say I liked diving into that box, but there was nothing else for it unless I were to give up.
At the top I found a door, and I was just about to try to open it when I heard steps on the other side.
I stood rigid in that narrow place, wondering what was to happen next. The man – it was a man’s foot – came up to the door and to my consternation turned the handle. Had he opened it I would have been discovered, for he had a light, and Lord knows what mix-up would have followed. But he didn’t; he tried the handle and then turned a key in the lock. After that I heard him move away.
This was fairly discouraging, for it appeared that I was now shut off from the rest of the house. When I had waited for a minute or two for the coast to clear, I too tried the handle, expecting to find it fast. To my surprise the door opened; the man had not locked, but unlocked it. This could mean only one of two things. Either he intended himself to go out by this way later, or he expected someone and wanted to let him in.
From that moment I recovered my composure. My interest was excited, there was a game to play and something to be done. I looked round the passage in which I found myself and saw the explanation of the architecture which had puzzled me. The old building in Little Fardell Street was the merest slip, only a room thick, and it was plastered against a much more substantial and much newer
structure in which I now found myself. The passage was high and broad, and heavily carpeted, and I saw electric fittings at each end. This alarmed me, for if anyone came along and switched on the light, there was not cover to hide a cockroach. I considered that the boldest plan would be the safest, so I tiptoed to the end, and saw another passage equally bare going off at right angles. This was no good, so I brazenly assaulted the door of the nearest room. Thank Heaven! it was empty, so I could have a reconnoitring base.
It was a bedroom, well furnished in the Waring & Gillow style, and to my horror I observed that it was a woman’s bedroom. It was a woman’s dressing-table I saw, with big hair-brushes and oddments of scents and powders. There was a wardrobe with the door ajar full of hanging dresses. The occupant had been there quite lately, for wraps had been flung on the bed and a pair of slippers lay by the dressing-table, as if they had been kicked off hurriedly.
The place put me into the most abject fright. I seemed to have burgled a respectable flat and landed in a lady’s bedroom, and I looked forward to some appalling scandal which would never be hushed up. Little Abel roosting in his pent-house seemed a haven of refuge separated from me by leagues of obstacles. I reckoned I had better get back to him as soon as possible, and I was just starting, when that happened which made me stop short. I had left the room door ajar when I entered, and of course I had switched off my torch after my first look round. I had been in utter darkness, but now I saw a light in the passage.
It might be the confounded woman who owned the bedroom, and my heart went into my boots. Then I saw that the passage lights had not been turned on and that whoever was there had a torch like me. The footsteps were coming by the road I had come myself. Could it be the man for whom the staircase door had been unlocked?
It was a man all right, and, whatever his errand, it was not with my room. I watched him through the crack left by the door, and saw his figure pass. It was someone in a hurry who walked swiftly and quietly, and, beyond the fact that he wore a dark coat with the collar turned up and a black soft hat, I could make out nothing. The figure went down the corridor, and at the end seemed to hesitate. Then it turned into a room on the left and disappeared.
