The Victorian Villains Megapack

by Arthur Morrison

  Naylor’s house was at the corner of a turning, with the flank wall blank of windows, except for one at the top; and a public-house stood at the opposite corner. Dorrington, skilled in watching without attracting attention to himself, now lounged in the public-house bar, now stood at the street corner, and now sauntered along the street, a picture of vacancy of mind, and looking, apparently, at everything in turn, except the house at the corner. The first thing he noted was the issuing forth from the area steps of a healthy-looking girl in much gaily beribboned finery. Plainly a servant taking an evening out. This was an odd thing, that I servant should be allowed out on an evening when a guest was expected to dinner; and the house looked like one where it was more likely that one servant would be kept than two. Dorrington hurried after the girl, and, changing his manner of address, to that of a civil labourer, said—

  “Beg pardon, Miss, but is Mary Walker still in service at your ’ouse?”

  “Mary Walker?” said the girl. “Why, no. I never ’eard the name. And there ain’t nobody in service there but me.”

  “Beg pardon—it must be the wrong ’ouse. It’s my cousin, Miss, that’s all.”

  Dorrington left the girl and returned to the public-house. As he reached it he perceived a second noticeable thing. Although it was broad daylight, there was now a light behind the solitary window at the top of the side-wall of Naylor’s house. Dorrington slipped through the swing-doors of the public-house and watched through the glass.

  It was a bare room behind the high window—it might have been a bathroom—and its interior was made but dimly visible from outside by the light. A tall, thin woman was setting up an ordinary pair of house-steps in the middle of the room. This done, she turned to the window and pulled down the blind, and as she did so Dorrington noted her very extreme thinness, both of face and body. When the blind was down the light still remained within. Again there seemed some significance in this. It appeared that the thin woman had waited until her servant had gone before doing whatever she had to do in that room. Presently the watcher came again into Gold Street, and from there caught a passing glimpse of the thin woman as she moved busily about the front room over the breakfast parlour.

  Clearly, then, the light above had been left for future use. Dorrington thought for a minute, and then suddenly stopped, with a snap of the fingers. He saw it all now. Here was something altogether in his way. He would take a daring course.

  He withdrew once more to the public-house, and ordering another drink, took up a position in a compartment from which he could command a view both of Gold Street and the side turning. The time now, he saw by his watch, was ten minutes to seven. He had to wait rather more than a quarter of an hour before seeing Richard Telfer come walking jauntily down Gold Street, mount the steps, and knock at Naylor’s door. There was a momentary glimpse of the thin woman’s face at the door, and then Telfer entered.

  It now began to grow dusk, and in about twenty minutes more Dorrington took to the street again. The room over the breakfast-parlour was clearly the dining-room. It was lighted brightly, and by intent listening the watcher could distinguish, now and again, a sudden burst of laughter from Telfer, followed by the deeper grunts of Naylor’s voice, and once by sharp tones that it seemed natural to suppose were the thin woman’s.

  Dorrington waited no longer, but slipped a pair of thick sock-feet over his shoes, and, after a quick look along the two streets, to make sure nobody was near, he descended the area steps. There was no light in the breakfast-parlour. With his knife he opened the window-catch, raised the sash quietly and stepped over the sill, and stood in the dark room within.

  All was quiet, except for the talking in the room above. He had done but what many thieves—“parlour-jumpers” do every day; but there was more ahead. He made his way silently to the basement passage, and passed into the kitchen. The room was lighted, and cookery utensils were scattered about, but nobody was there. He waited till he heard a request in Naylor’s gruff voice for “another slice” of something, and noiselessly mounted the stairs. He noticed that the dining-room door was ajar, but passed quickly on to the second flight, and rested on the landing above. Mrs. Naylor would probably have to go downstairs once or twice again, but he did not expect anybody in the upper part of the house just yet. There was a small flight of stairs above the landing whereon he stood, leading to the servant’s bedroom and the bathroom. He took a glance at the bathroom with its feeble lamp, its steps, and its open ceiling-trap, and returned again to the bedroom landing. There he stood waiting watchfully.

  Twice the thin woman emerged from the dining-room, went downstairs and came up again, each time with food and plates. Then she went down once more, and was longer gone. Meantime Naylor and Telfer were talking and joking loudly at the table.

  When once again Dorrington saw the crown of the thin woman’s head rising over the bottom stair, he perceived that she bore a tray set with cups already filled with coffee. These she carried into the dining-room, whence presently came the sound of striking matches. After this the conversation seemed to flag, and Telfer’s part in it grew less and less, till it ceased altogether, and the house was silent except for a sound of heavy breathing. Soon this became almost a snore, and then there was a sudden noisy tumble as of a drunken man; but still the snoring went on, and the Naylors were talking in whispers.

  There was a shuffling and heaving sound, and a chair was knocked over. Then at the dining-room door appeared Naylor, walking backward, and carrying the inert form of Telfer by the shoulders, while the thin woman followed supporting the feet. Dorrington retreated up the small stair-flight, cocking a pocket revolver as he went.

  Up the stairs they came, Naylor puffing and grunting with exertion, and Telfer still snoring soundly on, till at last, having mounted the top flight, they came in at the bathroom door, where Dorrington stood to receive them, smiling and bowing pleasantly, with his hat in one hand and his revolver in the other.

  The woman, from her position, saw him first, and dropped Telfer’s legs with a scream. Naylor turned his head and then also dropped his end. The drugged man fell in a heap, snoring still.

  Naylor, astounded and choking, made as if to rush at the interloper, but Dorrington thrust the revolver into his face, and exclaimed, still smiling courteously, “Mind, mind! It’s a dangerous thing, is a revolver, and apt to go off if you run against it!”

  He stood thus for a second, and then stepped forward and took the woman—who seemed like to swoon—by the arm, and pulled her into the room. “Come, Mrs. Naylor,” he said, “you’re not one of the fainting sort, and I think I’d better keep two such clever people as you under my eye, or one of you may get into mischief. Come now, Naylor, we’ll talk business.”

  Naylor, now white as a ghost, sat on the edge of the bath, and stared at Dorrington as though in a fascination of terror. His hands rested on the bath at each side, and an odd sound of gurgling came from his thick throat.

  “We will talk business,” Dorrington resumed. “Come, you’ve met me before now you know—at Redbury. You can’t have forgotten Janissary, and the walking exercise and the handful of malt. I’m afraid you’re a clumsy sort of rascal, Naylor, though you do your best. I’m a rascal myself (though I don’t often confess it), and I assure you that your conceptions are crude as yet. Still, that isn’t a bad notion in its way, that of drugging a man and drowning him in your cistern up there in the roof, when you prefer not to pay him his winnings. It has the very considerable merit that, after the body has been fished out of any river you may choose to fling it into, the stupid coroner’s jury will never suspect that it was drowned in any other water but that. Just as happened in the Lawrence case, for instance. You remember that, eh? So do I, very well, and it was because I remembered that that I paid you this visit tonight. But you do the thing much too clumsily, really. When I saw a light up here in broad daylight I knew at once it must be left for some purpose to be executed la
ter in the evening; and when I saw the steps carefully placed at the same time, after the servant had been sent out, why the thing was plain, remembering, as I did, the curious coincidence that Mr. Lawrence was drowned the very evening he had been here to take away his winnings. The steps must be intended to give access to the roof, where there was probably a tank to feed the bath, and what more secret place to drown a man than there? And what easier place, so long as the man was well drugged, and there was a strong lid to the tank? As I say, Naylor, your notion was meritorious, but your execution was wretched—perhaps because you had no notion that I was watching you.”

  He paused, and then went on. “Come,” he said, “collect your scattered faculties, both of you. I shan’t hand you over to the police for this little invention of yours; it’s too useful an invention to give away to the police. I shan’t hand you over, that is to say, as long as you do as I tell you. If you get mutinous, you shall hang, both of you, for the Lawrence business. I may as well tell you that I’m a bit of a scoundrel myself, by way of profession. I don’t boast about it, but it’s well to be frank in making arrangements of this sort. I’m going to take you into my service. I employ a few agents, and you and your tank may come in very handy from time to time. But we must set it up, with a few improvements, in another house—a house which hasn’t quite such an awkward window. And we mustn’t execute our little suppressions so regularly on settling-day; it looks suspicious. So as soon as you can get your faculties together we’ll talk over this thing.”

  The man and the woman had exchanged glances during this speech, and now Naylor asked, huskily, jerking his thumb toward the man on the floor, “An’—an’ what about ’im?”

  “What about him? Why, get rid of him as soon as you like. Not that way, though.” (He pointed toward the ceiling trap.) “It doesn’t pay me, and I’m master now. Besides, what will people say when you tell the same tale at his inquest that you told at Lawrence’s? No, my friend, bookmaking and murder don’t assort together, profitable as the combination may seem. Settling-days are too regular. And I’m not going to be your accomplice, mind. You are going to be mine. Do what you please with Telfer. Leave him on somebody’s doorstep if you like.”

  “But I owe him fifteen hundred, and I ain’t got more than half of it! I’ll be ruined!”

  “Very likely,” Dorrington returned placidly. “Be ruined as soon as possible, then, and devote all your time to my business. You’re not to ornament the ring any longer, remember—you’re to assist a private inquiry agent, you and your wife and your charming tank. Repudiate the debt if you like it’s a mere gaming transaction, and there is no legal claim or leave him in the street and tell him he’s been robbed. Please yourself as to this little roguery—you may as well, for it’s the last you will do on your own account. For the future your respectable talents will be devoted to the service of Dorrington & Hicks, private inquiry agents; and if you don’t give satisfaction, that eminent firm will hang you, with the assistance of the judge at the Old Bailey. So settle your business yourselves, and quickly, for I’ve a good many things to arrange with you.”

  And, Dorrington watching them continually, they took Telfer out by the side gate in the garden wall and left him in a dark corner.

  THE CASE OF “THE MIRROR OF PORTUGAL,” by Arthur Morrison

  Originally published in The Windsor Magazine, March 1897.

  I

  Whether or not this case has an historical interest is a matter of conjecture. If it has none, then the title I have given it is a misnomer. But I think the conjecture that some historical interest attaches to it is by no means an empty one, and all that can be urged against it is the common though not always declared error that romance expired fifty years at least ago, and history with it. This makes it seem improbable that the answer to an unsolved riddle of a century since should be found today in an inquiry agent’s dingy office in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. Whether or not it has so been found the reader may judge for himself, though the evidence stops far short of actual proof of the identity of the “Mirror of Portugal” with the stone wherewith this case was concerned.

  But first, as to the “Mirror of Portugal.” This was a diamond of much and ancient fame. It was of Indian origin, and it had lain in the possession of the royal family of Portugal in the time of Portugal’s ancient splendour. But three hundred years ago, after the extinction of the early line of succession, the diamond, with other jewels, fell into the possession of Don Antonio, one of the half-dozen pretenders who were then scrambling for the throne. Don Antonio, badly in want of money, deposited the stone in pledge with Queen Elizabeth of England, and never redeemed it. Thus it took its place as one of the English Crown jewels, and so remained till the overthrow and death of Charles the First. Queen Henrietta then carried it with her to France, and there, to obtain money to satisfy her creditors, she sold it to the great Cardinal Mazarin. He bequeathed it, at his death, to the French Crown, and among the Crown jewels of France it once more found a temporary abiding place. But once more it brought disaster with it in the shape of a revolution, and again a king lost his head at the executioner’s hands. And in the riot and confusion of the great Revolution of 1792 the “Mirror of Portugal,” with other jewels, vanished utterly. Where it went to, and who took it, nobody ever knew. The “Mirror of Portugal” disappeared as suddenly and effectually as though fused to vapour by electric combustion.

  So much for the famous “Mirror.” Whether or not its history is germane to the narrative which follows, probably nobody will ever certainly know. But that Dorrington considered that it was, his notes on the case abundantly testify.

  For some days before Dorrington’s attention was in any way given to this matter, a poorly-dressed and not altogether prepossessing Frenchman had been haunting the staircase and tapping at the office door, unsuccessfully attempting an interview with Dorrington, who happened to be out, or busy, whenever he called. The man never asked for Hicks, Dorrington’s partner; but this was very natural. In the first place, it was always Dorrington who met all strangers and conducted all negotiations, and in the second, Dorrington had just lately, in a case regarding a secret society in Soho, made his name much known and respected, not to say feared, in the foreign colony of that quarter; wherefore it was likely that a man who bore evidence of residence in that neighbourhood should come with the name of Dorrington on his tongue.

  The weather was cold, but the man’s clothes were thin and threadbare, and he had no overcoat. His face was of a broad, low type, coarse in feature and small in forehead, and he wore the baggy black linen peaked cap familiar on the heads of men of his class in parts of Paris. He had called unsuccessfully, as I have said, sometimes once, sometimes more frequently, on each of three or four days before he succeeded in seeing Dorrington. At last, however, he intercepted him on the stairs, as Dorrington arrived at about eleven in the morning.

  “Pardon, m’sieu,” he said, laying his finger on Dorrington’s arm, “it is M. Dorrington—not?”

  “Well—suppose it is, what then?” Dorrington never admitted his identity to a stranger without first seeing good cause.

  “I ’ave beesness—very great beesness; beesness of a large profit for you if you please to take it. Where shall I tell it?”

  “Come in here,” Dorrington replied, leading the way to his private room. The man did not look like a wealthy client, but that signified nothing. Dorrington had made profitable strokes after introductions even less promising.

  The man followed Dorrington, pulled off his cap, and sat in the chair Dorrington pointed at.

  “In the first place,” said Dorrington, “what’s your name?”

  “Ah, yas—but before—all that I tell is for ourselves alone, is it not? It is all in confidence, eh?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Dorrington answered, with virtuous impatience. “Whatever is said in this room is regarded as strictly confidential. What’s your name?”
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br />   “Jacques Bouvier.”

  “Living at—?”

  “Little Norham Street, Soho.”

  “And now the business you speak of.”

  “The beesness is this. My cousin, Léon Bouvier—he is coquin—a rrrascal!”

  “Very likely.”

  “He has a great jewel—it is, I have no doubt, a diamond—of a great value. It is not his! There is no right of him to it! It should be mine. If you get it for me one-quarter of it in money shall be yours! And it is of a great value.”

  “Where does your cousin live? What is he?”

  “Beck Street, Soho. He has a shop—a café—Café des Bons Camarades. And he give me not a crrrust—if I starve!”

  It scarcely seemed likely that the keeper of a little foreign café in a back street of Soho would be possessed of a jewel a quarter of whose value would be prize enough to tempt Dorrington to take a new case up. But Dorrington bore with the man a little longer. “What is this jewel you talk of?” he asked. “And if you don’t know enough about it to be quite sure whether it is a diamond or not, what do you know?”

  “Listen! The stone I have never seen; but that it is a diamond makes probable. What else so much value? And it is much value that gives my cousin so great care and trouble—cochon! Listen! I relate to you. My father—he was charcoal-burner at Bonneuil, department of Seine. My uncle—the father of my cousin—also was charcoal-burner. The grandfather—charcoal-burner also; and his father and his grandfather before him—all burners of charcoal, at Bonneuil. Now perceive. The father of my grandfather was of the great Revolution—a young man, great among those who stormed the Bastille, the Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville, brave, and a leader. Now, when palaces were burnt and heads were falling there was naturally much confusion. Things were lost—things of large value. What more natural? While so many were losing the head from the shoulders, it was not strange that some should lose jewels from the neck. And when these things were lost, who might have a greater right to keep them than the young men of the Revolution, the brave, and the leaders, they who did the work?”