The Beetle

by Richard Marsh

  Atherton led the way to the rear. Lessingham and I followed. There was not even an apology for a yard, still less a garden,—there was not even a fence of any sort, to serve as an enclosure, and to shut off the house from the wilderness of waste land. The kitchen window was open. I asked Sydney if he had left it so.

  ‘I don’t know,—I dare say we did; I don’t fancy that either of us stood on the order of his coming.’

  While he spoke, he scrambled over the sill. We followed. When he was in, he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Marjorie! Marjorie! Speak to me, Marjorie,—it is I,—Sydney!’

  The words echoed through the house. Only silence answered. He led the way to the front room. Suddenly he stopped.

  ‘Hollo!’ he cried. ‘The blind’s down!’ I had noticed, when we were outside, that the blind was down at the front room window. ‘It was up when I went, that I’ll swear. That someone has been here is pretty plain,—let’s hope it’s Marjorie.’

  He had only taken a step forward into the room when he again stopped short to exclaim.

  ‘My stars!—here’s a sudden clearance!—Why, the place is empty,—everything’s clean gone!’

  ‘What do you mean?—was it furnished when you left?’

  The room was empty enough then.

  ‘Furnished?—I don’t know that it was exactly what you’d call furnished,—the party who ran this establishment had a taste in upholstery which was all his own,—but there was a carpet, and a bed, and—and lots of things,—for the most part, I should have said, distinctly Eastern curiosities. They seem to have evaporated into smoke,—which may be a way which is common enough among Eastern curiosities, though it’s queer to me.’

  Atherton was staring about him as if he found it difficult to credit the evidence of his own eyes.

  ‘How long ago is it since you left?’

  He referred to his watch.

  ‘Something over an hour,—possibly an hour and a half; I couldn’t swear to the exact moment, but it certainly isn’t more.’

  ‘Did you notice any signs of packing up?’

  ‘Not a sign.’ Going to the window he drew up the blind,—speaking as he did so. ‘The queer thing about this business is that when we first got in this blind wouldn’t draw up a little bit, so, since it wouldn’t go up I pulled it down, roller and all, now it draws up as easily and smoothly as if it had always been the best blind that ever lived.’

  Standing at Sydney’s back I saw that the cabman on his box was signalling to us with his outstretched hand. Sydney perceived him too. He threw up the sash.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but who’s the old gent?’

  ‘What old gent?’

  ‘Why the old gent peeping through the window of the room upstairs?’

  The words were hardly out of the driver’s mouth when Sydney was through the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather more soberly,—his methods were a little too flighty for me. When I reached the landing, dashing out of the front room he rushed into the one at the back,—then through a door at the side. He came out shouting.

  ‘What’s the idiot mean!—with his old gent! I’d old gent him if I got him!—There’s not a creature about the place!’

  He returned into the front room,—I at his heels. That certainly was empty,—and not only empty, but it showed no traces of recent occupation. The dust lay thick upon the floor,—there was that mouldy, earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments which have been long untenanted.

  ‘Are you sure, Atherton, that there is no one at the back?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,—you can go and see for yourself if you like; do you think I’m blind? Jehu’s drunk.’ Throwing up the sash he addressed the driver. ‘What do you mean with your old gent at the window?—what window?’

  ‘That window, sir.’

  ‘Go to!—you’re dreaming, man!—there’s no one here.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but there was someone there not a minute ago.’

  ‘Imagination, cabman,—the slant of the light on the glass,—or your eyesight’s defective.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but it’s not my imagination, and my eyesight’s as good as any man’s in England,—and as for the slant of the light on the glass, there ain’t much glass for the light to slant on. I saw him peeping through that bottom broken pane on your left hand as plainly as I see you. He must be somewhere about,—he can’t have got away,—he’s at the back. Ain’t there a cupboard nor nothing where he could hide?’

  The cabman’s manner was so extremely earnest that I went myself to see. There was a cupboard on the landing, but the door of that stood wide open, and that obviously was bare. The room behind was small, and, despite the splintered glass in the window frame, stuffy. Fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the floor, together with a choice collection of stones, brickbats, and other missiles,—which not improbably were the cause of their being there. In the corner stood a cupboard,—but a momentary examination showed that that was as bare as the other. The door at the side, which Sydney had left wide open, opened on to a closet, and that was empty. I glanced up,—there was no trap door which led to the roof. No practicable nook or cranny, in which a living being could lie concealed, was anywhere at hand.

  I returned to Sydney’s shoulder to tell the cabman so.

  ‘There is no place in which anyone could hide, and there is no one in either of the rooms,—you must have been mistaken, driver.’

  The man waxed wroth.

  ‘Don’t tell me! How could I come to think I saw something when I didn’t?’

  ‘One’s eyes are apt to play us tricks;—how could you see what wasn’t there?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know. As I drove up, before you told me to stop, I saw him looking through the window,—the one at which you are. He’d got his nose glued to the broken pane, and was staring as hard as he could stare. When I pulled up, off he started,—I saw him get up off his knees, and go to the back of the room. When the gentleman took to knocking, back he came,—to the same old spot, and flopped down on his knees. I didn’t know what caper you was up to,—you might be bum bailiffs for all I knew!—and I supposed that he wasn’t so anxious to let you in as you might be to get inside, and that was why he didn’t take no notice of your knocking, while all the while he kept a eye on what was going on. When you goes round to the back, up he gets again, and I reckoned that he was going to meet yer, and perhaps give yer a bit of his mind, and that presently I should hear a shindy, or that something would happen. But when you pulls up the blind downstairs, to my surprise back he come once more. He shoves his old nose right through the smash in the pane, and wags his old head at me like a chattering magpie. That didn’t seem to me quite the civil thing to do,—I hadn’t done no harm to him; so I gives you the office, and lets you know that he was there. But for you to say that he wasn’t there, and never had been,—blimey! that cops the biscuit. If he wasn’t there, all I can say is I ain’t here, and my ’orse ain’t here, and my cab ain’t neither,—damn it!—the house ain’t here, and nothing ain’t!’

  He settled himself on his perch with an air of the most extreme ill usage,—he had been standing up to tell his tale. That the man was serious was unmistakable. As he himself suggested, what inducement could he have had to tell a lie like that? That he believed himself to have seen what he declared he saw was plain. But, on the other hand, what could have become—in the space of fifty seconds!—of his ‘old gent’?

  Atherton put a question.

  ‘What did he look like,—this old gent of yours?’

  ‘Well, that I shouldn’t hardly like to say. It wasn’t much of his face I could see, only his face and his eyes,—and they wasn’t pretty. He kept a thing over his head all the time, as if he didn’t want too much to be seen.’

  ‘What sort of a thing?
’

  ‘Why,—one of them cloak sort of things, like them Arab blokes used to wear what used to be at Earl’s Court Exhibition,—you know!’

  This piece of information seemed to interest my companions more than anything he had said before.

  ‘A burnoose do you mean?’

  ‘How am I to know what the thing’s called? I ain’t up in foreign languages,—’tain’t likely! All I know that them Arab blokes what was at Earl’s Court used to walk about in them all over the place,—sometimes they wore them over their heads, and sometimes they didn’t. In fact if you’d asked me, instead of trying to make out as I sees double, or things what was only inside my own noddle, or something or other, I should have said this here old gent what I’ve been telling you about was a Arab bloke,—when he gets off his knees to sneak away from the window, I could see that he had his cloak thing, what was over his head, wrapped all round him.’

  Mr Lessingham turned to me, all quivering with excitement.

  ‘I believe that what he says is true!’

  ‘Then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to,—can you suggest an explanation? It is strange, to say the least of it, that the cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything of him.’

  ‘Some devil’s trick has been played,—I know it, I feel it!—my instinct tells me so!’

  I stared. In such a matter one hardly expects a man of Paul Lessingham’s stamp to talk of ‘instinct.’ Atherton stared too. Then, on a sudden, he burst out, ‘By the Lord, I believe the Apostle’s right,—the whole place reeks to me of hankey-pankey,—it did as soon as I put my nose inside. In matters of prestidigitation, Champnell, we Westerns are among the rudiments,—we’ve everything to learn,—Orientals leave us at the post. If their civilisation’s what we’re pleased to call extinct, their conjuring—when you get to know it!—is all alive oh!’

  He moved towards the door. As he went he slipped, or seemed to, all but stumbling on to his knees.

  ‘Something tripped me up,—what’s this?’ He was stamping on the floor with his foot. ‘Here’s a board loose. Come and lend me a hand, one of you fellows, to get it up. Who knows what mystery’s beneath?’

  I went to his aid. As he said, a board in the floor was loose. His stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble. Together we prised it out of its place,—Lessingham standing by and watching us the while. Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed.

  There was something there.

  ‘Why,’ cried Atherton ‘it’s a woman’s clothing!’

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  THE REST OF THE FIND

  IT WAS A WOMAN’S CLOTHING, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow,—as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corsets, and all,—even to hat, gloves, and hairpins;—these latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange confusion. It seemed plain that whoever had worn those clothes had been stripped to the skin.

  Lessingham and Sydney stared at me in silence as I dragged them out and laid them on the floor. The dress was at the bottom,—it was an alpaca, of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and ribbons, as is the fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green silk. It had perhaps been a ‘charming confection’ once—and that a very recent one!—but now it was all soiled and creased and torn and tumbled. The two spectators made a simultaneous pounce at it as I brought it to the light.

  ‘My God!’ cried Sydney, ‘it’s Marjorie’s!—she was wearing it when I saw her last!’

  ‘It’s Marjorie’s!’ gasped Lessingham,—he was clutching at the ruined costume, staring at it like a man who has just received sentence of death. ‘She wore it when she was with me yesterday,—I told her how it suited her, and how pretty it was!’

  There was silence,—it was an eloquent find; it spoke for itself. The two men gazed at the heap of feminine glories,—it might have been the most wonderful sight they ever had seen. Lessingham was the first to speak,—his face had all at once grown grey and haggard.

  ‘What has happened to her?’

  I replied to his question with another.

  ‘Are you sure this is Miss Linden’s dress?’

  ‘I am sure,—and were proof needed, here it is.’

  He had found the pocket, and was turning out the contents. There was a purse, which contained money and some visiting cards on which were her name and address; a small bunch of keys, with her nameplate attached; a handkerchief, with her initials in a corner. The question of ownership was placed beyond a doubt.

  ‘You see,’ said Lessingham, exhibiting the money which was in the purse, ‘it is not robbery which has been attempted. Here are two ten-pound notes, and one for five, besides gold and silver,—over thirty pounds in all.’

  Atherton, who had been turning over the accumulation of rubbish between the joists, proclaimed another find.

  ‘Here are her rings, and watch, and a bracelet,—no, it certainly does not look as if theft had been an object.’

  Lessingham was glowering at him with knitted brows.

  ‘I have to thank you for this.’

  Sydney was unwontedly meek.

  ‘You are hard on me, Lessingham, harder than I deserve,—I had rather have thrown away my own life than have suffered misadventure to have come to her.’

  ‘Yours are idle words. Had you not meddled this would not have happened. A fool works more mischief with his folly than of malice prepense. If hurt has befallen Marjorie Lindon you shall account for it to me with your life’s blood.’

  ‘Let it be so,’ said Sydney. ‘I am content. If hurt has come to Marjorie, God knows that I am willing enough that death should come to me.’

  While they wrangled, I continued to search. A little to one side, under the flooring which was still intact, I saw something gleam. By stretching out my hand, I could just manage to reach it,—it was a long plait of woman’s hair. It had been cut off at the roots,—so close to the head in one place that the scalp itself had been cut, so that the hair was clotted with blood.

  They were so occupied with each other that they took no notice of me. I had to call their attention to my discovery.

  ‘Gentlemen, I fear that I have here something which will distress you,—is not this Miss Lindon’s hair?’

  They recognised it on the instant. Lessingham, snatching it from my hands, pressed it to his lips.

  ‘This is mine,—I shall at least have something.’ He spoke with a grimness which was a little startling. He held the silken tresses at arm’s length. ‘This points to murder,—foul, cruel, causeless murder. As I live, I will devote my all,—money, time, reputation!—to gaining vengeance on the wretch who did this deed.’

  Atherton chimed in.

  ‘To that I say, Amen!’ He lifted his hand. ‘God is my witness!’

  ‘It seems to me, gentlemen, that we move too fast,—to my mind it does not by any means of necessity point to murder. On the contrary, I doubt if murder has been done. Indeed, I don’t mind owning that I have a theory of my own which points all the other way.’

  Lessingham caught me by the sleeve.

  ‘Mr Champnell, tell me your theory.’

  ‘I will, a little later. Of course it may be altogether wrong;—though I fancy it is not; I will explain my reasons when we come to talk of it. But, at present, there are things which must be done.’

  ‘I vote for tearing up every board in the house!’ cried Sydney. ‘And for pulling the whole infernal place to pieces. It’s a conjurer’s den.—I shouldn’t be surprised if cabby’s old gent is staring at us all the while from some peephole of his own.’

  We examined the entire house, methodically, so far as we were able, inch by inch. Not another board proved loose,—to lift those which were nailed down required tools, and those we were without. We sounded all the walls,�
��with the exception of the party walls they were the usual lath and plaster constructions, and showed no signs of having been tampered with. The ceilings were intact; if anything was concealed in them it must have been there some time,—the cement was old and dirty. We took the closet to pieces; examined the chimneys; peered into the kitchen oven and the copper;—in short, we pried into everything which, with the limited means at our disposal, could be pried into,—without result. At the end we found ourselves dusty, dirty, and discomfited. The cabman’s ‘old gent’ remained as much a mystery as ever, and no further trace had been discovered of Miss Lindon.

  Atherton made no effort to disguise his chagrin.

  ‘Now what’s to be done? There seems to be just nothing in the place at all, and yet that there is, and that it’s the key to the whole confounded business I should be disposed to swear.’

  ‘In that case I would suggest that you should stay and look for it. The cabman can go and look for the requisite tools, or a workman to assist you, if you like. For my part it appears to me that evidence of another sort is, for the moment, of paramount importance; and I propose to commence my search for it by making a call at the house which is over the way.’

  I had observed, on our arrival, that the road only contained two houses which were in anything like a finished state,—that which we were in, and another, some fifty or sixty yards further down, on the opposite side. It was to this I referred. The twain immediately proffered their companionship.

  ‘I will come with you,’ said Mr Lessingham.

  ‘And I,’ echoed Sydney. ‘We’ll leave this sweet homestead in charge of the cabman,—I’ll pull it to pieces afterwards.’ He went out and spoke to the driver. ‘Cabby, we’re going to pay a visit to the little crib over there,—you keep an eye on this one. And if you see a sign of anyone being about the place,—living, or dead, or anyhow—you give me a yell. I shall be on the lookout, and I’ll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson.’

  ‘You bet I’ll yell,—I’ll raise the hair right off you.’ The fellow grinned. ‘But I don’t know if you gents are hiring me by the day,—I want to change my horse; he ought to have been in his stable a couple of hours ago.’