The Shadow of the Rope

by E. W. Hornung

  CHAPTER XX

  MORE HASTE

  There are eminent men of action who can acquit themselves with equalcredit upon the little field of letters, as some of the very best booksof late years go to prove. The man of letters, on the other hand,capable of cutting a respectable figure in action, is, one fears, a muchrarer type. Langholm was essentially a man of letters. He was at hisbest among his roses and his books, at his worst in unforeseen collisionwith the rougher realities of life. But give him time, and he was notthe man to run away because his equipment for battle was as short as hisconfidence in himself; and perhaps such courage as he possessed was notless courageous for the crust of cowardice (mostly moral) through whichit always had to break. Langholm had one other qualification for thequest to which he had committed himself, but for which he was asthoroughly unsuited by temperament as by the whole tenor of his solitarylife. In addition to an ingenious imagination (a quality with its owndefects, as the sequel will show), he had that capacity for takingpains which has no disadvantageous side, though in Langholm's case, forone, it was certainly not a synonym for genius.

  It was 3.45 on the Monday afternoon when he alighted at King's Cross,having caught the 9.30 from Northborough after an early adieu to WilliamAllen Richardson and the rest. Langholm made sure of the time beforegetting into his hansom at the terminus.

  "Drive hard," he said, "to the Capital and Counties Bank in OxfordStreet."

  And he was there some minutes before the hour.

  "I want to know my exact balance, if it is not too much trouble to lookit up before you close."

  A slip of paper was soon put into Langholm's hand, and at a glance heflushed to the hat with pleasure and surprise, and so regained his cab."The Cadogan Hotel, in Sloane Street," he cried through the trap; "andthere's no hurry, you can go your own pace."

  Nor was there any further anxiety in Langholm's heart. His balance was aclear hundred more than he had expected to find it, and his whole soulsang the praises of a country life. Unbusinesslike and unmethodical ashe was, in everything but the preparation of MS., such a discoverycould never have been made in town, where Langholm's expenditure hadmarched arm-in-arm with his modest earnings.

  "And it can again," he said recklessly to himself, as he decided on thebest hotel in the field of his investigations, instead of lodgings;"thank God, I have enough to run this racket till the end of the year atleast! If I can't strike the trail by then--"

  He lapsed into dear reminiscence and dearer daydreams, their commonscene some two hundred miles north; but to realize his lapse was torecover from it promptly. Langholm glanced at himself in the littlemirror. His was an honest face, and it was an honest part that he mustplay, or none at all. He leaned over the apron and interested himself inthe London life that was so familiar to him still. It was as though hehad not been absent above a day, yet his perceptions were sharpened byhis very absence of so many weeks. The wood pavement gave off a strongbut not unpleasant scent in the heavy August heat; it was positivelydear to the old Londoner's nostrils. The further he drove upon hissouthwesterly course, the emptier were the well-known thoroughfares. St.James's Street might have been closed to traffic; the clubs in PallMall were mostly shut. On the footways strolled the folk whom one onlysees there in August and September, the entire families from thecountry, the less affluent American, guide book in hand. Here and therewas a perennial type, the pale actor with soft hat and blue-black chin,the ragged sloucher from park to park. Langholm could have foregatheredwith one and all, such was the strange fascination of the town for onewho was twice the man among his northern roses. But that is the kind ofmistress that London is to those who have once felt her spell; you mayforget her by the year, but the spell lies lurking in the first whiff ofthe wood pavement, the first flutter of the evening paper on the curb;and even in the cab you wonder how you have borne existence elsewhere.

  The hotel was very empty, and Langholm found not only the best of roomsat his disposal, but that flattering quality of attention which awaitsthe first comer when few come at all. He refreshed himself with tea anda bath, and then set out to reconnoitre the scene of the alreadyhalf-forgotten murder. He had a vague though sanguine notion that hisimaginative intuition might at once perceive some possibility which hadnever dawned upon the academic intelligence of the police.

  Of course he remembered the name of the street, and it was easilyfound. Nor had Langholm any difficulty in discovering the house, thoughhe had forgotten the number. There were very few houses in the street,and only one of them was empty and to let. It was plastered with thebills of various agents, and Langholm noted down the nearest of these,whose office was in King's Road. He would get an order to view thehouse, and would explore every inch of it that very night. But his bathand his tea had made away with the greater part of an hour; it was sixo'clock before Langholm reached the house-agent's, and the office wasalready shut.

  He dined quietly at his hotel, feeling none the less that he had made abeginning, and spent the evening looking up Chelsea friends, who werelikely to be more conversant than himself with all the circumstances ofMr. Minchin's murder and his wife's arrest; but who, as might have beenexpected, were one and all from home.

  In the morning the order of his plans were somewhat altered. It wasessential that he should have those circumstances at his fingers' ends,at least so far as they had transpired in open court. Langholm had readthe trial at the time with the inquisitive but impersonal interest whichsuch a case inspires in the average man. Now he must study it in a verydifferent spirit, and for the nonce he repaired betimes to the newspaperroom at the British Museum.

  By midday he had mastered most details of the complex case, and made anote of every name and address which had found their way into thenewspaper reports. But there was one name which did not appear in anyaccount. Langholm sought it in bound volume after bound volume, untileven the long-suffering attendants, who trundle the great tomes fromtheir shelves on trolleys, looked askance at the wanton reader whofilled in a new form every five or ten minutes. But the reader's faceshone with a brighter light at each fresh failure. Why had the name hewanted never come up in open court? Where was the evidence of the manwho had made all the mischief between the Minchins? Langholm intendedhaving first the one and then the other; already he was on the spring toa first conclusion. With a caution, however, which did infinite creditto one of his temperament, the amateur detective determined to look alittle further before leaping even in his own mind.

  Early in the afternoon he was back in Chelsea, making fraudulentrepresentations to the house-agent near the Vestry Hall.

  "Not more than ninety," repeated that gentleman, as he went through hisbook, and read out particulars of several houses at about that rental;but the house which Langholm burned to see over was not among thenumber.

  "I want a quiet street," said the wily writer, and named the one inwhich it stood. "Have you nothing there?"

  "I have one," said the agent with reserve, "and it's only seventy."

  "The less the better," cried Langholm, light-heartedly. "I should liketo see that one."

  The house-agent hesitated, finally looking Langholm in the face.

  "You may as well know first as last," said he, "for we have had enoughtrouble about that house. It was let last year for ninety; we're askingseventy because it is the house in which Mr. Minchin was shot dead.Still want to see it?" inquired the house-agent, with a wry smile.

  It was all Langholm could do to conceal his eagerness, but in the end heescaped with several orders to view, and the keys of the house of housesin his pocket. No caretaker could be got to live in it; the agent seemedhalf-surprised at Langholm's readiness to see over it all alone.

  About an hour later the novelist stood at a door whose name and numberwere not inscribed upon any of the orders obtained by fraud from theKing's Road agent. It was a door that needed painting, and there was aconspicuous card in the ground-floor window. Langholm tugged twice inhis impatience at the old-fashioned bell. If his fac
e had been alightbefore, it was now on fire, for by deliberate steps he had arrived atthe very conclusion to which he had been inclined to jump. At last camea slut of the imperishable lodging-house type.

  "Is your mistress in?"

  "No."

  "When do you expect her?"

  "Not before night."

  "Any idea what time of night?"

  The untidy child had none, but at length admitted that she had orders tokeep the fire in for the landlady's supper. Langholm drew his owndeduction. It would be little use in returning before nine o'clock. Fivehours to wait! He made one more cast before he went.

  "Have you been here long, my girl?"

  "Going on three months."

  "But your mistress has been here some years?"

  "I believe so."

  "Are you her only servant?"

  "Yes."

  And five hours to wait for more!

  It seemed an infinity to Langholm as he turned away. But at all eventsthe house had not changed hands. The woman he would eventually see wasthe woman who had given invaluable evidence at the Old Bailey.