CHAPTER XIII.
A LIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF DR. PYE.
"Worry enough, in all conscience," said Dick, "and you've got a levelhead, too, if any member of the force has. You're the last man Ishould have expected to be scared by shadows."
"Not what you might call scared," replied Constable Applebee,unwilling to admit as much to a layman; "put out, sir, put out--that'sthe right word. A man may be put out in so many ways. His wife may puthim out--and she often does--an underdone chop may put him out--afractious child may put him out--likewise buttons. It's what we'reborn to."
"Well, say put out," said Dick with a hearty laugh. "And by shadows,too, of all things in the world! Still, one might be excused on such anight as this. The mist floats, shadows rise, and there you are. Allsorts of fancies crept into my head as I walked along, and if I'd beenemployed on duty as monotonous as yours I have no doubt I should haveheard sounds and seen shapes that have no existence."
"You talk like a book, sir."
"What was the nature of the flesh and blood that slipped through yourfingers like a ghost, Applebee?"
"Human nature, sir. I'll take my oath it was a woman. I had her by thearm, and presto! she was gone!"
"A woman," said Dick, thinking of Mrs. Death. "Did she have a childwith her, a poor little mite with a churchyard cough?"
"I don't call to mind a child. It was in Catchpole Square it happened.I shall report it."
"Of course you will," said Dick, convinced that it was Mrs. Death, butwondering why she should have been so anxious to escape. "Talking ofCatchpole Square, have you seen anything this last day or two of Mr.Samuel Boyd?"
"Haven't set eyes on him for a week past. To make sure, now--is it aweek? No, it was Friday night that I saw him last. I can fix the timebecause a carriage pulled up at Deadman's Court, and a lady got out.She went through the court, followed by the footman."
"Did she stop long, do you know?"
"Couldn't have stopped very long. I hung about a bit, and when I comeround again the carriage was driving away. All sorts of people dealwith Samuel Boyd, poor and rich, high and low. That house of his couldtell tales."
"So could most houses, Applebee."
"True enough, sir. There's no city in the world so full of mystery asLondon. We're a strange lot, sir. I read in a book once that everyhouse contains a skeleton. The human mind, sir," said ConstableApplebee, philosophically, "the human mind is a box, and no one butthe man who owns that mind knows what is shut up in it."
It was a pregnant opening for discussion, but Dick did not pursue it.He returned to the subject that was engrossing his thoughts.
"Samuel Boyd kept a clerk,----"
"And I pity the poor devil," interjected the constable.
"So do I. The name of his last clerk is Abel Death. You've noticedhim, I dare say."
"Oh, yes, I've noticed him. A weedy sort of chap--looks as it he hadall the cares of the world on his shoulders. I didn't know his name,though. Abel Death! If it was mine, I'd change it."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"Let me think, now. It was Friday night when I saw him last. I noticedhim particularly, because he staggered a bit, walked zig-zag like, asif he'd had a glass too much. That was what I thought at first, but Ialtered my opinion when I caught sight of his face. It wasn't so muchlike a man who'd been drinking, but like one who was fairly demented.Any special reason for asking about him, sir?"
"No special reason," replied Dick, not feeling himself justified inrevealing what had passed in the police station, "You would call Mr.Death a respectable person, I suppose?"
"When there's nothing against a man," said Constable Applebee, "you'rebound in common fairness to call him respectable. From the little Iknow of him I should say, poor, _but_ respectable. If we come to that,there's plenty of poor devils in the same boat."
"Too many, Applebee. I can't help thinking of that woman you caught bythe arm. It was a curious little adventure."
"It was, sir, and I don't know that I was ever more nonplussed.There's nothing curious in her being in Catchpole Square. She mighthave slipped in there to sleep the night out, not having money enoughto pay for a bed. Pond and me happened to meet on the boundary of ourbeats, and we strolled into the Square. I could have swore that shewas creeping along the wall; perhaps she was scared at the sight ofus, and had a reason for not wanting to fall in the hands of the law."
"That will hardly hold water," said Dick. "She could have had noclearer a sight of you than you had of her. There have been too manybad deeds committed in dark places in the dead of the night, andseeing something moving that she couldn't account for, she wasfrightened and ran away. Did you call out to her?"
"I did. 'Now, then,' I cried, 'what are you up to?' Not a word did sheanswer. Then I caught hold of her; then she vanished. Which goes toprove," said Constable Applebee, contemplatively, "that she wasn't oneof the regular ones. If she'd been a regular one she'd have cheekedus. Not being a regular one, what business did she have there? AnywayCatchpole Square ain't exactly the place _I_ would choose for anight's lodging."
"Beggars can't be choosers," remarked Dick.
"Right you are, sir. They can't."
The conversation slackened, and the men walked slowly along ShoreStreet, the constable, like a zealous officer, trying the doors andlooking up at the windows.
"The people inside," he said, "are better off than we are. They'resnugly tucked up between the sheets, dreaming of pleasanter thingsthan tramping a thick fog."
"There's somebody there," said Dick, pointing to a first floorwindow, where, through the mist, a light could be dimly seen,"who isn't between the sheets. See how the light shifts, like awill-o'-the-wisp."
"That's Dr. Pye's house, where the midnight oil is always burning.Yes, he's awake, the doctor; it's my belief he never sleeps. A clevergentleman, Dr. Pye, as chockful of science as an egg is of meat. Doyou happen to be acquainted with him, sir?"
"No."
"A strange character, sir. The things they tell of him is beyondbelief. I've heard say that he's discovered the secret of prolonginglife, and of making an old man young."
"But you haven't heard that he has ever done it."
"No, or I might have asked him what his charge was for taking ten ortwenty years off. Perhaps it's as well, though, to fight shy of thatsort of thing. What they say of Dr. Pye may be true, or it mayn't, butyou may make sure that he's always at his experiments. Pass his houseat any hour of the night you like, and you may depend upon seeing thatlight burning in his window."
"Those are the men who make the wonderful discoveries we hear of fromtime to time. Think of what the world was and what it is. How didpeople do without reading? How did people do without gas? How did theydo without steam? How did they do without electricity? That littlelight burning in Dr. Pye's window may mean greater wonders than everwas found in Aladdin's cave. As Shakespeare says, Applebee, 'What apiece of work is man!'"
"Ah," observed Constable Applebee, with a profound shake of his head,"he might well say that, sir."
"Putting a supposititious case," said Dick, and as Constable Applebeeremarked to his wife next day when he gave her an account of thisconversation, "the way he went on and the words he used fairlyflabbergasted me"--"Putting a supposititious case, let us suppose thatyou and I fell asleep as we are standing here, and woke up in fiftyyears, what astounding things we should see!"
"It won't bear thinking of, sir."
"Then we won't think of it. Applebee, I am surprised that you have notasked me why I am wandering through the streets on such a night and atsuch an hour, when _I_ ought to be snug in bed, dreaming of--angels."
"Who am I, sir, that I should be putting a parcel of questions toyou?"
"You exhibit a delicacy for which you deserve great credit. I willmake a clean breast of it, Applebee. The fact is, I am looking for alodging."
"You always _was_ a bit of a wag, sir," said Constable Applebee, withtwinkling
eyes.
"Was I? But I assure you I am not wagging now. Do you know of a roomto let in a decent house in the neighbourhood, where they would givetheir young man lodger a latchkey?"
"Now, _are_ you serious, sir?"
"As a judge."
"Well, then, there's Constable Pond, sir. He's taken a house inParadise Row, and there's a room to let in it; he mentioned it to meonly to-night. If you're really in earnest he'd jump at you."
"From which metaphor," said Dick, with mock seriousness, "I judge thathe would consider me an eminently fit person to be entrusted with alatchkey."
"That's the ticket, sir," said Constable Applebee, bursting withlaughter. "Upon _my_ word, you're the merriest gentleman I've everknown. It's as good as a play, it is."
"Better than many I've seen, I hope," said Dick, still with his mockserious air, which confirmed Constable Applebee in his belief that theyoung fellow was having a joke with him. "Am I mistaken in supposingthat there is a Mrs. Pond?"
"To be sure there is, and as nice a woman as ever breathed. No familyat present, but my missis tells me"--here he dropped his voice, asthough he were communicating a secret of a sacred nature--"that Mrs.Pond has expectations."
"May they be realised in a happy hour! I'll pay a visit to the Pondsto-morrow, and if the room is not snapped up in the meantime byanother person you will hear of me as their young man lodger. Goodnight, Applebee."
"Good night, sir."
Constable Applebee looked after him till he was swallowed up in theprevailing gloom, and then resumed his duties.
"What a chap that is!" he ruminated. "You can't mention a subject heain't up in. That notion of his of falling asleep and waking up infifty years ain't half a bad one. He does put ideas into a man's head.It's an education to talk to him."
Dick did not hesitate as to his route. Turning the corner of ShoreStreet he walked to Deadman's Court, and through it into CatchpoleSquare, where he paused before the house of Samuel Boyd.
"No midnight oil burning there," he mused, his eyes searching thewindows for some sign of life. "The place is as still as death itself.I'll try Mrs. Death's dodge. If Mr. Boyd comes down I'll ask him if hehas a room to let."
He smiled at the notion, and applied himself to the knocker. Butthough he knocked, and knocked vigorously again and again, and threwstones at the upper panes of glass, and listened at the door, he heardno movement within the house.
"There's a mystery inside these walls," said Dick, "and I'll pluck outits heart, or know the reason why. But how to obtain an entrance? Theadjoining houses are empty. Is there a door loose in one of them?"
There was no door loose; even if there had been, Dick, uponreflection, did not see how it would have been of assistance to him.There was a dead wall at the back of the house.
"That way, perhaps," said Dick.
He left the Square, and groped in the direction of the dead wall. Itwas about ten feet in height--a smooth expanse of cement, with not afoothold in it by which he could mount to the top. A rope with agrapnel at the end would meet the case, and Dick determined to procureone, and pay another visit to the place the following night.
He lingered in the neighbourhood, sitting down on a doorstep now andagain, and closing his eyes for a few minutes' doze. During theseintervals of insensibility the strangest fancies presented themselves.He was with Mrs. Death and Gracie in the police station, listening tothe story she had told, which now was exaggerated and distorted in athousand different ways. "My husband, my husband!" she moaned "Whatshall I do without him? What will the children do without him?" Thepolice station was instantly crowded with a great number of raggedlittle elfs, who, with misery in their faces, wailed, "What shall wedo without him? What shall we do without him?" And then, in the midstof a sudden silence, Gracie's hoarse voice, saying, "You _will_ findfather, won't you?" An appeal immediately taken up by the horde ofchildren, "You _will_ find father, won't you? You _will_ find father!You _will_ find father!" The vision faded, and he saw Abel Deathstaggering through a deserted street in which only one sickly yellowlight was burning. He was talking to himself, and his face wasconvulsed with passion. Behind him slunk the figure of SamuelBoyd--and behind him, Mr. Reginald and Florence. Good God! Whatbrought _them_ into the tragic mystery? What possible or impossiblepart had _they_ played in it? The torture of the dreamer's mind wasmomentarily arrested by the ringing out of one dread word, clear andshrill as from the mouth of a clarion!
"MURDER!"
Dick started to his feet, his forehead bathed in perspiration. Had theword really been uttered, and by whom? He stood in the midst ofsilence and darkness.