There were hundreds of compositorsliving in the neighbourhood, and if I made a false statement it would atonce be detected. With Williams I was friendly, and we often had aglass together and a pipe.
Our life in Camberwell was surely the strangest ever led by man andwoman. Before those who knew us I was compelled to call her "Molly,"while she addressed me as "Willie," just as though I were her husband.
A thousand times I asked her the real reason of that masquerade, but shesteadfastly declined to tell me.
"You may be able to save me," was all the information she wouldvouchsafe.
Darkness fell early, for it was early in February, and each night Istole forth from the Caledonian Hotel on my tour of vigilance. Thehotel people did not think it strange that I was a working-man. It wasa quiet, comfortable place. I paid well, and was friendly with thehall-porter.
With the faithful Budd's assistance--for he was friendly with Winsloe'svalet--I knew almost as much of the fellow's movements as he didhimself. I dogged his footsteps everywhere. Once he went down toSydenham Hill, called upon Mrs Parham, and remained there about an hourwhile I waited outside in the quiet suburban road. When he emerged hewas carrying a square parcel packed in brown paper, and this he conveyedback to Victoria, and afterwards took a cab to his own chambers.
He had not been there more than a quarter of an hour, when along KingStreet came a figure that I at once recognised as that of the man I mostwanted to meet--John Parham himself.
I drew back and crossed the road, watching him enter Winsloe's chambers,of which he apparently had a latchkey.
Then I waited, for I meant, at all hazards, to track the fellow to hishiding-place, and to discover the true identity of the house where I hadbeen so ingeniously entrapped.
At last he emerged carrying the square packet which his friend hadobtained at Sydenham, and behind him also came Winsloe. They walkedacross St James's Square and up York Street to the Trocadero, where,after having a drink together, they parted, Winsloe going along CoventryStreet, while his companion, with the packet in his hand, remained onthe pavement in Shaftesbury Avenue, apparently undecided which directionto take.
I was standing in the doorway of the Cafe Monico opposite, watching himkeenly, and saw that he was evidently well known at the Trocadero, forthe gold-laced hall-porter saluted him and wished him good-evening.
A few moments later he got into a cab and drove away, while in a fewseconds I had entered another cab and was following him. We went upShaftesbury Avenue, turning into Dean Street and thus reaching OxfordStreet opposite Rathbone Place, where he alighted, looked around asthough to satisfy himself that he was not followed, and walked on at arapid pace up Rathbone Place, afterwards turning into many smallerthoroughfares with which I was unacquainted. Once he turned, and Ifeared that he had detected me, therefore I crossed the road andascended the steps of a house, where I pretended to ring the door-bell.
He glanced back again, and finding that he was not being followedincreased his pace and turned the corner. I was after him in aninstant, and still followed him at a respectable distance until after hehad turned several corners and was walking up a quiet, rather ill-litstreet of dark old-fashioned houses, he glanced up and down and thensuddenly disappeared into one of the door-ways. My quick eyes noted thehouse and then, five minutes afterwards, I walked quickly past theplace.
In a moment I recognised the doorway as that of the house with the fatalstairs!
Returning, on the opposite side of the road, I saw that the place was intotal darkness, yet outwardly it was in no way different to itsneighbours, with the usual flight of steps leading to the front door,the deep basement, and the high iron railings still bearing before thedoor the old extinguishers used by the ink-men in the early days of lastcentury. I recognised the house by those extinguishers. The blinds hadnot been lowered, therefore I conjectured that the place was unoccupied.
The street was, I found, called Clipstone Street, and it lay betweenCleveland Street and Great Portland Street, in quite a differentdirection than that in which I had imagined it to be.
After a quarter of an hour Parham emerged without his parcel, closed thedoor behind him, and walked on to Portland Place, where, from the standoutside the Langham, he took a cab to Lyric Chambers, in WhitcombStreet, opposite Leicester Square, where I discovered he had his abode.
My heart beat wildly, for I knew that I was now on the verge of adiscovery. I had gained knowledge that placed the assassins of EricDomville in my hands.
I lost not a moment. At the Tottenham Court Road Police Station I wasfortunate in finding Inspector Pickering on duty, and he at oncerecognised me as the hero of that strange subterranean adventure.
As soon as I told him I had discovered the mysterious house he was, inan instant, on the alert, and calling two plain-clothes men announcedhis intention of going with me at once to Clipstone Street to makeinvestigations.
"Better take some tools with you, Edwards, to open the door, and alantern, each of you," he said to them. Then turning to me, he added,--
"If what we suspect is true, sir, there's been some funny goings-on inthat house. But we shall see."
He took a revolver from his desk and placed it in his pocket, andafterwards exchanged his uniform coat for a dark tweed jacket in ordernot to attract attention in the neighbourhood.
Then we all four went forth to ascertain the truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
THE HOUSE OF DOOM.
On arrival at Clipstone Street our first inquiry was to ascertainwhether the place was inhabited.
While we waited around the corner in Great Portland Street, one ofPickering's men approached and rang the bell, but though he repeated thesummons several times, there was no response. Then, with easy agility,he climbed over the railings and disappeared into the area.
Leaving the second man to give us warning if we were noticed, Pickeringand myself sauntered along to the house.
It was nearly eleven o'clock, and there were few passers-by, yet we didnot wish to be discovered, for our investigations were to be madestrictly in secret, prior to the police taking action.
Was I acting judiciously, I wondered? Would the revelation I had madereflect upon Sybil herself? Would those men who used that house hurlagainst her a terrible and relentless vendetta?
Whether wisely or unwisely, however, I had instituted the inquiry, andcould not now draw back.
The inspector himself took the small bag containing aserviceable-looking housebreaker's jemmy and other tools, and as we cameto the area handed it down to the man below. Then both of us scrambledover the locked gate and descended the steps to the basement door bywhich it had been decided to enter.
The plain-clothes man was something of a mechanic, I could see, for hewas soon at work upon the lock, yet although he tried for a full quarterof an hour to open the door, it resisted all his efforts.
"It's bolted," he declared at last, wiping the perspiration from hisbrow. "We must try the front door. That's no doubt only on the latch.If we force this they'll know we've been here, while if we force thelatch we can put that right again before we leave."
"Very well, Edwards," was the inspector's reply. "Go up alone and doit. It won't do for us both to be up with you. Force the latch, andlet us trust to luck to be able to put it right again. We'll have tolay a trap here--of that I feel sure."
The man ascended to the door above us, but scarcely had he done so whenwe heard the hoarse cry of "_Star_--extrar spe-shall!" from the furtherend of the street--the pre-arranged signal warning us of someoneapproaching.
Edwards therefore slipped down the steps and walked in the oppositedirection until the two men who had entered the street had passed. ThenEdwards sprang up the steps again, and after trying the lock with anumber of keys we suddenly heard a low crack, and then there wassilence.
"All right," he whispered to us over the railings, and a minute later wewere standing inside the dark hall of the house wherein I had so nearlylost my lif
e. Edwards closed the door behind us noiselessly, and wewere compelled to grope forward in the pitch darkness, for the inspectordeemed it wise to draw down the blinds before lighting our lanterns, forfear our movements should attract notice from without.
Edwards entered the front room on the right, stumbling over somefurniture, and pulled down the dark holland blind, while a moment latera rapping on the front door announced the arrival of the man who hadbeen watching to cover our movements.
The policemen's lanterns, when lit, revealed an old-fashioned roomfurnished solidly in leather--a dining-room, though there were noevidences of it having been recently used. Behind it, entered byfolding doors, was another sitting-room with heavy well-worn furniturecovered with old-fashioned horsehair. In the room was a modern roll-topwriting-table, the drawers of which Pickering reserved for futureinvestigation.
"Be careful of the stairs," I said, as Edwards started to ascend