Part 30 (2/2)
My bitterest regret was that I had not been able to follow Parham and trace him to the house of doom, but at the moment of his disappearance I had been unable to emerge from my hiding-place, otherwise the girl O'Hara would have seen me. Perhaps, indeed, she might have recognised me. So, by sheer force of adverse circ.u.mstances, I was compelled to remain there and see the trio escape under my very nose.
I had learnt one important fact, however, namely, that a deep conspiracy was afoot against Sybil.
It was beyond comprehension how Tibbie, daughter of the n.o.ble and patrician house of Scarcliff, could be so intimately a.s.sociated with what appealed to me to be a daring gang of malefactors. The treatment I had received at their hands showed me their utter unscrupulousness. I wondered whether what the police suspected was really true, that others had lost their lives in that house wherein I had so nearly lost mine.
What was the story of Tibbie's a.s.sociation with them--a romance no doubt, that had had its tragic ending in the death of the unknown in Charlton Wood.
To me, it seemed plain that he was a member of the gang, for had he not their secret cipher upon him, and did not both Winsloe and Parham possess his photograph?
I recollected the receipt for a registered letter which I had found among the letters in the dead man's pocket, and next morning told Budd to go and unlock the drawer in my writing-table and bring it to me. He did so, and I saw that the receipt was for a letter handed in at the post-office at Blandford in Dorset, addressed to: ”Charles Denton, 16b Bolton Road, Pendleton, Manchester.”
I turned over the receipt in my hand, wondering whether the slip of paper would reveal anything to me. Then, after some reflection, I resolved to break my journey in Manchester on my return to Tibbie in Carlisle, and ascertain who was this man to whom the dead unknown had sent a letter registered.
Next afternoon I pa.s.sed through Salford in a tram-car, along by Peel Park, and up the Broad Street to Pendleton, alighting at the junction of those two thoroughfares, the one leading to aristocratic Eccles and Patricroft, and the other out to bustling Bolton.
The Bolton road is one over which much heavy traffic pa.s.ses, and is lined with small houses, a working-cla.s.s district, for there are many mills and factories in the vicinity. I found the house of which I was in search, a small, rather clean-looking place, and as I pa.s.sed a homely-looking woman was taking in the milk from the milkman.
Without hesitation I stopped, and addressing her, exclaimed,--
”Excuse me, mum, but do you happen to know a Mr Charles Denton?”
The woman scanned me quickly with some suspicion, I thought, but noticing, I supposed, that although a working-man I seemed highly respectable, replied bluntly, in a p.r.o.nounced Lancas.h.i.+re dialect,--
”Yes, I do. What may you want with him?”
”I want to see him on some important business,” was my vague reply. ”Is he at home?”
”No, he ain't,” was the woman's response. ”Mr Denton lodges with me, but 'e's up in London just now, and 'e's been there this four months.”
”In London!” I exclaimed.
”Yes, but I don't know his address. When he goes away 'e never leaves it. He's lodged with me this two years, but I don't think 'e's been here more than six months altogether the whole time.”
”Then you have a lot of letters for him, I suppose?”
”Yes, quite a lot,” answered the good woman. The letter sent by the dead man might be among them!
”It was about a letter that I wanted to see Mr Denton--about a registered letter. I've come from London on purpose.”
”From London!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the woman, a stout, good-humoured person.
”Yes. I wonder whether you'd mind me looking at the letters, if it is among them I'd know he had not received it. The fact is,” I added in confidence, ”there's a big lawsuit pending, and if he hasn't got the letter then the other side can't take any action against him.”
”Then you're on his side?” she asked shrewdly.
”Of course I am. I came down to explain matters to him. If I can ascertain that he didn't get the letter then that's all I want. I'm a stranger, I know,” I added, ”but as it is in Mr Denton's interest I don't think you'll refuse.”
She hesitated, saying she thought she ought to ask her husband when he returned from the mill. But by a.s.suring her of her lodger's peril, and that I had to catch the six-thirty train back to London, I at last induced her to admit me to the house, and there in the small, clean, front parlour which was given over to her lodger when he was there, she took a quant.i.ty of letters from a cupboard and placed them before me.
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