Part 30 (1/2)

”Oh, no,” answered Tom, quickly. ”You remember he went out after me; at least, so Mrs. Drabdump said at the inquest.”

”That last conversation he had with you, Tom,” said Denzil. ”He didn't say anything to you that would lead you to suppose--”

”No, of course not!” interrupted Mortlake, impatiently.

”Do you really think he was murdered, Tom?” said Denzil.

”Mr. Wimp's opinion on that point is more valuable than mine,”

replied Tom, testily. ”It may have been suicide. Men often get sick of life--especially if they are bored,” he added meaningly.

”Ah, but you were the last person known to be with him,” said Denzil.

Crowl laughed. ”Had you there, Tom.”

But they did not have Tom there much longer, for he departed, looking even worse-tempered than when he came. Wimp went soon after, and Crowl and Denzil were left to their interminable argumentation concerning the Useful and the Beautiful.

Wimp went West. He had several strings (or cords) to his bow, and he ultimately found himself at Kensal Green Cemetery. Being there, he went down the avenues of the dead to a grave to note down the exact date of a death. It was a day on which the dead seemed enviable. The dull, sodden sky, the dripping, leafless trees, the wet, spongy soil, the reeking gra.s.s--everything combined to make one long to be in a warm, comfortable grave away from the leaden _ennuis_ of life. Suddenly the detective's keen eye caught sight of a figure that made his heart throb with sudden excitement. It was that of a woman in a grey shawl and a brown bonnet, standing before a railed-in grave. She had no umbrella. The rain plashed mournfully upon her, but left no trace on her soaking garments. Wimp crept up behind her, but she paid no heed to him. Her eyes were lowered to the grave, which seemed to be drawing them towards it by some strange morbid fascination. His eyes followed hers. The simple headstone bore the name, ”Arthur Constant.”

Wimp tapped her suddenly on the shoulder.

”How do you do, Mrs. Drabdump?”

Mrs. Drabdump went deadly white. She turned round, staring at Wimp without any recognition.

”You remember me, surely,” he said; ”I've been down once or twice to your place about that poor gentleman's papers.” His eye indicated the grave.

”Lor! I remember you now,” said Mrs. Drabdump.

”Won't you come under my umbrella? You must be drenched to the skin.”

”It don't matter, sir. I can't take no hurt. I've had the rheumatics this twenty year.”

Mrs. Drabdump shrank from accepting Wimp's attentions, not so much perhaps because he was a man as because he was a gentleman. Mrs. Drabdump liked to see the fine folks keep their place, and not contaminate their skirts by contact with the lower castes. ”It's set wet, it'll rain right into the new year,” she announced. ”And they say a bad beginnin' makes a worse endin'.” Mrs. Drabdump was one of those persons who give you the idea that they just missed being born barometers.

”But what are you doing in this miserable spot, so far from home?”

queried the detective.

”It's Bank Holiday,” Mrs. Drabdump reminded him in tones of acute surprise. ”I always make a hexcursion on Bank Holiday.”

VIII

The New Year drew Mrs. Drabdump a new lodger. He was an old gentleman with a long grey beard. He rented the rooms of the late Mr. Constant, and lived a very retired life. Haunted rooms--or rooms that ought to be haunted if the ghosts of those murdered in them had any self-respect--are supposed to fetch a lower rent in the market. The whole Irish problem might be solved if the spirits of ”Mr. Balfour's victims” would only depreciate the value of property to a point consistent with the support of an agricultural population. But Mrs. Drabdump's new lodger paid so much for his rooms that he laid himself open to a suspicion of a special interest in ghosts. Perhaps he was a member of the Psychical Society.

The neighbourhood imagined him another mad philanthropist, but as he did not appear to be doing any good to anybody it relented and conceded his sanity. Mortlake, who occasionally stumbled across him in the pa.s.sage, did not trouble himself to think about him at all. He was too full of other troubles and cares. Though he worked harder than ever, the spirit seemed to have gone out of him. Sometimes he forgot himself in a fine rapture of eloquence--las.h.i.+ng himself up into a divine resentment of injustice or a pa.s.sion of sympathy with the sufferings of his brethren--but mostly he plodded on in dull, mechanical fas.h.i.+on. He still made brief provincial tours, starring a day here and a day there, and everywhere his admirers remarked how jaded and overworked he looked.

There was talk of starting a subscription to give him a holiday on the Continent--a luxury obviously un.o.btainable on the few pounds allowed him per week. The new lodger would doubtless have been pleased to subscribe, for he seemed quite to like occupying Mortlake's chamber the nights he was absent, though he was thoughtful enough not to disturb the hard-worked landlady in the adjoining room by unseemly noise. Wimp was always a quiet man.

Meantime the twenty-first of the month approached, and the East-end was in excitement. Mr. Gladstone had consented to be present at the ceremony of unveiling the portrait of Arthur Constant, presented by an unknown donor to the Bow Break o' Day Club, and it was to be a great function.

The whole affair was outside the lines of party politics, so that even Conservatives and Socialists considered themselves justified in pestering the committee for tickets. To say nothing of ladies! As the committee desired to be present themselves, nine-tenths of the applications for admission had to be refused, as is usual on these occasions. The committee agreed among themselves to exclude the fair s.e.x altogether as the only way of disposing of their womankind, who were making speeches as long as Mr. Gladstone's. Each committeeman told his sisters, female cousins, and aunts, that the other committeemen had insisted on divesting the function of all grace; and what could a man do when he was in a minority of one?