CHAPTER ELEVEN WHAT THE POLICE KNEW

As I pushed my way through the tangle of weeds and undergrowth, Jack followed closely at my heels.

The dark figure leapt away in an instant, and dashed round the corner by the ruined conservatory, but I was too quick for him. I caught him up when he gained the front of the house, and there, in the light of the street-lamp, my eyes fell upon a strange-looking object.

He proved to be a ragged, hunchbacked youth, so deformed as to be extremely ugly, both in face and figure. His hair, long and lank, hung about his shoulders, while his dark eyes stood out in terror when I ordered him to halt, and covered him with my shining weapon.

His was the most weird figure that I had seen for many a day. I judged him to be about eighteen or nineteen, though he looked older. His legs were short, his head seemed far too big for his crooked body, while his arms were long and ape-like, and his fingers thin, like talons.

“Now then, what are you doing here?” I demanded in a firm, commanding voice.

But he only quivered, and crouched against the wall like a whipped dog.

“Speak!” I said. “Who are you?”

He gave vent to a loud, harsh laugh, almost a screech, and then grinned horribly in my face.

“Who are you?” I repeated. “Where do you live?”

But though his mouth moved, as though he replied, no sound escaped him.

I spoke again, but he only laughed wildly, his thin fingers twitching.

“Ho! ho! ho!” he ejaculated, pointing back to the neglected garden.

“I wonder what he means!” exclaimed Jack.

“Why, I believe he’s an idiot!” I remarked.

“He has every appearance of one,” declared my companion, who then addressed him, with the same negative result.

Again the weird, repulsive youth pointed back to the garden, and, laughing hideously, uttered some words in gibberish which were quite unintelligible.

“If we remain here chattering, the constable will find us,” I remarked, so we all three went forth into the street, the ugly hunchback walking at my side, quite tractable and quiet.

Presently, unable to gather a single intelligible sentence from him, Jack and I resolved to leave him, and afterwards follow him and ascertain where he lived.

Why had he pointed to the garden and laughed so hilariously? Had he witnessed any of those nocturnal preparations—or interments?

At last, at the corner of Bishop’s Road, we wished him farewell and turned away. Then, at a respectable distance, we drew into a gateway to watch. He remained standing where we had left him for some ten minutes or so, until a constable slowly approached, and, halting, began to chat to him.

Apparently he was a well-known figure, for we could hear the policeman speaking, and could distinguish the poor fellow laughing that queer, harsh, discordant laugh—the laugh of the idiot.

Presently the constable moved forward again, whereupon I said—

“I’ll get on and have a chat with the policeman, Jack. You follow the hunchback if he moves away.”

“Right-ho,” replied my friend, while I sped off, crossing the road and making a detour until I met the constable.

Having wished him good-night, I inquired the identity of the deformed youth.

“Oh, sir,” he laughed, “that’s Mad ’Arry. ’E’s quite ’armless. ’E’s out most nights, but we never see ’im in the day, poor chap. I’ve known ’im ever since he was about nine.”

“Does no work, I suppose?”

“None. ’Ow can ’e? ’E’s as mad as a hatter, as the sayin’ goes,” replied the constable, his thumbs hitched in his belt as he stood.

“A kind of midnight wanderer, eh?”

“Yes, ’e’s always a-pryin’ about at night. Not long ago ’e found burglars in a ’ouse in Gloucester Terrace, and gave us the alarm. We copped four of ’em. The magistrate gave ’im a guinea out o’ the poor-box.”

“Ah! so he’s of use to you?”

“Yes, sir, ’e’s most intelligent where there’s any suspicious characters about. I’ve often put ’im on the watch myself.”

“Then he’s not quite insane?”

“Not on that point, at any rate,” laughed the officer.

“Where does he live?”

“’Is father’s a hackney-carriage driver, and ’e lives with ’im up in Gloucester Mews, just at the back of Porchester Mews—I don’t know if you know it?”

I was compelled to confess ignorance of the locality, but he directed me.

“Are you on night-duty in Porchester Terrace, constable?” I asked a few moments later.

“Yes, sir, sometimes. Why?”

“You know Althorp House, of course?”

“Yes, the ’aunted ’ouse, as some people call it. Myself, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Neither do I,” I laughed, “but I’ve heard many funny stories about that place. Have you ever heard any?”

“Lots, sir,” replied the man. “We’re always being told of strange things that ’ave ’appened there, yet when we ’ave a look around we never find anything, so we’ve ceased to trouble. Our inspector’s given us orders not to make any further inquiries, ’e’s been worried too often over idle gossip.”

“What’s the latest story afloat concerning the place?” I asked. “I’m always interested in mysteries of that sort.”

“Oh, I ’eard yesterday that somebody was seen to get out of a taxi-cab and enter. And ’e ’asn’t been seen to come forth again.”

“That’s curious,” I said. “And haven’t you looked over the place?”

“I’m not on duty there. Perhaps my mate ’as. I don’t know. But, funnily enough,” added the officer, “Mad ’Arry has been tellin’ me something about it a moment ago—something I can’t understand—something about the garden. I suppose ’e’s been a-fancyin’ something or other. Everybody seems to see something in the garden, or at the windows. Why, about a week ago, a servant from one of the ’ouses in the Terrace came up to me at three o’clock in the afternoon, in broad daylight, and said as how she’d distinctly seen at the drawin’-room window the face of a pretty, fair-haired girl a-peerin’ through the side of the dirty blind. She described the girl, too, and said that as soon as she saw she was noticed the inmate of the place drew back instantly.”

“A fair-haired girl!” I exclaimed, quickly interested.

“Yes; she described her as wearin’ a black velvet band on her hair.”

“And what did you do?” I asked anxiously.

“Why, nothing. I’ve ’eard too many o’ them kind o’ tales before.”

“Yes,” I said reflectively. “Of course all kinds of legends and rumours must naturally spring up around a house so long closed.”

“Of course. It’s all in people’s imagination. I suppose they’ll say next that a murder’s been committed in the place!” he laughed.

“I suppose so,” I said, and then, putting a shilling in his hand, wished him good-night, and passed along.

Jack and the idiot had gone, but, knowing the direction they had taken—for the youth was, no doubt, on his way home—I was not long before I caught up my friend, and then together we retraced our steps towards the Bayswater Road, in search of a taxi.

I could not forget that curious statement that a girl’s face had been seen at the drawing-room window—a fair-headed girl with a band of black velvet in her hair.

Could it have been Sylvia Pennington?

It was past three o’clock in the morning before I retraced my steps to Wilton Street. We were unable to find a cab, therefore we walked down Park Lane together.

On the way Jack had pressed me to tell him the reason of my visit to that weird house and the circumstances in which my life had been attempted. For the present, however, I refused to satisfy his curiosity. I promised him I would tell him the whole facts of the case some day.

“But why are you at home now?” he asked. “I can’t really make you out lately, Owen. You told me you hated London, and preferred life on the Continent, yet here you are, back again, and quite settled down in town!”

“Well, a fellow must come here for the London season sometimes,” I said. “I feel that I’ve been away far too long, and am a bit out of touch with things. Why, my tailor hardly knew me, and the hall-porter at White’s had to look twice before he realized who I was.”

“But there’s some attraction which has brought you to London,” he declared. “I’m sure there is!”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him how cleverly the two scoundrels had used his name wherewith to entrap me on the previous night. But I refrained. Instead, I asked—

“Have you ever met two men named Reckitt and Forbes, Jack?”

“Not to my knowledge,” was his prompt reply. “Who are they? What are they like?”

I gave him a minute description of both, but he apparently did not recognize them.

“I suppose you’ve never met a fellow called Pennington—eh? A stoutish, dark-haired man with a baldish head and a reddish face?”

“Well,” he replied thoughtfully, “I’ve met a good many men who might answer to that description. What is he?”

“I don’t exactly know. I’ve met him on the Continent.”

“And I suppose some people one meets at Continental hotels are undesirables, aren’t they?” he said.

I nodded in the affirmative.

Then I asked—

“You’ve never known a person named Shuttleworth—Edmund Shuttleworth? Lives at a little village close to Andover.”

“Shuttleworth!” he echoed, looking straight into my face. “What do you know of Edmund Shuttleworth?” he asked quickly.

“Very little. Do you know him?”

“Er—well—no, not exactly,” was his faltering reply, and I saw in his slight hesitation an intention to conceal the actual knowledge which he possessed. “I’ve heard of him—through a friend of mine—a lady friend.”

“A lady! Who’s she?” I inquired quickly.

“Well,” he laughed a trifle uneasily, “the fact is, old chap, perhaps it wouldn’t be fair to tell the story. You understand?”

I was silent. What did he mean? In a second the allegation made by that pair of scoundrels recurred to me. They had declared that Sylvia had been in a house opposite, and that my friend had fallen in love with her.

Yet he had denied acquaintanceship with Pennington!

No doubt the assassins had lied to me, yet my suspicions had been aroused. Jack had admitted his acquaintance with the thin-faced village rector—he knew of him through a woman. Was that woman Sylvia herself?

From his manner and the great curiosity he evinced, I felt assured that he had never known of Althorp House before. Reckitt and Forbes had uttered lies when they had shown me that photograph, and told me that she was beloved by my best friend. It had been done to increase my anger and chagrin. Yet might there not, after all, have been some foundation in truth in what they had said? The suggestion gripped my senses.

Again I asked him to tell me the lady’s name.

But, quite contrary to his usual habit of confiding in me all his most private affairs, he steadfastly refused.

“No, my dear old chap,” he replied, “I really can’t tell you that. Please excuse me, but it is a matter I would rather not discuss.”

So at the corner of Piccadilly we parted, for it was now broad daylight, and while he returned to his rooms, I walked down Grosvenor Place to Wilton Street, more than ever puzzled and confounded.

Was I a fool, that I loved Sylvia Pennington with such an all-absorbing passion?

It was strangely true, as Shuttleworth had declared, the grave lay as a gulf between us.