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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "The Yellow Hunchback," Fergus Hume intricately weaves a tale of mystery and intrigue set in Victorian England. Utilizing a narrative style rich with atmospheric descriptions and compelling characterizations, Hume explores themes of identity, deception, and the intricacies of human morality. The novel's plot follows the titular hunchback, a misunderstood figure caught in a web of crime and societal prejudice, showcasing Hume's ability to blend gothic elements with social commentary, a hallmark of late 19th-century literature. Fergus Hume, an Australian-born writer, gained fame as one of the pioneers of the detective genre, drawing inspiration from his own experiences in law and the theatrical nuances of the era. His passion for storytelling, combined with his keen observations of society, likely motivated him to tackle complex themes in "The Yellow Hunchback," which reflects not only the societal attitudes of his time but also his interest in the human condition and the layers of personal and public perception. For readers intrigued by psychological depth and societal critique shrouded in a thrilling narrative, "The Yellow Hunchback" is a must-read. Hume'Äôs deft combination of mystery and moral inquiry will captivate anyone seeking to explore the darker corners of humanity amidst the backdrop of a bygone era.
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The Yellow Hunchback
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Love’s Young Dream
“So you love me still?”
“I have always loved you, dearest and best, since that moment in London when you came into my life.”
“Yet we have been parted for months and months.”
“Circumstances parted us, not our wills, my darling Alice.”
“I know; but absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.”
“They say; what say they; let them say.” The young man was quoting a family motto. “In my case the proverb is untrue. Whether absent or present my heart could grow no fonder of you, my darling.”
Alice sighed. “You think too well of me.”
“That,” said Treffry, decisively, “is entirely impossible.”
It was a poor room in which the lovers sat, but a bower of bliss to them, since they coloured it with their own vivid imaginations. A jerry-built suburban villa, at twenty pounds a year, is not exactly a palace, and Alice’s father, out of his poor pay as managing clerk to Mason Clyde, the local lawyer, could afford no higher rent. Only himself and his daughter dwelt in the shoddy, common-place house, for the wife of the one and the mother of the other had long ago left this work-a-day world for a welcome grave. For fifteen years Marvel had reared his little girl without the assistance of womankind; and now, at the age of twenty, she was able to help the devoted father who had helped her. Since a perfect affection existed between them, she was not unhappy in her toil. And to teach singing to unimaginative girls is a toil.
Certainly her happiness was superlative now, seeing that Rupert Treffry embraced her at the moment, with his honest blue eyes almost constantly seeking the light of her true brown ones. Fate had parted them for six months, and Fate had brought them together again in a somewhat unexpected manner. Left alone by Marvel for the last hour, it seemed but one minute since his departure. Time did not exist for two ardent lovers who dreamt of a brilliant and prosperous future, which included fame for Rupert the artist and money for Alice the singer, not to speak of a near marriage for bachelor and maid. No wonder the shabby room was to them as the Groves of Paphos.
The apartment was small, square and low-ceilinged, furnished clumsily with the heavy chairs, table, sofa and sideboard of the Early Victorian epoch, when beauty was obliterated by smug ugliness. The carpet was worn and faded, the china ornaments were chipped, the wall-paper revealed an aggressive pattern, and the hangings were of dingy red rep. Alice, by draping this and polishing that, and rearranging the furniture, had done her best to make the room more endurable; but the result was a failure. Yet it was comfortable after a fashion, and looked especially so at the moment. The lovers had wisely dispensed with the cheap paraffin lamp, and renewed their vows by the cheerful illumination of a brisk coal fire.
In a horse-hair armchair, drawn up beside the cheap grate, lounged Rupert Treffry, tall, straight, clean-limbed and athletic, with a bold, bronzed face, thoughtful blue eyes, and a sensitive mouth almost concealed by a light moustache. He looked like a soldier, and, indeed, had surrendered a commission to take up the artistic life, which presented more attractions to him than a military career. Alice nestled beside him, seated on a footstool, her head leaning on his knee, and his arm encircling her neck. The firelight flickered on her delicate face, on her smooth brown hair and youthfully graceful figure, and in her pensive brown eyes. She was not exactly a pretty girl, but there was a quiet beauty about her which grew on the observer. She reminded one of a pale primrose, of a still summer eve, of a sleeping mere.
One striking object in the ugly room has yet to be mentioned—a fine grand piano, which was much too bulky for the apartment. As the firelight winked in the rich dark rosewood, Rupert’s eyes, which had hitherto been exclusively devoted to satisfied contemplation of Alice’s serene beauty, caught sight of the instrument. Assuredly he had noted it before, but mechanically. Now in the half-light he recognised that it was both incongruous and expensive, and wondered how hard-up Lawrence Marvel had come by so costly a thing.
“It must be a present,” he remarked, thinking aloud.
“What?” Alice looked round; then added, indifferently: “The piano. Yes, it is a present.”
“How did you guess that I meant the piano?” he asked, playfully.
“Because it looks so out of place amongst this ugly furniture inherited by father from his parents. And you know well that we could never afford such a Broadwood.”
“Well, dear, of course, your father is a musician as well as a solicitor, and he might have treated himself to—”
“No! Poor father”—she sighed again—“Mr. Clyde pays him so badly that it takes all my time to make both ends meet. With all his love for music he could never have scraped together to buy that piano. It is, as I said, a present.”
Rupert looked jealously down at the averted face. “Not to you?”
The girl did not reply immediately, but clasping her knees with two slender hands, stared into the ruddy coals. “It might be,” she admitted, in a reluctant voice.
“Alice!”
She looked up smiling. “Don’t get angry, Rupert. I love you, and you alone, my dear Othello.”
“But—the other fellow?”
“What fellow?” she asked, provokingly.
“The man who gave you the piano.”
“He gave it to father; and yet”—she hesitated once more—“I think it was really meant for me. You see, he—he—he—”
“Oh, yes, I can guess, hang him!”
“Poor soul!” Alice rose slowly, and moved to the round table to light the lamp. “He would be a light weight to hang.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Treffry, shortly, and by no means pleased at the pathetic note in her voice.
As she applied the match to the wick a dim blue flame glimmered on her pensive face. “His name is Evan Berrow,” said she, putting on chimney and globe. “He is twenty-five years of age, four feet three inches in height, and the only son of the man who built this house. Would you like further particulars?”
“A dwarf!” remarked Rupert, passing over the sarcasm of the question.
“I suppose so—but a perfectly made dwarf. There is nothing deformed about Evan, poor creature.”
“You call him by his Christian name, I see.”
“If you saw him you would not object to my doing so,” said Alice, placing the lamp on a wool mat in the centre of the table. “He is in love with me,” she finished, serenely.
“I certainly object to that,” replied Treffry, drawing his brows together. “Do you mean to say that this dwarf dares to—”
“He does. I told him as gently as possible that it could not be.”
“And that you were engaged to me, I hope?”
“Of course. He knows that, even though I were free, I could never love him. Poor Evan,” she said, softly; “he has many good qualities, and far too much money.”
“Can anyone have too much money, Alice?”
“I think so, if unable to look after it. Dear”—she came, and, seating herself beside her suspicious lover, took his hand—“banish that ugly frown, and I’ll tell you how I have been sought in marriage.”
“Humph! A queer way you take to banish my frown. But there!”—his arm crept round her waist, and he drew her caressingly towards him—“do not look upon me as an ogre. I can’t possibly be jealous of this deformed creature.”
“He is not deformed, I tell you,” insisted Alice, rather annoyed. “He is perfectly made, although very small. With his dark hair, melancholy eyes and wizened appearance, he really might be a changeling from fairyland.”
“Strange,” murmured Rupert, his eyes on the fire. “I saw a creature like that on my way here!”
“Then you must have seen Evan Berrow.”
“Not if he is rich, as you say. This was a crossing-sweeper in that crooked street—”
“I know; the one near the railway station. It is the High Street of Chadston village, which forms the nucleus of this suburb; in fact, the suburb is merely an expansion of the original village, and was built by Evan’s father, who owned nearly all the land. So you may guess that, as Evan has inherited all the property for the last three years, he is very, wealthy. He is quite the king of Chadston, and lives in the Manor House which belonged to the old estate on which these villas are built.”
Rupert nodded. “I understand. The Tait family sold the estate to old Berrow. Clyde told me something about the matter, months ago.”
“Do you know Mr. Clyde very well, Rupert?”
Treffry shrugged his shoulders.
“In a way—yes,” he admitted. “He is doing some business for me, and on my way here this evening I called to have a consultation. He had gone home, however, but I understood that he would be again at his office at nine o’clock.” The young man glanced at his watch. “By Jove! I’ll have to go and see him soon. Will your father be at the office also?”
“No.” Alice hesitated, then continued to speak with something of an effort. “I see no reason why I should conceal our poverty from you, Rupert. Mr. Clyde, as I told you, pays father only a small salary.”
“Why doesn’t Mr. Marvel seek a better situation, then?”
“I don’t know; he refuses to leave Mr. Clyde, with whom he has been for twenty years. And, indeed,” added Alice, half to herself, “I think that Mr. Clyde has some hold over father, who seems to dread him, yet will not throw up his post. Well, then,” she went on, as though fearful of an interruption, “father, being a clever pianist, sometimes goes out to play at dances. Mr. Clyde does not object.”
“I should think not, seeing that he gives Mr. Marvel—as I understand you to say—starvation wages. Well?”
“Well,” she echoed, “an entertainment of Animated Pictures has come here for this evening, and father, hearing that the pianist had fallen ill, went out when you came in, to offer himself as a substitute. I expect father is playing at The Builders’ Hall, since he has not come back. I shall go at ten o’clock to fetch him home.”
“You—and on a stormy, snowy December night?” asked Treffry, sharply.
“Father is sometimes—” Alice turned aside her face, but he could see a nervous flush redden her fair neck. “He is sometimes weak, and—and, Rupert, don’t ask me any questions, but tell me about this dwarf you saw. It could not have been Mr. Berrow, and yet I cannot think poor Evan can have a duplicate.”
Treffry knew as certainly as though she had put the knowledge into words that Lawrence Marvel indulged overmuch in alcohol, and with sudden resentment he was minded then and there to insist that Alice should marry him at once, so as to be removed from such uncomfortable companionship. But the thought of his poverty prevented his speaking openly, since it would not do to ask her to jump from the frying-pan into the fire. With a commendable effort he controlled the impulse, and replied to her direct question. “The hunchback,” he began, with affected carelessness, when she interrupted him—
“Mr. Berrow—l mean Evan—is not a hunchback.”
“This crossing-sweeper is then, my dear. A little yellow hunchback, as small as your wealthy friend, with a dark, pinched, wizened face. I thought at the moment I gave him sixpence that he looked like a fairy changeling, and it was your same remark that made me speak of the creature. No, I don’t suppose it was your millionaire dwarf, who has the insolence to love you; but the sweeper must be his twin brother, in spite of the hunch.”
Alice shook her head vehemently. “Evan has no twin,” she said, “and why yellow, Rupert?”
“What do you mean?—oh! the crossing-sweeper. Well, he wore a yellow sou’-wester hat and an oilskin coat, such as sailors wear in times of storm, my dear. And I don’t wonder, on such a night.” He rose, and crossing to the one window of the room, pulled aside the curtain, to look out at the whirling eddies of snow, scattering in the high wind. “What weather—very seasonable, seeing that this is Christmas week, but decidedly disagreeable to me, after Jamaican summers. Let me go for your father, Alice.”
“No.” She rose, flushing painfully. “He might be—oh, don’t speak of it—don’t speak of it!”
Rupert swiftly replaced the curtain, and moved towards her, to clasp her in his strong arms. “Let me share the burden, dear.”
“There is no burden.” She removed his arms, and changed the subject quickly. “Poor little Evan; he has a miserable life. His step-mother hates him and I detest, her; a quiet, dangerous, lady-like woman, with a pale face and a false smile.”
“Has she any children of her own?”
“None. She married Mr. Berrow, who built the suburb, for his money, and he died within six months of the marriage. He left only a small income to her, and Evan has about ten thousand a year. She hates him for that, I think.”
“Ten thousand a year,” echoed Treffry, with a, bitter smile, “and I have nothing. If this dwarf loves you, Alice, why not—”
She placed a white hand on his mouth. “Oh, never say it—never say it, dear,” she cried. “I like Evan, but even did I not love you, I could never marry him. He is not repulsive,” she added, eagerly “believe me, he is shapely, if small, and he is very kind.” Her eyes wandered to the piano. “Oh, very kind. But to marry him—” She shuddered. “I could never do that, not even though father insisted I should.”
“Does your father wish to force you to marry him?”
“Don’t be angry, Rupert.” She laid a caressing hand on his shoulder. “Poor papa; you know how fond he is of luxury, and how unable we are to live as he desires. Evan is kind to papa, and sometimes has him to play at the Manor. He pays him well—oh! Evan has a heart of gold. But, oh, the poor soul”—Alice struck her hands together—“he is most unhappy—most lonely.”
“But why should he be unhappy, Alice?”
“He feels the smallness of his stature, and then he is rich, and his step-mother hates him. I wish I could have loved him—”
“Alice—when you love me.”
“Dear, do not be angry,” she said again. “If you saw the poor soul, with his worn face and mournful eyes—oh! I wish he could find someone to love him.”
“Has he no friends?” asked Treffry.
“None—oh, yes, Mason Clyde is fond of him. He is the executor of the late Mr. Berrow’s will. But, Mrs. Berrow—ah! how she hates her step-son, and because he has the money. Being young, I expect she would like to marry again, and would do so were she rich, or could get a wealthy husband. But Evan has the fortune and the Manor House, and Mrs. Berrow lives with him, surrounded by luxury, yet hating the hand that feeds her. But you must go, Rupert,” she broke off, suddenly. “I have to copy some music for father, and then call for him at The Builders’ Hall. It is just nine.”
“I’ll go and see Clyde at his office,” said Rupert, putting on his overcoat reluctantly. “But I would rather stop and talk with you, my darling. This business with Clyde may lead to my getting sufficient money to allow us to marry. I want to take you away from these sordid surroundings. And then your father—”
“Not a word against him,” said Alice, quickly. “He is weak, but the very soul of honour and kindness. Good-night, dear. To-morrow we can talk again. Be here at eleven.”
Treffry kissed her tenderly, and they went into the hall. Alice opened the door, to reveal a wild night. On the doorstep stood a small figure, and the light from the hall lamp showed a dark, mournful face, pinched and bloodless.
“The yellow hunchback,” said Rupert, under his breath, and stared.
Chapter 2 The Winding-Sheet of the Snow
Low as the words were spoken the visitor caught their purport, and stepped into the hall, with a sudden movement of surprise, and perhaps anger.
“The yellow hunchback!” he repeated, in a soft, musical voice, and stared in his turn.
“I beg your pardon,” remarked Treffry, ceremoniously. “You will excuse my involuntary remark, I trust.”
“But its meaning, Mr. Treffry?”
Rupert replied to one question by asking another. “How do you know my name, Mr. Berrow?”
“You know mine, it seems,” flashed the other, swiftly.
“I recognised you, and—”
“By my stature.” The dwarf’s small frame shook with rage. “Oh, how you well-made brutes look down upon the unfortunate.”
“Evan! Evan!” remonstrated Alice, and laid her hand on the little man’s sleeve to draw him away. Treffry saw that Berrow was a bundle of nerves, and had small control over his feelings. Unwilling, for Alice’s sake, to risk a scene, and, moreover, feeling that his adversary’s strength lay in his manifest weakness, Rupert bowed, and stepped into the snow.
“Good-night, Mr. Berrow,” he said, stiffly. “Alice, I shall see you in the morning”—and with a glance at the squat figure and the tall gracious lady beside it, he disappeared behind the curtain of the ever-falling snow. Alice, with a shiver, shut the door, and turned to her new visitor, who stood with clenched hands, looking sullenly at the ground.
“Evan!” she said, you are cold. “Come into the sitting-room.”
Berrow did not immediately reply, but lifted his bloodless face and looked at her steadily with his mournful eyes. He was short, but, as Alice had said, perfectly made, and his hands and feet were irreproachable. Slender and tiny, exquisitely dressed in evening costume (which could be seen when he removed his gable-lined coat), he had the look of a doll unexpectedly endowed with life. There was something uncanny and freakish in his looks.
“So that is your lover,” he said, with a choking sigh.
“That is Rupert,” replied Alice, pausing at the sitting-room door.
“A fine, tall bully.”
“Evan, how dare you?”
Berrow dragged off his overcoat and walked like an automaton into the room, where he flung himself into an armchair, and was swallowed up in its large embrace. “How dare I?” said he, looking defiantly at Alice’s flushed face; “because I love you.”
The girl frowned. “Why will you talk of that?”
“I am a man,” cried the dwarf, passionately. “Yes, I am a man, although I have not the stature of one.”
“Nonsense. You are small, but not deformed.”
“Yet he called me a hunchback—a yellow hunchback.”
“Oh!” Alice coloured again. “Rupert did not mean you to hear him say that. He was thinking of some crossing-sweeper he saw in Chadston High Street.”
“He saw a crossing-sweeper,” echoed Berrow, his pale face looking angry, and—strangely enough—apprehensive. “Like—me.”
“Of your height and looks, Rupert said.”
“Impossible,” Berrow brought out the word with an effort. “There can be no other person in the world so small and miserable as I—unless in a caravan,” he scoffed. “And such a one certainly would not be wasted as a sweeper while humanity loves to gaze on the abnormal, as I know to my cost it does.”
“Evan,” she reproved him gently, “why will you torment yourself?”
The little man sprang to his feet. “Because I am a freak, a dwarf, an abortion. Heaven help me!” he cried, in the musical voice which seemed to be habitual to him. “Oh, to feel like a man, and yet know one is not a man. Could any affliction be worse? And I dare to love you, who are made in beauty and stature for that handsome coward who went out just now.”
“Rupert is not a coward,” said Alice, sharply. “I won’t have you talk in this way. You know that I like you.”
“Liking is not love.”
“And never will be between you and me, Mr. Berrow. I met Rupert in London a year ago, when I was studying singing at the Academy, and we loved one another at first sight. Since then he had to go to Jamaica to see after some business connected with his uncle’s money, to which he is heir. We were engaged before he left, and now we have come together again. As soon as Rupert gets his inheritance we shall marry.”
“And I shall be left to die.”
“Nonsense,” said the girl, impatiently; “you will not die.”
“Yes. I am marked for the slaughter. Mrs. Berrow would gladly see me dead, in order to get my money.”
“You exaggerate, Evan. I confess that I do not like Mrs. Berrow, but she would not go so far as to suggest murder.”
Evan paced the room. “I can see murder in her eyes every time they rest upon me,” he declared, vehemently. “She would poison me, stab me, strangle me—anything to get my ten thousand a year to herself.”
“Still, the money is yours,” said Alice, quickly.
Berrow resumed his seat languidly. “It is certainly left to me unconditionally,” said he, “but my step-mother, at the time my father died, was trying to induce him to make a new will. The will leaving all to her was drawn up, but father died before he could sign it. Yet with his last breath he instructed me to keep the money for my life, and leave it to Mrs. Berrow when I died. You see, Alice, he did not think a miserable little creature like myself would live long. Mrs. Berrow was in the room when father died, and heard this speech. She worried me shortly after the death, three years ago, to make such a will in her favour. In accordance with the express wish of my father, I made it.”
“Leaving all the money to her?”
“Yes. When I die she takes everything. The will is in her possession, and she is simply waiting for me to die to get it.”
“If you mistrust her you should not have placed such a temptation before her, Evan.”
“I trusted her at the time. Only lately have I learnt how she wishes me to die.”
Alice considered a moment. “I should do this,” she said, after a thoughtful pause: “Make a new will, leaving the money to a charity, and tell Mrs. Berrow. Then she will not have cause to plot your death. More, she will try and keep you alive, since your death would mean her leaving the Manor House to live on the small income left to her by your father.”
“I have made such a will,” said Berrow, unexpectedly. “Only my step-mother does not know of its existence.”
“You have made a new will?”
“Yes. The same idea, which you have put into words, crossed my mind, and I made a new will, witnessed by your father. It leaves my money to you, Alice.”
The girl started to her feet with a cry. “To me! Impossible.”
“Why? You are the only being I have ever loved, and I have no relative to leave the money to.”
“Cannot this yellow hunchback mentioned by Rupert be a relative?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Rupert said that the sweeper resembled you, and—”
“And I am of such an odd make that the resemblance hints at relationship? No, Alice; I know nothing of this yellow hunchback, and I don’t suppose he is any relation. I am alone in the world, and when I die you will get the money.”
“I won’t take it.”
“You must,” insisted the dwarf. “I got your father and another person, who is now dead, to witness the will.”
“Who holds it, Evan?”
“I shan’t tell you that,” said Berrow, cunningly. “It is put away, to be produced when necessary. Mrs. Berrow might find it, unless it was well concealed.”
“If she did find it it would be just as well, Evan. She would then wish you to live. Not that I think she desires your death. That is exaggeration on your part.”
“No! It is the truth,” he replied, gloomily. “But you are right. To-morrow I’ll tell her about the new will, and give it to Mason Clyde, who is my lawyer. At least my life will be safe then; otherwise, do not be surprised if you find me dead.”
Alice shuddered. “Don’t talk like that,” she said, irritably. “And I wish you’d leave your money to someone else.”
“To Captain Tait, the present head of the impoverished family, who sold Chadston to my father?” asked Evan, with a sneer.
“It would be just,” said Alice, promptly, “for they say, Evan—”
“I know what they say—that my father cheated Tait over the property five-and-twenty years ago. That may be, and I know how Tait hates me, even though I pay his daughter Polly a good wage to act as a secretary I do not require. No, Alice, I would never leave the money to Tait, who is a drunkard and a bad lot. He would squander the fortune. Better, if you will not take it, to let Polly Tait and her lover, Teddy Smith, have the money.”
“You might do worse,” Alice told him.
Evan Berrow rose impatiently. “This is ridiculous,” he cried, in a pettish rage. “Do you hate me so much that you can’t take money from me?”
“I have no right to—”
“I know you have not,” he interrupted; “but you can gain the right by marrying me. I promise to make you my widow very soon.”
“Don’t talk like that,” cried Alice, sharply.
“I shall—I must. Oh, you cruel girl, can you not see how I suffer from your coldness? Marry me, Alice. Oh! my dear, marry me.”
She put him aside, as one would sweep away a fly. “I am engaged to Rupert,” she said, decisively. “Evan, unless you behave yourself you must go.”
Berrow rushed from the room, and she followed to see him struggling into his fur-lined coat.
“I shall go away,” he cried, in a strangled voice; “I shall go away to die.”
“Go home, and ask the doctor to give you a sedative,” said Alice, angered at his want of self-control.
“Or poison,” he added, with a wild look, and tugging with his puny strength at the door. “Mrs. Berrow would thank you for that.”
“I have already told you how you can counterplot Mrs. Berrow, if, indeed, she is plotting at all, which I doubt.”
“Alice! Alice!” The little man’s voice boomed like a gong. “Is there no hope? Can you not love me? Oh, my dear—my darling, marry me, and we will go away to some South Sea island, where I shall no longer be insulted by my fellow-creatures. I’ll pension your father. I’ll make over all the money to you. I’ll be your slave, your plaything; only have pity—have pity on me. I have suffered so much.”
“Evan”—she was moved by his appeal, yet saw the egotism of it—“I cannot marry you—I cannot love you.”
“Love may come—oh, darling heart, love may come.”
Alice was tender and delicate in her feelings. She would not have wounded the poor little man for the world, and yet, when he spoke as he did, and as a tall, stalwart man would have spoken, her eyes involuntarily wandered over his puny frame, and rested on his pinched, wizen, fairy face. That part of the feminine which loves the genuine, brutal man, which desires to be mastered, came to the surface, and her eyes became almost contemptuous for the moment, as she thought of Rupert’s inches and surveyed those of the dwarf. Berrow was swift to see her flitting contempt, for he had in his nature a strong feminine vein which made him as quick as she to read half-concealed thoughts. With the cry of a wounded animal he shrank away, and stumbled blindly down the steps into the wild storm. “Oh, Heaven, why have you so made me?” came the sorrowful cry, and he was gone before she could make a remark, and explain her regret for the momentary cruelty. She ran out into the night, but could not see the tiny figure amidst the fast-falling snow.
“Oh, cruel! cruel!” she murmured to herself, and returned to the house—to the warm, ugly sitting-room, there to take down a roll of manuscript music. Placing it on the table, she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was a quarter past nine, and at ten, or a trifle later, she would have to seek her father.
With an effort she began to copy the music, but after a time her thoughts interfered with her work, and she flung down the pen to think over those two interviews with two lovers. What a difference between them—Rupert, so tall and handsome, with the frame of an athlete and the face of a sunny Greek god; and the poor dwarf, so puny and pinched, and wrinkled and miserable.
“I would rather starve with Rupert than be rich with Evan,” thought Alice, her chin in the cup of her hand and her elbow on her knee. “But I wish I had not let Evan see that. Poor little creature; how he winced and shrank away. When next I see him I must explain that my look meant nothing. But I don’t expect that he’ll believe me; he is as sensitive and clear-sighted as one of ourselves. But Rupert—oh, my darling Rupert.”
And then her thoughts ceased to busy themselves with the dwarf, and strayed towards her handsome lover. He was poor, but there was a chance that when a lawsuit ended, he might inherit a fine estate in Jamaica. But, even if he did not, she would marry him; better a hut with Rupert than a palace with another man. Yet Alice was fond of pleasant, surroundings and fine clothes, and refined society. She might have to give up on these, unless she chose to stifle her feelings and marry Evan Berrow. And here her thoughts came back to the little man, and she winced, as he had winced lately.
“Impossible! Impossible!” she said, aloud. “I could never marry him.”
With an effort she dismissed the image of the rich dwarf from her mind, and sat building castles in the air; castles which were inhabited by herself and her artist. So rapidly passed the time that the clock struck ten before she was aware that the hour was so late. With an exclamation she rose, and put away the unfinished music. Then she assumed a warm cloak, and tied on her hat with a veil, since the wind was high. Turning out the lamp, and with a glance at the fire to see that it was safe, she went out of the villa; locking the door behind her. A few steps took her down the road and into the storm.
It was a wild night, thick with snow. Overhead lowered a leaden-hued sky, with occasional gleams of moonlight. The clouds were flying before the high wind, and sometimes the face of the moon, pallid and tormented, looked down on the white earth. Everywhere was a winding-sheet of snow, and the flakes, with occasional lulls, fell thickly from the sky. Chadston was almost blotted out by the white fleece, or drifting feathers, which sank continuously to the ground. The gods were certainly shearing celestial sheep or plucking celestial geese, and Alice smiled at the childish fancy as she ploughed her way through the drifts.
Guided by glimmering street lamps, the girl struggled from the outskirts of the suburb towards the more populous part, where the shops usually glittered. But, as it was now ten fifteen, these were closed, and no radiant gaslights gleamed across the snowy, narrow streets. And here they were narrow, as she was now on the outskirts of Chadston village, and near the crooked High Street, of which she had spoken to Rupert. The Builders’ Hall, erected by the late Mr. Berrow for entertainments, stood near here, and she passed many people well wrapped up, who were coming from the evening’s amusement. Apparently it was over, and Alice, fearful lest she should miss her father, and more fearful, poor girl, lest he should go into one of the still-open public houses, hurried quickly along. At the hall she asked the old doorkeeper, with whom she was acquainted, if Mr. Marvel was within, and learnt that he had not been there for long that evening. The regular pianist of the entertainment had recovered to permit of his returning to his duty, and on hearing this Mr. Marvel had departed. Wondering where her father had gone, and dreading lest he should appear drunk at the villa, Alice turned disconsolately away, and thought that she would seek the lawyer’s office. Rupert had told her that Mr. Clyde would be working late, and it was just possible that Marvel had gone there. Then fortune favoured her, for at the entrance to the crooked High Street she met a tall, thin man, with a white face, looking woefully worn and haggard in the moonlight. “Father,” cried Alice, and caught him by the arm.
The man started with a terrified exclamation, and swayed so much that she feared he would fall. At first she fancied he had been drinking, as usual, but this especial fear proved to be groundless, for Marvel straightened himself into a perfectly erect and steady position, and explained that he had gone to the office, as she surmised. “I could not get the engagement at the Animated Pictures,” he explained, with laboured breath, “as the pianist recovered. Not wishing to disturb you and Treffry, I went to the office, and did some work with Mr. Clyde.”
“Is he still there?” asked Alice.
“Yes. By the way,” Marvel drew her down the street, which was in the opposite direction to their homeward way, “I have forgotten my spectacles, and must go back for them.”
“To-morrow will do,” said Alice, shivering, and wishing to get home.
“To-night! To-night!” said Marvel, vehemently. By this time they were midway down the quaint street, and the moon peered out from flying clouds at the tumble-down houses to gleam along the pearly pathway. Unexpectedly Marvel shied like a frightened horse. “Oh! What is that?” he gasped, pointing a shaking finger at a dark mass.
“Some poor woman has fainted, probably,” suggested his daughter, and hurried towards the prostrate figure.
“Don’t go—don’t go,” shivered Marvel, catching her arm. “There may be—danger.”
“Danger!” echoed Alice, surprised. “What do you mean, father? We can’t leave the poor creature to freeze to death.”
She gently extricated her arm from his grasp, and walked lightly towards the dark figure. It lay half on the pavement and half in the frozen gutter, and at the entrance to a dark, narrow lane which wound deviously through the ancient cottages of old Chadston village. The moon was obscured for one moment by a hurrying cloud, but sufficient light remained to reveal that the figure was that of a boy, lying face downward in the snow, and wrapped in a long coat. The girl stooped, and suddenly drew away her hand with a cry.
“What is it?” asked her father, in a grating voice.
“Blood,” cried Alice. Bending again, she felt the heart, and with an effort turned over the body.
“Stone dead,” she breathed; then, putting two and two together, her lips formed the ominous word “Murder.”
“Hush! Hush!” whispered her father; “that is dangerous talk.”
“Murder! Murder!” Alice’s voice pealed down the quiet street and echoed through the stormy air. “Police! Murder!”
The moon shone out brilliantly, and she stooped with a beating heart and white face to look at the countenance of the dead. “Evan Berrow,” she wailed, staggering back. “Evan Berrow, and murdered!”
Chapter 3 The Inquest
Naturally enough, an immense sensation was caused by the violent death of Evan Berrow. Had the victim been a tramp, or a workman, or a pauper, everyone would still have been excited, since in so quiet and respectable a neighbourhood, crime of any kind was of rare occurrence. But that the son of the man who had surrounded old Chadston village with resplendent villas, who was himself virtual king of the suburb by reason of his wealth, should be done to death in so mysterious a manner sent a thrill through the community. The news was all over the place early next day, and many were the inquiries made at the Manor House, where the body lay.
Like a flock of vultures the London reporters descended on the suburb, and permeated the place, asking questions and suggesting answers. But the inspector of police who had charge of the case was grimly silent, and no one else seemed to know anything. The sole information procurable was that Berrow had left his home after dinner, and had been found dead at half-past ten in the High Street of Chadston village. Also it was ascertained that a stab under the left shoulder blade had caused the death; whereupon one smart young reporter suggested that the poor little man had been taken by surprise and killed before he could cry out or turn on his assailant. And then the smart young reporter went in search of Polly Tait, the secretary of the dead dwarf.
He had no right to do this, for his name was Teddy Smith and he was engaged to the pretty girl, who formed part of the Berrow household. It was possible, thought Teddy, that Polly might know something, and she would certainly tell him everything, so that he might concoct sensational paragraphs. But an inquiry at the Manor House led to the discovery that Miss Tait had gone to see Miss Marvel. Smith recollected that this was the young lady who had found the body, and therefore thanked his stars that, on the plea of seeing Polly, he might be able to question one so intimately concerned in the case.
Alice knew that Teddy was a reporter on the Daily Gossip, and admitted him at once to share the conversation of herself and Polly. The latter damsel, who was a demure brunette, with merry black eyes and a coy manner, thanked Alice for allowing Teddy the opportunity of gathering information. But Polly did not know that Alice’s true reason was concerned with the desire to place before the public a true, unvarnished tale of the doings of her father on the previous night, lest he should be implicated.
