The Witness on the Roof (26 page)

“What?” Hewlett stared at him, for once astonished out of his stolid calm. “You don't mean that this is the cousin that owns the Marsh, sir—the one that has been having the operation?”

“The very same,” Septimus Lockyer assented. “This explains a good deal.”

The detective pulled his fair moustache and looked blank. To his mind, instead of clearing up matters this complicated them very considerably.

“Then was it this one or Lord Warchester that wrote the letters we found in the trunk, sir? They were signed Paul Wilton. But it seems this one was christened Paul too.”

“Quite natural that he should be,” Septimus Lockyer assented. “Old Warchester, the grandfather of both of them, was Paul. But the clergyman's son was always called Basil. As for the letters”—his face clouding as he remembered that terrible sentence, “You must introduce me as Mr. Wingrove”—“I don't know. The writing was like his lordship's. We shall have to think it over again, Hewlett—we shall have to think it over again.”

T
HE TRAIN
from Worcester steamed into Paddington Station.

Jim Gregory stepped out, looking clumsy and ungainly in the ill-fitting black suit that had been made for the funeral of the landlord of the Bell. He held a handbag, which he shifted from one arm to the other uneasily. After looking about him for a minute or two to collect his bearings, he started off briskly; turning to the right and walking quickly up Praed Street for some little distance until he neared Edgware Road. A short, thick-set man with an unkempt brown beard, who had left Willersfield by the same train as Gregory, and, like him, had changed into the express at Worcester, walked up Praed Street on the opposite side, loitered along, stopping now and then to look in the shop windows, never overtaking, but keeping close in sight Gregory's ungainly figure.

Gregory stopped in a side street before a little shop bearing the inscription, “George Dickinson, General Dealer.” A few jars of sweetmeats, a quantity of slate pencils, a large tray of miscellaneous goods occupied the window, and a slatternly young woman with a baby in her arms stood at the door.

She looked at Gregory for a moment in amazement; the man with the brown beard, contriving to drop something as he passed, caught her words distinctly.

“Why, Jim, it is ever you? Who would have thought of seeing you?”

“Ay, it is me sure enough, Eliza!” Gregory answered in his gruff tones. “You will have to give me a bed for a night or two. Oh, I am going to pay you, though you are my sister!” jingling the money in his trouser pockets. “How is George?

The man with the brown beard heard no more. He strolled on in the same leisurely way until he reached the end of the street, where he stopped to speak to a ragged-looking urchin who had been hanging about at his heels ever since he left Paddington; then, quickening his steps, he hailed a passing taxi-cab and gave the driver the address of Messrs Hewlett and Cowham's offices.

Half an hour afterwards, when Gregory came out of the shop, there was more than one group of ragged children playing in the street. He did not so much as glance at them—certainly he did not observe that one of the biggest boys quietly detached himself from the rest and, keeping well behind him, followed him as he crossed over Praed Street and Oxford and Cambridge Terrace and straight on through Devonport Street to Hinton Square and thence to Grove Street. There Gregory seemed for a while disposed to linger. He walked up and down, gazing at the houses, glanced down the Mews, stood for a second or two at the top; then, as if he had come to a sudden determination, he walked sharply up to No. 18 and rang the bell.

Gregory's follower seated himself now by the railings close at hand and began to lace up his old boots.

Mrs. Perks appeared in the doorway, looking much as she had done when interviewed by Joan. At sight of Gregory, she stared, started; her face turned chalky-white; she came forward quickly.

“What do you want here, Jim Gregory? I ha' told you—”

“I want a word with you, Maria Perks, first, and then I want my rights!” Gregory said heavily. “I mean to have 'em too. You won't do me out of ‘em this time, neither you nor nobody else, so I tell you!”

Mrs. Perks began to shake all over.

“I don't know what you mean by your rights, Jim Gregory, I have had naught to do with you—”

Gregory took a step forward.

“Don't you know what I mean by my rights neither?” he asked truculently. “Well, maybe you don't. That is neither here nor there. What you have got to do is to pass the word to them that does. Do you hear?”

Mrs. Perks emitted a slight scream. Seen thus at close quarters, there was something particularly unattractive about Mr. Gregory. His small eyes were bloodshot; he was not a believer in overmuch shaving, opining that twice a week was enough for any man; as a consequence his chin and lower part of his face presented a chronically rough blue appearance; a couple of his front teeth were missing, and his linen would have been much improved by a visit to the wash-tub.

“I wish I were dead, I do!” the woman cried, throwing her apron over her face.

“That won't do you any good, Maria Perks!” Gregory returned, with a malevolent laugh. “I'll come into your parlour and have a talk with you. Then if you don't see reason maybe others will—”

“You would never go for to speak now?” Mrs. Perks sobbed.

Gregory's answer was to take her contemptuously by the shoulder and walk her back to her room.

It was a lengthy interview; the watcher outside got tired of waiting. Once he went to the end of the street and spoke a few words to a gentleman who had passed by and tossed him a copper as he went on his way. Meanwhile it was easy to see that it was perfectly simple for any number of people to enter No. 18 without attracting attention, provided they had the means of obtaining access to the different flats. People came in and out, appearing for the most part to prefer making their own inquiries upstairs to interrogating Mrs. Perks on the ground floor.

At last a tall, well-dressed young man with a keen, clean-shaven face appeared and rang the bell. The boy in the road looked after him with interest.

“Ah, he is a cute one, he is!” the boy said to himself.

Mrs. Perks appeared in the doorway with a flurried expression.

“I hear you have some furnished rooms to let,” the stranger observed in a pleasant, musical voice. “I should like to look over them, if you please.”

“Certainly, sir!” Mrs. Perks hesitated a moment, “They are not one of our best sets, sir. They are up at the top of the house.”

“Now it is very nice of you to mention that”—the man smiled at her pleasantly—“but as a matter of fact, it will be rather a convenience to me than otherwise. I have a young brother living with me, and I always think the air at the top is purer, and we are both young enough not to mind a few extra steps.”

Mrs. Perks stepped back and took a key from a rail over the dresser; then she looked at Gregory. The newcomer was near enough to catch her words.

“I shall be back just now. You will be careful, Jim!”

“Ay, if I get what I want, I will be careful enough!” Gregory promised roughly.

Mrs. Perks panted a little as she walked up the stairs. The stranger looked round curiously.

“So all these rooms are taken, Mrs. Perks? Ah, well, it shows you make everybody comfortable! And a nice, quiet house. Mr. Godson told me I should find it so, and that is most necessary for me, for I have a good deal of writing to do wherever I am. Do all the tradespeople have to use these stairs, or have you a lift somewhere in the back premises?”

“Not a lift, sir,” Mrs. Perks smiled mirthlessly, her respect for the would-be lodger greatly increased by his mention of Mr. Godson, the trustee in charge of the Grove Street property. “There is a back staircase here”—opening a door at her left—“it comes out just by my room, and it is handy sometimes for coals or such-like, but most folk use the front. These are the rooms, sir. There are three.”

“And very pleasant they look!” the man said as he glanced into the big room in the centre and the smaller one on each side in turn. They were plainly but comfortably furnished. “And the rent is three guineas a week, Mr. Godson told me. I think I shall close with them on the spot. Now, Mrs. Perks,” turning to her confidentially, “tell me, would it not be possible for me to move in this afternoon? That is my name”—handing her a card on which she read, “Mr. Edward Wallace, 32 Buckingham Street, Strand”—“and I am anxious to get away from my present quarters as early as possible. They are dark, they are noisy, they are damp from the river; in fact, they are everything that is objectionable.”

Mrs. Perks looked rather staggered.

“To-day! Well, that don't leave much time for anything; but, there, I always keep the rooms clean!”

“I am sure you do!” Mr. Wallace slipped something in her hand. “You will do for us then, Mrs. Perks, and give an eye to my brother sometimes. He is studying for an exam, so he is a good deal at home just now.”

“I shall do my best, sir,” Mrs. Perks promised, much gratified.

“And that will be very good, I know,” Mr. Wallace concluded. “Oh, it isn't flattery, Mrs. Perks! I may be from the country but I know what it is when I see it. You are not a Londoner yourself, I think, Mrs. Perks?”

Mrs. Perks wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.

“No, sir, I come from Leicestershire, and many is the time I have wished myself back in Saxelby when the noise and bustle of London gets on my nerves.”

“We all of us do,” Mr. Wallace said sympathetically. “But we have our living to get. Well, I shall bring my brother in a couple of hours' time and as much luggage as we can manage. The rest may be sent after us. Good-bye, for the present, Mrs. Perks!”

He ran lightly down the stairs. Mrs. Perks followed more slowly, thinking that he would certainly prove an acquisition. Gregory was standing' up in her room when she entered.

“Well, Maria Perks, be you going to do what I asked you?”

“Haven't I told you I can't?” Mrs. Perks returned irritably. “You won't get bread out of a stone, Jim Gregory!”

“No! But maybe I shall get words from them that don't mean to speak,” Gregory returned significantly. “You have had your chance, Maria Perks.”

“What do you mean, Jim Gregory?” Mrs. Perks gasped.

Gregory drew out a fold of shining sequin gauze from beneath a heap of coarse, black stuff.

“Be this yours—or hers?” he asked, with an evil grin.

Mrs. Perks fell back against the door with a cry.

“Save us, Jim Gregory! Where did you get this?”

Mr. Wallace arrived before the stipulated two hours had elapsed. He arrived with a couple of portmanteaux and a boy in an Eton suit, with a broad white collar, who bore, to a close observer, a strong likeness to the unwashed youth who had taken so strong an interest in Gregory's movements outside.

Mrs. Perks accompanied them to their rooms, and Mr. Edward Wallace expressed himself as delighted with everything. His brother, he explained, was older than he looked, being nearly sixteen; he had been compelled to leave school owing to an illness and was now studying for the Civil Service exam.

“He is terribly mischievous, Mrs. Perks,” he complained. “But if he annoys you in any way, let me know, and I will soon put an end to it.”

“Oh, he won't do that, sir!” Mrs. Perks assured him confidently. “Young gentlemen will be young gentlemen, and I shan't mind that!” as she backed out of the room.

As soon as Mr. Wallace heard her footsteps to the end of the flight of stairs he closed the door.

“You know what you have to do, Archer?” His tone and manner had altered singularly.

The boy looked up.

“Yes, I think so, sir.”

“You are to remain at the window until you get the signal from below,” Mr, Wallace pursued. “Then you will steal as softly as possible down the back stairs and hear all you can of what is going on in Mrs. Perks's room. Hear and remember, you understand, Archer. If Mrs. Perks should catch you—well, you are hiding to give her a fright. You are a very mischievous boy, you know, Archer!”

“Y
OU
!” L
ADY
Warchester looked up in cold surprise as her husband entered the room and closed the door behind him.

“Yes, it is I!” Warchester answered, advancing.

Joan was seated before her writing-table. She wore a high gown of black cashmere, with no relief but a white frilling at neck and sleeves. She wore no jewellery save her broad wedding-ring; her hair was taken plainly back from her forehead and twisted in a thick burnished coil low down on her neck. Her great brown eyes as she raised them to Warchester's held only mingled shrinking and fear.

Her husband stood before her tall, and broad-shouldered; his clean-cut features set in lines of stern melancholy, but as he returned her gaze there was neither guilt nor anger in his eyes, only a great sadness.

“Joan,” he said softly—“is this state of things to last? Can you not trust me?”

A momentary wave of longing swept over Joan.

“How can I—how can I?” she muttered brokenly. “When I saw with my own eyes—”

Warchester outstretched his hands. “Won't you accept my word, Joan? Won't you believe that, foolish, culpably foolish, though my conduct may have been, there is at least no darker stain of guilt upon me?”

For a second or two Joan hesitated. With a great rush of gladness Warchester thought that his battle was won, that she was his, then the softening in her face passed, the fear came back to her eyes, her lips grew rigid.

“I can't! I can't!” She rose to her feet and faced him defiantly.

“You are killing yourself by inches, Joan,” Warchester said unsteadily. “Dear, don't you realize what it means to me to see you growing daily thinner, to know that you give yourself no rest by night or day, and to think that it is my fault, that I—Have pity, Joan, have pity!”