The Black House in Harley Street/Chapter 15

The silence which followed this dramatic announcement was broken by Lord Maxton, who, having listened to the carpenter's wife's story as children listen to thrilling tales of ghosts and giants—with open-mouthed attention—now remarked—

"Doosed clever, begad! Never ha' thought o' that meself. Um!—clever chap. Take some catching, eh, Dolly?"

"I always admired his beard so much!" said Lady Maxton, with a plaintive sigh. "I wonder if it is the same man."

"Yes, that's what we want to get at," said Macnaughten. "You're sure, Mrs. Hampson, that the man who passed when you were in the confectioner's shop was the man you had known as Sinclair?"

"Yes; certain as I am that Hampson is Hampson, sir!"

"Well, which way did he go?"

"He went away up the hill towards the Angel, sir, walking very quick, and carrying his little bag, just as I'd seen him do many's the time. And I can give you a proof, sir, that'll show you as how I'm not without ​powers of observation, as Hampson, as is a bit of a scholar, calls them."

Mrs. Hampson glanced round the circle of faces with the air of one who anticipates the joys of triumph.

"Why, sir, although he'd shaved off his beard and moustache," she said, "which was, of course, very changing to his face, he hadn't been able to shave off his habit of lifting his chin when he looked at anything. This—er—way he had a habit of looking," continued Mrs. Hampson, treating the company to an imitation of van Mildart's curious trick of throwing back his head and tilting nose and chin. "And just as he passed the confectionery shop he looked up the hill towards the Angel, and I knew there was no mistake. And of course," she concluded, with the accent of to-be-sureness, "of course there was his blue spectacles, which me nor Hampson never once see him without."

"I was afraid," said Macnaughten aside to Miss Lamotte, "that he'd get rid of those blue spectacles."

"So was I," she answered. "It seems evident that he's forced to wear them. Yes, Mrs. Hampson, what else?"

"Well, miss, of course, after that I went home, feeling queer and upset, for mysteries is what I can't abear. Hampson, he didn't come home to his dinner till very late to-day, 'cause of a special job he's on with, and when he comes, as is his custom, he brings in a paper, which in usual he reads after his dinner when he's having his pipe of tobacco. But to-day he starts on as soon as he gets inside the house. 'There's been a nice to-do down the West End way!' he says, and reads some of ​it out, horrible enough to make one go without a good dinner, as was boiled beef and suet dumplings, done to a turn. 'An' who's this description of this here Dr. van Mildart remind you of, Maria Jane?' he says, and reads it careful. 'Mercy upon us, James Henry Hampson!' says I, 'it's Sinclair!' And then, of course, I told him of what had happened that morning. 'Maria Jane,' he says, very solemn, 'that's the man-a-flyin' from Justice.' That's just what he said, did my husband. And so it was settled that I should come here and see where this Dr. van Mildart lived, and find out if there was any responsible person as could tell me anything. And I would like to know, ladies and gentlemen, if you think as this Mildart really was Sinclair; for if he was, me and Hampson would like to have that there room and safe opened; for, as Hampson says, who knows what dead corpses and unpleasant bodies mayn't have been carted in there unbeknownst to either of us?"

Mrs. Hampson's last remark made a strong impression upon the Countess, who had a vivid imagination and a love of any new sensation. She proposed that they should all go straight off and see what they could really find in the room and the safe, and was suddenly seized with the notion that her diamonds might not improbably be there.

But the Earl, in spite of his belief in his wife's cleverness, shook his head with what was for him a very sagacious expression.

"No jolly fear, begad!" said he. "No, Dolly—you're doosed clever, but off the scent there. Nobody's goin' ​to leave two-fifty-thou.'s worth of diamonds behind him when he could carry 'em in his pockets. The diamonds are where he is, yah know, eh?"

"His lordship is quite right, Countess," said Macnaughten. "Leave the matter to us—we'll run van Mildart down yet. Now, Mrs. Hampson, we're very much obliged to you, and we've carefully noted all you've told us, and the safe and the room shall be examined as you suggest. Leave your exact address with Miss Lamotte, and we'll see that you're looked after all right."

So Mrs. Hampson gave her correct address and exchanged a few words with Miss Lamotte, and was then handed over to Mrs. Blashfield, who immediately conducted her next door, in order to show her where the wicked doctor had lived and to extract still further particulars from her as to the mysterious lodger who seemed to be identical with him. As for the party left behind, most of them remained to discuss the little woman's news, with the exception of Macnaughten, who hurried away to the telephone, and of the reporters, who, having secured some new and startling copy, flew on the wings of the wind to make the most of it. It was the opinion of everybody that it was impossible for van Mildart to escape—by that time the whole country was aroused, and his description circulated everywhere. There was not a railway station inland nor a port on the coast that would not be watched as closely as a terrier watches for rats at a malt-kiln door. How he could get away through such a cordon of police and public as that ​which ringed the island round it seemed impossible to conceive.

"But the beggar's so monstrous clever, begad, yah know," said Lord Maxton, with the air of the wise man who sums up everything. "Wily old fox as ever I knew—slipped into some drain-pipe or other, yah know, somewhere. Take some smart hounds to move him. Eh, what?"

"There are plenty in pursuit, at any rate," said Goulburn. "We must have news of him soon."

But no news came. As in the case of Mrs. Hampson, a good many people were ready enough to come forward with reports. One railway porter was absolutely certain that he saw Dr. van Mildart with the now famous brown bag at Paddington, on the principal departure platform, at exactly ten minutes past eleven on the fateful morning; another was equally positive that at the very same moment he saw the fugitive at Fenchurch Street. A waterman came forward to say that about noon that day he had conveyed a man answering the published description of van Mildart from some steps near Wapping to a trading vessel lying in the Upper Pool—he had not heard of the Prince's Gate affair at the time, having been on the river all the morning, and the vessel had sailed soon after his passenger had boarded her. In his case, he remembered the vessel's name and her port of destination. Inquiries proved that the passenger's only resemblance to van Mildart was that he was bearded and wore spectacles. And so these false alarms and reports ​went on. He had been captured at Southampton. The Liverpool police—specially active in view of his probable escape to America—had effected his arrest as he boarded the Lusitania. The French police had got him—no, the German police—no, the Belgian. He was heard of in Spain, again in Germany. Then it was confidently asserted that he had escaped to the Argentine Republic's territory, where so many of his sort were glad to hasten.

The Hampson incident turned out a lamentable fiasco with a humorous side to it. On the day following Mrs. Hampson's report, Macnaughten himself, with some other officers, and accompanied by Miss Lamotte, went to the house in Lloyd Square for the purpose of examining the mysterious lodger's room and belongings. The Hampson establishment was by that time, of course, quite famous. There were pictures of it in at least three morning newspapers, together with a species of autobiographical notices of the Hampsons, thus suddenly lifted into fame, from which it appeared (as matters of tremendous interest) that Hampson's father, like himself, had been a carpenter at the same shop where Hampson worked, and that it was not true (as had been maliciously stated by a near neighbour) that Mrs. Hampson did clear starching. Crowds were round the house when the detectives and their posse got there. They stared open-mouthed at Miss Lamotte, whose portraits had been in nearly every London paper that morning. Miss Lamotte, waiting until the door was opened, had to hear criticisms upon herself.

​"That's 'er wot tracked 'im dahn, see?"

"Bin a-trackin' of 'im for two years, wot?"

"Looks like a real lydy, don't she?"

"Strynge wot some o' these here lydies will turn to nah-a-dyes! Wot wiv these 'ere suffragettes as they call 'em, and lydy 'tecs and lydy 'spectors o' this, that, and t'other, blowed if I know wot we're a-comin' to!"

Hampson, in honour of the occasion, had got or had taken a morning off, and he and Mrs. Hampson were quite prepared to do the honours. Hampson, as a fully qualified journeyman carpenter of experience, took much pride in pointing out that the locks which secured the door of the room occupied in such a mysterious fashion by the supposed van Mildart, alias Sinclair, were of an almost impregnable nature. Oh, they'd got to be forced, had they? Well, he and his missus were not the sort to defeat the hends of Justice. But of course they were poor, 'ard-workin' folk, and no doubt the Gover'ment wouldn't be against Compensation—a trifle to put on a new lock and to pay for such paint and varnish as was wanted. Justice, he remarked (with eloquence, as he had visited the public-house round the corner more than once that morning), was a Sacred Thing. Let the officers proceed.

So the myrmidons of the Sacred Thing broke open the door of the mysterious room, and discovered (to use a very appropriate stage expression) a somewhat dingily furnished apartment, in which the principal object was certainly a safe—obviously purchased second, or more likely third, hand at one of those ​dismal establishments where all the old furniture that ever was gathers itself together. The great men of our police are never at a loss for anything, and as they had an itching and irritating curiosity to know what was really inside that safe, they had caused to be present one of the most redoubtable cracksmen of his day, who happened to be having a holiday from either Dartmoor or Portland just then, and whom they proposed to employ in a legitimate fashion on this occasion only. It was while this gentleman was expressing his open contempt of the safe, and declaring his intention of being free of its contents in two minutes, that a man who certainly wore sporting-looking clothes and blue spectacles, and bore traces of having recently been relieved of a light-coloured beard and moustache, entered the house amidst great commotion from the crowd outside, and, forcing his way into the room, pointedly and forcibly asked what the devil they all meant by breaking in upon his privacy and attempting to damage his property. And at sight of him Mrs. Hampson screamed, and Macnaughten and Miss Lamotte, recognising the situation, said things under their breath.

"What's it mean, you, Mrs. Hampson—and you, Hampson?" demanded this infuriated person. "How dare you allow these people to break into my room? Haven't I always paid you regular?—have I ever given you any trouble? What's it all mean, I say?"

Mrs. Hampson sobbed.

"Oh, Mr. Sinclair!" she exclaimed, "oh, Mr. Sin​clair! What a world o' worrittin' you might ha' saved me an' these here kind ladies and gentlemen if you'd ha' had less o' mystery in your nature, sir! Oh dear, dear, dear!"

Mr. Sinclair looked wonderingly around the semicircle of faces.

"What's the old fool mean?" he asked. "Is—is she drunk?"

Mr. Hampson stepped forward.

"Misher Shinclair," he remarked, waving an admonitory forefinger, "Misher Shincl-air, f'you wish t'addresh m'wife, sir, you'll please addresh that estim'ble lady ash a lady. You'll 'low me, Misher———"

Mrs. Hampson began to wail.

"It's all your own fault, Mr. Sinclair! Why did you go for to shave off your beard and 'stashers yesterday?"

Then Mr. Sinclair looked as one looks who is on the verge of lunacy. He glared at everybody.

"Shave off my beard and moustache, you old idiot? Why, because it's such hot weather, and I wanted to feel cool. And now I'll thank somebody to tell me what all this means, and then I'll have the law on every man Jack in this room—yes, and woman too!"

So there was an end of that clue. Subsequently Mr. and Mrs. Hampson had words. And nobody was a penny the better for Mrs. Hampson's visit to Harley Street, nor for the descent upon Lloyd Square.

At the end of a week nobody had heard a word about Dr. van Mildart. At the end of a fortnight there were ​not wanting certain sceptical people in various parts of the country who were bold enough to express doubts in public as to whether such a person ever really existed. And about the same time the Earl of Maxton declared, in his best stableboy fashion, that he would not kick his heels in London to please all the police that ever were, and that he was going yachting, a sudden desire for the sea having seized upon him. Whereupon he sent instructions to Gravesend, where his magnificent steam-yacht, the Lorelei, then lay, to have everything in readiness within a week, and at the same time bade his wife ask whatever company she pleased to go with them for a four weeks' cruise towards the Arctic regions—that, in the Earl's opinion, being the most fitting direction to take considering the extremely hot time which he had lately had.

Now, the Countess of Maxton, as has already been remarked, was an eccentric young lady, who loved nothing so much as something new. She was just then wanting new sensations. She was bored to death, she said, by all the people she knew—she wanted new society. She had been much interested in the young people she had met in Harley Street, and in Miss Lamotte and Mr. Macnaughten, and she suddenly decided that she would have them all on the Lorelei and nobody else. She knew about the marriage already arranged between Richard and Moira, and the special licence—what more delightful than to persuade Christopher and Maisie to follow their example, have the two couples quietly united, and take them away for their ​honeymoon? She went at once and told the Earl of her brilliant idea. The Earl made no objection, but rather rejoiced. Goulburn, he said, was a sensible chap, with no nonsense about him, and Christopher was nearly as amusing as the late Dan Leno. Miss Lamotte was a doosed smart woman. Macnaughten was a one-er and no mistake, even if he hadn't caught van Mildart yet; and the girls were very nice, with no airs. Ask the lot, by all means—much better fun than the last cargo they carted round.

So the Countess went energetically to work, cajoling and persuading everybody; and she got round Mr. Pepperall, and made him persuade Christopher to be sensible; and a dual marriage duly took place—very quietly; and Mr. Macnaughten found that a holiday would do him good, and Miss Lamotte made no objection, and the Countess was delighted, and the Earl good-humouredly pleased because he was in no danger of being bored. His last yachting party had consisted of the Very Great—and there had been a Dean in it. So one August day the Lorelei sailed out past the Nore, and turned northward on a voyage which was to prove more eventful than any on board her reckoned for.