Hugo by Arnold Bennett (all ebook reader txt) 📖

Probably never before in his life had he been so loquacious and so happy in his loquacity.

'That's not a bad scheme, Simon,' said Hugo. 'Try it.'

The brothers went down the area-steps while Hugo remained at the gate. A light burned steadily in the first-floor window. And then another and a fainter light flickered in the hall, and after a few seconds the front-door opened. Hugo literally jumped into the house, and, safely within, he banged the door.

'Now,' he said.

A middle-aged woman, holding a candle, stood by Simon and Albert in the hall.

'Are you the servant?' Hugo demanded.

'No, sir; I'm the landlady. And I'd like to know--'

'Your husband told me you were away and wouldn't return till to-morrow.'

'Seeing as how my husband's been dead these thirteen years--'

'We're in, sir. We'd better search the house to start with,' said Albert. 'There's three of us. The man that opened the door to you must have been a wrong un, one of _his_.'

'Never have I had the police in my house before,' wailed the landlady of No. 23, Horseferry Road, while the candle dropped tallow tears on the oilcloth. 'And all I can say is I thank the blessed Lord it's dark, and you aren't in uniform. Doctor Woolrich's rooms are on the first floor, and you can go up and see for yourself, if you like. And how should I know he wasn't a real doctor?'

As the landlady spoke, sounds of footsteps made themselves heard overhead, and a door closed.

'Give me that candle, my good woman,' said Hugo, hastily snatching it from her.

The three men ran upstairs, leaving the hall to darkness and the landlady.

Whether Hugo dropped the candle in his excitement, or whether it was knocked out of his hand by means of a stick through the rails of the landing-banister as he ascended, will never be accurately known. He himself is not sure. The important fact is that the candle fell, and the trio stumbled up the last few stairs with nothing to guide them but a chink of light through a half-closed door. This door led to the rooms of Dr. Woolrich, and the rooms of Dr. Woolrich were well lighted with gas. But they were empty. There was a sitting-room and a bedroom, and on the round table in the centre of the sitting-room was a copy of the most modern edition of Quain's 'Dictionary of Medicine,' edited by Murray, Harold, and Bosanquet, bound in half-morocco; the volume was open at the article 'Anaesthetics,' and Hugo will always remember that the page was sixty-two. No sooner were the rooms found to be empty than Hugo rushed back to the landing, followed by Simon. The landing, however, even with the sitting-room door thrown wide and the light streaming across the landing and down the stairs, showed no sign of life.

Then Albert, who had remained within the suite, called out:

'There must be a dressing-room off this bedroom, and it's locked.'

'Simon,' said Hugo, 'go to the front window and keep watch.'

And Hugo ran into the bedroom to Albert.

Decidedly there was a door in the bedroom which had the appearance of leading into a further room, but the door would not budge. The pair glanced about. No evidence of recent human habitation was visible either in the sitting-room or in the bedroom, save only the dictionary, and Albert commented on this.

'We must force that door,' Hugo decided, 'and be ready to look after yourself when it gives way.'

As he spoke he could see, in the tail of his eye, Simon opening the front window and then looking out into the street.

'One--two--charge!' cried Hugo; and he and Albert flung themselves valiantly against the door.

They made no impression upon it at all.

Breathless and shaken, they looked at each other.

'Suppose I fire into the lock?' said Hugo.

'We might try a key first,' Albert answered.

He took the key from the door between the bedroom and the sitting-room, and applied it to the lock of the obstinate portal. The obstinate portal opened at once.

'Empty!' ejaculated Albert, putting his nose into a small dressing-room.

With a gesture of disgust Hugo turned away. In the same instant Simon withdrew his head into the sitting-room.

'I've seen him,' Simon whispered in hoarse excitement. 'He just popped out of the kitchen and came half-way up the area steps. Then he ran back. He saw me looking at him.'

'Ravengar?'

Simon nodded. This was the hour of Simon's triumph, the proof that he had not been mistaken in the theory which he had raised on the foundation of the photograph.

'Come along,' said Hugo grimly, preparing to rush downstairs.

But a singular thing had occurred. While Simon had been staring out of the front window, and Hugo and Albert engaged in forcing a door which led to emptiness, the door of the sitting-room, the sole means of egress from the first-floor suite, had been shut and locked on the outside.

In vain Hugo assailed it with boot and shoulder; in vain Albert assisted him.

'Keep your eye on the street, you fool!' said Albert to Simon, when the latter offered to join the siege of the door.

Hugo and Albert multiplied their efforts.

'There's a cab driven up,' Simon informed them from the window. 'A man's got out. Now he's gone down the area steps. They're carrying something up, something big. Oh! look here, I must help you.'

And Simon ran to the door. Before the triple assault it fell at last, and the three tumbled pell-mell downstairs into the hall. The front-door was open.

A cab was just driving away. It drove rapidly, very rapidly.

'After it!' Hugo commanded.

The hunt was up.

Two minutes afterwards another cab drove up to the door.

Ravengar and another man emerged from the area holding between them the form of a woman. They got leisurely into the cab with the woman and departed.


CHAPTER XXVII


THE CEMETERY

Both Simon and Albert easily outran Hugo, and, fast as the first cab was travelling, they had gained on it by the time it turned into Victoria Street. And at the turning an incident happened. The driver, though hurried, was apparently to a certain extent careful and cautious, but he did not altogether avoid contact with a policeman at the corner. The policeman was obliged to step sharply out of the way of the cab, and even then the sleeve of his immaculate tunic was soiled by contact with the hind-wheel of the vehicle. Now, the driver might have scraped an ordinary person with impunity, and passed on unchallenged; he might even have soiled the sleeve of a veteran policeman and got nothing worse than a sharp word of censure and a fragment of good advice. But this particular policeman was quite a new policeman, whose dignity was as delicate and easily smirched as his beautiful shining tunic. And the result was that the cabby had to stop, give his number, and listen to a lecture.

Simon and Albert formed part of the audience for the lecture. It did not, however, interest them, for they had instantly perceived that the cab was empty.

Then, as the lecturer was growing eloquent, Hugo arrived, and was informed of the emptiness of the vehicle.

'It was just a trick,' Simon exclaimed; 'a trick to get us out of the house.'

'We must go back,' said Hugo, breathless.

At this moment the second cab appeared, was delayed a moment by the multitude listening to the lecture, and passed westwards into Victoria Street.

'They're in that!' cried Simon.

'Are you sure?' Hugo questioned.

'Of course I'm sure,' said Simon, who in the excitement of the trail had ceased to be a valet.

To jump into a hansom and order the driver to keep the four-wheeler in sight ought to have been the work of a few seconds, but it occurred, as invariably occurs when a hansom is urgently needed, that no hansom was available. The four-wheeler was receding at a moderate rate in the direction of the Grosvenor Hotel.

'Run after it!' said Hugo. 'I'll get a cab in the station-yard and follow.'

The quarry vanished round a corner just as they tumbled into the hansom on the top of Hugo, but it was never out of observation for more than a quarter of a minute. Through divers strange streets it came at length into Fulham Road at Elm Place, and thenceforward, at a higher rate of speed, it kept to the main thoroughfare. The procession passed the workhouse and the Redcliffe Arms. Between Edith Grove and Stamford Bridge the roadway was up for fundamental repairs, and omnibuses were being diverted down Edith Grove to King's Road. A policeman at the corner spoke to the driver of the four-wheeler, gave a sign of assent, and the four-wheeler went straight onwards into a medley of wood-blocks, which was all that was left of Fulham Road. The hansom followed intrepidly, and then its three occupants were conscious of a sudden halt.

'Bobby wants to know where you're going to,' said the driver, opening the trap.

There was a slight hesitation, and the policeman's voice could be heard:

'Come out of it!'

'We're following that four-wheeler,' Hugo was about to say, but he perceived the absurdity of saying such a thing in cold blood to a policeman.

All three descended. The cabman had to be paid. There was a difficulty about finding change--one of those silly and ridiculous difficulties that so frequently supervene in crises otherwise grave; in short, a succession of trifling delays, each of which might easily have been obviated by perfect forethought, or by perfect accord between the three men.

When next they came to close quarters with the four-wheeler it was leisurely driving away empty from a small semi-detached house which was separated from the road by a tiny garden. They ran into the garden. The one thing that flourished in it was a 'To Let' notice. The front-door, shaded by unpruned trees, was shut, and there were cobwebs on the handle, as Hugo plainly saw when he struck a match. They hastened round to the back of the house, where was a larger garden. A French window gave access to the house. This French window yielded at once to a firm push. The three men searched the ground-floor and found nothing. They then ascended the stairs and equally found nothing. The house must have been empty for many months. From the first-floor window at the back Hugo gazed out, baffled. Far off he could see lights of houses, but the foreground was all darkness and mystery.

'What lies between us and those lights?' he asked.

'It must be Brompton Cemetery, sir,' said Albert. 'The garden gives on the cemetery, I expect.'

As if suddenly possessed by a demon, Hugo flew out of the room, down the stairs, into the garden. At the extremity of the garden was a brick wall, and against the wall were two extremely convenient barrels; they might have been placed there specially for the occasion. In an instant he was in the cemetery.

* * * * *


The remainder of the adventure survives in Hugo's memory like a sort of night-picture in which all