Adventures of Martin Hewitt (25 page)

“Has Penner any decided peculiarity of form or gait?”

“No, he’s just a big common sort of man. But I tell you I feel certain it
was Penner.”

“For any particular reason?”

“No, perhaps not. But who else could it have been? No, I’m very sure it
must have been Penner.”

Hewitt repressed a smile and went on. “Just so,” he said. “And what
happened then?”

“He went up to the seat, as I said, and looked at it, passing his hand
over the top. Then I called out to him. I said if I found him on my premises
again by day or night I’d give him in charge of the police. I assure you he
got over the wall the second time a good deal quicker than the first. And
then I went to bed, though I got a shocking cold in the head sitting at that
open bath-room window. Nobody came about the place after that till last
night. A few days ago my only sister was taken ill. I saw her each day, and
she got worse. Yesterday she was so bad that I wouldn’t leave her. I sent
home for some things and stopped in her house for the night. To-day I got an
urgent message to come home, and when I went I found that an entrance had
been made by a kitchen window and the whole house had been ransacked, but not
a thing was missing.”

“Were drawers and boxes opened?”

“Everywhere. Most seemed to have been opened with keys, but some were
broken. The place was turned upside down, but, as I said before, not a thing
was missing. A very old woman, very deaf, who used to be my housekeeper, but
who does nothing now, was in the house, and so was my general servant. They
slept in rooms at the top and were not disturbed. Of course the old woman is
too deaf to have heard anything, and the maid is a very heavy sleeper. The
girl was very frightened, but I pacified her before I came away. As it
happened, I took the snuff-box with me. I had got very suspicious of late, of
course, and something seemed to suggest that I had better so I took it. It’s
pretty strong evidence that they have been watching me closely, isn’t it,
that they should break in the very first night I left the place?”

“And are you quite sure that nothing has been taken?”

“Quite certain. I have spent a long time in a very careful search.”

“And you want me, I presume, to find out definitely who these people are,
and get such evidence as may ensure their being punished?”

“That is the case. Of course I know Reuben Penner is the moving
spirit—I’m quite certain of that. But still I can see plainly enough
that as yet there’s no legal evidence of it. Mind, I’m not afraid of
him—not a bit. That is not my character. I’m not afraid of all the
madmen in England; but I’m not going to have them steal my
property—this snuff-box especially.”

“Precisely. I hope you have left the disturbance in your house exactly as
you found it?”

“Oh, of course, and I have given strict orders that nothing is to be
touched. To-morrow morning I should like you to come and look at it.”

“I must look at it, certainly,” Hewitt said, “but I would rather go at
once.”

“Pooh—nonsense!” Mrs. Mallett answered, with the airy obstinacy that
Hewitt afterwards knew so well. “I’m not going home again now to spend an
hour or two more. My sister will want to know what has become of me, and she
mustn’t suspect that anything is wrong, or it may do all sorts of harm. The
place will keep till the morning, and I have the snuff-box safe with me. You
have my card, Mr. Hewitt, haven’t you? Very well. Can you be at my house
to-morrow morning at half-past ten? I will be there, and you can see all you
want by daylight. We’ll consider that settled. Good-day.” Hewitt saw her to
his office door and waited till she had half descended the stairs. Then he
made for a staircase window which gave a view of the street. The evening was
coming on murky and foggy, and the street lights were blotchy and vague.
Outside a four-wheeled cab stood, and the driver eagerly watched the front
door. When Mrs. Mallett emerged he instantly began to descend from the box
with the quick invitation, “Cab, mum, cab?”

He seemed very eager for his fare, and though Mrs. Mallett hesitated a
second she eventually entered the cab. He drove off, and Hewitt tried in vain
to catch a glimpse of the number of the cab behind. It was always a habit of
his to note all such identifying marks throughout a case, whether they seemed
important at the time or not, and he has often had occasion to be pleased
with the outcome. Now, however, the light was too bad. No sooner had the cab
started than a man emerged from a narrow passage opposite, and followed. He
was a large, rather awkward, heavy-faced man of middle age, and had the
appearance of a respectable artisan or small tradesman in his best clothes.
Hewitt hurried downstairs and followed the direction the cab and the man had
taken, toward the Strand. But the cab by this time was swallowed up in the
Strand traffic, and the heavy-faced man had also disappeared. Hewitt returned
to his office a little disappointed, for the man seemed rather closely to
answer Mrs. Mallett’s description of Reuben Penner.

Punctually at half-past ten the next morning Hewitt was at Mrs. Mallett’s
house at Fulham. It was a pretty little house, standing back from the road in
a generous patch of garden, and had evidently stood there when Fulham was an
outlying village. Hewitt entered the gate, and made his way to the front
door, where two young females, evidently servants, stood. They were in a very
disturbed state, and when he asked for Mrs. Mallett, assured him that nobody
knew where she was, and that she had not been seen since the previous
afternoon.

“But,” said Hewitt, “she was to stay at her sister’s last night, I
believe.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the more distressed of the two girls—she in a
cap—“but she hasn’t been seen there. This is her sister’s servant, and
she’s been sent over to know where she is, and why she hasn’t been there.”
This the other girl—in bonnet and shawl—corroborated. Nothing had
been seen of Mrs. Mallett at her sister’s since she had received the message
the day before to the effect that the house had been broken into.

“And I’m so frightened,” the other girl said, whimperingly. “They’ve been
in the place again last night.”

“Who have?”

“The robbers. When I came in this morning——”

“But didn’t you sleep here?”

“I—I ought to ha’ done sir, but—but after Mrs. Mallett went
yesterday I got so frightened I went home at ten.” And the girl showed signs
of tears, which she had apparently been already indulging in.

“And what about the old woman—the deaf woman; where was she?”

“She was in the house, sir. There was nowhere else for her to go, and she
was deaf and didn’t know anything about what happened the night before, and
confined to her room, and—and so I didn’t tell her.”

“I see,” Hewitt said with a slight smile. “You left her here. She didn’t
see or hear anything, did she?”

“No sir; she can’t hear, and she didn’t see nothing.”

“And how do you know thieves have been in the house?”

“Everythink’s tumbled about worse than ever, sir, and all different from
what it was yesterday; and there’s a box o’ papers in the attic broke open,
and all sorts o’ things.”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

“No, sir; I’m that frightened I don’t know what to do. And missis was
going to see a gentleman about it yesterday, and——”

“Very well, I am that gentleman—Mr. Martin Hewitt. I have come down
now to meet her by appointment. Did she say she was going anywhere else as
well as to my office and to her sister’s?”

“No, sir. And she—she’s got the snuff-box with her and all.” This
latter circumstance seemed largely to augment the girl’s terrors for her
mistress’s safety.

“Very well,” Hewitt said, “I think I’d better just look over the house
now, and then consider what has become of Mrs. Mallett—if she isn’t
heard of in the meantime.” The girl found a great relief in Hewitt’s presence
in the house, the deaf old house-keeper, who seldom spoke and never heard,
being, as she said, “worse than nobody.”

“Have you been in all the rooms?” Hewitt asked.

“No, sir; I was afraid. When I came in I went straight upstairs to my
room, and as I was coming away I see the things upset in the other attic. I
went into Mrs. Perks’ room, next to mine (she’s the deaf old woman), and she
was there all right, but couldn’t hear anything. Then I came down and only
just peeped into two of the rooms and saw the state they were in, and then I
came out into the garden, and presently this young woman came with the
message from Mrs. Rudd.”

“Very well, we’ll look at the rooms now,” Hewitt said, and they proceeded
to do so. All were in a state of intense confusion. Drawers, taken from
chests and bureaux, littered about the floor, with their contents scattered
about them. Carpets and rugs had been turned up and flung into corners, even
pictures on the walls had been disturbed, and while some hung awry others
rested on the floor and on chairs. The things, however, appeared to have been
fairly carefully handled, for nothing was damaged except one or two framed
engravings, the brown paper on the backs of which had been cut round with a
knife and the wooden slats shifted so as to leave the backs of the engravings
bare. This, the girl told Hewitt, had not been done on the night of the first
burglary; the other articles also had not on that occasion been so much
disturbed as they now were.

Mrs. Mallett’s bedroom was the first floor front. Here the confusion was,
if possible, greater than in the other rooms. The bed had been completely
unmade and the clothes thrown separately on the floor, and everything else
was displaced. It was here indeed that the most noticeable features of the
disturbance were observed, for on the side of the looking-glass hung a very
long old-fashioned gold chain untouched, and on the dressing-table lay a
purse with the money still in it. And on the looking-glass, stuck into the
crack of the frame, was a half sheet of notepaper with this inscription
scrawled in pencil:—

To Mr. Martin Hewitt.

Mrs. Mallett is alright and in frends hands. She will
return soon alright, if you keep quiet. But if you folloe her or take any
steps the conseqinses will be very serious.

This paper was not only curious in itself, and curious as being addressed
to Hewitt, but it was plainly in the same handwriting as were the most of the
anonymous letters which Mrs. Mallett had produced the day before in Hewitt’s
office. Hewitt studied it attentively for a few moments and then thrust it in
his pocket and proceeded to inspect the rest of the rooms. All were the
same—simply well-furnished rooms turned upside down. The top floor
consisted of three comfortable attics, one used as a lumber-room and the
others used respectively as bedrooms for the servant and the deaf old woman.
None of these rooms appeared to have been entered, the girl said, on the
first night, but now the lumber-room was almost as confused as the rooms
downstairs. Two or three boxes were opened and their contents turned out. One
of these was what is called a steel trunk—a small one—which had
held old papers, the others were filled chiefly with old clothes.

The servant’s room next this was quite undisturbed and untouched; and then
Hewitt was admitted to the room of Mrs. Mallett’s deaf old pensioner. The old
woman sat propped up in her bed and looked with half-blind eyes at the peak
in the bedclothes made by her bent knees. The servant screamed in her ear,
but she neither moved nor spoke.

Hewitt laid his hand on her shoulder and said, in the slow and distinct
tones he had found best for reaching the senses of deaf people, “I hope you
are well. Did anything disturb you in the night?” But she only turned her
head half toward him and mumbled peevishly, “I wish you’d bring my tea.
You’re late enough this morning.” Nothing seemed likely to be got from her,
and Hewitt asked the servant, “Is she altogether bedridden?”

“No,” the girl answered; “leastways she needn’t be. She stops in bed most
of the time, but she can get up when she likes—I’ve seen her. But
missis humours her and lets her do as she likes—and she gives plenty of
trouble. I don’t believe she’s as deaf as she makes out.”

“Indeed!” Hewitt answered. “Deafness is convenient sometimes, I know. Now
I want you to stay here while I make some inquiries. Perhaps you’d better
keep Mrs. Rudd’s servant with you if you want company. I don’t expect to be
very long gone, and in any case it wouldn’t do for her to go to her mistress
and say that Mrs. Mallett is missing, or it might upset her seriously.”
Hewitt left the house and walked till he found a public-house where a
post-office directory was kept. He took a glass of whisky and water, most of
which he left on the counter, and borrowed the directory. He found
“Greengrocers” in the “Trade” section and ran his finger down the column till
he came on this address:—“Penner, Reuben, 8, Little Marsh Row,
Hammersmith, W.” Then he returned the directory and found the best cab he
could to take him to Hammersmith.