Devlin the Barber. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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      To my astonishment he had pulled out his pocket-book and extracted ten ten-pound notes, and there they lay on the table before me. I would have entreated him to take them back, feeling that it would be the falsest of false pretences to accept them, but before I could speak again he was gone.

      I called my wife into the room, and told her what had passed. She regarded it in the same light as myself, but I noted a little wistful look in her eyes as she glanced at the bank-notes.

      "A thousand pounds!" she sighed, half-longingly, half-humorously. "If we could only call it ours! Why, it would make our fortune!"

      "It would, my dear," I said, wishing in my heart of hearts that I had a thousand pounds of my own to throw into her lap. "But this particular thousand pounds which the good old fellow has so generously offered will never come into our possession. So let us dismiss it from our minds."

      "Mr. Portland," said my wife, "evidently thinks you would make a good detective."

      "That may or may not be, though his opinion of me is altogether too flattering. Certainly, if I had a clue to the discovery of this terrible mystery-"

      "You would follow it up," said my wife, finishing the sentence for me.

      "Undoubtedly I would, with courage and determination. With such a reward in view, nothing should shake me off. I would prove myself a very bloodhound. But there," I said, half ashamed at being led away, "I am sailing in the clouds. Let's talk no more about it. As for Mr. Portland's hundred pounds I will put the notes carefully by, and return them to him at the first opportunity. Poor Mrs. Melladew! How I pity her and Melladew! I shall never forget the picture of the father sitting in that chair, moaning, 'My poor, poor Lizzie! O, my child, my child!' It was heartbreaking."

      My wife and I talked a great deal of it during the night, and before we went to bed I had purchased at least seven or eight newspapers of the newsboys who passed through the street crying out new editions and latest news of the dreadful deed. But there was nothing really new. Matters were in the same state as when the body of the hapless girl was found in Victoria Park early in the morning. I recognised how dangerous was the delay. Every additional hour increased the chances of the murderer's escape from the hands of justice.

      I did not sleep well; my slumbers were disturbed by fantastic, horrible dreams. It was eleven o'clock on Sunday morning before I quitted my bed.

      CHAPTER V

      I must now speak of the letter which I received on the morning of the murder, as I stood at my street-door. It was from a Mrs. Lemon, entreating me to call upon her at any hour most convenient to me on this Sunday, and it was couched in terms so imploring that it would have been cruel on my part to refuse, more especially as the writer had some slight claim upon me. Mrs. Lemon had been for many years a nurse and servant in my parents' house, and the children were fond of her. She was then a spinster, and her name was Fanny Peel. We used to make jokes upon it, and call her Fancy Peel, Orange Peel, Candied Peel, Lemon Peel-and we little dreamt, when we called her Lemon Peel, that we were unconsciously moved by the spirit of prophecy. For though she was thirty years of age she succeeded in captivating a widower a few years older than herself, Ephraim Lemon, a master barber and hairdresser, who used to haunt the area. We youngsters were in the habit of watching for him and playing him tricks, I am afraid, but nothing daunted his ardour. He proposed for Fanny, and she accepted him. Some enterprising tradesmen, when their stock is stale or old-fashioned, put bills in their windows announcing that no reasonable offer will be refused. Fanny Peel, having been long on the shelf, may have thought of this when she accepted Ephraim Lemon's hand. After her marriage she came to see me once a year to pay her respects; but suddenly her visits became less frequent, until they ceased altogether. For a long time past I had heard nothing of my old nurse.

      "It is a fine morning," I said to my wife, "and I shall walk to Fanny's house."

      In the course of an hour I presented myself at Mrs. Lemon's street-door, and knocked. She herself opened it to me, and after an anxious scrutiny asked me eagerly to walk in. There was trouble in her face, tempered by an expression of relief when she fully recognised me. She preceded me into her little parlour, and I sat down, awaiting the communication she desired to make. Up to the point of my sitting down the only words exchanged between us were-

      From her: "O, sir, it is you, and you have come!"

      From me: "Yes, Fanny; I hope I am not later than you expected?"

      From her: "Not at all, sir. You always was that punkchel that I used to time myself by you."

      It is a detail to state that I had not the remotest idea what she meant by this compliment, especially as I had not made an appointment for any particular hour. However, I did not ask her for an explanation. I addressed her as Fanny quite naturally, and when I followed her into the parlour an odd impression came upon me that I had gone right back into the past, and that I was once more a little boy in pinafores.

      The house Mrs. Lemon inhabits is situated in the north of London, in a sadly resigned neighbourhood, which bears a shabby genteel reputation. If I may be allowed such a form of expression I may say that it is respectable in a demi-semi kind of way. I do not mean in respect of its morals, which are unexceptionable, but in respect of its social position. It is situated in a square, and is one of a cluster of tenements so exactly alike in their frontage appearance that were it not for the numbers on the doors a man, that way inclined, might hope for forgiveness for walking in and taking tea with his neighbour's wife instead of with his own. In the centre of the square is an enclosure, bounded by iron railings, which once may have been intended for the cultivation of flowers; at the present time it contains a few ancient shrubs which nobody ever waters, and which are, therefore, always shabby and dusty in dry weather. Even when it rains they do not attempt to put on an air of liveliness; it is as though they had settled down to the conviction that their day is over. To this enclosed rural mockery, each tenant in the square is supposed to have a key, but the only use the ground is put to is to shake carpets in, and every person in or out of the neighbourhood is made free of it, by reason of there being no lock to the gate. There are no signs of absolute poverty in the square. Vagrant children do not play at "shops" on the doorsteps and window-sills; organ men avoid it with a shudder; beggars walk slowly through, and do not linger; peripatetic vendors of food never venture there; and the donkey of the period is unfamiliar with the region. Amusement is provided twice a week by a lanky old gentleman in a long tail coat and a frayed black stock reaching to his ears, whose instrument is a wheezy flute, and whose repertoire consists of "The Last Rose of Summer" and "Away with Melancholy," which he blows out in a fashion so unutterably mournful and dismal as to suggest to the ingenious mind that his nightly wanderings are part of a punishment inflicted upon him at some remote period for the commission of a dark, mysterious crime.

      "It's very good of you to come, sir," said Mrs. Lemon, working her right hand slowly backwards and forwards on a faded black silk dress, which I judged had been put on in honour of my visit. "I hope you are well, sir, and your lady, and your precious family."

      I replied that my wife and children were quite well, and that we should be glad to see her at any time. When she heard this she burst into tears.

      "You always was the kindest-hearted gentleman!" she sobbed. "You never did object to being put upon, and you give away your toys that free that all the other children used to take advantage of you. But you didn't mind, sir, not you. Over and over agin have your blessed father said when he was alive, 'That boy'll never git along in the world, he's so soft!'" Mrs. Lemon's tears at this reminiscence flowed more freely. "I can't believe, sir, no, I can't believe as time has flown so quick since those happy, happy days!"

      The happy days referred to were, of course, the days of my childhood; СКАЧАТЬ