Devlin the Barber. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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СКАЧАТЬ and at times I could almost fancy that their sinister features moved in mockery of me. There was in them a fiend-like magnetism I found it impossible to resist.

      "Does your husband eat well?" I asked.

      "Not so well as he used to do, sir."

      "Perhaps," I said, hazarding a guess, "he drinks a little too much."

      "No, sir, you're wrong there. He likes a glass-we none of us despise it, sir-but he never exceeds."

      "Then, in the name of all that's reasonable, Fanny, what is the matter with him?"

      Mrs. Lemon turned to her husband's portrait, turned to the stone figure on the mantelshelf, turned to the evil-looking bird; and her frame was shaken by a strong shuddering.

      "Is it anything to do with those objects?" I inquired, my wonder and perplexity growing.

      "That's what I want you to find out for me, sir, if I can so fur trespass. Don't refuse me, sir, don't! It's a deal to ask you to do, I know, but I shall be everlastingly grateful."

      "I am ready to serve you, Fanny," I said gravely, "but at present I am completely in the dark. For instance, this is the first time I have seen those Mephistophelian-looking objects with which you have chosen to decorate your room."

      "I didn't choose, sir. It was done, and I daredn't go agin it."

      "I have nothing to say to that; I must wait for your explanation. What I was about to remark was, why that evil-beaked bird-"

      "Which I wish," she interposed, "had been burnt before it was stuffed."

      " – Should bear so strange a resemblance," I continued, "to the portrait of your husband, and why both should bear so strange a resemblance to the stone monster on your mantelshelf, is so very much beyond me, that I cannot for the life of me arrive at a satisfactory solution of the mystery. Surely it cannot spring from a diseased imagination, for you have the same fancy as myself."

      "It ain't fancy, sir; it's fact. And the sing'lar part of it is that the party as brought them all three into the house is as much like them as they are to each other."

      "We're getting on solid ground," I said. "The party who brought them into the house-who gave you the stone monster, who painted your husband's portrait and yours, who stuffed the bird; for, doubtless, he was the taxidermist. An Admirable Crichton, indeed, in the way of accomplishments! You see, Fanny, you are introducing me to new acquaintances. You have not mentioned this party before. A man, I presume."

      "I suppose so, sir," she said, with an awestruck look.

      "Why suppose?" I asked. "In such a case, supposition is absurd. He is, or is not, a man."

      "Let us call him so, sir. It'll make things easier."

      "Very much easier, and they will be easier still if you will be more explicit. I seem to be getting more and more in the dark. In looking again upon your portrait, Fanny-"

      "Yes, sir?"

      "I can almost discern a likeness to-"

      "For the merciful Lord's sake, sir," she cried, "don't say that! If I thought so, I should go mad. I'm scared enough already with what has occurred and the trouble I'm in-and Lemon talking in his sleep all the night through, and having the most horrible nightmares-and me trembling and shaking in my bed with what I'm forced to hear-it's unbearable, sir; it's unbearable!"

      I was becoming very excited. Unless Mrs. Lemon had lost her senses, there was in this common house a frightful and awful mystery. And Mrs. Lemon had sent for me to fathom it! What was I about to hear-what to discover?

      I strove to speak in a calm voice.

      "You say your husband took to his bed yesterday, and that you fear he will never rise from it. Then he is in bed at this moment?"

      "Yes, sir."

      "Where is his bedroom?"

      "On the first floor back, sir."

      "Can he hear us talking?"

      "No, sir."

      "And you want me to see him?"

      "Before you go, sir, if you have no objections. I sha'n't know how to thank you."

      "I will do what I can for you, Fanny. First for your own sake, and next because there appears to be something going on in this house that ought to be brought to light."

      "You may well say that, sir. Not only in this house, but out of this house. The good Lord above only knows what is going on! But Lemon's done nothing wrong, sir. I won't have him thought badly of, and I won't have him hurt. He's been weak, yes, sir, but he ain't been guilty of a wicked, horrible crime. It ain't in his nature, sir. When I first begun to hear things that he used to say in his sleep, and sometimes when he was awake and lost to everything, my hair used to stand on end. I could feel it stirring up, giving me the creeps all over my skin, and my heart'd beat that quick that it was a mercy it didn't jump out of my body. But after a time, frightened as I was, and getting no satisfaction out of Lemon, who only glared at me when I spoke to him, I thought the time might come-and I ain't sure it won't be this blessed day-when I should have to come forward as a witness to save him from the gallows. I am his wife, sir, and if he ain't fit to look after hisself, it's for me to look after him, and so, sir, I thought the best thing for me to do was to keep a dairy."

      "A dairy!" I echoed, in wonder.

      "Yes, sir, a dairy-to put down in writing everything what happened at the very time."

      "O," I said, "you mean a diary!"

      "If that's what you call it, sir. I got an old lodger's book that wasn't all filled up. I keep it locked in my desk, sir. Perhaps you'd like to look at it?"

      "It may be as well, Fanny."

      "If," she said, fumbling in her pocket for a key, and placing one by one upon the table the most extraordinary collection of oddments that female pocket was ever called upon to hold, "if, when we come into this house to retire and live genteel, after Lemon had sold his business, I'd have known what was to come out of my notion to let the second floor front to a single man, I'd have had my feet cut off before I'd done it. But I did it for the best, to keep down the egspenses. Here it is, sir."

      CHAPTER VII

DEVLIN'S FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO THE MYSTERY

      She had found the key she had been searching for, and now she opened a mahogany desk, from which she took a penny memorandum-book. She handed it to me in silence, and I turned over the leaves. Most of the pages were filled with weekly accounts of her lodgers, in which "ham and eggs, 8d .;" "a rasher, 5d .;" "chop, 8d .;" "two boyled eggs, 3d .;" "bloater, 2d .;" "crewet, 4d .;" and other such-like items appeared again and again. There was also, at the foot of pages, receipts for payment, "Paid, Fanny Lemon." And this, in the midst of the presumably tragic business upon which we were engaged, brought to my mind an anomaly which had often occurred to me, namely, that landladies should present their accounts to their lodgers in penny memorandum-books, should receive the money, should sign a receipt, and then take away the books containing their acknowledgment of payment. In view of the grave issues impending, it is a trivial matter to comment upon, but it was really a relief to me to dwell for a moment or two upon it. At the end of the memorandum-book which I was looking through were five or six leaves which had not been utilised for lodgers' accounts, СКАЧАТЬ