Part 14

“A couple of years ago I received a visit from Reuben Penner. I didn’t recognise him, which wasn’t wonderful, since I hadn’t seen him for thirty years or more. He is well over fifty now, a large, heavy-faced man with uncommonly wild eyes for a greengrocer--which is what he is, though he dresses very well, considering. He was quite respectful at first, and very awkward in his manner. He took a little time to get his courage, and then he began questioning me about my religious feelings. Well, Mr. Hewitt, I am not the sort of person to stand a lecture from a junior and an inferior, whatever my religious opinions may be, and I pretty soon made him realise it. But somehow he persevered. He wanted to know if I would go to some place of worship that he called his ‘Tabernacle.’ I asked him who was the pastor. He said himself. I asked him how many members of the congregation there were, and (the man was as solemn as an owl. I assure you, Mr. Hewitt) he actually said five! I kept my countenance and asked why such a small number couldn’t attend church, or, at any rate, attach itself to some decent Dissenting chapel. And then the man burst out; mad--mad as a hatter. He was as incoherent as such people usually are, but as far as I could make out he talked, among a lot of other things, of some imaginary woman--a woman standing on the moon and driven into a wilderness on the wings of an eagle. The man was so madly possessed of his fancies that I assure you for a while he almost ceased to look ridiculous. He was so earnest in his rant. But I soon cut him short. It’s best to be severe with these people--it’s the only chance of bringing them to their senses. ‘Reuben Penner,’ I said, ‘shut up. Your mother was a very decent person in her way, I believe, but she was half a lunatic with her superstitious notions, and you’re a bigger fool than she was. Imagine a grown man, and of your age, coming and asking me, of all people in the world, to leave my church and make another fool in a congregation of five, with _you_ to rave at me about women in the moon! Go away and look after your greengrocery, and go to church or chapel like a sensible man. Go away and don’t play the fool any longer; I won’t hear another word!’

“When I talk like this I am usually attended to, and in this case Penner went away with scarcely another word. I saw nothing of him for about a month or six weeks, and then he came and spoke to me as I was cutting roses in my front garden. This time he talked--to begin with, at least--more sensibly. ‘Mrs. Mallett,’ he said, ‘you have in your keeping a very sacred relic.’

“‘I have,’ I said, ‘left me by my great-uncle Joseph. And what then?’

“‘Well’--he hummed and hawed a little--‘I wanted to ask if you might be disposed to part with it.’

“‘What?’ I said, dropping my scissors--‘sell it?’

“‘Well, yes,’ he answered, putting on as bold a face as he could.

“The notion of selling my uncle Joseph’s snuff-box in any possible circumstances almost made me speechless. ‘What!’ I repeated. ‘Sell it?--_sell_ it? It would be a sinful sacrilege!’

“His face quite brightened when I said this, and he replied, ‘Yes, of course it would; I think so myself, ma’am; but I fancied you thought otherwise. In that case, ma’am, not being a believer yourself, I’m sure you would consider it a graceful and a pious act to present it to my little Tabernacle, where it would be properly valued. And it having been my mother’s property----’

“He got no further. I am not a woman to be trifled with, Mr. Hewitt, and I believe I beat him out of the garden with my basket. I was so infuriated I can scarcely remember what I did. The suggestion that I should sell my uncle Joseph’s snuff-box to a greengrocer was bad enough; the request that I should actually _give_ it to his ‘Tabernacle’ was infinitely worse. But to claim that it had belonged to his mother--well I don’t know how it strikes you, Mr. Hewitt, but to me it seemed the last insult possible.”

“Shocking! shocking! of course,” Hewitt said, since she seemed to expect a reply. “And he called you an unbeliever, too. But what happened after that?”

“After that he took care not to bother me personally again; but these wretched anonymous demands came in, with all sorts of darkly hinted threats as to the sin I was committing in keeping my own property. They didn’t trouble me much. I put ’em in the fire as fast as they came, until I began to find I was being watched and followed, and then I kept them.”

“Very sensible,” Hewitt observed, “very sensible indeed to do that. But tell me as to these papers. Those you have here are nearly all in one handwriting, but some, as I have already said, are in another. Now before all this business did you ever see Reuben Penner’s handwriting?”

“No, never.”

“Then you are not by any means sure that he has written any of these things?”

“But then who else could?”

“That, of course, is a thing to be found out. At present, at any rate, we know this: that if Penner has anything to do with these letters he is not alone, because of the second handwriting. Also we must not bind ourselves past other conviction that he wrote any one of them. By the way, I am assuming that they all arrived by post?”

“Yes, they did.”

“But the envelopes are not here. Have you kept any of them?”

“I hardly know; there may be some at home. Is it important?”

“It may be; but those I can see at another time. Please go on.”

“These things continued to arrive, as I have said, and I continued to burn them till I began to find myself watched and followed, and then I kept them. That was two or three months ago. It is a most unpleasant sensation, that of feeling that some unknown person is dogging your footsteps from corner to corner and observing all your movements for a purpose you are doubtful of. Once or twice I turned suddenly back, but I never could catch the creatures, of whom I am sure Penner was one.”

“You saw these people, of course?”

“Well, yes, in a way--with the corner of my eye, you know. But it was mostly in the evening. It was a woman once, but several times I feel certain it was Penner. And once I saw a man come into my garden at the back in the night, and I feel quite sure that was Penner.”

“Was that after you had this request to put the article demanded on the stone seat in the garden?”

“The same night. I sat up and watched from the bath-room window, expecting someone would come. It was a dark night, and the trees made it darker, but I could plainly see someone come quietly over the wall and go up to the seat.”

“Could you distinguish his face?”

“No; it was too dark. But I feel sure it was Penner.”

“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 make sure of it, 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.

II

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. Perk’s 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.

Little Marsh Row was not a vastly prosperous sort of place, and the only shops were three--all small. Two were chandlers’, and the third was a sort of semi-shed of the greengrocery and coal persuasion, with the name “Penner” on a board over the door.

The shutters were all up, though the door was open, and the only person visible was a very smudgy boy, who was in the act of wheeling out a sack of coals. To the smudgy boy Hewitt applied himself. “I don’t see Mr. Penner about,” he said; “will he be back soon?”

The boy stared hard at Hewitt. “No,” he said, “he won’t. ’E’s guv’ up the shop. ’E paid ’is next week’s rent this mornin’ and retired.”

“Oh!” Hewitt answered sharply. “Retired, has he? And what’s become of the stock, eh! Where are the cabbages and potatoes?”

“’E told me to give ’em to the pore, an’ I did. There’s lots o’ pore lives round ’ere. My mother’s one; an’ these ’ere coals is for ’er, an’ I’m goin’ to ’ave the trolley for myself.”

“Dear me!” Hewitt answered, regarding the boy with amused interest. “You’re a very business-like almoner. And what will the Tabernacle do without Mr. Penner?”

“I dunno,” the boy answered, closing the door behind him. “I dunno nothin’ about the Tabernacle--only where it is.”

“Ah, and where is it? I might find him there, perhaps.”

“Ward Lane--fust on left, second on right. It’s a shop wot’s bin shut up; next door to a stableyard.” And the smudgy boy started off with his trolley.

The Tabernacle was soon found. At some very remote period it had been an unlucky small shop, but now it was permanently shuttered, and the interior was lighted by holes cut in the upper panels of the shutters. Hewitt took a good look at the shuttered window and the door beside it, and then entered the stable-yard at the side. To the left of the passage giving entrance to the yard there was a door, which plainly was another entrance to the house, and a still damp mud-mark on the step proved it to have been lately used. Hewitt rapped sharply at the door with his knuckles.

Presently a female voice from within could be heard speaking through the key-hole in a very loud whisper. “Who is it?” asked the voice.

Hewitt stooped to the key-hole and whispered back, “Is Mr. Penner here now?”

“No.”

“Then I must come in and wait for him. Open the door.”

A bolt was pulled back and the door cautiously opened a few inches. Hewitt’s foot was instantly in the jamb, and he forced the door back and entered. “Come,” he said in a loud voice, “I’ve come to find out where Mr. Penner is, and to see whoever is in here.”

Immediately there was an assault of fists on the inside of a door at the end of the passage, and a loud voice said, “Do you hear? Whoever you are, I’ll give you five pounds if you’ll bring Mr. Martin Hewitt here. His office is 25, Portsmouth Street, Strand. Or the same if you’ll bring the police.” And the voice was that of Mrs. Mallett.

Hewitt turned to the woman who had opened the door, and who now stood, much frightened, in the corner beside him. “Come,” he said, “your keys, quick, and don’t offer to stir, or I’ll have you brought back and taken to the station.”

The woman gave him a bunch of keys, without a word. Hewitt opened the door at the end of the passage, and once more Mrs. Mallett stood before him, prim and rigid as ever, except that her bonnet was sadly out of shape and her mantle was torn. “Thank you, Mr. Hewitt,” she said. “I thought you’d come, though where I am I know no more than Adam. Somebody shall smart severely for this. Why, and that woman--_that_ woman,” she pointed contemptuously at the woman in the corner, who was about two-thirds her height, “was going to _search_ me--_me_! Why----” Mrs. Mallett, blazing with suddenly revived indignation, took a step forward, and the woman vanished through the outer door.

“Come,” Hewitt said, “no doubt you’ve been shamefully treated; but we must be quiet for a little. First I will make quite sure that nobody else is here, and then we’ll get to your house.”