Devlin the Barber

CHAPTER VIII

I heard something certainly which by this time, unhappily, was neither new nor strange. It was the voice of a newsboy calling out the last edition of a newspaper which, he asserted with stentorian lungs, contained further particulars of the awful murder in Victoria Park. Amid all the jargon he was bawling out, there were really only three words clearly distinguishable. "Murder! Awful murder! Discoveries! Awful discoveries!"

"Are you alarmed, Fanny," I asked, "by what that boy is calling out?"

"Yes," she replied in a whisper, "it is that, it is that!"

"But you must be familiar with the cry," I observed. "There isn't a street in London that was not ringing with it all yesterday."

"It don't matter, it don't matter!" she gasped, in the most inexplicable state of agitation I had ever beheld. "Lemon never stirred out of the house. I'll take my solemn oath of it-my solemn oath."

I released myself from her grasp, and, running into the square, caught up with the newsvendor and bought a paper. Before I returned to the house I satisfied myself that the paper contained nothing new in the shape of intelligence relating to the murder of my friend Melladew's daughter. What the man had bawled out was merely a trick to dispose of his wares. I had reached the doorstep of Fanny's house when my attention was arrested by the figures of two men on the opposite side of the road. One was a man of middle age, and was a stranger to me. In his companion I immediately recognised George Carton. The elder man appeared to be endeavouring to prevail upon George Carton to leave the square, but his arguments had no effect upon Carton, who, shaking him off, hurried across the road to speak to me. His companion followed him.

"Any news, sir?" cried George Carton. "Have you discovered anything?"

"Nothing," I replied, not pausing to inquire why he should put a question so direct to me.

"Nothing!" he muttered. "Nothing! But it shall be brought to light-it shall, or I will not live!"

"Come, come, my dear boy," said the elder man. "What is the use of going on in this frantic manner? It won't better things."

"How am I to be sure of that?" retorted Carton. "It won't better things to stand idly aside, and think and think about it without ever moving a step."

"My ward knows you, sir," said Carton's friend, "and I confess I was endeavouring to persuade him to come home with me when you were running after the newspaper boy. He insisted that your sudden appearance in this square was a strange and eventful coincidence."

"A strange and eventful coincidence!" I exclaimed, and thought, without giving my thought expression, that there was something strange in the circumstance of my being in Fanny Lemon's house, about to listen to a revelation which was not unlikely to have some bearing upon the tragic event, and in being thus unexpectedly confronted by the young man who was to have been married to the murdered girl.

"Yes, that is his idea," said Carton's friend; "but I am really forgetting my manners. Allow me to introduce myself. You are acquainted with my ward, George Carton, the dearest, most generous-hearted, most magnanimous young fellow in the world. I have the happiness to be his guardian. My name is Kenneth Dowsett."

He was a smiling, fair-faced man, with blue, dreamy eyes, and his voice and manners were most agreeable. I murmured that I was very pleased to make his acquaintance.

"My ward," continued Mr. Dowsett, laying his hand affectionately on Carton's shoulder, "has also an odd idea in reference to this dreadful affair, that something significant and pregnant will be discovered in an odd and unaccountable fashion. Heaven knows, I don't want to deprive him of any consolation he can derive from his imaginings. I have too sincere a love for him; but I am a man of the world, and it grieves me to see him indulge in fancies which can lead to no good result. To tell you the honest truth," Mr. Dowsett whispered to me, "I am afraid to let him out of my sight for fear he should do violence to himself."

"My dear guardian," said Carton, "who should know better than I how kind and good you are to me? Who should be better able to appreciate the tenderness and consideration I have always received at your hands? I may be wilful, headstrong, but I am not ungrateful. Indeed, sir" – turning to me-"I am wild with grief and despair, and my guardian has the best of reasons for chiding me. He has only my good at heart, and I am truly sorry to distress him; but I have my ideas-call them fancies if you like-and I must have something to cling to. I will not abandon my pursuit till the murderer is brought to justice, or till I kill him with my own hands!"

"That is how he has been going on," said Mr. Dowsett, "all day yesterday, and the whole live-long night. He hasn't had a moment's sleep."

"Sleep!" cried Carton. "Who could sleep under such agony as I am suffering?"

"But," I said to the young man, whose intense earnestness deepened my sympathy for him, "sleep is necessary. It isn't possible to work without it. There are limits to human strength, and if you wish to be of any service in the clearing up of this mystery, you must conduct yourself with some kind of human wisdom."

"There, my dear lad," said Mr. Dowsett, "doesn't that tally with my advice? I tried to prevail upon him last night to take an opiate-"

"And I wouldn't," interrupted Carton, "and I said I would never forgive you if you administered it to me without my knowledge. Never, never will I take another!" Mr. Dowsett looked at him reproachfully, and the young man added, "There-I beg your pardon. I did not mean to refer to it again."

"If I have erred at all in my behaviour towards you, my dear lad, it is on the side of indulgence. Still," said Mr. Dowsett, addressing me, "that does not mean that I shall give up endeavouring to persuade George to do what is sensible. As matters stand, who is the better judge, he or I? Just look at the state he is in now, and tell me whether he is fit to be trusted alone. My fear is that he will break down entirely."

"I agree with your guardian," I said to Carton; "he is your best adviser."

"I know, I know," said the young man, "and I ought to be ashamed of myself for causing him so much uneasiness. But, after all, sir, I am not altogether in the wrong. I saw Mr. Portland last night, and he said that you and he had had an important interview about this dreadful occurrence."

"I was not aware," I observed, "that you were acquainted with any of the elder members of your poor Lizzie's family."

"I was not," rejoined Carton, "till last night. I introduced myself to Mr. Portland, and told him all that had passed between poor Lizzie and me. I did not have courage enough to go and see Mr. and Mrs. Melladew, but Mr. Portland was very kind to me, and he said that you had undertaken to unravel the mystery."

I did not contradict this unauthorised statement on the part of Mr. Portland, not wishing to get into an argument and prolong the conversation unnecessarily; indeed, it would have been disingenuous to say anything to the contrary, for it really seemed to me in some dim way that I was on the threshold of a discovery in connection with the murder.

"Hearing this welcome news from Mr. Portland," continued Carton, "you would not have me believe that my meeting with you now in a square I never remember to have passed through in my life is accidental? No, there is more in it than you or I can explain."

"What brought you here, then?" I inquired. "Were you aware I was in this neighbourhood?"

"No," replied Carton, "I had not the slightest idea of it."

"He followed the newsboy," explained Mr. Dowsett, "of whom you bought a paper just now. These people, crying out the dreadful news, excercise a kind of fascination over my dear George. I give you my word, he seems to be in a waking dream as he follows in their footsteps."

"I am in no dream," said Carton. "I am on the alert, on the watch. I gaze at the face of every man and woman I pass for signs of guilt. Where is the murderer, the monster who took the life of my poor girl? Not in hiding! It would draw suspicion upon him. He is in the streets, and I may meet him. If I do, if I do-"

"You see," whispered Mr. Dowsett to me, "how easy it would be for him to get into serious trouble if he had not a friend at his elbow."

"What good," I said, addressing Carton, "can you, in reason, expect to accomplish by wearing yourself out in the way you are doing?"

"It will lead me to the end," replied Carton, putting his hand to his forehead; and there was in his tone, despite his denial, a dreaminess which confirmed Mr. Dowsett's remark, "and then I do not care what becomes of me!"

Mr. Dowsett gazed at his ward solicitously, and passed his arm around him sympathisingly.

"Would it be a liberty, sir," said Carton, "to ask what brings you here?"

"I came on a visit to an old friend," I replied evasively, "whom I have not seen for years, and who wished to consult me upon her private affairs."

"Pardon me for my rudeness," he said, with a pitiful, deprecatory movement of his shoulders. "In what you have undertaken for Mr. Portland, will you accept my assistance?"

"If I see that it is likely to be of any service, yes, most certainly."

"Give me something to do," he said in a husky tone, "give me some clue to follow. This suspense is maddening."

"I will do what I can. And now I must leave you. My friend will wonder what is detaining me."

"But one word more, sir. Have you heard any news of Mary?"

"None. So far as I know, she is still missing. If we could find her we should, perhaps, learn the truth."

"Should you need me," said Carton, "you know my address. I gave you my card yesterday, but you may have mislaid it. Here is another. I live with my guardian. It is a good thing for me that I am not left alone. But, good God! what am I saying? I am alone-alone! My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie, is dead!"

As I turned into the house I caught a last sight of him standing irresolutely on the pavement, his guardian in the kindest and tenderest manner striving to draw him away.

Fanny was waiting for me at the door of her little parlour. There was a wild apprehensive look in her eyes as they rested on my face.

"What has kep you so long, sir?" she asked in a low tone of fear.

"I came across an acquaintance accidentally," I replied.

"A policeman, sir, or a detective?"

"Good heavens, neither!" I exclaimed.

A sigh of relief escaped her, but immediately afterwards she became anxious again.

"You was talking a long time, sir."

"It was not my fault, Fanny."

"Was-was Lemon's name mentioned, sir?"

"No."

"Was there nothing said about him?"

"Not a word."

This assurance plainly took a weight from her mind. She glanced at the paper I held in my hand, and said:

"Is there anything new in it, sir? Is the murderer caught?"

"No," I replied; "the paper contains nothing that has not appeared in a hundred other newspapers yesterday and to-day. Fanny, I am about to speak to you now very seriously."

"I'm listening, sir."

"Has Mr. Lemon, your husband, anything to do with this dreadful deed?"

"He had no hand in it, sir, as I hope for mercy! I'll tell you everything I know, as I said I would; but it must be in my own way, and you mustn't interrupt me."

I decided that it would be useless to put any further questions to her, and that I had best listen patiently to what she was about to impart. I told her that I would give her my best attention, and I solemnly impressed upon her the necessity of concealing nothing from me. She nodded, and pouring out a glass of water, drank it off. A silence of two or three minutes intervened before she had sufficiently composed herself to commence, and during that silence the feeling grew strong within me that Providence had directed my steps to her house.

The tale she related I now set down in her own words as nearly as I can recall them. Of all the stories I had ever heard or read, this which she now imparted to me was the most fantastic and weird, and it led directly to a result which to the last hour of my life I shall think of with wonder and amazement.

CHAPTER IX

"I must go back sir," she commenced, "a few years, else you won't be able to understand it properly. I'll run over them years as quick as possible, and won't say more About e'm than is necessary, because I know you are as anxious as I am to come to the horrible thing that has just happened. I was a happy woman in your angel father's house, but when Lemon come a-courting me I got that unsettled that I hardly knew what I was about. Well, sir, as you know, we got married, and I thought I was made for life, and that honey was to be my portion evermore. I soon found out my mistake, though I don't suppose I had more to complain of than other women. In the early days things went fairly well between me and Lemon. We had our little fall-outs and our little differences, but they was soon made up. We ain't angels, sir, any of us, and when we're tied together we soon find it out. I daresay it's much of a muchness on the men's side as well as on our'n. Lemon is quick-tempered, but it's all over in a minute, and he forgits and forgives. Leastways, that is how it used to be with him; he would fly out at me like a flash of lightning, and be sorry for it afterwards; and one good thing in him was that he never sulked and never brooded. It ain't so now; he's growed that irritable that it takes more than a woman's patience to bear with him; he won't stand contradiction, and the littlest of things'll frighten him and make him as weak as a child unborn. There was only a couple of nights ago. He'd been going on that strange that it was as much as I could do to keep from screaming out loud and alarming the neighbourhood, and right in the middle of it all he fell asleep quite sudden. It was heavenly not to hear the sound of his voice, but I couldn't help pitying him when I saw him laying there, with the prespiration starting out of his forehead, and I took a cool handkercher and wiped the damp away, and smoothed his hair back from his eyes.

"He woke up as sudden as he went off, and when he felt my hand on his head he burst out crying and begged me to forgive him. Not for the way he'd been storming at me-no, sir, he didn't beg my forgiveness for that, but for something else he wouldn't or couldn't understandingly explain."

"'What do you mean by it all?' I said. 'What do you mean by it all?'

"But though I as good as went on my bended knees to git it out of him, it wasn't a bit of good. I might as well have spoke to a stone stature. Lemon's had a scare, sir, a frightful awful scare, and I don't know what to think.

"When I married him, sir, he kep a saloon, as I daresay you remember hearing of; shaving threepence, hair-cutting fourpence, shampooing ditter. He had a wax lady's head in the winder as went round by machinery, and Lemon kep it regularly wound up with her hair dressed that elegant that it would have been a credit to Burlington Arcade. There used to be a crowd round his winder all day long, and girls and boys 'd come a long way to have a good look at it; and though I say it, she was worth looking at. Her lips was like bits of red coral, and you could see her white teeth through 'em; her skin was that pearly and her cheeks that rosy as I never saw equalled; and as for her eyes, sir, they was that blue that they had to be seen to be believed. She carried her head on one side as she went round and round, looking slantways over her right shoulder, and, taking her altogether, she was as pritty a exhibition as you could see anywheres in London. It brought customers to Lemon, there was no doubt of that; he was doing a splendid trade, and we put by a matter of between four and five pounds a week after all expenses paid. It did go agin me, I own, when I discovered that Lemon had female customers, and, what's more, a private room set apart to do 'em up in; but when I spoke to him about he said, with a stern eye:

"'What do you object to? The ladies?'

"'Not so much the ladies, Lemon,' I answered, 'as the private room.'

"'O,' said he, 'the private room?'

"'Yes,' said I; 'I don't think it proper.'

"'Don't you?' said he, getting nasty. 'Well, I do, and there's a end of it. You mind your business, Fanny, and I'll mind mine.'

"I saw that he meant it and didn't intend to give way, and I consequenchually held my tongue. Even when I was told that Lemon often went out to private houses to dress ladies' hair I thought it best to say nothing. I had my feelings, but I kep 'em to myself. I'm for peace and harmony, sir, and I wish everybody was like me.

"One night Lemon give me a most agreeable surprise. He came home and said:

"'Fanny, what would you like best in the world?'

"There was a question to put to a woman! I thought of everything, without giving anything a name. The truth is I was knocked over, so to speak.

"Lemon spoke up agin. 'What would you say, Fanny, if I told you I was going to sell the business and retire?'

"'No, Lemon!' I cried, for I thought, he was trying me with one of his jokes.

"'Yes, Fanny,' he said, 'it's what I've made up my mind to. I've been thinking of it a long time, and now I'm going to do it.'

"I saw that he was in real rightdown earnest, and I was that glad that I can't egspress.

"'Lemon,' I said, when I got cool, 'can we afford it?'

"'Old woman,' he answered 'we've got a matter of a hundred and fifty pound a year to live on, and if that ain't enough for the enjoyment of life, I should like to know how much more you want?'

"He had his light moments had Lemon before certain things happened. People as didn't know him well thought him nothing but a grumpy, crusty man. Well, sir, he was that mostly, but with them as was intimate he cracked his joke now and then, and it used to do my heart good to hear him.

"So it was settled, sir. Lemon actually sold his business, and we retired. Five year ago almost to the very day we took this house and become fashionable.

"It was a bit dull at first. Lemon missed his shop, and his customers, and his wax lady, that he'd growed to look upon almost like flesh and blood; but he practised on my head for hours together with his crimping irons and curling tongs, and that consoled him a little. He used to pretend it was all real, and that I was one of his reg'lars, and while he was gitting his things ready he'd speak about the weather and the news in a manner quite perfessional. When he come into the room of a morning at eleven or twelve o'clock with his white apern on and his comb stuck in his hair, and say, 'Good morning, ma'am, a beautiful day,'-which was the way he always begun, whether it was raining or not-I'd take my seat instanter in the chair, and he'd begin to operate. I humoured him, sir! it was my duty to; and though he often screwed my hair that tight round the tongs that I felt as if my eyes was starting out of my head, I never so much as murmured.

"We went on in this way for nearly three years, and then Lemon took another turn. Being retired, and living, like gentlefolk, on our income, we got any number of circulars, and among 'em a lot about companies, and how to make thousands of pounds without risking a penny. I never properly understood how it came about; all I know is that Lemon used to set poring over the papers and writing down figgers and adding 'em up, and that at last he got speculating and dabbling and talking wild about making millions. From that time he spoke about nothing but Turks, and Peruvians, and Egyptians, and Bulls, and Bears, and goodness only knows what other outlandish things; and sometimes he'd come home smiling, and sometimes in such a dreadful temper that I was afraid to say a word to him. One thing, after a little while, I did understand, and that was that Lemon was losing money instead of making it by his goings on with his Turks, and Peruvians, and Egyptians, and his Bulls and Bears; and as I was beginning to git frightened as to how it was all going to end, I plucked up courage to say,

"'Lemon, is it worth while?'

"And all the thanks I got was,

"'Jest you hold your tongue. Haven't I got enough to worrit me that you must come nagging at me?'

"He snapped me up so savage that I didn't dare to say another word, but before a year was out he sung to another tune. He confessed to me with tears in his eyes that he'd been chizzled out of half the money we retired on, and it was a blessed relief to me to hear him say,

"'I've done with it, Fanny, for ever. They don't rob me no longer with their Bulls and their Bears.'

"'A joyful hour it is to me. Lemon,' I cried, 'to hear them words. The life I've led since you took up with Bulls and Bears and all the other trash, there's no describing. But now we can be comfortable once more. Never mind the money you've lost; I'll make it up somehow.'

"It was then I got the idea of letting the second floor front. As it's turned out, sir, it was the very worst idea that ever got into my head, and what it's going to lead to the Lord above only knows."

CHAPTER X

"Our first lodger, sir, was a clerk in the City, and he played the bassoon that excruciating that our lives become a torment. The neighbours all complained, and threatened to bring me and Lemon and the young man and his bassoon before the magerstrates. I told the clerk that he'd have to give up the second floor front or the bassoon, and that he might take his choice. He took his choice, and went away owing me one pound fourteen, and I haven't seen the colour of his money from that day to this.

"Our second lodger was a printer, who worked all night and slep all day. I could have stood him if it hadn't turned out that he'd run away from his wife, who found out where he was living, and give us no peace. She was a dreadful creature, and I never saw her sober. She smelt of gin that strong that you knew a mile off when she was coming. 'That's why I left her, Mrs. Lemon,' the poor man said to me; 'she's been the ruin of me. Three homes has she sold up, and she's that disgraced me that it makes me wild to hear the sound of her voice. The law won't help me, and what am I to do?' I made him a cup of tea, and said I was very sorry for him, but that she wasn't my wife, and that I'd take it kind of him if he'd find some other lodgings. All he said was, 'Very well, Mrs. Lemon, I can't blame you; but don't be surprised if you read in the papers one day that I am brought up for being the death of her, or that I've made a hole in the water. If she goes on much longer, one of them things is sure to happen.' He went away sorrowful, and paid me honourable to the last farthing.