Devlin the Barber

I AM THE RECIPIENT OF TERRIBLE NEWS

On Saturday morning I rose early, with the strange feelings of a man whose habits of life had been suddenly and violently wrenched out of their usual course. I wandered up and down the stairs and into all the rooms in the house, and to the street-door, where I stood looking vacantly along the street, perhaps for the situation I had lost, as though it were something I had dropped by accident and could pick up again. Two or three neighbours passed and gave me good-morning, and one paused and asked if I was not well.

"Not well?" I echoed, somewhat irritably; "I am well, quite well. What makes you think otherwise?"

"O," he answered apologetically, "only seeing you here, that's all. It's so unusual."

He passed on, looking once or twice behind him. Unusual? Of course it was unusual. Everything was unusual, everything in the world, which seemed to be turned topsy-turvy. If the people in the street had walked on their heads instead of their feet it would not have surprised me very much. I should have regarded it as quite in keeping with the fact that I was standing at my own street-door in idleness at half-past eight o'clock on a Saturday morning; I could not remember the time when such a thing had occurred to me.

Standing thus in a state of semi-stupefaction, the postman came up and gave me a letter. This recalled me to myself.

"Now," thought I, as I turned the envelope over in my hand, "whom is it from, and what does it contain?"

At first I had an unreasonable hope that it was from my employers, imploring me to come back, but a glance at the address convinced me that it was a foolish hope. The writing was strange to me, and the envelope was a common one, and was fastened with sealing-wax bearing the impression of a thimble. I opened and read the letter, and although it did not contain the offer of a situation, or hold out the prospect of one, the contents interested me. I shall have occasion presently to refer to this letter more particularly, and shall at present content myself with saying that had it not arrived this story would never have been written. While my wife and I were at breakfast we spoke of it, and I said it was my intention to comply with the request it contained.

Over breakfast, also, we reviewed our position. During my years of employment I had managed to save very little money, and upon reckoning up what I had in my purse and what I owed, I arrived at a balance in my favour of a little less than four pounds, which represented the whole of my worldly wealth. A poor look-out, and I was reflecting upon it gloomily, when my good little wife, with a tender deprecatory smile, laid before me on the table a Post Office savings-book.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Look," she replied.

The book was made out in her name, and the small deposits, extending over a number of years, made therein showed a credit of more than twenty pounds.

"Yours?" I said, in wonder. "Really yours?"

"No," said my wife. "Yours."

My heart beat with joy; these twenty pounds were like a reprieve. I should have time to look about, without being tortured by fears of immediate want. I drew my wife to my side, and embraced her. Twenty pounds, with which to commence over again the battle of life! Why it was a fortune! How the little woman had contrived to save so much out of her scanty housekeeping money was a mystery to me, but she had done it by hook or by crook, as the saying is, and she now experienced a true and sweet delight in handing it over to me.

"Well," said I, rubbing my hands cheerfully, "things might look worse than they do-a great deal worse. We have a little store to help us over compulsorily idle days, and, thank God, all the children are well."

It was much to be grateful for, and we kissed each other in token of our gratitude, and also as a pledge that we would not lose heart, but would battle bravely on.

I had just finished my second cup of tea when the street-door was hastily opened, and my friend Mr. Melladew staggered, or rather fell, into the room, with a face as white as a ghost. His limbs were trembling so that he could not stand, and my wife, much alarmed, started up and helped him into a chair.

On this special morning we had breakfasted late, and as my wife was assisting Mr. Melladew the clock struck ten.

It sometimes happens that the most ordinary occurrences become of unusual importance by reason of circumstances with which they have no connection. Thus it was that the striking of ten o'clock, as I gazed upon the white face of my visitor, filled me with an apprehension of impending evil.

"Good God!" I cried. "What has happened?" My thought was that there had been an accident to the train by which Mr. Melladew expected his brother-in-law from Southampton, but I was soon undeceived. It was difficult to extract anything intelligible from Mr. Melladew in his terrible state of agitation; but eventually I was placed in possession of the following particulars.

Mr. Melladew had risen early and had left his wife abed, and, as he supposed, his daughter Lizzie. It was Mrs. Melladew's custom on Saturday mornings to take half-an-hour extra in the way of sleep, and Mr. Melladew would prepare his own breakfast on these occasions. He did so on this morning, and left his house at twenty minutes to eight. At eight o'clock punctually he was sitting at his desk in the printing-office, reading proofs. Everything was going on as usual, the only pleasant difference being the extraordinary lightness of Mr. Melladew's heart as he thought of his rich brother-in-law from Australia, perhaps at that very hour stepping into the train for London, and of his two darling children, Lizzie and Mary. He did not, however, allow this contemplation to interfere with the faithful and steady discharge of his duties, and his work proceeded uninterruptedly until half-past nine, when he sent his young assistant, a reading boy, into the composing-room with the last proofs he had read, telling him to bring back any more that were ready. A workman at the galley-press had just pulled off a column of newly set-up matter, and the lad, without waiting for it to be delivered to him, took the slip from the printer's hand, and returned quickly to the reading-room. Mr. Melladew, receiving the slip from his assistant, was about to commence arranging the "copy," which the lad had also brought with him, when a compositor rushed in, and, snatching both slip and "copy" from Mr. Melladew's desk, hurriedly left the room.

"What's that for?" inquired Mr. Melladew.

"I don't know, sir," replied the lad; "but there's something 'up' in the composing-room. The men are all standing talking in a regular fluster."

"What about?"

"Ain't got a notion, sir; but they seem regular upset."

Curious to ascertain what was going on, Mr. Melladew strolled into the composing-room, and was struck by the sudden silence which ensued upon his entrance. It was all the more singular because Mr. Melladew, as he pushed the door open, heard the men speaking in excited voices, and had half a fancy that he heard his own name uttered in tones of pity. "Poor Melladew!" Yes, it was not a fancy. The words had been uttered at the moment of his entrance. The silence of the compositors, their pitying looks, confirmed it. But why should they speak of him as "poor Melladew" at a time when life had never been so bright and fair? What was the meaning of the pitying glances directed towards him? The composing-room, especially on Saturdays, was a scene of lively bustle and animation, but now the men were standing idle, stick in hand, at the corners of their frames, or tip-toeing over their cases, and the eyes of every man there were fixed upon Mr. Melladew. Had he been in trouble, had his wife or one of his darling daughters been ill, his thoughts would have immediately flown to his home, and he would have seen in the pitying glances of the compositors a sign of some dread misfortune; but in his happy mood he received no such impression.

"What on earth is the matter with you all?" he said in a light tone.

He saw the compositor who had snatched the slip of new matter from his desk, and before he could be prevented he took it from the man's hand.

The compositors found their voices.

"No, Mr. Melladew!" they cried. "No; don't, don't!"

"Nonsense!" he said, and keeping possession of the slip, he left the composing-room for his own.

"Go and get the copy," he said to the lad who had followed him.

When the lad was gone he spread the slip on the desk before him. The first words he saw formed the title of the column he was about to read: "Horrible Murder in Victoria Park!" Beneath it were the sub-headings, "Stabbed to the Heart!" and "A Bunch of Blood-stained Daisies!" To a newspaper reader such events, shocking though they be, are unhappily no novelties, and Mr. Melladew looked down the column, I will not say mechanically, for he was a humane man, but steadily, and stirred no doubt by pity and indignation. But before he had got half-way down the pulsations of his heart seemed to stop, and the words swam before his eyes. His eyes lighted on the name of the girl who had been murdered.

It was that of his own daughter, Lizzie Melladew!

CHAPTER III

A SHOAL OF VISITORS FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER MYSTERY

In an agony of horror and despair he had flown from the printing-office to my house.

I cannot say whether he chose my house premeditatedly; it is likely that it was done without distinct intention, but it was a proof that he regarded my friendship as genuine, and that he knew he could depend upon my sympathy in times of trouble. As indeed he could. My heart bled as I gazed upon him. The words issued with difficulty from his trembling lips; his features were convulsed; he shook like a man in an ague.

"O, my Lizzie!" he moaned. "My poor, poor Lizzie! O, my child, my child!"

I took in regularly a penny daily newspaper, and I had read it on this morning, but there was no mention in its columns of the dreadful occurrence. The discovery had been made too late for the first editions of the daily journals.

Mr. Melladew's story being told, disjointedly, and in fragments which I had to piece together in order to arrive at an intelligible comprehension of it, the unhappy man sat before me, moaning.

"O, my Lizzie! O, my poor child!"

"Was she at home?" I asked gently; I did not attempt to console him. Of what avail were mere words at such a moment? "Was she at home when you went from here last night?"

"Yes, she was there," he moaned. "When she went to bed I kissed her. For the last time! For the last, last time!"

And then he broke down utterly. I could get nothing further from him.

When she went to bed, he kissed her. What kind of riddle was here, in the midst of the horrible tragedy, that the hapless girl should have wished her parents good-night and retired to rest, and be found ruthlessly murdered a few hours afterwards in an open park at some distance from her house? With such joyful news as Mr. Melladew had to communicate to his daughter, the probability was that they had kept up later than usual, talking of the brighter future that then seemed spread before them. It made the tragic riddle all the more difficult.

There came a knock at the street-door, and a gentleman was admitted, upon most urgent business he said. It turned out that he was a newspaper reporter, who, in advance of the police, had tracked Mr. Melladew to my house, and had come to obtain information from him for his newspaper. I, pointed out to him the condition of Mr. Melladew, and said something to the effect that it was scarcely decent to intrude upon him at such a time.

The reporter, who evidently felt deeply for the bereaved father, and whose considerate manner was such as to completely disarm me, said aside to me,

"Pray do not think that I am devoid of feeling; I am a father myself, and have a daughter of the age of his poor girl. My mission is not one of idle curiosity. A ruthless murder has been committed, and the murderer is at large. I am not working only for my paper; I am assisting the cause of justice. Every scrap of information we can obtain will hasten the arrest of the wretch who has been guilty of a crime so diabolical."