Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

"It must suit me, then, but it is really very provoking. Lord Wharton is ordered into the country, and we are going to-morrow."

"I can send you a cheque through the post."

"I should prefer to receive it personally from you, and in bank notes. You can bring it to me in the country, I suppose?"

"There will be no difficulty, my lady. To what part of the country?"

"We are going to our place in Bournemouth, The Gables. We give a ball there every year on the 7th of March. Of course I may rely upon having the money before that date."

"Pardon me a moment, my lady," said Mr. Boyd, pretending to make certain calculations on paper, and presently adding, "I can't positively promise, but you shall be sure to have it on that date."

"Oh, very well, very well," said Lady Wharton, "I see that I am expected to agree to everything. And now, Mr. Boyd, our business is over, I think. Bless my soul, how dismally the wind sounds in this house! If I don't get out of it quickly John will think I've been spirited away. Don't trouble to come down; one of your servants can see me to the door."

"I keep no servants, my lady," he replied. "A charwoman comes when I send for her. That is my life."

"Do you mean to tell me that you live here quite alone?"

"Quite alone, my lady, quite alone, and safer and more secure than if my house was full of servants."

"Mr. Boyd," said Lady Wharton, tapping him lightly on the arm, "you should marry."

"What did your ladyship say yourself about women when you entered the house," he answered slyly.

She laughed heartily at this retort, and following him down the stairs as he led the way with a light, bade him good night at the street door.

"John," she said to her confidential man as he conducted her to her carriage, "the house is like a grave."

"I was thinking that myself, my lady," said John.

CHAPTER IV

SILENCE REIGNS

Was it indeed a grave, and were the phantom shapes thrown upon the walls and ceiling by the flickering light the phantoms of the dead that were buried there? How easy to imagine this-how easy to imagine that, animated by a spirit of revenge for past wrongs and injuries, they moved and shifted, and glided hither and thither, and took fantastic and monstrous form, for the purpose of striking terror into the heart of the enemy who had filled their lives with suffering and brought them to an untimely end!

Silence reigned.

Were those shapes and forms the only phantoms in the lonely house? Or, in the spaces that were unlighted-say in the passages and on the stairs leading to the room in which its owner transacted his business, and into another room in which he slept-were other phantoms moving, as dumb as they, as silent as they, with thoughts as murderous and with power more sure? This phantom, now, unseen by reason of the darkness, pausing with finger at its lips, all its senses merged in the sense of hearing as it listened for a sound to warn it that the time was not yet ripe? Had this phantom escaped from the lighted room in fear lest, were it visible to mortal eyes, its dread purpose would be frustrated, and that a frenzied cry ringing out upon the air, might reach some chance and aimless wanderer, and thus mar the murderous design lurking in its breast? Even of this the risk was small, for rarely indeed did any such wanderer find himself in Catchpole Square, or any man, who, being there without design, did not gladly and quickly grope his way out of it. The very guardians of the night avoided it, and contented themselves with the slightest and swiftest scrutiny, as of a place which bore an evil reputation and had best be left alone. It happened at odd times that some houseless and homeless vagrant, slinking in, curled himself up in a dark corner and dozed till daylight came, creeping away then with no feeling of gratitude for the shelter it had afforded him. Once a hapless child, sleeping there during a fierce snowstorm, had been found dead in the morning, covered with a white shroud. But that was long ago.

But this one phantom was in the house-now pausing, now creeping slowly along, now pausing again, now crouching with its head against a panel, and so remaining for many dumb minutes. And another phantom was at its heels.

And when the lights were out, and the rooms, like the stairs and passages, were in darkness and the master in his bed, they were still there. So stealthy were their movements that no sound proceeded from them; their breathing was so faint that it would scarcely have disturbed a wintry leaf.

Silence reigned.

The sobbing and the moaning of the wind continued. Could it have carried the news to the wider thoroughfares, trodden by men and women whose business or pleasure kept them out so late, what message would it have conveyed? In its whispering voices would the word MURDER have found a place?

At no great distance from the Square stood Saint Michael's Church, its clock proclaiming the hour.

Ten!

Eleven!

Twelve!

How long these hours took to strike! A measured pause between each stroke, and in that pause the passing away of a life in the life of the great city, or the ushering in of one. This life at an end, this with a feeble cry at the journey before it.

One o'clock!

Samuel Boyd was asleep. No prayer on his lips, no prayer in his heart, before he retired to rest. He slept in peace, undisturbed by fear or remorse.

Suddenly he awoke. His heart beat wildly, a cold perspiration broke out on his forehead.

With a powerful hand pressed upon his mouth, and another at his throat, no man can cry aloud. But while strength remains he can gasp, and moan, and fight for dear life-and may struggle out of bed, still with the hand upon his mouth, and another at his throat-and may summon to his aid all the despairing forces of his body-nay, even while thus imprisoned, succeed in dragging his adversaries this way and that-and may in his agony prolong the execution of the ruthless purpose. Though not avert it.

The door between the two rooms is open while this muffled struggle is going on. Furniture is overturned and displaced, tapestry torn from the walls, and smaller articles tossed in all directions. On the part of one of the men there is displayed a cold, cruel, relentless method in the execution of his design; on the part of the other a wild, despairing effort to obtain possession of a weapon. He succeeds. A pistol is in his hand.

A shot rings out! Another! – and the wax figure of the Chinaman collapses into a chair with a bullet in its heart.

Again Saint Michael's Church proclaims the hour.

Two o'clock!

Silence reigns.

CHAPTER V

CONSTABLE APPLEBEE AND CONSTABLE POND FOREGATHER

In the course of the next few days the weather exhibited its vagaries in a more than usually astonishing fashion. On the night of the 1st of March the sobbing and the moaning of the wind continued till early morning, when it pleased the air to become mild and balmy, almost promising the advent of spring. A few bold buds awoke and peeped out of their little brown beds, and over the atmosphere hung a hazy veil of dim, delicious sapphire. On the following day this promise was destroyed, and another change took place; and on the night of the 5th a fog which had been overlooked in the early winter took its revenge for the neglect by enveloping the City of Unrest in a mist so dense that Mrs. Pond, in a conversation with Mrs. Applebee the next day was driven to the use of a familiar illustration.

"If you'll believe me, Mrs. Applebee," she said, "it was that thick you could have cut it with a knife. I could hardly see my hand before me."

"But what took you out in it, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Applebee.

"I couldn't help thinking of Pond," replied Mrs. Pond, a young woman of two and twenty, whose wifely experiences were tame in comparison with those of Mrs. Applebee, the mother of eight, "trapesing up and down in the cold while I was setting before a blazing fire as comfortable as you please. 'A cup of hot coffee 'll put life in him,' says I to myself, and I was soon on my way outside with a bottleful tucked under my cloak. It took me a good hour to get to him."

"And by that time the coffee was cold," Mrs. Applebee remarked.

"No, it was just lukewarm. Thinking of Pond I cuddled it close; but I don't mind confessing I was almost giving him up."

"How did you find him at last, my dear?"

"I'll tell you a secret," said the young wife, with a little blush. Mrs. Applebee, who dearly loved a secret or anything mysterious, pricked up her ears. "When Pond was put on the night beat we agreed upon a signal. It was his idea; he's that clever you wouldn't believe."

"May it ever continue," ejaculated Mrs. Applebee.

"What?"