Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

"It'd give me the creeps."

"Very well, then," said Constable Applebee, as though a matter which had been in dispute was now settled. "Put a substantial body in my way and I'll tackle it. But how can you tackle it when it melts and disappears? You call out, 'Now, then, what are you up to?' and you don't get a whisper in reply. Ain't that enough to aggravate a man?"

"More than enough; I know how I should feel over it. But look here, Applebee, it ain't imagination, is it?"

"Imagination!" exclaimed Constable Applebee, in a voice of scorn. "What! Me! Why, I don't suppose, from the day I was born to this blessed night of white fog, that if it was all reckoned up I've had imagination enough to fill a two-ounce bottle."

This new view of the quality of imagination in relation to quantity seemed to impress Constable Pond, who turned it over in his mind without feeling himself equal to offer an opinion on it.

"A fog like this always serves me the same way," said Constable Applebee. "There was a black fog when I was born I've heard my mother often say. That's why, perhaps."

"But what happened?" asked Constable Pond. "You haven't told me that."

"This happened. I see a shadder creeping along the wall. I foller it till I'm within half-a-dozen yards. Then I stop and hail it. The minute it hears my voice it gives a start, and when I run forward to lay hands on it, it vanishes."

"You've got," said Constable Pond, admiringly, "the heart of a lion. I don't bring to mind that there's any orders about taking up shadders. Bodies, yes. Shadders, no."

"I ain't exactly a mouse," said Constable Applebee, stiffening himself. "It happened a second time. There it was, creeping ahead of me. This time I don't give it a chance. I run after it and call out, 'Stand up like a man!'" —

"It might have been a female shadder," suggested Constable Pond.

"Perhaps you know more about it than I do," said Constable Applebee, testily.

"No, Applebee, no. Go on."

"'Stand up like a man!' I call out. What's the consequence? It vanishes again, and there I stand, dumbfoundered."

"Does it come a third time, Applebee?"

"No, it don't come a third time. When I was a little boy my mother took me to the Polytechnic to see 'Pepper's Ghost.' You saw it, and it wasn't there. You run a sword through it, and it grinned in your face. I was that scared I couldn't sleep for a week afterwards. It's my belief, if I'd got close enough to run a knife into the shadder, it'd have served me just the same. Step up, we're in the gutter."

"It's singular, that's what it is. It's singular. Shall you report it?"

"I'm doubtful of it. They might think I was off my head. Let it be between us, Pond."

"It don't pass my lips, Applebee."

They entered a hooded court, and halted there.

"Where are we?" asked Constable Pond.

"In Deadman's Court." Constable Pond shivered. "Leading to Catchpole Square, and leading nowhere else. You wouldn't catch me living in a cooldersack."

"What may be the meaning of that, Applebee?" asked Constable Pond.

"You couldn't have been much of a dab at school to ask that question. Now, me! – but I won't boast. Cooldersack is French for blind thoroughfare. A man that sleeps as sound as I do 'd find himself in a trap, with a entrance like this. Suppose you live in the end house where Mr. Samuel Boyd lives, and there's a fire in the middle of the night. How's the fire engines to get to you? You wouldn't have half a chance. A man might as well be shut up in a bottle. Do you know the Square at all, Pond?"

"No. Never been in it to my knowledge."

"Couldn't have been in it without," said Constable Applebee, chuckling at his wit. "It's the rummiest built place you ever saw. Just step in a minute. Not that you can see much of it with this fog on, but I could describe it blindfold. Six houses with the street doors in front of us-we're standing facing 'em now-and only one of 'em let, the one at the end corner, Mr. Samuel Boyd's. The others have been empty I don't know how long. Now right about face, and what do you see?"

"As fur as I can make out," said Constable Pond, peering before him, "it's a blank wall."

"It is a blank wall, the backs of six houses, without any back entrance to 'em."

"Where's the front entrance?"

"In Shore Street. If we had Samuel Boyd's money we'd do better with it, wouldn't we, Pond? We'd have a house with a bit of garden in front and a bit of garden at the back, with a rose tree or two, and flowers in the winder-because what's the use of money if you don't enjoy it?"

"That's what I say. Life's short. Only tempery."

"Temporarily, Pond, temporarily," said Constable Applebee, in correction. "You must have made a mess of it at school. My missis'd go wild with delight if she had a house like that. She's as fond of flowers as bees of honey."

"So's mine," said Constable Pond, standing up for his own like a man.

"They all are. And if I had my wish I'd never leave the house in the morning without one in my buttonhole. It mellers a man, Pond, that's what it does, it mellers him, and whether you're rough or whether you're smooth it shows you've got a good heart. I never saw Samuel Boyd with a flower in his buttonhole, and if I lived to a hundred I never should. And I never had a civil word from him."

"Nor anything in the way of a tip, I'll bet," remarked Constable Pond.

"You'd win it. It was a different pair of shoes with his son, Mr. Reginald. There he was, as handsome and free a young chap as you'd set eyes on in a day's march, with a flower in his coat and a smile or a cheery word to brighten you up. 'A wild night, constable,' he'd say, 'have a cigar?' And he'd slip one in my hand, and sometimes the price of a pint. It's nigh upon two years since I set eyes on him-wus luck!" These reminiscences came to a sudden stop. Constable Applebee clutched his comrade's arm, and whispered hoarsely, "Look there! The shadder!"

A figure was creeping along the wall, as though in the endeavour to escape observation. They darted forward, and Constable Applebee laid his hand upon it, crying, "Now, then, give an account of yourself!" It was not a shadow, for shadows have no substance. It was not a shadow, for shadows have no voice. The sound of a sob escaped from the figure. Constable Applebee's grasp was nerveless rather than vigorous, and a less powerful effort than it made would have enabled it to escape. It was gone! Through Deadman's Court!

"Quick, Pond, quick!" cried Constable Applebee. In a state of confusion they scrambled out of Catchpole Square, and came into violent collision. Ruefully rubbing their heads they looked about them, and saw nothing but the thick white fog.

"Vanished!" exclaimed Constable Applebee. The collision had knocked Constable Pond's helmet off. Stooping to recover it he saw something white beneath it-a lady's handkerchief, trimmed with lace. With a sly glance at Constable Applebee he put it into his pocket.

"It'll do for the missis," he thought. "She's fond of a bit of lace."

CHAPTER VII

IN BISHOP STREET POLICE STATION

Availing itself of the privilege to creep through every chink and crevice, to steal up backstairs and take advantage of every keyhole, and to make its dismal presence felt equally within the habitations of man as without, the white fog had insinuated itself into the Bishop Street Police Station, where it lay in the form of a semi-transparent shroud, and where Inspector Robson looked more like the ghost of a man than the man himself. In the brightest of weather the office was not a cheerful apartment; under the thrall of the white fog, an hour after midnight, it assumed a funereal aspect inexpressibly depressing.

Busily employed in making out the charge sheet for the following day, Inspector Robson still found time to cast an occasional eye upon another ghostly form who, with one foot resting on the end of a wooden bench, was leaning against the wall in a negligent attitude, engaged in the insubstantial occupation of chewing a ghostly straw. The Inspector wrote a fine copperplate hand, and his steel pen neither scratched nor spluttered. On the present occasion he was taking extraordinary care over his task, as though more than usually important issues hung upon the perfect outlines of his pothooks and hangers. The absence of sound within the office and the shroud which lay upon it, rendering objects within a few yards of him indistinct, imparted so strong an air of unreality to the scene, that his slow and measured movements bore some resemblance to the movements of an automaton. The other ghostly person in the office chewed his straw and moved his lips with so regular and unintelligent a motion that his movements, also, bore some resemblance to the movements of an automaton. But for the difference in their ages these two men might have been posing to an invisible artist for a picture of the Industrious and the Idle Apprentices.

That there was something in the negligent figure that discomposed the Inspector was evident from the expression on his face when he raised his head from the charge sheet and glanced in that direction, and it was quite as evident that his discomposure was powerless to arouse the cause of it from his apparent insensibility to all external objects and impressions. He was young and good-looking, his age probably twenty-four or five; Inspector Robson was old enough to be his father, and on his features were stamped the effects of long years of official responsibilities and steady application to duty. In this relation of the Idle and the Industrious Apprentices the marked contrast they presented was capable of a dramatic interpretation.

"Do you intend to remain much longer?" inquired the Inspector, goaded at length into breaking the oppressive silence. "Because I'd like you to know I'm pretty well tired of you."

"I'm pretty well tired of myself," replied the young man, in a listless tone. "As to remaining much longer I can't exactly say."

"You have no right to be in this place, you know, unless you are here upon business. Now, the question is, are you here upon business? If you are, I'm ready to take it down."

The young man turned the straw in his mouth, and appeared to reflect. Coming to a conclusion he languidly said, "I can't think of any particular business."

"That's a pity," said the Inspector.