The Hunchback of Westminster

The woman in black, however, rose with magnificent impudence to the occasion. “You, sir,” she said, “have been good enough to brand me with falsehood, and I have borne it without a murmur, striving only to prove to you, in the discharge of my duty, that I spoke fairly and truthfully. Now, however, you go too far when you attack my assistants. I repeat they are dressed properly, and I say that your statement that you have been often in our asylum, is so much fudge. Only doctors and police and inspectors from the Home Office go there as a regular rule.”

I waited for a moment before I answered, like a clever actor pauses before he puts in his most effective point.

“You are impetuous, madam,” I said, taking out my snuff-box with studied deliberation and pretending to take a pinch; “very impetuous. You ought to have asked who I was before you branded me, too, as an impostor. As a matter of fact, I do belong to the police. Here is my card.” And I quietly produced a card of Detective-Inspector Naylor’s which I happened to have in my waistcoat pocket.

The effect of my act was almost magical. The woman in front of me started violently and shivered. Then with a great effort she recovered herself and gave me another look of defiance. “I see,” she said, taking the piece of cardboard I handed to her with apparent carelessness. “I suppose you have been sent to look after Miss Velasquon by some friend of hers who does not know her real identity or crimes. It’s a pity, a great pity, for you will have your journey wasted. The patient, of course, is now in our care, and must go with us.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” I returned, although I admit I was startled with the daring and resource which this woman was showing, and which proved that she was up to every trick and turn and corner of those wretched lunacy laws of ours. “Do you mind showing me the authority under which you are acting?”

“Not at all,” she said in her most patronising and offensive tones, and feeling in a reticule that depended from her waist she produced this strange communication:

By Royal Authority.

Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Broadmoor.

To all whom it may concern.

This is to Certify that the Bearer of this warrant, Joan Virtue Hand, is a principal warder in the above Institution, and is now absent on a mission to recover possession of a particularly daring and dangerous inmate, named Camille Velasquon, who has escaped therefrom, although she is a fully certified lunatic and has been incarcerated here in the above Institution on a lawful warrant from His Majesty’s judge sitting at the Central Criminal Court, whereat she was charged with the killing and slaying of two of her sisters, aged five and seven respectively.

All good and law-abiding citizens, and particularly members of the police force, station-masters, porters, sailors, shipmasters, cab proprietors, lodging-house keepers, and hotel managers, are requested to give her every assistance in conveying her patient to the above Institution. And all persons are warned against impeding the said Joan Virtue Hand in the execution of her mission, for by so doing they render themselves liable to the Lunacy Act 1875, c vii s 5, 6, ss 3, and on conviction may be punished by a term of imprisonment not exceeding six calendar months.

(Signed) Douglas Llewelyn, Chief Registrar.

Very carefully I read this document through three or four times before I made any comment, any remark, about it at all. I could feel, of course, that the woman was watching me and every second was growing more and more uneasy under the stress of my unexpected recourse to silence. But still I said nothing to her; and at last she could bear it no longer.

“Now, Mr Naylor,” she said, speaking to me in my assumed name, but her voice was shrill with apprehension, “perhaps you will have the goodness to admit that you have been playing a very dangerous game with me and that if I liked I could make it very awkward for you at Scotland Yard for interfering between a warder and an escaped lunatic without proper inquiry or warrant.”

“Humph,” I returned coldly, “I don’t know so much about that.” And before she could have the slightest notion what I was up to I coolly lowered the carriage window, and tearing her authority quickly into three or four pieces I flung the fragments out on to the railway as the train was whirling along at a rate of about twenty miles an hour.

“Man,” she stormed, as soon as she saw what I had done, springing to her feet and grabbing me by the arm, “are you mad?”

“I hope not,” I said courteously. “I try to keep sane, although I admit it is hard sometimes when one meets such odd people.”

“But do you realise what you have done? You have torn up my warrant.”

“I know,” I returned sadly. “But then it was no good, you see. It was a fraud. It had no more to do with Broadmoor than yonder telegraph post. It was designed to mislead people, and so, to save misconception, I destroyed it.” And with a sardonic smile I threw myself back in my seat and folded my arms.

“Oh! you shall pay for this,” she hissed, her features working convulsively. “Dearly, dearly shall you pay for this! This girl shall never escape me – never!” And she shot out a threatening finger in the direction of poor Camille.

“Unfortunately, my dear Mrs Hand,” I said in my most lofty tone, “you have come upon the scene a trifle late for heroics like these. As a matter of fact, you are in the awkward position, not I at all. On the whole you have been precipitate, very precipitate, I regret to observe. Thus you never got to know by what right I met Miss Velasquon. You never inquired, indeed. Even when I handed you my card you did not pause and ask yourself whether you were not going just a trifle too far in your rudeness to me and your interference with my good wishes.”

“Good wishes? Rubbish,” she snapped!

“My good wishes, I repeat,” I said with a good deal of firmness, for was I not about to play my last and most triumphant trump card? “As a matter of fact, those good wishes of mine are very important to you and to these two disguised females whom you drag about with you,” and I casually nodded in the direction of the pseudo-nurses, “for long before any of you appeared on the scene I had arrested Camille Velasquon! She was a prisoner, and you have all rendered yourselves liable to punishment for attempting to get her out of my hands!”

“Oh, that’s impossible,” Joan Hand cried; but there was no conviction in her tones, and her two confederates sprang up and made as though they would slip out of the carriage forthwith.

In an instant I planted myself between them and the door – the only door that remained unlocked. “Excuse me, ladies,” I said; “I cannot permit you to leave me in this unceremonious fashion.”

“Why, we’ve done nothing,” one of them gasped. “We are free.”

“Not at all,” I blithely observed, “you are all three my prisoners. I charge all of you with falsely representing yourselves to be nurses engaged at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, and, whilst doing so, endeavouring to rescue a prisoner lawfully in my custody on the charge of a series of frauds in the Mexican Republic, – a girl whom I am taking to the Extradition Court at Bow Street to await the arrival of the necessary papers; and I warn you all to be careful what you say to me. Any remark you happen to make now I shall use in evidence against you, and if the lot of you don’t get put away for a long term of penal servitude it will be mighty odd to me. You are certainly the wickedest gang of females I have ever struck.”

“And I’ll strike you, you wretch,” screamed the woman Hand, and before I could turn the woman in black caught me a blow on the side of the head that sent me crashing to my seat.

That was the only chance they had, but they took it almost in a flash. Just then the train was drawing into Vauxhall, and like lightning they tore open the door of the carriage and sprang on to the platform, to disappear instantly in a bewildering network of waiting-rooms.

For my own part, I was rather relieved than otherwise at their flight, and I turned to congratulate Camille Velasquon on the skill with which we had managed to outwit them.

But she, too, had disappeared!

Chapter Twelve.

What the Papers Said

With a startled exclamation I began to search up and down.

At first, I own, I did not know what to do.

True, the mystery of how that carriage door had been unlocked was quickly elucidated, for directly I looked out I saw that the engine had drawn us along a single set of metals to a point in the station where platforms stood quite close to the solitary track. There were plenty of porters on either side of the compartment, and it was no doubt the easiest thing in the world for the girl to beckon one to her assistance and to slip off as I was seeking to discover what became of that sham warderess from Broadmoor and her confederates.

But why should she go at all? At that point she was perfectly safe. I had beaten off the attempt to abduct her. So far as either of us could foresee she would be able to go to her refuge at the headquarters of the Order of St. Bruno with perfect safety and ease. And yet, just as I had secured this, she had vanished! What excuse could I make to José Casteno? And could it have been a sudden freak or, after all, had somebody got the better of me when my back was turned, and, in spite of the woman Hand, had kidnapped the girl in the flash of a moment?

For my own part, I confess I could not believe that in a busy and crowded station like Vauxhall she could have been whipped off so suddenly through a locked carriage door without a sound if only she had had any desire to remain. Perhaps, too, her secret instructions from Casteno were to travel to South London only and then to part company with me. Now I came to think of it I remembered how very vague the Spaniard had been about the entire business, particularly as to what was to happen when the journey was over.

In the end I seemed compelled to decide that the girl had gone off through her own free will, but in order to make quite certain that no mischief was afoot I leaped out of the train just as the whistle sounded for its departure and searched the station through and through. Not a sign of my charge could I discover.

Then I did what, perhaps, I ought to have done in the first place. I bribed one of the porters to interrogate his comrades on the subject, and finally got word from one of the station hands what appeared to be the real truth. A portly but distinguished looking stranger, who carried himself with a military air and was exceedingly well dressed, was observed to step forward to the carriage in which Miss Velasquon was seated as soon as the train drew to a standstill and to pass her a small card on which he had written something in very great haste. The girl nodded instantly she read his message. Thereon, the man whipped out a a train key, and in a flash threw open the doorway, through which the girl slipped like a shadow, linking her arm in the stranger’s as though he were some old, intimate, and highly-trusted friend. Next instant they were lost in the maze of people on the platform; but a news lad, who sold papers outside the main exit close to the trams, came forward, and he declared that he recollected seeing the couple quite well, and that they entered a carriage that was waiting near at hand and drove off in the direction of Victoria.

With that I had to be content. Whether it was good or bad I had no means then to determine. I could only hope that things had turned out as well as they ought to have done. Inwardly, however, I registered a vow that I would get more at the mind of my employer the next time he sent me tearing half across England to the rescue of a girl, no matter how fascinating she might be, or in what peril. Then I bought a copy of one of the evening papers, and hailing a hansom directed the driver to take me back to my offices in Stanton Street, where Don José had promised to telegraph to me.

For a time I sat well back in the soft, well-upholstered cab and let my thoughts run riot on the extraordinary series of adventures that had befallen since I had made that fierce fight in the auction room. Have you ever noticed that there is something mysterious in the mere fact that one has purchased a copy of the last edition of a paper that makes one a prey to retrospect? Nine times out of the ten on which I purchase an evening journal I never glance at the columns. But once let me omit to provide myself with a damp, evilly-folded sheet, and I am wretched. All my nerves are on the alert. I can think of nothing to interest me. The shortest journey seems of intolerable length. I finish up fagged, irritable, and stupid.

As a matter of fact, I am certain I should never have looked at that particular copy that particular night had not two leather-lunged paper “runners,” who live on Metropolitan sensations, suddenly loomed up on either side of the cab as we rattled past the site of the old Millbank Prison and waved their papers in front of me. “Horrible tragedy in Whitehall Court!” they roared.

The driver whipped up his horse, and the hansom shot past them into the gathering blackness, but the echo of their words rang through my brain. “Horrible tragedy in Whitehall Court.” Why, I recollected suddenly that was where Doris lived! Could something – oh, no, it was ridiculous; this flight of Camille Velasquon had made me nervous. None the less, I made a frantic grab at my paper – it was a Globe, I remember – somehow one always notes such trifles in a supreme crisis – and with trembling fingers I turned to the fifth page, where, I knew from old experience, I should find the latest and most important intelligence given.

Ah! I was not mistaken. Here it was:

MURDER IN WHITEHALL COURT

ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS CRIME

But what was that? Familiar names? People, scenes, circumstances I recalled as though they were my own! With a great gasp I held the pink sheet close to the cab lamp, and as we were whirling madly along Parliament Street, close to the actual scene of the crime itself, I read this account of what had happened whilst I that morning had tried to snatch but a few hours of broken slumber.

“About half-past six this morning a murder of a peculiarly atrocious character was discovered in that block of flats known as Embankment Mansions in Whitehall Court. It seems that Colonel Napier’s valet, a man named Richardson, who was early awake in consequence of an attack of toothache, was startled by hearing what he believed was a shout for help proceeding from his master’s room. He went at once to the door and knocked, and, on getting no reply, he turned the handle and entered, when he was horrified to see Colonel Napier stretched on the bed, with a great dagger-thrust in the region of his heart, and quite dead. An open window showed at once the means chosen by the murderer to effect an entrance, which was rendered all the more easy by the fact that an iron pipe ran past it on its way from the roof to the earth. The valet sprang at once to the window, but he could see no sign of any person, and darting to an inner room he turned on a district messenger-call for the police. Then he ran back to the bedroom. The colonel could not then have been dead many seconds. Everything pointed to that. Nor was it clear why the crime had been committed. Nothing had been removed from the bedroom – nothing at all. Detective-Inspector Naylor and other officers were quickly on the scene, but although they searched they could not find any trace of the murderer or of the weapon with which the terrible deed was accomplished. At the time of writing, indeed, the crime is enveloped in mystery, for Colonel Napier, who was formerly Member of Parliament for Hereford, and had won high recognition for services on the Indian frontier, was considered by all a most popular man. He was a widower, and leaves only one child, a daughter, who, luckily, at the time of the tragedy was away on a visit.”

For a few moments after reading this I confess I felt at a loss to speak, to move, even to think – the thing was so hideous, so appalling, so complete. The horror of it all seemed so acute that it crushed me beneath its weight.