Whatsoever a Man Soweth

It was the man John Parham, the person believed by his wife to be in India.

What was contemplated? The four-wheeled cab was still in waiting in the little open space which divides Dean’s Yard from Victoria Street, while the exit to Great College Street was being watched, and the thin-faced man lurked there ready for Sybil’s arrival.

Within myself I smiled to think that all their elaborate arrangements were futile, and wondered if Parham was the man who signed himself “White Feather?” In that fellow’s house were the fatal stairs, therefore if I followed him I should now be enabled to fix the actual place to which I had, on that never-to-be-forgotten night, been enticed.

While the costermonger remained on vigil, Parham and his companion passed and re-passed, but still without acknowledging each other.

Once the costermonger suddenly began to whistle a popular music-hall air, and turning I saw that it was a preconcerted signal. A man had entered the Yard from Great College Street and was crossing to where Parham was standing.

For fully three-quarters of an hour they waited patiently until ten o’clock struck. Then Parham approached his companion, and they stood in earnest conversation.

Almost at the same moment a female figure in deep black came swiftly through the gateway into the Yard, causing both to start quickly and draw back. Next instant, however, Parham started off briskly, walking past me to where the costermonger was standing, while his thin-faced accomplice slipped past the newcomer and disappeared into Victoria Street.

It was evident that the woman’s appearance had instantly upset all their calculations.

The newcomer stopped, glanced around and strained her eyes into the darkness. She wore a close black hat, a long mackintosh, and carried an umbrella, yet so swiftly had Parham disappeared that she had not noticed his presence in the Yard, while the other man had so cleverly slipped past her and out through the gateway that she had not seen his face.

For a few moments she stood expectant. I could see that she had hurried, in fear of being too late.

Then, as she approached me, I discerned that she was the girl O’Hara.

And of her, Parham and his lurking accomplices were evidently in fear, as they separated and disappeared.

I watched her standing there and wondered why she had come. Was it in order to save Sybil from some plot that had been prepared for her?

Was it their intention to take her to that dark, mysterious house with the fatal stairs?

I felt convinced that it was. The truth was plain. There was a plot against Sybil. The cab had been in waiting there to convey the victim to her grave!

Chapter Twenty Two.

Is an Echo from Charlton Wood

My bitterest regret was that I had not been able to follow Parham and trace him to the house of doom, but at the moment of his disappearance I had been unable to emerge from my hiding-place, otherwise the girl O’Hara would have seen me. Perhaps, indeed, she might have recognised me. So, by sheer force of adverse circumstances, I was compelled to remain there and see the trio escape under my very nose.

I had learnt one important fact, however, namely, that a deep conspiracy was afoot against Sybil.

It was beyond comprehension how Tibbie, daughter of the noble and patrician house of Scarcliff, could be so intimately associated with what appealed to me to be a daring gang of malefactors. The treatment I had received at their hands showed me their utter unscrupulousness. I wondered whether what the police suspected was really true, that others had lost their lives in that house wherein I had so nearly lost mine. What was the story of Tibbie’s association with them – a romance no doubt, that had had its tragic ending in the death of the unknown in Charlton Wood.

To me, it seemed plain that he was a member of the gang, for had he not their secret cipher upon him, and did not both Winsloe and Parham possess his photograph?

I recollected the receipt for a registered letter which I had found among the letters in the dead man’s pocket, and next morning told Budd to go and unlock the drawer in my writing-table and bring it to me. He did so, and I saw that the receipt was for a letter handed in at the post-office at Blandford in Dorset, addressed to: “Charles Denton, 16b Bolton Road, Pendleton, Manchester.”

I turned over the receipt in my hand, wondering whether the slip of paper would reveal anything to me. Then, after some reflection, I resolved to break my journey in Manchester on my return to Tibbie in Carlisle, and ascertain who was this man to whom the dead unknown had sent a letter registered.

Next afternoon I passed through Salford in a tram-car, along by Peel Park, and up the Broad Street to Pendleton, alighting at the junction of those two thoroughfares, the one leading to aristocratic Eccles and Patricroft, and the other out to bustling Bolton.

The Bolton road is one over which much heavy traffic passes, and is lined with small houses, a working-class district, for there are many mills and factories in the vicinity. I found the house of which I was in search, a small, rather clean-looking place, and as I passed a homely-looking woman was taking in the milk from the milkman.

Without hesitation I stopped, and addressing her, exclaimed, —

“Excuse me, mum, but do you happen to know a Mr Charles Denton?”

The woman scanned me quickly with some suspicion, I thought, but noticing, I supposed, that although a working-man I seemed highly respectable, replied bluntly, in a pronounced Lancashire dialect, —

“Yes, I do. What may you want with him?”

“I want to see him on some important business,” was my vague reply. “Is he at home?”

“No, he ain’t,” was the woman’s response. “Mr Denton lodges with me, but ’e’s up in London just now, and ’e’s been there this four months.”

“In London!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, but I don’t know his address. When he goes away ’e never leaves it. He’s lodged with me this two years, but I don’t think ’e’s been here more than six months altogether the whole time.”

“Then you have a lot of letters for him, I suppose?”

“Yes, quite a lot,” answered the good woman. The letter sent by the dead man might be among them!

“It was about a letter that I wanted to see Mr Denton – about a registered letter. I’ve come from London on purpose.”

“From London!” ejaculated the woman, a stout, good-humoured person.

“Yes. I wonder whether you’d mind me looking at the letters, if it is among them I’d know he had not received it. The fact is,” I added in confidence, “there’s a big lawsuit pending, and if he hasn’t got the letter then the other side can’t take any action against him.”

“Then you’re on his side?” she asked shrewdly.

“Of course I am. I came down to explain matters to him. If I can ascertain that he didn’t get the letter then that’s all I want. I’m a stranger, I know,” I added, “but as it is in Mr Denton’s interest I don’t think you’ll refuse.”

She hesitated, saying she thought she ought to ask her husband when he returned from the mill. But by assuring her of her lodger’s peril, and that I had to catch the six-thirty train back to London, I at last induced her to admit me to the house, and there in the small, clean, front parlour which was given over to her lodger when he was there, she took a quantity of letters from a cupboard and placed them before me.

Among the accumulated correspondence were quite a number of registered letters, and several little packets which most likely contained articles of value.

While I chatted with the woman with affected carelessness, pretending to be on very friendly terms with her lodger, I quickly fixed upon the letter in question, a registered envelope directed in a man’s educated hand, and bearing the Blandford post-mark.

In order, however, to divert her attention, I took up another letter, declaring that to be the important one, and that the fact of his not having received it was sufficient to prevent the action being brought.

“I’m very glad of that,” she declared in satisfaction. “Mr Denton is such a quiet gentleman. When he’s here he hardly ever goes out, but sits here reading and writing all day.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “he’s very studious – always was – but a very excellent friend. One of the very best.”

“So my husband always says. We only wish he was here more.”

“I saw him in London about a month ago,” I remarked, in order to sustain the fiction.

How I longed to open that letter that lay so tantalisingly before me. But what could I do? Such a thing was not to be thought of. Therefore, I had to watch the woman gather the correspondence together and replace them in the cupboard.

I rose and thanked her, saying, —