Whatsoever a Man Soweth

“Yes. Fred Kinghorne is here. He is an American, and beyond the Marstons has, I believe, no friends in England. He is an excellent bridge player and has won heavily this week. He has told me that he is engaged to a girl named Appleton, daughter of a Wall Street broker, and that she and her mother are to meet him in Naples on the twentieth, for a tour in Italy. He leaves here next Saturday, and will stay at the Cecil for ten days prior to leaving for Italy. He is evidently very well off, and one of the reasons he is in England is to buy some jewellery as a wedding present for his bride. The Marstons tell me that he is the son of old Jacob Kinghorne, the great Californian financier. I hope this information will satisfy you. – S.”

Harewolde, as all the world knows, was one of the centres of the smart set. The Marstons entertained the royalties frequently, and there were rumours of bridge parties and high stakes. Why had Sybil given this curious information? Had the young man Kinghorne been marked down as one of the victims and enticed to that fatal house?

There was no envelope, and the commencement of the letter was abrupt, as though it had been enclosed with some unsuspicious communication.

Having read it, I laid it down without comment, for it was my last desire to incriminate the poor unhappy woman, who, shorn of her brilliancy, was now leading such a strange and lowly life in that dull South London street.

Yet could it be possible that she had acted for these blackguards as their secret agent in society?

The suggestion held me stupefied.

At last Edwards ascended the stairs with Horton and another constable in plain clothes, and scrambled across the settle to where we stood. He carried in his hand a strong ladder of silken rope – which Pickering incidentally remarked had once been the property of Crisp, the notable Hampstead burglar – together with another lantern, a ball of string and a length of stout rope.

Marvin and Edwards recrossed the improvised bridge, while Pickering, Horton and myself remained upon the landing. Then, when we drew the settle away the two men pressed upon the stairs, causing the whole to move forward upon the hinges at the edge of the landing and disclosing the black abyss. As soon as the pressure was released, however, the stairs swung back into their place again, there being either a spring or a counter-balancing weight beneath.

This was the first difficulty that faced us, but it was soon overcome by inserting the settle when the stairs were pushed apart, thus keeping them open. To the stout oak pillar which formed the head of the banisters Pickering fixed the rope-ladder firmly, and with Marvin tried its strength.

“I’ll go down first, sir,” volunteered Edwards. “You’ve got the lantern. Will you light it and let it down by the string after me?”

So with all of us breathlessly excited the silken ladder was thrown across to Edwards, whose round face beamed at the project of subterranean exploration. Then, when the lamp was lit and tied upon the string, he put his foot into the ladder, swung himself over the edge of the stairs and descended into the darkness, Pickering lowering the lamp after him.

We stood peering down at his descending figure, but could discern but little save the glimmering of the light and the slow swinging of the ladder, like a pendulum.

“Great Moses!” we heard him ejaculate in amazement.

Yet down, down, down he went until it became apparent that he must have reached the end of the ladder, and now be sliding down the extra length of rope which Pickering had attached.

“All right, sir!” came up his voice, sounding cavernous from the pitch darkness. “It’s a jolly funny place down here, an’ no mistake. Will you come down? I’m releasing the lantern. Send down another, please. We’ll want it.”

Pickering hauled in the string, attached Marvin’s bull’s-eye to it, and let it down again at once. The pit was of great depth, as shown by the length of cord. Then with an agility which would have done credit to a much younger man, he swung himself over on to the ladder.

“If you’d like to come down, Mr Hughes, you can follow me,” he exclaimed, as he disappeared into the darkness. “Horton, hold your light over me. You two stay here. If anybody enters the place, arrest them quickly.”

“Very well, sir,” answered the man Horton, and the inspector went deeper down until only the trembling of the ladder betokened his presence there.

“All right, Mr Hughes. Come down, but be careful,” he cried up presently, his voice sounding far away. “You’ll have to slide down the rope for the last twelve feet or so. Cling tight, and you’ll be all right.”

I grasped the ladder, placed my foot into the first loop, and then with the light held over me, went down, down, first into a place which seemed large and cavernous, and presently down a kind of circular well with black slimy walls which seemed to descend into the very bowels of the earth.

Below I could hear the sound of rushing waters, but above them was the inspector’s encouraging voice, crying, “All right. Now then, take the rope in your legs and slip straight down.”

I did so, and a moment later found myself up to my knees in an icy cold stream, which swept and gurgled about me.

Pickering and his assistant stood at my side, their lamps shining upon the dark subterranean flood.

“Is this the place you remember?” asked the inspector, shining his bull’s-eye around and revealing that we were at the bottom of a kind of circular well which had on either side two low arches or culverts. From the right the water rushed in with a swirling current, and by the opposite culvert it rushed out, gurgling and filling the arch almost to its keystone. I saw that all the black slimy masonry was of long flat stones – a relic of ancient London it seemed to be.

“This isn’t the place where I found myself,” I said, much surprised.

“No, I suppose not,” remarked the inspector. “This is fresh water, from a spring somewhere, and through that ancient culvert there’s probably a communication with the main sewer. When you fell, you were swept down there and out into the main sewer at once – like a good many others who have come down here. It’s an awful death-trap. Look up there,” and he shone his lamp above my head.

“Don’t you see that a bar of iron has been driven into the wall – and driven there recently, too, or it would have rusted away long ago in this damp.”

“Well?” I said, not quite following him.

“That’s been put there so that the victims, in falling from the great height, should strike against it and be rendered unconscious before reaching the water. Look. There’s a bit of white stuff on it now – like silk from a lady’s evening dress!”

And sure enough I saw at the end of that iron bar a piece of white stuff fluttering in the draught, the grim relic of some unfortunate woman who had gone unconsciously to her death! The dank, gruesome place horrified me. Its terrible secrets held all three of us appalled. Even Pickering himself shuddered.

“To explore further is quite impossible,” he said. “That culvert leads into the main sewer, so we must leave its exploration to the sewermen. Lots of springs, of course, fall into the sewers, but the exact spots of their origin are unknown. They were found and connected when the sewers were constructed, and that’s all. My own opinion,” he added, “is that this place was originally the well of an ancient house, and that the blackguards discovered it in the cellar, explored it, ascertained that anything placed in it would be sucked down into that culvert, and then they opened up a way right through to the stairs.”

The inspector’s theory appeared to me to be a sound one.

I expressed fear of the rising of the water with the automatic flushing of the sewers, but he pointed out that where we stood must be on a slightly higher level, judging from the way the water rushed away down the culvert, while on the side of the well there was no recent mark of higher water, thus bearing out his idea of a spring.

Edwards swarmed up the rope and managed to detach the piece of silk from the iron bar. When he handed it to us we saw that though faded and dirty it had been a piece of rich brocade, pale blue upon a cream ground, while attached was a tiny edging of pale blue chiffon – from a woman’s corsage, Pickering declared it to be – perhaps a scrap of the dress of the owner of that emerald necklet up above!

After a minute inspection of the grim ancient walls which rose from a channel of rock worn smooth by the action of the waters of ages, Pickering swarmed up the dangling rope, gained the ladder and climbed back again, an example which I quickly followed, although my legs were so chilled to the bone by the icy water that at first I found considerable difficulty in ascending.

Having gained the landing and been followed by Edwards, we drew up the ladder, removed the settle, allowed the fatal stairs to close again, and then bridged it over as before.

While we had been below Horton, who was a practised carpenter, had mended the latch of the front door, so that there should be no suspicion of our entry. We all clambered across the settle, descended the stairs to the basement, and were soon engaged in searching the downstairs rooms and cellar. We had found that the communication between the head of the well and the top of the house was a roughly-constructed shaft of boards when, of a sudden, while standing at the foot of the kitchen stairs we were startled by hearing the sharp click of a key in the lock of the front door above.

In an instant we were silent, and stood together breathless and listening. The dark slide slipped across the bull’s-eye.

It was truly an exciting moment.

Pickering, followed by Edwards and Marvin, crept noiselessly up the stairs, and while the person entering apparently had some difficulty with the lock they waited in the darkness.

I stood behind the inspector, my heart beating quickly, listening intently. It was an exciting moment standing ready in the pitch blackness of that silent house of doom.

The latch caught, probably on account of its recent disarrangement, but at last the key lifted it, the door opened, somebody entered the hall, and quietly re-closed the door.

Next instant Pickering sprang from his hiding-place, crying, —

“I arrest you on suspicion of being implicated in certain cases of wilful murder committed in this house!”

Horton at that same moment flashed his lamp full upon the face of the person who had entered there so stealthily, and who, startled by the dread accusation, stood glaring like some wild animal brought to bay, but motionless as though turned to stone.

The lamp-flash revealed a white, haggard countenance. I saw it; I recognised it!

A loud cry of horror and amazement escaped me. Was I dreaming? No. It was no dream, but a stern, living reality – a truth that bewildered and staggered me utterly – a grim, awful truth which deprived me of the power of speech.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Lifts the Veil

The man under arrest was not, as I had expected, John Parham – but Eric Domville!