The Hunchback of Westminster

“Then you didn’t see anything of Colonel Napier’s clumber spaniel?” I queried, and in spite of myself there arose a certain accent of suspicion in my tones.

“No, I didn’t,” he replied, but he kept his gaze steadily averted from mine. “No doubt I ran too fast to notice anything. Besides, I always keep my head down.” And, pretending to yawn, he rose unsteadily to his feet and took a seat near the table, whereon I had laid breakfast for us both.

Of course, I should like to have asked him about the knife which I had watched him sharpen with so much diabolical care, but I realised that for some secret reason this innocent-looking Spaniard was not really telling me the truth about his early morning mission; and, not wanting to be filled up with any more fables, I decided to hold my tongue about the matter, for a time at all events. The incident, however, had put me thoroughly on my guard, and, without letting him become conscious of what was, after all, a rather subtle change of front, I kept a much closer watch than usual on him right through the meal, when we chatted a lot of commonplaces.

All the same, he seemed to feel that we had little time to waste when breakfast was finished and we had started our cigarettes. As the seconds slipped on, and I showed no unusual haste to be off, his manner grew jerky and nervous, and finally he gave the signal to rise with a quick apology to me.

“Really, we must be off,” he said. “I feel quite anxious about what is happening at the hunchback’s. Do let us get into some secure place of concealment before Lord Fotheringay or his envoy appears again on the scene.”

With a great affectation of laziness I rose and followed him down Stanton Street; and this time I put a double safety-lock on my office, to save me from any more surprise visits from men like Lord Cyril Cuthbertson. Now, as it happens, the quickest route from Stanton Street to the Strand is by way of a long, dark, narrow passage, and although Casteno hurried past I made him retrace his steps for a few yards and walk with me through this. At first I imagined I had done this from purely British obstinacy and habit, but all at once I became conscious that some deeper influence and habit must have been at work, for on rounding a bend I was startled to come across a group of early printers’ boys and charwomen gathered excitedly around some object that lay on the ground. This tiny crowd instinctively parted at our approach, and as we passed into their midst I was horrified to see Colonel Napier’s clumber spaniel Fate stretched on the path, with a great gaping cut over its heart!

“Some brute has stabbed it,” said one of the boys, who had been kneeling beside it endeavouring to stop the flow of blood with his dirty handkerchief. “I did my best for him, but he was too far gone. He’s almost dead.” But suddenly the dog seemed to rouse himself – to lift his head – then, catching sight of Casteno, he gave a low growl and made a movement as if he would snap at his legs.

The Spaniard jumped back nimbly, and one of the women exclaimed: “Why, mister, he seems to know you.”

“He doesn’t. I have never seen him before,” cried Casteno. And just then death convulsions seized the poor brute, and as the crowd watched the dog die the incident passed rapidly out of mind. I did not, however, forget it totally, nor the fact that Fate was one in a thousand for sagacity and faithfulness. But what, perhaps, impressed me the most was the shape and size of the wound in the dog’s side. I could have sworn that it had been made by the dagger I had seen Don José sharpen in the glare of my office fire!

Unfortunately, up to that point I had nothing definite to go upon except the most wild and improbable suspicion. After all, why should the Spaniard kill Colonel Napier’s dog? Nothing was to be gained by a piece of petty revenge such as that. As a consequence, I did not worry myself about the incident further, but contented myself by giving the boy who had spoken to me first a shilling to wheel the dead dog to Whitehall Court, and then Casteno and I hastened along Parliament Street and soon appeared outside the closed curio shop.

To all appearances, then, nothing unusual had happened to Peter Zouche or to his premises. The street in which the old curiosity store stood was just as silent and deserted as it had been the previous night when Mr Cooper-Nassington and I drove up and had that memorable interview with the hunchback about the contents of the manuscripts. Nobody seemed astir, no detective appeared on the watch.

Like shadows we crossed the road, inspected the shutters, and gently but noiselessly tried the handle of the door. We soon saw that there was no chance of gaining admission by these methods, but a moment later I caught sight of a long iron pipe that ran from the roof to the ground by the side of the door.

“Can you climb?” I whispered to the Spaniard, recalling, all at once, the favourite method of the portico thief.

He nodded. “I served as a sailor once,” he returned.

“Then follow me,” I said, and seizing this pipe I travelled up by hands and knees until I reached the level of the first-floor window-sill. Then out I whipped my knife, and, forcing back the catch, I raised the sash, with the result that in less than twenty seconds after I had hit on this ruse the window had been closed again, and both of us stood inside the hunchback’s stronghold in perfect freedom and safety.

“This is better than waiting until the assistant comes to open the shop,” I said. “After all, he might have given us some trouble, whereas here we are landed all right before he appears at all. Now to explore and to get into position where you can see, without being seen, all that Master Zouche is up to.”

And we turned and picked our way carefully through the maze of curios with which the place was littered – the antique chests, the old carved cabinets, dainty pieces of Chippendale and Sheraton, with here and there a heathen idol or an Egyptian mummy case flanked by vessels and candelabra torn from holy places in Christian churches. All were flung pell-mell together, as though the man who owned them despised them, and had deposited them there as so much lumber, instead of being, as they really were, worth thousands and thousands of pounds.

Right at the back part of the room we were delighted to find a trap-door let into the floor, and raising this we dropped into a clean, if small, recess, which in times past had doubtless been used for storing valuable old pictures, for in different places we found several canvases that had been taken out of their frames and carefully deposited and packed with their faces to the wall. From the position of a tiny window that had been let into the far end I gathered that at length we had reached a position over the parlour in which I felt sure we should come upon the hunchback. So, closing the trap-door upon us, we went down on our hands and knees and set to bore experimental holes between the rafters, to see whether we could distinguish our exact whereabouts.

After two or three disappointments we succeeded in locating the room I was in search of, and, to our delight, found Peter Zouche there, curled up in the great chair-bedstead which he ordinarily used as an arm-chair near the fire. He had evidently just awoke and lit his fire, for he sat huddled over the burning sticks near a tiny kettle which was steaming merrily, his eyes fixed blankly in space, as though his mind were lost in the maze of some profound speculation.

For some minutes he did not move at all. Then suddenly he seemed to come to some rapid decision, for he sprang out of the chair and went hurriedly to an old Dutch cupboard in a recess, from which he took a big square steel box, like a Foreign Office despatch box, painted mahogany colour, with heavy brass clamps at the corners.

“The manuscripts!” whispered Casteno excitedly as he saw the old man thrust a long skinny hand into his trouser pocket and produce therefrom a bunch of jangling keys. But I shook my head. I remembered the hunchback’s boast to Mr Cooper-Nassington that he had hidden those precious documents in a place where they could be found only by himself. That ordinary-looking safe would attract the attention of the most careless and superficial of burglars.

As it chanced, there were three or four padlocks attached to the case, and each one had to be opened by a separate key, so that over a minute elapsed before the Hunchback succeeded in raising the lid and in disclosing to view what the box really contained – a neat-fitting wig of black and a beard. These he fitted on his head and face, giving him the appearance of some Polish Jew who had but newly arrived on these hospitable shores.

“What on earth can he be up to?” interjected Casteno, who was really now worked up to a painful degree of nervous tension.

“Nothing good, I’m certain,” I returned rather grimly. “My experience has always been that, when men are ashamed of their own features in the ordinary business of life, they are also ashamed of the deeds which they propose to do with a false countenance.”

All this time, however, old Peter was busy in putting the finishing touches to his disguise – in changing his coat and vest, in donning some greasy rags, which he rounded off by a muffler, a coat green with age, and a slouch hat so dirty and worn that few would venture to pick it up from the street, much less place it on their own heads. Finally, after a long and narrow inspection in a beautiful old Venetian mirror that hung on the wall, he seemed satisfied with the change he had effected in his appearance, for he stepped briskly to the mantelpiece and touched a small electric bell, which sounded somewhere high above our heads.

For a moment it looked as though the summons would not be answered. But only for a moment. Later we caught the sounds of tired feet clamping heavily down the wooden stairs until they reached the shop level, then the door of the parlour (I can call it nothing else, it was so typical of its middle-class namesake), was thrust open, and a youth entered bearing a most extraordinary resemblance to my companion Don José Casteno!

Unfortunately, I hadn’t time to remark on this further before the hunchback himself began to speak, and I had to bend all my energies and senses to catching the drift of the conversation, which was carried on in a low foreign-sounding tone.

“Well, Paul,” began the hunchback briskly, “I have taken your advice, like a good father, and have disguised myself in the costume you suggested. What do you think of the transformation? Is it a success?”

“It will do all right,” said the tired-looking youth sullenly. “Only take care how you hold your shoulders. Most people give themselves away by the fashion in which they carry themselves, and you, as a hunchback, worst of all.”

Zouche, like most deformed persons, was painfully sensitive, but to my surprise he did not seem to resent the youth’s bluntness. “Any other advice?” he proceeded, “mind, I want all your tips. I may be gone for a long time.”

“No,” said the youth he called Paul, slowly and critically. “There’s not much to find fault with just at present. Don’t get excited, though, whatever happens. Train your hands not to reveal your true feelings, and, above all, distort that tell-tale voice of yours. Pal in with some foreigner for a day or two, and pick up his trick of speech and intonation.”

“I will, I will,” replied the hunchback. “And now for those manuscripts. Have you prepared those dummies?”

“Yes,” answered Paul. “Here they are – the three of them – and I’ve taken so much pains with the writing which I have faked on them that I would defy anybody to tell, under a day’s examination with microscope and acid, that they are not the real, genuine article you bought for one thousand eight hundred pounds at the sale of Father Calasanctius’ effects at the auction mart.”

“Good,” cried Zouche, rubbing his hands together in the most approved method of the Jewish pedlar. “Pass them over to me.” And the youth produced from a leather case which he had been carrying unperceived by his side three documents so exactly like the real thing I had fought for that I could have sworn myself that they were in real truth the three coveted manuscripts of the sacred lake!

The hunchback, however, did not pass them lightly. He took each one over to the window and examined it with great care, and only when he had assured himself that certain marks were present on each one of them, that all alike presented the same appearance of age and use and treatment, did he place them carefully in the steel box from which he had taken his wig and beard. Then he turned the keys in the locks, and, mounting a chair, he thrust open a secret panel in the rafters, pushed inside this hiding-place the box with the forged documents – as it happened, within two feet of the exact spot where we were stretched, full length, listening to his conversation.

Then he got down and turned again to Paul. “That is all right,” he said gaily. “That is a good thing done, and I shouldn’t be surprised if in a critical moment it doesn’t save both my life and my fortune. Now you have got your lesson by heart, haven’t you? You know what to do when any of those men like Hugh Glynn or the Earl of Fotheringay, or any of those Jesuit spies, come pottering about here! You play the avaricious fool, do you see? Pretend that you know a lot, and that you could tell them a lot if it were only made worth your while, and bleed each one of them for all the cash you can, in return for the information that I have vanished, and also for permission to turn this shop upside down to find the manuscripts, which you can hint you are certain are concealed somewhere about here.”

“All right, I’m game,” said the youth, and his eyes gleamed with malice and wickedness.

“When you’ve made all you can out of the dolts sell those forgeries to the highest bidder. My own idea is that the Jesuits will pay you better than anybody else, but perhaps Lord Cyril Cuthbertson may play you up too closely with the aid of some Scotland Yard detectives. In that case, let him have the honour of buying the spurious deeds, do you see? It’s a pity these foolish Britishers don’t roll over in the mud of their own cleverness sometimes.”

The conversation ended, and I turned rapidly to the Spaniard.

“It’s no good for you to stay here, as we have arranged,” I whispered to Casteno, who now gazed at me appealingly with eyes large with nervousness and apprehension. “The hunchback won’t be seen at Westminster for some time to come. He intends to disappear – as you’ve heard, the same as myself – but he must disappear in company with one of us. Now, who is it to be? You or I?”

“I must go,” quickly returned the Spaniard. “Don’t you remember you have to rush off this afternoon to Southampton to meet the royal mail steamer Atrato and to escort in safety to London a girl named Camille Velasquon, who is bringing some valuable papers from Mexico for me and for the Order of St. Bruno? I have already telegraphed to her to Plymouth to expect you. It is impossible for you to back out.”

“But are you any good at shadowing a man as artful and slippery and suspicious as Zouche?” I questioned sternly. “Think for a moment what it means to your own future if you fail.”

“I shall not fail,” said Casteno decisively, starting to make a bee line for the trap-door, through which he had entered the recess. “I have tracked scores of men in my time in the old, wild days in Mexico, when to be discovered as a spy meant that you were caught up by a lasso and strung to the nearest tree, whilst sympathising neighbours took pot-shots at you out of their revolvers. Just trust to me, and go and conduct Camille Velasquon from the vessel I mentioned to St. Bruno’s in Hampstead – that will require all your nerve, your daring, and your resolution!”

“But how shall I know how you get on? When shall I hear from you? Through what channel can we arrange a course of combined action?” I queried.

“I will communicate with you on your return from Southampton at your office in Stanton Street. If I can write to you I will. Otherwise I will have recourse to the telegraph office. But have no fear. I know the hunchback too well of old to let this slippery card pass through my fingers a moment sooner than I intend he should.” And with these strangely suggestive words he waved me an adieu, and next second had disappeared.

Time, too, was much too precious to waste. Already, as the Spaniard had engaged me in this conversation, I had caught the sounds of movement and consultation in the room beneath, and, although I would have dearly liked to learn how he could ever have met Zouche in such intimate circumstances as he indicated, and also what was the secret of his startling likeness to Paul, that wicked-looking youth beneath, I realised that I needed every second to watch the chief actor in our drama, the hunchback. So again I bent over the hole in the ceiling, and again I peered into the misty depths of the parlour and watched what this pair of scoundrels were up to.

By this time it seemed that Zouche had nearly completed all his preparations for departure, and was merely filling in the last few seconds by cramming a few sandwiches into the capacious pockets of his overcoat, whilst the tired-looking youth emptied some whiskey from the bottle on the sideboard into a flask.

The next moment the hunchback pulled his felt hat down tightly over his forehead, practically concealing the whole of his features, and snatching the flask, which was now full, he nodded a quick farewell to his companion and then hurried off. Almost immediately afterwards I heard the side door bang, and I realised that the dwarf had really gone, and I was free to set off on that curious trip to Southampton.

Chapter Ten.

The Lady from Mexico