The Mysterious Three

Thus it occurred to me, two days after Davies and Vera had called at my flat, to stroll down into Belgravia and interview the caretaker at 102, Belgrave Street. Possibly by this time, I reflected, he might have seen Sir Charles Thorold, or heard from him.

When I had rung three times, the door slowly opened to the length of its chain, and I think quite the queerest-looking little old man I had ever set eyes on, peered out. He gazed with his sharp, beady eyes up into my face for a moment or two, then asked, in a broken quavering voice —

“Are you another newspaper gen’leman?”

“Oh, no,” I answered, laughing, for I guessed at once how he must have been harassed by reporters, and I could sympathise with him. “I am not a journalist – I’m only a gentleman.”

Of course he was too old to note the satire, but the fact that I wore a silk hat and a clean collar, seemed to satisfy him that I must be a person of some consequence, and when I had assured him that I meant him no ill, but that, on the contrary, I might have something to tell him that he would like to hear, he shut the door, and I heard his trembling old hands remove the chain.

“And how long is it since Sir Charles was last here?” I said to him, when he had shown me into his little room on the ground floor, where a kettle purred on a gas-stove. “I know him well, you know; I was staying at Houghton Park when he disappeared.”

He looked me up and down, surprised and apparently much interested.

“Were you indeed, sir?” he exclaimed. “Well, now – well, well!”

“Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable, my old friend,” I went on affably. I drew forward his armchair, and he sank into it with a grunt of relief.

“You are a very kind gen’leman, you are, very kind indeed,” he said, in a tone that betrayed true gratitude. “Ah! I’ve known gen’lemen in my time, and I know a gen’leman when I sees one, I do.”

“What part of Norfolk do you come from?” I asked, as I took a seat near him, for I knew the Norfolk brogue quite well.

He looked at me and grinned.

“Well, now, that’s strange you knowing I come from Norfolk! But it’s true. Oh, yes, it is right. I’m a Norfolk man. I was born in Diss. I mind the time my father – ”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “we’ll talk about that presently,” for I could see that, once allowed to start on the subject of his relatives and his native county, he would talk on for an hour. “What I have come here this afternoon to talk to you about is Sir Charles Thorold. When was he last here?”

“It will be near two years come Michaelmas,” he answered, without an instant’s hesitation. “And since then I haven’t set eyes on him – I haven’t.”

“And has this house been shut up all the time?”

“Ay, all that time. I mind the time my father used to tell me – ”

I damned his father under my breath, and quickly stopped him by asking who paid him his wages.

“My wages? Oh, Sir Charles’ lawyers, Messrs Spink and Peters, of Lincoln’s Inn, pays me my wages. But they are not going to pay me any more. No. They are not going to pay me any more now.”

“Not going to pay you any more? What do you mean?”

“Give me notice to quit, they did, a week ago come Saturday.”

“But why?”

“Orders from Sir Charles, they said. Would you like to see their letter, sir?”

“I should, if you have it by you.”

It was brief, curt, and brutally frank —

“From Messrs Spink and Peters, Solicitors, 582, Lincoln’s Inn, W.C.

“To William Taylor, Caretaker, —

“102, Belgrave Street, S.W.

“Messrs Spink and Peters are instructed by Sir Charles Thorold to inform William Taylor that owing to his advanced age his services will not be needed by Sir Charles Thorold after March 25. William Taylor is requested to acknowledge the receipt of this letter.”

“They don’t consider your feelings much,” I said, as I refolded the letter and handed it back to him.

He seemed puzzled.

“Feelings, sir? What are those?” he asked. “I don’t somehow seem to know.”

“No matter. Under the circumstances it is, perhaps, as well you shouldn’t know. Now, I want to ask you a few questions, my old friend – and look here, I am going, first of all, to make you a little present.”

I slipped my fingers into my waistcoat pocket, produced a half-sovereign, and pressed it into the palm of his wrinkled old hand.

“To buy tobacco with – no, don’t thank me,” I said quickly, as he began to express gratitude. “Now, answer a few questions I am going to put to you. In the first place, how long have you been in Sir Charles’ service?”

“Sixteen years, come Michaelmas,” he answered promptly. “I came from Diss. I mind the time my father – ”

“How did Sir Charles, or Mr Thorold as he was then, first hear of you?”

“He was in Downham Market. I was caretaker for the Reverend George Lattimer, and Sir Charles, I should say, Mr Thorold, came to see the house. I think he thought of buying it, but he didn’t buy it. I showed him into every room, I remember, and as he was leaving he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a sov’rin’, and gave it to me, just as you have done. And then he said to me, he said: ‘Ole man,’ he said, ‘would you like a better job than this?’ Those were his very words, ‘Ole man, would you like a better job than this?’”

He grinned and chuckled at the reflection, showing his toothless gums.

“And then he took you into his service. Did you come to London at once?”

“Ay, next week he brought me up, and I’ve been here ever since – in this house ever since. The Reverend George Lattimer wor vexed with Sir Charles for a ‘stealing’ me from his service, as he said. I mind in Diss, when – ”

“Was there any reason why Mr Thorold should engage you in such a hurry? Did he give any reason? It seems strange he should have engaged a man of your age, living away in Norfolk, and brought you up to London at a few days’ notice.”

“Oh, yes there was reason – there was a reason.”

“And what was it?”

“Well, well, it was not p’raps ’xactly what you might call a ‘reason,’ it was what Sir Charles he calls a ‘stipilation.’ ‘I have a stipilation to make, Taylor,’ he said, when he engaged me. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, ‘and what might this, this stipilation be?’ I said. ‘It’s like this, Taylor,’ he said. ‘I’ll engage you and pay you well, and you will come with me to Lundon to-morrow, and you shall have two comfortable rooms in my house,’ those were his very words, sir, ‘and you will have little work to do, ’cept when I am out of Lundon, and you have to look after the house and act as caretaker. But there be a stipilation I must make.’ ‘And what might that stipilation be, sir?’ I asked him. ‘It’s like this,’ he said, a looking rather hard at me. ‘You must never see or know anything that goes on in my Lundon ’ouse, when I am there, or when I am not. If you see or hear anything, you must forget it. Do you understand? Do we understand each other?’ he said. And I have done that, sir, ever since Sir Charles engaged me. Never have I seen what happened in this house, nor have I heard what happened in this house, nor known what happened in this house. I have kep’ the stipilation, and I’ve served the master well.”

“And for serving your master well, and doing your duty, you are rewarded by getting kicked out at a month’s notice because of your ‘advanced age.’”

The old man’s eyes became suddenly moist as I said this, and I felt sorry I had spoken.

“Did you see or hear much you ought to have forgotten?” I hazarded, after a brief pause.

He peered up at me with an odd expression, then slowly shook his head.

“Have you actually forgotten all you saw and heard?” I inquired carelessly, as I lit a cigarette, “or do you only pretend?”