The Middle of Things Part 35

"Let me know at once," said Viner. "If you find Bellingham, take him to the Belfield Hotel and contrive to show him the man. Call me up later."

He went away from his telephone and sought Miss Penkridge, whom he found in her room, arraying herself for out of doors.

"Here's a new development!" he exclaimed, shutting the door on them.

"Felpham's just telephoned to say that Hyde persists that the man who calls himself Cave is Nugent Starr! In that case, he won't--"

Miss Penkridge interrupted her nephew with a sniff.

"My dear Richard," she said, with a note of contemptuous impatience, "in a case like this, you don't know who's who or who isn't who! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the man turns out to be Nugent Starr."

"How did he come by such a straight tale, then?" asked Viner doubtfully.

"Carefully prepared--in case of need," declared Miss Penkridge as she tied her bonnet-strings with a decisive tug. "The whole thing's a plant!"

"That's what Felpham says," remarked Viner. "But--where are you going?"

he broke off as Miss Penkridge, seizing an umbrella, started for the door. "Lunch is just going in."

"My lunch can wait--I've had a biscuit and a gla.s.s of sherry," a.s.serted Miss Penkridge. "I'm going round to Bigglesforth the stationer's, to follow up that clue I suggested just now. I dare say I can do a bit of detective work as well as another, and in my opinion, Richard, there's no time to be lost. I have been blessed and endowed," continued Miss Penkridge, as she laid hold of the door-handle, "with exceedingly acute perceptions, and I saw something when I made that suggestion which I'm quite sure none of you men, with all your brains, saw!"

"What?" demanded Viner.

"I saw that my suggestion wasn't at all pleasing to the man who calls himself Cave!" exclaimed Miss Penkridge. "It was only a flash of his eye, a sudden droop at the corners of his lips--but I saw! And I saw something else, too--that he got away as quickly as ever he could after I'd made that suggestion."

Viner looked at his aunt with amused wonder. He thought she was unduly suspicious, and Miss Penkridge guessed his thoughts.

"You'll see," she said as she opened the door.

"There are going to be strange revelations, Richard Viner, my boy! You said at the beginning of this that you'd suddenly got plunged into the middle of things--well, in my opinion, we're now coming to the end of things, and I'm going to do my bit to bring it about."

With that Miss Penkridge sailed away, her step determined and her head high, and Viner, pondering many matters, went downstairs to entertain his visitors, the unlucky Hyde's sisters, with stories of the morning's proceedings and hopes of their brother's speedy acquittal. The poor ladies were of that temperament which makes its possessors clutch eagerly at any straw of hope floating on the sea of trouble, and they listened eagerly to all that their host could tell.

"Langton has an excellent memory!" declared the elder Miss Hyde. "Don't you remember, sister, what a quant.i.ty of poetical pieces he knew by heart when he was quite a child?"

"Before he was seven years of age!" said the younger sister. "And at ten he could recite the whole of the trial scene from 'The Merchant of Venice.' Oh, yes, he always had a marvellous memory! If Langton says he remembers this man in America, dear Mr. Viner, I am sure Langton will be right, and that this is the man. But what a very dreadful person to utter such terrible falsehoods!"

"And on oath!" said the elder Miss Hyde, solemnly. "On oath, sister!"

"Sad!" murmured the younger lady. "Most sad! We find London life very disturbing, dear Mr. Viner, after our quiet country existence."

"There are certainly some disturbing elements in it," admitted Viner.

Just then came another interruption; for the second time since his return from the police-court, he was summoned to the telephone. To his great surprise, the voice that hailed him was Mrs. Killenhall's.

"Is that Mr. Viner?" the voice demanded in its usual brisk, clear tones.

"Yes," answered Viner. "Is that Mrs. Killenhall?"

"Yes!" came the prompt reply. "Mr. Viner, can you be so very kind? Miss Wickham and I have come down to the City on some business connected with Mr. Ashton, and we do so want somebody's help. Can you run down at once and join us? So sorry to trouble you, but we really do want a gentleman here."

"Certainly!" responded Viner. "I'll come to you at once. But where are you?"

"Come to 23 Mirrapore Street, off Whitechapel Road," answered Mrs.

Killenhall. "There is some one here who knew Mr. Ashton, and I should like you to see him. Can you come at once? And have you the address right?"

"A moment--repeat it, please," replied Viner, pulling out a memorandum book. He noted the address and spoke again: "I'll be there in half an hour, Mrs. Killenhall," he said. "Sooner, if it's possible."

"Thank you so much," responded Mrs. Killenhall's steady voice. "So good of you--good-bye for the present, then."

"Good-bye," said Viner. He hurried away into the hall, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a hat, and letting himself out of the house, ran to the nearest cab-stand and beckoned to a chauffeur who often took him about. "I want to get along to Mirrapore Street, Whitechapel Road," he said, as he sprang into the car. "Do you know whereabouts it is?"

The chauffeur knitted his brows and shook his head.

"There's a sight of small streets running off Whitechapel Road, both sides, sir," he answered. "It'll be one of them--I'll find it. Mirrapore Street? Right, sir."

"Get there as quickly as possible," said Viner. "The quicker the better."

It was not until he had gone a good half of his journey that Viner began to wonder whatever it was that had taken Miss Wickham and her chaperon down to the far boundaries of the City--or, indeed, farther. Mrs.

Killenhall had said the City, but Viner knew his London well enough to know that Whitechapel Road lies without the City confines. She had said, too, that a man who knew Mr. Ashton was there with her and Miss Wickham--what man, wondered Viner, and what doing in a district like that toward which he was speeding?

The chauffeur did the run to Whitechapel Road in unusually good time; it was little more than two o'clock when the car pa.s.sed the parish church.

But the man had gone from one end of the road to the other, from the end of High Street to the beginning of Mile End Road, without success, when he stopped and looked in at his pa.s.senger.

"Can't see no street of that name on either side, Mr. Viner," he said.

"Have you got it right, sir?"

"That's the name given me," answered Viner. He pointed to a policeman slowly patrolling the side walk. "Ask him," he said. "He'll know."

The policeman, duly questioned, seemed surprised at first; then recollection evidently awoke in him.

"Mirrypoor Street?" he said. "Oh, yes! Second to your left, third to the right--nice sort o' street for a car like yours to go into, too!"

Viner overheard this and put his head out of the window.

"Why?" he demanded.

The policeman, quick to recognize a superior person, touched his helmet and stepped off the curb toward his questioner.

"Pretty low quarter down there, sir," he said, with a significant glance in the direction concerned. "If you've business that way, I should advise you to look after yourself--some queer places down those streets, sir."

"Thanks," responded Viner with a grim smile. "Go on, driver, as quick as you can, and stop at the corner of the street."

The car swung out of Whitechapel Road into a long, dismal street, the shabbiness of which increased the further the main thoroughfare was left behind; and Viner, looking right and left, saw that the small streets running off that which he was traversing were still more dismal, still more shabby. Suddenly the car twisted to the right and stopped, and Viner was aware of a long, narrow street, more gloomy than the rest, wherein various doubtful-looking individuals moved about, and groups of poorly clad children played in the gutters.

"All right," he said as he got down from the car, and the chauffeur made a grimace at the unlovely vista. "Look here--I don't want you to wait here. Go back to Whitechapel Road and hang about the end of the street we've just come down. I'll come back there to you."

"Not afraid of going down here alone, then, sir?" asked the chauffeur.

"It's a bit as that policeman said."

"I'm all right," repeated Viner. "You go back and wait. I may be some time. I mayn't be long."