CHAPTER XVIHENRY JEANES, ALIAS JAMES MULLEN

CHAPTER XVIHENRY JEANES, ALIAS JAMES MULLEN

It had been raining heavily when the train drew up at the Cotley platform, but as I did not know how far I might have to walk I had put up my umbrella when leaving the station only to put it down again as I entered the hairdresser’s shop. I was holding the half-closed umbrella in my hand when my eye caught sight of the two letters. To sweep them as if by accident into the folds of the umbrella was the work of a second, and then as I turned quickly round I saw a man without a hat and wearing a white apron slip out of the door of a publichouse opposite and run hastily across the road towards the shop, wiping his mouth with his hand as he did so.

As I expected, he was the proprietor of the establishment, and after wishing me good-morning and apologising for being out of the way by explaining that he had been across the road toborrow a postage stamp, he proceeded to tuck me up in a white sheet preparatory to cutting my hair.

The demand for postage stamps had evidently been heavy that afternoon, and the task of affixing them had no doubt resulted in an uncomfortable dryness of the mouth, which necessitated the frequent use of liquid. Under the circumstances I considered this rather fortunate than otherwise, for the man was not unaware of his condition, and did his best to palliate it by being so obligingly communicative in regard to any question I asked him that I could, had I wished it, have acquainted myself with all that he knew about every customer who patronised his establishment.

“You have letters addressed here sometimes, don’t you?” I asked, as he was brushing my hair.

“Yes, sir, we ’ave letters addressed ’ere,” he made answer; “but strictly confidential, of course,” whispering this in my ear with drunken gravity, and adding, after a pause, with a meaning leer, “Hand very convenient too, under certain circumstances. Is there hany little thing you can do for us in that way yourself,sir? If so we should be ’appy to accept your commission.”

The only little thing I was minded to do for him was to kick him, and that right heavily, but repressing the unregenerate desire of the natural man, I affected to be thinking the matter over, and then replied—

“Why, yes, I think you might. My name is Smithers—Alfred John Smithers, so if any letters addressed to that name come here you’ll know they are for me, won’t you?”

“Certainly,” he said. “Only too ’appy to oblige a customer at hany time. Living ’ere, sir?”

“Staying for a week or so,” I answered, “and I may perhaps come to live, but am not sure yet. By-the-bye, do you ever get any letters for my friend Mr. Henry Jeanes?”

“Mr. Henry Jeanes? Oh, yes, sir. And you are thesecondgentleman that’s harsked me the same question. Mr. Green ’e harsked me as well.”

“Mr. James Bakewell Green?” I said. “Oh, yes; he is a friend of mine too.”

“Hindeed, sir!” (This with a deprecatory cough, as if he did not think much of the lateMr. Green, and was inclined in consequence to reconsider the favourable opinion he had apparently formed of myself.) “Curious gentleman, Mr. Green. Never bought nothing in the shop, Mr. Green didn’t. Most gentlemen as ’as their letters addressed ’ere takes a bottle of our ’air wash now and then for the good of the ’ouse; but Mr. Green ’e never ’ad as much as a stick of shaving soap at hany time. ’E was halways harsking questions too, as I told Mr. Jeanes.”

“Oh,” I said, beginning to see daylight in regard to the means by which Mullen had got to know that Green was making inquiries about him. “How did you come to mention the matter to Mr. Jeanes?”

“Mr. Jeanes ’e left particular word, sir, that if hanybody harsked after ’im we was to be sure and let ’im know.”

“I see,” I said. “And when do you expect Mr. Jeanes to call again?”

“Mr. Jeanes never calls, sir. We ’aven’t ever seen ’im. ’E sent us hinstructions that all letters wot come for ’im was to be put in a henvelope and addressed to ’im at Professor Lawrance’s ’air-cutting establishment at Stanby,and we was to let ’im know if any one harsked after ’im.”

At that moment the bell over the tobacconist’s shop outside announced the entrance of a customer, and two young men pushing open the swing door of the hairdressing saloon, seated themselves to await their turn.

Under the circumstances, and especially as I had learnt all I required, I did not think it wise to ask further questions, but I had a particular reason—which the reader shall shortly hear—for wishing to possess a specimen of the handwriting in which the letters for Henry Jeanes, Esq., that were sent on to the care of Professor Lawrance’s establishment at Stanby, were directed.

“Can you spare me a second in the outside shop?” I said to the hairdresser.

“With pleasure, sir,” he answered, following me out. “What can I do for you?”

“Look here,” I said, pushing half-a-sovereign towards him over the counter, “that’s for your trouble in letting me have my letters addressed here. And now another matter. I’ve not been very well to-day, and want to see a doctor. Who’s the best man to go to?”

“Dr. Carruthers, Devonshire ’Ouse, Grayland Road, sir. Best doctor in the town, sir,” he responded.

“Would you mind writing it down for me? I’ve got a beastly memory.”

“With pleasure, sir,” he said, producing a bottle of ink, a pen, and a sheet of paper from a drawer. “That’s it, sir. Much obliged, sir. I’ll be very careful about the letters, and good-day, sir.”

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