CHAPTER XVIION THE HEELS OF JAMES MULLEN

CHAPTER XVIION THE HEELS OF JAMES MULLEN

I had already decided that my next destination must be Stanby, where it would be necessary to pay a visit to Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment. But first I had to read the letters I had secured, so I turned into a small quiet-looking hotel and, having ordered dinner, asked that I might have the use of a bedroom. Then I rang for a jug of boiling water, and on its arrival I dived into the folds of my umbrella, and having brought up the two epistles which were there secreted I proceeded to hold them over the steam until the gum was so moist that it was possible to open them.

The letter for Green was, as I have said, directed to himself in his own writing. It contained nothing more important than a sheet of blank notepaper, which, as the reader will already have surmised, had evidently been sentas a “blind,” its purpose being to afford the inquiry agent an excuse for calling at the shop where it had been delivered.

The letter addressed to Mr. Henry Jeanes—that which had attracted my attention from the fact of its bearing the postmark of the very town in Norway where I had reason to believe Mullen’s sister was staying—promised to be more interesting, and it was with no little eagerness that I opened it and read as follows:—

“James,—Your letter to hand. I cannot reply at present, as Stanley has gone to Bergen; but I will write you again on his return.“F.”

“James,—Your letter to hand. I cannot reply at present, as Stanley has gone to Bergen; but I will write you again on his return.

“F.”

Though short, and unimportant as regards contents, this letter was of the highest importance in other respects. Firstly, because it was evidently from Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne, and intended for the eye of James Mullen, and so in every way confirmed the genuineness of the letter I had found in Green’s cigar-case; and secondly, because it disclosed some information that I might otherwise have had much difficulty in discovering—the name under which Mullen’s correspondence was being addressed to him.

It was of the highest importance—if Mullenwas to fall into the trap which I was preparing for him—that he should have no cause to suspect his correspondence was again being tampered with; so, as it was possible that Mrs. Burgoyne might refer to this epistle in a later letter, I carefully resealed the note and handed it to the postman, whom I saw delivering letters in the street where the shop whence I had obtained it was situated.

“What’s this?” he said when he had looked at it.

“You dropped it when making your last call,” I answered.

He looked surprised at first, and afterwards suspicious. “I don’t remember seeing that letter when I sorted my delivery,” he said; “and I ain’t in the habit of dropping letters in the street—been at it too long for that. How do I know this ain’t a put-up job?”

“Give it me back at once, you insolent fellow,” I replied, “and I’ll do what I ought to have done at first—take it to the head office and report you to the postmaster for negligence. I go out of my way to do you a courtesy, and perhaps save you from getting into trouble for carelessness in the execution of your duty,and I get insulted for my pains. Give it me back, or come with me to the head office and we’ll soon put this matter right.”

“I humbly ask your pardon, and hope there is no offence, sir, I am sure,” he answered, with a change of manner which showed that he did not relish the threat of being reported for negligence. “I’ll see the letter’s delivered all right, and I’m much obliged to you, sir, I am sure, and hope you won’t think no more of it.”

“I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to take the letter to the office now,” I said. “However, I don’t want to get a man into trouble for an accident, but keep a civil tongue in your head another time, young man, or you’ll not get off so cheaply as you have this.”

He touched his cap, and promising to profit by my advice, slipped the letter in with what I supposed were others bearing the same address; so wishing him good-day I entered a stationer’s shop and purchased a couple of envelopes and two sheets of paper. Each sheet of paper I folded and put into an envelope, which I then addressed in pencil to myself, at the post-office, Stanby. Then, after posting them, I made my way to the station and took a ticket to Stanby.

As I had to wait some time for a train, besides changing twice at junctions, it was late when I reached that town, and I had some difficulty in finding Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment, which was in a side street, and was already closed for the night. On the other side of the way, and only a few doors down, was a not very clean-looking temperance hotel and coffee palace, and here I secured a bedroom and sitting-room, from the latter of which, as it faced the street, I should be able to keep an eye upon every one who entered or left Professor Lawrance’s establishment.

I then went to bed, but was up early next morning and called at the post-office, where the two envelopes which I had posted on the preceding day at Cotley were awaiting me. These I took with me to my room at the hotel, and having bought a piece of india-rubber on the way I rubbed out the pencilled name and address, after which I re-addressed the envelope in ink to Mr. Henry Jeanes, at Professor Lawrance’s Hair-cutting Rooms, Stanby, imitating as closely I could the handwriting of the barber at Cotley, of whosecalligraphyI had secured a specimen.

Most of my readers will already have guessedwhy I troubled to post these pencil-addressed letters to myself at Cotley, and then, after rubbing out the direction, re-addressed them in ink to Jeanes, at Professor Lawrance’s establishment at Stanby, but as some may fail to do so, I had better perhaps explain myself.

If a letter for Jeanes should be forwarded on to Professor Lawrance’s rooms from Cotley, that letter it would be my business, by hook or by crook, to abstract. But to do this without attracting suspicion, it would be necessary to have a dummy letter with which to replace it, and the dummy would have to bear the Cotley postmark, and be directed in a hand as much resembling the handwriting on the original letter as possible. How to arrange all this had puzzled me at first, for though I did not anticipate any difficulty in hitting upon a pretext by which to obtain a specimen of the Cotley barber’s handwriting, or in imitating that handwriting when obtained, I could not see how to get over the difficulty of the postmark. A postmark is not an easy thing to forge without specially prepared tools, and until the idea occurred to me of posting at Cotley a letter addressed in pencil to myself at Stanby, and thenrubbing out the address and re-addressing it to Jeanes, I was rather at a loss to know how to effect my purpose. However, the difficulty was now satisfactorily surmounted, and armed with my dummy letters I set out to make the acquaintance of Professor Lawrance.

He was an extremely unprepossessing, not to say villainous-looking man, and regarded me with what I could not help thinking was a suspicious eye when I entered. I submitted to be shaved and shampooed, both of which operations he performed badly, though he regaled me meanwhile with his views in regard to the winner of the Derby, and also of a prize-fight which was coming off that day.

“By-the-bye,” I said, as I was drawing on my gloves, “can one have letters addressed here?”

“No,” he replied shortly, “yer can’t. It don’t pay—on the usual terms.”

“I know that,” I said, “or I shouldn’t have asked you. But I’m willing to pay special terms.”

“Is it ’orses?” he inquired gruffly.

“Yes, horses,” I said, taking up the cue which he had given me; “but it’s a fool’s game, and I’ve lost a lot of money over it already.”

“Ah!” with a grin. “And yer’ve got a hintroduction, of course. I don’t take on customers of that sort without a hintroduction. It ain’t safe.”

The affair was panning out beyond my reckoning, but from what had transpired I felt sure that I should be safe in assuming he was more of a betting agent than a barber, and that the wisest thing for me to do would be, by bluffing boldly, to lead him to suppose I knew all about him; so I nodded assent as airily as possible, and as if his question had been a mere matter of course.

“Who is it?” he asked point blank.

“Morrison,” I replied, without a moment’s hesitation—“Henry Morrison, of Doncaster. You recollect him—tall man, clean-shaven and small eyes. Wears a fawn coat and a brown billycock. He said any money I put on with you would be quite safe.”

The barber nodded. “Like as not, though I don’t rekerllect him from yer description. Well, wot d’yer want me to back?”

“Ah, that’s what I wishyouto tell me,” I said—this time at least with absolute truthfulness, for as a matter of fact I did not know asmuch as the name of one of the horses, or what was the race which we were supposed to be discussing.

“Greased Lightning’s the lay,” he said. “It’s a dead cert. I can get yer level money now. It’ll be four to two hon to-morrow. How much are yer going to spring?”

I replied that he could put a “flimsy” on for me; and after he had entered the amount and my name—which I gave as Henry Watson—in a greasy notebook, I wished him good morning, promising to call again soon to see if there were any letters.

The rest of the day I spent for the most part in my bedroom watching the customers who patronised Professor Lawrance’s saloon; nor was my vigil without result in assisting me to form an opinion as to the class of business which was there carried on. Not more than a dozen people entered the establishment during the day, and the majority of them had called neither to be shaved nor to have their hair cut. My reason for coming to this conclusion was not that I had such telescopic and microscopic eyes as to be able to detect in every case whether the caller had been under the barber’s hand since his entrance,but because most of Professor Lawrance’s customers did not remain inside his shop more than half a minute, and because, too, I saw a letter in the hand of more than one of those who came out. And as the postman never passed the door without making a delivery, and the callers were all more or less horsey in dress and appearance, the evidence seemed to point pretty clearly to the fact that Professor Lawrance was, as I had already surmised, more of a betting agent than a barber.

I looked in next morning, ostensibly to be shaved, but in reality to try to get sight of any letters which might have come addressed to the Professor’s care. That worthy forestalled me by gruffly volunteering the information that there were no letters; nor could I succeed in leading the conversation to the subject in which I was interested.

The morning after, however, I waited until I saw some one—who looked more like a customer in search of a barber than of a betting agent—enter the shop, and then followed him. He was at that moment being lathered for shaving, so after wishing the Professor good-morning, and remarking that I was in no hurry, I took aseat close to the mantel-shelf and pretended to read the “Daily Telegraph.” It was on this mantel-shelf, as I was aware, that the box containing the letters was kept, but on looking round I saw to my dismay that the mantel-shelf had been cleared for the display of a big coarsely-coloured picture of “The Great Fight between Slade and Scroggins.” The picture was labelled, “To be raffled for—the proceeds for the benefit of the widow.”

Whether this was intended as a delicate way of intimating that the conflict had proved fatal to one of the conflicting parties, or whether the widow in question was the relict of the artistic genius whose brain had conceived and whose hand had drawn the picture, I am unable to say, as particulars were not given. In regard to the details of the raffle, however, the promoters of the enterprise had condescended to be more explicit, as another label announced that the price of tickets was sixpence, and that they were “to be obtained of the Professor.” I was, however, more concerned at the moment in ascertaining what had become of the letters, so I scanned the room carefully, shifting meanwhile the outspread and interposed broadsheet of the “DailyTelegraph”—like a yachtsman setting his canvas close to the wind—so as to keep myself out of reach of the Professor’s too-inquisitive glance, and switching my eyes from object to object until they discovered the missing letters placed upon a rack which hung upon the wall near the window.

“It’s very dark here, or else my sight’s getting bad and I shall have to take to glasses. I’m hanged if I can read this small print,” I said aloud, standing up and moving towards the window, as if to get a better light. For half a minute I pretended to read, and then I leisurely shook out the newspaper to its fullest extent, in order to reverse the sheet, thus hiding myself completely from the Professor’s eye.

As I did so I took the opportunity to snatch the packet of letters from the rack. It was no easy matter to shuffle through them with one hand and without attracting attention, but I accomplished the task successfully, and not without result, for the bottom letter of the packet was for Mr. Henry Jeanes, and was in the handwriting of the barber at Cotley.

The reader will remember that I had prepared two envelopes bearing the Cotley postmark, andaddressed to Jeanes in as close an imitation of the barber’s handwriting as possible. Into one of these envelopes I had that morning slipped a sheet of blank paper on which was pasted the newspaper cutting about the finding of the body of poor Green (I had a reason for doing so which will shortly transpire), and this envelope I was at that moment carrying just inside my sleeve. To abstract the original letter and replace it by the dummy was the work of a few seconds. It was well that I had come thus prepared, for in the next instant the Professor had snatched the packet from my hand, and was asking in a voice quivering with fury, “What the dickens I meant by such impudence?”

“What’s the excitement?” I said, as calmly and unconsciously as possible. “I was only looking if there was one for me? There’s no harm done.”

“Oh, isn’t there?” he said. “But there soon will be if yer get meddling ’ere again,” and with one swiftly-searching and darkly-suspicious glance at my face he fell to examining the letters, and, as I could see by the movement of his lips, counting them one by one to see that none was missing. My heart, I must confess, jumped abit when he came to the forgery with which I had replaced the letter I had abstracted. But the result was apparently satisfactory, for he put the packet back upon the rack without further comment and took up the discarded shaving brush to continue his task. I did not feel at the best of ease when, after the customer had paid and departed, a surly “Now then!” summoned me to the operating chair, for it was not altogether reassuring to have a razor, in the grip of such a ruffian, at one’s throat. But, though the shave was accomplished with none too light a hand, and the scoundrel drew blood by the probably intentional and malicious way in which he rasped my somewhat tender skin, he did me no serious injury, and it was not long before I was back at the hotel and engaged in opening the abstracted letter.

There were two documents inside, the first of which was addressed to Jeanes in Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne’s handwriting, and ran as follows:—

“James,—We are glad to have your promise, and will carry out our part of the contract faithfully. We shall remain here as you direct until you telegraph the word ‘Come,’ when we shall start for England at once, and you can count on the yacht being at theplace you mention within four days and ready to start again at a few hours’ notice. We shall be just off theboat-builder’syard where our little yacht is laid up.“I donotsee any necessity for doing as you say in regard to sending the present crew back to England under the pretence that we are not likely to be using the yacht for some time, and then, after getting the ship’s appearance altered by repainting and rechristening her the name you mention, engaging another crew of Norwegians.“This seems to me a very unnecessary precaution. Your connection with us is never likely to be discovered, unless by your own confession. However, I suppose you know best, and we will do as you say.“F.”

“James,—We are glad to have your promise, and will carry out our part of the contract faithfully. We shall remain here as you direct until you telegraph the word ‘Come,’ when we shall start for England at once, and you can count on the yacht being at theplace you mention within four days and ready to start again at a few hours’ notice. We shall be just off theboat-builder’syard where our little yacht is laid up.

“I donotsee any necessity for doing as you say in regard to sending the present crew back to England under the pretence that we are not likely to be using the yacht for some time, and then, after getting the ship’s appearance altered by repainting and rechristening her the name you mention, engaging another crew of Norwegians.

“This seems to me a very unnecessary precaution. Your connection with us is never likely to be discovered, unless by your own confession. However, I suppose you know best, and we will do as you say.

“F.”

The other letter was on a half-sheet of notepaper, and in the handwriting of the barber at Cotley. Here it is:—

“Respected Sir,—Mr. Green has not called since I last wrote you. But a person named Smithers came and asked questions. I did not like the look of him and would not tell him anything, but said I did not know any Mr. Jeanes.—Respectfully,“James Dorley.“P. S.—Smithers smelt of rum. He had been drinking. He was a low-looking man, and I did not like his eye.”

“Respected Sir,—Mr. Green has not called since I last wrote you. But a person named Smithers came and asked questions. I did not like the look of him and would not tell him anything, but said I did not know any Mr. Jeanes.—Respectfully,

“James Dorley.

“P. S.—Smithers smelt of rum. He had been drinking. He was a low-looking man, and I did not like his eye.”

“I’m pained to hear you don’t like my eye, Mr. James—Mr. ‘Truthful James,’” I said sarcastically as I put the letter down, glancing sideways all the same at a mirror on the wall to see if I could detect any sinister expression in my eye which could account for the unfavourable opinion Mr. James had formed of that feature. “And so you didn’t tell me anything, didn’t you, you precious rascal? Some day I may have an opportunity of tellingyousomething, and then it is possible you may find something else to dislike about me as well as my eye. In the meantime I’ll take the liberty of detaining your letter, as it would put Mullen on the alert if I let it go on to him. His sister’s letter he must have, for if I fail to set hands on him here, I can take him when he keeps his appointment with her on the steam yacht, on board which he hopes to get out of the country. So I mustn’t lose a moment in resealing her letter and getting it back by hook or by crook to the letter-rack whence I got it. I’m not easy about the forgery with which I replaced it. If there had chanced to be only two or three letters waiting to be called for this morning, and I had abstracted one without replacing it with a dummy, theProfessor would be bound to have noticed that a letter was missing. But I’m running a risk in leaving the forged dummy there a moment longer than I can help. Mullen might call and have it given him, or it may get sent on; and though I flatter myself that the forgery is so well done that even Mullen is not likely to notice any difference in the handwriting, and though it is possible also that he will think the cutting about Green’s death had been sent him by the Cotley barber, I’d much rather that the dummy didn’t fall into his hands.

“To have forged a letter from the Cotley barber would have been extremely dangerous, for I didn’t then know how the rascal addressed Mullen. And to have enclosed a blank sheet of paper would at once suggest the trick which had been played. The newspaper cutting was the only thing I could think of that had the look of being abona fideenclosure from the rascal at Cotley. He had to my knowledge informed Mullen that Green was inquiring about him, and what was more natural than that, seeing a notice of Green’s death in the papers, he should send it on to his principal. But all the same,the sooner I get the dummy back into my own hands the better, for I don’t think—”

At this point I broke off my meditations abruptly. I had been sitting in full view of Professor Lawrance’s door, and just then I saw him put his head out, look up and down the street as if to see whether he could safely be away for a few minutes without the probability of a customer popping in, and then cross the road in the direction of the nearest publichouse.

“If I’m to make the exchange, it’s now or never,” I said, snatching up the letter from Mrs. Burgoyne which, after copying, I had put back into its envelope and resealed. In another half-minute I had crossed the road and was ascending the stairs which led to Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment.

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