CHAPTER VIII.
"WANTED" BY THE POLICE.
Onthe previous night the police superintendent at —— had treated me with a courtesy which was almost deferential; and had himself accompanied me to my cab to say:
"Good-night, sir, and I hope you'll be none the worse for your wetting."
Witnessing my rather ceremonious "send off," the very young and perhaps recently-enlisted member of the force, on duty in the outer office, had evidently been duly impressed with the fact that I was a person of some weight. On my presenting myself at the station next morning, he greeted me with a smile of obsequious respect, and without waiting to report my call to the superintendent, conducted me importantly, and with a great air of knowing when and to whom to accord honour, straight into the august presence of his chief. The somewhat officious air with which he announced "Mr. Rissler, sir," was speedilychanged into a look of blank and crest-fallen surprise, for instead of receiving me as a favoured caller, the superintendent—who, as we entered, had his ear glued to the telephone—jumped up in a passion, and shouted:
"How dare you show this person, or any person, into my room without permission?"
Looking at me viciously, as at one who had been guilty of the crime of obtaining a respectful reception under false pretences, the unfortunate constable stammered out:
"Very sorry, sir; but thought that the gentlem—person—was a friend of yours." And, saluting with a proper air of chastened humility, he withdrew.
Scarcely had the door closed behind him before the telephone bell clashed its discordant jangling at the superintendent's very ear, jarring the nerves of both of us, and causing him almost to jump in his shoes.
Then I "tumbled" to the situation. If I was not very much mistaken, he had been in communication with Scotland Yard at the moment of my entrance, the subject of the conference being none other thanmy humble self; and, judging by the marked difference in my reception, and by the way in which, with one ear stooped to the telephone, he was glaring at me with both eyes, his last night's reception of myself and his communicativeness had not come in for his chief's commendation. That he had been receiving something of a jacketing his first few words told.
"Are you there? Oh, it's you, sir, again—is it? Yes, sir, I did hear what you said just now, and am very sorry. What do you say? No, sir, I didn't leave the telephone before you had done speaking. I shouldn't think of doing such a thing, but somebody came into my room and interrupted me. Will you excuse me a second, sir, while I turn them out? Then I think I can explain why I acted as I did."
Without taking his ear from the telephone, and without saying a word, he pointed me peremptorily to the door, seeing which, I of course instantly withdrew to the outer office, where I was surveyed with supercilious scorn by the youthful constable, who a few minutes before had so deferentially ushered me into the superintendent's room. Turning my back contemptuously upon him,I studied a board upon which were displayed the portraits of certain characters "wanted" by the police. The young constable, who apparently attributed his downfall from official favour to a malicious and deeply-laid plot on my part, sought, in vulgar parlance, "to get back a bit of his own" by affecting to find a resemblance between some of the "wanteds" and myself, examining first their faces, and then my features, with an interest which I could not but consider offensive.
Obviously the only card left for me to play was to appear unconscious of the comparison which he was instituting, and while I was doing this to the best of what I fear was a poor ability, the door opened, and the superintendent came out.
"You want to see me, Mr.—er—Rissler, isn't it?" he inquired rudely. "What is it? I've no time to spare this morning."
"I won't keep you long," I said. "But you were good enough to say last night that you would send some of your men to inspect the opium den, and I called in to hear what happened, and to ask whether Parker's body had been found."
"You called to hear what had happened, and to ask this, and to ask that!" he saidinsolently. "Since when have you been appointed to the head office in New Scotland Yard, that you come here to cross-examine me on my own business? Pretty fine pass the force is coming to, if we're to take every Tom, Dick, and Harry into our confidence. I've nothing to tell you, sir, except to advise you to confine your attention to your own business, and leave other people to attend to their own. Good morning."
Turning on his heel he walked into his room again, slamming the door behind him; so, affecting not to see the insolent grin on the face of my friend the youthful constable, who had been present during my snubbing, I put my hat on my head and stepped into the street.
"But I'll find out the result of the raiding of the den yet," I said to myself. "The superintendent here, and his men, were friendly enough to me last night, and I strongly suspect that the orders to tell me nothing have only just arrived from New Scotland Yard. If I can find the policeman within whose beat the den is, it is possible that he has not yet received instructions that I'm to be kept in the dark, and that half-a-crown may open his mouth.Anyhow, it can do no harm to have a try."
Nor was I wrong in my conjecture. The policeman—when I found him, which I did with little difficulty—was friendly and communicative.
"Oh, you're the gent, are you, sir, who laid the information about the opium den? I wasn't at the station when you called, but I came in directly after, and heard the superintendent talking about it. He'd be glad to see you, I think, sir, if you was to look in. Oh, yes; he sent five men round to the place at once. But, Lord, sir, the rascals had got wind of it, and when our men got there, the birds had flown. Cleared out—that's what they had, every man Jack of them. There was the broken window, just as you said, and there was the marks on the door, a-showin' as somebody had tried to break it in, or to batter it down, but them as had been there had all cleared out, and they'd taken the chemicals and tools and other things, what you saw there with 'em. The chief he's trying to track the rascals down, and to find where they've moved to, for they must have put them things somewhere. It stands to reason theycan't walk about with them in the street. But though he clapped two of our best men on the job, they hadn't found anything when I came out on beat."
"And Parker's body?" I inquired. "Has it been found?"
"Not as I've heard on, sir. But holloa, what's this?"
The constable and I had been strolling on together while talking, and on turning the corner of a small and evil-smelling street we saw a knot of people gathered outside a sweet shop.
"Now, then! What's all this? Stand aside there, will you?" he commanded, shouldering the crowd aside.
At the door a wretched hag, her lank grey hair falling in dishevelled wisps upon her shoulders, and the pores of her face so choked with dirt that the grime lay in lines along the wrinkles, was clawing at the air with one skinny hand and arm, alternately sobbing and screaming hysterically.
"Come, come, my good woman!" said the constable sharply. "Stop that noise, and tell me what it's all about."
Shaking her head, as if to convey that she was powerless to speak, the wretchedcreature clutched wildly at the door lintel, and then fell in a swoon almost at his feet.
"Who is the woman? And what's the trouble?" inquired the constable of the bystanders. "Do any of you know her?"
"Macintyre's her name," volunteered a respectable looking woman in the crowd. "She keeps the sweet shop inside, and lets her rooms as lodgings. I never heard anything against her. But I don't know what's the matter. She'd only just come out into the street before you came."
"She lives here, does she?" inquired the constable. "Stand aside there, and I'll have a look inside and see if anything's wrong."
Then a small voice, that sounded quite near to the pavement, shrilled from the spot where the crowd pressed thickest.
It came from a wee, wizened girl-child, who looked as if she might be ten and talked with the precision and self-possession of twenty—so pitifully sharpened do the wits of the children of the streets become in the struggle for existence.
"It's my Granny—that's who it is. She's got a lodger in the back room, Black Sam. Somebody gave him two shillings yesterday, and he came home drunk last night, quiteearly, and went to bed. I know he was drunk, for two gentlemen came to see him about ten, but Granny told them he was in bed, and drunk, in the back room, and they couldn't see him till this morning. I heard a funny noise in his room in the night. It woke me up. It sounded like someone trying to scream, and not being able to; and I thought I heard people moving about. So I woke Granny up and told her so, but she was cross with me for waking her, and said it was only his drunken snoring I'd heard. But just now, as Black Sam didn't get up, Granny and I went into his room. The window was wide open, and Sam was lying on the floor all over blood. And please, sir, there's a big hole in his throat, and he's quite cold, and I think he's dead."
"Black Sam!" Surely I had heard that name before? Why, yes, and no longer ago than on the preceding evening. When the leader of the gang in the opium den had asked me who it was that directed me there, I had replied, "A negro match-seller, whom I saw outside Poplar station." His comment had been "Ah! a negro match-seller—and outside Poplar station. I think I know the fellow. We must look into this!"
Then his confederates had whispered together, the only words that I had overheard being the dead man's name, "Black Sam." Two of the gang had then left the house, as if on some errand. That was, I remembered—for the clock struck soon after—just before ten. It was at ten that two men had called to see the negro. They had been told that he had come home drunk, and was lying in the back room asleep. Was it they who had entered that room by the window in the dead of the night and murdered him?