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41 - Beetle by Richard Marsh · Beetle

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  Speaker 1: The Beadle by Richard marsh chapter forty one. The Constable,
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  Speaker 1: his clue and the cab. Miss Coleman got up in
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  Speaker 1: a fluster, went hurrying to the door. I won't have
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  Speaker 1: that young man in my house. I won't have him.
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  Speaker 1: Don't let him dare to put his nose across my doorstep.
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  Speaker 1: I endeavored to appease her perturbation. I promise you that
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  Speaker 1: he shall not come in. Miss Coleman, my friend here
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  Speaker 1: and I will go and speak to him outside. She
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  Speaker 1: held the front door open just wide enough to enable
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  Speaker 1: Lessingham and me to slip through. Then she shudder after
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  Speaker 1: us with a bang. She evidently had a strong objection
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  Speaker 1: to any intrusion on Sydney's part. Standing without the gate,
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  Speaker 1: he saluted us with a characteristic vigor which was scarcely
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  Speaker 1: flattering to our late hostess. Behind him was a constable.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you to have been mewed in with that
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  Speaker 1: old pussy long enough. While you've been tittle tattling I've
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  Speaker 1: been doing. Listen to what this Bobby's got to say.
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  Speaker 1: The Constable, his thumbs thrust inside his belt, wore an
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  Speaker 1: indulgent smile upon his countenance. He seemed to find Sydney amusing.
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  Speaker 1: He spoke in a deep bass voice, as if it
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  Speaker 1: issued from his boots. I don't know that I've got
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  Speaker 1: anything to say. It was plain that Sidney thought otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: You wait till I've given this pretty pair of gossips
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  Speaker 1: a lead officer. Then I'll trot you out. He turned
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  Speaker 1: to us. After I'd poked my nose into every dashed
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  Speaker 1: hole in that infernal den and been rewarded with nothing
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  Speaker 1: but a pain in the back for my trouble. I
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  Speaker 1: stood cooling my heels on the doorstep, wondering if I
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't fight the cabman or get him to fight me,
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  Speaker 1: just to pass the time away. For he says he
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  Speaker 1: can box, and he looks it. When who should come
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  Speaker 1: strolling along but this magnificent example of the Metropolitan Constabulary.
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  Speaker 1: He waved his hand towards the policeman, whose grin grew wider.
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  Speaker 1: I looked at him, and he looked at me. And
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  Speaker 1: then we'd had enough of admiring each other's fine feet,
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  Speaker 1: teachers and striking proportions. He said to me, has he gone?
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  Speaker 1: I said, who, Baxter or Bob Brown? He said no,
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  Speaker 1: the Arab? I said, what do you know about any Arab?
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  Speaker 1: He said, well, I saw him in the Broadway about
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  Speaker 1: three quarters of an hour ago, and then seeing you
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  Speaker 1: here and the house all open, I wonder if he
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  Speaker 1: had gone for good with that. I almost jumped out
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  Speaker 1: of my skin, though you can bet your life I
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  Speaker 1: never showed it. I said, how do you know it
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  Speaker 1: was he? He said it was him, right enough, There's
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  Speaker 1: no doubt about that. If you've seen him once, you're
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  Speaker 1: not likely to forget him. Where was he going? He
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  Speaker 1: was talking to a cabman four wheeler. He'd got a
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  Speaker 1: great bundle on his head. Wanted to take it inside
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  Speaker 1: with him. Cabman didn't seem to see it. That was
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  Speaker 1: enough for me. I picked this most deserving officer up
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  Speaker 1: in my arms and carried him across the road to you,
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  Speaker 1: two fellows, like a flash of lightning. Since the policeman
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  Speaker 1: was six feet three or four and more than sufficiently
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  Speaker 1: broad in proportion, his scarcely seemed the kind of figure
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  Speaker 1: to be picked up in anybody's arms and carried like
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  Speaker 1: a flash of lightning, which, as his smile grew more indulgent,
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  Speaker 1: he himself appeared to think still, even allowing for Atherton's exaggeration.
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  Speaker 1: The news which he had brought was sufficiently important. I
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  Speaker 1: questioned the Constable upon my own account, this is my
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  Speaker 1: card officer. Probably before the day is over, a charge
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  Speaker 1: of very serious character will be preferred against the person
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  Speaker 1: who has been residing in the house over the way.
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  Speaker 1: In the meantime, it is of the utmost importance that
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  Speaker 1: a watch should be kept upon his movements. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: you have no sort of doubt that the person you
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  Speaker 1: saw on the Broadway was the one in question, not
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  Speaker 1: a morsel. I know him as well as I do
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  Speaker 1: my own brother. We all do upon this beat. He's
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  Speaker 1: known amongst us as the Arab. I've had my eye
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  Speaker 1: on him ever since he came to the place. A
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  Speaker 1: queer fish he is. I always have said that he's
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  Speaker 1: up to some game or other. I never came across
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  Speaker 1: one like him, for flying about in all sorts of weather,
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  Speaker 1: at all hours of the night, always tearing along as
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  Speaker 1: if for his life. As I was telling this gentleman,
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  Speaker 1: I saw him in the Broadway. Well now it's about
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  Speaker 1: an hour since, perhaps a little more. I was coming
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  Speaker 1: on duty when I saw a crowd in front of
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  Speaker 1: the District Railway station, and there was the Arab having
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  Speaker 1: a sort of argument with a cabman. He had a
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  Speaker 1: great bundle on his head, five or six feet long,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps longer. He wanted to take this great bundle with
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  Speaker 1: him into the cab and the cabman he didn't see it.
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  Speaker 1: You didn't wait to see him drive off? No, I
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  Speaker 1: hadn't time. I was due at the station. I was
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  Speaker 1: cutting it pretty fine as it was. You didn't speak
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  Speaker 1: to him or to the cabman. No, it wasn't any
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  Speaker 1: business of mine, you understand. The whole thing just caught
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  Speaker 1: my eye as I was passing, and you didn't take
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  Speaker 1: the cabman's number. No, well, as far as that goes,
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  Speaker 1: as it wasn't needful. I know the cabman, his name
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  Speaker 1: and all about him, his stables in Bradmore. I whipped
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  Speaker 1: out my note book. Give me his address. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what his Christian name is, Tom, I believe, but
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure anyhow. His surname's Ellis, and his address
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  Speaker 1: is Church Mews Street, Saint John's Road, Bradmore. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know his number, but any one will tell you which
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  Speaker 1: is his place if you ask for four wheel Ellis.
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  Speaker 1: That's the name he's known by among his pals because
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  Speaker 1: of his driving a four wheeler. Thank you, officer, I
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  Speaker 1: am obliged to you to have crowns changed hands. If
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  Speaker 1: you will keep an eye in the house and advise
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  Speaker 1: me at the address which you will find at my card,
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  Speaker 1: of anything which takes place there during the next few days,
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  Speaker 1: you will do me a service. We had clambered back
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  Speaker 1: into the hansom. The driver was just about to start
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  Speaker 1: when the Constable was struck by a sudden thought. One moment,
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  Speaker 1: Sir blessed, if I wasn't going to forget the most
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  Speaker 1: important bit of all I did hear him tell Alice
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  Speaker 1: where to drive him to. He kept saying it over
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  Speaker 1: and over again in that queer lingo of his Waterloo
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  Speaker 1: Railway station. Waterloo railway station, all right, said Ellis, I'll
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  Speaker 1: drive you to Waterloo Railway Station, right enough. Only I'm
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  Speaker 1: not going to have that bundle of yours inside my cab.
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  Speaker 1: There isn't room for it, So you put it on
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  Speaker 1: the roof. To Waterloo railway Station, said the Arab. I
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  Speaker 1: take my bundle with me to Waterloo Railway Station. I
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  Speaker 1: take it with me. Who says you don't take it
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  Speaker 1: with you? Said Ellis, you can take it, and twenty more. Besides,
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  Speaker 1: for all I care, only you don't take it inside
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  Speaker 1: my cab, put it on the roof. I take it
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  Speaker 1: with me to Waterloo Railway station, said the Arab. And
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  Speaker 1: there they were wranglin and jangling and neither seeming to
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  Speaker 1: be able to make out what the other was after,
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  Speaker 1: and the people all laughing. Waterloo railway Station. You are
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  Speaker 1: sure that was what he said. I'll take my oath
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  Speaker 1: to it, because I said to myself when I heard it,
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  Speaker 1: I wonder what you'll have to pay for that little
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  Speaker 1: lot for the district railway stations outside the four mile radius.
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  Speaker 1: As we drove off, I was inclined to ask myself
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  Speaker 1: a little bitterly, and perhaps unjustly, if it were not
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  Speaker 1: characteristic of the average London policeman to almost forget the
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  Speaker 1: most important part of his information at any rate, to
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  Speaker 1: leave it to the last, then, only to bring it
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  Speaker 1: to the front on having his palm crossed with silver.
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  Speaker 1: As the hansom bowled along, we three had what occasionally
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  Speaker 1: approached the warm discussion. Marjorie was in that bundle began
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  Speaker 1: Lessingham in the most lugubrious of tones, and with the
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  Speaker 1: most woebegone of faces. I doubt it. I observed she was,
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  Speaker 1: I feel it, I know it. She was either dead
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  Speaker 1: and mutilated or gagged in, drugged and helpless. All that
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  Speaker 1: remains is vengeance. I repeat that I doubt it Atherton
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  Speaker 1: struck in. I am bound to say, with the best
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  Speaker 1: will in the world to think otherwise, that I agree
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  Speaker 1: with Lessingham, you are wrong. It's all very well for
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  Speaker 1: you to talk in that cock sure way, but it's
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  Speaker 1: easier for you to say I'm wrong than to prove it.
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  Speaker 1: If I am wrong, And if Lessingham's wrong, how do
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  Speaker 1: you explain his extraordinary insistence on taking it inside the
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  Speaker 1: cab with him, which the Bobby describes. If there wasn't
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  Speaker 1: something horrible awful in that bundle of his of which
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  Speaker 1: he feared the discovery, why was he so reluctant to
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  Speaker 1: have it placed upon the roof. There probably was something
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  Speaker 1: inside which he was particularly anxious should not be discovered,
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  Speaker 1: but I doubt if it was anything of the kind
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  Speaker 1: which you suggest. Here is Marjorie in a house alone.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing has been said of her since her clothing, her
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  Speaker 1: hair is found hidden away under the floor. This scoundrel
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  Speaker 1: sallies forth with a huge bundle on its head. The
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  Speaker 1: Bobby speaks of it being five or six feet long
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  Speaker 1: or longer, a bundle which he regards with so much
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  Speaker 1: solicitude that he insists on never allowing it to go
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  Speaker 1: for a single instant out of his sight in reach?
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  Speaker 1: What is in the thing? Don't all the facts, most
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  Speaker 1: unfortunately point in one direction. Mister Lessingham covered his face
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  Speaker 1: with his hands and groaned. I fear that mister Atherton
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  Speaker 1: is right. I differ from you both Sydney at once
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  Speaker 1: became heated. Then perhaps you can tell us what was
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  Speaker 1: in the bundle. I fancy I could make a guess
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  Speaker 1: at the contents you could, could you? Then? Perhaps for
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  Speaker 1: our sakes you'll make it and not play the oracular owl.
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  Speaker 1: Lessingham and I are interested in this business. After all,
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  Speaker 1: it contained the bearer's personal property, that and nothing more.
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  Speaker 1: Stay before you jeer at me, suffer me to finish.
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  Speaker 1: If I am not mistaken as to the identity of
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  Speaker 1: the person whom the constable describes as the Arab, I
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  Speaker 1: apprehend that the contents of that bundle were of much
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  Speaker 1: more importance to him than if they had consisted of
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  Speaker 1: Miss Lindon, either dead or living more, I am inclined
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  Speaker 1: to suspect that if the bundle was placed on the
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  Speaker 1: roof of the cab, and if the driver did meddle
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  Speaker 1: with it, and he did find out the contents and
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  Speaker 1: understand them, he would have been driven out of hand.
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  Speaker 1: Stark staring, Mad Sydney was silent, as if he reflected.
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  Speaker 1: I imagine he perceived that there was something in what
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  Speaker 1: I said. But what has become of Miss Lindon. I
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  Speaker 1: fancied that Miss Lindon at this moment is somewhere. I
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  Speaker 1: don't just now know exactly where, but I hope very
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  Speaker 1: shortly to be able to give you a clear notion.
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  Speaker 1: A tired and a rotten, dirty pair of boots, a filthy,
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  Speaker 1: tattered pair of trousers, a ragged, unwashed apology for a shirt,
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  Speaker 1: a greasy, ancient shapeless coat, and a frowsy peaked cloth cap.
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  Speaker 1: They stared at me open eyed. Atherton was the first
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  Speaker 1: to speak, what on earth do you mean? I mean
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  Speaker 1: that it seems to me that the fact point in
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  Speaker 1: the direction of my conclusions rather than yours, and that
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  Speaker 1: very strongly too. Miss Coleman asserts that she saw Miss
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  Speaker 1: London return into the house that within a few minutes
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  Speaker 1: the blind was placed at the front window, and that
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  Speaker 1: shortly after a young man attired in the costume I
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  Speaker 1: have described, came walking out of the front door. I
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  Speaker 1: believe that young man was Miss Marjorie Lindon. Lessingham and
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  Speaker 1: Atherton both broke out into interrogations with Sydney as usual,
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  Speaker 1: loudest but man alive. What on earth should make her
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  Speaker 1: do a thing like that? Marjorie, the most retiring, modest
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  Speaker 1: girl on all God's Earth, walk about in broad daylight
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  Speaker 1: in such a costume, and for no reason at all.
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  Speaker 1: My dear Champnell, you are suggesting that she first of
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  Speaker 1: all went mad. She was in a state of trance.
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  Speaker 1: Good God, Champnell. Well then you think that juggling villain
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  Speaker 1: did get hold of her. Undoubtedly, here is my view
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  Speaker 1: of the case. Mind, it's only a hypothesis, and you
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  Speaker 1: must take it for what it's worth. It seems to
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  Speaker 1: me quite clear that the Arab as we will call
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  Speaker 1: the person for the sake of identification, was somewhere about
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  Speaker 1: the premises when you thought he wasn't. But where we looked,
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  Speaker 1: upstairs and downstairs and everywhere where could he have been that?
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  Speaker 1: As at present, advised, I am not prepared to say,
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  Speaker 1: but I think you may take it for granted that
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  Speaker 1: he was there. He hypnotized the man Holt and sent
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  Speaker 1: him away, intending you to go after him, and so
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  Speaker 1: being rid of you both. The deuce he did champne
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you write me down an ass. As soon as the
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  Speaker 1: coast was clear, he discovered himself to Miss Lindon, who
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  Speaker 1: I expect was disagreeably surprised, and hypnotized her the hound,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the devil. The first exclamation was Lesingham's, the second Sydney's.
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  Speaker 1: He then constrained her to strip herself to the skin,
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  Speaker 1: the wretch, the fiend. He cut off her hair. He
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  Speaker 1: hid it and her clothes under the floor where we
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  Speaker 1: found them, where I think it probable that he had
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  Speaker 1: already some ancient masculine garments concealed by Jove. I shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be surprised if they were Holts. I remember the man
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  Speaker 1: saying that the nice joker stripped him of his duds,
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  Speaker 1: and certainly when I saw him, and when Marjorie found him,
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  Speaker 1: he had absolutely nothing on but a queer sort of cloak.
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  Speaker 1: Can it be possible that the humorous professor of Hanky
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Panky may all the maledictions of the accursed alight upon
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  Speaker 1: his head? Can have sent Marjorie Lyndon, the daintiest damsel
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  Speaker 1: in the land, into the streets of London, rigged out
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and Holts old togs. As to that, I am not
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: able to give an authoritative opinion, But if I understand you, aright,
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  Speaker 1: it at least is possible. Anyhow, I am disposed to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: think that he sent Miss London after the man Holt.
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  Speaker 1: Taking it for granted that he had eluded you, that's it.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Write me down an ass again. Then he did elude you.
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  Speaker 1: You have yourself admitted that's because I stopped talking with
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that mutton headed Bobby. I'd have followed the man to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the ends of the earth if it hadn't been for that. Precisely,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the reason is immaterial. It is the fact with which
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: we are immediately concerned. He did elude you. And I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: think you will find that Miss Lindon and mister Holt
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: are together at this moment in men's clothing, both in
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: men's clothing, or rather Miss Lindon in a man's rags.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Great potiphar to think of Marjorie like that? And where
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: are they? And where they are the Arab is not
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  Speaker 1: very far off either. Lessingham caught me by the arm.
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  Speaker 1: And what diabolical mischief do you imagine that he proposes
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  Speaker 1: to do to her? I shirk the question. Whatever it is,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: it is our business to prevent his doing it? And
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: where do you think they have been taken? That it
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: will be our immediate business to endeavor to discover, And here,
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  Speaker 1: at any rate we are at Waterloo. End of chapter
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  Speaker 1: forty one.