The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation by J. S. Fletcher (books to read as a couple txt) 📗

know which door she came out of!"

He glanced at his watch—precisely half-past eleven. He made a note of the time in his pocket-book and went to bed. And next morning, rising early, as was his custom, he descended to the ground floor by means of the stairs instead of the lift, and as he passed the door from which he had seen Mrs. Marlow emerge he mentally registered the number. Fifty-three. Number fifty-three.

Allerdyke, who could not exist without fresh air and exercise, went for a stroll before breakfast when he was in London—he usually chose the Embankment, as being the nearest convenient open space, and thither he now repaired, thinking things over. There were many new features of this affair to think about, but the one of the previous night now occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of the others. What was this woman doing, coming—with evident secrecy—out of one set of rooms, and entering another at that late hour? He wanted to know—he must find out—and he would find out with ease,—and indirectly, from Fullaway.

Fullaway always took his breakfast at a certain table in a certain corner of the coffee-room at the hotel; there Allerdyke had sometimes joined him. He found the American there, steadily eating, when he returned from his walk, and he dropped into a chair at his side with a casual remark about the fine morning.

"Didn't set eyes on you last night at all," he went on, as he picked up his napkin. "Off somewhere, eh?"

"Spent the evening out," answered Fullaway. "Not often I do, but I did—for once in a way. Van Koon and I (you don't know Van Koon, do you?—he's a fellow countryman of mine, stopping here for the summer, and a very clever man) we dined at the Carlton, and then went to the Haymarket Theatre. I was going to ask you to join us, Allerdyke, but you were out and hadn't come in by the time we had to go."

"Thank you—no, I didn't get in until seven o'clock or so," answered
Allerdyke. "So I'd a quiet evening."

"No news, I suppose?" asked Fullaway, going vigorously forward with his breakfast. "Heard nothing from the police authorities?"

"Nothing," replied Allerdyke. "I suppose they're doing things in their own way, as usual."

"Just so," assented Fullaway. "Well, it's an odd thing to me that nobody comes forward to make some sort of a shot at that reward! Most extraordinary that the man of the Eastbourne Terrace affair should have been able to get clean away without anybody in London having seen him—or at any rate that the people who must have seen him are unable to connect him with the murder of that woman. Extraordinary!"

"It's all extraordinary," said Allerdyke. He took up a newspaper which Fullaway had thrown down and began to talk of some subject that caught his eye, until Fullaway rose, pleaded business, and went off to his rooms upstairs. When he had gone Allerdyke reconsidered matters. So Fullaway had been out the night before, had he—dining out, and at a theatre? Then, of course, it would be quite midnight before he got in. Therefore, presumably, he did not know that his secretary was about his rooms—and entering and leaving another suite close by. No—Fullaway knew nothing—that seemed certain.

The remembrance of what he had seen sent Allerdyke, as soon as he had breakfasted, to the hall of the hotel, and to the register of guests. There was no one at the register at that moment, and he turned the pages at his leisure until he came to what he wanted. And there it was—in plain black and white—

NUMBER 53. MR. JOHN VAN KOON. NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A. CHAPTER XXI THE YOUNG MAN WHO LED PUGS

Allerdyke, with a gesture peculiar to him, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers, strolled away from the desk on which the register lay open, and going over to the hall door stood there a while, staring out on the tide of life that rolled by, and listening to the subdued rattle of the traffic in its ceaseless traverse of the Strand. And as he stood in this apparently idle and purposeless lounging attitude, he thought—thought of a certain birthday of his, a good thirty years before, whereon a kind, elderly aunt had made him a present of a box of puzzles. There were all sorts of puzzles in that box—things that you had to put together, things that had to be arranged, things that had to be adjusted. But there was one in particular which had taken his youthful fancy, and had at the same time tried his youthful temper—a shallow tray wherein were a vast quantity of all sorts and sizes of bits of wood, gaily coloured. There were quite a hundred of those bits, and you had to fit them one into the other. When, after much trying of temper, much exercise of patience, you had accomplished the task, there was a beautiful bit of mosaic work, a picture, a harmonious whole, lovely to look upon, something worthy of the admiring approbation of uncles and aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers. But—the doing of it!

"Naught, however, to this confounded thing!" mused Allerdyke, gazing at and not seeing the folk on the broad sidewalk. "When all the bits of this puzzle have been fitted into place I daresay one'll be able to look down on it as a whole and say it looks simple enough when finished, but, egad, they're of so many sorts and shapes and queer angles that they're more than a bit difficult to fit at present. Now who the deuce is this Van Koon, and what was that Mrs. Marlow, alias Miss Slade, doing in his rooms last night when he was out?"

He was exercising his brains over a possible solution of this problem when Fullaway suddenly appeared in the hall behind him, accompanied by a man whom Allerdyke at once took to be the very individual about whom he was speculating. He was a man of apparently forty years of age, of average height and build, of a full countenance, sallow in complexion, clean-shaven, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles over a pair of sapphire blue eyes—a shrewd, able-looking man, clad in the loose fitting, square-cut garments just then affected by his fellow-countrymen, and having a low-crowned, soft straw hat pulled down over his forehead. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his jacket; a long, thin, black cigar stuck out of a corner of his humorous-looking lips; he cocked an intelligent eye at Allerdyke as he and Fullaway advanced to the door.

"Hullo, Allerdyke!" said Fullaway in his usual vivacious fashion.
"Viewing the prospect o'er, eh? Allow me to introduce Mr. Van Koon, whom
I don't think you've met, though he's under the same roof. Van Koon, this
is the Mr. Allerdyke I've mentioned to you."

The two men shook hands and stared at each other. Whoever and whatever this man may be, thought Allerdyke, he gives you a straight look and a good grip—two characteristics which in his opinion went far to establish any unknown individual's honesty.

"No," remarked Van Koon. "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Allerdyke before. But I'm out a great deal—I don't spend much time indoors this fine weather. You gentlemen know your London well—I don't, and I'm putting in all the time I can to cultivate her acquaintance."

"Been in town long?" asked Allerdyke, wanting to say something and impelled to this apparently trite question by the New Yorker's own observations.

"Since the first week in April," answered Van Koon, "And as this is my first visit to England, I'm endeavouring to do everything well. Fullaway tells me, Mr. Allerdyke, that you come from Bradford, the big manufacturing city up north. Well, now, Bradford is one of the places on my list—hullo!" he exclaimed, breaking off short. "I guess here's a man who's wanting you, Fullaway, in a considerable bit of a hurry."

Fullaway and Allerdyke looked out on to the pavement and saw Blindway, who had just jumped out of a taxi-cab, and was advancing upon them. He came up and addressed them jointly—would they go back with him at once to New Scotland Yard?—the chief wanted to see them for a few minutes.

"Come on, Allerdyke," said Fullaway. "We'd better go at once. Van Koon," he continued, turning to his compatriot, "do me a favour—just look in at my rooms upstairs, and tell Mrs. Marlow, if she's come—she hadn't arrived when I was up there ten minutes ago—that I'm called out for an hour or so—ask her to attend to anything that turns up until I come back—shan't be long."

Van Koon nodded and walked back into the hotel, while Allerdyke and
Fullaway joined the detective in the cab and set out westward.

"What is it?" asked Fullaway. "Something new?"

"Can't say, exactly," replied Blindway. "The chief's got some woman there who thinks she can tell something about the French maid, so he sent me for you, and he's sent another man for Miss Lennard. It may be something good; it mayn't. Otherwise," he concluded with a shake of the head that was almost dismal, "otherwise, I don't know of anything new. Never knew of a case in my life, gentlemen, in which less turned up than's turning up in this affair! And fifty thousand pounds going a-begging!"

"I suppose this woman's after it," remarked Fullaway. "You didn't hear of anything she had to tell?"

"Nothing," answered Blindway. "You'll hear it in a minute or two."

He took them straight up into the same room, and the same official whom they had previously seen, and who now sat at his desk with Celia Lennard on one side of him, and a middle-aged woman, evidently of the poorer classes, on the other. Allerdyke and Fullaway, after a brief interchange of salutations with the official and the prima donna, looked at the stranger—a quiet, respectably-dressed woman who united a natural shyness with an evident determination to go through with the business that had brought her there. She was just the sort of woman who can be seen by the hundred—laundress, seamstress, charwoman, caretaker, got up in her Sunday best. Odd, indeed, it would be, thought Allerdyke, if this quiet, humble-looking creature should give information which would place fifty thousand pounds at her command!

"This is Mrs. Perrigo," said the chief pleasantly, as he motioned the two men to chairs near Celia's and beckoned Blindway to his side. "Mrs. Perrigo, of—where is it, ma'am?"

"I live in Alpha Place, off Park Street, sir," announced Mrs. Perrigo, in a small, quiet voice. "Number 14, sir. I'm a clear-starcher by trade, sir."

"Put that down, Blindway," said the chief, "and take a note of what Mrs. Perrigo tells us. Now, Mrs. Perrigo, you think you've seen the dead woman, Lisette Beaurepaire, at some time or another, in company with a young man? Where and when was this?"

"Well, three times, sir. Three times that I'm certain of—there was another time that I wasn't certain about; at least, that I'm not certain about now. If I could just tell you about it in my way, sir—"

"Certainly—certainly, Mrs. Perrigo! Exactly what I wish. Tell us all about it in your own way. Take your own time."

"Well, sir, it 'ud be, as near as I can fix it, about the middle of March—two months ago, sir," began Mrs. Perrigo. "You see, I had the misfortune to burn my right hand very badly, sir, and having to put my work aside, and it being nice weather, and warm for the time of year, I used to go and sit in Kensington Gardens a good deal, which, of course, was when I see this young lady whose picture's been in the paper of late, and—"

"A moment, Mrs. Perrigo," interrupted the official. "Miss Lennard, it will simplify matters considerably if I ask you a question. Were you and your late maid in town about the time Mrs. Perrigo speaks of—the middle of March?"

"Yes," replied Celia promptly. "We were here from March 3rd, when we came back from the Continent, to March 29th, when we left for Russia."

"Continue, Mrs. Perrigo, if you please," said the official. "Take your time—tell things your own way."

"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Perrigo dutifully. "If you please, sir. Well, when I see those pictures in the papers—several papers, sir—of the young lady with the foreign name I says to myself, and to my neighbour, Mrs. Watson, which is all I ever talk much to, 'That,' I says, 'is the young woman I see in Kensington Gardens a time or two and remarks of for her elegant figure and smart air in general—I could have picked her out from