We were walking along a lonely terrace in Brompton together. The street was full of that bright blue twilight5 which comes about half past eight in summer, and which seems for the moment to be not so much a coming of darkness as the turning on of a new azure6 illuminator7, as if the earth were lit suddenly by a sapphire8 sun. In the cool blue the lemon tint9 of the lamps had already begun to flame, and as Rupert and I passed them, Rupert talking excitedly, one after another the pale sparks sprang out of the dusk. Rupert was talking excitedly because he was trying to prove to me the nine hundred and ninety-ninth of his amateur detective theories. He would go about London, with this mad logic10 in his brain, seeing a conspiracy11 in a cab accident, and a special providence12 in a falling fusee. His suspicions at the moment were fixed13 upon an unhappy milkman who walked in front of us. So arresting were the incidents which afterwards overtook us that I am really afraid that I have forgotten what were the main outlines of the milkman's crime. I think it had something to do with the fact that he had only one small can of milk to carry, and that of that he had left the lid loose and walked so quickly that he spilled milk on the pavement. This showed that he was not thinking of his small burden, and this again showed that he anticipated some other than lacteal business at the end of his walk, and this (taken in conjunction with something about muddy boots) showed something else that I have entirely14 forgotten. I am afraid that I derided15 this detailed16 revelation unmercifully; and I am afraid that Rupert Grant, who, though the best of fellows, had a good deal of the sensitiveness of the artistic17 temperament18, slightly resented my derision. He endeavoured to take a whiff of his cigar, with the placidity19 which he associated with his profession, but the cigar, I think, was nearly bitten through.
“My dear fellow,” he said acidly, “I'll bet you half a crown that wherever that milkman comes to a real stop I'll find out something curious.”
“My resources are equal to that risk,” I said, laughing. “Done.”
We walked on for about a quarter of an hour in silence in the trail of the mysterious milkman. He walked quicker and quicker, and we had some ado to keep up with him; and every now and then he left a splash of milk, silver in the lamplight. Suddenly, almost before we could note it, he disappeared down the area steps of a house. I believe Rupert really believed that the milkman was a fairy; for a second he seemed to accept him as having vanished. Then calling something to me which somehow took no hold on my mind, he darted20 after the mystic milkman, and disappeared himself into the area.
I waited for at least five minutes, leaning against a lamp-post in the lonely street. Then the milkman came swinging up the steps without his can and hurried off clattering21 down the road. Two or three minutes more elapsed, and then Rupert came bounding up also, his face pale but yet laughing; a not uncommon22 contradiction in him, denoting excitement.
“My friend,” he said, rubbing his hands, “so much for all your scepticism. So much for your philistine23 ignorance of the possibilities of a romantic city. Two and sixpence, my boy, is the form in which your prosaic24 good nature will have to express itself.”
“What?” I said incredulously, “do you mean to say that you really did find anything the matter with the poor milkman?”
His face fell.
“Oh, the milkman,” he said, with a miserable25 affectation at having misunderstood me. “No, I—I—didn't exactly bring anything home to the milkman himself, I—”
“What did the milkman say and do?” I said, with inexorable sternness.
“Well, to tell the truth,” said Rupert, shifting restlessly from one foot to another, “the milkman himself, as far as merely physical appearances went, just said, 'Milk, Miss,' and handed in the can. That is not to say, of course, that he did not make some secret sign or some—”
I broke into a violent laugh. “You idiot,” I said, “why don't you own yourself wrong and have done with it? Why should he have made a secret sign any more than any one else? You own he said nothing and did nothing worth mentioning. You own that, don't you?”
His face grew grave.
“Well, since you ask me, I must admit that I do. It is possible that the milkman did not betray himself. It is even possible that I was wrong about him.”
“Then come along with you,” I said, with a certain amicable27 anger, “and remember that you owe me half a crown.”
“As to that, I differ from you,” said Rupert coolly. “The milkman's remarks may have been quite innocent. Even the milkman may have been. But I do not owe you half a crown. For the terms of the bet were, I think, as follows, as I propounded28 them, that wherever that milkman came to a real stop I should find out something curious.”
“Well?” I said.
“Well,” he answered, “I jolly well have. You just come with me,” and before I could speak he had turned tail once more and whisked through the blue dark into the moat or basement of the house. I followed almost before I made any decision.
When we got down into the area I felt indescribably foolish literally29, as the saying is, in a hole. There was nothing but a closed door, shuttered windows, the steps down which we had come, the ridiculous well in which I found myself, and the ridiculous man who had brought me there, and who stood there with dancing eyes. I was just about to turn back when Rupert caught me by the elbow.
“Just listen to that,” he said, and keeping my coat gripped in his right hand, he rapped with the knuckles30 of his left on the shutters31 of the basement window. His air was so definite that I paused and even inclined my head for a moment towards it. From inside was coming the murmur32 of an unmistakable human voice.
“Have you been talking to somebody inside?” I asked suddenly, turning to Rupert.
“No, I haven't,” he replied, with a grim smile, “but I should very much like to. Do you know what somebody is saying in there?”
“No, of course not,” I replied.
“Then I recommend you to listen,” said Rupert sharply.
In the dead silence of the aristocratic street at evening, I stood a moment and listened. From behind the wooden partition, in which there was a long lean crack, was coming a continuous and moaning sound which took the form of the words: “When shall I get out? When shall I get out? Will they ever let me out?” or words to that effect.
“Do you know anything about this?” I said, turning upon Rupert very abruptly.
“Perhaps you think I am the criminal,” he said sardonically33, “instead of being in some small sense the detective. I came into this area two or three minutes ago, having told you that I knew there was something funny going on, and this woman behind the shutters (for it evidently is a woman) was moaning like mad. No, my dear friend, beyond that I do not know anything about her. She is not, startling as it may seem, my disinherited daughter, or a member of my secret seraglio. But when I hear a human being wailing34 that she can't get out, and talking to herself like a mad woman and beating on the shutters with her fists, as she was doing two or three minutes ago, I think it worth mentioning, that is all.”
“My dear fellow,” I said, “I apologize; this is no time for arguing. What is to be done?”
Rupert Grant had a long clasp-knife naked and brilliant in his hand.
“First of all,” he said, “house-breaking.” And he forced the blade into the crevice35 of the wood and broke away a huge splinter, leaving a gap and glimpse of the dark window-pane inside. The room within was entirely unlighted, so that for the first few seconds the window seemed a dead and opaque36 surface, as dark as a strip of slate37. Then came a realization38 which, though in a sense gradual, made us step back and catch our breath. Two large dim human eyes were so close to us that the window itself seemed suddenly to be a mask. A pale human face was pressed against the glass within, and with increased distinctness, with the increase of the opening came the words:
“When shall I get out?”
“What can all this be?” I said.
Rupert made no answer, but lifting his walking-stick and pointing the ferrule like a fencing sword at the glass, punched a hole in it, smaller and more accurate than I should have supposed possible. The moment he had done so the voice spouted39 out of the hole, so to speak, piercing and querulous and clear, making the same demand for liberty.
“Can't you get out, madam?” I said, drawing near the hole in some perturbation.
“Get out? Of course I can't,” moaned the unknown female bitterly. “They won't let me. I told them I would be let out. I told them I'd call the police. But it's no good. Nobody knows, nobody comes. They could keep me as long as they liked only—”
I was in the very act of breaking the window finally with my stick, incensed40 with this very sinister41 mystery, when Rupert held my arm hard, held it with a curious, still, and secret rigidity42 as if he desired to stop me, but did not desire to be observed to do so. I paused a moment, and in the act swung slightly round, so that I was facing the supporting wall of the front door steps. The act froze me into a sudden stillness like that of Rupert, for a figure almost as motionless as the pillars of the portico43, but unmistakably human, had put his head out from between the doorposts and was gazing down into the area. One of the lighted lamps of the street was just behind his head, throwing it into abrupt2 darkness. Consequently, nothing whatever could be seen of his face beyond one fact, that he was unquestionably staring at us. I must say I thought Rupert's calmness magnificent. He rang the area bell quite idly, and went on talking to me with the easy end of a conversation which had never had any beginning. The black glaring figure in the portico did not stir. I almost thought it was really a statue. In another moment the grey area was golden with gaslight as the basement door was opened suddenly and a small and decorous housemaid stood in it.
“Pray excuse me,” said Rupert, in a voice which he contrived44 to make somehow or other at once affable and underbred, “but we thought perhaps that you might do something for the Waifs and Strays. We don't expect—”
“Not here,” said the small servant, with the incomparable severity of the menial of the non-philanthropic, and slammed the door in our faces.
“Very sad, very sad—the indifference45 of these people,” said the philanthropist with gravity, as we went together up the steps. As we did so the motionless figure in the portico suddenly disappeared.
“Well, what do you make of that?” asked Rupert, slapping his gloves together when we got into the street.
I do not mind admitting that I was seriously upset. Under such conditions I had but one thought.
“Don't you think,” I said a trifle timidly, “that we had better tell your brother?”
“Oh, if you like,” said Rupert, in a lordly way. “He is quite near, as I promised to meet him at Gloucester Road Station. Shall we take a cab? Perhaps, as you say, it might amuse him.”
Gloucester Road Station had, as if by accident, a somewhat deserted46 look. After a little looking about we discovered Basil Grant with his great head and his great white hat blocking the ticket-office window. I thought at first that he was taking a ticket for somewhere and being an astonishingly long time about it. As a matter of fact, he was discussing religion with the booking-office clerk, and had almost got his head through the hole in his excitement. When we dragged him away it was some time before he would talk of anything but the growth of an Oriental fatalism in modern thought, which had been well typified by some of the official's ingenious but perverse47 fallacies. At last we managed to get him to understand that we had made an astounding48 discovery. When he did listen, he listened attentively49, walking between us up and down the lamp-lit street, while we told him in a rather feverish50 duet of the great house in South Kensington, of the equivocal milkman, of the lady imprisoned51 in the basement, and the man staring from the porch. At length he said:
“If you're thinking of going back to look the thing up, you must be careful what you do. It's no good you two going there. To go twice on the same pretext52 would look dubious53. To go on a different pretext would look worse. You may be quite certain that the inquisitive54 gentleman who looked at you looked thoroughly55, and will wear, so to speak, your portraits next to his heart. If you want to find out if there is anything in this without a police raid I fancy you had better wait outside. I'll go in and see them.”
His slow and reflective walk brought us at length within sight of the house. It stood up ponderous56 and purple against the last pallor of twilight. It looked like an ogre's castle. And so apparently58 it was.
“Do you think it's safe, Basil,” said his brother, pausing, a little pale, under the lamp, “to go into that place alone? Of course we shall be near enough to hear if you yell, but these devils might do something—something sudden—or odd. I can't feel it's safe.”
“I know of nothing that is safe,” said Basil composedly, “except, possibly—death,” and he went up the steps and rang at the bell. When the massive respectable door opened for an instant, cutting a square of gaslight in the gathering59 dark, and then closed with a bang, burying our friend inside, we could not repress a shudder60. It had been like the heavy gaping61 and closing of the dim lips of some evil leviathan. A freshening night breeze began to blow up the street, and we turned up the collars of our coats. At the end of twenty minutes, in which we had scarcely moved or spoken, we were as cold as icebergs63, but more, I think, from apprehension64 than the atmosphere. Suddenly Rupert made an abrupt movement towards the house.
“I can't stand this,” he began, but almost as he spoke62 sprang back into the shadow, for the panel of gold was again cut out of the black house front, and the burly figure of Basil was silhouetted65 against it coming out. He was roaring with laughter and talking so loudly that you could have heard every syllable66 across the street. Another voice, or, possibly, two voices, were laughing and talking back at him from within.
“No, no, no,” Basil was calling out, with a sort of hilarious67 hostility68. “That's quite wrong. That's the most ghastly heresy69 of all. It's the soul, my dear chap, the soul that's the arbiter70 of cosmic forces. When you see a cosmic force you don't like, trick it, my boy. But I must really be off.”
“Come and pitch into us again,” came the laughing voice from out of the house. “We still have some bones unbroken.”
“Thanks very much, I will—good night,” shouted Grant, who had by this time reached the street.
“Good night,” came the friendly call in reply, before the door closed.
“Basil,” said Rupert Grant, in a hoarse71 whisper, “what are we to do?”
The elder brother looked thoughtfully from one of us to the other.
“What is to be done, Basil?” I repeated in uncontrollable excitement.
“I'm not sure,” said Basil doubtfully. “What do you say to getting some dinner somewhere and going to the Court Theatre tonight? I tried to get those fellows to come, but they couldn't.”
We stared blankly.
“Go to the Court Theatre?” repeated Rupert. “What would be the good of that?”
“Good? What do you mean?” answered Basil, staring also. “Have you turned Puritan or Passive Resister, or something? For fun, of course.”
“But, great God in Heaven! What are we going to do, I mean!” cried Rupert. “What about the poor woman locked up in that house? Shall I go for the police?”
Basil's face cleared with immediate72 comprehension, and he laughed.
“Oh, that,” he said. “I'd forgotten that. That's all right. Some mistake, possibly. Or some quite trifling73 private affair. But I'm sorry those fellows couldn't come with us. Shall we take one of these green omnibuses? There is a restaurant in Sloane Square.”
“I sometimes think you play the fool to frighten us,” I said irritably74. “How can we leave that woman locked up? How can it be a mere26 private affair? How can crime and kidnapping and murder, for all I know, be private affairs? If you found a corpse75 in a man's drawing-room, would you think it bad taste to talk about it just as if it was a confounded dado or an infernal etching?”
Basil laughed heartily76.
“That's very forcible,” he said. “As a matter of fact, though, I know it's all right in this case. And there comes the green omnibus.”
“How do you know it's all right in this ease?” persisted his brother angrily.
“My dear chap, the thing's obvious,” answered Basil, holding a return ticket between his teeth while he fumbled77 in his waistcoat pocket. “Those two fellows never committed a crime in their lives. They're not the kind. Have either of you chaps got a halfpenny? I want to get a paper before the omnibus comes.”
“Oh, curse the paper!” cried Rupert, in a fury. “Do you mean to tell me, Basil Grant, that you are going to leave a fellow creature in pitch darkness in a private dungeon78, because you've had ten minutes' talk with the keepers of it and thought them rather good men?”
“Good men do commit crimes sometimes,” said Basil, taking the ticket out of his mouth. “But this kind of good man doesn't commit that kind of crime. Well, shall we get on this omnibus?”
The great green vehicle was indeed plunging79 and lumbering80 along the dim wide street towards us. Basil had stepped from the curb81, and for an instant it was touch and go whether we should all have leaped on to it and been borne away to the restaurant and the theatre.
“Basil,” I said, taking him firmly by the shoulder, “I simply won't leave this street and this house.”
“Nor will I,” said Rupert, glaring at it and biting his fingers. “There's some black work going on there. If I left it I should never sleep again.”
Basil Grant looked at us both seriously.
“Of course if you feel like that,” he said, “we'll investigate further. You'll find it's all right, though. They're only two young Oxford82 fellows. Extremely nice, too, though rather infected with this pseudo-Darwinian business. Ethics83 of evolution and all that.”
“I think,” said Rupert darkly, ringing the bell, “that we shall enlighten you further about their ethics.”
“And may I ask,” said Basil gloomily, “what it is that you propose to do?”
“I propose, first of all,” said Rupert, “to get into this house; secondly84, to have a look at these nice young Oxford men; thirdly, to knock them down, bind85 them, gag them, and search the house.”
Basil stared indignantly for a few minutes. Then he was shaken for an instant with one of his sudden laughs.
“Poor little boys,” he said. “But it almost serves them right for holding such silly views, after all,” and he quaked again with amusement “there's something confoundedly Darwinian about it.”
“I suppose you mean to help us?” said Rupert.
“Oh, yes, I'll be in it,” answered Basil, “if it's only to prevent your doing the poor chaps any harm.”
He was standing86 in the rear of our little procession, looking indifferent and sometimes even sulky, but somehow the instant the door opened he stepped first into the hall, glowing with urbanity.
“So sorry to haunt you like this,” he said. “I met two friends outside who very much want to know you. May I bring them in?”
“Delighted, of course,” said a young voice, the unmistakable voice of the Isis, and I realized that the door had been opened, not by the decorous little servant girl, but by one of our hosts in person. He was a short, but shapely young gentleman, with curly dark hair and a square, snub-nosed face. He wore slippers87 and a sort of blazer of some incredible college purple.
“This way,” he said; “mind the steps by the staircase. This house is more crooked88 and old-fashioned than you would think from its snobbish89 exterior90. There are quite a lot of odd corners in the place really.”
“That,” said Rupert, with a savage91 smile, “I can quite believe.”
We were by this time in the study or back parlour, used by the young inhabitants as a sitting-room92, an apartment littered with magazines and books ranging from Dante to detective stories. The other youth, who stood with his back to the fire smoking a corncob, was big and burly, with dead brown hair brushed forward and a Norfolk jacket. He was that particular type of man whose every feature and action is heavy and clumsy, and yet who is, you would say, rather exceptionally a gentleman.
“Any more arguments?” he said, when introductions had been effected. “I must say, Mr Grant, you were rather severe upon eminent93 men of science such as we. I've half a mind to chuck my D.Sc. and turn minor94 poet.”
“Bosh,” answered Grant. “I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly95 nasty one. When people talked about the fall of man they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't understand. Now that they talk about the survival of the fittest they think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion, they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean. The Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk unscientifically about science.”
“That is all very well,” said the big young man, whose name appeared to be Burrows97. “Of course, in a sense, science, like mathematics or the violin, can only be perfectly98 understood by specialists. Still, the rudiments99 may be of public use. Greenwood here,” indicating the little man in the blazer, “doesn't know one note of music from another. Still, he knows something. He knows enough to take off his hat when they play 'God Save the King'. He doesn't take it off by mistake when they play 'Oh, Dem Golden Slippers'. Just in the same way science—”
Here Mr Burrows stopped abruptly. He was interrupted by an argument uncommon in philosophical96 controversy100 and perhaps not wholly legitimate101. Rupert Grant had bounded on him from behind, flung an arm round his throat, and bent102 the giant backwards103.
“Knock the other fellow down, Swinburne,” he called out, and before I knew where I was I was locked in a grapple with the man in the purple blazer. He was a wiry fighter, who bent and sprang like a whalebone, but I was heavier and had taken him utterly104 by surprise. I twitched105 one of his feet from under him; he swung for a moment on the single foot, and then we fell with a crash amid the litter of newspapers, myself on top.
My attention for a moment released by victory, I could hear Basil's voice finishing some long sentence of which I had not heard the beginning.
“... wholly, I must confess, unintelligible106 to me, my dear sir, and I need not say unpleasant. Still one must side with one's old friends against the most fascinating new ones. Permit me, therefore, in tying you up in this antimacassar, to make it as commodious107 as handcuffs can reasonably be while...”
I had staggered to my feet. The gigantic Burrows was toiling108 in the garotte of Rupert, while Basil was striving to master his mighty109 hands. Rupert and Basil were both particularly strong, but so was Mr Burrows; how strong, we knew a second afterwards. His head was held back by Rupert's arm, but a convulsive heave went over his whole frame. An instant after his head plunged110 forward like a bull's, and Rupert Grant was
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