A Private Inquiry. A novel

Front matter

k PEIYATE INQUIRY, A PRIVATE INQUIRY, % loW. BY CHARLES H. ROSS, AUTHOR OP "THE PBETTY WIDOW," "LONDON B03TANCB," BTC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1870. [All right! of Translation and Eeproduetion are reserved.] LONDON : SAVILI,, IDWABDS AND CO., PEINTIES, CILUTDOS STEBIT, COTBMT GABDEN. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. fart % .first. THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE. CHAP. pAS_| I. HIS DEATH 1 II. THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH 16 III. WAITING. FOE NIGHT 41 IV. WORKING IN THE DARK 72 V. A SPY AT THE KEYHOLE 90 VI. A LITTLE PIECE OF PAPER 115 VII. THE GENTLEMAN IN THE PARLOURS .... 1*40 VIII. THE GENTLEMAN IN THE DRAWING-ROOMS . . 164 IX. A LOCK OF WOMAN'S HAIR 185 X. NEARER THE TRUTH VI CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XI. A BLUE-EYED VILLAIN 216 XII. THE CHAIN BROKEN 235 sari % Smmtr.

A WHITE HAND AT WORK. I. MY LADY BAREBONES fart tlje first. THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE. CHAPTEK I. HIS DEATH. Upon the 10th of March, in the year 1S40, a crime was committed in Norfolk Street, Strand, with the discovery of the perpetra tor of which this history will have to deal. At half-past two o'clock a.m., a certain Mr. Jabez Acre, who, for some days pre viously, had been complaining of illness, was seized with violent convulsions. By four o'clock, after suffering great agony, he died, and the cause of his death was poison. It was a bitterly cold night, and the policeman whose duty it was to peramvol. i. bulate Norfolk Street, in the course of his rounds, seeking shelter in the doorway from the piercing wind, fervently wished himself off duty and at home a-bed. It would have seemed, too, as though such a wish was shared by the community at large, for very few persons were to be seen abroad — none, indeed, but drunken roysterers staggering homewards, and homeless out casts crouching in dark corners, or creeping away with noiseless steps as unearthed ghosts might creep gravewards at cock crow.

A dreary watch was this of our police man ; and shall we blame him if he loitered awhile by the way, and shirked the north east wind a small half hour in this fashion ? There was not a soul to be seen in Nor folk Street, nor had the sound of any other footstep than his own broken the deep silence reigning there these twenty minutes past. The darkened blinds of the houses, too, seemed to indicate that the inmates slept — perhaps slept securely in the belief that the policeman down below was keeping guard over their front doors ; but, if he were keeping guard, he kept it with his eyes shut, for, in the deep doorway, sheltered from the wind, he was taking forty winks under peculiar difficulties — bolt upright. The warmest doorway, certainly, was that which he had selected, and at such a time it was not likely that he would have noticed whether or not the door-step had been recently hearthstoned.

Chapter II. The Manner Of His Death

Scarcely five months ago — scarcely five months before that 10th of March when Jabez Acre died — he had brought home his second wife after their brief wedding trip. A strange match and a strange home for one so fair and young. At seven o'clock one night, towards the end of October — wild, windy, and cheerless — good Mrs. Winniker, a charwoman, carrying a basket upon her left arm, and a pair of pattens and a cotton umbrella in her right hand, breasted the hurricane raging furiously in Norfolk Street, and sought shelter in the same doorway in which, upon the 1 0th of March, Mr. Policeman took his nap. Tugging at the jangling bell, she listened to its dying echo echoing faintly through the house, and waited, patiently, for some one to let her in. In due course she heard a slipshod step upon the stairs, and then an untidy old woman, not over clean, came, candle in hand, to see who was there, and spoke to her through a narrow crevice of the half-opened door over the chain.

"It's only me, Mrs. Drake," the char woman said from without ; " and, oh, my goodness ! do let me in, for it's a rainin" dreadful." Seemingly satisfied that the applicant for admission harboured no felonious intentions, the old woman slowly undid the chain and admitted her. "Doyou always fasten up that way?" asked the newcomer, with a slight smile. " You might be the Bank of England." " I do what I'm told, Mrs. Winniker," replied the old woman, snappishly, "as others might do, too, and not be thought worse on." vol. i. "To be sure, Mrs. Drake," said Mrs. Winniker, in the same cheery tone in which she had before spoken; "and have they come yet?" "No." " It's past the time they said, though ; It "I f.5J am t it r " It's past the time he said." "What time did he say?" " Half-past six." " And now it's seven ; but they'll be here directly, I suppose."

The old woman hazarded no supposition upon the subject, but led the way up the creaking stairs to a dark, panelled room, having a curiously earthy smell, and in which hissed and spluttered noisily a freshly-lighted fire of damp wood. "Have you got the things?" the old woman asked, looking towards the basket, from which Mrs. Winniker now pro duced certain small packets of grocery, a couple of tea-cakes, and half a pound of butter. " It's lucky they have not come yet, as I wasn't in time," observed Mrs. Winniker. " The lady will be cold and tired, perhaps, when she comes, and glad of a nice warm cup of tea." " If she gets everything she wants from this time forward she'll be lucky," replied Mrs. Drake. "I wish they'd come, though." The old woman began to make the tea ; and Mrs. Winniker, laying aside her shawl and bonnet, began to toast the tea-cake.

They were silent for a time, and then the old woman, with a gesture of impatience, took a letter from where it lay upon the mantelpiece, and drawing a candle near to her, made an attempt to decipher the cramped handwriting it contained. " I haven't got my specs," she said, after a minute thus spent. " Look at it, Mrs. Winniker," will you, and tell me what you make of the time." Thus conjured, Mrs. Winniker took her turn at the letter, and read thus : — k " Saturday. " I am coming home on Monday. Clean the place up. You can have a charwoman for half a day. I shan't pay more than a shilling. " Lighr a fire, and make tea for two at half-past six. " Jabez Acre. " P.S. — I am married." " That's a funny kind of letter," said Mrs. Winniker, handing it back. "And shan't pay more than a shilling. An old scrummudging."

" What's there funny in it ?" asked the old woman. " There's no beginning, for one thing. Who's he wrote to ?" " To me." " And the postscript's rather sing'lar, as if he'd forgot it to the last, and just stuck it in afore he fastened up the cover. Didn't he ever tell you he meant to ?" " Meant to what 2" " To get married, to be sure." " No, he didn't." " He don't waste many words about it now, does he ?" " He don't waste anything, if he can help." "Not on charing?" " Not on anythink. He's got plenty of money though, I daresay, if he liked to spend it ; but he lends it instead." " And puts the screw on, too, I'll bet a penny." " I don't blame him if he does." " Nor me neither." Then, after a pause, Mrs. Winniker added, with a sigh, "Poor thing! I wonder whether she is young and pretty. I wonder whether There's the bell !"

Before the old woman had time to go downstairs the bell had rung twice, and the knocker thundered as often, although but little time was wasted on the way. Hastily, then, undoing the chain and pulling back the bolts, Mrs. Drake opened door to let in the bride and bridegroom. The wind and rain poured into the passage to the almost entire extinction of the candle which the old woman held on high to light the newly-married pair, and not until the door was closed could Mrs. Winniker, who stood upon the stairs, form any notion of what the master and mistress were like. Before, however, the door was closed, Mrs. Drake had peeped out into the street, as though in search of some vehicle — a carriage and four, perhaps, or a hand-barrow with the trunks and bandboxes. There was neither. " What are you staring at ?"

Mr. Acre asked, sharply. " I thought you'd got a cab, p'raps." " No, we haven't. We didn't want a cab when we could come in the omnibus to the street corner." He was not a very pleasant-looking bride groom, this Mr. Jabez Acre — about forty, perhaps, very spare and sallow, tightly buttoned up in a shabby old threadbare great-coat, the collar of which half hid his great red ears. By his side stood a slim young figure, that of a woman of twenty years at most, very quietly and plainly dressed, and wearing a thick veil over her face. To her the old woman made some sort of compromise between a respectful bow and a familiar nod as she bade her good evening. The lady bade her good evening, also in a low voice, and then asked Mr. Acre whether the things would come soon. " They wont be long, I suppose."

" I should like to go to bed ; I am very tired, and my head aches very badly." " The tea is laid upstairs, sir," said Mrs. Drake ; and Mr. Jabez Acre, preceding his wife, led the way, while Mrs. Winniker, frightened by the husband's loud, harsh voice, sank, trembling, back, afraid to utter the kindly words which had risen to her lips. young wife followed Mr. Acre slowly and in silence, and as she reached the threshold of the dingy sitting-room, heaved a low sigh, and, sinking into the first chair she came to, gazed hopelessly around upon the sordid furniture, the mean meal prepared for her, and the smoky fire, burning black and cheerless, in the grate. " I wish papa had been here to meet me," she said, after a pause. " What would be the good of that ?" the man asked. " You will see him all in good time.

You'd better have some tea. Where's Jane ?" " In her room, sir, I think." " Why isn't she here ? Here, Jane, I say !" And responsive to his call, Jabez's daughter — the daughter of his former wife — came forth from out of the darkness of the stairs to welcome them. At her approach the young wife arose and raised her veil, then stretched forth her arms as though she would have taken the girl to her heart ; but Jane Acre shrank back and eyed her, mistrustfully. Thus for a moment they stood face to face, these two heroines of this strange history. The wife, Ruth Acre, aged twenty, with soft brown hair and tender brown eyes, with slim and graceful figure, and with pale cheeks and colourless lips that trembled, now, with half-concealed emotion. The daughter, Jane, fifteen at most, slim also, and as deadly pale, but with lustreless, yellow hair smoothly braided, and cold, grey eyes, in which not the faintest glimmer of love or friendliness was perceptible.

" Wont you speak to me, my dear ?" the elder asked, advancing her hand. " Do you not know who I am ?" " Yes, you are my father's wife. " Your mamma." " No ; she is dead." Jabez Acre had left the room when Ruth first spoke, accompanied by the old woman who was lighting the way for him to a cupboard on the landing — a place where he kept, locked up, a gin-bottle and other treasures. The young wife glanced timidly around, to see whether she was observed, and then as timidly approached the girl, placed her arm round her neck, and, drawing her towards her, kissed her cheek. " How cold you are !" "I'm never very warm," the other replied. " Come near the fire." "No, thank you." " Do you not like the fire ?" " Not much." " You must have found it very dull while your father was away?" "No." " You have other companions ?"

" Mrs. Drake." " I mean of your own age ?" " No." " Some other friends, though ?" " I have no friends." " And you do not go to school, I think?" "No; my mamma taught me what I know." " We must try and be good friends, Jane. I think we shall — shall not we?" But the young girl made no answer. Jabez Acre had returned by now, with the bottle of spirits of which he had been in quest, and a dreary meal began, interrupted but little by conversation. As soon as it was over the wife asked to be shown to her room, and, presently, Jane disappeared, as quietly as she had come awhile ago. Then Jabez, lighting a lamp, went downstairs to a sort of office he had upon the ground floor, and was soon busy with his books and papers. The old woman re tiring to her kitchen, somewhere down in a vault-like-smelling subterranean region, the time came for Mrs. Winniker to take her departure ; which she did, a shilling the richer for her visit, but not without grum bling at the master's niggardliness.

" Goodness me, though!" she said aloud, and heaving a deep sigh as she hoisted her umbrella. " It's comfortabler out here, spite of the wind and rain. It's ever so much more cheerful, spite of the wet and cold." All the way home the good soul rang the changes upon this sentiment. There was not a forlorn wretch who shambled past her, hugging himself in his rags and misery, but she said mentally, " Even you are not worse off than some of them that's got a fine house and water-tight roof to shelter 'em." There was not a street corner she turned, facing the bitter blast, which on every such occasion seemed to be lying in wait and to rush out furiously to wreak its vengeance upon her comely face and ruddy cheeks, and to play the dickens with her fluttering skirts, but she would say, de fiantly, "Blow your worst.

I don't care how hard so that I keep my legs. I haven't very far to go afore I'll be home, where, thank God ! though it's poor, there's smiling faces waiting for me." And more than once, after a thoughtful five minutes, she would break the silence with such a speech as this—" Poor thing ! poor soul ! What made her marry him ? What made her tie herself to a man she could never love ? What a life's in store for her ! What a future ! God help her ! God save my own dear little ones from such a fate !" And when at last she reached her home — humble enough, but clean withal, and not quite comfortless — where, sure enough, an apple-headed man and several small like nesses of herself bade her a broad-grinning welcome, perhaps she caught them tighter than usual to her breast, and saw them through a tearful mist which the recollection of the scene she had left, and the contrast here before her, had caused to gather, unbidden, before her eyes.

May tales of sorrow have the same soothing influence upon all of us, and this poor pen, now working for your recreation, write here and there a few odd words' that shall awaken kindly thoughts and bring together loving hearts estranged, not by lack of sympathy, but from the want of some unspoken sentence long delayed. Truly a dreary waste was that which lay before the young wife. On Jabez Acre's hard-featured face Nature, in capitals, had written rogue and ruffian. A cold-blooded, calculating rascal, whose dirty work of money-grubbing required all the heart he had, leaving no place for wife or daughter. By a thousand and one knavish tricks and mean artifices had he scraped together the gold he now let out at usurious interest. By laying lie on lie, as men lay brick on brick to build a house, this worthy son of the departed Ichabod, of innumerable virtues, filled his money-bags.

By, who shall say, what vile rascalities, from an errand boy's place he had crept from desk to desk in his master's office, until lending his master money, which he could not repay, he claimed to be a partner as a right, and presently threatened to break up the business and turn his late employer out of doors. It was the daughter of his partner, Mr. Richard Gladless, whom he brought home, in the way we have seen, that rainy Octo ber night ; but it is not here that I must tell the tale of the daughter's sacrifice and the father's cowardice and crime. As to the former marriage nothing need be said about it, save that twixt man and wife existed during the latter's life as little love as now remained twixt Jabez and his child. He had married her for her money, and got it and broken her heart, and he now kept the girl because, just at present, he did not see how he was to get rid of her ; meaning so to do, however, when the proper time came.

During that first night Ruth Acre passed beneath her husband's roof in Norfolk Street, the wind, which moaned around the house and shook the window-frames with angry violence, made fearful havoc out at sea, and when the morning came, upon the coast at many places lay fragments of wrecks, and now and then a drowned man, who, in the darkness, had been washed ashore and there left a broken toy, as it were, with which the waves had played out their game and were wearied. Perhaps the angry wind helped to spod the slumbers of the inmates of Jabez Acre's dwelling, for they slept but little. Some where in the vaults, where it was the wont of Mrs. Drake to lay herself out — getting up again in the morning with creaking joints and a hollow cough, and coming to the surface sallow and croaking, and having more the look arising from her grave than from the turn-up bedstead the capitalist's liberality provided her with — she tossed and tumbled through the night, and was more than ordinarily disturbed by the in cursions of black beetles.

Coming from among his books and papers only when the small hours were growing so large that it seemed scarce worth while to go to bed at all, the money-lender sought his couch, looking haggard and weary, and THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH. ten years older than when he overnight had entered the house. In her grimly furnished bedroom, in which a flickering rushlight flung out strange goblin shadows on the naked walls, Ruth lay long hours awake, brooding wearily over the past — gone never to return — and the future, pregnant with foreboding evil. In another bedroom, higher up, more meanly furnished, more cold and cheerless, Jabez Acre's daughter kept vigil at the window, nor quitted it until the first streak of dawn stole over the city, and the life of another day began. A haunted house ! ay, haunted by the ghosts of dead hopes — stifled affections.

A house divided against itself which must surely fall. With morning came Mr. Richard Glad less, the partner — he who in the last chap ter was described as wearing a flaxen wig, he who went in search of Mr. Gay, of Black Lion Lane — and there were that morning vol. i. some long accounts which the partners had to go through together : not to be settled, however, without many angry words and some threats. A month later, and Gladless had come to live with his son-in-law for economy's sake. Two months, and Jabez Acre spoke of filing his schedule. Three months, and he seemed twenty years older, but was still busy with a score of speculations. Four months, and what little shallow pretence of affection had ever existed between him and his wife was laid aside, and scowls, and threats, and sullen discontent had taken their place : then the wife praying for death to release her from her irksome bondage : the father, by times pot-valorous, at others supplicatingly maudlin, but al ways very pitiful and craven-hearted : the girl Jane, silent and thoughtful, seemingly timid and mistrustful of aU around her - a quiet, inoffensive girl, backward for her age, almost childish, singularly obstinate in her retirement from all society.

THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH. Five months, and Jabez Acre's busy brain had wrought out a plan by which he might save enough from the impending wreck to live upon in retirement ; but the plan is but just laid, and the plot just begun, when some unknown hand in the house is raised against his life. Upon the first of March he was first taken ill and refused medical aid. On the fifth he was well enough to go out and attend to his business. On the sixth he had a relapse, but recovered again on the seventh He was slightly ill again on the eighth. On the morning of the ninth he pronounced himself as well as ever he had been. At half-past two o'clock on the morning of the tenth he was seized with violent convul sions. By four o'clock, after suffering great agony, he died. It was not likely that he had committed suicide.

A more abject coward than was this money-grubber it would have been difficult to find. He would not have dared to lay violent hands upon himself. Besides, 3—2 he clung too tenaciously to life — life with the greatest poverty — with starvation — with all endurable suffering, but still life — life at any price. As his last moment was approaching he moaned and shivered, between the paroxysms of pain, in a pitiful terror of the death which threatened him. Whining like a lashed cur, with the sweat of deadly fear upon his face, he, sobbingly, owned his cowardice. Just before the crisis came he cried out in accents of piteous entreaty, " Send for help. Go fetch the doctor — two or three doctors. Give me something to save me. I can't die. I dare not die. I wont die. Don't let me die. For God's sake, save me!"

As a drowning man might have clung,it frantic desperation, to a slippery boatside or to a feeble rush upon a river's bank, so this poor wretch clutched, with his claw like hands, at the mattress on which he lav, seeming thus madly striving to save himself THE MANNER OF HIS DKATH. from the abyss, over the edge of which his guilty soul was tottering. Throughout his illness, his family after wards protested, he had refused to call in a doctor. Among his effects was an old medi cine chest, the bottles in which contained some half-spoilt remains of various drugs, and from this he had physicked himself, with what success we have seen. It was suggested by some persons that there might have been poison in the chest, which he had taken by mistake. Upon examination, how ever, no bottle was found which contained any deadly drug.

At the earlier stages of his illness he attri buted his indisposition to cold. " A bad cold has got hold of me," he was heard to say. " And I have been sticking to work a little too hard." Several times during his illness his wife entreated him to have advice, but during the last night, when he was for the most part insensible, she had taken no steps to obtain medical aid ; and when at last it was quite certain that he was dead, she had sent to the other end of London for a doctor — for what purpose we shall presently see. As his last hour approached, the idea that there had been foul play seemed to enter his mind. Raising himself in bed as his wife approached him with a glass of medicine, he caught her by the waist. " You white-faced devil !" he hissed between his teeth, "you're poisoning me — I know it.

I've watched you. But I wont die ; no, I shall live to see you hanged." She stood there, scared into a trembling helplessness, and the glass fell from her hand. " Ah, it's spilt," he said ; " that is to hide the crime, but I'll be even with you yet," and he made as though he were about to ring the bell and summon assistance. Con vulsions, however, came upon him at the moment, and he fell back powerless. When the last moment arrived, he, as I have said, called for the doctors, and almost at the same instant renewed his THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH. accusation of treachery against his wife, and, with his last breath, denounced her as his murderess. Old Mrs. Drake, listening upon the stairs, heard the words he used, and his daughter and his father-in-law were at the time in the chamber of death. Hoarsely whispering unintelligible threats, the dying man shook his fist impotently, and glared around with wild dilated eyes ; then the last agonies took possession of him, and he spoke no more.

Nearly half an hour afterwards, as we have seen, Richard Gladless went forth in search of the doctor, or a person whom he spoke of as a doctor, living in Black Lion Lane, Bayswater. This person having sup plied the customary certificate to the regis trar, upon which it appeared that the deceased died from natural causes, Mr. Jabez Acre was buried within five days of his death in the grave which held his father. The reasons for which a secret investigation into the mysterious circumstances of the case was first instituted, and the strange disclosures made during the inquiry, will be related in the chain of evidence to be un folded in this history.

Chapter III. Waiting For Night

At nine o'clock one cold March morning a certain ragged young man, who had been passing the night under the " Dark Arches," crept forth and blinked at the sun. He was very ragged ; his face dirty ; his beard of a week's growth; his hair, however, was very short — to tell truth, suspiciously so. If he had not been so dirty and ragged, this young man might have been thought handsome. He had on such a shocking suit of clothes, there was no saying what sort of figure it concealed, but his limbs seemed straight, and his shoulders were broad. He had bright eyes, white teeth, and a face which, after a visitation of soap and water, might have been a pleasing one. But all this is mere conjecture. One thing was sure enough. As he came slouching out of his dark hiding-place, and stood there blinking, owl-like, in the sunlight, no one who had seen him could have had a doubt about the matter.

Jack Jeffcoat was a thief. That morning there were plenty of people in a hurry to get to their work. Many passed by, at a great rate, in carriages and cabs ; more, inside and outside omni buses, and more still on foot. These were the busy bees who had the honey to gather, and were eager to begin, or seemed so. Jack Jeffcoat was not very eager about anything. The day was young ; his time was his own. The world was before him. When he got up to the top of Durham Street he stood stdl, once more, and stared listlessly westwards. That was the way to her Majesty's Palace. He had no appoint ment with her Majesty. He had recently been her Majesty's guest, but it was not at the large house in the Green Park that she had generously entertained him. He turned his face eastwards. That was the way to the residence of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor.

He fancied that, perhaps, his Lordship might be glad to see him about some little business recently transacted, but, somehow, he did not care to call. What should he do ? What could he do? What had he been doing any time these three weeks past ? The sun was shining encouragement. It was just cold enough to make a brisk walk in good boots a very pleasurable exercise ; but Jack's boots had no particular sole to them, and no heel to speak of, and were very queer indeed about the upper-leathers. Yes, the world was before him; and it had been so for some time past. On the whole, he found the world too large and windy. He could have starved as comfort ably, it seemed to him, in a more limited space. There were so many weary miles to be daily tramped. There were besides, large as the world was, several millions too many people in it — himself among the number.

Last night he had shared an arch with three others as ragged and wobegone as himself, all of whom had risen before him and crawled away to pick and steal their day's bread — aU with some sort of faint, glimmering hope that better times were coming. But Jeffcoat had no such hope. He had a look about his face which it was bad to see. He had given up hoping. He cursed his life. He cursed the darkness and the light. He cared not a jot how soon he should be rid of an existence so bitterly hard to bear. "How long is it to last?" he asked him self. " Shall I live out the week? Shall I live out to-morrow ? Shall I give in now and go and drown myself? That's the easiest way out of it." He, certainly, was a very miserable speci men of a rogue and vagabond, and he was in a bad way, truly. He would have worked at any work which was not too hard for his strength if he could have got any work to do.