The Master Criminal, The Ends of Justice, Queen of Hearts, Powers of Darkness, The Seed of Empire, The Five Knots, The Edge of the Sword, The Island of Shadows, A Crime on Canvas…
E-Book, Englisch, 14899 Seiten
ISBN: 978-80-268-7143-9
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
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The Crimson Blind
The Cardinal Moth
The Corner House
The Ends of Justice
The House of Schemers
The Lord of the Manor
The Slave of Silence
The Yellow Face
The Nether Millstone
The Midnight Guest
A Fatal Dose
The Five Knots
The Edge of the Sword
The Lonely Bride
Craven Fortune
The Law of the Land
The Mystery of the Four Fingers
A Golden Argosy
By Order of the League
A Daughter of Israel
Tregarthen's Wife
Blackmail
The Weight of the Crown
A Shadowed Love
The Sundial
Netta
A Queen of the Stage
The Scales of Justice
A Crime on Canvas
The Golden Rose
Paul Quentin
A Front of Brass
Hard Pressed
The White Glove
A Mummer's Throne
The Secret of the Sands
The Man Called Gilray
The House of Mammon
A Royal Wrong
A Secret Service
The Sentence of the Court
Powers of Darkness
The Mystery of the Ravenspurs
The Day
Ambition's Slave
The Salt of the Earth
The Lady in Blue
The Case for the Crown
The Wings of Victory
The Leopard's Spots
The Honour of His House
The Man who was Two
The Mystery of Room 75
The Councillors of Falconhoe
The Mystery of Crocksands
The Turn of the Tide
The Green Bungalow
The Devil's Advocate
The Golden Bat
The Price of Silence
The House on the River
The Shadow of the Dead Hand
The King Diamond
The Riddle of the Rail
The Grey Woman
Queen of Hearts
On The Night Express
The Phantom Car
A Clue in Wax
Found Dead
The Man Who Knew
A Broken Memory
Secret of the River
The Blue Daffodil
The Master Criminal (True Crime Tales)
The Romance of the Secret Service Fund…
Frederick White (1859–1935), mostly known for mysteries, is considered also as one of the pioneers of the spy story.
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CHAPTER IV
Table of Contents Queen Square, Bloomsbury, is a neighbourhood which by no means accords with the expectation evoked by its high-sounding patronymic. It is, besides, somewhat difficult to to find, and when discovered, it has a guilty-looking air of having been playing hide-and-seek with its most aristocratic neighbors, Russell and Bloomsbury, and lost itself. Before Southampton Row was the stately thoroughfare it is now, Queen Square must have been a parasite of Russell Square; but in time it seems to have been built out. You stumble upon it suddenly, in making a short-cut from Southampton Row to Bedford Row, and wonder how it got there. It is quiet, decayed—in a word, shabby-genteel—and cheap. On the south side, sheltered by two sad-looking trees of a nondescript character, and fronted by an imposing-looking portico, is a decayed-looking house, the stucco of which bears strong likeness to the outside of Stilton cheese. The windows are none too clean, and the blinds and curtains are all deeply tinged with London fog and London smoke. For the information of the metropolis at large, the door bears a tarnished brass plate announcing that it is the habitation of Mrs Whipple; and furthermore—from the same source—the inquiring mind is further enlightened with the fact that Mrs Whipple is a dressmaker. A few fly-blown prints of fashions, of a startling description and impossible colour, support this fact; and information is further added by the announcement that the artiste within lets apartments; for the legend is inscribed, in runaway letters, on the back of an old showcard which is suspended in one of the ground-floor windows. From the general tout ensemble of the Whipple mansion, the most casual-minded individual on lodgings bent can easily judge of its cheapness. The ‘ground-floor’—be it whispered in the strictest confidence—pays twenty-five shillings per week; the honoured ‘drawing-rooms,’ two pounds; and the slighted ‘second-floors,’ what the estimable Whipple denominates ‘a matter of fifteen shillings.’ It is with the second-floors that our business lies. The room was large, and furnished with an eye to economy. The carpet was of no particular pattern, having long since been worn down to the thread; and the household goods consisted of five chairs and a couch covered by that peculiar-looking horsehair, which might, from its hardness and capacity for wear, be woven steel. A misty-looking glass, in a maple frame, and a chimney-board decked with two blue-and-green shepherdesses of an impossible period, completed the garniture. In the centre of the room was a round oak table with spidery uncertain legs, and at the table sat a young man writing. He was young, apparently not more than thirty, but the unmistakable shadow of care lay on his face. His dress was suggestive of one who had been somewhat dandyish in time gone by, but who had latterly ceased to trouble about appearances or neatness. For a time he continued steadily at his work, watched intently by a little child who sat coiled up in the hard-looking armchair, and waiting with exemplary patience for the worker to quit his employment. As he worked on, the child became visibly interested as the page approached completion, and at last, with a weary sigh, he finished, pushed his work from him, and turned with a bright smile to the patient little one. ‘You’ve been a very good little girl, Nelly.—Now, what is it you have so particularly to say to me?’ he said. ‘Is it a tale you are writing, papa?’ she asked. ‘Yes, darling; but not the sort of tale to interest you.’ ‘I like all your tales, papa. Uncle Jasper told mamma they were all so “liginal.” I like liginal tales.’ ‘I suppose you mean original, darling?’ ‘I said liginal,’ persisted the little one, with childish gravity. ‘Are you going to sell that one, papa? I hope you will; I want a new dolly so badly. My old dolly is getting quite shabby.’ ‘Some day you shall have plenty.’ The child looked up in his face solemnly. ‘Really, papa? But do you know, pa, that some day seems such a long way off? How old am I, papa?’ ‘Very, very old, Nelly,’ he replied with a little laugh. ‘Not quite so old as I am, but very old.’ ‘Yes, papa? Then do you know, ever since I can remember, that some day has been coming. Will it come this week?’ ‘I don’t know, darling. It may come any time. It may come to-day; perhaps it is on the way now.’ ‘I don’t know, papa,’ replied the little one, shaking her head solemnly. ‘It is an awful while coming. I prayed so hard last night for it to come, after mamma put me in bed. What makes mamma cry when she puts me to bed? Is she crying for some day?’ ‘Oh, that’s all your fancy, little one,’ replied the father huskily. ‘Mamma does not cry. You must be mistaken. ‘No, indeed, papa; I’se not mistook. One day I heard mamma sing about some day, and then she cried—she made my face quite wet.’ ‘Hush, Nelly; don’t talk like that, darling.’ ‘But she did,’ persisted the little one. ‘Do you ever cry, papa?’ ‘Look at that little sparrow, Nelly. Does he not look hungry, poor little fellow? He wants to come in the room to you.’ ‘I dess he’s waiting for some day papa,’ said the child, looking out at the dingy London sparrow perched on the window ledge. ‘He looks so patient. I wonder if he’s hungry? I am, papa.’ The father looked at his little one with passionate tenderness. ‘Wait till mamma comes, my darling.’ ‘All right, papa; but I am so hungry!—Oh, here is mamma. Doesn’t she look nice, papa, and so happy?’ When Eleanor entered the dingy room, her husband could not fail to notice the flush of hope and happiness on her face. He looked at her with expectation in his eyes. ‘Did you think mother was never coming, Nelly? and do you want your dinner, my child?’ ‘You do look nice, ma,’ said the child admiringly. ‘You look as if you had found some day.’ Eleanor looked inquiringly at her husband, for him to explain the little one’s meaning. ‘Nelly and I have been having a metaphysical discussion,’ he said with playful gravity. ‘We have been discussing the virtues of the future. She is wishing for that impossible some day that people always expect.’ ‘I don’t think she will be disappointed,’ said Mrs Seaton, with a fond little smile at her child. ‘I believe I have found it.—Edgar, I have been to see Mr Carver.’ ‘I supposed it would have come to that. And he, I suppose, has been poisoned by the sorceress, and refused to see you?’ ‘O no,’ said Eleanor playfully. ‘We had quite a long chat—in fact, he asked us all to dinner on Sunday.’ ‘Wonderful! And he gave you a lot of good advice on the virtues of economy, and his blessing at parting.’ ‘No,’ she said; ‘he must have forgotten that: he gave me this envelope for you with his compliments and best wishes.’ Edgar Seaton took the proffered envelope listlessly, and opened it with careless fingers. But as soon as he saw the shape of the enclosure, his expression changed to one of eagerness. ‘Why, it is a cheque?’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘O no,’ said his wife, laughingly; ‘it is only the blessing.’ ‘Well, it is a blessing in disguise,’ Seaton said, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘It is a cheque for twenty-five pounds.—Nelly, God has been very good to us to-day.’ ‘Yes, dear,’ said his wife simply, with tears in her eyes. Little Nelly looked from one to the other in puzzled suspense, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or cry. Even her childish instinct discovered the gravity of the situation. ‘Papa, has some day come? You look so happy.’ He caught her up in his arms and kissed her lovingly, and held her in one arm, while he passed the other round his wife. ‘Yes, darling. Your prayer has been answered. Some day—God be thanked—has come at last.’ For a moment no one spoke, for the hearts of husband and wife were full of quiet thankfulness. What a little it takes to make poor humanity happy, and fill up the cup of pleasure to the brim! Round the merry dinner-table all was bright and cheerful, and it is no exaggeration to say the board groaned under the profuse spread. Eleanor lost no time in acquainting her husband with the strange story of her uncle’s property, and Mr Carver’s views on the subject—a view of the situation which he felt almost inclined to share after a little consideration. It was extremely likely, he thought, that Margaret Boulton would be able to throw some light on the subject; indeed the fact of her strange rescue from her self-imposed fate pointed almost to a providential interference. It was known that she had a long conversation with Mr Morton the day he died, a circumstance which seemed to have given Miss Wakefield great uneasiness; and her strange disappearance from Eastwood directly after the funeral gave some coloring to the fact. Margaret Boulton had not risen that day owing to a severe cold caught by her exposure to the rain on the previous night; and Edgar and his wife decided, directly she did so, to question her upon the matter. It would be very strange if she could not give some clue. ‘I think, Nelly, we had better take Felix into our confidence,’ said Edgar, when the remains of dinner had disappeared in company with the grimy domestic. ‘He will be sure to be of some assistance to us; and the more brains we...
